Symantec: Religious Sites "Riskier Than Porn For Viruses" 343
First time accepted submitter kongshem writes "According to Symantec's annual Internet Security Threat Report, religious and ideological websites have far more security threats per infected site than adult/pornographic sites. Why is that? Symantec's theory: 'We hypothesize that this is because pornographic Web site owners already make money from the Internet and, as a result, have a vested interested in keeping their sites malware-free — it's not good for repeat business,'"
JEBUS will protect me! (Score:5, Funny)
Re:JEBUS will protect me! (Score:5, Insightful)
There have been many empires in world history that invested in religion.
Those investments are now nice tourist sites.
Go Jebus!
Re:JEBUS will protect me! (Score:5, Insightful)
There have been many empires in world history that invested in religion.
Those investments are now nice tourist sites.
Go Jebus!
Praising religion for the monuments is like praising the mafia for inspiring good movies.
Re: (Score:3)
Every religion has its plusses and minuses; you can't divorce the monumental genius of Bach from his Christian faith.
Religion is responsible for atrocities as well as brilliant works of art. It depends if the people in question listened to the hate side or to the love side. Just like everything else in life.
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bach would still have been a genius, even if he'd been an atheist.
Yeah, but who'd want to listen to a cantata [wikipedia.org] named "A Mighty Fortress is Our Random Fluctuation of the Continuum"?
Re:JEBUS will protect me! (Score:5, Informative)
> But jebus will protect me so I don't need your silly anti-virus
Jesus answered him, “It is also written: ‘Do not put the Lord your God to the test.'"
Re:JEBUS will protect me! (Score:5, Funny)
> But jebus will protect me so I don't need your silly anti-virus Jesus answered him, âoeIt is also written: âDo not put the Lord your God to the test.'"
Why would I want to test Linus?
Correction (Score:2)
But jebus will protect me so I don't need your silly anti-virus
Jesus answered him, "It is also written: 'Do not put the Lord your God to the test.' "
Why would I want to test Linus?
It was a reference to Gnu/RMS, you insensitive clod!
Re: (Score:2)
Well, RMS himself did write "Warning: taking the Church of Emacs (or any church) too seriously may be hazardous to your health." It seems fitting.
Re:JEBUS will protect me! (Score:5, Funny)
Our designer, who art in Portland,
Hallowed be thy kernel
Thy system build,
Thy will be built,
On ours, as it is on yours,
Give us this day our daily patch,
And forgive us our errors,
As we forgive them that introduce theirs,
And lead us not into closed software,
But deliver us from non-freedom,
For thine is the kernel, the sources, the glory,
For ever and ever,
Amen.
Re:JEBUS will protect me! (Score:5, Insightful)
I was going to say something along the same lines "that users feel safer" [in the house of their lord].
But I was also going to say "uhm... you think churches DON'T make money?!" They make LOTSA... tax-free money.
Re:JEBUS will protect me! (Score:4, Interesting)
But I was also going to say "uhm... you think churches DON'T make money?!" They make LOTSA... tax-free money.
Very true, but their website is not how they make their money. TFS made it clear that porn sites "already make money from the Internet and, as a result, have a vested interested in keeping their sites malware-free." If churches used a 'pay to pray' web model they too would be more inclined to make sure their websites were clean.
About a month ago one of my clients got infected by going to their church's website. I was able to verify it simply by going to the church's home page with the browser agent set to any Windows browser (instead of as a Mac).
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Re:JEBUS will protect me! (Score:4, Interesting)
I guess I'll have to RTFA, because I've never seen a church site with ads. How is this malware getting into the sites in the first place?
When you say "you think churches DON'T make money" you raise a valid point. There are churches, and there are "churches". I wouldn't doubt for a minute that you might get infected by visiting a certain Baptist church in Florida, you know, the one that openly sins at soldiers' funerals.
I'm pretty sure that many clergy are in fact in it for the money. I've always said "never trust a preacher who wears a necktie" because the tie is the symbol of wealth and power, which is mostly what Jesus preached against. If the preacher is wearing a $4000 suit, you listen to him at peril of your very soul.
