Another way to say “guilt by association” is “birds of a feather flock together”.
It’s only in the legal context that you need to avoid guilt by association. People can certainly judge others by the company they keep, and probably should, much of the time.
The young things who frequent Picture Palaces
Have no time for psychoanalysis
And though Dr Freud
Is distinctly annoyed
They cling to their long -standing fallacies
My old gran used the possibly victorian addage…”Never judge a book by it’s cover”…but who doesn’t apply a given intentionality to a person they meet for the first time, based on the way a person presents visually and then via their use of language?
My old Nan would have stabbed any Japanese national on sight, her husband, my maternal grandad died horribly in a Japanese pow camp in 1943. She hated the Japanese. My paternal grandad died at the hands of a waffen SS jagdpanther gunner in 1945….my gran hated germans…
Started reading some philosophy from the religious apologist side of the fence. I think it basically boils down to, you can’t prove gods don’t exist , ergo, they must exist…or , so many people believe, ergo, they must be real…Intellectual shysters the lot of them…
Again most of the apologists place gods into a set of beings that deserve a special set of rules that sets them apart from all other metaphysical objects…that again is intellectual dishonesty…
Again most of the apologists place gods into a set of beings that deserve a special set of rules that sets them apart from all other metaphysical objects…that again is intellectual dishonesty…
Most skeptics view ‘reason’ and logic as the only valid pathways to understand the universe… that is quite intellectually narrow-minded…
Narrow minded, perhaps, dishonest no…besides the logic of the scientific age, pulled mankind out of a millenium of demon haunted misery. And you are using a device enabled by binary logic to try and suggest that religious woo has equal validity to describe the material universe….it doesn’t…
Surely the point is that reason and logic produce results in the real world, which can, at least in theory, benefit the general good. Of course, “religious woo” produces results too, mainly in enriching the pockets of the shamans, prophets, priests etc.
The way to check on any claim is: does it give you a way to predict the future?
Prayer does not. Sometimes you pray for your beloved to love you back, and he, she, or it does… but sometimes they empty your bank account and you find out you never knew their real name. (Just an example, that never happened to me. 🙂 )
But the scientific method and technology based on it does give you a way to predict the future. Every time I step on my car’s accelerator, I know it will make my car speed up. Every time I press ‘play’ on a YouTube video, I know it will play. These are examples of predicting the future, using the assumption of cause and effect.
The confirmation of the scientific worldview lies in it’s usefulness, which is another way to say you can predict the future.
Religion seems to be useful in making gullible people feel better about their mortality. That’s no more than a small consideration.
Today is the 100th anniversary of Kurt Vonnegut’s birth. I credit my (probably too) early reading of Slaughterhouse 5 with my cynicism and propensity to question everything. Anyone else ‘corrupted’ by the master at a tender age?
I think I have that book in my loft, I have about 6000, kgs of books in my loft, the wife has never beem a fan of book shelves , so my library will possibly have to wait till i’m a widower…
I’m a hoarder, If my wife saw what was in tbe loft, she would probably shoot me…I’m hoping my roof structure will sustain the weight. Though I was assured by a builder that given a level distribution of weight a loft space as big as mine can sustain at least 10 tonnes…phew…
“Religion seems to be useful in making gullible people feel better about their mortality. That’s no more than a small consideration.”
Given the conditions under which most people have historically lived out their lives, it’s actually a rather large consideration! “Life is hard, then you die” is a difficult credo to live under for people whose lives are actually hard.
I despair of most peoples inability to think critically. Mind you it is the job of religious morons to make sure that their children are properly indoctrinated before they get their brains properly trained by sensible teachers. Mind you my grandson is going to a catholic primary school and they ate already filling his mind full of nonsense. His grandad is doing his best to counter this but gets in trouble from his mrs who tells me its wrong to try and take the piss, out of the catholic numpties…
M27, on the one hand, I think you’re right that most people can’t think critically. What’s worse is that life has gotten much more complicated in the last 50 years, but people haven’t gotten correspondingly smarter.
