It’s a stunning about-face. Not only does she admit that evolution is valid, but she confesses that she herself is an example of a transitional form.
“I am gutted that I have let the American Right down like this,” she said at a tearful press conference this morning, surrounded by her collection of stuffed polar bears in the den of her Anchorage home.
“Our primary argument for Creation and against the communist satanic onslaught of evolution has always been: ‘Well I’ve never seen a chimp turn into a man’ or ‘Show me a gorilla giving birth to a human baby and I’ll believe in evolution’.
“It has been an argument as sophisticated as our Grand Old Party, and I am devastated that I have undermined it, firstly by transforming from a pitbull to a woman, and now into an elderly male slave-owner.”
It remains to be seen how the American electorate will deal with this revelation, since while she is now an admitted evilutionist, she is also still a peppy, chipper, attractive former beauty queen, and it remains to be seen whether any statement of substance can distract them from superficialities.
Oh, ye of weak faith! ’tis not prove anything evolutinist! It’s just a satanic plot from the godless commies!
My faith in humanity was restored for a second until I realised it was a joke.
I am emailing this article and posting it everywhere.
You want Obama to lose? You got it
She may accept evolution, but she still sure as hell doesn’t understand it.
I did cackle like an old man at this, though:
//Asked why she thought the transformation had occurred, she said she suspected her current brand of makeup.
“I thought that maybe I was born with it, but now I’m thinking maybe it’s Maybelline,” she said.//
When I want funny but almost incoherent I usually go to exiledonline.com
It’s just more biting.
It seems to me that the Chimpoleon I, dei gratia POTUS and Emperor of Mesopotamia, is incontrovertible evidence of the kinship between humans and chimpanzees. Republicans have no choice but to take pride in their relatives, no?
Krist @ #3
Please. Get over yourself.
I love the “Palintology” column on that site:
http://www.hayibo.com/articles/view/873
I guess that’s what happens when you look at the world through Palin-colored (and stylish) glasses. Everything old looks new again – or at least, no older than 6000 years. Of course, Sen. McCain might be the exception to that rule.
I’ve noticed a lot of the republican women I know trying to emulate the doo lately. Makes you wonder.
Exclusive: Obama Campaign Faith Tour Starts Next Week
An official with Barack Obama’s campaign tells The Brody File that beginning next week the campaign will start an official faith tour in key battleground states called “Barack Obama: Faith, Family and Values Tour”. The subheading of the tour is as follows: “Voting ALL Our Values”
http://www.cbn.com/cbnnews/447440.aspx
What’s the big deal? She’s realized that evolution is apodeictic. Yeahhhh, we wish.
Yeah this ought to seal that.
/eyeroll
Don’t laugh. Strange things are really happening: Harun Yahya says Islam and Darwin are Compatible.
That’s hysterical.
The title of your post just set me up. When I read that she understood how she was an example of an transitional form I made a squeeing sound and jumped out of my chair that she had probably at least understood something. So I clicked on the link ready to forward it to everyone who has ever sent me an email and then noticed it was a gag.
*sigh*
When will the world learn.
It is becoming apparent that Sarah Palin is ignorant and not very bright.
1. She has been kept away from the press for a reason, she doesn’t know much about economics, politics, science, geography, or anything relevant. That c student with a journalism degree from 5 colleges thing.
2. She isn’t picking it up all that quick either.
It is a bit of a mystery how she ended up governor of Alaska while being dumb. OTOH, the USA just elected a high functioning moron twice to be president so it happens all the time.
She is in over her head and I would almost feel sorry for her. But so was Bush and he still got elected and managed to wreck the USA. She could easily be another Weapon of Mass Destruction
Looks like the job of governor in Alaska consists mostly of dividing up the oil money provided by transnationals, gathering federal funds, and babbling on about witches, gays, and The Apocalypse. It doesn’t hurt to shoot a few large animals once in a while and kill some fish.
@16 raven: Still, I think she is not to be misunderestimated. I think her will to power somehow (don’t ask me how) overcomes her shortcomings intellect wise (is this a real sentence? Looks funny to my foreign eyes …). I mean, this happens all the time. You have caused a scandal? Just sit through it, eventually it will be forgotten. In her case, the scandals might be minor (don’t know), but …
Polls show Palin losing favorability rapidly. In order the causes seem to be ignorance, a vicious personality, and religious kookery. That last one doesn’t seem to stop too many people.
McCain isn’t doing so well either. He is looking more and more like a confused old man in not particularly good health. My best guess is the stresses of the campaign and presidency would send him to the land of the nonliving soon enough. Or one of the Killers for Jesus will push him down a flight of stairs or some other “accident”.
It is just barely unlikely that Palin isn’t going to be the next president anyway. We tried electing a moron twice and that didn’t work. Third try is a charm?
I wouldn’t expect the USA as we knew it to survive the Palin/McCain reign of incompetence and terror.
While it is regrettable that the republicans selected the odious McCain over of true Patriot Ron Paul, credit should be given where it is due. Thanks to the House Republicans we will not be saddled with an additional $700 Billion dollar debt to rescue Wall Street from its own foolishness.
Hopefully this is the beginning of the end for the FED and fiat paper money. Gold is real money. Corporatism is not capitalism, and freedom does not entail collectivism.
