The premise of evangelical atheism is that you can introduce people to the importance of reason and they will come to a reasonable conclusion on their own. The premise of evangelical faith is that people must accept an arbitrary belief because an arbitrary judge, who the convert may not query, demands it. The former kind of proselytizer ought to be called a teacher, but is more often called an arrogant asshole; the latter ought to be considered a liar, a fraud, and an arrogant asshole in fact, but they actually believe they are humble servants of the lord.
Here’s a beautiful example of oblivious faith in a story of an encounter with a Mormon missionary.
His position was that there are NO righteous people absent baptism into the Mormon faith; that no one enters heaven without it.
Since it had recently come to public attention that Elie Wiesel’s name was on a list for future baptism, I asked him if Wiesel would qualify as a “righteous man”.
No, replied the Mormon, Wiesel would not qualify.
“But you would, being a Mormon?” I asked.
Yes, replied the Mormon.
Well, I told the kid, any belief system that makes you righteous over Elie Wiesel seems pretty obviously fucked.
But it does make the kid feel all noble and important for putting on a white polyester shirt and riding a bicycle, which I think is the point of the appeal of religion: all the righteousness, none of the sacrifice or hard work.
When these “righteous” people show up I proudly announce the following through the closed front door;
“Sure, I’d like to talk to you, but at the moment I’m completely naked and covered in pancake syrup”.
They always leave. :)
PZ wrote:
Well, to be fair, the premise of any kind of atheism also must include the assumed reasonable conclusion you should arrive at is that the gods proposed by religion do not exist.
Your atheism includes the assumption that theistic beliefs are arbitrary with arbitrary characteristics for their gods and supernatural beliefs. I’m sure the theists will object to that and show up on this thread.
Alas, some very screwed up people, like Ben Stein I suspect, will claim that reason is on the side of theism and the reasonable conclusion is their religion.
Whaddaya mean, ‘no hard work’? Those bicycles don’t pedal themselves ya know.
A theist who refuses to ascribe any characteristics to their God; who leaves the very word so undefined and so open as to accomodate any and every notion other than the unprovable assertion, “There are no Gods of any sort, however defined,” is not demonstrating reason. It’s simply a refusal to reason at all, as opposed to reasoning poorly from a total lack of evidence.
I would never waste my time arguing that there are NO GODS OF ANY KIND. A lack of evidence prevents me. However, I find it quite a simple matter to use that very caveat as a defence against anyone who would attempt to define the term.
Former LDS missionary here. It’s hard work and sacrifice, all right.
I had to do some damn hard mental work to construct a philosophical edifice that seemed believable enough to hold up, given all the absurdities I was teaching. And I sacrificed two years of my life that I’ll never get back.
I feel awful now, knowing I tried to get people to value feelings over reason. But I am somewhat comforted by the fact that hardly anyone believed me.
That reminds me of a theist friend.
“Well, atheists do good deeds too”
“But not in the name of God”
“So if I volunteer, it is not the same as you volunteering?”
“No, when I volunteer, I do it in the name of God. When you volunteer, you are actually sinning, because you’re not doing it in the name of God”
I’m running into this bizarre Fake Xian/Real Xian attitude a lot lately on the net. Apparently the Mormons believe they are the only Real Xians at 10 million and the other 2.1 billion Xians are Fake Xians.
A lot of fundies believe the Catholic church and mainline Protestants are Fake Xians. The bigotry and hate is sometimes extreme. Fundies and hate are a common combo.
This means according to the cultists, that Xianity is a near dead and dying religion and the large majority of Xians are Fake Xians. And only a few cults are Real Xians.
Wonder how long it will be before the next outbreak in a long line of Xian sectarian violence over dogma and theology.
Ironically the Catholic and mainline Protestants usually don’t do the Fake/Real thing. I guess if you are number 3 or 20 in the members contest you have to try harder.
Where’s Dr Seuss when ya need him?
