Hello. Thank you for the time to write that.

A suggestion if I may. No one will read a chunk of text like that. Go to the edit function and insert as many paragraph breaks as you can. 

Is that better? 

Which thread prompted your name change?

 

Sorry, what I meant was, which thread prompted you to choose the name Joe6Pack on your avatar?

I'm betting it was the thread about the Harvard Humanist Conference. The notion of giving up on people simply because of IQ or educational achievement was broached there. Some of our 'humanist' friends will not 'waste their time' talking to some people because part of their DOGMA(Yeah. I said it.) is that one must be educated in order to have common sense.

Joe6Pack and I have a lot to talk about.

Welcome to the site.

According to the bible, the old testament has 613 laws called the mitzvot. Each one of these is allegedly divinely communicated. The punishment for breaking one of those laws was always extreme.

jesus supposedly rolls along and preaches the beattittudes on the mount in Matthew 5 where he lays out some pretty new ideas with regard to the old testament including 'love your enemies'. HOWEVER, he said that not one jot or tittle would pass from the law. The law still exists, but the punishments are gone now?

Besides that, in the gospel of Matthew there is more decriptions of hell as fire than anywhere else in the bible or additional books that aren't in the KJV.

One could argue that the threat of hell would constitute FORCE on jesus' part. 'Believe in me or burn' does go against the notion of loving your enemies.

There are some that are anti-theist, but that is primarily due to the idea that without theists then there is no theism. That sounds extremist, but the idea is not to kill them but rather help them deconvert.

Have you ever heard of anyone close to you, "Putting it in god's hands?" How did that make you feel? I'm willing to bet that it might have revulsed you that someone was essentially giving up on themselves. My question: Where did they get that notion that it was okay to give up?

It was their belief in god, or theism. That's why I am anti-THEISM, but not anti-theist. It's essentially a 'hate the sin, love the sinner' thing with believing in fairy tale miracles and promises of an afterlife as the sin. lol.

As far as being 'bad cop', I don't really see that because I feel awful when I don't speak up. It seems to be negligent(at fault) if I don't say something.

If there's a fire in a movie theatre and you don't tell anyone or get some water then are you really blameless even though you didn't start it?

There is your reason for speaking up. If a good person is a good person then why do they have to sell their religion right along with themselves. Politicians get just as confused with their emotions and ethics as the rest of us. When they do, they just excuse themselves as being religious and waiting for divine intervention to show them the way. It goes right back to someone giving up on themselves.

As far as pantheism, if everything is god then nothing is. Sure. There's a lot of things unexplained by science, but it bothers me when people think that there just isn't an answer so everything is god. Why do you hold to pantheism?

I wish I could think that religion was a good thing for changing minds. More often than not, it seems like it just 'guilts' people into submission. That's why politicians use it.

Of a sort, jesus was a politician. Look at all of the gods that he supposedly had to sway people away from. Paul was definitely a politician, shit he started out as one.

By the way, people who want to keep government and religion separate are called secularists. secularism is the idea that state and religion must be kept separate.

I was just as offended by the 'Joe six-pack' remark as you are. Just because I don't have a degree from some prestigious university, doesn't mean that I am not as capable of freethought.

I wonder if they could walk a week in my wal-mart workshoes($15.88) or even eat healthy on a budget.

I did make the joe6 comment, though I was paraphrasing the talk by Rabbi Wine at the conference.

I still think it true: skepticism, logic, freethought have little appeal to joe6pack.

I'm just not sure the OP is one (a joe 6pack).

 The Rabbi's comment struck a chord with me because I have strong opinions about the role of IQ in predicting success in life.

Joe6pack, to me, is the guy who neither uses nor understands nor cares about logic when debating or deciding what to believe in.

Just not knowing something is fine; we're all ignorant about many things, but that can be corrected.

Joe6pack is they guy who forms strong opinions without having read anything on the topic. He believes x when five minutes of research would clearly show y.

Asking why there are no crockoducks; or how come monkeys still exist since we evolved from them, are joe6pack comments.

If you're actively seeking out knowledge and willing to keep an open mind about what you believe in or don't, then you're not a joe6.

 How this ties in to IQ-- I believe that one needs some minimal level of IQ (not a lot; certainly less than 100) to be able to escape the joe6 mentality.

 Some dumb people are atheists and some theists are brilliant, but line up 100s of people at the extremes of IQ and I'd bet you'd get a significant difference where the low end is over-represented by joes and the high end is over-represented by skeptics.

 

I hope this clarifies where I'm coming from. I think the above comments are defensable, and they no way imply that I think all theists are dumb, or that one needs a high (versus some minimum level of) IQ to be a skeptic. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sorry, Joe6Pack. I need to hijack for one post.

Interesting. I have strong opinions about people with strong opinions. Anybody give GW an IQ test?

