My brief summary of the position of apologists for religion, The Courtier’s Reply, continues to rankle the believers, and they continue to make responses that only make me laugh at their cluelessness. The standard rebuttal is to claim that I was making an argument in favor of ignorance in the face of theological scholarship, followed by a laundry list of esteemed theologians … but never, and I mean absolutely never, even the slightest attempt to address the core of my criticism — not once have they presented a solid, confirmable reason to believe in a deity.
Here’s the latest example, and it follows the formula perfectly. How dare Myers accuse Tillich and Buber and Bonhoeffer and Gandhi and Bishop Tutu and Piaget and a long set of dropped names of promoting false beliefs? Yet, as usual, he cannot bring himself to actually discuss the substance of the issue: where is the evidence for his god? Listing invisible flounces, transparent ruffles, and phantasmal frills is simply a confirmation of the validity of my parable.
And yes, I do accuse his honor roll of theological luminaries of perpetuating lies, of credulity, and often, of pettifogging rhetoric. When someone advances remarkable claims of remarkable phenomena, like N rays or cold fusion or polywater (or natural selection or chemiosmosis or endosymbiosis), we demand evidence and skeptical evaluation…but not for religion. God always gets a pass from the people who already believe. They claim the existence of the most powerful, all-pervasive force in the universe, yet will provide not a single shred of support. And worse, this bozo calls the demand for evidence “hooliganism”.
If that’s the case, I’m proud to be a hooligan.
So am I.
point of info: Underverse says in comments that he’s an atheist, so this isn’t an instance of rankling the believers.
I am reminded of when Prof. Dawkins recently baffled John Humphrys by asking why he didn’t question peoples faith. They just don’t understand why anyone would question such an ingrained assumtion, and we should discuss the merits of said deity, not whether he/she/it actually exists.
OT: PZ, you’re up at 6 AM? I didn’t realise the universe existed before 8.
Missprism, if you read the comment properly it could also mean that he is a supernatural being!
“I would have to be playing pretty poor attention indeed not to realize that atheists don’t believe in supernatural beings, seeing as it’s right there in the name. And seeing how I am one.”
If its true then its no wonder he’s annoyed!
The Lout’s Complaint begins with a quote from that notorious review of “the God Delusion” in the “London Review of Books” by Terry Eagleton, which is notable for the fact that it spends 11 pages saying Richard Dawkins is wrong without actually saying why. That isn’t surprising because Terry Eagleton spent the first two paragraphs attacking Chris Hitchens in a review of 3 biographies of Gearge Orwell, none of which were actually written by the subject of his ire, and the relevance is still a mystery. I suspect, Christopher Hitchens might have put the extract from Karl Marx into the Portable Atheist” as a sop to Eggleton. Bluster seems to be the usual tactic of religious apologists.
http://www.lrb.co.uk/v28/n20/print/eagl01_.html
http://www.lrb.co.uk/v25/n12/eagl01_.html
Yet, curiously, this particular blogger claims to be an atheist. In a response to a comment from Larry Moran, he notes that – There is an ambitious leap between not caring what someone else believes, or why, and ridiculing that belief at book length, based on a deeply impoverished understanding of that belief.
How exactly is Dawkins doing this? I’ve read the book, I’m an ex-fundi, and my take is that Dawkins seems to have it exactly right.
This seems a wierd version of “not my God”, especially odd given the blogger claims to be an atheist. Maybe we should categorise the objection as “Not their God”? I’d be interested to know which version of God he thinks might be valid, and above all WHY? Bonhoeffers, Tutus, Pat Robinsons? If it isn’t a version of God he is defending, but something else, what is it exactly?
I have yet to find a God (or something as weak as mere religious behaviour) clearly and cogently defined, I couldn’t give very good reasons for rejecting. In principle the entire business boils down to this, which is why the more intelligent theists have to obfuscate, what is this guys excuse?
Just to be clear: as a writer, and a writer of Speculative Fiction at that, I place a pretty hefty value on imagination. Religious moderates are certainly more welcome in my cantina than frothing fundies, and I enjoy mytical stories. So I have a bit more tolerance and enjoyment of such things than PZ seems to. And I have a squishy spot for the current Dalai Lama I can’t shake: but it’s not because of his religion. It’s because he seems to be a genuinely kind, decent and caring human being.
All of that said… PZ’s got a lot more courage and integrity than these other folks seem to have. None of them seem capable of confronting the “why” of religion’s free pass. If it’s truly of use, there’ll be proof for it. If there’s not, too bad. Why does it deserve special treatment? Why this exalted place?
And they seem to be conflating things here. You notice that they’re shading into “PZ hates literature and art, too!” Maybe I’m missing the point, PZ, and you can correct me if I’m wrong, but I don’t ever get the sense that you would claim that art or literature have no value. But they’d come under the same fire as religion if someone held up, say, a copy of Danielle Steele’s latest travesty and proclaimed it to be literal truth (or, even if not literal truth, a subjective truth everyone should be required to live by).
There’s nothing wrong with loving myth. There’s nothing wrong with being inspired by it (with exceptions such as “inspired me to become a racist dickweed”). But claiming it is truth, and that its truth and value can’t be questioned and that it’s not required to present evidence for its claims – that’s very wrong indeed.
But PZ you completely do not understand how good it feels to believe in those new clothes. How comforting it is to have a well-dressed leader sartorially elegant enough to blind his opponents. It can make makes you treat your wife better and be more loving with your kids. So when at last you actually manage to see those clothes, and feel the benefits such seeing confers, the new clothes take on a level of undeniable personal reality. They exist on a plane outside of science and in the realm of appreciation, psychology and art. It is hard not to feel sorry for those that are unable to make the leap and see them. It is like they live in one dimension less.
Warfare, & the desire for culture, spread the gods of the Mesopotamians, Babylonians, Assyrians, etc, throughout the Middle East in ancient times.
The Hebrews, wandering through this region & Egypt too, saw many cultures with gods ruling societies as if they (the gods) actually lived amongst the people, or the priests & rulers, anyway.
So the Hebrews, putting 2 & 2 together, ended up with just the one god, & its been passed on to our society. We’ve inherited a version of the feckin’ nonsense. It’s feckin’ obvious that’s what happened. Why can’t the religious see it? Well, apparently, many humans might be genitically predisposed towards religious belief. There’s not much hope for the feckin’ edjits then, (admittedly, genes are not destiny), but PZ & the other radical antitheists will do their best to help them.
The fact that most people willingly submit to apparent authority never ceases to amaze me.
People listen to quacks to be told what to pills to take, listen to faux news to be told what to think, and bow before priests to be told what to believe, all without asking even once to be shown the evidence or to hold a discussion into the expected outcomes and falsifiability of the rubbish they hear.
That’s jolly silly. Within philosophy of religion, we don’t have a tremendous amount of time for waffly theologians either, but that doesn’t make it into ignorance – it just makes it a particular, delimited field of knowledge. It’s jolly interesting to read the writings of theologians of ages gone by, but they do not provide any help in finding the truth of the matter, but provide interpretation of sacred texts that are useful in guiding those who already agree.
Similarly, political philosophy does not spend a lot of time worrying about the minutiae of tax law – it’s more concerned with whether political systems, rights, and so on, can be justified. To criticise it because it does not take account of some particular lawyer is to miss the point.
In these times, intellectual disciplines have boundaries. I guess denying this fact, and requiring anyone who wants to make any comment to have spent a lifetime reading a bunch of things that are off-topic is a good rhetorical move. It convinces not very bright people, at least, which makes it perfect for newspaper columnists.
How can we know that the Emperor is naked? Just ask those who claim to see the clothes to describe them (color, cut, etc)!
1. If the emperor is wearing something, you’ll get the same answer from independent people.
2. If the emperor is naked, you’ll get lot of different answers and the same answer will persist in groups of related people, e.g. your parents/friends tell you the color and you believe them, because you see nothing.
From these answers we can conclude whether people describe the clothes as they see them, or they’re just describe them as they were told and see nothing.
It’s not hard to see how this applies to religion.
PZ, I never figured you for the soccer maniac, but if it’s a hooligan you’ll be, well that’s your choice.
BTW, somewhere along the way, I forgot that PZ invented the Courtier’s Reply. Thanks for doing so, it really does take that next step.
We few. We happy few. We band of well-clothed barbarians….
How can we know that the Emperor is naked? Just ask those who claim to see the clothes to describe them (color, cut, etc)!
No no no, as my creative reading and writing teacher told me, there is no absolute truth. Just because people have different even contradictory experiences reguarding how they see the Emperors clothes, doesn’t mean they’re wrong, it just means they’re seeing the same truth-in different ways.
Genesis 1 says that God created man and woman on the sixth day.
Genesis 2 says that God created man, he piddled around for a bit, is unable to get into a worthwhile relationship with his border collie, so God creates woman.
Now don’t get me wrong, both of these accounts are true, they’re just different kinds of truth.
I always hear Bill Hicks’ voice in the back of my mind when that word is used…
Just another courtier who doesn’t know it. Seems like he wants to have a religion without god but with theologians.
I don’t believe this (rhetorical tricks) to be the intent of many of the criticisms. As I have read the criticisms, they are more concerned about Dawkins not addressing the ‘stronger’ cases for god (supposedly developed in the more sophisticated theological literature), and rather choosing a ‘weaker’ case. Then when Dawkins dismantles the weaker case, applies it across the board.
If this is the case, then the Courtier’s Reply doesn’t apply.
Granted, as I understand Dawkins intent, I believe his goal was to address the god of the ‘common people.’ Hence, the objections are mute. In which case, I would suggest a better line of attack for them would be to show the god of the common people isn’t consistent with the god Dawkins is addressing.
It’s true that many of these great theologians were brilliant. But that doesn’t make them right. It’s all too obvious that they often built mighty architectural wonders to hide the fact that there was no foundation underneath.
Maybe it’s just me, but that response to the Courtier’s Reply seems to be itself an instance of the Courtier’s Reply.
Hooliganism with a capital H! That’s really bad!
This does seem to be a new twist on the Courtier’s Reply, as it appears to celebrate primarily the vestments of the courtier class itself. Points for originality.
But this is my favorite part:
After presenting a list that includes Derrida and Postman while neglecting Simone Weil. Good luck with that revision, pal.
Good point, SteveWH.
Reading both the underverse blog post and Prof Myers’ response, I can see both sides of the argument here.
On the one hand, I do not blame you (atheists/agnostics) for searching for solid and convincing evidence. This is a human instinct, particularly for those whose education has been in mathematics, logic and the sciences; you look for proof. I don’t condemn that. I also agree that an appeal to authority is not helpful; citing lists of distinguished theologians and great religious figures, and saying “How can you think these people were wrong?”, is not an argument but a logical fallacy.
On the other hand, what I’ve been arguing on other threads is that searching for solid evidence in favour of God is not the right approach. To an extent, creationists and fundamentalists bring this on themselves; through their endorsement of biblical inerrancy as regards natural history, they try to reduce God to a material scientific agent, whose existence can be determined from scientific testing and empirical evidence. In a sense, they have allowed atheists to define the parameters of the debate. If this is the debate – “can we determine from scientific, empirical proof that there is a God who created the universe?” and “is the Bible an accurate textbook of natural and geological history?” – then you are quite right to be atheists, because such a God quite clearly does not exist. “God theory” is not a scientific theory (nor is “intelligent design”, which amounts to the same thing); its proponents effectively bury their heads in the sand. But I am arguing that you are asking the wrong question.
Rather, vague and wishy-washy as it may sound, religion and science do deal with different types of “truth”. Science can make clear to us how the universe took on its present physical form; the gaps in our knowledge, which are many, may well be filled in the future by the advancement of science. But it cannot explain why we are here, what our purpose is, and why a universe capable of sustaining life came to be. You cannot apply the scientific method to these questions, because they are intrinsically beyond the scope of empirical evidence.
There is no overwhelming scientific proof, nor will there ever be, for belief in the Judeo-Christian God or in any other benevolent Creator. Seeking for it is like trying to identify “love” or “beauty” or “happiness” or “the soul” using scientific investigative methods.
As regards the exhortation to atheists to read up on Christian and Jewish theology: I do realise that theology may, to those who disbelieve in a Creator on basic philosophical grounds, appear to be on a par with “fairy studies”. But it is still beneficial in the avoidance of straw man arguments. Many of the philosophical problems of belief in a deity have been addressed by religious writers and thinkers through the ages. Whether you find their solutions convincing is, of course, up to you – but that’s no reason not to read them. Theology and philosophy are not valueless fields just because they don’t deal with testable, falsifiable scientific facts.
You know Walton, if you wave those arms much faster you might just takeoff and fly around the room.
Maybe you could just show us some small proof of god. Just a crumb from the mighty and venerable table of theology.
The straw man will show you out, thanks.
Walton writes: But it cannot explain why we are here, what our purpose is, and why a universe capable of sustaining life came to be.
______
But that is the very problem with the God Hypothesis–it does not answer the why questions either!!! So people are mucking around with a non-evidential belief system with all the dangers such an approach implies to not even get an satisfying answer.
The non-overlapping magisteria has been debunked.
Who made God? God answers nothing. It has just been the Courtier’s reply that has allowed people to hide that fact. If there is any chance of us ever getting an answer to the why questions, it will be because of science, not because of religion because religion has no answer but one that causes many more problems that it answers.
The fact that most people willingly submit to apparent authority never ceases to amaze me.
Why? We see that many animal species have herd behaviors, built-in submission to dominance displays, etc. Why do we overlook the obvious notion that there is a “human nature” and that we have instinctive behaviors like “believing things people say with enough conviction”?
Walton,
It’s strange that, in a paragraph ostensibly about avoiding strawmen, you would suggest that people here are arguing that philosophy is a valueless field.
That said, well, there’s philosophy and there’s philosophy. As Peter Kropotkin explained to Charles Eliot Norton in 1897, “Your metaphysician is a blind man hunting in a dark room for a black hat which does not exist.”
Walton writes:
Rather, vague and wishy-washy as it may sound, religion and science do deal with different types of “truth”.
Yeah, religion deals with the “made up” kind of “truth”
I am also proud to be a hooligan.
Then again, I would be equally as proud to be “a puzzled dog in a Gary Larson cartoon.”
You’ve got it backwards, the creationists defined the argument when they started to systematically deny hard evidence collected by scientists for theories such as evolution. As more discoveries were made and research done, the louder the creationists screams about science being anti-god became. Science however continues to provide hard data and explanations for said data where religion hasn’t provide any reasonable examples of either.
Walton,
I think you are mistaken. You posit that science searches for the “how” and religion searches for “why”. Well, the “how question” arises from the fact that we are here, we do exist, and we are curious, so we look into it – what is this, how did it gert here, etc.. The “why question” comes about because…why? Because someone wants a reason to drive the “how question”, not satisfied with merely existing. A more interesting question to me than “why exist?” would be “why do people desire an external purpose to existence?”.
Similarly, I don’t see a need to delve into the arguments of the greatest theological writer/analyst/navel-gazer, when the theological arguments have to come after agreement on existence of a god. Then someone needs to flesh out that god. Too bad all the source material is demonstrably false.
Walton (#23):
Re: “Why” questions
Neither can you apply any other method. Oh, theologians and other religionists might claim to have “why” answers…but they usually differ and are probably wrong (but there exists no tests to distinguish between “answers”).
For the answer to these “why” questions I think the answers “42”, “mu”, and “shit happens” are sufficient (but unsatisfying…but that’s not the universe’s problem)
Martin
@ #23
“Seeking for it is like trying to identify “love” or “beauty” or “happiness” or “the soul” using scientific investigative methods.”
Scientists do try to identify all those things, and have been successful, to an extent, with everything but the soul. The problem with discovering the soul is a lack of a clear definition of soul, and that all the studies that seek to discover a soul have failed. Which leads to the conclusion that the soul does not exist.
I don’t know the studies off hand, but take a look through some neurology literature and you’ll stumble upon it.
Well, can you blame them for calling atheist hooligans? I mean, murder and such probably falls under hooliganism, and as we know, lack of religiosity predicts all sorts of behaviors.
the core of my criticism — not once have they presented a solid, confirmable reason to believe in a deity. – PZ
Just because someone is paranoid doesn’t mean that no one is out to get them.
There is no larger “why.” We produce the question “why?” because we have these oversized brains that have allowed us to develop language and consciousness and questions. I really think the best line about this comes from Angels in America. This is Prior Walter, a gay man with AIDS, the central character, and a “modern prophet.”:
Living itself is the why. It may not always be enough, but in the amazing conversation with a friend, in the meal that makes you pause because your entire mouth is alive, in the song that comes on and brings you to tears, in the pain of losing a loved one, in the ecstasy of a great orgasm, in the playing with a pet….That’s all you get. Live it.
Walton@23: But it cannot explain why we are here, what our purpose is, and why a universe capable of sustaining life came to be. You cannot apply the scientific method to these questions, because they are intrinsically beyond the scope of empirical evidence.
Let’s take your questions one at a time:
1) “Why we are here.” The question is underspecified. It could mean either “What chain of events caused us to be here?” (clearly a scientific question) or “What purpose were we put here to serve?”, to which the atheist’s answer is “None”. The question’s supposed profundity comes, I think, from this ambiguity.
2) “What our purpose is”. Again, apparent profundity from ambiguity. If we take it to mean, for each of us individually, what our purpose is, then everyone must answer for themselves, and there is no reason to expect agreement. I would certainly refuse to specify a single purpose – I have lots of different purposes, among them to stay alive, to enjoy myself, to learn, to look after my family, to work toward a fair and sustainable human civilisation. If it does not mean that, the question is really much the same as (1), and again the atheist’s answer would be “none”. Even if it should be the case that we were in some sense caused to be by some powerful being(s), natural or supernatural, why should we adopt their purposes as our own?
(3) “Why a universe capable of sustaining life came to be?” Why should there be any such reason? It may simply be a fact that such a universe exists (incidentally, I think “came to be” contains an implied assumption that time pre-existed the physical universe, which may not be so). In any case, if you answer “Because a benevolent creator chose the universal constants carefully”, we can simply ask “Why does such a creator exist?” Unless you are going to argue that the ontological argument is sound (i.e. that God must logically exist), assuming a creator gains you nothing in terms of explanation, at the cost of adding an additional entity to your theory of the universe. If you are going to argue this, the cosmological argument is unnecessary anyway.
There is no overwhelming scientific proof, nor will there ever be, for belief in the Judeo-Christian God or in any other benevolent Creator.
Why not? How about a benevolent creator which really wanted us to know about it? Why not just stamp the Canadian Shield “JHWH & Son & Holy Spirit, Heaven: Universe-makers to the gentry since 4004 BC” – in Hebrew, presumably. Or encode the message in the patterns the stars make, or in the “junk” DNA of Drosophila melanogaster? Believers are forced to resort to a God who is not only omnipotent, but extremely shy, carefully avoiding giving us any real evidence if its existence.
Many of the philosophical problems of belief in a deity have been addressed by religious writers and thinkers through the ages.
An undergrad philosophy of religion course was quite enough to show me that the “Problem of Evil” has never been satisfactorily addressed. Until it has been, I see no reason to use my limited time reading theology rather than science, maths, philosophy, literature and history.
Walton, that’s an interesting assertion. Clearly, the scientific method is capable of answer “why” questions. Ask a physicist “Why is the sky blue?”
Sometimes the answer which science provides to the “why” questions is a bit more brusque, of course. It frequently goes along the lines of:
Mary Midgley is his “go-to philosopher”? Hrraf.
@32 – I don’t know, Martin. I’ve found “mu” to be a deeply satisfying answer, myself. Far more satisfying that all of the desperate theology of sophisticated people trying frantically to justify their belief in a fairy tale.
@23: Walton, I’m sorry, but I just can’t buy it. You give me no reason to accept your assertation that searching for evidence in favor of God is the wrong approach. Why is that? Isn’t it because that evidence is nowhere to be found? It’s a cheap way of evading the question. It’s just another attempt to shut critical inquiry down.
I used to believe that there was a truth science could touch and a truth science couldn’t touch, but I don’t believe that anymore. I’ve seen too many things previously “unknowable” to science become thoroughly known by it. I no longer believe there’s any realm – including love, beauty, and all that rot – that science won’t someday be able to investigate as thoroughly as it does stars and planets and the physiology of you and me. Neuroscience is moving into territory that was previously considered completely beyond science’s ability to comprehend.
What I don’t believe is that science will ever be able to prove the independent existence of an omniscient, omnipotent God. But we agree there for different reasons. You would argue that this is because such a god is beyond science. I would argue it’s because such a god is no more objectively real than my Unicorns. I wouldn’t go round telling people they must believe in my Unicorns or be condemned. And it wouldn’t matter how many people wrote learned treatises on their reality and truth – they remain fiction, and thus science will never prove them.
Heh. Unless, of course, quantum physics gives me a shock and discovers the buggers were hiding out in a parallel universe all this time, laughing their bloody arses off at us all. ;-) But they remain fictional until proven otherwise, and so does God.
Yes indeed, the “Lout’s reply” is simply another iteration of the Courtier’s Reply. It is not at all convincing.
A cosmos supposedly created for our emergence sure took a while to get around to us:
Dude…dangling genitalia…if I were drinking milk it would be up my nose right now.
Hooligans, eh – how about the undead? Check out this cover of a fundamentalist Christian humor magazine, featuring famous atheists as ghouls.
http://www.wittenburgdoor.com/current-issue
Walton @ 23: please don’t conflate theology with philosophy. I see this all too often, and they are not the same.
Walton (Comment #23):
Well, why we are here is easily answered at an individual level in terms of biological reproduction and the intentions and actions of our parents, and at a species level by evolutionary biology. Determining why a universe capable of sustaining life came to be is a question for the science of cosmology. These aren’t questions outside the preview of empirical investigation.
Distinguishing between scientific “how” questions and non-scientific “why” questions is artificial and for the most part irrelevant, since in most cases the distinction is really between two ways of grammatically framing the same question. Most “how” questions can also be rephrased as “why” questions, and vice-versa. A more meaningful distinction would be between questions which ask for explanation in terms of causes, and those that ask for explanation in terms of the intentions and reasoning of one or more agents. But the second type of question presupposes that we already have answers to certain questions of the first type, since there’s no point is asking for an intentional explanation of something unless you have already have grounds to suppose that an agent of some sort is actually involved.
What our purpose is, is (I agree) not a scientific question. However, without a fair amount of explanation and elaboration, it’s not clear what the question actually is. Quite apart from anything else, purpose needs to be distinguished from mere function. The former is something that has to be assigned by an agent, while the latter is not. Purpose is a matter of the attitudes that agents adopt in framing goals and adapting means to ends. Function is a empirical matter of how parts interact with the rest of a system, or how entities interact with their environment.
Human beings themselves are agents who can assign purpose to things, including their own lives. Purpose, in short, is not something we have to look for outside ourselves. If, regardless, you still want to ask for purposes outside ourselves, then this presupposes an external agency that either brought us into existence or has tried to shape or influence us in the pursuit of goals of its own. In which case, it’s up to you to provide reasons for supposing this to be true.
Consequently, the question “What is our purpose?” is either a poorly-framed attempt to ask “What should our purpose be?” (a question that religion has no exclusive claim to answer), or it presupposes theism or something similar. If the latter, then the validity of the question depends on whether theism is true. However, even if we were to determine that a God or something similar created or shaped us for a purpose of its own, this does not answer the question “What should our purpose be?” It’s still up to us to decide whether we want to go along with the goals of our hypothetical creator, or to seek fulfillment on our own terms.
Gould’s concept of science and religion as non-overlapping magisteria is usually criticised on the grounds that it is an ideal, rather than an accurate description of how science and religion are (for the most part) actually practiced. But it’s also far from clear that religion constitutes a magisterium at all, i.e., that it constitutes a well-defined domain to which it is appropriate to refer questions of a particular type. Seems to me that what religion does is give inadequate answers to poorly-framed questions, questions which when better framed do not require religion to answer them at all.
What does one have to do to be labeled as a scallywag?
“There is no overwhelming scientific proof, nor will there ever be, for belief in the teapot or in any other benevolent crockery. Seeking for it is like trying to identify “love” or “beauty” or “happiness” or “the soul” using scientific investigative methods.”
Which is why i don’t bother studying the orbital dynamics of pottery in order to understand the universe.
I’ve had a flood of responses, not all of which I can even try to answer now. I will briefly respond to Nick Gotts at #37.
Why not just stamp the Canadian Shield “JHWH & Son & Holy Spirit, Heaven: Universe-makers to the gentry since 4004 BC” – in Hebrew, presumably. Or encode the message in the patterns the stars make, or in the “junk” DNA of Drosophila melanogaster? Believers are forced to resort to a God who is not only omnipotent, but extremely shy, carefully avoiding giving us any real evidence if its existence. – The traditional Judeo-Christian answer is that if God were to do that, there would be no point in faith; the existence of God would be obvious, and human beings would not be faced with the choice of whether or not to believe. Indeed, this argument also seeks to address many of the other arguments brought up above; if God were to provide us with any empirical, scientific proof of his existence, the need for faith would be removed. Faith consists in believing in something without any solid evidence for it. If there is solid evidence, it ceases to be a leap of faith and becomes mere rational conjecture based on observable evidence.
At the same time, though, an intelligent and intellectually honest person cannot be expected to ignore evidence in favour of blind faith. Thus, while I am not trying to prove the existence of God through evidence, logic or science, because it can’t be done, I am trying to demonstrate that as I understand it, evidence, logic and science do not contradict the notion of God or render it an impossibility.
an intelligent and intellectually honest person cannot be expected to ignore evidence in favour of blind faith.
Wow. Just wow.
Faith consists in believing in something without any solid evidence for it.
faith = superstition
Sorry, that was a grammatical ambiguity. I meant “an intelligent and intellectually honest person cannot be expected to ignore evidence and choose blind faith instead”. I didn’t mean that there is “evidence in favour of blind faith”; that would be oxymoronic.
(My post #52 above was a reply to MAJeff at #50. It was only when he highlighted the sentence that I realised it could be read in a way I didn’t intend. Sorry for any misunderstanding.)
“But they remain fictional until proven otherwise, and so does God.”
Unicorns are fictional because they are from fiction. If they existed and we didn’t know about them, they most certainly would not be fictional! Were atoms fictional before they were discovered? Before Dalton, most scientists believed so. To claim that it is a fact that a thing does not exist because you do not see evidence for it is simply arrogant; what if someone else sees evidence that you do not or cannot see? I’m not arguing in favor of God or religion, just clear thinking: you cannot prove a negative. You can invoke Occam’s razor, but that doesn’t prove your position to someone who sees the evidence differently. Some people see their own experiences as evidence for the existence of God. We science types know how unreliable this kind of evidence is, but that doesn’t actually prove anything. Walton (#23), is at least mostly right on every point he makes, but many of you have misinterpreted his words. As far as organized religion goes, PZ is right on: it is corrupt and teaches people to be as thoughtless as sheep.
I appreciate the clarification. However, what you’re doing is this.
1. Claim there is a diety.
2. Exempt that deity from any evidential standard for existence. Claim it is out of bounds of absolutely everything while simultaneously being in everything.
