Charlie Daniels has chimed in with a little squeak of outrage at Newdow’s lawsuit. His post is titled “He Must Be a Miserable Man“, and I think it must be self-referential since it is an astonishing collection of stupidities. Foremost, here’s one that I can’t believe anyone would say:
If we deny God His rightful place in the affairs of this nation should we expect Him to intervene when we need protection? Just what do you think has kept us safe from terrorist attacks since 9/11? It certainly wasn’t the atheists.
I expect atheists did contribute, as did Christians and Muslims and other Americans. What does Charlie Daniels think has prevented further attacks? Does he seriously believe there’s an invisible man flicking away terrorists at the border?
I’m actually most curious about the logic behind the claim that a god gets credit for the absence of hijackings in the last seven years, though. What was he doing in 2001? Napping?
God does everything for us except when he doesn’t.
Who says theology doesn’t provide real answers?
Then again, my apartment hasn’t had a terrorist attack since 2004, and no pledges there include paeans to God.
I personally can’t for the life of me understand how any sane person can believe there is not a God.
That’s the most accurate thing I’ve ever read from you, Charlie. You’re right – you really, really don’t understand. Because you have no ability to see the world through another’s eyes, and no desire to critically examine your own defiantly ignorant worldview.
If the fundies in the US are anything to go by he was probably off somewhere being horrified by what two consenting adults were doing in the privacy of their own home.
I’m beginning to think that musicians are a lot crazier than normal people.
It looks like some major Rock guitarists actually took the idea that Delta Blues guitarist Robert Johnson sold his soul to the Devil seriously. Then there was the Death Metal artist who burned down churches.
http://normdoering.blogspot.com/2008/12/devils-music.html
He’s kinda straying from that whole “Bush kept us safe after 9/11” mantra, isn’t he?
This reminds me of George Carlin’s joke about Christian Athletes.
Good grief, that site is eye-watering – both the appearance and the content. It’s like what you’d expect to hear emanating from a couple of six-year-olds whose parents have shoved religion down their throat and, for fun, asked them what they think of atheism.
He wouldn’t want hell not to exist? Christian love at its finest – he’d hate it if there wasn’t a place where certain human beings could spend eternity in suffering for not agreeing with him.
Actually, I think the stupid burns brighter in this gem by Charlie Daniels:
http://www.charliedaniels.com/soapbox-2008-121508.htm
Atheist Pat Tillman enlisted to prevent further terrorist attacks, and he was far from the only atheist to enlist.
Um, This is a real “Dog Bites Man” story, but with the dog / country (or rock) singer being exceptionally “toofless”.
Just what do you think has kept us safe from terrorist attacks since 9/11?
A much better question would be what made the 9/11 terrorist attacks possible. It was the heaven belief of course. In a world without religious insanity the World Trade Center towers would still be standing, thousands of Americans would still be alive, and America would not be in two wars right now.
Nope, I’m pretty certain that I’ll still be comfortably aware that there are exactly zero places to go after death. Interesting fantasy, though.
Just remember Bob what a miracle is. A miracle is a plane crash where 500 people die but miraculously one survives – albeit with crippling injuries.
If we don’t believe in a god, he’ll get so mad that he’ll allow terrorists to kill us.
They really do worship a psychopath. That explains a lot of their theology.
“A much better question would be what made the 9/11 terrorist attacks possible. It was the heaven belief of course.”
Are you sure? I’ve been told it was “teh gays.”
Or was that Katrina? So hard to keep track of which sins God is punishing with which disaster.
Oh well, mysterious ways and all that.
God’s training radical Muslims to kill Americans…
This is just more evidence that we have failed to keep proper Bible chronology since the days of Eden. Someone must have miscounted. If God was taking a day off on 9/11, that means it must have been a divinely ordained “day of rest”. Once we fix our calendar, everything will be fine again (except for every seventh days, of course, when disasters will be regularly scheduled).
If this becomes the accepted wordlview in the U.S.,I cannot see how they can avoid the fall back into the middle ages.
Actually,make that the bronze age,because stuff like this:
is bronze age magical thinking right there.
Or maybe he’s just lying.
I love how Christians seem to assume that since we atheists don’t believe in an afterlife, that we’re the miserable ones. What does it say about them, that they have so little appreciation for this life that the idea of not having a better one after it strikes them as so intolerable?
Is it too early to start nominations for the “Dumbest thing I’ve heard all Year” Awards?
Does anthrax in the mail no longer count as terrorism? Because people certainly died from it after 9/11.
Screw Charlie Daniels.
Are you kidding me??? what was God doing on 9/11 then? Hey, how about the christmas tsunami? this has to be the most absurd ignorant rant i have ever read. he complains about a guy who wants to take god’s name off currency and the pledge but fails to note it wasn’t in either until 1953-54 when McCarthyism had people paranoid of communism.
Leave the matter of religion to the family altar, the church, and the private school, supported entirely by private contributions. Keep the church and state forever separate. – Ulysses S. Grant
A democracy is nothing more than mob rule, where fifty-one percent of the people may take away the rights of the other forty-nine. – Thomas Jefferson
I suspect that Charlie got “stoned in the morning and got drunk in the afternoon” before he wrote that drivel.
Um, doesn’t god (any of them) approve of violence? He/she/it never seems to inspire his followers to do anything productive. It’s always blowing up Buddha statues, fly planes into buildings, slaughter the residents of Jerusalem in 1099 and have another go at the Jews several centuries later, micromanage duties at the Dome of the Rock to the point where it is just childish, and the list goes on and on. All for a 10 foot cock and a few hundred virgins, or something like that.
I expect Charlie Daniels believes that God wanted to stop 9/11, but he lost a fiddle playing contest to some dude named Osama.
“What was he doing in 2001? Napping?”
Are you serious? God doesn’t nap! He was obviously pissed that we had offended him somehow, so he decided to show his anger by killing several thousand innocent people. He was angry because we allow gays to exist without publicly stoning them. He was pissed because we allow women to work and vote and choose when they want to bring children into the world. He was pissed because we want to destroy unborn souls by experimenting with stem cells in order to cure god given diseases. There are thousands of reasons why god killed all those people in New York that day. He works in mysterious ways, you know. Or maybe he was knapping and Allah got one over on him.
dude, have you ever read Rapture Ready? A bunch of depressed, suicidal maniacs about to go the Way of Heaven’s Gate, the lot of them.
A more appropriate question for Charlie Daniels to be asking would be, “Why does the Lord God Almighty permit the Devil to run around rural Georgia challenging unwary innocents to fiddling contests for their immortal soul?”
Yeah, Daniels is a typical idiotard. Thinking about some of his music shows that. His first Uneasy Rider was about a long-haired hippie going to a redneck douche bar, while his later Uneasy Rider 88 (IIRC) was about a guy going to a gay bar and freaking out. His “In America” and “The South is Gonna Do It Again” shows typical backwards thinking and fear and disdain for city dwellers, among others. I am not surprised to find he’s gone further round the bend. It’s sad, but not unusual. His fellating Bush (in another column, maybe the one referenced above, I didn’t check), told me that he has swallowed the kool-aid (pun intended) by the gallon.
Now, can Charlie Daniels beat Chuck Norris in tardity?
God to 3/11: “Oops, sorry Madrid. Too busy protecting America. And my apologies to all the other locales.”
Yeah, I’m panicked about one of the places I might end up when I die: The panic stems from if my last wishes are honored and I’m cremated, or if my lunatic brother does his wild-ass nut routine and my husband and son go with burial because it’s not worth arguing with the crazy about it. I don’t want to be worrying about crap like that when I die. But I have to.
I’m not sure a will or irrevocable trust is sufficient ammo against Ted Bundy Sybill somebody get the tranq gun why aren’t you locked up crazy.
Yes, I have a Charlie Daniels kind of brother. There’s a reason I’ve had nothing to do with him since 2000.
Thanks for posting this PZ. I furious when I read this and it’s good to know that others are equally shocked by this jumbo-sized serving of dumb.
i may well panic when i’m about to die, but it won’t be hell i’d be afraid of. I’m simply horribly afraid of death. i want to either die suddenly, or drugged out of my mind. I don’t want to consciously feel myself slipping away :-/
I went to his “soapbox” archive and read the posting he made right after 9-11. More stuff on gays, abortion, and the ACLU keeping God out of the public sphere is what caused the terrorists to attack us.
Bleaah…….
Looks like the devil went down to Georgia and stole this guy’s brain.
Three words for Charlie Daniels: Pat Fucking Tillman.
Now there’s a rare eloquence.
er. the “J” in #35 is me.
Where have you been, PZ? Didn’t you know God was PUNISHING us on 9/11 for our lack of Christian piety?
I can’t help but believe that … when they are lying on their deathbeds and they are about to take that last breath and walk through the door in irreversible eternity if panic sets in when they realize that there are only two places to go after death and the good one is controlled by that God they have been trying to convince the world doesn’t exist
Yeah, Charlie, I’m shaking in my handknit slippers over here. You keep on telling yourself that.
(Besides, if the monotheist afterlife really does exist, anyone with half a brain can see Hell is where all the cool people go.)
Dear Mr. Daniels,
I have read your eloquent thesis about atheists and atheism. In response I humbly ask that you perform two minor things for me. Would you please be so kind as to fuck off and die.
Thank you,
‘Tis Himself
ugh
The whole god protects us mantra is so full of shit I can smell it from here in South Carolina.
I love how he’s such an asshole that he didn’t protect us on 9/11 but he’s been trying to catch up every since.
What a dick.
“Old, senile, and ignorant”
Think the full headline should have been: Old, senile, and ignorant godfucking asshole.
Upon mature consideration of my post #41, I’d like to change my desires for Daniel’s future. Having him fuck off and die is a bit harsh. Instead, he should fuck off and become seriously ill.
Inigo Montoya: You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.
If we deny God His rightful place in the affairs of this nation should we expect Him to intervene when we need protection?
None of us is denying god’s rightful place in the affairs of this nation.
Chuckie should read the Constitution.
why oh why do these morons have such a hard time understanding that it’s not “god” we care about, but the godbots who proclaim to worshit* it, and feel entitled to push their religion on everybody.
*originally a typo, but in hindsight accurate
PZ, how dare you endorse pedophila on your blog? In your entire post there is not one word about pedophilia. And in the immortal words of Charlie Daniels,
If we deny God His rightful place in the affairs of this nation should we expect Him to intervene when we need protection?
