Here’s one statement I felt he expressed pithily and eloquently:
“It is often wrong, and frequently dangerous, to accept beliefs simply because they have been handed down through the years, no matter how many years it has been, from the get go. It is really wrong, when you continue to hold these beliefs even when your own reason and experience would tell us they are wrong.”
As can I.
All I ask them to do for me is to STFU about their beliefs, and I’l defend to the death their right to have those beliefs.
If they insist on yammering this silly nonsense to me, owever, I’ll further ask them to offer evidence in their argument’s behalf, and if they lack the courtesy to provide evidence, I’ll thank them to withdraw from the discussion and acknowledge “I’ve got nothing to offer that you reasonably consider evidence, and I’m okay with my total and complete lack of evidenciary support for my wholly subjective system of belief.” Then I say, “Go in peace, and enjoy your day and your life, brother.”
Not that I ever get a whole lot of that kind of reaction to my invitation to please STFU about their beliefs.
I’m sorry I was unclear, I was trying to thank you. I appreciate non-believers who can co-exist with and even dispute with believers in a civil manner. Thanks.
Thanks. I’d question whether it is possible to believe something that your own reason and experience tells you is wrong, but apart from that, it’s clear, succinct and not unnecessarily impolite.
Well, that where my jaw usually drops in astonishment at what I’m hearing.
It’s okay that I put another neutral period on the end of your still-incomplete sentence, isnt it?
So the incoherent mixing of pronouns in the second sentence doesn’t detract from the eloquence for you? It remains clear what he was trying to say, but this elementary error falls short of eloquence, I think. It was at least polite.
Why? Please explain.
I have unreservedly apologised in this thread for starting that particular argument.
Ok, and thank you, we are all stuck on this goofy planet with all of our goofy beliefs, yours, mine, whatever. Now enough of this niceness in the Pit.
The mixing of the pronouns in that sentence may refer to two separate persons, the “you” who holds the beliefs and the “us” who evaluate them. Probably it makes more sense to use consistent pronouns, if consistency were what he intended. And, even if you judge that a simple mistake of grammar, it is entirely possible to be eloquent while failing to adhere to some grammatical standards–as in Sojourner Truth’s “Ain’t I a woman?” It’s fairly snobby to judge her as ineloquent because “ain’t” ain’t grammatical.
You’re seem to be drawing a lot from a few lines. Have you read either of his books? One thing I got out of the end of faith is the idea that “religious belief” should not be held separate and protected from other beliefs since it permeates and directly effects our society. I agree.
In this country many Christians, including Dobson and his crew use a 2000 year old book represented as the word of God to justify their homophobia and actively work to suppress the rights of thousands of their fellow citizens. Is it impolite then to challenge their beliefs with evidence and encourage them to use their powers of reason rather than blindly accepting someone else’s version of the truth?
I for one, am not convinced that organized religion in general is more destructive than positive. IMHO the idea that if we just could get rid of organized religion then the whole world would be much better is just unrealistic hogwash. I do think it is reasonable to challenge religions to think about their beliefs and to question their priorities.
I doubt that Harris is saying that every belief a Christian holds is destructive. It is honest simply say “I don’t know” Note that he criticizes those that claim to know on either side. It seems to me he is saying enjoy the traditions and ceremony that go with religion but understand clearly that they are exactly that. Tradition and ceremony. Where the rubber meets the road, that is our interaction with society and how our choices affect others, we must try to look a little deeper into our beliefs.
You are either disingenuous or a moron. I lean toward the latter. How could my reason and experience tell you that something was incorrect? He made a minor mistake which reduced clarity, clarity being a component of eloquence. The word ain’t, whether grammatical or not, is clear.
I know. I was just including that in case anyone else wanted to point out my outrageous assault against human decency and proper punctuation. You apologized, and graciously, but others who chimed in their support for your since-withdrawn contention continue plaguing me with their silly nitpicking, as if that proves anything about my content or my character.
As to the jaw-dropping stuff (“Why? Please explain”), I’m not sure what requires clarification. It’s amazing to me to have people claim to accept science fully, who then feel justified in selectively endorsing antithetical non-scientific beliefs (stuff that they seem to know is wrong on some level), and want me to accept the contradiction without further explanation, and get outraged when I label their contradictory claims as such.
You’re certainly free to get your panties in a bunch over “a minor mistake which reduced clarity,” even to the point of being unable to concede that eloquence could still result from such a statement. I agree that my intelligence, rather than my sincerity, can be questioned here, and I take it as a very high compliment at this point that you persist in questioning my intelligence.
“I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to shut the fuck up about it.”
–Bizarro Voltaire (Attributed)
OK, that provides the necessary clarity, thanks. I have to say that I’m not aware of this happening particularly often. Cases where person A believes something that person B knows (or thinks they know) is untrue, are tediously common; cases where a person believes something that they would realise was untrue if they just opened their damned eyes are arguably frequent too.
But I think it’s quite unusual to come across someone who believes something their own reason and experience has demonstrated false.
Hmmm… OK, but after my post #141, the only person I can find mentioning nitpicks over punctuation is you. There are a bunch of other nitpicks that arguably would have happened anyway (and perhaps are even justified in their own right), but I don’t see any actual continuation of my withdrawn point. I only read on a couple of pages, so maybe I missed it.
The not laughing to scorn is appreciated, as is the lack of any sentiment to the effect that I can hold what beliefs I choose as long as I don’t sully your presence with the foul stench of my unreason. See, the thing is, I don’t consider a belief in the existence of some God as all that extraordinary. It’s not in the same league as my saying “The Archangel Gabriel and a bunch of his buddies came down to my place for a jam session last Thursday; and they miraculously recorded the whole thing on CD, and I’ve got the disc on my shelf”. A vast percentage of humanity seem to have the idea that there’s some higher power lurking out there. Their numbers include many who have been lauded for their brilliance. Arguments that take the existence of God as axiomatic seem to be able to run for quite a while without falling down in an untidy heap; and so on. None of this proves the existence of God. We know that. It’s surely enough though that we who make such a claim can expect a little civility. As I’ve said earlier, the only respect in which Lola’s belief in her imaginary friend has any similarity to the Christian’s belief in God is that neither of us can produce the object of our belief for inspection. Otherwise the two kinds of belief are markedly different.
I guess I think that’s what these badchad threads are all about. Badchad asks Tom if biologically he can explain Jesus’s bodily resurrection, and Tom, while professing to believe in science, has nothing coherent to offer by way of explanation and still refuses to categorize his anti-scientific beliefs as slavishly superstitious, but rather insists that miracles and science are somehow consistent within one belief system (his) and further that his beliefs are elevated way above those foolish beliefs of primitive YEC believers whom he somehow condemns. What am I not seeing here?
One thing you’re not seeing is that the “Laws” of science are not written down in a big book anywhere and the Universe forced to obey them the way the chessplayer is obliged to follow the laws of chess. They’re derived from observation and drawn up as best our understanding fits the facts. Science is silent on the proposition “There exists an entity G such that G is able to cause a dead and decomposing body to resume normal biological functions through an exercise of will”. How would you ever expect to formulate such a law?