The TED folks are sponsoring a disturbingly vacuous call for a Charter for Compassion, which they claim is an attempt to rescue religion from an aberrant fundamentalism by emphasizing the goodness of faith. I don’t see it. What I see is a foolish whitewashing of religious history to claim that it is all about tolerance, when it’s the opposite: it’s all about tribalism. Instead of opening minds to the wonders of the world, it’s all about clamping down on the human mind and imposing the strictures of dogma. It’s all very nice to sit around and dream up a religion that’s all beauty and sweetness, but it’s the same wishful thinking that drives belief in invisible nonsense.
Throwing up another dishonest façade of a fatuously beatific faith accomplishes nothing but to reinforce one of the greatest promoters of ignorance, hatred, absurdity, and intolerance. We don’t need this. The way to change the world is to work to free people of religion, rather than inventing more rationalizations for it.
I’m with Dan Gardner on this one. Fundamentalism is not some recent historical quirk of modern religions: the selfish, dangerous, destructive narrowness of religious belief has been there in the Abrahamic religions all along, and religions have actually gotten less virulent (with obvious exceptions flaring up sporadically) recently. Would you like to live in an 8th or 14th century Christian, Islamic, or Jewish community? No way. Asking religion to return to its roots is asking for a restoration of theocracy.
Surprised to see TED supporting that …
What these guys need is a good dose of Avalos.
And a list of historical religious atrocities. Why do people forget so soon?
Although….
This could be seen as an attempt to see to sneakily inject secular humanism into religion, which does sorely need it.
It’s almost too bad the people like those that are holding this fail to see that the goal they seek has NOTHING to do with religion, and in fact would be more plausible without religious or national rivalries to interfere with it. That, and they’re SERIOUSLY deluded if they believe they can gloss over all the atrocities committed in the name of some deity or another.
Very shocked at TED doing this.
This is exactly the sort of thing that gets secularists labelled extremists and stifles any possibility of an honest debate.
But the religious nutters (especially the leadership) do. The reality of the horribleness of religion(s) keeps being made far too clear to too many people these days (what with multiculturalism and mass communications making it almost impossible to keep people completely ignorant and more secular laws preventing the religious leaders from smiting any truth-tellers as conveniently as they used to be able to do). So they very much need to draw another obscuring veil over things and pretend everything is nice and pleasant in religisland.
It wouldn’t be such a bad thing to advocate for “liberal theists” to stand up against the fundamentalists who are trying to dominate politics. It would be *ideal* for people to recognize that religion is a security blanket that has no reality, but we are living in a society where more people believe in astrology than evolution! We have a LOT of work to do before we can realistically expect atheism to become “the norm”. In the meantime, keeping the would-be theocrats at bay is a worthwhile short-term goal.
I see no mention of TED on the linked page. What is their connection?
Human beings are simply able to ignore what they don’t want to see. History is something we don’t like. Because large chunks of it are ugly. And religious history as a subset looks even worse. Genocide, inquisitions, and a whole list of other misbehaviors fill that account. Religion is not a tolerant exercise and anyone who really examines the historical record cannot support that premise in any way. But then, this is a society who greatest pleasures are things like American Idol and Survivor. Perhaps we are asking the pig to talk.
I think an entirely negative and normative view of religion as opposed to a positive and dispassionate one is equally self-deceptive.
The idea that religion was more extreme in the past is also very ethnocentric- i.e. only taking into consideration Abrahamic faiths.
Meanwhile, taking into consideration the successful nature of religion as an organizing principle, the TED folk actually have a good idea. Religion is not going anywhere. Especially when you consider Benedict Anderson, and extend his premise of imagined communities to religions: When we consider identities and group dynamics, we are referring to imagined communities. Whether it is a religion or a modern nation-state, the ties and motivations between followers are entirely mythological.
Altering the mythology of religion can have a positive effect. Most religions have altered their own mythologies extensively over time, so why not take advantage of that tendency. It strikes me as pragmatic above all.
I have a lot of respect for TED, but I learned a while ago they’ll accept a wingnut fantasy in place of science if the fantasy’s appealing enough. Case in point, they gave time to Bjorn Lomborg to talk about environmentalism. (For those not following climate issues, Lomborg:Environmentalist::Hovnid:Science teacher.)
Religion is not going away whether we like it or not. I see the Charter for Compassion as part of a homeopathic remedy for the “Religion Problem.” If you dilute it enough, it won’t have any real power. Even secular countries like Sweden have a weak diluted form of christianity. It really is rather harmless there. We can realistically hope for the same but we can’t honestly expect religion to disappear in our lifetimes.
It looks like a process as pointless as a thousand business seminars.
“Charter for compassion” indeed.
Simple vacuousness test which applies perfectly to this – imagine the opposite of the exercise and see how silly it sounds.
Actually, a charter for sadism in religion could be quite useful. It wouldn’t take long, and would highlight everything secularists have been saying for years.
[Shane, #11] No, not homeopathic, what we need is an immunization. A harmless strain of the virus of religion, that provides immunity against the virulent strains. Hey, it worked with smallpox.
This could be viewed as a step in the right direction, as most folks aren’t ready to throw the baby out with the bathwater. Not that I see things that way!
Well, there’s the logo in the bottom right-hand corner. . . .
Which are, incidentally, the only three faiths addressed in the (supposedly universalist) call for a charter.
I’m with Shane here; this seems like an attempt to trim off the worst of religion.
I think we’re all aware that religion does no ‘real’ harm outside of fundamentalism. It’s still a bad idea, because it allows people to accept magical thinking and can lead back to fundamentalist thought patterns, but in general, it’s not a problem.
I don’t get the ‘shocked’ angle though. TED has had several religious speakers as I recall. They spend a lot of time promoting togetherness and unity. While I know the majority here agrees that eliminating religion would aid that mission, the goal as I see it here is to stop people from harming each other, rather than routing out the reason for that harm. And this approach is far more likely to make moderates from a religious base who resent Atheists and Agnostics and is more likely to give a foot hold where their beliefs can be shaken off entirely — don’t you think?
More exactly, I’d say it’s all about clamping down on human instinct and imposing the strictures of dogmatic morality. Clamping down on human thought is only one aspect, and a result of the moral dogma that disputing the moral dogma is immoral.
The way to get rid of such religion is to provide something better. Science is on the verge of being in a position to do so, not only on matters of cosmology, but also on questions of morality.
I agree with you PZ. This isn’t a religion of compassion. Sure, there are bits where they help the poor and (whahahaha) make blind people see, but there’s the other bit where they restrict women’s rights and they destroy the rights of minorities claiming it is against the word of their so called god and savior.
You guys can say that fundies are the only threat but that’s not making the other religious folks much different. They are doing the same as the so-called fundies: picking and choosing. Most religious folks certainly ditched the worst parts, but they are still believing in the word of their God whom is a biggot.
the TED folks…
Technologically Elevated Dictators?
thank you for this post. your points and those made by dan gardner were all things i was thinking while i was watching the video.
the golden rule is ubiquitous in all civilizations, and in many animals. what’s religion got to do with it?
This really is deception or delusion, because it seeks to promote the idea that religious fundamentalism is a product of social inequality, rather than a product of doctrinal literalism. The truth is that liberal interpretation and implementation of religion require the imposition of modern, liberal social values, not the reapplication of some forgotten Golden Rule.
To pretend that this Golden Rule is some overarching principle of all major faiths is to ignore the majority of doctrine, cherry-picking a single tenet, and quite obviously reinterpreting it for a modern, liberal audience. Are we really supposed to believe that the authors of the bible wanted true social equality within and amongst their own and all faiths?
It occurs to me that real compassion can only be achieved when it’s global (not restricted to member of a faith group) and free (not conditioned on accepting a particular creed), and when existing dogma that conflicts with universal human compassion is openly dismissed as no longer relevant in the context of a religion.
Since it looks like there is a “voting” process involved in establishing the content for this “Charter”, maybe someone with sufficient skills could create entries that make the above point (that religions need to abandon dogma that conflicts with global human compassion), and the point it out to the community here, which tends to be very effective at “adjusting” results of on-line polling processes.
In other words, why not have rational individuals “take over” the “Charter” by having it adopt wording that asks faith leaders to emasculate the intolerant, immoral, and anti-human-compassionist dogma of their religions?
humans are tribal. gee. is that a news flash? are non-religious folk less tribal? is there something wrong with trying to find an approach to help religious (and non-religious) folk be less tribal using their own language?
One wonders what Pinker and Dawkins think of this. I see their names as members of the TED “brain trust”.
The mitigation of religion’s depravities began with the rise of secularism; free to choose, sensible and decent people said, “No, thanks.” That’s why nearly every preacher in the whole of Christendom damns secularism routinely, and promotes that lie about America’s founding as a ‘Christian Nation.’
Here’s the talk containing Karen Armstrong’s TED prize wish to support the Charter for Compassion:
http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/karen_armstrong_makes_her_ted_prize_wish_the_charter_for_compassion.html
Her profile:
http://www.tedprize.org/karen-armstrong/
This is pertinent. Does religion make people nice?
http://www.slate.com/id/2203614/pagenum/all
Score one to PZ.
I we should more often attack the very concept of faith itself– faith being the idea of attempting to believe something to a degree of certainty which exceeds the available evidence, and the idea that doing this is somehow virtuous.
Make the stupidity of faith obvious, and do it often, and make the faithful attempt to defend the very concept of faith. They can’t, and it’s fun to watch their brains squirm around as they try to reconcile this obvious stupidity with the notion that faith is somehow a virtue.
hhhmmm return to their roots? Does that mean evangelical protestants will return to Catholicism and wear uncomfortable and itchy clothing to show their faith or whatever the reason was behind that crap. This could actually be fun (for us). :P
I’m just tired of evangelicals – all I’m sayin’
TED? “Technology, Entertainment, Design” Who are these people anyway?
You might want to check out Science 3 October 2008:
Vol. 322. no. 5898, pp. 58 – 62
DOI: 10.1126/science.1158757
It appears that mainstream (as opposed to crackpot fringe versions) religion actually has some benefits over atheism. With regard as to who has committed the greatest atrocities, it looks like atheism wins the prize by one or two orders of magnitude.
For example, Christianity’s big claims to fame when it comes to butchery includes the crusades (58,000 to 133,000 head count, including killings by both sides), the Spanish Inquisition (31,912 dead) and the witch burnings (30,000 to 100,000 women burned to death). That totals out to as much as 265,000 killed. However, when we look at societies where atheism was a core belief to the extent that it was rigorously taught and enforced, we have:
North Korea: 1,663,000 killed
Communist Vietnam: 1,670,000 killed
Khmer Rouge: 2,035,000 slaughtered
USSR: 61,911,000 murdered
Communist China: 76,702,000
Total for just these five atheist societies is 143,981,000 (something Hitchens forgot to mention)
Widely different cultures in different parts of the world, yet all held atheism as a core belief and I want to emphasize ‘core belief’. The reason that atheism so badly outshines mainstream religion when it comes to unrestrained slaughter, atrocities, and violation of human rights is hinted at in the Science article I mentioned above. Incidentally, my source for the Christian and atheist killings is R.J. Rummel, University of Hawai, at Power Kills
It’s not going to work; even if we ignore the plain and obvious truth as spelled out by PZ in his post; there are still the individual people who, in the name of their religion, who oppress the thinking of others, including their own children, and yet they’ll still think that they are following the “Golden Rule”.
Look at all the support she gets from fellow believers in the comments.
It’s the religions that have to be dealt with, not any supposed “fundamentalism” which is actually built into them. I don’t know how people can be that ignorant of history.
Off-topic, but CHECK THIS OUT:
http://www.princeton.edu/main/news/archive/S22/60/95O56/index.xml?section=topstories
Organisms may control their own evolution. So the mechanism might not be as random as we thought.
(Random in terms of mutations, not in terms of natural selection, because I sure don’t want any subtle misunderstandings touching off a flame war here.)
I don’t see it.
— PZ Myers
Maybe that’s because you’re incompetent to hold opinions regarding theology and religious history due to ignorance about and hostility towards the subject matter, and daddy issues?
Let’s make a deal, how about the dirty God-hating mechanics take a rest on opining about theology, philosophy, ethics, history, art and religion. Stick to what you do best. Fixing toasters and making cool stuff. And we who are competent to have opinions in the aforementioned areas (and who are ignorant about the workings of toasters) will not tell you how best to fix a toaster. Unless you think the best way to fix a toaster violates an ethical principle of which you are, understandably, ignorant, in which case you can take our word for it and apply yourself to finding an alternative.
None of this is to say that the scientifically minded cannot be well rounded. It’s just to say you (specifically PZ Meyers and the New Atheists and their fellow travelers generally) are, for the most part, not. I would recommend that you either overcome your ignorance and psychological issues, or just keep your opinions on matters that will reveal your ignorance and psychological issues a bit closer to your chest.
LYLAS,
Fool
@#31: and yet it all means nothing. Why? People that kill are bloody INSANE. Atheist states that killed were just bloody insane. Religious states that killed just hid their insanity behind their religion. Not that their book makes it hard for them to have excuses. I never like the “Yea but you guys killed more!!!!” BS.
Of course, all these numbers never count up things like honor killings (which are pretty frequent since forever), and their darn holy book’s story. Guess that when it comes to living the Bible is the word of truth but when it comes to counting up the dead it’s just allegory.
Fixing religion is like trying to pick up a turd from the clean end…imfuckingpossible.
When the fundies revoke proposition 8 then we’ll talk about compassion.
Nonsense. Catholicism is not considered “fundamentalist”, but its opposition to abortion, contraception (including use of condoms to prevent the spread of AIDS), stem cell research, and gay marriage has indeed caused “real” harm. Many other “mainstream” religions hold similar views on many of these issues, and exert a powerful political force. It isn’t just the fundies who are the problem — they are just the most vocal.
Hm, …”Medieval tolerance?”
Nope…doesn’t sound right, now does it? Let’s try again, OK?
Hey Mister Torquemada, Goldstein here! What is your opinion on the idea that Jesus was a great big Ol’ poof? Any?
Hmmm…somethin’ a tellin’ the response would not be for the non-S&M indulgent.
(I used the word, “Indulgent,” hehehehe)
Clown: equivocation between atheism and Communism.
Fool: Courtier’s Reply.
’nuff said.
Michelle (#35) you need to check out Rummel’s site. It tallies up everything. The bottom line is that atheism commits atrocities and kills far more than all the other religions in total. To clarify, if you spend enough time on his site and total up the religious killings in history, they are small in comparison to what atheism did just in the past 100 years. People kill, whether they are religious or atheists, but actual facts of human history show that nothing removes all restraint and frees people up to kill in mind staggering numbers like atheism does. The track record of atheism in history is appalling. I know that urban myth disputes this, but facts trump urban myths. Recent studies are beginning to reveal why religious people tend to behave better than atheists. Start with downloading that article published in Science just this past week. Give it a good read.
Fool> Gross generalisations and ad hominem attacks don’t actually discredit anyone’s argument. Nor does the special pleading that the New Atheists, as many term them, don’t understand or aren’t qualified to discuss philosophy and religion. I’d say that Dennett being a philosopher pretty much rules out one part, and the ability to think RATIONALLY takes care of anyone who wants to consider religion from that persepective. A study of theology certainly isn’t necessary to see the vast amounts of bovine excrement proferred as religious belief, nor does the wish that all religion was peaceful and beautiful negate the fact that religion, specifically Abrahamic religion, breeds vileness and ignorance. Hostility toward subject matter doesn’t disqualify anyone from holding opinions on those matters, but feel free to actually point out the bias in those opinions when they are present.
TheChemist #9 wrote:
I think the problem with this line of reasoning is that it ignores one of the major defining aspects of religion: its method. Choosing to “accept” realities and revelations beyond this physical world through an act of “faith” is not necessarily going to lead to a more reasonable, secular form of mythology. Yes, it can go there. And it can just as easily go the other way. Faith is a personal commitment to spin facts and reframe situations so that you can find an internal logic which can make anything seem reasonable.
Encouraging people to interpret God the right way is like encouraging people to believe in the right form of astrology — pick something benign which doesn’t conflict too much with science and reality and tell people this is the REAL version. It makes folks happy and nice and doesn’t demand too much from them. But once they’re in the system, they’re out of reach of the rational argument that says you have to seem rational and nice even to secular humanists. They’ve got a different reality to work from.
Greg #16 wrote:
I’d like to think this, but once again, we’re dealing with a conflict of methods, and this more reasonable, humanistic approach may end up making atheism even more unacceptable.
Fundamentalists think that their religion can be proven by the facts: atheists are just plain wrong. We’re stubbornly ignoring perfectly good evidence. How stupid atheists are.
But liberal theists agree that spiritual truths cannot be demonstrated through rational argument or evidence. Instead, it’s a matter of having an open heart — a willingness to let go and accept that there is something out there Greater Than Yourself, that you are personally and intimately connected to a cosmos infused with meaning and value. Faith — and God and spirit — all comes down to LOVE.
So atheists aren’t unreasonable. They’re just sad and stunted by their bitter, narrow skepticism and cold, calculating hearts. You can’t see love with a microscope! How pathetic atheists are.
I’m not sure that’s going to work better for us.
Wow, you’re fast! I just came here to tell you about this…no need, obviously. You must get 100 links from your “ilk” before breakfast.
@41
Could you explain for us how ‘atheism’ killed all those people in those conflicts? I don’t understand. Might those conflicts have had more than that single cause behind them, such as economic and political differences?
How can anyone tell that it’s all down to this single variable, that in this case is ‘atheism’ – and did they ask all the participants? Unless that Science article (to which I don’t have access) can show a tested mechanism that supports that theory, I can’t see how it can be reliable.
@ The Clown: “For example, Christianity’s big claims to fame when it comes to butchery includes the crusades (58,000 to 133,000 head count, including killings by both sides), the Spanish Inquisition (31,912 dead) and the witch burnings (30,000 to 100,000 women burned to death). That totals out to as much as 265,000 killed.”
You forget the Wars of Religion between Catholics and Protestants. They bloodied all Europe during the 16th and 17th Century.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_wars_of_religion
During the 30 Years War alone, the population of Germany dropped by about 30%.
And then, there are the many wars between Muslims and Christians after the end of the Crusades: the Spanish Reconquista (which also forced the Jews to convert and eventually expelled them), the attacks of Eastern and Southern Europe by the Ottoman Turks. Or the massacre of a million Armenians by the Turks in 1915. Don’t forget, of course, the Israel-Palestine conflict and its consequences. And Al-Qaeda, and the Sunnis and Shia in Iraq… “Religion” is still, too often, the best excuse to go to war!
Why do the idiots always spell his name, “PZ Meyers?”
By the way, I am an artist, and musician, as well as someone trained in biology.
Writing out ignorant false correlations to someone how remove the validity of someones opinions is easy to do, but very seldom accurate. Acting like atheists know nothing of the visual arts, music, as well as literature, and other non-scientific endeavors, is a purely false accusation.
As for theology, pretending it has depth does not make it so. I have studied religions, and the history of, and have yet to find anything that gives credence to a single one of them. Care to try and change my mind? Then go for it…
Let’s make a deal, how about the dirty God-hating mechanics take a rest on opining about theology, philosophy, ethics, history, art and religion. Stick to what you do best. Fixing toasters and making cool stuff. And we who are competent to have opinions in the aforementioned areas (and who are ignorant about the workings of toasters) will not tell you how best to fix a toaster. Unless you think the best way to fix a toaster violates an ethical principle of which you are, understandably, ignorant, in which case you can take our word for it and apply yourself to finding an alternative.
Why don’t you demonstrate that you and yours have any better understanding of philosophy, ethics, history, art and religion than an atheist. As for theology, talk to me when you are ready to debate the fine points of unicornology.
The rest of your idiocy follows from your original error.
@43 I think George Orwell (I think it was he) summed it up quite well:
The Clown,
Atheism is as responsible for all those deaths as is aunicornism, and unastrology. That you don’t believe in a god (or unicorns, or astrology) does not mean that you do believe in the other dogmas those “atheistic” societies believed.
That’s why I don’t care for the term “atheist” (though, again, I do see PZ’s and others’ point to just wear it as a badge of honor of sorts). “Atheism” does no imply any beliefs in anything. It just says one thing you don’t believe in. And even then, theists have such a hard time stating what they believe, that “atheists” don’t even know what they hell they’re supposed to be denying.
“Start with downloading that article published in Science just this past week. Give it a good read. ”
Yeah, and what does the article actually show? It shows someone that believes in something, real or not, tend to hold on better. If you give the atheist nothing to believe in, his ability to hold on lessens. Now give a picture of someone the atheists cares about, or even a small child he knows nothing about and convince the atheists his ability to hold on is important to the health of the child.
See, the tests are extremely flawed because it makes base assumptions that have not been shown…
Clown:
This is just plain false. Provide evidence for this assertion.
Did the half-assed research you cite account for every murder or crime committed by a religious person in the total? If they believed in any kind of god and still mudered someone then throw them in the ‘killin’ for Jesus’ column. We want to be consistant with your established methods.
You are an ignorant douche. Read a book.
Aureola Nominee, FCD (#40)
I’m afraid that if you want to argue that there is an equivocation between Communism and Atheism, you’ve got some work to do. I have argued that the reason the particular type of communism in those societies killed without restraint was because atheism was a central, core belief. Those societies practiced different types of communism, where composed of radically different types of cultures, yet the one thing they had in common, front and center, was atheism, taught, and enforced. You will have to show that it was something else about communism that freed those societies up to kill. That will be difficult to do in light of a) communism that rejects atheism seems to be quite peaceable (e.g., the Hutterite Colonies) and, b) recent studies indicate that atheism is a significant factor in how well people behave (see the Science article I mentioned earlier, as well as Gross National Happiness by Arthur Brooks. This is not to say that individual atheists can’t be fine people, or even that societies with a majority of atheists are bad. In fact, the data indicates that even if there are only a small percentage of mainstream Christians in a largely atheist society, the society can function well, up until they begin to actively repress Christianity. At that point, atheism becomes a core motivating value and the atrocities begin.
Assclown?
The central thing they had in common was not atheism. It was the fact that they were bloody dictatorships after the start of the industrial revolution, where guns, and extreme weaponry was now much more easily available, allowing dictators to kill on a mass level over much shorter periods of time…
Clown at #45
Time for a reality check. Did you ever stop to think that the reasons why “atheism” kills more people than theistic societies do is because
1) in modern times, there are fare more people than their were in medieval times
2) we have more efficient weapons than just the swords and arrows and whatnot that the religious regimes of the past did?
3) religous kilings went on for centuries, while the communists/nazis were around only for several decades.
What one should look at if possible, is the per capita killings done.
For instance, look up the religiously inspired Thirty Years War which Irene Delse at #46 brought up. It killed about a third of the people living in the German states at the time. What would that be in modern numbers?
It is most certainly not due to any “restraint” on the religious regimes of the past that they’ve killed less people than “atheist” ones have.
The Clown and Irene> You also left out the ~100 million killed by conquistadores and missionaries in the Americas and Africa in the name of Catholicism.
@Clown:
How many deaths is “Gott mitt uns”(sic?) responsible for?
Dammit, it should read Clown at #41, sorry.
For me it is all about the principle. What is religion based on? If the foundation of the idea doesn’t make sense the whole idea doesn’t make sense.
Clown is a clown. Antiatheist argument #17, which has been refuted here time and time again. When will theists ever get a brain?
Wow. I didn’t see this coming at all. It’s like the folks at TED all of the sudden just don’t even give a shit about whether stuff is true or not.
Call me crazy, IST, but I would think that a necessary condition to coming to a reasoned conclusion as to whether X (here religion) is A (compassion) or B (tribalism), requires knowledge of X.
To apply this kooky idea that I have to your specific case when you say:
. . . the fact that religion, specifically Abrahamic religion, breeds vileness and ignorance.
is knowledge of that “fact” based on something other than a desire to have anal sex without shame? One would hope that “fact” is based on knowledge of what religion is and its history. And I think that involves a bit more than the general standard of “Dude, I totally took western civ in college and, like, my teacher totally said that the Crusades and the Inquisition were, like, bad.”
As to whether there can be philosophers who are also atheists I included in my original post the caveat “for the most part.” And, in any event, neither you nor PZ Myers are Dennett.
Also,if the argument “You’re ignorant about the subject matter, therefore your opinions regarding it are uninformed and unreliable” is simply a Courtier’s Reply, then how can the mechanical class complain when Fundies presume to educate them regarding scientific matters within their area of scientific expertise?
@64 Er, because the mechanics can show those who don’t understand exactly where they have gone wrong, and fix it, and show that it now works. They bother to engage and answer, where religious apologists never do.
You see, there’s a test of whether mechanics is ‘right’ and it is handed out and marked by nature: if your brings employs ‘wrong’ mechanics, it’ll fall down.
Does religion have any tests to be able to distinguish it from other beliefs in things like unicorns or fairies? I’d love to hear of them…
Randy: humans are tribal. gee. is that a news flash? are non-religious folk less tribal? is there something wrong with trying to find an approach to help religious (and non-religious) folk be less tribal using their own language?
And there you have the problem, Randy: the language. Trying to speak compassion and social equality in Abrahmic language is like trying to describe quantum physics in 16th century Italian (including their mathematical language). It’s painful, it’s going to lead to huge mistakes, and it’s going to make you look crazy.
You have got to abandon “your” language first. Your language sucks! The problem ain’t “religion” in some generic sense of a set of rituals and liturgy — it’s most actual existing religions.
“It is most certainly not due to any “restraint” on the religious regimes of the past that they’ve killed less people than “atheist” ones have.”
I wonder what the percentage of Europe Charlemagne killed in converting Europe in the first place?
Re: The Clown: (appropriate moniker) Communism is a religion of a sort, except that instead of basing their delusions on a supernatural god, the state is put in place of god.
Do you think your argument is original? That we’re never before bumped into some idiot who conflates Communism and atheism? What next, throwing Nazism into the mix?
Your ignorant argument has been smashed to smithereens thousands of times.
And a person anywhere near average intelligence and cultural literacy would know that. You’re wasting intelligent peoples’ time with your mindless propaganda.
The Clown @ 53:
“You’ll have to show what else it was about communism which freed those societies to kill”.
Let’s see…how about a series of brutal and repressive megalomaniac autocrats? That would definitely do the trick. Any regime that brutal has a profound capacity to slaughter. Hitler did the same thing, and Hitler was not an atheist (as far as we know, because he did refer to God in Mein Kampf, and most of his followers were either Roman Catholic or Lutheran.) It was the ruthless autocrats who enabled the killing, not atheism.
“up until they begin to actively repress Christianity. At that point, atheism becomes a core motivating value and the atrocities begin.”
What???
I’d like you to define “actively repress Christianity”. You seem to conveniently ignore Scandinavia, Japan, Israel, W. Europe, etc., where there are significant numbers of atheists in the societies of these countries. If you can prove that all of these are “immoral” societies, then I might take what you say seriously.
