Christ. It’s yet another review of the Global Atheist Convention, this time by a long-winded Anglican priest. I’m being rude in my evaluation despite the fact that it is actually a generous review, because he repeats another of those oblivious stereotypes that always pisses me off. I’ve highlighted my triggers.
I know my atheist colleagues and friends think this way of recognising life is just a form of ‘misfire’, a delusion. They find support for their view from the natural processes like a tsunami or a congenital disease, which appear to be indifferent to the value of life. But these are some of the consequences of the processes that produce life. In conversations with students this quickly leads them questioning my belief in God: ‘why would God use natural processes, including evolution by natural selection, to bring life into existence?’ and ‘why would God use any process at all, why not just create the world in the intended end state, if the world is supposedly created for some purpose?’  Will our faith and theology be up to answering these questions? The answer has to be robust enough to address Dawkins saying the universe is, at bottom, pitilessly indifferent. I regard these as excellent questions for which there are good answers. But these would take more than this blog to set out. It is one part of a larger conversation working out the rationality of faith. This reference to ‘reason’ is deeply Christian in a Christianity that has reason to believe the divine Logos has become flesh in Christ.   Â
ÂAt the end of her vivid, witty segment Catherine Deveney gave us this word: “Seek the truth and the truth will make you free. Don’t be afraid of death. Be afraid of never having really lived. Peace be with you.” These are also deeply Christian themes, at least one being a direct quote.  CD says ‘God is bullshit’ – that is her gig at the comedy festival. Taking a line from Dan Barker, a speaker at the Convention, this is culturally resonant with speaking about God as a shepherd in Jesus’ own day. But could the truth, life and peace she commends to us enter into a conversation with the truth, life and peace that Christians value? Catherine Deveney, would you be interested in another gig?
There was a phrase I heard all the time when I was living in Utah. If I did something friendly or helpful, the good Mormon would tell me that was mighty “white” of me. It’s the same thing when someone appropriates truth and justice and reason as Christian virtues, and sits around trying to be nice to atheists by telling them how close they come to a Christian ideal.
And they call us the arrogant ones.
I’m not nice. I’m not Christian. And I tell Stephen Ames that no matter how charitable he thinks he is, he comes across as a condescending prat, and he can get stuffed.
Those virtues are human values, they don’t belong to Christianity, and I’m so tired of Christians acting as if they are. Hands off. Ames sat through the convention, noted that many of the speakers repeated frequently that you can be good without gods, and failed to notice that not once did they play his game of pretending that goodness is an atheist property. We don’t delude ourselves that way. We also know that reason is a virtue grafted onto a religion that is primarily concerned with irrational faith, and is entirely evidence-free.
It’s his patronizing attitude that is a significant part of the moral conflict. By once again trying to tie morality to Christianity, he perpetuates the myth that marginalizes atheists.
I have to mention the flip side of this problem. I enthusiastically grant that Christians can and do embrace what I consider human cultural values, and I do not consider religion to be a necessary obstacle to doing good. The best of Christianity dedicates itself to those wonderful principles of social justice that some read into the Jesus story (I’d add that this is the very same thing I find commendable in communism). Rarely have I encountered anyone who does not regard social justice, equality, and fairness as virtues…except in the pathological extremes of libertarianism and far right conservatism.
It turns out there are people — even influential people — who seem to be dangerous sociopaths from my perspective. Roger Ebert has a fascinating essay on Glenn Beck. Beck is, apparently, an amoral being who rejects the common interests of all humankind.
What are the words “social justice” code for? Why, Nazism and Communism, says Beck: “Social justice was the rallying cry–economic justice and social justice–the rallying cry on both the communist front and the fascist front.” Beck even went so far as to cite Jesus Christ, saying, and I quote: “Nowhere does Jesus say, Hey, if somebody asks for your shirt, give your coat to the government and have the government give them a pair of slacks.” Well, Beck has me there. It is quite true that nowhere does Jesus say that. Nor, for that matter, does he ever say, A wop bop a lu bop, a wop bam boom!
What I would enjoy hearing is one single clergyman from any faith in America, appearing on Beck’s program to agree with him and denouncing social justice. Such a person might be a real piece of work. I suspect he might currently be in between congregations. Beck’s oversight is that all religions teach social justice. That’s sort of what they’re about. “My church doesn’t,” said Beck, who is a Mormon. Not for the first time, he was dead wrong, and the mountains of Utah rang with the thunder of outraged Mormon elders. I know now, and did not know before, that before statehood the Mormons in the Utah territory provided universal health care and care for the poor as a matter of their duty.
You want to identify an issue on which atheists and liberal Christians can find common ground? There it is. Just don’t try to pretend that only Good Christians are the proprietors of moral behavior.
Actually only True Christians are arbiters of morals.
All the rest are demon inspired.
Ask and Mormon, RCC, ect, ect, ect.
Sigh. I fecking hate apologetics.
So forget the processes that seem “indifferent” to the value of life. How about the ones that are actively deleterious to life, like this example given yesterday to rudy in another thread.
There always seems to be a convenient excuse to dismiss the never-ending examples of things that would make god, if he existed, an epic asshat. Sorry, I simply can’t perform the mental gymnastics required to contort my perception of reality enough to swallow that swill.
Wait…why did you put Ebert’s article in Comic Sans? I mean, I can understand putting Glenn Bek’s vocal excrement in the font, but Ebert’s pretty much dead-on…
Hang on. Does Ebert really deserve the comic sans-treatment? If that was Glen Beck writing, as opposed to being quoted, comic sans + Monty Python would be perfectly appropriate. Ebert, however, is quite sane.
I have a co-worker who is a true-believing Christian, believes in faith healing and everything… He was opposed to universal healthcare, prayed about it, and then decided it was the right thing to do.
Apropos of nothing, I suppose. I just found that fascinating. He has a lot of weird ideas that I am trying to wrap my head around (e.g. his beliefs could only be termed a very liberal theology, and yet considers himself a “conservative Christian” because he thinks the first couple centuries of the Christian church were about love and egalitarianism. He sort of has a point, but man, that’s a weird way of looking at it…)
Anyway, he was cool with my blog, which is, uh, “strident” I suppose. It’s worth it now and then to talk to one of the Good Guys on the other side of the fence. Not that it makes me any less antitheistic… but it’s helpful for my sanity! :D
“Mighty White of you” oh that’s so funny.
Perhaps your usage is correct in your area,
but in others, such as mine, it means something different. It alludes to the white man giving token gifts and deeds to the blacks and Indians while suppressing them. Kinda like if a US soldier sold cheaply a pair of boots to an American Indian during the trail of tears march. The Indian might then say, “That’s mighty white of you kind sir”.
Atheists pretending to uphold My values are just wolves in sheep’s clothes.
I meant “any” not “and”
Why is it that a selfish, angry, irresponsible rancid sack of monkey puss like Glenn Beck has so much influence? How is it that his putrescent words have made him wealthy? Why is he able to inspire so many to follow him in his evil delusion, like a poisonous pied piper?
Personally, I find Glenn Beck of of the greatest arguments against god. Not only does he prove that nature is uncaring, but also capricious and sometimes cruel.
As my FiL might say, “That man is a waste of skin.”
In both cases I’d say what is practiced is often different than what is preached.
My grandfather (raised in inner-city Boston in the 20’s and 30’s) used the “mighty white of you” statement as compliment as well. It was fully intended to be a racist sentiment.
I echo geds81 and frogfish. Why is Ebert being comic sans + grumpy’ed?
Yep, everyone hates Glen Beck and his rancid and insincere prattling.
This reminds me of a great line from the movie Collateral that sums up this argument incredibly well: Jaime Foxx’s “ordinary-everyman” character says, in breathless amazement to Tom Cruise’s “psycho-hitman” character: “You’re missing something the rest of us were born with.”
Pop culture has its moments.
God –
shouldn’t you be at a fountain somewhere picking out some random sap to heal while flipping the middle finger to everyone else?
Glenn Beck hates people.
I wonder how long it will take for the LDS to kick him out before he poisons their reputation beyond redemption.
Glenn Beck is extremely contagious! AAIIEEE!!
LOL. That is equal parts revolting and hysterical. Utah is about as close as you can get to another planet without very large rockets.
Random musings about this post that I’m writing to avoid work:
1.
I had to look up what ‘divine Logos’ were, but I still don’t get that sentence. I keep picturing a divine Logo as Ronald McDonald feeding a throng of people with but a hamburger bun and a single french fry.
2. I’m guessing Ebert’s quote got Gumby’d because of the noxious idiocy of a Glenn Beck quote. Kind of like in the Lord of the Rings, where everyone is afraid to speak Sauron’s language lest they be corrupted themselves.
3. @James Sweet #5 : I know a born-again who espouses some really stupid ideas. The best one I’ve heard is that the Girl Scouts promote a lesbian agenda. I’m pretty sure I heard he and another right winger seriously consider that the financial crash in fall ’08 may have been a setup to get Obama elected.
To be fair, he doesn’t proselytize or try to convert anyone. He’s actually a really easy going guy, but once he gets his “theories” on it can get surreal fairly quickly.
That is giving Beck way too much credit.
Beck is either actng like or is crazy, cuckoo.
His schtick is making way over the top comments on Fawkze TV, a demented clown act.
The problem with this is that people get bored by it easily. So he has to keep escalating the craziness.
If my theory is right, eventually, calling most xian churches commies and nazis will be seen as one of his weaker efforts.
“Nor, for that matter, does he ever say, A wop bop a lu bop, a wop bam boom! ”
I may be older that a lot of you other regs here, but I rolled on the floor when I read Roger Ebert quoting Little Richard’s “Tutti Frutti”! Ain’t that just perfect for a complete nutjob like Beck?
Reposting a comment I made a few days ago about Beck.
___
Glenn “socialism-is-bad-believe-me-I-read-about-it-free-of-charge-at-the-public-library” Beck used drink a lot and was addicted to drugs. I think that severly damaged his brain. He now lives crying and BARKING LIKE A DOG on TV.
I think he’s been getting worse. He’ll soon be too paranoid and crazy even for Fox News viewers. And his kind doesn’t go gently into the night. No, he’ll starfart so spectacularly and totally people will be talking about it even years afterwards.
Quote from the nice theologian:
Ockham’s Razor anyone? This guy just does not want to understand it. His delusion is permanent. He is so convinced of his sky daddy that just is emotionally not able to understand the viewpoint of atheists. Probably for the fear of losing his precious “faith”.
Social justice and the ‘left’ has traditionally been associated with the Church of England in the UK. Its only the American version of christianity that seems to reject all concepts of society and civilisation.
While the theology of all versions of christianity is irrational bollocks its the combination of lack of education,racism and nationalism that makes it so nasty in the US.
How any christian could reject the concept of universal healthcare isnt just alien to me as an atheist its alien to just about every christian outside America
re: Beck — is it possible that Fox News is esperiencing the ultimate Poe-ing as we speak (write (whatever))?
Then again, Becks vegemooneymite rantings are so exreme that they couldn’t be a Poe as they so far outside whatever we decide to define a mainstream that they are unparody-able. His dreck is extemely useful for Fox, though — it makes the rest of their content appear close to sane.
I think you’re slightly exaggerating there. Christianity comes in both left-wing and right-wing forms, and the role it plays in politics varies greatly from country to country and from time to time.
Given all my run-ins with mormons, it will take a very long time. They like being persecuted. They are willing to pay huge amounts of money, interfere with government and piss all over other people’s freedom so that it is done to them.
I am frequently amused by how ‘deep’ everything religious is. Oh, it’s deeply xian. It’s like code for ‘I can’t explain it, it just is.’ I wonder if we could use code like that to explain things like quantum mechanics, or the instantiation of the universe…or if any xian would accept such turnabout as fair play.
I suppose I have sufficient intellectual integrity to stop me from trying.
“What created God?” Hey, apparently I just did something logically impossible! It’s not logically impossible to _ask_ anything. Our theologian asserts an answer of “nothing created God”; that doesn’t make the question illogical, and it doesn’t make the answer right.
He is escalating. That is part of the demented christofascist clown act. Crazy is boring, they have to keep upping the ante.
Although, I doubt he will ever be too crazy and paranoid for Fox. As Einstein pointed out, only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and he wasn’t sure about the universe.
There was a movie similar to Beck a while ago. Called Network. It was about a news presenter who started going crazy but the program kept him on as entertainment. “I’m mad as hell and I’m not going to take it anymore.” FWIW, I never saw it and might have got the details wrong. Someone who saw it can draw in the parallels.
Quite. But in the amphitheater of apologetics, convenient = right.
iambilly @ #25:
“His dreck is extemely useful for Fox, though — it makes the rest of their content appear somewhat closer to sane.”
FIFY
Libertarians do not oppose what you term “social justice.” We simply realize that imposing “social justice” by force is not a desirable form of “social justice”; anymore than charitable donations mandated by law are a desirable form of charity.
Libertarians want the ends of social justices (i.e. the best quality of life for the most number of people) as much as you do. We simply don’t want to see such a world come about at the EXPENSE of the other equally important form of justice (like personal freedoms, and individual autonomy).
I think Beck is exhibiting some symptoms of obsessive behavior, like his other addictions. I don’t know the term for it, but he seems to on some sort of ego binge and needs to get more and more extreme with every passing day, like a sex addict. I wonder what he fantasized about when he’s doing his twice(or thrice) daily wanking. Each day and week, he’s got to exceed what he has done in the past. Perhaps his future is to drop Mormonism, convert to Islam, become an Mullah, and convince thousands of young men to go off an commit jihad. That world seems to be better at compartmentalizing and rationalizing its teachings versus its actions, than any of the western or christian ones.
And yet, let’s be fair. All that talk of social justice, equality, and fairness isn’t about morales nearly as much as it is about self-preservation.
Why do you see so many minorities concerned with civil rights when, in their native country, the concern drops off precipitously? Case in point – Mexico. A country with more corruption, harsher immigration and drug laws, and a more authoritarian government than the US by an order of magnitude.
