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Bushman
Social climber
The island of Tristan da Cunha
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Thanks, Jan.
All,
On Science:
What I know of scientific method is that it is a process in which we accrue knowledge by conducting experiments and measuring the data, comparing it with previous data, and subjecting it to the discussion and review within the scientific community. I'm guessing there are other processes with which to measure and conduct scientific study, my favorite being that of throwing everything against the wall and seeing what sticks.
My opinion is that regardless of what science has been conducted in the past, the best of science is what is being discovered today and what will be discovered tomorrow and in the future. I'm am planning, but of course not expecting, to be around when the first humans set foot on Mars and I can't wait to find out what other new discoveries will be found during the remainder of my lifetime. I am also excited, trepidatious, fearful, yet full of wonderment about what discoveries might happen during the lives of my children and grandchildren regardless of the fact that later on I won't be around to witness it.
Que sera sera.
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Tvash
climber
Seattle
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everyone chooses their actions, regardless of a moral code or lack thereif. actions are all that really matter.
regarding my observation of the secularity if most other civilized nations - dont shoot the messenger.
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paul roehl
Boulder climber
california
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"slavery took a war. i didnt include that because that's an implosion of governance, not its proper employment."
Where in the world of natural rights is the right not to be a slave?
Slavery is as "natural " to the human race as war.
What are natural rights or "self evident rights" and where do they come from?
They certainly don't come from the will of the people as the Bill of Rights stands in direct contradiction to the will of the majority as a protection of the minority.
The notion of self evident truths has its source in centuries of introspection, both theological and philosophical, that resulted in a quite shaky often problematic sense of what's right and what's wrong.
What stands at the base of this accomplishment, this enlightenment, is religious and philosophical sentiment from Socrates to Locke to Jesus to Rousseau. Ideas that were finally placed in the crucible of reason to good effect.
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Skeptimistic
Mountain climber
La Mancha
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Morality arises out of compassion & empathy for our fellow humans & creatures, not from belief in a supernatural being that apparently has less compassion for us than it demands of us.
There is no god, there is no soul, there is only here, now & our best hopes for the future. Treat your fellow beings as you want to be treated and most of what is wrong in the world goes away.
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MikeL
Social climber
Seattle, WA
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BB:
Really funny! (about atheism). lol.
Damn, Paul. Some good writing back a page.
Bushman:
Thanks. I liked reading that.
Donini: You be the judge.
I missed the claim. What do you see in the lists?
Tvash:
You mention ethics time and again, not morality or legality. It’s my insight (shared by a couple of other people) that ethics tends to be community-specific around somewhat mundane community workings. Ethics are strong when folks take some kind of an oath that goes beyond the community (e.g., doctors, military, law, accountants, etc.). Morality seems a different kind of injunction, philosophically distinct. Legality, is another kettle of fish that I can’t remember enough about at the moment (jurisprudence stuff).
I might tend to agree (if that is what you propose) that ethics might be a particularly secular approach to what might otherwise be construed as morality. To that potential evaluation, we should indeed add “science” (and its orientations to metrics, data, and logic) to “ethics.”
I just recently was informed by some faculty at SCU that the university’s student ethics-bowl team got third place in the regional competition at Santa Barbara and will go on to the national competition. Students answer questions about a specific case given to them and offer justifications for their answers. Judges evaluate teams based upon quality, relevance, and logic rigor of their reasoning. In other words, ethics appears to be an analytical task. That it would be scored and ranked by competition disturbs me.
In my view, ethics is determined by the community that it serves. Morality comes from somewhere else, I guess some religious notions. Legality comes from governing bodies (elected or not).
There seems to be things I don’t think are amenable to the glaring light of logic and reason—or admit that both are relativistically determined by communities.
What’s right?
If you probe your depths, you may know without question what answers that question.
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Bushman
Social climber
The island of Tristan da Cunha
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'Science and Religion'
Whether scientist or philosopher on this we can agree,
To conduct simple experiments requires no pedigree,
And of ethics and what's equal in our eyes is plain to see,
But never is as easy as the problem three plus three,
I'm not saying that we have to acquiesce or bend our knee,
Every time a thug or tyrant tries to make us fight or flee,
Though I know that many situations weigh on us you see,
It can test of us of our mettle at the best that we can be,
But we're failing, frail, and human, of such mental poverty,
That the strength of all our numbers as an asset might not be,
A wolf is still a wolf whether a wolf be slave or free,
And a human is a human never mind the family tree,
As tyranny is tyranny for all the world to see,
Both science and religion can endanger you and me,
But returning to the subject of what and who we'll be,
On the purpose of existence and our search for quality,
Using science or religion or your own philosophy,
We might find some quality of life by letting others be.
