Dan Dennett has been studying the phenomenon of preachers who don’t believe what they preach, and the paper and commentary are available at the Washington post. Strangely, the newspaper has headlined it as “Skeptical clergy a silent majority?”, which is odd — the work doesn’t attempt to quantify how many unbelievers there are in the ministry, but is more of a case study of those they’ve found…and since they are only describing the in-depth interviews of five people, it’s absurd to try and draw conclusions about proportions.
It’s interesting stuff, but utterly unsurprising to atheists. These are people who entered the ministry out of a sincere desire to do good in the world, and as they delved into religious scholarship, they discovered they couldn’t believe anymore…but hey, they were still humane and concerned about their fellow human beings. They’re also concerned about what will happen to their income if they leave the church, and what will happen to the opinion others have of them. And they engage in some difficult and twisty rationalizations for their situations.
One other interesting point is that several of them came to their atheism by way of reading books by Ehrman and Spong, and also Harris and Hitchens. These works do make a difference. Unfortunately, we also learn that while they have received enlightenment, they’re very, very reluctant to share that shameful knowledge with their congregations, and continue to reassure them about belief in god.
Unfortunately, the WaPo couldn’t just put up Dennett’s bombshell on its own: they’ve surrounded it with a confusing cloud of commissioned articles to answer the question, “What should pastors do if they no longer hold the defining beliefs of their denomination?”. Most of them are believers, except for Rebecca Goldstein and Tom Flynn and Herb Silverman, and most of them are making excuses. You just knew that someone would make the inane argument that “doubt is part of faith.” No, it’s not. Faith is the blunt instrument used to crush doubt.
The comments on Dennett’s article are also fascinating. There are people who are quite upset about his revelation. And there is even a Cracker Catholic there, claiming that an atheist priest at communion turned a wafer into a hunk of bloody meat — therefore, god, apparently.
Just watch. This is news that will provoke protests and complaints and lots of excuses. I hope it also encourages more ministers to come out of the closet and face reality, instead of making it their profession to obscure the truth.
And would you believe the WaPo asked Deepak Chopra to comment?
I presume they did that specifically to make it clear that the premise of the entire feature is worthless.
Yep, WaPo gonna sell some papers to the outraged b’leevers. Win/win for WaPo.
I’m sure the comment section will become a sewer of moronic religiotard bile.
I’ve seen a talk on Youtube by Dennett discussing this. Sorry, I can’t remember the title of it.
Interesting, if utterly unsurprising. Given that it now takes at least moderate intelligence to complete a degree – even in divinity – at any real college in order to become a priest or minister for most Xian sects, a large percentage of atheists developing among the group is assured.
However, I wouldn’t even wipe my ass with the Post any longer, even if they pretend to offer Dennett a fair shake. Like the AP, they seem to be hoping Murdoch will buy them up before they go financially bankrupt, and so are advertising their ethical bankruptcy loudly in every issue.
May the hollowed-out farce now published as the Washington Post fail tomorrow.
Dinesh D’Souza must have had a prior commitment.
“an atheist priest at communion turned a wafer into a hunk of bloody meat”
A Catholic priest turned me into a newt once.
I got better.
Slaughter
Editors title articles, not the journalists who actually write them. It seems often times they don’t even read them. Either way, they’re always given provocative titles to draw attention, and nothing draws attention like making assumptions on a grand scale based on interviews with five people. In fact, most of the disinformation on global climate change comes from articles that were given titles that are in no way confirmed by its content (which is usually made ambiguous because the truth is, well, inconvenient).
Preachers who don’t believe what they preach probably includes the entire Anglican Church, surely.
I suspect many if not most of them, in all denominations, come to doubt the bulldust they espouse (let’s face it, they’d have to be pretty dumb not too) but they are hooked on the power trip that being a priest gives them.
It’s a power trip you see in all religions across all ages … and you don’t even need big muscles or a scary face. You just use the flock’s own fears against them.
Qwerty @ #4,
This one here? (Courtesy of RD.net)
I saw the mention of Deepak Chopra and shook my head. The comment by Jack Spong is short but sort of tangential, he doesn’t say anything about his own weird and wacky times in the Episcopalian church, where he’s sure to have had to deal with some form of cognitive dissonance.
Next I’d like to know how many closeted atheists are in congress. There’s no way there’s only a single atheist (Stark) in 535 well educated adults.
Well it’s not hard to imagine what it would be like to be approaching middle age, with no education in anything real or useful and with a family to support and a position of authority in the community. I should think the vast majority of priests who lose their faith keep it to themselves.
What’s the alternative? Your wife isn’t going to thank you, she may well leave and take the kids with her telling them you’ve been possessed by the devil! And a person has to eat. I think ‘coming out’ as an atheist priest would be sufficiently difficult that few would find the strength to do it.
Except Anglicans because there it doesn’t seem to matter and they don’t lose their jobs or anything else!
Not surprising for us, but obviously it’ll be a great shock to others! And what a welcome shock it is, imagine that, people who might have to consider all these deep questions as part of their job coming to an atheistic conclusion! Shockhorrorawegasp.
I love Dennett’s work! He’s the closest thing we have to a real santa :)
The paper was one of the saddest things I’ve read in some time. And then I read some of the comments, and wonder if any of the ranters for Jesus had actually read the paper. The realisation that few, if any, appear to have bothered was equally saddening.
Hey now, you are forgetting Santa Myers who graces us with his presence on Squidmas Eve each year. ;) (But yeah, Dennett has that look.)
Spong is who got me, too. A college students finally coming to terms with being gay, his book “Living in Sin?” got me questioning what I’d been raised to believe about my sexuality…and eventually about the entire religious belief system into which I’d been socialized.
Hmmm, I wonder if that might have been a facor in why they coudln’t find Catholic priests.
All part of the Science News cycle.
that Cracker/real meat incident sounds familiar… anyone remembers which “miracle” that person is talking about?
I’d heard about the eucharistic hunk o’meat before; interesting how no one ever actually sees the thing.
The comment which got my attention was this rather fabulous (in a pomo/new age trainwreck sort of way) comment:
He hasn’t changed any, has he? I don’t remember the transtheist crap though. Another word for accommodationist/faitheist.
Harris didn’t convince me, actually I think it started with A Brief History of Time, straight up science, “nothing” to do with religion. But the implications were pretty clear. It also didn’t help that Hawking told the story where they go to the Vatican, and the pope in a very asshole move told them it was all right to investigate the universe, but sort of “prohibited” them to look into the big bang itself (i.e. the “beginning”). What a nice man that pope giving them permission like that.
That was years before I read Harris’ End of Faith, which didn’t de-convert me it just made me realize, that I was what people have been calling “atheist” all this time.
Dan Dennett spoke about this project at the AAI last year. If I’ve worked out the HTML right, it’s here.
I used to know a very sad Anglican vicar who didn’t believe, hated his job and his parishioners (who as far as I could make out hated him too)and was only hanging on because he would lose his pension otherwise. I was about the only person he could talk to, because I was an atheist.
At the risk of sounding hopelessly cynical, I suspect this will be less of an eye-opener than we’d like. This is only going to reinforce the beliefs of fundamentalists who think they’re the only “true” Christians, and that all those mainstream people (and worse, Catholics) are backsliders, apostates, and in the firm and homoerotic grip of Satan.
It plays right into fantasies of a persecuted remnant facing apocolyptic end times…
Most churches go a long way towards hiding the bible as much as they can. Mine did for the best of what they saw as reasons. If you actually study it, three things jump out.
1. It is a multi-author anthology with the same stories repeated numerous times with differences, contradictions by the hundreds, and a fleet of failed prophecies. It really just looks like a book a bunch of ancient people made up, all with their own political agendas. That other people revised when they wanted to.
2. It isn’t a guide on how to live or anything. Anyone who followed the OT would be doing multiple life sentences. It is full of slavery, genocide, meaningless rules (don’t eat shellfish or wear mixed fabrics) and such useful advice as selling your kids as sex slaves if you need a few bucks and don’t feel like stoning them to death.
3. There is nothing in the books that wasn’t known to Iron age sheepherders. A lot of the science turned out to be mythology.
Biblical archaeology indicates the same thing. David and Solomon were probably minor chieftains, Exodus never happened, the large number of genocides never happened either, and it isn’t even clear if jesus ever existed.
All of this is taught in most mainline seminaries. No clergy are going to tell this to their congregation. That isn’t going to go over well and they will probably lose their job. For telling the truth.
(But yeah, Dennett has that look.)
don’t forget the pimp hat!
Religious belief is something that as a lifelong atheist I’ve never quite understood.
I still contend that a significant proportion of those (at least those in the first world who’ve been exposed to modern technology and educated to even a basic level of critical thinking) who claim to believe are doing so for reasons – sociocultural, mostly – other than genuine acceptance of the supernatural claims underlying it.
That some of these people would be priests is inevitable.
<headshake> Tsss. Can’t get his own story straight. The wine is the blood, not the cracker.
<wince>
“Evolution” doesn’t mean “history”. It started only 4 billion years ago, not 14.
@Feynmaniac #17 a catholic priest once told me that religion was for the living, the dead didn’t need it.
Made me stop and think
In the spirit of Dennett and his fondness for neologisms, I came up with the term “Fingernail Apologetics.”
Fingernail apologetics consists of sharp but brittle little arguments for believing in God, designed to just barely hold you from falling off the cliff of Faith. They’re sophisticated, very polished, and usually go on for quite a length, but never go down very deep. Nobody could or would ever scale up an entire cliff using just fingernail apologetics alone. They’re not convincing to skeptics at all. But they’re just enough, maybe, to keep you holding on if you’re either already up there, or really, really want to believe in God.
Examples of Fingernail Apologetics? Re-defining God so that it sounds suspiciously like secular values or concepts, decked out in pretty poetry. Or, insisting that wanting to believe in God is in itself, a reason to believe in God. Or, again, waxing eloquent over how doubt is really a form of faith, so you do believe!
When you insist that God is not a literal truth, but a symbolic one, and not at all anything like atheism because it’s a totally different attitude — you just might be a Fingernail Apologist.
If you keep moving God around like a bobbing goalpost — you might be a Fingernail Apologist.
If you deny that God has any positive characteristics at all, cannot be described, cannot be understood, and is comprehensible only through inadequate analogies — you just might be a Fingernail Apologist.
When you keep switching the subject from why believe that God is real, to why believing in God is good for the world — you might be a Fingernail Apologist.
I think that pretty much anything out of Karen Armstrong or Bishop Spong that deals with actual reasons to believe that God exists, turns out to be Fingernail Apologetics. They’re thin little excuses for why it’s okay to believe in God, even though you’re reasonable. You can form God in such a way, that it doesn’t have a real function — and then you can spend endless hours buffing it up.
Yeah!
David @ #26,
not so fast: you do know about intinction?
Though the most parsimonious explanation is that the “bloody hunk of meat” was cut from a butcher’s chop (pork, perhaps?) and the so-called “atheist priest” had some training in stage magic and the art of deception, using a little legerdemain to make the cracker “change” into chunk o’ flesh.
That is fantastic!
It must be a bit like discovering you’ve got a gift for sales and have been making a good living persuading people to buy cars. Then you read Consumer Reports and realize the jalopies you’re pushing are unreliable, gas-guzzling death-traps. What do you do?
And the pimp cane. I love that music video. It was pure genius, who cares what side made it.
—
Just the name makes me wince, but that image of trying to scale up a cliff with them… it grates across my mind. *shudder*
Dan Barker specifically mentioned at the GAC that he knew personally of a few currently preaching christians in the US who were most definately non-believers. He himself was a non-believer for a period prior to giving it all up and this is understandable as the journey to atheism that these people must go on can be consideerably harder to accept in their self than for other people.
It’s quite a sad phenomena but I imagine much more common that anyonne would naturally think.
Sastra, that’s very insightful.
I’ve never encountered an ‘argument’ for religious belief that wouldn’t be far better described as an excuse for not disbelieving; in other words a post hoc rationalisation for something initially adhered to for sociocultural and/or emotional reasons rather than rational ones.
Short answer: if you have faith, why do you need arguments other than to make yourself feel better?
Most apologists seem – to me – to be more concerned with reassuring doubting adherents that they should maintain belief than convincing us non-believers we should acquire it.
DM:
“Evolution” doesn’t mean “history”. It started only 4 billion years ago, not 14.