The guys fleeing Mexico might have been just fine keeping all the Panamanians out, but suddenly become immigration reformers the moment they step on US soil.
The Beckians aren’t amorale so much as hopelessly short-sighted. Glenn and his ilk appeal to people who have spent their lives in a bubble – geographical or economic – that allows them to believe the pain they inflict on others will never come back to visit them. And when you’re pulling down a six or seven figure salary, who can blame you? It’s like the guy on a winning streak at Vegas, convinced the money will never run out. Hookers and blow and to hell with the consequences!
Social justice is necessary to protect you from your peers. Peers who – in the grand tradition of fickle humanity – can turn on you in an instant. No one wants to be lynched, so protecting everyone from lynching is good for us all.
Equality is necessary to allow you a chance at growth. If you are hedged out of a public utility – a bus, a school, a bathroom – or some other necessity, you have to work harder to get weaker results than your neighbor. Your growth is stunted because you can’t access the same resources as your peers. And when your growth is stunted, your contribution to society is dinted, and we collectively suffer a little.
And fairness allows each individual to reap his due, confident that work input translates into personal gain output. Without fairness in a work system, I have less and less incentive to play by the rules and contribute to society. Why honor my end of a contract if I don’t think you are going to honor yours?
The libertarians and wingers simply don’t believe they can be wronged, slighted, or cheated. They consider themselves immune. So they feel safe making sweeping, egotistical, damaging policies confident that they’ll never end up bankrupted by an unscrupulous financial institute or dangling from a rope in a Gitmo prison.
Charity is a response to the failure of government to deal with the needs of those who are unable to care for themselves. Fagin provided Oliver Twist something to do. Does that make him a good guy?
Zifnab –
There’s reason that libertarians tend to be white guys. They know the system is skewed toward them and they like it that way. Helping others might cost them something.
Actually, libertarians cannot be said to want the same ends since they oppose the means of obtaining them.
The libertarian has been tried. It failed, which is why so many countries in Europe began introducing state welfare policies from the late C19th onwards. The idea social justice could be gained through philanthropy was shown to be wrong: It simply did not work.
“The libertarians and wingers simply don’t believe they can be wronged, slighted, or cheated. They consider themselves immune.”
Not at all. Of course we can be wronged. Our rights can be infringed just like anyone else. But it sounds like your trying to push us into a protection racket, a la ‘Beggars in Spain’. We should support social justice, because if we don’t, we’ll get lynched by those we failed to support. That sounds like a very hollow reason to support social justice.
I think it’s good to be charitable, but not because the government told me to be, and not because other people think I should be. I am charitable because I want to be. Forcing me by law or any other form of coercion to be charitable (what you seem to call social justice) seems antithetical to the ideal you are trying to obtain.
No, no, Prof. Myers. Christians for the most part, do not think social justice is the message. In the US, Christianity is a tool of the conservative right: Jesus is divine, and has nothing to do with social justice: they would say. Trust me, Prof. Myers, awake: Religion in America is the brain washer tool of the right wing -the same ones that deny Evolution, both biological as well as social.
There was a movie similar to Beck a while ago. Called Network. It was about a news presenter who started going crazy but the program kept him on as entertainment. “I’m mad as hell and I’m not going to take it anymore.” FWIW, I never saw it and might have got the details wrong. Someone who saw it can draw in the parallels.
After a while, the ratings went down. But they skyrocketed again when he was assassinated on the air at the orders of a network executive. This was over a decade before the R. Budd Dwyer suicide.
In addition to what I said above, I would add that we also have data showing social justice outcomes are better in counties that have less financial disparity between rich and poor.
re 25:
That is basically the definition of Poe’s Law. But that doesn’t mean Beck is a super-over-the-top parody. Poe’s Law just mean’s that it is indistinguishable from parody.
What is scary is not Glenn Beck himself, he can spout off any batguano stupid opinions he wants, it is the number of people that believe his bullshit.
Oh? Then I guess liberals cannot be said to to want a healthy economy, since they oppose the means of obtaining it.[/sarcasm]
Libertarians oppose YOUR means of obtaining social justice because we believe it to be flawed (just as you, presumably, believe our means of obtaining a healthy economy to be flawed.) That does not imply that we oppose social justice.
To my knowledge, no one here is advocating social justice supported by philanthropy. What I am advocating is that the ends of social justice (improving the quality of life for people who currently do not have as good of a life as I am privileged to have) are best achieved when we are both free to produce, consume, buy, sell, trade, employ and work free from the coercion of others.
In such a situation, (not by philanthropy or coercion, but by freedom) the evidence says that goods and services become better, cheaper and more available over time. Everything becoming more accessible to everyone without coercion. What could be more desirable to an advocate of social justice than that?
Glenn Beck and Limbaugh are basically training a certain type of demographic to think in a certain way. That anyone that doesn’t think the way they do are extreme, doesn’t matter what extreme they pick. Just think of those in the out group as being fundamentally flawed. Don’t even consider their viewpoint or what they say. All of it is wrong. They are evil. You are good.
It’s nationalistic right-wing fascism. It’s exactly how Hitler worked. “Defend the motherland from the depraved subhumans.”
I hope Beck crosses the line soon. The same way Savage did. I think Beck is so scripted and planned that it’s less likely he will. It’s know that he can well up and cry on command, he even does it when they’re blocking out the show.
Libertarians are so cute when they hide their selfishness behind their naivety.
If you refuse to pay for social justice, and libertarians do since they oppose the taxation required to pay for it, then you cannot be said to favour social justice. You can claim to be in favour of it only if you are being dishonest.
So just how do you intend to fund social justice ? Good healthcare, good schools, good housing etc. do not come cheap.
No, they do not became universally more affordable, at least not without Government intervention to help those are the bottom of socio-economic ladder. The data shows that the greater the economic disparity between the richest and poorest in a country, the less well that country performs with regards social justice. Sweden does well, the UK does not do so well, and the USA performs really badly on measures of social justice. Guess where each countries lies with regards taxation levels ?
Glenn Beck is a perfect example of the Overton Window in practice: He’s only there to make people like Rush Limbaugh look sane by comparison.
Citation needed.
I think it is standard Austrian School economic theory. What actually happens is that goods and services become cheaper to some, but at the expense of others who become less able to afford the goods and services.
“Rarely have I encountered anyone who does not regard social justice, equality, and fairness as virtues…except in the pathological extremes of libertarianism and far right conservatism. – PZM”
They’re in pretty short supply on the far Left, as well.
Matt –
Yup… I’m aware… it was sort of my point. I don’t think that claim can stand on its own without regard to ancillary effects on a society.
Oh, for sure.
http://www.counterpunch.org/grandin11172006.html
Eh? What are the tenets of the far left that are against the principals of social justice, equality and fairness as virtues?
Oooh! Are you talking about trickle-down economics, Max? I’ve always wondered why the US persists with that, decade after decade after decade.
How’s that working out for the urban poor? And who got Michael Moore’s tax cut? I hope it was one of the poor homeless schlubs in one of the tent cities in Seattle, Sacramento, San Diego, Reno, Nashville, Chattanooga, Athens, St Petersburg, Providence, RI, and all those other places.
But we shouldn’t feel sorry for them. They’ve been blessed to live in the Greatest Country in the World, and they have all the freedom they can handle. What more could anyone want?
And what “reason” would that be? There is no evidence for the existence of any “divine Logos”, and the whole idea of it “becoming flesh in Christ” is made-up gobbledygook.
“Social justice and the ‘left’ has traditionally been associated with the Church of England in the UK.”
Hmmm. Up to a point, Lord Copper. It’s not for nothing that the Church of England is referred to as the Tory Party at prayer.
(But to be fair, even the Tories are generally keen on some social justice – they know full well that any party who tries to dismantle the National Health Service will simply be ejected.)
Well none of my legos ever became flesh, so obviously this is a lie.
The Church of England is rather a broad church and has always had a significant liberal element that is to the left of the Conservatives. But, you are right in that there is also a significant conservative (small C) element as well that is more at home with Conservative (big C) policies.
#26 Walton
And so? Right-wing Christians outside the US are not usually against universal health care, either.
Like mlee97ibm, we used “That’s mighty white of you” in my younger days when someone wronged you or cheated you. It was a gentle jibe but certainly no compliment.
I do know that although God didn’t say “Wop bop a lu bop,” he did utter “Boom shacka lacka lacka boom!” when he created light.
Slaughter
As a former libertarian, this quote:
Libertarians want the ends of social justices (i.e. the best quality of life for the most number of people) as much as you do. We simply don’t want to see such a world come about at the EXPENSE of the other equally important form of justice (like personal freedoms, and individual autonomy).
is one of the best summations of libertarian thought I’ve seen posted anywhere. And also sums up why I abandoned libertarianism as a political philosophy.
Libertarians want all of the benefits that a stable, equitable, just, First World society can bring. But they don’t want to pay for it. They couch this as not wanting infringements on “personal liberty” – but at its root in almost all cases this is just code for “I don’t want to pay taxes”.
This is why libertarianism is a bankrupt political philosophy. At least conservatism understands that if you want something you have to find a way to pay for it. The end product of libertarianism is something like California – where voters vote in mandates for services they want and simultaneously vote in caps on taxes so they don’t have to pay for services. All the benefits, none of the cost, and now the state with one of the largest economies in the world has a bankrupt government.
You can’t get something for nothing. If you want a stable society you have to pay for it.
It seems that Libertarians focus on “liberty.” Which makes sense, considering their label. It seems one of the many things they fail to recognize is the distinction between liberty and freedom. They behave as if the two are synonymous, but they are quite different.
Liberty is the collection of individual rights granted by society. In the US, these liberties are partially listed in the Constitution. I agree — it is good to increase liberty as much as possible.
Freedom is the total range of action available to a person. This varies from individual to individual. I certainly do not have the freedoms of Warren Buffet. I don’t even have the freedoms of most middle managers of any large US corporation. And I don’t have the resources required to acquire Warren Buffet’s level of freedom.
Libertarians seem to desire to maximize liberty rather than freedom. This is clever, because most of them have quite a bit of freedom.
I personally would rather live in a society that maximizes freedom.
Also, I recognize that my current level of freedom (which I enjoy tremendously) is essentially derived from society. I recognize my obligations to society. And as my taxes help not just the poor, but everyone, I do not begrudge them. Nor do I want anyone getting a free ride off my taxes, which is what libertarians propose. (In a voluntary system, anyone who does not contribute to society but derives the benefits from society is getting a free ride.)
Anyway, I reckon I shouldn’t feed the libertarian troll. I just hate it when they come in spouting selfish platitudes and unsupported propositions about how economics really works.
Now glibertarian apologetics. About as rational and goal post shifting as religious apologetics.
Of course, without social justice, many people have their personal freedoms and individual autonomy greatly impaired. How much personal freedom does someone have when they cannot pay for lifesaving medical care? How much individual autonomy does someone have when they cannot afford an education and the career opportunities that affords? The principle you’ve laid out is just a fancy way of saying “I’ve got mine, jack, so screw you.”
PZ is bang-on about the main point, though.
“Social justice” (or whatever you want to call it) is an epiphenomenon of Christianity.
Jesus did not teach that we should be kind, charitable, humble, etc. because we’re all stuck on this rock together and therefore should take better care of each other.
Oh, no.
Jesus clearly taught that the world was about to end – to radically transform into his coming Kingdom. Attachment to the things of this world was an obstacle to prosperity in the world to come.
This is why hanging modern political or ideological labels on the gospels – capitalist, socialist, whatever – is so silly. The message of the gospels is that NO economic system works or even matters much, because the show is very close to being over and the curtain is about to come down.
A reviewer of Heinlein’s STRANGER IN A STRANGE LAND once commented that, while interesting, the book is ethically and philosophically useless unless one has the protagonist’s quasi-magic space powers.
If you cannot do what V M Smith does, you cannot live as he did. It simply doesn’t work. The same is true with Jesus.
Jesus’ radical anti-materialist, utopian asceticism works for him because he can do MAGIC.
The limits of knowledge, risks of choice and constraints of scarcity, which are the core of economics, are wholly obviated when one can create food out of thin air and possesses supernatural levels of awareness.
As we don’t have such powers, we cannot build a social ethics model on the behavior of an incarnate god. Neither could the early Christians, which is why we see their post-apostolic leadership increasingly reconciles itself to “the world” as the years roll on.
I find that ironic coming on the heels of complaining about christians claiming a few virtues as ‘christian’. Specifically, this speaking for atheists as their high-priest and claiming that rationality belongs your _your_ collective. What of all the poor irrational atheists? Where will they get their crackers?
Of course, you also completely misconstrue the language of calling reason a christian value. That may equally be a statement that christians value reason as it may be the way you take it, as reason ‘belongs’ to christians. Tarring it with the ‘that’s mighty white of you’ is likewise over the top. So two points, one for hypocrisy and one for hyperbole.
Or that moral behavior or the concept of social justice originated with Christianity. That just shows cultural chauvinism and ignorance of history.
Oh, sure. But only because they’ve outsourced your job to China, moron.
Hm. The quote was:
The baldface assumption of “divine Logos” buggers reason. The claim that “Christians value reason” is about the same as saying that Jeffery Dahmer valued teen-age boys.
Re #33: Libertarians are one-dimensional idiots who think that getting rid of all regulations will somehow result in a better society. They are almost universally white males who have never gone hungry a day in their lives and have either never read any history or don’t care to learn from it.
They are willing to let millions suffer from the consequences of living in an essentially lawless society while “the market” sorts itself out. The horrors of what happened during a time when their ideals were most closely realized, with 19th-century capitalism, seem to be lost on them.
It doesn’t matter that some of them may be high-profile atheists like Penn Jillette, Michael Shermer or Bill Maher; when it comes to politics they are as clueless as a religious fundamentalist. Or as one of our favorite movies put it, “No Intelligence Allowed.”
Then I guess liberals cannot be said to to want a healthy economy, since they oppose the means of obtaining it.[/sarcasm]
Of course they do not as every informed citizen knows. It is not the fault of the informed that libertarians believe the same lies that other Republicans believe about government and taxes. Economies work best when they have both incentives and protections.
