Ban on Conservatives

Call 215 740 6116 if you want that changed.

Welcome back

Amen, inflation is theft!

Oh, baloney. There is no ban on conservatives.

I happen to be the son of a Republican politician, count members of Reagan's cabinet as family friends, and have worked together with prominent members of the Religious Right (including Chuck Colson and Jerry Falwell) on issues we shared in common. My own politics are a mish-mash of gut-level Libertarianism and social justice concerns, so I've also worked together with prominent members of the religious left (including Jim Wallis and Ron Sider).

I have often spoken (albeit not much lately, due to it falling on deaf ears) about members of the forum being unwelcoming to those of opposite views, and given that a majority of vocal members seem to be liberal, that means I am criticizing them for being unwelcoming of conservative viewpoints.

So, while I agree many on this board can often be unfriendly and bullying towards conservatives, there is no restriction regarding conservative viewpoints. However, what is unwelcome is the sound-bite insults and trolling which have been posted by several people recently. That is why they have been banned.

This is a private message board, so its admins can ban whomever they want. Start your own message board.

Haters gonna hate, I guess.

I don't want them to start their own message board.
I want them to come here and express their viewpoints.
However, I don't want trolling and potshots.

I was responding to this post:

"This is a private message board, so its admins can ban whomever they want. Start your own message board."

With a few exceptions, most people on this site are Conservative Democrats. Not that many bleeding hearts. We don't tolerate racists and bigots...Hopefully that's not your issue.

Good one!

I think I might use the label moderate and not conservative, but that probably has more to do with how the republican party (and conservative label) has shifted in the past few decades in this country.

double

Of course, the words "conservative" and "liberal" are also pretty fluid and confusing.

So lets just say that I would expect the bulk of the active posters on fishtown.us to be closer to the median member of the democratic caucuses in the house and senate (ie. moderate democrat) than the median member of the blue dog caucus (ie. conservative democrat).

I am admittedly very new around these parts (fishtownus) but I find it interesting that the poster with the atheist quote is the one saying that most people here are "moderate". I just hope he dosen't count himself as one of those moderates.

This should be interesting.

Why couldn't an atheist also be a political moderate? That's like me saying all believers must be of a certain political stripe.

Why would atheism be incompatible with a moderately liberal political philosophy?

This should be interesting.

I look forward to this debate getting me through the first few hours of work tomorrow morning.

We missed dovetailing that one by one second, stein!

(and this SHOULD be interesting)

Eh, I don't see much room for defending the original proposition. You better hope for a tangent or five

Just an educated guess. Maybe you are the exception to the rule.

ima ima ima shheeezz never mind ¡

You have made a guess. We are challenging you to justify calling it educated. What positions to the left of the liberal/democratic political mainstream do you expect me to hold based on my atheism? Do you expect me to hold that some sort of central planning is the most efficient and just way to run an economy or would you expect me to support Keynesian policies? maybe the godless would be expected to be libertarians instead? or maybe you weren't thinking in economic terms at all and just expect me to be a leftist cultural warrior instead? If so, what issues should I be out of the democratic mainstream on? Gay marriage (seems unlikely, congress is behind public opinion on that one)? Gun control (why would the godless care more about restricting gun rights than the faithful)? Abortion? Health care? Drug war? Foreign policy? Transportation? Social security?

make your argument explicit.

well, that fizzled quickly. boring.

Yeah, seriously.
People with all sorts of religious beliefs fall all over the political spectrum.

I don't know about that -- I would guess that the far right doesn't include a huge number of atheists.

Buddhists for Romney!

No political subset has many atheists, because at the moment we don't make up a particularly large portion of the population of this country. I think the most optimistic (or pessimistic, depending on how you see it) estimations for percentage of agnostic in the country are still less than 10%.

And while yes, I do agree that some demographic trends (namely that conservatives skew older and atheists skew younger) suggest that you wouldn't expect many far right atheists, I would point out that at this moment in this country libertarianism is basically the far right's economic policy of choice and I suspect there is a decent overlap between the sets of libertarians and atheists.

I can see that.

They just don't bring it up much at Conserva-Con.

