This is a nicely done essay prompted by the papal poltroonery that has been going on in Sydney recently. Here are a few bits:
I don’t give a stuff what people believe in, but it won’t stop me poking at it or prodding it. Why should religion be any exemption? Telling me I’m going to hell won’t bother me because I have the Flying Spaghetti Monster, the Invisible Pink Unicorn and Bertrand Russell’s Teapot in my heart. Google them if you are in the market for some red hot enlightenment.
And this is really true — throwing off the foolishness is liberating.
It’s been a revelation to me a year since my “epiphany”. I feel as if I’m walking through life with the blinkers off. Suddenly all the religious mumbo-jumbo jumps out as so bonkers. Wearing certain things, eating certain things, mumbling certain things at certain times so some imaginary friend will let you into a club in the sky when you die. I want to do my living now, thanks. I’m not afraid of dying. I’m afraid of never having lived.
I don’t care what people believe in, but I do care that religion impacts on political discourse, public policy and that it stunts the ability of people to think for themselves and question. And that it kills people and causes suffering. But most of all I care that the invisible electric fences that are wired in the minds of children brainwashed by religion are difficult to remove. And impossible if you don’t even know they’re there.
Sydney.
Just a heads up PZ, but it’s spelled “Sydney”.
There’s a pretty funny parody collage inre pz vs. Catholicism, with a striking likeness of pz, from paximperium at the james randi forum. It’s at http://forums.randi.org/vbimghost.php?do=displayimg&imgid=12976
This is one of the many things we should mention when people claim ‘atheism doesn’t have any positive values’. Freedom is among the results of atheism, and that is a positive value.
Freedom is among the results of atheism, and that is a positive value.
But, but, but…I thought freedom was obedience, of women to men, of humans to gods, of laity to priests, of battered spouses to their abusers, and molested children to their rapists.
@llewelly
Ah, but you have to remember that for the people running religions, freedom is not a positive value. They look to place restrictions on every aspect of life; liberation doesn’t look so good from the perspective of the person passing the collection plate.
That was the saddest thing for me, seeing the film of the young people enraptured by the man with the hat. I got the feeling that here were kids on the wrong track, and I wondered if they’d snap out of it someday, and I felt like things weren’t getting better.
But then I think of myself and my deconversion, and I realise that it is possible. We just need to point out the electric fence.
Very well put, PZ.
Religious indoctrination should be treated as child abuse.
It has been many years since I purged my brain of all religion and related insanities, and it was amazing that I can still do all those things when I was so afflicted with that cancerous pox. I find it truly amazing and incredible that so many people have still not dropped that insane crap and start living a saner and more fulfilling life. It just has to be a form of mental weakness that compels these people to hold onto something that has proven to be illogical and deleterious to their health and well-being. They can do it, but will not, so how else to diagnose this condition? They are mentally deprived but do not know it.
But most of all I care that the invisible electric fences that are wired in the minds of children brainwashed by religion are difficult to remove. And impossible if you don’t even know they’re there.
This is why I think all religious people, no matter how moderate they think they are, deserve nothing but contempt. What could be more disgusting than lying to small gullible children, and ruining their lives, maybe permanently ruining their lives.
There is a school of thought that suggests atheists should not call themselves atheists but just say we apply rational thought to everything and religion is no exception.
As Sam Harris, author of The End Of Faith, puts it, “I think that ‘atheist’ is a term that we do not need, in the same way that we don’t need a word for someone who rejects astrology.
“We simply do not call people ‘non-astrologers’. All we need are words like ‘reason’ and ‘evidence’ and ‘common sense’ and ‘bullshit’ to put astrologers in their place, and so it could be with religion.”
I have no problem with calling myself an atheist, but Sam Harris makes a good point. Perhaps it would be more accurate to call atheists “normal people”. Instead of saying “I’m an atheist”, maybe it’s better to say “god is bullshit”.
Rat own!
Yes, that would be “Real Freedom” of which the religious speak.
Real Freedom = submission to authoritarianism
Real Science = mysticism and the search for supernatural forces hiding behind the “apparent” material world
Real Reason = purely abstract logic beginning from unquestioned premises and proceeding via blind faith
Real Ethics = fear and selfish hope
Real Joy = suffering, denial of physical pleasure
Real Religion = [whatever definition is convenient in context]
So glad to see our Ms. Deveny getting some international recognition.
She really is awesome.
Beautiful! That sums it up perfectly. I have also had the feeling of having the ‘blinders’ removed, and it’s a glorious feeling. It’s amazing how you feel that your potential in life just skyrockets once you’ve recovered from indoctrination.
Speak it, sister!
Holbach, I’d say it’s mostly nurture, not nature. And those who deconvert are somehow picking up enough of the rationalist mindset to see through the bullshit.
My exit from the fantasyland called Mormonism came when I was 14. During one sunday school class, the lay teacher (Mormonism has no professional clergy), by way of affirming the special niche Salt Lake City (aka Zion) occupies in God’s mighty plan, revealed that the Jordan River in the Holy Land and the Jordan River that dribbles through the Salt Lake valley are the only two rivers in the world that flow from south to north. I boldly suggested that he consult an atlas and turn to the page dealing with Egypt. He gazed some venom at me and said “No, only the two Jordan Rivers flow south to north. And who are you to question the General Authorities?”
I got up and left. But a dozen other boys stayed to continue having their invisible electric fence installed.
Matt – yes. Catherine is a hoot, but I fear some (most) of the humour would be lost outside of Australia. I mean, who else understands a Chocolate Warnie (Melts in your mouth then sends you eight text messages the next day)?
Am I the only one who thinks that calling it “World Youth Day” in relation to the Catholic Church is kind of… bad taste? I mean, come on. A bunch of old guys in funny dresses partying with a LOT of teenagers? *cough*
I suggest, next time they call it “World Cracker Day” … just in case.
Still puzzled with this double repetition :
I don’t get it, probably caus I’m a frog, can someone enlighten me ?
Thanks for sharing that Paul. It always does my heart good to see another young mind raise it’s head out of the warm comfy rabit fur and see the real world.
Those types of stories should be a mainstay in our blogs, inspiration isnt just for religious folk, let’s show them how it’s done atheist style.
Holbach #9,
It is truly rare to encounter this kind novel insight! To find the root cause of religion all figgered out and explained in a blog comment! Why don’t you publish, Holbach?
Ms. Deveny, it seems to me, groups Russell’s Teapot with naive arguments against or mockeries of theism. It is not an argument for atheism or against theism, and wasn’t intended to be. This is a disservice to Russell who was a intellectual giant, compared to whom today’s high profile atheists are unworthy.
“I am not afraid of dying. I am afraid of never having lived.”
That’s the whole thing right there.
JC
negentropyeater: There was a huge gap in content between the first and last occurrence of that sentiment (in your quote)
To sum it up: First time she says she is blase about what people believe in and is going to make fun of it (“Why should religion be any exemption?”). Second time (many paragraphs later) she is reaffirming that people can believe whatever they want but “but I do care that religion impacts on political discourse, public policy and that it stunts the ability of people to think for themselves and question.”
P.Z., If secularism has made you such a liberated and happy person, why are you always looking for somebody to attack?
I had to suffer the visit of Ratzinger to Valencia a couple of years ago and it was a total flop. Millions of euros were spent by the city council to welcome the 1,200,000 pilgrims that were expected at that time. The police turned the city upside down for 5 days and after the visit non-official numbers mention less than 200,000 people attending the ceremonies.
Now in Australia he announces ANOTHER visit to Spain. Why doesn’t he go somewhere else? Or stay at home, for all I care?
I guess he hasn’t quite got it that the Spanish prime minister isn’t very fond of him…
P.Z., If secularism has made you such a liberated and happy person, why are you always looking for somebody to attack?
blah blah blah blah blah
“…GOD ROCKS! graffiti I saw on an old stone church yesterday.”
So, those aren’t just any old rocks, eh?
