Oh, joy. We’ve got a new crop of persistent Religiots pissing and moaning in the comments. They’re whining that I’m mean, that all the regular commenters are mean, that the fact that some good scientists are also Christian somehow validates Christian belief, that I can’t criticize scientists who are working at more prestigious universities, and that my tactics are bad. I don’t know why they’re here; it’s not as if we’re going to be converted by their inanities, or that they’re going to persuade us to accept any of their claims.
Let’s break it down into simple sentences and ideas.
Yeah, we’re mean. We’re actually rather proud of it, so don’t waste your breath. Do you also walk up to Keira Knightley and tell her she’s beautiful, expecting that she’ll start wearing a bag over her head?
We know that you can be a good scientist and religious, and I’ve never said otherwise. Some great scientists have amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, too. It doesn’t mean ALS is a good thing.
Swarms of perfervid Christians and timid agnostics and atheists waving their arms and urgently warning us that atheist strategies aren’t working isn’t exactly scaring us. It’s not as if we’re stupid enough to believe you want us to have more effective strategies for deprogramming victims of the church.
You aren’t going to deter us.
Here is the bottom line.
There is this old myth about a god who has sex with his human mother to give birth to himself, who grows up to be killed (but not really), and this depreciated sacrifice somehow means everyone else gets to go to heaven when they die. If they believe it, that is; otherwise they go to hell and suffer for eternity.
Now I’m supposed to…
-
…believe in this fairy tale myself;
-
…believe that accepting this fairy tale helps people be better human beings;
-
…believe that accepting this fairy tale helps people be better scientists;
-
…regard people who swallow this fairy tale with the same respect I do those who see through the nonsense;
-
…refrain from criticizing this fairy tale; and/or
-
…pretend this fairy tale isn’t a load of ridiculous bullshit.
No, it’s never going to happen. I will never accept or even respect your fairy tale.
Sorry.
One more try. Here’s a simple statement that, if you grasp it, you will realize there is no point hanging around here anymore.
The Nicene Creed is not a profession of the basic orthodoxy of the Christian faith. It’s a rationality test.
If you believe one line of it, you’ve failed.
The first part is false. At best, you can ignore your religious beliefs while doing professional work, then ignore the fact that you ignored them.
The comment about ALS literally made me LOL and spray the freezey pop I was eating all over my PC screen!
I remember mindlessly chanting that creed as a youngster at the catholic church I got dragged to. Never really gave it much thought, seemed somewhat hypnotic but mostly boring.
Anyway, I reckon you’re right about it being a rationality test, if you believe that, you’ll buy shares in my invisible pink unicorn farm…..
Gee, PZ, I really wish you’d stop beating around the bush and tell us what you really think.
But don’t be hurt, dear fundy readers of PZ, we’re also just Ignorant Bayesian Belief Networks just like you. But unlike you, we don’t think you’re damned to eternal torture.
If the divinity and resurrection of Christ is so obvious, so compelling and so momentous, why did it take some 300 frikkin’ years for it to be recognized?
I don’t think this is going to make any trolls go away, this thread should get pretty heated later. Although I do think it’s pretty funny that they think they can convince us of anything, it’s just a waste of time and energy.
I would just like to say that you’re mean, and so are all the regular commenters. Also, Christianity is valid because some good scientists are Christian, and you can’t criticize them because they work at more prestigious universities. Also, your tactics are bad.
SO THERE!
the Nicene creed;
I’ve always wondered who the “quick” are in the phrase:
..judge the quick and the dead.
Is it “Jack”, who was quick enough to jump over the candlestick?
BTW, wasn’t “Quick and the Dead” also a dumbass pseudo-cowboy movie with Gene Hackman?
amazing what xianity makes me think of.
PZ, if you don’t apologize and learn how to properly frame the issue, no one will listen to you. You certainly couldn’t keep the largest readership in the SciBorg by being mean. Don’t worry, keep working on being nice and you too could be as inconsequential as Nancy Pelosi.
this thread should get pretty heated later
*yawn*
Yea, as it is and should be written,
John 3:16 v2.0
For God so loved the world he got Joseph’s wife Mary pregnant.
I have to say, I don’t think the argument that only nice atheists get ahead holds up under scrutiny. The annoying atheists seem to be the ones getting dates to the prom.
Joseph’s fiancee. Damned unwed teenage mothers!
“There is this old myth about a god who has sex with his human mother to give birth to himself, who grows up to be killed (but not really), and this depreciated sacrifice somehow means everyone else gets to go to heaven when they die.”
Yes, you would think if someone was going to DIE for your sins at least he would have the decency to stay dead more than thee days.
I know I’ve said the before in here, but PZ has struck a chord. The Nicean Creed was the fulcrum of my own personal tipping point. Errr… ok, that was dumb, but over a period of several months I found it harder and harder to get the words out, and one day I realized that if I uttered those words again it would be a lie, and a insult to those who believe them.
Do any of these people realize that we’re mean IN PRINT and not in person? There is a huge difference in the type of interaction that one has when writting to a vast audience with no one person in particular targeted, and one-on-one interaction requiring two human beings speaking face to face.
One is entirely personal and the other is not. If you expereince dissonance at the attack of your cherished beliefs, don’t blame us. Either hit back with your own arguments as to why these beliefs are true and either win or lose the debate, or simply remain silent. To do otherrwise contributes nothing to the conversation.
The religious trolls cannot help themselves. They are like moths drawn to the bright flames of atheism. They think their faith is strong enough to not only survive the fire but to somehow extinguish reason itself.
I realized that if I uttered those words again it would be a lie, and a insult to those who believe them.
of course the next step is realizing the only way NOT to insult someone is to dutifully point out to them that they might not have realized that it’s all nonsense. I always knew there was reason my parents read me “The Emperor’s New Clothes” when I was little.
I’ve never considered it an insult to point out the truth to someone; tact is only involved in picking the right time to do so.
Yes, we ridicule the ridiculousness of faith. But is that more cruel than my mother telling me I will spend eternity in Hell because I don’t believe in her mythology?
Those who believe that saying such a thing isn’t cruel and hateful really are clueless. And yet we’re supoosedly the mean ones.
I love (and like) my mother. Her beliefs repulse me. As do those of anyone who would claim likewise.
They got nothing other than internall incoherent and contradictory texts that claim authority for themselves. Nothing.
Ichthyic,
“Quick” means “living” in that context. Or were you just being flippant?
“Quick” is simply a fancy (and archaic) way of saying “living”.
It may be that you already knew this, but why should I give up a chance to show off?
ZacharySmith #6:
Might it have been because it took that long for the ruling classes to recognise its utility?
El Cid (the Tick’s nemesis?) – Good revision, but not entirely accurate.
For God so loved the world he had an affair with Joseph’s wife Mary and got her pregnant.
That’s a bit better. “Cuckolded Joseph” might be more succinct, but I’m afraid too many fundamentalists won’t know what that means.
It looks like the Narn Bat Squad may be needed for this thread too later. They seem to feel sorry for the religious folk who come here because it’s only one of ten or so blogs that exist and they don’t have anywhere else to go but they will get over that.
Or were you just being flippant?
yes.
to put it succinctly.
belaboring the more subtle point I was trying to make isn’t really worth bothering with.
They weren’t married though, they were betrothed. She was only scheduled to become his property.
Ichthyic:
Perhaps you were being facetious, but “quick” in this context means “living.” It’s an archaic usage that is retained in modern English only (as far as I can think of) in the phrase “the quick and the dead” and when referring to the living part of your finger- and toenails (“the quick”), particularly in the phrase “cut to the quick.”
I can’t help thinking that its association with the cowboy genre must have been considered a brilliantly clever play on words the first time anyone ever used it, but now it’s become so obscure nobody gets it.
Nevermind. I was so late to the party.
You mean you weren’t quick enough?
::runs away fast::
That’s a bit better. “Cuckolded Joseph” might be more succinct, but I’m afraid too many fundamentalists won’t know what that means.
Peter Griffin: Yeah. My wife here did KISS.
Moderator: Get out of here!
Peter: Hand to God.
Moderator: Peter, how does that make you feel?
Peter: I feel like I’ve done KISS, too, Donny. And it feels good.
maybe Joseph considered the positive aspects of having such a famous personage diddle his bride to be?
I mean, that’s gotta be a serious marketing advantage.
Ooo, I forgot all about “the quickening” being the part where a fetus begins moving such that the mother can feel it. Or, you know, the part in The Highlander when somebody cuts somebody’s head off with a sword. Take your pick.
But how did they each measure up? I mean, after the creator of the universe, wouldn’t you feel a little self-conscious? Maybe Mary wasn’t a size queen.
HOW BOUT EVERYONE STOP TRYING TO CHANGE HIS OPINION ON THIS!!!!
Ya, we can be hella mean, but you know what? The more you try to tell us that our opinion is WRONG the more MEAN AND HEARTLESS we will get.
BACCK THE FUCK DOWN….
Ooo, I forgot all about “the quickening” being the part where a fetus begins moving such that the mother can feel it. Or, you know, the part in The Highlander when somebody cuts somebody’s head off with a sword. Take your pick.
ahh, I see there was indeed no need to explain further.
;)
Well, you’ll recall that it was the Holy Spirit who did the dirty work, as it were. You know the third part of the Trinity of the Father, the Son and the Poorly-Understood Adjunct Functionary. I would expect that to be the kind of nebbishy aspect of the Almighty, so perhaps it wasn’t anything to write a gospel about. I mean, how many dates does the Holy Spirit get out on? This isn’t Zeus we’re talking about here.
I mean, after the creator of the universe, wouldn’t you feel a little self-conscious?
compared to having bragging rights that God diddled MY fiancee?
nope.
I’d be just like Peter Griffin; I’d feel like I’d done God too.
…and of course, like i said, I also would be thinking more about the $ I could make off selling THAT story.
on the next Oprah:
“God diddled my fiancee, and we’re still getting married!”
I’d have been the hit of of new millennium (1st AD) talk show circuits…
some things are just more important than what your S.O. thinks of the size of your toolset.
This isn’t Zeus we’re talking about here.
it isn’t?
considering how much xianity “borrowed” from “pagan” religions, I’m not so sure about the accuracy of that statement.
Ah, so you’re the size queen :)
We’re mean? We’re not running around with mini torture devices on our necks and cars, nor are we worshipping death and suffering…so, come again?
And John Morales gets it in one!
Seriously though, you’re on the money with that John. Few Christians remember now that the Council of Nicaea was called and run, not by the bishops, but by the (brand new) Emperor Constantine, whom even Christians don’t claim until his deathbed (and that’s dubious.) So all this work on the great statement of faith was organized by a non-Christian. The result was a wedding of established Church hierarchy and imperial bureaucracy, much to the benefit of both in controlling what they wanted to control (a restive populace and other religions.)
And Christians wonder why we push so hard to maintain separation of religion and state…
I think the 500,000th comment contest is bringing them out…worked for me!
the instant one of those fundamentalist offers the same “respect” to the Flying Spaghetti Monster that they demand of others for their wacky ancient-herder fairy tale, I’ll be there with a big hug for them. Til then, fuggoff, fundies.
I think everyone who believes in god should talk in baby-talk when they talk about their fairy religion.
“Being a Cwistian is goo-goo-good pwepawation for work as a thientith, and thienth can hewp pwepware you for being a Cwistian. Goo-goo. Ma. Ma. Ga. Da. Da.”
There is more evidence for the existence of Cthulhu than there is for the existence of God… When are Christians going to give up and become Cthulhu cultists?
I’d prefer actual Dagon worship myself; even the Catholics saw the utility of that religion.
I mean, seriously, a religion based on loving the sea and the primal forces of fishdom?
and they had such great hats…
http://www.sabbatarian.com/Paganism/Dagon.html
(sorry for the shameless plug, I’ve been getting some hints I haven’t been advertising enough lately – oops, I’ve said too much)
Yeah, yeah. Zeus would have come down and taken care of business himself. Probably in the shape of a wildebeest or something. Sure, they were all the Sumerian god El when you get right down to it, but Zeus was like the awesome dude you hung out with in college. Jehovah is the one you meet at a twenty year reunion and say, “you’ve changed, man.”
In between, Jehovah he spent some time as a violent raging alcoholic. He was a total jerkass, and the only people who hung around with him were the ones who didn’t have much choice. He mellowed out when he had a kid and became a quietly bitter, completely boring mid-level manager for The Universe. He is mentally half checked-out already, always planning his retirement, but lives vicariously through his son. That kid is going back down to Earth to kick so much ass one of these days, and the old man will sit around thinking, “yeah, I did that.”
But all you have to do is close your eyes and wish really, really hard and God will tell you he exists all by himself (see comment #4 by “JE”)! That is, if you’re willing to pull out your brain and drop kick it out the window.
God must have truly loved rocks to have made so many for his followers to crawl out from under.
Well heck, that didn’t work at all. JUst see comment #4 here.
I think everyone who believes in god should talk in baby-talk when they talk about their fairy religion.
omgawd i love you!
:)
Gonna remember that next time i get corner by a fanatic again..
but Zeus was like the awesome dude you hung out with in college. Jehovah is the one you meet at a twenty year reunion and say, “you’ve changed, man.”
LOL.
couldn’t have said it better myself.
If the divinity and resurrection of Christ is so obvious, so compelling and so momentous, why did it take some 300 frikkin’ years for it to be recognized?
More to the point: why did it disseminate slowly from a tiny region on Earth, instead of being trumpeted far and wide instantaneously by God? How many Tibetan goat-herders (not to mention Buddhist monks) “died and went to Hell” because they never had a snowball’s chance of hearing the Good News?
You’d think Jesus would at least have waited for the invention of YouTube before climbing up on the cross, the inconsiderate bastard.
Ichthyic,
I appreciate you taking the time to offer that little pearl to me. Thanks. I’ve sorta been working on that, without realizing it. It’s a tricky thing. As you know. I’m kinda new at this…
I’ve said it at other blogs, and I’ll repeat it here (if I haven’t before):
If you want to live in a theocracy, move to Iran.
#46.
It was good enough for Dagon
A conservative old pagon
Who still votes for Ronald Reagon
And it’s good enough for me!
just be aware that what I think of as ‘not an insult’ wouldn’t be agreed with in most of society, who don’t get that I’m actually respecting them by pointing out the fallacies in their worldviews.
…and that’s based on personal experience.
like i said, timing is everything.
obviously, standing up during a church service with your still-believing friends and relatives to tell them they’re wasting their time might not go over so well.
not so obvious is that doing the same thing at a casual party also might not go over so well.
damned if you do…
well, just damned if you do, basically.
;)
NICE summary of Christianity. One of the best short ones I’ve seen. One I think that is a bit better is the classic one by Mageth, here:
http://www.extian.org/home.htm
On the downside, it’s a bit longer. On the upside, I’ve yet to find a believer who can find something factually wrong with it (at least in its correspondence with the story as the Bible(s) tell it) and it’s fairly thorough, not leaving excessively much out. And while remaining faithful to the Bible(s) the story is quite obviously ridiculously false, which is the whole point. So Mageth tops you, I think, though your summary is damned fine. I’ve been looking for a very succinct one I might memorize for verbal arguments — confrontations might be a better word. Yours just might be short enough. I find I cam not able to recite Mageth’s properly in the heat of verbal battle. (Damned holey ghost makes me forget or something. :-)
And equating believing this silly story to having ALS… LOL. A bit hyperbolic, of course, but I can get behind the idea of it.
Mean? I don’t have a problem with that. Ignorance and being narrow minded is more of an issue. It seems that most of the posts on “religion” are really about Christian theology. There is more to religion than theology which is one of the reasons you can find atheists active in many churches and synagogues.
Thank you PZ.
They should only get respect when respect is deserved.
Sure Xianity borrowed a bunch but I dunno Ichthyic, I think Zeus does come across as a tad more virile than this, eh?
http://everything2.com/index.pl?node=holy%20spirit
“The third “person” of Christianity’s Holy Trinity. May be related to the Jewish idea of shekinah– sometimes thought of as Divine Wisdom. Some people believe the Holy Spirit is the desexed remnant of the feminine face of God.”
Maybe the spirit fleshes out with a little holy Sildenafil citrate…
I told this joke years ago at a Jesuit barbecue (it was just a cook-out; the Jesuits were not being barbecued themselves) and it killed:
God’s Vacation
The archangel Gabriel tells God he’s concerned:
“You’ve been working pretty hard, Lord, creating stuff and running the universe and all that. You deserve some time off.”
“Well, Gabe, I did rest on the seventh day, you know.”
“Sure, Lord, but that was a long time ago. Why don’t you knock off for a couple of weeks, go somewhere quiet, and just relax?”
“Anyplace in particular you recommend, Gabe?”
“I’d suggest one of those outlying planets where not much ever happens. How about a vacation on Earth?”
“For Christ’s sake, Gabe, don’t you remember? I took my last vacation there! It’s a pest-hole of gossipy small-minded provincials, even if I do say so myself. I started out having a great time. Met this cute little Jewish girl, had a bit of a fling, but it’s two thousand years later and they’re still talking about it!”