3. Say that since it’s outside of everything, you can’t prove its nonexistence.
4. Claim the failure to prove non-existence is equivalent to existence–or at least that it should be treated that way.
5. Exempt yourself from any usual standards that say, “you’re the one positing the existence of something, so the onus is on you to demonstrate that existence,” by returning to step two.
6. Lather. Rinse. Repeat.
What a useless exercise.
/spit take
HUwahhhh?
I like Larry Morgan’s response that was just released from moderation. “Thingyness” is now my word for the day :)
Walton
Then what point is there in having a god? Can’t touch, feel, taste, smell, hear, see your god, but you want us to believe in it.
And what point is served? How do you know if your god is happy, sad, irritated, a hooligan, uncaring, malevolent, living in bliss on Omicron Persei 8, etc? You don’t, you are guessing (sans evidence) or (more likely) following someone else’s instructions, without knowing why you do these things.
Science doesn’t have to render any gods impossible, because there is nothing that indicates a need for any god or prime mover or whatever the Hel you want to call it. Where’s your god now? Everywhere and nowhere, silently loud, circularly square, telling nobody what it wants. There’s your purpose – guess at a master purpose and act goofy for it, with zero feedback as to the correctness of your actions and assumptions.
Whew!
“To Myers, non-rational is synonymous with irrational”
(HOW DARE YOU THINK THAT WAY!??!)
ROLF! I have to figure out how to use this phrase in everyday life.
…which is a lousy response. The whole “free will” and “choice” argument is ludicrous given the stakes, which is the possibility of torture for all eternity. Would you teach your child about not putting their hand on the stove by leaving cryptic references to heat in their school library, and hope that their “free will” would come across them and understand them correctly? Would you tell your child “the street is a dangerous place to play, but hey, it’s your choice whether you do or not, as I wouldn’t want to interfere with your free will”? Would you say “you know, getting vaccinated against potentially fatal childhood diseases is a good idea, but I’ll let you work out for yourself whether you go to the doctor”? What kind of horrible parent wouldn’t ensure that their children don’t harm themselves in these ways?
And before you argue that we aren’t children, that we are rational and can make appropriate decisions, we surely don’t have the understanding and capacities attributed to our “parent”, god, whose ways we are constantly told are “mysterious” and “beyond human kenning”.
Now, admittedly, this argument doesn’t rule out the existence of a god, it just argues that any such god must be a right bastard.
MAJeff: “4. Claim the failure to prove non-existence is equivalent to existence–or at least that it should be treated that way.”
Indeed, that is the key fallacy that Walton is making. If lack of absolute certainty about nonexistence is equivalent to existence, then by implication we must accept Polytheistic Solipsism. But PS is absurd.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pantheistic_solipsism
Tulse @ #61:
>Now, admittedly, this argument doesn’t rule out the existence of a god, it just argues that any such god must be a right bastard.
Given that a lot of people try to argue that we are obligated to worship god because he loves us, I am tempted to suggest that the ways he screws us over more implies that he lusts after us.
To MAJeff at #55. You would be right if I were trying to prove the existence of God. But you misunderstand the point of the exercise.
The claim I am making, from a logical and philosophical point of view, is not the strong claim that there is a deity, but the much weaker claim that there may be a deity – i.e. that it is not impossible or implausible that a deity exists.
Claim the failure to prove non-existence is equivalent to existence–or at least that it should be treated that way. – No, I’m not claiming that at all. It would be a logical fallacy. But the failure to prove non-existence is equivalent to showing that there is a possibility of existence, which is all I am trying to show through reason and evidence.
That is where the first part of this argument ends – by establishing that it is possible that there is a God. This is all that can be proved by logic, reason and evidence.
The second part is this: it is traditional Judeo-Christian teaching that God does not provide empirical evidence of his existence because this would eliminate the need for faith. Therefore, this is the point where reason ends and faith begins.
In short, therefore, we can use reason and logic to reach the conclusion that God may exist. The further leap from “God may exist” to “God does exist” is based entirely on faith, not reason or logic. Whether or not to have that faith is a personal choice, and cannot be analysed according to objective, rational criteria.
Basically, we are all presented with the same set of facts and the same principles of logical reasoning. We can all conclude the same thing from those: that they are inconclusive. God may exist, or he may not. Anything in the material world attributed to God can be explained away through natural factors, but whether to prefer the natural or the supernatural explanation is a personal choice. This situation is exactly in accord with religious teaching; because the basis of religion is that each human being has a choice, to believe or not believe.
Walton (Comment #49):
This raises the question – what’s so great about faith? Specifically, why should the question of whether or not God actually exists have to depend on faith? If it’s got something to do with free will, then even if we have incontrovertible evidence of God’s existence, there’s still ample room for freedom of choice in how we decide to respond to this fact, and whether or not we choose to live our lives the way God wants us to. In other words, there’s still plenty of room for the exercise of voluntary faith even if the existence of God is certain.
It looks rather as if there’s some confusion going on between believing (or not) that God exists, and believing in God (in the sense of trusting or committing to God). Believing in the first sense does not entail the latter.
To illustrate: I accept as a fact that Queen Elizabeth II exists and is the head of state of the country in which I live. That does not make me a monarchist.
I don’t have time right now to read through all the posts before mine (budget crunch time) so I apologize if this has already been brought up.
It appears to me, as an atheist, that there is certainly a very large set of piles of clothing for the emperor. The problem is that I don’t believe there is an emperor to clothe. To put it simply… the “clothes don’t make the man” if there is no man (or deity) to clothe in the first place. All we have are these piles of clothes and philosophical mumbo-jumbo about something that doesn’t even exist. No matter how nicely arranged and styled all this clothing is… we still don’t even have a mannequin to dress up with it.
-DU-
Posted by: Walton | May 28, 2008 10:11 AM
There’s no there there.
The second part is this: it is traditional Judeo-Christian teaching that God does not provide empirical evidence of his existence because this would eliminate the need for faith. Therefore, this is the point where reason ends and faith begins.
Walton
That is the sticking point. ‘Believe it because I say so but I will not reveal myself’ is just is not a satisfactory reason to accept a deity.
Wow, that was painful to read first thing in the morning…
Look, enough with the fucking name-dropping already. Can’t we just get straight to the goddam arguments?
It drive me nuts when I see people (and other colleagues in my discipline, and others) simply drop names, and then act as though you’re supposed to know everything about that person.
I actually called out a professor on that when he tried that with my paper at a conference. He said, after I was finished, “I think that Heidegger would undermine your claims here.” “Really? Where and how, specifically?” Silence.
Then, of course, I got annoyed, and said, in front of everyone: “Okay, so you brought it up, and yet you can’t tell me the first thing about where and how? I don’t think that qualifies as an objection. Any other questions?”
He came up to me later and apologized (as he should have).
Well, which is it? Not impossible, or not impossible and not implausible? Possibility is trivial, plausibility is not. You have an annoying tendency to drift from one to the other.
To Tulse #61.
Now, admittedly, this argument doesn’t rule out the existence of a god, it just argues that any such god must be a right bastard.
This is, indeed, one of the major problems with Christian thinking, and I can’t honestly answer it. If God is both omnipotent and benevolent, why does he allow the persistence of evil (both natural and man-made)? And why does he place human beings on Earth, give them the choice to believe or not to believe – based on evidence which could equally guide them in either direction – and allow them to be punished for eternity if they make the wrong choice? Logically, either he is not benevolent (which would lead to your conclusion that he is a “right bastard”), or he is not omnipotent, and is matched by an equal and opposing source of evil (an idea which is not new, and has echoes of Manichaean and Zoroastrian beliefs). The truth is that I have no idea, and I can’t provide a convincing argument.
These arguments of theodicy, and the question of evil, are much older than scientific atheism – medieval philosophers grappled with them – and in a sense much more profound and more difficult to answer.
I will point out, though, as regards “eternal torture”, that traditional Christian demonology, and the popular-culture conception of Hell, have very little scriptural basis. (So much of what the average person “knows” about Christian belief actually comes from Milton, not the Bible.) The closest thing to a “description” of Hell is that those who choose not to believe will be “cast into the outer darkness, where there will be much weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth”. I would certainly prefer to read this as a metaphor, and indeed many modern Christians do. “Hell” is not necessarily an actual place, nor a state of eternal torture; it may be viewed as a state of separation from God, rather than union with God.
But I realise that isn’t a satisfactory answer. I’ll work on it.
‘Believe it because I say so but I will not reveal myself’ is just is not a satisfactory reason to accept a deity.
But really it’s even worse than that. It’s believe it because this person over here tells you that this weird and contradictory text represents “believe it because I say so but I will not reveal myself.” All we really have is the text and this person’s insistence that the text means what they say it means.
This is funny, considering Walton was the one who brought up the whole “Judeo-Christian Tradition” response. In particular, the JC tradition says that the devil was an angel who rebelled against God. That is a fairly devistating blow to the claim that “absolute proof of God would take away our free will.” Consider, not only did Lucifer have direct knowledge of God’s existence, but also presumably knew that God was all-powerful. Yet, Lucifer still _chose_ to rebel! Apparently, he still had the ability to chose to do what he wanted.
So it comes down to the fact that, the “Judeo-Christian tradition” of Lucifer as the fallen angel contradicts the “Judeo-Christian tradition” that direct knowledge would eliminate free will.
But hey, who ever expects consistency from Judeo-Christian tradition?
Either a theist’s proposed god has effects within our Universe, or it does not. If it does, then the theist is making a truth-claim about the workings of Universe. Such a claim is a scientific question, and can be verified or falsified by comparing it against reality by using the scientific method.
If the theist’s proposed god has no effect on our Universe, then there is no concievable distinction between what we would find if their god exists, vs. if their god does not exist. If its existence is indistinguishable, in principle, from its non-existence, then Occam’s Razor delivers the coup de grace.
The “sophisticated” theological arguments then become mental masturbation, on a par with arguments over whether the Federation of Star Trek could defeat the Galactic Empire of Star Wars, or treatises on the digestive tracts of two-dimensional Flatlanders that explain how a two-dimensional mathematical abstraction can have a channel going all the way through it without falling into two pieces.
To harrumph loudly that someone who has not scrutinized the calculations for the power output of turbolasers, or the arguments about whether or not Alderaan had a planetary shield that held back the Death Star’s weapon for a fraction of a second (and the next layer of argument, over whether the original release of “A New Hope,” or the “enhanced” edition is the true Canon) is a “lout” does nothing whatsoever to establish that the Force is real.
Why don’t they just admit that their religion is a fun game of pretend-for-grownups, like a Rennaissance Fair without the costumes? If they’d be that honest, we could leave them to their philosophical knitting circle.
It’s when they insist that they really are Jedi Knights and that society ought to be governed according to the teachings of Qui-Gon Jinn, that we start asking for proof, and ridiculing them when they try to say that the Force powers of the Jedi are “really” just metaphors for…something.
Richard Harris [9], I believe you’ve hit a nail on the head. It might not have been the nail you were aiming for, but… when you mentioned tribes being ruled “as if the gods were living among them,” a little light went on in my head. Why was there a “holy of holies,” an inner room that no one could enter but the priests? That was where The God Lived. In the Bible we perceive it as a spiritual thing, “the presence of God.” But what a con! What a foolproof con! “There’s a big, powerful, dangerous god in my tent and he will smite you unless you make offerings. Bring me oil, and bread, and the choicest, unblemished animals. The blood is sprinkled on the altar for God, the meat is cooked, and the offering must be eaten only by the priest and his family.” Oh, and your prosperity offering will be returned to you a hundredfold as God brings you good luck and defeats your enemies.
Riight.
“Hell” is not necessarily an actual place, nor a state of eternal torture; it may be viewed as a state of separation from God, rather than union with God.
Is it god with a small or capital G? Is Hell also the state of separation from Zeus, rather than union with Zeus?
If no, then what is the state of separation from Zeus called?
To Pablo.
In particular, the JC tradition says that the devil was an angel who rebelled against God. – No, it doesn’t. Like most of Christian demonology, this is a medieval myth which was popularised by Milton. It isn’t in the Bible. There’s very little in the Bible itself about Satan, demons or hell.
Indeed, even the use of “Lucifer” as an alternative name for Satan is non-scriptural. It means “light-bearer” and is a Latin translation of a Hebrew name used in Isaiah, but modern scholars believe the relevant phrase to be a pseudonym used for one of the Babylonian kings.
Most of what the average person thinks they know about Judeo-Christian demonology, as I said earlier, is entirely non-scriptural and mostly comes from Milton and various folk stories invented by the medieval Church. This is why I do think that a study of theology would be beneficial to many atheists – not to try and convert anyone, but simply so that you can understand what you’re arguing against and try not to make straw man arguments.
It’s not the social hierarchy that bothers me, it’s the fact that someone can interject from outside your immediate social structure and not be questioned. I find it amazing that such a gamble can be taken on face value without severe criticism.
‘Human nature’ as you say can explain how we behave, but what truly amazes me is the fact that in this day of scientific method with strict hypothesis testing, such unexamined frauds can continue to take place.
Maybe in the next few hundred years we’ll see selection against this type of anti-evidential cognition.
Walton @64:
The flaw in your logic is you move from not being able to disprove a negative to concluding that something is therefore possible (so far, so good), to suggesting that somehow it is therefore a valid choice to chose to believe that the possible thing is a good explanation for events we see in the world. But no decision can be made based on possibility. Decisions must be made based on probability. You see, your logic can just as easily lead one to believing in Sauron, unicorns, aliens, or an infinite number of other ludicrous crap that cannot be disproved.
Therefore, when you say:
Anything in the material world attributed to God can be explained away through natural factors, but whether to prefer the natural or the supernatural explanation is a personal choice. This situation is exactly in accord with religious teaching; because the basis of religion is that each human being has a choice, to believe or not believe.
We must conclude that, based on your logic, any event in the material world should, with equal likelihood, be ascribed to fairies, unicorns, sauron, aliens, or god, and the thing one chooses to ascribe it to is based solely on personal, arbitrary and irrational choice (which you call faith). Are you sure that’s where you want your logic to lead, to the conclusion that god is on par with fairies, leprauchans, and characters from fantasy books? Because if you do, that’s fine with me.
No.
Proof is only possible in math and logic. In science, only disproof is possible. Therefore the two pillars of science are falsifiability and parsimony.
The god of any halfway sophisticated theologian is not falsifiable even in principle. Therefore science is forced to ignore it as a completely worthless idea — because if it were wrong, we could never find that out. However, atheists apply the principle of parsimony anyway… and guess what the result of that is…
Wait a little. Every “why” question can be converted into a “how” question because “everything is the way it is because it got that way”.
Besides, some of your questions could be wrong (like “why did Napoleon cross the Mississippi”). You ask what our purpose is. What makes you think we have a purpose in the first place? That’s something I just don’t get.
The first three are entirely within the realm of sciences like ethology and neurology. The last… what makes you think souls exist in the first place?
“Testable/falsifiable” doesn’t even apply to “fact”. Learn here what the technical term “fact” means.
——————–
But, in the absence of evidence that anyone is out to get them, they are — at best — right for completely wrong reasons. A method that is no better than random guessing is completely worthless.
———————-
The important question isn’t whether some sort of “god” exists; it’s whether the claims of religion have any truth to them. Any reasonable, scientifically educated person knows they don’t.
But the watered-down, mere cosmological hypothesis — why are you people so restlessly obsessed with it? I’m quite sure it’s not out of passion for cosmology (a subject which is seldom discussed on atheist blogs and message boards). The only reason I can think of is the simple thrill you get out of calling yourselves atheists.
#77:
How is medieval mythology not Christian theology? How are you determining what’s privileged to be “real” Christian theology, and what’s “just” mythology?
All this is reminding me of the bit from the first Hitchhiker’s book:
Oops. I forgot to close the blockquote tag after the URL.
The misunderstanding is that Dr. Dawkins is writing about theology. If he was, their criticism would be right.
However, he is not. Dr. Dawkins is not writing about the nature of God, the Holy Trinity, the commencement of Evil or anything else theologicans like to write about.
He is barely questioning their basic assumption that there is a God in the first place, something they dare not question themselves.
Why not just say you reject religion and leave it at that? Why push the envelope, persistently telling everyone that you’re an atheist, saying things like “I’m proud to be an atheist”? What’s the bloody point?
Said Walton:
“At the same time, though, an intelligent and intellectually honest person cannot be expected to ignore evidence in favour of blind faith. Thus, while I am not trying to prove the existence of God through evidence, logic or science, because it can’t be done, I am trying to demonstrate that as I understand it, evidence, logic and science do not contradict the notion of God or render it an impossibility.”
It is true science cannot rule the possibility of god existing. It does however place considerable restrictions on what a god could do. It seems to rule out the possibility of any form of intervention in the universe, which makes prayer somewhat redundant. There may be a role for a god in the creation of the universe but even that is not at all clear. Some cosmological models do not have a beginning of time. We simply do not know enough to say with any degree of certainty what, if anything, preceded the big bang. It would therefore be premature for the religious to claim there is role their for their god. Science does not say there is no god, but it does mean that any god does not have much to do.
And as for the why questions, such as “Why are we here ?”, you first need to show that such a question even makes sense before allowing god in as an explanation. You assume there is a reason for the existence of the universe when I can see no justification for assuming there has to be a reason. Until you have done that your argument is pointless.
Why not just say you reject religion and leave it at that? Why push the envelope, persistently telling everyone that you’re an atheist, saying things like “I’m proud to be an atheist”? What’s the bloody point?
Go re-read Mitt Romney’s “Religion Speech” from this spring and see if it gives you a clue.
But the watered-down, mere cosmological hypothesis — why are you people so restlessly obsessed with it? I’m quite sure it’s not out of passion for cosmology (a subject which is seldom discussed on atheist blogs and message boards). The only reason I can think of is the simple thrill you get out of calling yourselves atheists.
Posted by: J
Damn, J has moved on to other threads. And once more, he has a firm grasp on our motives. I am an atheist because I am out to SHOCK some people. I cannot think of a bigger thrill.
Schmuck.
can you, with your religious insight explain this? can the Pope? can the Dalai Lama? can they do so with more aplomb than i could muster myself? do these questions of “WHY-ness” even make sense?
which scientists are doing, with relative success. seek and ye shall find. or don’t seek and just speculate instead.
is Faith a necessary quality in a world where the Christian God existed? or just a quality necessary to justify his apparent no-show? think – if you were to work from the bottom up, if there was a Deity that went to create the entire universe – would It have the qualities ascribed to It by modern Christianity? would faith be a necessary part of Its plan/Its existence? is it just more likely that faith is part of the trimmings on Its imaginary hat?
there lies schizophrenia. in daily life, Occam’s Razor does away with the little man that turns the light on when you open the fridge – whether you’re a coldly ultra-rational Uber-Scientist or not.
maybe this is one of those Instances Where Logic Fails and we must Turn to Faith.
David, total agreement with everything you wrote except:
“Testable/falsifiable” doesn’t even apply to “fact”.
This statement isn’t totally accurate. Facts are in fact falsifiable. NOTHING in science is off the table with respect to being overturned, even if just in theory. This includes observations.
Go re-read Mitt Romney’s “Religion Speech” from this spring and see if it gives you a clue.
Go re-read my two previous posts, and you’ll see that this is orthogonal to everything I said. I’m advocating telling people you reject religion. Telling people your cosmological opinions (if unasked for) is wholly unnecessary.
Go re-read my two previous posts, and you’ll see that this is orthogonal to everything I said. I’m advocating telling people you reject religion. Telling people your cosmological opinions (if unasked for) is wholly unnecessary.
Translation: public discourse is bad.
…your logic can just as easily lead one to believing in Sauron, unicorns, aliens, or an infinite number of other ludicrous crap that cannot be disproved.
It’s true, in a sense, that this could be concluded from the argument I made. But the difference is, in the case of Christianity, that the Gospels – purported historical accounts which, as discussed earlier, seem to have at least some historical credibility when stacked up against extra-biblical evidence, despite a few apparent errors and inconsistencies – claim that Christ performed miracles, was executed and rose again from the dead. There is, of course, no positive proof for these claims, nor will there ever be. The supernatural aspects of the Gospel accounts could be entirely invented, the result of hysteria, or corrupted over time. But it’s still better evidence than any which exists in favour of Sauron, a fictional character from a book whose author (a devout Catholic, incidentally) never purported to be giving an eyewitness account of real events.
I realise this seems like hairsplitting. But if I were to make up some crap right now and declare it religious truth, while it doubtless couldn’t be disproven, I would have no reason to believe in it other than my own imagination. The Gospels, on the other hand, have a little more credibility. Of course, I’m not denying that there is no proof, and no logical or rational reason to have faith in one particular deity over another. But there is a point, as we’ve discussed, where reason ends and faith begins, and one must make a personal choice whether to believe in a supernatural being and, if so, which one – and many people opt for the teachings of Jesus Christ.
Walton,
No-one here, and very few atheists, argue that the existence of an omnipotent and benevolent being is logically impossible; nor that the existence of a creator of some kind is either logically impossible, or contrary to empirical evidence – since any sufficiently powerful creator could, clearly, conceal its existence. So if you’re arguing against any of these claims, you’re wasting your time, because we all (so far as I know) agree with you. What I would argue is that the existence of an omnipotent and benevolent being is clearly contrary to empirical evidence: if that were the case, we would not expect to encounter suffering. This is, as I’m sure you’re aware, the so-called “Problem of Evil”. (There is of course an analogous “Problem of Good” for any theist arguing for the existence of an omnipotent and malevolent deity.) If you believe you know a satisfactory answer to this problem, or a way of avoiding it, let us know.
Why not just say you reject religion and leave it at that? Why push the envelope, persistently telling everyone that you’re an atheist, saying things like “I’m proud to be an atheist”? What’s the bloody point?
Posted by: J
Schmuck, the bloody point is this, plenty of theists like to paint atheism as being the worst, most corrosive thing that a person can be. And guess what, those same theists will say the same thing about anyone who rejects religion. And they will say the same thing about Brights when they get past your bleating bullshit.
Face it, for some one like Hagee, you and I are the same type of monster.
J: “Why push the envelope, persistently telling everyone that you’re an atheist, saying things like “I’m proud to be an atheist”? What’s the bloody point?”
What would you prefer instead of “atheist,” J? “Godomizer”? “Luciferian”? (Hey, it’s kind of like Brite, as in bearers of light.)
———————–
MAJeff: Did you read about Romney’s follow-up speech on May 8? Excerpt:
“I had missed an opportunity … an opportunity to clearly assert that non-believers have just as great a stake as believers in defending religious liberty.
If a society takes it upon itself to prescribe and proscribe certain streams of belief — to prohibit certain less-favored strains of conscience — it may be the non-believer who is among the first to be condemned. A coercive monopoly of belief threatens everyone, whether we are talking about those who search the philosophies of men or follow the words of God.”
If that’s the case, I’m proud to be a hooligan.
Me too! Sign me up, Doc!
“I had missed an opportunity … an opportunity to clearly assert that non-believers have just as great a stake as believers in defending religious liberty.
If a society takes it upon itself to prescribe and proscribe certain streams of belief — to prohibit certain less-favored strains of conscience — it may be the non-believer who is among the first to be condemned. A coercive monopoly of belief threatens everyone, whether we are talking about those who search the philosophies of men or follow the words of God.”
Something tells me it was more CYA because of the shit he took, and that his original speech is closer to the truth. Then again, with Romney, there usually is not truth because he will say whatever is expedient for advancing his own career.
Speak for yourself.
“Go re-read my two previous posts, and you’ll see that this is orthogonal to everything I said. I’m advocating telling people you reject religion. Telling people your cosmological opinions (if unasked for) is wholly unnecessary.”
Translation: Atheists should shut the fuck up and leave the field clear for the religious.
Have you written to the Pope and asked him to shut up about Catholicism ?
To Nick Gotts at #95.
No, I have no really convincing answer to the question of theodicy and the existence of evil. The best I can do is to direct you towards the Book of Job, the only place where the Bible seems to tackle this issue.
I’ll bow out of this discussion for the time being, because I don’t think there’s much more I can say; we’re starting to go round in circles. I hope I haven’t irritated the participants in this thread, and I hope I haven’t come over as ignorant, delusional or lacking in intelligence (which is what many of you seem to believe of the average theist). I must say that this is one of the few places on the Internet where I’ve ever encountered a genuinely intellectual, rational discussion about the great question of religion vs. atheism (elsewhere it tends to be mud-slinging and insults on both sides).
But the difference is, in the case of Christianity, that the Gospels – purported historical accounts which, as discussed earlier, seem to have at least some historical credibility when stacked up against extra-biblical evidence, despite a few apparent errors and inconsistencies – claim that Christ performed miracles, was executed and rose again from the dead. There is, of course, no positive proof for these claims, nor will there ever be. The supernatural aspects of the Gospel accounts could be entirely invented, the result of hysteria, or corrupted over time. But it’s still better evidence than any which exists in favour of Sauron, a fictional character from a book whose author (a devout Catholic, incidentally) never purported to be giving an eyewitness account of real events.
Walton
That is very thin gruel you are serving there. But I suppose that faith can make that a feast.
Walton, your babble is not so well supported as you describe. Please name some of the contemporary accounts for the Gospels (you realize that the gospels aren’t even contempoprary accounts of Joe Messiah’s life, right?). And Josephus doesn’t count, as the references are to followers, not Joe, and are quite likely forged.
What about other performers of miracles? The babble mentions other miracle healers, in competition with Joe.
And now what do you do with your apocrypha? Why are some books in the babble and others not? Are all these other accounts fictional? When did your god choose which apply and which don’t?(I know, I know, Council of Nicea, but that’s not the point).
Then again, with Romney, there usually is not truth because he will say whatever is expedient for advancing his own career.
Posted by: MAJeff, OM
I am sure you remember when he was your bestest friend in the world!
Schmuck, the bloody point is this, plenty of theists like to paint atheism as being the worst, most corrosive thing that a person can be. And guess what, those same theists will say the same thing about anyone who rejects religion. And they will say the same thing about Brights when they get past your bleating bullshit.
Ah, so already the insults begin, do they? Very telling, very telling indeed.
I don’t accept as an axiom that they lump all nonbelievers in the same category. (How many times have we heard: “Not believing in God I can understand, but an ATHEIST!”) By the way, I’m far from dogmatic about using the word “Bright”, and I’ve always been prepared to hear alternatives.
Translation: public discourse is bad.
No, Jeff, that’s not what I said at all. Cut it out with these petty strawmen.
I am sure you remember when he was your bestest friend in the world!
he’s been my friend, my fuck buddy, my worst enemy, my joke punch-line. Willard rawks! I just hope McCain chooses him so he can finish spending Tag’s inheritance.
The best I can do is to direct you towards the Book of Job, the only place where the Bible seems to tackle this issue.
Walton
A barroom bet between supernatural beings?
Walton @ 94 said:
I realise this seems like hairsplitting. But if I were to make up some crap right now and declare it religious truth, while it doubtless couldn’t be disproven, I would have no reason to believe in it other than my own imagination. The Gospels, on the other hand, have a little more credibility. Of course, I’m not denying that there is no proof, and no logical or rational reason to have faith in one particular deity over another. But there is a point, as we’ve discussed, where reason ends and faith begins, and one must make a personal choice whether to believe in a supernatural being and, if so, which one – and many people opt for the teachings of Jesus Christ.
