Comments

  1. janine says

    Great! Throw in just a little bit of teh gay in this and now no decent fundie will read about this.

    Bear cum? Wonder how one survives that encounter.

  2. Antiochus Epiphanes says

    Bear cum? Wonder how one survives that encounter.

    I don’t know. I am not caught up with the most recent season of Man vs. Wild.

  3. SallyStrange (Bigger on the Inside), Spawn of Cthulhu says

    Attempting first solid food in two days: rice with black beans and veggies. Wish me luck!

  4. The Laughing Coyote (Canis Sativa) says

    Markita Lynda: Thank you, but I got a hell of a good deal on a shitload of slightly discolored weed that’s been in my dealer’s freezer for a long time. All of it still incredibly smokable, all of it almost as low as half what I’d normally pay.

    It’s helping me immensely. I think I’ve been ‘ready’ for a while, I just didn’t have the push of necessity. However, if I do relapse, I’ll remember what you said. :)

  5. says

    I know there’s supposed to be a 3 post rule suggestion here, but I think simonganfieldchristian’s very 1st post qualifies as 3, if just for length.

    So Simon, here’s your porcupine.

    BTW, simonganfieldchristian, if that is your real name, people have morality despite the teachings of religions. Your violent, sadistic, immoral god is a prime example.

  6. consciousness razor says

    Walton:

    The FCC does have authority to regulate deliberate distortion of the news.

    Except when it doesn’t, as in the case you were talking about. If you don’t realize that, then it looks to me as if you actually agree with the decision, which would be silly.

    ———

    Simon Ganfield, Methodist Christian, Leeds, godbot du jour:

    So about morality existing before Christianity ever existing: Wasn’t the original point actually about morality coming from religion in GENERAL?

    Why would that be the point? Have you ever asked chimps about their religious beliefs and practices? (I mean formally in a survey, not just casually while throwing poop at each other or something.)

    I think the person who said this was guilty of switching the goal posts.

    You mean, like, when asked if a god exists, they brought up the origin of morality instead?

    In any case, here’s some examples of morality (positive, btw) established by religion:
    [useless bullshit]

    Uh… thanks, but no thanks.

    Atheism and Marxist Communism: I don’t even think people actually grasp what Marxist Communism is when they deny atheism has anything substantial to do with it. know the kind used by Mao Lenin Trotsky and most of Castro?

    Atheism is a natural and inseparable part of Marxism, of the theory and practice of scientific socialism. So who do you think is a bigger expert in Marxist Communism and what it entails? Is it I) Lenin or II) the Pharyngula/FTB blogs bunch?

    *chuckle*

    Maybe it will help if you draw yourself a Venn diagram. (No, not this one, but you might save it for later.) Atheism overlaps with Marxism, sure, just like Christianity does. But they’re not equivalent or inseparable. They don’t logically entail one another.

    People who always claim what any intelligent loving God with the Three Os should be thinking: seriously, do you think we know the mind of God so well that we believe that this universe is the first? The last? The most recent? We know not the mind of God and the best we can do is attempt to live up to his expectations of us. It is the movement towards perfection. It is the journey and not the destination.

    Simon, what’s a “god” supposed to be, and how do you know there is one (or two or three or whatever)? If you think it* expects you to move toward perfection, I imagine you’ve probably thought about this. Would you share your thoughts on that (preferably in 10,000 words or less)?

    *Since you refer to this god fellow with male pronouns, why do you think he has a penis? Is it for breeding purposes or just for show?

  7. changeable moniker says

    Also watch this video: [Hitchens, Dawkins, Hitchcock sounds]

    “The best data we have [concerning the Big Bang] are exactly what I would have predicted, had I nothing to go on but the five books of Moses, the Psalms, the Bible as a whole.”

    No. Read this:

    I once asked a distinguished astronomer, a fellow of my college, to explain the big bang theory to me. He did so to the best of his (and my) ability, and I then asked what it was about the fundamental laws of physics that made the spontaneous origin of space and time possible. “Ah,” he smiled, “now we move beyond the realm of science. This is where I have to hand you over to our good friend, the chaplain.” But why the chaplain? Why not the gardener or the chef? Of course chaplains, unlike chefs and gardeners, claim to have some insight into ultimate questions. But what reason have we ever been given for taking their claims seriously?

    Link

  8. says

    “The best data we have [concerning the Big Bang] are exactly what I would have predicted, had I nothing to go on but the five books of Moses, the Psalms, the Bible as a whole.”

    Explain? The snake the garden the tablets the rape what?

  9. kristinc, ~delicate snowflake~ says

    Alethea: he’s off somewhere giggling to himself about how he completely devastated those New Atheists with his dazzling arguments.

  10. walton says

    Except when it doesn’t, as in the case you were talking about. If you don’t realize that, then it looks to me as if you actually agree with the decision, which would be silly.

    It looks to me like you haven’t read or understood what I wrote about the decision.

    The question is not whether the FCC has power to regulate distortion of the news. It does have, and sometimes exercises, that power – as was observed in the case, in which it was noted that the FCC has an agency policy of taking into account deliberate distortion of the news in considering complaints against federally-licensed broadcasters.

    The issue was whether the FCC’s policy on distortion of the news qualified as a “law, rule or regulation” within the meaning of a specific Florida employment law statute designed to protect whistleblowers in companies. (As far as I understand it, the whistleblower statute is designed to protect from retaliation an employee who reports to the authorities a violation of law at hir workplace – say, illegal toxic waste dumping, or a health and safety violation.) In this case, the court held that it did not, because the FCC’s policy was not codified in a federal regulation and had not been promulgated by the agency as a formal rule; it was just a policy. As a result, the journalists concerned were not reporting a violation of a “law, rule or regulation” within the meaning of the statute, and therefore were not entitled to whistleblower protection.

    There’s plenty of room for debate about how, if at all, the FCC should regulate distortion of the news. But that wasn’t the issue here. The issue was whether breaching an FCC policy amounted to “violation of a law, rule or regulation” within the meaning of a particular Florida state statute. Somehow, in the blogosphere, this technical legal issue got spun into something entirely more significant and dramatic than it actually was.

  11. janine says

    Is there any logic to spam and the suppliers who send them? I got a “flirt” from a moniker called “Terry WetWet”. I have my kinks. Being a mommy for ABDL is not one of them.

  12. consciousness razor says

    It looks to me like you haven’t read or understood what I wrote about the decision.

    Perhaps, but we may also just disagree about it. Not the most charitable assumption you could’ve made.

    In this case, the court held that it did not, because the FCC’s policy was not codified in a federal regulation and had not been promulgated by the agency as a formal rule; it was just a policy. As a result, the journalists concerned were not reporting a violation of a “law, rule or regulation” within the meaning of the statute, and therefore were not entitled to whistleblower protection.

    To me that means it does not regulate distortion of the news by protecting employees from retaliation for whistle-blowing when they claim the news is being distorted. I had thought that would be a fairly important (if not necessary) power to have in order to effectively regulate distortion in the news — wouldn’t you agree?

    Somehow, in the blogosphere, this technical legal issue got spun into something entirely more significant and dramatic than it actually was.

    Why do you think it isn’t very significant?

  13. walton says

    It looks to me like you haven’t read or understood what I wrote about the decision.

    Bleh. That was unnecessarily harsh on my part, and I apologize. I’m just stressed at the moment for other reasons.

  14. walton says

    To me that means it does not regulate distortion of the news by protecting employees from retaliation for whistle-blowing when they claim the news is being distorted.

    That’s not up to the FCC. The regulation of employment contracts is a matter of state law: in this case, the court’s interpretation of Florida state law.

    I’m certainly not saying it’s a good situation, but most US states’ employment law is awful in any case, in comparison with other developed countries; the institution of the “at-will” employment contract makes it absurdly easy for employers to fire people for bad reasons, without legal redress.

    ====

    Of note: Rhode Island religious leaders defend Jessica Ahlquist.

    More broadly, I really dislike the meme that seems to have become prevalent in certain atheist circles that “religious moderates just provide cover for the extremists”. It certainly isn’t universally true, and as a generalization it can be unfair; I’ve known plenty of progressives and social justice activists who happen to be religious.

  15. consciousness razor says

    I’m just stressed at the moment for other reasons.

    It’s okay. Have a virtual Diet Mountain Dew, on me.

    But not literally on me. Virtually is fine if you ask nicely.

  16. consciousness razor says

    The regulation of employment contracts is a matter of state law: in this case, the court’s interpretation of Florida state law.

    I haven’t read the case, but I understand that well enough. The point is that the FCC should have such a law that applies in every state, not just some feeble “policy.” They apparently don’t, which is why they’re worse than useless.

  17. walton says

    It’s okay. Have a virtual Diet Mountain Dew, on me.

    Ha. As it happens, as you posted that I was just trying to decide whether to have a real one. I wanted one, but, on the other hand, last night I was so afflicted by the buzz from too many caffeinated beverages that I couldn’t get to sleep, despite being very tired.

    (I eventually settled for a Coke Zero. Which of course still contains caffeine, but what the hell. I have multiple papers to read by tomorrow.)

  18. says

    More broadly, I really dislike the meme that seems to have become prevalent in certain atheist circles that “religious moderates just provide cover for the extremists”. It certainly isn’t universally true, and as a generalization it can be unfair; I’ve known plenty of progressives and social justice activists who happen to be religious.

    You’re generalizing one reading of statements to that effect. When I’ve made a general point about religious moderates (of any definition) in relation to extremists, I’m talking not about their politics or the content of their beliefs but about the fact that by endorsing and practicing faith they epistemically support the extremists. (It was seriously frustrating trying to explain this to that determined dimwit Be Scofield.) It’s true that some people make that argument in the sense you’re suggesting, but that isn’t the “meme” I and many others I’ve read endorse.

  19. walton says

    Wow.

    Natalie Reed’s latest post is incredibly powerful. I’m very glad she’s here at FTB.

    ====

    It’s true that some people make that argument in the sense you’re suggesting, but that isn’t the “meme” I and many others I’ve read endorse.

    True, and I wasn’t intending to refer to your more nuanced view. I should have made that clear. But I have heard atheists making the (false) empirical claim that religious progressives don’t ever stand up to, or speak out against, the fundamentalists and extremists.

    …but about the fact that by endorsing and practicing faith they epistemically support the extremists.

    Yep, and I think that’s a much stronger argument. Greta Christina made a similar point here, IIRC. The argument, as I understand it, runs thus: the basic problem with religious faith of any kind, even progressive religious faith, is that it has no epistemological mechanism of self-correction; if we abandon empirical evidence and simply rely on faith, we have no objective means of distinguishing between true and false claims. And so, although religious progressives may strongly disagree with religious conservatives on social and moral issues, they’ve still conceded to the latter the basic assumption that religious beliefs are authentic sources of knowledge and that religious arguments are an appropriate foundation for ethics; and framing the discourse in those terms gives the religious conservatives more power than they ought to have.