It was good enough for Dagon
A conservative old pagon
Who still votes for Ronald Reagon
And it’s good enough for me!
what’s that from, Alan?
I’m curious, but do not endorse the content; I mean seriously, Ronnie thought trees caused pollution. what kind of nature loving god would support that?
I’m jealous. I never get hate mail or anyone trying to convert me. I need to practice my debating skills.
I pretty much just have 2 questions for most religious people.
1) Do you honestly believe that if you’d been born to parents of a religion other than the one you currently believe, in a society of this different religion you’d still believe the same one you do now?
2) What evidence would it take for you to change your mind?
@17 “Do any of these people realize that we’re mean IN PRINT and not in person? There is a huge difference in the type of interaction that one has when writting to a vast audience with no one person in particular targeted, and one-on-one interaction requiring two human beings speaking face to face.”
Speak for yourself, people are always telling me that I am a BIG meanie.
Stwriley #41, the evidence supports your claim. Well, it seems it worked then and it looks like the current US president has found it useful too.
Unfortunately, I live in Australia, which in RealPolitik shelters under the US shadow.
That bothers me, and in some sense, PZ’s struggle is mine too. He’s just of far more significance.
I don’t wish to belittle the ingenuity of Roman execution techniques and I’m sure crucifixion is a very nasty way to die if you are mortal, but why all the fuss when .33% of a god was nailed up?
I mean, if you are going to suffer for ALL the sins of the world, can it really all be over in an afternoon? Is death such a biggie when you know you are, in fact, immortal?
Isn’t there a case here for a do-over? Maybe metastasised colon cancer during a world morphine shortage. And this time the carpenter stays dead.
There is more to religion than theology
indeed; there’s also the pointless rituals.
and songs! don’t forget the songs!
one of these days I’ve got to write a Dagon hymn.
(at least better than the one Alan quoted).
1) Do you honestly believe that if you’d been born to parents of a religion other than the one you currently believe, in a society of this different religion you’d still believe the same one you do now?
No because I live in a pert of the world where Satan has much less of an influence on religious beliefs.
2) What evidence would it take for you to change your mind?
If Satan came over here and tricked me into changing my mind, then I would do so. That, and if Jesus couldn’t fly, then I would change my mind also.
Yes, I understood that right off. It’s respectable point of view, IMO, and consonant with I’ve seen of your philosophy and style. But I’m still pretty firmly in a live-and-let-live phase. People believe what they believe, and I have no great desire (and far less hope) of changing anyone’s mind. The journey to disbelief is a personal one…
I also understand that it’s likely to be a no-win, so I tend to stick to the easy stuff, like the absurdity of the Flood story, the horrendous laws of the O.T., and so forth. Safe topics that few, if any, people in my spheres have any attachment to. I’m lucky enough to have more than a few friends who are quite irreligious, some openly atheist, so it’s not like I’m surrounded by fundies. My dad doesn’t say the Nicean creed either, and in fact we’ve stopped going to church altogether (except to help with fundraisers). I think both my brothers are Deists without realizing it, or Christians in the way Jefferson was (or wasn’t) one.
So it’s not really a big issue in my day-to-day. The real struggle is internal, to be honest, but that’s not so bad either.
ah, nvmd alan, I found it:
http://wiretap.area.com/ftp.items/Library/Fringe/Weird/pagan.sng
last verse:
Then we’ll worship with the Fruitcakes
(better than those Buddhist flakes)
bowing for the weekly keepsake
and it will be good enough for me
Pointless? I’ve always felt the same about graduation ceremonies. Nevertheless there are many who find the ceremony both useful and meaningful. As for songs, do you dislike all music or just the religious music with which you are familiar?
SEE?!!!
You’re all quite mean. Therefore whatever I believe is right.
Nevertheless there are many who find the ceremony both useful and meaningful.
but you know better on that score.
LOL.
funny enough, I rather agree with you; graduation ceremonies are pointless for the participants… it’s all for the parents.
now if you could only grasp the parallels.
You’re so close.
#32 Cool! A “Highlander” reference.
Cheers,
Ray
Nevertheless there are many who find the ceremony both useful and meaningful.
but you know better on that score.
LOL.
funny enough, I rather agree with you; graduation ceremonies are pointless for the participants… it’s all for the parents.
now if you could only grasp the parallels.
You’re so close.
do you dislike all music or just the religious music with which you are familiar?
do you like all art or just the forms of expression with which you are familiar?
btw, I do hope you are building up at least to the level of threatening us with a narn bat.
I find it funny how they just don’t get how silly it all is.
Religion is goofy.
MAJeff wrote (post #33):
But how did they each measure up? I mean, after the creator of the universe, wouldn’t you feel a little self-conscious? Maybe Mary wasn’t a size queen.
Well Yahweh can’t be very well-endowed if he left Mary a virgin.
Religion is Goofy.
http://www.animationartgallery.com/images/wdc/wdc109.jpg
can’t argue with that.
OK — I read the thread waiting for the trolls to show up, only to be disappointed. Just a bunch self-satisfied commentary from people about how brilliant they are. Yeah, you sure put the fundies to rout. As to dealing with the faith, emotions, and attitudes of most spiritual people, the commentary missed the mark. What, Christian myth isn’t true???? Oh my word, never heard that before. Would that our lives were only a matter of finding falsifiable propositions to which we might apply our super scientific brilliant and rigorous minds. Then it would be no problem to convince the 90% of the human race. Rather than congratulating yourselves about how extra cool and rational you guys are, what about figuring out why humans have such a deep and fundamental orientation toward faith and preferring clearly irrational propositions to your clear truths. Hmm, tackle the psychological conditions in which the majorty of us live. Nah, easier to compare a religious scientist to someone with a congenital disease.
OK — I read the thread waiting for the trolls to show up, only to be disappointed. Just a bunch self-satisfied commentary from people about how brilliant they are. Yeah, you sure put the fundies to rout. As to dealing with the faith, emotions, and attitudes of most spiritual people, the commentary missed the mark. What, Christian myth isn’t true???? Oh my word, never heard that before. Would that our lives were only a matter of finding falsifiable propositions to which we might apply our super scientific brilliant and rigorous minds. Then it would be no problem to convince the 90% of the human race. Rather than congratulating yourselves about how extra cool and rational you guys are, what about figuring out why humans have such a deep and fundamental orientation toward faith and preferring clearly irrational propositions to your clear truths. Hmm, tackle the psychological conditions in which the majorty of us live. Nah, easier to compare a religious scientist to someone with a congenital disease.
Jeff Alexander said:
The point at which religion becomes compatible with atheism is the point at which it ceases to be religion. Yes, community, charity, and a sense of awe are really nice and important things, but they neither require nor comprise religion.
“easier to compare a religious scientist to someone with a congenital disease.”
That’s what you thought he was doing? Do you have any learning disabilities or anything i should be aware of? I’d hate to say something and then find out afterwards that you do. I’d feel awful. I’m just curious how someone’s reading comprehension can possibly be that bad.
He’s not comparing religious belief to someone with a congenital disease. He’s comparing the ARGUMENT that because smart people have religious belief that religious belief is a good thing to the obsurd claim that ALS is a good thing because some smart people have it.
Then it would be no problem to convince the 90% of the human race. Rather than congratulating yourselves about how extra cool and rational you guys are, what about figuring out why humans have such a deep and fundamental orientation toward faith and preferring clearly irrational propositions to your clear truths.
umm, because that’s been done innumerable times on other threads, and this one ended up just taking the tack of making fun of those who take religion so seriously?
just a thought.
Re: #15 “… Yes, you would think if someone was going to DIE for your sins at least he would have the decency to stay dead more than thee days…”
Praise Jesus! He gave his weekend for you!
— CV
Thanks for the last two lines PZ. I think I just found myself a new siggie for the christian forum I hang around at :)
it’s not like the idea of a god spawn becoming concretized and dying in some tragic drama is so damn original … it shows up all over human mythology. whether it is Baldur in Norse mythos, or Baal in Middle Eastern — with his lover-halfsister Asherah — or elsewhere, this is Not Such A Great New Idea.
deal with it, folks.
it’s not like the idea of a god spawn becoming concretized and dying in some tragic drama is so damn original … it shows up all over human mythology. whether it is Baldur in Norse mythos, or Baal in Middle Eastern — with his lover-halfsister Asherah — or elsewhere, this is Not Such A Great New Idea.
deal with it, folks.
Re: #15 “… Yes, you would think if someone was going to DIE for your sins at least he would have the decency to stay dead more than thee days…”
Praise Jesus! He gave his weekend for you!
— CV
“.33% of a god”? This is a major departure from the usual trinitarian doctrines! Could such a teensy bit of god be a successful redeemer (what with 99.67% of him getting off scot free)?
it’s not like the idea of a god spawn becoming concretized and dying in some tragic drama is so damn original … it shows up all over human mythology. whether it is Baldur in Norse mythos, or Baal in Middle Eastern — with his lover-halfsister Asherah — or elsewhere, this is Not Such A Great New Idea.
deal with it, folks.
“.33% of a god”? This is a major departure from the usual trinitarian doctrines! Could such a teensy bit of god be a successful redeemer (what with 99.67% of him getting off scot free)?
Christianity? There is no such thing. The religion that goes by that name is just the re-warmed Greco-Roman polytheism. You got your big god, and his immediate family. Lesser gods, angels. Mischievous god, satan and minions. Important humans promoted to godhood, saints. I don’t know why they get their noses out of joint about other polytheistic systems, but they do.
Christianity? There is no such thing. The religion that goes by that name is just the re-warmed Greco-Roman polytheism. You got your big god, and his immediate family. Lesser gods, angels. Mischievous god, satan and minions. Important humans promoted to godhood, saints. I don’t know why they get their noses out of joint about other polytheistic systems, but they do.
Quoth rob:
> As to dealing with the faith, emotions,
> and attitudes of most spiritual people,
> the commentary missed the mark. What,
> Christian myth isn’t true???? Oh my word,
> never heard that before.
Have you got anything you’d like to actually defend then, rob?
Because, don’t think you do.
And I _know_ you can’t.
Terrible joke which will quickly be ommitted here, but I think PZ will actually like:
God decides he wants to go on vacation. The angels try to help him decide where. First they suggest Saturn “Lovely rings ya know, very pretty” God answers “What! I made that place hot as Hell!” Angels reconsider “How about Neptune? Spectacular scenery and amazing views of the solar system!” God answers ” And just how cold did I make that friggin’ planet?” Angels think for a bit. “OK, How about Earth, not to hot, not to cold?” God answers “Earth?! Earth is the worst. I went there two thousand years ago and they’re STILL trying to say I knocked some Jewish wench up!”
Sorry, had to do it, even though I know it’s off topic and…
“”Quick” is simply a fancy (and archaic) way of saying “living”.”
…ah, so that’s probably the origin of the name “quick silver” for mercury.
Then it would be no problem to convince the 90% of the human race. Rather than congratulating yourselves about how extra cool and rational you guys are, what about figuring out why humans have such a deep and fundamental orientation toward faith and preferring clearly irrational propositions to your clear truths.
1) They’re stupid.
2) They want to conform.
3) They are stubborn.
4) They enjoy being part of a cult.
5) They’re stupid.
6) They’re gullible.
7) They’re bored.
8) They’re scared.
9) They’re stupid.
Not a whole lot to figure out.
rob:
OH NOES. FUN THREAD. MUST BE MORE SERIOUS.
This is easy, and has been quite thoroughly covered in the past. They have been taught that people who do not share their clearly irrational propositions are bad people, and that all their family and friends will abandon if they dare to question. The threat is so powerful that many people cannot even bring themselves to think about the alternative. Even many people who privately agree that the claims of religion are entirely ludicrous frequently continue to spout the “correct” phrases in public and find ways to rationalize the behavior to themselves because they are afraid of rejection, and of the miniscule possibility, however stupid it may seem, that Jesus could show up five minutes after they break down and deny the existence of a god. It’s really a massive tragedy that some people spend their whole lives this way.
Happy now? Can we get back to our jokes? Thanks so much.
We would never compare a religion to a congenital disease. It’s definitely acquired.
“If the divinity and resurrection of Christ is so obvious, so compelling and so momentous, why did it take some 300 frikkin’ years for it to be recognized?
Posted by: ZacharySmith”
Read up on your history, sir. That’s when all the killin’ began!
*disclaimer* This user does not know when actual killing in the name of Jesus began. The comment was meant to be humorous and satirical and written to be interpreted as such. May anyone who thinks otherwise be struck down by lightning.
Christianity? There is no such thing. The religion that goes by that name is just the re-warmed Greco-Roman polytheism. You got your big god, and his immediate family. Lesser gods, angels. Mischievous god, satan and minions. Important humans promoted to godhood, saints. I don’t know why they get their noses out of joint about other polytheistic systems, but they do.
Stwriley @ #41:
So what you’re saying is that when an emperor says, “Look, you guys work it out among yourselves, and then you can complain to the rest of us about who is and isn’t a True Christian™”, people actually do so?
Where can we find someone today with that kind of power? I wouldn’t mind a widely-agreed-upon definition of a True Scotsman… er, Christian, to say nothing of an edition of The Big Book of Multiple Choice that clearly indicates which parts are literal and which are metaphorical.
America’s working on it. Check back in fourteen months or so. If we’re not having elections, you’re golden.
Reading these comments has got me thinking – isn’t it a bit unfair that God the Father gets half the Bible and God the Son gets half the Bible and poor little God the Holy Spirit gets nothing. Oh, of course, the Holy Spirit infuses the whole Bible, yadda, yadda, yadda but doesn’t that just sound like a “no I didn’t buy a Valentine card this year because I love you equally every day of the year” excuse? True, the HS gets some of the best tunes (keywords Benedictus, Bach, Beethoven) but most of the time all he gets to do is get really offended by catholics masturbating. Let’s face it, the Holy Spirit is the Ringo of the Trinity.
isn’t it a bit unfair that God the Father gets half the Bible and God the Son gets half the Bible and poor little God the Holy Spirit gets nothing.
sounds like you have found a writer’s niche!
new chapter of the bible:
Scooby Doo and the Holy Ghost
which ends with the verse:
“I woulda taken over the whole bible if it wasn’t for those meddling kids!”
Mkay, OT, but…
John Spong is giving a talk near where I live soon, titled “Jesus for Non-Christians”. Is the guy worth paying $10 (US$7.12) to go see?
For a while I’ve been toying with the idea that “holy spirit” could be code for semen. That would fit with the insistence that only men, being in possession of their own portion of “holy spirit”, can act as divine intermediaries (no women priests and any unmarried women having to find another man to rule over them).
Meanwhile, artificial insemination isn’t actually a technologically difficult thing for a bronze-age tribe to work out if they knew anything about the function of sexual intercourse at all (which some tribes apparently didn’t). So even without a mistranslation of words, Mary could still be a virgin.
So let me get this straight: I’m supposed to respect people who believe Papa God let little baby Jebus be nailed to a tree to sate his bloodlust, having previously drowned over 99% of the living things he created? You can kiss my non-framing raggedly atheist ass.
I love it when people put christian myth like that. It seems so ridiculous thay anyone could ever believe it when people talk about it like that. Gives me inspiration, next time some christian tries to talk to me I’ll ask them why they worship a god who condems pre-marital sex then goes around getting innocent women pregnant then killing of their offspring for no good reason. I mean, if he can do anything, surely he could forgive all human sin without offing Jesus. It was totally just an excuse.
God was just exercising his droit du seigneur, his right of a feudal lord to have sex with his vassal’s wife on the wedding night. Which, if it had actually existed, would have been a properly evolutionary act. The most successful male gets to mate first with every woman and has a better chance of propagating.
And being a Magic Man, he was able to send just part of himself, in the form of a dove to do it. Impressive multitasking and all, but a dove? At least Zeus took the form of a big, randy bull or a shower of gold. And when he did it in the form of a bird, at least it was a swan, a much bigger and more impressive bird than a wimpy little dove.
On the other topic:
I wonder if this definition of “quick” is related to the phrase, “Cut me to the quick”? Just a thought.
ANF
That one means: deep enough to reach the vital growing layer. Eg fingernails but also in plants.
Are xians stupid? What a question. Here is a clip from “The View” where a good xian who definitely rejects evolution doesn’t know if the world is flat or round. “We gotta go to the library”.
Whoopie Goldberg is good.
Is it just me, or does PZ seem to be getting more fanatic as the months go by? You go big guy…it only solidifies everything that those crazy Christians say about ya. I’m predicting an atheist Waco on the horizon with PZ holding down the fortress….
sorry…kinda mean, but I couldn’t resist.
Yes.
“Father, the Son and the Poorly-Understood Adjunct Functionary”
The Deity, the Boy, and Larry
A fanatic calling PZ a fanatic. That’s rich.
FtK has a way of coming up with the “shoot it out to the death” scenarios. Why is that?
Thanks for the blog fodder, P.Z. I really appreciate it.
Fundamatheists are Outraged (Again!)
I thought we were “militant”, not “mean”. Though I guess we could be both.
Garrrh! ‘Tis sad that ye be wastin’ yer time during Talk Like a Pirate Day ruminating over this bilge. Have a pint of rum and be merry!
