Comment by elcritch
16 days ago
> Few things are more personally relevant than not getting tortured and executed by your neighbors because you were granted no defense against spectral evidence.
As @arkey points out, this happens with atheistic beliefs as well. By numbers communist purges have killed vastly more people than all religions combined just due to the numbers of people involved in modern ages.
The denunciations are very similar with actual evidence rarely being required or needed. Or it’s based on some characteristic of being on an outside group. Netflix’s adaptation of the Chinese authors book “Three body problem” gives a visceral showcasing of what that would’ve been like as one of the characters father is denounced and killed during that time for having “anti-Marxist” beliefs like gravity.
I’ve been to the Pol Pot’s killing trees in Cambodia where they slaughtered millions of people. Anyone who was educated in any way were considered polluted by capitalism and killed. Things like having spectacles was sufficient evidence.
I’ve seen the holocaust monuments in Berlin and Tel Aviv where the ideals of racial purity based on pseudo scientific interpretations of evolution were a key philosophical underpinning.
Actually much of the anti-evolutionary zeal in the US can be partially traced back to progressives (of that period) use of “evolution” to justify mass forced sterilization of “undesirables” by several US states during the 1910-1930’s.
Really humans are pretty flawed with any belief system. You fool yourself if you think “scientific” or “atheist” are any hindrance to these group behaviors.
Oh honey, xe are visibly queer. None of the above is new to xe, as a matter of survival. And a matter of sanity, as xe were raised to believe that the world was created from whole cloth six thousands years ago and that dinosaurs either lived with humans or were an invention of the devil.
There are no such things as atheist beliefs any more than there are a-unicorn beliefs, even if many things have been done in its name. The same goes for evolution. And no, communism isn't any more inherently atheistic than German fascism was inherently Catholic (it certainly wasn't atheistic) nor US democracy inherently Protestant. Anyone doing anything "in the name of evolution" is projecting their own hate and small-mindedness onto whatever convenient vocabulary at hand, as has happened over and over and over long before science. Avoid confusing belief with confidence in replicability, not when only one was sufficient for humanity to reach the moon.
No, as a science-minded secular materialistic atheist, xe are burdened with expecting nuance, detail, precision, specificity, and consistency of xirselves and in xir communications. But xe also expect the same of others in kind. Tell xe again how belief will save you from junk forensic science if you are ever accused falsely of a crime? Because actual science has no patience with such nonsense whereas xir original point still stands. We can resume this discussion after that.
> There are no such things as atheist beliefs any more than there are a-unicorn beliefs, even if many things have been done in its name. The same goes for evolution.
That’s just silly. Of course there are atheistic, theistic, along with myriad of other classifications of belief systems. If you decide to try and redefine all commonly accepted terms based on your belief system you’re not participating in a fair discussion.
> And no, communism isn't any more inherently atheistic
Perhaps it’s not, but all the major communist states have embraced atheism as a matter of course and that is what pertains to my comment. Most scholars consider Karl Marx an atheist and he was certainly secularist.
> Avoid confusing belief with confidence in replicability, not when only one was sufficient for humanity to reach the moon.
Confidence in something is a form of belief. You believe something will occur or is a certain way based on prior information.
Again you’re trying to insert your idiosyncratic definition of belief into the discussion.
> No, as a science-minded secular materialistic atheist, xe are burdened with expecting nuance, detail, precision, specificity, and consistency of xirselves and in xir communications.
As I pointed out above a couple of times you are not being precise but rather are injecting your own idiosyncratic non-standard definition of things. Defining your own unique pronouns is a good exemplar of this.
This all comes across to me as you not being open to genuine conversation.
> Tell xe again how belief will save you from junk forensic science if you are ever accused falsely of a crime?
Having fair trials, hearing of evidence in a court, having impartial judges, etc is based on a societies belief that those things are important.
Junk science goes against those sort of beliefs in a country like the USA and has been used to fight against such things.
As a counter, a science minded secular materialism belief system doesn’t have to believe in things like fair trials or the need of evidence to convict. Some rationalist scientific minded have argued that belief in fair trials and equality of people is illogical as common people don’t have the intelligence or expertise to properly judge things.
The CCP for example is arguably generally more scientific-minded secular materialist society than the USA. Yet they have no problems eschewing things such as trials as in their (dare I say logical and self-consistent) belief system the needs of the state subsume those of the individual.