While it is regrettable that the republicans selected the odious McCain over true Libertarian Patriot Ron Paul, credit should be given where it is due. Thanks to the House Republicans we will not be saddled with an additional $700 Billion dollar debt to rescue Wall Street from its own foolishness.
Hopefully this is the beginning of the end for the FED and fiat paper money. Gold is real money. Corporatism is not capitalism, and freedom does not entail collectivism.
No, no, Krist. You misunderstand. This was satire. Palin is still a creationist fucktard from a wackaloon cult.
FWIW. This is circulating the internet. I have no idea whether it is true or just campaign propaganda. Take it with a grain of salt and sooner or later, we will find out the truth.
So, robert_b aka libertarianbob, when and where did this “true capitalism” exist?
She has been kept away from the press for a reason
Yeah, she’s only been going to little known, out of the way journalists like Charles Gibson and that Katie Couric on some channels no one gets. ;-)
Scotland, of course.
Wow. When I read the first paragraph, I got goosebumps. I was thinking, Wow! Maybe people really can change… Maybe a normal person can recognise that she is wrong, admit it, and move on! And then, of course, I realised that it was all a joke, and, although it was somewhat funny, the humour was mostly lost amid a wash of disappointment. It’s so frustrating that no one can admit to making a mistake! Hey, I do it all the time, and people are frequently quite taken aback. Which… is sad.
Greetings Nick Gotts: You asked “So, robert_b aka libertarianbob, when and where did this “true capitalism” exist?”
I did not say that true capitalism did exist in my prior posting. I did mention that Ron Paul is a true Libertarian Patriot. You misunderstood what I typed.
However, in light of the fact that existence actually does exist, that metaphysically objects are all that they are, that consciousness really does occur, then it follows that there is not any valid defensible social contract theory. This then means that I have no right to a claim upon your productive capability or ability to generate a beneficial state of affairs. Likewise you have no right to make a claim upon me. We can however agree to a fair exchange. If I, nevertheless, proceed to rob or harm you or yours, you have a right to use whatever means you deem useful to prevent me from harming your interest. I likewise have a natural right of self-defense. This is the basis of “true” capitalism.
Collectivism stipulates you have an obligation to others that supersedes your natural right to generate a beneficial state of affairs for yourself.
Ayn Rand elegantly wrote: “The philosophy of collectivism upholds the existence of a mystic (and unperceivable) social organism, while denying the reality of perceived individuals–a view which implies that man’s senses are not a valid instrument for perceiving reality. Collectivism maintains that an elite endowed with special mystic insight should rule men–which implies the existence of an elite source of knowledge, a fund of revelations inaccessible to logic and transcending the mind. Collectivism denies that men should deal with one another by voluntary means, settling their disputes by a process of rational persuasion; it declares that men should live under the reign of physical force (as wielded by the dictator of the omnipotent state)–a position which jettisons reason as the guide and arbiter of human relationships.
From every aspect, the theory of collectivism points to the same conclusion: collectivism and the advocacy of reason are philosophically antithetical; it is one or the other.”
– “Nazism vs. Reason,” The Objectivist, Oct. 1969, 1.
nice
I wish this was as sarcastic: Mike Huckabee will be hosting a new show, starting this weekend, on Fox. The show will be called “Huckabee.”
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2008/09/25/entertainment/e144951D35.DTL
I plan to avoid it.
Shorter Ayn Rand: Tautologies, therefor postmodernism, therefor capitalism, therefor unselfish behavior is reprehensible. QED.
I hope people are paying attention to the field day (year?) David Letterman is having, too.
Example: Last night’s top-10 list.
The one the night before was pretty good, too.
robert_b aka libertarianbob,
The idea of a “natural right” is pure crapola, like the rest of Rand’s rubbish.
It is obvious from sensory perception that existence does exist. Any act of cognition presupposes that there is something to be aware of and a consciousness to be aware of it. Any cognitive action that distinguishes difference between objects presupposes identity of those objects. Thus your snide assertion, “QED”, that Objectivist metaphysics are that “which was to be shown or demonstrated” is actually shown to be a lie.
I think Palin is using a ploy so as not to sound too damn religious and also to appease the moderate religionists who believe in evolution. As soon as she gets in (yikes!) she’ll revert back to her imbecilic state and try to shove god up the country’s ass. The stress of cammpaiging will be over and she can be her true self, a demented religious retard, bent on subjugating the country into insanity.
libertarianbob: Ayn Rand defined gangster countries as countries which simply stole from weaker people, justified by nothing but being more powerful. She also asserted that the USA was not one of these. She also said that jazz was Dioynisian, not Appolonian, because *she could make sense our of it. Tsk.
If we got rid of the police, we would soon be subject to the will of gangsters or foreign invaders; I believe that most Libertarians would agree with that. Why do you think that unfettered capitalism would be any different? Recent events indicate otherwise. And we also very much need to cooperate in very complicated ways to maintain water supplies, food production and distribution, transportation options, and breathable air. Government is the only way to deal with these, and taxes of some sort are necessary to fund them. Libertarianism is a way to avoid responsibilities and deny the interdependence of our collective behaviors.
pseudo-Palin said:
It’s the same misconception I saw before, here:
http://normdoering.blogspot.com/2008/08/dealing-with-abysmal-ignorance.html
It derives from comicbooks, not science. They involve scenarios like Spiderman, X-Men and the Fantastic Four, in which something happens to an individual, causing them to change (or “mutate”) into something else. Ohh, the misconceptions of comicbook evolution.