On the other hand, if your grandson is capable, he’ll sort out the nonsense on his own, mostly. Just help him acquire a sense of personal honesty. If you can’t lie to yourself, that’s all you need.
Aye. Complexity, I am trying to sort out my pensions…the tax rules are ridiculously complicated. I am going to create a spreadsheet to help me consolidate my details….my Grandson is a super star, he is 5 and certainly reads at 90% of my capability….he still likes me reading to him though, which is good because its my favourite pastime without a doubt…
M27Holts: Thanks to technological advances, your entire 6-tonne library could be totally accommodated on a few memory sticks, and any reference could be located within seconds at the touch of a button.
Meanwhile, the originals of theological books are inscribed on vellum or printed on handmade paper, complete with all errors faithfully copied from now-lost previous versions, and producing volumes too heavy for your grandson (or granddaughter!) to lift.
QED!
Do keep on challenging the religious numpties. They need it.
SOG. I’m a bibliophile…and proud of that fact. Anyone who is a friend of books is a friend of mine…and as long as they consider the bible and koran as just amusing insights into the historical stupidity of mankind…
M27, you recently said you did not expect to die a horrible death at the hand of fascists, as did your granddad. well, we on my side of the pond are looking at an historically unprecedented rise in the number of intelligent people involved in keeping governance on a rational path. may it ever be thus.
I don’t understand north american politics. But glad the republican savages have not prevailed. Now let women have control of their bodies and the theocracy can be seen to be thwarted…
M27, while the elections didn’t reward conspiracy mongers, and many women and young people came out to vote, that still didn’t guarantee reproductive freedom.
What the Supreme Court did some months ago was to cancel the previous Supreme Court decision that made abortion legal at the federal level. Now, the legality will be determined state by state. So in very religiously conservative states, it will still be illegal.
The federal government could pass a law to make abortion legal, but that law might be decided to be unconstitutional by the Supreme Court, when someone eventually sues. But that law won’t even be passed because the House of Representatives looks like it will have a Republican majority (votes still being counted). They may even pass a law that makes abortion illegal… which will die in the Senate, which has a slim Democratic majority.
The fact that House and Senate must both pass the same law and the president must assent, means that it’s very hard to get anything done unless it’s popular and apolitical. But almost everything has become political now.
So reproductive freedom will remain a state by state issue. Many women will get necessary abortions by getting abortifacient drugs by mail. Mail is federally controlled, so opening it by police can only be done with a warrant and maybe not even then, if it’s a warrant below the federal level. In states where abortion is illegal, the religious stupid-nuts will try that, which will set up more constitutional fights in the courts, and eventually in the Supreme Court.
They’re also going to try to make it illegal for women to have an abortion by travelling to a state where abortion is legal. All that will end up in courts.
To be perfectly honest, it’s about time all religious nuanced laws, which allow numb-nuts to enforce their madness on third parties, should be repealed and if the religious kick off, ask them to fook off to a another continent…Antartica would be perfect for them…freeze some sense into them…
I agree with you. The problem I see is that if a legal framework is created that allows that to happen, that same framework will be used in negative ways against others.
In other words, my freedom and well-being is contingent on the freedom and well-being of those with whom I disagree.
But cause and effect can’t be prayed away. A country that lives solely by religion, ignoring science, inevitably ends badly. We’ll see how stupid they want to be.
The main problem is that the Supreme Court is corruptible by an accidental coincidence of elderly member deaths and the brief incumbency of a fascist POTUS. Also the fact that the SCOTUS is entirely it’s own arbiter.
Clarence Thomas, whose wife is an active Mango Mussolini MAGA conspiracy influencer, should clearly have recused himself from decisions in relation to January 6th but didn’t and there is no redress. What price democracy?
Aye. Peace brothers…John Lennon lost his life for penning the obvious mantra of rationalism in “imagine”, however he made a fundamental mistake…he should have taken a leaf out of new wave and named his song…”Fuck Religion, and Fuck it’s message”….Lets just get on with living life, trying to do as little damage to others as is possible…
How Judges, who by profession are trained in following or constructing logical arguments can be religious is a mystery to me. However, you get numb nuts with geology
M27, I do.
