Among the 13,500 scanned pages are 1,500 different language versions of Genesis 1-3
I'm sure they picked bible passages because the translations were mostly done for them already but I'm a little embarassed that future generations are going to think how amazingly superstitious we were. I mean, Genesis 2 alone...
Then the LORD God made a woman from the rib he had taken out of the man, and he brought her to the man.
Yeah really, why Bible passages, why not texts from *this* day instead of from thousands of years ago, there's so much choice of things from today, such as slashdot articles, QDB quotes,.....
Because the bible is already translated, and because the bible is more likely to survive 2000 years.
Assume that none of the 1500 languages used still exist 2,000 years from now. It's a fairly safe bet that if there's still humans, there's still going to be religion. And as annoying as it is to admit for some people, Christianity is likely to be one of those religions that survives. That'll give them a translation key for 1,500 languages, which can in turn be used to translate the rest of the information con
Also the bible is, to say the very, very least, a huge part of our past, present and future.
Everything we know today developed in a society that was utterly permeated by the bible in every nook and cranny.
And since people seem to have forgotten what the purpose of ideology is (you should read some ancient roman texts, or the bible for that matter. But if you've got to pick a single text either read the story of Sodom and Gomorra, and ask yourself the question "there is ONE vague reference to homosexuality in this text, what if it simply referred to something along the lines of "more attention to sex than to the world around them"), or read Cicero and you will understand the function of ideology)
But since I doubt you can be bothered to pick up a book - any book - and read, let me spell it out for you. Everything you are - your clothes, your food (clothes don't grow in the stores), your car, your very thoughts come from others, with a tiny drop of personal impact from yourself. Therefore while your own ideology only matters for that tiny drop, the ideology of people around you matters for everything else. If those people choose what economists call "Nash efficiency" as an ideology (what atheists do), improving themselves without conscious regard to others (e.g. "piracy is not a crime") that is not a problem as long as they are a tiny minority in a sea of Christians. It is not a problem for them, and neither is it a problem for the larger group of Christians.
However, if everyone around you (example... your current employer and any other possible employer) behaved atheistically, improving primarily themselves without regard to others, you'd be out of a job, out of food and out of options (even the food would disappear from the local supermarket, as it will be more in the personal intrest of the owner to simply keep it himself). You'd die (even if you are said owner, because deliveries would stop).
Now in reality people always act with a mix of egoism and altruism, never truly altruistic. But they can act purely egoistic. If you want to see that in action, find yourself a Syrian, a North-Korean and ask them about their way of life in their home country.
You'd be correct, of course, that "a little bit" of piracy doesn't matter. A litle bit of theft does not make a difference in an economy either. Neither does a little bit of murder.
The problem however, is simple. In a society of nominally altruistic people, a small group can be egoistic bastards, without consequences for either the group, or for these guys themselves (e.g. "setting fire to a building because the insurance will pay anyway"). That's currently the case with music pirates/thieves/murderers/frauds/... all criminals. However, if one of these groups is not attacked, either by the state or by their environment or by whoever, that group can only grow.
And at some point, society, the economy as a whole will buckle under the increasing stress. Don't make yourself any illusions about how glamorous this will be, it will be anything but glamorous. At some point parts of the economy will become weakened, at which point an evil, growing financial load will be put on the rest (like the vandals in the Roman empire, or the muslims in western europe, if you'd like to put this stress in a simple slogan "bread and games"), and this group will grow. At some point these savages will get their moment in the sun, and defeat the central authority, whatever that is for the respective countries. The economy will fail. Transport will block and the "glorious" victors will be...... left without food, water or even paper to write down their victory... and will die off painfully while murdering eachother for the few remaning food options... and history, IF they're lucky, might actually record the name of their leader, however mostly even that doesn't happen. And they simply disappear.
Before the vandals and visigoths started their massive immigration into the Roman Empire, life expectancy for a slave was around 60 years (this is 300-400 B.C. we're talking about). Once Rome fell, life expectancy of a king dropped to 30 years, and most people didn't live long enough to have children (life expectancy : about 10-15 years). That's what "bread and games" ultimately achieved.