I’d like you to name a single society where atheism is “a core motivating value” that leads people to “actively repress Christianity”. Communism doesn’t count: I discussed this in first part of the post. Communism is in its modern political form as manifested in the 20th century is a brutal autocratic system with a predisposition for committing atrocities. Saying that atheism is less moral because Stalin was an atheist carries just as much weight as saying Christianity is less moral because almost all of Hitler’s followers were Christian, if not Hitler himself.
I really do not buy your argument. Please try to come up with better evidence.
“As to whether there can be philosophers who are also atheists I included in my original post the caveat “for the most part.” And, in any event, neither you nor PZ Myers are Dennett.”
I am sure most in here have studied philosophy, as it is a basic part of a science education. The thing is, all the philosophy teachers I have met, were all atheists.
“Also,if the argument “You’re ignorant about the subject matter, therefore your opinions regarding it are uninformed and unreliable” is simply a Courtier’s Reply, then how can the mechanical class complain when Fundies presume to educate them regarding scientific matters within their area of scientific expertise?”
Again, one can be backed up by logic and experimentation, while the other cannot. If you believe I am incorrect about this, then try and back up theology with experimentation.
TheClown #53 wrote:
You just did — the atheism was enforced. Secular humanism doesn’t want to enforce philosophical or scientific conclusions through violence or dictate from above: the whole point is that one ought to be free to arrive there through reason — through open discussion, argument, debate, and demonstration growing up from humble beginnings among equals. These communist societies did not suffer from an excess of rationality. Or humility.
What totalitarian dictatorships, secular or theistic, have in common is a belief that there is a Perfection that we must bring ourselves in line with, and that people need to be purified from imperfection through FORCE. This force needs to come from the top, down.
One of the valuable aspects specific to Christianity is that its belief in hellfire and damnation can allow people to leave punishment of the unfit to God. God will take care of those who are wrong. The Christian doesn’t have to.
Of course, one of the problems with Christianity is that it encourages folks to figure out, in advance, who those people deserving damnation are. And damnation is so very, very bad, giving these kinds of folks a little hell on earth is not that big a deal. As long as you’re only a worm fulfilling God’s desires, you don’t have to worry about arrogance. There’s a built-in, automatic humility, which makes you a only a lowly instrument of God.
Over the long run, I think that dealing with an Instrument of God is likely to be harder than dealing with someone who’s just really sure they’re right. Communists eventually had to recognize failure. God never lets His believers down, or abandons them, or fails. Armaggedon is supposed to be a victory.
Clown: I’m afraid that if you want to argue that there is an equivocation between Communism and Atheism, you’ve got some work to do. I have argued that the reason the particular type of communism in those societies killed without restraint was because atheism was a central, core belief. Those societies practiced different types of communism, where composed of radically different types of cultures, yet the one thing they had in common, front and center, was atheism, taught, and enforced.
You are a clown. What those societies had in common was the idea of an avante-guarde that was justified in doing whatever it took to “advance” their societies. They had specific ideologies, and that was the “core belief” — Marx-Lenninism or some resembling ideology. They “resembled” more than anything Catholic society, with it’s upper echelons who could (and must) say “Kill ’em all and let God sort them out”.
Of course, you cheat with your “atheist societies are fine until they oppress Christians” — because obviously any totalitarian society is bad. Yeah, Christians are fine and moral until they stop! And Jews, and Muslims, and even cannibals are fine, decent societies until they start eating people who don’t want to be eaten… It’s just that unlike those latter, immorality isn’t actually demanded by the ideology, since “atheism” isn’t any actual ideology.
Stupid rationalization of belly-thought. Is there even a single sane apologist? I guess that’s oxymoronic, like asking for an honest Maoist.
A couple quick points and then I have to get back to some serious work:
1. I’ve not posted any argument whatsoever on whether or not atheism is true. What the research shows is that if a person believes in God, they behave better than those who do not. Whether or not God exists is an entirely different matter. Essentially, believing in God (existent or not) includes the belief that one is being watched, that there is an ultimate accounting for ones moral deeds and even the moral deeds of societies and even entire civilizations.
2. I see some people here are making up numbers.
3. I see the behaviour and attitudes of many atheists in this thread is confirming what the research shows.
4. Ultimately, if you are an atheist, why ever would you think there is such a thing as objective good and evil? There is an astonishing lack of civility and critical thinking going on here on the part of atheists. Consider Euthyphro’s dilemma: Either something is good because the gods like it, or the gods like it because it is good. The first horn of the dilemma is not on for atheists, because there are no gods. So you are left with the second horn ….. a transcendent set of moral absolutes that ‘the gods’ and humans can look up to, to find out what is good. But that is a dangerous option for an atheists, because suddenly you are invoking a metaphysical reality very close to the idea of Alvin Plantinga’s idea of a ‘maximally excellent being’ (that degree of excellence beyond which it is not logically possible to be more excellent). So the atheist must reject the idea of a transcendent moral absolute. This leaves the atheist with two choices: abandon the archaic, religous idea of ‘good’ and ‘evil’ or, make up your own moral rules but if you do, don’t act as if you have the moral authority to impose your own made-up moral views on others. If I were a true atheist, and not a semi-atheist like PZ and some of you here, I would realize that morals are just made up, game rules, shall we say, that are not binding. The religious fundy is no more ‘good’ or ‘evil’ than the atheist, the mass murderer no more ‘good’ or ‘evil’ than Mother Theresa, and the Northern Pike no more ‘good’ or ‘evil’ than the lamb.
Well, I’ve really got to get some work done so I’ll have to leave this thread for today, but it’s been good stirring the pot once again.
Yours truly,
The Clown
Wow, some of the theists here aren’t even wrong. You don’t need to study theology to discuss religion. On the contrary, I would argue that studying theology makes you LESS likely to be able to rationally discuss religion! Theology is inherently flawed reasoning: you start with a major premise (there’s a loving god based on this old book), and do some byzantine logic acrobatics to make your way to the real world. Yeah, that’s a good way to think.
And I love hearing “prove atheism didn’t kill millions!” You’ve got it precisely backwards, dumbasses. The burden of proof is on YOU, because YOU’RE the ones with the ridiculous hypothesis. History shows us that these civilizations you cite (Nazi Germany, the USSR, Maoist China, etc) were brutal dictatorships with no regard for individual rights; that’s plenty to explain the horrific mass murder, given modern technology and population. They weren’t running around saying “I’m killing you because I don’t believe in god!” (Just the opposite in the Nazis case, actually.) So, YOU would have to prove that their atheism led to those millions of deaths. Good luck with that.
Clown, if what you mean by stirring the pot is showing your ignorance, you have succeded.
The Clown at #41:
The bottom line is that atheism commits atrocities and kills far more than all the other religions in total.
While I myself am not an atheist, your point here is (with all due respect) a very weak line of reasoning. First of all, it’s an argument from consequences. The moral consequences of a factual claim have no direct bearing on the truth or falsehood of that claim. The relevant issue is not whether atheism (or indeed religious belief) is good or bad; rather, the important question is whether it is true or false. What people do in its name has absolutely no bearing on that.
In any case, I think you’re being overly simplistic in asserting that “atheism killed X number of people”. Although atheism is a philosophical position, it is not a philosophy or a belief system in and of itself. Rather, all it connotates is the rejection of theism. The fact that someone rejects one particular viewpoint (in this case, theism) does not tell you anything about their beliefs in other areas. The term “atheist” tells you what a person does not believe in, not what he does believe in. Apart from their rejection of religion, a Marxist has little in common with an Objectivist, and neither has much in common with a secular humanist.
In other words, asserting that “atheists have committed a lot of atrocities” is rather like saying “non-astrologers have committed a lot of atrocities” or “non-believers in reincarnation have committed a lot of atrocities”. It’s true, but meaningless.
Rather, it’s more relevant to look at what a person does believe in. Lenin, Stalin, Mao and Pol Pot were motivated to commit horrific atrocities not by their atheism, but by their Marxism. Rejecting the idea of a God or gods does not in itself make someone want to go out and massacre people; what we need to examine, and condemn, are those ideas which do make people want to go out and massacre others (Marxism being among them).
Clown: 3. I see the behaviour and attitudes of many atheists in this thread is confirming what the research shows.
Fuck off. Your mental incompetence is showing by your inability to distingush venue.
Oh noes — Professional Wrestling is so violent!
4. Ultimately, if you are an atheist, why ever would you think there is such a thing as objective good and evil? There is an astonishing lack of civility and critical thinking going on here on the part of atheists
Wow, just wow — I don’t think you’re allowed to use the phrase “Critical thinking” in conjunct with such an awe-inspiring lack of the same!
Who ever said that we should divide the world into “objective” and “subjective” in such a simple-minded way? How could a world-view ever be practiced objectively? Only a simple-minded buffoon would even suggest such a thing.
Are you even capable of putting on a pair of pants?
Believe it or not, TED has tons of mumbo-jumbo bullshit. So I am not too surprised of TED supporting this organization.
I already smell the devouring stench of hypocrisy…
@ IST: Good point about the Conquistadors. I don’t know about the 100 million deaths, but religion did play a part in the mind-set of the European conquerors: the belief that theirs was the only true religion, and that they were justified in killing the “pagans and idolaters”, enslaving them or stealing their. The Catholic Church was reluctant to condone slavery, but soon they decided it was a “good thing” if you baptized the slaves. That way, they would go to Heaven too, in the end…
BTW, the Muslims had a large scale slave trade in Africa too, but AFAIK, their rationale was different: since it was prohibited to reduce another Muslim to slavery, they just went to non-Muslim countries to get their “supply” of chattel.
To be fair, some non-European countries had also horrifying religious practices, like the mass human sacrifices in late-period Aztec and Mayan cultures. And there is right now a lot of violence directed against Christians today in India and Africa.
So, the whole idea of the “good” coming from religion… Let’s say it’s been a mixed curse throughout the history of humanity. No religion is “good” per se, tolerance is always something gained against bigotry, and I suspect the golden rule came to religion and not from it.
doh. Thanks Blake. In my defence I’m viewing on a tiny Eee pc screen and I scrolled every other part of the page before asking such a stupid question
> For example, Christianity’s big claims to fame when it
> comes to butchery includes the crusades (58,000 to
> 133,000 head count, including killings by both sides),
> the Spanish Inquisition (31,912 dead) and the witch
> burnings (30,000 to 100,000 women burned to death). That
> totals out to as much as 265,000 killed.
Add the 20,000,000 to 30.000.000 killed in the Taiping rebellion, 4,000,000 killed in the French Wars of Religion, the losses of the Thirty Years War mentioned above, and 350,000 massacred by the Ustasha. The Mongol conquests killed another 30,000,000 to 60,000,000 people, and while parts of the Mongol army were Buddhist, Manichaean or Shamanist, other parts – like the predominantly Georgian force that destroyed Baghdad, to name a prominent example – were Christian.
“By recognizing that the Golden Rule is fundamental to all world religions…”
I think I have gotten the Golden Rule wrong all this time. By that statement, the Golden Rule is “We’re right; You’re wrong.” That’s pretty much the only thing I can see each of the word religions saying.
“The bottom line is that atheism commits atrocities and kills far more than all the other religions in total.”
A canard oft stated is still a canard.
Even when it is a political platform.
The point of the exercise would probably be to try and distil all of the goodness that religion provides in the world (which is a lot, indeed it’s the largest source for charitable giving) down from the less good stuff. Typically there isn’t going to be to much bad stuff though.
You might liken it to purifying honey. Yes you can eat it straight out of the behave, but it might be a bit too sweet and you might get stung once in a while. The goal is to remove the bees from the equation while keeping the honey.
This is a waste of time.
Do all the deaths of WWII count as caused by religion? Hitler was a believer in God and used that belief to justify many of his actions. Hirohito was hailed as a living god by the Japanese. His followers committed horrible atrocities in his name. How many people died in WWII?
Did you actually bother to read the Science paper* you referenced?
…experimentally induced reminders of secular moral authority had as much effect on generous behavior in an economic game as reminders of God, and there are many examples of modern, large, cooperative, and not very religious societies (such as those in Western and Northern Europe), that, nonetheless, retain a great degree of intragroup trust and cooperation…
The authors suggest that social structure and inclusion may account for the effect.
Finally, we have seen that religious prosociality is not extended indiscriminately; the “dark side” of within-group cooperation is between-group competition and conflict. The same mechanisms involved in ingroup altruism may also facilitate outgroup antagonism.
Which is to say that religious groups (as per any other social group) may look after their own, closing ranks against outsiders.
Feel free to point a finger, rather than making vague accusations…
Unless the research was on blog comments, then you’re making a pretty wild leap there. Actually, it is more likely that the harsh (but entirely fair) treatment you’ve received here is simply confirming your own, very much unscientific, prejudice… So much easier to feel persecuted than examine your own behaviour.
Well, quite!
Instead, one is forced to consider such things as actions and consequences. Morality becomes a matter of personal responsibility, instead of being a duty to some ethical proxy. This is particularly useful if something is omitted from a thousand-year-old-plus list of do’s and don’ts…
*Ara Norenzayan and Azim F. Shariff. The Origin and Evolution of Religious Prosociality Science 3 October 2008 Vol. 322. no. 5898, pp. 58 – 62
“What the research shows is that if a person believes in God, they behave better than those who do not. “-Clown
Of course they do! They ram jets into the world trade centers, kill rape victims, try to execute women as witches in 2007, kill their 17 year old daughters for having puppy love crushes on British soldiers, detonate suicide bombs in crowds of children, Refer to the jews as “poisonous envenomed worms”( Martin Luther). Try to kill all the jews in Europe (Hitler), cut off the heads of reporters. Spray acid in the face of school girls because god doesn’t want them to be educated. Start a global war that kills 72 million people (Hitler).Kill all the midianites and enslave their children for sex (bible) Kill all that breaths(bible). So other than those few thing, religion is a-ok!
“3. I see the behaviour and attitudes of many atheists in this thread is confirming what the research shows.”
The Clown: Let’s try an experiment.
Suppose I enter a discussion with a great number of theists, and I start saying blatantly false things about the nature of theists and theism. How do you think they are going to react? You deserve exactly every bit of the “behaviour and attitude” that you have received.
You know that good ‘ole Christian value, you reap what you sow? Well, you just did.
fool>
hmm… where to start? with the erroneous assumption of homosexuality or the dumb college jock reference? Again, you’re resorting to attacking me rather than my argument.
As for the parts or your post that actually discuss something of merit: I don’t need EXPLICIT knowledge of the inner workings of X to determine whether it is compassion or tribalism, I merely need the track record of the vast historical majority of its believers. I don’t need to read Aquinas to have a gauge of the general attitudes of Christianity, I simply need to have read scripture and observed those who profess to follow it. The Crusades and Inquisition can be added to a number of other atrocities. If you’d like them spelled out, I can do it, but I’m assuming you’re well read enough to know where I’m going with this. Complete knowledge of religion and its history would make an argument invalid. If you think the viewpoints of the prominent “New Atheists” are stemming from that stance, you clearly haven’t read their work.
If I were choosing to argue the subtle interpretations of fabricated passage A, perhaps I’d need a more detailed understanding of the religion in question. This is frequently the case when theists are told that they don’t understand whichever scientific topic they’re attempting to discuss. You do raise a valid point here. Perhaps a better response from the science-mind being addressed would be to actually answer them… is it possible they get frustrated with answering the same questions repeatedly to people who aren’t willing to listen to the answer?
“And, in any event, neither you nor PZ Myers are Dennett.”
Correct, but you raised the issue as one involving the “new atheists”, of which he is one.
So are you a member of a minority who’s unhappy about being tarred with the same brush as the more mainstream sects? Or are you a member of an Abrahamic religion who refuses to realise the human suffering your faith causes? I’m talking about the opression of women, torture and killing of non believers, and general ignorance and poverty attributable to the teachings of the books considered holy by those religions, not whether or not someone is allowed their sexual preference. Whatever the case, it’s my turn for an assumption: you aren’t happy with the fact that religion isn’t being afforded the undue respect it once received? You have issues with someone bursting your happy little bubble?
Ah yes, pining for the good old days that never existed. Like Ronald Reagan’s America, where blacks, gays, women & children were chattel to be abused.
That’s beehive, not behave.
Doesn’t make your argument any more cogent.
Pete, what did the English language ever do to you that it deserved to be tortured into such analogies?
Jesus H. Fucking Christ! Peter, you are so full of shit, the stench has reached all the way to China. Pull your head out of your ass man! This kind of willfull ignorance is preposterous. You are obviously an example of the Downing Effect.
Clown #73 wrote:
Otherwise known as the Santa Claus effect…
Religion can indeed work as a prop to help a person behave better according to the internal moral standards of the religion. Unfortunately, there is no reason that these internal standards need be reasonable. A religious person could feel obligated to grudgingly go out and slaughter infidels for God even when he doesn’t want to, because his God-given conscience tells him he must do it anyway.
Taking the question of truth out of religion and just looking to see how well it “motivates” the true believers is a bad idea. It would be like ignoring whether or not communism was a good idea, and just looking to see how effective it was in motivating its most enthusiastic adherents. Pretty well, in both cases. Though being motivated is partly what defines a true believer in the first place.
There’s also the issue of the motivation itself. Getting rewarded and avoiding punishment doesn’t touch the moral sense. Presumably, a Christian does good because they love God, and love people in order to express this love. Humanists love people in order to express their love for people. It’s not that different. One group just uses a bigger symbol.
The “objective” standard is not “that which is outside of all people,” but “that which is shared by all people.” If there are such agreements on basic goods and evils, inherent in how human beings evolved, then there’s your ultimate reference. It can even be used to evaluate the many God candidates. It’s not objective in the sense of being independent of how anyone feels, but universalized — intersubjective. You can get a naturalized, atheist version of what you’re calling “transcendence” by referring to common standards and feelings which transcend individuals and cultures, because they adhere in humanity.
This leaves you with a new dilemma. If you accept that there are such reasonable standards, then atheists can appeal to them as well as you can. If you deny that there is any common human agreement on what is Good — then you just lost your ability to claim that God is objectively Good. According to who?
Religious morality is forced to depend on humanist foundations, if it wishes to argue its case.
If all you’re looking for is “Might Makes Right,” however, then feel free to invoke religion. And hope that people choose to have faith in a God who wants people to be humanists.
“That’s beehive, not behave.”
I think we all grokked that without any prompting, Pete. But thanks ever so much.
The claim that atheism gives people reason to be bad does not pan out in the statistics. Religious people throughout the centuries have slaughtered by the thousands in the name of their religion. Without their religion, there would have only been resources to want to kill or die for.
So clown is fitting for your handle. You obviously have not read the scientific data. Try Google.
“There is something feeble and a little contemptable about a man who cannot face the perils of life without the help of comfortable myths. Almost inevitably some part of him is aware that they are myths and that he believes them only because they are comforting. But he dare not face this thought! Moreover, since he is aware, however dimly, that his opinions are not real, he becomes furious when they are disputed.” [Bertrand Russell, “Human Society in Ethics and Politics”]
“With or without [religion] you’d have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, it takes religion.” – Steven Weinberg
Which is why divorce rates and teen pregnancy rates are higher among US fundamentalists than those who have no religious belief. And why the murder rates in “atheist” Scandinavia are so far below that of the US.
You think that Euthyphro is problematic for atheists?
There have been various charters in the past such as the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights
http://www.un.org/Overview/rights.html
(article 5 and 6 among others having been somewhat ignored by the present US administration)
The bottom line is that atheism had nothing to do with those killings. There was no atheist seed or thought along the lines “We need to kill the god botherers”. It was about totalitarianism. Power and consolidation of power. Ruling through a ruthless model. As did kings, dictators, and the ilk regardless of religious affiliation down the ages.
So, let’s look at the difference:
If you look at the Tai Ping rebellion, 25 million Chinese were killed by their Christian countrymen BECAUSE THEY WEREN’T Christian. No other reason. Those are religion based atrocities.
When Napoleon lost a million man army and killed millions more during his reign in Europe, that’s NOT because of religion. That’s because he was power hungry.
When Germany killed the Jews, that was religiously motivated. When they killed Russians, it was because of non-religious reasons.
Crusades = Religious. War of 1812 = political.
See, easy. You just have to use your brain.
Sastra @ 96
Excellent. This reasoning makes things even more clear for me.
The Slate article that quoted PZ is now up at Arts Journal http://www.artsjournal.com/ideas.shtml
Mey theorey, bey the way, is that ‘y’ immediateley following a consonant is a verey rareley encountered combination. It certainley doesn’t occur in aney commonley used words.
@Irene>
The 100 mil was pulled from the first source the popped on Google, which is why I left the approximate in front of it. If someone has a more accurate number I’ll stand corrected. I certainly didn’t invent it, as others are insinuating.
“Mey theorey, bey the way, is that ‘y’ immediateley following a consonant is a verey rareley encountered combination. It certainley doesn’t occur in aney commonley used words.”
Yeah, that certainley does make sense.
#106
Lol. Funney post.
You probably haven’t read said research :
http://www.psych.ubc.ca/~ara/Manuscripts/Norenzayan&Shariff_Science.pdf
The (aptly named) Clown #31
As Irene Delse points out in #46 there are many other examples you fail to consider. I would only add the Spanish conquest of the Americas in which spreading Christianity was used as a justification for conquest. Also, you state that all religion is better than atheism and only include numbers for Christianity.
More importantly however is you fail to take into account two things:
(1) At the time many of atrocities that occurred in the name of Christianity ( Inquisition, Crusades, etc.) the best weaponry were muskets and swords. The 20th massacres had the advantage of using bombs, guns, etc. That means the people in the 20th century had a HUGE technological advantage when it came to massacring. Plus the means of transportation was a lot faster, so less time traveling to go kill people. Do you think if the crusaders had machines guns,grenades and cars the death count wouldn’t have been higher?
(2) Simply put, in the 20th century there were more people to kill. The world population in 1500’s was estimated to be about 0.5 billion. In 1950 it was 2.5 billion. You would just expect more people to die from massacres when the population increases x5.
Merely comparing the raw numbers of death is like comparing apples and oranges. (1)and (2) seem to adequately explain the disparity in the numbers. I think there are crazy psychopaths in every generation and they will kill people in the name of whatever the dominant ideology at the time is.
Even if your thesis were true that atheism leads to more deaths than religion(I don’t believe it to be so) than that would still say nothing about the truthfulness of either one.
The Clown wrote, “1. I’ve not posted any argument whatsoever on whether or not atheism is true. What the research shows is that if a person believes in God, they behave better than those who do not.”
Fail.
I have the review you referance open on my desk and it indicates that both secular and religous goups behave better when they believe someone is watching them.
Further, the review article is very careful to point out the numerous questions about the motivations for religous behavior. As an example, the review points out that religous behavior clearly signals trustworthness to others but the review leaves as an open question whether that opinion of trust is justified.
I’m sorry, but the article you referance does far more to illustrate the limitations of the current level of knowledge rather than indicates any positive relationship with behavior and religous belief.
Let me quote from their conclusions:
a bit later…
For reading comprehension, The Clown, I’m going to upgrade your rating to Epic Fail.
And you’ve earned the title “The Ass Clown”.
Loudon is a Fool @ #34
Would you mind enlightening us as to our ignorance of the imaginary again, please?
TSC @ #36
For The Win!
Clown @ #73
[retraining strong urge, oops it is winning] Get a load of this clown [that just slipped out, honest]
Why?
How about you consider this dilemma (as yet unnamed):
Minding your own business at home reading, there is a knock at the door. You answer the door and standing before you is a cricket referee. For a moment you are extremely puzzled then the referee begins to recite your list of infractions and is assessing your penalties. Having never played cricket you are at first angry, then confused, then close the door and begin laughing so hard you die. Should you have answered the door or should you have been a cricket player?
I can haz philosophy? KTHXBAI.
What on earth is the difference between this and what the UUs have been doing for years ? All of this has happened before and will happen again.
Do all the deaths of WWII count as caused by religion? Hitler was a believer in God and used that belief to justify many of his actions. Hirohito was hailed as a living god by the Japanese. His followers committed horrible atrocities in his name. How many people died in WWII?,/I> – Fuel in the Fire
About 60,000,000, including holocaust victims. They certainly count as caused by religion if the atrocities of Leninism count as caused by atheism, as both the greatest aggressors were explicitly religious societies. Same for WWI of course (20,000,000): the vast majority of killing was done by Christians. The Muslims and Hindus between them managed around 3,000,000 at the time of India’s partition. Muslims slaughtered around 1,000,000 communists and sympathisers in Indonesia in 1965, and another 200,000 or so East Timorese later. Christians showed they weren’t by any means out of the genocide game in Rwanda (500,000), with many Roman Catholic priests being enthusiastic participants. The total of deaths due to (religiously justified) apartheid is impossible to calculate accurately, but must run into millions. Then of course we have the millions murdered by the Catholic Church through its anti-condom lies. difficult to say what proportion of the total of 25,000,000 deaths so far should be laid at their door, but quite considerable – and of course, by no means finished yet. (Since most of the deaths attributed to Maoism in China were due to a famine accidentally caused by Mao’s stupidity and arrogance, we can hardly omit these AIDS deaths from religion’s 20th century total.) Of course we mustn’t forget the victims of the Arab-Israeli wars, the invasion of Iraq, those slaughtered by Franco’s clerical-fascists in Spain, the Chinese victims of Japanese aggression before WW2, those who died in the North-South civil war in Sudan (Muslims vs Christians and animists), those who have died because of religiously-motivated opposition to vaccination and other medical treatments, and the countless minor religiously-motivated wars. So even in the 20th century, religion certainly gave Leninism a jolly good run for its money, and may well have come out ahead if an honest reckoning is made. Looking further back, the victims of Christian-inspired, justified, and performed European and Euro-American imperialism number in the hundreds of millions at the least.
Summary: Clown, you’re full of shit. Learn some history.
“Consequently, active members of modern secular organizations are at least as likely to report donating to charity as active members of religious ones.”
A while back I joined a local Junior Woman’s Club, and all of a sudden I was volunteering and donating left and right. Part of the motivation was the usual thing about wanting to help others and support the community, but there was an additional factor which I suspect is shared by both churches and armies:
You don’t want to leave all the hard work to the others. And you know exactly what needs to be done, and where, and how.
“Sharon has done the pancake breakfast fundraiser for the woman’s shelter 4 years running. It would really help if someone could chair just the kitchen; she’s got all the notes, it won’t be that hard. Linda has started a project reading to elderly shut-ins at the nursing home. Can you take Thursdays? There’s a sign up sheet going around for people who can work registration at Bloodmobile. And we still need someone to drive all those cans we collected over to the food pantry, since Joanne is having that knee surgery and can’t do it till the fall: anyone? Please?”
There’s a lot of factors involved in belonging to any kind of organization, religious or not. Unless studies of the religious are taking account of all the effects of group interactions and dynamics, I would be very careful ascribing any increase in charity work to metaphysical beliefs about transcendent supernatural Goodness — or even “God is watching and taking notes.”
Best Crazy Rant Ever!:
This sort of redfining religion to “keep the good and remove the bad” isn’t so much an attempt to avoid “throwing the baby out with the bathwater” as it is keeping the tub-ful of bathwater on the theory that there may be a baby in there somewhere, even though no one has seen it.