But that’s why it’s so much fun to play with the mishies!!!
I’ve written up a bunch of my amusing atheist vs. Mormon missionary adventures here.
PZ, I do want to say that I was looking through the site yesterday, since a good friend and fellow atheist linked it to me. Yet another articulate scientist explaining why theists are ridiculous.
It seems as though I’m not the only one to have this debate with theist friends, but I will say that I’ve had it with a mormon friend, and his responses were the most drastic, even more so than the hardcore evangelicals I’ve met.
For cousinavi, I will say only that the reason a belief in God exists is for a lack of evidence and the mortal need to rationalize life and death (and I believe that most sincerely, and also believe that the exploitation of such an understanding came later). There is no reason to believe in God because, as you pointed out, there is no evidence. There can be no reasonable rationalization presented to disprove God, but I think it is sufficient to say only that they (meaning theists) need to have proof, while we don’t, because we are not trying to prove the presence of something, they are.
I’m not from Missouri, but show me anyway.
As far as this goes, I only want to remind people that this is a group that, until almost 10 years after the civil rights movement, contended that black people have no souls and, thusly, were sub-human. On that first matter, I tend to agree, but none of the rest of us have any either.
Cheese’s crust got all muddy.
The nerve of these shits.
C.L. Hanson – I’ve read some of those! I can’t remember what series of bloggy links led me to you, but I thought then that Mormon camp was suspiciously like Baptist camp. Thinking of it in raven’s terms of both thinking they’re the real ones and everyone else is fake kind of makes those similarities make sense.
#8 Where’s Dr Seuss when ya need him?
He’s here! He’s here!
Great short re-write called Horton hears an Evangelical!
http://nomorehornets.blogspot.com/
I don’t know about the “usually don’t” part, but they certainly do some of the time. A recent one was when the one group essentially declared the other group fake, Dismay and anger as Pope declares Protestants cannot have churches (from The Grauniad, 11 July 2007).
One time the holy appeared at the door when I was working in the kitchen. I opened the door to mom, dad, and child. Before they could say a word, gesticulating wildly and brandishing a 12″ chef’s knife, I exclaimed:
“Children! You brought children for the sacrifice! Wonderful.”
For unknown reasons, despite being in the neighborhood, they come by any longer.
Yeah, Pope Bennie apparently hasn’t heard that the Reformation Wars are over. So he opened his mouth and stuck his foot in it.
My understanding is that the Catholic church still considers it the One True Church and the Protestant rebel churches are not Real Churches but Fake Churches. But they do believe that Protestants are Xians, and the Fake Churches are Eccleisiastical communities of misguided orphan Xians. Or some such.
Old theology tends to become so baroque that it is hard to follow. IIRC, the Catholic church does recognize Protestant baptisms as legitimate and Protestant marriages as valid. These days they tend to keep their One True Church attitude very low profile. Between the fundies and the Moslems and their own internal problems they have bigger things to worry about.
Ask Hagee about the Whore of Babylon — he ain’t referring to Britney. And before you argue that he’s not “mainline”, I don’t see the head of the Church of Warm Fuzzy Protestant Platitudes and Kumbaya offering a high-profile endorsement of one of two people who will be contesting for Leader of the Free World.
As far as mormon’s go, I think that its gotta be the magical underwear. Like the yellow sun of the earth to superman, the underwear gives them the power to be super-annoying.
Now, now. Some of those missionaries look kind of cute in their white ties and shirts. Stimulating my imagination while I’m on the train is one thing worthwhile that they accomplish.
But then they’d start talking about the crazy shit and the fantasy explodes.
???? Hagee is not mainline. His beliefs are even sort of strange to some fundies. He believes the Antichrist is the head of the European Union. LOL, I didn’t even know they had a head much less who he is. Sounds like the Antichrist needs to hire a PR firm.
Besides which, the Antichrist was most likely Jerry Falwell or David Kennedy.