Everything you are - your clothes, your food (clothes don't grow in the stores), your car, your very thoughts come from others, with a tiny drop of personal impact from yourself. If you follow the Christian credo, and give to others (that are preferentially also Christians) without expecting anything in return, you will have well basically everything you had.
If you refuse to do so... at some point all that will be left is the tiny drop, which will not even be able to keep you alive.
If those people choose what economists call "Nash efficiency" as an ideology (what atheists do), improving themselves without conscious regard to others
That's embarrassingly wrong. Do you know any actual atheists?
Let's take the classic ur-atheist, the physical scientist. You're suggesting all of those people are in it for themselves? Because the ones I know could do a lot better than a post-doc's wage. The ones I've asked do it because they want to be involved in an enterprise for the ages. They want to learn and contribute that learning to human understanding. They want to teach, sharing knowledge with young minds. They are atheists, but they are not so much in it for the bucks.
Personally, I'm an atheist and very community-minded. Why? Well really, that's who I am. But if you want me to rationalize it, I'm glad to say that I value life and hope and love, and I want to maximize those things not just for myself, but for everybody, and for the ages. Yes, it's all dust eventually, but so what? Every extra moment of beauty, of joy, of wonder that we make is that much better a universe.
What you see wrong is how ideology works. Ideology works by creating the tinyest of differences, and then this difference grows over time.
What is the basic difference between an atheist and a Christian, well simple: -> a Christian works to advance the glory of God ("be merry and fertile", the ten commandments, "love thy neighbour",...) -> an atheist works to advance himself, without open regard for others (this does not mean he has to be a murderer, just that he does not see the need to consider the e
You go on to admit that atheism is in fact in disagreement with you
No. No, I don't.
What I'm "admitting" is that your (erroneous) expectations don't match my actual views. Dreaming your dreams of a Santa Claus in the sky, the impermanence of the physical world scares you.
It does not scare me. That nothing lasts takes none of the fun out of making something good. If anything, it makes it more poignant, more beautiful. If you don't believe me, go experience some of the art of people like Andy Goldsworthy, who make some works intentionally impermanent.
Again we will see less moral incentive determining their actions. The cracks will be wider.
This is a fine argument from theory, with no actual data. You, some random guy, on the Internet, "guarantee" your argument. So?
History shows that you are wrong. Buddhism started out as a godless venture, accepting the eternal flux we live in, and the Zen Buddhists carry that atheism through today. Have they turned evil? Go meet some and let me know what you think, but I'd say they're doing fine.
Science also suggests you are wrong. At least some and probably much of the human moral sense is provably an innate biological function. For readable introductions, see "Good Natured" by Franz de Waal or "Demonic Males" by Richard Wrangham. And in the decade since those books came out, there's been a heap of good experimental and fMRI observational work, reinforcing the biological basis of community-oriented behavior. And let's not forget "The Forest People," showing that non-Christan societies can develop strong community-oriented behavior.
Your theory that the only source of morality is Christian memes is provably false. And the data about crime and atheism proves the opposite of your notion as well. Atheists are circa 10% of America's population, are circa 0.2% of the prison population. Japan, the least Christian country in the G8, has the lowest violent crime rate. America, the most Christian country, has the highest.
You're really just repeating and embroidering the kind of ignorant statements that Christians make about atheists all the time.
I agree with you, but in fairness, the reason the atheist prison population is so low is probably because it is mostly accepted by philosophically minded, middle to upper class, well educated people (based on anecdotal evidence).
I agree with you, but in fairness, the reason the atheist prison population is so low is probably because it is mostly accepted by philosophically minded, middle to upper class, well educated people (based on anecdotal evidence).
That seems reasonable to me. It could indeed be that people inclined to be good are more likely to become atheists.
It could also be that becoming atheists makes them more likely to behave well. Or there could be some third factor that drives them both.
Regardless, the crime numbers undermine his theory that atheism is destructive of moral orders in general, just because it wrecks the one he's pushing. He may behave well because only some sky daddy is watching his every move, but that's not true even for my C
That seems reasonable to me. It could indeed be that people inclined to be good are more likely to become atheists.
Or it could be that people who basically have everything, including the power to isolate themselves from the world of the poor, have no intrest in an ideology that demands they help out others.