The Clown,
Yet you don’t provide one example of who is making up what.
Yes, commenters criticizing your thesis online is EXACTLY the same thing as committing mass murder.
Interesting question. Others could answer how they want but I am of the opinion that humans have a innate moral faculty, similar to how humans have an innate faculty for language. Like language, morals vary across cultures but have deep similarities. The Golden Rule doesn’t come from religions but from our nature.
Euthyphro’s dilemma seems more a problem for theists.
Juggling for kids is ‘serious work’? Well at least they won’t challenge you when you spout bullshit.
I’ve found that if the speller is from the north, they’re more likely to put the extra e in than if from the south.
It takes A LOT of balls, and very little brains, to say that Euthyphro’s dilemma is a problem for atheists !
It strikes me as different sort of project to the UUs. The people in charge of Charter for Compassion, at least those I’ve heard of (Desmond Tutu, Julia Neuburger, Tariq Ramadan), wouldn’t be in the business of starting a new religion that they could all be members of. Actually, I suspect they would get quite upset at the suggestion.
#70 The difference is that when we call fundamentalists ignorant, we explain why they are ignorant. For example, if a fundamentalist claims that there are no transitional fossils, then we point them to Lucy, Tiktaalic and a thousand others.
Your statements, on the other hand, are just an extended whinge. What precisely are we ignorant of, and why? What have we misunderstood, and what is the correct explanation? You claim special abilities, and yet you haven’t demonstrated them in the slightest.
P.S. Have you ever actually met a scientist? The ridiculous claim that “mechanics” are unable to appreciate art and literature seems more like a desperate attempt to service an inferiority complex.
“If you ain’t better than a mechanic, son, who are you better than?”
(I would state what that line alludes to, but it won’t be necessary given your self-proclaimed expertise.)
I am ashamed of the atheist community today.
I think the reaction to this effort is totally wrong, and is almost telling of the deeper desire to keep the fight a fight as opposed to moving forward in any direction.
My interpretation of Karen’s TED wish, and now her project that is the Charter for Compassion is much different than PZ’s and many of the people commenting here.
If anything, this effort is along the lines of Dan Dennet’s suggestions in Breaking The Spell. The fact that the only way to get through to religious people about religion, is to educate them more effectively about all other religions.
This charter represents an effort to peel compassion and morality out of the stranglehold of religious texts and dogma,and instead show that it is a human-wide natural phenomena. Beyond that, it’s goal is going to be to get religious leaders to come forward and agree or disagree.
Asking people from all faiths and non-faiths (yes, atheists are invited), to contribute stories of compassion, towards the goal of creating eventually building a charter that modernizes the view of compassion and morality, sounds nice to me.
I would gladly contribute to such an effort because I believe such a thing would help the atheist community fight off the accusation that non-belief leads to moral atrocity, which is one of the only pedestals left, that the religious use to demonize the secular.
Getting people to listen is hard, getting them to understand is even harder. I see this charter as a little glimmer of something that could take everyone in the right direction in terms of understanding compassion and morality, and I don’t see it as something the the religious will reject outright.
It takes small steps and a lot of time, and as Darwinians we all know that.
I don’t understand why people think this effort is so ridiculous. I don’t see how it could do anything but raise awareness in a good way.
It takes A LOT of balls, and very little brains, to say that Euthyphro’s dilemma is a problem for atheists !
Right, but see, they just can’t get their heads around the idea of considering something “wrong” while freely admitting that, in a cosmic sense, there is no such thing, just an indifferent universe. The scary thing is, the tacit admission there seems to be that if one such as the resident Clown also believed that the universe was indifferent and that there was no cosmic arbiter of human morality, then that one would gleefully descend into nihilistic rapacity and violence. Maybe God is a good idea, if only to keep these would-be psychopaths in line!
The same incapacity to understand is seen in Egnor’s attempts to show a conflict between materialism and believing in intangible concepts like numbers. They’re simply determined not to get it.
Tony MacDonnell: I kind of agree. I think all in all it’s a good thing.
But
It is set up with a religion pushing slant though. The “Council of Sages” is not only all Abrahamaically religious but also all in the religion business by profession. While they may accept anyone’s video they do say “People of all nations, all faiths, all backgrounds, are invited to contribute.” An “or none” after “faiths” would have been nice. The video at the front repeatedly talks about how compassion is at the centre of religion – no thought they it exists outside of them.
I don’t need EXPLICIT knowledge of the inner workings of X to determine whether it is compassion or tribalism, I merely need the track record of the vast historical majority of its believers.
Maybe, maybe not. PZ’s original claim that religious history “is all about tribalism” would at least require historical knowledge. But that probably isn’t sufficient. That tribalism (or violence) exists and religion exists is insufficient to show religion is tribal (or violent). I’m no historian, but it seems to me pagans killed people, Christians killed people, and atheists killed people. Maybe there’s a common denominator there other than the Abrahamic religions. Of course, you recognize this problem when you assert the Abrahamic religions specifically result in more violence than man merely being fallen man because Holy Scripture told you it is so. Which I guess makes you a Protestant. And I think leads us back to my original objection, which is that a complaint made about the nature of a thing is more persuasively made by a person with knowledge of the nature of the thing. Someone who is not ignorant of Christianity, for example, might argue it can be distinguished from the other Abrahamic faiths (particularly Judaism) in that it is explicitly not tribal.
Now at least Bob’s objection, “I don’t like religion because it’s poopy and icky” at least seems to be based upon the nature of thing. Of course, he’s ignorant of the nature of thing (and, like a good redneck, proud of that ignorance) and his ignorance calls into question his conclusion. When he talks about drooling and soiling himself he is convincing, given his experience with drooling and soiling himself. But outside of the areas of drooling and defecation his expertise is limited.
Similarly, Science Robot knows philosophy; at least to the extent philosophy is “a basic part of a science education.” But what basics he knows of philosophy (and what basics the persons who teach philosophy to science majors at state research institutions know of philosophy) cause (or at least contribute) to his atheism. Which, again, raises the question as to whether that basic grounding in what is probably a very basic understanding of post-Cartesian skepticism is sufficient to enter the great conversation. I would submit that least arguably it is not.
But, then again, maybe scientists just know stuff. Maybe they’re magic.
LiaF, More of the same shit. Yawn.
Again, Loudon, have you ever actually met a scientist?
The Clown at #41:
The bottom line is that atheism commits atrocities and kills far more than all the other religions in total.
You are confusing homicidal Marxists with Atheists fool. Anyhow, your rather weak arguments have been dealt with (again) perfectly adequetly by several posters here.
Tony MacDonell wrote, “My interpretation of Karen’s TED wish, and now her project that is the Charter for Compassion is much different than PZ’s and many of the people commenting here.”
But not all the people commenting here, which should temper your dissapointment. I wouldn’t be saddened by the diversity of opinion expressed here, these comment threads are often used as a sounding-board for a variety of opinions rather than a collective shout of agreement. Notwithstanding the beliefs of some of the more single-minded nutballs on these threads who believe that just because there are clamorous calls for evidence to back up an opinion that it means everyone here agrees with PZ.
While I don’t think the effort is ridiculous, I understand where those who are skeptical that anything positive could be gained by this effort are coming from.
The question being asked here is how can religious belief encourage cooperation rather than create strife? History, psychology, and anthropology all suggest that religion excels at creating strife. Religion, by it’s very nature, creates an elite and an out-group. Even within religious groups there are sub-groups which form of in-groups and out-groups.
Not that this problem is restricted to religious belief, but it seems to be located at the very core of religious belief. Everything else is window dressing.
We are at the stage where to continue to grow, individual people must learn that ALL of humanity, and in fact all of life, is part of their ‘in-group’ and that there is no ‘out-group’. Imagine.
Matt Heath: Agreed.
Remember that this charter will mainly be used to appeal to moderates. Those who in Sam Harris’s words are being intellectually dishonest and giving cover to extremism.
The key to getting past this believer, non-believer issue, is to appeal to the moderates and show unequivocally that compassion is a natural phenomena.
Again, that is why I think this effort is valuable. It is aiming at exactly the people that need this message most, and it is making the statement subtly, as opposed to aggressively.
This is also why atheists should take the time to contribute stories of compassion to this project. Sharing these stories includes us in the big picture where we belong.
This may be why TED is backing it.
To reject this project as a cause of ignorance, is in itself ignorance. I don not understand why PZ took this position. Perhaps he didn’t take the time to actually watch Karen’s initial presentation of the idea at TED, and perhaps he didn’t look in detail at wha the mission of this project actually is.
That is why I am ashamed. I think this response comes of feeling like friendly fire.
Also, I don’t know of any atheist edicts requiring the murder of others in the name of atheism. Conversely, there are plenty of examples in religion.
Damnit. My above post (#122) wasn’t intended as a response to post #70. It was meant for post #64 by “Loudon is a Fool”.
@131 “The key to getting past this believer, non-believer issue, is to appeal to the moderates and show unequivocally that compassion is a natural phenomena”
Won’t saying that the golden rule is fundemental to all religions have the opposite effect i.e. that compassion is a religious phenomenom?
Tony MacDonell #123 wrote:
I think it depends on how closely they connect compassion and morality to religious belief.
A humanist stance is “whether God exists or not, and whether we believe or not, isn’t as important as how we treat each other.” Too often, liberal theism turns from this to say “understanding and loving God — in whatever way you want — is the most important thing, for from this all good things follow.” That ecumenical circle of love just got smaller.
We’re wary. And a bit cynical. And more than a bit concerned that faith, as method, isn’t a good way to anchor secular values, and has a bad track record in practice.
“is knowledge of that “fact” based on something other than a desire to have anal sex without shame?”
And thus we reach the basis of Loudon Fool’s neuroses: No one has ever given him a good ass-fucking. From there, everything he says makes perfect sense.
@134 – if everyone contributes, the message will not be that the “Golden Rule is fundamental to all religions”.
It will be that the “Golden Rule is a natural phenomena that emerges in human societies everywhere”.
The value I see here is that you don’t have to be religious, or even believe in god, to be a compassionate moral person. That is what I hope the arising message of the charter will be. Nothing more.
After the distillation you’d end up with 1 or 2 milliliters of single malt “Do The Right Thing” and several gallons of paint remover grade rot gut. It really shouldn’t be necessary to enlist the help of a celibate old white man wearing a dress and a goofy hat to spread that message to anyone who isn’t a sociopath in desperate need of a sky-dwelling baby sitter.
And as the popular saying goes here, Do you have any references for the claim that “religion is the largest source of charitable giving”. I’m almost willing to grant you the claim that religion is the largest destination of charitable giving. The word is still out on how much of that giving is used for charitable purposes. And no, the building fund for yet another monstrous parking garage next to the temple is not charity. Sending ‘missionaries’ to teach new Sunday School songs to churches in third world countries isn’t charity either. Digging a well = charity. Building proper sewage treatment = charity. Paying for transportation and doctor bills so a child can get a minor surgical treatment so they will walk again = charity. Repeatedly seeing that child out the windows of the local missionary’s van and driving on past while saying a prayer = (Cruel * Criminal) ^ Sadistic.
What may be hard to quantify is the charitable giving that is not recorded on any piece of paper such as those who give to those in need anonymously and without taking tax deductions. Silly, I know, but it has been done.
Tony McDonnell@123,
Concern troll is concerned.
Why? Because you think that 100 quotes on one blog is representative of some notional community? I speak for myself, not for your community.
I actually live in a community of people of many faiths and none, and we all get along very nicely. None of my friends and acquaintances, religious or atheist needs any kind of silly Charter for living.
What the hell will this Charter do?
It is a meaningless gesture designed to demonstrate just how lovely and modern religious liberals are.
Its aims are couched in religious language, and mention of this imaginary Golden Rule still implies that a priviledged moral framework underlies religion.
You cannot hope to address such a plainly bankrupt concept. The proponents of this particular canard will happily dismiss any anecdote or evidence contrary to their belief.
Do we? Are we?
a)Conflating atheism and Darwinian theory, even in analogy, simply doen’t help.
b)You may want to look towards a more complex synthesis of evolutionary theory.
We need to divert people away from radicalism by giving them the critical thinking skills to analyse their own beliefs, not by replacing one fairytale with another.
The fact is that the monotheistic religons are inherently incompatible, which is not to say that adherents cannot become sufficiently liberal to overcome such obstacles to live in harmony. This necessarily involves reinterpretation of doctrine, and rejection of literalism. Trying to pretend that all religions are broadly equivalent will do nothing to reach extremists. Cultural differences run deeper than different preferences for clothes and facial hair.
Sometimes, there is more to be gained from learning about diversity, than by looking for tenuous similarities.
Tony MacDowell, I’ve read your posts and tend to agree. However, targeting moderates with a “whitewash” account of the bad that comes with religious fervor should not be the approach. I agree with Harris that they (moderates) do tend to give safe-harbor to the extremists. I also feel that moderates do not necessarily see it that way. They need to be shown that, and shown that the reason is because of their religious belief.
If the goal is to show religious moderates that morality follows from empathy, and that even Chimpanzee’s demonstrate it, and furthermore, extreme religious views tend to corrupt this fundamental emotion, then I think like it.
But it seems to me that it still isn’t going to discuss all of the other things religion poisons. They should show that cementing one’s views in dogma is extremely unhealthy.
And reality shoots you in the ass:
1. Fundamentalist Christian men are twice as likely to be incest-rapists than men in the general population. Further, the more “liberal” the faith, the lower the incidence of incest-rape.
2. Embezzlement is twice as likely to be perpetrated by white, christian men who go to church at least twice a week.
It goes on and on and on and on and on and on… Atheists, btw, commit the fewest crimes per-capita of any group no matter how you stratify the population.
Another point regarding The Clown’s claims:
His numbers for deaths “due to atheism” include the mass starvations that occurred under the Communist regimes. Half of China’s death total alone is due to the Great Leap Forward. Most of these famines are simply not comparable to religious wars and persecutions. 38 million people didn’t die because Mao was trying to turn them into Communists; they died because Mao was a fricking moron.
If you’re going to include the Communist famines in their death counts, you have to include, among other things, all the deaths caused by religious superstition preventing proper measures against disease. How many AIDS victims has the Pope killed in Africa? How many died of the Black Death because sin was blamed and cats were considered tools of the devil?
PZ, you should back this!
A new religious charter will only whittle away at the old establishment. If there’s anything religion as a whole can’t embrace, it’s change. After all, the bible is supposed to be inerrant.
Like the nicotine patch that helps smokers quit one step at a time, every new religion that pops up siphons fundies from the mainstream churches.
Help scatter them.
And then crush the church.
ARGH! Real-life moderates exist! Not everyone claiming to broadly agree but suggesting we reign it in a bit is a concern troll. Read the rest of Tony’s posts. He’s saying that if we join in we can show these guys that the godless do compassion and hack the religious bias out of this project. That is constructive dialogue, not trolling.
I sometimes think this blog should have the phrase “concern troll” confiscated from it until commenters learn to use it responsibly,
I wouldn’t want to live in the 8th of 14th century anywhere.
I don’t think a charter calling for the uniting of religions, but only includes three is very effective.
I think anything that works to lessen the power of fanatics anywhere and moves towards a more rational world view is good idea. Baby steps are steps.
I think that thousands of years of human belief is a powerful thing.
Here are two guys who could contribute to the Charter for Compassion: George W. Bush and King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia.
@145 Thank you.
@139:
I am certainly not trolling at all. Accuse me if you like, but as an atheist I am already used to getting written off by people with differing opinions that refuse to engage in a 2 sided conversation.
What an insult. I thought this was a place for skepticism and free thinking.< Label me as a troll for that comment if you like. I invite anyone to take a close look at what I wrote in the last few comments and determine for themselves if it constitutes trolling.
I think of religious antagonism as symptomatic rather than causative. It’s kind of like the way individuals’ religious attitudes are a reflection of their personality. The fire-and-brimstone types are nasty, vicious little gits, and the “jesus loves you” types are generally decent and generous people. I don’t buy the contention that religion itself makes a decent person evil, or makes an evil person good.
-jcr
What is all the fuss about? I just watched the short video and it sounds like a call for people from around the globe to submit their modern day stories of individual acts of compassion similar to “The Good Samaritan.” Is compassion somehow a subversive idea now? I do not think that looking for such stories is “blithering utopianism” at all.
Is the objection in that some of the submissions will come from believers? Are those who object saying that only the acts of compassion by nonbelievers are worth the telling?
Fool@126,
I’m sure you won’t mind me using your last name, since it is clearly the most appropriate. You have yet to provide any evidence whatever of the expertise you claim the atheist commenters here need, and lack, to discuss religion. Many of these commenters are ex-Christians, many know the bible far better than most Christians. Show us some of this “expertise” and you might, just possibly, be worth taking seriously.
As for Christianity being non-tribal – that was a feeble attempt at a joke, wasn’t it? From the time they have first had the power to do so, Christians have been torturing and butchering both non-Christians and each other on the basis of adherence to particular formulations of irrational beliefs (to be accepted on the authority of old men wearing special clothes), or the veneration or otherwise of “sacred” objects (pictures, bones, pieces of wood). They’d be at it again if they got the chance.
So we need a pompously-labelled “Council of Sages” to spend a huge amount of time and effort on a “Charter of Compassion” that will say…what, exactly? “Don’t be mean to other people?” The mere fact that this effort is even necessary, that it is so vital to remind the religious of such a basic tenet, is damning in itself. This isn’t rocket science, and there is nothing “sage” about the notion that we should be compassionate to each other.
This is just ponderous feel-good wankery, whose goal seems to be to ameliorate the negative aspects of religion. That’s not necessarily a bad goal. But another way to do that is to get rid of religion in general, and as the source of morality in particular.
(Honestly, a “Council of Sages”? Could they be any more self-important?)
My concern with this effort is that it may tend to coddle the religious. They should show that good deeds happen without religion. Religion is not the source of goodness, and many times, inspires and perpetuates terrible deeds and irrational belief systems. Believers should feel that it’s safe to hold their beliefs, but those beliefs aren’t required for goodness and purpose. This I feel, would help turn religion into something like, well, knitting.
Can’t say much since the server seems to be down atm. However; I can kinda see the good side idea of calling for religions to focus on the things they do decently to make the world better, (soup kicthens, shelters,) instead of all the other BS.
Tony MacDonell,
I doubt very much that this effort is what you think.
I’m more inclined to see it as one more useless “feel good” public relations effort for religious insanity.
Here’s what makes me very skeptical about this :
On their “about” page they write :
Now, please note that if this were really a honest effort for a “charter for compassion” they would simply drop all religious references, and write :
Ken wrote:
@152:
It is wankery, I agree. It does seem stupid to have to remind people that the Golden Rule is such a basic tenet.
But as we all know, the religious books certainly portray a scenario that applies the Golden Rule to one’s own kind, but not everyone as a whole. Awareness building there is needed.
“Does the Golden Rule apply to those that aren’t believers?”, or better yet, “do non believers believe in the Golden Rule?”.
These are the types of fallacies that this charter is trying to raise awareness on from what I can see. While you and I might think these are silly pieces of obvious information, many others have this clouded to them because they see through a haze of dogma.
Again, it may not be something you are interested in, but I still don’t see how it couldn’t be anything other than positive in the long run. I just don’t see what there is to gain by totally trashing it.
“Would you like to live in an 8th or 14th century Christian, Islamic, or Jewish community?”
Like? My life expectancy would be a matter of weeks, days even.
Even so, there’d be a lot worse places to be than 8th century Jarrow.
I thought that TED was a group run by smart people. They had Dennett and Hawking and all sorts of interesting people speak there. This is quite a shock, and I’m very disappointed.
I really admire Karen Armstrong. I’ve read two of her books and they helped to cement the doubts that I had had for some time about my faith. When I was in the process of leaving the church, I looked at this whole unitarian movement, and while it appealed to me at one level, I had just reached a place in my life where I couldn’t see the point of trying to cling to religion at all any more. But I think for many people this sort of movement, or idea, or to use that dreadful post-modern cliche “the conversation” will become the alternative they are looking for to the stifling clutches of fundamentalism. I think this sort of thing will be the beginning of the end of religion, a “halfway house” perhaps, and I welcome it for that reason.
But of what relevance is such “awareness”, if the religious books really do say that the “Golden Rule” doesn’t apply to non-believers? This is what I don’t understand — if the various religious texts do say that, for example, killing apostates is OK, and stoning adulterous women is expected, and, oh yeah, sometimes in the past our sky daddy has condoned and even demanded genocide, how can a “Charter” counter that? Wouldn’t it essentially be saying that certain aspects of religious belief are wrong? How is that supposed to fly with those who genuinely believe?
Nick @ 151:
I would think a pretty thorough knowledge of Scripture, the major councils, the Church Fathers, Plato, Aristotle, Augustine, and Aquinas as well as the responses of modern Thomists to objections raised by Enlightenment thinkers. For a start.
The hubris of atheists is confounding (or maybe not). PZ would never stand for a lecture on cephalopods from some guy whose knowledge was acquired through a high school biology class and a love of Jules Verne. And yet he and the PZian horde routinely and ignorantly kick against the pricks and a 2,000 year plus intellectual history regarding which you lack the information and intellectual discipline necessary to critique.
Well they also had Rick Warren and Billy Graham. Their criteria are traditionally more “do you give us anything to discuss” than “are you right”.
LiaF, since god doesn’t exist, doesn’t that 2000 year history of theological thought amount to mental masturbation?
Fool: The hubris of atheists is confounding (or maybe not). PZ would never stand for a lecture on cephalopods from some guy whose knowledge was acquired through a high school biology class and a love of Jules Verne. And yet he and the PZian horde routinely and ignorantly kick against the pricks and a 2,000 year plus intellectual history regarding which you lack the information and intellectual discipline necessary to critique.
And who is critiquing theology? We are criticizing it’s foundation as an incredible destructive mental endeavor, not picking at the results.
I guess you’d have the humility to not criticize cannibalism until you’ve thoroughly studied 40,000 years of cannibalistic philosophy, eh? Until you thoroughly understand the finer points of whether fat around the heart is sufficient evidence of witchcraft to justify ingesting the victim, and under what conditions you may then kidnap the children and raise them yourself? You would have to know whether sacrifice to the Aztec Gods is efficacious during evening Venus or night Venus correct?
Otherwise, you’re just showing arrogance to the subtleties of those philosophical systems, correct?
Please place your Irony Meters behind a blast-proof shield:
Thank you and now please feel free to move about the cabin.
Loudon is a Fool, #162:
In which case you should have much respect for the interpretations of Professor of Religious Studies (Iowa State University) Hector Avalos, in his book Fighting Words . Now off to the library with you.
#162 @ LiaF,
Your reasoning isn’t even wrong.
Nerd, your question is not germane to my general comment being ignorant people shouldn’t opine about things they know nothing about (e.g., the nature and character religion). I would think that is a fairly non-controversial statement. Unless directed at atheists who evidently are omniscient and know only what they need to know. Which is convenient.
Nice jibe WRMartin. Hubris indeed.
Hey everybody, I believe in talking snakes because this ancient book says one existed! Yay!
@161:
Well it will certainly put pressure on these organizations to take a stance on the Golden Rule publicly. That is what I find interesting. To be honest with you, I do not think the charter will work, for the exact same reason you do not. I don’t think that many of the faiths will be able to publicly say that compassion is universal(and you don’t need god for it either).
But I would love to see that publicly rejected by them, for the same reason, that I’d love to see them publicly admit it is universal. It brings the discussion out into the wide open.
@159:
Dan Dennet appeared on TED 3 times (that videos are up for). One was a response to Rick Warren’s “Purpose Driven Life”. In that talk he put forth views from his book “Breaking The Spell”, where he admits that religion is a natural phenomena that occurs in all human societies. He goes on to say that the only way to keep fundamentalism under control is to spend “more” time teaching people about religion. Not one though…, as many as possible.
He believes that teaching people (children in particular) more about more religions, is the way in which fundamentalism will be reduced, because it will be easier for them to see the key elements that make them useful(and successful), yet not lead them easily into being taken advantage of. He also admits that putting this into action would be very difficult.
I wonder how much the moderates realise that by protecting “faith” they are simply harbouring fanatics who have faith in the really absurd. By protecting the institution they are protecting those who are seeking to destroy society as we know it.
#162,
Google for “courtier’s reply”.
-jcr
“…opine about things they know nothing about…”
How do you know what I know? Talk about omniscient. Wow. You come off like a pretentious moron. I used to practice xtianity for many years…until I came to my senses and realized that magic is not real. I’ve spent ample time investigating all the things they passed over during sermon. The things they don’t like to preach about. Certainly that made me feel uncomfortable for a while, but maturity helps one accept reality.
Loudon, my comment is germane. If god doesn’t exist, then all the theology written down if fiction. Therefore, there is no theological truth to be conversant with to have an informed opinion.
Just where the fuck do you think most atheists came from Fool? I’m sure many of us can out-quote you chapter & verse. I know little about Catholicism, I’ll admit, but I have no problem regurgitating Southern Baptist creed and all the biblical text you want. I know it’s been brought up before, but your name suits you.
Not that I don’t enjoy repeating myself on nearly every thread when this religion topic pops up but would someone please explain this ignorance of the imaginary that I have?
Ignorant people shouldn’t opine about things they know nothing about (e.g., the nature and character of Klingon). Individuals shouldn’t criticize those who dress up at science fiction conventions until they have a pretty thorough knowledge of the movie scripts, the major series, the series writers, Roddenberry, Berman, and Braga, as well as the responses of modern novelizations to objections raised by the “old show Klingons didn’t have no bumps on the head” fans. For a start.
And they should be able to speak Klingon.
I like what Tony McDonell is saying. Yah, so add me to the “concern trolls”, then and write me off…
My main reason is simple realism. People are NOT EVER, en masse, going to think “Oh oops my religion was dumb, I’m suddenly a critical thinker and an atheist, yay!” People cling onto their irrational beliefs for all sorts of psychological and social reasons.
If you can make those beliefs less harmful to others, you are doing a good thing. If you can get the moderates to stand up against the fundies, you are doing a good thing. If you can expand the tribal community from “my religion only” to “lots of other people with somewhat different ideas”, you are doing a good thing.
It’s the principle of harm minimisation. It’s not a cure, but it helps make things better to a degree and is therefore worth supporting. The perfect should not be the enemy of the good.
OK, sure, observe how this isn’t the end goal – but you’re not going to get to that end goal by magic. You guys don’t even believe in magic, remember!
So you need to know scripture to think the concept of the supernatural is stupid? I’m guessing for that reason you think it okay to believe in the Rainbow Serpent because you haven’t studied Aboriginal mythology?
You can get high and mighty, but the fact is you have dismissed almost every other god that has ever been or ever will be. You’ve decided that the judao-christian God is the one true god, and you have forsaken Apollo, Zeus, Mithra, Mazda, Brahman (and his millions of incarnations), Ra, Osiris, Horus, Krishna, Buddha and the karmic wheel, Odin, Thor, Mercer, Allah, The Giant Rainbow Serpent, the idea of spiritual ancestors, Lord Dagon, Ziltoid The Omniscient, Venus, Mars, Xeno, North American animalism, all incarnations of African tribalism, and every other supernatural deity that has or will exist in the future.
