Originally Posted by The Grey Badger

I've read Dawkins. I'll bet if you asked him to describe the God he so shrilly and defiantly does not believe in, dollars to donuts (an equal trade these days) you'd get the fundamentaliost Sunday school version right down to the long white beard and thunderbolts.

That's because The Big Sky Daddy is what the vast, vast, vast majority of religious people believe in, regardless of the rarefied ideas of theologians.

Originally Posted by The Grey Badger

I've read Dawkins. I'll bet if you asked him to describe the God he so shrilly and defiantly does not believe in, dollars to donuts (an equal trade these days) you'd get the fundamentalist Sunday school version right down to the long white beard and thunderbolts.

Oh, right, he's an atheist too.

I was talking about his writings on the explanatory power and value of evolutionary theory. Which after all is his actual area of expertise, and which his earlier work was about...remember when all he was famous for was The Selfish Gene? Inventing the idea of the meme?

But I'll go along with the derail, why not?

I really like and admire you, Pat, but...you obviously haven't read *much* of Dawkins, because if you had, you'd know that he's openly said that:

1. His main focus is on Christianity, since he lives in a Christian society; and on "the sort that the average Christian believes in," because, well, because it's what the average Christian believes in -- it's the most common. Not as extreme as fundamentalism, but basic, simple, "God is a literal dude in the sky" Christianity;

2. And also because he considers more extreme literalist Christianity the most harmful form -- here he's given the example of a guy he knew (he named the guy, who is apparently a public figure, but I forget the name) who had the potential to be a brilliant scientist, but who had been raised a fundamentalist Christian, and who decided he had to choose between his career and his faith and his faith won;

3. Dawkins got into atheism advocacy after dealing with assaults on evolution by creationists.

So we have here a normal, ordinary, everyday scientist who happens to be an atheist, who has to deal with more and more assaults on his profession from uneducated fools who say they believe this because they're "Christians"...I'm not surprised he decided there needed to be an atheism advocate out there. And I agree, there does; so I'm glad he's out there. I don't find his views shrill.

I have no interest in being an atheism advocate myself. Let's derail even further:

My Catholic grandma tried to get us kids interested in religion, and I spent a few years as a kid reading and thinking about the Christian Bible. I ultimately concluded that if you took the Bible seriously, and tried to reconcile all its parts, the only way you could do so was...what I eventually learned was five-point Calvinism. So I was a serious Calvinist for a short while, but ultimately concluded that five-point Calvinism went against my conscience. Having given up on Christianity, for a couple years I didn't feel a need for religion in my life.

Later I became interested in European paganism and Wicca for a while, but well, I had trouble with the "actual belief in actual spirituality" part. While being physically abused (I was still a kid at this point), I even had a Spiritual Experience where I was suddenly filled with the strength to endure and even to say, "Bless you," to my abuser...but in the end, I'm sorry but it just seemed more likely that I was using a normal-to-humans method of accessing one's own inner strength, rather than actually communing with The Universe / a Spiritual Being. I still observe a few extremely simplified rituals for the "marking the changing seasons" part, which I enjoy. (I'm a blasphemer, I know. Um...sorry?)

I mention the "extremely simplified" aspect because well...when I was the most serious about it, and visited my parents and they asked to watch "to see what it was like"...

They kept interrupting my ritual and when I finally snapped at them, they HADN'T EVEN REALIZED THE RITUAL HAD STARTED! That's how low-key I was and am. My dad with his Catholic background had no idea you could consider yourself "in the middle of a ritual" just by chatting in a normal voice about how "this is the shortest day of the year, after this we'll see the sun more and more," yatata.

So that's where I'm coming from. It's cool you're an um real (as opposed to "consciously using it for fun like me" -- again, sorry) Wiccan, but really, Dawkins shrill? Calling Dawkins shrill makes you seem, well, huffy. What have you got to prove? He has his beliefs, you have yours, what's the problem?

But hey. In the end, I have the beliefs I was raised with, just like most people. You OTOH probably weren't raised Wiccan. I admire your ability to depart from the beliefs you were raised with. That must have taken strength.

Originally Posted by Dedalus

May 2003? Who lasted that long? I don't remember ever trusting the government. My first vague political memories are of Nixon, so I don't think I ever believed that government could solve our problems. This is why I am continually astonished at the faith that some here seem to have that the government can actually solve a problem. And most of them are left leaning boomers, who, I thought, had learned something in the Sixties about trusting the government.

