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Cuneiformist
The Imperfectionist
USA
4955 Posts |
 Posted - 01/18/2010 : 23:36:47 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by ThorGoLucky
Originally posted by filthy
I'm reading that Tiger Woods has gotten up off some 3 mil for Haiti. ... |
That's most excellent. The cynical side of me thinks he's trying to buy his way out of controversy, but I don't care as that amount of money can be most helpful and welcome. If true and the money is going to a competent and reliable charity, then Thank you, Mr. Woods!. |
Hmmm. Or perhaps he's just trying to buy that half of the island for a bit more privacy? |
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HalfMooner
Dingaling
Philippines
15831 Posts |
Posted - 01/19/2010 : 00:18:47 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by Bill scott
Originally posted by HalfMooner
Originally posted by Bill scott
| But never mind. It's clear you don't give to dark strangers, even when a catastrophe like the Haitian quake hits. |
I would like you to fill me in on how you came to this conclusion. I have yet to reveal any of my contributions or charitable works to you, yet you believe that your qualified to claim that I am racist simply because I have yet to answer if I have given to your self-approved Haitian relief .org yet. If I provide you proof that I have sponsored a child from Zimbabwe for the last 5 years and have been sponsoring other children through the same .org for the past 10 years will you take back your ridicules accusation? |
My sincere apologies, Bill. I had no evidence or reason to imply you were racist. That implication crossed the line, and I'm sorry I made it.
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Thank you. And I would like to apoligize for some of my comments in reguards to the photoshop stuff. I was out of line at times and would like to apoligize for that. To be honest, even though we disagree on much, I gernerally find you to be likable. For whatever it is worth.
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And I thank you, Bill. Things do get heated at times. Emotions are not conducive to rational discussion. In my opinion, my implication was more seriously hurtful than your comments about my attempts at humor. I'll try to do better. |
“Biology is just physics that has begun to smell bad.” —HalfMooner
Here's a link to Moonscape News, and one to its Archive. |
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moakley
SFN Regular
USA
1888 Posts |
Posted - 01/19/2010 : 05:42:15 [Permalink]
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| Looks like PZ is staying on top of the useless crap that groups are sending. Solar powered digital bibles. Just what hungry, thirsty, homeless people need. Maybe they can convert couple of them into a transmitter and finally get off the island. |
Life is good
Philosophy is questions that may never be answered. Religion is answers that may never be questioned. -Anonymous |
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filthy
SFN Die Hard
USA
14408 Posts |
 Posted - 01/19/2010 : 05:44:18 [Permalink]
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Haiti is saved! The quacks and scumbags are on their way to join the vultures as they wheel and soar on the warm, Caribbean thermals.
John Travolta to Airlift Desperately Needed E-Meters to People of Haiti
Scientologists have mobilized to seize on the promotional and recruitment opportunities presented by the horror going on in Haiti, and John Travolta has personally arranged to fly "volunteer ministers" to Haiti to inflict his junk science on victims there.
Anywhere people are suffering, Scientology's yellow-shirted "volunteer ministers" can be found lurking near news cameras and claiming to help people with their bullshit technology. They performed "purification rundowns" on recovery workers sifting through the ruins of the World Trade Center after 9/11, administered "touch assists" to victims of the tsunami, distributed literature after the Virginia Tech shooting, and are on the ground in Haiti right now warning the starving, dehydrated populace about the dangers of psychiatry.
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Should'a seen it coming, I suppose.
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"What luck for rulers that men do not think." -- Adolf Hitler (1889 - 1945)
"If only we could impeach on the basis of criminal stupidity, 90% of the Rethuglicans and half of the Democrats would be thrown out of office." ~~ P.Z. Myres
"The default position of human nature is to punch the other guy in the face and take his stuff." ~~ Dude
Brother Boot Knife of Warm Humanitarianism,
and Crypto-Communist! 
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Bill scott
SFN Addict
USA
2103 Posts |
Posted - 01/19/2010 : 07:41:07 [Permalink]
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| Originally posted by Dave W. |
Let us review:
1. bngbuck is boasting that he (the Atheist) has out given me (the Christian) in charitable giving. You chide him for such claims and boasting that have nothing at all to do with the conversation at hand or with the theist/atheist debate. I agreed.