@ #1,
I usually do that with the door open. Although, I prefer guava jelly on my pancakes. (.)(.)
When I lived in the states the morons used to come and try to convert, if they offered me a book of moron I would say yes and then tell them I would put it in the bathroom and if I ran out paper I would have a ready supply
Play mormon bingo: invite them in, offer them a seat, then leave the room, leave them completely alone and see how long it takes them to leave.
Obviously have nothing valuable in the room. You wouldn’t want to put temptation in the thieving gobshites’ way.
As an ex-Mormon, I think the kid had a garbled sense of how the Mormon theology worked. (Not surprisingly, despite the bureaucratic attempts by the upper church echelons to correlate everything. But Mormons have various strains of faith-promoting rumours running amok in their culture, and various interpretations of what comes down from Salt Lake City.) The kid’s not more “righteous” for being a baptised Mormon, he’s merely had his paperwork done and all the appropriate hoops jumped through.
But yes, according to Mormon theology, you need to be baptised to reach the highest levels of their heaven. When I was a kid, we were taught that people like Mother Theresa and the Pope and the Jewish Holocaust survivors would be taught the gospel in the afterlife and given the chance to get baptised. And that’s why we kids volunteered to go over to the temple and get dunked, so our ancestors and everybody who didn’t have the chance to get baptised could.
That said, this exchange beautifully illustrates one of my problems with Mormon theology, full stop: God does paperwork???????
I mean, seriously? This belief kinda places baptism on the same level with doing your taxes.
(Of course, then I started thinking about other religious rituals and they all devolved into taxes-level hoop jumping.)
MAJeff: You think they are cute now….but if you’re an ex-Mormon girl, they have kind of the opposite effect. In fact, I once asked a boyfriend to stop wearing white button up shirts because he looked like a Mormon missionary and it was turning me off. :)
Not necessarily. The official position is ALL marriages have to be endorsed by a catholic priest for validity.
It’s all nonsense anyway as the only people who really validate a marriage are the people who run the courthouse.
This discussion brought to mind an incident I had several years ago that is only marginally relevant and perhaps less funny but the I was there and it still cracks me up.
A buddy and I were traveling through the four corners area, through New Mexico and Arizona into Utah. Along the way we kept seeing road signs announcing the mileage to Bluff, Utah and the need to visit this historic town. After a hundred miles or so of these notices we finally arrived.
We drove into town passing a number of imposing red sandstone houses along the way. As the kid in the gas station was pumping gas, this was so long ago they actually did that though today such service has taken on mythic proportions, I looked around at my surroundings, at people in the motel pool next door and such.
“What’s historic about Bluff?” I asked.
“It’s the first Pioneer community in the county,” he said.
“Pioneer?”
“Mormon,” he said
After a pause: “Is everyone here Mormon?”
“Nah” he said. ‘It’s abut 50-50.’
“Hmmm, said I, what’s the other 50?”
“Ahh, they’re just Indians,” he replied.
#14, with regard to the Catholic church on the Fake/Real Christian issue, I have some fairly recent personal experience. About two or three years ago, I was taking my confirmation classes, and on at least one occassion, the idea that the Catholic church is the only “true” church came up. They had a chart that basically looked like a phylogenetic tree, except with the names of the founders of different Christian denominations instead of evolutionary developments. The gist of the lesson was, Jesus established Catholicism, while the other denominations were established later by ordinary people, and so they aren’t in accordance with Jesus’ original message. I haven’t heard this church say so during masses, but they’re teaching it to 14 year olds, in an otherwise seemingly moderate church, at that.
#14, with regard to the Catholic church on the Fake/Real Christian issue, I have some fairly recent personal experience. About two or three years ago, I was taking my confirmation classes, and on at least one occassion, the idea that the Catholic church is the only “true” church came up. They had a chart that basically looked like a phylogenetic tree, except with the names of the founders of different Christian denominations instead of evolutionary developments. The gist of the lesson was, Jesus established Catholicism, while the other denominations were established later by ordinary people, and so they aren’t in accordance with Jesus’ original message. I haven’t heard this church say so during masses, but they’re teaching it to 14 year olds, in an otherwise seemingly moderate church, at that.
