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Who What Now posted:Ah, so they arent true They are Christian, but American Christianity is just weird in general in both political directions. And a lot of the weirdness in the rest of the world in Christianity, is coming from American Christains. They get around.
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# ? Apr 23, 2017 17:01 |
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# ? May 13, 2024 09:30 |
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BrandorKP posted:They are Christian, but American Christianity is just weird in general in both political directions. It really isn't. In most of the christian world the main powerful entity is the catholic church and it is quite able to keep being as reactionary as it's always been entirely on its own. Nothing american about the founding of Hazte Oir, or about the pope's own homophobia, or about the marche pour tous. Nothing american about the catholic church opposing contraceptives in Africa either.
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# ? Apr 23, 2017 17:02 |
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That's fair. And that's going to be a hard one to ever get the catholics to change on.
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# ? Apr 23, 2017 17:23 |
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BrandorKP posted:They are Christian, but American Christianity is just weird in general in both political directions. Where do you think American Christians got their weirdness from?
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# ? Apr 23, 2017 17:48 |
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BrandorKP posted:The Greek philosophy schools were religions. They fit well most definitions of cults. They even have saviors. What we think of as the characteristics of religions, well quite a lot of that comes from them. Further, secular has changed in meaning over the years, what was meant by the word at the time of founding fathers? Except that the Enlightenment was a cherry picking of democratic and philosophical ideas, not going whole hog on the cults of honor that were rampant with the Greeks and Romans. Also, secularism wasn't used in its modern vernacular until the 1800s. We are using modern terms to describe the actions and expressed beliefs of people in the past. Jefferson "threw shade" at people, even if he would never use those words. The evidence for the secularism of the founding fathers doesn't come from them specifically saying "secularism is good".
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# ? Apr 23, 2017 19:43 |
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BrandorKP posted:Most of the problem is American protestants, outside of much of that tradition and who are more American than Christian. Really wish American protestants hadn't done that whole Inquisition or Crusades thing.
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# ? Apr 23, 2017 20:07 |
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RandomBlue posted:Really wish American protestants hadn't done that whole Inquisition or Crusades thing. Or that drat American pope having missionaries tell African people that condoms don't prevent aids. Or well known American Mother Theresa letting sick people die in agony while she gets the best healthcare all the money donated to her can buy. Truly American Christians are the source of all of Christianity's ills.
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# ? Apr 23, 2017 20:13 |
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BrandorKP posted:They are Christian, but American Christianity is just weird in general in both political directions. The problem is this isn't limited to American Christians and their weirdness. The weirdness is world wide. It is also mainstream, not that there are weird fringes everywhere. The Orthodox and Catholic Churches were the source of most of this, but collectively they represent the origin of like 99% of modern sects. Agnosticnixie posted:So are you planning on just pretending 2000 years of church history isn't true christianity because it doesn't fit your politics? Because Schweitzer had something to say about that. I'm assuming he had an American education in history, and our teaching is almost cult like. The narrative we teach until the college level is spiritually injected until it becomes propaganda for Christian morality. It's so powerful that people were aghast that I asserted MLK's speeches and works on civil rights were secularly focused. It started with the framing of Puritans escaping for religious freedom. The truth was Puritans were intolerant and worked against commonwealth laws and customs that they didn't think were extreme enough. After being trouble causing assholes they got kicked out to go create a religious based community that would prove their faith is the best. Within months of moving here they were shocked and dismayed they had to execute a young man who committed beastiality. They thought by distancing themselves from other corrupt sects then people left would be pure good Christians and their society wouldn't have such ungodly disgusting things. They were a weird people and more like a cult than a group of martyrs escaping persecution. Also, it ignores that the overwhelming majority of early settlers were looking for economic opportunity and religion was secondary. It's a nice start to the framing of America being firmly linked to progressive Christianity though. Then the founding fathers are all presented as Christians who believed in religious freedom. This ignores that Diests are barely even Christian, and they explicitly wanted religion kept out of their legal framework. They still bring up separation of church and state, but Puritans, Quakers, Calvanists, etc and their influence is given far more focus, despite being pretty small minorities in terms of demographics. The abolition movement, as I've already discussed previously, has been skewed through the historical lens to the point of fun house mirrors. The major things that successfully moved public opinion and tangibly ended slavery were secular. Assault on the right to petition, equal protection under the law, state's rights, etc. is what moved northern Whites en masse. The biggest movements protecting slavery were religiously based though, and the Baptist and Catholic churches were far, far larger than the northern abolitionist churches. They effectively made more people pro-slavery than the northern churches made people anti-slavery. But somehow Christianity was super important and helpful in the abolition movement. It's a rewriting of history that continues to this day.
