Interesting, so to consider someone as being in denial in the face of a rather impressive body of evidence to the contrary is wrong? Well, we do tolerate religion, don't we?

What the Holocaust was does not change an iota because of the application of the term "XXXXX denier" to other forms of crass denial in the face of overwhelming evidence. No moreso than does the cross pollenation use of the term "witch hunt" in any way diminish the evil of what was done in the northeastern US and Europe, nor does any reference to things being "plagued" or to be "avoided like the plague" diminish the human tragedy that killed a quarter of Europe's population.

Frankly, I find such linguistic shallowness to be extremely pathetic. There's been so many examples of human atrocity that none really deserve such singular status. It was certainly a dark chapter, but it was far from the only one.

Its the following that really amazes/sickens me.

The people who are pushing this anti-scientific agenda do so wearing synthetic fibres whilst holding cellphones. They broadcast their rubbish over the internet and through satellites and fibre optics cables to peoples television sets.

The phrase 'Science is wrong! Check these URLs for proof' is so full of unintentional irony I would laugh if this weren't usch a serious matter.

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"I worry that, especially as the Millennium edges nearer, pseudo-science and superstition will seem year by year more tempting, the siren song of unreason more sonorous and attractive." - Carl Sagan, 1995

It wasn't even the worst one, by the numbers. What makes it special, in a way, is that it's still within living memory.

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In Fallout 3, 'happiness' is a warm junkyard dog and a loaded gun. It's mostly the loaded gun.
- Moose's one-line review.

"your going to regret that one. You are now a colonoscope...
- Chrissy, corrupting PraedSt's wish.

To specifically and intentionally try to associate them with genocide is wrong.

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SeanF

"Ask to understand, but don't challenge unless you have the knowledge."--NEOWatcher

The contents of this post are ©2008 by SeanF and may not be copied or retransmitted in any form without the express written consent of SeanF

I suspect, if one were to read the article, it would be abundantly clear that Goodman wasn't associating geocentricism itself with the genocidal aspects of the holocaust. Rather only the denial of science with the denial of history in despite of overwhelming evidence.

I can say the piston head of a 1hp 2 stroke engine is much like the piston head of a Porsche 911. It would be quite truthful, accurate, and fairly apt. A piston head is pretty much a piston head, no matter what it's sitting in.

But it would be wrong to say that by extension I was somehow also equating the performance of my lawnmower with that of the Porsche. (Even though it would be funny to see the car enthusiasts blow a gasket, so to speak.)

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In Fallout 3, 'happiness' is a warm junkyard dog and a loaded gun. It's mostly the loaded gun.
- Moose's one-line review.

"your going to regret that one. You are now a colonoscope...
- Chrissy, corrupting PraedSt's wish.

Oh, I don't even think that's a significant factor. There hasn't been slavery as an acceptable institution in the US in living memory, yet I fully expect to die an old man never having heard the end of it.

Ah, then I think you're the one making the spurious link, along with a substantial percentage of our largely ignorant and entirely too emotively sensitive species. I understand where he was coming from in terms of labelling someone a denier. That the event in denial through the original comparative context was genocide is irrelevent to the analogy at hand.

But far be it from me to try and take a golden ticket to special status for any particular group wishing for a claim to victimhood.

It's not linguistic shallowness. Quite the opposite, in fact.

The association of "holocaust denier" with anti-semitism and nazism is almost explicit. "Holocaust denial" is defined as much (if not more) by the why as it is by the what. And when someone says - as the commenter you quoted did - that you should call them "deniers" so that people will think of them in the same way they think of holocaust deniers, the only reasonable conclusion is that they intend to impute similar motives.

To pretend that "holocaust denier" has no meaning beyond "denier" is what is shallow.

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SeanF

"Ask to understand, but don't challenge unless you have the knowledge."--NEOWatcher

The contents of this post are ©2008 by SeanF and may not be copied or retransmitted in any form without the express written consent of SeanF

To start, there is some overlap between the groups!

Before I go into my opinion, let me start by mentioning (again) that I probably have relatives who died in the Holocaust. My great-grandmother's first husband and their kids were sent back to what was, last I knew, Czechoslovakia when they tried immigrating to the US--and they were, so far as we can tell, Gypsies. (Probably Rom, but possibly Sinti.)

I can see the parallels. It's not about what the evidence shows; it's about the weight of the evidence. There's equal merit to the arguments behind the existence of the Holocaust and the scientific validity of evolution, and to debate the evidence behind either of those says a great deal about either ignorance or motivations.

We do, however, tend to separate the wiping out of a segment of our own species from anything else. This is certainly understandable. I'm just not sure it's valid.

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Gillian

"Now everyone was giving her that kind of look UFOlogists get when they suddenly say, 'Hey, if you shade your eyes you can see it is just a flock of geese after all.'"

"You can't erase icing."

"I can't believe it doesn't work! I found it on the internet, man!"

The intent was to apply the term in a more open ended descriptive sense of someone who denies an event in the face of evidence that it happened.

The Holocaust happened. There's a rather large mountain of evidence supporting this.

Anthropogenic Global Warming is happening. This is the current consensus among those who study the phenomenon.

Evolution is happening. The very extensive dataset points to pretty much nothing else.

Why wouldn't an individual who suspends belief in the face of founded evidence in support of it be qualified as a "denier", regardless of what it was that was being denied?

The link wasn't to the genocide of the Holocaust, but the attitude of those who don't believe it happened.

I'm going to give up before I end up saying something that gets me banned.

Doodler, if you really can't see that calling somebody like Glom the same as a holocaust denier is both unfair and counter-productive, then there's nothing I can do.

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SeanF

"Ask to understand, but don't challenge unless you have the knowledge."--NEOWatcher

The contents of this post are ©2008 by SeanF and may not be copied or retransmitted in any form without the express written consent of SeanF

Grab a thesaurus, because I'm far from done with this. You've blatantly chosen to misrepresent the intent of the comparison and its approaching the level of annoyance I get reading some ATM claims on this board. A denier is nothing more or less than a person who chooses to disregard the existance of an event or concept in the face of overwhelming evidence in support of its existance.

Whatever the event or concept is, be it the Holocaust, the Moon Landings, Aircraft ramming the WTC, Big Bang Cosmology, Evolution, Climate Change, anything that has been demonstrated to exist or to have happened with sufficient proven evidence, and you're essentially exhibiting the same breed of denial.

Your arguement that the nature of the event is in any way related to the ridiculousness of the denial is appealing to semantics.

Knock yourself out.

I said I'm done, and I meant it.

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SeanF

"Ask to understand, but don't challenge unless you have the knowledge."--NEOWatcher

The contents of this post are ©2008 by SeanF and may not be copied or retransmitted in any form without the express written consent of SeanF