Do you know enough about Ziltoid to dismiss belief in him?
Oooh, ooooh! The Courtesan’s Reply! Everybody drink!
Not yet, but with a kick ass name like that I’m willing to learn. clickity, clickity, wikipedia, clickity, …
Hear ye! Hear ye!
We should all bow down before Ziltoid The Omniscient and praise him.
Thanks Kel. Praise be unto Ziltoid The Omniscient.
PZ would never stand for a lecture on cephalopods from some guy whose knowledge was acquired through a high school biology class and a love of Jules Verne. And yet he and the PZian horde routinely and ignorantly kick against the pricks and a 2,000 year plus intellectual history regarding which you lack the information and intellectual discipline necessary to critique. – Fool
One big difference is, Fool, that PZ can show anyone who asks a cephalopod; you can’t show anyone your alleged god. Another is that nothing in zoological study of cephalopods is patently absurd, whereas much in “theology” is: for example, the doctrines of the trinity, of the incarnation, and of vicarious atonement. A third is that current opinion in the study of cephalopods has been arrived at by observation, experiment and mathematical and logical reasoning; current opinion in “theology” has been arrived at mostly by who managed to kill more of their opponents. Since this became largely impossible, with the decline of Christianity, there has of course been a splintering into numerous mutually contradictory sects, which have no way of settling their differences. So in short “theology” is a pseudo-subject, a gigantic fraud; you, by contrast, are a little fraud.
@ LiaF #126:
You blithering idiot! Racial identity is not the basis for calling something tribal (unless you’re a fundamentalist literalist). The label of tribal is about noting the behaviour of an in-crowd (“tribe”) in its silly rituals and its bigoted discrimination against all outsiders.
Christianity is so extremely tribal it has been splitting into rival cults from the time of its inception. Eg there are the cracker people and the non-cracker people etc etc.
You demonstrate the most extraordinary ignorance yourself of the most basic of concepts while inaccurately preaching against the ignorance you merely imagine in others. Something about motes and planks probably applies …
Aside: GodChecker says the deity of the day is Vainamoinen. He looks a bit sad in their portrait of him.
“The label of tribal is about noting the behaviour of an in-crowd (“tribe”) in its silly rituals and its bigoted discrimination against all outsiders. ”
A quick review of bumper stickers used by American Christians bears this out. You never see ones that say “Blessed Are The Meek”, most often you get variations on the theme, “I’m Going To Heaven, Yer Not!”
I understand that intellectual discipline is difficult for the uncurious and mildly retarded, but, if you can, please try to make distinctions. PZ made a generalization about religious history and, implicitly, the nature of the Abrahamic faiths. The PZian horde slavishly piled on. My comment was that opinining as to the nature of a thing, would seem to require knowledge of the thing. Knowledge that he and many of the rest of you appear to lack. So, for example, when you say “Christianity is bad because by its nature it cause people to be violent and to oppress others” and I say “Maybe you don’t know what Christianity is” it’s not responsive to retort “Yeah, but I totally hate God, dude, and I hate you too.” It’s interesting to be sure, and provides a frightening glimpse into the character of at least this particular crowd of atheists, but I don’t think it addresses the critique. But I could be wrong as I lack the infallibility of PZ speaking from the chair to his horde.
I’m pretty sure the Courtesan‘s reply would be much sexier.
I understand that intellectual discipline is difficult for the uncurious and mildly retarded
Better than most, I’d wager.
Tony MacDonell wrote:
I’ve got youTube video of both lectures on this blog post:
http://normdoering.blogspot.com/2008/08/dealing-with-religion-in-respectful.html
Here’s a taste of my commentary:
Warren says things like, “God smiles when you be you,” and, “God gets pleasure watching you be you.” (But, of course, it’s not about you.) Did anyone ever ask, “is God smiling down on Dan Dennett when Dan is being the ultra atheistic Dan Dennet?” Did God wire Dan Dennett to be an atheistic philosopher?
When the ancients were building the Tower of Babel to “make the world a better place,” was God smiling down on them and thinking how happy he was about that tower? If he was, then why destroy the tower and confuse their languages? Was God smiling down on the people he destroyed with a world-wide flood? The God of the Bible seems very unhappy with people just being people and doing things like worshiping golden calves or preaching the wrong gospel. Is he smiling down at all the people he condemns to hell because they were being what they were wired to be?
The symbolism of “what’s in your hand” seems to be the kind of loose metaphoric, symbolic thinking that allows a believer to find whatever they want to be believe in the Bible. Then you can more easily cherry pick it and stretch it into all sorts of new shapes and meanings.
Fool: I understand that intellectual discipline is difficult for the uncurious and mildly retarded, but, if you can, please try to make distinctions. PZ made a generalization about religious history and, implicitly, the nature of the Abrahamic faiths. The PZian horde slavishly piled on. My comment was that opinining as to the nature of a thing, would seem to require knowledge of the thing.
Where is the distinction? You posit that your opponents “fail to make a distinction”, then you make a claim that your opponents lack sufficient knowledge to debate. Nowhere do you point out what distinction has failed to be made.
Now, that brings up the point made multiple times and not responded too — that you fail to make the distinction between criticizing an entire system, and critiquing it. I think you may not know what the latter means, even though you seem to enjoy using the term.
You don’t need to fully describe every member of an ensemble in order to have a firm grasp of the entire ensemble; often the latter is much simpler than it’s members.
On top of that, you fail to point out any specific errors, but continually throw out these weak generalization “PZ’s slavish hordes don’t know anything about…”
Specifically what is unknown that is relevant to the case at hand? Who specifically is talking out of their ass? Instead, we get generalized insults — excellent evidence of your cowardice (moral and otherwise). You lack the genitals to take on any of your opponents directly, on a specific point, but hide behind a miasma of insult and pseudo-debate.
You truly make a great example of the intellectual honesty of your compatriots. Begone now, and return when you’ve reached the level of an elementary school debating class.
Cath the Canberra Cook #179,
I doubt this Charter For Compassion will help for achieving that objective;
For instance, practical example, do you think that if one had reminded Californians that, “while all faiths are not the same, they all share the core principle of compassion and the Golden Rule“, they would have rejected proposition 8 ?
What’s typical religious, is that they claim that they teach about compassion, but in practice, they’re anything but compassionate.
I think this effort is far, far away from what D.Dennett is proposing. It doesn’t teach people about all religions, otherwise this would include the main points of disagreement, but only about one supposedly common aspect of religion.
So this effort will have no practical effect. Only to get a few faithheads to feel good.
“My comment was that opinining as to the nature of a thing, would seem to require knowledge of the thing.”
Why do you keep repeating the same fallacious argument? All faiths are garbage. Particularly the abrahamic onces, particularly xtianity. This is what history shows us. This is what current events show us. This argument has been swatted down numerous times on this thread. Are you reading?
Knowledge that he and many of the rest of you appear to lack.
By what measure did you reach this conclusion? Again, are you reading the thoughtful responses to your challenges? It doesn’t seem like it.
You bring a new standard to epic fail.
Credulous Loud Fool:
There is no GOD to hate, dip shit, and we don’t hate you, we just like to make fun of you.
negentropyeater, you may well be right that it will be ineffective. I’m commenting on their goal only; I don’t feel qualified to debate American culture.
And yes, that attitude might well have helped with Prop 8. If more Christians could be more compassionate and accepting, like the quakers and liberal anglicans that I know who actively campaign for gay rights, and if that attitude had replaced some of the fundy frothing… As you folks say, do the math.
Well, then the balance shifts. They are still a bit kookoo nutcases with invisible friends, but they are less harmful kookoo nutcases with invisible friends.
Well said E.V..
Even after many years, I get amazed at how believers simply can not conceive that a person could think that deities are not real.
Foolboy – like E.V. said, there is no god to hate. Deities have never been shown to be real. Magic is not real. Materialism is everything. Get it? No case can be made that supports those childish notions. You and those like you love to throw your little tantrums when confronted with people who are O.K. with materialism, and actually find great solace in it. It is a comforting known, but unlike your make-believe sky-buddy, it’s actually real.
Ziltoid is so omniscient that if there were two omniscients he would be both.
Have you heard the good news? About Kanaloa, the god who is a cephalopod?
Maybe he’s not omniscient but he does have tentacles.
LOL. Really.
And…I’m outta here. Thanks for all the fishes. Be sure to try the veal and don’t forget to tip your waitress.
I’m not sure I’m into the tentacle thing. Galaxy Quest kinda ruined it for me. Plus, Cthulhu seems like a grumpy bugger.
Shit, I forgot about Yivo. We most all “love the tentacle”, which I guess is a japanese pubescent fantasy.
Frog/Alex/E.V.:
I’m going to try to push this rock up one more time. Please read the following carefully. Then pull up your pants, print this comment out, leave your viking helmet in the basement, and go up stairs and have your mom read it to you slowly. Then you read it again. Then have your mom quiz you a bit about what it means.
To make the case that Christians are violent because of the nature of Christianity requires at the very least: (1) a showing of violence by Christians, and (2) an understanding of the nature of Christianity. If we stipulate (1) that still leaves (2).
To summarize the argument thus far.
PZian horde: “Christianity breeds violence.”
Reasonable men: “Do you know enough about Christianity to make that statement?”
PZian horde: “I don’t need to because I don’t believe in God.”
Can you see, Frog/Alex/E.V., how that response does not appear to support the initial generalization?
“I don’t need to because I don’t believe in God.”
Hey numbnuts, go back and read my posts before making such idiotic assumptions about me. Fucking moron.
Go. Learn. History. Bitch.
Then there’s Chanukah Zombie, Robot Santa, Robot Devil, Kwanzaa Bot, unicorns, fairies, elves, Sauron, Loch Ness Monster, Cthulu, Bigfoot, Yeti, regular Santa, Eru Ilúvatar, The Ghost Of Christmas Past, The Ghost of Christmas Future, The Red Queen, Aslan, that foot cutout from Monty Python…
How can we know that we aren’t descended from men who rode out of middle-earth on a boat from the grey havens? How else would have Tolkien envisioned such a fanciful and complete world of his own? How can we say that hobbits are fictional and Frodo’s journey to Mount Doom to destroy the one ring of power is nothing more than allegorical fiction? That the story is there simply to inspire courage and expose the frailties that are the human condition? Was Frodo’s friendship with Sam simply a tale of the power of friendship? Surely it’s far too detailed and explicit to be anything other than one man’s imagination. Eru must have worked through Tolkien to tell the tale of the history of mankind.
No, you need to know about the history of Christianity to make that statement, not about Christianity itself. We can study the battles of history, study conflict, and we can look at our own society and see where the behaviour manifests.
What of that requires any biblical knowledge whatsoever?
Perhaps christianity doesn’t inspire people to violence per se – but, since adherence to it implies that one should become non-violent, the fact that christians are still capable of (and, often enough, extremely enthusiastic about)violence undermines its veracity and/or its efficacy.
Plus there’s the forgiveness thing. Do bad, say ‘I’m sorry jebus, pretty please with sugar on top’ and then it’s all okay. Off you go to do it again. Lather, rinse, repeat.
Shorter Loudon:
Because I have spent years in disciplined accumulation of theological knowledge, I am now hurt with the implication that so much time spent might amount to mere castles in the air.
Religions by their very nature are divisive (i.e. tribal). It’s not an option either. It’s not like the founders all sit around and choose whether or not their newly
foundedfabricated religion is divisive. It’s inherent with authoritarian hierarchies. You either assimilate, get assimilated, or get removed. Dissension is corrosive to authoritarian leadership, so it is expunged, and uniformity is imposed. And when dealing with completely unfounded and unsupportable ideas like “salvation”, “heaven”, “hell”, “god”, authority is the only way to rule. The value of logic and reason must be diminished, while the value of blind following and faith extolled.Once one understands the mechanisms of such devices, knowledge about the particulars of a religion is not necessary. Only a shallow thinker would claim otherwise.
Kel,
I’m not sure that’s sufficient. Alex thinks it is. But he’s not the sharpest knife in the drawer (based solely on your comments here, Alex, I’m sure outside of the comment boxes you are a perfectly rational person). Is a showing that violence existed during the same period of time as Christianity sufficient? Particularly given that Greeks, Romans, Europeans, Middle Easterners, Indians, Native Americans, Africans, Asians, South Americans, and Americans all appear to have a strong history of violent activity whether they were pagan, Jewish, Christian, Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist or atheist. I think to raise the inference of causation you need to show something in the nature of Christianity that leads to violence. But you don’t want to spend the time necessary to understand Christianity to know if there is something about it that causes violence. Fair enough. So I recommend you file that opinion under “ignorance” and keep it and your various other bigoted beliefs to yourself.
Since I directed Loudon is a Fool to read what Professor of Religious Studies Hector Avalos has written about Abrahamic religions, he has posted three times, continuing to insist that religious scholarship is necessary for those who wish their critiques of religion to deserve a serious hearing. Yet he has entirely failed to address, or even acknowledge the work of a scholar of religion who disagrees with him.
Perhaps LiaF does not really believe scholarly knowledge of religion is important.
Clown speaks:
… taught and enforced? See, its communism you must be talking about. Along with personality cult and deification of leaders, whitch hunts against counter-revolutionaries, precedence of the abstract concept of state over individuals’ actual well-being, and general irrational and pseudo-scientific thought. How very religious-like. I think you already did the arguing for me: atheism is just lack belief in god, so it can’t be what made all those people do those nasty things.
No, it’s not. But showing that Christianity is not a good behavioural modifier is. When we see persecution, torture, rape, murder, and genocide all done in the name of religion, then it’s hardly a stand-out candidate for morality. Look at the conquistadors who conquered South America. They brought a priest along with them who would first try to convert the natives. If they didn’t convert to God, the next day they would be slaughtered by those soldiers of fortune.
The problem is that Christianity claims to be a source of morality, and not only a source but the source. We see time and time again throughout history that Christians and Christian societies have engaged in brutality and violence against non-believers and even against themselves.
Personally I don’t think Christians are any more or any less violent than any other tribe or religion. It’s in our nature to be aggressive and territorial. To be the alpha male ruling over a pack. What I find abhorred about Christianity is that the only unforgivable sin is blasphemy, every other manner of sin is forgiven. So people can and do commit henous acts only to ask for forgiveness later; or even worse, they believe they are acting according to God’s will. When you think God is acting through you, it speaks dangers for that person and the society around him. When you have people like Bush who prayed to God before starting a war that has cost hundreds of thousands of lives, surely you can see the problem of God being a justification. It’s a granting of immunity for one’s own actions. And that is a major problem given the capacity inside each of us to commit such malevolence on our neighbours.
Fool, that is stupid. The bible is full of violence. Jezuz himself was violent. Beating of wives, children,slaves and animals is all approved behavior in the bible. If you are so well skilled in knowing the bible, how did you miss that? Do you think gawd flooding the earth and killing everyone, and everything except his choicest few wasn’t violent?
Loudon is a Fool #203 wrote:
I think that one can make a good case that Christian theology itself is structured on a world view which can easily justify violence, because it assumes both a morally structured universe and a narrative where the Good are ultimately rewarded, and the wicked are ultimately punished, by an authority which commands through total power. And this is how it should be.
As I understand it, the basic story claims that Humanity was created perfect, but rebelled from complete devotion to God, and this act of sin polluted man’s once perfect (or at least very good) nature. In order to join together with God and restore the reason for which we were created, there must be genuine repentance and forgiveness for this rebellion. However, there can be no forgiveness without the payment of blood. Crime requires that the wrongdoer suffer. Since human blood is no longer pure enough to compensate for the crime, only the blood of the innocent will do. Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross helps to atone for the rebellion, and allows the faithful to reconcile themselves to the original source of Perfect Good. Those who are not willing to accept that sacrifice on their behalf will be forever separated from God.
There are variations, of course, and different parts are emphasized, but I think this is the basic narrative most Christian theologies share. It is a story that invokes Evil Natures and Good Natures, the saved and the damned, punishment and forgiveness, and an underlying belief that only Perfection counts. The sacrifice of Jesus is an act of violence done to compensate for disobedience. The damned are plot devices to show how the wicked will get what they deserve (or want.)
And the ability to accept this story as true (and God’s existence in the first place) is not a matter of evidence, facts, and the cautious application of the scientific method, but an openness of heart and spirit. Those who do not believe, lack these virtues. Those who believe, have these virtues. All worth and value come from God. Those who fail to acknowledge this debt, are cheaters. Their beliefs and actions are foolishness.
I don’t know which, if any, parts of this you will disagree with. I tried to go with the mainstream version, as it is usually preached to its followers and potential converts.
Now, assuming I have this right, I do think that this sort of frame will naturally bring insiders closer together — and marginalize or dismiss outsiders. As PZ put it, not so much harmony and unity for all, but a variation of tribalism for the insiders. Many of the great theologians you mention believed in death for heresy. It rather naturally follows, I think, if you take nonbelief to be so dangerous.
The more that virtue and meaning make worldly sense, and are made accessible to everyone, regardless of any religious belief, the less significant the story becomes. “Sin” just means not living up to our humanistic values. “Jesus” stands in for our highest ideals or caring for others. You can metaphor and symbolized any religion towards atheism. And thereby make it more reasonable, and take away its teeth.
One can even read the NT and derive a pacifist stance, but I think it is harder.
Fool: PZian horde: “Christianity breeds violence.”
Reasonable men: “Do you know enough about Christianity to make that statement?”
PZian horde: “I don’t need to because I don’t believe in God.”
Proving yourself worthy of the name fool once again.
First, specify exactly what is in error and by whom, instead of spouting off generalities. Who has shown ignorance, and specifically of what! If you had actually studied your history of Christian and proto-Christian theology all the way back to the pre-Socratic Greeks, instead of throwing out names like a star-fucker, you would know that that is how this game is played.
Second, who has said “I don’t need to know enough about Christianity because I don’t believe in God”?? If you think anyone has — your reading comprehension belies your scholastic pretensions. The argument on that issue has clearly been that you don’t need a PhD in theology to argue whether the entire theological project is bankrupt — this isn’t Free-Will Baptists vs. Reformed Free-Will Baptists here, but a question whether the entire class of Abrahmic theology has inherently destructive foundations.
For that question, a general knowledge of religion and culture is relevant — not whether the crackers are magic or not, and at what point they get their jesusy goodness.
Finally, I warned you how asinine and cowardly you appear with your PZian horde. Insults are of value by their very specificity — generic insults are not only bound to be incorrect, but are the intellectual equivalent of shooting into a crowd while running away. Say — “I think frog (little f!) is a cretinous fool because he said X, but Y -> ! X”. On top of everything, you are a very slow pupil.
llewelly – Perhaps that book is too hard for Fool. I have Avalos’s latest book on biblical studies, and it’s really hard slogging for a person of my limited education.
Kudos to you if you can get through Avalos!
Now stop being a self-righteous twat about this and actually read what people are saying here. No-one is saying that if you are a Christian you will be violent. That’s just stupid. What people are saying is that Christianity can be a source of violence, and it’s one that is justified in their belief core. You don’t need to understand the context of Luke 19:27 or even know of Luke 19:27 to see throughout history the extreme persecution, torture, rape, murder and genocide done in the name of the lord. You look at history, at the motivation and environment of the time.
What does it matter if Jesus said “love thy enemy” if his followers throughout history have routinely slaughtered their enemies? Why would we look to scripture when we can study history and behavioural psychology? Surely the latter would give a more accurate assessment. Looking to the sermon on the mount is hardly going to give a good basis as to why there was the spanish inquisition. Looking at the socio-economic environment of the time however will give a much better understanding.
A christian should, by definition, be non-violent. The second a christian commits a violent act christianity itself is undermined. That thousands of christians, under the direction of other christians, commit violent acts en masse to this very day, it is undermined to the point of invalidation.
For the third time numbnuts, that is false equivalency. We DO know. Most of us were raised with religion and I went to the Seminary.
Your logic is 1 +1 = dog.
Get it through your thick head, just because we recognize that god and religion are human constructs, doesn’t mean we don’t know or understand religion, you willfully ignorant twit. The argument you are trying to use has been coined “The Courtesan’s Reply”. Idiot.
Kel: Personally I don’t think Christians are any more or any less violent than any other tribe or religion.
You’re thinking would be wrong — yes, humanity in general does have tribalims and violence. But looking at it empirically and historically, Christianity and Islam have been overwhelmingly violent. Hinduism lacks the same Imperial vigor of the Roman derived religions. Buddhism is even more handicapped ideologically. The native Chinese relgions are inward turned, demanding no universalism — they may be good ways to keep down the serfs, but that has limits.
No — evangelism inherently runs the risk of promoting conquest, universalism inherently runs the risk of totalitarianism, and monotheism clearly implies authoritarianism.
They may all be bad, but we do have to honestly gradate them.
Okay Fool -explain the Crusades and The Inquisition. Oh and how about the “Irish Troubles”, or the purges by the Russian Orthodox Church? I can go on and on.
llewelly,
I didn’t think it merited a comment. I have no objection to your appeal to authority. So to the extent your argument is “Christianity is inherently violent because Hector Avalos says so” I can’t criticize your failure to investigate the nature of Christianity.
Tony MacDonel #137:
No. I may be overly cynical, but, if the past is any indication, “if everyone contributes” the public perception of this will be something like:
INTERFAITH COUNCIL OF SAGES CONFIRM TOLERANCE AND GOLDEN RULE ARE AT THE CORE OF ALL RELIGIONS
Subtitle: Many eminent atheists and humanists agree
—
i.e., A nice PR win for free.
Damn… Courtier’s Reply…
LiaF, why investigate Xiananity. It is based on the false premise that god exist. And we won’t get into the three types of god. Since it is based a false premise, it is of null intellectual content. Egro, fair game for any complaints.
True, but a lot of the level of violence I would contend has to do with resources, population and power. I would agree that at it’s core some religions are less violent than others, Buddhism is a good example. Though I would contend that at best all these constructs are merely masks placed on our innate behaviours and there’s none that will ultimately take away our tribal mentalities simply through ideology. Monotheistic religions to seem inherently more violent than other types of belief systems, the absolutist nature of having a single deity has been a source of conflict in itself. Simply by existing in an absolutist way it causes conflict though I would argue that it’s more to do with the nature of the meme than any specific content with Loudon is a Fool is trying to get at.
It seems he can’t fathom how people could condemn Christianity as being a source of violence when Jesus says to turn the other cheek and love your enemy in the sermon on the mount. Since the religion teaches non-violence, how can it lead to violence? This is why it’s important to look at the historical perspective, to see how these conflicts arise. And just because Jesus said “judge not lest ye be judged”, it doesn’t mean Christianity is immune to the more brutal aspects of the human condition. The problem with a lot of believers simply is they think our behaviour is dictated by free-will; that if you have the right message in your heart then you’ll be as God intended. This is of course bollocks.
Loudon,
I don’t believe christianity is inherently violent. However, since it is meant to be a religion of non-violence, and its adherents are most certainly not that, it is a failure.
Haw, haw E.V., that was a slip no doubt caused by the Donahue thread. Funny though!
Well, E.V., seminaries aren’t what they used to be. And I stipulated violence, but noted I don’t think it’s enough. Nor do I think the failure of Christians to practice their faith is evidence of an inherent failure of the faith any more than an example of a researcher fudging his findings is an indictment of the scientific method.
The more general criticisms along the lines of “it’s hierarchical and that’s bad” or “they believe in salvation and damnation” at least rise to the level of a late night college bull session.
And Sastra, who makes the noble attempt to show the nature of the thing is problematic, unintentionally proves my point with this:
However, there can be no forgiveness without the payment of blood. Crime requires that the wrongdoer suffer. Since human blood is no longer pure enough to compensate for the crime, only the blood of the innocent will do.
Which is just bizarre.
So I stand behind my original comment. You guys are talking out of your collective asses when you talk about religion. I recommend you limit your comments to “I don’t believe it” or, perhaps more appropriately, non serviam, and leave it at that.
LiaF, since god doesn’t exist, all religions are fictions. We should be able to criticize fictions.
Your original comment was wrong. You forget that most people here were religious at one stage, and quite a lot have an in-depth knowledge on the scriptures and Christianity itself. Though that doesn’t really matter as indicators of behaviour are far better explained by physiology & psychology, and the collective behaviour is far better explained by sociology and history.
Just because you think that the message of Jesus was non-violent, it doesn’t stop the structure of the meme leading to violence. It’s like looking at communism and saying that you need to understand Marx instead of looking at practical implementations of it in order to criticise communism. No, the reason why communism works is because the idealism is incompatible with human behaviour, just as the words of Jesus are.
You’re original point is mute, fundamentally flawed and it’s just an apologetic tactic to silence the detractors. It’s the same tactic D’Souza uses.
Loudon is a Fool #230 wrote:
I agree, but at least some of the mainstream sects advance this rationale for the atonement. I’ve had it set out for me several times by Christians who were arguing for why the incarnation was necessary, and the importance and significance of God’s son being the only acceptable sacrifice (for he was without sin.) It seems to be backed up by common phrases like being “washed in the blood of the lamb.” I’d repeat it back (because it does seem strange), and they’d say ‘yes, you got it.’
How then would you explain the atonement — and why Jesus had to die on the cross to pay for sin? I’ve been assuming you’re not a follower of Bishop Spong (who thinks this whole story is archaic and means something totally different), but maybe you are.
Wow, I admit I am impressed. Fool is the sole knower of christianity on earth.
Have you alerted the vatican Fool?
Shhhhh. This is supposed to be a secret.
LiaF: Well, I think Sastra was bang on insightful (X2 this thread)).It’s not bizarre at all. Jeebus was the “purest blood” there could possibly be, since He was supposed to be Himself (god). That of course opens the problems with the statements in John and then Paul as opposed to MML. That in turn leads to whether we are even talking about an historic figure, a composite or a complete fiction.The crucifiction was supposed to mark the end of the old animal sacrifice temple period. Since there is no proof of such a historic figure, well…it’s all speculative philosophy and mental masturbation based on…pfft! By the “true nature of christianity”, well, why won’t you spell it out, instead of being all vague with hints of mystical understanding (which none of these “mechanical ” types here would know anything about).
By “modern”, of course, you mean “pre-1968” (compare radiocarbon years BP) or “USA”. I am not a patriot, and where I come from that’s normal (unless it comes to
footballsoccer, which I agree is entirely mythological).Not all that much. He had a few thousand Saxons deported (not killed, as was long thought), but that mostly was it.
Yes, you want to. You want to believe.
All of your examples, and then some, held communism as their core belief. And communism is just another religion, with the sole exception that only Kim Il-Sung got an afterlife.
That is being discussed six threads before this one! Check it out. (Ideally before commenting here.)
Also, never cite a press release when there’s an actual paper. Press releases almost invariably contain hyperbole and even misunderstandings, sometimes grave ones.
That’s at least one zero too much.
No.
