There are some common themes in RGT that truly annoy me. Therefore I made a top 10 villain list (in no order of importance):

Atheists are irreligious
Atheists are not spiritual
Theists are religious
Theists are spiritual
Philosophy is normative
Philosophy is not normative
Theology is normative
Theology is not normative
Science can't be normative
Science is empirical

If an argument or discussion relies on any one of these, RGT would be be a better place without it. Note that these are very often made implicitly, not explicitly.

Yeah agree with most though 9 I may find interest in discussing at some level. Also whjile you capture an element of my objections in 1-4 what also irritates me is the argument that (a)theists are/do/believe X. Not all (a)theists think or act the same and treating groups that may share some common ground as if they all think or act a like pisses me off.

Yeah, I was guessing number 9 would be a candidate for discussion.

And yes, that is the problem. Blanket statements piss people off and derail potentially interesting stuff. Instead of making observations or good discussion, people often try and lock down others into unreasonable positions.

The latter is not always wrong (people can and often do hold unreasonable positions after all), but when it is based on flawed blanket statements it is very bad.

Was it always like that, you've been around RGT longer than I but it seems more common now, possibly.

You're right the problem with blanket statements is people end up arguing over positions neither wants to defend, the atheist or theist starts by saying theists or atheists do X then the other side weighs in, some try and clarify who's arguing with who and there's a big discussion about what S believes when no one can find S.

And yes there's enough unreasonable positions people actually want to defend without creating others.

It has happened a fair bit since the birth of RGT. That said, I'm also certain a far greater portion of the threads and discussions are plagued by it these days.

Things that annoy me most about RGT:

1. Knowledgeable people's tendency to refuse to adapt their writing to audiences less knowledgeable than them.

I'm quite positive that most of your 10 annoyances could be quickly resolved (when they arise) if this one annoyance of mine was more strongly considered.

I don't think I know what you think religious, spiritual, normative or emperically is.

What do you mean by these?

Also atheists are not spiritual.

There is sufficient evidence that this is not the case. Many attempts have been made by good posters, most of which no longer post here, to address arguments at a particular audiences level. If the attempt to learn something is genuine there's a decent chance of success, when the attempt is merely to state some pretty naive general argument, such as there is no morality without God, claiming the matter is settled without acknowledging there is a complex body of work on the topic then no matter how the arguments are addressed they will fail.

I'm sure that can happen, and it is largely a result of laziness and habit than anything. It can certainly be a bad habit.

That said, a lot of the concepts used in RGT are very well known and free to look up. Wikipedia is generally good as an intro to various concepts in science, theology and philosophy and the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy is also freely available online. I personally have learned a lot about theology and science from debating on this forum and learning while I do, and I'm sure others can do the same.

By this I merely mean an understanding that both philosophy and theology can be descriptive analysis (how "things" are) and normative analysis (what "things" should be). It can be important to understand if the person and / or text you use is either or both. A classic example would be someone like Immanuel Kant who both worked hard to develop a philosophical framework to understand experience, but also developed a philosophical framework to judge moral actions.

If I for example quote Nietzsche as authority in a discussion about religion, I can hardly pretend I'm merely making descriptive philosophical arguments.

Science is often held to be some neutral authority, "look here it is is science, so this is just how the world (seemingly) is". But while it is indeed true that describing the world is far more important in science overall, there is definitely a lot of science with normative elements.

A good example (and the one most widely used in RGT) is probably psychiatry and psychology. Psychiatry often contains a lot of normative assumptions about normality ("you should be normal"). This is due to its roots in medicine. Psychology on the other hand, has a more descriptive approach towards normality ("what is normal"), likely due to its roots in philosophy. Note that this is over-simplified, and both statements to some extent hold true to both fields... but for explanation's sake, I find that this is a good example.

So if Bob calls your religion (if you have one) a mental disorder, what he is trying to say is "you are a nutcase", but what he is also stating is "people shouldn't be nutcases". So essentially Bob is merely saying "you shouldn't be religious", without really offering an explanation.

This is one is simple and probably the most interesting one (to me). Whereas a lot of science is based on empiricism (observing and deducing), it is still just one of many, many approaches.

It is for example perfectly fine and scientific to conclude about the world based on immediate experience. This is called phenomenology, and it is a recognized scientific method. It probably won't win you any awards in physics, but it is certainly not without scientific value - a very good example is pain research. The patient experience of pain is often a better metric of pain's impact on treatment than some bio-electrical measurement of the neural system.

