Pope compares secularism to Nazism - Page 20

On September 20 2010 08:31 Half wrote:


I didn't attack your intrinsic viewpoints as imbalanced. In fact they are almost identical to my own. I attacked your presentation as imbalanced, and obviously, presentation can differ from one post to another.



Hilarious. You've literally been straw-manning this entire argument. I'd expect more from someone with such an academic demeanor.

I criticized your presentation, not your views. Are you saying that is irrelevant? Are you saying the way I present my views is not relevant to there impact?



So much strawmanning here I find it hard to believe your trying anymore. You said you posted your posts to encourage a greater level of dialogue on both sides. I am criticizing them because due to there imbalanced presentation, and the academic level of this thread, or rather, the lack of therof, cause a converse effect.

I don't oppose your views, in fact, I share them, and I actually reiterated them at times earlier in this thread. I just didn't do so in such a pretentious, self justifying and counterproductive way.

By not outlining your intentions all you've made yourself is a tool to be misinterpreted and used by people who don't understand your well formed but ill presented ideals for there own agendas.

All you have to do is look at how the Theists parroting Einsteins views concerning religion in this thread to see the process.

On September 20 2010 07:57 L wrote:
You uh, should probably read what you replied to.

Moreover, you criticize my presentation for a few reasons, but make inferences that you simply can't follow up on. First you say you hold the same views as I do. You're rather incorrect there. Second, because of that, I don't share the same aims as you. What was my presentation meant to do? Go read the post you originally replied to. Its pretty much a super brief historical account of the relation between western spirituality and scientific thought. Why would you fear that such neutral information would be 'misused'? Moreover, who are you to tell someone that they've misunderstood the information?

It would be a strawman if I substantially changed what you said, however, the most concise statement you made on your position was here:

Your position vis a vis me, clearly stated in this post is "regardless of the validity of your views, please don't state them because it might give fire to my opposition". Either you aren't all that certain in your views, or you don't think you have the intellectual abilities to defend them despite your certainty.

By not outlining your intentions all you've made yourself is a tool to be misinterpreted and used by people who don't understand your well formed but ill presented ideals for there own agendas.

All you have to do is look at how the Theists parroting Einsteins views concerning religion in this thread to see the process.

You have an issue with presentation because you fear that the thoughts within will be used by people who aren't going to get them bang-on correctly.

You follow up with a derogatory mention towards theists, and have stated pretty overtly that atheism is the best option for modern states like ours. So I'm pretty sure I got the intention you had in your post, and I'm pretty sure I didn't substantially change your point, which means you're trying to use terms like strawmen without knowing what they mean.

Its far more likely that you viewed a contexualization and a historical account which didn't impute religion as an evil as a detrimental to your belief that modern societies should be atheist, because the should implies a moral stance.

And that's the fun part, because outburst posts like your initial reply (and I suggest you re-read it and note the tone) like that are completely against the modern atheist flavor of the old greek cult of rationalism AND against the vast majority of religious ethical frameworks. There are very few people who would consciously correct themselves or perform a kantian calculation as to whether or not they should do a certain action every time they speak or act, so don't feel bad. Its only natural.

How many times do I have to tell you that information was fine, it was the retarded one sided commentary that followed that I took issue with? When I explicitly say that the information you disseminated was the only part of that post I liked?

Please explain to me how you got from point A to point B. Either you are strawmanning, or have exceptionally poor reading comprehension.

I don't fear. I am saying it not achieving your own purported goals of creating better dialog when you just spitefully post judgements without a real purpose.

Why would I fear my own ideology and facts I were already aware of would not be compatible with my own religious outlook, or lack of therof?

No. Sorry. You can read my posts in other threads concerning religion. I have literally made the same point you have made. In fact, you can look in this thread to see my beliefs in religion. They are all quite moderate. The only thing I've rejected is the idea that an increase in Atheism in our society can be anything but positive at our current moment in time.

So your saying my original post was flawed because the tone didn't conform to a religious ethical framework or the framework of an ancient greek cult?

On September 20 2010 09:15 TOloseGT wrote:


I'm so confused. I'm not privy to your conversation with whoever else in this topic, so I have no idea what case you are pointing out here.

On September 20 2010 10:09 L wrote:

Nony brings up a graph that attributes the early medival period's lack of development to the church.
Someone notes that the plethora of invading groups which demolished social order, trade, and reverted the majority of the region to subsistence farming might have been more to blame.
You then attempted to state that the invading groups weren't the right ones, unless you were trying to state that the byzantine empire was held back by Christianity, which would be an interesting and very bold statement that would probably not be made in 2 lines.

I dunno, coulda been lost in translation but I felt your point was self-defeating as soon as you edited.

On September 20 2010 10:31 TOloseGT wrote:


I was pointing out that the reason for the fall of the Western Roman Empire and the reason for the stagnation of Western Europe after the fact are different.

The retarded one sided commentary that you've stated prior derided both sides?

