This is news? I see self-righteous agnostics on Fark claiming that "Atheists are no different from fundies" all the time.

What if I am convinced that I'm close-minded?

I don't know if I agree with that.

I guess I could see it both ways.

It's interesting how the words used in this headline manage to complete misdirect the actual point of the studies while still being technically accurate.

FlyingPig: This is news? I see self-righteous agnostics on Fark claiming that "Atheists are no different from fundies" all the time.

Not all Atheists, just the ones that are insanely arrogant and obnoxious about it, and believe that they are right, and everyone else is a stupid, ignorant, and wrong. They sound like religious fundies to me.

FTA: Overall, the studies suggested people are about twice as likely to cherry-pick information that supports their own viewpoints than to consider an opposing idea. Nearly 70 percent cherry-picked compared to about 30 percent who ponder the other side.

That sounds like they spent a whole lot of time on the Fark political page. The left wing nuts and the right wing nuts do that all the time.

/agnostic
//Libertarian
///I think I'm more open minded than most of you.

Anyone who says they're sure of their beliefs has closed their mind.

devildog123: FlyingPig: This is news? I see self-righteous agnostics on Fark claiming that "Atheists are no different from fundies" all the time.

Not all Atheists, just the ones that are insanely arrogant and obnoxious about it, and believe that they are right, and everyone else is a stupid, ignorant, and wrong. They sound like religious fundies to me.

FTA: Overall, the studies suggested people are about twice as likely to cherry-pick information that supports their own viewpoints than to consider an opposing idea. Nearly 70 percent cherry-picked compared to about 30 percent who ponder the other side.

That sounds like they spent a whole lot of time on the Fark political page. The left wing nuts and the right wing nuts do that all the time.

/agnostic
//Libertarian
///I think I'm more open minded than most of you.

I agree with you but not because I'm cherry-picking. My beliefs have changed over-time or with careful consideration of new information from all sides, not because I'm cherry-picking.

Either that or I find the extremists on both sides prone to asshattery.

/agnostic
//Libertarian
///Also open-minded.

GurneyHalleck: Anyone who says they're sure of their beliefs has closed their mind.

So basically, we're not allowed to be sure of anything, ever? If we followed that to its logical extension, we'd never be able to have an opinion on anything.

Everyone should be about 95 percent sure of what they believe in. There's a non-zero chance ANYTHING could be wrong, and every honest person has to admit that. That doesn't mean you can't ever be confident of your opinions. Yes, keep your mind open to the possibility of it being changed, but anyone who goes around being unsure of his most basic beliefs has no self-esteem or conviction.

devildog123: /agnostic
//Libertarian
///I think I'm more open minded than most of you.

There really are only two groups of people who are completely above the fray and function on a level driven only by pure intellect and reason. If I may take a moment to put on my sunglasses before basking in your glory, I'd just like to thank you for gracing us with your presence.

Flying Pig

"Anyone who goes around being unsure of his most basic beliefs has no self-esteem or conviction."

Perhaps, but they are probably FANTASTIC in the sack.


"Have I ever told you that I love a man with no convictions?

Well, get your willie-wanky-woo over here, darling."

- Butchered Derek and Clive homage

devildog123: Not all Atheists, just the ones that are insanely arrogant and obnoxious about it, and believe that they are right, and everyone else is a stupid, ignorant, and wrong. They sound like religious fundies to me.

Can I ask a question? Where do you and others who talk about "secular fundamentalists" live, or what do you do, that makes you come into contact with all these crazy atheists?

I live in arguably the most Godless, liberal, communist city in the United States and never once in my life have I been harangued by these militant atheists that I hear so much about on Fark.*

Do you people spend all your days hanging around the local socialist food co-op?
__________

*I am, however, visited on a near-monthly basis by sharply dressed Mormons who always tend to show up at my door when I'm extremely busy or hungover.

I can already tell I'm going to love playing "Find the self-proclaimed bodhisattva" in this thread.

brap: I can already tell I'm going to love playing "Find the self-proclaimed bodhisattva" in this thread.

I hope you enjoy the game, but you'll never be as enlightened as me, motherfarker!

/got nothing...except mad enlightenment!
//yeah, I had to google that to figure out WTF it was

I believe I'll have another drink.

Drawing a limit to what is knowable and what is not is not being "unsure" of your beliefs.

"...in order to draw a limit to thinking we should have to be able to thnk both sides of this limit (we should therefore have to be able to think what cannot be thought).

The limit can, therefore, only be drawn in language and what lies on the other side of the limit will be simply nonsense." - Wittgenstein

The Onanist: I believe I'll have another drink.