Writzer @16, thanks for that story. Simple as it may seem, it sort of sums up beautifully what religion is about. I suppose many of us have a similar tale of liberation.
nice essay.
on the “we don’t need a word” issue, i agree that we SHOULDN’T need a special word for reasonable (at least w/ respect to religion) people but PZ has made valid points about it being necessary given the current context. so, i’m kind of torn on this one.
http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2007/10/letter_to_a_nonatheist_new_ath.php
http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2007/10/sam_harris_seems_like_a_nice_f.php
For you Squiddy Pharyngulites here is a hug for you.
http://www.snorgtees.com/freehugs-p-458.html
This part was really funny.
> I can’t help wondering how the teenage pilgrims coped with their
> hormones and no condoms and what the consequences will be in a few
> weeks’ time.
Well, there *is* a solution: they all went gay for a few days… ;-)
That was a lovely essay. I like the description of religion as putting up “invisible electric fences” in peoples’ minds. I too have pressed self-described Catholics on virgin birth, resurrection, transubstantiation etc. and find they either dance away from the questions or admit they don’t believe in that stuff literally.
I think many people are still religious because they just haven’t thought about it all that much.
“We are both atheists, I just believe in one fewer god than you do. When you understand why you dismiss all the other possible gods, you will understand why I dismiss yours.”
Ooh, that’s nice.
P.Z well said, hail to all Cephlepods, I have been free for the last 40 years. Being free from religion means your mind is yours and not being manipulated by some one else, who wants you to do what they think you should
Wazza @ 15 Yes, the old nature versus nature debate which I have never subscribed to in various applications. It is nature that compels us to respond to those natural stimulations such as pain, the sexual urge, food and the whole panoply of inborn evolution. But it is nurture that we are exposed to by other humans, circumstances, and all manner of ideaologies throughout our lives and which we can direct as is our wont with nature playing no part unless we are physically or mentally handicapped. It is nurture that humans are indoctrinated into religious insensibilities either when young and immature, or as adults influenced by all manner of nonsense which can be either accepted or dejected depending upon how they choose to rationalize those needless mindsets. It was nurture and not nature that seized the human mind into a religious bent. There was no idea of religions or gods when our brains formed through the evolutionary process which is nature. True, early humans thought about where it all came from, as is a natural thing to do, but the idea of a god is the product of nurture influence, not the need as is food which is definitely most natural. We can live without religion but not without food; nature triumphs here as it has since we appeared on earth. We were born with brains that think and reason, that is nature. We gave birth to religion, and that is nurture, and whether we embrace religion or reject it, it is nurture at it’s best and is most demonstrated as when we slough it off as irrational, but others continue to be enslaved by it through their own choice. We have proved that nurture is malleable and are the better for it. And nurture has proved that others are ossified by this nonsense and are the worst for it and are to be regarded with contempt. In this example nurture is the best decider and should be logically adhered to.
Re: #16
OT but I was taught that the Red River (which flows up through Manitoba from the Dakotas) was one of only 2 rivers in the world that flowed south-north. The other is the Rhine River in Germany. Later the same year we studied the Nile in geography class and somebody reminded the teacher what he had told us about the Red and Rhine rivers (I think it was grade 5 or 6). “Oh yeah, I guess you’re right” was the teacher’s response. Several of us started looking through our atlases to see how many south-north flowing rivers we could find. That was the first time I remember being aware of a “true fact” from an authority figure that turned out to be bullshit.
Heddle,
Since I know this will be lost on you I shouldn’t bother, but have you actually read Russell? Try it. Don’t just mouth the words as they pass by your eyes, let them reach your brain and swish them around a bit. Russell’s teapot IS an argument against theism. If you can see how silly the orbiting teapot is, you can see how silly gods are.
Reading comprehension: you’re doing it wrong.
RAmen!
>P.Z., If secularism has made you such a liberated and
>happy person, why are you always looking for somebody to
>attack?
Let’s see, would that be a “false dicotomy” fallacy, or a “straw man” falacy? Or is it a bit of both?
Off-topic
Whose Minnesota plates are these?
http://www.wherearethedogshumping.com/atheist-license-plate.jpg
Wasn’t today supposed to be “D-Day” for the cracker? Or did the schedule change?
It’s not just anybody that he points out. He goes after those unthinking, ignorant religious zealots who are doing their best to take away our rights and destroy our civilization. If you feel picked on, maybe it’s because you refuse to think or learn.
GregB at #39: I vote for both.
Butbutbutbutbut you’re going to DIE! DIE!!! DIE!!!!! Rot in the ground or suffocate in a coffin and never ever ever live or kiss or think again! DIE!!!!!
(Ahem. Sorry, my Inner Fearmonger slipped off its leash there for a sec.)
Andrew,
I don’t know, it seems to me that she does care a lot about the fact that these people still believe in all these ridiculous things, that she won’t stop poking and prodding at it, that these ridiculous beliefs cause people to do violence, and suffering, and to endoctrinate and brainwash their own children with those same beliefs, that cause permanent mental handicap.
So, why does she say twice that she doesn’t care about what people believe in ?
Still don’t get it.
I do care a lot about what people believe in, when it is so evidently ridiculous and hurtful. As a homosexual, I care a lot about the fact that so many people believe all these ridiculous things about us. As a non religious man, I care a lot about the fact that so many people believe all these ridiculous things about us.
So, I would never be able to write an essay like this and be honest with myself and say “I don’t care what people believe in, but…”.
So, does she care or doesn’t she ?
It could be that she doesn’t care what they believe but does care what actions they take based on those beliefs.
Heckle,er, heddle @ 21 Your undiluted sarcasm is certainly not lost to interpretation as it is on many previous blogs on this site. I still have yet to brand you as a raving religionist or just genetically warped. Are you the product of nature or nurture? Inquiring minds are so fascinated to know. Not really.
Wasn’t today supposed to be “D-Day” for the cracker? Or did the schedule change?
Well, if garbage pick-up is tomorrow morning, why would you expect anything until this evening, when the trash is more likely to be taken outside?
“It could be that she doesn’t care what they believe but does care what actions they take based on those beliefs.”
That was my reading of it as well. If religious people did all just want to be left to believe what they want there would not be a problem. However too many also think they can tell the rest of us how to live based on their religiously based morality.
That would mean for instance, that when a father believes that his son is a demon for being a homosexual, one should wait until he hits his son with a baseball bat before we cared about his belief.
How can we separate religious beliefs, especially those most ridiculous and potentially hurtful ones, from the actions people take based on those beliefs ?
I know that license plate! That belongs to August Berkshire, of Minnesota Atheists.
Well, if garbage pick-up is tomorrow morning, why would you expect anything until this evening, when the trash is more likely to be taken outside?
Posted by: MAJeff, OM | July 23, 2008 9:50 AM
Thanks, MAJeff. Just wanted to be sure I had my dates straight.
Yes.
Most religious zealots, no matter how misguided, don’t actually attack their family for not meeting their standard. The foolishness of their belief is not what we test. The behavior that arises from it is what matters.
Apparently the fundies are up in arms again about PBS telling the world they believe in fairy tales. From the American “Family” Association:
The Public Broadcasting System (PBS), probably the most liberal network in America, will present a program this fall that says the Old Testament is a bunch of made-up stories that never happened. “The Bible’s Buried Secrets” says the Bible is not true. It is scheduled to air on November 18.
Producer Paula Apsell said: “…It’s (The Bible’s Buried Secrets) designed for intelligent people who are willing to change their mind. …it will give intelligent people who want to read the Bible in a modern way a chance. If we insist on reading the Bible literally, in 25 years, nobody will read it any longer.”
Among highlights of “The Bible’s Buried Secrets”:
• The Old Testament was written in the sixth century BC and hundreds of authors contributed.
• Abraham, Sarah and their offspring didn’t exist.
• There is no archaeological evidence of the Exodus.
• Monotheism was a process that took hundreds of years.
• The Israelites were actually Canaanites.
• The Israelites believed that God had a wife.
I have often said that PBS should not receive tax dollars. “The Bible’s Buried Secrets” is simply one more reason Congress should stop supporting PBS with our tax dollars. Congress gives PBS hundreds of millions of tax dollars to help support the network.
Greg B, #39 – I think it has a little Ad Hominem stuck to its chin.
