Yet more problematic stuff

Post Reply
User avatar
Forty Two
Posts: 14978
Joined: Tue Jun 16, 2015 2:01 pm
About me: I am the grammar snob about whom your mother warned you.
Location: The Of Color Side of the Moon
Contact:

Re: Yet more problematic stuff

Post by Forty Two » Mon Apr 01, 2019 6:29 pm

Animavore wrote:
Fri Mar 29, 2019 11:45 am
White people problems.


Image
I had to google that one - I haven't seen anyone upset in the least at Jordan Peele casting black actors or not casting white actors. Other filmmakers discriminate like that - look at Spike Lee. So what? I don't think anyone has ever cared that Spike Lee's stuff focuses on black people. Did I miss something? Who is expressing outrage?

You can bet, though, that if someone said they wouldn't cast black people in roles because they want to make movies about white people, there would be an issue.
“When I was in college, I took a terrorism class. ... The thing that was interesting in the class was every time the professor said ‘Al Qaeda’ his shoulders went up, But you know, it is that you don’t say ‘America’ with an intensity, you don’t say ‘England’ with the intensity. You don’t say ‘the army’ with the intensity,” she continued. “... But you say these names [Al Qaeda] because you want that word to carry weight. You want it to be something.” - Ilhan Omar

User avatar
Forty Two
Posts: 14978
Joined: Tue Jun 16, 2015 2:01 pm
About me: I am the grammar snob about whom your mother warned you.
Location: The Of Color Side of the Moon
Contact:

Re: Yet more problematic stuff

Post by Forty Two » Mon Apr 01, 2019 6:39 pm

Seabass wrote:
Mon Apr 01, 2019 6:22 pm
.
Forty Two wrote:
Mon Apr 01, 2019 2:08 pm
Somehow, every forum turned into AtheismPlus
Nah, that's just how things appear to people who identify with the alt-right/manosphere/MRA/Incel movement.
That bit was just WONDERFUL. Thank you for perfectly illustrating the point.

Imagine, preferring philosophical discussion to listening douchebags constantly find new minutia to whine on and on endlessly about -- oh, we're bored with the battle over religion! I know! I know! Caelgender people are discriminated against and "othered" because not a single astronaut has been caelgender! [cue - fingersnaps of solidarity]. [Caelgender: a gender which shares qualities with outer space or has the aesthetic of space, stars, nebulas, etc. - yes, this is literally a gender]
“When I was in college, I took a terrorism class. ... The thing that was interesting in the class was every time the professor said ‘Al Qaeda’ his shoulders went up, But you know, it is that you don’t say ‘America’ with an intensity, you don’t say ‘England’ with the intensity. You don’t say ‘the army’ with the intensity,” she continued. “... But you say these names [Al Qaeda] because you want that word to carry weight. You want it to be something.” - Ilhan Omar

User avatar
Sean Hayden
Microagressor
Posts: 17882
Joined: Wed Mar 03, 2010 3:55 pm
About me: recovering humanist
Contact:

Re: Yet more problematic stuff

Post by Sean Hayden » Mon Apr 01, 2019 6:43 pm

I'm so glad this is my last trip on Earth, and it only took me 2,222 lives to get here! --yay me

User avatar
Sean Hayden
Microagressor
Posts: 17882
Joined: Wed Mar 03, 2010 3:55 pm
About me: recovering humanist
Contact:

Re: Yet more problematic stuff

Post by Sean Hayden » Mon Apr 01, 2019 6:45 pm

Image

User avatar
Seabass
Posts: 7339
Joined: Sun Jan 30, 2011 7:32 pm
About me: Pluviophile
Location: Covidiocracy
Contact:

Re: Yet more problematic stuff

Post by Seabass » Mon Apr 01, 2019 6:53 pm

Forty Two wrote:
Mon Apr 01, 2019 6:29 pm
I had to google that one - I haven't seen anyone upset in the least at Jordan Peele casting black actors or not casting white actors. Other filmmakers discriminate like that - look at Spike Lee. So what? I don't think anyone has ever cared that Spike Lee's stuff focuses on black people. Did I miss something? Who is expressing outrage?

You can bet, though, that if someone said they wouldn't cast black people in roles because they want to make movies about white people, there would be an issue.
Yeah, because a director hiring more black actors and a white director refusing to hire black actors are totally the same.
"Those who can make you believe absurdities, can make you commit atrocities." —Voltaire
"They want to take away your hamburgers. This is what Stalin dreamt about but never achieved." —Sebastian Gorka

User avatar
Forty Two
Posts: 14978
Joined: Tue Jun 16, 2015 2:01 pm
About me: I am the grammar snob about whom your mother warned you.
Location: The Of Color Side of the Moon
Contact:

Re: Yet more problematic stuff

Post by Forty Two » Mon Apr 01, 2019 6:58 pm

Seabass wrote:
Mon Apr 01, 2019 12:56 am
I'm sure there's nothing shady going on here. The Republicans would never manipulate the vote. But if they did cheat, I'm sure the Democrat party does it too, so who cares?

