The second, and more important, reason that I like Dawkin’s approach is that I suspect it’s the only approach that has much effect. There is a direct analogy with my own efforts to stop universities giving BSc degrees in subjects that are not science. Worse, they are actively anti-science. Take for example, homeopathy, the medicine that contains no medicine. I started by writing polite letters to vice chancellors. Usually they didn’t even have the courtesy to reply. All efforts to tackle the problem through the “proper channels” failed. The only thing that has worked was public derision. A combination of internal moles and Freedom of Information Act requests unearthed what was being taught on these courses. Like Westminster’s assertion that “amethysts emit high Yin energy”. Disclosure of such nonsense and headlines like
Professor Geoffrey Petts of the University of Westminster says they “are not teaching pseudo-science”. The facts show this is not true
are certainly somewhat strident. But they have worked. Forget the proper channels if you want results. Mock what deserves to be mocked.
Haven’t any of the accommodationists explained to Professor Calhoun that being confrontational never works? People only respond positively if one goes hand in hand and, after initial groveling and ass-kissing, politely and meekly suggest that it might be a good idea if certain opinions and/or behaviors were modified just a bit. Being strident and mocking never gets anything done. Just ask all the best faitheists.
Emmetsays
For me, when it comes to talking to atheists, strident and mocking is fine: if the mocker knows what he/she is talking about. Otherwise it’s a turnoff – they just sound like an ass. Thing is, so much of what passes for “good invigorating speeches” about atheism or religion are anything but. Take a look at the limpness of Colquhon’s argument:
“What I like about science is that it is undogmatic.” Yet so often atheists say things like, “one day science will explain that, one day science will solve that” which sounds suspiciously like an article of faith.
“Then, of course, there is the church’s contribution to the spread of AIDS, by telling direct lies about condoms”.
‘The church’ meaning what – official church teaching? Or a cardinal he read about? He needs to understand the difference between one man’s opinion and what the Church actually teaches.
Funny thing about condoms – millions upon millions of them have poured into Africa, and yet the numbers of people suffering from AIDS keeps going up and up. Is something wrong here?
‘The Pope is right about condoms says Harvard academic’ http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/ni/2009/03/aids_expert_who_defended_the_p.html
“in 2000, Pope John Paul II declared Thomas More to be the “heavenly patron of statesmen and politicians” (whatever that means).”
Well, what does it mean? So often, itseems thatit is too much to ask an atheist to understand what the Church teaches before he criticises it.
“Catholics and protestants kill each other”.
Where is this happening?
“my objection to religion is that, with occasional honourable exceptions, it spreads immorality and violence”
“Religion”, in the abstract, yet redeems itself in the actual exceptions. What does he mean here? Does “relgion” spread immorality and violence or does it not? What are these exceptions – and if “religion” is so rotten, how can there possibly be exceptions?
Emmetsays
Italics!
'Tis Himself, OMsays
Italics!
No shit!
Do you want to try that rant again?
Midnight Ramblersays
Emmet: aside from the fact that you’re doing exactly what you criticize Colquhoun for in citing one doctor’s opinion, you might want to read past the misleading headline into what he (Green) actually says, which is not that the Pope is really right but that in many parts of Africa condoms don’t help that much because people react to the increased sense of safety by increasing risky behavior (still somewhat dubious, but possible). Then there’s this:
William Crawley: You accept that condoms do work in other parts of the world, like the Western World, for example?
Edward Green: I do. And they should have a back-up role even in the generalised epidemics of Africa. I believe condoms should be made available to everyone. It should be, and as you say, the ABC strategy: Abstain, Be faithful, use a Condom. Condoms may well have contributed to the prevalence decline in Uganda.
William Crawley: That’s a serious ideological difference between yourself and the Pope. He doesn’t think that condoms should be used, even in the case of married Catholic couples where one of the partners is HIV-positive.
Edward Green: Yes, well, I don’t agree with that. And, I have said that I am not a Catholic, and I am not talking about condoms in any sort of moral-ethical sense. I am talking about what has been found to work and not work. So, yes, the article I mentioned by Hearst and Chen is very clear that condoms work in certain types of situations and certain sub-populations and condoms have had a positive national impact in certain concentrated epidemics. So, yes, I don’t agree with the Pope across the board.
It would be nice if theists knew what they were talking about in their arguments.
'Tis Himself, OMsays
Emmet #2
For me, when it comes to talking to atheists, strident and mocking is fine: if the mocker knows what he/she is talking about. Otherwise it’s a turnoff – they just sound like an ass. Thing is, so much of what passes for “good invigorating speeches” about atheism or religion are anything but.
If someone doesn’t know what they’re talking about, the tone doesn’t matter. They can be polite and still sound like an ass. We see that a lot at Pharyngula when creationists display their utter ignorance about evolution in particular and science in general. They’re invariably polite and they sound like asses because they are asses.
There’s the further point that what seems “invigorating” to one person is “strident and harsh” to another. Here at Pharyngula we get rude, crude and lewd with each other and with folks who show up for debates. We find this to be invigorating, often a newcomer finds it unpleasant.
Sinessays
In math, when attempting to solve for an equation, zero is very often an acceptable answer. However, while it does answer the question, it doesn’t tell you anything. In these cases, zero is called a ‘trivial solution’. It fits, but it’s worthless.
God is the ultimate trivial solution. Solving all equations, while offering no understanding of a single one of them.
Bensays
Sines@7…. Interesting analogy. I like it.
gijoelsays
Admittedly I was slightly taken aback when a second year undergraduate, on duty at an Islamic exhibition at UCL, told me that “when Islam came to power in the UK I would be executed” (and then asked for my name)
Don’t tell him your name Pike.
David Utidjiansays
Sines @7:
I suspect that your analogy has some serious flaws. Could you give an example of what you mean by a ‘trivial’ or ‘zero’ solution being ‘worthless’?
RobertLsays
gijoel @ 9: slightly off-topic, but one of the amusing things about internet blogs is the screen names that people give themselves.
I reckon the funniest I have seen is “Don’t tell him Pike”.
ps. gijoel is a pretty good name, too.
pps. I wish I had put more thought into mine, but I can’t be bothered to change it now.
Yet so often atheists say things like, “one day science will explain that, one day science will solve that” which sounds suspiciously like an article of faith.
That’s because you don’t distinguish between believing something with evidence, and believing something without evidence. Evidence has shown us that science explains things and solves things. In fact, the sheer amount of stuff it has explained is astounding. Therefore, we project that science will continue to explain stuff. That’s not faith.
Well, what does it mean? So often, itseems thatit is too much to ask an atheist to understand what the Church teaches before he criticises it.
The sound you hear is the point going over your head. The Church can explain all it wants about the minute details of what the role of a patron saint is, it’s still all insubstantial froth. He could have made the same sarcastic comment about the “amethysts [that] emit high Yin energy”. The quacks can explain what Yin energy is and how amethysts emit it, but you end up saying “yeah, whatever that’s supposed to mean”. Now do you get it. Good. Glad to help.
Emmetsays
Midnight Rambler – #5:
“It would be nice if theists knew what they were talking about in their arguments.”
Back at ya. I think you’ve misunderstood the article. Here’s what the pope said: “[the] problem of AIDS cannot be overcome merely with money… If there is no human dimension, if Africans do not help [by responsible behavior], the problem cannot be overcome by the distribution of prophylactics: on the contrary, they increase it.”
Which is what Green is agreeing with: you said “what he (Green) actually says is … that in many parts of Africa condoms don’t help that much because people react to the increased sense of safety by increasing risky behavior”.
STM you think that I think that Green agrees with the pope that contraception is immoral: I don’t.
Again, how many condoms have flooded into Africa over the years? Is it working? Does something need to change?
Here’s somebody else who agrees with the pope: http://www.afrik-news.com/article18484.html
“Emmet: aside from the fact that you’re doing exactly what you criticize Colquhoun for in citing one doctor’s opinion”
What doctor did Colquhon cite? You’ve lost me. Do you know what you’re talking about?
It would be nice if [a]theists knew what they were talking about in their arguments.
croweppssays
“Catholics and protestants kill each other”.
Where is this happening?
Where is this happening today? Or where has this happened recently? Northern Ireland is one recent example. If we’re going farther back in history the Catholic versus Protestant conflict known as the Thirty Years War killed one-third of the population of central Europe.
“my objection to religion is that, with occasional honourable exceptions, it spreads immorality and violence”
I would note that THREE of the children who have been killed by people following Pastor Pearl’s advice were adopted, placed with the people who beat them to death on the basis of their being able to provide “good Christian homes”.
Emmetsays
Green also says this: “Lets go back to what we know about condoms: when they are used consistently, when they are used consistently, they provide, under more or less ideal conditions, about 80 to 85 per cent risk reduction, compared to those who don’t use them at all. But how many–what percentage of any large national population–uses condoms consistently? Probably nowhere in excess of 5 per cent.”
The 80 – 85% figure is pretty much right on as far as I know; I don’t know about the 5% figure.
Point is, even when stored correctly(condoms are sensitive to heat, humidity and pressure), used correctly (ie consistently: every time), condoms have that failure rate of somewhere around 1-2 in ten.
What happens when pallets of condoms are shipped into the heat and dust of Africa and put on trucks and then dropped off at clinics of varying degrees of professionalism where they are handed out by people who may or may not know anything about how to use them correctly? That failure rate drops through the floor, and the West wrings its hands and says “But-but-but condoms *work*!” and the AIDS crisis continues apace. Meanwhile, the Catholic Church, who knows what she’s talking about because she is there at the coalface providing healthcare for AIDS victims, is mocked for being evil and backwards.
Jacksays
Atheist are just pedophiles that want to feel better about themselves.
God doesn’t exist. Therefore it’s neither right nor wrong. It just is.
Have fun with that.
Atleast the priests know they’re going straight to hell.
Bensays
David Utidjian@10…
I see your point, and I suppose you could look at it in those strictly mathematical/symbolic terms. But I suppose it could also be looked at from another angle, in a more general way.