So Sinbad…
which parts of the creed do you believe?
It’s funny how Sinbad sees himself as a freedom fighter.
And Ftk sees herself as being smart.
You are an evil man who will come to no good end. Good job!
“Happy now? Can we get back to our jokes? Thanks so much.”
Sure. Didn’t mean to be such a downer — it’s just that I’d heard most of the jokes and comments before (like in jr. high school). And thanks for clarifying why so many people (including smart scientists) believe in fairy tales — they are scared and stupid. Not much of an explanation, but let’s not interrupt the frivolity.
The argument that “some scientists are religious and are still capable of doing good work!” always strikes me as akin to saying “some of the special olympics guys in the wheelchairs are really fast!” — which is true. But we respect and admire them for overcoming a handicap and that’s part of what makes it impressive. So when I encounter, say, a religious physicist, I have been known to ask them (with raised eyebrow) “Wow, that’s impressive!! It’s amazing that you’ve had the strength and willpower to work in spite of such a handicap! My hat’s off to you!”
Yeah, I’m one of those MEAN atheists.
So Sinbad…
which parts of the creed do you believe?
We don’t have to do that much work. Per P.Z., since I believe the first clause, I’m necessarily an irrational dolt and probably a delusional, mentally ill child-abuser too. Do y’all think Christian parents who convey their values to their children should go to prison?
It’s funny how Sinbad sees himself as a freedom fighter.
C’mon, Stevie, naturalism necessarily precludes freedom (cause and effect being relentless and all), so only a theist can coherently believe s/he has freedom, much less fight for it.
LOL
All your need is love! *hum*
I’m not following you here, mistah. Please elaborate? Tnx.
You have such a silly world view Sinbad.
I don’t think anyone here has said that parents should got to prison for raising their kids christian.
Most of us would defend everyone’s right to believe whatever superstitions they want.
We reserve the right to call them silly and to keep it out of government. Decisions by the government shouldn’t be based on superstition.
Are you irrational? You seem to be on occasion.
Dellusional. Definitely. (But not in an out of touch with reality way, just in the total lack of evidence for your beliefs way)
Mentally Ill? Well are you taking any antidepressants? Self medicating?
Abusing your child? Depends on if you have kids and are mentally or physically abusing them.
The only thing most of us think about the religious is that they’re superstitious and believe in silly things.
The rest is on an individual basis.
You for example seem to be a bit of an unhinged putz. Probably has nothing to do with your being Catholic.
Holy Spirit: Ringo
Jesus: Lennon (duh!)
God: Uh… Harrison?
I guess that would make McCartney Satan?
No, obviously Yoko is Satan.
I’m not following you here, mistah. Please elaborate? Tnx.
Sure. Naturalism assumes that nothing can break the chain of cause and effect. Thus (necessarily) we’re machines whose actions are pre-programmed. As Dawkins says, the “murderer or the rapist [is] just a machine with a defective component….”
Thus only a theist can cohertly believe in volitional freedom.
I don’t think anyone here has said that parents should got to prison for raising their kids christian.
But I thought (per St. Richard), that we’re child-abusers? Child-abusers shouldn’t go to jail?
Decisions by the government shouldn’t be based on superstition.
Based on your view of “superstition,” you’ve just de-legitimized Martin Luther king, Jr. Congratulations. But I prefer to think of him as an American hero.
Dellusional[sic]. Definitely. (But not in an out of touch with reality way, just in the total lack of evidence for your beliefs way)
I never tire of hearing the lack of evidence claim. But everytime I choose what to have for lunch there’s evidence.
Mentally Ill? Well are you taking any antidepressants? Self medicating?
No, but delusional is a clinical evaluation. Surely Dawkins picked “delusion” intentionally? Does he (or do you) have the credentials to make such a diagnosis?
You for example seem to be a bit of an unhinged putz. Probably has nothing to do with your being Catholic.
Where did you get the idea that I am Catholic (I’m not)?
Yeah; to believe the Nicene Creed you’d have to be totally creedulous. And creedtinous to boot.
The ALS reference might be too subtle for people who regularly mock Steven Hawkins.
That’s quite a jump there. Martin Luther King Jr wrote the Equal rights amendment?
The bible condones slavery not condemns it.
Have you read Dawkins? Might wanna try it.
No, but delusional is a clinical evaluation
Not necessarily – only when made as such.
“There is this old myth about a god who has sex with his human mother to give birth to himself”
You are wrong Dr Myers; scripture KJV1611 clearly says
Luke 1:35 “And the angel answered and said unto her, The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, ” GLORY!
As you see God came upon Mary so Jesus did not have sex with His own mother.
Not according to the Catholic bishops. Instead they should be shipped off to a different unsuspecting parish.
What government office did he hold? Do you think his civil rights efforts lacked secular value and were based solely on superstition? As already pointed out, there is no scriptural support in the Christian Bible (MLK’s brand of faith) to condemn slavery.
. The religion that goes by that name is just the re-warmed Greco-Roman polytheism…
Well, no… more like re-warmed Phoenician/Cannanite polytheism. Yahweh is simply the Ba’al of Jerusalem. Now Paul and Peter DID appropriate a lot of symbolism and paegentry from the Hellenistic Mystery religions – especially the Mysteries of Dionyssius – but the basis of the mythology is that of the Levantine-semitic tradition not the Hellenic-dorian one, although, being polytheists, there was a great amount of syncretization between the two traditions in classical antiquity.
To the polytheists Yahweh was most certainly Zeus (Deus in Latin) but was also Melquart, Amon-Re, Oghma, etc. They really didn’t sweat the names much and gleefully integrated whoever’s faith into their own. Funny enough they had a word for people – like the Hebrews – who refused such syncretisation in favor of exclusionary theology; They called them “atheists”.
“FtK has a way of coming up with the “shoot it out to the death” scenarios.”
Check your history…guess how all wars are started?
Words…
…and, PZ is one of the most militant speaking individuals you’ve got heading up your scarlet letter brigade. It’s interesting that before I got involved in the ID/evolution debate, I thought the religious radio stations were *seriously* paranoid about the liberal left and their agenda, but through this debate, I’ve stumbled upon a whole crop of bloggers and people in forums who fit those descriptions *to a tee*. It’s really been an eye opener for me.
I mean, PZ seriously sounds like he’s at war…
“This is one reason some of us “New Atheists” are not compromising our attack on religion (I know some of the delicate and sensitive souls out there will quail at that thought — that we must attack religion — but outright opposition is what I encourage). We aim for a post-theistic world in which the religious rationale is recognized as a toxic pathology that diminishes the legitimacy of an argument, and that includes the humble homilies of the Christian moderate.”
and…
“Our goal should be ambitious: to shape the culture and change the world. We can admire the scattered bits of rational architecture that have arisen from the flawed bases of religion … but what if all of humanity were building on the bedrock of naturalism and reason, instead of that quaking vapor of god-belief? We could reach so much higher!”
So, good luck with all that, but I think you’re fighting an up hill battle. You might consider the route of tolerance and compromise rather than all out war.
Dearest PZ Meyer,
you make some convincing arguments and as the leading radio pundit and “Master Debater” in Freehold, Iowa (home of God’s favorite church- Landover Baptist) I feel compelled to strike up yet another lively debate on your evil and possibly homosexual blog (AIDS can’t be contracted over the internet, right?).
After reading your blog entry I tackled my Bible (KJV1611) in search of verses. I’m sure that all of us, Christian or atheist (*editorial snicker*), can all come to the agreement that God did in fact write the Bible and so there is no debate there. With that in mind not once in the Bible is it said that the Bible is wrong! To break it down: The Bible is the ultimate source of truth, the Bible says the Bible is right, end of debate.
I apologize for tearing down your entire belief system but I am sure that once you set up a tithing account at your local Lanover collection center you’ll feel much better.
Flawless in logic,
Wash O’Hanley
Re #140
What do you call a flock of Catholic Clergy?
A ‘fondle’ of priests…
“Well, you’ll recall that it was the Holy Spirit who did the dirty work, as it were.”
I’ve heard of guys that have a name for theirs, but didn’t realize this God guy called his “Holy Spirit.”
So, good luck with all that, but I think you’re fighting an up hill battle. You might consider the route of tolerance and compromise rather than all out war.
Fine. You go first. How much tolerance and compromise are you willing to practice?
Ftk (is that Fuck the Kids?)
We is at war with teh stupid…sadly, stupid usually wins.
Luke 1:35 “And the angel answered and said unto her, The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, ” GLORY!
ghostus interruptus?
I’ve got to wonder, you think there’s a rag or a piece of tissue being venerated as a relic somewhere…
Let’s not get into what happened to the hundreds of millions of other godmetes, or just how unfair the whole situation is to Onan.
After you.
That’s quite a jump there. Martin Luther King Jr wrote the Equal rights amendment?
I’m sorry to have to be the one to break this to ya, Stevie, but the ERA was never ratified.
The bible condones slavery not condemns it.
Martin read it differently.
Have you read Dawkins? Might wanna try it.
I have – just about everything he’s written in fact.
Not necessarily – only when made as such.
I’ve never heard that before but even if so (and I have no reason to doubt you), is there any question that Dawkins chose the word for maximum impact so as to (at least) suggest mental illness?
What government office did he hold?
Holding office isn’t necessary to impact policy. MLK’s advocacy, specifically grounded in Christianity, was successful. Since y’all see faith impacting policy as illegitimate, you’ve (at least) marginalized Dr. King. I think much more highly of him than that.
Do you think his civil rights efforts lacked secular value and were based solely on superstition?
Of course such rights have secular value, but that isn’t the issue.
As already pointed out, there is no scriptural support in the Christian Bible (MLK’s brand of faith) to condemn slavery.
I’ll take Dr. King’s word for what the Bible teaches ahead of yours, Reggie. Would Democrats trust Republicans to tell them the proper interpretation of the Democratic platform?
FtK.
We’re done with compromise. And we’re already far too tolerant.
Keep trying to cripple our children with nonsense and superstition
and you’ll only make your nonsense even more irrelevant,
and more of a target of mockery.
Of course that’s the issue.
I don’t know what Democrats would do, as I’m not one. Speaking only for myself, I’d read the friggin document on my own if there was a serious question about what it said. (Did you know that at least half a dozen state GOP platforms supported Creationism in 2006?) Apparently you have not read the Bible, and so cannot back up your claims about MLK. In fact, you haven’t even provided any documentation that MLK based his civil rights stance on the Bible.
Ephesians 6:5
Servants, be obedient to them that are your masters according to the flesh, with fear and trembling, in singleness of your heart, as unto Christ.
1 Timothy 6:1
Let as many servants as are under the yoke count their own masters worthy of all honour, that the name of God and his doctrine be not blasphemed.
1 Peter 2:18
Servants, be subject to your masters with all fear; not only to the good and gentle, but also to the froward.
ITYM “bukkake” HTH
My bad.
I meant the civil rights acts and voting act of the late 60’s.
This was in response to:
You seem to have a very short attention span, or to be counting on it in your audience. A believer is of course free to advocate policy, but the government shouldn’t be swayed by that unless the advocate can establish secular merit for his position. As noted, Martin Luther King did not hold a government office. You continually shift the goalposts in an attempt to cover your mistakes.
Comment 61 is priceless!!!
—————–
Semitic. Sumerian was a totally different language where comparable deities had quite different names (and I don’t know if one comparable to El exi… was believed in).
—————–
Come on! Quantum physics. Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Relation.
You are stuck in the 19th century and gleefully believe science stopped at that time.
—————–
German “quicklebendig” = “very obviously not dead”, “very lively”. The generally archaic half-word doesn’t occur anywhere else in the language, except in Quecksilber “mercury” (“quicksilver” — it moves!) and erquicken (archaic for “refresh” or “reinvigorate”). And probably in Quacksalber “quack”, “charlatan who pretends to treat illnesses, probably with mercury as a wonder drug” (presumably by way of confusion with Salbe “ointment”).
And unsurprisingly, “to judge the quick and the dead” is zu richten die Lebenden und die Toten (where the word order is archaic, rather than the words themselves).
Anyone not asleep yet? :-)
Comment 61 is priceless!!!
—————–
Semitic. Sumerian was a totally different language where comparable deities had quite different names (and I don’t know if one comparable to El exi… was believed in).
—————–
Come on! Quantum physics. Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Relation.
You are stuck in the 19th century and gleefully believe science stopped at that time.
—————–
German “quicklebendig” = “very obviously not dead”, “very lively”. The generally archaic half-word doesn’t occur anywhere else in the language, except in Quecksilber “mercury” (“quicksilver” — it moves!) and erquicken (archaic for “refresh” or “reinvigorate”). And probably in Quacksalber “quack”, “charlatan who pretends to treat illnesses, probably with mercury as a wonder drug” (presumably by way of confusion with Salbe “ointment”).
And unsurprisingly, “to judge the quick and the dead” is zu richten die Lebenden und die Toten (where the word order is archaic, rather than the words themselves).
Anyone not asleep yet? :-)
Steeeve? Why do you hate Mawtin Wuthuw King?
“>The bible condones slavery not condemns it.
Martin read it differently.”
So what makes his reading of superstition more correct than that of the white southern ministers of the time? It wouldn’t be some culturally influenced and independent standard apart from Biblical superstition, would it?
Son, we see your post as a desperate attempt to get JESUS to come into your life and turn it around, and here at Landover Baptist, we change people for the better every day…depending upon their tithing schedule, of course.
Our great Pastor Deacon Fred is going to attend the American Athieists convention in Miami this year (as always) and rebuke some sinners to hell, including that Dawkins fellow who will be spending eternity with SATAN’S huge, barbed member slapping at his backside!
http://www.atheistalliance.org/conventions/2007/aaicon2007_video.php
If I were you, I’d give up my faithless lifestyle, join Landover Baptist, and HOPE we can save you before JESUS comes back to kill everyone at Armageddon! ::angry
I would trust Republicans to be in principle capable of finding and pointing out internal inconsistencies in the Democratic platform.
Also, my personal impression is that Martin Luther King, consciously or not, was first a good and admirable person and then tried to find further arguments for his ideas by an (arguably selective) interpretation of the Bible. But I can’t prove that.
———————-
FtK, as I told you last time: what PZ means by “attack” is that he wants to laugh at you, loudly and in public, whenever he wants and as often as he wants, and that he wants us all to join him in laughter.
I can’t imagine you’re afraid of that. Surely you have the Truth ™ on your side? If someone laughs at the Truth, surely that’s their problem, not yours?
I would trust Republicans to be in principle capable of finding and pointing out internal inconsistencies in the Democratic platform.
Also, my personal impression is that Martin Luther King, consciously or not, was first a good and admirable person and then tried to find further arguments for his ideas by an (arguably selective) interpretation of the Bible. But I can’t prove that.
———————-
FtK, as I told you last time: what PZ means by “attack” is that he wants to laugh at you, loudly and in public, whenever he wants and as often as he wants, and that he wants us all to join him in laughter.
I can’t imagine you’re afraid of that. Surely you have the Truth ™ on your side? If someone laughs at the Truth, surely that’s their problem, not yours?
Christianity and slavery
Speaking of succinct (and hilarious) statements of the Christian faith, let’s not forget James Joyce’s Ballad of the Joking Jesus in Ulysses:
I’m the queerest young fellow that ever you heard.
My mother’s a jew, my father’s a bird.
With Joseph the joiner I cannot agree,
So here’s to disciples and Calvary.
If anyone thinks that I amn’t divine
He’ll get no free drinks when I’m making the wine
But have to drink water and wish it were plain
That I make when the wine becomes water again.
Goodbye, now, goodbye. Write down all I said
And tell Tom, Dick and Harry I rose from the dead.
What’s bred in the bone cannot fail me to fly
And Olivet’s breezy . . . Goodbye, now, Goodbye.
he wants us all to join him in laughter.
And mockery! I definitely recall hearing that there would be mockery.
I’d like to see how Jehovah, if that’s his real name, would do on the MMPI. Doesn’t it seem like he has Muchausen by Proxy factitious disorder? He proclaims all of humankind sick with a condition he calls “sin,” just so he can rush in and “save” us. See if this list of symptoms for MBP doesn’t seem a little familiar:
Difference between reported history and what is seen, or what makes sense physically or psychologically-behaviorally. (See more at “Humans, History Of…”)
Problem does not respond to treatment as expected. (See more at “Priest, Child-raping”)
Problem appears to originate only in association with suspected perpetrator’s presence.
Problem disappears or begins to improve when suspected victim is separated from suspected perpetrator.
Unexplained symptoms, illness, or death of other nuclear or extended family members. (Um, son, say?)
A pattern of behavior that appears consistent with exaggeration and/or fabrication and/or induction of physical and/or psychological-behavioral problems in the suspected victim. (As Hitch says, God makes us sick and commands us to be well–and what could be sicker than that?)
It’s not merely that belief in this Jehovah is garden-variety irrational, like buying a lottery ticket; there’s a touch of diagnosable madness in it as well.
Oh, PZ, you are SO going to HELL for this post!
Blasphemer!!!!!!
