scigirl

I have recently become disturbed as of late, from several of the posters here, and their attitudes about the infidels forum. Randman and stonetools, that includes you, so sit up and pay attention.

I have seen II been accused of the following:

1) This forum is hostile to religion.

2) People here are narrow-minded and belittle, or even censor beliefs which they do not agree with.

3) Scientists here promote evolution as a religion.

I will address each post separately, with my thoughts as a regular both here and on the Baptist board.

1) This forum is hostile to religion.

Yes it can be. I’ll admit that. In fact, the level of religious hostility does in fact bother me, and I and others have criticized our fellow infidels for that behavior. But randman and stonetools, I want you to realize the following facts:

Many people here were physically and emotionally abused in the name of religion. Fortunately, I am not included on that list. My parents are catholic, but are also freethinkers, and very generous and loving folks. Some may say in spite of their religion, some may say because of it. I tend to think it’s a combination of both, but mostly because of how they were raised. Anyway. . . . I know you may be thinking, “yeah well those abusers are not ‘True Christians’ TM “ Well that isn’t much comfort to the victims, whose abuse was prolonged and excused because of religion, now is it?

The name of this forum is “Internet Infidels,” not “People who Think Organized Religion is Great.” So, I don’t exactly know what you anticipated when you came here. Perhaps you expected the false pretentiousness of Christian discussion sites – where people pretend to “love one another in Christ,” but as soon as someone disagrees they say, “I can’t believe you call yourself a Christian.” I’ve seen that happen a lot at the BB. Hey the infidels here have angry discussions all the time, but at least they don’t stoop that low.

The degree of religious intolerance is directly proportional to the level of “fundamentalism” inherent in the religious poster. Many Christians are regulars here, and have no problems making friends and earning respect here. Others think we are all spawns of the Devil himself. So if you find yourself in that second category, you may want to look no further than a mirror when placing blame.

BTW – no one is holding a gun to make you post here. If you feel so oppressed and hated here, then leave.

2) People here are narrow-minded and belittle, or even censor beliefs which they do not agree with.

Maybe we are narrow-minded, maybe we belittle too much. Who knows? But let’s do some comparison shopping shall we? How many Christian discussion boards do the following things?

a. Encourage people on opposite sides of an issue to engage in a formal debate? Well it’s done here all the time, in the “Formal Debates and Discussions” section. I myself debated a creationist, and I think everyone involved learned a lot from the experience. Randman, several people have offered to formally debate you, and I haven’t seen you step up to the bat yet. I tell ya, no one ever offered to formally debate me at the Baptist Board. They don’t ever even do that! Why not, if they have the truth, and we are the narrow-minded bigots? The data does not fit the conclusions.

b. Have a sense of humor? People here make jokes all the time, and I rarely see that on the Baptist Board. I’m sorry, but they just aren’t funny. They take life – and themselves, way too seriously.

c. Allow uncensored criticism of the board and the moderators? If you complain about the moderators at the Baptist Board, your posts are deleted without any explanation. I complained once about a gay rights thread being shut down, and the moderators completely deleted the thread, and my new complaint. When I emailed them, the moderator (One of those “True Christians”), sent me the nastiest email I have ever received. And all I wanted was an explanation! The funny thing was, he accused me of being this lazy gen-Xer who just sat around watching Oprah and whining all day. LOL! Too bad his comments couldn’t be further from the truth (Excuse me but I never watch Oprah!) I sincerely hope that any complaints personally sent to the moderators here at infidels are treated with much more respect and courtesy. And here, if you publicly criticize the moderators, or the board, you are liable to have 50 people jump on your back, but at least your complaints are dealt with, not swept under the rug like they never happened.

d. Allow anyone to post in any forum with few exceptions? Here, theists can post in any forum they like, except the private forum. And there are atheists that can’t post in the private forum as well. Also, theists are encouraged to tread lightly in the Secular Lifestyles and Support Forum, for reasons explained in that forum. But anyone of any faith or creed can post away about science, philosophy, or existence of god without any censorship. At the Baptist board, they have Baptist-only discussions, Christian-only discussions, and then a couple forums for the heathens. When they get on their soapbox about how “This nation was founded by Christians,” I love pointing out to them that people like Thomas Jefferson were actually critical of religion, and they would not be allowed to post in most of the Baptist Forums. TJ, however, would hopefully be admitted in to the FPF (as soon as he had a post count of 30, of course!). Now that’s saying something, wouldn’t you say? Our forum would not censor the founders of our country, but many Christian sites would? Hmm . . . .

