Plus, I Got Religion

[AFK]

Wait, so now is it a joke wrapped in a religion or has it changed to a religion wrapped in a joke? I'm so confused. 

[LMNO]

It's complicated, like the reason vaginas become engorged.

[P3nT4gR4m]

It's complicated, like the reason vaginas become engorged.

new news item -

Discordianism - the real reason vaginas become engorged.

[Bebek Sincap Ratatosk]

It's complicated, like the reason vaginas become engorged.

new news item -

Discordianism - the real reason vaginas become engorged.

[Cain]

Taken out of human context, words are meaningless.

That context is dependent on people of a specific, time and place.

If all human beings died, many things—words on billboards, roads, heaps of garbage—would remain, but meaning wouldn't.

Meaning lies in human experience, not outside of it or in words themselves.

Words are tools used to create meaning in people.

No, words are meant to communicate between people.  If all human beings died, you have bigger worries, right?  Like being dead.  By your logic, math is subjective, because symbols don't actually mean anything.  Ergo, everyone should pass calculus, because your answer is just as "valid" as mine.

Bullshit navel-lint gathering:  Because it's easier than actually thinking.

Actually, post-structuralist theory has some things in common with Godel's incompleteness theorem.  The idea behind deconstruction and post-structuralism is not "everything is valid" or everything is ultimately meaningless, only that meanings are unstable and can be determined culturally, historically and individually, in short that perfect communication was not possible.  Obvious example, "gay" used to mean happy, but is most commonly used to mean "homosexual" now.

For instance, if we take the work of Derrida, he set out to read texts and pick apart how they used loaded metaphors and phrases and how that related to their overall theories and ideas.  That's hardly an example of not thinking, in fact, it involves linguistically investigating a text to a great degree, teasing out the interplay of figuartive use of language and very critically interrogating the work of others.

Some American philosophers, such as those at Yale, have rightly been denounced for their lackidasical "Making it up as you go along" approach to textual theory and even trying to extend the discoveries of unstable meanings in literary text beyond that realm.  For example:

What philosopher ever since there were philosophers, what logician since there were logicians, what theoretician ever renounced this axiom: in the order of concepts (since we are speaking of concepts and not of the colours of clouds or the taste of certain chewing gums), when a distinction cannot be rigorous and precise, it is not a distinction at all.

Lacan also said anyone who hijacks language for private purposes must expect to be seen as "psychotic."  Nonetheless, they believed there was a social, cultural and historical component to language, that because people confuse the map for the territory, language often confused the issue, and could be misunderstood, could have unintended meanings, could actually cut us off from reality by making us have to refer to language instead of physical, existing objects in order to communicate.

Seems perfectly reasonable to me, even if Kai and Anomalous didn't explain it in the best way possibly (ironically, helping to prove that language can be unstable).

[LMNO]

[insert inflammatory comment about semantics, E-Prime, and "Sumbunall" here]

[Cain]

1. I don't get it, why MUST you force other people to follow your logic? Who cares if they aren't "logical"? It's not hurting you.

Well, because he's so much smarter than them, obviously.  Because he doesn't ever believe in anything that defies logic.   

TGRR,
Is willing to be the spag even believes that the US "government" exists.

Tempest, I would suggest people who believe burning other people alive for not thinking like them could be pretty dangerous.  Some logical thought from people like that would be nice.

Roger has already beat me to my caveat in making the above statement, however.  Many "logical" "freethinkers" seem only able to apply their logical freethinking to a single topic, namely how wrong all the religioustards are.  Which is essentially like pointing out that water is wet.  Both obvious and easy.  Now, if they applied some critical thinking as to the workings of the economy, or international politics, or the function of the media, or indeed virtually anything else...then I might take the complaint about "zomg irrational people being irrational!" more seriously.  But of course, those topics are hard, and may not be as socially acceptable as atheism (I know this is highly dependent on location, but in the UK for example, atheism barely even raises and eyebrow in most places).

Everyone is irrational about something.  The best you can hope for is education and structuring things so their irrationality does not get too out of hand.

Or, failing that, mockery.

[Bebek Sincap Ratatosk]

[insert inflammatory comment about semantics, E-Prime, and "Sumbunall" here]

I agree with LMNO...



you know its coming



wait for it



in some sense...

[Cain]

As an atheist, I think it's actually pretty fair to say that my disbelief in God/gods/higher powers is based on faith. If it was purely reason, you're probably right that I'd be an agnostic. However, I am no more capable of believing that it is possible there is a God, then religious people are capable of not believing in God, and I find it kind of offensive to be told that I'm only an atheist to piss off theists. I've tried multiple times to believe in some sort of higher power, but I just can't.

