Scholarly Hypatia Was Murdered by a Degenerate Clique of Christian Fundamentalists

[Red Terror]

Can someone please answer the following question: How can the universe be 6 or 7,000 years old--- according to the fundamentalist-apologists for Genesis--- when the light from distant stars have been travelling for more than 6 or 7,000 years to reach our eyes?? The speed of light??? 299,792,458 meters per second (yes folks, I'm using the metric system, get over it). By the way I'm quoting Sam Harris's book The End of Faith.

[Pompey Bum]

Gee, I don't know, Red. Can you show me where anyone on this thread has made such a claim? I mean, even once?

Say, how's the research going? Anything yet?

Heh heh heh. Right, Red Terror, but that is from a description of THE FILM. My contention is that the film was ahistorical in suggesting that very thing. But I will gladly stand corrected if you can provide evidence that the above story is true, or that Hypatia of Alexandria ever advanced the idea of heliocentrism. If you can't, I call on your integrity to admit that you have given undue credence to the historicity of this movie.

In the meantime, happy hunting!

[Clopin]

I guess atheists just totally get religion and understand it better than the people who practice it, but we religious don't understand you guys at all. It's probably because you're all so much smarter.

Oh relax brah, I don't even consider myself an atheist. I'm just making light about the way this word seems to trigger a big reaction on here as of late.

[Drkshadow03]

Really, you think there's a lot of variety in atheism? The studies I've read on the demographics and beliefs of atheists really don't bear that out. There's just not that much diversity there. The overwhelming majority are white, middle class, male, liberal, etc. And their beliefs tend to fall into a relatively small number of predictable categories. You're going to see a lot more diversity in Judaism for example. As much as atheists like to claim to be self-made men and free thinkers who've made up their own minds, they almost all fall into a few noticeable strands or denominations showing clear influences, behaviors, and convergences of thought. You can usually trace the lineage of their beliefs back to specific individuals like Dawkins or Marx, as opposed to really original thinkers like YesNo who I have no idea where he gets his ideas.

I was thinking more along the lines of this typology and personality research. In the typology studied in which they first interviewed 50+ nonbelievers and then had someone code for similarities and differences, they found six different types of nonbelievers:

1) Intellectual Atheist
2) Activist
3) Seeker-Agnostic
4) Anti-Theist
5) Non-Theist
6) Ritual Atheists

You can read the descriptions of each in the link above. I've met people in each of these categories in real life and the internet. What each of these sub-groups has in common is nonbelief in God, but their attitudes towards religion differ, their attitudes about atheism itself differ, and their attitudes about approach differ as well.

[Jackson Richardson]

Can someone please answer the following question: How can the universe be 6 or 7,000 years old--- according to the fundamentalist-apologists for Genesis--- when the light from distant stars have been travelling for more than 6 or 7,000 years to reach our eyes?? The speed of light??? 299,792,458 meters per second (yes folks, I'm using the metric system, get over it). By the way I'm quoting Sam Harris's book The End of Faith.

Genesis chapter 1 was never intended as a scientific account - light is created on Sunday and the sun and stars only on Wednesday. An interesting philosophic idea but scientifically untenable.

Just a thought about Hypatia - her murder is a total disgrace to Christianity, but there have been plenty of examples of mob violence being justified by socialism, I'm very sorry to say.

[desiresjab]

I notice the only ones calling atheism a religion are those who hate atheists. How curious. Not long ago I learned on here that math is only a story, science is only a myth. When you have no real arguments, this is the technique used, you insist that a metaphor is literally true. We have here religionists that call a stick a leg because some people have wooden legs. There are no legs in a pile of brush, just sticks, but they insist on seeing legs.

Religionists cannot defend God except to say belief is personal. A belief different from theirs cannot be personal. They have no good arguments. Therefore they accuse the deniers of practicing religion, hoping to dismiss their views that way.

Have I ever heard anything so weak as the exclusive benefits of religion include subjectivity, diversity and humanization? That is truly pathetic. I guess we can all now admit that atheists have no chance at subjectivity, diversity and humanization. Only religion can offer that. These things come exclusively with religion. That is the most anemic argument for religion I have ever encountered.

It is precisely because religionists do not have good arguments that they have resorted to hogwash these several thousand years. At least St. Thomas Aquinas tried to be sensible, and gave as good as he got.

