EPTHowever I only saw the videos posted on the thread so I'll go check out his youtube channel to see if he has a broader selection of topics.
Critical Thinking and Skepticism - Page 34
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ScoringFire
United States30 Posts
However I only saw the videos posted on the thread so I'll go check out his youtube channel to see if he has a broader selection of topics. | ||
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Thorakh
Netherlands1788 Posts
On August 01 2011 00:20 ScoringFire wrote: His agenda is to promote critical thinking and skepticism, it is only natural that you will get an atheist 'vibe' from his videos.Does anyone else find it odd that the opening videos of this series claim that we need to be free of bias to truly think critically and then the rest of the videos are pushing an obviously atheistic agenda? It seems like he was refuting bias for others to imply that he is unbiased to strengthen his argument. Im an atheist here and I agree with basically everything he said, I just find it a little off that he tried to display himself as unbiased, because he obviously has an agenda. However I only saw the videos posted on the thread so I'll go check out his youtube channel to see if he has a broader selection of topics. | ||
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Grend
1600 Posts
On August 01 2011 00:20 ScoringFire wrote: Does anyone else find it odd that the opening videos of this series claim that we need to be free of bias to truly think critically and then the rest of the videos are pushing an obviously atheistic agenda? It seems like he was refuting bias for others to imply that he is unbiased to strengthen his argument. Im an atheist here and I agree with basically everything he said, I just find it a little off that he tried to display himself as unbiased, because he obviously has an agenda. However I only saw the videos posted on the thread so I'll go check out his youtube channel to see if he has a broader selection of topics. Where your argument fails is when you claim that atheism has no better scientific backing than other hypothesis. I reccommend reading some Dawkins to remedy this ailment. | ||
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Mykill
Canada3402 Posts
On August 01 2011 01:06 Grend wrote: Where your argument fails is when you claim that atheism has no better scientific backing than other hypothesis. I reccommend reading some Dawkins to remedy this ailment. Yes it's better keep searching for answers then to throw in with god and give up. Also why do we need to say people without religions are atheists. Shouldn't it be the people WITH religions who need to be labelled and "atheists" are just people in general? | ||
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Traeon
Austria366 Posts
This belief has no basis in science. Science isn't atheist. It doesn't tell you that no god exists. It leaves the question open because it can't answer it. Reaching for science to support your belief in atheism is the same thing as a religious person reaching to religion to support his belief. I'm probably not going to make friends posting this here but it has to be said. Attack the close-mindedness, not the clothes it is wearing. | ||
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Bibdy
United States3481 Posts
On July 31 2011 19:22 JesusOurSaviour wrote: @bibdy - we have never claimed or never will claim to "Dominate and control" woman. Women who are believers will understand their role as helpers within a Godly household. Female Christians who believe in feminism and not the bible will not agree with what 1 Tim / Eph / 1 Cor says about the Godly household. But we must ask: what is the role of the man? Le'ts have a look... "21 Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ. 22 Wives, submit yourselves to your own husbands as you do to the Lord. 23 For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, his body, of which he is the Savior. 24 Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit to their husbands in everything. 25 Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her 26 to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word, 27 and to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless. 28 In this same way, husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. 29 After all, no one ever hated their own body, but they feed and care for their body, just as Christ does the church— 30 for we are members of his body." Now when you read any part of the bible in context, you will see what we REALLY believe instead of twisting our words. If you claim to be an intelligent person, then you need to find out how Christians respond to these "seemingly trashy" passages from the bible. No we don't respond by cherry-picking. If a woman births a male child, she's A-OK. "Speak unto the children of Israel, saying, If a woman have conceived seed, and born a man child: then she shall be unclean seven days; according to the days of the separation for her infirmity shall she be unclean." (Leviticus 12:2) But if a woman births a female child, she's considered unclean. "But if she bear a maid child, then she shall be unclean two weeks, as in her separation: and she shall continue in the blood of her purifying threescore and six days." (Leviticus 12:5) How is that anything but an attempt to promote a social message that women are somehow inferior? Here's some more versions representing female inferiority: "But I would have you