I can tell you what is good: that which lies in my own long-term self-interest. Note I said “long-term”, and note that it is in my self-interest to feel good — and because (unlike certain libertarianists, Theodore Beale, and apparently you) I have innate empathy, being altruistic makes me feel good.
It’s simple. It is much simpler than you imagined. You don’t need a waffler like Plantinga for anything at all.
Wow. There were Georgians in the Mongol army? That many?
To be fair, that latter phenomenon may have something to do with the availability of guns.
(Hey, this thread is already a bloodbath, what with all those troll parts splattered around all over the place! We might as well turn it into yet another gun-control thread! Yeehaw!!!)
What community? :-)
Not surprising. Väinämöinen was already an old man with a long beard when he was born.
Kill them all, God will recognize His own.
The Thirty Years War
St. Bartholomew’s Day Massacre
Examples of christians behaving badly. But it is simplistic to claim that christianity made people commit violent acts. This is making the assumption that christianity introduced the possibility of violence to humans. This is absurd.
Christianity, like most other religions, provides a focus and gives a reason for violence.
So sorry that I do not care to know the minutia of any religion. I much rather follow my own flights of fancy, and the fancies of others who seem interesting. Loudon Is A Fool is not interesting.
Okay Fool. You never addressed this question: “Okay Fool -explain the Crusades and The Inquisition. Oh and how about the “Irish Troubles”, or the purges by the Russian Orthodox Church?” I’ll add the slaughter of the Aztecs, St. Bartholomew’s Day Massacre…
On the one hand, we’re always wondering why religious “moderates” aren’t criticizing fundamentalists as loudly as the atheists do. We’re wondering why they’re working against us rather than with us. On the other hand, when it actually happens, when they organize a charter against fundamentalism, we try to criticize them into the ground. Can we at least give them props for trying?
That said, I’m very surprised to see TED is behind this. I thought they took no position on this kind of thing.
Well, duh. Show us there is somebody to serve, and we can talk. :-|
(Which, unsurprisingly, is an argument I’ve seen several self-described communists make.)
Because they have a commonality and we’re not a part of that. They’re like blood kin, they can fight, scream and swear among themselves, and the moderates may get along better with us but we’re the enemy ultimately. We’re no longer their kin because we no longer drink the Kool-Aid.
More than just that: it provides means, motive and opportunity for all manner of crimes.
Means = a ready-made gang of believers/followers (and the money, power and kit which goes with that too).
Motive = all sorts of trumped up “sins” to be punished etc and both real and fake rewards to motivate the gang into going along with the crime.
Opportunity = no shortage of outsiders – and all a religion has to do is split into further cults to make more (were it ever to be in danger of including everyone in the vicinity).
Since no religion is evidence-based and all pride themselves on faith and loyalty, the vices are very much built in features. Eg starting with the absolute necessity to be dishonest with oneself and others about reality (the more religious the more dishonest).
Oops – that was meant to be “rewards and threats” not just “rewards”. Both of those can be real and/or imaginary.
SEF, It also provides a get-out-of jail card, since upon repentance sins are unfailingly forgiven.
Kel,
I’m not sure I follow your argument. Are you saying that my original point is moot because men are violent by nature and are uncured by Christianity? Or are you saying that socially Kel,
I’m not sure I follow your argument. Are you saying that my original point is moot because men are violent by nature and are uncured by Christianity? Or are you saying that socially transmitted behaviors associated with Christianity by their nature result in violence? If the first then fair enough. But then it’s silly to argue a connection between religion and violence. If it’s the second I guess we’ll just agree to disagree. I think it’s a fair argument for Marxists to say practical examples of communism are flawed in some way, therefore to critique Marx you should read Marx. I also think it’s a fair argument to say that communism is contrary to human nature, but if the communist responds that I misunderstand Marx I’m not sure how I respond without reading Marx.
Sastra, it was not necessary for Christ to die. It was necessary for him to be fully man and fully God to heal the breach caused by man (Adam) for which purpose man as man would be insufficient given that the offense was against God. So the one who heals the breach between man and God is both man and God. I think the point of suffering is sacrifice for another. But the most minimal amount of suffering by Christ would have been sufficient to atone for man’s sins. Christ goes the extra mile as a model of selfless suffering. Given that the central tenet of Christianity is self sacrifice to the point of death I am puzzled by claims that Christianity leads to the rape and murder of others.
Don’t forget forgiveness for committing crimes. A christian’s guilt or remorse over committing a crime can theoretically be alleviated if he/she can be convinced of the power of forgiveness. A non-believer has no such get-out-of-jail-free card.
DM: Which, unsurprisingly, is an argument I’ve seen several self-described communists make
Marxism — particularly the Lenninist varieties — look like nothing more than secularized Christianity: All the calories and none of the flavor.
Did Nietzche ever take on Marx? He would have had endless poetry on that one!
Didn’t the anarchists warn about that when Marx started taking over the communist internationals?
Put it another way: We (atheists) are the Surgeon General telling the Tobacco Execs, they can’t sell their products to minors and they have to post a health warning on the side of each pack. We may be great golfing buddies but they would cut our throats in a heartbeat in order to survive.
Fool is a Fool. *Killfile*
Sastra: However, there can be no forgiveness without the payment of blood. Crime requires that the wrongdoer suffer. Since human blood is no longer pure enough to compensate for the crime, only the blood of the innocent will do.
Fool: Which is just bizarre.
Don’t you even know your damn own religion? You mutter about Thomists, etc… which is only decoration on the cake. But it’s very clear to anyone who has ever been to both a mass and a pesach supper that the Jesus symbolism places him as the First Born Sons of the Egyptian Last plague, where the “Blood of the Lamb” was used by the Hebrews as a sign and replacement for God’s mass-murder of all first-born sons.
Don’t you know that a sacrifice had to be made to recover your first born son under Torah law? Or the sacrifice of the Ram in place of Isaac by Abraham — and according to Jewish tradition Isaac was a grown man in his thirties, just like Jesus?
Don’t you know that the Levantine people — see Phoenicians and Carthiginians — required a sacrifice of an innocent — the greatest being ones own child — to get forgiveness from God? Haven’t your read about Moloch?
Don’t you know that all sacrifices to God must be “perfect” and “spotless”? Have you never heard of Original Sin?
Do you have any clue about what the sacrifice symbological system is about? Or do you just read the papering over by medieval clerics?
Yeah, one should have some idea about a theology before discussing it all.
No, I’m saying your original point is mute because it fails to take into account how human behaviour works. You think that knowing theology is a means to assess whether it causes violence, while that is absurd. It’s about as useful as saying computer games cause violence because they show violence on screen. What I’m saying is that you can study the behavioural effects of individuals and of collections of individuals and see how those behavioural modifiers like Christianty and violent video games actually affect our actions. How does playing through Quake on hardcore mode make you any more of an expert on whether violent video games cause aggression? It doesn’t, just as the theology of Jesus has no bearing on studying the behavioural outcomes.
They can and do. But what I’m saying is that reading the gospels is a stupid way of determining the wider social effects of Christianity, and that physiology, neuroscience & psychology are better ways of studying the individual effects. And that history and sociology are better ways of understanding how those effects work on a group level. You are arguing that you need an understanding of theology to understand behaviour and that is just stupid. Do I need to know the inner workings of a car engine in order to understand fatalities on the road?
And in another way your point is mute because you are under the assumption here that people don’t know theology well. There are plenty of former bible bashers here, the amount of time they dedicated to learning about fables as if it were reality is friggen scary.
It wasn’t necessary. Your god is all-powerful; he could have healed the ‘breach’ (let’s not get into the problem of said ‘breach’ being entirely your god’s fault for creating a being that would do exactly what it had been made to do, i.e. be human) by simply choosing to do so.
I call that one of the reinforcing rewards. More to the point, the religion actively enables avoidance of doing anything real to make amends because the imaginary is done instead and the religious person gets to feel better about themselves without fixing anything they did wrong, unlike the non-religious.
Religion is also a great enabler of insanity – because it suggests that voices in the head could legitimately be external and moreover that it might be necessary to obey those and any other impulses (as being from a god); rather than regard them with suspicion and subject them to the critical thinking one would normally use as a filter for any stray random thoughts and impulses which are correctly identified as being one’s own.
Of course many people aren’t even up to that level of self-control, regardless of religion! But at least, without religion, they might have been persuadable to do better (or to listen to their betters, eg explaining why X wouldn’t be such a cunning plan in the long-term).
The core doctrines of Christianity (and the other Abrahamic faiths) are:
1) There is one, and only one True God, and this One True God becomes very, very angry at people who do not grovel before him in the exact right way.
2) This God expresses its wrath by means of the most vicious violence available. He will also punish even devout bystanders if there is unbelief in their midst (the Plague O’ Locusts isn’t selective, and in the Famine, everybody starves).
3) The only way you can really “know” that this God exists is if you shut off your rational and critical faculties and choose to believe by faith.
The first premise tells the believer that their belief must be imposed on others. “Every knee shall bow and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is King of Kings and Lord of Lords.”
The second premise tells the believer that they will be punished by their own God, for the sin of tolerance, if they allow the (Canaanites/Heretics/Jews/Gays/Atheists) to practice their improper beliefs unmolested.
The third insures that the Abrahamic’s own belief cannot be brought before the bar of reason and evidence.*** It is not possible, for example, for a devout Christian and a devout Muslim to sit down, weigh facts and evidence, and come to agreement on which (if either) of their religions is true. It’s not even possible for sects within them (Calvinist vs. Arminian, Sunni vs. Shiite) to do this, over a course of centuries.
All three of these premises are repeatedly stated within the “holy books” of all three Abrahamic faiths, and have been accepted by believers throughout the history of their religions.
Result: the Abrahamic religions must dominate, and they cannot be reasoned with.
Practical application: violence.
***Abrahamic theologians do sometimes play at using logic and evidence, but once their arguments are demolished (Can you demonstrate that the First Cause is Yahweh, rather than Atum or Brahmin?), they will eventually whip out the trump card of faith. Try to find one who will assert that their religion can rise or fall on reason and evidence alone.
Fool: Sastra, it was not necessary for Christ to die. It was necessary for him to be fully man and fully God to heal the breach caused by man (Adam) for which purpose man as man would be insufficient given that the offense was against God. So the one who heals the breach between man and God is both man and God.
Wow, you are so far in the theological extreme, and you appear to see your personal interpretation as somehow being Christianity.
Almost all of Christianity accepts the necessity of the sacrifice — from Wojtyla and his Catholic Church, the apologist CS Lewis, most Protestant denominations… and on and on. The only ones who would think like you would be Mormons who most Christians consider non-Christian.
You’ve plumbed the depths of even your limited intellect now by pretending/not knowing what 2000 years of theology has preached! You’re a worthless, ignorant and arrogant fool.
kerady: It’s not even possible for sects within them (Calvinist vs. Arminian, Sunni vs. Shiite) to do this, over a course of centuries.
But it does appear that the Syrian Orthodox Church is willing to compromise over the Nestorian Controversy now!
After 1500 years, it appears no one really understands what it was originally about… So the Syrian Church is willing to call it now a “misunderstanding” or “translational error”.
Standing O! Here, here! Well said frog.
Also well said to Kel and Sastra.
Kack, but that Fool is a fool.
Amen Sister! Hail mighty FSM. May you noodly appendages cause Fool to find reason…
This is not to say that every Abrhamic believer will resort to violence, but it does create a “path of least resistance” that leads there. Even the “nice” ones that don’t want to get their own hands dirty will buy vicious revenge-fantasies like the Left Behind books en masse, engage in Fatwa Envy, or say with a straight face that some natural disaster or other was caused by the existence of gays or atheists. Even, IIRC, the Archbishop of Canterbury (the poster child for “moderate” religion)engaged in this sort of pious shadenfreude.
Regarding this “Charter for Compassion” I’m not sure how it could hurt to have religions adopt compassion as a tenet. It’s a bit like what Gandhi replied when asked his opinion on Western civilization: “It would be a good idea.”
I knew i should have stayed editing some photos. The crazy is out tonight.
Awww shucks, thanks.
Indeed. Who in their right mind would think that understanding scripture is more important to understand the individual and social consequences of a religion instead of looking at actual scientific methods designed to study just that? That one.
And, an oldie but a goodie: Spread of Religion.
Loudon is a Fool, #162:
If the bar is set that high for merely criticising religious belief then how do all those average folk in churches get by? I mean, they’re not just commenting on religion, they’re committing their whole life to it. And if they don’t understand it like you obviously do, then shouldn’t they be stopped from commenting or acting on it? After all, they’re not experts in the field, merely amateur dabblers. Should we expel them all from the churches until they’re qualified? Just wondering, you know. Don’t want anyone taking a religious position if they don’t know what the hell they’re talking about.
Kel,
I think here:
and that physiology, neuroscience & psychology are better ways of studying the individual effects
you’re just saying that free will doesn’t exist. I agree that if free will doesn’t exist an understanding of the nature of Christianity would be superfluous to the action of observing and drawing inferences from behaviors exhibited by persons exposed to Christianity. But if there’s no free will most things are superfluous. Obviously I would disagree with your assumption.
If persons are exercising rational control over their actions, then their intentions, which are at least partially revealed by their beliefs, are a pretty good start for explaining their actions. A position with which a number of the commenters above would appear to agree. E.V. may have left the seminary, but he still has baggage.
Ha, ha! Sheesh Chimpy, the kink is out tonight too. Reminds me of that old song my grandma used to sing –
But the moon is right, and I’m half tight.
My life is jest beginnin’
I won’t go huntin’ with you Jake,
But I’ll go chasin’ wild mennen!
(some words changed by grandma)
It’s a full moon, have a look at the christmas thread – if you dare. *snort*
Loudon, out of one side of your mouth you tell us to respect your authorities – the Thomists, Augustine, the Church fathers, Plato, Aristotle – which many of us (including me) have studied extensively. Out of the other side of your mouth, you decide you needn’t investigate authorities which might disagree with you.
LiaF, just another Liar for Jebus, cat-o-lick style. No god, rotten theology, and the inability to give up insanity.
Losing the final god, the god of Abraham, will cause all your cognitive dissonance to go away. Time to fully consider that truth.
Loudon wrote:
Where did he say that?
Loudon is a Fool #246 wrote:
Since some Christian theologies have argued that it was necessary for Christ to die in atonement for man’s sin, I think it’s fair to say that there’s not a wholesale consensus on this — but I don’t think this distinction is particularly significant. My original point was that the Christian narrative places a great deal of emphasis on purity and stain, obedience and disobedience, Good and Evil, Perfection and flaw, Master and servant, and the distinction between those who are saved, and those who are damned. These sorts of black-and-white heirarchal divisions are … well, divisive, when taken seriously enough that they’re used to categorize and interpret people and events in this world. Again, the destruction of Armaggedon is supposed to purge the world of all the evil it holds: the book of Revelations ends as a triumph. This makes enough Christians uncomfortable that they force a rather strained universalism from the text.
As you admit, some suffering was necessary in order to “heal the breach” caused by rebellion: it’s a value which God recognizes and desires, for this world has no value for its own sake. Within the plotline of salvation and triumph, its only value is as a challenge to humanity, a waystation for a better world — if the believer can see the corruption it holds, and successfully understand the means to escape it.
In the Hector Aveloes book llewelly recommended to you (which I’ve read, it’s very interesting), he makes the argument that violence is often caused when people fight over scarce resources: Abrahamic religion creates new resources to fight over — sacred lands, true scriptures, privileged groups, and decisions on who is saved, and who is damned. The public unverifiability of religious claims makes reconciliation difficult, and religion’s tendency towards absoluteness and certainty makes compromise between parties very hard indeed.
So there are several factors here. In addition to creating new things to fight over, I think that a spiritualized top-down world view is conducive to categorizing people according to where they fall within the scale of closeness to God — with those on the bottom having less of God’s worthiness in the Great Chain of Being. Framing this life and world as means to an end, instead of an end in itself, risks an indifference to earthly suffering and consequences. The “self-sacrifice” was not just God’s gift to humanity, but given as a substitute for humanity’s gift to God — and once pain is seen as a desirable boon, or a marker for payment for debt, you can play with it and create mitigating circumstances which excuse it, in Good conscience.
“(It is )the most beautiful gift for a person that he can participate in the sufferings of Christ”. (Mother Teresa)
Mother Teresa did not, of course, inflict the suffering herself. She only withheld the pain medications which would have mitigated it, and thereby eliminated its “purpose.” And it is not really that short a stretch to understand that the men who inflicted the tortures of the Inquisition may have been moved by a similar understanding — and a similar compassion for the poor sinners they dealt with.
Yes, the centerpiece of the Christian religion is God’s love for humanity — despite our unworthiness. But this very humble recognition of man’s stained nature is not easily kept as a personal and private commitment to try to be a better person. It tends to leak out into the world, and apply itself to — and against — others.
LiaF, you do realise the belief in free will is contradictory to the belief that God is omniscient and omnipotent, right?
Doublethink.
I was juuuuuuuuuuuuust about to say that.
Are you saying free will does exist? The best I can figure is that free will is an illusion; our thoughts a one of many internal feedback loops in the brain. And if you actually look at the neuroscience of it all, our brain comes to a decision long before we are consciously aware of it. This is the value of actually conducting experiments and using science to learn things.
How do you figure?
Do you think that if there’s no free will our brains aren’t scarred by what we’ve learned in the past? Who I am now and what I do is directly shaped by the way my brain developed, just like you and everyone else in this thread. I know english both how to speak and write because the brain learns, it’s a constant internal feedback loop. What I’m arguing is that the brain dictates our actions, the concepts we visualise, the logic and rationality we present are constructs that are stored in terms of neural networks that fire when exposed to certain stimulous (the brain itself is a stimulous).
But again, none of this makes any difference to the point. Free will or not, the best way to study the effect of religion on a social basis is to use sociology. The best way to study religion on a historical basis is to use history. The best way to understand how religion works on a behavioural basis is to use behavioural psychology. Reading the sermon on the mount will do nothing to teach you any of those. Thus your point about needing to read scripture in order to criticise religion is mute, fundamentally flawed, and is just an apologetic tactic to silence detractors.
I’ll say it now, I don’t think free will is anything more than an illusion. But even if there was free-will, it doesn’t change my point in the slightest. Psychology is the best way to understand individual religious behaviour. Sociology is the best way to understand group religious behaviour. History is the best way to understand the events of the past in the context of believers. Reading the scriptures will tell you nothing of any of those. All reading the scriptures will do is give you a better understanding of the scriptures.
Well….. if anything only better understanding on your interpretation of the scriptures.
John, I don’t think Fool can grasp that concept.
That is one of the reasons I had to leave my faith. When I thought about what god knows vs what god does/doesn’t do it broke my heart.
*sigh* I used to be quite like Fool.
Was that not implied? :P
I’ll throw out a statement that Jesus advocated infanticide. I wonder if anyone here could prove that using the bible and the assumptions of the trinity and the idea that the bible is divine word… and go!
LiaF should DIAF
That’s all.
I am not good at contributing to discussions.
Almost all of Christianity accepts the necessity of the sacrifice
As to the necessity of death? Sorry, frog, but you’re wrong.
Fool, where is frog wrong?
Name the sect of christianity that does not believe in the necessity of the sacrifice? Orthodox Russian? Orthodox Greeks?
Pagans believe in sacrifice. Is that what you’re afraid of fool? I’d be happy to tell you what pagans sacrifice, or are you afraid of blasphemy?
hehe… yeah
I’m on full AADHD mode with 25 things going on. Only one of those trying to keep up with the ridiculousness being fought here.
Fool>
You addressed my argument and only my argument, for which I thank you. It allows us to actually have a discussion. Perhaps if your original point had been stated in the manner in which you replied to me, it wouldn’t have resulted in quite so much “piling on”. You assert that people of all faiths, or lack thereof, have killed people, which is certainly true. If we examine the historical numbers, Abrahamic religions are responsible for more of those deaths than others (I admit ignorance of deaths caused directly by Hinduism, so perhaps I should be including that also). The basic scripture for all 3, namely the Old Testament, contains numerous incitements to violence against those who do not share that religion, as do the Koran and Hadith. That combined with the historical record of members of those religions leads me to make the assertion that they promote tribalism, violence, and genocide. At the least, there is a very strong correlation there that bears investigation. I did not claim that Christianity is the worst, and the gospels actually contain the least violent suggestions of the scriptures of those religions, although the books ostensibly written by Paul of Tarsus are not wholly in sync with the ideas found in those when it comes to violence and tribalism. You could then claim that the problem is that those following the old testament version of christianity, that incites them to forcibly convert heathens, is not the true christianity. The counter to this argument is that it represents the base behaviour of christians throughout history, and therefore the average historical christian fits into this generalisation.
Your point that complete ignorance of something does not make a good stance for debate is something I do not dispute. My premise is that most people a) raised in a religion, and b) with a halfway decent knowledge of history or the ability to google something are capable of overcoming that limit. I know nothing of PZ’s background with regards to religion, and therefore I’m not even attempting to defend him. However, your statement blanketed all of the “new atheists”, so I presume it to include Hitchens, Harris, Dawkins, and Dennett. If it does, it becomes clear that you’re claiming they need a more subtle understanding of religion, because the fundamentals necessary to make a judgement of the kind they have made are present in their writing.
As for your two premises above, even a non-historian can see that the first is solid, which does indeed leave the 2nd. Again, it depends on how high you set the bar in regards to knowledge of a religion in order to criticise it, a measure that predict we cannot agree. I fully agree that humans are tribal without religion, our evolutionary history deems it so. The dispute arises where you feel that is sufficient to explain violence and tribalism in human society, and I posit that religion contributes to those by its nature, specifically religions that follow “thou shalt have no god before me” (insert translation of your choice for that commandment, I’ve not read it in a while) because the interpretation of that commandment typically involves not letting anyone else have a god before yours either.
Do you think that if there’s no free will our brains aren’t scarred by what we’ve learned in the past?
I don’t think that’s responsive to the comment that if people have rational control over their actions, then their intentions, which are at least partially revealed by their beliefs, are a pretty good start for explaining their actions. But I didn’t expect it to be.
My goodness Chimpy 25 things going on, besides the bullshit factor here? Better have a shot.
I’m gonna mix some sangria, I think pineapple/juniper berry tonight – fruity with some bite.
I wouldn’t even say that. I guess if you spend enough time dwelling on them you can come up with an interpretation that suits you, but if they were able to be clearly and unequivocally understood there wouldn’t be any ambiguity and we wouldn’t have something like 38000 sects of xinanity.
Yes. I need to rein it in.
And I’m out of whiskey.
Beliefs are just another behavioural modifier, another set of neurological connections that fire under certain stimulous.
But again, you’ve missed the entire point that whether free will exists or not is entirely irrelevant. To understand behaviour, we use psychology. To understand group behaviour, we use sociology. To understand historical events in regard to groups, we use history. Reading the scriptures will not teach you any of those, and it’s baffling that anyone could think it does.
Actually, the catholic church has long held that it was necessary for Jesus to suffer and die. Which ostensibly heralded the miracle of his resurrection.
John Paul II and Pope Benedict XVI have publicly stated this. John Paul II in his book Crossing the Threshold of Hope. Pope Ratzi said so last week, publicly. C.S. Lewis agreed with this sentiment in Mere Christianity.
I strongly suspect these three individuals knew/know far more about scripture that you do Loudon. Perhaps you are unqualified to speak on this subject.
Perhaps Loudon is arguing that perfect truth is in the scriptures if we can interpret correctly.
The problem with that, of course, is that we’d have no way of knowing whether we’d happened upon the correct interpretation. As it is now anyone with a shred of intellectual honesty who reads the scriptures has to admit that there are really only these options open to us:
a) god isn’t omnimax
b) god is a nasty piece of work who enjoys fucking with us
c) maybe it’s just a collection of made-up stories
Red Alert! Out of whiskey…
clear the fainting couch.
W.C. Fields is is about to rise from the dead…
Perhaps, but if so then LiaF is a fool.
So, he’s LiaF²?
No, it’s LiaF is a fool where LiaF stands for LiaF is a fool. Recursive naming…
I’m such a computer nerd.
it was not necessary for Christ to die. It was necessary for him to be fully man and fully God
I submit Mark, Chapter 8, v31-33:
Thinking as God does, according to scripture, requires one to accept the necessity of the suffering and death of the Son of Man.
Shorter Loudon: You’re not qualified to talk about religion.
Shorter My Reply: You’re not qualified to call us unqualified. You know nothing of our qualifications, and have made assumptions.
Only glanced at the page but didn’t catch a mention of TED. Very surprised if they’re involved… and disappointed. I wanted so badly to go to the conference. And now… eh, why bother.
#13 Posted by: tceisele | November 13, 2008 10:22 AM
“what we need is an immunization. A harmless strain of the virus of religion, that provides immunity against the virulent strains. Hey, it worked with smallpox.”
Oh i get it, scientology! or maybe Bhuddism, Taoism, ooh, Zorastrainism, there’s a good one!
Wowbagger:
Perhaps Loudon is arguing that perfect truth is in the scriptures if we can interpret correctly.
The problem with that, of course, is that we’d have no way of knowing whether we’d happened upon the correct interpretation. As it is now anyone with a shred of intellectual honesty who reads the scriptures has to admit that there are really only these options open to us:
a) god isn’t omnimax
b) god is a nasty piece of work who enjoys fucking with us
c) maybe it’s just a collection of made-up stories
I agree completelly, especially on the second one, Wowbagger the Infinitely Prolonged (yes, i Do know your full title. Are you surprised? no probly not, you kneebiter.
woodstein312,
TED appears as a sponsor in lower right corner.
Mr. Clown: of course, if you take into consideration another core belief many of those regimes held is that the Earth is round.
Oh noes! Science says the Earth is round! Science is EEEEEEVIL!
As for the arguments that only Theological Specialists can comment on religion–well, if only EXPERTS with AUTHORITAS can have a meaningful discussion on anything, that kinda puts all of us blog commentators out of a job, huh?
This brings me to something I recently noticed about religious versus humanistic reasoning. A religious person (in general), when presented with a statement, is likely to ask “on whose authority?” A humanist would likely ask, on the other hand, “on what principles?”
The fundamentalist, and even the religious moderate or liberal, is likely to make moral and philosophical issues matters of authority. It all boils down to who makes the rules. Authority is only bestowed upon another by a higher authority. However, it is more productive (and rational) to reason from readily observable first principles stemming from a common experience.
That is the basis of science as well as philosophy. We don’t accept Newton’s laws because he said so: we accept them (in most situations) because people have failed to prove him wrong. Because they were reasoned from universal principles and tested within the realm of common experience. Though Einstein did send him running for his money. And even then, we don’t accept what Einstein said because he said so, either.
Thus, so long as one has a basic understanding of the rules of rational argument and the evidence is free for all to examine, anyone can comment on any subject. Authority is nothing but a proxy for time, experience, and contemplation. Anyone with the appropriate determination can become just as much of an authority as an expert, by BECOMING an expert. So to those who say that P.Z. or other atheists have no basis on which to critique religion, enlighten us, and show your work. Don’t just expect us to take your word for it.
#277 Kel- is this what you were looking for?
