Why I lost my faith

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_Franktalk
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Re: Why I lost my faith

Post by _Franktalk »

Maksutov wrote:People are responsible for war, regardless of the level of technology. Science is just an extension of human potential, tools to solve problems. If the problem is that you are competing for resources, there are tools to address that. Science is one.


I agree with you completely.
_Maksutov
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Re: Why I lost my faith

Post by _Maksutov »

Franktalk wrote:
Darth J wrote:I certainly hope that Franktalk will readily concede you are just as free to believe that infections are caused by demonic possession as in the germ theory of disease. Otherwise, his failure to agree that these two ideas are equally valid will lead to suicide bombers and attacking foreign cities with science.


I have no horse in this race. What some choose to believe is their choice based on what they are exposed to and what they believe. Your attitude about what is valid, showing no respect for others, leads to problems. People believe in many things around the world. I embrace the diversity. It appears that you do not.

In time all humans on this planet will move towards a better picture of reality. But it seems we are not ready to do so at this time.

Right now we have the technology to remove starvation on the earth. But modern countries will not do it. Right now we have many forms of technology that would benefit the world. But we refuse to share these devices with our fellow humans. We instead are guided by profit. What good is science if the devices made by science are not shared. If you lived in a poor country just how would you view America?


The distribution of wealth and power is about politics and always has been. Religion has helped alleviate some of the abuses of power when it has intervened for the people but it has also helped oppress them. Science, used as a behavioral technology, has been used and abused the same way. And so it goes.

There has to be a view of humanity that embraces everyone. I don't know if we can reach that until more people feel secure. Unfortunately, the politics of fear is very powerful right now.
"God" is the original deus ex machina. --Maksutov
_Darth J
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Re: Why I lost my faith

Post by _Darth J »

Franktalk wrote:
Darth J wrote:It's as if you literally don't know what science is.

"use your science to fly jets over their cities and bomb them"

Yes, American foreign policy, because science.



Are you saying that science is not responsible for jets? I think you don't think through what you post. Yes, American foreign policy is built on options provided by science. Duh.


Since science is not a self-aware, self-executing entity, perforce it is not responsible for anything.

And if American foreign policy is built on opinions provided by science, it's curious that the House of Representatives recently passed a bill preventing the Department of Defense from spending funds on programs related to climate change.
_Darth J
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Re: Why I lost my faith

Post by _Darth J »

Franktalk wrote:
Darth J wrote:I certainly hope that Franktalk will readily concede you are just as free to believe that infections are caused by demonic possession as in the germ theory of disease. Otherwise, his failure to agree that these two ideas are equally valid will lead to suicide bombers and attacking foreign cities with science.


I have no horse in this race. What some choose to believe is their choice based on what they are exposed to and what they believe.


Right, so if the CDC, for example, decided to replace vaccinations with magick rituals, since people are free to choose what to believe, that decision would have no real-world ramifications.

Your attitude about what is valid, showing no respect for others, leads to problems. People believe in many things around the world. I embrace the diversity. It appears that you do not.


Tell me about Muslims, Franktalk. Or same-sex marriage.
_Chap
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Re: Why I lost my faith

Post by _Chap »

Franktalk wrote:You say your views on things are correct.


Um, yeah. I mean, the fact that they are my views means that I think they are correct. Can you imagine holding a view that you believe to be incorrect at the same time that you say it is your view? Of course my views may turn out to be wrong. When they do, I change them for other views. Don't you?

Franktalk wrote:You say that others who disagree with you are babyish.


Actually, I did not make any such silly and sweeping statement. In response to your statement that people were free to hold any view they wished to hold, I said:

[Yes, legally free but] please don't have the chutzpah to ask that the same amount of respect be given to any view you choose to adopt simply because it feels good, or fits in with the prejudices of whatever religion your parents happened to teach you, in comparison with the evolutionary science carefully and painfully worked out over a century and a half of observation, data gathering, comparison analysis, criticism and consensus building - and then criticism again and again.

The science is a huge and complex intellectual symphony - the other kind of stuff is babyish by comparison.


Makes sense to me. Of course if you want to disagree with me about who first discovered the precession of the equinoxes, or about what the dollar will be worth in Renminbi if Trump is elected, I'm sure we can disagree on terms of mutual respect. But please don't tell me there is a Tooth Fairy and then expect me to continue to treat you like an adult, OK?

Franktalk wrote:When you make your views known to others who feel very strongly about their beliefs then conflict occurs. Others may wish to kill you because they see your attitude as an attack on their belief system. Others may be so attached to their beliefs that they are willing to strap bombs on themselves and blow up parts of your culture. Then in revenge you may use your science to fly jets over their cities and bomb them. This makes them mad so they send over more devoted people to take the infidels lives. The cycle repeats itself and escalates until one side is wiped out. Your intolerance and their intolerance together makes this world a living hell. I hope you can see this, but I expect the usual "I am right and they are wrong".


C'mon now. I have never had such an experience in my life as a result of a disagreement, and I bet you haven't either, and that neither of us ever will. Neither of us is remotely as exciting or important as that very overblown paragraph suggests. That kind of writing is the moral equivalent of masturbation - exciting, even satisfying, but not to be mistaken for the real thing.
Zadok:
I did not have a faith crisis. I discovered that the Church was having a truth crisis.
Maksutov:
That's the problem with this supernatural stuff, it doesn't really solve anything. It's a placeholder for ignorance.
_Doctor CamNC4Me
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Re: Why I lost my faith

Post by _Doctor CamNC4Me »

Franktalk wrote:Are you saying that science is not responsible for jets? I think you don't think through what you post. Yes, American foreign policy is built on options provided by science. Duh.


