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Dude
SFN Die Hard
USA
6891 Posts |
 Posted - 06/19/2007 : 21:48:48
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Worth watching.
Edited to shorten link for page formatting -- B10
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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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Edited by - Boron10 on 06/20/2007 12:43:57
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JEROME DA GNOME
BANNED
2418 Posts |
Posted - 06/19/2007 : 22:19:31 [Permalink]
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Thanks for posting that. Very interesting.
I have only watched the first part as of yet.
The problem I had with the first speaker was his equation of religion and the belief in God. Also the implication that if one believes in God he is somewhat responsible for others that commit murders based on the fact that they also belief in God.
I look forward to watching the rest.
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What a man believes upon grossly insufficient evidence is an index into his desires -- desires of which he himself is often unconscious. If a man is offered a fact which goes against his instincts, he will scrutinize it closely, and unless the evidence is overwhelming, he will refuse to believe it. If, on the other hand, he is offered something which affords a reason for acting in accordance to his instincts, he will accept it even on the slightest evidence. The origin of myths is explained in this way. - Bertrand Russell |
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JEROME DA GNOME
BANNED
2418 Posts |
Posted - 06/19/2007 : 23:32:35 [Permalink]
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Sam Harris was shown to be a well spoken fraud.
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What a man believes upon grossly insufficient evidence is an index into his desires -- desires of which he himself is often unconscious. If a man is offered a fact which goes against his instincts, he will scrutinize it closely, and unless the evidence is overwhelming, he will refuse to believe it. If, on the other hand, he is offered something which affords a reason for acting in accordance to his instincts, he will accept it even on the slightest evidence. The origin of myths is explained in this way. - Bertrand Russell |
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Dude
SFN Die Hard
USA
6891 Posts |
Posted - 06/20/2007 : 13:56:31 [Permalink]
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Troll, why don't you elaborate?
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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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JEROME DA GNOME
BANNED
2418 Posts |
 Posted - 06/20/2007 : 18:58:14 [Permalink]
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Many of his points were based on proven falsehoods.
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What a man believes upon grossly insufficient evidence is an index into his desires -- desires of which he himself is often unconscious. If a man is offered a fact which goes against his instincts, he will scrutinize it closely, and unless the evidence is overwhelming, he will refuse to believe it. If, on the other hand, he is offered something which affords a reason for acting in accordance to his instincts, he will accept it even on the slightest evidence. The origin of myths is explained in this way. - Bertrand Russell |
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Dude
SFN Die Hard
USA
6891 Posts |
Posted - 06/20/2007 : 19:17:05 [Permalink]
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Name 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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JohnOAS
SFN Regular
Australia
800 Posts |
Posted - 06/20/2007 : 19:34:25 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by JEROME DA GNOME
Many of his points were based on proven falsehoods.
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And by "proven falsehood" I assume you mean "things which JEROME doesn't believe", right? |
John's just this guy, you know. |
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JEROME DA GNOME
BANNED
2418 Posts |
Posted - 06/20/2007 : 22:49:15 [Permalink]
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Suicide bombers families rejoice over there children deaths.
False.
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What a man believes upon grossly insufficient evidence is an index into his desires -- desires of which he himself is often unconscious. If a man is offered a fact which goes against his instincts, he will scrutinize it closely, and unless the evidence is overwhelming, he will refuse to believe it. If, on the other hand, he is offered something which affords a reason for acting in accordance to his instincts, he will accept it even on the slightest evidence. The origin of myths is explained in this way. - Bertrand Russell |
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JohnOAS
SFN Regular
Australia
800 Posts |
Posted - 06/20/2007 : 23:08:10 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by JEROME DA GNOME
Suicide bombers families rejoice over there children deaths.
False.
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Did he say
"all Suicide bombers families rejoice over there children deaths"
or
"Some" Suicide bombers families rejoice over there children deaths"
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If the former, then I agree with you, I'm sure that's false. If he said the latter then I'd agree with Sam Harris.
If, as I suspect, he didn't use a qualifier, then you have to make a decision based on context, or, better yet, confirm it from another source.
