[FoRK] Practicing Science: Secular vs. Religious Ideology

[Lion Kimbro]

  Russel Turnpin:

  The idea that "history," as Marxists see it, is something of a
  "God," makes sense to me.  I am something of a Hegelian, I believe
  that human history, from conversations to decades, is a sort of
  evolution, where people realize of each other, "Oh, that's what
  they were talking about."  (Synthesis.)  It's complex & subtle, but
  this is all I have floor-time to say.

  So I can see how this "smells something like" "God."  -- It's
  teleological, it involves groups of people, it's personal, it
  realtes the individual to the Universe, and so on.

  And so my question is: "Is this something atheists are, or should
  be, against?", and if so, "Why?"  That is, if there's something
  more discriminating than, "Do you believe in deities?" (such as the
  God of Abraham, Krishna, Zeus, ...) -- then what is it that people
  should be "against?"


  Kurt,

  Oh, I'm sorry if you've taken some offence.  I didn't intend to
  hurt any feelings.

  I didn't think that "Failure: Ongoing" would be considered at the
  "Bebergianismal anguish" level, unless that sort of thing is, in
  fact, very light.

  So: Sorry, I didn't mean to hurt anybody's feelings.
  No, FoRK is **not** an "ongoing failure."

  Perhaps we should instead take this as evidence that those traits
  do NOT lead to failure.  That is, we have centralization,
  hierarchy, emotionality, etc., etc., etc., and yet -- FoRK is NOT a
  failure.  So: empirical evidence against the theory.


  Dr. Ernie, Jeff Bone, Tom Higgins,

  I think what we're seeing here is:

  * FoRK centralization (Tom Higgins & Jeff Bone)
  * preserving homogeneity
  * inspiring imitation to "put Lion in his place"
    (Kurt's post, J. Andrew Roger's post, Joe Barrera's post,)

  People who would support me do not do so, because they don't want
  to mess with the established hierarchy.  (I get lots of personal
  emails from list members, who, I believe, do not want to be
  involved in "the FoRK drama.")


  Basically, FoRK is ruled by flamethrowers, because it's lawless.
  This is a classic configuration.

    "We agreed, no leader."

    "Right, then shut up and do as I say."


  Unlike Tom Higgins & Jeff Bones, I do not fault groups for this
  behavior -- preservation of something that has been learned (in
  this case, "Atheism is The Right Cause, Suppress the
  non-Believers!") is essential to any and every group.

  Exclusion exists in just about every group, it just plays out
  differently.  There are always degrees of "being in," and thus
  centrality and hierarchy, and with it comes imitation.


  Tom Higgins,

  * Bullet Points.
  * Just for you.
  * And a URL, any URL:  http://www.metafilter.com/


  Take care,
    Lion =^_^=  [my post for the day]


On Jan 11, 2008 6:51 AM, Jeff Bone <jbone at place.org> wrote:
>
> On Jan 11, 2008, at 12:50 AM, J. Andrew Rogers wrote:
>
> >
> > On Jan 10, 2008, at 10:20 PM, Tom Higgins wrote:
> >> On Jan 10, 2008 4:00 PM, Jeff Bone <jbone at place.org> wrote:
> >>>
> >>> Well, since I see that FoRK's been around with a significant and
> >>> surprisingly stable core membership for a VERY long time
> >>> (particularly in Internet terms), and I don't see a FoLK anywhere
> >>
> >> Jeff jeff jeff, ya know for some one who is supposedly grounded in
> >> the
> >> reality of reason I can not for the life of me figure out why you
> >> think Lion is still on the list...its a puzzlement. He packed his
> >> bags
> >> several threads ago and left.
> >
> >
> > It is hard to play a nice game of Schrödinger's Lion when Jeff
> > keeps opening the box.
>
> Okay, okay, he's replonked.  Sheesh, I was just trying to be nice. ;-)
>
> jb
>
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> FoRK mailing list
> http://xent.com/mailman/listinfo/fork
>