“because *she could NOT make sense OUT of it.”
Sheesh.
Nick Gotts foolishly wrote:
Preposterous nonsense. Your statement presupposes there is no basis for any kind of cognition. If what you take for reality is only a dream of some kind, then you do not exist. If you do not exist, then your alleged life has no material value. If you have no material value, why then did you not eat a bullet for breakfast? Why did you not just stay in bed and die? Why are you using anything or doing anything, if your alleged life is only a dream or a simulation? It is blatantly obvious you are very confused.
Read Rand’s wisdom. “The political philosophy of collectivism is based on a view of man as a congenital incompetent, a helpless, mindless creature who must be fooled and ruled by a special elite with some unspecified claim to superior wisdom and a lust for power.”
“Who Will Protect Us from Our Protectors?
The Objectivist Newsletter, May 1962, 17
Actually, I don’t think this would be such a bad idea for the McCain campaign. The “I’m voting for her because she’s a mom” voters will surely overlook it and it would swing many undecided voters.
Diabolical.
Your statement presupposes there is no basis for any kind of cognition. – robert_b aka libertarianbob
Crap.
Libertarian? Populist? Far-right-wing? Far-left-wing?
Crazy extremists, the lot of them.
Bloody hell, not just loonytarians but bleedin’ chew-the-carpet Randians now!
kermit asserted:
Citations please. But more to the point is your unstated enthymeme that a person must be 100% correct in all things to have any valid or sound argument. While I do not know the name of that fallacy, it is clear that it is a fallacy. Yet it is also true that your fallacy does nothing to address my point that corporatism, governmental benefits and protections unjustly given to corporations to the detriment of proprietors and partnerships, is a metaphysically unsound economic method for society to employ. Capitalism entails responsibility to the market.
Rand wrote: “Capitalism is a social system based on the recognition of individual rights, including property rights, in which all property is privately owned.
The recognition of individual rights entails the banishment of physical force from human relationships: basically, rights can be violated only by means of force. In a capitalist society, no man or group may initiate the use of physical force against others. The only function of the government, in such a society, is the task of protecting man’s rights, i.e., the task of protecting him from physical force; the government acts as the agent of man’s right of self-defense, and may use force only in retaliation and only against those who initiate its use; thus the government is the means of placing the retaliatory use of force under objective control.”
“What Is Capitalism?” Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal, 19.
I love the Couric interview:
“I’ll go find that and bring it back to you.”
What an asshat.
Nick Gotts
Thank you7 for acknowledging that Randian Objectivism is superior to your foolish collectivist nonsense. All you have is your impotent rage. Yet, since you deny existence, consciousness, and identity, you have no basis for your own alleged notion that you exist. I recommend you read “Objectivism: The Philosophy of Ayn Rand” by Lenard Peikoff. Alternatively, if you insist upon maintaining your folly, then you should simply go eat a bullet. After all, if you are only a dream and not a real person, then why bother with all the bull shit.
Gotta hand it to the fine Hayibo journalist, It’s not easy beating The Onion to a blockbuster story like this. Nice Work.
robert_b aka libertarianbob
Look you moron,
You make the assertion that denying the existence of “natural rights” means denying the existence of cognition. On the face of it, this is crap. If you want me to take it seriously, argue it. Otherwise STFU.
My favourite local site here in South Africa. I thought of linking to that story earlier, but it would’ve just gotten lost in all the comments here.
Somewhat OT (but still political) – apparently McCain Wins Debate!
That’s right, he has time travel – posters of the winning McCain were already displayed – presumably they got AM and PM confused.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/politics/images/26Sep_Friday_WSJ.JPG
Jesus H. Christ. Every time I see or hear someone saying things like ‘existence exists’ or that ‘basis for cognition’ junk I immediately picture some pseudo-intellectual coffee shop kid who just took ‘Intro to Philosophy’ and is now on a mission to prove to everyone else how smart he is. The name-dropping of favorite philosophers and books fits perfectly into that pattern.
‘deny existence, consciousness, and identity… alleged notion that you exist’ is the kind of thing that I just can’t take seriously coming out of ANYONE’S mouth. Correct response – ‘Thanks for that knowledge. Here’s a yo-yo, why you play with that for a bit while the grown-ups talk.’
Jason,
Hey, don’t diss yo-yos! Yo-yoing is at once challenging and relaxing. Trouble is, you can’t get strings for them any more.
I lol’d.
” …Rand’s wisdom…
I lol’d.”
I barfed. Obfuscatory jargon is no substitute for content. It’s like trying to live on a diet of nothing but frosting.
http://xkcd.com/481/
Isn’t “communist satanic” a contradiction in terms?
It seems the conservative argument against evolution is one of ignorance.
Not trying to be insulting, but that’s a little like saying “it seems grass is green.”
On the Stephanie Miller show they call her Caribou Barbie, but some wag sent an email in calling her Bible Spice. Now, that’s a great moniker for a half-baked Alaskan.
Damn Nick, That’s some wicked bait you’re using. ;o)
Note to Roger Ebert: Now THAT is satire. I was a;most rolling on the floor before I had finished the first sentence.
