Feet of Clay
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Re: Feet of Clay
The internet allows for true social revolutionary movements to spring up from nowhere overnight and be everywhere by dawn. The past couple of decades have been interesting but as yet the 'cultural progress' time-machine of the interweb as been going slow, still finding its feet and providing the illusion it can be tamed and controlled. But what happens if things start to speed up? and what you or I can grasp regarding tenable expressions of change good or bad, become distorted and unrecognizable by the speed of change? what happens in a true cultural revolution, besides lots of losers dying out for not fitting into the new cultural strait-jacket proffered?
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Re: Feet of Clay
What?
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Re: Feet of Clay
Same old: We're all doomed. DOOMED, I tell you.
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Re: Feet of Clay
I'm a consistent realist that's all.
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Re: Feet of Clay
Phil Torres, the author of the Salon article, is an idiot. What on earth made him expect that atheism entails moral clarity and intellectual honesty? It is nothing more a lack of belief in the existence of a supernatural being that created everything. Nothing at all.
It should not have surprised and disappointed him that "Many of the most prominent New Atheists turned out to be nothing more than self-aggrandizing, dogmatic, irascible, censorious, morally compromised people who, at every opportunity, have propped up the powerful over the powerless, the privileged over the marginalized." Especially not since the list of the people he now criticises are not only working within the confines of the bourgeois establishment, but are also exclusively middle aged or old males, most of whom left their youthful intellectual flexibility behind around the middle of the last century.
I have stopped reading the output of Salon some time ago because it keeps publishing crap like that article. Its standards of what is fit to print without any editorial oversight are even lower than Huffington Post's. A way of collecting advertising revenue with minimal overheads.
It should not have surprised and disappointed him that "Many of the most prominent New Atheists turned out to be nothing more than self-aggrandizing, dogmatic, irascible, censorious, morally compromised people who, at every opportunity, have propped up the powerful over the powerless, the privileged over the marginalized." Especially not since the list of the people he now criticises are not only working within the confines of the bourgeois establishment, but are also exclusively middle aged or old males, most of whom left their youthful intellectual flexibility behind around the middle of the last century.
I have stopped reading the output of Salon some time ago because it keeps publishing crap like that article. Its standards of what is fit to print without any editorial oversight are even lower than Huffington Post's. A way of collecting advertising revenue with minimal overheads.
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Re: Feet of Clay
Sorry it didn't meet your standards.
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Re: Feet of Clay
No need for that. Nowadays I only see Salon's crap when someone quotes it here, and quite enjoy making a comment about it on those occasions.
I am, somehow, less interested in the weight and convolutions of Einstein’s brain than in the near certainty that people of equal talent have lived and died in cotton fields and sweatshops. - Stephen J. Gould
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Re: Feet of Clay
Is that the British 'quite' as in somewhat, or the American 'quite' as in definitely? I enquired which of these is common in Australia, and the reply was ambiguous.
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Re: Feet of Clay
I think atheism is something more than that, at least in terms of the process people go through to become atheists. Simply not believing in the existence of a pink elephant the size of a mountain permanently buried within the gas clouds of Jupiter is rather easy to do. For people immersed in a culture where religion is a real if fading influence, and particularly if you were brought up to believe, is considerably more difficult. Commonly, it involves the exercise of logic, and a willingness to do away with the comfort religion provides, particularly when confronted by your own death, or the death of loved ones. It often involves an exploration of the ways of viewing the universe provided by science, which again requires at least some intellectual effort.
So, in a purely logical sense, atheism is only a lack of belief in a supernatural being, but its ramifications for the cognitive process of anyone who comes to share that lack of belief are important. One thing is clear, though - it lends no particular moral or ethical cachet, and atheists in general are just as liable to personality faults all humans are heirs to...
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Re: Feet of Clay
Meh. Atheism is specific to, and contingent upon, the claims and assertions of theism. It's not a thing in itself, and as a position is incoherent in the absence of said claims and assertions. As such, while one is free to explain one's position, one is under no rational obligation to justify it.
