Articulett,
I know you identify me as "the enemy". But then, lifegazer identifies Hyparxis and Bubo as "the enemy" (perhaps he identifies everybody but himself as "the enemy", I dunno). I am not your enemy, and I think if you calmed down a bit you may find that my position isn't so scary after all, just as lifegazer wouldn't feel threatened by Taoism if he actually tried to understand it instead of seeing it as an obstacle in the way of people agreeing with every strange claim he makes.
I am going to have one more try at meaningful communication with you. I don't identify you as the enemy. I stopped reading your posts because they didn't really have anything to do with a thread that it has taken a great deal of effort to stay on top of, and I didn't want to allow you to side-track me anywhere irrelevant at the same time as trying to navigate several more relevant side-tracks simultaneously.
And I am well aware that justgeoff will not change.
I'd like you to stop making assumptions about me. If you'd read what I've posted in this thread you would know this statement is false. There are a number of people posting here who have known me for several years and they will confirm to you that my views over that time have not been static. I was once a lot more like lifegazer. Before that, I was a bit like Dr Adequate - an atheist/materialist who was 100% confident in both his metaphysical beliefs and in the science which seemed at the time to support them. In the future, I have no doubt I will change some more. Maybe
you will, too. We can only hope.
Well, then you'll understand why I started this thread. I was venting.
However, I think you may be venting at the wrong target. My views are not actually as threatening to you as you seem to think they are. I don't think you really understand what I believe, you just know it isn't confined to science. For you, that appears to be enough for you to identify somebody as an enemy.
I am female, and I grew up in a world where very many men are very confident of their views--I thought there was a reason for this...like maybe they understood something that I didn't (they do love to assert how stupid I am and how arrogant I am to ask questions). The problem was, everyone had very different views--and I just wanted the facts...so I could develop my own views--because everyone is convinced of their rightness it seems, but they don't agree with eachother.
And you don't think that is a problem in your own case?
I am sorry you have had some bad experiences in your childhood. However, I don't think that you should allow them to dominate your interactions with people now you are an adult. I was forced to go to Sunday School at a time when the only thing I was actually interested in was the natural world - astronomy, dinosaurs, etc..... I clearly remember watching Attenborough's "Life on Earth" the first time it was broadcast. I still believe it is the best natural history series ever made, and by the time I'd watched it three times I had just about memorised the whole sequence of evolution, as explained by Sir David. But every Sunday I had to sit there and be told to believe all sorts of bizarre cr*p about Jesus. I had plenty of questions. They had no answers. This in itself had quite a big effect on my development, partly because it left me with a hatred of religion which lasted for more than twenty years but it was worse than that. It destroyed my respect for the opinions and intellectual authority of adults. I was about ten, but I already could see that loads of supposedly-intelligent adults believed stuff that was on about the same level as Father Christmas. As a result, I mistakenly got the impression that I knew more than they did about life in general as well, a mistake it took me many years to identify. Knowing about evolution is one thing. Knowing about life is another - you have to actually
live a bit before you can get that. You can see this in the posts of somebody like Tricky, who does not have a particular good knowledge of many of the areas he posts about (IMO) but does display a sort of wisdom which only comes from being on this planet for a few decades. Anyway - what I am trying to tell you is that you need to try to leave the influences of your childhood behind. You can't change them. But don't let them continue to dominate your thinking and your emotions or you will end up a prisoner of your own past.
Genetics is good. I like genetics. I've just finished the second year of a philosophy + cognitive science degree and I chose to study evolution as an option. I guessed it would be easy marks, and it was - It was my best mark of the entire year (76%), and has helped shift my overall mark closer to a 1st than a 2.2. It was an interesting course, partly because it was being taught by an interesting person - he is one of a small number of people who is engaged in an attempt to overturn the theory that there is no recombination in mitochondrial DNA, and it looks like he is going to be proved right. This has seriously put the cat among the pigeons in the field of genetics. If mtDNA undergoes recombination, then a whole load of other theories go whoopsie. I'm not trying to say that genetics is easy, but it sure was nice to get back to studying something I could nail down in between the struggles to understand Sartre's existentialism or A.D.Smith's metaphysics course. It's
easier to understand. But that doesn't mean Sartre or Smith should be ignored, either. It just takes a bit more effort.