And we come again to the question of probability, which was my point entirely. We’ve agreed that simply possibility, which seemed to be the thrust of your earlier post, gets us nowhere, since literally anything is possible. So now you want to argue that Christians have some sort of evidence for their belief; they have reason to base their decisions on probability. That brings us into new territory– one where you are on much, much weaker ground. In fact, this brings us roundabout to Dawkins, Harris, the new atheists, and indeed, all of the historical atheists who have so clearly shown that the events of the gospel are extremely improbable. So that wipes out your argument that the gospel is somehow a reason to choose god over Sauron, leaving god once again on a par with fictional characters, leprauchans, and fairies.
I fail to understand how anyone can talk about not addressing the existence of God while discussing the big ‘why’ question.
“Does the universe have a purpose” and “is there an intelligent designer” are the same question worded different ways.
When I state that I don’t believe there is a god you may assume that I also don’t believe the universe has a purpose. It logically follows that if someone were to provide evidence of a creator there might then be a purpose to speculate about.
No, Jeff, that’s not what I said at all. Cut it out with these petty strawmen.
You come into a particular public sphere in which such issues are being discussed and say, “this conversation should not take place. Shut up.” You are saying that this form of public discourse shouldn’t be happening. Yeah, public discourse is bad, at least if it’s an atheist public.
Ah, so already the insults begin, do they?
j
No, schmuck. The insults never ended. And as a number of people pointed out, YOU started the insults. Please do not be “INANE”.
The equivalent claim to the courtiers’ claim “the emperor is clothed” is “there is a god or gods” for religious adherents. I can’t see the problem with making that claim about all religious adherents, since it pretty much defines what a religious adherent is; there’s no need to go case by case at all.
No, schmuck. The insults never ended. And as a number of people pointed out, YOU started the insults. Please do not be “INANE”.
OK, so let’s summarize a little for people who didn’t read that unfortunate thread. Basically, I in my first post there said that PZ Myers’ criticism of the Brights is “inane”. You took this as a declaration of war, and have since then waged a neverending campaign of vicious persecution against me, which has been resumed in this thread.
I think the cult mentality I referred to has been amply demonstrated by now.
What about all the occurrences of “lake of fire” and “everlasting fire” in the Gospels?
I wouldn’t necessarily equate “fact” and “observation”…
That book, however, is older than monotheism. It talks about the gods (‘elohim, plural of ‘eloha) and their sons (also plural). The angry creator in that book explains how he hammered out the metal kettle that is the sky (rather than, say, just speaking it into existence like in Genesis 1). I don’t quite see why it’s relevant.
No, I have no really convincing answer to the question of theodicy and the existence of evil. – Walton
This is a response I’ve had before from honest and articulate theists, but it leaves me completely puzzled. In effect, they admit the overwhelming evidence against the existence of a being worthy of worship – then shrug their shoulders and go on worshipping!
the basis of religion is that each human being has a choice, to believe or not believe.
Well, if the empirical evidence is (as you appear to admit) clearly against the existence of an omnipotent and benevolent being, then assuming for a moment that one can choose whether or not to believe something, the only sensible choice would clearly be not to believe in the existence of such a being.
Walton (Comment #102):
Well, I’d still like to know what the supposed merits of faith are, since you don’t seem to have addressed this. I can see the merits of accepting something as a provisional, working assumption in a purely instrumental fashion, to see if it actually leads you to discover something. I can even understand the idea (as promoted by quasi-atheist existentialist theologians like Don Cupitt) of the leap of faith as an act of commitment to an ideal represented symbolically by the concept of God (I may not sympathise, but I can kind of see the point).
But what I don’t get is why there should be any merit in making a leap of faith to accept a propositional claim. If you don’t have any grounds for supposing it to be true, then surely it is the height of epistemic irresponsibility to embrace it with any degree of conviction.
If you rejoin the thread later, I’d appreciate your thoughts on this point.
Theologians are like the brother-in-law in the joke that Woody Allen uses: A man goes to a psychiatrist and says, “Doctor, you have to help us…my brother-in-law thinks he’s a chicken.” And the shrink asks, “How long has this been going on?” The man replies, “About a year now.” And the doctor looks surprised and says, “Why didn’t you bring in sooner?” And the man says, “Well, we wanted to, but we needed the eggs.” I suspect that most non-pathological people recognize that at its base, what the apologists and theologians are telling them is just fancy rhetorical nonsense. But they have been coerced, through psychological terrorism and brainwashing (“Without God, you cannot know right from wrong, and you will miss out on life’s purpose, and then you will burn forever….”), that they think they “need the eggs.” One of our main jobs as atheists interested in spreading the good news about rational living is to demonstrate consistently that no one NEEDS THE FUCKING IMAGINARY EGGS.
I think the cult mentality I referred to has been amply demonstrated by now.
Posted by: J
Oh dear, all of the stock phrases and responses. Etta, I think it is time for a J drinking game.
You come into a particular public sphere in which such issues are being discussed and say, “this conversation should not take place. Shut up.” You are saying that this form of public discourse shouldn’t be happening. Yeah, public discourse is bad, at least if it’s an atheist public.
That’s true, but only trivially true. You hopefully think people shouldn’t make racist remarks. Therefore, according to you, “public discourse” — in which racists express racist opinions — oughtn’t be happening.
Not that I’m comparing atheist to racism. I’m showing that being against some forms of public discourse isn’t the same as being flat-out against public discourse.
I wouldn’t necessarily equate “fact” and “observation”…
Really? huh… Okay, well then what else is a fact if it isn’t an observation with an error attached to it (realizing of course that the error can be frightfully small, such that the observation is “effectively true”)? Even in the link you provided, which I mostly agreed with, Jeff discussed facts as observations.
Etha, I am sorry about the typo.
“That’s true, but only trivially true. You hopefully think people shouldn’t make racist remarks. Therefore, according to you, “public discourse” — in which racists express racist opinions — oughtn’t be happening.
Not that I’m comparing atheist to racism. I’m showing that being against some forms of public discourse isn’t the same as being flat-out against public discourse”
J, your point would have more validity if you were also telling theists to shut up. If you wanted to see no discussion of the existence, or non-existence of gods, that would be one thing. However you seem to want to muzzle only one side. Which does kind of give us a clue as the type of person you are, and where you are coming from.
Have we?
Who is “we” here? I’ve never encountered anyone making such a self-contradictory statement.
Stop being so touchy. “Help! Help! I said it’s inane, and they don’t agree! I’m persecuted! Persecuted, I tells ya!”
(And I don’t even call myself an atheist. But I realize this depends on the definition.)
LOL!
As opposed to “free will”? Show me THAT in the bible!
Once again, Walton, you are doubletalking. There is a lot of “Judeo-Christian tradition” that is extrabiblical.
Then again, the idea that Satan rebelled against God is NOT extrabiblical. It is right there in Revelations (Rev 12:7-9)
“Then there was war in heaven. Michael and his angels fought against the dragon and his angels. 8 And the dragon lost the battle, and he and his angels were forced out of heaven. 9 This great dragon–the ancient serpent called the devil, or Satan, the one deceiving the whole world–was thrown down to the earth with all his angels.”
So to summarize: Satan was in heaven and fought against Michael and the angels. My point stands: Satan was in heaven, and therefore had firsthand experience of God. Yet he was still able to chose to rebel. That’s what it says in the bible.
And as I said, it contradicts claims that “absolute knowledge” of God prevents free will.
Walton, your claims are toast.
J @ #81.
Actually, I would like to point out that I deliberately took cosmology and astrophysics courses as my options (as opposed to the core requirements) in my degree. The other options that I spent time on were the philosophy of science and environmental physics.
So you might be surprised to find out that yes, I have a great fondness for the grandeur of cosmology, and little patience for those who would substitute all of that for the one word “goddidit”.
Monado @ # 75, “I believe you’ve hit a nail on the head. It might not have been the nail you were aiming for, but… when you mentioned tribes being ruled “as if the gods were living among them,” a little light went on in my head. Why was there a “holy of holies,” an inner room that no one could enter but the priests? That was where The God Lived.”
From books that I’ve read – Ancient Iraq & Before Philosopy – it appears that the peoples of the ancient middle East had many gods. There were gods of the farming implements & cooking utensils, city gods, & El, Enlil, Marduk, & entourage. Some of these were around for thousands of years!
I’ve not come across an explanation for why the peasants apparently believed in these people-like (but super-human) deities, despite never seeing them. The role of the King & his wife as representiatives of the gods on Earth is also not clear. I suspect it varied from Empire to City State, & over time. The history was written on clay tablets, thousands of which have survived, & been interpreted.
Interpretation of ancient languages written in cuneiform must be problematic. However, there did seem to be a sanctum sanctorum in temples & maybe palaces too.
But apparently, if you kept your nose clean & carried out the necessary religious observances, you & your family prospered. That would help spread the genes for religiosity.
Who is “we” here? I’ve never encountered anyone making such a self-contradictory statement.
Richard Dawkins quotes it all the time.
Stop being so touchy. “Help! Help! I said it’s inane, and they don’t agree! I’m persecuted! Persecuted, I tells ya!”
I’m not being the least bit touchy. In the other thread I was called, among other many things, a “stale streak of piss” and a “vile smear of snot”.
J, your point would have more validity if you were also telling theists to shut up.
I am telling them to shut up, as I’ve indicated twice already. I’m fully in favour of speaking out against religious supersititon. This does not entail telling people our cosmological opinions unless we’re asked.
I think Bishop Spong does, but only tenuously, and he’s pretty much been sidelined from any serious debate, but there is hope.
I could be wrong, but I’m pretty sure he questions the historicity of Jesus and whether it wouldn’t be better just to do good things to each other because they’re good rather than because god says so.
I’m one of those ex-catholic militant Atheist types though, so I’m not up to date on Anglican debate.
Not quite. They simply retreat to “ineffable”: “Although I’m incapable of understanding it, God knows what he’s doing. God knows best.”
Unfalsifiable.
I’d say that facts are parts of reality, and our observations are, lastly, hypotheses about facts. That’s why they have errors attached to them (other than quantum uncertainty), and why repeated observations trump single observations.
To be honest, I haven’t read the definition I’ve linked to in months. It’s my standard response to “just a theory” and other confusions of “fact” and “theory”.
Actually, I would like to point out that I deliberately took cosmology and astrophysics courses as my options (as opposed to the core requirements) in my degree. The other options that I spent time on were the philosophy of science and environmental physics.
What do you mean, “Actually”? Why would you assume I’m addressing you? How are you representative of the majority of people here?
I doubt that most militant atheists have done cosmology courses etc., so your point is entirely irrelevant.
I’m fully in favour of speaking out against religious supersititon. This does not entail telling people our cosmological opinions unless we’re asked.
Posted by: J
Because this darkness that must be hidden away might frighten the horses and the womenfolk.
Walton:
Ah but the progress of science such that as Dawkins points out, the deity of the Judeo-Christian Bible and the Koran etc certainly does not and cannot have existed. So if any deity does exist then that entity will be both so remote and innefectual that simply acknowledging their existence (even if such would be worthwhile) would be more than is required. We are then a very, very long way away from worship. We were not created, this earth and cosmos in general were not created. So what exactly would we owe to this implausible god of the ever decreasing gaps?
That is why most religious people will reject your formulation and why the rareified gods of the theologians and Anglican Archbishops have no traction with ordinary believers. They see no point in them.
Which is another reason Dawkins did not bother with the deities of the theologians et al, they are so insubstantial that as Phillip Pullman showed in His Dark Materials, expose them to the air and they will blow away with a sigh.
Be honest, would you want to worship your implausible gods? What would you pray to them about knowing as we do that they cannot affect any aspect of your life?
Notkieran, you have to understand, if anything deviates from J’s ground rules, it is irrelevant. J sets the terms, and by golly, you better accept it.
Walton is using very flimsy methods for claiming religion is valid. I mean, as soon as something has a non-zero chance of existing, it merits its own dogma, respect from others, and faith?
I’m yet to see people abstaining from pork, sex or marriage to people of different groups; donating money and hating others because “there’s an infinitesimal chance that there’s a deity out there that cares about this”.
There’s a non-zero chance that a giant Pokemon god exists and actively hides his existence from everyone while he plans to destroy the multiverse with the tidal emissions of his quantum masturbation. But no one lives their lives under that assumption, nor should they.
Job? Wow.
That’s the book in which it’s made crystal clear that the Problem of Evil isn’t a problem at all—because the presupposition is wrong. God is not good. He’s a sick fuck.
And the quote above is what shows that your little leap of faith is not a harmless option. You’ve swallowed the wrong pill.
In Job, god is clearly an evil shit who will torture Job just to show Satan that he can. He tortures and kills to win a bet. The only virtue is submission to God, no matter what a sick, murderous, torturing fucker God proves himself to be.
If you saw a human who treated anyone or anything the way God treats Job and his family and servants, you would not worship them. Just the opposite. You’d call the cops, or shoot them like a mad dog if you had to.
Go back and read Job again. If you take it seriously and worship the psychopathic God presented there, you are a sick fuck.
Seriously. There’s a reason why the Problem of Evil is important. People actually worship fictitious beings and impose their evil bullshit on society, calling it good.
Until that stops, sane people should oppose religion.
To be fair, there’s a difference between saying that there’s something to theology and saying that Bonhoeffer is not a leech.
I quite agree that for the most part one need not take the apologies of a Bonhoeffer or Tillich very seriously. Someone has to, of course, because there are deep questions behind empiricism that have to be addressed vis-a-vis the god claim. It’s long been done, though, and science basically is the upshot of good philosophy.
But of course one may make a case that theologians and the godly are not so bad as PZ makes them out to be. The article sort of does this, if not particularly well, and is not objectionable on those grounds.
The trouble is that the author did not differentiate at all well between the fact that one might (arguably) be legitimate in defending theologians, and the supposition that theology is thereby something more than invisible “clothing.” If he had, he might have written something reasonable.
Glen Davidson
http://tinyurl.com/2kxyc7
While I agree that such creative* insults are over the top, you don’t seem to have got my point. Nobody is persecuting you. Persecution is something that happens in real life, if at all. Away from keyboard.
This here is a discussion in teh intartoobz.
* Really, people. What logical sense does it make to call a smear of snot “vile”?
I’m an amatuer screenwriter so I like imagination. Right now I’m imagining Jehovah dabbling with agnosticism.
INT: College dorm room – Night
Jehovah lies on his bed while Jesus plays on-line poker lethargically. He’s winning every hand.
Jehovah
What if I don’t know everything?
Jesus
See Hov, that’s what I’m talkin about. You’re such a pussy. It’s why you don’t get laid.
(exiting the computer program)
This is soooo boring. Let’s go to Mulligan’s.
Jehovah
(getting up)
It’s a little early.
As they head through the door-
Jehovah
I did ace the SAT.
Jesus
You missed two.
Jehovah
They were fucking trick questions and you know it.
Jesus
I am that I am.
Jehovah slams the door on his way out.
>There’s a non-zero chance that a giant Pokemon god exists and actively hides his existence from everyone while he plans to destroy the multiverse with the tidal emissions of his quantum masturbation. But no one lives their lives under that assumption, nor should they
I’m sorry, Mr Jardim, I am now forced to use the red shiny flashy thing to erase your memory of this incident…
Virginity if I do not mistake my ancient Greek myths.
ROTFL!
Though… that only holds for womenfolk. He’s not supposed to have been bisexual.
There are no compelling reasons, not even slightly compelling reasons. to think that deities exist. There are many compelling reasons that clearly show that there is no need for deities to exist. The Universe, Nature, seems to do just fine without them. As far as the “why?”, or “what for?” questions go, it’s up to humans to deal with. Nothing is accomplished by attempting to answer the mystery of existence by introducing the greater mystery of deities. A mystery cannot be solved by introducing another mystery. That’s just stupid. And for anyone to even entertain the idea that an ancient collection of manipulated writings by the hands of unsophisticated goat-herders have any basis in reality is bat-shit crazy.
“I am telling them to shut up, as I’ve indicated twice already. I’m fully in favour of speaking out against religious supersititon. This does not entail telling people our cosmological opinions unless we’re asked.”
J,
Do you tell religious people to shut up as well ?
I’d say that facts are parts of reality, and our observations are, lastly, hypotheses about facts. That’s why they have errors attached to them (other than quantum uncertainty), and why repeated observations trump single observations.
I was always taught that the fact is the observation of the objective “truth” of “reality.” I’m gonna do some digging on your version…it’s an interesting take. I think in practice though, by necessity people tend to equate the hypothesis of the fact (observation) and the fact…which means that my point is valid for the practical doing of science.
And “proving” that fairies could exist is just as meaningful.
Science rests on the fact that just about anything “could exist”. That’s how we make progress, we admit that generally anything conjured up “could exist”, and then we see if it actually does exist.
Hence spectral forces, unknown energies (dark energy is just a possibility that has to be seriously considered due to empirical matters alone), unseen entities, anything pagan, Judeo-Xian, Muslim, or mythic could all exist. Without evidence that they exist (and no, Gospel accounts mean no more to me with respect to “evidence” than do the accounts of the oracle at Delphi), these are all essentially moot, however.
Epistemology is clear on this–very little can be ruled out, but anything that is claimed to “exist” had better have stronger evidence than unverifiable miracle claims made by apologists for a religion.
Not if you simply want your religion, of course, which is entirely up to you. Rather, if you wish to claim that your religion should be meaningful to others, you must have meaningful evidence.
Glen D
http://tinyurl.com/2kxyc7
J,
How, exactly, does one speak out against religious superstition without telling people his/her cosmological opinion?
Seems to me that the latter provides a necessary foundational explanation towards the former…
What about Ganymede?
o dear, another instance of someone mistaking the historical Jesus for a Divine Jesus. if the very shallow evidence does, indeed, show that Jesus existed as a very real person, there is literally nothing to even suggest he was anything more than the centre of a successful cult (apart from the writings of the cult itself).
IMAGINE if the only literature on L. Ron Hubbard was literature produced and made available by Scientologists.
Of course if someone personally believes in a deity and quietly lives their life are they required in any way to prove their belief to you or I?
David Marjanovich #142: try telling that to Ganymede.
According to Walton, rationality allows us to flirt with the possibility of a god, which then brings us to a footbridge leading over an abyss of the supernatural. Once you have started to walk on those faith cards comprising the footbridge, you notice how tattered and smeared with faith-feces they are, so you remind yourself that reason has gotten you to this point, so all is well, you stop noticing the tattered faith cards, but they still give way from time to time, your foot gets lodged into one of the chinks of the faith footbridge, and you peer down into the abyss of unproven beliefs. But upon looking at the footbridge still hanging by a shred of reason to the cliff edge, the faith-head still whimpers that all is well, that reason has not left him, or not he has not compartmentalized it so his vicious faith can pretend that it has some rational, reasonable underpinning. This is rationalization, whether it dribbles out of a theologian’s faith-flecked mouth or from an ‘oridinary’ Christian, nothing more.
I am fed up with Christians who insist that their faith is more that what it is–a ridiculous rationalization in unproven beliefs that have some appeal to them. C’est tout. When it is presented to them, they twist and turn on their tiny footbridge of faith, and insist loudly that it is attached to reason, therefore that slight connection protects them against what they perceive as slurs of being irrational and unreasonable being hurled at them. I wonder if they would endorse condoms riddled with holes as protection against AIDS also?
And a quick perusal of Satan in Wikipedia shown that Satan is mentioned in several books of the bible.
“o dear, another instance of someone mistaking the historical Jesus for a Divine Jesus. if the very shallow evidence does, indeed, show that Jesus existed as a very real person, there is literally nothing to even suggest he was anything more than the centre of a successful cult (apart from the writings of the cult itself). IMAGINE if the only literature on L. Ron Hubbard was literature produced and made available by Scientologists.”
Not to mention there are religions other than Christianity that can also lay claim having evidence supporting the existence of their main religious figures. Which does make me wonder how and why Walton settled on Christianity.
Virginity
Brilliant…
J wrote:
Jesus H. fucking Christ [sic]. Do you think most believers have studied cosmology? No? THEN WHY IS IT OK FOR THEM TO HAVE AN OPINION ON COSMOLOGY AND TO SHOUT IT FROM THE ROOFTOPS?
J again with the same strange problem with the moniker atheist.
Should we call ourselves anti-religionists? That basically what you are saying. Tell everyone you are against religion but be ooooohhhhh so careful not to tell them you find not evidence to support the existence of god[s].
Again, (at least in my understanding of how I view the subject) since I do not believe in god[s] I automatically have a problem with religion. Pussy footing around with what I call myself seems dishonest and frankly a little on the childish side. I find it very interesting that this freaks you out so much.
What this confuses is the difference between, say, your wife telling you to have faith in her, and you simply having faith that you have a wife named Sue for whom there is no evidence.
It’s reasonable for a leader, a god, say, to ask for faith in him, if he has shown himself worthy of such faith. It is utterly ridiculous (psychotic in more mundane situations) to require faith in an entity’s very existence, sans evidence, and then ask for one to have complete faith in this unevidenced entity on top of that.
In real life, evidence that an entity exists is not enough to ask someone to trust that entity. We require evidence even to have faith in each other. But instead of, perhaps, giving God the benefit of the doubt that he is well-meaning, in the face of evidence to the contrary, we’re supposed to have faith even that he exists, against the lack of evidence.
There are few propositions that are more blatantly unreasonable than that one.
Glen D
http://tinyurl.com/2kxyc7
Oh, come on PZ, you’re just being a hooligan for spite. You don’t want to give up your squid to teach Unicorn science as you know you rightly should. Gawd sent them Unicorns and you should be lernin’ them children up on it.
(Job 39:9,10)
BMcP (#150) argued,
I think you’re missing the necessary condition of interaction.
There is no such thing as a ‘thought crime’, and the little old spinster widow who thinks that pixies visit her at night or that black people are inferior to whites is living in what we would call a delusional reality, but it is hers to live.
However, once this innocent entity starts expressing her views to her grandkids or tells strangers that they must believe them to be true….well, then they’ve crossed a line where proof is necessary.
That’s the real issue, since active religionists are obviously not keeping it to themselves.
BigDumbChimp,
Well J seems to have problems with the meaning of words. An atheist just means someone who does not believe in god(s). Some atheists may, as a result, be anti-religion, others may not. He has indicated he prefers the term “brite”. Leaving aside the issues with word itself, it also implied more than just a lack of belief in god(s), and indicates a rejection of irrational thinking of all types. It does not describe all those who just do not believe in god(s). As such use of the term as a synonym for atheist is not a tenable position.
For that matter, there ain’t much about the Trinity, either.
Spake Walton:
Oh dear not the ‘its old so it must be true’ argument. So that means either that in another 1950 years the book of Mormon will true (ditto the Q’ran in 600) or that the early Xians were mistaken for several hundred years. Especially since they had much older theologies and not just Judaism. There are the miracles of the Ancient Greeks, the Egyptians, the Bhagavad Ghita is possibly the oldest continuous theology, if you exclude the theology in the Epic of Gilgamesh (and all the archaelogical support for cities like Ur). You cannot have it both ways with that argument.
To be fair, I don’t think the problem is with theologians or the godly, but with theology and godliness. The individual theologians and godly may personally be very fine people who love kids and puppies and pay their taxes on time — it is their beliefs as implemented in society that are the problem.
Intentionalist: Granted, as I understand Dawkins intent, I believe his goal was to address the god of the ‘common people.’ Hence, the objections are mute. In which case, I would suggest a better line of attack for them would be to show the god of the common people isn’t consistent with the god Dawkins is addressing.
How is the god of the “common people” any different, in substance, from that of the high-falutin’ theologians? The language is more sophisticated in the latter, but the underlying reality is the same. The only significant difference I see is that the “common people” are a damn sight more honest about their beliefs than the theologians.
Dawkins critique is that for any god that is actually meaningful in a pragmatic sense, the same errors apply. The academics just try to mush the line between a significant god and mental masturbation, using which ever fits their current needs (sometimes for good, sometimes for evil).
What I can’t quite understand is why fewer people haven’t solved the problem of evil the Job way – by saying that God, while omnipotent and omniscient, is not exclusively benevolent.
Actually, I guess that is the solution provided by the “believe or you’re going to hell” variety of Christians.
Right. ONe point I made on the other thread and I’m not sure it was addresed is that I can call myself and atheist and also a rationalist and also anti-religion and etc…
They are not mutually exclusive. What I’m getting from J is that he prefers to use one term to describe everything where I like to be a little more descriptive. IF someone asks me what I think about religion, I’ll tell them about religion. Will it come out that I am an atheist? Probably. If someone asks me about God I’ll tell them I am an atheist. Will I also include the fact that I find religion as a whole a giant scam and inherently non conducive to progressive thought and advancement of society? Probably.
I think J is limiting the avenues of discussion and description available.
To Josh # 76…..
Zell???? Dell???? Windows Vista????
#142, I was under the impression that pretty much EVERYONE in ancient Greece was bisexual, generally with a hefty dose of appreciation for both male and female beauty (note the existence of korai & kouroi). Their gods would certainly be no exception.
And Ganymede has already been mentioned.
Vista. Definitely Vista…
Walton comes across a lil as the Behe of theology,clueless but with plenty pretty words,although he is not so sure of the role of philosophy in it all,which as I think is hugely underestimated not only by this guy,but by the whole of Xianity,since it has actually answered most of the questions of morality without god and the role of man in a godless world etc,but I have a feeling he is in the end just a Kenny who knows how to spell words and that it might get you to be taken seriously for a while around here if you refrain from using captions in your posts….
Let’s try a thought experiment. Suppose that in the near future, our global civilization collapses: maybe we try to cancel out global warming with nuclear winter. Centuries later, cities are being built again, and archaeologists come across books. One series in particular must have been exceedingly important, as copies are found in different languages — French, German, English, Latin — all around the world. Each copy is only a fragment, but by comparing the overlapping portions a complete canon is tentatively identified. Some portions, attested only in surviving electronic records and printed material of lesser quality, seem to be later additions by a community of hands, but then again, portions of the canon itself are judged on literary grounds to be as low-quality as the least inspired of the apocrypha. Scholars know that Latin is the oldest of the languages in which translations exist, but it appears that most of the documents were first recorded in English.
Much of the material in these chronicles is of a fantastic nature, with epic battles between good and evil waged in a realm beyond the sight of most citizens, which the chronicles describe as blissfully ignorant. Believers in magic point out that prophecies made in one book are fulfilled in another, a claim which scholars dismiss as valueless. Upon further investigation, however, some places in these fantastic tales can be matched with known cities of the era, attested by archaeology — places like London.
Should we then have faith in Harrius Potter?
I was thinking about the comparison to scientific knowledge here. Take, say, the theory of the electron. We have very advanced theories (quantum electrodynamics) which accurately describe the behaviour of the electron in all sorts of situations, we have advanced technologies which depend on our ability to manipulate the electron in complex and subtle ways, and the technical details are far beyond most people’s reach. However, when we introduce the concept of the electron to, say, schoolchildren, we don’t kick off with QED, we kick off with things like: lightning, static electricity, sticking bits of metal in potatoes, and the like.