2. You then claim, in regards to theists, that the truth is more important to skeptics. Yet this is a more boastful claim, and more subjective, then the bngbuck’s claim by far. |
Subjectivity and boastfulness actually had little to do with either. |
So. I still find it boastful for you to claim that you place more importance on truth then do I by saying that skeptics place more importance on truth then do theist. I also find it a very subjective claim and I am very interested in how you definitively prove that skeptics value truth more then theists.
| You were trying to equivocate between theists (yourself, really) and "atheist-freethought-skeptics" on the basis of them both building strawmen and/or making unfounded accusations, for no apparent reason other than to say "nyaah-nyaah, you guys do it, too!" a fact which everybody here already knew. I pointed out that there's still a difference. |
No, I am not. I never pointed to the false accusations leveled against me by some of the skeptics here as the definitive example to refute your blanket claim of skeptics valuing truth more then theists. At first I was a little stunned by your definitive claim but then it quickly became more laughable. I merely used those in this thread as an example that disputed your claim because it had just happened a few posts earlier. You made a definitive claim about skeptics yet the behavior of the skeptics on this thread refuted your claims. I simply could see and appreciate the irony here
| Your claim is that skeptic’s value truth as more important then theist’s do. |
We have to, it's all we've got. Nothing else will "save" us, or make this world a better place. It's impossible to progress as a society on a substrate of lies or wishful thinking. Christianity wasn't able to do it, as we can see from history, evidenced by the stagnation of innovation between the rise of the Holy Roman Church and the Renaissance, when scientists finally decided to throw off the yoke of Jesus while doing science.
Neither the big two Commandments nor the older top-ten list place any value on testable truth. In fact, people in the Bible who value truth over faith are rebuked. Besides, Christian apologists have, for a long time, claimed that when God said "neighbors" in the Commandment against lying, He really meant "Israelites," which means it's okay for Christians to lie to non-Christians (go figure the logic there). And since God created a universe in which it is possible to tell or believe lies, He's necessarily the Father of all Falsehoods. |
This does nothing to substantiate your blanket claim that skeptics find truth as more important then do theist. For the sake of time I will not even dispute your claims here but just run with it. So what? I believe without out a doubt that my theistic world view is truth. I have no doubt that you have the same convictions about your skeptical world view. Now how are you going to definitively prove that you love and hold your version of truth as more important then I hold my version of truth? What you are really saying is that you can't understand how I could come to my theistic conclusion as you find your skeptical conclusion to be truth. So since you are convinced that my version of truth is not true and you are equally convinced that your version of truth is true that somehow this equivocates that you love truth and hold it more important then do I. Basically your saying unless I believe that truth is what you believe truth to be then there is no way on God's green earth that truth could be as important to me as it is to you. Dude, that is complete arrogance on your part and totally subjective. It's just your opinion that skeptics hold truth as more important then do theists, period.
| A much more subjective claim to prove indeed as one can hold truth to the utmost degree of importance and still believe in that which is not true. |
People failing to live up to their own standards doesn't make any part of the situation "subjective." I'll grant that it is subjective, but your reasoning is vacuous. However, it's not quite as subjective as you think, |
Look fellow, your own members disputed your blanket claim that skeptics hold truth as more important then do theist. I simply pointed that out for you. Now if you had said some/many skeptics love truth more then theists then I would have agreed because I am sure some do. Even if you would have said that most skeptics love truth more then do theists it would not be as subjective as "skeptics hold truth as more important then do theists, period.". Nope, it is your opinion that skeptics hold truth as more imporant then do theists, period.
| since we've got a lot of objective history and many non-subjective philosophical arguments (including the Torah, Bible and Koran) to which we can turn to measure out how much various groups of people value the truth. |
So again your basically saying that unless one holds to your version of truth and holds to your world view there is no way that they could love truth more then you do, which is laughable.
| So your claim, while equally irrelevant to the theist/atheist debate... |
Then why did you bring it up? |
I didn't. You did when you made the claim that skeptics care more for truth then do theists. You did this after chiding bngbuck for making claims that were irrelevant to the discussion. I simply pointed out that your claim of skeptics holding truth as more important then theists was equally irrelevant and totally subjective. In other words it is just your opinion.
| is much more subjective of a claim then bngbuck claiming that he has out given me in charitable giving. |
Actually, there are quite a few metrics which would need to be ironed out before any such thing could be decided, since it wasn't only money. There'd be a whole lot of subjective wrangling to go through if the exercise were to be carried out in real life. |
It would be drop in the bucket compared to the subjective wrangling one would have to go through if one intended to definitively prove that skeptics care more about truth then do theists out in real life. Again, this is just your opinion that skeptics care more for truth.
| People, including skeptics, can have deep convictions and still be deeply wrong. |
Yes, we all knew that before this thread even began. What does it have to do with anything? |
Because with you throwing around wild blanket accusations such as skeptics care more for truth then do theists it is painfully obvious that you need to be reminded of this little fact from time to time. |
"Lets get one thing clear, Bill. Science does make some assumptions." -perrodetokio-
"In the end as skeptics we must realize that there is no real knowledge, there is only what is most reasonable to believe." -Coelacanth-
The fact that humans do science is what causes errors in science. -Dave W.-
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| Edited by - Bill scott on 01/19/2010 08:21:29 |
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Gorgo
SFN Die Hard
USA
5310 Posts |
Posted - 01/19/2010 : 08:25:56 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by Dave W.
