Out of Pod Experience

.

Youtube surprises me with all the religious arguments. How did such superstitious people not convince themselves en mass that there are evil little demons in the computers and on the Internet tempting them and sucking out their souls?

---

Just moving this up to the first post:

---

My favorite is when they say the Bible is circular logic so it's wrong...

Sure they did, it's pron

In the end you have to separate real ideas from people clinging to beliefs.

A discussion is where everyone is trying to form a complete understanding. An argument is separate people or groups trying to see who's understanding is correct. Most videos/blogs/forum posts that get attention do not fit these. They're just people who have beliefs without foundation. Things they were told to believe by people they trusted, never questioned, and are now too comfortable with and committed to, to change easily. That they are right or wrong to any degree is irrelevant and entirely accidental.

Religion and politics are the big ones but this can apply to anything.






Your classic warning signs that someone is just clinging are:

1) Discussing other discussions instead of a topic directly.
Maybe they're stating the consequences of legislation without linking bill texts, or they want to ignore religious translations when quoting scriptures. They're stating generalized statistics instead of measuring, or they have a 'source' they want you to accept that is clearly biased.

2) Referring to groups of people as single minded entities.
Corporations. The Government. Republicans. Liberals. The Church or Religious people. Big labels are the true way stereotyping happens in the real world. There is no such thing as 'Wal-Mart'. The 'Oil Companies' is a fantasy. These are just verbal shortcuts to refer to groups of other human beings.

3) Hyperbole of systems.
A waitress clears a table of a coffee mug. Only using white cups can be racism. Sales tax is socialism. Tipping extra money to those who make less is pushing communism. Threat of punishment by the police for not paying or being refused service for not wearing shoes or a shirt is fascism. Giving waitresses sections of tables can be favoritism. Making them give a social security number to work there is JUST LIKE HITLER PUTTING STARS ON THE JEWS.

4) Playing with scope.
Someone wants to talk about evolution but not Abiogenesis. They want to focus on one point in the time line where their political party coincided with a good indicator on their issue or vice versa. Look what is written in this book, but never mind the book's history. See I'm right about the economy if you're looking at just my city/state/country. Electric cars get better MPG -at the pump-... never mind what your area does to generate the additional electricity it uses.