Excuse me if I'm confused, but you seem to be changing your story every post. I mocked the intolerance and lack of knowledge displayed by both sides, which to address a prior criticism, is VERY MUCH on display in this thread. THAT was the core of my first post, made self evident by the fact that I spent a good 500 words trying to dispel some myths with information. But this isn't the only argument you've morphed over the genesis of various posts. Prior, it was the 'unbalanced nature' of the argument. Then you went on to call 'balance' the thoughtful analysis of your opposition's point of view. If that was balance, then I did look at the foibles of both parties. Now balance has returned to its prior state, turning into 'retarded one sided'.

Yet once again you prove my point by downright demonizing not only the other side, but also someone asking people to step back. Unless calling someone retarded is civil conversation in the states, I'd ask again that you take a step back and approach this with an open mind.

Point A and point B are in the exact same place when you add the tone of your posts and the admitted aim you have later on. The more aggressive your posting becomes, the more the meaning becomes evident. In your very first post, I told you to calm it down because it really wasn't needed, and still you ramp it up. Chill out. Being stressed over the internet isn't good you.

I'm going to bold this because its important. In this phrase, you state that I'm not achieving my goal because I haven't stated what my purpose is. The sad part is that in this one phrase you admit I've stated my goal. If there's a reason why I'm still even bothering talking with you, its because you're such a good example of exactly what I was talking about, and you're actively trying to turn a subject which is intrinsically about a shared human exploration of the world for meaning and knowledge into something adversarial.

Why?

Because you're afraid of being wrong, and its quite easy to be peripherally aware of information which is detrimental to your position and ignore it nonetheless. Same as anyone else trying to control the form or flow of information with the intention of having their side 'win'.

Go back and look at your initial reply to my post. Tell me your hotblooded reaction was remotely indicative of this above statement. If it makes you feel better, I've read your posts, but the magnitude of your aggressiveness and anger indicate heavily that you aren't telling the truth here. On this point I very much hope I'm wrong because if I'm right we're both wasting our time.

No, when I include the term modern, I'm not referring to an ancient greek 'cult' but rather a cultural meme which originated in Greece which you currently identify with. Note the strawman.

Was that the reason why YOUR original post was flawed? No. I didn't comment on your post with that point. I commented on the thread, and by extension the social discussion surrounding the theist/nontheist issue. You do fall under the critique, especially in your posts towards me, but not in every single one of your posts in the thread. Some of them have been very properly reflective and informative. The scope of the criticism is far larger and far more important than you, however

On September 20 2010 01:47 7mk wrote:


Well if you really meant 5% then I'd like to know what source Sky News has because my father is a forensic psychiatrist and he has very different numbers.

That the judgments you've made in this thread, while not entirely without merit, are unfairly weighted towards the Atheists in this thread, despite the fact that we both know that those criticisms are primarily reflected amongst theists. While those trends amongst Atheists is certainly detrimental and should be avoided, it is but a glimmer of the same irrational, ignorance, and groupthink displayed by many Theists.

No, they are completely irrelevant. One is concerning the information you are presenting. I really don't mind what you post. In fact, I don't even care how you portray the information. That isn't the concern of any of my posts. My criticism towards you is that your criticisms of the polarization and arguments from emotion that can be found on many Atheists and Theists alike is heavily weighted towards criticizing the behavior of Atheists, despite the fact that the same behavior is more commonly displayed amongst Theists.

I guess you could make a case for my argument concerning the burden of proof with that guy, but as you can see, once I realized I started posting from emotion, I stopped.

Don't make claims about unfair weighting of criticism when you post stuff like this, then claim you're sitting as a moderate. You aren't. At this point you've made an outright proclamation of moral superiority in favor of your side.

You really need to learn a bit more about non-american theists if you honestly believe the above

superiority in favor of your side.

When I see this portion of your argument, I wonder what you'd consider heavily weighted. I gave atheists slightly more attention because they dominate the thread, but any weight put towards them was in the region of a sentence of extra treatment. You've tried to play me up like I'm taking a side, when I've explicitly not done so too. I don't see why.

Once again, and for the last time, go look at your first post directed towards me and tell me the tone was even remotely proportional to your grievance. You're seriously angry over a sentence or two because they hit your sacred cow.

You've been posting from emotion from your first response to me. I've asked you in every post to take a step back and reread what you've written. Regardless of if you're a theist or an atheist, exploding at someone doesn't seem to be in the code of conduct.

I mean, I'd comment on the rest of your post, but its all pretty much a rehash of what you said in the first paragraph which I already dealt with. I'd point out that you not understanding the link between greek rationalism and the worldviews currently being discussed hints that you don't actually know as much as you've been alluding towards, but I don't really think we're going to get anywhere with that.

I think we've hit a point where you think there was some bias in a statement, reacted poorly, and I've been commenting on how your reaction proves my initial point. That's been pretty standard throughout, but the replies you've been giving me as this draws on become more and representative of the things you've denied and I speculated upon. Now that my curiosity's satisfied, feel free to go back to correcting people. I'm done with you.

On September 20 2010 13:49 intrudor wrote:
adorable? he looks fuckin' creepy

On September 20 2010 03:41 Half wrote:


Why are people like you so fucking arrogant? Some of the most powerful nations on earth were built upon the absence of religion, and many world powers today are mostly irreligious, like Japan and Korea, and many moderate European Nations like Sweden and Denmark.