Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
Status:
"And now for something completely different."
(set 17 days ago)
Location: North by Northwest
9,201 posts, read 12,593,715 times
Reputation: 6022
Advertisements
Quote:
Originally Posted by myuen2
I don't think this is a useful discussion. Sterile intellectual analysis of human culture yields ideological solutions. Rationalization is the method of the mechanical mind. Society is a living organism. Social scientists presume to understand it in the same way western medicine assumes authoritative knowledge of the human body.
Western medicine does a damn good job and only gets better with time.
As for the social sciences, those are inherently harder to quantify, mostly because human interactions often can’t be replicated in a controlled lab environment (and even when they can, the efficacy is often mixed at best). But that doesn’t make them worthless, and credible social scientists with some measure of humility acknowledge the limitations of their fields. As my favorite political science professor used to say, “Remember that 0.4 is a great R-squared score in the social sciences!”
I don't think this is a useful discussion. Sterile intellectual analysis of human culture yields ideological solutions. Rationalization is the method of the mechanical mind. Society is a living organism. Social scientists presume to understand it in the same way western medicine assumes authoritative knowledge of the human body.
It isn't sterile just because it doesn't fit your belief.
1) There are no 'atheist values'. I suspect you can't distinguish between what atheists believe (that there are no deities - period) and concepts that predominate in modern secular liberal democratic systems.
2) Christian values were hardly anything new when the ignorant bronze-age goatherds were inventing it. Christianity did not originate 'don't take things that belong to others' or 'don't kill other people' and the like (ex: the Code of Hammurabi), nor did Christianity invent the long list of convenient (to Christians) exceptions that allowed taking stuff and killing people.
3) Freedom of speech. Freedom of religion. The right to vote. The right to not be enslaved. The right to a jury trial of one's peers. The rights of security and privacy and marriage. And many other rights common to modern secular liberal democratic systems have absolutely no origin whatsoever in Christianity.
4) You clearly haven't the foggiest idea what 'intellectual property' means.
I'm genuinely impressed by all the demonstrably false nonsense you packed into a mere two sentences.
It isn't sterile just because it doesn't fit your belief.
Way too much ego.
It's not a matter of belief. A professor of social science doesn't hang around to defend his thesis when the bullets fly. I was pointing out that this is a forum for you and me, not for the likes of Che Guevara or Mao Tze Tung, or Lee Kuan Yew.
Perhaps you can explain what humanist values and ethics you think atheists have appropriated from Christianity. As far as I know, the morals and ethics promoted by Christianity are a reflection of the morals and ethics of society, not the other way around.
What I mean is that, using the ten commandments as an example, society recognized the authority of parents over their children, prohibits murder, recognized adultery as grounds for divorce, and prohibits theft of another persons property, and requires a person to tell the truth in court. These things are pretty much the same in societies around the world, no matter what religion is predominate in any particular society, so they are a function of human society. We live together in groups better when we expect people to refrain from stealing and killing each other.
So, what morals and ethics have atheist appropriated from Christians?
Quote:
Originally Posted by myuen2
I don't think this is a useful discussion. Sterile intellectual analysis of human culture yields ideological solutions. Rationalization is the method of the mechanical mind. Society is a living organism. Social scientists presume to understand it in the same way western medicine assumes authoritative knowledge of the human body.
Your post seems like a very strange reply. After all, it was your post that claimed that atheists had appropriated humanist values and ethics from Christianity. I thought it was perfectly reasonable to ask you to explain what values and ethics atheists had taken from Christianity.
I pitched in with caregiving when my mother slowly died of ALS in my late teens and early twenties. Any other questions?
I winced when I read this. Dying of loved ones happens, all the time. It doesn't have to be slow and painful even for those who pitch in. The Swiss have a way out that we are not yet willing to accept.
It's not a matter of belief. A professor of social science doesn't hang around to defend his thesis when the bullets fly. I was pointing out that this is a forum for you and me, not for the likes of Che Guevara or Mao Tze Tung, or Lee Kuan Yew.
Who the heck is talking about Che Guevara or Mao Tze Tung, or Lee Kuan Yew?
No, I don't. I intuit a response whenever a post is noteworthy or striking and deserves reflection.
So let's see. Doesn't believe in gravity. Doesn't think before posting.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