Assuming something is unscientific because it is not empirical is therefore very bad. It is legitimate to say it does not hold empirical support, however.

So I agree with most else but I'm not sure about this. It's not that I don't think phenomenology doesn't have a place in science, I agree with you it clearly does and it is in practice a scientific mode of enquiry. My objection is that I think it's okay to consider phenomenology an empirical pursuit.

Possibly it is that our definitions of empirical are different, my approach being a broader philosophical empiricism which accounts for the matter under discussion being available to the senses and you are using a more rigorous scientific definition around observing and deducing.

There's a book review here of the work in reconciling naturalism and phenomenology in philosophy, I may have posted before but the bits I've read are very interesting, what it does do is suggest that many philosophers are giving an account of phenomenological experience that is empirical.

Phenomenology and Naturalism

I'm not surprised by this and it is good point and an interesting discussion, but phenomenological method would not qualify as empirical method under "common" research criteria. A phenomenological "claim" (wrong word really) does not need to be testable for example (though it could be translated into something that is). Many would even say that it can't be testable.

Still, there are also many other scientific approaches and methods. I merely picked an example I know a little of.

This makes sense and it's clear that I'm using a different definition of empirical in a domain where yours should be given priority, we are talking science so the methodological distinction is important. I do think it's an interesting discussion though and if empiricism/naturalism/physicalism aren't broad enough to capture the relevant modes of scientific investigation it may be that they should be defined to accommodate them.

If there is to be a (paradigm?) shift in what we consider scientific methodology to entail these methods must be accounted for and it seems we will need to broaden the definitions beyond what is currently testable and what may ever be.

I think it is was a very nice point, my protest to the very briefly worded "science is empirical" should be debated.

If we come at from a philosophical viewpoint, you would in "hardliner" empiricism view all knowledge as empirical (since it is the only way to gain it) and in more idealistic versions perhaps hold positions like the one you posted. So I fully support your "protest", and if anything it displays an added danger of overly generalized assumptions regarding science or philosophy.

A discussion like this is always carried out on the verge of sanity I think, as we're ultimately trying to understand if we can ever understand understanding.

I remember a science fiction book where humans encounter many other species, but these had no language / communication so it was impossible to figure out of they were intelligent. It of course seems absurd to imagine intelligence without language / symbols, but I suspect that was the author's intent; not to have an idea about how that was possible, but merely to portray "awareness" as inescapable.

Anyways, I'm in danger of even more quasi-philosophical ramblings if I continue now.

I'm always in danger of quasi-philosophical rambling.

You're right with regard to generalised assumptions and they are prevalent on both sides of the various debates. The problem seems to stem from people wanting to take down positions no one is actually interested in defending. Interestingly given the discussion this often takes the place of some idea of what the a(theists) belief is without actually considering the phenomenology of how people (dis)believe. Just as uke_master was making the point yesterday with those who claim to offer a value or religious neutral upbringing actually fail because they aren't considering the phenomenological aspects of maintaining a belief.

The point on both sides is true I think, but we shouldn't over-extend these thought experiment to real life. Remember that in such a view we couldn't even conceive what neutrality looks like, so neither you, me or uke_master would actually recognize it. So we couldn't even say if this or that person managed to convey it.

Neutrality in such contexts must be understood as holding neutrality as an ideal for what you do, not claiming to perfectly achieve it on a daily basis. Neutrality would also likely mean something more ala "reasonable consensus based on evidence" not "free of opinion".

The basis is solid, though. We should never count ourselves free of bias.

I think you are correct in that I find it difficult to conceive of what a value neutral approach to these questions would look like and wouldn't recognise it if it were there. But I do wonder whether questions of metaphysics should be any different to questions of any other sort where we share what we believe the answers to be while trying to develop the tools needed to understand why.

Well, if you start asking "What would an individual completely free of bias do if you put him on the edge of a cliff?" you sort of bump into (pun intended) some interesting ethics problem.

Stated in jest, but my meaning is that we are all a result of our experiences and of being human.... or we would not be alive. The best "neutrality" we can likely hope for is the ability to somewhat honestly reflect on our own positions and teach others to do the same.

So yes, I agree. This also why, I think, science has become such a powerful tool for developing knowledge. Because it idealizes fair consensus, not because it actually manages it.