No matter how open-minded...

[Unesh52]

You are falling victim to the misrepresented class. You must remember that there are thousands of religions, many of which directly contradict each other such that belief in another wherein the former is truth would result in damnation. The easy correlation is Islam to Christianity. It is not "is god real, or isn't god real", it is "is god 1 real, or is god 2 real... or is god n real, or isn't there any god?".

edit: by the way, what you presented isn't wrong for the reasons you described. You see, by making a decision matrix, we would find that believing God exists is the best option (IN THE SET YOU DESCRIBED, WHICH IS INACCURATE).

Yes, that was my point. I fully understand the misrepresented class. I was trying to imply that dynamic of the problem when I said "The problem is that it's at least really hard to justify the first 4 premises without first showing that God exists," but looking back it's not very clear what I meant. It's hard to justify because it's not clear what properties God has, and there are an infinite number of mutually exclusive properties that could possibly be part of the nature of God.

What I was arguing, however, was that the wager is not a fallacy, which is a plausible sounding argument that is nonetheless logically invalid. It's valid because the form is correct - the premises, if true, mean the conclusion must be true - and it is therefore not a logical fallacy. It is a fallacy in the non-technical sense, where the term simply refers to a mistaken belief, but since you put "logical" in all caps I figured you were talking about the philosophical sense of the word.

The longest responses always seem to go to the people I already agree with. Huh.

 

[Snotnarok]

Why people quote marketing lines myths and such to argue something is better rather than using actual facts and doing research. I mean literally using stuff you'd read off a tagline vs actual written down specs in non-bias info lists/reviews. I mean something fairly specific but I don't feel like starting fights between people over their choice in electronics.

 

[Jadak]

Did I do justice to your viewpoint?

Pretty much.

I do agree that a soldier dying for what he believes in is something to be respected, but if I were to die in such a manner, what I would ask is that my memory be respected, and my loved ones still living be respected. My body is completely meaningless by that point, especially when you add in the fact that this is post-cremation.

This bothers people for two reasons:
1) The fact that they lied about it.
2) It's not the standard, and not socially acceptable. In other words, shock value. The action itself has no intrinsic meaning, it just runs contrary to what people are accustomed to.

While I wouldn't go about it quite that way either, I certainly can understand why someone would. When the action itself isn't hurting anyone, the only crime is a violation of social standards. If you don't share those social standards, or simply don't feel strongly about them, the only thing you need to be comfortable with is lying to those who do care about them.

And with that, all this really boils down in regards to what you need to "Wrap your head around", is lying. Not stealing from them, not hurting anyone, just lying to them. And when you look at it objectively, disregarding personal moral standard, the simple concept of someone lying for their own gain/convenience is something most people can understand, if not support.

 

[Unesh52]

but i'd never in a million years try to tell anyone else what to believe, as long as their beliefs don't affect me in any way.

Really? This is a bit of a departure from our earlier conversation, but you wouldn't try to right someone's wrong even if the belief didn't affect you? What if I believed that the integral from 0 to pi of sin(x) was 1? That belief is completely harmless. Would you not try to correct me?

 

[AdamRBi]

You know those pop up ads that offer you a free [insert new technology here] if you hit the monkey clown with an exploding pie? Who makes those? Who sat there and thought to themselves that the best way to get people to click wasn't to fill the bucket with the bare minimum needed to attract them, but to fill it with every annoying gimmick in the book and then kick the bucket while swinging a monkey by the tail and tangoing in a fishnet sweater.

I mean there are ads for scams; and then there are ads that are just scary.

 

[Ramzal]

I cannot by any means understand why people have no pride. Or people who run away from their problems. I may complain about my own issues, but I believe in myself and my own capability to make it through life through my abilities and I am proud of that. I do not understand how someone cannot be proud of themselves or their accomplishments. (Without announcing what they are exactly I mean. That would just be plain arrogant.)

As for people who run away from their problems or what they are scared of...I absolutely do not understand. What's the worse that could happen if you face your fears? Failure? People fail all the time. Possible death? People die all the time. Just don't do something stupid like facing your fear of heights by swan diving off of a building without rope. I don't even understand people who are sick and are GOING to die, yet choose to do it in misery and in a whimper. Accept the fact that you may die and live your life up. Do what you thought you couldn't.

Enjoy what little time you have left instead of living in sorrow.

 

[Death Carr]

Parents with identical twins of the same gender who feel the compulsive need to dress them in the exact same clothing right down to the laces on their shoes.

 

[Jake0fTrades]

SNIP

Tattoos can be a variety of things, it could be the name of a lost loved one, or some sort of badge you wear for something you're proud of; dying your hair just says to me that you're ashamed of your natural looks and you feel as though you need to compensate.

 

[The Long Road]

Why people are religious. Despite the fact that for the majority of my life I was Catholic.

Also American Politics...are things really that bad over there?