Psalm 137:8-9 (NIV) O Daughter of Babylon, doomed to destruction, happy is he who repays you for what you have done to us* (*Israel) –he who seizes your infants and dashes them against the rocks.
Indeed. That god chap is quite the lovely fellow.
wow seamaiden, you are a real Jew Hater aren;t you lol :P That’s top notch Inquisition material there! But hey, i can’t judge, it’s holy scripture!
oh and what about those 42 kids that were torn apart by 2 bears? i can find the link on youtube.
Maybe Rev. 2:23 And I will kill her (Jezebel’s)children with death;
LOL- Darn it you found me out. :P
well don’t worry about it. most people are
Luke 19:27 (NIV) (Jesus is very excited telling this story… most Christians prefer to ignore, but preachers love it!) But those enemies of mine who did not want me to be king over them-bring them here and kill them in front of me.
Not to mention the fact that God had all the first born of Egypt killed. (Probably just to show off.)
i think we can put that one to bed guys. By the way, i was joking earlier lol
Rickroll- I like that one to but my favorite is An Atheist Meets God.
Rickroll- I knew you were joking. :) I don’t hate anybody. I was just teasing you back. :)
i think one of the biggest overlooked jokes is the line. “you did not believe in me when you were alive. Explain why. I need to know.” pretty funny stuff
Returning to the post topic:
I think that, in a sense, “the goodness of faith” is analogous to “the goodness of war” – both can bring people together and can bring out the best and worst in people; war has historically spurred technological advances and religion has likewise spurred philosophical advances and so forth.
But, on the other whole, I think any sane person should realise the good in both can be achieved by better means; the negative collateral consequences outweigh the beneficial ones.
I agree John
# 237
David,
> By “modern”, of course, you mean “pre-1968” (compare
> radiocarbon years BP) or “USA”. I am not a patriot, and
> where I come from that’s normal
Nationalism is by no means dead in western Europe. Just try to speak in Spanish to a civil servant in Palma or Barcelona and see what happens…
And even in places where people are no longer flag-waving, 19th-century style patriots, there still is “negative” nationalism, people might no longer worship the flag or some mythological national hero like Vercingetorix or Arminius, but they still hate the “other”; just look at the electorial success of racist and xenophobic parties like the Vlaams Belang, the BZÖ, the FPÖ, the Lega Nord or the FN; and the anti-Zionism and anti-Americanism in the media, in academia and among the chattering classes.
> Wow. There were Georgians in the Mongol army?
The Mongols incorporated everything within their reach, but unlike the Borg, they only demanded political, not cultural assimilation.
> That many?
The Georgians were a settled agricultural people, so they were stronger in manpower, if less mobile, than nomad tribes like the Kipchak. The Mongols usually employed the troops that were locally available (the only possible solution if you have to rule two thirds of the known world), perhaps with a small number of Mongol veterans as a backbone – a force in the middle east would be recruited from Kipchaks or other turcoman tribes, Armenians or Georgians; the army that tried to invade Japan was largely Korean.
> To be fair, that latter phenomenon may have something to
> do with the availability of guns.
There are quite a few guns in private hands in Scandinavia, but those are hunting weapons, too unwieldy to be used in domestic quarrels or to be carried hidden during a drug deal – to name the two main causes of gun-related killings. Finland has both gun-ownership rates and murder rates that are similar to those of midwestern American states, but interistingly there seems to be no connection between the gun-ownership and the murders: most victims get stabbed or battered to death during drunken brawls.
“In the beginning was the word.” This has been transmitted with high fidelity over long stretches of time. As above, so below.
Every religion is an organism which has evolved. They are artificial super-intelligence.
so variable in focus, the fuge of all the tones – and the whole is easily forgotten. Like THIS.
Religious ideology operates on a much larger timespan. When people overthrow antiquated belief systems, it’s is symptomatic of larger breakdown of traditional power systems, moral constraints and technological constraints alike.. Do not take it so lightly, you atheists.
Nature is smarter than you are, and religions are artifacts of our natural history. *They are living instruments of old memory*.
Against inter-generational amnesia, the brain power is fleeting.
Do not dismiss the living dynamic, the evolutionary wisdom inherent in those jury rigged, good-enough web of contradictions and hypocrisy. This is the stuff of life!
Trivialize religion and we ensure that we will NOT understand and grapple effectively with dynamic of delusion. This is a basic application of the golden rule: take the initiative, set the ground for a substantial exchange of ideas.
Don’t wait for them. Time is on the side of deities and families constant in faith. Evolutionary processes are not, in fact, alternative to God.
Apeth the ape: I AM WHO AM… that it that was so important never to forget that he is only the messenger.
Would you count memes as part of nature, or merely ideas that manifest in the consciousness of the masses?
One must assume that Fool thinks it quite possible that Santa Claus exists, as do fairies, unicorns etc.
After all there is a vast volume of literature on these subjects that I doubt he has studied. If he makes claims that Santa et al do not exist, would he not be guilting of making the same intellectual errors he accuses the rest of us of ? Not wanting to accuse him of being a hypocrit I must therefore conclude that he cannot come to any meaningful decision on whether Santa exists or not. Likewise I assume he refrains from voting, since he probably has not studied enough economic theory, diplomacy etc to be able to form any opinion on the relative merits of the manifestos of candidates.
Don’t forget the gnomes …
… and those pygmies and dwarfs.
Kel,
I would go so far as to argue that memes are a prototypical tool for making religion comprehensible to believers, let alone atheists.
I am trying to emphasize the continuity of rational life with the supposedly distinct realm of faith. Memes help clarify the mysterious “reason” our brains are built to serve a “purpose” which is systematically obscured from conscious thought.
What religions have to offer here is experience/ Experience with adapting over a long history – a meta cognitive problem.
I’d wager a crucifix against a cogito that many apparent religious absurdities are actually successful evasions of the fundamental limits of our current brains.
@ Timothy Zak #318:
Of course religious absurdities are evasions – but only in the worst possible ways. It’s part of the fundamental laziness driving evolution and development – biological and physical. Eg stars and soap bubbles adopting a low energy sphericity (albeit oblate when spinning is another energetic factor).
Personification of nature, including the invention of gods, is a way of avoiding having to think about things by re-using inbuilt techniques for guessing behaviour. It extends to the mis-use of intent-oriented active language for non-intentional passive events. So irrational emoters get to pretend they’re better than rational people.
Putting fake knowledge into a religion (and according it indefensibly high value) is a way of avoiding having to acquire genuine knowledge. So the ignorant get to feel superior to their betters.
Putting fake morality into a religion, an externalised thing, is a way of avoiding having to develop an internalised morality. It allows people to feel self-righteous about being evil.
Vaunting faith and emotionality over evidence and rationality is a way of protecting that highly prized laziness in all those other areas and of avoiding learning self-control.
I’m not a fan of the Golden Rule. I much prefer the reformulation “do unto others as they would have you do unto them.” I know that I wouldn’t appreciate some people I know doing unto me some things they seem intent on doing unto themselves.
The fact that “The Golden Rule is common to all religions” suggests to me that it’s orthogonal to religion.
Altruism is innate in all gregarious predators, because — as can be demonstrated mathematically using game theory — any other sort of behaviour pattern wipes out populations. We are nice to one another because if our ancestors weren’t nice to one another, they died. It’s really that simple. Any other explanation is just post-hoc rationalisation.
There’s no way to separate just the “nice” bits of religion from the “nasty” bits — they are inextricably bound up with one another. But the gains that society stands to make from ditching the “nasty” bits still far outweigh the loss of the “nice” bits.
It’s time to put away Chamberlain and wheel out Churchill.
Timothy Zak,
Could you give us an English translation?
However, if I understand what you are saying, the fact that religions can be viewed as organisms does not mean they are benign from our point of view. Ever hear of parasites? Nature’s full of them.
Cath the Canberra Cook@179,
My “Concern troll is concerned” response to Tony MacDonnell was prompted by his “I am ashamed of the atheist community today”. He, and you, are entitled to your view that this initiative is worthwhile, but stupidities like that demand a derisive reply.
SEF: Personification of nature, including the invention of gods, is a way of avoiding having to think about things by re-using inbuilt techniques for guessing behaviour. It extends to the mis-use of intent-oriented active language for non-intentional passive events. So irrational emoters get to pretend they’re better than rational people.
Good — but a bit over-simplified (as all comments are, of course).
Personification does have two useful roles: 1) as a first guess. We’re good at it, so we may as well try to see if the tool works, and abandon it if it does not. And 2) We feel that way, regardless of our objective knowledge — it is how we subjectively respond to the world, even if you’re a brain in a box (to a lesser/greater degree: emoters/rationalist is a continuum).
The first excuses historical mistakes and children as a first try, but damns current mistakes and adults by your criteria. The latter, TZ tried to state poetically, means that we don’t need/can’t eliminate religion’s underpinnings — what we need to do is clarify the distinction between how we feel and what is true, and how they interrelate.
People inherently will go on playing make-believe; it’s part of our essential nature, and important for our psychological well being. But the moment we mistake our experience for reality, our laziness becomes a dangerous and pathetic mistake.
Pray all you want if it gets you through the night! But the moment you start to make objective claims about that prayer, you fail — as soon as you demand that the concensus reality reflect your idiosyncratic reality, you become a slaver.
Timothy, anybody who can’t understand the difference between an analogy of their own construction (or, rather more generously, a model) and reality is in trouble…
As it is, your pretentious waffle does nothing to help us understand anything; you’re merely pretending that archaic and arcane are synonymous. You also seem to be making the rather bizarre asumption that the development of religious dogma, doctine, and interpretation thereof is independent of the sociopolitical and cultural preferences of it adherents.
Religiosity is simply one aspect of social psychology.
Relgious history is not divorced from history, and the study of both relies on documentary and material evidence. Attempting to construct a narrative for the development of religion and religious society simply by considering current religious practice is a doomed enterprise. Modern religions are often bastardised practices that owe as much to imigration patterns and culturally informed reinterpretation of doctrine, as to the content of said doctrine.
Any ancient document, and particularly one of uncertain and multiple authorship, has clearly arrived in modern hands via a process of copying, recopying, translation, and retranslation. If that document also happens to be the doctrine of a religion, then it is also certain that interpretation and reinterpretation can be added to that process.
For this reason, no monolithic world religion is anything other than what the current generation and sect of practitioners deems it to be. Hence that both the almost godless-Anglicans and the members of the Westboro Baptist Church would give themselves the same label. Religion is a peg upon which to hang ones prejudice and preference. There is no grand synthesis, and no underlying priviledged wisdom. Religion is nothing more than folklore, and no more informative, no matter what half-truths or imagined truths it may contain.
As a guide to living, any religion is as strict or liberal as the social context in which it exists. Fundamentalism is as much a product of society as it is relgion, thus it is that moderates also exist.
Bernard: Religion is a peg upon which to hang ones prejudice and preference. There is no grand synthesis, and no underlying priviledged wisdom.
I think it’s just a language. It makes somethings easy to say, somethings difficult to say — but theoretically you could torture it enough to say anything.
Always the hardest part is picking what language to speak. Choose the wrong one, and the odds of fooling yourself and others goes way, way up.
Shorter Loudon: You’re not qualified to talk about religion.
In Loudon’s defense (yes, I know), I think he has a fair point here if we simply interpret this as “not all criticisms of religion will apply to all of its many forms — and my version avoids the problem you mention. You have to address what I actually believe, or there’s no reason to consider you.” That’s true in some cases, I think, because ‘religion’ is such a fluid concept, and there are so many varieties and variations around the world, that it’s possible to find at least a few religions that don’t fit at least part of a Minimal Common Ground list. The Christianities also go all over the place, with each one insisting that it’s the Original and Correct understanding, before it was corrupted.
And of course, it’s true with atheism. Criticisms of Pol Pot and Stalin don’t touch secular humanism. It’s not that they were bad secular humanists: they weren’t secular humanists at all. They weren’t claiming to be secular humanists, or trying to be secular humanists. They had a completely different ideology. So lumping humanism in with totalitarian communism because they’re both “atheist” isn’t even like lumping the Catholics and Protestants together. It’s like lumping fundamentalist Baptists together with New Age-ish Unitarians, and assuming there’s got to be a common ground on moral approach because there’s something spiritual about both of them.
So I think Loudon is arguing that, as he understands Christianity, it discourages violence. Pointing out the No True Christians who didn’t get that part doesn’t touch the theology itself. I think he wrong, even for his interpretation — but that’s an argument to be made, on both sides.
But I am finding it kinda tough going to get him down to what he actually believes, though that could be the fault of the forum. Not that it’s not a common tactic for theists to play the Hide and Seek game of “Try to guess what I believe so that I can use that as an opportunity to sneer how you’re not even close.”
That sort of thing usually comes out of the liberals (what Dennett calls “the Fuzzies”) more often than it comes from traditionalists. You can’t even begin the debate over whether God exists or not till you’re on the same page about what you’re talking about — and they never want to say what God is. But they’re very, very happy to say what God is not.
Turns out that God is not whatever atheists think it might be — because they are such shallow thinkers, and so atheists think you can confine God to our ideas about God, and express what God is in words. Ha, ha, ha.
Icky.
Ack, wait, I just remembered, Dennett calls them “the Murkies.” Not “the Fuzzies.” Had to clear that up.
This would explain why I can hear the Archbishop of Canterbuty talk about the nature and at the end not have a clue what he was on about. I thought it was because he had not said anything of substance, and not said if in a very wafflely manner but no, it turns out it is because I am an atheist.
(For reference I have in mind the interview John Humphries had with him as part of a series where Humprhries interviewed three religious leaders as a way of his trying to regain faith. Apparently Humphries lost his after Aberfan and has been trying to find it ever since and is envious of those who have faith. I normally have a lot of time for Humphries, but on this matter he is a total idiot.)
Interesting what faith means in other parts of the world. See this news in CNN: http://edition.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/asiapcf/11/12/afghanistan.acid.attack/index.html
No. To lump atheists and communists together is simply to make a category error.
Communists are clearly united by a common ideology, whereas atheists are only similar in that they have no theist belief. These are not equivalent in any way. That communists may be a subset of atheists has no real relevance to the ideals and attitudes of those people who are atheist but not communist.
Generalities are applicable to people identifying themselves as belonging to a religious sect, whereas they are not to people who identify themselves as belonging to none. The peculiarities of a particular sect do not exempt that particular sect from belonging to what can be usefully thought of as the religious group. It is a functional label, defining a thing via the presence of a particular property.
Defining a thing via the absence of a particular property simply tells you what it is not, not what it is.
Bugger.
Frog:
Nicely put, I’m stealing it.
Bernard Bumner #331 wrote:
I agree — if you’re talking atheism. However, I don’t think it’s a category error to lump secular humanism in with communism, partly because each group does have an ideology and positive claims which define them. Lumping them together because they’re both advocating the same ideology is a different kind of error: it’s being wrong.
Oh, those giggles were supposed to be coming from the theologians. ;)
I think the Archbishop and other Murkies are playing a game with themselves (and everyone else.) They’re running their minds on two tracks. Ask them to define God, and the part of the brain that deals with high level abstractions kicks in and they spout out a lot of high sounding gibberish which mimics philosophical discussions about the nature of Time or something. Look at how they deal with the concept in their personal life, however, and it looks like the part of the brain involved in emotional connections to other people has kicked in, and they’re asking Mommy for a hug.
The founder of the project is pushing it at the Guardian online if you want to go and argue with/support her.
Oh, those giggles were supposed to be coming from the theologians. ;)
What do I know about funny? I can’t even get blockquotes to work properly… I kind of mangled what I was trying to say along with the formatting. Never mind – I’ll just avoid Socratic dialogues completely…
As to the distinction about Secular Humanists: I’d say there are Secular Humanists and secular humanists. As a principle, it doesn’t necessarily relate to the practice – still, I suppose that one could say the same about communism.
None of that changes the fact that the comparison between Secular Humanists and Communists by theists has less to do with the anti-religious aspects of either movement than it does to do with using Stalin’s appalling human rights abuses as a cudgel to beat atheists. It is a very knowingly dishonest tactic.
Ansuzmannaz @ 299 writes:
These are sorts of comments that cause me to believe atheists generally suffer from torsonic polarity syndrome. Ansuzmannaz can be contrasted with Commissarjs who simply misreads JPII. In any event, the assumption that you generally don’t know what you are talking about is based on ignorant comments that lead me to believe particular individuals don’t know what they are talking about with respect to religion. Could there be other individuals who do know what they are talking about? Maybe, but we don’t have any evidence that they exist. No doubt you believe in the atheist who is knowledgeable about religion because Gary Gygax listed him in the Monster Manual. I’m going to hold off judgment pending
moreevidence.Sastra I don’t think I’ve been evasive about what I believe. I’m Roman Catholic. It’s not a minor sect with 3 or 4 members. I believe what Roman Catholics believe.
Kel, the magical properties of psychology and sociology notwithstanding, you’re going to have a real problem inferring causation to come to the conclusion “religion causes violence” without flushing out what religion is. And even if you just decide you will tag individuals and populations as “religious” the most you’ll be able to say is “These two people/populations exhibit violence and share 1,000 attributes (one of which is religion) and they do not share 1,000 other attributes. It is possible that of the 1,000 common attributes, religion is the stimulus that exhibits violence.” Which is helpful.
IST, that’s an argument. But it’s worth noting that style of argument is not too different from “Atheism leads to totalitarianism and the killing of the Jews.” The argument being that atheism either looks like Kel’s scientific materialism (where there is no mind and no will) or it looks Nietzschean. Putting aside Neitzsche on the assumption that readers of a science blog are not Nietzschean, scientific materialism would seem to undercut the importance the individual (it’s difficult to see where the intrinsic dignity of the individual would come from if he’s just meat). Even assuming material meat man is good and altruistic (which would seem counterintuitive if our assumption is that material meat man is who he is through the process of natural selection) he’s going to be utilitarian. So when the going gets tough he’s going to kill the Jews if he thinks it makes things better for a larger group of people. Assuming material meat man is not good, then the only thing that keeps most people in check is the fear that if they step out of line they’ll get mowed over. In that Machiavellian universe strong men at the margins will come to power, and then they’ll kill the Jews. So either way nastiness will be in full effect.
Of course you’ll argue that secular humanism is actually loving and peaceful and that, really, the belief that this is all there is actually encourages you to make the world a better place and value human life. It’s a nice theory absent scarcity. Hopefully we will never see how warm and fuzzy the atheist regime is in practice. But maybe we will. And those of us who survive the carnage can talk about whether religion, with its 2,000 year head start, or atheism resulted in more violence.
Also, theism has the advantage of being true.
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scientific materialism would seem to undercut the importance the individual (it’s difficult to see where the intrinsic dignity of the individual would come from if he’s just meat).
Gee, what a revelation. Magical thinking about notions like “intrinsic dignity” are at odds with the conclusions arrived at by actually engaging such knotty problems with parsimonious starting assumptions and empirical methodology. Is this the kind of profundity we poor benighted atheists are missing out on? If so, you can have your blinkered delusions. They do nothing to answer any actual questions we have about the real world or how to improve matters so that more of us get treated as if we have intrinsic dignity or value as human beings, but I guess they help you with that superioity thing. Congratulations.
Even assuming material meat man is good and altruistic (which would seem counterintuitive if our assumption is that material meat man is who he is through the process of natural selection)
Egnor? Is that you?
Surely you’re aware that reconciling the obvious fact that altruistic behavior among animals exists with evolutionary theory has been a major field of study for decades. News flash: the quaint 19th century belief that natural selection can only give rise to ruthlessness and competition has about the intellectual currency of phrenology. But bashing on straw men seems to be cathartic for you, so don’t let me interfere with your little masturbatory game.
…he’s going to be utilitarian. So when the going gets tough he’s going to kill the Jews if he thinks it makes things better for a larger group of people.
Do we occupy the same universe? I have no idea where you’re getting your ideas about utilitarianism; maybe you have none of note. I suppose you’re just using the term colloquially, therefore avoiding any actual engagement with modern ethical philosophy. Either way, you are making an ample demonstration of the mode of argumentation you claim to deplore: insufficient understanding of the position you’re criticizing.
Also, theism has the advantage of being true.
I think you mean, the dubious advantage of offering bromides and glib assertions in place of even a token gesture at intellectual honesty. All the advantages, in other words, of theft over honest toil.
Loudon is a Fool #337 wrote:
Thank you; I had not been aware that you were Roman Catholic (probably missed it in the comments somewhere.) It still doesn’t tell me as much as you probably think it does, however, because it’s been my experience that different Catholics interpret the tenets of their religion (and their understanding of what “God” is) in distinctly different ways. Although they pride themselves on their unity (‘unlike the Protestants’), in practice individuals go all over the place.
For example, I don’t know how you, as a Catholic, would regard that book Eucharistic Miracles which PZ Myers referred to in his post from a few days ago. I haven’t read it, but from what I can tell it seems to be a collection of stories about how the consecrated wafer has actually spouted blood when challenged — and this blood is tested and turns out to have magical or puzzling properties, etc.
Are these urban legends which have gulled unsophisticated Catholics who don’t really understand the Catholic faith? Or are they serious challenges to materialistic atheism coming directly from specific Catholic practices, and dismissing them as ‘urban legends’ clearly shows bias and reluctance to face the truth?
A Catholic could be on either side, and I don’t know you well enough to hazard a guess.
Since you haven’t addressed my specific points from old posts yet, I won’t bother to make them again.
I do have one question, though. You wrote
Since you think your religious beliefs work well when it comes to explaining and justifying ethics — would it really matter to you if they were false? That is, if theism is not true — and there is no God — does believing in God still lead to better moral understanding and improved choices?
So you believe in a God who created the universe, created humans, decided to condemn all humans to eternal torture, then fathered himself on a human so as to have a bad weekend as a sacrifice of himself to himself so that he wouldn’t condemn those humans who believe that God sacrificed himself to himself to eternal torture?
Fixed.
Gorgeous.
Well lets see. God doesn’t exist, so all the holy books being words of god are fiction. More fiction, that is theology, derived from fiction has to be utterly false. Now what part don’t you understand?
The argument being that atheism either looks like Kel’s scientific materialism (where there is no mind and no will) or it looks Nietzschean. – Fool
Conclusive evidence that you have no idea what you are talking about. For a clear counterexample, read Dennett’s “Freedom Evolves”, idiot. If you have read it, reread it and try to understand it.
Loudan is a Fool #337 wrote:
This always puzzles me. Why does spirit have “intrinsic dignity?” Where does the intrinsic dignity come from? How did God get value? Why believe it has any?
If someone said they didn’t see any special value in God — but did care about other people — how would you go about demonstrating to them they were wrong? You can’t just stick it into the definition. And you couldn’t claim that they only cared about people because of God, because that begs the question that God either has value, or can give it to other things. God might not have any innate value — even if it exists. Presumably, it would then have to get its dignity from something outside of itself.
How would the universe be different, if human beings as a particular pattern of molecules in motion HAD intrinsic value and dignity, but God didn’t? Would it work the same way in either case, as long as something has “intrinsic dignity?”
But Catholicism doesn’t believe that humans have intrinsic dignity. It insists that humans are all sinners; that even if humans do nothing wrong, or even live lives of generosity and kindness towards their fellow humans, but die unbaptised and unaware of Jesus, they in fact are utterly depraved and evil and receive the just desserts of this intrinsic evil in the eternally torturing flames of hell.
Owlmirror:
Depends I think on which Catholics you look at. You can certainly get that from some of the medieval ones. The Total Depravity doctrine is an official part of Calvinism, though, and Calvinists and Catholics do not get along theologically. Fun to watch.
One of the major complaints the Born Again Protestants have against the Catholics is that they think Catholics believe they can get to heaven by “good works” — and that even those who aren’t Christian may end up there. Some of the more liberal, humanist strains are like this: people who do kind actions (or have great wisdom, like the Greek philosophers) are recognizing Christ, even if they don’t realize it consciously, and will be saved. I’ve also seen some Catholics hotly deny it.
Louden the Fool’s responses: *sticks fingers in ears* “Lalalalalaa… I can’t hear you! lalalalalalaaa…”
“I reject your logic and substitute my own selective logic! You can’t force me to see your point! Ill just keep asserting you don’t have the knowledge to say anything about religion! I’ll just use bait and switch tactics, move the goal posts when I want to and ignore any questions I don’t want to answer! Lalalalalalalaaaaa ” *sticks out tongue*
Fool>
Your analogy is only valid so far as you can demonstrate that atheism, with its sole tenet as a lack of belief in a deity, directly caused those deaths. It may prove rather difficult to nail responsiblity to something that lacks a belief system. If you’re equating Maoism/Leninism with atheism, you neglected to make the distinction that those dogmas have their own tenets completely independent of their atheism.
The intrinsic dignity of the individual comes from the ability to use reason and our place in the natural world. I suppose it doesn’t elevate us to the level of special creation, but it does impart a nice sense of wonder that is wholly destroyed by simply claiming goddidit.
Altruism has evolved as a nice state to avoid ostracism, ie it’s hard to mate if noone wants you around. So the Machiavellian approach only works so often. Read up on game theory for a better explanation of that than I’m going to be able to cogently deliver.
So yea, I replied along the lines you predicted… we’ve both had this discussion before elsewhere. You final statement is completely unfounded in reality, but since that’s the foundation of our disagreement, why don’t you demonstrate the following:
1) The universe was created
2) the creator of the universe is an omnipotent, omniscent being
3)This being, having created the universe and everything in it, continues to play a part in the development of the universe and everything in it
4)This being is specifically the deity of a particular sect of people living in one small section of one small planet circling around particular star out of 10>11 others in one galaxy out of 1.5*10>11 others
5)All of this is documented in a book written approximately 2000 years ago
my apologies for my inability to produce exponents properly.
Even assuming material meat man is good and altruistic (which would seem counterintuitive if our assumption is that material meat man is who he is through the process of natural selection) he’s going to be utilitarian. So when the going gets tough he’s going to kill the Jews if he thinks it makes things better for a larger group of people. – Fool
…and here you show your ignorance of natural selection, and specifically the extensive literature on the evolution of altruism. I happen to have written a long review article which covers this topic among others. (Gotts, N.M., Polhill, J.G. and Law, A.N.R(2003) “Agent-based social simulation in the study of social dilemmas”, Artificial Intelligence Review 19: 3-92). Of course this is only one possible source. You could try Henrich, Boyd, Bowles, Camerer, Fehr and Gintis (eds) (2003) Foundations of Human Sociality; or Leonard D. Katz (ed) (2000) Evolutionary Origins of Morality. Briefly, there are several natural mechanisms by which altruism can evolve and be stabilised; and there is no reason whatever to expect it to be “utilitarian”. Rather, it will be likely be based on inbuilt rules for how to behave and not behave, modified in the human case by culture (Marc D. Hauser (2006) Moral Minds.)
You arrogant little shit, how dare you come here pontificating about how we know nothing about your imaginary friend, when you know fuck-all about the real research work that is going on in these areas?
theism has the advantage of being true. Fool
Do you really think a bald assertion like that, without even the pretence of a scintilla of evidence or argument, is going to impress anyone here? But of course as a Catholic, you’re used to taking ludicrous claims on faith if a man in a silly hat and dress pronounces them to be true.