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# ? Apr 24, 2017 02:12 |
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RasperFat posted:I appreciate the effort post, but linguistics =/= physical sciences. I was a communication studies major, so I feel you in well educated people using theories I disagree with in large groups. Muted Group Theory is popular among feminist crowds, but I find that language is probably more effectively used by women and minorities and societal structures are entirely what is responsible for language not being as effective for those groups.
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# ? May 5, 2017 15:08 |
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Cingulate posted:Sorry for not having picked up on this. Are you still interested in my response RF? Sure I am. I always find non-hostile discussions like this interesting.
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# ? May 25, 2017 23:27 |
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I actually don't really see how you've encountered the meat of the issue - that what matters is not the teacher's beliefs, but their ability and willingness to communicate scientific consensus. I've claimed these are orthogonal. I mean, I've not argued for a "teach the controversy" position, I'm not saying teaching Chomsky is teaching controversy and we should do it, I'm saying: I personally think Chomskian linguistics is insane, but regardless of how it will eventually turn out, regardless of if I'm betting on the winning horse here, what should matter for me being qualified and allowed to teach is not what I believe to be true, but if I am able and willing to explain to a student Chomskian linguistics. And I'm claiming this is possible: people are able to teach stuff they believe is incorrect. In fact, in a sense everyone teaching non-relativistic physics is doing that - they're teaching what they know to be incomplete physics. (But you can only bring out relativity later.) So you're saying, "the science teacher shouldn't take a strong position if there isn't a consensus in the field", and yes - but that is possible for the creationist too. If, which I think you do, by "take a strong position" you don't mean what they personally subscribe to, but their classroom behavior. Of course, it is likely that it will be very rare for YECs to neutrally explain physics. But if you have someone who can do it, then I don't think you have put forward an argument excluding them. Or am I missing the crucial argument you're making here? RasperFat posted:Sure I am. I always find non-hostile discussions like this interesting. I mean, I guess a few years ago, I was the king of bad arguing too, just yelling and biting everywhere. But you try to talk to people with different views you somehow don't want to all put into the bin you have mentally reserved for looneys, non-hostility becomes a crucial trait. Cingulate fucked around with this message at 13:10 on May 26, 2017 |
# ? May 26, 2017 13:08 |
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Cingulate posted:I personally think Chomskian linguistics is insane, but regardless of how it will eventually turn out, regardless of if I'm betting on the winning horse here, what should matter for me being qualified and allowed to teach is not what I believe to be true, but if I am able and willing to explain to a student Chomskian linguistics.
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# ? May 26, 2017 16:24 |
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twodot posted:This is weird to me, because I can't imagine anything where I could believe both "thinking X is insane" and "we should teach students X". Like if I were an advanced 18th century scientist who figured out phlogiston is nonsense, even though the consensus was that phlogiston was awesome, I wouldn't be arguing "even though phlogiston is bullshit, what makes me a qualified scientist is my ability to convince students it isn't bullshit". If I ever took a teaching position where I was required to teach something I knew to be false, it would only ever be with intention of subverting the falsehoods as much as I possibly could. Maybe people will argue that just makes me a lovely teacher, but teaching known falsehoods as anything other than historic mistakes seems like the bigger crime. First, being a good scientist != being a good teacher. To begin with, all kinds of literally insane people should be allowed to do research - obviously; e.g., he inventor of MRI or the leader of the human gene project being creationists. If there's some convinced hardcore Nazi who somehow finds their passion in some advanced mathematical studies everyone agrees are super useful, should they get funding? I think, of course. Should they get funding for human genetics research? Probably not. Although on the other hand, should Francis Crick, discoverer of the DNA get funding for human genetics research? Probably, even though he's said some controversial stuff too. So it's muddy. But about teaching. On one hand, I'm considering a part of this might be specific to the human sciences and proto-sciences, where it's much harder to see what is the truth than in physics. So the situation in linguistics is, I believe the Chomskian approach is bad, but it is an evident fact a lot of extremely intelligent people who've