    I think that’s true, up to a point. Though in my case, since the issue which I personally have chosen to invest time in is that of justice and equality for immigrants, I often find that progressive religious people (see, for instance, the Boston New Sanctuary Movement) are important allies. (And, conversely, that many atheists – particularly the anti-Muslim fanatics like Harris and Condell – are actively working against social justice on those issues.)

  20. walton says

    (And, conversely, that many atheists – particularly the anti-Muslim fanatics like Harris and Condell – are actively working against social justice on those issues.)

    (Which is not to say that there aren’t also lots of atheists on the right side of those issues. But the problem is that the organized atheist and secularist movement seems to be regrettably full of people who are infatuated with the likes of Sam Harris, and who think Islam is the Worst Thing Ever, while failing to recognize the danger of playing right into the hands of the xenophobic far right. Pharyngula is an oasis of sensible views on that issue, generally, but sadly I can’t say the same for the entirety of FtB or its commentariat, let alone the atheist blogosphere in general.)

  21. Pteryxx says

    Walton, not that I mind (as I read and hoard some of what you write here), but do you have some idea of how much time you spend commenting that may take away from what you’re supposed to be reading and studying? (…and sleeping?)

    When I was less traumatized, I settled on about a five-to-one ratio of study to internet, which seemed my optimal balance of concentration versus break-time-flexibility-retention.

  22. says

    Pteryxx:

    Walton, not that I mind (as I read and hoard some of what you write here), but do you have some idea of how much time you spend commenting that may take away from what you’re supposed to be reading and studying?

    Yeah, but remember he’s in law school: A nontrivial amount of the stuff he writes here reads like his homework! (Not that I mind; the legal analysis is fascinating.)

  23. says

    True, and I wasn’t intending to refer to your more nuanced view. I should have made that clear….

    Correct. :)

    Yep, and I think that’s a much stronger argument.

    My point is that this is and has long been our argument (and not just mine and GC’s). It’s annoying that religious people and their mouthpieces like Be simply refuse to recognize that we’re not making the other claim you’re talking about. They’re not variants; hat’s a completely different claim.

    I think that’s true, up to a point.

    No, it’s true, period. When it comes to making alliances (or dealing with religious people in general) other considerations can come into play. But that makes that argument no less correct.

    Though in my case, since the issue which I personally have chosen to invest time in is that of justice and equality for immigrants, I often find that progressive religious people…are important allies.

    But you should also keep in mind that (beyond the most superficial alliances) religious groups are never uncomplicated allies for atheists on any issue. That doesn’t mean, of course, that you shouldn’t work with religious groups, but the longer you’re at it the more you’ll experience the complications.

    Also, that’s the issue you’ve chosen to focus on, but you shouldn’t lose sight of the fact that the epistemic question is a fundamental one that pervades every important issue, including that one (evidence does not play a negligible role there, and you can’t choose which religious beliefs or organizations – including extremist ones – come into play in immigration struggles).

  24. walton says

    When I was less traumatized, I settled on about a five-to-one ratio of study to internet, which seemed my optimal balance of concentration versus break-time-flexibility-retention.

    In my case, the ratio of late has been more-or-less the other way around. Which is not ideal. But still.

    Yeah, but remember he’s in law school: A nontrivial amount of the stuff he writes here reads like his homework!

    Ha. Often I wish it were. (Commenting on Pharyngula has occasionally actually coincided with the stuff I’m studying: I remember that the Pope’s visit to Britain, and the whole “Arrest the Pope” movement, came about just when I was studying sovereign immunities in international law for my first law degree.)

    However, when discussing legal matters here – particularly those I haven’t studied or worked on recently, or at all – I often find myself on Westlaw researching to make sure I’m getting it right. Sometimes it feels like I’m giving myself a whole extra set of homework assignments by commenting here. But I feel a responsibility to be accurate, even in comments on the internet, and I am, perhaps, more afflicted than most by SIWOTI syndrome.

  25. Pteryxx says

    Walton: may I suggest, read a paper and SIWOTI as the reward? <_< I feel bad about benefiting from all that sleep you're not getting.

  26. Dhorvath, OM says

    Yeah, not exactly the way I like to contribute to other’s lack of sleep. The great thing about the internet is that conversations can take a day or two.

  27. says

    Also via JoeMyGod but less amusing: An ultra-Orthodox landlord calls on other black-hat landlords in Crown Heights to not rent to non-Jews.

    More charming commentary from black hats. The Latinas in the article started their own business, they make their own environmentally friendly cleaners, they look out for their workers… and in the comments, the pigfucking ultras are yelling about “illegals who don’t speak English” (because their own is always so good, right), with additional yelling about OWS.

    Hats off to “Darth Zeida” (Darth Grandpa) in there, who sounds like a decent human being.

  28. Rev. BigDumbChimp says

    Happy Burns night (thought it’s past in Scotland at this point)

    Oh whisky! soul o’ plays and pranks!
    Accept a bardie’s gratefu’ thanks!
    When wanting thee, what tuneless cranks
    Are my poor verses!
    Thou comes – they rattle in their ranks,
    At ither’s arses!

    Fortune! if thou but gie me still
    Hale breeks, a scone, an’ whisky gill,
    An’ rowth o’ rhyme to rave at will,
    Tak a’ the rest,
    An’ deal’t about as thy blind skill
    Directs thee best.

    Sláinte!

  29. says

    It’s essentially the same issue as science/religion incompatibility. Many people – in my experience, mostly religious apologists and accommodationists – want to treat this as a sociological or historical question. The fact of incompatibility leads us, I think, to certain social predictions, but it doesn’t itself admit to that sort of evidence.

    Faith is an epistemic (and thus moral) failure, and this is at the heart of every religious belief, whether it’s progressive or conservative in its time or place. We can find religious people who are scientists and religious organizations that aren’t, sociologically speaking, hostile to science, but the epistemic conflict is still there. We can point to religious groups that support progressive causes, but the epistemic-moral failure still exists, and has a broader meaning. My expectation is that this in most cases makes things easier for religious extremists in practice in the long run, amongst other effects, and I think that’s been the case. But I don’t need to point to sociological evidence to support the epistemic argument, and the evidence of progressives who do work against extremists and support progressive causes doesn’t speak to the epistemic failure at all.

    Moreover, addressing epistemic failure, to me, is itself a central and urgent progressive cause.

  30. Pteryxx says

    Heck, the problem now is FTB having so frickin’ many Must-Read-Awesome blogs that it’s taking me forever to get through the 40-some tabs every day. Maybe we need to do like Sb and have Editor’s Picks.

  31. Mr. Fire says

    Happy Burns night

    Recipe for Haggis:

    Take all the choiciest, tastiest parts of the sheep

    Throw all that away

    Boil the rest with some sawdust in a plastic bag for about 28 days

  32. Rev. BigDumbChimp says

    Recipe for Haggis:

    Take all the choiciest, tastiest parts of the sheep

    Throw all that away

    Boil the rest with some sawdust in a plastic bag for about 28 days

    You forgot the most important step

    Drink a lot of whisky

  33. Chris Booth says

    I do not know why, but I have had trouble posting one post. This is a test, to see if the problem is that I can’t post at all? I tried numerous times to post this in the thread on the Pope’s denigration of the Internet and his praise of Twitter.

    _________

    Are you saying the Pope is twittering?

    That he is a twit[terer]?

    That Bene Dic’t will give the lads a tweat?

    He likes Twitter because you can’t get information from Tweets the way you can, say, those information-overloading nasty sites like Berkley.edu or Stanford.edu or talk.origins, etc., that will seize the hearts and minds of the young from the sinister side with heavy-handed dull material fact, rather than the dexterous way he lightly reaches round for them!

    But also….All those lovely Ts [pronounced “tease”]! Three of them! “twitter!” Its so woody! Its like the silhouette of Golgotha in a single Word!

    And, oh, he do like his Ts! Those altar boys, in their clean white lacy gowns, and under them their soft young rounded smooth warm firm as-yet-unsullied virginal flesh, gently, lovingly parted rondures pursed and dewy as lips at communion awaiting the supreme unction of the orb and sceptre of Papal office….Oh….What’s a Pontiff to do?

  34. Weed Monkey says

    Recipe for Haggis:

    Take all the choiciest, tastiest parts of the sheep

    Throw all that away

    Boil the rest with some sawdust in a plastic bag for about 28 days

    I know you’re kidding, but attitude like that is the reason why most contemporary Finnish sausages are 75% lean meat, packed with MSG and devoid of any flavour.

    Clenched tentacle salute to offal, haggis and ryynimakkara!

  35. Pteryxx says

    Moreover, addressing epistemic failure, to me, is itself a central and urgent progressive cause.

    Scuse me, can I ask what y’all mean by “epistemic failure” of a general philosophy here? All the dictionaries say is “relating to or involving knowledge”. But I don’t remember anyone suggesting “epistemic” instead of “reason-based” or “truth-based” whenever a discussion of terminology arises. (That could just be because it’s ugly, though.)

  36. walton says

    SC:

    That doesn’t mean, of course, that you shouldn’t work with religious groups, but the longer you’re at it the more you’ll experience the complications.

    Also, that’s the issue you’ve chosen to focus on, but you shouldn’t lose sight of the fact that the epistemic question is a fundamental one that pervades every important issue, including that one (evidence does not play a negligible role there, and you can’t choose which religious beliefs or organizations – including extremist ones – come into play in immigration struggles).

    I see what you mean, and I agree that evidence is incredibly important on the immigration issue; it was, after all, empirical evidence which convinced me that protectionist immigration laws are both unnecessary and extremely harmful. In my experience, though, progressive discourse on immigration, including both that which comes from progressive religious initiatives and that which comes from human rights groups, tends to be primarily evidence-based, being grounded in the actual real-world effects of unjust immigration laws and their devastating impact on many people’s lives. And insofar as it rests on ethical values, the core of the ethical message is one on which compassionate, progressive people of all persuasions should be able to agree: that arbitrary factors like one’s birth and ancestry should not determine one’s rights; that migrants should not be exploited, dehumanized, or treated as “problems” rather than people; that families should not be torn apart by arbitrary immigration laws; that people should not be deported to dangerous places where they face the risk of death or torture; and that Western countries’ existing immigration laws are grounded in racism and xenophobia. All of these values are, or ought to be, as acceptable to humanists as they are to progressive religious believers.

    And the only religious group with which I’m involved are the Unitarian Universalists, who don’t necessarily profess “faith” in the conventional sense (although they’re still regarded as “a faith group”) and who don’t require belief in the supernatural, so most of these considerations don’t apply to the same degree. Of course the UUs are very unusual in this regard, and I couldn’t in good conscience be deeply involved with any other religious group, even an extremely progressive one; because I am not a theist, and, since I believe in intellectual honesty, I could not profess beliefs that I consider to be false. But the UUs do participate in interfaith partnerships on social justice issues (immigration, environmentalism, peace and nonviolence, LGBT rights and so forth), something of which I’m generally supportive.

