Greta Christina has been writing professionally since 1989, on topics including atheism, sexuality and sex-positivity, LGBT issues, politics, culture, and whatever crosses her mind. She is author of
The Way of the Heathen: Practicing Atheism in Everyday Life, of
Comforting Thoughts About Death That Have Nothing to Do with God, of
Coming Out Atheist: How to Do It, How to Help Each Other, and Why, of
Why Are You Atheists So Angry? 99 Things That Piss Off the Godless, and of
Bending: Dirty Kinky Stories About Pain, Power, Religion, Unicorns, & More, and is editor of
Paying For It: A Guide by Sex Workers for Their Clients. She has been a public speaker for many years, and many of her talks can be seen on YouTube. Her writing has appeared in multiple magazines and newspapers, including Ms., Penthouse, Chicago Sun-Times, On Our Backs, and Skeptical Inquirer, and numerous anthologies, including
Everything You Know About God Is Wrong and three volumes of
Best American Erotica. (Any views she expresses in this blog are solely hers, and do not necessarily represent this organizations.) She lives in San Francisco with her wife, Ingrid. You can email her at gretachristina (at) gmail (dot) com, or follow her on
Facebook.
People who are angry at a god are believers in that god.
God is not a hypothesis.
Now that’s an interesting hypothesis! Have any of its predictions been experimentally verified?
Actually, Brenda, God is a hypothesis. The God hypothesis is the claim that the universe is the way it is because a supernatural entity or force created it and/or intervenes in it. How is that not a hypothesis? And why should we not treat it as such?
“The God hypothesis is the claim that the universe is the way it is because a supernatural entity or force created it”
Well yeah that’s what the fundamentalists say. I’m agnostic and am taking a third (or forth) position between you and your favorite punching bag. Most of the time atheists are so unrelentingly dogmatic that they are incapable of thinking there could even be more than two positions.
Is that your world? Is it purely black or white, this or that, Either/Or? If so that is what we call stinkin’ thinkin’. It is this absolutist mentality that I am most opposed to.
Who told you God was a noun?
By amazing coincindence, today’s Jesus and Mo seems to have been guest writen by Brenda.
And I used to talk in the same exact meaningless, goalpost moving, seemingly-humble-but-really-arrogant way that Brenda does above. My guess? She’ll outgrow it.
“Who told you God was a noun?”
Every religious believer I’ve ever met? I think you called them fundamentalists.
Brenda, I am going to warn you now: You are in danger of becoming a troll, and of being banned from this blog.
Please read my comment policy. In particular, please read the section on comment hogging: excessive commenting by one person, to the point where that person’s conversation is dominating one or more threads. if you’re going to keep making the same arguments over and over again in every comment thread, regardless of their relevance and to the point where all threads are being dominated by you, you are going to be banned from further commenting. Thank you.
“if you’re going to keep making the same arguments over and over again in every comment thread”
I’m sorry. I’m just trying to explain myself. There do seem to be genuine misunderstandings going on so I just naturally try to restate my position in a way that can hopefully be understood.
I would think you’d enjoy a lively discussion. Which is all I see happening. No one getting upset, no ad homs that I can see. Just genuine differences of opinion.
Really, Brenda? You think calling people fundamentalists, accusing them of willful misunderstanding, and comparing them to Nazis isn’t ad hominem?
I say yet again: You are treading on very thin ice. I welcome genuine lively debate in this blog. I do not welcome trolling or comment hogging. Please read my comment policy, and respect it. Thank you.
Well yeah that’s what the fundamentalists say. I’m agnostic and am taking a third (or forth) position between you and your favorite punching bag.
Well, looking at your position as stated here it is more that you think by slagging atheists AND theists you can claim intellectual superiority without actually having to do any of that difficult thinking stuff.
Hence your appeal to the golden mean, and your argument of dogmatism.
Never once in my life have I heard a fundie claim this, but, then again, Brenda says it, and her pronouncements cannot be questioned, less we show ourselves as fundamentalists in doing so.
What, pray, are those positions? Seriously! Is there anything there at all? It doesn’t take many waffling comments form you for us to realize that you are all talk and hot air, with no substance.
You’re just jerking off, and I do not recall having consented to being your figurative sex-toy, so kindly leave us alone, pick up a crappy romance novel and go relieve yourself in private, like the decent people do.
Greta
“You think calling people fundamentalists, accusing them of willful misunderstanding, and comparing them to Nazis isn’t ad hominem?”
I’ve always been careful to say ‘some’ or ‘many’ or restrict myself to ‘New Atheists’.
Fundamentalism is synonymous with absolutism or scientism or black and white thinking and yes, many atheists today are guilty of Fundamentalism so understood. There is often a considerable amount of strawmaning that goes on among New Atheists today when they try to argue that religious fundamentalists are the only true members of their respective religion (Christian, Muslim or Judaism).
And no, I never compared anyone to the Nazis. I said that is where any ethical theory ends up that sees facts as determining values.
“Please read my comment policy, and respect it.”
I believe I am.
“You’re just jerking off, and I do not recall having consented to being your figurative sex-toy, so kindly leave us alone, pick up a crappy romance novel and go relieve yourself in private, like the decent people do.”
That’s a pretty clear ad hom and in violation of Greta’s comment policy. Unable to argue or to engage in discussion you instead resort to sexual attack. Pathetic.
“I’ve always been careful to say ‘some’ or ‘many’ or restrict myself to ‘New Atheists’.”
Who, exactly, are the “New Atheists”? How would somebody be able to tell whether they were included in this category?
Valhar2000, sweetie, you know I adore you, but in this particular case, Brenda is right. It’s a moot point, since she’s been banned from the blog; but please don’t inject this kind of personally insulting language into my blog. Thanks.
Fundamentalism is synonymous with absolutism or scientism or black and white thinking and yes, many atheists today are guilty of Fundamentalism so understood.
Just for the lurkers here – no it is not.
Fundementalism is an appeal to certain fundemental principles, it is in the sodding word.
This is NOT the same as black and white thinking – fundementalism can actually include moderate positions. In fact Taoism has as one of its fundementals the idea that you should maintain balance in all things.
While scientism may count as some sort of fundementalism – if you could identify just what fundemental principles are involved – it is not synonomous with the effing word.
If it was synonomous then we could claim that communism, theocracy, monarchy, fascism and democracy are all the same thing because they are all governmental systems – and therefor synonyms.
/sub-editor rant
And by the way black and white thinking is not always wrong – if you think about it, we are all fairly black and white on the issue of slavery – it is wrong, even if you only enslave foreigners.
Ditto genocide – we don’t think homocide is particularly admirable.
The general principle argument against binary thinking is a form of sloppiness that is frequently demonstrated by people who want to look smart, even though they really, really aren’t.
While the truth MAY be in the middle on certain issues, centrism could just as easily be completely wrong, and an extreme could just as easily be right. Moderation or extremity do not actually define whether an argument is right or wrong in and of themselves.
In order to adopt a moderate position respectably one must have every bit as good an argument for it as the extremes have for theirs, one can’t just bleat about what a black sheep you are being.
No matter the colour its wool, a sheep is still wolf food. Arguments, are the domain of wolves.
/logic rant