
Journal tomhudson's Journal: "faith-based science" 61
update: pudge lost. Tsk tsk. (is anyone really surprised? Nah
Faith-based "science" is alive and well, unfortunately.
Pudge is one of its proponents, using terms like "metaphysical" in trying to claim that a "soul" is a real thing with a physical existence. Of course, he doesn't like it when I point out that all definitions of the term metaphysical mean the exact opposite of what he claims, and the logical consequence - that nobody can have a soul if it is in fact metaphysical.
Of course, if you look through the thread, the Bible is his final authority, even though we don't have anything except copies of copies of copies - the original texts are long gone (and even if we had them, it would not prove authorship by God).
Thought for the day: If Jesus existed today, we wouldn't be nailing him to a cross - he'd slit his own wrists in shame.
Faith-based science? (Score:2)
Re:Faith-based science? (Score:1)
Re:Faith-based science? (Score:2)
All science is faith-based. But I have never expressed any favor toward what most people think of as "faith-based science,
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Re:Tell me about it (Score:2)
Maybe he's into one of the "peyote" religions? It would explain a lot ...
I have no problem with people believing what they want, provided they don't try to force other people to conform to "their" religious beliefs. If those who claim "divine inspiration" or "marching orders from God" would show the same consideration, we wouldn't have a LOT of the problems we have nowadays. That's the problem. Those claiming the higher moral ground seem unable to "live and let live" when it comes to people disagreeing
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Re:Tell me about it (Score:2)
The day a man gets pregnant is the day he'll have some moral standing to talk against abortion on demand. Until then, pudge is just doing the typical dick-swinging macho control-everyone-elses-lives thing. My guess is th
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Re:Tell me about it (Score:2)
Re:Tell me about it (Score:2)
That has two major problems: one philosophical, one practical.
Practical: more women than men are ardently pro-life.
Philosphical: it is begging the question (another logical fallacy; you should really read up on those). It assumes that the child in the womb does not have rights, because in a Constitutional republic, you do not vote on rights. They exist and are protected.
That would be interesting, though, to see how many women would relenquish their own rights to thei
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Re:Tell me about it (Score:2)
It is not at all immaterial. It is precisely the point. Saying it is immaterial is, again, the logical fallacy of begging the question. You really should read up on these things.
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Re:Tell me about it (Score:2)
You apparently cannot read.
Oh, I read it. I just didn't care that you wrote it. It has no bearing on anything I do. As long as you respond to me, I see no problem with responding to you.
Please, let go of your obsession with me.
And you yours with me.
Please, search yourself
Done.
and find your anger
Got none.
Unfortunately, I must reiterate: Please don't ever respond to me again. Leave me alone, please.
If you really did not wish me to respond, you would stop responding yo
Re:Tell me about it (Score:2)
"Lord, protect me from your followers"
And that's almost as good as the one another friend came up with a day ago (discussing the recent push for constitutional amendments banning gay marriage being used by the Fundies to trot out the faithful voters):
"I voted against fags, but all I got was this lousy war."
Just not sure whose bumper is most deserving of the honor :-) Maybe I'll just post it on the bulletin board of a local church or something.
Re:Tell me about it (Score:2)
Re:Tell me about it (Score:2)
You are, of course, lying, because you have a problem with me, and I am not trying to force my religious beliefs on anyone.
All my friends are christians, but none of them is anything like the rabid "us vs. them" mentality I see elsewhere
I have no such mentality. Most of *my* friends are *not* Christians, or even conservatives. And many of those who are, are fairly l
Re:Tell me about it (Score:2)
He says he wasn't arguing a position, fine then.
Right. So why do you say I was wrong?
Name calling is okay in his book, though.
I never said that. I said that name-calling is not the same as argumentum ad hominem. The latter is a logical fallacy, and the former is merely rude.
Re:Tell me about it (Score:2)
No matter how much you pray under that steeple
Fertilized eggs just are not people,
So get over it
Don't matter a sh*t
Bossing women around just makes you a creep-o.
Burma Shave
Re:Tell me about it (Score:2)
Fertilized eggs just are not people,
As much as you impugn religion and say science rules all, science does not, and cannot, support this opinion. You cannot prove this belief of yours to be correct, even though you've -- ludicrously -- asserted that you can. *shrug*
Re:Tell me about it (Score:2)
Besides, if a fertilized egg is a person, then you have to accede to God being the #1 abortionist, all arguments of viabiity aside.
Re:Tell me about it (Score:2)
Huh. When did I do that? You're making the straw man fallacy.
Prove it.
Sorry, I don't feel the need to prove something that I did not assert as a part of my argument.
You can't
I wouldn't bother trying, since it's unrelated to my argument. However: you cannot prove it cannot be a person, so by going down this road, you are only drastically undercutting your own argument.