On Earth, what about in some galaxy, far, far away? Huh? Absence of evidence isn’t evidence of absence. Therefore Transtheism. QED
Wowbagger:
Most apologists seem – to me – to be more concerned with reassuring doubting adherents that they should maintain belief than convincing us non-believers we should acquire it.
Exactly. It also gives a rational facade.
WowbaggerOM #35 +1 insightful
And Sastra demonstrates again why she deserves her OM. Tentacle clusters and OMNONNOMNOMs for Sastra!
Sastra @ #28,
great post, and I like the metaphoric idea of clinging to a cliff-face by fingernails. It breaks down I suppose when you consider where someone like Spong is at – having read a few of his books (Living in Sin?, which MAJeff @ #16 pointed out, gained great circulation amongst members of the LGBT community with a religious background, even here in Australia) I rather got the impression his fingernails are far from brittle and liable to be easily snapped by argument, so he’s quite comfortable wedged where-ever it is he’s at on the cliff. Or if he fell (or has fallen) off the cliff, there’s doubt whether he’d be worried at all by that.
Now that might be because he obviously he didn’t (or doesn’t) have the problem that some of the priests interviewed by LaScola do: being a bishop pays a little better than the average priest and he managed to change into a successful book-writing career. However, the stories in the Dennett and LaScola point to those priests experiencing real uncertainty and considerable angst about continuing their positions, as opposed to the rather self-confident Spong.
In the rank-and-file of priests, for the doubting or non-believer it must be rather like an unconfident circus performer going out on a tightrope, in constant fear of losing balance and falling. It was interesting that at least one of the priests in the report mentioned that he now treats appearing in church as though he’s “acting out a role” (not an exact parahprase), and simply goes through the motions of saying whatever platitudes are demanded; while another of the priests uses circumlocutions to avoid making a positive statement of belief.
They touch on it nicely in one of the Yes Prime Minister episodes here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NzpU6SAi4vo
Something Phillip Adams alluded to in his speech at #atheistcon when he talked about the decline in religious observation, and with religious followers not agreeing with their leaders.
One wonders how many more followers would leave the church if they realised their leaders don’t believe what they preach? Many I would guess.
As Adams said, perhaps us atheists should become “brokers” to the dissent ‘within the ranks’ rather than attacking from the outside.
For those that weren’t there, or can’t remember what he said, the transcript of his speech is here.
This thread is bringing the awesome.
What ethical, upstanding people do:
1. Immediately cease misleading people. Stop taking advantage of them.
2. Change your line of work.
3. If you’ve truly awakened to the fact that you’ve participated in a con that actually hurts people, join a group, or make your living, advocating against that con. Join your former critics and work to stop the harm to consumers or constituents.
Sorry, no pity. Lying for Jesus is bad enough when you believe in that nonsense; continuing to do it when you know it isn’t true is a moral obscenity.
Sad commentary on Protestant church culture that these non-believers can’t express their disbelief to their congregations.
Hey, there’s always the fallback of Unitarianism! That crowd allows people to believe almost anything!
The Pontiff @ # 10 – Yes, that’s the title, “The Evolution of Confusion”.
Oh, I should add that, as someone who’s never had faith, I’ve also never had to live with the consequences of losing/shedding that faith.
I don’t doubt for a second that if you’d spent your life believing – and your faith was tightly intertwined with your life: family, community, employment etc. – it would be far, far more difficult a transition than simply realising that it wasn’t something you were able to accept anymore and stopped bothering with.
Deconversion at that level takes a lot of courage, and anyone who gets through it deserves our respect and admiration; similarly, those who struggle with it need our understanding and – where possible – our help.
@ 16
MAJeff, Same here. That was the same Spong Book that got me to accept my sexuality. Religion (Islam in my case) was the biggest block. Spong interpretations of Biblical passages helped me see around that block and ultimately beyond religion. Islam after all based its moralities on the same stories and parables.
Know what got me to accept my sexuality? Hot menz. Boo-yah.
Josh @ #44,
the demand for priests in these invidious positions to “Immediately cease misleading people. Stop taking advantage of them” is over-ambitious, as they have a great deal of cognitive dissonance to work through themselves, and just getting up in the pulpit one day without prior notice and confessing their disbelief to all and sundry would be a personal train wreck for most of them. Dennett’s article gives a number of examples where the priests refrain from stating beliefs they no longer hold, or from reinforcing a stated belief by their parishioners.
One thing that Dennett and LaScola also note is, “there is a sort of Hippocratic Oath that all five seem to follow: In the first place, do no damage to any parishioner’s beliefs.” It’s obvious from the article is that while these guy’s beliefs have mostly disappeared, they still believe in belief, and some of the priests also expressed the desire to stay within their churches to help liberalise it.
Let’s also not forget Linda LaScola, who carried out the interviews.
@ Pope
I realize it’s over-ambitious, and sometimes unrealistic. I do think they have a moral duty to get there however, even if it takes a while.
re Sastra’s ‘Fingernail apologetics’
*Yoik*
I’ll be using that one sometime, I’m sure! :)
re Magic Hosts – so do they change into fish on Fridays?
I’m amazed that the issue amazes people. I used to know a few folks who taught at a seminary and it’s been a very common thing for a long time. It used to be a rather open thing that many priests admitted to having to try to believe but often could not. This was not considered a horrible failing as long as they lived a virtuous life. What’s the big deal?
Hi Josh @ # 44 and 52,
another spin of these ideas.
The editors of the Wash. Post who gave us the mischievous by-line of “Skeptical clergy a silent majority?” might actually be describing a majority of priests who have deconverted in secret – but see no moral dissonance with continuing to delude the faithful, seeing that’s where their meal-tickets come from. It’s perhaps just a minority of these skeptical clergy that are prepared to actually be honest to their beliefs and leave their churches.
In those circumstances then, your quote:
is one I wholly agree with. No pity for those frakkers.
for a few years i’ve been thinking of creating a foundation or getting some group to take this idea…..
working title is the Shepard Intervention Network (sin) – but a safer name may be needed. The idea is to interview pastors that are atheists and want out. Pay them a living wage to go around the country and talk to student group and a few conventions. They may be able to collect enough funds to pay for part of their wages. They will also get job skills and help finding a new job. I did a post on my blog skepticmoney.com but can’t put link now (typing on phone)
el cid wrote:
I suppose it depends on whether or not they’re upfront about it. If they aren’t then isn’t it unfair on the people they’re preaching to?
Personally, it doesn’t bother me in the slightest since it’s indicative of the reality that religion isn’t based on the actual existence of a deity – and also that so-called believers aren’t capable of telling the difference.
el cid, @ #54,
be not so amazed. You could be reading straight from Dennett and LaScola, where they discuss the disconnect between “insider knowledge” and what can be stated in a Sunday sermon:
It doesn’t follow it’s widely known in general by congregations, or gets a huge amount of publicity anywhere else. Most seminaries with some academic standards give students enough of a grounding in history, philosophy, and textual criticism to begin the process of eroding their beliefs in the Babble.
Very much so. This is quite widely admitted to be the real use of apologetics. They even admit that practically no one has ever been converted to their religion(s) on the basis of rational arguments.
The initial appeal is usually made on on the basis of emotion or authority/dependence. This Belief System(tm) is what you really want/need, and Your Parents and The Priest approve!
Most of the emotional appeal of religion probably has to do with the afterlife promises. If you feel deprived of physical comforts in life, bodily resurrection is an excellent promise and you’ll get drawn to religions that promise that. 72 virgins are hard to turn down. If you’re all about ego, you need a religion in which your disembodied ego and some cognitive function survives death so you can enjoy watching all the villains in your life get roasted on a spit in Hell. That’s why all the hateful old codgers are religious- they may not be sure about Heaven, but they have a fervent desire that Hell exist for other people.
I think I brought this up on another thread some time ago, but it seems particularly apropos here. My Episcopalian priest father retired the instant he was eligible for his pension and never again actively practiced, although he would occasionally officiate at a funeral or a wedding. About a year before his death at 85 he remarked to me, “It’s all poppycock, you know.”
“Daddy,” I ruefully answered him, “I have known that since I was seven.”
Oh, the conversations we might have had if we had exchanged our views earlier. But he had a longstanding career in the church and a wife and three children to support. What the hell else was he supposed to do? I believe the conflict was the reason he drank so much, and why all the empty gin bottles were in the basement. He could hardly use our house trash, as it would have been noticed sooner or later. I never had the nerve to ask him how he disposed of them. He wasted his life in the service of his family, though there was the compensation of the power trip he got as a respected man of the cloth.
I don’t think it’s so binary a choice. A preacher might continue to believe in the line of Jesus as ethical teacher, and ritual as socially valuable, while dismissing the deity bits. There’s a lot of stops on the way between full-on belief and full-on atheism.
I will decide to allot pity or contempt depending on the person, and what exactly they are preaching. Love and kindness, even with some pretty hippy-Jesus fables attached, then they are OK in my book. Hate with bible bashing, definitely not OK.
Abby Normal, a commenter on Ed Brayton’s blog had a terrific line that I’d like to steal: “…like most believers, he’s created a god in his own image. What I’ve seen of his god reflects very favorably on Desmond Tutu.”
http://scienceblogs.com/dispatches/2010/03/tutu_on_anti-gay_persecution_i.php#comment-2354759
It was neither Harris, nor Dennet, nor Dawkins nor any of the other New Atheists that caused my loss of faith. It was Archie Bunker. Well, more precisely, it was Meathead, his son-in-law. I recall watching an All in the Family episode when I was about 13. At one point, Meathead says to Archie, “Archie, I don’t believe in God. I don’t think He exists.”
I froze. My mouth was agape. I said to myself “Huh, you mean that’s an option??”
I didn’t look back after that.
#57 and #58,
I’m unclear on the ‘need to be open’. Well if one were preaching about historical literacy yes but that’s not what I recall being preached when I was a lad long ago. And as for believing in the Babble, again, there’s the absurdity of literal readings of myth. Don’t happen to be a believer myself but know enough intelligent believers to not confuse them with Jack Chick. Worse still, the people I know don’t look down on atheists so they erode that whole ‘help help I’m being repressed’ thing that seems to be part of an important bonding ritual for some.
Pope Maledict DCLXVI wrote:
This is another reminder of just how vast a gap exists between theologians and actual, practicing Christians.
It’s a problem that becomes apparent when critics of religion like Dawkins are described as failing to engage with the ‘good’ philosophical arguments for god. Yes, these arguments exist, but they’re only used and understood by a tiny fraction of Christianity – and are completely meaningless to anyone who hasn’t studied theology.
Why are atheists required to understand religion on levels far beyond that of the tiny minority of Christians? Surely if the ‘nuanced arguments’ were that relevant, all Christians would be required to learn and understand them.
But they don’t, do they? All you need do to qualify as a Christian is answer ‘yes’ to the question ‘are you a Christian?’. Not exactly, nuanced, is it?
The double-standard is indicative of the intellectual dishonesty. Funnily enough I’ve never seen a religious commentator like Barney Swartz – who’ll happily criticise atheists who post on his blog for being ‘ignorant’ of apologetics – insist that the faithful should go away and study Aquinas or Augustine or Plantinga or Lane Craig in order to truly appreciate their faith.
Are the non-believing ministers and priests necessarily lying, though? I mean, are they aware that they’re lying, or do they think they’re being truthful … in their own way?
A fingernail apologetic I see all the time has to do with playing around with concepts and words like “true” and “real,” and treating subjective beliefs as their own reality.
Religion isn’t true — it’s “true.” God isn’t real — it’s “real.” It’s all true and real in a deeper, more significant sense than the boring, ordinary, materialistic versions we’re used to using for objective things like cars and evolution and historical dates. No, there is a kind of truth which resonates at the transcendent level of meaning.
And it’s BETTER! Really!
As Feynman points out, there’s nobody easier to fool, than our own selves. I think you can play around with this argument for a long time, and successfully avoid facing reality. Your fingernails are dug too tightly into “reality.” And so you get to be “honest.”
I trained for the catholic priesthood. I went is not believing but wanting to, and left confident in my atheism.
Between the two, I had the pleasure of watching 40 other young people who really, really believed…gradually lose their faith as they learned about theology and the history of their church.
When you discover the notion of the holy trinity was cobbled together during a century of trying to interpret incomprehensible Hebrew texts and patching together schisms with verbal compromises…it puts a dent in your belief.
Most people who go through seminary either develop a very vague and handwaving faith of their own, or tell themselves it doesn’t matter whether they believe or not – what matters is doing what god would have wanted them to do, if he existed.
