Brent got asked a question by Vox Day: to list Christianity’s 10 greatest sins against science. He expands a little bit:
I’m reading all of these New Atheist books, I keep reading these condemnations of Christians being anti-science, but no one ever bothers to explain exactly what they mean by that. I mean, what the Hell does Galileo’s trial have to do with Christian attitudes today, except as some sort of analogy for… something current? But what?
I mean, if the worst thing people have done is put someone on trial 500 years ago, is it really such a huge deal? Now, I’m assuming that there are other things, such as opposing Federal stem cell funding and pushing for ID in the public schools, but there has got to be more. So, in what other specific ways are Christians endangering science? Is Galileo still a top ten grievance? What else is there?
Bleh. Day is looking for some specific list of incidents, like Galileo’s persecution by the church, or perhaps George Deutch’s arrogant attempts to hide scientific conclusions at NASA. That’s typically superficial of him; that’s not the objection at all. The problem is that religion instills odious patterns of thinking in large numbers of people, ideas about how the world works that actually get in the way of improving our culture. The problem isn’t Galileo specifically, but that religion provides institutions and a rationale for Galileo-like situations, and inculcates support for such decisions in the populace.
Here’s my quick list of objections to religion. Please note that I understand there will be individual variation, both between people in a sect and between sects themselves (Calvinists and Unitarians will have different views of destiny, for instance, and Buddhists seem less prone to the tyranny of authoritarianism). Also, the general public will embrace these sins a little less fervently than creationists and fundamentalists, but they’re all there to some extent—while sometimes I’ll mention creationists as extreme examples, that does not mean I am implying that all religious people are creationists.
Oh, and forget 10; this dial goes up to twelve.
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Theft. Atheists know this one on a daily basis: Tornado demolishes home, tearful survivor comes before news cameras and “thanks God” that she was spared. Football player scores goal, drops to knees and praises god for his touchdown. Cancer patient goes into remission, lies in bed surrounded by his expensive, highly trained medical team, calls it a miracle. What religion does is steal human accomplishment and bestows it on a fickle imaginary being. Modern medicine is not a product of religion, it’s the highly refined outcome of years of empirical science, yet people still babble about miracles and prayers.
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Literalism. We in the evo-creo wars know this one well. If the Bible says it, it must be literally true. There was a world-wide flood, there was an ark, the earth is 6000 years old, etc. One antiquated hodge-podge of a book becomes the arbiter of truth, with the added benefit that its clutter and inconsistency and diversity of authorship means you can justify anything with the right random quote.
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Authoritarianism. Once you’ve abandoned individual thought to the dictates of a book, you’re accustomed to surrendering intellectual autonomy…so you pass responsibility on to others. Religious history is a parade of petty tyrannies, where religious authorities, from your local parish priest to the pope and Pat Robertson, get to tell you what is right. Unfortunately, their credentials as authorities on righteousness always seem to rest on assertions about the words of prior religious authorities.
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Hierarchies. The pattern of authoritarianism leads easily to hierarchies. Secular organizations often fall into hierarchies, too, and often they’re an efficient way of getting things done; with religion, though, we go a few steps further, with the invention of an invisible, all-powerful being at the top who has everything but accountability. In addition, we impose this pattern on the world around us; our picture of the universe is colored by the scala naturæ, a false picture of our relationship to nature that distorts reality.
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Dominion. Near the top of the chain of being, just below that imaginary old guy with the beard, is us. We rule the world. It’s an interesting thought, but it’s false: we are part of the world, the rest does not obey us, and we are fools on the road to destruction to pretend that we can dominate. It’s a way of thinking that urges us to control rather than adapt, oppress rather than accommodate. It cheapens the complexity and beauty of the natural world that surrounds us.
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Predestination. I’ve had a few one-on-one conversations with creationists, and one of the weirder but fairly common discoveries is that they reject the concept of chance. Everything must have an intentional cause. A branch fell off my tree because the wind blew it down; similarly, if an ancient ape evolved into a human it must be because…? They’ve filled in the ellipsis with “God”, and they are not satisfied with explanations that do not invoke causes and intent. Try it yourself sometime; they have an almost allergic reaction to the notion of junk DNA, for instance, because there’s no way molecules could have a random element, it must all be for a purpose.
This trait isn’t exclusive to religion, of course; you can see causality built right into the structure of our language, and it’s probably hardwired into our brains. Religion makes it difficult to oppose, though, because it provides a convenient catch-all repository of causality: god did it. It doesn’t matter that it’s a meaningless phrase, it seems to satisfy an intrinsic desire to wrap up loose ends with an explanatory purpose.
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Miracles. Religion’s universal lazy way out of anything. Forget evidence, forget logic, you got a problem explaining something? Poof. It was a miracle. It’s a cheap excuse to throw away the hard work of reason.
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Credulity. If you’ve got miracles, if you’ve got gods and devils and angels, who needs evidence and rigor? A chain of reasoning is going to be easily vitiated by a convenient miracle, so why bother? We are god’s creation, we are under his divine plan, so bad things can’t possibly happen to the world—a god will step in and make it all better. You don’t want to be sick, so if you wish hard enough, and if Benny Hinn hits you in the forehead, maybe that will fix your problems. It’s a strange phenomenon: we desire patterns of causality, but we also invent rationalizations for magical interventions that will take us off the track that natural causality puts us on.
Religion provides a get-out-of-jail-free card for the consequences of our actions. That irrationality percolates through our brains, and influences more than just what we do in church on Sunday—it makes us susceptible to snake-oil of all kinds.
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Inflexibility. The first time I heard this argument I could hardly believe it: religion never changes, while science changes all the time, therefore religion is better. Its premise is false, for one thing — religion changes all the time, and I daresay that if we could use a time machine to gather together a group of Essenes with a matched group of Southern Baptists, we’d have us an entertaining bloodbath—but for another, why would inflexibility and absolutism be considered virtues? I have no illusions that any of us have perfect knowledge of all truth, so please, give me a philosophy that will adapt to the evidence and provides a path to perfecting our knowledge.
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Blasphemy. This is a thoroughly stultifying concept. The idea that there are thoughts that must not be expressed, ideas that must not be pursued, dogma that must not be questioned…what an evil constraint. The whole idea is antithetical to science, which is built on a foundation of constant questioning, of always challenging the established wisdom.
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Supernaturalism. One of the worst outcomes (or perhaps it is partly a cause) of religion is the willingness to invent a whole class of reality without evidence and without need. All the matter and energy, all the history and information of the entire universe is not sufficient, and we understand only a tiny fraction of it … so the religious invent a whole immense metaphysical realm of which they know even less, and pretend that it explains the lacunae in our knowledge of the world. It’s a lie, through and through. There is no credible evidence for ghosts, and the whole concept is incoherent—apparently, supernatural entities are not of this universe, so they are not bound by its laws, yet somehow they can interact with us, which actually does make them part of our universe. The supernatural is cloud cuckoo land, with inhabitants who conveniently wink into existence to carry out miracles for us, and with magical real estate to which we will retire when we die.
Poppycock.
If you want me to believe, show me. But of course, the religious can’t—the supernatural is not of this world, so I shouldn’t be demanding my narrow and inappropriate natural demonstrations. So how do the religious know about it?
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Faith. Faith is the greatest sin of religion. I despise it; I’m particularly appalled that it is so universally regarded as a virtue. Listen, if I ever call someone a “person of faith”, you should be aware that I have just insulted them terribly. It’s astonishing how easily that sails over people’s heads, though.
Faith is this amazing idea that it is a good thing to hold incredible beliefs in the complete absence of evidence to support them; the more outrageous the belief and the weaker the logic behind them, the stronger your faith and the more virtuous your conduct. It short-circuits everything that works in the world and puts ignorance on a pedestal.
Faith is the opposite of science, yet it is also one common element that you will always hear valued in religion. It is the number one most common excuse for holding peculiar superstitious beliefs in spite of the evidence against them, their violations of sense, and their foundation in wishful thinking and rhetorical vapor—it’s the one word non-answer to every criticism of religion. Faith. You might as well just say “gullibility” or “ignorance” or “delusion”— it’s all the same thing.
That was fun and easy. I suspect some of the commenters here will also have no trouble turning the dial way up beyond twelve, too.
1) The incident on the Sea of Galilee. “Peter, why did you doubt?”
2) The incident with Thomas. “You have seen, and believed. Blessed are those who have not seen, and believe.”
XIII: The Disparaging of Doubt
Moralism: High on my list is the religious’ claim that they have the ultimate source of morality and you must be a part of their system to be a moral person. The insulting hubris of this position never fails to get my Irish up. This often comming from a being that drowns us in tsunamis, shakes us in earthquakes, blows us away with tornados, ravages us with disease, and supposedly oversaw and directed the slow tortuous killing of it’s own son. Yeah, supreme morality my ass.
Evasion:
This is a useful tool for ‘moderate’ religionists (my father, for one.) When confronted with an aspect of religious belief, evaders say “That’s not what I believe”. As if their religosity is more deep and more profound than that of the common masses.
In a debate, the evader will dodge around until you just about think they follow their very own religion. The first time this happened, I was a bit confused. But faith is sneaky, and allows people to make up their own concept of God, and their own dogma.
XIV: The disparaging of thought and reason altogether. That is included in most of the other numbers, but could stand to be specifically stated. After all, it all started when that uppity woman ate from the tree of knowledge of good and evil. Having any knowledge has been set up as a mortal sin from the beginning.
This sounds like an invitation for blog-whoring. I have a few items of my own:
All I ask of religion.
Not really a list of sins, but a list of all the things I need them to stop doing so that I can share this planet with them.
XV: Certainty
Not so much certainty of knowldge (though it has that too) but of action: ‘I know that this is the right thing to do’; ‘I know that what I did was right’ and ‘if not, God will judge me’.
Well, I don’t know that what I do is the right thing. I don’t know how to act in an increasingly confusing world. But then that’s the world: our day to day lives are confusing, are uncertain – to pretend otherwise is sheer idiocy. And to state that God will judge one’s actions, not people living and dying here and now, is a particularly odious belief.
For a roundup of specific historical incidents, there is Andrew Dickson White’s tome:
A History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom
It weighs in at about 900 pages. BTW, the works of Galileo and Copernicus were not removed from the Vatican’s Index of Banned Books until about 1830. What’s that? Surely you knew that the largest Christian church on the planet maintained an official list of banned books well into the 20th century.
PZ,
A bit more sinning against science,
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-3646170288558814724#0h06m05s
Could you ask the nearest Astronomer at scifoo to check out the figures :-)
and RD get a mention too…
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-3646170288558814724#0h03m19s
Ways of Knowing
Religions pretend that there are other ways than science of gaining knowledge about the natural world. They will refer to other “ways of knowing.” But what are those “ways of knowing”? Scripture is not a reliable “way of knowing.” Revelation is not a reliable “way of knowing.” Faith is not a reliable “way of knowing.” Peolpe who use this term need to back it up by explaining what other “ways of knowing” they are talking about, and why we should believe them to be reliable.
BLACKMAIL
All religions use this, or in extreme cases are this.
“Do as “god” says, and you’ll go to heaven. Don’t do as “god” says and you’ll go to hell.”
OIf course, “god” is represented by the priests in power, and if they have secular power, they can ensure that you go to hell, and that the journey will be painful.
The destruction of the Library of Alexandria should top any list of Christian crimes against science.
Ethical monopolism. The claim by many Christians that theirs is the only objective system of ethics is just comical, given the wars Christians have fought with each other over small ethical differences. But their claim that “without religion, one can’t have ethics” affects a whole lot of people, who bring up children in a religion they themselves don’t believe, for fear the children will grow up without a moral code.