On the off-topic matter of rivers that flow northward, I’ve heard that most of the world’s large peninsulas dangle southward. But there are exceptions, and I suppose we’ll have to ignore antarctic peninsulas.
>But most of all I care that the invisible electric fences that are wired in the minds of children brainwashed by religion are difficult to remove. And impossible if you don’t even know they’re there.
I love this quote. It sums up the main problem to a tee. I’ve been writing/thinking a lot lately about how whehter or not there can be a difference between having no choice and having no information with which to make a choice. If I don’t know I have options, then I can’t say I have any real choice. When children are indoctrinated, they are taught two things that affect this:
1. Have faith even if something fails to make sense. You probably are just lack the capacity to understand it (god). This is a convoluted way to say, “don’t question, just believe.”
2. There really is nothing to question. Anything we really NEED to understand about scripture has been fully addressed. If something doesn’t make sense, and you really want to know, then we’ve got a tap-dancing, hoop-jumping apologetic that will pacify you. If it fails to, though, you can always fall back on #1.
If someone offers you an explanation, from the time you’re three, for how X and Y don’t really contradict, it doesn’t even have to be a good explanation. Children believe just about anything a parent tells them. As they mature, and are insulated by the greater religious structure–when exactly are they supposed to know there (1) is anything to even question, and (2) that answers to questions should be provided (it’s not just that you can’t understand god–it’s that it isn’t making sense).
Getting people to ignore the red lights by building mental electric fences (I love that analogy–can I say that again?), is what keeps it all going. As long as religious indoctrination is employed on helpless children, getting many people to examine what they believe, critically, is giong to be a uphill battle.
That would mean for instance, that when a father believes that his son is a demon for being a homosexual, one should wait until he hits his son with a baseball bat before we cared about his belief.
C’mon. Haven’t you learned by now? faggots don’t count.
Re: #55
Yep, it’s a phenomenon called “continental drip.”
I don’t really like the term “deconvert.”
Seems too religious still. Like you converted from one religion to another, and then deconverted. Convert is in there and it’s just too religiony.
I prefer “decontaminated.”
I heard about the chief author’s threats to desecrate the Eucharist. These insults against the pilgrims of World Youth Day confirm people’s suspicions about this site. I can never support this site.
“the only two rivers in the world that flow from south to north. “
Jesus. NIAGARA fucking FALLS anyone?
Wow, that The Bible’s Buried Secrets programme sounds awesome. Thank you, American Patriarchy Association!
A dab of Googling turned up this LA Times blag entry, which quotes William G. Dever, archaeologist.
Yowsa.
Incidentally, Dever is part of the “quasi-minimalist” school; he believes that everything up until the David and Solomon business is bunk. Other scholars, such as Hector Avalos, go a bit further, but in Alabama they’d all be up against the same wall.
(I grew up in Alabama. I get to make those jokes.)
Meh, it was alright, I suppose. The most important thing is that these kind of articles are appearing in a number of countries, and for the unthinking theist [which is the overwhelming majority, despite what some people say], it may be all that is needed to convince them that, yes, what they believe is largely very silly. At the very least it will normalize non-belief, and there is a lot to be said for achieving that alone.
It would be nice to see something about this subject that is a little more scholarly from time to time, but anything at all is certainly welcome.
Schmeer #37,
Yes I have read Russell. His teapot argument is not against theism, but against the absurd demands from theists, such as the demand that atheists prove God does not exist. I trust the distinction will not be lost on you.
He has arguments against theism, but the teapot is not one of them.
“I heard about the chief author’s threats to desecrate the Eucharist. These insults against the pilgrims of World Youth Day confirm people’s suspicions about this site. I can never support this site.”
Aw shit – what are we gonna do now?!?!
I met my fiancee at World Youth Day in Paris(1998). We both decided to forgo the Pope’s Mass under the eifel tower to get drunk at the bars and make out in the streets, that was ten years ago–we are now both happy atheists!
Nice essay I could look at my own life history and see many parallels. Until I found this blog and read statements from “an atheist point of view” I never thought of of the word or concept of atheism much. My own contacts with “professed atheists” were with people who were focused on the unbelief in a “divine being” of some sort.
My own path I have taken to where I am today had two sides.
One was through logic and science which I learned the basics believe it or not in the Catholic High school I had to go to I am very grateful for that experience of biology class and the emphasis on the “scientific method” they stressed.
the other side of my path influenced by the reason and scientific approach was through eastern thought and philosophy which seemed to de-emphasize belief and stress experience of perception of living more. In my own limited experience of eastern religion I have not come across any parallel to the religious belief systems that came out of the middle east. At the root they describe symbols understood as symbols. One of the “funniest” answer I have heard was an answer to a question about the possibility that people would get confused between the “Idols” (symbols) and the meaning behind them seeing as they were described as pointing to the meaning and not the meaning it self, “God is not in a hurry”
I have not found any “gods” in the East that I would say sounded like the one I have the impression here would fit “the atheist unbelief” the words I know are just not enough for me to explain how I understand things in terms of “religion”.
I had not thought in these kinds of categories in a long until I started reading this blog it just was not a priority.
I have the same reaction and suspicion of all the fundamentalist as a lot of the other people I read here.
I the problem I have is with the term Atheist which may have to do with my early indoctrination and my own feeling of distaste of the idea of being defined as being against. I am not an “anti-creationist” why should I accept a label foisted on me by anyone let alone anyone who does not agree with me or understand what I am trying to say or what I understand. It is just not a question I take very seriously.
Good man, August Berkshire, running around with that rational license plate! I wonder how much verbal abuse he has endured, let alone small acts of violence! Message left on windshield: “Hey atheist, prove that my imaginary god does not exist.” There you go; answered his own nonsense question. Moron.
Brian said:
Brian,
Top marks for not tryin’,
So kind of you to bless us with your effortlessness,
We’re grateful and so strangely comforted,
And I wonder are you puttin’ us under,
Cause we can’t take our eyes off the t-shirt and ties
combination,
Well see you later, innovator.
negentropyeater #44 wrote:
I suspect her use of the phrase “I don’t care what people believe” is an unconscious nod to the privileged position cultures give to religious beliefs: respecting someone’s right or freedom to “believe whatever they want about God” tends to deliberately confuse rational criticism with forceful suppression. Therefore, when you say someone’s religion is wrong, you have to go out of your way to make it clear that this doesn’t mean you want to put believers in jail or torture them in order to make them renounce God.
It’s stupid. Imagine if every time you criticized American policy, or Democrat or Republican platforms, you had to go through a stylized ritual of expressing your appreciation for peace and democracy, so that people don’t assume you’re advocating a totalitarian military takeover.
Chief #40 wrote:
That particular “ATHEIST” plate probably belongs to August Berkshire, president of Minnesota Atheists. PZ occasionally links to some of his radio interviews.
I caught a bus into the heart of the Nation’s capital tonight. And there were two coaches sitting on the entrance ramp, one broken down. I thought it was so silly to have coaches parked there in peak hour traffic given that it was blocking the flow of traffic. Turns out the bus was full of WYD pilgrims. Seemed appropriate that after all the disruption they caused Sydney that they’d spread the love to other cities.
Anyway, that’s my WYD story. Not a very good one, but still. Bastards!
writzer @ # 16: A double-fail on your former teacher: the Jordan River flows southwards from the Anti-Lebanon Mountains (on the Syria-Lebanon border) through the Sea of Galilee into the Dead Sea (on the de facto Israel-Jordan border).
Allow him one point for getting the direction correctly on Utah’s Jordan River.
Heck, they don’t always hit their son with a baseball bat ?
You tell me how to take care of that behaviour, meanwhile, I’ll continue to care about the foolishness of these beliefs.
Thank him for leaving.
>>I boldly suggested that he consult an atlas and turn to the
>>page dealing with Egypt
He need only look as far as a map of North Dakota. The Red River flows north into Lake Winnipeg – a source of considerable grief for people who live along it since the melt water in the spring flows north to the frozen bits of the river in Manitoba causing flooding essentially every year.
I hate all this hooplah over the Pope. He’s an old, intolerant peddler of superstition, not a rock star.