With Reagan and Iran Contra, okay, of course you assumed presidents lied about selling weapons to country X. With Clinton, of course you assumed that they lied about their sex lives (who doesn't?). But the Iraq invasion was the geopolitical equivalent of Fonzie on his water skis, jumping over the shark. Of course, they were always liars, but when it came to conflicts, they did a good job of finding a Gulf of Tonkin-like incident to whip up public support. Iraq happened right after 9/11, and it was crafted seemingly out of thin air. Some kind of logic like, Saddam might have weapons of mass destruction that he might give to Al-Qaeda so that they might attack us. Or, it's World War III and so we need to reenact the occupation of Japan on Iraqi soil. Or, we need to finish the job from 1991 just because. Or, we need to build a Potemkin democracy in the Middle East so that all countries can see Iraq as a shining example of US-backed parliamentary democracy. Anyway, we needed to occupy a country of 34 million people, 6,200 miles away, while we occupied another country 6,900 miles away. It's like a bad dream. I still don't believe it happened. And Americans enthusiastically lapped it up. But get this, in May 2003, 60 percent of Americans supported the war. In May 2005, 60 percent of Americans said that it wasn't justified. Americans are an interesting lot. they overwhelmingly elected Obama president, and then they elected a Republican congress, of which only 12 percent have a favorable opinion at this time. What's it going to be, guys? The Audacity of Hope or the Tea Party? Make up your minds!

I loved the reported dialogue between Sarkozy and Putin during the Russian-Georgian War in 2008. Putin supposedly wanted to hang Saakashvili "by his balls" -- and justified it by saying, "look what Bush did to Saddam Hussein." And Sarkozy responded, "But do you want to wind up like Bush?" Putin grumbled, "Okay, maybe you have a point." And Saakashvili kept his balls.

Originally Posted by The Rani

Most evolutionary lines are dead-ends i.e. no survivors.

So?

I don't agree with this at all, at least when it comes to physicians.
Our basic science classes are taught by researchers.

The young MDs I tend to meet seem mostly to have been taught by mathematically defined "best practices," IOW How To Diagnose Like A Computer "researchers." That's not science, that's laziness. I could go off on a rant about how medicine is losing its old knowledge about human variety and the concept of "normal for this person" as opposed to "within statistically defined normal limits"...but this is enough. Anyway, that's only my outsider's impression.

So I'll consider your info a hopeful sign.

Originally Posted by Odin

Ha, you and me are on the same boat!

I'd love to be in the same boat with you, Odin, but dude a while back you called Joe Bageant's friend "the freak college professor Ward Churchill," and do you know who I envisioned talking? A McCarthyite referring to "the Communist college professor [name]." Or a Nazi referring to "the Jew college professor [name]." It had exactly the same tone, and it freaked me the fuck out.

So you see? I'm a freak too!

Seriously -- as a college professor, I'm sensitive to that sort of thing. Do not join a torch- and pitchfork-wielding mob and come after the evil intellectuals. Please?

Originally Posted by Ted '79

I'd love to be in the same boat with you, Odin, but dude a while back you called Joe Bageant's friend "the freak college professor Ward Churchill," and do you know who I envisioned talking? A McCarthyite referring to "the Communist college professor [name]." Or a Nazi referring to "the Jew college professor [name]." It had exactly the same tone, and it freaked me the fuck out.

So you see? I'm a freak too!

Seriously -- as a college professor, I'm sensitive to that sort of thing. Do not join a torch- and pitchfork-wielding mob and come after the evil intellectuals. Please?

I was offended by Churchill's calling the victims of 9/11 "Little Eichmanns". Even if it might have a ring of truth to it, it is the kind of offensive thing you just don't don't say, you just don't. most of those folks were number-crunchers and bean counters that didn't really pay attention to how the higher ups were being exploitative.

Originally Posted by The Rani

So you do or don't think that it's a valid analogy?
I thought the part about "evolved humans" being similar to "saved humans" was right on.

Except for that critical part -- 'saved' implies both exceptionalism and some force exterior to the rules of reality. 'Evolution' is a real, observable phenomenon that not only fits within the universe, but is a necessary part of the way reality works. They're not merely not-analogous -- they're diametrically-opposed. So no. It's a totally invalid analogy.

Consider:

The common thread between the two is a belief that a select group of "people" will persist and the rest are doomed or damned, in other words, not fit to survive.

See how her (?) analogy requires an agency above reality, sorting out the 'fit' from the 'unfit'? That is, she imagines 'selection' as the critical process taking place.

