Re: Insane Iislamic Bull ***

In article <e0na77$q1n$2@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>, Tom White
<tominator@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

Just a few notes before I move on to other projects:

Now you tell us the report's methodology is "highly
dubious". Do you want us to take the report seriously
or not?

The report said that, not me. From the very first paragraph of the
report:

"Assessing rates of belief or disbelief among large populations is
extremely difficult. Determining what percentage of a given society
believes in God ­ or doesn¹t -- is fraught with methodological
difficulties, most importantly: 1) low response rates, 2) non-random
samples, 3) adverse political or cultural climates, and 4) problematic
cross-cultural terminology. A brief discussion of each is warranted
before presenting an accumulation of statistics concerning rates and
patterns of atheism worldwide."

It's really an amazing report. Too bad you didn't take time to read it.

Dont' get me wrong; I'm not anti-atheist. Voltaire, Hume,
and Russell all contributed to Western Civilization.

And Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, et al.

For a
more recent example of the obverse, consider the recent affairs
regarding the IDF and evolutionary science.

Is Pat Robertson holding any biologists under house arrest?

No. Don't be silly. But, he would if he could. You can count on
that. In fact, he'd probably be in favor of executions.

Is Pat such a formidable debater that biologists are quailed
into silence?

No. But, there is an interesting thing called "framing the issues"
going on here where the issue is being twisted in such a way that
bioligists find themselves having to defend themselves on a matter that
isn't even debatable. Meanwhile, the attackers, in this case, the ID
proponents, are portraying themselves as victims. Have you ever read
about the DI or read the Wedge Statement:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Discovery_Institute
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wedge_strategy

These people are following an agenda that has nothing to do with the
enrichment of science, and they know it, and are quite openly saying
so.

Even Paul Gee and Fl Turbo have caught on by now. But for
the benefit of the fundies, I've typed this in from a PDF:

"Nearly all European nations are experiencing long-term
downtrends in fertility, and consequently, aging of their
populations. Fertility rates are now below replacement level
(2.1 children per couple) in nearly all countries. As a
result, natural population growth rates are entering periods
of declining growth or outright decrease. At the same time,
the proportion of elderly dependents continues to grow while
the working-age population declines as a share of the
overall population. Moreover, net immigration, which
potentially could offset declines in working-age population
remains generally low in most European countries.

Taken as a whole, these demographic trends could have
potentially damaging consequences for European economies.
For example:

* as the working-age population decreases, countries
experience declines in human capital, which potentially
reduces productivity;
* pension and social insurance systems can become heavily
burdened;
* the ability to care for the growing elderly population
declines as household sizes decrease;
* the elderly face sharply increased health care needs and
costs.

In turn, these developments are likely to pose significant
barriers to achieving the goals of the European Union (EU)
Social Agenda: full employment, economic growth, and social
cohesion."

http://www.rand.org/pubs/monographs/2004/RAND_MG206.pdf

But, again, what is the relevance to this discussion?

European depopulation bodes ill for future European
prosperity - full employment, economic growth,
and social cohesion.

While the report you cited helps us to infer that a
large atheistic population contributes to prosperity,
the report I'm citing helps us to infer that a large
atheistic population contributes to depopulation
and impending impoverishment.

And there's the relevance to this discussion - helpful
statistical inferences may not be helpful at all.

I think both inferences are wrong; I think growing atheism
and falling fertility rates are symptoms, not causes.

Vico would say we're at the end of a historical cycle:

"the weakness of traditional ties and the questioning of
accepted customs and values that result from the
establishment of free democratic republics leads inevitably
to corruption and dissolution. The end of the cycle comes
either through conquest from without or through inner
disintegration or both. This is followed by a reversion to
barbarism and the cycle is then repeated."

http://www.historyguide.org/intellect/lecture10a.html

I don't think we'll hit the bottom Vico predicts, but Vico
was a smart guy, so just to play it safe: Anybody out there
questioning traditional values? Any of you free democratic
republics de-populating? If so, please stop.