...and this whole dishonest ID debate has made me ultra aware of people passing off BS as "truths".
Yes, but be careful. There are many, many types of BS and types of truth and many, many types of person. Just because the creationists are both silly and dangerous, it does not mean that every other person who makes a non-scientific claim is either silly or dangerous. At the very least, you need to sit down and listen to what they are saying for long enough in order to find out. You have spent most of this thread reacting to me as if I was a creationist. I can only assume that this is because you haven't actually been reading anything I post, because there is nothing in any of my arguments that can be compared to creationism. They contradict science. I don't. At this point, the sort of reaction from you is along the lines of "Chortle! Guffaw!" Which just goes to confirm the claim that you aren't actually interested in finding out what I believe or why I believe it. Or you could just look at some of the other responses to mine in this thread. Sure, there's one or two people (like Belz) who responds a little like you do, but most people here will actually listen to what I have to say, try to understand it, and respond constructively. The result has been, IMO, an interesting and productive thread. It's just a shame you felt the need to continually scribble on it instead of trying to take part in it.
I understand where their ignorance is and where they are lying to others and themselves.
Who are you talking about? Creationists? Or
everyone who doesn't believe what you believe? Because it looks like the latter. You seem to have an enormous pigeon-hole called "everyone who believes something which isn't science". Into that hole you put the creationists, and everyone who says something which even vaguely reminds you of them. You then paint all of them with the same brush, and give a generalised assessment of their pyschological reasons for "lying to themselves and others".
Articulett, I can see you have been damaged in the past. I'm sorry about that
but it wasn't me who damaged you. Can you try to let go of your fear and your anger? You will find the world a lot less threatening when you do not percieve it to be full of enemies. Look at lifegazer. He's threatened by
everyone. You don't want to be like him, so don't be like him.
And I have just developed an extreme distaste for the spreading of ignorance--especially when people use bits and pieces of science and semantics to spin a false truth that they then pass off as "higher truths". It's elitest and divisive--it doesn't serve anyone except the pedant who comes to think of himself as a wise guru while resorting to ad hominen attacks of people who actually have the facts.
And that will be
you, yes?
As somebody else has already pointed out - it is
you, not me, who is making claims to be in possession of "the truth". You rant against "absolute truth", yet you yourself are the one who seem to be clinging on to the notion that science is the ultimate arbiter of The Truth, as if you letting go would be the the worst disaster imaginable. You already know that extremist religion is no good. Extremist scientism isn't much use either. It's just the replacement of bad dogma with less bad dogma. All dogma is bad,
including yours.
In real life I am small and fear true believers of all types because of their imperviousness to logic
So why do you think it is that I have ended up in complete agreement with our resident logician?
This is a typical example of how you continually attack a completely fictitious version of Geoff. It is part of your belief system that anybody who believes non-scientific stuff (including philosophers, apparently) must be completely impervious to logic. You have repeatedly accused me of the same thing. But you've never actually challenged my logic. Robin has, and I responded.
But the real logician here is LW, and I am total agreement with everything he has said. Do you think it is a complete accident that this happened, or does it suggest to you that maybe I may have a better grasp of the logical situation than you assumed was the case? Actually think about it, articulett - instead of just giving a knee-jerk reaction. You are not basing your opinions on what I am saying or what is happening in this thread. You are basing them entirely on your own biases and preconcieved notions of "those woo-woo people".
And your statements about being "small and fearful" in real life make some of your reactions more understandable. I am tall and generally fearless (in my interactions with people). But I have seen what many short men do when they get into positions of power. It's called "the napoleon syndrome". They make up for their shortness by relishing their power over others. For the same reason, men with small penises buy flashy cars. You spend most of your time being small and fearful so when you come here you like to be agressive and to try to dominate.
--I rarely speak out, because I fear the consequences.
That is very unfortunate for you. I have never been fearful to speak out.
To hell with the consequences.
Anyway, I'm done trying to get through your fear and anger. I am guessing you'll respond to this post with some more knee-jerk quips and attempts to characterise me as a dangerous woo-woo out to corrupt the minds of the innocent. But at least I can say I tried.
Geoff
of your own
. They are ONLY conceptually possible if you KNOW materialism is false.
