Hawking says there are no gods

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Porpoise of Life said:
Sure, science can conclude that every testable claim about gods is wrong, and that there has never been any evidence for the existence of gods, but how dare they infer anything about the existence of gods based on that?
Only wizards theologians can do that!
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My answer to that, though, and for that matter to Joe's excellent point, is that most of the same people won't accept the same standards apply to anything else. My canonical example is that if I came to them and told that Xnorg The Destroyer is emperor of the universe and I'm his tax collector, so they should wire their taxes to my account, most people will want to see some proof. They won't go "ah, I can't disprove that, so let's."

But take even more metaphysical claims. Imagine I told them that there are fractal dragons, who are both infinite and small enough to make themselves unseen. And that there's a race of invisible elves in my fridge that are all that keeps the fractal dragons at bay. Oh, and they're the ones who turn the fridge light on and off too. And I know that because a ghost (a holy one, no less) told me how to read between the lines of an old religious text and take fragments out of context and replace words with my own. And yeah, you need to be a wizard to disprove that. I have my old ex-GFs testimony that I'm a wizard, so who are you to have an opinion on it?

I think most will just think that I need medication.

I also think that most of them would quite instinctively understand that the onus is on me to provide the evidence there. And that there is no requirement for anyone to believe my crazy dragon stories unless such evidence is presented. They can and should just go with the null hypothesis that, until proven otherwise, the noble race of fridge elves don't actually exist.

All I'm saying is that I don't know why it comes across as so unreasonable when I apply the same criterion to their zombie overlord who can give you eternal undeath too, if you just swear fealty to him. I mean, of course, the Lich King. Err... I mean, Jesus.
 
HansMustermann said:
Science is a method, not some arbitrary establishment that decides what's right and wrong.

I'll whip out that Vince Ebert definition again: "The Scientific Method is, simply put, just a way to test suppositions. If I supposed for example 'there might be beer in the fridge' and go look in the fridge, I'm already doing science. Big difference from Theology. There they don't usually test suppositions. If I just assume 'There is beer in the fridge' then I'm a theologian. If I go look, I'm a scientist. And if I go look, find nothing inside, and still insist that there's beer in the fridge, that's esoteric."

For reference, he IS a physicist turned comedian.
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I know he is a comedian, but that "there might be beer in the fridge" isn't a theological question. Theology is defined as (among other definitions):

n. The study of the nature of God and religious truth; rational inquiry into religious questions.
n. A system or school of opinions concerning God and religious questions​

So theological questions might be "ought there be beer in the fridge?" "what are the moral considerations of beer being or not being in the fridge?" These are questions science can't answer AFAICS.

That's the distinction between science and theological questions. That some religious traditions confuse the boundaries is true, but "the earth is 6000 years old" is not a theological question. The answer has theological implications however.
 
HansMustermann said:
For reference, he IS a physicist turned comedian.
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Few years back Randall Munroe, creator of XKCD, got behind on the strip due to his fiance battling breast cancer, so he had a week of guest artist strips which included Bill Amend, creator of FoxTrot, who has a degree in physics from Amherst College and Zach Weinersmith, creator of Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal, who has a degree in physics from San Jose State which cause Munroe, who has a degree in physics from Christopher Newport University to lampshade the fact that so many comic artists have degrees in physics.
 
GDon said:
I know he is a comedian, but that "there might be beer in the fridge" isn't a theological question. Theology is defined as (among other definitions):

n. The study of the nature of God and religious truth; rational inquiry into religious questions.
n. A system or school of opinions concerning God and religious questions​
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Meaningless. You can't define and categorize your way into not having answers or making sense.

I can't say you owe me 20 bucks and make up a new form of economics that I define as "Questions about the 20 bucks you owe me" as proof of my original statement.
 
GDon said:
I know he is a comedian, but that "there might be beer in the fridge" isn't a theological question. Theology is defined as (among other definitions):

n. The study of the nature of God and religious truth; rational inquiry into religious questions.
n. A system or school of opinions concerning God and religious questions​

So theological questions might be "ought there be beer in the fridge?" "what are the moral considerations of beer being or not being in the fridge?" These are questions science can't answer AFAICS.