Sure, why not. What, is God in the freakin mafia or something? Or is a spiteful little brat or something? Or, is there some sort of law of physics that would prevent God from protecting people or something? How idiotic…
I’m with those who want to know where God was for 9/11, if he’s been protecting us ever since.
And where was he when my perfectly healthy 6 year old cousin had a sudden aneurysm and died?
And when innocent children are kidnapped and sold into the sex trade?
Right. Mysterious ways.
The ability of Christians to pretend all these other things happen because God is “mysterious” astounds me. If he’s so mysterious, I would love to know how it’s his WILL that we’re safe from terrorists (for the moment) but that it won’t be his will if we get blowed up real good tomorrow.
How can he be omnipotent and yet …not be?
How can these people NOT come to the same realizations that I have, given just this one snippet of many that invites critical thinking?
Oh right… that’s too hard. :/
We could solve the Charlie Daniels problem just by gluing his fingers to a violin.
Charlie Daniels, you are one brainwashed fundie SOB, you son of a gun. I’m very disappointed because your “Devils Fly Down From Georgia” (or whatever) song was really awesome. (Not.)
P.S. To further my point.
People like Charlie Daniels remind me of island natives of old who worshiped gods on a primitive level.
Tsunami? The gods are furious! We must have done something wrong! We must appease them!
Natural disaster subsides, all is calm. (Or at least, my family is safe.) We must have done something right! All hail (insert god here)!
HOW CAN PEOPLE THINK THIS WAY IN MODERN CULTURE?
Sometimes it seems like Inigo had delusional Christians in mind when he said that.
I understand your reasoning, but I prefer to think of it as very cold. Reading it, you can feel your intelligence heading down towards thermal equilibrium.
The nuts who think 9/11 was the pink elephant in the sky’s punishment for our liberal ways have it backwards. Two groups of people were “praying” that day. (And by “praying”, I mean talking to themselves)
Whose “prayers” were answered that day? The thousands of passengers, their families, and the people in the towers who watched helplessly as the planes struck the buildings? The families desperately calling loved ones who were in the towers? Nope. None of those “prayers” were answered.
You know who got what they wanted that day? The wackos who hijacked the planes. Osama Bin Laden. These guys were successful in their terror. Obviously, their special pink unicorn in the sky loves them the best.
Try that the next time someone invokes a special relationship between their god and the US.
@Brownian,
Correction:
God does everything for us except when he doesn’t.
He does even when He doesn’t.
That’s how He rolls.
Does “he must be a miserable man” refer to god? I don’t think it is an accurate description of Mike Newdow. I often listen to his music CD’s, and he sounds quite cheerful.
Was it D’Souza who argued that 9/11 happened because the west’s liberalism pissed off the Muslims?
Charlie seems to have forgotten the fact that there has been terrorist attacks in the US since 9/11. (And outside it, plenty of Americans and non-Americans died in terror attacks, not to mention natural disasters, preventable disease, starvation and so on.)
Maybe God forgot, too.
So answering my question posed @ 18 for myself took about 10 minutes of googling:
Serine proteases are ancient enzymes,actually already found in unicellular eukaryotes,some of the other clotting factors were created by duplication from other proteins,and clotting factors such as factor 13 are used in vertebrates for all sorts of jobs,e.g.wound healing and tissue remodelling.
Link here:http://pandasthumb.org/archives/2007/02/behe-vs-sea-squ.html#more
“I roll for the plane going to the North Tower. 14, the plane hits the tower. The tower’s saving throw is 4. The tower collapses. Now I roll for the plane going to the South Tower….”
Yep. Charlie Daniels.
Funny thing is I keep reading his blog for some reason and have been for over a year. It’s the car wreck phenomenon of blogs. Horrible but you have to keep looking. Either that or eating marmite.
Oops,sorry,wrong thread for my 59 !
Fire on the moun, run boys, run.
The devil’s in the house of the risin’ sun.
Chicken in the bread pin, pickin’ out dough.
“Granny, does your dog bite?”
“No, child, no.”
– The Devil Went Down To Georgia, The Charlie Daniels Band
Well, with this level of lyrical coherence, what do you really expect from his blog posts?
More like ” the devil went down to Georgia looking for a BRAIN to steal but all he found was Charlie.” So sad. I could just hear the inbred redneck accent in that post.
I suppose that he didn’t go to Aspen for a vacation this week. Yep, we are SO safe!
This is so sad. I had no idea Charlie Daniels had a blog. Why do celebrities think that because they have some sort of skill at acting or making music makes them philosophers?
I used to like Charlie’s music in the early days, before he went all jingoistic with “In America” and similar shit.
But maybe it’s our problem. As Charlie pointed out, he’s using “Cowboy Logic.” I’d been fooling around with that Aristotelian stuff I learned in college. Where can I study this Cowboy Logic? Will I have to wear a hat?
Their clerics are higher level than ours. Also, those terrorists had like 6 proficiencies in piloting.
…..Sorry. I’ll stop now.
“Where can I study this Cowboy Logic? Will I have to wear a hat?”
You don’t really need to “study” Cowboy Logic; there’s a surgical procedure that will have you using it in no time. As to the hat, it’s not required, but you might want to wear one to cover up the scar.
@’Tis himself.’ Don’t really need to wish anything upon poor Charlie, like all good Christians, he has created his own personalized hell wherein he is the only resident- although he (apparently) keeps in touch with other like-‘minded’ Christians, each in their own private hells.
Interesting on how he apparently wants to give the terrorists a ‘pass’ on 9/11, i.e. not being accountable for their own actions.
On a somewhat lighter note. While Charlie D. may have ‘dumbest comment of 2009’ in a hammerlock, President Bush is NOT down for the count, he has 19 days to claim the title for the 9th year running!
Why does he ask, “What do you think?” at the end of his post but then not allow comments?
“I personally can’t for the life of me understand how any sane person can believe there is not a God.”
Interesting, I personally can’t understand how any sane person CAN believe in god. Of course, the answer is quite simply sane people in general sometimes hold onto delusional and very obviously insane ideas for stupid reasons, but I have a hard time even imagining the mindset anymore that would allow you to belief such nonsense.
So, he thinks that because we haven’t been attacked = God?
What about the fact that I haven’t gotten a sun burn for the last two hours. Should I thank god for protecting me, or should I notice that the sun is down?
What about the economy crashing? If it’s because we sinned, why didn’t god allow bombers instead? And wouldn’t the crash mean he actually isn’t protecting us?
But honestly, is there any time in the last 7 years that Charlie would have been surprised to see us get bombed? Or at any of those times would he have simply said, “God is angry” showing he has no idea why we were actually protected (or that we are at all)?
It’s a belief that only makes sense to Charlie when Charlie wants it to. Even think about it a little bit and it falls apart. This is the problem with fame. When so many people want to know who you are, you fool yourself into thinking that everything you do is worthwhile.
Mr. Daniels’ Cowqboy Logic:
No,l it doesn’t. If there is no prayer, then neither atheism nor theism is endorsed.
It always bothers me when theists have apparently no concept of what “neutrality” means. Clearly, atheists need to be more outspoken, so that people understand what it looks like when someone is endorsing atheism. They apparently have no idea.
Dr. Newdow (a very cheerful fellow, by the way) should have asked that, instead of a prayer, a statement be read at the Inauguration to the effect that No God exists: never has, and never will. That way, the absence of a prayer won’t look like atheism.
And can they please, please try to make a distinction between people having the right to say and believe what they want about religion — and the government having that “right?” The government has no such right.
Reckon it’s time for that there cowboy to amble on off somewheres else.
For the life of me, I can’t understand how any sane person can believe there is no Brahma. Who is going to protect us if the president does not perform a cow-worship ritual at the inauguration?
As for neutrality, I defer to Sastra, but I think this would be way over Daniels’ head.
I just recently ran into a person parroting the line “freedom of religion does not mean freedom from religion”. The irony is, the state’s freedom from religion is part and parcel of individuals’ freedom of religion.
If the Creobots are so worried about a secular inauguration, why don’t they invite the Big Guy to speak?
Excuse me while I go burst a cranial artery.
This is just the same old saw “If you don’t believe in god then you’re unhappy” that so many Christians imagine atheists to be. They actually have the staggering audacity to believe they know the internal state of atheists minds (ie: they can read our minds) and have found atheists to be lying when atheists insist they’re just fine.
Having had the privilege of hearing Michael Newdow speak in person I have no doubt that he quite enjoys life. He’s quite talented, being both a doctor, and a lawyer, and a deliciously wicked sense of humor that expresses itself in music he not only writes, but can sing quite well as he plays the guitar.
In addition he’s amazingly intelligent when he speaks.
No, I don’t think Newdow is unhappy. I’m more inclined to think that Charlie Daniels is unhappy because Michael Newdow isn’t unhappy.
Insightful Ape at #74 said: ‘I just recently ran into a person parroting the line “freedom of religion does not mean freedom from religion”.’
Correct. There is no freedom from religion. You are free to practice any faith of your choice, but you have absolutely no right to not believe in a god or not belong to any religion. It is mandatory that we all have an imaginary sky daddy. No matter where you go, religion is gonna get you buddy! No freedom from religion…
Why not have a goat sacrifice at the inauguration. It would make just as much sense as any other religious blessing. I can hear the phone call now ” You have reached ritual sacrifice, for goats press one or say Goats”
Can you still wish people a “Happy Monkey” after the silly season is over?
“Old, senile and ignorant” – so what is John McCain up to lately?
Aw c’mon, it’s all show bizness. Charlie Daniels is an entertainer who knows where his audience is; he’ll say anything to sell tickets to the suckers at the casinos where he plays. Charlie is probably more wily than ignorant, and he knows how ignorant his fans are. I guess he’s a decent enough musician (certainly more talented than I am), but everyone can’t be Isaac Stern, can they, or even Doug Kershaw, so ole Charlie is just making a living the best way he can, promoting bigotry with his fiddle. That’s cowboy logic.
The Charlie Daniels Band will be appearing twice this year in my neighborhood, but instead of buying tickets, I will send that money to Mike Newdow. That’s show bizness, Charlie!
Whoa, Charlie, you got me wrong. I don’t believe there is not a god. Quite the opposite,in fact. I don’t believe there is a god.
Spot the difference, Charlie?
What about this little gem of paranoid fanatsy wankfodder from Charlie, “Can you tell me how a person who has raped, tortured,dismembered and murdered a child has the right to live much less walk the streets among helpless children again? And yet our judicial system continues to turn them back out on the street time after time.”
