More Bryan Patterson Faithworks stupid...

[wolty]

Originally Posted by Joe

Yes and then the atheists get really annoyed about the 'douch-bag' and put all kinds of poisonous remarks up about him. The logical thing would be to read another part of the paper. But if you really get your kicks examining the religious content of the Sunday Herald Sun, good luck to you. I'd suggest taking your kids to fly a kite instead.

Hi Joe. Will welcome you in your intro thread.

I know as an atheist I get really annoyed about many irrational comments. BP is just one in a long line. I get annoyed about Pell telling a meteorologist that he knows more about science and global warming because he read a discredited book.

Logic isn't reading another part of the paper. That would be putting one's head in the sand and ignoring stuff.

Do you ignore things that you don't like or disagree with?

[djarm67]

Originally Posted by Joe

Yes and then the atheists get really annoyed about the 'douch-bag' and put all kinds of poisonous remarks up about him. The logical thing would be to read another part of the paper. But if you really get your kicks examining the religious content of the Sunday Herald Sun, good luck to you. I'd suggest taking your kids to fly a kite instead.

Let's apply that same logic to the bible.

God condoning slavery.
God condoning genocide.
God condoning the subjegation of women.

Quick turn to another part of the bible.

Ah! That's better.

Happy smiley people laughing...happy smiley people ....

[Annie]

Originally Posted by Joe

Yes and then the atheists get really annoyed about the 'douch-bag' and put all kinds of poisonous remarks up about him. The logical thing would be to read another part of the paper. But if you really get your kicks examining the religious content of the Sunday Herald Sun, good luck to you. I'd suggest taking your kids to fly a kite instead.

Hi Joe. I am hoping you just bashed out this gem of a post of Yours without giving it much thought. I doubt many people here get "their kicks" from reading rot disguised as intellect in one of our leading papers and thankfully we have the wherewithal to call the author on it. If you find that disturbing I suggest you go for a long walk along pier which would be way more beneficial than having a school boy whine here.

[Sieveboy]

Originally Posted by Joe

Yes and then the atheists get really annoyed about the 'douch-bag' and put all kinds of poisonous remarks up about him. The logical thing would be to read another part of the paper. But if you really get your kicks examining the religious content of the Sunday Herald Sun, good luck to you. I'd suggest taking your kids to fly a kite instead.

Part of the discourse that exists between theists and people like me, atheists who (now) refuse to sit back and be quiet with our world view, is that we are heavily misrepresented. We drink the blood of virgins, eat babies, live life cowering in fear (fuck you once more George Pell you ignorant cunt) or in the case of "Peter from Tas" who I replied to, we were represented as ignoring evidence.

Most atheist, especially here, do not ignore the evidence at all, we demand it. Further, we set high standards for our evidence. The rampant confirmation bias in BP's faithfails blog is horrible and every skerrick of evidence that might prove something remotely god like is accepted as proving god.

They got a little upset when i dropped "Sophie's real miracle" (Hmm Glossowary entry mods?) being, "a suitable miracle to prove god existence and that of supernatural miracles, this would be to grow Sophie Delezio's legs back, without medical intervention and under conditions which scientifically verify god and miracles".

Its funny, they accused me of asking god for "magic tricks" when I posed for this level of evidencal proof. Fuck Me, are they serious? What fucking planet are they on? Medical science is decades, maybe even centuries away from doing this, and the religious fucktards are slowing this science down by fucking with stem cell research. And they call this a fucking "magic trick". It certainly would not be a fucking "magic trick" for little Sophie Delezio, but I digress.

The point I wanted to make, in the context of BP's blog was it is very much about evidence for us. Not willfully ignoring gods word as per the <insert religious text here> (which we find to be very shitty evidence of his existence anyway). To make it easy for them, I gave them an example of the level of evidence I require. This, they do not seem to understand as they assumed i was ignorant or fucking with them, which I was to a small extent (hey the choice of suitable "miracle" was deliberate ), but if I had this quality, type and standard of evidence, then I would believe.

[Joe]

Sorry to have irritated with my thought. Thanks Wolty for the civil reply. That's an interesting question. Obviously there's a lot on this forum I disagree with...and I'm here. I can't let it consume me though....that's the point I was trying to make, perhaps clumsily, of the reverse.

[Joe]

Sorry Annie about the whine. The points I was trying to make were perhaps a little lost on you, as you were probably busy thinking of the witty retort about the pier. 1 Buy the Age, better paper. 2 I don't think it helps at all to name calling (eg douch bag).

[wolty]

Originally Posted by Joe

Sorry to have irritated with my thought. Thanks Wolty for the civil reply. That's an interesting question. Obviously there's a lot on this forum I disagree with...and I'm here. I can't let it consume me though....that's the point I was trying to make, perhaps clumsily, of the reverse.

No probs. I doubt we are consumed here. Atheists do tend to have a life as well.

You may find with your reading here that there is an underlying theme, the issue of discrimination. We don't tend to like the idea of discrimination based on an outdated view of the world, (and I ain't even getting into the validity of the whole view)and how scripture can be used to justify any sort of discrimination imagined.

You will hear of the no true scotsman fallacy here. Time and again.

I would just like religious people to admit they are bigoted because of a 2000 year old book, so we as a society can move forward.

[Annie]

Originally Posted by Joe

Sorry Annie about the whine. The points I was trying to make were perhaps a little lost on you, as you were probably busy thinking of the witty retort about the pier. 1 Buy the Age, better paper. 2 I don't think it helps at all to name calling (eg douch bag).

