By their actions you will know them. We have had a number of raving angry Catholics in various threads here…or have we? I’ve had a moment to clean up a few threads and post some of the stuff that was held in comment moderation, and discovered that Naz, k8, promo, baker, PZ is a fool, Burns, rumrunner, Dobbs, NYTs, KKKAthiest, Andy, CDV, BradJ, Brett, b7, PCD, NVFU, Your daddy, facebock, baker and several other loud-mouthed asses who have been braying here are all one and the same person.
This is called sock puppetry. It is trying to generate the illusion of a consensus on one side of an issue by pretending to be a multitude. It is cowardly, contemptible, and stupid — not just because a blog owner can look at the stats and detect it, but because it suddenly diminishes your point of view. It makes you look so weak that you have to lie to put up a pretense of popular support, and it makes your side, in this case the fundamentalist Catholics, look like a troop of posturing frauds.
Thanks!
“But it is not the same thing as homosexuality, if that’s what you’re trying to imply.”
Interesting that you leaped to that conclusion on your own; I never mentioned it. Now that you have, tho, lemme ask you this: Why were 81% of the victims male, when bona fide pedophiles are indifferent as to the sex of their victims?
Dutch Hedrick digs the hole deeper @494:
Again, you state something categorically without backing it up. In fact, your statement merely shows the fact that you don’t understand the distinction between lack of belief in something and positively claiming that something doesn’t exist.
That’s the absurdity here, and it’s all yours. My disbelief in the supernatural is not a positive belief, just as bald is not an actual hair color. Get it now?
E.V.:
“Hey everybody, Dutch believes not believing in leprechauns is a belief. I guess you have a belief in no belief in Flying Purple People Eaters? Wow, what a powerful mind you have.”
I did not say that. You did.
Dutch, a major difference is that, if presented with evidence, I, and many other atheists, would change our opinion. Unfortunately for your world view, the more we humans investigate, the more it is revealed that there is no need for any creator. It’s true that I cannot know everything, but I see less complicated answers than goddidit, so I believe there is/are no god/s.
For believers, the response to evidence of natural processes is things like “God is unknowable” (which is true, but it deflates all religious authority) or “God is mysterious” or “God is the light” or “Open your heart to cheeses”. These phrases mean nothing in terms of evidence. If there’s no evidence, and it’s all based on faith, it’s all a guess. The more that humanity learns, the less guessing needs to be relied upon.
Victor Stenger said at the future of naturalism conference that he wishes that Carl Sagan had never said that an absence of evidence is not evidence of absence, because, actually it is pretty good evidence of absence.
Indeed, as I have pointed out on this blog more than once, Sagan was wrong. Absence of evidence is not proof of absence, but it is evidence of it, and the greater the effort to find such evidence, the more its absence serves as evidence, i.e., “grounds for belief” in the negative proposition.
jb @501:
I’ve had enough dealings with your coreligionists to know that this is usually the direction that argument takes.
Maybe because the Vatican has always allowed altar boys but altar *girls* weren’t common until the 1990s or so (and not in all parishes)? Boys were simply more available to the molesting priests than girls were.
Adrienne, Dutch is right.
See, beliefs are just like clothing :)
So you believe in everything until it’s been shown that it doesn’t exist? That’s some crazy logic.
What you’re really saying is that it’s justifiable to believe in God because it hasn’t been shown not to exist, and you’ve got that exactly the wrong way round. Just think about what that would mean if it were true.
We are justified in not believing, just as both you and I are justified in not believing in any of the other God’s because there isn’t a single scrap of evidence for them.
Adrienne:
“That’s the absurdity here, and it’s all yours. My disbelief in the supernatural is not a positive belief…”
It’s not a positive belief — but it IS a belief. Get it now?
Neil Schipper @499:
Explanations about or at least assumptions about the origin of the world, universe, etc., I can agree to. But honestly, atheists really do differ quite a bit regarding their thoughts pertaining to 1) people, 2) the meaning of life, 3) what people are supposed to do with their lives, etc. Some are humanists, some are Communists, some are Objectivists, and so on.
But your original attempt at conflating Communism (a subset) with all of those are atheist (the whole set) is faulty.
True Bob:
I have to be going soon, but I just wanted to say that even though I don’t agree with your conclusions, I give you credit with being the most rational of those I’ve debated tonight.
As far as I can tell, you did not resort to name calling. That is the sort of debate that I would expect from anyone claiming to be champions of reason.
Have a good night, sir.
jb,
I think abuse of power was a major factor in the ephebophilia aspects. Powerful authority figure, performs magic rituals all the time, controls their church life and church future…
Also, consensual is not the same as legal. Ask Roman Polanski* about that.
*How’s that for a long lost reference?
In your world, Dutch, the universe still revolves around the Earth. It’s called pre-Copernican thought. Galileo? Ever heard of him? I won’t bother with philosophers such as Descarte, Locke, Spinoza, Nietzsche – You would love Heidegger and despise Foucault.
It is YOU(not the abstraction of the catholic church) who needs to catch up. What you don’t know is stunning.
There are mathematical laws which always remain unchanged. The laws are there for us to discover. We just need to discover them. The laws themselves, however, do not change.
And there have been “discoveries” in philosophy since St. Augustine. But your understanding of both mathematics and philosophy is very poor. There’s a reason that we refer to physical laws but not mathematical laws or philosophical laws.
Dutch, you really ought to give up once you’ve started to blather thusly:
Let me guess, you’ve never taken a math class beyond high school, have you? Are you in high school now, by chance?
Right, just like there are all those bottles for “bald” color with the other hair dyes at my local drug store.
At any rate, you are still dodging the question that has been repeatedly put to you: what is your evidence or proof for the existence of your deity?
Dutch, I don’t think the words you’re using mean what you think they mean.
My position is that God does not exist. One can not prove something is non existent. The onus is on the person making the positive claim to provide evidence to back up his claim.
This is how reality works. It is an unavoidable consequence of making a positive claim should you wish to prove your claim is true.
So… Let’s see some evidence.
Dutch you stated in #494,
If you don’t believe something, however, then you are asserting a belief that is negative. Nevertheless, it is still a belief
Then in #503,
E.V.:
“Hey everybody, Dutch believes not believing in leprechauns is a belief. I guess you have a belief in no belief in Flying Purple People Eaters? Wow, what a powerful mind you have.”
I did not say that. You did.
You never said it but it logically follows from your earlier statement.
If anyone cares about the Lenski affair anymore, Schlafly’s back.
“Boys were simply more available to the molesting priests than girls were.”
*buzzer*. Wrong. You obviously have never worked in close contact with a priest, Adrienne. Priests have more access to boys in places like the sacristy, where yes, boys outnumber girls, but have *greater* access to girls in places like the confessional, which more girls frequent than boys. In the end, it wasn’t merely *access* to one sex over another, but a *marked preference* for one over the other.
As far as I can tell, you did not resort to name calling.
What is with these cretins who equate insults with irrationality?
Well, I think Dutch really has a point.
Saying your “absence of belief” is not a belief is simply absurd.
Saying your “absence of clothing” is not a garment is simply absurd.
Saying your “absence of cancer” is not a disease is simply absurd.
What’s to beef about? Sheesh.
I support Dutch every bit as much as he values reason.
Don’t go away, Dutch. Your clarity and cogency will enlighten the Pharynguloids.
Not believing in something is a belief?
So my baldness is a hair color?
My not collecting stamps is a hobby?
Dutch wrote: It’s not a positive belief — but it IS a belief.
No, it isn’t.
Personally, I don’t believe there is no God. I assert the evidence does not support God’s existence. There is a difference, Dutch. If you had to prove anything didn’t exist in order to conclude that it didn’t, we would have to effectively believe in any crazy thing anyone ever dreamed up. You cannot prove a negative.
Do you believe in unicorns? Why not? Can you prove they don’t exist?
Dutch keeps harping on Augustine. I don’t think that anyone who does not specialize in the history of unworthy ideas needs to spend a moment of their lives reading or thinking about Augustine. He wrote a lot of drivel that ignorant apologists proclaim to be brilliant and inspired. They are wrong. Augustine is, at best, a footnote in the history of attempts to rationalize delusion.
Theology, in general, is an utter waste of human time and energy. It consists of intricate webs of words that are about nothing – nothing real, nothing important, nothing worth reading, nothing worth thinking about.
There are things worth reading, studying, and thinking deeply about. They are not to be found in religion.
It is time for people to grow up and shed their childish superstitions.
Religious people have a great deal to answer for. Whatever their intentions, they all perpetuate a dark pattern of willful ignorance and superstition that seeks to destroy curiosity, freedom, the search for truth, independence, and human dignity.
Dutch,
Thanks you for your kind words. I am uncharacteristically engaging today.
Really there are folks here much more informed on all these topics than I am, and more eloquent, and at least as rational in debate.
As you might guess, there’s a lot of annoyance here, and when arguments start becoming more and more repetitive, most of us, myself included, get rather annoyed. I think the last few days have been pretty intense. Come back another time and you’ll see another face to the community here, but still little tolerance for trolling and willful ignorance. The last part is sort of a warning to come prepared and flexible enough to bring or devise new arguments.
Dutch:
you said:If you don’t believe something, however, then you are asserting a belief that is negative. Nevertheless, it is still a belief.”
I said: Dutch believes not believing in leprechauns is a belief. I guess you(Dutch) have a belief in no belief in Flying Purple People Eaters.
Show me the flaws in my argument from your statement above.
E.V.:
“In your world, Dutch, the universe still revolves around the Earth. It’s called pre-Copernican thought. Galileo?”
Once again, it is not I who said this, it is you. You seem to like putting words into my mouth.
On the subject of science and religion, St. Augustine always maintained that the Bible is not a source of scientific knowledge and shouldn’t be treated as such. He also warned that we should not hold on to scientific beliefs too firmly lest we grow to hate truth because of our love of error.
In fact, the reason I know that quote is because Galileo used it. Galileo was not only arguing against the Church, but of the established scientific community of the time.
As far as Descarte goes: He argued that everything — even animals — were merely complicated machines; and that when someone hurts a pig and it squeals, it’s nothing more than what happens when a wheel squeaks and is in need of oil! Is this philosophical progress?
From Descarte on, it’s all downhill from there. Philosophical regression is more like it.
jb@519 wrote:
And thank the FSM for that, too!
Seriously, though, what opportunity would I have had, as a girl, to “work in close contact with a priest”???
OK, jb, how many of these molestations took place in confessionals? Because honestly, having gone to confession many times over the years, I wouldn’t call it a very private situation. Whenever I went to confession, it was always with another group of children or later, teenagers. With people waiting in line outside, I might add. Not to mention, there is the divider/kneeler there (at least in my churches there were). So it would be quite tricky for a priest to molest a girl in that situation, both in terms of how easily it would have been to get caught, and in the physical obstacles said priests might have had to overcome.
But you know, the altar boys hung out in the sacristy and went in the private rooms to get the vestments, etc. A would-be molesting Father would have plenty more “private” time with an altar boy than a confessing girl.
Really? So where and what is your evidence that access to and availability of private time with boys had no effect on the outcomes of those whom the priests molested?
Dutch Hedrick: The negative claim does not require evidence. It is the valid default position in the absence of evidence. Only positive claims require evidence.
jb: Very well then, the Church has different rules. These rules are odious and unjust, and the organization that applies and maintains them exposes itself as a force for evil in the world in doing so.
Forgiveness and charity are fine ethical standards, and I credit early Christianity for increasing their prominence in western society (but not for their invention).
But modern expressions of this religion are another thing entirely. Charity, you say? What about charity for the victims and potential victims of these pederasts (as you have asked, I won’t use the term pedophile)? The Church did not just refrain from punishing these abusers, it kept them in positions of authority and hid the truth so that other children and parents could not take steps to protect themselves. In short, the Church actively facilitated the abusers’ ability to find new victims. How many abused children might have been spared this trauma if the Church had acted with A SINGLE SHRED OF COMMON CHARITY towards them?
Forgiveness, you say? Sending death threats to a college student and advocating for his expulsion for not eating a cracker, and then trying to get a man who comes to said student’s defense fired does not sound like forgiveness to me.
I think some of the ethical teachings attributed to Jesus of Nazareth are among the finest moral guidelines human beings have ever had access to, regardless of whether or not Jesus did nor did not historically exist. My problem is that so many of the people who profess to be christians DO NOT FOLLOW ANY OF THESE TEACHINGS IN ANY WAY AT ALL. And the more prominently they declare their faith, the more odious their actions seem to be.
These are the actions of vile hypocrites, and you, jb, make yourself a hypocrite when you try to defend them.
One can not prove something is non existent.
One can prove that logically impossible things are non-existent — like a greatest prime, a rational square root of 2, or a being that is both omniscient and omnipotent.
And I agree with Dutch that “God does not exist” is a belief — but it is a particularly well-founded one, as the world is the way we should expect it to be if there is no God, and very much not as we should expect it to be if there were.
I just can’t understand why a large number of Christians have such a hard time understanding a lack of belief. There are billions of things they don’t believe in like magical shoe elves, or Santa, or Shiva, or Thor. They have already had intimate experience with a lack of belief, yet they can not extend that to being able to understand a lack of belief in god.
It seems very simple and logical to me, so why can’t they get it?
[blockquote]I can prove that the shirt I am wearing is not red, because it in fact is blue.[/blockquote]
The shirt I’m wearing is also blue! Wow! What are the odds.
Proof that God did it.
Seriously, I know sock-puppet theists who think this way.
Well there’s the problem, right there.
The shirt I’m wearing is also blue! Wow! What are the odds.
Proof that God did it.
Seriously, I know sock-puppet theists who think this way.
(*big blockquote sigh*)
Truth Machine:
“And I agree with Dutch that “God does not exist” is a belief — but it is a particularly well-founded one, as the world is the way we should expect it to be if there is no God, and very much not as we should expect it to be if there were.”
Thank you, TM. That was exactly the point I was trying to make. As far as the world not being as we expect it if there were a God, I can only say that the world is as it is because of Free Will.
“A Clockwork Orange” does a good job at presenting what it would be like if Free Will were taken away from us in order to force us to do good. Stephen Colbert had a good description of Free Will in his recent interview with Dr. Philip Zimbardo. (I know I’m not spelling his name right.)
Anyway, I’ll let that be my last word for now. I’ve got to go. It’s been fun debating, though!
‘ Galileo was not only arguing against the Church, but of the established scientific community of the time.’ THE SCIENTIFIC COMMUNITY OF THE TIME.
Exactly.
And what did Galileo argue, Holmes?
“From Descarte on, it’s all downhill from there. Philosophical regression is more like it.”
WOW, What a huge world view you have. I bow to your erudition. Come back when you’ve graduated High School.
Adrienne @510:
Respectfully, I believe I did not attempt that. I wanted to point out that therelationships between atheism and any other -isms that set out ways to live and which have animated human actions in history are interesting and complex, and that it’s common for people here to trivialize it.
It seems very simple and logical to me, so why can’t they get it?
Because you’re wrong on this issue? Belief is assent to a proposition; it doesn’t matter whether the proposition is positive or negative. Consider the propositions “there are magical shoe elves” and “there are no magical shoe elves”. We aren’t neutral about these propositions; we deny the former and assert the latter. i.e., we disbelieve the former and believe the latter. There are propositions we are neutral about, such as “Bill Farber is a nice guy”. Since we have no idea who that is, we have no basis for a belief one way or the other. In the case of God, disbelief is only mere non-belief if one is truly neutral on the matter, as some agnostics claim to be.
Oh don’t leave on the Free Will issue! Now we have to open the Can of Omniscient Worms.
Ah well. Goodnight, Gracie.
I suck and I am able to accept that.
now, time for more beer.
E.V.:
Way to avoid the substance of what I was saying in regards to Descarte and his mechanical philosophy of the universe. Intellectually dodgy to the end.
“Call it what you will, Craig, you just can’t call it ‘pedophilia’.”
Golly, you got me there, champ. I just can’t call it something that I didn’t ever call it.
I feel so much better now about your church’s policy of protecting people who rape kids.
I wanted to point out that the relationships between atheism and any other -isms that set out ways to live and which have animated human actions in history are interesting and complex, and that it’s common for people here to trivialize it.
You’re attacking a strawman. jb (like so many before him) attempted to attach the sins of Stalin to atheists. But the sins of Stalinists can’t be attached to other atheists any more than the sins of Vikings can be attached to other air breathers. The difference between being a Viking or air breather and being a Stalinist or atheist isn’t relevant; what is relevant is the set relationships — Stalinism isn’t representative of, or a necessity of, atheism, any more than being a Viking is representative of, or a necessity of, breathing air.
I just read #262 a second time. Most funny comments I read this year.
@ jb in #109. So those goddam religio tards ruined perfectly good swimmin hole to put up a fuckin useless cathedral? that is some douchebaggery of the most egregious sort.
Wow… I think I’d nominate Craig Holman for the Molly.
re #262, I second the Lolly nomination by pcarini.
I don’t care if it doesn’t exist.
May I complain about the flippin Baptists again for a moment? Some of them like to give away guns to teenagers.
Idiots! F****ng idiots!
As far as the world not being as we expect it if there were a God, I can only say that the world is as it is because of Free Will.
It’s not even the way we should expect it to be if there’s a God and free will. But there’s no contracausal free will — the evidence against it is very strong, and growing — neuroscience is a very active field, although that would be unknown to someone who thinks that “From Descarte (sic) on, it’s all downhill from there” and doesn’t value Descartes’ positive contribution to our understanding of the world, and especially the part of the world that does the understanding.
P.S., Since so many of you are questioning my credentials I’ll just mention that I took as my Philosophy requirement Normative Ethics at N.C. State under Tom Regan. I got an ‘A’.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tom_Regan
You may attack me for being a fool, but if I’m so foolish then how could I get an ‘A’ in Regan’s class? From your assertions, either I’m the fool, or Regan was foolish in giving me an ‘A’.
I personally would vote for ‘None of the above.’
TruthMachine @539:
Yes, but consider upping the ante to the point where the magical shoe elves were given powers to escape human detection and otherwise make themselves invisible to human senses and machine detection. In that case, we’d have to say that we cannot say for sure that magical shoe elves do not exist, but we simply cannot differentiate for sure between their invisible, indetectable existence and their non-existence.
In everyday speech, we’d probably say we don’t believe in magical shoe elves. But if a Magical Shoe Elf Believer pressed us on it, we’d have to admit that it’s beyond our capabilities to conclusively prove that Magical Shoe Elves do NOT exist or CANNOT exist.
And that’s how I see Dutch et al.’s arguments for God. No, we can’t prove that an omniscient, omnipotent, untestable, etc., God does not exist. But because there is no real way to differentiate between His/Her/Its existence and His/Her/Its non-existence, then we can say that we don’t believe in Him/Her/It until such time as he have empirical evidence in favor of the positive claim.
“Charity, you say? What about charity for the victims and potential victims of these pederasts[?]”
Of course the Church has an obligation to treat the victims with the utmost charity! Simultaneously, it has no right to treat the abuser with a lack thereof–try balancing those twin duties yourself sometime, if ever you are in the position. Imagine if your father we suddenly thrust into the spotlight as a pederast–how would you (if you were bound to treat every person with charity, decency, respect, etc) juggle being sympathetic to the victim AND to decent to your father? Many in the Church couldn’t, and reacted in one way or the other: They wanted to crucify the abuser who needed help or wanted to ignore the victim who needed their care. I can’t help but think the (American) Church *still* hasn’t gotten it right–it merely slapped an American panacea on the issue by throwing money at it and hoping it has gone away.
“How many abused children might have been spared this trauma if the Church had acted with A SINGLE SHRED OF COMMON CHARITY towards them?”
Hear, hear. I agree wholeheartedly.
Also, JB, forgiveness is understandable. I for example have long since forgiven those who abused me.
The church’s policy has nothing to do with forgiveness, though.
If it did, it would have involved making sure the victims were helped.
It did not. Instead it involved moving priests away when there were hints of a problem so that they could simply molest others in new towns… it involved calling the victims liars. It involved blocking victims attempts to et justice.
It involved a policy of silence that expired NOT when “forgiveness” was achieved, but when statutes of limitations had expired.
The church’s actions had nothing to do with sympathy for the victims or even much for the perpetrators. The church’s actions were solely to protect itself from scrutiny, controversy, and above all to protect its hoarded riches.
Say anything you want to defend this predatory organization, all it does is prove your devotion to the immoral.
You show that not only are you deeply delusional, you’re deeply immoral.
You say you disagree with these vile things… but did you do one thing about it?
Did you lead a group of church members in trying to reform the church? Did you write letters of protest? Did you complain loudly? Did you resign from the church in protest? Did your views of the church change at all?
No… what you DID do is come here to defend that church with all your heart.
You’re not only an insane fuck, you’re a twisted sick fuck.
Oh drat, I kinda garbled my last post @552. Change the first part to this:
Adrienne:
“In everyday speech, we’d probably say we don’t believe in magical shoe elves. But if a Magical Shoe Elf Believer pressed us on it, we’d have to admit that it’s beyond our capabilities to conclusively prove that Magical Shoe Elves do NOT exist or CANNOT exist.
And that’s how I see Dutch et al.’s arguments for God. No, we can’t prove that an omniscient, omnipotent, untestable, etc., God does not exist.”
I would not say that Magical Shoe Elves exist anymore than St. Augustine would argue for polytheism — and he wrote ten books in “City of God” arguing against it. If you’re interested in knowing those arguments, I suggest reading it.
Dutch believes not believing in leprechauns is a belief.
Not believing in leprechauns is not a belief, but it’s fair to then ask whether you believe in leprechauns. To simply repeat that you lack a belief in leprechauns isn’t honest, unless you are completely neutral on the subject, which you surely aren’t. So buck up and admit that, not only do you not believe that there are leprechauns, but you believe that there aren’t any leprechauns. Kate came right out and said “My position is that God does not exist”. That means that she believes that there is no God. To deny this is, at the very least, confused.
I’m not sure why Christians bring out the free will excuse for why the world isn’t the way we’d expect it to be if God were real.
I also hear them say that the reason God doesn’t offer us proof of his existence is because that, too, would take away free will. I’m not sure if that’s what Dutch is implying, but that’s problematic for several reasons.
For one thing, if God doesn’t want to give out proof for fear of messing with free will, how come he wasn’t shy about showing himself to everyone and their brother in the Bible? Dude was showing up constantly, miracle after miracle. Did he not care back then? But wait! God is unchanging! He’s eternal and the same yesterday, today and tomorrow. After all, he created time, as Dutch told us, so he must be outside of time, as well.
But let’s say that ok, God changed his mind about showing himself now. Well then how come so many Christians say they KNOW in their hearts that God is real? If they know, doesn’t that destroy free will in and of itself? They say they have personal relationships with him. Wouldn’t that also destroy free will? And wouldn’t God apparently writing a book and saying “I WROTE THIS! I AM GOD AND THIS IS MY WORD” also destroy free will?
Well, golly, this whole concept seems kind of flaky, doesn’t it?
“Did you complain loudly? Did you resign from the church in protest? Did your views of the church change at all? No.”