The simple reality is that homo sapiens is not demonstrably capable of surviving beyond the death of its star (the eventual happening of which is, I hope you will agree with me, fairly close to a given -- there are likely other, more proximate concerns, but that's in my mind the least questionable). Sometime between now and then, whatever people 'we' are is going to have changed, or else whatever people 'we' are then will simply not be any more. No 'selection' will, or need take place.

In fact, the very 'environmental' argument is that selection -- in the sense of winnowing down the various manifestations to find a 'best' one -- is the wrong thing to do (at least, if one hopes as I do that whatever people we are manage to go on forever). What works in organic systems is multitudes of options, acting all along multitudes of lines. That's like the opposite of both religion and the kind of eugenicism that she seems to imagine seeing in what we are saying.

Originally Posted by Justin '77

Except for that critical part -- 'saved' implies both exceptionalism and some force exterior to the rules of reality. 'Evolution' is a real, observable phenomenon that not only fits within the universe, but is a necessary part of the way reality works. They're not merely not-analogous -- they're diametrically-opposed. So no. It's a totally invalid analogy.

Like I said, he didn't get it, The Rani.

Oh well. Long live the culture wars!

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Originally Posted by The Rani

I do think there's a survivalist mentality out there where some people feel like if they have enough guns and food they will be "saved."

Eventually any survivalist group runs out of food and ammunition, much as did the last bands of Polish soldiers in the Polish campaign of 1939. Courage and conviction are not enough. Even stored food eventually rots.

Long-term survival depends upon the productive abilities of able-bodied people not tied directly to the 'survival' effort. A year's supply of edibles and water might be enough to get people through one year of a volcanic winter at the end of which the survivors can restart agriculture and repopulate the world. Might there be fair warning of what could be the greatest calamity possible short of the annihilation of the planet?

The best way to save oneself is to preserve human dignity in general.

Originally Posted by James50

It is always tempting to ask an atheist - tell me about that God you don't believe in. Usually, a believer can agree.

James50

I ran across a quote from the last saeculum that was so much to the point I copied it into my journal.

"When a Materialist or a Darwinian speaks of a 'Nature' that orders everything, that effects selections, that produces and destroys anything, he differs only to the extent of one word from the 18th-Century Deist." Oswald Spengler.

Originally Posted by The Grey Badger

I ran across a quote from the last saeculum that was so much to the point I copied it into my journal.

"When a Materialist or a Darwinian speaks of a 'Nature' that orders everything, that effects selections, that produces and destroys anything, he differs only to the extent of one word from the 18th-Century Deist." Oswald Spengler.

Guilty as charged...

Originally Posted by The Rani

I do think there's a survivalist mentality out there where some people feel like if they have enough guns and food they will be "saved."

Hmmm... me, I'm going to hole up in the city and band together with my friends and neighbors and family and offer to do what I can, in like circumstances.

Then when things get organized and the survivalists are out of food and come raiding, we'll be ready for them.

However, they are right about having a bolt-hole out of the way of fire, flood, hurricane, earthquake, or enemy action. Just as long as you don't make a way of life out of it.

Originally Posted by pbrower2a

Eventually any survivalist group runs out of food and ammunition, much as did the last bands of Polish soldiers in the Polish campaign of 1939. Courage and conviction are not enough. Even stored food eventually rots.

Long-term survival depends upon the productive abilities of able-bodied people not tied directly to the 'survival' effort. A year's supply of edibles and water might be enough to get people through one year of a volcanic winter at the end of which the survivors can restart agriculture and repopulate the world. Might there be fair warning of what could be the greatest calamity possible short of the annihilation of the planet?

The best way to save oneself is to preserve human dignity in general.

What he said.

James50

Originally Posted by Copperfield

Everything can be broken down mathematically (including human behavior) Eric because everything is mathematical. There is a mathematical equation that perfectly defines the tree in your back yard and even one that defines your behavior, your family's behavior, your neighbor's behavior, your car, your street, the earth, the solar system, galaxy and the universe from super-massive black holes to the atoms in your body. The shortcoming we have generating answers for these equations is not found within the model but within the process.

I've only gotten through Differential Equations in math, so I don't claim that I know everything mathematical.

However, this notion that "everything" is mathematical is about the same as claiming that everthing is as it is, because God made it that way. The difficulty with trying to transcribe math onto real world systems is that many events are probablistic.

This means that if you could start any of our history over again at a particular place and replay it, it would come out different every time. Sure, each time we play it, it might obey the general principles of the math model, but the results can be different.

