One of the older arguments against god is that there seems to be some limitations on the kinds of miracles he’ll do, especially healing miracles. Faith healers can make some little old lady’s pain go away, briefly, maybe, but the big one doesn’t work: why won’t god heal amputees? That would be a vivid miracle!
I would have said that no magical regeneration of human body parts has ever occurred, but someone has pseudonymously claimed otherwise on the Minnesota Atheists forum.
There is MEDICAL PROOF and DOCUMENTATION that proves GOD HEALS AMPUTEES.
If anyone so desires, I WILL FURNISH THIS PROOF FOR YOU –
I WANT TO HELP PEOPLE – NOT CONDEMN THEM.The TRUTH EXISTS for those who really SEEK THE TRUTH, instead of burying their heads in sand like an ostrich, and believing that things don’t exist.
Furthermore; there is SCIENTIFIC & HISTORIC PROOF of GOD’S TRUE EXISTENCE that could not have been 50-100 YRS. AGO.
WAKE-UP ATHEISTS BEFORE YOU LOSE YOUR SOUL FOR ETERNITY – THAT IS FOREVER & EVER!
Despite his offer, alas, “The Prophet” posted under a pseudonym and without a public email address. So we’re going to have to go one better. The Sunny Skeptic is looking for volunteers, Christians of great faith, who are willing to trust in the Lord to fix an experimental amputation.
I don’t think I entirely approve of the protocol, however. It seems a great waste of a very useful power to lop off a limb and wait for regrowth, especially since veteran’s hospitals are full of people with debilitating injuries. I’d rather see The Prophet sweep through an amputee ward in a hospital and give us a demonstration of his god healing the broken and severely injured.
It sounds like the kind of thing military chaplains ought to be doing.
Hmm… may we just haven’t really sought the truth.
Please, no experiments on subjects who could not give informed consent.
God heals amputees!!
My sense of irony had been completely shredded in a blogging accident, but I prayed, and now it’s back!
Evidence coming soon. You know, just like Jesus is always “coming soon.”
Glen D
http://tinyurl.com/6mb592
Oh, I’m sure the “healing” is all emotional. The body may still be afflicted, but through Magical Jesus Power the soul is blah blah blah blah blah.
IT’S A MIRACLE!!
Well it must be TRUE! The poster used ALL CAPS! That is a sign from GaWd, isn’t it?
I also love to have to worry about not just FOREVER, but FOREVER & EVER. Much more worrisome.
Two words: super glue
Ah. Much like fusion power, then. ;-)
I agree with PZ, the amputee soldiers should be the experimental group. After all, a good chunk of them are True BelieversTM. There should also be a few agnostics/atheists already injured for control. MRI or CT scans can be used as start/end points to prevent bias. An experiment waiting to happen. Oh, a real MD might know the results before the experiment is even run. Nevermind.
Oddly enough, foreskins can be regrown with a bit of time and effort. Eeew, I know, but I find irony in the idea that the bit of tissue removed at a bris can be regrown but a nose can’t.
I’ve often wondered that while priests and believers pray for the sick to recover from a range of illnesses, including cancer, I’ve never seen or even heard of anyone seriously praying for the regrowth of a lost limb. Obviously this is anecdotal, but I wonder if at some level even “believers” get that this is just ritual without reality.
God has always worked in mysterious ways!
Quiet Desperation, I have at least some hope of fusion power in my lifetime.
I heard of a faith healer a few months ago bragging about healing amputees in some war torn section of Africa on a missionary trip. He claimed to his followers that the “limbs grew a few millimeters overnight” after his faith healing sessions, and said “the villagers will be happy to testify to the accuracy of his claims, just go ask them.”
Oh and by the way, he couldn’t remember where exactly the little village was because he had lost his map, but if we found them, they would testify on his behalf.
Oh, and he couldn’t replicate it back in the states, because it only worked in that one war torn region where god was helping him heal those particular people in that particular village only.
Well there we have it! Faith healing heals limbs… ; )
Medic!Cleric! I need a Cure Critical Wounds, stat!Apparently The Prophet is used to hanging in circles where the meaning of the word ‘eternity’ needs to be explained. I’m glad he explained it though, because I thought eternity only meant ‘forever’. Looks like there’s another ‘ever’ thrown in there with it.
Thanks to The Prophet for straightening that out for me.
Or as I’ve heard before the lazy-ass attempt to give god credit for the work of real humans.
“God works miracles through medical science.”
I call major bullshit on that excuse. I guess I’m just fed up with people never giving themselves credit.
I know how to satisfy all sides in this scenario. Remove the limbs from the willing Christians. Attach them to the vets. God should be so happy that the Christians have donated their limbs to others that he’ll happily regrow them. No?
Re: #12.
I agree. Deep down, they have just as much doubt as anyone, with regards to god, their beliefs and so on.
Praying for regrowth of a limb would be too stark a reminder that it’s all fiction.
Too easy to show that their rituals are devoid of meaning.
True Christians(tm) may be shallow, they may be willfully ignorant. But most are not completely stupid…
no, they can’t. if you’re talking about the guy that was on Penn & Teller’s BS claiming he re-created his foreskin, he didn’t: he simply stretched OTHER skin to fake it. nothing was “regrown”
I’ll be willing to bet the “miracle” comes in after doctors say a person doesn’t stand much of a chance of walking again. But with a good prosthetic and enough hard physical therapy an amputee may walk again. As well all know, this wouldn’t really be proof that anything besides hard work and the will power to want to walk again. I can only hope I would have the strength to make it through such an ordeal if it would ever happen to me.
sorry, the Cure Wounds spell family specifically does NOT regrow lost limbs or digits. it’ll restore the associated hit point loss, but not the limb
[/yeah, i *am* that big of a nerd]
Cure Critical Wounds is at least as effective as prayer. More so, because, prayer won’t even return my hit points.
There is a plaque at a wall in El Pilar cathedral in Zaragoza in Spain that tells the story of a leg amputee who got his leg back miraculously (in 1637). “El cojo de Calanda”. Oh, look, here is a picture of it: http://www.grupoelron.org/mitos/cojodecalanda.htm
God turned me into a newt!
I got better.
She turned me into a newt.
I got better….
There is documentary proof that foreskins can be regrown. In medieval Europe, where bone of saints, bits of the True Cross etc could regularly be found/prayed to/put into drinking water as a fore-runner of Gygax’s little helper, there were SIMULTANEOUSLY SEVEN Jesus foreskins doing the rounds (Being Jewish etc)
Either he regrew it (Rabbi looking though price list to see if he can charge extra) OR There was one miracle about Jesus the Bible is surprisingly quiet on.
Skyotter, that’s why the Cure Wounds spell is needed “stat”! If you still have the amputed limb, and it has not yet started to atrophy, then all you need to do is firmly hold it against the wound, and the Cure Wounds spell will heal the injury. You know, the way surgeons can reconnect severed limbs today (sometimes, and under some conditions).
This is why the otherwise useless Cone of Cold spell was made; to provide a handy source of ice. ;)
What immediately came to mind was a disturbing thought (the kind that the Saw movies inspire): Why start with limbs and not just go for the head?
The protocol can be adjusted slightly whereby the participants can simply pray in advance.
I thought that was for wizards who retired to run an inn.
(Monkey and I- two great minds in step, and posting simultaneously)
Robert: be glad i’m not your GM because i’m not sure i’d let that work =)
“hey, YOU wanted the Sword of Sharpness, and YOU rolled the fumble …”
(full disclosure — it was really a Mace of Sharpness, because i’m perverse like that)
Walking sticks (Phasmida) can regrow lost limbs. It seems gawd is fond of more crawlys than beetles- just not humans.
I can’t find it but i swear I remember some link about some woman claiming that god regrew her leg and she had medical proof. The site was a prime example of faith and poor understanding of technology colliding.
Still looking for it
@ Rev. BDC. Faith, technology and irreducible complexity could collide if the rethuglicans threw Sarah Palin under a British bus.
Maybe the study group can include apotemnophiles who went a little too far. Read this:
http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200012/madness
I had been been aware of Ian Hacking’s old books on logic and had read an excellent paper he wrote on the fine-tuning argument, but had not heard of his “transient mental illness” theory. His best two books on the subject are _Mad Travellers_, about the late 19th fugue epidemic in Europe and _Rewriting the Soul_, about multiple-personality disorder and Satanic Panics in the 70s through early 90s.
BTW, yall got Monty Haul DMs if you think Cure Critical can reattach a severed limb. I would never allow such a thing.
Lol, this cracks me up y’all. I was just saying that if our friend believes in it so much, he must be willing to offer himself up? :) Crackpots are my favorite!
Well, I posted a link to Bulwer-Lytton an hour or so ago, and here’s one of the entries you have to dig to find:
Somehow seems appropriate here.
(One of the entries submitted by the winner, Garrison Spik, at http://www.sjsu.edu/faculty/scott.rice/Garrison.htm.)
@skyotter:
You want perverse? I was the first water mage to cast a fireball. I told the GMs I split water into hydrogen and oxygen. They took it :D
Inconsistent caps: Sure sign of launacy.
http://www.sjsu.edu/faculty/scott.rice/Garrison.htm
Sorry.
You would think a Prophet with such intriguing information would be more upfront with his contact info. Why are Christians always so vague about everything?
@#9, Oh, there are real MD’s who wouldn’t think that it’s absurd at all.
Maybe as a warmup they could find an ostrich actually burying its head in sand.
One disease with no claimed “miracle” cures: diabetes. I’ve heard preachers try to understand why God won’t cure diabetes. Maybe has something in common with amputees – need to grow a functioning pancreas (or jump start the existing one).
Once we can insert the appropriate salamander DNA into humans we might have a chance. God’s had a couple of thousands years and he hasn’t shown any results so far.
I’m trying to parse this so it makes some kind of sense. Is The Prophet saying that “god could not have existed 50 to 100 years ago” or “the proof of god’s existence could not have existed 50 to 100 years ago”? Did this god or proof of good exist 101 years ago and then vanish for 50 years until it reappeared? Or is it that The Prophet‘s writing is incoherent?
Neither would I…
But maybe, just maybe, I could perhaps be talked into letting them use, say, a “Regenerate*” spell… But that would take a lot of convincing. ;)
*Page 270 – Player’s Handbook 3.5
In my #46 it should read “or proof of god”.
I would love to see a religious moron lop off his own head in any number of ways, and then have his head pray to his god for reattachment. Of course, if the head is severed, then the idea of a god is also severed and it would be a miracle if the head reattached to the body without any help from an imaginary god. How would the head know that it is severed and to what would it appeal to? One could always bang the head with a good slap and yell out, “Heal you heel!” But then again all is possible with religion even if you don’t believe it.
#46, surely you must have better things to do than to try to parse the rants of a lunatic?