How the FUCK do you know what the hell I did or didn’t do, you stupid cunt?!? How the FUCK do you know I’m even Catholic, and not someone who is involved in criminal justice and has intensely scrutinized this particular case study?!? You are the most goddam ignorant motherfucker I’ve ever met…
I too went to NC State and using an animal right activist to support your cred on a science blog may not be the best tactic.
Just a suggestion.
“I too went to NC State and using an animal right activist to support your cred on a science blog may not be the best tactic.”
Haven’t you heard? All of us damn liberals are touchy-feely animal rights activists. Dude’s got some serious street cred. He’s cool now.
Dutch @556:
I’m glad you don’t believe in magical shoe elves. Neither do I. So does that mean your lack of belief in magical shoe elves constitutes a positive belief in….something else?
Good to know St. Augustine didn’t believe in magical shoe elves either. And no, I’m really not interested in reading his books. I’ve already read enough Catholic philosophy and “moral theology” to last me through the rest of my life.
#262 FTW!!
Are Donahue and PZ supposed to be Daleks there?
EX-TERM-IN-ATE THE CRAC-KER
Rev. BDC:
Ha! I never would have thought of that, but I forgot this was a science blog — especially since we’ve been discussing nothing but theology and philosophy on this thread.
Is it because scientists take a dim view about animal rights activists who might argue against using animals in scientific experiments that you make your suggestion? I wouldn’t think Regans credentials as a philosopher are a matter for dispute.
Incidentally, good to meet a fellow State grad.
jb@559,
I think craig is a guy. That would make him a “dick”, not a “cunt”.
Dutch said in # 536,
Anyway, I’ll let that be my last word for now. I’ve got to go. It’s been fun debating, though!
And then he came back 6 minutes later. Is “I’m going” some sort of Trollism for “I’m staying”.
“…I love that PZ drew attention to the Webster Cook story and the CathLeag reaction. In hindsight, what if instead of his request-and-promise, he had asked readers to snow the admin of Cook’s university and church (and media) with demands that the woman (people?) who laid hands on him be publicly identified and charged with assault?
Posted by: Neil Schipper NO. 118.:
HEAR, HEAR!!
Well jb, did you?
bingo! But expand that to make sure that includes medical as well.
I’d say how about that wolfpack… but well… We suck at everything right now. So I’ll refrain :)
No, its because animal rights activists have started getting much more violent recently.
jb @ 559, it seems to me your posting here is unto like you wearing a cilice.
Feel free to stop when you’ve done your penance.
Yes, but consider upping the ante to the point where the magical shoe elves were given powers to escape human detection and otherwise make themselves invisible to human senses and machine detection. In that case, we’d have to say that we cannot say for sure that magical shoe elves do not exist, but we simply cannot differentiate for sure between their invisible, indetectable existence and their non-existence.
What’s this “for sure” crap doing on a science blog? There’s nothing we can say “for sure”, including that Lincoln was assassinated and George Bush sleeps in the White House. But I believe that no such powerful magical shoe elves exist, and as do you, and it would simply be dishonest to deny it.
In everyday speech, we’d probably say we don’t believe in magical shoe elves. But if a Magical Shoe Elf Believer pressed us on it, we’d have to admit that it’s beyond our capabilities to conclusively prove that Magical Shoe Elves do NOT exist or CANNOT exist.
So what? We believe all sorts of things that it is beyond our capabilities to conclusively prove one way or the other. But we have good grounds for our beliefs that magical shoe elves and Gods do not exist, grounds based largely in our intuitions as to what it means for something to exist and what sorts of things we should grant existence to.
And that’s how I see Dutch et al.’s arguments for God. No, we can’t prove that an omniscient, omnipotent, untestable, etc., God does not exist.
Actually, we can; it’s quite straightforward to prove that an omniscient, omnipotent God is logically impossible, as omniscience implies an unalterable state of affairs. Such a God cannot choose to make false what he knows to be true. To make that coherent, one must change the meanings of “omniscient” or “omnipotent” to be something else, Humpty-Dumpty-like.
But because there is no real way to differentiate between His/Her/Its existence and His/Her/Its non-existence, then we can say that we don’t believe in Him/Her/It until such time as he have empirical evidence in favor of the positive claim.
All rational beliefs are provisional. I believe there is no God, and I believe that there’s no flaw in Andrew Wiles’ proof of Fermat’s Last Theorem, but the FLT could be false nonetheless.
OctoberMermaid:
You’re confusing Free Will with Faith. Just because one has faith doesn’t mean they don’t have free will.
God does not change, but he does reveal himself to us in time. Just because God does not reveal himself at all times as he would with Moses or through Jesus doesn’t mean he “changes his mind.”
If I show up at a friend’s door at times and not at other times, it does not necessarily mean that on the times I visited my friend that I “changed my mind.”
Kudos owlmirror! Do you have an agent?
Now now, PZ. You don’t know that. All you can say for sure is that many internet sigs came from one IP address, right?
It could be a single computer in a Catholic seminary.
Granted, sock-pupets are simpler.
“Way to avoid the substance of what I was saying in regards to Descarte and his mechanical philosophy of the universe. Intellectually dodgy to the end.”
No, it’s just I don’t have the time for you to catch up to modern arguments in order to have meaningful discourse, especially from your brilliant summation of Descarte. One philosphy course doesn’t really prove you can discuss philosophy intelligently, much less imagine yourself a philosopher, “A” or not. However, now I know who to go to when I need arcane info on Augustine…
City of God, anyone? Anyone?… yeah, me neither.
Only a matter of time before this happened:
“You’re confusing Free Will with Faith. Just because one has faith doesn’t mean they don’t have free will.”
But I hear from many Christians (Baptists, admittedly. They’re who I have to deal with the most) that if we knew and had no need for faith, we would instantly lose free will. Why?
And while you may have faith, most Christians I hear don’t say “I believe without evidence” when they say they have faith. In fact, they typically just say “I know that I know that I know” and that they know beyond a shadow of a doubt that God is real and they are saved. In fact, many of them have told me repeatedly that the only way to get into heaven is to know without doubt “in your heart” that God is real.
That doesn’t sound like faith, which is just believing without evidence. That’s just knowing something without evidence, which is.. ignorant and/or crazy.
I think the waters are deliberately muddy here because, well, it suits “people of faith.”
I’m not sure why Christians bring out the free will excuse for why the world isn’t the way we’d expect it to be if God were real.
Because they need it to rescue their belief. Remember, for them belief comes first and argumentation comes later. That order is the difference between apologetics and reason.
truth machine @ 44:
I make no claims about necessities. I do claim that Stalinism and atheism have some kind of non-trivial historical connection.
What’s relevant is that about two hundred years ago, challenges to Abrahamism started to emerge in a big way, and occupied increasing numbers of thinking people, some quite brilliant. This “increase of rationality” led to non-supernatural claims about how people should live, claims often defended as scientific.
The question raised is about the degree to which human minds, vessels of all kinds of beliefs with varying degrees of truth value, as they get emptied of Abrahamism (or any other supernaturalism), become vulnerable to new beliefs that threaten my genes.
‘Actually, we can; it’s quite straightforward to prove that an omniscient, omnipotent God is logically impossible, as omniscience implies an unalterable state of affairs. Such a God cannot choose to make false what he knows to be true. To make that coherent, one must change the meanings of “omniscient” or “omnipotent” to be something else, Humpty-Dumpty-like.’
To say that God “cannot choose to make false what he knows to be true” means that he lacks omnipotence ignores the concept of Divine Nature.
“Nature” is a word that has had its meaning altered somewhat, but what I mean by nature is “what something TENDS to do.” Such as — A rock tends to lie still unless it is acted upon by an outside force.
It is NOT in the nature of the rock, however, to get up and start singing show tunes. The rock is what it is. Similarly, it is not in God’s Nature to deceive. God cannot be un-Godlike, or otherwise he would not be God.
To say that God is powerless for not behaving unlike God is absurd. God acts as it is natural for him to act. We just have to find out what that nature is.
Theologically speaking, of course.
What free will?
Incidentally Dutch, if I’m not misremembering it, Regan was a good friend of my grandfather’s. He was a prof at NC State as well (entomology). Being that my grandfather was was in the biology field, a professed atheist and supporter of animal testing I think they had some spirited debates.
Way to go Dutch!
I think you’re getting through.
It’s impressive seeing someone who got an ‘A’in Normative Ethics at N.C. State under Tom Regan operate.
PS thanks for responding to my earlier entreaty, Dutch.
“It is NOT in the nature of the rock, however, to get up and start singing show tunes. The rock is what it is. Similarly, it is not in God’s Nature to deceive. God cannot be un-Godlike, or otherwise he would not be God.”
How do you know this? How do you know what God is like at all? Seems all you have to go on is a book and he DID in fact wrote it, it could be all or paritally lies. Yes, even the part where he says he is always truthful.
Uh oh.
“Remember, for them belief comes first and argumentation comes later. That order is the difference between apologetics and reason.”
Worthy of putting on Billboards everywhere!
As Dutch said regarding a supposed ‘attack’ on theology:
I consider myself to be more of an agnostic than an atheist, but the Xtian god is certainly one I wouldn’t choose to believe in.
Theology is the study of religion from a religious perspective. As such, it has no scientific relevancy. As far as I am concerned, it’s not a valid discipline, and the ‘angels dancing on the head of a pin’ comment sums it up perfectly. Theologists discussing issues related to something for which there is not a shred of valid, supporting evidence is, in my opinion, nothing more than mental masturbation.
OctoberMermaid:
I agree with much of what you said here. There is a difference between Faith and Blind Faith. I do not believe in Blind Faith.
Frankly, even the Pope does not believe in Blind Faith. He points to Doubting Thomas and how God (through Christ) allowed Himself to be questioned. (I think I’m getting that right, but I’m recalling from memory. I don’t have his writings in front of me.)
I think it’s unfortunate that so many Baptists have given religion a bad name. Although I’m Catholic, I do know of some good Baptists — I think John Edwards is one of them. Anyway, they get picked on a lot because, unfortunately, there are so many of them here in the south and they seem to shout the loudest.
There’s a good reason, however, the Church does not recognize their theology.
Morales, you’re so right: these are nuthin’ but a bunch of pricks diggin’ into one’s flesh…’tards opining on shit they CLEARLY haven’t a clue about… Only Adrienne shows any familiarity with Catholicism, the object of the professor’s ire–it’s pathetic.
Alph1: I am in law enforcement. I probably hate pedophiles worse than you. I testified on the stand regarding a case against a particularly notorious priest-abuser in Philadelphia which led to a conviction. The case was cited as one of the reasons the diocese of LA settled their land-mark case almost exactly one year ago. Long answer short: A helluva lot more than “craig” would believe, but he’s a little shit who’d like to snipe from the sidelines without doing even a modicum of research.
I do claim that Stalinism and atheism have some kind of non-trivial historical connection.
You continue to miss the point. As I said originally “Of course, being a Viking is not separate from breathing air, but breathing air is separate from being a Viking.” The point of the analogy was that Stalinism has a historical connection to atheism, but not vice versa.
What’s relevant is that about two hundred years ago, challenges to Abrahamism started to emerge in a big way, and occupied increasing numbers of thinking people, some quite brilliant. This “increase of rationality” led to non-supernatural claims about how people should live, claims often defended as scientific.
But this does not show the sort of causal relationship that jb was claiming between atheism and Stalinism, or Communism. As I said, you’re arguing against a strawman. And as was pointed out by others, the original Christians were communists, and they lived a lot more than 200 years ago.
Well, really. That can be asked about any shifting of beliefs. When a group of people stop believing in one thing the possibility of a new system taking its place is high. As can be seen throughout history large groups of people are sometime susceptible to being duped into believing in bad or wrong or crazy things. That or a small group of people start believing in new things an assert power to force others to be affected by their beliefs.
Yeah, Dutch, gotta echo what OctoberMermaid said @585: How do you know all this stuff about God’s nature? How do you know God cannot deceive because it would be unGodlike? How is it you fully understand the Divine Nature such that you speak with this authority? Seems to me the only way that could be true is if you were God.
#580:
Neil, your last paragraph. I’m intrigued. Please elaborate. How would your genes be threatened from the loss of supernaturalism?
I’ve read all these threads and I have to admit, the theists have convinced me. They have convinced me beyond a shadow of a doubt. I wouldn’t have thought they could have convinced me of anything at first, but, wow. They have.
They have convinced me — that they are idiots.
I mean really the “arguments” the theists have presented do not just fail to be good. The fail to not be blatantly, in-your-face retarded.
Rev:
“I’d say how about that wolfpack… but well… We suck at everything right now. So I’ll refrain :)”
hahaha! Best laugh I had so far tonight! :)
Richard Carrier made what I consider to be an interesting argument about the distinction, or lack thereof, between atheists and agnostics:
Katkinkate (#567): Be gone from this place! It’s unhealthy, fraught with danger, for the likes of you!
jb, you missed my point completely. Forgiveness and charity to the offender is a wonderful thing to strive for, and the teachings attributed to Jesus on this point is one of the things I admire most, but at the same time you have an absolute responsibility to protect potential victims from the possibility of the offender offending again. If I found out my father had abused a child, I would try to find it in my heart to forgive him, even if it was my child who was abused, but I would damn well do everything in my power to make sure he never gets unsupervised access to children ever again!
The Catholic Church could have moved the abusers out of the communities they harmed and assigned to positions where they would not have had contact with children, and supervise them to ensure that that they had no contact with children. I would have been satisfied with this plus compensation of the victims alone–no vindictive punishments, no public disavowals, not even a private reprimand. This would have been easy, EASY, for the Catholic Church to do. THEY DID NOT DO IT. THEY DID NOT EVEN TRY.
By this failure, they forfeited in my mind any privilege they might once have had to be considered an organization worthy of respect.
“I agree with much of what you said here. There is a difference between Faith and Blind Faith. I do not believe in Blind Faith.”
The problem is on my end, because I can’t personally see a difference between faith and blind faith. Since faith is apparently “believing without evidence” isn’t that already blind? This has always been the sticking point for me with religion. I need evidence, something I can stand firmly on and say “This objectively proves that and so I can reasonably continue to believe it.” I’ve never found anything like that with Christianity (which, being the religion I was raised in, was understandably the religion I was seeking most desperately to hold on to during my initial time of doubting).
I read Lee Strobel’s apologetics (basically saying that doubting is ok and offering a whole lot of “Well, we had a lot of eyewitnesses, apparently. The Jesus story would totally hold up in court!”) and I even sunk so low as to go to Answers in Genesis, but nothing has ever impressed me as being solid, objective proof for a God of any kind, much less the Christian God which was the one I had been primarily interested in.
So that’s about where I stand on this. I tried the faith thing, but I’m a constant doubter and the one and only thing that has ever helped me with doubting, no matter what it is that I’m doubting about, is reminding myself of all the evidence. And when I don’t have it… well, maybe those doubts have a point.
Maybe there are more people alive than have ever died?
(half of them are sock puppets)
Adrienne:
Because my belief is in a God that is perfect Truth (rational) and perfect Love. It would not be truthful or loving to deceive. If it is not perfectly true or perfectly loving at once, then it cannot be God and should not be worshiped as God.
Discovering Truth and Love is discovering God. I believe in Truth and I believe in Love. I need no proof for those things. That means the only question that remains is whether Truth and Love act as a person. That’s what the atheists — and I do not use that term as a putdown as so many theists would — must argue against.
I know some, however, will go one step further and argue that Truth and Love do not exist. I will not debate that tonight. That’s outside the scope of my arguments.
Again, Dutch blathers on about ‘god’ as if this is something real. It is not. Dutch should be ashamed of himself for wasting bits on such an unworthy topic.
I doubt that we’ll ever be free of religion – too many people are infested with that particular complex of nasty memes – but I sure as hell don’t have to listen to this idiot spew forth his mindless and immoral theological diarrhea without calling a spade a spade.
Life is too short to let this garbage go unanswered.
If Dutch’s ‘god’ were to exist, it would be contemptible and unworthy of respect, let alone worship. It does not exist, however, so what would have been an interesting confrontation will never occur.
There is no point in arguing with these people – they have been infected with something that renders them immune to reason and uncaring about truth.
Simply put up quarantine signs warning the children to stay away.
Mark writes:
“I’ve read them.
My point is how do I know they’re not all fabricated?
How do I know that they were written by whom they purport to be written by?
How do I know any of those people really exist?
How do I know that this isn’t one big scam foisted on us by Myers and others for their own benefit?
Just presenting something to me and saying, “Look, someone wrote this” doesn’t tell me anything about the truth of what’s written there or the authentic authorship.
To present all of these emails and comments in this environment in which things like this can be so easily fabricated without firmer evidence that these writers are actually who Myers says they are is asking me to take Myers’ word..
…on faith. ”
How about on logic and the principle of least astonishment. I could accept that either PZ or PZ and a cadre of sycophants spent hours of time and forged literally hundreds of letters and posts on Pharyngula or they are actually written by people with no sense of perspective.
If you’re trying to put *faith* that PZ didn’t forge these letters on par with *faith* that the body of Christ materializes in the Eucharist, then you also have no sense of perspective and no clue.
OctoberMermaid @599: I had 12 years of Catholic religious education, six of them in an Opus Dei school. The Opus Dei education aimed for “faith based on reason”, which is different from the “blind faith” that Dutch spoke of earlier, in that it’s supposed to be faith based on reason or on what’s reasonable. As in, it’s reasonable to think that there is a God, that he wants to get to know His creatures, etc. But while certainly better than the “don’t question anything” blind-faith approach, ultimately the “faith based on reason” approach devolves into believing on faith those things that are supposedly beyond human understanding: Transubstantiation, the Nature of the Triune Godhead, etc.
“Morales, you’re so right: these are nuthin’ but a bunch of pricks diggin’ into one’s flesh…”
Wow, jb. I mean, I’m usually not the one to point out this sort of thing, but that’s such a fascinating, bizzare little word picture you painted there, I have to wonder… Some sort of secret fantasy or something? I wouldn’t be surprised if DeviantArt doesn’t have a chat group for that sort of thing.
Dutch Hedrick, I do believe you’re starting to grow on me.
@601 you wrote:
But I believe in those things too, yet I have no problem in believing in them as abstract concepts that do not need to be instantiated in a supernatural being.
Actually, you can make a case in favor of each one without resorting to the supernatural. But even so, aren’t you basically admitting here that you have no real objective proof of your God, you just believe in Him as some sort of supernatural manifestation of these ideals?
OctoberMermaid:
I see your point. It reminds me of what Pope Benedict wrote (when he was Cardinal Ratizinger) in the early part of “Introduction of Christianity.” He points out that with lack of firm evidence on either side — theism and atheism — one has to constantly question one’s own system of belief.
The theist always has the question challenging him: “But what if it’s not true,” — and certainly, I have. But the atheist also, without firm evidence, question himself, “But what if it IS true.”
I’m not getting into Pascal’s Wager here. Ratzinger’s point was that the question of God — or no God — is essentially the question about Life itself. Concerning the question of God we have three choices: Theism, Atheism, or Polytheism.
Whichever choice we take — whichever we believe — is the path our lives shall take. But if we are to begin walking, we should at least have faith that the path we’re traveling upon is the right one.
Because my belief is in a God that is perfect Truth (rational) and perfect Love. It would not be truthful or loving to deceive. If it is not perfectly true or perfectly loving at once, then it cannot be God and should not be worshiped as God.
Discovering Truth and Love is discovering God. I believe in Truth and I believe in Love. I need no proof for those things. That means the only question that remains is whether Truth and Love act as a person. That’s what the atheists — and I do not use that term as a putdown as so many theists would — must argue against.
blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah
OctoberMermaid, I must protest.
The problem is on my end, because I can’t personally see a difference between faith and blind faith. Since faith is apparently “believing without evidence” isn’t that already blind? This has always been the sticking point for me with religion.
See, blind faith is belief despite the evidence, faith alone is belief without evidence.
The best kind to have is both, of course. I’m sure Dutch will support my metamathematical-metalogical pseudo-theological contention that surely [(faith) + (blind faith)] > [(faith) xor (blind faith)] in terms of raw faith.
Not that I have an ‘A’ in whatever it was, but, still, it’s obvious. To have both is to be as faithful as one can be.
It is NOT in the nature of the rock, however, to get up and start singing show tunes. The rock is what it is. Similarly, it is not in God’s Nature to deceive. God cannot be un-Godlike, or otherwise he would not be God.
There is so much wrong with this, not the least of which is that, through a process that took billions of years, rock turned into something that gets up and sings show tunes, and now we can, in a much shorter time, form rock into something that you can put on your desk that can display non-existent figures dancing and singing show tunes.
The “nature” of rock is determined by observation and analysis of its components and how they interact, in light of what we know of physics and chemistry; it is a posteriori, not a priori. But there are no such grounds for these claims about “God”. It is certainly within the realm of logical possibility that the universe was created by a deceptive entity. And if one rules that out by fiat, then there’s all the more reason to think that this “God” does not exist, as its existence is well hidden and this book that people claim it wrote is full of falsehoods, as are the mouths of its proponents.
Adrienne:
I do believe Him to be a “supernatural manifestation of these ideals,” in the sense that Plato spoke of when he spoke of Ideals. That’s why the Church sees a lot of truth in Platonism — even if it doesn’t agree with everything Plato said.
@ #142: What does it say about someone when they list google.com as their web page?
(Of course, maybe I shouldn’t talk, since I don’t even have one. But WTF, I had to ask anyway.)
“Whichever choice we take — whichever we believe — is the path our lives shall take. But if we are to begin walking, we should at least have faith that the path we’re traveling upon is the right one.
”
I think I disagree with how you see atheism as kind of a belief, but I DO agree with the quoted section.
I absolutely feel that way, but instead of faith, I need proof. Maybe it’s my own failing for being prone to doubt (I’m not about to say I’m smart or more rational than most people or even nearly as smart or nearly as rational as most of the people who comment here. The main reason I’m an atheist today is because of this tendency I have always had to doubt things. They led me to question stuff I don’t think I may have otherwise questioned. I really can’t say), but that’s the way I am and I can’t do anything on faith alone. For better or worse, I need to have objective proof for what I choose or believe.
Granted, I make poor decisions and even have had a bad habit of ignoring or disregarding evidence at times in support of things I WANT to believe, but in the end, the doubts will eventually win out and the questions will come back. The only thing that can ever dispell that is solid evidence.
Yes, and as a rational, thinking being, I choose to ignore concepts that have no scientific basis.
Dutch@611: Yes, and the Church still holds to Aristotelian/Thomistic principles of biology and philosophy, even though they are demonstrably false in light of modern science. The whole substance vs. accidents bit, for instance. The Church holds quite a lot of beliefs that do not hold up under logical scrutiny, Transubstantiation being one of them.
OctoberMermaid and Adrienne:
I’ve just got to say that I’ve really loved chatting about these things with you because the questions you guys ask me get me to think about things I wouldn’t have thought of myself. It challenges me and helps me to learn and grow, so it’s been richly rewarding. I hope it’s been that way for you guys, too. It’s made me stay much later than I originally intended.
Thanks, by the way, for putting up with my sloppy typing and spelling. I try my best. :)
Here’s hoping we all find what we’re searching for in Life! Bye! :)
OK, so now we know why Bill Donohue is so up in arms about the cracker business (aside from the clinical insanity, but I digress…).