Nothing would please me more than for him to go somewhere and get totally ignored.
Can anyone provide pointers to reports on counter-WYD activities?
Beforehand, we heard talk of protests in defiance of the ad-hoc muzzle laws, proposals for witty t-shirt designs, speculation on the stunts to be carried out by daring TV clowns, and more.
Was all that just beer-boosted bravado and bluster?
>>P.Z., If secularism has made you such a liberated and happy
>>person, why are you always looking for somebody to attack?
Julie, why is it that when someone gets on Christianity (or Islam, or Judaism), it’s an “attack”… but when Christians (or Muslims, or Jews) get on about whatever pisses them off, it’s “witnessing”, “spreading the Good News”, “saving the infidel”, “God’s work”, etc. ? I’ve always wondered why followers of the Desert Trio have such a one-sided view of what constitutes an attack?
Don’t think of what PZ does as an attack. Think of it as “spreading the Good News of Reason”, “witnessing the truth” and “saving your soul from brainwashing and a lifetime of guilt”.
You don’t have to agree with him… It’s not like he’s a guy wearing a white robe and pointy hat, sitting on a magic chair that makes everything he says absolutely true.
tracieh (#56) wrote:
Parents and preachers start destroying the minds of children before they learn to walk. They are taught people were magically created before they learn to read. It seems like a hopeless problem. A possible solution would be if public schools taught evolution starting in the First Grade. Young children have the right to know how their species developed. They should know as soon as possible that they share an ancestor with chimpanzees. Perhaps Sesame Street could teach this fact to 4 year olds.
>>How can we separate religious beliefs, especially those
>>most ridiculous and potentially hurtful ones, from the
>>actions people take based on those beliefs ?
You can see people’s actions. Until you can read their minds, actions are the only window into a person’s beliefs.
While I whole-heartedly share the author’s joy at giving up religion the problem with putting too much value on this emotion is that such feelings of ‘it all makes sense now’ are common to conversion experiences in general. The difference is probably that with a naturalist outlook, the harder you scratch at the surface of the beliefs the more sense they make. That would be called ‘science’.
@ #10: “This is why I think all religious people, no matter how moderate they think they are, deserve nothing but contempt.”
Not quite. Suppose you’d compare religious people with nonbelievers by measuring just about any attribute that’s not directly associated with their belief systems. I bet you’ll find almost perfectly overlapping distributions with large variances.
The commonalities between believers and non-believers are huge, but they end when you encounter that impermeable membrane that enables the religious to simultaneously hold mutually exclusive beliefs(*). Then, it’s like talking to a schizophrenic person with whom you can carry on a mundane conversation until, without missing a beat, his ideations go bizarre. Similar with ideations about prayer, god in wheat wafers, ensoulment, etc. Except that in most believers the insanity is optional.
So, it’s not the religious people that deserve contempt, but their overt religious ideas and associated actions, especially when they make claims to being exempt from scrutiny and ridicule.
(*) (Where can we get these ‘electric monks’? And where are you, Douglas Adams, when we need you …)
I’m with negentropyeater. We should care about what others believe as well as how they act. Working to change the beliefs of fundies is difficult, but deconversion can permanently and globally improve a person’s relationship to society. Merely trying to prevent them from acting on their various toxic beliefs is worthwhile too, but it’s an losing battle. We need evangelical atheists and humanists.
Sastra,
thx, that’s also how I interpreted it, the usual cop out to that illusion that is the freedom to believe what you want.
I can see what that illusion of freedom has given us up till now. A society that is by and large caught in the chains of the religionists and the mass media manufacturers of consent.
Freedom ? What freedom ?
Anyone who hangs out here and who hasn’t read Jeff Sharlet’s The Family: The Secret Fundamentalism at the Heart of American Power should really do so. The religious right may be somewhat down, but it’s definitely not out.
http://tinyurl.com/55x7af
From the article in The Age :
//WASN’T it hilarious how World Youth Day was an attempt to make Catholicism appear all modern and trendy, but what it achieved was to highlight how deluded and anachronistic the religion is?
The cavernous gap between the fresh-faced young teenagers and the old blokes in frocks and party hats was never more apparent than when the words “pilgrim” and “texting” were used in the same sentence. Repeatedly.//
The scary bit is tho,what I heard on the radio and saw on TV from the younglings that participated,was how thrilled,motivated,filled with spirit and belief,and other crap like that,they were after experiencing this wonderful event.
So while it is true that for the converted and sound-minded this event might have been further proof that religion is anachronistic and for the deluded,unfortunately the already deluded that I heard talk about it did not seem to feel that way.
Trivia, but lots of rivers flow north.
The Willamette in Oregon drains most of the state.
The Nile drains much of Africa.
The Red river in the Dakotas and Minnesota flows into another river, the McKenzie.
All the Russian Siberian rivers, the Amur, Lena etc..
Must be many more, probably all the rivers in northern Australia.
The Jordan in Israeli/Jordan flows South into the Dead sea.
Reality 1, Mythology 0
Wow, the man himself answered my query. Still a thrill for this pharyngula newbie.
@#72 No points for the man. He took on faith erroneous information handed to him in the lesson plan … information that could have been easily verified. Ignorance perpetuating ignorance; received “wisdom” trumping facts. But then, curiosity has never been a hallmark of the Mormon faithful.
Kel @ 71 It’s a wonder that the WYD pilgrims were on a bus designed by their god not to break down! Their god to that intelligent bus; “Don’t you break down and inconvenience my chosen flock or I’ll be down there to screw up traffic on that ramp”. Now there is an example of unsolicited prayers run amuck. Morons.
I agree, it was very nicely written, and I say that not being an atheist myself.
I stop short of questioning the belief of other people *as long as their beliefs don’t impact me*. If the person I’m discussing with suddenly starts using his or her religious beliefs as the basis for some argument, *then* I consider it fair game. And from that point on, I would probably be perceived as an atheist (though that would be incorrect).
I would behave exactly the same if an atheist were to tell me “God doesn’t exist” – said belief would then be fair game. (Most atheists are of the Weak sort, and so would doubtlessly never make such an assertion).
I babble about it only to point out that I wont by default question religious behavior. I simply can’t know enough about the believer to accurately assess whether their reason for believing is credible or justified. Even if I were to become an atheist tomorrow, I don’t think I’d see things the way Ms. Deveny does.
Still, it was a good essay
*shock* Brian can never support this site? Oh, boo hoo! Woe is me!
Self-important twat.
#26 – There went my coffee! blah blah blah
My local paper had a big write up about the pope saving Oz. The whole thing was pretty depressing.
Fawn Brodie, a born-and-raised Utah Mormon–her uncle was LDS Church Prophet, Seer, and Revelator David O. MacKay–left Utah when she was offered a scholarship at the University of Chicago. She said leaving Utah and living in a place where religion didn’t dominate all daily life was like “taking off a hot coat in the summertime.” She went on to write No Man Knows My History, the first non-Mormon biography of Joseph Smith, the founder of the LDS Church, for which she was excommunicated from the church.
In so many of our societies, side by side with material prosperity, a spiritual desert is spreading: an interior emptiness, an unnamed fear, a quiet sense of despair. How many of our contemporaries have built broken and empty cisterns in a desperate search for meaning – the ultimate meaning that only love can give?
Evolving Squid #79
What he said.
If it is so liberating. . .then why do you go on. . .
and on. . .
and. . .
ON
about it? I would think if you were free of it, really free, then you would give it the same attention to other phenomena you are free of, such as Leninism, the Nixon presidency astrology and Vietnam, to name a few. I never hear those issues addressed in here (save for astrology, but that very, very rarely).
Yet you persist. Just how free are you?
Because we ARENT fully free of it, nobody…
How can we be free of it when we live in a country where it effects government to the detriment of sane policy?
How the hell can we feel free of it if you can get death threats for opening calling a cracker a cracker?
Just because I’m personally free of the emotional turmoil a person must suffer from being a dangerous psychopath, for instance – DOESN’T mean that I could relax if I were surrounded by dangerous psychopaths.
er, openly, not opening.
I promise to stop going on about it when people like you stop trying to witness to people like me about their religion.