For example, such as when zero as a denominator in a fraction makes it ‘undefined’ , and coming to any workable answer, taking us, in theory, to infinity,… not having a real grounding in any concrete answer in the ‘real’ world.
I dunno,… maybe comparing ‘apples’ (real world value of mathematics) and ‘oranges’ (value of religious belief) here???
On the face of it, it seemed like an interesting comparison. Whachathink?
Bensays
correction: line #5: ‘..NOT coming to any workable answer..’
Otramesays
Re: #18
PZ, there is no question that the number of chew toys has gone up lately, but the quality is pretty poor. I think you need to consider going with a new supplier. I mean sure, Jack is only marginally literate and probably can’t think himself out of a wet paper bag, but we need more roughage in our diet. Besides, he leaves a nasty taste in the mouth.
Emmetsays
There’s this sentence from Colquhon’s little rant:
“Then, of course, there is the church’s contribution to the spread of AIDS, by telling direct lies about condoms”
which is sort of lazy rhetoric trotted out all too often in atheist conversations.
A. What are the “direct lies” the Church tells?
B. How do they contribute to the spread of AIDS?
The percentage of Catholics in Africa is about 15%. (That means 85% of Africans really couldn’t care less about what the pope thinks.) Of that 15%, how many who don’t follow the Church’s teachings on sex and are unfaithful in marriage or unchaste outside it, suddenly turn around and say, “Oop, Pope says I can’t use a condom! Better do what he says.” It’s absurd.
“Meanwhile, the Catholic Church, who knows what she’s talking about because she is there at the coalface providing healthcare for AIDS victims, is mocked for being evil and backwards.”
So let’s imagine that this is true for a moment. Are you saying the Catholic church is absolutely incapable of explaining what you just explained?
If the frickin’ Pope just copied and pasted what you just wrote into a damn decree, backed up with valid studies, this bone of contention would evaporate. Since he doesn’t, I have to assume his motives are different from your characterization.
Jacksays
@Otrame
It leaves a nasty taste b/c you know it’s true.
The problem with atheist is they’re too chickenshit to admit it.
ad hominum salvator ॐsays
“insubstantial froth” !
Menyambalsays
Atheist are just pedophiles that want to feel better about themselves.
Protip: Whenever you think you have people you don’t agree with all figured out, and you think you can describe their essence in one pithy sentence, you are completely wrong and should shut the fuck up.
Or people will think that religionists are just morons that want to feel better about themselves.
Emmetsays
Croweps #16 –
“Catholics and protestants kill each other”.
Where is this happening?
Northern Ireland is one recent example.”
Were those conflicts caused by “religion” as the writer claims, or was it a whole lot of things all mixed up together? Are “religious wars” caused by religion or is that an absurdly simplistic claim?
“Here’s a typical series of violent deaths caused by religious tenets:”
Again, you draw a direct link between their “relgious tenets” and their actions. I put it to you that they didn’t kill because of their religion but because they had a severely deficient understanding of what it is to be human and what it is to be a parent. That was the driving force for their behaviour.
Did that come out of their particular brand of Christianity? Perhaps. Or did they get into that particular church because they didn’t have the thinking skills to see it was crook?
(Did Stalin kill because he was an atheist or did he kill because the ideals of communism justified and affirmed his beliefs that the world is better off without Christianity?)
RobertLsays
Emmet @ #27. More recently than Northern Ireland we also had the Balkans.
Although that was a three-way dust-up: Catholic Croatians vs Orthodox Serbians vs Muslim Kosovars.
Fun for all!
/sarc
Jacksays
Atheism is the most dangerous ideology in the world. According to them the holocaust wasn’t evil, it simply was.
Rounding up Jews is just another example of Darwin’s “natural selection”.
Emmetsays
Loubet #23 –
Can you expand on your comment for me? I’m not quite sure what you’re getting at.
“So let’s imagine that this is true for a moment.” What are you referring to here? That the Church is the largest provide of healthcare in the world? That is true.
“Are you saying the Catholic church is absolutely incapable of explaining what you just explained?” No – the Church tries to explain again and again what it actually believes: people the world over, unfortunately, don’t want to listen and would prefer to just read what atheist blogs say the Church believes.
“If the frickin’ Pope just copied and pasted what you just wrote into a damn decree, backed up with valid studies, this bone of contention would evaporate. Since he doesn’t, I have to assume his motives are different from your characterization.”
This is the bit I’d like you to expand on if you could please. Are you saying that the pope hasn’t said what I’ve said here? What do you see as my characterisation of his motives?
Owlmirrorsays
Theism is the most dangerous ideology in the world. According to religious fanatics, the holocaust wasn’t evil, it simply was good.
Rounding up Jews is just another example of “God’s will”.
Emmetsays
RobertL #28
“…we also had the Balkans. Although that was a three-way dust-up: Catholic Croatians vs Orthodox Serbians vs Muslim Kosovars.”
It was a mess wasn’t it? But again, was it about religion or was it about something else as well or even primarily: nationalism? The divisions fell along ethnic lines, ethnicity including religion. Hugely complex, and is it just me or is it the reasonable thing to say that it is grossly simplistic to say “Religion done it”.
Emmetsays
So just don’t feed him, owlmirror. Seriously, why would you bother?
You’re kind of shooting yourself in the foot by the use of the word “fanatics” – we’d all agree that relgious fanatics are in the wrong.
Owlmirrorsays
You’re kind of shooting yourself in the foot by the use of the word “fanatics” – we’d all agree that relgious fanatics are in the wrong.
Jack has made no such claim. I can only infer that he is a religious fanatic himself.
Jacksays
@Owlmirror
FACT: The Soviets, an atheist society, thought it was okay to ship 20 million of their own people to the Gulag, most of which never came back.
Hitler saw what Stalin was doing and said, “Hey, that’s what we should do with the Jews!”
You guys are some real caring folk…
Owlmirrorsays
It’s said that science will dehumanize people and turn them into numbers. That’s false, tragically false. Look for yourself. This is the concentration camp and crematorium at Auschwitz. This is where people were turned into numbers. Into this pond were flushed the ashes of some four million people. And that was not done by gas. It was done by arrogance, it was done by dogma, it was done by ignorance. When people believe that they have absolute knowledge, with no test in reality, this is how they behave. This is what men do when they aspire to the knowledge of gods.
— Jacob Bronowski
Bromionsays
I love how the religious can straight up wipe clean the hands of their omnipotent god whenever something horrible (like the Holocaust) happens. But then make like atheists would be OK with it because, clearly, we don’t have moral comapasses without the guidance of their awesome god (whose omnipotence permits the Holocaust). Right.
Jacksays
What’s more arrogant than atheism?
C’mon, seriously. You guys are worse than fundamenlists.
Owlmirrorsays
FACT: Catholics, a theist society, set religious dissidents, including Jews, on fire.
FACT: Orthodox Russians and Polish Catholics, theists one and all, committed pogroms — mob violence and mass murder — on Jewish people.
FACT: Hitler’s Germany was made up of Catholic theists and Protestant theists, one and all. Stalin was neither their role model nor friend. They followed the theistic-based antisemitism of the theist Martin Luther and the theist John Chrystostom.
Loftysays
Jack knows jack shit about atheists. Keep making up lies, you’re good at it.
Owlmirrorsays
Theism is obviously more arrogant than atheism.
C’mon, seriously. You guys are worse than fundamenlists.
You are a religious fundamentalist, and you are far, far worse than us.
Jacksays
No argument here about organized religion. Plenty of evil and wicked men have done evil and wicked things in the name of God.
But…
There’s no such thing as morals in atheism. Not if you understand your own ideology.
Morals are simply an idea brought forth by a chemical reaction inside an animal’s brain. They have no more weight than the God you reject.
I thought you guys were into science…?
Agent Smithsays
What’s more arrogant than atheism?
Yep, damned arrogant to have not swallowed some priest’s effluvia wholesale.
It’s the height of hubris to live a fulfilling, law-abiding life without grovelling to some imaginary zombie spook every so often.
You nailed us, with bubbles.
Alex, Tyrant of Skepsissays
Jack,
So from what you write about child abuse and the Holocaust I suppose you are one of those people who would go around raping and killing people if there was no god? Well guess what, as an atheist one has to develop an actual set of ethics. It’s a part of growing up, partly parenting, partly just a matter of common sense and human empathy. People like you, thinking they are good only at the mercy of an imaginary sky father figure, have a much harder time to do that, and I am not envious.
Owlmirrorsays
No argument here about organized religion. Plenty of evil and wicked men have done evil and wicked things in the name of God.
Uh-huh…
There’s no such thing as morals in atheism. Not if you understand your own ideology.
Ha! There’s obviously no such thing as morals in theism — by your own argument above! It’s obvious that you don’t understand your own ideology.
If people can do evil and wicked things in the name of God, then morals cannot possibly come from God!
Morals are simply an idea brought forth by a chemical reaction inside an animal’s brain.
So?
They have no more weight than the God you reject.
We reject God as being imaginary and meaningless. That does not in any way imply that we reject other people as being imaginary or meaningless. It also does not in any way imply that there is no reasonable basis for treating other people as we would want to be treated, if we were in their place.
I thought you guys were into science…?
Science ≠ greedy reductionism.
Science ≠ nihilistic solipsism.
Jacksays
So let me get this straight. You guys don’t believe in the “Sky Daddy” as you so politely call God, but you thump your chests and talk about morals and ethics…
…an invention by living organisms…
…because you don’t want to go to jail or have bad shit happen to you?
How noble of you guys!
Alex, Tyrant of Skepsissays
So let me get this straight. You guys don’t believe in the “Sky Daddy” as you so politely call God,
Correct. And yes, it’s kind of a bad euphemism, considering what’s written in the bible about the old monster.
but you thump your chests and talk about morals and ethics…
I don’t know about the thumping part, but talking about ethics is really important, yes.
…an invention by living organisms…
Well, maybe formalized ethics are a human invention indeed, but the underlying sentiment is evolved.
…because you don’t want to go to jail or have bad shit happen to you?
No, that’s you talking again. I don’t know about you, but I actually really don’t like to see other people suffering and unfree. I know, it’s crazy… Oh, actually, not it isn’t crazy at all.
