Phil Zuckerman has written a book called Society without God: What the Least Religious Nations Can Tell Us About Contentment(amzn/b&n/abe/pwll); I haven’t read it yet, but it sounds like a good approach, looking at secular societies like Scandinavia and comparing them to religious societies, like the US. At this point, I don’t know much more about it other than what I see in the reviews, and the Depth Deception blog finds an unwittingly hilarious review in Christianity Today. The final paragraph will leave you giggling.
Zuckerman sells humanity short. If people are content but no longer care about transcendent meaning and purpose or life beyond death, that’s not a sign of greatness but tragic forgetfulness. Their horizon of concern is too narrow. They were made for more. What does it profit a society if, as this book’s jacket notes, it gains “excellent educational systems, strong economies, well-supported arts, free health care, egalitarian social policies, outstanding bike paths, and great beer,” but loses its soul? Can a country build strong social systems and keep its soul? While I am thankful for Zuckerman’s reminder about Christianity’s social implications, and the example of a place that meets those obligations differently than we do, I am sad he misses the rest.
Wait…societies have souls? Weird. So is the Roman Republic in heaven? Do they still bicker with the Macedonian soul?
I’m going to go out on a limb here, though, and admit that if I had the choice between a country with free health care and great beer, and one that had neither of those things but that claimed to possess an imaginary, invisible, intangible ghost, I’d go with the ghostless one with health care and beer.
At least it was a good review. It convinced me to add this book to my purchasing list.
Is it me or did this post appear kind of strangely in order but not at the right time?
I only found this post right now, and only because the Rev posted. I get the impression it wasn’t there before, but that happens occasionally :-p
on a side-note, if I were rich, I’d buy a copy for every talking-head on Fox news. since I’m not rich, I’ll be making suggestions to the Boyfriend as to what my birthday gift should be :-p
That’s definitely going on the short list of books to buy.
er, that was supposed to be “every talking head on fox”, but i couldn’t even afford to supply fox news alone :-p
Yeah, it’s amazing what people can do if they focus on the one life they know for sure they’ve got rather than waste their lives in piety and worship in the hope that a bunch of superstitious, scientifically illiterate bronze-age goat-herders were correct about what happens after you die.
Beer, that’s an easy one. Like “cake or death?”
Cheese or syphilis?
You DO have that choice. Well, if you can get a job in another country. That’s the problem with academia – you don’t really get to choose unless you’re at the top of your field.
“In Heaven, there is no beer
That’s why we drink it here…”
I begin to see why people fear death.
I think what the author of the review really means to say is “can a country build strong social systems without basing these systems on religion?”
The answer is “yes”… which knocks down one of the few remaining arguments used to justify the presence (nay, necessity) of religion: that it makes for a cohesive society of well-meaning, altruistic devotees of All Things Good And Decent, the absence of which leads to Horrible Atheistic Tyranny (“A Pol in every Pot!”).
Pass that beer. It tastes better than sacrifical wine, and while it may stress my liver, at least it won’t poison my mind.
Some years back I was trapped on a crowded bus with someone who was trying to save me. She asked if I was happy, and I responded yes. Then she informed me that I “only think” I’m happy.
That cracked me up. I said, Yeah. Isn’t that the point?
Oh. And I recall that her coat reeked of tobacco smoke.
“Oh, sure, they may seem like they’re having a good time with their prosperous economy, good health, and low social problems…
… but they’re not truly happy.”
I used to hear variations on that theme in church a lot.
Good beer has to win out over pretty much anything.
Some years back I was trapped on a crowded bus with someone who was trying to save me. She asked if I was happy, and I responded yes. Then she informed me that I “only think” I’m happy.
Are you sure she was selling religion and not Amway?
“What does it profit a society if, as this book’s jacket notes, it gains “excellent educational systems, strong economies, well-supported arts, free health care, egalitarian social policies, outstanding bike paths, and great beer,” but loses its soul?”
I’m going to go out on a limb here and say it profits excellent educational systems, strong economies, well-supported arts, free health care, egalitarian social policies, outstanding bike paths, and great beer. And that’s NET, too.
Tea or cake or death?
Thanks for the shout out!
Again, the religion-bound try to lie and say that only they think about great big important ideas, all while their universe is tiny and mundane. Modern science has opened up questions much grander than silly musings on some vague “meaning”. Science doesn’t have to wonder what life is, or why it’s here, science goes and finds out!
That quote from the review is kind of hilarious. “What, that’s your goal in life? To be happy?! Pfft, losers.”
Even if I go out on a limb and give the reviewer the benefit of the doubt and presume that he meant “soul” in a metaphorical sense: What in the hell else does a country’s “soul” consist of other than the minds of its people, their relationships with each other, their arts and culture, etc.?
Health care and beer for all! That’s not socialism, that’s awesome.
“We built a capitalist democracy that values owning personal property and the right to pursue whatever floats our boat. This American dream shapes how we think about rights and obligations. Americans generally believe that charity should be given freely and not demanded by the state, and that people should pay their own way through life.”
There you have it. Christianity today.
As far as the “souls” of nations go, I’d really like higher test scores, better sciences, medicine and food for the poor and oppressed, achievement in the arts, etc.
If we can get rid of this intangible “soul” that serves about as much purpose as the appendix (though, in fairness to the appendix, at least it used to have a purpose) to do it, then I’m all for it.
Let’s get a national, metaphysical appendectomy. Hell, since it doesn’t exist anyway, they probably won’t even need general anesthesia.
Gerry L @11: “Some years back I was trapped on a crowded bus with someone who was trying to save me. She asked if I was happy, and I responded yes. Then she informed me that I ‘only think’ I’m happy.”
I used to be much heavier than I am but after finishing school I lost about 40kg (and have kept off at least 35 of it for half dozen years.) When I was my largest, I was studying one day in a coffee shop in North Jersey. I was approached by a truly enormous man (easily as wide as he was tall… the kind who *might* not fit in two average airplane seats.)
He was wearing a button that said ‘Ask me about losing weight!’ and tried to engage me in conversation to sell me whatever diet supplement he was hawking. I try to be nice to people like that in general (product of a mis-spent southern upbringing.) But I seriously just started laughing – to the point of tears and barely being able to breathe. He left after a few minutes, and I thought…. shit… can I apply that to Mormons and JWs too? I haven’t been able to get myself that worked up sufficiently with the giggles yet when they’ve approached, but I seriously want to try that.
Maybe that’s so, at least as reflected in governmental policies, but Zuckerman does not effectively explain why it might be so.
Maybe he doesn’t know why. What, is he supposed to “ppof” an answer form out of nothing? Make up crap as he goes along?
Nor does he say how U.S. Christians might respond to this irony.
Big whoopy-doopy doo-ha.
I think this is a good example of how religion, as the saying goes, ‘enslaves minds and hardens hearts’. The idea that the things the more secular countries have achieved are nothing without the obsequious fawning and cowering required by religion is a good indication of how skewed theists’ priorities are.
A nation of poor, unhappy, unhealthy, uninspired and unfulfilled (and sober) people is, as we well know, far more likely to be one in which religions flourish. It is isn’t the terrorists that hate the west for its freedoms; it’s the religious who hate the godless for theirs.
“All right, but apart from the sanitation, the medicine, education, wine, public order, irrigation, roads, a fresh water system, and public health, what have the Romans ever done for us?” – Reg, Life of Brian
Another nice thing is that they won’t shun you, persecute you, prosecute you, burn you at the stake, or fly planes into your buildings if you drink a different brand of beer or don’t drink at all.
This has my pining for the fjords.
You know, if a country has a vibrant arts, cuisine and culture (including good beer), a high degree of egalitarianism and prosperity, and happy people, I’d say that whatever a country’s metaphorical heart and soul may be, it sounds like this one has it.
Awww… Becca Stareyes beat to “pining for the fjords”.
I don’t even drink and I’d pick beer.
I must be a hardcore militant atheist then, because I’d rather have free health care and VODKA.
Not that I have anything against beer. I love beer. But if I had to make a choice…
Sorry, mandydax said it first. It’s late.
@another
Brought peace?
How about a nominally-Catholic country with mostly-free health care, great beer, even better chocolate, condoms available in machines on streetcorners, and a government that declares its king (who must sign bills into law) unfit to rule for a couple of days when he faces a personal moral quandary about signing the abortion-rights bill that the legislature has enacted, freeing up the prime minister to sign it for him?
(Belgium, in case anyone was curious.)
What utter claptrap. Yes, humanity was meant for “greater things” like laying about all day daydreaming about how fantastic the “over-reality” will be. Surely, actually putting in the work and making the personal sacrifices necessary to create an equitable, prosperous, and truly just society pales before such wondrous nobility. What laziness, what arrogance, what waste.
ON a more serious note, if a state can be said to have a “soul” then it is that state’s values. A state that adheres to its values cannot then be soulless, and I fail to see how pursuing secular policies to achieve secular purposes negates the values of Sweden, Switzerland, Finland, or Norway. In fact, if any state can be said to have lost its “soul” of late, it is our own.
Pardon me, but I thought having an economically solid society is an essential foundation for nurturing people to explore and see beyond the horizon.
How could any “soul” of a nation be more important than all that other stuff?
<obligatory Life of Brian>
Yes, but apart from excellent educational systems, strong economies, well-supported arts, free health care, egalitarian social policies, outstanding bike paths, and great beer, what have the Scandinavians ever done for us?
</ob>
I’m glad someone else noticed how thoroughly the review ripped off Monty Python.
I think I’m missing a cultural reference in regards to the phrase “Cake or death”. In a different blog I found an Cake or Death bus. Could someone fill me in?
Speaking of souls…will our AI masters have souls?
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/8b162dfc-f168-11dd-8790-0000779fd2ac.html?nclick_check=1
Well, I expect the profit would be the excellent educational systems, the strong economies, the well-supported arts, the free health care, the egalitarian social policies, the outstanding bike paths, and the great beer.
… This is a trick question or something, right?
(Okay–one downside: no one would be writing delightfully amusing columns like that one. Except maybe deliberately to amuse. And it’d still be kinda funny, then, actually–sorta a ‘What have the Romans ever done for us’ moment. And then we could toast their wit with the excellent beer. So again: all good, looks like.)
@TomF
Vikings?
…sorry about the double post, but I have to wonder what they mean by “Their horizon of concern is too narrow.” Scandinavian countries are world-renowned for their sense of moral fair play, their interest in furthering humanitarian causes, their relentless pursuit of equality, and their fanatical devotion to (must… resist… Python… joke) clean sustainable energy sources. Just like the US, really.
That said, while this obviously puts the lie to any claims that strong religious feeling is necessary for social order, happiness, etc, there are so many confounding variables that this is also virtually useless as support of the claim that strong religious feeling holds society back, or even that strong religious feeling doesn’t make those things easier to achieve.
Umm… yeah. Still kinda funny. Just like that. Dammit.
Wait…societies have souls?
A wonderful example of deliberately confusing terms on their part, I think. Societies have souls in the sense that most of us might use the term – they have moralities, beliefs, and characters. But they don’t have souls in the Christian sense of “your soul will end up in a very bad place if you don’t put some money in this plate.”
In my sense of the term, societies’ souls will probably improved by education, etc. In the Christian sense, they don’t make much of a difference.
Yet another reason that I’ll never be a Christian.
Roman soul totally pwns Carthage soul for eternity.
Actually, I believe “outstanding bike paths” should help save soles…
Yes, it did leave me giggling. In fact, it cracked me up. What’s the point of having peace and prosperity if you don’t think it’s all going to end in a fireball of Armageddon real soon?
Comedians, the whole lot of them
@ ERP:
Eddie Izzard; Cake or Death.
maybe they confused soul and spirit, and were bemoaning the preference of beer over vodka…? :-p
anyway, the review is actually not too bad except for the last 1 1/2 paragraphs, which are a really sad case of self-justification: “sure, we suck at living this life, but we’re really great at dreaming about the next one. and that’s SO much more important!”
who wants an education, anyway :-p
@Erp – how did you manage to google “cake or death” and not find: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pAOLOGGftTY Cake or Death starts at about 4:45 in, but the rest is pretty funny too (and yes, that is a man wearing a dress and talking bollocks – in the UK we call that “eccentric”, not “clergy”).
