Poll: Think you think straight? Think again...

[irani_che]

my replies are too complicated for many qs to be put into the agree/disagree answer

either way philosophy is bunk, for people who want to do alot of thinking but not for anything too hard or useful

 

[Raven's Nest]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atheism

Have a good read...

I agree, claiming that there is no God without presenting evidence to prove so is ridiculous. You won't find many atheists who don't deny the possibility. See my above post for further clarity.

In a narrower sense, atheism is specifically the position that there are no deities. Most inclusively, atheism is simply the absence of belief that any deities exist.

I realise that it is also the absence of belief, but, from my experience, most people see it and use it as the belief that there is no deity. In a way, it's similar to the many different kinds of all religions that you will find spread throughout the world, there is no one true form of it.

It's one of those cases where the word spread quicker than the definition I guess. Coupled with some misrepresentation and preconceptions.

The whole concept of philosophy and theology constantly evolves. As ideas are presented and spread, some people agree with them and some don't. Richard Dawkins is pretty much spearheading the Atheism thing right now and his concept of Weak vs Strong Atheism is widely accepted amongst those that study religion. Despite having a reputation for being a militant atheist or anti-theist, even he doesn't claim that God does not exist...

The ones that do claim this are often ridiculed amongst atheists. But that's also where the similarities end. There is a huge misconception that since Atheists don't believe in God, they either assume the opposite stance or treat the concept as a faith. This is simply not always true, and sometimes you'll find atheists who will believe in souls, unicorns and fairies, though uncommon, it just further shows that if their was a church of atheism, it'd be the most divided organisation on the planet.

 

[hyzaku]

Spoiler: Quoting them.

Questions 16 and 21: What should be legal?

70518 of the 172217 people who have completed this activity have this tension in their beliefs.

You agreed that:
The government should not permit the sale of treatments which have not been tested for efficacy and safety
And also that:
Alternative and complementary medicine is as valuable as mainstream medicine

But most alternative and complementary medicines have not been tested in trials as rigorously as 'conventional' medicine. For example, the popular herbal anti-depressant, St John's Wort, has recently been found to cause complications when taken alongside any of five other common medicines. This has only come to light because of extensive testing. Yet the product is freely available without medical advice. The question that needs answering here is, why do you believe alternative medicines and treatments need not be as extensively tested as conventional ones? The fact that they use natural ingredients is not in itself good reason, as there are plenty of naturally occurring toxins. Even if one argues that their long history shows them to be safe, that is not the same as showing them to be effective. This is not to criticise alternative therapies, but to question the different standards which are used to judge them compared to mainstream medicines."

I have to call bullshit on this one. They make a leap thought here. Just because I believe alternative medicine is helpful and valuable does not in any way contradict the belief that it should still be tested for safety. The phrase "as valuable as mainstream medicine" does not imply or explicitly state a lack of testing or a lack of desire for testing on those alternative sources. In fact, their own example is one reason why I want alternative sources tested.

Spoiler: Quoting them again.

Questions 24 and 3: How much must I protect the environment?

82115 of the 172217 people who have completed this activity have this tension in their beliefs.

You agreed that:
The environment should not be damaged unnecessarily in the pursuit of human ends
But disagreed that:
People should not journey by car if they can walk, cycle or take a train instead

As walking, cycling and taking the train are all less environmentally damaging than driving a car for the same journey, if you choose to drive when you could have used another mode of transport, you are guilty of unnecessarily damaging the environment.

The problem here is the word 'unnecessary'. Very few things are necessary, if by necessary it is meant essential to survival. But you might want to argue that much of your use of cars or aeroplanes is necessary, not for survival, but for a certain quality of life. The difficulty is that the consequence of this response is that it then becomes hard to be critical of others, for it seems that 'necessary' simply means what one judges to be important for oneself. A single plane journey may add more pollutants to the atmosphere than a year's use of a high-emission vehicle. Who is guilty of causing unnecessary environmental harm here?