read a lot of relevant literature think it's the greatest. In my view, although sometimes people from my camp, and often people from the Chomskian camp, act as if the other side was easily dismissed, this is not the case: it's not perfectly obvious which side is right at this moment, and a reasonable person can sympathize with either side. In something like physics or biology, it's very hard for a reasonable person to believe the earth is 6000 years old or humans are anything but apes. But even there, you have people who believe in superstring theory and those who don't, and from what I can tell, you have a lot of very intelligent people on either side. So again, my point is, if you're being honest, you have to admit there are aeras of genuine controversy. Is there a rich biological substrate for language learning, or is it mainly general pattern recognition? Is language underlyingly symbolic and logical, or stochastic and associative? In psychology and cognitive neuroscience, the situation is very similar - is there really one coherent entity at the bottom of intelligence, or is it inherently multi-facetted? Is the "negative" part of the dopamine signal of causal importance in learning? Is a periodic gamma oscillation underlying memory and binding, or is it just frequent firing fooling your FFTs? Reasonable people on either side of the debate. Ok, but then, we're talking about biology, and there are aspects of biology where I know the situation to be just the same. Specifically, behavioral genetics. Some will say genes are the most important determiner of adult intelligence. Others say this conclusion is premature. So I think in science, we're surrounded by people who 1. vehemently disagree with each other, 2. still should be able to understand that this disagreement is disagreement between two equally rational actors. This puts you in the awkward spot you note: that I am perfectly convinced of X, but I know you are convinced of Y, and I do not think you're stupid or underinformed. So how do we deal with that? I would say, usually, badly. But if you are one of those people who can balance out their own certainty with an appreciation for those reasonable people who disagree, I think that makes you if at all more qualified to teach than less. (I want to say, I typed this up rather quickly and didn't think through all implications. Maybe there is something stupid in there.)
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# ? May 26, 2017 19:00 |
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Cingulate posted:This puts you in the awkward spot you note: that I am perfectly convinced of X, but I know you are convinced of Y, and I do not think you're stupid or underinformed. So how do we deal with that? Cingulate posted:I personally think Chomskian linguistics is insane Cingulate posted:it's not perfectly obvious which side is right at this moment, and a reasonable person can sympathize with either side.
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# ? May 26, 2017 19:30 |
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So just to get this clear, you are saying that in general, if I believe X and I see a person who believes not-X, then it is natural and the only reasonable response is to either stop believing in X, or assuming the other person is unreasonable, or something in between?
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# ? May 26, 2017 21:11 |
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Cingulate posted:So just to get this clear, you are saying that in general, if I believe X and I see a person who believes not-X, then it is natural and the only reasonable response is to either stop believing in X, or assuming the other person is unreasonable, or something in between? Cingulate posted:I am perfectly convinced of X
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# ? May 26, 2017 21:20 |
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twodot posted:You seem really bad at ...
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# ? May 26, 2017 21:46 |
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Cingulate posted:So just to get this clear, you are saying that in general, if I believe X and I see a person who believes not-X, then it is natural and the only reasonable response is to either stop believing in X, or assuming the other person is unreasonable, or something in between?
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# ? May 26, 2017 21:49 |
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twodot posted:No I'm not saying this. This would be, in general, utterly absurd behavior. I would attempt to clarify for you, but at no point have I ever posted about or replied to anything about people who merely believe a thing, so I can't possibly imagine why you would even think to ask me this question. So still, feel free to clarify what you meant, because it seems I didn't quite catch you.
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# ? May 26, 2017 22:28 |
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Cingulate posted:Yeah why do you have to make this personal all of a sudden? I asked you a question because I wanted to make sure I got what you were saying. If I'm misreading you, that's an opportunity to clarify it to me. How are people supposed to have a conversation if they can't disagree with you?