know, that the head of every man is Christ; and the head of the woman is the man; and the head of Christ is God." (I Corinthians 11:3) "For the man is not of the woman; but the woman of the man. Neither was the man created for the woman; but the woman for the man." (I Corinthians 11:8-9) "Let the women learn in silence with all subjection. But I suffer not a woman to teach, nor to usurp authority over the man, but to be in silence. For Adam was first formed, then Eve. And Adam was not deceived, but the woman being deceived was in the transgression." (I Timothy 2:11-14) "Let your women keep silence in the churches: for it is not permitted unto them to speak; but they are commanded to be under obedience, as also saith the law. And if they will learn any thing, let them ask their husbands at home: for it is a shame for women to speak in the church." (I Corinthians 14:34-35) I could go on. Intellectual honesty here, would be you having the self-awareness and humility to admit that you have cherry-picked the parts of Holy Doctrine that you like, that fit with your morality and that are conducive to your life. Intellectual dishonesty and cognitive dissonance will be that part of your mind telling you to strength your defenses and attempt to justify each and every passage I quoted one by one in order to ease the conflict in your own mind. Thing is, God didn't change how society views women over the last two millennium. We did. This being tells us we should behave one way, while we've discovered that in order to produce a healthy society and live in our current world in harmony, we have to behave in a completely different one. The Bible teaches some good moral stories, but that's all it is to me. Stories passed down all the way from 2,000 years ago to teach us the mistakes of our forebears. But, turning those stories into deeply held beliefs is a dangerous idea to me, because if you devoutly follow those teachings, you're likely to ignore the lessons we've learned over the last 2,000 years if they happen to conflict and in trying to uphold them, you're doing nothing more than disrupting our evolving society with outdated ideas. | ||
yamato77
11589 Posts
On July 31 2011 14:52 MrTortoise wrote: The reason why people confuse faith with religion is that faith is a central tennet of religion. For someone who thinks critically the essence of religion is a set of beliefs and behaviours (which covers thought patterns) that have no reasonable (that is evidence based) explanation. As such FAITH itself is the very core of religion. If you dont believe me ehy not go read a HUGE chunk of philosophy over the years ... the majority of philosophy is one side trying to say faith gurantees things we cant prove ... the other side says that bullshit and is extremley unhelpful in understanding things To deny faith and religion are the same thing is just plain wrong. Up to this point, you've been coherent, and largely correct. However, you are wrong in your assessment of the relationship between faith and religion. Religion is impossible without faith, but one does not need to have a religion to have faith. People without religion often have faith in other people, expressed through love or friendship. These things do not require religious belief to exist. On July 31 2011 14:52 MrTortoise wrote: If you think you do not haver a religion you are very very wrong. Religion is ermbedded in our culture and language and out baqsic assumptions about the world. You could even say our perception of the world is shaped due to our upbringing in societies assumptions about everything - and that is a religious frameowrk that you CANNOT avoid. Religion is an eroding edifice of a past that this world direly needs to let go of. It is not as widely influential as you claim, because people ignore the teachings and doctrines of religions on a constant, daily basis. Therefor, to put forth the assertion that it is not only influential, but so much so that I am undoubtedly a captive of its anti-progressivist propaganda trap, is utterly ludicrous. I can reject, at my own discretion, any ideology I see as a retardation of intellectual progress, whether that ideology be religious or otherwise. That's what critical thinking is all about. On July 31 2011 14:52 MrTortoise wrote: Dont get me wrong, using eason is still faith based .... the point is though that it criticises and aims to improive itself. constantly. Wheras religious beliefs do the opposite, through faith they prove themselves and so fly completley in the face of all evidence as a way to validate their existence. By saying 'No, This' in the face of truth they are affirming their existence. This is literally beyond comprehension. Reason is not faith based. It does not take faith for me to see that putting one thing and another together makes two of them. I am not required to believe anything other than the reality of the world around me to see that gravity, indeed, does influence each and every object that exists in the world. Reason doesn't need to improve itself, it simply needs to be. Proper reason is essentially perfect, because it is free of the imperfections of fallacies and subjectivism. Again, 1+1=2 does not need improving. it will always be correct. Faith, on the other hand, is a fallacy. One cannot believe in things that they cannot prove are true, or they are lying to themselves. You can never prove that 1+1 = apple, no matter how much you have faith that it's true. | ||
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nam nam
