Home Politics & Debate
If you need urgent support, call 999 or go to your nearest A&E. To contact our Crisis Messenger (open 24/7) text THEMIX to 85258.

Freedom of speech?

13»

Comments

  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    sure - by dogmatic atheism i mean the refusal to accept the possibility of anything spiritual or non-physical, usually based on the assumption that it can't be measured using a scientific approach.....science is useful for making sense of the material world but it has its limits, for example theoretical physicists are reinventing it every other day to correct previous flaws in their logic when something like quantum entanglement slaps them in the face. every 1000 years we seem to change our mind about whether the earth is flat or the sun revolves around the earth, and then hang everyone who disagrees with contemporary wisdom, so to work on a premise that science is infallible enough to invalidate anything beyond our current perception, in the process ignoring thousands of years of metaphysical knowledge and teachings that most religions have in common, is pretty daft and hugely egotistical.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    sure - by dogmatic atheism i mean the refusal to accept the possibility of anything spiritual or non-physical, usually based on the assumption that it can't be measured using a scientific approach.....science is useful for making sense of the material world but it has its limits, for example theoretical physicists are reinventing it every other day to correct previous flaws in their logic when something like quantum entanglement slaps them in the face. every 1000 years we seem to change our mind about whether the earth is flat or the sun revolves around the earth, and then hang everyone who disagrees with contemporary wisdom, so to work on a premise that science is infallible enough to invalidate anything beyond our current perception, in the process ignoring thousands of years of metaphysical knowledge and teachings that most religions have in common, is pretty daft and hugely egotistical.
    Apologies in advance for curtness, I do tend to get carried away.

    I'd prefer the term 'fervent atheist' rather than 'dogmatic atheist'. I think using the term 'dogmatic' infers tenets and doctrine, especially in this context. I guess I'm side-stepping a little into semantics, but I'm always suspicious of deliberately dishonest connections drawn between atheism and theism in order to equate them; a good example of such a comparison is the term 'fundamentalist atheist', which will always get a rise from me. :D

    I don't refuse to accept spiritual claims per se, and have never met an atheist who does; present me with compelling and sound evidence about any topic and I?ll be all but helpless to do anything other than believe.

    Just because science - by its very nature - is constantly evolving, correcting and re-correcting itself, doesn't mean that it's not sensible to concur with its conclusions. For you to say that science deals with the physical and, by design, can't deal with extra-physical claims requires you to demonstrate that the extra-physical exists. Otherwise it's make-shit-up-as-you-go-along-time, which is fine, as long as you don't expect anybody else to get on board with the things you're making up.

    I'm unaware of the cyclical nature of Flat Earth Theory, but if there have been a number of flip-flops between flat and spherical earth belief, I bet you it never flips (or flops) again.

    I'm not ignoring religion (it would be rather difficult, even if one wanted to) but I question its helpfulness and necessity in a modern society.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    well if your agnostic that's a different story, by definition a strict belief in atheism is dogmatic because it is an inflexible view or system of ideas with unprovable assertions.....i concur with science on a lot of things but i don't look to it for answers to the spiritual because it's not capable. you want proof but that can only be found through direct experience, it's very personal and subjective and i wouldn't try to convince anyone that one way is right or better than another. that's where a lot of religions go wrong, the buddhist philosophy is probably wiser than most and does not try to convert or convince you.

    problem is atheists want compelling and sound evidence, but if you sit there twiddling your thumbs you can't expect spiritual enlightenment to come and find you. that's more of a general statement as i don't know you or your history so don't take it personally, i just know a lot of lazy atheists that are waiting to see on the news or read in a paper that someone found god with a big telescope.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    well if your agnostic that's a different story, by definition a strict belief in atheism is dogmatic because it is an inflexible view or system of ideas with unprovable assertions.....i concur with science on a lot of things but i don't look to it for answers to the spiritual because it's not capable. you want proof but that can only be found through direct experience, it's very personal and subjective and i wouldn't try to convince anyone that one way is right or better than another. that's where a lot of religions go wrong, the buddhist philosophy is probably wiser than most and does not try to convert or convince you.

    problem is atheists want compelling and sound evidence, but if you sit there twiddling your thumbs you can't expect spiritual enlightenment to come and find you. that's more of a general statement as i don't know you or your history so don't take it personally, i just know a lot of lazy atheists that are waiting to see on the news or read in a paper that someone found god with a big telescope.

    Again, apologies in advance for any curtness.