"Zen and the Art of Portfolio Maintenance"

If anybody can come up with statistics, that would be helpful.
(which will be difficult, because I doubt our culture can agree on a definition of "far right")
However, it is my observation that there are many atheists on the far right.

Precisely.

People lie about their religious beliefs all the time. It's unpopular to be atheist and handy to use God as a tool against your foes. Bigots, for example.

I believe in God yet I am unable to dye-cast myself as a conservative even though I hold many conservative values.

I'm registered Democrat but only for one pragmatic reason, which any savvy voter in this county knows--it's the only way you can have a voice in who runs what office(s) in this town, short of a couple of At-Large Council members.

No one said all believers are conservatives? There is a strong correlation between labeling oneself an evangelical christian and conservative (as one for instance), but not between being religious and being conservative. As a counter-example being catholic says virtually nothing about your political/voting habits (being a catholic bishop, on the other hand...). I think the Jewish population in this country skews a little more liberal but I don't know how strong the effect is.

One convenient aspect of the bible is that for whatever set of views you reflexively hold you can find verses to support your worldview.

Out of the relatively small percentage of atheist/agnostics, I'd guess that not many at all are far right. I could say based on my observation (FU posts), about half of Fishtown is atheist/agnostic -- completely inaccurate.

if its that easy, why doesnt someone just tell them to vote for republicans?

For the record, I was responding to someone who apparently has been banned. the post was that in their opinion most people in fishtown just vote for who they are told to vote for (ie. democrats). my reply was that if that's all there is to it, why doesn't just someone tell them to vote for republicans, they ought to listen.

the implication, in case it was lost in translation, is that I don't beleive that most people "just vote for who they are told" and instead tend to vote in one direction or another because that party eat aligns with their own interests. note that this does not mean that one party or the other is perfectly aligned with any one voters interests, just better aligned than the other

Thank you for just about making my point for me. You "moderates" don't seem very moderate, wherever you fall on the political spectrum. Man you guys really took the ball and ran with it. So who went off on a few tangents? lol. You guys seem to have outsmarted yourselves.
Atheism in and of itself is not a moderate position. Agnostic would be a moderate position.

There are two forms of agnosticism, one of which is theistic and one is atheistic. It just depends on whether when faced with the prospect of a unknowable question you accept the positive claim or not. If you don't accept the claim that doesn't (and can't) have any evidence to support it that is a form of atheism and it's perfectly valid to use the term atheism to describe your (lack of) belief.

Are you planning on attempting to make an argument at all?

According to this logic, ever saying "yes" or "no" to anything makes you an extremist.

Thanks for the lesson in semantics. And there doesn't seem to be much to argue about. I made my point.

btw thanks th. that was deep. But at least you comprehended the point I was making on some level.

you have made a unsubstantiated statement, not a point. you can't point out one non-moderate position that is inherently connected to atheism.

What point was that?

By YOUR definition, atheism would be an 'extreme' position, and agnostocism would be a 'moderate' position, correct? Isn't that what you just posited in the above post?

By that reasoning, with agnostics occupying the moderate ground (again, by YOUR definition) then please explain how believers wouldn't also qualify as extremists. Wouldn't that very logically be the opposite end of the same spectrum where you've identified athesists as "extremists?"

If we're missing something here, by all means set the record straight.

Says the poster who started the thread by claiming this forum was prejudiced against conservatives and against free speech.

I'm sure it will come as no surprise that I'm not an atheist.

That said, George was merely pointing out a weakness in your logic.

Maybe people here should actually read what I wrote and stop attaching their own agendas to it.

Which is typical, btw, of people who are not moderate.

Methinks the lady doth protest too much

Methinks you can't answer the questions asked and are just being contentious for the sake of being contentious.

I voted for Bush, twice. There, I said it. You happy Meredith?

For same.

Shakespeare actually wrote "The lady doth protest too much, methinks."

hey thanks. that actually changes the entire meaning of the quote

oh I can answer the questions but I tend not to see the point in doing so when the 'moderates' here keep putting words in my mouth and asking me to defend the false premise that they have set up.

maybe i have a different perspective from most here but i dont see how i was being contentious. you 'moderates' are real good at projecting.

re false premises

in pointing out the 'weakness' in my logic george set up a false premise that i do not agree with nor ever stated. But i'm betting you can't see that.

another false premise. never said there were any.

its more about the atheist than the atheism.