I haven’t seen them for a while because I’ve been working at home since March 2020. But there are plenty of people at work, software engineers, with degrees from real universities, people who are capable at their jobs that require reason and intelligence, that believe the bible account of creation literally. They are all evangelical Christians of one kind or another.
They compartmentalize, and never apply anything they learned to the bible. They don’t think through anything involving the bible.
This makes them welcome at their respective churches.
Jesus & Mo (the characters) are absurd, blinkered, and oddly very sweet. J&M (the cartoon) is brilliant: sharp, delicious, irresistible. Salman Rushdie
Jesus and Mo cartoons are wonderfully funny and true. Richard Dawkins
Jesus and Mo make the world a better place, bless their little hearts. Ophelia Benson
In a world defined by outrage and offence and liberal spinelessness, Jesus and Mo is a treasure, whose value we should never fail to recognize. Read them. Laugh. And think. Kenan Malik
The brilliant, celebrated, freaking hilarious atheist comic strip ... Greta Christina
...rays of sanity in a befuddled world. Keri Hulme
The liveliest depictions of Muhammad currently available... Malise Ruthven
J & Mo is the funniest and most consistently thought-provoking cartoon strip on the Net. In a saner world, it would run in a major newspaper. Nelson Jones, Heresy Corner
Consistently amusing, frequently thought-provoking and often heart-warming. New Humanist
Jesus & Mo is one of the most wonderful things on the internet.. JT Eberhard
Wittily captures much of the absurdity of religious apologetics. Mano Singham
I love jesusandmo.net cartoons - witty and sharp! Katha Pollitt
Often hilarious, frequently wry, these cartoons do what all the best cartoons do: they tell the truth through humour. Terry Sanderson, NSS President
...a wonderfully acid British cartoonist... Nick Cohen
I love the scrappy mockery of Jesus and Mo. Freedom of speech
includes the freedom to mock any person, any thing, any activity, and
any belief -- and J&M stands up for this unflinchingly Richard Stallman
...empowering, important and deeply progressive, not to mention hilarious... Council of Ex-Muslims
January 9, 2006
Another way to say “guilt by association” is “birds of a feather flock together”.
It’s only in the legal context that you need to avoid guilt by association. People can certainly judge others by the company they keep, and probably should, much of the time.
You should judge them by what they say and beleive as well.
Now I’m trying to think of a rhyme for “fallacy”!
The young things who frequent Picture Palaces
Have no time for psychoanalysis
And though Dr Freud
Is distinctly annoyed
They cling to their long -standing fallacies
(?)
My old gran used the possibly victorian addage…”Never judge a book by it’s cover”…but who doesn’t apply a given intentionality to a person they meet for the first time, based on the way a person presents visually and then via their use of language?
M27, you’re right. I’m guessing your old gran never met anyone with a swastika tattoo on their forehead.
Sorry, forgot the name again. That was me.
My old Nan would have stabbed any Japanese national on sight, her husband, my maternal grandad died horribly in a Japanese pow camp in 1943. She hated the Japanese. My paternal grandad died at the hands of a waffen SS jagdpanther gunner in 1945….my gran hated germans…
They often say what killed your grandad will kill you…I think I’m fairly safe…
After all these years I still read the first three panels of these comics!
Started reading some philosophy from the religious apologist side of the fence. I think it basically boils down to, you can’t prove gods don’t exist , ergo, they must exist…or , so many people believe, ergo, they must be real…Intellectual shysters the lot of them…
Again most of the apologists place gods into a set of beings that deserve a special set of rules that sets them apart from all other metaphysical objects…that again is intellectual dishonesty…
Again most of the apologists place gods into a set of beings that deserve a special set of rules that sets them apart from all other metaphysical objects…that again is intellectual dishonesty…
Most skeptics view ‘reason’ and logic as the only valid pathways to understand the universe… that is quite intellectually narrow-minded…
Narrow minded, perhaps, dishonest no…besides the logic of the scientific age, pulled mankind out of a millenium of demon haunted misery. And you are using a device enabled by binary logic to try and suggest that religious woo has equal validity to describe the material universe….it doesn’t…
I never said that ‘religious woo has equal validity to describe the material universe’ did I?