If the system were working the way it was intended, it wouldn't matter how much squabbling went on in Washington, because the federal government doesn't constitutionally have the power to make a strong impact on everyday life. As it stands, they can stick their dirty little paws most anywhere. However, most people just sit back and let the politicians have their little spats in the Capitol. That is, until the taxman comes knocking. Then we get pissed off.

OT: I'm going to take the other side of the religion topic and say I can't understand how people can be atheistic or agnostic. The odds of you being born from the thousands of eggs in your mother and millions of your father's sperm are high enough. Now consider the odds that your parents met, had sex, conceived, were born in the first place. While we're at it, how about the survival of your familial line all the way from early human evolution and beyond. Then consider the odds of Earth having the right chemical makeup and astronomical conditions to support life, or that physics works in a way to have stable reactions, or that the universe was formed at all.

The odds aren't actually worth calculating because the number is so far beyond human comprehension that it would just be meaningless text. I've heard it's ten to the power of (number of all atoms on Earth), but that could be wildly inaccurate. In essence, it's like betting, say, 17 on a roulette wheel and winning once a minute, every minute, without ever losing until the end of time. Confronted with those odds, I don't know how anybody can take them. That's the point where a magical man in the sky starts to look like the rational, level-headed response to existential questions.

I don't mean to come across as bitter. This is one of those arguments where the two side's viewpoints completely miss each other. All the arguments are based on assumptions that the other side either doesn't acknowledge or use reasoning that the other side doesn't accept. That is why nobody will ever scare an atheist with the threat of eternal damnation and nobody will convert a creationist by showing them fossils.

 

[Badassassin]

Anti-marijuana laws, and the morons who defend them.

So apparently, according to you, I am a moron.

And on that note:
People who smoke marijuana and other illegal drugs
People who smoke at all and drink excessively
People who knowingly break the law
People who expect to get something for nothing (with extreme exceptions)
People who say that marriage is dying off (seriously, WHY!?)
Anarchist...nuff said
People who disrespect the military and police
People who cry "police brutality" when the police so much as touch them
People who say that the South fought to protect slavery, when everyone who studies the Civil War knows it was over States rights
People who think ALL religious people are stupid or violent
People who treat Kansas like some Hermet Kingdom with the moral code of the Tailban (there more than you think who think this)
People who think that just because I am Republican means I dont care about the elderly or other people and that I must be some lackey of the Kock Bros
...
I think I will stop now

oh... oh COME ON. Don't give me that. The whole reason behind it was because the south wanted to preserve their way of life, which was focused around the plantation elite slaveholders. In fact, south seceded in the first place was because Abraham Lincoln's election was considered the last straw, and why? Because he endorsed the non-extension of slavery. I'll be fair, it was about states' rights... but you forgot to finish your sentence. It was about states' rights to allow slaves in the state. The entire conflict revolved around slavery, don't try and ignore it. In fact, none of it would have happened if slavery had stopped after 20 years like it was supposed to, but no, there had to be congressional compromises, debates (which at points turned violent), and a bunch of other bullsh*t just to pacify the southern slaveholders and... and...



You know what... forget it.

 

[lobster1077]

I know pro-lifers, it irks me a little bit to see them espousing such an outdated disposition like it's the freshest loaf of bread about.

 

[ConstantErasing]

There are plenty of things I don't understand but the one that first comes to mind right now is why so many poor people vote republican.

 

[Badassassin]

There are plenty of things I don't understand but the one that first comes to mind right now is why so many poor people vote republican.

Haha, you know I actually have a quote that explains that.

"Socialism never took root in America because the poor see themselves not as an exploited proletariat but as temporarily embarrassed millionaires." -- John Steinbeck

 

[SoulSalmon]

Religion, mind altering drugs and rap...

I can understand WANTING to believe in religion, helps ease the uncertainty of death, but how do you actually make yourself believe such a thing?

Mind altering drugs should be self explanatory, but for me this includes getting drunk.

Rap... note how I don't say "Rap music".

 

[Tselis]

they were mixing the remains with medical waste and then shipping them off to a landfill without making a memorial...

I don't really agree with the way Jadak presented his argument, but I agree with him. The tradition of honoring the bodies of the dead by parading them around and giving them special care seems wildly pointless when you don't associate the self with the body in an significant way. Lots of people believe that who a person is is in their mind and their personality alone (so a zombie of your mom is not in any way your mom, but a robot with your mom's brain is just as much her as she was when she breast fed you). Thus, giving human remains special protections or rights is weird - from that viewpoint. It's the honor of the memory that's important, not the honor of the body. If I were some kind of ghost and that had been done to me, I don't think it would bother me one bit. The only part that seems morally dubious is the part where they didn't get any kind of memorial, but I'm not sure that was disrespectful, because I was not aware that all KIA soldiers were given actual, tangible memorials. I thought the government just occasionally commissioned a monument to honor them en masse.