I suppose it hinges on your definition of 'success in life.' The last time I checked lottery winners weren't required to pass the ASVAB to buy a ticket.

I'd suggest a new label now that you've destroyed the connotation of this one. You know, like switching humanism with atheism and back when it suits.

So is it IQ or ignorance? I say ignorance because many people have never heard of the contradictory position.

And if people simply tolerate your ignorance of other ideas concerning evolution then what are they? How can someone expect people to willingly 'seek out knowledge' if people simply shut their own minds with regard to their capabilities due to IQ or alleged social status?

This completely NEGATES any kind of ideal that three years ago I would have associated with the idea of humanism.

And some humanists are elitist assholes devoid of any consideration as to who might be reading their comments and misconstruing their meaning.

You may be willing to simply give up on those whom you would label as 'low end'. I cannot. I will not.

Why? Because I have had more success and WAY better conversations with people that you would shrug off as having a low IQ. The truth is that those people you discount on that subjective basis have never heard of the same concepts.

I don't think it is us that is confusing ignorance and IQ here.

Nope. You're still sucking air from my perspective. I did reply to your last post in the Harvard Humanist Conference and I would love to hear more about how you think your ideas and the ones at the conference are defensible.

Conference thread

Thank you. I now return you to your regularly scheduled introduction thread.

Susan wrote:

"Hi Tyler and welcome to the forums. You've been lurking for awhile so I guess this is your "official" welcome.

Don't sell yourself short. It's obvious you're not a "dumb dumb" (as you put it).

I think your signature says it all and we're very happy to have your here!"

Thank you for the warm welcome Susan. Glad to be here.

Thanks for clarifying FGL. No hard feelings on my side. I disagree with some of what you are saying here, but since I do not really know for sure if most likely most joe six pack's would not be interested in skepticism, logic or freethought I can't argue it really. My guts tell me that joe six pack should at least be given the opportunity. I have a lot of respect for people who talk about free thought in schools or colleges or share about it with friends.

I always thought that intolerance was using coercion to get what you want. I just cant see that talking or challenging someones beliefs or ideas is the same thing as molesting the constitution or threating violence. Theists have done that but I never heard of an atheist doing it....

The thought of debunking God around my family, relatives and friends, I want to but that thought is very painful to me. Still there are subtle ways of going about it that at least gives people a chance. I will check out YouTube thanks. I would be interested in hearing about your experinces in church when you have time.

Yea, I like what is happening here at RRS.

As far as churches willing to invite atheists in...some might and some might not. To be honest my dad is a pastor. THATS why I can't get kicked out. LOL.

Hehe. Yea. Two heathens in my family so far. I do talk to some of my cousins about religion and what I know about the bible and they havent tar and feathered me yet, but yea I will talk to people about this stuff if I get the feel that they are open to it, but some folks are not going to appreciate me bringing such things up thats for damn sure. Sorry it took so long to answer. Thanks for talking to me darth josh.

FGL,

It is my contention that the hypothesis is flawed, poorly worded, and not indicative of humanist values as laid out by other humanists.

 

Edwords of the AHA wrote down the 11 points of humanism (2/3 down the page)

http://www.jcn.com/humanism.php4

He neglected to add a 12th concerning the spread of humanistic thought to those that have previously not heard of the idea. That is intrinsic to the other sites as well.

Thus my argument of exclusory practices of self-labelled humanists.

 

Labelling the movement as 'New' does not change the origin of the ideals. Erasmus will always be the progenitor of humanism because no one else has brought anything new to the table even at Harvard's humanist anniversary. The difference now is that it lacks papal sanction.

 

There are too many glittering generalities that have gone undefined in your posts. (Such as: 'success in life&#39

Your general attitude conveyed in your posts seems to me to be one of disdain for anyone you deem to be 'lesser' and that in itself causes me to continue on this line of questioning. heh. Call me a skeptic or better yet prove that I am incorrect.

I can't find one good thing about the label itself, so we're even.

To a degree, Joe6Pack and I feel the same I bet. It seems the harshest indictment against humanism is the people espousing it. lol.

If no one expressed the same concerns that I have during Rabbi Wine's sermon then there is a problem.

This has been something that, so far, I have traced back to the early 1990's. Wine, Wiesel, and Banet are names that I am becoming all too familiar with. You are seemingly the only person to come forward with a working hypothesis regarding IQ while the rest have only preached support without the testing you have planned.

Wiesel is the only one of their number with redeeming qualities. I have quoted him often particularly in defense of the RRS and my own activism.

I understand. I don't have your same credentials. However, I have 17 years of observation of individuals in all of the mentioned criteria of your hypotheses. Thus my voiced dissent concerning the premises which you are basing the hypotheses upon.

In other words, I have had lots of luck talking to waitresses, gas station attendants, and other people lumped into your lower-end of the study.