The basis of the joke is that the Church of England is not exactly the most aggressive church ever. They may be the official religion of England, and indeed the head of state is also the head of the church (gods bless you, Liz), but the CofE do seem to care for the welfare of the British Sunday Afternoon Tea Party And Cake Sale rather more than they care for the welfare of the British Soul. Which is, frankly, just the way we Brits like it.
@Twin-Skies:
“Oh. Peace? Shut up!”
cant type anything … giggling too … too … too ha—hard. hard. giggling… try … try to sto—stop. else get the—the hic—hic—hiccups…
What does it profit a society if, as this book’s jacket notes, it gains “excellent educational systems, strong economies, well-supported arts, free health care, egalitarian social policies, outstanding bike paths, and great beer,” but loses its soul?
Wow.
Presumably the reviewer would favor a society with poor educational systems, weak economies, no arts, no health care, hierarchical social policies, no bikes (much less bike paths), and terrible beer. As long as it didn’t “lose its soul”.
13th century France, here we come!
I think this is a choice that we should put to every human being. I feel quite confident that the religious don’t really want to portray this kind of choice as an either-or. After all, religions have succeeded over the centuries by implicitly promising wonderful material goods and experiences. A religion that doesn’t do so dies.
Beer and souls for my lord Arioch!
…in fact, forget the souls. And forget Arioch.
@33
Belgians definitely have the best beer.
That is a gem of concentrated Poe right there. Are you sure McMinn isn’t an atheist plant? You know how sneaky and dishonest we are.
Can a country build strong social systems and keep its soul?
What a total mindfuck. I don’t think even Mother “searing agony is Jesus kissing you” Teresa would have put it quite like that.
fehic!ck! now i hic! do hic! have the hic! hichic!cups. does behic!er cure hic! the hiccupshic!? i’m willhic!ing to do hic! an unhic!controllhic!ed trial. hic!
@RickD
Welcome to the Philippines
I think she would have, or something similar.
It’s all about the fetishization of poverty and illness and deprivation.
(as long as the one fetishizing it is not poor, ill and deprived, of course.)
Unquestionably true. But the Dutch have the best bike paths.
Now for the best soul. Obviously, that must be the ‘most religious country ‘. I hesitate between the country that democratically elected George W. Bush and the country that elected Berlusconi.
Oh my Dog, I shouldn’t forgot the Arab world. No beer and no bike paths there.
BTW, I think Rupert Sheldrake believes that even a solar system has a soul, or at least a mind.
I call Poe.
Please, please, sweet Loki in Valhalla… let this be Poe.
This is one of the funniest things I’ve read all day. I so want it to be Poe.
On a marginally more serious note: How weak is this religion if, when people’s lives get reasonably good, they suddenly start realizing they don’t need it or want it anymore?
I’m with Becca Stareyes (#28). All that stuff sure sounds like the soul of a country to me.
Many thanks on the “cake or death” answer. I had seen the Izzard routine but wasn’t sure it was the origin of the whole phrase. I also gather CoE clergy can laugh at themselves.
On the whole I don’t think many CoE clergy would agree with Christianity Today’s take. A country having a soul reeks of Old Testament retribution on a nation for the sins of its leaders.
Are they really suggesting that Bud Lite and fuck-you-jack social policies are more soulful than sharing with the poor?
@ 63,
Which country would that be?
And as to the people here advocationg belgian beer as the best in the world,you cant be serious !
Love this wishy-washy emo “losing its soul” shit in that article,this undefined impending doom dread the religious seem to develop,when contemplating an existence without fear of death and an afterlife where their immortal soul will rejoice,forever freed from the sufferings of the present life,which therefore is there to endure,and not to improve.
So sad.
First nation to recognize the United States: Norway.
(or so says their PR dept)
Beer or Religion ?
Beer or Cake ?
Oh, and for the person who asked what the cultural reference to cake or death was . . .
Everyone will die in ten seconds, and then there will be cake. The cake is a lie.
Also, for history fans — “Let them eat cake!”
is the quote attributed to Marie Antoinette, shortly before the french revolution, after which she was executed by guillotine.
[speaking from the pulpit]
I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people. For unto you is brewed this day in the city of Hoegarden a beer, which is mighty fine.
—
Really, wouldn’t the “soul” of Belgium be constituted by the fact that it has great beer? Belgium without the beer would be some kind of terrifying undead nation state. [shivers]
PZ: I’d go with the ghostless one with health care and beer.”
Come to Oz, and drink Austrian (sic) Pilsner!
I’m still not sure what a “soul” is supposed to be. I’d ask a religious person but none of them have a clue either.
“The cake is a lie.” Portal is such a good game.
I hate to break it to all you Belgian beer heathens, but California (Stone Brewing in particular) has the best beer. Which is good, because with the economy here, we need all the beer we can get.
The most concrete definition of “soul” I could quickly find on teh internets is from Wikipedia:
Australia has, or at least is building, a soul. That only leaves a hundred-some-odd other countries…
Professor Myers, I’m sure you’d be able to find employment in any of our major universities in Sweden. Or elsewhere in Western Europe for that matter. It would be a loss for The States but a win for us.
Soul? Cake? That must mean it’s Soul Cake Tuesday.
What duck?
After the most cursory perusal of the thread, I’ll go out on a limb here and say that everyone is conflating absence of religion with political agenda, and finding they like the mix, shouting attaboy. And at the same time falling for that most elementary of logical errors : post hoc ergo propter hoc.
Only on the political agenda, and only dealing with Sweden (Norway is half-a-dozen people sailing on an ocean of oil) :
you have a country with a relatively small, and until recently, homogeneous population, which not only did not participate in the war against Hitler, but even allowed his troops to cross their country to invade their peacable neighbour…not only did not participate in the efforts to stop communism taking over the world, but appeased left-right-and-centre..scarcely surprising they have resources left over for generous social benefits.
And on the long term viability of the social package: the last word will be spoken by future generations – they may curse their delusional fathers/grandfathers for thinking that life was just a succession of free lunches.
…..and from what I hear (never been there), the beer is v. expensive…
For those wondering what a soul is, it’s you. According to standard Christian doctrine you are a soul, you inhabit a body. (Ever wonder why The Devil comes for Faust at the end of the story, instead of Faust’s soul? :eg: )
In any case, I can’t stand beer, and I’d rather have affordable health care. I’ve dealt with an obstructive bureaucracy (HMO) and I have no desire to do so again. That’s the problem with free health care, there aint no such thing. You want your medical care paid for by others, you will be dealing with bureaucracy. A government bureaucracy tends to follow a clearly laid out set of rules. The rules may be obscure, but at least they’re followed. A private bureaucracy -such as in an HMO- has people who’d rather ignore the rules. It is far better to pay for your care yourself, because you have data available to you regarding your care that the bureaucrats don’t. And having that degree of control over their own lives tends to make people happier.
It comes down to this, the PtB have convinced us we cannot handle our own affairs. That we are helpless, hopeless fools. They have told us we are incompetents so persistently we have come to believe it. So we turn our lives over to outside parties and add layers of bureaucracy that add to the costs of necessities, like health care.
I, thanks to my disability, need help with my medical care. Most of you, I bet, can afford to pay for your own basic care. Or you could, if you weren’t helping maintain the profit margins of a number of insurance companies.
Take control of your health care and make yourself happier.
Okay, so we’re supposed to be worried about life after death. Just what would we be doing with an afterlife we aren’t doing with this one? What’s the meaning of an afterlife if you need not fear dying? If you have nothing to look forward to, no consequences for any of our actions, just tea and cake for eternity?
Heaven is boring as hell.
…and “p” Godwins the thread.
Just wanted to add my name to the list of people who are glad that we got the obvious Monty Python quote @#26.
Typical religious mindset; it’s hardly tragic that some of us don’t care about the imponderables they care about, and no doubt galling that we can still be content.
It’s only tragic in their opinion – I personally think it tragic they show more concern for their putative “life beyond death” than for life before death.
Alan Kellogg – bureaucracy? Where there’s free health care, no one has to shuffle forms or get shunted round telephone switchboards to get medical cover in the first place, after a hospital visit you don’t get bills to argue about, and if you’re careless enough to be poor you don’t end up having to deal with thousands of dollars’ debt.
I read this book last month and wrote a review for it on Amazon titled: “Religion Not Necessary for Bliss on Earth.”
The book is excellent. There’s just a teensy thing missing from it that I detailed in the review.
The religious vampires whom I have encountered in my life–the ones that want so desperately to convert you–will often revert in using the supreme mindfuck of their version of No True Scotsman Fallacy: No True Happy Person Fallacy
Me: Yes, I am perfectly happy.
Divine snake oil salesmen: No, you are not, you are missing the essential and crucial aspect of being happy, that is, my version of the divine snake oil. blah, blah, blah.
And yet, many peddlers of religion are the ones that are teaching us to be not satisfied with reality, to court greed, to ask more than what is possible, to crave the unattainable, to encourage misery. They do not view themselves as not-to-be-satiated addicts and out-of-whack consumers of snake oil. They need psychological help and they are not getting it because religious beliefs are protected from analysis and scrutiny.
“We come from the land of ice and snow
From free health care and frosty beer!”
Somewhat altered Immigrant song.
PZ wrote:
Hey, it’s not just health care and beer, it’s also ice bars, tall blonds and Black Metal too.
Is it just me, or is saying
a rhetorical question equaling “Building strong social systems is utterly evil because the country will be losing its soul, so keep the masses poor and uneducated and thus fit for SALVATION!”?
@ Allan Kellog:
So I wish you Happy Monkey for your nice, affordable disability. Other illnesses might be a crippling burden if you want them to be treated correctly, especially long-time illnesses with loads of follow-up examinations, multiple cost-intensive interventions and hindrances to working for a friggin’ living.
This might include various forms of cancer, some autoimmune diseases, having a child with some birth defect like mucoviscidosis or spina bifida…
But hey, I bet there’s still the happiness derived from “being able to control one’s health care”.
May the FSM have mercy. I just read the Christy Today review. It’s amazing how much religion warps perception.
The reviewer writes: “While Zuckerman attributes the differences between Scandinavians and Americans largely to the presence or absence of religion, he acknowledges they might be related to other variables.”
That couldn’t be further from the truth. His main point was that religion was not necessary for societal harmony. He in no way makes a positive claim as the reviewer implies.
It’s also amazing how much she warps statistics. She writes: “Highly secularized Scandinavian countries consistently rank high on international well-being and life-satisfaction indices (though so does the United States, a point Zuckerman fails to make).”
If my memory serves me well, the U.S. was circa 30th place in relation to the Danes’ and Swedes’ top 10 placing. Zuckerman never hid or obfuscated data as the reviewer implies.
I’m from the U.K but I go to New England every year to visit my wifes family. America has great beer. Don’t take my word for it, read the glowing reviews from the late Michael Jackson, the’beer hunter’. If this book is implying that it doesn’t, it should be burned pronto and its author put in the stocks as a warning to others!.
We have free health care her but its complete crap compared to the U.S. Sure you could go Scandinavian but don’t complate when you get the crippling tax bill. America is great despite the loonies.
The problem with comparing America to a couple of other very different countries is that it is actually perfectly possible to have free health care and good beer AND religion. Plus you also have to compare England, Spain, Italy etc…which are quite nice places (good beer too) and are quite religious.
The problem with good beer is that it is very drinkable.
Great – the one useful tenet of xianity (‘help others’), and the reviewer openly admits that xians in the US don’t actually ‘do’ that bit! They are far too busy teaching creationism, starting wars etc
This ‘soul’ thing sounds about as useful as the ‘honour’ thing that certain Muslims seem to like…
Now if we can only figure out how to persuade the NHS to give us free beer for health reasons we will have squared the social Nirvana circle. Not much chance though, we are being hectored about drinking too much. Apparently it is the middle classes chugging bottles of Chianti in the evenings at home that drink the most. The problem is it is responsible drinkers like us who will be penalised.