Then there are churches like the one I attend. It's a big, rich church, but I don't see any of its clergy driving Escalades or wearing expensive clothing. The money mostly goes to the poor, and that's the poor everywhere. Much goes to Africa, but that's because so much of that continent is so impoverished.
Last Christmas they donated two weeks worth of groceries to any family who had a child or children in Harvard Park Elementary, the grade school in the poorest part of town, because those kids don't look forward to Christmas. Christmas is when they don't get the government-funded school lunches, and those kids normally go hungry on Christmas break.
Contrast that with Pat Robertson's church... yeah, some churches are scams. "Beware wolves in sheep's clothing."
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:JEBUS will protect me! (Score:5, Insightful)
> "I have jebus so I don't need to understand anything like technology"
You know, I normally ignore comments like this, because this is arguably off-topic. Besides, you have a right to believe as you wish, and I will defend that right. But this time, I'm going to make an exception.
It actually amuses me the number of people who insist that belief in God automatically prevents critical thinking. Or, as you imply here, that religious people are happy to be "ignorant." (Or whatever.) ANY large group of people, however you sort them, will contain a preponderance of "sheeple" (to use the most common perjorative) who are happy to let others tell them what to believe. That has ALWAYS been true.
But there are plenty of us who believe very strongly in God and admire His design in nature and want to learn more about it. Those who think this is impossible -- sorry, but I'm going to say it anyway: just because YOU are incapable of simultaneously imagining the existence of a higher power and engaging in rational, critical thinking, don't assume that everyone is as narrowminded and limited as YOU.
Of the millions of examples that I could give, I'll provide one: St. Jude's Hospital right up the road from me in Memphis. Many of the doctors and researchers there are devout believers in God, and yet they rigorously apply the scientific method to their research. They don't just pray and sing when sick kids come from treatment, they throw everything in their medical arsenal at that poor child. Further, their SCIENTIFIC research is directly credited with lowering (again, just one example of many) the survival rates of certain types of leukemia in just a few short decades. In the 70's, a child diagnosed with one of these illnesses died, period. Nowadays, the survival rates are over 90%.
All because these *BELIEVING* doctors -- people who actually (*gasp*) believe in God, no less -- are perfectly capable of applying rational, critical thinking to research and methodology. Imagine that. :)
Re:JEBUS will protect me! (Score:4, Funny)
Well that doesn't sound very nice. Not sure I'd want to see survival rates LOWERED...
Re:JEBUS will protect me! (Score:5, Insightful)
It isn't that belief in god prevents critical thinking, it is that some people use their belief as a reason to never have to apply any critical thinking. I have met more than a couple people who are like ones the GP describes, and not just related to computers. They don't take the time to understand anything, and their justification is "Jesus will protect me," or "Jesus will provide." They seems to think if they just pray hard enough, believe enough, that's all they have to do and an invisible parent will take care of everything.
It really is a childish, in the literal sense, view. As a child, you see your parents as the ones who will protect you and make things right. "Dad will protect me," is something kids can say and mean it, and children count on their parents to bail them out if they get themselves in a situation they can't solve (which is why abusive and negligent parents are so harmful to development).
That is usually something people slowly grow out of. As they are exposed to the world they start to understand that they have to be responsible for themselves, that nobody else is going to be there to protect them or look out for their self interest in all cases, so they have to take responsibility for themselves and their own life.
However some people never grow out of the mentality. It isn't their parents, but something else, religion sometimes, that they see as the parental figure that will take responsibility for things when they can't or won't.
Re:JEBUS will protect me! (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:JEBUS will protect me! (Score:5, Insightful)
I love how these threads immediately devolve into endless religion-bashing.
I haven't read the actual article, only the summary and the (few) comments here that leave the silly religion-bashing and actually try to figure out what's going on. It's actually quite simple: organizations which take their Web presence seriously will have full-time staff devoted to maintaining it properly -- be they porn, religious, political, or otherwise.