    In this regard, it has to be pointed out that religious faith groups – in America especially, and to a lesser extent in other Western societies – tend to receive a substantial degree of deference and respect, and to be treated as authorities, in matters of conscience. You can argue that in a rational society religion would not receive this privileged status, and I agree. But as long as society works this way, I’m supportive of progressive religious groups that choose to use that platform of privilege for good rather than harm. I’m a big fan of People of Faith against the Death Penalty, for example, as well as the Boston New Sanctuary Movement which I linked earlier.

    I understand what you’re saying about epistemology, and it is a real problem. I’m not entirely convinced that an epistemic failure is always or necessarily a moral failure, but of course it can be – ignoring climate change or opposing vaccines because of false beliefs about reality can certainly lead to catastrophically bad moral consequences, for instance. And that’s why I support evidence-based political solutions; but I’m also happy to work with progressive religious people who share the same political and social goals, even if I don’t agree with them on everything.

  37. Chris Booth says

    My last few attempts to post to Pharyngula have not been successful. I’ve tried two browsers.

    Please excuse this test post. I want to see if I can post at all, or whether that particular post is somehow anathema.

  38. walton says

    Chris: Maybe it’s going into moderation? As I understand it, that could happen either because of a keyword trigger or because of too many links (it’s happened to me lately on other blogs, though not here). What error message are you getting?

  39. walton says

    and that Western countries’ existing immigration laws are grounded in racism and xenophobia.

    (…and that racism and xenophobia are morally wrong, of course. But that shouldn’t be a controversial ethical proposition.)

  40. John Morales says

    Simon Ganfield purportedly defends himself by criticising someone else’s deconversion by adducing PRATTs?

    (Drive-by volubility is boring)

  41. John Morales says

    Pteryxx:

    Scuse me, can I ask what y’all mean by “epistemic failure” of a general philosophy here?

    Unfalsifiable belief.

  42. cicely (Now With 37.5% Less Fleem!!) says

    Christiandudeguy, no one is likely to clog up Teh Thread with a point-by-point refutation of that huge mess you barfed up at 453, if only out of consideration for the weary scrolling-fingers of the readership. Pick your favorite item, defend it vigorously, and then move on to the next.

    Not barfing!
    YAAAY!

    Not barfing is good. In fact, I’ve been telling my stomach this very thing for the last hour or so, since it’s been giving barfing some very serious consideration. Three Tums™, and the queasies have been reduced to a mutinous grumble.

    Off to have another Tums™. ‘Night, all.

  43. says

    Recipe for Haggis:
    Take all the choicest, tastiest parts of the sheep
    Throw all that awayWeep in sorrow as the bloody knights, priests, kings, bankers and landlords ride off with it again

    Boil the rest with some sawdust in a plastic bag sheep’s stomach for about 28 days

    FIFY!

    And of course, drink a lot of whisky, if you’ve managed to hide it well enough.

  44. Antiochus Epiphanes says

    Starstuff 553: I’d expand on that. You aren’t bragging effectively until you name names. Spill, or meh to your brag.*

    Pteryxx: Walton has been at this for years**. His material is getting better and better. Don’t stifle him just when I need something interesting to read.

    *I won’t tell anyone. Pinkie swear.
    **I believe during this time he completed a degree at a very good school. In England.

  45. Pteryxx says

    Heck, if Walton’s got that much a case of the SIWOTI, then when I come in saying “Shouldn’t you maybe post less?” he’ll follow up with an exhaustively researched ten-page screed on why he shouldn’t.

  46. walton says

    Unfalsifiable belief.

    To be more precise, I’d say unfalsifiable fact-claims. For me, the problem with most religions (at least conventional theistic religions) is that they produce factual claims about reality that are based on “faith” rather than evidence; which deprives us of a coherent epistemology, because if we don’t look for empirical proof or disproof of a claim, how can we possibly distinguish between true claims and false ones? “Jesus was born of a virgin, died on the cross, and was physically resurrected from the dead” is a factual claim about specific historical events, and it’s one that isn’t supported by any strong evidence and that we have no convincing reason to consider to be true; it can thus only be accepted on faith. But if we accept claims about reality purely on faith, and don’t demand any evidence, how could we possibly claim to know which claims to accept as true and which to accept as false? If faith is all we need, how could we know that we should have faith in the Christian God and not in Allah, or Odin, or Thor, or Ahura Mazda, or the Horned God of Wicca? Clearly, the fact that one particular set of religious claims happen to be dominant in our culture is not a good reason for accepting those claims as truthful, or exempting them from the scepticism which we apply to all other claims. Which makes religious doctrine in general a matter of arbitrary assertions about things which we can’t possibly know to be true, and thus not very useful.

    But there are other beliefs which are unfalsifiable because they’re not fact-claims, and thus are simply not susceptible of empirical proof or disproof. A belief in “unconditional love and compassion”, or in “the inherent value and dignity of every human life”, for instance, is not falsifiable, because such a belief isn’t a factual assertion about reality; it’s a value-judgment about how we want to live our lives, how we want to treat each other and be treated by others, and what sort of society we want to live in.

  47. Antiochus Epiphanes says

    cicely: I clogged up the thread with just such a point-by-point …not really refutation,…but more like harassment of Simon Ganfield’s apologetic screed.

    Or I tried. This thread is nigh on uncloggable. Supply your own metaphor.

  48. Thomathy, now angrier and feminister says

    Hello, Thread. I don’t usually post here, let alone this late, but I just had a most painful conversation by text with a sort-of friend of mine regarding disbelief.

    Painful because this friend was of the variety that won’t answer a question about the state of their belief, instead insisting that they neither believe nor disbelieve (that logical pretzel always hurts my brain). Xe was also of the variety that believes everyone is right because we can never know for sure. That’s a difficult topic to address by text. There are too many errors in the foundation of that belief to even begin to chip at it.

    In the end, I had to end that subject of conversation because xe was becoming repetitive and started to accuse me of merely having an opinion for an argument, which was ironic because xe’s also of the variety that believes opinions should be respected because everyone’s entitled to them, and compared me to the Phelps’. To xe’s credit (ha), that comparison was clarified after my outrage at it, so it was just that they should be respected because they could be right, just as xe respects me because I might be right (after all, he’s the benevolent magic-fence sitter).

    I really can’t stand that kind of thinking. It’s worse than religious thinking in some ways, though it’s cut of the same cloth. It’s lazy and it’s uninformed. It’s ignorance set on a pedestal, spewing inane thoughts and thinking it’s got reality all sorted out. It’s religious thinking for the non-religious, for the ‘agnostics’ (read with bitter look and disgust).

    Is this thinking so pervasive? Are people really so ignorant and do people really just make up explanations for things when they don’t have the education to know reality?

    It’s awful. I’ve never come across it on a personal level before. I’m questioning whether, after such a conversation and after I had to shut it down for fear of making an enemy out of a sort-of friend, whether friendship is even possible. It’s not that I have contempt …well, maybe it is. No, it’s something else. I just hate the intellectual laziness, the proud ignorance and the insipid idea that everyone is right and xe’s some nonpartisan onlooker at a human spectacle?

    I imagine some refrain, ‘Oh, god? That’s below me. I don’t believe nor disbelieve. Anyone might be right, after all. We don’t have evidence for or against. I’ll just sit here on my magic-fence, while you be rude an argue. Oh, didn’t you know? It’s all just opinions anyway and opinions have to be respected.’

    Barf-gag!

    /rant

    I can go to bed without stewing now. Also, thoughts and responses to the questions are welcomed. I’m concerned, you see, that this is normal thinking and I’d like some reassurance otherwise. It’s shocking to experience it first hand. Now I know what people are talking about when they say they say they’ve had these conversations and how they wish to avoid them in the future. There’s no constructive conversation to be had with that kind of thinking. Ugh!

  49. says

    I’d expand on that. You aren’t bragging effectively until you name names. Spill, or meh to your brag.

    :D Ok. It was Sir Harry Kroto. I didn’t even personally invite him; he just saw our chalking on campus and decided to come. I’m pretty excited. I got a bunch of new people this meeting as well.

  50. Thomathy, now angrier and feminister says

    Hmm …consistent gender-neutral pronoun use fail. That’s a failed experiment. Not that his gender needed to be hidden, I just wanted to see if I could consistently apply a gender-neutral pronoun in the heat of typing. I get to keep practicing!

  51. Antiochus Epiphanes says

    Starstuff! That’s what I call nailing the dismount on that brag. Nice work. I bet your evening was more memorable than mine.

    Or perhaps not.

    This evening I washed and dried my bathrobe and took a long walk around my neighborhood.

    Then again, maybe yours was the more memorable evening.

  52. Rev. BigDumbChimp says

    And of course, drink a lot of whisky, if you’ve managed to hide it well enough.

    god damn revenue men

  53. Pteryxx says

    @Thomathy: interesting experiment. Did your writing look more stilted in the paragraph full of xe’s, or was it just me? Seems like the pronoun substitution was quite the cognitive burden ;> Oh, and I think the possessive would have been “xir” … I think?

    Sorry about your friend. I don’t have anything useful to say past that.

  54. chigau (同じ) says

    Thomathy
    You are in the right place.
    Have some Burns-Night-Appropriate beverage.
    Have you tried composing your comment in a word-processor and then replacing the pronouns?
    I know, kinda cheating, but Sláinte!

  55. theophontes, Hexanitroisowurtzitanverwendendes_Bärtierchen says

    @ LM

    A present for you: BBC interview with Marxist historian Eric Hobsbawm (Linky). Pithy discussion of degeneration of capitalism and the superfluity of people (eeuw) in production.

    @ Thomathy

    I think the word for that kind of wishy-washy agnosticism is “Nones”. People who said “None” when asked their religious identity. Though often, if pressed, some will spew a strange admixture of woo. There was a recent Pharyngula thread in this regard (Linky anyone?).

  56. theophontes, Hexanitroisowurtzitanverwendendes_Bärtierchen says

    PS: Found the link.

    PZ’s comment:”…that demographic called the Nones: people who don’t belong to a church, but maybe believe in a higher power. Or maybe not. It’s a broad catch-all category, so their beliefs are hard to categorize.”

  57. Pteryxx says

    chigau: what, the home page redesign for FTB? With so many blogs, the homepage and sidebar tools are getting overwhelmed; also there were some requests to move ad placement, over at Ed’s. Wasn’t there also something about a new logo?

  58. chigau (同じ) says

    Pteryxx
    Yeah. They™ keep telling us that things will get better but does anything ever happen?????
    They™’re as bad as … as … some other uh group

  59. theophontes, Hexanitroisowurtzitanverwendendes_Bärtierchen says

    @ LM

    I took one of the tests that you linked me to and the result came back as:

    Your data suggest little to no automatic preference between European American and African American.

    I am happy with the result as I was a little concerned that I would subliminally choose otherwise – given what I spoke of earlier.

    I did try to be as quick as possible and don’t feel I consciously tried to move the result. I wonder how I would have responded ten or twenty or thirty years ago. Would having lived in many different cultures tune out any subliminal discrimination over time? My guess is that it would. Are there any other tests you think might be suitable (is there a specific homophobia test for example)?