This is interesting as they only look at part of the "quality of life" issue. Just because I can walk to work in the rain or snow doesn't mean that is a better choice for me than driving (and if I can't drive in a storm no way in hell I'm riding a bike or walking). Just because I can ride a bike to the grocery store doesn't mean I'd be able to carry home everything I need to buy there. Also, taking that one plane trip overseas (they go more places than just inside their home country) may cause less pollution than taking a boat (the only other overseas travel option). The real people causing unnecessary environmental harm are the bums who buy "carbon credits" and think that throwing money at something magically fixes any harm they might have done.

So taking that into account, I come out with 0% "tension." One point they make is garbage and the other is a flawed argument.

 

[Evil Moo]

Some of the questions are semantically ambiguous and the answers are too restrictive to exactly represent my philosophy.

My apparent moral conflicts were concerning objective morality and the evil of genocide, and preventing unnecessary harm to to the environment and letting people journey by car.

The first conflict was half a result of me substituting the term 'evil' for 'something generally negative to survival', and half taking the generally perceived opinion of evil as an overall definition of evil so that I could actually give an answer to the question. If the question had specified objectivity, then I would have had no problem answering it.

The second is me being pedantic in my definition of the word 'unnecessarily' and what constitutes 'the pursuit of human ends'. If someone wants to travel from A to B with the speed and flexibility of driving a car (the human end), then it is inherently necessary to cause the resulting pollution.
When I agreed that unnecessary damage to the environment was bad, I was referring to the act of, whilst going about your task, doing something that would cause or contribute to significant damage, that also does not proportionately contribute to the completion of this task. One could argue that this does not fully constitute damage 'in the pursuit' of something as it is clearly not connected to the success of the activity. I would say that doing something 'in the pursuit' of something else only implies intent to do something, not the competence to do it correctly, which could easily lead to unrelated activity being included in the pursuit of something else.

Either way, I know most of my philosophy's weak points and these questions did not highlight any of them. Mostly it comes down to ideal VS reality and reality generally wins because that is where most of us are living at the moment. Sure it would be nice if everyone was free to do what they wanted, but in reality that heroine addict injecting himself in front of your family is almost certainly a detriment to you and society in general and in the end, society comes first.


Also a slight aside, but my view on atheism is less of a "NO, THERE IS NO GOD!!" (excluding our friends the militant atheists of course) and more, for example a Theist saying "Hey! So there's this God guy, right?" and the Atheist replying "What? That doesn't make any sense, I'm going to continue as I was and ignore this.". The first is an active denial of something, the second shows the theist as the active party, the atheist responds to the input given with the information and reasoning available. The difference is subtle, but I think it is significant. I don't see myself as someone who is denying something, I just don't really recognise God as something worth considering the existence of and if it weren't for theists introducing the concept into my world, I wouldn't have to.
The distinction between this and an agnostic, to me, is just that an agnostic is either an atheist who hasn't thought enough about it to claim to be one, or a non-committal theist who doesn't want to fully invest in faith for whatever reason.

 

[ZombieGenesis]

Tension Quotient = 27% ...
Yay? I think.

 

[conflictofinterests]

I can't fucking answer these.

All of them are yes and no's, when most of it should be maybe's.

What do I put for God if I'm agnostic?

OT: I think some of these are rather bullshit.

Contradicted about the truth one when I said the Holocaust did happen but I also said there were no truths.

I prefer to think of the genocide of all the Jews in the 1940s by the Nazis as the Holocaust. It has been proven that it did happen, so I think that is a little bit of the quiz trying to get you.

I'll give them the protecting the environment one.

I accidentally chose that euthenasia should be illegal when I meant to say legal, so that was a slip up on the bodies one.

The brain damage one and life after death was one of those things where the quiz didn't have enough information. Yes, people can lose all conscious self... in there bodies, but their spirits can still live on. Can't tell you why I believe that, but whatever. I do.