The rich get a more competitive price on their private plane. The poor get a more competetive price on their bag of Cheetos.
Wow, I’ve never heard “Mighty white of you” in any context other than bitter sarcasm. I’m not sure if I can even imagine anyone using it as a sincere complement.
One thing that constantly annoys me is no matter how nice these people are about it they seem to think that faith, any faith, is an absolute necessity.
It’s almost as bad as the currently cop out phrase of “well if we knew it wouldn’t be faith”.
Zora Neale Hurston might disagree with you, as might Wendy McElroy, and Libertarian Party founders Rose Wilder Lane and Isabel Paterson.
re:
I grew up on the East coast during the 60’s and 70’s and I don’t remember hearing anyone actually using the phrase but whenever I heard it used in a movie (usually 40’s and 50’s movies)it was clearly a compliment. Usually in response to someone returning a lost wallet or confessing some deceipt. I don’t doubt that it is possible the phrase started to be used in a more ironic sense over time however to combat the negative stereotype of the dishonest black man.
Thanks to #53 for the link to http://www.counterpunch.com! I was delighted to see “Empire’s Workshop” on the front page: a copy of this was given to me by a taxi driver in Guatemala (a very friendly and inexpensive country to visit, btw, despite the atrocities visited on them by our government over the years) who asked me to find a Spanish translation for him. I haven’t been able to do so, sadly, and if there was ever a need for something that reveals the most hideous proof of what our government under the influence of corporate blackmail can do, this is it.
“Empire’s Workshop” will curl your hair and possibly melt your face a la “Raiders of the Lost Ark” when you realize the extent of the crimes we have committed against indigenous people around the world, especially in Latin America. It’s not only worse than you imagine, it’s worse then you *can* imagine.
To #75: I did say “almost”: picking this nit does not make your philosophy any more legitimate.
jerthebarbarian | March 18, 2010 1:10 PM:
That’s ok. When the government finally goes belly up free enterprise will take over and entrepreneurs will provide all those services more efficiently than the government ever could. Furthermore, freed of government regulations, California will become wealthy exploiting limitless natural resources such as Redwood and Sequoia lumber, offshore oil, gold, uranium, and unobtanium.
@Walton #75
You’ll find women in those “Real Women” lobby groups and gays in the Republican party, but all that means is that well-off, straight, white men who dominate the right have been able to hoodwink some people into being complicit in their own subjugation. Sometimes they can be even more successful at the propaganda, as they’ve been with the health care debate: the poor and middle class have given over their chance to have universal care so that they can make the insurance company execs more wealthy. The only people who are libertarian are those who are rich (by world standards) and feel secure in that wealth. It really is a short-sighted “I got mine, you all can screw yourselves with whatever meagre instrument you can find.” ideology. To try to clothe it as anything else is disingenuous.
I like fantasy, but, like you, I can tell the difference between fantasy and the real world.
Janine, Mistress Of Foul Mouth Abuse, OM @ 41
Hmm, something like that might actually work.
We see Glen Beck barking in front of a blank blue screen.
Camera pans to side door and zooms in on Rupert Murdoch calmly strolling into the studio. Rupert pulls out a hand gun and proceeds to shoot Glen numerous times in the chest.
Rupert turns to face the camera and says.
I loved him but I had to put him down. The vaccine didn’t work. Sarah Palin is here to take over the show.
Wild cheering and applause as camera pans to Sarah peering at the words bark! woof! growl! written on the palm of her left hand.
She turns, runs over to Murdoch and starts wildly gnawing on his hand.
And now a word from our sponsors at Blue Cross and Blue Shield…
May I add that libertarianism is essentially a reconstituted form of Calvinism, in which the God of the Market rewards the virtuous and the worthy (i.e. the predestined saved) and punishes the wicked by making them poor. It is as morally bankrupt and irrational as its religious cousin.
He started out well with the student question bit but quickly descended into platitudes and non-answers, which is all these religious bozos have left at the end of the day.
The Anglican is obviously an Anglican’t when it comes to facing facts.
To my knowledge, no one here is advocating social justice supported by philanthropy. What I am advocating is that the ends of social justice (improving the quality of life for people who currently do not have as good of a life as I am privileged to have) are best achieved when we are both free to produce, consume, buy, sell, trade, employ and work free from the coercion of others.
HIghlighted as both the epitome of Libertarian thought, and as the dumbest thing said all day.
This is the inverse of the radical communist pie-in-the-sky disconnect from reality.
At least communism tries to look out for the little guy, unlike libertarianism, which is primarily concerned with propping up the status quo of those who already have. Those who don’t, well, it’s not the market’s fault they couldn’t adapt, eh? Never mind that the market can be and is usually rigged in the favor of those who have.
@Matt Penfold #38
partially correct. It was the breakdown of feudelism and progress to a merchant class that no longer had the rigid tax structure of the Monarchial reign. During that time a tithe to the chuch of 10% and a tithe to the crown of 10-15% was mandatory and the church was obligated for social welfare needs. As countries moved to towns, created a merchant class the church didnt collect as much income so passed the social baton to the government. The government in turn since they had the power to tax was obligated by revolution to provide social support.
Nah, that is pushing it way too far.
‘Less loony’, – maybe.
But RL and sane in same sentence is a prime time oxymoron.
GeorgeFromNY @#66: Nice point about the magic and the end-times milieu that the alleged jesus operated in. Many of the xtians I encounter in my working with substance-dependent people pray for some of this very magic to be visited upon them in their lives, and of course the 12-step groups encourage that. One guy I met a long time ago had an interesting take on petitioning for magic. He said he prayed for everything he wanted, and let god sort it out. That’s hilarious, and what astounds me about him and other magic-believers is that they don’t see that they can pray or not to their hearts content, and still whatever happens, happens.
/End semi-OT
The Anglican bozo is just another theologian, and I don’t mean that in a kind way. Divine Logos, my increscent scepter (celebrating euphemism week)! I just melt when they talk Greek! Seriously, why don’t they see the circularity, and the inestimable tininess of the bubble they squirrel around in?
MaxFagin:
Okay, a rather more apt analogy: why do they smear crap [damned euphemism week] on the walls at an [arbitrary ethnic group] wedding? To keep the flies off the bride.
Glenn Beck is the crap on Rush Limbaugh’s walls.
Watch out for Glenn Beack might come after you, and, add to his nefarious list of ‘subversives’ who are ‘destroying’ America; and, somehow draw a connection to to Obama Administration.
Don’t worry, mate, you’re just dealing with the newly self-appointed Chief of the SIWOTI police force here.
I have never heard “mighty white of you” used in any manner other than sarcasm. On the other hand, I’ve never gotten a clear picture of what it was supposed to mean, either…
“The end product of libertarianism is something like California – where voters vote in mandates for services they want and simultaneously vote in caps on taxes so they don’t have to pay for services. All the benefits, none of the cost, and now the state with one of the largest economies in the world has a bankrupt government.
You can’t get something for nothing. If you want a stable society you have to pay for it. (Jer)”
Jer, I am no Libertarian but let’s at least deal with it honestly.
“You can’t get something for nothing” – you mean, like TANSTAAFL? That’s the Libertarians main point; the more you ask the State to do, the more resources it will (and must) consume and the greater part of your life will (and must) come until its control.
We have to stretch quite a bit to blame any manner of “libertarianism” on what has happened to California.
Whatever Libertarianism’s faults – and there are many – the belief that we should “vote in mandates for services” is not one of them. Libertarians believe the exact opposite.
To take one example: In “Libertaria” you wouldn’t have the problem of the Education Department going bankrupt because people want minimal or no college tuition but refuse to pay taxes into the Public Fund.
In “Libertaria” the Education Department would not exist. The Public Fund would not exist. Tax monies would not be involved.
There’s plenty wrong with Libertarianism – which I why I, like you, am not an adherent – but it cannot be blamed for that which it never advocated to begin with.
No, but they may be the only proprietors of covering up wanton sexual abuse of minors, at least in this country. Next scandal up: Boy Scouts of America.
They won’t have a gay scoutmaster. Or one who isn’t a Christian. But they’ll hide the pedophiles without a second thought… And send them back out with the kids, even after they confess…
Side point…
Libertarians and Socialists strike me as very similar in that both have The Plan for fixing the world and bringing about some manner of eschaton… but then what works on paper crashes headlong into messy human reality.
This causes them to retreat ever deeper into ideological purity
“You’re not DOING it right!”
or resort to ever stronger means of coercion
“We’ll MAKE it work!”
because it can’t be The Plan that’s bad. It just can’t be. Where would we be without The Plan?
Even when they think they are saying something accurate a/o nice about atheism, there’s that condescending tone focusing on negatives. Bleargh.
A breathtaking sunrise/sunset, a rainbow, a thundering waterfall or any other beautiful, wondrous process is also utterly indifferent to the value of life.
In the big picture, the apologists are retreating from arguing about the physical world and real ways people live and the way religion actually manifests in the world. Science, social reality, and the ongoing clergy scandals are suffocating them on those and they know it.
We’re looking at a retreat and retrenchment which places the new battle line at arguing about dead people, metaphysics, and epistemology. They’re going meta and claiming that religion is the only significant source of rationality, morality, aesthetics, etc.
That does demand a comprehensive public counter as soon as it can be afforded, not just the piecemeal raids and skirmishes they’ve faced to date. Which they sneer at.
cd | March 18, 2010 4:06 PM:
Neuroscience is steadily developing scientific explanations for the origins of rationality, morality, and aesthetics.
Me neither. I thought it meant that the “white” (not the racial term, the purity term) person was acting insincerely for personal gain by doing something that appears altruistic or helpful, and I only encountered it being used to mock people’s motives. Strange how it would be a real compliment coming from Mormons.
What country are you talking about here? only the UK? There are plenty of countries where this did not happen, the industrial revolution came without any checks from government and the end result was an oliver twist-like society.
In the netherlands for example, there were factories in poor areas, where the factories paid in ‘money’ that could only be used in shops owned by the company. The free market gave no incentive to do something about it and labour was so cheap, that even a large strike (unheard of at that time) would not have mattered.
Please tell me how a libertarian society would properly deal with this
The best Christians follow Jesus’ example and embrace separation of church and state — and in fact uphold separation of the spiritual and the mundane, as he did.
I suspect that, as Christianity was the first major religion to separate the spiritual from the mundane, this is a big reason why those countries that were culturally Christian were the ones that played host to the Renaissance and the Enlightenment. In virtually every other major historical religion, espousing something contrary to what the allegedly deity-given doctrine stated was a guaranteed ticket to execution. Yet though many scientists suffered persecutions from Christian authorities, enough did not — or enough secular authorities were willing to buck the bishops — to insure a critical mass of scientific endeavor just as the Islamic science flowering, sparked by Greek texts preserved by Muslim scholars, was fading.
I also suspect that Christ knew no religion could hope to survive among the educated unless it was willing to tacitly cede its authority to dictate temporal matters — in other words, to be in the world, but not of it. He said in Matthew 22:21 “Render unto Caesar the things which are Caesar’s, and unto God the things that are God’s”. He also said in John 18:36, when asked to back the Zealots who were pushing for Jewish freedom from Roman rule, “My kingdom is not of this world.” In Matthew 21:12, we see him driving out the secular entities, especially the money changers, from the house of God — an example Luther would point to when attacking the sale of indulgences fourteen centuries later. And a good chunk of the sixth chapter of the Book of Matthew is taken up with injunctions not to be publicly pious, but to practice religion away from the world’s gaze.
Rush Limbaugh is an oxymoron (i.e, an oxycontin-addicted moron).
I like one of the comments on Ebert’s blog:
#102 Wow. Your grasp of history (not to mention the NT)is tenuous at best. Yes, the Jesus portrayed in NT texts does make a distinction between what is “God’s” and what is “Caesar’s” but that’s hardly about secularism. It’s just a continuation of earlier Hebrew injunctions not to consort too much with Gentiles (in this case the occupying Romans), with the added incentive of the coming overthrow of the worldly powers and establishment of God’s Kingdom on earth (in other words, until then, act as though the Kingdom is here already in your heart and put up with whatever laws the Romans impose that you can bring yourself to abide by). The Jesus character is a theocrat in waiting, not a secularist.
The clues to the Renaissance and the Enlightenment are in the names: rebirth of Classical learning and enlightenment after the dark age of reason during the rule of Christianity. Yes, there were some strains of Christian philosophy that always placed a value on reason and wisdom in the classical sense, but we’re very, very fortunate that they were not entirely crushed by the forces which sought to stamp them out–by far comprising the majority and dominant impulse of the Church from its inception.
Note about the first speaker, the Anglican:
He’s not speaking to us, you know? He’s not talking to atheists. So I think we should probably stop whining as to how condescending he is.
The guy’s talking to his fellow Christians. You know, the people who quite frequently hate us atheists so virulently that they have little murder-fantasies about us. As such, it’s probably a good thing that there are people on their side trying to moderate the language towards us, and to recognize our common morality. Sure, we’d love all these people to recognize that there’s no real evidence for any sort of divinity, and certainly none for Jeebus as the son of God, but till this magically happens, having people work “on the inside” to make acceptance of atheists easier is a Good Thing.
Yahoo @ 102:
Oh, right. Good thing the church was busy destroying literature and research, imprisoning, torturing and murdering those who used their brains, eh? Who knows what would have possibly motivated them otherwise? I mean, golly gee, the overwhelming setbacks caused by the church, that was really just a little bitty speedbump, eh?
I strongly suspect Jesus didn’t exist at all. Your apologetics are a load of ordure. Christianity, in all its flavours has never kept out of worldly affairs.
Yes, well, that doesn’t happen, does it? Christians seem to have a distinct problem with shutting the hell up, as you so amply demonstrate.
Wait… what? He’s talking to christians, sure… about atheists, and doing so erroneously. Why should we just sit down and shut up about it, exactly? Cause he’s being nice about it?
Fuck that noise.