I see little moderate about the RCC.
And Jesus, being a jew, certainly didn’t establish the RCC.
I’ve always found the whole Mormon postumous baptism business stunningly arrogant.
Would this be the right thread for this:
MAJeff: You think they are cute now….but if you’re an ex-Mormon girl, they have kind of the opposite effect. In fact, I once asked a boyfriend to stop wearing white button up shirts because he looked like a Mormon missionary and it was turning me off. :)
I worked at Target. I cannot wear khaki and red together. I understand.
I wrote:
Damn theists are refusing to be typically predictable. Where are they?
I see little moderate about the RCC.
Moderate in the sense that they don’t usually spend masses going on a rant about the imminent rapture, and are supposed to accept evolution, or so they said on a retreat once. It’s relative, of course. But from my experience, they weren’t as terrifying as the Baby Bible Bashers.
The Mormon missionary who stated this was merely being doctrinally correct. If anything the doctrine is arrogant, but it can’t be asssumed he as a person is. Mormons, like other Christians, believe “No one is righteous, not one” – that is, no one apart from those who are baptized.
Also, what people may be missing here is that they don’t believe baptism makes a person’s future actions automatically righteous. Baptism is more like receiving clemency or having a record expunged. The person’s got a clean record, i.e. righteous, but not through his/her own work, rather through the whim of God (c.f. grace).
It’s a dogmatic and ritualistic view of human nature, but the Mormon guy’s main fault was letting his religion think for him, and I don’t think his response reveals anything about whether he’s personally arrogant or not. A lot of religious people aren’t as mean or scary as them seem when you understand what’s behind their statements.
raven #7 wrote:
Mainstream and liberal Christians have their own version of the Fake/Real Christian thing: those so-called Christians who think the people in their church are the only ones to go to heaven aren’t REAL Christians, because REAL Christians would never judge who is or isn’t a REAL Christian — that’s for God to decide. Exclusionary Christians are sooo unlike Christ.
Yeah, right.
criminally tolerant #35 wrote:
I agree — and that’s why I think the problem is religion, and not just the people who follow it.
Theists really, really want it to be the other way around: religion is wonderful, faith is wonderful — but isn’t it just terrible the way some bad-hearted people DISTORT a wonderful, humbling, inspiring thing like spirituality and twist it into being as wicked as they are. Weak people often fail to live up the the noble religion, but that’s no reason to turn away from religion as a GOOD, they say.
No, other way around. I think in general religious people are usually BETTER than their religion.
Mona – My experience with Catholics (at least, ones my own age or younger) is that, because the clergy and the laity aren’t very well integrated (that celibacy thing), the crazies tend to be professionals (priests, monks, William Donahue, etc). Catholics who do something else for a living are usually cool.
As for missionaries, from the Pew U.S. Religious Landscape Survey (pdf):
That would include atheists, agnostics and what the survey calls “secular unaffiliated,” plus one other group.
The survey goes on:
Okay, now who’s that? That’s the other group; approximately a third of the unaffiliated group is what the survey calls “Religious Unaffiliated”–people who say religion is a big part of their lives, but claim no denomination. Interestingly, they tend to land at the bottom of the scales when it comes to education and income. These are the people who get bagged when prosyletizers go a-hunting.–naive, undereducated, poor, and possibly unstable mentally.
Pew doesn’t break down the retention of the unaffiliated group into subgroups (as it does for education, income, marital status, etc), but it would be interesting to see how few people who come from stable nonreligious families manage to talk themselves into a personal relationship with Jesus or whatever.
Ask someone with AIDS in Africa how moderate they are.