-bushman
12/08/2014
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Fat Dad
Trad climber
Los Angeles, CA
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Oh to be as smug as Tvash and his certitude that he and his aetheist kin alone possesses knowledge while those of us of religious bent wallow in ignorance.
Props to Jan and Mike, et al., for their infinite patience when discussing this issue. You're throwing pearls at swine. I've given up entertaining such discussions with most of this site. Everyone arrives at their truth through his or her own journey. I no longer find it a productive use of my time to explain why or how my faith does not make me ignorant or fearful or close minded or all those other things many of the aetheists on this site appear to be.
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BLUEBLOCR
Social climber
joshua tree
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Man Bushman,^^that last one is really great
i'm still in awe over this mornings Cosmic Prank
i haven't been able to come up with a ryme to ur reason..
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Tvash
climber
Seattle
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Smug? Moi?
I'm certain the word is spelled 'atheist'. Past that....
I'm also certain this atheist hasn't called anyone a swine. Not that there's anything wrong with swine, mind you.
Maybe that's a thing in some religious circles. It doesn't seem to be in the church/homeless shelter I volunteer for. Damn do-gooding Methodists. Coddling all those mentally ill drug addicts.
As for atheist kin - yeah, I've got plenty. Big family. Mostly atheist. Terrible folk, really. Pediatric nurses, teachers, public defenders, firemen, boy scout troop leaders, poets, musicians.
They don't go on about ethics or morals very much. They just act.
My kind of swine.
Please pass the slop.
Oink oink.
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Wayno
Big Wall climber
Seattle, WA
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Self evident? Simple. Evident as past tense to the self. No proof is needed. Essential. Non-reducible.
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Tvash
climber
Seattle
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do they poo up there?
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Tvash
climber
Seattle
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where's the cutoff? does ebola get in?
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Tvash
climber
Seattle
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i would think cobras might ruin the whole traquility vibe
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BASE104
Social climber
An Oil Field
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Don't you give your Mother-Nature more credit than that? What about Darwin's Dinosaurs? The glitches in the Fitches, or whatever?
No. What you are describing is Pantheism, the worship of nature. I admit that when you learn about nature, you may admire how it all works, but no, science doesn't WORSHIP nature.
Dinosaurs were just a part of nature. Their existence doesn't have any supernatural meaning. It just is what it is.
Going to get a flat fixed, and then I'm out of here for a long time. Can't wait!
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BLUEBLOCR
Social climber
joshua tree
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^^^have a good one Base!
keep an eye out for animals doing scientific stuff. like nest building, or storing food for the winter, coyotes using toilet paper..
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High Fructose Corn Spirit
Gym climber
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"keep an eye out for animals doing scientific stuff. like nest building..."
That's nature stuff, blu, you continuously confuse the two.
First steps: distinguish between (1) nature and (2) science.
By failing to distinguish them, you mock both. (Not a productive strategy.)
.....
A bit from evolutionist Jerry Coyne on the Pope's recent decree that animals too go to heaven...
"Now really, is this Sophisticated Theology™? Just once—once—I’d like to see someone like Karen Armstrong (sorry ekat) or David Bentley Hart publicly say, “The Pope is full of it—we have no evidence for any of that crap.” But of course you never will. The “sophisticated” believers, so keen to tell us what God is really like (he’s apophatic and ineffable), are equally keen to suppress criticism of believers who disagree with them by making more tangible claims. After all, it’s better to keep comity with the faithful and diss the atheists than to go after the inanities of other faiths."
Ha, ha! We now have the sophisticated believer in addition to the sophisticated theologian.
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MH2
Boulder climber
Andy Cairns
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I agree with DMT. BB is likely a good person but the posts are not consistent with a unique personality openly presented. Too much foolin' around.
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paul roehl
Boulder climber
california
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"better to keep comity with the faithful and diss the atheists than to go after the inanities of other faiths."
Inanity, after all, is a human condition. No doubt you can find it exhibited in faith, but science has been an enthusiastic participant as well. I don't think that dogs going to heaven is any more or less inane than the notion that the bumps on a man's head can tell us if he's a criminal or not.
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WBraun
climber
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The subtle material matter that exists beyond the means of all their gross material scientific technology will never be understood by these so called scientists.
Their instruments are on the gross material plane and only can measure these inferior gross material manifestations.
The foolish western scientist lab coats have no clue to the subtle material regions.
Thus you have all these stupid fruitcake (HFCS), along with the Dr Failed etc rants, due to their terrible poor fund of knowledge.
These so called western gross material speculators are completely fixated in the gross material planes and foolishly rubber stamp themselves PHD experts.
Unknown to them are the subtle material regions and what to speak of the spiritual regions all which are beyond their limited gross material technology.
The great Nicola Tesla was one of the rare modern western scientist to venture into the subtle material regions ......
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