Because *science is power !

Do you realize how nonsensical it is that you belong to a group that is anti-group? Why should your anti-collective collective be exempt from its own principles? Life is a balance between the individual and the group. Individuals cannot survive without collectives and collectives cannot survive without individuals. You are pitting ying against yang.

Despite what your identity politics leads you to believe about yourself, you are a part of many collectives: libertarianism, anarchism, capitalism, anarcho capitalism, free marketism, conservatism, videosift, facebook, Free Talk Live, NAMBLA, Ron Paul fan club, the company you work for, Los Angeles, California, America, North America, Earth, the human race, your university, high school, middle school and primary school, your family, your circle of friends, the production crew for your film.....

You dirty collectivist pig!

The reason wealthy and powerful people push this kind of thinking is that individuals are much easier to control than groups. Individuals with wealth and power have little trouble subjugating other weaker, less powerful individuals, but when those individuals organize, they stand a fighting chance.

You should be wary of any ideology that defines itself as the official ideology of individualism, liberty, freedom or objectivity. Ideology should be about ideas, not platitudes.

In reply to this comment by blankfist:
Agree to staunchly disagree.

In reply to this comment by dystopianfuturetoday:
Everyone is individualist. Everyone is collectivist. Trying to separate the two is just politics.

In reply to this comment by blankfist:
Individualists don't typically disbelieve in combined efforts of people. Science is a perfect example where working together works and works well. But that's mainly because science can exist without affecting any one person's life - in other words, it can exist without forcing people to fund it or believe in it or administer it or whatever else. But when you have a collection of people come together to tell other people how their lives are supposed to be lived, what they should pay for, how they should eat, how they should take care of their bodies, what wars they should fund and so on, then that's where individualists have problems with collectivists.

In reply to this comment by dystopianfuturetoday:
How very sad and self loathing. Every individual has his or her own unique intelligences. By themselves, these intelligences might be modest, but join them together and you can create a sum bigger than the whole of its parts. This is how science works; many bits of information from many different people coming together to create a working theory. Does H. L. Mencken (or his inanimate skeleton) think science is pathetic? I don't know much about H.L. Mencken, other than the fact that Holden Caufield mentions him in the book, "Catcher in the Rye", but I think his opinion is in error here.


In reply to this comment by blankfist:
Democracy is a pathetic belief in the collective wisdom of individual ignorance. – H.L. Mencken

You love quotes, right?

Agree to staunchly disagree.

In reply to this comment by dystopianfuturetoday:
Everyone is individualist. Everyone is collectivist. Trying to separate the two is just politics.

In reply to this comment by blankfist:
Individualists don't typically disbelieve in combined efforts of people. Science is a perfect example where working together works and works well. But that's mainly because science can exist without affecting any one person's life - in other words, it can exist without forcing people to fund it or believe in it or administer it or whatever else. But when you have a collection of people come together to tell other people how their lives are supposed to be lived, what they should pay for, how they should eat, how they should take care of their bodies, what wars they should fund and so on, then that's where individualists have problems with collectivists.

In reply to this comment by dystopianfuturetoday:
How very sad and self loathing. Every individual has his or her own unique intelligences. By themselves, these intelligences might be modest, but join them together and you can create a sum bigger than the whole of its parts. This is how science works; many bits of information from many different people coming together to create a working theory. Does H. L. Mencken (or his inanimate skeleton) think science is pathetic? I don't know much about H.L. Mencken, other than the fact that Holden Caufield mentions him in the book, "Catcher in the Rye", but I think his opinion is in error here.


In reply to this comment by blankfist:
Democracy is a pathetic belief in the collective wisdom of individual ignorance. – H.L. Mencken

You love quotes, right?

Everyone is individualist. Everyone is collectivist. Trying to separate the two is just politics.