Nick Gotts @ 47
Nick, you can be overly severe with your comments even when unwarranted (me included). When it comes to arguing Ayn Rand, it involves her philosophy and not her stance on religion. I have still not made up my mind regarding her philosophy, but it is her stance on religion and as an atheist that endears her to me. Regardless of her personal views as others might interpret them, this statement by her is enough to like her despite the opinions by others.
“I want to known as the greatest champion of reason and the greatest enemy of religion.” Ayn Rand
Note that my comment #59 refers to PZ’s intro since I haven’t clicked the link to the story yet.
Oop!!! On Topic. Sorry for posting something to do with the subject but large segments of the GOP are quietly and not so quietly turning on Bush, McCain and Palin. Part of it is survival, they want to be reelected, not job hunting in a recession. Part of it might be a sincere desire to stop wrecking the USA. This is unlikely but not impossible.
Kathleen Parker is a right wing, staunch old line Republican.
Patricia@58,
Nah, it’s like catching mackerel – find a school of them, and loonytarians will take the bare hook without anything on it at all! However, I admit I didn’t expect to land a Loonitarius randi – I thought they were extinct!
You lifted my hopes and sent them funneling into the earth.
:(
Odd that you should accuse Rand of that. Her whole point was that modern philosophy had gotten lost in its own jargon and no longer related to reality at all. Thus her fondness for tautologies (“A is A”) she felt that modern philosophy was too busy trying to prove “A is not A”, that reality doesn’t really exist, etc. I do not agree with everything she said, but neither do I disagree with everything she said.
Dammit! I actually fell for the title of this post and thought there might be some chance that Palin brain suddenly started working again. Now my hopes for rational thought have been dashed once again.
Raven @ #16 – You forgot about driving her boys to the hockey rink! I’m sure she’s added this to her official duties so the state will pick up her gasoline tab and provide the vehicle.
Pitbull or bird-dog?
Teach the Controversy!
For my collectivist friends:
What is the Objectivist View of Law and Government (Politics)?
raven #62, I read that too. Parker also said “If BS were currency, Palin could bail out Wall Street herself,”. Part of me wants Palin to stay to sink McCain, but the risk of putting this loon in a position of power is too great.
Part of me also thinks this was a planned stunt. McCain picked Palin to energize his campaign. Then when the shinny newness wears off, he picks someone else to energize his campaign right before the election, rendering any VP debates moot. A new VP could be the November surprise McCain has to have to get elected.
Charles Gibson and that Katie Couric
QD, she’s been the VP candidate for roughly a month, and in that time she’s had three one-on-one interviews with reporters who are considered either lightweight (Couric) or downright Republican-friendly (Gibson and Hannity). No press conferences, no impromptu questions on the road. I’m sorry, but she *is* being shielded from the press as much as humanly possible.
For the haggis!
Good grief. I put up with the occasional idiot creationist sliming up the blog, and I even tolerate the simple-minded libertarian nuisances, but Randroids? We don’t serve your kind around here. We have some standards.
robert_b aka libertarianbob:
The content of your posts is objectivist, but the format is collectivist. I can imagine you proudly waving your copy of ‘Atlas Shrugged’ just like Maoist revolutionaries did with their own books a few decades ago. The most appealing aspect of libertarian philosophies is the emphasis on individual thought. Judging by your dogmatic and ideological way of presenting arguments, that’s the aspect that you missed out on.
Nick Gotts is right: asserting that there are no natural rights is in no way equivalent to asserting that there is no ‘self.’ Your attempts to argue consist of putting words in peoples’ mouths. In your mind, you’ve already decided what your opponents are saying and why they’re wrong. That makes you an idealogue. That makes you dogmatic. That makes you the very opposite of an objectivist. Most importantly, that makes you an idiot.
A comment to a NY Times article on the debates suggested these tasks:
“McCain has a big task. He has to blow Obama out of the water with this debate.
Obama has to just maintain his credibility on the issues.
Biden has to maintain his credibility on Foreign Policy.
Palin has a very difficult task. Palin has to grow a new cerebral cortex by next week. Anything less will prove to be an embarrassment of biblical proportions.
Will Biden have to help Palin answer questions the way her interviewers have had to do? Biden is a gentleman and may feel obligated to give her a hand up.”
All hail Ayn Rand. She does all our thinking for us.
Here’s a big ass quotation of Ayn Rand. Ignore how incredibly similar this is to some moron christian pulling out large chunks of the bible with little or no context.
What? You don’t think she’s right?
Clearly you don’t have enough knowledge of her source material. Please read book X, Y, and Z, and then get back to me after you agree with all of the self inflating bullshit she got into print. Everyone -True Objectivist- knows that one cannot possibly disagree with Ayn Rand without simply having too little experience with Ayn Rand’s teachings. Again, nothing at all like Christians ridiculous claims about Jesus.
What? We’re a cult?
…Preposterous!
Dopeler effect- Palin style: The tendency of stupid ideas to seem smarter when they come at you rapidly.
I’ve always considered Objectivism to be like drugs; a lot of people dabble in high school and college when they’re learning about the world. A few poor schmucks get hooked for life.