(Which is very funny.)
and you'll stop treating women quite so unfair
Two logical
Re:Tell me about it (Score:2)
So God is not onmipotent, omniscient, or in any way, shape or form prepared or capable of interceding? Or is it that fertilized eggs aren't humans, so God is off the hook?
Re:Tell me about it (Score:2)
I never implied any of those things.
Come on, this is first year seminary stuff. I thought you said you attended? (Not that I believed you.)
Seriously, we're not going to buy the idea that men can tell women what they can and can't do with their bodies or their minds.
Right. Just like the South wasn't going to buy into the idea that the North could tell them what they can and can't do with their slaves. So
Re:Tell me about it (Score:2)
That was the sound of my point flying completely over your head.
If you were able to convince women of the validity of your argu
Re:Tell me about it (Score:2)
Why single out women, then? If I were able to convince all men of it, we also wouldn't be having this "debate." We already have roughly half the women out there; with all the men, it would be a non-issue.
Re:Tell me about it (Score:2)
You have nowhere NEAR half the women out there, and especially among those of child-bearing age, your numbers are way off.
I'd ask whose a** did you pull that number out of, but I really don't care any more.
Heck, just look here on /. - I don't see much support for your side from women. If you can't convince those who you have some common interest with ...
Where ARE all those women slashdotters who support the pudge pledge of allegience to South Dakota? I haven't seen any.
Re:Tell me about it (Score:2)
It does, of course, depend on how you define things. I define them, in this case, as agreeing with me that, generally speaking, abortion is morally wrong and should be heavily restricted, and "abortion on demand" -- having an abortion just because you don't want the baby -- should be illegal. And roughly half the country agrees with me on that.
I'd ask whose a** did you pull that number
Re:Tell me about it (Score:2)
One thing I've noticed with every poll is that the numbers are what polsters call "soft". I've been in one-on-one debates with fundies who are very adamant, but when push comes to shove, they're a lot more "liberal" in private.
Besides, as I pointed out, this doesn't mean that those in favour have ANY right to impoee their views on others who disagree.
Here's some serious food for thought ... something NOBODY has bothered to bring up, on either side of t
Re:Tell me about it (Score:2)
So when you said my numbers were wrong, you were being sarcastic? Nothing at all in the context supports that claim.
One thing I've noticed with every poll is that the numbers are what polsters call "soft". I've been in one-on-one debates with fundies who are very adamant, but when push comes to shove, they're a lot more "liberal" in private.
Ah. So now you are no longer saying the polls don't support me, now you are saying you don't believe the polls. That
Re:Tell me about it (Score:2)
It was my very last line that I should have put the tags around, not the whole post. Maybe I should make a javascript bookmarklet for different quickie tags ... but not today :-)
The polls don't support you. Look at the way the question is phrased. Ask any poster, and they'll tell you that's a "Mom, Dad and American Pie" question. You'll never get an accurate response. In-depth interviews are the only way.
The extra 40 million isn't irrelevent. They would have to be fed, clothed, housed, supported. They
Re:Tell me about it (Score:2)
Yes, they do. I quoted them to you.
Look at the way the question is phrased.
Yes, I did. "Do you support making abortion illegal except in the case of rape, incest, or life of the mother?" Pretty straightforward.
Ask any poster, and they'll tell you that's a "Mom, Dad and American Pie" question. You'll never get an accurate response.
Nope. Quite the contrary, actually. Any social scientist will tell you that asking someone a direct question about what they do and do not support
Re:Tell me about it (Score:2)
Over the course of 100 years, 40 million can grow into a LOT of people.
And pollsters will be the first to admit that how the question is phrased, and any preliminary questions, has a major impact on poll results.
But back to the whole morality of abortion ... if you don't believe that its a person, there is no moral question. And most of those on the pro-abortion side don't believe its a person. It doesn't make us immoral. It just means we have a different set of beliefs. If you want us to act different
Re:Tell me about it (Score:2)
It can, but it won't grow into that many (and besides, you weren't talking about 100 years). We had 200 million people in 1970. Now we are still short of 300 million. It takes awhile in practice.
And pollsters will be the first to admit that how the question is phrased, and any preliminary questions, has a major impact on poll results.
Of course. I know that quite well. But that's a far cry for YOUR assertion, which is that the way th
Re:Tell me about it (Score:2)
Just one quick point, because I really have other stuff to do, but my 100 years time frame goes into the future. That's where I see a real problem, the big crunch.
the decisions as to who lives and who dies then will make the whole abortion debate pale into insignificance.
Quick point about the "no hard evidence that blacks were ..." we had plenty, first and foremost because we could see that they were persons, with a consciousness, able to think, carry on conversations, self-aware. We don't see that wit
Re:Tell me about it (Score:2)
Nonsense. We have a long way to go before we have the population problems of China and India, no matter how you look at it.
