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I wrote up a longer reply (which I still have, if necessary), but at this point the elephant in the room is the incoherent arguments and non-sequiturs, so I'm going to reply to those first, since I'm pretty sure they render everything else superfluous:

By your standard then, a drug addict is a "better authority" on what causes drug addiction than a person who's devoted their life to studying drug addiction and working with addicts. Sorry but that's just denialism.
Another hole-ridden analogy. First, drug addicts have fundamentally impaired mental processes. Second, literally nothing about being a drug addict gives you insight into the chemical underpinnings of the condition, while on the other hand, people discussing their own motivations are not impaired, and are much better authorities on their own motives. And third, you're not someone who's "devoted their life" to studying abolitionists, so the comparison is wildly inapplicable.

This is what I was talking about when I said you should re-read things before you post them. You routinely toss out comparisons that don't stand up to even the slightest scrutiny. So either you're posting without thinking, or you are thinking and somehow can't see the problems with them. I'm not sure which is worse.

Body language has been found to be pretty much universal in the human species (as it is in other species) - even cultures completely isolated from other civilizations have pretty much identical means of communication.
This is the problem, right here, dude. Please pay close attention:

You said that abolitionists didn't know the real reason they did things, and you made some general reference to the existence of social mirroring and body language. I said I trusted them over you. You said you trusted "the opinions of experts far more than I would someone to self-diagnose themselves." I pointed out (sarcastically) that no experts have done a study of the body language of 19th century abolitionists. So what do you do? You defend the mere existence of social mirroring and body language.

See the problem yet? Nobody disputed the existence of body language. What was disputed was the idea that you had any empirical evidence about these things relating specifically to 19th century abolitionists. Defending the concept in general is neither here nor there.

So there are two possibilities here. Either you realize this response is nonsense and you're hoping I won't notice, in which case you're a dishonest polemicist and nobody should listen to you. OR you don't even realize you're doing this, which means you are fundamentally confused about how science and evidence work and how deductions are formed, in which case people should also not listen to you.

This has been a hallmark throughout pretty much all of your arguments: take some general scientific fact and then pretend you can use it for highly specific judgments or dismissals, like in the example above, or by pretending every pet theory you have about evolution is synonymous with biology. It's just bluster wearing a lab coat.

Actually democratic forms of govt had arguably been tried in ancient Greece, and arguably "failed" (democratic Athens was conquered by authoritarian Sparta, for example).
Yes, but in your example you said "prior to the advent of democracies." Remember that? This is the kind of self-contradicting confusion that takes place when you don't stop to think about what you're saying.

This is really becoming a waste of time. You can't keep the arguments straight, your analogies are fundamentally broken, and you seem to think you can respond to fully-formed contentions by just randomly speculating that "hey, maybe something else was the reason." Get outta' here with that.



Oh, by the way, I happened to see on the Who's Online page that you were reading that post for less than a minute before you started replying.

It really couldn't be more obvious that this arguing is compulsive. It explains everything: the speed, the poorly considered analogies, and the constant confusion. And it's simply inconsiderate. As I said earlier, I'm not going to spend more time thinking about your arguments than you do.

If you want to be taken seriously, start putting more serious thought into what you say. That's not supposed to be pithy or mean, it's genuine advice.



Registered User
I wrote up a longer reply (which I still have, if necessary), but at this point the elephant in the room is the incoherent arguments and non-sequiturs, so I'm going to reply to those first, since I'm pretty sure they render everything else superfluous:

Another hole-ridden analogy. First, drug addicts have fundamentally impaired mental processes. Second, literally nothing about being a drug addict gives you insight into the chemical underpinnings of the condition, while on the other hand, people discussing their own motivations are not impaired, and are much better authorities on their own motives. And third, you're not someone who's "devoted their life" to studying abolitionists, so the comparison is wildly inapplicable.

This is what I was talking about when I said you should re-read things before you post them. You routinely toss out comparisons that don't stand up to even the slightest scrutiny. So either you're posting without thinking, or you are thinking and somehow can't see the problems with them. I'm not sure which is worse.
Nope, point is the aspects you cite as "religion" being the motivation for abolitionists and the like are not things in nature which are completely exclusive to religion.

So while a religion might be the specific motivator for those people - the facet of 'religion' that's motivating them (ex. the sense of unity and purpose) doesn't only exist within religion, like you seem to think.