  60. says

    Chigau:

    So, everyone, everywhere is asleep?

    I’m not. I drove by a bit ago to mention my new anniversary edition of American Gods, but I guess that’s only exciting to me. I will be taking it to bed soon, though…

  61. chigau (同じ) says

    Caine
    I haven’t read American Gods. It’s on the list.
    Now, I’m to bed with whatever I was last reading on the ebook, possibly Jingo.
    Good night.

  62. says

    Theophontes:

    (is there a specific homophobia test for example)?

    An implicit association test? Yes there is, more or less. It’s about how you view/feel about gay and lesbian people. I took one some time ago in Project Implicit.

    I did a whole bunch of those, and there wasn’t one I didn’t do well on. For some odd reason, I can do them very quickly, too.

    Signing up for PI was interesting and fun.

  63. theophontes, Hexanitroisowurtzitanverwendendes_Bärtierchen says

    Almost 3 pm … time to brave the cold and get out of bed. “Sleep tight” to the horde on the other side of the planet.

  64. theophontes, Hexanitroisowurtzitanverwendendes_Bärtierchen says

    @ Caine

    Yes that is the site I went to. I presume I’ll have to sign up to see all the tests. I’m curious if aspects of my upbringing haven’t left a nasty payload of prejudice in my subconscious. (Though I highly suspect that I have come to grow out of this.)

    I’m not surprised you did well on those tests. (sends hug)

  65. says

    Theophontes:

    I presume I’ll have to sign up to see all the tests.

    Yes, you do, but it’s painless. It helps their research and taking the tests really is interesting.

    I’m not surprised you did well on those tests. (sends hug)

    I was! (Hugses back)

  66. Dhorvath, OM says

    I did the one about weight and such. I find timed tests like that very stressful, but results seemed promising.
    ___

    And American Gods has a re-edit. Interesting. I love that book.

  67. Therrin says

    Caine,

    I drove by a bit ago to mention my new anniversary edition of American Gods, but I guess that’s only exciting to me.

    Nah, I’ll be checking it out also (now that I know it exists -.-), although I’d much prefer a new novel to a re-release. Gaiman’s pretty high on my favorites list(s).

  68. Therrin says

    He’s one of the few authors whose books I enjoy reading multiple times. In fact, I think it’s about time I found my copy of Neverwhere again.

  69. Beatrice, anormalement indécente says

    Good morning.

    The tenth anniversary edition of American Gods is the one I mentioned buying about a month or so ago. I was a couple of books behind on my reading, so I only started it yesterday… and the my cold got the best of me and I fell asleep.

  70. KG says

    A present for you: BBC interview with Marxist historian Eric Hobsbawm – theophontes

    Thanks. I’ve been reading Hobsbawm’s four-volume history of the 1789-1991 period, which is excellently written, and uses (as is appropriate for a Marxist) an economic rather than political framework, although the latter, and the arts, sciences and other aspects of culture are also covered. He’s something of a living fossil, interesting in that he’s outlived the Leninist systems he placed his hopes in for decades*. I think he misidentifies capitalism’s greatest problem in the interview – he thinks it’s that people have become largely unnecessary to production; in fact, globally, there are more people than ever before employed in industry in the narrow sense, let alone those in services; I’d say it’s the overuse of natural resources: most urgently, the capacity of the environment to absorb our waste products.

    *Caveat: China, Vietnam, North Korea and Cuba maintain the monopoly of power of a “vanguard party”, which was Lenin’s main practical contribution to the history of the 20th century, and very successfully in economic terms in the first two cases – at least up to now. But Hobsbawm is consistently very Eurocentric, and takes little interest in this.

  71. Josh, Official SpokesGay says

    O. M. G. In USA Yankee Land it’s zero-dark-thirty (6 a.m.) and I’ve been up all night. Why, you ask? Because I can never sleep when I have an early obligation—I’m normally a night person and I don’t get up before 9 a.m. So I didn’t want to sleep through my alarm.

    I have to actually put on a tie and go do a damned on-camera TV news interview for a work-related thing. Because that’s the only slot the station has to “accommodate me.” Shit, I’m doing them a favor!

    That is all.

  72. Dr. Audley Z. Darkheart, liar and scoundrel says

    Caine,
    I bought the tenth anniversary version of American Gods last week! My old paperback is falling apart, so I needed to replace it, anyway. :)

  73. carlie says

    Tomathy – your friend sounds like this xkcd.

    Yay Josh! You’ll be fine and not crash until after the interview.

  74. carlie says

    Oh, and Top Caterer Chef: LIKE A MEATBALL?

    Getting really tired of “your food wasn’t fantastic, never mind that we gave you 2 hours to cook for hundreds of people outside”.

  75. theophontes, Hexanitroisowurtzitanverwendendes_Bärtierchen says

    @ KG

    he thinks it’s that people have become largely unnecessary to production; in fact, globally, there are more people than ever before employed in industry in the narrow sense, let alone those in services; I’d say it’s the overuse of natural resources: most urgently, the capacity of the environment to absorb our waste products.

    His interview does strike a cord though. Particularly his comments about inequitous tendencies in capitalism – that are now becoming very apparent. The gap between rich and poor in countries like China (I gather also in the US) is a case in point.

    Work is there perhaps, but labour seems to be taking a lesser share of the growing cake. At the same time they are taking the heaviest blows from environmental degradation. To my mind the terms social and environmental are thoroughly interwoven anyway. (Trading marginal economic conditions for marginal environmental conditions.)

    But if capitalism is not sustainable in an environmental sense (I am with you here), it is also not sustainable in a social sense either.

    (I better start saving for his book before I stick my neck out too far.)

    @ Josh

    Star!

  76. says

    Hi there
    This morning, daughter #1 made the most painfull experience that your hair is indeed not a good place to keep a half-eaten sweetie for later…

    KG
    By law, you have to bring a sick-leave from your GP the first day, but most companies and public service give you the privilege of only having to do so at day 4. But that’s a privilege that can be revoked.

  77. Nerd of Redhead, Dances OM Trolls says

    Dang, I got the Redhead some shoes for Rehab from MegaloMart™ earlier, and it turned out not only were the two shoes of different sizes, they were both left feet. Must have some strange folks out there. So off to return that box and obtain the proper pair in the proper size before work.

  78. Therrin says

    Is there a page on the wiki about gendered insults that I’m not finding?

    Giliell,

    your hair is indeed not a good place to keep a half-eaten sweetie for later…

    I believe that lesson is a required part of all childhoods.

  79. ChasCPeterson says

    Is there a page on the wiki about gendered insults…?

    yes; it proscribes use of the word ‘bitch’ unless you are Ing or Josh.

  80. KG says

    His [Hobsbawm’s] interview does strike a cord though. Particularly his comments about inequitous tendencies in capitalism – that are now becoming very apparent. The gap between rich and poor in countries like China (I gather also in the US) is a case in point. – theophontes

    Yes, that’s been a very widespread within-country phenomenon over the past 30 years; the major exception at present being South America, which historically had very high inequality, but where a cohort of mostly leftish elected political leaders have brought the rates down considerably over the past decade. By some measures, global inequality has been falling, almost entirely due to the growth of the Chinese mddle class. Hobsbawm deals with the phenomenon insofar as it concerns Europe and the “neo-Europes” (not his phrase) of North America and Australasia. The period 1950-1973 saw the fastest global economic growth in history – largely due to the Marshall Plan, the Bretton-Woods system, and Keynesian demand management. Inequality fell in rich countries as heavily unionised workforces and welfare-state legislation gained working people a share of the wealth generated, but growth was fast enough to allow profits to rise as well. That “golden age” (Hobsbawm’s phrase) ended with the collapse of the Bretton-Woods system and the two oil shocks. Since then rich country ruling elites have fought a highly successful class war to hog practically all the increase in wealth and income. Until 2008, rich country consumer demand was kept up by an asset/credit bubble. Now that’s burst, the majority are actually beginning to notice how they’ve been fleeced.

    The big short-term questions now, I’d say, are whether the Eurozone will collapse, and whether China has sufficient domestic demand to keep growing at the 8% p.a. it needs to produce enough new jobs; if it does, it can possibly keep its own raw material and food suppliers in South America and Africa, and its other trade partners in Asia, growing too. Of course, despite introducing many aspects of capitalism, the PRC state still has far more leverage than in the west, because it still owns a lot of big banks and heavy industry.

  81. Second Cousin Ogvorbis, OM. Twice Removed by Request. says

    Next you’ll be telling us you really love Circus Peanuts.

    No. Those things are disgusting. Me dad liked ’em, though.

    =======

    James:

    If you have to put up with ‘Simon’ in meatspace, you have my profound sympathy. He managed to not only vomit up the standard apologetics, but also managed to screw them up.

    Yes, it is a bill to ban the use of fetuses in the food industry.

    In my mind, I heard the sound of a needle scratching all the way across an LP. If you don’t get it, just ask you parents.

    The best we can do is act randomly and hope it lines up with the thoughts of a mad man?

    No, no, no. We assume that god puts my beliefs into my head, so anything that I think is right (stoning homosexuals, voting for Santorum, marrying seven 12-year-olds at once) is what god wants.

    Archaeopteryx had black adorned feathers

    That is cool.

    I always liked the paintings of Archaeopteryx lithographica looing like a toucan, though. Nice and colourful.

    Fetuses tend to be over salted. It is not like you can make beef (baby) jerky out of it.

    But they are very tender, so stir-frying works wonderfully.

    Unfortunately, James decided that he suddenly couldn’t defend his beliefs anymore and jumped on the tiresome new atheist bandwagon.

    Why is honesty unfortunate?

    Happy Burns night

    The Scots celebrate an unethical, though very rich, nuclear plant owner?

    I know you’re kidding, but attitude like that is the reason why most contemporary Finnish sausages are 75% lean meat, packed with MSG and devoid of any flavour.

    Here in the states, you can still (if you know where to look) find the little, out of the way, butcher shoppes which sell such delectibles as sousse, meat pudding, scrapple, bladder sausage, pork roll, and other heart-stoppingly wonderful foods.

    I believe during this time he completed a degree at a very good school. In England.

    Yes, but he had to come to the US to learn how to be cruel, heartless, greedy, overbearing, racist, bigotted, Republican and fundogelica.

    No, he’s not doing very well with that part of his edjumacation.

    So, everyone, everywhere is asleep?

    I am now at work, wishing I were asleep. At the time your comment was made, I was reading Small Gods until I literally could not keep my eyes open. I may need to reread a couple of pages.

    Shit, I’m doing them a favor!

    That’s very nice of you.

    =======

    If is Friday! Of course, tomorrow I will be taking my 90-year-old neighbor to a doctors appointment and to lunch, cleaning the cat box, making guacamole, roasting some chile peppers for a salsa, reading, dealing with sleet, fixing a storm window that came off track, replacing a back step, and, generally, relaxing on my day off.

  82. says

    Caine, Fleur du Mal

    Stopped at the bookstore today, brought home the 10th anniversary edition of American Gods, with extra bits – ‘author’s preferred text’. Happy.