Ill see you there ;)
Keep trying to cripple our children with nonsense and superstition and you’ll only make your nonsense even more irrelevant, and more of a target of mockery.”
Dawkins proposed an even more radical solution. On his website he lobbied for this
petition:
“In order to encourage free thinking, children should not be subjected to any regular religious teaching or be allowed to be defined as belonging to a particular religious group based on the views of their parents or guardians. At the age of 16, as with other laws, they would then be considered old enough and educated enough to form their own opinion and follow any particular religion (or none at all) through free thought.”
He signed it too. That’s an unbelievably fascist proposal, particularly from a so-called “progressive.” But then again, the track record of officially atheist governments is singularly disasterous….
Of course that’s the issue.
The initial claim — that “[d]ecisions by the government shouldn’t be based on superstition” – is predicated upon whether the intended basis was religious or not. I have no quarrel with religiously motivated policy needing a secular impact.
Apparently you have not read the Bible, and so cannot back up your claims about MLK.
Apparently you have no understanding of history. If your doubt is real (and not a reflexive “Prove it!”), start by reading the famous Letter from Birmingham Jail and move on from there. You might also listen to the “I Have a Dream” speech. The point isn’t even debatable.
Servants, be obedient to them that are your masters according to the flesh, with fear and trembling, in singleness of your heart, as unto Christ.
Reggie, have you considered that the American institution of slavery might have been significantly different from the indentured servitude practiced in !st C. Greece and that those differences might have a significant impact upon one’s interpretation of the text? Moreover, for most people (other than fundamentalists and fundamatheists), a few Biblical citations doesn’t end the discussion. Are you familiar with Wesleyan quadrilateral? The idea of progressive revelation?
“A believer is of course free to advocate policy, but the government shouldn’t be swayed by that unless the advocate can establish secular merit for his position.”
As noted above, I agree. But then why (for example) do so many here object to Christians opposing abortion for faith-reasons even though secular justifications for opposing abortion exist as well unless the problem is with the motivation rather than just the impact?
You are stuck in the 19th century and gleefully believe science stopped at that time.
Puh-leeze. Random is no freer than determined is. If quantum indeterminacy allowed for volitional freedom, Dennett (et als.) wouldn’t need to dress determinism up in a nicer suit and advocate so-called “compatabilism.”
So what makes his reading of superstition more correct than that of the white southern ministers of the time?
What makes any interpretation of any document “more correct” than another? The interpretation proposed by people like Wilberforce and Garrison ultimately carried the day. One of the reasons that Christianity has survived these many centuries is that is has a self-correcting mechanism, slow, unwieldy and imperfect though it obviously is.
David: What do all wars start with? Laughter.
What is the “New Atheism?” I’ve seen this term a couple of times now. What happened to the “Old Atheism?” Also, I don’t understand the full frontal assault on religion. If the human race could conduct it’s affairs in the full light of reason, rationality, and science, it probably would have managed to by now. I fully agree with battling creationism and ID and admire PZ for his stalwart efforts — doing the Lord’s work (er, as it were) — but that’s politics. Science is a wonderful thing to bring to politics, but I don’t think it will ever completely guide our lives. Establishing and applying values and making judgmentsis the chief problem in that regard. I’m not sure that a rock-hard atheist will come out much better than a god-fearing person in that regard.
Someone else got to this first and mentioned quantum mechanics. I’ll go further and say that if there were no random element in the behavior of living things, evolution would have had to invent one (also true of death). In a “naturalistic” universe, actions should be chosen so as to produce optimum consequences, but the problem is, we rarely have enough information to choose an action on that basis. Should I have an omelet or oatmeal for breakfast? I like both, but I can’t eat both, I’m not that hungry. There are countless decisions in life which have to be made without all the information or time we would like. Hence evolution has given us the ability to make random choices, which you call free will.
(Programmers of computer games do the same thing.).
And you were right. They are.
“The liberal left” is not synonymous with “some outspoken atheists”. Most liberals and moderates – and quite a few conservatives – believe that the secular society and government specifed by the Constitution should be protected from dominionists. The religious right sees this protection as a “war on Christianity” because like the selfish, gluttonous child it is, it wants the entire pie for itself and perceives any effort to curb its appetite as deprivation of its needs.
Words? No. With a first shot. Without that first shot, there’s no war. There’s a difference between an attack on an ideology and a launched missile. There’s a difference between an argument and a fistfight. You expect everyone to either remain silent or to play nice. That’s fine. You can wish for that. I too wish for peace. When religionists stop using their faith as an excuse to wage war, persecute minorites, and declare themselves the heirs to god’s kingdom, come and see me. We’ll… talk.
Fundamatheists.
Clever, Sinbad. Did you come up with that all by yourself, or did God tell it to you?
If not, ever wonder why He’s so chatty with all the other believers?
Anyways, there’s never been any doubt that you guys don’t have a sense of humour. The whole burning witches for perceived acts of supernatural ability while beatifying others for perceived acts of, well, supernatural ability tells me you guys got irony down pat.
on your evil and possibly homosexual blog (AIDS can’t be contracted over the internet, right?).
After reading your blog entry I tackled my Bible (KJV1611) in search of verses. I’m sure that all of us, Christian or atheist (*editorial snicker*), can all come to the agreement that God did in fact write the Bible and so there is no debate there.
Flawless in logic,
Wash O’Hanley
……………………….
I’m sorry but is this “Wash” for real? The level of ignorant authoritarian “reasoning” deserves no respect and is why the US is ankle deep head first in a religious oil war in Iraq. Wash must love to lick the toes of the Commander In Chimp… flawless in ignorance.
Mayhempix, you really must visit the Landover Baptist Church site. It’ll change your views on fundies like Wash.
mayhempix @ Wash must love to lick the toes of the Commander In Chimp… flawless in ignorance.
Wash must love to lick the toes of the Commander In Chimp… flawless in ignorance.
Now Wash only offered to get down on his knees and shine President Bush’s shoes when appeared on Wash’s radio show here in Iowa.
But is it really necessary to duck Wash’s argument. You atheists pride yourself on being followers of logic. Well The Bible says right in it is written by God Himself. Right there in black and white is the proof God exists. You can go read it yourself. Unlike what that false I’ll-put-Dr-King-in-front-of-Jesus Christian Sinbad says The Bible is there for everyone to read.
BTW Shame on you Sinbad, God clearly advocates slavery in The Bible. A good Christian wouldn’t go around lying to even atheists but I guess that is what happens when you aren’t a member of Jesus favorite church, Landover.
@#168, it’s worth mentioning that the random numbers used in computers aren’t really random! They’re usually generated by feeding an arbitrary seed number to a mathematical formula that produces results that are difficult to predict (meaning there’s no way of getting any information about the result that’s any more efficient than just following the formula), but if you feed the same seed number to the same formula twice, you’ll get the same “random” number out.
It’s a little like asking what the hundred-trillionth digit of pi is. There is such an entity, and any two formulas capable of accurately calculating pi should get the same answer when the calculation is run. But there’s no formula whatsoever that can find that digit without first figuring out the 99,999,999,999,999th, 99,999,999,999,998th, etc.
At this point the very definition of “random” starts to spasm a little, but I think it’s an interesting thing to think about, and may have ramifications on our understanding of the universe. Quantum mechanics notwithstanding, it’s entirely possible that our universe is perfectly deterministic – that is, another Big Bang with precisely the same starting conditions as the event that kicked off our universe would result in a universe precisely identical to ours in every detail. Quantum mechanics only limits our ability to observe the universe from within itself — if we could run a simulated “model universe” precisely like our own (but, say, a few million times faster) we could probably make accurate predictions about our universe. Don’t get your hopes up, though, it turns out such a model is impossible! (At least as long as we’re stuck in the universe we’re stuck in.)
The more important point is that even if the universe is 100% deterministic, it is this way at a level far, far deeper and weirder than any level on which we humans make decisions. We tend to collapse these scales which are really unimaginably vast – very few of us really have anything resembling a grip on the size disparity between an atom, a molecule and a cell, to say nothing of the hyper-exponential escalation of complexity when you start talking about vast numbers of any of these entities interacting over long periods of time. Sinbad has a valid point – there is no “coherent” chain that leads us conceptually from a materialist universe to free will, and I don’t think there ever will be. And indeed there may not really be free will in that sense. But I tend to locate the problem in our brains’ total inability to really form accurate concepts of the universe as it is, combined with the “no-lookahead” rules that seem to be built into the the very fabric of everything. The fact that volition is a product of physical processes may make it un-free in some utterly pure sense of the word “free”, but the freedoms we’re usually worried about are things like freedom of speech, movement, and choice, which tend in general to be limited most proximately not by subatomic particles and nanosecond-scale events, but by other human beings operating at more or less the same level as us. In short, even if free will can be shown, logically, to be impossible, from a practical standpoint we humans here in Middle World pretty much have to (and should) act as though it exists.
I’m not sure that a rock-hard atheist will come out much better than a god-fearing person in that regard.
-Rey Fox
The differences are manifold. Atheists don’t feel the need to kill millions of people over who has the best invisible pal in the sky and atheists accept personal responsibility for what they do. People who believe they are directed by GOD to…bomb Iraq…for instance, will never accept any personal responsibility. After all, it’s not murder if GOD tells you to do it.
Fundamatheists.
Clever, Sinbad. Did you come up with that all by yourself, or did God tell it to you?
False dichotomy, because the answer is neither. My old friend (and atheist) Earwicker from the dearly departed Psycho Dave’s Atheist Discussion Forum on Delphi invented it in 1998 or thereabouts. There’s a mention of part of what happened here.
P.S. I posted a long piece in response to the many queries above a good while ago. It just isn’t up yet….
Paul: That was Rob that said that, not me.
That’s being far too nice. God raped a young woman and got her pregnant. Those Near Eastern gods seem to have gone in for that kind of thing quite a lot. It’s all about the framing, isn’t it?
It’s all about the framing, isn’t it?
*shrug*
ask Nisbet.
Is it just me, or does PZ seem to be getting more fanatic as the months go by? You go big guy…it only solidifies everything that those crazy Christians say about ya. I’m predicting an atheist Waco on the horizon with PZ holding down the fortress….
considering that proclamations about others coming from the mouths of religious fanatics demonstrably consist nearly entirely of projections…
should we call the FBI for a preemptive investigation of FTK?
…and, PZ is one of the most militant speaking individuals you’ve got heading up your scarlet letter brigade. It’s interesting that before I got involved in the ID/evolution debate, I thought the religious radio stations were *seriously* paranoid about the liberal left and their agenda, but through this debate, I’ve stumbled upon a whole crop of bloggers and people in forums who fit those descriptions *to a tee*. It’s really been an eye opener for me.
now all you have to do is take off the glasses.
or would that require surgery in your case?
Sinbad, you naughty boy! I believe you may be guilty of a quote-mine. I reserve judgement until I can ascertain whether or not you are to blame for your own actions. *snicker*
Regardless, your paraphrase is at least slightly misleading. Dawkins posed it as a rhetorical question, not as a statement. I agree that the implication of the question was that it could be true, based on “a truly scientific, mechanistic view of the nervous system.” The article in sum is saying that one day we may look back on the ancient and still-pervasive concepts of responsibility and retribution which will have been replaced by the concepts of cause and remedy, but that it’s unlikely to happen soon, and that even he himself has virtually no chance of altering his own mind so radically as to abandon the natural tendency to place blame ahead of cause.
Note also the larger context: Dawkins, along with many others, were asked to provide an answer to the question “What is your dangerous idea?” I don’t think it’s necessarily useful (or fair) to suggest this is a foundational component of his world-view, but I do agree it’s worth examining.
I do not agree that a purely naturalistic view of the universe precludes the notion of free will. Not all events can be predicted. Still, I’m not convinced that Dawkins is arguing for a strictly deterministic universe, as opposed to the less extreme notion that we may currently underestimate the power of cause-and-effect in human behavior.
Regarding “delusion”:
There is a diagnostic definition of “delusion” yes, but surely you are aware that there is also a lay, colloquial meaning that is quite common. In short, a delusion is a false belief. We all have known people who have delusions of grandeur. I’ve known guys who suffer from the delusion that I will date them. I have at times suffered from the delusion that people will take me seriously. You yourself may entertain a delusion that I don’t like you. In none of these examples have I mentioned or suggested mental illness.
Dr. Dawkins, however, should speak for himself:
First we must ascertain whether or not the alleged delusion is simply an overvalued idea, a false belief, or a belief strongly held even in the face of all reason and/or compelling evidence to the contrary. I think it’s fair to assert that Dawkins sees religious belief as the latter. Does that make it a mental illness according to the DSM-IV? Well, let’s see.
Diagnostic Criteria for Delusional Disorder
It could be argued that religious belief qualifies as an instance of either or both of the Grandiose or Persecutory types of Delusional Disorder. However, it’s not clear to me that religious belief satisfy Criterion A for 297.1, in that it is arguable the belief in a diety qualifies as belief insomething that “occurs in real life.” *snarkle*
It could also be argued that religious belief typically does not satisfy Criterion C, either. I’m sure a lively discussion will follow. :-)
On the other hand, in this article by Irene Guryanova, MD, the definition of “delusions” is modified per DSM-IV-TR to be “false beliefs based on incorrect inference about external reality that persist despite the evidence to the contrary and these beliefs are not ordinarily accepted by other members of the person’s culture or subculture.” [emphasis mine]
She goes on to say, “Additionally, personal beliefs should be evaluated with great respect to complexity of cultural and religious differences: some cultures have widely accepted beliefs that may be considered delusional in other cultures.” However, this caveat is not part of the formal diagnostic criteria.
Psychological relativism aside, I conclude that Dr. Dawkins either wishes to rewrite the DSM, or that he does not mean “delusion” in the psychopathological sense.
I can see why the religious feel angered.
I imagine it to be something like the mathemeticians of the day, and their reaction when Godel’s incompleteness theorem hit town.
“NO! We KNOW this stuff! It’s true! You must be wrong! Wah!”
The argument is pretty amusing when viewed from this perspective- one side can prove what they are saying, and the other can’t, but is very certain they are right, and so they grasp at any feeble argument they can. Like someone sinking in quicksand.
You can grasp away, or you can climb out of the quicksand.
David M. wrote:
I second that. Clearly Dr. King’s approach was not one rooted in Biblical literalism, which would suggest that persons of color were the sons of Ham and destined for slavery. Instead he recast his people as the chosen people, and himself as Moses. My opinion is if you’re going to use the Bible to legitimize a civil-rights (or human-rights) effort, that’s one heck of a good way to go about it.
I imagine it to be something like the mathemeticians of the day, and their reaction when Godel’s incompleteness theorem hit town.
you don’t even have to imagine this kind of reaction.
read the collected works of WD Hamilton:
Narrow Roads of Gene Land
volumes 1 and 2 have Hamilton himself detailing exactly that response to his models of kin selection when he first proposed them.
I highly suggest anybody even remotely interested in science, let alone evolutionary biology, to put those on their reading list.
not only do they contain all of his original papers, but the commentary by Hamilton is just as informative and interesting from a historical/sociological perspective.
@174
See the BPP formula for pi which does exactly that.
Paul T.,
I wouldn’t reduce why nations or individuals go to war down to whether they believe in god. Obviously that’s simplistic. Wars are pretty much exclusively started by religious people, but that’s because with few exceptions (e.g. Soviet Union) there have been no atheistic governments or societies. Although, certainly in the case of the Soviets, their pronounced atheists did not make them nice people. In fact, it was an extremely irrational, vicious, incompetent government. Which doesn’t prove that atheism is bad. Believing in god doesn’t make you a bad scientist — that is determined by the quality of your work. Not believing in god doesn’t make you a good person or particularly rational person either. Humans are very complicated.
Why oh why do you single minded evil Atheists and Monkey Worshippers have to go on persecuting True Christians all of the time?
Jesus died temporarily for YOUR Sins. Why can you not let HIM enter you and fill you with HIS Love?
I shall pray for you all.
YIC
Talitha
#1: The first part is false. At best, you can ignore your religious beliefs while doing professional work, then ignore the fact that you ignored them.
Unless this was a faith-based statement, there should be plenty of evidence to support it, correct? Perhaps an experiment could be designed to show that one *can’t* be both religious AND a good scientist. I suggest a Believer vs. Atheist Journal Club Cyber-SmackDown.
Proposed methods:
1. Choose a recent (from 2005 or later), peer-reviewed, original research article, from a top- or middle-tier scientific journal (no fair choosing some Discovery Institute junk), corresponding author known to be a Believer, and demonstrate that it represents Not Good Science. Bonus points for explaining how the Believer duped the reviewers.
OR
2. Choose two related, recent, peer-reviewed articles, one from the lab of a Believer, and the other from the lab of an Atheist. Explain why the science from the Atheist is Much, Much Better than the related Not Good science published by the Believer. The Believer and the Atheist should be first, senior, and/or corresponding author on the chosen paper; bonus points if the Atheist chooses a paper that he or she has written and published, to compare to a related paper from the Believer’s lab.
Remember, usual standards for a typical journal club apply. Recent. Peer-reviewed. Original research. Top- or middle-tier scientific journal.
