…the noyau, an animal society held together by mutual animosity rather than co-operation
Robert Ardrey, The Territorial Imperative.
The Skeptical Zone
"I beseech you, in the bowels of Christ, think it possible that you may be mistaken."
…the noyau, an animal society held together by mutual animosity rather than co-operation
Robert Ardrey, The Territorial Imperative.
No, it isn’t. Which is why I don’t move your posts to Guano on the grounds that they are aggressively anti-atheists.
I just wanted to point out that it’s all too easy to conjugate the verb of aggression as:
I point out the flaws in your argument
You attack me
They are are militantly aggressive.
Gregory,
“Social facts” seem to differ from objective facts quite dramatically!
I am anti-religion in the sense that I abhor the meanness and petty cruelty towards individuals that some theists justify with reference to their scriptures. I don’t hate religion, I simply find it irrational and unsupported by the evidence. I don’t get angry at people for having religious beliefs, but I do get quite cross (h/t Lizzie) when they attempt to push those beliefs on my children in public schools and on the rest of the citizenry via laws.
The only person I see demonstrating anger here at the moment is you. Why do you find the idea of others lacking belief in gods to be so infuriating?
Haha. “Marginal people.” I mean, crimity, I just had my family’s cardboard box re-laminated! Cost 18 freaking bucks, Gregory.
X>{
Gregory,
Do you have any evidence of this forum not being open to all voices? I believe the list of banned people has two names on it, one for posting NSFW images and the other for doxxing. Anyone else is welcome to participate and everyone who does participate is invited to post new topics.
Is it simply that you feel uncomfortable not being part of the majority?
I scarcely read any atheists. Or at any rate, not on atheism. Mostly I read scientific papers, these days. Or student essays. But non-fiction I’ve read recently (checking my Kindle), the last few are: Lee Spetner’s latests (“Evolution Revolution” I think it’s called); your book; No Free Lunch; Darwin’s Doubt; Gauger’ and Axe’s Science of Human Origins; Krauss’s A Universe from Nothing (hey! An atheist!); Behe’s Darwin’s Black Box; O’Leary and Beauregard’s The Spiritual Brain….
OK, looks like I’m clean.
Oh, I read William’s book too.
No, haven’t read that.
But I need dualism to believe in a dualist God. Most people don’t buy the monist one, and a monist afterlife doesn’t make sense without the resurrection of the body, and I find that proposition not credible.
I am aware of that, Gregory.
Well the thing I don’t believe in is the thing most people call God. Which is why I’m content to be labeled an atheist.
I’m not anti-theist. I’m just not convinced by the usual theist proposition. And I don’t believe the things I once believed, so I guess apostate it is.
Well, I will have to live with that I guess.
Gregory,
This is The Skeptical Zone. Why should theist beliefs not be challenged here?
This is what I want to know too.
I speculated on that in a recent comment:
It fits pretty well with observations. He is obsessed with why Lizzie left Catholicism, why KN abandoned Judaism, and why I left — and was excommunicated by — the Lutheran church. If he could prove to himself that we did so for irrational reasons, he might feel better about his own beliefs, despite being unable to defend them rationally.
Heck, I can’t even be trusted to edit the posts of other people who post in threads I start! I’d sure fail at being a full-blown moderator. Besides, I hate babysitting. And I’d for sure start a war with keiths, though that might be entertaining in itself.
I’m sorry, but that’s just lame. You take no action against aggressive anti-theism because aggressive theism isn’t against the rules?
Hey! That’s hitting a little too close to home buddy. But I do have my cat. So there.
Oh please. As if that’s what Gregory has in mind.
Gregory won’t be happy until he extracts a full confession from each and every one of us about why we’ve made the personal choices we’ve made. He’d make an excellent interrogator.
Only if he had the power to employ physical torture.
Otherwise his interrogees would simply die of ennui.
Neither aggressive anti-theism nor aggressive theism are against the rules.
Mung,
What do you think he has in mind?
At the moment, only time for a link, Lizzie:
I suppose there was a point to that. But if there was, then I didn’t get it.
Funny how Gregory always seems to have plenty of time for insults.
Huh, wonder what point Gregory takes from that video. Here’s the original version of the same song: XTC, released in England in 1986
I wasn’t listening to the radio much when that was a rock hit, but I do remember liking it as an atheist anthem. It was written as a protest against childhood indoctrination into religious beliefs (and no surprise, some radio stations in the US refused to play it because it was too “controversial” and some retailers refused to stock it.)
I had forgotten how angsty the lyrics are.
Wonder what Gregory thinks I should learn from the fact that an eight-year-old child — in the song — is smart enough to not believe the father, son, holy ghost, and bible.
