Oh boy! Now Kevin is in this!

Now for some fun!

Okay God is so obvious I don't need proof! neener neener!

As for the Manhanten project, yeah it was peer reviewed, by the other scientisits working on the project.

He needs data to back it up. I'm sorry, he doesn't get a free pass.

Maybe I will express my views on religion and society [which are irrelevant to whether Hamby is correct], but in a different topic.

On Hamby's blog he said he doesn't come here anymore

Good riddance as far as I'm concerned.

What I've always found bizarre are these make believe facts that get passed around, like they are consistent with reality, what's even more bizarre is when they're passed around by semi-intelligent individuals. It's always in relation their pet sort of grievances, but somewhat delusional none-the-less. 

I've been raised in a pentecostal home, and I was part of choir that traveled all across the country. I was also an individual who visited various churches, many of the "mega-churches" across, the country, listening to the sermons of Rob Parsley, Creflo Dollar, TD Jakes, Benny Hinn. So it's easy for me to detect a strawman of this group, even more so when taken to be representative of Christianity as a whole as hamy suggests.

And the power of hamy like deluded generalizations have always amazed me "They are often taught that if they succumb to the sin of doubt, they will be horrendously tortured for all of eternity. " and :Science, logic, and critical thinking are tricks of a magical and inscrutable evil being "

Now, I don't doubt that in christian population of 2 billion people, that there might be a handful of individuals who claim this, and I'd also say in large populations of any group, even those that advocate a "reason driven life", you get all sorts of ill beliefs, the Jacobins are one such example.

But what's now become the sign for me as the epitome of a poor thinker, are individuals who can take a few (if even that) instances and claim them as representative of a whole. If I were to take the claim of mattshizzle and go around peddling that these are the views of majority of atheist, I'd be laughed off stage. 

In my years of Evangelical Christianity, I have never heard one person ever tell me that doubts will horrendously lead me to hell. And I've been a man of doubt all my life. Nor have I heard an individual claim that science, logic, and critical thinking are the products of an evil being, I may have heard something along the lines that the theory of evolution is the devils work, but never have I heard it applied to the entire body of science.

Vitamins are evil? Clean water is evil? vaccinations are evil? Even if we were to take a sect of Christianity, such as evangelicals, that are in fact better educated than the rest of the American populace, we are not going to find this mythical plea of evil in regards to learning.

Notice even the creationist lobby doesn't claim that evolution shouldn't be taught, they just propose that their alternative be taught along with it. In fact they encourage children to cast their doubts on evolution, and to thinking critically about it, on stickers on the text books they read from. These theist in such endeavors, exalt critical thinking, and they actually believe that critical thinking, and doubt serves in their favor, not against it. It's why the Ray Comforts of the world seek to engage in debates with scientist and the like. Because they actually believe that thinking critical, logically, and with doubt will lead individuals to their worldview, no differently than many atheist such as hamy due, who believe their worldview is the only viable one that emerges from doubt and criticial thinking. 

In my ethnic evangelical community, without a college educated, you'd be hard pressed to find respect among these church attending folk, or even to find a wife. It's a community that encourages individuals to pursue medical careers, engineering degrees, and other lucrative fields in the sciences and else where. 

What i would like to offer to gauge hamy's intellectual honesty, is an eat your sock challenge. I'd be willing to go into the "Christianforums.com," the largest Internet network of Christians to my knowledge, and ask if these Christians that belong to variety of christian denominations, but mainly evangelical Christianity, if they agree with Hamy's statement about science, logic, critical thinking, and doubt. 

If we find that the majority of individuals don't agree with those statements hamy attributes to them, I would like to hear Hamy claim that he was wrong?.I do find this to be a good measure of actually proving him wrong, the sample selection if anything serves in his favor. Now, the question is if hamy is up for an actual endeavor to validate his claims as anything other than deluded gooblygook, and the product of his own insecurities, rather than any sense of intellectual vigor. 

To make it more interesting I'll even donate 20$ to the RRS, if I'm wrong, and Hamy views of the general theist view is correct. 

I think I'm being more than reasonably fair, but let's see if he'll bite. 

Did I say Kevin doesn't come here anymore?  I don't think I said that.  I didn't mean to say that.  Maybe I misunderstood the question.  I did say I'd been coming here a little less as a matter of expediency and too damn much to do in one day, but that's all I remember saying.

Somebody point me to where it looks like I said KB isn't coming here anymore, and I'll fix it.  I try not to speak for other people when I don't have permission to do so.

OHH... sorry.  Damn English Grammar!

The problem with you and ClockCat, and the flood of such atheist, is that they have religious googbeygook conception of science. Atheist tend to have these magic words, like "knowledge" and "science" that supposedly have some sort of sacred specification, that fundies and the like oppress. They've acquired this sort of development of the terms, as remnants of their Christian upbringing, which claim a sacred, and specific sense of truth.

I'm gonna propose a broad definition of what it means to think scientifically. Thinking scientifically means an examination of things from a detached and methodological perspective. Fundies, and other sorts of theists are not opposed to this form of thinking, they only oppose this sort of thinking when it leads to certain conclusions that erode their community, and cherished values. It's not that they are opposed to doubt, in fact they encourage any sense of doubt that strengthens their community, and supports their values, such as doubting evolution, or a particular liberal political stance.