Above all, they have NO intrest, in actually dirtying their hands while helping someone. "Do that with my taxes" is the spirit. They refuse to live in places where they might (might) be confronted with ac
You have a bad habit of generalizing everyone into some assholes who live in the suburbs. I would bet that a bum from NYC on a suburban church doorstep would earn quite a bit of resentment in many places, though all would be quite the overstatement. There are atheists everywhere. Get out of your shell.
What sort of bizarro-world do you live in? Atheism is at its most rampant in the big cities and academic communities, where everyone is living side by side. There's a corresponding correlation between gated communities and church attendance (or at least professed intention toward church attendance).
As to the medieval fortresses, I fail to grasp what sort of point you might be trying to make. Church entrances were not guarded because the people inside were so nice that nobody would want to attack them? And
What I'm "admitting" is that your (erroneous) expectations don't match my actual views. Dreaming your dreams of a Santa Claus in the sky, the impermanence of the physical world scares you.
The impermanence of the world ? You're kidding right ? What is more permanent than the world ?
Are you a postmodernist ? "Whatever I think is the truth".
I realize that for people like you things like, oh, say the laws of nature are "temporary inconvenient". You will find them, obviously, beyond merely inflexible, and more t
You're arguing to prove a point, rather than trying to understand anything I'm saying. I don't see any value in carrying this further.
For the record, I disagree with pretty much every interpretation you have made of what I've said. You've also dragged in a host of things that I haven't said and don't agree with, apparently because they sound vaguely similar to you. I decline to accept responsibility for dealing with the bag of nonsense that you've chosen to carry around with you.
Atheists in a given culture demonstratably have huge amounts of common morality. Clearly morality thus exists outside of the religious context you seem to think it has to. Single exceptions do not disprove a pattern outside a religious context.
What is the basic difference between an atheist and a Christian, well simple: -> a Christian works to advance the glory of God ("be merry and fertile", the ten commandments, "love thy neighbour",...) -> an atheist works to advance himself, without open regard for others (this does not mean he has to be a murderer, just that he does not see the need to consider the effect on strangers before deciding on a course of actio
Wow. Bad premise for an argument. I can easily argue that christians work solely to keep themselves from going to hell. The fact that this happens to advance the "glory of god" is incidental. In fact I find that to be a much more logical argument than yours. Furthermore positing that everything an atheist does is self motivated and does not consider effects on others is demonstrably wrong - not to mention offensive.
Atheist morality is whatever any single atheist comes up with, therefore it isn't even possible to give a workable definition
Since christians can't seem to agree on a common definition of morality your logic is on
What is the basic difference between an atheist and a Christian, well simple :
-> a Christian works to advance the glory of God ("be merry and fertile", the ten commandments, "love thy neighbour",...)
-> an atheist works to advance himself, without open regard for others (this does not mean he has to be a murderer, just that he does not see the need to consider the effect on strangers before deciding on a course of action)
This is more or less exactly the opposite of what many decades of interactions
Hear, hear. As an atheist/humanist who has never committed acts of horror against others, I'm astounded by the amount of misinformation about us there is in the world. I haven't experienced it yet, but do some really recoil in terror when the person they're talking with tell them they're atheist?
Being in it for themselves and being in it for the bucks are not the same thing. Those who are in it for good feelings are still in it for themselves. Everyone is in it for themselves, which is not to say that they are against others.
It's tautologically true that all motivation of people is at some stage personal motivation. But that's different than being in it for themselves, where the purposes of actions involve direct personal benefit without regards to that of other actors. Your statements confuse the two.
Further, you're missing the actual point of my statement and the context into which it fits. OeLeWaPpErKe is claiming that they are indeed heedless of others. Try to keep up.
What an absurd diatribe. I'll just say that you just lost any argument you might have had by equivocating atheism with only working in one's own self-interest.
Except that he didn't - he misrepresented intelligent self-interest to mean trying to keep everything to one's self (even if what that person is trying to retain has little marginal utility for them). Everything else went downhill from there, whether it's about religion, atheism, or economics.
In spite of his throwing around a lot of economic and rel
Everything we know today developed in a society that was utterly permeated by the bible in every nook and cranny.
That's pretty arrogant. Also very wrong.
Plenty of what we know today came from the ancient Greeks, who predated the bible. And there are plenty of nooks in which the bible is not used -- despite your attempts to turn this country into a stealth theocracy, most of us still embrace the separation of church and state, and other religions do exist.