    Agnosticism doesn’t interest me; every rational person understands that to know of God’s existence or non-existence is impossible and unprovable. And without diving into silly 6th form college philosophy, absolute proof is pretty much exclusively the remit of mathematics, and even there you can argue over it. I think, in its purest sense, we’re all agnostic and that people often use the agnostic label as a lazy copout from discussion. I’m an agnostic atheist; I don’t know there’s no God, but I lack a belief in one. I’d probably go a step further - perhaps many atheists wouldn’t - and say that I actively believe there is no God or gods.

    We’ve gone off the original topic of free speech and I think we should try and bring things a little bit back on track. The atheists I’ve met simply demand the same standard of evidence for supernatural claims as they do any other. If I’m to get on board with an economic policy, a political philosophy or even to be brought round to share an opposing opinion about a book, then I require convincing. The reason, I think, that people are so ready to cry ‘offence’ or ‘insult’ when criticising religious belief – and it may be firm, strongly worded criticism – is because it’s easier to do that than admit that some of the shit a religious sect adheres to is at best, bonkers, and at worst superlatively immoral – let alone completely unprovable. To try shoehorn this back onto free speech: I’m happy enough to have someone tell me that I’m going to burn in eternal hell-fire because I can’t believe the kooky shit that they do, but you have to grant me the same privilege of telling them they’re bat-shit insane, back. I don’t give special dispensation to religious people or religion when doling out criticism, though they often seem to want it.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    every rational person understands that to know of God?s existence or non-existence is impossible and unprovable. And without diving into silly 6th form college philosophy, absolute proof is pretty much exclusively the remit of mathematics, and even there you can argue over it.

    So as per my original point, we agree that maths and science can never prove / disprove the existence of God or spirituality, because they are limited constructs that only apply to material / physical realities.
    We?ve gone off the original topic of free speech and I think we should try and bring things a little bit back on track.

    Lol damnit I'm exercising my right to free speech! :p
    I think, that people are so ready to cry ?offence? or ?insult? when criticising religious belief ? and it may be firm, strongly worded criticism ? is because it?s easier to do that than admit that some of the shit a religious sect adheres to is at best, bonkers, and at worst superlatively immoral ? let alone completely unprovable. To try shoehorn this back onto free speech: I?m happy enough to have someone tell me that I?m going to burn in eternal hell-fire because I can?t believe the kooky shit that they do, but you have to grant me the same privilege of telling them they?re bat-shit insane, back.

    I think you're correct that a lot of religious interpretations are flawed, but it's an easy excuse for people to dismiss religion outright because they've been told they're going to hell by some nut on the street.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    So as per my original point, we agree that maths and science can never prove / disprove the existence of God or spirituality, because they are limited constructs that only apply to material / physical realities.


    Science will never be able to unequivocally prove or disprove God, however, a lot of what we’ve learnt through science has completely removed God from the explanation of countless phenomena; Gods that once lived in the clouds, walked on Earth, performed miracles and sank ships, are either completely defunct or reduced to hiding in knowledge gaps and inhabiting special invisible worlds which can’t be seen and for which no one has the smallest jot of credible evidence. I look at it like this: just because something can’t be proved or disproved – and that’s most things if you are absolutist about it – doesn’t mean that it’s reasonable to believe one way. You can’t prove that there aren’t invisible, magical toe monsters living in the eighth dimension under my foreskin, but it’d be totally loopy to believe that they were. You can’t prove that L. Ron Hubbard wasn’t in fact telling the truth about all the kooky Scientology shit, but you’d be even fruiter to believe that than in the magical bell-end monsters.

    I think you're correct that a lot of religious interpretations are flawed, but it's an easy excuse for people to dismiss religion outright because they've been told they're going to hell by some nut on the street.


    There are lists of reasons why I dismiss religion; the fact religion smacks of the most egregious wish-thinking going or that it’s so patently anthropomorphic are just two of the biggest deal breakers for me. I won’t go into the endless catalogue of insane things you have to belief in order to think that any of the main religions are even half-way right.