That's the distinction between science and theological questions. That some religious traditions confuse the boundaries is true, but "the earth is 6000 years old" is not a theological question. The answer has theological implications however.
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Maybe. But

a) just because a domain is concerned with something else than whatever an example was about, doesn't mean you can't apply the same methods. E.g., equally I could say that economics is concerned with money not beer, and law is concerned with rules and punishments not beer, therefore you can't apply skepticism to my claim that I'm legally entitled to collect taxes on behalf of Xnorg The Destroyer. Just being able to name a domain doesn't make it special.

and

b) I put forward the thesis that most people don't actually seem opposed to applying the scientific method to religion too. Just as long as it's not theirs.

E.g., practically all Christians will go for the more parsimonious explanation for the Quran, than actually believing that an archangel dictated God's own words to Muhammad (pbuh) in a cave. I mean, if they actually believed that claim without any other evidence, they'd be Muslims, right?

E.g., virtually all Christians will disbelieve the miracles of Sathya Sai Baba, or for that matter his miraculous conception. They will have no problems even dismissing the many contemporary accounts from eye witnesses (which is more than we have for Jesus, btw) as unreliable biased sources, and go for the null hypothesis as long as better evidence doesn't present itself. I mean, they'd be Hindu if they actually thought that guy was actually all that.

Etc.

And that opens an important door. Because once you can be skeptical even of ONE religion, let alone ALL but one religion, then arguing that just one is exempt from that is really just special pleading.
 
HansMustermann said:
Maybe. But

a) just because a domain is concerned with something else than whatever an example was about, doesn't mean you can't apply the same methods. E.g., equally I could say that economics is concerned with money not beer, and law is concerned with rules and punishments not beer, therefore you can't apply skepticism to my claim that I'm legally entitled to collect taxes on behalf of Xnorg The Destroyer. Just being able to name a domain doesn't make it special.
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Not "special", rather "relevant" and "irrelevant". Legalities, economics, science and theology may all be at play at some point.

CS Lewis once wrote that if you put a dollar a day in a drawer, and if after 10 days you find you only have 5 dollars, then it isn't the laws of mathematics that has been broken, but the laws of England. It doesn't mean either is "special", just what is relevant. You might argue that theological questions are never relevant; that's an opinion rather than a scientific conclusion.

HansMustermann said:
and

b) I put forward the thesis that most people don't actually seem opposed to applying the scientific method to religion too. Just as long as it's not theirs.
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Again, it comes to relevancy: the question of "is" vs "ought" doesn't seem to be in the science sphere, though Sam Harris might disagree. Even so, I'd argue that questions of "ought" are very important, even if not susceptible to scientific experimentation.

HansMustermann said:
And that opens an important door. Because once you can be skeptical even of ONE religion, let alone ALL but one religion, then arguing that just one is exempt from that is really just special pleading.
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I don't know anyone who claims that a religion is exempt from skepticism or scientific examination. Faith statements, yes, but those are statements that are outside scientific examination in the first place.

But no-one thinks their religion gets a pass on factual claims. Even Young Earth Creationists think that their beliefs in a young earth are supported by science.
 
LarryS said:
He and others have expressed their opinions on what constitutes 'science' - and people can decide where on the continuum they fall. There is no right/wrong answer here. If there was a right/wrong answer - that answer would have to be provided by philosophy and not science.
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Can you give me an example of where “philosophy" where philosophy can give one of these right / wrong answers?
 
HansMustermann said:
My canonical example is that if I came to them and told that Xnorg The Destroyer is emperor of the universe and I'm his tax collector, so they should wire their taxes to my account, most people will want to see some proof. They won't go "ah, I can't disprove that, so let's."
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And yet this is exactly what all churches do. They call it a tithe and many parishioners pay it. So it may work out for you after all!



Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
Darat said:
Then you can't see color.
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You see a color and you feel hate. Science can explain the physical correlates of vision and hate. They are two different things. That's why psychology keeps talking about the mind and presumably it will keep talking for a long time.

This does not imply that my impressions are metaphysical things, but that the level of explanation of science doesn't deal with such a thing as a subjective feelings. Probably neural excitation and subjective impressions are different ways of talking about the same thing. But we need to make this distinction.
 
Funny how the guy who is so adamant that it only counts as scientific if what is discussed is literally published in a peer reviewed journal claims his informal brand of unpublished off the cuff philosophy is perfectly valid.
 
