The Measure of a Culture
Atlas Bugged
from universal among scientists, and some are beginning to speak out about
their faith," with respect to the creationism "debate." It's the most
damning of cultural signposts.
I had to read it twice before incurring that bad feeling in my stomach.
Stuff like this and the Merck verdict warn of a worse standard of living for
us all, perhaps, in the foreseeable future.
Enderw
I think it is misleading to focus on NY Times article as a sign of
anything. You share disdain for religion with NYT but it is far from
self-evident that religion always stifles scientific research. What is
more self-evident is the desire of the Left to supress religion along
with many other forms of expression they deem intolerant, unPC,
close-minded, pro-capitalist. The fact is most Christians on average
are a whole lot more capitalist and pro-freedom than non-religious
masses.
So just because some scientists believe in God, it is not the end of
the world or some critical point for our culture. The need to supress
disagreement, even as irrational as creationism, or less irrational
Intelligent Design, is much more dangerous to our freedom.
Switching for a moment to Intelligent Design vs Evolution battle, what
happened to all the advocates of local control of education? Whenever
this issues comes up, all I see is the cries for federal control to
throw out this anti-science view point, ignoring the right to teach
whatever stupidity those people wish to teach their children.
Sorry to mix up multiple issues in the same post. They are related in a
sense that the Left plays authoritarian part in both.
Ender
Robert J. Kolker
>
> I think it is misleading to focus on NY Times article as a sign of
> anything. You share disdain for religion with NYT but it is far from
> self-evident that religion always stifles scientific research.
Just to amplify your point here:
Isaac Newton, who invented mathematical physics as we know it was a
Bible Freak. He produced twice as many words on the secret meaning of
Scripture and the Lost Knowledge of the Ancients as he did on physics
and mathematics.
Galileo was a devout Roman Catholic.
Virtually all the mathematicians and the physicists of the 19-th century
either belongs to main line churches or professed belief in the
Christian Godhead. Even Darwin started out with a conventional Anglican
belief. He lost his faith when his most beloved daughter died of a fever
(probably typhoid).
There is nothing in mainline Judaism or Christianity that stops one from
doing first rate research in mathematics or the physical sciences.
Bob Kolker
Atlas Bugged
news:1124812131....@g47g2000cwa.googlegroups.com...
> I think it is misleading to focus on NY Times article as a sign of
> anything.
I have a number of disagreements with your comments, so let's start with
this one. Of course it's a sign of *something,* but you mean it's minimal?
No, I think the TIMES isn't necessarily a "grass-roots" weathervane, but
surely its blarings have some significance as cultural barometer.
>You share disdain for religion with NYT but it is far from
> self-evident that religion always stifles scientific research.
OK.
>What is
> more self-evident is the desire of the Left to supress religion along
> with many other forms of expression they deem intolerant, unPC,
> close-minded, pro-capitalist. The fact is most Christians on average
> are a whole lot more capitalist and pro-freedom than non-religious
> masses.
I know what you're *trying* to say, so I'm not trying to be dense, but
Christians aren't pro-capitalist *at all,* if you look to their philosophy.
I'd split the difference - they are probably more capitalist "on average"
but surely less "pro-freedom" on average as well. In fact, I believe that
the bulk of anti-capitalism, which is largely anti-self-interest, flows
instead *directly* from Christianity and many religions, including so-called
atheistic communism.
> So just because some scientists believe in God, it is not the end of
> the world or some critical point for our culture.
That's clearly correct, as our Kolker Algorithm generated in a separate post
(the text blocks in question he always generates have Newton, one of
history's greatest scientists, as deeply religious, a true fact that he
brings forth at algorithmic intervals.)
But my gripe was scientists' concession that there may be some real basis of
creationism. Any significant spread of such abject ignorance in the
scientific community is a catastrophe waiting to happen, say I.
>The need to supress
> disagreement, even as irrational as creationism, or less irrational
> Intelligent Design, is much more dangerous to our freedom.
As long as it is not political, meaning force-backed, I disagree. While
even a $10 municipal summons for heroin sales and use is utterly immoral,
what's wrong with a voluntary consensus that shooting up is terribly bad,
irrational, and that participants should be discouraged and even shunned? I
think you're confusing ethics and politics.
> Switching for a moment to Intelligent Design vs Evolution battle, what
> happened to all the advocates of local control of education? Whenever
> this issues comes up, all I see is the cries for federal control to
> throw out this anti-science view point, ignoring the right to teach
> whatever stupidity those people wish to teach their children.
You're simply mixing and conflating issues now. The issue is public
education, whether local or federal, which needs to be abolished, entirely,
now.
>
> Sorry to mix up multiple issues in the same post. They are related in a
> sense that the Left plays authoritarian part in both.
Even there you must be kidding. No Child Left Behind? Bush Republicans.