@Haruhiist #101
the french were first throwing out the church and the monarchy. Governments were a tad leary of mobs after that. Social unrest has been the only way that the great unwashed has been able to better themselves. Government has never done much for the common man without looking over its shoulder.
AJKamper @ 106:
Stuff it. I wasn’t whining, neither was anyone else. I’m tired of all the constant negativity heaped onto atheists and atheism.
No, you see, when theists still present atheists in negative light, as people lacking the “spark of the divine”, people with no true moral guidance, that’s doing no one any frelling favours. It’s simply reinforcing the notion that belief is crucial to being human. You want to be a faitheist, good for you. I have just the place for you.
@ Caine #107
Thanks for that. There was just too much sewage in yahoo’s comment for me to do it justice on my own.
Ibis3, thanks for your post too. Amazing just how much they don’t know, isn’t it?
This has been noted as the interesting, perhaps unique quality of Western thought in pre-Modern times, and termed or lumped into “rigor”. It amounts to intellectual willingness to keep in mind in a serious fashion answers/conclusions that are highly unpopular and suspect, but nonetheless have some perceived element of truth or credibility to them. Knowing many such ideas was a sign of being intellectually elite in the West.
This quality is seen in the philosophical disputes and historical writings (i.e. Herodotus) among the ancient Greeks, so it’s not an idea or practice taken from Christianity per se.
The term justice implies to me an obligation of society to observe and enforce it almost by it’s definition;It’s ludicrous to conflate social justice with charity, it’s not the same or even similar.
Ah? you mean, that after the government installed some useful laws and the workers united in unions, the unions did not start the socialist party and, once in the government, did not pass legislation that protected the workers?
Well, thanks for clearing that up.
And (by implication) deeply anti-christian in the christianity actually present in our universe, which believes all of that nonsense through intransigent self delusion and ignorance, and has a vested interest in misrepresenting and misapplying the tools of reason to suit its own anti-intellectual ends.
See, once you strip out the speculation it makes much more sense
the words “justice” and “charity” also indicate a different flow. justice is egalitarian (we all deserve the same justice, and if flows from and to all members of society equally, regardless of status and wealth) whereas charity is hierarchical (it’s something the wealthy have full control over and dole out to the less wealthy and less powerful at will, thus exercising a measure of top-down control over the people they are being “charitable” towards; it flows in one direction only, with no input from the needy themselves)
Folks, please don’t let this thread get derailed by a discussion of libertarianism.
There you go swearing again ‘Tis. PZ should have added the L-word to his banned list.
Of course what you are describing here is Anarchism. However I do not think that is your intention unless you oppose the coercions of private power. But then to some elements of the Libertarian mindset the only EVIL power is public or governement power. Private power, in these cases Corporations or Businesses, are by definition good and virtous and by implication have no coercive power at all. In situation of corporations and businesses being given maximum freedom people would in this type of idiot thinking have maximum freedom from coercion. But then to so many libertarians businesses and corporations by definition have no coercive powers at all. The other thing is that so many Libertarians believe devoutly in Judicial tyranny. In any conflict of interests just sue and sue and sue. Giving the courts vastly greater powers than they have today. If your neighbour is poisoning the water you drink just sue, if the goods you bought are shoddy or dangerous just sue. Of course those with deep pockets will have has they do now preferential access to this type of justice. The fact that so many Libertarians go to incredible lengths to justify and excuse the behavior of vicious and greedy corporations, like Walmart. What far to many corporations want is the ability to regiment and control their workforces that of course means a massive increase in private power over individuals. The other thing is that Libertarians are remarkably clueless about the origins of state regulation of business and employment, which arose precisely from the abuses of private power.
But then it appears that by definition to so many Libertarian private power does not exist and only governement has the power to coerce.
This type of Libertarianism is just brainless. I much prefer my Libertarianism to be against both public and private power, i.e., Anarchism.
PZ takes the theologian to task:
“It’s his patronizing attitude that is a significant part of the moral conflict. By once again trying to tie morality to Christianity, he perpetuates the myth that marginalizes atheists.”
See, I read the snippet above and didn’t get that at all. I read it as the theologian saying, in effect, “the things that non-believers value are deeply consonant with what Christians value. Believers can learn from and appreciate this point of view.”
But, since I’m not one of the marginalized, I say in advance that I have no right to tell a non-believer how they should feel about what theologians say. I just didn’t get the impression that the fella in this case was trying to appropriate the moral high ground.
Oh, and as for libertarianism? I am amazed by how many Christians identify as such. From where I sit, self-absorption is neither an ethic or an aesthetic.
Oh, horseshit. What he’s doing is no different from telling homophobes they should be a little more tolerant of gays because “they can’t help being that way (even though it’s still wrong).”
So, instead of hating us, they can pity us instead? That kind of help I don’t need. It may be a step in the right direction, but it is still several thousand steps short of minimally tolerable. If you have to hold it up to the worst to make it look good, there’s something wrong with it.
In short: we want justice, not mercy.
Caine, #110:
Did the guy say that? Where did the guy say that? Because yeah, if he did, that sucks. But it looks more like he’s saying, “See, these people have divine morality too, so we should listen to them.” Which you and I think is deluded and wrong, but it’s not demeaning as you put it.
AJKamper, yes it is demeaning. I’m not the only person who has pointed this out. Try reading for content and context, eh? It’s helpful.
As I said, if you want to be an accomdationist, fine. Don’t expect me to like it or accept, I do neither.
Celtic_Evolution:
I have heard your prayer.
*flips finger*
Caine:
Bullshit. You’re reading your own biases into it. He says nothing about us not having a divine spark, or what have you. What you call “reading for context” is merely reading what you want to see.
And no, I won’t go to M–ney’s blog. For one, the subject matter and writing bores me to tears. For another, if you can’t take a little disagreement, cope. I missed the bit where this is supposed to be a safe space where you don’t have to be challenged.
On the glibratarian thread-jack I have this quote :
I have noticed that if a person truly understands this concept that person can not also be a libertarian.
I believe your “friends” who used the word “White” meant “White and delightsome”
Gotta love the Mormons.
Look it up but have a roll of Tums on hand.
The end product of libertarianism is not California.
It is Somalia.
Always wondered, Can you be good with god?
The simple question of libertarianism, I think, is this: “Is society so responsible for your wealth that it should be able to take, by force if necessary, the money you’ve earned with your own hard labor in order to care for the welfare of people you don’t even know or care about?”
I happen to think the answer is “Yes,” but it’s a close question, and just thinking about how unfair a world that doesn’t promise us fairness is doesn’t really help matters.
Heh hee!
Of course not, he couldn’t have. Slavery hadn’t had sufficient time to develop a unique musical signature that captivated fans worldwide during his short tenure. After a couple thousand years it found its voice and thus we are graced with Howlin Wolf and Stevie Ray Vaughn, Jamie Brockett and B Squat Woody. Paul Robeson and Etta James. Hell, even Burl Ives. All of these artists drew on older music in their searches for inspiration. It all devolves to here, now.
I thank the Discorporate Invisible Supernatural Spook* for not forbidding the Blues or, if having done so, failed to follow up on that decree. Seeing as it, the DISS, might have never seen it coming only increases the sharpness and reward of my delight in the creativity of my fellow humans. And of my own too.
*DISS. Discorporate Invisible Supernatural Spook. An improvement over my old usage, ISS, which was merely an Invisible Supernatural Spook. I think the added specification of being without body or form is important. I know that it is supported by scripture. Scripture also indicates that we have not seen the last of this DISS. The implication is that we all have our appointed audience, our personal appointment. I cannot help but suspect that such a meeting would prove to be a diss-appointment.
The people of Earth sent out many machines into the space around their home world. At least two of these contained music. Music of all kinds. From chants to chorales, from madrigals to rock, from obssevively thoughtful to wantonly frivolous. These recordings held everything from pious madrigals to Chuck Berry. This was apparently done to show any aliens that we were creative and happy, desultory and dissolute, hopeful and miserable, cooperative and at odds but no matter, we know how to have fun!
The people of Earth, mindful of their mindless transmissions grew eager to listen on familiar bands and one day, a day that shook humanity, a reply was received. The message was repeated numerous times, giving earth stations time to verify the message before releasing it publicly. Four words comprise the message and its terseness and focus promise to fuel argument here on the home planet for who knows how many major social functions?
Music is, after all, a common repository of all that it means to be human. Poetry is similar but with music you get melody. For some reason we expect aliens to understand our intent and earnestness, even if they have no ears. Against all odds, someone somewhere must have something like our ability to hear.
The message: “Send More Chuck Berry.”
Ibis3, thanks for your post too. Amazing just how much they don’t know, isn’t it?
Geez, some of you “hard atheists” are so full of irrational anti-Christian hatred that, unlike PZ, you’re not willing to give credit where it’s due. I can just see some fence-sitting person coming across you and deciding “Ugh, if being an atheist means being a socially-inept jackass with poor reading comprehension, I think I’ll pass.”
You were so intent to attack anything that you didn’t see as utterly condemning religion in general and Christianity in particular that you missed the twin themes of my comment:
— That Jesus himself, be he man, god, or committee, likely understood that religion had to be separated from the physical world in order to survive (and how you could see my stating that as praise of religion, rather than as a sign of its weakness, is something I find hilarious)
— That this schizophrenia built into the foundations of Christianity, a schizophrenia unknown to previous religions, may well have been one of the factors that led to science flourishing in Europe, despite persecution, just when it was either static or in decline elsewhere. (Islamic science had already started fading by the 13th century, and while the Chinese had over a millenia of inventions under their belts, scientific development largely stagnated after the Mongols conquered China.) It wasn’t something the early Christians intended, much as the Norman-English nobles who crafted the Magna Carta intended it to be anything other than a way to rein in an objectionable king.
Oh, and the example of Socrates, as well as the Luddite behavior of the first Ming emperor in China (behavior that reinforced the existing Chinese trend to scientific stagnation) should serve to show that European Christians didn’t invent the persecution of scientists or the suppression of science.
Cd, I’ve always found the Greek ‘rigor’ argument interesting because the Muslims did on the whole a better job of preserving Greek science than did the early Christians. One would think that the residents of the Caliphate would have had the rigor thing down pat. What caused the conditions for science to suddenly improve markedly in Europe even as they were stagnating or even regressing elsewhere?
And yet, more than a few times, people have let us know that the understanding that they no longer had to be respectful of a story involving a talking snake led them to question the talking-snake story (and then the rest of it). Again and again, we hear about how ‘us meanie-meanies’ are going to scare away all the nice people.
So I’ll say in response:
Citation Needed.
I think the reason that most folks disliked this comment was they they were having trouble seeing how someone who told you that your faith should utterly dominate your life was also saying that your faith shouldn’t effect you life.
I have trouble seeing that too.
Either you believe that Jesus said that your faith should change your life, or you think that he said that it shouldn’t. (Or, of course, you think that the doctrines are incoherent and self-contradictory.)
The fact that Christianity has always been ready and willing to whore itself out to whatever philosohpical concept was in vouge at the time has always been one of its greatrest strengths.
Do you live in Classical Greece?
If not, you likely don’t have to worry about sharing the fate of Socrates.
Do you live in the first Ming Dynasty?
If not, you probably don’t have to worry about dealing with the dictates of the first Ming emporer.
But if you live in the modern world, in the west in particular, Abrahamaic religion is almost certainly the most powerful force in your society fighting against social equality and scientific advancement.
There’s not much point in honing your sword to slay already-dead dragons.
Life is so much easier when you can battle imaginary arguments with imaginary responses.
Oh, and the example of Socrates, as well as the Luddite behavior of the first Ming emperor in China (behavior that reinforced the existing Chinese trend to scientific stagnation) should serve to show that European Christians didn’t invent the persecution of scientists or the suppression of science.
translation:
we can safely ignore Hitler, since Stalin killed even more people.
I’m sure there is a name for this fallacy.
Jon Stewart, timely as usual, explains Glenn Beck on last night’s “The Daily Show.”
@#130 Insightful Ape
You should read some of Ron Paul’s Newsletters (y’know, the issues before he realized he might try to run for president that he claimed not to have read before signing off on), the libertarians have a GREAT explanation for that…
On the one hand, mikerattlesnake (hereinafter MRS), one loon shouldn’t discredit the entirety of libertarianism. On the other hand, libertarianism’s dirty little secret (best exhibited with the “Tea Party” crew) are these strange sort of social Darwinists where the people on top are supposed to be on top because the lower classes are dirty, probably because of their different skin color/culture.
This is one of the better posts that I’ve ever read here, PZ. Good job.
“– That Jesus himself, be he man, god, or committee, likely understood that religion had to be separated from the physical world in order to survive (and how you could see my stating that as praise of religion, rather than as a sign of its weakness, is something I find hilarious).”
There is nothing like this in the gospels which became established in the canon and shaped Christian belief and doctrine.
The Jesus of these gospels does not spurn worldly things on the path to some kind of Zen enlightenment about the illusory nature of material success.
He spurns them because he claims the world is going to END. A magical heaven-realm is about to intersect with our reality like the K-T comet slamming into the ocean off the Yucatan 65 million years ago. Those who know this need to prepare for it because that’s all that matters – like those lucky few chosen for the ark ship in WHEN WORLDS COLLIDE.
There’s no need to separate “religion” from “the physical world” because the physical world very soon will not exist.
And…
“What caused the conditions for science to suddenly improve markedly in Europe even as they were stagnating or even regressing elsewhere?”
Basically, everything EXCEPT Christianity. Religious dogma and authority had to be pushed aside to enable these improvements.
Scott Hatfield, OM:
I’m not sure what to make of it, but I’m pretty sure I don’t like it. (Did you read the whole piece?)
It’s weird stuff of the sort that I’ve come to expect from many liberal theologians.
First Ames sketches Dawkins’s position, i.e.,
1) that the universe seems to be quite pitilessly indifferent to human concerns, and that the parsimonious explanation is that it really is pitilessly indifferent, so
2) feelings of “gratitude” about life in general are a misplaced application of our evolved tendency to attribute agency and assign moral credit or blame for our good or bad fortune, and
3) Christians generally want to have it both ways, illegitimately giving God credit for the good stuff and letting him off the hook for the bad stuff.