How many complex math models have different solutions? qed.

Originally Posted by The Rani

I do think there's a survivalist mentality out there where some people feel like if they have enough guns and food they will be "saved."

That's entirely likely. And wholly irrelevant to the pov I'm trying (Copperhead started it, but he's obviously got better uses for his time than I do these days...) to get across.

Quote, "Everyone Thinks Ron Paul is Right

Former CIA specialist and contributor to The American Conservative Philip Giraldi had some interesting insights today into just how much headway Ron Paul and his message is making with a broad spectrum of Americans:
"I had two interesting experiences over the weekend, totally unrelated to the non-event of Hurricane Irene, which only dropped an inch of rain on northern Virginia. On Friday I went to dinner with a mixed group consisting of the women who are in my wife’s quilting group together with their husbands. All of the men were in their late fifties-early sixties and everyone but me and my wife was an evangelical Christian… Two of the men have been prominent in local Democratic Party circles and the remainder vote Republican. All agreed, to my surprise, that the US economy is broken and that it is the result of the wars and globalism that have marched together hand in hand over the past ten years. They also all agreed, even when they do not support specific policies, that Ron Paul is the only honest man running for the presidency. Which is not to say they all would vote for him, but the approval rating was 100%."

Mr. Giraldi then moves on to day two of his weekend:

"On Saturday we had a reunion lunch with the CIA Rome Station class of 1980. The last time the whole group was together was shortly before the 2008 election, when everyone but me and my wife indicated that they would be voting for McCain-Palin. This time around it was different… I was kidded about my Ron Paul bumper sticker but everyone was quick to add seriously that Paul was the only honest man running, that he had predicted the economic collapse, and that his message has been consistent. They even agreed emphatically when I quoted Paul’s pledge to bring the troops home from overseas on the day after he is elected. This is coming from Cold Warriors, mind you, men and women who spent careers doing without question whatever their government asked them to do. Again, no one said they would vote for Ron Paul but nor did anyone say they would not."

Giraldi concludes:

"Which is all to suggest that maybe something is actually going on in the body politic, that people are willing to listen to Ron Paul even though four years ago they would have thought such an idea ridiculous. And he has a passionate base of supporters. Do you remember the scene in the Godfather where Michael Corleone (Al Pacino) sees a Cuban rebel die for his cause and realizes that the insurgents just might win? Recent opinion polls seem to be saying the same thing. Whether or not Dr. Paul can actually win the presidency, his ideas about the state of the US economy and Washington’s catastrophic foreign policy have reached the mainstream and are resonating."

http://www.ronpaul2012.com/2011/08/29/everyone-thinks-ron-paul-is-right/

Originally Posted by TnT

I've only gotten through Differential Equations in math, so I don't claim that I know everything mathematical.

However, this notion that "everything" is mathematical is about the same as claiming that everthing is as it is, because God made it that way. The difficulty with trying to transcribe math onto real world systems is that many events are probablistic.

This means that if you could start any of our history over again at a particular place and replay it, it would come out different every time. Sure, each time we play it, it might obey the general principles of the math model, but the results can be different.

How many complex math models have different solutions? qed.

Even if everything were mathematical, it doesn't get you very far. One impediment is Godel's proof which says a mathematical system can either be complete or consistent, but not both.For any mathematical system, there will always be statements that are true, but that are unprovable within the system.

James50

Originally Posted by Justin '77

Originally Posted by The Rani

I do think there's a survivalist mentality out there where some people feel like if they have enough guns and food they will be "saved."

That's entirely likely. And wholly irrelevant to the pov I'm trying (Copperhead started it, but he's obviously got better uses for his time than I do these days...) to get across.

Who the hell cares what POV you were trying to get across. Because it is entirely possible for more than one legitimate view to exist at the same time. Point is you said that the analogy was invalid. And now you are saying under some conditions it's "likely". Good grief. Why did you begin writing to me in the first place with this silliness? Nevermind.

Originally Posted by The Rani

What's more entertaining is the way you quote my posts when you know he's trying to ignore me.
Perhaps you do it on purpose, for added entertainment value?

Whether he's ignoring you or not is irrelevant. I generally prefer to quote people when I'm responding to something specific they've said.

Originally Posted by Ted '79

1. His main focus is on Christianity, since he lives in a Christian society; and on "the sort that the average Christian believes in," because, well, because it's what the average Christian believes in -- it's the most common. Not as extreme as fundamentalism, but basic, simple, "God is a literal dude in the sky" Christianity;

That's not what I believe.

