Here is an example of what a debate of religion vs evolution should be like
http://www.youtube.com/profile_videos?user=Wolden89

They didn't at any point attack the other PERSON, they didn't at any point make baseless arguements. it doesn't matter how weak the arguement is, it still has at least something in atempt to back it up

jtan

Sweden5891 Posts

November 10 2007 07:35 GMT

#62

I can only admire the way you keep this discussion going by yourself haha

oneofthem

Cayman Islands24199 Posts

November 10 2007 10:22 GMT

#63

this is like declaring war on, i dunno, rats, during a famine.

rei

United States3594 Posts

November 10 2007 15:31 GMT

#64

Wars? as in war of ideas? a war win and lose by supporting evidence for and against an idea?

Here are the facts:

1) There are two stories,
one story is being back up by overwhelming evidences, the other story is being back up by literally NO evidence.

2) Therefore, One theory can be tested with all those evidence, the other thory can not.

3) The story supported by evidence doesn't require every living human to support it. On the other hand the story supported by no evidence says anyone who doesn't support it will be punished.

4) more than half the world's population does not belief this one particular story that is not being supported by any evidence. Because there are millions of other storys.

Finally, to win a war of ideas, one side must be able to demonstray and vailidate their Ideas against other ideas. Followed by the simple facts listed above, it is a it is logical to conclude that the evidenceless idea can't demonstray can't vailidate against many other evidenceless ideas. It is also a logical choice for all of those who belief Evidenceless Ideas to prove Science WRONG, and the only logical way to do that is to beat science on their own game, you prove science wrong with science.

Because we have to remember the most important fact, Science is not claiming their Idea is true, Science is claiming the Evidence supporting these ideas are true, On the other hand Religion claims their Idea is true, and does not require any evidence to support it. The only way for religion to win this war is to deconstruct the Evidences that are supporting science.

argueing for an idea without anything backing it up is not an arguement at all, it is better to use your fist than your mouth at that point to prove yourselves being more ignorance than everybody

oneofthem

Cayman Islands24199 Posts

November 10 2007 17:26 GMT

#65

zz

i'd rather fight moral ineptitude and human suffering before engaging silliness and ignorance.

i take the generous interpretation of this silly 'rise secularists!' declaration to be a misapplication of the spirit of human reform/development as a result of lack of sociological understanding (and in your case, rei, you seem to lack awareness of the difference between engaging religion as idea and as a form of life. i take the latter to be more meaningful, since it is a sincere engagement with the social question, 'is this for a better society/humanity.') which deprives you of awareness of the more urgent problems facing society today. it is not a wonder that few people who actually study society and make efforts at changing it through ideological criticism place religion or, in this case, 'secularism vs xxx' as the centre problem. as a result, when you pose like you are tackling the greatest evil of the world, i can't take your advocacy seriously.

note that i did not say, you are biased etc, whichwould be the immediate response if you shouted out this cute slogan in a srs institution of learning.

rei

United States3594 Posts

November 10 2007 21:14 GMT

#66

My awareness of the difference between Religion as an idea and as a form of life is this:
Religion is not what people derive their morality from, Religion does not give social justice to the multicultural environment in USA today. Religion doesn't give you what's right and what's wrong, There is no where in religion you can dervive right or wrong from, where do you get your right or wrong from? certainly not from The bible, at least not from the old testament, and you can't say it's from the new testament neither, why? read below.

On the note of morality, the standards of moral in different Times have huge difference. For example if you talk to people some few hundred years ago, they would agree that slavery is acceptable, and they would all be religious people, WHERE IS THE SOCIAL JUSTICE IN THAT? WHERE IS THE MORALITY IN THAT? But today we don't belief in things such as salvery, it is not accaptable as moraly permissible. If you look into the bible ( new testament) and pick and chooses bits and pieces that agrees with today's moral standard for a social equity issue, In the same time we can also point out bits and pieces where it is totally unaccaptable by today's standard of moral. and if you try to cherry pick from yoru bibble to pick out the good parts and throw away the bad parts, but THE CRITERION by which you do that cherry picking has nothing to do with your religion, it has nothing to do with science neither, and most certainly got nothing to do with any other religion at all(they all got a holy book or something like it).

Here let me come back to the Fallacy of argumentum ad hominem ( go look it up if you don't know what it means) you made toward me.

On November 11 2007 02:26 oneofthem wrote:
(and in your case, rei, you seem to lack awareness of the difference between engaging religion as idea and as a form of life. i take the latter to be more meaningful, since it is a sincere engagement with the social question, 'is this for a better society/humanity.')

My arguement above shows clearly that my awareness of a difference between engaging religion as an Idea and as a form of life ( by a form of life i assume you meant morality).
Religion is merely and Idea, and religion is not where people who belief in religion derive their sense of morality from.

oneofthem

Cayman Islands24199 Posts

November 11 2007 02:23 GMT

#67

bloody hell.

Aphelion

United States2720 Posts

November 11 2007 03:03 GMT

#68

On November 11 2007 02:26 oneofthem wrote:
i'd rather fight moral ineptitude and human suffering before engaging silliness and ignorance.

I do not believe you can fight immorality without tackling ignorance. Morality must be based upon a correct understanding of the structure of knowledge and ideas - something a lot of the world is sorely lacking.

Moral Ignorance is one of the most terrifying things to ever afflict mankind.

oneofthem

Cayman Islands24199 Posts

November 11 2007 17:46 GMT

#69

well, you see, you can be ignorant and immoral, or just ignorant/silly. many christian communities or otherwise religious ones do not fall into the first category, even by the most extreme atheist categorizations.

all in all, the point is, taken as a social problem, religion is tolerably mild in its structural problems to be tackled on a case-by-case basis, that is, tackling only those manifestations that are morally malignant. a general attack against anything un-secular is pretty much either bigoted or silly. bigoted if you perceive the religious as __, __, and __. silly if you are not aware of other problems.

lugggy

450 Posts

November 12 2007 20:24 GMT

#70

OP, thank you for this topic, it\'s great and I appreciate the quality and effort.

In Intelligent Thought: Science verses the Intelligent Design Movement, two of your four wrote chapters. It is on the basis of their chapters, in part, that I make my preference for Dennett over Dawkins. I have also read some of The God Delusion, A Devil\'s Chaplain, and seen various video clips of him at events, so these are the remainder of the basis for some of my comments about Dawkins.

Maybe Dennett is not the most exciting speaker, or maybe the video you provided of him is not presenting him in the most charitable light for the purposes of your poll. But his writing, from what I\'ve seen, is great. Dawkins on the other hand, while mostly right in the way he debunks the most base religious quackery (importantly so, as it is the sort that has been \"fighting evolution\" and the sort that convinces people to violence, most often), I find some technical objections to when he writes about various postmodern sources. In other words I think Dennett is a better philosopher and scientist (in the general sense), while Dawkins is simply a popularizer of some very basic arguments that have been accessible for hundreds of years. Dawkins aims at the most popular forms of religion, and so while I respect his mission it is uninteresting to me, long time atheist.

As for the other two, Hitchens is the most entertaining in the videos I\'ve seen, and Harris is impressively cool, as others have said. I haven\'t read either\'s books but I do recommend Hitchens\' clips on YouTube, as most are really hillarious, so I\'m curious about his books.

I\'m sure there is a lot more I could respond to here but I feel like there is too much. Great topic though. Break up the discussion here into an ongoing serious of blogs that hits each of these many discussions from this topic, and you got my vote.