Then Ames proceeds to argue (mostly by assertion, vagueification and misdirection) that feelings of gratitude are “among the clues” that such feels are in fact appropriate, and not misplaced as Dawkins says, e.g.:
This is very annoying. He acknowledges that Dawkins has an argument, but then resorts to simply pumping the intuition that our feelings must in fact reflect some deep truth, which is precisely what Dawkins has shown to be false.
He also appeals to anthropic arguments about the apparent designedness-for-life of the universe as a whole, without addressing Dawkins’s real point. Even if the universe is designed for life, which IMHO it isn’t, it’s apparently designed for inexcusably shitty life, not what we’d expect from the kind of God people generally want to believe in.
Perhaps Ames is just muddleheaded and a bad writer, but the end result is rather despicable—he’s giving a bloviated Courtier’s Response. He sketches the problems, then just wanks around and asserts that sophisticated theology has good answers to Dawkins’s seemingly good arguments, without actually giving any good answers, or even a rough sketch of one.
I for one have already read a varied assortment of books of theology and apologetics, and have failed to find any actually good counterarguments to what Dawkins is arguing. If there actually is a good counterargument, somewhere, apologists like Ames out to tell us what it is.
He’s basically saying “trust me, Dawkins is saying interesting stuff, but he’s ultimately wrong.” For many people, that’s all they need to hear, because they do trust the people they already agree with, and don’t trust Dawkins.
Ames cops out on giving a serious argument, saying that
Well, no. Ames is precisely not working out the alleged “rationality of faith.” He’s exactly evading rational argument, and insistently pumping familiar intuitions of the very sort Dawkins has correctly explained that you should not trust.
Ames did have the space to at least outline a real argument, but chose instead to fill it with repetitive intuition pumping and red herrings.
That makes me suspect he’s a lying weasel, who intentionally disregards what he learned getting a freaking Ph.D. in philosophy of science in order to function as an Anglican priest and apologist.
I have to suspect he’s one of those preachers who doesn’t really believe most of what he’s saying, or perhaps what he’s not quite saying but encouraging the naive faithful to continue believing for emotional reasons that he knows are invalid. He’s clearly validating the very emotions that Dawkins has shown to be naive and untrustworthy.
One way or another, he’s telling convenient “lies to children.” Maybe he believes them himself, in some sense, somehow, but he’s clearly crafted his rhetoric to validate believers’ utterly naive leaps of faith.
Surely, his post is in some ways better than most apologetics—he doesn’t dismiss Dawkins as utterly naive about theology and an asshole to boot, and says that Dawkins is making an argument worth engaging with. And by presenting Dawkins’ argument without presenting a good counter to it, he’s shooting himself in the foot with respect to people on the fence who don’t trust him more than they trust Dawkins.
So maybe what he’s doing is subversive, on the whole—he’s endorsing Dawkins as fairly respectable and interesting, if wrong, which is as much as we can realistically expect from a professional Christian.
But that’s what we don’t like about professional Christians—their tendency to evade the substance and pretend that they have the answers, without spelling them out in a way we can address clearly. They spew a fog of intuition pumps and misdirection, constantly.
For many people, that’s enough “fingernail apologetics” to keep them clinging to the sheer rock face of faith—as long as you distract them enough with lofty-sounding ideas that they don’t look down. (Hat tip to Sastra for the excellent “fingernail” terminology.)
Scott, I know you’re loath to play apologist here and get dogpiled, but since you’re some sort of Christian, I just have to ask…
1) Do you think Ames is right to think that there are good counters to what Dawkins is arguing? If so, what are they?
2) Can you recommend a book of good theology or apologetics, with any kind of intellectually respectable counter to New Atheist arguments? (My experience with theology has been rather unpleasant—it’s wading through a fog of bad arguments, like Ames’s post expanded to book length, systematically not making the rubber meet the road.)
I agree, in a sense. It didn’t seem that Ames was trying to appropriate the moral high ground, so much as the intellectual high ground. As most liberal theologians do, he was saying that sophisticated folks like him can take onboard what Dawkins is saying, and still have their Christianity and feel good and a bit superior about it—they get what Dawkins is saying, and what Dawkins is missing, and can have their cake and eat it too, unlike poor half-Bright Dawkins.
Which is of course evading the main point of Dawkins’s arguments about religion. Dawkins says that you can’t have your cake and eat it too. (And IMHO he’s right.)
If Ames is going to pontificate about the subject, he ought to at least give a hint as to how Dawkins is wrong—and what valid alternative is being proposed.
Can you really have your cake and eat it too? Or just a little icing sometimes, or what?
I have to guess that as with many theologically liberal ministers’ bloviations, what Ames believes but is carefully not saying is way more interesting than what he is saying.
And that gets really, really tiresome. Where the f*ck is the beef?
Not “an esthetic,” anaesthetic. It dulls the sensations of other people’s pain. :-)
Which IMHO is not entirely unlike the fog of theology, which dulls people’s awareness of the real, serious philosophical questions to the point that they don’t notice they never got real answers.
@#142 AJKamper
I would never assume that one man’s (or publication’s) opinion defined an entire political movement, but until I hear a BETTER explanation from those folks as to why Somalia should not be considered a libertarian utopia, I’ll have to continue infering from the information I have.
I’d argue that a “true Christian” meaning someone that actually follows the bible in its entirety, is the worst example of morality you could find.
Morality is hardly derived from religion. The majority of Christians realize that many of the laws and rules of the Bible are not moral, i.e. no one is stoning lawyers, adulterers, etc. anymore (as far as I know). Their ability to distinguish the difference between what is moral and what is immoral, though both are considered moral in the good(?) book, shows that their morality didn’t originate in their religion; it came from their own mind. I know, it’s shocking.
Paul W.,
Magic pudding.
GA:
Perhaps not, but I do know some stoned lawyers.
o.O
Eeeeveryone should jus gyet stooned.
-spelling is my attempt to illustrate Dylan’s voice.
@mikerattlesnake #146 Puntland certainly is co-operative without formal government
Hi, I just happened by this blog while I was looking for some lyrics to a Christian hymn, believe it or not. I just read all of the comments on the “How to respond to requests to debate creationists” (whew) and I can see that you are all strive to be relentlessly rational. Well kudos to you. I have told my Xtian friends that scientists tend toward skepticism and there is nothing wrong with that. I know that none of you care much for holy books, but I will tell you that Christians are instructed explicitly to keep their noses out of earthly topics lest they look like idiots.
So anyway here’s all of you relentless rationalists insisting, rightly in my view, that these believers knock it off with their idiotic observations about science. And then, what does Dr. Myers do? He starts popping off about politics. Pray tell, what on Earth qualifies him to pontificate in this area? In short, socialism causes hell on Earth, and I can prove it with historical evidence, case after case after case. And yet, he feels free to spew his idiotic and completely uninformed observations about politics about the Internet, even when they are completely oblivious to reality? And all of you hyper-rationalists give him a free pass on this behavior? Why? Are you in emotional thrall to people such as he and unable to evaluate facts for yourselves? Have you been blinded by propagandists that destroy free thought and inquiry through their dogma and their holy tracts? What is with you people, that you act this way in complete contradiction of your stated rationality and skepticism?
What a bunch of high-handed hypocrites some of you are!
He asshat, look at this from the header:
This is his blog and he can talk about anything he desires. You not understand that reflects badly upon you mental processes, even more that your delusion of religion and imaginary deity. You are the hypocrite, and will be until you quit fooling yourself and demand real evidence, which isn’t found in the babble.
Propheteer:
Um, the post is about values, morality and epistemology, not about politics.
Even if he were, consider: Is he or is he not a member of the body politic? Does one need qualifications other than that to have political opinions, and to express them?
Citation needed.
Advocacy of and striving towards rationalism is not hyper-rationalism; nonetheless, you’re right — we would likely not, if he had engaged in such behaviour. Which he hasn’t.
:)
You might wish to consider what is with yourself, that you so misapprehend Pharyngula.
Citation needed.
Hi Nerd, you can call me Geek. You didn’t answer my question, which was why you crush the unscientific views of believers but not the unscientific political views of the blog owner. Once again, evidence of the unworkability and injustice of socialistic political regimes is voluminous and unignorable. Why do you pull you high-handed tactics against one but not the other? Either be consistent or admit your hypocrisy.
Political opinions are not scientific, but certain parts of science can be used to verify if the politics are actually doing what they should, or are they based on the irrelevant and antiquated babble, and not working as a result His politics are fine, whereas I’m certain yours are not in our opinions. So why don’t you take a long walk off a short pier. You have nothing cogent to say.
Quite aside from the risible nature of this conceit that commenters don’t dispute PZ on matters political (SC, TM spring to mind), the banality of this retort is extreme.
Consider “the unscientific political views of the blog owner”, which might equally well have been:
* “the unscientific esthetic views of the blog owner”
* “the unscientific musical views of the blog owner”
* “the unscientific culinary views of the blog owner”
etc.
(You’re funny.)
Hi from socialist Canada* Propheteer:
What qualifies you?
*We’re doing fine. Thanks for asking!
Hey, where’d Mr. Christian music go? He comes by to make a few backhanded compliments, make a sweeping generalisation about politics, and then take off?
How very typical of the quality of Christian we most often get skulking around here. (It’s not hard to imagine someone like Propheteer in his high school days, cruisin’ down the street with his buddies, only slowing to scream “Hey, faggot!” at someone on the corner before speeding away, giggling like a hyenas.)
I’m sure Jesus is proud of him.
Profiteer,
Even if I were to grant your premise that a blog writer would need to be an advice columnist in order to talk about how he/she feels about their love life, I couldn’t find anything in THIS post that was pointedly political.
You seem to be set off by the reference to GB, but he wasn’t brought up except for the fact that he’s a moral prat, but more importantly, is in the minority view.
The point of the topic, disagree or not, was that the more positive ideals of religion are not the sole purview of religion.
So, read much? Other than Christian Hymn lyrics?
Propheteer #155
First, give a definition of socialism.
Then give examples of socialistic regimes.
Next explain why and how such regimes are “unworkable” and unjust. Be specific.
Propheteer @ 152:
How interesting. Why don’t christians do that then? They’re all over “earthly” topics. Actually, I can’t imagine how they could possibly avoid “earthly” topics. Perhaps you could tell all those nasty evangelists to shut up and focus on non-earthly topics. How about dropping a word to say, Glenn Beck, James Dobson, Pat Robertson?
Golly, let me think…Dr. Myers is a human being, a citizen of the United States, a tax payer and a voter. Aren’t those qualifications enough? I have opinions about political matters, and I don’t even have a doctorate! *gasp*
Whoops! I thought you
idiotschristians kept your noses out of “earthly” topics. So I’ll invite you to kindly keep your mouth closed and fingers off the keyboard.Well, I wasted brain cells reading your crap, which is certainly oblivious to reality.
*snort* Oh my. Yet another idjit who cannot understand life outside dogma, holy tracts and the rest of religious trappings. People disagree with PZ all the time. Anyone who was capable of comprehending what they read would know that much. Of course, it takes more than a drive by trolling to figure these matters out.
No contradiction at all. Just because we don’t think the way you think we should doesn’t mean rational thought and skepticism went on vacation. They didn’t.
Oh well, that’ll learn us! Oy. When are you drive by types going to come up with a new script? This one is old, tired and boring beyond measure.
“I do know that although God didn’t say “Wop bop a lu bop,” he did utter “Boom shacka lacka lacka boom!” when he created light.”
Slaughter
Heathen! He did NOT say “Boom shaka lacka lacka boom!” He said “Mecca lecca hi, mecca hiney ho”
:)
oh look, another idiot who thinks stalinism and social justice are the same thing. and then he tries to accuse us of not living in reality!
@Propheteer:
Please seat yourself firmly on this Corn Cob of Sandpaper™ and rock gently, and repeatedly.
Josh, OSG, while I appreciate your manners, I take issue with that *gently*. I think our little troll should ride that cob like a bullrider.
Hi Mr. Morales, I saw on the other thread that, time and time again, you say “Citation needed” as if that is some kind of profound criticism. In my case, “citation needed” is not sufficient to reject what I say. I need a little bit more feedback as to *why* my statement needs a citation, because you clearly either use this as an obfuscation tactic or you don’t know what it means. Thanks.
Same same for “Um”. You say that as if you know something I don’t. I would prefer that you say such rather than imply it.
Once again, I have voluminous evidence that proves that the blog owner does is a raving lunatic when it comes to his political statements. Volumes of evidence. Irrefutable evidence. Either be a rational skeptic or admit that you are only such when you pick and choose. Where I come from we call people who do that “hypocrites”.
*I’m so desperate for chewtoys, I’ll even bother to write something about that drive-by*
Confused individual @ 152,
By who? St Augustine? That’s so 5th century !
Leaving aside the fact that you fail to provide the context, maybe it’s the fact that Dr Myers is a citizen and voter in the USA and his state, and as such entitled to “pop off about politics”? It’s called democracy, moron.
So political views are scientific now?
*giggle*
sideways.
show, don’t tell.
Good opportunity for a plug !!
“L’enfer, c’est les autres”
*Clenched fist Sartre salute*
Propheteer:
Then do bring it forth, and be vindicated!
We await with ba
ited breath¹.—
¹ Like the cat with cheese in its mouth by the mousehole. :)
Hi Mr. Jadehawk, I have very little respect for fallacious logic and ad hominem attacks. I have studied the international political aspects of liberation theology for thirty years. Just like the believers should keep their noses out of science, so should you rational skeptics stay out of politics. Many of you, including you, don’t have a clue what you are talking about.
Rorschach:
Too right! Perfection.
Hi Morales, your argumentative tone makes you appear to me to be defending slave labor in Cuba, China, North Korea, and the former Soviet Union, all of which is common knowledge and not hard to find. Forced prisoner labor + political prisoners = slave labor. Do your own googling.