From the Guardian:
Lourdes fears priestly scandal will make profits dry up
t is called the ‘Zambelli Affair’ and for the town of Lourdes, one of the world’s most famous sites of pilgrimage, it could not have come at a worse time. Last week it was disclosed that Fr Raymond Zambelli, the priest in charge of the sanctuaries of Lourdes, was being investigated by financial police after a computer highlighted suspicious deposits in his personal account, amounting to £360,000. Rumours of money-laundering were soon rife and, since then, the town has waited anxiously for the next dramatic twist.
Zambelli, at a hastily called press conference, denied all wrongdoing and explained that the cash was a donation from an ageing worshipper. But though he has been backed by the Bishop of Tarbes, Jacques Perrier, the damage has been done.
‘What every one fears is that the image of Lourdes will be tarnished,’ Francis Dehaine, who manages the Lourdes sanctuary and its £23m annual budget, said. ‘Nobody ever thought something like this could happen. And it’s the image of the shrine that suffers.’
Lourdes is in the spotlight like never before. It is the 150th anniversary of the apparition of the virgin Mary to Bernadette Soubirous, a poor, illiterate local girl, in a cave beside the Gave de Pau river and a total of eight million pilgrims are expected at the shrine this year, a third more than usual: in September, Benedict XVI is coming. According to a leaked letter, prosecutors have even suggested soft-pedalling the investigation until after the pope’s visit.
The Zambelli Affair has laid bare the long-standing resentment that seethes among the 15,000 inhabitants of Lourdes, where the residential and administrative ‘upper town’ has a sometimes tense relationship with the highly commercialised ‘lower town’, with its souvenir shops selling religious bric-a-brac.
In the upper town, the investigation into Zambelli’s finances has unleashed a strong sense of Schadenfreude. Every visitor at the shrine spends around €100 – manna from which those who are neither hoteliers nor souvenir shop owners are excluded. ‘Serves them right,’ said one waiter in the upper town. ‘About time they got their comeuppance.’
For those selling Lourdes water for €3(£2.50) a litre, the rosaries, the statuettes and the flashing plastic models of Bernadette , the fear is that the scandal will cost hard cash. ‘It’s like the Tour de France. One rider done for doping and the public think they are all on drugs,’ said Anton Dupont, a taxi driver.
Church authorities have acted recently to restrain the souvenir sellers’ commercial excesses. Bottles of wine with the Virgin Mary on the label and place mats picturing the shrine’s famous cave were banned, though healing mints made with holy water from the Lourdes spring are still on the shelves.
Nor is the Church itself immune to the fallout. For the priests, the fear is for the big donors. More than a quarter of the sanctuary’s revenue comes from gifts. ‘The pilgrims themselves will come whatever,’ said Dehaine. ‘But the donors might be affected.’
Local prosecutors are now weighing up whether to act against Zambelli, who has not been suspended.
‘Without the shrine, most of us would be out of business, so we have to get on,’ said Philippe Bianco, head of the local Chamber of Commerce. There was also little sign that the thousands flowing up the long esplanade leading to the basilica, dropping a donation of a couple of euros in a box for a candle or queuing for the grotto were worried by the state of the Zambelli bank account.
Must distract the flock. Keep that cashflow going.
Same old same old..
Adrienne:
Before I go, could you elaborate on the substance/accidents thing of which you speak? Thanks.
P. Z. Meyers’ bad behavior toward the body of Our Savior
Is at minimum appalling, and it’s blasphemy at most!
This is more than merely naughty–this is Christ Almighty’s Body–
There’s a special place in Hell for those who desecrate the Host!
Dr. Meyers would be safer if he just ignored the wafer;
‘Cos the Prince Of Peace has followers who will not mess around.
There’s no blogger, nerd, or hacker who can simply steal a cracker–
These are people who have re-defined the phrase “too tightly wound”.
Now it’s more than merely prattle, it’s a First Amendment battle;
Can the Catholics demand the recognition of their views?
And if transubstantiation is supported by the nation
Will the other faith communities each, likewise, get to choose?
When you lean toward theocratic, it is far from automatic
That the legal recognition of your rituals will follow–
If our goal is “not offending”, then the list is never-ending,
And the spectrum of religions is too big a bite to swallow.
If the nation acts as proxy for one form of orthodoxy
Then the other True Believers could be truly in a lurch;
But our brilliant founding fathers saw through this and other bothers
And decided to prohibit the endorsement of one church.
If believers were offended, that’s what Myers had intended–
While it may not be polite, he has the right to be a jerk;
It’s the nation’s Constitution that prevents his prosecution,
Sure, it’s not the Holy Bible, but it kinda seems to work.
http://digitalcuttlefish.blogspot.com/2008/07/all-this-over-ritual-cannibalism.html
But if we are to begin walking, we should at least have faith that the path we’re traveling upon is the right one.
Utter nonsense. One doesn’t need any sort of “faith” to simply not waste time on one’s knees, in church, stupidly capitalizing words like “love” and “him”, or assaulting people who don’t swallow crackers.
Owlmirror @ #262 is win teh hol intarwebz x lebentylebenhunderd!
Accidents is the term used to refer to the appearance of the host after endergoing transubstantiation still being that of a simple wafer of unleavened bread. This is as opposed to the substance of the host actually being that of the body of Christ.
And if you truly believe that those wafers are the actual body of a supposed prophet who died nearly 2000 years ago, and not simply a symbol, then you are not a rational being.
G’night, Dutch. I actually find your earnest manner rather refreshing, even if I do not agree with you. I’m going to bed too. If you’re still going to hang around Pharyngula (I’m sure there will be many more long comment threads after this one), we’ll discuss substance/accidents another time, OK? If you don’t hang around Pharyngula, tried googling the relevant terms and see where that leads you. Or go to catholicanswers.com. Best of luck in life to you too.
#616
Don’t get me wrong, I really DO enjoy discussing this stuff. The trick is for me to put aside my typical habit of being snarky or sarcastic. I’m used to talking to a very particular kind of theist and so I tend to go straight into “that mode” which is obviously not fair to people who really do want a discussion, and I just end up being a total dick. So I do appologize for that, because I came off pretty lousy for a while there.
truth machine:
You don’t have to “swallow crackers” if you do not want to. As the Torah in the Jewish community contains the Word of God, Catholics believe the Eucharist IS the Word of God. If one were to go into a Jewish synagogue an take the Torah from the Ark and try to leave with it, I’m sure someone would make a fuss out of that.
It is on that level of respect the Catholic’s hold the Eucharist. One does not have to agree with them; but it’s also true that one should not show such blatant disrespect for a religious group and its customs as that student did.
Not a problem, Adrienne. Good night! :)
Dan J.
Thanks for responding. THAT — I understood. I was just wondering how science “proved” this platonic assertion to be false.
Are they finally gone?
Oh, what silly and tiresome creatures they are.
They exchange utter nonsense and then praise themselves and each other for the service they’ve done to their ‘god’.
Where are the Daleks when you need them?
@ #403 “jb”
The data are prevalence rates, not absolute numbers. The comparison of abuse rates between catholic priests and educators shows a diff of at least an order of magnitude. These are not “my” data, they are from the source you had mentioned, and they are tabulated on page 25 of the citation I had posted (#391).
The John Jay College (JJC) study you cited also states that the 4,392 out of 109,694 priests were “credibly accused of abusing children and youths…”.
delurking to add my praise to 262. epic and hilarious.
(Sorry if I have sounded too vitriolic over this at times.)
I think many people have failed to read about the incident in question. The student is a member of the Catholic Church. He attended mass that day with an acquaintance who is not Catholic. He had intended to take the eucharist back to his seat and show it to his acquaintance, then consume it afterwards.
E.V.
Sorry I missed this earlier, but I just thought I’d point out that if St. Augustine is now invalid because of its age, then Descartes will be just as invalid with time.
Personally, I don’t belief that Truth has an expiration date.
(And, truthmachine, I capitalize ‘Truth’ because I mean ultimate Truth, not just a particular portion of truth. So you see — my capitalizations DO have meaning behind them. You just refuse to acknowledge what I’m communicating with such capitalizations. That however is your decision and has nothing to do with me.)
You don’t have to “swallow crackers” if you do not want to
tell that to Donowhore, there, dutch.
In fact, this whole thing arose BECAUSE apparently many Catholics do indeed feel one has to “swallow crackers”.
so much so, that they apparently would be happy to kill you for not doing so.
I just can’t believe, after thousands and thousands of posts, that there are STILL a few who refuse to comprehend the real issue at hand.
Would you kill someone who attempted to remove a book from a box?
seriously, I’m asking.
Would you kill someone who removed the “torah” from the “ark”?
why not?
It’s not sock puppetry. Truly, it must be the miracle of the oafs and the phishers.
Alert the Vatican!
so much so, that they apparently would be happy to kill you for not doing so.
…or even kill you for criticizing and ridiculing those who would kill someone for not doing so.
To say that God “cannot choose to make false what he knows to be true” means that he lacks omnipotence ignores the concept of Divine Nature.
To say it is to state an analytical truth. “the concept of Divine Nature” is tantamount to admitting that God isn’t omnipotent. Which is fine — people who want to believe in “divine nature” should simply give up omniscience as a property of their god. Except that omniscience is part of the dogma, and so they aren’t allowed to give it up. So they cling to obviously inconsistent views even though they could make them somewhat less obviously inconsistent, and then blather about all of that being rational.
Dutch:
I don’t know that you could say anyone has scientifically proven it to be “false”, per se. As I see it, the accidents/substance issue is purely philosophical, and falls outside the real of scientific proofs.
And now it’s off to bed.. 6am rolls around too damn early.
Dan J.:
As someone who was brought up Catholic himself, he should have known better. His protesting school funds being used for the Church seems to undercut his argument that he had no intention other than to show his non-Catholic friend the Eucharist.
If one wanted to see what it looked like, there are other ways of doing so. When I was young, I remember a priest letting us taste a non-consecrated communion wafer because we were curious about what it tasted like.
The student obviously wanted a consecrated wafer because he knew what it means to Catholics. He just did a sloppy job at getting away with it.
So they cling to obviously inconsistent views even though they could make them somewhat less obviously inconsistent, and then blather about all of that being rational.
funny, I’ve used what you said there almost word for word as a description of religious apologetics.
At least when feeling less than charitable about apologetics.
well, OK, being honest that’s pretty much always.
I wonder if I’m the first to congratulate Cuttlefish on another masterpiece?
Dan J:
That’s what I was thinking, too — about the philosophical nature of Platonism. Thanks for your time, however! Goodnight!
(And, truthmachine, I capitalize ‘Truth’ because I mean ultimate Truth, not just a particular portion of truth.
A stupid, meaningless notion.
So you see — my capitalizations DO have meaning behind them.
No, they have retardation behind them.
You just refuse to acknowledge what I’m communicating with such capitalizations. That however is your decision and has nothing to do with me.)
What I said was that one doesn’t need “faith” in order not to waste one’s time doing that. So yes, it is my decision and has nothing to do with you, moron.
About xians understanding of belief and the lack thereof:
(Note: this is an observation from personal experience with a fundie xian family, and may not apply to all fundies, although I suspect that it might)
An atheist says “I don’t believe in X” and means “I don’t believe X exists”
My xian relatives say “I don’t believe in X” and mean “I do actually believe X exists, but it is evil/sinful/demonic, so I oppose it”
So certain commenters here, who have been asked to present evidence for the non-existence of Thor, leprechauns, unicorns, etc, may actually believe those things do exist, and are tools satan uses (or has used in the past) to lure man astray. They don’t understand the concept of non-belief because they really do believe in every crazy notion anyone has ever had.
Again, this is just my observation of fundies I know personally, and only tentatively ascribe it to all fundies. I have neither the training, time, or funding to research this hypothesis on the general population of fundies.
The student obviously wanted a consecrated wafer because he knew what it means to Catholics. He just did a sloppy job at getting away with it.
You’re obviously an ignorant jackass who is willfully ignoring the facts of the case, facts that have been discussed in these threads at length.
The student obviously wanted a consecrated wafer because he knew what it means to Catholics
are you denying that he actually had a buddy in the pew that requested the consecrated wafer for viewing?
because if so, I’m sure the other witnesses, including the priest, never said that person wasn’t there.
you are making rather grand assumptions about what the student’s intent was.
all we know is what is presented in the articles, and in those articles, he says he took the cracker to show a friend sitting in the pew, and nobody denies that the “church leader” essentially assaulted him in order to try and get it back.
that’s why there are counter-claims filed with the relevant UCF organizations.
“If one were to go into a Jewish synagogue an take the Torah from the Ark and try to leave with it, I’m sure someone would make a fuss out of that.”
I understand what you are saying about depth of feeling, though your analogy fails to take into account that the Catholics are GIVING these things out freely. It’s not at all like stealing the Torah from its Ark. It would be as if at the synagogue they were handing out Xerox copies of their Torah (made using a special kosher Xerox machine) and then sending death threats to the poor schmuck who dog-eared one of the pages so he could study it back at the dorm.
you are making rather grand assumptions about what the student’s intent was.
What he’s doing is demonstrating that he’s just another vile Catholic. In his first post here he wrote “Way to judge an entire group of people and their beliefs based upon one idiot” … which is not what PZ did, but considering how often a little scratching under the surface reveals people like DH, it’s not all that unreasonable.
truth machine #590:
Spinoza and Voltaire challenge Abrahamism ==> atheism gains a foothold in European intellectual life, there is a profound malaise ==> Marx, bolstered by many scientific discoveries in biology and geology, claims a scientific understanding of society, feeds a powerful human urge for an end to pain and sorrow, gains many adherents ==> revolutions are attempted, some succeed ==> Stalinism.
These are not simple causal relationships of abstract entities. Only a charlatan would make such a claim. But these relationships matter to me. And you trivialize them. Over and over and over.
E.V. #580:
Roughly speaking, I think the massive loss of mechanisms and rituals that promote positive social interaction and mutual reliance can render societies vulnerable to grandiose ideologies and charismatic saviours whose solutions involve killing fields. (I am not saying that supernaturalism is the only conceivable source of positive social interaction. It doesn’t have an unblemished record, but it has had some darn good moments.)
#643
One entire side of my family acts and believes in the exact same way you described. When they say “I don’t believe in…” they mean they don’t approve of.
They’re always vigilant about “not letting Satan get a foothold.” Apparently Satan loves his footholds and he’s always on the look out for the smallest ones.
Naz, k8, promo, baker, PZ is a fool, Burns, rumrunner, Dobbs, NYTs, KKKAthiest, Andy, CDV, BradJ, Brett, b7, PCD, NVFU, Your daddy, facebock, baker.
LLLLAAAAAAAHHHHHOOOOOOOOZERS!
–S.
truth machine:
Well — I believe in omniscience as I just defined it, i.e., being within his Nature. If it weren’t his Nature, then he wouldn’t be God. That is how Jews and Christians both understand God to be, which is what made it different from polytheism.
Ratzinger explains all this very well in his “Introduction to Christianity” by explaining how humanity’s understanding of “God” has changed through time. (Not that “God” has changed, mind you, but our understanding has.)
That’s why the Jews were considered “God’s Chosen People” because he chose to reveal these truths about him to them first. That was his way of introducing himself to humanity. Christianity was his way to spread knowledge of him throughout the world.
Unfortunately, we humans are flawed and have done a bad job of communicating who he is. That’s where the trouble starts. The problem, however, isn’t the message, but the poor quality of the messengers.
#126 – Hank Fox – gawddamit, you owe me three monitor wipes and an ice cold glass of sangria.
What to do with the holy cracker my ….!
At least two wine curdling blasphemys come instantly to mind. Dammit, cut that out. ;)
Neil?… Hello?…Neil!
Did you go away? I was sincerely interested in your exchange with Truth Machine. Remember your premise regarding the loss of supernateralism and the danger to your jeans?
If you post, I’ll have to read it tomorrow.
And Truth Machine, Dutch wanted me to remind you not to swallow the Torah, or something like that. He wasn’t exactly clear…
Sorry, Neil, I caught your post after i posted. I’m reading it now.
Neil Schipper #648,
Spinoza and Voltaire challenge Abrahamism ==> atheism gains a foothold in European intellectual life, there is a profound malaise ==> Marx, bolstered by many scientific discoveries in biology and geology, claims a scientific understanding of society, feeds a powerful human urge for an end to pain and sorrow, gains many adherents ==> revolutions are attempted, some succeed ==> Stalinism.
Stalinism====> USSR getting Nuclear Missles and confronting JFK====> Oliver Stone makes movie JFK with Kevin Bacon. Yes, made it within 6! Never thought I would play that game starting with Voltaire and Spinoza.
Ichthyic:
I most certainly am NOT denying that he had a friend there. Just because he had a friend there, however, does not prove that his intentions were what he claimed them to be.
And TruthMachine — your assuming that I was denying the student had a friend there is a grand assumption in itself.
Let’s look at what PZ said:
“It makes you look so weak that you have to lie to put up a pretense of popular support, and it makes your side, in this case the fundamentalist Catholics, look like a troop of posturing frauds”
So 1) the Sock-puppet looks weak because he has to lie, so 2) the Sock-Puppet’s behavior makes the “fundamentalist Catholics” (are there any other kind? If they’re Catholic, they believe the Church’s teachings) look like a “troop of …. frauds.”
I disagree with PZ. I don’t think the sock-puppet’s actions reflect poorly upon anyone but himself. If PZ believes that the Sock-Puppet’s actions reflect anyone’s but his own, he should say something like, “Well, this was one idiot but he’s not speaking for all Catholics everywhere.”
Instead, PZ implies that one person’s behavior makes the Catholics look like “frauds.” That’s his value judgment. But PZ’s judgement doesn’t make it objectively true.
E.V.:
Your representations of my arguments only demonstrate how theologically illiterate you are. If you don’t know how the Torah is similar to the Eucharist in that they both represent the Word of God, then there are two explanations:
1) You do not understand.
2) You choose not to understand.
In the first case, you’re simply ignorant. In the second, you’re willfully ignorant. I hope for your sake it’s the first case that’s true and not the second. After all, ignorance can be cured with a little knowledge. When it comes to willful ignorance, however, no amount knowledge could ever cure such a condition.
PZ, with all this talk of threats to life and limb, perhaps it’s time you invest in one of these to watch over your house.
You don’t have to “swallow crackers” if you do not want to. As the Torah in the Jewish community contains the Word of God, Catholics believe the Eucharist IS the Word of God. If one were to go into a Jewish synagogue an take the Torah from the Ark and try to leave with it, I’m sure someone would make a fuss out of that.
I carried a Torah around a synagogue when I was 13, but I don’t recall ever eating it, moron. However, had I dropped it, the little old men in their yarmulkes and talises might have reacted as crazily as the Catholic nutcases did to Cook.
“Making a fuss” is a lovely euphemism for assault and death threats.
Tom L:
I don’t agree with your analogy. Perhaps it is human nature to think that scarcity increases worth and lack of scarcity cheapens, that is not what Catholics believe concerning the Eucharist.
That is because even when broken, the Eucharist is still One Bread — just as there is only One God. God does not become cheap because he gives himself freely — just as love does not become cheap because one loves more.
Love is not a commodity to be bought and sold. One should not give God or love attributes that are similar to goods of trade. A different standard must be used.
So it’s a bad and dangerous idea to challenge Abrahamism, to make scientific discoveries in biology and geology, or to try to end pain and sorrow?
*headdesk* *headdesk* *headdesk* *headdesk*
Webster Cook takes tiny wafer -> Catholics enraged -> PZ writes post -> attracts inanity -> my head hurts. Webster Cook made my head hurt!
Care to examine the relationships between Christianity and the Holocaust?
“Awwww–you martyr, you!! lol.lol.lol…”
I saw this post and just felt it was the pinnacle of JB’s intellectual competence. Thirteen year old AOL users beware.
jb:How the FUCK do you know what the hell I did or didn’t do, you stupid cunt?!?
As the first generation in a French-Canadian family not to have her life directly damaged or indirectly ended by the Catholic Church, let me say – KISS MY ATHEIST ASS, you personification of medieval misogyny.
“Roughly speaking, I think the massive loss of mechanisms and rituals that promote positive social interaction and mutual reliance can render societies vulnerable to grandiose ideologies and charismatic saviours whose solutions involve killing fields.”
Like, say, the streets of Jerusalem in 1099? Or perhaps you mean the World Trade Center, Sept 11, 2001?
One of the ways to reduce the effect of grandiose ideologies is an ever greater willingness to point and laugh when someone or some idea is obviously batshit crazy.
Well — I believe in omniscience as I just defined it, i.e., being within his Nature
You mean apparently omnipotence, humpty fucking dumpty, but you don’t get to redefine words willy nilly. You believe in an omniipotent God, only it’s not omnipotent, only you say it is. That’s called lying.
And TruthMachine — your assuming that I was denying the student had a friend there is a grand assumption in itself.
The word is “you’re”, and I never said anything about a friend, cretin.
Instead, PZ implies that one person’s behavior makes the Catholics look like “frauds.”
This lie has been addressed more than once. He referred to “Catholic fundamentalists”.
But PZ’s judgement doesn’t make it objectively true.
Duh. But neither is your disagreement. Nor anything else you have to say, although much of it is objectively false. Unlike you, PZ is reasoned, informed, and intelligent.
TruthMachine:
You seem to be trying to make me argue in favor of justifying those who would “assault and make death threats.” Nice try, but I can’t bring myself to do so for some reason.
I understand that Jews and Catholics don’t see the Eucharist in the same way. I actually have more Jewish friends than Christian — living in a very secular environment as I do — and we’ve had this discussion several times. It’s difficult for them to understand because they don’t believe Jesus was Christ. Therefore, I wouldn’t expect them to believe that the Eucharist is the Word of God.
To Catholics, the Eucharist is the Word of God because it is Christ. That’s why we have a tabernacle in place of the Ark, and that’s where the Eucharist is taken at the end of Communion.
For some reason, my Jewish friends have been able to listen to me explain this to them without calling me names. I don’t understand why you find it necessary to.
Dutch @ 601: “Because my belief is in a God that is perfect Truth (rational) and perfect Love. It would not be truthful or loving to deceive. If it is not perfectly true or perfectly loving at once, then it cannot be God and should not be worshiped as God.”
2nd Thessalonians 2:11 ” And for this cause God shall send them strong delusion, that they should believe a lie:”
So clearly, the God of the Bible is not the real God. Glad you could clear that up for us, Dutch.
Dutch Hedrick:
I think that you have misunderstood. PZ is saying that the sockpuppet, using so many different pseudonyms, made it look as though there were many Catholics who were behaving poorly.
While I certainly wouldn’t have thought that it was indicative of all Catholics, it certainly doesn’t reflect well. That was PZ’s point.
“One should not give God or love attributes that are similar to goods of trade.”
I could not agree more.
Care to examine the relationships between Christianity and the Holocaust?
There is no pattern between the two, it’s just a political correct way of using certain labels to degrade another belief…The core base of Christianity is found only in the Bible, and there is no teaching that is similar to that of the holocaust for Christians to follow, unlike other religions such as Islam which states…
“And slay them (the infidels) wherever you catch them, and turn them out from where they have turned you out, for tumult and oppression are worse than slaughter” –Quran Sura 2:191
atheism gains a foothold in European intellectual life, there is a profound malaise ==> Marx,
What part of “The point of the analogy was that Stalinism has a historical connection to atheism, but not vice versa” are you too stupid to understand, Neil? Even if you want to blame Marxism on atheism, that has nothing to do with us disbelievers.
