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Bill O'Reily challenges scientest to explain how moon got there...

Remain on topic. The topic is not Obama.
Replying to this modbox in thread will be off topic  Posted By: Cuddles
 
Skeptic Ginger said:
Except he's lousy at describing exactly which gap he was referring to. :D
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Exactly. That's how this logical fallacy works. If someone fills in the gap with actual information, you move on to the next gap. Unfortunately for O'Really, this particular series of gaps has been pretty much filled in all the way back to almost the beginning of time. And even then, we have several pretty good guesses for what the bit of information is that will fill that gap.
 
Cuddles said:
Remain on topic. The topic is not Obama.
Replying to this modbox in thread will be off topic  Posted By: Cuddles
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A moderator pointing out a part of a thread that has been edited away. Talk about a God of the Gaps...:D
 
Halfcentaur said:
Why do some people look at politics like it's a matter of 2 teams they have to choose sides with, blindly dismissing the other team while cheering on their own like a mindless hooligan? I know all kinds of people who despise O'reilly. I also can't think of one politician in office who publicly announces being anything but a Christian. I'm sure there must be a few who don't pretend to be Christians, surely. Shirley?
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Well, if you expand it to beyond the USA, Australia has had at least 3 Atheist Prime Ministers.
 
Upchurch said:
Exactly. That's how this logical fallacy works. If someone fills in the gap with actual information, you move on to the next gap. Unfortunately for O'Really, this particular series of gaps has been pretty much filled in all the way back to almost the beginning of time. And even then, we have several pretty good guesses for what the bit of information is that will fill that gap.
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When I reply to people who use the "god gap" fallacy I say this:

What's the square root of 727?

Unless they are some kind of math whiz, they won't know. To which I reply "Then the answer is seven, since seven is the divine number of God in the KJB."

When they protest that they can get a calculator or figure it out, I reply with this statement:

"What if you didn't have a calculator or didn't know how to figure out square roots or didn't understand that kind of math? By the same logic you are using, the answer has to be some form of God so therefore: seven. And the answer to any math problem you don't have any idea on how to figure out will always be seven, no matter what.

"So therefore, since you know all the answers, there's no real reason to learn."

....That usually stops these conversations. :)
 
Halfcentaur said:
Why do some people look at politics like it's a matter of 2 teams they have to choose sides with, blindly dismissing the other team while cheering on their own like a mindless hooligan? I know all kinds of people who despise O'reilly. I also can't think of one politician in office who publicly announces being anything but a Christian. I'm sure there must be a few who don't pretend to be Christians, surely. Shirley?
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Pete Stark has been in congress since the 70's and is very openly atheist.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pete_Stark

There are two Muslims in the House, and two Buddhists as well. A total of 31 Jews in congress, and 16 "unaffiliated"

Just some fun factoids.
 
Eric D said:
O'Reilly says something demonstrably false and he gets called on it, conservatives whine.
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To be fair, I know a number of conservatives who have done a major *facepalm* over O'Reilly's comments and wish he'd just shut up. It's not as many as I'd like to see, but they are out there.
 
Damien Evans said:
Well, if you expand it to beyond the USA, Australia has had at least 3 Atheist Prime Ministers.
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Sorry, Deeptrax had me talking with my America blinders on. I'm aware of plenty of politicians in the world who are not Christians or religious. I hope one day America can progress to that point.

The thing about tribalism is very true. It really fascinates me, especially when it comes to school spirit, sports teams, and video games. Take world of Warcraft for example. The two factions of the game, the monstrous Horde and the classic humans and elves of the Alliance, are filled with real human beings who actually are bigots and racists against the opposing faction. From claiming one side is only played by children and basement dwelling virgins, to claiming one side is more skilled than the other, people make generalizations based on their anecdotal experiences and manage to dehumanize all kinds of things.

Nobody deserves that, except for carnies and tinkers. Damn pikies.
 