The "how do we judge art?" one was definitely a mix up on the quiz's part.

Yes, art can be subjective. And yes, I believe Michelangelo was one of the top artists of all time (quite frankly because I don't care about art).

How does that contradict itself? I think that art relies on personal taste, and my personal taste happens to involve Michaelangelo?

Not approving of this test.

You're another one of these.

ALL of the questions are the quiz trying to get you. These questions are ALL in opposition to one another. It's a test to find how contradictory your belief system is, Jesus Christ.

If there is no objective truth, then if anyone says the Holocaust didn't happen then it didn't happen (for that person).

If one has a soul after one has died, which includes (the most) severe brain damage, then one should still have that soul and be oneself after sustaining non-lethal but severe brain damage.

If art is all subjective then Michelangelo could NOT be a great artist depending on the person, and since that is a personal statement, you cannot objectively say he IS. If art is at all objective, then Michaelangelo is or is not a great artist, but it would be up to reality, and not people to decide. Then in reality, he was a great artist.

By saying it's not reasonable to believe in things you can't prove exist, you're arguing inductive reasoning, that of scientists. By saying that atheism is a faith (that the absence of proof is not proof of the opposite) you are arguing deductive reasoning, that of philosophers. These two reasoning types don't tend to go well together, but often have to make due with each other in modern society.

 

[benoitowns]

I havent taken the test yet, but I dont understand how the first statement contradicts the second. That means they think me and my kids watching him inject himself with heroin is hurting me. That just sounds self centered, he should be allowed to do what he damn well pleases whether or not I am there. The world doesnt revolve around me, can someone explain to me the problem?

There's only a contradiction if you said yes to both. If you said 'yes people should be free to make their own choices', and 'no he shouldn't be arrested' then there's no contradiction. It's not the statements themselves that contradict anything, but your answers.

Oh. Okay, that makes a lot more sense. I guess it confused me because right afterwards OP said you can't have one without the other.

 

[samonix]

0% without cheating. surprisingly proud of that fact.

 

[MrTub]

It's a bit contrived, to be honest. It called me out on this-

You disagreed that:
It is quite reasonable to believe in the existence of a thing without even the possibility of evidence for its existence
But agreed that:
Atheism is a faith just like any other, because it is not possible to prove the non-existence of God

I never said that Atheism was any more reasonable than other kinds of faith, I just said that it was one.

Subjectivity does not a good philosophical test make.

Atheism generally isn't a faith though... it's the lack of faith.

There aren't many atheists that will say they are for sure 100% there is and can be no god. Without a way to prove it, that idea becomes a faith. Such people are severely lacking in the logic department.

Sorry to be pedantic, but if atheists aren't sure of the lack of God, doesn't that make them agnostics instead? I think Atheists are pretty firm on the whole non-existence deal.

I think this thread sums it up quite good imo

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/528.270326-You-are-not-agnostic

Actually it just muddied the water even more, but an interesting read nonetheless, thanks for that

Well he argues that either you believe in "god" or you don't. So either you are an atheist or you are a theist?(aren't sure if that is the right word)

Yeah, but several people disagreed with his view, and there's some valid points on both sides of the argument.

And Theist is the right word.

People will always disagree. But I think it's quite valid. Either you believe or you do not. So if you say I do not know you are an atheist (At least in my own opinion) since you do not completely believe.

We risk drowning in semantics as the other thread did, but...IMO it really does come down to definitions, and the argument that 'atheist' is a catch-all term for anyone who doesn't explicitly believe in God. I think there needs to be some shades of grey. What if you're a practising Theist, who has occasional doubts?

