Revolutionary,

I think if the two of us had coffee together (or your beverage of choice) that we would have some great conversations.  You have some of the strangest and most interesting beliefs on things!

In reply to Doulos (msg # 23):

I agree.  And nearly any beverage would do.. :) ..and if we made the location a salad bar we could chat all day long.

I suppose this depends what we mean by compelling.  If by that we mean that it's "comforting" or "attractive" I agree it is not.  It doesn't comfort me that it's easier to see fewer options with the most extreme. But that the more extreme require more extreme responses does seem to have rather "popular" support (at the risk of seeming to offer ad populum as evidence).



Well, depends for whom.

For the one providing evidence, I say not necessarily.  For the "broader world" when/where there are distributed benefits for more "true" thinking, probably it is. But I could see the costs to the one person exceeding the benefits to all.  Which would create some really unfortunate externalities against "persuaders"

Is there a way to "find posts by" a person?

Not that I know of, unfortunately.  I've wanted such a feature many times myself.

In reply to Tycho (msg # 27):

Another example unrelated to religion:

So there are new fuel standards coming for autos, right?

Great...progress...bipartisan cooperation... a step, be it a baby one, in the right direction...

...Then I read the fine print.  Crap doesn't come into effect until 2025.

In 5 years we went from almost nothing to the Manhattan Project.  because of fanatical focus.

In 10 years we went from almost nothing to putting a man on the moon! ibid.

Am I being unreasonable by refusing to get excited over future progress that will never happen, 15 years from now?!

15 years for a fictional percent increase in fossil fuel (laf along with me) "efficiency". When did we get so damned SMALL?!

I guess this is one result of voting for small leaders for the last 50 years.

The government fuel efficiency requirements are a joke, anyway. They specify the average fuel efficiency over all models released that year. Manufacturers can fudge those estimates by saying 'we made more of this car, and less of that car', so in the end the law doesn't really force anything on them.

Regardless, efficient cars are getting more efficient, because consumers want them to. Without laws restricting the freedom of those who want inefficient cars, that's the best we can hope for.

In reply to hakootoko (msg # 29):

Yes, and of course all "law" is tyranny to these teabaggers. And while not a fan of much or most "criminal law" myself...  ...I at least want the freedom fools to pay for their costs which get externalized.

I agree that the fuel efficiency laws are pretty disappointing, but the reason they're disappointing is because a lot of people don't want any restrictions at all.  I fail to see how making those people into radicals would be any better.  We wouldn't just have crap restrictions, we'd have no restrictions ever, because they'd never agree to any compromise.  You seem to be comparing moderates to "people who agree passionately with every position I hold" and find the latter group preferable.  But if you make every moderate into an extremist, they're not going to become fanatical devotees to all the causes you support.  They're just as likely (or perhaps even more likely) to become fanatical supporters of the causes you oppose.  You speak dismissively of the "teabaggers."  The tea party is what happens when former moderates become extremists.  It's not the moderates who are preventing stronger fuel efficiency standards, its the people at the extreme.

I have been thinking about changing this position in response to the "Moderate" Muslim response to the breach of the US Embassy in Libya suggests there may be some advantage of moderation.

I'm going to try to figure out how to articulate this well; however, I don't think this is a "good example" of moderation.  But a good example of the power of secularism.

Any thoughts about the Muslim people who are turning in the "extremist" militias,  as well as, their messaging?

Well, enough extremist muslims and we'll stop putting out stuff which insults Islam. Plus, I totally know where they stand.

In reply to katisara (msg # 33):

What do you mean?  Can you identify the pronouns and what you think people "mean" or "feel" that you "understand" and does understanding equal solidarity.

I know where the extremist muslims who are burning down buildings stand on movies that insult Islam.

So you think we should not product insulting materials because of the behavior of extremists?

I think fake victims want to be victims and going to find something to take offense at... Look at Sarah Palin's as an example...she can never be outraged enough, huh?

With sufficient numbers of sufficiently extremist muslims, anyone who might produce that material will either be intimidated, in hiding, or dead.

In reply to katisara (msg # 37):

I see you're making an natural argument not a "preference" one.

Yes. I for one am all for egging on extremists. But I don't want my house burned down. And if I'm dead, what I enjoy doing is clearly irrelevant.

Hmm i hope no one minds if i highjack this kind of as i tihnk that the argument has pointed in the wrong direction. There is a severe danger to allowing what is refered to here as Moderate Religious Faith. However it is not in the Physical everyday bombings and Enabling of Extremist behaviour that has been mentioned before but a different kind of threat all together.

I would like to refer to this as blind Faith, Something that is shared by (and i'm not trying to be harsh but i can't think of a better way to put it) the less informed. The Danger of moderate Faith is that it can interefere with progress, Education and Modern Morality.

Now please don't missunderstand me by thinking i'm Lumping anyone that follows a faith into this banner. To me there are a minimum of Five tiers of how seriously one takes their faith. Currently the thread has discussed only two, meaning everyone that has faith and isn't an extremist must have moderate faith. we know this cannot be true. The heavily simplified catagories i put forward are Intrinsic faith, Taught Faith, Moderate faith, Dedicated faith, Extremist Faith.

