Originally posted by lucifershammer
Well, the "Devil" can and was dismissed as superstitious nonsense. The same cannot be said of Darwin.

Besides, weren't most of the influencial social thinkers of the period (e.g. Locke, Paine, Jefferson et. al. and even Voltaire) either Deists or outright Atheists (e.g. Hume)? What would they be using the Bible for?

LH

PS: I guess I have noth ...[text shortened]... ng new to add. Then, as now, what was (or appeared to be) "scientific" was held sacrosanct.

Funny that someone who wrote The Reasonableness of Christianity would be considered by you a "Deist or outright Atheist"! Locke was in all probability a liberal Anglican or perhaps an Unitarian, though the evidence for the latter is scant. I suppose that a conservative Catholic thinks of all Protestants as close to "outright Atheists".

A brief discussion of Locke's religious views is at http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/locke/#LocRelTol

Originally posted by no1marauder
Funny that someone who wrote The Reasonableness of Christianity would be considered by you a "Deist or outright Atheist"! Locke was in all probability a liberal Anglican or perhaps an Unitarian, though the evidence for the latter is scant. I suppose that a conservative Catholic thinks of all Protestants as close to "outright Atheists".

A brief ...[text shortened]... cussion of Locke's religious views is at http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/locke/#LocRelTol

Funny that someone who wrote The Reasonableness of Christianity would be considered by you a "Deist or outright Atheist"!

Need reading comprehension classes? You must be the only person reading my post who thought that "outright atheist(s)" included Locke.

Okay, I was mistaken about Locke being a deist (even though his arguments were used as the basis for much Deism). In any case, he's late 17th century and probably not the poster boy for 18th century Deism.

I suppose that a conservative Catholic thinks of all Protestants as close to "outright Atheists".

So shorn of excitement on other forums that you decided to troll here?

Originally posted by lucifershammer
[b]Funny that someone who wrote The Reasonableness of Christianity would be considered by you a "Deist or outright Atheist"!

Need reading comprehension classes? You must be the only person reading my post who thought that "outright atheist(s)" included Locke.

Okay, I was mistaken about Locke being a deist (even though his arguments were used Atheists".[/b]

So shorn of excitement on other forums that you decided to troll here?[/b]

LMAO! YOU mentioned Locke as an example of an "influencial social thinkers of the period".

Your ignorance of his religious views just reinforces my belief that you've never actually read anything but summaries and/or excerpts from his work.

EDIT: Since you mentioned Locke, who I have read extensively, I thought I'd correct you misunderstandings of his views. A simple "thank you" would have sufficed.🙂

Originally posted by no1marauder
LMAO! YOU mentioned Locke as being "in that period".

Yes, and I was probably wrong about Locke (don't know if Locke continued writing into the 18th century).

Originally posted by lucifershammer
Yes, and I was probably wrong about Locke (don't know if Locke continued writing into the 18th century).

Locke died in 1704 and had no major works published during his life after 1695. Technically, I suppose he could be called a late 17th Century philosopher though schools of philosophy don't subdivide at each century mark in actuality.

Originally posted by no1marauder
Locke died in 1704 and had no major works published during his life after 1695. Technically, I suppose he could be called a late 17th Century philosopher though schools of philosophy don't subdivide at each century mark in actuality.

Probably not. But it would not be incorrect to say that sometimes a century (or part of a century) can be characterised by a particular school of thought (as, for instance, the logical positivists in the second quarter of the 20th century).

Originally posted by Bosse de Nage
Funnily enough, Darwin is dismissed as nonsense by numerous posters in this forum...and treated as a scapegoat at the same time (Halitose--anything to say?).

By whom was science held sacrosanct? Darwin's ideas were initially ridiculed by the press. And what fools hold science sacrosanct today?

(Halitose--anything to say?)

😀

Heh. As LH said, Darwin gave scientific justification and credibility to a political system which born on the shoulders of the enlightenment, required a positivist stamp of approval.

