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Officiant
Skeptic Friend
166 Posts |
Posted - 09/03/2011 : 07:46:53 [Permalink]
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| Dave W. You are insane. Goodbye. |
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Officiant
Skeptic Friend
166 Posts |
Posted - 09/03/2011 : 08:23:44 [Permalink]
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Hal, You wrote, "why can't someone who simply says, "Don't Know, Don't Care," live "as if there were no god"? How is it that that kind of agnostic remains burdened by theism?"
Apathy is just too expensive and dangerous.
The United States has spent more than $7.6 trillion on defense and homeland security since the attacks of September 11, 2001.
Total homeland security spending since September 11, 2001 is $635.9 billion.
U.S. Security Spending Since 9/11 - Publications - National Priorities ...
nationalpriorities.org/.../us-security-spending-since-911... - United States |
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Dave W.
Info Junkie
USA
26022 Posts |
 Posted - 09/03/2011 : 08:24:28 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by Officiant
Dave W. You are insane. |
Hey, I'm not the one who offered a toenail clipping as potential evidence that agnostics are cowards, am I?Aw, you're not going to answer any of those unanswered questions you say don't exist? That means my prediction about you was correct, doesn't it? |
- 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 - 09/03/2011 : 08:28:07 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by Officiant
Apathy is just too expensive and dangerous. |
So is it correct to say that you think that someone who is apathetic about whether or not any gods exist is necessarily also apathetic about government abuses? That's just a bizarre non-sequitor, isn't it? |
- 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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Kil
Evil Skeptic
USA
13477 Posts |
Posted - 09/03/2011 : 11:34:39 [Permalink]
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Well... Looks like whatever good comes from this thread, it will be that some people will have a better understanding of what it means to be an agnostic, in the way Huxley intended. As a nod to empiricism. But in general, when I invited Officiant over to SFN for a debate, I had no idea that he was more than a few french fries short of a happy meal. I had no idea of the level of dishonesty he would sink to in order to support (in his mind) his assertions. Of course, being a few french fries short of a happy meal, in his mind he is both rational and logical. What worries me is that he isn't alone. He first posted a screed on facebook about cowardly agnostics, that he lifted from his godess, O'hair. (And just to make clear, I acknowledge both O'hair and Huxley for there achievements, and do not consider either one infallible.) I have seen quotes of his that are almost verbatim what O'hair has said without attribution, and it was I who first posted a link to her wrongheaded screed on agnosticism that required her to create the strawman that Officiant accepts as gospel. Of course, the irony is that she also includes a definition of atheism that most agnostics and atheists would accept as covering agnostic/atheism, as I have previously pointed out.
That reminds me of a dinner I had with Bobbie Kirkhart, head of Atheists United, several years ago. (I think at the time she was president of the Atheist Alliance International.) We talked about our differences and realized that there really weren't any, and it came down to how we feel comfortable defining ourselves. She understood the nod to empiricism and had no objection to it. She also understood that what mattered is we were fighting the same fight. Mine focuses on skeptical activism and hers on political action focusing on atheism because there is most certainly a need for both. I'm sure we left with a mutual respect for each other and understood the need for both groups to fight against all of the crap that is thrown our way. But then, Bobbie Kirkhart isn't insane.
Officiant reminds me of that preacher who is advocating putting atheists on a registry along with child abusers and criminals. His hate for atheists and Officiants hate for his strawman version of agnostics (all are secret theists to him) are both faith based hate mongering. They are the same species. Flip sides of the same coin. Bat shit crazy.
Atheists like Officiant need to be kept at arms length from the atheist movement in general, because his kind does way more harm than good. And given the number of people who hit "like" on his irrational ad hominem filled screed on facebook, he is not alone in his thinking, which is a very bad sign. To my way of thinking, this lack of critical thinking and flat out hate mongering can only hurt the cause. It doesn't really matter from what side it comes from, but eating your own is not a good thing. I think Officiant may represent the creep of non critical thinkers into a movement that requires critical thinking skills if it is to lay claim to being both rational and reasonable. I wonder how Officiant would have faired on an atheist forum? Skeptics place a great deal of value on empiricism, rationalism, critical thinking and logic. So even the Gnu Atheists here at SFN have not taken kindly to Officiants obvious lack of all of those skills. (Funny that he turned to skeptics via the CSI and Sagan's Baloney detection kit to set the rules for his debate, and then later declared that he isn't a skeptic. No shit Sherlock!)