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Cavemonster said:
Pete Stark has been in congress since the 70's and is very openly atheist.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pete_Stark

There are two Muslims in the House, and two Buddhists as well. A total of 31 Jews in congress, and 16 "unaffiliated"

Just some fun factoids.
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I was thinking of atheists, really. But that's good to know, actually. I knew there were some Muslims, Jews, and Buddhists, but it slipped my mind.
 
JFrankA said:
When I reply to people who use the "god gap" fallacy I say this:

What's the square root of 727?

Unless they are some kind of math whiz, they won't know. To which I reply "Then the answer is seven, since seven is the divine number of God in the KJB."

When they protest that they can get a calculator or figure it out, I reply with this statement:

"What if you didn't have a calculator or didn't know how to figure out square roots or didn't understand that kind of math? By the same logic you are using, the answer has to be some form of God so therefore: seven. And the answer to any math problem you don't have any idea on how to figure out will always be seven, no matter what.

"So therefore, since you know all the answers, there's no real reason to learn."

....That usually stops these conversations. :)
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I like this.
 
deepatrax said:
nobody is gonna lose any sleep knowing that they failed to convince you of their own beliefs, thaiboxerken.
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It's not about the disagreement. I could care less what O'Reilly, you, or my neighbor believes. What gets me going, and I know I am not alone, is the fact that assumptions that logically fail, when left unquestioned, substantiate the idea that there is a god and those who don't believe are just wrong. If it was left at just that, I could deal but it's not. I emboldens those who agree with the assumptions that logically fail, to feel justified in enforcing biblical laws on people who do not subscribe. They feel justified in saying things like, "Atheists are not real citizens," make laws forbidding atheists from holding office, attempt to (and in some cases, successfully) make laws forbidding same sex unions, put crosses on federally funded memorial sites where not all those honored were Christians, add religious text to formally unreligious documents, I could go on.
 
Halfcentaur said:
The thing about tribalism is very true. It really fascinates me, especially when it comes to school spirit, sports teams, and video games. Take world of Warcraft for example. The two factions of the game, the monstrous Horde and the classic humans and elves of the Alliance, are filled with real human beings who actually are bigots and racists against the opposing faction. From claiming one side is only played by children and basement dwelling virgins, to claiming one side is more skilled than the other, people make generalizations based on their anecdotal experiences and manage to dehumanize all kinds of things.

Nobody deserves that, except for carnies and tinkers. Damn pikies.
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Same here. It's always intrigued me how our tribal nature is manifested. As you say Sports (Team Vs. Team) and video games, also in gangs, cliques, (as this thread proves in) politics, manifested in the form of racism and in literal tribe vs. tribe. And your WOW story is great lol.


I recall a story from Jared Diamond's book The Third Chimpanzee where he explained how members of New Guinean tribes viewed members of neighboring tribes as "vile, unspeakably primitive and cannibalistic", while outwardly they very much looked a like and were cannibals themselves lol. It's this behavior that tells me that racism is just a manifestation of our tribal, xenophobic and territorial nature and skin color is just one of many ways of separating "us" from "them" or our tribe from their tribe.


That's also why I believe that it's a pipe dream that everybody sleeping with everybody and creating a single brown race will exterminate racism lol. Racism in the literal interpretation will be impossible but we will still be tribal, xenophobic and territorial and will still manage to separate in many meaningless ways. *shrugs*
 
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99709314.html




http://diy2.despair.com/spage/99709314.html
 
Halfcentaur said:
The thing about tribalism is very true. It really fascinates me, especially when it comes to school spirit, sports teams, and video games. Take world of Warcraft for example. The two factions of the game, the monstrous Horde and the classic humans and elves of the Alliance, are filled with real human beings who actually are bigots and racists against the opposing faction. From claiming one side is only played by children and basement dwelling virgins, to claiming one side is more skilled than the other, people make generalizations based on their anecdotal experiences and manage to dehumanize all kinds of things.
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Except World of Warcraft actually did legitimatly play up the fact that there are huge differences between the faction from which most of the tribalism comes from.
 
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