15 percent of young Parkland voters' ballots rejected, study shows
https://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/polit ... story.html
About 1 in 7 mail-in ballots submitted by college-age voters in Parkland was rejected or failed to arrive in time to be counted, according to a new analysis. The findings are adding to questions about the reliability and fairness of the Florida electoral system, including its ballot signature requirement that became a flash point in the November recount between U.S. Sen Rick Scott, R, and the Democrat he ousted from office, Bill Nelson.
That's a rather big "or" there. If they don't arrive in time.... well, it stands to reason. 1 in 7 is about 14.2 percent, not 15 percent.

Anyway - Parkland has a population of 32,000 -- about 7% of which are college age (18-24) (and not all college age people go to college) - so call it 2300 college age. Most don't vote -- but we can use the overall turnout of 75% in the 2016 election - call it 1725 college age people voted at all, and use the 31% of voters who voted by mail, that's 534 mail in voters. That's a grand total of about 75 ballots rejected OR -- big OR there - OR couldn't be counted because they were mailed in late.

We don't know how many were mailed in late, but wouldn't it be interesting to see exactly why these few ballots were mailed in late vs. rejected for other reasons, and what the other reasons were?

Or, we could just blare the headline -- 15% of Parkland Voters (college age, who barely vote, and some of whom did not mail their ballots in timely.... and imply a massive Republican conspiracy to strip them of their voting rights.

The Florida mail in ballot is a rather simple form - it can't get much simpler. We're talking Parkland - almost all white, very upscale community - and we're talking the young adults who are college age from the white, upscale community -- and we are to assume a conspiracy if they can't fill in the little fucking ovals and sign it at the bottom and drop it in the fucking mailbox on time?

Stop the madness.
“When I was in college, I took a terrorism class. ... The thing that was interesting in the class was every time the professor said ‘Al Qaeda’ his shoulders went up, But you know, it is that you don’t say ‘America’ with an intensity, you don’t say ‘England’ with the intensity. You don’t say ‘the army’ with the intensity,” she continued. “... But you say these names [Al Qaeda] because you want that word to carry weight. You want it to be something.” - Ilhan Omar

User avatar
Forty Two
Posts: 14978
Joined: Tue Jun 16, 2015 2:01 pm
About me: I am the grammar snob about whom your mother warned you.
Location: The Of Color Side of the Moon
Contact:

Re: Yet more problematic stuff

Post by Forty Two » Mon Apr 01, 2019 7:03 pm

trdsf wrote:
Sun Mar 31, 2019 5:04 am
L'Emmerdeur wrote:
Sat Mar 30, 2019 2:40 am
Certainly there are disagreements over what is allegory, poetry, or figurative, but there are few if any biblical literalists who would claim that there is no allegory etc. in the Bible at all. I expect they do exist; humans are capable of accommodating a remarkable level of cognitive dissonance. However, it seems a foolish to claim that they aren't really biblical literalists if they make distinctions between the purported historical narrative in the Bible and the allegorical, poetic and figurative passages.

The passage from which an inaccurate result for pi can be derived appears to be neither allegorical, poetic, nor figurative though, which is indeed a problem with which biblical literalists have to contend.
That's exactly the problem with any form of literalism short of absolute literalism, though -- no one can provide an incontrovertible and incontestible way to tell the literal from the allegorical. The absolute literalists are in a weird way more intellectually honest about their book than their interpretationist brothers and sisters.

I think there are really only two consistent positions a believer can take on the bible -- that it is literal and inerrant, or that it is allegorical with some historical bits that archaeologists can confirm. Anything else is almost by definition making the bible say what one wants it to.
I find the Unitarian-Universalists have it best -- their rule is basically "one god, at the most." God can even, "himself" be allegorical or otherwise a figurative image.

There is so much in the Bible, I think, as an atheist, that is fantastic and can be very helpful as a philosophical guide. However, there is also so much nonsense and irrelevancy in there, that it really takes some solid study to work it out.

That's not a bad thing - to understand great literature takes study and work. It's not something everyone can do.

That's where I find the old Catholic Church was on to something. Don't let anyone read the fucking thing. Keep in Latin, let only the top 1% and/or the priesthood read it. The common person is just going to read whatever they want into it.

