Swastika eyes

Ahnimus

If you take the position that, well, everyone in the professional fields of Cognitive Sciences takes. Then if, say you were born in a different place in a different time, then you wouldn't be you, you'd be different.

But this goes deeper into what "You" are, and 99% of this board won't debate that. Most people are just going to accept received wisdom and never challenge. Some events happened in my life which led me to books, to wonder why people are different and why I am who or what I am. I found answers in science, very solid and largely undisputable answers. But people will cling to their received notions of self from Folkpsychology. It's a real bummer too, because they are 100% wrong.

RolandTD20Kdrummer

tybird wrote:

Yes, there are a lot of lemmings walking around disguised as human beings.

lol...great sense of humor as always.

onelongsong

flywallyfly wrote:

Just pointing out how absurd your "majority rules" logic is -- sorry if it is over your head. Also, please explain how not putting the 10 commandments in a government building is discrimanatory. Thanks in advance -- gotta run.

majority does rule. during an election; the candidate with the MOST votes wins. not the bloke with the least.

i'm only pointing out that the majority WANTED the 10 commandments there. all laws are connected to what we call the 10 commandments; although it actually contains 619 commandments.

Ahnimus

onelongsong wrote:

majority does rule. during an election; the candidate with the MOST votes wins. not the bloke with the least.

i'm only pointing out that the majority WANTED the 10 commandments there. all laws are connected to what we call the 10 commandments; although it actually contains 619 commandments.

In what way are they connected?

You do realize that the majority (there is that word again) of the founding fathers of the United States were Deists not Theists. They derived their principles from something other than the Bible. It doesn't happen by coincidence that all cultures have fundamentally the same rules that reflect the 10 commandments. They actually come from our nature as a cooperative species. Of course not all humans are naturally cooperative, which is why laws seem necessary.

Byrnzie

Ahnimus wrote:

If you take the position that, well, everyone in the professional fields of Cognitive Sciences takes. Then if, say you were born in a different place in a different time, then you wouldn't be you, you'd be different.

But this goes deeper into what "You" are, and 99% of this board won't debate that. Most people are just going to accept received wisdom and never challenge. Some events happened in my life which led me to books, to wonder why people are different and why I am who or what I am. I found answers in science, very solid and largely undisputable answers. But people will cling to their received notions of self from Folkpsychology. It's a real bummer too, because they are 100% wrong.

I think Adorno was onto something with his 'Negative dialectics', when he posited that any form of 'absolute truth', or idealism, is dangerous and can lead to the gas chambers.

Songburst

onelongsong wrote:

what the hell are you talking about? 87% of the population is discriminated against because of 13%.
why are you bringing race into this? the constitution needs to be changed and if put on the ballot; it would be.

What he was saying was that just before blacks were granted their civil rights, the majority of Americans were against granting them their rights. 13% of the American population were for granting basic civil rights to black people and 87% were against it, yet those shifty blacks were granted their rights anyway. Life is so unfair sometimes.

Also: aren't the majority of Americans for withdrawing the troops from Iraq? I guess we should be expect them back by Christmas? I'll hang the stockings.

Collin

onelongsong wrote:

in my eyes; the freedom of religion means the freedom of the people to express whatever religion they chose. during the incident with the 10 commandments in i believe alabama; the PEOPLE ie: 87%; wanted the 10 commandments to remain. in a land that's suppose to be for the people and by the people; why don't the people have a choice? how does 13% outweigh the wishes of the people? i know what the supreme court says; but i don't agree. no religious group had a problem with the 10 commandments being posted there. the words "under God" didn't effect any other group except the atheists who sued.

me wrote:

edit: I already left but I kept thinking that this last part isn't exactly right, it's not what I mean. I can't really explain right now, I'll think about it and post again.

I can understand those atheists and I think you're not trying to see it from their perspective or maybe you're interpreting it wrongly.
Picture yourself in this situation, you live in an area where 87% of the population wants very strict laws on guns and maybe even ban some fire arms. How would you feel about that? Would you just sit back and watch it happen, after all the majority wants it, why would the 13% of gun loving people try to prevent other people's wishes? Or would you fight for your constitutional right to keep and bear arms?

