h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

One way to stop the thread centring around one subject is to simply start discussing another. I mentioned a few in my OP. How about eugenics? Do we have any (devil's) advocates?

Changing the topic is just another form of avoidance surely?

Clive:
<<Does it matter if what they believe isn't true?

I'm nailing my flag to the mast and I'll say I happen to think it does matter.<<<


It depends on who are they and what they do with their believes.

Take the Sufi poets, they have been writing since at least the Middle Ages (Rumi) a kind of poetry inpired in the identification of God with love. They also apply that love to Nature, to every creature.
This poetry influenced the Christian mystics later, and you have poems of intense love. (so much that in the case of San Juan de la Cruz, his poetry was considered obscene)

Take now the Creationists, it DOES matter very much. What they say can´t be at the same level than Darwin´s Theory.

::
I wish that people apply that strengh in justify the truth behind their believes to political issues. That´s is where the truth is important.

Very well put Maria. I put Bornagain hate ideology in the same category as political hate ideology..(not that all bornagains are so extreme..but certainly some from personal experience to do with gay people and Muslims. They dress it up with 'Satan being busy').

I get impatient with all religion/spirituality put into the same basket. I find that quite disrespectful to over simplify people all being lumped together as 'believers'. Spirituality can create a 'connecting people' sense at deep levels that is not easy to put into clear rational language. Poetry is something that expresses it best personally for me..also music and other things.

Some subjects are easier to narrow down such as quotes has mentioned, 'Eugenics'.

>>it seems such an opportunity lost if we can't talk religion or spirituality in a wider sense<<

Agreed.
The problem is that there are enough of us around who can't - or won't - acknowledge any difference between spiritualism and the spirituality you speak of.
In one sense that's forgivable because there is a close relationship but then again one would expect context to have some importance.



Is that the sort of thing?

I also forgot about those who getting bored with the topic start to introduce 'humour' and bad jokes and this in turn leads to topic drift at which point I stop reading the conversation...

Rod

We are both agreeing that there is an opportunity lost

I am not following quite what you are saying after that, this is my lack understanding, would you mind explaining to me some more?

I don't think I know what you mean by the difference of spiritualism and the spirituality that is being spoke of.

Peanut

Is reducing an argument to 'god vs no god' another sort of 'Godwin's Law', a glitch that ruins forum conversations? If so, would it be possible to label that sort of manoeuvre as such, , and move on?

To more fruitful discussions? Say, the evils of eugenics?

To whoever mentioned that, have you seen the film 'Alleged'? Here's a pretty fair review of it:

http://toddcwood.blogspot.com/2011/04/alleged-review.html

What's interesting about 'Alleged', besides the fact that some respectable actors have got mixed up in an amateur film that has an agenda, is that some of what it says is true - Social Darwinism and eugenics have led to crimes against humanity. (And HL Mencken was a nasty customer.) Teasing out fact from fiction's a lot more work than watching this film and/or 'Inherit the Wind', and then buying the t-shirt. But it's rewarding.

So...we learn something, and then we write Guide Entries.

>>..getting bored with the topic start to introduce 'humour' and bad jokes <<

I realise that you are reacting to a pattern of juvenile
pishtaking, irreverent bravado and nervous mockery
(all of which are perfectly normal human behaviours).

But I must insist that humour is the best medicine for any
'dis - ease' of the mind or the soul. Laughter is a nervous
reaction like burping or farting and it as human and quint-
essential as any other physiological behaviour.

No one likes to be mocked or ridiculed of course but we
must learn to recognise that when folks dismiss us and
our arguments as foolish it is probably a good sign that
we are off the mark and failing to communicate, or, that
we are touching a nerve. Better to be laughed at than
harmed or murdered for our beliefs. Laughter is a safety
valve, like burping and farting.


~jwf~

>>I admit that I am discomforted by setting boundaries, or even making polite requests for a framework for discussion.

It gets very complicated quite quickly when you think it through<<

I am not discomforted by the idea at all. I just think it'd hard to pull off for much the reason you suggest. And not just becuase people would fail to uphold the 'rules' as it were but the very nature of the topic leads us back to the 'truthiness' of beliefs which unlike, as I said the reality thread which were about matters truly subjective, religions always seem to impinge on the natural.