The fact is that the major ethical systems in philosophy are a-theistic, and that science is making major advances towards understanding why people innately think certain behaviors are moral or immoral. Religion really doesn’t even have a dog in this fight any more, but simply by asserting the big lie, they have a lot of naive people convinced.
Whoa. That was, like, the ultimate Pharyngula atheist post – a manifesto, if you like. Best of all: it stays sharp, without heading into Sam Harris-land. Me mucho gusto.
Nevermind the burning of the Mayan codices at Mani…
Inherently Evil
Man is seen as inherently evil. It is only through accepting Jesus Christ as our saviour that we do not succumb to our evil ways.
The exponential advancement of technology must be terribly scary to individuals who believe in this. Since man is evil his products must also be evil. No wonder there is so much resistance to technological advancements such as the biomedical revolution which may be able to significantly decrease if not eliminate genetic disorders.
This is close to Theft because if any good comes out of man’s work it is only because of God, but there are other implications, like any resistance to technology simply based upon the premise that man is evil.
Ugh
I wonder what the God-fearing Christian thinks about the possibility of Strong AI.
“…if we could use a time machine to gather together a group of Essenes with a matched group of Southern Baptists, we’d have us an entertaining bloodbath…”
I’d gladly pay $19.95 to watch that on PPV.
“Faith is the greatest sin of religion. I despise it…”
Um… amen, brother. Ahem.
Hatemongering. Almost every religion tells you that *someone* is inferior and needs to be put in their place or killed. Not because of something they did, but because of something they *are*. Women, Jews, gays, lower castes, and most commonly, unbelievers and heretics. One of the ugliest of all human impulses is the drive to stigmatize and attack the Others. Far from suppressing this drive in order to maintain civilized society, religion routinely cultivates it.
Accordingly I’d like to state for the record that although I would like to see religions reformed so they no longer display the traits listed on this thread or abandoned, I don’t want to kill, torture, assault or even threaten any human being to achieve this goal.
How about the idea that “there are some things man is not meant to know”? I don’t know what to call this…Fear of the unknown? Fear of change?
That certain avenues of research should be off-limits, not because of ethical considerations, but because some religious folk feel weird about it, can be considered decidedly anti-science.
You know, back in the winter of 2002-03, when there was all this talk about war with Iraq but before the bombs started falling, it occurred to me that I didn’t know that much about Iraq. So, I spent about a week catching up on its history and politics. Nothing deep — a little bit about Alexander’s experiences in Mesopotamia, then skip ahead to the Mossadegh coup in 53-54, the origins of the Ba’ath party and their split with the Nasserites, the Iran-Iraq war, Gulf War I, the UN weapons inspectors, the ’98 bombings. And it was crystal clear that a) Saddam was not a threat to the US or its interests, b) there were no WMDs, c) Pan-Arab nationalists and Islamic theocrats are natural enemies and would never cooperate, d) Saddam was a tinpot dictator not unlike dozens of others dictators in the world at any given time, and e) the politicians and the media were lying to us at every turn.
And I remember sharing this information with “people of faith,” and they seemed astonished by a) my curiosity, and b) my willingness to put knowledge and reason ahead of obedience to authority. They seemed to think that learning and thinking were acts of arrogance, and to act rashly and ignorantly was a virtue. That was the moment I went from casual secularist to angry atheist.
How about altruism?
Personally, I think the idea that true self-sacrifice is virtuous is largely an artifact of religious belief.
Note: In many/most cases, I don’t think of voluntary charity, showing courtesy, voluntarily helping others etc. as truly altruistic acts.
I agree, but would re-word it. It is about ethics, and I would say that basing your ethics on fairy tales is not a good way to go. It is a criticism of someone to say that they are “playing God.” Well,
I think it’s time for God to stop playing God.
Heh — This Is Spineless Tap? ;)
Hey, just come up with 87 more and you’ll be ready to nail ’em up on a door someplace!
Judgement: Religion inevitably contradicts itself once again. The Christian belief is that you should not judge the others around you, treat others as you would like to be treated, and selflessness. Amongst all this is the contradicting belief that we will all be judged in the end. Look at your merciful “God” now! What kind of father figure teaches his children not to judge each other, yet judges their behavior in the end? The Christian faith teaches us a structure of judgement: Those who do not follow the ten commandments are evil, and will go to hell…which instills a sense that they are the enemy. PLEASE stop separating us
ATW,
I think you may be wrong there. Suicide because of faith is different than altruism.
Putting ones self at risk in an effort to preserve or help the group, as in trying to save lives or defend them is a good thing.
ATW, are you referring to Cialdini’s ‘negative state relief’ model of altruism at all? If not, you might be interested in:
http://psychology.utoledo.edu/images/public/geers-social/cialdini-schaller.pdf
Vox Day is just looking for some responses that he can quote mine or chop into bite size pieces with careful use of ellipses.
If I was going to actually list any items that I think are particularly sinful it would be.
Taxes – I pay my taxes. Why shouldn’t religious institutions have to pay taxes the same way that any other private entity or private citizen does. If I didn’t want to pay taxes I would have to resort to years of stonewalling, lies, and trickery to avoid paying them. Whereas a religious institution would just have to claim that they are a religious institution and fill out the appropriate paperwork. But in the end I would have to pay them or go to jail and they wouldn’t.
Although I suppose I could just go on the lam to avoid paying taxes. But only a total nutcase would do that.
“…Buddhists seem less prone to the tyranny of authoritarianism.”
That’s not quite accurate, PZ. It depends on the social context Buddhism finds itself in. For instance, in midieval Japan the Zen, Pureland and other sects of Buddhism ended up getting in bed with the shogunate government of Kamakura visa vis their respective clergies. This had the effect of creating a situation in which Nichiren, a Buddhist reformer priest, was persecuted and almost beheaded by government. Hence Buddhism can become very authoritarian if it allows itself to get in bed with politicians.
GE
“God-fearing”, that’s a phrase that always amazes me that it is supposed to be a good thing to be in constant fear.
“Faith”, is also amusing in that it really should also be Science’s greatest DEFENSE from religion. If religion requires FAITH, then science is no threat to religion. Likewise, if faith is required, then doesn’t that mean that there can’t possibly be any evidence of “god’s hand” in the natural world? That it should be possible to explain all of existence without belief in god, because god requires faith?
But the other side “faith” as an issue is that for the religious, since their book requires faith, they conclude that all books must require faith. It seems that their attacks on science always include the accusation, “but you atheists are just putting your faith in science”. This inability to see the other than in terms of faith is what leads to the use of “Darwinists” to label evolutionists. They can only see our belief and respect for Darwin (and other scientists) in the same way they believe in Moses or Christ or Mohammed. As a “prophet” whose words are not to be questioned. They cannot see that Darwin is not respected blindly, but has earned that respect through constant testing of his theory. They cannot see that science is the process of always trying to dis-prove itself. The religious have been so indoctrinated with having to accept the “book” with unquestioning faith, that they think that is also the model for science. They fail to see that when sciece stops testing something and accepts it as a law, it is not done out of faith but because it has been tested.
Someone should direct good ole’ Vox to “The Republican War on Science.”
I question whether there really is any true “altruism” in most religions, since the whole point of doing “altruistic” acts is to make the big sky fairy happy enough to grant you eternal bliss. That is no more altruistic than helping my co-workers in the hopes that the boss will give me a promotion.
A real example of religious altruism would be someone who goes around murdering just-baptized babies, thus ensuring that the infants will go straight to heaven as quickly as possible, but dooming the murderer to hell. That would be true altruism in the framework of religion.
quork:
To quote Andrew Dickson White as an argument for or against anything is pure insanity! His book is a badly written fairy tale from beginning to end. Unfortunately he is the source of a lot of the myths that modern historians of science have to spend a lot of their time trying to destroy. One of those myths is that De Revolutionibus was not removed from the Index until the 1830s. Copernicus’ book was referred to the Index for correction in 1616 it was declared free for anybody to read or study in 1621 with surprisingly few changes. Catholic scientists throughout the world taught the Copernican Hypothesis with the Churches blessing all through the 17th century. I am in no way defending the Catholic Church, or any other if it comes to that, I am myself a radical atheist (see Douglas Adams for the definition of radical atheist) but if you wish to argue something at least get your facts right.
Suppression/Denial:
Most religions actively suppress knowledge and actions that they do not like. Burning books and people seems to be a recurring theme. They also deny anything that does not support their beliefs, even in the face of overwhelming evidence.
Superiority: They know better, they are better people. Science’s efforts are puny and wrong.
Evasion: don’t engage in the argument or answer the question asked on the terms it was asked.
“Hence Buddhism can become very authoritarian if it allows itself to get in bed with politicians.”
Unfortunately. This is why I (a Buddhist) am worried by the recent demands by certain elements of the Thai monastic community to have Buddhism declared their state religion, and also why I am not all that sympathetic to the Dalai Lama. That being said, few Buddhists can be said to be hostile to science in the same way common among the Abrahamic religions.
Excellent post, PZ. And some interesting dialogue as well. I’ll be bookmarking this entry specifically, as it succinctly explains issues that I have with religion, but that I have been unable to relate well to religious people.
I ran across this just today:
Welsh Hindus fight to save “Shambo” the sacred bull”
It says they are Hindus, it does not specify whether they are evolutionists or not.
Projection
I’m refering to the statements that mythologists make about “it takes faith to be an atheist.” Or the use of the term “Darwinism,” to imply that we worship the man rather than accept his theory. They try to drag those with scientific and rational world views down to their level.
Rationalization
Good thing happens–God’s will, because you were a good boy.
Bad thing happens–God’s will, because you were a bad boy.
Contempt for Human Life
Fundamentalists often complain that if evolution was true then we are no better than beasts, yet in the same breath they will tell us that, according to the doctrine of Original Sin, the Bible teaches that we are scum, far worse than any animal, deserving of an eternity of utter anguish in the fires of Hell merely for the sin of being born. Being “pro-life” is such a sham.
Egotism
The belief that the universe and everything in it was created for you to exploit and enjoy.
Thony C.:
Surprisingly few changes? Am I supposed to acknowledge that they had the right to demand any changes at all?
You don’t cite any sources, so I guess you consider yourself to be an indisputable source. Could you please submit your corrections to Wikipedia, which says In 1757 Copernicus’ book was removed from the Vatican’s Index Librorum Prohibitorum, the list of books banned by the Catholic Church.
PZ got off all the biggies, so allow me to use a narrower focus– CHRISTIANITY’S SINS AGAINST DAVE X–
1) Waking me up on the weekend. I don’t get enough sleep as it is. I don’t feel like showing up at my front door in my underpants, too tired to realize that there isn’t an emergency. Just because YOU aren’t allowed to stay up until 3am doesn’t mean I don’t. Your bright early morning is my middle of the night.
2) Your ugly bus. That’s right. I hate your ugly school bus. God must have made you color blind, because nobody can make a school bus uglier than church group with a couple cans of paint. These things are already eyesores, why make it worse?
3) “Iffy” commitment to homeschooling. I’d sooner see every last one of your ugly schoolbus riding children kept at home for the duration of their 18 years than have them attending otherwise decent schools, where their parents feel the urge to muck about in my kid’s biology class.
4) Your crummy music! I can dig on Al Green, Mahalia Jackson, and Edna Cooke any day. Unfortunately, Christian rock makes me want to stick a fork in my eyeball. In fact, let’s just say that white Christians have more or less forfeited their right to continue to make records. With less honor than a band of thieves, the Christian music community shamelessly steals every current, popular concept; watering it down, and bending it to its message. YUCK!
