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Goodbye Jesus

Richard Dawkins creates a storm with a Tweet


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I think my concern with trying to remove the mental health label is that it can remove care and support from people who need it.  If you say there is nothing mentally wrong, it is purely a biological issue, then all psychiatric facilities, psychitrists and support structures are removed, cos if it ain't broke don't fix it.  I have a friend whose daughter was anorexic, they went through hell trying to get her support and it wasn't until she collasped that medically they were able to override her personal wishes and force help on her.  After spending months in a facility she had her body dysmophia fixed, and now is a healthy weight and positive outlook on life.  Without the mental health professionals helping her she would have slowly killed herself.

It feels like gender dysmorpha is in the same boat.  The people are physically fine, genetically fine, but mentally at odds with how they physically are.  Could an intensive professional program work to help their mental state?  I don't know, but we will never know if we refuse to allow mental health professionals to be part of the picture.

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      I think "race" is too strong of a word for human variations. And it was probably intended that way. The word genetic clusters sounds more precise. 

      Biilogically speaking, diff between a black man and a white man are almost insignificant. Stress the almost. I mean I would be categorised as white (altough noone in my country thinks in American racial terms but European ethnic terms) but there is a biological diff between my genetic cluster and germanic scandinavians. Funny thing, in my country, ethnicity is closer to "race" in America. I mean, for me, instinctually, a russian is an entirely diff person. Calling us both white seems weird. I venture to say that I see Africans and Hungarians as diff ethnicities, equally diifferent from me. Interesting as I think "white" came about also as a consequence of loss of European ethnic identity through intermarriage and culture mixing.

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16 hours ago, Myrkhoos said:

Biilogically speaking, diff between a black man and a white man are almost insignificant.

Currently everyone seems to be bending over backwards to show there is no difference between (pick one) and (pick another). If you want to play, pick two things that are very obviously different. It's as if things can't be clearly and demonstrably different without one being assumed inferior to the other.

 

Black people with blue eyes are assumed (by medical researchers and geneticists) to have some white ancestry and if a white person has sickle cell anemia it's safe to assume at least two ancestors came from Africa. There are biological differences between races -  "genetic clusters" if you prefer politically correct and painfully supererogatory terminology, but everyone knows what race means.

 

 

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Everyone does not know what "race" means. Try telling a Han Chinese (Han ren) they are the same race as a Korean (Han Guo ren) and they'll flip their shit on you.  It's even worse between Koreans and Japanese.  I've made that mistake before.  Everyone knows that Korea is backwards, inbred and, dirty (according to the Chinese). - Until the Chinese travel there, then they're like awww...."it's a like a cute mini-China with more Western brands".

 

So no, people do not agree on what constitutes "race" not even within the US - which has a zealous preoccupation with the term.

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But back on the ex-christian theme.  How odd of it for an all-loving god to create rules around sexual conduct and genders, then create some people on "hard mode" where they, for whatever reason, have extra difficulty abiding by this all-loving god's rules. The one who knit them in their mother's wombs chose them, to have an extra hurdle in an already difficult experience called "life".  Threw them to the world, gave some commandments, and absolutely no manual or assistance when their god-knitted brains have difficulty getting with the god-given program regarding sexuality and identity.

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At the end of the day, regardless of intent or outcomes, Dawkins definitely got the "discuss" part he asked in the original tweet. At the end of the next day, I think the important thing is that people are trying to do the right thing, and disagree with each other - not because they want to put down other groups (for the most part, obviously there are exceptions to this that should be deplored) - but because they have non-humanitarian disagreements, i.e. it's not about debating the worth of a human, it's more a debate about the identity and meaning of existence (ontological disagreement). I can't speak for who is right or wrong - I just don't know enough about the issue to be intelligent - I'm just grateful to be alive in an age that cares so much about getting the value of a human life right, on both sides of the equation (excluding those that find limited value in life dependent on their own views/belief systems). 

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On 5/4/2021 at 12:02 AM, florduh said:

Currently everyone seems to be bending over backwards to show there is no difference between (pick one) and (pick another). If you want to play, pick two things that are very obviously different. It's as if things can't be clearly and demonstrably different without one being assumed inferior to the other.

 

Black people with blue eyes are assumed (by medical researchers and geneticists) to have some white ancestry and if a white person has sickle cell anemia it's safe to assume at least two ancestors came from Africa. There are biological differences between races -  "genetic clusters" if you prefer politically correct and painfully supererogatory terminology, but everyone knows what race means.

 

 

I did say and stress "almost" :) . Altough there are differences between ideas of race, as Krowb said. Like , most European Jews look..well, European, but nazis said they were another race. 

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9 hours ago, Myrkhoos said:

  

I did say and stress "almost" :) . Altough there are differences between ideas of race, as Krowb said. Like , most European Jews look..well, European, but nazis said they were another race. 

Rather that getting rid of discrimination against "races" there is a move to simply deny race as a human component.

 

https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2019/jun/12/what-does-it-mean-to-be-genetically-jewish

 

 

 

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On 5/5/2021 at 10:55 AM, florduh said:

Rather that getting rid of discrimination against "races" there is a move to simply deny race as a human component.