I mean, who the fuck walks around thinking that this has happened even once nevermind time and time again as Charlie insists??
Charlie Daniels is deluded.
Cate Blanchett rocks!!
Ok, I broke down and went to that site. The subject matter does in fact bug me, but viewing the page source made it 10x worse! I only did that because it didn’t look like there was enough padding and it was off center. It seems to actually be a fair bit to the left. ;^)
I’m an atheist, and I work in national defense. What has Charlie done to protect the US recently?
Yeah, thought so.
On behalf of everyone who actually IS protecting your sorry ass, Charlie: you’re welcome.
PS: here’s a scary bunch of posts on the message forum at the site:
http://www.multimedia-interactive.com/cdb/view_topic.php?id=7359&forum_id=12
Right sure. God has kept us from being invaded by aliens in flying saucers with death rays. Really, not one flying saucer has destroyed a building in decades.
Unfortunately he keeps chucking earthquakes, tornados, blizzards, droughts, forest fires, and hurricanes at North America.
Using my highly sophisticated theological reasoning, it all became clear.
God doesn’t much like us. But he really hates little green men in flying saucers with death rays and anal probes.
I expect that this will be common knowledge after the clergy explain this revelation to the sheep on sunday morning.
You know, (assuming you’re for real) that’s cool. I wonder how many atheists work at the various US agencies that are responsible for our national defense. I don’t mean overt military agencies necessarily, but more like the FBI/CIA/NSA etc (and other, more top-secret and critically important agencies). I really want to believe that there are more atheists in those places than evangelical Christians, but I’d rather not know because I’d be probably be wrong in that regard. And/or I would be killed if I were to stumble upon the truth :tinfoil:
What about protecting us BEFORE 9/11? Seems like Bush failed at that big time. Reports from NSC advisors that something like this mught happen, Dulles airport hijackers lived in a motel about a mile from Ft Meade. NSA suspected something was up but was prevented from sharing info. Air National Guard planes were unarmed, as was standard practice. If ANG had engaged the the hijacked planes they would have had to clip the control surfaces with their wingtips. The F-16 is robust and manuverable enough to di this and survive and ANG pilots are often better trained than USAF pilots because they sometimes act as “op-for” in the Red Flag and Top Gun combat training schools.
They took away our local F-16 ANG base. Only defense we have now is the NASA T-38’s. While hijacking an airliner is now inpossible, there are still cargo planes. And an attack with four cargo planes on the Houston Ship Channel would kill far more people than 9/11 did. Take a drive on a foggy winter evening from loop 610 in Houston down the Channel to Baytown. You’ll see more dark Satanic mills than anywhere else in the world.
I want our air defense back, or at least the T-38’s put on active alert. Those old NASA pilots would likely volunteer for ramming duty We also have DEA and CIA Citations at Hooks and Hobby. Hobby is close enough to the Channel that DEA pilots could ram hijacked cargo planes from IAH before they got to the Channel if the planes and pilots were kept on alert. There will never be another airliner hijacking in the US. The passengers will face death to defend their country. TSA is stupid to put so much effort there. Air freight is the weak link.
Everything I wanted to say has been said, so I’ll just high-five Proffeather for his/her “Angel” reference (“You have reached ritual sacrifice, for goats press one or say Goats.”)
Oh, and Charlie Daniels is a fuckmook. Though his post on how celebrities should just shut up about their political opinions was *priceless*.
It never fails to astonish me how little regard theists pay the founding principles of our country. If they can twist and squeeze an ounce of doG-juice out of something, they run with it. More often than not, when history and, er, the Constitution and our founding documents, etc etc and so on, are against them, they are more than eager to trample over it in service of their dream of a Christianist caliphate. It’s disgusting. And un-American. Bordering on treasonous, if you really want to go there.
What do you expect from an uneducated honky-tonk singer? I would never expect you to have a hit record, and I don’t expect an uneducated red-neck to know jack-shit about science. I do notice that you provide a way for people who disagree with you to provide their comments here, and actually let people do so. While Mr. Daniels does not allow comments on his posts, even though he asks people, “What do you think.”
Nurse, quick, take this culture to the lab for a stupidity count. Have an IV of reason started stat. Once the lab has an accurate count, we can adjust the IV accordingly.
THIRTY-NINE
QUESTIONS FOR
CHARLIE DANIELS
UPON HEARING
“The Devil Went
Down to Georgia”
for the First Time
in 25 Years.
Daniels is a fucking hypocrite. About 25 years ago his tour bus rolls through Hallock, MN and some of my friends went and knocked on the door. He invited them in, asked them if they had any weed and then when they produced it they smoked up for a while.
Nothing wrong with a little weed now and then, don’t get me wrong.
Five years ago he is on ultra-conservative radio railin’ about the hippies who have grown up and are now trying to destroy America. He’s just a-talkin’ bout Jesus now that he knows he can make money at it.
If only he’d take his own damn advice.
Just what do you think caused the terrorist attacks in 9/11? It certainly wasn’t the atheists.
Git.
America sure is lucky to have God protecting it, otherwise they’d have a constant barrage of terrorist attacks like all those Godless Scandinavian countries.
Oh… wait… never mind…
God sure does have a good job doesn’t he. He gets the credit for everything and the blame for nothing, regardless of what happens. I can just see the look of envy on the faces of several corporate CEOs right now.
I guess the price to pay for such a job is non-existence though.
Let’s see… more than 2 years in Iraq, and now starting my first year in Afghanistan; 100% strong atheist since I was 11. Hate the corrosive effect of religion on the brain.
Guess what Charlie, it’s snowing here in Afghanistan, and while we are way outnumbered, there are plenty of atheists here trying to stop religious nutbags through non-supernatural means, :)
God has played no part in your protection bud. Sadly, the irrational belief in god did cause the need for protection in the first place. Here’s looking to the day when humanity moves past religion for good.
Well he had to punish Madrid because he new that at some point in the future the Spanish government would pass same sex marriage into law. 7/7 was for the Teletubbies.
I remember listening to a local DJ in philly on 102.9 say “You know, this just shows you that there has to be a God out there.” In response to the bridge collapse that killed a bunch of a people a while back.
A bunch of people died, but shortly before the bridge collapsed a busload of children supposedly made it across. So, although a bunch of families were destroyed that day, God’s hand was there making sure that that one bus got across before the bridge collapsed. So God could save people. He somehow acted to hold the bridge up for the children but not the other people? I mean really. People are so stupid.
@100: Thanks for your service. Get Some!
@#66 You will need really tall boots. The bullshit gets pretty deep.
The absence of evidence is not proof of absence. By Charlie’s logic, you could have thought that Clinton’s policies on terrorism were great; after all, he effectively prevented foreign-based attacks on US soil after the ’93 WTC bombing. You could have kept on thinking that until 9/11. Now Bush is getting credit for preventing attacks, that is, until one happens again.
@100 I’ll Raise one to ya tonight. Thanks!
Charlie Daniels abusing Jack Daniels?
I’m highly amused by any thought that this monstrously intelligent and supremely powerful “God” character really gives two boogers about a tiny insignificant planet in the milky way – much less that he intervenes in that planet’s international affairs – much less that he intervenes in the daily lives and thoughts and actions of billions of individuals.
What hogwash.
As for God taking a day off – ask the Jews where he was during WWII.
If Mr. Daniels would read the Bill of Rights, he would know this is not a nation where the majority rules. It’s a nation which upholds the rights of every individual AND specifically does not endorse one religion over another.
By his logic, were 51% of the nation to become Muslim (not far fetched – Europe, despite its rich Christian history, is on that track), he should be just fine in changing every mention of “God” in governmental halls to read “Allah.” Right, Charlie? You’re OK with that?
Punishing all of those sinful shrimp-eaters. ABOMINATION!
By his logic, were 51% of the nation to become Muslim (not far fetched – Europe, despite its rich Christian history, is on that track) – BillDarryl
No, it isn’t.
Here is the ONLY mention of religion in the original Constitution of the United States, as ratified in 1789:
Article VI, Paragraph III:
“…no religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States.”
And here is the ONLY mention of religion in all of the 27 amendments to the Constitution passed since its ratification:
Amendment I (ratified in 1791):
“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof…”
Only an idiot would mistake the clear intent of these two constitutional provisions. Ergo, Charlie Daniels is…
Dear God,
Please ignore me.
I mean, why are you always finding me a parking space or helping my football team win? And thanks for the twenty I found in the street yesterday, but really, God, don’t you have better things to do? I mean, people are starving to death, out there, and I guess thanks for making it not rain today, but, really, I can deal with it. Really, God, I can take care of myself. Please help the people who actually need help.
Sincerely,
NSQ
PS. I don’t actually believe in any deity; I’m just trying to make a point. If it helps, imagine a at the end of the letter.
Knockgoats #111
You’re sort of correct… I haven’t seen a projection that brings Muslim population in Europe to 51%, so that was more my own “could happen” opinion vs. some kind of consensus.
But Muslim population growth has been dramatically outpacing Christian population growth in Europe over the last 30 years. Should trends continue, a European Muslim majority is certainly possible.
My point is, Daniels thinks “majority rules” mainly because he is in that majority. Flip him into the minority and see how quickly he’d abandon that point of view!
“Does he seriously believe there’s an invisible man flicking away terrorists at the border?”
Like little Islamo-boogers.
BillDarryl,
As of 2005, the Muslim population of the EU was estimated at somewhat under 4% (CIA Factbook; other definitions of “Europe” would give different results, largely depending on whether the whole of Turkey is included). Immigrant populations, including Muslims, tend to adjust their birth rate to close to the national average within at most two generations. Of course a “Muslim majority Europe” is possible, but so is a Scientologist-majority Europe. I accept that you had no ill intent in mentioning the possibility, but you should be aware scaremongering about it is a staple of far-right propaganda both in Europe and in the USA.
If Christians don’t believe there is a Flying Spaghetti Monster, why do they care where his name appears?
In FSM we trust!
If Muslims were 51% of the country, they would not replace the word “God” with “Allah” as long as they spoke English. However, if Arabic were to become the official language of the country, then “God” would become “Allah,” along with all the other Arabic words that would replace the English.
“I’m actually most curious about the logic behind the claim that a god gets credit for the absence of hijackings in the last seven years, though. What was he doing in 2001? Napping?”
Several months ago I agreed not to post on this site, but I still read it, and this one is so stupid that it mandates an exception. I would appreciate if you did not respond because I don’t want to make a habit of this.
