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From CNN : America losing its religion

zgoldsmith23 said:
The problem lies in the education received, the quality of faculty, the funding available, and both the quantitative and qualitative research being done there.

http://mup.asu.edu/research2011.pdf Not seeing it there, either. UW-Madison is there, but no Platteville.
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So basically, you bow at the altar of accreditation.

Never mind the dozens of 'uneducated' (according to you) men responsible for creating our modern conception of science; their ideas mean nothing since they don't come from American Academia.

I'm stunned that you're pursuing this line of reasoning, it doesn't seem very 'educated'!
 
SingleCellOrganism said:
So basically, you bow at the altar of accreditation.

Never mind the dozens of 'uneducated' (according to you) men responsible for creating our modern conception of science; their ideas mean nothing since they don't come from American Academia.

I'm stunned that you're pursuing this line of reasoning, it doesn't seem very 'educated'!
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Bow at the altar? No. Understand and appreciate its application? Sure.
 
zgoldsmith23 said:
How is abbreviating your "school's" name an insult? A coherent argument to fallacies where you falsely claim my argument without me stating any such thing. Riiiight. :roll:
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You obviously CAN'T propose a coherent argument to the TOPIC of this thread!

Misdirects, veiled insults, preposterous assertions ... and all while propping yourself up as some beacon of reasonable argumentation?

Page 3 folks, watch Zgolds mind devolve over the course of 2 pages.
 
zgoldsmith23 said:
Certainly not. They aren't absolute, those were merely examples.
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You engaged in the intellectually dishonest ploy of citing only the examples that support your claim (ie "Conceptions of religion ARE a part of physical realities.")
 
SingleCellOrganism said:
You obviously CAN'T propose a coherent argument to the TOPIC of this thread!

Misdirects, veiled insults, preposterous assertions ... and all while propping yourself up as some beacon of reasonable argumentation?

Page 3 folks, watch Zgolds mind devolve over the course of 2 pages.
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Well, you certainly are an interesting character.
 
sangha said:
You engaged in the intellectually dishonest ploy of citing only the examples that support your claim (ie "Conceptions of religion ARE a part of physical realities.")
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I claimed they existed, not they were absolutes.
 
sangha said:
Disingenuous posts are disingenuous
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Did you read the quote? I asked SCO to read the thread starting from the post I linked, he did not. He even admitted that.
 
sangha said:
No, you argued an absolute
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Edit, ah, I understand how it could be read as such. To clarify, I knew I was implying instances, not absolutes so I didn't think to clarify. My apologies.
 
zgoldsmith23 said:
Well, you certainly are an interesting character.
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Yeah, I'm sorry for getting excited about this!

But your arguments are misdirects; and follow the same formula I see all over the web from people who refuse to deal the the implications of 'physical only' VS 'metaphorical conceptions'

As sangha noted, you cite arguments to misdirect the real subject, while appearing to answer the postulate, which you have no answer for.
 
SingleCellOrganism said:
Yeah, I'm sorry for getting excited about this!

But your arguments are misdirects; and follow the same formula I see all over the web from people who refuse to deal the the implications of 'physical only' VS 'metaphorical conceptions'

As sangha noted, you cite arguments to misdirect the real subject, while appearing to answer the postulate, which you have no answer for.
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It's kind of hard to make an argument when your opponent is already telling you what your opinion would / should be. Also, when did metaphors come in to play? Do you mean metaphysical? Now, which postulate do you want an answer for?
 
zgoldsmith23 said:
Edit, ah, I understand how it could be read as such. To clarify, I knew I was implying instances, not absolutes so I didn't think to clarify. My apologies.
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I see.

In that case, you've put forth nothing of consequence. All you've done is note that "some people are idiots", a concept which can be applied equally to both the religious and the non-religious.

IOW, you made a claim about religion that has nothing to do with religion.

It makes me wonder what school you attended
 
zgoldsmith23 said:
Edit, ah, I understand how it could be read as such. To clarify, I knew I was implying instances, not absolutes so I didn't think to clarify. My apologies.
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I see on fault in your discussion, why apologize? You were not just implying instances, you were stating instances that are factually a part of the majority (by far) religion in America. Christianity includes claims of the divine being real/existing in more than a few important ways, this should be common knowledge. They are relevant in any reasonable discussion on this, why that would be denied so vigorously looks more like trolling than contributing to reasoned debate.

As you note, food, water, and some other things are demonstrably necessary for the persistence of much of human life. They would do better to argue that advanced civilizations have all had majority religious beliefs as a populace, and try to tie the necessity of religion for the creation of our large modern societies, etc. This of course doesn't imply we need the false OBJECTS of those religions, just that the beliefs as part of the culture help the culture persist/grow, at least up to a point.
 
sangha said:
I see.

In that case, you've put forth nothing of consequence. All you've done is note that "some people are idiots", a concept which can be applied equally to both the religious and the non-religious.

IOW, you made a claim about religion that has nothing to do with religion.

It makes me wonder what school you attended
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It certainly does have to do with theistic religions. Deistic / pantheistic? Not really. And certainly, a claim which - as you stated - can be applied to both the religious and non-religious is still a claim having to do with religion.
 
Mach said:
You were not just implying instances, you were stating instances that are factually a part of the majority (by far) religion in America. Christianity includes claims of the divine being real/existing in more than a few important ways, this should be common knowledge. They are relevant in any reasonable discussion on this, why that would be denied so vigorously looks more like trolling than contributing to reasoned debate.

