How about a respectful religious vs non-religious discussion?

[Taylirious]

Everything happens for a reason & God has a plan has never given me comfort. If horrible people can have their way with life and good people suffer?!?!? We can agree Donald Trump is horrible, right!?

Prayer or good thoughts have never worked for me, I swear it had made things worse at times.

 

[Spot261]

A theory (and for that matter, all scientific knowledge) is tentative in the sense that if contradictory evidence arises, it can change. Atomic theory is a good example of something that has changed dramatically, from tiny spheres of Dalton to the plum pudding model, to the Bohr model, to the quantum mechanical model. Each model brings us closer and closer to the truth of an atom, but we can never say that we are 100% there.

This, there (hopefully) exists such a thing as objective truth, science is the ongoing process of getting ever closer.

When you have a cluster of data points that all give you roughly the same result.:

---------------- X--X-
------------- X X--XX X
--------------- X XXX

And a single data point that is wayyyyyyyy out there...

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------X
(I tried showing this with spaces but it didn't work.)

Something probably went wrong when you were gathering the data.

Another way of illustrating this point may be to move away from the methodology of "hard" sciences into the realms of social and behavioural sciences. Statistically it is very difficult to give ABSOLUTE predictions on the behaviour of an individual as unlike, say, electrons every person will behave slightly differently.

Given a large enough sample, however, statistical analysis will show replicable trends given manipulation of startup conditions and much of the training that goes into behavioural sciences is actually about structuring studies and analysing the statistics to find those trends, distinguish between correlations and causal relationships, etc.

There will be outliers in nearly every data set but statistical significance is a powerful concept and experimental psychologists are typically also at the very least competent statisticians.

 

[Timewalker]

...no deity is involved in whether you get a parking space at Walmart.

Or whether you win a race or puzzle challenge in a CBS reality show. One way for a contestant to guarantee that I will hope they're voted out at the earliest opportunity is for them to go into "thankyoujesus" mode. Jesus doesn't care if you balance on the beam, solve the puzzle, win the race, or even if you get voted off the island.

In my personal theological headcanon, the last time God intervened, was when She said "the reptiles on the third planet of Star 8040216 in galaxy 5622104 just aren't making any progress. They're pretty and all, but they're just not interesting. Gimmie a 5-mile rock, we'll try again with the mammals."

Heh, that sounds like me when I get annoyed with my current game of Civilization II: Test of Time. "Well, the Bird people aren't doing well, so I'm trashing this game and starting over with the Elves or Goblins."

 

[TrickyDickie]

When I said 'popular consumption' I was referring to publications of any kind that are pretty much all dazzle and fluff.

Yes, the books that explain things for the non-specialist layman, in terms that can be more generally understood, are very worthwhile.

 

[MANT!]

 

[TrickyDickie]

You just can't get away from this religious stuff. It's there waiting virtually everywhere you turn, because it is so woven all through society.

I picked up Theodore Dreiser's 'An American Tragedy' because I had never read it. I was thumbing through a bit and near the end....there it was. All of that God business, because the main character was facing the electric chair for murder. Here is a particularly obnoxious bit:

After a most tender and spiritual conversation---in which he quoted from Matthew, Paul and John as to the unimportance of this world---the true reality and joy of the next---Clyde was compelled to learn from (Reverend) McMillan that the decision of the court had gone against him.

And this book, which has its basis on a true story, is about a guy that gets involved with a rich girl whom he prefers, so he kills his poorer girlfriend whom he'd gotten pregnant....and then whines and moans about the fact that HIS life is going to be taken from HIM, while he had sent her to the bottom of a lake. And the reverend goes on about how if he confesses he will be saved and embraced into the arms of the lord, blah, blah, blah.

I say throw 'im into the Fargo wood chipper and have done with it.

 

[Bluewhale]

@Bluewhale it looks like you're clicking 'Reply' on the person's post then pressing 'Post Reply' before you type your response, so the quote ends up separated from the post you're replying to.
You only need to press 'Post Reply' when you're done with your reply and good to go. After you've quoted someone, you just keep typing under where it says [/QUOTE ]

Thanks for the info. It's really appreciated.

 

[JWPlatt]

In the news today, Dr. Henry Heimlich saved a woman from choking to death on a hamburger by personally using the "Heimlich Maneuver." It was the 96-year-old’s first time in a real emergency.

Said the woman in an interview, "When I wrote my ‘thank you’ note to him for saving my life, I said, ‘God put me in that seat next to you, Dr. Heimlich, because I was gone, I couldn’t breathe at all.’”

God could not be reached for comment about why he shoved that hamburger down her throat in the first place. It can be assumed, however, that He approves of firefighters who start fires in the homes of innocent people so that the firefighters can demonstrate their heroism by, hopefully, saving those people.

 

[Kemaiku]

God's a cheeseburger guy.

 

[TwoJakes]

We can agree Donald Trump is horrible, right!?

Nope.

 

[Taylirious]

Nope.

Please elaborate!

 

[Kemaiku]

Horrible isn't a helpful word.

Racist, sexist, homophobic, money grabbing, twofaced, elitist, ablelist, delusional, war mongering, sociopathic, incestuous, moronic, angry, dangerous, short sighted, etc

Those fit him much better.

 

[JWPlatt]

(looks around for a picture of a derailed train).

Back on topic?

 

[Kai "the spy"]

(looks around for a picture of a derailed train).

Back on topic?

With pleasure.

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[TwoJakes]

Please elaborate!

Of course, unless all agree that Trump is horrible, then it would not be a case of "we" agree.

I certain find Trump to be the less egregious of the trio of Trump, Clinton and Sanders. Sander's proposed economic policy is (imo) ridiculous, as is his tax plan. I don't think he has a clue about being comander in chief. While I would find Clinton a better president than Sanders, her positions on trade agreements alone make her a poor choice. Trump is far from perfect, but he isn't "horrible" and is by far the best of the three current possibilities for president.

I haven't formed an opinion of Gary Johnson yet, but he really isn't in the running.

 

[Guy Gardener]

If Trump was horrible, they wouldn't have let him on the set of the Fresh Prince of Bel Air.

 

[JWPlatt]

WTF does any of that have to do with this topic?

 

[TEACAKE'S PLEATHER DOME]

^America.

 

[Kemaiku]

WTF does any of that have to do with this topic?

Religion -> Hell -> Monsters -> Trump

 

[BillJ]

If there was a God, the ticket machine would've been broken last night when I bought tickets to Neighbors 2.