Dale

Ironically, this is the same blind spot that many atheists have toward what we call reality. To my way of thinking, if someone can’t deal with metaphor or ambiguity, they’re mistaking the finger for what it’s pointing to.

This is post-modern rhetoric. If a metaphor cannot be explained, then it is poetry and should be enjoyed as something poeti…[Read more]

Okay. If we’re going to dog fundies for being literal-minded, we should avoid being similarly literal-minded. That’s all.

You haven’t elucidated anything there.

I don’t see why not. Daniel Dennett observed that from the point of view of the religion, there’s no difference between a Muslim who prays five times a day because he literally believes in a literal Allah and the literal truth of every word of the Koran, and a Muslim who prays five times a day because that’s what Muslims do. It’s the behavio…

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there appears to be a growing contingent that isn’t all that strict about biblical literacy

Indeed, that is why I said “at least some” instead of all. Some religions are more nebulous about some claims than others, or the totality of claims that are important. However, when you no longer hold a certain number of core claims as literal, you can n…[Read more]

note to mod: I hit edit instead of reply to Istvan’s message and I don’t have emails of posts, could someone restore his original message please?

where’s-your-evidence phase

So what phase are you in? Is it a: “whatever sounds good to me” phase? “Whatever someone I admire says” phase? Some other phase we would love to hear about?

 don’t see religion as a set of literal claims about the world

How did you arrive at that conclusion? The overwhelming majority of adherents of religions incl…[Read more]

Hello Istvan and welcome to AZ!

Once you’ve got your bearings, check out the group “Sunday School” which is curated by the amazing Reg the Fronkey Farmer every week.

There you will find topical links and book recommendations all fresh weekly.

I look forward to hearing from you on the forums 🙂

Strega

I’ve rather quickly reached my limit of ridiculousness and wtf here. Enco, hold up a mirror of intellectual integrity to your ideas and learn to challenge yourself and accept being challenged. Not conceding things and not learning to reshape your world view is not a virtue.

What theory are you invoking to support the notion that amoral people are insane?

Indeed. Every day millions of teenagers bully other teenagers and make other people’s lives miserable creating terrible harm for them for the tiniest short-term personal benefit (if any). Are they all crazy? Humans are fundamentally flawed. Otherwise good people can…[Read more]

Very cool Reg. Let me know how the book is when you are done!

Everyone has a right to their own opinion, but no one has a right to their own facts

Oh my dear lord what a bloody rabbit hole we have here. As though gay people shouldn’t be protected from the “fact” that they are all podophiles trying to turn children gay and will definitely burn in hell and that all black people are all criminals living on…[Read more]

Okay. So yeah, a tiny minority of people, are paralysed by the anaesthesia but are aware (to some extent) of the surgery and recall or somewhat recall) events which may include the sensation of pain. It is called Anaesthesia awareness and there have been varying levels of awareness during surgery ranging from vague memories of what doctors said…[Read more]

Autumn, I don’t know if you will be having surgeries again in the future and how much the truth (at least for some about anaesthesia is) so, I’m giving you the option to say “no I don’t want to hear this” before I tell you about it…

It is really interesting and extremely telling Enco that the only time you seem to have any emotional response to “hate crime” it when it is very likely false. Your outrage about that is, in this case, probably just and calling out fake hate crimes makes people taking real hate crimes all the more difficult.

But from virtually everything you’ve…[Read more]

I’ve read all the major holy books and a pretty large chunk of the Hindu and Buddhist corpus (there is so much of it) and of course on top of that, on top of the traditions and beliefs in practice of such religions, a lot about Pagan faiths and animist practices on all continents. The only thing all of this has in common is:

• The only ones I…

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Putin doesn’t give a shit about reinventing the Soviet Union, creating a stable Russian empire or anything whatsoever to do with the long term anything of Russia. If he did he would have made life tolerable and prosperous for Russians and have made wiser foreign policy decisions with other nations. He is ensuring his own interests and those who…[Read more]

Putin doesn’t give a shit about reinventing the Soviet Union, creating a stable Russian empire or anything whatsoever to do with the long term anything of Russia. He is ensuring his own interests and those who help keep him in power (oligarchs as the media calls it). At least he believes this invasion (by whatever calculations and plan he has…[Read more]

It is nonsense to blame an invasion of a country that poses no significant treat to another country as “provoked” by others because they are members of voluntary organisations. Total absolute nonsense. There is no reason that Russia could not join these organisations if they were sincere in respecting the values behind that organisation. There…[Read more]