Jayjay4547 wrote:

Alan B wrote:

Jayjay4547 wrote:
According to Wikipedia, atheism is, in the broadest sense, the absence of belief in the existence of deities. From the same source, an ideology is a collection of normative beliefs and values that an individual or group holds for other than purely epistemic reasons

Correct.
A 'non-belief', by definition, cannot be part of a collection of 'normative beliefs'.

It isn't working, Jayjay...

Well to be fair Alan, if it were working, would you recognise that?

Jayjay4547 wrote:..

Thomas Eshuis wrote:

Jayjay4547 wrote:

Thomas Eshuis wrote:And humans aren't the only ones with hands.

True again. Come to think of it the great apes have four hands.

Humans are apes.

I said “great apes”. According to Wikipedia disambiguation, Pongidae, or "great apes", [is] a taxon including the gorillas, chimpanzees, and orangutans, but not humans.

Wikipedia wrote:Pongidae, or the Pongids, is an obsolete primate taxon containing the gorillas, chimpanzees, and orangutans. They are sometimes called "great apes".[1] Pongidae is now known to be paraphyletic. Pongids gave rise to Hominina around seven mya.[2] The corresponding crown group for this taxon is Hominidae. Pongidae has seven extant member species. This taxon is rarely used today but is of historical significance.

Wikipedia wrote:A clade (from Ancient Greek: κλάδος, klados, "branch"), also known as monophyletic group, is a group of organisms that consists of a common ancestor and all its lineal descendants, and represents a single "branch" on the "tree of life".[1]

The common ancestor may be an individual, a population, a species (extinct or extant), and so on right up to a kingdom and further. Clades are nested, one in another, as each branch in turn splits into smaller branches. These splits reflect evolutionary history as populations diverged and evolved independently. Clades are termed monophyletic (Greek: "one clan") groups.

Wikipedia wrote:The Hominidae (/hɒˈmɪnɪdiː/), whose members are known as great apes[note 1] or hominids, are a taxonomic family of primates that includes eight extant species in four genera: Pongo, the Bornean, Sumatran and Tapanuli orangutan; Gorilla, the eastern and western gorilla; Pan, the common chimpanzee and the bonobo; and Homo, which includes modern humans and its extinct relatives (e.g., the Neanderthal), and ancestors, such as Homo erectus.[1]
....
note 1: "Great ape" is a common name rather than a taxonomic label, and there are differences in usage, even by the same author. The term may or may not include humans, as when Dawkins writes "Long before people thought in terms of evolution ... great apes were often confused with humans"[2] and "gibbons are faithfully monogamous, unlike the great apes which are our closer relatives."[3]

Jayjay4547 wrote:

Calilasseia wrote:I dropped that in his lap three years or more ago, way back here. He'll ignore your doing so now, just as he ignored my doing so then.

That post Calilasseia linked to was so bizarrely aimed at someone espousing an utterly different position to my own that it left me completely dispirited. My criticism has always been basically secular; that stories told in the name of evolution and particularly the human origin narrative, have been influenced by social contention. Originally, I argued that the mere persistence of the creationist-evolutionist debate had influenced the established human origin story. - a Fichtean dialectic. I narrowed that down in the current topic, to an influence by atheist ideology. I lack respect for the people who promote 'agency' because it's only a belief they demand that I respect.

My own immersion in this social issue influenced and hardened my own position; being sworn at for years turned me back to the Christianity of my youth (I am an Anglican) and to identifying myself as a creationist. I am on the side of anyone who thinks that we were created by something greater than ourselves. Whether they call that agent a biome or nature or continent or JHWH and whatever time scale they use. But my own position has been consistently and clearly rationalist and without invoking denialism.

The truly extreme level of straw man behaviour on this board is exemplified by the popular topic on Mike Spence; the American VP hasn't even come here (has he?) but ratskep posters still endlessly delight in throwing dirt at his effigy.

Jayjay4547 wrote:

Fenrir wrote:Eppur si muove JayJay.

Eppur si muove.

The only denials on this thread are that there is such a thing as an atheist ideology. There has been a turnaround since the days of Copernicus and of Linnaeus. Now the dominant zeitgeist in the West is atheism. Science and its spirit of toleration for open inquiry have put some brake on vicious bullying bigotry. But on this board, not much. I'm not complaining, mind; I come here voluntarily and with my eyes open. Because in the background, these things end up cutting both ways.

Jayjay4547 wrote:

Calilasseia wrote:I dropped that in his lap three years or more ago, way back here. He'll ignore your doing so now, just as he ignored my doing so then.

That post Calilasseia linked to was so bizarrely aimed at someone espousing an utterly different position to my own that it left me completely dispirited.

Jayjay4547 wrote: My criticism has always been basically secular; that stories told in the name of evolution and particularly the human origin narrative, have been influenced by social contention.

Jayjay4547 wrote: Originally, I argued that the mere persistence of the creationist-evolutionist debate had influenced the established human origin story. - a Fichtean dialectic. I narrowed that down in the current topic, to an influence by atheist ideology.

Jayjay4547 wrote:
My own immersion in this social issue influenced and hardened my own position; being sworn at for years turned me back to the Christianity of my youth (I am an Anglican) and to identifying myself as a creationist. I am on the side of anyone who thinks that we were created by something greater than ourselves. Whether they call that agent a biome or nature or continent or JHWH and whatever time scale they use. But my own position has been consistently and clearly rationalist and without invoking denialism.

Jayjay4547 wrote:
The truly extreme level of straw man behaviour on this board is exemplified by the popular topic on Mike Spence; the American VP hasn't even come here (has he?) but ratskep posters still endlessly delight in throwing dirt at his effigy.

Jayjay4547 wrote:
Thanks for that. By using the obsolete term “great apes” I intentionally sidestepped the ideologically involved issue of whether humans “are apes” as Thomas had asserted.

Jayjay4547 wrote: Diamond used the term “great apes” in the quote being discussed, that probably came from his book “The Third Chimpanzee”. Seeing that chimps are one of the great apes, Professor Diamond was strictly speaking being inconsistent: how can our ancestors have diverged from the great apes if we are (merely) one them? But actually he was just using language fluidly: the book title was a hook to attract readers like Thomas Eshuis

Fenrir wrote:I really didn't expect honesty.

Still, giving them every chance is the decent thing to do (atheistic even).

Jayjay4547 wrote:

Fenrir wrote:Eppur si muove JayJay.

Eppur si muove.

The only denials on this thread are that there is such a thing as an atheist ideology.

Jayjay4547 wrote: There has been a turnaround since the days of Copernicus and of Linnaeus. Now the dominant zeitgeist in the West is atheism.

Jayjay4547 wrote: Science and its spirit of toleration for open inquiry have put some brake on vicious bullying bigotry.

Jayjay4547 wrote:
But on this board, not much. I'm not complaining, mind; I come here voluntarily and with my eyes open. Because in the background, these things end up cutting both ways.

Jayjay4547 wrote:I claim that how we are different from the great apes, is most practically described in other terms than Diamond's.

Cito di Pense wrote:

Jayjay4547 wrote:I claim that how we are different from the great apes, is most practically described in other terms than Diamond's.

Of course you do. That's your theist ideology, talking, and hence, the whole reason you've invented its counterpart in atheist ideology to match up with it; otherwise, you're stuck permanently holding the short end of a stick that no one else is attached to, madly beating the air with it.