For theology to have any basis, there needs to be some equivalent of the “rub this balloon against a cat” level for electricity.
Blake,
I read a post about the origins of the Genesis flood story today,cant for the life of me remember where,some commenter in another thread might have put a link up,and I just thought of that reading your post above,how folklore and hearsay and fiction can be transformed into “facts” and handed down throught the generations,its a very important point,and your scenario was an excellent example !
Whether or not deities exist is not a 50/50 proposition. There are volumes of evidence spanning centuries that support the argument that the need for deities is superfluous. There is no evidence that supports the veracity of deities. This does not mean that deities do not exist. It means that showing that they do exist, or that there is even a need for their existence, has not happened.
Denying that the notions of magical deities and superstitions are completely human concoctions left over from the infancy of our conscious birth is denying reality and entertaining dangerous self-delusion.
Eye witness accounts written in the bible, and people who have near death experiences have all reported that the emperor is well dressed. How can you neglect the evidence from NDEs?
You close minded “nakedists” refuse to see the evidence when it is presented to you.
My opinion.
Tell us more about these Nakedists. But talk slower.
ChrisC, your opinion is worth exactly the cost I pay for it.
Found it,the article with citations is here :
a
Chris @ #175
What you described is anecdote, not evidence. Evidence is independently verifiable. You are conflating the two. Besides, do you really think the mind is not capable of creating all sorts of experiences that are strictly internal? I mean, that seems like a very narrow view of what our imagination is capable of.
You don’t say?
Geez,
attack of the “i know how to use a spellchecker” Kennys tonite…..
“How can you neglect the evidence from NDEs?”
because they can re-create the experience in a controlled setting =)
“Eye witness accounts written in the bible, and people who have near death experiences have all reported that the emperor is well dressed. How can you neglect the evidence from NDEs?”
By understanding that weird brain chemistry is happening in such circumstances, that is how.
I would also add that eyewitness testimony is notoriously unreliable compared with forensic science.
For that matter, how can these militant atheists ignore the mountains of evidence for God that comes from stories of LSD trips?
Here’s undeniable evidence:
Hey everyone, GOD IS REAL!!
There. That proves it.
Well the proof in God is obvious, it says so in the Bible. The Bible proves that there is a God, and God proves that the Bible is true. Simple logic.
/end sarcasm…
[ud mode]Yeah, and clothes exist. Dawkins admitted that clothes exist, so how can Myers go around blabbing that the emperor has no clothes?
Besides, if the emperor has no clothes, how come birds have feathers? Huh? Can’t answer that one, can you nakedists[/ud mode]
Oh, and Chris, make the talk of nakedists not just slower, but a lot more female. Thanks.
Glen D
http://tinyurl.com/2kxyc7
The traditional Judeo-Christian answer is that if God were to do that, there would be no point in faith
Jesus performs miracles in the Bible, though, with the expressed purpose of proving to the assembled crowds that he is, in fact, the Son of God.
Did God just not care about their faith? How does that make any sense? If you accept the Bible – and, if you’re going to call God “God”, and use Christian imagery and language, why wouldn’t you – then it’s obvious that God wants to provide evidence; he’s just been too shy, apparently, to do it lately.
I am a card carrying member of the hooligans!!!
I mean yeah, what’s the point of life if there is no god?! Because of my cognitive dissonance, lack of complete understanding of everything, and my need to feel special, there must be a god. I mean, come on now!
Chet, Joe Messiah wasn’t the only one making miracles in the babble. Others did, not just his disciples. Miracle work was not then considered a uniqe abililty of only god.
I haven’t made it through all the comments yet, but let me address this snickering about my Mary Midgley reference. You’re free to disagree with her work (if you are familiar with it), but the business about her not having read TSG before having read it is just propaganda. And worse, Dawkins knows full well that he is perpetrating falsehoods when he repeats it.
This is amply documented here, among other places. Those of you who enjoy “evidence” will I’m sure be diligent to follow all the links.
Dr. Dawkins has never apologized for this slander, nor issued a correction.
Am I the only one that read ChrisC’s comment as just a Kenny parody?
Or was that really meant to be informative?
Originally posted by Janine ID:
I like the sound of ‘scallywag’ but I’d much rather be a scoundrel – or even a bounder.
Must remeber to use my [begin kenny mode] and [end kenny mode] tags next time. Damn interwebs and its sarcasm concealment!
And Glen, in a strike against dominant masculinity/hetronormativity (sp?), I think that any talk of nakedist should encompass both genders.
No 192,Chris Schoen:
What exactly is your point here?
//but the business about her not having read TSG before having read it is just propaganda//
The link you put up is not a documentation of anything factual but just a subjective account,so we’re back to the bible argument,its written down somewhere,so its gotta be true?
Eye witness accounts written in the bible
None of the Bible was written by eyewitnesses; thus, the Bible contains no such accounts.
The Bible has accounts of unspecified people, who are claimed to have been eyewitnesses, but it’s not even known that those people even existed; they certainly weren’t alive at the time the New Testament was being written, some seven or more decades after the events it details.
ChrisC can I have the number of your drug dealer,that man just rocks….
Chris Schoen (#192) said,
Would you rather he give the full description of the meaning in his apology, which you are covering up?
A reminder, from your linky:
Dang, Poe’d agin!
Just ease up on the trigger finger there True Bob…although I supposed as a frequent lurker but infrequent poster here, I haven’t yet gained my “people know when you are being sarcastic stripes”.
“I haven’t made it through all the comments yet, but let me address this snickering about my Mary Midgley reference. You’re free to disagree with her work (if you are familiar with it), but the business about her not having read TSG before having read it is just propaganda. And worse, Dawkins knows full well that he is perpetrating falsehoods when he repeats it.”
She may have read it, she clearly failed to understand a word of it. She has never apologised for her stupidity in failing to do so. Her failure to understand in clearly not one of intellect, she is not a stupid person. However it seems that she would be better off not talking about science, were she would seem to have an intellectual deficit. She wrote about something she was clueless about, and has failed to admit it.
Do you really want to carry on making Dawkins look the bad guy in this argument or will you admit Midgley fucked up and lacked the courage to admit it ?
“This does not entail telling people our cosmological opinions unless we’re asked.”
So it’s “Don’t ask, don’t tell”? We wouldn’t want to make other people uncomfortable with our icky unconventional cosmological opinions.
Incidentally, if someone visits a blog written by a self-described “godless liberal” where atheistic topics are frequently discussed, haven’t they kind of asked us already?
If dolphins could talk, I expect they’d be pretty boring conversationalists. “Got any fish? Boy I sure like fish. Fish are so tasty. Did I ask you if you had any fish? etc.” In the same way, people who identify themselves with science often obsess about science as if it were the dolphin’s fish. They demonstrate very little awareness that science is relevant to a rather small proportion of human activity and concern; and it is this sometimes charming cluelessness that defines so many of them as nerds, or, as one would have written in the 19th Century, philistines.
To be fair to you guys, lots of believers conceptualize their activities as a sort of science of the divine even though reducing religiosity to a system of propositions really does turn it into a grotesquely stupid type of science fiction that is a fitting target for the usual village atheist arguments. The point is that traditional atheism doesn’t really engage the kinds of thinking one encounters in the serious theologians whose names, we are warned, we must not drop. Vast swaths of ethical, political, aesthetic, anthropological, and psychological reflection are thereby waved away and replaced with shallow, rationalistic cant.
ChrisC (#201) said,
I think you did alright for a first (or relatively first) go. Just remember to add more nonsensical SHOUTING and refer to a dangerous ‘slippery slope’ without ever defining what real dangers exist, and you’ll have him pegged.
Oh, and add a complaint that noone takes you seriously…
@#77 Walton —
In addition to the rebel-Satan Revelations passage cited by Pablo in #125, there’s also this passage from Luke:
The similarity between “fall like lighting from heaven” and the description of Lucifer as “How you are fallen from heaven, O Day Star, son of Dawn!” (Isaiah 14:12) is probably the origin of the popular conflation of Lucifer & Satan.
The Book of Enoch (written well before Milton) also describes Satan in great length as being a fallen angel (sometimes also using satans plural as being a general name for fallen angels).
Give the guy a break – he actually thinks that Andrew Rilstone has “handed Dawkins his ass”. This is cute rather than offensive.
I see J popped in and filled his checklist with these words dripping from his lips:
-“Militant athiest”
-“Dawkins”
-“Cosmological question”
-“Why tell people youre atheist?”
-“Cult”
-Claims to be an atheist himself
The concern trolling/Christian-like behavior never fails.
Etha I wish I had your bible education,I walked out laughing too early in my life to remember much,and I miss that sometimes,especially in here….
Yes, all that medicine, technology, transportation, communication, food safety, computers and their networks, textiles and petroleum products are only relevant to a small amount of human activity..
“Give the guy a break – he actually thinks that Andrew Rilstone has “handed Dawkins his ass”. This is cute rather than offensive.”
Does Dawkins actually own a donkey ? Only he has never once mentioned the fact, and it is the kind of thing that one might drop into a conversation at some point.
“They demonstrate very little awareness that science is relevant to a rather small proportion of human activity…”
Wow. Really?! What an apparently asinine assertion. Just about every interaction you physically engage in utilizes the scientific method. Everything. From walking to talking to picking up something and eating it. If I read and understood your statement correctly, you really have no clue what the scientific method is about. This doesn’t even speak of the clean water, sterile food, medicines and vaccinations that you take for granted each day. Staggering.
They demonstrate very little awareness that science is relevant to a rather small proportion of human activity and concern; and it is this sometimes charming cluelessness that defines so many of them as nerds, or, as one would have written in the 19th Century, philistines.
You’re fucking kidding, right? Seriously.
Have you drank any water today? Wanna take a guess at how many of the rest of the world’s population have drank some today?
Clinteas an earlier version of the Noah myth is in the Epic of Gilgamesh, iirc he was called Hammurabi and instead of ending up on Mt Ararat he landed on an Island in the Gulf off what is now Kuwait. As you would expect from a large Tigris/Euphrates flood.
Jim Harrison: The point is that traditional atheism doesn’t really engage the kinds of thinking one encounters in the serious theologians whose names, we are warned, we must not drop. Vast swaths of ethical, political, aesthetic, anthropological, and psychological reflection are thereby waved away and replaced with shallow, rationalistic cant.
You know where I go to get my deep psychological reflections? Psychologists and artists. How about anthropology? Anthropologists! Aesthetics? Let’s go back to the artists. Ethics? How about philosophy?
Why would I prefer a theologian who is a dilettante in psychology, when I could go with a pro? You’re argument is weak and pathetic Jim — why would I prefer the thoughts of a fairly screwed up, self-hating masochist like Augustine to the poetry of Lucretius? You’re the one who is preferring the shallow inanity of Paul and his hangers on to the actually verifiable, self-consistent thought of Russell.
Then you, being all into evidence and such, have knowledge that NDE’s typically mirror the beliefs of the individual. Jews have jewish NDE’s, Muslim’s muslim NDE’s, and so on.
It is evidence just not the kind you want it to be.
@#23 Walton —
1) Why should there be a why? The only reason our universe’s ability to support life is special to us is because we see ourselves as special. It’s a very anthropocentric way of looking at things, which is a bit silly given our relative smallness and insignificance wrt the scope of the universe.
2) It’s entirely possible that life could have arisen in a universe not capable of sustaining this sort of life; it would simply be a different sort of life. Evolution by natural selection selects for life that is suited to the environment, so it stands to reason that if units capable of self-replication with random variation arose in a different universe, those variants best suited for that universe would be selected for. (Something like the energy beings in Star Trek? ;>) This is the main issue I have with astrobiologists who limit their conception of planets capable of supporting life to Earth-like (“M class,” to continue the Star Trek references…) planets; there’s no reason to think that radically different life shouldn’t have arisen on other, radically different planets.
Jim@204:
Are you serious?
The responses here are just that – responses to people like Kenny and Walton. You’re blaming us for not creating massive mentally masturbatory missives in response to their overwhelmingly common and childish whining.
Walton, at least, attempted to wrap his posts with some philosophy, but ultimately was reduced to ‘I believe, so you should too’ circular reasoning. Not very convincing, and ultimately not worthy of ‘superior exposition’.
If you want commentary on politics, or economics, or whatever, as most of your unnamed historical theologians provided, then go look at a thread on economics, or politics, or whatever else. This blog is mostly bio-evo-devo with a healthy smattering of atheism.
I go elsewhere for physics, and technology, and math, and politics, and history.
So should you.
Dear Jebus Jim C…did you miss the part where it was pointed out that was a parody?
If so…see comments #193; #195 and #205
Comments are at #215 and climbing quickly – talk about late to the party…
Walton @23 etc. – Maybe the word ‘futility’ is new to you. Here’s an exercise which all theists (and the deity-curious) should concentrate on while the world keeps on keeping on:
Calculate the number of angels that will fit on the head of a pin. Please show your work. Don’t turn in your answer until it has been peer reviewed.
Walton @64
Why assume the existence of God? Why not a unicorn or a Flying Spaghetti Monster? Or how about none of the above? Why is “I don’t know” not a valid answer? Remember, your ignorance and my ignorance is not proof of God. But then maybe you need to step back a moment and decide if there is even a need for a God. Is there any real need for a god or gods? Why?
Do you need a god so you can also have a devil? Do you need a heaven so you can also have a hell? I don’t. I don’t have a god or a devil. I don’t have a heaven or a hell. My life is not dominated by imaginary critters or locations; reality is wonderful (and irritating) all by itself. No Lucky Rabbit’s Feet, no salt over the shoulder, no magical incantations before meals. I aced a physics final on a Friday the 13th – does that make Friday the 13th my ‘lucky’ day? You bet it does (just to irritate those who consider it unlucky)! Ha, I counter your superstition with double-reverse superstition.
David @66 – That’s what the pope is for (wearing all those fancy-schmancy clothes).
Kcrady @74 – Mental Masturbation == Theology.
You win the Innertoobs today!
Blake Stacey @171 – Praise be unto Him. All hail Harrius. He is risen. He did rise, didn’t he? ;)
ChrisC @175 (& @195) – Whew! Good thing I’m so slow to compose a comment (apologies for length) or we’d be getting drunk already with our Kenny Drinking Game ®. All clear – it’s safe to put your drinking glasses down.
Jim @204 –
And what else, pray tell, occupies the other proportions?
For part 1, I thank you. For part 2 (the “village atheist” snark) – nice one; I’ll give you a touché. My pores ooze ignorance constantly. For example, I’m ignorant of the “usual atheist arguments” so please enlighten me. I contend that there is no God, there was no God, there will be no God. Now, where’s my argument?
It may be shallow but I’ll take rationality any day.
Richard Harris: I’ve not come across an explanation for why the peasants apparently believed in these people-like (but super-human) deities, despite never seeing them. The role of the King & his wife as representiatives of the gods on Earth is also not clear. I suspect it varied from Empire to City State, & over time. The history was written on clay tablets, thousands of which have survived, & been interpreted.
Why do you assume that they didn’t see gods? The non-sophist kinds of Christians hear God speaking all the time. They “see” him in everything surrounding him — and many also see demons and angels.
Hallucinations are a normal part of human experience and the human perception mechanisms. I doubt that many haven’t had the experience of an optical illusion, or feeling, seeing or hearing things that weren’t really there. A large portion of the population don’t take that second look to actually confirm that what they saw wasn’t just hallucinatory.
“The point is that traditional atheism doesn’t really engage the kinds of thinking one encounters in the serious theologians whose names, we are warned, we must not drop.”
Ah, but I’ve been repeatedly assured that we now have a crop of New Atheists!
Yepper I did ChrisC, my comment was sitting in dry dock for awhile before I hit the button.
This is really just BS. There is allot of reflection to be sure but nothing approaching a viable evidence laced argument. And the average ‘village’ atheist doesn’t have to much problem with these arguments either.
Q: What’s the difference between a serious theologian, and an athiest?
A: The theologian doesn’t need his hands to masturbate!
ba-boom!
Actually, you’re wrong. We understand many of things through science. And are getting better at understanding them as science progresses.
You’re co-mingling something that doesn’t exists with emotional states that do exist. That actually leave patterns that can be measured and tested and explored.
Once again, you’re not up to speed.
Every “great religious philosopher” used by the God bothers always starts with “God Exists,” let me try to hide my shortcomings in my incredibly dense arguments so I can hide at least one critical fallacy.
You know what kills the whole God-thing most of all? Biblical Archeology. The more they dig, they more the understand. The more they understand, the more obvious where the early Jews came from and how their beliefs evolved over-time.
Most of you don’t even know that at one time they were child-sacrificing polytheists. It took them a THOUSAND YEARS of change to become “officially” monotheist and, even then, there were still polytheistic beliefs and sub-sects in the population until (around) 1400AD.
Any argument for God needs to deal with the truth of these facts. God’s wife. God’s children. God being the combination of two separate gods (El & Yahweh (Yahweh is how we got to monotheism and, essentially, absorbed El).
Come on. Give me a break. You’re coming into the major leagues with a little-league bat. Just like those “great philosophers” who were wholly ignorant of their religion’s complete history.
Now were just partially ignorant. But what we’ve learned is amazing. And completely refutes modern Judeo-Christian understandings of “god.”
This is what gets ya each and every time. Religion answers NONE of these questions- NONE. It is simply made up pretend ‘answers’. It cannot explain a purpose in any real sense, or a ‘why’. This is the silly notion pumped into heads of people. There are thousands of religions.
@#81 J —
Atheism, for me at any rate, isn’t a cosmological hypothesis; I admit quite freely that I don’t know how the universe began, and am not sufficiently educated in the various hypotheses to give an informed opinion. But if it were shown that the universe was created by an intelligent agent, I still see no reason why this agent should be called “god.”
But why are you so restlessly obsessed with berating us for not being obsessed with cosmology? The only reason I can think of is the smug satisfaction you get out of thinking yourself better than atheists.
Well said JimC.
Moses: Most of you don’t even know that at one time they were child-sacrificing polytheists
What I find particularly peculiar is that the child-sacrifice part is obvious from read the Bible. The thing is chock-full of places where you’re told that you’re not allowed to sacrifice your first born, where God asks for or sends his angels down to sacrifice the first born, where the Levites are identified as taking the place of sacrifice of the first born, and on and on…
If they read their own books seriously, and not solely as a source for propaganda, they would have recognized immediately that their cult is rooted in child-sacrifice. Why do they think that the idea of God sacrificing his first born made any headway if the idea of child-sacrifice wasn’t fresh in their mind? The lamb replaces the child, which replaces the lamb.
Inquiring minds want to know about Dawkins ass. Does it speak? Then it would be a biblical ass (Balaam), or if it’s spotted then it would be a Spanish ass (Sancho). Someone do tell! ;)
Moses, from whence come ye? You write very interesting posts, and include lots of intertesting information. History/evolution of religion I find especially interesting.
Regards, TB
Today, we are faced with questions revealed by modern science; many of them could not even have been formulated a century ago. Whether or not we answer those questions during the next century, it is an act of astonishing arrogance to assume that those answers must be written in a particular thread of our tribal history two thousand years or more in our past.
That’s all.
I think the Book of Hiram talks about the history of the “Jewish” religion, among other things. Sun and Venus worship started it all. It actually makes sense if you put yourself in the mind-set of a primitive culture. Predicting the seasons and formally recognizing the “giver of life” would be a pretty basic and important idea to grasp.
What you stated is commonly called the “negative proof fallacy.”
For example, I can prove my daughter is not a man. I can prove my is not (and never has been) a man. I can prove my cat isn’t a dog. I can prove I didn’t shoot Lincoln. I can prove I didn’t shoot JFK. I can prove my cat is not in a box.
I can’t prove I’m not a millionaire because there is the possibility I’m not fully disclosing information and you do not have the ability to get the information. OTOH, if I were a millionaire, it’d be easy to prove.
Anyway, it’s not like you were a complete idiot, this is a common fallacy that is pervasive taught and reinforced in our culture. I used to use this one myself. Until someone, much meaner than I, massive embarrassed me on FidoNet.
But why are you so restlessly obsessed with berating us for not being obsessed with cosmology? The only reason I can think of is the smug satisfaction you get out of thinking yourself better than atheists.
I’ve commented in two threads. That’s hardly a sign of obsession. On the other hand, people like PZ Myers feel the need to announce they’re atheists almost every day on their blogs. Now that is obsession.
It’s ludicrous to say that I think I’m “better than atheists”, seeing as I admit to being an atheist myself. The difference between us is that I consider atheism a cosmological viewpoint, which I don’t feel I have to tell people about unless they ask.
I also believe in the Everett interpretation of quantum mechanics, which I think is of far greater cosmological significance than the question of whether there is some intelligent design underlying certain aspects of Nature. Normally I only tell people about that in appropriate conversations. I do not shove my “multiversism” into people’s faces.
Atheism makes no positive cosmological claims. Theists however, do – and do so without backing them up. Being Atheist is no more a cosmological position than being Atoothfairyist.
Jesus H. fucking Christ [sic]. Do you think most believers have studied cosmology? No? THEN WHY IS IT OK FOR THEM TO HAVE AN OPINION ON COSMOLOGY AND TO SHOUT IT FROM THE ROOFTOPS.
I’ve really had enough of these tedious, predictable strawmen. I did not say that it is “OK” for believers “TO HAVE AN OPINION ON COSMOLOGY”. Their opinion is worthless. Religion has no bearing whatever on cosmological questions.
Now quit misrepresenting me. It’s really getting pathetic.
You do understand that blogs are a place where many people, including myself, vent? Right? I don’t go around telling everyone I meet in person that I am an atheist, unless they ask or course.
that’s “of course” of course.
As for violating the sanctity of that list of holy names, here’s my favorite critique of such appeals to authority:
“Fear not to touch the best
The truth shall be thy warrant”
From “The Lie”, Sir Walter Raleigh
What’s good for the goose isn’t necessarily good for the gander.
Or in other words, you’re wrong if you think other atheists must follow your self-imposed rules.
Especially that one that treats atheism as a cosmological viewpoint. That one is just plain naive.
Ryan,
If you clicked the links as I asked, rather than just reading enough to score cheap points, you’d see I didn’t cover up Dawkins’ response; rather I quoted it, with the observation that (1) the “apology” didn’t apply to his own fabrication of events, and (2) he went again and accused her of it again on his own site.
Accusing a fellow academic of intellectual dishonesty is a serious thing. Academics trade on their reputation for honesty.
Clinteas, please read more closely. I carefully document the impossibility of Dawkins being correct that he was “told” that Midgley never read his book.
Matt Penfold,
There is a critical difference in making an error within an academic or journalistic work–which you may argue that Midgely did when she construed TSG as she did–and perpetrating outright dishonesty, as Dawkins has claimed in saying he was told she had never read it.
Let’s be clear: the person who Dawkins says told him Midgely never read TSG before reviewing it (Segerstrale) denies ever having said anything of the kind. About 10 years ago Dawkins and Segerstrale met over dinner and supposedly straightened out any misunderstandings on that score. So why 10 years later, is he still making the false and indefensible claim that Segestrale told him MM never read it?
Perhaps there’s a charitable explanation but I’ll I’ve heard has been obfuscation and silence.
Actually, they aren’t in the least beyond the scope of empirical science.
People long asked “Why does it rain?”, looking for an anthropomorphic answer. That’s understandable, for the very fact that one has to begin asking while using the measures one has at one’s disposal. They had to ask “why does it rain” assuming that rain must exist in order for rivers to exist, and for humans to drink, because they had no other context (other than fragments of causal phenomena).
So, does it rain because the clouds themselves seek to give water to the earth, or is there a more comprehensive mind behind it all, such that it rains so that humans can drink, rivers flow to replenish the ocean, and oceans exist so that clouds can draw water from the ocean?
No, it rains because of a combination of thermodynamic matters involved with water, saturation points, and the topography of the land. The “why” was answered without resorting to a telos or a purpose, while it was never satisfactorily answered via teleology.
The same appears to be for all non-animal processes. Teleology only seems to work for explaining why animals do certain things. We might have thought that plants could be explained teleologically, except that there appear to be no minds directing plants, so that’s useless. Ultimately, it appears that even animal tele will be explained through evolution and physiology, yet the fact that we do have goals will always leave room for teleological proximal explanations–but only where minds are known or can be properly inferred.
It is wrong to suppose that there have to be teleological answers to the “whys” that science explains. Serious believers in Abrahamic religions rarely explain the “why” of rain in teleological terms (except in special cases, like when prayers are made to end droughts), so why should anyone assume that human existence has a purpose or telos in the absence of any observable mind behind human existence?
The truth is that science gives us answers for most of our “why” questions, without resorting to teleology–aside from the doings of animate entities. Many do not like these answers, since humans tend to look for purpose behind every action (it’s safer to assume intent than non-intent in the state of nature), but they are the only justifiable answers we have for a vast array of phenomena.
If one wishes to tack onto science a benevolent purpose behind all of the apparently purposeless phenomena of inanimate nature in order to satisfy their own psychological needs, they are completely free to do so. Just don’t call this addition of a superfluous “cause” a “different kind of truth.” It is not that in any ordinary meaning of “truth”, it is simply a sop to cover for the fact that we are only able to find inanimate causes existing in our universe, except for the limited and understood causation of animals.
One has no right to demand animate causes for physical phenomena just because one wishes for these to exist. Science is fully adequate to deal with observable animate causation where this exists (and within its own proper parameters, of course), and we know that the “why” sensibly reduces down to inanimate physics wherever a mind behind the phenomenon is not evident.
Glen D
http://tinyurl.com/2kxyc7
J wrote:
So why aren’t you out there touring churches and telling them this? Once everyone agrees to define atheism your way, we can consider not talking about it so much. Deal?
I wasn’t misrepresenting you, I was asking you. And you have a lot of nerve to complain. When someone does try to discuss the implications of a designer to cosmology, you say that they are only ‘repeating standard Dawkinsite arguments’ (although you “agree with them”??) But it doesn’t take an advanced cosmology course nor a reading of Dawkins to see that the fine-tuning argument for a designer is self-defeating!
Really. Logically impossible.
Beyond the straw-man, why wouldn’t it be logically impossible?
Because you don’t like the harsh reality that the entire concept of God which you’re addressing is absurd and prejudiced to your Abrahamic cultural-theological roots?
Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. There is ZERO credible evidence that the Judeo-Christian god, or any other human-created pantheon, exists. There is no evidence, or logical reason to believe, that the universe in which we exist could harbor an omnipotent being or said being could have existed prior to the creation of the universe in any of the creation tales we’ve invented.
The entire God concept is simply absurd. As absurd as alien abductions, gremlins, fairies, Santa Clause, the Easter Bunny and every other fantasy we’ve constructed over the past 100 Milena to explain prosaic events that were once, but no longer, beyond our ken.
I did, with your promise of evidence of falsehood.
No such evidence existed, other than your own distortions and rambling.
In point of fact, you declared a confession to an anecdotal statement that was, itself, an anecdotal statement.
Your own acceptance of Segerstrale’s denial as being truthworthy is particularly telling.
I must admit, I can’t say I particularly care about the issue as much you do, but I do find your standards for ‘falsehood’ to be lacking.