5) Dumb sayings on church signs. These are like pearls of stupidity, but in lights. Undoubtedly, some asshat will quote one to me: “Didja see the one that said…”
6) Total library domination. Between you and the majority of other pedestrian readers, I’m sick of finding that my local library’s “new books” shelf is constantly populated with Billy Graham/Benny Hinn/Chicken Soup bullshit books by Christian authors with nothing important to say. I use my library to expand my world, not simply confirm it over and over. Lay off!
7) B-I-N-G-O! Ok, I’m just jealous. I’m not allowed to run a gambling establishment out of my home and make the big bucks, so how come you can?
8) Ugly buildings! At one point in time, Christians contributed to the beautification of an area with a well-built church. Sure, the cathedrals probably cost more than a few peasant lives, but they sure are nice to look at. But today, it seems any bozo with a tract of land can slap together a pre-fab building (let’s just call them oversize sheds) and be done with it. These metal barn things are annoying to look at with their grossly oversized, no property-tax paying, might-as-well-be-storage-locker appearance.
10) Flamingo flocking. For those of you who don’t know, some churches like to put a bunch of flamingos on your lawn at night, and make you pay their youth group’s favorite charity to have them picked up. In theory, this is only supposed to happen to other members of the church, who can “opt out” by purchasing “insurance”. So it’s basically a cutesy form of extortion– the kiddies won’t wreck your lawn if you pay up. As harmless as this sounds, I’ve seen it occasionally spread to non-church members as a way to do “outreach” or whatever. This hasn’t happened to me yet, but if it does, I’m going to delight in setting the flock on fire.
11) Being “on fire”… Christians “on fire” are just plain creepy. I’d rather hang out with crackheads. At least I can always send THEM to the carpet for an hour or two by claiming I saw somebody drop a rock.
12) LYING. Don’t tell me that God “speaks” to you. We both know you’re lying. If he speaks to people, how come there aren’t any decent God impressions on YouTube?
Retrying Galileo
Maurice A. Finocchiaro
This has got to be the best Pharyngula post ever. It should be in a book.
I think that “sins against science” is a bit too specific. Superstition stands against more than science per se, it stands against thought altogether. “Do as I say because God will kick your ass if you don’t” is a threat that stifles not only intellectual achievement, but attacks every other human right as well.
Incidentally, I’ve pretty much given up using the word “religion”. From now on, “superstition” will do just fine.
-jcr
Chuck:
Ummm…no, the jury’s still out on that 1.
There were a number of times parts were destroyed – & some stories suggest it was Muslims, there was Caesar’s attack.
I guess you could say, the Library wasn’t burnt down in a day.
Mooney and Nisbet are always available to help people who have been injured, or offended, or even put off by science. The long suffering cognitive misers (i.e. not cognitively astute schmucks which includes bumbling scientists) must be re-programmed and re-framed by their betters lest all is lost to the evil framers, also their betters. All is cognition and/or perception (i.e. mental).
The IVY League is the best place to become a framing genius and a better person.
There is an almost identical advertisement on the back of my telephone directory by some lawyers who really care and sincerely want to help people injured in horrible accidents.
How about this:
XIV – Capital Prevarification – I am reading Hitchen’s new book, and that is not here at work, but this is what I remember:
A Catholic Cardinal spread the lie to Africans that condoms have been designed to be specifically porous to the HIV, and that using condoms is actually more dangerous than riding bareback.
Yes, abstinences is the best preventative, but this lie has led to a new contagion.
DaveX: you find a Christian on fire, my advice is don’t piss on him.
What an odd sort of post, “Sins against science”, as if “science” was something that could be sinned against.
Here are some contrarian statements (meant to be tongue-in-cheek).
In terms of “individual variation, both between people in a sect and between sects themselves”, it seems that none of the 12 entries match my religious belief or practice. I suspect that they don’t match the belief or practices of the vast majority of my congregation either. Maybe this is a list of fundamentalist Christian sins against science.
I would suggest that those who would email Vox an answer this question to use Vox’s own “sins” and interpretation of Christianity. Remember, Vox Day wrote, for World Nut Delay, this article: “The case against science.”
I blogged on it (and so did PZ).
Vox then can’t say “hey, that’s not Christianity” if you use Vox’s own version of Christianity. Don’t let him slip with that evasion, uses Vox’s own sins.
Nah. It’s religion in general.
See post #3 Evasion
I agree with Rainbows, this is one of your best posts ever, PZ. It’s right up there with “The proper reverence due…”.
I would also include “a warped sense of justice” as another point. I don’t mean subscription to Levitcus as though they’d like it legislated.
I mean, in a given human life, there is only a finite amount of wrongdoing that a person can get done. While that amount may constitute levels of evil(sinning) ranging from a malicious lie to uninhibited genocide, the religious believe, unfailingly, that finite wrongdoing REQUIRES INFINITE Punishment.
Wow, what a fucking stupid and horrendous idea.
At risk of being pedantic:
That wasn’t a crime against science as much as a crime against another religion. If the books of Chilam Balam are representative of the content of Mayan codices at the time of Spanish conquest, they were probably full of magical, prophetic and religious crap. Even the excellent Mayan astronomy was developed only for astrological purposes.
But of course, the lost of any testimony of a culture, even religious crap, is a terrible loss for the humankind.
At risk of being pedantic:
That wasn’t a crime against science as much as a crime against another religion. If the books of Chilam Balam are representative of the content of Mayan codices at the time of Spanish conquest, they were probably full of magical, prophetic and religious crap. Even the excellent Mayan astronomy was developed only for astrological purposes.
But of course, the lost of any testimony of a culture, even religious crap, is a terrible loss for the humankind.
“Say what you will about the sweet miracle of unquestioning faith. I consider the capacity for it terrifying and absolutely vile.”
—Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.
One of my friends tried Buddhism for a bit, and was repulsed by a particular aspect of the religion which leads directly to a horrific acceptance of even the worst authoritarianism: Karma. When someone takes control and does terrible things, some Buddhists believe that to stand in their way would be a form of bad karma; the people who the terrible authority would harm deserve their pain, or they wouldn’t be being harmed. To interfere with that is to prevent those peoples’ karmic debt from being released, which according to these same Buddhists gives you bad karma as well. Thus, these people live with apathetic acceptance of everything because to do otherwise could do worse harm to both themselves and those they would help.
I can’t honestly say how widespread this particular karmic belief is, however.
We should include religions total degradation of woman and their status as inferior human beings,
going so far as to place total blame on them for all the sin in the world.
Theft. Graduate students know this on a daily basis: Graduate student does most of the research and writing, Professor is listed as primary author
Sure ain’t true of my group.
it seems that none of the 12 entries match my religious belief or practice. I suspect that they don’t match the belief or practices of the vast majority of my congregation either.
Jeff, I hope you’re joking and I’m missing it (quite possible, maybe likely). Indeed, it’s pretty much impossible for you to have religious belief (or your congregation for that matter) without, at the very least, number 12 (faith).
(Apparently) I really like (in parenthesis,) parenthesis.
@Tulse –
That would be Andrea Yates…
Hypocrisy
It’s a “sin” not scorned thoroughly enough, and the church – or religion in general – is not taken to task over it hardly ever. Why? It’s due to many of the things PZ and others listed here, but nevertheless I feel this is the one thing that is interlaced with all the other flaws (and indeed serves as the basis of many of the others), and the thing I must highlight.
Examples are myriad, such as the supposed strong calls to feed the hungry, care for the sick, comfort the dying. All these things are called for in the Bible, yet go into any church in this country and you’ll likely be asked to contribute money for various reasons, one of them being to upgrade the church itself (the building and its facilities). When was the last time a priest took the congregation down to a homeless shelter, the local psyche ward, or a juvenile detention center on Sunday morning and told them to get to work? Never.
Why do we, as the richest and most prosperous nation in the world, so steadfastly refuse to willingly commit time, energy, policy and resources to help the peoples of Africa? If this is such a godly country, surely the nearest god-worshipping CEO would immediately throw down the cloaks of his wealth and fly to Africa to build a school. This has actually happened once, though I do not know if the person in question (a former high-ranking Microsoft official) is Christian or not. Woody Guthrie was waxing lyrical about our profound capabilities and fortunes in the 40s, and that we could apply them to the world’s problems if we truly wanted to.
I could get into other hypocrisies in other religions, but I have precious time I need to spend elsewhere.
Universality If their God is the God of the Universe, then their imaginary King is rightful King over you and everyone else. It’s an assertion of power over the heads of everyone else, believers and nonbelievers alike. We see this in the attitude of divine right for Christians to put the Ten Commandments in courthouses and in Muslims for insisting that non-muslims obey their rules about referring to the Prophet Mohammad.
After all, if Allah is the God of the Universe, then I better be subservient to him no matter what my beliefs are.
It is a form of spiritual slavery. It says, “your soul/mind/body are not your own, they belong to my Master.”
Question: Why are we singling out Christianity?
Sure it’s the most prevalent gig here in the US, but not in the world. Criticize religion in general for its failings.
It was Vox’s throwdown. It’s a response specifically to that.
Because the question was about Christianity. I think most of my points are general enough to describe most of the major world religions, though.
Criminal Sloth
Succinctly summed up in the well-known evangelical marketing slogan, “Let go and let God.” Everything happens because it’s God’s will and because God intended it to happen that way. Don’t fight reality–don’t even question reality–because Creation is good, because it’s God’s creation; who are we to second-guess it?
You get raped? God had a plan. Your religious doctor didn’t try real hard to save your life? God made you sick–for a reason; God will heal you–if He has a reason. Prayers not answered? God said “no.” Etc., etc.
I can’t believe nobody mentioned Dualism, the concept that human beings have two natures, one an evil fleshly nature and one a good, intangible, “spiritual” nature. The usual words we use for this concept are “body” and “soul,” although in modern secular discourse, we still say “mind.” This concept is so entrenched, it’s almost impossible to talk about thought, agency, intent, cognition, and so on without invoking it. It’s definitely responsible for a lot of egregious stuff.
For one thing, it gives cognitive-theory “God of the Gaps” assholes a place to pontificate; it contributes further to the notion that human beings are intrinsically evil; it is an underlying cause of gender essentialism (the idea that gender roles are inborn and natural and more or less immutable rather than acculturated); it gives rise to all sorts of woo about ghosts and spiritual development and whatnot, and it warps people’s view of the actual science in the area. As near as I can tell (and I will be the first to admit I’m not a scientist), you pretty much have to check dualism at the door if you want to make any sense at all out of modern cognitive science, psycholinguistics, AI theory (to name a few that I know from experience).
Saying that you think dualism is BS is a great way to get a weird reaction from most people, who seem to think it’s the equivalent of saying humans are “biological machines,” and who then go on to insist, “Well, surely you must believe that there’s something that makes us alive…” (Yeah, it’s called “the emergent behaviour of a highly complex system.”) Grrrr… If I could eliminate one religiously-based concept magically, poof, off the planet tomorrow, dualism would be what went.
There is a second, more twisted, side of #2, Literalism. I don’t have a catchy name for it, but it’s denialism of the really horrible and insane things that are in the bible. Leviticus is short enough to illustrate this without wasting too much of your time: read carefully about circumcised fruit (literally) and how their god thinks insects have four legs, and all the parts about putting people to death (including the French — hint, snails). (God also prohibits taxation.) When confronted with the evils of the bible, the cretins snap into denialism mode so fast you can get dizzy watching.