The problem with people having social freedom and not having to worry about an eternally watching vengeful deity is that they seem to forget all about moderation and responsibility. It is a real problem.
A tale my father told me about an unspecified relation from a previous generation: He liked a drink but his wife was in the Temperance League and he rarely got any. He got a bit poorly and the doctor prescribed him Stout as a tonic (the social Nirvana circle used to be squared you see). Only problem was his wife decided that since it was a medicine he had to have it by the spoonful . . .
I think you’re missing the point. Noone disputes that religion and free health care can co-exist. Zuckerman merely shows that the presence of religion is not necessary for a good working society. See comment #89
(Btw. the best beer is either Czech or Bavarian.)
Lord Kitchener, #90:
We have free health care her but its complete crap compared to the U.S.
Compared to rich Americans, perhaps. In any case there are private healthcare companies operating here too, if you can afford them.
‘What does it profit a society if, as this book’s jacket notes, it gains “excellent educational systems, strong economies, well-supported arts, free health care, egalitarian social policies, outstanding bike paths, and great beer,” but loses its soul?’
For some reason that reminded me of ….
“REG:
And what have the Romans ever given us in return?!
XERXES:
The aqueduct?
REG:
What?
XERXES:
The aqueduct.
REG:
Oh. Yeah, yeah. They did give us that. Uh, that’s true. Yeah.
COMMANDO #3:
And the sanitation.
LORETTA:
Oh, yeah, the sanitation, Reg. Remember what the city used to be like?
REG:
Yeah. All right. I’ll grant you the aqueduct and the sanitation are two things that the Romans have done.
MATTHIAS:
And the roads.
REG:
Well, yeah. Obviously the roads. I mean, the roads go without saying, don’t they? But apart from the sanitation, the aqueduct, and the roads–
COMMANDO:
Irrigation.
XERXES:
Medicine.
COMMANDOS:
Huh? Heh? Huh…
COMMANDO #2:
Education.
COMMANDOS:
Ohh…
REG:
Yeah, yeah. All right. Fair enough.
COMMANDO #1:
And the wine.
COMMANDOS:
Oh, yes. Yeah…
FRANCIS:
Yeah. Yeah, that’s something we’d really miss, Reg, if the Romans left. Huh.
COMMANDO:
Public baths.
LORETTA:
And it’s safe to walk in the streets at night now, Reg.
FRANCIS:
Yeah, they certainly know how to keep order. Let’s face it. They’re the only ones who could in a place like this.
COMMANDOS:
Hehh, heh. Heh heh heh heh heh heh heh.
REG:
All right, but apart from the sanitation, the medicine, education, wine, public order, irrigation, roads, a fresh water system, and public health, what have the Romans ever done for us?
XERXES:
Brought peace.
REG:
Oh. Peace? Shut up!”
Zuckerman can’t be thinking of Scandinavia if he promises great beer to Godless societies. The evidence points in the opposite direction, since the best beer is brewed by monks.
I have read Phil Zuckerman’s book–it is a very enjoyable read! I found it well worth the brief time it takes to read it.
PZ–I’d be interested to hear your opinion on the book when you do get around to reading it.
The problem with this is that Norway does not have great beer. It has OK beer. Sweden has OK beer, Denmark has slightly better beer. Finland has vodka.
Ireland, generally considered a rather religious country (at least compared to us northern heathens), has GREAT beer. Give me a Guinness any day. So does this mean I have to eat little jesuscookies with my beer now?
Now.. if the magical blood of Jesus was Guinness instead of wine…
There was a feature on BBC Radio 4 a couple of months back, due to Denmark having achieved top ranking in quality of life indices.
They reported that, due to legislation, the spread of income from top to bottom is a ratio of 5 to 1. Cars are extremely expensive due to taxes, so most people under 30 don’t have one, and cycling is something almost everyone does.
So much for the free market philosophy.
I like to call it “growing up”.
I agree that it is vacuous bullshit to talk about a society “losing its soul”. Leaving aside the metaphysical question of whether “souls” exist, I can say with absolute certainty that “societies” – being abstract phenomena, not anthropomorphic entities – do not have souls, nor any other moral characteristics.
However, I disagre with the implication that Scandinavia is some sort of utopia. In case you hadn’t noticed, the governments of Sweden and Denmark are now being forced to cut those countries’ crippling and oppressive levels of taxation, in order to remain economically competitive and sustain growth. Norway has gotten away with it because of their oil wealth (they’re the largest petroleum exporter in Europe), but that won’t last forever.
The free market is a damn good thing. The United States is not a valid counterexample, since, contrary to popular belief, it is no closer to the free-market ideal than any European country. Its government spending per capita is not significantly lower than that in Europe; it’s just spent less efficiently. Pork-barrel politics and the absurd bureaucracy of the federal government see to that. And the US has the second highest corporate tax rate in the OECD.
Allan Kellog wrote:
“I, thanks to my disability, need help with my medical care. Most of you, I bet, can afford to pay for your own basic care.”
Ok so we should pay for ourselves and not bother about others, except for YOU because YOU need help with your medical care. Moron.
And P: You seem to have a lot of ideas about Sweden (a country that is outwardly neutral but has always sided with the US and UK, even during WWII) yet you have never even been here. You simply dont know what you are talking about.
Walton, #102 –
[The US’s] government spending per capita is not significantly lower than that in Europe; it’s just spent less efficiently.
Isn’t that because they contract out more public services to private companies with profits to make, rather than administrate them publicly?
Walton: You are missing the point. No one is saying that the Scandinavian countries are some sort of utopia. But the whole point of the book is that they score very highlly in measurements of quality of life (while not being very religious). You seem to be saying “not utopia = no better than any other country” and that is simply a fallacy.
Czech and Belgian lager are good, but lager is not proper beer. Sorry, I don’t make the rules.
This being the case British* real ales are in fact the best beers. If they are kept well. And in most case only if drunk within fifty mile of where they are brewed (traveling=damage) .
*It would be safe to put “English” except for the existence of Deuchars.
Walton:
J is more direct than I*.
Walton, is not the point that contentment is empirically not reliant on religiosity, yet the religiously-ideological quote by Christianity Today considers it to be so?
The implication is that cultural religiosity is neither necessary nor sufficient for the happiness/quality of life.
I like it that this irks the religious.
—
* Dang, J, you beat me to it!
J? The J, or another J? I’m inclined to believe the former based on the style, but I’m not 100% sure.
Marstons Pedigree, Owd Roger, Ram Tam and Taylors Golden Best – these are the only gods and soul you need.
I’d sell my soul for outstanding bike paths. If I had one, I mean.
“Was this the face that launch’d a thousand ships,
And burnt the topless towers of Ilium?–
Sweet Helen, make me immortal with a kiss.–
”[kisses her]”
Her lips suck forth my soul: see, where it flies!–
Come, Helen, come, give me my soul again.
Here will I dwell, for heaven is in these lips,
And all is dross that is not Helena.
I will be Paris, and for love of thee,
Instead of Troy, shall Wittenberg be sack’d;
And I will combat with weak Menelaus,
And wear thy colours on my plumed crest;
Yea, I will wound Achilles in the heel,
And then return to Helen for a kiss.
O, thou art fairer than the evening air
Clad in the beauty of a thousand stars;
Brighter art thou than flaming Jupiter
When he appear’d to hapless Semele;
More lovely than the monarch of the sky
In wanton Arethusa’s azur’d arms;
And none but thou shalt be my paramour!”
Those among us who would sell one’s soul for the dangerous perversions of this life do not fully understand what it is to be utterly bereft of God’s presence for an enternity.
“Why this is hell, nor am I out of it.
Think’st thou that I, who saw the face of God,
And tasted the eternal joys of heaven,
Am not tormented with ten thousand hells
In being deprived of everlasting bliss?”
Count no man happy till he dies
Pete “well meaning fool” Rooke. You imaginary god doesn’t exist. You know that. No physical evidence whatsoever, and a philosophical god isn’t worth the effort to write home about as it doesn’t interact with the physical world. Keep showing us your ignorance. You are doing a great job of it.
J @ 103
Sorry “P” should’ve been “peter”.
…as long as you’re applying that to everyone else on this thread who’s never been there..
Facts are facts whether one’s been there or not, and I don’t call allowing the Nazi’s to invade Norway through one territory “siding with the US and UK”. Whatever the population may have felt (and that’s something, not having been there at the time – but does that apply to you as well? – I’ll not comment on, although it is disputed: cf the talk section on the following link), the concrete policy was their own skins and business interests came first.
Another point: the “absence of religion” in Sweden is not a black-and-white question, and it could be argued that their Christian tradition has influenced the modern ethical standpoint.
There are so many parameters in the equation that produces the present state of Sweden compared to other countries, that a book like this is quite obviously tendentious, meretricious nonsense.
“Those among us who would sell one’s soul for the dangerous perversions of this life do not fully understand what it is to be utterly bereft of God’s presence for an enternity.”
Neither do you Pete. The only source you have is a collection of half-remembered Hebrew folktales and partisan accounts of (at best) half truths about Jebus.
Pete Rooke
Say what?
Hey Pete, some of us can be content without “dangerous perversions”, you know? :)
Sheesh, bring up contentment and quality of life, and you immediately think of dangerous perversions as necessary for that.
You’re a weird person, Pete.
I definitely count you as not happy.
As a Pharyngula discussion grows longer, the probability of a Monty Python reference approaches one.
Beer *is* the soul of a culture; it is a way of drinking your carbohydrates without as much worry about the nasty little bugs in the water. Beer and bread *are* civilization; they are the motivation for agriculture and the motivation for hard work. They are, rightfully, a point of pride for their producers, to the point of being a part of cultural identity or (I’m thinking Foster’s here) cultural stereotype, actively denied. Beer is art, beer is science, beer is commerce.
Ok, I take it back. Beer would be the soul of a culture, if such faint praise were not an insult to beer.
dammit, that should say reward for hard work.
Isn’t Macedonia around as a country again? Another resurrection, I guess.
Peter Rooke – why can’t you just admire beautiful literature without believing that the fairies it refers to are real?
If you want to praise your god AND be a useful member of society, become a Trappist monk – take a vow of silence and brew beer for the rest of your life. We’d like you better that way, I’m sure, and you’d have both your beer and your ‘soul’.
The reviewer is penning a lot words because he doesn’t want to say, “I am stumped!”
“What does it profit a society if, as this book’s jacket notes, it gains “excellent educational systems, strong economies, well-supported arts, free health care, egalitarian social policies, outstanding bike paths, and great beer,” but loses its soul?”
Oh yes, of course. What was I possibly thinking?
Magic Man in the Sky versus quality of life for all…
how could I have been so wrong?
Especially the beer part.
Does that mean no more Negro Modelo?
“…do not fully understand what it is to be utterly bereft of God’s presence for an enternity.”
Well I’m glad to know someone has experienced eternity and lived to tell us about it.
So tell us Rooke, is God a good roommate? Because that’s long time to live with anyone.
How does Christianity Today know what souls are? How could Christianity Today decide what souls are in the first place?
Uh, sure. There is just as much convincing evidence that societies have souls as there is that individuals do.
“I’m going to go out on a limb here, though, and admit that if I had the choice between a country with free health care and great beer, and one that had neither of those things but that claimed to possess an imaginary, invisible, intangible ghost, I’d go with the ghostless one with health care and beer.”
Of course, PZ could always come up here to Canada. We have good beer, socialized medicine, and if he hurries maybe he can get a job at the University of Guelph in time to sit on Kirk Durston’s PhD candidates review to discuss the mathematical proof for God in his thesis review.
Truly a win for everyone. Except Minnesota
What does it profit a society if, as this book’s jacket notes, it gains “excellent educational systems, strong economies, well-supported arts, free health care, egalitarian social policies, outstanding bike paths, and great beer,” but loses its soul?
Very funny!
I really laugh out loud!
I didnt know there was a humour section here…
This blind believers can be so funny: they atleast think before say or write something?