Even the Easter Bunny!!?? NOOOOO!!! Please, just please….say it ain’t so! Please?!
But GlenD, at some point the questions must end. At some point, there will be just laws of physics without further laws of physics explaining why those laws of physics “must” be that way. Even if you go into some meta-mode like Tegmark, where mathematical consistency demands some set of laws of physics, at some point you must simply stop.
That’s the deeper problem — some people just don’t know when to shut up, when to stop. They need to have some kind of magical answer (which of course, strictly speaking, is a non-answer mystified). There’s a sum with no preceding ergo, and that just drives some folks nuts.
So why aren’t you out there touring churches and telling them this? Once everyone agrees to define atheism your way, we can consider not talking about it so much. Deal?
What a ludicrous suggestion. I’m posting here because I like PZ Myers’ writing and I read his blog every day. Obviously, I’m not “out there touring churches” because it would be inconvenient to do that.
Last I looked, atheism wasn’t merely equivalent to “rejection of religion”. But even if it were — what’s the sense in using such a stigmatized word? As Sam Harris remarked, it’s as if you’re lying down into the chalk outline they have drawn out for you. We’re free to use whatever name we want. Why not choose the one that’s most strategically expedient? (Maybe this isn’t “Bright”, though I find it hard to believe that “atheist” is undoubtedly the best we can have.)
J, how about we all choose a name for ourselves? You choose bright, we’ll all choose atheist. Topic over?
“…One has no right to demand animate causes for physical phenomena just because one wishes for these to exist. Science is fully adequate to deal with observable animate causation where this exists (and within its own proper parameters, of course), and we know that the “why” sensibly reduces down to inanimate physics wherever a mind behind the phenomenon is not evident.”
I nominate that for best paragraph in thie thread.
Nick: No-one here, and very few atheists, argue that the existence of an omnipotent and benevolent being is logically impossible; nor that the existence of a creator of some kind is either logically impossible, or contrary to empirical evidence – since any sufficiently powerful creator could, clearly, conceal its existence.
An omnipotent, omniscient and omnibenevolent being is logically impossible; it is inconsistent with the existence of suffering. All arguments to the contrary hide one of those three attributes – they all go along the lines of “God blinds himself” or “God refrains from action” or “God’s goodness is different from the normal meaning of goodness”. Of course, all three lines of argument are simply sophistry to cover up mutually inconsistent claims.
If we were arguing with non-Abrahmic folks, you might have a point. There could logically be a blind god that is good, or a Cassandra-like god, impotent but well intentioned. But that hasn’t been a significant point of view since the 3rd century. Walton’s god is a logical impossibility.
Of course, there’s always the “best” counter-argument, that god isn’t logically consistent, so logical consistency is irrelevant; but that’s just muttering meaningless noises that sound like language. I think your “self-hiding” god would fall under that category, of desperate attempts to make the question go away.
“Last I looked, atheism wasn’t merely equivalent to “rejection of religion”. But even if it were — what’s the sense in using such a stigmatized word?”
You clearly did not look very hard, or have a problem with understanding what words mean.
If you cannot understand what atheism means, and clearly you cannot, then shut up. You have suggested the use of the word “Bright”. However that term means more than just lack of a belief in god. It also means a rejection of irrationality of all kinds. An atheist, someone who simply does not believe in god(s) could believe that the Earth is being visited by aliens, or that astrology gives an good insight into a person’s future. That person is an atheist, as they do not believe in god(s). None of the other terms you have suggested covers them.
Please, before crapping on anymore, learn what words mean.
J, it seems like it depends on what you want to communicate with your words. I use “atheist” preferably as an adjective (I am atheist), and use it only to mean I have no gods. What more should I want to communicate with that word?
If it’s about god-belief or lack thereof, “atheist” does just fine for me, and “Bright” sounds too smug for my personality – I would feel uncomfortable for the implied elevation of my status wrt non-Brights.
And if you want to get into cosmological conjecture, why bring in either of those 2 words? It seems to me you are looking for a more encompassing word, and I think you are going to have to invent it.
When someone does try to discuss the implications of a designer to cosmology, you say that they are only ‘repeating standard Dawkinsite arguments’ (although you “agree with them”??) But it doesn’t take an advanced cosmology course nor a reading of Dawkins to see that the fine-tuning argument for a designer is self-defeating!
I have little idea what you’re going on about here. Time and time again I’ve said that I’m an atheist.
The point is that thrusting your cosmological opinion on people is totally unnecessary. It’s even worse than necessary, it’s inconvenient. Even if you’re right and very simple, knowledge-free arguments are all that’s required to demolish the deist position — so what? Why do you feel so compelled to keep telling everyone else?
In this post Chet does a great job in pointing out one of the largest flaws in current Christian rhetoric:
The “stock” answer is that after Jesus’ sacrifice God withdrew himself from the affairs of man. It is, of course, a bullshit “stock” answer.
And, with that, I’m pretty much spent for the day. A week of the flu has left me in a state that tires easily.
Oh, and “J,” you really amuse me in a “what the hell is wrong with this guy” sort of way. Keep up the work. Note that I didn’t say “good.”
Uhhh, maybe cuz this is an atheist blog?
“…even worse than unnecessary”, that’s supposed to be.
I think it’s a mistake to think that the justification for a particular physical theory is to be found in a more general theory. The justification for a particular physical theory is its novelty, economy, and amenability to experiment, the justification for a more general theory is the discovery by experiment of a regime in which the particular theory fails. The correspondence demanded of the more general theory with the pre-existing particular theory is not a justification of the particular theory, it is a necessary condition placed on the more general theory.
Thinking otherwise is making the mistake of thinking that the “laws of physics” govern the physical world, rather than thinking that they are products of description by a physical model. And once someone has given in to that kind of metaphysical assumption, of course they’ll keep grasping for something ever more fundamental or ontological even when experiment neither warrants nor supports doing so. That’s where string theorists and many-worlders come from.
Why do you feel compelled to criticize atheists who don’t share your two primary views (that atheism is a cosmological argument and that you must not say anything cosmological until asked)?
Wow — and in a post that explicitly references The Courtier’s Reply right in the first sentence. Amazing.
They want “Daddy did it because he loves you,” though.
Well hey, I wouldn’t mind that either, at least if I could believe the cosmic Daddy really was loving. Only I know that Daddy didn’t make it rain, and it’s mighty peculiar that Cosmic Daddy won’t lift a finger to save me from malaria or the proverbial bus bearing down on me, yet made an entire universe of meaningless interaction just for all of us mortals slated for death.
What seems really bizarre about all of these arguments is that loving actions from God are not demanded, just the loving God itself is demanded. I know, it’s to make suffering meaningful, among other psychological twists and turns. Nietzsche said it: What really raises one’s indignation against suffering is not suffering intrinsically, but the senselessness of suffering.
OK then, it makes sense from a primate’s psyche. It’s when we look at it from the standpoint of sense and reason that both are absent from the insistence that apparently pointless suffering is indeed meaningful. “But it must be meaningful,” says the theist (not all of them). The mere fact that no evidence indicates any meaning is thin gruel to any mind that demands that suffering has a purpose, even though empirically that “conclusion” is neither valid nor sound.
Glen D
http://tinyurl.com/2kxyc7
I have a question.
Did anyone ask J for his opinion on whether atheists should give their opinion ? Only looking through this thread I cannot see anyone asking him. Only given what he is saying about waiting to be asked I would have expected him to wait, and if he has not, it would indicate that he is rather full of shit.
Uhhh, maybe cuz this is an atheist blog?
Thoughtless little wisecracks like that only serve to prove me right, I’m afraid.
Think about it: Why would so many people, many of whom aren’t cosmologists or even scientists, have a blog devoted to a purely cosmological viewpoint? “Thrill of cult affiliation” is the only possible explanation.
Opposing religion (the real use of this blog)) is a noble endeavour. This is emphatically not the same as atheism. Atheism is a position on a purely abstract question.
Did anyone ask J for his opinion on whether atheists should give their opinion ? Only looking through this thread I cannot see anyone asking him. Only given what he is saying about waiting to be asked I would have expected him to wait, and if he has not, it would indicate that he is rather full of shit.
Opinion on what?
J,
I do not recall anyone asking for your opinion. You just seemed to turn up and give it. Do you intend to follow your own advice and shut up ? Or do you intend sticking around longer and giving us even more evidence of how intellectually challenged you are ?
“Opinion on what?”
Opinion on everything you have been subjecting us to your opinion on. You seem to have failed to heed your own advice. Why not go sit in the corner and wait to be asked before telling us what you think.
Because public discourse is about the discussion of topics people are interested in and people are interested in these topics. Jesus fucking christ.
This is a public space–in some ways, though, because of the position of atheists in American society, the people engaged in discourse here comprise a counterpublic. One of the central ideas behind counterpublics is that they provide spaces in which people can form common identity, critique the broader society, and test out their own arguments for use in that broader critique. How should we respond to question about “what do you believe” if we’ve never talked about it before. For crying out loud, J’s entire approach is nothing more than, “Shut up about this, just shut up. I’m not interested so no one else will be and we need to just shut down this entire line of conversation. Just shut up!”
Yes, clearly that proves atheism is a purely cosmological opinion and we should all shut up. Clearly.
Maybe cuz you’re the only one who thinks atheism is a “purely cosmological viewpoint”?
Dustin: I think it’s a mistake to think that the justification for a particular physical theory is to be found in a more general theory. The justification for a particular physical theory is its novelty, economy, and amenability to experiment, the justification for a more general theory is the discovery by experiment of a regime in which the particular theory fails. … And once someone has given in to that kind of metaphysical assumption, of course they’ll keep grasping for something ever more fundamental or ontological even when experiment neither warrants nor supports doing so.
Very well said. The psychological need for a TOE is completely distinct from its scientific justification (or lack thereof).
I do not recall anyone asking for your opinion. You just seemed to turn up and give it. Do you intend to follow your own advice and shut up ? Or do you intend sticking around longer and giving us even more evidence of how intellectually challenged you are ?
There’s no inconsistency there. You’re the intellectually challenged one if you think otherwise.
I believe this over-eager flaunting the badge of atheism is irresponsible and injurious to the secular cause. No small wonder, then, why I feel the need to “speak up”. Cosmological opinions, in contract, aren’t of any social significance, and therefore there can hardly be any reason to impart them on uninterested parties.
“I didn’t realise the universe existed before 8.”
As a part-time inventory counter, I can attest that the universe does, in fact, exist before 8 AM, but that it is a cold, gray, loveless, and horrible place, and is best avoided.
Atheism is a rejection of a particular cosmology as baseless and improbable, and if that means that atheism is itself a cosmology, then health is a disease.
This is one person’s blog.
Not only “devoted” to your catch phrase.
Criticism of religion as a whole is part of it, not just pronouncements of one opinion on the existence of god[s].
If coming to a place to discuss things with people who may share similar beliefs or interests is belonging to a cult, I’ll be sure to tell my wife that her housing committee for the poor is a cult when I get home.
Maybe cuz you’re the only one who thinks atheism is a “purely cosmological viewpoint”?
But it demonstrably is a purely cosmological viewpoint. This is quite plain.
It’s the belief, to a high degree of confidence, that there was no intelligent designer of the Universe. This goes a lot further than simple disbelief in religion.
Anyone here agree with J? No? My point still stands. My point being that no one agrees.
GlenD: They want “Daddy did it because he loves you,” though.
I’ve always found interesting the link between monotheism and the rise of the nuclear family, in both directions. The patriarchal, polygamous societies were not in a modern sense monotheistic — they usually had one Daddy-god dominating his lesser gods. The matrilineal cultures were very different, with animisms and multi-level god structures. Even Islam with it’s technical allowance of polygamy, in practice rarely has polygamy; and as the polygamous Mormons abandoned polygamy, they also became more monotheistic.
It’s got to be about the intense frustration that occurs in a small family, with one man frustrated in his will-to-power over his little clan, and the little clan frustrated by no other options in satisfying their social and economic needs other than from that one little man. Daddy did it because he loves you, indeed. Cosmology as Freudian rationalization? How sad.
J: You are the only person ranting on about “cosmological viewpoints”.
If that gives you little frisson of brightness then go right ahead.
Atheism == cosmology is YOUR definition.
Atheism == zero belief in gods appears to be the majority definition around here
The simple fact the the religious have run out of ideas, and so are continually reduced to a ‘god of the gaps’ argument (see Walton in this thread & others) is not our argument – it’s theirs. We’re not pounding on cosmology, you & the religious are.
There is no god. There are no gods.
nec plus ultra.
Teapot. Orbit. Neptune.
And which uninterested parties are you referring to that visit this blog? Are you suggesting that people who have blogs with part of their content being about religion, and also sometimes about atheism and religion’s reaction to atheism, should stop writing about it so as not to offend, put off, or anger those who don’t hold the exact same opinions because they are uninterested?
If so why should any said owner of a blog give a fuck about someone who is uninterested in what they the blog owner wants to write about?
Until children stop being indoctrinated into cults that tell them to hate themselves for their sexual orientation, until girls stop being murdered by their fathers for talking to men, until the assault on reason and science by lackwits is stopped, I’ll continue to shout my ‘cosmological position’ from the rooftops, regardless of J’s lack of social significance.
So boring.
So, so, boring.
Yet you wail about the most important point being the critcism of religion. Starting point one for me is my lack of belief in any deity. That’s where I being to be critical of religion. The rest falls in line.
J,
Plenty of inconstancy on your part, not to mention utter dishonesty. You are telling those us here who are atheists to shut up and not give our opinions unless asked, and yet you were happy to offer that an opinion without being asked. You have this thing about atheism being a claim about cosmology. I have no idea what has given you that idea but in case you have missed what we have all been telling you, it is nothing of the sort. Atheism is merely the lack of belief in god(s). That is it, nothing more. It does not say anything about the origins of the universe, other than not allowing a role for god(s). I will repeat, atheism is nothing other than the lack of belief in god(s). It offers no claims as to how people should behave, it does not mean an atheist automatically rejects all forms of irrationality. One can be an atheist and be totally irrational.
There is only one thing atheists have in common and that is a lack of belief in god. Many atheists may also embrace humanism, but that cannot be ascertained simply by knowing they are an atheist. I know of an astrologer who is an atheist. About the only thing I have in common with them is a lack of belief in god(s). I do not share their view on the validity of astrology, and I reject their claims it has scientific backing.
If you do not want to hear the opinions from a variety of atheists, of which there a fair few here and we do not all agree with each other about things, then do not come to a blog where atheism is a frequent subject of discussion and tell us to shut up. For a start it is not your place to do so. It is not your blog, it is PZ’s, and only PZ (and SciBlogs) get a say in wha is allowed to be said here. That you think yourself to be an equal of PZ in that regard speaks volumes about your sense of your own importance. That you think others should keep quiet about their opinions becuase you think they should, whilst you are happy to offer your tells us that your ego is dangerously inflated.
Concern trolls are powered by an endless supply of self-satisfaction and disingenuity. If we could get J into a lab for vivisection, I’m sure we could harness his/her/its endless supply of misplaced sanctimony and solve the world’s energy problems.
Atheism == zero belief in gods appears to be the majority definition around here
Yes, that would be perfectly reasonable. The problem is, many eminent “atheists” use different definitions of the word, or express reluctance to use it at all. Richard Dawkins defines atheism as confident belief that there are no intelligent creators of the Universe (and he gives his Ultimate Boeing 747 argument to back this up). Bertrand Russell similarly defines atheism as the positive belief that there are no such beings (and not having the Dawkins argument at his fingertips, he wouldn’t fully commit himself to this strong position). Daniel Dennett has a deliberately slapdash attitude towards it, admitting that there’s ambiguity, and he calls himself an atheist only sparingly. Sam Harris doesn’t like to call himself an atheist at all.
I think it’s best to circumvent all this confusion by commandeering a new word.
Plenty of inconstancy on your part, not to mention utter dishonesty.
There’s none of that to be found. I already explained why my position isn’t inconsistent, and you skipped over what I said without comment.
you cannot prove a negative
This is so dumb.
Let’s try: I cannot prove 1 is not greater than 2.
Uhmmmmm. 1 + 1 = 2.
Until children stop being indoctrinated into cults that tell them to hate themselves for their sexual orientation, until girls stop being murdered by their fathers for talking to men, until the assault on reason and science by lackwits is stopped, I’ll continue to shout my ‘cosmological position’ from the rooftops, regardless of J’s lack of social significance.
Sounds good, doesn’t it, but it completely misses most of the points I made. For the last time: You can oppose religion all you want without calling yourself an atheist.
Dietrich Bonhoffer was an idiot:
O God, early in the morning I cry to you.
Help me to pray and gather my thoughts to you, I cannot do it alone.
In me it is dark, but with you there is light;
I am lonely, but you do not desert me;
My courage fails me, but with you there is help;
I am restless, but with you there is peace;
in me there is bitterness, but with you there is patience;
I do not understand your ways, but you know the way for me.
Father in Heaven praise and thanks be to you for the night’s rest,
Praise and thanks be to you for the new day.
Praise and thanks be to you for all your loving-kindness and faithfulness in my past life.
You have shown me so much goodness; let me also accept what is hard to bear from your hand.
You will not lay a heavier burden on me than I can carry.
You make all things serve for the best for your children.
Lord, whatever this day brings, your name be praised.
He sounds just like Kent Hovind!
J is one of the obsessives we’ve seen before, with their own mental dictionaries, insisting that his/her definitions are the only correct ones. Reminds me of the banned Caledonian.
‘Imagine someone holding forth on biology whose only knowledge of the subject is the Book of British Birds, and you have a rough idea of what it feels like to read Richard Dawkins on theology.’
Oh dear!
I was told that the Book of British Birds was inspired by the Creator and Designer of all British Birds and that it contained personal messages from him about biology.
Now I am told that the British Book of Birds is no more inspired than the Bible, and I am no more qualified to talk about biology than somebody is qualified to talk about Christianity after reading the Bible.
Now that the British Book of Birds can be put on the same discard table as the Bible, what inspired books are there on biology?
J,
If a person does not believe in god(s) then they are not going to believe that god(s) created the universe. And let us be clear here, when people talk of an intelligent designer, they mean god most of the time.
In other words the view that god(s) did not create the universe follow from not believing in gods at all. It is not the case that atheists reject the idea of god(s) creating the universe and thus reject the existence of god(s). The lack of belief is the starting the point, and rejection of a creator of the universe is the conclusion. There are a number of hypotheses on the origins of the universe that do not invoke god(s) or designers, and most atheists are not in a position to decide between them. Thus to claim atheism is a cosmological position is nonsense of the kind only someone who does not value the meaning of words could come up with.
And other reasonable people disagree with you. Can’t we dispense with all this meta-discussion and leave it at that? It seems silly and profoundly counterproductive to argue about labels with people who generally share your ultimate goals, if not immediate tactics.
that’s your point? i don’t think anybody’s arguing against that.
J: for the last time
‘opposing religion’ is a side effect of ‘disbelieving in god(s)’, not the primary motivator.
We oppose religions only where those religions impose upon us or on our rights (proselytize).
I personally could care less whther religions exist or not. However I DO care that they get a free ride on taxes, they get a free ride on (lack of) morals, they get a free ride on ‘ethics’ and they get a free ride on ‘truth’.
Give me a level playing field and I’ll shut up about religion – but I’ll still be an atheist.
Until then I’ll keep on with my opposition, and I’ll still be an atheist.
J the idjit said:
Yeah, and you can also oppose religion while calling yourself an atheist, so fucking what?
I thought he only specifically defined that as a 7 on his atheism scale, but he himself only considers his beliefs a 6.9. Although the fact that Dawkins (and most self described atheists I know) define a continuum of atheism demonstrates that he has a much less dogmatic view than you.
Actually, you asserted that you aren’t inconsitent. Evidence here demonstrates otherwise. Why are you such a tool?
Mattpenfold:
Until you address this rather clear demonstration of hypocrisy on your part, don’t be surprised of no one here takes anything you have to say seriously. (Which is not to say that what you say can’t continue to be shown wrong…just like most other dogmatic followers of stupid belief systems.)
Cheers.
Screechy Monkey says #203: “”This does not entail telling people our cosmological opinions unless we’re asked.”
So it’s “Don’t ask, don’t tell”? We wouldn’t want to make other people uncomfortable with our icky unconventional cosmological opinions.””
No, we will only tell if we are nekkid……….and not asked. To get nekkid that is.
“There is a critical difference in making an error within an academic or journalistic work–which you may argue that Midgely did when she construed TSG as she did–and perpetrating outright dishonesty, as Dawkins has claimed in saying he was told she had never read it.”
What do you mean by read ?
Do you mean just look at the words on the page ? In which case Midgely probably has read “The Selish Gene”. If you mean read as in comprehend, then clearly she has not. She showed no sign of comprehension when she first reviewed the book, and has shown no sign since she has grasped the concepts it contains. Of course she is not a scientist, let alone a biologist. There were biologist who disagreed with the concepts Dawkins put forward in the book, or rather the importance he ascribed to them. However it they did understand what Dawkins was arguing. Midgely did not, and still does not. And her continued refusal to apologise for that is the kind of dishonesty you accuse Dawkins of.
So if you wish to claim that Midegly read the book, as in comprehended it, you need offer evidence of that. Only the evidence we do have suggests she did not.
It also seems you were not being honest when you claim Dawkins says she had not read the book. Of course having read your blog I can see dishonesty is not a novel concept for you.
No, because J wants attention for his nitpicking inanity.
In any case, if reputation for honesty is the currency of academic life, it’s little wonder that few, if any, scientists take Midgley seriously.
“Sounds good, doesn’t it, but it completely misses most of the points I made. For the last time: You can oppose religion all you want without calling yourself an atheist.”
Yes you can. Deists can do just that. Opposing religion is not only down to atheists, deist can, and do, oppose religion. Opposing religion is not what defines an atheist. What defines an atheist, and please get this as you seem to be having problems with it, is a lack of belief in god(s). It is not the opposition to religion that makes a person an atheist, it is being an atheist that may (but does not have to) make someone oppose religion. Again you have the cause and effect totally arse about tit.
Went to the Asylum forum (seemed appropriate) on the Brights and asked if they would please come and take J back, since we didn’t want him anymore. lol Seriously though, maybe someone over there knows him and can at least restrain him a bit, if not convince him we are not some horrible army of barbarians sitting in the middle of the “rational” movement, who are going to stampede over all the pretty tents the rest of the secularists have put up, on the way to do bloody battle with irrational people over whether or not their so called god can hide in a thimble. This is getting old, and if we can’t get him to realize he is being an ass, maybe someone over there can.
OK, since there seems to be a lot of discourse here on definitions and, earlier, a discussion of “faith”, thought I would wade in with a question: anyone have a good antonym for the word “faith?” Most of the antonyms seem to be on the negative side (negating defined synonyms of ‘faith’ such as belief to disbelief, loyalty to disloyalty, etc…). Any positive or stand alone antonyms? ‘Skepticism’ is OK (although easily misinterpreted as a negative term). A friend and I sort of liked the idea/alliterative element of a “you need facts, not faith” statement… still, not quite right. After looking into a few blogs it seems that there is no defining opposite to “faith”… any ideas? SC’s post #51 and Iain Walker’s post #117 sort of got me rollin’ on this one… thanks guys!
“In any case, if reputation for honesty is the currency of academic life, it’s little wonder that few, if any, scientists take Midgley seriously.”
I do not know enough of her work to speak on her ability as a philosopher. However I do know enough biology, and have read “The Selfish Gene” enough times to know that she could not have claimed what she did about what Dawkins was saying without dishonesty. No reasonably educated person could have read the book and come to the conclusions she did. So we are left with a choice, either she wilfully misinterrupted it, or she lacks the intellect to understand what he was saying. When I first read the book I did not know much about evolutionary theory (and nor did many of ther other readers), so just being ignorant of that is no excuse. If it is the former the she is seriously dishonest, if it is the latter she is should have refused to review the book, or having done so, should have apologised for getting so out of her depth. What she cannot do, or other do on her behalf, is claim it is a simple academic disagreement. It is not. Academic disagreements as those like Dawkins had with Gould. Of course Gould understood Dawkins’ position, he just did not agree with it.
I think it’s been passed over that Dawkins considered the possibility that she (Midgely) hadn’t read the book to be a charitable interpretation of the review.
The whole thing is rather a tempest in a teapot. I often wonder why it is that Dawkins in particular seems to routinely inspire such flights of impotent outrage. Remember Berlinski’s screed against the “scientific fraud” Dawkins had perpetrated? (Link upon request: I’m busy)
It came down to whether the Nilson and Pelger paper on eye evolution described a mathematical model or a computer simulation, as Dawkins had written.
These guys know how to hit where it hurts, don’t they?
mezzobuff,
I just checked my dictionary, or least the one I have to hand, and it gives only agnosticism as an antonym for faith in the religious sense. It is not a very good antonym though, as agnosticism is the idea that it is not possible to know if god exists or not. It would be possible, if unlikely, for a theist to be agnostic.
frog @ # 221, “Hallucinations are a normal part of human experience and the human perception mechanisms. I doubt that many haven’t had the experience of an optical illusion, or feeling, seeing or hearing things that weren’t really there.”
Can you substantiate the latter? I know that I don’t necessarily ‘see’, at a conscious level, what is in my field of vision. But I’ve never believed that I’ve seen, heard, felt, tasted, or smelt anything that wasn’t there, as far as I know.
“It came down to whether the Nilson and Pelger paper on eye evolution described a mathematical model or a computer simulation, as Dawkins had written.
These guys know how to hit where it hurts, don’t they?”
Was that it ? Of course if it was a computer simulation it was also a mathematical model. And to turn a mathematical model into a computer simulation is not really that hard. Indeed, if we look to Turing then we can argue there is no logical difference at all.
Thanks Matt… maybe I will be making up a new word? *wink* and a *sigh*
IMHO the antonym to faith (at least as Xians portay Faith) is simply observation.
They believe based on zero obseravion.
I tentatively accept based on confirming observation.
:)
She willfully misinterpreted it. If you read anything she’s written, especially Science as Salvation and Evolution as Religion, you’ll be struck by her perpetual, deliberate and malicious misinterpretation of everything. She engages in wholesale sophistry, and is nothing but snide as a cover for the utter insipidity and vacuity of her half-baked arguments. She delights in erecting and demolishing straw men and ignoring everything that everyone else says to the contrary. All she does is ascribe anthropic features to words where she knows it was not intended. She reacts against the presentation of evolutionary theory on the grounds that it, and the theory itself, are “morally pernicious”.
She’s the Don Quixote of moral philosophy.
“Can you substantiate the latter? I know that I don’t necessarily ‘see’, at a conscious level, what is in my field of vision. But I’ve never believed that I’ve seen, heard, felt, tasted, or smelt anything that wasn’t there, as far as I know.”
Really ? You have never thought someone spoke to you when the hadn’t ? OF thought something brushed against you when nothing had ? If so I think that would make you very unusual.
sorry tfor teh spalign misteaks
DennisN @276 – Not only do I not agree with J but I wasn’t asked earlier so that makes the total in disagreement “no one” plus 1.
(this is really getting silly but then at post > #300 what’s the point now?)