What rule?

It's a perfect fit -- they both do nothing.*

*except Buddhists actually aim for wu wei/actionless action, which is not actually doing nothing.

He didn't introduce a false premise.
He logically derived a false conclusion from premises, including one false premise you provided.
This is what is known as a valid but unsound argument.

yeah i was pretty sure you wouldnt be able to see that he did, he made an unwarranted and erroneous assumption. he then built a premise around that assumption that was unwarranted and erroneous. therefore his argument is unsound and invalid.

im quoting this because it hits the nail on head: "Often people will choose the assumptions that best fit the conclusion they prefer. In fact, psychological experiments show that most people start with conclusions they desire, then reverse engineer arguments to support them – a process called rationalization."

ps - id love to know what false premise i started with. lol
????

Alright, lets take you at your word, Zaw. Here is exactly what you said:

My interpretation of these comments was that it is your educated guess that someone with an atheist quote in their signature could not be a moderate (or at the very least, the number of moderates with atheist quotes in their signature is small enough relative to the larger set of people with atheist quotes in their signature that they are the exception that proves the rule).

Is this correct? If not, could you please clarify what you are trying to say because if not that I don't know how else to interpret it, and it would appear I am not alone.

just some qoutes based on the research

http://religions.pewforum.org/pdf/report2-religious-landscape-study-full.pdf

Atheists tend to be more politically liberal than the population overall.
more than three-quarters of atheists (77%) believe religion causes more problems than it solves
Atheists are also strongly Democratic
three-quarters of atheists worry government is too involved in the issue of morality.
Atheists are significantly less likely to prefer smaller government

more than seven-in ten atheists (75%) say stricter environmental laws are worth the cost,

You're just throwing a lot of words around with no actual substance behind them. SPECIFICALLY what is the 'false premise' I built? Did I misread what you wrote? Did you not say agnosticism would be a 'moderate' position and atheism could not be a moderate position? And since you've taken it upon yourself to define who is and isn't a moderate, perhaps you can expalin where atheists and believers would rank on your spectrum since you've already placed agnostics in the moderate category.

Also, you were asked earlier by myself and others to explain why an atheist could not be a moderate yet have dodged actually explaining why that is so. I honestly would like to know why you feel this way.

Simply saying "I can answer that" without actually doing so is not an answer, by the way.

This thread is already too stupid. And not that fun kind of stupid we see a lot of around these parts.

agnosticism is moderate.

These are statistical facts.
If your statement is "Atheists tend to be more liberal politically than the general population", I don't think anybody would disagree.

"Reductio ad absurdum" doesn't work when you omit the "reductio" part.

Name-calling, however, is a much more impressive demonstration of logic.

yeah they are not moderate they tend to be liberal.

goodnight!

stop trying to pretend your smart and start using common sense

Absolutely agreed, just as logic and evidence shows that those of a strong religious faith tend to fall on the conservative side (at least in this society).

But of course there are some shades of gray in there, too.

ahh... i see where you went wrong. here, let me quote myself from earlier:

Before you showed up, we weren't discussing whether or not the bulk of posters on fishtown.us were moderate or conservative relative to the entire US population, but whether or not they were moderate or conservative _democrats_. The democratic party tends to be more politically liberal than the population overall, less likely to prefer "small government" (insofar as that term has any substantive meaning), more likely to believe that environmental laws are worth the cost, and more worried that government is too involved in policing morality.

So in the end it seems like you have just been arguing against something no one actually said and that is where the confusion has come from.

I don't know about that being a logical conclusion, but evidence definitely points to that for this society.

In the US, strong religious activity is tied to being more politically conservative than the general public.
However, in the UK it's tied with being more politically liberal than the general public.
My guess is that as the US becomes more secular we will see a similar shift in correlation. (but that's just a guess)

Also interesting is that it's religious activity (specifically attendance at worship), rather than theological stance, which relates to political activity.

this has nothing to do with what was said before i got here. i expressed an opinion, an opinion that was not taken kindly to, so i wasnt arguing against anything that was said or not said.

my opinion was that atheists tend not to be moderate. so the only confusion seems to have come from your end.