Now, as for why they didn't (and I think, shouldn't) tell the family: the fact that it makes no logical sense to honor the remains of the dead doesn't mean it doesn't have psychological implications for people. Honoring the body with rituals and such can be instrumental in the mourning process for the loved ones of the deceased, and finding out that the body has been desecrated in some manner can be traumatic. But when a grieving widow finds out her husband's corpse has been tossed in a dumpster, the evil (again, from a particular viewpoint) is not the method of disposal, but merely the fact that the widow was caused to grieve. Do you at least understand how some might draw the distinction and thus validate this type of action without meaning any disrespect to anyone's person or anyone's memory?

snip

Did I do justice to your viewpoint?

When a service member dies they are giving a gift, the most precious gift they can give. They are giving their bodies, their lives, their final moments to you, me, everyone they fight for. Disrespecting them in this manner is mocking this most precious gift, spitting in their face. It is just WRONG.

 

[Unesh52]

I suppose that I would agree if we're talking about the strict fundamentalist people out there, although not every one is that way. I mean how crazy is it to believe in a higher power or something after death? So what if there's no scientific evidence to back it up, which there never will be for that matter, to me there's a fine line between scientific ideas and ideas of faith.

Whatever I've already said waaay too much. Like I already said I don't want to come across as the grand champion of Jesus.

XD Jesus can fight his own battles I think.

Spoiler

But seriously, it's understandable to feel that way. I would like to make note, though, that from the viewpoint of many atheists (especially those on this board it seems), it is that crazy to have faith in a higher power. It's not so much the idea that something is responsible for the universe, it's the idea of that thing having a whole bunch of definable qualities attributed to it without reason (literally, by definition faith) and then being worshiped because of those qualities. It's creating an effigy out of thin air and then devoting your life to it. Of course, the faithful generally do not admit that is what they're doing - they often claim mystical revelation and, indeed, faith. But these types of evidence are not considered reasonable support for any other types of beliefs; religious faith gets a special exception for little apparent epistemological reason.

That, by itself, is not why people become anti-theists who bash theism and theists on message boards, but I just want you to understand where most of us are coming from with the assertion of a faith-justified God. Hope I helped bridge the gap.

 

[Rayne870]

SNIP

Tattoos can be a variety of things, it could be the name of a lost loved one, or some sort of badge you wear for something you're proud of; dying your hair just says to me that you're ashamed of your natural looks and you feel as though you need to compensate.

It can't say hey I really think this would be fun for awhile? None of the girls I dated with dyed hair in high-school were ashamed of their looks, they just wanted to play with stuff.

 

[Logiclul]

You are falling victim to the misrepresented class. You must remember that there are thousands of religions, many of which directly contradict each other such that belief in another wherein the former is truth would result in damnation. The easy correlation is Islam to Christianity. It is not "is god real, or isn't god real", it is "is god 1 real, or is god 2 real... or is god n real, or isn't there any god?".

edit: by the way, what you presented isn't wrong for the reasons you described. You see, by making a decision matrix, we would find that believing God exists is the best option (IN THE SET YOU DESCRIBED, WHICH IS INACCURATE).

Yes, that was my point. I fully understand the misrepresented class. I was trying to imply that dynamic of the problem when I said "The problem is that it's at least really hard to justify the first 4 premises without first showing that God exists," but looking back it's not very clear what I meant. It's hard to justify because it's not clear what properties God has, and there are an infinite number of mutually exclusive properties that could possibly be part of the nature of God.

What I was arguing, however, was that the wager is not a fallacy, which is a plausible sounding argument that is nonetheless logically invalid. It's valid because the form is correct - the premises, if true, mean the conclusion must be true - and it is therefore not a logical fallacy. It is a fallacy in the non-technical sense, where the term simply refers to a mistaken belief, but since you put "logical" in all caps I figured you were talking about the philosophical sense of the word.

The longest responses always seem to go to the people I already agree with. Huh.

I see where I may have been confusing. In hindsight, "logical fallacy" was the incorrect term to use, as I wasn't critiquing whether the argument was inductively valid or not. Rather it is a problem of false dichotomy where the argument fails.

 

[Unesh52]

It is just WRONG.

*cringe*

Come on, you can't do that to me. I've been getting good stuff out of all sorts of people tonight. Why is it wrong? More precisely, why is it disrespectful to the deceased? I already agree with your assessment that it is wrong to disrespect a person who has sacrificed so much for us, but I'm trying to show that when you disrespect human remains, you are not disrespecting a person. You are simply disrespecting a collection of decaying cells, which is another matter entirely. That doesn't, by itself, show that the entire situation was a-ok; I don't think it was. What I'm trying to argue is that the act of tossing the ashes itself was not wrong in any significant sense. This is because, as I explained earlier, the body has nothing to do with the "self" or the person.

Are you suggesting that it does in some way, so the body retains some rights after death? Or so that it's important to the preservation and respect of his memory? I know you must have a good reason - I believe you are a reasonable person. I'm only asking that you make yourself explicit.

 

[Thistlehart]

After giving it a lot of thought, I find that I cannot wrap my head around how the man that wrote Ender's Game, Speaker for the Dead, and Xenocide could turn out to be a fascist bigot.

It's like he missed the point of his own books. That just blows my mind.