I think ‘J’ simply needs a new task. Proposing a new name for non-belief in theism is getting too complicated and consuming too many of those much-needed energy producing calories.
What’s Latin for “Doesn’t believe in gods, doesn’t believe gods created the Universe (or Boeing 747s), doesn’t believe gods exist, doesn’t believe J quite understands, and “… aw CUT!
Look, it really isn’t about the classification of the non-entity. It is a Null. There is no There there. It isn’t a big nothing or a very infinitesimal nothing – it is very simply NOTHING. I have no idea what you’re talking about when you want to classify my atheism as a cosmological position. (If that’s anything like position 69 then I’m all for it.)
And what’s with the term, “traditional atheism”? Is that like Eastern Orthodox Atheism?
Great! Now we’ll have our own scripture and myths and dogma – all to classify the Null entity. South Park did it. And it was much funnier.
Dustin,
If she thinks Dawkins was using selfish in the anthropic sense then she must be being wilful. If I recall he actually makes it clear in the book how he is using the word. Of course people are happy to do the same with his use of delusion.
Was that it ?
Once you get past Berlinski’s posturing and ofuscatory “erudition,” that was it. The fraud of the century.
to turn a mathematical model into a computer simulation is not really that hard. Indeed, if we look to Turing then we can argue there is no logical difference at all.
Yep. Once again, Berlinski looked stupid.
Tony, I ignored the spelling and went straight to the meat! Spell check is SO overrated and the little red underlines add character hee hee hee
In and of itself, it wouldn’t seem so, but the fact that, while on those two threads, you sing a one-note tune for hours on end suggests otherwise.
Fine. You’re brighter than most other atheists. Happy now?
As for the atheism as a “cosmological viewpoint,” I addressed this in the first paragraph of my #227, which I notice you chose not to respond to.
mezzobuff – I like the little squiggles – makes me think of a steak on the grill… mmmmm. meat!
RH: Can you substantiate the latter? I know that I don’t necessarily ‘see’, at a conscious level, what is in my field of vision. But I’ve never believed that I’ve seen, heard, felt, tasted, or smelt anything that wasn’t there, as far as I know.
To start simple, do you know the corner illusion? If you look at a double-headed arrow, the perceived length of the body is dependent on the whether the heads are inward pointing or outward; if I recall correctly, this only applies to people who live in rectangularly shaped houses. Where’s the line between optical illusion and hallucination, when it depends on cultural background?
For the more general case of hallucinations, I don’t have my references handy — I recall reading that 40% of the population reports seeing ghosts, angles, etc, and that’s properly a lower limit, since so many folks would be either embarrassed to report it, or it is idiosyncratic enough not to be recognized.
A quick google brought me this: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi=B6V9F-41T18HR-9&_user=687815&_rdoc=1&_fmt=&_orig=search&_sort=d&view=c&_acct=C000038378&_version=1&_urlVersion=0&_userid=687815&md5=4141552943be742ec516f3d3c7959295 which showed a 25% of female undergrads with some hallucinatory tendency. This paper reports from 2% to 10% by ethnic group: http://bjp.rcpsych.org/cgi/content/full/180/2/174. In this paper, they report 40% of the population showing some sign of hallucination: http://cat.inist.fr/?aModele=afficheN&cpsidt=1063086
That last one is European population, not US, so it’s less distorted by positive beliefs in fairies.
As I said, I would guess that it’s all low-balls, since many hallucinations are just at the threshold of awareness. Did I just smell something funny, or was it hallucinatory? I thought someone was there, but I guess I was mistaken… Did someone call my name? But when you believe that gods are walking the world — “I must have seen Marduk coming to rape my daughter!!”
From personal experience, I’d guess it’s about 70% or more of the population, who’ve seen “something” that they’ll only talk about when they’re drunk or high.
@#315 CJO —
This Slate article is probably my favorite treatment of Berlinski.
Though his interview with himself is a close runner up….
All this aggression only suggests that you people are frightened of something. Certainly there’s no need to behave like this. If I’m wrong, it suffices to just say why. The insults are uncalled for.
The many of you who are drawn here by a constant striving to feel superior, and a sinister need to at every opportunity unleash the brunt of your inner savagery out onto “the Enemy”, may find this point somewhat hard to grasp.
You’re confusing frightened with annoyed.
If I understand Walton correctly, his position is indistinguishable from my own: it’s extraordinarily unlikely that the Desert God exists and, even if he does, he is highly likely to be complete prick.
Such a reasonable and articulate person, how odd that he’s not an atheist :o)
“All this aggression only suggests that you people are frightened of something. Certainly there’s no need to behave like this. If I’m wrong, it suffices to just say why. The insults are uncalled for.”
Other than you being an insufferable prick you mean ? You have made the same assertion over and over again, that atheism is a cosmological position. No matter how many times people have corrected you, you have carried on making that assertion. There comes a time when you can no longer be considered just a little slow on the uptake and instead are being wilfully obtuse. When that happens I do not see why we need be that polite or civil to you.
I think Yahweh is a dick whether he exists or not.
Rey
“As a part-time inventory counter, I can attest that the universe does, in fact, exist before 8 AM, but that it is a cold, gray, loveless, and horrible place, and is best avoided.”
You’re not waking up with the right person.
Matt, “Really ? You have never thought someone spoke to you when the hadn’t ? OF thought something brushed against you when nothing had ? If so I think that would make you very unusual.”
Possibly I have experienced something anomalous, but I’ve no recognition of it, so I’d presume that there was an alternative rational explanation. Any such possible events would’ve been of no consequence.
frog, maybe there’s a continuum with full blow schizophrenics at one end, & rationalists at the other? There’s recently been published a correlation between schzophrenia & religiosity.
Frankly J you come off as someone who has too much time on their hands. You have been engaged on every point you’ve tried to make. Yes some have been rude, but many have not. I still fail to see the giant problem you are trying to convey to us. Do some people immediately have a negative connotation to the term atheist? Yes. Will some of those people deal differently with that person because of that moniker. Sure. But going by extending your logic we shouldn’t apply a term of description to us under any circumstance for fear of turning someone off to our opinion. That is really an odd way to go through life and honestly you would be hard pressed to find anyone on any side of an issue that doesn’t use a term to identify themselves with other like minded people. I guarantee that calling myself a rationalist, or secularist or “god forbid” a Bright will immediately cause any number of groups of people to look at me like a an Orc that was just produced out of the slime.
Your “atheism is only a cosmological argument” if taken as a truth, which I don’t, still has little bearing on the above.
i don’t find any convincing evidence that allows me to accept any notion of any higher beings. Being that religion (most of them anyway) deals directly with the existence of a higher power(s) I obviously have at least some problem with religion. I also consider myself a rational person and a person who believes in the benefit of a secular society over a religious one. I call myself and atheist, a secularist, a rationalist, an ex-Episcopalian, a graduate of North Carolina State university, a fucking fantastic chef, a loving husband and a cynical bastard. All of which shape my view on the world including my view on religion. I don’t need relay all that information to anyone I’m having a conversation with about any point, including religion and the question on the existence of a deity. I will however bring any and all of them up separately or together if I think it better conveys my point or bolsters my argument.
being hung up on your point you have monotonously tried to drive home seems to me to be only heading towards limiting our ability to accurately describe our personal place on the map of ideas.
/please ignore typos.
Off topic:
I’m often in two minds whether or not I’m schizophrenic. Luckily, if I don’t like where my thoughts are going, I just tell myself to be quiet.
:)
All this aggression only suggests that you people are frightened of something.
Yeah, I am afraid of something. I’m afraid of dumbass religious nutjobs seizing power and establishing a theocracy in my beautiful secular republic, holding me accountable to the ridiculous and often arbitrary laws of primitive, superstitious Bronze Age goat-herders even though I don’t share their delusions of an invisible man in the sky who watches us masturbate.
It’s a pretty terrifying thought, really.
@#328 Richard Harris —
Source please?
RH: maybe there’s a continuum with full blow schizophrenics at one end, & rationalists at the other?
I believe that that’s the dogma in psychology — you have folks with disordered thinking, you have folks with ordered thinking who are highly prone to dreaming while awake, you have prosaic folk and everything in between. There’s a correlation between hallucination and psychosis, but you can have one or the other independently.
I recall reading a paper 20 years ago about schizophrenia across ethnicities. It had a universal rate of about 1% (I recall vaguely), but it’s temporal expression varied hugely. Upper class third-worlders and middle-class first-worlders showed chronic schizophrenia — once they were diagnosed, they never became fully re-intergrated into society. On the other hand, rich first-worlders and poor third-worlders had acute cases: once they had an episode, they’d have long periods of integration and function. For the rich 1sters, the explanation was the best medical care available, but for the 3rd worlders it seemed that their religious beliefs helped out. They thought that a schizophrenic had some kind of “possession event”, and crazy old aunty would be just fine after a few weeks in the hut. And she was, since everyone including herself thought of it that way. They were used to people claiming hallucinatory experiences, and considered it normal, on a continuum, just like modern psychology.
Other than you being an insufferable prick you mean ? You have made the same assertion over and over again, that atheism is a cosmological position. No matter how many times people have corrected you, you have carried on making that assertion.
That’s because they haven’t fucking “corrected” me. If they’re using “atheist” to mean nothing more than “someone who doesn’t believe in gods”, rather than “someone who’s confident that there are no gods”, then they are in conflict with the definitions recognized by eminent atheists such as Dawkins and Bertrand Russell. At the very least, there’s ambiguity. I’m asking, why not take advantage of the ambiguity and dispense with the stigmatized word “atheist”? This is not an outrageous proposal. Don’t pretend it is.
You’re a boorish, malicious, thoroughly unpleasant creature, and it’s apparent that you’re reacting so hysterically more out of fear (of the perceived threat to your sole Cause) than anything else.
Now PZ I’m not here to meet your challenge, which is to provide evidence of God. But I’ve been lurking around here for some time now, and paying particular attention to this phenomenon you’ve called the Courtier’s Reply.
As I understand it, the Courtier’s Reply is meant to insult claims from believers of poor scholarmanship from unbelievers. It is at times appropriate. There are other times where such appeals to scholarmanship are most certainly justified, for example when syndicated newspapers like the New York Times run op-eds charging the Bible with claiming the Earth was flat. Now the Bible doesn’t claim that the Earth is flat, (Isaiah 40:22) but someone who didn’t know the Bible might not know this, in which case an appeal to their scholarmanship would be fully justified.
But in all the cases where I’ve actually heard you issue the Courtier’s Reply, it’s been justified in my view.
Frankly J you come off as someone who has too much time on their hands. You have been engaged on every point you’ve tried to make. Yes some have been rude, but many have not. I still fail to see the giant problem you are trying to convey to us.
How much time I have on my hands is my business alone, and is of no relevance here anyway. I think more people have been rude than have not. The “giant problem” I’ve explained quite clearly several times already in this thread.
It doesn’t call it a spheroid either.
It does call it a circle. A circle is not a sphere. A circle (assuming it is a filled circle) is in fact “flat”. Interpret that as you may.
We have a Giant problem? I haven’t seen any out here on the west coast. How big are they? Are there pygmies too?
J I define my atheism as a lack of belief in god(s). That is my definition. It is supported by the etymology of the word though I allow others to use their own.
Do you criticise xians because they have differing theologies? if not, why not? The differences between atheists are absolutely, utterly and completely trivial compared to the differences between xians, yet apparently you have no problems with christian as a term.
And you wonder why people say you are inconsistent. It seems to leak from your pores like RNAse, clear for all with more than half a functioning brain to see. Unless and until I see you decry christians, psychiatrists, golfers, sikhs (who will admit they are not members of an organised religion), cabinet makers and pretty much every group in society who see themselves slightly differently then you have no business criticising atheists. Of whom I am far from convinced you are one, but each his own. Live and let live huh?
That would be an Oblate Spheroid Reverend.
It’s quite obvious J is a troll and/or idiot, I’m not quite sure why you guys feed him.
Ok, you are right, your time is your own. The rest I standby. You consider the problem a problem. You’ve failed to provide any convincing reason that it really is a problem when looked at from a high altitude. I see you’ve ignored the rest of my post.
It does call it a circle. A circle is not a sphere. A circle (assuming it is a filled circle) is in fact “flat”. Interpret that as you may.
I would go so far as to say the use of the word “above” in the referenced Bible verse implies a two-dimensional surface. The word “above” in reference to a sphere is arbitrary to the point of being useless.
To Rev. bigDumbChimp I extend the Courtier’s Reply…
J, your “big problem” is your dissatisfaction with established definitions. “Atheist” is a simple word in construct and meaning. Any scales you apply (i.e 7 out of 10, etc) don’t fit with the definition, and would require new or alternate definitions, not that there’s anything wrong with that. Likewise any expansion to the definition.
However, you really are barking up the wrong tree. For example, if “atheism” is a cosmological perspective (of whatever level of secrecy), what is that perspective? Well gosh, I can’t believe that we all have the same cosmological viewpoints (e.g. the astrologer mentioned above believes that the motion of astronomical bodies coupled with the time and place of your birth, affect your life. My cosmological viewpoint has no such fanciful features.).
So why lump in cosmology with ‘no god belief’? You merely create a certain subset of people, who may or may not have any desire to be associated with one another. It seems like you are searching for a word version of the Theory of Everything. Good luck with that, when our common language here doesn’t even have a word for Schadenfreude.
Otherwise, as pointed out, you exhort us to keep our opinions quiet – by blasting your opinion repeatedly to us all. I assume you see no irony there.
Walton wrote:
And as such, those questions can never be answered.
Only made it to #264 before cracking – J, fuck off. Yes, I say that knowing I have no control over you and that this is not my blog, but it pleases me to say it, and to repeat it, fuck off. Go annoy the goldfish by making faces at them while repeating the word cosmological over and over and over.
I am fair by the way, feel free to tell me fuck off. No, I am not a kid or any other insult you wish to make, just stick to the basic insults that assume nothing about me as I did with you above. Fuck off is both gender neutral and implies nothing about your age, race, interest or intelligence. It merely references that you are annoying almost beyond belief.
Ciao (in both a cosmological and cosmopolitan sense) y’all,
J:
See, here you’re making a social-scientific argument. What evidence do you have, from studies of past movements, that another term would be strategically effective in the short- or long-term? You haven’t offered any. You harped about “Brights” for a long time on the earlier thread, and only after literally (I believe) hundreds of comments did you acknowledge that it might not be a good idea after all. Now you return, replacing that tired idea with…nothing.
Even if you had a clever new term, you would have to provide some evidence that it would prove strategically superior. And even if you did so, and even if I were fully convinced that you shared my broader goals, I would still likely not be convinced to make a switch at this point. I am an atheist. I’m stickin’ with it. (I’m also an anarchist. Despite that word’s negative connotations for many, I prefer to try to change that and enlighten them rather than seek for some weasel word to replace it.)
You arguments about atheism’s problems are also unsupported. I linked here recently to an interview with Alan Sokal. Asked if he is an atheist, he states plainly that he is. Are you suggesting that he has now irrevocably alienated himself from the thousands of cosmological deists that are his physicist and cosmologist colleagues? This horde of cosmological deists running screaming from the mere suggestion of atheism exists only in your imagination.
You’ve also made a number of assumptions about people here based on no evidence whatsoever. You have no idea whether people here are interested in or have studied cosmology. Stop saying you’re “quite certain” about things that you can’t possibly substantiate. And stop using words like “savages” and “savagery.” Your imperialism is showing.
In short: Your concern is noted. And tedious.
mezzobuff: Hmmmm… Something like evidentiarism, but less unwieldy (or more wieldy, as the case may be :)).
@#334 J —
I’m not very familiar with the works of Dawkins (I know, I’m a bad atheist cultist…), but you’re being disingenuous wrt Russel. He wrote:
(Emphasis mine.)
This blog is directed at the general public — the man in the information superhighway, if you will. So by Russel’s reckoning, it seems perfectly reasonable that PZ and the commenters here would use the popular rather than the philosophical version of “atheism” (which can be further qualified as “strong” or “weak”).
In my #349, “Russel” should be “Russell.”
Not sure how that applies to me taking the words of the bible at face value.
mezzobuff, I almost forgot – how about “reality” as an antonym of faith?
It becomes outrageous at the point where “Bright” is the only alternative you’re proposing.
I think this has been brought up before, but you’re still missing the point. Any alternative, freshly-coined word that could reasonably substitute for the term Atheist will be equally reviled by the god-botherers, just as soon as as they see what it means. So what’s the point of seeking an alternative? Is the idea to just bamboozle people in the short interval before they catch on?
At least when I refer to myself as an Atheist, most people have a clear idea of what that means, in the most general sense of the word. Whether they like what it means or not, isn’t my problem. Most people I’d ever discuss this with in my own social life, aren’t going to care about subtle differences in academic flavors of Atheism. It’s the central point of “no evidence = no gods” that’s always the sticking point.
And why continue to drag in cosmology? Does your personal preference (referenced in other posts here) for a multiverse cosmology, mean that you want to leave some wiggle room for a Designer of some type? Even if it isn’t “God like”? Just curious…
Yes, and let’s ignore the fact that all of those dropped names probably conceive of God in mutually exclusive, contradictory ways.
A final message before I withdraw from this thread, since it’s become far too complicated (with several different conversations going on at once) and doesn’t seem to be going anywhere.
To some degree, I’ve perhaps been playing devil’s advocate. As I’ve stated elsewhere, I’m no longer a practising Christian and have been essentially inactive for a couple of years. I would at one stage have regarded myself as an agnostic. I do, desperately, want and need to believe in a God, but that’s a long, long way from being a persuasive, rational argument. I was just throwing in all the arguments I know for the existence of God – from a rational, open-minded theistic perspective, not a fundamentalist one – in order to engage in rational debate.
I do think we’re all essentially in agreement as far as reason, logic and fact can take us. Most people on this thread are very clearly of a high intellectual calibre, and I think we all agree both that it is possible that God may exist, and that there is no positive evidence that God exists. What we disagree on is the degree of likelihood, and whether there’s any actual reason to believe in a deity in the absence of any outright evidence for doing so. I would be the first to acknowledge that there are apparent holes, inconsistencies and bizarre passages in the Biblical account (not to mention incredible cruelty; see Numbers 31 or the entire book of Joshua for an example), and that atheist and agnostic viewpoints are certainly rationally sustainable, even compelling.
I’m going to leave this thread now – though I’ll probably continue commenting on those other threads which concern conservative politics, my personal area of passionate interest. I hope I haven’t annoyed or offended anyone, or given the impression that I’m idiotic or deluded. I am a layman as regards the sciences, philosophy, cosmology and archaeology, and my understanding of these fields is therefore necessarily limited; but I do try to engage with scholarship and to think rationally, and I do try to others’ arguments and consider new ideas. Thanks to everyone who has engaged with my arguments constructively and given me something to think about.
kcrady wrote:
You pretty much nailed it, kcrady.
First off: I mangled my quote tags in my last comment. Kcrady wrote all those paragraphs, not just the first one.
Saint Gasoline wrote:
One of the people he name-drops, Karen Armstrong, isn’t a theologian at all. She’s an atheist who writes about religion. She does think that religion is important to humanity, but she doesn’t actually believe that a god exists.
Walton: . Most people on this thread are very clearly of a high intellectual calibre, and I think we all agree both that it is possible that God may exist, and that there is no positive evidence that God exists
That a god may exist, or that Yahweh exists? Because if the point is that a god may exist, that is saying very little to nothing — a god is so underdefined that it can mean anything. Here’s the underlying problem of sophisticated belief – it verges on sophistry, a moving goal-post that can be satisfied by anything.
Is this god good? Is this god powerful? Is this god sentient? Is this god all-knowing? Is this god the creator, or another creation? Is this god intelligent? Without specific answers to those questions and more, there is no agreement other than that the word exists, and out of the multiplicity of meanings there may be one meaning which is not incompatible with the universe in some context. That’s not even weak theism – that is nothing at all.
Walton: Thanks for a constructive dialog. It’s seldom that issues are open to discussion on both sides of the table (pro- & con-god).
I hope that the discussions here have helped you along the path to personal enlightenment.
Come back and join in again.
@ Rev. bigDumbChimp
re: Comment #351
My comment #344 doesn’t refer to you “taking Isaiah 40:22 at face value.” Ironically, my original comment #335 was about instances when the Courtier’s Reply might be appropriate, and my comment #344 to you referred to the apparent lack of scholarmanship in your comment #337 to me, in which case the Courtier’s is in fact appropriate..
Ok. My misunderstanding.
Oh, well done!
Bonus points for use of the word pettifogging.
@ Rev. BigDumbChimp
re: comment #361
No worries friend. Skeptics are on to something when they take issue with the Bible’s translations, and I guess I could leave the basis for my extending of the Courtier’s to you.
The original Hebrew word, confirmed by the copy of Isaiah found at Qumran, is khug and denotes sphericity. People who claim flat Earth ideas are supported in the Bible are wrong, and those who argue the “circle = flat” approach show a lack of scholarmanship that instantly pegs their arguments as immature in the eyes of a real theologian.
On a side note, I agree with your concern about the winning teams in baseball and that fact’s implication’s for the end of ages.
Besides, who am I to comment on scholarship when I refer to it repeatedly as ‘scholarmanship’ which is not a word?
Bonus points for use of the word pettifogging.
CL: re ‘scholarmanship’
I though you were using some arcane hip hop reference that I was too stupid to parse! Thanks for clearing that up!
Thanks for the clarification. I was actually just trying to find something that held up that point you just made above assuming that I was missing something.
And I was. I’m often wrong (ask Mrs. BigDumbChimp), but typical try to verify before I spout off. I had read a number of different takes on this passage but all them ignored the original language and any translation issues.
Having made it up to the current finish, #362, I would like to make one other comment about something the nameless one mentioned. NO one speaks for me about my beliefs, my atheism, not Dawkins, not PZ, no one. Do not reference an authority and say anything about “mainstream atheism”, it is a null concept to me. I speak for me, no leader, no god, no scientist, no cosmologist, no apologist. I bend knee to no person, no king, no gawd. I face the world without needing intercession from any authority.
Ciao, y’all
Ref. Comment #75: “Why was there a “holy of holies,” an inner room that no one could enter but the priests? That was where The God Lived. In the Bible we perceive it as a spiritual thing, “the presence of God.” But what a con! What a foolproof con!”
A con that was backed up with brute force. These guys didn’t feel the need to justify their existance with arcane or obsurantist arguments like modern theologians do. The choice in ancient Israel was simple. Worship Yahweh and obey the priests, or die. I can’t help thinking that ‘theology’ was so much easier in those good old days.
Deuteronomy 17:12- “The man who acts presumptuously, by not obeying the priest who stands to minister there before the LORD your God, or the judge, that man shall die; so you shall purge the evil from Israel.
Indeed. We are doomed.
Sorry, Comment #370 should have read: ‘Obscurantist’ arguments.
Regarding “the circle of the earth in Isaiah,
This source disagrees:
@ Rev.BigDumbChimp
re: comment #368
Thank you. I’m being totally serious. I’ve been on blogs for a while now, and this might actually be the first instance of genuine humility I’ve come across. In you, friend, I see not the typical ego that interferes with learning, and I’m not tryin’ to be no pompous ass, either.
In my mind, that coolness alone lends more validity to any belief of yours than any sophisticated argument ever could, and may myself and anyone else ever so persuaded of their being right in any controversy learn such lessons of moderation.
Then again, you said you’ve seen the Dead over 100 times and stayed up 4 sleepless nights in N.O. too, so I should’ve known you were real.
@ tony (not a vegan)
re: comment #367
LOL LOL LOL I never even heard of dood… :) Good call..
The dualistic notion of a cosmic battle between a ‘good god’ (Yahweh) and an ‘anti-god’ (Satan) was borrowed from Persian theology (Ahura Mazda vs Ahriman) and elaborated upon in the inter-testamental Hebrew literature such as the ‘Book of Enoch’, and ‘The Testaments of the Twelve Patriachs’
Most Christians have never even heard of these writings, because they are simply not told about them from the pulpit, and because they are mostly too lazy, or apathetic to research the origins and history of their own religion.
cl, Rev. BigDumbChimp,
I’m not sure about khug, as I found this, which states the opposite of what cl wrote:
The Hebrew word used here is khug. That it means circle and not sphere is indisputable. Strong’s Concordance (no. 2328 & 2329), Holladay’s A Concise Hebrew and Aramaic Lexicon of the Old Testament (p97) and Brown Driver-Briggs Hebrew and English Lexicon (p295) gives the verbal form of the word as “to draw a circle”….Furthermore there is a word in Hebrew that means sphere: dur. If the author of Isaiah 40 had had this in mind he would surely had used this word instead of khug. Earlier on in Isaiah we see this word being used to describe a ball.
http://www.geocities.com/paulntobin/astronomy.html
…too lazy, or apathetic to research the origins and history of their own religion.
I’m not sure “apathetic” covers it, as that would imply a passivity to the matter. Most Christians, and I imagine most theists, actively discourage such inquiry. All it does is make painfully clear that supposedly holy texts are fully human documents with knowable histories, full of what is called in polite circles ‘made up shit.’
A funny bit of anecdotal information I just read: Christian missionaries spearheaded the teaching of English in India, actually against the wishes of Imperial and East Indies administrators, because they were sure literacy and exposure to Western “rationality” would inevitably lead to mass conversions to their (perforce rational) religion.
Didn’t really work out so well, though a lot of people took up English. Showing once again that what kind of nonsense you’re willing to accept is all a matter of cultural baggage.
Etha@#349
Either J is pretending to be familiar with Dawkins and Russell when s/he is not, or s/he is deliberately misrepresenting Dawkins and Russell.
I am familiar with Dawkins’s writings and interviews, and his position is the same as Russell’s. Dawkins goes to great lengths to clarify that he is “technically agnostic” but an atheist for all intents and purposes. Dawkins goes so far, on occasion, as to define a 7-point scale with “1” as “certain knowledge that God exists” and “7” as “certain knowledge that God does not exist”, placing himself as a “6”. When pushed in an interview, he has on occasion gone to “6.9” with a wry smile :)
For a clear exposition of Richard’s position “straight from the horse’s mouth”: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D9fazrHSpHQ (from ~3:10 to ~6:05)
@ CJO re: comment #373
@ black wolf re: comment #377
Great observations, and my mistake of sloppy writing. You could very reasonably charge me with making the same mistake I just raised against Rev.BigDumbChimp!
As you note, even my argument that khug (chuwg) denotes sphericity is poorly founded. Before I saw black wolf’s comment I checked Strong’s and 2329 simply states ‘circle.’ Concerning its use in Isaiah 40:22, I think the implication that chuwg definitely implies a round Earth is just as unfounded as the implication that chuwg definitely implies a flat Earth. Further complicating is that whether we are looking at a two-dimensional circle or a 3-dimensional sphere, both take on the literal appearance of a circle, right?
All this making any definitive claim based on Isaiah 40:22 speculative at best, which in a roundabout way was my original point. I think we can agree that all approximations concerning Earth’s shape in scripture are conveniently packaged in dreams, visions and arguably metaphorical language, which only complicates things. Anyone?