Well I guess I would call you an atheist until you have regained your trust in that your god is the right one and is worthy to be followed.. never actually thought about it so I reserve the right to be wrong on that..

but saying that an Atheist will not accept that god exist even if there was proof that he/she/it did is like saying that all !Example! christians are like WBC

 

[inFAMOUSCowZ]

I didnt understand the wording of the questions, so I got a 40%.........dammit, if only they used easier phrasing. Made me randomly pick an answer

 

[Venereus]

The examples they give after the result are pretty crappy. Even with the most basic knowledge of epystemology you can tell those are really weak points in the great scheme of things.

 

[MasterOfWorlds]

I got a 33% Apparently I have issues with these

You agreed that:
There exists an all-powerful, loving and good God
And also that:
To allow an innocent child to suffer needlessly when one could easily prevent it is morally reprehensible

You agreed that:
The environment should not be damaged unnecessarily in the pursuit of human ends
But disagreed that:
People should not journey by car if they can walk, cycle or take a train instead

You agreed that:
So long as they do not harm others, individuals should be free to pursue their own ends
But disagreed that:
The possession of drugs for personal use should be decriminalised

You agreed that:
Severe brain-damage can rob a person of all consciousness and selfhood
And also that:
On bodily death, a person continues to exist in a non-physical form

You agreed that:
Judgements about works of art are purely matters of taste
And also that:
Michaelangelo is one of history's finest artists

I think some of these are BS, but that's just me.

 

[conflictofinterests]

Spoiler: Quoting them.

Questions 16 and 21: What should be legal?

70518 of the 172217 people who have completed this activity have this tension in their beliefs.

You agreed that:
The government should not permit the sale of treatments which have not been tested for efficacy and safety
And also that:
Alternative and complementary medicine is as valuable as mainstream medicine

But most alternative and complementary medicines have not been tested in trials as rigorously as 'conventional' medicine. For example, the popular herbal anti-depressant, St John's Wort, has recently been found to cause complications when taken alongside any of five other common medicines. This has only come to light because of extensive testing. Yet the product is freely available without medical advice. The question that needs answering here is, why do you believe alternative medicines and treatments need not be as extensively tested as conventional ones? The fact that they use natural ingredients is not in itself good reason, as there are plenty of naturally occurring toxins. Even if one argues that their long history shows them to be safe, that is not the same as showing them to be effective. This is not to criticise alternative therapies, but to question the different standards which are used to judge them compared to mainstream medicines."

I have to call bullshit on this one. They make a leap thought here. Just because I believe alternative medicine is helpful and valuable does not in any way contradict the belief that it should still be tested for safety. The phrase "as valuable as mainstream medicine" does not imply or explicitly state a lack of testing or a lack of desire for testing on those alternative sources. In fact, their own example is one reason why I want alternative sources tested.

Spoiler: Quoting them again.

Questions 24 and 3: How much must I protect the environment?

82115 of the 172217 people who have completed this activity have this tension in their beliefs.

You agreed that:
The environment should not be damaged unnecessarily in the pursuit of human ends
But disagreed that:
People should not journey by car if they can walk, cycle or take a train instead

As walking, cycling and taking the train are all less environmentally damaging than driving a car for the same journey, if you choose to drive when you could have used another mode of transport, you are guilty of unnecessarily damaging the environment.

The problem here is the word 'unnecessary'. Very few things are necessary, if by necessary it is meant essential to survival. But you might want to argue that much of your use of cars or aeroplanes is necessary, not for survival, but for a certain quality of life. The difficulty is that the consequence of this response is that it then becomes hard to be critical of others, for it seems that 'necessary' simply means what one judges to be important for oneself. A single plane journey may add more pollutants to the atmosphere than a year's use of a high-emission vehicle. Who is guilty of causing unnecessary environmental harm here?

This is interesting as they only look at part of the "quality of life" issue. Just because I can walk to work in the rain or snow doesn't mean that is a better choice for me than driving (and if I can't drive in a storm no way in hell I'm riding a bike or walking). Just because I can ride a bike to the grocery store doesn't mean I'd be able to carry home everything I need to buy there. Also, taking that one plane trip overseas (they go more places than just inside their home country) may cause less pollution than taking a boat (the only other overseas travel option). The real people causing unnecessary environmental harm are the bums who buy "carbon credits" and think that throwing money at something magically fixes any harm they might have done.