But, really, what does Sastra know about fingernail apologetics?
Has she compared all the different polishes on the market to find out which reinforce cliff-edge grips with most security? How many mountaineering manicurists did she consult? Has she spent hours dangling from precipices with the new Epoch-See clip-ons (now with Dante’s Delite™ Triple-Red Lacquer)? Are her claws even retractable?
/Courtier
It’s almost better, in some ways, for the non-believing priests to stay active in the church. I loved the interviews with the priest who runs the Vatican observatory in Arizona. He’s almost subversive.
If there were more like him, like Tutu, like the guy who runs the parish where I grew up (a worldly gay alcoholic atheist Catholic priest, of the sort who does not touch little boys, but rather has a good belly laugh with his parishioners about things like “Wasn’t that one hell of a story to make up, about a woman getting created from a man’s rib? What whoppers they told!”), the church would have a chance of being a social institution with relevance, potentially even a force for good in the world.
Pity the leadership seems to be of the other sort.
Sastra @ #65
I suppose the alternatives to putting scare quotes around words would be to use neologisms like truthy and truthiness. Let’s not!
Technically some of your fingernail apologists might be relusionists, still unable to penetrate the religious delusions they’re desperately clinging onto on that metaphorical cliff. One would hope that some of them are intelligent enough to see what sort of goalpost shifting and intellectual dishonesty is required to maintain that belief, knowing that they are trying to make self-justifications. (Obviously we’re not talking about the hard core idiots like Ken Ham here, where religious delusion and intellectual dishonesty cause no irreconcilable problems.)
As for the priests and ministers who’ve passed to non-belief, I suspect there’s some admixture of contorting oneself to avoid explicit lying, or to use language that paints a metaphorical picture that could be true. Probably in your stated sense of the word “true”, complete with scare quotes.
Cath @ #61,
I agree the situation is not a simple binary, though at any given moment a skeptical clergy-member would have to be going through a whole lot of horrible double-think: “If I say something on the topic at hand, will I have to make a lie by representing the nominally accepted belief rather than betraying my hand? Is it something I even have a firm opinion on as to its truth or falsity? Can I avoid saying anything altogether, or make a circumlocution, or reduce the topic to allegory?”
a
I hope that was just unfortunate phrasing. I realize you were juggling catholic and gay, however, you do know that gay doesn’t equal paedophile, right?
@ raven #23
You fairly well nailed it, but “…and it isn’t even clear if jesus ever existed.” There’s a monastery in the Balkans or Greece or Turkey which claims to have the arrest warrant sworn out against Jesus. Supposedly the physical description it contains is NOT the picture you’d want on a holiday greeting card. Grain of salt here, of course. Did the Romans bother with warrants against petty insurrectionists? Probably not.
@#26 et.al.
Why restrict evolution to 4 billion years? That’s only a probable value for Earth. Consider the generally accepted age of 12~15 billion years of the universe as a whole and that the universe contains a best estimate of one point seven trillion galaxies at a minimum of 100 billion suns each. Even assuming the least minimum of one habitable (by our meager reckoning) planet per billion stars, (some exobiologists would posit a higher value) would give more than 1.7 billion habitable planets. And WE sit on the only planet requiring 24/7 interest of some sort of god? Others will check my back-of-envelope arithmetic; the fundamental assertion remains: neither are we alone nor are we of any particular significance.
For the same reason that a creationist can’t argue against the popular position that evolution is perceived as popularly. A creationist may look at say the PBS Nova series Evolution and think it sufficient to argue against the points made on that, but it’s not going to make an impression at all on academia – which is why Michael Behe was told to go and brush up on Natural Selection as scientists understand it.
Though if we grant this, then it can’t be up to us to call out the believing majority as believing in a version of God that is out of step with the general belief in the population. If we’re meant to go after the nuanced views, then it should be the theologians and priests who point out to the masses that their understanding of things is wrong. Otherwise, it’ll just be “nuanced” theists saying “That’s not the God I believe in either”. These nuanced views of God don’t reflect the believing majority, and attacking them is an academic exercise that does little to reflect the reality of belief in God as it is practiced.
In other words, they basically want us arguing against a view of God which no-one holds so that the average believer who professes and acts upon this absurditist notion of God is never challenged…
Unfortunately, we’ll never know how many other children (and adults) in Australia over the past few weeks have shared this revelation due to the coverage of the GAC.
(yeah, I’m still buzzing from it…it’ll wear off and BAU soon, I’m sure)
Less Sarte and his minions rush head-long into the gulf, by “particular significance,” I mean beyond ourselves. We are all that we have and all that we will ever have. My apologies to the Roswell devotees.
Peter H @ #71,
there are (or perhaps, there used to be) enough shards supposedly taken from Jebus’ cross to build a reasonable sized church, but you didn’t cite those pieces of “evidence” when you say “You fairly well nailed it, but”… (my emphasis)
I don’t see how the citation of some evidence in a monastery in the Eastern Church somewhere adds or subtracts one iota from what raven said. You might as well have cited the Shroud of Turin – except we know that’s a comparatively recent forgery.
taking belief in god very seriously, intense spiritual journey, attempting to make sense of catholic church teaching, and erhman did me in.
I am now a recovered catholic, I just can’t find a branch to turn in my membership card.
Joe_s, just toss that card over your shoulder and don’t look back. Congratulations on your journey, it can be a difficult one.
Kel wrote:
I can see what you’re getting at, but I think the difference is that what creationists are rejecting observable aspects of reality – which is all that evolution is – while atheists are rejecting philosophy.
Then, of course, there’s the issue that atheism ≠ evolution. I was an atheist a long time before I’d ever heard of DNA.
Joe_s, just toss that card over your shoulder and don’t look back.
NO.
much better that you get yourself excommunicated, so the CC no longer considers you an “asset”.
he’s how you do that:
…the only thing i would amend to that is that I, of course, find the desecration of a communion wafer to be a little less problematic than the authors of the above.
:)
Very excited about meeting up again with Pharyngulites on Sat @ Skeptics in the Pub! But sad that PZ is only in OZ for such a short time :(
A special hello to my new friend living in WA. I hope you can make the trip across to Canberra. Looking forward to catching up and sharing that beer. See you all on Sat!
Ichthyic, I tried to ‘de-enlist’ myself from catholicism some years ago; all I got was the run around, as the church I was baptized in and attended as a child was closed down decades ago. After writing and sending countless letters, I got absolutely nowhere. Maybe I’ll give it another shot one of these days, but I dislike dealing with bureaucrats as it is, and catholic bureaucrats are a effing nightmare. For all I know, in the U.S., this is done deliberately. I wouldn’t exactly be surprised.
Possibly mentioned above; I just got here.
PZ’s second paragraph got my attention:
There is certainly a catch when it comes to compassion. It is that you sometimes reap the adoration of those who receive your largess. My take is that this is to be expected and those who are suddenly adored can understand and put their instant celebrity in perspective. After all, crap occurs to everyone. No reason to let it go to your head.
But imagine that you have been told since you could hear that people are mean and nasty and that all that comes of their efforts is tainted with sin and evil and some hovering threat. That no human gesture is authentically kind without the magical imprimatur. And so you thank it automatically every time you are thanked and the universe wavers not.
One day your faith fails you. The universe quivers. How do you then justify compassion?
My motivation is that to do a simple kindness is a pleasure in and of itself. Not the least because I recall so many kindness done to me and how they made me feel. It seems only natural, when I am not cloning and eating human babies, to return the favor when conditions allow. Any overt displays of gratitude is gravy. But it’s really great gravy and it’s mine, all mine! I reinvest it as motivation to do kindness some more. My main point is now this:
If my desire is to do good because I understand how good good feels when done to me, and observing its salubrious effect when I see good done among others, it becomes obvious that the doing of good frequently perpetuates itself then I am satisfied that I’m on to something.
And I am neither bribed to do so nor threatened to do otherwise. I decide for my own self. I enjoy that notion and find that others respect it even if only in a grudgingly.
*Some do. That’s part of the reason we are all here.
Shepard Intervention Network
I like that idea, Phil.
here are some organizations that might be interested:
http://www.secular.org/
http://www.ffrf.org/
redrabbitslife:
Caine, Fleur du mal:
We automatically assumed that the reference to pedophilia was meant to apply to the “Catholic priest” part of redrabbits’ comment.
It’s a sad commentary on the culture of the Catholic church that ‘priest’ and ‘pedophile’ are practically synonyms these days.
Legion, I figured as much, it just came out awkwardly, and we never know who might be reading. :)
Strike “in a” in penultimate sentence.
I lay a small bit of fruit before the Great Chimp, KOT.
btw, I just noticed this:
http://www.secular.org/node/218
is this progress? I hope so.
@11: “Next I’d like to know how many closeted atheists are in congress. There’s no way there’s only a single atheist (Stark) in 535 well educated adults.”
You think there are 535 well-educated adults in Congress? What planet do you live on?
We should start a fund to support recovering clergy, help them deal with the turmoil they might cause in “coming out”, and in starting a new life as honest, rational beings.
Also, Carlie, if you happen to see this, thanks.
Nor does “history” mean “prehistory…” ;-)
I’d disagree, the difference is that theology is a vacuous enterprise with nothing really to reject while evolution has shown itself to be a successful model for biology. By virtue of it being a success, it warrants further investigation in order to argue against it.
By contrast, take Astrology for example. Do we need to go into the fine details of the enterprise to dismiss it because clearly there’s nothing worth dismissing. If the sun is in the house of Aquarius or whatever doesn’t really change the fact that astrology is a vacuous enterprise. And theology would be the same way for me…
…however, for the purposes of argument, you need to take what you’re arguing against seriously. To take their position on board and argue the illogic there within. Say the problem of evil, you need to actually make this argument in the same space as what a believer understands it to be. You need to understand their case, understand their position, then argue against that position.
Like I said, it would be helpful if those theologians who claim we’re not representing God fairly would be preaching this nuanced God from the highest hills – because what happens now just stifles all criticism. Criticise the generally understood concept of God and you have theologians saying “That’s not my God”, and if you attack the nuanced version then you’re attacking a version of God that’s subscribed to by a tiny minority.
If he had read the paper he would know Dan Dennet’s sample does not include any Roman Catholics.
As far as Chopra commenting, I think the Washington Post keeps a large stable of commentators who have the option of commenting on a particular article in “On Faith” or not; he was not invited specifically to comment on just this article. Some comment frequently like Susan Jacoby and others not. Now whether he should be in the WP stable, he is unfortunately influential and better to hear him in an area where countering voices such aas Jacoby and Dennett, may be heard.
Kel wrote:
Which just goes to support the theory that Christians who argue with atheists are far more duotheist than monotheist: there are two gods they believe in – a) the intangible and nebulous and outside-of-science god that they use for arguments; and, b) the interventionist, miracle-performing god that they accept as perfectly valid when in church and/or amongst other believers.
I knew that I had heard the miracle story in Catholic school, but I had to google for it. The Eucharistic Miracle of Lanciano dates to the 8th century.
Caine, Fleur du mal | March 18, 2010 7:08 PM:
Actually, I think what Dowd means by “transtheist” is deist – he won’t admit that, but look at his words – “Reality is my God …”. And there’s more in his books (though I admit I haven’t finished any of them), and in his interviews; he’s fond of saying things like “Science is revealing divine truth. God speaks through evidence.” See also:
Being an accommodationist is independent of whether one is an atheist or deist. In any case – while Dowd is strange character, he says far too many approving things about Dawkins (see here) and other outspoken atheists to be considered an accommodationist. See for example here:
Unlike the accommodationists, Dowd thinks the “new atheists”, while mistaken in some respects, have a special insight into religion, and their writings, if carefully considered, are religion’s best hope for a prosperous future. Dowd also often points out that many religious people have naive, dangerous or immoral religious beliefs. So he’s neither an accommodationist of the M**ney / Nisbet sort, nor is he a faitheist of the Karen Armstrong sort – his notions don’t fit into such categories. Unfortunately, this is primarily because his ideas are crazy rather than insightful.
I would imagine that some priests remain so for the same reason some conservative thinkers are said to support religion, that while intelligent people like them obviously don’t believe in God the world is full of a bunch of less intelligent folks that need to believe in God lest they do things like rape, pillage, and ignore the council of their betters.
timgueguen @ #98,
What a stupid idea – and that’s apart from the fact that you’re strongly implying or relying on the offensive fallacy that the natural state of an atheist is to be completely devoid of morals.
Did you think of this all by yourself?
