Joe_Cavalry All Day Every Day

you want some, come and get some :)

Gimme your best shoot

depends: if the so called "terrorist group" actually has done less to hurt people then the ones calling them terrorists then calling them terrorists does not strip them of the right of somone speaking for their cause, whatever it may be.

In other words, constitutional rights should not be rewoked just because some dumb people (the bush administration) deemed someone a "terrorist" or "evil doer" just so they could get passed laws they didint feel the need to go by

Yeah I know of these wonderings

You have to understand that there have been thousands of books written about Hitler, with varying degree of scholarly peer reviewing.

And offcourse because of how controversial Hitler is, and therfore how often he is used in politics (debates) for furthering ones ideas - You have to forgive me for not being satisfied (beyond a reasonable doubt) when people pick one out of a thousand books that happen to further their argument.

The name of the book also should be a hint that this is perhaps not the most verifiable historic book about Hitler.

But in all fairness, given how Hitler talked about himself and his ideals, I wouldnt be surprised if he frowned upon other religions; he practically concidered himself a diety, and my guess is that a megalomanical charecter like his would want to get rid of the competition.

So ill play along and assume that Hitler was not a devout christan (he was raised a catholic though, but never mind that)

Still like I said, I dont think he lacked the theistic sentiment - his book (Mein kampf) is full of relgious and occult allusions

And for this reason only, I think it is misleading (and even purposefully misleading) to assume his kind of Atheism (if you wanna call it that) is in any way similar to modern day Atheism.

I am not a big fan of the word "atheism" anyways, and I do not consider myself an atheist for the simple reason that I dont think not beliving in a far out fairytale defines my character - in other words, just because I dont belive the Lord of the Rings really happened either, does not mean that I need to make it a part of my character and ideal that I dont belive in elves and gobblins.

To me Religious literature is just that - literature - and I dont feel the need to define a philosophical stance just to say that I dont belive in fairytales

Nice debate topic Joe

It seems to me that this is very true.

There is a famous sentence from "Death of a salesman" that says something similar

I think it goes something like: " within a mans dream lies his downfall"

I think this has very much to do with time. There is a right time for specific Ideas, but all Ideas have an expiary date.

I would love to hear somone argue for a specific idea and how it is never likely to become outdated. It would have to be an abstrakt idea (in other words it would be redundant to have this debate about "gravity" for example)

This study has been done numeral times by different parties with the same results. Wether the guys doing the experiment are Atheists or not matters none since this is basically people telling if they are religious or not and then taking a standardized test (not made by the supposed atheist testers) and the test results are then put up on a XY graph.

Just to level with you, I am not assuming you are stupid, even though I throw a snidy remark here and there. I just like it better when the debates arelively. Swear words bring out the best in people, I think.

I find it ironic that I have a greater vocabulary in English than many of you religious guys here, English not being my native language

I also find it Ironic that that was the strongest argument you could think of "a typo"

Aveskde apparently agrees with me that it is a highly fallacious argument. Here's what he said: "It's not a very useful argument, because if you're trying to call a person stupid for believing, it doesn't work (population versus individual) and if you're trying to say that religion makes people stupid, it doesn't work (stupid people are drawn to religion, not the other way around)."

I am not calling any one person stupid for believing: I (and the statistics) point out that for some reason religious people tend to get lower IQ´s, on average (meaning that smart individuals can be religious - they are just less likely to be religious)

Then my argument was that this lack of skill in general intellegence tests might have something to do with how religious groups (especially recently in America and Brittain) shun learning about important factors of the universe, society physics and biology because it goes against what they belive.

It might very well be that "stupid people being drawn to religion" is also a big (and maybe bigger factor) like Aveskde says, but that hardly changes much my argument - I mean, why would stupid people be drawn by religions - could it be because it gives them simplfied answers (so they dont have to think much or train their brain)???

Well that would be my argument exactly - That religiouns give people false hope and security and acts as freezer for the church goers brain capacity

Your friends are obviously very nice and complamenting

The doubleblind experiment is fallible. If anybody dare to make the assumption that there is anything which is infallible, I shall direct them to this quotation by Jung:

"Any absolutist attitude is always a religious attitude, and in whatever respect a man becomes absolute, there you see his religion"

I love how religious people tend to pick up scientific arguments and pass them of as arguments for religious beleif

I agree with this statement (and so do all scientists) but this is where scale comes in. If you have 9999 test that show gravity as x in strength, and then there is one test that gives out a slightly different result - then that does not makes us all float now does it.

The same goes for your legue of extraordanary gentlemen.

You cant just say to every experimental result you dont like that "all experiments are possibly fallable" - because these experiments are done multible times. If the experiment gives out widely different results each time, then surely there is something wrong with the method of the experiment, but if the results vary very little, then you can say that the experiment is sound to a given degree.

I point out the IQ relgiosity phenomena because it is well documented (been done several times by different parties) and because I love to hear the arguments that religious people have agianst it: and the arguments are usually simple minded statments about the philosopical limits and properties of scientific testing, like yours - and it seems non of you relgious lot know anything about how theorems are tested and made into sound theories.

You are right about one thing. I did have to look up "audodidact"

So you are self-taught - doesnt seem to have worked too well for you (fuck you too :)

that you call statistical analysis with doubleblind experiments: an "argument" shows that you didnt get what is being said here.

I am not surprised I need to explain this to a religious person but: you dont argue against statistics of averages by pointing out a few anomalies. A few anomalies are counted for in those statistics -This is a measurement of averages not fundementals.

I did not make the arguement that religious people have (on average) a lower IQ than non-religious people: the people who partook in the test made the argument themselves collectivelly. Now my argument was that I though that this was not some sort of concreat thing about religious people that they couldnt get rid of, but rather that the mindset they get used to by being a follower of the big three, makes them not willing to streach their imagination (and at the same time their brain neurons). Then there are some people who have a high capacity for juggling in their mind abstrakt and contradicory thoughts - those people are smart and can (if they want) be religious at the same time as being smart in other fields - but they average Joe, as the statistics show, is not able to do so - and therfore his mind becomes specialized and non-responsive.

So now that I have explained my arguement (again). How come you think pointing out smart people who where religious, is going to show a fallacy in this argument

Do you really think you can point out a few anecdotes to topple wide ranging statistical studies - Is this really how poor the american school system has become