Everything you are - your clothes, your food (clothes don't grow in the stores), your car, your very thoughts come from others, with a tiny drop of personal impact from yourself.
I don't own a car, first of all.
And I take responsibility for all of it, whatever my own influence is. I am aware enough to be able to make my own choices -- so if these things come from others, they come with my endorsement.
If those people choose what economists call "Nash efficiency" as an ideology (what atheists do),
It would help if you cited something specific -- all I can find on Nash Efficiency [wikipedia.org] tells me it's a chunk of math, not an ideology.
improving themselves without conscious regard to others (e.g. "piracy is not a crime")
And as an atheist, I can tell you that you're dead wrong about that. What gave you the idea that atheists don't have conscious regard to others?
For that matter, ask a pirate -- I don't think any will try to say it's not a crime. They might occasionally remind you that it's not piracy -- piracy is armed robbery on the high seas; this is copyright infringement -- and they might say that it's not immoral, or that copyright law needs to change.
But I don't think anyone will claim it isn't a crime.
However, if everyone around you (example... your current employer and any other possible employer) behaved atheistically, improving primarily themselves without regard to others, you'd be out of a job,
Unlikely. My current employer likes me as a person, and has more work than he can do himself, so there is plenty that I can do.
What part of that requires belief in a mythical sky-god?
(even the food would disappear from the local supermarket, as it will be more in the personal intrest of the owner to simply keep it himself). You'd die (even if you are said owner, because deliveries would stop).
Disregarding for the moment your misguided assumptions about atheism, consider that owner -- as you said, deliveries would stop.
So, even if the owner was the most horrible person imaginable, and didn't care at all about anyone but himself, he would keep selling food to you, because that way, deliveries continue -- and also, that way, he gets money to spend on some things he wants other than food.
Before the vandals and visigoths started their massive immigration into the Roman Empire, life expectancy for a slave was around 60 years (this is 300-400 B.C. we're talking about). Once Rome fell, life expectancy of a king dropped to 30 years, and most people didn't live long enough to have children (life expectancy : about 10-15 years). That's what "bread and games" ultimately achieved.
What's your evidence that "bread and games" was responsible for this, assuming the rest of your statistics are accurate?
If you follow the Christian credo, and give to others (that are preferentially also Christians) without expecting anything in return,
If you do that, you're a hypocrite -- you're giving to others and expecting faith in return.
Why are they preferentially also Christians?
And for what it's worth, what was included on the Rosetta Disk was the first few chapters of Genesis, which have absolutely nothing to do with "giving to others"
even the food would disappear from the local supermarket, as it will be more in the personal intrest of the owner to simply keep it himself
Except that it wouldn't. Here's a hint, people have been bartering since before civilization, and, odds are, not all of them were doing it out of sheer altruism. As long as Alice can grown tomatoes better than Bob, and as long as Bob can grow wheat better than Alice, there'll be trade.
if everyone around you (example... your current employer and any other possible employer) behaved atheistically, improving primarily themselves without regard to others
There's no such thing as 'Atheistic behaviour' because atheism is entirely orthogonal to behaviour to begin with. Atheists are just a set of people defined by lack of belief, nothing more. Characterising them as being defined that way is nonsense, like saying "Bald behaviour" as if all bald people were defined by 'acting bald' and not by the simple, unrelated fact that they have no hair.
even the food would disappear from the local supermarket, as it will be more in the personal interest of the owner to simply keep it himself
It would?! Just how much food can one person (or even one family) eat?! Once you have enough food to sustain life, and maybe a bit more to be able to enjoy it a bit, then you start to want other things - like clothing and shelter. And other nice things.
I think you're trying to argue that religion makes for a "nicer" society, which is at least an arguable position.
What you're describing isn't intelligent self-interest (which is the most basic element of economics). It also isn't either atheism or religion (of whatever kind).
There is in fact a word for what you're describing, and it isn't "Nash efficiency" or "Atheism" or anything like that. It's "Kleptomania", and it's usually considered to be a mental disturbance.