To be honest, I thought it was very well known that people went to Bible College so they could stop believing in the Bible. Don’t most of them get 1 year into it, then quit?
It’s painful to me that people pay to go to bible college.
I even got into a debate on this point on SacBee’s blog, where a guy referred to science as dull and unimaginative. That one reeeeally set me off.
Science, more boring than religion. Yeah, I don’t think so. Da Stoopid, she Boinz.
MikeM
I’ve only just skimmed this thread, but somehow the title made me think of the first few lines of this.
Also, is Sastra (@28 the Jeff Foxworthy of Atheism® now?
llewelly, thanks for the clarification, I’m really not that familiar with him.
Yeah, I agree.
There is a “Catholics Come Home” campaign here in Northern California right now.
In light of all the scandals, and the superstition, and the money, and the silly beliefs, and… I really think a “Catholics Run Away” campaign would be more useful.
MikeM
Fascinating. I do hope that these ministers come out of the “religious closet”. Although I won’t be crossing my fingers or praying.
Edit:
off topic: Bither queen to run for CA secretary of tate.
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2010/03/17/state/n165903D92.DTL
Yes! even here in California, there are crazy people, too.
Is there any way to show that anybody actually believes any of that stuff? I mean, how do we know that they aren’t all just in it for the money and the boys? How can a church be sure that their new preacher man is sincere? Is there a test of faith? Or is that just a matter of faith?
The bible does say that the faithful will be able to take up serpents and to drink harmful things. But who believes that any more?
One of the observations that contributed to me leaving my religion-of-upbringing was the observation that the basic arguments for Christianity didn’t seem to hold water, and that if these other more complex theological arguments did indeed hold water it wasn’t immediately obvious. And if they did, then it seemed perverse and unworthy of a deity to leave the universe over which it supposedly had complete control in a situation where most people don’t have the capability to fairly assess the arguments and counter-arguments.
That, and that practicing faith sets you up for deliberate exploitation of gullibility and/or accidental acquisition of unsupported beliefs, none of which seemed compatible with a deity that (a) gave us brains and (b) was supposed to be fair.
Well Phil@56, you have had me going with your spelling (of) SIN. I had it right the first time – you meant those pastorial types fleecing flocks and occasionally wielding crooks. That would be Shepherds.
Then I started to have doubts. What if this was an obvious reference to some famous person? Alan Shepard? Matthew Shepard? Interesting, that last one; but no.
Finally chased your link and found your page Helping Clergy Leave the Flock. Not a bad idea, as far as I can tell. You know, even if another acronym is officially selected, it’s too late to hide something once it is out on the webs.
I wrote about this on my blog March 10th. I saw his video when he spoke at AAI regarding this topic. I totally identified with it. I couldn’t say how many ministers there were like me because there is powerful stuff going on to keep your big doubts shut. After all to doubt is not to believe, to not believe is to burn in the lake of fire. What is going on inside me is sinful and evil. Jesus save me. Deep cognitive dissonance.
One of Dan’s best points in video is ministers learn how to talk to parishioners so as to relieve their “skepticism without raising curiosity and it has to sound profound”
Brilliantly stated. That was so me.
Just caught up on the thread; a nice one.
—
Pope Maledict @99, I think you misapprehend timgueguen @98 — I think Tim refers to his belief about some priests’ belief.
Oh and by the way none of the atheist books “saved” me. I would not read them, but only read what Christian authors wrote about them. A key point to being not lead astray.
The book that made it the hardest for me to believe was, you guess it, the Bible. If you read it superficially you can believe it. But in seminary you really dig into it. Another profound study was Church history. It is so sad. Coming in I thought it was would be inspiring. Turns out it is no better or worse than any other human history.
I have watched Dan Dennetts AAI video multiple times and will watch it a few more.
John M. @ #110,
perhaps I have jumped the gun, but I thought that if Tim were only referring to what priests in that position believe, then he would have had the sense to strictly delimit the application of that idea, and to point out that such belief is fallacious thinking.
A priest in the midst of deconversion might mistakenly think that his or her moral senses had disappeared along with his or her faith, but that would arguably be wrong.
During the late 1940’s and well into the 1950’s Charles Templeton was one of the leading evangelists in North America. He was a contemporary and close friend of Billy Graham and at the time might have been greater than Graham himself. In 1957, just following his greatest crusade ever, and after a long period of soul searching, he turned his back on Christianity and walked away from it. He said to himself, in effect, how can I stand here and preach passionately to these people when I know that I am not preaching the truth.
Charles Templeton wrote in “Goodbye to God” — According to Christian theology, God is omniscient and exists apart from time. Being omniscient he knows the end from the beginning. But if true, would this not mean that all temporal life is predetermined? If God knows the end from the beginning then nothing is subject to change — otherwise it would not have been known from the beginning. This being so, prayer cannot possibly change anything and there is no point to it. Apart from its function as worship, prayer is based on the premise that God can be talked into running the universe according to the wishes of a devout person on his knees. But, again, try to imagine the chaos if every devout person’s prayers were answered! Belief in the efficacy of prayer is a form of self-delusion. Our real prayers are not what we say while on our knees — the facile words whispered during a prayer. They are the aspirations, attitudes, and desires that motivate our daily lives. It is easy to prime the pump and have the words gush forth in a torrent of pious phrases but the proof of what we really want, regardless of what we say we want, is evident in the way we live.
JRT,
I beg to differ.
Aspirations, attitudes, and desires are aspirations, attitudes, and desires; calling them prayers merely means you have to employ either a different term (or use some sort of circumlocution) to express the meaning prayer currently has.
(Yes, like many other words, there are different senses, but the primary one is clear.)
I say no prayers, period, whether in words or in intent.
ex-minister,
lol. I honestly think that that book does more to steer people to atheism than all the other “New Atheist” books combined.
_ _ _
Wowbagger,OM
During Dawkins’ speech at Lynchburg somebody in the audience asked him if anger was common after one deconverts. Dawkins said he really didn’t know and asked the audience. That was a resounding “YES!”. While I don’t consider myself ‘angry’ anymore, I do emphasize with those who are. The process is already difficult enough without religious people making things much worse. That’s one of the problems I have with many religious people complaining that atheists are angry. Yeah, YOU intentionally brainwashed us from a young age (when we would have believed anything you told us) and rather than being congratulated for questioning dogmas we were stigmatized. There’s plenty to be angry about. Furthermore, you are continuing to do this to young kids today.
I was just reading a story about Daniel Everett. He was a missionary and linguist who went to live among a hunter-gather tribe in the Amazon. Funny enough these people helped see how much Christianity was a myth (my favourite part was when one of the people in tribe told him they liked him and he could stay, but they didn’t want to hear more about Christianity because they liked drinking and having multiple sex partners). He eventually told his wife and kids. This led directly to divorce and 2 of his 3 children stopped talking to him. As has been shown here at Pharyngula, that is quite common.
/rant
115 comments and no Father Ted referance?
And now, to work.
@99 Pope,
Don’t be daft, you read an illogical implication.
The proper implication is that some people brought up with only religious based prohibitions to evil would be uncorked in they lost their religion, not that the natural state of atheists is immoral.
Why do you work so hard at being offended?
Why the mention of “priests” in the title of this post, and in many of the comments here? Dennett and LaScola are more careful — they title their paper “Preachers who don’t believe.” There is a difference. Not all preachers would accept the designation “priest.” In fact, there is not a single priest in the five they studied — there was an Episcopal woman who might be a priest, but she dropped out. Dennett and LaScola deliberately did not include orthodox and Catholic priests in their study.
Michael wrote:
That’s not what they say:
Doubt is a part of faith. Without doubt, you can’t know faith, just as without sickness you can’t know health.
It comes down to how we “know” some thing, and how we “know we know” that thing.
Don’t forget, what the meaning of the word “is” is.
This kind of cod-philosophical quibbling is what makes “sophisticated” theology so amusing to sensible people.
This article is about liberal clergy who are honest enough to admit it.
Among fundy preachers, the unbelieving clergy hide it better. I’m assuming there must be some.
The “atheist psychopath” slur must at least owe something to the character of the only atheists most fundies know real well, if you catch my drift.
From the paper:
http://newsweek.washingtonpost.com/onfaith/Non-Believing-Clergy.pdf
#119:
You’re right — it’s early and I was up late. I intend to read the paper carefully later today.
That doesn’t change the main point. There are no priests in the study.
Kel, OM #92 wrote:
I’ve found that if you attack the nuanced version of God, you immediately draw complaints that you’re either attacking your social allies, or you’re going after a belief that ain’t doin’ no harm to nobody, so what’s your big problem?
The vague and fuzzy Gods aren’t just there to shore up belief in belief — they’re also useful for deflecting all and any criticism. Because the God hypothesis is so unclear and fuzzy, the focus is supposed to shift onto the believer. It comes down to what his belief means to him, and how it works for him, and omygod the militant atheist is not allowing people their RIGHT to BELIEVE whatever they WANT!
In order to keep atheists off the subject of God itself, they’re damned whatever they do. Fundamentalist, simplistic versions of God are “easy targets.” Our arguments are dismissed, because atheists simply can’t address the sophisticated understanding that reflects what God truly is. “My God is not like THAT!”
But point out that there is “no there, there” in their presumably sophisticated God and they start howling that the real enemy is the fundamentalists so what the hell are the atheists doing by attacking people who aren’t intruding in their lives? Everybody just needs to leave everyone else alone to believe whatever they want. That means that the ‘new’ atheists are just like the fundamentalists — they try to force their beliefs on others, by dragging the issue of God’s existence out into public, and wanting a debate.
I like how you put that — wanting to debate the existence of god is forcing our belief on them. “Oh noes! Don’t force me to examine my beliefs. Halp! Halp! I’m being oppressed!”
One of the many atheist no-win situations:
http://www.jesusandmo.net/2010/02/05/lump/
Minor pet peeve:
You don’t “try and draw conclusions”, you either try to draw conclusions or you draw them, but you can’t try and draw at the same time.
@ Pope Maledict DCLXVI #75
I ought to have inserted the Irony Follows flag.
I mentioned the supposed arrest warrant as a seldom-mentioned but interesting example of a definite forgery. The twenty seven truckloads of splinters from the cross and the shroud of Turin are well known. One might also point out at one point there were simultaneously 14 foreskins of Christ to be venerated in various European churches. Such tomfoolery still exists; the proffered “goods” are less likely to be in the form of relics but are just as dishonest and delusional.
Well, I read the whole thing. Ultimately, it’s difficult not to feel a large amount of sympathy for these guys. After all, what they’re going through now, at their ages, with families and houses, etc, to worry about, is what I guess most of us went through as teenagers (with a lot less to lose and no-one depending on us for, y’know, their next meal).
el cid @ #117,
John M. already pointed his opinion out, so thank you for agreeing with him, but really, the original poster @ #98 was so vague there’s probably no single coherent reading of his post. I responded to what seemed to me to be the most obvious reading.
Perhaps Tim thinks that priests believe their flocks are stupid (quote “the world is full of a bunch of less intelligent folks” unquote), and need to be held in check from doing stupid things: in other words, the priests are there as instruments of social control.
That doesn’t evidence much belief in the morality of people generally, if disillusioned priests think only of staying in their roles to continue exerting that control: “Oh noes! If, having become a non-believer myself, should I foment the same disbelief in my congregation, then without their religion they would have no moral bars to hold them back from rape and pillage!”
That is more or less what Tim said, as far as I read it; perhaps he did mean something else, but wasn’t able to put that argument into unambiguous language which didn’t include a well-known and offensive fallacy.
In any case, if you actually read the report by Dennett and LaScola, there is no indication at all in the anecdotes of any of the five priests that would support the idea that they “assume the worst” of their congregations – if they are reluctant to disillusion them of their religious beliefs, it’s not for the reason that without those beliefs they would be unleashing people to moral anarchy.
godfearing heretic #120 wrote:
Or, without health, you can’t know sickness. Don’t built virtue into faith, by virtue of a simplistic analogy.
Faith is more than a provisional agreement in the face of uncertainty: it involves an emotional commitment to try to believe, in a situation where “cold reason” would not. So faith beliefs require someone who is “overcoming” their doubts, as a test of their sensitive character. They want to be the kind of loyal person who doubts, but believes anyway. This isn’t really a virtue, when it comes to assessing claims. It’s how we address social situations.
Yes; it also comes down to, if we are wrong, would we be able to tell? If reasonable doubts are supposed to highlight and strengthen and verify a person’s “faith,” I don’t think this puts the believer into a position where they can be corrected, if they’re actually wrong.