Sweden4672 Posts
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Blyadischa
419 Posts
On August 01 2011 01:16 Traeon wrote: Atheists, just like religious people, believe. This belief has no basis in science. Science isn't atheist. It doesn't tell you that no god exists. It leaves the question open because it can't answer it. Reaching for science to support your belief in atheism is the same thing as a religious person reaching to religion to support his belief. I'm probably not going to make friends posting this here but it has to be said. Attack the close-mindedness, not the clothes it is wearing. There is a difference between believing there is no god, and not believing in a god. One is an active belief in the non-existence of a god, and the other is not holding a belief in a god. Atheists, as people who engage in critical thinking, do not hold the active belief, but rather, the passive belief because critical thinking, which entails skepticism, gravitates toward not believing in something for which there is no proof to. QualiaSoup does not use science to validate his religious beliefs, or rather non-beliefs; QualiaSoup invokes critical thinking in the viewer to unveil the ignorance in religious beliefs. Bertrand Russel has an excellent thought experiment, in which he says "If I were to suggest that between the Earth and Mars there is a china teapot revolving about the sun in an elliptical orbit, nobody would be able to disprove my assertion provided I were careful to add that the teapot is too small to be revealed even by our most powerful telescopes. But if I were to go on to say that, since my assertion cannot be disproved, it is intolerable presumption on the part of human reason to doubt it, I should rightly be thought to be talking nonsense. If, however, the existence of such a teapot were affirmed in ancient books, taught as the sacred truth every Sunday, and instilled into the minds of children at school, hesitation to believe in its existence would become a mark of eccentricity and entitle the doubter to the attentions of the psychiatrist in an enlightened age or of the Inquisitor in an earlier time" | ||
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Traeon
Austria366 Posts
On August 01 2011 02:05 Blyadischa wrote: There is a difference between believing there is no god, and not believing in a god. One is an active belief in the non-existence of a god, and the other is not holding a belief in a god. Atheists, as people who engage in critical thinking, do not hold the active belief, but rather, the passive belief because critical thinking, which entails skepticism, gravitates toward not believing in something for which there is no proof to. QualiaSoup does not use science to validate his religious beliefs, or rather non-beliefs; QualiaSoup invokes critical thinking in the viewer to unveil the ignorance in religious beliefs. I can agree in part to what you're saying, except with the generalization that "atheists do not hold the active belief". That is clearly not true in my experience. Also, atheism has two definitions 1) Belief that no god exists (which is a statement about the nature of god) 2) Absence of a believe in a god I guess we can agree that neither of us has had a comprehensive view while making their post. By the way my context were the posts about atheism vs religion that have popped up in this thread, not the video in the OP. As for ignorance in religious beliefs, my position is that religion should be criticized for its concrete negative effect on the person and society, not for its mythology (origin of the world, man, etc) | ||
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MidKnight
Lithuania884 Posts
On August 01 2011 01:16 Traeon wrote: Atheists, just like religious people, believe. This belief has no basis in science. Science isn't atheist. It doesn't tell you that no god exists. It leaves the question open because it can't answer it. Reaching for science to support your belief in atheism is the same thing as a religious person reaching to religion to support his belief. I'm probably not going to make friends posting this here but it has to be said. Attack the close-mindedness, not the clothes it is wearing. Not believing in God(s) is as much of a "belief" as not collecting stamps is a "hobby". Atheism is the logical conclusion one should reach by looking at the current evidence of our understanding of reality. You can call that childish, but from scientific point of view the chance for there being a God (especially a specific God, like God from the Bible) is about the same as for flying spaghetti monster. Science actually did something beneficial (and by something I mean mostly everything) for the human race and will continue to do so because the methods science uses to explain and understand stuff actually make sense and requires one to back up their claims. | ||
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arbitrageur
Australia1202 Posts
On August 01 2011 02:34 MidKnight wrote: but from scientific point of view the chance for there being a God (especially a specific God, like God from the Bible) is about the same as for flying spaghetti monster. Edit: Nvm. | ||
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Traeon
Austria366 Posts
I have an issue with atheism as belief system because it's just religion rehashed. | ||
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PanN
United States2828 Posts