I’m not saying there isn’t. MD’s are almost as subject to woo as the general population. But I would tend to think that those most likely to publish are more scientific in their outlook. With MRI and CT for evidence, the paper would write itself, but maybe not in the direction they want. (short night and long day, if I’m getting incoherent ignore me.)
Actually isn’t DARPA playing around with regenerative technologies? Nothing to do with any god of course, but everything to do with science. Imagine that.
I’m trying to parse this so it makes some kind of sense.
I’m somewhat fluent in religious lunatic; I think it means that there is historic evidence of a healing event that occurred 100 years ago that was not possible with the science of the time, therefore God did it.
You simultanously broke the laws of thermodynamics in the process (admittedly, that’s what magic is for). If I were your DM I’d have ruled that you forced a divide by zero upon the game universe by breaking the laws of thermodynamics recursively. The other players would be so proud of you.
It does seem that the DM’s propensity to subject you to cruel treatment when you stretch the rules is directly proportional to his or her knowledge.
Wow, I blogged about this sort of thing earlier today. Coincidence?
Or is it the work of an Intelligent… ummm… Coincidence-Guy?
http://improbablejoe.blogspot.com/2009/01/firday-why-3-power-of-prayer.html
Ya gotta go with “half-level” spells! You know, where you clasp your hands, kneeling before the GM, and say, “PLEEEEESSSEE don’t let my character be dead!”
I understand that it works better if you’re female and dress appropriately. The GM has to throw a save vs. cleavage.
Alas, there’s a good excuse for why those who might participate in the experiment won’t regenerate lost limbs (assuming they’re Christian): They’re not “True Believers”(TM). Remember Jesus in the desert, talking with Satan? Can’t test God – well, you can, but he won’t participate (so Jesus wouldn’t jump off a cliff/building expecting God to save him).
@Tis Himself (#46):
I suspect he was saying something(s) happened 50-100 years ago that is proof of God – that statement was probably meant to indicate that the occurence(s) happened ‘not that long ago’. So incoherence it is!
calladus,
A ‘wish’ could undo the lost limb, but one must word it very carefully lest they unwittingly test the limits of DM evil. Use your wish to simply “Grow my arm back” and you’re likely to end up with an arm in an embarrassing location (or worse).
This reminds me of the strange insistence by some Christians that God is omniscient and omnipotent, even when I point out that they don’t. It isn’t too late for an omnipotent God to restore the twin towers and all the lives that were lost. Yes, there is probably something at the site currently, but an omnipotent God could restore the towers and lives on vacant land or in the desert someplace, with the utilities fully connected. But these Christians stopped praying for that some time ago and acquiesed to God’s “will”. Their actions give lie to their claimed beliefs. Despite their obvious lack of faith, they refuse to retreat to a more limited God, since he would be unworthy of their worship.
The loss of the capability to regrow lost limbs is also a potent criticism of the intelligent designer, but my favorite is that the well meaning but inept dude used the same genetic code in humans and all the other animals, making transpecific disease transmission all too easy. Poorly done.
Three words to tie together the threads:
Head. Of. Vecna.
To bring all the threads of this post together.
http://www.blindpanic.com/humor/vecna.htm
Not my story (unfortunately)
Benjamin Geiger and Last Hussar, awesome story. I’ve never read it but that just makes my day!
Ward S. Denker #28 asks,
Excellent idea. I’d be keenly interested in observing both the severed (and suitably life supported) head and the similarly sustained body. I’m quite curious to see if regeneration would favor the one or the other or if the rate of regeneration is the same for both.
So Cure Critical Wounds won’t regrow/reattach the lost limb?
So what if you kill the character, sew the dead limb back onto the now dead body, and then cast Resurrect?
I’m sure that isn’t the first (nor will it be the last) comparison between creationists and
parasites.
I’m easy, I would be convinced of a God (or at least the supernatural) if I saw some simple levitation, as long as it didn’t happen on a Las Vegas stage or the moon.
At least the Prophet spelled “lose” correctly. That’s a rarity on the internet.
I’m a diabetic and a couple of years ago I had a wound on the ball of my right foot and the plastic surgeon used baby foreskin to heal it. No prayer or gods needed.
But wait; circumcision is usually a religious ceremony, so… nah.
Geez, Ward, you just made me imagine an intelligent parasite and it’s not pretty.
In nature some parasites kill their host and others merely inconvenience them. Levels of inconvenience may vary of course. All well and good. But consider the intelligent parasite.
It requires a great deal of sustenance to support its pledge drives. Any given host has a limited supply of sustenance that has to be divided between sustaining the parasite and the host. The IP must infect multiple hosts to receive sufficient sustenance without the hosts noticing that something is missing. The IP must maintain an even more delicate balance when engaging national figures and launching even greater charitable and missionary endeavors.
That this type of parasite has perfected and currently employs such devious strategies to suck the essence from their fellow humans is chilling and beyond the pale of taboo. It is a cannibalism that leaves the body intact. Ugh.
I thought that was called a Mace of Smashiness?
(Or it had a flanged head, or something.)
In any case D&D damage rules make it amazingly hard to lose limbs – it practically requires magic (or some specific limb-removing ability). Unless the DM is evil and use one of several ‘critical hit’ tables published in Dragon back in 1st edition days. (The difficulty of breaking bones is even more amazing, especially with all those big swords and maces swinging about.)
Which proves that if gods really cared about amputees, we’d all heal (and take damage) like D&D characters.
There, fixed that for you.
Thanks. I did have the nagging feeling that I’d neglected something.
The question I’d like to ask this Prophet is, “If God can regenerate body parts, why haven’t we seen this already?”
It would be old news, we would have accounts going back thousands of years. Cave paintings would feature it, and some individuals removed from burials would show incomplete regeneration.
If it required a person or persons dedicated to the service of God and trained in that service, that would be one thing. If anybody could do it, then human regeneration might be considered a natural phenomenon instead of a supernatural event.
It would also profoundly affect medical practice. Physicians and emergency medical personnel would be trained in it. Physicians to a greater degree and depth of course. We would have facilities and equipment dedicated to facilitating regeneration. The scientific and medical literature would be filled with papers, studies, articles, and books discussing the phenomenon.
Don’t forget regeneration woo. Whenever you have something that can be explained there will be those who insist their erroneous explanation is best.
Where the capability of Cure Critical is concerned… Depends on the model the magic is based on. If CC is a lower powered application of Regeneration, and Regen works by magically stimulating the re-development of a body part -in effect, recapitulating the original pertinent fetal development, then there is really no reason for CC to fail to reattach a limb. In a sense such a usage can be considered a magically accelerated version of what happens naturally subsequent to successful reattachment surgery. Indeed, all the various “Cure” spells can be viewed as modifications of Regeneration adapted to different situations.
Yes, there are people who think about things like that.
Dragon #226 had a comic Knights of the Dinner Table that parodied the Hackmaster tables.
I’m not that much of a geek (honest!). It’s the only copy of the magazine I have (it was given to me by a friend a long time ago).
Missed the comic (as I stopped reading Dragon in college), but the actual Hackmaster tables (yeah, there really is such a game) differ from the much earlier Dragon articles I was thinking of only in that the Hackmaster tables were not intended to be taken seriously …
Why won’t god heal amputees?
…it is NOT God’s will to heal everyone, and amputees shouldn’t expect any healing until the Lord’s return. Amen! Every Christian who is suffering pain today… the deaf, dumb, blind, and crippled… will be forever healed by Christ’s omnipotent power when he returns at the Rapture!
http://www.jesus-is-savior.com/False%20Religions/Atheism/amputees.htm
There’s your answer! All Christian amputee healing is officially postponed until the Rapture.
I’m an amputee (really, I am!)
And I’m sure this is merely a scam–
But I now volunteer,
So it’s perfectly clear
That their God doesn’t give half a damn!
If you’d like to put faith to the test,
Just pray, and let God do the rest–
Oh, and fly me, to check,
To a testing-place; heck,
I would think Santorini’s the best!
I am perfectly willing to go
But you’ll have to pay airfare, you know,
And be sure to admit
That your praying did shit
When the answer your God gives is “no”.
One might expect Christians to read their own bible…
And these signs shall follow them that believe: In my name they shall cast out devils. They shall speak with new tongues.
They shall take up serpents: and if they shall drink any deadly thing, it shall not hurt them. They shall lay their hand upon the sick: and they shall recover.
I see no limits in time or severity there.
Interesting…
“They shall lay their hand upon the sick: and they shall recover.” Maybe that just means that the believers will touch the sick, get “creeped out” by them, but then be OK after :-)
Of course, I can never get the proletizers who come to the door to let my snakes bite them, or drink the Drain-O I offer, or to let me cut their tongue out so they can grow a new one… They also seem to think the devil is in me, but also seem to be unable to cast him out. Batting 0 for 5 there it seems…
That’s right, you goddamned fuckin’ crybabies. He doesn’t fuckin’ feel like healing you, get it? Just suck it up, cupcake, and quit your bitchin’, or you’re gonna seem some real goddamned smiting around here. Just a hint: He doesn’t heal pillars of fuckin’ salt, either — you wanna be a fuckin’ pillar of salt? No? Then shut the fuck up, gimpy, and wait for the goddamned Armageddon.
Gawd damn it Owlmirror! I’m supposed to be the one quoting the snake kissin’ and speaking in tongues.
Now let’s go from amputee’s to tropical diseases… Addams Family fans know we relish those. My dear old grey haired daddy has a beaut of a rare tropical disease, from the Korean War.
Jungle Rot.
@Tulse#80–
Does this mean I don’t get a ticket to Santorini?
Probably for the best; I hear they cook cuttlefish there…
Aww now Cuttlefish, don’t get in an uproar.
We got all kinds of crawdaddies in cricks in Dumbfuckistan, Oregon.
Yer alright sir. Swim free!
Notice he’s not volunteering his own self to offer as proof. Just like they don’t drink the poison of poisonous snakes… some faith in the lord they have.
This isn’t news. I regularly mock theists on the ten questions thread in youtube, which has this question as well:
And you get at least one asshat per day claiming that they either saw someones leg grow back, that he heard it from someone, etc etc etc. Plus the usual theist in denial. You know these people, they come back day after day to only get reamed intellectually and with word play, and yet they keep coming back.
In all the time I spent there, I can count the number of theists who actually had brains on one hand.
Which is why I like going there in spite of the insanse youtube comment restrictions. Since you are pretty much certain to get a nice steady stream of moron theists to pratice and laugh at. Unlike places here where you get maybe 1-2 new ones that are worth mocking.
“WAKE-UP ATHEISTS BEFORE YOU LOSE YOUR SOUL FOR ETERNITY”
The problem with that statement is that it presupposes that one can acquire the faith to believe by his/her own volition. The Grace to believe is a free gift of God. Sure, one can refuse the gift or ignore it and eventually it becomes inert. With some, the gift was refused long ago and been reinforced through the years. The Prophet would be well advised to pray that the “hardened hearts” of those who rejected the gift of faith will be penetrated enough to move them to reassess the lost gift. That would seem a better course than telling them to “Wake up”.