This is the problem, right here, dude. Please pay close attention:

You said that abolitionists didn't know the real reason they did things, and you made some general reference to the existence of social mirroring and body language. I said I trusted them over you. You said you trusted "the opinions of experts far more than I would someone to self-diagnose themselves." I pointed out (sarcastically) that no experts have done a study of the body language of 19th century abolitionists. So what do you do? You defend the mere existence of social mirroring and body language.

See the problem yet? Nobody disputed the existence of body language. What was disputed was the idea that you had any empirical evidence about these things relating specifically to 19th century abolitionists. Defending the concept in general is neither here nor there.
Social mirroring and uniformity are widely recognized concepts - I don't have to prove specifically that 'they existed' in the case of abolitionists since they exist as a pretty basic part of human cultures on the whole.

I used militarizes as an analogy, and how soldiers all wearing the same uniform creates a sense of unity which helps motivate them - your fixation on "religion" would be like believe the color of the uniform is the most important thing - when really maybe it's just that they're all wearing the same uniform.

So there are two possibilities here. Either you realize this response is nonsense and you're hoping I won't notice, in which case you're a dishonest polemicist and nobody should listen to you. OR you don't even realize you're doing this, which means you are fundamentally confused about how science and evidence work and how deductions are formed, in which case people should also not listen to you.

This has been a hallmark throughout pretty much all of your arguments: take some general scientific fact and then pretend you can use it for highly specific judgments or dismissals, like in the example above, or by pretending every pet theory you have about evolution is synonymous with biology. It's just bluster wearing a lab coat.
Again you're redirecting the conversation back onto me; you do this a lot. Regardless, I don't have to prove something which is accepted exists in humans as a whole existed in 'this specific scenario'.

It's a fact that concepts such as uniformity and mirroring might exist in religion, but they're not exclusive to it. You also just seem to have an aversion to learning how things work on technical level (probably because it seems cold to you and clashes with a more whimsical fascination with people) - truth is though it's a pretty dumb notion that learning more about something lessens appreciation for it (if that were the case then why learn about 'how movies are made?' Why not just stay ignorant of it and maintain that childlike fascination with the characters on the screen?)

Yes, but in your example you said "prior to the advent of democracies." Remember that? This is the kind of self-contradicting confusion that takes place when you don't stop to think about what you're saying.
Your mentality boils down to much to 'fear of change' and slippery slopes suggesting that secularism is the primary reason for the existence of communist regimes.

This is really becoming a waste of time. You can't keep the arguments straight, your analogies are fundamentally broken, and you seem to think you can respond to fully-formed contentions by just randomly speculating that "hey, maybe something else was the reason." Get outta' here with that.
The burden's on you to prove your assertion - not on others to 'disprove you' - you assert that religion specifically is the reason, I'm just offering plenty of arguments to the contrary.

The burden of proof is a lot higher on someone arguing "for" something than someone arguing against it - that's how it works in criminal courts as well, sorry.



Nope, point is the aspects you cite as "religion" being the motivation for abolitionists and the like are not things in nature which are completely exclusive to religion.

So while a religion might be the specific motivator for those people - the facet of 'religion' that's motivating them (ex. the sense of unity and purpose) doesn't only exist within religion, like you seem to think.
Individual facets can't be parsed out this way--religion is a confluence of principles and motivation that interact with and reinforce one another. It's not a series of independent clauses, it's more like a chemical mixture. So your response is a bit like saying "nitric acid isn't what caused that explosion, because nitric acid can exist in other chemical compositions and not explode." No kidding; the question is what it does in this composition, with hydrogen sulfide.

The very things you dislike about religion are the things that make it capable of good things, as well. It can motivate people to die for a bad cause (terrorism, oppression), but that same property can be used to motivate people to die for a great one (abolition, civil rights).

Which also means that, in order to make this argument (notwithstanding the problems listed herein), you'd also have to dismiss all the claims that religion is a motivator of violence, since all the same "facets" that motivate violence exist outside of religion. Do you?

Social mirroring and uniformity are widely recognized concepts - I don't have to prove specifically that 'they existed' in the case of abolitionists since they exist as a pretty basic part of human cultures on the whole.
Yes, you do, because their general existence is not evidence that they are the primary motivating factor in any one case, any more than the existence of a crime is evidence that a specific person committed it.

You can't use averages and tendencies to judge individuals. Not just because it's wrong and dehumanizing and even a little bigoted (though it's all those things), but because it's factually wrong. You wouldn't do it in statistics.