I think you did:

ouch

How can you say that when you specifically referred to what was being said about f.us posters being moderate?

I was commenting on you.
understanding of basic grammar will tell you that you are the subject of both sentences.

I agree with Zaw that most Atheists tend to be liberal and with Stein that not all Atheists are liberal.

Most conservatives are not atheists. They believe in tradition and authority. If someone in authority tells them tax cuts for the wealthy create jobs then they believe it no matter what the last the last 20 years have shown.

If someone in authority tells them government austerity in a recession is the right thing to do they will believe that no matter what the evidence is. While the US with it's modest stimulus program is seeing modest growth, in Europe austerity programs have led to double dip recessions and larger deficits.

They deny the evidence and science of climate change and of evolution. They believe what they want to believe and it's useless arguing with them. In contrast, I'm sure if God appeared one day in a more tangible form the Atheists would change their opinion.

Yes, while my signature is less of an 'atheist quote' than one about the truth of science, it was the only one that made sense.

And since you were referring to me, I know what I said: that most people on f.us were moderate democrats. Somehow you misconstrued it to be moderate relative to the entire US population and questioned whether someone who considers themselves an atheist could also be a moderate (relative to the US population) which isn't what I said. I do consider myself a moderate democrat and the statistical evidence you found in the Pew poll affirms that as a group atheists are well within the mainstream of registered democrats.

The question is, why did you misconstrue what was being discussed before you joined the conversation? bad reading comprehension? willful attempt to obfuscate? inability to understand the difference between a moderate position in a larger set v. a moderate position in a subset of the larger set? Inquiring minds want to know.

"We establish no religion in this country, we command no worship, we mandate no belief, nor will we ever. Church and state are, and must remain, separate. We are free to believe or not believe, all are free to pratice a faith or not, and those who believe are free, and should be free, to speak of and act on their belief. At the same time that our Constitution prohibits state establishment of religion, it protects the free exercise of all religions. And walking this fine line requires government to be strictly neutral.

Common sense tells me the Earth is flat.

I'm not smart enough to know how to pretend to be smart. It's a Catch-22 I've had to learn to accept.

You just have to get your self a copy of google.

my oh my the mental gymnastics you must have to go through to believe your own tripe. bad reading comprehension?lol. I'll paste my own for the third time so maybe you'll get it. (emphasis added)
"I find it interesting that the poster with the atheist quote is the one saying that MOST PEOPLE HERE are "moderate".
So it seems I understood what you wrote.And then I implied I thought you probably wouldn't be moderate.
I thought my post simple and straighforward. stop trying to outthink yourself.

But now I have to ask you: you referred to moderate democrats on this board, moderate relative to what if not relative to the US population?
I'm asking even though this has absolutely nothing to do with my original point.

Are we done yet? I thought Frank Jones already won this thread.

Actually, no I didn't.

First, Zaw's original statement was that agnosticism was moderate and atheism extreme. It was that statement I disagreed with, not a statement about the politics of agnostics or atheists.

In my response to you I said I've observed many atheists on the far right. A cluster at one end of the spectrum doesn't contradict an average tendency in the other direction.

Which I might also add is what I've been saying.

This is where the definitions of conservative & liberal get fuzzy - and, I would add, often become malleable in order to fit our own prejudices. Barack Obama holds a lot of authority as the President of the United States. Legal tradition of stare decisis says that Roe v. Wade should stand. However, neither believing in Barack Obama nor opposing the overturn of Roe v. Wade is generally labelled as "conservative".

Once again, I think the "appeal to authority" fails here. I think it's more a case of finding someone who says what they want to say and ignoring the evidence which goes against it. And that is something we find across the spectrum - for instance, a recent poll showed that a majority of Republicans believe both that climate change is the result of human action and that government should be actively working to fight climate change. The percentage isn't as high as it is for Democrats, so one can still make the case that "climate deniers have more safe haven in the more conservative of the two major parties", but it argues against the proposition that conservatives as a whole fit into the "drink the Kool Aid" stereotype regarding the matter. And, I argue, these liberal/conservative caricatures fail in many other areas.

