Religion in the Furry Community

[CaptainCool]

Let me put it differently. The source is entirely irrelevant. Further, declaring some person or group innately false is criminal, for such actions will block lines of inquiry that otherwise may have been pursued, as has occurred far too often in the past and continues today.

For instance, the steady state theory isn't dead.

The source is not irrelevant. In fact, your source dictates how good your argument really is. For example, if you try to use Kent Hovind as a proper scientific source I already know that you don't know what you are talking about since Hovind literally found his degree in a cereal box. But this is just an example since we are talking about sources like answersingenesis right now.
And I absolutely can declare a group or person as false. If they are spreading shit that is demonstrably false, as in if I can point at proper sources that do prove them wrong, there is nothing wrong with declaring someone to be full of shit.

And yes, the steady state theory is very dead. The discovery of gravitational waves in the background radiation was pretty much the final nail in the coffin of all hypotheses that went against the big bang.

 

[tisr]

I think here we're talking about sources which have not been peer reviewed, or been proven wrong. These sources are not as rigorous as sources which have been peer reviewed.

 

[Ame]

You clearly don't understand Utilitarianism, I'm coming from a deontological perspective where I adhere to strict ethical rules, human lives are worth more than a collective happiness, please don't call me idiotic when you yourself don't understand what your talking about XD hence why I used words such as "its our duty" rather than its for the collective happiness in my previous statements.

And Nemox you have my apologies for grouping Shinto into the list like this but I never wanted to argue semantics but rather just explore what Furries believe in terms of religion. And I know alot about Shinto myself, I studied it a lot during high school, the ancient stories are beautiful, and the animistic perspective breathes life into so much of the world from a Shinto perspective it truly is one of the more amazing beliefs on the list.

And I apologize again I wasn't very clear, I was talking about the Atheistic ideal of scientific pursuit, the idea that truth should only be discovered by science and proof rather than pure speculation and philosophy, truly an important idea in modern times and I in now way discredit it. The idea that "Science, for what it is currently is a known truth" although may not have originated from atheism itself (although could have) the ideology went hand in hand with atheism during the enlightenment period and from then on in history had been perceived as an aspect within atheism (although not atheism itself) and despite atheism just being the absence of a belief in G-d you cannot deny there is an admirable thirst for knowledge and truth that was innatly spurred on as a reaction to religious dogma being forced down your throat.

To simplify my previous posts, I am not criticizing the christian or atheistic ideals or any ideal for that fact I just used the research into various evolutionary perspectives as an example. I am rather criticizing the people who belong to any time consuming pursuit about their priorities. Rather than researching such things we should be researching sustainable food and medicine and resources... rather than philosophy, truth and the scientific or religious pursuit into where we came from.

For future reference...

noun: deontology

• the study of the nature of duty and obligation.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  

noun: utilitarianism

• the doctrine that actions are right if they are useful or for the benefit of a majority.
  
  
  • the doctrine that an action is right in so far as it promotes happiness, and that the greatest happiness of the greatest number should be the guiding principle of conduct.
    
    
    
    
    
  
  
  
  

 

[tisr]

There are many problems with utilitarianism.

First of all, it ignores justice. For example, if a minority is oppressed, the most utilitarian approach would be to silence the minority since it gives the majority a greater utility.

Also, calculating utility is far too demanding and self defeating, since you have to calculate utility extremely far into the future in order to make a precise choice, and factors of the human psyche as well as less immediate utility concerns such as animals, or the environment. It is therefore impossible to give a reasonable prediction of utility.

There's also the famous Utility Monster criticism, which shows that utilitarianism is not egalitarian. If there were a monster that gained a much greater amount of happiness than anyone else, it would be reasonable to provide this monster with a greater amount of resource. Thus, it would cause the mistreatment and self-sacrifice for everyone else while the Utility Monster gains everything. Applying utilitarianism to capitalist economics, for example, would cause mass growth for the minority in a selfish and destructive manner.

I'm sure there are more criticisms on the internets.

 

[Fallowfox]

You clearly don't understand Utilitarianism, I'm coming from a deontological perspective where I adhere to strict ethical rules, human lives are worth more than a collective happiness, please don't call me idiotic when you yourself don't understand what your talking about XD hence why I used words such as "its our duty" rather than its for the collective happiness in my previous statements.

