The dark side of the pilot shortage.

NovemberEcho said:
I liked the South Park take on it. Even if everyone in the world was an atheist and religion didn't exist anymore, humanity being humanity would go to war over who's version of atheism was more correct.
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I love South Park. But yeah, I don't think so. Sure, there would still be plenty of war. Because people suck. But a whole lot of anger, violence, and war would be done away with without religion.
 
flyingbum said:
You sir have good taste! They are aging and good copies can be hard to find that are not overpriced.

Don't forget to BMW though.

B - Bring
M - More
W - Wrenches
;)
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I have a 1998 Z3 and a 2000 323i. I'd like to have an E38 or a E24. I regret selling my 1974 BMW bike.
 
flyingbum said:
You sir have good taste! They are aging and good copies can be hard to find that are not overpriced.

Don't forget to BMW though.

B - Bring
M - Metric
W - Wrenches
;)
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FIFY.....

Got a 98 Z3 that I bought new...lots of metric goin' on in South Carolina....
 
ATN_Pilot said:
I love South Park. But yeah, I don't think so. Sure, there would still be plenty of war. Because people suck. But a whole lot of anger, violence, and war would be done away with without religion.
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It's such a complex system it's really hard to say. On the surface, religion is only second to the mosquito for most human deaths, but a lot of those religious wars were about Tribe A withe God A killing tribe B with god B AND the water or gold they wanted. I have to think that we'd just come up with another reason to get poor uneducated people to kill other poor uneducated people for the benefit of those in power.
The two great wars of the 20th century weren't about religion, yet we convinced ~2 billion people to fight. Somewhat through religious reasons, but mostly other propaganda.
 
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z987k said:
It's such a complex system it's really hard to say. On the surface, religion is only second to the mosquito for most human deaths, but a lot of those religious wars were about Tribe A withe God A killing tribe B with god B AND the water or gold they wanted. I have to think that we'd just come up with another reason to get poor uneducated people to kill other poor uneducated people for the benefit of those in power.
The two great wars of the 20th century weren't about religion, yet we convinced ~2 billion people to fight. Somewhat through religious reasons, but mostly other propaganda.
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I’d suspect religion has less to do with war than humanity’s penchant for trying to make other groups of humans the moral equivalent of animals. If you’ll notice, we don’t “murder” our enemies, we kill them, like animals. The fact that the distinction even exists necessarily says something about how we view the world and how we categorize people.

Religion certainly makes easy to draw those boundaries between people, though - I’d imagine it’s awful hard to get two groups of people to attempt to beat one-another to death, but if the moral authority to do so comes from the creator of the universe I imagine the sales pitch is a bit simpler.
 
ppragman said:
I’d suspect religion has less to do with war than humanity’s penchant for trying to make other groups of humans the moral equivalent of animals. If you’ll notice, we don’t “murder” our enemies, we kill them, like animals. The fact that the distinction even exists necessarily says something about how we view the world and how we categorize people.

Religion certainly makes easy to draw those boundaries between people, though - I’d imagine it’s awful hard to get two groups of people to attempt to beat one-another to death, but if the moral authority to do so comes from the creator of the universe I imagine the sales pitch is a bit simpler.
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Murder is specifically an unlawful and premeditated killing. A killing in self-defense, or without premeditation is not a murder, and nor is euthanasia in places where it's legal. The distinction is not about the person being killed, but about the fact of it being a crime.
 
ppragman said:
I’d suspect religion has less to do with war than humanity’s penchant for trying to make other groups of humans the moral equivalent of animals. If you’ll notice, we don’t “murder” our enemies, we kill them, like animals. The fact that the distinction even exists necessarily says something about how we view the world and how we categorize people.

Religion certainly makes easy to draw those boundaries between people, though - I’d imagine it’s awful hard to get two groups of people to attempt to beat one-another to death, but if the moral authority to do so comes from the creator of the universe I imagine the sales pitch is a bit simpler.
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ATN_Pilot said:
“Religion is an insult to human dignity. With or without it you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion.” - Steven Weinberg
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Or racism. Have you ever been to the WWII museum in New Orleans? Great place, can spend all day there. One display has to do with the role racism played in the war. Specifically the different propaganda the US created about the Nazis and Japanese. And I just did it too.

In Europe, we fought the Nazis, who were a group of evil men who commandeered a white, Christian population to further their aims. We weren’t fighting a culture or race.

In the Pacific, we were fighting the Japanese, and the whole population, culture and religion was denigrated as evil and needing to be destroyed.

How we treated the German and Japanese civilian population in this country during the war was just the tip of the iceberg.

It was an eye opening display. The whole museum is. Go if you have a chance. You won’t regret it.
 
ATN_Pilot said:
And what problems would those be? I don’t believe in a middle eastern sky fairy. I’m doing just fine.
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I'm glad that you're doing well! But since you asked, I'll mention a few.

1) Less than satisfactory answers to the mind-body problem
2) Behaviorism and its repulsive conclusions
3) No satisfactory answer to the question of origins
4) Moral relativism/lack of absolute moral authority
5) No satisfactory answer to the existence of contingent beings
6) Unsatisfactory arguments for design, meaning, and purpose
7-1000) Hitler

I've heard atheist argue all the day long about the altruism of this species of animal known as mankind, but in the end these arguments amount to nothing more than a house of cards.

Ultimately, atheists tend to place faith in science, then when science doesn't pan out the way they want, they twist and modify it, even carrying it to say things that it doesn't really say. Pretty soon it's not really science anymore, but a twisted semblance of - you guess it - a religion based on atheism!