EMPIRICIST!

Diogenes: Drawing a limit to what is knowable and what is not is not being "unsure" of your beliefs.

"...in order to draw a limit to thinking we should have to be able to thnk both sides of this limit (we should therefore have to be able to think what cannot be thought).

The limit can, therefore, only be drawn in language and what lies on the other side of the limit will be simply nonsense." - Wittgenstein

Being "knowable," in the logical sense, is absolutely unrelated to matters of faith. If you need God to help you with logic, you're a retard; if you need God to be subject to logic, you lack imagination.

Diogenes: Drawing a limit to what is knowable and what is not is not being "unsure" of your beliefs.

"...in order to draw a limit to thinking we should have to be able to thnk both sides of this limit (we should therefore have to be able to think what cannot be thought).

The limit can, therefore, only be drawn in language and what lies on the other side of the limit will be simply nonsense." - Wittgenstein


Very good point. But some would claim that Wittgenstein was a beery swine who was just as schloshed as Schlegel....

filth: Diogenes: Drawing a limit to what is knowable and what is not is not being "unsure" of your beliefs.

"...in order to draw a limit to thinking we should have to be able to thnk both sides of this limit (we should therefore have to be able to think what cannot be thought).

The limit can, therefore, only be drawn in language and what lies on the other side of the limit will be simply nonsense." - Wittgenstein

Being "knowable," in the logical sense, is absolutely unrelated to matters of faith. If you need God to help you with logic, you're a retard; if you need God to be subject to logic, you lack imagination.

You're missing the point. What Wittgenstein was doing was delineating between matters of logic and matters of metaphysics. He would never claim that God was subject to human logic.

filth: If you need God to help you with logic, you're a retard; if you need God to be subject to logic

If you believe that an entity can exist that is outside logic, you get the smug satisfaction of never having to admit you were proven wrong, because you won't accept any logic anybody might offer to the contrary anyway.

CtrlAltDelete: I don't know if I agree with that.

I guess I could see it both ways.

I'm not sure if that's the case.

Mentat: I'm not sure if that's the case.

You could be right.

devildog123: Not all Atheists, just the ones that are insanely arrogant and obnoxious about it, and believe that they are right, and everyone else is a stupid, ignorant, and wrong. They sound like religious fundies to me.

Exactly. They are the exact opposite side of the same coin that they abhor.

CtrlAltDelete: Mentat: I'm not sure if that's the case.

You could be right.

Don't quote me on that.

Diogenes: filth: Diogenes: Drawing a limit to what is knowable and what is not is not being "unsure" of your beliefs.

"...in order to draw a limit to thinking we should have to be able to thnk both sides of this limit (we should therefore have to be able to think what cannot be thought).

The limit can, therefore, only be drawn in language and what lies on the other side of the limit will be simply nonsense." - Wittgenstein

Being "knowable," in the logical sense, is absolutely unrelated to matters of faith. If you need God to help you with logic, you're a retard; if you need God to be subject to logic, you lack imagination.

You're missing the point. What Wittgenstein was doing was delineating between matters of logic and matters of metaphysics. He would never claim that God was subject to human logic.

No, I'm getting the point. I love Wittgenstein, and I'm agreeing with you as colorfully as I can.

"The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, but wiser people so full of doubts."

Bertrand Russell

KaponoFor3: devildog123: Not all Atheists, just the ones that are insanely arrogant and obnoxious about it, and believe that they are right, and everyone else is a stupid, ignorant, and wrong. They sound like religious fundies to me.

Exactly. They are the exact opposite side of the same coin that they abhor.


That's why you see so many of them burning religious books, protesting at events they disagree with while screaming that the people there are not going anywhere when they die, publicly proclaiming that people with faith can't possibly be real Americans, going to poor third world countries to convert the local animists to atheism, leaving copies of Richard Dawkins books in hotel rooms, and knocking on your door to tell you the good news about materialism. Yep, exactly the same.

FlyingPig: filth: If you need God to help you with logic, you're a retard; if you need God to be subject to logic

If you believe that an entity can exist that is outside logic, you get the smug satisfaction of never having to admit you were proven wrong, because you won't accept any logic anybody might offer to the contrary anyway.

Except I'm not smug, satisfied, or convinced that I'm right. I'm merely asserting that the attempt to restrict matters of faith to logical analysis is one of the greatest exercises in missing the point known to man. I was also equating the fallacies of those who require the divine to be present in logical exercises with those who refuse to recognize the existence of questions not subject to pragmatic philosophy.