Well, Darwin probably did use dialectical materialism once in a while. I believe I’ve heard of him using it to study fish, hopefully I am not imagining.
re Raven @62
This is the best news in the past month. What is important is that Katherine Parker’s piece is in the National Review: perhaps the most important conservative rag out there. Google her name and Palin. The full article is scathing. If this article doesn’t result in a complete collapse of McCain’s bid, nothing will.
I keep hearing about Biden’s supposed ‘gaffes’, and I never seem to see any evidence for them. Besides his stupidity on the ‘Bankruptcy*’ bill, show me where he’s said something inappropriate or out of context. Otherwise, I have no choice but to dismiss the criticism as mindlessly repeated traditional media slurs.
Now it all makes sense.
I wasn’t fooled for a second.
On the other hand, Dan Quayle managed to get elected….
“A new VP could be the November surprise McCain has to have to get elected.”
Seriously? Changing his mind and picking a whole new running mate at the last minute would help him? Are we really jumping at shadows that much?
Naked Bunny ,@ 71 wrote :
//No press conferences, no impromptu questions on the road. I’m sorry, but she *is* being shielded from the press as much as humanly possible.//
Jon Stewart said something like ” This isnt North Korea” the other night regarding her not giving interviews.I thought that was very fitting.Chris Rock said to that on Larry King he had “given 3 interviews today alone”.
Can you think of a better reason for picking Palin?
I agree — ditching Palin at the last minute and grabbing a fresh horse that hadn’t been picadored by the media could give him a fresh surge. Unfortunately, that new pick would have to be someone even more appealing to the right wing; an Olympia Snowe, for instance, while actually improving the substance offered by his candidacy, would be unexciting and would send his base spiraling into despondent apathy.
Get ready for Vice President Ann Coulter.
she [Ayn Rabd] felt that modern philosophy was too busy trying to prove “A is not A”, that reality doesn’t really exist – SteveM
That just demonstrates her ignorance of modern philosophy.
Regardless of her personal views as others might interpret them, this statement by her is enough to like her despite the opinions by others.
“I want to known as the greatest champion of reason and the greatest enemy of religion.” – Ayn Rand – Holbach
That just demonstrates her egotism – which she mistook for rationality.
Can I get a take on Michael Novak’s book “No one sees God”. In it, he challenges the New Atheism’s honesty, it would seem. He notes that the valued skepticism of atheism is never turned on it’s own philosophy for critical analysis. He appears to find it odd that atheists never reflect on why the vast majority of people have some kind of theistic belief or why so few are attracted to a godless philosophy.
asserting that there are no natural rights is in no way equivalent to asserting that there is no ‘self.’ – Dan L.
you’re right of course, but in fact loonytarian_bob was asserting something much stronger: that denying the existence of natural rights implies denying the existence of cognition. A fruit fly has cognition, without having anything like a self.
He [Michael Novak] appears to find it odd that atheists never reflect on why the vast majority of people have some kind of theistic belief or why so few are attracted to a godless philosophy. – Silver Fox
1) They have.
2) What has that got to do with whether or not there’s a God?
Get ready for Vice President Ann Coulter.
*wets himself*
Aww, c’mon, PZ! Don’t do that! I’m not “Diapered Bunny with a Whip”. *sighs*
Some conservatives start calling for Palin to step down.
Silver Fox, #90
It’s very hard to expect evidence for philosophy – or are you confusing skepticism with something else?
On the contrary, I reflect on – and am saddened by – it all the time; I put it down to a combination of social conditioning, manipulation by the dishonest religious industry, a paucity of critical thinking skills, and – most significantly – the effect of a Pascal’s Wager-like mentality amongst people who are, in truth, not ‘religious’ in the slightest but who are hedging their bets just in case.
Transitional Palin species
In other words, he wants to shift the burden of proof.
How unsurprisingly dishonest.
I reflect on it a lot. And all that I have ever been able to come up with is that theists have some sort of mental delusion.
Granted, it might not be a delusion that they can help having, kind of like a visual illusion. But skeptical rationalists are willing to investigate and show that the illusion is indeed an illusion.
Theists ignore this.
There is probably more to it than that. Neurologists, psychologists and sociologists are the ones doing the actual investigations into why people believe.
Gott 92
Novak’s point is noted in the subtitle relating to how one deals with the darkness of not experiencing the objectiveness of God. The atheist interprets the darkness as being void; the believer accepts the inner experience of God being within the darkness. This raises the interesting question: Is belief a gift of faith given to all and elected by a large majority and rejected by a small minority. If so, then it would seem that the minority, without theistic belief, cannot simple say that the majority has created a delusional answer or been conditioned to a delusional answer simply to fill their
darkness. There was another option open to them – not seeing the void. Many atheists were conditioned to believe but don’t. Is this purely a matter of personal free will choice?
That’s a good way of putting it.
Another point is the utter pervasiveness of magical thinking.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/23/health/psychology/23magic.html
In other words, the believer imagines that there’s a real person who never demonstrates any reality, and pretends that the imagined person is real, and pretends that they aren’t pretending.
The atheist is simply more honest: more willing to be aware of what is and is not pretending; more willing to realize that “imagination” is in no way whatsoever “real” unless there is some real-world demonstration of that which is imagined.