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John's just this guy, you know. |
| Edited by - JohnOAS on 06/20/2007 23:09:33 |
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JEROME DA GNOME
BANNED
2418 Posts |
Posted - 06/20/2007 : 23:16:54 [Permalink]
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JohnOAS, he extrapolated on the fact that suicide bombers families rejoice as further evidence that Islam (religion) is the cause of conflict. He was proven wrong by the eye witness account of someone who lived in that area on and off for 15 years as a professional observer of the reality.
This was evidence presented as authority of his view. The evidence is false.
Watch the debate, it is worth watching.
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What a man believes upon grossly insufficient evidence is an index into his desires -- desires of which he himself is often unconscious. If a man is offered a fact which goes against his instincts, he will scrutinize it closely, and unless the evidence is overwhelming, he will refuse to believe it. If, on the other hand, he is offered something which affords a reason for acting in accordance to his instincts, he will accept it even on the slightest evidence. The origin of myths is explained in this way. - Bertrand Russell |
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Dude
SFN Die Hard
USA
6891 Posts |
Posted - 06/21/2007 : 10:31:40 [Permalink]
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| he extrapolated on the fact that suicide bombers families rejoice as further evidence that Islam (religion) is the cause of conflict. He was proven wrong by the eye witness account of someone who lived in that area on and off for 15 years as a professional observer of the reality. |
Proven? Hedges disputed the claim, but his annecdotal evidence hardly constitutes "proof".
The religion provides justification and promise of eternal reward. If you think suicide bombers can exist without some system like this, then you are mistaken. A simple analysis of the societal and cultural contexts which suicide bombers come from would provide you with this answer.
Rational secular societies do not create suicide bombers. Fanatical sectarian societies do.
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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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Ricky
SFN Die Hard
USA
4907 Posts |
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Dude
SFN Die Hard
USA
6891 Posts |
Posted - 06/21/2007 : 17:35:09 [Permalink]
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Ricky said:
That's almost vacuously true. Because all types of society are predominately religious, and almost all forms of religions promise some sort of reward in the afterlife or next life for doing "good work", whatever that may be.
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Vacuously?
Perhaps almost universally true, now.
Which is one of the arguments that Harris and Hitchens make so well. Religion (and faith), in all its forms, is a bad thing because it provides moral justification for anything at all.
There is a difference between being willing to fight, and maybe die, for a cause you believe in and deliberately sacrificing yourself for that cause.
As far as I know all societies that have spawned suicide bombers offer some type of transcendent reward. Great honor for yourself, the Empire, and your family for the Japanese shinpu(kamikaze) (literal translation= divine wind). Guaranteed entrance into paradise and a reward on your arrival there for the Muslims. And so on.
Without the promise of these rewards, who would blow themselves up (intentionally) for any cause?
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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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Ricky
SFN Die Hard
USA
4907 Posts |
Posted - 06/21/2007 : 20:04:11 [Permalink]
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Vacuously?
Perhaps almost universally true, now. |
Just to be clear, I don't mean the mathematical meaning of conditions not being met. Just that the conclusion is empty. Because all societies are predominately religious and just about all of those religions promise rewards for doing "good" in the afterlife or next life, anyone at all who suicide bombs comes from such a society. Because there is no way for you statement to be false, I would say it is vacuous.
Which is one of the arguments that Harris and Hitchens make so well. Religion (and faith), in all its forms, is a bad thing because it provides moral justification for anything at all. |
I would argue that religion is used for moral justification, religion isn't the cause of the moral justification. If it wasn't religion, it would just be something else to take its place. Just because religion is used as the excuse does not make it bad. In the same way, if someone killed in the name of science, we would not conclude science is bad. It is only when a tenant of the religion is to kill others should a religion be labeled as such.
As far as I know all societies that have spawned suicide bombers offer some type of transcendent reward. Great honor for yourself, the Empire, and your family for the Japanese shinpu(kamikaze) (literal translation= divine wind). Guaranteed entrance into paradise and a reward on your arrival there for the Muslims. And so on. |
And my point, just to be clear is that "all societies *snip* offer some type of transcendent reward".