How noble of you guys!
I know, right?!
thomasseasays
What happens when pallets of condoms are shipped into the heat and dust of Africa and put on trucks and then dropped off at clinics of varying degrees of professionalism where they are handed out by people who may or may not know anything about how to use them correctly? That failure rate drops through the floor
Then Why don’t you argue in favour of improving infrastructure for condom transport, distribution, and education?
Oh, because you want to use ‘abstinence only education’ which has absolutely no evidence of effectiveness whatsoever.
Goodness, you sound just like kohldamunga. The stench of desperation is certainly the same.
:yawns:
Jacksays
“I don’t know about you, but I actually really don’t like to see other people suffering and unfree.”
That’s God talking to you, Alex. That’s your Bible, that’s your Torah, that’s your Koran.
It’s built into us. Unfortunately, too often man doesn’t listen.
Alex, Tyrant of Skepsissays
“I don’t know about you, but I actually really don’t like to see other people suffering and unfree.”
That’s God talking to you, Alex. That’s your Bible, that’s your Torah, that’s your Koran.
Are you being facetious? Have you ever read those books?!!
It’s built into us. Unfortunately, too often man doesn’t listen.
Yes it’s also built into us, no disagreement there, Jack. However, there is no evidence that this built-in urge or “voice” that you want us to hear has been implanted by god, or is channeling a god. On the other hand, how this sense of sociability and mutual respect and support would have evolved in our ancestors as they lived together in groups while their intelligence improved, that is not far-fetched at all. You don’t need to refer to a higher authority to justify it, we are what we are.
Jacksays
I don’t pretend to know everything. But I do find atheism to be nauseatingly arrogant.
Just because a dog doesn’t know what 3×3 is or can’t figure out the area of a triangle, that doesn’t mean math doesn’t exist.
We know it does. We can prove it. But when it comes to God…
…I feel like we’re the dogs.
And if something like gravity can exist, that which you can’t see, touch, taste, hear or talk to, why is it so crazy to believe there is something far more intelligent than us?
ZenDruidsays
Jack, that’s not God.
Healthy humans employ an interactive facility called ‘moral conscience’. Healthy humans use this facility, with a single amazingly simple rule, to successfully coexist with other healthy humans.
So, how does “Worship me or suffer forever” morph into anything approaching healthy morality? Does the monster under your bed have something to do with it?
Agent Smithsays
Jack, if the Bible’s talking to me, with the purpose of teaching me proper moral behavior, can you please let me know what Numbers 15:32-36, Psalms 137:9 and Numbers 31:7-18 are trying to tell me?
Island Adolescentsays
Just because a dog doesn’t know what 3×3 is or can’t figure out the area of a triangle, that doesn’t mean math doesn’t exist.
We know it does. We can prove it. But when it comes to God…
…I feel like we’re the dogs.
And if you don’t know everything that exists, that’s a completely valid excuse to make up anything you want to explain anything you want however you want!
Guys, before the Big Bang, Santa Claus played poker with the Easter Bunny. We’re dogs incapable of knowing this, so you better believe it! Or at least keep your mind open to it!
And if something like gravity can exist, that which you can’t see, touch, taste, hear or talk to, why is it so crazy to believe there is something far more intelligent than us?
Do you not realize we can measure and observe the effects of gravity or something?
Why is it crazy to believe something that you have no evidence for? That question answers itself.
I don’t pretend to know everything. But I do find atheism to be nauseatingly arrogant.
I’m sorry you feel that way, Jack. Noone knows everything, but you make much stronger claims about what you assume to know than atheists like me. I basically stick to the science (which is a pretty humble thing to do because it means changing your convictions in fact of evidence). You claim to know that the universe has a purpose, that there is a personal creator figure, and that you know its mind. It really isn’t the atheist position that is terribly arrogant here.
Just because a dog doesn’t know what 3×3 is or can’t figure out the area of a triangle, that doesn’t mean math doesn’t exist.
You pick an example where there is evidence that it exists, so this is already dubious. Your line of argument is: “we don’t know everything, therefore whatever it is I want to believe is true”. The fact that you can substitute any unfalsifiable hypothesis as the conclusion here should tell you that there is something fishy about this. It’s a logical fallacy.
We know it does. We can prove it. But when it comes to God…
…I feel like we’re the dogs.
You feel that way only because you have been taught about God by other people who hold this idea in their heads, but there is no evidence for it.
And if something like gravity can exist, that which you can’t see,
touch, taste, hear or talk to,
Gravity can bee felt much in the same way that things can be touched. It’s a weaker long-range force compared to the electromagnetism which holds together solid objects, but the concept is very similar. There is ample of evidence for gravity (I just dropped my pen for example, there is no evidence for god.
why is it so crazy to believe there is something far more intelligent than us?
I don’t think that is so crazy. Evolution is a universal principle as long as replication and inheritance with modification is possible, and there are 10000000000000000000000 stars in the visible universe. Beings may live there much more intelligent than us. Imagine a hive mind consisting of neurons spanning an entire planet – Awesome! However, this has nothing to do with the tale about a personal invisible omniscient omnipotent (insert further properties here) creator of everything. Such a thing is barely even a consistent idea, much less is there evidence for it.
Jacksays
As Dostoevsky pointed out “If there is no God, then EVERYTHING is permitted.”
That’s why atheism will never work. I don’t care how much you yammer about ethics and morals and the need to coexist…
Fuck that. It’s all just theory then. Dreamed up by freaks of nature. And you’re just as stupid to follow it as an evangelical is in their beliefs.
If we are nothing but a sick cruel joke the physical universe created then bombs away. Who gives a fuck if we save the oceans?
@2, no, it sounds suspiciously like experience, and indeed like history since the Enlightenment.
Alex, Tyrant of Skepsissays
As Dostoevsky pointed out “If there is no God, then EVERYTHING is permitted.”
Unless we make laws for ourselves and enforce them. Which we obviously do. It up to us.
That’s why atheism will never work. I don’t care how much you yammer about ethics and morals and the need to coexist…
Atheism in the strict sense is not by itself sufficient, because it is merely the statement that gods do not exist.
Fuck that. It’s all just theory then. Dreamed up by freaks of nature. And you’re just as stupid to follow it as an evangelical is in their beliefs.
Now you’re becoming incoherent. What on earth are you talking about here?
If we are nothing but a sick cruel joke the physical universe created then bombs away. Who gives a fuck if we save the oceans?
That’s a challenge, but not one we cannot answer. We have to listen to the voice in us that you’ve mentioned. It is there, no matter whether god exists or not. It’s part of our nature. You only want to save the oceans because they were made by God? I am not that pessimistic about you actually, I think you really like the oceans for the precious thing they are to us. I think you like people because they are people, not because they were breathed into existence by some higher authority.
It’s all for naught.
Nighty night…
Don’t be so lugubrious. Nature is cruel, that much is certain. It’s up to us to make a difference.
Ha-ha-ha, Jack! Haven’t you realized that religions enforce our internal morality, not the other way around? Except for the extra filips about paying tithes, revering dusty relics, avoiding magic words, and the like.
I find most Christians to be arrogant, imagining that some omnipotent god gives a rat’s ass about their sex lives.
Se Habla Espolsays
What’s more arrogant than atheism?
Projection, much?
First nomination: a person who imagines that he knows what atheism is, decides that he is Right because he imagines it, and makes absurd statements based on his arrogance.
Second nomination: a person who decides that his personal interpretation (whether original or modified from someone else’s) of a particular collection of cherries picked from a particular rewrite of a particular text of a particular collection of anonymous writings is The Truth.
The whole idea that useful knowledge about reality can be gained from purely subjective imaginings has got to be the epitome of arrogance.
C’mon, seriously. You guys are worse than fundamen[ta]lists.
By definition, no apparent, perceived or claimed evidence in any field, including history and chronology, can be valid if it contradicts the scriptural record. Of primary importance is the fact that evidence is always subject to interpretation by fallible people who do not possess all information.
This is the statement of arrogance from a fundy, YEC website. In what significant particulars do your christianities differ from these? The fact that AiG uses a 66-part canon is probably not significant.
Island Adolescentsays
Fuck that. It’s all just theory then. Dreamed up by freaks of nature. And you’re just as stupid to follow it as an evangelical is in their beliefs.
Except that, you know, the evangelical follows the parts of a book which appeal to him/her, a book written over ages ago by people, just like all the other varied religions conconted over our existnece.
And the “theory” of the “freaks of nature” you speak of is an ever-dynamic, willfully changing, and constantly-in-revision accession of the world around us which aims to benefit everyone as a whole.
Please, step aside from your religion for a little while, and realize the world isn’t plunged into self-destruction and apathy the moment conjured beliefs from ages ago stop being taken seriously by society.
aggressivePerfectorsays
Sines – #7
Nice that you try to think about it mathematically.
Laplace’s famous ‘I have no need of that hypothesis,’ was indeed the result of his extraordinary mathematical insight, though not because of trivial solutions. It comes directly from Bayes’ theorem, which (oddly enough) he discovered.
A model with more degrees of freedom will always fit the data more closely, thus giving a ‘better explanation’ for the observations, but that does not make it the more probable model. Because of the higher degrees of freedom, the likelihood for that model tends to go down, because the prior probably distribution is spread out over a much larger sample space, giving less density in the region picked out by the data. A straight line with no offset has only one parameter, a quadratic model has 2, meaning that its prior distribution is spread over twice as many dimensions, giving much lower probability at its peak. The quadratic will always give smaller residuals, but not necessarily a more appropriate fit.
Because god can do whatever it likes, nothing can disprove the hypothesis. The model has infinite degrees of freedom, and so its posterior probability is vanishingly small, if not identically zero.
Alan Bsays
Re #64: “The fact that AiG uses a 66-part canon …”
Wow, I’m impressed. Polyphony rules!
Alex, Tyrant of Skepsissays
Jack 59,
As Dostoevsky pointed out “If there is no God, then EVERYTHING is permitted.”