By the way, you didn’t pair of ‘acts of god’ visiting someone who immediately thanks the same god that it wasn’t worse than it was. This has always puzzled me, but lately I’m more amused than anything else.
ok, I’m as atheist as the next pharyngulista, but when I see the Roman numerals I-XII all I can think of is “cranial nerves.”
My fiance’s brother-in-law went through a religiously psychopathic phase several years ago. He decided to take the Bible “promises” literally. He gave away everything he and his wife owned. I mean EVERYTHING. I could not even give her a good pot to cook in if he found out someone else needed it. He didn’t go looking for a job–he figured that God would provide… somehow. He actually literally believed that I met my fiance and moved to Texas for a divinely inspired purpose that included the entire extended family. He believed with every fiber of his being that God would send him a winning lottery ticket, because he prayed “in the Holy Spirit according to the Word.”
No, he’s OK now. Fiance’s sis turned up pregnant, and the self-made prophet sobered up quick. These days, he prefers we not talk about his little excursion into la-la land.
IMMORALITY: There must be a large genetic component to morality. It makes sense that this would be a desirable trait from an evolutionary perspective. I think it’s one of the main reasons that H. sapeins have been able to spread to every continent on the planet. We wouldn’t have such a huge health care industry without it. That sickening feeling you get when you witness murder of innocent people (or animals or the destruction of habitat)…that is your genes influencing your behavior.
Religions have elements of morality because of the genetic component that all people have. However, these general philosophies are more often twisted into advocating very immoral behavior. Any approach to life that is based on the Old Testemant (eg, Christianity, Judaeism, and Islam) is obviously immoral; ie, contrary to the general moral and altruistic behavior that our genes tend to produce.
We have to start recognizing (and making others recognize) that morality does NOT come from religion. Indeed, religion often makes good people have very bad behavior. The sooner we realize that morality doesn’t come from religion, the sooner we will be able to direct scientific investigation in the ways that will maximize its economic, medical, and philosophic benefits.
ehhh, what’s your point Reg?
Lack of Humor, Irony, Fun,…
if we could use a time machine to gather together a group of Essenes with a matched group of Southern Baptists, we’d have us an entertaining bloodbath
that made my day
Lack of Humor, Irony, Fun,…
if we could use a time machine to gather together a group of Essenes with a matched group of Southern Baptists, we’d have us an entertaining bloodbath
that made my day
Hmm, I must have missed something in my science classes. Only 2 of the sins seem to actually violate any principles of science. The rest falls under “behavior that annoys me” but isn’t limited to religion.
Don’t forget the specific incidents too. There are some biggies besides Galileo.
How about the lynching of Hypatia the first martyr of science? And the destruction of the library of Alexandria? How about crusades and inquisitions?
People always talk about Galileo as a martyr to science, but Hypatia was mobbed by angry Christians, stripped, killed in a church, and torn to pieces. Her story is something else.
“That being said, few Buddhists can be said to be hostile to science in the same way common among the Abrahamic religions.”
I agree. The Abrahamic religions (one of which I used to practice)have a tendency to become rather literalistic in how they interpret their scriptures. That’s part of the reason they become hostile to science.
Few people practicing Buddhism would take a scripture such as the Lotus Sutra literally. If they did, it would mean believing that the Treasure Tower (Lotus Sutra, Chapter 11) was an actual physical object as, high as the earth’s radius and half that in width and depth, that rose out the ground! LOL!
You would see the event recorded in the Bible, as well as other cultural documents throughout the entire planet.
What a trip! :-)
GE
Re:#62
Christianity is the largest religion in the world, by number of adherents – about 2 billion of ’em. Islam and Hinduism come in second and third at around 1.3 and 0.9 billion.
“That being said, few Buddhists can be said to be hostile to science in the same way common among the Abrahamic religions.”
I agree. The Abrahamic religions (one of which I used to practice)have a tendency to become rather literalistic in how they interpret their scriptures. That’s part of the reason they become hostile to science.
Few people practicing Buddhism would take a scripture such as the Lotus Sutra literally. If they did, it would mean believing that the Treasure Tower (Lotus Sutra, Chapter 11) was an actual physical object as, high as the earth’s radius and half that in width and depth, that rose out the ground! LOL!
You would see the event recorded in the Bible, as well as other cultural documents throughout the entire planet.
What a trip! :-)
GE
“That being said, few Buddhists can be said to be hostile to science in the same way common among the Abrahamic religions.”
I agree. The Abrahamic religions (one of which I used to practice)have a tendency to become rather literalistic in how they interpret their scriptures. That’s part of the reason they become hostile to science.
Few people practicing Buddhism would take a scripture such as the Lotus Sutra literally. If they did, it would mean believing that the Treasure Tower (Lotus Sutra, Chapter 11) was an actual physical object as, high as the earth’s radius and half that in width and depth, that rose out the ground! LOL!
You would see the event recorded in the Bible, as well as other cultural documents throughout the entire planet.
What a trip! :-)
GE
Great. Right there you have the outline for a book, one that addresses topics not exactly covered by the Dawkins, Harris, Dennett, Hitchens and other books.
Just some food for thought!
Theft.
This might be a positive. After all if you dash is the water and rescue someone’s miniature poodle, from the jaws of a bald eagle that was just about to grab it, returning to land and then resuscitate it with mouth to mouth, you don’t really want to say, “well I am the worlds fastest swimmer, courageous to a fault (definitely in this case), and just my countenance is so powerful I can face off an eagle, added to which no one gives poodles mouth to mouth as fast as I do”. I mean that’s boasting. Saying, “Oh me no, that was God’s will” gets you right out of that.
“That being said, few Buddhists can be said to be hostile to science in the same way common among the Abrahamic religions.”
I agree. The Abrahamic religions (one of which I used to practice)have a tendency to become rather literalistic in how they interpret their scriptures. That’s part of the reason they become hostile to science.
Few people practicing Buddhism would take a scripture such as the Lotus Sutra literally. If they did, it would mean believing that the Treasure Tower (Lotus Sutra, Chapter 11) was an actual physical object as, high as the earth’s radius and half that in width and depth, that rose out the ground! LOL!
You would see the event recorded in the Bible, as well as other cultural documents throughout the entire planet.
What a trip! :-)
GE
Only 2 of the sins seem to actually violate any principles of science. The rest falls under “behavior that annoys me” but isn’t limited to religion.
Sloth is the ultimate, IMO. Because God made and controls everything, we need expend no energy… in fact it is a sin… to do anything. After all, if we act, even think for ourselves, we’re fighting against the reality God ordained. Reductio ad absurdum: If God meant for us to eat, he’d have placed the food in our stomachs. If God meant for us to know, he’d have put the knowledge directly into our minds.
Theft.
This might be a positive. After all if you dash is the water and rescue someone’s miniature poodle, from the jaws of a bald eagle that was just about to grab it, returning to land and then resuscitate it with mouth to mouth, you don’t really want to say, “well I am the worlds fastest swimmer, courageous to a fault (definitely in this case), and just my countenance is so powerful I can face off an eagle, added to which no one gives poodles mouth to mouth as fast as I do”. I mean that’s boasting. Saying, “Oh me no, that was God’s will” gets you right out of that.
Sorry, forgot to close bold tag after “Sloth.”
Theft.
This might be a positive. After all if you dash is the water and rescue someone’s miniature poodle, from the jaws of a bald eagle that was just about to grab it, returning to land and then resuscitate it with mouth to mouth, you don’t really want to say, “well I am the worlds fastest swimmer, courageous to a fault (definitely in this case), and just my countenance is so powerful I can face off an eagle, added to which no one gives poodles mouth to mouth as fast as I do”. I mean that’s boasting. Saying, “Oh me no, that was God’s will” gets you right out of that.
Don’t forget the specific incidents too. There are some biggies besides Galileo.
How about the lynching of Hypatia the first martyr of science? And the destruction of the library of Alexandria? How about crusades and inquisitions?
People always talk about Galileo as a martyr to science, but Hypatia was mobbed by angry Christians, stripped, killed in a church, and torn to pieces. Her story is something else.
The dismissal of Alexander Winchell from Vanderbilt for teaching Teh Evolution: just another fairy tale.
Vox wants a list of more specific incidents. Here goes.
1.) Galileo’s trial. Heliocentrism was also attacked by Luther, Calvin, and Melanchthon).
2.) Demonization of mathematics during the Dark Ages as Pythagorean occult numerology.
3.) Persecution of alchemists during the Middle Ages/Early Modern Era. This retarded the science of chemistry for hundreds of years in Western Europe.
4.) Execution of Michael Servetus.
5.) Over a hundred years of opposition to the theory of evolution. Scopes Trial.
6.) Destruction of libraries and the burning of books all across the Roman Empire by fanatical monks during the fourth and fifth centuries (annihilation of most of the accumulated knowledge of Antiquity).
7.) Banning the works of Descartes (which formulated an early version of the scientific method).
8.) Condemnation and imprisonment of Roger Bacon for heresy, an early Medieval empiricist, for the crime of sorcery.
9.) Condemnation of Francis Bacon by the Catholic Church.
10.) Destruction of thousands of Islamic manuscripts by Cardinal Ximenes in massive bonfires after the conquest of Grenada.
Peter McGrath wrote, “Superiority: They know better, they are better people.”
That reminded me of the various cases where pharmacy employees refused to sell products they felt were morally objectionable.
As if we have granted pharmacy employee’s, or prison nurses, the authority to safeguard morality. It’s bad enough that some people believe that priests have this duty.
Don’t forget the specific incidents too. There are some biggies besides Galileo.
How about the lynching of Hypatia the first martyr of science? And the destruction of the library of Alexandria? How about crusades and inquisitions?
People always talk about Galileo as a martyr to science, but Hypatia was mobbed by angry Christians, stripped, killed in a church, and torn to pieces. Her story is something else.
I’d add to the list “Patriarchy” – which although similar to hierarchy, hits a different point. Virtually all of the still-extant religions I can think of are based upon the notion that the supreme being(s) are “male.” Where there are female goddesses, they are decidedly the junior partners in the pantheon. The whole notion of a “Father” creator without an equal “Mother” co-creator is silly. The idea of a non-physical entity being in some way essentially “male” is ridiculous. And yet, these notions are central to most religions, and ideas that believers seem to cling to the most. This nonsense currently helps to justify a system whereby women are often viewed as not as “divine” as men, thus rendering them less than fully human. I Blame the Religion.
NickM,
In Sunday school, I always wanted to ask if God had a penis. I mean, what makes him a HIM?
I never did, sadly.
11.) Execution of Giordano Bruno.
12.) Execution of Lucilio Vanini.
13.) Murder of Hypatia.
14.) The theological faculty at the University of Paris forcing Buffon to recant his theories about the age of the earth. Nineteen centuries of Flood Geology and Young Earth Creationism.
15.) St. Paul’s rants against the “wisdom of the wise” in Corinthians and the centuries of anti-intellectualism it inspired.
16.) Justinian’s closing of Plato’s Academy in Athens.
17.) The ecclessiastical monopoly upon lay education which lasted for centuries. This diverted countless talented minds down the worthless rat hole of theology.
18.) The vicious attacks upon rationality by Martin Luther (i.e., “reason is the whore of the devil.”)
19.) Hostility to modern medicine by superstitious Christian sects like Jehovah’s Witnesses.
20.) The ban placed on several of Kepler’s works by the Catholic Church.