The fancy is indeed no other than a mode of memory emancipated from the order
of space and time. -- Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Well that's embarassing (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm sure they picked bible passages because the translations were mostly done for them already but I'm a little embarassed that future generations are going to think how amazingly superstitious we were. I mean, Genesis 2 alone...
Then the LORD God made a woman from the rib he had taken out of the man, and he brought her to the man.
They're going to think we were cuckoo!
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Re: (Score:5, Insightful)
Because the bible is already translated, and because the bible is more likely to survive 2000 years.
Assume that none of the 1500 languages used still exist 2,000 years from now. It's a fairly safe bet that if there's still humans, there's still going to be religion. And as annoying as it is to admit for some people, Christianity is likely to be one of those religions that survives. That'll give them a translation key for 1,500 languages, which can in turn be used to translate the rest of the information con
Re:Well that's embarassing (Score:-1, Troll)
Also the bible is, to say the very, very least, a huge part of our past, present and future.
Everything we know today developed in a society that was utterly permeated by the bible in every nook and cranny.
And since people seem to have forgotten what the purpose of ideology is (you should read some ancient roman texts, or the bible for that matter. But if you've got to pick a single text either read the story of Sodom and Gomorra, and ask yourself the question "there is ONE vague reference to homosexuality in this text, what if it simply referred to something along the lines of "more attention to sex than to the world around them"), or read Cicero and you will understand the function of ideology)
But since I doubt you can be bothered to pick up a book - any book - and read, let me spell it out for you. Everything you are - your clothes, your food (clothes don't grow in the stores), your car, your very thoughts come from others, with a tiny drop of personal impact from yourself. Therefore while your own ideology only matters for that tiny drop, the ideology of people around you matters for everything else. If those people choose what economists call "Nash efficiency" as an ideology (what atheists do), improving themselves without conscious regard to others (e.g. "piracy is not a crime") that is not a problem as long as they are a tiny minority in a sea of Christians. It is not a problem for them, and neither is it a problem for the larger group of Christians.
However, if everyone around you (example ... your current employer and any other possible employer) behaved atheistically, improving primarily themselves without regard to others, you'd be out of a job, out of food and out of options (even the food would disappear from the local supermarket, as it will be more in the personal intrest of the owner to simply keep it himself). You'd die (even if you are said owner, because deliveries would stop).
Now in reality people always act with a mix of egoism and altruism, never truly altruistic. But they can act purely egoistic. If you want to see that in action, find yourself a Syrian, a North-Korean and ask them about their way of life in their home country.
You'd be correct, of course, that "a little bit" of piracy doesn't matter. A litle bit of theft does not make a difference in an economy either. Neither does a little bit of murder.
The problem however, is simple. In a society of nominally altruistic people, a small group can be egoistic bastards, without consequences for either the group, or for these guys themselves (e.g. "setting fire to a building because the insurance will pay anyway"). That's currently the case with music pirates/thieves/murderers/frauds/... all criminals. However, if one of these groups is not attacked, either by the state or by their environment or by whoever, that group can only grow.
And at some point, society, the economy as a whole will buckle under the increasing stress. Don't make yourself any illusions about how glamorous this will be, it will be anything but glamorous. At some point parts of the economy will become weakened, at which point an evil, growing financial load will be put on the rest (like the vandals in the Roman empire, or the muslims in western europe, if you'd like to put this stress in a simple slogan "bread and games"), and this group will grow. At some point these savages will get their moment in the sun, and defeat the central authority, whatever that is for the respective countries. The economy will fail. Transport will block and the "glorious" victors will be ... ... left without food, water or even paper to write down their victory ... and will die off painfully while murdering eachother for the few remaning food options ... and history, IF they're lucky, might actually record the name of their leader, however mostly even that doesn't happen. And they simply disappear.
Before the vandals and visigoths started their massive immigration into the Roman Empire, life expectancy for a slave was around 60 years (this is 300-400 B.C. we're talking about). Once Rome fell, life expectancy of a king dropped to 30 years, and most people didn't live long enough to have children (life expectancy : about 10-15 years). That's what "bread and games" ultimately achieved.
Everything you are - your clothes, your food (clothes don't grow in the stores), your car, your very thoughts come from others, with a tiny drop of personal impact from yourself. If you follow the Christian credo, and give to others (that are preferentially also Christians) without expecting anything in return, you will have well basically everything you had.