    Oooh. Want.

  83. Thomathy, now angrier and feminister says

    Pteryxx, if it seems stilted, it’s probably because I posted with virtually no editing. It probably says something about me if my natural writing is stilted. …Let’s hope it’s just the pronoun. Also, you’re probably right about the possessive. I admit to not having given it much thought.

    _______________________

    Chigau, thanks. No drinking for me last night. I just put in ear plugs and fell asleep. I was exhausted; it was over three hours after my usual bedtime of 10pm at the time of that post. As for replacing the pronouns with a search-and-replace, that’s not a bad idea at all, though the point is to change my mode of thinking in relation to pronouns. It’s actually amusing to me that I should want to do that now and in this way, because I’ve thought English should have a good, natural, gender-neutral pronoun ever since I was an overly-articulate little gay boy in primary school.
    (Interesting aside, but I’ve read in linguistic journals that gay boys tend to be more advanced in language use than their peers, though I can’t recall if that’s true over their lifetime or only up to a certain age. It probably explains my propensity towards linguistics, language always seemed especially natural to me.)

    And thanks for the link. I remember that thread. Yes, the ‘nones’. And it’s true that they’re hard to categorise, especially when it contains the twitty people who stupidly claim to neither believe nor disbelieve.

    _______________________

    Carlie, yes, that xkcd exactly.

  84. Thomathy, now angrier and feminister says

    Caine, Fleur du Mal, project implicit is awesome! I just did one of the studies, on association of a trait to a person with regards to whether irrelevant information would cloud the judgement. What a fascinating project. I’m going to do more.

  85. says

    Walton, #533:

    Er… what?

    Oh, not the video in the OP. I didn’t even watch it. Porno Pete is predictable. I meant the thread. However, I don’t think it’s your cup of Mountain Dew, really. It requires an…. earthy sense of humor to appreciate, let’s say.

    Thomathy:

    In the end, I had to end that subject of conversation because xe was becoming repetitive and started to accuse me of merely having an opinion for an argument, which was ironic because xe’s also of the variety that believes opinions should be respected because everyone’s entitled to them, and compared me to the Phelps’.

    I’m glad this is a “sort-of friend,” rather than an actual friend.

    Is this thinking so pervasive? Are people really so ignorant and do people really just make up explanations for things when they don’t have the education to know reality?

    It’s not ignorance, which is easily remedied by information. It’s intellectual laziness, it’s tribalism (insofar as religion goes), and it’s the whole “go along to get along” mentality. Plus considerable passive-aggression on that individual’s part.

    Therrin: I really don’t understand all the adoration of Neil Gaiman. I’ve only ever read Neverwhere, which was highly recommended to me, and I couldn’t get into it; I found the protagonist dull and much of the writing pretentious. So I relegated Gaiman to the “Meh, tastes are tastes” category… until he took up with Amanda Failtrain Palmer and has never seemed to have much of a problem with her various kinds of assholery. Not that he’s responsible for what she says or does, just that you have to wonder about his judgment.

  86. carlie says

    The weight test wasn’t there the last time I took an IAT; just did it and got “strong preference for fat people”. Know what that means? It means I am the 1%! Woo!

  87. Alukonis, metal ninja says

    Right, so, way, way upthread I was spazzing out about some guy I met and the terror of liking someone who wants to date you when you don’t date people.

    Well I totally went on a date last night, and it was totally a real date, for sure, and it ended with smooches. And I was all happy because I had fun and smooches! And then I was driving home and suddenly it was like AUGH AUGH WHAT JUST HAPPENED AUGH.

    Sssssssssso I’m still doomed.

    The cognitive dissonance of “hanging out having fun = friend, but smooches = just for sex” is going to have to get resolved somehow. I am super confused by everything and am considering going to talk to a psychologist because this panic feeling is probably not good. I don’t think that I have ever felt this comfortable with someone so fast and I don’t want to screw myself out of good things because I have some kind of bizarre relationship-phobia.

    And there is your daily dose of stupid drama yaaaaaaaaay thanks for “listening!”

  88. says

    @Tomathy:

    Be wary! Project Implicit can take your entire day away. You start now and in 8 hours you’ll feel a tug at your shirt “Can we have dinner now?” and some poor pitiful children looking at you with puppy-dog eyes and growling tummies (and if you have no children / they are grown, maybe just a dog with a food bowl, or a cat, or some other random tiny animal)

  89. Drolfe says

    [Delurk!]

    So, I got over myself and registered on FTB (improvement I guess, when registration was turned on at SB it took me years – didn’t post at all between 2007 and 2011).

    Just wanted to chime in and say, Walton, I appreciate your posts (even when you’re base-covering), and lately you really knocked it out of the park, imo with this short post. Yes, it’s been said and argued before and the point has been made by others (thank you too), but a great distillation.

    Keep being awesome, everyone! You must know multitudes are tuning in to follow the discussions here, and are grateful for them.

    Also, I wanted to pass this along: http://yoisthisracist.com/post/16475957156/kerrie-asked-is-this-racist-sexist-yo

  90. says

    Alukonis:

    The cognitive dissonance of “hanging out having fun = friend, but smooches = just for sex” is going to have to get resolved somehow.

    You know, if a man were here saying that he doesn’t like to hang out with the women he fucks, everyone would be jumping on him for being creepy.

  91. Private Ogvorbis, OM (Yeah, I volunteered (virtually)) says

    Alukonis:

    [puts on cardigan sweater, lights pipe (with tobacco!), smiles reassuringly]

    At the risk of sounding really obvious (and keeping in mind my severely limited exposure to dating (I have dated two women (not at the same time) and have been married to one of them for over 20 years))), relax. Really. If something develops, it develops. You can certainly work in that direction; just keep in mind that there are two minds at work here and they may not have the same goals. You like the person you went on a date with? Great. Make another date and see what happens.

    [takes off cardigan sweater, knocks dottle out of pipe, smiles reassuringly]

  92. Alukonis, metal ninja says

    @Ms. Daisy Cutter

    I don’t really know how to respond to that? NSA sex is just what I’ve always done, I don’t think it’s creepy. It’s not like I’m lying to people to get into their pants or something.

    @Ogvorbis

    Your advice is easier said than done. I am only dealing with this by lying to myself in my brain and thinking that nothing will happen ever, because thinking that something might happen is too scary.

  93. Dr. Audley Z. Darkheart, liar and scoundrel says

    Jeffery,
    The tenth anniversary edition is available on the Kindle, too. :)

    I haven’t, er, cracked it open yet (digitally speaking), but I am excited to have it both in hardcopy (the original, anyway) and as an e-book.

  94. says

    Sorry for the delayed response – had a kitteh on my lap and couldn’t bear to move him, and then I fell asleep.

    I see what you mean, and I agree that evidence is incredibly important on the immigration issue; it was, after all, empirical evidence which convinced me that protectionist immigration laws are both unnecessary and extremely harmful.

    And “harmful” can have various definitions, some of them religious. There are religious definitions of spiritual harm or religious pollution and such that are not based on the same meaning of harm that you’re using. Religious organizations at root give support to any and all of these definitions because of their basic epistemic failure.

    In my experience, though, progressive discourse on immigration, including both that which comes from progressive religious initiatives and that which comes from human rights groups, tends to be primarily evidence-based, being grounded in the actual real-world effects of unjust immigration laws and their devastating impact on many people’s lives.

    And insofar as it rests on ethical values, the core of the ethical message is one on which compassionate, progressive people of all persuasions should be able to agree: that arbitrary factors like one’s birth and ancestry should not determine one’s rights; that migrants should not be exploited, dehumanized, or treated as “problems” rather than people; that families should not be torn apart by arbitrary immigration laws; that people should not be deported to dangerous places where they face the risk of death or torture; and that Western countries’ existing immigration laws are grounded in racism and xenophobia. All of these values are, or ought to be, as acceptable to humanists as they are to progressive religious believers.

    Well, of course, but that’s hardly the point. It’s not surprising that the groups you agree with have many ideas that you share. But the two organizations (the second a coalition) that you’ve linked to profess ideas that are totally faithy.

    From the “About” page of the PFADP you linked to above:

    As people of faith, we know that the God of all faiths calls us to something more: a high and often difficult standard of love and forgiveness and a justice that is rooted not in retribution but rather in redemption and restoration. We believe that the death penalty denies the sacredness of human life. Spiritually, the death penalty robs us all.

    None of this is true. There is no god calling us to anything, redemption as used here is a religious term, human life isn’t “sacred,” and there is no such thing as being spiritually robbed. It doesn’t matter if you can frame some of these concepts in nonreligious terms, or that some of the concepts aren’t inherently religious. They’re false ideas believed on faith and that shape people’s actions.

    The Sanctuary site describes the group as “Called by our faiths to welcome the stranger” and they plan to “renew our study of the sacred stories of migration and hospitality, injustice, and hope that already exist in our own faith traditions.” Again, faithy. (I’ve always gotten a kick out of the “called by God” stuff. I’ve asked at least one or two people who base their relatively progressive environmental stance on what they think God wants whether if they found out they were wrong about the existence of God they would cease to be environmentalists, and haven’t yet received an answer.) Depending on the nature and length of the alliance, the fact that these groups have religious beliefs at the heart of their work might never pose a problem or come into play, but the issue is there regardless.

    And the only religious group with which I’m involved are the Unitarian Universalists, who don’t necessarily profess “faith” in the conventional sense (although they’re still regarded as “a faith group”) and who don’t require belief in the supernatural, so most of these considerations don’t apply to the same degree.

    The considerations I’m talking about always apply. All you’re saying is that they’re less faithy, which is true, but that’s perfectly consistent with my point that faith itself is inherently regressive. Practicing and promoting faith, including in furtherance of progressive goals as with these groups, is itself immoral and takes away an important weapon in our struggle against those opposing progressive movements. I think that in the long run (and I think history has born this out) faith-based activism of even the most progressive kind is more harmful than helpful and aids the Right. Because evidence, questioning, and challenges are weapons of the Left, while faith, obfuscation, and authority are weapons of the Right. And beliefs based on evidence – with the most faith removed possible – are always better and more moral guides to action, so the specific actions taken by social movements are warped by the inclusion of faith-based beliefs.

    I also don’t understand why you keep implying that I’ve argued that you (or anyone) shouldn’t work with or support any religious groups on any issue. I’ve had discussions about this here over several years, and that’s never been my position.

    Of course the UUs are very unusual in this regard, and I couldn’t in good conscience be deeply involved with any other religious group, even an extremely progressive one; because I am not a theist, and, since I believe in intellectual honesty, I could not profess beliefs that I consider to be false. But the UUs do participate in interfaith partnerships on social justice issues (immigration, environmentalism, peace and nonviolence, LGBT rights and so forth), something of which I’m generally supportive.

    But here are all of these other considerations (there are more!), which is all I was saying about the complications of this in practice. I’ve posted about and in support of some groups in Latin America that are quite religious. It’s just, as you’ve acknowledged, complicated, problems can and do arise, and ethical complicity is an issue.