And Nemox you have my apologies for grouping Shinto into the list like this but I never wanted to argue semantics but rather just explore what Furries believe in terms of religion. And I know alot about Shinto myself, I studied it a lot during high school, the ancient stories are beautiful, and the animistic perspective breathes life into so much of the world from a Shinto perspective it truly is one of the more amazing beliefs on the list.

And I apologize again I wasn't very clear, I was talking about the Atheistic ideal of scientific pursuit, the idea that truth should only be discovered by science and proof rather than pure speculation and philosophy, truly an important idea in modern times and I in now way discredit it. The idea that "Science, for what it is currently is a known truth" although may not have originated from atheism itself (although could have) the ideology went hand in hand with atheism during the enlightenment period and from then on in history had been perceived as an aspect within atheism (although not atheism itself) and despite atheism just being the absence of a belief in G-d you cannot deny there is an admirable thirst for knowledge and truth that was innatly spurred on as a reaction to religious dogma being forced down your throat.

To simplify my previous posts, I am not criticizing the christian or atheistic ideals or any ideal for that fact I just used the research into various evolutionary perspectives as an example. I am rather criticizing the people who belong to any time consuming pursuit about their priorities. Rather than researching such things we should be researching sustainable food and medicine and resources... rather than philosophy, truth and the scientific or religious pursuit into where we came from.

For future reference...

noun: deontology

• the study of the nature of duty and obligation.

noun: utilitarianism

• the doctrine that actions are right if they are useful or for the benefit of a majority.
  • the doctrine that an action is right in so far as it promotes happiness, and that the greatest happiness of the greatest number should be the guiding principle of conduct.
  
  
  
  

You criticised scientists who study events and processes in geological time of lacking relevance, and therefore being decadent; "they should be studying food sustainability instead [of wasting their time and funding on irrelevant material],".

Geological study has immense relevance to current problems, so this claim was wrong.

The notion that there is a sparsity of funding for current issues of sustainability 'because of all that money wasted on geological research' is incorrect.

The notion that scientists trained in a specific academic field could switch to food sustainability is naive. One may be a talented astronomer, but not a very good genetic engineer.

Your idea that science should be utilitarian is, unfortunately, widespread. It is a stupid idea, which brutally fails to understand the merits of academia and epistemology. It sets the dangerous precedent that, if we cannot fathom a use for a fact at the current moment, that it does not matter whether that fact is lost.

 

[Lucius_Felix]

No room for us hippie-dippie neo-pagans here, eh?

 

[Kokoro]

And Nemox you have my apologies for grouping Shinto into the list like this but I never wanted to argue semantics but rather just explore what Furries believe in terms of religion. And I know alot about Shinto myself, I studied it a lot during high school, the ancient stories are beautiful, and the animistic perspective breathes life into so much of the world from a Shinto perspective it truly is one of the more amazing beliefs on the list.

'sall good. I was just making a bit of a semantic point anyway. Sometimes the distinction can be helpful when trying to understand such perspectives.

 

[Captain Howdy]

I was talking about the Atheistic ideal of scientific pursuit, the idea that truth should only be discovered by science and proof rather than pure speculation and philosophy, truly an important idea in modern times and I in now way discredit it. The idea that "Science, for what it is currently is a known truth" although may not have originated from atheism itself (although could have) the ideology went hand in hand with atheism during the enlightenment period and from then on in history had been perceived as an aspect within atheism (although not atheism itself) and despite atheism just being the absence of a belief in G-d you cannot deny there is an admirable thirst for knowledge and truth that was innatly spurred on as a reaction to religious dogma being forced down your throat.

I dunno why you keep tacking things onto atheism, when you even acknowledge the fact that it's nothing more than the lack of belief. Doesn't matter if you think it's a good or bad aspect, it's not a part/aspect of atheism - That's the whole point. Atheism doesn't do or require anything, nor does it cause people to do or think anything. It's like Seinfeld, a "show about nothing". Except you can't even call it a show - It's just nothing.