In reply to this comment by blankfist:
Individualists don't typically disbelieve in combined efforts of people. Science is a perfect example where working together works and works well. But that's mainly because science can exist without affecting any one person's life - in other words, it can exist without forcing people to fund it or believe in it or administer it or whatever else. But when you have a collection of people come together to tell other people how their lives are supposed to be lived, what they should pay for, how they should eat, how they should take care of their bodies, what wars they should fund and so on, then that's where individualists have problems with collectivists.

In reply to this comment by dystopianfuturetoday:
How very sad and self loathing. Every individual has his or her own unique intelligences. By themselves, these intelligences might be modest, but join them together and you can create a sum bigger than the whole of its parts. This is how science works; many bits of information from many different people coming together to create a working theory. Does H. L. Mencken (or his inanimate skeleton) think science is pathetic? I don't know much about H.L. Mencken, other than the fact that Holden Caufield mentions him in the book, "Catcher in the Rye", but I think his opinion is in error here.


In reply to this comment by blankfist:
Democracy is a pathetic belief in the collective wisdom of individual ignorance. – H.L. Mencken

You love quotes, right?

Individualists don't typically disbelieve in combined efforts of people. Science is a perfect example where working together works and works well. But that's mainly because science can exist without affecting any one person's life - in other words, it can exist without forcing people to fund it or believe in it or administer it or whatever else. But when you have a collection of people come together to tell other people how their lives are supposed to be lived, what they should pay for, how they should eat, how they should take care of their bodies, what wars they should fund and so on, then that's where individualists have problems with collectivists.

In reply to this comment by dystopianfuturetoday:
How very sad and self loathing. Every individual has his or her own unique intelligences. By themselves, these intelligences might be modest, but join them together and you can create a sum bigger than the whole of its parts. This is how science works; many bits of information from many different people coming together to create a working theory. Does H. L. Mencken (or his inanimate skeleton) think science is pathetic? I don't know much about H.L. Mencken, other than the fact that Holden Caufield mentions him in the book, "Catcher in the Rye", but I think his opinion is in error here.


In reply to this comment by blankfist:
Democracy is a pathetic belief in the collective wisdom of individual ignorance. – H.L. Mencken

You love quotes, right?

Why didn't they guy answer 'the moon controls the tides' instead of 'I don't know.' That just pushes O'Reilly farther.

I agree with the guy that there are likely 'far' more atheists than that one poll suggests. They've just bent to pressure to go to church and sit in a pew and listen to a guy speak a bunch of nonsense and then write them a check. Especially people in the bible belt, if you don't go to church you are an outcast. If you say your an atheist your run out of town!

I don't personally think religion is a scam. I think it's an extremely outdated way to explain our world and why things happen. It clashes so often with science because science has explained with fact what religion has attempted to explain in the past with myth and story. Because of this religion in the US and around the world has been slowly fading since the sixties and especially since the 80s (I remember as a child in the early 80's my local churches were filled to the brim, today all but a few in my county have less than 20 people and on off-seasons (the summer) rarely have more than 5-10 parishioners.

Religion is outdated and it's not making their leaders remotely as much money (in most of the country) as it used to. So main-stream religion has begun to fight back. To them, there is a war going on. To the rest of the world, we are just waiting for it to become such a small minority we don't have to deal with it on a daily basis.

Frankly if I'd have grown up in the bible belt I would have killed myself by now.

@SDGundamX

To be absolutely honest I haven't done much reading about how many Africans were killed as a direct consequence to the preachings of the Catholic Church. I do however believe that in poor parts where people are uneducated, a missionary loaded with the dogma and latest rationales about the sinfulness of using condoms can do significant damage (especially if it fits the culture). I will try to fit some time in to do more research on the topic and get back to you. My somewhat uninformed view is that the Pope now having changed his mind opens a brighter future, but significant damage has been done and will linger for a long time. For now I assume we both agree that the Catholic Church has done more damage than good when it comes to the spreading of AIDS in Africa.

