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You are right. Intelligent minds have only existed for a few dozen years. Nothing can be learned from the thinkers of the distant past (anything beyond 31 years

by bcook 11y ago

You are right. Intelligent minds have only existed for a few dozen years. Nothing can be learned from the thinkers of the distant past (anything beyond 31 years, in my very personal experience). /s No offense, but your ideas deserve criticism, if not only for the overtones of hate on religion & God. (I say this as a Christian athiest.)

user_0001 11y ago
>if not only for the overtones of hate on religion & God. (I say this as a Christian athiest.) and? Why should they have special protection over things? Why cannot some other made up, modified over the years stories be held in such high regard?
- bcook 11y ago
  Hate is retarded. Reason is golden. I was critcizing the hatred. The object of the hate is unimportant. Drop the emotion and share the logic. The OP's entire rant was an unfounded strawman attack on religion.
  - x5n1 11y ago
    There is no reason when it comes to worshiping imaginary beings or hero worshiping people like Jesus Christ. That's not the home of reason, and no my "rant" was not an unfounded straw-man attack on religion. My "rant" was a pretty well founded "rant" on the basis of God or other founding myths used to try to control people with real power.
    - bcook 11y ago
      https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jesus https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jesus "Virtually all modern scholars of antiquity agree that Jesus existed historically"
  - cyphar 11y ago
    > I was critcizing the hatred. The object of the hate is unimportant. Drop the emotion and share the logic. The OP's entire rant was an unfounded strawman attack on religion. No it wasn't. That was a side point. The main point was that the constitution isn't Gospel -- we can change it and shouldn't treat it as perfect.
    - bcook 11y ago
      You are right. I got a bit carried away...
mhurron 11y ago
> Christian athiest This is the dumbest thing that I have read today.
- MajesticHobo 11y ago
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_atheism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_atheism
  - mhurron 11y ago
    Nope, still the dumbest thing I've read today. That is basically the position of not being an asshole renamed to sound like, well, a religion.
    - bcook 11y ago
      Well, you hurt my feelings. Congrats.
  - goblinking 11y ago
    please please tell me for your own sake you just shut up at family gatherings because you will black sheep yourself pretty fast with this garbage
x5n1 11y ago
It's not about intelligent minds, sure they were intelligent enough to reason about certain things from the political bias of rich white men about the stuff going on in their lives in the 1700s; for example gun rights. It's about the relevance of any idea and their implications. And running entires societies and systems on the basis of principles created by men who have very little do with most of the people around today. And holding those ideas as the hallmark of society is a bit much. As for religion see: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mJM5mipwebw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mJM5mipwebw
- ameister14 11y ago
  People haven't fundamentally changed since 1779. The main drivers of human action remain the same. You might really not like this part: the constitution was based on documents and governments predating it by thousands of years.
  - nitrogen 11y ago
    The main drivers of human action remain the same. Scientific (and to a lesser degree, philosophical) understanding of these drivers has changed significantly, though. Further, the breadth of actions available has increased dramatically with technology, and as such it is reasonable to revisit some of the decisions made 200+ years ago from time to time.
    - bcook 11y ago
      I agree, but I think your position excludes the existance of "unknown unknowns". What really drives us?
      - nitrogen 11y ago
        I think it's enough that we have more "known knowns" now than 200 years ago. We have an insane amount of knowledge that wasn't available then. We have neurology, neurochemistry, neuropsychology, etc. to help us understand human motivations and behaviors. We have evolution to explain human origins, and evolutionary psychology, while very much in its early stages, to identify the origins of behaviors. We have physics, materialism, and philosophy to suggest the lack of dualistic free will, which completely alters the way we should view crime and punishment. And for the unknown unknowns, we have modern understandings of statistics and risk analysis coupled with the scientific method. Bayes' theorem was developed before the founding of the USA[0], and yet still, 250 years later, is not well incorporated into law and political strategy. So maybe what really drives people hasn't changed, but our understanding thereof really, really has. A lot. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bayes'_theorem#History https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bayes'_theorem#History
jessaustin 11y ago
...a Christian athiest [sic]. I have not seen this phrase before. Do you mean that you are culturally Christian, but don't believe in a higher power?
- bcook 11y ago
  Yes. Thanks for respectful reply. (Contrasting the deleted, hateful comments.) I say it from a point of indoctrination. I have felt "God", just as I was sure Santa existed. I can never rid myself of the past, where I thought the Christian God was the only truth. and... yes, it is partly meant to be tongue in cheek. :)

by bcook 11y ago

user_0001 11y ago

>if not only for the overtones of hate on religion & God. (I say this as a Christian athiest.) and? Why should they have special protection over things? Why cannot some other made up, modified over the years stories be held in such high regard?