PS: One of my images of “Hell” is a world without wine; beer is overated! :P
Someone wake me when the religious voices howling at this come up with something other than:
a) apologist whining
b) things that miss the point
The claim being made is NOT that societies are more generally content without prevalent overt religiosity in their populaces, it is that societies do not need to have prevalent overt religiosity in their populaces to be generally content.
No one is claiming various Scandinavian/less overtly religious societies are nirvana like states bereft of trouble (or indeed religious histories), gleaming jewels of some spurious secular new dawn. What is being claimed is that, contrary to the delusions of many gobby American pundits, a society does not need to be literally brimming over with god-whalloping evangelicals of various species to have a generally content populace.
Please for the love of fucking sanity deal with the actual claim and not the rabid straw version imagined.
As it stands this is a larger expression of the “people can be moral and happy without theistic psychological comfort blankets and divine CCTV cameras” fact, and the more rabid sections of the believing/believing in belief world cannot stand that.
Yes I’m in a bad mood today. What of it? ;-)
Louis
Ecclesiastes.
Dangerous perversions like…bike paths?
Meh. They’re the same thing.
OK – late to the party, but we have already done the whole beer thing – over in the What is the, the 17th century? thread.
Stone is outstanding, but it can’t hold a candle to the output of Belgium. I just had a lovely Double Bastard last night in fact. We all need to know if Nerd of Redhead liked the Arrogant Bastard though.
Beer IS soul. There is no need to be one without the other. As long as it is GOOD beer – and not the greater portion of the commercial swill the US has well been derided globally for. Stone is definitely to be congratulated for stemming the tide of that poor legacy.
And this is fun
JC
For all you guys saying as if it were a matter of obviousness that Norway is a secular country, well, I don’t mean to disappoint you too much, but just now next year will they finally separate the state and church; a separation that is implicit in f.ex. the American constitution. The case being that Norway until the last 30 or so years have been a fairly culturally uniform country, without much immigration; there has always been a strong sense of common cultural heritage, based on “our Christian cultural heritage”, even though the people of Norway might not consider themselves to be particularly religious, or particularly practicing even if they were religious. I guess we just didn’t see the problem with the strong Christian affiliation with the state, because religion wasn’t all up in our faces all the time.
There’s actually a big discussion going on right now, due to that a minority party in the government through wheeling and dealing on some other questions managed to get the government to suggest prohibiting “qualified insults that hurt peoples religious feelings”. As if prohibiting someone from insulting someones’ religious feelings is really any different from prohibiting blasphemy itself.
So there you go, we have the educational systems and the health care and the strong economy and the beer aso, but we can’t seem to get entirely rid of that darn soul. I bet that pleases Phil Zuckerman.
I’m going to go out on a limb here, though, and admit that if I had the choice between a country with free health care and great beer, and one that had neither of those things but that claimed to possess an imaginary, invisible, intangible ghost, I’d go with the ghostless one with health care and beer.
Well, PZ, if yours truly had to select between the Hobson’s choice of a world with godless curmudgeons like YOU and a world where everybody thought as I did (and, hence, no PZ to share a beer with), I’d take the curmudgeonly one.
This is faint praise in the sense that I don’t really have Option 2 to consider, but believe me, if I could choose Option 2….I wouldn’t.
And I still owe you a beer!….Scott
I dunno. I don’t think the Scandinavians make very good beer. Now, Belgium, Germany, the UK–there’s some good beer.
I think I’ll take the bike paths and beer, thanks. (And I won’t grouse too loud about the tax bill, either.)
I’ve lived in Sweden for 6 years after 20 years in Ireland and 15 in England so perhaps can give some comparison of differing levels of societal religiosity. Ireland to me was, and still is a land stuck in superstition. While it was Irish Catholicism 20 years a go it is now much more straightforward woo. Sweden has, in comparison, much higher levels of general skepticism and respect for science.
One thing to be careful of, however is to correctly assign the source of the progressiveness in Sweden.
There is a commitment to good education and universal healthcare here that results in almost all children getting good daycare – allowing both parents to work. University education is also available to all rather than just the rich and as such the overall education level in Sweden is pretty high. I suspect any nation that accidentally educates its population like this, emancipates its women and arranges a government supported social safety net for those in need, will find that its ‘need’ for religion is reduced.
PZ has pointed out before the fairly recent ploy by the ID crowd to resurrect dualism.
Looks like a great book- may not address this directly, but it looks like the arguments against it make this a central issue.
there is something fundamentally wrong with the idea that making the world an better place is at the cost of ones soul.
I mean really utterly wrong regardless of whether god exists or not, in fact existence of god would make it even more wrong.
I mean. How one can damage his soul by being good and doing good deeds ? How can providing health care and education even to the needy push you towards your damnation ?
Of course. We empirically observe correlation between religiosity and societal dysfunction.
However. Is this causation too, or just historical accident ?
does improving the society indeed necessarily come at cost of religiosity, and increased religiosity cause societal decay ? If god exists and is good this would make no sense whatsoever. So, either god is evil, or god does not exist and religion is a pathology of human mind, or better society does not come at cost of damnation. Either way zuckerman loses his argument
How dare you make me give away some of my riches (which I don’t really need, but I really, really want that new luxury car, see) to help people who can’t get by on their own ? It’s all mine, my precioussss. Anyway, they’re all lazy bums, even those who have two minimum-wage jobs. Slackers. If I have to give them something, I’d rather see them groveling at my feet for it.
Christian charity. You gotta love it.
OOPS ! I misread the text. Of course I don’t mean Zuckerman, but the author of the quoted paragraph.
No, I haven’t tried it yet. That brand of beer isn’t sold in my state, so I have to go out of state to get it. I will be going by a place that might have it on my way to rescue the Redhead from the clutches of the airline cattle cars this weekend.
Re # 77/113
Peter, you have an interesting take on history
I just looked at your link to Wikipedia about Sweden’s supposed: “allowing the Nazi’s to invade Norway through one territory” and “even allowed his troops to cross their country to invade their peacable neighbour” and you seem not to have read it. The source you yourself use states that Sweden was able to resist doing this by “by reminding the Germans of the Swedes’ feeling of closeness to their Norwegian brethren”. The only movement of German troops across Swedish territory was AFTER Norway surrendered. Swedish and Finnish volunteers actually fought the Nazis in Norway.
You also state that Sweden “did not participate in the efforts to stop communism taking over the world”. The Swedes sent one third of all their fighter aircraft and over 8000 troops to Finland to fight the Communist invasion in the Winter War. As a contrast, the US and UK helped Communism take over most of Eastern Europe.
Re #106 Matt
Belgium makes rather more beers than just “lager”. While lager is very popular, Belgium probably makes more beers and beer styles than any other country, from spontaneously fermented lambics, fruit beers, wheat beers, real ales, brown ales, light ales, blondes, the trappist beers (including the truly awesome Orval) through to the lagers and occasional gnat’s piss.
#120 Nick
Alas, Macedonia has not been reborn, at least not while the Greeks can still block the use of the name. So-called “Macedonia” is actually called the “Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia”, with the implication that it used to be called Macedonia with no indication of what its new name will be. But maybe soon the Greeks will stop blocking the use of the name.
Walton simply can’t afford to admit that Scandinavian countries are good places to live because this would undermine his market-worship. As for “the free market is a damned good thing”, well, there’s never been one and never could be, so it’s hard to judge. However, the past 30 years have seen big moves in the direction of “leave it to the market”: privatization, lowering of tariff barriers, removal of controls on the movement of capital and financial markets, cutting of taxes on the rich (this race to the bottom being the reason Sweden and Denmark are, as Walton notes, being forced to cut their rates) – and look where it’s got us. Even at the annual celebration of capitalism at Davos, the braying about the glories of the free market were absent this year.
By the way Walton, your only good example of a “free-market” utopia, New Zealand, has plunged into recession, which looks to be deep and long-lasting; and a survey in 1999 (Perry et al New Zealand Politics at the Turn of the Millennium) apparently showed (I’m reporting indirectly here) that most wanted far stricter controls on foreign capital; and over 2/3 of those surveyed thought (correctly of course) that the country was being run by a few big interests looking out for themselves, while only 20% thought it was being run for the benefit of New Zealanders as a whole. Face it Walton, your cold-hearted and evil ideology has been tested to destruction. As SC says, the tide has turned, and you and your fellow “libertarians” are left flapping about like stranded fish.
This is a serious question: How can someone type those words, submit the review for publishing, and EVER show their face in public again? I seriously want to know. What does it profit a society to make most, if not all, of its participants happy and healthy in the only life we KNOW we have? Are you fucking kidding me? The person who wrote this review…I really don’t know what to type.
What Robin said. And coming from Canada, I can tell you one thing: if you really need care here, it is oustanding. I’ve seen many examples around me. And that’s not limited to standard health care per se, but extends to medical research. We have great facilities and researchers.
People call it crappy when they come to the ER with a stupid cold, misunderstanding how triage is done, that is, how urgent is your complaint. And you know what ? The US has the exact same doctor shortage problem than we have in Canada. Less GPs and gynes. Why ? Because it pays more to be in those other specialities. People who want elective plastic surgery are rich and able to pay, those who need a cancer treatment, or a bypass, not always. Especially as they generally have to give up their jobs (or work less) for a while. At least here:
1) The patient doesn’t have to worry about that
2) The doctor doesn’t have to worry about that
America so pwns Scandinavia.
How do you know this?
From the review: “Zuckerman sells humanity short. If people are content but no longer care about transcendent meaning and purpose or life beyond death, that’s not a sign of greatness but tragic forgetfulness.”
Why do so many Christians assume that not believing in god or an afterlife makes you shallow? Transcendent meaning and purpose are not the exclusive domain of believers. Contemplating the actual universe and our place in it is more than enough to take my thoughts beyond the quality of my beer.
Brasidas @143
…amazing the lengths you guys will go to to exonerate your paradise:
wikipedia:
“Officially the trains transported wounded soldiers and soldiers on leave , which would still have been in violation of Sweden’s proclaimed neutrality. In all, close to 100,000 railroad cars had transported two million German soldiers through Sweden “.
That Norway had surrendered by then makes it alright for you – the soldiers just wanted to go swimming in the fjords…
The fact is: official Sweden did a lot to help Hitler, and what to help the allies?
The bit about the gains of communism at the end of the WWII is a typical cheap point you guys make – you mean presumably we should have started fighting Stalin and the Russians as the last German surrendered in May ’45 to prevent the communist take-over of Eastern Europe?
Here are the rules (Canada) : When you’re born, or when you’re declared a permanent resident (you don’t even need full citizenship), you’re issued a health care card from your province. When you go to the doctor (any doctor with a right to practice), you present that card to see him. Then you go home when you’re finished. You never see any bit of paper, you never phone anyone, except for your appointments.
If you want to go to an hospital (any hospital in your province), you go in, present your health care card and they make you a hospital card to track your file in that hospital. You can have as many of those as you want.
The idea that we can be good without God gives even some so-called liberal theologians fits…http://atheistwatch.blogspot.com/2009/01/blog-post.html
Since Facilis the Fallacious Fool says this, we know the reverse is true.
I think he should look at some more atheistic societies, like Russia and the former Soviet, China and Cambodia too.
@Eduardo
There are some nice ones around here (Dundee, Scotland) and more being added all the time. I don’t cycle but they have opened up a whole slew of long runs for me that were not possible before. I can do 17miles and more 90% of which is on designated, paved, sign posted cycle paths.
If Facilis the Fallacious Fool says look elsewhere, we don’t need to.
Christianity Today’s idea of a great future is well known. It is a Rapture Monkey publication.
God shows up, kills 6.7 billion people and destroys the earth. Or universe for those educated fundies that realize the universe is larger than our one planet
This blessed event has been predicted every few years since 33 AD. According to Sarah Palin, it will be within her lifetime. Other popular dates are 2012.
While waiting for Ragnorak, the fundies practiced by having their political arm, the Theothuglicans, destroy the US economy which has spread to the world economy. They also left piles of bodies in a pointless war in Iraq.