Smaller organizations will try to "roll their own" -- and I'll bet some of them are running ancient IIS or Apache installs that have never been patched. Or, if their Web presence isn't vital to them (they've only got a Website because someone told them they needed one), and especially if they're with a small-time ISP or hosting provider that only checks and patches once a year, then yes, they're going to be attacked.
It's really quite simple.
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Religions are illogical and dangerous. Theyre generally hypocritical by their own standards, so its not that much of a suprise that they're irresponsible with their computer security. Curbing their influence on modern society
Re:JEBUS will protect me! (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:JEBUS will protect me! (Score:4, Insightful)
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Modified old joke:
Guy gets viruses on his computer -- botnet, porn downloader, everything. A co-worker comes by and offers to install anti-virus. He says "no thanks I'll trust Jesus." So he keeps working, ignoring the porn pop-ups, when a friend drops by and offers to install Linux. He says "no thanks I'll trust Jesus." So he just copes with it until his boss sees his screen full of porn ads and fires him. He loses his house, his wife, everything, and dies penniless in the gutters. When he finally sees Jesu
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No he won't. But that's ok, because you're a sinner, and so you deserve all the viruses you're getting.
God only worked like that in the old testament.
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Re:JEBUS will protect me! (Score:5, Interesting)
I see you've never read the new testament. You don't have to pay for sin, sin's price was paid in blood by an innocent man. All you have to do is repent those sins and accept that innocent man's sacrifice.
You've probably never read a single word of the bible, not just the new testament. Most bible thumpers I know don't read the bible they thump. I had an argument with a former girlfriend when I mentioned that Jesus went to hell when he died, and she was outraged.
A month ago she called and apologized, seems a preacher showed her the text I had referred to.
Solution (Score:4, Informative)
If the problem is that porn sites are more heavily monetized, that means the religions need to catch up. They could offer all kinds of services online for a price -- even eternal salvation.
Some religions already offer this [subgenius.com], of course. Looks like a good deal to me!
Re:Solution (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
You have to understand this first:
Ministries do not have to report profits (in the U.S).
They are a larger industry than the p0rn industry - sadly this is very true.
I'm sure that there are sincere ministry people out there - because they
don't see the wealth of their "leaders" at the top. An exception is Family Radio,
which seems to have been bankrupt by Camping (I noticed some of their radio
stations have disappeared).
I knew someone who flew. He was telling me about all of the private jets these
ministries ow
Re:Solution (Score:4, Insightful)
Some religions?
I dare you to tell me a single religion that has not used to made money from the stup... believers.
Best scam ever, if you tell the victims about it they become mad at you.
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The less-organized ones might be a place to start on that. Some of my good friends identify as Dischordians -- if you believe Dischordianism literally you're explicitly Doing It Wrong, but there is a gestalt to be from the same, making it able to be reasonably interpreted as something more than the joke it appears on its face. (Also, having a religion which can only be adhered to if one is able to grok non-lit
Jesus loves you long time. (Score:4, Insightful)
You're kidding right? Monetisation is the backbone of all major and proselytising religions.
I think we should give porn (and other commercial sex services like prostitution) the tax free status possessed by all religions, no matter how stupid, dangerous, or just obviously fraudulent. If scientology, sleazebag televangelists and the pope can all soak the gullible for millions and not pay a cent in taxes, why shouldn't porn stars and prostitutes? At least they're honest when they lie to you.
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I refer you to the concept of "Pardoner" in the mediaeval RC church.
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Religion (Score:5, Insightful)
First they infect the children. Then they infect the computer.
Luckily a little bit of reading usually helps with the disinfection process.
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Re:Religion (Score:5, Insightful)
Could it just be that murderers are bad, regardless of their religious beliefs? Saying that trying to limit the scope of religion is bad because of Stalin is the same as saying the teachings of Jesus are bad because of the Crusades & Inquisition. Both are simply stupid.