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# ? May 26, 2017 22:42 |
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Cingulate posted:Ok, I think this has gotten me a bit closer to getting RasperFat's point. I will admit that teaching and research are two different beasts, and research should be open regardless of religious leaning. Some of the best scientists, historically and currently, are religious or even creationist. However, our educational system is currently under attack by RW Christians who have politicized basic science and are actively trying to infiltrate and subvert our institutes of learning. We need to take steps to ensure that teachers aren't creating an environment of doubt things like evolution and climate change which Evangelicals have been doing for decades now. The difference between a creationist and Young Earth Creationist again needs to be noted, because one is plausible and one is batshit crazy. The equivalent in linguistics might be someone who holds the belief that modern American English is God's chosen language and all other languages are demon tongues that are Satan's temptation. Sure they could get a doctorate in linguistics and have intimate knowledge of the field, but would you trust them to impartially teach an entire class of students? We should start teaching our students (and teachers) to be better at disagreeing with others, but that's a tall order to put on just teachers. I think there's a strong cultural influence as well as individual personality in how people deal with opposition whether they are in the right or wrong or somewhere in the middle. And speaking of the middle it's a problematic framing with our current physical science fields. When there are disagreements within String Theory, it's generally being unsure of the exact mechanism of quantum mechanics. It's a question of "Do quarks act like this because of an extra dimension, an undiscovered force, undiscovered/unproved particle, or a different answer we can't see yet?". There's wide areas of interpretation, but the foundation they are based on is not changing. The periodic table is mapped the same and protons still have a positive charge and electrons still have a negative charge and neutrons are still neutral. We can make exciting discoveries but what we know right now that you'll learn in any undergrad or lower class is pretty set in stone at this point. Any "big" changes in any field have to explain all the evidence and previous experiments, making it increasingly difficult to have massive paradigm shifts like we had throughout the Enlightenment when modern science was being established.
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# ? May 27, 2017 05:00 |
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RasperFat posted:The difference between a creationist and Young Earth Creationist again needs to be noted, because one is plausible and one is batshit crazy. The equivalent in linguistics might be someone who holds the belief that modern American English is God's chosen language and all other languages are demon tongues that are Satan's temptation. Sure they could get a doctorate in linguistics and have intimate knowledge of the field, but would you trust them to impartially teach an entire class of students? Tell me if you think this one works for you: you and I agree the YEC believer is unlikely to be able to explain physics and biology well. However, it's likely a few YEC believers can. Not being able to explain them rules out a teaching job. Propagandizing YEC beliefs in the classroom also rules out a teaching job. The question is, how suspicious should we be of the (probably already rare case of the) YEC believer who explains they intend to stick to the curriculum? (Because we both agree there is a chance they'll defect.) I say, not that much - just evaluate and supervise them about the same as you'd evaluate everyone else. You say, very - chances they'll actually do that are so low, we may as well not waste our time. RasperFat posted:And speaking of the middle it's a problematic framing with our current physical science fields. When there are disagreements within String Theory, it's generally being unsure of the exact mechanism of quantum mechanics. It's a question of "Do quarks act like this because of an extra dimension, an undiscovered force, undiscovered/unproved particle, or a different answer we can't see yet?". There's wide areas of interpretation, but the foundation they are based on is not changing. The periodic table is mapped the same and protons still have a positive charge and electrons still have a negative charge and neutrons are still neutral. RasperFat posted:We can make exciting discoveries but what we know right now that you'll learn in any undergrad or lower class is pretty set in stone at this point. Any "big" changes in any field have to explain all the evidence and previous experiments, making it increasingly difficult to have massive paradigm shifts like we had throughout the Enlightenment when modern science was being established. (I will have to say, I assume it would be extremely hard for a YEC believer to pass the test, given how crucial evolution is for biology past middle school. But physics?) Lastly, here's a pragmatic point. Clearly, we should not force people to disclose their religious beliefs, on obvious grounds. It should be illegal for the government to ask people what they believe on some religious issue (I don't know if it is, but it should be). What you can ask is, "what is the scientific consensus regarding the age of the earth?" I.e., not questions about personal opinions, but about measurable facts. On the other hand, if a YEC believer on their own choosing discloses all of that stuff during the interview process, we might be skeptical if they'll be able to stick to the curriculum in the actual teaching context; I think the burden of proof should be on them. So maybe on this issue, you and I would not find actual reason to disagree on the situations that'd actually come up. However, I don't think the potential (govt.) employer should be able to do, e.g., reading your facebook page to see what church you go to, and discriminate against you in your science teacher application if your pastor is a raving lunatic, and I assume you agree with me on this one. Who What Now posted:How are people supposed to have a conversation if they can't disagree with you?