That’s why atheism will never work. I don’t care how much you yammer about ethics and morals and the need to coexist…
A further major flaw in your reasoning here is that it is an appeal to consequences, or in other words, wishful thinking. Whether atheism “works” or not has no bearing whatsoever on the veracity of its claims. By making the argument above, you admit that you have no interest in the true nature of things, but are willing to conclude what seems pleasant to you irrespective of facts.
'Tis Himself, OMsays
It appears Jack is arguing with his prejudices concerning atheists, not actual atheists. When an atheist tries to correct him, he rejects that opinion because it’s not held by the strawman atheist who lives in his mind.
pvsays
I love the comical characterisations of atheism as a “religion” or “ideology”. Godly folk seem unable to escape their tribal thinking. Basically they are saying that not believing in superstition is a superstition.
Is it thickness, stupidity or downright dishonesty?
I don’t believe in any god. Not believing in any god is not a religion or ideology.
I don’t have any superstitions. Not having any superstitions is not a superstition.
I don’t collect stamps. Not collecting stamps is not a hobby.
I don’t run marathons. Not running marathons is not a sport.
I don’t speak Swahili. Not speaking Swahili is not a language.
I don’t eat a special diet. Not eating a special diet is not a special diet.
The maintenance of religion is fundamentally about intellectual dishonesty.
Matt Penfoldsays
It appears Jack is arguing with his prejudices concerning atheists, not actual atheists. When an atheist tries to correct him, he rejects that opinion because it’s not held by the strawman atheist who lives in his mind.
You think he has that much going on in his mind ?
Se Habla Espolsays
As Dostoevsky pointed out “If there is no God, then EVERYTHING is permitted.”
Let’s assume arguendo that Dostoevsky did, in fact, write this blurb. Let’s assume arguendo that it was translated correctly. Let’s assume arguendo that its context actually supports the point it’s quoted to support. So what?
Where is any evidence, that supports your arrogance? The humility of the scientific epistemology (the one that actually works) does not permit unevidenced appeals to authority, even when it would support an argument.
That’s why atheism will never work. I don’t care how much you yammer about ethics and morals and the need to coexist…
I’m reminded of a phrase that fits the start of both these statements: “reality to the contrary notwithstanding”.
mussays
To: Alex, Tyrant of Skepsis, #61
Nature isn`t cruel, is indifferent.
consciousness razorsays
As Dostoevsky pointed out “If there is no God, then EVERYTHING is permitted.”
He pointed this out? If there were something to which he pointed, then there would be evidence. Where’s the evidence?
Oh right, this was just an assertion made by a fictional character. But Dostoevsky was a great writer and an authority on fictional characters, so that must mean it’s the “truth.”
*eyeroll*
Alex, Tyrant of Skepsissays
@mus,
True, that was imprecise language, since I was not insinuating that there is intent on nature’s side. How about “cruelly indifferent”, where the first word describes the impact as felt by us, and the second is the actual adjective. :)
consciousness razorsays
Nature isn`t cruel, is indifferent.
Surely, a syllogism will fix this*:
-Some natural things are humans.
-Humans are cruel.
-Therefore, some natural things are cruel.
*Not intended to be a factual statement.
Alex, Tyrant of Skepsissays
Sure, even barring humans I could have been referring to the worry that a mischievous chimp might break my skull with a hard piece of wood just for the heck of it. However, what I meant was both the process of evolution by natural selection as a whole, plus all the meteorites, black holes, supernovae and the general unpleasantness of empty space.
Hazukisays
Jack, may I suggest you read about the primatology work of Fouts and de Waal? You have some good objections to moral relativism (which we share), but you don’t seem to understand emergent phenomena.
Emergent phenomena (or properties, or behaviors) are those that arise from a system of several parts but cannot be found in any of the parts or any partial combination of the parts.
Looking at the basic atoms and molecules of living things, who would be able to predict life? Reproduction, movement, cellular repair? No one. Nothing in oxygen or carbon or phosphorus has those properties. But the specific system of those molecules plus energy input plus favorable environment = life.
In the same way, looking at lower animals’ simple drives for self-preservation and environmental sensing, no one would ever expect intelligence or morals. But they both emerge as the systems get more complex (i.e., primates, cetaceans, humans).
And now this is the important part: The emergent hypothesis has far more explanatory power in regards to our morals, including both human universals and why and how morals vary and where they do, than divine command theory. This all then ties into game theory, psychohistory, mob psychology, and so on.
Get a good enough grip on this stuff and you can start predicting human behavior, a sign of a working theory. You can’t do that with “LOL Gawddidit” explanations of morality.
croweppssays
It only took until post 29 before Jack brought up the Nazis? AND got his facts about Catholic Hitler wrong? The trolls ARE getting dumber.
yvroussays
“Atheist are just pedophiles that want to feel better about themselves.”
Come on! We atheists do not play with our food.
Carliesays
God has told his people to murder.
God has told his people to rape.
God has told his people to enslave.
God has hardened hearts so that they might not be saved, even if they want to.
God has directly killed people.
God has told people to kill their own children, just to play mind games.
This is not conjecture; this is all directly from the Bible. And you think that good morals come from God? Good morals come in spite of God.
A Hangman on Tyresays
I love it when people call atheists arrogant.
What is more arrogant….the belief that an omnipotent being who can basically do anything and has complete control over the laws of nature created an entire universe for the sole purpose of housing human beings and all their needs, constantly watches those human beings and takes care of them, takes vital interest in everything they do at every moment of their lives, listens intently when they pray to “him” and ask “him” to intervene in their lives, and has made a paradise for them to go to after their lives are finished.
or
The belief that the universe came about naturally, humans evolved based on natural selection and are simply one of the smarter animals to exist on this rock, nature and the universe don’t really care that we are here, and that if we were snuffed out by an asteroid tomorrow, nobody would really notice except us.
KGsays
As Dostoevsky pointed out “If there is no God, then EVERYTHING is permitted.” – Jack
Er, no. There is absolutely no evidence that there is a god, yet not everything is permitted – both legal and moral codes forbidding specific acts are argued over, promulgated, and enforced. You can’t “point out” something that is quite obviously false.
KGsays
Atheist are just pedophiles that want to feel better about themselves. – Jack
Atheism is the most dangerous ideology in the world. According to them the holocaust wasn’t evil, it simply was.
Rounding up Jews is just another example of Darwin’s “natural selection”.
My, my, what a nasty little boil on humanity’s bum you are, Jack. A liar, too: the vast majority of atheists do not say that the holocaust was anything other than evil in the extreme. Without making absurd claims about theists similar to yours, it’s worth noting that there has been a considerable scandal recently over child-raping priests; and that the vast majority of those carrying out the holocaust were Christians.
Snoofsays
I suspect that your analogy has some serious flaws. Could you give an example of what you mean by a ‘trivial’ or ‘zero’ solution being ‘worthless’?
Apologies for the digression:
Let’s see… off the top of my head, there’s matrix eigenvalue equations of the form Mv = kv, where M is a matrix, v is a vector and k is a scalar. These crop up in analyzing all kinds of systems, from quantum mechanics to economics. Typically the matrix will be known, and the goal is to find v and k, which describe “stable values” of the system. If v == 0, then the equation is true, but it’s not particularly useful because it doesn’t tell you anything about the system, apart from “if there’s nothing there, nothing happens”.
Then there’s homogeneous linear differential equations. These show up in electronic engineering and wave motion, among other places. One example is ay” + by’ + cy == 0, where one is attempting to find y as some function of x. Once again, if we allow y to be the zero function y(x) == 0, then we end up with 0 + 0 + 0 == 0, which is true, but not particularly useful. On the other hand, there may be other solutions for y depending on the constants a, b, and c, which can be useful descriptions of whatever system we’re modelling.
Apologies for the mathematical digression, but it was an interesting question. :)
You do have to admit that using a line from a fictional character in a work of fiction – stating that character’s opinion no less – as if it were a statement of fact in the real world, is pretty ingenious.
Hang on. I’ve never read The Brothers Karamazov*, but I’ve been checking that quotation out online. Here’s a translation of the actual quote:
‘But,’ I asked, ‘how will man be after that? Without God and the future life? It means everything is permitted now, one can do anything?’
So it’s not even the opinion of some cartoon eviel atheist – it’s a confused theist who, just like Jack, can’t conceive of being a decent human being without Sky Daddy looking over his shoulder. So sad.
–
*though I was once accused of cheating in a game of charades when my teammate managed to convey “car” and that title popped into my head, giving us an easy win. About as close to a proper exposure to great literature as I’ve gotten.
Rev. BigDumbChimpsays
I guess Jack is one of those people who without his perceived threat of Hell would be running around raping and murdering at will.
Nasty fellow that Jack.
KGsays
The church’ meaning what – official church teaching? Or a cardinal he read about? He needs to understand the difference between one man’s opinion and what the Church actually teaches.
Funny thing about condoms – millions upon millions of them have poured into Africa, and yet the numbers of people suffering from AIDS keeps going up and up. Is something wrong here? – Emmet
Yes, Emmet – you are. The number of new infections with HIV is decreasing worldwide, and this is almost entirely due to the decrease in Africa. Have a look at UNAIDS Report on the global AIDS epidemic 2010, and particularly figure 2.2. This shows that in every African country analysed (which includes, I think, all those with a high HIV prevalence), infection rates are either stable or – in most cases – declining*. This follows the widespread “ABC campaign” – Abstinence, Be faithful, use a Condom. You see Emmet, except in your overheated Catholic imagination, non-one is claiming that condoms alone are the solution to AIDS in Africa. But they are part of the solution, and increased condom use has accompanied the fall in infection rates – partitioning that fall between different causes is, of course, inherently hard.
The Catholic Church has indeed lied about condoms: when a cardinal claims that they let HIV through and is not immediately and authoratitively told by the Vatican to stop talking nonsense, that is simply a Vatican lie with a figleaf of deniability. It has also, with its deeply ingrained misogyny, obstructed the single aim which could do more than anything both to reduce HIV infection and to solve many other problems of poverty – improving the status and education of women, and allowing them to decide when they want to have children.