Just keep making your nowhere plans for nobody.
Re: Nobody@97:
Why go on and on about atheism? Because religious zealots try to use their claims about god to control everyone else. Because christians in particular feel compelled to convert people to their belief systems. Because churches spend millions of dollars in the effort to promote their belief systems, and athiests generally are not organized in similar ways to present the rationalist world view. Because it is better to discover truth through free thought and reason than to settle for corrupt dogma from the Bronze Age. Because it is better to be free than to be a slave.
Nobody @97 –
Why do you go on defending religion when you haven’t a shred of evidence that any of it is true?
That’s odd. Russell seemed to think it’s an argument against theism. Specifically, it’s an argument as to why it’s reasonable not to believe in God despite the historical popularity and unfalsifiability (in some forms) of that belief. You may have noticed that the essay which contains the teapot argument is entitled, “Is There a God?”
Does this make sense? If not then neither does the quote in the post:
I don’t care what people believe in, but I do care that atheism impacts on political discourse, public policy and that it stunts the ability of people to think for themselves and question. And that it kills people and causes suffering. But most of all I care that the invisible electric fences that are wired in the minds of children brainwashed by religion are difficult to remove. And impossible if you don’t even know they’re there.
WYD is a great experience. Like it or not people have the RIGHT to raise their children in their faith. You don’t have the right to stop them. PZ can raise his kids in atheism. Later when they have cast off the chains of such imposed dogmas they might decide to become religious.
When I went to WYD we had folks like PZ show up to disrupt the gathering and try to convert kids without their parents consent. They were all fundamentalists, both Protestant and atheist. The net effect was to bring the youth closer to the Church. Who wants to be like some raving atheist who likes like he hasn’t smiled in years and is obviously without a life? If you want to know more about WYD why not read the homilies of Pope Benedict? Are you “open minded” enough to handle it?
Father J.
Atheism is not a religion. You appear to have made that mistake a number of times in your comment. Start over without that mistaken assumption and you will be able to understand more clearly where you are wrong.
Yes, people do have the right to teach their children any old nonsense, but they don’t have the right to do it free from all criticism.
I have no idea if anti-Rome folks show up at WYD to point out the inherent problems of the religion you are selling. The story seems like the apocryphal ones that we see here all the time by supposed one-time atheists who became religious. The story doesn’t pass the smell test.
Tranlation: Like it or not people have the RIGHT to lie to their children and ruin their lives. People have the RIGHT to make their children as stupid as Fr. J.
Fr. J, your idiotic Catholic religion, which is nothing more than a collection of insane disgusting magic tricks, would be obsolete in less than a century if small gullible children were not brainwashed by their parents and asshole priests like yourself.
Maybe the problem with the word “atheist” is that as a noun it becomes a label: I do not think of myself as an atheist (n). I am a lot more than a single word can describe. I am (amongst other things), atheist (adj). It is a description of an aspect of my personality, not a pigeonhole to put me in.
I’m a herring, not a pigeon!
free, neither are all religions the same as Protestant fundamentalists. How many times has it been assumed that I am a creationist? I am a Catholic and we don’t subscribe to creationism. Atheists also assume we are all stupid, a sadly mistaken assumption. They don’t notice we have debated these issues for 2000 years.
Everyone has the right to raise their children in their faith. Atheism as it cannot be proven is in fact a faith. But atheists edge towards claiming religion is abuse and therefore that they have the right to correct the education of religious children. It is not abuse and no you do not have the right to evangelize children without parental consent.
I was there. I met them and argued with them. You can see them on youtube from WYD. They aren’t hiding. I have also met former atheists who are now religious, some go the other way. Should I doubt them?
Bob, yes you do have the right to lie to your children and I am sure you take full advantage of that right. They are YOUR children, not mine OR the governments. If we forced your children to practice religious you would be upset, we feel the same way when you force our children to practice your faith. We will also resist and you will have to use force. But I don’t think that would stop you if you could get away with it.
The asshole priest Fr. J wrote:
That’s what you think, moron. The truth is anyone who believes in Catholic magic has to be stupid and batshit crazy. In other words they have to be a stupid asshole like yourself.
There’s a running gag in Germany (probably elsewhere as well) that goes something like “The Pope considers suicide — to improve professionally.”
If people like him would take their faith seriously, they’d actually give suicide a second thought, and we’d be rid of that bullshit in even less than a century.
Although, I’m pretty sure those higher up in the hierarchy know fully well that faith IS just a bunch of crap that fits perfectly well with conning people.
And let’s face it, religion IS a multi billion dollar scam. And nothing more. And that’s why it WON’T go away any time soon.
I’m not afraid of dying. I’m afraid of never having lived.
I don’t think being religious ever kept me from living. Going to religious retreats was great fun.
For me, the advantage of being an atheist is that you don’t have to take it personally when shit happens. Some people will look all sad when they hear you’re an atheist and say things like “Oh, that’s a shame, I feel so sorry for you…” I’ll tell you what’s sad, it’s hearing someone who’s just suffered one of life’s tragedies – a family member being killed, a hurricane hitting the house, whatever – wondering why God is doing this to them, what is the Reason Why This Happened. Almost as if they felt personally responsible because they didn’t pray loudly enough. Once you realize that there *isn’t* a Reason with a capital R for everything that happens, it makes life a lot easier to take; that hurricane didn’t hit your house because it was out to get you, or because you skipped church or because a gay couple moved in next door. Shit happens no matter what you believe.
Fr. J, don’t you have some little boys to rape and/or brainwash.
By the way, the reason I call you an asshole is because you are an asshole. One priest is worse than a thousand Catholics because they make a living from lying to children. You preach Catholic magic as if your idiotic bullshit were proven facts. You disgust me mister. The world would be many times better off if people like you dropped dead.
With regard to religion, everyone tends to believe whatever makes them happy.
Fr. J:
That’s about the stupidest thing I have ever read on this blog. Just come clean and admit that you are having grave doubts about your beliefs and your own faith. You will feel much better.
With regard to religion, everyone tends to believe whatever makes them happy.
You’ve obvioulsy never been to an assembly of an Evangelical Free Church and seen into the faces of some of those nutbags’ wives…
re: Fr J. @109:
Stupid is as stupid does. 1+1+1=1 True or false?
The shithead priest Fr. J. said “Atheism as it cannot be proven is in fact a faith.”
Using that logic it requires faith to call astrology bullshit.
All it takes to call astrology ‘bullshit’ is some common sense. It’s the same for any religion, including the Catholic Magic religion. It’s pure bullshit. Also, the idea there’s a magic sky fairy hiding in the clouds is bullshit. I don’t require faith to figure that out.
Marty @ 118
Which number base?
Fr J, do you ever stop lying? Doesn’t your vengeful god frown on that sort of thing?
AntonMates #103
It doesn’t matter if Russell’s essay was entitled: “In this essay I anticipate the later work of Holbach and prove all theists are poopy-headed inbreds with three rows of buck teeth.” The question is, how did he use the frackin’ teapot? He used it this way:
The teapot was intended to counter a common logical fallacy of the theists, no to counter theism per se. Unlike the FSM, it is not even meant to mock theism. If you want to claim I quote-mined, post the whole blasted essay and the conclusion stands.
So you are wrong, Russell did not intend it as an argument against theism. He was much too smart to propose it as any sort of argument against theism. In Why I am not a Christian Russell does not argue Why be a Christian? Why it’s no better than believing in an orbiting teapot! That is the quality of argument when finds in today’s intellectual atheists, not yesteryear’s.
Every one of your issues is debated because it is completely impossible to use evidence to decide. It all appears to be made up in every single way. Trinitarianism may be silly, but it is no more silly than any other claim about gods. The entire set of claims about gods isn’t worth debating, though, because every single claim is unsubstantiated.
What a cop-out. Apparently you never went to a Jesuit school. I cannot imagine them letting you get away with such intellectually dishonest attempts to argue. It’s not my job to prove that your completely unsubstantiated religious doctrines are false. It’s up to you to back them up. You cannot. You have failed. Atheism wins by default. Don’t worry though, every religion that makes claims about gods and the supernatural loses for exactly the same reason.