Religion has never left people alone. Active proselytization is by their tenets a big part of God's game. Insisting they are right is a big part of their game. As if I should for an instant consider that authentically dull people figured it out and have their fingers squarely on the pulse of truth. Please. The poor churl who shows up at my door in white socks on Sunday with pants above his ankles to spread the word, has found the truth, eh? These people have found a secret the way someone under hypnosis finds they are a dog.

Atheists do not have to prove anything, unless they insist there is no God. If all they do is accuse religioinsts of fantasy until they can provide some proof, they themselves do not have to prove a thing. It should be their position that the relgionists do. Any atheist in her right mind should know she cannot prove there is no God, just as she knows no religionist can prove there is one.

Advice to atheists and religionists: Leave people alone. Why should they believe you?

[Pompey Bum]

I was thinking more along the lines of this typology and personality research. In the typology studied in which they first interviewed 50+ nonbelievers and then had someone code for similarities and differences, they found six different types of nonbelievers:

1) Intellectual Atheist
2) Activist
3) Seeker-Agnostic
4) Anti-Theist
5) Non-Theist
6) Ritual Atheists

You can read the descriptions of each in the link above. I've met people in each of these categories in real life and the internet. What each of these sub-groups has in common is nonbelief in God, but their attitudes towards religion differ, their attitudes about atheism itself differ, and their attitudes about approach differ as well.

I didn't read this report in detail, but 50 is much too small a sample size for the results to be taken seriously, isn't it? I take it for granted, by the way, that there is a wide degree of personal diversity among atheists and theists (and especially among agnostics, since everyone is necessarily an agnostic and goes from there). But this approach seems to limit diversity by creating a few unsubstantiated categories in which some may be pleased to recognize themselves or others--rather like a horoscope of atheism.

[tailor STATELY]

I notice the only ones calling atheism a religion are those who hate atheists. How curious.

No hate here... what a curious leap. I read an article (lengthy) earlier today from 9/10/2016 by one of my church's General Authorities that sums up what I believe re: theist non-theists, etc: http://www.mormonnewsroom.org/articl...freedom-dallas

Exerps and ycerps:

V.

How should we resolve current conflicts between nondiscrimination and the free exercise of religion? Our main message is that we should all cease fire in the culture wars and join in efforts to achieve fairness for all. In our pluralistic society all must learn to live peacefully with laws, institutions, and persons who do not share our most basic values.
.
.
As noted there, we should encourage all to refrain from the common practice of labeling adversaries with such epithets as “godless” or “bigot.” This kind of name-calling chills free speech by seeking to impose personal, social, or professional punishments on the speech or positions of adversaries.

Ta ! (short for tarradiddle),
tailor STATELY

[Pompey Bum]

From Tailor's cited quotation: "...we should encourage all to refrain from the common practice of labeling adversaries with such epithets as 'Godless' or 'bigot.' This kind of name-calling chills free speech by seeking to impose personal, social, or professional punishments on the speech or positions of adversaries."

With respect, Tailor, it is important to call bigotry what it is, and discouraging that kind of truth telling is the real chill on free speech. I will not sacrifice my free speech in any case, especially in the face of one who is actively oppressing others. That would be the bigot, not you, by the way.

[Pompey Bum]

.............

[Drkshadow03]

I didn't read this report in detail, but 50 is much too small a sample size for the results to be taken seriously, isn't it? I take it for granted, by the way, that there is a wide degree of personal diversity among atheists and theists (and especially among agnostics, since everyone is necessarily an agnostic and goes from there). But this approach seems to limit diversity by creating a few unsubstantiated categories in which some may be pleased to recognize themselves or others--rather like a horoscope of atheism.

The study had two parts: a qualitative interview part with 50+ and then a quantitative part where they gave 1153 atheists (much larger sample) the six typologies with descriptions and asked them to select the one that best describes their understanding of their own atheism. They then also gave them multiple personality tests such as the Big 5 personality, Rokeach Dogmatism test, Ryff Autonomy and Positive Relationship with Others.

While I'm not claiming to be an expert in social science methodology, it seems to me interviews for the sake of theorizing typologies don't require as large a sample size. You're analyzing the differences and similarities in responses. Everyone's responses are represented equally because the goal is to develop categories from interview questions. So if one group is overrepresented and another underrepresented it doesn't matter because each group is STILL represented in some way. You're not measuring how many atheists are in each group at this point, just that such people exist and they seem to have different attitudes on various dimensions represented by the interview questions.