Is it somehow supposed to make me reconsider my lack of belief? I, also, was smart enough as an eight-year-old child to attend church every week with my family and still not believe the crazy things the church teaches.
I’ve reconsidered hundreds of times since then, and keep coming back to the same conclusion.
I read Gregory’s posts in the voice Abe (Grandpa) Simpson in my head.
Nor me. I wondered if it was an “atheists are angry at God” thing.
Perhaps Gregory will explain when he gets back.
I suppose Gregory will never answer why this matters so much. Nor will Mung answer why it matters whether religion or religious belief is natural.
Gregory seems to be angry at so many things. IDists, Americans, atheists, to name a few.
My question remains: why the anger? What is the problem with disbelieving?
I find believers annoying only when they are trying to change textbooks or chopping off heads or oppressing women. things like that.
On the net, I am amused when flat earthers show up and declare victory for revealed Genesis chronology when some NASA guy says the surface of Pluto or its moon is young. Not more than a hundred million years old.
This is entertaining and diverting, but hardly anger inducing.
You have to decide for yourselves why something matters. You have to find a way to get beyond “this is The Skeptical Zone and nothing else matters.”
Patrick,
Mung, I don’t see why you are so quick to defend these–“So you’re teaching some classes in Farmington now, right?” behavior. It’s Gregory’s way of both sniffing around for personal info and of trying to be (at least mildly) threatening.
I used to joke about when I’d get calls from the “Police Beneficent Society” (or something like that) that the calls would go something like this:
That’s the kind of crap I’m reminded of when I read Gregory’s posts about where so-and-so lives and what he/she does. I mean, have you even read his attacks on hotshoe?
walto,
I noticed Gregory around the blogosphere around the time BioLogos first kicked off. I still have a lot of respect for many of the contributors there. Yet Gregory managed to get himself banned. He didn’t last long at Uncommon Descent either though getting banned there is a whole lot easier. So we shouldn’t take it personally when Gregory shifts into Gregory mode: that’s Gregory. I do wonder what his motive is in posting here. It can’t be to persuade, can it?
I suspect people may have guessed I am not overly enamoured of Keiths’s posting style either, which is all the more galling as I often agree with the substantive elements in his posts and comments. There is this obsessive desire to be right on any issue that I find disconcerting.
Are there similarities in motivation here with Gregory and Keith?
Am I turning into a grumpy old man? Certainly the unremitting hot dry weather over the last two months has been a challenge to my good humour. The good news is there has been a cloudburst and temperatures have plummeted to below 30°C (that’s 86°F) so I’m going to find some children to play with and see how that turns out.
It’s not about deciding, it’s about saying why. As you saw when you read the words you responded to.
I do not care about your real life preferences. I am asking why, in the context of your post, it matters. My implied stance is that the naturalness of an idea is unrelated to its quality or truthiness. Superstitions are natural. xenophobia is natural.
As are malaria and cancer.
I have to say, Gregory, you don’t seem happy to me at all. The happy people I know aren’t crabby, angry, humorless, whiny, bullying, and miserable–every minute of every day.
I don’t want to alarm you, but if you are the poster child for theism, your gang is in a heap of trouble.
I’m guessing you already know that if current trends continue, theists will be in the minority in USAmerica by 2050. Don’t get too down about that, though: you’ll probably still have Syria on your side, even then. (I’ll be dead by 2050, so it won’t matter to me one way or the other.)
walto, I think Gregory’s point is that you’re dead now.
Ouchie. That’s like so mean, though, no?
🙁
But anyhow, me and my bro Mung know that’s not true!
🙂
I mean…right?
🙁
FWIW, I don’t really see that. I mean, Gregory doesn’t even ever post anything of substance that one might agree or disagree with. It’s just fly-by insults, self-puffing, and “my religion’s better than your (non)religion, so haha on you” stuff. There’s no THERE there.
keiths is just a bulldog. Which reminds me. I had a friend with an English bulldog once. You know how they won’t ever let go of anything–doesn’t matter what it is? And they have jaws of absolute iron? Well, this guy’s dog would hang from an old tire swing, and you could push him so hard on the swing that he’d go all the way around and still not let go. He’d hang there pretty much indefinitely–especially if he thought somebody was trying to pull him off. The owner thought it would be fun to get a local access tv talk show and always have two or three bulldogs hanging from tire swings on the set. That’s the English Bulldog’s conception of skepticism.
And that’s a problem because why?
Because people act on what they think OUGHT to be the case.
Gregory sez
And when your only demonstration of “inspiration” and “hope” is you throwing stones at us, what does that say about you, Gregory?
Are you sure you’re not a tool of Satan to drive people ever further from religion because of your miserable behavior?
That would be quite clever of the Dark Lord. Religious proselytizers driving souls away from god for two millennia and counting.