I think I've striven to be as un-hostile in this thread as possible, but I am making my case that religious conversations seem to circle around the 'is it true' plughole, becuase people so do often believe they are true, and not every religion can be true, by definition.

"I am making my case that religious conversations seem to circle around the 'is it true' plughole, becuase people so do often believe they are true, and not every religion can be true, by definition."

yes but would it be possible to have a religious conversation where we didn't get into the whole "is it true" argument because that tends to go down the route of "I don't think so and if you do your an idiot with an imaginary friend" trust me I've seen it happen in more than one thread!

>>the whole "is it true" argument [...] tends to go down the route of "I don't think so and if you do your an idiot with an imaginary friend"


I agree it's a danger, and one that arises becuase it's rather intractable because religions in the main have beliefs whose ontologies impinge upon the natural and so require justification.

Not all atheists assert the position that god does not exist.(or that all believers are idiots with imaginary friends - idiocy cross both boundaries, I think) What I've been endorsing throughout is an Agnostic Atheism, which presumes a default position of not accepting as true a claim until enough compelling evidence has been presented, while at the same time presenting the belief (or rather the disbelief) that I do not believe in the existence of any god that has been presented to me thus far for all the reasons presented to me thus far have met the burden of their proof.

And the problem with burdens of proof is that the people making the positive claim have to provide the evidence of that claim if they want it to be at all convincing.

>>but would it be possible to have a religious conversation where we didn't get into the whole "is it true" argument <<

I think we could, yes, where the aim is not to convice but rather to just 'state' but I feel the very nature of the topic and the matter of fact that there are bound to be competing statements (god is a feeling / god is a reality | God is internal / God is external) will means it's very difficult to avoid 'the is it true' and thus pretty much guaranteed not to be avoided.

But if we did this I'd hold my tongue as best as I am able.

excuse me: "have NOT met the burden of their proof...."

I used to be an agnostic believer, I knew there was something (somehow) but I didn't know where to hang my hat, which i suppose is similar to agnostic atheism with the essential difference of wanting to believe if that makes any sense

Peanut (@87)

Dictionary Spiritualsm: the belief that dead people are able to communicate with people who are still alive

Dictionary Spirituality:
- concern with things of the spirit
- property or income owned by a church
- relating to the spirit or soul and not to physical nature or matter; intangible
- of, relating to, or characteristic of sacred things, the Church, religion, etc
- standing in a relationship based on communication between the souls or minds of the persons involved.
- having a mind or emotions of a high and delicately refined quality


Got to go now but perhaps not all of spirit is to do with ghosties

Thanks Rod

sounds like a very interesting discussion to be able to have

>>I used to be an agnostic believer, I knew there was something (somehow) but I didn't know where to hang my hat, which i suppose is similar to agnostic atheism with the essential difference of wanting to believe if that makes any sense <<

I think I'd call that indecisive!

Gnosticism and it's counter-part agnosticism are to my understanding about claims to knowledge or a lack thereof, not a "middle-ground" of "not sure."

If I had knowledge of god for sure I'd be a believer. It is my very lack of knowledge and not having accepted the truth of any claim yet presented to me for the reasons I've already outlined, about other's claims to knowledge which informs my disbelief.

Half the reason I'm so interested in this, is not to belittle believers but I am fascinated by the thought of what convinced them - would it convince me?

So don't feel obliged to answer this - but the question at the forefront of my mind following in from: "I used to be an agnostic believer," is..


"Used to be - so what changed?"

Re: agnosticism.

Take a different topic - the existence of alien life.

I might believe it is real, I might believe it is highly probable, I might even believe it to be blue and hyper-intelligent,

but these ideas, I would have to be properly agnostic because I cannot know that, even if I did believe it (and here again is a belief without evidence, and as an evidentialist, the idea that aliens are blue and hyper intelligent is one I don't take very seriously - pending some actual evidence that that is in fact the case from those who know!

true, but, in your phrasing, it Is your undoing...

and in more ways than one

Could we get back on topic, please? And could the folks who are *really* interested in agnosticism, or whatever it is, please...

...take it outside?

So the other people could talk about discussing sensitive topics?