Bill O'Reilly SCARED by Richard Dawkins
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Originally posted by Joe234-
85 % of Swedes are atheist
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What if 85% of Swedes are wrong?
Are you telling us this because you believe Swedish people have things all figured out and we should be just like them?
... an argumentum ad populum (Latin: "appeal to the people") is a fallacious argument that concludes a proposition to be true because many or all people believe it; it alleges: "If many believe so, it is so."
This type of argument is known by several names,including appeal to the masses, appeal to belief, appeal to the majority, appeal to the people, argument by consensus, authority of the many, and bandwagon fallacy, and in Latin by the names argumentum ad populum ("appeal to the people"), argumentum ad numerum ("appeal to the number"), and consensus gentium ("agreement of the clans"). It is also the basis of a number of social phenomena, including communal reinforcement and the bandwagon effect, the spreading of various religious beliefs, and of the Chinese proverb "three men make a tiger".
I'm an atheist and it has nothing to do with Richard Dawkins, Bill O'Reilly or what 85% of the people believe in Sweden.
I'm an atheist because I lack a belief in a God or god(s), and that's all there is to it.
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Interesting, sounds like an interesting book. I am not religious. I am not an atheist either as to me that would mean I believe in something enough to "not believe in it" but I don't. I have no feelings toward the matter one way or another.
I am against organized religion only because of how much they take advantage of the weak but do admit that personal "faith" has a stabilizing affect for most of the believers, and let's face it, most people need something to "believe" in, someone to follow. They need to have someone to push off personal responsibility to to make them feel like they aren't lost for good (the devil) or someone to pray to to make them feel there is hope (God). I get it, and if it helps them, more power to them.
I also believe that fanatics would be like they are whether they were religious fanatics or not. Another words as much as I would love to blame religion for their fanaticism, if they were atheists I think they would be just as fanatical about that, if they liked their steak well done they would probably go around killing the "medium-rarers" as evil.
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For all the absurd claptrap believed by all the religions of the world it must be said in their favor that many do a good job of extending charity to the needy. If a little proselytizing is the price of admission to the soup kitchen it's just not a big deal. Anything more than that, any effort to force conversions by emotional blackmail, and they can go suck eggs. I am entirely grateful for a local Catholic charity's efforts in providing my wife with medical care and they do it no questions asked. Good people. Doesn't make me want to join up but they are at least worthy of the respect I can show by keeping my mouth shut about how I feel about religion in general.
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Originally posted by justintemplerJoe what does what people in Sweden believe have to do with it?
What if 85% of Swedes are wrong?
Are you telling us this because you believe Swedish people have things all figured out and we should be just like them?
Source
I'm an atheist and it has nothing to do with Richard Dawkins, Bill O'Reilly or what 85% of the people believe in Sweden.
I'm an atheist because I lack a belief in a God or god(s), and that's all there is to it.
Perhaps Sweden is a more mature society.
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Originally posted by Joe234 View PostIt shows that not all societies are stuck in the old paradigm.
Perhaps Sweden is a more mature society.
Stop trying to use other people as an excuse to believe in things.
Learn to think for yourself, that's a true sign of maturity.
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Originally posted by justintempler View PostI've got a new paradigm for you...
Stop trying to use other people as an excuse to believe in things.
Learn to think for yourself, that's a true sign of maturity.
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Originally posted by Joe234 View PostMost people use other people's ideas to form their thoughts. It's called reading and learning.
The problem comes in when you only accept other people's ideas that already agree with your existing worldview.
If you're a liberal you spend all your time watching MSNBC.
If you're a conservative you spend all your time watching Fox.
Both groups are using other people's ideas to form their thoughts. (Just like you said)
Both groups are reading and learning. (Just like you said)
So Joe, how come the group from MSNBC and Fox don't agree with each other?
I guess there's more to learning than just using other people's ideas, huh?
It's not learning if you always filter out anything that challenges your worldview.
Learn to eliminate the contradictions in your worldview, then we'll call it learning.
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