New Atheism and Your Probs With It, If Any

[Hammer of Los]

...

Philosophy is the sweet science.

The examination of the root causes of effects.

Natural science is a mere branch of the great tree.

...

[Elihu]

How do you know which is the real Christianity?

Matthew 7:16 NLT
You can detect them by the way they act, just as you can identify a tree by its fruit. You don't pick grapes from thornbushes, or figs from thistles.

Matthew 12:33 NLT
"A tree is identified by its fruit. Make a tree good, and its fruit will be good. Make a tree bad, and its fruit will be bad.

[IanEye]

Reese
you've got your chocolate in my peanut butter. you've got your peanut butter in my chocolate.

Newton
oohey goohey, rich and chewy inside. golden flakey, tender cakey outside.

[JackRiddler]

How do you know which is the real Christianity?

Matthew 7:16 NLT
You can detect them by the way they act, just as you can identify a tree by its fruit. You don't pick grapes from thornbushes, or figs from thistles.

Matthew 12:33 NLT
"A tree is identified by its fruit. Make a tree good, and its fruit will be good. Make a tree bad, and its fruit will be bad.

Well, these citations totally settle the fascinating intramural question among you Christians about who the real Christians are. I'm sure the conflicts over this will now subside.

[justdrew]

"The Scientific and Technical Research Council of Turkey (TÜBITAK) has put a stop to the publication and sale of all books in its archives that support the theory of evolution, daily Radikal has reported. The books have long been listed as “out of stock” on TÜBTAK's website, but their further publication is now slated to be stopped permanently. Titles by Richard Dawkins, Alan Moorehead, Stephen Jay Gould, Richard Levontin and James Watson are all included in the list of books that will no longer be available to Turkish readers. In early 2009, a huge uproar occurred when the cover story of a publication by TÜBITAK was pulled, reportedly because it focused on Darwin’s theory of evolution."

http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/turkey ... &nID=39047

Science and freedom are clearly under attack by those who wish to IMPOSE their dogma universally. Fundamentalists of all stripes need to fuck off.

[divideandconquer]

Fundamentalists of all stripes need to fuck off.

Like you, you mean? You see, in religious debates, people are supposed to get heated. If somebody enters the fray and they say they are not arguing from religion but rather "science", the tipoff that they really are arguing their religion is if they respond emotionally or get offended in any way at what us lowly "religious people" throw at them. If they get offended, it shows they are really defending another religion, same as everybody else. Because, after all, if they really have such a monopoly on objectivity and science as they insist they do, then they should feel total indifference towards what we unenlightened "religious" folk say to them. The fact that they too get riled up belies the fact that what we are really dealing with is two religious worldviews.

Sorry, "fuck off" is not an indifferent or objective response.

[IanEye]

Sorry, "fuck off" is not an indifferent or objective response.

what part of "all stripes" do you not understand?

[justdrew]

Fundamentalists of all stripes need to fuck off.

Like you, you mean? You see, in religious debates, people are supposed to get heated. If somebody enters the fray and they say they are not arguing from religion but rather "science", the tipoff that they really are arguing their religion is if they respond emotionally or get offended in any way at what us lowly "religious people" throw at them. If they get offended, it shows they are really defending another religion, same as everybody else. Because, after all, if they really have such a monopoly on objectivity and science as they insist they do, then they should feel total indifference towards what we unenlightened "religious" folk say to them. The fact that they too get riled up belies the fact that what we are really dealing with is two religious worldviews.

Sorry, "fuck off" is not an indifferent or objective response.

why would I be indifferent or objective toward a group of people who want to destroy everything I value, simply so that they're authoritarian leaders can take authority over everyone?

If you can't understand the difference between science and religion, it's too bad for you. Do some more thinking.

It's not even about science, it's about pluralistic society, the fundamentalists want no part of that, they'll try their best to USE that openness WE gave them, to take power.

---

to be clear, people should be free to believe and talk about anything they want, the issue is how they choose to ACT upon those beliefs. If the act is to seek CONTROL over non-believers... judges say.... XXXX BAAAAAA XXXX nope. fail.

[divideandconquer]

Scientism mandates the imposition of science upon all fields of inquiry. When extended beyond it's legitimate fields of application, science becomes a rigid template, even the most complex of entities, like man, must conform. Thus, the epistemological cartel or epistemic autocracy only give metaphysical currency to empirically demonstrable and quantifiably demonstrable entities.