And, that, ultimately, is what happened. The common religious person thinks the Bible permits pretty much whatever they think is right, and forbids what they don't. Anything that does not computer is ignored.
“When I was in college, I took a terrorism class. ... The thing that was interesting in the class was every time the professor said ‘Al Qaeda’ his shoulders went up, But you know, it is that you don’t say ‘America’ with an intensity, you don’t say ‘England’ with the intensity. You don’t say ‘the army’ with the intensity,” she continued. “... But you say these names [Al Qaeda] because you want that word to carry weight. You want it to be something.” - Ilhan Omar

User avatar
Forty Two
Posts: 14978
Joined: Tue Jun 16, 2015 2:01 pm
About me: I am the grammar snob about whom your mother warned you.
Location: The Of Color Side of the Moon
Contact:

Re: Yet more problematic stuff

Post by Forty Two » Mon Apr 01, 2019 7:07 pm

Seabass wrote:
Mon Apr 01, 2019 6:53 pm
Forty Two wrote:
Mon Apr 01, 2019 6:29 pm
I had to google that one - I haven't seen anyone upset in the least at Jordan Peele casting black actors or not casting white actors. Other filmmakers discriminate like that - look at Spike Lee. So what? I don't think anyone has ever cared that Spike Lee's stuff focuses on black people. Did I miss something? Who is expressing outrage?

You can bet, though, that if someone said they wouldn't cast black people in roles because they want to make movies about white people, there would be an issue.
Yeah, because a director hiring more black actors and a white director refusing to hire black actors are totally the same.

No, those two things are not the same, and I never said they were.

However, a white director refusing to hire black actors, and a black actor refusing to hire white actors is totally the same.

A white director hiring more white actors, and a black director hiring more black actors - that too is the same.

But, a white director refusing to hire black actors, and black director hiring more black actors, that's definitely not the same, and neither is a black director refusing to hire white actors, and white director hiring more white actors.
“When I was in college, I took a terrorism class. ... The thing that was interesting in the class was every time the professor said ‘Al Qaeda’ his shoulders went up, But you know, it is that you don’t say ‘America’ with an intensity, you don’t say ‘England’ with the intensity. You don’t say ‘the army’ with the intensity,” she continued. “... But you say these names [Al Qaeda] because you want that word to carry weight. You want it to be something.” - Ilhan Omar

User avatar
Brian Peacock
Tipping cows since 1946
Posts: 37956
Joined: Thu Mar 05, 2009 11:44 am
About me: Ablate me:
Location: Location: Location:
Contact:

Re: Yet more problematic stuff

Post by Brian Peacock » Mon Apr 01, 2019 7:54 pm

Forty Two wrote:
Mon Apr 01, 2019 2:08 pm
Brian Peacock wrote:
Mon Apr 01, 2019 9:46 am
trdsf wrote:
Sun Mar 31, 2019 5:04 am
L'Emmerdeur wrote:
Sat Mar 30, 2019 2:40 am
Certainly there are disagreements over what is allegory, poetry, or figurative, but there are few if any biblical literalists who would claim that there is no allegory etc. in the Bible at all. I expect they do exist; humans are capable of accommodating a remarkable level of cognitive dissonance. However, it seems a foolish to claim that they aren't really biblical literalists if they make distinctions between the purported historical narrative in the Bible and the allegorical, poetic and figurative passages.

The passage from which an inaccurate result for pi can be derived appears to be neither allegorical, poetic, nor figurative though, which is indeed a problem with which biblical literalists have to contend.
That's exactly the problem with any form of literalism short of absolute literalism, though -- no one can provide an incontrovertible and incontestible way to tell the literal from the allegorical. The absolute literalists are in a weird way more intellectually honest about their book than their interpretationist brothers and sisters.

I think there are really only two consistent positions a believer can take on the bible -- that it is literal and inerrant, or that it is allegorical with some historical bits that archaeologists can confirm. Anything else is almost by definition making the bible say what one wants it to.
Again, I think we're getting bogged down in the irrelevant. It matters naught if the Bible is or s not literally true, or to what extent some people interpret some of it that way, or not, or whether the term 'literalist' is essentially descriptive or a marker of an identity etc. What matters is that fundamentalist Christians justify their ethics and actions by declaring the Bible literally true and inerrant - when it suits them - and as an appeal to authority that's pretty hard to counter because it self-authorises whatever crazy bit of flotsam drifts across the forebrain of the ardent believer: "Jesus teaches us to love thy neighbour as thyself - but we should also kill all fags and sodomites in order to save ourselves and to please the Lord!"
Exactly. They don't "literally" love their enemies, do they? Or, do they? Hard to tell. :lol:
It's not important. I take them at the their words - that they love their neighbours, but only as long as they're non-gayful Christians.
Forty Two wrote:
Mon Apr 01, 2019 2:08 pm
Ah, whatever happened to the heady days of the in depth discussions of religion, atheism, agnosticism, and the like. Somehow, every forum turned into AtheismPlus, even as atheism plus died Christ-like on the cross. Not literally, of course.
I think things like religion, atheism, and agnosticism etc are settled matters - until the next believer pops up to bring us the good news.
Rationalia relies on voluntary donations. There is no obligation of course, but if you value this place and want to see it continue please consider making a small donation towards the forum's running costs.
Details on how to do that can be found here.