Yeah, I get that part. What I don’t get is why you might object to people acting on that sense of “ought”. What skin off your nose is it?
If you don’t like the newly-evolving moral code, don’t stick around. Or, stick around and complain. Or, stick around and don’t complain.
It’s all the same to me. I’ll reply if I feel like it and I won’t if I don’t. I’m adaptable. If there’s a dedicated slagging-match thread, I’ll learn to make use of it. If there’s not, I’ll make do somehow else.
What’s the problem? You can learn to adapt, too. 🙂
I think Mung dislikes the idea of a thread in which he can’t just dish it out — he has to take it, too.
Alan:
Alan,
I think you genuinely believe that, but have you ever paused and asked yourself whether it’s actually true? Your judgment is often quite poor, and this is no exception.
When I make mistakes, I readily admit them. They’re my reponsibility, after all. You, on the other hand, have fought literally for weeks, bringing up the subject repeatedly, in order to deny an obvious mistake of yours.
I’m happy to examine the evidence with you, if you’re (foolishly) willing.
But be careful — you looked ridiculous and dishonest accusing me of quotemining today, and you’ll look ridiculous when we examine the evidence and see that it is you — not me — who fights to avoid admitting his mistakes.
How about it? Shall we examine the evidence, or have you thought better of it?
That’s just hilariously wrong. And so anti-keiths.
When have I ever complained to the admins here about Gregory’s comments when they were directed at me? When have I ever asked that his comments be moved to Guano (or Noyau)? In fact, I asked that his comments be restored.
I honestly don’t much see any point in mudslinging. But that doesn’t mean I could not hold my own with any of you lightweights.
[Redacted]
My advice is to stop allowing yourselves to be passive participants in Gregory’s research.
No one disputes that you actually believe this. What is in dispute is whether you actually make mistakes. The general consensus seems to be that you are perfect.
Mung,
Oh, I definitely make mistakes. And when I see that I’ve made a mistake, I admit it.
I know that many people are afraid of admitting mistakes, but I wish they’d give it a try. It isn’t nearly as bad as they fear.
Thanks for saying this. But you’re merely stating what is obvious to everyone else here at TSZ and to those at UD. People here want evidence. This is, after all, The Empirical Zone.
No one disputes that you actually believe this. What is in dispute is whether you actually “see” that you’ve made a mistake. The general consensus seems to be that you don’t.
Also in dispute is whether you actually admit you’ve made a mistake. The general consensus seems to be that you are incapable of doing so.
But I thought this was supposed to be all about me not being able to take it.
Fire away “I definitely make mistakes” boy.
Whether you have an obsessive desire to be right on any issue? I do genuinely think that, yes.
I’ll try to do better. 🙂
Three points:
1: I can recall recently making a silly mistake over gravity and having to correct it and apologise when the error was pointed out. So I have evidence of my readily admitting a mistake.
2. I can’t offhand recall noticing you admitting a mistake, though that of course may be because you have never made one in these threads. However recently you accused Neil of blocking your IP and after I pointed out it would have been impossible for Neil to have done such a thing even had he felt inclined you still have not said sorry to Neil.
3. I guess you are alluding to the time you accused me of making a mistake regarding inheritance and the germ-line in eusocial hymenopterans. I did indeed keep requesting you for your explanation of what this mistake actually was, in your opinion. I’m still waiting. Please feel free to revisit the issue.
Hey wait, mung and Alan! Isn’t being quick to SAY you’re quick to admit it when you make a mistake just as good as BEING quick to SAY that you’ve made a mistake when somebody points out that you have made one?
I mean, it must be ALMOST as good. And I’m thinking that when it’s done in the middle of insulting someone it’s actually better!
walto,
I must admit, on reading this from Keiths:
thinking that it would have been better rendered in the subjunctive:
Were I to make a mistake, I would readily admit it.
Alan,
Will you ever learn to stop shooting yourself in the foot?
You write:
You’re overlooking another obvious possibility — that you’ve screwed up again.
July 20th:
Lizzie:
keiths:
walto:
keiths:
You’ve already falsely accused me of quotemining, and now you’ve falsely accused me of refusing to admit my mistakes.
Your behavior is clearly a problem. But that wasn’t what you were trying to demonstrate, was it?
Marital argument we used to have:
Me: You never admit you are wrong!
Mr.Lizzie: I do when I am.
We should all try to do better, where better is defined as “be more like keiths.”
Wouldn’t it just be the ultimate irony if at a site called “The Skeptical Zone” no one was ever wrong? Everyone a dogmatist!
Mung,
Of course not. Suppose a brick lands on my head tomorrow and I start making false accusations, like Alan. In that case “better” would certainly not mean “more like keiths”.