My personal views on the empirical validity of his scientific theory shouldn't detract upon the undeniable influence (intentional and unintentional) he's had on the last 150 years of western thought, culture and history.

Originally posted by twhitehead
Yes I am pretty confident. The majority of the world is theist. Or am I wrong about that? I can assure you that more than 50% of the white people during the time of aparthied here in south africa were theist.

http://www.answers.com/topic/hasty-generalization

Originally posted by DoctorScribbles
He makes a wide variety of interesting claims and compelling arguments in support of them. One idea that I found particularly interesting was his claim that indoctrinating children with religious beliefs constitutes child abuse.

He also claims that it is very unlikely that God exists.

It's a veritable tour de force, one of the best books I have ever read.

I was particularly struck by the subtlety of some of Dawkins's argumentation. In his TV series, he came across as a little bit prejudicial and simplistic. However, in the book he inserts qualifications where they are required, and his honesty and humanity really comes across.

My only beef with him is on the topic of consolation. I don't believe that starry-eyed contemplation of the wondrous evolving cosmos even comes near to being a sufficient balm for all the pain and suffering that so many human beings have to go through.

Originally posted by lucifershammer
Probably not. But it would not be incorrect to say that sometimes a century (or part of a century) can be characterised by a particular school of thought (as, for instance, the logical positivists in the second quarter of the 20th century).

True enough. It's obvious Locke represents a transitional figure in political philosophy and is considered a founder of Fundamental Rights theory which dominated 18th Century political thought. Therefore, it would make sense to put him in the same "school" as Jefferson and Paine of the ones you mentioned in that area. Where he should be placed in other areas of thought, I don't know enough of the history of those areas to hazard an opinion.

Originally posted by no1marauder
EDIT: Since you mentioned Locke, who I have read extensively, I thought I'd correct you misunderstandings of his views. A simple "thank you" would have sufficed.🙂

Didn't see this at first pass.

Yes, thank you of course.

🙂 LH

Originally posted by Halitose
http://www.answers.com/topic/hasty-generalization

I do no think my claim falls into that category. However I cannot at the present time back it up with quotable statistics. Suffice it to say that a significant number of the racists I have personally met were theists and I see no evidence of any kind that anyone using evolution as a justification/propaganda for racism is necessarily atheist. In fact I personally believe that better educated people are on average both less racist and more atheist. Again, I cannot back that up with statistics but it does not fall into your hasty-generalization category.

Originally posted by twhitehead
I do no think my claim falls into that category. However I cannot at the present time back it up with quotable statistics. Suffice it to say that a significant number of the racists I have personally met were theists and I see no evidence of any kind that anyone using evolution as a justification/propaganda for racism is necessarily atheist. In fact I per ...[text shortened]... annot back that up with statistics but it does not fall into your hasty-generalization category.

I cannot back that up with statistics but it does not fall into your hasty-generalization category.

The first part of your sentence is exactly why it does. Not only is your sampling taken from one country, it is taken from one person's experience of that one country. You really think you're not being disingenuous by extrapolating this to the rest of the world?

Originally posted by Halitose
The first part of your sentence is exactly why it does. Not only is your sampling taken from one country, it is taken from one person's experience of that one country. You really think you're not being disingenuous by extrapolating this to the rest of the world?

Give him a break, man...It's fair to say that most (white) racists in South Africa were (nominally) Christian during apartheid and the same is probably true now.

I'd wager the same is true in the USA.

Originally posted by Halitose
The first part of your sentence is exactly why it does. Not only is your sampling taken from one country, it is taken from one person's experience of that one country. You really think you're not being disingenuous by extrapolating this to the rest of the world?

No, I never said that my statement was based on my own experience or a sampling in one country. I only gave those as examples not as a single basis for the statement.
Do you believe it is false or do you just wish to show that my statement might be wrong?
Let us start with this claim: more than 50% of racists have historically been theist. Can you give one country where you feel this might be false?