The JREF is not an atheist organization

Well, all I'm saying is that, given the chance, people will react irrationally rather than rationally, and that the rational person is better off making that part of his calculations. It makes absolutely no sense to claim that "rational" people cannot believe two opposing things at once; yes they can, and we all do it far more often than we care to admit.
 
Mercutio said:
*sigh*

No. Not even close. For several reasons.

It is obvious that "greater opportunities for learning" can lead in any number of directions.

"Reasonable person" is a distasteful phrase; a behaviorist mantra is "the rat is always right." It is not up to the person to be "reasonable"; it is up to the environment to reinforce the behavior. (Besides which, it gives the NTS dismissal a foothold--this person is not rejecting because he is not reasonable.)

"In time" is much too vague to be of any use; do you mean days? Weeks? Generations?

I really am at a loss to see how you got what you did out of my post.


What I was saying--what I did say--is that if we understand that a person comes to a thread with a lifetime of learning, it might put the pace of change in perspective. Any change. I learned a great deal in my arguments with Interesting Ian, for instance, and we both changed as a result of our interaction; it was not a case of only one of us coming to understand something that the other person brought to the table. There are none of us here who have learned everything there is to learn.
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Jesus Christ! You see the wink and the big grin smiley? That means 'I am deliberately misinterpreting your words for a comedy wind-up'. I am really at a loss to see how you didn't see that in my post.

Ah, forget it. Next time I'll write 'I AM JOKING' under the winking, grinning smileys.
 
tkingdoll said:
Jesus Christ! You see the wink and the big grin smiley? That means 'I am deliberately misinterpreting your words for a comedy wind-up'. I am really at a loss to see how you didn't see that in my post.

Ah, forget it. Next time I'll write 'I AM JOKING' under the winking, grinning smileys.
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Some people are just better at telling jokes. As Phil says, if you have to explain them, they don't go in the act.

I thought my point was important enough that I would rather not take the chance of appearing to agree with your post. I am happy to see that I was mistaken about your comprehension.
 
"While I, as JREF president, and those presently working in our office, are declared atheists,..."

Sums it up.

It is not an organization that actively promotes atheism, but the staff is apparently all atheists.
 
Mercutio said:
Some people are just better at telling jokes. As Phil says, if you have to explain them, they don't go in the act.

I thought my point was important enough that I would rather not take the chance of appearing to agree with your post. I am happy to see that I was mistaken about your comprehension.
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Yeah, I'm famously unfunny. Here's another smiley for ya: :rolleyes:
 
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T'ai Chi said:
"While I, as JREF president, and those presently working in our office, are declared atheists,..."

Sums it up.

It is not an organization that actively promotes atheism, but the staff is apparently all atheists.
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But not the board. At least one prominent member of the board is not an atheist, and has been invited to speak, and to write the weekly commentary. In your last sentence, the first clause "sums it up" better than the last.
 
Others have said it better than I could, but I'll back them up on this.

My view is that skeptical organisations, like the JREF, ideally don't have a predecided position on something. That is the point of skepticism - to leave room for further evidence that could change the accepted conclusion. To say 'we are atheist' makes no sense.

Look at it this way - should the organisation actively communicate atheism? Or should it actively communicate the tools one needs to arrive at that conclusion? Because they are different - the former is a position or a content, the latter is a process or a set of skills. For a skeptical organisation to adopt a position on something which it communicates authoritatively, it would negate the very point of what it does - promote skeptical thinking.

The JREF, ideally, shouldn't lose anything if God were to appear convincingly tomorrow, if homeopathy were to be found to be an actual phenomenon, or if the dead were to return in waves of zombie attacks.

Athon
 
Faith Healing vs. Message of Love....

prewitt81 said:
I see a distinct difference in a religious belief like "Jesus makes lost arms regrow", which is easily testable, and an untestable belief like "Jesus wants us to love one another."
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Yes yes & Yes. Just as Randi has gone after Peter Popoff & other Faith Healers who make such testable claims. -- The JREF is about being skeptical about Faith Healers, and Breatharians and Christian Science claims.

Example -- when one followes up on those who attend a Faith Healing Service one finds the condition returns, thus the person was not healed.

Example: (from the news recently) I saw a story on an Evangelical Christian exorcist, and one of the people possessed kept getting re-possessed. makes you think he's not very effective huh.

prewitt81 said:
Skepticism tests testable claims. If a religion isn't making such claims, there's not much to be skeptical about.
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If being a Christian (or a Jew or a Muslim) means to you follow the golden rule, be nice to people, or God want you to do 'x', we can't really 'prove' God wants you to do 'y' instead.

Generally atheists don't say 'God does not exist.' They say instead there is no evidence for God, thus they don't hold a belief in God.

Some have said (and I think at TAM 5) one disagreed with Dawkins in that Dawkins felt a God would leave evidence of his existence, some speaker said one couldn't prove that God would design a universe such that Faith isn't needed to find evidence for God. (ie. while the Universe is as it would be if it weren't designed, that doesn't mean it wasn't designed this way)
 
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I've scanned (sorry, time/bandwidth) the messages posted since I went to bed this morning, but I don't see any definative answer to a question I asked earlier...

If a religious person wants to claim the mantle of skeptic, can they only do so if their critical inquiry has resulted in them becomming an atheist?
 
UnrepentantSinner said:
If a religious person wants to claim the mantle of skeptic, can they only do so if their critical inquiry has resulted in them becomming an atheist?
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I can´t rationally commit myself to a "yes" answer. I would say "depends on the particular reasoning she used." HOWEVER, she can´t claim that mantle if she doesn´t use it to address her belief. My personal intuition tells me that there aren´t that many rational conclusions one would reach by doing so.
 