Quick point about the "no hard evidence that blacks were
No. In fact, you had -- and have -- absolutely none.
first and foremost because we could see that they were persons, with a consciousness, able to think, carry on conversations, self-aware.
That is "hard e
Re:Tell me about it (Score:2)
I think I see now where you're coming from.
We're a lot better at understanding what animals actually have a sense of "self" and "other" than we did, say, 100 years ago. That's why I don't see this as just an "exercise in philosophy." The same as, while I don't give dogs full equivalent to being people, I do see that they do have a demonstrable sense of "self" and "other", as do chimpanzees and dolphins, so they do have some rights to ethical treatment as sentient beings with a (in some cases limited) sen
Re:Tell me about it (Score:2)
Right. You "believe" it. But you cannot prove it. You cannot show any "hard evidence" that these things are required in order to have rights. You can only say that you believe that, and show that others do too. Which makes your position no better than mine.
Re:Tell me about it (Score:2)
(watch as we slowly slide on over into the area of when AIs start asking for rights :-)
But to answer your question more directly, if your position is no better than mine, what grounds do you have for forcing your position onto women who are pregnant, if their position is that abortion at "N" months is okay? That's the crux of the matter. If you have no better argument than a "belief", then you don't have any right to impose
Re:Tell me about it (Score:2)
It doesn't matter here. What matters is that you cannot prove they have no rights.
But to answer your question more directly, if your position is no better than mine, what grounds do you have for forcing your position onto women who are pregnant
As already stated, on the same grounds that we outlawed slavery.
If you have no better argument than a "belief", then you don't have any right to impose that belief on others who hold a c
Re:Tell me about it (Score:2)
Big mistake.
Axioms [unm.edu], concepts that aren't provable but generally accepted, are one of the basic building blocks for any logical argument. Since you reject the axiom that objects don't have rights (a chair has rights?), your "argument" is foolish.
Applying the same argumentive device, I am allowed to ask you to prove you have any rights, i
Re:Tell me about it (Score:2)
I do not reject that axiom. You are -- once again, as usual -- committing the logical fallacy of begging the question. I do not consider the life in the womb to be equivalent to a chair. And most people don't, either. It is not remotely axiomatic to say that such a life has no rights, and it is extraordinarily dishonest to assert it as a commonly accepted truth.
I already showed you the proof: roug
Re:Tell me about it (Score:2)
Actually, let me change that - poseur.
You lost, and you can't take it. Such a blow to pudgie-wudgie's ego. Awww.
No wonder you have such a hard time relating to people. Sam was wrong - you're more f*cked up than we give you credit for.
No wonder you couldn't recognize his attempts to reach out to another human being - poseurs can't afford to let the mask slip. Their ego is just too fragile to "take the chance". It must be hard being that weak and scared all the time.
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speaking of religion (Score:2)
Re:speaking of religion (Score:2)
Religion has that effect. I've sat through sermons where I'd have sworn the clock stopped - they just seemed to go on and on and on and it was SO hard to NOT fall asleep, it ws so boring.
First rule of pr
Re:speaking of religion (Score:2)
Back in black on comedy central right now is funny...
Re:speaking of religion (Score:2)
My favorite entry: Liquid Nails [ericmaki.net]
Re:speaking of religion (Score:2)
support traditional marriage [photobucket.com] really makes a point.
Re:speaking of religion (Score:2)
I ignore those people (Score:1)
Now when I meet people who debate the topic I offer to lend them books on the topic and when they're not interested I end the conversation.
BoingBoing recently linked to an interesting BBC show written/hosted by Richard Dawkins, absolutely awesome show. It will at least give you a solid idea of the character of those people, or at least the kind of people who lead the movement.
/moderate
Re:I ignore those people (Score:2)
We went through this whole thing a couple of decades ago, with the "moral majority", the leaders of which turned out to be neither moral nor the majority. But they were manipulative, and they got a lot of what they wanted. This next iteration has access to a much broader, more sophisticated set of tools to use against the population, and they have no compunction against using all of them.
I have an idea .. when they start off, I'll ask them what sort of religious belief they have, and whatever they answer
Jesus slitting his wrists? (Score:2)
Re:Jesus slitting his wrists? (Score:2)
Re:Jesus slitting his wrists? (Score:1)
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Glad you enjoyed it ...
Now that I've got some sort of "short list" from everyone's suggestions, maybe its time for a new poll in a few weeks ...
Re:Jesus slitting his wrists? (Score:1)
Mambo shambo (Score:2)
This is roughly 2000000000000 KM away , Here is Religion and philosophy .
This is a good distance to keep the two at
But... but... (Score:2)
What I want to know is where the brave are, those with the wisdom to admit how very little we know, how very little we can sense (directly or indirectly), a
Re:But... but... (Score:2)
Would you believe... (Score:2)
Cheers,
Ethelred