Just a note to introduce myself. My background is that of a research scientist in plant pathology and latterly a biology teacher. I am now retired and have become interested if not a little bemused by the rise in those determined to insinuate their religious views into mainstream life despite (or maybe because of) the apparent religious apathy existing in many western countries. I have looked in on many forums such as this and been fascinated by the form that most of the arguments for and against religion take. Most science versus religion arguments seem to run aground simply because the 'antagonists' are playing by different sets of rules. Those on the side of religion have tried and tested methods of 'deskilling' their opponents. For instance it is quite common for those on the atheist side to be challenged over complex scientific principles. Of course, the averagely intelligent atheist is in no position to answer those challenges and then is open to the inevitable comeback that the truth is actually written in the bible, qu'ran or whatever is being used as their particular reference.
It is also interesting that in many cases it is the skill and experience of the debater rather than which side of the argument they sit that wins the day. It is really easy for someone trying to put across a scientific point to become frustrated by the lack of a sensible response. This can then lead to anger and the argument is then lost.
Religious folk often use throwaways such as 'Evolution is just a theory' as if Darwin wrote his ideas down on the back of a beer mat while having a beer at his local bar devaluing at a stroke the 30 years he spent collecting evidence.
Apologies, I've started to ramble.....another symptom of old age. Just to say that most of the scientific challenges laid down by the religious folk are not scientific challenges at all because there is no argument about them in the scientific community. They are simply challenges to your powers of oratory, logic and patience.
Beware of sophistry!
Peace and love
VCB
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Welcome, Victor. Nice to have you here.
Welcome to the forum, and feel free to but in any topic as you wish.
"They are simply challenges to your powers of oratory, logic and patience."
Yea, the problem lies with the lack of attempt to find the truth.
They do not wish to find the truth but to validate their beliefs.
I have seen some of your posts, and up until now they seem quite a mature response, keep it up.
'up until now they seem quite a mature response' seems rather like being damned by faint praise. I hope I have not made the mistake of joining a forum where new contributors are constantly being vetted and condescended to by those who deem themselves superior. That would be tiresome.
Peace and love
VCB
I apologize if my skepticism in judging someone maturity in responses is not based on just a few posts.
That is why I said "up until now".
I did not mean to judge you in any way, I just expressed my current opinion of your responses thus far.
If you find this; somewhat "being vetted" that is your problem.
As far as I know, I have the right to have an opinion on the level of maturity everyone has that I interact with, so does everyone.
If you find that my conclusions were somewhat offensive or not the truth then you are free to point where your replies weren't mature enough and we can discuss that.
"those who deem themselves superior."
Just because one recognizes something, it does not mean one is superior to someone else.
If you can point out what makes you think, I am superior by posting that reply, I would be thankful.
This seems rather a tetchy response to my observations, but I am happy to take this conversation further. Your original remarks were in fact absolutely judgemental because you made a conscious choice to make a judgement on my posts thus far. I have no idea who you are or in what capacity you act in this forum but the tone of both of your responses is patronising with an unmistakeable whiff of superiority. This displays itself as arrogance simply in the aggressive tenor of your writing.
I am astonished that you think it appropriate or even possible to comment on the maturity of someone you have never met. I 'came out' as an atheist more than 50 years ago and assuredly do not need my maturity checked by you.
Your first reply was so obviously a vetting exercise that you don't even bother denying it but instead give the classic 'turn it round and blame the complainer for complaining' response. It's 'my problem' is it? What hubris!
If you truly want to welcome me to this forum and want me to take you seriously then practise a little politeness and humility.
If you're not interested in doing that then I am not interested in receiving any more of your dubious opinions, and certainly not those concerning my maturity.
Peace and love
VCB
"Your original remarks were in fact absolutely judgmental because you made a conscious choice to make a judgement on my posts thus far."
Yes so?
Everyone makes judgments all the time, you judged me right now that I think I am superior in some way from 1 single post i made of 2 sentences.
Don't you think you jumped to conclusions a little to much there?
"tone of both of your responses"
How can you know the tone of my responses?
It is very hard to understand sarcasm from chat because the tone is one thing you cannot get from chat alone, even worse from just 1 reply of 2 sentences I made.
"I am astonished that you think it appropriate or even possible to comment on the maturity of someone you have never met"
Yea I agree, it is not "appropriate or even possible to comment on the maturity of someone you have never met"
Go and read my reply again and you will see that my judgment is about your posts, not you as a person.