Now now children, no fighting!
Surely the point is that reason and logic produce results in the real world, which can, at least in theory, benefit the general good. Of course, “religious woo” produces results too, mainly in enriching the pockets of the shamans, prophets, priests etc.
The way to check on any claim is: does it give you a way to predict the future?
Prayer does not. Sometimes you pray for your beloved to love you back, and he, she, or it does… but sometimes they empty your bank account and you find out you never knew their real name. (Just an example, that never happened to me. 🙂 )
But the scientific method and technology based on it does give you a way to predict the future. Every time I step on my car’s accelerator, I know it will make my car speed up. Every time I press ‘play’ on a YouTube video, I know it will play. These are examples of predicting the future, using the assumption of cause and effect.
The confirmation of the scientific worldview lies in it’s usefulness, which is another way to say you can predict the future.
Religion seems to be useful in making gullible people feel better about their mortality. That’s no more than a small consideration.
Today is the 100th anniversary of Kurt Vonnegut’s birth. I credit my (probably too) early reading of Slaughterhouse 5 with my cynicism and propensity to question everything. Anyone else ‘corrupted’ by the master at a tender age?
*
I think I have that book in my loft, I have about 6000, kgs of books in my loft, the wife has never beem a fan of book shelves , so my library will possibly have to wait till i’m a widower…
I have grand plans for my stair head, an expance of wall about 1800mm wide by at least 2500mm high. Get loads of books on shelves there…
It was a bloody nightmare to paint…hahaha
I’m a hoarder, If my wife saw what was in tbe loft, she would probably shoot me…I’m hoping my roof structure will sustain the weight. Though I was assured by a builder that given a level distribution of weight a loft space as big as mine can sustain at least 10 tonnes…phew…
“Religion seems to be useful in making gullible people feel better about their mortality. That’s no more than a small consideration.”
Given the conditions under which most people have historically lived out their lives, it’s actually a rather large consideration! “Life is hard, then you die” is a difficult credo to live under for people whose lives are actually hard.
JB, I reckon that’s about as near to the best explanation as we’re likely to get.
I despair of most peoples inability to think critically. Mind you it is the job of religious morons to make sure that their children are properly indoctrinated before they get their brains properly trained by sensible teachers. Mind you my grandson is going to a catholic primary school and they ate already filling his mind full of nonsense. His grandad is doing his best to counter this but gets in trouble from his mrs who tells me its wrong to try and take the piss, out of the catholic numpties…
M27, on the one hand, I think you’re right that most people can’t think critically. What’s worse is that life has gotten much more complicated in the last 50 years, but people haven’t gotten correspondingly smarter.
On the other hand, if your grandson is capable, he’ll sort out the nonsense on his own, mostly. Just help him acquire a sense of personal honesty. If you can’t lie to yourself, that’s all you need.
Aye. Complexity, I am trying to sort out my pensions…the tax rules are ridiculously complicated. I am going to create a spreadsheet to help me consolidate my details….my Grandson is a super star, he is 5 and certainly reads at 90% of my capability….he still likes me reading to him though, which is good because its my favourite pastime without a doubt…
Not to mention my Grandaughter, Mabel who is 2 weeks old tomorrow…
If you ask her nicely Mabel may be able to help you with that tax spreadsheet?
Aye. She has probably got a higher IQ than one of those QAnon morons….
M27Holts: Thanks to technological advances, your entire 6-tonne library could be totally accommodated on a few memory sticks, and any reference could be located within seconds at the touch of a button.
Meanwhile, the originals of theological books are inscribed on vellum or printed on handmade paper, complete with all errors faithfully copied from now-lost previous versions, and producing volumes too heavy for your grandson (or granddaughter!) to lift.