“You mean apparently omnipotence, humpty fucking dumpty, but you don’t get to redefine words willy nilly. You believe in an omniipotent God, only it’s not omnipotent, only you say it is. That’s called lying.”
I’m not “redefining” words. I’m using the words as they were originally intended to be used. It’s Protestants protesting Catholicism and secular atheists who — over hundreds of years — have been doing the redefining. If you go back to the early theological writings you will see that omnipotences and omniscience as I used them are ideas that go back hundreds of years.
Just because you guys wanted to re-write Webster’s doesn’t mean that should be any reflection upon me. That’s why Catholicism continues to use Latin. As G.K. Chesterton put it: “It’s the difference between a so-called dead language [Latin] and a dying language [English].” Or a deteriorating language to be more accurate.
At least the Latin meanings never change.
Cuttlefish! Good to see you again.
Neil, I’m not sure I can follow your premise. As a species, it is doubtful we will ever lose our irrationality and tast for formalized superstition, though we are witnessing a modern conglomerization of religion/celebrity/politicians as ideological totems as well as bastardized cafeteria-style dogma. If mass education results in the loss of supernaturalism, then the ability to introduce the great unwashed to higher levels of reason and logic is dependent on our ability to maintain our current levels of civilization. Any major catastrophes and loss of technology will send us scurrying back to the dark ages in more ways than one. And once again their will be a struggle to extricate ourselves from mystycism and dogma. I say “ourselves”, there will always be a large contingency of people who follow religions (whether Abrahamic religions survive intact is speculative) despite the irrationality of it. As long as there is poverty, ignorance, university sanctioned theological study and people who isolate themselves ideologically – you guessed it.
We are near to an equalibrium where we, as a species, will soon (decades?) face major ecological/meteorological crises that will hinder any major leaps forward for a time. We’ve piled the sand just so high and it will collapse and then eventually it will rise slowly again.
Damn, now I sound like a apocalyptic doomsayer. I’m going to bed now.
SteveC:
Now put that quote into context.
happy whistling, cane pole over shoulder, walking to riverbank:
short time later…
sitting on river bank, adjusts float to about 18 inches, clamps lead weight near hook, takes consecrated host and attaches to hook….
swings line into river, and waits for float to bob…..
Hello Professor Myers,
My apologies regarding the Catholic League: They’re a bit hot under the collar for me. Everything seems to set him off to the point where it’s hard to take him seriously even when there’s a valid argument.
In either case, I’m a Catholic that is respectfully asking you to respect our belief and leave us alone. We believe that piece of bread becomes the Body and Blood of Christ. If you don’t believe it, fine, but let us be.
Some folks are calling each other idiots and whatnot, making widespread generalizations. I try not to do that.
Honestly, I don’t care what your reasons are for wanting to take the most sacred thing to me and “play” with it. I don’t want to debate you on any point, much less argue. I don’t want to suggest that you shouldn’t say whatever you want regarding the Catholic faith, or any faith. I just ask that you please give me a little respect and let me have what is sacred to me.
I don’t know what item in this world you consider the most sacred, special, or meaningful, but I promise you that if you ever feel threaten that I will do something to it, I’ll take back whatever action and apologize.
Thanks in advance,
Brandon Kraft
A Catholic from The University of Texas at Austin
P.S. I do apologize that a vocal section of Catholics aren’t being very nice right now. Not cool.
troll fishin….
“Care to examine the relationships between Christianity and the Holocaust?”
There is no pattern between the two
That wasn’t the question. Would you care to discuss, say, the role of the myths that Jews killed Christ and that they drank the blood of Christian infants?
In either case, I’m a Catholic that is respectfully asking you to respect our belief and leave us alone. We believe that piece of bread becomes the Body and Blood of Christ. If you don’t believe it, fine, but let us be.
Why should he?
I just ask that you please give me a little respect and let me have what is sacred to me.
Why should anyone respect foolishness?
SteveC:
Clever how you changed one word when quoting scripture — from “may” to “should.”
It makes a big difference. The difference is that between me saying, “You may eat pudding,” and “You should eat pudding.”
I’m sure you can work that difference out yourself.
Alright everyone,
I’m an honest-to-God (no pun intended) Catholic, and am not a sock puppet (you can verify my IP and check). I’m an avid scienceblogs reader, and have been a reader of Pharyngula for a few months now.
A few people have commented that there have been no Catholics that have come forward to denounce the actions of Donahue and others who have called for or issued death threats (either directly or indirectly) against PZ and Cook.
I’d like to do so now – it’s abhorrent behavior. It might have been appropriate for them to ask Cook to leave the church and to not allow him back, but that’s it. Physical violence and death threats were not warranted and are frankly ridiculous.
On Donahue, there is a relatively small minority of American Catholics who are members of his Catholic League (about 0.3%), and the organization has no official standing with the Church, although it has received endorsement from several prominent American Archbishops (surprisingly enough, some of the same bishops accused of covering up sex scandals). He isn’t even well liked among Catholics, and his League’s own newsletter publishes a “Hatemail” section which includes letters from Catholics who claim they decided to leave the Church after seeing Donohue speak.
This isn’t the first time Donahue has issued threats, and it won’t be the last. Bill Maher hasn’t been attacked yet, and Donahue’s been doing this sort of thing to him for years, so I think PZ’s going to be safe.
Donahue’s a windbag and a publicity whore, nothing more.
Damnit Brandon@677, get back in the water, you aren’t a troll!
Or at least a very tiny one. I respect your not wanting to push your faith on the rest of us, and apparently asking for the ability to practice your faith with your own group, without pushing it on others.
Go in peace.
Damnit, I go troll fishing and keep getting the little ones.
PAK, thank you for your post, and this comes from an ex-Catholic.
Go in peace.
Atheism and communism are related by their connection with human beliefs about people and the good life.
The fuck you say. You insist on ignorantly confusing communism with (state-)Communism. And you’re evidently unfamiliar with anarchism or anarcho-communism (ever heard “No gods, No masters”?). Two books by Peter Kropotkin:
http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/4341
http://dwardmac.pitzer.edu/Anarchist_archives/kropotkin/ethics/toc.html
I agree that William Donohue is a “windbag” and he makes Catholics look bad. Hopefully, for every Donohue there is out there, there’s a faithful Catholic such as Stephen Colbert out there as well who can present the best of us.
One can only hope.
Kropotkin’s letters to Lenin:
http://dwardmac.pitzer.edu/Anarchist_archives/kropotkin/kropotlenindec203.html
http://dwardmac.pitzer.edu/Anarchist_archives/kropotkin/kropotlenindec20.html
I’m not “redefining” words. I’m using the words as they were originally intended to be used. It’s Protestants protesting Catholicism and secular atheists who — over hundreds of years — have been doing the redefining. If you go back to the early theological writings you will see that omnipotences and omniscience as I used them are ideas that go back hundreds of years.
Just because you guys wanted to re-write Webster’s doesn’t mean that should be any reflection upon me.
You’re a dishonest fool. “omnipotence” means unlimited power. The history of scholastic sophistry of carving exceptions out of omnipotence, back at least to Aquinas, in order to protect the claim that God has it is thoroughly dishonest — the essential nature of religious thought.
Here’s a clue for you: every one of your posts just further confirms the negative views of the religious among those who aren’t.
Michael, that was a bit dishonest, you cut my question out of context. Which is more far fetched: a connection between Spinoza and Stalin or a connection between Christianity and the Holocaust?
You’re no slouch yourself, tm :).
“Truth” Machine:
“You’re a dishonest fool. “omnipotence” means unlimited power. The history of scholastic sophistry of carving exceptions out of omnipotence, back at least to Aquinas, in order to protect the claim that God has it is thoroughly dishonest — the essential nature of religious thought.”
Omnipotence means unlimited power, yes, but it does NOT mean that power will be used contrary to one’s nature! God is not evil. God is Good. Evil does not come from God. It comes from TURNING AWAY FROM GOD!
To say that God cannot turn away from himself is absurd! That’s like saying YOU can’t turn away from yourself or leave yourself. God is what he is. God cannot be not-God. This is because God is God.
I don’t know what more I can do to explain this. But at least because you cannot grasp this I won’t resort to calling you a “fool”.
Your insulting attitude and unwillingness to represent my arguments as I present them lend one to believe that it is YOU who is either dishonest or foolish.
I offer you a clue in return: Your lack of civility demonstrates the negative views theist have of atheists. Keep on posting. You’re giving us more positive proof of why people need God in their lives!
Clever how you changed one word when quoting scripture — from “may” to “should.”
Fuck but you’re dumb. There isn’t just one scripture, and googling that phrase brings up things like
http://bible.cc/2_thessalonians/2-11.htm
And it doesn’t matter in that context whether it’s “should” or “may”, as it isn’t normative; it means “will result in”.
“Truth” Machine (machine — as in operating mechanically without a soul?):
OH! So are you trying to get me to argue for translations of the Bible which aren’t approved by the Catholic Church? Well, I hate to disappoint you because I’m not going to do it.
I don’t acknowledge translations as being legit unless the Church approves — and even then I’d say it’s better to go back to the Latin or Greek.
BTW, google yields only one reference to “And for this cause God shall send them strong delusion, that they may believe a lie”: http://mysticsaint.blogspot.com/2006/01/letter-of-malcolm-x-from-mecca.html
So it seems that it’s you who are “cleverly” changing one word of scripture, asswipe.
http://www.usccb.org/nab/bible/2thessalonians/2thessalonians2.htm
Look it up. And I will go ahead and say in advanced: “I accept your apology.”
http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2008/07/fyi.php#comment-980609
Come on! I wrote this several hours ago and you self-righteous Catholics are just ignoring it. Make this discussion a challenge!
Malcolm X: Good Catholic, I’m sure, but I won’t be defending his translations either. Nice try. Play again.
I don’t acknowledge translations as being legit unless the Church approves — and even then I’d say it’s better to go back to the Latin or Greek.
You are beyond stupid and dishonest. The page I gave quoted the ISV the KJB, and a dozen other bibles.
Again, every one of your posts just further confirms the negative views of the religious among those who aren’t. Your turnaround is irrelevant, if for no other reason than that this is not a theist’s site.
Brandon Kraft:
Again, why don’t you respect Hindus by not eating beef? Do you realize that you offend Jains whenever you kill a bug in your house?
Why should we genuflect to lunacy?
Sorry. Adults don’t get to have sacredity blankets. Grow up and get over it (and stop supporting an institution that oppresses and kills people, while you’re at it).
I don’t acknowledge translations as being legit unless the Church approves
what is this?
night of the endless circular reasoning zombies?
You mean as opposed to getting death threats for not eating a cracker?
Now I know that you’re going to be a great theologian, because that is the most awesomely incoherent description of My eternal and transcendent nature.
God job, there.
Look it up. And I will go ahead and say in advanced: “I accept your apology.”
You stupid fucking asshole, SteveC gave a quote using language which appears in numerous versions of the bible, but you accused him of changing a word — but that change doesn’t even change the meaning — it’s not about permission, but you’re too stupid or dishonest to comprehend that. And you blathered about Greek and Latin, but didn’t offer any to refute SteveC. You owe the universe an apology for being such a foul dishonest piece of shit.
Just one thing to add to what #703 said:
What the fuck? You call that an argument?
Kobra:
I ran through many of those supposed “death threats” and I could barely find anything that could be considered to be legitimate treats.
I remember when I put a pro-life bumper sticker on my car, my friends were telling me, “You’d better expect to get your tires slashed.” I didn’t, however, assume that they were “threatening” me with destroying my property.
Of all those emails, only one or two could be seen as threatening in any way, but hardly anything to be concerned about. Only something like, “Better not go to Florida,” or “I’ve got 4 guns. Liberals like you probably have none.”
For me, even this is over the line. If I were PZ Myers, however, I wouldn’t take them seriously.
Like I said before, if you guys want me to defend “death threats,” I’m not going to do it. However, I think if Myers wants us to take him seriously when he’s asserting that his life is being threatened, he’s going to have to show me something more than what he did.
A bunch of people saying that they’re praying for him hardly seems threatening to me.
What the fuck? You call that an argument?
It’s what passes for an argument in the pus-filled cavity in his head.
#706:
I disagree, but let’s not split hairs. DON’T CHANGE THE SUBJECT.
I paraphrased business laws in my posts, and not ONE Catholic has challenged it yet. I demand that someone (not necessarily you, mind) justifies their claim that Mr. Cook is a “thief” by addressing my post.
SteveC:
I apologize for accusing YOU of changing the line in the Bible. I should have realized that it was a bad translation that you were using against us.
In the future, when challenging Catholics on their beliefs, I suggest you stick to Bibles that Catholics recognize as being legitimate. It would save a lot of confusion.
Happy now, “Truth” Machine?
Well, PZ, it’s also possible that it’s not sock puppetry at work here, but a person with a true psychological disturbance of multiple personality disorder.
Really, is it so difficult to believe that such a person would find a comfy home with the Catholic League folks?
Happy now, “Truth” Machine?
No, asshole, it’s beyond the point where anything you could do would make me happy.
#708:
Correction: Business/property laws.
Kobra:
Oh! You’re arguing that the Catholic Church is a business! I see. Funny. I always thought it was a religion. Also, was there any legal tender exchanged for the Eucharist? If so, perhaps Mr. Cook should bring his receipt with him to court.
It would help his case tremendously.
#713:
I would recommend refreshing to check for corrections. It doesn’t have to concern “legal tender” to be a “transaction.” Technically, borrowing a cup of sugar is a “transaction.” My point stands. Focus.
Possession is 9/10 of the law. If he has the Eucharist in his possession and the
CultChurch had no evidence that the particular piece of dough was theirs, it would be thrown out.Cuttlefish, OM @#619.
*Jaw dropped.*
MADE OF WIN!
And BTW, it’s not a “bad” translation, and it doesn’t matter which word you use, the point is the same — a point you evaded, fuckhead. As the New American Standard Bible says, “For this reason God will send upon them a deluding influence so that they will believe what is false”. The Bible in Basic English says “And for this cause, God will give them up to the power of deceit and they will put their faith in what is false”. It is your interpretation of clause that is bad.
Jesus loves me, this I know
for the Bible tells me so…
I’ll pray for you. I mean that.
Truth Machine:
That’s funny. I thought atheism was supposed to make civilization more — civilized. You seem to be getting progressively uncivilized when addressing me.
Kind of blows that whole crazy-religious-people-are-the-source-of-all-aggression argument, doesn’t it?
Dutch: I didn’t change anything.
http://bible.cc/2_thessalonians/2-11.htm.may
You have picked one particular translation which fits your agenda.
Context?
Ok, what exactly is the context that makes it ok for God, who never lies, to lie?
I thought atheism was supposed to make civilization more — civilized.
You think a lot of things that are false, asshole.
You seem to be getting progressively uncivilized when addressing me.
I despise liars.
Kind of blows that whole crazy-religious-people-are-the-source-of-all-aggression argument, doesn’t it?
There is no such argument, asshole.
#719:
Ad hominem. Address the issues.
http://www.johntreed.com/debate.html
SteveC:
I picked the one particular translation endorsed by the American Catholic Bishops. If that happens to “fit my agenda,” then I guess it’s just a co-incidence.
I’m sure that if you try to disprove my faith through more scripture using that version, you’ll find the same is true.
Kobra,
I read your previous post. Mr. Cook has committed no crime, so there isn’t much to say. The church is within its rights to ask Mr. Cook to leave and not return. That’s about it. He was given the Eucharist, and while it is expected of Catholics that it is immediately consumed, he’s well within his rights not too. While it is asked that only Catholics receive Communion, there is no announcement to this effect, nor is it effectively communicated to visitors – only printed in the back of the hymnals. From reading details of his story, it seems like an honest mistake, and this whole thing has blown out of proportion because of some angry parishioners at the UCF church and idiots like Donahue.
If it wasn’t innocent and there is someone legitimately trying to disrupt a service, that wouldn’t even really bother me – it shouldn’t be an issue as a church is private property, and they can disallow anyone they choose from attending (although, I believe I read somewhere that this particular church is on UCF property? If that’s the case, I disagree with more than just some of the response to this, as there should never be a church on public property… but that’s a different issue).
#723: What do you call this endorsed translation?
#724:
Cool. A person capable of rational thought.
That satisfies my criteria, but I was kinda hoping one of the batshit-insane guys would try to argue this point. Oh well. Thanks for making my day.
Oh! You’re arguing that the Catholic Church is a business! I see. Funny. I always thought it was a religion
well, see that’s where you keep getting all these things called “definitions” wrong.
see, the Church IS a business (at least in this country), a non-profit 501c3.
Catholicism is a religion.
Or was that a freudian slip on your part to call the church itself a religion?
dangerously close to heresy.
btw, you’re a worse apologist than Phil Spaz, and that’s saying something!
I picked the one particular translation endorsed by the American Catholic Bishops
D. Cuttlefish: That one was extremely pleasant to read out loud to my fiancé, and we enjoyed it very much, thanks!!
Dutch this is from the Vatican’s own website,
“Therefore, God is sending them a deceiving power so that they may believe the lie, ”
http://www.vatican.va/archive/ENG0839/__P10W.HTM
Oh really? Because THAT’S the argument all your heroes seem to make in favor of atheism. So I guess those are false also. I guess that means YOU GUYS believe a lot of things that are false.
BTW — you Bible quoting also nicely avoided the one I acknowledge as being legitimate. There’s a big difference, as I said before, in saying, “You MAY eat pudding,” and “You WILL eat pudding.”
To say that “may” means “will” does not hold up. This is a point you keep evading, so it seems.
Oh! You’re arguing that the Catholic Church is a business! I see. Funny. I always thought it was a religion.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/7558375/
Just because God gives us the ability to turn from him doesn’t mean that’s what we SHOULD do. Free will and all that.
#731: You’re splitting hairs and ignoring posts. Please take the time to address all of the posts that were addressed to you. Thanks.
There’s an interesting cross reference at the bible.cc site. Let’s see, what does the “approved” translation say?
Well, alrighty then. Obviously God wouldn’t deceive anyone just because he would put a lying spirit in the mouths of prophets. Nosiree, no deceiving going on there…
Say, how about this line:
Real omnipotent God, there…
I guess I’m guilty, too.
In the name of humor, I posted as Phil Gramm. One time.
Take it down if you want.
Disregard that; I suck cocks.
(Sorry, I just had to do it. This is Kobra.)
Because THAT’S the argument all your heroes seem to make in favor of atheism.
You’re lying again.
There’s a big difference, as I said before, in saying, “You MAY eat pudding,” and “You WILL eat pudding.”
As I said, you dishonest asshole, that’s not what it means in this context.
To say that “may” means “will” does not hold up.
Looking at the other translations makes it clear that it does, asswipe.
This is a point you keep evading, so it seems.
You’re lying again.
In any case, the may/should/will distinction is irrelevant. That I don’t believe you, George Bush, and other liars doesn’t mean you aren’t deceptive. From your precious fucking approved translation: “God is sending them a deceiving power”. EVERYONE here can clearly see that you’re the evader.
Kobra:
Are you trying to equate the buying and selling of property to the distribution of Communion? It doesn’t work because the Eucharist is NOT property. We Catholics never claimed it to be property. We claim it to be God.
That is our CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHT under the first amendment. If you want to start writing laws that determine our theology, you’re going to have to change the Constitution first. (There’s another “meaninglessly capitalized letter for you, TruthMachine.)
We have the right to worship as we see fit. You cannot write laws changing this without re-writing the Constitution.
I suggest you guys pool your resources and work on that if you ever want to get somewhere.
#739: Regardless of what you Catholics consider the Eucharist (and the law will disagree if the Church presses charges), Mr. Cook did not commit theft by walking away with the wafer. That is my point.
Just because God gives us the ability to turn from him doesn’t mean that’s what we SHOULD do. Free will and all that.
That’s not the point, you lying piece of evading shit. According to your fucking precious bible translation, God set out to DECEIVE, whether or not anyone was deceived.
Free will and all that.
Ha! You didn’t capitalize “will”! The sentence is meaningless!
Actually, I told both sides of that particular argument that I had sent a lying spirit to the other, then watched how it played out.
Funny!
There’s another “meaninglessly capitalized letter for you, TruthMachine
It’s a proper noun, moron.
#743:
You cunning bastard.
I must learn from you, oh master of dickery!
It doesn’t work because the Eucharist is NOT property.
which is why stealing one is not a crime, right?
when, exactly, does the Eucharist become NOT property, such that a Catholic Church leader doesn’t feel obligated to assault someone in order to retrieve it?
which way do you want it?
Truth Machine:
Just because you don’t have the ability, it seems, to comprehend the Truth does NOT mean I’m lying. It’s an argument Christopher Hitchens constantly makes.
And your understanding of how to interpret Scripture shows you have a profound ignorance of the history of the Church and other Christian denominations.
There are several different translations for the same reason there’s several different denominations. Don’t give me a damned Protestant translation and expect me to justify it. I won’t. I’ll justify the translation approved by the Catholic Church because I’m CATHOLIC! Why do you fail to understand this?
You seem intelligent. You CAN NOT be that dense that you do not understand this. There must be some other explanation.
Could it be that YOU’RE the liar? You seem to be hitting that ball into my court so much that one suspects you’re trying to distract us from your own deceptions.
“”God is what he is. God cannot be not-God. This is because God is God.”
… and that there folks, after reading six and and half odd thousand posts, is the quote that finally did my head in.
#747:
Who’s Christopher Hitchens?
We claim it to be God.
That is our CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHT under the first amendment.
One of the dumbest strawmen seen.
You cannot write laws changing this without re-writing the Constitution.
indeed.
so why are the religious, like a former republican nominee for president who shall go nameless, trying to ammend the constitution in order to establish religion as law?
funny, but I can’t recall anyone here, or any atheist EVER for that matter, suggesting we remove the freedom of speech clause from the constitution.
you have a very large fantasy world.
#748: I assure you: We all know your pain.
#750: Isn’t it?
Except that it’s not. It’s just a piece of cracker. If you believe that it’s god, then you are deluded. There’s absolutely no difference between a normal cracker and the ‘consecrated’ one.
I suggest you guys…
Who gives a pillar of saltines what you suggest?
Here’s the explanation of that passage from 1 Kings according to the NAB:
“The prophet Micaiah uses as a last resort to deter Ahab from his foolhardy design of fighting against Ramoth-gilead the literary device of describing false prophets as messengers of a lying spirit which God, after holding counsel with his angels, permits to deceive them.”
Unlike many Protestants, Catholics are not literalists when it comes to the Bible.
#751:
Ichthyic, my fishy friend, was that last sentence inspired by Captain Obvious? On the other hand…
“you have a very large fantasy world.”
… the more I think about it, the more I realize that my fantasy world (D&D) is larger, but I’m not stupid enough to confuse it with reality.
:P
Just because you don’t have the ability, it seems, to comprehend the Truth does NOT mean I’m lying. It’s an argument Christopher Hitchens constantly makes.
Christopher Hitchens is not “all your heroes”, you lying piece of garbage; in fact he’s none of my heroes. And without you actually quoting him, your claim that he has made that argument is dubious, especially given how demonstrably stupid you are and quick to misinterpret arguments.