And let's get into the actual facts of social mirroring, too. Show me an example of the concept that is both a) "widely recognized" (not the same thing as SCIENCE SAYS, by the way) and b) an explanation of life-altering ideological stances, as opposed to minute things like facial cues. Enough skating by on opaque references: start getting specific, and we'll see how well this holds up.

I used militarizes as an analogy, and how soldiers all wearing the same uniform creates a sense of unity which helps motivate them - your fixation on "religion" would be like believe the color of the uniform is the most important thing - when really maybe it's just that they're all wearing the same uniform.
Here's how this analogy should actually look: it's more like I'm saying that the soldiers fought to defend their country (and they all say so, as well), but you think they're doing it just because someone dressed them the same. After all, SCIENCE SAYS that unity motivates people, right? And these people have sartorial unity! So you don't have to prove that it applied in this specific case, right? Same logic, absurd result.

Regardless, I don't have to prove something which is accepted exists in humans as a whole existed in 'this specific scenario'.
Yes, of course you do. You think all you need to do is establish that some kind of principle or tendency exists, and then you can arbitrarily apply it to any specific person, overriding any stated motivations? That's nuts.

It's a known fact that people are stubborn about admitting they're wrong. Ergo, any time you refuse to admit you're wrong, I'll chalk it up to stubbornness. Sound fair? Same logic, absurd result.

It's a fact that concepts such as uniformity and mirroring might exist in religion, but they're not exclusive to it.
And potassium doesn't only exist in bananas, so after you eat a banana, you didn't necessarily get the potassium from it. #SameLogicAbsurdResult

You also just seem to have an aversion to learning how things work on technical level
You realize I'm a programmer, right?

truth is though it's a pretty dumb notion that learning more about something lessens appreciation for it (if that were the case then why learn about 'how movies are made?' Why not just stay ignorant of it and maintain that childlike fascination with the characters on the screen?)
That is indeed a dumb notion! Imagine my relief when I remember I never expressed it.

Your mentality boils down to much to 'fear of change' and slippery slopes suggesting that secularism is the primary reason for the existence of communist regimes.
Well, first off, this is a claim, not a "mentality." And my actual mentality is more in line with this famous quote: "When men stop believing in God, they don't believe in nothing. They believe in anything." My mentality is that when you remove the philosophical foundation for human rights, eventually those rights are going to be eroded. And as evidence I present the fact that every time a society has explicitly removed them, they've dramatically violated human rights, and that all the societies that came to recognize modern human rights were highly religious.

Is this proof? No. The topic doesn't lend itself to proof either way. But it's pretty good evidence that holds together logically and philosophically.



Registered User
Which also means that, in order to make this argument (notwithstanding the problems listed herein), you'd also have to dismiss all the claims that religion is a motivator of violence, since all the same "facets" that motivate violence exist outside of religion. Do you?
I never claimed that violence and dictatorships were exclusive to religion - you claimed that you think religion allows people to resist this better - my claim was that I think the opposite is true, if the ruler is blindly accepted to be 'doing God's work'.

You can't use averages and tendencies to judge individuals. Not just because it's wrong and dehumanizing and even a little bigoted (though it's all those things), but because it's factually wrong. You wouldn't do it in statistics.
But by that standard then, Hitler claimed that Christianity is what inspired him - even though most of Hitler's views were unique to him and not an accepted part of the Christian religion.

So would you take him solely at his word and then declare that "Christianity caused Hitler to exterminate Jews"? Or would you try to read into other motives behind what he did.

Here's how this analogy should actually look: it's more like I'm saying that the soldiers fought to defend their country (and they all say so, as well), but you think they're doing it just because someone dressed them the same. After all, SCIENCE SAYS that unity motivates people, right? And these people have sartorial unity! So you don't have to prove that it applied in this specific case, right? Same logic, absurd result.

Yes, of course you do. You think all you need to do is establish that some kind of principle or tendency exists, and then you can arbitrarily apply it to any specific person, overriding any stated motivations? That's nuts.
Stated motivations can't contradict 'basic human motivations' - that's the point.

A person might say that they eat apples because it makes them healthy, and in their own personal sense that is "true" - but if they claimed that a person "can only eat apples" in order to be healthy that would be false - since the vitamins in apples exist in other fruits and vegetables as well.