E.V. you crack me up! That was too funny! Oh my gosh my face hurts from laughing!
Nick @351,
You wrote it wrong.
Psalm 53:1 –
The fool says in his heart, “There is no God.”
Pharyngula #337 –
The fool says in the comments, “theism has the advantage of being true”
Loudes Fool-Also, theism has the advantage of being true.
YOU WISH!
Funny how you can bother to look up information on all the different wars past on through the ages along with who started them and how many people died. But you can’t take time to crack a history book on your religion. Have you bother yourself with learning anything about your religions history and the religions that were around before Christainity was even thought of? Did you bother to find out when and how your bible was put together? Did you bother to find out whether there were stories left out of the bible? If so what were they and why were they left out?
Have you even bother to read your bible all the way through instead of just reading the good bits the church picks out for you. I guarantee you haven’t because if you had you would not be spouting your stupidity now.
Well guess what most of us here have! I would venture to say that any one of us in here has a better understanding of your religion than you do. So take your smug little ass to the library or at the very least to google and youtube and educate yourself before you come in here again and try to claim that we know nothing about your vengefull hatefilled god!
Loudon is just the latest in a line of cat-o-lick posters saying similar things. The one thing they all have in common is that they want to jump to the end of the argument and talk theology before the argument gets properly laid out.
First, they need to prove that god exists, by defining god and showing good physical evidence for their god. All have failed this to date.
Second, they have to demonstrate that the bible was not written by men from oral tradition, and is in fact written down by god. All have failed this to date.
Third, they have to show that the theology was in fact ordained by god, and is not just the ravings of men. All have failed this to date.
If Loudon was as smart as he claims, he would follow the above path with us. Don’t hold your breath. I’ll start making the e-popcorn for his next feeble attempt.
Sastra:
Probably. Believing in God ups the ante. And not just out of fear of punishment. The belief in an omniscient supernatural being that loves you affects behavior in the same way having a father who would be disappointed if you engaged in certain actions affects you. But I’m a theist and a Catholic so I also believe supernatural Grace is transformative and causes a person who would be dirty and nasty to be less dirty and nasty.
So then, regarding the miraculous, I’m not a materialist so I don’t really have a problem with the occurrence of supernatural events that violate the physical laws of the universe. But I’m not sure I would offer up miracles as evidence of the supernatural given that, to my knowledge, I’ve never seen one (other than the Consecration which, as I’m sure you are aware is of its nature untestable).
As to dignity and the soul I think my first paragraph above gets at my general understanding. The fact of special creation (of the human soul) makes men qualitatively different from animals and roots exceptionless moral norms in the nature of man. That has to be a firmer grounding than respect for reason. Further, respect for reason has the consequence of devaluing persons with deficient reason, perceived deficient reason, or some other aspect deemed to be the root of materialist human dignity.
Nick, I haven’t read Freedom Evolves so I can’t comment intelligently on Dennett’s argument. Nevetheless, in your honor I can give you a comment anyway since I know speaking unintelligently on matters of which you are ignorant is near and dear to your heart. It strikes me as a cop out to try to shoehorn free will into materialism. I say play to your strengths and embrace the existential horror of determinism. It won’t lead to human flourishing, but it might make you feel kind of bad ass. If that’s what you’re into.
And those of us who survive the carnage can talk about whether religion, with its 2,000 year head start, or atheism resulted in more violence.
Ha that’s rich! Why don’t you go and tell that to the Japanese who’s Christians only total 1% of the population! Religion isn’t that important there and yet they aren’t violent. Get this their policemen don’t even carry guns! Imagaine that!
Nick,
I’m aware that there is work being done regarding the evolutionary roots of altruism. I take it you’re convinced. That’s great. I’m happy for you and am not here to judge you. Bear in mind, however, that if the new regime ties dignity to reason you’re going to need to start carrying a little more water.
XXOO,
Fool
People, give up. Louden is a troll like the intellectually corrupt Fr. What’s-his-face & Salt. He’d deny 2+2=4 if it didn’t suit his ideology.
Notice still no proof for his imaginary god.
I’ll leave the e-popcorn over in the corner. I even have a special marked bowl for Patricia’s pullets, who appear to be smarter than Loudon.
Religion isn’t that important there and yet they aren’t violent.
Uhhh, tell that to the people of Nanking.
You can lead a whore to culture, but you can’t make her think.
Loudon is a Fool #356 wrote:
I’m not sure this answers my question. In #345 I asked why we should think that spirit — or God — has any special — and higher — status. What is the argument for that, if it’s disputed? One can objectively argue that we are different than the animals, sure, but where is the objective argument that this means we are qualitatively better?
Put another way, if we were to start out without any prior assumptions about values, how would we get to the conclusion that God has value? And how would we arrive at the belief that God has more value than humanity?
Where I’m going here, is that I think the theistic rationales for granting dignity to human beings rest implicitly on underlying (and unacknowledged) humanist groundings. Not the other way around. So I am trying to test this. Can you make a case that God has value and worth, without either of us assuming humanism?
Because the immaterial is more perfect than the material and the infinite more perfect than the finite.
@Loud Fool: It strikes me as a cop out to try to shoehorn free will into compatibility with the doctrine of an omniscient God. I say play to your strengths and embrace the existential horror of determinism.
The Fool says in the comments:
“Fact” is not synonymous to supposition, rather the opposite.
E.V., I don’t think the Fool is a troll, but I definitely note godbotting and insipidity. And a conspicuous misuse of words, as noted above.
Still no attempted proof of god, but just presumption that the fictional god exits. What is it with godbots these days. Simply no starch in them.
Of course, one of Dennett’s main points in Freedom Evolves; really, the starting point, is a cogent analysis of why determinism/indeterminism is a red herring in the free will discussion. As for lobbing around accusations of resorting to a “cop out” how can you beat “the immaterial is more perfect than the material” for a cop-out?
Loudon wrote:
Respect for God as the source of human dignity has the consequence of devaluing persons who have deficient respect for God, perceived deficient closeness to God, or who are in some way insufficiently God-like, God-worthy, God-aware, God-loving, God-obedient, or God-valued. If the theistic world-view separates humanity into classes of the righteous/saved and the wicked/damned, this is particularly likely.
Case in point: In the story in Genesis, God decides to drown every single person on earth in a terrible catastrophe, saving only 8 ‘righteous’ people. Whether it is taken literally or not, this tale is deemed a good story to give to children, because it has animals in it, and a boat. The sudden loss of an entire world full of people — as thorough and complete as the deathly devastation from a hundred nuclear bombs — is not supposed to cause any significant alarm for the children, because those people who drowned — men, women, and children the world over — were all “wicked.” They were expendable plot devices designed to highlight how happy Noah and his family were that it wasn’t them, because they had been “good.” They had obeyed God, and loved Him. The other people, parents tell their children, didn’t. They were bad, so killing them off in order to start over fresh is a good thing.
I think this is a serious problem with your argument.
“Because the immaterial is more perfect than the material and the infinite more perfect than the finite.”
See, Nick and others? If you just knew all there was to know about Christianity, you’d be able to handwave like this too.
Loudon is a Fool #364 wrote:
Oh? How so? “Perfect” in what way?
You’re right John, – my apologies Fool. You’re an isipid godbotting crank.
I think it could be argued that Catholics are just Calvinists in deep denial, hence the friction.
Heh.
While some Catholics lean towards Universalism, I am pretty sure that the Official Word from the Vatican is “Absolutely not”.
(Catholic Encyclopedia article on baptism)
And so on and so forth, blah blah blah. I see that the article does suggest that maybe possibly the innocent damned are not tortured.
(more)
That sure looks like Calvinist-like reasoning to me…
INsipid,.. (and I’m sure you smell funny.) : p
The fool has said in the comments:
When it comes to food, shelter, clothing, sex, and indeed all the other material things in life, the material may be less perfect, but it sure is more real. Infinitely more real, in fact. And, remember, “the infinite more perfect than the finite” :)
Rey Fox, #370, wrote:
I don’t think we’ve enough hands between us to equal Loudon’s skills. It’s a pity that he can’t direct his energy to something positive and worthwhile instead of this mental-knot-tying sophistry.
But I take comfort in knowing it’s far more important for him to convince himself of the truth of his beliefs than it is for him to convince us.
#361 Wow! That was in 1937. I was talking about today. Are the Japanese currently at war today? Are they shouting “We have to go kill the heathen unbelievers or the infidels.” because of perceived hurts to their god.?
Again I say go look up your own religious history before you making a mockery of yourself in here.
Your bold assumptions that people can’t be good without god around are a grievious insult to humanity. Maybe you think you need god to hold your hand and watch your every move so you don’t turn out to be a shithead but we don’t. We are good simply because we respect life and other human beings.
And what religion is can be best understood by looking at sociology & anthropology. Reading the scriptures will tell you nothing about what religion is, it will only teach you about the scriptures.
This is why we have sociology, we can look at how groups interact. Just ask how many atheist suicide bombers there are. How many abortion clinic bombers there are. Most factional violence we see in the world has religion as a divide. Again, reading scripture will tell us nothing about how violence manifests in the world. Reading scripture will just mean we learn more about scripture, and if you think that teaches us about the effects of religion on a group stage, then you are deluded.
Again, not every person who is religious is violent. No-one is saying that. But to see how the idea plays over a population, this is where sociology and the use of statistics come in. You won’t learn about the greater effects of religion on society by reading scripture, that’s just stupid. And your continued insistence that reading scripture is the only way to judge it is even more so.
Nick, I haven’t read Freedom Evolves so I can’t comment intelligently on Dennett’s argument. Nevetheless, in your honor I can give you a comment anyway since I know speaking unintelligently on matters of which you are ignorant is near and dear to your heart. It strikes me as a cop out to try to shoehorn free will into materialism. I say play to your strengths and embrace the existential horror of determinism. It won’t lead to human flourishing, but it might make you feel kind of bad ass. If that’s what you’re into. – Fool@356
You’re just making your arrogance and stupidity even more evident, if possible. Why should anyone give a rat’s arse what “strikes” an ignoramus like you? Dennett shows quite clearly that determinism does not imply a lack of free will. Neither, as it happens, does materialism imply determinism. As for “human flourishing”, this got underway in parts of Europe once people began to free themselves from the evil grip of the Catholic Church, with its inquisitions, book burnings, misogyny, antisemitism, systematic child abuse and loathsomely corrupt hierarchy. I’m not sure what to make of the “kind of bad ass” jibe – except that it shows you have absolutely no idea of my motivations. Oh, perhaps I get it. Maybe you’re one of those religidiots who thinks atheists are “rebelling against God”? Your reference to Nietzsche would suggest that. Wrong again, Fool.
I’m happy for you and am not here to judge you. – Fool@358
Liar.
Bear in mind, however, that if the new regime ties dignity to reason you’re going to need to start carrying a little more water. Fool@358
What the flying fuck is this supposed to mean? Do you even know yourself, or did you just string the words together and think they sounded good?
While you’re around, how about some hint at a ghost of a reason for believing in your sky-fairy?
Actually, Hector Avalos does investigate the nature of Christianity, and points out that it is filled with both passive and active violence, which is used to justify further violent behavior by its adherents. His work is filled with direct references to both secondary and primary sources, such as the verses where Jesus Christ is recorded as proclaiming that he desired to instigate violence and approved of violence.
And of course, the history of Christianity reflects that very violent nature.
What the flying fuck is this supposed to mean?
It means you’re a dumbass, Nick. Try to keep up.
Right, first provide physical proof for your god. Until then shut up.
I guess you like it hot. Don’t say you weren’t warned when you’re screaming in pain forever and ever.
“ἐγὼ δὲ λέγω ὑμῖν ὅτι πᾶς ὁ ὀργιζόμενος τῷ ἀδελφῷ αὐτοῦ ἔνοχος ἔσται τῇ κρίσει· ὃς δ’ ἂν εἴπῃ τῷ ἀδελφῷ αὐτοῦ ῥακά, ἔνοχος ἔσται τῷ συνεδρίῳ ὃς δ’ ἂν εἴπῃ μωρέ, ἔνοχος ἔσται εἰς τὴν γέενναν τοῦ πυρός.”
4. Ultimately, if you are an atheist, why ever would you think there is such a thing as objective good and evil? There is an astonishing lack of civility and critical thinking going on here on the part of atheists.”
oh bullsh*t!!!
im a christian theist and i see objective good will in atheists (yes,PZ does have some theists as fans)
in fact, i see it more in atheists, who actually think about what they are doing rather than in some of my fundamentalist co-religionists who seem to be in a severe state of denial about their harassing or abusive behavior toward women, children, science and scientists, and gay people
Fool@381,
Right, so you just strung the words together and thought they sounded good. You were wrong. Now, how about a response with some content?
So much for the transformative power of supernatural Grace. Loudon, like nearly every run-of-the-mill apologetic theist we get here (every one of which, notably, has no problem dismissing other theologies out of ignorance yet berate atheists for doing the same with theirs) is a walking, talking, typing, refutation of his own arguments.
Then again, he did say supernatural Grace has the power to cause someone to be less nasty than they were preGracing, and “dumbass” is slightly less nasty than “dumbfuck.” That God; nothing demonstrates universe-creating power than barely significant results.
Have fun with him gang, but realise he’s no True Catholic™ so don’t bother dissecting him hoping to get a sense of how Catholics think.
how about a response with some content?
But the immaterial is more perfect than the material; ergo, a post without content is more perfect than one with.
I’m getting the hang of this, and it’s so easy! C’mon, everybody try.
The fool has said in the comments:
Um, Fool, you should stick to blithering ignorance. When you try to act superior, your petty impotence is even more exposed.
So I’m guessing you have proof of the Judao-Christian version of God?
johannes: Mongels PWN. seriously, is there anything else out there cooler than the Mongels
Matt Penefold #316: yes but WHich Santas don’t exist? He comes in many forms (OMG, HE’S LEGION!!!)
Fool mentioned somewhere that human’s soul make him different, while if you looked into Judaism, you would find that animals HAVE souls, though they are too weak to survive death. I wonder when PZ is gonna come over with a hot needle and remove you from this site.
Moses@101: “see it’s easy. all you have to do is use your brain” Your making baseless assumptions Moses.
Owlmirror@383,
Sorry, that was all Greek to me!
(Actually, I can guess. The bit in the bible about how anyone who calls another a fool gets spanked very hard, and doesn’t get the oral sex? Or something like that.)
Done. See my #391.
Of course, this comment referencing #391 is far from perfect, but I insist that #391 is about as close to perfection as it is possible for mere mortals to achieve.
Owlmirror @391. LOL. ‘xactly.
 
Sorry about the double post!
I was wrong @#393. Comment #395 was actually even more perfect than #391.
Of course, without seeing the perfect signature, how can we know who posted it?
Perhaps it was the immaterial and perfect God?
Nick @#392: Indeed, it is even so.
I may be immaterial, but I’m not that boring.
I’m not sure that follows, but in any event the reading list was considerably longer than just scripture.
Maybe if the source of human dignity is a particular person’s respect for God (e.g., person A respects God therefore person A has dignity). But that’s not what I said or at least not what I intended to say. The existence of the soul confers human dignity. All humans have a soul. Therefore all humans have dignity and therefore we’re obligated not to kill them or lie to them or do other nasty things to them. That’s the case whether a person is fat or ugly or stupid or an atheist or a communist or even Nick Gotts.
Still no proof of god. What a wuss.
Loudon short answer: “Cartesian Duelism – I haz it.”
(And yes I know it’s spelled Dualism.)
That’s because you’re a dumbass (hey, I’m already going to hell, what do I care?)
It is obviously true that religion includes the meta-narratives (“interpretation”, “exegesis”, “hermeneutics”) about the scripture, else there would never be doctrine, dispute, schism, or heresy.
Oh? Yet God does all of those nasty things to humans, and commands one group of humans to do nasty things to other humans.
At least, according to a plain reading of the scripture, anyway. No doubt you have some interpretation that twists that all around.
Therefore all humans have dignity and therefore we’re obligated not to kill them or lie to them or do other nasty things to them. That’s the case whether a person is fat or ugly or stupid or an atheist or a communist or even Nick Gotts. – Fool
Doesn’t calling someone a “dumbass” count as doing something nasty to them, Fool? I think you’d better apologise! You never know, you might die tonight and find yourself in the everlasting deep fat fryer your “loving” God keeps for those who disobey him.
Hey, I’ve really got under your skin, haven’t I?
What?! I had to peddle eggs all day, and when I get back you big kids are still playing with that short pants Fool.
We are getting hard up.
Which I would agree with if christians didn’t ever kill anyone. Unfortunately, thanks to the rationalising skills of people like Loudon, they can decide that they can kill because:
a) they think they’re ordered by god – directly, like when he ordered them to kill people, or indirectly when they choose to second-guess his intentions – to do it, or
b) they think the person really deserves it.
And since they can all be forgiven afterwards, simply by asking – and receiving absolutely no sign to indicate yea or nay – it’s all okay. They can go kill again.
Christianity does not stop people from killing; ergo, it is a failure as a morally uplifting worldview and strongly supports the non-existence of the christian concept of god – by which i mean there may still be a god; it’s just not their god.
It follows, when you want to see how religion manifests in the world, you use psychology, sociology, history and anthropology. Reading the bible will teach you nothing about the catholic / protestant conflict in Ireland. Studying the history of the country however will tell you everything.
Again, you are missing the entire point. How how moronic are you? We have tools that work on evidence that teach us about human behaviour on both an individual and a group level. Why would we look to scriptures or any apologetic nonsense for belief when none of them cover how humans behave now or how they behaved historically?
It’s nothing more than apologetic nonsense from you. You just want people to read the scriptures so you can point at Matthew Chapter 5 and claim that the message of Jesus is a non-violent one. I’m sorry but reality doesn’t work that way. Christians have and do commit acts of violence. And the best way to determine to what extent is through scientific tools like physiology, psychology, sociology, anthropology, archaeology and history. You need to understand human behaviour in order to understand how the scriptures modify that, so I would say to you the last thing that is needed to study the effects of scripture is the scripture itself. You are full of crap, and you have been since you first started talking here. The only reason you are doing so is that you can deflect criticism and try and obtain a sanctuary for you to hold your own beliefs.
Lame apologetic nonsense that is completely removed from reality. If you think that reading the bible will teach you about how Christians act, then you truly are deluded.
Yet God does all of those nasty things to humans, and commands one group of humans to do nasty things to other humans. – Owlmirror
When it comes to doing nasty things to other humans, of course, the Catholic Church has a long, long record of enthusiastic and highly skilled performance; combined with exquisitely sophistical justifications. Let’s hear some new ones, Fool, go on, make us laugh some more!
http://atheism.about.com/b/2004/11/01/michigan-eagle-scout-murders-62-year-old-for-being-atheist.htm
Someone didn’t get the memo.
The fool has said in the comments:
What a crappy syllogism.
What the fool meant to say is
Assuming the existence of a soul*, and assuming that the possession of a soul confers dignity, and assuming the possession of dignity implies the possessor should not be killed, or lied to, etc., then assuming all humans possess a soul** implies that no humans should be killed, or lied to, etc.
In which case, given all those unsubstantiated assertions, then I suppose so. Shame the fool hasn’t actually even tried to support the assertions.
What a fool.
* (what’s a soul?)
** (unless they sell it on e-bay, I guess)
Patricia, no new posts, so we’re a bit bored – enough to spend a bit of time punching the Weeble.
Loudon is a big yawn. No attempted proof of god whatsoever.
Patricia, did you find the bowl of e-popcorn I set aside for your pullets? They appear to smarter than Loudon, so I sent them a treat.
LiaF is a fool. If he thinks that free-will trumps all, then he is truly deluded. How the hell can he think that being a theologian is necessary in order to understand human behaviour?
Anyone have any hypotheses about the derivation of the nym “Loudon is a Fool”? The only Loudon I know of is Loudon Wainwright III (although presumably his existence implies the pre-existence of at least two others). Wainwright is, according to his own daughter’s song, a “Bloody Mother Fucking Asshole”, but the lyrics do not include the word “fool”. Maybe our Fool has the hots for Kate McGarrigle, who is Wainwright’s ex-wife and, being of Irish descent, perhaps Catholic? Or, I’ve been assuming our Fool is male, but maybe not, and she is Kate McGarrigle?
Nerd – I just got done re-reading from where I left off last night… thanks for leaving the corn out for the pullets! They must have liked it. Eight eggs today, including two blue ones and one green one.
Wait, wait! I know this one…
Um, because he’s intellectually dishonest?
That a christian is capable of an act of violence undermines its veracity to the point of invalidation. If it doesn’t prevent such acts, what’s the fucking point of it?
It doesn’t matter what the alleged Jesus said or didn’t say, or what the politically-savvy manipulators who came after him claimed he said. If, after the appearance of a man in the middle east at that time, the level of violence and hatred in the world dropped profoundly in any way which could be correlated with his life and supposed death, christians might have a point.
But it didn’t, and they don’t. The years since christ’s supposed death have included the bloodiest and most violent eras in human history, with a reasonable proportion – if not the majority of it – at the hands of christians attempting to create christian societies.
Christianity = epic fail.
I agree given that conflict is not really about religion.
I’m saying and have been saying that intention, informed by belief, matters. You say it doesn’t. I say human action is too complicated to determine that a group with multiple attributes acted in a particular way because of a single attribute where the only evidence is the action. You say that’s not a problem because psychology and sociology are magic or because you’re super smart, or because the evidence is just going to be good enough, trust me, or . . . I don’t really know. You didn’t say how you overcome that problem just that the soft sciences are up to the challenge because they are.
Fair enough.
But it seems to me if Islamic terrorists blow stuff up and say they did for religion it’s appropriate, and maybe even important, to investigate that religion to determine whether it in fact advocates violence. When moderate Muslims say “This isn’t Islam” it’s not a No True Scotsman argument if they flush out what is Islam. If the moderate Muslim is correct, then it doesn’t really make sense to attribute the cause of the suicide bomber’s act to Islam. Maybe the violence is attributable to some other religion, maybe it’s attributable to economic motivation, maybe it’s attributable to political motivation.
So my argument has been that the correlation between violence and religion is just that. And its particularly weak for purposes of showing causation during a period of time where all sides are religious. If you want to convince me that Christianity causes violence I would expect you to show me evidence of causation. I’m open to the possibility that can be done while being wholly and completely ignorant of Christianity, but I doubt it. And you haven’t said anything to convince an honest interlocutor otherwise.
When moderate Muslims say “This isn’t Islam” it’s not a No True Scotsman argument if they flush out what is Islam. – Fool@420
Essentialist bilge. There isn’t some “True Islam” or “True Christianity”. The words of “sacred” texts are always subject to contradictory interpretations. “Islam” is the entire history of those who have regarded themselves as Muslims. “Christianity” is the entire history of those who have regarded themselves as Christians. In both cases, the record is mixed; but in neither is there any reason to believe adherence to the religion has on average made its adherents behave better. Rather the opposite, because both justify and even exalt the oppression and murder of those who refuse to accept the truth of the revelation; both are appallingly misogynistic; and both worship a pathologically jealous and sadistic megalomaniac.
And I’m saying belief is just one of many many factors, so understanding that belief will do little to understand the consequences of human behaviour. This is why we use psychology for an individual, and sociology for a society. Reading scriptures will tell you almost nothing about group interaction, and how different ideas interact.
You need to understand behaviour of individuals and groups, and how groups interact. We have tools for that: psychology, sociology, and history. Why do you need to understand scripture in order to understand human behaviour? You don’t, it’s a superfluous requirement. Science is the way to understand reality, scripture is a way to understand fantasy.
Nick @416,
Meh, I thought it was eponymous. There’s an Amazon profile:
Nickname: loudonisafool
Location: PLANO, TX USA
In My Own Words: I am a fool.
By the way, Fool@420, it is practically impossible for anyone to be “while wholly and completely ignorant of Christianity”. The Sentinelese and perhaps a handful of Amazonian and Papuan tribes may retain this happy state, but surely no-one else with minimal mental competence and past childhood. In predominantly Christian countries, it is impossible to avoid the constant babble of Christians about their “Lord” and “Saviour”. Would that it were otherwise! What you mean of course is “while not having devoted years of their life to studying Christian scriptures and doctrine”. But you are again assuming there is something there worth years of study; and that the fine points of the disputes between Arians and Athanasians, or of the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception, somehow illuminate the behaviour of Christians today.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_the_Catholic_Church#Criticism_of_Roman_Catholic_actions_in_history
religion and Christianity has been throughout history a source of violence. Ever heard of the KKK? Spanish inquision? Crusades?
John Morales@423,
Thanks! Having skimmed the reviews Fool has penned on the Amazon site, I suspect he’s none other than our old friend Piltdown Scumbag. If not, they are certainly ideological kin, and would get on with each other like a heretic on fire!
Hey, Fool, what do you say, was Pope John-Paul II a woolly-minded liberal?
From Texas, that explains a lot. Thanks JM.
Agreed. So then you won’t be attributing violent activity to religion. It’s appreciated.
But then Nick says things like:
Which would appear to require some knowledge of the subject which knowledge is not evident in anything he has written.
Nick,
That seems eminently plausible to me (not that I’m going to try a lexical analysis).
In the spirit of charity, I offer that the two nyms haven’t directly supported each other, so it’s not true sock-puppetry.
I wonder if either nym will care to deny this (remembering PZ can see IPs)?
Here’s an amusing extract from Fool’s The Picture of Dorian Gray:
Practically every review Fool rights is explicitly aimed at “right-wing orthodox Catholic monarchist readers”. Read, laugh, jeer!
Jebus, still no mention of any proof of god. That sounds like Pilty, who is a complete idiot.
Loudon, first things first. Prove your imaginary before you try to go beyond that point with scripture and/or theology. Otherwise, STFU.
Loudon is a Fool #400 wrote:
I think there’s a great deal of tension within the Christian religion between the one claim that “all people have dignity because they have souls” and the other claim that man’s once pure nature has fallen and become corrupted, and this fallen state is both recognized and measured by man’s disinclination to properly acknowledge and obey God. The soul as the source of human “dignity” is interpreted within a narrative which explains that this soul becomes debased when it ‘makes a choice’ to distance itself from God. If God is the source of all value, those furthest from God are furthest from value. And some are more distant than others.
It seems to me that the “all men are equal” ideal is more easily derived from enlightenment principles and the rational study of a nature created by “Nature’s God” than it is from a heirarchal system set up to separate the saved from the damned, select and favor special people, and rank relative worthiness by the individual’s conformity to various levels of subservience and authority. History seems to bare this out.
So does the Bible. Over and over again, God smites and punishes both individuals and societies which have ‘deficient respect for God, perceived deficient closeness to God, or who are in some way insufficiently God-like, God-worthy, God-aware, God-loving, God-obedient, or God-valued.’ He doesn’t always do this through nature either. He works quite a bit through obedient Men — the ones who are able and willing to understand and do His will.