Given the nature of propaganda, I wonder if the Vatican paid ‘atheists’ and ‘fundamentalists’ to come and harrass WYD kids. The result, as you point out, would be an effective way to strengthen the spirit of community and encourage the children to unthinkingly and uncritically accept the doctrines that Rome is offering.
Unfortunately, I feel quite critical, not least because the Pope, while claiming to care about the victims of the world-wide child rape scandal that the Church has been involved in, shows by his actions that he cares far more about the power of Rome than the victims of rape. When he kicks Cardinal Law out of the Vatican, then, and only then, will I believe that he cares about any of the children who were raped by his priests.
The problem is that people like that Friggin’ Jerker lack the intellect required to understand the meaning of atheism — for them it’s the belief in a non existant god when in reality it’s the lack of belief in a god.
That’s a small but important difference.
As I have said, when atheists insult it means they have lost the argument. Btw, my IQ is 142. See you all at a Mensa meeting. Then again, I doubt it.
Here is a quote from WYD:
“Life is not just a succession of events or experiences, helpful though many of them are. It is a search for the true, the good and the beautiful. It is to this end that we make our choices; it is for this that we exercise our freedom; it is in this – in truth, in goodness, and in beauty – that we find happiness and joy. Do not be fooled by those who see you as just another consumer in a market of undifferentiated possibilities, where choice itself becomes the good, novelty usurps beauty, and subjective experience displaces truth.”
Great essay. My own “epiphany” came when I was around 14, and there was no angst around it at all. Nor any acting out, either; most of the dangerous and not-too-bright stuff that people do in their teens, I either didn’t do at all, or else didn’t get around to doing until I was quite a few years older. Of course, my parents were pretty tepid about religion, so my becoming irreligious was itself hardly an act of rebellion. Hell, one of my grandfathers lapsed out of the Catholic Church in 1908.
I am not afraid of dying. I am afraid of never having lived.
Of course I’m afraid of dying, and I hope the writer is too, because fear of dying makes lots of sense even if one isn’t planning on reproducing. People die from illnesses or injuries, and that s**t hurts whether you’re religious or not. It’s death that’s not worth being afraid of. I figure that after my eventual death, it’ll be a lot like 1952. I didn’t exist then either.
If atheism is a religion simply because it cannot be proven, then I apparently am a member of an infinite number of religions – because there are an infinite number of things I don’t believe in, and an infinite number of these things that I can’t prove the non-existence of.
I’m apparently a member of the Church of the Holy Phone Pole up Fr J’s Ass, for example.
The Pope gives his marketing pitch to the participants at World Youth Day because he considers them to be consumers who he can influence to be loyal to the brand he sells.
As I have said, when atheists insult it means they have lost the argument.
What argument you arrogant git? You’re just making shit up and calling it an argument.
Damn, what a morally bankrupt fuckwit.
Atheism is a belief like bald is a hair colour.
Atheism is a belief like not collecting stamps is a hobby.
Atheism is a belief like an empty plate is a meal.
I don’t believe in fairies. Does that make me an afairyist?
I don’t believe in Santa Claus. Am I an asantaist (or maybe an aclausist?)
There are literally billions of things I don’t believe in. Normally I wouldn’t give any of them a second thought. (I don’t believe that Elvis runs a secret Nazi base on the far side of the moon.)
Just the fact that certain people do believe in some things that I don’t, does not put the onus on me to prove my disbelief to them.
I have no problem with anyone believing whatever they like, if it brings them comfort. The problem is when those deluded people start encroaching on my life, my freedoms, my government, my country. THAT’S when they cross the line, and I have to speak out.
And unfortunately, they cross that line all the time.
Seems like a smart guy. Why he believes in fairy tales? I have no idea.
“Here is a quote from WYD:”
Sounds pretty reasonable. I notice there’s not a single word in there about ancient Middle Eastern myths or spooky crackers.
Oh – and Fr. J (you are beginning to piss me off too, and it takes a lot to do that) – my IQ trumps yours by a wide margin, and I was also a long-time Mensa member.
Having a high IQ proves nothing. I eventually left Mensa when I realised it was full of twats.
craig – can I join your religion?
Thus spake Fr.J:
Yes, but only in the last 300 years or so have we refined a method for reliably creating new knowledge despite the fact that, individually, our minds are deeply flawed and fallible. That method is “science” and its success is unparalleled. Thanks to science we went from dieing of dental abscesses and throwing turnips at witches to MRI scanners, microwave ovens, cellphones, and satnav in a few hundred years.
In contrast, the ways of pretending to knowledge — bullshit fakery like “revelation” and “sacred tradition” — espoused by parasites like you for thousands of years, didn’t create a single tangible artifact that reduced human suffering or enhanced human happiness or wellbeing. Your “holy” dogma, doctrine, scripture, and theology are worth less than a spoonful of dog shit. Either you know this, and are a contemptible charlatan, or you don’t, and are a contemptible fool.
There’s no fundamental difference between the arrant nonsense you peddle to your parishioners and the codswallop peddled by ancient Egyptian priests of Ra or the lies made up by L. Ron Hubbard. It’s all made-up crap that lets fat leeches like you live off the working population by spouting bollocks and hocus-pocus. That you and your ilk successfully brainwashed generations of ignorant peasants for 2000 years with this transparently ridiculous nonsense is utterly irrelevant to the veracity of your truth-claims, all of which are demonstrably false or unfalsifiable (that’s code for horseshit).
Please, give us a break. We’re not poor ignorant peasants who believe stuff without evidence any more or give a shit about your empty promises of everlasting life or empty threats of eternal torture.
Make with the evidence or go back to your stock in trade: brainwashing and exploiting the ignorant and the gullible.
El, I never joined Mensa. I don’t need too. I just wanted to point out to those who think I am stupid that my IQ is in the top percentile. They are going to have to find another way to insult me. I am sure they will. When you can’t argue, you insult.
such a long suffering martyer. Feel the insults rip into you; imagine them rip into the flesh of christ; feel that tingling down there…..
religion is more than a con. If it were just a con and a fantasy it would just fall by the side and be forgotten. It gives like drugs or any other cumpulsive activity that people get involved in some form of relief some. The big issue it seems to me is fear, fear of death the great void that as humans we seem to be alone in our awareness of. I suspect that what really separates we humans and the rest of the animals is this ability to make up a religion.
religion as practiced tries to make the practitioner important and relieve the stress of the knowledge that we all must die.
it will not go away by itself very easily. I think that is what is behind the “preachers” strong motivation as much as it being a security thing.
kind of like the drug addicted drug dealer.
Fr. J, you made me break my own golden rule (Never get personal).
But when you posted your “My IQ is blah blah” comment I saw red. Stick to the arguments, don’t try to claim the high moral ground by dint of an arbitary IQ number, that will get you shot down in flames so fast it will start a UFO scare. Do you really think anyone on THIS blog of all blogs will be impressed by that?
I could claim my IQ is 2000, so what? Does that validate my argument? Does it bollocks.
Being smart just means you can learn things quickly — if you choose to. It doesn’t mean that you are knowledgeable. It doesn’t mean you are wise. It is true that people tend to assume that someone who presents himself as ignorant and foolish is presumed to be stupid, as well, but, as you have chosen to demonstrate to us, it is possible to claim to be smart while simultaneously demonstrating that you are ignorant and foolish.
#122,
If the theists use that common logical fallacy in their arguments for theism–which, as Russell points out, they do–then countering that fallacy is countering theism. It’s not a universal, knock-down, final refutation of every argument for theism, but what single counter would be?
No need, since the part you quoted contradicts your own claim. But if you want it underscored, skip to the end.
Russell’s thesis is that there is no good reason to accept theism. The teapot analogy is used to attack two particular reasons which are commonly given–“Everybody believes it, so there must be some truth to it” and “You can’t doubt it unless you can prove that it’s false.” Therefore, the teapot analogy is part of his argument against theism. Clear?
“See you all at a Mensa meeting. Then again, I doubt it.”
What’s that if not an insult.
Obviously our tiny brains can’t match your colossal intellect. I bow to your superior debating skills.