But this leads me to my next question: Why don't Christians? The Christian faith offers rewards to those who do "good" and there are those who are Christians who believe that killing others like Jews or Muslims is doing the work of their god. So why don't Christians?
In fact, the only major difference I see is that the Japanese and those in the Middle East behave exactly like a trapped animal. Because of their situation they have run out of options on what to do. So they lash out in anyway possible: Suicide bombings. It is not religion that is that cause, rather the social economic situation. I do not disagree that religion is used to help it along, but again, if it wasn't religion it would just be something else. |
Why continue? Because we must. Because we have the call. Because it is nobler to fight for rationality without winning than to give up in the face of continued defeats. Because whatever true progress humanity makes is through the rationality of the occasional individual and because any one individual we may win for the cause may do more for humanity than a hundred thousand who hug their superstitions to their breast.
- Isaac Asimov |
| Edited by - Ricky on 06/21/2007 20:08:09 |
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Dude
SFN Die Hard
USA
6891 Posts |
Posted - 06/21/2007 : 22:56:45 [Permalink]
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Ricky said:
| Just that the conclusion is empty. Because all societies are predominately religious and just about all of those religions promise rewards for doing "good" in the afterlife or next life, anyone at all who suicide bombs comes from such a society. Because there is no way for you statement to be false, I would say it is vacuous. |
The statement can be falsified, however.
The point is that religion, and it's promised rewards, enable such acts, and worse.
Do you know of any society that is predominantly based on enlightenment style (evidence based, secular, natural rights, etc) principles that spawns suicide bombers or fathers who would murder their daughter if their daughter was raped?
I would argue that religion is used for moral justification, religion isn't the cause of the moral justification. If it wasn't religion, it would just be something else to take its place. Just because religion is used as the excuse does not make it bad. In the same way, if someone killed in the name of science, we would not conclude science is bad. It is only when a tenant of the religion is to kill others should a religion be labeled as such.
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Religion is the justification. It provides the moral authority to commit these acts. As for killing for science.... can you name one society who has ever used science as the moral basis for atrocity?
I do not disagree that people can come up with many ways to justify such things, and that religion is just one. But it is the predominant one throughout all of human history.
And certainly some religions do not possess the qualities of the big-3, and are more or less harmless. But even these tell people it is OK to believe things to be true in the absence of evidence. There are, obviously, degrees.
But this leads me to my next question: Why don't Christians? The Christian faith offers rewards to those who do "good" and there are those who are Christians who believe that killing others like Jews or Muslims is doing the work of their god. So why don't Christians?
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A more appropriate question would be: Why don't Christians now?"
Because western society has been fighting the barbarity and cruelty of christianity for centuries. Enlightened secular values have been blunting the christian church for a long time, pressuring it to change.
But the basics are still there. All one need do is read the bible to find justification for killing doctors, murdering gays and atheists, forcing people to convert or die, and so on.
Historically the christian church has approved and funded genocide, slavery, torture, forced conversion, murder of non-believers, and a score of other atrocities.
Only in recent times has it been restrained by secular societies and the rule of law.
If you have ever heard the very serious fundamentalist christians talk, preach, or speak about their beliefs, then it is easy to picture them really believing it is ok to kill people because they are atheists, witches, or gay (to name a few reasons). I believe many of them are restrained from doing so only by legal consequences.
Islam, I should note, has not been subjected to the same pressures as chritianity and judaism, from western enlightenment values, for the last couple hundred years.
| In fact, the only major difference I see is that the Japanese and those in the Middle East behave exactly like a trapped animal. Because of their situation they have run out of options on what to do. So they lash out in anyway possible: Suicide bombings. It is not religion that is that cause, rather the social economic situation. |
You are aware that the 9/11 hijackers were college educated men?
