So you’re saying that because a religion allows you to choose which of God’s commandments, carefully passed down through every generation, you personally want to follow based on your gut feeling, can’t be shamed?

No, that is not what I said.

Why should the ones who choose to deny parts of their religion be seen as representative of it over those who’ve chosen to uphold them?

I definitely answered this in my original comment.

Because if the majority of people following a particular religion reject a prior view as false or wrong, then arguably that view is no longer part of the religion.

Religions aren’t crisp, unchanging, monolithic entities where everybody believes the same thing forever. If we’re talking about judaism in the sense of the views and practices jewish people actually subscribe to, then that seems like we are referring to beliefs they actually hold in a mainstream/current sense, not beliefs they previous held but now reject?

Operating System Concepts by Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne is a classic OS textbook. Andrew Tanenbaum has some OS books too. I really liked his OS Design and Implementation book but I’m pretty sure that one is super outdated by now. I have not read his newer one but it is called Modern Operating Systems iirc.

This issue is not a black and white speak english vs not kind of thing. There’s no shortage of immigrants that speak english perfectly well sans a minor accent but are discriminated against and treated poorly anyway for not being native speakers.

Edit for those who downvoted: I am a native english speaker. I have been discriminated against based on my regional accent. Only a fucking fool would think the same things don’t happen to nonnative speakers.

Part of the goal here isn’t even mastery of the language itself. Exposure to new cultures is important. Being able to empathize with how hard learning a language is is also important.

The joke is that I’m implying they want to fuck this version of jesus.

There’s definitely a bit of “forcing” these people want to do with this version of Jesus, they just don’t want to admit it.

People talk a lot about stackoverflow for figuring out bugs and miscellaneous coding questions but the whole stackexchange project has a lot of other very excellent websites.

I’m not intending to claim science is a religious belief. Did you read what I said? I don’t think this is the gotcha against my actual point that you think it is.

If you have a better term for the types of beliefs I’m talking about feel free to let me know and we can use that instead. Better?

No, that’s not what I said, nor is it really implied by anything I said.

The original comment said: “Atheism isn’t a religion. It’s the lack of a religion.”

My reply was: “If you distinguish between agnosticism and atheism then this is false. If you’re an atheist in the sense of effectively replacing religious ideology/beliefs with scientific ones, then this is also more or less false.”

For the second point: This has nothing to do with worship. This is about religious beliefs. For example, believing that the universe came into being by some mysterious god in the sky is a religious belief. Believing there is a man in Montana who willed all of us into existence is a religious belief. Believing some force of nature that we can analyze scientifically is also a religious belief. There’s no worship required for this and I am not claiming atheists worship science or scientific beliefs. My actual point here is that atheists can and do often have religious beliefs, whether they actually realize it and are willing to admit it or not.

For my first point: There’s no implication of worshiping scientific beliefs here either. My point is that agnosticism and atheism are two different things. One explicitly does not commit to a set of religious beliefs, one explicitly denies the existence of deities. These are not the same thing and claiming atheism is simply the lack of religion is at best an oversimplification and at worst stupidly wrong.

It’s voluntary because people choose to believe it.

You are arguing this: “It’s a choice (i.e. voluntary) because it’s a choice.” This is circular reasoning.

What we’re arguing about is called doxastic voluntarism. My whole point here is that there isn’t some single consensus on this topic. There are arguments for and against doxastic voluntarism.

I don’t care about your personal beliefs regarding this topic. I’m pointing out the fact that “A chooses to believe B, therefore …” is a form of argument that doesn’t guarantee its conclusions if the premise “A chooses to believe B” isn’t true. For this kind of argument to work you need to address whether or not “A chooses to believe B” really is true beyond just begging the question.

Well i thought you were trying to argue that theyre believing objective things as to why they dont have a choice. But now youre saying it doesnt matter if its objectively true or not. So why else do you think they dont have a choice?

You can pretend like my point has suddenly changed here but it hasn’t. If you go back and read what I’ve said, you’ll notice all I’ve really claimed here to you is that:

1. Whether or not beliefs are choices is debatable.
2. People can have beliefs about the objectivity of a thing whether or not it really is objectively true.