    My point about free speech is, far from giving religion special dispensation, we should be free to criticise and ridicule as much as we like in a public forum. I don’t mind being told I’m going to burn in hell-fire because I’m a Godless heathen, or that I lack any morality because I don’t take my moral cues for archaic texts, (or that abortion is immoral, or that I can’t work on certain days, or that I can’t fuck in certain positions, or that i only can’t fuck certain people, or that i can’t eat certain things, or that i must pray facing a particular way, or that i must drink in a certain manner) I just request the same right to be able to call bullshit when I see it. Religion by its very nature is intent on casting judgement and meddling in people’s lives, I want to be extended the same courtesy to tell it to fuck right off and stop being a dick.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    There are lists of reasons why I dismiss religion; the fact religion smacks of the most egregious wish-thinking going or that it’s so patently anthropomorphic are just two of the biggest deal breakers for me. I won’t go into the endless catalogue of insane things you have to belief in order to think that any of the main religions are even half-way right.


    My point about free speech is, far from giving religion special dispensation, we should be free to criticise and ridicule as much as we like in a public forum. I don’t mind being told I’m going to burn in hell-fire because I’m a Godless heathen, or that I lack any morality because I don’t take my moral cues for archaic texts, (or that abortion is immoral, or that I can’t work on certain days, or that I can’t fuck in certain positions, or that i only can’t fuck certain people, or that i can’t eat certain things, or that i must pray facing a particular way, or that i must drink in a certain manner) I just request the same right to be able to call bullshit when I see it. Religion by its very nature is intent on casting judgement and meddling in people’s lives, I want to be extended the same courtesy to tell it to fuck right off and stop being a dick.

    To believe or explore the spiritual does not require that you accept the literal interpretation of any religious text as fact, you use it to help give you a context for your own direct experience with Spirit. All the judgement and meddling that has distorted most religions over time is due to man's tendency to exert control and power over each other, religion is just a convenient pretext....that's why reincarnation was removed from the Bible for example, to prey on people's fear of mortality.

    You should always question and criticise orthodox religious dogmas because they are misinterpretations of the underlying metaphysical truth, which happens when the subtle experiential elements at the roots of most religious faiths are forgotten over time.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    To believe or explore the spiritual does not require that you accept the literal interpretation of any religious text as fact, you use it to help give you a context for your own direct experience with Spirit. All the judgement and meddling that has distorted most religions over time is due to man's tendency to exert control and power over each other, religion is just a convenient pretext....that's why reincarnation was removed from the Bible for example, to prey on people's fear of mortality.

    You should always question and criticise orthodox religious dogmas because they are misinterpretations of the underlying metaphysical truth, which happens when the subtle experiential elements at the roots of most religious faiths are forgotten over time.

    I think we have fundamentally different views of religion; I don't see it as a bastardisation of an original, underlying, ethereal truth. I see religion and deities, broadly speaking, as a our first - and worst - explanation of our origin, with a healthy dollop of control, wish-thinking and tribalism on the side. I see spirituality, in the sense of souls and extra-physical phenomena, as what happens when someone is forced to retreat from the patently absurd claims of religion and into the airy-fairy realm of magic hiding in our explanation gaps.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    I don’t mind being told I’m going to burn in hell-fire because I’m a Godless heathen, or that I lack any morality because I don’t take my moral cues for archaic texts, (or that abortion is immoral, or that I can’t work on certain days, or that I can’t fuck in certain positions, or that i only can’t fuck certain people, or that i can’t eat certain things, or that i must pray facing a particular way, or that i must drink in a certain manner) I just request the same right to be able to call bullshit when I see it. Religion by its very nature is intent on casting judgement and meddling in people’s lives, I want to be extended the same courtesy to tell it to fuck right off and stop being a dick.

    While I differentiate completely between (organised) religion and what is literally in an archaic text, it seems to me that you are discriminating in your desire to instruct, as you see it, meddlars in your life to fuck right off.

    If you have obtained a driver's licence, for example, you have by signing that contract agreed to EVERY one of the thousands of statutory clauses.

    Take the latest Income Tax statute as another example. There are more rules in that one act than there are statutes in the entire Old Testament. You do not seem to have the same agression directed to that meddling.

    Perhaps I have misunderstood your posts, and your anger is directed at preachers and their interpretation of the said texts rather than the texts themselves ?
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    The fact of the matter is... humanity is wrapped up in myths... myths that we HAVE to believe certain ways of life cos it makes us feel safe to have an inner circle... instead, we should focus on our own situations. our own personal experiences and accounts... and do away with the ego that is the ever too common factor in most of our opinions. everyone has to life their own life... and most of the time, we point out things in others that are things we need to heal in ourselves. we should all be free to speak our minds, but the things we speak should reflect our true inner being... all that is good and divine... and not personal attacks on others...

    hmm... the ways of the world... thought process is so warped.
Sign In or Register to comment.