I'm burning a Quran on Friday nite (a day before the pastor)

Keynes wrote:

The Koran is very offensive. We should burn it and all other blaspheming books. Let the biology textbooks add their tinder to the fire, for the lies of their authors deserve nothing more.

Yes, let us become like our brothers from the Third Reich!

Achtung!

I also don't think we need to go down that absurdly reductionist path.

Right. There is a critical difference between believing something (not a choice) and practicing something (a choice). However, our beliefs invariably inform our practices and actions.

I think that's a fair analysis.

"Actually, I'm pretty sure I chose. Not all my family took that path, I just chose to."

What a flippant conception of choice. A choice is the boring end result after all the interesting unconcious stuff has already happened. You choose X, but why do you choose X? Choice is an epiphenomena. Do you choose to believ ein aliens? No, you just aren't compelled by the evidence.

So the fact that most of the people in Saudi Arabia "choose" one set of beliefs and most of the people in SC "choose" another set is just coincidence? There are no deterministic factors at work there?

One you introduce influences on choices, you can no longer show me what part of a choice is no explicable by influences, be they genetic, cultural, environmental, etc.

Scientists might make decisions based on facts, but the sad sight of so many people who dispute science shows that you have to be the kind of person who is susceptible to them. And the idea of being "conscious" of something is of no help at all. You aren't conscious of the "whys" behind your choices.

You must be a Christian because only a religious person would have such a surface level understanding of human psychology.

Of course Chauncey can answer as he/she sees fit. But I will put in my 2p here.

Your example of the OJ trial is not in any way a counter-argument to what Chauncey presented. That jury chose to let OJ off the hook. Does that imply that they chose to believe he was truly innocent? Or that they simply chose to act in a way that would further their own notion of justice (or whatever they might choose to call it)? To me the answer is obvious.

Nobody there believed that OJ did not do it. Their choice was in how to act, not in what to believe.

Or perhaps the jury was not convinced by the evidence with which they were presented.

However, if the evidence was convincing, and the jury still exonerated OJ, then they chose an action, not a belief. They were convinced, believed him guilty, and chose to act as if they believed the opposite.

A third scenario (yours): they were too stupid to recognize the DNA evidence. In this case, they still did not "choose" to believe him innocent. They were persuaded by their (mis)understanding of the facts and deemed him not guilty.

Notice that I did not say there was no such thing as choice. If I mistakenly believe, on the evidence available to me, that my neighbor killed my son, and I kill my neighbor, I am still culpable. I still CHOSE to kill him, even if I didn't choose to believe that he killed my son.

When "presented with facts," you either believe them or you don't. That's not a choice. If the reasons are good enough, you'll be helpless to believe something (to paraphrase Sam Harris). However, you do choose whether or not to act on that belief).

This could get interesting wrote:

Of course Chauncey can answer as he/she sees fit. But I will put in my 2p here.

Your example of the OJ trial is not in any way a counter-argument to what Chauncey presented. That jury chose to let OJ off the hook. Does that imply that they chose to believe he was truly innocent? Or that they simply chose to act in a way that would further their own notion of justice (or whatever they might choose to call it)? To me the answer is obvious.

Nobody there believed that OJ did not do it. Their choice was in how to act, not in what to believe.

Right. You said, in a more concise and elegant way, what I was trying to get across.

I'm an atheist so I'm not choosing anyone's side based on my religion. But, anyone who burns something like a bible, quran, flag, etc. just to "send a message" and piss off another group of people is an animal. You're a less evolved POS.

"What a crock. Even when people are presented with facts, they still have a choice. Perfect example, when the jury was given the DNA evidence against OJ, they ignored it and let him off the hook."

They didn't choose to be the kind of people who would ignore evidence. Our choices are, completely and entirely, dictated by deterministic factors. Saying you choose your religion is like saying you choose to fall in love.

Think of religious evidence. ALl the people in Saudi Arabia "choose" to believe in the Koran? I mean, they believe in it, but I'd hardly call the geneology of that belief something as flippant as choosing. They live in circumstances that are much more likley to dictate that choice (and the ones who don't make that choice have some circumstances that make them resistant to it).

The choice is not the interesting phenomena here - it is where choices come from. You make choices because of who you are and you don't chooce who you are.

[quote]someone else wrote:

Facts don't tell you anything until you decide how to read the information they convey.

At which point they cease to be facts?

I am not so uncharitable as to think creationists are ignoring evidence - they just labor so mightily under the weight of pre-existing biases that they can't give it a fair shake because their pre-existing commitments are so strong (and because they believe those commitments underpin everything they value), hence they can't evaluate it. It isn't that they are choosing not to - their character and commitments were formed long before the question formed itself.

I am not sure if the Simpson case was an example of the above or plain old jury nullification (the prototype for which was, of course, set in the acquittal of Klansmen and their ilk in the 50's and 60's), but it doesn't matter to the larger point - they made the choice they made under the weight of other commitments that made it a foregone conclusion they would do so. Hardly the free wheeling, impromptu, spur-of-the-moment character we normally, and wrongly, assoicate with choice. Hell, dogs make choices.

hey, this sounds almost like the bible. i bunch of yahoos get together years later and say...'hey didn't J say this? No, i think he said that. Okay can we agree on this?. and so it went until several synodic councils finally established what was dogma and what became gnostic centuries later. and then they're church adherence to traditions like celibacy, silly sods. and canon law, another set of silly sodiness.

Clifford Diffley wrote:

okay, so I don't like the idea of this Quran burning, though I support their right to do it. I just have a question i've never got satisfactory answer to.

It obviously isn't a Quranic edict to not desecrate the Quran, since the Quran predates written revelation. The Quran was only codified into written word ~ 80-100 years after Muhammad. During Muhammad's life it was recited by rote from memory ("Quran", meaning "A recitation" derives from the verb "Iqra'", which was the imperative Gabriel gave to Muhammad. Literally: "Recite"). You can't burn a recitation, so clearly this respect for the (later) written word is a later guideline. But when? Which Hadith? and, is it binding?

Can I bring all my Beatles albums and throw in on the pyre too?

Seriously, what do you get out of this?

Were you planning on plagiarizing your entire Psych textbook? Or just one chapter?

I seriously doubt there was a historical Jesus or a historical Mohammed. If there was a Mohammed, he is responsible for little if any of the Koran. In the case of both the Bible and the Koran, the textual history of the tesxt is a hell of alot more complicated than pious history would have one believe.

I, of course, could care less if some yahoo burns the Koran. I don't think religious belief is a protected category, and could care less if that belief happens to have cultural ressonance for some alleged victim class. And I of course agree that it will be nice when Islam can be neutered in the same why Christianity has been by the weight and power of secular influence so thoroughly that they won't even recognize that is what has happened. I just don't get how one "revealed religion with flimy textual evidence" can throw large stones from inside his glass Bible house. Imagine the outcry if Sam Harris and Christopher Hitches had a public Bible burning. The same people praising burning the Koran would fall into their PC victim crouch.

Philosophy textbook, thank you very much. I don't think incompatabilist determinism has made much headway in psychology.

Brian wrote:

Philosophy textbook, thank you very much. I don't think incompatabilist determinism has made much headway in psychology.

Got a big test tomorrow, eh?

Don't sweat it man, you'll forget all this crap in a few years...

I am 40 years old. I took my last philosphy class 20 years ago.

Would Jesus burn the Qur'an?