No, God was not napping. Napping is not something that figures into the Divine nature. God was allowing a “wake up call” to His people who had drifted about as far away from the center of his Divine Will as they were going to be allowed to do. In the intervening period, He has been “evaluating” our response. So, we are either going to get another clobbering or we will continue to enjoy His protection. Either way, it will be interesting to watch.
Again, please excuse the interruption.
Silver Fox, same old delusional fool. Your god doesn’t exist, so no wake up call can be given. Period, end of story.
Ugh.
Unlike, say, resting.
*facepalm* followed by *headdesk*
Destroy the Sith we must.
Silver Fox
How is it that you know what God is doing? What makes you so special?
Several months ago I agreed not to post on this site, but I still read it, and this one is so stupid that it mandates an exception. – Silver Fox
Nothing stupid about it, you moron – just a bit of mockery. When turds like you interpret both attacks and disasters that happen and those that don’t as evidence of “God’s will”, you must expect to be laughed at. Now piss off.
Several months ago I agreed not to post on this site, but I still read it, and this one is so stupid that it mandates an exception. – Silver Fox
Nothing stupid about it, you moron – just a bit of mockery. When turds like you interpret both attacks and disasters that happen and those that don’t as evidence of “God’s will”, you must expect to be laughed at. Now piss off.
Chupa said: “Sadly, the irrational belief in god did cause the need for protection in the first place.” Chupa gets my nomination for the January Molly award.
Silver Fox, you know better than to think that the people here would not respond to your little nugget. If you did not want to have your ass handed back to you, you would not have leave that piece of ‘wisdom ‘ here.
So it was a test to see if we deserve continued protection? Nice to assume that Americans are the big sky daddy’s people. Nice that the big sky daddy has to destroy some of his people in order evaluate if no more should be slaughtered. So, are the gays, feminists, liberals all of those other icky folks to blame for the big brat’s behavior?
As for September 11, here is the answer; God’s away on business.
Nick,
still not over your NYE dysphasia yet??
;)
Off to bed….
Genesis 2:2. And on the seventh day God ended his work which he had made; and he rested on the seventh day from all his work which he had made.
@Silver Fox at #119
Always willing to invent an excuse on god’s behalf, aren’t you? If something good happens, PREZ DA LAWD!!!! If something bad happens, he is either pissed off or giving you a wake-up call or his ways are mysterious. Consistency is not his thing, eh?
Silver Fox said: “No, God was not napping. Napping is not something that figures into the Divine nature. God was allowing a “wake up call” to His people who had drifted about as far away from the center of his Divine Will as they were going to be allowed to do.”
I think we should initiate another award, The Bronze Wombat, for the dumbest comment of the month. Admittedly, the track record of this site shows that most awardees would be Christians and in the spirit of the season, I nominate Silver Fox for January, 2009.
Charlie has the same blind-spot most religious people have, God is responsible when good things happen, but isn’t equally responsible when bad things happen. If God is an all powerful omnipotent being, and allows terrible things to happen, then God is responsible for them. Simple logic seems to fail them.
My point is, Daniels thinks “majority rules” mainly because he is in that majority. Flip him into the minority and see how quickly he’d abandon that point of view!
The problem is, he isn’t in the actual majority. The majority of Americans are “Christians” in the same basic way they’re also “Europeans,” they nominally profess to have this identifier as part of their background, but aren’t the rabid devout believer that he is (or at least presents himself as). Only 40% of Americans even claim to attend church regularly and that is subject to the “warm and fuzzy” effect, some estimates are that as little as 25% actually regularly attend church. Daniels takes the percentage who claim to be Christian (76.5-78.5%), rounds those numbers up to 80%, and then assumes that all of them are (at least nominally) theocrats.
He establishes a BS majority and then declares that he supports his position.
Silver Fox #119 wrote:
Right, because responding to people’s comments is so intrusive and rude. You don’t want to know what we think about what you wrote: you just want to tell us what you think.
Tough. If you don’t want to “make a habit,” then you’re going to have to control yourself, and not respond to us, because you came in here, and posted something. In fact, you don’t even have to read the responses you’re not going to respond to. Like this one.
So, you have an answer to ‘where God was on 9-11?’ Of course you have an “answer.” This is religion.
Sir, we know how faith spin-doctors every result — in any direction the person wants. Faith isn’t about God. It’s about the believer. It’s about the believer putting himself into a tiny little story about how God sets up the universe as a story about the believer. The ability to “understand” what God wants is directly proportional to the motivation, and the imagination, and the level of narcissism.
Silver Fox, for one of your New Year’s resolutions, delete your bookmark to this site. After all, this is essentially a porn site for you.
Several months ago I agreed not to post on this site, but I still read it, and this one is so stupid that it mandates an exception. – Silver Fox
Nothing stupid about it, you moron – just a bit of mockery. When turds like you interpret both attacks and disasters that happen and those that don’t as evidence of “God’s will”, you must expect to be laughed at. Now piss off.
I’d call it something like Quoth the
RavenRaving since the winning dumb comment should not be a Poe. And the general attitude of the non-raving hordes to these comments (as we can see above) is “nevermore, please, Nevermore!”Apologies for the triple post.
Apologies for the triple post.
Apologies for the triple post.
Still, calling Silver Fox a moron three times is hardly sufficient – just read each copy of my post three times, Silver Fox.
Ironic, as I was reading the posts and putting together my comment about how some religious people have to do logical gymnastics in order to give credit to “God” for the good events and excuse the bad, we have Silver Fox come in and post a perfect example of this effort.
So really ‘fox, what you’re saying is that God is responsible for 9/11, right? Since “He” allowed it to happen, he is responsible, right? Just like the Holocaust, Rwanda, the Armenian genocide, the American genocide, etc. etc. etc. “He” allowed all of them to happen therefore, “He” is responsible.
“Nice that the big sky daddy has to destroy some of his people in order evaluate if no more should be slaughtered.”
“Genesis 2:2. And on the seventh day God ended his work which he had made; and he rested on the seventh day from all his work which he had made.”
I guess you people are hell bent on doing this to me. I had just about forgotten how inane it is posting here. If you continue to provoke responses, I am going to have no choice but to ask P.Z. to put me in the dungeon. So, you need to stop it.
Now, to the substance of the above quoted stupidity:
God does not “slaughter” people. Without God’s protection we would be annihilated in short order. So, all God has to do is withdraw that protection and we get slammed. That’s different from slaughtering. God has no obligation to protect us.
Genesis 2:2 Genesis is the end result of a long oral tradition put to writing. It is a literary genre that probably incorporates Israelite story-telling, Babylonian myths and Assyrian folklore. People who endows literature like this with historicity is revealing an incredible amount of ignorance of both scripture and literature.
Let it go, folks.
Prove it.
Quoting scripture doesn’t count.
Silver Fox – Same old fuckwit as always.
Why does gawd need to use humans to give us a ‘wake up call’? Why doesn’t he show up himself? If gawd is so pissed off about gay people why does he keep making them?
It’s not hard to be gawd. I’m the chicken Goddess. I show up every day with food, water, treats and kind words for my worshippers. In return they sing, lay eggs and run to greet me with obvious joy. Why can’t your gawd show up, speak to us, and provide for us?
Silver Fox, you never have learned anything from us. For us even to consider your god, you have to show physical evidence. You have not done so. That makes your alleged holy book, which is totally dependent upon a god existing, a work of fiction until your imaginary god is proven. Show some intelligence. Remove us from your bookmarks.
It never ceases to amaze me that religious people can say things like this with a straight face, then turn around, maintaining a straight face, and point to the Bible in support of their own idiotic God-based explanation for contemporary events. Astounding.
Go sacrifice a yam or something, you dimwitted zealot.
Genesis chapters 6 & 7 beg to differ.
Sheesh!
“God has no obligation to protect us.”
Who’s this ‘us’, kemosabe? My people had this whole covenant thing going. Of course, the protection is of us as a people, which is why I don’t have to twist myself in knots trying to explain away why God would allow innocent children to die to prove a point about how their parents behaved.
People like you don’t do God any favors. If you’re a Christian, I suggest you read some of Jesus’s comments about how not all those who claim to be his followers are saved.
That’s all for this week’s “Stuff You Read on The Internet That Isn’t True”. next week: “The Jews are Running Everything” and “ZOMG Obama is an Arab born in Kenya!!!!1”
Your vastly egocentric perception of who I am and what I do and don’t do, and why… is completely confused.
Except for the last line, which is an incomplete description of My obligations: I don’t ever have to protect anyone.
And I don’t.
Silver Fox – Why don’t you just admit you want PZ to march you off to the spanking couch?
Silver Fox whined:
Okay. ‘Fess up. Which one of you held a gun to Silver Fox’s head and forced him to post here?
Hey, God @147, when I saw this title of thought about Philip Pullman’s version of you.
O and fuck off, you murderous, fictional bastard.
It’s the same old, same old, from “Fiddle’n Fundie Charlie”. He’s a true testimonial to hard-core stupidity.
Wasn’t me.
I was twirling.
Posted by: Silver Fox | January 3, 2009
God does not “slaughter” people. Without God’s protection we would be annihilated in short order. So, all God has to do is withdraw that protection and we get slammed. That’s different from slaughtering. God has no obligation to protect us.
I tend to think of myself as a rather bitter, sarcastic and cynical person. Yet compared to you, I have a very sunny outlook on humanity. That is because I think we, as a species, have the ability to to improve ourselves. While you believe that if it were not for the kissing up to an invisible sky daddy, humans would have butchered each other long ago.
As low of an opinion as I have in my fellow humans, it does not fall to the depths of self loathing as you show.
Silver Fox, you deserve all of the mocking that we give you. By your moniker, you are trying to give the impression that you are a wise old person. But you talk like a fool.
God = Melinda?
At least give me another clue!
I guess you people are hell bent on doing this to me.
To be honest, I have not thought of you in many months. You mean nothing to me. You mean less to me than the lowliest cactus flower or humblest yucca tree. I was not hell bent to do anything to you. I was more then happy to never have anything to say to you. And I will be happy to return to that stage. It is all up to you.
Or do you delight in being mocked?
Janine, IIRC, Max (SF) was at one time trying to save our souls. I think he needs to worry more about his own. I see a lot of bearing false witness. Like us forcing him to do anything? Can’t get much more false than that. He wanted to do it.