    In this regard, it has to be pointed out that religious faith groups – in America especially, and to a lesser extent in other Western societies – tend to receive a substantial degree of deference and respect, and to be treated as authorities, in matters of conscience. You can argue that in a rational society religion would not receive this privileged status, and I agree. But as long as society works this way, I’m supportive of progressive religious groups that choose to use that platform of privilege for good rather than harm. I’m a big fan of People of Faith against the Death Penalty, for example, as well as the Boston New Sanctuary Movement which I linked earlier.

    Now, this I can’t agree with, for the reasons I’ve stated above. It’s one thing to say that you believe in allying with progressive religious organizations on issues important to you, with the understanding that these alliances aren’t simple and that to some extent even the alliance, to the extent that you’re silent about the faith nonsense, detrimentally supports faith. I think it’s naïve and counterproductive to support or use faith and deference toward religion in the way you seem to be verging on. Faith and privilege, like manipulation and indoctrination, are fundamentally conservative.

    I understand what you’re saying about epistemology, and it is a real problem. I’m not entirely convinced that an epistemic failure is always or necessarily a moral failure, but of course it can be – ignoring climate change or opposing vaccines because of false beliefs about reality can certainly lead to catastrophically bad moral consequences, for instance.

    No, it is. :)

  95. Private Ogvorbis, OM (Yeah, I volunteered (virtually)) says

    Your advice is easier said than done.

    All advice is that way. That’s why it is so easy to dispense. I’ll shut up on this issue then.

  96. says

    Ms Daisy Cutter,

    you link to one blog post by a disgruntled fan as evidence of Amanda Palmer being guilty of “assholery”.

    So I relegated Gaiman to the “Meh, tastes are tastes” category… until he took up with Amanda Failtrain Palmer and has never seemed to have much of a problem with her various kinds of assholery.

    As much as I have been suspicious of your hasty generalisations here before, this one I’d like to not just ignore with an eyeroll, but disagree with and counter with my own anecdote.
    Amanda Palmer didn’t seem assholey at all when she chatted to me a year ago on a balmy night, after her concert at the Great Northern Hotel in Newcastle, neither did she appear assholey in doing concerts in and for earthquake-stricken Christchurch. You not being “able to get into Neil Gaiman” is harldy his fault, nor that of his partner.

  97. says

    Alukonis, there’s nothing creepy about NSA sex, but being categorically unable to interact with a person you’ve had sex with as anything but a sex partner? Shades of douchebag men saying of prostitutes, “You don’t pay them to have sex, you pay them to leave,” because they don’t like women as people.

  98. Predator Handshake says

    I started to read American Gods a couple of years ago, got through the first section, and decided it wasn’t as good as I thought it would be and started reading something else. I blame a couple of my friends who kept going on about how it’s the best book ever, then later destroyed what faith I would have had in their opinions on books by talking about how totally awesome Fight Club was because fighting and anarchy and masculinity.

  99. theophontes, Hexanitroisowurtzitanverwendendes_Bärtierchen says

    @ KG

    [bucking the trend towards less equity in society]: mostly leftish … China [leftish]

    It is weird how few people get this. Here government is mediating between capital and labour in a way that respects the value of labour. This stands in marked contrast with the US, where capital and government appear to be neglecting (and worse) all but themselves – to disastrous effect. Here is a recent interview with Elizabeth Warren that goes into the too cozy relationship between government and elite capitalists, via lobbyists. Link. (John Stewart is the interviewer, enjoy.)

    Something I have noticed in China… There seems to be a gradual tendency in China to move towards a technocracy. (Elizabeth W. also notes the high levels of government investment in infrastructure and education in China.) I don’t see this as a bad thing. Treating the whole productive process as something that everyone subscribes to and benefits from in a substantially rational form. (I do have some concerns that the current tendency is skewed towards the rich and powerful. Nevertheless, this is something that can hopefully be grown out of.)

    the PRC state still has far more leverage than in the west, because it still owns a lot of big banks and heavy industry.

    Do the anti-government right in the US ever bring this up though? They seem to run against the grain in terms of what needs to be done.

    On the subject of “what needs to be done”: My take is that the US has to get really pragmatic an also to decide what their real values are. This means losing the hubris and rhetoric and taking a cold and hard look at what works. I am pretty damn sure this will come down to realising a solution that stands equally on the pillars of labour/government/capital. Any distortion of that potentially stable balance …. well, it is currently a pot on two legs.

    … As much as I click on your nym, it does not connect me through to a blog. When will this be remedied?

  100. says

    Rorschach, your fanboying of AFP is noted. Good to know that her being pleasant to you in passing or doing a few charity concerts outweighs her hipster racism, her ableism, and her playing rape as a joke.

    As much as I have been suspicious of your hasty generalisations here before

    That would bother me much more if I actually valued your opinions overall, especially on issues that affected people who aren’t straight white cisgender men.

    You not being “able to get into Neil Gaiman” is harldy his fault, nor that of his partner.

    I’m entitled to express my opinions on the artistic output of public figures, including the negative ones, without getting permission from their fan club first.

  101. cicely (Now With 37.5% Less Fleem!!) says

    cicely,
    So I should abandon my point by point address?

    By no means, Dhorvath; knock yourself out! I was just heads-upping Simon(??) that his stale venison teal deer might not get the kind of attention he thinks it deserves…especially since it wasn’t exactly novel material. I’m half expecting an indignant why-are-you-all-ignoring-my-opus whine, later on.

    I clogged up the thread with just such a point-by-point …not really refutation,…but more like harassment of Simon Ganfield’s apologetic screed.

    Indeed, and entirely for your own pleasure, ammirite? He’ll just have to rejoice in his good fortune. :)

    Thomathy, that’s what I call, “so open-minded that the winds blow through it”. And if you put your ear to xis head, you can probably hear the roar of the ocean! :^

  102. says

    especially on issues that affected people who aren’t straight white cisgender men.

    Whoa. OK. You carry on then. Who am I to disagree with anything you say, being a white cisgender man !

    Madness.

  103. Thomathy, now angrier and feminister says

    Katherine Lorraine, Chaton de la Mort, yeah, I just wasted two hours of my work day helped Project Implicit for two hours.

    I have neither children nor pets at home (never going to have them either), so I don’t have to worry about taking care of other beings (my plants are an exception, of course). No, if I were at home spending a day at Project Implicit, I would have chores looking at me scornfully and their eyes would inspire guilt and much furtive glancing as they pile up behind me. My partner would probably feel rather neglected, too. Well, that or left out.

  104. Matt Penfold says

    Kind of like how totally awesome the song “Born in the USA” is because patriotism and war and flag-waving.

    You do have to wonder if those “super-patriotic” Americans who think that song is about how wonderful the USS is have every listen to the lyrics, beyond the title.

  105. birgerjohansson says

    “Kind of like how totally awesome the song “Born in the USA” is because patriotism and war and flag-waving.”

    -Do people who say that actually listen to the lyrics???
    — — — — — –
    Professors argue flattening oil production should trump environment as reason to move to alternative sources http://www.physorg.com/news/2012-01-professors-flattening-oil-production-trump.html

    — — — —
    Ed Brayton: “Andrew Sullivan has a fascinating post about the nature of today’s Republican party in the wake of Newt’s win in South Carolina.” http://andrewsullivan.thedailybeast.com/2012/01/red-rage.html
    “In this universe, there is only black and white. There is only them and us. Anyone who diverges an iota from this schematic is speaking without a microphone in front of a revving airplane engine.”
    “…If you really have a cogent argument, you find yourself fired – like Bruce Bartlett or David Frum – or subject to blacklists, like me and Fox…”

  106. Alukonis, metal ninja says

    @Ms. Daisy Cutter

    Thanks for implying I’m a creepy douchebag. I really feel awesome about myself now. I’m so glad I decided to talk about this here so that I could feel like a terrible person in addition to already freaking out about this situation. Best decision I ever made!

  107. Antiochus Epiphanes says

    Cicely: I don’t really know why I do anything. But I will say that it pleased me.

  108. birgerjohansson says

    Matt beat me to it!
    — — — — — —
    NOOOO! Whisky a no go http://www.physorg.com/news/2012-01-whisky.html

    Microbubbles provide new boost for biofuel production http://www.physorg.com/news/2012-01-microbubbles-boost-biofuel-production.html
    Robot competition in zero-gravity http://www.physorg.com/news/2012-01-robot-competition-zero-gravity.html
    Scientists create first free-standing 3-D cloak http://www.physorg.com/news/2012-01-scientists-free-standing-d-cloak.html
    New study of hunter-gatherers suggests social networks sparked evolution of cooperation http://www.physorg.com/news/2012-01-hunter-gatherers-social-networks-evolution-cooperation.html

  109. says

    Religious organizations at root give support to any and all of these definitions because of their basic epistemic failure.

    If it makes my point a little more clear, they do this both in the sense GC and I and you are describing and in the sense, more serious in the long term, that they more generally support the making and accepting of claims on the basis of faith (and additionally the privileging of these claims and the people who make them). This is inherently conservative, and will never be a progressive set of practices.

  110. Pteryxx says

    @Alukonis:

    Sssssssssso I’m still doomed.

    Hee! Not to diss you, that just sounds SOOO much like me – “Something wonderful happened and/or people really seem to like me or like something I said/did, OHNOOO THE UNIVERSE IS GONNA GET ME–” Only I do it with recognition of my self-worth, not with sex per se. Yeah, I’d suggest you talk it out at length with someone, either a counselor or someone you trust. That sounds like a panic-denial reaction, not simply a personal preference for NSA sex.

    As for

    Alukonis, there’s nothing creepy about NSA sex, but being categorically unable to interact with a person you’ve had sex with as anything but a sex partner?

    I don’t count you as being creepy (and believe me, I’m looking) because a) you’re concerned about not breaking HIS heart, and b) you’re not pursuing sex at the expense of personhood, just of closeness. You said you’d be happy to have this guy as a friend without the sex. He could still get hurt, but it’d be because of your hang-ups, not because you’re callous. So, again, I think you need to look into yourself, preferably with someone as a sounding board.

    “Kind of like how totally awesome the song “Born in the USA” is because patriotism and war and flag-waving.”

    -Do people who say that actually listen to the lyrics???

    …Okay, “Born in the USA” is totally next on my study schedule of songs I’ve never heard.

  111. Thomathy, now angrier and feminister says

    cicely (Now With 37.5% Less Fleem!!), like putting your ear to a conch shell! I can’t think that a person like that could have much in common with me at all. People ask what my interests are, I am honest and they suddenly get stupid. It’s just as well that I’m more suited to having a few very close friends because it’s extraordinarily difficult to find people who have stuff between their ears.

  112. chigau (同じ) says

    Alukonis
    Commenting on blogs will get you responses.
    Some will be deliberately sympathetic, some will be deliberately cruel.
    I don’t know how but someone here can probably tell you how to install a killfile.