There are several different translations for the same reason there’s several different denominations
Continuing to evade, you foul piece of shit. As I noted repeatedly, your own approved version contradicts you. pus brain.
#751 – Huckabee is frightening. When even Donahue is disturbed by how far you’re going, you’ve crossed that threshold from evangelical to radical fundamentalist.
Bride of Shrek:
That’s what comes from trying to explain theology to someone who refuses to think on a level higher than that of a child. Still, it has not been without amusement on my part.
#755:
You’d be hard-pressed to that that fallacious work of fiction literally. (Yet some people still do.)
Catholics are not literalists when it comes to the Bible
…just when it comes to magic biscuits.
LOL
at least you’re semi-entertaining.
Dutch Hedrick wrote:
I’m confused. Is this from the bible or Moby-Dick?
Well, you claim the substance to be God. Yet the accidents that lead to that must still be harvested, milled, baked, and transported, so all of that must be paid for and must be someone’s property, at some point.
However, the accidents are then given away. Whee!
I think Cook would be within his rights to assert that he took the accidents, and that the substance of God must have remained in church, where it belonged. What, are you going to disprove that?
Just because God gives us the ability to turn from him doesn’t mean that’s what we SHOULD do.
Yeah but that’s a faith. You’re making it sound like you know what you’re talking about. But you don’t know what you’re talking about. You “believe” what you’re talking about.
But you keep going on and on like you know what you’re talking about. This is a sure sign of kookiness. Sorry!
735 posts! Apparently there are a lot of angry catholics! We’ve got ourselves a bit of a donnybrook here!
Catholics are not literalists when it comes to the Bible.
The ultimate evasion. But at least we all, even the NAB, agree that the passage means that God deceives, you stupid fucking piece of lying corrupt foul garbage.
#763:
Of COURSE! Fight fire with fire!
Ichthyic:
I thought I mentioned it before: The Eucharist is God and God is not property.
I know you have a hard time grasping the concept of God so you would therefore not know why God is not to be considered property. I suggest you go and pray on it before going to sleep tonight. It may come to you eventually.
As far as our literal interpretation, just go to John, Chapter Six. Jesus never insists he’s not being literal when he speaks of eating his flesh. The Jews he’s talking to assume he’s being literal, but Jesus never says, “No! You misunderstand me! I wasn’t being literal! Come back! Let me explain…”
No. He let them go. He didn’t argue he wasn’t being literal because he was being literal. See? Simple.
Unlike many Protestants, Catholics are not literalists when it comes to the Bible.
You’ve been freewheeling in your interpretation of the arguments here as well. Consistent, at least.
BoS: I send you a virtual excedrin.
Cuttlefish: You rock! Amazing. Thanks!
Is this from the bible or Moby-Dick?
Call me Ishmael, but I rather think our resident religious apologists are indeed chasing a rather large white whale.
Truth machine:
hahaha! You — calling ME foul-mouthed! [more laughing]
#768:
“I thought I mentioned it before: The Eucharist is God and God is not property.”
Let’s stop assuming God exists for a second, for the sake of showing you what my point is:
A man hands you a piece of bread. Or a sammich. Most people (especially hungry people) eat it there, but one person decides to pocket it and walk away. Is he stealing? No.
Therefore, he is not a thief. Fuck what the Church thinks; I’m talking legally.
And I thought I mentioned it before, it’s not. It’s only a piece of cracker.
Just because you assert something as true, it doesn’t mean that it’s true. Even a child can understand that.
To think you are mocking the intelligence of a child …
I love religious conflict. Keep it up!
#775: Are you by any chance related to Sarda? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/8-Bit_Theater
Truth Machine@680
Why? Perhaps there’s not a reason that would be satisfactory to all. Mutual respect? I won’t bad mouth what is to him the most meaningful object? The same reason that people wave to you when you let them merge their car in front of you–it’s a nice thing to do. I’m not claiming to have an argument that is free of some sort of “human element” (i.e. pure logic won’t win me the day, or if it will, in either case, I’m not going to go that route.)
Foolishness, in this context, is completely subjective. Some people think people who enjoy model railroad are foolish for wasting time on such a hobby. Personally, I don’t see the appeal in building model railroads, but I can respect that someone else finds pleasure/enjoyment in that. If the Eucharist is such a foolish thing, why would the Professor care to waste any of his time on the subject at all? I’m sure he has better things to do.
—
NeutralT@699:
Fair point. The Professor made a public statement asking someone to acquire an object held sacred to some for the purpose of acting upon the object in a way that is offensive to said group. I won’t parade around Hindus with a steak and I won’t go to someone else’s home to kill a bug if their offended by it (well, I don’t think I’ll ever go to someone’s home with the intention of killing a bug, but I digress).
The next time I have lunch with a Hindu individual, I won’t eat beef.
I’m not asking you to genuflect toward anything. I’m asking the Professor, and by extension others, don’t solicit a sacred object with the purpose of offending the people who hold it sacred.
SC@700:
I didn’t say the Professor had to give me a blanket; it’s rather warm in Texas. In seriousness, perhaps adults should get a sacredity blanket. I think most of us agree that if someone’s spouse was murdered in a brutal fashion, people should tell the widow/widower “get over it-the funeral was yesterday”. Something about general respect toward each other. While you may not believe the Catholic Church has that respect (an issue in which we disagree), I still think it isn’t a bad thing for people to have reasonable boundaries.
Regarding institutions that oppress and kill people, I did the best I could to get all of the taxes I paid into the IRS refunded back to me. I’ll try better next year. (Please take this in jest. My small attempt at humor.)
You — calling ME foul-mouthed!
Just another lie. But certainly your mouth, as part of your foul whole, is foul, and what comes out of it, and from your fingers, is foul. My use of “foul” words are to describe you — that’s what it takes to properly do so.
Dutch Hedrick,
I believe tm called you a stupid fucking piece of lying corrupt foul garbage. That’s not the same as calling you foul-mouthed.
I know you have a hard time grasping the concept of God so you would therefore not know why God is not to be considered property.
funny, that church leader must have disagreed with your interpretation, given she felt the need to assault someone in order to attempt retrieval.
I see you’ve made YOUR choice, though.
It’s nothing.
The churchlady, and the church, were wrong by your own dogmatic conclusions to have persecuted someone to return property that wasn’t really property to begin with.
just want to keep that clear.
you’re an apologist who agrees with Cook’s position, and our own wrt to what the Eucharist IS:
nothing.
For Owlmirror @262:
LolCatz FTW!
I laughed my way through it. Thanks.
Foolishness, in this context, is completely subjective.
Sure. So why should anyone respect what they consider foolishness?
If the Eucharist is such a foolish thing, why would the Professor care to waste any of his time on the subject at all?
Because these foolish beliefs do harm — which is how this came to be an issue here. Have you forgotten already?
11 And therefore God sends on them a power that deludes people so that they believe what is false,
From http://www.catholic.org/bible/book.php?id=60
pwned.
Kobra:
If we lived in a country where religion were outlawed, then you might have a point. The thing is: The guy was on Catholic property and there at the pleasure of the Catholic community. All they asked from him was respect for their rules and customs.
If I were to go into your house and start behaving contrary to your rules you would probably take objection, too. Depending upon what I was doing, you might even get upset enough to use physical force to prevent me from doing it.
What complicates this is that Catholics do not believe the consecrated Eucharist is anything but God. If you start treating it in a way that shows it disrespect, you should expect them to act accordingly.
Since we’re in America under this Constitution — with no further amendments — we have the right to worship as we choose. The State should not make any laws prohibiting us from doing so.
So — if you guys want to pass a law saying that the Eucharist (consecrated) is just “property,” then you’re going to have to amend the Constitution to do so. Until then, whine somewhere else.
I thought I mentioned it before: The Eucharist is God and God is not property.
But Jesus can be had at the cost of minor exploitation:
http://www.nlcnet.org/article.php?id=479
“Literary device”? So…. In other words, Micaiah was the one who was lying?
I ask only for information.
New Jerusalem Bible — Ah yes, the one Tolkien helped to translate. Still, I’m sticking to the one endorsed by the Bishops. I’m assuming they chose that one for a reason.
Dutch wrote: “Ichthyic:
I thought I mentioned it before: The Eucharist is God and God is not property.
I know you have a hard time grasping the concept of God so you would therefore not know why God is not to be considered property. ”
And with that, you lose all credibility, and you are officially batshit insane. You argue a cracker is literally your god. That is completely, utterly, inexcusably idiotic. You’re an idiot. Period.
Your beliefs deserve not respect, but ridicule.
Tough shit, cracker boy.
What planet are you on? They assaulted him and then threatened his study and his life.
Re: Post #91. Did everyone miss Ron in Houston hitting on True Bob?
And shoe elves? I’m still afraid of the Undewear Gnomes.
SteveC:
Take your anti-Catholic bigotry to the next Klan rally, then.
Dutch Hedrick wrote:
This is true – but you don’t have the right to make others worship as you choose, which is what the people in the church were trying to make Webster Cook do. Even if he was on church property.
If a vegetarian comes to my house am I allowed to force him or her to eat meat?
From http://www.catholic.org/bible/book.php?id=60
Too late … he finally remembered his ultimate dodge, that he doesn’t take the bible literally, so he can claim that his God by nature doesn’t deceive regardless of what his bible actually says. It’s rather bizarre, though, that he seems to think that the NAB’s mention of Micaiah — a character in the bible — using a literary device has something to do with not taking the bible literally.
then you’re going to have to amend the Constitution to do so
actually, since the only demonstrable thing it is a glutenous biscuit, no, we don’t.
It’s yourself that would have to alter all laws regarding property in the US in order to claim that something that was purchased by a local church is not actually property of that church.
and again, perhaps you should tell it to the church, members of which assaulted Cook to get the biscuit back, and insisted he return it or face dire consequences afterwards.
so, what’s it gonna be?
choose.
will you now write a letter to the UCF Catholic church, insisting that your interpretation of Catholic Dogma means that they should not have asked for the return of the cracker?
#432: Man, I wish we had a kill file for this board
I use Greasemonkey’s killfile (with Firefox) here; it makes things a lot easier.
Wowbagger:
Even in the Army there’s a saying: “Take all you want, but eat all you take.”
If that’s the rule of the house, you follow the rules. He knows better. After all, he calls himself a Catholic.
TruthMachine@782
What harm does my belief that a piece of bread turns into the Body and Blood of my savior do to anyone? I’m not trying to say that the folks in Florida did things the right way. I think situations like this require a certain bit of prudence, which I think should have been exercised in a much better fashion.
In either case, I know I won’t convince you that I have a point worth any bit of respect. I respect that. I do hope that someday if you find yourself in a position where you need someone to respect you for no good reason, that someone will actually do so.
Go in peace, Truth Machine.
Wowbagger@792:
If you went to a vegetarian’s home, are you allowed to demand from them meat?
“The guy was on Catholic property and there at the pleasure of the Catholic community.”
Are you saying that laws don’t apply in churches?
Not in the least. Sarda is some imaginary, made-up, completely fictional, pretend entity.
Whereas I am the completely real, transcendent, ineffable, inconceivable Almighty God.
Although some people don’t know Me as well as they think they do…
But they’ll find out.
Strawman. No one here suggested that worship should be prohibited. You are lying if you suggest that someone here said it. This is completely irrelevant to this topic.
And that physical violence will be illegal, if you invite someone into your house, and freely hand over an object, then threaten to beat him up if he doesn’t eat it.
“accordingly”? Death threats? Threats of expulsion from school? Physical violence? All or taking a cracker which was freely given to him. If you really believe that such behaviour is acceptable, then you are a really vile human being.
Even in the Army there’s a saying: “Take all you want, but eat all you take.”
If that’s the rule of the house, you follow the rules.
Army == church? Close enough for authoritarian pus brains. But even the Army won’t throw you in the brig for not cleaning your plate.
[Reposting of the first part of 797 due to some HTML problems… second attempt to get the blockquoting correct.]
TruthMachine@782
What harm does my belief that a piece of bread turns into the Body and Blood of my savior do to anyone? I’m not trying to say that the folks in Florida did things the right way. I think situations like this require a certain bit of prudence, which I think should have been exercised in a much better fashion.
In either case, I know I won’t convince you that I have a point worth any bit of respect. I respect that. I do hope that someday if you find yourself in a position where you need someone to respect you for no good reason, that someone will actually do so.
Go in peace, Truth Machine.
I think I get it, Dutch: the Eucharist is God, and God is meant to be
eatenworshipped through theophagy, because God is not property, so God can’t be stolen but he was…Wait, no. I’m still confused.
Truth Machine:
My mistake. It’s a bit hard to keep up when it’s I-don’t-know-how-many-against one. I apologize for thinking you called me foul-mouthed.
I would point out, by the way, that just because someone makes a mistake does not mean they’re a “liar.” You seem to make lots of rash judgments like that, however. Don’t you.
Keep the insults coming, buddy. I need a good laugh.
How is that analogy even remotely related to this topic. Please, enlighten me.
An unrelated FYI…
This video is currently making the rounds on youtube as one of the most active. I don’t know what I find more infuriating about it: the obviously fabricated story, the terribly slow-paced and dull way in which it is told, the obviously faulty analogies used in telling it, or the terrible quality of the video itself, which is nothing more than the aforementioned awful text set to obnoxious music (and typed in a rather dull Arial font).
I didn’t say the Professor had to give me a blanket; it’s rather warm in Texas.
You’ve already got it.
In seriousness, perhaps adults should get a sacredity blanket. I think most of us agree that if someone’s spouse was murdered in a brutal fashion, people should tell the widow/widower “get over it-the funeral was yesterday”. Something about general respect toward each other.
Oh, sure, because mocking a cracker and a ludicrous belief that’s part of an authoritarian and patriarchal system is the same as cruelty toward a grieving spouse. You know, there’s someone here who recently lost his spouse tragically. I hope he never reads what you wrote. And screw your respect. I’ll respect the rights of women and gay people not to live circumscribed, guilt-ridden lives, people’s rights not to be infected with HIV,…
While you may not believe the Catholic Church has that respect (an issue in which we disagree), I still think it isn’t a bad thing for people to have reasonable boundaries.
No. This is a democratic society. No beliefs are sacred. Free your mind.
Regarding institutions that oppress and kill people, I did the best I could to get all of the taxes I paid into the IRS refunded back to me. I’ll try better next year. (Please take this in jest. My small attempt at humor.)
“Small” being the operative word. You’re obviously unfamilar with the past or present of your church. You should try to remedy that.
What harm does my belief that a piece of bread turns into the Body and Blood of my savior do to anyone?
Read Carl Sagan’s “The Demon-Haunted World”.
Although, I must point out… it really isn’t a cracker. When I think of cracker, I think of a saltines, or at least something crunchy,
Most churches I’ve attended, it really isn’t like a cracker. It’s closer to a thick piece of bread crust on sliced bread. That’s not perfect either, but all this talk of crackers is making me hungry for something that isn’t really like the piece of bread we’re talking about here.
Dutch Hedrick wrote:
I’m sorry, what? If I let someone into my house, and once they’re there I point a sign that says ‘thou must eat meat’ I can then force them to eat meat?
What if, after the cracker was in his mouth, he decided he didn’t want to be Catholic anymore?
Brandon wrote:
Who demanded anything in this story? Webster Cook certainly didn’t. The cracker was given to him freely.
it really isn’t a cracker
That’s been mentioned many many times in these threads.
Ah yes, the one Tolkien helped to translate.
and that’s relevant, how?
I-don’t-know-how-many-against one.
poor, pitiful you.
if your arguments had any weight behind them, you wouldn’t feel so outweighed.
simple.
What harm does my belief that a piece of bread turns into the Body and Blood of my savior do to anyone?
I don’t know about YOU, but evidently believing in biscuit-deities can result in physical violence and death threats for many.
sounds like one o them thar “dangerous ideas” to me.
truth Machine:
You have a way of taking the superficial aspects of my arguments and presenting them as something I wasn’t arguing at all in the first place. You would do well in politics. Demand for guys who twist words as you do is high in that field.
Do you do this because you have a hard time understanding the concepts I’m trying to explain? Or do you do this out of deliberate deception.
When I was young, the Church taught me that any effort to deceive is considered a lie. So if you’re being deliberately deceptive, you’re lying.
Are you lying?
Most churches I’ve attended, it really isn’t like a cracker. It’s closer to a thick piece of bread crust on sliced bread. That’s not perfect either, but all this talk of crackers is making me hungry for something that isn’t really like the piece of bread we’re talking about here.
could you actually poot your irrelevancies utilizing fewer words?
makes it easier to ignore them.
I would point out, by the way, that just because someone makes a mistake does not mean they’re a “liar.”
It becomes the default assumption after a long string of false statements and willful evasions, and when the person’s whole mental framework is essentially dishonest.
Late to the party,but some of us have to work !
Reading through the last 800 comments now and I have to say,the Catholics once more havent sent their brightest to fight the good fight ! (or have they?)
Brandon,
when you say “Go in peace’,is that like,”I pray for you”? Yeah thought so…
Dutch Hedrick,
I give you one thing,you are probably nice.But logic and sound argumentation isnt ur thing.
And as to your No 784 :
As someone 3000 posts before said : You have the right to call a cracker god,but I have the right to call a cracker a cracker !
That’s why the Church sees a lot of truth in Platonism — even if it doesn’t agree with everything Plato said. – Dutch Hedrick
It does, of course, particularly like the totalitarianism, which it practiced just as long as it could, and would love to get back to.
| God is what he is. God cannot be not-God. This is because God is God.|
Which confirms that Gegen die Dummheit kämpfen die Götter selbst vergebens.
(We of the Germanic (Viking) tribes prefer LOTS of gods (hence Götter) that all are pretty much like ourselves, just with the powers we wish for. And when we celebrate them, it is with a Blotgilde, – not some lame crakers and piss-weak, sour wine, distributed by a pedophile ponce during a cannibalistic ritual.)
I think a closer analogy would be for a vegetarian to invite another vegetarian to his house, give him a salad to eat, then recoil in horror and attempt to forcefully wrest the meal back because the miscreant wasn’t using his salad fork.
clinteas: “Go in Peace” was said to me awhile back in this forum, so I thought I’d repeat it. I literally meant go forward from this day in peace. What does peace mean? Whatever TruthMachine means it to be.
You have a way of taking the superficial aspects of my arguments and presenting them as something I wasn’t arguing at all in the first place.
Yet another lie.
When I was young, the Church taught me that any effort to deceive is considered a lie. So if you’re being deliberately deceptive, you’re lying.
Too bad you didn’t apply that to your own behavior, as you have repeatedly been deliberately deceptive. In fact, your entire belief system can only be sustained through the application of deliberate deception.
Are you lying?
No.
News item: “Cook stored the Eucharist in a Ziploc bag for a week and then returned it last Sunday.”
Right now the most famous cracker in world history is in some priest’s garbage can.
Ichthyic:
I never said I felt “out-weighted.” I just said I was having trouble reading all your comments accurately enough.
And must EVERYTHING I say be relevant? Is there no room in the atheists’ conversation for casually pointing out bits of trivia? Wow. What a joyless world you guys must live in.
Or perhaps you’re expecting EVERYTHING I say to be relevant. If so, I’ve raised your expectations of me farther than I intended. To dispel any such notions I’ll just say: Sorry, I’m just another human being. You should treat me as such. I’m not a prophet. I’m just a Catholic who’s trying to understand God.
Please respect that, and if you can’t: Stay out of the Church and let us worship as we wish.
My only intention coming here was to explain Catholicism, not to argue. Also, not to call names. I may have toed the line at times, but hopefully I haven’t crossed it.
Don’t get so angry though, truthMachine. Life’s too important to take it so seriously. :)
Merciful heavens! I just noticed that I have posted under “TomL” and “Tom L” What a lying sack of sockpuppetry I am!
Brandon,
when you say “Go in peace’,is that like,”I pray for you”? Yeah thought so…
I took it as sincere good will.
truthMachine:
‘Too bad you didn’t apply that to your own behavior, as you have repeatedly been deliberately deceptive. In fact, your entire belief system can only be sustained through the application of deliberate deception.’
That is your opinion. That is your belief. You are free to hold it as I am free to hold mine. I’ll show you as much respect as you show to me.
If you insist on being uncivil, then I’ll show you more respect than you show me. That’s just my nature, I guess. At least, it has been since my confirmation, so there’s probably something else behind it — just to give credit to where it’s due.
SC@807:
You’re right. I didn’t think of someone reading that post who just had lost a spouse. I apologize for that. My point is that if you think that it is proper to give respect to someone who has recently lost someone, you can’t say that nothing is “sacred”. To you, respect for a loss of life is sacred, whether you want to call it that or not. That was my point. I really am sorry if someone is hurt by that. I lost my father when I was 12 and I can understand how careless comments, like mine, can hurt someone. Again, I apologize.
The belief that every person has the right to express what they think is sacred in a democratic society.
I’m very familiar with the faults of my church over the past 2000 years. I thought that issue was not on topic in this discussion, but I saw the very obvious joke that folks in the United States all support an institution that is known to do some nasty things itself.
My only intention coming here was to explain Catholicism, not to argue.
Yet another lie, perhaps the most blatant of all. Just a glance at your first posts here, #422 and #434, will do.
Also, not to call names. I may have toed the line at times, but hopefully I haven’t crossed it.
More lies: “You guys aren’t intellectually honest enough to have a true debate about theology. As Christopher Hedges said, you guys are theologically illiterate and proud of it, too. Therefore, there’s not much point in debating theology with you. You don’t even know enough about it to make it worth the time.”
Ichthyic@814
Using less words:
Trying to have a little fun while being the underdog.
hahaha :) How AMAZING! So it seems that there IS NO GOD that knows the sincerity of every man’s heart, but there is TRUTHMACHINE!
Oh wow! Thank God — I mean thank Truthmachine! There we go, everyone! Prove that God DOES exist! And his name is Truthmachine!
That’s great. Mystery solved! Now, I can go to bed.
That is your opinion. That is your belief.
Gee, my posts reflect my opinions and beliefs … who woulda thunk it?
Everything about you is phony, dishonest, and cowardly.
Alright everyone:
I’ve enjoyed this little back-and-forth, but the hour is late and I have other things to do before bed.
I wish you all well and hope the rest of your days bring you closer to your desires in life.
TruthMachine:
You argue like a child on a playground: “Liar! Liar! Liar!” Ah — but children are charming, though, aren’t they? :)
Now, I can go to bed.
One can hope, but that’s what you said over 5 hours ago.
All hail TruthMachine! The One True God. He must be the embodiment of Truth. After all, it says so in his name.
Or perhaps THAT’S a lie… Or at the very least, deceptive.
You argue like a child on a playground
Just another lie.
“One can hope, but that’s what you said over 5 hours ago.”
Ha! I never thought, however, that you guys would be so entertaining! I’d better go, though. Otherwise, you’ll accuse me of lying again!
But if you say I’m lying, who am I to argue with the One who knows the hearts of all men?
I never said I felt “out-weighted.” I just said I was having trouble reading all your comments accurately enough.
*looks back*
nope. not what you said at all.
shocker.
And must EVERYTHING I say be relevant?
not why i asked.