If we flip the argument a bit instead, imagine a church that actively supported the use of condoms for stopping the spreading of AIDS and did not believe in abstinence (which has been pretty much proven ineffective). Members giving contributions to send missionaries that could do sex education and supply free condoms and advice about sexuality. I bet that religion could save countless lives, but instead we are stuck with the Catholic Church and its books and dogmas. The Catholic Church did not want people to get infected with AIDS but at the same time I've a hard time seeing how its dogmas help the situation. Either way I will read up on the subject and we can have another round

I don't see this video as aimed at religious people. I see it squarely aimed at people who think religion is nonsense but cave in to the taboo of not calling it just that. The emperor has no clothes; people do not need to give the respect that religions think they owe. Calling religious people idiots dispel peoples belief that some thoughts deserve to go unchallenged.

A quick word about religious moderates. I do not think they exist because the church realized one day a new way of reading the bible. I do believe moderates exist because science just made people realize the Bible or any other holy book cannot be read literally. This whole thing about reading the Bible (or any holy book) in a new and better way; I simply cannot see how it comes from religion itself, built on authority and dogma it just wont move on its own. This to me means that if moderates have a somewhat better perspective and attitude they do not owe it to religion.

I have the same problem with this video that I had with his TED talk. He still hasn't explained how exactly science is making these value judgments. All science can do is give us, through experimentation, raw data about the world we live in. After that, we need to interpret the data. At the end of the day, then, it is still people that are deciding whether something is morally right or wrong, not "science." The people looking at that data have their own subjective values and that's going to influence how they interpret the data.

Science is about empirically testing out hypotheses. Yet, Harris asked what value does wearing a burka have for human society and doesn't even seem to realize he's already made two value judgments (that wearing a burka has no value and that we shouldn't engage in activities that don't contribute to society) without having undertaking any empirical research to support his claims. If his answer to that is "it's obvious" then he's already defeated his own standpoint because science isn't answering the question of whether burkas are morally right or wrong, his a priori knowledge is. Stewart was right to throw that in his face--that for some people in certain circumstances it indeed might have value and that in fact that value is completely subjective.

(Just to be clear, I don't in any way, shape, or form believe requiring women to wear burkas is good, but I also don't kid myself into thinking that belief is based on any sort of objective empirical evidence).

@SDGundamX

I definitely see your point, and yes, I did read your entire post

I'd like to reply in more detail, but I'd rather reply than forget about it completely.

So, look at it this way. If religion has a "true purpose" as you say, then that means you are agreeing that there are fundamental moral truths that exist outside of human nature. You are making the argument that it's better for everyone when humans are a little less human. Mr. Harris is taking that a step further and saying that it's a lot better if we use science as a guide because science can be found to be wrong based on evidence whereas religion, by nature, is very rigid.

IMO he's advocating the same type of rules-based society, but advocating a more flexible evidence-based version, which would (in a situation where good information is as ubiquitous as possible) be more resistant to the types of psychopathic people who tend to take advantage of these systems as you pointed out (taliban, religious right, etc). I agree with you in general that some of these newer atheist advocates like Dawkins and Harris are a little whacky because they seem to be just as ideological as the religious people they want to displace. But, I think Harris is on to something here, regardless of other things he's talked about before.

^MaxWilder

1) Who rolled the dice, where did the die come from? How did the die come to have impact? Reiterate the statistical argument to me however you want, you can't get around a supernatural origin an point zero. Just because "science may never be able to prove or disprove" that point, my belief that God fills in the blank is no less valid in my own beliefs.

2) The writers of the New Testament were Jews. If you read carefully the account of Jesus' life, its events are not exactly high on the priority list to jot down for those who did not believe. Those who rejected Christ at the time thought Him irrelevant at best, scandalous at worst. Do you seriously think there should be a police blotter in Jerusalem at the time recording the temporary disruption of money changers and vendors at the temple? Do you not see a motive for non-believing Jews to conveniently omit him? "Yeah, there was this man of God going around and healing folks, but then we killed him. Let's write down the first part, but not the second."