GurneyHalleck: Anyone who says they're sure of their beliefs has closed their mind.

Are you sure about that?

Sybarite: That's why you see so many of them burning religious books, protesting at events they disagree with while screaming that the people there are not going anywhere when they die, publicly proclaiming that people with faith can't possibly be real Americans, going to poor third world countries to convert the local animists to atheism, leaving copies of Richard Dawkins books in hotel rooms, and knocking on your door to tell you the good news about materialism. Yep, exactly the same.

Mentat: CtrlAltDelete: Mentat: I'm not sure if that's the case.

You could be right.

Don't quote me on that.

JEEPERS CREEPERS! SEMI-STAR!

Sybarite: That's why you see so many of them burning religious books, protesting at events they disagree with while screaming that the people there are not going anywhere when they die, publicly proclaiming that people with faith can't possibly be real Americans, going to poor third world countries to convert the local animists to atheism, leaving copies of Richard Dawkins books in hotel rooms, and knocking on your door to tell you the good news about materialism. Yep, exactly the same.


How can you have been on FARK for seven years and yet missed all of those stories?

Diogenes: filth: Diogenes: Drawing a limit to what is knowable and what is not is not being "unsure" of your beliefs.

"...in order to draw a limit to thinking we should have to be able to thnk both sides of this limit (we should therefore have to be able to think what cannot be thought).

The limit can, therefore, only be drawn in language and what lies on the other side of the limit will be simply nonsense." - Wittgenstein

Being "knowable," in the logical sense, is absolutely unrelated to matters of faith. If you need God to help you with logic, you're a retard; if you need God to be subject to logic, you lack imagination.

You're missing the point. What Wittgenstein was doing was delineating between matters of logic and matters of metaphysics. He would never claim that God was subject to human logic.

If I recall correctly, Wittgenstein's whole philosophy was that disagreements in the realm of philosophy stemmed solely from language. That is, we all agree in principles of logic, and we will agree on a certain set of premises, and therefore we shouldn't disagree on the logical answer and yet we do - therefore the problem must be the terms we use and what we mean by them.

In that quote I see that being distinguished, not a delineating between logic and metaphysics, but him pointing out the obvious flaws of language - what we know is what we can express in language, and if we cannot express it in language then it is nonsense (with this limitation being the basis for believing that language is the root of all conflict in philosophy).

Also, iirc, this particular idea in philosophy died out a few decades after Wittgenstein proposed it, and even in his old age he also abandoned it (but I may be thinking of someone else, it's been a long time since I read Wittgenstein).

/just saying that I don't really think that quote applies to the subject at hand.

GilRuiz1: How can you have been on FARK for seven years and yet missed all of those stories?

All one of them?

CtrlAltDelete: Mentat: CtrlAltDelete: Mentat: I'm not sure if that's the case.

You could be right.

Don't quote me on that.

JEEPERS CREEPERS! SEMI-STAR!

If I don't make it through this, tell my wife I said, "Hello."

Yeah, I'll admit I'm not that open minded. Or maybe I am, shut up, I don't care what you think!

Yeah, take that Aggies!

Agnostics aren't unsure in their beliefs. They are just really sure that god might exist, and he might not. We just except the possibility that either could be true.

Last One Left: What if I am convinced that I'm close-minded?

Then I believe the term you're looking for is "twat"

I don't see any atheist saying that anyone who isn't an atheist is going to suffer eternal hellfire.

Anyone who has not critically examined their beliefs need to have a closed mind in order to avoid having those beliefs annihilated by other viewpoints.

Pocket Ninja: It's interesting how the words used in this headline manage to complete misdirect the actual point of the studies while still being technically accurate.



/Amused.

The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity. - Yeats

GurneyHalleck: Anyone who says they're sure of their beliefs has closed their mind.

you sure about that?

UberDave

Very good point. But some would claim that Wittgenstein was a beery swine who was just as schloshed as Schlegel....


Heidegger, Heidegger was a boozy beggar;
Hobbes was fond of his dram.
And René Descartes was a drunken fart,
"I drink, therefore I am."

ne2d: GurneyHalleck: Anyone who says they're sure of their beliefs has closed their mind.

Are you sure about that?

ha, smart.

/go ask a fundie that question

If there is steak and a bj, I'll believe anything she tells me to.

Cover your noses, I'm about to open my mind.

Mentat: If I don't make it through this, tell my wife I said, "Hello."

What makes a man turn... neutral?

12349876: I don't see any atheist saying that anyone who isn't an atheist is going to suffer eternal hellfire.

No they just saying they are wasting their lives.