I’m just a Catholic who’s trying to understand God.
and so of course, you came here.
LOL
you really can’t separate the lies in your own mind anymore, can you?
oh well, enough for now. I’m sure you, or someone just like you, will be along tomorrow to provide us all with more Jester-like apologetic acrobatics.
don’t forget to write the CC at UCF and tell them they were wrong to ask for that cracker back, now.
hahaha :) How AMAZING! So it seems that there IS NO GOD that knows the sincerity of every man’s heart, but there is TRUTHMACHINE!
Oh wow! Thank God — I mean thank Truthmachine! There we go, everyone! Prove that God DOES exist! And his name is Truthmachine!
All hail TruthMachine! The One True God. He must be the embodiment of Truth. After all, it says so in his name.
If one is looking for immaturity, there it is.
“Just another lie.”
Exhibit ‘A’. I rest my case.
who am I to argue
You are indeed not up to it.
truth machine:
You atheists take yourselves SOOOOO seriously.
Exhibit ‘A’. I rest my case.
Which you then lose. It does no good to complain that I label your obvious lies as lies.
You atheists take yourselves SOOOOO seriously.
As I said, you’re phony, dishonest, and cowardly.
You atheists take yourselves SOOOOO seriously.
so seriously, of course, that we regularly assault xians for their assinine beliefs, and send them death-threats via email, and threaten to have them fired for saying atheists are poopy-heads.
uh huh.
do you know what “projection” means?
So,
Farewell then, Naz,
Also known as
k8, promo, baker,
PZ is a fool,
rumrunner, KKKAthiest,
and other aliases
too tedious to mention.
I don’t think it’s much fun
in the dungeon.
But at least you’ll have
plenty of yourselves
to talk to!
You’re right. I didn’t think of someone reading that post who just had lost a spouse. I apologize for that.
That’s very thoughtful of you to say. There really is someone in that situation (do a search on this page for “JeffreyD”), so it struck a chord.
My point is that if you think that it is proper to give respect to someone who has recently lost someone, you can’t say that nothing is “sacred”. To you, respect for a loss of life is sacred, whether you want to call it that or not. That was my point.
I can’t acept your characterization of grieving as “sacred.” I don’t believe anything is sacred, and in fact find this a dangerous concept (see Giorgio Agamben’s Homo Sacer for some of the story – not that I agree with him 100%). I appreciate what you’re saying – believe me I do – but shock and offense are far from human rights violations, and I care very much about the real oppression of the Catholic Church as an institution and superstitious beliefs in general.
The belief that every person has the right to express what they think is sacred in a democratic society.
Again, it isn’t sacred. It’s a right that needs to be constantly defended. And this right applies to PZ Myers.
I’m very familiar with the faults of my church over the past 2000 years. I thought that issue was not on topic in this discussion, but I saw the very obvious joke that folks in the United States all support an institution that is known to do some nasty things itself.
I’m an anarchist. I do not :).
//All hail TruthMachine! The One True God. He must be the embodiment of Truth. After all, it says so in his name.//
Dutch,
you did really well until then LOL.
//I’m just a Catholic who’s trying to understand God.//
Good luck with that buddy.You seem to be doing an awful lot of confabulating to unite your god with the reality around you already,reading your posts !
I realize that this is stomping a long-crumbled cracker, but I just wanted to address the false equivalence raised between taking the Eucharist and treating it improperly, and other forms of desecration suggested here, like the destruction of the buddhas of Bamiyan, or tearing up a torah, or something like that.
The difference should be obvious, but just in case it isn’t: All of the objects being offered exist as genuine property that many people spent a great deal of time and effort to make. The buddha statues took a great deal of time and effort to carve, and they were notable works of art in their own right, as well as being tourist attractions that brought money to the local communities.
A torah requires a great deal of time and effort to prepare properly — the proper sort of leather must be acquired, cured, tanned, and scraped, and of course, the actual scribing of the words is a long-term intensive calligraphic exercise.
Now contrast this with the Eucharist: It’s a frackin food item. It’s meant to be swallowed, broken down in the stomach and intestines, and the remnant shat out the other end. There is no sense at all that it is even meant to last more than a human lifetime. Whereas a sacred statue or scroll is intended to last.
So “desecrating” the host is destroying something in a particular way, when it’s in fact meant to be destroyed anyway.
A work of sacred art that is meant to be permanent, or at least last a long time, is not the same thing.
Although now that I typed all of that, I find myself wondering about Buddhist sand paintings. There, the impermanence is central to the art: created with a great deal of effort … and then wiped away.
Somehow, I don’t think Buddhists would get their robes in a twist because of a premature destruction of a sand painting (which I have a faint memory of hearing about happening).
I’m firmly against desecration of the host – James F.
Oh so am I! It is an established rule of social etiquette in Britain that a guest should never desecrate his or her host; and if the occasion is appropriate, should bring a small gift such as a bunch of flowers or a bottle of wine.
That was confused – my apologies. Your original argument was silly. No one is disputing that right. We’re affirming the right to challenge ridiculous beliefs and hold them up to ridicule.
Sleep tight.
Thanks for playing, Dutch.
You scored an 8.7 on the pomposity meter.
This bit really hurt the rating:
#826
then #830
Dutch, I counsel you to strive for pseudo-gravitas. I know it’s hard to keep a consistent tone, but come on! This is your mission.
Dutch:
“who am I to argue with the One who knows the hearts of all men?”
“You atheists take yourselves SOOOOO seriously.”
Remember what you said in one of your first posts in this thread?
Looks like you claimed to know our ‘hearts’ and were taking yourself quite seriously, too. You might think that you are just responding in kind to truth machine, but you come off as the pot calling the kettle black. I suggest you sleep on it if you aren’t already doing so.
Somehow, I don’t think Buddhists would get their robes in a twist because of a premature destruction of a sand painting (which I have a faint memory of hearing about happening).
But note the disanalogy; with the cracker, it was overly mature destruction. And for it be otherwise analogous, it would have be some non-Buddhist, or Buddhist non-monk (or whatever rank the sand painters have) making a sand painting but not following the sequence properly.
And what THEY did reflects badly on atheists EVERYWHERE, if what some pedophile priests did reflects badly on Catholics everywhere, right? – jb
Quite right. I’ll write a protest letter to the world leader of atheism, telling him it’s high time he apologised for the crimes of Stalin, and ordered every official of the vast, immensely rich sovereign body he rules to turn over all Cathedral-dynamiters to the appropriate authorities. Could you please inform me of his name and address? I don’t seem to have heard of him before.
Better have a subtle knife handy when you go up against the Magisterium. – Blake Stacey
We have one Blake! It’s called reason. Better yet, anyone can use it, and it doesn’t make holes in the fabric of reality.
I’ll write a protest letter to the world leader of atheism, … and ordered every official of the vast, immensely rich sovereign body he rules
Damn, called out at last.
which reminds me, have you all sent your tithes recently?
the vast immense sovereign body is looking a bit threadbare of late.
You know, Nick Gotts, one of these days you’re going to say something I disagree with, and…well, I guess I’ll cross that bridge when I come to it.
#856: Let’s not forget the Spectres.
“My point is that if you think that it is proper to give respect to someone who has recently lost someone, you can’t say that nothing is “sacred”. To you, respect for a loss of life is sacred, whether you want to call it that or not.”
Actually, no: I simply recognize that sort of behavior as incredibly cruel. I even managed to figure that one out all on my own, without needing “thus sayeth the Lord” tacked on the end to put the conclusion out of bounds for further argument. It’s based on logic, observation, and personal experience. Insisting that I consider that “sacred” is about as nonsensical as insisting that I consider it “mustard,” whether I call it that or not.
For some reason, I copied off these particular quotes. I saw the faint glimmerings of… something. But now I’m too tired to think what I wanted to do with them.
Well, perhaps I’ll figure it out in the morning.
Looks like you claimed to know our ‘hearts’ and were taking yourself quite seriously, too. You might think that you are just responding in kind to truth machine, but you come off as the pot calling the kettle black.
Note that his blather about me “knowing the sincerity of every man’s heart” was in response to my labeling as a lie “My only intention coming here was to explain Catholicism, not to argue”. But I simply made an inference from his behavior in his initial posts, which were argumentative and not at all instructive about Catholicism. It’s hard to reconcile “Therefore, there’s not much point in debating theology with you” with his later claim about his intentions. When caught in an apparent lie, he took a rather evasive approach — par for the course — rather than explaining how his behavior could be consistent with his claim about his intent.
You know, Nick Gotts, one of these days you’re going to say something I disagree with, and…well, I guess I’ll cross that bridge when I come to it.
So he’s not your sock puppet?
:-)
Etha #806,
the obvious tactics of evangelicalism, the farce that it is, the same as advertising and propaganda, make up a story, no matter how baseless, trivialise it, focus on the emotional content and not on the rational content, and just try to repeat advitam eternam…
Production quality is bad, but that’s what’s needed nowadays on the net, it simulates something more “authentic”, more personal, it’s all just bullshit of course, but it’ll work with all those who are just too dumb
, just can’t think critically and are too lazy to verify if this has any kind of basis.
Evangelicals are terrible scientists (!?!) but unfortunately they are quite good marketeers and propagandists. So, this is not new, that’s what they’ve been doing in the USA for the last 60 years for chrissakes, who cares about telling the truth when you are trying to sell a product like “belief in Jesus Christ”, just now they’ve got a new competitor called atheism so they’ve got to adapt their adverting message.
No more than I’m yours, babe :).
Finally had a moment to glance at Brandon’s web site. He’s a real Catholic! (Don’t know exactly what I expected.) Nice young man, though – hope he returns.
No more than I’m yours, babe :).
But we don’t agree on everything, sweetie. :-)
Keep stirring that pot, it’ll boil over on ya.
I heard the following somewhere and liked it: “Nothing is either good or bad, but only thinking makes it so.” – ajani57@275
The exact quote is “there is nothing either good or
http://www.enotes.com/shakespeare-quotes/nothing-either-good-bad-but-thinking-makes
“Hamlet is a prisoner of his own thinking, and of his knowledge that his stepfather is a fratricide and his mother incestuous. When he states that “there is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so,” he’s not indulging in ethical relativism as much as wishing for blissful ignorance. He’s also implicitly damning the naïveté of the king’s new yes-men*.”
bad, but thinking makes it so.” spoken by Hamlet, in the play of the same name (Act 2, Scene 2) by one W. Shakespeare. According to
*Rosenkrantz and Guildenstern
/Quote-Nazi
Not doin’ any stirring, just meant to return a friendly like for like.
P.S. SC, I was very impressed by your erudition and … well, everything else, in the torture thread, and regretted having gotten into that previous battle with you about weapons, and thought about going back to look at it to better appreciate your position — although I never did. Sincerely.
Not doin’ any stirring, just meant to return a friendly like for like.
And I’m just trying to build my femme fatale cred ;).
Okay so it may have been tasteless for student senator Cook to keep a wafer in a plastic baggie in his dorm room of all places.
It was WRONG for a woman to man-handle him because he didn’t swallow. No excuses for assault, period.
And as far as Bill Donahue’s comment about not being able to think of much that is worse than holding a host hostage–
here’s one:
Roman Catholic priests who rape kids.
Roman Catholic dioceses that cover up the rapes by transferring said priests.
Ah, that’s two.
Now that the wafer has been returned, perhaps it should be sold on e-Bay. The money raised there can be used to pay off a few of the folks who were molested by priests as children. Just a thought.
In Catholic High School, a friend and I used to steal the hosts from their hiding place in the priest’s secret part of the school chapel. We always had a supply of wafers for snacking. That WAS stealing, yes. The statue of limitations has long since run out though. Fortunately, we didn’t get assaulted over it as we didn’t get caught.
Owlmirror, your LOLcatified Crackergate was brilliant.
Mind if I reproduce it with credit?
And do you have a blog, journal, or something anywheres on the web?
spike
And I’m just trying to build my femme fatale cred ;).
Oh. Well in that case, maybe I should be stirring. :-)
Wow – how nice. Same here, in fact. *bonding*
#159 Truly Shocking!!!!
You Tube Eucharist Challenge
@brokenSoldier, OM
I missed this earlier. An unusual, and very impressive, response. People like you and Brandon (notably on opposite sides of the theistic divide) give me pause about my “style”.
May God have mercy on your soul. – Dutch Hedrik
I think the xians are using Pharyngula as the venue for an online contest – the winner being whoever can use the most words to say “Fuck you”.
#850
It is an established rule of social etiquette in Britain that a guest should never desecrate his or her host; and if the occasion is appropriate, should bring a small gift such as a bunch of flowers or a bottle of wine.
Ha, ha.
To me,JeffreyD @ No 266 wins the thread by summing up perfectly and beautifully all that is wrong and hypocritical about the Christian commenters arguments on this and the other 20 crackergate threads,very well done indeed !!
Only the first 2 as a reminder:
//I am sorry that your vision of a god is so weak that he cannot protect his cracker form.//
//I am sorry that you engage in idolatry in regards to said cracker.//
Superb !
Bob Munck, Ted Powell: any scheme for hashing IP addresses into identifiers is trivially reversible. There are only 4 billion IP addresses, so you can just run the forward function 4 billion times to build a complete dictionary (or a rainbow table).
Nick, #856
Well that’s not really a subtle knife ! Go and try to use reason on the Vive Christus Rex ! blog and see if it’s that subtle. They just block it.
I mean it is not just a block at that level, it is also a mental block, how can you use critical reasoning to convince someone who categorically refuses to accept that critical reasoning alone can explain something ?
They dislike reason profoundly, reason is our God, they say.
I mean look at this issue of the Eucharist, it can’t be more trivial : with reasoning one immediately comes to the conclusion that it’s just a fracking cracker.
But the other guy is absolutely convinced that reason alone can’t solve this matter, all his faith depends on it. It’s a complete waste of time to try to convince him, on such a trivial matter, that he should give up his faith.
No the best you can achieve, and this what I think needs to be achieved, is to convince him ;
a) that you have no reason to force him to believe that it is anything less than the body of Christ
b) that he has no reason to force you to believe that it is anything more than just a fracking cracker
c) from the moment you take the Eucharist, because you do not have any faith, it is just a cracker
d) and that the more Catholics are reacting with violence, the further away they are going away from the tenants of their faith
When I was young, the Church taught me that any effort to deceive is considered a lie. So if you’re being deliberately deceptive, you’re lying.
Sorry to jump back to a seemingly lost argument, but did Dutch just admit that because God was deliberately deceptive (as previously quoted) then God must have lied? Therefore God (according to the bible) went against His own nature? Therefore cannot be God because God cannot be un-Godlike, or otherwise he would not be God? Or something?
#882:
Then combine IP addresses, user agents, and (timestamps?).
#885:
Or, you could hash the host name of the resolved IP address.
For example:
The md5 has of my host name is 1859a6465ce2dc08d472d424076661ec
The sha1 of my host name is d637c816910d249e3ed2297bd5f4c5bede3867b2
You could also salt your hashes based off another identifier (cookies?).
Different companies have different host name schemas.
you can just run the forward function 4 billion times
Only if you know what it is. A one-way hash that depends on a secret key isn’t “trivially reversible”.
Then combine IP addresses, user agents, and (timestamps?).
User agent strings are settable, and timestamps would defeat the purpose of using equal strings to detect sock puppets.
Neg,No 883 :
//and that the more Catholics are reacting with violence, the further away they are going away from the tenants of their faith//
Or are they?
Well, how about a salted SHA512 of the host name of the IP address?
A 32-bit hexadecimal number only has 1,208,925,819,614,629,174,706,176 possible combinations (MD5), while a 64-bit hexadecimal number has 79,228,162,514,264,337,593,543,950,336 possible combinations. (That’s 65,536 times as many.)
That’s why I said SHA512.
Doh! I did that backwards. Instead of 16^64 and 16^32, I did 64^16 and 32^16.
Kobra,truth machine and the other net whizzbangs,
Im curious,I used to have a little online shop and my provider had a little cgi thingy that gave me countries,timestamps and not only IP but also machine names,if I recall correctly,and I assume that would be similar with Seed,so shouldnt the chance that those guys with the same IP were indeed different people be infinetesimally small?
Dont know enough about the matter,I admit.
A 32-bit hexadecimal number only has …
Doh! I did that backwards. Instead of 16^64 and 16^32,
Um, there are 2^32 32-bit numbers, regardless of the representation.
Im curious,I used to have a little online shop and my provider had a little cgi thingy that gave me countries,timestamps and not only IP but also machine names,if I recall correctly,and I assume that would be similar with Seed,so shouldnt the chance that those guys with the same IP were indeed different people be infinetesimally small?
I don’t understand your “so”. Two posts with the same IP address are from the same computer (or local network, via NAT); the other info you mention, such as country and machine (host) name are determined from the IP address.
Interesting !
Apparently Donohue already had an “affair” with Pres. Bruininks in the past on a similar issue;
http://www.catholicleague.org/release.php?id=1163
… and Bruininks ignored Donohue.
So I guess PZ doesn’t have much to worry about, on top of this, PZ has many more supporters, from the whole world.
So you agree there is a time for hate speech.
We shouldn’t outlaw hateful words, even though they can be upsetting. We may need them ourselves one day.
Well pray my frackin cracker, so many posts, so little time.
Brandon, I appreciate you pulling back a bit about the death of a loved one. My wife’s death was in no way sacred. Nor do I venerate her. I loved her, her death hurt. That is about it. However, I must note that the only people who have been rude about it to me all did so from religious motives, according to their own words. I have been told several times, twice to my face, couple of times in email and on my blog, that it is sad she is in hell and of course she is in hell because she committed suicide and because she was not a believer – did not know she needed two reasons. How I avoided physical violence I do not quite know, but I did – I would not test that again in person (smile).
You know what? You, the big general world you, have the right to be rude to me about her, my life, her death, my recovery. It is not sacred. It may be in poor taste, but it is not a sacred thing. You are not required to give a damn about what I consider important and lovely and wonderful. Understand that – it is not required, period. My feelings, my beliefs are mine, many are shared with others, but they are not sacred in any way. I would not act as has been done toward me, but I have my own hard won and thought out sense of what is right and wrong. It was this sense that kept my fist from the throat of those who attempted to hurt me with their words. No gods, no excuses, no sacred gee-gaws or doo-dads. Just trying to live treating others as I would like to be treated. It is called ethics, no gods need apply. However, if you put your sacred in front of my face, use it as an excuse to be an asshole, then I will ridicule your belief. And yes, that is living up to my code, treating others as I expect to be treated. If I have something holy and sacred, feel free to ridicule it. Good luck.
Bella SC, as always you are a darling and your posts are fun.
Clinteas, you are too kind about my little post. Owlmirror’s and Cuttlefish’s, along with many others are far more delightful.
Sunday morning coming down, and thus a disjointed post which should probably be skipped by those awake and alert.
Pax Nabisco
Both “belief” and “faith” are words that get abused a lot in these discussions. For instance, the meaning of “belief” changes from “something demonstrable that I’ve observed before” to “something I find pleasing to assume”.
The discussion would be more convincing and useful if the meaning of these words didn’t change so much with the context they are used in.
And thanks for shortening Dutch Hedricks name to Dutch guys. Really :/
Sorry, Dutch Delight. Shoudla called him DuH.
For instance, the meaning of “belief” changes from “something demonstrable that I’ve observed before” to “something I find pleasing to assume”.
Belief is simply assent to a proposition: “I believe P” = “I agree that P”. Some beliefs are well justified and some are not. Faith, OTOH, is unjustified belief … not merely unjustified, but acknowledged by the believer to be unjustified. Although the religious often cheat on that, offering all sorts of justifications for their beliefs while continuing to refer to them as faith.
AlanWCan @ #617
No no no, you don’t understand. That money was just resting in his account!
Clinteas, you are too kind about my little post. Owlmirror’s and Cuttlefish’s, along with many others are far more delightful.
I think highly of yours too. When I went looking for Owlmirror’s #262, I encountered your #266 and thought at first that was what people were referring to. Not exactly “delightful”, but on point.
As for Cuttlefish … I understand how people are wise and clever, but I have no understanding of how Cuttlefish does what s/he does; it’s like an advanced alien technology to me, or like flipping ten coins and having them all land on edge; it just doesn’t seem possible.
truth machine@901:
Well, it seems ‘equivocation’ is one of the main ingredients of apologetics, so “what can be said can be said clearly” is certainly not the apologist’s motto.
I wonder if any convicted pedophile ex-priests will use the “Eucharist defense” for an appeal… Consuming too much “soul of Christ” in blood and wafer form caused corruption of an otherwise good soul in the priests. It could be something that Jesus learned from the Book of the Dead, like in the Mummy movies. Perhaps his plan was to bugger Altar boys for all eternity, and have the poor priests take the rap.
Because God is the Creator and the Universe is the creation. Included in the Universe is Time, which is also a creation. Nothing created God because God is the uncreated Light.
That’s deep thinking? That’s complex theology?
That’s nonsensical handwaving and language games. There’s no “there” there.
John Morales:
Sorry, Dutch Delight. Shoudla called him DuH.
I’m not sure if that helps me much, are you implying you’d short me down to “DuD” ? I’ll drop it, since it was an attempt at humor anyway :)
The belief thing get abused up and down though, usually trying to establish belief as something important and then in a dash for the door exclaim “and thats why believing in my particular god makes just as much sense as you believing that this ball will bounce back up as it lands”.
jb (Comment #200):
Well, Nehru was a (if not the) key figure in the founding of the state of India. He seems to have been an agnostic if not an outright atheist, and India wasn’t (and isn’t) a Communist state.
But the question is misconceived. Setting up states isn’t part of atheism, but is part of the Communist tradition (even if that wasn’t quite what Marx had intended). All that your observation that officially atheist states tend to be Communist shows is that only Communists are interested in setting up officially atheist states. Non-communist atheists tend not to be.
It keeps coming back to the peculiarities of communism as an ideology, of which atheism is a non-essential part.
Hitler’s regime was anti-smoking, and passed numerous laws restricting tobacco advertising and smoking in public places. Does this mean that the modern anti-smoking lobby is somehow tarred (as it were) with the crimes of the Nazis? No, because although the Nazi’s anti-tobacco campaign was a fairly logical extension of it’s preoccupation with “racial” health and hygiene, it was quite irrelevant to the core ideology underlying the Holocaust. Subtract the anti-smoking element, and you still have a genocidal totalitarian ideology.
Ditto with Communism and atheism. Even if the atheism were a consequence of the underlying assumptions of the ideology, subtracting atheism from communism still leaves you with a repressive totalitarian ideology capable of justifying mass murder.
truth machine at #903 – thank you. Not sure I mentioned it before, or if you saw it if I did, both you and SC carried the Hitchen’s thread and made it a must read for me every day.
Cuttlefish…hmmmmm. I think you may be right about the alien thing. Wonder if I can get poetry installed if I submit to an alien anal probe. Might be time to go frog gigging out in the swamps. Do I have to wear one of those NASCAR hats?(smile)
Pax Nabisco
As a former priest who is deeply repentant for my sins against the youth in my charge, I must say with complete candor that I never had those feelings of lust for innocent children until after I had been a priest for a few years, and had consumed many Eucharist. And then, those sinful impulses became stronger and stronger as my consumption of Eucharist increased. I think, even though I did those terrible things to my Altar boys, that it wasn’t my fault after all – it was the fault of the Roman Catholic Church, who made me work under those conditions. The Catholic Church poisoned my soul, and I want it to be restored to its original condition!
