Posted on 06/30/2008 4:41:23 PM PDT by Kevmo
The crevo threads typically degenerate into name calling. Recently, the Religion Moderator declared that "science is not religion", and did not publish the criteria for such consideration. My suggestion to the evolutionist community has been to acknowledge that Scientism is a religion and start to utilize the protections offered under the religion tags that are different than other threads (due to the intensity of feelings over religious issues). So this thread is intended to be an ECUMENICAL thread under the tag of SCIENTISM. The intent is to keep discussion civil.
I would like to see a straightforward discussion over the topic of whether scientism should be treated as a religion on FR. I'll try to find the links to the adminlecture series about what the ground rules are on ecumenical threads, and I'll copy some recent interactions that show the need for scientism to be treated as a religion on FR.
Do the religion moderators have a dictionary with a definition of “dogmatic” that produces the result of only one side ever being “dogmatic”?
***Nope. So the average creat who thinks the evos are the ONLY dogmatic ones would have a wakeup call.
Now explain this business of not being “antagonistic” again. The semantics of this aren’t lining up with reality at all.
***I think it is, and if the religion mod thinks such comments are antagonistic, he’ll remove them.
But you cannot deny that Luther and especially Calvin built their confessions on denying Catholic dogmas, and they constantly referred to them polemically in their writings.
***In my protestant church we don’t talk much about Luther nor Calvin, so I deny this. I honestly think this has no bearing on the discussion at hand, so we may as well drop this line of inquiry.
C'mon - you think Grand Wizard is good stuff, while trying to pass yourself off as the "peacemaker"? I'm not buying this at all.
I’m still not on board with telling other people what their religion is for them, particularly if it’s an exercise in trying to turn a perjorative into a religion as a form of personal attack.
***That’s okay if you’re not on board, you can just ignore such threads. A few comments about your reasoning are in order:
1) We’re not telling people what their religion is for them. If they don’t like the situation, they’ll speak up just as you have.
2) this is not an exercise in “trying to turn a perjorative into a religion”. It is obvious to those who debate that it IS a religion.
I’ll post more on these items later, gotta go.
C’mon - you think Grand Wizard is good stuff, while trying to pass yourself off as the “peacemaker”? I’m not buying this at all.
***What is wrong with Grand Wizard? Does it have some unusual connotations? All I come up with is Grand Poobah. It’s actually the Scientrilogy term that I was complimenting, so I don’t care much about Grand Poobah or whatever. Also, I’m not “trying to pass myself off as the ‘peacemaker’”. At least I don’t think I am. I’ve been very upfront about my motivations and desires and I’m not pretending to be unbiased. This isn’t an idea that was posted by a neutral third party observer. On top of that, we have made some progress in this thread, so it’s a worthwhile discussion.
You’re proposing to assigning that religious belief to them, without any requirement that they profess a belief in or even have a definitive description of the precepts of that religion.
***I’m not assigning anything. It’s just an observation that what we’re dealing with is a religion. That observation has been replicated dozens of times on Free Republic, and we’ve even seen it here on this thread. Proceeding forth from that observation, there are things we can do as freepers that could calm the discussion down.
Is that something we’re going to start doing, and where will it stop?
***Well, it would eventually stop with calm discussion all the way around on vehement subjects, which would be pretty boring. But such a steady state universe is not very likely to happen in our lifetimes. Moderators will always have a job, human nature being what it is.
2) this is not an exercise in “trying to turn a perjorative into a religion”. It is obvious to those who debate that it IS a religion.
You just contradicted yourself. You maintain that it is obvious to you that it is a religion, and you are going to tell them it is theirs.
You honestly don't know that about the only commonly know organization that titles it's leader "Grand Wizard" is the KKK? "Good faith" has it's limits.
Where have we seen it on this thread? There has been no explanation of exactly what the precepts of this "religion" are, and absolutely no one who professes to be an adherent of it to explain it. The only claim you have to it being a legitimate religion is that the religion moderators have agreed to entertain your little experiment.
You maintain that it is obvious to you that it is a religion,
***Yes
and you are going to tell them it is theirs.
***No
My suggestion isn’t to TELL them it’s theirs, it’s to proceed forth on the observation that they act as if it’s a religion. Like I said, If it looks like a duck, quacks like a duck, walks like a duck, flies like a duck and isn’t a goose, it’s probably a duck — so it might as well enjoy the benefits of a duck’s life by calling itself a duck. And if it doesn’t want to call itself a duck, there appears to be nothing stopping others from calling it a duck and moving on with that observation in order to enjoy the corollary benefits of duckhood.
How many more hyppothetical "religions" do you plan to come up with to categorize the people who disagree with you?
You honestly don’t know that about the only commonly know organization that titles it’s leader “Grand Wizard” is the KKK?
***I don’t pay that much attention to KKK, so yes, such a connotation did not enter my mind. If he had said Grand Poobah, would that mollify you? It doesn’t really matter that much to me, because the phrase I was complimenting was Scientrilogy, not Grand Poobah.
Really? And you're going to do this without engaging in any kind of "mind reading"? I think not.
What was it you found attractive about that particular term?
Will the ones who want to call it a duck stay on the duck threads and leave the non-duck treads alone?
Where have we seen it on this thread?
***Posts #20, 27, 37, 49, 51 to start. We see it often on crevo threads that someone says that evolutionism is a religion or is becoming a religion.
There has been no explanation of exactly what the precepts of this “religion” are, and absolutely no one who professes to be an adherent of it to explain it.
***Oh well. We note that the religion moderator stepped in to keep things civil anyways, and that was the whole point.
The only claim you have to it being a legitimate religion is that the religion moderators have agreed to entertain your little experiment.
***There are other claims, but for purposes of our discussion, the ones that matter are the ones which have bearing upon how the moderators are going to treat it if you use scientism or naturalism or whateveritism as an ecumenical tag. Basically, if we turn the question around and ask why would it NOT be treated as a religion, we see little practical benefit from that perspective so it’s a green light to use the ecumenical tag system.
How many more hyppothetical “religions” do you plan to come up with to categorize the people who disagree with you?
***The same number as how many times you’ve agreed to stop beating your wife. Note the inclusion of a false premise in the answer as well as in your question, for those who missed the snarkiness of the response.
Really? And you’re going to do this without engaging in any kind of “mind reading”? I think not.
***It’s worked so far, otherwise you wouldn’t stay on this thread which has an ecumenical tag... ;-)
Now, to address what I perceive is your real concern, it is basically that there are supposedly no adherents to this religion who would acknowledge it as their faith and so it is somehow unfair to use that as a tag in Free Republic when we wish to have a better moderated debate on these subjects of vehement contrariness. I think we addressed that with the Vehemence/Civility tag, but even if that doesn’t get adopted I’m fine with proceeding forth with the scientism tag because the end result is more polite discussion. If that is unfair then let it be unfair — JimRob addresses unfairness right on the front page of this website, so it doesn’t amount to much.
And you believe you can do this fairly without implicitly telling them they have no right to claim whatever religious beliefs they do profess?
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