Take it with a grain of salt. "take something lightly, do not take it seriously" Do not have science being the end-all see-all to the world because it's too narrow minded. Don't be so serious about it.
I'll mention here that I am not a debater by nature. So no, I don't really enjoy debating the semantics of how I say every single tiny thing.. but I will tell someone how their overall point is perceived, and why I perceived it that way. This is just getting extremely nitty and picky..
Let's have a "nitty" and "picky" answer then.
Let's go back to Africa for instance...
What do think of the questions I asked before:
1/ Do you think that, in a slum, considering the limited budget people have, a church or a mosque is a better investment than a new pipe to bring drinkable water?
2/ To save the lives of people in a slum, would you rather rely on the bible, on the local Catholic priest, or on sanitation and medicine, even if the latter are implemented by an amoral atheist urbanist?
Please, tell us what you really think.
Sanitation and Medicine are the byproducts of science, of careful observations made by countless generations of scientists (think to John Snow or Louis Pasteur for instance). Even the concept of "drinkable water" is.
Do you think nonetheless that sanitation or medicine should be taken
"with a pinch of salt" when your job is to save human lives?
Imagine you were standing in my shoes. What would you do? What would you trust?
Not that I think that is what he meant, but it certainly isn't this overly dramatic "OMG WHAT A MORON" reaction for me. (...)
They really picked the wrong guy for the job on the religious end. Which is why I say that video was there just to ensure some sort of witty 'victory' for atheists. The guy was not well spoken enough to be a 'representative' for Christianity in a debate that's so centered around tiny details and how you word things.
Indeed, the guy is a moron. Whether he's a Christian, or whatever, he's still a moron.
But logic is *not* a ruler. A centimeter has been a centimeter since the time of its conception. You will always have a definite answer. Logic changes with the times and with the culture.
Logic is a ruler, and its basic laws will not change according to the local culture. They never have.
I have already taught on four different continents, and I've never felt that I had to change the scientific content of my lectures in order to be understood by my students.
Science, logic and mathematics are an universal language. It works everywhere.
And not once did Lark accuse blackmail of being amoral. It is a controversial stance for him to take, but no more controversial than other stances people make on the forum. I am not arguing whether Lark is right or wrong, or whether Blackmail! has a point or not. He clearly does, and said more than the personal attack. But he still made a personal attack towards Lark. He could have left out the personal attacks and his message would still have been just as effective in its delivery.
But then, my message would have been less funny, wouldn't it?
You should have noticed first that Lark is constantly attacking anybody who would dare to disagree with him, with an obnoxious, condescending attitude. Why did he mention Yu-Gi-Oh or pokemons then? What do you think for instance of sentences like:
"This is what I was meaning that the posts in threads like these allow for confirmation about the average sorts of individuals which hold particular views and opinions. A lot of the time I see emotionally charged youngsters or adults in a late/long adolescence chasing their own bogeys, a little bit of information or smattering of understanding furnishing the rudiments of argument, and its not like the internet and a google search isnt great for that kind of thing."
Do you think Coriolis, I and Nicodemus are
"emotionally charged youngsters or adults in a late/long adolescence chasing their own bogeys"?
Thus what I did wasn't a personal attack. It was only a way to get back to the real world, to the crude reality of mankind, even if this real world is not always as pleasant, delicate and joyful that we'd like.
If Lark doesn't want to answer me, I think it's because he lacks the courage to face this "real world" and its consequences. The internet can be an illusion, so that's why I asked him what he has done for real. And I hope he will eventually take up the challenge.