Friar “Tuck:”
Amen, Brother! You and me, BOTH!
Intelligent sockpuppeting would at LEAST involve using different computers to not have the same IP.
Apparently some of these insane anti-reasonable people can’t even do trolling intelligently.
Apparently some of these insane anti-reasonable people can’t even do trolling intelligently.
Apparently, neither can some of us:
Posted by: Friar “Tuck” | July 13, 2008 9:20 AM
Posted by: Felonius Monk | July 13, 2008 9:23 AM
#912:
Trolling is a subtle art that simple minds cannot contemplate.
Friar “Tuck” & Felonius Monk:
Just a suggestion – you could start a class-action appeal. It sounds to me as though you have a strong case. Call on me if you need me to testify as to the effects of long term exposure to Eucharist. However, I don’t want to join your appeal. I’ve still been taking Eucharist here in prison. I have connections, and can get all I want. Besides, buggering goes on here everywhere, every day. Granted, most of these boys aren’t altar boys, but I don’t have the pangs of guilt that I did from doing it with altar boys. Besides, with my special connections for getting all of the Eucharist I want, and your defense that Eucharist leads to sexual depravity, I’m sure that I will become wealthy selling Eucharist to my brother inmates.
Well Holy Guacamole on a Godless Tostito! I am quite surprised at y’all’s tenacity. I wouldn’t have guessed that Dutch H would have stayed around so long or that we’d be pushing this thread up towards 1000 as well. I’m just sorry we didn’t get to talk about free will vs hardening Pharaoh’s heart, or vs omniscience.
And Felonious Monk – LOLSnort!
Also, thanks truthmachine, I think you may be onto something about Cuttlefish. Cuttlefish is like spooky action at a distance – HOW does s/he DO it??!?!?!!!11!
275 and 869 “I heard the following somewhere and liked it: “Nothing is either good or bad, but only thinking makes it so.” – ajani57@275
The exact quote is “there is nothing either good or
bad, but thinking makes it so.” spoken by Hamlet”
-=-=-=-=-
Try Romans 14 verses 13 and 14
14:13 Let us not therefore judge one another any more: but judge this rather, that no man put a stumblingblock or an occasion to fall in his brother’s way.
14:14 I know, and am persuaded by the Lord Jesus, that there is nothing unclean of itself: but to him that esteemeth any thing to be unclean, to him it is unclean
The passage in context is about dietary rules, but what has ever prevented xians from expanding verses out of context!
now if some one can point me to a howto on html tags?
thank you kindly
Was it an automated troll? You know he could be a first example of artificial intelligence, at least as intelligent as their Christian ape-like counterparts, which not at all indeed!
BTW I’m hungry I am going to start chewing and spitting crackers thats more fun that eating them.
Thousands of years ago, the gods were needed to explain so much that humans didn’t understand: the origin and amount of game and food; the weather; river floods and ocean tides; the rumblings and shakings of the earth; the nature and movement of the sun, moon and stars; the origin of the world and its species; birth, health, disease and death. One by one each of these and so much more has been explained as knowledge increased, so much so that our need for gods shrunk nearly to one. And here we are arguing about that one god, who is left with so little territory. He’s lost almost all presence in the natural world, so we must make up a supernatural place for him to inhabit.
Just as the young child may not YET understand mathematics, it doesn’t mean she won’t. Similarly, we may not yet understand all things in the natural world, but history has proven time and again that human curiosity and intelligence will eventually shine light into every dark corner.
We’ve got 5000 years of a continuing trend that leads inexorably to one conclusion: divine faith is the representation of what we don’t yet understand. And today faith is strongest where natural education is weakest.
God is ignorance. Eliminate one, and you eliminate the other.
Wow ! Just the kind of meaningless dogmatic oversimplified formulas that the religious love to employ…
(I was going to stick this on the previous thread, but yay, we have a new one.)
To Neil at 118, and others who have expressed similar sentiments:
You’re right, this is the issue: PZ Myers expressed an interest in receiving consecrated hosts from his readers to desecrate. Now Bill Donohue is hardly typical of your average faithful Catholic, and all priests are not pedophiles. Nevertheless, some of us, at least on a rhetorical level, delight in an apparently pointless action (or at least the suggestion of such an action) that antagonizes a lot of people, many of whom might feel generally benevolent, or at least completely neutral, towards our ilk and our non-belief. A few of these have even commented on these threads, expressing their interest in things scientific, claiming to be readers of this blog, and finally lamenting our general reaction to the Webster Cook story.
So why desecrate crackers? Not because the clergy molest children, or because the pope lives in a palace, or because Bill Donohue is an asshole, clearly. But I think there is a good reason. I insist on it because religion, particularly Christianity (and from my perspective, particularly Catholic Christianity), demands an outsized amount of social and cultural space, and I want to beat it back. Christianity is an essentially harmful collection of memes. If you’re among the faithful, it clouds your moral reasoning, it makes you feel like a worthless loser, it demands that you waste hours of time on your knees, ande it craves an inordinate amount of intellectual energy. It’s like a drug without a high. And if it were a completely individual, personal matter, I couldn’t care less; go ahead and waste your life delued by fairy tales. But it’s not a purely personal matter. Quite the opposite: The faithful, particularly the Abrahamic faithful, form raucous and demanding communities, form wealthy and tax-exempt organizations, write a whole lot of laws, punish a lot of people, and generally inflict all manner of social distress, for no clear reason, and without an argumentative leg to stand on.
G.K. Chesterton, no atheist he, wrote that “Blasphemy depends on belief, and is fading with it. If anyone doubts this, let him sit down seriously and try to think blasphemous thoughts about Thor.” And that’s mostly true. But the process works in reverse, too, and nobody has proven this as effectively as the Christians. Deny religion its sacred space, and you reduce its figures to historical artifacts. The Christians embarked upon relentless campaigns of sacrilege, blasphemy, and outright vandalism, to shock the conscience of pagan believers, and as a result it became culturally ridiculous to venerate Zeus. At first even the Christians were fearful of the pagan temples (so powerful were the sacred myths that had been erected in their defense), but after a few centuries of blasphemy, the Christians felt confident enough to convert them into Christian meeting halls. Now the Christians did not only blaspheme. They also had fancy arguments and good, hard rhetoric; early Christians like Augustine were really good at making pagan beliefs look stupid. In time the Christians achieved cultural prestige, and eventually paganism came to be associated with countrified simpletons (the Latin word paganus, in fact, originally referred simply to villagers, and other non-urban things).
Now I don’t want to burn churches, or assault people. Property rights and freedom of expression are important elements of society, and not just for the religoius. But I do want to take every sacred cow, every arbitrary line in the sand, and challenge it as rigorously as possible. The Catholic League can paint us as “hysterical,” demand our dismissal and punishment, characterize what we propose (however jokingly) as “profound disrespect” and “abuse” and “hate,” in part because challenges like ours are rare. The sacred is well protected, if not by law, then by a veritable army of social conventions. But if we keep up the pressure and desecrate enough hosts, tell enough clergy to fuck off, etc. etc., Donohue’s outrage will no longer be possible. If cracker desecration became a widespread joke, how many Catholics would find it easy to maintain their belief in transubstantiation? Very few, I think. And that’s what I want to achieve.
Sorry for the long post.
Is it me, or did I just hear Bill Donut hole–er, Donahue, perk up at a possibility for how to turn all those little boys from victims into thieves?
From #676: “…sitting on river bank, adjusts float to about 18 inches, clamps lead weight near hook, takes consecrated host and attaches to hook…”
They sometimes shatter when you try to poke the hook through them, so you have to carefully drill a little hole first. And then they dissolve as soon as they hit the water. Worms work better, because they last longer.
Damian,
Do you honestly expect people to wade their way through a 12 thousand word essay? Please, next time, just give a link.
It’s not sockpuppetry, it’s a good ol’ fashioned “loaves and fishes” style multiplication of the account, clearly due to the divine intervention of Jeeeezus, himself.
OK, believe I am caught up on all threads as of now (who am I kidding?).
Time for a Martini, hushpuppies, and fresh boiled shrimp at my local watering hole.
Pax Nabisco
Time for a Martini, hushpuppies, and fresh boiled shrimp at my local watering hole.
Bloody marys, pancakes, scrambled eggs with mushrooms and sausage here. Eggs benedict were yesterday.
(house guest, so I’ve been COOKING! The fires of Hell have been busy!)
Damian @ #917,
Read the whole thing. Excellent. Thank you so much for posting it.
OK, so I decided to test the suggestion that the Catholic League consists of Bill Donahue plus smoke. Googling on “Catholic League” plus the names of each of its directors in turn produced the following counts.
Bill Donahue (including William Donahue): just over 9000
Raymond Arroyo: just over 2000
All the others put together except David Gregory: around 1500.
David Gregory is a problem because most of the hits after the first page refer to the NBC journalist of the same name. But exclude “NBC” and you’re down to a couple of hundred hits.
So it’s a slight exaggeration to refer to the Catholic League as the “Bill Donahue Appreciation Society” (BDAS, pronounced “badass”) – but only very slight.
Does Damian win for longest post ever?
I haven’t had enough coffee to wade through it so I have NO idea the content, but that’s got to be up there on the long-as-shit-o-meter
Will s/he/it go plonk?
Bloody marys, pancakes, scrambled eggs with mushrooms and sausage here. Eggs benedict were yesterday.
(house guest, so I’ve been COOKING! The fires of Hell have been busy!)
My weekend houseguest had to cancel :(, so no brunch for me. Eggs florentine would have been perfect. But it’s a glorious day here in MA!
Ahh I just found what damian copy and pasted.
Damian that is very poor form my friend.
Rev. : No, it is not. This is:
http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2008/03/help_a_guy_out.php#comment-773668
Or part of it at least
Rev. BDC,
Damian wasn’t trying to pass it off as his own. From his post:
Dude, you’re talking out your ass. Modern biblical archaeology has gone WAY beyond you and your “approved” bibles. It is quite clear, from modern scholarship, your bibles are not “legitimate” in the sense they are the “word of God as written down by inspired men.”
They are, from a scholarly perspective, among a group of the most changed and full of errors. For example, the entire Lords Supper was an early Catholic change to the bible. There are many, many, many more. Some which have been codified into the entire Catholic/Protestant movement. Some which have not.
As it stands, there are over 400,000 different bibles. All of which, to a greater or lesser degree, are different. Those that are relatively similar are grouped into families. I’d even tell you what they were if remodeling didn’t put all my books in storage.
So, the fact is, you don’t know what the hell you’re talking about when you say “legitimate.” There are no ‘legitimate’ bibles in the Protestant and Roman Catholic faiths because they all descend from the poisoned fruit of the poisoned tree. They’ve all been changed to a great degree to add three important concepts held dear by the nascent Roman Catholic Church:
The Doctrine Transubstation
The Doctrine of the Holy Trinity
Women are second-class citizens and unfit for the Priesthood.
None of which are in the early versions of the Bible or practices of the Church. These were, in the first two, added to the bible. The third concept was a case or REMOVING things from the bible, deliberately mis-translating part of the bible and then ADDING a bogus epistle from Paul TO the bible.
Then, all these changes were used as evidence for these beliefs in a circular cluster fuck of nonsense — “It’s true because it’s in the bible…” Bullshit. You ADDED to the bible, i.e., evidence tampering.
This is the irony. Your religion is so completely a construct of the early church inventing itself that it, frankly, really doesn’t represent the original core beliefs or practices of the early Christians. And we can see it through the acts of your church compared to the Acts of the Apostles or the Sermon on the Mount.
You don’t do any sort of significant good work with your TRILLIONS of dollars in riches. You don’t do good work with your BILLIONS of NET INCOME each year. Your church just gets richer…
and richer…
and richer…
and richer…
While supporting dictators, engaging in horrible crimes against humanity (historically and currently), etc.
And if you think I’m singling out the Catholics, you’re arrogant to the point of delusional. You’re the biggest hypocrites on the block, but not the only ones. There are very, very few religions that truly live the type of life Christ would have allegedly endorsed from, let’s say, the perspective of the Sermon of the Mount in where Jesus discusses how we can see the authenticity of faith. And none, that I’ve ever seen, that live according to the precepts in Acts. For example, the Pentecostals think that with the “speaking in tounges, prophecies, etc., that they’re going to the Kingdom. Yet Jesus rebukes this shallow belief in Matthew:
“Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father in heaven. On that day many will say to me, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many deeds of power in your name?’ Then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; go away from me, you evildoers!'”–Matthew 7.21-23
I’d go on about authenticity of faith as expressed by Jesus through the Sermon of the Mount, but I doubt you’d understand. Most Christians that are Internet Forum Warriors are so full of hate, anger and judgement that they just can’t get it. They read it. Sometimes. But they can’t get it because it’s not as fun as gay bashing and points to the massive flaws and failings.
But just in case you might be an exception to the general rule, I’ll give you a summary of the importance of the Sermon on the Mount: You are judged by your relationship with God (faith) and how you behave (acts).
And if you’re making death threats (or any kind of threats) over a graven idol (the cracker), you’re failing both.
And if your church is a $500 billion-a-year industry (netting close to $200 billion) while it lets people starve. You’re showing the entire world that you’re failing and have been caught by Mammon.
Anyway, it’s a bit disjointed because your particular smug-arrogance-of-ignorance tends to set me off. But if you’ve got any sort of brains, it should be easy enough to follow the various chain-of-ideas…
Damn.
I mean… um…damn.
wtf was that?
Yeah had I just read the first part instead of working from the bottom up.. i would have seen that.
My bad. That’s what I get for getting up at 4:30 to catch teh sunrise on the beach… then going back to sleep and never getting coffee at any point.
Rev BDC, I thought the long-as-shit-o-meter was only for the bathroom. Thanks, I’ll wire that bitch in series with my irony meter and await the next cheeses-y intertoobz diatribe.
I sometimes have to break out my
what-the-fuck-o-meter and my dumbfuck-o-meter too.
o-meters r us.
Your CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHTS to worship are limited to your not interfering with rights and property of others. There are other limitations.
All of which are understood by people who actually understand the Constitution and what it means. And, apparently, have passed you by…
BTW, as a general rule, when you start screaming CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHTS, understand them before you scream for them. The Constitution is NOT a blank-check to do what you want.
Because, if it were, I’d found the Church of Wafer Desecration and we’d be desecrating your wafers! All your Waferz Belong to Us!!!1!!1111
I want to be a priest!!
And does it come with beer?
JoJo:
To be honest, I hadn’t realized how long it was. I shall refrain from posting such a long article in the future. See directly below.
SC: “Read the whole thing. Excellent. Thank you so much for posting it.”
Thanks, SC. It’s nice to share, I say. I’ll include something with pictures of farm animals and colored shapes, next time. ;-)
Rev. BigDumbChimp: “Damian that is very poor form my friend.”
Why so? It’s from a book, for a start, and it isn’t the whole article, to my knowledge. I suppose that you could say that it’s unethical, but it’s not like people don’t give each other copies of papers on a regular basis.
The author of the paper about Ventastega, the transitional form, was handing copies of his paper out like smarties.
I’ll go and lock myself in dark room for an hour.
My bad Damian. I jumped before I looked.
My apologies.
Rev. BigDumbChimp:
Scratch that last comment. I thought that you were talking about copyright, and that my reproduction wouldn’t be classed as fair use. I hadn’t thought about that, to be honest, which is not very clever of me, and I can also see how scrolling past such a long post is more than a little annoying.
It’s a damn good article, all the same.
I’ve wondered…since the cracker IS the body of christ,you think christ plays a joke on everyone and makes them eat his dick?
I know thats what I’d do if I were god.
1. It was school property, not Catholic property.
2. He was there at his own pleasure, and he’s part of the Catholic Community.
3. They asked him no such thing. They assaulted him when he didn’t follow the rules exactly like the person in front decided they need to be followed. Rules that, frankly, are not codified, but guidelines.
My house is not in a school. It is not part of a fellowship. I did not expressly or implicitly invite you to enter my house, unlike your services which do both. (This is lamest analogy EVAH on the Intertubes.)
You’re full of crap. Most catholics I know believe it’s a piece of cracker and the process is symbolic of their connection with the Divine, not literal in some way.
Some of your priests and philosophers STILL write articles, such as this one on Catholic.net, about it because they just can’t let the 13th Century thinking die… http://www.catholic.net/rcc/Periodicals/Homiletic/Jan98/transubstantiation.html :
That’s the funny part. The average Catholic, unless told to get upset about the damn thing, by some moron like Donohue, isn’t. Sure, there are a few holy rollers, like yourself, who go to war on the Internets. But, frankly, most of the Catholics have more sense, or are pretty much ignorant, about the ritual and DON’T REALLY GIVE A DAMN.
You just don’t get it. The State can limit what you do. You can’t engage in human sacrifice. You can’t engage in animal cruelty. You can’t codify your religion into law. You can’t build churches that don’t pass building codes. You can’t incite to riot.
And you sure can’t assault a kid who doesn’t eat the cracker at the alter, but was going to eat it after showing it to his heathen friend.
Really, you should just SHUT UP about your CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHTS. Because you’re making an ass out of yourself.
You idiot, we don’t need to pass a law saying it’s “property.” It is property of which there are three kinds:
1. Realty (real-estate)
2. Personalty (tangible non-real-estate)
3. Intangible (copyrights, for example. Or goodwill.)
That covers it. Your wafer is, basically, like a book. It’s tangible (the cracker) and you assert there is an intangible presence (Jebus writing) on it.
It’s a damn good article, all the same.
It really is.
Rev. : No, it is not. This is:
As it stands, there are over 400,000 different bibles.
Holy trisquit!
I could barely articulate anything beyond sputtering noises of disbelief when I got back home after a computer-less week and read these threads. So I made a comic instead.
Authors usually have an agreement with the publisher that allows them to share offprints to some extent. Copy-pasting large portions of the text is still a no-no.
Lest you walk away thinking us atheists to be unfriendly, unhelpful people…
“I really want to get away from all the highly unpleasant people on this blog.”
The trick here is to NOT refresh the blog topic all day long, reading all the posts for any reference to you, and then continuing to add more comments to the discussion which will only elicit more responses.
Because some of the “angry atheists” might point out that your behavior indicates that you are lying about wanting to get away from the people of this blog. Those angry atheists think that lying somewhat detracts from the point you are making and calls your assertions into question.
-Helpful, happy atheist
Eric @922,
Thanks for the serious engagement. I enjoyed much of it (although your tone has a reaching out quality that is quite inappropriate for Pharyngula).
I’ll focus on what I think are our areas of disagreement.
Think of the decades (say, 20’s to 50’s) where secularism relentlessly shrunk that space. Think of the cultural shift associated with folks like Lenny Bruce & Tom Lehrer & Vonnegut, academic sociology, psychiatric practice. By the 70’s, the secularist impulse (if not outright atheism) was mainstream, disrespect of Abrahamism was a normal part of the public cultural space. Pols seeking high office wouldn’t dream of pulling out their god card.
We were Sweden!
(OK, I’m overstating.. we were Sweden with a bit more homophobia and racial tension.)
Social policy, political discourse, pop entertainment, university life.. all these were “owned” by the secular mindset, especially in the big coastal cities.
With the 60’s and 70’s, we encounter a dramatic reduction in the habits of self-control and delayed gratification, we encounter the mainstreaming of Hefnerism and Learyism and Disneylandism, “the projects” and then BloodAndCrippsism. Many rather stupid people get PHd’s and start controlling university hiring policies and areas of research. I could go on.
Today, we are expending energy fighting fundamentalists on school boards, and state legislatures allied with the Discovery Institute. Wow! Bye, bye Sweden!
So, do we have a good understanding of what went wrong?
As in prior posts, I’m not saying these are simple cause-effect relationships. But today’s atheists pin so many high hopes on the beating back of religion.
Irreligion pretends that it understands brainbuilding and “community of brain” brainbuilding far more than it does. You demonstrate this when you say Christianity (and by implication Abrahamism generally):
See, at certain times and places, it has seemed more like a drug with a gentle and slow-releasing high, not merely benign but genuinely helpful.
I don’t understand it, butI know that I don’t .
(Small disclosure: I’m actually Canadian; I take the liberty of using “we” when I write about U.S. culture.)
#950:
I made the post he tried to criticize 700 posts ago and that was the best he could come up with. I think you broke him.
Moses,
The problem, is that if he claims that he has been assaulted, they will claim that he has wilfully interrupted or disturbed the religious assembly.
And then in will be up to a court to decide.
Please note that according to Florida statute (2007) 871.01 ;
SO, the issue here is CLEARLY NOT an issue of property rights, but an issue of disturbance of religious worship.
You can try and do the same if you want, you will have the same problem whichever state you find yourself in.
Conclusion : go and take as many Eucharists as you want, desecrate as many as you want, outside of church, that’s protected speech, but do not disturb the worshippers.
SC@858,
It’s an honour to agree with you so often! As a reluctant ex-anarchist, I’m sure I could find something to say you’d disagree with – but I’ll wait until the spinning of the thread requires it.
Way back at #739, Dutch Hedrick said:
Are you trying to equate the buying and selling of property to the distribution of Communion? It doesn’t work because the Eucharist is NOT property. We Catholics never claimed it to be property. We claim it to be God.
So Cook stole God?! Wow, Cook must be some real powerful dude.
I’m sorry, but what kind of all-powerful, and all knowing God lets Himself get stolen?!
Unless, of course, that what Cook did is all part of God’s Secret Tricky Plan for…um…whatever His Secret Tricky Plan is for.
Seems to me that God was either powerless to stop Cook from stealing Him, or that God chose to let Cook steal Him, and, if so, Cook was merely playing his part in the God-approved plan.
“…people who want to believe in “divine nature” should simply give up omniscience as a property of their god. Except that omniscience is part of the dogma, and so they aren’t allowed to give it up.”
A Paradox! A Paradox!
A most ingenious Paradox!
Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha!
A Paradox!
–WS Gilbert
But… lots of languages do not normally express the differences between “so that you may eat pudding”, “so that you should eat pudding”, and “so that you will eat pudding”. Not everyone needs modal verbs, you see.
Lo & behold, Latin uses the present subjunctive:
where “ut credant” means “so they believe” — with “they believe” like “they be”, not like “they are”.
I don’t know Greek (same webpage), but the top few versions explain every single word if you mouse over it, and it doesn’t contain any modal verb either. Instead, “to believe” is in the aorist, a tense which I haven’t understood. Does anyone here know Koiné? Does the aorist work as the past of the present subjunctive?
“I’m sorry, but what kind of all-powerful, and all knowing God lets Himself get stolen?!”
Totally completely and fundamentally bloody inept really…tis a complete shock…well well well ‘ol beardy getting bumped like that..who would have thought it …what a pity…oh dear…how sad…never mind..!
Epicurus…
Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is not omnipotent.
Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent.
Is he both able and willing? Then whence cometh evil?
Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him God? (Epicurus)
Is Man willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he not omnipotent.
Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent.
Is he both able and willing? Then whence cometh evil?
Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him God?