Nerd, you did read my first response to the addled idiot? He knew better. He got the response he wanted, he is now being mocked by those he considers the vilest of the vile. And I also stand by my claim that this bitter cynic has more optimistic view of humanity. I depressed as I have been in my life, I never though that all of humanity would wipe itself and it would have deserved it.
Janine – *SMOOCH*
Do you feel better, or should I start making cocoa?
Thanks Patricia. There is no need to. I have had dysthymia for decades, nothing new. I just wanted to point out that I do not have an outlook as bleak as the old fool.
If you do start making cocoa, don’t twirl. Twirling whilst making cocoa gets messy…
Figuratively speaking, that would be Me. Yes, I inspired him, via the sin of wrath, to post a fallacious (and incorrect) explanation of theodicy to a forum by (and largely for) atheists, thereby guaranteeing that he would waste his time, and become even more wrathful when the infidels mocked his fallacies.
God dropping by to offer His own opinion was just icing on the cake, as it were.
Janine, we’re on the same page. Max was stupid by his continued lurking, then a second time by posting. But then, he isn’t the brightest bulb around. More like a night light.
Patricia, cocoa sounds good, with a dollop of kaluha. I’ll buy one for Janine. Put it on my account.
“God does not “slaughter” people. Without God’s protection we would be annihilated in short order.”
I seem to remember God being omniscient and omnipotent. All is his creation, all is under his purview. So whatever it is that we’re being annihilated by without his protection is also his doing. You can’t escape it. Either he’s responsible for everything, or he’s not all-powerful. And therefore, not worthy of worship, because Christians seem to have pretty high standards in that regard.
“It never ceases to amaze me that religious people can say things like this with a straight face, then turn around, maintaining a straight face, and point to the Bible in support of their own idiotic God-based explanation for contemporary events. Astounding.”
Tell me about it. Total cafeteria Christian. Pick ‘n’ choose, pick ‘n’ choose.
Hey, maybe this will goad Maxie into commenting again. I’m not touching yooooou, I’m not touching yoooooouuu…
I guess you people are hell bent on doing this to me. I had just about forgotten how inane it is posting here. If you continue to provoke responses, I am going to have no choice but to ask P.Z. to put me in the dungeon. So, you need to stop it. – Silver Fox
Just piss off, moron. That’s all you need to do. No-one here will miss you, no-one wants to hear from you. You’re a fool and a liar and a crashing bore. Just don’t expect to leave your stinking droppings here without others sweeping them up; we know you won’t clear up after yourself.
The Romans didn’t “slaughter” Christians in the arena. Without the Roman protective cages, lions would have annihilated them in short order. The Romans merely withdrew this protection, and so are certainly not responsible. /sarcasm
You know that lump at the top of your neck? The one you’re using for a paperweight? Yes, well, some people use them to think. I suggest you start soon.
I mean, God made this situation where “we would be annihilated in short order” according to you. In Christian theology, there is no way for God to NOT be culpable. Supposedly, he made everything, knowing full well exactly what was going to come of it at all points in the future.
Christian theology is often confusing. Does Satan ever succeed in getting anyone damned who would otherwise have been saved (i.e., had there been no Satan)?
It seems to me that, either way that question is answered, there’s a problem. If the answer is ‘yes,’ then God — who desires that all people be saved and come to Him — has had his divine Will and Purpose thwarted by some other spiritual being. Given the all-powerful nature of God, that’s not supposed to happen.
But if the answer is ‘no,’ then there really seems to be no point to Satan at all, other than to torture the damned in this life, as well as the next one. Which seems gratuitous, given God’s nature of Perfect Love.
blf – Good thing you warned me about the twirling. I’ve learned not to twirl while knitting too.
The Redhead can envy this, while I’ve been snowed in I’ve completed two cowls, a scarf, and today am finishing the toe on my second sock.
Kahlua does sound yummy!
Sastra #166: I believe there is at least one line of Judeo-Christian thought that proposes that Satan is a ruse, an archangel specifically tasked by god to assume an “infernal station” as it were, and that in the end times, good old Lucifer would get welcomed back into the celestial party with a “good job old boy” and a pat on the back.
What this scenario suggests about the nature of god, as you already pointed out, is intriguing.
I just read an article in which someone credits God with sending two long-lost cats back to their home. I guess that explains why people are starving in Africa–he’s busy!
sastra
I think Job pretty much clears up any doubt on that. Satan basically fucks with people at God’s behest, as the result of petty celestial bets. So even if Satan weren’t there, God would find another angel to play the bad cop for him.
I just read an article in which someone credits God with sending two long-lost cats back to their home. I guess that explains why people are starving in Africa–he’s busy!
… and “old” is redundant. Senile implies old, in fact it means “oldlike”. There is such a thing as premature senility, but… “Senile, ignorant, and dumber than a rock”?
I was interested to learn that “seneschal” means Old Servant and “marshall” means War Servant.
Ah-hah! I was wondering where that ballistic knitting needle came from. Don’t worry, it didn’t kebab anyone. Other than making a hole in the garden it didn’t really do anything when it landed.
Welcome to the world of tardcore music…
I think Silver Fox saw the title of the post – ‘Old, senile, and ignorant’ – and thought it was an invitation.
@ Sastra #133:
The ultimate Mary Sue fantasy for them. They do so desperately want to be special and are unable to be special in reality.
Indeed. Which is why I like to quote from Fight Club (book rather than film):
You are not a beautiful and unique snowflake. You are the same decaying organic matter as everyone else, and we are all part of the same compost pile.
SEF #176 wrote:
Interesting link — I’d never heard of a “Mary Sue” before.
To fill out the analogy, I suppose one might say that discovering God “through faith” requires a self-narrative where the person involved is a “Mary Sue” with qualities of humility and sensitivity beyond those of normal people. After all, one can choose to make a “leap of faith” in the direction of any claim which has both 1.) insufficient evidence and 2.) personal appeal. That includes all the religions.
So if God wants people to come to Christianity “through faith,” then that seems to imply that God approves of the situation where people all over the world ‘choose to believe’ in all sorts of religions, and all sorts of Gods. They’re doing the method exactly right.
However, because most people leap at the wrong religion (and are subsequently damned), they must do so because they lack the sort of character which finds Christianity most appealing. Thus, the “Mary Sues” with just the right sort of humility and sensitivity, intuiting through some sort of childlike instinct which religion is really God’s own, and not a deceptive imitator.
The fact that “Mary Sue” always happens to be heavily exposed to Christianity means nothing. Presumably, even if Mary Sue were dropped in the middle of a hardcore Hindu compound and never let out, she’d “just know” that God was out there somewhere, in some other religion. Credit Mary Sue with the powerful homing instincts of a pigeon.
So god got pissed off and decided to punish us by removing his protection and let 3,000 innocent people be killed by maniacal followers of god? So if god wanted to send a message about giving gays too many rights then why didn’t he remove his protection from Denmark? Why is the US so special? Or if he needed to get rid of 3,000 people why didn’t he have the earth open up and swallow Al Queda.
He did. But they were untidy. Miss Satan sent them back with a stern note.
Yes, God was responsible for the economic disaster. He did it to insure that his Chosen One would win the election and the US would be spared another 4 years of Satanic Repub rule.
You know, this signaling with disasters thing makes about as much sense as signaling with wet/dry fleece
Can’t an omnipotent being at least talk?
Jimminy Christmas #88: “I wonder how many atheists work at the various US agencies that are responsible for our national defense.”
I’m a screener with the TSA at Will Rogers World Airport in Oklahoma City. Granted, my contribution to national security is not at the level of the FBI or NSA by any means, but it’s still a good deal more than anything Mr. Daniels or that there gawd o’ his have done. A number of my co-workers are indeed devoutly religious; but surprisingly, even in Oklahoma, I get the feeling that there are more of them who stray more towards “our” side than you might think…and none of us, on either end of the spectrum, seem to be all that “miserable.”
In the link posted by Orac Mr. Daniels said:
“Jesus said, “I am the life.” Jesus lived a life of service and sacrifice and in the end died the most horrible death any man has ever suffered.”
Did Mr. Daniels not see the end of the movie Spartacus?
Can’t an omnipotent being at least talk?
Didn’t she, at least once, albeit with the help of a burning bush?
Charlie Daniels will be touring with Lee Greenwood, Oliver North, and more on Sean Hannity’s Freedom Tour next Summer (see: http://wonkette.com/404463/getchr-tickets-to-sean-hannitys-concert-series-for-america .) You can’t make shit like this up.
interesting link, though upon further examination (and taking a Mary Sue Litmus Test), I’ve come to the conclusions that most of the main characters in Fantasy are Mary Sues, and so is the Bride from Kill Bill, all main Star Wars characters, and pretty much every woman in even remotely feminist fiction.
stupid concept.
As yogi Berra would say, I get this feeling of deja vu all over again.
I went off to a movie and Mexican dinner and when I got back the thread was replete with derision and recrimination. I had my say about something I thought was stupid and asked you to let it go, but you couldn’t do it.
I’m well aware that I am wasting my time since the level of understanding of theology here is got to be near zero.
I don’t think I have ever heard more bogus theology.
“In Christian theology, there is no way for God to NOT be culpable. Supposedly, he made everything, knowing full well exactly what was going to come of it at all points in the future.”
“I seem to remember God being omniscient and omnipotent. All is his creation, all is under his purview. So whatever it is that we’re being annihilated by without his protection is also his doing. You can’t escape it. Either he’s responsible for everything, or he’s not all-powerful. And therefore, not worthy of worship”
I can’t give you a six graduate hour course in theology here, but, in brief, what is being confused here is the question of God’s Omniscience and man’s Free Will.
And once again there is the old default position: “Give me PROOF, give me PROOF”. Well, that’s what I say: Give me proof.
My belief is that human nature is hard-wired for theism. Theism is a universal phenomenon in some form or other. Human nature is endowed with a propensity for Basic Belief. There is a sense of personal grounding in a divinity of some sort. The vast majority of people in the world accept this. Now, if as a member of an extreme minority you elect to opt out of this endowment, then the onus of PROOF rest with you to show that there is no God.
Now, I am going to be sorry for saying the above because the response is going to be that human nature is endowed with a propensity for curiosity or a need to know things. In other words, human nature invented God and not the other way around. You are going to say this even though both you and I know that this is the oldest and most fallacious crock of crap ever thought up.
Again, let it go.
Ahhhh. The courtier’s reply. Lovely.
Silver Fox, when are you going to get it. Your god doesn’t exist. Your bible is a work of fiction, and the theology based upon that work of fiction is fiction. Mental masturbation. Nothing more. Until you get your head out of the ass of religion you will not progress.