In quantitative data, you're measuring a particular attribute with numbers. Larger samples matter. Too small a sample allows extreme results to occur by chance. The problem is that all the individual parts and diversity is being represented in a single number and too small a sample can allow extremes to pull up the average. If you have a larger sample the closer you're to representing the actual population and approaching the actual number of that attribute of the population.

[YesNo]

Can someone please answer the following question: How can the universe be 6 or 7,000 years old--- according to the fundamentalist-apologists for Genesis--- when the light from distant stars have been travelling for more than 6 or 7,000 years to reach our eyes?? The speed of light??? 299,792,458 meters per second (yes folks, I'm using the metric system, get over it). By the way I'm quoting Sam Harris's book The End of Faith.

What I find valuable in Genesis I are two ideas (1) the universe was created and (2) it was good. https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Genesis+1

That the universe had at least a beginning is validated by the big bang. To assume the universe is not good puts one into a very problematic philosophical position since we are part of the universe.

The idea that the universe is young is called "Young Earth creationism": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Young_Earth_creationism

Among those who gave dates for the creation, Isaac Newton suggested it was 4000 BC and Kepler gave 3977 BC as the date.

[YesNo]

Have I ever heard anything so weak as the exclusive benefits of religion include subjectivity, diversity and humanization? That is truly pathetic. I guess we can all now admit that atheists have no chance at subjectivity, diversity and humanization. Only religion can offer that. These things come exclusively with religion. That is the most anemic argument for religion I have ever encountered.

Atheists certainly have a chance at subjectivity, diversity and humanization. They are human like everyone else. Also other religions besides the various forms of atheism may not score high on these either. Mentioning imperialism, dehumanization and idolatry is a way to point out problems one might find in any religion, not just atheism.

Of course atheists and theists are not the same. Neither are Hindus and Catholics the same. One can continue creating subcategories.

At a high level atheists and theists share a common characteristic: They take a stand on the default theistic position that members of our species will accept as long as we exist as a species. It is because of that common characteristic that they can be classified as a religion rather than, say, a political group.

[mona amon]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bjr_7mxH3Rs

(litnet teaches a course on atheism)

I haven't watched much South Park but I do remember that episode.

[mortalterror]

I was thinking more along the lines of this typology and personality research. In the typology studied in which they first interviewed 50+ nonbelievers and then had someone code for similarities and differences, they found six different types of nonbelievers:

1) Intellectual Atheist
2) Activist
3) Seeker-Agnostic
4) Anti-Theist
5) Non-Theist
6) Ritual Atheists

You can read the descriptions of each in the link above. I've met people in each of these categories in real life and the internet. What each of these sub-groups has in common is nonbelief in God, but their attitudes towards religion differ, their attitudes about atheism itself differ, and their attitudes about approach differ as well.

I'll have to give that site a look. Categorizing atheists by the single stance of their relationship to religion or the All Mighty is definitely one way to go about it. But we don't usually categorize theists in that matter. I tend to think of the branches of atheist thought in terms of philosophical lineage. You have the French school that traces it's roots to Voltaire, Diderot, d'Holbach and other Enlightenment era atheists. Then you have the German school with Marx, Engels, Freud, Feuerebach, Fichte, Schopenhauer, Nietzsche. The British school of utilitarians such as Bentham, Godwin, and Mill. The Russians or communists which include Lenin, Stalin, Bakunin, Trotsky (Mao, Guevara). There's the Positivists starting with Comte and Durkheim. And the New Atheists represented by Dawkins, Hitchens, Harris, and Dennett. These are each sort of families with a series of common thoughts among them and well established positions on materialism, atomism, utilitarianism, positivism, rationalism, empiricism, liberalism, etc.

Personally, I'm a little loathe to describe a group of people as "Intellectual Atheists" too since we don't describe any other group that way and it draws a natural contrast to it's opposite. Are theists then anti-intellectual? The adjective itself is prejudicial since everyone wants to be seen as an intelligent person, although in actual fact very few deserve that distinction. It would be like putting the word "loving" or "good" in front of Christian and asking people if they were that kind of Christian. That's sort of why I object to the term "Brights" because it implies that the rest of us are "dim." I think that while a lot of people in atheism prize intellect as a major virtue, what they really are is elitist since they have a corresponding disdain for people of average intellect. This contrasts with the more egalitarian philosophy of Christianity which says blessed are the meek, the poor, the huddled masses yearning to breathe free, give us your tired, your weary, those with bad credit, low credit, no credit, etc.