[video=youtube;5SDqa1hw2-M]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5SDqa1hw2-M[/video]

Aside from that. You're wrong about scientific pursuit as well. You have to speculate a bit. If man didn't look up at the stars and wonder what was out there, we would have never bothered to keep looking up - We learned about stars, space, our solar system, planetary rotation, and all sorts of crap because of it, which lead to even more discoveries, because we understood much bigger important things we hadn't known before and wouldn't have if someone didn't speculate about it. .

 

[jtrekkie]

The source is not irrelevant. In fact, your source dictates how good your argument really is. For example, if you try to use Kent Hovind as a proper scientific source I already know that you don't know what you are talking about since Hovind literally found his degree in a cereal box. But this is just an example since we are talking about sources like answersingenesis right now.
And I absolutely can declare a group or person as false. If they are spreading shit that is demonstrably false, as in if I can point at proper sources that do prove them wrong, there is nothing wrong with declaring someone to be full of shit.

And yes, the steady state theory is very dead. The discovery of gravitational waves in the background radiation was pretty much the final nail in the coffin of all hypotheses that went against the big bang.

Injecting some person as a source of authority into some argument amounts to a violation of the Copernican Principle, "The Universe doesn't care who you think you are."

When you start making judgments based on who's talking instead of what they're saying, you've stopped thinking. The same goes for making judgments based on what he said two seconds ago. Every statement has to be taken on its own and tested. When you stop doing that, you have kings of influence that determine what is acceptable (which has usually been the case. I think Humphy Davy described scientific institutions as a pack of dogs, but I can't find that.).

To put it yet another way, declairing such and such person "wrong" has no meaning. You may declare some statement wrong, but we don't have any "Oracle of Certainty" that will always answer some arbitrary answer correctly or incorrectly. If we did we would already have all the answers and would need science in the first place.

I'll give another example, the theories that are still regarded as one of the greatest revolutions in physics were written by an amateur. (Einstein, even though his relativity was only a minor correction.) Darwin was also an amateur, but I digress. Because of his accumulated fame, Einstein was able to invent a new branch of physics and set it off in the wrong direction. Of course I'm talking about the cosmological constant, which he just "made up". We still haven't gotten rid of the thing.

And no, steady state still isn't dead and we're never getting rid of it. I am talking about the more abstract one, not the expanding one where you have the spontaneous generation of matter. You can even find serious theories where our own universe, big bang and all, is just a transient bubble in a more permanent cosmos. (I find it endlessly amusing that the two rival theories were unified.) And even Hawking's holographic universe "goes against the big bang".

I, however, was referring to Hannes Alfven and his "Plasma Cosmology". You should read into it, its fascinating stuff. Eric Learner is interesting, too, but he spends too much time complaining that people don't listen to him and not enough on why people should.

 

[Captain Howdy]

When you start making judgments based on who's talking instead of what they're saying, you've stopped thinking. The same goes for making judgments based on what he said two seconds ago. Every statement has to be taken on its own and tested. When you stop doing that, you have kings of influence that determine what is acceptable (which has usually been the case. I think Humphy Davy described scientific institutions as a pack of dogs, but I can't find that.).

To put it yet another way, declairing such and such person "wrong" has no meaning. You may declare some statement wrong, but we don't have any "Oracle of Certainty" that will always answer some arbitrary answer correctly or incorrectly. If we did we would already have all the answers and would need science in the first place.
.

This is an unbelievably useless way of thinking. It had merit at first, but now it just sounds way too broad to be practical. It's like the people who use the "Well we aren't 100% sure how the universe came into existence, so all views should be considered in the science classroom". Sorry mate, that's a gigantic waste of time.

 

[CaptainCool]

When you start making judgments based on who's talking instead of what they're saying, you've stopped thinking. The same goes for making judgments based on what he said two seconds ago. Every statement has to be taken on its own and tested. When you stop doing that, you have kings of influence that determine what is acceptable (which has usually been the case. I think Humphy Davy described scientific institutions as a pack of dogs, but I can't find that.).

To put it yet another way, declairing such and such person "wrong" has no meaning. You may declare some statement wrong, but we don't have any "Oracle of Certainty" that will always answer some arbitrary answer correctly or incorrectly. If we did we would already have all the answers and would need science in the first place.