UnrepentantSinner said:
I've scanned (sorry, time/bandwidth) the messages posted since I went to bed this morning, but I don't see any definative answer to a question I asked earlier...

If a religious person wants to claim the mantle of skeptic, can they only do so if their critical inquiry has resulted in them becomming an atheist?
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I'll have to find the thread I already posted an answer to this in, but the essence of what I said there was that 'skeptic' is an ideal which has no real meaning. Even those who are skeptics will compartmentalise occasionally, deferring critical thinking for social thinking every now and then.

Even still, conclusions are often based on personal threshold of evidence. Evidence thresholds are arbitrary as it is (what convinces me might not convince you), hence somebody might be critical and apply skeptical thinking and yet come to a conclusion that a God could well exist.

The answer is not black and white. At the core of it, 'skeptic' is an archetype, not a real thing, and is most relevant only when used in a given context such as a particular belief.

Athon
 
Caius Textor said:
This sounds really weird. You probably understand "morality" in a different than normal way, is that right? Or your trying to set it apart from "ethics" or something?
You certainly don´t think an atheist can´t follow agreed-upon rules of good conduct, or do you?
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You are correct I did not mean atheists cannot follow or uphold good conduct. For some atheists may appear as a crime loving spree riding folk, not for me. Neither do I class those following religion as law abiding citizens. Both have elements of crime and law abiding.

I would not class those 'society conduct' aspects as morality. For me those are everyday society components, respect, gratitude compassion. None of which I would assign to being a sole religious concept.

Morality perhaps, quite true, I do not entirely comprehend morality. Therefore am quite wrong in my opinion of basing it as entirely a religious outpost. Morality has always appeared to be in the domain of religion. That is my basis of forming my opinions of. Until I learn otherwise I cannot be expected to form a universally accepted standpoint. My opinions stand until I reach a point of change, then they adapt or alter as required. I would never stand up and say i am right as equally I would not stand up and state my view is wrong. It feels right for me at that moment in time.

The point of being a skeptic, to me that is, is that you set your opinion based on what you know at that time. When change occurs you re-evaluate and alter accordingly. Nothing is set in stone and neither should any skeptic be solid as a rock. Fluidity is the key element to being a sound skeptic.
 
Beady said:
A computer can't, a human can; computers are logical, humans are emotional. If forced to bet on a human making a logical or an emotional choice, my money is on the emotional.

Consider: If humans were logical, men would ride sidesaddle.

Any given human being is perfectly capable of believing two mutually contradictory things at once, and of acting on that belief. Look at yourself, right now, insisting that emotional beings act exclusively according to logic. What sense does that make?
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I'll admit here I am not understanding very well your drift or the general flow of this religion+/- skepticism issue.

What I did pick up on was this and perhaps is my trip-up. I understand and can agree humans can think of many things simultaneously, irregardless of whether the flow is compatible or in a state of flux. Logic and illogic probably do occupy the same space at the kitchen table at times. But one surely must have the larger space over the other?

What I am trying to get through, in my own mind, mainly is when you have one set of rules governing something you follow can it really co-exist as a claim to be. If on the other side of the coin you follow an entirely different set of rules. I cannot see how it can work or be acceptable. It makes me think that those who are religious and claim to be skeptics are making a mockery of skepticism. Like some in-house joke.

The example that spring to my mind in this posed question is somebody shouting, 'I love god but I am a devil worshipper.' It does not or cannot add up. If I said I am a skeptic and apply critical thinking but I also provide psychic readings. I would be and I would expect to be ostracised for claiming to be. Why the acceptance for those who follow religion?
 
CFLarsen said:
What am I, then? Amoral?
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I do not know and can I really be expected to answer that, having no basis of knowing you to form any reasonable answer upon? Do I have the right to say you are or not, on the basis I have? My answer is I do not have that right, naturally I decline from answering based on that concept.

I confess I do not know 'amoral'. If I take the assumption it is the opposite of moral? If I base it on moral = religon then yes atheism = amoral. That is all I can do at this time.
 
US, is it feasibly possible that there is no answer to your question? If 99.9% of this place are atheists and 0.01% are religious. I do not see how the Jref could not state it is atheist based. It could state the majority or minority are one or the other.

Is, perhaps, being an atheist an optional additional facet of being a skeptic. Rather than being a compulsory must-have feature?

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As for the comment previous by another, to admit to being a sole atheist based site is social suicide. I find that hard to comprehend. Should it not matter that some country might be peeved with you for being godless? Shouldn't the Jref rise above such ....sorry I can't think of a word other than 'blackmailing' to fit here.... and promote its views. I find that fear of being ostracised by a group for saying I am this particularly odd. It makes me wonder if Jref is as firm and active promoter of skepticism as it claims to be? If it is not then isn't this a mockery?

I now find I have doubts about the Jref commitment based on that. Again. I'll admit not to be up on the smartest chip in the block regarding this. Thus my doubts base my current held view and concerns.
 
Corpse Cruncher said:
I do not know and can I really be expected to answer that, having no basis of knowing you to form any reasonable answer upon? Do I have the right to say you are or not, on the basis I have? My answer is I do not have that right, naturally I decline from answering based on that concept.

I confess I do not know 'amoral'. If I take the assumption it is the opposite of moral? If I base it on moral = religon then yes atheism = amoral. That is all I can do at this time.
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Immoral ("conflicting with generally or traditionally held moral principles") is the opposite of moral. Amoral is being neither moral or immoral.

Perhaps you mean that I am immoral?
 
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