One can argue, of course, that God, the source of Perfect Morality, is not the model we ought to follow, He is incomprehensibly greater than us, and has a totally different role — but one can also sensibly make an argument otherwise. And a lot of theologians and ordinary believers have made that very sensible argument. Those people with less connection to God are devalued — and often a danger to others. Just as religion can create new scarce resources to fight over, it can create new threats to defend yourself against.
I should also point out that it’s pretty easy to give, take away, modify, or diminish the status of someone else’s “soul.” Given a Great Chain of Being, it doesn’t automatically fall out that all men are created equal and on the same level, even soul-wise. There are a lot of levels, and the Bible is very concerned with status. It’s never been hard for Christians to argue that people of different religions, or race, or sex, or disposition, either have no soul, or have one that’s not worth as much as someone else’s. Scripture isn’t particularly clear on this, and of course there’s no possible test in nature to determine such a thing.
“I am worth something because I have a soul” is a rather dangerous foundation to build on in a system which is rather obsessed with falls from grace, corruption, depravity, impurity, and damnation.
Second paragraph previous post, I meant to say “imaginary god”.
Rev., I appear to be a disciple.
Bernard Bumner Wrote
I know. I hated those 3d pictures, and gave myself a damned head ache trying to see them. I eventually saw one, but it was the wrong way: concave! I still don’t care much for them.
I don’t claim there is a single, coherent interpretation of religious teachings, any more than of love and marriage.
And to be sure, they both have their share of piffle. A lot that is said about love is misguided hyperbole.
The reason I find the religious dialog so unsettling is because many atheists seem as satisfied in their summary dismissal as true believers are in their bland conviction.
This formulation is too categorical. Logically your statement does not hold up to much scrutiny. On the other hand, I’d say it’s more right than wrong.
By your lights, I might dismiss it outright. However, I will take it as it is: a partial truth.
The bastardization, distortion beyond recognition can happen in the space of a month, or a week or in the very moment of enlightenment. We are only human.
Nick Gotts wrote:
As Bernard Bumner very rightly pointed out, it is only an analogy. In the case of religion, unlike organisms, only the good stuff, the fuzzy, the sublime is really religion.
Everything bad about religion is merely a corruption.
Haha, I’m joking. Spirituality is a prime bit of rot to be sure, simply crawling with pestilence. Even the sickly sweet sort I parody above, and for which PZ Meyers skewers the “Charter of Compassion”.
Loudon is a Fool #420
You keep claiming that everyone here who isn’t a godbot is “wholly and completely ignorant of Christianity.” People have quoted scripture and church fathers, and otherwise shown familiarity with Christianity in general and the Catholic flavor in particular.
Many of your arguments have been argued against, if not refuted. You’ve made several unsubstantiated claims and refused to give the slightest evidence for them even after repeated requests to produce such evidence. You’ve used insult rather than reasoned, logical statements. And with the quote given above, you’re reduced to lying about your opponents.
I recommend that you not become a salesman, because you’re unlikely to convince any potential customers about the quality of whatever product you’d be pushing.
Which would appear to require some knowledge of the subject which knowledge is not evident in anything he [me] has written. – Fool@429
I make no claim to be as familiar with the bible, let alone the koran, as many who comment here; but I was raised a Christian, and I’d bet a good deal I know a lot more of the history of both religions than many of their followers. Certainly I know that the history of the Catholic Church is a bloody and murderous one, from the early persecution of pagans and Jews, and feuds with Arians, Monophysites, Donatists, Nestorians etc. etc., through the Crusades, the Great Schism and the early modern wars of religion, to the enslavement and slaughter of millions of Native Americans, and the enthusiastic support for 20th century fascism.
Now that’s a point. (Though that situation is not comparable to much else.)
That’s a good point. Though that “other” is not automatically everyone else; it tends to include people who immigrate from certain directions but not others.
That makes a lot of sense.
Agreed. But what about that other reformulation — “the one with the gold makes the rules”?
Man, is that easy.
I want to be treated as if I had intrinsic dignity. The easiest way to defend that claim to privilege is to treat everyone else as having intrinsic dignity, too. In the end, I’m being selfish, and so is everyone else — in the same direction. That’s how everyone has intrinsic dignity without that being a law of nature. See what I mean?
Clean your glasses once in a while… :-)
Would seem counterintuitive to anyone who has never spent more than 3 seconds on the thought.
If you behave like an asshole, people will treat you like an asshole. They aren’t going to help you. They might even gang up on you. What, then, is your reproductive success going to be like?
People without innate empathy tend to die out. That’s called natural selection.
The official stance is still extra ecclesia nulla salus, “outside the Church no salvation” — with the exception that there is now “reason for prayerful hope” (quote from Pope Benedict XVI) that limbo might not exist and babies who died without being baptized might go to heaven after all. The reason is simple: if you can get to heaven without being a Catholic, what’s the point of being a Catholic?
In reality, however, few Catholics really are that restrictive, though AFAIK most don’t even know what the official stance is and/or have never thought much about the question. Many believe that Hell is empty, and many of the rest believe it’s just the absence of God rather than, in addition, the presence of torture…
If the Catholic church started an inquisition (in the narrowest sense of the world) and excommunicated everyone who doesn’t agree with every single dogma, there wouldn’t be many Catholics left. Big open secret.
(Before anyone asks, I grew up Catholic, in a country where it’s assumed by default that everyone is Catholic and where the biggest confessions get religious education in school.)
<sup> <7sup>
Perhaps like Gaunilo’s island ;-)
Plenty. All of them Stalinists, though. (PKK — Kurdish Workers’ Party; personality cult around Abdullah Öcalan.)
Religion in the strict sense is not necessary for a suicide bomber. All that’s necessary is the belief that there’s something that’s worth dying (and killing) for.
That you don’t have enough reason to be considered worthy by your own standards. It’s the fool’s idea of a sarcastic joke.
Of course, I disagree with the idea that reason is necessary for dignity. My own long-term self-interest fully suffices, see above.
Patricia’s pullets have shown a lot more character than Loudon/Pilty. At least they don’t try to convince anybody they have special knowledge. They just eat, poop, and lay eggs without the need for a fictious being.
Horror. 58 comments are posted while I write mine! It’s precisely 3 in the morning over here, so see you tomorrow.
Oops. Of course not. To write superscript, enclose text between <sup> and </sup>.
…while I’m writing mine, that is. Predictably, my English worsens as the night progresses.
Let’s just remind ourselves of the Fool’s first contribution to this thread:
Maybe that’s because you’re incompetent to hold opinions regarding theology and religious history due to ignorance about and hostility towards the subject matter, and daddy issues?
Let’s make a deal, how about the dirty God-hating mechanics take a rest on opining about theology, philosophy, ethics, history, art and religion. Stick to what you do best. Fixing toasters and making cool stuff. And we who are competent to have opinions in the aforementioned areas (and who are ignorant about the workings of toasters) will not tell you how best to fix a toaster.
So he came in as an arrogant little shit, and has kept that up pretty constantly. Now, Fool, if you’re prepared to lay off the sneering, I’ll do the same. If you care to put forward some arguments with real content, rather than your constant whining about how we’re not fit to debate with you, we might even have a useful discussion. For my part, however, that will have to wait (and I won’t be holding out much hope): it’s 2am here, and time for bed. I really can say quite sincerely that I’ve enjoyed our encounter! G’night all!
Further to Nick’s @437, the fool wrote:
Which is why, once the Church became powerful, it began to kill people for heresy, a fine tradition that continued until it lost that power.
“Priscillian, bishop of Ávila (died 385), a theologian from Roman Gallaecia (in the Iberian Peninsula), was the first person in the history of Christianity to be executed for heresy (though the civil charges were for the practice of magic). He founded an ascetic group that, in spite of persecution, continued to subsist in Hispania and Gaul until the later 6th century. Tractates by Priscillian and close followers, which had seemed certainly lost, were recovered in 1885 and published in 1889.”
His crimes?
“He founded an ascetic group that, in spite of persecution, continued to subsist in Hispania and Gaul until the later 6th century. […] Priscillian and his sympathizers included many women, who were welcomed as equals of men. They were organised into bands of spirituales and abstinentes. This insistence on celibacy explains the charge of Manichaeism some levelled against Priscillian (even Jerome, for his talk of the sordes nuptiarum, had been similarly accused, and to escape popular indignation had retired to Bethlehem). To this charge was added the accusation of magic and licentious orgies (a particularly preposterous charge, given the nature of Priscillian’s doctrines). […]”
The aftermath?
“The long prevalent estimation of Priscillian as a heretic and Manichaean rested upon Augustine, Turibius of Astorga, Leo the Great and Orosius (who quotes a fragment of a letter of Priscillian’s), although at the Council of Toledo in 400, fifteen years after Priscillian’s death, when his case was reviewed, the most serious charge that could be brought was the error of language involved in a misrendering of the word innascibilis (“unbegettable”).”
Ah, hypocrisy, thy name is Catholic Church.
Of course Loudon had to be a Texan, from Plano yet.
I knew it, Fool’s a Rod Dreher fan, the Dallas Morning News Asshat who did the hatchet job on PZ after Crackergate.
*sniff* Nerd, the bucktards of clan Cluckhead thank you for those kind words.
I just happened to run across this, it’s an excerpt from an op-ed in a back issue of Free Inquiry
“Aquinas was true to Jesus when he said that ‘unbelief is the greatest of sins.’ This assumption has been the source of untold wickedness in the history of the Church. It explains the profound intolerance that has led Christians to persecute others, not for doing harm but simply for being unbelievers or for harboring . . . false beliefs. . . . It is not a question of bad people perverting a good religion. Far from being an aberration that is not representative of Christianity, the persecution of heretics follows logically from the connection of faith and salvation as presented by Jesus in the Gospels.”
— Shadia Drury, “Why Biblical Religions Are an Obstacle to Freedom.”
I must admit, if nothing else, the Bible is a wonderful source of aphorisms. For example, “pearls before swine”.
Now, I wonder what made me think of that? ;)
Ah yes, Rod Dreher, the Neocon Catholic apologist. He wrote the book on “Crunchy Conservatism” and an infamous rebuttal to Andrew Sullivan over homosexuality in the Catholic Church. Rod’s against it obviously, but for deeper reasons than he let’s on.
Dreher is smart but as intellectually dishonest as they come.
Sastra – I don’t know if you are a subscriber to Free Thought Today, but if you are, have you read the August 2008 issue, page 6 article ‘Lilith’s Rant’ by Barbra G. Walker? It rips gawd a new one. Really worth your time to read.
It’s all about insecurity. Deep down they know there’s no basis in reality for their religion, and the subsequent cognitive dissonance is agony.
But if they can get rid of anyone who calls attention to its weaknesses (either by chosing an alternative religion or no religion at all) they will. It’s much easier to lie to yourself when there isn’t a chorus of dissenting voices seeding doubt in the background.
John:
I like the book of Matthew:10:35-36
Such a mensch, that Jesus boy.
Patricia —
Thanks. I’ve got it, but haven’t read that article yet.
I thought last month’s piece by the young woman who went to Morocco was fascinating. This is “moderate Islam” — and she could not walk down the street without being harassed, violated, or even abducted — because as a woman alone, she was unprotected, and fair game. Men cannot be expected to control their urges, which are overwhelming.
In one of the recent threads, one of the Christian commenters wrote something about the importance of viewing sex as a “powerful and dangerous thing” which needs to be kept in check, as opposed to a harmless pleasure. Yet this is what happens to societies when they view sex as dangerous, emphasize virtue and purity, and connect it all to power and control. It breeds contempt and violence.
Well, ok, Thugee still wins my personal contest for “worst religion ever,” but there’s some stiff competition.
Sastra – Oh yes, I read that article, it is excellent.
Do try to get to Lilith’s Rant, I think it will become a classic. Makes me wish I had chosen Lilith as my handle.
No, religion is one of many factors which we can see manifest as a cause. You’ll see the output of that from psychological and sociological studies, you won’t see that from reading scripture. How can you think that the most appropriate way to learn about human behaviour is to read a fairy tale?
My gripe is that you think it’s important to be well versed in reading scripture in order to see the wider effects of religion. My contention is that you don’t need to understand scripture in order to study behaviour. Psychology, sociology and history are all there to study human behaviour, the bible tells you how you should behave. Should != do, and anyone who isn’t an apologetic moron should be able to see that!
I think Loudon likes being well-versed in scripture (and apologetics) so he can write complicated rebuttals to attempt to weasel out of admitting what the wider effects of religion are.
Plus it gives him substantial material for the inevitable No True Christian™ defence.
Your argument amounts to nothing more than “How can you conclude that games cause violence? You haven’t even beat Quake on hardcore mode. Let alone played through Unreal Tournament on Godlike, or 100%’d Grand Theft Auto 3. When you haven’t played Halo to completion or went on a drug-induced killing spree in the post-apocalyptic Fallout, you can’t say that games cause violence. You may have psychological studies, you may have sociological data collected over many years, but without actually closing the gate of Oblivion you aren’t qualified to talk about video game violence”
I’ll tell you what LiaF. I’ll spot you the John Paul II bit. Was C.S. Lewis qualified to comment on christian scripture? Is Pope Benedict the XVI qualified to comment on scripture? Exactly what qualifies a person to comment on scripture anyway?
Wowbagger, that should read “I think Loudon likes
beingto think himself well-versed in scripture (and apologetics) …”. But yeah.Biblical hermeneutics can justify anything to mugs.
Patricia, please give my apologies to clan bucktard for mentioning them in the same sentence as Loudon. Slime mold or something similar would be far more appropriate comparison than noble young hens.
It’s why religion is the antithesis of true understanding – it starts with a premise (god exists and is kind, loving and all-powerful etc.) and then tries finds ways to explain that premise; sophistry is all they have.
It’s like someone walking along a path and encountering a wall – a wall they’ve been told doesn’t exist. Instead of trying to knock it down they simply dance around in front of it and pretend it isn’t there, expending a lot of energy but never actually going anywhere.
Ah, Nerd of Redhead – many thanks for your sentiments to my little coven (13) of virgin clucktards. They aren’t just buckin around. They mean business when layin’ it on.
And to those of you that don’t like being egged on – cluck off!
Ok, here’s Loudon the Fool’s review of John Steinbeck’s Of Mice and Men:
Wow… just wow.
You’d think religion would be exploitable by us geniuses in a way that would force it to self-destroy itself. At least that’s my hope. The anti Christ is the anti (Zeus, Satan, … Mumbojumbo,…)
E.V, how did you do that?! Underline that is; i’ve mentioned a lot of book titles and i would like to know how to do that. if you would be so kind
Patricia, thanks for mentioning that article. I discovered that FFRF has it available online as a sample.
It’s very basic, standard HTML – which is what applies round here rather than Bulletin Board code etc. The underline tag is simply a u (or U) much as the one for italics is i and bold is b. All of those are in the subset of tags permitted here.
Katrina, I really didn’t need to read that.
But it reminds me that the references to witch-burnings above somewhat understate the severity of the situation.
Here’s a link to The Witch-Persecutions – From Translations and Reprints from the Original Sources of European History.
(Edited by George L. Burr, A. B., VOL. III. No. 4. [1896])
for anyone who wants to have nightmares next time they sleep.
Because Christianity wasn’t always as “nice” as it is now.
Loudon is a Fool wibbled incoherently at #358:
Game theory shows that any behaviour pattern except altruism wipes out populations in short order. Do the maths for yourself to prove there is no cheating.
And then excelled himself at #364:
This is not just bollocks. This is M&S bollocks.
Game theory on repeated interactions really does suit cooperation. Anyone can write their own prisoner’s dilemma simulator and test this.
One of the principal causes of the Thirty Years War was the concept of cuius regio, eius religio (his region, his religion). The religion of the king or other leader would be the religion of the people. The question was not “should this principle be upheld or not” but rather on grabbing as much land as possible to make sure the survivors prayed the right way and tithed to the right ecclesiastical treasury.
Various flavors of Christianity were directly and knowingly responsible for killing about a third of the population of Germany during the period 1618-1648. It’s only apologists like Loudin is a Fool who pretend otherwise.
It’s of interest to note that on the Guardian’s comment page on Armstrong’s article, sceptical comments considerably outnumber positive ones. Way to go, Grauniadistas!
Rickroll:
Use same HTML tag as you would for “italic”, substitute u for i.
fool (fl)
n.
1. One who is deficient in judgment, sense, or understanding.
wrong-head·ed (rônghdd, rng-)
adj.
Stubbornly defiant of what is right or reasonable; obstinately perverse in judgment or opinion.
Yeah, that about covers it.
I did have the notion that it might be a reference to Matthew 5:22 — in that it is a deliberate passive-aggressive move to ensure that anyone who uses the nym itself, or emphasizes “fool” when in disputation, is condemning themselves to the fire.
I am pretty sure that this is in violation of some biblical precept or other, probably Lev 19:14, or Matthew 18:7, or one of the other verses dealing with stumbling blocks.
Pilt is in the UK, I am pretty sure, not Plano, TX (and Loud Fool might object to Pilt’s characterization of the USA as being the combined product of Enlightenment Freemasonry and Puritan heresy).
There’s nothing that prevents more than one right-wing Catholic monarchist from ranting about how modernism and everything associated with it is evil and responsible for all modern ills, blah blah blah.
Owlmirror,
Why do you think Pilty is in the UK? I might expect Catholic monarchists in, say, Spain, Italy or France, but in the UK? Not as weird a place to find one as Plano, Texas, admittedly. They should have Loud Fool stuffed and mounted at the local museum.
He appears to take the Daily Mail, and wrote: “I can remember a time when Kalashnikov-toting youths were not a common sight on the streets of Britain.” (etc)
There’s more in that thread. I found myself wondering if he was a BNF/BNP supporter, even, but I suspect those are not Catholic enough for him. I also wondered what “monarchist” meant, when he claimed to be one, and he wrote: “I simply mean I endorse the concept of Catholic sacral monarchy. The current vestigial Anglican monarchy in the UK has some unacceptable connections.” (where “connections” is a link to putative Masonic symbolism on the 1946 victory stamp. Freemasons! All good Catholics faint with shock and horror!)
Thanks Owlmirror, you’re clearly right.
Yes, that’s very strong evidence.
I find it of note that the Piltdown Man hoax is named after “Piltdown, a village near Uckfield, East Sussex, in England.”
If the so-called economic crisis widens, and people begin to fear and dread, they will, at least en masse, desire to follow charismatic leaders. Or so I’ve read.
Who, among us godsless, is prepared to “be a leader” when the time comes? I’m not (are you?), but perhaps greatness will be thrust upon me (us).
I know that the dumbassholes are ready (if not prepared) to take on the mantle of moralizing mastery of the masses. They’d have to be fought, somehow.
Cannabinaceae, I’m optimistic regarding the future.
In particular, I consider the Internet Generation has been inoculated against propaganda due to constant exposure to advertising and differing opinions (much more so than any previous one), and further has access to a global information pool, so I can’t really see a repeat of, say, Goebbels’ success at manipulating a society by that means.
Admittedly, the Bush Sr and Jr administrations in the USA (and the Howard government here in Oz) had some success in that area recently, but note that once the disparity between their claims and the outcomes of their policies sunk in, they were soundly rejected by the populace.
In short, I see the internet as a superb samizdat tool which I can’t imagine being overcome by any would-be demagogue.
John Morales: you encourage me. I tend towards optimism, but then get paranoid that I’m not sufficiently cynical, at which point I wonder if I might actually be too paranoid.
Your note about inoculation is well taken; I, too’ve wondered about parallels between the immune system and the social system vis-a-vis advertising. On the other hand, I have this feeling that if advertising could somehow be thwarted that way “they” would stop advertising. Darwinian arms race, probably. I beat it by avoiding many media much of the time, myself.
At any rate, I imagine a target audience of “almost-atheists” who just need their parents to die, or the examples of people coming out as ungodded/disgodded, or maybe hip attributes to be ascribed to dismissing habitual superstitious nonsense.
i think the “hip” factor will come into play for anyone of those struggling theists when they become involved in larger acadamia, and in particular, the domain of scientists. You mean a Dawkin’s arm race, right, cannibanaceae, as it refers to memes (although Dawkins was most assuredly Not the first to come up with the concept of “Mnemes”) as opposed to DNA? Lol Owlmirror, the freemasons- the meme that never quite made it lol. It just sort of sulks in the shadows, watching- waiting for the opportunity to strike WHUAHAHAHA. Good investigation by the by.
Maybe I’m sensitised, but it seems not a day goes by without some news about how compassionate religion is:
I agree with you PZ. This isn’t a religion of compassion. Sure, there are bits where they help the poor and (whahahaha) make blind people see, but there’s the other bit where they restrict women’s rights and they destroy the rights of minorities claiming it is against the word of their so called god and savior.
I suppose they’re inoculated in the same way 19th century children were inoculated against polio, measles, and whooping cough.
There is a problem?
1) Form a committee.
2) Create a policy.
3) Create a form(s) to fill out.
4) Charge a fee.
5) Look for the next problem.
RickrOll: Yes, I figured that most people would get, as you did, that I was using the word “Darwinian” to refer to the algorithm itself, the substrate being memes. I suppose I could have put the word in the body of the sentence and not capitalized it, emphasizing the impersonal context. Still, I hate using words derived from proper nouns without capitalizing them, so I tend to compromise by just putting them first and forcing them to be (alas, ambiguously) capitalized.
llewelly: the parallels are not exact, but in the absence of widespread training in analyzing advertising claims, your description of “inoculation” seems apt. If there were a population of web-innocent* people, they might correspond residents of the pre-Eurocontact Americas, and be easily tricked into supporting various parasitic schemes.
*Or “info-innocent” if you want to be more generic
I’d simply say it’s Manichaeism.
No, that was part of the peace treaty in 1648 (Peace of Westphalia); note how it means that each confession respects the other’s right to exist, which was not the case before or during the war. And it means “whose region, his religion”.
Apart from that, that war was like the Congo…
Not over here. Do you know what the German word for “leader” is? When the generation of our great-grandparents wanted a leader, they got one. As in “be careful what you wish for — you just might get it”.
I much prefer the reformulation “do unto others as they would have you do unto them.”
There’s an obvious problem with that policy. What if a masochist wants you to inflict injury on him?
I do unto others as my own conscience directs, not theirs.
-jcr
I can’t really see a repeat of, say, Goebbels’ success at manipulating a society by that means.
Well, the tactic still works when a government has the power to limit access to mass communications. That’s still the case in North Korea, and there’s some danger of it becoming so in other countries under the guise of protecting the public from obscenity or apostasy or what have you.
-jcr
I stumbled upon this post through a “Google” I did on evolution. This line caught my eye.
“…destructive narrowness of religious belief has been there in the Abrahamic religions all along…”
What is meant by “narrow”? I don’t know of any belief system which is not. Religion or not, there is no worldview I know of which is not narrowly exclusive.
As far as “destructive”, while not intending to suggest all non-religious people think this way, we have some terrifying examples of what a godless society is capable of as well.
Just before his death, Stalin sat up in his bed and shook his fist at a God in whom he supposedly didn’t believe. He slaughtered millions of his own people.
I firmly believe people have done horrible things in the name of God or Allah, but not everyone who says “Lord, Lord” is a true believer.
Your prose is somewhat disconcerting. You seem to advocate doing away with religion.
History demonstrates, however, that’s been tried and has been found wanting.
What do you propose in its place and how would your alternative worldview avoid the “destructive narrowness” you claim religion yields?
D Ray
Read the whole thread before you bring up the Stalin and Hitler bullshit.
It has already been dealt with above.
Yeah, D Ray is posting before he thinks. If he could think, he wouldn’t be posting such tripe.
Some liberal theologies suggest that all religions and beliefs are in some way correct.
They might be wrong, but they aren’t narrow.
How do you know? He didn’t say anything when he raised his hand, and he did not make a fist.
And Christians have slaughtered millions of Christians over the past centuries. Stalin didn’t believe in God — what excuse do all of those Christian slaughterers have?
Given that history is written by the victors, it follows that all of those military victories were won by religious hypocrites.
No, he’s suggested that religion should be given less respect than it has, and ought to have no more importance or social impact than any other personally-chosen voluntary hobby, like knitting.
Actually, it has not. The dogmatic socialist ideologies of Bolshevism and Maoism were religion-like, putting the head of the state as the cult figure.
Liberal secular humanism would not raise any person to be a cult figure, nor make any ideology “mandatory”. The rule of (secular) law should only punish actions that physically or financially harm others, not beliefs.
“Wrong” implies “right”.
“Right” is thus narrow.
Punishment implies “wrongdoing”.
Wrongdoing implies a standard from which someone deviates. Whose standards? Yours? PZ’s? Liberal secular humanism?
You say, “he’s suggested that religion should be given less respect than it has, and ought to have no more importance or social impact than any other personally-chosen voluntary hobby, like knitting.”
“Should” and “ought to” are moral imperatives. Says who?
You say, ‘Liberal secular humanism would not raise any person to be a cult figure, nor make any ideology “mandatory”.’
Except of course liberal secular humanism you mean.
D Ray, are you saying that you did not enter here with an honest question?
Where religion was done away with, a state religion was put in it’s place. Russia was a theocracy built around the religion of communism, and it was an authoritarian state. This is what led to it’s destruction (that and an arms race they couldn’t keep up), it had nothing to do with the doing away of religion.
Secularism in a liberal democracy is the only current solution we have, and there are plenty of religions who are opposed to such an ideal. The irony is that those religions trying to destroy secularism are protected by the system.
The standards of liberal secular humanism are that all humans have equal rights under the law.
What’s wrong with using those?
What’s wrong with using some form of the golden rule; basic ethical reciprocity?
Consider the opposite formulation: Religion should be given more respect than it has, and should be made the law of the land. Whose religion should dominate? Which religious laws should be made the law of the land? All of them? Some? None?
If it’s all of the laws in the bible, well, I hope you’re willing to submit to being killed for violating the Sabbath.
Nope, not even that.
As long as you behave in such a way as your actions have no affect on anyone else, you may believe any loathsome thing you want. Think that people should be burned at the stake for not being Christian? Fine, believe that. Actually burn someone at the stake for not being a Christian? You’re a murderer, and are punished.
D Ray thinks asking questions makes his point. It just confirms his trollish nature. Notice he doesn’t posit an argument and try to defend it.
Trollish nature?
Humorous. Why would I wish to spend my time defending an argument with someone who thinks I’m a troll?
And who said anything about Christianity or burning people at the stake? Where did I even mention religion?
I am simply finding statements which say religious people are idiots quite beneath the level of discourse which I would expect from intelligent people. What’s so original about bashing believers? And if there is a “dangerous narrow-mindedness about religions, then why ask this question at all as someone above did?
“What’s wrong with using some form of the golden rule…”
Well, you tell me. This entire thread seems to be opposed to such religious notions.
Are the people who came up with the golden rule idiots and narrow minded?
There are a host of intelligent believers of many different religious backgrounds who’ve contributed to society in some productive way.
And “secular humanism” which gives us our “rights” has at least some grounding in “religion”. At the very least it takes “human” seriously.
I’m going back to hide under my bridge now. There are some goats coming.
:)