Porpoise of Life said:
Funny how the guy who is so adamant that it only counts as scientific if what is discussed is literally published in a peer reviewed journal claims his informal brand of unpublished off the cuff philosophy is perfectly valid.
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There is no contradiction. Requirements to consider something as scientific must be rigorous because scientific method is rigorous. If we want lower levels of rigour we can content ourselves with less rigorous requirements. "Perfectly" valid I don't know what it is. Too vague. What level of validity do you mean?
 
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Here is a university educated person about being right:
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/shift-mind/201103/why-is-it-so-important-be-right

One of the most prevalent - and damaging - themes in our culture is the need to be right. It's one of those essential memes that we take for granted. It is so deeply embedded in our belief system and in our collective psyche that we never even pause to consider it. ...
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Now here is how it works down to 2 individuals and not just in this thread:
Someone to someone else: You are wrong.
Someone else: I don't care about your version of right and wrong anymore, because I have learned to do it differently.

That is it. We are doing culture and I do it outside mainstream western culture.
So here it is for the collective answers about what happens if someone is wrong:
  • You die. You test that and answer no and notice that you didn't die.
  • You are not in reality. You test that by noticing that you must be in reality, because they keep over time telling you that you are not in reality, but that requires for them to answer you, so you are in reality.
  • You are not thinking. You test that by noticing that in order for you to question whether you are thinking, it requires that you are thinking.
  • You are a lot of negatives. You test that by noticing you can't observe a negative. All negatives are not concrete and only happen in a mind. The same is so for them, they can't observe that you are a negative unless you experience one. Since you don't experience a negative, it must be in them that the negative takes place and they are projecting it on you.

I had to question it, because to the mainstream I am wrong because I am different qua being a special need persons. There are things I can't do that a normal person can do and that makes me wrong to them.
You all, who answer to that effect, are them. You are inside western culture and I am outside.
I have been that since around 10 years old and I have learned to cope:
I am wrong as a fact and I am proud of that, because I still have a life. You didn't win, because I am still here.

QED
 
David Mo said:
There is no contradiction. Requirements to consider something as scientific must be rigorous because scientific method is rigorous. If we want lower levels of rigour we can content ourselves with less rigorous requirements. "Perfectly" valid I don't know what it is. Too vague. What level of validity do you mean?
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"No, you have to hold yourself to these arbitrary standards, even though you claim that's not how the field works, whereas I don't have to apply any standards because I say so."

A nice succinct summary of the thread I suppose...
 
Tommy Jeppesen said:
Here is a university educated person about being right:
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/shift-mind/201103/why-is-it-so-important-be-right



Now here is how it works down to 2 individuals and not just in this thread:
Someone to someone else: You are wrong.
Someone else: I don't care about your version of right and wrong anymore, because I have learned to do it differently.

That is it. We are doing culture and I do it outside mainstream western culture.
So here it is for the collective answers about what happens if someone is wrong:
  • You die. You test that and answer no and notice that you didn't die.
  • You are not in reality. You test that by noticing that you must be in reality, because they keep over time telling you that you are not in reality, but that requires for them to answer you, so you are in reality.
  • You are not thinking. You test that by noticing that in order for you to question whether you are thinking, it requires that you are thinking.
  • You are a lot of negatives. You test that by noticing you can't observe a negative. All negatives are not concrete and only happen in a mind. The same is so for them, they can't observe that you are a negative unless you experience one. Since you don't experience a negative, it must be in them that the negative takes place and they are projecting it on you.

I had to question it, because to the mainstream I am wrong because I am different qua being a special need persons. There are things I can't do that a normal person can do and that makes me wrong to them.
You all, who answer to that effect, are them. You are inside western culture and I am outside.
I have been that since around 10 years old and I have learned to cope:
I am wrong as a fact and I am proud of that, because I still have a life. You didn't win, because I am still here.

QED
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Sure, you could mix up the definition of wrong meaning 'factually incorrect' and the version meaning 'dismissive value judgment', and use that obfuscation to call people bullies for calling your statements incorrect.
It's just a very dishonest tactic...
 
Porpoise of Life said:
Sure, you could mix up the definition of wrong meaning 'factually incorrect' and the version meaning 'dismissive value judgment', and use that obfuscation to call people bullies for calling your statements incorrect.
It's just a very dishonest tactic...
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There are no facts outside your mind, because all facts are based on rules. So say that I am factually wrong in the strong sense mean that I can't do something. But I can, I can thinking differently than you and thus it is fact in both cases. You are as a fact different than me and I am as a fact different than you, so neither of us can be factually wrong.

