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I guess we are too much at loggerheads to find an agreement despite our best efforts. The bold kind of belies your denials of identifying religion as the culprit instead of our human nature. Your assertions about the scientific method and the reality of the science venue as impacted by that same human nature (particularly access to peer-reviewed publications) are on the naive side, IMO.
I don't mind being at "loggerheads." That's nothing new, but the ongoing misrepresentation of comments belies the sort of understanding, logic and reason, I'm inclined to count upon. You are certainly not the first or only one who wants to excuse religion by placing the blame on human nature. The great catch-all excuse for everything, but of course we all know the old saying about excuses. What they are like and how everyone has one...
"In my defense your honor, I violently beat that women because that's my nature! It is human nature to be violent!" The defense rests. Ah! Case dismissed.
Excusing all things religion by way of the human nature defense is more than a bit of a cop out objectively speaking. To apply this sort of rationale from a critical thinking standpoint, what movement, organization -- anything in society for that matter -- can't be blamed or attributed to human nature one way or another? Even science for that matter, but for those of us who CAN consider these similarities and/or differences, "strengths and weaknesses" a bit more objectively, the sorts of distinctions I have attempted to make clear are not difficult to recognize and accept as simple if not obvious truths.
I don't think either of us naive in any case. We are at "loggerheads" for other somewhat obvious reasons. We have been for a long time now and until the day you too can be a bit more objective about these facts, at loggerheads we will remain. Since I have also long recognized your perspective and understanding unlikely to change, I've suggested you stop trying to argue otherwise with me. I think we're both somewhat able to recognize a waste of time when we come upon one.
In my line of work, we call these conclusory assertions.
We all know the New Testament stopped being true when they rolled out the Quran. And then somewhere along the line we realized that LaVeyan Satanism is the one true faith, may the memory of Howard Stanton Levey be a blessing.
Good to see you again! Where you been?
Interesting. I looked it up...
'A conclusory statement is when you make a conclusion but you do not support it with any evidence or reasoning." Reads to me as in the same family as circular reasoning. Assertions of these kinds are the life blood of this forum!
Your line of work is in the legal profession if I recall correctly?
I don't mind being at "loggerheads." That's nothing new, but the ongoing misrepresentation of comments belies the sort of understanding, logic and reason, I'm inclined to count upon. You are certainly not the first or only one who wants to excuse religion by placing the blame on human nature. The great catch-all excuse for everything, but of course we all know the old saying about excuses. What they are like and how everyone has one...
"In my defense your honor, I violently beat that women because that's my nature! It is human nature to be violent!" The defense rests. Ah! Case dismissed.
Excusing all things religion by way of the human nature defense is more than a bit of a cop out objectively speaking. To apply this sort of rationale from a critical thinking standpoint, what movement, organization -- anything in society for that matter -- can't be blamed or attributed to human nature one way or another? Even science for that matter, but for those of us who CAN consider these similarities and/or differences, "strengths and weaknesses" a bit more objectively, the sorts of distinctions I have attempted to make clear are not difficult to recognize and accept as simple if not obvious truths.
I don't think either of us naive in any case. We are at "loggerheads" for other somewhat obvious reasons. We have been for a long time now and until the day you too can be a bit more objective about these facts, at loggerheads we will remain. Since I have also long recognized your perspective and understanding unlikely to change, I've suggested you stop trying to argue otherwise with me. I think we're both somewhat able to recognize a waste of time when we come upon one.
Ha, ha, ha, ha. What a piece of work! Objectivity is not defined by what YOU consider objective facts. BTW. I EXCUSE nothing, least of all religion. I consider religion to have been (and continues to be) misused egregiously in furtherance of the less noble aspirations and goals of our human nature (but that is not remotely unusual in all our human institutions). I have little doubt that God is long-suffering for that very reason (among many others). Misidentifying what happens here as the result of God's Will and plans (and not ours) is a primal cause of the misunderstanding (and rejection) of God, IMO.
Ha, ha, ha, ha. What a piece of work! Objectivity is not defined by what YOU consider objective facts. BTW. I EXCUSE nothing, least of all religion. I consider religion to have been (and continues to be) misused egregiously in furtherance of the less noble aspirations and goals of our human nature (but that is not remotely unusual in all our human institutions). I have little doubt that God is long-suffering for that very reason (among many others). Misidentifying what happens here as the result of God's Will and plans (and not ours) is a primal cause of the misunderstanding (and rejection) of God, IMO.
Yet..., you keep adding another piece of work that apparently you find flawless. No matter how full of flaws others like me may observe...
Objectivity and facts are not defined by me. True, but we should all make the effort and the case to establish what is objective (well justified) opinion and facts from what are not. AKA critical thinking. With an honest effort to make these distinctions in as well justified a manner as we are able. I've done this. Nothing more and nothing less as best I have been able so far.
In a rather slick "smoke and mirrors" sort of way you on the one hand get close, "warmer," when you claim you EXCUSE nothing. "Least of all religion." Then you again simply excuse religion as having been "misused." Talk about a fine piece of work. Which is it Mystic? Do you excuse religion or do you not excuse religion?