I’m familiar with Alward’s claims, and I’m glad you mention them because they’re among the stronger counter arguments to the argument that the Bible does not claim the Earth is flat. Arguing as I did above that the Bible does not definitively claim Earth is flat is not the same thing as arguing the Bible definitively claims Earth is round, a claim I did not mean to imply if I did. Like most things in the Bible purported to prove this or that, these seem ever-so-cleverly-worded that our pre-conceived notions form our opinions for us.
Just for fun…
1) The edge of a sphere or circle is its crust; 2) The clay Alward shows sure looks like a continental land mass to me; 3) Alward forces a literal interpretation of Matthew 4:1-12 when the context is clearly of a vision; 4) As for the vision in Daniel, maybe the time frame of the vision corresponded to pangea in which one tall tree could theoretically be viewed from all the ends of the Earth? (Daniel wrote during the reign of Nebuchadnezzar, when pangea had already long dispersed; his vision itself could have occurred at any point in space-time)
I don’t know for sure, myself, and all of this just goes to show the lesson of moderation to those ever so persuaded of their being right in any controversy.
In the vein of Rev.BigDumbChimp, I apologize if I misled anybody. Hopefully this post clears things up.
Incidentally, all this banter about sphere-vs-circle obscures the original mysteriousness of the verse anyway: How is it that, during a time before science, Eratosthenes and the Wright Brothers, the Bible writers got the correct impression that Earth was circular and possibly spherical? From looking at the sun and moon?
cl (#380) inquired,
Except that the impression was wrong, and they never referenced it as spherical, even possibly.
This whole exercise to squeeze what little juice of legitimacy you can out of the Bible is starting to become desperate.
cl:
It’s poetry, dammit! It doesn’t make a lick of sense otherwise. You sound like you’re trying to argue the shape of Satan’s goatee from Milton. Whether the Hebrews used chug or dug for the shape of the earth was solely determined by how it fit into the sentence, passage, and book by poetic constraints — sound, meter, rhythm, repetition and imagery.
That’s why so much of the “scholarly” material is nonsense. The whole of the Bible (old testament and new) is poetry (even the boring legalistic parts). That’s how goat-herders and wandering cleric talked and thought. All argument about what they “really meant” is anachronistic. If it sounded good, it went in. End of Story.
Gawds ballocks! How long is he going to go on? If you wear your cosmology as a crupper it will chafe in the proper place.
Frog: it’s poetry, dammit!
For a moment there I thought you were channelling my old english teacher! LOL
But I have to agree — much of the bible makes less sense than Shakespeare – and it’s fairly clear that both were written with memorability in mind: Shakespeare so his actors could recite the lines, and ancient priests and shamen because the verses were, indeed, recited (for comparison, listen to the poetic lyricism of navaho myth, or norse eddas, or the vedas…)
There once was a God from Nantuket….
@ PZ:
“God always gets a pass from the people who already believe.”
On the contrary, the Bible is filled with people who doubted and demanded evidence. Moses, David, Thomas, Gideon and numerous others struggled in this area. Some of the Psalms address this also.
@ Walton, #49:
“Indeed, this argument also seeks to address many of the other arguments brought up above; if God were to provide us with any empirical, scientific proof of his existence, the need for faith would be removed.”
I think, to some extent, there is a good reason why faith is so central. Consider Moses for example, who apparently struggled often with the need for “evidence”. In Exodus 33:19-20, for instance, he was not allowed to see God “face to face”…but there was a very good reason for it. That said, there are numerous examples throughout the Bible and even today of where God readily provides “evidence” in support of one’s faith, especially if the request is in sincerity.
“Faith consists in believing in something without any solid evidence for it. If there is solid evidence, it ceases to be a leap of faith and becomes mere rational conjecture based on observable evidence.”
Transformed lives do not suffice as evidence?
buckyball: Transformed lives do not suffice as evidence?
No. Unless that evidence is ‘visible’ and obvious to a third party.
Being ‘saved’ or ‘born again’ is essentially indistinguishable from other forms of self delusion (I’m sure Raven could point up a number of case studies).
Unless you have incontrovertible (i.e. not fakable, not stage magic) evidence of god’s intervention, then all you have is hearsay – and we don’t even allow that in a court of law!
..and what answer does The Bible say they found? Oh! There is a God!
Who saw that plot twist coming?
Sure, evidence that their lives were transformed.
Behavioral psychology helps explain anything after that.
Or were you trying to suggest something else?
Which is only evidence of using the bible to prove the bible accurate.
Do tell, please!
even today of where God readily provides “evidence” in support of one’s faith, especially if the request is in sincerity
I think he’s talking about Hagee’s claim that Katrina was sent to punish the ungodly…
Not exactly evidence of a loving, forgiving god, though.
@ Ryan
re: comment #381
In saying the impression of the Bible writers was wrong, are you claiming the Earth is not circular? Or that the most basic definition of chuwg in Hebrew does not denote a circle? Because by every line of reasoning I can see, someone who uses the phrase ‘circle of the Earth’ as the writer of Isaiah did is speaking something scientifically acceptable.
@ frog
re: comment #382
That’s exactly the point I’m arguing, and if you’re debating me, it’s strawman argumentation. To repeat the thesis of comment #380, “All this making any definitive claim based on Isaiah 40:22 speculative at best, which in a roundabout way was my original point. I think we can agree that all approximations concerning Earth’s shape in scripture are conveniently packaged in dreams, visions and arguably metaphorical language, which only complicates things.” (emph. mine)
Make sense?
Who peed in a big plastic bucket…
Nibien:
We’re fattening him up for the sacrifice this weekend.
@ BigDumbChimp
re: comment #390
Your concern over people “using the bible to prove the bible accurate” is shared.
Underverse writes
I think the irony is that underverse has missed the irony in what he or she writes. Surely it is vanity that the theist possesses in asserting the privilege of not being held to the same standard of argument as the empirical rationalist? Such vanity is part of the point of The Courtier’s Reply.
I never understand people using this obviously circular argument. Yet we see it again and again.
@#399 Rev. BigDumbChimp —
What I think is perhaps funniest about this circular argument is that even if you look at the Bible completely detached from empirical evidence, it really doesn’t do a very good job “proving” itself, considering how very self-contradictory and cobbled together it is.
“…Transformed lives do not suffice as evidence?”
No, please see Hitchens for the answer to this.
We now know that Mother Teresa went to her grave feeling that nothing was there (speaking in terms of her faith in a god). Transformed lives are not an immediate or consistent form of validation, nor do they serve as hard proof. Why? Because people come and go out of faith all the time. Ever heard of born-again Christians? Converts? Just because religions have a few nice things, like imploring people to eat healthy, to not drink alcohol, whatever, this does not mean that its entirety is then validated because the practitioner followed the rules. And on this point, these rules such as refraining from alcohol, not drinking tea or coffee in the case of Mormons, not eating pork…it’s all for mostly meaningless, unprovable, nonsensical reasons. How is eating pork REALLY going to hurt you? Terrorists follow these little rules really well, and in fact punish or kill according to the level of adherence to them. Are we to think their lives were changed for the better?
Religion has ruined lives too; you cannot take the good without the bad. A great many people (myself and my siblings being but four examples) are indoctrinated into religion without consent. We are put in private schools and must pass religious tests. We must attend church against our will or without consent. How can this be considered as transforming lives, if one was never given the chance to live without the religion first? How would they ever know what their life would’ve been like otherwise?
And this doesn’t take into account the fact that some people convert to one or the other’s religion when they marry. Or that some people are frankly brainwashed into one religion or another when someone walks up to their door one day.
The “transformed lives” argument is a non-starter.
Now now Etha, don’t let observation and reason get in your way of a good logical fallacy.
You have a strange definition of scientific acceptability, because to me, the ‘scientific’ part of what you’re addressing requires well-defined terms (one side-product of good research).
The limits of language were not so great for the writers of Isaiah to say what they meant, and not require tortured apologetic interpretations.
Jus’ sayin’
Not to mention that believing in something that sounds nice may have some positive effect. That however has exactly zero bearing on the truth of said belief.
Placebo effect.
Does the walrus still want it back after that?
@cl #380
I always thought that (if one was to take it literally) whoever wrote the passage had once stood on at the tallest point in his area and saw that the earth around him appeared as a circle as far as he could see (if he turned in a circle that is). That would explain the imagery of the heavens spreading as a tent over the circle of the earth. It is possible and even probable that people back then looked at the spherical shape of the sun and moon and extended that shape to the earth, but I don’t think that would fit in with this particular passage, since the sun and moon are a part of the heaven “tent.”
That said, I think that this passage was intended to be read poetically and not as the equivalent of a science text and that those who point to it as such are reaching as well as misinterpreting the original Hebrew.
are you claiming the Earth is not circular?
well, if they aren’t I am.
last I checked, it was essentially spherical, not a circle.
again:
It is possible and even probable that people back then looked at the spherical shape of the sun and moon
I disagree that to the naked eye, those bodies would have looked spherical.
circular, like flat discs, yes.
spherical?
no.
not as the equivalent of a science text and that those who point to it as such are reaching as well as misinterpreting the original Hebrew.
most vehemently agree. In fact, I have Jewish friends who themselves would not interpret it in such a fashion.
for whatever that’s worth.
@ Tony (not a vegan) #387:
“Unless you have incontrovertible (i.e. not fakable, not stage magic) evidence of god’s intervention, then all you have is hearsay – and we don’t even allow that in a court of law!”
http://www.unshackled.org?
buckyball @409, re: unshackled.
I said ‘proof’ not ‘hearsay’
Personal revelation is not proof. it. is. self-delusion.
It may manifest sufficiently to influence other god-botherers in a positive manner – but it is not proof of god.
http://www.unshackled.org?
LOL
yeah, but I prefer stories of dragons to brighten my day.
surely you’re joking.
ps. per my moniker…. I need meaty proof, not this lame-ass stuff you’re peddlin’
@ tony (not a vegan) #392:
“I think he’s talking about Hagee’s claim that Katrina was sent to punish the ungodly…
Not exactly evidence of a loving, forgiving god, though.”
That’s Hagee’s claim, not mine. Although it’s technically possible, per Amos 4:7. Of course in Luke 13:4, a tower collapses…but it isn’t due to anyone’s “sin”. Basically, it’s faulty theology to equate every national disaster with ungodliness.
@ Blue Independent, #401:
“How is eating pork REALLY going to hurt you?”
There was a reason for it in the Old Testament; but per the New Testament, this isn’t an issue anymore.
“We must attend church against our will or without consent.”
That’s not what I was referring to. I was referring to people who willingly are pursuing God as described in the Bible…not being indoctrinated against their will.
I need meaty proof, not this lame-ass stuff you’re peddlin’
On the face of it, asking for evidence is a ridiculous request, because if it ever existed to the slightest extent, none of us would be here.
the best the apologists will ever come up with are circular arguments, or arguments in the form of ad populum.
which is why most experienced theologians consider theology itself to be a dead-end endeavor.
Most apologists have simply intentionally blinded themselves to this.
@#409 buckyball —
No.
Xianity has great appeal to many going through difficult times, depression, etc, but that’s no evidence of divine intervention.
Focusing on the depression aspect (because I have experience with that), here is how it may work, sans divine intervention.
1) Person is depressed and demoralized; he views himself as a failure and unlovable (both to himself and to others).
2) Enter Xianity. Through sin doctrine, it confirms, in this person’s mind, the first of these beliefs giving it subjective credibility; it then tells him that he is still lovable — but only through the grace of God. This begins to foster a dependence on the religion’s claim:
3) Everything is now viewed through Christ-goggles. When the person begins to feel better (most depression is episodic), it is because of the love and grace of God; indeed, sometimes this imagined love may play some role, but it is the role of a placebo. And when the depression, feelings of worthlessness, etc return, the person is struggling with his sinful nature.
4) Far from getting at the root cause of the person’s difficulties — their irrational feelings of self-loathing — Xianity continually reinforces them with its own irrational claims, and promotes itself as the only cure. This allows this system of thought to continue indefinitely, or until some outside intervention is somehow chanced upon.
I seriously think that, short of a loaded gun, Xianity may be the worst thing to offer someone struggling with depression or similar issues.
“You’re not waking up with the right person.”
Feh.
I was referring to people who willingly are pursuing God as described in the Bible…not being indoctrinated against their will.
that appears to be arguing from exceptionalism, considering how commonly religion travels within family and local peer groups.
I think I just linked to a relevant paper just a little while ago on a different thread.
ah yes:
http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/316/5827/996
you could, of course, look at it from a different angle.
Instead of “adult resistance to science” you could just as well substitute:
adult adherence to religious beliefs.
and lose little meaning when applied to this country.
Xianity has great appeal to many going through difficult times, depression, etc, but that’s no evidence of divine intervention.
heh, it might be more related to “12 step” intervention.
buckyball: Although it’s technically possible
sorry, but WTF?
As Ichthyic said above to my snark… there is no proof, and your reasoning is only ever circular.
Can we get some ‘real’ Xians in here — some with at least half a brain?
…
Oh? Those *were* the ones with brains?
…
That explains a lot! never mind.
Walton,
When you reach the point in a logical discussion where you get stuck and can only go in circles, it’s because one or more of your assumptions is wrong.
REy Fox: “You’re not waking up with the right person.”
This should, of course, have said You’re not waking up with the right PEOPLE given that we’re all godless sexually adventurous and licentious libertines
You’re not waking up with the right PEOPLE
what’s with all this “waking up in the morning” stuff, anyway?
wait, you mean you guys don’t sleep until noon?
wow.
you must have “real” jobs.
;)
How exactly do theologians spend their time? What kind of research do they perform, how do they perform said research, and what are its implications? It challenges the imagination to speculate how one can devote an entire science to something with at most scarcely any evidence for its very existence.
@ Ryan
re: comment #403
“The limits of language were not so great for the writers of Isaiah to say what they meant, and not require tortured apologetic interpretations.”
I agree.
And I stick to my claim that someone who uses the phrase ‘circle of the Earth’ as the writer of Isaiah did is speaking something scientifically acceptable. There was no empirical evidence of their time indicating any circular aspect to Earth’s existence, other than by inference from the moon or sun, which I already mentioned.
What kind of research do they perform, how do they perform said research, and what are its implications?
based on my experience, there are essentially two types of theologians:
those that endlessly argue about the meanings of scripture, and those that spend time actually looking into the history and archeology that supposedly support the veracity of scripture.
If you want to see a great example of the latter, suggest you check out Hector Avalos:
http://www.philrs.iastate.edu/avalos.shtml
for a quick study, try checking out his talks on biblical archeology:
part 1: http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=2569440864215926514
part 2:
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-2260956154287964220&q=&hl=en
the former (theologians that debate meaning) are entirely worthless in modern times, so I won’t bother giving links.
@ Pimientita
re: comment #406
I agree with your comment. To repeat the thesis of comment #380, “All this making any definitive claim based on Isaiah 40:22 speculative at best, which in a roundabout way was my original point. I think we can agree that all approximations concerning Earth’s shape in scripture are conveniently packaged in dreams, visions and arguably metaphorical language, which only complicates things.
Make sense?
Etha Williams,
I seriously agree with you. When you take all your cares and “give them to Jesus”, you take all that within you that should have been examined closely in the first place (instead of running away from it), and ensure that it never gets examined!
The end result is a virtual brain death–for at least part of the brain. One’s intelligence can’t function correctly if there is anything distorting perception. And refusal to allow the truth to exist, (the truth of ugliness, fear, depression, anxiety, greed, etc.) prevents one’s perception from operating correctly and, therefore, one’s intelligence from working on the problem.
We see it all the time in the believers who come in here to argue. Their critical thinking skills have been damaged, cut off at the knees. You can’t be fully functional if you won’t let reality exist as it is. They can’t even let the truth of “not knowing” exist. And this is the goal of religion! (You also see this bias of perception in Christian art e.g. Christian music. The incessant focus on “JOY” becomes cloying in the extreme. It’s not natural. It’s not real. It’s not honest)
People who attach themselves to religion don’t realize that “the truth” is not a goal to be achieved. It’s not a product of thought. It’s whatever reality happens to be–and that includes one’s own confusion. All of reality needs to be perceived with “choice-less” awareness. Only then does the intelligence function fully.
There once was a god from Nantucket,
When faced with a rule he would buck it,
He cut up his dad,
His wife got quite mad,
Whatever he saw he would say “Hi, I’m Zeus. Want to see my lightning bolt?”
@ RamblinDude
re: comment #428
You say, “The incessant focus on “JOY” becomes cloying in the extreme. It’s not natural. It’s not real. It’s not honest.”
SPOT-ON
Bloody hell. The points I was making in my head when I first started reading through this monster list of posts have almost been forgotten – though it’s made for some good reading.
Anyway, what I was going to say was that I agree that the courtier’s reply is just a lot of smoke and mirrors from the apologists. I remember hearing a friend relate to me that a religiously minded person she knew had dismissed TGD for just that reason – and at the time I didn’t know how to respond.
Now I do.
I don’t pretend to understand apologists – though, to an extent, I do admire the amount of effort they put into twisting things to make them acceptable. But it doesn’t change the fact that the god of the bible is startlingly inconsistent. I’m no bible scholar, but from what I do know of it indicates he’s changed a lot – which makes me wonder how anyone can accept that it’s the same god the whole way through. My few cobbled-together examples:
One minute he’s creating the universe and then he’s worried about ‘his’ people whoring themselves off to other gods. What other gods? Where did they come from? He created the universe; surely if there are other gods he had to have created them. After this minor lapse in consistency he goes back to being the one and only.
He’s supposed to be omniscient and omnicognisant – which seems to mean he knows everything, including what’s yet to happen. But if that’s the case, how is it that he gets surprised or disappointed by what people do? He knows what’s going to happen. Later on he knows stuff – or, at least, Jesus does; he’s fully aware that Judas is going to betray him.
Back in the good ol’ days he did all sorts of things to prove he exists, but nowadays he’s against the idea of any sort of proof (well, apart from NDEs – though they’ve only managed to convince one person, an admittedly lackluster individual whose name begins with ‘K’) of his existence.
Once, he was all about war and ethnic cleansing; now he’s all about love and peace and integration?
Seems to me that god has changed a great deal. But how is that possible? He’s meant to be perfect. To my understanding a perfect being cannot change. He can’t get perfecter, can he?
To me Xianity’s greatest mistake was that they didn’t put together a decent enough team of editors when they compiled the bible. A good meta analysis would have come back with a report full of criticisms like ‘gross inconsistency’ and ‘problematic contradictions’ – and probably recommended they start again from the beginning. Literally. ‘Please,’ says the editor, ‘just read over Genesis and make up your mind – because it can’t be both.’
It’d certainly make an apologist’s job a lot easier.
Comment #431: “To me Xianity’s greatest mistake was that they didn’t put together a decent enough team of editors when they compiled the bible…It’d certainly make an apologist’s job a lot easier.”
But then what would all the theologians do?
‘(This is exactly the role of the “higher power” in 12 steps groups–and it works).’
AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAhahahahahhaa….oh,my.
‘(This is exactly the role of the “higher power” in 12 steps groups–and it works).’
after you posted that bit, I decided to go through underverse’s responses in the comments.
…and quickly realized he didn’t have an argument at all, other than to say:
“I think these guys have a more complex argument than PZ gives them credit for.”
…without even bothering to distill why.
Moreover, when called on his mistakes (like the one you are laughing at), he simply puts them off as “alliterative examples”. what a bunch of chickenshit. What he really meant to say was: “well, all of my specific examples might be functionally incorrect, but they still prove my point”.
You were right to laugh.
frankly, I can’t envision ever bothering to read his comments ever again.
#432 wrote:
Maybe they’d all have become sociologists or HR managers instead – they all do pretty much the same thing as far as I can tell: non-stop semantic and/or contextual redefining – which is fine; I’m all for that sort of thing if it works for you. It’s only when it affects me that I get irritated.
If all religious types were the sort of people capable of the courtier’s reply – by which i mean they spend hours in contemplation of their beliefs in an attempt to actually understand them, rather than just blindly follow – then Dawkins et al wouldn’t need to write books in the first place. But most of them aren’t; unfortunately, the vast majority are the believers in the ‘unsophisticated’ version of their religion – and they’re the idiots trying to make their personal beliefs public policy.
cl @#425:
At the risk of furthering your — ahem — dubious claim, this part is bullshit. The shape of the Earth can be seen in the shadow it casts on the Moon during a lunar eclipse. We know that Aristotle had figured it out, and it is reasonable to speculate that others could have done so earlier without leaving records. Even if nobody had, though, the empirical evidence was still available at Isaiah’s time.
Now, since I’ve done you a favour, I expect one in return. Please stop referring to the Earth as circular or round. A circle is a two-dimensional figure, and ’round’ is too vague to know if you’re referring to a 2-D or a 3-D object. The Earth is spherical (or more accurately an oblate spheroid). The shadow of the Earth is circular, but as the link explains, Aristotle realized that that meant the Earth was spherical. “The circle of the Earth” cannot reasonably be argued to imply that the speaker thinks the Earth is spherical without him/her explicitly referring to the shadow it casts.
I just wanted to say thank you to everyone who posted on this thread. This is one of the most thought provoking, deep, intelligent blog threads I have ever seen and I am genuinely sad to have reached the end of it.
Gee, ya dash off to work for a few hours and look what happens!
True Bob: “reality” is the first thing my Dad came up with!
Sc, I like ‘evidentiarism’… then again, that sounds an awful lot like… science!
Thanks for the input… I have a feeling that my antonym search will continue over a few nights of drinking out here by the bay…
J said: “That’s because they haven’t fucking “corrected” me. If they’re using “atheist” to mean nothing more than “someone who doesn’t believe in gods”, rather than “someone who’s confident that there are no gods”, then they are in conflict with the definitions recognized by eminent atheists such as Dawkins and Bertrand Russell.”
That still doesn’t make atheism a “cosmological question,” you insufferable prick. Yes, if one believes that no supernatural god exists, even “confidently so,” that means one doesn’t believe the cosmos has a supernatural creator. However, if one believes that no supernatural god exists, that also means that life has no supernatural creator. Does that also make atheism a “biological question?” No, you dessicated turd.
Atheism is about a metaphysical question, and any further attempts by you to call it a cosmological question, after being corrected, will be considered a sign of mental illness.
You have been corrected. Now act like it.
Jeffrey D said
At the risk of sounding like a member of the cult of JeffreyD :-D your post articulates my position exactly, well said sir.
@ bPer
re: comment #436
You didn’t do me a favor. I noted observations of the moon and sun in my original statement, and I know the difference between a circle and a sphere. My argument was that from the vantage point of an observer in space, that Earth appears circular is a legitimate observation, even though Earth is in fact spherical.
All spheres are by default three-dimensional circles. Agree or disagree?
Coment #406: “There once was a God from Nantucket…. Who peed in a big plastic bucket…
Does the walrus still want it back after that?”
Looks more like a female elephant seal to me.
http://ihasabucket.com/
Re: Does the bible state the earth is flat?
Luke 4:5 KJV
And the devil, taking him up into an high mountain, shewed unto him all the kingdoms of the world in a moment of time.
Mathew 4:8 KJV
Again, the devil taketh him up into an exceeding high mountain, and sheweth him all the kingdoms of the world, and the glory of them;
Suggests to me that the the entire earth is visible from a single (exceeding high) location – a neat trick unless the earth is transparent.
Ref. Comment #442:
On second thoughts, it looks more like an adolescent male elephant seal.
http://ihasabucket.com/
Re: Does the bible state the earth is flat?
It appears that the Hebrews adopted the popular Babylonian cosmology of the day, which pictured a 3 story universe with the Earth as a flat disk, surrounded by the waters of chaos. They absolutely did not view the Earth as being a globe. (sorry, an oblate spheroid)
For a good discussion of the subject, take a look here: http://www.aarweb.org/syllabus/syllabi/g/gier/306/commoncosmos.htm
Apologists and theologians have a merry old time trying to retro-fit what we now know about how the cosmos really works, with these obviously mistaken ancient texts. They have done so with less than ‘stellar success’ in my opinion. (sorry about the pun)
Behold the wisdom of the ancients.
Ps.104 [2] who coverest thyself with light as with a garment, who hast stretched out the heavens like a tent,
Psalm 19:[4] In them he has set a tent for the sun,
[5] which comes forth like a bridegroom leaving his chamber,
and like a strong man runs its course with joy.
Isa.40
[22] It is he who sits above the circle of the earth,
and its inhabitants are like grasshoppers;
who stretches out the heavens like a curtain,
and spreads them like a tent to dwell in;
The Hebrew the word translated as ‘firmament’ means something which has been ‘beaten out’, like a metal bowl, or a shield.
Of course, as demonstrated above, they were also fond of using the tent analogy.
One-dimensional. A disk is two-dimensional.
No, they’re two-dimensional.
</pedant>
MartinM:
No: both circles and disks are two-dimensional. Straight lines are one dimensional.
Yes, if one believes that no supernatural god exists, even “confidently so,” that means one doesn’t believe the cosmos has a supernatural creator. However, if one believes that no supernatural god exists, that also means that life has no supernatural creator. Does that also make atheism a “biological question?” No, you dessicated turd.
That’s a strawman position. No person with a modicum of scientific knowledge thinks life has a supernatural creator. Obviously atheism isn’t equivalent to accepting evolution as fact. Atheism is commonly regarded the confident belief that there was no creator of the Universe.
Agnostics don’t believe in gods either, and yet few people think they’re the same as atheists. If you want to redefine atheim so that it encompasses agnosticism, be my guest. If you do that, though, you’re definitely going to confuse a lot of people, and also you’re adopting an unnecessarily “extreme” (in most people’s eyes) label.
No: both circles and disks are two-dimensional. Straight lines are one dimensional.
No, he’s right. For a circle you need only one base (e.g. angle from a point on the circle) to specify position along it, so it’s one-dimensional. Disks require two bases.
Further to Etha Williams in #416 and RamblinDude in #428, another issue I have noted among extended family and acquaintances is that many xtians, usually of the fundamentalist strip, actively discourage either therapy or medication to help deal with depression. The sufferer is encouraged to pray about his sin and embrace jesus and god’s, non-existent, love. If and when that fails, the fall is hard indeed. Full disclosure, suffer from depression myself and lost the love of my life to depression inspired suicide – and have been gleefully informed by many, many xtians that she is now in hell. I say gleefully because it seems to fit their expressions and words.
Re John Phillips, FCD in #440 – thank you for the kind words, sir. I do get a bit tired of being dumped in a one size fits all atheist bucket and assumed to be like all others. It amazes me that so many assume that atheists somehow have a unifying “theology”. Of course, many xtians object to being lumped in with fundie nut bags and I can understand their reason. (smile) My reply is always simple, speak out against them! All that aside, can I interest you in a cult tee shirt, John????? Only requires a free will love offering of $19.99 (laughing).
Coffee time – Ciao, y’all
You arguments about atheism’s problems are also unsupported. I linked here recently to an interview with Alan Sokal. Asked if he is an atheist, he states plainly that he is. Are you suggesting that he has now irrevocably alienated himself from the thousands of cosmological deists that are his physicist and cosmologist colleagues? This horde of cosmological deists running screaming from the mere suggestion of atheism exists only in your imagination.