What you are saying is that I use the wrong rule, but to say that I use the wrong rule is not a judgement of a fact. It is a judgement between 2 rules, yours and mine and based on your rule my rule is wrong. That is not science. That is morality, because I ought to use your rule and not mine.

The joke is that if it is a fact that I am wrong, I can't be factually wrong, because it is a fact. For that to be case I both have to be wrong and not to be wrong.
So you decide. If it is a fact, what I am wrong, it must be with reason, logic and evidence/truth that it is so. So you have just stated a fact, so what is the problem? It is a fact, that I am wrong and gravity is a fact.
But in effect that is that not what is going. What is going on it that you want me to become like you and I point out that I don't have to:
That is it. We are doing culture and I do it outside mainstream western culture.
So here it is for the collective answers about what happens if someone is wrong:
  • You die. You test that and answer no and notice that you didn't die.
  • You are not in reality. You test that by noticing that you must be in reality, because they keep over time telling you that you are not in reality, but that requires for them to answer you, so you are in reality.
  • You are not thinking. You test that by noticing that in order for you to question whether you are thinking, it requires that you are thinking.
  • You are a lot of negatives. You test that by noticing you can't observe a negative. All negatives are not concrete and only happen in a mind. The same is so for them, they can't observe that you are a negative unless you experience one. Since you don't experience a negative, it must be in them that the negative takes place and they are projecting it on you.

I know, you get it differently than me and you know that I don't get it, because I am factually wrong.
But I am still here and all of you still have answered so far, so I can't be dead. I am connected to reality, because reality answers in a meaningful manner and I know this, so I am thinking and I am not a negative, because it makes sense to me.
 
Tommy Jeppesen said:
There are no facts outside your mind.
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And how do you know this?

"There are no facts" is a statement of facts. How do you know the idea that there are no fact isn't just in your head?

Again this is the problem with your insane "If I just say everything is right, nothing is wrong, and everything said is the same I'm magically right." It's self-contradictory.

You're asking us to accept absolute randomness as dogma. You (and David as well) are demanding we accept your "Every body lives in their own individual self realized fantasy land" as absolute truth so you can dismiss everything else everyone else says.
 
JoeMorgue said:
And how do you know this?
...
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Because I can't see facts! I have experiences of the "outside", but if I call that facts, that is a rule in my mind.
All cases of epistemology are in effect different rules of how to understand experience.
Epistemology: the theory of knowledge, especially with regard to its methods, validity, and scope, and the distinction between justified belief and opinion.

To justify is in the mind. You can't see, hold(tangible) or otherwise observe as independent of your mind your justifications.
My point is that we share some and are different for others. For those, where we are different, I am wrong to you, but you still haven't given any justification independent of your mind, because you haven't told me, how you observe, that I am wrong. I am objective to you, so you only know of me, through observation, so how do you know, that I am wrong?
You don't and I accept that you do it differently that me, because I accept that to you, I am wrong. I truly accept that. I just don't accept it myself, because I have found no evidence/observation of it and thus have no justification.

You want science!!! Here it is:
One of the most prevalent - and damaging - themes in our culture is the need to be right. It's one of those essential memes that we take for granted. It is so deeply embedded in our belief system and in our collective psyche that we never even pause to consider it.
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https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/shift-mind/201103/why-is-it-so-important-be-right

I had to pause to consider right and wrong to have a life, because I am outside normal western culture reason, logic and evidence, because I am a special needs person. For some part of me, I am without normal western culture reason, logic and evidence and I live that every day so to have a life, I had to learn this:
I am wrong and I am proud of it, because I still have a life despite being wrong.
That is the psychology of being different and I have mastered that. If I hadn't, I would be dead; so heavily drugged and/or really out of my mind, that I couldn't do this. I can, because I am wrong and I am proud of it, because I still have a life despite being wrong.

I really mean this: I sincerely hope you have a good enough life and that you can cope. I just don't have your life for some differences and I accept, that you don't accept the differences.
Regards
 
Porpoise of Life said:
"No, you have to hold yourself to these arbitrary standards, even though you claim that's not how the field works, whereas I don't have to apply any standards because I say so."