Now, I'm not saying you would sue in a situation like that, I don't know what you would do, but to me it's not really entirely unreasonable. I mean this happened in Alabama, in the bible belt, I've seen a lot of misconceptions about atheism here and misconceptions about who atheists are, atheists on this board have been called immoral and many other things, so these atheists' fears or concerns that religion will slip into government and into law in an area where the majority of the population is pretty fundament in its beliefs, isn't so far fetched, I'd say.

onelongsong wrote:

87% of the population is discriminated against because of 13%.

I wonder if you'd feel the same way if 87% of the population wanted to ban guns and the 13% won the case.

Anyway, what I was trying to say yesterday was that I don't think these atheists did this because they want to take over the US and turn it into a godless country and throw religious people into jail or send them off to work or concentration camps. I've only been to the US once and found it extremely religious, religion is ubiquitous, god is even on your money. And I only visited New England. So I can imagine (actually I can't) that the South is even more religious. I think atheists just want to make sure there's a place for atheists in this society too, Christianity is pretty well represented (even on the money), god is mentioned all the time, I was approached three times by religious groups when I was in the States, your president believes he's on a mission from god etc.
Is it really necessary to have those commandments in a state judicial building? Really? Even though there's a separation of state and church? Isn't that pushing it a little bit, no matter how many Christians want it?

But now back to the point? Where did this come from:

onelongsong wrote:

i feel that if atheists have the rights they enjoy; nazis should (and do) too

I still don't see why or how that's relevant in any way whatsoever.

drew2420

To play all Nazi's off as souless devils is wrong. Throughout history people have followed many bad ideas. Often claiming they were acting threw god even. Not to compare the US with Nazi's, but some people would claim right now that people are blindly following the US and their war mongering polices, while standing firmly behind the christian God as a guidance. Also if you want to look at the psychology of Obedience look at Stanley Milgram's famous experiment. His results completly surprised himself, and these werent bad people, what we do under social pressures is amazing.

Ahnimus

drew2420 wrote:

To play all Nazi's off as souless devils is wrong. Throughout history people have followed many bad ideas. Often claiming they were acting threw god even. Not to compare the US with Nazi's, but some people would claim right now that people are blindly following the US and their war mongering polices, while standing firmly behind the christian God as a guidance. Also if you want to look at the psychology of Obedience look at Stanley Milgram's famous experiment. His results completly surprised himself, and these werent bad people, what we do under social pressures is amazing.

Yea, Milgram's experiment.

But hey, God gave them free-will. Experimental data is pointless because they will cleave to their free-will.

drew2420

Ahnimus wrote:

Yea, Milgram's experiment.

But hey, God gave them free-will. Experimental data is pointless because they will cleave to their free-will.

Who said anything about free will, after all were just stimulus response...right?

Ahnimus

drew2420 wrote:

Who said anything about free will, after all were just stimulus response...right?

We are, but most people believe that we have free-will and the two perspectives are incompatible. It's useless to explain actions in the way of experimental data when free-will is an unsurpassable hurdle towards any such conclusions.

Byrnzie

drew2420 wrote:

To play all Nazi's off as souless devils is wrong. Throughout history people have followed many bad ideas. Often claiming they were acting threw god even. Not to compare the US with Nazi's, but some people would claim right now that people are blindly following the US and their war mongering polices, while standing firmly behind the christian God as a guidance. Also if you want to look at the psychology of Obedience look at Stanley Milgram's famous experiment. His results completly surprised himself, and these werent bad people, what we do under social pressures is amazing.

True. My example of Nazism was just that, however...an example.

And I do see it as epitomising the 20th Century. It's the most significant event to have occured in our recent past, and it's reverberations are still felt today, and should continue to be for a long time hence.

RolandTD20Kdrummer

Does anyone else notice this image screams Nazi SS officer?

http://img403.imageshack.us/my.php?image=49927687vf7.jpg

MahoganySouls

surferdude wrote:

So does it take a willingness to die for your beliefs to be human?