e. Allow anyone to post in Evolution-Creation without censorship? At the Baptist Board, you have to email your posts to the moderators, who promptly edit them and post them, and the biased slant toward the YEC view is definitely present. Now if they are so right, why the need to do that? Here, we give the dissenters way more attention than they deserve. We answer all your questions with three or four links, and pictures. We encourage you to read sites and ask questions. Randman, wouldn’t it bother you more if you came here questioning evolution, and we simply deleted your posts and pretended you didn’t exist? If that actually happened, than maybe you could make a case for an “evolutionist conspiracy.” I would like to point out that some Christian boards deal with evolutionists in just that fashion.

f. Actually answer your questions sincerely? Ok, mostly sincerely, sometimes sarcastic. Would a Baptist go out of their way to find three or four links to answer a religious question? Well sometimes, but never to the crazy extent that we do. Sheesh, if you guys were smart, you would use us to do your science homework. In fact, maybe that is EXACTLY what you are doing! Someone could easily come here and say, “How could the eye possibly evolve, that’s impossible,” and Oolon or Jesse or whoever would post about 20 links, and you would get 40 different ideas about how the eyes could have evolved, and voila, your evolution report would be done for you! If we hated you so much, or thought you were a worthless human being, why do we spend so much time educating people like you who come here with mis-information, or with honest inquiries? Why randman? Well it’s because we actually give a crap about people, and we don’t like it when people are mis-informed about really cool topics like evolution or astronomy. And we don’t need a threat of an eternal lake of fire to care about you, we just do it . . . because we should. As scientists and as fellow humans, we want people to understand the universe.

3) Scientists here promote evolution as a religion.

I think that the passion of scientists can be confused with, or even compared to, religious beliefs in the sense that science is often a vocation for people, much like medicine or law. Scientists often have a passion for what they do. Heck, they have to, to get them through the tedious parts of scientific discovery. But let’s talk about the scientific method for a second.

Randman stated,
So you are not just talking about evolutionists, you are talking about scientists. I disagree that scientists “uphold the scientific method as the only acceptable means of accepting truth.” For instance, I believe that my boyfriend loves me, and I do not need to do a double-blind randomized trial to believe it.

Science does have its limits, I agree. But how do we know those limits unless we test them? Can you tell me, randman, what questions science can and cannot answer? And how do we even know the answer, unless we try?

No science is not perfect, because scientists are not perfect. And scientific studies do not give us 100% concrete true answers. It can only give us conjectures, best guesses, reasonable explanations. But aren’t these better than believing lies? Maybe we can only be 95% sure of evolution, or 99.9% sure of an old earth. But isn’t that better than being 100% wrong about something? The scientific method gives humans one thing they are really crappy at – a way to objectively evaluate a problem. It can help us learn how to separate correlation from causation. It can help us see true differences, and differences that are only random.

This world now has over 6 billion people on it, with a myriad of complex problems. The Adam and Eve explanation has existed for thousands of years, and as far as I can tell, has not contributed much to the fundamental questions we have about ourselves. Who are we? Why are we here? Why are we the way we are? Genesis 1 says, “because two people ate a fruit in a garden.” Well I ask you, how does Genesis 1 help us solve the current crisis in the Middle East, or tackle the AIDS epidemic in Africa, or solve the rampant drug and alcohol problem in the USA?

Maybe evolutionary theory can’t answer these questions either. But it has a lot more predictive and explanatory power than Genesis 1 could ever have. How much did religious explanations help us understand mental illness? Now, how much is the process of scientific inquiry helping us understand mental illness? Maybe science can’t answer all these questions. But for God’s sake, let them try. I think our children, the children in Africa dying of AIDS, and the children dying in Israel and Palestine, deserve the attempt.

Angela

scigirl

I was just informed that the Baptist Board is holding formal debates. That is cool. I haven't been there in the last two weeks, since I am writing my thesis.

Incidentally, I think Christian sites do have some strengths. The idea for the "welcome forum" here was partially inspired by the welcome forum at the Baptist Board. In addition, I did meet some great and interesting people at the BB, so my negative comments were not personally directed at them. I do still stand my global comparisons of christian forums and this forum, however.

Scigirl

RufusAtticus

Nice post, Scigirl/Froggie/Angela.

Pomp

Nice post. Very eloquent.

randman

1. I do refer to scientists that are evolutionists actually that are trying to advance atheism, and the idea that the scientific method is the principal means of truth, as I have seen some here do. I actually think most scientists overall beleive in God. Sorry about the confusion.