On August 01 2011 02:50 Traeon wrote: I have no issue with atheism as non-belief. This necessarily entails accepting that you don't know anything and thus avoid making any statements about the nature of god. I have an issue with atheism as belief system because it's just religion rehashed. If you actually read what people above you stated, you'd see what you just said is very wrong. Religion rehashed? Please. | ||
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Traeon
Austria366 Posts
On August 01 2011 02:53 PanN wrote: Religion rehashed? Please. Yes. I have observed how atheists of the belief system type and religious people tend to behave in similar ways. Religious people tend to look down upon those not of their religion because they consider them morally inferior or deficient. Atheist of the belief system type tend to look down upon those not of their belief system because they consider them intellectually inferior or deficient. In both cases, these two groups are equally convinced of knowing the truth they feel their behavior is justified. In both cases, the belief system becomes an extended identity. The members will proudly announce they are religious or atheists. My own personal conclusion is the belief hardly matters, the human desire to avoid uncertainty and seek security in common beliefs is what counts. Hence, religion rehashed. | ||
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Cyba
Romania221 Posts
On August 01 2011 02:53 PanN wrote: If you actually read what people above you stated, you'd see what you just said is very wrong. Religion rehashed? Please. It's true enough actually, if you choose not to believe in any form of god that's cool. If you believe there isn't any and then form a little sect where you meet up with other people feeling the same (or generally make an organisation for it) and to top that off you try feeding your belief to other people, religion is EXACTLY what ahteism becomes. At any rate why would something about critical thinking turn to this, you can only think critically with hipothesis you can take beeing true, with religion you can't proove or disproove any kind of logical starting point thus you can't think critically. Just as god's existence can't be prooven or disprooven. | ||
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Traeon
Austria366 Posts
I think everyone needs beliefs. Pick what you like. I just think we should be honest about the nature of our beliefs, so that we can gently smile at them like to a little child and avoid becoming overly attached, emotionally entangled (and thus slaves) to them. | ||
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VIB
Brazil3567 Posts
Objectively absolutely nothing can be 100% proven true or false. So that we can actually solve real problems, we set standards of how much evidence we require to consider something true, even if it's not 100%, which never is. So scientists will consider some true when there's a lot of evidence for it. Evolution for example, has shit tons of evidence for it. It's still not 100%, but it's so much that scientists consider it true. God on the other hand, has precisely zero evidence for it. So no matter how much you close your eyes and whine in your corner. At the end of the day, scientifically, there's no god. | ||
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Traeon
Austria366 Posts
On August 01 2011 03:17 VIB wrote: Cyba you and all of you whining that atheism is a belief just like religion, have zero clue of what a proof or what science is. Objectively absolutely nothing can be 100% proven true or false. So that we can actually solve real problems, we set standards of how much evidence we require to consider something true, even if it's not 100%, which never is. So scientists will consider some true when there's a lot of evidence for it. Evolution for example, has shit tons of evidence for it. It's still not 100%, but it's so much that scientists consider it true. God on the other hand, has precisely zero evidence for it. So no matter how much you close your eyes and whine in your corner. At the end of the day, scientifically, there's no god. Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. Science doesn't allow you to make conclusions about things for which no data exists. If you do that, you're no longer doing science but stating beliefs and opinions. | ||
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Jombozeus
China1014 Posts
On August 01 2011 03:17 VIB wrote: Cyba you and all of you whining that atheism is a belief just like religion, have zero clue of what a proof or what science is. Objectively absolutely nothing can be 100% proven true or false. So that we can actually solve real problems, we set standards of how much evidence we require to consider something true, even if it's not 100%, which never is. So scientists will consider some true when there's a lot of evidence for it. Evolution for example, has shit tons of evidence for it. It's still not 100%, but it's so much that scientists consider it true. God on the other hand, has precisely zero evidence for it. So no matter how much you close your eyes and whine in your corner. At the end of the day, scientifically, there's no god. Not another "religion-implies-Christianity" post. Scientifically speaking, there are an infinite number of versions of this universe where there is a God and an infinite amount with no God. Until an observation is made OF God, or quantum theory is changed, this will remain true  By God I mean a loosely defined creator-of-worlds. | ||
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