*Rates of those living with HIV continue to rise in many African countries, because many of those infected are finally getting the effective drugs developed 15 years ago, and so are not dying. Rates of death from AIDS have been falling since around 2004.
Alex, Tyrant of Skepsissays
@KG, RevBDC,
Maybe Hanlon’s razor applies. Of course, even if, you are employing a good rhetorical tactic.
@myeck waters,
I don’t really care whether Dostoyevsky said it or one of his characters. Contrary to what you imply, it is not a statement about whether or not actual atheists behave with restraint or not, but an imprecise statement of a philosophical dilemma (imprecise because it is not clear what “allowed” is supposed to mean). As such, it stands on its own, but it is a dilemma that can be easily answered by secularists. The answer is actually
@snoof
You do know that FTB has LaTeX, right? ;)
@Emmet
There are few things as odious as apologists for the misanthropic health policy of the catholic church. Finding excuses not to distribute condoms, ugh.
Alex, Tyrant of Skepsissays
oops, part missing
@myeck waters
The answer is actually worth to be given some thought.
DLCsays
Always enjoyed Colquhoun, thanks for reminding me, PZ.
Contrary to what you imply, it is not a statement about whether or not actual atheists behave with restraint or not, but an imprecise statement of a philosophical dilemma (imprecise because it is not clear what “allowed” is supposed to mean). As such, it stands on its own, but it is a dilemma that can be easily answered by secularists. The answer is actually worth to be given some thought.
Agreed, but I was specifically retorting to Jack the copypaster’s misuse of it –
As Dostoevsky pointed out “If there is no God, then EVERYTHING is permitted.”
– which he was clearly using in that way.
ravensays
Emmet the ignorant creepy xian:
Again, how many condoms have flooded into Africa over the years? Is it working? Does something need to change?
Yes. The worldwide AIDS epidemic by infections per year peaked in the 1990’s. The rate of newly infected people is going DOWN.
That includes most of Africa, although there are some hotspots where not much progress is being made.
We now know how to cut transmission rates by 96% or so by early use of HAART.
We scientists have managed to contain the HIV epidemic and push it back. In the USA and Europe infection rates are low and stable. This saves tens of millions of lives.
In times past an epidemic like HIV would just burn through the population like wildfire for a few generations, killing most people. Eventually, a resistant population would emerge.
All the catholic church has done is get in the way. If they were running the anti-HIV efforts, people would be still be dying like flies. The Catholic church is a good example of pure evil.
ravensays
As Dostoevsky pointed out “If there is no God, then EVERYTHING is permitted.”
That’s why atheism will never work.
There is no god. Things without a god look like they do now.
The most prosperous and healthiest societies in the world are the least religious, Europe, Japan, NZ etc.. The most religious are dysfunctional hellholes like Somalia, Iran, Afghanistan, Texas, and Mississippi.
Your claim is factually wrong. You are a liar.
ravensays
Jack the psycho:
Atheist are just pedophiles that want to feel better about themselves. – Jack
Got a sick puppy here.
Religion is often used as a cover for mental illness. Jack is just a sociopath or psychopath.
gshelleysays
The percentage of Catholics in Africa is about 15%. (That means 85% of Africans really couldn’t care less about what the pope thinks.) Of that 15%, how many who don’t follow the Church’s teachings on sex and are unfaithful in marriage or unchaste outside it, suddenly turn around and say, “Oop, Pope says I can’t use a condom! Better do what he says.” It’s absurd.
Excellent strawman. If people weren’t paying attention you might even get away with it. The claim isn’t that non catholics believe the clergy that condoms are immoral. They believe them that they don’t work
Midnight Ramblersays
Emmet @22:
A. What are the “direct lies” the Church tells?
B. How do they contribute to the spread of AIDS?
Cardinal Alfonso Lopez Trujillo, president of the Vatican’s Pontifical Council for the Family: “The AIDS virus is roughly 450 times smaller than the spermatozoon. The spermatozoon can easily pass through the ‘net’ that is formed by the condom. These margins of uncertainty… should represent an obligation on the part of the health ministries and all these campaigns to act in the same way as they do with regard to cigarettes, which they state to be a danger.”
Archbishop of Nairobi, Raphael Ndingi Nzeki: “AIDS… has grown so fast because of the availability of condoms.”
Director of a Kenyan AIDS testing centre, Gordon Wambi, says he cannot distribute condoms because of church opposition: “Some priests have even been saying that condoms are laced with HIV/AIDS.”
In short: STFU.
RandomReasonsays
David Colquhoun just last week wrote a great piece about the lingering infection of postmodernism in the humanities, and how it (particularly WRT philosophy of science) could cause real harm to the practice of natural science – that is, if actual scientists didn’t largely ignore them.
Calhoun wrote:
Haven’t any of the accommodationists explained to Professor Calhoun that being confrontational never works? People only respond positively if one goes hand in hand and, after initial groveling and ass-kissing, politely and meekly suggest that it might be a good idea if certain opinions and/or behaviors were modified just a bit. Being strident and mocking never gets anything done. Just ask all the best faitheists.
For me, when it comes to talking to atheists, strident and mocking is fine: if the mocker knows what he/she is talking about. Otherwise it’s a turnoff – they just sound like an ass. Thing is, so much of what passes for “good invigorating speeches” about atheism or religion are anything but. Take a look at the limpness of Colquhon’s argument:
“What I like about science is that it is undogmatic.” Yet so often atheists say things like, “one day science will explain that, one day science will solve that” which sounds suspiciously like an article of faith.
“Then, of course, there is the church’s contribution to the spread of AIDS, by telling direct lies about condoms”.
‘The church’ meaning what – official church teaching? Or a cardinal he read about? He needs to understand the difference between one man’s opinion and what the Church actually teaches.
Funny thing about condoms – millions upon millions of them have poured into Africa, and yet the numbers of people suffering from AIDS keeps going up and up. Is something wrong here?
‘The Pope is right about condoms says Harvard academic’ http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/ni/2009/03/aids_expert_who_defended_the_p.html
“in 2000, Pope John Paul II declared Thomas More to be the “heavenly patron of statesmen and politicians” (whatever that means).”
Well, what does it mean? So often, itseems thatit is too much to ask an atheist to understand what the Church teaches before he criticises it.
“Catholics and protestants kill each other”.
Where is this happening?
“my objection to religion is that, with occasional honourable exceptions, it spreads immorality and violence”
“Religion”, in the abstract, yet redeems itself in the actual exceptions. What does he mean here? Does “relgion” spread immorality and violence or does it not? What are these exceptions – and if “religion” is so rotten, how can there possibly be exceptions?
Italics!
No shit!
Do you want to try that rant again?
Emmet: aside from the fact that you’re doing exactly what you criticize Colquhoun for in citing one doctor’s opinion, you might want to read past the misleading headline into what he (Green) actually says, which is not that the Pope is really right but that in many parts of Africa condoms don’t help that much because people react to the increased sense of safety by increasing risky behavior (still somewhat dubious, but possible). Then there’s this:
It would be nice if theists knew what they were talking about in their arguments.
Emmet #2
If someone doesn’t know what they’re talking about, the tone doesn’t matter. They can be polite and still sound like an ass. We see that a lot at Pharyngula when creationists display their utter ignorance about evolution in particular and science in general. They’re invariably polite and they sound like asses because they are asses.
There’s the further point that what seems “invigorating” to one person is “strident and harsh” to another. Here at Pharyngula we get rude, crude and lewd with each other and with folks who show up for debates. We find this to be invigorating, often a newcomer finds it unpleasant.
In math, when attempting to solve for an equation, zero is very often an acceptable answer. However, while it does answer the question, it doesn’t tell you anything. In these cases, zero is called a ‘trivial solution’. It fits, but it’s worthless.
God is the ultimate trivial solution. Solving all equations, while offering no understanding of a single one of them.
Sines@7…. Interesting analogy. I like it.
Don’t tell him your name Pike.
Sines @7:
I suspect that your analogy has some serious flaws. Could you give an example of what you mean by a ‘trivial’ or ‘zero’ solution being ‘worthless’?
gijoel @ 9: slightly off-topic, but one of the amusing things about internet blogs is the screen names that people give themselves.
I reckon the funniest I have seen is “Don’t tell him Pike”.
ps. gijoel is a pretty good name, too.
pps. I wish I had put more thought into mine, but I can’t be bothered to change it now.
Emmet says:
7 November 2011 at 2:52 am
Northern Ireland?
That’s because you don’t distinguish between believing something with evidence, and believing something without evidence. Evidence has shown us that science explains things and solves things. In fact, the sheer amount of stuff it has explained is astounding. Therefore, we project that science will continue to explain stuff. That’s not faith.
The sound you hear is the point going over your head. The Church can explain all it wants about the minute details of what the role of a patron saint is, it’s still all insubstantial froth. He could have made the same sarcastic comment about the “amethysts [that] emit high Yin energy”. The quacks can explain what Yin energy is and how amethysts emit it, but you end up saying “yeah, whatever that’s supposed to mean”. Now do you get it. Good. Glad to help.
Midnight Rambler – #5:
“It would be nice if theists knew what they were talking about in their arguments.”
Back at ya. I think you’ve misunderstood the article. Here’s what the pope said: “[the] problem of AIDS cannot be overcome merely with money… If there is no human dimension, if Africans do not help [by responsible behavior], the problem cannot be overcome by the distribution of prophylactics: on the contrary, they increase it.”
Which is what Green is agreeing with: you said “what he (Green) actually says is … that in many parts of Africa condoms don’t help that much because people react to the increased sense of safety by increasing risky behavior”.
STM you think that I think that Green agrees with the pope that contraception is immoral: I don’t.
Again, how many condoms have flooded into Africa over the years? Is it working? Does something need to change?
Here’s somebody else who agrees with the pope: http://www.afrik-news.com/article18484.html
“Emmet: aside from the fact that you’re doing exactly what you criticize Colquhoun for in citing one doctor’s opinion”
What doctor did Colquhon cite? You’ve lost me. Do you know what you’re talking about?
It would be nice if [a]theists knew what they were talking about in their arguments.