It doesn’t count as atheist or secular when you a) rip the people’s religion out from under them, and b) turn the state and its leader into the new god. When the most voluntarily atheist populations in the world are also enjoying the highest quality of life, the question of “Can we be good without God?” is conclusively answered.
(Oh, and China is starting to discuss universal health care. They think it’ll help the people feel more secure, for some reason.)
I submitted the bolded portion to FSTDT.
“What does it profit a society if, as this book’s jacket notes, it gains “excellent educational systems, strong economies, well-supported arts, free health care, egalitarian social policies, outstanding bike paths, and great beer,” but loses its soul?”
Hell, I’d sell my soul for any of these benefits.
It’s really simple facils,
ATHEISM is not the same as COMMUNISM/SOCIALIST NATIONALISM
dumbass
peter @ 150, you can nitpick about how much Sweden did or did not side with the Nazis during WWII all you want. The fact remains that your only counter to this entire book is apparently that Sweden isn’t a utopia. Is that seriously your entire argument? And how is it remotely relevant to the central thesis of the book? Or did you skip that whole “reading the blog post” part before commenting?
Rooke,
(bold mine)
***fingers over keyboard ****….nah, too easy.
facilis,
Who needs universe health care, lower infant mortality, lower homicide rate, when you have guns ?!
Using your “logic” ( you really suck at that, don’t you?) then you should also look at all theocratic societies, like Iran, Saudi Arabia, Medieval Europe, etc. You also need to look at all at the religious wars, like the Thirty Years War which reduced the population in some German states by 30%. There’s also the Spanish conquest of the Americas. The conquistadors would kill the heathen native babies and feed them to their dogs. You also need to consider all the slave owners who cited the “curse of Ham” as justification for slavery.
Or you could be mature and realize that humans are dumb, warlike morons and will use whatever ideology they happen to believe in to justify their brutal behaviour. As someone who defended the death of 42 children by bears for mocking God’s prophet for being bald I don’t think you’ll take this approach.
I’m stunned that it currently doesn’t have universal health care. What the heck does it think it is, some kind of backwater like the US?
Natalie @ 162
practice your reading (and comprehension) skills on #77, and esp. #113, last para., for the central thesis of the book…
The most fascinating part of this book review is that they seem to also concede that social justice isn’t compatible with Christianity… and that’s just fine. They don’t seem to deny the influence of conservative Christianity on American social policies, nor do they dispute the poorer metrics that result. Instead, they just sort of hand-wave away, and say that it doesn’t matter, because Americans like it that way (i.e. higher infant mortality, higher teen pregnancy, higher homicide rates, higher rates of adult illiteracy, etc.)
In apologizing for American social underperformance, Lisa Graham McMinn trots out all the standard canards about how we’re all too damn macho and individualistic for anything as queer as social democracy to work for us. However, the one that stands out to me more than any of the rest is her version of why we can’t have single payer healthcare: we’re just too damn ethnic. Here’s how she puts it:
You see what she did just there? In one death-defying act of right-wing onanism, she toots her own Godly, American horn by claiming that we can’t make social democracy work like it does in Scandinavia, because of all the race mixing going on! Isn’t that special?
The entire article is filled with apologetics for misanthropy.
Julie Stahlhut | February 2, 2009 11:25 PM, #14
Is there a difference? (Other than Amway’s tax status, that is.)
Lord Kitchener said
And how much have you used the NHS recently? For as one who has needed it seriously over the last 16 years or so with a chronic and increasingly debilitating condition needing a lot of meds, let me say that there is no way I could afford the same level of care in the US and I am not poor per se.
When I was not happy with my initial consultant at the beginning of my condition my GP arranged a new consultant and clinic in less than 2 weeks. That same consultant and his clinic has looked after me wonderfully for the last 15 years or so. Even in non-emergency situations I can arrange an appointment to see my GP or consultant within 24-48 hours and all it costs is the price of a phone call and, when necessary my surgery’s nurse practitioner will come out as and when necessary to give me needed injections when I can’t physically make it to the surgery or the clinic.
Is the NHS perfect? Of course not, far from it in some ways, but whatever else it may be, crap it is not. For the average person, i.e. someone who earns around the average wage or less, given the choice between the NHS and the US system, there is no contest.
“””excellent educational systems, strong economies, well-supported arts, free health care, egalitarian social policies, outstanding bike paths, and great beer,” but loses its soul?”””””
Most of that lot applies to all the western European democracies (not that there are any other forms of government in Europe – possible exception being the Vatican City I suppose – presumably in no danger of losing it’s soul).
Certainly there are variations (no free health care in Ireland,crap cycle paths in Spain etc etc) but in general the European social model is one where people are not kept illiterate (other than by choice or by religion – usually in tandem) and are not allowed to die in the streets for lack of health care.
My American colleagues (I work for a US company)always refer to this as “socialized medicine” as if we were living in some Stalinist pipedream. (most notably Juliani and his comments in connection with his prostrate cancer). Medical care in the US is superb for those that can afford it. For those that cannot afford it they might as well be in a mud hut in central Africa.
Lost souls – my arse. Few people in Europe give a monkeys for “”transcendent meaning and purpose or life beyond death”” because the good education allowed them to decide for themselves that belief in dog was on a par with any other fairy story. Only the stupid and the Moslem immigrants believe in this arrant nonsense.
And it’s not just good beer – the reviewer forgot to mention excellent wines and some remarkably fine spirits (need I mention malt whisky, gin cognac, grappa, calvados, marc etc etc).
Man cannot live on beer alone – although I have tried.
I’m stunned that it currently doesn’t have universal health care. What the heck does it think it is, some kind of backwater like the US?
That was my reaction, too. What kind of Communist country doesn’t have universal health care?! But apparently they don’t, but now it’s under serious consideration.
Beer or soul?
Beer! Make that two barkeep and keep them coming. Put them on my Sold Soul Cardtm. A Sold Soul Cardtm works like a debit card, see? A soul, being worth something to some people, can be forfeited or exchanged for a Sold Soul Cardtm and then the value of the beer is deducted from the chip on the card. When the balance reaches zero then no more free beer and you have to pay cash like everyone else. Get yours today. The Sold Soul Cardtm. Accept no substitutes. As seen on TV.
Besides, if you type ‘soul’ too many times it begins to look like it’s misspelled. Beer on the other hand, always looks good.
Some people say we need something to believe in. Some believe they have a soul. I believe I’ll have a beer. Or two. Those who believe they have a soul may have smug satisfaction but I’ll have mug satisfaction.
Peter Rooke: I’d happily sell my soul for a consequence-free night with the young lady down the street; barring that, for a decent pocket knife. I’ll also trade my leprechaun for a double espresso.
Alan Kellog: Socialized health care *is us paying for our own health care, without contributing to the profit margins of private companies, nor the bonuses of big enterprise CEOs. As you have discovered, no government bureaucracy compares to a private firm bent on giving you as little service as possible for the maximum payments. Alas, being a USian, I have to deal with insane labyrinths of hostile insurance companies.
Peter @150
Brasidas @143
“…amazing the lengths you guys will go to to exonerate your paradise:” Not mine alas I am from the UK.
You didn’t really answer the criticism that you had originally lied that Sweden helped Germany invade their neighbour when the source you provided absolutely contradicted you.
It’s true that Sweden later effectively violated its own neutrality by being bullied by the Nazis to allow passage of German troops BUT the UK violated Norway’s neutrality BEFORE the German invasion – in fact that was one of the reasons for the suffering Norway endured.
You ask “Sweden did a lot to help Hitler, and what to help the allies?” “Did a lot” is a bit of a stretch but they certainly did more to oppose Stalin than the US and UK combined during WWII. What did those beacons of freedom do when that evil dictator Stalin invaded Poland, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia and Finland? Nothing. Sweden was willing to fight communism rather than support it. Sweden sent troops to fight the Soviets, the Allies sent arms for the communists to fight with.
You also said : “The bit about the gains of communism at the end of the WWII is a typical cheap point you guys make”. Who are “you guys”?
You also put words in my mouth: “you mean presumably we should have started fighting Stalin and the Russians as the last German surrendered in May ’45 to prevent the communist take-over of Eastern Europe?” Well it was the US and UK who were “fighting for freedom and democracy” the logical outcome of the UK’s treaty commitment to guarantee Poland’s independence (which it used as a pretext to declare war on Germany) would have been for the Allies to live up to their commitments rather than giving up hundreds of millions to Stalin’s tender mercies.
I suppose consistency is too much to hope. Rhetoric is easier.
This stuff demands the question of causal relationships. Does a high standard of living lead to low religiousity? Or does low religiousity in a culture lead to higher standards of living? Or is there a third factor that may cause the other two?
I’d guess it’s a little of each, but my instinct is that the first is more significant than the second.
If anyone here has read the book: does it shed any light on the causal arrow?
I haven’t read the book, but I think the first order of significance is that high religiosity is not necessary for higher standards of living.
So …
what they are saying is that if we just give up the God thing, the raging hypocrites, churches littering the landscape, Bible-thumpers, anti-intellectuals, know nothings, holier-than-thou child molesters, and the Dominionists we can, in return, get …
“excellent educational systems, strong economies, well-supported arts, free health care, egalitarian social policies, outstanding bike paths, and great beer,”
Sounds like a deal to me. I’ll take it and smile.
Hell, I’ll even kick in on cab fare to get all the preachers to the airport where they can fly off to Saudi Arabia, or any other theocracy they like, and take up housekeeping with the rest of the ‘God-fearing’ people.
I am so totally up for this deal. When can we start?
And horrible cider. I’m baffled that it’s gotten so popular in the UK and Ireland, out of all places. Most of that Kopparbergs shit is not even real cider!
I never said that. I said those nations had high levels of atheism and secularism too.
So, Facilis, what exactly are you asserting here? What kind of link between religiosity, or the lack of it, and social policies and quality of life do you contend? Inquiring minds want to know.
Robin, #83
All goods and services have a price. All goods and services require resources of one or many sorts. Time is a resource and asking people to take time for a purpose requires that those giving of their time be recompensed one way or another.
To put it simply, there aint no such thing as a free lunch.
Or are you convinced that doctors and nurses provide their services and expertise without recompense? That somehow doctors and nurses live off happy dreams and magical sky fairy food? It takes money to provide health care, simply because you don’t pay for it, directly, does not mean it’s free.
Just going to the doctor means dealing with a bureaucracy. You’re not paying for a doctor’s visit, somebody else gets to decide if that visit is going to get paid for. It also means bureaucracy gets to decide which doctor you can go visit, which medicines you can take, which pharmacies you can get your medicine at, even which hospital you can go to should hospitalization be required. By letting somebody pay for your health care you’re letting them decide how you’re going to be treated, and by whom.
Now, how do you think those bureaucracies get the money they use to pay for your health care? If a government agency, your taxes. If a private firm, your premiums. And the taxes or premiums of other people as well. And not just the money for health care, but the money to cover the cost of administering funds, paying staff, and other things. In the long run that free health care you’re getting winds up costing society -which includes you- more than it would if you paid for it directly. Which means less money for you to use for other things. Less money in the economy providing the fuel for goods and jobs and better pay.
Ever think about that? That by demanding free health care for yourself and everybody else, you’re denying the poor the means whereby they can get out of poverty? That by inflating the true cost of health care you’re degrading our ability to strengthen the economy?
Didn’t think so.
In case you hadn’t heard, no God means you have no one to give you anything for free. That’s the way of the world, and you can’t change it.
@Feymanic
Hell yeah.
Hmm? I’m not muslim.
I thought we were just sticking to modern times.
I agree.
I’ve corrected you before
1)They were young men, not children
2)Baldness was a symbol of his mourning and they were mocking that.
I also asked in threads before to provide any sort of objective standard of morality we could use to mae moral judgements and you have not presented any..
Keenacat, #88
I was talking about basic care, catastrophic care is another matter, requiring a different approach. Health care assurance, private or government, you reserve for catastrophic care.