  113. says

    @Walton

    Just want to second SC’s explanation. You are buying into the misunderstood critics version of the claim. While it’s true we often to complain that moderates and liberals do not police the actions of the conservatives, the main point is one of epistemology. They’re promoting basically A) the Holy books are good authorities, B) That unconformable non-empirical methods of thought are beneficial and superior to reason.

    As another note, a big problem is that liberals and moderates often do fucking defend the conservatives, abet in an backhanded way. When shit goes down they come out to comment and very very often (though not exclusive) it will be a “Yes but” and then a defense of their religion. This is why the religion bolsters it, it is so fucking important to them that the issue of say priests raping children, takes a back seat to the reputation of their beliefs. That is fucking scary to me.

  114. Pteryxx says

    SC:

    Posted by: Damian | July 13, 2008 9:55 AM

    Sorry for such a long post. If only one person reads it — as most tend to skip over long posts, I’m sure — it will have been worth the formatting.

    …Argh, I thought I asked a simple question! *headdesk*

  115. says

    Alukonis:

    Thanks for implying I’m a creepy douchebag. I really feel awesome about myself now. I’m so glad I decided to talk about this here so that I could feel like a terrible person in addition to already freaking out about this situation. Best decision I ever made!

    Oh, for fuck’s sake.

    I did not call you a douchebag, nor did I call you yourself creepy. However, I do find your comments on this subject troublesome, for the reasons I outlined above, and I don’t think I’m obliged to bite my tongue.

    Rorschach: Thanks for proving my point.

  116. says

    @Walton

    Basically your complaint is like the “I don’t believe in the patriarchy as a valid model because it’s just a way for women to blame men for everything!”

  117. Predator Handshake says

    Ms Daisy Cutter: these guys are pros at picking out the worst parts of things and thinking they’re the best parts.

    They’ve become insufferably obsessed with Mad Men lately; one of them was on a date with a woman and texted my other friend that he was “Don Drapering this shit.” We were both worried that this meant he was doing some sort of 1960s PUA technique, but after we talked to his poor date we found out that he was just being incredibly pretentious about cocktails. While wearing a tie with jeans to a casual first date.

    I’m glad you posted those links about Amanda Palmer because they are also weirdly obsessed with her, mostly because of her association with Neil Gaiman and Jason Webley. I do like Jason Webley, but every time we go to see him play they get these strange ideas about how he’s going to recognize them from the last show and want to go to some fancy bar they found on the internet.

  118. Rev. BigDumbChimp says

    UGH (huffpo warning)

    theists have long criticised devout followers of faith. But now it seems Atheism is stealing from that very religious tradition by erecting a temple of worship.

    Author Alain de Botton announced plans to build an Atheist temple in the U.K., reports DeZeen magazine.

    A collaboration with Tom Greenall Architects, the structure will be built in the City of London.

    Dedicated to the idea of perspective, the black tower will scale 46 meters (150 ft), with each centimeter honoring earth’s age of 4.6 billion years, notes Wired.

    But a place of worship isn’t the only attribute from organized religion that Atheists can benefit from, says de Botton. In his newly released book “Religion For Atheists,” the author points to design, art and community to inspire and attract a following.

    Though de Botton has yet to announce a final date for opening the temple, he hopes to create a network of such buildings across the U.K., according to ArtsInfo.

    sigh

  119. says

    @Birgerjohansson

    Now that article does raise one very big question.

    Normally labeling something as radical is a good way to discredit them as empirically it seems to rigger a negative response regardless of what the actual actions or subject are.

    Does it do the opposite for science journalism; does labeling something radical and revolutionary cause it to be embraced by the layman who love an underdog and all that?

  120. says

    Oh the artical itself is absolute shit of course

    The earth is alive, asserts a revolutionary scientific theory of life emerging from Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine. The trans-disciplinary theory demonstrates that purportedly inanimate, non-living objects—for example, planets, water, proteins, and DNA—are animate, that is, alive. With its broad explanatory power, applicable to all areas of science and medicine, this novel paradigm aims to catalyze a veritable renaissance.

    A) this isn’t revolutionary or new. The Gaia hypothesis has been floated for decades. It’s acceptance tasks me.

    Also. Plants are non-living objects?

    I’m not sure how we’re supposed to trust an article that can’t get the fucking basics of biology right. I mean…fucking kindergarten level knowledge.

  121. says

    PH: Yeah, Mad Men is a huge magnet for idiots who think it’s an entirely unironic and apolitical celebration of the early ’60s.

    I never really knew much about Palmer until she started failing publicly and in spectacular ways, as her music is not my cuppa, but I can see how she would draw the sorts who think that bigotry is cool so long as it’s done with “style.”

  122. Rev. BigDumbChimp says

    NOOOO! Whisky a no go http://www.physorg.com/news/2012-01-whisky.html

    What a terrifically stupid idea.

    I buy whisky. I buy Scotch whisky. I pay a lot for that pleasure. I can change my habits back to majority american Whiskey if the prices get jacked up for this stupid fucking reason. I’m pretty sure that they will be aiming a gun right at their own foot if they do this. Especially now when the scotch market is exploding around the world.

  123. walton says

    @Walton

    Just want to second SC’s explanation. You are buying into the misunderstood critics version of the claim.

    No, I think I’m critiquing a false claim that some atheists actually make. You’re right, though, that I should have made clearer that I was referring specifically to the false empirical claim that religious and moderate people fail to stand up to the fundamentalists.

    I recognize that this is entirely different from the epistemic critique that SC made above, and I think SC’s is a much more compelling argument. Although I don’t think it’s a reason to refrain from working with progressive and liberal religious groups on areas of agreement, or from supporting them when they do good things.

    Basically your complaint is like the “I don’t believe in the patriarchy as a valid model because it’s just a way for women to blame men for everything!”

    What the fuck? No. It’s not. I fail to see how that’s a remotely appropriate analogy for anything I’ve said.

  124. says

    I don’t think it’s a reason to refrain from working with progressive and liberal religious groups on areas of agreement, or from supporting them when they do good things.

    That’s you adding stuff to the argument.

  125. says

    @Walton

    I think you’re even being unfair to the other argument. Like I said there is a real observation that MANY do put the faith before humanity and decency. We see this even with people who agree something is bad. The first priority is to do PR for the faith. That is a good criticism on the idea of moderate and liberal religion and how it is providing support. Liberals and moderates do come out and actually indirectly defend assholes, whole also disagreeing with them.

    Such as like when we saw Muslims saying that of course they disagree with the violence, but it was still totally wrong to draw Mohammad and break our religious laws!

    Compare it to rape apologetic. Someone who comes on and says “rape is wrong but…” is actually defending it regardless of how much they explicitly condemn it.

  126. theophontes, Hexanitroisowurtzitanverwendendes_Bärtierchen says

    @ cicely

    I’m half expecting an indignant why-are-you-all-ignoring-my-opus whine, later on.

    That would be very unchristian of Simon though. You will recall that yahwe shot his wad in one go with the bible, … and never came back. Holey jeebus – same story with the update in teh noob testiment. These guys say it absobloominlutely perfectly ONCE and then fuck off forever.

    (I am willing to eat my words though, if it means the horde get fed with a new godbot to sharpen their fangs …)

  127. carlie says

    Alukonis, I think you’re right to get thyself to a therapist, because the situation is causing you a lot of angst and you’re already at the point of seeing how it’s possibly affecting a lot of things about your relationships. Good on you for taking that step.

    Amanda Fucking Palmer – for awhile she was my music hero and I crushed on her SO HARD, until the spectacular public failures. Then I couldn’t stand her for awhile. Now I’m softened a bit into she’s a person with some pretty big blind spots and is pretty self-absorbed, which is a goodly number of musicians. I’m not thrilled with her and probably wouldn’t pay money to go see her in concert, but I still think Oasis is one of the most damned awesome feminist songs I’ve ever heard (and could go on at length about all of the ways in which it is so).

  128. walton says

    Author Alain de Botton announced plans to build an Atheist temple in the U.K., reports DeZeen magazine.

    What? What the hell is the point in an “atheist temple”?

    Atheism isn’t a religion. It isn’t a philosophy. It isn’t a way of life. It doesn’t have scriptures or priests or ceremonies or a creed. When I say that I’m an atheist, I mean that I don’t believe in any deities; nothing more, nothing less. (And it’s not even a matter of choice; I didn’t choose to be an atheist, I was compelled to that position by the fact that I can’t see any evidence or reasoned argument to convince me that deities exist.)

    I don’t really understand what de Botton is trying to do. If he wants a progressive, non-theistic religion, they already exist. From where I’m sitting, establishing an “Atheist Temple” is like trying to organize a “Global Fan Convention for People Who Don’t Like Pokémon”. It’s a completely farcical idea, and it’s missing the point of what the word “atheism” actually means.

  129. kristinc, ~delicate snowflake~ says

    ‘Morning. Smaller kid woke up barfing. Still barfing periodically, including the small sips of water I give her. Gonna be a long day.

    I relegated Gaiman to the “Meh, tastes are tastes” category… until he took up with Amanda Failtrain Palmer and has never seemed to have much of a problem with her various kinds of assholery.

    Gaiman engaged in some fail himself after he used the expression “bitch” in an interview and some feminists wrote him to ask could he please not do that (his response as basically WHAT, I write strong female characters, you feminists can never be satisfied). Then there was the time he exhibited massive racefail about Native Americans in his comment about the setting for Graveyard Book. I love his writing, myself, I’ve just learned to try ad ignore his actual behavior as much as I can. He’s pretty much your standard Liberal Dude who gets passive-aggressive about being called on problematic behavior. I think Amanda “Dead Sexy Women Photographs” Palmer is a great match for him.

    if a man were here saying that he doesn’t like to hang out with the women he fucks, everyone would be jumping on him for being creepy.

    It’s not equivalent; women don’t have a massive cultural history of dehumanizing men and attempting to limit their status to one of powerless sex objects.

  130. says

    New thread, please.

    ***

    …Argh, I thought I asked a simple question! *headdesk*

    There’s more at my blog. :)

    ***

    Although I don’t think it’s a reason to refrain from working with progressive and liberal religious groups on areas of agreement, or from supporting them when they do good things.

    Perhaps I’ve missed it, and I may well have, but has anyone argued that it is?

  131. says

    if a man were here saying that he doesn’t like to hang out with the women he fucks, everyone would be jumping on him for being creepy.

    Not necessarily.

    Imagine I came out and identified that I was a bi male, and that while I like women, I prefer men for romantic company. It’s an open relationship so I am part of a kink/swinger community or arrange just NSA sex with women and prefer to hang out with my boyfriend for actual company.

    If it was a conquest thing then it would be creepy.

  132. walton says

    We see this even with people who agree something is bad. The first priority is to do PR for the faith. That is a good criticism on the idea of moderate and liberal religion and how it is providing support. Liberals and moderates do come out and actually indirectly defend assholes, whole also disagreeing with them.