Michael #124 wrote:
You’re technically right; but I simply assumed that here PZ was using the term “priest” in the loose, colloquial sense, meaning any religious leader.
Bogus.
Without sickness, you would know health. You just wouldn’t have a specific word for it.
I’m not calling you out on your intent — I’m just saying your analogy is terrible.
Exactly. And there’s only one epistemology that has proven results: the epistemology of science.
Anything that requires faith falls completely outside the realm of “things we know,” and square into the realm of “things we hope for, but really have no reason to hope for.”
Sastra wrote:
Hence the “it’s not a religion, it’s a relationship” slogan.
Michael @ #124, Sastra @ #132,
in the technical sense yes, there are indeed no priests in the study. (A pity no Catholic or Orthodox clergy participated, and also that the Episcopalian minister dropped out at some late point.)
Since most clergy in the choir circles I move in are either Roman-Catholic or Anglo-Catholic, I tend to loosely extend the term priest to apply generically to any so-called “Man of G*d” of some other denomination (usually there aren’t very many women, even amongst progressive Anglicans), and I admit that usage is incorrect. It shouldn’t be a major stumbling block.
Right, you gotta love that logic. And if another person believes that you should die in a fire because you don’t believe in their belief, then whatever shall we do about it?
How ironic. Christians repeatedly claim that atheists “in their hearts” cannot truly deny God, and now suddenly they are forced to acknowledge secret unbelievers in their own ranks.
A cursory examination of motivations is instructive here: Atheists gain nothing from such a secret belief. On the contrary, in most societies, their minority viewpoint is met with disdain and more than occasionally, violence. There is neither power nor prestige attached to the atheist viewpoint. Few Americans, for example, would deny that a public avowal of atheism in their country would be an automatic disqualification for elected office. In seven states, in fact, that bar is codified into law.
On the other hand, the privilege and false prestige that society lavishes on the Christian clergy (despite growing evidence of malfeasance on a truly grand scale by more than a few of “God’s men”), delivers an extremely powerful motive to “go along” after the faith is gone.
“The very ideal of religious tolerance – born of the notion that every human being should be free to believe whatever he wants about god – is one of the principal forces driving us toward the abyss.” – Sam Harris
I had a long discussion the other day with a “spiritual” minister who basically argued that religious beliefs were really just forms of personal therapy which “worked” for people by comforting and ennobling them: therefore, any and all discussion about whether they were actually true or not should be off the table. Why can’t people just believe what they want, as long as it’s not hurting anyone? Why would anyone ever try to “prove” God — or, conversely, argue against God? It’s all so personal, and private, and subjective, etc. etc.
I tried to tell her that most people think that their supernatural beliefs are actually true in reality. For everybody. They’re not really seeing it all as personal therapy, play-acting, dress-up, or private little narratives and it doesn’t matter if it’s true or not. Religion is not supposed to come down to nothing but self-affirmation and relationships: people are generally striving for a bigger picture on reality, and what it is. Being accepting of others is not necessarily the ONLY thing that matters.
She seemed to think that no, not caring about being accurate or right is the hallmark of being a spiritual person. A spiritual approach apparently frames the entire issue of religion as being like a dinner table where people agree to not argue with each other over anything, because they just want to enjoy each others company — and marvel at the diversity of views everyone picked out.
Whatever. She seemed to be granting everything to the atheist, in a desperate bid for forebearance. And she can’t realize how rigid and dogmatic this ultimately makes faith beliefs — including her own.
Sorry PZ, I disagree with both you and those WaPo panelists: as I note on my blog here.
mumonjmk, on your blog you ask,
My answer: Yes, that is all gibberish.
cd @ 59
Amen. And a lot of young believers, too.
PZ: And they engage in some difficult and twisty rationalizations for their situations.
“Difficult” is relative. It would seem that the more intelligent one is, the more convoluted a rationalization one can encompass.
However… my search of Google Scholar turns up no investigations on this relationship. Much on rationalization and cognitive dissonance; much on intelligence. Intersection at my question: null.
Peculiar. Perhaps I may go find someone new at the local Psychology department to annoy.
And when they are done marveling and leave the dinner table, they then spend the ride home hand-wringing about the possibility of eternal suffering that surely awaits either themselves or the other people with the marvelous other ideas about god.
But hey, what harm could that possibly do?
I’ll add to those who’ve no doubt already said I find none of this in the least surprising.
The very nature of religion guarantees it, and in so many ways. The psychological games played to keep people ‘in the fold’ in terms of community, at least–all those messages that it’s okay to doubt as long as you’re working on it, these are both a forced move for the religious community and a guarantee there will be many in their ranks who absolutely do not believe but who will effectively feel socially trapped, required to pretend they do, who might even call it ‘belief’ after a fashion, to make all this a little less painful.
And those who even own no home or equity but rely upon the parsonage are really just extremes along a long, miserable continuum, from the father who has no such economic concerns in reality but who fears the social fallout for himself and his family of openness on such questions, through someone currently financially dependent upon a partner they believe is devout, through to those hapless, utterly financially vulnerable clergy, the whole thing comes off as a nasty sort of mutual blackmail scheme.
Among the peculiar things you’ve not doubt noticed if you’ve had any run-ins with any believer: what they even mean by believing is often noticeably vague. It’s necessarily endemic to the culture. Long habits have taught religious communities that tolerating immense quantities of internal unbelief but calling it anything but is a winning strategy for survival (for indeed, when doubt itself is vaguely attached to guilt or a sense of failure, it can serve as an additional wedge keeping the acolyte emotionally weak and dependent upon the community).
It’s so striking to me that I come to think ‘believer’, indeed, is rather a misnomer, for most, if not all, of the religious. For generally, they do not genuinely ‘believe’ the creed they profess, in the sense they believe anything else. ‘Belief’ in the context of religion really mostly means to say you do in whatever fashion you can manage with a straight face, and to which your community will not too strongly object.
So again, all of this is hardly surprising. That there should be clergy in exactly the same position as so many of their parishioners–and that they should frequently suspect they are in no way alone–all this is pretty much guaranteed. And those clergy are almost certainly very, very right about that latter suspicion.
There are no cats either. There are no amphisbaenians.
Do you have a coherent point?
FWIW, priests leave the Catholic priesthood before ordination or after all the time for a variety of reasons. Some of which are, no longer believing in the RCC or in the RCC god.
My friend was the downfall of one priest seminarian. When she was a teen ager, she started going out with one. He discovered that he liked girls too much and that was the end.
Hard to argue with this.
@ 61 Cath
“I don’t think it’s so binary a choice. A preacher might continue to believe in the line of Jesus as ethical teacher, and ritual as socially valuable, while dismissing the deity bits.”
Mildly disagreeing with you- one must not only throw out the deity bits but also cherry pick the teachings. I’ll believe in honest priests when I hear a priest quote some of Jesus’ lesser known verses:
Luke 14:26 “If anyone comes to me without hating is father and mother, wife and children, brethren and sisters, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple.”
or
Luke 19:27 “Now as for those enemies of mine who did not want me as their king, bring them here and slay them before me.”
mothra wrote:
Does it count if was a pastor and he was quoting it in Swedish? Because my father quoted that one in a sermon once.
(He went on to say Jesus was using hyperbole for emphasis.)
@mothra
That second one is a quotemine. It’s part of a parable, so it’s actually Jesus quoting somebody else. He said plenty of other stupid things, though.
Sastra:
Lots to chew on in your comment @138.
Or maybe she’s close enough to rationality to find it incredible (in the strictly literal sense) that any sane person could possibly hold the supernatural assertions of religion as “actually true in reality“? In my experience, people self-normalize around their own personal level of rationality, and find it difficult to actually believe others are very different.
I have this trouble when I talk about the politics of education with my wife: I can’t get her to accept that (some) right-wingers want literally and deliberately to destroy public education. To her, that seems crazy, and howevermuch she knows intellectually that the world is full of crazy people, she finds it hard to take that level of insane malevolence onboard. I had a hard time accepting it myself, but years of encountering people whose viewpoints really are that different from my own finally pierced my own bubble of self-normalization.
Similarly, I wonder if some liberal, near-rational religionists just can’t apprehend how much crazier than themselves many of their coreligionists are?
On a related note, I’ve always wondered what it would be like if there were a religion that made no pretense of believing its narrative was true in reality: A community of shared “belief” that acknowledged the nonexistence of gods or anything metaphysical, yet even so found it useful to organize its shared worldview around a collection of admittedly fictional stories that form the basis for social interaction and public ritual.
Of course, most of the existing religious narratives make for pretty pathetic (when they’re not reprehenisible) worldview-structures once they’re stripped of any pretense of divine authority, so obviously any such non-supernatural religion would have to be invented from scratch: Here are our shared moral, ethical, and social principles, and here’s a collection of stories we’ve created to embody them. I don’t know if humans are really wired that way, or why anyone would bother to obscure their first principles with an overlay of fiction, but it would make an interesting SF premise: How would humans react if they encountered aliens who followed an invented, avowedly fictional religion? Would it accelerate our realization that all religions are fictional, whether self-consciously or not, or would we (like your friend) be incapable of realizing that they didn’t relate to religions in the same way we do? (Note that this concept is vaguely similar to John Barnes’ “Thousand Cultures” novels, in which interstellar civilation is organizes around planets colonized by cultures, many of them either highly fictionalized versions of historical human cultures or totally fictional, even including fictional histories that stretch back millennia.)
Finally, in purely practical terms, I wonder if it’s possible to come up with an institution that meets the legal and social definitions of “religion” without positing or promoting in any way any sort of supernatural belief? This came up (IIRC) in a conversation here at Pharyngula a couple years ago when a private sex club in Texas was busted based on some rinky-dink zoning and permit laws. The notion was floated then that they should declare themselves a church, to access the special protections churches enjoy under the First Amendment and the general principles of separation of church and state. The push-back objection was that rational people shouldn’t be promoting supernaturalism, even if it is just a nudge-nudge-wink-wink legal dodge. What I wondered at the time, and still wonder (albeit only casually, I admit) is whether it would be possible to craft an honest, forthrightly and unambiguously non-supernatural “church” to afford shared belief systems unrelated to gods or spooks the same insulation from social/regulatory encroachment that traditional churches enjoy.
Sorry for the ramble… these really are the sorts of things that rattle around inside my skull.
re mothra @147:
Maybe I am misinterpreting “disciple”, but I what I think he means is someone who is actually following him around from place to place, not just following his teachings. In that sense then he is just saying that if you do love your family, stay with them, don’t follow me around. He is not saying that to be a “Christian” you have to be a suicidal misanthrope. I think he is pointing out that he and his followers are at great risk and if you love your life and family, go home and be safe.
I don’t know, maybe the next or presceeding verse contradicts me; it’s all just fabrication anyway. Just felt like trying my hand at a little apologetics.
Antisemitism is all through the NT. There are 35 derogatory references to Jews in John alone.
Unfortunately, these are not all that obscure. They were used for millennia to justify antisemitism.
These days, that jesus was a rabid antisemite is shoved under the carpet. Along with hundreds or thousands of other bible verses.
Infrared Eyes #146 wrote:
And I generally don’t. The technical term for promoting or advocating a viewpoint without caring whether or not it is actually true — because you have some other agenda which you’re using this view to promote — is “bullshit.” This particular spiritual minister is a class A bullshitter. I figured this out a long time ago.
As far as I can tell, her real “agenda” is to try to make herself and everyone else feel accepted, comfortable, respected, and at peace with themselves, and the world. Oh, 40 lashes with a wet noodle for that one. Hard to argue with her agenda.
And even harder to argue with a bullshitter. I listen, learn, and try to throw some rational flowers her way.
Shorter version of all my blathering @150:
Whenever I hear people assert that there are social and personal benefits to religious belief that are unrelated to actually believing in gods or the supernatural, my response is always to say, fine, let’s create institutions that embody those benefits without requiring people to pretend they believe in supernatural bullshot! Surely we can think of excuses to have choirs and pancake breakfasts and informal personal counseling without resorting to vast heirarchies of metaphysical malarkey, can’t we?