So in the context of governance, science becomes an oppressor. The scientifically regimented state must jettison concepts of freedom and dignity because they defy quantification. The citizen becomes little more than an amalgam of behavioral repertories who’s every thought, feeling, and idea becomes the product of external stimuli. From the government's standpoint the populace's motivations can be calculated and systematized thereby allowing those few conditioners who are accountable to no moral master to develop economic and technological stimuli that can produce the desired patterns of mass behavior. Such a societal model is known as technocracy, or in the words of Aldous Huxley, a scientific dictatorship.

It was the rise of nominalism that confused ideas which inhabited the intellect with subjective images that inhabited the imagination stemming from sense perception and this epistemological confusion lead William of Ockham to reject universals.

As Aquinas made clear in Summa Theologiae, images only capture things in their singularity. Ideas, on the other hand, capture things in their universality:

"Our intellect cannot know the singular in material things directly and primarily. The reason for this is that the principle of singularity in material things is individual matter; whereas our intellect understands by abstracting the intelligible species from such matter. Now what is abstracted from individual matter is universal. Hence our intellect knows directly only universals. But indirectly, however, and as it were by a kind of reflexion, it can know the singular, because even after abstracting the intelligible species, the intellect, in order to understand actually, needs to turn to the phantasms in which it understands the species. Therefore it understands the universal directly through the intelligible species, and indirectly the singular represented by the phantasm. And thus it forms the proposition, "Socrates is a man." (Pt. I, Qu. 86, Art. I)

[justdrew]

Scientism mandates the imposition of science upon all fields of inquiry. When extended beyond it's legitimate fields of application, science becomes a rigid template, even the most complex of entities, like man, must conform. Thus, the epistemological cartel or epistemic autocracy only give metaphysical currency to empirically demonstrable and quantifiably demonstrable entities.

Not at all sure there is anything worth calling "Scientism"
Who shall determine what the "legitimate fields" are? and how shall extension be prohibited?
Must conform? How then these thoughts of yours?
We should give currency to untouchable, unseeable entities? Like Dragons?
Also, there's a lot of metaphysical currency given to things that are only theory, as well as to many things that don't have a pointable-to physical existence. As for theory, most everything remains in the realm of theory, some more evidenced than others. The world moves on many contingencies.

So in the context of governance, science becomes an oppressor.

what doesn't become an oppressor in context of governance? Is not the role of governance to compel right action? Perhaps you mean a more specific kind of oppression.

The scientifically regimented state must jettison concepts of freedom and dignity because they defy quantification.

they do not defy quantification, happiness levels are perfectly quantifiable. Dignity is perfectly quantifiable, just ask people if they have dignity or happiness.

The citizen becomes little more than an amalgam of behavioral repertories who’s every thought, feeling, and idea becomes the product of external stimuli.

People are capable of synthesizing new ideas, happens, getting harder to do since so many ideas have already been had, but it's likely a near infinite pool of opportunity. but few people can be SURE something is new and not a rework of something they've heard or seen before.

Are you saying that BEFORE "scientism" people were all always individual oracles of the self, autochthonic fonts of novelty?

From the government's standpoint the populace's motivations can be calculated and systematized thereby allowing those few conditioners who are accountable to no moral master to develop economic and technological stimuli that can produce the desired patterns of mass behavior. Such a societal model is known as technocracy, or in the words of Aldous Huxley, a scientific dictatorship.

Pretty sure rulers did that pretty much always, in one form or another. Lot of those rulers ruled religiously. I've seen little more effective at such indoctrination than religion. and what about this concept of "accountability to a moral master" - prey tell, who were the Spanish inquisitors morally accountable to?

It was the rise of nominalism that confused ideas which inhabited the intellect with subjective images that inhabited the imagination stemming from sense perception and this epistemological confusion lead William of Ockham to reject universals.

the problem of universals is interesting to think about, but it's an on-going thing. Don't turn Ockham's dumb razor into a boogieman. Though some hyper-skeptics make way too much use of it. If there's one thing science has learned in the intervening hundreds of years, it's that shit is way more complicated than Ockham ever conceived, and that simple explanations typically only go so far, before they have to be replaced with more complex models.

[divideandconquer]

Not at all sure there is anything worth calling "Scientism"
Who shall determine what the "legitimate fields" are? and how shall extension be prohibited?
Must conform? How then these thoughts of yours?
We should give currency to untouchable, unseeable entities? Like Dragons?
Also, there's a lot of metaphysical currency given to things that are only theory, as well as to many things that don't have a pointable-to physical existence. As for theory, most everything remains in the realm of theory, some more evidenced than others. The world moves on many contingencies.