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Don't like religion? COMMUNIST SOCIALIST HITLER!
Really, that's what you've boiled this shit down to now?
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Re:Religion (Score:4, Insightful)
Anyways, I don't mind religion being in the minds of the feeble people. I just mind those people being bale to dictate what I can do, and what my government does. Besides, the real problem isn't the flocks of idiots, it's the somewhat clever people leading those flocks.
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Yes, those guys managed to kill quite a few people. I'm not going to count who is the worst in history, but the motives are the same. Power.
Be it Mao, Stalin, Hitler, the "gods" of ancient Greece and Egypt, rulers of the middle times in Europe who sanctioned crusades, Osama on even G.W. Bush who himself declared that god has told what he must do - it is about power. And violence is a very effective way of showing that you have power. Religion - be it christian, muslim, or whatever else is just an excuse. An
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Same for sex (Score:4, Insightful)
There, someone had to say it :-)
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Fundamentalism is not sexually transmitted, it's generally passed from parent to child.
Re:Same for sex (Score:5, Funny)
Children are sexually transmitted so there's a flaw in your logic there.
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Not if you follow what fundamentalists tell their children they're not.
It's the wok of the stork jesus. Or cabbage jesus. Or something among these lines.
Re:Same for sex (Score:5, Insightful)
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It's probably more risky to have sex with religious/bigot folks than pr0n actors.
You can't have sex with religious people. You can only procreate with them, which leads to more religious people. So you don't want that.
More details? (Score:5, Interesting)
So how are they categorizing pornographic websites? What are the other 9 categories that are more "dangerous"?
Re:More details? (Score:5, Interesting)
I'd like some more detail too.
TFA specifically mentioned sites that have been hijacked. Which makes sense to me, since there can't be that many sites where the viruses are the work of the site owner - spyware is another matter entirely. Porn sites, especially pay sites, are bound to have better security than a site made by amateurs.
Which leads me to wonder why religious sites would be hijacked more frequently than other amateur operations. Are they more vulnerable due to shoddy security practices? Are they attractive to people looking to spread viruses? Do they have a reputation for attracting users who may not have antivirus software installed?
Re:More details? (Score:4, Interesting)
Are the religious sites with the most viruses perhaps connected with religions that certain governments (whose names and faces have been changed to protect the ignorant) might associate with terrorism? If so, what's the chance that these viruses are, in fact, actually cyberwarfare rather than cybercrime? Just a thought.
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That was my assumption on reading TFS. In my (admittedly limited) experience, there are an awful lot of religious sites out there that look like throw-backs to GeoCities and the golden age of MySpace profile pages. I can't imagine the well-meaning pensioners who are likely to set up their local bible study circle website is going to be that au fait with good e-security practices. You'd be lucky if they've even remembered to set an admin password.
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Hypothesis (Score:2)
Another possible explanation (Score:5, Interesting)
While their ideas may be true, by my understanding it's mainly the free porn sites that are riskiest. It used to be that they set up expensive dialers, or other ways to make money. I believe it's a way for them to make money other than by serving ads or selling subscriptions, and that actually webmasters installed that stuff on their sites. Those dialers at least tended to be called after porn sites, and actually gave (paid) access to the sites.
Dialers don't work anymore these days of course, with no-one using modems and dial-up. And maybe webmasters have cleaned up their act too.
Now those religious sites, they are usually set up by people with a passion - to spread a certain message, about a religion or otherwise, and that are often people with little or no knowledge on setting up a website and keeping it malware free. As such I would expect such sites to be a relatively soft target for malware attackers, that then use the site to distribute their wares without the webmaster knowing. A very different scenario.
That porn sites are often in it for the money, will definitely also help. At least they'll have someone around that knows how to secure a web site.
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My favourite theory about porn-site viruses is that they rely on the shame factor- you're far less likely to haul your laptop into PC World's Repair Centre and admit you got stung downloading embarrassing quantities of videos featuring men in nappies being ridden like a horse than you are if you got stung reading some cookery website.