2. How does Genesis help the world? Genesis is the chief document that expresses the idea that we are all created in the image of God. It is this idea which is the basis of inalienable rights which the American Revolution was based on, at least ideologically. It is this idea that upholds the very ideas of individual liberty and equality. Moroever, it is the ideas expressed in Genesis and elsewhere that form the very concepts of justice.

Let me explain a little further. Do you beleive the adage "what goes around, comes around" to be true? Or, as the Bible states it, whatever a man sows that shall he reap? In other words, is there such a thing as justice working in some manner in the earth, not in the particulars always since everyone knows life isn't fair, but ask yopurself what you really beleive, not even what you necessarily consciously think perhaps.

I beleive a type of global theism is a large part of the solution to the world's problems. Something like 98% of humanity believes in some form of judgement, what goes around, comes around, that God has set it up this way, but the ruling elites have not felt this way. Take foreign policy. Real politik has dictated that nations not be concerned over doing the right thing, but rather doing the geopolitical thing, and I beleive you can see a lot of mistakes where we thought and other nations thought we had to do something that was inherently wrong in order to protect ourselves. We had to back the Somoza family for decades, or we had to train and pay for death squads that went so far to rape and kill American nuns in El Salvador, or any number of things like that.

Well, we didn't trust that maybe just standing for right and freedom was enough, that as we miraculously won indendence, we can miraculously, all nations, learn to pray and do what is right, and reap good seeds sown.

I beleive the American Revolution was a seed, but that it will become a seedling. It helped to establish principles of individual freedom and propserity based on the root idea in Genesis that we are all created in the image of God, and I beleive it will usher in a better system of justice between the nations of the world, and between governments and people groups in the world.

I think Genesis offers a lot.

I think atheism offers more Stalins, Maos, Pol Pots, and totalitarianism in general, and the destruction of justice and morality as anything but relativistic terms that are mere human fantasies.

[ March 22, 2002: Message edited by: randman ]</p>

scigirl

You made a lot of assertions. However, your believing those things does not make it so.

Do you have any proof to back up your claims?

In addition, while it is true that a large percentage of the world believes in some sort of higher being, it does not follow that they come to any semblence of agreement on moral issues.

I'd be willing to bet that you and I agree on many more issues than say, you and a Zulu healer in Africa.

For instance the following behaviors are considered, or have been considered, moral by various religions:
1. female circumcision - where the clitorus of a female is removed, often without anesthesia, so that she can never really enjoy sex and thus remain "faithful.
2. execution of homosexuals
3. eating of human flesh and organs
4. polygamy or polyandry
5. infanticide

I certainly hope that you agree with me that all these actions are wrong, in a "civilized" society such as ours. But we have no common religious beliefs. You may like to think that religion gives you a nice objecive morality. It however, does not.

BTW I like how you basically ignored nearly everything I said. So the stuff you did not comment on - are you conceding those points? That infidels really is a better community in many ways than the christian forums?

scigirl

RufusAtticus

Moderator Hat On:

Keep this thread on topic: Evolution/Creation.
Otherwise, it'll be moved.

Thanx,
-RvFvS

Danya

I don't see it this way at all. I see that theism has resulted in ever increasing bloodshed every where you look. It is freedom of religion but keeping it separate from state that allows us all to follow our own beliefs without being oppressed or coerced by any one else's religious doctrine. Christianity did not invent freedom or justice. It is created by man and society. You are free to practice your religion without having someone else's be forced on you. Why would you want that to change? Our founding fathers knew that religion should not be allowed to rule. It was not included in our constitution accidentally. Be careful what you wish for or it may come true.

The fact you can watch what is happening in the Middle East on the news every night surprises me that you would be so keen on having our ruling elite become like that.

I apologize if this is off topic.

[ March 23, 2002: Message edited by: Danya ]</p>

randman

Sci-girl, I saw no point in responding to your subjective points. Btw, I don't know how to keep this topic from being moved due to what the initial thread is about.

No, I don't see this board as better.
I responded to what I thought was most pertinent, namely how religious beleif and Genesis helps the world.

I do admit that religious people can pick big fights and do so in a manner that is wrong. I think your claiming this board is just doing the same thing is probably correct, but I don't think it is appropiate to treat evolution as a religion, and I guess I think you are pretty much proving my case for me.

As far as "Christians" and other religious people, I have no illusions about people. Fact is there is not a huge moral difference unfortunately between religious people and non-religious people. I can admit to that. I don't see how it helps your case. Religion is not publicly funded, nor taught in schools and such.

If evolution is really a back-door to atheism, and more a means of indoctrination than teaching real science, and it seems that way to me, then it has crossed over into trying to force a religious view into the public educational system.

x-member

Randman, please define "real science".

Jon