That same thought perplexed me, too. And if he was male without a penis, a Y chromosome, or a body, what does it mean to say “he’s” male? Is there some essential maleness that exists outside of physical forms? “Spiritually male”? What the hell could that mean? Wouldn’t that be an argument for fundies to accept transsexuals – since they accept the notion that a being(God, in this case) can be “spiritually” sexed while lacking the actual physical parts of that sex?
Praise of Suffering
Religions tell people it’s good to suffer and they will receive a reward at some future time whether reincarnation or paradise. In my opinion we should do as much as we reasonaby can to alleviate our own suffering, if not that of of others. Maybe I’m drawing too much from personal (anecdotal) experience, but when I meet a highly religious person they almost always have a martyr complex. People will stay with that abusive spouse or remain tangled with people who use and abuse them because they think god approves of their anguish. And I’ve seen people decline to get treatment for medical problems because they think god expects them to put up with it. Also the idea that personal experience dealing with disease “teaches” something. Bovine Excrement – pain doesn’t teach it robs people.
Frequently leads to Persecution Complex, a particularly odious feature of whiny, political fundamentalist christians. I also can’t help but feel that religionists who complain of persecution are projecting their own desires to smash and eliminate anyone different from them. Did someone mention Conformity?
Vox says, “I mean, what the Hell does Galileo’s trial have to do with Christian attitudes today, except as some sort of analogy for… something current? But what?” (Emphasis mine.)
Daedalus’s list above provides modern ramifications for #14 and #19, and sort of for #15 and #17. What about the others? (Though one would arguably be enough.)
If you wanted to really make them squirm, remember the follow-up question: “How big is it?”
I always figured it had to be pretty tiny, since Mary still had an intact hymen, and seemed rather surprised at getting pregnant.
My comment will surely end up being lost in the whole mess (90+ comments…!), but, PZ, I’d like at some point to hear of you about buddhism, since you mention it.
And if he was male without a penis, a Y chromosome, or a body, what does it mean to say “he’s” male? Is there some essential maleness that exists outside of physical forms? “Spiritually male”?
Actually, it has suddenly come clear to me: it’s the great big flowing white spiritual beard that makes him male. That’s why he’s always painted that way!
#82:
Or you could just say “Ah, shucks, just seemed like the right thing to do”.
Say you did do that rescue and as you hand over the dog to its owners, they look up into the sky and say “thank you Jesus” and just walk away. I think you would justifiably expect (and deserve) a “Thank you” and not have the credit given to some phantom in the sky.
But… but… but… Stalin! Hiroshima!
I win!
Indeed.
This recalls the “Is God male?” question can be used to argue that gender is an inherent property of the mind (or even the spirit, heh) rather than the body, ergo God accpets transvestism, transexuality, and homosexuality as acceptable and natural expressions of gender.
It’s a silly argument, perhaps – but fun to pull out at parties. ;-)
My comment will surely end up being lost in the whole mess (90+ comments…!), but, PZ, I’d like at some point to hear of you about buddhism, since you mention it.
My comment will surely end up being lost in the whole mess (90+ comments…!), but, PZ, I’d like at some point to hear your point of view about buddhism, since you mention it.
A lot of these post-twelve sins could be summed up under one blanket sin: Hypocrisy.
A lot of religious people say they believe in gods of love and charity and good will and kindness, but spend their existences doing the exact opposite.
I see that Nick beat me to the transexuality punch while I was struggling to get my last post to take. Dang SB is cranky this week!
LOL! Why… infinitely big, of course!
It kinda makes me wonder about the exact makeup of The Milky Way – and what the hell it’s doing there. (Evidence of Theonanism, perhaps? Blasphemy Challenge, Schmasphemy Challenge. I’m-a be Darned to Heck just for that!)
On a more serious note, props to Daedalus for adding so much detail. Thanks.
EXACTLY. This kind of thinking drives me MAD. Thank you for stating this so clearly! The only other way I’ve heard this expressed was in humorous form, mocking the way people only credit their god with the good things that happen — or, if something bad happens, their god gets credit for the silver lining.
For example, from recent personal experience, I mentioned to my hubby that one COULD say “god spared my husband serious injury when he crashed his motorcycle.”
Or, one could say, “god knocked my husband off his motorcycle and pushed him down a hill.”
But Kseniya and Nick, don’t you see that god NEVER makes mistakes about matching “spiritual” gender and physical gender? He may leave off an arm, or make a blind little baby, or some such (it’s his will), but it’s unNATURAL for you to even suggest that a man might be born in a woman’s body, or vice versa.
I can’t believe you would even suggest such a thing! Blasphemy.
I see that 3 people have cited the Library of Alexandria – & there’s no evidence that xtians burned the whole thing down. It was destroyed piecemeal, there’s rumors that Muslims were involved, & it’s indicated that xtians MAY have had a hand in the last part, but not the whole damn thing. I’d re-provide the link, but apparently, nobody’s listening.
PZ:
Sometimes, just for kicks & giggles, I suggest to theists that Mary was an intersexual, & impregnated herself.
The bellows of outrage can be heard for miles around.
Shame
Ref. Dualism
While shame can be an effective mechanism for discouraging antisocial moral choices, religions often amplify this to encourage a sense of guilt and transgression concerning naitive characteristics such as possession of genetalia or sexual desires or critical thought.
Surrender
Ref. Karma, Criminal Sloth
Religions frequently use pie-in-the-sky promises of afterlife justice to rationalize injustice in the current life and give people a sense of resignment in the face of oppression and suffering. While the fetishization of weakness and victimhood exemplified in the Beatitudes may be comforting for the truly helpless, it also facilitates an attitude of placid subservience to oppressive political or social structures.
God is on Our Side
a.k.a.: Divine Right of Kings, Manifest Destiny, Holy War, Natural Order
The use of religion to reinforce political goals is a powerful and volatile combination. Those in favor of war, annexation, genocide, xenophobia, totalitarianism, racism, etc. will seize on a variety of rationalizations including philosophy, economics, history, and pseudoscience; but religious rationalizations are staggeringly effective in moving the masses. Frankly, this is not an intrinsic criticism of religion, rather a danger of alignment between religion and state, or religion and various other ideologies.
The Divorce of Science From Humanism
Oh yeah: ‘Why not just make 10 louder?’
‘You don’t understand – it goes up to 12!”
– Nigel from Spinal Tap.
From a memetic point of view, the carrots and sticks memes are surely important ingrediants. Like organisms, they have defence mechanisms, etc.
But how about the “Being/Becoming dichotomy”? i.e. the changing, temporal world, constantly in flux, is nothing compared to God’s infinite ultimate “Being”? This ties in with the “Immutability Sin”. Probably for deep pscyhological reasons, simple minds tend to cling to “Beings” – the unchanging aspects of things – mountains, volcanos, stars, gods etc, and pay little attention to more fleeting “Becomings” such as sandstorms, cloud formations… the Platonic idea that this world is just a shadowy version of the Real, etc, etc
I can’t imagine Mary saying to God: “You created Adam! Did you have to get me pregnant?”
This post probably concentrates on Christianity, rather than other religions such as Scientology or Skhihism because Brent’s original question was about Christianity, not because concentrating on say, Islam might prokove a Salman Rushdie-style fatwa, or anything…
I don’t really have any sin to add to the list, but I thought it might be fun to think about what’ll happen when someone from, oh, I don’t know, AiG, gets hold of the list you’ve all constructed here and takes a stab at attempting to refute all the points in the list.
So, for example, I could say, “Item XXXIV: Taking the fable of Jonah and the whale and spreading the story that it’s a fact.”, and they’ll have a list of 22 “evidences” making it clear my point is wrong.
It’ll be the longest, ramblin’-est, dumbest article ever.
MikeM– Good one. I want to see them try to refute coming to my door and waking me up… “In the case of DaveX… he may actually have been DIVINELY wakened, the group of churchgoers were merely present, having felt the biddings of the LARD to wait at his doorstep.”
I have a perfect example of this from when I was a kid. My mother and my (very fundamental Pentecostal) aunt were discussing this Virgin Mary statue that was allegedly crying blood. As an 11 year old, I decided to butt in, and I said something like “I wonder if it’s pork or beef blood”.
Well, my aunt started ranting and raving like a lunatic about what she inferred was an insult to religion. My mother didn’t take too kindly to her response, so she asked me what I meant. I answered something like “I hope it’s animal blood… otherwise, I’d be scared that some sick (mentally ill) person was hurting themselves.”
Upon that reflection, my mother was very impressed… and even my aunt started to change her mind about whether or not that was a “real” miracle, or if it was just the act of a “lost soul” who was acting out.
Looking back on this two decades later, it marks at least one time that this aunt didn’t blindly swallow her religious beliefs because of using reason and some critical thinking skills… you know… just basically thinking things through to their logical conclusion. It’s just too bad that I haven’t seen too many examples of this in her since…. lol
Shouldn’t this great post be added to the Taste of Pharyngula list?
To get it down to 10, I would probably combine Theft with Miracles, you are basically saying the same thing twice. And you could combine Faith with Supernaturalism. Then you could have the anti-“god” Ten sinmandments. Just saying as a “Person of Faith”.
Because it’s comforting. You’re right, of course, that religions change all the time. But they do so slowly, and usually try to give the impression that they’re not changing at all (the recent decision to remove Limbo from the Catholic mythos seems to be an exception).
As I see it, people want some measure of stability, some unchanging beacon in a turbulent world, and religion promises them that. I suspect this is why religions include so many rituals: they may not make sense, but they’re old and familiar, and therefore comfortable. People can get quite emotional even over ancient mistakes: within the Orthodox church, there was a bitter schism between those who believed, based on one translation, that one should cross oneself with two fingers, and those who believed, based on another translation, that one should cross oneself with three.
Science, by contrast, does not promise any sort of stability. The very word “theory” is a constant reminder that what is regarded as true today may be overturned tomorrow.
In practice, of course, science delivers far more than it promises: theories don’t come with a warranty, and indeed Newton’s laws of motion were replaced by relativity, which in turn is known to be incompatible with quantum theory. It wouldn’t be smart to bet that the laws of mechanics will remain unchanged for the next hundred years. So yes, science changes. At the same time, Newton’s laws are good enough for many purposes, including building bridges and sending spacecraft to Pluto. So in effect, scientists figured out how ordinary objects move 300 years ago and the only thing that’s changed is the behavior of very large, very small, and very massive objects.
People want something permanent, like the north star. Science points out that actually, Polaris moves around the sky, but in the end, it works.
I see that 3 people have cited the Library of Alexandria – & there’s no evidence that xtians burned the whole thing down. It was destroyed piecemeal, there’s rumors that Muslims were involved…
The article you linked to says of the Muslim involvement:
“Since the 18th century, this story has been universally regarded as a fiction. Normally it has been put down to Christian crusader propaganda, but recently some historians, including Bernard Lewis, have argued that although the tale is certainly false, its true origin may be more complex.”
What religion does is steal human accomplishment and bestows it on a fickle imaginary being.
Bryan Harvey of the band House of Freaks said it more concisely in “I Want Answers”
Great works of great men to whom we are indebted/
Man does the work, God gets the credit
Dammit. Googling for those lyrics led me to a site that had Bryan Harvey’s obituary. He was murdered New Year’s 2006, along with his wife and two daughters, 9 and 4.
That leads me straight to a line from Robbie Fulks:
We’d owe Him only hatred, but God isn’t real.
Windy:
Which is why I used the word ‘rumors’, thereby qualifying my previous point.
There’s rumors going around, that xtians were solely responsible.
I’m more than happy to dun religious folks for past iniquities, but I believe in credit (& blame) where it’s due.