Bill Dauphin, OM
Scientology has got to fit in that category, but maybe it is just my bias against comprehension that anyone could possibly believe their claims.
withheld (@155):
Well, first, I’ve personally met Scientologists who gave every evidence of really believing their church’s theology. But in any case, it’s not really an example of what I’m suggesting, because Scientology represents itself to the world as really true, regardless of what individual Scientologists truly believe in their heart of hearts. An example of what I’m musing about would be if Scientology came out and said, “Look, it really is all just science fiction. There is no Xenu and there are no Operating Thetans; it’s all just a bunch of stories, and don’t imagine we’re representing it as anyting else. But it’s a bunch of stories we find useful, so some of us have agreed to try to live by them. You’re welcome to join us if you’d like.”
Or, for another example of a religion whose primary scripture’s origins are not hidden in the mists of history, imagine that the next copy of The Book of Mormon that you find in a hotel nightstand is subtitled: A Novel by Joseph Smith. Suppose the Mormons admitted their holy book was just a convenient fiction, but consciously decided to organize their shared society around it anyway.
Seems crazy, I know, but it’s not impossible to imagine people glomming on to useful fictions that are a bit less crazy.
@#136
Recall that many people had their faith reaffirmed and/or strengthened by Star Wars and “The Force.”
I love Dennett’s work! He’s the closest thing we have to a real santa :) Real Santa? The REAL Saint Nicolas is mostly famous for punching Arias of Alexandria at the Council of Nicea. I guess disbelieving in the trinity is the very defintion of naughty.
More Sam Harris:
“Everything of value that people get from religion can be had more honestly, without presuming anything on insufficient evidence. The rest is self-deception, set to music.”
I wrote a long reply to Bill, which is being held for moderation (no idea why). If I don’t see it in a bit, I’ll try reposting.
Shorter version: no, my friend is into woo; she waffles between assertions and claiming it’s a game; Greta C. wrote a blog entry on how, when she was a Wiccan, they both said it was fictional play-acting, and believed it wasn’t play-acting, depending on who was looking.
I predict that within a generation, at least one group would emerge claiming that “No, these stories are true.” And, sadly, I think that the True Stories version is the one that would survive.
At least, judging from Christian friends, who seem to suffer considerable mental pain when asked to contemplate the possibility that the crucifixion/resurrection either didn’t happen or doesn’t carry the significance they want it to. It seems to be very important to the religious mind to invest their core myths with a measure of literal, historical truth. And I’m not talking just about fundamentalists. “Something must have happened on the Cross, or my faith is meaningless” is a sentiment I’ve heard from more than one fairly liberal, educated believer.
I see your point. I guess I have to push back on what I would classify as “too crazy for someone to actually believe.” InfraredEyes may be right, and a couple of generations down the road could have real followers of Pastafarianism.
Bill
Fixed it for you.
@ Bill Dauphin, OM #150
Allow me to direct your to the “Church of the SubGenius”, “Church of Elvis”, “Church of the Jedi”, and for a more general look “Chaos Magik” or “Cthulhu Magik”. Feeding any of these into an internet near you will find a number of orgs and individuals who gaian a benefit from a religion that they know and openly state in false. I would include the church of the FSM but there is not quite the feel of zelotry there that one finds in the other churches.
For what it’s worth
~will
@150, @154—
Well, there’s the argument that in late Republican and early Imperial times, the Roman senatorial classes by and large accepted that the Roman gods weren’t real, but that pietas, respect for tradition and social order, required a decent public and ritual veneration for the gods, even if you knew— and everyone knew you knew —that you didn’t believe.
Gives new meaning to the phrase “I once was lost, but now am found.”
A quick drive-by…
The writings of Spong and Ehrman were mentioned. I haven’t read Spong but I’m here to give two thumbs up to Bart Ehrman. If you are interested in the early church, the early forms of bibilical writings, the Council of Nicea (mentioned in #158) and so on, then Bart Ehrman is your man. It’s a wonder that anyone comes out of seminary still a believer if they’ve read his scholarly works.
Ie! I somehow forgot the Church of Eris aka the discordians in my post at 163.
Good thing I have an apple for lunch otherwise something bad may or may not happen to me.
~will
Caine @#19, love your comment. Transtheism? How about metatheism? let’s just make up some cool words with Greek roots (transtheism is a bastard word, btw). I like “theophage” personally, or “anthropophage”. I am an ananthropophagist, AND an atheophagist, never having been Catholic.
/Not apologizing, ever.
@ Desert Hedgehog #164
Not to mention the Cult of the Emperor. At least in the west it was simply a public religion, go through the motions, civic life kind of thing. More a public repeated loyality oath that a faith.
Sastra:
No, PZ is technically right. He’s using the general sense of the term priest, I assume, rather than the specific terms of particular Christian sects. That’s neither loose nor colloquial.
Within Christianity, the term priest is often avoided, I suspect largely due to anti-Catholicism—priests of most other sects don’t want to be mistaken for Catholic priests. That doesn’t mean that they aren’t precisely priests in the general sense.
Here’s what dictionary.com says for “priest”:
That said, I think the term was poorly chosen, since so many people inevitably interpret it as a formal title, to mean specifically Catholic and maybe Anglican/Episcopalian priests. Apparently druids are not on the radar anymore, more’s the pity.
/niggly
@Poor Wandering One #163
The Church of the FSM really only has one tenet that we all abide by: Creationism is not Science; everything else is open to interpretation. As a Pastafarian, I’m continuously amazed at the amount of hate mail posted on the FSM website (http://www.venganza.org/category/hate-mail/) from individuals who take our premise at face value and seem incapable of recognizing satire. They insist on taking us seriously even though we dress like pirates, for FSM’s sake!
Raven @#145:
“There are no cats either. There are no amphisbaenians.”
That would be relevant if PZ had titled his post “Cats who don’t believe” or “amphisbaenians who don’t believe.”
“Do you have a coherent point?”
PZ’s title is misleading as the article has nothing to do with priests?
Define “priests”.
Congratulations… here are you 5000 pedantry points. Spend them well.
Priests as a catch-all term for priests / pastors / reverends / shaman / rabbis, for the sake of brevity is fine with me. I still got the point.
tdcourtney @ #11
FTFY, though #89 kinda beat me to it.
Paul W. @#170: No, the distinction between “priest” and “minister” or “pastor” is a significant one.
As I understand it: for Catholics, Orthodox and Anglicans/Episcopalians, the office of the priesthood has a special spiritual significance. For Catholics, in particular, the ordination ceremony (known as the “sacrament of Holy Orders”) is considered to be the moment at which a priest is invested with certain special spiritual powers: in particular, the Eucharist, and the other sacraments (with the exception of baptism and marriage), can only be administered validly by an ordained priest. This fits within the broader Catholic belief in the power of sacraments; they believe that the performance of certain rituals, by a person empowered to perform them, has a specific spiritual effect (and sometimes an allegedly physical effect too, as in the case of transubstantiation). I suppose it’s not dissimilar from a belief in magic spells, though Catholics wouldn’t generally appreciate the comparison. :-)
By contrast, most Protestant churches subscribe to the doctrine of the “priesthood of all believers”. That is, they do not believe that there is any special spiritual significance that sets apart members of the clergy from laypeople; they consider all believers to have the same status before God. They believe that all baptised believers are “priests” in the Biblical sense of the word; they don’t believe that ordination gives the individual any special spiritual status. As such, they specifically don’t use the term “priests” for their clergy.
I realise this all seems like hairsplitting and pointless woo to those of us who don’t believe in any gods. But it’s important to them; and when talking about religion, intellectual honesty demands that we don’t misrepresent what religious people believe or what religious terms mean.
Sastra (#28):
Fingernails of Faith would make a good title for a book on the Templeton Foundation, BioLogos, etc.
Educated doesn’t necessarily mean intelligent. I think that 534 of those people in Congress have college degrees (and some are educated beyond that): it was worthy of mention in the news when Alaska elected a college dropout as its member of Congress. Then again, sometimes a degree is evidence of education, and sometimes it just means the person showed up, maybe even got copies of the previous year’s exams from their fraternity, and had parents who were willing to pay the bills.
nigelTheBold @#133, excellent. I tell people I do not believe anything that requires belief.
Ironically, it was a priest in my young Catholic days who got me thinking about how ridiculous the bible is. He would rationalize things in the bible to coincide with the real world (like the seven days in the Genesis story not being a literal seven days) and encouraged us to try to make sense of it too. The more I learned about it the more difficult it was so I gave up trying.
He was in his mid-40’s while the priest at our church and he still went roller skating, fishing, and other stuff us youngsters connected with. He never preached hell to us like other priests. His “housekeeper” must have been very good at her job because she had her own room in priest house next to the church. I didn’t even wonder about that until I was older.
I’m not sure if he ever reconciled the differences between the bible and reality. Maybe he just continued ignoring the stuff he didn’t like, rationalizing the stuff that didn’t make sense, and preaching the stuff that makes a difference in reality. (Most Christians I know do that.)
The old boy spent his last few years with Alzheimer’s and finally died yesterday.
Sastra (@159):
Oooh, I can’t wait!
I guess I wasn’t imagining that her belief system was entirely without woo; only that she might be suffering cognitive dissonance over just how much more seriously some people take their woo than she does hers.
Long ago, in a previous life, when I was a college freshman engineering student, I studied calculus out of an experimental textbook that used the conceit of order among infinite (and infinitesimal) numbers. It’s a ludicrous concept on its face — if two numbers are truly infinite, how can one be larger than the other? &mdahs; but it turned out to be a useful approach to developing some concepts in calculus. In a similar way, I imagine a kind of order among irrational beliefs. On the one hand, aren’t all irrational beliefs equivalent, by virtue of the fact that their defining characteristic is the lack of reason? But on the other hand, it’s sometimes a useful fiction to recognize order within the crazyspace.
So I was imagining someone who buys into a soft, diffuse (and presumably not well thought out) brand of woo even so not being able to wrap her mind around a sharper-edged, more literal brand of whackiness. IOW, one’s own irrational beliefs are not necessarily any proof against incredulity at others’ irrational beliefs. Or so it seems to me.
I’ve always wondered about that (esp. now that I live in New England, where it seems every third car has a “My Other Car Is a Broomstick” or “Witches Do It In Circles” bumpersticker): Do modern-day Wiccans and Neo-Pagans believe their woo in the same way that followers of more mainstream religions, or are they really looking for a sort of role-playing lifestyle? Apparently, according to what you report about Greta, it depends on who’s askin’!
And I still wonder whether she means that they somewhat cynically couched their discussion in terms they thought the audience would sympathize with, or whether she means Wiccan belief is a metaphysical Schroedinger’s Cat, existing in a quantum fog of uncertainty about whether it’s a “real” religion or just a sexy game. ;^)
InfraredEyes (@160):
Yah, I suspect you’re right. That puts a crimp in my SF scenario, too: For it to happen, we’d have to discover the aliens within the tiny span of generations between the invention of their religion and when they effectively forget it was actually invented… not bloody likely, I’m afraid.
I’m reminded of the first half of Heinlein’s Orphans of the Sky (a novella called, IIRC, “Universe”), in which the occupants of an interstellar generation ship suffer a systems breakdown that interferes with the education of succeeding generations. They end up with the engineer-class as a priesthood, and a whole organic cosmology based on no knowing that they’re actually inside a spacecraft. I think maybe Heinlein had something there, regarding humans’ tendency to make myths out of incomplete or poorly understood facts. <sigh>
Not to mention the Cult of the Emperor. At least in the west it was simply a public religion, go through the motions, civic life kind of thing. More a public repeated loyality oath that a faith.
Regarding cultic practices in the late pagan period in general, it’s important not to import modern notions of the separateness of “civic life” and “faith.” The two were inextricable. Civic life was ordered in the way that it was exactly because it was a reflection of the divine order. That many educated elites could read given myths about the Olympian pantheon as “mere” stories didn’t mean necessarily that they also believed that events in the material and social spheres were free of the influence of “the powers,” variously conceived, under the direction of a “Most High,” likewise variously conceived; to the contrary, that’s the way power and influence and “fate” and “providence” were conceived of, by everyone.
So to say it was “going through the motions” for elites in late Antiquity to participate in cultic activities somewhat neglects that “the motions” were considered necessary practices for the maintenance of the social order, which reflected the divine. The modern notion of faith as orthodoxy, correct belief, not necessarily connected to orthopraxis, correct practice, was an alien concept to ancient persons. Jews pressed to renounce the faith of their fathers were made to sacrifice to the pagan Gods under threat and to eschew Sabbath observance and the like, not to deny Yahweh by words or claim pagan beliefs. “Going through the motions” was having faith. One’s interior life was all but irrelevant in a way it clearly is not for the disbelieving priests in the study we’re discussing.