Anyway, more than the entertainment factor of kicking this pretender around, his very existence makes me sad and again, I worry for the future of our respective movements. Atheism will continue to grow faster than the skeptical movement in general, because it only requires one conclusion and there is no requirement to a methodology that skeptics must adhere to if they are to call themselves skeptics. In other words, it's easier, and there are many more paths to atheism than there are to skepticism and critical thinking... |
Uncertainty may make you uncomfortable. Certainty makes you ridiculous.
Why not question something for a change?
Genetic Literacy Project |
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marfknox
SFN Die Hard
USA
3739 Posts |
Posted - 09/03/2011 : 12:13:07 [Permalink]
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Officiant wrote: Hal, You wrote, "why can't someone who simply says, "Don't Know, Don't Care," live "as if there were no god"? How is it that that kind of agnostic remains burdened by theism?"
Apathy is just too expensive and dangerous.
The United States has spent more than $7.6 trillion on defense and homeland security since the attacks of September 11, 2001.
Total homeland security spending since September 11, 2001 is $635.9 billion.
U.S. Security Spending Since 9/11 - Publications - National Priorities ...
nationalpriorities.org/.../us-security-spending-since-911... - United States |
This is just like when you called me selfish for being more interested in what's for dinner than the big philosophical questions. If someone lives their life as if God doesn't exist (as I would argue many theists, if not most, at least in the developed world do) that hardly means they are apathetic, especially about real-world issues such as how our governments' are run. If we live as if there is no God, then we care a lot about those issues. And what's for dinner isn't a totally insignificant question either. You seem to be thinking that the default position is apathy, but that is simply not a case. Even only a teeny tiny minority of theists resort to only prayer when they or their kids are sick. Most of us live as if what we do in this life matters a great deal, and that is a major basis of secular humanist living.
Kil wrote: | Officiant reminds me of that preacher who is advocating putting atheists on a registry along with child abusers and criminals. His hate for atheists and Officiants hate for his strawman version of agnostics (all are secret theists to him) are both faith based hate mongering. They are the same species. Flip sides of the same coin. Bat shit crazy. |
I think atheists who put all theists in the same category as Islamic and Christian terrorists and child/women abusers are just as bad.
| I worry for the future of our respective movements. Atheism will continue to grow faster than the skeptical movement in general, because it only requires one conclusion and there is no requirement to a methodology that skeptics must adhere to if they are to call themselves skeptics. In other words, it's easier, and there are many more paths to atheism than there are to skepticism and critical thinking... |
I worry this as well. Funny thing is, I've read/heard similar concerns and lamentations from progressive religious thinkers. The bigot-sheep of nondenominational megachurches are growing, while Unitarians and Quakers are dying out. More people just prefer to be simple-minded and/or followers than critical thinkers. |
"Too much certainty and clarity could lead to cruel intolerance" -Karen Armstrong
Check out my art store: http://www.marfknox.etsy.com
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| Edited by - marfknox on 09/03/2011 12:14:57 |
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Dude
SFN Die Hard
USA
6891 Posts |
Posted - 09/03/2011 : 12:16:26 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by Officiant
Dear Dude, An external reality: The reality which we experience through our senses, what we see, hear, smell, taste and sense.(scenerioarchitecture.com)
I suggest you get help from your Psychoanalyst for your problems in dealing with reality.
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Provide a test to prove it is real.
That you are unaware of this problem shows how out if your depth you are. There is no test, there is no proof, no evidence, that any of those things exist outside your head.
The only way you will make your case is to provide a test that proves there is an external reality. Until then, like everyone else, you just get to assume there is one.
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Ignorance is preferable to error; and he is less remote from the truth who believes nothing, than he who believes what is wrong.
-- Thomas Jefferson
"god :: the last refuge of a man with no answers and no argument." - G. Carlin
Hope, n.
The handmaiden of desperation; the opiate of despair; the illegible signpost on the road to perdition. ~~ da filth |
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Dave W.
Info Junkie
USA
26022 Posts |
Posted - 09/03/2011 : 12:48:46 [Permalink]
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While a world full of Ken Hams would be horrific, a world full of Officiants would be only slightly less so. The reliance they both have on their personal interpretations of the words of people they think are authorities is crazy dangerous. Officiant couldn't even be bothered to read two whole pages from a book he quoted (if he ever read it at all, and didn't just copy-and-paste the quotes from elsewhere) to get a better understanding of what was being discussed. He thinks that two sentences accurately and completely summarize an argument Dawkins spent many pages building and qualifying.