Free Gifts?
How did I miss the announcement?
Silver Fox,
Out of interest’s sake, do you believe that if God doesn’t offer the gift of faith to a person, that person will be sentenced to eternity in Hell?
Will you chop off your own limb to show your faith Silver Fox?
Silver Fox:
True; a more serious problem is that it presupposes that something called a soul exists.
It would be so damn funny,if it wasnt so fucking stupid !
Gawd is omnipotent,omnipresent and knows everything,but if you,say,lose your leg and pray to him to grow it back,he aint listening,no Siree,not a word,not a gesture,not a millimetre of regrowth,not even a foreskin’s worth….
And why not? Oh,its not part of his divine plan right now,or,gawd has other plans for you,or,we dont actually really believe in this crap(but they wont say that!)
Poste @ 19 said it best:
Amen.
“Out of interest’s sake, do you believe that if God doesn’t offer the gift of faith to a person, that person will be sentenced to eternity in Hell?”
I think the gift of faith is available to everyone. Some accept and cooperate with it and some don’t.
I have no idea who goes to Hell whatever that is. That’s God’s decision.
So, you don’t believe that the information regarding that has been provided to us (i.e. in the Bible)? Do you have any theories as to what happens to atheists when they die?
“Will you chop off your own limb to show your faith Silver Fox?”
No I wouldn’t because I don’t believe God does magic tricks. If you have an amputated limb maybe you need to pray that God will enable you to accept your handicap and to live as full and productive a life as you can.
Silver Fox, you dissing Matthew? (17:20) :)
Divine magic tricks are called “miracles”, you know.
But fair enough, I don’t believe in miracles either. Or even in gods.
“So, you don’t believe that the information regarding that has been provided to us (i.e. in the Bible)?”
I wouldn’t put too much stock in a literal reading of the Bible. The Bible is written in many literary genres. It has old myths and folklore. Some of it is written in the form of Greco-Roman novels. The Bible is inspired by God but the Revelation of God in the Bible is not going to be acquired by sitting down and leafing through it.
Actually, I astonished the rubes with “sawing a lady (or boy) in half”, back in the day.
Re: #17
This is what I like to term the “Santa Claus uses your parents” argument, most conspicuous in theistic evolution circles. When you have a real explanation that ought to supplant a fantastical one, you just explain that the latter explanation is now “better understood” in light of reality. We used to think Santa actually brought gifts on a sleigh, but now we know that Santa’s sleigh is a metaphor for your annoyed parents, Toys-R-Us, and the Taiwanese factory system. But Santa’s still real, and stuff.
testing access
That looks suspiciously like you’re slouching towards Universalism.
How about Unitarianism? God and Jesus: homoousia or homoiousia or heteroousia?
“Do you have any theories as to what happens to atheists when they die?”
My opinion is that they will be judged like everyone else.
If an atheist is inclined to believe that he should believe in God and refuses to do so, then he/she has a problem. If in all honesty the atheist can’t bring himself/herself to believe that there is a God, then he/she is going to be judged on how well they led their lives. I’m glad those decisions are left to the wisdom of God. I sure wouldn’t want to be making them.
Of course there are cases when an animal cut into two pieces regenerates both parts – the head including (some molluscs). But to know this you should have read also something else than neodarwinian drivel here.
Those who believe in neodarwinian myth are mislead. But such cases happens – also Kepler and Newton were mislead by astrology. They thought that planents and stars govern events on the Earth. Some scientists today are mislead by neodarwinism. They think that “random mutation” and “natural selection” governs evolution. They can be forgiven. Another case is Myers himself. He releases deliberately his nonsensical neodarwinian articles every two hours unless he sleeps.
Of course there are cases when an animal cut into two pieces regenerates both parts – the head including (some molluscs). But to know this you should have read also something else than neodarwinian drivel here.
Those who believe in neodarwinian myth are mislead. But such cases happens – also Kepler and Newton were mislead by astrology. They thought that planents and stars govern events on the Earth. Some scientists today are mislead by neodarwinism. They think that “random mutation” and “natural selection” governs evolution. They can be forgiven. Another case is Myers himself. He releases deliberately his nonsensical neodarwinian articles every two hours unless he sleeps.
“If anyone so desires, I WILL FURNISH THIS PROOF FOR YOU…”
DON’T DO IT!!! It’s sure to be a Rick-roll.
anothr test
“That looks suspiciously like you’re slouching towards Universalism.”
I don’t know anything about Universalism, but, I do know that God has to be the final judge of who goes where.
#8 Posted by: Quiet Desperation | January 16, 2009 7:16 PM
More like Peter North…except of course for the actual happy ending.
They can be “forgiven” because they are not mislead, and in fact are more correct than whatever fevered nonsense you think is going on.
CalGeorge #76:
OMFG… that website is just mindboggling.
A small sample from the article “Evolution is Stupid”:
I’m not even going to start on that. There’s much more where that came from…
This is nonsense. How could there be an atheist who believes that she should believe in God? Beliefs aren’t actions.
I can believe that (1) I should give the large majority of my money to the poorest people and yet (2) still go on buying shit I don’t need.
With beliefs, there is no step 2. You just believe, or you don’t.
If you believe that you should believe in God, all that means is that you believe there is a compelling reason to believe, more compelling than any reasons to disbelieve.
And to say that there is a more compelling reason to believe, is to believe. That’s it. That’s all.
There is no such thing as an atheist who believes that they should believe in God. This impossible construction is an invention of your own imagination, something you’ve dreamed up to ease your discomfort about Hell.
You want to believe that anyone condemned to Hell must have somehow deserved it, and you are inventing rationalizations to quiet your empathy toward your fellow humans. This starving of one’s own empathy is somewhere between tragic and contemptible.
I would pay Marvel almost any amount of money if they retconned the source of Wolverine’s healing factor into “His faith in the Lord is just that strong.”
Silver Fox wrote:
SF, I’m not actually directing this toward you specifically; it’s just that you brought up exactly what a poster named gabriel was writing about a couple of weeks back.
How does it being ‘written in many literary genres’ make any difference to the veracity of its contents? I mean, either it’s what Yahweh wanted to communicate to us or it isn’t. And, as is often pointed out, if it’s not all to be taken literally, by what means does one determine which parts are and which parts aren’t?
As it is this whole ‘genre’ defence sounds like yet another tapdance step in the apologist’s reality-dodging choreographic repertoire.
Oh, this is an easy one! Yahweh wrote it all in one genre, that of “religious text,” because he didn’t want us to take a single word of it seriously. It’s just Chicken Soup for the Bronze Age Soul. The true word of God may be deciphered by listening carefully to the lyrics on your local Clear Channel top 40 station. It’s no coincidence that the words pertain to your life. Everything happens for a reason.
I think we all realize that there will come the day when science perfects a technique to regrow missing limbs. That knowledge, that is hidden from us now, will be revealed to the stubborn scientist and its revelation will have been deduced from the book of life that was certainly written by an entity whose existence and mind we cannot comprehend.
Actually, that I can do all on my own. So if I don’t need a god for that, and if he won’t pony up with the miracles, kinda puts him on the list of “things that don’t exist but it’s ok because we can do it ourselves anyway”, doesn’t it?
Unlike those invisiblility cloaks they are working on, now THOSE would be ever so useful…
Like all other modern biologists, those scientists who understand what is yet understood about regeneration also work within your hated neo-Darwinian framework. The fact is you cannot understand regeneration except through neo-Darwinian evolutionary biology.
http://www.hhmi.org/biointeractive/stemcells/regen/index.html
Those “stubborn scientists” are the only ones working on the problem. Sounds to me like you are the stubborn one. Go get an advanced biology degree and start your lab work, you leech.
And if your Bible is as predictive as you say it is, tell us right now which genes we should be studying to develop human limb regeneration, and tell us which Bible chapter and verse you learned it from. If you can’t beat the stubborn scientists to the discovery, then your Bible is worthless.
Alex in Toronto wrote:
No, apparently you don’t.
Oh, how convenient. God can’t do it now, but when humans work out how to do it with no help from God at all, religidiot morons will still give him the credit and none to the hardworking doctors and scientists who actually deserve the acclaim. Just like when the Pope was shot*.
It’s extremely coincidental how much God has learned in recent years thanks to science. Why, he’s managed to wipe out the many diseases he’s given us, extend our lives beyond the ones he shortened, and put is in better general health despite all the failings within the human body he created for us – hallelujah! Isn’t God ever-so-smart?
Oh, we can comprehend it quite well, thank you very much. Superstitious tribespeople invent godlike beings to explain what they don’t understand. Funding cuts drop the numbers down to one; tribe continues belief over hundreds of years and erect a culture around it and call it religion. The religion is modified greatly and radically redeveloped by a bunch of guys who wish another guy had actually lived, died and lived again.
After amusing themselves by killing members of the splinter group (bloody splitters) anther tribe sees a good opportunity for scam (or possibly scamola) and adopts it. Said religion pretty much takes over the world, mostly due to people
seeing its truthbeing slaughtered if they didn’t convert.Time passes. Humanity evolves, socially and intellectually. This leads perceptive and sensible people, when faced with the realisation of where religion came from, to abandon it. Sadly, the willfully ignorant, intellectually dishonest and downright stupid retain it.
There you go, Alex. A free history lesson. No, that’s okay – you’re welcome.
*I know, that wasn’t God per se; he claimed it was Our Lady of…someplace. Guadalupe? Wagga Wagga? Eh, who cares. You know what I mean.
What leads you to believe that?
And teeth. God never heals cavities or abscesses in teeth. Realising this was one of my first steps back to atheism after I’d fallen for the religious message when I was young and foolish. And while the scientists are looking to reprogram our genes to allow regrowth of limbs (and teeth?), could someone look into turning on or reinserting the genes that allow the females of most other mammalian species to reabsorb their uterine linings at the end of a hormonal cycle rather than shedding it? I know many would be grateful for the regrown limbs, but stopping menstruation would inspire gratitude from 51% of the entire world’s human population. Thank you.
Of course God won’t heal amputees. What would be the point of sharia law if hacked off fingers, hands and feet simply grew back? The fact that accident victims limbs don’t grow back is an unfortunate consequence of God’s masterful plan!
Katkinkate @119, you wish small. I want to be a citizen of the Culture:
What else is there to say?
http://www.theonion.com/content/node/28812
-jcr
Fuck prayer!