Well, it certainly did it for me. I was 16. I was reading Heinlein. His character tells the story of Lot’s daughters and then says “That’s not the only surprise in store for anyone who actually reads the Bible.” I had been struggling with the fact that I was trying so hard to believe and I had asked Jesus to come into my heart and I felt nothing. So I did what he said. I read the Bible.
Talk about and eye-opener. I now admit to a severe bias: I believe that anyone who has sat down and read that book and still believes it is the inerrant word of god is either (a) diagnosable (i.e. batsh*t crazy); (b) a really nasty piece of work who actively enjoys imaging looking down on people in hell from his/her perch in heaven; (c) has a carefully (if unconsciously) crafted set of blinders that prevent them from seeing all the evil there. I believe the latter are fairly rare but tend to be really nice people who for one reason or another simply can’t let go of the fairy tale and live in the real world.
Walton @#170 is right that the priest vs minister distinction is important — whatever dictionary.com might say. I would guess that most Catholics would never call a protestant minister a priest. And the ministers interviewed by Dennett and LaScola would almost certainly not want to be called priests. This isn’t just pedantry, but a matter of clear communication (unless you only want to communicate within your own little circle).
Walton @#170 gets one thing wrong though: transubstantiation is not understood to be a physical change. (Which is why supposed eucharistic miracles in which the bread is changed into physical flesh and blood are considered exceptional.)
For example:
“this is not a statement of physics. It has never been asserted that, so to say, nature in a physical sense is being changed. The transformation reaches down to a more profound level. Tradition has it that this is a metaphysical process. Christ lays hold upon what is, from a purely physical viewpoint, bread and wine, in its inmost being, so that it is changed from within and Christ truly gives Himself in them.”
Josef Ratzinger, God and the World, see: http://www.adoremus.org/0604Ratzinger.html
In some usages, sure, but that doesn’t change my point that there is a general sense of the word in which most ministers count.
For example, take some pagan cult in which somebody conducts a ritual. They may not be ordained, or have been invested with special magical powers at any particular point, but still be called a priest. (Or priestess in the case of a wiccan I know.)
They may in fact think that others are more or less capable of the same mumbo jumbo, but that the so-designated priest or priestess, does that as their designated job, maybe because they’re a little more adept, or practiced, or just better liked, or just the person who volunteered for that job.
In the general sense of the term “priest,” there is no requirement of any special investiture of abilities or titles.
If Catholics, say, think that their priests have a special magical abilities given to them by God at a special magical moment in a ritual… well, so what?
I’d say that “priest” is a cluster concept, and that there are certainly more specific senses in which there are stronger requirements, but that the term is still technically correct for pretty much any kind of designated spiritual leader or advisor, especially if they are regarded as being in any sense especially fit for the job because they’re “more spiritual”. (Even if that’s mainly just a matter of experience that follows from inclination.)
Given that quibble, I would acknowledge that in the current popular vernacular, it’s misleading, because most people will read something more specific into it.
But that’s not a matter of being technically incorrect and using a loose, colloquial sense. It’s a matter of being technically correct using a perfectly valid general sense, but colloquially “incorrect,” i.e., misleading given current vernacular usages, which are more specific in various ways.
So basically, I agree that PZ shouldn’t have put it that way in the headline, especially not without a clarification—many people will assume he means people whose formal title is priest—but not because he’s technically wrong to call all those people priests.
Gene Wolfe’s Book of the Long Sun series, based on a similar premise, is a great sci-fi account of religion, priesthood and mythology. A long slog, but not to be missed. (And when you’re done, you have to read its sequels & prequels, too.)
Didn’t someone once say that the more one studies religion the less one believes it ?
Oh and. no, I have not bothered to have myself officially labeled an Apostate or Excommunicated, because I really don’t care. No church full of god-men draws my attention any more than as an architectural curiosity, and too many of them are just ugly boxes these days.
I know a Methodist minister. She believes in God (and finds it inconvenient at times–if she thought that voice in her head was just coming from inside her, it would be easier to ignore), but when she talks about her day-to-day work, a lot of the time it sounds like social work. For example, she helps people find emergency housing.
That isn’t all she does–she preaches sermons, and does a bunch of organizational stuff–but I can see someone whose work as a minister was mostly social work rather than preaching or writing/studying theology deciding to stick to it even if they realized there are no gods.
Oh, and a pagan friend of mine says that the distinction between whether he thinks the gods are real doesn’t depend on who he’s talking to. It depends on when he’s asking the question. Most of the time, he recognizes it as theater, meditation, and such. When he’s in a ritual circle, he sees it differently. [This is a second-hand report, but it’s stuff he’s volunteered on another blog.] And he doesn’t think Ganesh is real, but he does think that he is calmer and happier if he does morning devotions. OK. I’m happier for working with Nautilus machines, and I know someone who calms down by playing Civ.
PWO (@163):
I was at least marginally aware of most of those, along with (naturally) the Church of the FSM, but I’m not sure whether any of them is really an example of what I’m talking about: To the extent that they’re really shared jokes or peculiar forms of fandom, it’s not what I’m getting at. Instead, I’m talking about serious, sincerely held shared beliefs about the world that just don’t include anything supernatural.
Take the Texas sex club story that got me thinking this way: I don’t know that this was the case with this particular group, but imagine a group of swingers who are not simply horny and looking to get laid, but who instead share a set of beliefs about the importance of sharing sexual intimacy that they agree on, and that they take seriously. If they form a group with the intent of meeting regularly to honor their shared beliefs by acting them out in some organized celebration, offering mutual support and under the guidance of recognized group leaders… how is that not a church? It seems to me that it encompasses everything that defines a church except for some element of the supernatural. Certainly it’s not obvious to me that those people should be any more subject to government intervention and regulation than people in funny hats muttering about bread turning into flesh.
The “real” story was this. It happened last October.
Unfortunately, it wasn’t human flesh after all.
And by the way, the priest was definitely not an atheist.
Which is too bad! Can you imagine? Just a few atheist priests, and the problem oif hunger is solved!
Christophe Thill
Re #190:
(Laughs very hard…)
Ah, but we should never let such profane things as (a) getting the facts of the story right, and (b) a rudimentary grasp of microbiology get in the way of a good story.
(/And folks ask how religions form. See ‘Because there are people who are just incredibly full of it’.)
… oh, also, speaking of actual priests in this predicament, let’s go back to a classic.
(H/T re Meslier to negentropyeater on the undying thread.)
Walton wrote:
Except when they do. Some Lutheran churches (eg. the Church of Sweden) sees no contradiction in believing in the priesthood of all believers and simultaneously using the term “priest” for their clergy.
Hmmm… my last comment missed an important point about why I think PZ was actually exactly right to use the term “priest,” even if he should have explained it better.
Almost all ministers do in fact function as priest in a more-than-minimal sense.
They help people get in touch with “spirituality” by some means. Maybe a special magical gift, maybe unusual or unusually developed wisdom, or maybe just from unusually developed knowledge—gained in seminary school, for example—that is helpful in people’s spiritual quests.
They’re not generally regarded as just cheerleaders for people’s confused emotional wanking. They’re not generally supposed to be just some schmuck who was dumb enough to volunteer for a low-paid unskilled job with long hours.
They’re supposed to be good at their jobs, somehow, and the job is supposed to help people be more spiritual and/or moral.
Many less orthodox ministers do see their jobs as largely social work of a sort—providing tea and sympathy, and organizing substantive charity and so on.
Most members of their congregations do see them as more priestly than that, whether the ministers themselves do or not. They think the minister is closer to God in some useful sense—maybe due to a spiritual gift, or maybe just a matter of spiritual motivation and appropriate book learning—and can thereby help them get closer to God, in some sense relevant to how they imagine God.
That’s priestly, IMHO, in a crucial more-than-minimal sense.
And that’s the irony that PZ seems to be pointing up in talking about ministers who don’t think those things, but don’t come out of the closet and tell their flocks that.
I know a couple of mainline Protestant ministers who don’t believe in an orthodox God, and see their jobs as largely a matter of doing a combination of social work and Jungian psychodynamic therapy.
They don’t come out and tell their congregations clearly that that’s how they see things—that
1) there’s no God that’s anything like a person you can communicate with, and that
2) religion is largely a matter of fucking around with schemas in your head, and
3) if you’re praying to Jesus as a person in hopes of getting divine intervention in the real world, you’re a clueless loser.
AFAICT, these guys think that conventional Christian prayer is BS, and doesn’t get you in touch with a spiritual reality—in fact, it reinforces a delusion, keeping you insulated from reality.
To the extent that they hide that, and play along with their more naive and orthodox Christian congregants’ delusions, they’re functioning as cynical priests—they let suckers use them as priests in a fairly strong sense, even though they themselves disbelieve that they have that kind of ability to bring people closer to that kind of God.
That’s why PZ’s use of the phrase “priests who don’t believe” seems dead on to me, when discuss protestant ministers who don’t believe in an orthodox God—it’s about cynically enabling and exploiting people who view you as a spiritual facilitator, in a sense in which you know you are not.
Too bad it takes so much explaining. :-/
@#179
Hey, that’s my phrase!
I tell people, “If it requires belief, I don’t.”
More importantly, many if not most protestants in many if not most sects believe that their ministers have spiritual gifts of some sort. They think that good ministers are called to the ministry by God, in some at least marginally magical sense, and/or that the calling is due to a realization of already having some special at least marginally magical gifts, and/or that God endows the people who are truly called with at least marginally magical gifts.
Of course, they generally wouldn’t use the term “magical,” because that’s associated with bad magic, but they do believe there’s magical supernatural stuff involved one way or another.
I suspect that in that crucial sense, more regard their ministers as priests than Catholics, many of whom are cynical about such things. (In the U.S., that is. Not so much in some other places.)
They’d avoid the terms “magic” and “priest” like the Plagues, but they nonethess believe in priests who are magically gifted guides to the spirit world.
For especially vivid examples, have a look at faith-healing and prophesying charlatans like Benny Hinn, Pat Robertson, etc. For less vivid but still quite clear examples, check out a random sampling of Southern Baptist and Pentecostal churches, and the way evangelical apologists talk about their leaders who stray. (Holy men who Satan specifically targeted to lead them astray.)
And think about Sarah Palin getting a blessing from a literal witch hunter. Holy cow.
Even in supposedly theologically “moderate” Protestant churches, you can find a lot of priests with supposed spiritual gifts, even if it’s just a little extra guidance from the Holy Spirit in interpreting difficult bits of scripture, or having extra emotional strength to support and guide people in times of trouble.
Those people are priests in a strong sense.
@ Caine-
Sorry- I should know better, with gay translating as pedophile in several languages.
But in this group, as Legion said, I expected that everyone would have seen “Catholic priest” and realise the reference had nothing to do with gay.
My mother creeped me out last night by telling me that the now infamous monseigneur (oh boy, I can’t spell that in English) Lahey once approached her, telling her I was a “very special child.”
*shudder*
redrabbitslife, I figured as much. As I said to Legion though, we never know who’s reading. :)
“very special child”? Eeuuw. I know that might have been innocent, but any time a catholic priest says something like that, it comes coated in slime.
Paul W. wrote:
I was really only pointing out that the terminological situation is more complex (and less theologically informative) than Walton was making it out to be.
That said, I do find PZ’s usage unobjectionable. One might think so would the five pastors in question too – being nonbelievers, they presumbly have no theological objections at least.
This is weird; I kept trying to repost my reply to Bill, and it’s always being held in moderation — even though I cut out anything I thought might set it off. Even tried trimming it in half, in case it was too long. There are no links, I mention no one by name, there’s no word which is frequently sold as a remedy, and none of the Forbidden Words are in it.
I will try the second half now. As an experiment.
I’m really bothered by this assholery, especially since any person who doesn’t know what a priest is can look in a dictionary like *gasp* dictionary.com and find out all of the possible meanings. In short, STFU.
Bill #150 wrote:
I don’t know. Greta Christina wrote about her experience as a Wiccan, and the doublethink they all indulged in. They gladly admitted it was playacting, rituals done just for fun, or to use as psychological props — except that they also seemed to look for reinforcement and confirmation. She said she believed opposing things, depending on “who was looking.” A critic, or a critical side of themselves? Aw, it’s all fiction. Is it just them, alone? Oh, then here’s some evidence that the spell worked! (Your analogy of quantum indeterminacy seems apropos.)
