Which is worse : Ebola or Religion ?

[mistermack]

What's so dangerous about religion, is the way it controls the minds of sufferers.

It takes over, and compels them to infect their children from an early age, and to strive to ensure that they remain infected.

If Ebola or Smallpox did that, the population would crash. So religion is more of a parasite than a killer. It infects the host, but keeps it alive to feed off it.

[pErvinalia]

You're making up fallacies now? Ok.

Hell, rEv, I created the Wayback Machine fallacy more than ten years ago as I recall, after people of your ilk on RDF kept trying to disparage modern-day religion by dragging out two-thousand year old examples of bad behavior as a lame attempt to win anti-theist points.

Like I said, you are making up fallacies.

And it's not a fallacy anyway, as the text of religious books has been used for centuries to justify evil deeds. You can't on one hand claim that religion is a guiding moral light, and ignore on the other hand what has been done in the name of religion in the past (and is still being done in the name of religion today; thankfully to a lesser degree due to the good work of secularists).

[Seth]

What's so dangerous about religion, is the way it controls the minds of sufferers.

It takes over, and compels them to infect their children from an early age, and to strive to ensure that they remain infected.

If Ebola or Smallpox did that, the population would crash. So religion is more of a parasite than a killer. It infects the host, but keeps it alive to feed off it.

Parasite? Like the gut bacteria that help you digest food, regulate blood sugar, trigger hormone responses and stuff like that? I think it's called a "symbiont" not a "parasite."

[Seth]

You're making up fallacies now? Ok.

Hell, rEv, I created the Wayback Machine fallacy more than ten years ago as I recall, after people of your ilk on RDF kept trying to disparage modern-day religion by dragging out two-thousand year old examples of bad behavior as a lame attempt to win anti-theist points.

Like I said, you are making up fallacies.

And it's not a fallacy anyway, as the text of religious books has been used for centuries to justify evil deeds. You can't on one hand claim that religion is a guiding moral light, and ignore on the other hand what has been done in the name of religion in the past (and is still being done in the name of religion today; thankfully to a lesser degree due to the good work of secularists).

Yes, I can. That was then, this is now. If you want to join Mr. Peabody and Sherman, go right ahead, but no one alive today is culpable or responsible for anything done by someone else, particularly not people who have been dead for a thousand years. You may logically criticize those in the past who did bad things, but there is no "blood libel" attached to being part of a religion that today does none of the things you claim.

That's why your argument is a fallacy, and I named it the "Wayback Machine fallacy" because it aptly describes exactly the logical fallacy you are committing.

P1: Catholic religious authorities in Spain tortured and killed people during the Inquisition
P2: Catholicism still exists today
C1: Catholics today are responsible for the actions of Spanish prelates 1500 years ago

Sorry, does not follow.

[pErvinalia]

You are the king of strawmen, aren't you? That's not my argument. My argument is as I stated. Your claim that religion is a moral force for good is clearly disproven as religion has been used for evil repeatedly. And as you chose to ignore: it still is today. What you are actually saying is that reasonable people are mostly good moral agents. And most people would agree with that. It's got nothing to do with religion, it's got to do with reasonable people who can tell right from wrong.

[Seth]

You are the king of strawmen, aren't you? That's not my argument. My argument is as I stated. Your claim that religion is a moral force for good is clearly disproven as religion has been used for evil repeatedly. And as you chose to ignore: it still is today. What you are actually saying is that reasonable people are mostly good moral agents. And most people would agree with that. It's got nothing to do with religion, it's got to do with reasonable people who can tell right from wrong.

The fact that religion has been used by some as an excuse for committing evil deeds does not mean that all or any religion is inherently evil. You are stating the fallacy of composition:

The fallacy of Composition is committed when a conclusion is drawn about a whole based on the features of its constituents when, in fact, no justification provided for the inference. There are actually two types of this fallacy, both of which are known by the same name (because of the high degree of similarity).

The first type of fallacy of Composition arises when a person reasons from the characteristics of individual members of a class or group to a conclusion regarding the characteristics of the entire class or group (taken as a whole). More formally, the "reasoning" would look something like this.

Individual F things have characteristics A, B, C, etc.
Therefore, the (whole) class of F things has characteristics A, B, C, etc.

This line of reasoning is fallacious because the mere fact that individuals have certain characteristics does not, in itself, guarantee that the class (taken as a whole) has those characteristics.