In the building where I work there is a medical building that fits prosthetic limbs to amputees. I sometimes get a chance to see some of these people taking their first steps out in the parking lot. I’ve never heard even one of them thanking god. However their praise for their Doctors and the Biomedical engineers is often quite profuse.
http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2100/2497927940_756b9a8772_o.jpg
Dick Cheney can do what god can’t:
http://www.theonion.com/content/radio_news/cheney_re_grows_limb_in
Silver Fox (#101)
This is a little ambiguous. Are we talking about:
(a) Someone who thinks that there are good reasons to suppose that God exists, yet willfully ignores those reasons and still insists that God does not exist, or
(b) Someone who thinks that there are good reasons to suppose that God exists and accordingly believes that God probably exists, yet refuses to believe in God, in the non-epistemic sense of trusting, worshiping him etc?
In the first case, the atheist in question would be guilty merely of cognitive dissonance, and if this is a crime punishable by eternal damnation, then heaven is going to be fairly sparsely populated. In the second case, the atheist is not an atheist at all, and the only crime they are guilty of is moral integrity.
Silver Fox (#86):
For some reason, this gives me X-Files flashbacks:
Cigarette Smoking Man: “Life is like a box of chocolates – a cheap, perfunctory gift that nobody ever asks for.”
I’ve often wondered why the capacity to believe wholeheartedly something without adequate epistemic justification should be considered a “gift”. I’d have thought that “curse” or “damned inconvenience” would be a more fitting term.
Iain W,
I dont think Silver Fox represents the RCC actually,he seems to have his own weird brand of religiosity…..
And the “grace to believe is a gift” thing wouldnt go down well with the have faith and believe and god will enter you from behind crowd at the evangelical places,i assume….
My oldest child was born with bilateral anophthalmia. I swear that my ex in-laws thought that we (the parents) were being punished for not ‘recognising Jesus as our Saviour’.
Get this, they even said, on hearing about my son’s birth ‘The Lord moves in mysterious ways’, to which my son’s father retorted ‘Especially when he is doing the limbo’.
These deluded idiots then set about praying for my son, and getting their whole congregation (in Arkansas no less) to do so as well, but alas, Rory never to this day has grown a pair of eyes!
Silver Fox godbotting again. He hasn’t figured out yet that god doesn’t exist. I would think hanging around here he would see the light of rationality.
Fuck them.
Sounds like you won a lottery you didnt want to win DebinOz,sorry to hear….
Fuck them indeed! I’ve never seen a more dysfunctional family than those bunch of fundamentalist evangelical nutters!
My son has just recently toured the world with his band ‘Rudely Interrupted’ and goes to TAFE full time. All of his USA religious cousins have not achieved a single thing of interest, other than getting married in their teens and losing what little minds they had.
Could it be that God only pays attention to life threatening conditions? Oh no, wait, scratch that. He does allegedly heal blind people. Hmmm…
Well done Son and Mum….:-)
Yeah well.Got to get lucky with your parents,to enable you to have a chance to develop I guess….
Oh, I forgot the funniest thing – the Christian grandparents visited Oz last summer, but left early because my ex wouldn’t let his father read the bible over the Christmas salmon! And then my ex father-in-law emailed his congregation back in Arkansas (and by mistake on purpose CCd my ex) telling them all he had just visited a ‘spiritual wasteland’ – meaning Australia!!!
Clearly you have misinterpreted “The Prophet”. The miracle of the amputee has occurred. Bow down to “Muad’Dib”.
If my son ever gets functioning eyes, it will be from this rather than miracles:
http://www.dailytech.com/Scientists+Grow+New+Frog+Eyes+From+Stem+Cells/article13501.htm
Katinkate, there’s Seasonale. Mrs. Tulse claims it is indeed a miracle.
I’ve often wondered why the capacity to believe wholeheartedly something without adequate epistemic justification should be considered a “gift”. I’d have thought that “curse” or “damned inconvenience” would be a more fitting term.
Not really. I wish I had that capacity.
I was brought up in a religious household. I love Christian ceremonies. I have a passionate desire to believe. And I do believe, on a kind of visceral level; in time of adversity, my instinct is always to pray.
But I don’t really, in an intellectual sense, have the capacity to believe. As the longer-term denizens of this forum will tell you, I’ve spent a lot of my time here trying, and largely failing, to justify the epistemological basis of religious belief. Sadly, the stark reality is that there is no compelling evidential reason to believe in any particular God or gods; and therefore the logical default position is to believe in no such being.
I’m sure Holbach and others will now take great pleasure in accusing me of being pathetic and weak-minded. But I’m sure I can’t be the world’s only depressed agnostic-who-wants-to-be-a-believer.
Did somebody say PINGAS?
http://i132.photobucket.com/albums/q3/Misselaineous10/Robotnik%20Macros/PINGAS.jpg
Given that the only amputees that a god heals are those lizards who’s tails regrow if they fall off. I believe it is reasonable to conclude that god is a lizard.
I for one welcome our scaly overlords.
You’re not the only one. It would be nice to think there would be something we belong to beyond this existence.
Planaria can do more than just regrow lost tails. A planarian split lengthwise or crosswise will regenerate into two separate individuals.
Walton, regarding your #138 – Happy New Year. Admitting you have a problem is the first step. Take this year to drop the rest of your shackles and come to the light of knowing there is no god. It is a freeing experience to realize you are responsible for yourself and for the impact you leave on your loved ones and the world.
Ciao
In case you missed it, whywontgodhealamputees.com also has a good blog:
http://whywontgodhealamputees.com/blog/
Walton (#138):
Maybe you do, but nothing in your post gives any reason for supposing the possession of that capacity to be a good or admirable thing.
Which as far as I’m concerned, is to your credit.
SilverFox, seriously. I haven’t had one single person take me up on my offer yet. How am I supposed to prove anything to you? ‘Put your limbs where your mouths is, fundies!’
That’s what I love about this blog. Here I was about to swoop in with a Culture reference…
But screw the amputee test. If there is a god, why would hasn’t he already given us drug glands… and the 5 minute orgasm?
But screw the amputee test. If there is a god, why would hasn’t he already given us drug glands… and the 5 minute orgasm?
Amen and Happy Monkey.
Looks like the majority of the earth’s population didn’t get the gift of faith. There are 2.1 billion xians out of a world population of 6.7 billion, less than 1/3. Many of those are probably nominal xians.
Oddly enough, the other 2/3s include huge numbers of fanatics who must fervently believe in the wrong gods, Allah, Brahma, and so on.
Even stranger, the main determinant on whether one accepts the gift of xian faith is….what your parents believed in. Moslem countries have a nearly 100% incidence of Moslem families raising Moslem kids. Xian and Hindu families are almost as high.
Wait I meant….
ahhhhhhhhhhhh ahhhhhhhhhh ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhmeeeeeen
Sam Kinison’s old skit from “Breaking all the rules” pretty much nailed the whole healing topic.
“If he could heal, Jesus’d have a new full-time job.”
Seriously, though, anyone who actually could heal the sick, raise the dead, cure the lepers, etc., would probably be killed in the riots that would ensue when he stopped to take a break and rest up.
A modest suggestion to those fiercely faithful followers of Christ who are sufficiently emboldened by the dare and choose to lop off an appendage in the expectation that faith will regrow it: start with something you haven’t been using anyways and will be of no consequence if Jesus screws up… start with your head.
who are willing to trust in the Lord to fix an experimental amputation.
You do realize, don’t you, that this runs afoul of “thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God.”
“Tempt”, here, means “test”. The Devil dared Jesus to fling himself off a cliff and count on the angels to save him. (Matthew 4:7 and Luke 4:12) Jesus replied, “It is written: Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God”. He is quoting Deuteronomy 6:16, and he is not saying “Begone, foul demon, for I am God and I shall not be tempted.” He is saying, “Thou dost ask me to tempt [test] God, and that is a sin.”
Oddly enough, Jesus quotes D. 6:16 in the singular (Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God), but it’s written in the plural (Ye shall not tempt the LORD your God). Yeah, it’s a translation, but one thing I can say for the KJV is that it at least mostly preserves the second person singular and plural.
Of course, the rule against tempting God is convenient for those who insist on his existence. Just what the Devil is God so afraid of, anyway?
Even today, this world is filled with simple one-cell structured living organisms. Why didn’t they evolve?
Because they are comfortable and happy being simple and one-celled. You’d expect that to resonate with people who are comfortable and happy with “goddidit” as an explanation for everything, wouldn’t you?
Patton, iirc, after visiting/liberating Lourdes, was heard to remark that at such places one would find innumerable crutches left behind by the cured, but no artificial limbs.
Come around when you got some hard currency to pass around, okay? I’m near outta scotch, and the SS check doesn’t come til next week.
Faith? Fifty bucks? $50 would set me right up…Faith? not so much, thanks…
Joel (#142):
This “it would be nice to think that” business is also a little odd. Do you mean that “it would be nice if X was the case”, or do you literally mean “it would be nice if I believed that X was the case” (implying “irrespective of whether X is actually true”)?
Seems to me there’s a rather important difference.
amazing. not a single sentence is correct! the first one is closest, but we already know how to reattach limbs in some circumstances, and we certainly won’t “perfect” any techniques in that regard… there will always be a point at which a limb will remain un-reattachable. The knowledge is not hidden from us, since it’s already being done. the technology isn’t up to large-scale reattachments, but the knowledge is there already. and it was not revealed to scientists but by scientists, and I’m pretty certain the only books they’ve used in that discovery were written by other human scientists, not some invisible super-mind.
If he is from Arkansas, the “spiritual wastelands” would include most of the world including the USA East and West coasts, Europe, and Canada. Unless he wants to include the devout Moslem middle east in his spiritual edens.
“If you believe that you should believe in God, all that means is that you believe”
No it doesn’t. If you have an inclination that maybe there is something to believing in God, then you resolve that inclination. You may become a believer or you might decide there’s not enough to cause you to abandon your disbelief.
I’m sure there are many atheists who are resolute in their disbelief. They feel no need to resolve any inclination to believe because they sense none. In responding to a question as to what I thought would happen to them, I said they would be judged on how they have led their lives in the choices they had made and on the honesty with which they had made those choices.
“This impossible construction is an invention of your own imagination, something you’ve dreamed up to ease your discomfort about Hell.”
No, the construction is based on how I think a just and merciful God would operate. It has nothing to do with my comfort or discomfort about Hell.
there is also the mirena coil. i can’t remember my last period… must have been a good 6 months at least.
don’t wait for god to accomplish what modern medicine can already do ;-)
Darn, someone beat me to the planarian reference. Must be the guy from the Church of God, Platyhelminth.
NDT @118
“What leads you to believe that?”
My concept of God as just and merciful. If God is not just and merciful then you and I can just forget about it because there would be no God. In faith I believe there is a God who is just and merciful. So then folks raise the issue of theodicy – how do bad things happen in the evolutionary creation of a just and merciful God. In the unfolding of creation, God allows the good and the bad. There are potholes all over creation. God is not going to fill them in. You are just going to have to negotiate your way around them.