I fully understood what you were getting at, and I do understand, on an
admittedly low level, the economic impacts. However:

1. This all assumes that the trend will continue indefinitely.
2. You seem to exclusively ascribe this trend to atheism while not
considering that the trend might be a result of a variety of other
factors that have nothing to do with atheism. A good example that pops
off the top of my head is the impact of both parents working, and doing
so because of economic necessity. Less time with kids means less kids
are better.

I'm just throwing out hypotheticals. If it was something I wanted to
research in more detail, I'd probably attack this a little more
thoroughly. Needless to say, there are always a number of contributory
factors involved in complex issues, and pinning it all on atheism is
not being fair.

But, again, it does not CAUSE existence,

The evidence is against you. If x and y are constantly
conjoined, that's evidence of a causal relationship.
I need more to assert causation, but you're way off
base asserting no causation with no evidence at all.

Well, I think I was unsuccessful in making my point, and I think my
mistake was that I failed to realize we're arguing from a different
perspective entirely. My position is that these "religious" values you
speak of are wholly the invention of men. Period. Going back to
square one, these values could have either been invented by invoking
some deity, thereby becoming "religious" values, or by not invoking a
deity, thereby becoming "secular" values. That early lawmakers
fomented a belief in a deity may have been a practical necessity,
exploiting fear, as in "abide by the law or god, whomever
he/she/it/they is, will smite you."

So, my platform in this debate is that religion, and the societies that
sprang from it, was an invention of man, and that the belief in god(s)
was fomented as an expedient to get people in line with the program.
In the end, I hold that the laws and ethics, whether religious or not,
are the laws of men, and would be effectively the same, with or without
the inclusion of a god.

This does not deny the historical role religion has played in
developing societies, but I begin from the perspective that religion is
a creation of man, and that god was invented as an expedient, and that,
with or without god, the results would have been basically the same.
It's the old Voltaire thing: If God did not exist, it would be
necessary to invent him.

Do you think it's a simple coincidence that as scienctific
knowledge grows and becomes more accessible to people that there is a
correlated increase in atheism?

No, I don't think it's a conincidence. I think Vico was right,
though, that democracies will generate their own shakers up of
traditions; atheism is one of the shakers.

Well, I consider myself an anti-traditionalist in a sense. I don't try
to destroy tradition, I merely have no use for it, and am dumbfounded
by people who believe that they do have a use for it, and am even more
dumbfounded by people who insist that I must observe their traditions.
I can be respectful of peoples' traditions and their desire to observe
them, but when it impacts me, personally, then a line has been crossed.

But to get back to the point I was making in the paragraph, it is
becoming increasingly difficult for religion to maintain any
credibility in light of scientific progress. Everything they believe
(except the unfalsifiable existence of god) is being falsified. Now,
rather than adapt, they choose to fight, and are losing, with the
fallout creating a lot of atheists. So, unless they adapt their
traditions, then I figure that, like your Europeans, they're going to
fight themselves to extinction.

Nobody is shaking anything. Nature is merely correcting itself. The
human species has evolved to an intellectual level where science has
far surpassed religious alchemy and falsified the foundations of
religion: God did not create the world in 7-days; there was no flood
of Noah; Jesus most likely was not a real person; the bible is so rife
with contradictions that it simply cannot be treated as a credible
source of knowledge.

When you take away the falsehoods of religion, then all that is left is
tradition, and a rational person will reject the concept of god. This
is an entirely rational transition away from the irrational. Period.
And I know of no person, myself included, who is consciously seeking to
destroy religion. This is all happening naturally.

It's time that religion should fade quietly into the background where
it belongs.

---Joseph

(I enjoyed this conversation, but I'm spending way too much time on it.
I'll be happy to read a response, if posted, but I'll probably just
move on.)
.

Quantcast