The problem that I have with most atheists is that they assume that most, if not all, Christians, are fundamentalists, or just a step away from them. I am a panentheistic Christian who does not believe that God is a "literal dude in the sky" but rather the Source and Ground of all Being.

That's why Dawkins (and Sam Harris as well) can come across as shrill at times.

Originally Posted by summer in the fall

Who the hell cares what POV you were trying to get across. Because it is entirely possible for more than one legitimate view to exist at the same time.

Umm... this started out with someone asking for an explanation of what a particular point of view was. So the whole discussion exists for the pure fact that the parties involved care what pov was trying to be communicated.

So. Um...

Are you a troll, then? I'm confused.

Point is you said that the analogy was invalid. And now you are saying under some conditions it's "likely".

Um. What is 'likely' is Rani's contention that "there's a survivalist mentality out there where some people feel like if they have enough guns and food they will be "saved."". I quoted it, you quoted it. I'm pretty sure there's no ambiguity there.

What is invalid is your attempt to claim that the statement, "this, too, will pass" applies to homo sapiens as well as, and in much the exact same way as, everything else in reality, is somehow analogous to exceptionalism, religion, or whatever-the-fuck you managed to imagine tying-in to eugenicism.

In simpler terms, Rani made a true statement. But much as if I were to observe, in response to an argument about the causes underlying the Boxer Rebellion, that an atmosphere in which CO2 was the dominant gas would have a sky that looks white to our eyeballs... so what? It's a true statement which has no bearing on the totally false analogy you are trying to draw, nor any real bearing on the point being discussed*.

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*NTTIAWWT, of course. This is the Inter Nets, and unrelated tangents are a prime goodness here.

Originally Posted by The Rani

Originally Posted by Justin '77

Our hope is that the people who result in part from what we are and what we do are sufficiently more long-term viable than we humans are at the moment.

Here's where I think it went wrong.
Extinction means the entire species, so these theoretical people won't exist.

Yes, but I'm assuming he saying this is a different species. See how he uses homo sap to here:

Originally Posted by Justin '77

Which is necessarily and obviously true. Homo sap isn't an organism that has much long-term viability (when we talk about the cosmological long-term). So it's going to go extinct just like every other type of living thing.

And my point was that because we don't have any advanced hominoids walking around beyond what we call "people" Homo sap and these theoretical people are necessarily the same thing in our imaginations and are as fantastical as any rapture depiction.

Originally Posted by The Rani

Here's where I think it went wrong.
Extinction means the entire species, so these theoretical people won't exist.

That's only the case if you limit the set 'people' to just our one type of organism.

Given the fact that there are examples of our organism who are indisputably not 'people' (the irreversably comatose and fetuses would be a couple of points along that spectrum), and the fact that we can at least coherently imagine 'people' who are not of our type of organism... I see a pretty strong argument that whatever constitutes 'person' is in fact not limited to only whatever constitutes 'homo sapiens' (or even 'the homo genus, if you want to be charitable to erectus and neandertalus).

So given the necessary fact that the one species homo sap will eventually go extinct, that hardly means that people would be gone along with them.

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In fact, who's to say it need be a hominid at all? I mean, if people are going to be that can survive the death of their star and system, the hominid template might not be flexible or rugged enough for them. I certainly don't know and have vanishingly little opinion on the question, except that I certainly hope that someone is around to persist. I'm a person myself, and therefore biased in favor of us being around for as much as possible. I imagine things are more fun with people around than without, and relatively-more-fun makes me happy.

Originally Posted by Justin '77

What is invalid is your attempt to claim that the statement, "this, too, will pass" applies to homo sapiens as well as, and in much the exact same way as, everything else in reality, is somehow analogous to exceptionalism, religion, or whatever-the-fuck you managed to imagine tying-in to eugenicism.

Originally Posted by Justin '77

In fact, who's to say it need be a hominid at all? I mean, if people are going to be that can survive the death of their star and system, the hominid template might not be flexible or rugged enough for them. I certainly don't know and have vanishingly little opinion on the question, except that I certainly hope that someone is around to persist. I'm a person myself, and therefore biased in favor of us being around for as much as possible. I imagine things are more fun with people around than without, and relatively-more-fun makes me happy.

Whatever. You want to talk like a religionist, but claim a monopoly on reality which is just another way of saying you want to impose your sick version of reality on everybody else.

Look out the window, Justin. Is the sky falling? Have we gone 10 days and nights without sun? So why the hell are you talking like it's the apocalypse?