Of course Australia’s a spiritual wasteland. It’s a radioactive desert, people kill each other for gas and everybody lives in shantytowns run by demented midgets. or so I hear. :)
Of course, no Christian is going to take up the offer of a voluntary amputation, because a) most are not as insane as the DUDE with the INCONTROVERTIBLE EVIDENCE that GOD HEALS AMPUTEES, and usually brush it off with “The Lawd works in mysteriuhhs ways” and also, b) the whole “don’t tempt God” thing mentioned above, which is indeed quite convenient and very selectively applied.
My guess is that the dude’s a troll—simple as that.
Ha ha, chaplains do anything useful? That’s rich. No, they spend there time writing books that specifically exclude atheists:
http://www.amazon.com/No-Atheists-Foxholes-Reflections-Prayers/dp/0849919983
Website: http://www.pjmcbooks.com/
That was written by a chaplain at my former Marine Corps base. He actually called me a coward when I emailed him about it and said that the title was misleading and that I didn’t think it appropriate. Feel free to contact him here, the more, the merrier!
Patrick McLaughlin
My concept of God as just and merciful.
But where do you get that from, Silver Fox? It sure ain’t the Bible. The god in there claims to be just and merciful, but spends all of his time smiting people for no good reason.
Walton @138:
What part makes you feel depressed? Is it the agnostic part or the wants-to-be-a-believer part?
Are you sure you are depressed? Could it be feelings of guilt?
Do you feel guilty for being agnostic or do you feel guilty for not being all the believer you think you can be?
I guess what I’m getting at is: what is the source of the guilt? Could it be the guilt of not believing enough? Imagine no guilt. If that guilt is the true source of your feeling depressed then what stops you from thinking you need to believe more to be happier? Why not let it go? Completely. Not in some half-assed “Oh I’m so guilty for letting it go and not believing; my god is going to be so disappointed in me now” way. Really let it go completely. Imagine the happiness of letting go of that which is unobtainable.
Then imagine how much free time you’ll have to concentrate on real things right here and right now.
WOW @112
How does it being ‘written in many literary genres’ make any difference to the veracity of its contents?
It makes no difference to the veracity of the content. The question is what is the content?
Here’s an example:
Abraham is told to take his long-awaited cherished son Issac and sacrifice him to prove his trust in Yahweh. Abraham takes Isaac and is about to slit his throat when an angel stays his hand and tells him that since he has proved his faith in Yahweh killing Isaac is not necessary. They see a ram caught in a bush and sacrifice it instead.
Now what is the revelation here. Is it that Yahweh puts Abraham through this misery to prove something that Yahweh already knows? I don’t think so.
I think the content is this: At one time in the history of the early Israelite people they engaged in human sacrifice to many gods. However, after they adopted Yahweh as their only God they gave up human sacrifice and resorted to animal sacrifice.
So, is the content that of a sadistic God who puts people through misery for no good reason or is it a statement on the religious history of the early Israelites.
Silver Fox writes:
My concept of God as just and merciful.
(Pats Silver Fox on the head) Yes, hun. That’s nice. The great thing about imaginary playmates is that they can be whatever you want them to be. He can be purple and fuzzy, if you want. Or just and merciful. Whatever you like. (hands Silver Fox a cookie) Now, when you’re all grown up and ready to deal with the real world, the big kids will stop patronizing you and treating you like you’re a fucking retard.
Atheists and Catholics working together…
Catholics who claim they have seen the Virgin Mary will be forced to remain silent about the apparitions until a team of psychologists, theologians, priests and exorcists have fully investigated their claims under new Vatican guidelines aimed at stamping out false claims of miracles.
The Pope has instructed the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, formerly the Holy Office of the Inquisition, to draw up a new handbook to help bishops snuff out an explosion of bogus heavenly apparitions.
According to Petrus, an Italian online magazine which leans towards conservative elements in the Vatican, anyone who claims to have seen an apparition will only be believed as long as they remain silent and do not court publicity over their claims. If they refuse to obey, this will be taken as a sign that their claims are false.
“Here’s the good part… it seems you need a skeptic to sort out truth from fiction.”
The visionaries will then be visited by a team of psychiatrists – both atheists and Catholics – to certify their mental health while theologians will assess the content of any heavenly messages to see if they contravene Church teachings.
“Sadly, things fall apart when weird myths creep back in to the process and the Church takes over.”
If the visionary is considered credible they will ultimately be questioned by one or more demonologists and exorcists to exclude the possibility that Satan is hiding behind the apparitions in order to deceive the faithful.
“You wouldn’t want Satan to contravene Church teachings by hiding behind apparitions to deceive the faithful… that would be nuts!”
I vote for the sadistic god option. If god knew that Abraham believed enough to sacrifice Isaac, then there would be no reason to test Abraham. It’s the “ha ha, Abraham, I really gotcha that time, laughed so hard I almost peed myself” mentality that we’ve all come to know and love about the Abrahamic god that gives it away. That’s the same mentality that gets Job screwed over big time so god can win a bet or inflicts plagues on Egypt so an unnamed pharaoh will let Moses and the Hebrews get out of Dodge. You know, Silver Fox, the same god that kills 42 children because they were rude to Enoch.
Iain @125
“(a) Someone who thinks that there are good reasons to suppose that God exists, yet willfully ignores those reasons and still insists that God does not exist, or
(b) Someone who thinks that there are good reasons to suppose that God exists and accordingly believes that God probably exists, yet refuses to believe in God.”
(a) is lying to himself and (b) is not an atheist.
My point was that probably most atheist are resolute in their disbelief and see no purpose if exploring any supernatural entity. If an atheist has some inclination that there may be a God, then he should have some interest in resolving the issue, whereupon he will end up resolutely atheistic or a believer.
So, is the content that of a sadistic God who puts people through misery for no good reason or is it a statement on the religious history of the early Israelites.
That, silverfox, is exactly the problem with the bible; it’s entirely open to the interpretation of the reader, both the options you outline (and a few I can think of) are entirely plausible, given some underlying assumptions.
Ask Fred Phelps what he thinks, and you’ll find this biblical erm … passage … has a suprising amount to say about fags and fag enablers.
My point was that probably most atheist are resolute in their disbelief and see no purpose if exploring any supernatural entity. If an atheist has some inclination that there may be a God, then he should have some interest in resolving the issue, whereupon he will end up resolutely atheistic or a believer.
Here is the problem with that. At what point have you discovered the One True God™ ? Particularly given the downside is so extreme! There are at present 30,000 distinct christian sects, many of them violently opposed to each other, with doctrines that are entirely mutually exclusive. This is before we even begin to think about other religions and their variants.
Either God is merciful, and Jesus’ sacrifice has redeemed us all no strings attached, or it’s all a crock. No one who has arrived at the conclusion that God is good can possibly endorse hell for a single human being.
Jesus is quite clear- the ONLY way to heaven is through him, so your example of a ‘good’ athiest is flawed- still doesn’t get him upstairs.
On the other hand Adolf “Killin’ fer Jesus” Hitler must be assured a place.
@126
“a cheap, perfunctory gift that nobody ever asks for.”
If you don’t want it, its easy to ignore.
a “gift”. I’d have thought that “curse” or “damned inconvenience”
If you accept the gift of faith and cooperate with it, it does impose inconveniences and in some ways could be considered a “curse” because the choice imposes a life style with inconveniences.
“My ex in-laws thought that we (the parents) were being punished for not ‘recognising Jesus as our Saviour’.”
Right! Forget embryology, forget fetal development. God did it – went into the uterus and zapped your son’s eyes out just to punish the mother and father – one of those ‘sins of the father’ kind of thing. That’s really kind of pitiful. They believe in a vengeful and punitive God. If God is vengeful and punitive then you and I can forget about it. There is no God. Your son’s condition probably has to do with embryology and fetal development. If the Arkansas group is praying for your son, they should pray that he has as full and as productive a life as he can.
Silver Fox. You are still a slippery little idiot. Your god doesn’t exist. Absolutely no physical evidence for god exists. What more do you need to know? And why must you throw out your concept of god here except to try to sow doubt in atheists minds? That was why you were almost banned before. Belief is not a gift, but a curse.
Your son’s condition probably has to do with embryology and fetal development.
Can’t disagree with that, but it hardly gets an O-3 God off the hook. The dilemma remains of being able to stop such a horror, and not doing so.
“SilverFox, seriously. I haven’t had one single person take me up on my offer yet. How am I supposed to prove anything to you? ‘Put your limbs where your mouths is, fundies!”
No one has taken you up on your offer because they know that the offer is silly.
What kind of a God do you think people would be believing in if they could challenge God to perform a magic trick just to satisfy their curiosity? You have God and Houdini mixed up.
I have God and Houdini mixed up? Hey, I’m not the one saying god can do ANYTHING at all. If I had to pick, I’d say Houdini is a hell of a lot more powerful, only due to the fact that Houdini is real.
And I’m NOT being silly. This person says there’s actual proof that god heals amputees. Therefore, to me, he needs to step up, and, as I stated before, put his limbs where his mouth is…
Silver Fox, a prime example of what happens when one believes in imaginary beings. Examine the cognitive dissonance in great detail. Something for every rationalist to avoid.
My concept of God as just and merciful.
“But where do you get that from, Silver Fox? It sure ain’t the Bible.”
Because justice and mercy are reflections of perfection. If you don’t have a God of perfection you don’t have a God. In fact, God couldn’t be anything other than that. Anything else are flaws. A flawed God is no God. On faith, I believe in God. So God has to be perfect which is reflected in justice and mercy.
As an aside, I wouldn’t spend too much time trying to discern the nature of God from the Bible.
SF, you shouldn’t spend so much time describing imaginary beings. Concern Trolling and Godbotting are the two top crimes against Pharyngula. See if you can avoid mentioning god and teaching creationism threads for a couple of days.
Walton – Actually, congratulations on getting closer to the goal of being religion free. You’re at the stage where the wish for conformity is the only reason you’re holding out for belief.
I’ve climbed that hill myself, it’s steep, but the view from the top is worth it. Keep going.
Martin @169
“Why not let it go? Completely.”
Because Walton cannot let it go. If he could do that, he would have already done it. He doesn’t want to live with anxiety or guilt. Those are indicators that the struggle to resolve the issue of faith has not been done. In the end he has to emerge as a resolute agnostic without anxiety or guilt or a believer without anxiety or guilt. You could just as easy tell him to let his agnostic doubt go completely and accept his faith to believe. Based on my faith, I would think that should be the course for him to take. But either way it is going to be a difficult choice. But in the end something is going to have to prevail. It has to be more than just letting go.
Silver Fox #185
Silver Fox – You bastard! Walton is young, he needs good advice not lies. Lying to people about god is bad enough, but lying to the young is really sick. Congratulations, you win the Creep of the Day award.