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Clinton Huxley » 21 Jun 2012 » 14:10:36 GMT
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Clinton Huxley » 21 Jun 2012 » 14:10:36 GMT
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Re: Feet of Clay
You will justify yourself or face a wall of angry words sir. --hhmppff!
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Re: Feet of Clay
No. You can't make me. You're not my real dad.
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"It isn't necessary to imagine the world ending in fire or ice.
There are two other possibilities: one is paperwork, and the other is nostalgia."
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"This is how humanity ends; bickering over the irrelevant."
Clinton Huxley » 21 Jun 2012 » 14:10:36 GMT
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Details on how to do that can be found here.
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"It isn't necessary to imagine the world ending in fire or ice.
There are two other possibilities: one is paperwork, and the other is nostalgia."
Frank Zappa
"This is how humanity ends; bickering over the irrelevant."
Clinton Huxley » 21 Jun 2012 » 14:10:36 GMT
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Re: Feet of Clay
Yes, as a philosophical position, it is essentially a negative or an absence. But, as I tried to explain in my post, the psychological details of arriving at an atheist position can have important effects on someone's intellectual development, and for previous believers, be quite a difficult and profound change. That's why I think that saying "atheism is only a lack of belief" is only telling the dry, logical half of the story.Brian Peacock wrote: ↑Thu Jun 17, 2021 10:07 pmMeh. Atheism is specific to, and contingent upon, the claims and assertions of theism. It's not a thing in itself, and as a position is incoherent in the absence of said claims and assertions. As such, while one is free to explain one's position, one is under no rational obligation to justify it.
And, while I accept that there is no real obligation to justify of explain one's lack of belief (unlike the pressure to evangelise that is at the heart of many religions), there is still some value in calmly and rationally outlining cogent reasons why abandoning faith is a reasonable thing to do. This can be done without ego trips or emotional rants against religion - I think that Daniel Dennett's "Breaking the Spell" is a good example of such an approach.
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Re: Feet of Clay
Let me assure you that 'quite' is indeed used to denote 'somewhat' as well as 'definitely' down here, but since I quite like ambiguity sometimes, let's leave it at that, shall we?L'Emmerdeur wrote: ↑Thu Jun 17, 2021 9:36 pmIs that the British 'quite' as in somewhat, or the American 'quite' as in definitely? I enquired which of these is common in Australia, and the reply was ambiguous.
I am, somehow, less interested in the weight and convolutions of Einstein’s brain than in the near certainty that people of equal talent have lived and died in cotton fields and sweatshops. - Stephen J. Gould
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Re: Feet of Clay
Maybe I should have expressed myself more pedantically, but in the context of the Salon article as well as my reaction to it I didn't think there was a need for it. What I thought was understood when I wrote the bit I now coloured blue was what you wrote I now coloured red. Additionally, atheism does not preclude someone being a libertarian, fascist, socialist, communist or a person subscribing to any other political or social view. The only thing an atheist is precluded from being is...JimC wrote: ↑Thu Jun 17, 2021 9:41 pmI think atheism is something more than that, at least in terms of the process people go through to become atheists. Simply not believing in the existence of a pink elephant the size of a mountain permanently buried within the gas clouds of Jupiter is rather easy to do. For people immersed in a culture where religion is a real if fading influence, and particularly if you were brought up to believe, is considerably more difficult. Commonly, it involves the exercise of logic, and a willingness to do away with the comfort religion provides, particularly when confronted by your own death, or the death of loved ones. It often involves an exploration of the ways of viewing the universe provided by science, which again requires at least some intellectual effort.
So, in a purely logical sense, atheism is only a lack of belief in a supernatural being, but its ramifications for the cognitive process of anyone who comes to share that lack of belief are important. One thing is clear, though - it lends no particular moral or ethical cachet, and atheists in general are just as liable to personality faults all humans are heirs to...
I am, somehow, less interested in the weight and convolutions of Einstein’s brain than in the near certainty that people of equal talent have lived and died in cotton fields and sweatshops. - Stephen J. Gould
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