P.S. I don't believe in a middle eastern sky fairy either! As a matter of fact, I've never met or even heard of anyone who does. But, hey, it's still good to know that you don't!
 
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av8tr1 said:
Who had goodwins law by the 19th? Do we have a winner? Anyone anyone?
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I’m kinda shocked and awed it took that long.

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nibake said:
I'm glad that you're doing well! But since you asked, I'll mention a few.

1) Less than satisfactory answers to the mind-body problem
2) Behaviorism and its repulsive conclusions
3) No satisfactory answer to the question of origins
4) Moral relativism/lack of absolute moral authority
5) No satisfactory answer to the existence of contingent beings
6) Unsatisfactory arguments for design, meaning, and purpose
7-1000) Hitler

I've heard atheist argue all the day long about the altruism of this species of animal known as mankind, but in the end these arguments amount to nothing more than a house of cards.

Ultimately, atheists tend to place faith in science, then when science doesn't pan out the way they want, they twist and modify it, even carrying it to say things that it doesn't really say. Pretty soon it's not really science anymore, but a twisted semblance of - you guess it - a religion based on atheism!

P.S. I don't believe in a middle eastern sky fairy either! As a matter of fact, I've never met or even heard of anyone who does. But, hey, it's still good to know that you don't!
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Aside from his pejorative use of the term sky fairy, the semitic trilogy are all Middle Eastern.

1) I'd rather seek [what I consider the] truth, even if it was uncomfortable, than lie to myself for comfort. (a la Matrix)
2) Behaviorism really only predicts short term behavior, in my opinion, like response to stimuli. Does cognitive theory also have repulsive conclusions? I'm unfamiliar with what you're referring to here.

3) Just because we have no satisfactory answer now doesn't mean we always will, and satisfactory is too relative a term. Even if they shouldn't be, some people are satisfied with the answers we have now.

4) The absolute moral authority you mention is not able for people to individually consult, in my opinion; you have to go thru clergy which means it's now relative. Also, nobody can agree what a couple of well known and studied old farts 240 years ago REALLY meant when they wrote their document, why would we be able to agree what unknown authors really meant ~1900 years ago? We have a lot more letters and insight into the founding fathers than the four or so sources to the old and new testament. Many of the sects of Christianity, and especially Islam, disagree on what the same exact texts really mean, so by definition that's relative and not absolute.

5) I believe my rebuttal is substantially similar to no. 3, let me know if you're unsatisfied by that.
6) Supra. Also look at crystalline structure (randomness and resolving into a organized structure) and natural selection (animals adapting over time, which over a long enough time line results in speciation.)

7) Out of curiosity why did you not mention Stalin or to a much lesser extent Mao who were voracious atheists instead of a possibly closeted atheist?
 
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Cptnchia said:
I’m kinda shocked and awed it took that long.

1513885756829.gif
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People still have the wrong Hitler analog. I’m telling you it’s Pence and Trump is just his special needs cousin who stays overnight on occasion as his momma has to “work”.
 
jweldon said:
Aside from his pejorative use of the term sky fairy, the semitic trilogy are all Middle Eastern.

1) I'd rather seek [what I consider the] truth, even if it was uncomfortable, than lie to myself for comfort. (a la Matrix)
2) Behaviorism really only predicts short term behavior, in my opinion, like response to stimuli. Does cognitive theory also have repulsive conclusions? I'm unfamiliar with what you're referring to here.

3) Just because we have no satisfactory answer now doesn't mean we always will, and satisfactory is too relative a term. Even if they shouldn't be, some people are satisfied with the answers we have now.

4) The absolute moral authority you mention is not able for people to individually consult, in my opinion; you have to go thru clergy which means it's now relative. Also, nobody can agree what a couple of well known and studied old farts 240 years ago REALLY meant when they wrote their document, why would we be able to agree what unknown authors really meant ~1900 years ago? We have a lot more letters and insight into the founding fathers than the four or so sources to the old and new testament. Many of the sects of Christianity, and especially Islam, disagree on what the same exact texts really mean, so by definition that's relative and not absolute.

5) I believe my rebuttal is substantially similar to no. 3, let me know if you're unsatisfied by that.
6) Supra. Also look at crystalline structure (randomness and resolving into a organized structure) and natural selection (animals adapting over time, which over a long enough time line results in speciation.)

7) Out of curiosity why did you not mention Stalin or to a much lesser extent Mao who were voracious atheists instead of a possibly closeted atheist?
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You have some good points. What does and doesn't constitute a "satisfactory" argument to a philosophical problem is largely subjective, so I'm okay saying that whether certain answers are good enough is my personal opinion. However, some arguments are far better than others.

2) The main thing I was getting at here is the conclusion that people aren't responsible for their own actions, and do not have free will.

3) See above

4) I think you are saying it may not be clear what a moral authority would tell you to do in all circumstances, and I certainly don't disagree. This doesn't diminish the importance of that authority existing, however, imho.

5) Intellectual honesty requires that we recognize some questions don't have conclusive, readily available answers. I have found some arguments to be far more compelling than others.

6) Books have been written about design features that count be accounted for by chance. You may have a different opinion, but I think this is one of most insurmountable problems of atheism.

7) C'mon, man, it was low hanging fruit! And @av8tr1 needed to win his bet!

TL;DR like all other religions, atheism has problems that a rational person should acknowledge.

Some of them are so serious that I cannot accept them. I'll try not to name-call those who do.
 
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