WOW. I never said that. that's you people putting words in my mouth. That is why this is my signature: Often people will choose the assumptions that best fit the conclusion they prefer.

you people should quit before you embarrass yourselves anymore.

Where did I EVER use the word extreme. So now "not moderate" equals extreme? come on
please refer, once again, to my signature.

This may be hard for you to comprehend, given the entirety of your posting history, but perhaps you should consider the idea that when I used the term 'moderate democrat' I was referring to democrats who held moderate views with repsect to the continuum of views held by members of their party?

http://thesaurus.com/browse/moderate

Main Entry: moderate
Antonyms: excessive, extreme, immoderate, outrageous, uncontrolled, unlimited, unreasonable, unrestrained, violent, wild

if that is not grasping at straws I dont know what is. Is this really the road you want to go down? This is becoming an absolute farse on your part.

My point is that I was responding to the words you said. First you said you didn't say what you said. Then you said the words don't mean what they mean.

It appears the reality is simply that you didn't say what you meant to say. It happens all the time, and it's no big deal. However, the best response is to simply clarify the situation - not to attack others.

The irony is that, as we've already determined, it turns out I agree with what you meant to say (as opposed to what you did say).

oh dan, i think you need to consider the possibility that you have just encountered a troll, and a very specific kind of troll: the dumb person's idea of a smart troll (ie. the newt gingrich).

first off i'm sorry if i attacked you. ill try not to do that in the future. but i do ask that you stop trying to make yourself sound intelligent because its having the opposite effect. i already let the 'reductio' thing go so as not to off on a tangent.
so let me try and clarify the situation. you were not responding to the words i said. didnt use the word you said i used.
you use as your justification for your convoluted argument an antonym of a word i used. do you know what an antonym is? ill use your source for the definition

Main Entry: antonym  [an-tuh-nim]
Part of Speech: noun
Definition: word with opposite meaning to another word
Synonyms: opposite, reverse
Antonyms: synonym

Dont you see a logical problem using this as a basis for your argument?
if not lets look at another example of an antonym:

Main Entry: white  [hwahyt, wahyt]
Part of Speech: adjective
Definition: extremely pale; lacking color
Synonyms: achromatic, achromic, alabaster, ashen, blanched, bleached, bloodless, chalky, clear, fair, frosted, ghastly, hoary, immaculate, ivory, light, milky, neutral, pallid, pasty, pearly, silver, silvery, snowy, transparent, wan, waxen
Antonyms: black, dark, dirty

so logically speaking, based on your argument, if i say a car is not white you would conclude the car is black?
does that make sense?

yeah i realize that, and those moderate views are in relation not just to the party but the population as well or else they would not be labelled moderate.
i'll even agree to cede the point to you if we can just move on

well, that didn't last very long. :)

I see what you're saying here. However, I'm afraid I disagree because the nature of the words "white" and "moderate" are not the same.

how so?

is calling someone a schill worse than calling them a troll. because calling someone a schill warrants an immediate response.

If you don't think that relative adjectives like moderate or extreme can be used to differentiate between elements of a subset (ie. a moderate democrat being moderate among democrats instead of moderate among the US population) why does the US population count as the proper superset? Shouldn't moderate be used to describe where's ones views fall relative to the entire population of humans?

I think that is a fair point to make. I should not have put in the "authority" part, mainly because it's a whole other conversation and it was not really the main point I wanted to make.

There. That was not so hard at all.

When you said I better hope for a tangent or five I didnt think they'd be coming from you! This line of questioning is tangential at best and just plain silly at worst.
good god man! ( sorry about that)

Its quite relevant to our discussion. Do you, or do you not agree that relative adjectives (such as moderate) can be used to differentiate between elements in subsets? If you are having trouble conceiving of the abstract question, I'll make it concrete: Do you believe it is possible for some democrats to be moderate relative to other democrats? Likewise do you agree that some democrats can be conservative relative to other democrats while still being democrats?

