Oh, no—this article about Craig Schaffer in America’s Finest News Source reminds me of me.
Eddy said he has tried repeatedly to pull Schaffner back from the precipice of lucidity.
“I admit, science might be great for curing diseases, exploring space, cataloguing the natural phenomena of our world, saving endangered species, extending the human lifespan, and enriching the quality of that life,” Eddy said. “But at the end of the day, science has nothing to tell us about the human soul, and that’s a critical thing Craig is missing. I would hate for his soul to be lost forever because of a stubborn doubt over the actual existence and nature of that soul.”
Not really related but I thought you would like to know :)
This is part of a report on < ahref="http://www.assembly.coe.int/Main.asp?link=/Documents/WorkingDocs/Doc07/EDOC11297.htm">“The dangers of creationism in education” by the Council of Europe Committee on Culture, Science and Education
“The theory of evolution is being attacked by religious fundamentalists who call for creationist theories to be taught in European schools alongside or even in place of it. From a scientific view point there is absolutely no doubt that evolution is a central theory for our understanding of the Universe and of life on Earth.
Creationism in any of its forms, such as “intelligent design”, is not based on facts, does not use any scientific reasoning and its contents are pathetically inadequate for science classes.
The Assembly calls on education authorities in member States to promote scientific knowledge and the teaching of evolution and to oppose firmly any attempts at teaching creationism as a scientific discipline.
point 1 and 12 are quite strong:
1. The Parliamentary Assembly is worried about the possible ill-effects of the spread of creationist theories within our education systems and about the consequences for our democracies. If we are not careful, creationism could become a threat to human rights, which are a key concern of the Council of Europe.
12. The war on the theory of evolution and on its proponents most often originates in forms of religious extremism which are closely allied to extreme right-wing political movements. The creationist movements possess real political power. The fact of the matter, and this has been exposed on several occasions, is that the advocates of strict creationism are out to replace democracy by theocracy.
Words of wisdom we should all heed. I weep for the many children with no Christmas gifts because they no longer believe in Santa Claus. Santa’s naughty list grows with each year as we arrogantly laugh from our paper thrones of science and logic!
Stop the madness! Put out those cookies and milk or be cursed to lumps of coal in your stockings!
I have to stop now. Emotions overcome me.
OEJ
This might be one of those occasions in which you should grant the argument of your opponent.
“Yes,” you might say, “you are correct. Science has nothing to tell us about the human soul. Nothing at all. Not where it might be, or what it might be made of, or if it’s there at all. Therefore it seems somewhat risky to make serious decisions about one’s soul on the advice of someone who also has nothing to tell us about the human soul.”
OOps: for some reason the link is not working.
The Council draft resolution on Creationism is here:
http://www.assembly.coe.int/Main.asp?link=/Documents/WorkingDocs/Doc07/EDOC11297.htm
Damn, PZ, when did you start writing for The Onion? Doncha know Big Magic JuJu Man (TM – Hank Fox) is gonna get mad at you?
Jim D
El Cid: I truly hope you were being ironic!
How can I make ‘real’ decisions about something that is, in every particular, completely imaginary? And regardless of such decisions, how can you possibly assess risk related to those decisions?
Seriously — I would never presume to make any decision about a soul — doing so presupposes that such a thing exists, and I disagree that it does. Why would I waste my time?
But, just on the off-chance that YOU can do that [make effective decisions about unknowable things] — can you help me with picking my numbers for next weeks lottery? You obviously have an uncanny finely tuned ability to make correct decisions from nothing… so having something concrete to work on should be a piece of cake!
Tony, you may have missed the point of El Cid’s comment. He stated that the religious also have no information about the hypothesised soul.
Definitely a goodie even if it’s an oldie — look at the date on the O. One wonders how Craig fares today in his godless journey towards enlightenment, with so many well-wishers looking to help him along.
Ah yes, the soul. The thing that allows people to murder in the name of a non-existent entity, or to destroy cultures in order to “save” them from savagery. What a wonderful thing.
The only soul I need is the one on my shoes.