Propheteer,
You’re much bigger making assertions than at adducing evidence for them.
Indistinguishable from bluster, it is.
..yes, so much better to have either irrational skeptics I’ve always felt. Idiot.
It’s Ms. Jadehawk you brain dead idiot.
Errm, try again.
..yes, so much better to have irrational skeptics I’ve always felt. Idiot.
Propheteer:
That would be Ms. Jadehawk. Don’t tell me, you think women shouldn’t have a say about matters. Any matters. I smell a clownshoe.
As you have little respect for fallacious logic, you must have zero self-respect. “Liberation theology”? I have news for you – that doesn’t qualify you in the least to talk about politics.
By the way, who the hell says believers should keep their noses out of science? I am all for believers learning and understanding science. Deliberately twisting science to fit twisted beliefs is a different matter altogether.
As for not having a clue? That would be you, clownshoe.
Hi Brownian, you should know that homophobic slurs say more about the utterer than the recipient. Repression is harmful and brings much suffering to the world. You should always strive for honesty.
Propheteer,
:)
Care to detail the chain of inference leading from from my statements to your conclusion?
Propheteer:
Hahahahahahahahahaha. Whadda maroon you are. You are doing the arguing. You claim you have piles and piles of evidence. Requests have been made for this “evidence” – time to put up or shut up.
Is this where you learned that believers should keep their noses out of science ?
And pray tell, who are we liberating ?
Please someone tell me this is a Poe. This idiot has just accused John Morales of being in defence of slave labour now accuses Brownian of being homophobic.
This has got to be a joke right?
Believers should stay out of science ergo rational skeptics should stay out of politics.
Isn’t there a Latin term for an assertion like this? I’m sure Propheteer can tell us, since he has such an obvious grasp of logical fallacies.
Really?? “I know you are but what am I??”
Does your mommy know you’re up using the computer?
John:
Dammit, John! How can be so argumentative?
>> That would be Ms. Jadehawk.
And that is my fault how?
>> Don’t tell me, you think women shouldn’t have a say about matters.
Illogical women certainly shouldn’t.
>> I have news for you – that doesn’t qualify you in the least to talk about politics.
It qualifies me to make statements of fact about liberation theology, which is a political topic.
>> By the way, who the hell says believers should keep their noses out of science?
That would be the apostle Paul, in 1 Timothy.
>> As for not having a clue? That would be you, clownshoe.
As for being illogical and unreasonable, that would be you.
Is that your way of trying to insult me by implying that I’m gay? Did you honestly just write the equivalent of “I know you are but what am I?” That’s how you think?
Thanks for taking the time to visit.
I don’t care at this point, at least it’s some sort of entertainment…:-)
.. please don’t tell me is the sort of “evidence” that you apparently have screeds of to prove your point? Is this SERIOUSLY the best you have?
Hi Brownian, once again, the only person who has made homophobic statements is you. I always wonder at the motivations of someone who does this, but I leave speculation about such matters to others.
Rorschach
PZ reallt needs to ge this butt back here doens’t he? We’re getting thin on the ground in our ability to comment so when some idiot like this turns up we toss them around like a baby seal in an orca pod.
It’s admittedly amusing and whiles away the hours.
Hi Shrek, I was asked who told Xtians to keep their noses out of science, and I gave a factual answer. I think you might be knee-jerking just a little.
Moroin @ 195
Trust me sunshine there is not a part of your body I would jerk.
Everyone else,
Gotta go for a drive to Brisvegas and back, have fun with the fresh meat for the next hour and a half. I expect to see nothing less than complete envisceration when I get back. I’m so jealous. *sniff*
Has this guy been reading Laden’s blog?
ClownshoePropheteer:You assumed Jadehawk was a Mr., as in you wrote “Mr. Jadehawk”. That’s your doing, your fault. You could have just gone with Jadehawk, ya know. That’s what you get for trying to appear superior. (By the way, that’s not working.)
Oh, I see. What percentage of women are illogical? Considering you’re positing that everyone in this thread is illogical, this isn’t helping your position much.
No. See, that would possibly qualify you to talk about “liberation theology”, not politics in general. Hoist by your own petard there, clownshoe.
Well, there’s a little problem here. I don’t believe in any gods (or goddesses for that matter) and I don’t believe in your little book of contradictory myths. Just because you believe it doesn’t make it true. If you want to posit truth from that position, provide evidence. Actual evidence.
Not at all, cupcake. If you have evidence, provide it. I’ve read all your crap in its full idiotic splendor so far; if you have something of substance to say, get to it.
Hi Caine, oh you are one to talk about dogma. As I said, you rightly squash the little heads of the intelligent designers when they show up, but boy you lap up that socialist dogma like little puppies. You appear to be so in love with your own beautiful minds that you can’t see where you yourselves fall off the logical and evidentiary cliff. This thread has been a real eye-opener for me.
Actually, Augustine of Hippo has posted here before to that effect.
—
You always wonder at X, but leave speculation about X to others?
LOL.
Apparently, it’s innuendo you don’t refrain from.
—
BTW, how’s your compilation of evidence regarding your previous claims (and exegesis thereof) coming along?
The problems with this is that, since you’re
(evidently) a Christian, you believe that your monster god made us for the sole purpose of being his slaves, created entirely for fawning and grovelling and telling him how wonderful he is – and if we don’t, we’ll suffer an eternity of punishment.
When do we get to liberate ourselves from his unjust tyranny?
so that would pretty safely confirm my assumption that you can’t tell stalinism from social justice. not surprising; most libertarians couldn’t tell social democracy from stalinism from marxism if their lives depended on it.
and you still have shown nothing to prove your talk is more than just ignorant, pathetic bluster; care to refute the evidence that the least egalitarian societies are those who have the most social ills? care to refute the evidence that humans are naturally cooperative and thrive on average more in cooperative situations than in competitive situations? care to disprove the evidence that redundancy systems are less prone to collapse and massive disruption than the efficiency systems preferred by libertarians?
I’m waiting.
Hi John, someone on this thread flat-out accused me of being a gay basher, and you berate my attempts to defend myself? What kind of a rationalist are you anyway? Oh, I forgot: YOU AREN’T.
*gets a beer and popcorn*
Modus bullshittens ? No other term in logic that I am aware of would apply to this garbled nonsense….
Prophetidiot:
Brownian did not make any homophobic statement. Why am I not surprised in the least that your are unable to grok context? You’d fit right in at the crossroads. What Brownian said, in effect, is that you’re the sort of idiot who would drive by and sling a slur or insult at someone who was walking along. Brownian was absolutely right in his take. You’re exactly that kind of assclam.
If you would be so kind as to provide a verse for me, I would like to read this passage. Sorry, I’m not familiar enough with the bible to just page right to it.
Prophetroll:
The bible doesn’t constitute a factual anything. The bible is not fact.
Ugh. When did the Red Scare get started again?
Don’t worry, Propheteer. In the unlikely event that the US ever gets a semi-decent health-care system it won’t suddenly turn into Soviet Russia or North Korea.
Hell, the US would need a century or so of hard policy and social justice work before it even began to resemble an evil socialist dictatorship like Denmark or Sweden.
No, the American future will look a lot more like Brazil. You’ve already got the income disparity and the gun crime, and the tent-city favelas are geeting bigger all the time. You’re on the right track.
See, I would have figured politics an earthly matter. Just as I would science, history, morality, culture, well anything really. If you want to work out how many angels can dance on the head of a pin, or calculate the number of people who will get into heaven – fine. But keep out of worldly matters.
Hi Jadehawk, my gripe, still unanswered, is that the rational skeptics who post on this site feel justified in bashing mystical religious beliefs, but seem not to be compelled to apply that same rational skepticism to other subjects, such as politics.
If you know anything about the subjects you mention, then you know that we could write a book exploring them, and I do not wish to get tied up in a discussion I don’t care to have with you.
1. Most discussions about the effects of egalitarianism on society do not take into account the positive affects of social mobility. In socialist societies, the only mobility afforded comes with membership in the ruling party.
2. Humans are naturally cooperative, but virtually all of history supports the notion that forced cooperation is not cooperation at all, but slavery.
3. Your discussion about efficiencies belies the fact that no political system has been proven to be more efficient than any other. In the US, to take a quick example, efficiency is never even seriously discussed.
Prophetroll:
Really, cupcake? I don’t lap up anything. I do think about things, whereas you don’t. You seem to be in love with your “liberation theology” and the bible. As for falling off a logical and evidentiary cliff, you have yet to provide any evidence. Zip, zero, zilch, nada. At this point, there’s been precious little evidence you’re capable of thought, let alone rational thought.
Evidence. Provide it. No, your little book of contradictory myths is not evidence.
Hi Caine, so far as I can discern, your last post has absolutely no relation to a single thing that I actually said. Perhaps we are miscommunicating.
You are talking about totalitarian communism. We are not. Do you own a dictionary?
Caine, oh good grief, I was asked who told Xtians to keep their noses out of science, and that person was the Apostle Paul in the Xtian holy book. We are not talking about the existance of god, we are talking about the words in black and white on the printed page. If you can’t understand plain English, that is not my fault.
Yep, when it comes to politics we are all suddenly sooooo credulous.
Of course when it comes to politics, there’s no one way of going about things. It’s not a hard science, there’s difference of opinion about how things go – not to mention the very diffuse data set to work with. There’s always moral preconceptions and particular ideals that individuals should have valued (I for one think universal health, education and welfare should be part of any liberal democracy), issues on human rights and welfare, equality, use of natural resources, protecting the environment, etc. So what of scepticism in such a diverse and diffuse manner by which it goes by? The best, it seems, it to look for pragmatics that can help achieve the best of the principles you hold.
If people are shunning the evidence that is clear as day in favour of a particular position, then maybe the comment is valid. But otherwise, it’s not as clear-cut as it is in the hard scientists and a healthy scepticism (at least personally speaking) tends to leave one jaded as opposed to proactive.
Propheteer,
No, Brownian didn’t (as such), and no, I don’t.
If you’ve got no beef with gay people’s sexual orientation and expression, good on ya!
Hi Ambulo, might you point me to a reference that describes a communist political system that is non-totalitarian? I looked in my dictionary, but I couldn’t find one.
Prophetroll:
Oh FFS! You’ve obviously just decided to spout off a load of crap when you have zero idea of what you’re talking about. The people here have had plenty to say about politics, it’s argued quite often. You wouldn’t know that though, because you’re the type to drive by and screech an insult without knowing one single thing about the issues discussed here.
Prophet
eerasshat wrote:Then why not quote from Lord of the Rings instead? I think the chapter ‘The Scouring of the Shire’ in particular has some important lessons for us all.
[meta]
BoSOM,
You ever get the chance (and have Tolkien-awareness), you might be most amused (I was) by the hobbit-tossing scene in Mary Gentle’s Grunts.
Highly-recommended (by me).
Hi Propheteer,
Sorry, I didn’t explain that as well as I might have. I still thought you’d understand what I was getting at, though.
I meant that you are talking about totalitarianism and/or communism, both of which are terrible things.
I am talking about what you might call democratic socialism, or just a spot of social justice and the odd safety net in an ordinary, everyday first-world economy.
What aspect of “socialism”, in that sense, are you bothered about? Is it the idea of universal health care?
Looking back and Propheteer’s posts, I’m really not sure where (s)he’s coming from. It looks to me like (s)he’s arguing a straw man, making it as if we’re advocating a position we don’t – or at the very least taking a very basic idea like universal education to mean totalitarian communism.
Propheteer, are you arguing against anything specific anyone has said here? If so, what’s your gripe and how is it a failure of rationality / scepticism?
Prophetroll:
So all printed words are not only the truth, but actual facts? Because that’s what you’re positing here. The bible is printed, okay. So what? That does not make it true, it certainly does not make it a fact. You acted as if it’s effing evidence. It’s not.
You didn’t answer my question at all about who wanted theists out of science. I certainly don’t want any bar to theists learning and understanding science. Actual science, with actual facts and actual evidence. All you’ve offered is weak ass refutations, using the bloody bible as some sort of proof of statement. It’s a made up book, which has been torn apart repeatedly, to decide which stuff the sheeple get to read and what they don’t. If you’re even thinking about using it as a basis for your arguments, I suggest you don’t. Most of the people here know much more about it than you do.
You are expressing presuppositions here, in particular that “socialism”(you haven’t as yet defined what you actually mean by this)leads to slavery, and that sceptics have to apply some sort of rational mat over their political views which as you imply they are not doing already.
I also find the notion that politics is to you supposed to be some sort of exact science that only, well, who actually, should practise or dare to comment on rather naive if not outright stupid.
Actually, make that, I do find it outright stupid.
I find it hilarious that someone can call themselves both Christian and anti-slavery, when the bible endorses and promotes slavery – not to mention that, if he actually exists, the Christian god created us for sole purpose of being his slaves for all eternity.
That’s some serious cognitive dissonance there. We’ve got to find a way to tap that energy somehow.
Hi Nerd,
>> Political opinions are not scientific, but certain parts of science can be used to verify if the politics are actually doing what they should
The historical record is not science, since it cannot be subjected to experiment, but it is certainly evidence. Political opinions at variance with the historical record are not just opinion, but propaganda.
>> You have nothing cogent to say.
Aparently, neither do you.
so you claim, but you have shown no evidence of it being so. As a matter of fact, this blog is full of people disagreeing critically with PZ and with each other on politics and having factual, critical discussions about them. Therefore, your accusation is evidence-free and downright counterfactual.
chicken
social mobility is highest in social democratic countries like Sweden, lowest in more libertarian ones like the U.K., and the U.S. Also, for the third time, social justice isn’t the same as Stalinism.
forced how? social mores are a form of constraint that often can work for the benefit of its members; brute force as well as blackmail on the other hand are indeed a form of slavery. Except that the average person experiences more of this from their employer than they ever do from the state, and increasingly so the more libertarian and less social democratic a country is.
you don’t know what “efficient” means in this context, do you.