What that says about people's opinion of religious websites I couldn't possibly comment.
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Mormons are anti-science. Which is strange considering their time-traveling/interplanetary celestial origins. Then again you never see Superman on a computer. Actually I remember Supes destroying a giant computer in Superman III. Wait.. Is Superman a Mormon?
Condoms (Score:3, Informative)
Think of the women and children (Score:2, Funny)
Re: (Score:3)
Ahh, Conservapedia. The only way to vandalise CP is to post facts.
It really makes me sad, sometimes, that these people exist -- but I'm glad they're allowed to express their retarded, deranged opinions freely and without fear of retribution... because it allows everyone to see what twats they really are.
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I don't let myself read Conservapedia articles on topics I actually care about anymore. That includes some of their math articles, most of their science articles, and all of their gay articles. It makes me too angry to be unable to correct their ridiculousness. As an example, here's a gem from the Elementary Proof article:
elementary proofs minimize the underlying assumptions, as in avoiding the assumption that there is a unique, algebraically manipulable square root of negative one
(-1 has two square roots, -i and i, not one; the construction of the complex numbers from the real numbers is basic and entails no extra assumptions in standard formulations.)
Andy Schlafly
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Actually, I think that in line with Poe's law, they have by now accidentally banned all serious users and the remaining trolls are running the show. Makes no difference of course.
Regarding the porn article - one should point the to the fact that they accidentally agree with some feminists in that regard. It'll be hysterical!
Re:Think of the women and children (Score:4, Funny)
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"pornography leads to terrible crimes against women"
Gay porn doesn't. I'm sure "The Trustworthy Encyclopedia" mentions this somewhere, or soon will :).
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any history or development on subjects focus solely on American aspects.
Actually that's part of the point. From their Quick Reference [conservapedia.com] page,
Conservapedia articles' tone, style, and content should be written with an American, conservative and/or Christian orientation or focus.
Is that a meme or a computer virus? (Score:2)
Religious Sites "Riskier Than Porn For Viruses"
Is that the risk of a meme or a computer virus?
Original report (Score:5, Informative)
It is interesting to note that Web sites hosting adult/pornographic content are not in the top five, but ranked tenth. The full list can be seen in figure 16. Moreover, religious and ideological sites were found to have triple the average number of threats per infected site than adult/pornographic sites. We hypothesize that this is because pornographic website owners already make money from the internet and, as a result, have a vested interest in keeping their sites malware-free – it’s not good for repeat business.
Figure 16, interestingly, does not show religious and ideological sites, I assume it is grouped with "Education/Reference". The full top 10 is
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Wait. Triple the average number of threats per infected site doesn't mean that you're more likely to get a virus by visiting one of those sites; it means that you're more likely to get multiple infections from a site that is infected, but that is not the same thing at all. You might get a similar result if 99% of all religious sites were safe, but each of the other 1% had every virus and worm in the wild, for example - infections per bad site are extreme, but you'd still be 99% safe visiting those kinds o
Makes sense to me. (Score:2)
Click here if you love jesus! [viruses-are-us.net] is pretty likely to get a good number of hits on a religious site -- similarly for Obama haters (or lovers). It's a reflex action that will get these people in some really hot water.
Porn site users, on the other hand, are a bit more jaded.
FUD (Score:2)
Rather than trying to keep in mind which sites not to visit you could just upgrade your browser to a version that can't be hacked by a website. Of course, AV companies would get far less money without naive people believing their FUD.
Re: (Score:2)
A browser that can't/won't download an .exe is a poor way of implementing security.
so that means slashdot is infecting me right now? (Score:2)
Since I've been 'religiously' reading slashdot for over a decade now, incalculably more regularly than I've gone to church, shall I assume that slashdot is likely delivering me malware right now?
Seriously, since CmdrTaco left, and to be honest, many years prior to that and the recent SlashBI goodness, things have been going way downhill. This past year I've still skimmed each 600+ post global warming article, because it seems important enough, and the slashdot flamefests, despite the signal to noise ratio,
So by deduction (Score:2)
voluntary vs commercial (Score:3)
Often the equipment has been donated as well, and so is usually not particularly modern either.