What?
That’s spelled sole?
Oh.
Never Mind!
“I admit, science might be great for curing diseases, exploring space, cataloguing the natural phenomena of our world, saving endangered species, extending the human lifespan, and enriching the quality of that life,” Eddy said. “But at the end of the day, science has nothing to tell us about the human soul”
Hey, except for the “curing diseases, exploring space, cataloguing the natural phenomena of our world, saving endangered species, extending the human lifespan” part, it sounds just like religion!
Moreover, unlike religion, science doesn’t make up some story about the human soul in its ignorance.
I am still waiting for Jesus to make his second coming to the NBA.
Yeah, once your friends topple into the abyss of lucidity you may never be able to interest them again in vital questions about angels dancing on the head of a pin and other things regarding which science is resolutely silent!
There’s a new little meme running around the internets and you’ve been tagged with it.
http://ironicusmaximus.blogspot.com/
We’d be interested to read your response, but you have to understand, we don’t get out much.
Obligtory Monty Python reference:
Yeah, once your friends topple into the abyss of lucidity you may never be able to interest them again in vital questions about angels dancing on the head of a pin and other things regarding which science is resolutely silent!
It is sad–and frightening–when a loved one gets pulled into rationality. Aberrant, disturbing, and non-self-destructive behaviours often follow–such as (a) not running off into the desert, giving up all their possessions, and living in enforced poverty at an isolated compound, not serving the sexual whims of a self-styled holy man who owns a stable contaiing several millions dollars worth of Rolls Royces, (b) not abandoning prescribed and reliable medical cures for potentially life-threatening conditions in favour of massive, expensive infusions of noni juice and laetrile, (c) not giving a regular percentage of their income to a massive and globally influential criminal organization known to favour deceiving the populations of dangerously overpopulated sub-Saharan nations about the efficacy of birth control, and which protects paedophiles found within its ranks from criminal prosecution as a matter of course, (d) not speaking to an imaginary invisible friend four or more times daily, begging its forgiveness in pitifully abject and self-denigrating terms…
It is frightening to see, frightening to contemplate where such dangerous behaviour may take them, where it all may end… Many and tragic are the lives that have not been ruined, not diverted into the sterile and fruitless contemplation of such definitively unresolveable theological ‘mysteries’ as those mentioned, involving angels, pinheads (and the heads of pins) through such arrogant foolishness as this… But what can we do but offer them our love and support…
Oh, and tell them they’re going to hell. That’s fun, too.
Read that article a while back. My favorite part:
“Craig is a really great guy,” Cobb said. “It’s just too bad he’s chosen to cut himself off from the world of the paranormal, restricting himself to the limited universe of what can be seen and heard and verified through empirical evidence.”
God forbid that people be sane?
Also brings to mind this classic. “They tries to teach my baby science!”
http://www.theonion.com/content/files/images/onionmagazine_1020.article.jpg
God forbid that people be sane?
That’s as good a theory as any.
Janine, that article title reminds me of the “Amber Richardson” articles in The Onion. Such as “Why Somebody Always Around Every Time I Drop My Baby?” and “I Hope My Baby Doesn’t Come Out All Fucked-Up And Shit”.
Classics.
My favorite part: “Craig can’t entirely help himself, being a Gemini,” Hitchens said. “Geminis are always very skeptical and destined to feel pain throughout life as a result of their closed-mindedness. If you try to introduce Craig to anything even remotely made-up, he starts going off about ‘evidence this’ and ‘proof that.’
I’m a Gemini, and as I always say, Geminis don’t believe in astrology.
All right… all right… but apart from better sanitation and medicine and education and irrigation and public health and roads and a freshwater system and baths and public order… what have the Romans done for us?
Funny, but man oh man can I ever imagine real people saying those exact quotes and being serious.
“They tried to teach my baby science!”
I remember seeing that cover and actually going to Barnes and Noble to look for it before finding out that the entire magazine was fake. Damn you, America’s Finest News Source! *shakes fist impotently heavenwards*
It’s much shorter, but I definitely like “Ghost of Carl Sagan Warns against Dangers of Superstition“.