Intrinsic faith is simply a person has the basic belief structure of an organised religion but alters it to suit themselves. Taught Faith is the Person who classifies themselves as that religion but is otherwise very similar to Intrinsic Faith. Moderate Faith is your Typical person that follows a religion the sort that will go to church every Sunday and try to follow that doctrine. Dedicated faith are the people that follow the religion and make it a major part of their lifes to obey it. And i don't believe Extremists need an explination.

Now in any religious community the majority are likley to be of Moderate Faith or Dedicated faith. If the majority of the country fits into one of these catagories policies and laws will come into lace not based on logic but based upon religious doctrine. This would not be the case if they were not. The Danger surrounding those of moderate faith is that a lot of the time they are a high majority or voting demoraphic, or in some csaes simply in charge.

We can see evidence of how this comes into practice in the news nearly everyday. One example off the top of my head is the proganda films and books against Dungeons Rock music. Huge community protests went on and bands were forced into trials to prove they werent trying to corrupt the youth of yesterday. There is no reasoniung for this to happen other than religious backlash by the majority of those of moderate faith. The danger is that these things spread into more important issues such as Education (although it can easily be argued that the prohibitation of teaching Evolution in some american Schools is Evidence of this) or crime policy, even what scientif reaserch is and isn;t allowed (e.g Stem Cells). While Morality needs to play a part in this religious morality shouldnt but while the masses gain their morality from their faith it will allways intervene.

I don't know. I think the issue I have with it is the word faith. Like it's a religious term.

Everyone has faith. You have faith that your car will start, or stop when you press on the breaks. You have faith you will make it to work alive.

In reply to Trust in the Lord (msg # 41):

That is true although the word does conjure up religious connotations. I personally would say i have faith if i was refering to religion.

the examples you use i would use the word Hope, which means the exact same thing without any religious connotations.

But that is simply arguing Semantics.

This isn't a problem with faith, or with moderation.  It's a problem with democracy--sometimes the people in the majority support things you don't.  This can happen whether they're people of moderate faith, extreme faith, or not faith at all.  This didn't happen because they were moderates rather than extremists, it happened because they were in the majority.  I feel like you're treating one thing that happens to be true like it's the cause of something you don't like, when rather it's just an unrelated fact, and the cause is something entirely different.


Again, this doesn't have anything to do with moderate vs. extreme views, it has to do with people being in the majority that you (and I, for what its worth) disagree with.  What you describe could just as well happen if everyone was an atheist, or a buddhist, or a muslim, or if no faith had any significant clout at all.  Religions are just one of the many ways people can make bad decisions as a group (or as individuals).

Really, I think the only real 'solution' to the problem you point out is for you to be an absolute ruler, and always get your way.  Of course, then other people will be not getting their way, so it doesn't really solve 'the' problem, just 'your' problem, as it were.  If you let other people be part of the decision-making process, you sort of have to accept that sometimes (perhaps even most of the time) they'll make decisions you disagree with.

I like your categories. They're well-thought out. You should probably bold them for easy reference as this conversation continues.

However, it seems like your issue isn't with moderates or extremists; it's with faith in general. Voters who don't give much credit to the bible are okay, but everyone else is misleading America.

In reply to katisara (msg # 44):

I'm natoriosly bad at waffling around the point and not making the pint i wished to make int he first place so i will clarify here. (which is why i try to keep posts short so i don't waffle, and i am fully aware that now i am waffleing about how a waffle)

The point i was trying to make was that by default the majority of a religion will have moderate faith. Of those a few will follow the letter rather than the intent, they are more likley to make decisions based upon the letter that no longer make sense in our times. If one person within that community can then convinse the rest of the community to agree then you have those of moderate belief supporting a potentially detrimental cause.

Basically Blind faith is the most detrimental kind, they can be extremists but most of the time they will be your average Joe, not realising the negative impact that their actions could cause.

Of course the same could be said about anyone! but that is because anyone doing anything without thinking it through or doing the research is being detrimental to our culture.

---

For Example, the country that Britain wants is not what tey elected. People blindly voted for people based on information other than the Policies of each party. A brillient Blind testing website during the last election allowed people to pick the policies they thought were best on a number of topics and the parties that people prefered were not who they voted for (green and labour were first with a close lib dem follow up). Again this could be for a number of reasons i put it down to being missinformed.

http://voteforpolicies.org.uk/ (the website for anyone interested)

Okay. I'm willing to accept that blind faith is extremely dangerous. I'd agree with you that that isn't just the realm of religion (politics is where I see it most often). But I'm not sure how much that applies here, since the previous line of discussion was that moderates are *worse* than extremists, but in this arena, they seem to be, at most, equally bad.

Not to keep arguing the point, (Maybe a little) but hope and use of faith are different. Hope is desire or feeling. Faith means belief, or confidence, or trust.


Just to add in another factor, blind faith.

Is blind faith meaning accepting as truth without looking at evidence? Example, do we accept psychology is true based on blind faith in the psychologists saying it's true? Do we need to research psychology in order to be not saying we have blind faith in psychology?