I'll give another example, the theories that are still regarded as one of the greatest revolutions in physics were written by an amateur. (Einstein, even though his relativity was only a minor correction.) Darwin was also an amateur, but I digress. Because of his accumulated fame, Einstein was able to invent a new branch of physics and set it off in the wrong direction. Of course I'm talking about the cosmological constant, which he just "made up". We still haven't gotten rid of the thing.

And no, steady state still isn't dead and we're never getting rid of it. I am talking about the more abstract one, not the expanding one where you have the spontaneous generation of matter. You can even find serious theories where our own universe, big bang and all, is just a transient bubble in a more permanent cosmos. (I find it endlessly amusing that the two rival theories were unified.) And even Hawking's holographic universe "goes against the big bang".

I, however, was referring to Hannes Alfven and his "Plasma Cosmology". You should read into it, its fascinating stuff. Eric Learner is interesting, too, but he spends too much time complaining that people don't listen to him and not enough on why people should.

It is perfectly fine to judge a source like that if said source has demonstrated multiple times that it is useless, as it is the case with Kent Hovind. Some people simply have demonstrated many many times that they have no clue what they are talking about.

If you say "Evolution is not a fact!" you are wrong and I have every right to say that you are wrong. I can demonstrate that you are wrong and I can demonstrate that evolution is a fact. Just like I can demonstrate flaws in holy texts and so on and so forth.
People can be wrong and that is perfectly fine.

 

[Fallowfox]

Waste of time is the operative phrase here. Sites which are known to be bogus are not meritable sources because other people have already expended time showing they are false.

It is time to move on to new material, so that we evade wasting time discrediting the same articles repeatedly- and don't waste time analysing material which we know is deliberately deceptive.

In practice nobody has the time to continually rebut the product of propaganda mills, because they produce bullshit faster than it can be reviewed.

 

[Kokoro]

Sure, the things people say can be true or false regardless of who says them. Perhaps even answersingenesis says something accurate every once in a while. But they've consistently demonstrated themselves to be wrong time and again, and are thus a horribly unreliable source of information.

 

[Fallowfox]

Sure, the things people say can be true or false regardless of who says them. Perhaps even answersingenesis says something accurate every once in a while. But they've consistently demonstrated themselves to be wrong time and again, and are thus a horribly unreliable source of information.

Jtrekkie, please think of the situation like this.

You want to know what medicine you should take if you contract malaria on a holiday to Africa.

Would you spend time reviewing homeopathic options sold by a man who has been kicked out of the medical industry? Or would you go to a certified doctor?

 

[Ame]

You criticised scientists who study events and processes in geological time of lacking relevance, and therefore being decadent; "they should be studying food sustainability instead [of wasting their time and funding on irrelevant material],".

Geological study has immense relevance to current problems, so this claim was wrong.

The notion that there is a sparsity of funding for current issues of sustainability 'because of all that money wasted on geological research' is incorrect.

The notion that scientists trained in a specific academic field could switch to food sustainability is naive. One may be a talented astronomer, but not a very good genetic engineer.

Your idea that science should be utilitarian is, unfortunately, widespread. It is a stupid idea, which brutally fails to understand the merits of academia and epistemology. It sets the dangerous precedent that, if we cannot fathom a use for a fact at the current moment, that it does not matter whether that fact is lost.

Did you read my last post XD half of it was teaching you what utilitarian is... I come from a deontological perspective! I could care less about the collective happiness or collective usefulness of anything I'm focusing on our moral commitment we have to human life, which is vastly more important in my moral code that I follow. So please stop saying I'm utilitarian >:3

And yes I agree some of what I said is flawed when you get in the specific words I used but the idea is still there, the idea that we should focus more on our more immediate problems. Rather than other research (which SOME is useful, I will agree but not all has a practical application)

Lol I should stop making observations and thoughts or even compliments to Atheism or just the Atheist community in general. They get more butt hurt that fanatic Christians in a science class XD (saying atheism is tied to a revolutionary ideal or thought is a compliment!)

 

[jtrekkie]

Sorry if I have affended anyone, I don't mean to be abrasive. I certainly know how impracticle the situation I have been describing is, but that kind of rigor is necessary if a complete and self consistent description of the universe is ever going to be obtained in the future.

And yes I agree some of what I said is flawed when you get in the specific words I used but the idea is still there, the idea that we should focus more on our more immediate problems. Rather than other research (which SOME is useful, I will agree but not all has a practical application

Right on, the only problem is you never know which line of research is going to pay off, and even worse it's some of the more ridiculous ones that end up being vital.