K. Signal Eingang addressed the free will thing approximately 1.43 zillion times better than I did. :-)
#174 (K. Signal Eingang): Those “random” numbers that I spoke of which are used in computer games usually change the seed between calculations based on the fastest-varying digits of the hardware clock, or a counter of the number of key stokes and mouse clicks, and may add similarly-based quantities to the formula result before scaling. So if you reload a saved game and replay a series of events, the computer characters may react differently – as though they had free will.
For the record, I am speculating, and am using “random” in a casual way, to mean unpredictable and non-repeating (over a reasonable length of time). My speculation, FWIW, is that if the Big Bang were replayed none of us would be here. Something else would be, quite possibly more interesting (speaking for myself).
Sinbad:
This doesn’t have much to do with naturalism. If souls existed, they would either operate by deterministic laws, or chance, or some combination of the two. A murderer would just be a machine with a defective soul.
Nobody can coherently believe in volitional freedom. It’s just that theists are more likely to try.
If you’ve read Dawkins, as you claim to, then you’d know that he doesn’t think people should go to jail for slapping religious labels on their kids or terrifying them with tales of Hell. If you want to quarrel with his definition of abuse, or argue that all abuse merits jail time, then go right ahead. But don’t make up stuff about how Dawkins wants to send religious parents to prison.
And no, not all child abusers should go to jail; often there are other ways of dealing with them that are better for the child. Look up “tertiary prevention” sometime.
Evidence for what? Of course you made a choice. But did you make it freely? If your choice was predetermined, how would you know? If your choice was random, how would you know?
No, but delusional is a clinical evaluation. Surely Dawkins picked “delusion” intentionally? Does he (or do you) have the credentials to make such a diagnosis?
“Deluded” is not a clinical evaluation. One can be deluded without being delusional–a doting parent who doesn’t see their child’s shortcomings, for instance.
Sorry,
should have been in quotes.
since this is a strawman of what was said, we can safely ignore your proposal.
try again?
the point was, why saddle one with a handicap that one has to overcome to begin with?
to think it has no effect on one’s thinking overall would be ludicrous.
take a look at Francis Collins or Michael Egnor for excellent examples (and a good sliding scale) of what can happen when you try to compartmentalize over a long period of time.
was good science done by each of them?
yes.
are they obviously struggling with horridly competing worldviews in their own heads?
also yes.
so we should ask you the question:
is ALS a good thing?
Is all supersitious activity irrational? For example, a baseball who carries a lucky charm. The charm itself, by any object standard, will not affect the physics of getting a hit. Pyschologically, it’s very important. Would anyone suggest to the baseball player that in the interests of being rational he should forego his charm, ruin has average, and be sent back to the minors. If he hits better with it, it’s rational for him to believe in it.
weird.
at the beginning of my last post should have been:
hopefully it came through this time. sciblogs appears to be acting up a bit recently.
Regardless, your paraphrase is at least slightly misleading.
I don’t think so. The problem is that so many atheists (understandably) don’t want to own up to the consequences of their beliefs. It makes getting a clear representation of the position difficult. The clearest example to such owning up is (atheist) Owen Flanagan’s The Problem of the Soul, where it covers the subject fully and well. But a cite to a hardcopy source isn’t ideal (links rule), so I settled for Dawkins since his view is clear enough. Besides, why cite a spear-carrier when you can use a general?
I don’t think it’s necessarily useful (or fair) to suggest this is a foundational component of his world-view, but I do agree it’s worth examining.
If it isn’t foundational, I suggest it’s because Dawkins intuitively recognizes the cognitive dissonance of living as if he has the volitional freedom he philosophically denies. Moreover, since science is utterly dependent upon observation based upon perception, if the Dawkins/Flanagan/Dennett cabal are right about volition, our perceptions are fundamentally wrong 24/7, which suggests that science itself (totally reliant upon such perceptions) is foundational incoherent. That might be a problem for our lad Clint, donchathink?
Dawkins: “When one or two people have a delusion, it is classed as a mental illness — when millions share a delusion, it’s a religion. It doesn’t make it any less of a delusion.”
By my lights, this settles the matter — he thinks religion is a mass mental illness/defect. I suspect he’d add that such an illness remains an illness even if it’s deemed “normal” due to prevalence.
Bonus points for explaining how the Believer duped the reviewers.
Sternberg.
look it up.
uncommon, but not unheard of that someone with influence in the publication process manages to get a paper to bypass peer review.
For a second there, I was thinking you were talking about Hercules (with a grammatical typo in the 1st sentence). However, I then got to the “depreciated sacrifice” being a ticket to heaven, and thought, “No, that can’t be right. All dead Greeks would go to Hades to eventually end up in Elysium or Tartarus.”
And then I thought, well, maybe he’s talking about Amun-Ra, who was the son of Ra-Horakhty, but was simultaneously Ra-Horakhty (who, btw, was his own grandfather and uncle – Ra and Horus). But while that takes care of the giving birth to himself part, it doesn’t discuss going to heaven because of Ra creating himself. So it couldn’t have been Ra/Ra-Horakhty that PZ was talking about.
Maybe PZ’s talking about the divine descent of the Japanese Imperial household through Jimmu, great-great-great-grandson of the Japanese sun goddess Amaterasu. But while this story has the divine impregnating the mortal bit, it also lacks the bit about going to heaven.
Hmm… I give up PZ, what obscure fairy tale is this again?
don’t want to own up to the consequences of their beliefs.
nice bit of projection, there.
Is all supersitious activity irrational? For example, a baseball who carries a lucky charm. The charm itself, by any object standard, will not affect the physics of getting a hit. Pyschologically, it’s very important.
that does not make it rational, but it does make it logical, in that specific instance.
didn’t we already run over this ground in the “is relgion rational” thread?
. I suspect he’d add that such an illness remains an illness even if it’s deemed “normal” due to prevalence.
If all your friends jumped off a bridge, you would follow, right?
Patrick @174 – holy crap! I hadn’t heard of that. I’ll have to come up with a better mathematical example now. (oh, or be more specific. See below.)
I had seen a *joking* attempt to manage that feat, in JavaScript no less – the script consisted of a table of the first thousand digits of pi, and then if you put in a number bigger than a thousand, it would just pick a random number (or should I say “random” number). The footnotes claimed the script used an “advanced statistical procedure which was guaranteed an overall accuracy rate >10%” or words to that effect – very Journal of Irreproducible Results-esque humor (or should I say “humor”).
Interestingly the BPP formula only works in binary (or other powers of two, eg octal or hexidecimal). So my statement is still true for the nth *decimal* digit of pi – you’d have to collect all the BPP hex digits up to the point where you could convert to decimal with the required accuracy.
(http://www.sciencenews.org/pages/sn_arc98/2_28_98/mathland.htm)
If souls existed, they would either operate by deterministic laws, or chance, or some combination of the two.
If you assume a naturalist universe, yes.
If you’ve read Dawkins, as you claim to, then you’d know that he doesn’t think people should go to jail for slapping religious labels on their kids or terrifying them with tales of Hell.
He’s far too good a polemicist to make that argument. I’m merely pointing out his inconsistency. Since he says (as I recall, in a Free Inquiry article not on-line) that the abuse of being brought up Catholic is worse than physical abuse of children by priests, if he thinks priests deserve jail for abuse, so do religious parents.
Evidence for what? Of course you made a choice. But did you make it freely?
Should one trust the evidence of his/her (usually reliable) perceptions or rest upon a naturalist philosophical pre-disposition?
There’s more than one definition of delusion.
“a mistaken or unfounded opinion or idea; “he has delusions of competence”; “his dreams of vast wealth are a hallucination”
But go ahead keep ignoring what Dawkins means. Clinically ill? No. MIstaken and unfounded opion or idea? Obviously yes.
Yes Sinbad you are delusional.
I’m merely pointing out his inconsistency.
actually, you’re erecting strawmen you choose to label as inconsistencies.
but, do proceed professor.
*snicker*
Barn Owl:
That would be a poorly-constructed experiment, since Caledonian said that a believer can do good science in their professional work, by dint of temporarily ignoring their beliefs. This is, of course, not disproved by finding good science published in professional journals by believers.
What you would want to examine are believing scientists’ justifications for belief, vs. atheist scientists’ justifications for atheism. See which group tends to act as better scientists while making their claims.
Wow, I thought I was a big mean atheist. Reading these comments it turns out I’m the gentlest atheist on the block.
Look, religious beliefs are eye-wateringly ridiculous as you all say, but strange as it may seem the believers are not necessarily stupid. Some of them are smart and thoughtful and generally on the side of light on the important issues of the day. If you’re an atheist, it’s weird that such a person could swallow the beliefs they do, but they do.
I don’t say we should try to pretend these beliefs make sense when they don’t, but I don’t think that trying to make the believers feel bad will be effective evangelism – and I really think it is worth trying to unconvert the religious.
and I really think it is worth trying to unconvert the religious.
if they are smart, open to reason, and not in complete denial, then there shouldn’t be a problem.
how come all of your reasonable acquaintances are still religious?
I think that a reasonable conclusion is that some people — even otherwise “smart and thoughtful and generally on the side of light” — have a strong personal preference for religious belief.
Trying to argue them out of this would be like trying to argue someone out of liking cheese, or classical music, or a particular flavor of soda, or a particular type of fiction.
However, I think that it might at least be possible to get them to concede that religion is indeed nothing more than a personal preference, and certainly should not be given any weight over anything that has actual evidence.
And of course, preferences can sometimes change.
Trying again with a long missive I tried to post this afternoon without success. If it turns out to be a repeat, apologies in advance….
Keep trying to cripple our children with nonsense and superstition and you’ll only make your nonsense even more irrelevant, and more of a target of mockery.”
Dawkins proposed an even more radical solution. On his website he lobbied for this
petition:
“In order to encourage free thinking, children should not be subjected to any regular religious teaching or be allowed to be defined as belonging to a particular religious group based on the views of their parents or guardians. At the age of 16, as with other laws, they would then be considered old enough and educated enough to form their own opinion and follow any particular religion (or none at all) through free thought.”
He signed it too. That’s an unbelievably fascist proposal, particularly from a so-called “progressive.” But then again, the track record of officially atheist governments is singularly disasterous….
Of course that’s the issue.
The initial claim — that “[d]ecisions by the government shouldn’t be based on superstition” – is predicated upon whether the intended basis was religious or not. I have no quarrel with religiously motivated policy needing a secular impact.
Apparently you have not read the Bible, and so cannot back up your claims about MLK.
Apparently you have no understanding of history. If your doubt is real (and not a reflexive “Prove it!”), start by reading the famous Letter from Birmingham Jail and move on from there. You might also listen to the “I Have a Dream” speech. The point isn’t even debatable.
Servants, be obedient to them that are your masters according to the flesh, with fear and trembling, in singleness of your heart, as unto Christ.
Reggie, have you considered that the American institution of slavery might have been significantly different from the indentured servitude practiced in !st C. Greece and that those differences might have a significant impact upon one’s interpretation of the text? Moreover, for most people (other than fundamentalists and fundamatheists), a few Biblical citations doesn’t end the discussion. Are you familiar with Wesleyan quadrilateral? The idea of progressive revelation?
“A believer is of course free to advocate policy, but the government shouldn’t be swayed by that unless the advocate can establish secular merit for his position.”
As noted above, I agree. But then why (for example) do so many here object to Christians opposing abortion for faith-reasons even though secular justifications for opposing abortion exist as well unless the problem is with the motivation rather than just the impact?
You are stuck in the 19th century and gleefully believe science stopped at that time.
Puh-leeze. Random is no freer than determined is. If quantum indeterminacy allowed for volitional freedom, Dennett (et als.) wouldn’t need to dress determinism up in a nicer suit and advocate so-called “compatabilism.”
So what makes his reading of superstition more correct than that of the white southern ministers of the time?
What makes any interpretation of any document “more correct” than another? The interpretation proposed by people like Wilberforce and Garrison ultimately carried the day. One of the reasons that Christianity has survived these many centuries is that is has a self-correcting mechanism, slow, unwieldy and imperfect though it obviously is.
Please explain what other option would exist in a supernaturalist universe.
Oh, I see. Can I assume you support rampant cannibalism. bu cleverly avoid actually saying so because it would cost you public support?
I think you’re probably thinking of this article. As you can see, you’ve again misrepresented his position; he thinks the abuse of being brought up Catholic is more harmful to the kid than many instances of sexual abuse by priests, but this is because he thinks that most instances of the latter are comparatively non-violent and (to a small child) subtle. Quote follows:
“Regarding the accusations of sexual abuse of children by Catholic priests, deplorable and disgusting as those abuses are, they are not so harmful to the children as the grievous mental harm in bringing up the child Catholic in the first place. I had a letter from a woman in America in her forties, who said that when she was a child of about seven, brought up a Catholic, two things happened to her: one was that she was sexually abused by her parish priest. The second thing was that a great friend of hers at school died, and she had nightmares because she thought her friend was going to hell because she wasn’t Catholic. For her there was no question that the greatest child abuse of those two was the abuse of being taught about hell. Being fondled by the priest was negligible in comparison. And I think that’s a fairly common experience. I can’t speak about the really grave sexual abuse that obviously happens sometimes, which actually causes violent physical pain to the altar boy or whoever it is, but I suspect that most of the sexual abuse priests are accused of is comparatively mild – a little bit of fondling perhaps, and a young child might scarcely notice that. The damage, if there is damage, is going to be mental damage anyway, not physical damage. Being taught about hell – being taught that if you sin you will go to everlasting damnation, and really believing that – is going to be a harder piece of child abuse than the comparatively mild sexual abuse.”
He’s never said the priests deserve jail for talking about hell either. We don’t generally assign legal penalties based purely on consequent harm; a US senator who votes against a beneficial bill probably causes much more harm than a typical shoplifter, but that doesn’t mean he should be fined or jailed for doing so.
You still haven’t explained what the evidence is, or even defined the position for which you claim to have evidence. What’s the difference between a free choice and a a random or predetermined one? How would it feel to make the former rather than the latter?
I’m a leprechaun. I know this is true because I feel that I’m a leprechaun, and my perceptions are usually reliable. Anyone who thinks that leprechauns are imaginary or nonsensical is obviously just committed to a leprechaunless worldview. Discuss!
Very few of my friends are religious. Those that are are mostly pagan, which I can’t be arsed to argue with; it’s like trying to spar with a marshmallow. A few are Christian, and I would like to convert those I can.
I think that trying to persuade them it’s a preference would actually be a step backwards, since that often seems very much like their current position. I’d like to do the reverse – to persuade them that religion is not an allegiance like a football team, but a belief about the world, and so that in order to believe what they believe they must believe that I’m mistaken about my beliefs. Without that, you’re back to the marshmallow-sparring and you might as well not bother.
However, I think that it might at least be possible to get them to concede that religion is indeed nothing more than a personal preference, and certainly should not be given any weight over anything that has actual evidence.
interesting. I suggest you try to test that hypothesis and report your findings back here. Ask your acquaintances if they can compare their religious belief systems to their systems of personal preference, for example. See what kind of reactions you get.
(note: I already have, but my test subjects might be different than yours; more data the better).
are your parents religious, for example? good place to start.
What if you impale the marshmallow on a stick (martyrdom) hold it over a fire (hell) squish it between a graham cracker and a piece of chocolate (purgatory) and then eat it (heaven)?
What if you impale the marshmallow on a stick (martyrdom) hold it over a fire (hell) squish it between a graham cracker and a piece of chocolate (purgatory) and then eat it (heaven)?
where does the digestion/excretion part fit in?
Hm. Interesting point. But perhaps more difficult to argue, especially if to them it is at least in part an allegiance.
I agree that pressing them on the point that it is a belief about the world (or rather, the universe — everything-that-is) is also important.
Hm. Religion either makes testable claims about the universe, or it doesn’t. If it does, the claim can be demonstrated or refuted. If it doesn’t, what exactly is it that is believed in?
Anyways… Sinbad, the point about “delusion” is not simply about what it was he said and meant, but also about whether or not he’s right, and about how much it matters what he thinks.
Even if he does mean to say that religious belief qualifies as a diagnosable mental illness, according to the DSM he is wrong, but I think focusing too much on this aspect obscures the real point, which is that religious belief IS about strongly-held beliefs in the face of reason and contradicting evidence.
For example, it seems pretty clear to me that the global flood that young-earth creationists are so wild about could not possibly have occurred as described or during the time period in which is supposed to have occurred. And yet, many, many people believe it, because they believe everything in the Bible is literally true. I submit that these people are deluded – but I do not submit that they are mentally ill. Nor do I believe that flood-belief alone would satisfy all the criteria in the DSM for Delusion Disorder, if only by the religious exemption in the definition of delusion.
However, if the number of people who believe in the literal global flood story drops below a certain undefined threshold, then it may be possible to justify a diagnosis of 297.1. And yet neither the belief nor the reasons to believe or disbelieve have changed. I’m not sure what to make of this…
At some point, “faith” becomes “eccentricity” becomes “delusional disorder”. How can one become the other when the thing itself has not changed?