So taking that into account, I come out with 0% "tension." One point they make is garbage and the other is a flawed argument.

I think your first problem may be explained by the fact that when alternative medicines are studied and proven useful enough they become mainstream medicines (I think aspirin might be an example of this, though I could be wrong)

And to your second problem, you seem to ignore the whole second half of the "should not use cars statement. Namely the "IF they can walk, bike, or use the train instead." You are citing a whole lot of examples where you could NOT walk, bike, or use the train instead.

 

[Squeaky]

Though the one they caught me out on was kind of bullshit because it asked was Michaelangelo one of history's greatest artists, which is a matter of opinion, but they said that because I said yes it contradicted what I said earlier about Art always being subjective.

All historical subjects are a matter of opinion!

Yeh but certian historical events have like the example they give the holocaust did happen however Jesus birth/death would have been a better example as that is one purely of opinion millions of jews did die wether you or any one else thinks otherwise its just if you think its wrong or not.

Another one that pissed me off was "Can you put a price on a human life?" Well thier answer that goverments should have the right to increase tax to help the less fortuneate would essiantlly shift all of the poverity from one country to another its idiotic your not solving anything merely moving it around.

questionaire was overall shit.

 

[Tibike77]

Tension Quotient = 27%

Although, if the questions would have been ratings from "strongly disagree" through "indifferent" to "strongly agree", then the TQ would have been oh, so much lower...

 

[2012 Wont Happen]

13%

I stated that morality is subjective, but also that genocide was evil as well as stating that art is subjective and that Michaelangelo was one of the greatest artists of all time.

These two sets of beliefs can be easily rationalized with one and other, so I will count that as no tension.

 

[Raven's Nest]

Ladies and Gentlemen, step right up and get your free philosophical health check...


Ever wondered if your ideas about the world are actually consistent with each other?

Ever feel like you might be a raging hypocritical moron? Ever thought someone else was?


Truth is, most of us spend our lives attached to little ideas we have about the way life should be but it turns out few of us actually agree with the principles we think we do. A lot of the time, our ideas come into conflict with each other which is why working out the morality of things can be tricky...

For example;

Do you believe that people should be free to make their own decisions and live out their lives doing what they want so long as they don't hurt anyone else?

Do you believe a person should be arrested if they sat next to you on a park bench and injected themselves with heroin in front of you and your kids?

Well, you can't actually have one without the other.

I found this great website a little while back and there is a bunch of tests on it that evaluate your ideas, ethics and morals, just to let you know that you probably spend most nights arguing with yourself and why...

Take a look! http://www.philosophersnet.com/games/check.php

(no I'm not advertising btw, just sharing something cool)


Aaaand for the discussion, Share your findings with us and lets find out who can walk the walk, talk the talk and erm... Think.... the think.... There is bound to be some surprises in store for everyone. Certainly made me think twice.

I find your example to be poor.

Just because you can't quantify how an action hurts one other person doesn't mean the collective actions of all the individuals that peruse that action does not negatively impact the rest of society.

Rampant drug use leads to all manner of other crime both directly and indirectly. Sure some might not fall into the cycle, but enough do. I have lived in some bad neighbourhoods and seen the effects for myself.

It was deliberately ambiguous. And I personally agree with you regarding the specifics of the question but the real point of the question was this...

Should people live freely so long as they do not harm others?

Should something be made illegal if it can harm oneself?

If we believe the first statement we should also accept the potential consequences of the second. There is at least some conflict in one's attitudes toward personal freedom if both statements are agreed with in this case.

 

[The Unworthy Gentleman]

It's one of those cases where the word spread quicker than the definition I guess. Coupled with some misrepresentation and preconceptions.

