'Splain this one Atheists...

[Seth]

If it is your job to point out to others when they are not acting rationally even though they think they are
then unless you have perfect reasoning capability yourself [ which you do not as no one does ] you can be
guilty of the exact same thing.

Of course.

Logically therefore it is the job of others to point out to you when you are
not acting rationally also.

Indeed. And I welcome such argumentation, although I rarely experience quality argumentation of this sort here or in other Atheist fora. It does happen though, from time to time. This thread of late has potential for example.

If you refuse to acknowledge this either in principle or in practice you will have
invalidated your own argument. For you cannot expect of others what you do not equally apply to yourself

Absolutely true. If you believe that I am committing a rational or logical error I welcome your careful and scholarly analysis and refutation, to which I will respond appropriately.

[rainbow]

If it is your job to point out to others when they are not thinking rationally even though they think that they
are then less you have perfect reasoning capability yourself [ which you do not for no one does ] you can be
guilty of the exact same thing. So logically therefore it is the job of others to point out to you when you are
not thinking rationally too. If you refuse to acknowledge this either in principle or in practice you shall have
invalidated your own argument. Since you cannot expect of others what you do not equally apply to yourself

There is no logical reason to believe that there is any advantage to thinking rationally.

[Svartalf]

May the FSM keep nudging us with Its noodly appendages

[rainbow]

May the FSM keep nudging us with Its noodly appendages

Good point.

I have a question:
Is cheese a Necessary Condition?

If so, for what?

[Svartalf]

Sorry, I can't answer that, I'm neither a philosopher, mathematician/logician, nor a pastafariologist

[JimC]

This world will have no peace until the last king is strangled by the bowels of the last priest.

[Seth]

If it is your job to point out to others when they are not thinking rationally even though they think that they
are then less you have perfect reasoning capability yourself [ which you do not for no one does ] you can be
guilty of the exact same thing. So logically therefore it is the job of others to point out to you when you are
not thinking rationally too. If you refuse to acknowledge this either in principle or in practice you shall have
invalidated your own argument. Since you cannot expect of others what you do not equally apply to yourself

There is no logical reason to believe that there is any advantage to thinking rationally.

It is a matter of choice, isn't it? Your choice to think rationally or not is of exactly the same moral, ethical and intellectual value as the choice of the theist to think rationally or not.

One of the things I've never heard Dawkins explain is why his claim that rational thought is better than irrational thought. In his irrational diatribes against religion he asserts without support or evidence that rejecting religion is the "rational" thing to do, but he fails to explain how or why doing so is actually better for people than holding those religious beliefs.

He seems to think, incorrectly, that's it's a priori better to be rational. Which is what, I think, makes him such a disagreeable and these days largely ignored public figure.

Sometimes ignorance is indeed bliss.

[Seth]

This world will have no peace until the last king is strangled by the bowels of the last priest.

This world will have less than no peace when and if that happens, as Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot and Kim Jong whatever prove conclusively.

Despite some blips, people get along better with religion in the mix. That much is a historical fact.

[Hermit]

This world will have no peace until the last king is strangled by the bowels of the last priest.

Despite some blips, people get along better with religion in the mix. That much is a historical fact.

I don't think the crusades, the thirty year war, the inquisition, the partition of India and ISIS, to mention a few historical facts, are mere blips. As for the numbers killed, just you wait for the time Islamic terrorists get their hands on nuclear, biological and chemical weapons of mass destruction, and the means to deliver them.

[Seth]

This world will have no peace until the last king is strangled by the bowels of the last priest.

Despite some blips, people get along better with religion in the mix. That much is a historical fact.

I don't think the crusades, the thirty year war, the inquisition, the partition of India and ISIS, to mention a few historical facts, are mere blips. As for the numbers killed, just you wait for the time Islamic terrorists get their hands on nuclear, biological and chemical weapons of mass destruction, and the means to deliver them.

If you compare all the deaths that were the direct result of religious wars with all the deaths that were the result of atheistic wars you'll find that atheistic wars have taken many times the number of lives that religious wars have. During the whole of the Spanish Inquisition, a favorite Wayback Machine Fallacy citation, only some 30 to 40 thousand people were killed, whereas Stalin alone killed 40 MILLION people and Mao 60 MILLION.

While it is true that some religions are evil and cause great harm, most religions are binding and civilizing forces which, over the centuries, have done more good than harm, and in fact still do so on a regular basis today.

Religion still exists for the Darwinian reason that it is useful to the human species and helps it to survive, which is why it persists.