Wouldn't that be the ultimate sacrifice and most profound statement to exemplify them? I think so. Yes.

MahoganySouls

RolandTD20Kdrummer wrote:

lol...great sense of humor as always.

I don't think it was meant to be funny. But rather illustrative. Lemmings will follow one another to death simply because that is what everyone else is doing. No rhyme, no reason...just conformance.

MahoganySouls

Songburst wrote:

What he was saying was that just before blacks were granted their civil rights, the majority of Americans were against granting them their rights. 13% of the American population were for granting basic civil rights to black people and 87% were against it, yet those shifty blacks were granted their rights anyway. Life is so unfair sometimes.

Also: aren't the majority of Americans for withdrawing the troops from Iraq? I guess we should be expect them back by Christmas? I'll hang the stockings.

Yes and those same Americans were all for sending the troops to fight the horrible terrorists in Iraq when the Government first told them they should. Now the media is telling them otherwise so they are jumping band wagons. Wishy washy conformists.

surferdude

MahoganySouls wrote:

Wouldn't that be the ultimate sacrifice and most profound statement to exemplify them? I think so. Yes.

Neither you nor I have died for our beliefs. I like to think I'm more human than lemming though. What about you?

Coming back to life

Byrnzie wrote:

I often wonder about people I meet, and those who I know well, if they would have been Nazis if they had just so happened to have been born in a different milieu, and in a different time.

It's just that I've met countless people over the years who have appeared to me to be lacking in a certain fundamental quality of character, or soul, and which makes them glaringly susceptible to the malevolent influences of authority - in most any shape or form. I often find myself pondering how they would have behaved in 1930's Berlin. Would they have resisted, or rebelled? Would they have helped the Jews? Would they have become state sanctioned mass-murderers?
More often than not, I decide that they would have been only too willing to smash the skulls of innocents, if it meant they'd be promoted, and applauded by their peers.
I mean, take your average jobs-worth. Someone who bows down to authority at every available opportunity, and revels in the tiny amount of power that he/she has been given in the workplace, to the point where their better nature becomes secondary to their job prospects - most jobs-worths I've met have tended to lack even a modicum of soul, or character, or sex. And quite frankly, these people tend, in my experience, to be in the majority. Would someone like this have had the strength of character, and decency of intent to have resisted the forces of indoctrination and prejudice that were prevalent within the central cog of 20th Century fascism?
I doubt it.

I sometimes look around me and think 'How many people here possess that ingredient that would have set them apart from the murderers? Just because they happen to be in a different place, and a different time, what, if anything, makes them any different from those people who fell under the spell of propaganda and indoctrination in the 1930's, to the point that they became willing executioners?'

Ditto

baraka

MahoganySouls wrote:

Yes and those same Americans were all for sending the troops to fight the horrible terrorists in Iraq when the Government first told them they should. Now the media is telling them otherwise so they are jumping band wagons. Wishy washy conformists.

Is it not true that the American people were told by the gov't that Iraq harbored weapons of mass destruction? Then, is it not true that it was determined that Iraq did NOT have such weapons? Now here we are several years later involved in a war with no apparent resolution. I think it is pretty clear why those that might have supported the effort in the beginning might not now.

Drowned Out

baraka wrote:

Is it not true that the American people were told by the gov't that Iraq harbored weapons of mass destruction? Then, is it not true that it was determined that Iraq did NOT have such weapons? Now here we are several years later involved in a war with no apparent resolution. I think it is pretty clear why those that might have supported the effort in the beginning might not now.

I have to disagree. There were plenty of people opposing the war at the beginning. People were opposing it based on legality, proof of the WMD, US foreign policy and it's history in Iraq, Iraq's lack of ties to terror, the obvious conflicts of interest with big oil and the Bush admin....the truth was out there all along. But a lot of people were still bloodthirsty, or doing in-depth personal investigations based on the evening news. The people that supported it at first are/were lemmings.