You can present all the theology you want, but it means nothing except an argument point for the people here. Atheism means no belief in god. Without god, no theology.
What you need to do is to remove the bookmarks to this site from your browser and just stop paying any attention to us. Do you have the cojones to do that?
And since absence of evidence is not evidence of absence, the theists win by default right?
Carl Sagan wins!
hard wired for theism huh.
Which brand?
“Silver Fox”:
1. But you still post. Perverse, no?
2. You do realise it’s stupid to use theology to try to prove your godling, right? Theology assumes the godling.
You’re almost close to something there; my belief is that theism hijacks certain hard-wired tendencies in human nature.
Bwahahaha. You know damn well that’s a plead for the very opposite, as do we. You’re funny!
Silver fox. Prove there isn’t an invisble Amazonian goddess siting on my lap.
you keep saying this like you’ve said something that ends an argument.
You haven’t.
If God is Omniscient, how could man have free will?
Silver Fox, you are trying to get the last word. It won’t happen, because we will have the last word as always. People aren’t hardwired for theism, but they are indoctrinated by their parents and society. In some societies, like northern Europe, the indoctrination has subsided and belief in god has dwindled.
In science, the burden of proof is always on the claimant. If you are going to claim god, you must provide the physical evidence for one. Not us proving a negative.
I again challenge you to delete all your bookmarks from your browser to this site. It is porn for you, and you should break the habit of coming here cold turkey.
Could you explain why it’s fallacious? It looks like it’s not as obvious as you thought.
After all, it meets all of the criteria of a parsimonious explanation.
We really ought to have a “best of” page somewhere,where the greatest examples of cognitive dissonance and logical fallacies are displayed for all to see.
A note on the tendency of some of the commenters here to demand off the christozombies “physical evidence” of their god:
I think this contains a fallacy.You can not treat mythology and superstition with the same tools you would treat the ToE or string theory,there can not be physical evidence for a cobbled together collection of bronze age myths.Physical evidence for the myth that some omnipotent,omnipresent being exists meant absolutely nothing.
I think that’s the point.
Er, that’s a tautology. You can’t have ‘bogus theology’; that implies there is a non-bogus theology, and there isn’t. All theology is, by definition, bogus.
Why waste 5 hours, 59 minutes and 30 seconds? I can sum up all your theology and your motive for having it far quicker than that: ‘Yes, we know the bible is full of more holes than an industrial colander, but we really, really want to keep believing in god, so some very creative, tireless people have spent countless hours inventing intricate arguments that put most lawyers to shame to divert attention away from the fact that we’ve got fewer reasons to believe in our god than an eight-year-old does in Santa Claus.’
You’re belief isn’t worth much, here or anywhere else. Even if you could prove this, it doesn’t make any difference whatsoever as to whether what they believe in is true, does it?
My post contains nothing of the sort; you are therefore a liar. Have you forgotten your own bible’s prohibition of false witness? You’d better start begging your god for forgiveness.
@ Silver Fox #188:
Your ignorance is showing. You should tuck it in.
Life (and indeed the rest of the universe) is hard-wired for low-energy short-cuts and cheating (it’s an important part of physics too). Part of that real universal phenomenon is the human tendency towards personnification. It’s much easier for a human to leap to (false) conclusions using an existing inbuilt system for dealing with other humans than to put the effort into understanding how nature really works. In a survival life-style where it’s better to see and immediately react to a lion which isn’t there than miss one which is, false positives in pattern-matching are encouraged.
So the largely non-thinking majority of humans are pretty much always going to go on making up cheap falsehoods for how they might possibly do a beneficial deal with nature – ie are naturally theists. Only the minority are advanced and deviant enough to be able and inclined to take the time to work out what’s really going on. Those few would be atheists (and scientists of course). Though these days it’s becoming possible for more of the non-thinkers to be cultural atheists merely by copying others (just as the stupid also get to benefit from technology and medicine within a civilisation without having to work out any of it for themselves).
Man has the free will to do whatever amuses Me, and I am very easily amused.
To summarise: people aren’t hard-wired for theism as such. They’re hard-wired to be lazy (thinking takes colossal effort compared with reacting and requires the luxury of time) and to err in any lazy direction. Theism is just one of the many errors it’s easy for people to make. They make loads of other, very similar ones via the same routes. You’re just selectively ignoring all those because you haven’t invested them with the same personal significance.
Theism is merely one symptom of intrinsic mental defectiveness. You need to look at the larger pattern to understand the underlying problem. Theism isn’t any more important to that understanding than any of the other similar brain-farts. Theists just like to pretend it’s important (as part of their demanding to be special).
Clinteas, my constant demands for physical evidence are to remove the argument of god from the philosophical to the realm of the real. We had a long thread with one of the Eric’s maybe 3 or 4 weeks ago discussing philosophically some the different ways the imaginary deity can behave. The only one that has any meaning is where god interacts with the real world, and in that case it should leave evidence of doing so. And the the bible describes a lot of evidence. Funny how none is ever put forward in the modern day though. All the other types of gods don’t do anything in the real world, and can be ignored via Occam’s razor.
Oh they have, it’s just that bleeding statues and images on toast aren’t very compelling for an omnipotent deity.
Who the cares what that wimp prick Daniels believes? He was a has-been without ever having been!
I hated him in the 80’s when he did that pathetic song about two georgian pricks meeting each other, and fiddling(!) to decide which one would be satan. The fiddle part is completely pathetic. I regularly see homeless NYC subway fiddlers that blow CD away. It is simply impossible for me to hate him more now!
Now… I am sure that I’ll be soundly flamed by you guys for this, but…
The ‘God’s Protection’ and ‘Patriot Act success claims always remind me of an old children’s joke.
Lame joke, but I feel it gets the idea of stupid (and churlish) claims across.
I have free will? Alright, I want my hair to grow to six feet in length and be bright green, right…now!
[crickets]
Nope, didn’t happen. How is it I have free will again?
a new old god from the “Unspeakable Vault of Doom”
Most of the statues are fakes (one of the Sketical Inquirer contributers found a “weeping” statue was being dosed daily with vegetable oil by the priest), and the latter are just to subjective to count. No good eternally burning bushes, parting of the Red Sea, plagues of frogs. God has become a wimp.
Nerd,
The demand for evidence is only half of it – you have to tie it in with the problem that, if god not only didn’t leave evidence (which he hasn’t) but has made the universe in such a way that there is evidence against against his existence as it is defined in the bible (and there is; evolution, just to name one), it means he’s intentionally deceiving us regarding his existence, and cannot be the ‘infinitely just’ being the Christians claim he is.
If their god wasn’t good then it wouldn’t matter that there’s no evidence; an evil omniscient being has no reason not to ‘hide his tracks’ as it were.
Well duh, but that’s not the point. The point is that people take these occurrences as miraculous, and give credit to an omnipotent deity for something so mundane. An omnipotent deity could do anything, making a statue bleed of putting a woman onto a toast would amount to nothing more than cheap parlour tricks.
cognitive dissonance, exhibit A and B
Silver Fox, #119
Silver Fox, #188
Nerd,
my point is that it is totally pointless to try and look for traces of god’s presence in the physical world.
It’s like trying to find proof that middle earth exists,or Hogwarts.
Off to the beach.
clinteas, the religious make claims that god can affect the physical world. If he / she / it can, then he / she / it should be detectable.
The fact that he / she / it never has is kind of the point.
When they claim he / she / it can’t be it enforces the ridiculousness of their claims even more so.
also, I want to know what natural disasters have to do with Free Will.
This is an old case, but here’s the legal opinion rendered when an American sued Satan.
@ NoR #210:
I was never impressed by the plague of frogs concept. What sort of wimps were the people back then?! NB not merely the fictional ones in the story but the real ones who were supposed to be impressed by the telling of it.
I wuv my froggies very much. My most recent plague of frogs consisted of just the one frog manifesting in an upstairs toilet bowl. I carefully scooped it out and put it in a bucket for safe-keeping while I got dressed again ready to take it to the pond.
Ever since then (many weeks now) I’ve been repeatedly checking for more and have been somewhat disappointed with the failure of the rest of the plague of delightfully soft and squishy, adorable, googley-eyed, flippery-footed critters to appear. I’ve been short-changed. I want more frogs than that. One frog is not enough.
I should stay away from philosophical discussions of god, especially when short on sleep. Still, demanding physical evidence disconcerts idiots like Max, Pete Rooke (a PowerPoint proof? get real), and even Pilty, and causes all sorts of fun watching them dodge the question.
I also like to dangle the carrot that I could believe in god with some hard physical evidence. Frustrates them to no end.
Right on! I keep asking for evidence too. Gawd used to show up. He used to talk to people, open the mouths of asses and snakes. He made manna fall from heaven, he stopped the sun from moving, he parted the red sea. Gawd can send angels, dragons and unicorns. He can blast cities and destroy things utterly.
Come on, whats so hard about evidence?
I volunteer. I’ll walk out onto Main Street and let’s see gawd turn me into a pillar of salt. Silver Fox you are not a True Christian, you are the worst type of sissy for christ.
@ Jadehawk #213:
And why is it so much easier and better for a god to indulge in a spot of (incorrectly selective) clobbering when trying to bend people to its (unstated) will than to clearly and succinctly announce its will to everyone and then see who follows it. With that “why” having to be, for theists, something other than the obviously true answer of their god not existing.
So, let me get this straight. A terrorist action happened, one that can and is easily explained through human actions. Yet Silly Old Goat claims that big sky daddy allowed it to happen and will let more happen if his chosen people (American) do not repent. And then demands that we say nothing about it’s bleatings. After more silly exchanges, Silly Old Goat claims that humans are hard wired to believe in deities. Yet it drops the idea about which god we should be grovelling to. Also, even though the Silly Ols Goat has no proof for it’s bleatings, demands that all of us have to shut up and prove it wrong.
Did I miss anything?
@ blf 136, “Quoth the Ravin'” falls too close to the inestimable Raven. Don’t wish to ruffle feathers. I picked Bronze Wombat for the symbology (bronze age mentality) and the acronym (Waste Of Money, Brains and Time).
I may have to shelve the Bronze Wombat Award idea, Silver Fox keeps posting inanities. As Scotty said “I canna change the laws of physics” and canna cast enough Bronze Wombats, the warp furnace is overheating, if she blows, all of North Dakota may be turned into a barren waste land (and the snow in PZ’s front yard might melt).