Maybe you misunderstood there.
Let me copy/paste it here:
"I have seen some of YOUR POSTS, and up until now THEY seem quite a mature RESPONSE, keep it up."
Nowhere did I say anything about your maturity as a person.
Maybe you misunderstood there.
It happens no big deal.
However, I have to thank you since this intrigues me to start a topic on the idea of doing judgments.
This concept of not doing judgments on a forum is outright flawed.
We constantly are gathering information about the people we interact with, and we constantly judge a person in the sens that we try to understand what we should say and what we should not say to them based on our current judgment of them.
EG: If I am talking to a raped victim, my judgment would be to not mention false rape allegations to her/him unless she/he brings it up.
"Your original remarks were in fact absolutely judgmental because you made a conscious choice to make a judgement on my posts thus far."
yes and everybody on this forum or any forum for that matter will make judgments on your posts thus far.
It is how any forum(any discussion) works.
You say something and we judge you on what you say thus far.
EG If you publicly support slavery in your posts, we will judge you as a declared slavery supporter.
That does not mean that we will let our bias interfere in any particular argument you make.
That is how I debate theists, they come with an argument and I analyze the argument and not the person saying it.
I think I need to be much clearer as you seem incapable of grasping the quite straightforward points I was making.
'up until now they seem quite a mature response' is a judgement on the way that the articles were written and not the content. Using the word 'mature' in this context is acutely personal and inappropriate. Ending with 'keep it up' is intensely and annoyingly patronising as is attempting to lecture me on what judgements are, whether the tone of an argument can be sensed from the written word and how debates should be conducted.
VCB
"'up until now they seem quite a mature response' is a judgement on the way that the articles were written and not the content."
Yes we agree.
I passed judgment that the way they were written was mature in my opinion at that point in time.
Does that mean you are a mature person as you claimed I said?
Are you actually claiming that if one makes a few posts in a mature way, he also MUST be a mature person?
Or better;
Are you claiming that if a few of a guy's posts are deemed mature by just 1 guy on a forum then it means that he is a mature person?
" Ending with 'keep it up' is intensely and annoyingly patronising"
I disagree, but everyone is entitled for his opinion.
I just meant, keep doing what you are doing.
I do not see how that is "intensely and annoyingly patronising".
It be patronizing if and only if my tone was coming from a superior position, you failed thus far to show that my position was indeed superior in anyway.
You just accused me of it without supporting your claims.
"lecture me on what judgements are"
I started a discussion on judgments, you can participate in it or not. I did not lecture you on it.
If you think that everybody that disagrees with you is lecturing you, then you will find issues with nearly everyone.
Up until now your only reason presented for my superiority(on whatever subject that is) was the tone of my argument which you have not demonstrated that it was coming from a superior position yet.(circular argument)
BTW you think that I think I'm superior in what? in mature arguments?
YES or NO questions to see if we are on the same page:
Do I have the right to judge the way any post was written or not in your opinion?
Does that mean I am superior to the person who wrote that post in your opinion?
To clarify my position too:
When I say they are mature it hints that I would have answered in a similar manner or I am impressed by your replies, thus at best my position is at your level. I am making no claim that makes me appear superior in my first post to you.
If I considered I was superior in my level of mature replies, then I would not have said "keep it up" but I would have said something like; "well done, but could have been said better" and then give your the reasons supported with evidence/logic.
(this does not mean that whoever answers like this he considers himself superior, there are other reasons for such a reply)
I am still waiting for a proper clarification of why you think I am superior in something.
Jeff,
When I saw the 'up until now' bit in your original post I was expecting a contrary position in the 'now', because that's usually what follows such a statement (call it learned behaviour), which I would have immediately objected to, but it didn't come. This left me feeling defensive with nothing to defend against. You could just admit it sounds a little judgmental, rather than blowing it out of proportion.
I think I would have replaced 'mature' with 'intelligent' and left all that 'up until now' bit out - had I written it - because up until now is all we really have.
Just sayin'
But I did not think the replies were intelligent, but mature in the sens, that he tried to understand the position and derive a mature response in a way that usually displays some experience in the subject at hand or attention to detail.
However he did not make enough posts for me to be sure that it was his usual attitude or me just getting a false impression.
So I just made it clear that "UP UNTIL NOW" that is my current opinion. I was not ready to make a conclusion yet.