No. I too would say I’m an atheist if asked (unless e.g. religious family members asked and there’s good reason to dodge the question). What I’ve been saying all along is that there’s no need to keep telling people you’re an atheist, which is what many people here are frequently doing.
Either read my posts properly, or cut it out with this shameless strawmandering.
What I’ve been saying all along is that there’s no need to keep telling people you’re an atheist,
When the majority of people in this country have such low opinions of atheists that they would never vote for one for public office, when every politician sees that it is not only ok, but in their best interests to bash atheists in public speeches, when many fundamentalists will claim that they’ve never even met an atheist, when pastors state that atheists are evil and immoral scum of the earth without being corrected, what on earth reason could there be not to tell people you’re an atheist if you’re able to? The only way to redeem the idea of atheism to the general public is to give them hard, direct examples of the fact that most atheists are decent, nice people, in fact (gasp!) their neighbors, friends, and relatives. There are still atheists in the good old USA who simply can’t say that they’re atheists because the social/work/family repercussions are so high, so if the ones who can speak out do so very loudly to help cover those who can’t, so much the better. The only way atheism has a chance of being accepted is if people see that atheists are an integral part of society, not the cause of destruction thereof, and that can only happen if people know that atheists exist, who they are, and how many of them there are. I really don’t understand your distaste for people sharing their views, cosmological or not.
In the epic of Gilgamesh, he travels to the land of the dead by running through the tunnel in the mountains which the sun passes through when it sets. Undoubtedly and explicitly a flat-earth cosmology, and consistent in its own terms.
There’s an epic hilarity in someone trying to claim that Isaiah says the earth is spherical, in a passage which talks about spreading the heavens as a tent over the earth. Yeah, sure, people who thought the sky was solid were really well clued up about cosmology.
Or is it the meme of religion that infects the person’s mind creating in it an alternate reality?
An omnipotent, omniscient and omnibenevolent being is logically impossible; it is inconsistent with the existence of suffering. – frog
I agree with you entirely (this was my main point) that the existence of suffering shows that Walton’s God does not exist, and all the attempts to get round this that I am aware of clearly fail. By “logically impossible” I mean “cannot exist because its description is internally inconsistent”; like a “three-sided pentagon” or “even prime greater than 2”. It’s useful to distinguish that kind of impossibility from the kind you rightly attribute to Walton’s God, where nonexistence cannot be deduced from the meaning of terms, but which we know cannot exist given the nature of the real world.
J:
I regret, he is wrong and you too. For a circle, you need two dimensions to specify a point: either (x, y) or (angle, radius).
– One dimension: a line.
– Two dimensions: a plan.
– Three dimensions: the space.
You cannot put a circle in a line. You need a plan.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Circle
A circle consists of those points in a plane which are at a constant distance, called the radius, from a fixed point, called the center.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plane_%28mathematics%29
In mathematics, a plane is a two-dimensional manifold or surface that is perfectly flat.
J blathered,
I would suggest you take;
a) a basic mathematics class (As a clue, the first three dimensions are x,y and z)
and, given your issues with the word atheist,
b)your meds.
Ye Gods, this discussion over terminology is asinine in the extreme. Pay attention and lets try to settle this:
J: Please stop pulling a Humpty Dumpty, i.e.: ‘”When I use a word,” Humpty Dumpty said, in rather a scornful tone, “it means just what I choose it to mean–neither more nor less.”‘.
The word “atheist” (or “atheism” for that matter”) has, like many technical words that have trickled down into common use, at least two perfectly correct uses. The more technical, philosophical sense has always denoted lack of theistic belief. Russell used this way, as does Dawkins, as does any philosopher. It is as uncontroversial as anything can be. No one is denying there are other senses this word can be, and is, used in. BUT (and this is quite important) as your oft cited chaps Russell and Dawkins do, as long as one CLEARLY states in what specific sense of the word it is being used, then there is simply no problem. The etymology of the word is even totally unambiguous, from the ancient Greek “a” denoting a lack and “theos” denoting either a theistic deity or theistic belief (dependant on context). Atheist is in fact the perfect word to describe someone who lacks a theistic faith.
There are even “modifiers” to describe what subcategory of atheist a person might be. There are atheists who occupy what is essentially a faith position that no deity of any kind exists anywhere. These are known as “strong” or “explicit” atheists, or more properly “antitheists”, or even more properly “anterotheists” (Don’t mix Greek and Latin dammit!). Epistemologically this position relies on some tiny morsel of faith (however justtfied it might be), simply because of the nature of the claim being made i.e. “The universe 100% definitely contains no deities”. Left unqualified by some measure of odds, or a caveat denoting that that 100% is really “100% to the limits of what we can know”, it is essentially a faith claim since we don;t have 100% perfect data, but I digress. In my experience, despite a lot of sound and noise signifying nothing, very few of people occupy this position. (There is a similar position of post-theist which I might mention later. Most people who claim to be “strong” atheists turn out to be post theists, again in my experience).
Another modifier is “weak” or “implicit” atheism. This really needs no modifier in my opinion because, based on techincal use and etymology this is what atheism is, i.e. a lack of belief. This is a lack of belief in a deity. This is VERY different from believing in a lack of deity. As different as 0 is from +1 or -1! It is in many ways the only reasoned position that can be taken, all others rely on some faith claim no matter how small or reasonable (in the colloquial sense). This is the position that Dawkins (and Russell) and the vast majority of atheists I have encountered (myself amongst them) occupy. The position that the claims of theists (and deists, pantheists, panentheists etc) have insufficient evidence to support them. It is the position of the rational (technical sense) sceptic. It is open to change on the basis of the evidence. Provide deity evidence, the position changes.
Confusing this with agnosticism is a classic rookie mistake. Agnosticism is the position that the question of the existence of X (in this case a deity) is unknowable. Again from the ancient Greek “a” denoting a lack and “gnosos” denoting knowledge. The word “agnostic” doesn’t even HAVE to refer to an issue of religious nature. One can be agnostic about extraterrestrial life for example. Agnosticism address a different question than does theism or atheism, it addresses the question of knowability, not existence. It is not on the same continuum as those positions. One can be, for example, an agnostic atheist or an agnostic theist, i.e. someone who either lacks or has a belief in a deity but believes the question of whether or not said deity’s existence can be determined by rational means to be unknowable.
There are two key take home message here:
1) Lack of belief =/= belief of lack.
2) Agnosticism =/= (“weak”/”implicit”) atheism, it’s not even addressing the same issue.
Now the problem you seem to be having is twofold: first it is a tactical issue, one which I shall leave until later, second, you seem to be confusing the technical and colloquial definitions of “atheism” (and a whole slew of other words). The colloquial use of the word atheist is often taken to be “someone who believes there is no god”, i.e. a “strong” atheist. This is not always the case, and it does vary from place to place. Again, in my experience I have found that most Europeans and UKians of my acquaintance think of the word “atheist” as meaning “”weak” atheist” and many of my USAian chums take it to mean “”strong” atheist”. So please bear in mind how one uses a word is very audience dependant, a point made to you before you should note. Again, I reiterate, if one is clear about what sense one is using a word, then there should be no problem with any intelligent and honest discussion participant.
I commonly and colloquially use the word “atheist” to describe myself because it describes my position on the issue of the existence of a deity perfectly. I lack a belief in any deity. If needs be, i.e. I am talking to a non-technical-use aware audience, I clarify what I mean briefly (far briefer than this!). I often use Steven Roberts’ comment “I contend that we are both atheists, I just believe in one fewer gods than you do. When you understand why you don’t believe in all those other gods, you’ll understand why I don’t believe in yours.”. 99% of audiences/particpants in discussion/conversation are smart enough to see the distinction in my experience.
I also use other words to describe my position on various issues “democrat” for example or “liberal”, although I am not a USAian, living in the USA and am not using those terms in a way that might be commonly understood in the USA. You might guess that the words “liberal” and “democrat” are controversial words that deonote different things to different people. Here comes the key point: THAT IS NOT AN EXCUSE TO ABANDON PERFECTLY ADEQUATE WORDS!!! It is an excuse to clarify in what sense one is using them.
Of course there are people who think in falsely dichotomous terms, rather a lot of them actually. One is either an “atheist” or a “theist”, a “liberal” or a “conservative”. Not only are these falsely dichotmous, pandering to them is a grave mistake. I use the word “atheist” in public, colloquial settings (just as I would in a technical one) precisely because I wish to counter the shoddy thinking and mistakes that people have made which lead people like you to bowdlerise perfectly adequate language. “Atheist” is no more a controversial word than “evolution” is a controversial science. If one is clear about what one means, the problem disappears.
The cartoonish linguistic retreat you are advocating (cross this line I kill you….ok cross THIS line I kill you etc) is an abandonment of the principles that underpin WHY someone might be an atheist, i.e. of clearly expressed rational thought based on reason.
“Bright” is a perfectly adequate term, it has its own connotations to be sure, and I use it freely, just as I use “rationalist” “sceptic” “advocate of reason” “secular humanist” to describe my position on many related issues. On the issue of the existence of a deity, or deities, I am an atheist. Period. I might ALSO be a bright, a rationalist, a sceptic etc, but they don’t specifically speak to the issue of theistic deities existing ot not. One might inder my atheism from them, but one cannot do so without making a leap of faith, the cetagories do not overlap 100%.
Two final things since I have gone on too long already:
1) Tactics: If what bothers you is that by using the word “atheist” one might put people off, tough. Not only can one not make omlettes without breaking eggs, but that is a simple fact of life. Even if one is entirely reasonable and polite and uncontroversial (those three things are not the same) one can still find people unreceptive to one’s message. More than that, tactics that might put off some, draw in others. I was attracted to the comments of many people BECAUSE they described themselves as atheists in the sense described above. There are a lot of people out there who think the way I do and yet don’t know I exist, they are perhaps just waiting to find a comrade in arms!
2) Atheism is a cosmological issue. Given I have read your posts thus far, and people’s replies, polite or otherwise, and concluded that you are supremely confused about the issues at stake, this has to be the capo di tutti capi of your confusion. In an INCREDIBLY limited sense the existence or otherwise of a deity might be an issue decided by cosmology, but for a set of proposed beings that can count the fall of every sparrow and create life from clay/eggs/blood etc I think we can safely say that these proposed abilities are not restricted to affecting cosmology! The claims theists make for their various deities are not restricted to cosmology, so to say that “atheism is merely a position on a cosmological question, why ram it down people’s throats” is to a) miss the point, b) ignore (and give free ride to) the multifarious claims of theists, and c) make one huge cock up!
Perhaps if you understood the relevant issues a little better, and perhaps if you worked out your own rather obvious confusions you might not feel it necessary to exude quite so much concern over those who DO understand these things and are not confused.
Cheers
Louis
But the radius is not a variable, and knowing x fixes y (up to its sign, but that’s down to the choice of coordinate system). You only need one parameter to pick out any point on a given circle. You’re getting hung up on the dimensionality of the embedding space, not the circle itself. The tricky part is in realizing that the embedding space isn’t necessary; one can define the circle purely in terms of intrinsic characteristics.
Apologies All for the length and turgidity of the foregoing post!
The whole J “don’t use atheist” schitck was beginning to annoy me. If we measure annoyance in post length then I think we can see how frutrated I was with the repetition of an utter non-issue.
Louis
MartinM:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Two-dimensional
In the image on the right, replace “square” by “circle” and “cube” by “sphere”, and you have the correct answer.
A “square” has two dimensions, even if you need only one number to define a point on the square, for a given square, having a given side length.
Maybe a little off topic, but there’s new consumer laws coming on line here in the UK. Broadly, around misrepresenting products’ effectiveness and the like…the great result is the astrologers, tarot card readers etc. now have to openly state that their “service” is for entertainment purposes only. Got me thinking, it’s a very short leap to apply that to religion. Perhaps our working slogan should be:
“Religion, for entertainment purposes only”
The whole dimensions argument above arises from an ambiguity in the meaning of the term “circle”. For strictness, we should specify that geometrically a circle is a line made up of all the points at the same distance (the radius) from a centre. A circle is one-dimensional, a line, as position along the circle is defined by a single variable. A disc is a part of a plane whose edge is a circle. A disc is a two-dimensional figure. Colloquially people tend to use circle to mean disc, hence the confusion above. In the context of the Isaiah quotation, we’re talking about a shape with a circular outline, a disc.
I would suggest you take;
a) a basic mathematics class (As a clue, the first three dimensions are x,y and z)
and, given your issues with the word atheist,
b)your meds.
Oh look, another stupid, frothing savage. No, savage, you’re thinking of dimensionality of embedding space, as MartinM correctly pointed out. Only two parameters are required to specify a position on a sphere, and one variable for position on a circle.
But the religiously-indoctrinated do see the emperor’s clothes. They have been told since childhood about those clothes, and told that they are mad if they don’t see his clothes.
Atheists have the courage to shout, “THERE. ARE. FOUR. LIGHTS!”
Assuming you have specified the radius.
But squares are analogous to disks, not circles. The boundary of a square is topologically equivalent to a circle, and is therefore one-dimensional. The boundary + interior is two-dimensional, and requires two numbers to identify a point within.
Quite right, hence the ‘pedant’ tag in my original post. I almost regret mentioning it now; it’s almost as bad as…well, that other mathematical topic that tends to produce endless arguments over trivialities, which shall go unmentioned for obvious reasons.
bPer #436:
NO, the shadow of the Earth (or another sphere) is a cone. If you had a giant, perfect laser that bathed the whole thing in parallel beams it would be a cylinder…
Daniel R #456: Did you mean plane? Although plan kind of works too.
I need to get back to work, I can’t believe I read the whole thing.
Calling Mark C.C., Calling Mark C.C.
The ancient Greeks were able to observe that the shadow of the earth on the moon, during eclipses, is always circular, and thus infer that the earth is spherical. I think the key insight here is to grasp that the eclipse is due to the shadow of the earth passing over the moon. Cultures not operating at that level of physical insight weren’t able to make that inference; if you believe eclipses are due to, say, evil shadow gods trying to smother the light, you’re unlikely to take note of detailed geometry.
Perhaps if you understood the relevant issues a little better, and perhaps if you worked out your own rather obvious confusions you might not feel it necessary to exude quite so much concern over those who DO understand these things and are not confused.
No, sorry, you’re the one out of us who’s confused. Here’s the definition of atheism from dictionary.com:
So there’s ambiguity in the dictionary definition. Moreover, we immediately note that agnostics also disbelieve in “supreme beings”; surely, one would think, “atheists” are somehow distinguished from them.
In the face of this confusion, why not look to famous atheists for their definition of the word? Do this and you’ll find that the world’s most renowned atheist, Richard Dawkins, explicitly identifies it as a cosmological philosophy (i.e. the belief that there are very probably no gods). Bertrand Russell, possibly the most well-known intellectual “atheist” ever, defines atheism in a similar way.
In fact, this thread alone underscores the inherent confusion surrounding the word. Some use it to mean essentially the same as “agnostic”, and some think it refers to someone who vigorously rejects religion. Others accept that it’s a philosophical/cosmological stance.
No-one is under any obligation to use such an awkward word, and I can’t understand why people would so openly wear it given the negative connotations that come attached.
dis thred iz so awsum.
lulz math.
Sorry for the inanity, had to get that out of my grey stuff.
What I really want to say is (is that MacGrath wnking at me?), firstly thanks for the replies cl, we cleared that up well. And secondly thanks for the post on agnosticism ‘vs.’ atheism, I’ve been writing similar comments all over the web. This needs to be stated again and again, as I frequently see agnostics shield themselves from an atheist label and vice versa. What’s really annoying about that is that theists then try to use that as an argument to ‘prove’ that their conversational opponents are somehow split or undecided, as in many theists’ worldview only certainty is a Good(tm) thing.
For anyone who wants to see the Courtier’s Reply in action…
“What I’ve been saying all along is that there’s no need to keep telling people you’re an atheist, which is what many people here are frequently doing.” – J
Are you really still beating this horse? You’re wrong. You’ve been given countless reasons why there IS a need to use the word “atheist” and why your arguments against its use are completely and utterly without merit. You’ve failed to provide a single objection to any of those reasons – much less a compelling objection. So far, the bulk of your accomplishment has been to demonstrate little understanding of philosophy, marketing, politics, basic reasoning and a number of other fields. You’re an embarrassment to the tradition of sentence making, and a blight on the process of reasoning. Get it together man.
J,
I don’t care at all if there’s a negative connotation to the word. What I care about is discussion to relieve us of such connotations. I’m not accusing or thinking of theists as generally batshit crazy fundies, and when a theist thinks atheists are a socially corrosive, god-hating bunch of people, I seek to clear that up as well. That’s what communication is for.
whoo hoo – last post!!!!!
Yaayyyy@!@!#!
ouch. correction to post 474: ‘McGrath winking’
clarification on post 477: I do care about the connotation when it’s relevant to a discussion. What I mean is that I refuse to avoid a word that is the best one we’ve got just to appear as something different from what I am. I’m not a ‘idon’tknowifgodsexistbutthinktheideaislogicallyinconsistentorinsufficient’, I’m an atheist. period.
But squares are analogous to disks, not circles. The boundary of a square is topologically equivalent to a circle, and is therefore one-dimensional. The boundary + interior is two-dimensional, and requires two numbers to identify a point within.
I know I am coming late to the party about whether a circle is 1D or 2D. What I see is two different points being argued. Given a particular circle, you only need 1 number to define a point on that circle. But to define the set of points that comprise the circle, you need two numbers; radius and angle. Reducing the circle to a single dimension eliminates any knowledge of the shape. It is like saying that a highway is a one dimensional object; all you need is your distance along it to specify where you are. Which is true, but does not define the shape of the highway.
The problem I have with saying a circle is 1D is that it requires a “given” circle. To me, that is essentially the 2nd number. That is, once you have specified a particular circle, you have a specific radius so all you “need” to place yourself on that particular circle is the angle. But to define the points of a circle requires two dimensions.
Negative to whom? You seem to be continually making the assumption that people (at least the ones you are addressing here) who say they are atheists only say they are atheists. I’ve said it before there are many terms I used to describe myself; atheist, rationalist, secularist, married, bald, liberal, etc.. There are some people that will find something wrong with each and every one of those descriptive terms, but they can all be used to accurately describe myself. I don’t need to use them all or some combination of them every time I talk about certain issues.
I suspect that there are many terms people choose to use not giving a shit what others think about them because they accurately describe their person.
Homosexual comes to mind. And if you want to get frisky and snarky, Queer.
We all know that homosexual is a term that can accurately describe someone. We also know that it elicits negative reactions from some ignorant people. Should male homosexuals use the term sexually-free? Or vagina independent? Or some other equally lame moniker when Homosexual accurately describes them? They can also then bring in any other descriptive term that they chose when they feel it is applicable to the conversation.
Sure, you need more than one number to define any given circle, but that has nothing to do with dimensionality. You need two numbers to decribe the height and width of a rectangle, but that doesn’t make it four-dimensional. Dimension describes the number of independent parameters we need to specify a point within the manifold. How many parameters are required to describe the manifold itself is another question entirely.
This isn’t even getting into the fact that there are different measures of dimensionality, of course…I wonder if there are any for which a circle is 2D?
Given a particular circle, you only need 1 number to define a point on that circle. But to define the set of points that comprise the circle, you need two numbers; radius and angle.
OK, but for a finite line you need to have, in addition to a parameter, the position of at least one endpoint (to obtain proper knowledge of position along the line).
This is an international forum. Those negative connotations don’t exist everywhere.
J, you really are a case study in bad-faith argumentation. You’ve ignored all of the evidentiary challenges I made in my post, choosing to focus – as I anticipated you would – on the absurd non-question of spontaneous vs. prodded use of “atheist.” You keep making claims here about “people,” “we,” “most people,” “many people,” “atheists,” “mainstream atheists,” etc., with nothing to back them up. You’re also making tactical arguments for which you’ve provided no substantive basis.
You are hardly one to lecture anyone here about alienating potential allies. Even if you had originally had something meaningful to contribute to a discussion of tactics and stategy (which you did not), you have proceeded to alienate numerous people by revealing yourself to be impervious to reason as well as utterly insufferable. I don’t know if you’re a troll (your hook-shaped moniker long ago aroused my suspicions), a lame Nisbet sockpuppet, or just a pompous windbag who insists on arguing in bad faith. In any of these cases, your monotonous three-chord riffs are unworthy of anyone’s attention.
Are you really still beating this horse? You’re wrong. You’ve been given countless reasons why there IS a need to use the word “atheist”.
It’s far from obvious that “atheist” is the strategically best word to use. Quit trying to pretend otherwise. Your hysteria quite simply betrays the weakness of your argument.
This is an international forum. Those negative connotations don’t exist everywhere.
Well I’m British, and I think “atheism” definitely has negative connotations in my country as well as America.
J, you really are a case study in bad-faith argumentation. You’ve ignored all of the evidentiary challenges I made in my post, choosing to focus – as I anticipated you would – on the absurd non-question of spontaneous vs. prodded use of “atheist.” You keep making claims here about “people,” “we,” “most people,” “many people,” “atheists,” “mainstream atheists,” etc., with nothing to back them up. You’re also making tactical arguments for which you’ve provided no substantive basis.
Bullshit. A lot of posts have been addressed to me (usually slander or misrepresentations), and I can’t respond to everything thoroughly. Missing out a section of your post doesn’t constitute dishonesty on my part. This really should go without saying.
You don’t give examples of unsupported claims I made, so I’ll simply deny that there are any.
Next we’ll have someone arguing that because you need to know a starting point and an angle, and the starting point is a point in 3-D space, therefore circles are four-dimensional. Please either do it mathematically or metaphorically but not both at the same time. Makes head hurty.
Can we at least reach consensus that (1) Babylonian mythology visualises a flat, disc-like earth, and (2) later attempts at apologetics notwithstanding, the Old Testament references to the shape of the earth are consistent with this? Thank you.
You are hardly one to lecture anyone here about alienating potential allies. Even if you had originally had something meaningful to contribute to a discussion of tactics and stategy (which you did not), you have proceeded to alienate numerous people by revealing yourself to be impervious to reason as well as utterly insufferable.
Bullshit again. The insults started after my very first post in this thread, which was actually rather mild. The witch-hunt against me has absolutely nothing to do with my alleged obstinance or anything of the sort.
A circle is one dimensional, as is the boundary of a square, as in both cases, you can identify each point on that particular shape using a single variable. The space of all points on circles of all radiuses is two dimensional (angle and radius) and could be viewed as a cone embedded in 3 dimensional space, or simply the 2D plane itself.
Keeping with just the circle itself, in some geometries, a straight line is just a circle that contains the point at infinity.
Yes, absolutely. Looking down from above upon a circular Earth certainly seems more consistent with this than with a round Earth. But the conclusion that the Bible describes ancient Hebrew cosmology, and is not physically accurate, doesn’t follow from a single word in a single passage. It follows from context, both literary and historical.
My point is simply that words like circle and sphere have specific technical definitions which don’t map very well onto a) our colloquial usage of those terms, or b) ancient Hebrew. It’s as wrong for us to insist that the original Hebrew must refer to a flat disk as it is for literalists to insist that it refers to a ball. The mangling of the technical definitions just adds irony, really.
(Aside from the fact that these two countries hardly encompass humanity, or even the countries represented on this blog,) what makes you think that? What is the basis for that claim? To the extent that that might be the case, what makes you so sure the situation isn’t changing for the better? And, if so, what makes you think some of that isn’t due to the willingness of scientists and other well-known and respected people to publicly and unabashedly refer to themselves as atheists? To other atheists speaking out and dispelling the negative stereotypes? If the negative connotations could be established as an insurmountably broad problem for atheists in all contexts, what can you offer to show that another, less accurate, term – even if you could convince people to adopt it – would respond to or avoid those problems and prove strategically superior?
Not one of your claims about the social costs and benefits of using “atheist” vs. “Bright” or some other unspecified term has been substantiated with sociological, anthropological, or historical evidence.
Witchhunt? Hysteria? You really are a self-important, delusional [troll, sockpuppet, windbag – take your pick]. You have continued here the same obnoxious behavior you exhibited on the earlier thread. Even if you had been perfectly pleasant here, though, that wouldn’t erase the previous thread from anyone’s memory.
Re #489, “witch-hunt”? Let the persecution Olympics begin. See my posts at #348 and #370, rinse and repeat.
Ciao, y’all
J in post 473:
Witch hunts and persecution and dictionary.com! Oh my! Is it possible people disagree with you because you are, well, simply in error? Is it possible that even lexicographers admit the shortcomings of “dictionary definitions” I think you are simply unaware of these things to be honest.
The point has been made by me and many others that even simple words can have more than one definition. The issue is one of context, right? (by which I mean right as in “correct” not right as in opposite to left. Get the point). Clarifcation of context and specific definitional use renders the shell game with terminology you seem to desire, irrelevant.
Please go back and a) read the post I made, and b) deal with the arguments there in. You’ve yet to do so. I tried, very nicely to pint by point go through why your case is a) wrong and b) not even dealing with the actual issues at stake and c) old hat (confused btw is not an insult, pointless mammering arsehole is an insult, be sure to note the difference). You could do me the same courtesy.
Thanks
Louis
P.S. Play a little game, substitute the word “black” for the word “atheist” in your argument. See what happens.
At J #451:
What you seem to miss, is that it is the religious people that are going out of their way to come to an atheist’s blog and challenge atheism, forcing the atheists here to state and restate their positions, not the other way around. It is that simple.
Is J driving you to drink?
I understand.
Another little game for you to try J: Everyone in the world does what you say and stops using that nasty word “atheist”.
What then?
Let’s say we use the word “Bright” to describe someone who lacks theistic belief. What happens when people realise that Brights = Atheists?
Also, as I forgot to mention it, not only have I read the entire output of Dawkins and Russell but a few other “prominent atheists” and philosophers, and they don’t use the word as simplistically as you think they do. You are repeatedly conflating technical definitions and colloquial (mis)usage and asserting (humpty-like) that a word means what you says it does when you say it does even when the person using it says it doesn’t. Like I said, go back, read what I wrote (not again because you clearly haven’t read it) and do everyone a favour. Ta.
Louis
In summary:
J believes that atheism is a cosmological position because of this explicit premise:
Atheism is talking about gods and the lack thereof.
This is true and atheism is a cosmological position IF and ONLY IF the IMPLICIT premise is also true: that the discussion of gods is a cosmological position.
Given that of all cosmologies, the only one that actually matches empirical evidence is that of physics, then we can see that the ONLY cosmological premise is not atheism, but physics.
Of course, being a physicist specialising in that area means that he gets me either way.
RevBigDumbChimp,
J is not in any way responsible for my already being well driven to drink! What did that was the simple fact that drink = good. ;-)
CHEERS!
Louis
Re: Circle.
You can’t argue that a circle only requires one specification because the radius is not a variable.
It is true that for any _given_ circle, the radius is constant. However, that is not relevant.
What _is_ relevant is that _different_ circles have different radii; ie. between circles, radii vary.
If you believe that radii cannot vary, then perhaps you do not believe that the graph A = kr^2 is valid, since it very clearly shows r to be an independent variable.
Which would be a shame, given that the graph A = kr^2 is the graph of the equation of a circle’s area.