Silver Fox #188 wrote:
I don’t think you’ve quite taken in the extent of the conflict here. Let us say, for the sake of argument, that God gave man the ability to “freely choose” his actions, for which he is responsible. And, as the result of these free choices, 50% choose actions which lead to heaven, and 50% choose actions which lead to hell.
An omniscient God, by definition, knew these results in advance. Before creating human beings, He knew that 50% of His creations would make the free choices which terminate in their going to hell. He also knew which 50% they were, and which 50% would choose wisely. But He made them anyway. The damned are collateral damage, instruments created for the purpose of somehow helping the other 50% play the game where they go through the motions making the choices God knows they will make.
Theology really has no resolution to this. The reason there’s a problem in the first place is that there are two storylines going at once. In one storyline, you have a God who is so Great that He’s not only omniscience and omnipotent, but He creats everything knowing in advance how it will turn out. In the other storyline, there is a God who is like a great father or king, testing his children or subjects to see who is worthy of Him. This second God can be disappointed, and can be pleased, and is not certain of what the results will be.
No, they are not easily reconciled by the idea of “free will” and man being ultimately responsible for what he chooses to do. God is still ultimately responsible for creating people who will freely choose to do wrong.
No, there isn’t. Not among all cultures. What you do get in every culture, as SEF points out, is a tendency to anthropomorphise nature, blur the distinctions between the inner world of our mind and the outer world around us, and ascribe agency to anything more complicated than a rock. And, in some cases, even rocks. All theories of religion need to account for animism and superstitions, since these come from the same aspects of the brain as theism. And, of course, most of these beliefs are rejected, even by you, as false. Our minds take easy shortcuts, and assume all things are related to ourselves, and similar to ourselves.
And leave you with the last word? Nice try.
Max the Endlessly Pompous:
“I went off to a movie and Mexican dinner and when I got back the thread was replete with derision and recrimination. I had my say about something I thought was stupid and asked you to let it go, but you couldn’t do it.”
Gee, sorry, Mommy. I won’t ever do it again, ever. *fingers crossed behind my back*
“My belief is that human nature is hard-wired for theism. Theism is a universal phenomenon in some form or other. Human nature is endowed with a propensity for Basic Belief. There is a sense of personal grounding in a divinity of some sort. The vast majority of people in the world accept this. Now, if as a member of an extreme minority you elect to opt out of this endowment, then the onus of PROOF rest with you to show that there is no God.”
No, sorry. All you’ve shown is that there seems to be hard-wired tendencies for humans to anthropomorphisize phenomena. There also seems to be a hard-wired tendency for everyone to believe that they are of above-average intelligence and can drive above-averagely well, but that doesn’t make either of those notions true. No, the onus is still on you to give evidence that there is a god in the world outside of peoples’ heads and hard-wired tendencies. And for an encore, you can show us the identity of that god, and how he bears no similarity to Allah or Zeus or any of the Hindu pantheon. I mean, if theism was hard-wired by God into his creation, you’d think he’d do a better job of it than to give thousands of different (yet usually oddly self-serving) descriptions of his attributes.
Nightshadequeen:
“Can’t an omnipotent being at least talk?”
Apparently not. His tools for convincing me of his existence (and his need to be worshipped, gee how mature) seem to consist of a book of dubious origins, and an endless parade of sanctimonious pricks obsessed with other peoples’ bedroom behavior.
clinteas – Yes, of course you are right, BUT – big BUT – the American True Christian honestly believes there is physical proof of god.
As hard as this is to believe, it is true. I was a fundie for 50 years. I believed all the bullshit I was spoon fed. Did you know that during Operation Desert Storm American soldiers found the Tower of Babel? It’s true! See, the Tower of Babel exists, that proves god does too.
I know it must get tiresome for some of you to see us pound away at the faithful for proof, but we are up against a stone wall of stupidity that is generations old, and stretches across our country deeper than the eye can see.
Speaking of God not talking:
http://ebonmusings.org/atheism/burningbush.html
Patricia wrote:
That’s what I put to Pilty on another thread – I can’t remember if you showed up on that one. His response was even more incomprehensible than most of the rest of his claptrap, and went along the lines of humans back then being more ‘spiritually advanced’ but still somehow needing to have their god do things to remind them not to scurry off and whore themselves out to Ba’al.
Absolute gold.
But the christers just argue that the lack of evidence is a test of faith. There’s not a lot else they actually have to say. If I feel inclined I point out it means their god is a lying sack of shit.
It was quite a laugh when he said that. Pilty brings some unintentional laughs, remember that time he said he believed that PZ Myers was under demonic possession?
One last comment on my way to bed. In my opinion, not asking for evidence of god is essentially conceding the argument that god exists. Also, asking for physical evidence of god knocks the religiots off their game, since that point, which they weren’t expecting to have to cover, has to be discussed. And if they ignore it, it allows us to point to them evading the question, which then brings their bible and theology into question.
If there is another option, other than asking for evidence of god, that doesn’t concede the existence of god (at least in the religiot mind), I’m open for suggestions.
If human nature is hard-wired for theism, but cultures all over the world worship different gods (and things), the onus would be on you, Silver Fox, to prove that you worship the real god.
Even within your own religion, there are multiple schisms, endless disagreement on basic tenets, endless interpretations of the bible. The fact that there is so much inconsistency on the details of worship only dilutes your argument that what is worshipped is real.
I would say that the desire to worship is simply more evidence that we are apes. We are hardwired to be subservient to a dominate-alpha, and since we have imaginations, we can create the bestest dominate-alpha possible. We are hard wired to do this with our imaginations–if our parents and peers do it. It makes us feel secure.
As I wrote upthread, evidence is only required of an honest god. The cunning theist will argue that his/her god deliberately doesn’t leave evidence because said god wants followers who believe because of faith, not evidence – and then spend the time arguing that we either shouldn’t presume to understand why god wants such a thing or that we just don’t ‘get’ the scripture and the apologetics well enough – i.e. The Courtier’s Reply.
Of course, if someone’s dumb enough to believe there is evidence for their god – and there are many; some of them do turn up here from time to time – then have at them, all guns blazing. But it’s not always going to be the best approach. Piltdown, for example, doesn’t seem especially put off by it.
That being said, I wouldn’t want you – or anyone else who takes the approach – to stop doing it. If nothing else it does, as you say, ‘knock them off their game’ and they have to spend at least some time and energy refuting it.
Damn! I must have missed that round with Pilty. There is some great bible quotin’ to be done with Baal. (Which by the way means: owner, master.) Piltdown Man will be back. He’s just as addicted to preaching the truth of his catholic majesty as Jackie and Silver Fox.
Did you notice the BBC article on the Pope deciding that the Vatican will no longer be subject to Italy’s laws, and will review international treaties before agreeing to them? Must be nice.
Exactly Nerd of Redhead. Beat em’ over the head with the only rock they understand.
The one they worship.
Of course when it comes down to it an interventionist deity requires physical evidence. Whether that intervention is manipulating the laws of physics or addling in our brain, the more we know about measuring the universe is the better ability we have to detect any outside forces. It’s no surprise either that as human knowledge has progressed that the role of God is minimised – he’s no longer an explanation for weather or natural disasters. Though the author of the aforementioned article obviously still thinks of God in that way, just replace earthquake with flying a plane into a tower.
Argh! No, it doesn’t. The Judeo-Christian god does, because it’s defined as being infinitely just – and therefore could not lie (except for all those times in the bible where he does lie, but that’s another story) – which is what it would have had to do for the universe to be the way it is.
Like I’ve said before, a dishonest god with omnipotence could erase all evidence of everything. There aren’t (AFAIK) any religions of that sort around anymore (excluding perhaps Gnositicism; I don’t know if it still counts) so it’s not really an argument we can expect to be faced with, but that’s not the same thing.
So-called ‘sophisticated’ arguments for Christianity dodge this bullet by putting the onus back on our understanding (or lack thereof) of God. God has left no evidence; it’s up to humans to maintain faith anyway.
Correct, and “ba’al” also means husband.
Say! Maybe that’s why the nation of Israel was accused of “whoredom” and committing “adultery” (Jer. 3:9 came up in the Catholic divorce thread): “She” was going around with another “man” besides Yahweh.
A dishonest god could erase all evidence, but we are positing observation of something in action. Say for instance committing a murder, now a murderer could do a Dexter and remove all traces that he was the killer. But if we were to observe Dexter in action then we would see the murder take place. It’s a difference in the observation points, right now all we can do is look at events after the fact, not during the fact.
Ah, but an omnipotent dishonest god could just erase your memory, couldn’t it? Or weave some sort of illusion? It’s omnipotent; there’s nothing it can’t do.
Like I said, I don’t have a problem with demanding evidence from theists; it’s just that it’s only good some of the time, and it won’t slow down any who’ve done their research – or who have a la Piltdown Man, a well-worn pair of tap shoes…
OwlMirror – Damn, you’re right. It’s soooo hard to keep up with that 2000 year old bullshit. ;o)
Then nothing could ever be taken as a miracle. That’s the problem with a theist taking that position, they are conceding that there’s no way of knowing whether their god is really there.
Faith, Kel. They have faith – no matter how much of a non-answer that is.
@ Patricia #226:
That’s a long time (for someone who was evidently capable of snapping out of it)! What kept you from noticing for so long that it was all bogus? What might have prodded you into sanity sooner?
Apologies if you feel you’ve answered those a zillion times already, but it’s always worth looking for any hints on how most efficiently to break the stranglehold religion has on the rest of those who aren’t hopelessly stupid and dishonest. There will always be some point where the effort (eg in forcibly supplying education) is too great for the likely return (in minds) though.
Agreed, but at that point there’s no point in arguing at all. If they concede that it’s faith, then they are conceding there is no evidence for it. Unless they have faith there is evidence… then the universe implodes in a paradox.
mothra@223:
Fair enough. But if you’re not willing to risk ruffling any feathers with a vague similarity, why pick on a precise marsupial from Australia. I’ve no problems picking on Australians </joke>, but what did a wombat do to you? (Yes, they have a nasty bite. (Wombats, that is.) Throwing cretinistias to the wombats could be amusing. And probably cheaper than lions.)
I don’t recall ever seeing the wombat acronym. I got the Bronze Age part, but since that didn’t make any sense in conjunction with a marsupial, assumed it was something like a brass monkey, which like cretinism, is a common folk myth. (The band Brass Monkey is both real and very good.)
“Intelligent Rock” is another possibility (Stone Age thinking), except that’s insulting to rocks.
