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Top 5 Skeptical Fallacies

Gilbert Syndrome said:
Why what? Did you not read the quote within my post? If you don't get it then I can't help you.
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I am not making the connection between what he wrote, and your intimation of irony with respect to his name. I'm not good at subtle. I'd like to understand what you were trying to say, and why what he wrote makes him not enough of an atheist in your book.
 
tsig said:
Then you admit you are in over your head and don't understand what's being posted here. In that case your posts are full of sound and fury signifying nothing.
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I find that horribly insulting. I really have trouble with implied stuff, sarcasm, and subtle *wink-wink-nudge-nudge-know-what-I-mean* kinds of posts. I don't see any connection between what The Atheist posted and Gilbert Syndrome implying that he's not really an atheist.
 
Gilbert Syndrome said:
Then you don't grasp irony very well, do you? You were harping on about not needing to belittle people who hold "silly" beliefs as it's not important to you, and to do so is sillier than believing in something ridiculous, and yet you went out of your way to call yourself "the Atheist," as opposed to say, "Bob," or "Graham."

You obviously DO want people to know that you take a stance against supposedly silly beliefs, otherwise you wouldn't need to call yourself "the Atheist" on a sceptical forum. That's kind of like me calling myself "Non-Bigfoot Believer." I just found it funny, and it is, it's bloody marvellous.

Even your avatar is an obvious kick in the teeth for religion, which I have no issue with, but don't start jawing on about taking the high-road when you clearly are no different than anybody you're complaining about. In essence, you're chatting bollocks yet again, mate. Well done!
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:confused: I see where you're going here, but I think it's stretching a bit. I mean, I can self identify as female, and even be all on board with Girl Power, but still refrain from lambasting and ridiculing men.

I also self-identify as an atheist, and I make no effort to hide it. I speak about it regularly among my colleagues and acquaintances. I would like to sway their thinking... but I don't mock them or antagonize them about being religious.
 
Emily's Cat said:
:confused: I see where you're going here, but I think it's stretching a bit. I mean, I can self identify as female, and even be all on board with Girl Power, but still refrain from lambasting and ridiculing men.

I also self-identify as an atheist, and I make no effort to hide it. I speak about it regularly among my colleagues and acquaintances. I would like to sway their thinking... but I don't mock them or antagonize them about being religious.
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I don't see it as stretching, considering he's spent such an annoyingly long time yammering on about what people can and can't poke fun at. Some of the nonsense he was chatting about Bigfoot-believers was truly hilarious. He clearly spends a lot of time "debating" nonsense, and yet acts like anyone else doing it is below him. "Come now, we must debate religion and nothing else, for that is a worthy topic! Huzzah!"
 
Emily's Cat said:
I find that horribly insulting. I really have trouble with implied stuff, sarcasm, and subtle *wink-wink-nudge-nudge-know-what-I-mean* kinds of posts. I don't see any connection between what The Atheist posted and Gilbert Syndrome implying that he's not really an atheist.
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I never once implied that he wasn't an atheist, lol. My point was that he's a hypocrite, and he certainly is.
 
Gilbert Syndrome said:
I don't see it as stretching, considering he's spent such an annoyingly long time yammering on about what people can and can't poke fun at. Some of the nonsense he was chatting about Bigfoot-believers was truly hilarious. He clearly spends a lot of time "debating" nonsense, and yet acts like anyone else doing it is below him. "Come now, we must debate religion and nothing else, for that is a worthy topic! Huzzah!"
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"And if you are going to debate religious you must not use ridicule but meet them on their level and use their rules of debate".
 
Emily's Cat said:
Belief is what it is. It's belief in something with no proof. It's not logical... but it's also not unreasonable.

  • I believe that most people are inherently well-intentioned. They don't mean harm; at worst, they simply aren't aware of the impact they're having on other people.
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Humans are neither good nor bad. On a day to day basis they are apathetic at best and self centered at worst. Given thousands of years of social and moral progress we've managed to work out efficient means of living as social species and thankfully we do have things like empathy, sympathy and compassion. Unfortunately these are easily suppressed and the average person will effectively meet out genocide given the right circumstances (see Mao's great leap forward, Stalin's Purges and Hitler's Holocaust).

If you want to understand the "Jungian Thing" (the duality of man) you need to understand where we came from. Our sociobiology. This notion of the nature of humans is perhaps the greatest presumptuous fallacy of human history. We are just machines responding to the environment around us. The notion that we are "good" or "evil" is an illusion. We can only judge actions based on our subjective goals while ignoring what it means to live in a deterministic world. We think we are autonomous creatures that make moral decisions based on reason. There is little evidence to support such a position.

This is not to say that reason and logic do not influence our decision making process. They do. Just not in the way our egos would like to think.

For source material I would recommend Hanna Arendt's Eichmann in Israel, EO Wilson's The Meaning of Human Existence and On Human Nature. I can also recommend studies and other academic source material if you are interested. There is a wealth of science as to the nature of mankind and it's not as cheery as you might imagine. Which should be obvious given thousands of years of wars, oppression, slavery, genocide and unimaginable atrocity.

I would not say we are "well intentioned", that again is an illusion. We are self interested. However, it is in our rational self interest to be kind, charitable and well intentioned. It's also in our rational self interest to be back stabbing, deceitful bastards. There is no single strategy to Maslov's self fulfilment. Donald Trump made millions and perhaps billions making people homeless. Is that a good thing or bad thing? FDR committed crimes against humanity. Lincoln suspended Habeas Corpus. Reagan traded arms for hostages. The list goes on and on. We can be a kind and generous species and then, given a little fear (see 9/11) we are willing to give away our plain and precious freedoms because we are little more than children huddling in the dark pretending to be brave. It's a lie.
 
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Emily's Cat said:
Well. That's a depressing set of beliefs you've got there. But ah well - to each his own.
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It's actually quite liberating. Very similar to giving up religion. Funny since my mother told me that atheists have no purpose or meaning in life and lead a depressing existence. Do you think by chance your views of reality are simply what you want them to be? It's something I consider daily. Do I want to know the truth as much as humanly possible or am I content with simply believing what I do?

I find the truth exhilarating and hopeful. Our ability to reason gives us the one chance to escape our evolution. Knowing that we are neither good nor bad and knowing that each of us benefit from helping others then we can craft sound social policies to improve existence and guard against atrocities.
 
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