Sure tis an oldy…but a goldie…guaranteed to get ’em a stuttering and huffing and puffing and finally …muttering about atheist misconceptions and failure to understand the point of a merciful god… I once had a troll opine that of course way back then they had no real conception of what god was…..and folks way back then did not understand his mercy either…they were ignorant… apparently…blah blah blah…
One other said he would pray for me…because I was corrupted by the devil’s work…and those words were from Satan himself because they were designed for trickery…what ya gonna do?
So good I posted it twice…excuses!
Maybe God has a very alien concept of evil and morality? Few Christians, besides future toddler chopper Vox Day, will admit that their God-given morality is completely insane by rational standards.
Consider Christopher Hitchens’ Atheist Challenge and how Hitchens is saying he’s not met anyone who could meet it. The challenge is this: “Here is my challenge. Let anyone name one ethical statement made, or one ethical action performed, by a believer that could not have been uttered or done by a nonbeliever.”
I can win that challenge. No nonbeliever would ever say what Bill Donohue said: “It is hard to think of anything more vile than to intentionally desecrate the Body of Christ.”
And by “Body of Christ” Bill Donohue refers to a dry and tasteless cracker.
Is it a moral statement? When you call something vile or a hate crime you are making a moral statement. Would an atheist ever claim that abusing a cracker is the most vile thing he could think of? I don’t think so.
Why don’t Christians offer that as an example to prove Hitchens wrong?
When I take a look at those who actually try to answer Christopher Hitchens’ Challenge they all fall into Hitchens’ trap and try to make a moral argument that Hitchens would not consider insane and thus automatically make statements an atheist could make.
Dutch:
Don’t have a cow, man. Lighten up. Jeeesh. My quip to Truth Machine back in the 600’s about eating the Torah was a merely a joke. So unless someone prints the Torah on a fruit roll up, it is safe from being consumed by anyone except perhaps woodboring beetles or circus geeks. Feel better?
I didn’t read all of the monster comment, but footnote 21 bears repeating:
My lack of intellect has caught up with me, dammit. I can’t understand Neil’s point. That Atheism is the product of the post ’50’s generation? (The Enlightenment must have never taken place a couple of hundred years before) Sweden and Hef destroyed moralism? Everything is an ism? My brain hurts.
At #962 the strangest brew said:
Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is not omnipotent.
Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent.
Is he both able and willing? Then whence cometh evil?
Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him God?
My trying to puzzle out that conundrum about god’s omnipotence when I was in Catholic grade school was the genesis of my doubts about the what I was being taught about god. I remember wondering:
If god is almighty why doesn’t he stop bad things from happening?
If god is so loving, why does he let terrible things happen–or worse, do really really terrible things himself?
Seemed to me that either god wasn’t so nice, or that he wasn’t almighty. Either way, those alternatives were at odds with what I was being taught. The cognitive dissidence finally became too great. Unlike many who opt for belief over rationality, I eventually resolved the issue by choosing consistency and reason.
Needless to say, that kind of thinking wasn’t appreciated by the nuns who taught me.
Maybe God has a very alien concept of evil and morality?
But…but…but…
God himself explains what he considers good vs. evil, moral vs. immoral in that book he wrote (AKA The Bible), and what he neglected to write down in that book, he tells us through the voice of The Pope and his other holy messengers. (Yeah, some of the rules are inconsistent but heck, that’s gotta be part of God’s secret tricky plan.)
Ever since my childhood, the thing that always bothered me is that god doesn’t play by his own rules. God is a practitioner of the “Do as I say, not as I do” school of rule-making.
Now bastion, those only apply to the christey god. Or any god that claims to be agin’ evil.
@JeffreyD
Not sure I mentioned it before, or if you saw it if I did, both you and SC carried the Hitchen’s thread and made it a must read for me every day.
You did make such a comment and I did see it. Thanks twice.
The question of evil is the basis for the Biblical Book of Job. Note: Job is considered fiction by almost all Biblical scholars.
Job is described as a “righteous man” and examples of his righteousness are given. One day Satan goes to God and, after a bit of small talk, makes a bet with God that if Job is screwed over well enough, then Job will curse God. God accepts the bet. He kills off Job’s children and servants by collapsing Job’s house on everyone, then has all of Job’s livestock rustled. Finally Job is stricken with painful boils over all of his body. To make a long story short, Job accepts his fate and so God wins the bet.
At one point in the book, Job and God have a discussion. Job essentially asks “If God is a loving God, why is there evil in the world.” I’ve always found the answer interesting: “Where wast thou when I laid the foundations of the earth, declare if thou hast understanding….” (Job 34:4 KJV) and continuing in like fashion for most of the rest of the chapter. In other words, Job asks one of the most important questions in theology and God blows him off with a long winded sneer.
And the god botherers wonder why we’re not impressed with their Bible.
“God is ignorance. Eliminate one, and you eliminate the other.”
Wow ! Just the kind of meaningless dogmatic oversimplified formulas that the religious love to employ…
Especially ironic after the Allen Wood piece that Damian posted. And once again Damian posts a deep piece that goes to the heart of things and then some (although the posting does violate copyright). And yes, I read the whole thing, but very few people will (perhaps only me and SC), especially those who could most benefit from it. (I would definitely recommend it to Brandon.) For those who don’t want to wade through the whole thing, you can skip past the very long section where Wood refutes a number of objections to evidentialism (the position that beliefs should be held in proportion to the evidence for them), to “Grounds for the evidentialist principle”. Or to the juicy part that precedes it where he addresses the claim that you can’t be moral without a belief in God:
The question of evil is the basis for the Biblical Book of Job. Note: Job is considered fiction by almost all Biblical scholars.
And why would one consider that part of the bible fictional but not the rest, other than to deny that their God is a brutish thug?
P.S.
I’ve always found the answer interesting: “Where wast thou when I laid the foundations of the earth, declare if thou hast understanding….” (Job 34:4 KJV) and continuing in like fashion for most of the rest of the chapter. In other words, Job asks one of the most important questions in theology and God blows him off with a long winded sneer.
If most biblical scholars think that Job was fictional, then they think that Job never asked such a question and that God never blew him off.
And the god botherers wonder why we’re not impressed with their Bible.
Aye, regardless of whether God exists, the biblical conception of God is unappealing, and the justifications it provides are unconvincing.
After countless comments on cracker-gate, I apologize if I’ve missed this question.
When I’ve taken communion and looked down at the floor I’ve seen drops of wine on the floor from the obvious spillage. This would be wine after it’s been blessed. What is the significance of that? I’ve got to believe that on any given Sunday, several ounces of ‘blood’ make it to the floor.
Note: Job is considered fiction by almost all Biblical scholars.
really? I’m genuinely curious to see their arguments as to why. My conclusion on the matter, with a slightly more than cursory examination, was exactly the same as TM’s (any arguments of Job as fiction are entirely arbitrary, and inevitably could be used on any bible-book).
It shouldn’t be hard to locate those arguments for someone who considers themselves knowledgeable enough of the greater body of “biblical scholars” to claim they almost all speak as one on this issue, right?
consider the question a two parter:
one: Do “biblical scholars” really “almost all” think that the book of Job is fiction?
two: How do they distinguish their reasoning (if any) used such that it cannot be utilized in a similar fashion for the rest of the books in bible?
since there appear to be so many amateur apologists in these threads, surely this will be a simple issue to resolve, right?
Is it a matter of archeology not supporting anything in Job? If so, modern archeology really doesn’t support much of anything in that dusty tome, so let me cut off that line of argument by pointing those who would use it to Hector Avalos, and let you argue with him instead:
http://mnatheists.org/component/option,com_seyret/task,videodirectlink/Itemid,61/id,16/
Hey, maybe my bias in concluding so long ago that that whole dusty goatherder tome is pretty much orally shared myths put on paper, has lead me to miss any distinctive arguments regarding this particular piece of that book. So, with archeology set aside, could someone who feels knowledgeable of biblical scholarship identify the arguments that fictionalize Job, please?
I’m not much of a scholar, but I happen to have Jennifer Hecht’s Doubt, which discusses both Job and Ecclesiastes as examples of Jewish doubt that somehow were pulled into the canon.
She doesn’t go into a whole lot of detail on how scholarship treats the text, preferring to analyze it directly, but she does say that “Throughout history, Church and rabbinic readings have managed the problem of the Book of Job by reverting back to the folktale; they’d excise or play down the middle section of the poem—the rebellion—and thus make it a simple tale of faith and patience. Others have dealt much more frankly with the text but still found justice in allegory or interpretation.”
I suspect that Avalos would suggest that the early scholars interpreted Job as “fiction”, distinct from the rest of bible as “truth”, as a result of early theological essentialism: “The essence of God is good, therefore this story, which depicts God as deliberately being unjust towards a just man, cannot be literally true.”
That’s my guess, anyway.
examples of Jewish doubt
hmm, I could see that. What about the other books commonly considered “fiction”, like Ruth, Esther, and Jonah?
“The essence of God is good, therefore this story, which depicts God as deliberately being unjust towards a just man, cannot be literally true.”
That’s my guess, anyway.
nothing more than essentialism?
egads, I hoped for something a bit more meaty.
I’m betting that if there is a response from our resident apologists, it will essentially take the form of a regurgitation of CS Lewis’ “ahistorical” argument.
er, not that what CS Lewis had to say about it was any better, really.
I am genuinely curious about the arguments though. I’ll probably have to end up doing the work myself. I never bothered to think about really pursuing it until I heard the “all biblical scholars think it’s fiction” canard.
Frankly, the book of Job was the only chapter of the goatherder’s story book that ever interested me in any way.
probably because of the common “WERE YOU THERE!!!!” arguments posted by demented fuckwits like Hovind, Ham, and their zombie hordes.
plus, there’s all that “wagering” going on between imaginary deities. interesting stuff.
Having spent quite a bit of time discussing philosophy and Judaism with an ex-rabbi turned atheist, I can easily imagine that Job might be internalized debate made external and put on paper.
the earliest recorded example of cognitive dissonance?
On Job, you can always turn to Lev Shestov…
http://shestov.by.ru/index.html
Here’s a passage from “Athens and Jerusalem” you might find interesting :
http://shestov.by.ru/aaj/aj2_13.html
Not directly related to the fictionalization of that book, though the arguments he uses to analyze Job are quite interesting.
thanks.
gee, I can’t imagine why…
:p
“Job, seriously dude, you’re shredding our mellow with all this talk about conversing directly with the big Kahuna. I don’t care that you’ve got zits all over your face. You’re gonna piss off the girls, man!”
How was the determination made that all these folks were the same person? With next to 1000 comments, I’m sure its in there somewhere but I cant find it.
Neil Schipper:
You would know all about reaching, I guess.
If there is a connection between unbelief and stalinism, why hasn’t Sweden elected its own mustachioed dictator yet?
What can I say? There’s not much to essentialism other than its own question-begging assumptions. Just look at Dutch Hedrick’s arguments:
Says it all, doesn’t it?
I suppose there’s also all of the psychological defense mechanisms that go into building up and defending essentialism in their own minds.
Although looking at Dutch’s second paragraph:
I wonder if he just made two typos while composing it (“cannot” and “can’t” for “can”), or if he was genuinely trying to contradict his first paragraph by suggesting that God can indeed do evil.
Bah. Apologists can’t even write two paragraphs without logical fallacy and contradiction.
The Eucharist must be respected!!
Do you not realize what a stack of two or three of these wafers will impel a hungry Altar Boy to do?
Posted by: truth machine, OM | July 13, 2008 5:53 AM
Just don’t go changing your style up any, because I quite enjoy it. (Strangely enough, that holds true even when it’s directed at me. ) Just keep doing what you’re doing…I’ll just try to keep from deserving it again in the future. (It’s a bit like alcohol on a cut – you know it works, but damn does it sting…)
Hey, Soldier, welcome back. Long time no see.
Whoa, another 1000-comment thread. Seems like we’re getting two a day now. I can’t even keep up with one…
Possibly…
I remember another point raised in Hecht’s Doubt: Job is dated to the early Hellenistic period. It occurs to me that the book might be considered historically to be fiction because it was known to be more recent, and also because it may have been understood allegorically from the beginning (Job’s life and troubles being clear analogs of the Jewish people at that time).
So perhaps the compilers of the canon had that historical detail in mind as well.
Hm.
http://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/view.jsp?artid=330&letter=J
(see also:)
http://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/view.jsp?artid=331&letter=J
Owlmirror:
For the record, you’re right. I did mistype. In that light, he substance of my argument should be clear — even if I keep getting beating up over my poor typing abilities during what was a long night.
My whole point was this: God is essentially perfect Goodness. That’s what God is. God cannot do evil because it isn’t part of his essence. (That’s why I say ‘essentially.’)
I know I shouldn’t waste my time here, though. Those here do not legitimately want to understand. Just because someone believes in Science — as I do — doesn’t mean he can’t believe in God.
Physics is one thing. Metaphysics another. No true student of metaphysics would disbelieve physics. I can believe in scientific laws just as I believe in moral and ethical laws. My inquiries concerning from where those laws originate lends me to believe in God — specifically a monotheistic God.
That’s my system of belief. You’re all entitled you your own.
Dutch Hedrick wrote:
That doesn’t quite clear it up, though.
Radical voluntarists (e.g., Descartes, arguably Ockham, Sunni Islam) agree that God cannot do evil. But that’s only because as soon as God does something, it thereupon becomes good. So for example, God can deliberately have a child raped to death, whereupon raping a child to death becomes good.
Moral realists, on the other hand, would say that God cannot do evil because there’s an independent standard of morality that (due to God’s moral perfection) sets constraints on God’s actions. They end up compromising God’s omnipotence in order to preserve his moral perfection.
So what’s your view?
Yes. I know. That’s what essentialism is. Assume a completely unevidenced conclusion, and argue from it and all around it.
Dave2:
I do not know of an instance where God can “deliberately have a child raped to death.” If a man does this it is not because it’s God’s Will, but man’s will which is contrary to God’s.
In fact, the whole point of the speech Pope Benedict gave from which he got so much heat from the Muslims was that God is the the “logos” — which is mentioned in the Greek translation of the first chapter of John. Literally, it means “word,” but it is also from where the word “logic” comes.
God, being the ideal of “the word” is the ideally logical in itself. Therefore, God cannot transcend reason because God is Perfect Reason.
That’s why it makes sense to use logic to figure out God’s laws: physical (scientific, or natural) or metaphysical (supernatural). Moral or ethical laws are included among these.
I am an EX-Catholic {cradle} raised Catholic, and became a New Ager also atheist-agnostic for years, before converting to being a born again Christian.
What I want to tell the atheists and others here, is do not make the mistake of thinking Catholicism represents what Christianity is all about. The RCC is not true Christianity but a false fascimile of it. I didn’t know myself until I was a middle-aged adult, and until I read a Bible for myself and saw what Jesus Christ truly taught away from the smoke, mirrors, and fog of Catholic superstitions, legends, power-hungry-morally corrupt leaders, and realized God, desired that I use my human mind as given:
Isa 1:18 Come now, and let us reason together, saith the LORD:
instead of shutting it down to accept the illogic of Catholic theology, I was able to move on and come into a relationship with Jesus Christ.
I want all you atheists/freethinkers and others to know…there are many Christians out there, who DO NOT support the teachings of Roman Catholicism and that the top ludicrous teaching is the idea that their priests can turn bread into “god”. Many folks do not know this but Jesus Christ Himself warned against these false teachings that would come. We all know where the Catholic wafer goes in its final stage after being eaten. Jesus’s words were spiritual, not about eating magic-mysterious god-wafers.
Mat 15:17 Do not ye yet understand, that whatsoever entereth in at the mouth goeth into the belly, and is cast out into the draught?
The draught by the way, was the toilets of that time, in other words the SEWER.
Some of us are smart enough to know that there is no way God can be kidnapped in a ziplock baggie by a rebellious teenager and who believe the Bible when it says:
Isa: God that made the world and all things therein, seeing that he is Lord of heaven and earth, dwelleth not in temples made with hands;
That nixes both the Catholic wafer and it’s tabernacles.
It is alarming to see Catholics so upset at God being so “helpless” as if the creator of the Universe could be kidnapped! From a Christian angle this is pure blasphemy!
Now in America, we do have freedom of religion. Dominionists, Catholics and others who desire power and control over others, forget that Jesus Christ is about freedom not bondage. The force of law does not lead to true conversion or changed hearts: That is the Holy Spirit’s doing. Some defenders of their false churches, desire, to use force of law that was never mandated by the Bible.
In the BIble the apostles ask Jesus Christ if they can call down fire, on some folks who have rejected Him, and Jesus rebukes them telling them they have the spirit of Satan.
Luk 9:54 And when his disciples James and John saw this, they said, Lord, wilt thou that we command fire to come down from heaven, and consume them, even as Elias did?
Luk 9:55 But he turned, and rebuked them, and said, Ye know not what manner of spirit ye are of.
I think everyone including Catholics should be left in peace to practice their religion even though I very admantantly disagree with it. Same for atheists who speak their minds about false idols, though I think the step of antagonizing people on purpose is not a good one, and grabbing wafers from your local RCC or doing websites to trash the wafer….[atheists and “freethinkers” wouldn’t want Catholics storming local UU churches or Ethical Humanist societies so that favor should be returned] should be avoided. There are useful laws already on the books about not disrupting church services and more as to whether an item that is freely handed over can be stolen, that is stretching things. Isnt it the responsiblity of Catholic priests to know who is in good standing or not or even a member of their own churches?
To be frank it has been alarming to see the interaction here, and those who confess to be Christians {Catholic posters} using the language I’ve seen used here, the threats and more. This too goes against what Jesus Christ taught and it has been sad to see.
Matt 5:44
But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you;
This is the way things are supposed to be done.
So atheists, agnostics and other “freethinkers” do not make the mistake of thinking Catholicism automatically equals Christianity. Read for YOURSELVES exactly what Jesus Christ taught, [outside of any church even evangelical ones] and check it out. Consider your own actions in terms of how you yourselves want to be treated: understand that if you truly support freedom of religion that must be supported across the board.
Thanks, just wanted to post an alternative viewpoint here on this board.
Dutch Hedrik@992,
Well, the Bible records that he ordered the Israelites to commit genocide against the Canaanites, and himself slaughtered all the firstborn of the Egyptians after repeatedly “hardening Pharoah’s heart” to ensure he had the opportunity to do so. Not to mention ordering Abraham to murder his own son, and numerous other heinous crimes. Moreover, the Bible repeatedly reports him as threatening to torture people for ever with fire. If that’s your idea of “perfect goodness”, I don’t think I ever want to meet you down a dark alley!
Nick Gotts:
I’m not familiar with the Canaanites story because you don’t point to where it is. I don’t doubt it’s there, but my experience is that atheists’ interpretations of the Bible tend to be as literal as the fundamentalists. In any case, I doubt that either the Canaanites or the Egyptians were faithful to God so they were turning away from him — which, as I said, is synonymous for turning away from Good. Justice will prevail, however — if not in this world then the next.
Plus, I don’t recall Abraham actually being allowed to sacrifice his son. I think that was something on the order of trying to make a point.
Give me some specifics on the other things you mention. If I can’t answer them, try going to the Church. They’re more knowledgeable than I on these things anyway. I’ve found their answers satisfactory enough that I’ve gone from being a life-long agnostic — well, I didn’t care, to tell the truth — to a theist. After having my questions answered enough times, I trust them enough to answer any further I have. In short, they’ve established their credibility with me as far as I’m concerned.
You make amazing assumptions of my personality considering that you’ve never met me. Is this representative of the justice we’ll see when your visions of a totally atheistic society comes into being? If so, I hope I won’t be around to see that day realized.
I’m sure, however, that you’re just trying to be insulting, so I won’t take your remarks too seriously.
Ah. More essentialism: “They must have deserved it! The men, the women, the children, the infants — they all must have been ‘turning away’ from Good. Even if they had no idea what Good was, they must have been ‘turning away’. So smash their skulls in! Drown them! Give them horrible painful plagues and let them die slow and ugly! Because they all deserve it!”
Still more essentialism: The bible promises rewards in this life. But the unjust and wicked prosper in this life, and the good and just suffer in this life. So obviously, everything will be worked out after they all die and no one living can know either way (because oddly enough, the dead do not return as spirits to reassure us of this).
The point was an essentialist one: “Obey God’s commands without question, even if the command is to murder your own beloved son. Because God is Good, so the murder must therefore be Good. And maybe he’ll stop you from doing it, pleased that you’re an obedient slave, and give you an alternative.”
But the implication was always that if God had not stopped Abraham, killing Isaac would have been The Right Thing to Do. Because God is Good™.
Owlmirror:
Your twisting of Bible verses out of context demonstrates why the Catholics have a pope to set the record straight. I am not an “essentialist” as you claim anymore than I’m a “communist” because I take Communion or a “socialist” because I believe in social order.
I never said “God punished them so they MUST have been bad.” The very fact that the Egyptians oppressed the Israelites who were faithful to God.
What you call God calling for “murder” is actually God calling for a sacrifice. The point of the story which you refuse to acknowledge is that we are expected to give everything up for God because everything we get is from God. For everything we have, we owe God for the short time that we have them. (Our lives truly are not that long. The older one gets, the more this becomes painfully clear.)
We owe God to the extent that should he ever ask from us something we love — even if it’s our beloved children — we owe it to him without questioning; because God deserves sacred offerings (literally sacrifice) for thanks for what we have.
BUT! And this is the big “but” that you seem to refuse to acknowledge — As much as this is what God DESERVES from us for thanks, HE DOES NOT WANT IT. That is the lesson of this story. As much as you refuse to admit it, that’s what this story means. Twist it as much as you want, because your intention isn’t to teach what things were meant to mean, but to confuse meaning to the point where people no longer believe. That’s your doing, however.
Not to mention that as a Christian, reading the Old Testament out of context of the New is an incomplete reading. Everything must be put into the context of the WHOLE Bible — not just parts isolated.
Because the New Testament juxtaposing of this story comes in Jesus’ sacrifice on the Cross. Even though we deserve to give everything to God — even our first born sons — God loves us so much that he won’t allow us to. We, on the other hand, deserve nothing from God — especially as much as we turn away from Him — but given that God loves us so much he’s willing to do Himself that He refused us to do for Him: Sacrifice His firstborn son for us.
THAT is the moral of the story. Period.
zzzzzzzzzzz. He finish?
God sacrificed his son?
That guy is fucked up.
Steve_C:
His son and himself. Yup. I’m sure someone who’s an ethical egoist would have a hard time understanding — which is fine. It takes some effort.
Hehe. Yeahhhh. That’s it. Must be my problem. I don’t let the abusive, malice filled mythical god of the bible to set my morals up for me.
Firstborn? Was there a 2nd born?
Too funny. What a goofy religion.
So, unnecessarily sacrificing your own kid (more like giving him a really bad weekend) for roundabout methods instead of going along with a civilized ethic from the start is the sign of God being good? Forget ethical egoism, that’s psychotic.
Of course, the whole thing about giving up everything because God gave us everything is kind of moot if God never existed to give anything. No evidence of his existence.
At least I have an actual reason to sacrifice: It’s sometimes necessary because the world is imperfect, and needs improvement. An omnipotent deity could just snap his fingers and fix everything without sacrifice. Apologists have to scramble to come up with reasons why sacrifice is necessary, and I have yet to see a good one.