With point 2, I’m not sure what you’re so hung up about? It’s not my fault you misread my original statement where I used the word objective (correctly in fact) and that you responded to your (incorrect) reading of that like it was some awesome gotcha against my point when it wasn’t.

Concerning point 1, whether or not something is objectively true isn’t exactly relevant to whether people get to pick and choose their beliefs.

Notice, I’m also not claiming people don’t get to choose their beliefs in point 1 either. I’m saying it’s debatable. There’s no truth claim here from me about whether beliefs are chosen or not. What I’m saying is “OMG BUT THEY CHOSE THAT BELIEF”, isn’t being supported here when it should be.

If you’re actually curious about the issue I’m pointing out rather than just feeling like you’ve won this discussion, the issue is to do with whether we accept doxastic voluntarism.

Please understand, I sincerely don’t care which side you personally pick on the issue of doxastic voluntarism. I care about the fact that arguments along the lines of “Person A chose to believe B, therefore …” are bad because they don’t actually guarantee the truth of their premises when they should.

The actual content of a persons beliefs and whether they chose those beliefs aren’t the same thing champ.

It’s not my fault you can’t argue your point any further. There’s no need to reply to me to confirm it.

Gosh golly! It’s almost like somebody can believe something is objectively true whether it is or not.

Dogma is something that is “incontrovertibly” true. Science doesn’t work that way, you can’t just believe gravity doesn’t exist and then the Earth stops orbiting the sun. You can’t just decide water only freezes at 0°C regardless of pressure. But you can believe that abortion is a grave sin and murder a doctor for it.

I think I’m just misunderstanding what you mean, but that’s not what dogma means at all. Dogma does not have to be true (incontrovertibly or not).

People can believe scientific things dogmatically. Attempts at scientific work can lead you to wrong conclusions in certain senses. Small sample sizes, biased samples etc. Science as a whole is not a foolproof thing. People make mistakes, false conclusions and so on. Ideally we work things out well enough that these issues are rectified over time but mistakes happen.

What you’re saying is when people attempt to twist data to support their preconceived beliefs. For instance Belgians used phrenology to confirm their belief that Tutsis were superior to Hutus and fuel the Rwandan genocide. They already believed their racist dogma and attempted to use “science” to prove it. But science doesn’t have a bias, and it has no dogma.

My issue isn’t with the science itself but the people who fail to interpret scientific results in sane ways or that twist and abuse scientific works (like you mention).

And no, it’s not a typo. Darwin purported the idea that offspring of sexual organisms received their traits through gemmules shed by each organ of the body. Another scientist reviewed this theory by analyzing rabbit blood and found no gemmules, because those only exist in asexual reproduction, sponges specifically. The lack of evidence of gemmules essentially proves the theory of pangenesis wrong.

My apologies, my confusion is this: “because one has evidence and peer review to back it up, and one lacks evidence because it was peer reviewed”. Peer review doesn’t remove evidence. At best it adds confidence or allows people a chance to say “Hey! This work is not correct because …” Your point is that a work by Darwin was peer reviewed and later found to be lacking right?

What do you think “to them” means? You realize people can have beliefs about the objectivity of different claims right? For example: I believe that it is objectively true that me and you are having this discussion. Just because I believe this says nothing about whether or not it is or isn’t objectively true. Please continue working on your reading comprehension.

Seems a lot more to me like you don’t understand that we can reason rationally as well as empirically.

Wth are you talking about. The argument is on whether or not it is ok (aka, we should tolerate) to belittle / argue against religion as a whole. You’re taking the position that it is not ok to do so. The supporting argument you gave is that it is functionally equivalent to racism. I explained that it was not functionally equivalent to racism.

The op QuaffPotions is arguing against intolerance against theists.

MrJamesGumb (the person I responded to) is arguing against the OPs point with: “It seems like you’re saying no one is allowed to criticize religion as a whole, but only certain aspects of certain religions that you agree are “harmful”. The problem is that there are a growing number of people who find ALL religions to be harmful, and those people have a right to make their feelings known…”

My point is that I can make this same exact argument using many other examples of people claiming they are justified in doing XYZ things solely because they believe some arbitrary thing is harmful. Claiming you believe something is harmful doesn’t really justify you to do whatever you want in all cases. Many Christians actively believe being a homosexual is harmful, but most sane people object to them actively spreading hate propaganda against homosexuals.