My medical treatment is paid for by you, the tax payer, because I’m disabled and so unable to work. You see me at my best, in person my disability comes to the fore and cannot be ignored. To put it simply, I can’t “pass for white”. My otherness is too other for that.
I can’t afford health care at any level. Most other people can afford basic health care at the very least. My health depends on others, yours doesn’t have to.
Did they? They claimed to, sure, but they replaced “God” with “the Party” and kept all the trappings of religion, including punishment for blasphemers. That’s hardly the same situation as modern-day Scandinavia, where the secularism evolved organically, not at the barrel of a gun.
I wonder how many leaders in Communist countries really are atheists, as opposed to simply claiming it to avoid harm.
I wasn’t asserting anything. I just thought it was rather arbitrary that those countries which were also highly atheistic and secular were excluded.
I also thought it was wierd that he went to historically Christian nations like Scandinavia. Peoplehere argue whether America is a historically Christian nation. Scandinavian nations have Christian symbols on national emblems and Christian state churches. I think everyone would agree that they are historically Christian even though atheism has gotten more popular there in recent times.
J, #103
One indication of dyslexia is adding words into a piece of writing. When did you learn you’re dyslexic, and why haven’t you gotten it treated?
(Originally the 2nd sentence started “One did you…” Substituting the wrong word that sounds like the right word is also a dyslexic trait. I learned I’m dyslexic when I was five, and it was my high school English teacher mom who taught me how to deal with it. But it includes acknowledging you’ve made a mistake and correcting it. That can be hard for some people.)
If you’re not asserting anything, then…what does it matter which countries are used for comparison?
Furthermore, “secular” doesn’t really describe a country in which the people don’t have the liberty to choose their religion.
@Naked bunny
Modern day Russia is highly atheistic too.
Alan @180,
Hm. There’re a lot of volunteers in our community.
When I was in between jobs, I did volunteer work, one or two days a week. My recompense, such as it was, was the maintenance of my job skills, interaction with people and sense of helping the community.
Facilis, all things xian are irrational, as it involves religion. Religion is irrational by definition because it belief, like yourself, in imaginary deities.
@ Facilis
And I’ve asked you for the full, formal treatment of your Universal Unchanging Laws of Logic, you know, the ones whose existence proves the existence of God because without God they wouldn’t exist, etc.?
You haven’t provided them, either.
Oh, and where’s that modal proof you were working on?
Run away, run away!
Yes and no. We have a health ministry which has, till now, decided that it pays for all visits. It pays the doctor for his/her time based on a fixed fee using taxpayer money Some other countries may have what is called a “moderator ticket”, ie, they make people who visit too often without reason pay a small fee. But that’s something we don’t have here.
No, not in Canada. You can see whatever doctor who’s willing to take you in. You can go in any hospital you want. It’s always free.
And that’s a no, no and no. The choice of medicine is generally the doctor’s, but I’ve never met one who did not want to discuss the issue with patients, if it’s reasonable. If you’re not satisfied, you are free to get a second opinion (still free).
Pharmacists can suggest a generic version of a medication, but you csn choose whatever you want. Our actual version of public medication insurance is only mandatory if you do not have one on the job, and carries a copay. It’s only for medication that is administrated outside an hospital. There’s no copay on, for example, chemotherapy.
As for what medication is covered, that’s under discretion of Health Canada, just like yours are under the FDA rules. Health Canada is generally a little more cautious about new drugs, which means it can take a little longer for approval. However, it’s been known to frequently buckle under public pressure.
Huh, no. That’s not what happens here. You can go to whatever doctor willng to take you as a patient. It may be difficult to find a family GP because, like the US, we’re facing a shortage (not exactly for the same reason, but still). You can forgo having a family GP if you prefer so, and only visit CLSCs (public clinics) and hospitals for emergencies.
Here, like in the US, you can discuss how you’re going to be treated with your doctor, or the choice specialist for referral. Want a woman as your gyne ? No problem. Want this particular specialist for your cancer treatment ? Ok, as long as he can take you. No option is forced on you. For example, my uncle with prostate cancer was offered hormones + radiations or prostatectomy with or without radiation. The doctor was of the old generation and presented the surgery as best, but my uncle got information and got the newer and less invasive hormone + radiation treatment.
Shorter Alan Kellogg: I only want to pay for healthcare when I need healthcare! If you’re poor, just get sick and die like you’re supposed to! And I want you lot (including the poor) to reduce my catastrophic heathcare costs by paying into catastrophic healthcare insurance plans, ‘cos I happen to need catastrophic insurance coverage at the moment
OK! so not much shorter. sorry!
Much shorter AK: I am a selfish prick!
There! That’s better
F:
Kermit, #172
You’re still dealing with a bureaucracy, one that makes decisions for you. The advantage a government bureaucracy has over a private one, is that the government bureaucracy follows a set of rules.
Paying for your own care directly removes that layer of bureaucracy, giving you control instead of having to rely on others. It also eliminates the need for your health care provider to handle the paper work bureaucracy requires to keep tab on things. That is a big part of the cost of health care in any universal care program. The time it takes to fill out the paperwork, and the cost of shipping it to the bureaucracy. And God forbid you make an error, because you get to do it all over again. Time your staff could be spending on patients and clients, money that could be spent on supplies, salaries, and equipment.
To summarize: Secularism brings you beer, bike paths, and health care. “Soul” brings you Pete Rooke and Facilis. Also: bear mauling justice.
“I’ve corrected you before 1)They were young men, not children 2)Baldness was a symbol of his mourning and they were mocking that. ”
More secularism, please.
Here’s an objective standard of morality:
Maximize benefit, minimize harm. Ask two questions of any action or social policy: 1. Who benefits? 2. Who suffers? Whatever causes the most good and the least harm is the best option.
I don’t suggest that it’s perfect, but it’s a good starting point. Then again, it also means that, provided it’s entirely consensual and safe, we can do whatever the heck we want with our erogenous zones, so I guess a lot of goddists wouldn’t like it.
John, #188
Were they asked to, or are they doing it without urging?
And somewhat on topic: Beer or Soul?
I think I’ll take beer. I can live on beer.
In moderation, and by selecting the right beers, I can survive without solid food (lots of nutrients) far longer than I could drinking water, or wine! Some beers have more solidity than some ‘solid’ foods! :D
I can trade beer (a glass of my wheat for your bitter, bitte?).
I can trade beer for work (a case of beer to fix my furnace?)
I can distill it to make molotovs to demonstrate my displeasure with the ruling elites!
I can make it in the comfort of my own basement/garage/shed!
And – in the interests of full disclosure – it makes my singing *much* more palatable to anyone in earshot.
Souls – no calories, no substance, no value.
Facilis #178 wrote:
There is a difference between countries that are officially “atheistic” (like Soviet Union and China), and countries that are “secular” — or neutral with regard to religion. And we’re being sensitive to it.
Governments which explicitly teach its citizens what they ought to believe about God — either that there is none, or that God exists and it’s like such-and-such — have more in common with each other, than they do with governments which either leave it up to the citizens themselves to decide, or which have relegated an “official religion” pretty much to ceremonial status. The significant divide is whether the choice of religion or no-religion is seen as a matter of patriotism which needs to be shared by the entire society — or is seen as a matter of reason, and therefore up to the individual, and the society religiously diverse.
So we’re not being hypocritical. The main reason the atheists here tend to ignore the Communist countries when we examine secular vs. religious societies is that most of us are scientific humanists, or some variation. What’s important is not the “atheism,” or conclusion — but how it is arrived at (and how we arrive at all our conclusions.) Method, method, method.
Being told what to believe by some authority goes contrary to how we think religious questions should be decided. Thus, Soviet Union gets lumped in with Iran. Same method of indoctrination, same lack of rational argument, same absence of freedom of conscience. That’s what’s crucial to freethought and humanism.
Atheists who are basically humanist don’t want an “atheist government.” We want a secular one, that doesn’t incorporate religious views into its decisions, but also doesn’t use force to keep people from having such religious views in their personal lives.
And the religious humanists are the same way. There are plenty of very devout people in favor of separation of church and state. You will not see them making arguments that people need to believe in God to be good. To the ethical humanist who is also religious, people need to believe in God only if that’s how they personally believe. What matters for “goodness” is how one behaves in this world, to other people. Not their metaphysics.
Kemist, #191
The speed limit in Puddle Jump Iowa is not the speed limit in West Frog Splat New Jersey.
Tony, #192
A paranoid dyslexic, now there’s an interesting combination. BTW, fruiting bodies on your crotch rash means you really do need to see a doctor.
Alan @197, I’m not sure I get you. Volunteer work is, by definition, voluntary.
If you mean is there societal pressure to do so, then not really.
Let’s say I’m 31, a grad student on stipends and no insurance, ’cause you know, I can’t afford it and anyway I’m supposed to be fit, and I get a stage III ovarian cancer that demands a 60 000$ (and that’s what it costs in Canada, I’m pretty sure it’s higher in the US) surgery, bed rest and another 24 000$ chemotherapy plus follow-ups every 3 months (500$ plus CT scans). Explain to me how the hell I get through, and if I manage to bamboozle a moronic banker into lending me, how I can possibly reimburse when I can barely manage not to throw up when I do have the strenght to go to lab.
Think about it. It’s happened to my best friend. In Canada, thankfully. Where she doesn’t worry about losing everything (’cause no sane insurance broker will insure her for the next five years or so) if she has a relapse.
Another thing: the US is one of the country that spends to most on health care per person. Our “socialized medicine” actually costs less.
And about the economy… How is it that our situation in Canada is much less worse (still bad, but heck, I could find a job in about 2 weeks) than yours despite the higher taxes ? Or is it maybe because we have the capacity to keep ourselves working when profit-driven corporations fold up and fire people ?
And how are the poor, and for that matter the middle class, can improve their situation if their illness or the illness of a family member drives them into bankrupcy ? Is that shiny new 4×4 really worth more than your neighbor’s kid life ?
Please explain to me what make the US situation is so much different than that of Canada that it would make a single-payer system impossible.
I can understand that it’s practically impossible yet for, say, India. Where some people are not even getting the food they need. Are you saying that the US is a third world country ?
One question. You are at a hospital where there are 4 people who need organ transplants and will die if they do not get it. there is one guy in the waiting room who has a cold but refuses to donate any organs.
Do you Kill the one guy, take his organs and give them to the people who need them? You save 4 people and kill one.Is this the best option? It seems to minimize harm and causes the most good.
AK@200
WTF? I have absolutely no idea where you are coming from, but there is no indication of dyslexia in my post at 192 (nor creeping crotch rash).
So – you are not only a selfish fucktard, you are a delusional selfish fucktard!
It’s time for me to put you into the killfile.
Adios.
facilis cut and pasted:
I’d pray to your god to send a bear to come and kill the guy. Because if it did happen then it’d be moral by your standards, right?
Nonsense — the overhead costs of universal health care programs are almost always lower than for private insurance. That is certainly the case when you compare the US and Canada:
In 1999, health administration costs totaled at least $294.3 billion in the United States, or $1,059 per capita, as compared with $307 per capita in Canada. After exclusions, administration accounted for 31.0 percent of health care expenditures in the United States and 16.7 percent of health care expenditures in Canada. Canada’s national health insurance program had overhead of 1.3 percent; the overhead among Canada’s private insurers was higher than that in the United States (13.2 percent vs. 11.7 percent). Providers’ administrative costs were far lower in Canada.
Just to summarize, the overhead costs in the US are three times those of Canada.
And the health outcomes in Canada are generally superior to those of the US.
So why is universal health care so terrible?
One question. You are a holy prophet of the Almighty God. Some young children make fun of your bald head. Do you ask God to send bears to kill the children? This seems to maximize harm and causes the least good.
Facilis: You are a facile little turd, aren’t you?
Here’s the thing. Sometimes people die. And sometimes people die, even when we do everything we humanly can to save them.
You’re trying to apply simplistic, ritualistic, cretinous rules to a subtle problem.
One which starts with the premise: first do no harm!
Your first act would harm the person with the cold – so it is not a legitimate act within the ethical bounds of the system.
However – you simultaneously disallow any opportunity for ‘selfless humanity’ by casting your strawman in such a fashion.