And he's so deluded that he thinks we are a danger to his cause. That if we had the power, we'd burn him at the stake. No movement is completely safe from the insane, Kil. Vigilance is needed to ensure these sorts of people don't rise to positions of power in skeptic, atheist and humanist groups, from which they might be able to do some serious damage. They can't be stopped from squawking on web sites, and they really can't hurt the cause from there. Especially not since religious loons have always had such low morals that they've felt free to fabricate stories about atheists worshiping Satan, eating babies and whatnot. Poe's Law suggests that most people can't tell the difference between a real atheist psychopath and one invented by a pastor to demonize atheists. |
- 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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Officiant
Skeptic Friend
166 Posts |
Posted - 09/03/2011 : 15:51:46 [Permalink]
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Dear Kil, It's good to see you back. Ask anyone who knew Madalyn O'Hair personally, saw her speak or read anything she wrote if she would not be greatly insulted by your fatuous smear campaign to afflict her with the disparaging epithet of agnostic. Have some respect and show some class Kill. Apologize. She was an Atheist.
I would like all you vacillating agnostic atheists to read the following.
Cognitive Dissonance
changingminds.org
This is the feeling of uncomfortable tension which comes from holding two conflicting thoughts in the mind at the same time.
Dissonance increases with:
The importance of the subject to us.
How strongly the dissonant thoughts conflict.
Our inability to rationalize and explain away the conflict.
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Dave W.
Info Junkie
USA
26022 Posts |
Posted - 09/03/2011 : 16:19:02 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by Officiant
I would like all you vacillating agnostic atheists to read the following.
Cognitive Dissonance
changingminds.org
This is the feeling of uncomfortable tension which comes from holding two conflicting thoughts in the mind at the same time.
Dissonance increases with:
The importance of the subject to us.
How strongly the dissonant thoughts conflict.
Our inability to rationalize and explain away the conflict. |
Yes, Officiant, I imagine that your own cognitive dissonance in trying to keep "Dawkins thinks all agnosticism is bad" and "Dawkins is a category-six agnostic" together in your head simultaneously is very painful, isn't it? You just try to ignore one of those two ideas, don't you? |
- 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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Kil
Evil Skeptic
USA
13477 Posts |
Posted - 09/03/2011 : 16:52:23 [Permalink]
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Officiant:
She was an Atheist. |
And I didn't say otherwise. And that you can find in what I said that I did shows how pointless it is to have any exchange with you. Either you completly lack reading comprehension, or you're a liar. Anyhow I wasn't addressing you. As I said, I'm done with you.
I didn't say I would not comment again. I will if I have something to say. But speaking to you Officiant is a waste of time. This post is a waste of my time... |
Uncertainty may make you uncomfortable. Certainty makes you ridiculous.
Why not question something for a change?
Genetic Literacy Project |
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Officiant
Skeptic Friend
166 Posts |
Posted - 09/03/2011 : 16:58:22 [Permalink]
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Dear marfknox, In Ontario public schools we are about to knuckle under to Muslim pressure to have them conduct religious exercises in school contrary to the Education Act. We already allowed the Muslim kids time off to attend at the Mosques but like freedom loving kids everywhere they just went to the mall. The militant Imams are looking for a foot in the door to establish Sharia Law.
Who would vote for this? An agnostic school board member thinks this cowardly appeasement is alright because agnosticism is the most scientific and accurate view of religion.
When we don't all obey the same laws it is the end of civilization. Agnostic Huxley supported the Holy Bible, the word of God, to be read in English schools. Agnostics want religion proselytized in school.
H.Humbert (from page 3)...ongoing debates between the new atheists and the accommodationists (people who many feel prop up the privilege of religion at the expense of reason and honesty).
... those atheists who are nonetheless soft on faith (i.e., atheist accommodationists). You know them — the kind of people, like Michael Ruse, who say, “I am an atheist, but . . .”. In other words, the folks who, says Daniel Dennett, have “belief in belief.” Aren't agnostics soft on faith marfknox?
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Officiant
Skeptic Friend
166 Posts |
Posted - 09/03/2011 : 17:15:52 [Permalink]
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| Kil, Look at what you said on page 17. With you pinhead agnostics everyone must be agnostic. I've even had some of you tell me I am not an atheist. |
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Officiant
Skeptic Friend
166 Posts |
Posted - 09/03/2011 : 17:27:26 [Permalink]
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Dude, I about can't find the posting but a few pages ago you wrote about epistemological/metaphysical reasons to determine reality outside your head. That is the stuff philosophy professors make a living
from shifting piles of it from one side of the barn to the other. Metaphysics has nothing to do with real physics or reality in the real world. |
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Officiant
Skeptic Friend
166 Posts |
Posted - 09/03/2011 : 17:35:16 [Permalink]
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| I am heading up to the Bruce Peninsula with my resident love goddess. So talk amongst yourselves. I'll be back on Thursday to further your continuing education. |
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Cowardly Agnostics
Topic Locked
