On arbitrary human constructs - Page 6

On July 02 2013 07:36 S:klogW wrote:
Stand aside guys, we have a virgin over here.

User was temp banned for this post.

On July 06 2013 15:38 DeepElemBlues wrote:


I'm not down with the singularity.

On July 05 2013 21:22 Thieving Magpie wrote:


I don't think there is any difference between a pack mentality amongst wolves and the pack mentality of patriots. I doubt wolves create the arbitrary construct of a pack mentality no more than ants create the arbitrary construct of a hive mentality.

I don't think there is any difference between a pack mentality amongst wolves and the pack mentality of patriots.

On July 06 2013 15:39 bardtown wrote:


Unban. Fair comment in a ridiculous thread.

On July 02 2013 08:00 Thieving Magpie wrote:


Do you have proof that it's a hallucination?

Remember, the argument is that religion is an arbitrary construct--if people believe it because they believed the ramblings of some guy, whether its true or not has not bearing on the fact that it stops being arbitrary if people believe what he is saying anyway.

An arbitrary construct suggests that people conceive of an abstract idea and follow it. Religion is hearing someone say something is supposedly true, and believing them. That's the opposite of arbitrary. That's literally taking evidence and structuring your viewpoint on that evidence.

You not finding the evidence valid does not mean the believer finds the evidence invalid.

On July 06 2013 15:39 bardtown wrote:


Unban. Fair comment in a ridiculous thread.

On July 06 2013 16:03 DeepElemBlues wrote:


If that were the case there'd be new wars popping up every 2 weeks. The pack mentality of wolves is to show domination over other packs they encounter through intimidation or butt-kicking. That is one way nations interact with each other but there are a lot more that don't involve baring of teeth or bombing.

On July 06 2013 22:02 AutomatonOmega wrote:
According to Sam Harris, Religion has an evolutionary back-story. Basically, humankind evolved around the concept of being able to avoid unnecessary hardship by learning from the mistakes of others, in the form of heeding spoken warnings. This same mechanic caused us to evolve to be able to believe things spoken without having to experience them for ourselves, and thus when people started having near-death experiences and/or sampling psychedelics, and later recount their experiences, religion was born.

Eh, it would indeed seem as though this thread is on a one-way train to shitsville. Most threads broaching religion and politics tend to eventually. I haven't checked, has someone mentioned Hitler yet?

On July 06 2013 22:35 Thieving Magpie wrote:


You mean like the 10 year war in Afghanistan that the US just ended? Or the 5+ year war that the US was in before that?

Maybe you ment the Kosovo altercations in the late 90's? Or the gulf war in the late 80's?

Or maybe you meant the war torn history of the US for most of the 20th century?

And that's just the US. What about war in other nations?

No, there is no difference.

On July 06 2013 23:12 Crushinator wrote:


I think an important difference is that a third-party wolf pack would not dream of assisting a weaker wolf pack being preyed upon by a stronger pack. But this is pretty much what happened in many of those conflicts (imo).

On July 07 2013 01:09 doubleupgradeobbies! wrote:


I could totally imagine a third-party wolf pack helping a weaker wolf pack if they had something to gain (eg by helping to defeat the stronger pack they are now the strongest pack in the area).

The difference is that wolves don't have trade, and while they are social animals they social networks are nowhere near as large, complicated or as powerful as our own.

We are capable of much deeper levels simulation of the world in order to understand it, and so we are able to consciously comprehend concepts like deterring conflict in order to reduce damage to potential markets, defence of weaker nations in order to stop them from being subsumed by competitors, helping allies or third parties in order to better one's comparative position against competitors.

Ultimately, these are still rooted in selfish motivations, we might have a superior ability to predict and manipulate the future, and have more tools at our disposal to do so than just 'barring teeth' and 'bombing', but there really isn't any conclusive evidence that our actions are not primarily rooted, in what are essentially selfish reasons.

On July 06 2013 21:25 KingAce wrote:
Religions are based on the metaphysical. The Path to God. This practice exists in just about every culture on the planet. And you would be surprised how much these Religions have in common.

They're many religions, but they all point to the same path. This one path is metaphysical. The reason people believe in Religion, is due to these metaphysical experiences.

The consistency of these metaphysical experiences is why people will continue to take up religion. Just like any subject, the path requires a teacher to guide you to success.

I don't believe in free will.
So when you talk about denying love. I don't think you yourself have that capability. You obviously lack the experience, but somehow you're attempting to predict a future where it never happens to you. Good luck with that.

On July 07 2013 05:46 Shiori wrote:
Not that I'm a big fan of Dawkins or Hitchens (the former is is a poor philosopher whereas the latter was actually just irascible about everything, religious or otherwise) but to claim that they have(had) mental illnesses is really offensive (and false).

On July 07 2013 06:01 SjPhotoGrapher wrote:


How do you know that it's false? Also if you knew anything about psychology you would know that most are alcoholics to hide their mental issues I know this from people that I have known from the past and doing research into psychology myself.

You seem to be prejudice against mental illness.......there's nothing wrong with it and most people suggest from it even if they don't realize it as a modern society pretty much labels anything besides being "normal" as a trait of having a mental illness.

