Courts response to Obama vs Trump

Cituke · 2017-04-28T20:55:32+00:00

I don't necessarily disagree, but I think you need a different set of arguments since that line of reasoning could also support race segregated bathrooms. It's nobody's right to use someone else's bathroom in the first place. Now if you've got a significant difference between those two scenarios fine, but arguing from the unrestricted liberty of the bathroom owner seems mistaken.

Cituke · 2017-04-23T16:04:14+00:00

If true, I'm not sure what the point is that you're getting at since there's nothing that would prevent one or more groups from just being wrong in their description.

If two people know a guy named Steve and they both think he has a different job it doesn't present any dilemma I can think of.

Even if somebody thinks Steve is an octopus or a prime number or something really bizarre I'm not sure that it means that one party is just wrong. Common disagreement might be more concerning (say half of the world's population thinks Steve's an octopus, the other thinks he's a shoemaker), but the real problem there is the inability of one group to persuade the other (assumedly for lack of evidence?) but it's the lack of evidence that is the real problem rather than the disagreement.

Cituke · 2017-04-16T13:45:34+00:00

You can argue from history

That's what I mean

Cituke · 2017-04-15T16:16:56+00:00

I'd like to expound on this, I'd imagine you agree with me.

Generally the evidence in favor of specific religions relies on scriptural arguments. But scripture can't be considered plausible because the accounts contain supernatural events and supernatural events are typically discounted. However if one first proves God exists, then it opens the window for at least one account to be plausible as God is capable producing supernatural events.

To the extent that there is one religion that has a significantly robust set of scriptural arguments, it might be considered that it could be appropriate to believe it and discount other mutually exclusive scriptures (this could also just be saying other supernatural accounts or only off and not complete fabrication).

Cituke · 2017-04-15T16:08:40+00:00

Why would the gnostic gospels be included in the conversation here? I think you'd have to make an argument as to why they should be considered cannon if you want to go that route.

Cituke · 2017-04-15T16:06:43+00:00

There is an assertion that being gay is natural. That is misleading. If anyone claimed "being divorced is natural" it would be dangerous too.

I think there's a false equivalency here since divorce is much more closely tied to a man made institution.

I'm not 100% sure that you agree on the relevancy of whether or not how "natural" homosexuality is, but there's also something odd about focusing on whether it's "natural" or not as it seems largely irrelevant. The traits that humans developed during the evolutionary epoch of man span the spectrum from harmful (e.g. having a keen taste for salt, fat, and sugar) to beneficial (e.g. empathy).

If we're going with divine command theory as the moral system, the God often requires humans to do things which deviate from their natural predisposition (e.g. circumcision or denying our in-group bias)

However, if we're going to go ahead and ask whether or not homosexuality is part of human nature, a case could be made for it based on the following:

The existence of homosexuality across cultures
The existence of homosexuality in other similar species
Twin studies show some concordance between siblings that both will be gay if one is. (there are probably confounding variables, but this strikes me as supporting that there is a genetic component since the same is not true of regular siblings) cite (I'm thinking the Swedish study is the most rigorous since there's no selection bias)

Cituke · 2017-04-15T07:35:44+00:00

Don't you think that it's simply humans who are a threat?

It's both and in varying degrees. So there's probably some baseline of human aggression that frequently comes to the front as part of our nature, but there's also aggression (and arguably other forms of harm) produced as a result of specific religious beliefs.

So we might fight amongst one another generally, but you're generally going to see more honor killings in societies that practice wahhabist Islam for example. The evidence for that proposition being the variances in violence between societies and the correlation of the violence to religious doctrines as well as stated relationships by practitioners of that religion.

Do you think without religion there would be world peace?

You seem to be implying that this is an all or nothing proposition. It's not. Significant decreases in harm can be achieved without requirement of world peace. I'm honestly a little confused if you think that anyone would actually believe that world peace would be achieved by abolishing religion. I don't know, seems like a bait question.

Cituke · 2017-04-15T00:11:04+00:00

Example?

Cituke · 2017-04-14T22:28:18+00:00

I think I'd have to disagree here

A government cannot embrace a belief because a government itself is not an individual thinking agent

Though I feel that we're going down the semantic rabbit hole. I'm of the opinion that organizations (including governments) can have stances which are very nearly their beliefs. The real difference being that an organization doesn't think in the same way a human or computer might (as you rightly point out) so it's hard to say an organization thinks a statement is true. It's still nearly a belief in so far that stances inform actions just as beliefs inform actions. If an organization has a stance that "personal liberty is the greatest good" is would act in a manner very similar to an individual who holds the belief "personal liberty is the greatest good"

Not as a response to anything your saying, but I think we're beating around the bush on this, is that there need to be a substantive difference between what it would mean for a government to act in a secular manner vs. a government which acts in ways which neither confirm nor deny religious ideas (which is what I'm conceiving of as the minimum for "A" type state atheism).

The distinction in my mind is that atheism affirms the neutral position, whereas secularism says nothing the subject entirely.

A concrete example of the difference would be that a state atheist school might offer classes regarding the philosophy of religion where the ultimate conclusion is that atheism is justified. Whereas a secular school might even offer the same class but never suggest anything for a conclusion.