A nice succinct summary of the thread I suppose...
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No. This is a summary of what you think you understood.
In any case, if you have other less arbitrary criteria, it would be a good idea to put them here. We could compare them. That is how a debate works.
 
JoeMorgue said:
Insulting gibberish.
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1.2 Empiricism
Empiricists endorse the following claim for some subject area.

The Empiricism Thesis: We have no source of knowledge in S or for the concepts we use in S other than sense experience.
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https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/rationalism-empiricism/#Empi

So how do you know that I am wrong, translates to: What are your sense experiences?
Please state those. You know, give evidence for your claim, other than just stating it. You have stated a fact, now back it up with evidence.
 
Tommy, you need to fix the goalposts in one place. They are floating about untethered in your open sea of a mind.

Of course no one can prove anything to you when the posts keep moving randomly. Not by documented science nor by even philosophy.
 
8enotto said:
Tommy, you need to fix the goalposts in one place. They are floating about untethered in your open sea of a mind.

Of course no one can prove anything to you when the posts keep moving randomly. Not by documented science nor by even philosophy.
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The goal posts are as follows:
  • Physical facts.
  • Social facts(biology as culture).
  • Moral facts(biological behavior in and between humans).
  • Metaphysics(the holy grain of what reality really is and in effect is a belief).
  • What matters or rather how reality matters in practice and is useful.

The end point is that they can't reduce what matters down to pure objective physical facts/knowledge/what ever.
That is it.
What matters to them, is different to me. Even if I am factually wrong, it is morality to claim that I ought to stop being factually wrong.

Here is how that goes:
They have the factually correct behavior.
I have the factually incorrect behavior.
Therefore I ought to stop and do as they do.

The problem is, that it is a fact, as they themselves point out, that I do a factually incorrect behavior and I keep asking them this: If it is a fact, that I am doing factually incorrect behavior, what is the problem?

Note factually incorrect behavior is not just about me, that pertains to religion, politics, what science is, morality, Woo, CT and what not.
I am just standing on goal for all the factually wrong humans and ask the scientists, the following question: If this is a general fact for a lot of humans. what they are factually wrong, how can that be a problem, because it is fact!!!
And as science goes, they can't point to a scientific law/theory of being factually correct versus being factually incorrect, because they are doing morality.

Even if it is a fact, there are no gods, it is a fact, that some people believe in that and all they reply with is not science. It is morality.
It is wrong to believe without evidence or being factually wrong. The problem is that the sentence itself is without evidence.
 
Tommy Jeppesen said:
What matters to them, is different to me. Even if I am factually wrong, it is morality to claim that I ought to stop being factually wrong.

Here is how that goes:
They have the factually correct behavior.
I have the factually incorrect behavior.
Therefore I ought to stop and do as they do.

(...)

"It is wrong to believe without evidence or being factually wrong."
The problem is that the sentence itself is without evidence.
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This is a really simple if not useful position. I'm really not at all understanding why so many posters are arguing across Tommy or disgusted with him. The ESL word salad gets opaque at times. His philosophical point is so simple that he can't be under-qualified to make it, and nobody else can argue with it no matter what their qualifications are. Same goes for his starting premise that he can only experience the world through his senses. So he enjoys navel-gazing, so what?
 
David Mo said:
Drug manfacturers make drugs scientifically tested. The efficacity of the drug is usually comented in medical journals or registered in medical institutions.
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Not necessarily.

Dancing David said:
I don't know what account of Goldrace's book is science and what is philosophy because he is expert in both things and usually he do both. I suppose that some items in the Goldacre's books are scientific because you can find them in scientific papers. For ore precision we should read the book.
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None of it is philosophy. Did you also miss what I said: negative results don't get published thus skewing meta analyses.

He has suggested a solution that all medical studies be registered at the outset so a record of the non-published research is kept.


@Mo
If you don't get that, just ask. Don't make **** up to fit your bizarro belief about what research does and does not get published.
 
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Skeptic Ginger said:
Not necessarily.

None of it is philosophy. Did you also miss what I said: negative results don't get published thus skewing meta analyses.

He has suggested a solution that all medical studies be registered at the outset so a record of the non-published research is kept.


