02-04-2009, 06:10 PM | #496 |
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Perhaps he's more agnostic than atheistic, or he may simply be willing to admit to the theoretical possibility of scenarios that he believes to be not the case. I'm working solely from the attributed, paraphrased comment, you understand, I don't mean to imply that I know what he might have been thinking. |
02-04-2009, 06:10 PM | #497 | |
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Incidentally, the Panspermia hypothesis has been held by quite repectable scientists (e.g. Chandra Wickramasinghe - see here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chandra_Wickramasinghe) and doesn't actually imply anything much as regards the origin of life as a whole. If life on Earth actually developed as a result of organic matter brought in from meterorites then it just pushes the question of the ultimate origins back a step or two. |
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02-04-2009, 06:13 PM | #498 |
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02-04-2009, 06:42 PM | #499 | |
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Saying that something could be true does not imply that you think it is true. The moon could be a telepathic green cheese (telepathic so it can implant observations in us humans). Would you claim that I believe that the moon is a green cheese just because I think it could be? |
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02-04-2009, 06:45 PM | #500 |
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tompe - with respect, I still think you do not quite understand what msmith was saying about charitable giving. If you were looking to government foreign aid plus private giving to foreign causes, that ignores most private charity, which is given to unfortunates closer to home.
I don't think that government aid reflects individual virtue. Charitable donors are taking their own money, that could be spent on themselves, and giving it to others. Foreign aid is merely an allocation of tax revenues as to which the individuals in the donor country have no discretion to pay or not pay. Anyway, I am skeptical about the "goodness" of much foreign aid, as I hinted in my prior comment. It is fairly common for such aid to actually be tied to using donor-country businesses, so it is really a form of taxpayer support of domestic business. Also, most foreign aid goes to poor country governments, and vanishes into corruption and incompetence (after all, one of the main reasons poor countries are poor is that their governments are corrupt and incompetent). According to the Index of Global Philanthropy published by the Hudson Institute, U.S. private donations just to the developing world are far in excess of government expenditures, amounting in 2006 to about $34 billion. Sweden, for example, which did have a very large government foreign aid program, had about zero private donations (Norway, on the other hand, does have a lot of private donation). The two top countries in private donations to developing countries, per unit of gross national income, were the United States (by a long way) and Ireland. |
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02-04-2009, 06:48 PM | #501 | |
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I am pretty sure that donations in the US does not reflect individual virtue. I think they are done for mostly egoistical reasons. |
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02-04-2009, 07:00 PM | #502 |
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Heh, I've had a few glasses of biodynamic wine, so my senses might be a little dull, but this is kind of like saying, "If the fat stupid bible-thumping rednecks, have seen what I've seen, and have learned what I've learned, then they might have something to say on the subject." [/QUOTE]
Touche How did you know I am a fat stupid bible-thumping redneck? |
02-04-2009, 08:12 PM | #503 |
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tompe - you are still ignoring my first point, which is that most charity is domestic and not reflected in foreign giving numbers.
Your tax rates are unlikely to change based on how much foreign aid the government gives - it would just reallocate. So I do not think anybody really gives up anything by have the government give foreign aid. By contrast money you give to charity is money that you personally cannot spend or save. Your claim about charitable giving being an example of egoism rather than virtue is a splendid example of advanced philosophical thinking. I assume that you also think that heroism in battle is just showing off, that diligence in study and work is just lack of imagination, that caring for your family is a form of racism, and so forth. |
02-04-2009, 08:18 PM | #504 | |
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Hear, hear. We have, however, taken another step toward better understanding of the process, by successfully creating synthetic self-replicating RNA: http://blog.wired.com/wiredscience/2...catingrna.html Oh, and also, deep down, we are all sponges http://dsc.discovery.com/news/2009/0...sils-life.html Even if some Bronze Age herders believed we were fashioned out of dirt, or a blood clot. Last edited by Sonist; 02-04-2009 at 08:24 PM. |
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02-04-2009, 10:30 PM | #505 | |
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Within those, merely human, limitations, I can only say that the charitable donations I, personally, make are based primarily on two things: a desire to help others who are less fortunate than I, and an acceptance of a responsibility to use the resources in my keeping in the service the God that I believe in. Please note that nothing in any of that requires or expects anyone else to believe as I do. Nor, unlike taxation based "giving," does it require anyone else to contribute to the causes I find worthy of my support. |
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02-05-2009, 03:11 AM | #506 |
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The assertion that well-educated people are less prone to superstitious beliefs seems a reasonable one to me. Education teaches people to seek rational explanations for the world around them, rather than believe in "invisible supernatural beings".
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02-05-2009, 04:06 AM | #507 | |
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An interview edited by and with a voice over by creationists.
See http://richarddawkins.net/article,23...ichard-Dawkins for Richard Dawkins' comments on it. Quote:
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02-05-2009, 05:34 AM | #508 | |
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For them, religion can be a genuine source of hope. As an atheist, living a very privileged life in comparison (merely through an accident of birth), it seems to me a bit heartless to deny them even that consolation. Time enough to lecture them on their 'delusions' when they have something meaningful to replace them with. (I imagine this will generate the 'but religion makes thing worse' comeback - but I am powerless to prevent that. ) Last edited by Sparrow; 02-05-2009 at 05:38 AM. |
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02-05-2009, 05:40 AM | #509 |
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Generally speaking, however, people who live in grinding poverty are poorly educated, so the correlation between education and religious belief does, I think, still hold true.
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02-05-2009, 05:43 AM | #510 | |
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"The cry of the heart in a heartless world, the opium of the masses." |
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