What nonsense. There’s certainly no ‘darkness’ in not experiencing god; quite the contrary. Freedom from fearing supernatural punishment, freedom from the ridiculous, bronze-age concepts of morality and ‘rightness’ and the self-loathing it engenders – how is that ‘darkness’?
atheists never reflect on why the vast majority of people have some kind of theistic belief
That’s just BS. Take a look at Dennett’s Breaking the Spell for what amounts to a book-length reflection on just that subject.
He even goes so far as to question the assumption that this supposed vast majority actually believes what they say they believe, or, especially, that they believe the specific claims of the leadership of their religion. It can easily be argued that “some kind of theistic belief” is just in-group/out-group primate heirarchy stuff. Star-bellied Sneeches with stars on thars. That and a general fear of death and the unknown leading to the persistence of “belief in belief” –many more think belief is a great idea and wish they had it than actually believe in the specific doctrines of their religion.
Bottom line, this is stuff a lot of intellectual atheists reflect on a great deal. What the author you cite probably means is he doesn’t like the conclusions we come to when we do so reflect.
how one deals with the darkness of not experiencing the objectiveness of God. – Silver Fox, citing Michael Novak
WTF is that supposed to mean? How about the darkness of not experiencing the objectiveness of leprachauns?
How about the darkness of not experiencing the objectiveness of leprachauns?
That’s easy. Nae enow pots o’ gold ta gae aroond, laddie.
“This raises the interesting question: Is belief a gift of faith given to all and elected by a large majority and rejected by a small minority.”
Argumentum ad populum. Big deal. Majorities can still be wrong.
Nick Gotts:
Wowbagger:
No, don’t you see? If believing in God doesn’t make you feel all warm and fuzzy and happy, and not believing in God doesn’t make you feel scared and cold and alone, clearly UR DOIN IT WRONG.
(*snort*)
I can’t tell if Silver Fox is a godbot or not, but his approach is a bit different. Still, Silver Fox, for a good chunk of us, the only way we will consider the concept of god to be anything other than false, is to find actual physical proof for that god. Something so unusual and unreal, that no natural explanation is possible. Something, say like an eternally burning bush 100 feet down in the ocean that can be examined by scientists, magicians, and professional debunkers to prove that it exists.
Speaking of “warm-fuzzy-happy” and “cold-alone-scared”, there was an article in Scientific American about the psychology of sensation conflated with emotion:
http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=metaphors-of-the-mind
And I still don’t see how some – especially last minute – VP replacement would make McCain look any less impulsive, desperate, and like he doesn’t know what he’s doing.
This Novak character sounds like a pompous ass. He starts off assuming that being religious is better than not being religious and uses that to dismiss all the arguments for atheism. Not to mention condescending, loaded terms like ‘darkness’ and ‘void’ to describe atheism – and tripe like ‘gift of faith’ and ‘inner experience’ for the opposite.
CJO,
Faith and begob, yer gettin’ yer Celtic stereotypes mixed. Sure an’ there’s naw leprachauns in Scotland at all, at all.
Anybody remember the Thomas Eagleton debacle back in 1972? Changing VP’s is a good way to insure the other guy gets elected.
From his wikipedia entry, Novak, while always a Catholic, has migrated politically from inventing theological arguments for the “New Left” in 1979, to joining the American
GreedEnterprise Institute and supporting Romney for President.Bleeeuuurghh!
1979 -> 1969 @113.
Aye, Nick, ye got me. ’twas a burr I found, an’ I went lookin fer a brogue.
Tricksy bastards, leprechauns.
Novak’s point…
…is irrelevant since he apparently didn’t bother to do any research before reaching his conclusions.
It’s the traditional religious approach to learning and understanding – claim ancient, fictitious material is divinely inspired; attempt to define reality based on that.
Ray Fox #85
“Seriously? Changing his mind and picking a whole new running mate at the last minute would help him? Are we really jumping at shadows that much?”
After the November surprise in 2004 where Osamma bin Laden’s conveniently released tape shifted the election from Kerry to Bush, nothing surprises me. Think about it. bin Laden’s tapes always seemed to come out right when Bush’s approval rating dipped during his first term, scared America into re-electing them, then the last message came when there was serious talk of impeachment when Bush’s domestic spy network was revealed to the public. Since then, hardly a peep. One other thing, McCain says he has a plan to catch bin Laden, but will only reveal it AFTER he’s been elected. No wonder bin Laden hasn’t been caught yet.
Re: DanL@74
The content of your posts is objectivist, but the format is collectivist. I can imagine you proudly waving your copy of ‘Atlas Shrugged’ just like Maoist revolutionaries did with their own books a few decades ago. The most appealing aspect of libertarian philosophies is the emphasis on individual thought. Judging by your dogmatic and ideological way of presenting arguments, that’s the aspect that you missed out on.
Anybody here read Gene Wolfe’s Book of the New Sun” ? Rand-Boy sounds a lot like the character “Loyal to the Group of Seventeen”. He had me at that Ron Paul nonsense!
No more troll-baiting… I am waiting for the Biden/Palin debate.
Q: Given the dire situation in the world financial markets, what steps would you take to increase liquidity in the capital markets?
S.P.: Uhh… I shot a moose!
First, @ libertarianbob, #19: Gold is real money?!? News flash: It ain’t edible; in any quantity, it ain’t portable; its primary function as a basis for currency is that it just sits there, very, very well. Except for being a nice electrical conductor, pleasant-looking, and easily malleable, it has absolutely no intrinsic value (just like Sarah Palin!). The value Western currency systems place on it is just as easily demolished as the stock market bubble was.