Put a call out for volunteers — In a ‘selfless’ and humanistic society I would see no shortage of donors, since most donations would ‘do no harm’ to the donor.
A much better and more realisting scenario is that in a secular society we wouldn’t have ignorant death cultists denying organ harvesting from newly dead relatives! This is the primary reason for donor shortage in the first place.
When I die – I have standing instructions for anything usable to be taken and used.
I would expect most humanists have a similar stance.
Only death-cultists deny other people life – even after they themselves have died.
Facilis is being Fallacious again. Can’t think on his own? Facilis, there is one way to stop our mocking. If you delete us from your bookmarks and stop posting here, the mocking will cease. Otherwise, it will continue because you are such a FOOL.
Oh, oh, lt’s make this question more interesting: what if the guy with the cold is the zombie of Adolf Hitler ?
Bah. Missed the above.
And I’ve corrected you, you disingenuous little liar. They were children.
And if they were “young men”, does that make it moral? Answer the question.
Bullshit. You are claiming that Elisha, holy prophet of the Almighty God, was violating the laws given by Almighty God in Leviticus.
Lev 21:5 : They shall not make baldness upon their head, neither shall they shave off the corner of their beard, nor make any cuttings in their flesh.
Looks like Kellogg has left – maybe he was called to tea by his Mum!
Facilis,
I’ll assume you are joking, even though your profile indicates you are in Texas.
That was the point. I’m not a Communist and few, if any, people here are. So lumping in “atheistic societies, like Russia and the former Soviet [Union], China and Cambodia” makes as much sense as lumping all theistic societies together like the United States, Iran, Saudi Arabia, etc.
Many theists have asserted that “atheism has kill more people” than any other ideology. You even mentioned the totalitarian nations above. However in modern times:(1) There were more people to kill (2) There were better weapons to kill them with. It has nothing to do with atheism.
Then what was your point in mentioning “Russia and the former Soviet [Union], China and Cambodia”?
1)Owlmirror knows more Hebrew than either of us and has explained in detail why your assertion was wrong here (and also refuted you again here ). It’s also not out of character of the God of the Old Testatment (e.g, killing every first born child in Egypt). Even if it was the case that they were “young men” it was still wrong 42 of merely mocking someone.
2)I have not seen you make this argument before. Perhaps it was on a thread I didn’t participate in or I simply missed it. In any case, I don’t understand the statement “Baldness was a symbol of his mourning”. Are you saying he shaved his head because mourning the fact that Elijah went up to heaven in a chariot of fire?
So even accepting 1 and 2 (which I don’t), then God sent 2 bears to kill 42 young men for mocking Elisha’s mourning. Okay, mocking someone mourning is a dickish thing to do, but being mauled to death is still a bit of an excessive punishment.
facilis, don’t argue with Brownian on scripture. I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve had to pick my jaw up from the floor at the depth of his knowledge on such matters.
Here’s a hint: when he can post what the scripture says in Greek and fucking Hebrew and comment on what the words in the original texts mean in those languages then it’s a good sign he knows a heck of a lot more than you’re ever going to know from your skim-reading of christian websites and your well-thumbed copy of Apologetics for Dummies.
Apologies; that should have been don’t argue with Owlmirror about scripture.
But, just for your own protection, facilis, you probably shouldn’t argue scripture with Brownian either. I can’t recall exactly what his level on knowledge on the topic is, but I’m not going to be making too strong a claim if I say that he knows more about it than you do as well. Not so sure about the languages he knows, but he’s still very knowledgeable.
Facilis #181 wrote:
One question: would God’s objective standard of morality make so much sense to our reason, and appeal so greatly to our hearts, and lead to such generally acceptable outcomes — that we would choose to follow it even if it didn’t have God’s authority behind it?
Facilis, could your god tell you a lie so convincing even you’d believe it?
“what if the guy with the cold is the zombie of Adolf Hitler ?”
And he’s holding five hundred frozen zygotes hostage?
Re: Alan Kellogg #185
“When did you learn you’re dyslexic, and why haven’t you gotten it treated?”
Actually, I’m Swedish, so english is my second language. What’s your excuse?
Don’t worry though, spelling isn’t everything, we won’t hold your dyslexia against you. Your stupidity, however… that we WILL hold against you.
Facilis,
IIRC, you were asking that of everyone here (or at least that’s how I interpreted it) and some people provided answers. They answered more elegantly than I could, so I didn’t bother. However, if you are asking my personal opinion on the subject then the the most convincing argument I have heard is that human beings are born with a “universal morality” similar to “universal grammar” . It wouldn’t be that surprising if humans had an instinct for morality. We are social creatures and if everyone did whatever the fuck they wanted then society wouldn’t function. This instinct isn’t unique to us. Apes have shown in experiments to be capable of altruism.
Now, your objection to others saying something similar to this was “naturalistic fallacy”, but let’s take your example the people in the hospital dying in need of organs and 1 person outside. Now there was a study done about morality by a few scientists. They consulted with moral philosophers who provided the scenario you presented (except they used 5 instead of 4). Now, the scientists posed this question to people from all around the world. They even asked people in remote tribes in Africa (they changed the settings of the hospital to something more familiar to them). The overwhelming majority of people thought it would it would be wrong to take the 1 healthy person to provide organs for the 5 dying ones. However, they also had a scenario where there were 5 people tied to train tracks and a train about to hit them. There was a lever that could change make the train change tracks, but 1 person tied to the other track (again changing the details to fit with the person’s culture). Now the overwhelming majority thought it would be right for the lever to be pulled.
The results are interesting in themselves, but my point in providing them is that these people didn’t consult an “objective standard of morality” to answer these questions and yet almost all of them came up with the same result. When asked to explain their reasons for letting 5 die in one scenario and not the other they didn’t even know why. There was then some sort of unconscious moral process going on here. You are asking for a “standard of morality” when you are already got one built into your head.
So we make moral judgments the same way we use correct grammar in our native languages. As for your “objective” part, also like languages morality varies from culture to culture. They are a lot of differences, however the fundamentals are similar. There was this poster on the wall in my religion class showing how “The Golden Rule” appeared in various different religions (Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, etc.). However, this wasn’t something that came from religion, but was something that came from being human.
So those are my thoughts on the matter. If you want to hear from someone who is actually qualified in the subject read the interview of this Harvard professor dude .
Apologies for making this post so damn long.
My position is that God reveals things to everyone (like the fact that he exists and the standard of morality) so they can know hem for certain. Christians choose to rofess these truths he has revealed. However ungodly people suppress these truths in their unrighteousness and engage in self-deception.
Facile-is blathered “@Naked bunny
Modern day Russia is highly atheistic too.”
Russians surveyed according to self-idetification, and reported at Wikipedia replied: “4% of the population identified themselves as non-believers.” That contrasts with 70.2% Orthodox Christians and 24% Muslims.
Godless, Vodka-swilling Commies!!!1
My position is that
GodSideshow Bob reveals things to everyone (like the fact that he exists and the standard of morality) so they can know them for certain.ChristiansSideshow Bobists choose to profess these truths he has revealed. HoweverungodlyunBobly people suppress these truths in their unrighteousness and engage in self-deception.Fixed it for you – including the typos. Or have you worked out a way to justify why I can’t?
Facilis, still trying to pretend you imaginary god exists. Look at the physical evidence–there is none. Therefor, your god doesn’t exist. Time for you to go away before PZ Plonks you for godbotting, or worst of all, being boring. Yawn, Facilis the Fallacious Fool, you are an ignorant bore.
If God truly revealed his existence to everyone, there would be no atheists. So this alleged revelation is false.
If God truly revealed a standard of morality to everyone, there would be no disagreement about what morality is. But there is disagreement, even among believers. So this alleged revelation is false.
Then how is it that I know that even if God does exist, it is evil for God to kill children, or anyone, for insults against God alone?
And how is it that you, a Christian, do not know this?
Now you’re contradicting yourself. In an earlier comment, you claimed that God’s universal grace allowed unbelievers to be moral.
Which is it?
Facilis #222 wrote:
I’m not sure whether this is meant to answer the question I asked, or not.
You claim that God has an “objective standard of morality” that is right and good in every situation. I was asking if God’s solutions to moral dilemmas are reasonable ones which make sense to reasonable people.
If the above answer is “no” — that God’s moral choices seem unreasonable and wrong unless a person knows that God wants them and they’re from God’s nature — and only then they will seem right and good — then why should anyone think there is anything objectively good about them at all? If they aren’t reasonable, why would anyone choose them as a standard?
It seems to me that caring more about the source of the rule than whether it works for fairness, kindness, and happiness in the results — makes a mockery of the very idea of “morals.” Such morals could, then, literally be anything at all — and justified just as easily.
My position is that The Teapot reveals things to everyone (like the fact that it exists and the standard of morality) so they can know them for certain. Teapotians choose to profess these truths it has revealed. However unteapotly people suppress these trusths in their unrighteousness and engage in self-deception.
This is fun!
;)
You are at a hospital where there are 4 people who need organ transplants and will die if they do not get it. there is one guy in the waiting room who has a cold but refuses to donate any organs. Do you Kill the one guy, take his organs and give them to the people who need them? You save 4 people and kill one.
Analogy fail.
There’s no way in the real world that one person can donate life-saving organs to four people and live to tell about it, so the one guy’s “refusing to donate any organs” is irrelevant. Killing him to harvest the organs just proves the point of why he refused. You don’t very well ask a perfectly healthy person to sacrifice his life so that a sick person can have his organs, and act all surprised when the healthy person is disinclined. Most organ donations come from people who’ve recently been killed. They agree to it in the event of their deaths, and their family members cooperate. Try another thought experiment.
But, if you really must know, then, no I don’t think it’s “minimizing harm” to force healthy people to donate organs, even if the donations won’t kill them. Once that precedent is set, you open the door to all sorts of dangerous dynamics that don’t lend themselves to people treating each other with respect and compassion. It’s fascinating, though, that you’d think to go there.
It seems to me that caring more about the source of the rule than whether it works for fairness, kindness, and happiness in the results — makes a mockery of the very idea of “morals.” Such morals could, then, literally be anything at all — and justified just as easily.
Yeah, that just about describes the morality of the “Christian Right.” Just about anything looks right and good if you can be convinced that “God wants you to do it.”
I insist that Facilis give no other thought experiments until he stops avoiding the question of the bears. Or volunteers to be mauled to death by bears. Whatever.
I knew a guy who did that, too…
He’s served his time, now, did some therapy, says he’s found this group that’s got some like him, some others that like to watch… Says it serves as an outlet…
So I guess I don’t worry about him much anymore.
—
Alternately:
See also:
Conclusion: if this ‘God’ guy reveals anything to you, try to confirm it with an independent source. It seems his information may not be terribly reliable.
@Feynmaniac, #221
I’ve seen the results of that before, and most people like yourself have trouble intuitively understanding the results. Now, I do not claim any special insight, but it always seemed to me on a very intuitive level that there is a big difference between the hospital situation and the train tracks.
Think of it in terms of “do no harm”. Even though the two situations are the same in terms of numbers, they do not compare well.
In the hospital case, you have to actively choose to harm somebody. In anyone that is not a sociopath, this would be seen as a Bad Thing. Additionally, I think that the fact that this situation doesn’t map directly to real life (e.g. it’s not life or death for the others, there’s the chance for another donor to come along) would lead to test subjects being unwilling/unable to intellectually choose the 5 people over the 1 person. There’s always hoping for a miracle.
In the train situation, it is a foregone conclusion that somebody is going to die. The observer cannot possibly do anything about that, and cannot avoid the conclusion. In choosing to allow the 1 to live, they are directly causing the deaths of the other 5 (and even people that believe in intercessionary prayer do not really believe God will lift a train off the tracks to save people). So people in general would be likely to have a very different visceral response.
But then, IANAPsychologist. The results just always seemed intuitively understandable to me.
Paul #232 wrote:
Neurologists have been playing around doing brain scan images of people answering various permutations of the “train track” scenario, and they’ve come up with some interesting findings.
