Jeremy Pallant

If we continue with that logic, then the Mormons, Jehovah's Witnesses and Christian Scientists are all Christians. Now I don't have a problem with that, but other Christians, and maybe Tercel, might.

Satan Oscillate My Metallic Sonatas

Brahma,
In short, yes.

You have committed a post poc fallacy.
See <a href="http://www.datanation.com/fallacies/posthoc.htm" target="_blank">here</a>

This is an argument of the form: A happened, then B happened...therefore B was caused by A.

In your argument A=illiteracy, B=theism.

Satan Oscilliate My Metallic Sonatas

Koyaanisqatsi

Cult indoctrination starts in childhood, long before great intellects fluorish and Tercel is a perfect example of how such indoctrination simply shuts cognitive processing down when it is applied to the cult. That's what indoctrination does; makes you think (or, rather, accept) that 2+2=5 in certain circumstances.

It is no surprise that intelligent people are also cult members, considering the fact that in most cases their indoctrination was forced upon them by their parents from birth onward.

Cognitive dissonance is powerful shit and the only way the mind can handle it and still function is to compartmentallize, which explains how otherwise intelligent poeple like Tercel can just shut down like Robocop when it comes to applying their intelligence to their indoctrination.

(edited for addendum - Koy)

[ March 07, 2002: Message edited by: Koyaanisqatsi ]</p>

GunnerJ

Actually, to be more exact, it's not post hoc, ergo propter hoc, i.e., "after this, therefore because of this;" it's cum hoc, ergo propter hoc; "with this, therefore because of this." In other words, he has confused correlation with causation. Still a falacy, though.

Mageth

Cognitive dissonance is powerful shit

You got that right.

and the only way the mind can handle it and still function is to compartmentallize

Or do what I finally did: shed the contradictory, unsubstantiated myths of childhood (the results of a collapse of the compartmental walls bringing the dissonance up to an unbearable level, making it imperative that I find a different - and permanent - solution.)

Tercel

Bayes was a Presbyterian Minister, Occam a Catholic theologian and Priest, Newton wrote a ton on theology, Pascal was a Christian Apologist , Descartes attempted to prove the existence of God.

Martyrs? Hardly - if they'd died early deaths they wouldn't have been able to do the stuff they're famous for, would they?

Tercel

True: Most atheists think it's really really stupid but really it's a brilliant insight.

Who would have guessed? I mean it's not as if he wrote a couple of books of Christian Apologetics or anything...

<img src="graemlins/banghead.gif" border="0" alt="[Bang Head]" /> Most of us are aware that Pascal's Wager isn't intended to prove God's existence.


The human heart is singularly susceptible to fickleness, to change, to promises, to bribery. One of [the disciples] had only to deny his story under these inducements, or still more because of possible imprisonment, torture and death, and they would all have been lost. -Pascal, The Pensees

Tercel

Just think of all those atheists out there indoctrinating their children with atheism.

Of course it does! 2+2=5 if we redefine 5 as 4. Or alternatively (in a significantly more likely case) we might have redefined the "+" symbol to represent the function:
a+b = (a to the power of b) plus (a divided by b)

So clearly 2+2=5 can be sensibly true in certain circumstances.

People like <strong>Koy</strong> are an example of what I would call the "fundamentalist" mindset. With such people it seems to be all or nothing, they seem unable to appreciate the shades of gray and the subtleties involved in proper reasoning. Unfortunately in this scientific age, such people can get away with it without significant trouble: Most things we come across are very black and white and have only those two states with no subtlety whatsoever involved. Such people can deal with things such as science and maths very well - things are true or false, theories work or they don't and end of story.
However, when it comes to those areas of life which involve far more careful analysis and require careful and guarded conclusions, such fundamentalists can be very quickly seen to be very narrow minded.
When presented with a situation where their absolutely true/absolutely false dual mindset is inappropriate, they don’t seem to know how to do anything else except apply that mindset anyway, and as a result, completely fail to appreciate the delicate nature of the subject matter. When the subject matter involves myths and legends, or the analysis of the limits and abilities of human reason, and most of all, Religion: then this problem becomes acutely clear. One finds that such people go ahead without recognising the subtleties and the need for cautious and humble conclusions that are so necessary in these subjects. Hence one finds that they end their analysis of the subject matter with the rather absurd conclusions of all-true or all-false.
With Religion this is especially apparent. On one side we get the religious fundamentalists believing everything in the Bible is absolutely literally true end of story, while on the other side we get the atheist fundamentalists, Koy being a prime example of such. Now appart from the incidental difference that these two groups happened to have picked different sides on the issue (and which side they picked being most likely coincidence more than anything else), they are all but exactly the same.
They might possibly be “intelligent” so far as computing numbers or doing science or writing stories etc goes, but for all the real thinking outside the square they do their minds might as well run on train tracks. Real intelligence is about adapting oneself to the subject matter, about discerning which methods of analysis are appropriate for the task and which are not, about understanding what conclusions are valid and how far they can be drawn.
Now of course, we can hardly blame those of the fundamentalist mindset for their failiures: As Koy has been saying, parents and education no doubt play a large role in conditioning the understanding. So perhaps we should be looking critically whether we are overloading our children with problems where there is always only an absolutely right/absolutely wrong alternative, and seriously consider introducing problems where the solution is not cut and dried but can be found only by careful and subtle consideration.

With the indoctrination from parents and “scientific” society, as well increasing numbers of divorses causing tragic family relational breakdowns including losses of the important father figure, not to mention the public image of fundamentalism as the only type of religion: It is not suprising that intelligent people are also atheists sometimes.

Do I detect a compliment?
Can I have that in writing?

Tercel

Not Prince Hamlet

&gt;Most of us are aware that Pascal's Wager isn't
&gt; intended to prove God's existence.

Wrong. Most of you were aware. It was a new finding for me, which I found very interesting given the number of times Pascal's Wager is used as an argument for proof.

You're entitled to bang your head against the wall all you want (in fact, it's very entertaining) but perhaps you might cut me just a bit of slack since I've only just got here.

Jeff

Not Prince Hamlet

Actually, no. 2+2=5 can be nonsensibly true in certain circumstances.

That is, yes, you can redefine the value of the operator "+" or the values of "2" or "5", but then what exactly are you saying? You are using symbols that most people know, recognize, and understand and then are deliberately redefining them to some other term in order to "prove" what you like.

This is often a problem with theistic debates, BTW, because words and phrases such as "faith" and "free will" are often redefined on the fly to avoid being cornered in a paradox. Whenever an inconsistancy begins to look evident, a term is redefined, and wham-bang, no more inconsistancy.

Jeff