    I think there are religious people who do what you’re describing (Heddle could reasonably be accused of this, for instance), but again, I don’t think it’s true as a generalization. There are religious people who speak out against the bigotry of other religious people because they genuinely oppose bigotry, not just because they want to “do PR for the faith”. Martin Luther King and Desmond Tutu didn’t speak out against the bigotry of white racist Christians because they wanted to do PR for Christianity. LGBT Christians like Whosoever, Bishop Gene Robinson, and the Metropolitan Community Church stand up against religious homophobia because they believe in LGBT equality and want to be accepted equally in the ranks of their faith, not because they want to do PR for Christianity. Unitarian Universalists stand up for social justice because this is a core tenet of their beliefs. And so on.

    Again, what I’m pushing back against is unfair generalizations. I don’t deny that there are religious apologists who show up with a “Yes, but…” attitude and who aren’t all that interested in genuinely opposing bigotry. I’ve seen some who fit that description. But it’s false and unfair to assume that all progressive religious people are like that.

  133. carlie says

    Then there was the time he exhibited massive racefail about Native Americans in his comment about the setting for Graveyard Book.

    Aw damn. Do I even want to know?

  134. says

    Again, what I’m pushing back against is unfair generalizations. I don’t deny that there are religious apologists who show up with a “Yes, but…” attitude and who aren’t all that interested in genuinely opposing bigotry. I’ve seen some who fit that description. But it’s false and unfair to assume that all progressive religious people are like that.

    Walton the people you mentioned are exceptional and get right praise for it.

    The problem is that if you’ll actually look you will see far more people doing what I described. People who come on here and do the “I’m a theist but this is totes wrong blah blah blah” do not get piled on. They are also rarer and are often thanked because we rarely get that.

    It’s a generalization, but you’re presuming that that makes it an unfair one. That’s why I compared it to the patriarchy question. Sometimes generalizations are fair, when it’s a wide spread cultural response.

  135. Thomathy, now angrier and feminister says

    This is simple; if NSA sex is creepy, then you’re doing it wrong.

  136. says

    Also you are confusing me, I’m not saying Christians are motivated to speak out because of good PR. I’m saying a common response is to in lieu or addition to speak out give PR spin. It’s not a conscious tactic, it’s because they honestly subconsciously think that the PR is as important or more so than any actual topic. Look at the Joepa thread. These are not people who want to do good PR for rapists…but the reputation of Joepa is as important or more so than actual rape. It’s the same thing.

  137. says

    @Screechymonkey

    To be fair I at least find it an amusing moral question (ala would Batman beat Ironman wank).

    Is it ethical to kill what might be potentially sentient to confirm that it a) exists and b) is sentient?

  138. walton says

    Perhaps I’ve missed it, and I may well have, but has anyone argued that it is?

    No, and I certainly don’t think you were arguing that. I just feel some need to explain why I choose to work with progressive religious groups on issues of immigration justice, for instance.

    (This has coincided with me becoming more and more uncomfortable with the organized atheist movement, largely for the reasons of Islamophobia and tolerance of anti-Muslim bigotry that we were discussing above. Pharyngula is thankfully an exception to that, but in much of the atheist blogosphere it seems to go unchecked.)

  139. says

    Kristin: I agree with your remarks about Gaiman. I do think tastes are tastes, and that one can like a problematic artist without being -ist oneself, if one can acknowledge the shitty parts. In my original reply to Therrin I was going for bringing up my dislike of Gaiman in a conversational way, rather than, “Oh, you like him?! Ew.”

    Re Alukonis:

    It’s not equivalent; women don’t have a massive cultural history of dehumanizing men and attempting to limit their status to one of powerless sex objects.

    I will agree with you that it’s not politically equivalent, and I should have clarified that point. But, political aspects notwithstanding, her comments got under my skin because I have been slotted into either one category or the other before by jerks, as I think many women have.

    I want to restate that I am not calling Alukonis herself a creep or accusing her of using anyone. I realize she’s trying to work through issues and asking for feedback.

    I myself have an NSA thing going; I have very little in common with the guy, but he’s a decent person and we have some pillow talk in between. I’ve also had friend-with-bennies setups. What works for me doesn’t work for everybody, obviously, and vice versa.

  140. says

    No, and I certainly don’t think you were arguing that. I just feel some need to explain why I choose to work with progressive religious groups on issues of immigration justice, for instance.

    Since you agreed no one said this or argued it why do you keep repeating it as if they are. I’m pretty sure it’s not intentional but it feels like an attempt to saddle this position with one that is indefensible. It feels like you’re putting words in my mouth beyond the scope of the topic.

  141. says

    I’ll also point out that liberal believers also hurt conservative movements by providing alternatives. I greatly support liberal Muslims for example and think fostering it is an important part of defeating extremism and secularizing and integrating the population.

  142. walton says

    I’m saying a common response is to in lieu or addition to speak out give PR spin. It’s not a conscious tactic, it’s because they honestly subconsciously think that the PR is as important or more so than any actual topic. Look at the Joepa thread. These are not people who want to do good PR for rapists…but the reputation of Joepa is as important or more so than actual rape. It’s the same thing.

    I think that can be true, and it’s particularly true of people who have a strong attachment to an institution, such as the Catholic Church, and are heavily invested in defending the institution. Putting institutions and their reputations before human life is a very, very bad thing, whether they’re churches, sports teams, or nation-states (we see the same thing with super-patriotic idiots who are convinced that Their Country can do no wrong).

    (This is just one of the many problems with the top-down authoritarian structure of Catholicism and similar religions; a Catholic with liberal or progressive ideas is given a stark choice between remaining ostensibly a Catholic, and thus tacitly being seen to support all of the illiberal stances and corrupt behaviour of the Vatican hierarchy even if one personally opposes these things, or quitting the faith altogether. One can see this dilemma in, for example, the absurd intellectual contortions in which Andrew Sullivan engages in justifying continuing to claim the “Catholic” label for himself.)

  143. says

    OT but possibly related: Walton, I forget what is your history with religion? Since I come from a liberal/moderate background I often see/remember a lot of stuff common to conservative movements in it and uncharitable memes in it that many Atheists seem to think doesn’t exist or is limited to the ultra fundies. Granted this could be a cultural divide thing that doesn’t translate to Muslim faiths specifically because they are a minority in the west where the Christian ones are a majority. That could be a key difference.

  144. walton says

    I’ll also point out that liberal believers also hurt conservative movements by providing alternatives. I greatly support liberal Muslims for example and think fostering it is an important part of defeating extremism and secularizing and integrating the population.

    Yep, I agree with that entirely.

    Since you agreed no one said this or argued it why do you keep repeating it as if they are. I’m pretty sure it’s not intentional but it feels like an attempt to saddle this position with one that is indefensible. It feels like you’re putting words in my mouth beyond the scope of the topic.

    Sorry… it does, indeed, seem that I inadvertently strawmanned you. I was thinking of the rhetoric I’ve heard from time to time from some in the atheist community, but I recognize that you weren’t making that argument (and neither was SC) and I apologize for misrepresenting you. With respect to your last few posts, I generally agree with what you’re saying.

  145. says

    I think that can be true, and it’s particularly true of people who have a strong attachment to an institution, such as the Catholic Church, and are heavily invested in defending the institution. Putting institutions and their reputations before human life is a very, very bad thing, whether they’re churches, sports teams, or nation-states (we see the same thing with super-patriotic idiots who are convinced that Their Country can do no wrong).

    Walton, we see this with protestants. We see this with protecting the IDEA of religion.

  146. says

    @Walton

    For just one example of why I think my history may give me a different view of the picture than you; I can tell you for Certain that there are some very social justice, gay positive, egalitarian, liberal churches…who would rather work with a conservative fire and brim stone preacher than an atheist.

  147. walton says

    OT but possibly related: Walton, I forget what is your history with religion? Since I come from a liberal/moderate background I often see/remember a lot of stuff common to conservative movements in it and uncharitable memes in it that many Atheists seem to think doesn’t exist or is limited to the ultra fundies.

    I grew up in a liberal Anglican family, and have nothing particularly bad to say about the moderate church in which I grew up; I don’t have any direct experience of conservative or fundamentalist religion (which is, in any case, less widespread in Britain than it is in the US). I think this does shape my instinctive feelings on the subject. I’m an atheist purely because I realized that I can’t sustain a belief in deities intellectually, not because I didn’t like religion or was unhappy with it in my own life.

    Of course what I am hurt by is bigotry, and since I left the Anglican Church, I’ve seen it tearing itself apart over issues of LGBT equality and gender equality, although it is getting steadily better on those issues. (It does, unfortunately, have a bigoted conservative wing, although many of those people are now quitting the Anglican Church en masse and becoming Roman Catholics.)

  148. says

    Ing, #666 (ha!): I see what you’re saying, but doesn’t orientation introduce a discrete layer of complexity in that situation? Because hypothetical!Ing is not dividing all people along a binary of friend vs. fuck. Men blur the line, and the preference for male romantic company seems to be part of hypothetical!Ing’s sexuality. Bisexual, but homoromantic.

    Carlie, #668: Gaiman said that the U.S. has no really old graveyards, like the UK does, because our history goes back only a few hundred years.

  149. says

    Good evening

    Fun time with kids. The little one has invented a new most favouritest word she’s using as often as she can. Only that it’s also one of the less nice synonyms for dick (which she most certainly doesn’t know). So basically I have a 2yo who’s going “cock, cock, cock” all day.

    Gaiman: Love his books. And honestly, if I limited my reading to authors who share my opinions on sex, gender, race, etc, I would have a lot more time for housecleaning.

    BTW, talking of authors, does anybody know what’s Pullman’s problem with mothers? Or am I the only person to notice that they’re either non-existent or deeply problematic characters*?
    He writes wonderfull strong female protagonists, and quite often wonderfull dads, but mothers?

    *exception is when Sally Lockheart herself becomes a mother

  150. says

    Ing, #666 (ha!): I see what you’re saying, but doesn’t orientation introduce a discrete layer of complexity in that situation?

    It could but there could also be people who have a similar situation due to an exclusivity of romance with a primary partner. Maybe even if the partner is asexual or lacking a sex drive or incapacitated. The decision to actively avoid interaction with sex partners could have a variety of reasons and explanations not all of which are creepy.

    Or it could just be someone who doesn’t want romance or just prefers anonymous sex for fetishist reasons.

  151. says

    does anybody know what’s Pullman’s problem with mothers? Or am I the only person to notice that they’re either non-existent or deeply problematic characters*?
    He writes wonderfull strong female protagonists, and quite often wonderfull dads, but mothers?

    Same one of Whedon’s with fathers?

  152. kristinc, ~delicate snowflake~ says

    carlie: he said that Graveyard Book could never have been set in America because (paraphrasing) we only have a couple hundred years of cemeteries maximum and then there’s just a few dead Indians and then nothing. (I specifically recall “a few dead Indians”.)

    Like with the “bitch” thing, for me it wasn’t so much that he slipped up and said something thoughtlessly racist, it was that his response to criticism was a load of sniffy “what, hdu”.

    “Oh, you like him?! Ew.”

    Oh yeah, I hope *my* comment didn’t come off like that! As I say, I really love most of his writing myself. I just … try to buy the books used, and don’t read his blog or anything.