You speak of a couple of bad acts by a couple people as if they somehow magically falsify the generalization. "Truth is more important to us" doesn't mean "we never make mistakes."
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Just as a point of clarification, you seem to have started by saying that "truth is more important to us than a show of unity," and ended up saying that "truth is more important to us" (than somebody else). Did you mean to do that?
Either way, I'm not sure how you can speak for "us" or "them." |
I know the rent is in arrears
The dog has not been fed in years
It's even worse than it appears
But it's alright-
Jerry Garcia
Robert Hunter
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| Edited by - Gorgo on 01/19/2010 08:29:41 |
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filthy
SFN Die Hard
USA
14408 Posts |
 Posted - 01/19/2010 : 08:40:09 [Permalink]
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TRUTH, n.
An ingenious compound of desirability and appearance. Discovery of truth is the sole purpose of philosophy, which is the most ancient occupation of the human mind and has a fair prospect of existing with increasing activity to the end of time. ~~ Ambrose Bierce
Also:
TRUTHFUL, adj.
Dumb and illiterate. ~~ Ambrose Bierce
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"What luck for rulers that men do not think." -- Adolf Hitler (1889 - 1945)
"If only we could impeach on the basis of criminal stupidity, 90% of the Rethuglicans and half of the Democrats would be thrown out of office." ~~ P.Z. Myres
"The default position of human nature is to punch the other guy in the face and take his stuff." ~~ Dude
Brother Boot Knife of Warm Humanitarianism,
and Crypto-Communist!
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Dave W.
Info Junkie
USA
26022 Posts |
Posted - 01/19/2010 : 08:57:31 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by Bill scott
So again your basically saying that unless one holds to your version of truth... |
That's right, Bill, I am not a post-modernist who thinks that there is more than one reality, or that we each create our own reality. That you think that there are multiple realities is your delusion, and not any part of the actual universe.
Because you think there can be various, multiple truths, there really is no point in talking to you, but I'll add some more stuff, later. |
- Dave W. (Private Msg, EMail)
Evidently, I rock!
Why not question something for a change?
Visit Dave's Psoriasis Info, too. |
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Bill scott
SFN Addict
USA
2103 Posts |
Posted - 01/19/2010 : 09:37:48 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by Gorgo
Originally posted by Dave W.
You speak of a couple of bad acts by a couple people as if they somehow magically falsify the generalization. "Truth is more important to us" doesn't mean "we never make mistakes."
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Just as a point of clarification, you seem to have started by saying that "truth is more important to us than a show of unity," and ended up saying that "truth is more important to us" (than somebody else). Did you mean to do that?
Either way, I'm not sure how you can speak for "us" or "them."
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| Either way, I'm not sure how you can speak for "us" or "them." |
He cannot, and I think he knows it, but just will not admit it. It's the ol irony thing. Skeptics involved in this very thread were contraindicating his claim. Yet he still thinks his claim can be definitive that a group of people numbering in the millions, if not billions, have placed more importance on truth then another group, who numbers in the billions and is not a subjective claim in the least. Obviously he can't speak for "us" or "them" or "me" and that leaves his claim of skeptics placing a higher value on truth as opposed to theist as a completely and totally subjective statement, not to even mention arrogant.
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"Lets get one thing clear, Bill. Science does make some assumptions." -perrodetokio-
"In the end as skeptics we must realize that there is no real knowledge, there is only what is most reasonable to believe." -Coelacanth-
The fact that humans do science is what causes errors in science. -Dave W.-
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Bill scott
SFN Addict
USA
2103 Posts |
Posted - 01/19/2010 : 09:41:38 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by Dave W.
Originally posted by Bill scott
So again your basically saying that unless one holds to your version of truth... |
That's right, Bill, I am not a post-modernist who thinks that there is more than one reality, or that we each create our own reality. That you think that there are multiple realities is your delusion, and not any part of the actual universe.
Because you think there can be various, multiple truths, there really is no point in talking to you, but I'll add some more stuff, later.