It is important to note that drawing an inference about the characteristics of a class based on the characteristics of its individual members is not always fallacious. In some cases, sufficient justification can be provided to warrant the conclusion. For example, it is true that an individual rich person has more wealth than an individual poor person. In some nations (such as the US) it is true that the class of wealthy people has more wealth as a whole than does the class of poor people. In this case, the evidence used would warrant the inference and the fallacy of Composition would not be committed.

The second type of fallacy of Composition is committed when it is concluded that what is true of the parts of a whole must be true of the whole without there being adequate justification for the claim. More formally, the line of "reasoning" would be as follows:

The parts of the whole X have characteristics A, B, C, etc.
Therefore the whole X must have characteristics A, B, C.

That this sort of reasoning is fallacious because it cannot be inferred that simply because the parts of a complex whole have (or lack) certain properties that the whole that they are parts of has those properties. This is especially clear in math: The numbers 1 and 3 are both odd. 1 and 3 are parts of 4. Therefore, the number 4 is odd.

It must be noted that reasoning from the properties of the parts to the properties of the whole is not always fallacious. If there is justification for the inference from parts to whole, then the reasoning is not fallacious. For example, if every part of the human body is made of matter, then it would not be an error in reasoning to conclude that the whole human body is made of matter. Similiarly, if every part of a structure is made of brick, there is no fallacy comitted when one concludes that the whole structure is made of brick.
Examples of Composition

A main battle tank uses more fuel than a car. Therefore, the main battle tanks use up more of the available fuel in the world than do all the cars.

A tiger eats more food than a human being. Therefore, tigers, as a group, eat more food than do all the humans on the earth.

Atoms are colorless. Cats are made of atoms, so cats are colorless.

"Every player on the team is a superstar and a great player, so the team is a great team." This is fallacious since the superstars might not be able to play together very well and hence they could be a lousy team.

"Each part of the show, from the special effects to the acting is a masterpiece. So, the whole show is a masterpiece." This is fallacious since a show could have great acting, great special effects and such, yet still fail to "come together" to make a masterpiece.

"Come on, you like beef, potatoes, and green beens, so you will like this beef, potato, and green been casserole." This is fallacious for the same reason that the following is fallacious: "You like eggs, icecream, pizza, cake, fish, jello, chicken, taco sauce, soda, oranges, milk, egg rolls, and yogurt so you must like this yummy dish made out of all of them."

Sodium and Chloride are both dangerous to humans. Therefore any combination of sodium and chloride will be dangerous to humans.

[mistermack]

The reason why atheism is not in the same category as religion, when it comes to slaughtering those who think differently, is down to the fact that it's not a belief IN something.

When you believe IN something, whether it's communism, national socialism, or freedom for your country, or religion, it's something solid that unites people around a cause. Something worth fighting, or even dying for.

Atheism never got there. They are still trying hard to get people worked up about it, but nobody has ever succeeded.
It's because it's a negative. It doesn't have the pull of a positive belief.

Yes, a couple of communist regimes have pushed atheism. But that's mainly to do with rejection of any elite that seeks to control the masses, except the communist party. ( who in THEORY work for the masses, not the elite. )

They see religion as a rival for control, and of course, they are right.

[pErvinalia]

You are the king of strawmen, aren't you? That's not my argument. My argument is as I stated. Your claim that religion is a moral force for good is clearly disproven as religion has been used for evil repeatedly. And as you chose to ignore: it still is today. What you are actually saying is that reasonable people are mostly good moral agents. And most people would agree with that. It's got nothing to do with religion, it's got to do with reasonable people who can tell right from wrong.

The fact that religion has been used by some as an excuse for committing evil deeds does not mean that all or any religion is inherently evil. You are stating the fallacy of composition:

And you still can't fucking understand simple English. I never said that "all or any religion is inherently evil". Learn to fucking read.

[Seth]

The reason why atheism is not in the same category as religion, when it comes to slaughtering those who think differently, is down to the fact that it's not a belief IN something.

When you believe IN something, whether it's communism, national socialism, or freedom for your country, or religion, it's something solid that unites people around a cause. Something worth fighting, or even dying for.

Atheism never got there. They are still trying hard to get people worked up about it, but nobody has ever succeeded.
It's because it's a negative. It doesn't have the pull of a positive belief.

Yes, a couple of communist regimes have pushed atheism. But that's mainly to do with rejection of any elite that seeks to control the masses, except the communist party. ( who in THEORY work for the masses, not the elite. )

They see religion as a rival for control, and of course, they are right.

