Yes. Yes I do.
Do you know what an effective argument is
You are still doing the same thing of which I accused you in my last post. You equate the views of the extremes, (fundies of either camp), to the positions of those who are not fundies.
The reason that you can point so easily to various discussions on this board is that the fundies have hijacked these discussions to the point where non-fundies rarely enter. That does not mean that your characterization was correct, only that the discussions to which you refer are dominated by fundies.
And this
is just silly. A Catholic scientist who engages in the study of Evolution is not in any way dissenting from Christianity. There is nothing in Christianity that arguesw against Evolution (unless one’s Christianity is limited to Evangelical or Fundamentalist Christianity–which is not the whole of Christian belief, being a relatively new belief within Christian tradition).
You’re using “overwhelming” and then “large number” to make a point, but I think you’re familiar enough with the threads on this board that start with religion as a subject for debate that you know the inevitable pile on that takes place in short order. I reject your characterization of the behavior and intentions of members of both sides of the subject argument … the usual suspects from either Atheist (poster boy; Detr Trihs) or Xtian camps engage in repetitive and strident dispute, with predictable outcome. That’s obsessive.
Your post #131 makes no claim that you are only describing posters on this board. It puts forth that “Believers” and “Atheists” (all inclusive), share the characteristics you describe. That is simply not true for the public, at large. Even on the SDMB it is not true for a majority of believers and atheists–only that small subset of the populations that enjoy hurling brickbats at each other. Note that few of these threads get more than a few dozen participants, with nearly half of those being one-post-drive-by ironic comments. The rest of the atheists and believers do not share the passions of the fundies and do not tend to participate.
tomndebb
“You are still doing the same thing of which I accused you in my last post. You equate the views of the extremes, (fundies of either camp), to the positions of those who are not fundies.
The reason that you can point so easily to various discussions on this board is that the fundies have hijacked these discussions to the point where non-fundies rarely enter. That does not mean that your characterization was correct, only that the discussions to which you refer are dominated by fundies.”
tomndebb, kindly refer to the bolded sections in the two quotes I provided. As you’ll see nearwildheaven is inquiring regarding a “subset” of atheists. Did I need to specify that my reply was dealing with a subset, not the entirety of all atheists on the planet? You’ll also notice in my first post in this thread that I state: “They can both be obsessive.” Do you make a distinction between that and, for example: “They are all, everyone of them, obsessive …”?
If it is your position that I didn’t respond to the OP’s initial question (?) and that I was not sufficiently vague in saying, “They ‘can’”, then I’ll happily rephrase my original reply for clarity, so as not to confuse you.
"Think about what Believers and Atheists have in common. Many but not all, but a big percentage that could arguably be called the extremists, but maybe not a majority of both groups are convinced they know Right from Wrong … Good from bad; both groups think they are right about everything and if you disagree with them, you are a poopy-head. Admittedly, the motivations are different, the Bible for the Believers and Science, logic and progressive talking points for the Atheist
Points go to the Atheists on the subjects of Evolution and Global Warming, but when conversations turn to Abortion, alternative lifestyles, and the possible existence of a supernatural being, opinions and prejudices weigh against both parties. There aren’t any scientific facts that settle moral debates.
The most vocal and intolerant Atheists and Believers (a poll hasn’t been presented to ascertain exactly what percentage of people who self-identify as Atheist or Christian fall into this category) think they are right … if you disagree, you’re a horrible person. They are very similar to one another. A certain sub-set, (for which we have no firm numbers, but several of them are on display daily at the SDMB)of both parties can be obsessive at times … also nit-picky."
Is that clearer?
Frankly, yes.
Which can easily be read as all the members of both camps share the traits you describe.
You did not quote the post to which you now claim to have been replying and you used no limited words. Your post, after 129 posts since the OP, looked as though it was simply a comment on the nature of the two groups, waving guilt around for everyone.
If you meant to limit the discussion to fundies and fellow travelers, then it would have been less confusing had you indicated that in your post.
Word.
If a poster calls another poster stupid, feel free to report it, since that is against the rules. I see no such posts in either of those threads. In the first thread people were mostly laughing at the OP. In the second, more serious, the “worst” response I noticed was:
which doesn’t sound very heinous to me.
Also consider the thread started by Timo. Though people were frustrated at him posting Bible verses, for the most part they appreciated a real effort on his part to have a real discussion, so rare in drive by posters.
Being Jewish, I know that some of my co-religionists in the past were forcibly converted to protect us from hell. And Jews weren’t the only ones who suffered. It is also a snotty attitude, especially given that no one can demonstrate hell even exists.