Just because somebody fears something is “harmful” doesn’t mean everybody has to accept them choosing to be intolerant as their response to that fear.

Now you have no supporting argument but you tell me it doesn’t matter because your position hasn’t changed.

Just because you chose not to respond to my supporting argument that addressed your previous point doesn’t mean I have no supporting argument.

Also, I keep seing this paradox of tolerance bullshit on the fediverse. People need to understand: you must tolerate people, but you doesn’t have to tolerate their ideas or their actions. It’s not that complicated.

The whole takeaway from Popper on the paradox of tolerance is that we don’t have to tolerate intolerance. What I’m saying is that being intolerant against theists doesn’t have to be tolerated either.

This whole not tolerating people who are intolerant is just another way of being intolerant. Pick any person in the world and I’ll find a reason to claim that they’re intolerant. At the end of the day, it’s just an excuse to otherize people who aren’t on your team.

I’m pretty explicitly saying we don’t have to otherize people who are religious solely for being religious. If somebody is actually harming other people in the name of religious beliefs, then by all means, stop them. But that doesn’t make anybody inherently deserving of harm or mistreatment solely because they are religious. Just because an individual believes all religions are harmful doesn’t really justify them to be a bigot. Criticism is fine, but outright hatred and disgust like what the op (QuaffPotions) is talking about isn’t justified.

It seems like that’s what you’re saying when you state that religious and scientific beliefs are interchangeable, and that Atheism is more or less a religion because of this. Belief system != religion.

I’m not claiming religion and scientific beliefs are wholly interchangeable and I’m not claiming all belief systems are effectively religious belief systems.

Here is the original comment I’m replying to: “Atheism isn’t a religion. It’s the lack of a religion.”

Here is my second point: “If you’re an atheist in the sense of effectively replacing religious ideology/beliefs with scientific ones, then this is also more or less false.”

What I do think is that there are inherently religious questions that both theists and (at least some) atheists answer via religious means. In the case of atheists I think they often refuse to admit to themselves that they do it. For example, a theist believes some mysterious god being created the universe, an atheist believes some mysterious force of nature created the universe (though maybe this force is something different from a god). I would call these kinds of beliefs religious whether it’s an atheist doing it or a theist.

I’m not saying all atheists do this. I’m not saying it’s bad to answer these kinds of questions in this way either. If nobody is hurt and the question is just answerable, then who even cares? But the idea that atheism is just totally a lack of religion seems untrue in some cases. Rejection of theistic deities does not mean rejection of all religion, all religious beliefs and all religious thought whatsoever.

Yes I do. There is willful suspension of disbelief, and belief in absurdities is inherent to religion. Catholics believe the sacrament literally becomes flesh and blood, for example. This is easily disproven yet remains a cornerstone of the religion. Believing absurdities is the price of admission, a litmus test showing that one will uncritically obey those who claim to speak for god(s) without compelling objective evidence. Many religions consider this willful ignorance a virtue, which they call faith.

Claims about the Catholic religion in particular aren’t claims that are applicable to all religions. There are many other religions besides western Christianity that have been practiced throughout human history. Christianity does not represent all religious beliefs and one should be careful not to take the shitty things many do in the name of their flavor of Christianity as a rule that ought to apply to all religions or all religious belief systems.

I can’t speak for their intent, but it absolutely is the position of most religions. If I showed up to services and started arguing with the preacher I would likely not be invited back. At very least one must show reverence for their absurd claims to be accepted into the fold, (with a few exceptions like unitarianism, various reform denominations, omnism, atheistic satanism, etc.,) Many/most claim that the supernatural rewards like access to the afterlife are dependent upon belief and behavior.

The original point they made was: “Science seeks to accurately describe our world and beliefs that don’t are discarded. Religion seeks to make people believe absurdities and people who don’t are discarded.”

This part here: “Religion seeks to make people believe absurdities and people who don’t are discarded.” is not a correct interpretation of the intent of religious people. You can believe their views are absurd, but they don’t believe that, and arguing that their views are absurd just because you think so just begs the question.