Oh, and Fallowfox, as an individual who is not at all unlikely to end up in Brazil selling quinine to turistas out of a camper van, I take offense at what you're implying there.

 

[Fallowfox]

Did you read my last post XD half of it was teaching you what utilitarian is... I come from a deontological perspective! I could care less about the collective happiness or collective usefulness of anything I'm focusing on our moral commitment we have to human life, which is vastly more important in my moral code that I follow. So please stop saying I'm utilitarian >:3

And yes I agree some of what I said is flawed when you get in the specific words I used but the idea is still there, the idea that we should focus more on our more immediate problems. Rather than other research (which SOME is useful, I will agree but not all has a practical application)

Lol I should stop making observations and thoughts or even compliments to Atheism or just the Atheist community in general. They get more butt hurt that fanatic Christians in a science class XD (saying atheism is tied to a revolutionary ideal or thought is a compliment!)

The notion that all research must have an immediate practical application is absolutely borked. A large number of practical applications are unexpected results- that's a natural product of the fact we don't know everything.

You're criticising blue-sky science. You are not criticising atheism. People who research blue-sky science [science without a known application] belong to a large variety of spiritual positions. Their research has nothing to do with their spirituality.

Sorry if I have affended anyone, I don't mean to be abrasive. I certainly know how impracticle the situation I have been describing is, but that kind of rigor is necessary if a complete and self consistent description of the universe is ever going to be obtained in the future.



Right on, the only problem is you never know which line of research is going to pay off, and even worse it's some of the more ridiculous ones that end up being vital.

Oh, and Fallowfox, as an individual who is not at all unlikely to end up in Brazil selling quinine to turistas out of a camper van, I take offense at what you're implying there.

I disagree. It is not necessary to read every 'vaccinations cause autism' page on the internet to cultivate an understanding of the universe.

You are correct we never know which lines of research will yield novel applications. It's good you appreciate this.

 

[Captain Howdy]

Lol I should stop making observations and thoughts or even compliments to Atheism or just the Atheist community in general.

That would be best, because you clearly don't understand the unbelievably basic concept. I'd actually prefer to think you're trolling at this point, because I can at least be like "Ah, ya got me good! I really thought you were that dense."

Just in case though:

a·the·ism:
- the lack of a belief in any god.

One sentence, 8 words. Nothing more, nothing less - Good, bad, or otherwise - It'll have nothing to do with atheism, or atheists.

 

[Ame]

That would be best, because you clearly don't understand the unbelievably basic concept. I'd actually prefer to think you're trolling at this point, because I can at least be like "Ah, ya got me good! I really thought you were that dense."

Just in case though:

a·the·ism:
- the lack of a belief in any god.

One sentence, 8 words. Nothing more, nothing less - Good, bad, or otherwise - It'll have nothing to do with atheism, or atheists.

Your not an individual who take kindly to criticisms of any kind are you, well now considering that, I am going to go out on a limb here and compare the likeness of Atheism to Theism and teach you about real people

*takes a deep breath and prepares an incredibly sarcastic tone*

Both of these itty bitty groups are based around a specific idea or lack there of, now as a group they come sporting an initial thought at their very core, the belief in a god, and lack there of, now this may be hard to process, but humans BUILD on these ideas and create different variations of such, as there are today different groups within and of both theists and Atheists. Now that I have taught you that people are special little snowflakes with different ideas to one another on the subject of atheism and theism now let me blow your mind. Despite people belonging to these ideals they can have separate or even coexisting ideas to what I just mentioned :O that means people can be a whole bunch of fun little things like Atheists and Humanists, or Theist and a Utilitarian.

Now I know, I know, we would much rather be just a part of one idea wouldn't we? that would make it easy for us to group people and make largely idiotic assumptions that a people group has no other defining characteristics besides that one belief. But remember now, people are special little snowflakes... Not autonomous machines that act on one idea only. So if someone was to refer to a community or group of people, they are referring to a group of people, rather than said autonomous robots. Thus making the assumption that said people can have other ideas besides that one specific one, another example is, atheists can have a thirst for the pursuit of science.