Also, I never said you should hope for tangents. I said sdm should hope for tangents.

yes. yes

Good. I'll lead you through this argument step by step so you don't get lost again.

Now since you have agreed that relative adjectives can be used to differentiate between subsets in general, and more specifically that some democrats can be moderate (or conservative) compared to other democrats then we can agree that when 2014 York said that he thought most f.us posters were conservative democrats and I objected and said I thought they were moderate democrats you can agree that it was clear we were using the relative adjectives conservative and moderate to refer to positions within the continuum of political leanings within the democratic party. Which is to say that we would expect conservative democrats to be relatively close in their politics to liberal republicans and moderate democrats to be still somewhat liberal.

Do you agree so far?

yes

Good, so now we agree that when I used the term moderate I was referring to moderate democrats (given that I was responding directly to 2014 York and later I gave a much more specific explanation of what I meant by moderate democrat), then we can agree that when you said:

You were inaccurately reflecting what I said, and that in fact I did not claim that most f.us posters were moderate (relative to the US population) but rather I was saying they were moderate democrats. And insofar as I considered myself part of "most f.us posters" I would not have been considering myself a moderate (relative to the US population) but a moderate democrat.

oh my god (sorry)! who cares? It still has nothing to do with what I posted.
moderate democrat. moderate drinker. moderate whatever. I was commenting on your using the word "moderate" in general. maybe it required a little lateral thinking but i dont think it was rocket science to make that leap.

So that's it? No more latin phrases used incorrectly? Not even a mea culpa?
I really wanted to find out why there are shades of grey but there is no spectrum associated with the word moderate. I asked but never got an answer.
And are we clear that its not fair to put words in people's mouths to use against them? Not fair and not cool.
And we are now clear that I believe that a good rule of thumb is that atheists are not moderate? not even moderate demcrats. ( at least that would have been debate worth having)

I am clear that you were unable to understand that the rest of us were talking about moderate democrats (despite a post by me that explicitly laid out what I meant by moderate democrat) and not some abstract moderate and because of that I am unwilling to continue to engage you as I do not believe you to be debating in good faith. The others can make their own choice on the matter.

Thanks Mr Kotter but I expected as much. This is actually a typical response from liberals. It seems they are unable to have an honest, intelligent discussion, and when they are cornered they take their ball and run away.
They are hypocrites of the highest order because they shout from the rooftops about how closed minded people are who dont agree with them while being the most closed minded people themselves. They like to think that and act like they are smarter than everyone else but when challenged their apparent lack of intelligence causes them to flee. They look for any excuse to do so, even if its a convoluted silly point, just as Mr. Stein just did.
Or, if they have the power, they will immediately ban you from their little fiefdom which is what drew me to your original statement, and subject of this thread.
Either way these free speech advocates shut down discussion when the speech is not something they want to hear.
And your point is therefore made to be true Mr. Kotter.

signed,

Epstein's Mother

p.s. Atheists are usually the biggest offenders

Wow Zaw. I don't have a horse in this race, but that is the most condescending post I've read on this forum in a long time. And that is saying something. . .

Zaw, I wouldn't say your debate with Stein was typical of debates with all liberals. It's really typical of any debate with Stein. I saw it coming a mile away.

Even me, an atheist liberal, had a lot of sympathy for that morass you were in.

I just click into this thread once every other day so that it stops showing at the top of the new posts list.

That is all.

We are clear that you believe that. yes.

My nephew believes in the toothfairy.

you dont even want to go there about the toothfairy. He/she still owes me money!

OHHHHHHH GAAAAAAAAAAAAWD. This is the most typical, cookie-cutter conservative whine-fest EVER. If democrats always "take their ball and go home," this is what conservatives always do. They claim that democrats' refusal to listen to bigotry or religious rhetoric that has no place in politics is a form of closed-mindedness. Sorry, but no. There is no "war on Christianity" in America. I laugh every time Newt Gingrich says that. Being racist or homophobic is not "a personal opinion." It's ignorance. I'm not being closed-minded by telling a bigot he's an idiot. My view point doesn't support the oppression, punishment, and denial of civil rights to anyone - the conservative republican view DOES.