The criticism of believers mostly come from those who are witnessing but who cannot in the slightest defend their position. Or do you think they deserve special treatment?
I wonder if evolution accepting Catholics think that they are clubbed by evolution. I doubt it. Those who do feel clubbed are so committed to the Bible that they reject all evidence to the contrary and don’t even want to hear the evidence. Perhaps Fred Hoyle felt clubbed by Penzias and Wilson. Tough.
Now two things about your second point. Some religions play a bait and switch. Ask them to demonstrate the correctness of their beliefs, and they will cry faith and say what you just said. But the next day they go out and push for laws based on their beliefs as if they were demonstrably true. Anti-SSM laws are a good example, since no one can show they harm anybody. They get a free pass on this, since no one in this culture wants to directly challenge religions. If you do you get called obsessive.
Now there are some who do not do this. Deists like to believe in god but admit they have no evidence, and for the most part act in accordance to this realization. No Deist seems to think his god is concerned with my sex life. if all believers acted like that, we’d have a happier world.
I understand that. And I’d fight any effort to force anyone to get an abortion, or to do anything that violates their personal beliefs about their bodies. But the soul is a concept again without evidence backing it, so don’t expect me to support anyone wanting to ban abortion based on the supposed existence of souls in fetuses. Of fact I’d suspect that “human” in their arguments means “with soul” but that makes it a religious argument sure to fail in the courts.
I’ve been doing this a long time. In fact, most discussions of unresolved issues begin with faith. Anyone backing an undemonstrated hypothesis has a certain degree of faith in it, otherwise he would not put in the effort to show it. But religious discussions end with faith. Scientific ones do not, and the scientist knows, first he had better find evidence backing the hypothesis (and try to find evidence refuting it), and second, that if the evidence refuting it turns up he should change his opinion.
The closest thing I’ve seen to evidence is the personal experience. Which isn’t very close to what is needed to demonstrate anything.
Just to show you don’t have to be a Catholic to agree with this, I went to school with a guy who is now a priest and is an astronomer at the Vatican. He is very smart, and by all measures an excellent scientist, and I somehow doubt he is dissenting from Christianity in any way. I suspect he does not agree with medieval cosmology, and I suspect this is not causing him problems with his boss.
When I was at Bell Labs one of our managers was a nun.
Creationism isn’t stupid because it is Christian (or Islamic,) it is stupid because it goes against known facts and evidence. Only those who read people out of Christianity by not being fundamentalists have a problem with this.
Seriously? I always thought of being a nun as kind of a full time job, like being a priest. Married to Jesus, etc. Did she live in a convent? Did she manage with a wooden ruler?
She was in an um, division which encourage interacting with the world. I was in a different Lab from her, but my old boss once went out for dinner with her and her Mother Superior. Her Mother Superior cursed like a sailor. Clearly not all nuns hide away in convents.
Cloistered nuns are likely to be as you describe, but many nuns these days have “regular” jobs and do not wear a habit.
I do personally know a nun who belongs to a Carmelite order, and works as a CNA at an upscale nursing home that’s run by the Carmelites. Room and board are part of her employment package; she lives in an on-site apartment with 3 other nuns. All the other employees live off-site.
Regarding this “science vs. religion” thing: For me, the more science I learned, the stronger my religious faith became! The “Eureka!” moment for me was, for those of you who have taken chemistry, the sp2 orbital. I don’t really remember what that is now, but to me, it was proof that this didn’t all just happen.
My SIL has a mathematics degree, and for her, it was pi. Most mathematical constants are very ordered and have patterns, and the one which is used more than all the others put together is random, infinite, and nonrepeating.
Interesting. I guess I must not be familiar with most mathematical constants.
So the upshot of this thread is, not all atheists are like Der Trihs. 
Atheists believe that religion exists, and aren’t thrilled about it. I have no problem at all with god, given his nonexistence.
eta: some don’t give a shit.
Which god did that science and math make you guys believe in?
What about when Jesus taught you should preach the gospel to all the world? You just ignore that part, or excuse it away?
Huck said that s/he tries to live Christ’s teachings, and this is how s/he witnesses. It’s a perfectly legitimate way to do it.
Perfectly legitimate, I guess, if you ignore Jesus’ Great Commission.
You didn’t answer what gods pi and the sp2 orbital made you believe in. Zeus, Thor? I can’t imagine it would be Yahweh as the Bible says that pi is a simple 3.