Morality... - Page 4

Moons wrote: Separation is right, it's the law, and it is necessary. Not just for one god, but for all of them.


Here is the good example:
Without being rude, atheist professors at schools are doing teaching religion.
Number 1: I think the lies should be taken out from the science text books – Period, don’t lie to the kids and then I think you find that simply there is no evidence to support this evolution hypothesis. Okay! And that is there personal problem, if you have any/no evidence for there theory, I am sorry. Kent Hovind mention in a debate one time and showed 30 different lies in the text books and one professor said “meaning” acknowledge yes it is true what Kent Hovind was saying, replied to Kent, you want us it to take out all the lies out of the text books, he said - now I have a question for you Kent, what are you going to replace with? (Meaning the lies in the text books)
 
When Kent was also in the University of west Florida, one professor got up and said Hovind you mention tonight we should tear the pages out of the book, he said I don’t think we should deface the text books. Hovind replied and said to him, Sir, suppose you were teaching math and you came across the book that says 2 + 2 is = 5, what would you do, he said I would tell my students mark out the wrong answer and write in the correct/right answer, Hovind replied huh? You are going to deface the text book?

You'll believe anything shtal.
Kent Hovind is a joke but you think he's relevant.
If schools are to teach religion's they would be required to teach them all, and then where would SAT scores be..lol
Separation is required.
Religion belongs in churches not public schools.

Religion belongs in churches not public schools.

 

Bingo.  I wouldn't want my tax dollars being used to teach a religion I don't believe in.  I also don't believe it belongs in schools period, but in churches.

If a section of a sociology class was devoted to religion, I'd bloody well expect a fair overview of a large sample of various religions.  If all they did was focus on one, and I don't care which one, I'd be very pissed.

 

Wildbill7145 wrote: Bingo.  I wouldn't want my tax dollars being used to teach a religion I don't believe in.


It would apply aswell for teaching lies in science.





Shtal.

shtal,
if it is ever proven this view you and the others have, I'm sure it would be taught in schools.


Moons.

shtal,
if it is ever proven this view you and the others have, I'm sure it would be taught in schools.


Moons.

If there was ever a need for a "like" button, this would be a fine example.  I'd probably break it though.

wildbill

There is such a button in your mind.Why do you keep pushing the off topic button?
Do you not have control of it? If not,who has?

Have a nice evening Bill keep those sixguns holstered.

  gouda

How you arrive at a belief is more important than what you believe.

Atheists are frequently challenged to explain why they are so critical of religious and theistic beliefs. Why do we care what others believe? Why don't we just leave people alone to believe what they want? Why do we try to "impose" our beliefs on theirs? Such questions frequently misunderstand the nature of beliefs or are even just disingenuous. If beliefs weren't important, believers wouldn't get so defensive when their beliefs are challenged. We need more challenges to beliefs, not less.

What is Belief?

A belief is the mental attitude that some proposition is true. For every given proposition, every person either has or lacks the mental attitude that it is true — there is no middle ground between the presence of absence of a belief. In the case of gods, everyone either has a belief that at least one god of some sort exists or they lack any such belief.

Belief is distinct from judgment, which is a conscious mental act that involves arriving at a conclusion about a proposition (and thus usually creating a belief). Whereas belief is the mental attitude that some proposition is true rather than false, judgement is the evaluation of a proposition as reasonable, fair, misleading, etc.

Because it is a type of disposition, it isn't necessary for a belief to be constantly and consciously manifested. We all have many beliefs which we are not consciously aware of. There may even be beliefs which some people never consciously some think about — but, to be a belief, there should at least be the possibility that it can manifest. A belief that a god exists often depends on numerous other beliefs which a person hasn't consciously considered.

 

Belief vs. Knowledge

Although some people treat them as almost synonymous, belief and knowledge are very distinct. The most widely accepted definition of knowledge is that something is "known" only when it is a "justified, true belief." This means that if Joe "knows" some proposition X, then all of the following must be the case:

1. Joe believes X
2. X is true
3. Joe has good reasons to believe X

If the first is absent, then Joe should believe it because it is true and there are good reasons for believing it, but Joe has made a mistake for believing something else. If the second is absent, then Joe has an erroneous belief. If the third is absent, then Joe has made a lucky guess rather than knowing something. This distinction between belief and knowledge is why atheism and agnosticism are not mutually exclusive.

While atheists can't typically deny that a person believes in some god, they can deny that believers have sufficient justification for their belief. Atheists may go further and deny that it is true that any gods exist, but even if it is true that something warranting the label "god" is out there, none of the reasons offered by theists justifies accepting their claims as true.

 

Beliefs About the World

Brought together, beliefs and knowledge form a mental representation of the world around you — a belief about the world is the mental attitude that world is structured in some way rather than another. This means that beliefs are necessarily the foundation for action: whatever actions you take in the world around you, they are based on your mental representation of the world. In the case of theistic religions, this representation includes supernatural realms and entities.

As a consequence, if you believe something is true, you must be willing to act as if it were true. If you are unwilling to act as thought it were true, you can't really claim to believe it. This is why actions can matter much more than words. We can't know the contents of a person's mind, but we can know if their actions are consistent with what they say they believe. A religious believer might claim that they love neighbors and sinners, for example, but does their behavior actually reflect such love?

 

Why are Beliefs Important?

Beliefs are important because behavior is important and your behavior depends on your beliefs. Everything you do can be traced back to beliefs you hold about the world — everything from brushing your teeth to your career. Beliefs also help determine your reactions to others' behavior — for example their refusal to brush their teeth or their own career choices. All this means that beliefs are not an entirely private matter. Even beliefs you try to keep to yourself may influence your actions enough to become a matter of legitimate concern of others.