So let's say some years from know, some viable evidence emerges that bring the theory of evolution into doubt, fundies and such sects would be at the forefront of supporting, and encouraging the public awareness of it. They'd be foaming fans of these scientific findings, and endevours.

Notice here, what we are speaking about is not any broad sense of the term science, but rather a particular and very small spec in the grand scheme of things of what science encompasses.

My fundie friends, who are prominent business leaders, think highly scientifically when it comes to the endeavors of their field. In playing basketball many of them think scientifically as to how we should conduct the game, and how they should maneuver, while I favor an "unscientific" sort play for the sheer fun of it, and reckless abandonment of the goal of winning.

The dilemma that you and clockcat paint is not particular to fundies or theist, but rather to nearly all human beings, theist and atheist alike. It's not that we discourage all doubt, but that we discourage doubt when it comes to notions we value, such as a community.

A particular sort of cherished value, among the Dawkins like, is religion as the root of all evil, and religion as the motivation for terrorist bombers. These atheist are deludingly opposed to the scientific evidence and research that counters this cherished beliefs, as fundies are to the scientific evidence that opposes the infallibility of the bible.

When you point out the various scientific research and analysis done by the University of Chicago Project on Terrorism, Scott Atran, the MI5, it's not difficult to see the illness of fundie theist on display here. Rather than a detached, and unemotional examination of the work, or an encouragement of a reexamination of these finding, or the encouragement of anything remotely scientific, the argument quickly resorts to claim that these researchers are hacks, theist (when pointed out that they're not, the claim becomes their jealous of the fame other atheist have achieved), etc.. etc... 

This is true even for Humanism, humanism like fundies encourage or are atleast indifferent to doubts of everything outside of humanistic values. They don't encourage doubting humanism. And secular critics of humanism, such as John N. Gray, are met with the same sort of dogmatic opposition. If I were to create post in this forums, regardless if they were true or not, that cast doubts on the honesty of the RRS, I'd be quickly banned, and my post would be deleted. Fundies and similar theist are opposed to certain doubts for the same reasons. 

This sort of phenomena is very human, most of us can easily relate to it, in terms of our relationships. We don't encourage or support doubts about out faithfulness, and honesty, and integrity. If a girlfriend we were seeing, said that she wanted to scientifically examine if we were cheating or not, and asked for phone records, to see our emails, to hire a private investigator to secretly follow us around when she wasn't there, we'd be passionately opposed to such doubts. It's very human to discourage the doubts of our valued relationships, and the things we value, fundies are no special case here. 

But it's as silly to claim that they are opposed to any broad sense of science, that applies to examining of Pokemon cards, to chess moves. 

Let's say I was seeing another woman, but I still value having a relationship with my current girl friend,  and I enjoy the company of the other woman, but not enough that I'd leave my girl friend for her. You can see why I'd be opposed to any sort of doubts that arise in my girlfriend about my faithfulness. Even if she were to find traces of evidence that suggests that I just might be, I'd deny it through the skin of my teeth. 

Now I could be one of the great scientist, would you say by discouraging my girlfriends scientific examination of my fidelity, that I'm holding back science, that I'm disgrace to my profession? Or even such a general claim that I'm opposed to scientific thinking?

Well, some gripe here, the large body of theist is in the middle of this scale of fundies, and liberals. Orthodox Christianity, Mainline Christianity, Catholicism, are far from literalistic about their beliefs. 

And secondly it's not that liberal christians live totally secular lives, but rather that liberal atheist live religious lives. They hold these cherished beliefs that they claim are secular, which in fact are remanats of the religious past they cling to.

Well, its a fact fundies (not the same as evangelicals) don't make up a percentage large enough to be even remotely close to representing the over 2 billion christian population. Secondly the represention of fundies you present, is not even a valid makeup of most fundies. Most fundies I know are rather apolitical, and asceintific concerning the natural sciences, most fundies are not opposed to college education. How many of those identifying themselves with fundementalism attend fundie schools, over secular one? Sure you may know many who do attend religious school, but they represntive of the large body of fundies?

I can understand why many atheist here might get that picture, since much of their exposure to fundies comes from the fundies that frequent these sort of boards. But let's remember that only a paricular type of fundie would care to even visit here, and it'd be a failure to assume that such fundies make up the large population.

We get fooled into believing that since a few fundies are quite vocal, that they have large choir behind them, than just a few very loud voices.

Wow, is that ever not true. Some of the mods here have argued to delete even libellous posts which were kept simply as examples of people behaving like idiots. This would be one of the most accepting sites I've ever seen. We even have a holocaust denier on the forum who hasn't been banned basically because the people running the site don't like censorship. So that's not fair criticism by a long shot.

Ah ... you've given an example of something where scientific evidence would point to the truth of the matter. It would be socially unpleasant, but the scientific method would definitely show that you were "cheating" (if you weren't in an open relationship). So you're not really making a case, here. What you seem to be saying is that someone who is bowing to social pressures can be forgiven, but that doesn't say anything about the truth of the story.