Where is this happening today? Or where has this happened recently? Northern Ireland is one recent example. If we’re going farther back in history the Catholic versus Protestant conflict known as the Thirty Years War killed one-third of the population of central Europe.
Here’s a typical series of violent deaths caused by religious tenets:
http://www.secularnewsdaily.com/2010/02/16/christian-parents-biblically-beat-child-to-death-for-mispronouncing-word/
http://crooksandliars.com/susie-madrak/christian-child-rearing-manual-freque
I would note that THREE of the children who have been killed by people following Pastor Pearl’s advice were adopted, placed with the people who beat them to death on the basis of their being able to provide “good Christian homes”.
Green also says this: “Lets go back to what we know about condoms: when they are used consistently, when they are used consistently, they provide, under more or less ideal conditions, about 80 to 85 per cent risk reduction, compared to those who don’t use them at all. But how many–what percentage of any large national population–uses condoms consistently? Probably nowhere in excess of 5 per cent.”
The 80 – 85% figure is pretty much right on as far as I know; I don’t know about the 5% figure.
Point is, even when stored correctly(condoms are sensitive to heat, humidity and pressure), used correctly (ie consistently: every time), condoms have that failure rate of somewhere around 1-2 in ten.
What happens when pallets of condoms are shipped into the heat and dust of Africa and put on trucks and then dropped off at clinics of varying degrees of professionalism where they are handed out by people who may or may not know anything about how to use them correctly? That failure rate drops through the floor, and the West wrings its hands and says “But-but-but condoms *work*!” and the AIDS crisis continues apace. Meanwhile, the Catholic Church, who knows what she’s talking about because she is there at the coalface providing healthcare for AIDS victims, is mocked for being evil and backwards.
Atheist are just pedophiles that want to feel better about themselves.
God doesn’t exist. Therefore it’s neither right nor wrong. It just is.
Have fun with that.
Atleast the priests know they’re going straight to hell.
David Utidjian@10…
I see your point, and I suppose you could look at it in those strictly mathematical/symbolic terms. But I suppose it could also be looked at from another angle, in a more general way.
For example, such as when zero as a denominator in a fraction makes it ‘undefined’ , and coming to any workable answer, taking us, in theory, to infinity,… not having a real grounding in any concrete answer in the ‘real’ world.
I dunno,… maybe comparing ‘apples’ (real world value of mathematics) and ‘oranges’ (value of religious belief) here???
On the face of it, it seemed like an interesting comparison. Whachathink?
correction: line #5: ‘..NOT coming to any workable answer..’
Re: #18
PZ, there is no question that the number of chew toys has gone up lately, but the quality is pretty poor. I think you need to consider going with a new supplier. I mean sure, Jack is only marginally literate and probably can’t think himself out of a wet paper bag, but we need more roughage in our diet. Besides, he leaves a nasty taste in the mouth.
There’s this sentence from Colquhon’s little rant:
“Then, of course, there is the church’s contribution to the spread of AIDS, by telling direct lies about condoms”
which is sort of lazy rhetoric trotted out all too often in atheist conversations.
A. What are the “direct lies” the Church tells?
B. How do they contribute to the spread of AIDS?
The percentage of Catholics in Africa is about 15%. (That means 85% of Africans really couldn’t care less about what the pope thinks.) Of that 15%, how many who don’t follow the Church’s teachings on sex and are unfaithful in marriage or unchaste outside it, suddenly turn around and say, “Oop, Pope says I can’t use a condom! Better do what he says.” It’s absurd.
“Meanwhile, the Catholic Church, who knows what she’s talking about because she is there at the coalface providing healthcare for AIDS victims, is mocked for being evil and backwards.”
So let’s imagine that this is true for a moment. Are you saying the Catholic church is absolutely incapable of explaining what you just explained?
If the frickin’ Pope just copied and pasted what you just wrote into a damn decree, backed up with valid studies, this bone of contention would evaporate. Since he doesn’t, I have to assume his motives are different from your characterization.
@Otrame
It leaves a nasty taste b/c you know it’s true.
The problem with atheist is they’re too chickenshit to admit it.
“insubstantial froth” !
Protip: Whenever you think you have people you don’t agree with all figured out, and you think you can describe their essence in one pithy sentence, you are completely wrong and should shut the fuck up.
Or people will think that religionists are just morons that want to feel better about themselves.
Croweps #16 –
“Catholics and protestants kill each other”.
Where is this happening?
Northern Ireland is one recent example.”
Were those conflicts caused by “religion” as the writer claims, or was it a whole lot of things all mixed up together? Are “religious wars” caused by religion or is that an absurdly simplistic claim?
“Here’s a typical series of violent deaths caused by religious tenets:”
Again, you draw a direct link between their “relgious tenets” and their actions. I put it to you that they didn’t kill because of their religion but because they had a severely deficient understanding of what it is to be human and what it is to be a parent. That was the driving force for their behaviour.
Did that come out of their particular brand of Christianity? Perhaps. Or did they get into that particular church because they didn’t have the thinking skills to see it was crook?
(Did Stalin kill because he was an atheist or did he kill because the ideals of communism justified and affirmed his beliefs that the world is better off without Christianity?)
Emmet @ #27. More recently than Northern Ireland we also had the Balkans.
Although that was a three-way dust-up: Catholic Croatians vs Orthodox Serbians vs Muslim Kosovars.
Fun for all!
/sarc
Atheism is the most dangerous ideology in the world. According to them the holocaust wasn’t evil, it simply was.
Rounding up Jews is just another example of Darwin’s “natural selection”.
Loubet #23 –
Can you expand on your comment for me? I’m not quite sure what you’re getting at.
“So let’s imagine that this is true for a moment.” What are you referring to here? That the Church is the largest provide of healthcare in the world? That is true.
“Are you saying the Catholic church is absolutely incapable of explaining what you just explained?” No – the Church tries to explain again and again what it actually believes: people the world over, unfortunately, don’t want to listen and would prefer to just read what atheist blogs say the Church believes.
“If the frickin’ Pope just copied and pasted what you just wrote into a damn decree, backed up with valid studies, this bone of contention would evaporate. Since he doesn’t, I have to assume his motives are different from your characterization.”
This is the bit I’d like you to expand on if you could please. Are you saying that the pope hasn’t said what I’ve said here? What do you see as my characterisation of his motives?
Theism is the most dangerous ideology in the world. According to religious fanatics, the holocaust wasn’t evil, it simply was good.
Rounding up Jews is just another example of “God’s will”.
RobertL #28
“…we also had the Balkans. Although that was a three-way dust-up: Catholic Croatians vs Orthodox Serbians vs Muslim Kosovars.”
It was a mess wasn’t it? But again, was it about religion or was it about something else as well or even primarily: nationalism? The divisions fell along ethnic lines, ethnicity including religion. Hugely complex, and is it just me or is it the reasonable thing to say that it is grossly simplistic to say “Religion done it”.
So just don’t feed him, owlmirror. Seriously, why would you bother?
You’re kind of shooting yourself in the foot by the use of the word “fanatics” – we’d all agree that relgious fanatics are in the wrong.
Jack has made no such claim. I can only infer that he is a religious fanatic himself.
@Owlmirror
FACT: The Soviets, an atheist society, thought it was okay to ship 20 million of their own people to the Gulag, most of which never came back.
Hitler saw what Stalin was doing and said, “Hey, that’s what we should do with the Jews!”
You guys are some real caring folk…
It’s said that science will dehumanize people and turn them into numbers. That’s false, tragically false. Look for yourself. This is the concentration camp and crematorium at Auschwitz. This is where people were turned into numbers. Into this pond were flushed the ashes of some four million people. And that was not done by gas. It was done by arrogance, it was done by dogma, it was done by ignorance. When people believe that they have absolute knowledge, with no test in reality, this is how they behave. This is what men do when they aspire to the knowledge of gods.
— Jacob Bronowski
I love how the religious can straight up wipe clean the hands of their omnipotent god whenever something horrible (like the Holocaust) happens. But then make like atheists would be OK with it because, clearly, we don’t have moral comapasses without the guidance of their awesome god (whose omnipotence permits the Holocaust). Right.
What’s more arrogant than atheism?
C’mon, seriously. You guys are worse than fundamenlists.
FACT: Catholics, a theist society, set religious dissidents, including Jews, on fire.
FACT: Orthodox Russians and Polish Catholics, theists one and all, committed pogroms — mob violence and mass murder — on Jewish people.
FACT: Hitler’s Germany was made up of Catholic theists and Protestant theists, one and all. Stalin was neither their role model nor friend. They followed the theistic-based antisemitism of the theist Martin Luther and the theist John Chrystostom.
Jack knows jack shit about atheists. Keep making up lies, you’re good at it.
Theism is obviously more arrogant than atheism.
You are a religious fundamentalist, and you are far, far worse than us.
No argument here about organized religion. Plenty of evil and wicked men have done evil and wicked things in the name of God.
But…
There’s no such thing as morals in atheism. Not if you understand your own ideology.
Morals are simply an idea brought forth by a chemical reaction inside an animal’s brain. They have no more weight than the God you reject.
I thought you guys were into science…?
Yep, damned arrogant to have not swallowed some priest’s effluvia wholesale.
It’s the height of hubris to live a fulfilling, law-abiding life without grovelling to some imaginary zombie spook every so often.
You nailed us, with bubbles.
Jack,
So from what you write about child abuse and the Holocaust I suppose you are one of those people who would go around raping and killing people if there was no god? Well guess what, as an atheist one has to develop an actual set of ethics. It’s a part of growing up, partly parenting, partly just a matter of common sense and human empathy. People like you, thinking they are good only at the mercy of an imaginary sky father figure, have a much harder time to do that, and I am not envious.
Uh-huh…
Ha! There’s obviously no such thing as morals in theism — by your own argument above! It’s obvious that you don’t understand your own ideology.
If people can do evil and wicked things in the name of God, then morals cannot possibly come from God!
So?
We reject God as being imaginary and meaningless. That does not in any way imply that we reject other people as being imaginary or meaningless. It also does not in any way imply that there is no reasonable basis for treating other people as we would want to be treated, if we were in their place.