Second, as far as the old saw about some wildly improbable birth causing any given creotard to believe in evilution, that’s just a bunch of fluff, too. Gorilla-born humans, crocoducks, cat-dogs, winged unicorns, leprechauns, fire-breathing dragons, pixies, fairies, gnomes, woodland nymphs and satyrs, would call evolution into question, not prove it. They know it. They need to stop lying about it.
Third, it’s all about paying the fakir to tell you that you’ll qualify for paradise in whatever afterlife you fantasize about, especially when you feel the shortcomings of your own life won’t get you there. Whichever fakir does the best job of fooling you into thinking you’re among the elect, gets the nice house in the suburbs, the nice import limo, and the prettiest virgin from among the well-fleeced flock. And it has exactly nothing to do with any supernatural belief system whatsoever; all the fakirs will rip each other to shreds as they claw their way to the top. And every single one of them will exile, dismember, crucify, sacrifice, or pass the hemlock to anyone they fear may actually threaten their supremacy.
I love this, it’s great comedy to us here in the reality based community.
Out there in the land of the alternate reality I just got this e-mail from a republican friend of mine; she often likes to yank my chain so I don’t know if she admires Ben Stein or thinks he’s an idiot.
The following was written by Ben Stein and recited by him on CBS Sunday Morning
Commentary.
My confession:
I am a Jew, and every single one of my ancestors was Jewish. And it does not bother me even a little bit when people call those beautiful lit up, bejeweled trees, Christmas trees.. I don’t feel threatened. I don’t feel discriminated against. That’s what they are: Christmas trees.& nbsp;
It doesn’t bother me a bit when people say, ‘Merry Christmas’ to me. I don’t think they are slighting me or getting ready to put me in a ghetto. In fact, I kind of like it It shows that we are all brothers and sisters celebrating this happy time of year. It doesn’t bother me at all that there is a manger scene on display at a key intersection near my beach house in Malibu .. If people want a crèche, it’s just as fine with me as is the Menorah a few hundred yards away.
I don’t like getting pushed around for being a Jew, and I don’t think Christians like getting pushed around for being Christians. I think people who believe in God are sick and tired of getting pushed around, period. I have no idea where the concept came from that America is an explicitly atheist country. I can’t find it in the Constitution and I don’t like it being shoved down my throat.
Or maybe I can put it another way: where did the idea come from that we should worship celebrities and we aren’t allowed to worship God as we understand Him? I guess that’s a sign that I’m getting old, too. But there are a lot of us who are wondering where these celebrities came from and where the America we knew went to.
In light of the many jokes we send to one another for a laugh, this is a little different : This is not intended to be a joke; it’s not funny, it’s intended to get you thinking.
Billy Graham’s daughter was interviewed on the Early Show and Jane Clayson asked her ‘How could God let something like this happen?’ (regarding Katrina) Anne Graham gave an extremely profound and insightful response. She said, ‘I believe God is deeply saddened by this, just as we are, but for years we’ve been telling God to get out of our schools, to get out of our government and to get out of our lives. And b eing the gentleman He is, I believe He has calmly backed out. How can we expect God to give us His blessing and His protection if we demand He leave us alone?’
In light of recent events… terrorists attack, school shootings, etc. I think it started when Madeleine Murray O’Hare (she was murdered, her body found a few years ago) complained she didn’t want prayer in our schools, and we said OK. Then someone said you better not read the Bible in school. The Bible says thou shalt not kill, thou shalt not steal, and love your neighbor as yourself. And we said OK.
Then Dr. Benjamin Spock said we shouldn’t spank our children when they misbehave because their little personalities would be warped and we might damage their self-esteem (Dr Spock’s son committed suicide). We said an expert should know what he’s talking about. And we said OK.
Now we’re asking ourselves why our children have no consci ence, why they don’t know right from wrong, and why it doesn’t bother them to kill strangers, their classmates, and themselves.
Probably, if we think about it long and hard enough, we can figure it out. I think it has a great deal to do with ‘WE REAP WHAT WE SOW.’
Funny how simple it is for people to trash God and then wonder why the world’s going to hell Funny how we believe what the newspapers say, but question what the Bible says. Funny how you can send ‘jokes’ through e-mail and they spread like wildfire but when you start sending messages regarding the Lord, people think twice about sharing. Funny how lewd, crude, vulgar and obscene articles pass freely through cyberspace, but public discussion of God is suppressed in the school and workplace.
Are you laughing yet?
Funny how when you forward this message, you will not send it to many on
your address list because you’re not sure what they believe, or what they
will think of you for sending it.
Funny how we can be more worried about what other people think of us than what God thinks of us.
Pass it on if you think it has merit. If not then just discard it… no one will know you did. But, if you discard this thought process, don’t sit back and complain about what bad shape the world is in.
My Best Regards,& nbsp; Honestly and respectfully,
Ben Stein
NEEDLESS TO SAY MY REPLY WAS; EX FALSO SEQUITUR QUODLIBET.
wow 110
It would seem that Novak poses theism as the affirmative position and a-theism as a disclaimer. So, in an attempt at resolution, it appears the burden of proof would fall on each. Otherwise,in this construction atheism would seem to be simply a default condition.