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You have completely missed my point entirely. I have never claimed there are multiple realities at all. There is only one reality, but you and I differ on what we each believe that one reality to be. While I believe most of your reality is incorrect or not true I have no doubt that you believe this reality of yours to be true with great conviction. Likewise I hold my beliefs of reality and truth with equally great conviction. So you see, we can both hold equally fast to truth, or at least to what we each believe to be true, at the same time, while the reality is that both of us cannot be correct at the same time. So it becomes laughable when you make blanket statements such as skeptics care more for truth then do theists. It would be pointless and never ending for us to argue who holds their belief in what is truth as more important then the other. This subjectiveness would only be multiplied over and over when trying to definitively conclude who holds a more importance for truth between groups of people who number in the billions.
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"Lets get one thing clear, Bill. Science does make some assumptions." -perrodetokio-
"In the end as skeptics we must realize that there is no real knowledge, there is only what is most reasonable to believe." -Coelacanth-
The fact that humans do science is what causes errors in science. -Dave W.-
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Bill scott
SFN Addict
USA
2103 Posts |
Posted - 01/19/2010 : 09:43:16 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by filthy
TRUTH, n.
An ingenious compound of desirability and appearance. Discovery of truth is the sole purpose of philosophy, which is the most ancient occupation of the human mind and has a fair prospect of existing with increasing activity to the end of time. ~~ Ambrose Bierce
Also:
TRUTHFUL, adj.
Dumb and illiterate. ~~ Ambrose Bierce
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| Discovery of truth is the sole purpose of philosophy |
While true the trouble is getting everyone to agree when and when not truth has been discovered. |
"Lets get one thing clear, Bill. Science does make some assumptions." -perrodetokio-
"In the end as skeptics we must realize that there is no real knowledge, there is only what is most reasonable to believe." -Coelacanth-
The fact that humans do science is what causes errors in science. -Dave W.-
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Gorgo
SFN Die Hard
USA
5310 Posts |
Posted - 01/19/2010 : 09:59:33 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by Bill scott
He cannot, and I think he knows it, but just will not admit it. It's the ol irony thing. Skeptics involved in this very thread were contraindicating his claim. Yet he still thinks his claim can be definitive that a group of people numbering in the millions, if not billions, have placed more importance on truth then another group, who numbers in the billions and is not a subjective claim in the least. Obviously he can't speak for "us" or "them" or "me" and that leaves his claim of skeptics placing a higher value on truth as opposed to theist as a completely and totally subjective statement, not to even mention arrogant.
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Keep in mind, I'm not saying he can't, I'm just saying I'm not sure how he can.
I think it may be true that in some matters, naturalists try to place more importance on independently verifiable fact than than supernaturalists, but I see no reason to state that all those that call themselves skeptics place more importance on "truth," whatever that might be, than anyone else. Those that call themselves skeptics or naturalists may be just as prone to be deluded in some areas as others.
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I know the rent is in arrears
The dog has not been fed in years
It's even worse than it appears
But it's alright-
Jerry Garcia
Robert Hunter
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Dave W.
Info Junkie
USA
26022 Posts |
Posted - 01/19/2010 : 10:10:01 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by Gorgo
Just as a point of clarification, you seem to have started by saying that "truth is more important to us than a show of unity," and ended up saying that "truth is more important to us" (than somebody else). Did you mean to do that? |
I meant to do that from the start. Was that not clear?| Either way, I'm not sure how you can speak for "us" or "them." |
Easily: I examined the evidence, came to a conclusion on which group values truth more, and happened to note that I am self-included in that group. |
- Dave W. (Private Msg, EMail)
Evidently, I rock!
Why not question something for a change?
Visit Dave's Psoriasis Info, too. |
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Dave W.
Info Junkie
USA
26022 Posts |
Posted - 01/19/2010 : 10:12:52 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by Bill scott
It would be pointless and never ending for us to argue who holds their belief in what is truth as more important then the other. |
If that is what you think I was talking about, then you've been dreadfully mistaken.| This subjectiveness would only be multiplied over and over when trying to definitively conclude who holds a more importance for truth between groups of people who number in the billions. |
So now you're saying that generalization is impossible with so many people. How could one even define "Christian," then? |
- Dave W. (Private Msg, EMail)
Evidently, I rock!
Why not question something for a change?
Visit Dave's Psoriasis Info, too. |
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Gorgo
SFN Die Hard
USA
5310 Posts |
Posted - 01/19/2010 : 10:17:47 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by Dave W.
How could one even define "Christian," then?
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Are you saying that you can? |
I know the rent is in arrears
The dog has not been fed in years
It's even worse than it appears
But it's alright-
Jerry Garcia
Robert Hunter
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Haitian Relief