It's a known fact that people are stubborn about admitting they're wrong. Ergo, any time you refuse to admit you're wrong, I'll chalk it up to stubbornness. Sound fair? Same logic, absurd result.


And potassium doesn't only exist in bananas, so after you eat a banana, you didn't necessarily get the potassium from it. #SameLogicAbsurdResult


You realize I'm a programmer, right?


That is indeed a dumb notion! Imagine my relief when I remember I never expressed it.
You stated that applying 'general human motives' to individuals is dehumanizing.

"Humanism" is a philosophical concept; the general human motives and motivators are biological concepts - so that's not dehumanizing - it's apples to oranges. If you object to applying universal biological concepts in the human species to individuals because you find that "dehumanizing" that leads me to this conclusion.

Well, first off, this is a claim, not a "mentality." And my actual mentality is more in line with this famous quote: "When men stop believing in God, they don't believe in nothing. They believe in anything." My mentality is that when you remove the philosophical foundation for human rights, eventually those rights are going to be eroded. And as evidence I present the fact that every time a society has explicitly removed them, they've dramatically violated human rights, and that all the societies that came to recognize modern human rights were highly religious.

Is this proof? No. The topic doesn't lend itself to proof either way. But it's pretty good evidence that holds together logically and philosophically.
You say that it's 'because they were religious', but since there were no 'non-religious' cultures to compare it to it's not the fairest comparison. That again brings me back to the 'monarchy' argument; you could argue that (prior to modern democratic govts) the reason that countries in Europe made advancements in science, arts, etc is 'because they were monarchies'.

Not to mention using communist regimes as the comparison for 'failed secular states' is a double standard, because those were governments founded specifically on "non-religion" (similar to how the Saudi govt is a govt founded specifically on religion) - they weren't societies made up of "universally non-religious people".



I never claimed that violence and dictatorships were exclusive to religion - you claimed that you think religion allows people to resist this better - my claim was that I think the opposite is true, if the ruler is blindly accepted to be 'doing God's work'.
What's that "if" doing there on the end? You can't just take that part for granted. The whole point is that religious people don't automatically take the word of anyone who claims to be "doing God's work." Why? Because established religions have established precepts and tenets, which means dictators can't so easily bend them to their whims. They can try to do so around the margins, but their ability to do so is limited. Religious people are also historically harder to scare with threats of violence, for obvious reasons.

But by that standard then, Hitler claimed that Christianity is what inspired him - even though most of Hitler's views were unique to him and not an accepted part of the Christian religion.

So would you take him solely at his word and then declare that "Christianity caused Hitler to exterminate Jews"? Or would you try to read into other motives behind what he did.
This would be a fine response to the idea that stated motivation must always (and automatically) be taken at face value, but that's not my position. And even so, in Hitler's case we have his own words in private communications often at odds with his public pronouncements. We don't have anything like that with abolitionists: right or wrong, they obviously and demonstrably believed that it was an expression of their religion to abolish slavery. Contending that they were somehow mistaken about their own motivations is a completely different claim than claiming that someone is actively lying--especially when you have actual evidence to back it up.

Stated motivations can't contradict 'basic human motivations' - that's the point.
I can't imagine what this axiom is based on (I'm guessing nothing), but let's say it's true: what's that got to do with this topic? Nothing about "I oppose slavery because my religion tells me it's wrong" contradicts "basic human motivations."

A person might say that they eat apples because it makes them healthy, and in their own personal sense that is "true" - but if they claimed that a person "can only eat apples" in order to be healthy that would be false - since the vitamins in apples exist in other fruits and vegetables as well.
In order for this analogy to describe the available evidence, you'd have to include the caveat that no person had ever been healthy without eating apples.

You stated that applying 'general human motives' to individuals is dehumanizing.
No, I stated that judging individuals with averages is. And this isn't an accurate description of what you've been doing anyway: you're not "applying general human motives." You're contradicting people's explicit claims with them.

General knowledge is good for general claims, but it doesn't trump individual knowledge. You expressed a sentiment very close to this in another thread:
"Generalizations are a problem if applied literally in all situations".
Obviously the word "all" stops this from being an outright contradiction, but you're doing something quite similar here, by treating a generalization as if it were literally true in specific cases.

If you object to applying universal biological concepts in the human species to individuals because you find that "dehumanizing" that leads me to this conclusion.
I don't object to applying universal biological concepts--I object to you pretending that a hazy reference to a barely-related pschologicaly phenomenon is a "universal biological concept." I even asked you to substantiate it, and privately predicted to myself that that question would be one of the ones excluded from your next reply. Lo and behold, that's exactly what happened.