Silver Fox,
Atheism is the default position. How else do you explain the thousands upon thousands of different religions and religious groups? If everyone who was religious believed in the same thing you might have a point – but they don’t; in fact, most religions have contrasting and incompatible aspects at their hearts. So they can’t all be right – but they can all be wrong.
You can only learn to believe in the religion you are taught; if you aren’t taught a religion you must, by definition, be an atheist.
Atheism is the default position, someone brought up in an area without any knowledge of God is an atheist; they simply cannot believe in what they don’t know. It’s only through education (parents, school, priests, community, television, etc) that we are taught otherwise.
So?
Reality is not a Hegelian dialectic.
Which is simply meaningless, or possibly just wrongheaded.
Whose “attempt at resolution”? His? He’s simply not correct.
Whose construction? Which construction? Wowbagger’s? Write more clearly.
Although… Atheism is a default condition if you look at it logically. Infants are born atheists, then are indoctrinated with religious beliefs by their parents, peers, and the religious society in which they are raised, becoming theists.
Of course, they might also simply become more superstitious as they age. Again, magical thinking is widespread.
*wails* damnit. you need to start marking this satire with some kind of tags for those of us who are too dense or tired to realize it’s a joke.
this is the second time you’ve gotten me this week and i’ve ALMOST repeated what i read both times as if it were true. arey ou trying to get me to make an ass of myself, p.z.? ; ;
It’s currently 10.57am in Oz. The TV guide I see online says
on ABC1
11:00: U.S. Presidential Debate [CC]
12:00: U.S. Presidential Debate (cont.) [CC]
*goes looking in the pantry for popcorn.*
Yeah, I can hear it on tv – unfortunately my PC is in another room so I can’t write and watch at the same time. So far McCain’s intimated he’s against massive wealth, greed and corruption.
The irony.
He did. The tag is “Category: Humor”, right there under the title.
Ben Stein, quoted by Sondra @121 wrote:
Ben Stein is not a moron, but he is a liar. No one, especially atheists, argue that America is an atheist country. We argue that it is a secular country. I am sure Stein is intelligent enough to know the difference and so he is explicitely lying.
“Smart people are very good at rationalizing things they came to believe for non-smart reasons.” – Michael Shermer
Even Ben Stein doesn’t like Sarah Palin!
Didn’t believe this spoof for a second.
“…in the den of her Anchorage home…”
Palin’s home is in Wasilla, about 40 miles up the road from Anchorage.
Naked Bunny #71: “No press conferences, no impromptu questions on the road.”
Not so. Palin answered some impromptu questions in NYC this week. Asked about 9/11, she said it was very bad and that we’re in Iraq to make sure it won’t happen again. Asked if she’s endorsing Sen. Ted Stevens, she said she’ll wait to see how his corruption trial shakes out.
There. Now nobody can say she can’t manage the press.
I’m surprised no one has noted the core problem here. Atheism isn’t a philosophy. Unless not collecting stamps can now be deemed a hobby.
All of you 16 year Obama trolls on this blog being paid $7/hr to comment on behalf of the Obama campaign need to get a job, a life and start attending classes.
I hope there is not a wave of suicides by 16-20 year old after Obama loses in November. If there is that’s natural selection weeding out the weak and pathetic.
Get over yourself Obama trolls!
An excellent deadpan satire, done in the style of Goebbels-like agitprop. Well done!
But what have you got for an encore?
I just heard McCain at the debate, singing under his breath: “Bomb, bomb, bomb. Bomb, bomb Alaska!”
Re Krist@135,
I think PZ should set aside a thread after the election, for all the morons predicting Obama will lose to come and apologise for their stupidity, then by publicly disemvoweled.
I’ve been saying from the time of her selection that she was going to bow out. She’s a sop to the crazyfundies and (ostensibly) women*, not a legit choice for VP.
If she’s still there, she’s a crazy-ass liability. If she bowed out, they could say “well, we TRIED, but the evil liberal media’s too darn sexist”. And she could play up the mother card, saying she bowed out because “the evil liberal media’s hurting my daughter and I want to take care of my young son”. Then McCain could pick Lieberman, who gives him back some mavericky cred and reaches towards the uninformed parts of the center. Lieberman’s a bit of a douchenozzle, but he’s been the one correcting McCain when he’s mixed up Sunni and Shia or whatnot, and he’s still considered something close to a democrat by some people. ‘Bipartison’ and all that rot.
Now, if I were McCain (or, rather, his strategists), I would’ve pulled this maneuver a week or so ago, when Palin’s daughter and moose-killing-conservative-darling meme were still in the news and the sheer force of Palin’s crazy/idiocy was as yet unknown. It’ll be less successful now, but I still think they’re going to do it.
*And pretty much completely unsuccessful on that point, I might add. “Feminists for Life” don’t win over women who want control over their uteri. :-P
I’m actually shocked…
Now nobody can say she can’t manage the press.
You’re right, I completely forgot about the Ground Zero photo-op. Can’t run a Republican campaign without invoking the 3000 dead of 9/11 to justify bankrupting the economy to kill 100 times as many brown people.
“Get ready for Vice President Ann Coulter.”
Great galloping juniper berries, PZ! Do NOT do that to people just before bedtime. How the heck am I supposed to get to sleep now?
But her accent could grate cheese from a mile away