I think you’re probably thinking of this article.
The article I’m thinking of was in Free Inquiry, but the one you link seems similar.
[H]e thinks the abuse of being brought up Catholic is more harmful to the kid than many instances of sexual abuse by priests, but this is because he thinks that most instances of the latter are comparatively non-violent and (to a small child) subtle.
You’ll forgive me if I think the lack of penetration makes the crime “mild” and the harm “subtle.” Moreover, it’s clear that Dawkins does think that a priest with his hands down a child’s pants is less criminal than a parent providing religious education. Sorry, I can’t buy that and I don’t expect reasonable people to. I suggest you try this argument out at your local school board or PTA meeting and gauge the response.
You still haven’t explained what the evidence is, or even defined the position for which you claim to have evidence.
When you carefully deliberate and weigh alternatives before making a decision (say, to vote for Candidate A or B), is that mental process an illusional post hoc construct to justify what you’re hardwired to do anyway?
I’m a leprechaun. I know this is true because I feel that I’m a leprechaun, and my perceptions are usually reliable. Anyone who thinks that leprechauns are imaginary or nonsensical is obviously just committed to a leprechaunless worldview.
The more apt analogy to discuss is one where we all thought ourselves leprechauns.
Ichthyic, I’ll have to think about that s’more.
Sinbad @198:
When one or two people have a X, it is classed as a Y — when millions share a X, it’s a Z.
I see it as observing (and implying) inconsistency, not asserting X should be classed Y.
Religion either makes testable claims about the universe, or it doesn’t.
actually, religion likes to claim it does, and then not look at the results of saying so too closely.
funny, but if you assume that most of the religious are projecting, you might come to the same conclusion I did long ago:
this emotional reaction to “materialism” actually fits better with the religious who feel that their own faith must somehow be supported by evidence from the natural world.
have you ever noticed how desperate YEC’s are to produce “research” supporting their claims on the age of the earth?
sounds like materialism to me.
when you point this out to an actual creationist, in person, they seem to go into a sort of “mental lockup”, and then either walk away, or start spouting complete gibberish in loud voices (speaking in tongues?).
I think you will find, like I did over the years, that the “faithful” are mostly anything but; even when you examine the pastors/priests/ministers.
the extreme motivation politically these people often feel is likely due simply to the fear of exposing them for actually being faithless.
think about that s’more.
:p
What has happened is that there’s been a locational shift in the large proportion of people who are merely failing to think about it. Failure to think about things is a very common condition in humans. It’s pretty much the natural state, like other forms of laziness (some of which drive the universe).
When “everyone” believes, the non-thinkers are not really delusional for merely going along with the suggestion that they too believe. When “no-one” believes, the non-thinkers will be non-believers too and only the delusional will be left standing out as being the believers. The former situation will have had its delusional members too, but it requires more data to distinguish them from the non-thinkers (who form the majority).
If nearly all the sheep in a flock are herded over to the other pen (where the non-sheep already are), the ones with scrapie can be more clearly seen remaining behind.
In science, we always start from that assumption — methodological naturalism.
Fortunately, that assumption is itself a testable hypothesis. It is being tested in every single observation (including experiments) and still hasn’t been disproven… I gather it’s a pretty good starting point. :-)
That is rather extreme, and, for the record, I haven’t signed it. (I haven’t checked if I’m eligible to sign…) But there are already countries (like France) where most children don’t get religious teaching, and the proposal that, for bureaucratic purposes, children shouldn’t be considered as belonging to a religious community till 16 is quite reasonable. (As you probably know better than I, there are whole Christian denominations that reject infant baptism for the exact same reason — free will/informed consent. Partial recognition of this reason is why confirmation exists in so many denominations, why it’s considered a sacrament in Catholicism, and why the baptism promise is repeated in the Easter liturgy at least in Catholicism.) I really can’t call that “unbelievably fascist”.
Communism is for all practical purposes a religion. Salvation, sacred inerrant scriptures written by inerrant prophets, sense of identity & community, even rituals to some extent… all’s there except the afterlife (only Kim Jong-il has got one so far) and divine inspiration of the scriptures (which are declared to be logical and scientific even though they aren’t).
If you really believe 1st-century Greek slavery is morally defensible, you are quite appalling.
Perhaps he doesn’t need to. I’ve never read anything by Dennett.
Fact is, we don’t know in every detail how the brain works, so we don’t know if quantum indeterminacy enters the equation. Perhaps it doesn’t, and the brain is a deterministic chaos like the weather — oops, that would mean that quantum indeterminacy does enter the equation because of radioactive decay.
In science, we always start from that assumption — methodological naturalism.
Fortunately, that assumption is itself a testable hypothesis. It is being tested in every single observation (including experiments) and still hasn’t been disproven… I gather it’s a pretty good starting point. :-)
That is rather extreme, and, for the record, I haven’t signed it. (I haven’t checked if I’m eligible to sign…) But there are already countries (like France) where most children don’t get religious teaching, and the proposal that, for bureaucratic purposes, children shouldn’t be considered as belonging to a religious community till 16 is quite reasonable. (As you probably know better than I, there are whole Christian denominations that reject infant baptism for the exact same reason — free will/informed consent. Partial recognition of this reason is why confirmation exists in so many denominations, why it’s considered a sacrament in Catholicism, and why the baptism promise is repeated in the Easter liturgy at least in Catholicism.) I really can’t call that “unbelievably fascist”.
Communism is for all practical purposes a religion. Salvation, sacred inerrant scriptures written by inerrant prophets, sense of identity & community, even rituals to some extent… all’s there except the afterlife (only Kim Jong-il has got one so far) and divine inspiration of the scriptures (which are declared to be logical and scientific even though they aren’t).
If you really believe 1st-century Greek slavery is morally defensible, you are quite appalling.
Perhaps he doesn’t need to. I’ve never read anything by Dennett.
Fact is, we don’t know in every detail how the brain works, so we don’t know if quantum indeterminacy enters the equation. Perhaps it doesn’t, and the brain is a deterministic chaos like the weather — oops, that would mean that quantum indeterminacy does enter the equation because of radioactive decay.
Thinking about this some more — it’s also a belief about an intelligent entity. They have lots of examples of their fellow humans. Do their beliefs about an alleged intelligent entity (God) match up in any way with what they have direct experience of with humans?
Indeed. It’s what fits the evidence. As do a few other things of that kind over their claims vs their behaviour.
I don’t know enough about quantum mechanics. Does quantum indeterminacy affect chemical reactions? Since neural activity is a chemical reaction…
Either you’re merely performing a smear-job, or your thinking ability is so twisted that this is its standard output.
Dawkins stated that the psychological damage suffered by a child who is coerced with promises of heaven and threatened with visions of hell by the authorities on whom he must rely (parents, priests, etc.) can be worse than the psychological damage of being fondled by said authorities. This is not a radical statement.
Criminality and “religious education” are wholly your own interjections, unless you consider “religious education” for Christians to necessarily involve psychological abuse of the kind Dawkins discusses.
Bad example. Usually it has been clear for a long time before the election who is the lesser evil, so that it was quite easily predictable who I’d vote for.
Bad example. Usually it has been clear for a long time before the election who is the lesser evil, so that it was quite easily predictable who I’d vote for.
Hum. Good point. I many have to bring this up next argument I get into.
To an extent, yes, though it gets swamped in statistics very soon.
Which it doesn’t necessarily — mine didn’t.
To an extent, yes, though it gets swamped in statistics very soon.
Which it doesn’t necessarily — mine didn’t.
david,
honest question:
you imply you were brought up in a religious household, yes?
you are currently an atheist, is that right?
how often, on any given day, does your religious education pop into your head, giving you erroneous suggestions about how the world works?
I stopped going to church almost 30 years ago, and STILL have ridiculous religious ideoms floating through my brain, which pop up from time to time.
my point is religious education at best appears to be more like saddling someone with useless baggage that is hard to dump. This seems especially relevant when it is presented as a mode of understanding how the world works, which is often the case in this country, at least. Parents use religion much like they use Santa Claus, without the expectation that their kids will simply grow out of the belief.
so there appears to be a sliding scale; at best it’s useless baggage that requires occasional effort to suppress in favor of rational thought processes, at worst it can be abusive, depending on how the material is taught, and can result in severe cognitive dissonance and the construction of abnormal psychological defense mechanisms like denial and projection (or worse).
of course, my focus being not on the subject matter itself (substitute any unsupported worldview), but on the nature in which it is taught, which is in the form of an explanatory worldview, as suggested above, in many (most?) cases.
Ichthyic #199-
Sternberg.
look it up.
The search term “sternberg”, on PubMed alone, currently yields 4548 items, only a small percentage of which can be eliminated because the name is used for a line of lymphoma cells.
4548 is also the average number of internet dingleberries who type the demand “look it up” in various languages, on blogs and messageboards worldwide every day.
Anton Mates #208-
That would be a poorly-constructed experiment, since Caledonian said that a believer can do good science in their professional work, by dint of temporarily ignoring their beliefs.
No, PZ posted-
We know that you can be a good scientist and religious, and Caledonian stated that it was false, i.e. one *can’t* be a good scientist AND religious. Your interpretation of Caledonian’s post requires more conjecture, or perhaps RL experience with the poster. A lot of ignoring is required by the religious scientist simply to “do one’s best” (which may not even reach “good”, AFAIK), according to Caledonian’s statement.
P.S. It’s actually not a real experiment with a testable hypothesis, anyway. If every snarky suggestion I’ve made on the internet or IRL had to go through study section, I’d be in biiiiiigggg trouble.
so you don’t even know who Sternberg is???
yow, a whiny religioso who doesn’t know about the Sternberg affair at the Smithsonian? that’s new.
I gotta eat, but when I come back, I’ll help you out on that one, big guy.
Regardless of their effects, claiming that quantum effects support or allow for free-will is equivalent to claiming slot machines and magic 8-balls support and allow free will.
It’s physics in exactly the same way the same way the endless SLoT speculations are physics, CSI is mathematics, and The Creation Museum is biology and geology.
Which is to say, it’s not even correct enough to be wrong.
And you’ll forgive me if I point out that Dawkins never anywhere makes such a claim. (I think you’re missing a “don’t” in there, by the way).
Here, from the second article I linked, is Dawkins’ description of his own abuse as a child:
“Being fondled by the Latin master in the Squash Court was a disagreeable sensation for a nine-year-old, a mixture of embarrassment and skin-crawling revulsion, but it was certainly not in the same league as being led to believe that I, or someone I knew, might go to everlasting fire. As soon as I could wriggle off his knee, I ran to tell my friends and we had a good laugh, our fellowship enhanced by the shared experience of the same sad pedophile. I do not believe that I, or they, suffered lasting, or even temporary damage from this disagreeable physical abuse of power. Given the Latin Master’s eventual suicide, maybe the damage was all on his side.”
You’re welcome to argue that Dawkins massively underestimates the harm done to him by that episode. But he clearly isn’t claiming that he’d have had to be held down and raped to experience severe harm.
Don’t be silly; we have links to Dawkins’ own words on the subject. He is condemning parents who teach their children that they and their loved ones will be tortured for eternity if they fail to do and believe the appropriate things. If you consider that typical “religious education,” then you know much nastier religious people than I do.
And, yet again, he does not claim that parents who terrify their children with tales of hell are more deserving of criminal punishment.
So far as I understand from recent psychological studies, much conscious decision-making is indeed post hoc. But even if it weren’t, how would our deliberation and alternative-weighing argue against determinism? In a deterministic world, we would simply be hardwired to deliberate and weigh alternatives en route to our final decision. Deliberation would be part of the deterministic process leading to the inevitable choice.
And, again, if we’re not hardwired to do anything, how does that make our behavior “free” as opposed to random? What’s the difference?
Ah, yes. And anyone who says, “I don’t think I do; what’s being a leprechaun feel like, anyway?” can be disregarded, since obviously they do think themselves a leprechaun; they just don’t know that that’s what they’re thinking.
yow, a whiny religioso who doesn’t know about the Sternberg affair at the Smithsonian? that’s new.
I’m not a “religioso”, btw. On what did you base that assumption?
And you could have been referring to any published Sternberg, for all I know-I’m not going to guess about your intentions or reading habits.
I gotta eat, but when I come back, I’ll help you out on that one, big guy.
FYI, my karyotype, anatomy, and annoyingly frequent menstrual cycles indicate that I’m an XX. I am rather tall, though.
Dingleberry.
Having spent my elementary school years in the Christian Reformed Church, that’s exactly what we were taught. My mother still believes it about me.
I missed this from earlier. Sinbad said:
Dawkins signed the petition without reading the above, which was part of its supporting statement and not visible on its main page. When the latter was brought to his attention on Ed Brayton’s blog, he retracted his support. In that thread, he also states,
“I am the Richard Dawkins who wrote The God Delusion (although I don’t see how I can prove it). I really do regret signing the petition, and I don’t see why that is not regarded as admitting that I was wrong. I regret signing it, and I admit that I was wrong to do so. OK?
“I also regret the confusion resulting from the fact that, in my past writings, I have used the word abuse in two different contexts. Both are important. One is the labelling of children with the religion of their parents. The other is terrifying children by threatening them with violence, whether that violence is physical (as in whipping them) or mental (as in telling them they will roast in hell). Both labelling and the threat of hell are potentially abusive. Neither is a necessary part of religious education. I have never said that religious education per se is abusive, nor have I opposed religious education per se.”
And also,
“A case could be made that children should be protected by law against verbal abuse (such as hell-fire scaring) as well as physical abuse. I agree with Russell that the disadvantages of such an interfering law outweigh the advantages.
“But the campaign I have been running against labelling children has never been about legal coercion, anyway. It has been about CONSCIOUSNESS-RAISING, a phrase that we have learned from feminists. No feminist (or none that I would wish to know) ever advocated a legal ban on masculine pronouns. Instead, the feminists raised our consciousness. They made us aware, made us feel uncomfortable when we used a phrase like “One man one vote”. In the same way, I want us to feel uncomfortable when we hear somebody speak of a Catholic child or a Protestant child. But I do not want any kind of legal coercion or sanctions against the use of such language. I am not in favour of legal coercion in such matters. I am strongly in favour of consciousness raising.”
So let’s have no more of this “Dawkins wants to jail religious parents,” okay?
Barn Owl, #235:
The context makes obvious a second keyword, ‘creationism’. I googled (my first search – I don’t usually bother with site-specific search engines until google proves inadequate) ‘sternberg creationism’ and the first link was a Panda’s Thumb article, which explains why referring to Sternberg as a ‘creationist’ was not smear, but a reasonable conclusion based on Sternberg’s work. Suddenly, I remembered who Sternberg was. (No, really, I had forgotten him so completely I did not initially recognize the name – that’s why I googled him. It wasn’t until I saw the PT article that I remembered that I had heard of him before. My memory for names is a sieve.)
The third link was a newsvine article containing a long quote from, and linking to, an Ed Brayton (Dispatches from the Culture wars) article with plenty of info on the controversy.
Internet search engines, you see, discriminate against those unwilling (or unable) to do some brain work.
I missed this from earlier. Sinbad said:
Dawkins signed the petition without reading the above, which was part of its supporting statement and not visible on its main page. When the latter was brought to his attention on Ed Brayton’s blog, he retracted his support. In that thread, he also states,
“I am the Richard Dawkins who wrote The God Delusion (although I don’t see how I can prove it). I really do regret signing the petition, and I don’t see why that is not regarded as admitting that I was wrong. I regret signing it, and I admit that I was wrong to do so. OK?
“I also regret the confusion resulting from the fact that, in my past writings, I have used the word abuse in two different contexts. Both are important. One is the labelling of children with the religion of their parents. The other is terrifying children by threatening them with violence, whether that violence is physical (as in whipping them) or mental (as in telling them they will roast in hell). Both labelling and the threat of hell are potentially abusive. Neither is a necessary part of religious education. I have never said that religious education per se is abusive, nor have I opposed religious education per se.”
And also,
“A case could be made that children should be protected by law against verbal abuse (such as hell-fire scaring) as well as physical abuse. I agree with Russell that the disadvantages of such an interfering law outweigh the advantages.
“But the campaign I have been running against labelling children has never been about legal coercion, anyway. It has been about CONSCIOUSNESS-RAISING, a phrase that we have learned from feminists. No feminist (or none that I would wish to know) ever advocated a legal ban on masculine pronouns. Instead, the feminists raised our consciousness. They made us aware, made us feel uncomfortable when we used a phrase like “One man one vote”. In the same way, I want us to feel uncomfortable when we hear somebody speak of a Catholic child or a Protestant child. But I do not want any kind of legal coercion or sanctions against the use of such language. I am not in favour of legal coercion in such matters. I am strongly in favour of consciousness raising.”
So let’s have no more of this “Dawkins wants to jail religious parents,” okay?
Barn Owl #235, google ‘sternberg creationism’. I’d forgotten who he was, but that reminded me. (I wrote a longer reply but it has links and is thus held up for approval.)
Jeff: I’m very sorry.
