I explained where I came at this from, and I've said none of this. I can't defend positions that I'm not making and that no one else I've been talking to about this has made. Sure, those words would be bad ones, but I'm not hearing them and I'm not making them.

Still waiting to hear people touting UPB... Until then , i think the author will be touting that religion is better than nothing.

I, personally, argue that religion does not hinder critical thinking, but in fact encourages it if it falls within axiom, and also if one perceives religion as a philosophy of it's own. Take Judaism and/or Christianity for example: the God depicted is quite explicitly referred to as "existence" ("I am"→"to be"→"existence"→"universe"/"nature"): the real question is whether or not existence itself is intelligent as suggested, and we could tackle this with a multitude of angles, but i think that gets beyond the point.

So, Mx. Dalthnock, what *should* I call you if not Irish?

Oh, you can call me anything.

But only you.

They're both hierarchical, as are corporations, so they're all potentially dangerous. The safest course, IMO, would be to eradicate elitism and see to the promotion of human excellence in all quarters of the world.

Critical thinking and preconception, by definition, are mutually exclusive.

Dude, I'm only here to have a laugh, and you keep making me talk all serious-like. You're no fun.

At any rate, the closest to that we can get is a meritocracy, which we had for a long time, but has been under steady attack for a few years now.

See, the thing is, you always have to take into account human flaws, which is why an idealistic society will never work.

And one of those flaws is precisely that some people actively reject free will. If you try to force them to make decisions for themselves, they will resent you.

If people want to be told what to do, and how to act, religion is the best choice. Everything else will have a much greater impact on you, if you want to be free.

Only on the same topics, but you can't think critically without some axioms. You need a place to start. And this is where "faith" comes in, and where religious people say that atheists need faith as well: we have to have faith that the people teaching us in school don't have an agenda. Naturally, we assume they don't, but that is still faith, 'cause we don't think critically of these things, normally, but rather simply accept them. This is no different than the authors of the bible: they tell us we are to know we can trust them by their works, thus we can have faith in them. At the end of the day, we have to accept (preconceive) that we exist as an axiom, and we can't critically think that.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xq3W4FoqKW4

Humor me for a bit longer. ;p

People are malleable, children especially. And, we are in a period where things are literally coming apart at the seams in our world. Our only hope for the long-term is to regain our ability to adapt to changes in the world that exists outside the confines of the artificial environments we live in. I'm not overly optimistic, but necessity *is* a powerful motivator, so I wouldn't write us off quite yet.

You didn't answer my question, I didn't ask "why" said hashtag was created nor why some peoples are very "protective" about it, that I understand.

My question is how do you go from Gog using an hashtags by mistake, realizing their mistake and removing the tweet as soon as then do; to consider them "crapping all over", "insulting" or "assaulting" peoples ?

Yes it was dumb to use this hashtag, or any political'ish hashtag for that matter, and yes they should have been more careful (especially given the current climate and the fact they already had similar controversies) and I can even understand that some peoples were shocked by it.

But going from that to accusing them of being evil baby eating monsters bigots who want to physically assault, insult or crap over minorities is silly IMO.

I think we mostly agree, in general. We're only stuck in a small bit.

Correct me if I'm wrong. You favour free will, and so do I, but you believe ALL people should strive for free will - something which I also believed, not that long ago - while I believe that we should let the people that demand guidance, to be able to get it.

We are indeed in a period where everything is coming apart, and I now firmly believe that a lot - not all, but quite a lot - of it has to do with the dismantling of religion that has been happening for a while.

Look at all the movements that have originated the last decade, and look at the people who have adopted them. They hold their beliefs as if they are religious tenets. They turned to these movements because religion in the west is now risible, and they need something to take its place.

And it's precisely this that is tearing our society apart. In forsaking God, we brought this all upon ourselves. Deliciously ironic, isn't it?

We will adapt, of course. We have no choice. We can't go back, that is always out of the question.

But when you meet someone who fervently believes in God, instead of arguing, just... let them be. They're happy this way. If you persuade them out of their faith, you gain absolutely nothing, and they become a feminist.

*sigh*

I almost made it unscathed. Well, no ragrets!

I'm not of the opinion that we are all equally capable when it comes to responsibility, but I do think that people should be encouraged to do their best. Compassionately.

Alright, I'm off for a bit. Cheerio! ;p

I wholeheartedly agree with that.

TTFN.

You know, i wish you were right, but have you ever tried proving to someone they're the oppressor and not the oppressed? That's far easier to prove of disprove than any deity, yet they hold on? I think human kind wanted rid of religion when they were promised hedonism in exchange. With the realization that hedonism is untenable, the people of the old ways (religion) and the various new ways (nazism, feminism, globalism, nationalism, capitalism, socialism, etc) are essentially at war with each other over what bits of hedonism we get to keep, since we might be able to keep certain things if we throw out other things.

The internet makes things complicated, for now everyone can speak to anyone, but we can also generate echo chambers. The echo chambers are comfy, so many wish to make the echo chambers manifest in reality, rather than just on the internets, and you have people who want to violate the echo chambers as well. Basically, we can act out our warlike methodologies in wars of words instead of weapons. Unfortunately, as the battle heats up, we're finding weapons are joining our war, as with the likes of antifa, pipe bombers, religious warriors (like ISIS), etc. Make no mistake, governments are one of many weapons, and have been in use for a while, but the internet, for a long time, gave us shelter from these weapons, so we could engage in keyboard wars instead. Well, it has come to the point where the worlds are merging yet again: the internet is not a place where you can shoot off your mouth without people causing real world effects, either by taking your shitposting as legitimate excuses for violence, or someone using your shitposting to get you arrested and/or thrown in jail.

You make very good points, and I can't refute any of them.

Things have changed a lot, especially in the past decade, and we're experiencing the proverbial growing pains.

It happened in the past, of course. What's different this time around, is that the internet is documenting every little bit of it.