A friend’s father(who was a certifiable madman) saw the God botherers coming up the street from where we were sitting in the yard and, to our amusement,legged it into the house. They came in the gate and he reappeared at the front door and invited them in. Three minutes later they bolted out with a look of wide terror in their eyes.
Apparently he’d run inside, slipped a porn vid into the machine and then invited them into the lounge room to sit. On the pretense of getting drinks he left the room pressing play on the remote from the doorway. He then stripped down to his underwear and socks and reappeared in the lounge with an invitational smile on his face.
I still feel a bit sorry for the poor lads.
Only if New Jersey counts as “mythic.”
In Canada, some Anglican congregations have announced that they are leaving the church because they can’t stand the idea of equality for gays. The church is saying, “Fine, and hand us the church keys on your way to find your own church.”
Apparently he’d run inside, slipped a porn vid into the machine and then invited them into the lounge room to sit. On the pretense of getting drinks he left the room pressing play on the remote from the doorway. He then stripped down to his underwear and socks and reappeared in the lounge with an invitational smile on his face.
I love this. I would never have the nerve to do it, but I am laughing my ass off.
“Well, atheists do good deeds too”
“But not in the name of God”
“So if I volunteer, it is not the same as you volunteering?”
“No, when I volunteer, I do it in the name of God. When you volunteer, you are actually sinning, because you’re not doing it in the name of God” Why, that’s exactly the missionary position adopted by Agnes Boiaxhu, not that she rendered any service in the name of the lord or otherwise. Unless what you mean by service unto the lord is to deny even hospice quality care to the few dying you care to pick up while you yourself avail of the best healthcare money can buy – all for free!
I think the kid had a garbled sense of how the Mormon theology worked.
Ah, but what you’re forgetting about is the pre-existance. It’s not so much that the kid was righteous in this life and got baptized, it’s that he must have been super duper righteous before he was born just to deserve to be born into The Church at all. As Mormon “prophets” have preached, if that kid hadn’t been righteous enough in the pre-existance, he might have had to come to earth as a chinaman or a negro!
Is that still part of Mormon theology? It’s so hard to keep track. They really ought to keep up four separate web pages: “Nonsense we used to preach but have since openly disavowed”, “Nonsense we’ve just quietly stopped preaching”, “Nonsense we still preach but want to maintain plausible deniability on” and “Nonsense we’re still blaming the creator of the universe for”.
Roystgnr: You’re right–I did forget about that little nugget of doctrine. (Of course, by church logic, I must’ve been EXTRA righteous in the pre-existence to be so heavily beset by the atheists under Satan’s influence today. Whee!)
I think they’ve stopped teaching that bit though–it was getting phased out when I was in college, and they replaced all instances of “white and delightsome” in the Book of Mormon with “pure and delightsome”.
I do remember the first time I cracked Bruce McConkie’s Mormon Doctrine. Seriously, some of the shit that’s in there….I’m not surprised they made him hold off on a reprint for eight years or so, while they frantically scrambled to excise various bits of craziness.
Bride Of Shrek, why do you feel sorry for them? If anything, those god botherers have a great ribald tale to tell. The madman did them a favor.
Hasn’t Christopher Hitchens criticized Elie Wiesel in the past? Something about Israeli politics I didn’t understand, plus some gratuitous insults.
link
A) we have no idea how the pre-mortal existence impacts our lives on earth. Some mormons are arogant, some follow “saturday’s warrior” theology (which is bogus), some look at it with humility.
B) I think this Missionary is confused, i also doubt it went down exactly as reported.
C) Mormonism holds to universal salvation, even PZ will be resurrected and live in a glory (not hell), as for exaltation…..even here there is a lot more latitude than many folks believe, unless one has a fetish for specific authorities.
God does paperwork???????
All I can say is: God’s chief administrative assistant must wield terrifying power!
Well, I have special motorcycling underwear that I have and they’re special. Well, they’re not real motorcycling underwear, but they are a lot like them, and they work. And they’re less expensive.
Mormons, forsooth! And their bicycles! Feh!