I know quite a few atheists. None of them advocate the destruction of religious people, but I've sure seen some pretty vile things come out of religious folks' mouths while discussing atheists. I don't see atheists building football-stadium sized meeting houses or putting millions of dollars behind political campaigns to strip women of their rights or prevent gay people from gaining theirs. But oh yes, you poor Christians are soooooo oppressed by those ignorant, closed-minded atheists. They are all gonna git ya!

I also love the hatred of intelligence, academia, and reason that has arisen in the Republican Party. And yet you continue to nominate, and even elect, ivy league educated men. What was that about hypocrisy that you were saying?

Ohhh, looks like I upset some liberals!
What bigoted, religious rhetoric did I write that caused 'democrat' Stein to refuse to listen?

So do I. And they are some of the worst war criminals in history, responsible for the deaths of 10's if not hundreds of millions

I'll need some details on that one because I think that's just your warped liberal perspective.

See, now you guys are just upset and starting in with the generalized name calling. You can't say Hitler was representative of Atheists any more than you can say Genghis Khan or the Crusaders were representative of believers.

This is all sort of ridiculous.

I think I finally see what Zaw is getting at. It goes something like this:

Hindus believe in lots and lots of gods.
Muslims, Christians and Jews believe in one god.
Buddhists and (Insert religious tradition here) atheists believe in no god.

Ergo (Zaw was requesting more Latin) Muslims, Christians and Jews have staked out the moderate position by moderating the number of deities they are willing to worship without going to the EXTREME of doing away with all of them.

However, I believe there is a flaw in Zaw's math. Hindus are traditionally said to believe in 33 deities (some say 33 million but this is usually thought to be a miss interpretation of the nuance of the written language. - although some further miss interpret it to mean there are infinite deities.) So a truly moderate position would be a Hindu who only believes in 15 or so deities.

A person who believes in 15 or so deities is the true moderate.

What about the old gods? greek mythology may only have had 12 main gods, but once you start adding all the lesser gods and primordial gods you get into triple digits if i am not mistaken. celtic mythology had dozens, etc. some will probably overlap with other gods (ie. zeus may be the same as the judeo-christian god and allah) but we are still going to be left with more than 33 gods in total to choose from.

I agree, it's a complicated argument Zaw is making. But, I believe that Zaw would argue that he or she is only focused on living religion beliefs.

Which would exclude Greek and Celtic mythology.

what's your name on philly.com?

you came here to bait liberals into some bizarre debate. you did a generally poor job of it. now you've swung into full scale sweeping generalization mode. it just looks like you're cutting and pasting from the philly.com comments section now. if you want to debate a political topic why not make a thread and go for it? if you want to scream about how liberals/fascists/nazis/socialists/communists are ruining the country why not join your brethren over at that horrid excuse for a news site?

Hey I agree. I was not trying to imply that Hitler or any of those other mass murderers were representative of atheists. Just trying to point out how ridiculous the argument is.

But I will stick to my generalizations about how liberals debate. and i realize it is a generalization. I would like to come across some liberals who are not guilty of my accusations though. But i also realize that liberals who post on blogs like this are probably a certain type of liberal.

One more thing these types of liberals do: In order to deflect an argument they are losing they turn to ridiculousness and try to make a joke out of everything thereby showing how truly unserious they are.

What category do those of us who worship Cthulhu fall under? Trying to follow this thread gave me a nosebleed.

i realize that conservatives who troll threads are a certain type of conservative.

Actually it looks like I did a pretty good job of it. lol
Actually I thought I might find some intelligent discussion here. And I don't to just talk with like minded people. I know i'm generalizing again but thats what liberals do. thats why they are so susceptable to group-think.

If this is a response to my honest attempt to understand your point, I am hurt.

I feel like this attitude is very dismissive of the Hindu faith and the 950 million people who practice it.

Very disappointing.

humans are susceptible to group think regardless of sociopolitical outlook. to think anything else is just silly.

Ahem.

honest attempt? I hope not.

Seems to me that some groups are more so than others. But I'm just trying to be the exception to the rule.

I'm not.