Total federal control and consolidation. What are you talking about?
Atlas Bugged
news:defj4f$j0g$1...@victor.killfile.org...
> There is nothing in mainline Judaism or Christianity that stops one from
> doing first rate research in mathematics or the physical sciences.
Nonsense. True adherence to any such religion is a self-lobotomy, just
without a scalpel. What you instead mean to say is that there is nothing to
stop one from setting aside any adherence so that one can pursue actual
knowledge. Use of the word "mainline" is the only weasel word that may
allow you to wriggle from your misstatement. Ten millennia of "dark ages"
isn't just a fortuity of "shit happens" dimension.
[This will trigger Kolker Algorithm into producing text blocks re historical
evidence of Newton's devotion to his religion concurrent with development of
the calculus and his other spectacular contributions.]
Chris Cathcart
Atlas Bugged wrote:
> "Robert J. Kolker" <now...@nowhere.com> wrote in message
> news:defj4f$j0g$1...@victor.killfile.org...
> > There is nothing in mainline Judaism or Christianity that stops one from
> > doing first rate research in mathematics or the physical sciences.
>
> Nonsense. True adherence to any such religion is a self-lobotomy, just
> without a scalpel. What you instead mean to say is that there is nothing to
> stop one from setting aside any adherence so that one can pursue actual
> knowledge. Use of the word "mainline" is the only weasel word that may
> allow you to wriggle from your misstatement. Ten millennia of "dark ages"
> isn't just a fortuity of "shit happens" dimension.
Miss Rand identifed all the principles at work in "Faith and Force:
Destroyers of the Modern World." More precisely: the dropping of
rationality (be it faith or whatever else) is at root what leads to the
destroyer, which is force.
It's an incidental, a product of ample compartmentalization by
individuals, that a religionist can also be a scientist. But religion
is at root the dropping of reason, and at root that undermines science.
At root, it destroys every rational conception of belief and
knowledge, in favor of fantasy. It's only the vestiges of sanity that
keeps most folks from going off the deep end with this stuff and
abandoning all reason, knowledge and science altogether.
Grafting on the methodology of reason and science onto religion, or
vice versa, creates only intellectual tension. I don't know what's the
deal with "mainline" Judaism, but Christianty is openly
supernaturalistic by definition. It's no worse in principle or theory
than Islam. It's only that the Western world has achieved enough
sanity by watering down Christianity with all this other stuff about
reason, science, and knowledge. The result is that the West is
mixed-premise and compartmentalized -- the D in the DIM triad. The
Islamic world, OTOH, is still systematically well-committed to faith,
the M part.
Robert J. Kolker
> "Robert J. Kolker" <now...@nowhere.com> wrote in message
> news:defj4f$j0g$1...@victor.killfile.org...
>
>>There is nothing in mainline Judaism or Christianity that stops one from
>>doing first rate research in mathematics or the physical sciences.
>
>
> Nonsense.
Then explain away Isaac Newton.
Bob Kolker
Ken Gardner
>> Nonsense.
>
>Then explain away Isaac Newton.
Or Aristotle, who had a theology while also being the greatest
intellectual ever to walk the planet.
Ken
Chris Cathcart
Balderdash. Aristotle's physics led down to so many errors that it
took many years for modern physicists to recover. Plus he got it wrong
on the number of teeth women have.
How many teeth do women have, Ken?
[ignore, reset]
Ken Gardner
>> I think it is misleading to focus on NY Times article as a sign of
>> anything.
>I have a number of disagreements with your comments, so let's start with
>this one. Of course it's a sign of *something,* but you mean it's minimal?
>No, I think the TIMES isn't necessarily a "grass-roots" weathervane, but
>surely its blarings have some significance as cultural barometer.
It's excellent for wrapping fish. Other than that, it's a complete
waste of time and money.
>I know what you're *trying* to say, so I'm not trying to be dense, but
>Christians aren't pro-capitalist *at all,* if you look to their philosophy.
>I'd split the difference - they are probably more capitalist "on average"
>but surely less "pro-freedom" on average as well.
Not so fast, New Jersey breath. Many Christian conservatives believe
that individual freedom is God's gift to man. And there is even
something in the Declaration of Independence about a creator endowing
man with certain inalienable rights. Moreover, as real threats to
freedom go, these people can't tie the shoelaces of the socialists,
subjectivists, relativists, amoralists, nihilists, enviro-whackos, and
pacifists on the "secular" left. And don't even get me started on
"multiculturalists" and the PC movement.
>In fact, I believe that
>the bulk of anti-capitalism, which is largely anti-self-interest, flows
>instead *directly* from Christianity and many religions, including so-called
>atheistic communism.
This is much closer to the mark.
[...]
Ken
Ken Gardner
>> Or Aristotle, who had a theology while also being the greatest
>> intellectual ever to walk the planet.