The whole concept of philosophy and theology constantly evolves. As ideas are presented and spread, some people agree with them and some don't. Richard Dawkins is pretty much spearheading the Atheism thing right now and his concept of Weak vs Strong Atheism is widely accepted amongst those that study religion. Despite having a reputation for being a militant atheist or anti-theist, even he doesn't claim that God does not exist...

The ones that do claim this are often ridiculed amongst atheists. But that's also where the similarities end. There is a huge misconception that since Atheists don't believe in God, they either assume the opposite stance or treat the concept as a faith. This is simply not always true, and sometimes you'll find atheists who will believe in souls, unicorns and fairies, though uncommon, it just further shows that if their was a church of atheism, it'd be the most divided organisation on the planet.

I suppose so, but I still say that both are valid forms of interpreting atheism. You don't need to not believe in a deity to be an atheist, however you aren't wrong to assume so. Much in the same way that you don't need to be Catholic to be Christian, but you aren't wrong to assume someone is Catholic with no inclination as to which kind of Christian they are.

 

[conflictofinterests]

I love how they put up complex, multiple-point statements and then ask you to agree or disagree with the whole thing. Lovely questionnaire, I could only answer a few of 'em, so... no score.

You are supposed to read them as literally as possible, I know there's a lot to consider in each point, but it's really hard to come down in the middle if you examine the statements that way.

Alright, here's an example of one where I come down in the middle. First statement:
"There are no objective moral standards; moral judgements are merely an expression of the values of particular cultures"
In my opinion, there are objective moral standards (though they are few and far between). So I disagree with the first part... sort of. However, in my opinion, a vast majority of moral judgments are merely an expression of the values of particular cultures... so I agree with the second part... mostly.
Where does that leave me? No score draw.

If there are ANY objective moral standards, then that statement is false. It doesn't mean there are a lot of them. There could only be one. But if there is, it is not a true statement. And if there are no moral standards that are universal (or should be) across cultures, then that statement is true. There is no middle ground here.

If it were only the sentence before the semicolon, you would be correct. However, because of the clarification following it, the statement contradicts itself when judged against my values system... rendering the statement itself alien to my personal values.

No. The second half in no way contradicts any part of the first. It cites an example of a situation in which morality might be subjective, as opposed to objective. If morality changes from culture to culture, then it is not an objective truth.

Let me explain it this way. Newton's description of gravity, namely of the course an object takes as it is thrown, works up to a point. On the ground, it's pretty accurate. However, as soon as you leave the ground, it fails to explain gravity sufficiently anymore. In space objects that go up don't always come down. Objects can orbit or slingshot off other objects. So we got a different description of gravity, because Newton's wasn't right ALL of the time: It was subjective, and Laws of Physics MUST be objective.

If it doesn't work the same way EVERYWHERE, EVERY TIME, it's NOT objective.

 

[conflictofinterests]

*snicket
Your first question, the one about the second world war. It's meant to oppose the "life is intrinsically important" question, so if it was a just war for ANYONE it would disagree with that.

Your second question: History books which could be confirmed with investigation into the places and archives relevant to those occurrences today. There were and are plenty of anthropologists digging up mass graves from genocides, and as far as I know, those death camps still exist. And it is in opposition to the statement "There is no intrinsic truth, because what it true changes depending on the culture you live in (some countries or people insist the Holocaust didn't happen)

About the first question, I figured it was implying Just War Theory, considering that WW2 is frequently the biggest discussion point because of our vast knowledge of it. Just War Theory is also a huge portion of modern philosophy. Considering that, it's easy to see that the question could be easily thought of in a "Just War Theory" context.

And as for the second, I'm well aware of that, but it didn't say anything about the truth of the holocausts existence. It asked about the validity of history books. Truth and history books don't always like to agree, and that was the point I was making. I'm not a holocaust denier, I'm just against the idea of leaving questions so open ended.

It's not actually asking about the history books, it's asking if it happened (like the verifiable ones say it did.)