I probably wasn't clear. I'm speaking in more general terms. The strictly scientific effort to found mechanics as the basis for physical science transformed into a more general frame of mind which can be called "scientific materialism". This became de facto the dominant mentality of the West, or the de facto philosophy of an era, not so much, explicitly but as an unspoken attitude of mind, the assumption that the world of material science is the only way to truth, which is, of course, only as good as the tools we have to measure.
Thus, the achievements in physical sciences and technology become the invisible standard by which to measure thinking in all domains, despite the fact that we all exist within the question of God. Does God exist or not exist? Atheists respond to that question with God does not exist, but they answer the question, nevertheless.

what doesn't become an oppressor in context of governance? Is not the role of governance to compel right action? Perhaps you mean a more specific kind of oppression.

The "scientific dictatorship". We're led to believe science is objective, when it's not. It's about the uses of measurement. As author Michael Hoffman says, "What does not fit the "yardstick" of the scientist is discarded. Scientific determinism has repeatedly excluded some data from its measurement and fudged other data, such as Piltdown Man, in order to support the self-fulfilling nature of its own agenda, be it Darwinism or "cut, burn and poison" methods of cancer "treatment." Much like religion, right?

they do not defy quantification, happiness levels are perfectly quantifiable. Dignity is perfectly quantifiable, just ask people if they have dignity or happiness.

Well, that's not very scientific, yet, you base your belief in the non-existence of God on the lack of scientific proof, right?

Pretty sure rulers did that pretty much always, in one form or another. Lot of those rulers ruled religiously. I've seen little more effective at such indoctrination than religion. and what about this concept of "accountability to a moral master" - prey tell, who were the Spanish inquisitors morally accountable to?

Certainly not Jesus Christ.

the problem of universals is interesting to think about, but it's an on-going thing. Don't turn Ockham's dumb razor into a boogieman. Though some hyper-skeptics make way too much use of it. If there's one thing science has learned in the intervening hundreds of years, it's that shit is way more complicated than Ockham ever conceived, and that simple explanations typically only go so far, before they have to be replaced with more complex models.

Well, it's nominalism that led to the bifurcation of epistemology thus the belief that all things quantifiable represent the totality of reality. So all of those entities that defy quantification are relegated to impotent and ambiguous subjectivism. This is the epistemological rigidity that underpins scientism, which mandates the universal imposition of science upon all fields of inquiry.

[Hammer of Los]

...

Divideandconquer knows a thing or two.

There surely is something called scientism.

The cold dark doctrines of Urizen.

The materialist fallacy.

Zombie neuroscientists.

They know not the origin story.

But the pre eminence of philosophical materialism clearly bespeaks a dark age in human history.

A dark age that has already ended, I am pleased to announce.

...

[Sounder]

Thanks divideandconquer, you are sharp.

[DrEvil]

Scientism mandates the imposition of science upon all fields of inquiry. When extended beyond it's legitimate fields of application, science becomes a rigid template, even the most complex of entities, like man, must conform. Thus, the epistemological cartel or epistemic autocracy only give metaphysical currency to empirically demonstrable and quantifiably demonstrable entities.

So in the context of governance, science becomes an oppressor. The scientifically regimented state must jettison concepts of freedom and dignity because they defy quantification. The citizen becomes little more than an amalgam of behavioral repertories who’s every thought, feeling, and idea becomes the product of external stimuli. From the government's standpoint the populace's motivations can be calculated and systematized thereby allowing those few conditioners who are accountable to no moral master to develop economic and technological stimuli that can produce the desired patterns of mass behavior. Such a societal model is known as technocracy, or in the words of Aldous Huxley, a scientific dictatorship.

Religionism mandates the imposition of religion upon all fields of inquiry. When extended beyond it's legitimate fields of application, religion becomes a rigid template, even the most complex of entities, like man, must conform. Thus, the epistemological cartel or epistemic autocracy only give metaphysical currency to empirically un-demonstrable and un-quantifiably un-demonstrable entities.

So in the context of governance, religion becomes an oppressor. The religiously regimented state must jettison concepts of freedom and dignity because they defy dogma. The citizen becomes little more than an amalgam of behavioral repertories who’s every thought, feeling, and idea becomes the product of divine stimuli. From the government's standpoint the populace's motivations can be calculated and systematized thereby allowing those few religious leaders who are accountable to no-one but God to develop economic and religious stimuli that can produce the desired patterns of mass behavior. Such a societal model is known as theocracy, or in the words of Dr Evil, a religious dictatorship.

[BrandonD]

Words are a tricky thing, they give one the impression of a unified front where there is in fact great diversity and even disagreement.

Not everyone means the same thing when they claim themselves to be an atheist. Not everyone means the same thing when they claim to believe in god.

By categorizing one's self as either, one is essentially buying into a social "game".

There is no need to define unless one has something to prove, to one's self or to someone else.