If you refuse to do so ... at some point all that will be left is the tiny drop, which will not even be able to keep you alive.
Re:Well that's embarassing (Score:5, Insightful)
If those people choose what economists call "Nash efficiency" as an ideology (what atheists do), improving themselves without conscious regard to others
That's embarrassingly wrong. Do you know any actual atheists?
Let's take the classic ur-atheist, the physical scientist. You're suggesting all of those people are in it for themselves? Because the ones I know could do a lot better than a post-doc's wage. The ones I've asked do it because they want to be involved in an enterprise for the ages. They want to learn and contribute that learning to human understanding. They want to teach, sharing knowledge with young minds. They are atheists, but they are not so much in it for the bucks.
Personally, I'm an atheist and very community-minded. Why? Well really, that's who I am. But if you want me to rationalize it, I'm glad to say that I value life and hope and love, and I want to maximize those things not just for myself, but for everybody, and for the ages. Yes, it's all dust eventually, but so what? Every extra moment of beauty, of joy, of wonder that we make is that much better a universe.
Re: (Score:2)
What you see wrong is how ideology works. Ideology works by creating the tinyest of differences, and then this difference grows over time.
What is the basic difference between an atheist and a Christian, well simple : ...)
-> a Christian works to advance the glory of God ("be merry and fertile", the ten commandments, "love thy neighbour",
-> an atheist works to advance himself, without open regard for others (this does not mean he has to be a murderer, just that he does not see the need to consider the e
Re:Well that's embarassing (Score:5, Informative)
You go on to admit that atheism is in fact in disagreement with you
No. No, I don't.
What I'm "admitting" is that your (erroneous) expectations don't match my actual views. Dreaming your dreams of a Santa Claus in the sky, the impermanence of the physical world scares you.
It does not scare me. That nothing lasts takes none of the fun out of making something good. If anything, it makes it more poignant, more beautiful. If you don't believe me, go experience some of the art of people like Andy Goldsworthy, who make some works intentionally impermanent.
Again we will see less moral incentive determining their actions. The cracks will be wider.
This is a fine argument from theory, with no actual data. You, some random guy, on the Internet, "guarantee" your argument. So?
History shows that you are wrong. Buddhism started out as a godless venture, accepting the eternal flux we live in, and the Zen Buddhists carry that atheism through today. Have they turned evil? Go meet some and let me know what you think, but I'd say they're doing fine.
Science also suggests you are wrong. At least some and probably much of the human moral sense is provably an innate biological function. For readable introductions, see "Good Natured" by Franz de Waal or "Demonic Males" by Richard Wrangham. And in the decade since those books came out, there's been a heap of good experimental and fMRI observational work, reinforcing the biological basis of community-oriented behavior. And let's not forget "The Forest People," showing that non-Christan societies can develop strong community-oriented behavior.
Your theory that the only source of morality is Christian memes is provably false. And the data about crime and atheism proves the opposite of your notion as well. Atheists are circa 10% of America's population, are circa 0.2% of the prison population. Japan, the least Christian country in the G8, has the lowest violent crime rate. America, the most Christian country, has the highest.
You're really just repeating and embroidering the kind of ignorant statements that Christians make about atheists all the time.
Re: (Score:1)
I agree with you, but in fairness, the reason the atheist prison population is so low is probably because it is mostly accepted by philosophically minded, middle to upper class, well educated people (based on anecdotal evidence).
Re: (Score:2)
I agree with you, but in fairness, the reason the atheist prison population is so low is probably because it is mostly accepted by philosophically minded, middle to upper class, well educated people (based on anecdotal evidence).
That seems reasonable to me. It could indeed be that people inclined to be good are more likely to become atheists.
It could also be that becoming atheists makes them more likely to behave well. Or there could be some third factor that drives them both.
Regardless, the crime numbers undermine his theory that atheism is destructive of moral orders in general, just because it wrecks the one he's pushing. He may behave well because only some sky daddy is watching his every move, but that's not true even for my C
Re: (Score:1)
That seems reasonable to me. It could indeed be that people inclined to be good are more likely to become atheists.
Or it could be that people who basically have everything, including the power to isolate themselves from the world of the poor, have no intrest in an ideology that demands they help out others.