Believers certainly can't argue that their religions have no impact on their behavior; on the contrary, believers are frequently seen arguing that their religion is critical for the development of correct behavior. The more important the behavior in question is, the more important the underlying beliefs must be. The more important those beliefs are, the more important it is that they be open to examination, questioning, and challenges.

 

Tolerance & Intolerance of Beliefs

Given the link between belief and behavior, to what extent must beliefs be tolerated and to what extent is intolerance justified? It would be legally difficult (not to mention impossible on a practical level) to suppress beliefs, but we can be tolerant or intolerant of ideas in a wide variety of ways. Racism is not legally suppressed, but most moral, sensible adult refuse to tolerate racism in their presence. We are intolerant: we don't stay silent while racists talk about their ideology, we don't stay in their presence, and we don't vote for racist politicians. The reason is clear: racist beliefs form the foundation for racist behavior and this is harmful.

I don't think any one but a racist would object to such intolerance of racism, but if it's legitimate to be intolerant of racism then we should be willing to consider intolerance of other beliefs as well. The real question is how much harm the beliefs might ultimately cause, either directly or indirectly. Beliefs can cause harm directly by promoting or justifying harm towards others. Beliefs can cause harm indirectly by promoting false representations of the world as knowledge while preventing believers from subjecting those representations to critical, skeptical scrutiny.

When people create and critique arguments, it's helpful to understand what an argument is and is not. Sometimes an argument is seen as a verbal fight, but that is not what is meant in these discussions. Sometimes a person thinks they are offering an argument when they are only providing assertions.

Perhaps the simplest explanation of what an argument is comes from Monty Python’s Argument Clinic sketch:

• An argument is a connected series of statements intended to establish a definite proposition. ...an argument is an intellectual process... contradiction is just the automatic gainsaying of anything the other person says.

This may have been a comedy sketch, but it highlights a common misunderstanding: to offer an argument, you cannot simply make a claim or gainsay what others claim.

An argument is a deliberate attempt to move beyond just making an assertion. When offering an argument, you are offering a series of related statements which represent an attempt to support that assertion — to give others good reasons to believe that what you are asserting is true rather than false.

Here are examples of assertions:

• 1. Shakespeare wrote the play Hamlet.
  2. The Civil War was caused by disagreements over slavery.
  3. God exists.
  4. Prostitution is immoral.

Sometimes you hear such statements referred to as propositions. Technically speaking, a proposition is the informational content of any statement or assertion. To qualify as a proposition, a statement must be capable of being either true or false.

The above represent positions people hold, but which others may disagree with. Merely making the above statements does not constitute an argument, no matter how often one repeats the assertions. To create an argument, the person making the claims must offer further statements which, at least in theory, support the claims. If the claim is supported, the argument is successful; if the claim is not supported, the argument fails.

This is the purpose of an argument: to offer reasons and evidence for the purpose of establishing the truth value of a proposition, which can mean either establishing that the proposition is true or establishing that the proposition is false. If a series of statements does not do this, it isn’t an argument.

Another aspect of understanding arguments is to examine the parts. An argument can be broken down into three major components: premises, inferences and a conclusion.

Premises are statements of (assumed) fact which are supposed to set forth the reasons and/or evidence for believing a claim. The claim, in turn, is the conclusion: what you finish with at the end of an argument. When an argument is simple, you may just have a couple of premises and a conclusion:

• 1. Doctors earn a lot of money. (premise)
  2. I want to earn a lot of money. (premise)
  3. I should become a doctor. (conclusion)

Inferences are the reasoning parts of an argument. Conclusions are a type of inference, but always the final inference. Usually an argument will be complicated enough to require inferences linking the premises with the final conclusion:

• 1. Doctors earn a lot of money. (premise)
  2. With a lot of money, a person can travel a lot. (premise)
  3. Doctors can travel a lot. (inference, from 1 and 2)
  4. I want to travel a lot. (premise)
  5. I should become a doctor. (from 3 and 4)

Here we see two different types of claims which can occur in an argument. The first is a factual claim, and this purports to offer evidence. The first two premises above are factual claims and usually not much time is spent on them — either they are true or they are not.

The second type is an inferential claim — it expresses the idea that some matter of fact is related to the sought-after conclusion. This is the attempt to link the factual claim to the conclusion in such a way as to support the conclusion. The third statement above is an inferential claim because it infers from the previous two statements that doctors can travel a lot.

Without an inferential claim, there would be no clear connection between the premises and the conclusion. It is rare to have an argument where inferential claims play no role. Sometimes you will come across an argument where inferential claims are needed, but missing — you won’t be able to see the connection from factual claims to conclusion and will have to ask for them.

Assuming such inferential claims really are there, you will be spending most of your time on them when evaluating and critiquing an argument. If the factual claims are true, it is with the inferences that an argument will stand or fall, and it is here where you will find fallacies committed.

Unfortunately, most arguments aren’t presented in such a logical and clear manner as the above examples, making them difficult to decipher sometimes. But every argument which really is an argument should be capable of being reformulated in such a manner. If you cannot do that, then it is reasonable to suspect that something is wrong.



http://atheism.about.com/od/definitionofatheism/a/BeliefImportant.htm

http://atheism.about.com/od/logicalarguments/a/argument.htm

Jesus Christ people. Christmas is in a few days. Merry Christmas to you. As for everyone else - I hope you make it through 2 Aquarius. LOL