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# ? May 27, 2017 15:57 |
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Cingulate posted:I did not demand people stop disagreeing with me ..? No, but the very second somebody said that you're having trouble understanding something you started whining and ignored the entire rest of their post. How is that conducive to discussion, especially when you already know that you have problems with communicating and understanding with people? You should be looking at those comments as opportunities to better yourself, not to shut down conversation.
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# ? May 27, 2017 16:56 |
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Cingulate posted:Well, I wouldn't trust them blindly, but I wouldn't trust anyone blindly - I'd test them and supervise them. If the YEC believer can give a good trial lecture, I'll be surprised, but also willing to hire them. (I actually don't know how teachers are hired - I know professors have to give example lectures, but they're not on the stuff they'll end up teaching ...) If 1 year later their students score proportionally on their biology exams, then I don't see how the teacher's crazy private beliefs should be held against them. If a committed Science Fan could rant for 2 hours about the fallacies of the Bible and how Mohammed was a pedo, but failed to explain planetary formation, I'd take the YEC creationist who can explain it over them. I agree that a religious test is not the answer, for obvious reasons both historically and constitutionally. A test including things like the age of the universe and the validity of evolution is probably the right way to go because those are fact based questions. Physics makes YEC have to work in crazy poo poo because we can see stars that are millions of light years away, meaning accepting basic things like the speed of light have to be retconned for a universe only thousands of years old, like claiming God sent the beams of light ahead magically only making it appear as though the light was traveling for millions of years to reach us. The changes I'm looking for in education isn't having strictly atheist teachers, it's sidelining the increasingly common evangelist influence in our education system. No more "just a theory" monologues in high school biology when evolution is taught. No more letting over zealous reactionists choose curriculums and textbooks. Less exemptions for "charter schools" that are just extensions of a church. No more capitulating to "free speech" and "religious freedom" arguments for when people want to teach falsehoods and spread dogma using our government funded schools. I want to give people the benefit of the doubt, and should a YEC be an effective teacher of science they should be given a chance. But there is a coordinated attack from conservatives right now. They are colluding to push Evangelical views in our classrooms and want to delegitimize science. We need to take proactive measures to make sure America doesn't fall behind in science education.
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# ? May 28, 2017 07:43 |
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RasperFat posted:The changes I'm looking for in education isn't having strictly atheist teachers, it's sidelining the increasingly common evangelist influence in our education system. No more "just a theory" monologues in high school biology when evolution is taught. No more letting over zealous reactionists choose curriculums and textbooks. ... Of course, it is likely that most YEC believers will be unwilling and incapable of teaching such a curriculum, and setting the curriculum to something decent is a fight in itself. But I'd speculate you could actually use religious freedom for the good side here: you can argue science classes should not impinge upon the religious freedom of atheists, Hindus and Buddhists (who don't believe the earth is 6000 years old), but should reflect the neutral position of science (which is in principle, so the YEC believer will have to agree, distinct from the position of atheism, and thus atheists should be protected by religious freedom laws). RasperFat posted:We need to take proactive measures to make sure America doesn't fall behind in science education. Who What Now posted:No, but the very second somebody said that you're having trouble understanding something you started whining and ignored the entire rest of their post. How is that conducive to discussion, especially when you already know that you have problems with communicating and understanding with people? You should be looking at those comments as opportunities to better yourself, not to shut down conversation. I could try to learn from personal attacks. In this case, I choose not to. However, I am excited to learn how you are going to take me criticizing your personality as an opportunity to better yourself.
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# ? May 28, 2017 10:01 |
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Cingulate posted:I don't think I've ever seen you engaged in a civil discussion like the one between RasperFat and I right now, so I can understand how you'd be confused about what went down here: twodot went personal, I complained and offered twodot to get back on track, back to the actual discussion. In contrast, you I can't remember ever engaging in anything but zingers with the goal of discrediting some person. Rasperfat went personal because there is a personal issue that was/is getting in the way of having a productive discussion. It's impossible to, and indeed unproductive to try to, have a completely impersonal conversation because that's not how real conversations work. We are a personal, social species, and it's important to clear and meaningful communication to remember that.