 

https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2019/jun/12/what-does-it-mean-to-be-genetically-jewish

 

 

 

 

I think that the denial angle will be it's undoing.

 

It seems much more logical a direction to leave the denial aspect alone and just focus on not discriminating against others, who, all have obvious and apparent differences. It's a matter of so what about the differences that do exist?

 

Differences don't give anyone the right to discriminate against others. It's a much deeper point to be made, without suffereing the problems of drifting off into difficult to impossible and entrely unnecessary arguments like race or gender don't exist. 

 

Taking those denial oriented directions seems to hurt more than help the underlying points people are trying to get across in the process of trying to stop discrimination against others. It's like a red herring to the big point of stressing that it's not good to discriminate against people regardless of who they are. For empathy's sake.....

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Just a query: to those who have often been up in arms about cancel culture, what about Liz Cheney? Is this as troubling to you as all the other instances of "cancellation" that you cite? Genuinely curious.

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5 hours ago, disillusioned said:

Just a query

 

But a political one. This thread is already too close to tipping over the political discussion line without kicking it all the way over like that. 

 

There may be a few changes down the pike, but for now we have keep it not political until that's determined. 

 

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8 hours ago, Joshpantera said:

 

But a political one. This thread is already too close to tipping over the political discussion line without kicking it all the way over like that. 

 

There may be a few changes down the pike, but for now we have keep it not political until that's determined. 

 

 

Ok, fine. If that's the ruling, that's the ruling. But it seems to me that the preceding has not been a discussion of science, even though it has been about a scientist. I'm asking about a politician, not about politics. Again, do as you will. I don't care, I'm just curious.

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1 minute ago, disillusioned said:

 

Ok, fine. If that's the ruling, that's the ruling. But it seems to me that the preceding has not been a discussion of science, even though it has been about a scientist. I'm asking about a politician, not about politics. Again, do as you will. I don't care, I'm just curious.

 

It's just welcoming to partisan asides which could lead to unrest again. People should know that we can't let that happen and the thread will be locked down if it does. 

 

From a logical and objective standpoint, her situation is that she was voted out of position. Similar to what's going on with Gavin Newsom, or what happened to Trump. And then the situation is whether or not being voted out of office by way of the democratic process is the same thing as "cancel culture." 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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21 minutes ago, Joshpantera said:

And then the situation is whether or not being voted out of office by way of the democratic process is the same thing as "cancel culture." 

 

Aren't they both just people using majority power to remove someone they don't like in order to achieve some goal?

 

Just one happens in the political sphere and the other happens in the world of twits.

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4 minutes ago, LogicalFallacy said:

Just one happens in the political sphere and the other happens in the world of twits.

 

I'd prefer to live in the world of Twix.

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11 minutes ago, LogicalFallacy said:

 

Aren't they both just people using majority power to remove someone they don't like in order to achieve some goal?

 

Just one happens in the political sphere and the other happens in the world of twits.

 

I don't even know if the world of twits operates on a majority power. Seems like a saber rattling minority using influence where they can. Is there a poll or something that can reveal how many people were for having Dawkins retroactively deprived of previous awards going back to the 90's? Who decides such a thing? 

 

 

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It seems to me that Cheney held a position of power in an organization. The organization deemed she didn't represent their views, so they stripped her of power.

 

Dawkins held an award from an organization. The organization deemed he didn't represent their views, so they stripped him of the award.

 

How are these situations substantively different? Majority ruled in one case? That has to do with the structure of the organization in question, not the phenomenon per se.

 

I don't personally think either one is a big deal. I'm fine with organizations choosing not to associate with people who don't represent their views. This is not new, and I don't find it concerning. It's just the way the world works.

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3 hours ago, LogicalFallacy said:

 

Just one happens in the political sphere and the other happens in the world of twits.

 

'Suppose you were an idiot and suppose you were a member of Congress. But I repeat myself'." - Mark Twain

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22 hours ago, disillusioned said:

Just a query: to those who have often been up in arms about cancel culture, what about Liz Cheney? Is this as troubling to you as all the other instances of "cancellation" that you cite? Genuinely curious.

 

Cheney should claim massive fraud, file lawsuits, demand a recount and strongly suggest to a large group of her supporters that if they dont DO something that our democracy will be lost!  😛

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Submitted for your approval... here in the Twilight Zone, every damn thing becomes political now - whatever that means. From mass murder to public health to religion to potholes to sports to children's books to cartoons to historical facts to scientific facts to ten year old tweets and even to the weather. There is really nothing to talk about that doesn't somehow involve politics. We are in the midst of upheaval, a paradigm shift on a global scale not unlike the years leading up to the Civil War or WWII. 

 

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53 minutes ago, florduh said:

We are in the midst of upheaval, a paradigm shift on a global scale not unlike the years leading up to the Civil War or WWII. 

 

Funny you mention that, I had recently seen a video pop up in my youtube news feed that basically predicts what you've said: 

 

 

So the whole "woke" and "cancel culture" phenomenon arises out of the 4th Turning according the above....

 

 

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I never heard of a "fourth turning" but I do remember some history. As Bob Dylan so eloquently put it, "You don't need a weather man to know which way the wind blows."

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