WAKE-UP ATHEISTS BEFORE YOU LOSE YOUR SOUL FOR ETERNITY – THAT IS FOREVER & EVER!
I already lost my soul. I was drunk one night and I left it in a bar. The next day the owner said he didn’t find it when he cleaned up. I have learned to live without it but if anyone has a spare that it’s in decent shape I would be willing to pay a couple of bucks for it.
As an aside, I wouldn’t spend too much time trying to discern the nature of God from the Bible.
So you basically admit you’ve made the whole thing up based on voices in your head, or feelings in your tummy?
Tis @173
“the same god that kills 42 children because they were rude to Enoch.”
You might throw in Herod butchering all the children under two years in an effort to kill the Christ child.
The Israelites in the Sinai desert for forty years.
Where is the historical evidence for any of this.
You cannot assume that the Bible is history. It isn’t.
You’re not. Lacking the ‘gift of faith’, I went through a period like that. Got better. Now religion just irritates me; we have lives to enjoy and serious problems to solve, and they’re arguing over transubstantiation or speaking on tongues or trying to inject an imaginary being into marriage law? Bleah.
I strongly recommend Julia Sweeney. Or Mark Twain for that matter, who said; “Against an assault of laughter, nothing can stand.”
@#170:
Judges 11:29-39
Just saying. Yahweh isn’t nice.
Y’know, is there any part of the bible that does show God being genuinely just and merciful?
@Walton But I’m sure I can’t be the world’s only depressed agnostic-who-wants-to-be-a-believer.
Of course you’re not. Anyone who cares about people, who demonstrates common human empathy, would love there to be a loving and merciful God. Or at the very least, something that keeps the worst excesses of the universe at bay, while allowing us to enjoy the wonder of existing. All this says about you is that you are, as regards your responses to human suffering, fairly normal.
However, as you have now discovered, even a cursory glance at the world by an intelligent observer completely undermines the 3-O God of “People of the Book” theology. Simple logic will do it, and even children quickly see holes in the story. The loving God rapidly dissolves into insipid incoherence under close scrutiny.
You’re best bet, is to change your circle of friends, at the very least get out from under the influence of the really rabidly certain religious types, perhaps hook up with some local secular society. Nothing too crazy mind, you don’t want to swap one religion for another.
When Charles de Gaulle went to Lourdes he looked at the huge pile of crutches and canes and observed “Not one wooden leg.”
SF wrote:
But what if we describe it as God’s ‘promo’, rather than ‘a magic trick’? Think of the number of wavering believers who’d instantly flock to God’s right hand with adoring looks on their faces if they could just see a pinky finger re-grown. No, I think even a lot of atheists would be impressed with that. (CG might be God’s friend, here.) For an all-powerful deity, it seems like a good economic trade off. And the video would go viral in seconds!
I’m sure I have a rusty hatchet in the shed. Who’s game?
I don’t pretend there’s any historical evidence for most of the Bible. Sure, the Babylonians, Egyptians, Hittites, etc., existed and the Asnappar mentioned in Ezra 4:10 is more commonly called Assurbanipal (685 BCE – 627 BCE) and was a king of Assyria. However, I doubt that it took Moses 40 years to get from Egypt to Israel, especially considering they’re next door to each other.*
But my point wasn’t about historicity. My point was that the Biblical god is a nasty, petulant, egotistical bully with the emotional maturity of a spoiled five year old.
* One of my favorite Farside cartoons showed Mrs Moses complaining to her husband “But would you ask the burning bush for directions? No, not Mr. ‘I’d rather wander the desert for 40 years’.”
So far you’ve scored pretty well in the dungeon list of sins Silver Fox. Concern trolling, godbotting, insipidity and stupidity. You’re clearly heavily infected with brain rot.
“Ask Fred Phelps what he thinks, and you’ll find this biblical erm … passage … has a surprising amount to say about fags and fag enablers.”
If you are going to get any kind of revelation from the Bible, you need to have knowledge of what the authors of the original manuscripts actually said. What the authors intended. How it fitted into the Sitz-en-Leben (situation in time). How the meaning of the language changed. We have no original manuscripts of those biblical books. The language of the old manuscripts are Aramaic, Coptic, Syriac, etc. (ancient Near Eastern languages). I don’t recognize Fred Phelps’ name as being a recognized exegete. Exegetes are people who have devoted their entire lives trying to discern meaning from the Bible.
One should be extremely cautious about looking at some of the televangelists waving their English language King James’ version, telling the audience that they have in their hand the exact word of God.
Yes, some see fags and faggots in the Bible. Some see impending doom and gloom, raptures (beam me up Scotty); they see the beast writing 666 on your forehead or your hand or some place. Many of them have made a business out of religion. If you look at their audiences you see people who have come to be entertained and not to get spiritual guidance and they are not going to be disappointed.
george:
I’m always slightly bemused by liberal Christians. Of course, I much prefer those who cherry-pick all the goodness and love bits from the bible. They’re generally nice people. It seems to me they’ve created an anthromorphic personification of some abstract concepts like Love and Good. And then they ret-con it into a not-very-suitable pre-existing religion. Kind of sweet, but weird.
DebinOz, great story. Sounds like your son has done very well. OT: I was wondering, do blind people still want books read on tape/MP3, or are computer readers now so good that they don’t bother? I once did some volunteer work reading uni textbooks onto tape for a blind student, but it was decades ago.
Jebus, we have about five threads today with at least one poster showing signs of gross stupidity. On this thread, the gross stupidity speaks for itself.
“Jesus is quite clear- the ONLY way to heaven is through him, so your example of a ‘good’ atheist is flawed.”
No its not. Do you mean to tell me that no Jew, no Buddhist, no Muslim, and no Aborigine in the outback of Australia who has never heard of Jesus and never will, are going to be denied salvation. That is not consistent with my concept of God and I don’t believe it. Those who have lived their lives in ways that comport with the teachings of Jesus are going to be saved. Jesus provided the “gateway”
You’re right Nerd! They seem to taste like last weeks left overs too. Ewww.
Fresh trolls please!
Exegetes are people who have
devotedwasted their entire lives trying todiscernfabricate meaning from the Bible.Fixed it for you.
But that’s so very sad. At least scholars of fiction (sorry, literary fiction) don’t imagine that what they’re doing has any value other than adding to academic knowledge, entertaining literary aficionados* and gaining personal satisfaction.
The poor stupid fools poring over bibles waste their lives trying to unlock what the believe are the secrets which will help them and others like them live according to their God’s bafflingly incoherent demands.
I don’t often recommend that people ‘get a life’, but I’d certainly recommend it for all the exegetes (or, better yet, excrementegetes) out there.
*Like myself, for example. I’m reading Don Quixote at the moment, and the annotations are immensely helpful.
Those who have lived their lives in ways that comport with the teachings of Jesus are going to be saved. Jesus provided the “gateway”
No this will not do. If things work as you say, why spread the message at all? Why not let Jesus make his sacrifice in obscurity, and still be the gateway?
I don’t recognize Fred Phelps’ name as being a recognized exegete. Exegetes are people who have devoted their entire lives trying to discern meaning from the Bible.
You don’t recognise his name? Is there an authorised list? Perhaps he has a different list, and doesn’t recognise your name? It certainly is indisputable that he has spent his entire adult life interpreting the “word of God”. How can I possibly discern which version, his, yours or Pastor Billy-Bob Sawyer’s is the correct one?
Good then jebus will save me when I tell you to shut the fuck up Silver Fox. You’re preaching now.
Nerd 180
“Absolutely no physical evidence for god exists”
You’re absolutely right. No physical evidence. That why, without faith, there would be no reason to believe. You either accept the free gift of faith and believe or you don’t.
“to try to sow doubt in atheists minds?”
Resolute atheists who are comfortable in their disbelief are not going to be affected by what is sewn here. Doubting atheists or agnostics need to resolve their issue of faith. So, they already have doubts.
@#205:
See also Apokatastasis.
Posted by: Silver Fox | January 17, 2009
You’re absolutely right. No physical evidence. That why, without faith, there would be no reason to believe. You either accept the free gift of faith and believe or you don’t.
For it is better to accept something on authority then to actually know. Some gift. Can I regift it?
Brian @181
“but it hardly gets an O-3 God off the hook”
As I said before God’s creation is an evolutionary process. During the course of evolution, there are many glitches. In order to have the kind of creation we have there are going to be potholes. God is not going to fill them in. You are just going to have to negotiate your way around them
Oh! Wowbagger, my favorite book ever! Mine is the John Ormsby translation, illustrated by Edy Legrand. If you want to read another old book that treats catholics with hilarity try The Dore Illustrated Balzac Droll Stories. I’ve wet myself more than once reading it.
Don’t touch it Janine. It’s evil!
I get a kick out of ‘evil’ as it is shown in the two movies, ‘Time Bandit’s’ and ‘The Gods Must Be Crazy’.
I think I can safely say Silver Fox has downgraded himself to “well meaning fool” status. If he goes any further, he will join Pete Rooke as a “total fool”. SF, your decision. But I recommend a cooling off period, maybe 7-10 days.
#184 Nerd:
“Examine the cognitive dissonance in great detail. Something for every rationalist to avoid.”
Yes a good deal of cognitive dissonance. Whatever is accepted on faith is counter intuitive. If it was intuitive you wouldn’t need faith. Counter intuitions are always a challenge to rationalism. However, I don’t think faith beliefs are necessarily irrational.
Patricia,
Mine’s a recent one by John Rutherford. I’m enjoying it, but the translation seems very contemporary, and I’m not sure that sits so well with me. I might try and find an older version at some point. Plus there are few things that I can’t decide are errors or deliberate mangling of expressions to emphasise DQ and SP’s characters.
On the Catholic thing: DQ’s just made a rosary out of his shirt-tail and said a million Hail Marys. The note says this is anti-Catholic but I’m not sure why – any thoughts?
By definition they are irrational. What part of that don’t you understand?
Belief without evidence is irrational. That means you are irrational. Embrace atheism and become rational. It is your destiny
LukeSilver Fox.SF:
1. See, you don’t need to live with it. It is needless and perverse.
2. No. Most faith is driven by wishful thinking and is a pandering to intuitions, faith in gods in particular (cf. Walton above).
3. You misunderstand when faith is needed. It is when there is no credible evidence or valid argument for some belief; intuitive and non-intuitive beliefs both require faith if they’re otherwise unsupportable.
4. No, they’re the product of it, often enough. e.g. quantum physics or general relativity or evolutionary theory.
5. Necessarily, they’re not rational.
@ #78
Those could just be a prophesy of increasing sophistication.
They’ll cut themselves while cooking, swear and throw away their nasty sharp kitchen devils in favour of going to restaurants or getting take-aways instead.
They’ll take up one or more of those self-improvement foreign language courses – perhaps wandering the streets with head-phones on, repeating out loud some version of “my hovercraft is full of eels”.