*Checks his beer bottle and the prescription drug pack*
blf,
what on earth are you talking about???
clinteas,
mothra@131: I think we should initiate another award, The Bronze Wombat, for the dumbest comment of the month;
blf@136: I’d call it something like Quoth the
RavenRaving since…;mothra@223: “Quoth the Ravin'” falls too close to the inestimable Raven…; and so,
blf@245 confuses clinteas with the very capable help of mothra.
Easy!
And I thought LSD had gone out of fashion long ago LOL….
Norman Doering wrote:
Well, you won’t get an argument against that from me. However, I like to think that’s a consequence of us musicians also being more creative. ;-)
(Oh, for the record, I think Mr. Daniels is an idiot.)
Can god create someone with a brain cavity so hollow and a mouth so large that his entire 10 foot (estimated) penis can fit inside?
Charlie Daniels and Silver Fox appear to be offering themselves up for testing.
And Charlie, only two places to go after I die?
Cremation.
Burial.
Mummification.
Cryogenically frozen.
Pyre (with and without spouse and slaves).
Set out for the buzzards and vultures.
Flaming long boat.
Body farm subject.
That’s eight already.
Well see, there’s a problem. I doubt Mr. Daniels ever partook of that particular drug.
So what is his excuse?
SEF – Apologies, I did twirl off and forget to answer you.
What ruined religion, and gawd for me was actually searching for him. My story is very like Dan Barkers. The harder you try to find god, the more it begins to dawn on you that he isn’t there.
It’s rather hard to admit to being an utter ass for so long.
But why did you suddenly start searching for a god at all after simply believing and not bothering to look for so long? Had you been completely incurious before (or too frantically busy with survival to address the issue) or did something suddenly make you question some specific part of the religion and want to find enough direct god contact to clarify things?
Damn, that’s a really good question.
I haven’t thought about my long dark night of the soul in quite a while. If you don’t mind, I’ll ask my best friend if she remembers some of our conversations. (piss poor answer)
Wow, lot’s of stuff. Just two things to add. The latest issue of Free Inquirer magazine has a rather long article where the author attempts to show that belief is not hard wired (among other things – I haven’t read more than a few paragraphs, but will soon). He evaluates belief throughout Europe or the world, as done by some extensive surveys. Not sure how strong his case is, though, but it should be interesting to see.
I also like the Omniscience vs Free Will argument. You always hear this one when the apologists get pressed on this. The idea is that somehow, even though the Christian god knows everything that will happen, even billions of years from now (since it is “outside time”, we’ll skip that for this argument here), it doesn’t force you to make the choice it knew you were always going to make, therefore it is not responsible for your choice. Yes, this leaves out natural disasters and all, but it doesn’t matter if it makes you choose or not – you don’t have a choice. The very fact that this creature knows what will happen means you have no choice. It’s completely deterministic. Of course, if the apologist considers his god to be omnipotent, it means that this god determines what will happen – if it could not change things, then it is subject to some outside force greater than it, and it is not omnipotent. So, basically, depending on what the apologist wants to argue for, he has to toss omniscience or omnipotence out the window, but don’t worry, it’s a boomarang and will come back to their god as soon as the argument stops, so their god can keep both attributes.
Now, this argument doesn’t apply to the non-omniscient or non-omnipotent god, but that’s not the type of god that most people, and most apologists, profess to believe in. Even the argument of limited omniscience, or the on/off omniscience (I like that one – in it, the god turns off its omniscience when confronted with what people will do, giving them free will, but then that means that this god doesn’t know the future). There is historical precedent for this (somewhat) as the gods of the past were pretty much blind to the future, or, as has been argued, that YHVH was not making prophecies of what will happen, but more like predictions of what might happen if He gets what he wants. But I’ve wandered a bit afield of my original points, so I’ll stop there.
Badger – Have you read either of Dan Barkers books? Losing Faith In Faith or Godless? He really goes into why he lost his religion, lost his wife, and the free will arguement.
Jonah gets picked by Yahweh to tell the folks in Nineveh to straighten up and fly right or else get their collective asses mightily kicked. Jonah refuses and runs away to sea. Diverse alarums and excursions until finally Jonah gets tucked away inside a whale (or great fish, the Bible isn’t too clear on this point). So Jonah tells Yahweh he’ll go to Nineveh but there better be some righteous smiting after all the trouble he’s gone through. Jonah gets puked up by the whale-fish and starts sermonizing in Nineveh. The Ninevehans (Ninevehites? Ninevehers?) repent and Yahweh lets them off the hook.
This shows that Yahweh can’t be omniscient or else (a) he’d have picked some other smuck to go to Nineveh and (b) he wouldn’t bother in the first place because the Ninevehi don’t get their wrists smacked.
“So, basically, depending on what the apologist wants to argue for, he has to toss omniscience or omnipotence out the window, but don’t worry, it’s a boomarang and will come back to their god as soon as the argument stops, so their god can keep both attributes.”
I would suggest you crack a book on apologetics some time. As I noted before, the knowledge of theology here is got to be near zero.
The issue of omniscience of God and free will of man is a complex issue. In involves different “kinds” of Divine knowledge: Necessary knowledge which is knowledge independent of God’s action, Contingent knowledge which requires God’s action and knowledge of the “Middle Mind” of God. Example: Necessary knowledge – All unmarried men are bachelors; Contingent Knowledge – God made the heavens and the earth; Knowledge of the Middle Mind – If I had driven to work today instead of taking public transportation, I would have arrived on time. Do I know if I would have arrived on time – no. Traffic could have been heavy or there could have been an delaying accident, etc.
Does God know if I would have arrived on time – Yes. So, God knows the results of options that I did not select. Did God determine that I should take public transportation? no. That was my free choice. But God would know the results of options not selected. However, He will not impede my free will.
If you want to review a look at omniscience and free will, I would suggest you look into some of the work of the Molinists. Should you want a contemporary writer who works from a Molinist viewpoint, try William Lane Craig.
SF:
http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2008/12/warning_proselytization_is_not.php
We are not interested in your warped theology. Your god doesn’t exist. That makes your bible fiction, and the theology based upon that bible even worse fiction. You said you would stay away if PZ asked, and he did. Now keep your word.
Fixed that for you.
How the hell can you even begin to contemplate the alleged omniscience of an alleged being when you have zero evidence that the being exists in the first place?
No, your knowledge of theology is almost zero. We’ve heard all your bullshit before Silver Fox.
Yawn.
Free will is an already lost arguement. For you.
I’ve also seen a distinct lack of middle earth scholarship. How can one say that Sauron doesn’t exist when they haven’t got a degree in Tolkienism?
Silver Fox, go away. you’re still rambling incoherently. omniscience, no matter how you parse it, does not only mean god knew what would happen if you had taken the car, he knew that you’d take the car. it’s what omniscience means. it doesn’t matter how many different kinds of knowledge or knowing there is. omniscience implies god has all of them.
and that means that on the day that god created you, he knew already that you’d take public transport. he didn’t “make” you do it, but he knew you would, anyway. so, making people whom he already knows will by their free choice go to hell makes god an asshole. no amount of sophisticated-sounding blather is going to change that.
Silver Fox, I posted this upthread, but for you I’ll post it again:
I have free will? Alright, I want my hair to grow to six feet in length and be bright green, right…now!
[crickets]
Nope, didn’t happen.
How is it I have free will again? God doesn’t let me grow my hair and change its colour when I want it to; why, exactly, can’t he apply similar limitations to actions that would cause me to sin?
You’re avoiding the question whether God knows beforehand which option you will choose. If you mean he only knows the results of each possible choice, God’s omniscience will soon fragment into a useless cloud of probabilities since each person’s free choices depend on the result of other people’s free choices.
Kel, your water turned to vodka yet? Mine’s still dihydrogenmonoxide. Another fail Max. Your god is a real wimp. Let’s see a plague of frogs on PZ’s house tomorrow. That might make your god seem somewhat existent.
*Checks*
Nope, still water. Purified drinking water to be more precise. So it will would be laced with minerals, but no ethanol.
How do you know this?
If God knows your choices, you do not have free will because it is already known what you will do.
Ah-hah! I was wondering where that ballistic knitting needle came from. Don’t worry, it didn’t kebab anyone. Other than making a hole in the garden it didn’t really do anything when it landed.
So knitting needles are the new lawn darts?
And PZ wants religion to become like knitting??? Argh — he’s been converted to the dark side!
No! Send them to me. I won’t dissect them. I’ll just fondle them a bit and take them to nice safe ponds and streams. Though it’s currently a bit cold out there for frogs. So it would be kinder to choose instead something which preferred that weather. Which is not a consideration for evil gods of course.
If I had to guess, I’d say that what kept us safe (in the USA at least) from terrorist attacks since 9/11 is a combination of: law enforcement organizations being shocked out of their complacency, severe pressure on the perps by the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, a sharply reduced willingness to look the other way on the part of governments in the middle east and Europe, and a great deal of sheer luck.
-jcr
The issue of omniscience of God and free will of man is a complex issue. Sordid Fucks
Whenever a theist comes out with “X is a complex issue”, you know they don’t have a good answer, and there’s some diversionary tactic or plain old hooey approaching. If “God” doesn’t know which choices we will make, it’s not omniscient. If it does, then it deliberately made people that it knew would reject its “love” and get packed off to eternal torment. Nice chap.
I would suggest you crack a book on apologetics some time. – Sordid Fucks
If I want to waste my time, I assure you I have far more enjoyable ways of doing so than reading apologies for a non-existent entity’s disgraceful behaviour.
I would suggest you crack a copy of the Tuatha Dé Danann some time. As I noted before, the knowledge of leprechology here is (sic) got to be near zero.
What’s that you say? You don’t need to know about the leprechological history of the fir bolg and the sí to dismiss leprechauns? Ditto for theology and gods.
I’m an atheist serving active duty in the Air Force and I’m gearing up for a deployment. Good thing he’s a washed-up, has-been old coot, or I’d be afraid that I didn’t exist.
I’d love to leave this comment on Charlie’s Soapbox so he could read it himself but apparently he’s too much of a coward to allow that, so I’ll leave it here.
Charlie, I think the families of the atheist soldiers who died fighting in the Middle East over the last 8 years might like a word with you. Their blood was just as red as yours is. I have completely lost any respect I ever had for you, I’ll never listen to your music again, and if I happen to have any of your CDs around, they’re going in the garbage with my Hank Williams Jr. stuff.