I call myself an atheist simply because that is the most accurate term for my beliefs.I have no interest in pissing off theists, and will even talk to evangelical Christians on the street if they're polite and I'm not doing anything at the time. I've also gone to a Sikh temple, and enjoyed myself.

In fact, I actually find theists' beliefs fascinating and like discussing it with them, which I hopefully do not do in a condescending way. I agree with what Ratatosk said, though, about finding people's personal experiences more interesting/valid than just them repeating what somebody else told them.

Despite being agnostic, this is most similar to my position.  I lean heavily towards atheism, but I cannot totally discount

1) Deism
2) Trickster gods fucking with my head

Either one seems highly unlikely, not to mention having next to no effect on my life anyway (a deistic god doesn't need or want my worship, and a trickster god presumably doesn't either, and will fuck with my head in the bargain) so it may as well be that god(s) don't exist.  So there is room for revision, but its pretty small.

I don't mind religious people, until the point they try and apply their rules onto society at large.  Even then, I don't engage such people in a way which will help their cause (ie public slanging match where I can get labelled "angry bigoted atheist") so that's alright.  I think we have better ways of coming up with rules for society at large, and if they want to tack some of their own onto the end of that, then that is their decision, so long as all parties involved agree (for example, arranged marriages are not something I look favourably upon, unless the people in question have both agreed with their families beforehand about going down that route).

So in short, religion doesn't bother me, but the social and political impact of religion might, depending on exactly how much coercion is involved in it.

[P3nT4gR4m]

1. I don't get it, why MUST you force other people to follow your logic? Who cares if they aren't "logical"? It's not hurting you.

Well, because he's so much smarter than them, obviously.  Because he doesn't ever believe in anything that defies logic.   

TGRR,
Is willing to be the spag even believes that the US "government" exists.

Tempest, I would suggest people who believe burning other people alive for not thinking like them could be pretty dangerous.  Some logical thought from people like that would be nice.

Roger has already beat me to my caveat in making the above statement, however.  Many "logical" "freethinkers" seem only able to apply their logical freethinking to a single topic, namely how wrong all the religioustards are.  Which is essentially like pointing out that water is wet.  Both obvious and easy.  Now, if they applied some critical thinking as to the workings of the economy, or international politics, or the function of the media, or indeed virtually anything else...then I might take the complaint about "zomg irrational people being irrational!" more seriously.  But of course, those topics are hard, and may not be as socially acceptable as atheism (I know this is highly dependent on location, but in the UK for example, atheism barely even raises and eyebrow in most places).

Everyone is irrational about something.  The best you can hope for is education and structuring things so their irrationality does not get too out of hand.

Or, failing that, mockery.

That's because the uk is pretty much proof positive that god doesn't exist. No benevolent deity could possibly abide the existence of this fucking place.  

[Cain]

Glasgow is proof that hell exists, however.

[P3nT4gR4m]

Good point. So, basically, we have proven categorically that god doesn't exist and that the devil lives in easterhouse. QED   

[LMNO]

Ah, but then we have Bulgokov's Seventh Proof...

[P3nT4gR4m]

Fuck Bulgokov. He has a stupid name.

[Tempest Virago]

1. I don't get it, why MUST you force other people to follow your logic? Who cares if they aren't "logical"? It's not hurting you.

Well, because he's so much smarter than them, obviously.  Because he doesn't ever believe in anything that defies logic.   

TGRR,
Is willing to be the spag even believes that the US "government" exists.

Tempest, I would suggest people who believe burning other people alive for not thinking like them could be pretty dangerous.  Some logical thought from people like that would be nice.

Roger has already beat me to my caveat in making the above statement, however.  Many "logical" "freethinkers" seem only able to apply their logical freethinking to a single topic, namely how wrong all the religioustards are.  Which is essentially like pointing out that water is wet.  Both obvious and easy.  Now, if they applied some critical thinking as to the workings of the economy, or international politics, or the function of the media, or indeed virtually anything else...then I might take the complaint about "zomg irrational people being irrational!" more seriously.  But of course, those topics are hard, and may not be as socially acceptable as atheism (I know this is highly dependent on location, but in the UK for example, atheism barely even raises and eyebrow in most places).

Everyone is irrational about something.  The best you can hope for is education and structuring things so their irrationality does not get too out of hand.

Or, failing that, mockery.

Yeah, okay, that's fair. I was mostly just annoyed at Skieth for being a smug asshole, and it made me sloppy.