3) The "Thou Shalt Not Kill/Murder" argument against the Bible is an old standby. I posted on a different video the distinction made in Romans 13 that God empowers governments to, among other things, "bring punishment to the wrongdoer." The 10 commandments, and Jesus' subsequent teachings are clearly applicable on a personal/individual level. It would be a sin for me to go to war with the express purpose of working out my own desires of hatred or revenge. According to Jesus, even having the hatred in the first place is the same sin as murder.

4) You accuse me of knowing little about the Bible, when you use convenient shreds of it to build your own arguments. Peter's denial of Christ had a very definite place and purpose. Christ bore the suffering of the cross completely on His own, even suffering separation from God the Father as He bore the sins of the world. If you bother reading any further, Peter is reconciled to Christ and given a mission to establish the Church and watch after Jesus' sheep, the sting of the previous betrayal now fueling conviction he didn't have before. By all accounts, each of the 12 (save John) met a violent end. You have not refuted my argument.

My whole purpose in this thread is to better understand why it is so important for you science-minded atheists to deconstruct religion, Christianity in particular. Why are we such a nuisance to you? Does your keen intellect not allow you to ignore our "ignorance?" Are your feelings hurt when we believe in a heaven and a hell, separated by belief in Christ? Do the actions of a few of our outlying members truly outweigh the collective good of the movement? Are you focusing on what you perceive as hypocrisy?

I find it ironic that I am the one most often accused of intolerance.

^MINK,

"more likely" raises the question "when is it more likely?"

That is true. All models must define the region in which they are valid. Newtonian mechanics is great as long as you aren't going near the speed of light. Still, doesn’t Newtonian mechanics allow us to make better predictions, even in a limited region, than astrology for example?

"I think if you managed to somehow model fashion and use that model to sell stuff, the very nature of fashion would change, and your model would be broken."

Models of fashion may have a very short shelf life, as you state, but can’t they make reasonably accurate predictions during a specific time period? If a producer wishes to discover a market for popular goods, they have three choices: guess, pray, or research. Studies can be flawed, for sure, but on average they provide more useful information than wild guessing.

Science is not absolute. All we can do is strive to make better predictions by replacing old models. Two thousand years ago, pi was given as 3.0 in 1 Kings 7:23, which is wrong by only 5%. In high school you probably used 3.14, again wrong, but only by 0.05%. Nobody will ever know the true value of pi, but even inaccurate models can be useful--as long as they make accurate enough predictions for your purpose.

When new data emerges, as in the shift from Copernicus to Newton, old models are shed and new models surface. It is not to say Copernican models were not useful—-they were—-they were only replaced because models which make better predictions came along. I think a similar argument can be made for human fashion.

Science, including economics, is okay with broken models because science is not committed to any particular model. When a new model emerges, and all the old models are disproven, scientists rejoice because they are newly able to make more accurate predictions; and that is the true goal of science.

The scientific process and peer review are extremely solid, because science is very competitive. If Scientist A has just tried to publish a theory A, then Scientist B will do everything he can to find errors in theory A, so that he can get his Theory B through instead. If there are no holes in the theory, it cannot be discredited and it has passed peer review.