[rainbow]

He seems to think, incorrectly, that's it's a priori better to be rational. Which is what, I think, makes him such a disagreeable and these days largely ignored public figure.

Wrong. He is disagreeable since he acts like a dork.

...and he has very little to say, so he keeps on repeating himself.

[JimC]

Seth wrote:

If you compare all the deaths that were the direct result of religious wars with all the deaths that were the result of atheistic wars you'll find that atheistic wars have taken many times the number of lives that religious wars have.

What utter crap. There were simply no wars where the dominant motivation was atheist, in some sort of crusade against the religious. The atheism of leaders such as Stalin was incidental to their ideology and hunger for power, whereas it is abundantly clear that a huge number of violent conflicts over the ages, continuing today, were motivated largely by hatred inspired by religion.

[Seth]

Seth wrote:

If you compare all the deaths that were the direct result of religious wars with all the deaths that were the result of atheistic wars you'll find that atheistic wars have taken many times the number of lives that religious wars have.

What utter crap.

Not really.

There were simply no wars where the dominant motivation was atheist, in some sort of crusade against the religious. The atheism of leaders such as Stalin was incidental to their ideology and hunger for power, whereas it is abundantly clear that a huge number of violent conflicts over the ages, continuing today, were motivated largely by hatred inspired by religion.

Complete nonsense.

The abolition of religion as the illusory happiness of the people is the demand for their real happiness. To call on them to give up their illusions about their condition is to call on them to give up a condition that requires illusions. The criticism of religion is, therefore, in embryo, the criticism of that vale of tears of which religion is the halo. Karl Marx Critique of Hegel's Philosophy of Right

{Stalin} officially adopted the Russian Communist Party’s stance on religion, claiming atheism and continuing the tradition of teaching atheism in schools and propagating the idea that religion was only damaging to a perfect communist society. Stalin even took it further than his predecessor, Lenin, and initiated a nationwide campaign to destroy churches and religious property and even persecute and kill church officials.3 It is said that under Stalin, the Russian Orthodox Church went from 50,000 to 500 open and operating churches. Source

The USSR anti-religious campaign of 1928–1941 was a new phase of anti-religious persecution in the Soviet Union following the anti-religious campaign of 1921–1928. The campaign began in 1929, with the drafting of new legislation that severely prohibited religious activities and called for a heightened attack on religion in order to further disseminate atheism. This had been preceded in 1928 at the fifteenth party congress, where Joseph Stalin criticized the party for failure to produce more active and persuasive anti-religious propaganda. This new phase coincided with the beginning of the forced mass collectivization of agriculture and the nationalization of the few remaining private enterprises.

Many of those who had been arrested in the 1920s would continue to remain in prison throughout the 1930s and beyond.

The main target of the anti-religious campaign in the 1920s and 1930s was the Russian Orthodox Church, which had the largest number of faithful. Nearly all of its clergy, and many of its believers, were shot or sent to labour camps. Theological schools were closed, and church publications were prohibited.[1] More than 85,000 Orthodox priests were shot in 1937 alone.[2] Only a twelfth of the Russian Orthodox Church's priests were left functioning in their parishes by 1941.[3]

In the period between 1927 and 1940, the number of Orthodox Churches in the Russian Republic fell from 29,584 to less than 500. Source

Don't be an ignoramus, study history.

[Hermit]

Despite some blips, people get along better with religion in the mix. That much is a historical fact.

I don't think the crusades, the thirty year war, the inquisition, the partition of India and ISIS, to mention a few historical facts, are mere blips. As for the numbers killed, just you wait for the time Islamic terrorists get their hands on nuclear, biological and chemical weapons of mass destruction, and the means to deliver them.

If you compare all the deaths that were the direct result of religious wars with all the deaths that were the result of atheistic wars you'll find that atheistic wars have taken many times the number of lives that religious wars have.

Read up. The reason there were fewer people killed during religious conflicts is that the protagonists did not have the equipment to effect slaughter of humans on the massive scale that we have now.

[surreptitious57]

If you compare all the deaths that were the direct result of religious wars with all the deaths that were the result of atheistic wars

No one has ever died in an atheistic war because there has never been such a thing in the entire history of human civilisation
And so contrary to what you may think non religious wars are not wars fought by atheists trying to impose it upon others who
are not. But history is littered with examples of theists trying to impose their particular belief upon others. This includes not
only atheists but other theists also even ones of the same religion. It is happening to day with absolutely no end in sight to it