bcook 11y ago
Hate is retarded. Reason is golden. I was critcizing the hatred. The object of the hate is unimportant. Drop the emotion and share the logic. The OP's entire rant was an unfounded strawman attack on religion.
- x5n1 11y ago
  There is no reason when it comes to worshiping imaginary beings or hero worshiping people like Jesus Christ. That's not the home of reason, and no my "rant" was not an unfounded straw-man attack on religion. My "rant" was a pretty well founded "rant" on the basis of God or other founding myths used to try to control people with real power.
  - bcook 11y ago
    https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jesus https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jesus "Virtually all modern scholars of antiquity agree that Jesus existed historically"
- cyphar 11y ago
  > I was critcizing the hatred. The object of the hate is unimportant. Drop the emotion and share the logic. The OP's entire rant was an unfounded strawman attack on religion. No it wasn't. That was a side point. The main point was that the constitution isn't Gospel -- we can change it and shouldn't treat it as perfect.
  - bcook 11y ago
    You are right. I got a bit carried away...

mhurron 11y ago

> Christian athiest This is the dumbest thing that I have read today.

MajesticHobo 11y ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_atheism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_atheism
- mhurron 11y ago
  Nope, still the dumbest thing I've read today. That is basically the position of not being an asshole renamed to sound like, well, a religion.
  - bcook 11y ago
    Well, you hurt my feelings. Congrats.
- goblinking 11y ago
  please please tell me for your own sake you just shut up at family gatherings because you will black sheep yourself pretty fast with this garbage

x5n1 11y ago

It's not about intelligent minds, sure they were intelligent enough to reason about certain things from the political bias of rich white men about the stuff going on in their lives in the 1700s; for example gun rights. It's about the relevance of any idea and their implications. And running entires societies and systems on the basis of principles created by men who have very little do with most of the people around today. And holding those ideas as the hallmark of society is a bit much. As for religion see: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mJM5mipwebw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mJM5mipwebw

ameister14 11y ago
People haven't fundamentally changed since 1779. The main drivers of human action remain the same. You might really not like this part: the constitution was based on documents and governments predating it by thousands of years.
- nitrogen 11y ago
  The main drivers of human action remain the same. Scientific (and to a lesser degree, philosophical) understanding of these drivers has changed significantly, though. Further, the breadth of actions available has increased dramatically with technology, and as such it is reasonable to revisit some of the decisions made 200+ years ago from time to time.
  - bcook 11y ago
    I agree, but I think your position excludes the existance of "unknown unknowns". What really drives us?
    - nitrogen 11y ago
      I think it's enough that we have more "known knowns" now than 200 years ago. We have an insane amount of knowledge that wasn't available then. We have neurology, neurochemistry, neuropsychology, etc. to help us understand human motivations and behaviors. We have evolution to explain human origins, and evolutionary psychology, while very much in its early stages, to identify the origins of behaviors. We have physics, materialism, and philosophy to suggest the lack of dualistic free will, which completely alters the way we should view crime and punishment. And for the unknown unknowns, we have modern understandings of statistics and risk analysis coupled with the scientific method. Bayes' theorem was developed before the founding of the USA[0], and yet still, 250 years later, is not well incorporated into law and political strategy. So maybe what really drives people hasn't changed, but our understanding thereof really, really has. A lot. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bayes'_theorem#History https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bayes'_theorem#History

jessaustin 11y ago

...a Christian athiest [sic]. I have not seen this phrase before. Do you mean that you are culturally Christian, but don't believe in a higher power?

bcook 11y ago
Yes. Thanks for respectful reply. (Contrasting the deleted, hateful comments.) I say it from a point of indoctrination. I have felt "God", just as I was sure Santa existed. I can never rid myself of the past, where I thought the Christian God was the only truth. and... yes, it is partly meant to be tongue in cheek. :)