You can't have it both ways.
As for God "long-suffering" and all the rest you claim to know that I don't, please don't also make the mistake of confusing all I have noted about religion with your notions about "God's Will and plans." That's another rather significant misrepresentation of my comments on your part. Now far too many frankly. My observations and criticisms are about religion. In particular in this case as compared to the scientific method for example. None of which is pinned on any notions, yours or mine, about God.
Yet..., you keep adding another piece of work that apparently you find flawless. No matter how full of flaws others like me may observe...
Objectivity and facts are not defined by me. True, but we should all make the effort and the case to establish what is objective (well justified) opinion and facts from what are not. AKA critical thinking. With an honest effort to make these distinctions in as well justified a manner as we are able. I've done this. Nothing more and nothing less as best I have been able so far.
In a rather slick "smoke and mirrors" sort of way you on the one hand get close, "warmer," when you claim you EXCUSE nothing. "Least of all religion." Then you again simply excuse religion as having been "misused." Talk about a fine piece of work. Which is it Mystic? Do you excuse religion or do you not excuse religion?
You can't have it both ways.
As for God "long-suffering" and all the rest you claim to know that I don't, please don't also make the mistake of confusing all I have noted about religion with your notions about "God's Will and plans." That's another rather significant misrepresentation of my comments on your part. Now far too many frankly. My observations and criticisms are about religion. In particular in this case as compared to the scientific method for example. None of which is pinned on any notions, yours or mine, about God.
How is it excusing anything by recognizing that religion is misused (that means using a belief in the existence of God in furtherance of ignoble human aspirations and goals)??? The belief in God is not the problem.... The misuse of that belief IS. I realize you do not agree with that and you see belief in God as the "culprit." That would be the reason for my mentioning God's Will and plans. and is part of our "loggerheads" issue.
How is it excusing anything by recognizing that religion is misused (that means using a belief in the existence of God in furtherance of ignoble human aspirations and goals)??? The belief in God is not the problem.... The misuse of that belief IS. I realize you do not agree with that and you see belief in God as the "culprit." That would be the reason for my mentioning God's Will and plans. and is part of our "loggerheads" issue.
I've got to sign off and get onto other things now. Not that any further discussion is going to "move the needle" any, but I'll try to answer or explain about this too. See if this works any better...
Frankly, I can think of any number of ways to distinguish what religion is all about, how it came to be, how it is made up of people, pursued and promoted for all kinds of different reasons in all kinds of different ways. Covering all that would indeed be a "piece of work," but again I can only refer to the great volumes of history that have been well documented about the history of man and/or the history of religion.
I find it rather naive to suggest religion is "misused" rather than "used" and/or created in the many ways it has. With all notions about God also used to further those interests. In most cases fabricated for those purposes. (I would say all cases, but I'll not get into the many reasons I am an atheist here too). No, the belief in God is not the problem in any case. Not necessarily anyway. Man is always in the mix of course and where would all these notions and beliefs come from if not from man? By man. Without all these notions or beliefs in God, might we not be better able to focus on achieving our "human aspirations and goals" without so much in the way of conflicting direction? That all too often has resulted in the friction, violence and wars "in the name of God" And/or religion.
Indeed, can even the belief in God rather than any religion be EXCUSED the way you wish when we consider what fueled Manifest Destiny for example? Read up just a little about this history, and if you don't think the belief in God and those notions about God's intentions are "culprit," then you will truly excuse just about anything done "in the name of God" and/or in the name of religion on human nature. Really? Because all the bad is not congruent with YOUR notions about God? This is your argument or excuse?
How about enough with all these notions about God? Good, bad or otherwise, so that maybe we can stop arguing about who believes what and stick to what we can all agree upon without all the conflicting notions. In peace!
Otherwise, what good or bad, right or wrong-doing, CANNOT be credited or blamed on human nature? If this is your argument (I find hard to understand or accept), then again enough said, but this to me is something like trying to argue the iceberg should not be blamed for the sinking of the Titanic. Instead it's the ocean in which the iceberg was floating that should be blamed.
Another thing we can blame on human nature gets us back to the problem of confirmation bias. Hard not to feel more than a bit of that problem is to blame here as well. Human nature such as it is, but I don't excuse anyone for confirmation bias either. Not that simply anyway...
I've got to sign off and get onto other things now. Not that any further discussion is going to "move the needle" any, but I'll try to answer or explain about this too. See if this works any better...
Frankly, I can think of any number of ways to distinguish what religion is all about, how it came to be, how it is made up of people, pursued and promoted for all kinds of different reasons in all kinds of different ways. Covering all that would indeed be a "piece of work," but again I can only refer to the great volumes of history that have been well documented about the history of man and/or the history of religion.
I find it rather naive to suggest religion is "misused" rather than "used" and/or created in the many ways it has. With all notions about God also used to further those interests. In most cases fabricated for those purposes. (I would say all cases, but I'll not get into the many reasons I am an atheist here too). No, the belief in God is not the problem in any case. Not necessarily anyway. Man is always in the mix of course and where would all these notions and beliefs come from if not from man? By man. Without all these notions or beliefs in God, might we not be better able to focus on achieving our "human aspirations and goals" without so much in the way of conflicting direction? That all too often has resulted in the friction, violence and wars "in the name of God" And/or religion.