I already apologized if my skepticism of my own current opinion sounded offensive.
That was not my intention.
However i do not care how you would have placed it. I judged the few posts he made, my judgment was that they were a mature response. I will judge them more and say that his previous posts were written in good English.
You want more judgement on those posts?
Please don't insult my intelligence and dare say that judgments are not what we do every time we read a post.
Neither he, nor you have presented anything to suggest the contrary even though you had every chance to do so.#
Instead you insist on accusing me of being judgmental yet again.
Judging one's posts is not being Judgmental.
He turned the argument on judgmental on the person which was a fallacy(which I let it slide) but since you brought it back up, I have clarified the difference.
My wording represented perfectly what I wanted to say, if he has issues with a patronizing event in his life, he should face them and learn how to deal with them accordingly.
"because up until now is all we really have"
When one does not have enough information, best is to clarify(ask) not to jump to conclusions.
(EG accusing someone of being judgmental and superior)
But the "up until now" was CLEARLY for the posts/replies, not for the person.
Neither he or you have accepted this fact yet.
Making a comment about how your post sounded to me and calling you judgmental are two entirely different things, as you have already plainly described when explaining your 'mature' comment as referring to posts and not a person. Notice how we misunderstand things so easily? Perhaps this is just more learned behaviour. I just wanted to present a third-person perspective, not get involved.
"sounded to me and calling you judgmental are two entirely different things"
I do not know why you insist on making the same Equivocation fallacy.
judgmental is when it is addressed to the person, while I clearly addressed the posts.
There is no way it could "sound judgmental" unless you do don't know the meaning of judgmental.
"Judgmental is a negative word to describe someone who often rushes to judgment without reason. The adjective judgmental describes someone who forms lots of opinions — usually harsh or critical ones — about lots of people."
http://www.vocabulary.com/dictionary/judgmental
"Judgmental is a negative word to describe someone who often rushes to judgment without reason."
You can sound judgmental ONLY if you are addressing the person.
Plus "UP UNTIL NOW" is the right opposite of "rushing to judgment".
Judgmental is clearly not the right word to use.
Hope this "sounds" clear to you now.
Oh okay, so if I say "I think that post is dumb" then you should take no offense because the post is the subject of the sentence and my thoughts are the verb.
My apologies for wasting your time.
Yes you are entitled for your opinion on anything as long as it doesn't effect others.
Also you are required to support your claims if you want to be taken seriously in a mature debate.
Else you will be ignored like we ignore children when they sprout nonsense.
If you think you are mature enough to enter a debate, then support your claims, at least with reason like I did.
and your post will be judged accordingly,
eg if you say:
"I think that post is dumb"
Then the post is an unsupported claim, thus it is judged as a useless remark.
That is my judgment on it.
I did not say; you make useless remarks though.
That is the difference that seems so hard for you to grasp, yet it is so simple.
I said the they(the posts) are a mature reply, I did not say Victor is mature, nor did i say that it is a sign of maturity of the OP.
Why is is so hard to acknowledge this fact?
i joined a month ago, Victor. This place is basically like bootcamp. People who aren't of the inclination to respond to imflammoratory attacks on either side tend to go elsewhere :P
I find the 'well done..keep it up' type of comment entirely inappropriate on forums like this. Maybe I'm getting too sensitive in my old age, but I get unreasonably angry at any sense I have of being patronised especially by arrogant, self-important individuals. I need a beer.
Peace and love
VCB
Welcome :)
Welcome Victor,
I've learned that religious (of any nature) people don't usually have faith in their god (or...) because of evidence so presenting evidence is like convincing a frog not to jump into quicksand by throwing another frog into it and watching it sink. The frog doesn't understand the situation like you and I do, it just jumps into the quicksand, so the method doesn't work.
Not to suggest that theists have the intelligence of a frog by any means whatsoever, it's just a metaphor.
Thanks for the welcome. It is appreciated.
VCB
Welcome. I appreciated and learned from your original post. There certainly are argumentative folks here who make more introspective and passive people like me hesitant to post much. It is the condescending, argumentative and snarky attitudes that many atheists seem to have that contribute to our currently less than favorable public opinion....(in my opinion).
Welcome, feel free to jump in wherever you care to. I have always found biology to be a challenge, so having a good teacher around is a welcome addition. I only took anatomy so someone better educated in the subject can only be a good thing, let us hope I am still a good enough student to learn new things.