>
>Balderdash. Aristotle's physics led down to so many errors that it
>took many years for modern physicists to recover. Plus he got it wrong
>on the number of teeth women have.
>How many teeth do women have, Ken?
>[ignore, reset]
Dammit Chris, I was deliberately baiting him. Oh well, maybe he will
respond to my post before reading your response. If he does, we'll
both have a good laugh.
Ken
Chris Cathcart
Ken Gardner wrote:
> On Wed, 24 Aug 2005 02:04:19 +0000 (UTC), Atlas Bugged wrote:
>
> >I know what you're *trying* to say, so I'm not trying to be dense, but
> >Christians aren't pro-capitalist *at all,* if you look to their philosophy.
> >I'd split the difference - they are probably more capitalist "on average"
> >but surely less "pro-freedom" on average as well.
>
> Not so fast, New Jersey breath. Many Christian conservatives believe
> that individual freedom is God's gift to man.
Then many of them are fucking hypocrites, going against the will of God
on all manner of fuck-freedom "community standards" issues. You know,
such Blue State weenie freedoms as the freedom to fornicate with
members of the same sex (you fucks down in Texas stood by the whole
time and let these laws stand until Lawrence had to take it to the
freakin' Supreme Court, for crying out loud), the freedom to do bong
hits, the freedom to hire hookers -- you know, all those irrelevent
freedoms that have nothing to do with capitalism in our appropriately
compartmentalized age.
Until it all gets placed under the Interstate Commerce clause, of
course.
Yeah, I'd say on the whole that in this secularized-enough age, the
Right Wing in this country probably has a better record and agenda when
it comes to individual rights and government powers. Enough on the
Right seem to recognize the wisdom of private schooling, for instance.
But I couldn't trust these people any further than I could throw them.
Why do they want private schools? Is their main agenda individual
freedom and privatization, or religious indoctrination? What's their
primary from the political standpoint -- individual rights, or
religion? Do they dislike government control of education in this
appropriately secularized age because it gets in the way of their
religious indoctrinations, or because government control of education
is antithetical to freedom?
What's on the religionists' minds with this War on Terror? Is it
securing individual freedom for Americans, or is it getting all gung-ho
in a religious war, and fuck individual freedoms in the process? What
was their major problem with Communism -- its threat to freedom, or its
supposed atheistic materialism? They seemed to like that Vietnam
draft, eh?
Did I mention that they're obsessed with abortion and gay marriage?
Literally obsessed, enough so to fuck with states' rights. I'd like to
think that people's religion (or lack thereof) has little connection to
their position on abortion, but the irrational, obsessive fervor is
there on the Right Wing.
Like I say, you can't trust 'em. What's saving us from their own
particular religion-inspired tyranny is the secularization of our age.
> And there is even
> something in the Declaration of Independence about a creator endowing
> man with certain inalienable rights. Moreover, as real threats to
> freedom go, these people can't tie the shoelaces of the socialists,
> subjectivists, relativists, amoralists, nihilists, enviro-whackos, and
> pacifists on the "secular" left. And don't even get me started on
> "multiculturalists" and the PC movement.
While I'm as repulsed by these fucks at least as much as you are,
perhaps you hadn't noticed that the Repos control the White House and
both houses of Congress now. How much is the USA moving in the
direction of freedom? What's that you say? Just trust them to get the
right nominees onto the Supreme Court, and all's gonna be hunky-dory?
That federal budget will finally come down from $2.6 trillion to the
$500 billion or so (for national defense and such) that's actually more
in line with individual freedom? We'll be seeing that move toward a
private retirement system, private health care for seniors, the end to
corporate subsidies, tarrifs, the useless drug war, and all these other
spending programs? These fucks in Congress and the White House won't
be worrying their asses off about gay marriage and Terri Schiavo until
they've done the job of creating a limited government in line with
God's wishes?
Sorry, but I'm not wearing the same party-line blinders you are.
Ken Gardner
>While I'm as repulsed by these fucks at least as much as you are,
>perhaps you hadn't noticed that the Repos control the White House and
>both houses of Congress now. How much is the USA moving in the
>direction of freedom?
[...]
Not enough, I agree. Not even close. But if the other party was
running things, we would be going much faster in the wrong direction.
Ken
Robert J. Kolker
He was a piss poor mathematician. Archimedes was smarter. So was Newton.
So was Einstein. Aristotle was broader than he was deep and some of his
product is just plain mediocre.
Bob Kolker
Ken Gardner
>> Or Aristotle, who had a theology while also being the greatest
>> intellectual ever to walk the planet.
>He was a piss poor mathematician. Archimedes was smarter. So was Newton.
>So was Einstein. Aristotle was broader than he was deep and some of his
>product is just plain mediocre.
Attention Chris Cathcart: what did I tell you? :)
Ken