There's a pretty obvious rhetorical trick going on here where you exaggerate the applicability of some shred of scientific evidence (which is already a generous term for psychology, by the way), and when it's questioned you act like science itself is being questioned.

My best guess is that any time I ask you to back up this "SCIENCE SAYS!" stuff we'll find research with non-commital conclusions and dubious applicability that is far more circumspect than you've presented it as.

You say that it's 'because they were religious', but since there were no 'non-religious' cultures to compare it to it's not the fairest comparison.
Non-religious cultures wouldn't be the appropriate comparison: non-religious people would. Even in religious societies there are plenty of atheists, or deists, or just people who don't feel all that strongly about religion. But those weren't the abolitionists. Those weren't the people sticking their necks out. The ones who were were religious, they came to their conclusion from religious precepts, and argued for it specifically from those precepts.

Not to mention using communist regimes as the comparison for 'failed secular states' is a double standard, because those were governments founded specifically on "non-religion" (similar to how the Saudi govt is a govt founded specifically on religion) - they weren't societies made up of "universally non-religious people".
Smooth, slipping "universally" in there even though I said nothing of the sort. Does this kind of stuff work on most people? Is it deliberate, or do you do it unconsciously?

Obviously, there are religious people in all societies, but only societies with a weakened or damaged religious belief are going to be susceptible to an atheistic revolution, for obvious reasons. It's the same with any extremism: it doesn't happen to just anyone. Societies firm in contrary beliefs will repel it. If it finds a foothold it's because the citizenry has drifted that way. It doesn't require a majority, but it requires an underlying sympathy for the cause.

Put another way: revolutions don't usually show up uninvited.



But by that standard then, Hitler claimed that Christianity is what inspired him - even though most of Hitler's views were unique to him and not an accepted part of the Christian religion.

So would you take him solely at his word and then declare that "Christianity caused Hitler to exterminate Jews"? Or would you try to read into other motives behind what he did.
Hitlers views were not unique to him, but they were influenced by Christianity. Many of the parts of Mien Kampf in which he describes why he hates the Jews and why Jews don't belong in a Christian German state, he simply stole from the writings of Martin Luther, who himself was not very fond of the Jews.



Registered User
Hitlers views were not unique to him, but they were influenced by Christianity. Many of the parts of Mien Kampf in which he describes why he hates the Jews and why Jews don't belong in a Christian German state, he simply stole from the writings of Martin Luther, who himself was not very fond of the Jews.
You're right, Christian countries had a history of antisemitism (and HIlter was using the Jews as a scapegoat), but a lot of Hitler's ideas, such as a "master race" weren't widely accepted by Christians.



Perhaps I've been too tactful in answering your question again and again although, as I said before, taken with the position I've repeated ad nauseam regarding holy books I find it odd you've found it unclear.
I don't find that position unclear. I find your subsequent statements inconsistent.

To resolve any misapprehension let me formally state I don't believe what I said, that, while psychologically understandable, any keirkegaardian leap of faith is fanciful, wishful thinking.
Even this I can't parse. Are you saying the "leap of faith" is "psychologically understandable" but also "fanciful, wishful thinking"? Or are you saying you don't believe in anything that follows "I don't believe what I said"? Even now it can be read either way.



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Please Quote/Tag Or I'll Miss Your Responses
Did anyone see the CNN Special last night, "Atheists: _____ Non-Believers?"

It was pretty good, I just hated the title. Non-believers? It's called Free-thinking, we believe (I'm ignostic, but close enough) in plenty, probably more than Deists...



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The problem with 'atheism' or at least the mainstream atheism is that it has way too much of a nihilistic tone. For example I often hear the argument "there can't be a God because there's death and suffering in the world" - even though that's more of an argument against a perfect god than a god period.

I also hear the "life is meaningless" or the "when you die, that's all there is" arguments used even though they aren't substantiated just by 'secularism'. For example even though consciousness as a concept is caused by brain activity, it's not explained why people have "individual consciousness"; e.x. why a person was born in their specific body, as opposed to a neighbors - therefore saying that 'there is nothing after death' is just a faith based belief; the 'life is meaningless' claim also isn't supported by biology, since all species have an intuitive understanding of purpose.

I'm not big on these guys, and think they portray the 'alternative' to religion as negative and cynical.