I disagree. This is why I distinguish between "atheism," which is a state of being wherein the individual "has no belief" about God-concepts, and Atheism, which is a religious belief in the denial of God-concepts. The usual justification of Atheists is that a "belief in something," in this case God-concepts, creates a social atmosphere that is conducive to groupthink dynamics of some sort, be it for good or ill. The implication in your statement is that atheistic nihilism is somehow intrinsically superior either morally or socially, to belief in something.

But I see no evidence that atheism is of any particular use or benefit over theism. Most Atheists make the a priori assumption that "reason" (which actually translates to anti-theistic nihilism in most cases) is morally, ethically or rationally superior to some other belief system. The problem is there is no real evidence that this is the case, and more than a little evidence that this purported "lack of belief" actually manifests itself routinely in active and often deadly or genocidal antipathy and hostility to theism or merely "religion," all the while ignoring the fact that the belief-practice set of Atheists is every bit as "religious" in its manifestation as that of any fundamentalist theist.

I'd like to see a critical argument supporting the idea that "atheism" is somehow inherently or even functionally superior to "theism" as a general principle, setting aside all the Wayback Machine arguments that can be made on either side. For every Crusade or Inquisition you can dredge up, I can dredge up a more recent example of how Atheists have used their "lack of belief" as a justification for horrific crimes against humanity. So I suggest we avoid that intractable conundrum and focus on why "atheism" is inherently better than (or worse than) "theism."

That might serve to move the debate beyond it's well-worn pedantic ruts on both sides.

[Seth]

You are the king of strawmen, aren't you? That's not my argument. My argument is as I stated. Your claim that religion is a moral force for good is clearly disproven as religion has been used for evil repeatedly. And as you chose to ignore: it still is today. What you are actually saying is that reasonable people are mostly good moral agents. And most people would agree with that. It's got nothing to do with religion, it's got to do with reasonable people who can tell right from wrong.

The fact that religion has been used by some as an excuse for committing evil deeds does not mean that all or any religion is inherently evil. You are stating the fallacy of composition:

And you still can't fucking understand simple English. I never said that "all or any religion is inherently evil". Learn to fucking read.

The implication is perfectly obvious and it's disingenuous of you to deny it. You never specific "some" or in any way qualify your rather rigid and rabid antipathy towards "religion," so it's not unreasonable to interpret your statements in that light.

[pErvinalia]

My statement is in the light of your absolutist bullshit. You just can't seem to understand basic arguments due to your rabid hate of atheists and socialists (actually anyone to the left of von Mises). Either that or you really are a troll.

[mistermack]

The essence of why Seth's argument is bollocks, in trying to equate atheism to religion, is distilled in the word ''belief''. That encapsulates the difference between religion, and atheism.

Religious people have a set of beliefs. As an atheist, I certainly don't.
I've made the point many times that I don't ''know'' anything. I don't believe anything.
I simply have an opinion, based on the evidence in front of me.

Most atheists who bother to think about the matter do likewise.
I don't ''believe'' that there is no god. I strongly suspect that there is no god.

And that's why atheism is not a religion. It's not a belief system.

Seth keeps making the juvenile mistake, of confusing a lack of belief, as a BELIEF in the opposite.
Like most religious people, he can't get his head around somebody not believing in SOMETHING.

For every Crusade or Inquisition you can dredge up, I can dredge up a more recent example of how Atheists have used their "lack of belief" as a justification for horrific crimes against humanity.

Dredge them up then. Let's have a look at them.

[Hermit]

I'd like to see a critical argument supporting the idea that "atheism" is somehow inherently or even functionally superior to "theism" as a general principle, setting aside all the Wayback Machine arguments that can be made on either side.

Modern atheism:




Modern theism:

[Seth]

My statement is in the light of your absolutist bullshit. You just can't seem to understand basic arguments due to your rabid hate of atheists and socialists (actually anyone to the left of von Mises). Either that or you really are a troll.

You already know I'm a troll and proud of it. And I understand the basic argument, I simply reject your claims as fallacious and irrational.

[Seth]

I'd like to see a critical argument supporting the idea that "atheism" is somehow inherently or even functionally superior to "theism" as a general principle, setting aside all the Wayback Machine arguments that can be made on either side.

Modern atheism:




Modern theism:

Fallacy of composition.