Now if someone were to assume that a community of people did no have other defining characteristics you have to remember everyone not to be mean, they just "clearly don't understand an unbelievably basic concept" that people are special little snowflakes.

 

[Fallowfox]

Your not an individual who take kindly to criticisms of any kind are you, well now considering that, I am going to go out on a limb here and compare the likeness of Atheism to Theism and teach you about real people

*takes a deep breath and prepares an incredibly sarcastic tone*

Both of these itty bitty groups are based around a specific idea or lack there of, now as a group they come sporting an initial thought at their very core, the belief in a god, and lack there of, now this may be hard to process, but humans BUILD on these ideas and create different variations of such, as there are today different groups within and of both theists and Atheists. Now that I have taught you that people are special little snowflakes with different ideas to one another on the subject of atheism and theism now let me blow your mind. Despite people belonging to these ideals they can have separate or even coexisting ideas to what I just mentioned :O that means people can be a whole bunch of fun little things like Atheists and Humanists, or Theist and a Utilitarian.

Now I know, I know, we would much rather be just a part of one idea wouldn't we? that would make it easy for us to group people and make largely idiotic assumptions that a people group has no other defining characteristics besides that one belief. But remember now, people are special little snowflakes... Not autonomous machines that act on one idea only. So if someone was to refer to a community or group of people, they are referring to a group of people, rather than said autonomous robots. Thus making the assumption that said people can have other ideas besides that one specific one, another example is, atheists can have a thirst for the pursuit of science.

Now if someone were to assume that a community of people did no have other defining characteristics you have to remember everyone not to be mean, they just "clearly don't understand an unbelievably basic concept" that people are special little snowflakes.

And liking watermelons and fried chicken has to be an integral part of being black. :V

You are bungling definitions to accommodate stereotypes. This is frustrating because your objection to blue-sky science, as academic decadence, is not related to any spiritual perspective.

It's possible to use definitions correctly, discuss prevailing stereotypes and group characteristics, and discuss the merits of academia, without muddling them all together. If you do so you will produce much more coherent commentary.

 

[Lucius_Felix]

I like watermelons and fried chicken.

I never realized I was black until now. *starts break dancing*

 

[Captain Howdy]

Despite people belonging to these ideals they can have separate or even coexisting ideas to what I just mentioned
that means people can be a whole bunch of fun little things like Atheists and Humanists

And lo and behold, I think we did find the core of the issue here, so I'm going to skip the rest of the nonsense and go for the point.

You can't seem to grasp the concept of separating an individual's ideas and characteristics from the group as a whole, and you've done a profound job of explaining and emphasizing your inability. To be clear, we've been talking about your "Atheistic ideal of scientific pursuit", which doesn't exist, because there are no atheistic ideals aside from the lack of belief in any god.

What some people might do, does not define the group, and does not necessarily change the definition of the group, or necessarily even have anything to do with the group. I must emphasize again, any characteristic outside of non-belief (like the pursuit of science) is extraneous to atheism.

Atheists are obviously other things besides atheist, but those other things are not what makes them atheist, and the other things have nothing to do with atheism, because atheism is only the lack of belief in any god. Anything beyond that is something else, or a part of something that is not atheism, even if atheist do it.

Let me give you an example:

Richard Dawkins is an atheist, right? He is also many other things, like a professor. Some atheists are professors. Does that make other atheists professors too? Or does that make other professors, atheists? Or is atheism now a group for professors? Or are groups of professors now considered atheist?

The answer is: no. What some atheists do is irrelevant to atheism, as is atheism mostly irrelevant to what some atheists do. It is really not that difficult, and there is really not that much to it.

 

[Mighty_Mohawk_Monster]

When will mankind learn the only correct coarse of religious action is to praise the sun?

\`[+]/

 

[Ame]

And liking watermelons and fried chicken has to be an integral part of being black. :V

You are bungling definitions to accommodate stereotypes. This is frustrating because your objection to blue-sky science, as academic decadence, is not related to any spiritual perspective.

It's possible to use definitions correctly, discuss prevailing stereotypes and group characteristics, and discuss the merits of academia, without muddling them all together. If you do so you will produce much more coherent commentary.

I agree

 

[Kitsune Cross]

I been thinking of the devil too much lately, I'm starting to worry