Science ≠ greedy reductionism.
Science ≠ nihilistic solipsism.
So let me get this straight. You guys don’t believe in the “Sky Daddy” as you so politely call God, but you thump your chests and talk about morals and ethics…
…an invention by living organisms…
…because you don’t want to go to jail or have bad shit happen to you?
How noble of you guys!
Correct. And yes, it’s kind of a bad euphemism, considering what’s written in the bible about the old monster.
I don’t know about the thumping part, but talking about ethics is really important, yes.
Well, maybe formalized ethics are a human invention indeed, but the underlying sentiment is evolved.
No, that’s you talking again. I don’t know about you, but I actually really don’t like to see other people suffering and unfree. I know, it’s crazy… Oh, actually, not it isn’t crazy at all.
I know, right?!
Then Why don’t you argue in favour of improving infrastructure for condom transport, distribution, and education?
Oh, because you want to use ‘abstinence only education’ which has absolutely no evidence of effectiveness whatsoever.
FUCK OFF Emmet.
@thomassea +1
Jack:
Goodness, you sound just like kohldamunga. The stench of desperation is certainly the same.
:yawns:
“I don’t know about you, but I actually really don’t like to see other people suffering and unfree.”
That’s God talking to you, Alex. That’s your Bible, that’s your Torah, that’s your Koran.
It’s built into us. Unfortunately, too often man doesn’t listen.
Are you being facetious? Have you ever read those books?!!
Yes it’s also built into us, no disagreement there, Jack. However, there is no evidence that this built-in urge or “voice” that you want us to hear has been implanted by god, or is channeling a god. On the other hand, how this sense of sociability and mutual respect and support would have evolved in our ancestors as they lived together in groups while their intelligence improved, that is not far-fetched at all. You don’t need to refer to a higher authority to justify it, we are what we are.
I don’t pretend to know everything. But I do find atheism to be nauseatingly arrogant.
Just because a dog doesn’t know what 3×3 is or can’t figure out the area of a triangle, that doesn’t mean math doesn’t exist.
We know it does. We can prove it. But when it comes to God…
…I feel like we’re the dogs.
And if something like gravity can exist, that which you can’t see, touch, taste, hear or talk to, why is it so crazy to believe there is something far more intelligent than us?
Jack, that’s not God.
Healthy humans employ an interactive facility called ‘moral conscience’. Healthy humans use this facility, with a single amazingly simple rule, to successfully coexist with other healthy humans.
So, how does “Worship me or suffer forever” morph into anything approaching healthy morality? Does the monster under your bed have something to do with it?
Jack, if the Bible’s talking to me, with the purpose of teaching me proper moral behavior, can you please let me know what Numbers 15:32-36,
Psalms 137:9 and Numbers 31:7-18 are trying to tell me?
And if you don’t know everything that exists, that’s a completely valid excuse to make up anything you want to explain anything you want however you want!
Guys, before the Big Bang, Santa Claus played poker with the Easter Bunny. We’re dogs incapable of knowing this, so you better believe it! Or at least keep your mind open to it!
Do you not realize we can measure and observe the effects of gravity or something?
Why is it crazy to believe something that you have no evidence for? That question answers itself.
better trolls please.
I’m sorry you feel that way, Jack. Noone knows everything, but you make much stronger claims about what you assume to know than atheists like me. I basically stick to the science (which is a pretty humble thing to do because it means changing your convictions in fact of evidence). You claim to know that the universe has a purpose, that there is a personal creator figure, and that you know its mind. It really isn’t the atheist position that is terribly arrogant here.
You pick an example where there is evidence that it exists, so this is already dubious. Your line of argument is: “we don’t know everything, therefore whatever it is I want to believe is true”. The fact that you can substitute any unfalsifiable hypothesis as the conclusion here should tell you that there is something fishy about this. It’s a logical fallacy.
You feel that way only because you have been taught about God by other people who hold this idea in their heads, but there is no evidence for it.
Gravity can bee felt much in the same way that things can be touched. It’s a weaker long-range force compared to the electromagnetism which holds together solid objects, but the concept is very similar. There is ample of evidence for gravity (I just dropped my pen for example, there is no evidence for god.
I don’t think that is so crazy. Evolution is a universal principle as long as replication and inheritance with modification is possible, and there are 10000000000000000000000 stars in the visible universe. Beings may live there much more intelligent than us. Imagine a hive mind consisting of neurons spanning an entire planet – Awesome! However, this has nothing to do with the tale about a personal invisible omniscient omnipotent (insert further properties here) creator of everything. Such a thing is barely even a consistent idea, much less is there evidence for it.
As Dostoevsky pointed out “If there is no God, then EVERYTHING is permitted.”
That’s why atheism will never work. I don’t care how much you yammer about ethics and morals and the need to coexist…
Fuck that. It’s all just theory then. Dreamed up by freaks of nature. And you’re just as stupid to follow it as an evangelical is in their beliefs.
If we are nothing but a sick cruel joke the physical universe created then bombs away. Who gives a fuck if we save the oceans?
It’s all for naught.
Nighty night…
@2, no, it sounds suspiciously like experience, and indeed like history since the Enlightenment.
Unless we make laws for ourselves and enforce them. Which we obviously do. It up to us.
Atheism in the strict sense is not by itself sufficient, because it is merely the statement that gods do not exist.
Now you’re becoming incoherent. What on earth are you talking about here?
That’s a challenge, but not one we cannot answer. We have to listen to the voice in us that you’ve mentioned. It is there, no matter whether god exists or not. It’s part of our nature. You only want to save the oceans because they were made by God? I am not that pessimistic about you actually, I think you really like the oceans for the precious thing they are to us. I think you like people because they are people, not because they were breathed into existence by some higher authority.
Don’t be so lugubrious. Nature is cruel, that much is certain. It’s up to us to make a difference.
Ha-ha-ha, Jack! Haven’t you realized that religions enforce our internal morality, not the other way around? Except for the extra filips about paying tithes, revering dusty relics, avoiding magic words, and the like.
I find most Christians to be arrogant, imagining that some omnipotent god gives a rat’s ass about their sex lives.
Projection, much?
First nomination: a person who imagines that he knows what atheism is, decides that he is Right because he imagines it, and makes absurd statements based on his arrogance.
Second nomination: a person who decides that his personal interpretation (whether original or modified from someone else’s) of a particular collection of cherries picked from a particular rewrite of a particular text of a particular collection of anonymous writings is The Truth.
The whole idea that useful knowledge about reality can be gained from purely subjective imaginings has got to be the epitome of arrogance.
This is the statement of arrogance from a fundy, YEC website. In what significant particulars do your christianities differ from these? The fact that AiG uses a 66-part canon is probably not significant.
Except that, you know, the evangelical follows the parts of a book which appeal to him/her, a book written over ages ago by people, just like all the other varied religions conconted over our existnece.
And the “theory” of the “freaks of nature” you speak of is an ever-dynamic, willfully changing, and constantly-in-revision accession of the world around us which aims to benefit everyone as a whole.
Please, step aside from your religion for a little while, and realize the world isn’t plunged into self-destruction and apathy the moment conjured beliefs from ages ago stop being taken seriously by society.
Sines – #7
Nice that you try to think about it mathematically.
Laplace’s famous ‘I have no need of that hypothesis,’ was indeed the result of his extraordinary mathematical insight, though not because of trivial solutions. It comes directly from Bayes’ theorem, which (oddly enough) he discovered.
A model with more degrees of freedom will always fit the data more closely, thus giving a ‘better explanation’ for the observations, but that does not make it the more probable model. Because of the higher degrees of freedom, the likelihood for that model tends to go down, because the prior probably distribution is spread out over a much larger sample space, giving less density in the region picked out by the data. A straight line with no offset has only one parameter, a quadratic model has 2, meaning that its prior distribution is spread over twice as many dimensions, giving much lower probability at its peak. The quadratic will always give smaller residuals, but not necessarily a more appropriate fit.
Because god can do whatever it likes, nothing can disprove the hypothesis. The model has infinite degrees of freedom, and so its posterior probability is vanishingly small, if not identically zero.
Re #64: “The fact that AiG uses a 66-part canon …”
Wow, I’m impressed. Polyphony rules!
Jack 59,
A further major flaw in your reasoning here is that it is an appeal to consequences, or in other words, wishful thinking. Whether atheism “works” or not has no bearing whatsoever on the veracity of its claims. By making the argument above, you admit that you have no interest in the true nature of things, but are willing to conclude what seems pleasant to you irrespective of facts.
It appears Jack is arguing with his prejudices concerning atheists, not actual atheists. When an atheist tries to correct him, he rejects that opinion because it’s not held by the strawman atheist who lives in his mind.
I love the comical characterisations of atheism as a “religion” or “ideology”. Godly folk seem unable to escape their tribal thinking. Basically they are saying that not believing in superstition is a superstition.
Is it thickness, stupidity or downright dishonesty?
I don’t believe in any god. Not believing in any god is not a religion or ideology.
I don’t have any superstitions. Not having any superstitions is not a superstition.
I don’t collect stamps. Not collecting stamps is not a hobby.
I don’t run marathons. Not running marathons is not a sport.
I don’t speak Swahili. Not speaking Swahili is not a language.
I don’t eat a special diet. Not eating a special diet is not a special diet.
The maintenance of religion is fundamentally about intellectual dishonesty.
You think he has that much going on in his mind ?
Let’s assume arguendo that Dostoevsky did, in fact, write this blurb. Let’s assume arguendo that it was translated correctly. Let’s assume arguendo that its context actually supports the point it’s quoted to support. So what?
Where is any evidence, that supports your arrogance? The humility of the scientific epistemology (the one that actually works) does not permit unevidenced appeals to authority, even when it would support an argument.
I’m reminded of a phrase that fits the start of both these statements: “reality to the contrary notwithstanding”.
To: Alex, Tyrant of Skepsis, #61
Nature isn`t cruel, is indifferent.
He pointed this out? If there were something to which he pointed, then there would be evidence. Where’s the evidence?