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/04/28/AR2005042801315.html
| The pilot of the first plane to hit the World Trade Center, Atta, came from "an ambitious, not overtly religious middle-class household in Egypt" and had led "a sheltered life" until he arrived in Hamburg, Germany, in 1992 to do graduate study in architecture. |
| The pilot of the second plane, Marwan al-Shehhi, was an amiable, "laid-back" fellow from the United Arab Emirates who had joined the UAE army, "not the world's most effective fighting force but one of its most generous, paying [its scholarship] students monthly stipends of about $2,000," |
Scholarship AND $2k a month? Nice.
| Hani Hanjour, the Saudi pilot who flew American Airlines flight 77 into the Pentagon, "had lived in the United States off and on throughout the 1990s, mostly in Arizona, intermittently taking flying lessons at several different flying schools." |
| As for Ziad Jarrah, the pilot of the plane that crashed in Pennsylvania, he was "the handsome middle child and only son of an industrious, middle-class family in Beirut," |
| For all of them, radical Islam and jihad soon became obsessions, eclipsing everything else. Studies were abandoned, families ignored, the outer world denied as they plunged themselves into their fanatical version of faith. As a German investigator put it: "They are not talking about daily life stuff, such as buying cars -- they buy cars, but they don't talk about it, they talk about religion most of the time . . . these people are just living for their religion, meaning for them that they just live now for their life after death, the paradise. They want to live obeying their God, so they can enter paradise. Everything else doesn't matter." |
Ricky said:
| I do not disagree that religion is used to help it along, but again, if it wasn't religion it would just be something else. |
What then would it be?
Can you honestly say that people who belong to a secular society that recognizes the weight of evidence in argument, respect for persons, equality, and other natural-rights type values, will produce suicide bombers, honor killings, and genocide?
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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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| Edited by - Dude on 06/21/2007 23:01:15 |
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Ricky
SFN Die Hard
USA
4907 Posts |
Posted - 06/21/2007 : 23:13:40 [Permalink]
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Do you know of any society that is predominantly based on enlightenment style (evidence based, secular, natural rights, etc) principles that spawns suicide bombers or fathers who would murder their daughter if their daughter was raped?
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No, I can't say I do. Then again, I can't say I know of any society that is just evidence based, secular, natural rights, etc. So it should be no surprise that I can't name one that has suicide bombers as well.
| As for killing for science.... can you name one society who has ever used science as the moral basis for atrocity? |
Eugenics programs in the early 20th century in America and Germany.
I do not disagree that people can come up with many ways to justify such things, and that religion is just one. But it is the predominant one throughout all of human history. |
I would say that this is only the case because for almost the entire population of the planet, religion is the giant part of their lives.
A more appropriate question would be: Why don't Christians now? |
Yes, sorry, I thought that was implied. I should have been more explicit.
But the basics are still there. All one need do is read the bible to find justification for killing doctors, murdering gays and atheists, forcing people to convert or die, and so on. |
We are talking about suicide bombers. Certainly there are those who murdered recently in the name of Christianity. But no suicide bombers to my recollection.
In fact, the only major difference I see is that the Japanese and those in the Middle East behave exactly like a trapped animal. Because of their situation they have run out of options on what to do. So they lash out in anyway possible: Suicide bombings. It is not religion that is that cause, rather the social economic situation. |
You are aware that the 9/11 hijackers were college educated men? |
I'm sorry, but that seems like a non-sequitur. I made no statements that the Japanese or those in the Middle East are uneducated. They are trapped in their situations with no way out, and as such, they resort to drastic measures. Suicide bombings.
Also, my point was not that they were poor. The Middle East was in turmoil long before 9/11. This was the situation I was referring to.
Can you honestly say that people who belong to a secular society that recognizes the weight of evidence in argument, respect for persons, equality, and other natural-rights type values, will produce suicide bombers, honor killings, and genocide?
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Please, tell me the location of this paradise. I have to live there. |
Why continue? Because we must. Because we have the call. Because it is nobler to fight for rationality without winning than to give up in the face of continued defeats. Because whatever true progress humanity makes is through the rationality of the occasional individual and because any one individual we may win for the cause may do more for humanity than a hundred thousand who hug their superstitions to their breast.
- Isaac Asimov |
| Edited by - Ricky on 06/21/2007 23:16:03 |
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Sam Harris debate