I have never insulted another poster on this blog, or any other blog. Until now.
Anton Mates #141
You can repeat it ad nauseum, but you’ll only succeed in repeating it, not proving your point. A plain and simple reading of Russell’s essay shows that I am correct. You can deke here and there, but you can’t escape the fact the Russell’s rather limited use of the teapot was to show the absurdity of placing the burden of proof on those who affirm the negative. It was not intended to disprove those who affirm the positive.
I accept that there are smart people who believe in gods. I just don’t understand why. And I have never met anyone smart enough to provide a believable case that supernatural beings exist. Do you have one, Fr J? All I’ve seen from you so far has been some nonsense and some claims of your superiority.
El, let me figure this out. I am called stupid repeatedly. Finally I post my IQ. Then I am told I am boasting, especially when I imply that the IQ’s of those insulting me are lower. So basically you leave me no option at all right? Do the insults, many of which are utterly vile, against me bother you? Apparently not. So I am unconcerned about your joining in. Go right ahead. It proves my point.
I find it humorous that Anton backed up his claims with proof and heddle the nitwit accuses him of simply repeating his claims.
Also Fr.J: Fuck off you pompous, mentally challenged, bigoted, lying sack of worthless human trash. In every single one of your posts you have distorted the truth, outright made stuff up and in general been a condescending prick. You constantly attack others yet claim the martyr when your disgusting lies are met with ridicule.
We don’t think you’re stupid just because you’re religious; we think you are stupid because you have proven yourself to be so.
The following can be repeated ad nauseum after each of your posts and it will remain equally true:
What you’ve just said is one of the most insanely idiotic things I have ever heard. At no point in your rambling, incoherent response were you even close to anything that could be considered a rational thought. Everyone in this room is now dumber for having listened to it. I award you no points, and may God have mercy on your soul.
It’s all there in your post at #125. You said:
As I have said, when atheists insult it means they have lost the argument. Btw, my IQ is 142. See you all at a Mensa meeting. Then again, I doubt it.
I haven’t read all your previous posts, so I hadn’t formed an opinion of you. But then you post that.
You accuse us of insulting you, then you go and insult us. That brief outburst has hypocrite written all over it. I have never insulted you. I have never insulted anyone. But you deliver a blanket insult on everyone who posts here and calls themselves atheist, and in the same breath claim that we fall back on insults when we (according to you) lose the argument.
Your intelligence quotient is not the issue. I have never called you stupid. But you have just called me (and all other atheists) stupid. Way to go, hypocrite.
Fr. J
You really need to ask yourself why are you posting here. If it is to try to convert us atheists, you are wasting both your and our time. We have seen all your arguments. They don’t meet our requirements. For example, in another thread I asked you to tell me where to find some physical evidence for god, like Moses’ burning bush. Something I can test with instruments and have inspected by magicians to ensure that something supernatural is present. Can you do so? That is the criteria most of us to belive in god.
Remember also, freedom to practice your religion is our freedom from your religion. You could start by getting the church out of politics, anti-abortion activities, and the like, which attempt to impose your theology on the rest of the population. In otherwords, show us respect before you demand it.
#143
No, a plain and simple reading of Russell’s essay shows that Russell’s conclusion is what he says it is.
Title: “Is There a God?”
First sentence: “The question whether there is a God is one which is decided on very different grounds by different communities and different individuals.”
Conclusion: “My conclusion is that there is no reason to believe any of the dogmas of traditional theology and, further, that there is no reason to wish that they were true.”
This doesn’t require a rhetoric degree to comprehend. Russell asks whether there is a God, and concludes that there’s no reason to think there is. And in case the theist argues that atheists need a positive case against God to choose disbelief, Russell refutes this using the very teapot analogy we’re talking about.
Um, Russell’s not talking about anyone affirming the negative at all. He’s talking about doubters, not dogmatists in the other direction.
Regardless, yes, the burden of proof is not on the doubter. Therefore, in order to argue against theism, Russell doesn’t have to disprove it. An attack on the various arguments in favor of theism is an attack on theism itself; if the arguments fail, it is reasonable to discard the belief.
Nerd of Redhead: I was thinking exactly the same thing. I’ve been reading some of Fr. J’s older posts, and I see the pattern now. Ignore the arguments, hurl general insults then claim to be insulted. Round and round it goes, getting nowhere. When you can’t argue, you insult. – your words, Fr. J.
Fr. J – I will make you a deal. Present your arguments and I will do my best to refute them logically. I will not insult you unless you insult me (or other atheists here in the form of blanket statements about atheists in general). You seem to want to debate here, despite the vitriol going both ways. Fine – let’s hear your best arguments for your beliefs. And take the trouble to answer your critics instead of playing the martyr card.
Maybe I should qualify that last post of mine thus: Please present any arguments you have that have not already been refuted and dismissed countless times already by other posters here. I don’t believe there is a single argument in favour of religion left standing that hasn’t already been refuted, negated, smacked down, logically dispensed with, trashed, dissed, ridiculed, bashed, shat upon, laughed at, and basically unceremoniously dumped by rational clear-minded unapologetic ungodly sinful ape descendants on this blog and countless others over and over again par excellence, thoroughly and ad nauseum.
But if you have one – please feel free to post it here. Let’s hear something original.
I’ve been told by someone who has attended World Youth Days as a youth that nothing propinks like propinquity — there’s lots of sex going on among those attending.
El, I never joined Mensa. I don’t need too. I just wanted to point out to those who think I am stupid that my IQ is in the top percentile. They are going to have to find another way to insult me. I am sure they will. When you can’t argue, you insult.
Posted by: Fr. J
WHOOPIE! My IQ has at time been measured to be 140. At other times, it has been measured to be as low as 120. Which is the more accurate measure of who I am? Trick question.
Also, like you, I never felt the need to join Mensa. Though I hear that there are both religious and atheist Mensa groups. So is there any meaning to that claim?
The reason why you are called stupid is because you keep pulling out “proofs” that most of us had heard and dismissed long ago. And then you keep repeating yourself.
As for insults, you are sadly ignorant of how people have conducted themselves over the centuries. Insults has always been a part of the public discourse, even among intellectuals.
For such a “towering intellect”, you are maddeningly small minded. I am sure that is because your chosen religion was a cramped vessel to grow such potential. Now be careful least a gnat’s fart blows your brains out.
Janine ID – my point exactly. I also have been subjected to far too many IQ tests over the years, with wildly varying results. Even my best friends do not know what my “official” IQ is (I regard my Mensa test to be the “official” one, not that it matters one jot to me.)
My point to Fr. J is that IQ is irrelevant. He claims to have been called stupid so announces his IQ as if that proves his arguments are valid, but it backfired on him. Personally, I am not interested in IQ wars, and I suspect neither is anyone else. The quality of his arguments is all that matters, and so far (on reviewing them) they have been childish at best. Yes Fr. J, I have gone back through several articles here and taken a look at some of your posts. So far I haven’t seen anything you have said that hasn’t already been nailed down flat a dozen times over. Yet you persist in your absurd claims. Sure, atheists have killed millions over the centuries, but they didn’t kill in the name of atheism (as if anyone could). Atheism cannot be blamed, no matter how you cut it. Religion, on the other hand is directly responsible for millions of deaths. People kill in the name of religion. They kill for their imaginary god or gods. They are doing it right now. They will continue to do it, probably for centuries more. The argument is irrefutable. Yet you continue to attempt to refute it. You might as well try to argue that the sky is green.
I refuse to get into a war of insults and “I’m smarter than you so I must be right” inanities. As a general rule I do not hurl insults; not because I disapprove, it’s just that I don’t feel the need to unless provoked. I am not impressed with IQ scores, degrees or qualifications of any kind. Just give me a sensible argument in favour of religion that hasn’t been refuted already. Any religion. Anybody. Just one. I don’t believe there is one. And that is my only belief.
So prove me wrong.
Fr.J babbled,
The reason that you have been arguing for over 2000 years is that you threw out the only logical conclusion before you started.