To: tony | June 19, 2007 01:20 PM
As pointed out above, if you take my comment literally (but allow for some degree of sarcasm in the wording), you will conclude that I agree that it is silly to make any decisions about the soul, including whether or not it exists, based either on science which (by definition) can say nothing about it, or based on the words of religious fraudsters, who also know nothing about the human soul, including its existence or not.
The sarcastic bit would involve the “serious decisions” phrasing, but that’s just a nod to the original claim.
Hahahaha, I needed this! (But why aren’t skeptics ever portrayed as women? I could write a book about the crap that nontheistic women are expected to believe – fung shei, chakras, etc.) I liked that part about the Gemini business, too, but I was told (being that I am an Aries) that Aries don’t believe in astrology!
What up? Somebody’s been lying to me? (Must’ve been a two-faced Gemini.)
I can’t wait for the Onion to come out with a column by the relatives of history’s famous artists entitled, “We Just Wanted Them to be Dentists and Settle Down.”
RLOL @ “Cornell physics department head Arthur Ludyvik said that he would heed Sagan’s warning and buy a special anti-superstition crystal amulet and incense cone.”
There used to be a place just north of Arthur Bryant’s BBQ in Kansas City, MO called Ruby’s Soul Food Kitchen. It’s gone now which prompts me to ask, where does the soul go?
Restroom’s around back.
James Brown had soul.. and look what happened to him!
Actually, at first, I thought this was a headline related to another Onion headline: “Fool Pitied” (by whom I’ll let you guess)
Looks like a bunch of Gulligo is needed in many places…
the site “god is for suckers” has a good post on how the Portuguese Catholics saved souls in their colony in Goa.
http://gods4suckers.net/archives/2007/06/17/thou-shalt-have-no-other-gods-before-me%e2%80%a6/
One example,
“Persecution of Hindus
“The condemned Hindus were publicly burned at the stake in the square outside the Sé Cathedral in batches during ceremonies known as auto da fé (Portuguese: act of faith). Those who confessed to their accused heresy would be strangled prior to the burning.
Brahmins were nailed to crosses and beheaded by the Portuguese to spread fear into the local populations. Hindus were slaughtered by the dozens by the marauding Portuguese armies and Catholic priests.
“A large number of restrictive religious laws were enacted, including the banning of Hindu musical instruments, dhoti, betel leaves and cholis. Many Hindu temples were converted or destroyed, and Christian churches built in their place, often from the materials of the temples they replaced. Throughout this period several important Hindu texts were burned in an effort to saturate the area with Christian religious texts. Most notably, the Kama Sutra increased in infamy with its “lewd” alternatives to the endorsed Missionary position.
“The Portuguese let out their Negro slaves into the streets and as soon as they found a Hindu, they smeared the person’s mouth with beef, making them untouchable in the eyes of other Hindus. Then they forcefully converted them.[1]
“People who were accused of heresy (not all of these were Hindus, though they were the majority) were subjected to gruesome punishment generally done in secret. “Pagans” were flogged, interrogated, and dismembered in front of relatives. The Portuguese’s studies in anatomy enabled them to chop off limbs from people while they were still alive, even if all that was remaining was the torso attached to the head[2].”
PZ, if there is a Hell (and there ain’t), I will have my buddy God make sure you at least get a nice cold glass of Lemonade every once in a while, just so you don’t get too parched by the fire and brimstone.
How do you know, if there is a hell, that I won’t be wielding a pitchfork and whip? Or that perhaps I might prefer a flaming drink of magma with a little sulfur sprinkled on top?
Do you think I can sue Eddy for the damage done to my house when my irony-meter exploded? :-))
Now he’s got the soul thing down pat – maybe in another 2 millenia they’ll have figured out the self-awareness gig.
“All right, but apart from the sanitation, the medicine, education, wine, public order, irrigation, roads, a fresh water system, and public health… WHAT HAVE THE ROMANS EVER DONE FOR US?”