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# ? May 28, 2017 17:02 |
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Who What Now posted:Rasperfat went personal because there is a personal issue that was/is getting in the way of having a productive discussion. It's impossible to, and indeed unproductive to try to, have a completely impersonal conversation because that's not how real conversations work. We are a personal, social species, and it's important to clear and meaningful communication to remember that.
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# ? May 28, 2017 17:50 |
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Hostility is three quarters of the fun in Internet debates. EDIT: you utter idiot.
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# ? May 28, 2017 18:02 |
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Yes, but there's more to life than fun, and hostility is extremely bad for what I think usually oughta be the primary goal of a debate, ie, afterwards everyone being somewhat less misinformed and confused about the other. There are situations where anger is good. Maybe even insults, I am not sure. But a debate about religion is not such a situation. I guess if your goal here is to have as much hostile fun as possible, then I can't say you're wrong, but I'd appreciate if you said so so I don't try to engage in some other way with you. I think basic respect for universal human dignity demands you don't have your hostile fun with anybody regardless of if they're up for it. You son (/daughter/other) of a syphillic whore's mare's uterine cancer.
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# ? May 28, 2017 18:10 |
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Cingulate posted:Rasperfat didn't get personal. Rasperfat embraced the possibility for a non-hostile debate, which I am sure you noticed has been happening in parallel to the thing you did. "I mistyped! I meant twodot!" I know. But the important lesson for you here is that it is indeed possible to have non-hostile debates. I hope you are able to appreciate that a perfectly non-hostile debate has been happening around you. I am in no way being hostile to you right now. Edit: Cingulate posted:There are situations where anger is good. Maybe even insults, I am not sure. But a debate about religion is not such a situation. Anger and insults fit perfectly well into debates about religion. Are you familiar with Martin Luther?
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# ? May 28, 2017 18:44 |
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Cingulate posted:Then it seems we're not in disagreement: your concerns seem to be about the curriculum, not about the ideology of the teacher. I agree the curriculum should be consensus science, and teachers who stray from that because they want to teach their own personal favourite stories should be treated the same regardless of of their reasons for doing so. I think you not having experienced the American education system has created a rift to understanding why I'm so wary of YEC trying to game the system. I went to school in Southern California and Long Island, New York and there were discrepancies in my science teaching even in well funded suburban schools. In both states I was presented materials that cast doubt on climate change and evolution. If that was my experience in more progressive areas with good schools, imagine learning in a deep red state, a rural area, or an underfunded inner city school. My concern for America remaining a leader in science isn't about competitive advantage, it's about the negative consequences in both our local community and global community. America is the richest and one of the best educated countries, if we aren't a leader in scientific research it means we are squandering our resources. It means delays in finding cures, developing new sources of energy/energy storage, new types of transportation, etc. Science research is one of the best long term investments for our entire species, without it we wouldn't even be able to feed our current population levels. America trending anti-science and anti-environmentalism is a bad thing for everybody, especially with the coming man-made climate change.
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# ? May 29, 2017 06:03 |
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Cingulate posted:Rasperfat didn't get personal. Rasperfat embraced the possibility for a non-hostile debate, which I am sure you noticed has been happening in parallel to the thing you did. "I mistyped! I meant twodot!" I know. But the important lesson for you here is that it is indeed possible to have non-hostile debates. I hope you are able to appreciate that a perfectly non-hostile debate has been happening around you. Just put the guy who has spent10,000 dollars on 40K will be a troll, and is a huge rear end in a top hat, and put him on ignore.
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# ? May 29, 2017 06:27 |
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Crowsbeak posted:Just put the guy who has spent10,000 dollars on 40K will be a troll, What?
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# ? May 29, 2017 14:32 |
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RasperFat posted:My concern for America remaining a leader in science isn't about competitive advantage, it's about the negative consequences in both our local community and global community. America is the richest and one of the best educated countries, if we aren't a leader in scientific research it means we are squandering our resources. It means delays in finding cures, developing new sources of energy/energy storage, new types of transportation, etc. Science research is one of the best long term investments for our entire species, without it we wouldn't even be able to feed our current population levels. America trending anti-science and anti-environmentalism is a bad thing for everybody, especially with the coming man-made climate change. This has already happened. Already entire segments of our research community are occupied foreigners who are attracted to research at American universities and American citizenships. This was 70% of the makeup of my last research lab. Research in American universities is already propped up by foreigners and this will last only as long as the above remains attractive. The next person who claims that the religious community doesn’t promote anti-intellectualism needs to go out of their way and defend the poo poo I saw when I went to one of those rural Baptist schools.