Above all, they have NO intrest, in actually dirtying their hands while helping someone. "Do that with my taxes" is the spirit. They refuse to live in places where they might (might) be confronted with ac
Re: (Score:1)
You have a bad habit of generalizing everyone into some assholes who live in the suburbs. I would bet that a bum from NYC on a suburban church doorstep would earn quite a bit of resentment in many places, though all would be quite the overstatement. There are atheists everywhere. Get out of your shell.
Re: (Score:2)
What sort of bizarro-world do you live in? Atheism is at its most rampant in the big cities and academic communities, where everyone is living side by side. There's a corresponding correlation between gated communities and church attendance (or at least professed intention toward church attendance).
As to the medieval fortresses, I fail to grasp what sort of point you might be trying to make. Church entrances were not guarded because the people inside were so nice that nobody would want to attack them? And
Re: (Score:1)
What I'm "admitting" is that your (erroneous) expectations don't match my actual views. Dreaming your dreams of a Santa Claus in the sky, the impermanence of the physical world scares you.
The impermanence of the world ? You're kidding right ? What is more permanent than the world ?
Are you a postmodernist ? "Whatever I think is the truth".
I realize that for people like you things like, oh, say the laws of nature are "temporary inconvenient". You will find them, obviously, beyond merely inflexible, and more t
Re: (Score:2)
Sigh.
You're arguing to prove a point, rather than trying to understand anything I'm saying. I don't see any value in carrying this further.
For the record, I disagree with pretty much every interpretation you have made of what I've said. You've also dragged in a host of things that I haven't said and don't agree with, apparently because they sound vaguely similar to you. I decline to accept responsibility for dealing with the bag of nonsense that you've chosen to carry around with you.
Further, I continue to
Re: (Score:1)
Atheists in a given culture demonstratably have huge amounts of common morality. Clearly morality thus exists outside of the religious context you seem to think it has to. Single exceptions do not disprove a pattern outside a religious context.
What is making you so blind?
Bad argument from a faulty premise (Score:2)
What is the basic difference between an atheist and a Christian, well simple : ...)
-> a Christian works to advance the glory of God ("be merry and fertile", the ten commandments, "love thy neighbour",
-> an atheist works to advance himself, without open regard for others (this does not mean he has to be a murderer, just that he does not see the need to consider the effect on strangers before deciding on a course of actio
Wow. Bad premise for an argument. I can easily argue that christians work solely to keep themselves from going to hell. The fact that this happens to advance the "glory of god" is incidental. In fact I find that to be a much more logical argument than yours. Furthermore positing that everything an atheist does is self motivated and does not consider effects on others is demonstrably wrong - not to mention offensive.
Atheist morality is whatever any single atheist comes up with, therefore it isn't even possible to give a workable definition
Since christians can't seem to agree on a common definition of morality your logic is on
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This is more or less exactly the opposite of what many decades of interactions
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Hear, hear. As an atheist/humanist who has never committed acts of horror against others, I'm astounded by the amount of misinformation about us there is in the world. I haven't experienced it yet, but do some really recoil in terror when the person they're talking with tell them they're atheist?
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Being in it for themselves and being in it for the bucks are not the same thing. Those who are in it for good feelings are still in it for themselves. Everyone is in it for themselves, which is not to say that they are against others.
It's tautologically true that all motivation of people is at some stage personal motivation. But that's different than being in it for themselves, where the purposes of actions involve direct personal benefit without regards to that of other actors. Your statements confuse the two.
Further, you're missing the actual point of my statement and the context into which it fits. OeLeWaPpErKe is claiming that they are indeed heedless of others. Try to keep up.
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What an absurd diatribe. I'll just say that you just lost any argument you might have had by equivocating atheism with only working in one's own self-interest.
Except that he didn't - he misrepresented intelligent self-interest to mean trying to keep everything to one's self (even if what that person is trying to retain has little marginal utility for them). Everything else went downhill from there, whether it's about religion, atheism, or economics.
In spite of his throwing around a lot of economic and rel
Re:Well that's embarassing (Score:4, Interesting)
Everything we know today developed in a society that was utterly permeated by the bible in every nook and cranny.
That's pretty arrogant. Also very wrong.