When the situation involves a certain death and the choice to divert the track from 5 deaths to 1 death, the part of the brain involved in rational analysis lights up, and most people choose to divert the train to kill only one man, instead of 5.
But when the situation changes to where you can stop the train from killing 5 men by pushing a fat man standing next to you on a bridge onto the track, a different part of the brain lights up — the part involved in emotions and direct actions. Virtually nobody chooses to push the man off the bridge.
They’re looking for neural explanations for common moral intuitions. Some situations — those that involve more of a physical choice or action — are automatically classified differently.
Forgot where I read it.
Sastra @233, might it be this paper (p.18) by Jedediah S. Purdy?
I remembered that I’d read of the studies in Soul Made Flesh by Carl Zimmer, and searching inside using Amazon.com found that the author of the studies, Joshua Greene, has his papers online, for those who might be interested:
http://www.wjh.harvard.edu/~jgreene/
You’re right, Owlmirror.
False statement. “excellent educational systems, strong economies, well-supported arts, free health care, egalitarian social policies, outstanding bike paths, and great beer” does not necessarily equate to no soul.
Besides, how does one define a ‘soul’ for a state?
Now, what did Norway and Sweden do to get rid of the religulous? Can we do it here? Perhaps the free health care inoculated for the god virus? Or the mental health care fixed them up.
When a state takes care of it’s people, they don’t need to pray to imaginary sources for help.
Less misery means less need for the false solace the churches offer: “Everything’ll be better after you die.” Taxation might cost more than tithing, but it gets results.
Also, I’d guess high school history classes play a factor. A few years of learning about the atrocities that played out across Europe due to religion probably help people realize the evils that come from allowing religion to influence society too deeply. Here in the U.S., I was taught nearly nothing about the religious wars in Europe, and the books and lectures might as well have begun: “Long, long ago in a galaxy far far away…” That there Atlantic Ocean seems to really dilute the lessons learning about those events should teach us. I’m sure it makes much more of an impact when it’s the soil of your own country that all that blood has soaked into.
This author’s great. He’s also written everything from “the Sociology of Religion” to “Rediscovering Nancy Drew”
As tp the rates of atheism in Russia. The wikipedia article you gus cited said that 16% identified as atheist. From the Sweden article it said that 17% identify as atheist. The difference isn’t that much.
Anyway, I wasn’t saying communist Russia. I was talking about modern Russia, as well as countries like Vietnam and Cambodia and China that have had secular government for a longer period of time and are not historically Cristian. I’ve even heard some atheist apologists (like Sam Harris) argue that Buddhism isn’t even a religion and Buddhists are atheists.
–OOT
Walton, I put a secondary link to the source (Owlmirror’s @235) , but I honestly think you might find my link interesting.
(Just for food for thought, no need to reply)
@Wowbagger
I asked you to provide an objective revelation that I could read that confirms your belief in Sideshow bob. You only gave me a couple words you typed.I will not take you seriously any longer.
Buddhists don’t believe in a deity; it is quite correct to call them atheists. Whether or not it qualifies as a religion is more problematic, because it’s a very fuzzy term.
Atheists are the ungodly people who suppress God’s revelation in their unrighteousness and engage in self-deception.
It is only by God’s common grace that they are able to reason or perform moral acts.
Facilis
Are you going to respond to any of the commentary regardng your earlier thought experiment, or will you simply ignore such epic fail.
Also – you have still to answer Owlmirror regarding the bear/god/child/bald issue.
I think it is extremely poor taste, therefore, that you choose to focus on Wowbagger’s ‘sideshow’. You have a lot of explanation queued up before we get to that question!
The public must know!
Facilis #245 wrote:
If someone used a similar argument on you for some other religion — that you’re suppressing the Truth of the Book of Mormon, say — you wouldn’t be persuaded. Particularly if you’ve read a bit of history and can provide some good reasons to think the BoM is not reliable. You can convince a sincere person that they’re mistaken — but you just can’t convince a sincere person that they’re lying.
This is the sort of rhetoric that only flies among those who already agree with it — applied to someone else who isn’t them. I won’t call it a ‘weak’ argument, because it’s not an argument at all. It’s scolding.
Yet behavioural studies of humans and animals plus mathematical representations like game theory explain exactly the same behavioural traits. I feel a need to use occams razor…
facilis croaked
I was worried for a moment just then. I though perhaps the blog wasn’t big enough for your immense load of chutzpah!
But then I realised – it wasn’t chutzpah at all. It was just another load of vaporous bullshit.
Athiests are not ungodly. We are A-godly. We choose not to believe in your god, not because we’re mean spirited, or rebels, but because there is no fathomable reason why we should!
By your lights I am also unzeus, unodin, unprometheus! which is simply un-fucking-believable.
I just love how godbotherers use such circular logic to craft their webs of insanity.
Maybe you should think about answering some questions before making up more shit.
Then let’s examine Cambodia. 95% Buddhist (way more atheists than Scandinavia)
facilis wrote:
@Sastra
that wasn’t an argument. I was just saying the truth. I don’t expect to convince any atheists with that line .You can’t just get a person to admit they’re wrong by pointing out they are deeiving themselves. that is what my transcendental proof was for. If a Mormon told me that I was suppressing the revelation of the Mormon God I would examine his BoM to see how it accounts for the existence of immaterial absolutes such as the laws of logic and reason and mathematics and morality.
I fall into a trap when I read facilis’ posts. I want to be as objective as possible, but when he says stupid ignorant shit like in #245, then a straw man builds in my head between that and atheism. Facilis, you maroon. Stop being so fucking stupid!
facilis, you do realise that almost the entirety of the BoM is the same bible that you use, don’t you? The differences are minor compared to the similarities. The Mormon god is your god; the only difference is he threw down some extra chapters to add to the bible.
Chances are whatever you’ve convinced yourself ‘accounts for blah blah blah’ in your bible is going to show up in theirs.
How do you feel about magic underwear, by the way?
I’ve read FAcilis’ last post @252 three times now – and it still makes no sense whatsoever.
WTF does “examine his BoM” mean anyway? And why is facilis, of anyone, in a position to make such irrefutable judgements about others belief systems?
Is facilis god?
Maybe that’s why he’s so pissed at wowbagger regarding sideshow bob!
I just saw this excellent debate between this guy named Sye You should read the cmments here. He even takes on some philosopher named Stephen law.It’s excellent and thought provoking.
https://www.blogger.com/comment.g?postID=1862663545758851732&blogID=7771612431511732960&isPopup=false&page=2
Facilis
Are you capable of maintaining a single train of thought?
Answer the questions. Stop changing the subject. Stop prevaricating!
Facilis #252 wrote:
No you weren’t.
And that’s not an argument either. It’s contradiction.
An argument isn’t just contradiction. It’s a connected series of statements intended to establish a proposition.
Argument, you see, is an intellectual process. Contradiction is just the automatic gainsaying of any statement the other person makes.
Sort of like TAG.
Does your buddy Sye (who some of us have heard of before) have any argument that cannot be applied to anyone else’s god, or to Sideshow Bob?
If not, why would I bother?
Sastra @258, may I be crass?
heh :)
Facilis to Wowbagger:
You only gave me a couple words you typed.I will not take you seriously any longer.
And the bible is just a bunch of marks on parchment written by a load of goat-botherers, which Facilis regards as a revelation. We all must take that seriously, why?
Oh, and Sastra? I quite agree… it’s been long past time for Facilis to take getting-hit-on-the-head lessons, for weeks now. I’m talking some serious Tae Kwon Leep.
You mean like how you’ve suppressed the revelation that God is evil, and are engaging in self-deception about it?
If we’ve got “common grace”, we don’t need the revelation. QED.
And if the grace is common, then it’s perfectly possible that it either comes from a different God, or from no God all.
Say, grace from a different God explains why you’re able to be moral despite suppressing the revelation that your own God is unrighteous.
Kind of how like atheists have examined the bible and seen that the bible does not account for the existence of immaterial absolutes such as the laws of logic and reason and mathematics and morality.
Watch out for bears, facilis! They’re coming to eat you!
lol
facilis reminds me a lot of the ptolemaic universe, his ideas are remarkably internally consistent, but there’s one major drawback to it. The assumption at the underlying core of everything is manifestly false. facilis would do well if he were to pick up a science book or two (or even watch a tv doco) on how morality works as opposed to just asserting that Goddidit.
Souls? Beer? Bears? Sounds like it’s time for some Bear Whiz Beer.
As many have already said, the question is if official and overt presence of religion is a requirement for a society to be considered “good”, and in which people can lead “good” lives.
Of course it isn’t!
And Sweden is a perfect example of that, with all its imperfections. Government is secular, and even the few openly religious politicians do not invoke any religious reasoning in their political work. If they have religious justifications for the policies they advocate (which they naturally are entitled to have), these are kept private. A politician seeking election here would never end a speech with “God bless Sweden!”; they might as well take themselves off the ticket at once.
In that respect, dear Facilis, modern Russia is much closer to the US, as we could see recently, when both Medvedev and Putin attended the installation of the new patriarch of the Russian Orthodox church.
The result is that debate in Sweden generally centers on the issues (and there certainly is debate, for example about the pros and cons of different ways of providing healthcare…). IMO, it even gets too technical, detailed and fragmented, with little room for a deeper discussion on what kind of society we want to evolve towards and why – “values”, for lack of a better word (which in the US correlates with “Xian”, but of course it doesn’t have to).
Apologies that this is getting a bit long, but I also have to comment on the topic that really matters: there is good beer here. There is also crap beer here, and I have had both wonderful and awful beer in Belgium, Germany, Britain and the US. In this, as in other matters, I prefer the humanist “live and let live” to the fundamentalist “Thou shalt…”. You may like a brew that I would not serve my worst enemy, but as long as you don’t tell me what I should be drinking, I will gladly raise my tipple of preference to you and say “Skål!”
“Secular” is not the same thing as “removing established religion by force,” and I could write a book that would better exemplify “laws of logic and reason and mathematics and morality” better than the Bible. Oh, and, really, anyone could type a few self-important sentences in here and call it a revelation from their own personal deity. You can’t prove it isn’t.
Poor Facilis the Fallacious Fool. We just don’t seem to be taking him seriously. Maybe he needs to quit mangling logic and using personal revelations as evidence. Oh, then he would have nothing. He needs to start thinking of how much laughter we would miss if stopped posting here.
Facilis, I’m unable to understand why someone would continue to blather on and on with the same illogical nonsense unless they are seriously unstable. Sideshow Bob is real-I see him on the TV regularly. Yes, he’s an animated cartoon character, that still makes him more real than yahuwahu.
Many Buddhists are philosophical in their approach, and consider it more of a form of psychoanalysis than woo. “Know Thyself” and that sort of thing. I can be a Zen Stoic (I really like Epicurus) and scientifically rational at the same time without cognitive dissonance!
Funny you should mention that. My deity (the Great Teapot that Doth Orbit the Sun, Angular Velocity Be Upon It) just came to me in a waking dream after my standard breakfast tipple of Earl Gray and grain alcohol this morning and revealed unto me that Facilis is going to Teabagging Hell* for wasting internet bandwidth with inane drivel (internet bandwidth is very important to the deity, AVBUI), and for occuping the volume of space on this crowded planet that might better be used by a potted plant, a slightly dingy laundromat, or perhaps a home for wayward, children-eating bears.
Glory!
(*You really don’t want to know.)
You really don’t want to know
Of course I know what you mean! I am 28 going on 12, after all! *hee!*
(*You really don’t want to know.)
So, I just had to go look it up.
You were right…
That societies, and nations in particular, have souls is not considered a ridiculous idea at all by .. well, the religious. Indeed, Romania (the newest-and-poorest EU member, along with Bulgaria) is building a cathedral dedicated to “the salvation of the Romanian people” ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romanian_National_Salvation_Cathedral ). With, it sounds, tax money. Presumably that means EU money, or at least money that could be used for sensible projects to free up EU money elsewhere …
The actual quote from WP is “salvation […] must be obtained collectively, by the whole nation”