Concerning the petition which Dawkins signed:
I wrote a longer post about it which was also held for approval. Suffice to say, go to the “Dawkins and the Religion Petition” post on Dispatches from the Culture Wars. You will see that Dawkins didn’t read the text Sinbad quoted above, which was part of the petition’s supplementary statement; that when it was pointed out to him, he retracted his support and apologized; that he has no problem with parents providing their kids with religious education; and that he doesn’t believe in legal penalties for either labelling young children or scaring the crap out of them with hellfire.
I might add that even Ed Brayton agreed that Dawkins had merely made a mistake in signing the petition, and didn’t actually agree with it. And Ed is not particularly inclined to give Dawkins the benefit of the doubt in such matters.
A computer program exists which will beat you at chess no matter what moves you try. Choosing political candidates has never seemed that hard to me, but then I’m the guy who said in 2003 that there must be WMD in Iraq because surely Bush knows he’ll never get re-elected if there aren’t.
I see no problem in principle with mental activity being a mixture of “hard-wired” impulses and trainable decision-making “software” (with a random element as mentioned previously). (Yes, I read “The Emperor’s New Mind” by Roger Penrose, and I didn’t agree with it.) (Roger is probably quite broken up about that.)
MAJeff, #240:
My own mother believes I will end up on the lowest layer of the Mormon afterlife, where Mormon missionaries will preach to me until my brain turns to mush and I follow them upstairs. (When I was a teen-ager, she several times claimed I’d end up in the Outer Darkness . But then I refused to speak to her for several years. Apparently her opinion of me improved during the interim.)
Curiously – as a Mormon child I was taught that Mormons did not believe in a literal fiery Hell, but instead in the Outer Darkness referred to in the Gospel of Matthew. Yet my Mormon childhood friends, and their parents, who went to the same church and heard the same ‘Outer Darkness’ stuff, often insisted Hell was real and sinful people really burned forever down there. When confronted with official Mormon literature describing something different (in the sense that the manner of torment in ‘Outer Darkness’ was unknown), they would admit they had used the wrong term, but still insist that it was ‘really the same thing, basically’ . But when they got ‘called to teach’ they taught out of the book and only about ‘Outer Darkness’ not literal fiery Hell. It made me think belief in literal hellfire may be more widespread than one might suspect if one relied solely on official religious documents.
I’m not a “religioso”, btw. On what did you base that assumption?
on your ignorance of the topics at hand.
oh btw, here’s a place for you to start with your examination of how the religious can force bad publications into respectable journals:
http://www.pandasthumb.org/pt-archives/000777.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sternberg_peer_review_controversy
if you have doubts as to why the paper itself was crap, read this:
http://www.pandasthumb.org/pt-archives/000430.html
come back when you know more about the issues you wish to discuss.
I’m not a “religioso”, btw. On what did you base that assumption?
on your ignorance of the topics at hand.
oh btw, here’s a place for you to start with your examination of how the religious can force bad publications into respectable journals:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sternberg_peer_review_controversy
…and if you have doubts as to why the paper itself was crap, read this:
http://www.pandasthumb.org/pt-archives/000430.html
come back when you know more about the issues you wish to discuss.
My own mother believes I will end up on the lowest layer of the Mormon afterlife, where Mormon missionaries will preach to me until my brain turns to mush and I follow them upstairs.
what if a mormon follower’s brains had already been turned to mush by mormonism itself?
do they get to go straight upstairs and bypass the dunce school?
on a more serious side, I feel your pain. always difficult to have an intelligent conversation with someone close to you who thinks you are going to hell.
they would admit they had used the wrong term, but still insist that it was ‘really the same thing, basically’ .
like I said, religion is used much like the legend of Santa Claus in this country.
no matter whether it’s mormonism, xianity, or scientology.
they just figure you won’t ever grow out of it like one does with SC and the Easter Bunny.
Thanks. She and I can still have a great time together (esp in the kitchen.) I just tell her to drop it any time she starts spouting religious crap at me. I won’t have any of it.
The interesting thing is that she can deal with my being gay. (And I’ve almost got her to be a feminist.)
Exactly. That’s why I refuse to engage in religious conversations with my parents. We can talk about politics, food (oy, do we talk about food–I’m so proud that i got them to cook with olive oil and helped them discover Penzeys) and a number of things. But none of that god shit.
My parents I’ll keep in my life. Anyone else who buys that shit is gone. They’ll never be invited into my home or my life. It may be inconsistent, but so be it; we’ve got a nearly 40-year relationship.
Any of the god-botherers here–well go fuck yourselves. You’re not worthy of my friendship…or my cooking.
Any of the god-botherers here–well go fuck yourselves. You’re not worthy of my friendship…or my cooking.
an atheist who appreciates good cooking and good science.
I give you a hearty hattip as i toss down a brew to celebrate pirate day.
OY!
Got my own brew going down as well. Now I need to find the nearest grocery store (recently moved) so I can make a big batch of tomato-fennel soup this weekend (my own private recipe) and some wide-mouth pint jar lids so I can can it.
Cheers!
MAJeff,
You have a relationship with your family? I’m almost jealous. I’m proud to continue a relationship with my brother and his family, but then, he didn’t participate in burning all that entarte I produced when I was all demon possessed, according to my other siblings, and parents. They moved to 20 acres of dirt, 20 miles west of Lubbock, Texas, once I reached 18, because Orange County California was too decadent an environment in which to raise up a fambly. Haven’t had anything to do with any of them since the 80s. My in-laws, however… they’re the family I’m so proud my children can claim as their own. I’m not worthy of their cooking.
Ken,
I have a relationship with my parents (we actually like each other–they were here two weekends ago and we had a great time on Boston’s North Shore…mmmmmmm New England Clam Chowder), my sister, and my lesbian aunts. The rest (including my grandmother) are merely relatives and basically non-existent in my life. I make a huge distinction between relatives and family.
I think a large part of that comes from being queer–families of origin have tended to not be very welcoming places for us. I don’t know lots of folks who use the terms I do, but I know a hell of a lot who make similar distinctions (also, largely queer). If my best friend in Atlanta went to the hospital this weekend, I’d find a way to get there. If my grandmother died, I probably wouldn’t bother with the funeral. My best friend is family.
I know the value of family, and it doesn’t lie in biology. It lies in relationships.
You’re in-laws sound fantastic. Cling to family. Let the rest fall where they may.
Orange County California was too decadent an environment
uh, the home of the republicans for Ronald Reagan, and Howard Ahmanson himself is too decadent???
*backs away even further from Texas*
to think, I grew up in a bastion of liberaldom and decadence (born in newport beach).
whodathunkit.
:p
actually, I still amaze myself i didn’t turn out to be a typical Orange County conservative (most of my old acquaintances from those days are sorely disappointed).
hey, another beer for me, to celebrate another achievement on this pirate day.
here’s to liberalism!
OY!
*raises a beer*
Considering that my early years were in the Christian Reformed Church, and my high school years in a very conservative Methodist one, I’m amazed I came out with any sense of justice and fairness. To liberalism!
When my mother finally accepted I was an atheist, she said “but i thought we raised you right.”
I said, “Look at my work history. I teach. I used to work in a battered women’s program. I’m involved in the helping fields. You did raise me right.” I just gave up the silliness along the way.
“but i thought we raised you right.”
LOL my own pop said that exact same thing to me when he asked me why i was an atheist.
like talking to a wall, right?
meh, enough with the group therapy…
back to the beer.
cheers
A godless cheers to all!
To reason and to beer. Two pretty goddamned good things.
oh, one last thing:
since you are a fan of science and cooking, you might try out Ed Brayton’s blog too.
I tried posting a relevant link, but it broke the post for some reason.
meh, you’ll see it.
http://scienceblogs.com/dispatches/
At our wedding, (13 years ago next week) my brother-in-law homebrewed an Octoberfest beer ball that was as popular as the wine. We had the McHenry Mansion in Modesto (home of the Universal Life Church) for the ceremony, and dressed up all faux Victorian (the docent accused the best man of being a spitting image of Oscar Wilde. We’re so glad she noticed). We decided to do a Spiritualist ceremony where a gazillion gods were invoked, and we would hop over a sword, all Podkayne of Mars, provided by our Scottish officiant who was really into all of that fun stuff, probably still is. We asked the bride’s father if he minded our invocation of all those Celtic Gods. “Why should I be? They’re all the same to me!” he scoffed. We share the atheist floating library, and the Science Fiction and Fantasy floating library. I’m afraid I’ll be the last to read the copy of God Delusion, but they’ll have to wait until I finish with Breaking the Spell. We’ll all be clamoring for the next Pratchett.
Caught the steak thread earlier today. (my suggestion was the red wine, thyme, garlic, mushroom, and butter sauce.)
I’d like, at some point, to develop a sociology of food class. Maybe over next summer term–that often ends up a good time for experimentation, sort of like a J-term at a private school (at least that’s how several of us in the dep’t use it, to teach classes that don’t fit in the regular academic calendar)
I will pray for all of you tonight. Evolution is the greatest lie of modern times–unlike the Bible, which is supported by archaeological evidence at every turn, evolution has NO proof and is COMPLETELY untestable. It’s not even science! In order for macroevolution to be scientifically proven, we would have to witness and document a monkey/snail/worm/rock becoming a human/duck/elephant/unicorn or whatever have you. This has never happen and it never will. Even evolutionists admit that their theory doesn’t hold up–witness the squabbling about “saltations.” If that’s not a code word for intelligent design, I don’t know what is.
Notice how the scientists change their theory every time another “peer-reviewed” (liberal-approved) paper comes out… while God’s Holy Word has remained unchanged for the past 2,000 years!
Jeff, you seem like a very angry person. Could it be that deep down, you know you are a lost soul who deeply yearns for God’s friendship and a true Christian marriage? Are the dozens of men you’ve taken to bed with you really just substitutes for the only One who can truly satisfy you? Please think about these questions before you attack me. God loves you very much, and he hasn’t given up on you yet! :)
Virginia D. Templeton
http://www.landoverbaptist.net
Jeff, you seem like a very angry person.
???
what orifice did you pull that one from?
I’m way more “angry” than jeff.
but hey, our first real religious troll… and, OMFG, it’s a
LANDOVER BAPTIST!!!
we struck the motherload.
will you stick around for the inevitable evisceration your post deserves, virginia?
please say yes.
If I had a dollar for every time I heard an idiot Christian verbally masturbate on about how “Evolution(ism) is a lie,” about how it is “unsupported”, “without proof,” or “is untestable,” I’d be rich enough to buy the Vatican, Pope and all, and still have enough platinum-plated swag to make Pat Robertson look like a bleached sewer rat in a cheap suit.
The only bitterness is that it’s been dozens and not hundreds.
may you be touched by the noodly appendages. Hell, may you be penetrated by them :)
for those unaware…
Landover is the home of the Phelpsians.
perhaps you saw the wonderful video they put out recently that was a mockery of the “we are the world” song.
I think PZ even had a thread on it. In fact, I’m sure of it.
so, Virginia, will you stick around and tell us how god hates the world, and answer questions about your video piece?
we have so many questions for you.
surely you want to convince us all that we are doomed, right?
Stanton,
but would you be able to get the designer red pope pradas? that’s the real issue.
ah damn, that was the WESTBORO baptist church, not the Landover…
in fact, the landover baptist “church” is the one that parodies the westboro baptist church.
I ran out of irony meters so long ago I’ve forgotten what one looks like any more.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Landover_Baptist_Church
boy, they sure do a good job of mimicking the Westboro Baptist church though.
Um, no.
Landover is the only branch of the only 100% guaranteed true-and-factual Christianity. Why, don’t their website say “Official True Christian”? What, don’t you believe them? I shore do! I… my heart is palpatatin’! I feel compelled to testify! Oh! Oh! Yes! There is a God!!!!!
[View source]
<meta name=”KeyWords” content=”religion, satire, parody, christianity, church, baptist, news, religious jokes”>
Oh, poo. I was ignoring the landover, but I hadn’t noticed they were all .net and not .org which is kind of sad. I just read crap like that and figure somebody is typing while wearing a red rubber clown nose, until I realize that they’re not practicing irony, have never experienced the joy of hair care products, nor the joy of toys requiring a couple of “D” batteries shoved up inside, no matter where they are on the spectrum of gender. Or, maybe they have, and must post here to expiate their guilt. Especially the hair care…
…so, yeah, Virginia, you got me.
http://www.landoverbaptist.net/
*sigh*
unfortunately, while humorous, the parody virginia posted is so much like what a Westboro baptist would post, it’s indistinguishable as parody.
No, I like my feet far too much to wear highheeled shoes.
The reason faith-head trolling is futile is that it is impossible to tell the difference between sincerity and satire. There is nowhere to go when the bar is set at “over the top” by those who sincerely mean it.
I kinda like a 1 1/2″-2″ heel. My stride is a bit longer and my walk a bit more confident. Of course, it also puts me in the 6’7″ range, so I’m not sure it’s all that necessary.
The reason faith-head trolling is futile is that it is impossible to tell the difference between sincerity and satire. There is nowhere to go when the bar is set at “over the top” by those who sincerely mean it.
*sniff*
I actually was very disappointed as soon as i realized it was the parody bunch and not one of the Westboroites themselves.
I mean, seriously, how much fun would it be to rip into a member of the slimiest organization in religious america?
and that’s saying a lot, considering.
It was just wishful thinking on my part that caused a temporary loss of brain function in conflating the parody with the reality.
I had my best set of carving knives all set out.
oh well.
I prefer to wear my interpretations of the Papal Crown when I feel the need to enter the 6’7” range.
Two near-experiences with the Phelps’ of Topeka:
1) The NGLTF Creating Change conference in Dallas, TX in 1994 (?). They were protesting the hotel we were staying in, and as a friend and I returned from dinner, we ran up to our twenty-something floor room to grab our cameras to get a picture with Fred. Alas, but the time we made it back downstairs, the Phelpsfucks were gone.
2) The night of May 16, 2004. City Hall, Cambridge, MA. A festive crowd gathering because the city of Cambridge had decided it would open it’s doors at midnight to same-sex couples wishing to file notice of intent to marry (that’s the first form MA requires–then a three day waiting period, then you can get your license). Some members of the Phelpsfucks were there, but 10,000 happy, happy people made them sort of down and irrelevant. They were gone by 10 in the evening, while people in the crowd sang, and cheered and generally had a good time.
Still no picture with fred.
So anyway, I was thinking about this some more:
And it occurred to me that the creationist response, assuming they could think of it, would probably be along the lines of “Ah, but the whole point of that is for the material to prove the immaterial! The natural proves the supernatural! The evidence for a young Earth proves that GOD DID IT!!!!!”
Ahem.
And, at least in that respect, I think they would at least have a point — a genuinely 6000-year-old Earth would be an example of the bible making a correct prediction about the natural world.
Of course, as PZ pointed out, the rocks of the Earth are more honest about their age than any creationist. The evidence for an old Earth is so overwhelming that it’s only by denying it or ignoring it that they can get anywhere at all.
I’m trying to think of a pithier rebuttal, though.
Ah, but the whole point of that is for the material to prove the immaterial!
but in proving the immaterial using the material, it no longer is immaterial.
see?
And, at least in that respect, I think they would at least have a point — a genuinely 6000-year-old Earth would be an example of the bible making a correct prediction about the natural world.
and it wouldn’t be faith, either.
didn’t the book of Job warn about that?
hmm.
see?
they really have abandoned faith in favor of looking for their god in the gaps using the very science they decry as “materialism”.
the hypocrisy would be funny, if these people weren’t so deadly serious about the rest of us simply being tools of Satan put there to confuse them.
But the response to that would probably be: “Ah, but I do have faith! The bible being a fact has evidence, but believing in God still requires faith! And believing in Jesus, and the Holy Ghost, and the Nicene Creed!”
I think.
But trying to think like a creationist makes my head hurt, so I will drop it.
Come to think of it, maybe trying to think like creationists makes creationists’ heads hurt. Which is why they avoid thinking as much as possible.
I always figured Landover was just a satire of garden-variety Republican Jesus churches. Westboro is unsatirable. They’re so far around the bend that I can’t even muster up anger towards them (and anger is wasted on them anyway). They’re just so far out of my normal frame of reference that I can’t quite believe that they’re serious. I mean, at least most other churches try to look happy. You can’t look at the Phelps crew and think anything other than that they must be some of the most profoundly unhappy people on the planet. They’re in their own Hell. At least that’s what I like to think.
I don’t know, one phrase of it is perfectly believable:
he was crucified for us under Pontius Pilate, and suffered, and was buried, and the third day he rose again, according to the Scriptures…
I perfectly believe that the scriptures say that, and believe it’s perfectly rational to believe the scriptures say that.
By the by, sheesh, you’re posting like a madman of late.
I imply that in Austria, the bureaucracy knows to which denomination you belong, and unless your parents object, you get 2 hours per week of religious education in school, provided that teachers for your denomination are available. (Almost everyone is nominally Catholic, and almost all the rest are Lutheran or — nowadays — Muslim, so teachers are usually available.) From a certain age on (I think 16), you yourself (as opposed to your parents) can opt out, too.