If there’s arguments against, say, universal healthcare as being socialist, wouldn’t the sceptical thing to do would be to look at how healthcare is implemented around the world and then seek to see how the best models around best fit with the society it is going into. I’m frankly quiet sick of hearing Americans whine on about universal healthcare as a threat to liberty when what they are getting is nothing compared to what is prevalent in most liberal western democracies.
If you were sceptical and wanted the best health solution for your country, surely you’d be looking to the likes of France or Sweden and see what they are doing right. To do otherwise would be the opposite of scepticism, it would be ideology.
On the abortion issue, places like the Netherlands have one of the lowest abortion rate in the world as one of the lowest teen pregnancy rate. For those who oppose abortion – surely they would be looking to what makes the Netherlands program a success instead of advocating positions like “abstinence only” when that evidentially is not working. The sceptic should follow the evidence wherever it leads, the ideologue will stick to their convictions no matter the evidence (and if they are tedious enough, they will try some presuppositional ontological apologetic to defend their pragmatically-inept ideology)
Boygenius, the specific verse Prophetroll couldn’t be bothered with is 1 Timothy 6:20/21:
*Avoid science, especially that which disagrees with Paul (“science falsely so called”). Other versions translate this phrase as “false knowledge”, which may be more correct. However many fundamentalist Christians still use this verse (“science falsely so called”) to justify their rejection of any idea, scientific or otherwise, they believe contradicts the bible.
no one except for you has been talking about stalinism. we’re talking about social justice and social democracies. learn the difference before you start talking about these things of which you’re obviously completely ignorant
Kel, OM:
QFT. I doubt our little ideologue will get it though.
Hi John, you and some of the others on this thread have a major misapprehension of the meaning of “opinion” when it comes to politics and scientific skepticism. You seem to think that if it is not science, it must be only opinion, just like what color you prefer your toilet seats to be. Unfortunately, you are wrong. Political opinion can harm people and is in a different category of opinion altogether. Also, political opinion is informed by history, which is subject to some interpretation, but is also not opinion like toilet seats. Please lift the level of your discourse in these areas, because so far, you are quite wrong about everything.
Liberation Theology.
Egad, I can’t imagine why anyone would be interested in reading bible here, but the passage I had in mind is from 1 Timothy 1:
5 But the goal of our instruction is love from a pure heart and a good conscience and a sincere faith. 6 For some men, straying from these things, have turned aside to fruitless discussion, 7 wanting to be teachers of the Law, even though they do not understand either what they are saying or the matters about which they make confident assertions.
Hi Caine, I don’t wish to presume to know your academic background, but quoting an author without a cite is pretty poor form. There is no way for a reader to check for accuracy or bias.
Thanks, Caine #229.
Imagine that. An atheist providing another atheist the biblical citation required to understand the assertion of a theist who didn’t have the common courtesy to provide said biblical citation, even when asked politely.
Several reasons: cultural significance, former belief, trying to understand Christianity, so many think that quoting a bible verse means Q.E.D., justifications of social inequalities on the “authority” of the bible, etc.
Just because some here look at it as a socially-constructed human-edited volume, long past its use as a framework for society and full of some of the most draconian moral precepts that are pushed as being virtuous, it doesn’t mean that the book has no place at all. Next you’re going to say that because we’re atheist no-one would want to read the Iliad or the Egyptian Book Of The Dead.
Hi Jadehawk, please point me to a single mention that I have made of stalinism except for this one, thanks.
we have read the bible, don’t be so smug.
are you internet illiterate? the “cite” is right above the quote in the link. d’uh.
Hi Kel, whatever your objections to the “QED” believers might be, I am not one of them. Also note that my orginal rant was completely general and not directed at any one individual. A lot of people seem to be taking this stuff very personally.
every mention of communist dictatorships, the mentions of several stalinist countries, pretty much every time you actually described some feature of what you vaguely label “socialism”.
just because you aren’t using the correct name for it, doesn’t mean you aren’t talking about it. I’ve been telling you from the start of this conversation to go learn the difference between stalinism and social democracy, because you keep talking about the former, we are all talking about the latter
Prophetroll:
If you’re talking about my post @ 233, there’s a link first thing, you idiot.
Propheteer #234, thanks for the clarification.
Although, this bit:
wreaked havoc on my irony meter. The invoice is in the mail.
Propheteer @ 234:
Hahahahaha, the version of the bible you’re using doesn’t even use the word science.
Boygenius, your irony meter is not alone. Not at all.
Propheteer,
It is certainly possible to use reason and scepticism to examine the results of government policies.
Since you’re wearing your sceptical, rational hat, would you be able to give us a demonstration of how to do this regarding universal health care?
In the US many people die of easily treatable diseases and conditions because they cannot afford health care.
This does not happen in Canada, Australia, New Zealand, the UK or anywhere else in the developed world.
Having considered this sceptically and rationally (I hope), I think universal health care is a good thing.
Is my thinking faulty on this issue? Can you explain where?
Hi Ambulo, I can’t imagine why you want to know my analysis of the healthcare debate but I think it is useful to understand the personality differences between liberals and conservatives. Conservatives, by nature, for many varied reasons, do not like things to change much. The main reason for the current political conflict is, in my opinion, not over the direction of the change, but the amount.
Propheteer:
1. Citation needed.
2. Care to cite your evidence and chain of inference for this claim about our putative fallacious dichotomy?
3. On what basis (and by what reasoning) do you make this assertion?
Kel,
Don’t forget Beowulf. That’s a good one too, and it’s way more up-to-date than the Bible.
Of course not, though that wasn’t my point. My point was that there are plenty of reasons to read the bible, including that there are plenty of theists who quote it as if finding a bible quote is a way to end an argument. Wasn’t accusing you at all of being one of them, just explaining the reasons why atheists might have read or might look to reading the bible.
Though personally I much prefer to read about the psychology of belief – the whole cultural explanation can only explain fringes of what is a near-universal phenomenon.
If you’ve had to put up with ideologues for a long time, it’s hardly surprising. There’s plenty of people who come on here and elsewhere who espouse terrible ideologies and use a pseudoscientific backing. A good example of this phenomenon would be those who try to use IQ test results to justify racism, or those who use STD rates or such to justify discrimination against homosexuals. There’s plenty of racists, or sexists, or xenophobes, or isolationists, or libertarians (in the anarcho-capitalist sense), or those justifying discrimination of one kind or another. Some people here are understandably weary of that kind of apologetic rhetoric.
Hi again John:
No, you’re funny.
I’m back and yep, as I expected, total envisceration of that prophet thingy person.
Nice one peeps!
Unfortunately though, even though it’s pants are down and you’ve all gone at it with a red hot poker, it still isn’t quite getting it.
Propheteer #246,
What “direction” do the conservatives want to go?
What “amount” of change do conservatives wish to see?
What sort of dressing do you serve with your word salad?
Prophetroll, how about you answer John Morales’ post @ 247, actually answer it, the way he laid out, rather than posting bullshit? All you’ve had is bullshit so far, so let’s hear some real answers, along with your version of logic, and just for icing, some frigging evidence for your assertions, of which, there has been none.
Caine, I admit defeat. You keep dragging your interpretation of the bible back into the argument. If this is the kind of behavior you despise from believers, then I don’t blame you. It really is frustrating.
Propheteer,
Thanks, but my levity is intentional.
By the way, care to elucidate to a specific instance of something you classify as not an “unscientific political view”?
You may wish to append an example quotation of PZ expressing “unscientific political views”, too. You know, just so you can prove you’re not just blustering (and rather pathetically, at that).
That cheese ain’t gonna last forever, you know. Even cats get bored.
Hi Caine, the “bullshit” I posted was direct quote quote from one of his posts, where he said precisely what he claimed not to have said. I am finding that many of you rational skeptics are rather irrational in your debating style. I am actually quite shocked.
If you hadn’t asserted your interpretation of the bible, it would never have come up in the first place.
Frustrating? Please.
Instead of complaining about the bad ones, you could always ignore them and focus on those willing to have a rational discussion with you.
.. you just don’t get it do you? Everyone single person who reads the bible is “interpreting” it. Some of you interpret it to mean you should worship a bipolar autocrat with a serious naricissistic personality disorder and some of us realise its complete fantasy crap written by a series of unwashed goatherders in their attempt to make some sort of meaning out of their misunderstanding of the natural world.
Of course you could unimpress me even more by telling us you’re further into the godbot cult than I believe you are and you’re one of the creobots who interpret it “literally”.
John, I’m just posting here for my amusement, and I can’t imagine why you care what I say or think. I read somewhere on this site, I’m not sure where, that Dr. Myers is an unabashed socialist, and his assertion seemed to me to be not very well considered. “Faith based” if you will. I read further and it seemed like a lot of the other individuals posting here exhibit the same flaw in their thinking. It seems to me a contradiction for a rational skeptic about religion to be so accepting of dogma in other areas. So, I posted about that and got a lot of replies. I will be going to sleep shortly, church in the morning of course, and I doubt that I will find my way back here. This has certainly been an enlightening experience for me, though. Thanks a million.
Propheteer, you aren’t answering John’t post @ 247. You were asked straightforward questions, how about answering them?
As for:
I was amused, nothing more, by you not citing the actual verse, but using the word science in your explanation of the verse. Then it turns out your version of the bible doesn’t use the word science. Get it? If you didn’t want to talk about the bible, perhaps you shouldn’t have quoted it as an answer to a question nor said that it was a fact because it was the printed word. Geez. Go back and read what you’ve written, you’re having a hard time keeping track of all the manure you’ve littered about.
Feel free to ignore me. Actually, I’d be happy if you did, and bothered to provide answers to John Morales and Kel.
Kel
I don’t believe you could have a rational discussion who, in the first few posts, was so irrational to accuse John of being a slave labour supporter and Brownian of being a homophobe. I find that attitude frankly disgusting as it detracts from the quite serious issue of people who actually are homophobic/supports of slave labour and it’s use, as a throw away term by the propheteer to try and further his point, is unconscionable.
Propheteer,
I asked for your analysis of the idea of universal health care because I am trying to pin you down to talking about something specific.
So far, all you’ve done is say that socialism is bad and basically that everyone who posts on Pharyngula is a non-sceptical sheep who would happily follow PZ into slave labour in Pyongyang.
I had hoped that you would jump at the chance to talk about health care, because when people rail against the evils of “socialism” these days that’s usually what they mean.
You can, of course, use any topic you choose in demonstrating your rational thinking process. But please do give us an example.
Now that you’ve told us that we’re not thinking properly you should really show us how to do it right.
Ah well, Prophetroll proves him/herself to be incapable of answering the questions posed, and will be running off. Unfortunately, that’s not surprising in the least.
Well I guess that answers the question of whether a rational discussion should be had with him. He’s actually WANTS to be the baby seal. What is it with these drive by trolls and their passion for self flagellation?
Caine, I can’t tell if you are obfuscating on purpose or if we are just miscommunicating.
1. It is a FACT that 1 Timothy is a book in the Xtian New Testament.
2. It is probably true and not worth arguing that the Apostle Paul wrote 1 Timothy.
These are the only facts I have asserted. I don’t know where you got the idea that I did otherwise.
I am writing and answering as fast as I can.
Post #247 demands that I produce a cite for my “putative fallacious dichotomy”. I blockquoted a post from John somewhere up there that made that EXACT equivalence, word search it.
I would much rather discuss the features of the dichotomy that I observed and commented on than spoonfeed facts to you. If we are incapable of communicating with each other, then we are.
BoS, OM:
They think it proves their superiority, a la “oh, I was just amused by you hypocritical people with your subnormal thinking!” Even though they never once answered one single question which would have at least provided some direction as to what they thought. Apparently, we’re just supposed to assume we’re misdirected and stupid, and he/she is brilliant.
I was called out for the brief (and incomplete) explanation of Liberation Theology in #234, for not having a cite, even though the link was first. What I found interesting was that was the only comment. Since Prophetroll brought up his/her expertise in Liberation Theology, I expected something other than “I don’t see a citation.”
that just goes to show what you know about the bible. The authorship of the Pastoral Epistles is disputed at best.
Propheteer,
There, there. Your lack of imagination is to be pitied, but you can hardly be blamed for it.
Ah, finally! Thank you for providing the basis for your claims.
(Has it occurred to you that (thanks to your endeavours) that particular sentiment now indeed appears on this site? ;)
What you haven’t achieved is to influence its truth-value.)
Are you sure you’re using dogma correctly in that sentence? :)
I share your doubt.
You’re welcome; it was my pleasure.
Shrek, you put words in my mouth that I never said and then claim that you are the rational one. People who use logical fallacies in the service of a political agenda are either propagandists or dupes, not rationalists. That has been my entire gripe on this thread.
and so far, you’ve failed to support that accusation with any evidence. Also, weren’t you
flouncingleaving?Prophetroll:
You don’t know much. It’s truth is highly disputed. If you’re going to argue theology, know what you’re talking about. At any rate, probably true does not make it a fact, whether it’s in print or not.
John Morales asked you:
Please answer the question.
Ambulocetacean in #263 answered a question of yours, and poses a question I’d like to see an answer to, along with those Jadehawk has posed.
It seems to me you’re focusing on minor things in order to avoid having to explain your stance on issues. As that’s what you ostensibly bothered to post for in the first place, it’s odd you refuse to engage with those who are asking for clarification. Unless of course, you didn’t come here to have a conversation and explain your stance, but stopped by to chastise us all in what you thought would be a superior sort of way. You know, preachin’.
Probably not, but it’s still worth a try. Again a frustration is one who keeps complaining about the level of comment here while simultaneously ignoring all those who actually are trying to engage them on the points they are actually making.
If nothing else, it shows a level of personal hypocrisy and that can only really be highlighted by responding to the rhetoric.
Yes, it’s accepted in the canon.
Debatable.
So you now assert that your exegesis of the verses in 1 Timothy that you cited is not factual?
Were you lying before, or merely mistaken?
Your own words, in comments #189 and #234.
And stop calling me “Shrek”. You are not my friend nor my peer and have no right to a dimunitive of even my onscreen name. Wanker .