What strikes you as dis-honest?

i'm not sure i follow? you're an exception to the so called rule of liberal group think? i though you were conservative?

At least Soul Man has enough common sense to stay away from an argument he already backed away from instead of making a parody of himself

He appears to be acknowledging that conservatives are more susceptible to groupthink, as a way of making himself look better (ie. "see, I am the exception to the rule")

I guess what I'm not getting is this: Are you guys talking about religious moderation or political moderation?

This message bought to you by: Dramatic Irony.

the statement i responded was that all humans are susceptable to group-think. i'm trying to be the exception by talking with people who i dont agree with.

why? because i have a different point of view than you?

ah, great! what do you want to discuss? please tell me the whole moderate/atheist debate was just a palate cleanser. let's really delve deeply into some political issues in the surrounding community.

Can we just condense this to a valid point, and then agree to disagree?

i'm not here to start any fights but someone else started this thread about conservatives and i responded to someone here.
i did post a thread on the soda tax however.

And I for one am glad that you have! Although, I am having a little trouble figuring out if I agree with you or not.

To Codergrrl's query, I believe we are here:
1) Everyone here (except Zaw) is a liberal
2) Zaw is a conservative
3) Stein is an atheist
4) Atheists are not allowed to be moderate
5) I think we are still trying to determine what exactly a moderate is
6) Hindus apparently don't count
7) Soul Man is a parody of himself

Is that about right?

and you got responses from across the spectrum. people generally expressed their opinions in a thoughtful way. there was a discussion and exchange of ideas. why come over on to this thread and rant about liberals?

you just failed with 50 or 60%

Now I’m confused. I thought the one thing that this thread had established is that a moderate is anyone who agrees with whatever it is that Zaw believes and anyone else is an illogical extremist.

And was there a fight over there?
What is the title of this thread again? I didnt start it but i'm not allowed to comment on it because yhe liberals here dont like it?

i'd like to see anyone quote me on that. seems easy enough to do

troll thread gets troll responses. NEWS AT 11!

nope, that's my point. it seems the liberals on this site were more than open to discuss the topic with you in a rational and reasonable manner.

you can comment all you like, make sweeping generalizations by the bucket load. it just seems a silly thing to do when your other postings on this site haven't met with the same close minded group think mentality you claim is being displayed.

I keep reaching out, but my hand keeps getting slapped.

I feel humiliated. :(

Because I chose not to challenge them on it. God forbid if I did.
even though i didnt it still devolved into ridiculousness

but it seems you have not been paying attention. i didnt say nor do i feel about half of your top 10

chose not to challenge whom on what? are we talking about the soda tax? there were people both for and against it. there were some in the middle. there was some silliness. just about everything you'd expect on a thread around here.

i think you're confusing the fact that people will debate you on this site ad nauseam with some kind of persecution of conservatives.

You haven't been around here very long. Have you? :)

I challenge the use of the word devolved. it started silly, stayed silly, and so far has ended silly. so long as it continues, it will continue to be silly. there was no evolution or devolution involved, whether you are using the words in a scientific or figurative sense.

I challenge your use of the words "devolve" and "evolve". I don't believe in evolution or devolution.

Check out Stein's coment below or on that thread for one.
For another If I challeged any liberal perspective on that thread it would have ended with me being called a nazi. imho

dude, fo' realz? you're the one that threw around atheists murdering millions of people. so far that's the only reference to nazis i've seen.

stein is stein. if you have a personal issue with how he responds to your posts that's between you and him. to take his responses as the opinions of all liberals on this site is just silly.

you had plenty of people agreeing with you on that thread. i'm not sure why you're playing martyr about it now.

Honestly, I'm the only one who should feel persecuted around here.

we have some hurt feelings up in here!

Can we get a group hug and some Kumbaya?

So long as it's not Joan Baez's version.

i said imho

maybe if you weren't so quick to throw the term around you wouldn't assume others would be so quick to do it to you.

Plus, there's been nothing humble about your opinions. There's usually nothing humble about mine, either, but that's why I don't use "imho."

i wasnt the one who said hitler, i was actually thinking about communist atheists when i responded to the post about christians being being resposible for many vile things