>> ^EDD:
Surprising and sad. It's really short though, I wonder what the general context was and also what he followed that up with..?
Anyway, I hope the day arrives soon, well within my lifetime, when scientific method and resultant fact aren't feared and disputed as something contradicting the idea of a creator. It's just plain wrong to compare the two, because science doesn't claim to have an answer to this particular question (yet) as it's based on the set of laws that just didn't exist before the beginning of time (the Big Bang). The laws and rules of our existence are indisputably set and they're here whether we like them or not; by defying them (imagining the occasional 'miracles' and expecting divine interventions) and defying the need to study and understand these laws, one is hindering our progress as a civilization - usually because one is accustomed to and wants to maintain the current status quo (i.e. they're well off) and is afraid (or purposefully intimidated) of change.
All the ancient nonsense that was made up to "explain" the unknown should and probably will eventually be discarded just like the heliocentric model was accepted by (the majority of) the sane world, and all that would remain afterwards would be folks that have been made believe via indoctrination. And when we'll finally be rid of this final despicable abusive parenting malpractice (and I do believe there will come such a day), we will have freed ourselves from one of the most oppressive shackles in our species' history.
Now there's a day full of tears of joy I am so looking forward to!


Except science doesn't deal with the main element of the question people pose with life. Science doesn't deal with truth, only observed trends which can't even be called facts as far as I would define a fact. A fact is a certainty, and I define certainty as perfect knowledge that is total security from error. This can never be achived with sceince as it deals with percived phenomina and not noumenon. Kant was the one who ended up saying that the limmits of reason open up the doorway to faith.

I am not an saying science is useless or anything, it got us to the moon, and other neato things. But it doesn't ever have a claim to truth, or as you would put it facts.

Moreover, the more we learn about the the "laws" that govern all that is around us, we find that it has no certainty in the quantum relm at all. Things do not play by any set of rules, and indeed, it seems random in nature. Thus overuling any model that could say with true certainty that it had discovered the facts of the univerce. The fact is, that science doesn't deal with facts and has no method of proving things true, only methods of proving them false.

Might I remind you that sciece doesn't even have a proper explanation for gravity or even more simple, mass and how it is created. Moreover, those are things that are the basis for all other things built on top of them and yet they go unanswered. Science is the new abuse in it scope of what it says it has answers to and the relm of life that it holds to have answers for.

once again I'm all for science, being a scientist myself (as my frequent mispellings should indicate ), but it will never replace the faith element by Kants own admissions. (I view Kant as the father of empirical thinking, but there are others like hegal and hidigar that point out some of the main problems with the limmits of reason)

edit, or ya, and on topic for this movie, his views on evolution shouldn't have anything to do with his revolutionary ideas on getting back to the small government topology. Completely irrelvant just as what his faith is or isn't. Unless now anyone accociated with faith is now automatically a moron; in which I find to be an very bigoted way of thinking and not conforming to the so called tolorance that I keep hearing people claim should be the order of the day.

Surprising and sad. It's really short though, I wonder what the general context was and also what he followed that up with..?

Anyway, I hope the day arrives soon, well within my lifetime, when scientific method and resultant fact aren't feared and disputed as something contradicting the idea of a creator. It's just plain wrong to compare the two, because science doesn't claim to have an answer to this particular question (yet) as it's based on the set of laws that just didn't exist before the beginning of time (the Big Bang). The laws and rules of our existence are indisputably set and they're here whether we like them or not; by defying them (imagining the occasional 'miracles' and expecting divine interventions) and defying the need to study and understand these laws, one is hindering our progress as a civilization - usually because one is accustomed to and wants to maintain the current status quo (i.e. they're well off) and is afraid (or purposefully intimidated) of change.

All the ancient nonsense that was made up to "explain" the unknown should and probably will eventually be discarded just like the heliocentric model was accepted by (the majority of) the sane world, and all that would remain afterwards would be folks that have been made believe via indoctrination. And when we'll finally be rid of this final despicable abusive parenting malpractice (and I do believe there will come such a day), we will have freed ourselves from one of the most oppressive shackles in our species' history.
Now there's a day full of tears of joy I am so looking forward to!

>> ^gwiz665:
Just because something is hard to explain, doesn't mean that it can't be explained.


Additionally, just because science hasn't explained something doesn't mean it can't. Given enough time and proper circumstances, the scientific method can explain anything and everything. It won't, because the unexplained is near infinite, but it potentially could.