Plenty of what we know today came from the ancient Greeks, who predated the bible. And there are plenty of nooks in which the bible is not used -- despite your attempts to turn this country into a stealth theocracy, most of us still embrace the separation of church and state, and other religions do exist.
Everything you are - your clothes, your food (clothes don't grow in the stores), your car, your very thoughts come from others, with a tiny drop of personal impact from yourself.
I don't own a car, first of all.
And I take responsibility for all of it, whatever my own influence is. I am aware enough to be able to make my own choices -- so if these things come from others, they come with my endorsement.
If those people choose what economists call "Nash efficiency" as an ideology (what atheists do),
It would help if you cited something specific -- all I can find on Nash Efficiency [wikipedia.org] tells me it's a chunk of math, not an ideology.
improving themselves without conscious regard to others (e.g. "piracy is not a crime")
And as an atheist, I can tell you that you're dead wrong about that. What gave you the idea that atheists don't have conscious regard to others?
For that matter, ask a pirate -- I don't think any will try to say it's not a crime. They might occasionally remind you that it's not piracy -- piracy is armed robbery on the high seas; this is copyright infringement -- and they might say that it's not immoral, or that copyright law needs to change.
But I don't think anyone will claim it isn't a crime.
However, if everyone around you (example ... your current employer and any other possible employer) behaved atheistically, improving primarily themselves without regard to others, you'd be out of a job,
Unlikely. My current employer likes me as a person, and has more work than he can do himself, so there is plenty that I can do.
What part of that requires belief in a mythical sky-god?
(even the food would disappear from the local supermarket, as it will be more in the personal intrest of the owner to simply keep it himself). You'd die (even if you are said owner, because deliveries would stop).
Disregarding for the moment your misguided assumptions about atheism, consider that owner -- as you said, deliveries would stop.
So, even if the owner was the most horrible person imaginable, and didn't care at all about anyone but himself, he would keep selling food to you, because that way, deliveries continue -- and also, that way, he gets money to spend on some things he wants other than food.
Before the vandals and visigoths started their massive immigration into the Roman Empire, life expectancy for a slave was around 60 years (this is 300-400 B.C. we're talking about). Once Rome fell, life expectancy of a king dropped to 30 years, and most people didn't live long enough to have children (life expectancy : about 10-15 years). That's what "bread and games" ultimately achieved.
What's your evidence that "bread and games" was responsible for this, assuming the rest of your statistics are accurate?
If you follow the Christian credo, and give to others (that are preferentially also Christians) without expecting anything in return,
If you do that, you're a hypocrite -- you're giving to others and expecting faith in return.
Why are they preferentially also Christians?
And for what it's worth, what was included on the Rosetta Disk was the first few chapters of Genesis, which have absolutely nothing to do with "giving to others"
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even the food would disappear from the local supermarket, as it will be more in the personal intrest of the owner to simply keep it himself
Except that it wouldn't. Here's a hint, people have been bartering since before civilization, and, odds are, not all of them were doing it out of sheer altruism. As long as Alice can grown tomatoes better than Bob, and as long as Bob can grow wheat better than Alice, there'll be trade.
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if everyone around you (example ... your current employer and any other possible employer) behaved atheistically, improving primarily themselves without regard to others
There's no such thing as 'Atheistic behaviour' because atheism is entirely orthogonal to behaviour to begin with. Atheists are just a set of people defined by lack of belief, nothing more. Characterising them as being defined that way is nonsense, like saying "Bald behaviour" as if all bald people were defined by 'acting bald' and not by the simple, unrelated fact that they have no hair.
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even the food would disappear from the local supermarket, as it will be more in the personal interest of the owner to simply keep it himself
It would?! Just how much food can one person (or even one family) eat?! Once you have enough food to sustain life, and maybe a bit more to be able to enjoy it a bit, then you start to want other things - like clothing and shelter. And other nice things.
I think you're trying to argue that religion makes for a "nicer" society, which is at least an arguable position.
Kleptomania (Score:2)
What you're describing isn't intelligent self-interest (which is the most basic element of economics). It also isn't either atheism or religion (of whatever kind).
There is in fact a word for what you're describing, and it isn't "Nash efficiency" or "Atheism" or anything like that. It's "Kleptomania", and it's usually considered to be a mental disturbance.