Philosophy Farr on MRI 3 Aug 2009 Introducing an irregular series of quotes that catch my eye: Noise is principally due to the presence of the patient. [R. F. Farr] HT Omri Schwartz Read More
Humor Where *can* we put a mosque? 28 Aug 2010 So, if the critics of the mosque in NY are correct, that we should not put a religious institution near a place where anyone even remotely connected with that religion may have committed an act that leads to a place being thought “sacred”, where can we put one? I did… Read More
Epistemology Modus Darwin and the *real* modus darvinii 2 Feb 2011 Elliot Sober has published a claim (Sober 1999, Sober 2008: §4.1, 265ff) that Darwin used, and we should too, a particular syllogism: similarity, ergo common ancestry. This cannot be right, for several reasons: logical, historical and inferential. First the logical, as this is rather vapid, and can be guarded against… Read More
The thing to do is write a sensationalist book that gets tons of press and stirs up controversy. Possible titles: “Why I Am (Probably) Not A Christian” “God Is (Almost Certainly) Not Great” “Breaking the Spell (To The Extent It Needs Breaking)” “A Plague On Both Their Houses” “The Greatest Show On Earth (So Far)” “Everything I Need To Know I Learned In (Years and Years of Study and Thinking)”
Knowing that you don’t know doesn’t lend itself to feelings of superiority, even if it is the “beginning of wisdom.”
Riboyzyme – ??? Do mean that in such cases knowing that you don’t know _does_ lend itself to feelings of superiority???
Just makes me feel uncomfortable as I suspect if I lived in the States I would have the same perspective as a New Athiest. I can look at the older generation of my family and ask a comparable though by no means identical question. Most who were around in the 1930’s and 40’s were very active in both the communist party and the I.R.A. Not organisations I have a great deal of time for. Ask what you would do living in the enviroment they were leads to some uncomfortable conclusions.
PZ posted it, too. You are [probably] mentioned in comment #120. You will not be shocked to know that some people wrote unpleasant things about agnostics. You don’t think they are feeling superior, do you? http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2010/08/best_xkcd_ever.php#comments
What I found interesting in that thread was a few people discussing Fullmetal Alchemist, which doesn’t seem to have much to do with the thread topic, but is full of win regardless.
A- “Personally, I find agnostics to feel superior to everyone else”. B- “Well, at least you’ve found a way to feel superior to agnostics while oversimplifying their position.”
I think it had to do more (in general) with accommodationists, like Mooney, et. al. who wage their war of fact-less insinuation about the defective personalities and strategies of the “gnu atheists.” And not agnostics. Unless, of course, you’re making your own personal beliefs known… 🙂
Well I have argued for accommodationism several times, and criticised the aggressiveness of atheist exclusivism, so sure.
“atheist exclusivism” Now that is a useful term -far more thoughtful than “new atheists,” and “non-exclusivism” is far better than “accomodationism.”
MosesZD, I think if XKCD wanted to take a swipe at accommodationists, it probably wouldn’t do it so obliquely. The comic would hardly even make sense as such a swipe, since accommodationists in general don’t think atheists are smug. BTW, as a geek whose a bit into Linux, the label “gnu atheist” looks more like a description of an atheist who’s almost (?) religiously into Free Software.