They’ll start learning to play more advanced musical instruments than the middle-eastern peasant horns and drums.
Wowbagger – Which chapter are you reading? I’ll look in my copy. The one I listed above is excellent, it’s very heavily noted and without some of the notes I wouldn’t have caught on to some of the humour. There is another translation by I believe someone named Shelton that is said to be very salty, with extra naughtiness that my translation doesn’t have.
India is preyed on by evangelical soul harvesters from the US (as well as the Indian variety) round the year. Frequently these frauds plant their own followers in front benches during their open air services. These plants fake disabilities such as blindness, paralysis etc., And when the preacher calls out in the name of the alleged one in the sky, the plants cast off their crutches, pretending to be healed. Many years ago one such fake from the US organised a healing session in Calcutta (yes the home of that ghoul Teresa) that went horribly wrong. The plants were joined by some genuine physically challenged people, and when the healing didn’t work as it was supposed quite a few of them rushed on to the stage and manhandled the prescher, who was then deported.
Patricia,
Part 1, Chapter 26. DQ has just starting running around without pants and has sent SP off to Lady Dulcinea with his letter.
Wowbagger – Ah yes, note #4. It is thus the passage stands in the first edition; in the second Don Quixote makes his rosary with oak galls off a cork tree. The alteration was made, no doubt, at the suggestion of some critics who thought the passage indecorous, but Cervates had nothing to do with it (Ormsby).
I’m not sure, but I would guess some people found it offensive to be talking to gawd through the part of your shirt that covers your rear end, or talking through your ass to gawd. The whole book is full of that sort of humour.
There seems to have been a great rivalry between the translators.
I made gazpacho from the recipe given in one of the notes and it was really good.
Sorry Folks. Its theatre night tonight. Its a comedy. After over four hours fending off you guys, its going to be a relief.
SF, here’s some advice. You never have to fend us off if you don’t make any posts here. Make life pleasant on yourself. Delete us from your bookmarks. You have earned the respite.
*snrk*
I suppose we might continue in the same vein
and if they shall drink any deadly thing, it shall not hurt them.
They’ll invent a new mixed drink called “Any Deadly Thing”.
They shall lay their hand upon the sick: and they shall recover.
Sticking a finger down the throat counts as “lay their hand”. It will do wonders for those who have had one or two too many “Any Deadly Things”.
He must be going to see Passion of Christ.
Posted by: Silver Fox Author Profile Page | January 17, 2009
Sorry Folks. Its theatre night tonight. Its a comedy. After over four hours fending off you guys, its going to be a relief.
Sweety, you’ve only yourself to blame. You know that we, as a group, are unmoved by your message of love. Yet you still keep trying.
SF:
Whilst the Arkansas lot may be praying for Rory, they are praying that he, his sisters and his Dad will eventually find the Lord. They gave up on me years ago, as I am ‘an aggressive Australian woman who doesn’t walk with the Lord’ (they actually said this), plus I was baptised Catholic. My daughters have years of Christian colouring book and bible study gifts, which get returned – but they won’t give up!
My ex FIL has a PhD in history (from John Brown Christian University) and does not believe that dinosaurs existed – God created the world complete with the fossils to test our faith. Doesn’t believe in mental illness either – that is a lack of faith.
In other words, God is a liar.
The mind boggles. As a long term depressive, I know that “just smile, it’ll get better” is a load of bs. Lack of faith doesn’t even reach that level.
Collect for the Day ;
Grant , O lord. unto thy pseudonymous Prophet, a third appendage, not too noodly, one- thumbed and and symmetrically situate, wherewith to bless us sinners 1.5 or more-fold than his brethren, and reveal unto him also the Holy Hacksaw Of Habbakuk, that sawing therewith he may transplant it unto those undeserving of thy regenerative grace.
Cause likewise, O Lord, his caudal bone to wax stemcelluolous, and bifurcate mightily and manyfold ,that he may get a leg up on the backlog of all thy kneeless suppliants , and raise up the countenances of the vertically challenged forever and ever after .Amen.
As someone with lots of advanced training in the earth sciences, including paleo, I have a hard time not viewing anyone who has been through graduate school and who still believes that kind of stuff, as simply possessing a mental defect. I know that’s not very charitable, but seriously…
Anyone else notice that SF called it quits right before he got to Ye Olde Argument From Evil? I so wanted to hear his excuses to reconcile his Perfectly Just God with the obvious presence of injustice. My night is now ruined.
Don’t worry, another one will troll through. We’re about due for the perv brothers, Piltdown Man & Pete Rooke to show up.
#150 or thereabouts.
Wish there were a suitable’standard reply,
But “Happy Monkey” will have to do for now.
Maybe “And Lemur Brio”
drinking, dranking, drunk.
;)
Greetings!
Am I mistaken, or aren’t the concepts of perfect justice and perfect mercy inherently contradictory?
Please correct me if I misunderstand (and I’m looking at you in particular, Silver Fox, but anyone is welcome…), but perfect justice would mean giving everyone exactly and precisely the fate they have earned for themselves by their thoughts and actions, while mercy, by definition, means giving someone something *better* than they deserve, yes?
In short, the extent that you are merciful is the extent to which you are unjust (by being kinder than justice). The more closely you hold yourself to justice, the less room for mercy exists.
Thank you for your attention.
Patricia & Wowbagger,
did you arrive at a consensus recommendation on a Don Quixote translation? After listening to you two, Im thinking I should go and read it…
Nerd @219
“By definition they are irrational. What part of that don’t you understand? Belief without evidence is irrational.”
Beliefs born of faith rests in interiority. It is the subjective experience of value in self-transcendence.It is in contrast to knowledge derived from the three levels of consciousness, experience, understanding and judgment. It is a knowledge which appeals to reason interiorally. It enjoys subjective confirmation but cannot, by the nature of its knowledge be affirmed transpersonally. It is real only to the person experiencing it..
SF @240, what a long-winded and elliptical way to say “wishful thinking”.
—
Anri @238, I think you’re quite right, for the reasons you gave.
It is real only to the person experiencing it..
… and thus indistinguishable from a heartfelt and sincere claim to be Napoleon, Hitler or a hand woven basket made by the sightless Ubuntu people of the lower volta. Worthless in other words, or worse if any significant body of people are convinced to feel strongly about the veracity of the claim.
This “interior” experience is the very reason that religious disputes have dragged on over millenia, and cannot be resolved by mere reason; An uneasy peace eventually breaking out once all parties agreed to disagree, in the process conceeding that the claims are essentially worthless. Which of course, they are.
Am I mistaken, or aren’t the concepts of perfect justice and perfect mercy inherently contradictory?
Please correct me if I misunderstand (and I’m looking at you in particular, Silver Fox, but anyone is welcome…), but perfect justice would mean giving everyone exactly and precisely the fate they have earned for themselves by their thoughts and actions, while mercy, by definition, means giving someone something *better* than they deserve, yes?
It’s absolutely true that justice and mercy are conceptually distinct and mutually contradictory; however, this doesn’t mean that the same person, or the same system, can’t incorporate both.
Look at legal systems. In the English common law tradition, while the purpose of the courts is to administer justice, the Sovereign (or the President or state governor in the United States, or the Governor-General in Commonwealth countries) has power to exercise the “prerogative of mercy” by pardoning criminals. A pardon is – in theoretical terms, at least – an act of grace; in granting a pardon, the Sovereign recognises that the pardonee has been found guilty by law – and is therefore condemned by justice – but chooses to bestow mercy on him anyway. The co-existence of justice and mercy in a morally upright legal system has long been recognised; indeed, the British Sovereign takes a coronation oath to “cause Justice, with Mercy, to be executed in all [her] judgments.”
As I understand it, Christian teaching holds that the same is true of God. God, like the State, is morally bound to uphold justice, and to give people what they deserve – thus all of humanity were condemned for their sins. But, in Jesus’ choice to die for the sins of the people, mercy prevailed over justice.
The idea of a person dying as proxy for another’s crimes is, of course, abhorrent; and one has to wonder why God, if He is omnipotent, cannot just, like the Queen or the President, grant a free and unconditional pardon. I therefore wouldn’t assert that the doctrine is especially coherent. But this is my understanding of it, anyway.
“As I said before God’s creation is an evolutionary process. During the course of evolution, there are many glitches. In order to have the kind of creation we have there are going to be potholes. God is not going to fill them in. You are just going to have to negotiate your way around them”
So your god bollocks it up yet again, and we are the ones who suffer. Super!
#174 Silver Fox.
Been there; done that. Brought up to be a believer. Threatened by my Aunt (a good xtian woman) that my kids would go to hell if not baptized; Decided to use my free will and began to intellectualize about god and the crew. None of it made one bit of sense. I’m convinced that man made god to answer questions that he (she) could not answer for themselves. Now THAT makes much more sense. I truly feel for the religiously deluded ignorant. They can be convinced of anything even that Oil of Olay really removes facial wrinkles. I suppose it does no harm to have folks like Silver Fox believe, except that he (or she) is wasting away their time waiting for the rapture. You have a great time, I’m going out to cut the grass.
Silver Fox (#178):
I think you’re missing what I was getting at. The capacity for faith is a “curse” not because of the lifestyle choices entailed by “accepting” it, but because it is a form of credulity, an abandonment of critical thinking.
Silver Fox (#179):
That doesn’t exactly follow, does it? A vengeful and punitive deity is no more absurd an idea than a just and merciful one. You could, after all, be correct that a god exists, but at the same time be mistaken as to its moral character.
and from #185:
Nonsense. The term “perfect” is a qualifier, and does not denote any kind of property in its own right. An entity could be perfectly just or perfectly vindictive – either is just as much a form of perfection as the other. On which note, not all perfections are going to be compatible with each other, so a “God of perfection” is either going to be a self-contradictory concept, or its “perfection” is simply a matter of being perfect with respect to whatever properties it has. But even if you take the latter course, the claim that God is just and merciful cannot be justified simply by saying that God is perfect.
Silver Fox (#240):
Which pretty much rules it out as a form of knowledge, since it isn’t subject to public criteria for what counts as adequate justification for a belief. The only kinds of beliefs that can count as knowledge without appeal to public criteria are those like “I am in pain”, whereby merely having the belief is itself adequate justification for its being true. But these are beliefs about one’s own subjective states, whereas “God exists” or “God is just and merciful” are not – they are beliefs about external, objective states of affairs. As such, for such beliefs to count as knowledge, they need independent, and hence public, justification.
“A big hand, please, for the Great Prophet Zarquon!”
Hmm… on second thoughts, probably not. Zarquon seemed rather a nice old bod. He was certainly less shouty at his Second Coming than this this zeeb.
Pursuing Walton’s thoughts in #243, justice and mercy may be considered complimentary. A judge sentences a convict and then, for various mitigating circumstances, may suspend or remit part or all of the sentence, thus showing mercy.