@Mo
If you don't get that, just ask. Don't make **** up to fit your bizarro belief about what research does and does not get published.
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I'm not saying that a scientist could be researching something without publishing it. I'm talking about how we know if a subject has been the subject of scientific studies or not.

If a pharmacist tells you that it is scientifically proven that prayer cures cancer, how do you know if it is true that there is a scientific study on the subject? Just because the pharmacist tell you that? In my country drug manufacturers ought to test and register its products before commercialize them. Is it not so in your country?

How can you tell whether a specific topic has been scientifically investigated or not?

If you answer this question, perhaps we can return to the original topic.

By the way, I don't like to dance.
 
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David Mo said:
I'm not saying that a scientist could be researching something without publishing it. I'm talking about how we know if a subject has been the subject of scientific studies or not.

If a pharmacist tells you that it is scientifically proven that prayer cures cancer, how do you know if it is true that there is a scientific study on the subject? Just because the pharmacist tell you that? In my country drug manufacturers ought to test and register its products before commercialize them. Is it not so in your country?

How can you tell whether a specific topic has been scientifically investigated or not?
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I think you are moving some goalposts, here. Suddenly it is not about whether something is scientific, but about how that is verified. And in this case, publishing in peer-reviewed journals is on way.

However, since you brought up the topic of pharmaceuticals, I can tell you that a lot of research is going on, unpublished. All such research is in order to discover new things with a market potential. Publication happens when:

1) There is a real discovery that has, however, been judged to have no market potential. (Researchers can put it on here resume, and any competitors who might actually want to use it are now unable to patent it)

2) It is incorporated in a new marketable item, but you need publication for approval by authorities, in which case you publish in the most obscure magazine you can find.

The problem is, if you publish your discovery, you need to take out patents as well (which is frightfully expensive), otherwise anyone can exploit it commercially.

Hans
 
MRC_Hans said:
I think you are moving some goalposts, here. Suddenly it is not about whether something is scientific, but about how that is verified. And in this case, publishing in peer-reviewed journals is on way.

However, since you brought up the topic of pharmaceuticals, I can tell you that a lot of research is going on, unpublished. All such research is in order to discover new things with a market potential. Publication happens when:

1) There is a real discovery that has, however, been judged to have no market potential. (Researchers can put it on here resume, and any competitors who might actually want to use it are now unable to patent it)

2) It is incorporated in a new marketable item, but you need publication for approval by authorities, in which case you publish in the most obscure magazine you can find.

The problem is, if you publish your discovery, you need to take out patents as well (which is frightfully expensive), otherwise anyone can exploit it commercially.

Hans
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Suddenly? I've been asking the same question over and over again since 22nd October 2018, 06:36 AM. See my comment 3950.

If it hasn't been published anywhere or in a place so dark that you and I can't find, you and I have no way of knowing if science deals with that issue that mysterious chemist has investigated. Be it a great discovery or not to you and me it does not serve us in this debate.

Apart from that I do not believe that pharmacists investigate the existence of God.
 
HansMustermann said:
Maybe. But

a) just because a domain is concerned with something else than whatever an example was about, doesn't mean you can't apply the same methods. E.g., equally I could say that economics is concerned with money not beer, and law is concerned with rules and punishments not beer, therefore you can't apply skepticism to my claim that I'm legally entitled to collect taxes on behalf of Xnorg The Destroyer. Just being able to name a domain doesn't make it special.

and

b) I put forward the thesis that most people don't actually seem opposed to applying the scientific method to religion too. Just as long as it's not theirs.

E.g., practically all Christians will go for the more parsimonious explanation for the Quran, than actually believing that an archangel dictated God's own words to Muhammad (pbuh) in a cave. I mean, if they actually believed that claim without any other evidence, they'd be Muslims, right?

E.g., virtually all Christians will disbelieve the miracles of Sathya Sai Baba, or for that matter his miraculous conception. They will have no problems even dismissing the many contemporary accounts from eye witnesses (which is more than we have for Jesus, btw) as unreliable biased sources, and go for the null hypothesis as long as better evidence doesn't present itself. I mean, they'd be Hindu if they actually thought that guy was actually all that.

Etc.

And that opens an important door. Because once you can be skeptical even of ONE religion, let alone ALL but one religion, then arguing that just one is exempt from that is really just special pleading.
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Too true. but the believers cannot handle that and deserve having no attention paid
 
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