Oh right, this was just an assertion made by a fictional character. But Dostoevsky was a great writer and an authority on fictional characters, so that must mean it’s the “truth.”
*eyeroll*
@mus,
True, that was imprecise language, since I was not insinuating that there is intent on nature’s side. How about “cruelly indifferent”, where the first word describes the impact as felt by us, and the second is the actual adjective. :)
Surely, a syllogism will fix this*:
-Some natural things are humans.
-Humans are cruel.
-Therefore, some natural things are cruel.
*Not intended to be a factual statement.
Sure, even barring humans I could have been referring to the worry that a mischievous chimp might break my skull with a hard piece of wood just for the heck of it. However, what I meant was both the process of evolution by natural selection as a whole, plus all the meteorites, black holes, supernovae and the general unpleasantness of empty space.
Jack, may I suggest you read about the primatology work of Fouts and de Waal? You have some good objections to moral relativism (which we share), but you don’t seem to understand emergent phenomena.
Emergent phenomena (or properties, or behaviors) are those that arise from a system of several parts but cannot be found in any of the parts or any partial combination of the parts.
Looking at the basic atoms and molecules of living things, who would be able to predict life? Reproduction, movement, cellular repair? No one. Nothing in oxygen or carbon or phosphorus has those properties. But the specific system of those molecules plus energy input plus favorable environment = life.
In the same way, looking at lower animals’ simple drives for self-preservation and environmental sensing, no one would ever expect intelligence or morals. But they both emerge as the systems get more complex (i.e., primates, cetaceans, humans).
And now this is the important part: The emergent hypothesis has far more explanatory power in regards to our morals, including both human universals and why and how morals vary and where they do, than divine command theory. This all then ties into game theory, psychohistory, mob psychology, and so on.
Get a good enough grip on this stuff and you can start predicting human behavior, a sign of a working theory. You can’t do that with “LOL Gawddidit” explanations of morality.
It only took until post 29 before Jack brought up the Nazis? AND got his facts about Catholic Hitler wrong? The trolls ARE getting dumber.
“Atheist are just pedophiles that want to feel better about themselves.”
Come on! We atheists do not play with our food.
God has told his people to murder.
God has told his people to rape.
God has told his people to enslave.
God has hardened hearts so that they might not be saved, even if they want to.
God has directly killed people.
God has told people to kill their own children, just to play mind games.
This is not conjecture; this is all directly from the Bible. And you think that good morals come from God? Good morals come in spite of God.
I love it when people call atheists arrogant.
What is more arrogant….the belief that an omnipotent being who can basically do anything and has complete control over the laws of nature created an entire universe for the sole purpose of housing human beings and all their needs, constantly watches those human beings and takes care of them, takes vital interest in everything they do at every moment of their lives, listens intently when they pray to “him” and ask “him” to intervene in their lives, and has made a paradise for them to go to after their lives are finished.
or
The belief that the universe came about naturally, humans evolved based on natural selection and are simply one of the smarter animals to exist on this rock, nature and the universe don’t really care that we are here, and that if we were snuffed out by an asteroid tomorrow, nobody would really notice except us.
Er, no. There is absolutely no evidence that there is a god, yet not everything is permitted – both legal and moral codes forbidding specific acts are argued over, promulgated, and enforced. You can’t “point out” something that is quite obviously false.
My, my, what a nasty little boil on humanity’s bum you are, Jack. A liar, too: the vast majority of atheists do not say that the holocaust was anything other than evil in the extreme. Without making absurd claims about theists similar to yours, it’s worth noting that there has been a considerable scandal recently over child-raping priests; and that the vast majority of those carrying out the holocaust were Christians.
Apologies for the digression:
Let’s see… off the top of my head, there’s matrix eigenvalue equations of the form Mv = kv, where M is a matrix, v is a vector and k is a scalar. These crop up in analyzing all kinds of systems, from quantum mechanics to economics. Typically the matrix will be known, and the goal is to find v and k, which describe “stable values” of the system. If v == 0, then the equation is true, but it’s not particularly useful because it doesn’t tell you anything about the system, apart from “if there’s nothing there, nothing happens”.
Then there’s homogeneous linear differential equations. These show up in electronic engineering and wave motion, among other places. One example is ay” + by’ + cy == 0, where one is attempting to find y as some function of x. Once again, if we allow y to be the zero function y(x) == 0, then we end up with 0 + 0 + 0 == 0, which is true, but not particularly useful. On the other hand, there may be other solutions for y depending on the constants a, b, and c, which can be useful descriptions of whatever system we’re modelling.
Apologies for the mathematical digression, but it was an interesting question. :)
You do have to admit that using a line from a fictional character in a work of fiction – stating that character’s opinion no less – as if it were a statement of fact in the real world, is pretty ingenious.
No, wait. I meant stupid.
Hang on. I’ve never read The Brothers Karamazov*, but I’ve been checking that quotation out online. Here’s a translation of the actual quote:
So it’s not even the opinion of some cartoon eviel atheist – it’s a confused theist who, just like Jack, can’t conceive of being a decent human being without Sky Daddy looking over his shoulder. So sad.
–
*though I was once accused of cheating in a game of charades when my teammate managed to convey “car” and that title popped into my head, giving us an easy win. About as close to a proper exposure to great literature as I’ve gotten.
I guess Jack is one of those people who without his perceived threat of Hell would be running around raping and murdering at will.
Nasty fellow that Jack.
Yes, Emmet – you are. The number of new infections with HIV is decreasing worldwide, and this is almost entirely due to the decrease in Africa. Have a look at UNAIDS Report on the global AIDS epidemic 2010, and particularly figure 2.2. This shows that in every African country analysed (which includes, I think, all those with a high HIV prevalence), infection rates are either stable or – in most cases – declining*. This follows the widespread “ABC campaign” – Abstinence, Be faithful, use a Condom. You see Emmet, except in your overheated Catholic imagination, non-one is claiming that condoms alone are the solution to AIDS in Africa. But they are part of the solution, and increased condom use has accompanied the fall in infection rates – partitioning that fall between different causes is, of course, inherently hard.
The Catholic Church has indeed lied about condoms: when a cardinal claims that they let HIV through and is not immediately and authoratitively told by the Vatican to stop talking nonsense, that is simply a Vatican lie with a figleaf of deniability. It has also, with its deeply ingrained misogyny, obstructed the single aim which could do more than anything both to reduce HIV infection and to solve many other problems of poverty – improving the status and education of women, and allowing them to decide when they want to have children.
*Rates of those living with HIV continue to rise in many African countries, because many of those infected are finally getting the effective drugs developed 15 years ago, and so are not dying. Rates of death from AIDS have been falling since around 2004.
@KG, RevBDC,
Maybe Hanlon’s razor applies. Of course, even if, you are employing a good rhetorical tactic.
@myeck waters,
I don’t really care whether Dostoyevsky said it or one of his characters. Contrary to what you imply, it is not a statement about whether or not actual atheists behave with restraint or not, but an imprecise statement of a philosophical dilemma (imprecise because it is not clear what “allowed” is supposed to mean). As such, it stands on its own, but it is a dilemma that can be easily answered by secularists. The answer is actually
@snoof
You do know that FTB has LaTeX, right? ;)
@Emmet
There are few things as odious as apologists for the misanthropic health policy of the catholic church. Finding excuses not to distribute condoms, ugh.
oops, part missing
@myeck waters
The answer is actually worth to be given some thought.
Always enjoyed Colquhoun, thanks for reminding me, PZ.
Alex, Tyrant of Skepsis #90 + 91
Agreed, but I was specifically retorting to Jack the copypaster’s misuse of it –
– which he was clearly using in that way.
Yes. The worldwide AIDS epidemic by infections per year peaked in the 1990’s. The rate of newly infected people is going DOWN.
That includes most of Africa, although there are some hotspots where not much progress is being made.
We now know how to cut transmission rates by 96% or so by early use of HAART.
We scientists have managed to contain the HIV epidemic and push it back. In the USA and Europe infection rates are low and stable. This saves tens of millions of lives.
In times past an epidemic like HIV would just burn through the population like wildfire for a few generations, killing most people. Eventually, a resistant population would emerge.
All the catholic church has done is get in the way. If they were running the anti-HIV efforts, people would be still be dying like flies. The Catholic church is a good example of pure evil.
There is no god. Things without a god look like they do now.
The most prosperous and healthiest societies in the world are the least religious, Europe, Japan, NZ etc.. The most religious are dysfunctional hellholes like Somalia, Iran, Afghanistan, Texas, and Mississippi.
Your claim is factually wrong. You are a liar.
Got a sick puppy here.
Religion is often used as a cover for mental illness. Jack is just a sociopath or psychopath.
Excellent strawman. If people weren’t paying attention you might even get away with it. The claim isn’t that non catholics believe the clergy that condoms are immoral. They believe them that they don’t work
Emmet @22:
Vatican: condoms don’t stop Aids
Cardinal Alfonso Lopez Trujillo, president of the Vatican’s Pontifical Council for the Family: “The AIDS virus is roughly 450 times smaller than the spermatozoon. The spermatozoon can easily pass through the ‘net’ that is formed by the condom. These margins of uncertainty… should represent an obligation on the part of the health ministries and all these campaigns to act in the same way as they do with regard to cigarettes, which they state to be a danger.”
Archbishop of Nairobi, Raphael Ndingi Nzeki: “AIDS… has grown so fast because of the availability of condoms.”
Director of a Kenyan AIDS testing centre, Gordon Wambi, says he cannot distribute condoms because of church opposition: “Some priests have even been saying that condoms are laced with HIV/AIDS.”
In short: STFU.
David Colquhoun just last week wrote a great piece about the lingering infection of postmodernism in the humanities, and how it (particularly WRT philosophy of science) could cause real harm to the practice of natural science – that is, if actual scientists didn’t largely ignore them.
http://www.dcscience.net/?p=4799
Does anyone pay attention to postmodernism these days? After the Sokal Hoax didn’t all the postmodernists realize nobody* takes them seriously?
*Other than other postmodernists, of course.