Hey boygenius, I am tiring of complaining about people here putting words in my mouth. Can’t you rationalists get it through your heads that doing this is a LOGICAL FALLACY? In any case, please point me to a single post where I said that scientists should stay out of politics. What I said, and what I have been saying consistently all along, is that you rationalists, who feel so justified in using your rational skepticism in the service of discrediting hokum religious statements, should consistently also do the same thing with political statements. Instead, you seem to think that your political opinions are mere opinions only, like a preference for smooth or crunchy peanut butter. To me, it seems as if your cherished skepticism goes out the window when it comes to your political opinions.
Prophetroll @ 152:
Do you have memory problems?
Oh good grief Satan, I said that, based on my reading of a holy book, Christians are instructed not to potificate on earthly subjects. If you see a fact anywhere in there, then you really must be the Great Deceiver.
Show some evidence that this hasn’t been the case, or STFU
You had used that term before and I had a slight suspicion that you don’t know what it means.I am now convinced you do not know what it means.
Indeed, my child. Indeed.
So which one are you, a propagandist, or a dupe?
I’m just curious.
And that is a complete distortion of what the verse actually instructs.
Since your reading is wrong, it is indeed not fact.
If I am the Father of Lies, you are one of My many illegitimate offspring.
Do you have reading comprehension problems? Where in “what on Earth qualifies him to pontificate in this area” do you get “stay out of politics”????
You guys are amazing in the way you twist words. I feel like I am arguing with a bunch of seventh day adventists.
Indeed. So why is it you’re doing little to actually show evidence to back up your assertions and you’ve got no problem of constantly saying people here aren’t rationalists? Surely you can just argue your case…
um… seriously? cuz that’s precisely what the phrase means. it’s a rhetorical device used to discredit a person’s (right to voice an) opinion/stance via an ad hominem.
is English your not first language, or do you just really suck at using it?
Okay, you’ve just gone beyond the point of being tedious. I’ve spent several posts trying to engage you to discuss your points (which instead of just dismissing them as bare assertions, I tried to construct arguments around), yet again you’ve just tried to insult the people here instead of engaging in the points you so desperately think that people here lack.
For someone who is trying to take the rational high ground, this is just pathetic. Argue your case already, you can’t just assert things then refuse to discuss them on the grounds that “people here are irrational”. You’re not making an argument to begin with! You’re just throwing insults to rile up people…
Where in the verses in 1 Timothy 1:5-7 do you get the exegesis of Christians staying out of science?
You’re a propagandist, aren’t you?
A perfect example of fallacious reasoning on this thread has been the claim that I am somehow wrong because I am not writing fast enough.
Howdy Satan, so my interpretation is a “complete distortion” is it? And you are the arbiter of the meaning of holy books around here? And since this entire biblical issue has absolutely nothing to do with my thesis, this argument is to prove, what? And since it is you and others that keep bringing up holy books instead of evidence, I am curious what that means in terms of your evaluation of evidence in general?
Prophettroll:
Oh please. That is not true at all. You are refusing to answer questions, clarify your position and provide evidence for your assertions. If you can’t do it, fine, but don’t put that on anyone here.
Please read Kel’s post @ 286. Read it slowly, take in every single word. Then read it again, and again, until it sinks in.
where has this claim been made?
you’re really making stuff up now.
Hi Rawshack, a strawman argument is just about as basic of a logical fallacy as you can find. I assumed that I could take for granted that everyone around here would have a basic understanding of the concept, but apparently I was mistaken.
Prophetroll:
Thesis? What thesis? You can’t even answer a straightforward question.
Absolutely.
Oh, not at all. I’m just familiar enough with theology to know that you are, in fact, doing it wrong.
That you are guilty of misinterpreting and distorting the bible in exactly the same way that you are misinterpreting and distorting the words of everyone else. You are shameless enough to twist words to mean whatever you want, and do so continually — and then accuse others of doing what you are in fact profoundly guilty of doing.
Do you have memory problems? You brought up the issue first, and tried arguing from it.
Um… I’m kind of new here, but aren’t the trolls usually better than this? Propheteer is no fun at all.
Cute.
A strawman argument( which one are you referring to btw ?)is an informal logical fallacy, it may be weak or lame or something, but it is not in itself automatically invalid like formal logical arguments.But I am sure you know all that, right? Since it’s such a basic logical fallacy.
Ok, I finally found the comment that set me off originally:
Equating “the best of Christianity” with the political term “social justice”. “Social justice” is a term used by political propagandists. Either Dr. Myers is ignorant of this fact or is a propagandist. Since he understands the origin of the term in communism, I am betting on propagandist.
As an aside, Beck’s objection to the term is not against justice for people in societies, it is against the political meaning of the term “social justice”. Such misreading of what he said is yet more propaganda, and yet more reason to scoff at risible claims of rationality and skepticism.
My original point is that, whichever the case, Dr. Myers cannot both repeat this propaganda and claim to be a rational skeptic. Nor can anyone. This seems so obvious to me I really can’t believe anyone would seriously dispute it. Instead, posters to this thread have accused me of gay bashing, have argued about the details of scripture (!), and generally used underhanded debating tricks to avoid confronting what I said.
I admire rationality, you could say that I worship it, if such is possible. It sickens me to see rationality put in the service of such despicable propaganda.
There you have it. Peace and have great lives.
Who is making that claim? I’ve seen plenty of posts where you’re immediately responding to rhetoric with derision, but apart from your defence of the biblical quote there is seldom anything to show that you are actually looking to have a rational discussion on matters political.
Why aren’t you transcending the noise and purely engaging in demonstrating what you think to be fallacious reasoning? You aren’t doing this, you’re just adding to the noise that you’re claiming others are doing.
well kwok me sideways with a leica rangefider. that’s the dumbest, most incoherent bullcrap I’ve heard today. PZ is not equating “the best of Christianity” (some sort of imagined objective “best”) with “social justice”; he’s saying that he finds the best parts of Christianity to be those that concern themselves with social justice, which are the same parts that are good about communism; and similarly, the rest of both is complete useless ideological crap that just hurts people.
And once again, stop pretending like social justice and stalinism are the same thing. “social justice” is part of many philosophies, some of them more or less closely related to marxism and communism, but stalinism doesn’t have anything to do with social justice. if you knew a damnable thing about these things, you wouldn’t constantly conflate them. I suspect you wouldn’t know real communism if it bit you in the ass, anyway.
Basically, you’ve been railing against a pathetically constructed strawman.
This is a logical fallacy.
This too is a logical fallacy.
Still another logical fallacy.
Still more logical fallacy.
And even more logical fallacy.
Your original point was a logical fallacy.
Logical fallacies can simply be rejected without dispute. But your fallacious disputations are typical for a hypocritical propagandist like you.
You start off with nothing but underhanded debating tricks, and then hypocritically accuse others of using them.
What a pathetic propagandist you are.
Liar, twice over.
I’m sure it sickens you to have your despicable propaganda exposed as such, so of course, you falsely accuse others of propaganda.
I am sure that this wish is as false as everything else you’ve said here.
Prophetroll, so far, you have indulged in ad hoc, argument by assertion, Argumentum ad nauseam, Argumentum ex culo, argument from ignorance, association fallacy, equivocation, Ex equus pyga, One single proof, over generalization, Spotlight fallacy, Style over substance fallacy, and Straw man.
And you want to accuse all of us of “logical fallacy”. Perhaps you should take a break from Liberation Theology and do some learning, you know, general knowledge.
Prophetroll:
And somehow or another, you couldn’t manage to say this in comment #152? I suggest you go back and read what you wrote. It took you this frelling long to finally get to the point? You aren’t someone who should be using the word logic. At all.
You got it all wrong from the outset. Perhaps if you had simply stated this in the first place, a meaningful discussion could have taken place. I doubt that though, as your mindset seems to be very rigid.
Caine, my amazing flower @ #301
..can I please, please, please have you assist me in a cross-examine one day? We would seriously kick arse. I am in awe.
Copi doesnt mention those in his standard volume on logic, mind you.
Propheteer,
I’m still stuck with this #152:
Please explain how the 14 years of Mitterand’s socialist presidency have caused France to become hell on earth.
Thank you (from a card carrying member of the French Socialist party).
Bride, hee, thank you. I have zero training in law, however, I would be honoured to be your sidekick.
I do have a weakness for stone cold refutations. And I think Satan @300 just made my favorite of the day (I’m also reading this from the bottom up). Not to undermine the rest of you tenacious and long-suffering troll plunkers. It’s just a style thing. Like how some prefer black licorice, which I think is candy made from the by product of evil thoughts. Others may differ.
negentropyeater @305
Am I wrong in thinking you previously held anarchist sympathies? If so, what changed, and if not, my bad.
Rorschach, no, but if curiosity strikes Prophetroll, and he/she does some searching, perhaps something new will be learned. ;D
Caine
You don’t need any training in law. There are but three tenents to gaining a win in Court. Five years of law school teaches you bugger all, Five weeks as a public defender in Court has you pumping.
1) She that has the highest heels wins. I wear my 4 inch spikes in Ct, it takes me to over 6 foot and I look like a total PRESENCE…
2) If you can chuck some Latin terms in, you’ve so totally won. Juries are dickheads and are highly impressed by Latin. Or you can do what I do and just hurl in Klingon which will earn you a “look” from the other end of the bar but the jury thinks you’re a legend.
3)If all else fails do the “Few Good Men” approach. Yell a bit, smack your fist into your other hand and waffle. You might not have a fucking clue about the law but you look suitably Perry Masonish and it might just get you over the line.
Propheteer,
you seem to be very confused about a lot of things:
It’s not believers who should stay out of science, but religious beliefs and faith. Same is valid for politics.
you use klingon in court? i think i love you
Bride, I can do all that! I even have the 4 inch heels, although that puts me at a mere 5’10”. :D
I do have sympathy for many anarchist ideas, but I don’t think it’s incompatible with being a member of the French socialist party.
I knew I shouldn’t have left a box of irony meters so close to the computer.
It’s really sad isn’t it, yet he had plenty of time to make those accusations but little time to engage in substantive argument.
As interesting as anything else you’ve ever written. (please read no sarcasm in this) If you ever end up near Denver, I’d love to pick your brain.
Never been to Denver (only know the airport). But I’d love to visit that part of the US one day, I hear it’s beautiful. So maybe we’ll meet in person :-)
Yeah, it’s cold, then warm, then cold, then.. you get the idea. Well, in any case, you’ll have a beer waiting if you make it before work takes my lady love and I elsewhere. I’d give you a year window.
Not to mention, PZ needs to show up in Denver before I leave! I’m sick of him showing in towns I just moved from.
Gack, that was a tedious, inane troll who can’t make cogent points, or present any evidence for his inane claims. What a loser, just like anyone who tries to mock others for his own amusement.
Propheteer is good at making assertions but lousy at supporting them. I was particularly impressed with how he accused everyone of making logical fallacies while committing each of the fallacies Caine, Fleur du mal listed in #301.
I had to look up a couple of those fallacies. I learned something new as a result of Propheteer’s screeds.
Re: the original post, I would say that Beck is at least partly correct. Social justice in and of itself is a good thing, but historically it has sometimes been used as a justification for setting up some of the most murderous regimes in history. It certainly does make sense to look at demands for social justice in the same way as other political demands – with a somewhat critical eye.
“Libertarians want the ends of social justices (i.e. the best quality of life for the most number of people) as much as you do. We simply don’t want to see such a world come about at the EXPENSE of the other equally important form of justice (like personal freedoms, and individual autonomy).”
I find it fascinating that no matter how much they say to the contrary, at the end of the day, Libertarians will never, ever allow themselves to be taxed for any reason. There never appears to be any compromise. “Oh, other things are important too”, they say, but the only one that actually ever registers is “Am I taxed Y/N?”
Libertarian is a synonym for “drooling, insanely babbling, moron” although the secondary meaning of the term is “one who bores people incessantly”.
This is one reason why it will never catch on. People just back away slowly with their finger on the speed dial 911 feature on their cell phone and hope their kids don’t marry one.
I just scrolled quickly through this thread and I see propheteer has reinforced the prevailing view that they are all crackpots.
I really wish the gibbering-tarians would stop boring people and find a libertarian society and join it.
The current world champion is Somalia. It is possible to get rich real quick there by one’s own efforts free of government interference.
The leading careers are “pirate” and “warlord”.
There is a downside. No one knows what the average lifespan in Somalia is because they are afraid to go in there and collect statistics. Probably in the 4 decade range.
I haven’t been here long. I’d like to express my sincere respect for the entire community. I honestly don’t think I’ve ever come across as large a group of intelligent wise-asses as I’ve found here. Really, I mean that in all flattery; I’m looking forward to everything I’ll learn.
So, is most of the community made up of scientists? College professors, perhaps? It certainly looks like everyone is heavily involved in academia in one form or another.
Godless American, welcome to Pharyngula.
I guesstimate a solid majority of regulars (maybe 2/3rds?) have tertiary credentials and a large minority are in academia, but quite a few of us are just ordinary joes who just love to hang out where other rationalists do, and where nothing is sacred.
[datapoint]high-school dropout, artist, and autodidact* here[/datapoint]
there’s a lot of academics here, but also a large group who are skeptics and learn as a hobby :-)
——
*well, more like Pharyngu-didact: everything I know I learned on/from Pharyngula, hehe
Godless American, of course this is a science blog. But all kind of weird people get interested in science today.
For instance I’m just a biker who was driving by, loved the ambiance (it’s almost like a biker bar :-) and so stops here quite often to enjoy a good discussion, mostly as a lurker, with a glass of beer.
Godless American:
Firs of all, Welcome to Pharyngula! There are a fair amount of scientists here, but pretty much, a wide spectrum of occupations are covered here. Me, I’m an artist and photographer along with being an atheist who has a love of and interest in science.
Thank you for the welcome. Since others shared, I’m an English teacher and atheist, liberal enthusiast; it’s a mental-contact sport for me, really. I do enjoy learning. Game on!