Wow…I sure I hope I can be as smart, smug, self-righteous, and self-assured as all of you higher beings are some day. I have found that the most vocal hostility toward religion that gets bantied about is the direct result of unresolved hostility and guilt about habitual jerking-off to porn and the necessity of habitual jerking-off to porn due to a generally anti-social bent and physical shortcomings.
Bob @156,
Looks like you achieved your goal. Happy jerking.
Atheists: We few, we happy few, we band of brothers (and sisters)!
For your amusement: someone I know who went to one of those World Youth Day bashes told me it’s just what you might expect with all those young hormones sizzling: a great place to hook up, get laid, get lucky, make whoopie, and whisper-shout, “Oh, God! Oh, God! Oh, God!”
Lots of happy inoffensive nice kids wandering around Sydney for the last week or so. Pity they were in the thrall of the funny hatted old guys. Imagine if all these kids used their powers for good instead of just wandering around waving flags (mostly American btw) and singing hymns.
A local park near my place had a mass almost every morning last week for the pilgrims. Why mass every day for god’s sake? Seems like an incredible waste of time that could be better used sleeping in, or partying, or getting laid, or sightseeing…
Bob @ #156, guilt about habitual jerking-off to porn.
Bob, no need for the guilt. God made porn so you can jerk-off. Jerk away… just don’t let your wife/mother catch you.
Bob @ #156:
Gibberish. Pure, unmitigated gibberish with no relevance to the conversation whatsoever. It didn’t even rise to the level of non-sequitor.
Also there is absolutely nothing wrong with jerking off to porn. It may even help prevent prostate cancer.
;)
It may even help prevent prostate cancer
With the effort I’ve put into prostate cancer prevention I will be mighty pissed if I ever get cancer down there.
I liked the T-shirts with “Pontifex me vexat,” but a group of us thought “Romanes eunt domus” would have been funnier.
I’m going to go out on a limb and say something that is bound to be rather contentious here.
It is not religion that causes violence, or bigotry, or simply hatred. Those religious people who exhibit such behaviour do so not because of their religion; they are like that regardless of what they believe. But what they do is to use their religious beliefs to justify that harmful behaviour. In much the same way, religious people of peace and tolerance have used their religion to justify their humanitarian work. And there are perfect examples that such people exist: William Wilberforce, Mother Teresa, and Martin Luther King Jr. Each of them was motivated by their religious convictions to fight against slavery, poverty, or segregation, and there are religiously motivated organisations that provide humanitarian work throughout the world.
I will admit, that religion has quite often been a major factor in many of the problems that the world has faced, but so many of those problems, notably the major conflicts, were ultimately the result of the human condition, not religion. The fact is religion itself is benign. It’s just that it can be used to justify anything, whether it be peace and tolerance, or violence and bigotry. To argue that it causes the latter two is to use the same logic that exists in the argument that video games cause violence; it is simply unfounded.
Nobody says all religions cause violence… etc.
That is a straw man. It’s the idea that faith is ennobling that leads to all sorts of irrational thinking–including religious stupidity. If faith is good– extreme faith is better, right? And there is no objective way to tell what faith from another?
Religions proffer divine truths that are not truths at all. And in doing so, they make people both arrogant and ignorant while imagining themselves humble.
The article linked was brilliant. The apologists miss the point. Check yourself for biases caused by the “faith in faith” meme, MikeG. You’ve heard what isn’t there while missing the main point.
The rivers in Queensland around the south of the Gulf of Carpentaria flow north. Most of the rivers of the Northern Territory flow north. The Ord River in north-eastern Western Australian flows north. In fact most of the north of Australia, with the exception of Cape York Peninsula, drains northward. It would be likely to, wouldn’t it? It’s a long way south.
For the poster who wanted counter-examples to “all peninsulas point south”, Cape York Peninsula is a good one. It’s the big pointy bit on the top right of a map of Australia :)
My favourite WYD t-shirt: “I got touched by the Pope down under” :-)
For some reason, this reminded me of an old story from The Onion:
Bad link, I should really use preview.
The image I get when I think of priests like Fr J is of them flagellating* themselves every night until they cum. That image comes every time I also see Frankie Pavone on EWTN.
*I meant flagellating, not fellating.
Act of Reparation to the Most Blessed Sacrament
With that most profound respect
which divine Faith inspires,
O my God and Saviour Jesus Christ,
true God and true man,
I adore Thee,
and with my whole heart I love Thee,
hidden in the most august Sacrament of the Altar,
in reparation of all the irreverences,
profanations, and sacrileges, that I,
to my shame, may have until now committed,
as also for all those
that have been committed against Thee,
or that may be ever committed for the time to come.
I offer to Thee,
therefore, O my God,
my humble adoration, not indeed,
such as Thou art worthy of,
nor such as I owe Thee,
but such, at least,
as I am capable of offerings;
and I wish that I could love Thee
with the most perfect love
of which rational creatures are capable.
In the meantime,
I desire to adore Thee now and always,
not only for those Catholics
who do not adore or love Thee,
but also so supply the defect,
and for the conversion of all heretics,
schismatics, lebertines,
atheists, blasphemers,
sorcerers, Mahomedans,
Jews, and idolaters.
Ah! yes, my Jesus,
mayest Thou be known,
adored, and loved by all
and may thanks be continually given to Thee
in the most holy and august Sacrament!
But articulett, the author of the article did claim towards the end that religion kills people and causes suffering, and that is a meme that has been repeated in various forms here. I was simply addressing that argument.
Now, as to the ennobling affect that faith in any specific religious dogma can have on people, I would simply point out that not all people who feel the same way take their faith to the extreme and use it to justify irrationality. Indeed, some are able to spin their faith and justify rationality.
But certainly there is nothing wrong in using moderate amounts of faith as an opiate; we all find our own ways in dealing out comfort and alleviating that pain the real world often inflicts on us. The different religious denominations have developed their own opiates that they share amongst their own groups; unfortunately for some it becomes addictive (the source of religious extremism). Atheists on the other hand, we develop our own opiates and only rarely share them with other non-believing individuals, but nor are we immune to the addictiveness of our own opiates either.
As long as the believers can control their faith and not let it control them, then I have no problem with them believing in irrational and nonsensical things. And if they can separate those personal beliefs from any and all complex social interactions they have with non-believers, then I have that much more respect for them. It’s the main reason why Buddhism is the only religion I currently have any real respect for; proselytism and evangelism run contrary to Buddhist teachings.
By the way. That article wasn’t brilliant. It was unremarkable. There wasn’t anything in there that was profound or something that no one has said before. It was just another rant detailing the author’s deconversion story coupled with the standard Atheist(n.) rhetoric plus an expression of antipathy towards Catholicism and religion in general. In other words: nothing I haven’t heard before.
One last note, on the issue of Russell’s teapot that has been debated here, I do believe that it is actually an argument against received dogmas rather than theism.
#164:
You say that “It is not religion that causes violence, or bigotry, or simply hatred” and argue that since it can be used to justify either harmful or good behaviour, it is benign. But religion is not something neutral, that makes no difference in how people behave towards others. Religion is an important part of what separates “us” from “them”, making it so much easier for good, decent people to justify bigotry and violence towards “them”. And this is no accident: it is a method for strengthening intra-group cohesion. “We” are good people, “they” (members of other religions, nonbelievers, “the world” to more extreme religious groups) are sinful, depraved, have no morals, are no better than animals… so you had better stay in here with us. “We” have God on our side, so anything we do must be right, especially if we’re doing it to “them”. I’m not saying all religious people are bigots, or that all religious groups are violent, but religion does make a difference – in the wrong direction.
My God,
I believe
I adore
I hope
and I love You.
I beg pardon for those
who do not believe,
who do not adore,
who do not hope, and
who do not love You.
Amen.
Re: Domingo@175:
Matthew 6:5-6
Hey, for all you know, Domingo was typing in his room with the door shut. Jesus never complained about people cyber-flaunting their faith.
Domingo: much more of that and you’ll go blind.
The spookiest thing in my opinion, was seeing all those young people carrying a giant life size wooden cross around with them.
If Jesus had been executed 20 years ago, they would be carrying around a life size electric chair. What a sick and demented death cult it is.