The website design is usually managed by a committee, as is the choice of hosting provider, and costs are kept to a minimum.
The net result is that once the web site is finally done, it may be neglected, or someone inherits the responsibility for it who knows little about its history, and might be more secretarial than technical. Thus security updates get neglected, and quite often there are many user accounts with weak passwords.
Actual Symantec report: nothing like reporting (Score:5, Informative)
The Symantec report, the Internet Security Threat Report, 2011 Trends, did not say what the article in the OP claims.
The actual report is here: http://www.symantec.com/content/en/us/enterprise/other_resources/b-istr_main_report_2011_21239364.en-us.pdf [symantec.com] . Page 33 of the report, the only discussion of religion, states
"religious and ideological sites were found to have triple the average number of threats per infected site than
adult/pornographic sites."
Three points:
1. The report lumps religious and ideological sites together. Maybe the infected sites were ideological (non-religious) sites. You cannot conclude anything about religious sites at all from that statistic.
2. The report implies nothing about the safety of religious/ideological sites. It just says that if a religious/ideological site is infected, then it has more threats on average than an infected adult site. If the percentage of religious/ideological sites that are infected is lower than the percentage of adult sites that are infected, then religious/ideological sites could be much safer on average. Indeed, figure 16 on page 36 of the report doesn't list religous/ideological sites as dangerous. The point is that the safety of religious/ideological sites as a whole must account for uninfected sites. The "number of threats per infected site" is just about irrelevant.
3. If there is any limit to the gullibility or statistical illiteracy of internet users, I have yet to perceive it.
Riskier than *legitimate* porn (Score:2)
It's Because... (Score:2)
Not surprising (Score:2)
Vatican excepted right? (Score:2)
Anonymous did DDOS against it but I think failed to penetrate. Some religious groups take security more seriously than others.
Daily Bible Guide (Score:3)
Re:Dawkins/GODSPOT-0DAY (Score:4, Interesting)
Indeed, atheism has as little support in science as theism. Agnosticism is the only scientific viewpoint.
Re:Dawkins/GODSPOT-0DAY (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't agree. Agnosticism is just weak atheism, and only relevant if you ascribe special importance to some religions and their gods. Otherwise, what's the point of being agnostic about EVERYTHING you can't know whether it exists or not? It's nonsense. "Oh, I'm an agnostic about the invisible pink unicorn (blessed be her holy hooves), and about Kropal the mighty God of Making Holes in Socks, and about Thor and about Klaatu and about Mohammed and about Jesus and about Cats being the avatars of our master race and about ...".
Anyone who can seriously invent a god and then say that the only scientific viewpoint is to be agnostic about it (because you know, who knows, right?), is just hiding behind their mother's skirts.
Re:Dawkins/GODSPOT-0DAY (Score:5, Informative)
It is not even that. Atheism and Agnosticism exist on orthogonal axes. Theism and Atheism make ontological statements about the existence resp. nonexistence of deities. Agnosticism, on the other hand, makes an epistemological statement about the possibility to know about said existence. It is perfectly possible to be an agnostic theist as well as an agnostic atheist.
As for the scientific validity - in absence of evidence, the default assumption is non-existence. It is simple as that. Do we need that debate every single fucking time the weekly religion vs. atheism thread pops up?
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As for the scientific validity - in absence of evidence, the default assumption is non-existence. It is simple as that. Do we need that debate every single fucking time the weekly religion vs. atheism thread pops up?
Probably, because science in this case is a lot like a court of law - the only people that are guilty are those who have been proven beyond a reasonable doubt, but we know there's a lot more people that have actually committed crimes. In the same way many people think there's a lot more between heaven and earth than science has proven, that God makes a prod here and a pull there but never something you can pin down in a lab because he'd know and won't perform tricks on command like a trained dog. I guess th
Re:Dawkins/GODSPOT-0DAY (Score:5, Insightful)
I would like to see it please.
