I actually found your initial comment rather amusing. I'm disappointed you deleted it.
And as far as what Ben Stein would do, we can probably guess by what he has done: he's running around with a bunch of religious zealots trying to make the claim there's a huge conspiracy to get religion out of research.
My reaction is that the scientists interviewed in this clip state, in a much clearer and more eloquent way than I can, what I myself have always felt about religion. The reason why I abandoned it is that it does not provide any comfort to me, because the answers that it gives simply do not work for me (I went to catholic school for six years as a kid).
Thank you for your opinion. I suspected that might be the case, but I don't like to make assumptions. (But, BTW, I don't count you as an average person. You're way beyond Lake Wobegon.) :-)
many scientists who have made huge scientific advances have been religious
"Many" seems an exaggeration, I think "few" is a more accurate statement. Available data show a preponderance of atheism and agnosticism among scientists, steadily rising throughout the twentieth century and overwhelming these days.
If religion was an opiate for the illiterate masses, it stands to reason that those who are educated would not be religious.
No, it does not "stand to reason" at all, yours is a typical "straw man argument" (and a fairly weak one, with all due respect). You are giving a manichaean, "black/white" interpretation to a statement that is only statistical in character. If one states that on average smoking increases one's risk of cancer, one is not claiming that everyone who smokes will get cancer, simply that there is a statistical correlation. Likewise, it is merely a statistical observation that there are fewer believers in western societies nowadays than there were fifty years ago (at the cost of sounding pedantic, no, I am
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Of course I didn't say that ALL scientists were religious, or that MOST scientists were religious. I got the inference from the video that the scientists interviewed felt that those who were religious could not be good scientists. I merely pointed out the fact that there have been quite a few scientific advances made by those who were religious, and cited two examples I knew offhand (there are many more here). There's no need to get your panties in a twist -- Cherish asked for my gut reaction and I gave it based on my perception of the video
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I know quite a few well-educated people, both personally and publicly, who are religious; therefore , the opinion of the scientists that religion is just an opiate for the illiterate masses seems off-base to me.
And I merely expressed my skepticism toward your arguments. This is an open journal, and commenting on other people's comments is allowed and common practice. I think I stayed well within accepted boundaries of courtesy and civility.
If Cherish had asked her readers to criticize and debunk the comments of others, or if she'd asked for a statistical analysis of our opinions, then maybe your comments would be appropriate. As it stands, they're not.
I think it is up to the journal's owner to decide what is "appropriate" or not to post.
Last night when Mike watched this, I watched it over his shoulder with no context as to why you were posting the clip. At the time I idly thought that when I was in high school, I would have gotten very bent out of shape at these respected academics saying such awful things about faithful people and being so narrow-minded as to believe that you couldn't believe in God and in science at the same time
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I'm glad you gave me both your reasoned and gut opinions.
I guess in my roundabout way I'm trying to say that I don't think anybody understands anyone else, but they think they do, and they hate or oppose or whatever based on what they think they know, and this not knowing breeds problems.
I think you've summed up the whole situation quite well.
Well said, both of youprimroseMarch 25 2008, 21:00:33 UTC
Indeed. I'd say Primrose's closing observation accurately describes the current saloon brawl. I'd say it describes a number of other word-flinging brawls as well. Well said
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Did you have any other reaction???? :-)
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And as far as what Ben Stein would do, we can probably guess by what he has done: he's running around with a bunch of religious zealots trying to make the claim there's a huge conspiracy to get religion out of research.
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I'll take it as a compliment (one of the perks of not being a native speaker of English :-)
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From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lake_Wobegon
"Where all the women are strong, all the men are good looking, and all the children are above average."
Which, of course, perfectly describes my friends list. :-D
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"Many" seems an exaggeration, I think "few" is a more accurate statement. Available data show a preponderance of atheism and agnosticism among scientists, steadily rising throughout the twentieth century and overwhelming these days.
If religion was an opiate for the illiterate masses, it stands to reason that those who are educated would not be religious.
No, it does not "stand to reason" at all, yours is a typical "straw man argument" (and a fairly weak one, with all due respect). You are giving a manichaean, "black/white" interpretation to a statement that is only statistical in character. If one states that on average smoking increases one's risk of cancer, one is not claiming that everyone who smokes will get cancer, simply that there is a statistical correlation.
Likewise, it is merely a statistical observation that there are fewer believers in western societies nowadays than there were fifty years ago (at the cost of sounding pedantic, no, I am ( ... )
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And I merely expressed my skepticism toward your arguments. This is an open journal, and commenting on other people's comments is allowed and common practice. I think I stayed well within accepted boundaries of courtesy and civility.
If Cherish had asked her readers to criticize and debunk the comments of others, or if she'd asked for a statistical analysis of our opinions, then maybe your comments would be appropriate. As it stands, they're not.
I think it is up to the journal's owner to decide what is "appropriate" or not to post.
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I guess in my roundabout way I'm trying to say that I don't think anybody understands anyone else, but they think they do, and they hate or oppose or whatever based on what they think they know, and this not knowing breeds problems.
I think you've summed up the whole situation quite well.
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I'll be sure to check out the book (once my thesis is done).
Thanks for dropping the note! :-D
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