Justice is found in the concept of fairness. Justice, as fairness, means that people get exactly what they deserve; no more, no less. If they get more, something is excessive; if they get less, something is deficient. It might be profoundly difficult to determine exactly what it is that a person does deserve, but in principle perfect justice is about perfectly matching people and actions to their desserts.
A society where bad people get more and better than they deserve while good people get less and worse than they deserve is one which is corrupt and ripe for revolution. The basic premise of all revolutionaries that society is unjust and needs to be reformed. So justice results in a more peaceful and harmonious society.
Mercy also has its uses. A society where no one ever showed or experienced mercy would be one which is stifling, restrictive, and would appear to be lacking in the basic principle of kindness. That appears odd, however, because mercy essentially requires that justice not be done. One needs to understand here that mercy isn’t a matter of being kind or nice, although such qualities may lead one to be more likely to show mercy. Mercy also isn’t the same thing as sympathy or pity. What mercy entails is that something less than justice be one. If a convicted criminal asks for mercy, he is asking that he receive a punishment that is less than what he is really due.
Justice is required because a functioning society requires the presence of justice. As long as people trust that justice will be done, they are better be able to trust one another. Mercy is also required because as A.C. Grayling noted, “we all need mercy ourselves.” The remission of moral debts may embolden vice, but it may also embolden virtue by giving people a second chance.
Greetings!
Let me quickly say that I wasn’t stating that mercy and justice are utterly incompatible – merely that *perfect* justice would preclude mercy, and *perfect* mercy would preclude justice.
In the real world (as opposed to the world of spirits, or god/s, etc.) the best course surely must be justice tempered with mercy, mercy tempered with justice. And the ‘golden mean’ is by nature a slippery and inconstant thing rather than a single, eternal milepost.
One could argue, I suppose, that ‘perfect’ justice and mercy somehow incorporate aspects of one another, and are therefore compatible. it seems to me, however, that that would be the most transparent begging of the question possible, altering the meaning of words to suit oneself. Not that that’s unusual in dealing with religious definitions…
As a side note, let me just say that Pharyngula is by far and away my favorite online read. The views expressed here, (both rude and polite), have been powerful tools in letting me examine the issues of faith and reason.
Thanks, everyone.
(And thanks for reading my hasty scrawls as well.)
Walton @ 243
If you are sincere and making an attempt to discard religion from your life, then just go ahead and make that final step toward full rationalism. Don’t just look at that delicious layer cake on the table; eat the damn thing and be satisfied! We have done it years ago and we are still enjoying that cake without any deleterious effects to our minds, bodies, habits, and overall enjoyment of a rational life devoid of all superstitious nonsense. The choice is yours and should need no additional prodding, as you will find out that it is much easier to think rationally than be befuddled for the remainder of your life. Do it now.
Re: Wowbagger in #207:
Sorry, but I’m afraid that you’re 50 years behind the lit theory curve. Feminist, Marxist, Freudian, reader-response, structuralist, queer-theory, deconstructionist, post-colonial, new historicist, archetypal, and African-American lit critics (in short, virtually every single academic literary critic from 1960 or so onward) imagine that their work offers insight into human psychology, negotiating practices, power structures, myth-formation, belief systems, and memory. Whether they’re correct or not is a completely separate question, but I can most thoroughly assure you that they don’t believe it to be interesting chatter for the reading classes any longer.
JPS,
Hence why I wrote ‘adding to academic knowledge’ and not ‘talked about only in classrooms’. I’m aware of the longer-reaching impact of literary analysis; however, even though I didn’t go into explicit detail as to what that impact is, it’s still a means to understand what is, rather than a way of attempting to hide the fact that the religious concepts are based on what isn’t.
But I agree I should have explained myself better.
I’ve decided I have at least marginally more respect for fundamentalist zealots than mealy-mouthed apologists like Silver Fox. The Bible is pretty damned clear on what kind of God that God is – he even calls himself vengeful and jealous. If you want to believe it, at least own up to it. Silver Fox does a more extensive job than most moderates I’ve seen in hand-waving all the nasties away to make himself feel better, and in doing so he rejects every tenet set out in Christianity and other God-based religions. Yet, he still thinks there is a god out there that is just like his imagination. Sad, that.
No, I disagree here. The fundamentalist zealots are utter cherry-pickers of the bible; they are just also utterly in denial of how much they are cherry-pickers.
What I see in his statements is actually an attempt to return to ancient philosophical concepts of God as the ideal good (or Ideal Good); this is something that early monotheistic religionists cherry-picked from Plato and Plotinus and other philosophers, and folded in to their theology. When you define God as the Ideal Good, then the bible is only authoritative on God inasmuch as it depicts God as being the Ideal Good; anything that depicts God as not being the Ideal Good must not be authoritative, and can be rejected as being the result of primitive notions of a violent tribal god rather than the True Perception of the Ideal Good (yes, I kinda suspect that they think in capitalized words like that).
So he is being consistent; you just have to understand the romantic ideal that he’s being consistent with. I think he’s actually working his way towards Deism, which is in turn on the way towards Agnosticism.
All religious people are dishonest cherry-pickers – especially those who have an allegedly holy book (or several) rather than just reality and personal (or copied) fantasy to go by. What makes the significant distinctions between them is whether they are:
1. consistent cherry-pickers, trying to have a consistent worldview – be that (a) fluffy modern liberal (ie picking nice stuff) or (b) brutal conservative fundamentalist (ie picking nasty stuff).
or
2. inconsistent cherry-pickers, only caring in “justifying” whatever they want to claim at that particular instant, eg pathological liars and psychopathic conmen preachers trying to manipulate others into doing what they want.
The non- or lesser bibliolaters, eg modern Unitarians, are merely being selective about reality, eg when they decide evidence and logic (and expertise) matters and when they dishonestly choose to ignore those things because it all inconveniently disagrees with the fantasies which they want to be true instead.
What I see in his statements is actually an attempt to return to ancient philosophical concepts of God as the ideal good (or Ideal Good); this is something that early monotheistic religionists cherry-picked from Plato and Plotinus and other philosophers, and folded in to their theology. When you define God as the Ideal Good, then the bible is only authoritative on God inasmuch as it depicts God as being the Ideal Good; anything that depicts God as not being the Ideal Good must not be authoritative, and can be rejected as being the result of primitive notions of a violent tribal god rather than the True Perception of the Ideal Good (yes, I kinda suspect that they think in capitalized words like that).
That’s an outlook I find very attractive, and one I’ve tried to adopt. But the difficulty is, of course, epistemic. In the absence of any holy text which we acknowledge as infallible or authoritative, how can we possibly know that God has these “Ideal Good” qualities which we ascribe to Him? And, furthermore, how can we, with the limits of human knowledge and reason, know for certain which qualities represent the “Ideal Good”?
There’s also an inherent danger of conflating the empirical with the normative. With modern moral sensibilities, we find the recorded conduct of Yahweh in the Old Testament abhorrent; but this has no bearing on whether or not it actually happened. It is, of course, possible, through historical study, to determine, on the basis of age, provenance and historical evidence, which parts of the Bible are credible and which are not; and that’s a legitimate exercise. It’s perfectly correct to point out that, like any other book, the Bible was written by fallible human beings with their own agendas, and that it contains verifiable (albeit mostly minor) historical errors; thus it isn’t wholly reliable. We can therefore reject fundamentalism and Biblical literalism outright.
But there’s a certain intellectual incoherence in saying “God is good; I consider action X evil; a good being cannot commit evil; thus, God did not commit action X.” It makes two problematic presuppositions: (1) that God is “good” when, if we can’t trust any sacred text, we have no reliable epistemic basis for determining anything about God whatsoever; and (2) that we, with our fallible human minds, know better than God which actions are “good” and which ones are “evil”.
Having established, therefore, that the Bible is not infallible (which I think is common ground here), and taking into account that there are many different conceptions of “God” to which different characteristics are ascribed, making any assertion about the nature of “God” begs the question of how we can, reliably, know anything about God, if we have no authoritative source on which to rely.
“The fundamentalist zealots are utter cherry-pickers of the bible; they are just also utterly in denial of how much they are cherry-pickers.”
The only difference I can see is that fundies have, at bare minimum, something to refer to as a basis for their beliefs, i.e. their holy book, whereas the “liberal” variety of theist can only say “I feel x is true”, as SF has done multiple times already.
Neither is preferrable, of course, but at least the fundies have something concrete to base it on (however not-concrete it really is).
I’ll believe it when I see Earnest Angely smack some schmuck’s stump crying “He-al!” and the miracle occurs.
hey, Walton, I’m probably ideologically closer to you than are most commenters on this blog. I’m a libertarian ex-Christian and an ethnic Jew. Basically what that boils down to is that I feel like your stance on religion is purely your own decision, I don’t feel any need to hassle you about it, and in fact I don’t even want you to change your mind unless you’re convinced.
Early in the process of my deconversion, I entered an atheist chatroom where the questions I had, which seemed legitimate to me, were treated with great scorn and I was hustled unceremoniously out of the room. Needless to say, you are doing much better in here than I was in there. But the memory still stings. If you ever want to talk calmly to someone who is interested in but not emotionally attached to what your head contains, please feel free to e-mail me. My username at hotmail.com will do the trick.
Anyone else from here can e-mail me too, if they like. I know how to filter my e-mail so I’m not worried about spam.
Speedwell, thanks for the offer. I might email you tomorrow.
I lost my little finger in a factory accident 25 years ago. I’m an atheist and like most atheist I’d gladly accept the existance of God of only there was some proof. In other words, as an atheist I’m much more open minded to the existance of God that most Christians are open minded to the lack of existance of God.
In any case, a miraculus regrowth of my little finger as well as gaining the movement I lost in my ring finger would be darn good proof.
25 years and I’m still waiting.
It’s a sad commentary on pop atheism that such a proposition is looked at as a somehow clever refutation of Christianity.
It’s a logical fallacy.
1. If God exists, he can do anything.
2. If God exists, he can heal amputees.
3. Go does not heal amputees, therefore God does not exist.
The fallacy of course, is that since God CAN do anything, He MUST do everything we want Him to do.
It also ignores the fact that biblical history (Acts for instance) has disciples of Jesus imitating SOME miracles Jesus SAYS they would do or that Jesus had done himself. They don’t do EVERYTHING Jesus did and most miracles are examples of what Jesus had already done.
There is no account of Jesus or any prophet or apostle healing an amputee.
I look at this as a convenient excuse.
There may be a hundred claims of medically documented miracles, but until I see an amputee healed I won’t believe it.
I like bubblegum, and I prayed for bubblegum trees to grow in my backyard. There are no bubblegum trees in my backyard this morning. Therefore, there is no God.
The error is further that an Omnipotent Being would oblige to perform tricks for dark-hearted humans.