I stayed all the way to the end, because it was interesting. It was more about religions than within Catholicism. There was a lot of emphasis on comparison between the world’s big religions, and the way that Catholicism is normally interpreted in Europe after the 2nd Vatican Council is something that would probably make most Americans wonder if they’re even looking at a religion. For example, the teacher hoped that Hell is empty, and apparently believed that there were good chances of it actually being so. And when he explained that he had had to grapple a lot with the Book of Revelation (where’s the love in there exactly, and stuff), coming to the conclusion that its outcome matters (the “and all will be well” part — paraphrasing), the students said to each other after class that they didn’t understand why he bothered, instead of ignoring the whole book.
The household… my mother seems to like ritual and for years tried to get me to church almost every Sunday (boring — the same all the time), and gave me a Children’s Bible to read at an early age, but that’s all I can really say. My father despises ritual and institutions (having grown up in communist Yugoslavia, which consisted mostly of these), but I don’t know what, if anything, he lastly believes. Over here, you see, religion is a private affair. If you don’t ask people, they won’t tell you, and it’s impolite to ask. I can tell you for sure, however, that they don’t believe everything a pope says. Both were quite unhappy with the election of Benedict XIV. My (generally anxious) brother seems to be, too, though he apparently tries very hard to believe in the dogma that the Holy Spirit elected him and that he’ll eventually turn out to be the best possible solution… to be fair, Ratzinger has made way fewer faux pas yet than I had expected.
For practical purposes, I might as well be one. Actually, however, I’m an apathetic agnosticist (“I don’t know, and I don’t care”). I’m just pedantic — belief in a sufficiently ineffable deity hangs in the air, which is why I can’t have it, but it’s completely impossible to disprove, I don’t know if the principle of parsimony can really be extrapolated to such cases, and I don’t care enough to spend hours thinking about the latter question.
What do you mean, for example?
—————
The “according to the Scriptures” part means “according to Old Testament prophesy”.
I imply that in Austria, the bureaucracy knows to which denomination you belong, and unless your parents object, you get 2 hours per week of religious education in school, provided that teachers for your denomination are available. (Almost everyone is nominally Catholic, and almost all the rest are Lutheran or — nowadays — Muslim, so teachers are usually available.) From a certain age on (I think 16), you yourself (as opposed to your parents) can opt out, too.
I stayed all the way to the end, because it was interesting. It was more about religions than within Catholicism. There was a lot of emphasis on comparison between the world’s big religions, and the way that Catholicism is normally interpreted in Europe after the 2nd Vatican Council is something that would probably make most Americans wonder if they’re even looking at a religion. For example, the teacher hoped that Hell is empty, and apparently believed that there were good chances of it actually being so. And when he explained that he had had to grapple a lot with the Book of Revelation (where’s the love in there exactly, and stuff), coming to the conclusion that its outcome matters (the “and all will be well” part — paraphrasing), the students said to each other after class that they didn’t understand why he bothered, instead of ignoring the whole book.
The household… my mother seems to like ritual and for years tried to get me to church almost every Sunday (boring — the same all the time), and gave me a Children’s Bible to read at an early age, but that’s all I can really say. My father despises ritual and institutions (having grown up in communist Yugoslavia, which consisted mostly of these), but I don’t know what, if anything, he lastly believes. Over here, you see, religion is a private affair. If you don’t ask people, they won’t tell you, and it’s impolite to ask. I can tell you for sure, however, that they don’t believe everything a pope says. Both were quite unhappy with the election of Benedict XIV. My (generally anxious) brother seems to be, too, though he apparently tries very hard to believe in the dogma that the Holy Spirit elected him and that he’ll eventually turn out to be the best possible solution… to be fair, Ratzinger has made way fewer faux pas yet than I had expected.
For practical purposes, I might as well be one. Actually, however, I’m an apathetic agnosticist (“I don’t know, and I don’t care”). I’m just pedantic — belief in a sufficiently ineffable deity hangs in the air, which is why I can’t have it, but it’s completely impossible to disprove, I don’t know if the principle of parsimony can really be extrapolated to such cases, and I don’t care enough to spend hours thinking about the latter question.
What do you mean, for example?
—————
The “according to the Scriptures” part means “according to Old Testament prophesy”.
You could make a legitimate but weak secular case against the right to choose an abortion. That’s not what we see. What we see instead is religionists grasping at straws, misinterpreting results, and outright fabricating technical arguments. Just a couple examples: 1) The posturing that a fetus is an “unborn baby”, along with showing pictures of babies when what’s under discussion is an invisibly small ball of undifferentiated cells. 2) Spreading the rumor (based on one medical study with known flaws and not replicated) that having an abortion increases the likelihood of cancer. This is not only spread in anti-abortion literature, but has been forced onto legitimate government medical information sites.
I’ll file that under “attempting to change the subject.”
MAJeff, I get more impressed with you everywhere I see you on the innertubes. My family knows naught of my atheism – I can’t bear to do it. Luckily I live a thousand miles or so away so it doesn’t become a problem very often.
What’s scary is that a friend recently received an email from his mother parroting exactly the Landover lines to me about being gay. It is tough to tell satire from reality sometimes. As my friend said, “conditional love.”
I know Landover is satire. To those who would believe those things, though, you are pure evil.
MAJeff @ I know Landover is satire. To those who would believe those things, though, you are pure evil.
If Landover is a joke you are saying quoting The Bible completely, in the spirit it is intended, without any apologetics is a source of limitless absurdity. Friend, as a TRUE Christian™ I can not accept not that.
Landover Baptist is a real as the fires of Hell and the love of Jesus.
This is my current situation as well, although I see my mom on a regular basis. I’m still not sure how she would react. She has some idea, I think, but still “would love it if I came to services one Sunday”.
Funnily, a recent conversation I had with my 68 year old Lutheran conservative mom revealed the following things (I found some of them very surprising, some other people may not): she thinks the debate about gay marriage is utterly ridiculous, and can’t figure out why other people think gay marriage is so bad; she accepts evolution as it stands, and doesn’t see it as conflicting with the idea of God starting the whole shebang; she thinks ID is a complete crock of shit, and that teaching it in *any* school, especially public ones, is a terrible idea; she’s sick and tired of the rhetoric coming from folks like Dobson and the AFA.
So you nutjob fundamentalist Christians out there attempting to push your religion onto everyone else, beware: if you think you’re winning, my 68 year old conservative Christian mom is a perfect example of the fact that you’re not. In fact, you’re really pissing off some of the people that make up the very core of who you claim to represent.
Thanks, but I’m just some random guy trying to make his way through the world. I teach because I love it and hope to help some other folks navigate their way through it. Nothing special about me, and nothing I’ve done that others can’t as well. Is it hard some times, yeah. But life is. Coming out as a queer was the best thing I’ve ever done. I never found out until later about the ripple effects my initial action of coming out as the first openly gay resident assistant at Iowa State had. I just did it. Likewise, coming out as atheist was, well, freeing. As I’ve mentioned elsewhere, my family is far more important than my relatives. Who’s your family? They’re the ones that matter, and they may not be your relatives.
I think one of the things that really keeps me going is my favorite quote by Cornell West:
I remain a prisoner of hope.
OK, enough with this. I’m supposed to be a snarky asshole.
Thanks, again, but I’m not impressive (maybe it’s Minnesota modesty, but I really believe that). I just do what I do.
Jason I., that’s the best news I’ve heard all week.
Jeff, maybe it’s just what you do, but as a great philosopher once said, there is only “Do, or not do.”
I hear you about family. I’m pretty happy with my relatives, but there are others who are family. My dad’s best friend is my closest “uncle” and his son is my godbrother. My godbrother is gay, and I marched with his mom and dad from the South End up to Govt Center a few months ago, and contacted my state rep and state senator about deep-sixing the proposted marriage amendment ballot question. I guess you know what happened with that.
Things change by tiny increments – like evolution, eh? Those little things you “do” are small when viewed from a distance as singular events, but they are part of something bigger and their absence would be a loss.
rob #80 “what about figuring out why humans have such a deep and fundamental orientation toward faith and preferring clearly irrational propositions to your clear truths.”
You omitted the “?”.
What makes you think that scientists have not figured out why humans flock to faith and irrational propositions?
The long answer would require an easel and charts. The short answer is that humans are emotionally needy, fearful of uncertainty, creduolous and stupid. Not us, them.
Kseniya,
“Do or not do.” I like. and yeah, that ripple effect thing with little steps. I got an email from a student the other day, one of those emails that reminds me why I teach (and of the awesome responsibility that comes with such a profession).
Maybe it is Minnesota modesty (we’re not allowed to praise ourselves, and accepting compliments is the most uncomfortable thing we can do), but I’m not special. I’m one guy. The only strength to change the world, though, comes from acting collectively.
I’m feeling completely incoherent at the moment. I was just reading Tara Smith’s blog and all those HIV denialists….murderers in the name of my community. I honestly feel phsyically ill at the moment, because I had to deal with a friend a couple weeks ago who was having unsafe sex and tested poz. I want him to live, and read him the riot for exactly that reason (and he’s kept in touch and told me about the steps he’s taking that have worked to improve his mental health and keep him from doing that stupid shit). Thankfully it was a false poz, but these people would have more of us having unsafe sex and killing each other. I think I need to get away from the computer and play with my cat….I’m shaking with rage at those folks who would literally have us killing each other.
sorry for my rambling incoherence.
David (#289):
I sense a subtext of “it’s impolite to ask if you suffer from a delusion, and if so, which variety”. Which makes perfect sense.
“I’m sure that all of us, Christian or atheist (*editorial snicker*), can all come to the agreement that God did in fact write the Bible and so there is no debate there.”
Do you suffer from delusions or do you enjoy them?
“With that in mind not once in the Bible is it said that the Bible is wrong!”
Editors prerogative.
” To break it down: The Bible is the ultimate source of truth, the Bible says the Bible is right, end of debate.”
Your head must be spinning from chasing your tail.
“I apologize for tearing down your entire belief system”
Look again. You haven’t.
“Flawless in” [IL]”logic,
Wash O’Hanley”
. . . from the Landover Baptist Church, where they’ve been “Guaranteeing Salvation Since 1620.” I think that it’s a safe bet that none of those who have been Guaranteed Salvation have filed lawsuits over your false advertizing.
Not for the reason that you believe, though Wash.
“Where the Worthwhile Worship. Unsaved Welcome!”
How heartwarming!
Talitha @ 189 “Jesus died temporarily for YOUR Sins. Why can you not let HIM enter you and fill you with HIS Love?”
Not tonight, dear, I’ve got a headache.
rob #196 “If he hits better with it, it’s rational for him to believe in it.”
If he did hit better with a ‘lucky charm’ (which is not certain because how do you make him both a control and an experimental subject?) that would amount to no more than that confidence might disinhibit inhibition of performance, an expectation that sports psychologists monopolize.
This does not really render the belief rational any more than my believing that my going to bed soon will ensure that the sun will rise tomorrow. Both will happen more certainly than his hitting better, but this does not mean that the hypothesis was rational.
Sinbad @198 “I suggest it’s because Dawkins intuitively recognizes the cognitive dissonance of living as if he has the volitional freedom he philosophically denies.”
I suggest that you cannot know what Dawkins, or anyone other than yourself, intuitively recognizes unless they honestly affirm your suspicions. Let’s leave Dawkins out of this because he is not here to confirm or deny your suggestion.
Cognitive dissonance only occurs when we recognize that we have philosophical tension (I shouldn’t have yet I did, or I should have yet I didn’t).
I think that the difficulty that people have concerning the question of free will lies in assuming that the simple cause and effect relationship assumed for deterministic processes necessarily follows the sort of linear path that binary computers follow. I don’t think that computers are a particularly good model for understanding the operation of the human mind precisely because they lack the inherent plasticity of response that even synaptic modulation of the response of other neurons allows. Computer networks would seem a better model.
In terms of neural based volition, we actually program ourselves in that the neurons of a newborn’s neocortex are not connected to other neurons at birth. (Luckily, the brainstem and limbic systems are ‘on-line’.) Alfred Adler pointed out that exposing different children to exactly the same experience will elicit different responses and interpretations of meaning. In essence, he was talking about volitional self-programming in response to stimuli.
If you can come up with better material and arguments to support your position on the question of free will, I’d be happy to read them. If you think that God is master-minding your operating system, then you’ll have a much harder task convincing me than if you can provide an empirically supported philosophical position.
Sinbad @198 “Dawkins: “When one or two people have a delusion, it is classed as a mental illness — when millions share a delusion, it’s a religion. It doesn’t make it any less of a delusion.”
By my lights, this settles the matter — he thinks religion is a mass mental illness/defect. I suspect he’d add that such an illness remains an illness even if it’s deemed “normal” due to prevalence.”
It might have been more accurate for Dawkins to term religious belief a prevalent, inculcated, false-belief system, then?
There is an ivory tower psychologist of dubious merit who has performed a lot of research into what she terms “false memories” in an attempt to discredit repressed memories, which are completely distinct critters with different mechanisms and manifestations. Aside from this disreputable aspect of her work, she and the other psychologists who jumped on the bandwagon have demonstrated that some people can be induced to imagine that they actually have a memory of something if a trusted person tells them that such and such a thing actually happened.
Religion belief does not even demand a level of implanting of false *memories* it merely requires implanting a false belief sytem, and that is no more difficult than having a person learn and accept false information.
However, theists do not win over every child who is raised in a theistic society precisely because imparting false information that strains credulity will set off alarm bells in some thinkers. The contents of core claims for supernatural interference in physical events are false.
I have another word than ‘mental illness’ for the phenomenon of credulous adherance to an unfactual, internally inconsistent, illogical belief system. The prevalence of religion can be explained by resort to other explanations than that it is *not* founded in falsehoods or delusions.
Sinbad #220: “The more apt analogy to discuss is one where we all thought ourselves leprechauns.”
Do you mean something along the lines of how we all think ourselves humans?
Virginia #267 : “evolution has NO proof and is COMPLETELY untestable”
From Apologetics for Religious Dummies, ‘Caps emphasize the Sacred Nature of So-Called Truth about Faith and SHOUTING makes the untrue TRUE.’
Why Didn’t We Atheists Think of That? Here goes: Virginia, BIOLOGICAL EVOLUTION IS AN EMPIRICALLY DEMONSTRABLE FACT. THEORIES OF BIOLOGICAL EVOLUTION ARE TESTABLE, BUT, IN ACCORD WITH THE RULES OF LOGIC, INDUCTION NECESSARILY PRECLUDES PROOF.
I guess that Virginia must have actually met God in order to consider that His Existence is Fact and He must have personally assured her that her Beliefs are Proven.
I think you need to use more exclamation marks, scatheist.
at least 5 for any sentence you really want to stress as being important to a creationist.
use Neal’s email as a good template.
:p
Um, just in case you’ve managed to skip some of the posts explicating this: Landover Baptists are deliberate satirists and parodists of fundamentalist Christians.
To put it another way: Creationism is always a joke, but the Landover Baptists are aware of this, and are joking.
To whom were you addressing that, owlmirror?
Scatheist (responding to “Virginia”), and TruthPeddlar, (responding to “Wash O’Hanley” and “Sister Talitha” above).
Trying to make a Landover Baptist see that they are not making sense is useless, since they are quite aware of it already, and sense is not what they are trying to make.
Owlmirror #311 : “Trying to make a Landover Baptist see that they are not making sense is useless, since they are quite aware of it already, and sense is not what they are trying to make.”
You are undoubtedly right. I have been so blessed as to never have encountered one before, but I am a new arrival to this blog.
Are you saying that they *have* realized that they are not making sense? My impression from the few that posted and ran was that they have no clue that they truly are deluded. It is part and parcel of the fundamentalist cognitive disorder to believe that one is correct to believe in the unbelievable.
Are you saying that they *have* realized that they are not making sense?
oh, I see what’s going on now.
scatheist…
correct answer:
“ah! The site is parody, satire. I get it now”
nudge, nudge, wink, wink?
“Do, or do not – there is no ‘try’.”
“I don’t believe it.”
“That is why you fail.”
God certainly did “come” upon Mary. The Holy Spook IS God, and Jesus is also God, according to the Trinity doctrine. So God had sex with a girl (maybe as young as 14, since they married ’em off young in those days) who became his own mother so she could give birth to God who sacrificed himself to himself to save humanity from his own wrath. And this is supposed to make sense! I can’t make it make sense, no matter how hard I try.
Ichthyic #313 “ah! The site is parody, satire. I get it now”
nudge, nudge, wink, wink?”
*Now*, I get it! When I responded to Yes-Virginia-there-is-no-Santa-God I responded to content that looked so much all those other non-satirical comments by True Believers.
I’m learnin’. . . slowly, I admit, but I’m learnin’.
“Um, just in case you’ve managed to skip some of the posts explicating this: Landover Baptists are deliberate satirists and parodists of fundamentalist Christians.
To put it another way: Creationism is always a joke, but the Landover Baptists are aware of this, and are joking.
Posted by: Owlmirror | September 22, 2007 7:07 PM ”
Nothing is further from the truth. I have had some experience with these people and they believe everything that they say. They really believe in EVERY word of the bible.