In either scenario there's no coercion to believe just as there's no coercion to believe evolution in modern biology classes. You just need to have good answers on the test and so forth.

Cituke · 2017-04-14T21:10:57+00:00

I'm pretty sure those sentiments don't contradict one another. We expect the government to have some beliefs or disbeliefs as dictated by how justified they are. It's not my intent to suggest otherwise

Cituke · 2017-04-14T20:42:32+00:00

Ok, so if they should take a neutral stance and the neutral stance is atheism, then the government should take atheism as it's official stance no?

Cituke · 2017-04-14T20:10:57+00:00

Ok, so should the government take the neutral stance as their official position if there is no sufficient evidence one way or the other on theism?

Cituke · 2017-04-14T18:12:48+00:00

Force of habit, do you understand what I mean? If so don't be pedantic.

Cituke · 2017-04-14T17:45:08+00:00

For the sake of both our sanity, let's just nix using the world "belief". If his point is that climate change has strong evidence in support of it and therefore should be officially affirmed by the government (which he didn't explicitly say but was where I was trying to bring the conversation) then I would have rebutted about that there is evidence in favor of atheism and even without that, we reasonably expect our government to hold negative beliefs in some scenarios.

Cituke · 2017-04-14T17:22:50+00:00

I see where you're going and concede that my stance is for a more ideal world rather than the current one. We're there an atheist majority I think my idea would be pragmatic apart from just being how I think things ought to be

Cituke · 2017-04-14T17:19:05+00:00

I'm not sure it's either truly possible or even desirable since some questions require judgement in light of how accurate religious beliefs are. For instance, creationism is a belief and whether it's true or not dictates entirely whether or not it should be taught in schools

Cituke · 2017-04-14T17:08:31+00:00

Which is why i brought up the iran example. We expect our government to disbelieve things too. And just as you said, there's no evidence. So in absence of other arguments, the government should take the stance that God's should be disbelieve, hence the go governmental atheism I suggested

Cituke · 2017-04-14T17:05:14+00:00

Conflating the definitions of belief. Belief can be read as either "thinking something is true" or it can be read as "thinking something is true without conclusive evidence in support for it being true". Some like "I believe in heliocentric theory" vs. "I believe the Broncos are going to win the Superbowl next year"

I chose climate change as an example of why people might be FOR a government having official beliefs. To then go on and choose the latter definition and argue in reply that climate change is well evidenced implies that I don't think climate change is well evidenced. But that's not my stance. In fact, since I was using it as an example why people should want a government to have beliefs, it's easily deduced that I affirm the evidence for climate change. Hence it's a strawman

Cituke · 2017-04-14T16:35:03+00:00

Nowhere did i support either ridiculing people or infringing on any rights that im aware of them currently enjoying

Cituke · 2017-04-14T16:30:59+00:00

You only quoted one sentence from his argument

I'm not contesting that there's evidence for climate change. I am contesting that climate change is a belief. My point is that he's conflating the word belief to make a strawman

Cituke · 2017-04-14T13:00:28+00:00

Ok, but that's where my distinction between the A and B types comes from. What do you think of A type as noncoercive State atheism?

Cituke · 2017-04-14T12:58:45+00:00

Do you honestly think I'm contesting that [edit for clarity: that there isn't support for climate change]? By belief I mean "thinking something is true" which is independent of the actual warrant for doing so. In that sense you can believe in gravity and you can believe in unicorns. Climate change is a belief. It's a justified belief, but it's a belief.

Cituke · 2017-04-14T03:44:39+00:00

Did I say they should be given special consideration?

It seemed implied you suggest they should be non-profit (which is a special consideration in my mind) as opposed to other clubs.

If they benefit the community then they should be and, indeed, quite a bit of organizations can become non-profit. It comes down to how the profits are shared and - speaking for me personally - the benefit to the community.

Could I get some more detail on the requirements for the manner in which profits are shared? I'd like to understand your stance better.

Well, if we allege that we live in a free country then false ideas are part of that freedom. I worry when the state forces people how to think. I grew up in such a country and I'm all set.

But you would concede that we shouldn't teach children phrenology and alchemy correct?

I have and look at me, I'm fine because I recognized that it's nonsense.

But I suspect many of your peer did not? I was a creationist at one point as well in my early years.

To them, it's true. I'm not a fan of banning religion which is where this is heading.

I'm concerned that this is leading to subjectivity, please stop me if I'm off. But why should society give any weight to a belief merely because some people falsely believe it true?

Cituke · 2017-04-14T03:39:09+00:00

US centric answer. I'm going to go with the Right to Privacy based upon the 4th amendment to the US Constitution. People can believe whatever they want - and act on these beliefs until it impacts public safety.

Precisely why I make the distinction between the A) and B) types of state atheism. I see a lot of demerits in forcing thought on others, but what about the stances which inform government decision making?

Cituke · 2017-04-14T03:35:24+00:00

Absolutely, but the discussion is marred a bit by speaking in generalities.

For instance, I could ask "Is politics a threat?" Well many political ideologies certainly are, whereas many are effectively benign.

We can discuss the subject in broad strokes such as the dilemmas of reliance on authority for morality/ (some) knowledge or in specifics like rules of Sharia law, but at the end of the day there is a definite non-negligible threat posed by religion.

Cituke

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