Sure, he’s a Christian, but he’s only a near-atheist Christian, so inferior to real Christians.
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No, I think Steve is a full-fledged theistic Christian.
OK. It’s hard to keep score. Could you run down the Christian posters here, indicating which of them are full-fledged and which are near-atheists?
It wouldn’t be nice to run a fellow Christian down.
Could you at least name a couple of near-atheist Christians so I can tell what you’re talking about?
Many would consider the views of former Episcopalian Bishop John Shelby Spong to be “nearly atheist”. And there are plenty like him in the Episcopalian Church. Also plenty like him in the United Church of Christ. Indeed, it sometimes goes further than “near-atheism” in these liberal mainstream churches. For example, here is a report about one of them:
Of course, few are so frank as the woman described in the report about actually describing themselves as atheist, but many are frank about endorsing doctrines (Bible is a flawed human book, badly edited, filled with many bad moral and religious teachings; Jesus was just a man; miracles don’t happen; God is not really a being separate from the universe, who created it, but is found only inside us, in our conscience, our aspirations; etc.) which are often associated with atheism and which taken together often lead to atheism.
Whether there are any people here who exhibit tendencies in this direction, is of course for each reader here to decide for himself or herself. And since my remark was merely a side-phrase, not intended to generate a separate discussion, that’s all I will say on this subject. Back to Shedinger!
Aren’t we coy?
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I think he might be a Christian In Name Only (CINO) or one of those @Greg labeled “non-Christian Christians”. In either case, Steve seems to be a fine, intelligent, empathetic human being.
Ergo, those 2 are correct, and the several thousand who strongly believe the work of those 2 is fundamentally flawed must be wrong? I did not realize you had mastered the massively parallel computational modeling skills necessary to render an informed opinion on the dispute, Eddie!
Best,
Chris
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No, I made no such assertion. Always my emphasis has been on the process, not the contents. There is definitely bullying and de facto censorship (it’s indirect censorship when people with dissenting views lose jobs and platforms, precisely because they hold dissenting views) going on in some areas of science. I’m quite happy to hear a majority say that a minority is wrong; the issue is whether there is, beyond properly scientific arguments, any intimidation going on, and whether there is ideology or political motivation driving the intimidation. I’ve been 100% clear that whatever may be the final scientific truth, the process must not be corrupted.
Which I agree with. And he’s also, I believe, a sincere Christian.
You shouldn’t even be talking about the issue if you haven’t read the Climategate emails. I presume you have read them. If you have read them, you know what was said about trying to delegitimize journals which published criticisms with which the Climategate gang disagreed.
I’ve perused the emails, but years ago. If you’re not prepared to back up your claims with citations to specific sources (in this case E-Mails), should you be having this discussion?
Also, please keep the climate change discussion on that thread.
I work in a software community that establishes standards of work processes and work product. There is frequent “robust” discussion about exactly where the boundaries between acceptable and unacceptable processes and products lie. At some point, though, the community can and occasionally does mark someone completely out of bounds for deeply flawed work. When that work is fundamentally flawed and the worker who produced it is not willing to concede the flaws, the rest of the community does not allow the worker to remain in the community.
It’s not a matter of intolerance towards dissent. Plenty of dissent happens all the time in the software community. But intolerance does not mean that the community cannot at some point deem someone’s work and attitude to be so fundamentally flawed that he or she is no longer considered to be a functioning member of it.
Suppose a terminated software engineer were to come to you, Eddie, complaining bitterly of the intolerance of his/her former colleagues. He/she pours out stories of those awful, intolerant fellow engineers. Would you feel qualified to agree with him/her about the intolerance? Or would you refrain from labeling the engineering community intolerant because you do not feel qualified to judge the matter?
Thanks,
Chris
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I can’t always control the crossovers of other people here, who tend to attack me by bringing in material from other discussions.
You were the one who replied to me in this thread rather than the climate change thread. I’ve never even commented on this thread.
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Senator Jim Imhofe throws a snowball on the floor of the US Senate and claims to disprove climate change research on that basis. The Breitbart Report follow up with extensive reporting on Imhofe’s snowball and how it proves that climate change research is biased. Is it wrong for the researchers to discuss ideas on how to counter the negative media campaign by the Breitbart Report?
I read the emails, BTW, and I saw nothing sinister in them.
Best,
Chris
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First, I have never reported any discrimination against anyone in the software community. I am quite willing to believe your description of how that community functions – especially since the subject-matter is less likely to become tangled up in ideological concerns than some other subject-matters.
I would be interested in hearing about the process by which the dissent was handled. If the process seemed legitimate and above board, I would say, “It’s not my field, it’s not something I can adjudicate.” But if the process looked suspicious, and reminded me of corrupt processes that I had observed in my own field (religion, and the arts more generally), then alarm bells would start ringing.
Then you’re blind. Plotting to find a way to delegitimize journals, journals edited by qualified climatologists, which publish articles by the other side? That doesn’t strike you as “sinister”?
If I slipped, I apologized. But several times in the past week, I’ve found myself replying to material that really comes from another thread; subjects often get tangled here. I agree with you that we should try to keep on topic. In fact, in discussions I have started, I have frequently had to ask people to keep on topic. So we aren’t in disagreement about the general principle.
If it’s not your field, how would you know whether the adjudication process was suspicious?
For that matter, do you not think it possible that someone who is complaining about an adverse adjudication might omit some important aspects of the adjudication process in reporting it to you?
What is it that makes you think the 99.99% must be held in great suspicion when they deem the work of 0.01% to be fundamentally flawed?
Do you not think that a bitter castout might have the ability to paint the adjudication process in sinister tones that poorly informed outsiders will believe due to their lack of familiarity with the processes and work product expectations of the community?
I’m not going to get in a name-calling spat with you, Eddie.
Thanks,
Chris
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Why don’t you try quoting the emails instead of attempting to paraphrase them?
Can someone tag an admin so they can move all of the climate-change related posts in this thread to the correct thread?
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