As you note, food, water, and some other things are demonstrably necessary for the persistence of much of human life. They would do better to argue that advanced civilizations have all had majority religious beliefs as a populace, and try to tie the necessity of religion for the creation of our large modern societies, etc. This of course doesn't imply we need the false OBJECTS of those religions, just that the beliefs as part of the culture help the culture persist/grow, at least up to a point.
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The debate kind of got screwed up. I assumed we were talking about theism, but apparently sangha was not in the mood for that and decided to bring up deism.
 
zgoldsmith23 said:
It's kind of hard to make an argument when your opponent is already telling you what your opinion would / should be. Also, when did metaphors come in to play? Do you mean metaphysical? Now, which postulate do you want an answer for?
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Let's start over:

religious | metaphorical | idea conceptions - religious people are willing to use the conclusions of these thought systems as factual precepts to their own thought process

physical | atheistic | natural selection conceptions - non-religious (those who reject ALL but the physical) people are unwilling to conclude as 'fact' that which derives outside of the observable physical stratum

As I think you've shown through your responses, these two camps of people will never understand each other.

Going back to your 'needlessly' comment about my supposition that these higher conceptions are central to the religious minded shows that you see NO REASON for 'metaphorical abstractions' (religious thinking) as a component in life.

[much less as a basic precept for understanding the universe]

E.G. you subscribe to the idea (correct me if I'm wrong) that only the physical exists. Ethics / morality are the sum of biological necessity, and not 'higher level' thinking rooted in ideas like justice and love.

The universe simply exists as a product of chance, rather than directed intent.

Fair enough?

If so then I think my point is proven: the religious and non-religious will never see eye to eye.
 
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zgoldsmith23 said:
It certainly does have to do with theistic religions. Deistic / pantheistic? Not really. And certainly, a claim which - as you stated - can be applied to both the religious and non-religious is still a claim having to do with religion.
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If your comment was meant to apply only to theistic religions, then you should not have made such an absolute statement. Furthermore, if your statement only applies to theistic religions, then it does nothing to address the point that SingleCellOrganism raised, which is the difference between those who have a purely materialistic/mechanistic pov and those with a more (for lack of a better term) "conceptual" pov.

IOW, you gave the appearance of refuting SCO's point without actually saying anything relevant to his point.
 
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Dragonfly said:
Poll: America losing its religion – CNN Belief Blog - CNN.com Blogs <-- clicky










Not sure whether to laugh or not over this article. Seems so pointless and silly in many ways.

They polled church goers and found that those people think we'd be better off as a country if more people went to church????? How shocking. :roll:

There was no mention of which religion these people polled think we should all "flock" to either.

Would we be better off as a country if everybody moved towards Hinduism?
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I believe that Buddhism might be a better choice.
 
zgoldsmith23 said:
The debate kind of got screwed up. I assumed we were talking about theism, but apparently sangha was not in the mood for that and decided to bring up deism.
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Read the title of this thread. It's about "religion" and not one particular vein of religion.
 
I do apologize for the bold large-font 'page 3' nonsense ZG :)

If I could delete it I would ...
 
SingleCellOrganism said:
Let's start over:

religious | metaphorical | idea conceptions - religious people are willing to use the conclusions of these thought systems as factual precepts to their own thought process

physical | atheistic | natural selection conceptions - non-religious people are unwilling to conclude as 'fact' that which derives from outside of the observable physical stratum

As I think you've shown through your responses, these two camps of people will never understand each other.
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One can understand the other and dismiss the other side.

Going back to your 'needlessly' comment about my supposition that these higher conceptions are central to the religious minded shows that you see NO REASON for 'metaphorical abstractions' (religious thinking) as a component in life.
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Go attempt to breathe in a vacuum. You can't do it. You'll die. You need air (and not just any air). Now, try and live without religion. What's that? You're still breathing? Still have the ability to eat? Drink? Have shelter? So you can live without religion.

E.G. you subscribe to the fact (correct me if I'm wrong) that only the physical exists. Ethics / morality are the sum or biological necessity, and not 'higher level' thinking rooted in ideas like justice and love. The universe simply exists as a product of chance, rather than directed intent.
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Justice? No. Love? Neurochemical attraction to another potential evolutionary partner? Sure. Ethics / morality? Opinions. The universe simply exists. Chance? Perhaps. Direct intent? Certainly no reason to think that.
 
zgoldsmith23 said:
One can understand the other and dismiss the other side.



Go attempt to breathe in a vacuum. You can't do it. You'll die. You need air (and not just any air). Now, try and live without religion. What's that? You're still breathing? Still have the ability to eat? Drink? Have shelter? So you can live without religion.



Justice? No. Love? Neurochemical attraction to another potential evolutionary partner? Sure. Ethics / morality? Opinions. The universe simply exists. Chance? Perhaps. Direct intent? Certainly no reason to think that.
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And what you've just done here is support SCO's claim that there are people (such as yourself) who "are unwilling to conclude as 'fact' that which derives from outside of the observable physical stratum"

It's funny that your attempt to refute SCO's claim only served to confirm it
 
sangha said:
If your comment was meant to apply only to theistic religions, then you should not have made such an absolute statement. Furthermore, if your statement only applies to theistic religions, then it does nothing to address the point that SingleCellOrganism raised, which is the difference between those who have a purely materialistic/mechanistic pov and those with a more (for lack of a better term) "conceptual" pov.

IOW, you gave the appearance of refuting SCO's point without actually saying anything relevant to his point.
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sangha said:
Read the title of this thread. It's about "religion" and not one particular vein of religion.
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Because when someone hears "religion in America" they think of deism, too. :roll:

When you say conceptual, what are you implying? Conceptualism? A purely philosophical outlook?
 
sangha said:
And what you've just done here is support SCO's claim that there are people (such as yourself) who "are unwilling to conclude as 'fact' that which derives from outside of the observable physical stratum"
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Considering a "fact" is verifiable, things outside of the observable physical stratum (what most would deem "reality") cannot be considered facts as they are not verifiable.
 
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