.

"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
.

User avatar
Seabass
Posts: 7339
Joined: Sun Jan 30, 2011 7:32 pm
About me: Pluviophile
Location: Covidiocracy
Contact:

Re: Yet more problematic stuff

Post by Seabass » Mon Apr 01, 2019 7:59 pm

Forty Two wrote:
Mon Apr 01, 2019 6:39 pm
Imagine, preferring philosophical discussion to listening douchebags constantly find new minutia to whine on and on endlessly about -- oh, we're bored with the battle over religion! I know! I know! Caelgender people are discriminated against and "othered" because not a single astronaut has been caelgender! [cue - fingersnaps of solidarity]. [Caelgender: a gender which shares qualities with outer space or has the aesthetic of space, stars, nebulas, etc. - yes, this is literally a gender]
Seek help.
"Those who can make you believe absurdities, can make you commit atrocities." —Voltaire
"They want to take away your hamburgers. This is what Stalin dreamt about but never achieved." —Sebastian Gorka

User avatar
Seabass
Posts: 7339
Joined: Sun Jan 30, 2011 7:32 pm
About me: Pluviophile
Location: Covidiocracy
Contact:

Re: Yet more problematic stuff

Post by Seabass » Mon Apr 01, 2019 8:10 pm

Forty Two wrote:
Mon Apr 01, 2019 2:08 pm
Somehow, every forum turned into AtheismPlus
You know, it's funny that you keep saying this when you're the one who's always bringing up the SJW crap. Honestly, would anyone else on this forum ever discuss this stuff if you weren't always posting about it? I mean, you're fucking obsessed. The world is burning, and your hair is on fire over SJWs and this gender stuff.
"Those who can make you believe absurdities, can make you commit atrocities." —Voltaire
"They want to take away your hamburgers. This is what Stalin dreamt about but never achieved." —Sebastian Gorka

User avatar
Scot Dutchy
Posts: 19000
Joined: Tue Feb 23, 2010 2:07 pm
About me: Dijkbeschermer
Location: 's-Gravenhage, Nederland
Contact:

Re: Yet more problematic stuff

Post by Scot Dutchy » Mon Apr 01, 2019 9:25 pm

Just ignore the git. I do. Dont give him oxygen. Must be orders from troll central. The poor thing has to do double the work now his side kick is on holidays.
"Wat is het een gezellig boel hier".

User avatar
Joe
Posts: 4978
Joined: Tue Nov 28, 2017 1:10 am
Location: The Hovel under the Mountain
Contact:

Re: Yet more problematic stuff

Post by Joe » Tue Apr 02, 2019 1:53 am

Forty Two wrote:
Mon Apr 01, 2019 2:04 pm
Yeah, it's a little weird when I can present an argument against Christian Creationists and the religious right - an argument that has been commonly advanced against the so-called "literalists" by the "New Atheists" for the last 15 or so years - and suddenly, it's something they feel the need to try to twist so they can oppose me. It's really amazing.
Uh, sure Forty Two...

:backup:
"Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity; and I'm not sure about the universe." - Albert Einstein
"Wisdom requires a flexible mind." - Dan Carlin
"If you vote for idiots, idiots will run the country." - Dr. Kori Schake

User avatar
JimC
The sentimental bloke
Posts: 73016
Joined: Thu Feb 26, 2009 7:58 am
About me: To be serious about gin requires years of dedicated research.
Location: Melbourne, Australia
Contact:

Re: Yet more problematic stuff

Post by JimC » Tue Apr 02, 2019 2:47 am

No one is disputing that biblical literalists do not cherry pick the bits that they want to be literal about, and quietly ignore the rest. But, other than confirming their cognitive dissonance, it's an argument which takes us nowhere...
Nurse, where the fuck's my cardigan?
And my gin!

User avatar
Brian Peacock
Tipping cows since 1946
Posts: 37956
Joined: Thu Mar 05, 2009 11:44 am
About me: Ablate me:
Location: Location: Location:
Contact:

Re: Yet more problematic stuff

Post by Brian Peacock » Tue Apr 02, 2019 6:45 am

Well, to be fair, it did fill up a couple of pages. :tea:
Rationalia relies on voluntary donations. There is no obligation of course, but if you value this place and want to see it continue please consider making a small donation towards the forum's running costs.
Details on how to do that can be found here.

.

"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
.

Post Reply

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 12 guests