Can someone science back in time and science over to the Barbary Coast and explain to them that the Americans that landed in science boats and invaded Tripoli to science the Barbary pirates? Because it was science that got us there. Right?

- Doc
In the face of madness, rationality has no power - Xiao Wang, US historiographer, 2287 AD.

Every record...falsified, every book rewritten...every statue...has been renamed or torn down, every date...altered...the process is continuing...minute by minute. History has stopped. Nothing exists except an endless present in which the Ideology is always right.
_Chap
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Re: Why I lost my faith

Post by _Chap »

Spot the science in this one:

Image

http://www.cam.ac.uk/research/news/evid ... of-warfare

Skeletal remains of a group of foragers massacred around 10,000 years ago on the shores of a lagoon is unique evidence of a violent encounter between clashing groups of ancient hunter-gatherers, and suggests the “presence of warfare” in late Stone Age foraging societies.

The fossilised bones of a group of prehistoric hunter-gatherers who were massacred around 10,000 years ago have been unearthed 30km west of Lake Turkana, Kenya, at a place called Nataruk.

Researchers from Cambridge University’s Leverhulme Centre for Human Evolutionary Studies (LCHES) found the partial remains of 27 individuals, including at least eight women and six children.

Twelve skeletons were in a relatively complete state, and ten of these showed clear signs of a violent death: including extreme blunt-force trauma to crania and cheekbones, broken hands, knees and ribs, arrow lesions to the neck, and stone projectile tips lodged in the skull and thorax of two men.

Several of the skeletons were found face down; most had severe cranial fractures. Among the in situ skeletons, at least five showed “sharp-force trauma”, some suggestive of arrow wounds. Four were discovered in a position indicating their hands had probably been bound, including a woman in the last stages of pregnancy. Foetal bones were uncovered.

The bodies were not buried. Some had fallen into a lagoon that has long since dried; the bones preserved in sediment.

The findings suggest these hunter-gatherers, perhaps members of an extended family, were attacked and killed by a rival group of prehistoric foragers. Researchers believe it is the earliest scientifically-dated historical evidence of human conflict – an ancient precursor to what we call warfare.

The origins of warfare are controversial: whether the capacity for organised violence occurs deep in the evolutionary history of our species, or is a symptom of the idea of ownership that came with the settling of land and agriculture.

The Nataruk massacre is the earliest record of inter-group violence among prehistoric hunter-gatherers who were largely nomadic. The only comparable evidence, discovered in Sudan in the 1960s, is undated, although often quoted as of similar age. It consists of cemetery burials, suggesting a settled lifestyle.

“The deaths at Nataruk are testimony to the antiquity of inter-group violence and war,” said Dr Marta Mirazón Lahr, from Cambridge’s LCHES, who directs the ERC-funded IN-AFRICA Project and led the Nataruk study, published today in the journal Nature.

“These human remains record the intentional killing of a small band of foragers with no deliberate burial, and provide unique evidence that warfare was part of the repertoire of inter-group relations among some prehistoric hunter-gatherers,” she said.
Zadok:
I did not have a faith crisis. I discovered that the Church was having a truth crisis.
Maksutov:
That's the problem with this supernatural stuff, it doesn't really solve anything. It's a placeholder for ignorance.
_DrW
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Re: Why I lost my faith

Post by _DrW »

Doctor CamNC4Me wrote:
Franktalk wrote:Are you saying that science is not responsible for jets? I think you don't think through what you post. Yes, American foreign policy is built on options provided by science. Duh.


Can someone science back in time and science over to the Barbary Coast and explain to them that the Americans that landed in science boats and invaded Tripoli to science the Barbary pirates? Because it was science that got us there. Right?

- Doc

Hey, Doc.

Looks as though you have chosen an example from the history of the USMC.

Were you once among us?
David Hume: "---Mistakes in philosophy are merely ridiculous, those in religion are dangerous."

DrW: "Mistakes in science are learning opportunities and are eventually corrected."
_Franktalk
_Emeritus
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Re: Why I lost my faith

Post by _Franktalk »

Chap wrote:C'mon now. I have never had such an experience in my life as a result of a disagreement, and I bet you haven't either, and that neither of us ever will. Neither of us is remotely as exciting or important as that very overblown paragraph suggests. That kind of writing is the moral equivalent of masturbation - exciting, even satisfying, but not to be mistaken for the real thing.


What planet do you live on? As a collective we allow our government to do things in our name. When I say you I mean in the big sense. People with your attitude. Such a waste of time responding to junk posts.
_Doctor CamNC4Me
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Joined: Mon Jun 15, 2009 11:02 am

Re: Why I lost my faith

Post by _Doctor CamNC4Me »

DrW wrote:Hey, Doc.

Looks as though you have chosen an example from the history of the USMC.

Were you once among us?


I was, but only in a joint environment in Iraq. Ha.

I retired as a US Army MSG with a tour as a 1SG. Just a bit over 20 years. I was actually sitting in a yet another BN staff meeting rueing my life when my CSM called me out in front of everyone for staring at the ceiling. I told him I'd come see him after the meeting.

I said I needed to go for a long walk.

Six months later I was on my way to the Appalachian mountains to go for that walk.

I miss the Army sometimes, truth be told. However, life is pretty great right now so it's hard to complain.

- Doc
In the face of madness, rationality has no power - Xiao Wang, US historiographer, 2287 AD.

Every record...falsified, every book rewritten...every statue...has been renamed or torn down, every date...altered...the process is continuing...minute by minute. History has stopped. Nothing exists except an endless present in which the Ideology is always right.
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