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# ? May 29, 2017 14:41 |
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Who What Now posted:What? Sounds like he's jealous someone has a hobby or something.
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# ? May 29, 2017 15:08 |
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rkajdi posted:Sounds like he's jealous someone has a hobby or something. Sounds like somebody is drunkposting again, more like.
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# ? May 29, 2017 15:11 |
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Dead Cosmonaut posted:This has already happened. Already entire segments of our research community are occupied foreigners who are attracted to research at American universities and American citizenships. This was 70% of the makeup of my last research lab. Research in American universities is already propped up by foreigners and this will last only as long as the above remains attractive. RasperFat posted:I think you not having experienced the American education system has created a rift to understanding why I'm so wary of YEC trying to game the system. I went to school in Southern California and Long Island, New York and there were discrepancies in my science teaching even in well funded suburban schools. In both states I was presented materials that cast doubt on climate change and evolution. If that was my experience in more progressive areas with good schools, imagine learning in a deep red state, a rural area, or an underfunded inner city school. RasperFat posted:My concern for America remaining a leader in science isn't about competitive advantage, it's about the negative consequences in both our local community and global community. America is the richest and one of the best educated countries, if we aren't a leader in scientific research it means we are squandering our resources. It means delays in finding cures, developing new sources of energy/energy storage, new types of transportation, etc. Science research is one of the best long term investments for our entire species, without it we wouldn't even be able to feed our current population levels. America trending anti-science and anti-environmentalism is a bad thing for everybody, especially with the coming man-made climate change.
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# ? May 29, 2017 17:24 |
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Dead Cosmonaut posted:This has already happened. Already entire segments of our research community are occupied foreigners who are attracted to research at American universities and American citizenships. This was 70% of the makeup of my last research lab. Research in American universities is already propped up by foreigners and this will last only as long as the above remains attractive. Exactly. This is a large scale problem that's been unaddressed for many years already. Our universities are still chugging along because of the strong system that's still partially in tact but the right wing's dismantling has already been crippling. Cingulate posted:I'm reasonably aware of that. It's unambiguously awful that you have, partially successful, attempts to "teach the controversy" etc. The curriculum should be unassailable - Intelligent Design belongs in anthropology lectures, not biology classes. The "teach the controversy" has been more than partially successful. About 40% of Americans believe that humans were created by God in their present form. 32% don't believe humans are a driving force behind climate change. They are technically a minority, but they are an incredibly loud one. Their continuous efforts to subvert our education are a keystone to the success of Evangelical's influence on national narratives. Also it would be fine and expected that China will overtake the U.S. on everything, they have three times as many people. But Japan and especially Sweden are tiny in comparison to America. If the U.S. is behind them then we have seriously hosed up our education system. If we don't stop the religious zealot's attacks on our school and government we might get to that point though.
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# ? May 30, 2017 20:20 |
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Cingulate posted:I think this is a lot like the "is Islam a religion of peace/violence" thing. Is ISIS violent, and is ISIS in some sense Muslim? Yes. Is islam violent? Well, most of us wouldn't comfortably say yes. And I think we can apply the same standard here. Should, even. Let us be nuanced. Nah, I'm perfectly comfortable with saying that any religious person that votes Republican is a monster and their religion is monstrous.
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# ? May 30, 2017 21:14 |
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# ? May 13, 2024 09:30 |
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biracial bear for uncut posted:Nah, I'm perfectly comfortable with saying that any religious person that votes Republican is a monster and their religion is monstrous. That's not entirely fair because voting Republican is monstrous independent of religious beliefs. There's plenty of atheist asshat libertarians that vote straight ticket R in full FYGM fashion. If your faith is an influencing factor in voting Republican though, than you are either incredibly ignorant or your religious interpretations are indeed monstrous.
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# ? May 31, 2017 22:25 |