QED!
Do keep on challenging the religious numpties. They need it.
SOG. I’m a bibliophile…and proud of that fact. Anyone who is a friend of books is a friend of mine…and as long as they consider the bible and koran as just amusing insights into the historical stupidity of mankind…
M27, you recently said you did not expect to die a horrible death at the hand of fascists, as did your granddad. well, we on my side of the pond are looking at an historically unprecedented rise in the number of intelligent people involved in keeping governance on a rational path. may it ever be thus.
I don’t understand north american politics. But glad the republican savages have not prevailed. Now let women have control of their bodies and the theocracy can be seen to be thwarted…
M27, while the elections didn’t reward conspiracy mongers, and many women and young people came out to vote, that still didn’t guarantee reproductive freedom.
What the Supreme Court did some months ago was to cancel the previous Supreme Court decision that made abortion legal at the federal level. Now, the legality will be determined state by state. So in very religiously conservative states, it will still be illegal.
The federal government could pass a law to make abortion legal, but that law might be decided to be unconstitutional by the Supreme Court, when someone eventually sues. But that law won’t even be passed because the House of Representatives looks like it will have a Republican majority (votes still being counted). They may even pass a law that makes abortion illegal… which will die in the Senate, which has a slim Democratic majority.
The fact that House and Senate must both pass the same law and the president must assent, means that it’s very hard to get anything done unless it’s popular and apolitical. But almost everything has become political now.
So reproductive freedom will remain a state by state issue. Many women will get necessary abortions by getting abortifacient drugs by mail. Mail is federally controlled, so opening it by police can only be done with a warrant and maybe not even then, if it’s a warrant below the federal level. In states where abortion is illegal, the religious stupid-nuts will try that, which will set up more constitutional fights in the courts, and eventually in the Supreme Court.
They’re also going to try to make it illegal for women to have an abortion by travelling to a state where abortion is legal. All that will end up in courts.
To be perfectly honest, it’s about time all religious nuanced laws, which allow numb-nuts to enforce their madness on third parties, should be repealed and if the religious kick off, ask them to fook off to a another continent…Antartica would be perfect for them…freeze some sense into them…
I agree with you. The problem I see is that if a legal framework is created that allows that to happen, that same framework will be used in negative ways against others.
In other words, my freedom and well-being is contingent on the freedom and well-being of those with whom I disagree.
But cause and effect can’t be prayed away. A country that lives solely by religion, ignoring science, inevitably ends badly. We’ll see how stupid they want to be.
The main problem is that the Supreme Court is corruptible by an accidental coincidence of elderly member deaths and the brief incumbency of a fascist POTUS. Also the fact that the SCOTUS is entirely it’s own arbiter.
Clarence Thomas, whose wife is an active Mango Mussolini MAGA conspiracy influencer, should clearly have recused himself from decisions in relation to January 6th but didn’t and there is no redress. What price democracy?
Aye. Peace brothers…John Lennon lost his life for penning the obvious mantra of rationalism in “imagine”, however he made a fundamental mistake…he should have taken a leaf out of new wave and named his song…”Fuck Religion, and Fuck it’s message”….Lets just get on with living life, trying to do as little damage to others as is possible…
How Judges, who by profession are trained in following or constructing logical arguments can be religious is a mystery to me. However, you get numb nuts with geology
Degrees who still think that the bible chronology of creation is in fact correct and not what they were taught as facts…
numb nuts?
you mean numinous.
Does anyone on here actually know anybody who thinks that the cosmos is less than 12000 years old or whatever the morons deduce from reading theTorah?
M27, I do.
I haven’t seen them for a while because I’ve been working at home since March 2020. But there are plenty of people at work, software engineers, with degrees from real universities, people who are capable at their jobs that require reason and intelligence, that believe the bible account of creation literally. They are all evangelical Christians of one kind or another.
They compartmentalize, and never apply anything they learned to the bible. They don’t think through anything involving the bible.
This makes them welcome at their respective churches.