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What are you if you answer "I am extremely sure there is no deity, but who can be 100% sure at the end of the day? If it turns out there is one, then cool, I'll eat humble pie, but until that point, 'no'!"?
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Agnosticism is just weak atheism,
I agree. It has a bit of a scientific flavor but it's rubbish.
There's another distinction that needs to be made though Most atheists are antitheists and usually against religion. They are believers in not-God. Atheism is also typically a reaction to christianity. Just read the piece "Roman Catholic Atheist" [skeptic.com] about how weird it is that Freeman Dyson goes to church. Contrast this with how acceptable the idea is of an atheist Jew in a synagogue.
An atheist in the more l
Re:Dawkins/GODSPOT-0DAY (Score:5, Informative)
If you are interested in forming a more accurate picture of Dawkins rather than parroting the Fox and Friends charactature that is so popular in the US, the first of his books with a religious theme that I would recommend is "Unweaving the Rainbow".
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Dawkin's has on many occasions stated in plain english that neither he nor anyone else can be absolutely sure that unicorns don't fart rainbows, but that there is absolutely zero evidence to suggest that unverifyable reports of such beasts are anything more than an elaborate fiction.
An often used argument but not a valid one. There are many reason why this or Russel's Teapot is not a valid analogy to the belief in god.
1. Unverifiable reports? You rarely hear people reporting unicorns but I never heard anyone reporting a unicorn farting rainbows or a teapots in space. There are however a huge amount of people claiming some religious experience. Sure, this can possibly be all be bogus but this sure is a reason to investigate religious claims much more seriously then claims of farting uni
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interesting how every single one of the symptoms described applies to Atheists as much as any of the faiths Dawkins intends to deride.
Yeah - except for the ones that talk about evidence though, right?
Re:Dawkins/GODSPOT-0DAY (Score:5, Informative)
Well, let's see
It is impelled by some deep, inner conviction that something is true, or right, or virtuous: a conviction that doesn't seem to owe anything to evidence or reason, but which, nevertheless, the believer feels as totally compelling and convincing.
Atheist is impelled by conviction fuelled by external evidence, or lack of evidence. It's incredibly compelling to note that the two largest theist franchises claim their deity possesses three qualities - omnipotence, omniscience, and benevolence - and that the state of the world is completely at odds with any entity with all three qualities existing. It's also compelling to note that the more we discover about the universe, the more things we discover that work just fine without any kind of deity.
The believer typically makes a positive virtue of faith's being strong and unshakable, despite it not being based upon evidence.
Atheists don't make a positive virtue of unshakable faith. If anything we use this as an argument ad-hominem about how childish theists are. If you proved that a particular deity existed with actual evidence, most of us would probably a) pee ourselves b) recant our position.
There is a conviction that "mystery", per se, is a good thing; the belief that it is not a virtue to solve mysteries but to enjoy them and revel in their insolubility.
Many of the the most prominent atheists in the media are scientists, a kind of person who by definition delves into mysteries to see how they actually work. I personally find that atheism arises most in those with a questioning mind, the kind of mind that finds that understanding, for example, how the transition of electrons through particular quantum states governs the colour of the light emitted, does not diminish the beauty of phenomena like their aurora borealis, but instead enhances it.
There may be intolerant behaviour towards perceived rival faiths, in extreme cases even the killing of opponents or advocating of their deaths. Believers may be similarly violent in disposition towards apostates or heretics, even if those espouse only a slightly different version of the faith.
We're intolerant of unpleasant behaviour in general (giving the lie to the theistic argument that an atheist can have no moral foundation). We are particularly angered when such behaviour is justified on the basis of faith. Objectively, being a religious asshat is not worse than being a standard asshat, but we observe that religion has a tendency to nurture and encourage asshattery of certain types, and even for asshats it did not create, it provides a readily accessible stock of cherry-picked excuses and justifications for asshattery, whereas a faithless man might have fallen back on his conscience, or fear of the law.