Indeed, can even the belief in God rather than any religion be EXCUSED the way you wish when we consider what fueled Manifest Destiny for example? Read up just a little about this history, and if you don't think the belief in God and those notions about God's intentions are "culprit," then you will truly excuse just about anything done "in the name of God" and/or in the name of religion on human nature. Really? Because all the bad is not congruent with YOUR notions about God? This is your argument or excuse?
How about enough with all these notions about God? Good, bad or otherwise, so that maybe we can stop arguing about who believes what and stick to what we can all agree upon without all the conflicting notions. In peace!
Otherwise, what good or bad, right or wrong-doing, CANNOT be credited or blamed on human nature? If this is your argument (I find hard to understand or accept), then again enough said, but this to me is something like trying to argue the iceberg should not be blamed for the sinking of the Titanic. Instead it's the ocean in which the iceberg was floating that should be blamed.
Another thing we can blame on human nature gets us back to the problem of confirmation bias. Hard not to feel more than a bit of that problem is to blame here as well. Human nature such as it is, but I don't excuse anyone for confirmation bias either. Not that simply anyway...
The conflicts are caused by our thinking we know God's Will and plans or that God is controlling everything here. So it would seem that you agree with me on that. That is a MISUSE of belief in God because we do not have a clue about any of that. We should not seek to impose our beliefs about it on others ever, especially not with laws, wars, or violence of any kind! That is misuse.
Good to see you too. I haven’t been anywhere in particular. I just drift in and out of City-Data as indicated by my post count and history.
Quote:
Originally Posted by LearnMe
Interesting. I looked it up...
'A conclusory statement is when you make a conclusion but you do not support it with any evidence or reasoning." Reads to me as in the same family as circular reasoning. Assertions of these kinds are the life blood of this forum!
They are indeed. I have no problem with people proclaiming religious traditions to be their personal truth. But to claim that any one faith is the truth, especially while unironically claiming that other faiths are made up out of thin air, is amusing, to say the least.
Quote:
Originally Posted by LearnMe
Your line of work is in the legal profession if I recall correctly?
Correct, although I’m no corporate cowboy, just a litigation lantzman.
The conflicts are caused by our thinking we know God's Will and plans or that God is controlling everything here. So it would seem that you agree with me on that. That is a MISUSE of belief in God because we do not have a clue about any of that. We should not seek to impose our beliefs about it on others ever, especially not with laws, wars, or violence of any kind! That is misuse.
Don't you do exactly the same thing when you purport to know God is about agape love? To claim any such knowledge? The problem is the acceptance of all such speculation regardless what it might be. Agape love. Manifest Destiny. To save us from our sins. If you are going to play that game or be a part of that game, you can't denounce or claim the problem is "our thinking we know God's Will." Or claiming any such knowledge, because there begins the wide space of speculation regardless what the claims or speculation may be. Whether it be God controls everything or nothing. Gave us free will or didn't.
It is the freedom to make these sorts of claims that is being misused. Over and over again as the history of human history. Why? Because the "slow maturing of man" is no match for man's thirst to claim he knows what he doesn't, and his propensity to insist he does for all variety of ego-driven reasons that make up the nature of man. Sadly, for far too many men and women who can't seem to help themselves and/or who can't seem to muster the patience to "give it a rest" already. In the name of peace for all concerned.
Ah..."invented out of thin air"...like christianity?
Quote:
Originally Posted by ElijahAstin
In my line of work, we call these conclusory assertions.
We all know the New Testament stopped being true when they rolled out the Quran. And then somewhere along the line we realized that LaVeyan Satanism is the one true faith, may the memory of Howard Stanton Levey be a blessing.
You don't have agree with my tongue-in-check post. It's a big world with lots of ideas. You do you!
LearnMe,
Science will be used to justify horrible things. It's not religion or science, people that are the problem.
It's like when my son was in preschool, everything began a gun. A stick or a paint bush became a gun. Like many boys in his age group, it was a compulsion. Thankfully, some people grown out of it and unfortunately, many don't. There are always going to be a group of people who will use any rational to guillotine their opposition.
After your last post, why you are so angry over CD? After the 2014 Israel-Palestinian conflict, I went to services at a Quaker Church because of their belief in nonviolence. There are better ways to channel anger than CD.
Last edited by YorktownGal; 01-29-2024 at 09:45 AM..
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What a piece of work! Objectivity is not defined by what YOU consider objective facts. 
BTW. I EXCUSE nothing, least of all religion. I consider religion to have been (and continues to be) misused egregiously in furtherance of the less noble aspirations and goals of our human nature (but that is not remotely unusual in all our human institutions). I have little doubt that God is long-suffering for that very reason (among many others). Misidentifying what happens here as the result of God's Will and plans (and not ours) is a primal cause of the misunderstanding (and rejection) of God, IMO.