Apology noted. No. Your point was not lost on me. Someone called someone a douche bag. Lets get beyond that. The counter arguments for example. In my view a blog is for discussion. Counter arguments are a significant part of discussions. Your view of the counter arguments would have been of more value here.

[Logic please]

Another attempted belief-aggrandising (and indirectly atheism-bashing) effort in this week's H-Sun Faithworks. It's of sufficient note that the thread resurrection is warranted, IMO.

It's behind their Digital Pass wall (including comments), so if you have one, it's all yours. For the (dubious) benefit of those who don't:

Originally Posted by H-Sun Faithworks 17/6/12 extract

If we are all created in God's image, why is it that we are all different?
A new study by researchers at the University of British Columbia and the University of California has concluded that people who have difficulty imagining what others are thinking and feeling are less likely to believe in God.
Or to put it another way, belief in God is linked to empathy. The ability to think about the thoughts and feelings of other people is called "mentalising" and it appears to play an important role in religious belief, according to researcher Ara Norenzayan.
...
Of course, these are generalisations. (my emphasis)

I note FTR that the "generalisations" qualification is buried in the middle of the article text. And while I'm concentrating on this study ATM, there are a bunch of other studies referred to in the column, which all might deserve separate analysis.

To improve my understanding of the article's claims , I naturally went searching for the original study in question - LINK:

Originally Posted by Mentalizing Deficits Constrain Belief in a Personal God abstract (Plos ONE)

Religious believers intuitively conceptualize deities as intentional agents with mental states who anticipate and respond to human beliefs, desires and concerns. It follows that mentalizing deficits, associated with the autistic spectrum and also commonly found in men more than in women, may undermine this intuitive support and reduce belief in a personal God. Autistic adolescents expressed less belief in God than did matched neuro-typical controls (Study 1). In a Canadian student sample (Study 2), and two American national samples that controlled for demographic characteristics and other correlates of autism and religiosity (Study 3 and 4), the autism spectrum predicted reduced belief in God, and mentalizing mediated this relationship. Systemizing (Studies 2 and 3) and two personality dimensions related to religious belief, Conscientiousness and Agreeableness (Study 3), failed as mediators. Mentalizing also explained the robust and well-known, but theoretically debated, gender gap in religious belief wherein men show reduced religious belief (Studies 2–4).

Or, to let LiveScience explain:

Originally Posted by LiveScience article extract

People who have more traits of autism are less likely to believe in God that those that do not have such traits, according to new research that suggests that belief is boosted by the ability to see into the minds of others.
This ability, often called theory of mind, or mentalizing, is diminished in people with autism spectrum disorders, a cluster of conditions marked by communication and social difficulties. Because people's beliefs in God are often marked by feelings of having a personal relationship with the deity, prayer and worship may require a sense of what God could be thinking...

Huh??? Why does the column completely omit the salient point that this study focused specifically on ASD traits? Further, why the erroneous leap that the conclusion of the study was about linking god-belief and empathy, to any significant degree? Did these points not fit the *context* of this weeks' copy? Or was it just too good an opportunity to pass up? It's also interesting that the following qualifying comments from the study conclusion were paid little heed in the column, AFAIK:

Originally Posted by Mentalizing Deficits Constrain Belief in a Personal God abstract (Plos ONE)

Finally, we emphasize that our data do not suggest that religious disbelief solely arises through mentalizing deficits; multiple psychological and socio-cultural pathways likely lead to a complex and over-determined phenomenon such as disbelief in God or gods. Therefore, mentalizing deficits are one pathway among several to disbelief. Analytic cognitive processing that suppresses or overrides the intuitions that make theism cognitively compelling [34] and exposure to secular cultural contexts lacking cues that one should believe in God or gods [35] also likely promote religious disbelief. In other words, the present results suggest that disbelief can result from mentalizing deficits, but it can also arise from multiple other sources, holding constant mentalizing tendencies. (my emphasis)

Seeing egregious misapplication of research, for partisan purposes, might also be a quick pathway to non-belief, methinks. As an aside, this research from members of the same team wasn't referenced:

Originally Posted by Analytic Thinking Promotes Religious Disbelief extract (sciencemag.org)

...to date, little experimental research has focused on the cognitive processes that may promote religious disbelief. The present studies apply a dual-process model of cognitive processing to this problem, testing the hypothesis that analytic processing promotes religious disbelief. Individual differences in the tendency to analytically override initially flawed intuitions in reasoning were associated with increased religious disbelief. Four additional experiments provided evidence of causation, as subtle manipulations known to trigger analytic processing also encouraged religious disbelief. Combined, these studies indicate that analytic processing is one factor (presumably among several) that promotes religious disbelief. Although these findings do not speak directly to conversations about the inherent rationality, value, or truth of religious beliefs, they illuminate one cognitive factor that may influence such discussions.

I wonder why not??? No doubt it could've been mangled into "Belief in god is linked to less analytic thinking ability", with some creative editing skillz. There you go, one upcoming column, all ready to go. No really, no thanks necessary.

[Mithridates]

Since Mr Patterson seems to be one of those who likes to chuck scripture at you as if it is "evidence", perhaps he would like to consider Luke 14:26

"If anyone comes to me and does not hate father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters - yes, even their own life - such a person can not be my disciple." (NIV)

Jesus doesn't seem to put much stock in those good ol' "chemical reactions" either "Bugger your long term commitment to wife or family, give them the flick and follow me." Can't you just feel the love?

Of course, as others have pointed out, it is a massive logic fail to assert that atheism implies anything at all about one's attitude to love, or anything else for that matter, excepting one's attitude to the the claimed existence of gods and/or supernatural entities.

Simple, really

Regards

Mithridates