The particular convictions that the believer holds, while having nothing to do with evidence, are likely to resemble those of the believer's parents.
I don't think this can be disputed - atheist parents are more likely to have atheist kids. This is nothing to do with religion per-se, this is an observation about culture in general.
If the believer is one of the rare exceptions who follows a different religion from his parents, the explanation may be cultural transmission from a charismatic individual.
Another observation about culture and how it's transmitted, but it fits in with the "viral ideas" theory. Ideas ARE viral, and we invent new transmission vectors like Twitter, and hashtags.
The internal sensations of the 'faith-sufferer' may be reminiscent of those more ordinarily associated with sexual love.
I don't think atheists have a woody for the absence of a deity. I don't think you can be sexually excited about the absence of something. I think atheists, just like everyone else, can have displacement of their sexual urges in a fetishi
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Several of the arguments you're making do not hold up.
Atheist is impelled by conviction fuelled by external evidence, or lack of evidence. It's incredibly compelling to note that the two largest theist franchises claim their deity possesses three qualities - omnipotence, omniscience, and benevolence - and that the state of the world is completely at odds with any entity with all three qualities existing. It's also compelling to note that the more we discover about the universe, the more things we discover that work just fine without any kind of deity.
Your first assertion is the equivalent of the common, "why would a perfect god allow X?" That is not a refutation of the existence of God. It suggests that God doesn't exist OR we have an imperfect understanding of either God or the universe. The second point is a note that there is a lack of evidence, which again doesn't point one way or the other.
Atheists don't make a positive virtue of unshakable faith. If anything we use this as an argument ad-hominem about how childish theists are. If you proved that a particular deity existed with actual evidence, most of us would probably a) pee ourselves b) recant our position.
You claim that if real proof of God's existence were offered then most Atheists would recant their position
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It suggests that God doesn't exist OR we have an imperfect understanding of either God or the universe.
A perfect reason to reject that particular *religion* then. If power supernatural sentience exists, both the atheist and the theist have their description of the universe wrong. As it happens, the atheist position may make assumptions about the non-existence of god - you can't, as you rightly point out, prove a negative - but the observable universe does not disagree with his position on the nature of God.
From the evidential POV, atheism and agnosticism are equal to a theistic stance which believes that God
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A perfect reason to reject that particular *religion* then.
Yes. But which religion is that particular religion? There are some naive versions of Christianity which you can reject using that argument, however most versions provide a solution of the "problem of evil". E.g.: By limiting the omnipotence. If your definition of God is "omnipotence, omniscience, and benevolence", then you could even call them atheists, because they don't believe in such a being, but instead something very close to it. Or if you look at more recent theologians, e.g. Dietrich Bonhoeffer:
The God who makes us live in this world without using him as a working hypothesis is the God before whom we are ever standing. Before God and with him we live without God. God allows himself to be edged out of the world and on to the cross. God is weak and powerless in the world, and that is exactly the way, the only way, in which he can be with us and help us. Matthew 8: 17 makes it crystal clear that it is not by his omnipotence that Christ helps us, but by his weakness and suffering.
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The second point is a note that there is a lack of evidence, which again doesn't point one way or the other.
There's also a lack of evidence for many other things, but we don't believe them. Making a categorical statement that something does not exist is, in my opinion, a little pointless. Most atheists do not seek to prove god does not exist. They just point out there's no compelling evidence for god, just as there is no compelling evidence for the billions of other things we do not believe in.
The ide
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How so? Let's look at them one-by-one.
1. Deep conviction of truth without evidence. Atheists in general have so such conviction. Atheism is the absence of belief, not an alternative belief. 0 points.
2. Unshakable faith. Most atheists and certainly most atheist scholars argue against dogmatism and in favor of evidence-based belief and decision making. 0 points.
3. Mystery as such is inherently good. I'm going to skip this one; ascribing it to atheists seems "not even wrong." 0 points.
4. Intolerant beha