In my "research", I have found that IQ has no relative basis to reasoning with regard to religion or the lack thereof. I'm not saying that every waitress, gas pumper, or other had a low IQ, but an astounding majority could not perform their jobs yet they were very capable of analyzing the fallacies presented to them with regard to religion.

In fact, and I hope he doesn't read this(lol), one of my crew is exceptionally poor with his life-skills and mechanical aptitude, but has found the parts of apologist's arguments that suck the worst. I couldn't get him to stop laughing long enough during Ray and Kirk's part of the Nightline segment to enjoy it myself.

If not antithetical to the findings themselves. I'm not trying to denigrate the value of social science. I apologize if it seems so.

However, in almost every incidence there is an exception which makes it so difficult on the sociologist to present a valid rule that it doesn't seem as if they're accepting of the exception's data inclusiveness. Counting the hits and ignoring the misses.

I suppose that I could be considered a hard-core empiricist because I abhor the use of probability over observational statistics. (Cosmology excluded. lol.) Too many preconceived notions can cloud results just as easily as miscommunicated data points can.

You were too general. I appreciate that you would share the specifics with us.

 

Oh yeah. I have read some of this before. I had to google 'g-loaded'. Wow. I had no idea that this is where you were going.

I know where we differ on hypotheses now. And best of all, I picked up the term I was looking for too.

I contend that atheism versus theism is an ECT(Elementary Cognitive Task) in and of itself acted upon solely by environmental factors concerning the subject.

As such, theism cannot be a priori with regard to a child. However, atheism can also be considered thusly due to my previous arguments regarding the fact that there are many theists unaware of there being an alternative to theism.

I hope I'm staying with me here. lol. This is much more difficult than talking to your run of the mill psychometrist.

People aren't given the option of red light/blue light to choose from until they get to the test. However, if they've never seen a blue light then they are slowed by the deductive process of 'the light that isn't red'. That may be an oversimplification, but do you see where I'm coming from?

As one example, I had never heard of the word 'atheism' until I was approximately 17 years old, but I already was an atheist prior to that. I had to operate on the 'not a christian' for a while and then finally 'not a theist' bases.

I could understand if the IQ tests were applied devoid of a conclusion based upon environment and then applied to the question of belief. That would be irrefutable proof for one of our ideas. Unfortunately, I just don't see how THAT would be possible in our given social situation.

One more little piece of this is that I don't buy into the g of the subjects in the criteria mentioned because as you said 'some valued life outcome'. Particularly with regard to SES and Teenage pregnancy. An established objective conclusion has not been met in my opinion because it does not take into account other options not presented to the subjects. Counting their only answer as wrong when the others were hidden from them in those two aspects muddies the resluts.

 

LMAO. How many members of the NAS are there? 2,000 to 3,000 worldwide. I'd leave that part out of your argument because it is such a small sample. Besides, it's science. One should expect a majority of atheists in a field denigrated by theists.

 

This is a working hypothesis. However, establishment of 'true atheist' and 'true fundie' criteria would need to meet at a standard, not random selection. For instance, all presbyterians or all of one group of atheists(lol. good luck there.)

That sounds like a better avenue to research. Still very subjective unless a single job is being performed. Comparing janitors to driv-thru workers wouldn't work though. Janitors to janitors or managers to managers.

One of my problems with social science is also the lack of control subjects in the experiments. That's just me though. Most often I value the opinions of people that study other people in the most objective manner possible.

I think that I already established why I disagree with this earlier in the post. Ignorance of the other side of the issue until the test just doesn't seem fair.

That's why I say that everyone needs to be given the choice in complete form regardless of IQ.

Perhaps my experiences have been with higher IQ people than I had thought. 17 years of interaction is awfully hard to overlook for me, but if your research does reach the posited conclusions then I have so much more personal data to analyze in a different manner than I thought. We're talking in the thousands and some if not most contradictory to the g conclusions earlier.

For instance, unmarried teen mothers deconverted = ~70%

dads before 19 deconverted = ~50%

Poor people deconverted = more often than not. too many to count, but I can name quite a few.

dropouts deconverted = high. maybe 70-80%

Keep in mind that I don't count the ones that don't get back to me.

 

Well, mark me down for inconclusiveness with regard to any overpowering results. I'd put down a bet, but my SES isn't what it used to be. lol.

Ditto. Sometimes we just can't help it.

Well, I gotta go to the diner. The short order cook wanted to talk more about the CERN particle accelerator. I printed out some of the diagrams for us to look at over my double cheeseburger. Amazing how quickly he comprehended the concept of smashing protons together to find the smaller pieces of the universe. He understood matter/energy conservation before I even told him there was a physical law about it.

Good to have you Tyler.

Though I can't get Dale's voice out of my head when I'm reading your posts.