A case example is ADD....not interested in mathematics/school??? Automatically they want to label you with ADD and put you on Ritalin.

That's the reality that we live in.....theres nothing wrong with mental illness I'm just being honest here that both Dawkins & Hitchens suffer(ed) from some sort of mental illness that keeps(ed) them depressed or so fired up to debate against religion and talk so bad about it even to the length of writing nasty books about it and manipulating data to make it appeal to their views.

I have "The God Delusion" and all that I have to say that it's evidence that Dawkins has an inflated ego and definitly some emotional problems....the book was depressing and didn't really teach me anything that I didn't know besides how he basically turned Atheism into a religoion or some would call it a cult (Heck, Matt Dillihunty from The Atheist Experience coined some new term called "Atheism +" and obviously has a lot of hate in his heart a lot with most of these atheism movement leaders.

At least most of the religious people that I see debating them seem to be well grounded, free from most anger, and seem to be happy people.

Even if what they believe in is false I'd rather be like them and be a happy loving person vs some person that has hatred in their hearts and gets pissed off the moment you say you believe in a God in one form or another.

How do you know that it's false? Also if you knew anything about psychology you would know that most are alcoholics to hide their mental issues I know this from people that I have known from the past and doing research into psychology myself.

On July 07 2013 06:01 SjPhotoGrapher wrote:


How do you know that it's false? Also if you knew anything about psychology you would know that most are alcoholics to hide their mental issues I know this from people that I have known from the past and doing research into psychology myself.

You seem to be prejudice against mental illness.......there's nothing wrong with it and most people suggest from it even if they don't realize it as a modern society pretty much labels anything besides being "normal" as a trait of having a mental illness.

A case example is ADD....not interested in mathematics/school??? Automatically they want to label you with ADD and put you on Ritalin.

That's the reality that we live in.....theres nothing wrong with mental illness I'm just being honest here that both Dawkins & Hitchens suffer(ed) from some sort of mental illness that keeps(ed) them depressed or so fired up to debate against religion and talk so bad about it even to the length of writing nasty books about it and manipulating data to make it appeal to their views.

I have "The God Delusion" and all that I have to say that it's evidence that Dawkins has an inflated ego and definitly some emotional problems....the book was depressing and didn't really teach me anything that I didn't know besides how he basically turned Atheism into a religoion or some would call it a cult (Heck, Matt Dillihunty from The Atheist Experience coined some new term called "Atheism +" and obviously has a lot of hate in his heart a lot with most of these atheism movement leaders.

At least most of the religious people that I see debating them seem to be well grounded, free from most anger, and seem to be happy people.

Even if what they believe in is false I'd rather be like them and be a happy loving person vs some person that has hatred in their hearts and gets pissed off the moment you say you believe in a God in one form or another.

On July 07 2013 06:21 Shiori wrote:

Uh, I suffer from a couple diagnosed (like, by a real psychiatrist) DSM disorders. I'm not prejudiced against people having them, but you obviously are, because you're using them to dismiss the credibility of Dawkins/Hitchens even though you have literally no evidence that either of them has any mental illness. You cannot diagnose someone with a mental illness on the basis of them vehemently opposing religion. You just can't. It doesn't make any sense.

In particular:

is just an assumption on your part. I could be wrong about Dawkins/Hitchens having a mental illness, but since no psychiatrist has ever diagnosed or even suggested that they have/had any, I'm going to go ahead and say that they don't. Your understanding of mental illness appears to be something like "wow this guy is really angry/emotional; he must have some sort of mental illness." No. Sometimes people just have a cutting rhetorical style. Dawkins in particular comes across as a really friendly guy most of the time unless he's talking about, I don't know, Muslims performing genital mutilation on women. You rarely hear Dawkins/Hitchens get angry about abstract notions like whether God exists or not. They tend to get angry when someone either misrepresents what atheists believe (e.g. the assert that all atheists are nihilists or immoral) or when someone attempts to defend an obvious moral atrocity/unscientific theory masquerading as science. All of these are justifiable reasons to be angry with someone.

The God Delusion is a book of pop philosophy. It's not a work of scholarship. It's written in an appealing style which is deliberately antagonistic in order to be more provocative. Yes, many of the arguments Dawkins presents in that book wouldn't be taken seriously by professional philosophers (although a couple would) and many of them don't even apply to what one might designate "mainstream religious groups" but nevertheless it's completely ridiculous to conclude that Dawkins has "emotional problems" on the basis of reading that book. I'll agree that he has a large ego, but you'll find that pretty much every public figure is arrogant/egotistical in some way (with a few honourable exceptions).

And besides, there are plenty of utterly crazy religious people, but Dawkins/Hitchens, generally speaking, don't debate with people of that ilk because there's no hope of reasoned, civil debate. Say what you will about Dawkins and Hitchens, but they do participate in debates regularly and do follow the rules of those debates without resorting to a barrage of petty name-calling or hysterics like, say, the Westboro Baptist Church does every time someone suffers an aneurysm and allows them to make a televised statement.