SO let me get this straight,
you are worried about this country becoming a police state, yet you are complaining that someone has a view that is contrary to yours? Sounds to me like you're a bit of a twat....
(
Redsushi! Whoop! Whoop! Yes, that one!, Fri 6 Feb 2009, 21:49,
Reply)
you sure about that?
I said that I do not have a problem with anyone's right to say anything, so long as they can substantiate it if they choose to advertise it in the mainstream media.
As a case in point, if you could read, you would realise that my post says nothing of the sort.
If you are commenting on my reply to the "who gives a shit" guy... well I just don't think you really get it.
(, Fri 6 Feb 2009, 21:53, Reply)
I really dont understand why you're that bothered by this
(
megapowerskills is farming apple meat, Fri 6 Feb 2009, 21:58,
Reply)
me too...
Hadn't intended on getting involved in a conversation about it, just wanted to raise the level of awareness that a. it was going on and b. that there exists a formal channel to express disapproval, should people feel it.
Aside from that I just get sick of apathy (although I agree that it would be nice if we could all get on with our lives and pretend that people weren't being killed outside abortion clinics/in hotels in Mumbai/on buses in London/etc ad nauseum).
But the reason I posted originally was that these cunts were complaining through official, legal channels that Dawkins (and by extension a lot of B3tans) had no right to say there "probably isn't a god" yet the ASA states that they are within their rights to claim that there "definitely is one".
This is not about the fundies or the atheists, nor indeed about what anyone does or does not believe, this is about the ASA discharging their duties as arbiters of public standards in advertising, which they are clearly not upholding and which, through raising awareness of the complaints procedure, we can change.
(, Fri 6 Feb 2009, 22:07, Reply)
You refered to yourself as
walking into a police state, and then posted a link to complain about an advert that someone wants to publish about their faith. Seems like what I said is true to me.
However, I agree with your point about the adverts, I don't think they should be allowed. But I don't think the Atheist bus adverts should have been allowed either. Religion, Faith, non-belief, whatever is a personal choice. None of the options should be forced down anyones throats as far as I am concerned. We live in a secular country where everyone is free to believe whatever they like, provided it doesn't harm anyone. As you said, you live in a muslim country where presumably, Sharia law is implemented (I can't be sure as you didn't state what country you are in). So surely, with the reservations you have stated about that state you live in, surely suppresing the views of anyone worries you? You can not pick and choose whose views you are willing to listen to. Either you want to ban all religious/anti-religious advertising, or you have to allow anything to be published. How does it affect you in any way if someone who has belief in a higher power wants to say they do in public?
(
Redsushi! Whoop! Whoop! Yes, that one!, Fri 6 Feb 2009, 22:26,
Reply)
I'll take the anti-ASA position, then.
Let's not have an agency deciding what's true enough to be published.
Does raise an nice moral dilemma, though. Imagine you live in nazi-controlled state where, stupidly, the nazis have introduced a law allowing any publication to be withdrawn from sale and burnt, based on anybody complaining about it. Do you use this unjust law to ban nazi newspapers? I guess this is one of those things where the answer depends whether you regard yourself to be caught up in a desperate war with oppressors or working within a civil society.
(, Sat 7 Feb 2009, 11:33, Reply)
Precisely.
However, what extremely anti-religious people seem to ignore, whether deliberately, or through naivety, is that people who believe in God and Jesus and whatever, do not themselves necessarily require proof, scientific or otherwise. They have faith, and that serves their needs in a more than ample fashion. I myself am not anti science, however I do have certain issues with science. It lacks in one dimension for me. Disregard the impossible, but consider the improbable. Too often in my opinion, people confuse these two.
(
Redsushi! Whoop! Whoop! Yes, that one!, Sat 7 Feb 2009, 14:41,
Reply)
OK, that was hard to parse.
1) Faith serves their needs instead of proof:
I disagree with practical arguments for atheism, such as "religion causes wars". It may well do, but that's beside the point.
Faith makes no sense, regardless of whether it's materially good for you or bad for you. Religious types are free to be religious, but they aren't free to be religious and correct at the same time. And we should want to be correct, according to my morality (and most religious people hold that as a value too, I suspect, despite the contradiction).
So if we have a "need" that can be met with faith or alternatively met with reason, that's irrelevant to the question of which we should go for. We should still make sense even if it's a nasty experience.
2) The improbable:
Conjectures are important to science, and for that matter inspiration is important in philosophy, and in art, and anyway there's more to life than science. The view that there isn't is called scientism (although I think the term is only ever used pejoratively, and trying to work out the word for an adherent of scientism is awkward).
Now, scientism is a bad thing. Mr. Spock, for instance, is a tosser, and his claim to always operate on pure logic leads to hypocrisy, because it's unworkable (perhaps illogical). Unfortunately the term scientism is often used as an attack on science and rationality, and in support of religion, in a hand-waving sort of way.
I don't think scientists often *are* scientistic, though it can happen. (Probably it happened more during, say, around 1910 to 1960.)
So ... yes, but I don't think it's a big deal.
Oh, and logical positivism was awful, but that's over now. Having said that, people do still often casually demand proof that a thing (say, God) exists, or doesn't exist, and both of these are wrong-headed. All "proof" can ever be is a challenge to a theory. It's a lot easier to falsify the theory that a thing doesn't exist than to falsify the theory that it does, so we assume things don't exist by default. Given this default, the theory that God exists can be challenged by explanations that better fit uncontroversial facts. i.e. there is no reason to postulate God, any more than celestial teapots, etc. The theory that He doesn't exist can be challenged by producing something best explained as God. Of course this all hinges on one's notion of a best and simplest explanation, and people can be eternally awkward about it if they're irrational enough.
(, Sat 7 Feb 2009, 15:58, Reply)