The destruction of the Great Library of Alexandria remains a mystery, but Christians did destroy the “daughter library” at the Serapeum in 392 A.D. Most libraries in the ancient world were attached to pagan temples. These went up in flames after Theodosius ordered their destruction. He also issued an imperial decree that demanded, “Burn all books hostile to Christianity lest they cause God anger and scandalize the pious.”
It is rather unfortunate that “Karma” is interpreted as being synonymous with “kismet” or fate. The word actually means action or work. And the original idea was one must bear the consequences of one’s actions right here, right now. I guess our trusted religious folks twisted the idea around to mean these actions haunt you in n-th rebirth, and hence the “kismet” or fate interpretation.
Christians enjoyed burning books in gigantic public bonfires at the onset of the Dark Ages. The works of Nestorius, Arius, and Porphyry were destroyed in this fashion. So were those of Origen after he was posthumously condemned of heresy.
Sowing Human Dysfunction
As Religion causes division between groups, it also causes division within the individual. Though a human is supposedly made in the divine image, that human is impure through and through, riddled with imperfection, just snorting to do evil at every chance. Individuals are prevented from joyfully embracing their humanity for they must always be aware that they are not good enough, that they are fallen angels instead of the immensely interesting, highly successful evolved creatures that they are. They must never seize any moment fully, they must always doubt their intentions, their focus, their desires. They must pit themselves against themselves, never to be at peace and always dissatisfied.
21.) Condemnation of the Monophysite John Philiponus (an early critic of Aristotle’s physics, and a precursor of Galileo) and the destruction of his writings in the seventh century.
22.) Condemnation of 1277 (an attempt by conservative theologians to subvert Aristotelian natural philosophy at the University of Paris).
23.) Condemnation of Peter Abelard for heresy.
24.) Torture of Tomas Campanella.
25.) Subordination of natural philosophy to theology in Medieval universities prior to the fourteenth century.
26.) The late St. Augustine’s complete and utter rejection of his previous limited support for natural science.
27.) Demonization of chemistry as one of the “seven devilish arts” during the Middle Ages.
28.) Proscribing human dissection until well into the Middle Ages. The superstitious belief that man was made “in the image of God” held back anatomy for centuries.
29.) Hostility of the Papacy towards the first Italian scientific societies.
30.) Glorification of ignorance by the Church fathers.
I love this thread. Love it. Great list, PZ.
However.
I feel like we’re fixing the symptom, and not the cause.
If we magically remove religion and its machinations, somehow, from the loop- those things were there because it’s human nature to seek out such patterns, and I have to posit that we would, over time, figure out other reasons to kill each other, segregate ourselves, and fear and hate.
It’s what we do.
Bloodthirst. Killing everyone in a city of 20,000 people because perhaps 10% of them were Cathars, who were Christians who believed in reincarnation and therefore in the equality of men and women, high and low, because you never knew who you’d be next.
This was the occasion where a bishop commanded: “Kill them all! God will know his own,” which has been repurposed as the military motto, “Kill them all–let God sort ’em out.”
Condoning and even encouraging the enslavement of entire groups so that “their souls could be saved.”
Etc. etc.
Don’t know if this one has already been mentioned?
Culture of Death
Focus on the supposed afterlife takes precedence over our actual existence here on earth. Religion becomes more important than actual human concerns. Taken to the extreme can lead to a death wish mentality.
I may have missed it in the thread, but why has no-one put down “irresponsibility”?
There’s the resignation of believers, their willing choice to be “slaves of god”. The odd thing is that God seems to want them to do exactly what they want to.
He never wants them to sit quietly and pay attention to the science. He demands that they fight to push His story into the lives of everyone else.
But the real pisser is that God actually gets a pass on being responsible for stuff. If a god is responsible for every event that takes place, then he’s responsible for miracles, okay.
The cured cancer patient, the last-minute salvation rescue, the lottery win–they’re all His work.
But then God is responsible for the Virginia Tech massacre, too. It was produced and executed not merely with his quiet co-operation, but exactly according to how he planned it.
He didn’t just know it was going to happen and refuse to lift an ethereal finger–He damn well MADE it happen!
Every plane crash, every tsunami, every 2000-person killing earthquake … all of it His doing. All that purposeful suffering, and why?
(Answer: Who knows? Or rather: “No-one can know the mind of God”)
For no-one can stand against the will of God. Everything, everywhere was planned by him and happens in accordance with his slightest wish. If he even thinks “Nope, that ain’t gonna happen,” then it just don’t.
I tend to agree with this view. As such I believe that God made me an atheist, perhaps to test people of faith, for who can know the mind of God?
And who am I, mere mortal and atheist, to fight against the will of my creator?
Science has nothing to do with that.
…..30.) Glorification of ignorance by the Church fathers.
***
As evidence of my point, Jesus said in Matthew 23:9 And call no man your father upon the earth: for one is your Father, which is in heaven.
Don’t be deceived; you are rightly pointing fingers, but at the wrong “label”. These items you are listing has “Catholic Church” fingerprints all over them. Read Pascal’s letters.
“One who believes in Christ” is not a sufficient definition of a Christian. Even satan believes in God, Christ, and knows scripture. The most anti-Christian Atheist knows instinctively not to consider satan to be a Christian.
A Christian is one who, not only believes Christ is the divine Son of the living God, but also accepts Christ as their Lord and Savior; not the Church nor any human regardless of their popeness.
Destruction of the Pagan Temples and statues themselves (not just the attached libraries) during the 4th century Roman Empire.
The 1560 burning of almost all Mayan Literature by Diego de Landa, Bishop of Yucatan because “they contained nothing in which there were not to be seen superstition and lies of the devil.”
The constant parading, even today, that the question of God’s existence as “the most important question” — Why not how fluffy are Santa’s nostrils? We are constructing syntactically valid questions, though they are far less important than “where are my keys?”
Don’t forget that the increasing evidence that some “junk” DNA has function is proof that God exists. This assertion actually showed up on the Reasons to Believe website, which cited one of my papers as part of this wonderful proof. I emailed them to point out that my paper actually provided evidence in support of our common ancestry with great apes, but somehow the paper is still up there as a Reason to Believe. Not that I’m bitter…
The other thing to remember about karma is that it’s not particular to buddhism (which arose, in some ways, as a response to hinduism). For a hindu, karma serves many purposes – e.g. to explain why bad things happen to good people and as a justification for the caste system.
Buddha’s take was pretty much – well, you still can’t do much about shit happening, but you should judge people on their merits rather than the circumstances of their birth.
As far as accepting authoritarianism goes, there are innumerable texts exhorting buddhists to perform good actions and not bad ones (dhammapada verse 116+ for example), but, of course, there are also innumerable flavours of buddhism and some of them are pretty whack (pure land – I’m looking at you, you reflavoured dried christianity, you) so there’s bound to be some group somewhere that thinks that way.
When I taught in the public school system here in Ol’ Virginny, every day I passed a church sign that never changed. The message was “FAITH – Forget All, I’ll Trust Him.” As you can imagine, teaching was an uphill climb in that county.
The constant parading, even today, that the question of God’s existence as “the most important question”
***
The most important question is “can man live without God”. Even Darwin feared the progression of tooth and claw.
Christ fulfilling hundreds of years of fortold prophecy, culminating in defeating death, is proof he is the son of God. Read “Science Speaks”. Based on the fulfillment of only 48 of the many prophecies Jesus fulfilled, the author concludes that Jesus, being the Christ of prophecy at 1 times 10 to the 157th power, is the most proven fact in history. Don’t be decieved; there is no lack of evidence; only the supression of it.
which cited one of my papers as part of this wonderful proof. I emailed them to point out that my paper actually provided evidence in support of our common ancestry with great apes
***
We also share 11% DNA with daffodils. According to your method, this can only mean we are part daffodil.
Lowering the value of human life by insisting that the mythological world to come will settle matters is a pretty big one. This includes matters of intellectual curiosity, whence a “sin against science”.
Freelancer’s remark allows me to point out something else: twisting of otherwise brilliant minds. Aquinas, for example, tries to justify the infinite punishment thing. Throughout his work, Aquinas shows he is a first rate mind, but as the infinite punishment stuff shows, one with an enormous “blind spot”.
We share a common ancestor. Science already knows this. What are you getting at?
infinite punishment stuff shows, one with an enormous “blind spot”.
***
Please explain.
We share a common ancestor. Science already knows this.
***
What common ancestor are you speaking of?
June and Ward Cleaver from just down the block, of course. What else would we be talking about?
We share a common ancestor. Science already knows this.
***
What common ancestor are you speaking of?
Oh. My. Fictitious. God.
Here.
Fictiondamn blockquote tags.
Caledonian said:
I may have noted my view on this blog before, but I think Thomas ought to be the patron saint of scientists. Thomas had the good sense to say ‘I can’t believe these tales of the supernatural — that sounds preposterous; I will not grant credence without evidence.’ According to scripture, Jesus took that as a prayer, and granted evidence. Thomas, alone among the disciples, felt the wounds, felt the flesh. He asked, and he received.
Trying to replicate Thomas’s observation is difficult — but Jesus blessed the asking for evidence. Don’t ever let a fundamentalist get away with claiming science is inferior to religion, when Jesus treats skepticism with such respect.
Magie, a few posts later, presents a tougher issue — the certainty of being right by those who are generally and spectacularly wrong. Americans should know better. I mark the beginning of real wisdom in America with Huck Finn’s repudiation of what was “known to be right” when he was on the raft with Jim, who had grown to be a great friend. Huck’s dilemma was great: Jim was an escaped slave, who rightfully belonged to someone else. Huck’s helping Jim escape was at least theft, and theft is a sin, and the preachers made sure Huck knew he’d go to hell if he aided Jim’s escape. While Jim slept, Huck thought it through, finally deciding that it was worth going to hell to help Jim, a man who loved and was loved, a man who was a good father and husband.
Christians who do not understand that being Christian means standing up to the church when its wrong, as Abraham stood up to God when God was unjust, miss the point.
Maybe Jefferson was right: The Christians have so rotted Christianity that it is unsalvagable.
What else would we be talking about?
***
The only common anscestor we could possibly have would have a completely matching set of chromosones or there is no offspring. I didn’t think you believed in Adam or miracles, so that is why I ask.
infinite punishment is inevitably disproportionate to any conceivable crime and thus is unjust by definition, the blind spot being that he is willing to ignore this bit of logic due to an emotional bias on his part?
***
Think of someone who has wronged another; for example, a neighbor leaked antifreeze into your yard and has killed your dog carelessly but accidentally. Imagine, in your grief, you went to this neighbor and said “I forgive you” and the neighbor told you “I did nothing wrong, take a hike asswipe” after you showed them mercy. You will then feel “judgement” toward your neighbor, No? If this doesn’t move you, think of your child killed by a drunk driver with your mercy given a similar response. You will think “what a monster”. Only when this mercy is accepted can their be reconciliation.
Eternal punishment is separation from God; That’s all; from lack of reconciliation, from not accepting mercy; one faces judgement. Purgatory is not in the Bible and is an invention of the Catholic Church used to extort money through fear. If one refuses God’s mercy, God is merely seconding your motion and locking you outside for eternity. That is why one must think twice before walking away from this free gift of mercy. Read Pascal’s wager.
LOL @ gene for bringing some much needed craziness to my evening. A good laugh can be very relaxing.
Do you understand what the terms “finite,” “infinite,” and “disproportionate” actually mean?
So far as I can see, eternal punishment is a fiction invented by humans to control other humans through fear. You have provided no reason to believe otherwise.
1) It’s not free,
2) What lame excuse for a supreme being would accept a person as “moral” who simply gamed the system, and
3) Pascal’s Wager might be sort of convincing if it didn’t work just as well for Allah, Krishna, and the Flying Spaghetti Monster as it does for Holy Threesome. Which of those gods do you have the most to gain by believing in and most to lose by not believing in, and why?
Man, it’s been weeks since I heard a creationist trot out the ol’ matching chromosomes argument. You clearly don’t know anything about genetics; all kinds of scrambled arrangements of chromosomes are perfectly viable, and there are examples of chromosome mismatches in humans that demonstrates this is so.
Wow. Profoundly ignorant of both biology and rational thought. We got a live one here!
much needed craziness
***
Check this out: http://www.ifilm.com/video/2820728?cmpnid=753&pt=sr&refsite=7063
I am definitely adding the word “capering” to my vocabulary.
Man, it’s been weeks since I heard a creationist trot out the ol’ matching chromosomes argument. You clearly don’t know anything about genetics; all kinds of scrambled arrangements of chromosomes are perfectly viable, and there are examples of chromosome mismatches in humans that demonstrates this is so
***
If you mean me, I am not a creationist.
Chromosome mismatches? You mean like the clef lip/scifallic head/early death type or the down syndrome type or the type that causes an improvement like an accidental mistake by a programmer that actually causes an improvement in a computer program?
Which of those gods do you have the most to gain by believing in and most to lose by not believing in, and why?
***
Christ was the only one on earth who fulfilled all the prophecies and claimed to be the Son of God. So I would go with Christ for those reasons.
Did you like the Bible study on Genesis 19?
Odd debate really, after if all religion is the product of human culture then we seem to be at risk of giving it some sort of independent life over and about the behavior and actions of human beings, so this thread it might as well be titled “humans beings ‘sins’ against science”. Odd choice of word (sin).
All human beings are obviously able to perform acts of evil or goodness. Isn’t rather childish to project everything bad onto ‘religion’ per se. I think the notion that the ills ascribed to religion will cease to be part of human experience is, in fact, something of a comfort blanket which amazingly naive.
Anyway here is a link to a very interesting interview with Rowan Williams.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/religion/programmes/misc/insearchofgod.shtml
No. I mean like normal, healthy people with 45 chromosomes breeding with normal, healthy people with 46 chromosomes producing normal, healthy children. Happens all the time. Variation in chromosome number or chromosome organization isn’t necessarily an obstacle to viability.
What is a “clef” lip? Is “scifallic” a curious misspelling of “cephalic”, which simply means “head”?
You sure sound like a creationist. If you’re not, you’re a remarkably inept specimen of evolutionist.
Izaac Newton.
Religion pissed away most of the guy’s life. It’s a monstrous false trail. It’s a bottomless pit that’ll take an infinite supply of intellectual curiosity and human enquiry, and give back absolutely nothing.
Pascal’s Wager is a perfect example of the utterly wasteful misuse of intellect that religion generates.
I haven’t read the thread, but I don’t think anyone here is stupid enough to make those claims, so I’m calling straw man.
Religion is a source of several ills, and is a source of the things PZ lists, but it is by no means the only one. If we could somehow eliminate religion, I think we’d remove a large chunk of those ills, but the world would by no means be perfect. Just a bit better.
Religion does some small bits of good, but those are easily outsourced to other human pursuits.
Oh I don’t know Pascal’s Wager isn’t the most ‘irrational’ idea ever produced in the world. Leibniz is also quite interesting and they are some modern modal logic arguments for the possibility of God – see Alvin Plantinga; not that I agree with him, but it’s a rather more advanced position than Jerry Fawell’s et al.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alvin_Plantinga
Doesn’t matter how rational it is. How much time have these terribly bright people wasted on speculations about the patently non-existent?
They could have spent their time cataloguing another bug or something…
:P
I read a novel and considerably improved version of Pascal’s wager in the NYT this morning. An Albanian roofer, it reported, repaired the roof of the local mosque for free, but also the local synagogue. He explained that there are all sorts of religions out there, and no one really knows which religion is true, so a wise man hedges his bets!
Izaac Newton.
Religion pissed away most of the guy’s life. It’s a monstrous false trail. It’s a bottomless pit that’ll take an infinite supply of intellectual curiosity and human enquiry, and give back absolutely nothing.
***
Funny you mention Newton, as my interest in things Biblical is derived from its mathematical excellence. The mathimatical beauty is undetectible to the casual observer and is not revealed until one delves seriously into study. Even if one doesn’t believe; the study is still fascinating.
I guess one can say Fisher pissed away his life on Chess, Liberache pissed away his life on piano. The Bible is a mathematical feast that is probably easier for someone like Newton to discern than the average person.
“Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica” not up to your standards of time well spent? Maybe Newton should have put his genius towards something you prefer; like what Einstein spent his spare time on, perhaps? Is it not possible Newton “saw” something that you do not? “Blindness” (physical and spiritual), and restoring site is a theme woven throughout the Bible.
I have no gripe with science-minded people. It is not your fault that the crimes of the “religious” get attributed to Christians; the real ones. Christianity is a relationship and worldview. One cannot take one’s cues from culture and understand this; it takes study or maybe a friendship with a real Christian.
Vox Day? Didn’t he say that if he had a vision of Jesus telling him to eat babies, he’d do it with a song in his heart? Is there any reason to treat him in any fashion other than making circular fingers gestures next to one’s ear, saying “cuckoo” and backing away slowly?
I think taking hallucinations seriously falls under one of the many categories already mentioned, but boy, did that ever creep me out. He must have missed the memo telling him to waffle when pressed on the fucked-up implications of his beliefs.
Then he should have used science. Since he’s not around anymore, you should see about doing the same in his place.
I would like to see Gene make a return and explain what he “is” if not a Creationist.
Is there any reason to believe that those translations were any more precise than anything that was attributed to Nostradamus?
I could claim to be the Son of God myself, but it would be fruitless as I would inherit nothing from a non-existent estate.
I would like to see Gene make a return and explain what he “is” if not a Creationist.
***
Sorry, watching a movie.
I have no idea how we got here.
Gene:
Really, now? Using what? Gematria? The bible code? Captain Midnite’s magic decoder ring? Do share.
I think my close friend of 30 years (who’s also a Young Earther, -SIGH-) might take decided offense at that.
Suggesting atheists are fairly insulated from ‘real’ xtians is not only insulting, but fairy stupid, since you folks are just about everywhere.
Ed:
I beg your pardon, but just when did Abraham do that? Was that prior to or just after that little voice predicted that there’d be a covenant w/Abe’s seed, & Abe’s seed’s seed? Or around 8 years later?
It never ceases to amaze me how sad and pathetic you all are. All of this supposed intellectual knowledge and all you can do is bitch and complain about something you don’t personally believe in…what a waste of time.
*News Flash* If you really want to shut up the Christian right, find a planet that has earth like temps, hope it has water, and cross your fingers that you’ll then find abundant life– this way you can actually prove your evolutionary naturalism, erode Christianity, and thus your secular humanism will eventually rule the day.
Until then, keep you with your hate mongering and your perpetual complaining in your meaningless lives. I know it makes you all feel better : P Your so cute at that age!!
Dave X, that was a very funny post. Very funny. Almost as good as PZ’s original in terms of content, but funnier. Did I say it was funny?
By the way, the “flamingos” you refer to – are these *real* flamingos or plastic lawn ornaments? If they’re plastic, I recommend mixing petroleum jelly with petrol to make it stick so they burn nicely. If they’re real…well, Sunday’s always a good day for a barbeque. (Hey, they’re not cephalods, right?)
Suggesting atheists are fairly insulated from ‘real’ xtians is not only insulting, but fairy stupid, since you folks are just about everywhere.
***
With all humility; No, nothing to do with insulation – all about deception. You are talking about catholocism witch is not Christian. Read Pascal’s letters. Outside scripture; it will get you closer than anything else to the truth.
Uh…
Michael:
It never ceases to amaze me how sad and pathetic your kind are. All of this supposed revealed perfect knowledge and all you can do is bitch and complain about something someone doesn’t agree with you on…what a waste of time.
*News Flash* If you really want to shut up the scientists, find a frog-bull hybrid like the one that Kirk Cameron likes to yak on about, or find a wild banana and cross your fingers that you’ll then find that it is as suited to our tastes as the bred varieties– this way you can actually prove your creationists propaganda, erode Science and Reason, and thus your religion will eventually rule the day.
Until then, keep you with your hate mongering and your perpetual complaining in your meaningless failed doctines. I know it makes you all feel better : P Your so cute at that age!!
I was going to add bad dress sense, but I realised that is a crime against fashion.
Still they have the cheek to criticise us as ‘nerds’.
Oh dear, Gene is also a Scotsman!
Not that there’s anything wrong with Scotsmen. :D
Not that there’s anything wrong with Scotsmen. :D
Many of my friends are Scotsmen!
As much as I love poking stupid with a stick, perhaps it’s time to draw a curtain of merciful oblivion over the conversation with Gene.
Not that there’s anything wrong with Scotsmen. :D
So many of them, so little time, and the best ones are married. :P (speedwell works in the awl bidness but will never, ever get transferred to Aberdeen, more’s the pity.)
Michael, you show an astonishing lack of understanding of evolution, as well as the scientific process. It barely qualifies for being a straw man.
Saw this rather typical comment over at Vox Day’s place about PZ’s and Brent’s articles :
“It may be Pharyn-whatevers best post ever, but it isn’t really all that good. It is mainly strawmen, like when he condemns belief in miracles as believing with no evidence when, in fact, Christians believe in miracles because of the evidence. His section on faith exposes his lack of thinking deeply about what he believes, when he says that calling someone “a person of faith” is an insult, he doesn’t realize that he is insulting himself. The “scientific” world view is just as much a product of faith as any Christian or religious one. ”
How can we reason with this, or is it just hopeless?
.
Gene wrote: Christ was the only one on earth who fulfilled all the prophecies and claimed to be the Son of God. So I would go with Christ for those reasons.
Heck, have you read ANY study on the NT claims of supposedly messianistic OT prophesies (AKA “typological exegesis”)? The fact that Matthew (in 1:23) uses the widely ridiculed Isaiah 7:14 to support his notion of Jesus as the expected OT Messiah should rid those claims of any credibility.
The OT Hebrew word “almah” (western transcription, ofc) in Isaiah 53 should be translated “young woman, not “virgin”. The OT word for “virgin” is “betulah”. One might argue that Isaiah used “almah” for both “young woman” and “virgin” – if it hadn’t been for the fact that Isaiah (and Deutero-Isaiah) uses “betulah” several times (23:12, 37:22, 47:1, 62:5), to specifically denote women who were yet to engage in sexual activities.
IMO, the only OT passage that could be used by intellectually honest Christian apologists (if that isn’t an oxymoron) to argue for OT prediction of Jesus is Isaiah 53. However, neither that holds up to closer critical examination. If you look closer at it, most of the connections are to Pauline theology (the Suffering Servant carrying the sins of the people, and so on), not to actual events at the crucifixion.
My personal theory is that Paul, well versed in the Septuagint version of the OT, saw the few superficial similarities between Isaiah 53 and the crucifixion lore (the piercing of hands, and so on), and modeled what ultimately became the Christian atonement theology after what the rest of Isaiah 53 said about the Suffering Servant (Christ/the Suffering Servant carrying the sins of the world, “through his wounds ye are healed” and so on).
A good, thorough introduction to the concept of typological exegesis can be found at http://www.christian-thinktank.com/baduseot.html – actually written by a liberal Christian.
I miss all the fun!!!!
Hmm first for Michael… how should I put it… oh… Fuck off.
For Gene… you’re such a mixed bag if irrationality and ignorance I don’t even know where to start. How about… You’re a death cultist.
I’m not superstitious.
Galloway, I’m not sure this can be reasoned with. One of the worst inventions of the New Creationists is their Orwellian newspeak, where they use religious terminology in an attempt to lower science and evolution to their level: “faith” in science, “materialistic myth”, “darwinian religion” and so on. At least we can point out the idiocy in this. Then, we may attempt to reason with them.
Galloway, I’m with you. If there is one point of PZ’s that I immediately identified with is this idea that we should wear our faith as a badge of honor. Admiring ignorance is something I’ve never understood.
How can we reason with this, or is it just hopeless?
Hopeless.
Just for kicks, last night re-read the book of Genesis. Reading it, actually reading it, for the first time as a freshman in college is what set me on the road towards atheism. I’ve read it since, but it’s always an eye-opener, apparently.
Of course, I’d read the two creation stories before, but I wonder how the fundies can really resolve the contradictions. Story 1 – man and woman made at the same time after all the rest of creation. Story 2 – man made before plants, then animals are made, then woman. Pretty stark difference.
I didn’t make it all the way through Genesis before I fell asleep, but here’s some of the stuff that really struck me this time around: God actually strolls around his garden like a person. He lies to Adam and Eve about the consequences of eating the apple. The flood wasn’t just rain but the opening of the windows of the firmament that separate the water above heaven from the waters below the earth. God kills virtually every thing on earth except Noah because of humanity’s wickness and then says he regrets his decision (?!?). “Sons of God” come down and breed with human women, producing a race of “Nephilim”, I believe. God condemns Noah’s son Ham and all of his progeny to lives as slaves because Ham sees his father naked. Abram – married to his half-sister, Sarai, by the way – tells a king who wants to sleep with her that it’s OK because Sarai’s not his wife, she’s his sister. And the king sleeps with her, and then gets upset later when he finds out that Abram and Sarai are actually married, because he wouldn’t have done it had he known – and basically says, “Why didn’t you say something, you schmuck?” This happens not once but twice, with two different kings. The second time it happens, Sarai is more than 90 years old, is no longer fertile, but apparently still quite the looker. She subsequently gets pregnant. (Later, Abram’s grandson Jacob tells a king the same exact thing about his wife – doesn’t anyone ever learn in this story? – who is not actually his sister and the king again is upset that Jacob didn’t tell him the truth). People routinely live 800 or 900 years, having children the whole time. Lot’s wife turns into a pillar of salt because she looks at her former home as God is destroying it, and after this happens Lot’s two daughters get him drunk and sleep with him. They both get pregnant. And on and on.
Yet people believe this obvious myth is the Gospel truth based on such evidence as , um, well, it’s in the Bible. And it’s not even like its a great, uplifting story that you really want to believe is true because it’s just so awesome. It reads like a sordid fever dream. Can someone explain how they can believe this crap is actually literally true?
(BTW, the bad, crazy, or boring stuff was only about 90% of it. There was a certain about of poetry in there, I’d say – perhaps more in the original language. Some o the creation story is appropriately wonder-struck. There’s an interesting moral discussion between God and Abraham about the ethics of wiping out an entire village for wickedness if there are some good people in it. But those beautiful or interesting parts are almost buried in a ton of junk).
Re: #94 “…In Sunday school, I always wanted to ask if God had a penis. I mean, what makes him a HIM?
Sure He does! Haven’t you heard of the Rod of God?
Re: #139 “Christ fulfilling hundreds of years of fortold prophecy, culminating in defeating death, is proof he is the son of God.
Jesus is not mentioned anywhere in the Old Testament. And few, if any, of the proffered “prophecies” are actually prophecies — most are merely verses that the early Christians could, with much twisting, “interpret” as prophecies. Bogus math (“1 times 10 to the 157th power”) might impress the innumerate flock, but on this blog, it only underlines your vapid nonsense.
And as for Gene’s attacks on science — pathetic!
Re: #168 It never ceases to amaze me how sad and pathetic you all are. All of this supposed intellectual knowledge and all you can do is bitch and complain about something you don’t personally believe in…what a waste of time.
We must have nailed poor Michael dead-center. In my experience, his reaction is typical of a person whose delusions are starkly illuminated with reason, and he can’t stand it. The whole point of this post is that religion in general, and Christianity in particular, has a baleful influence on humanity. That’s why we bitch and complain.
Michael would also tell blacks of the early 19th century, “Why are you bitching and complaining about slavery, which you don’t personally believe in?”
The nutters wield their wooden swords and cardboards shields against our cruise missiles.
— CV
Ha! Not falling for that “internal error” message!
— CV
Just a song of Gomorrah
I wonder what they did there?
Must of been a bad thing
to get shot down for
I wonder how they blew it up
or if they tore it down
Get out, get out, Mr. Lot
and don’t you look around
Who gave you your orders?
Someone from the sky
I heard a voice inside my head
in the desert wind so dry
I heard a voice telling me to flee
The very same voice I always believe
Said: a lot of trouble coming
but it don’t have to come to you
I’m sparing you so you can tell
the rest what you been through
But don’t you turn around, no
Don’t look after you
It’s not your business how it’s done
You’re lucky to get through
You’re a good upstanding man
A credit to the flock
But if you don’t face straight ahead
You could not take the shock
Blew the city off the map
Left nothing there but fire
The wife of Lot got turned to salt
because she looked behind her
Because she looked behind
Because she looked behind…
–Robert Hunter
(“Gomorrah,” from Jerry Garcia’s album “Cats under the stars”
Galloway, I’m with you. If there is one point of PZ’s that I immediately identified with is this idea that we should wear our faith as a badge of honor. Admiring ignorance is something I’ve never understood.
Colin–
They’re usually lawn ornaments, though I wouldn’t put it past a wacky youth group to go for the real thing. Maybe you get extra extortion value for the threat of flamingo feces on someone’s lawn.
I’m too nice a guy to set a real animal on fire (not that this is much of a test to set for “nice guys,” is it?)… but to give you a bottom reference, I DID reach over the fence at the zoo and touch one when the sign said NOT to… I was curious!
Sorry about the double post. My bad.
Colin–
They’re usually lawn ornaments, though I wouldn’t put it past a wacky youth group to go for the real thing. Maybe you get extra extortion value for the threat of flamingo feces on someone’s lawn.
I’m too nice a guy to set a real animal on fire (not that this is much of a test to set for “nice guys,” is it?)… but to give you a bottom reference, I DID reach over the fence at the zoo and touch one when the sign said NOT to… I was curious!
Internal error, my ass.
#186, If that is the Rod of God, why do we say “Spare the Rod and Spoil the Child?”
Shorter version: Converting doubt and skepticism to a negative thing.
Shorter version: Converting doubt and skepticism to a negative thing.
Shorter version: Converting doubt and skepticism into a negative thing.
nice list, but Roman numerals? on a web page? how antiquated? I can see any reason to ever use Roman numerals, except on a clock in a period piece. it’s like giving someone your phone number in hexidecimal. Every try to do math with roman numerals?
but otherwise, nice list! ;)
Shorter version: Converting doubt and skepticism into a negative thing.
I’m sick of the constant ‘400 (or whatever) prophecies fulfilled in Christ’
Hogwash. Try to get an actual list– it just doesn’t work.
1) The majority consist or extracting a phrase or a sentence from the OT that kinda looks something like something that allegedly happend to JC and this is declared a fulfilled prophecy. In EVERY case, wording around the phase does not apply, but that is somehow ignored. Indeed, all the phrases that don’t match don’t seem to be counted as failures.
2) A couple of really embarrassing cases where NT authors (such as Matthew) badly misquote OT prophecies or quote OT ‘prophecies’ that don’t exist.
3) There is NOT ONE ‘prophecy’ that is specific that also applies that we have any existing copy older than the incident claimed as a fulfillment. Apparently God can’t be bothered to keep original documents.
Barron, what’s the shorter version?
Barron, what’s the shorter version?
Barron, what’s the shorter version?
Barron, what’s the shorter version?
quork wrote:
No you are not supposed to acknowledge anything. The Index is a despicable and obnoxious creation and the Catholic Church has no right to censor anything at all. My point is that De Revolutionibus was considered by the RCC to be an important and necessary work of mathematical astronomy and so they didn’t ban it, as is popularly believed, but censored it instead, removing all references to Copernicanism being a truth as opposed to a hypothesis. Works on the Index had varying status some were banned some ‘merely’ censored, as was the case with Copernicus. His book was indeed removed from the Index in whenever but it was never banned.
Yes I am an authority on Copernicus and De Revolutionibus but no I do not consider myself to be an indisputable source in this case. I am summarising various publications of Owen Gingerich who is ‘the’ expert on De Revolutionibus the corrections carried out by the RCC are listed on pages 367 – 368 of his “An Annotated Census of Copernicus’ De Revolutionibus” where you will also find a reference to a longer article by Gingerich on the subject.
Having challenged my authority to make the statements I made and then to go on and quote Wiki as your indisputable source at least shows that you have a sense of humour.
Gene:
Prophecies? Which ones? Not 1 got fulfilled, by a long shot.
Oh, I got it: you’re talking about all those passages that got lifted outta context.
“Text lifted out of context is a pretext”, as they say.
Still no word on the ‘mathematical’ beauty of Aesop’s fables? (Oops, meant the bible, sorry.)
That’s what’s known as making a change to the text, is it not?
Copernicus himself lived in terror of the Inquisition and only published De Revolutionibus on his deathbed.
CRAP
Very wrong on both counts.
We also share 11% DNA with daffodils. According to your method, this can only mean we are part daffodil. Posted by: Gene | May 10, 2007 09:28 PM
I’m not sure about that Gene. If I were you I’d get a personal gene analysis.
Based on some of your other statements, it seems to me you may have a bit more than 11% daffodil in your pool.
And two that may surprise you:
Idolatry
Irrational and misguided reverence for certain historical figures and texts leads believers to triumphalism–the belief that they have the final answer. Essentially, primitive folk science and morality becomes permanently enshrined, lurking in the bible in the hand of even the most moderate Christian, there to spring out and undo centuries of learning whenever the opportunity arises.
Lack of Faith
Faith in God often masks a profound nihilism–the belief that without a cosmic bully and wetnurse, we humans could never know or do anything worthwhile. Science is built on sand, human-made laws are futile and non-binding (as if there were any other kind), and no one can know anything that isn’t in some scripture. Truth and justice are mere divine whim; they really don’t exist, because God can change his mind. What believers lack is faith in themselves and their fellow human beings. It is precisely this genuine, practical faith which serves as the foundation of civilization. Religious faith is a very poor substitute.
I particularly like these because they demonstrate just how corrupt religion is. Not only does it not stand up to scientific scrutiny, it should be abolished according to the very principles most central to it.
http://www.laststophell.com/repent/viewtopic.php?p=38919#38919
read it if you dare, read it if you dont. Comment I know you will. Scared if you arent you should be….
Heliocentric systems
Evolution
Natural Selection
Genetics
All Christian contributions to Science.
While I agree with most of these “sins”, I want to clarify whether you listed these things as universally wrong or not. I mean technically there is no scientific basis for certain cultural more such as morality. Yet we have “faith” in certain systems of morality.
Robert86, if you read the post, PZ first sets the stage, then writes “Here’s my quick list of objections to religion.”
The term “sins against science” was introduced by VD, not PZ; the usage in the post heading is clearly ironic.
You also seem to have failed to note that morality is not in the list. :)