Some of my friends attend Fairy Conventions, which are apparently Renaissance Faire style theatrics built around loving fairies, and getting dressed up, and dancing around with wings on. And yet, they talk about folks they know who “follow the fairy faith” — and take it seriously. Maybe. When I ask more questions about it, they seem to think it’s a gray area — a sort of “well, it might be true, so it’s okay to believe it.” Like many faiths, you must first want to become the sort of person who believes in fairies. Among the people who attend fairy conventions, this is apparently an impressive sort of person to be.
Religious humanism (as opposed to humanist religion) has tried to fit atheistic naturalism into a religious framework, decking out wonder at the universe with terms like “sacred” and “God.” What it apparently leads to is a lot of confusion, and not just with outsiders. Like the Wiccans, people begin to waffle back and forth with vaguer and fuzzier terms and meanings and their thoughts start to reflect their vocabulary. Or so it seems to me.
By the way, there is indeed a Church of Freethought in Texas, with a religious tax exemption. Atheists who miss church, and not the supernatural stuff.
Just signed up here, curious about the grammar of referring to a god with no article before it.
If I were indicating that I don’t believe there are dragons, I wouldn’t say “I don’t believe in dragon”. I guess I would say “I don’t believe there is a Nessie”, or “I don’t believe in Nessie”. Wait,,maybe I don’t have a point, that’s happened before. Religion has always confused me.
Seems to me “I don’t believe in a god” is more precise than “I don’t believe in god”. It doesn’t presuppose an identity to be denied. .
And capitalizing? What for? Can something that does not actually exist be named with a proper noun?
Many athiests capitalize, dunno why they do that. It’s not that one might be confused about which supposed diety is being referred to since everyone knows there is no more than one god! Heh.
Hmmm… the first half of my post must be the offending part.
Since I kept trying to fiddle and fix the text to get it through (and add i something new I thought of), I really, really hope PZ doesn’t release all 4 or 5 versions at once, some time in the future. If he does, read the first half of the first one, and ignore all the rest. Naturally, they’re long. So it will be especially annoying.
For me, I tend to not capitalize god or christianity, or any such…
However, it weas a habit I had to break, as god was always taught as a Proper Noun, like a name, all through school. I think most non-believers do it habitually, if for any reason.
Certainty:
If I’m talking (or writing) to people I have not discussed religion with previously, or believers, I say “I don’t believe in gods” or “I don’t believe in any gods”. I have no quarrel with I don’t believe in god though; “god” is a simple catchall, a generic name which the majority of theists use to mean a specific god.
If theists can’t bother to be specific about the god of their choice, I’m not going out of my way either. (Depending on the discussion, of course. Some discussions do involve specific, named deities.)
Bill Dauphin and Sastra, your ruminations on religions based on ritual and mythology, ones that eschew any explicit factual (or at least objectively factual) claims, mirrors a lot of my own thinking as of late.
I’ve been playing around with a taxonomy for people who self-identify as religious or spiritual – well, at this point I guess it’s more like a sliding scale than a true taxonomy – that is based not on what people profess to believe to be true (frankly, I find the whole frame of “beliefs” used in this context to be highly problematic, but that’s another post), but rather how much they really care (or at least act as if they care) whether their “beliefs” are true.
On one end of the scale are the fundies, the literalists, the folks who structure and organize the bulk of their lives around their religious tenets. These people can’t even rightly be seen to have “faith” – theirs is a rock solid certainty about what is. They care deeply, to put it mildly. These people I call ‘delusionists’.
On the other end of the scale are the ‘fantasists’. By and large, these folks actively avoid ever thinking or making sincere judgments about the truth basis of their “beliefs”. Even though it’s not all that hard to get them to assert something or other that’s patently unjustified, truth-wise, and they might even put a lot of time and effort into acting out the social mores and participating in the institutions of their chosen denomination or sect, at the end of the day they just aren’t all that invested in whether or not their worldview matches some objective reality. In an important sense, they just don’t care. What matters to them is the journey and the lovely and peacefulness of the destination, not boring and tendentious details about the vehicle that got them there.
I’ve long maintained that a nontrivial percentage, and maybe even most, of modern “liberal” religious folks (at least here in the West) fall more towards the fantasist side of the scale then the outright delusional. In most of their daily interactions, they inhabit the exact same godless secular universe as we do – but they have this other thread going on in their heads where they are playing out their supernatural Goddish fantasies. They aren’t really deluded, per se, any more than I am when I fantasize about winning Powerball or replacing Steve Morse as the guitarist in Deep Purple. I accept that those things aren’t true, that they ain’t ever gonna happen – however, to allow that notion to occupy my mind while I’m in the midst of the fantasy would be counterproductive to the whole enterprise!
I’ve been toying with the notion that the most efficacious route to achieving our Master Atheist Agenda (we can talk about The Agenda in here, right guys?) is by convincing the folks at the fantasist end of the scale that it really doesn’t diminish the fantasy to admit to yourself that it’s not really True-with-a-capital-T. While you are indulging it, it is as true as it needs to be to get the job done, and that’s OK – that’s how fantasy works, after all. But it is a healthy and grown-up thing to do to turn off that thread in the head from time to time, and rejoin the rational world where we generally deem it a good thing that our judgments about factual matters are justified by reality (that’s really how they practice their “faith” anyway, but darned if they don’t bristle when you point that out to them).
Given some of the comments I’ve made on here its funny to think anyone would assume I think that religion is needed for people to be moral. Oh well, it just goes to show the imperfect nature of sarcasm on the Internet.
Recall that the words on the bottom are not the only ones that will get a post tossed into moderation. And it’s not just spammer keywords. PZ has a somewhat idiosyncratic list of terms, from the people who have posted here and pissed him the hell off.
At my last test, “Caledonian” was still forbidden. I’m pretty sure that “Nostradamus” is as well.
I know I’m late to the party, but I have to share this:
A few months ago, I had an IM conversation with a classmate I hadn’t heard from since high school. She’s now in seminary, so we had a fairly lengthy (and entirely civil) discussion of religion.
I told her that the more I learned about religions, the less I could possibly believe any of them to be true. Her exact response: “That happens a lot. Some of my seminary friends say seminary is where God goes to die…”
I nearly choked. A lot of them really don’t believe it. And yet they preach it anyway. I will officially never understand humanity.
PS to Sastra:
HOWTO fuck censorship:
Use empty HTML markup tags, eg, “<i></i>” in the middle of a word that is (or you think might be) problematic.
Easily. Surprisingly so. Just as intuition can fail to give correct answers in physics, when we consider the very small (quantum mechanics) or the very fast (special relativity), so too can it be confounded in pure mathematics. Otherwise, the subject would probably be too boring to bother with.
Celtic Evolution wrote:
Without the article, as in “do you believe in God?” it is a proper noun, and should by the normal rules of English orthography be capitalized.
Non-belief has nothing to do with it – nobody would, after all, refer to a certain wizard as “harry potter” simply because they don’t believe in his literal existence.
Apropos of something completely different, is Greta Christina’s piece on Wicca available anywhere online? I tried searching her blog for it but no luck.
Well yeah, but you’ve got to remember they believe in an omnipotent, omniscient, omnibenevolent entity that performs miracles, answers prayers, grants eternal life, and came down to earth in human-form in order to die to make all that possible. It’s complete absurdity, so of course they need to have two versions for when skeptics are in the room…
Agreed
Yep, that’s the impression I’ve gotten. Though I’m still waiting for someone to present a hard target (which isn’t one by virtue of being a word salad e.g. Karen Armstrong)
This one confuses me because the moderates who say this do almost nothing to help stop the rise of fundamentalism. They fall back to the “belief being a personal issue”. It’s a no-win situation!
Jesus and Mo sum it up quite nicely.
http://www.jesusandmo.net/2010/02/05/lump/
@148, 149, 151- I will go back and read the entire chapters(gags). Apologies if the passages from Luke were/ or could be taken as quote mines. I came not to quote mine Jesus but to bury him.
Sastra’s fingernail analogy for apologetics is apt in sooo many ways: hang nails, in-grown nails, split nails, broken nails, and for the newer cults- press-on nails. :)
I managed (without trying) to get a comment held for moderation. Doffs hat towards Owlmirror.
Mothra @ 147, I know that, that’s why I said they might still “believe the line”. As in, they may drop some but not all of their false beliefs along the way.
Also, I didn’t say I’d _respect_ these hypothetical half-way atheist priests. My suggested options were pity or contempt.
What I don’t get about Luke 19:27 is what the parable is meant to be teaching. Sure, it’s quotemining, but what does the original mean?
Genuinely curious, not making a rhetorical point this time. What does the parable signify?
Andreas Johannsen #213 wrote:
I had tried to find it and failed as well, or would have linked to it. I just now found an essay which makes a similar point, at
http://gretachristina.typepad.com/greta_christinas_weblog/2008/01/when-i-write-ab.html
She writes:
Ah, I finally found the Greta Christina post I was referring to, here
http://gretachristina.typepad.com/greta_christinas_weblog/2009/10/when-anyone-is-watching.html
“When Anyone is Watching: Metaphors and the Slipperiness of Religion”
Dear Alextangent,
I couldn’t agree more.
I think very highly of Professor Dennett, and as usual he has spoken as kindly as possible of the people he and his co-author are writing about.
But regarding the five clergy-people interviewed, I feel the need to paraphrase a book review cited by Richard Dawkins: “Before deceiving others, they went to great lengths to deceive themselves.”
And the fact that this situation was foretold in Bible prophecy thousands of years ago, and has been preached about for over a century by Jehovah’s Witnesses, makes no nevermind to you all? We’ve been talking about this and even the future behavior and reaction of atheists/agnostics (that would occur during this time period) decades ago.
Allow me to quote an excerpt from a book published back in 1931, which just about sums up the entire theme of PZ’s blog in a nutshell:
“…The agnostic, the atheist, and the sarcastic put “Christianity” and all heathen [pagan] religions in the same class, and therefore use the proverb: “As is the mother, so is the daughter.” In other words, ‘the mother was a harlot and the daughter is likewise. They are all bad…’
These do not discern the difference between “organized Christianity” [Christendom]… and the true teachings of Christ Jesus and his apostles. The atheist and those in that class observe that “organized Christianity” is even worse than the acknowledged heathen [pagan] religions, because in Christendom there is a greater degree of intelligence. Therefore they put true Christianity in a class with heathenism and “organized Christianity” so called, and make war against the true as well as the false.“
Now back to the topic at hand…Does anyone remember the dragnet illustration in Jesus parable at Matthew 13:47-49?
“Again the kingdom of the heavens is like a dragnet let down into the sea and gathering up [fish] of every kind. When it got full they hauled it up onto the beach and, sitting down, they collected the fine ones into vessels, but the unsuitable they threw away. That is how it will be in the conclusion of the system of things: the angels will go out and separate the wicked from among the righteous…”
The symbolic dragnet represents an earthly instrument that professes to be God’s congregation and that gathers in fish. It has included both Christendom and the congregation of [true] anointed Christians.
So there’s a sifting work going on right now since we are living in the “conclusion” of that final harvest period.
You guys don’t even realize that you are playing a part in helping to fulfill Bible prophecy, since God is using you as *refiners* …helping to sift the wheat from the chaff.
The intolerance, mockery, and outright pressure to conform that comes from many atheists, is ‘turning up the heat’ (so to speak) on the faith of believers…and it’s serving to distinguish the genuine from the counterfeit.
Only the strongest will be able to stand up to that type of pressure to conform, either to atheism, or apathy towards God and religion in general, (which has encompassed society in recent years unlike any other time period in mankind’s history).
God doesn’t want cowards who compromise their faith and their integrity by conforming to peer pressure, or who hide what they truly believe by putting on a ‘front’ to others (whether it be family members, or members of the congregation).
That’s exactly why Jesus condemned the “lukewarm” Christians in Laodicea saying: “I know your deeds, that you are neither cold nor hot. I wish you were cold or else hot. So, because you are lukewarm and neither hot nor cold, I am going to vomit you out of my mouth.” (Revelation 3:15, 16)
So get used to seeing alot more of it. But it’s happening for a purpose, not on account of *believers* gaining an increase of secular and science education and suddenly being unable to reconcile their faith with their newfound intellect. Their faith was on shaky ground to begin with, if it wasn’t rooted in accurate knowledge of the Bible.
That’s right. You have nothing cogent to add to any discussion until you provide conclusive physical evidence your deity actually exists, and that your babble is something other than mythology/fiction. Which you consistently fail to do to your detriment. The babble is fiction until you prove otherwise. And you have failed miserably to do that. And quoting your book of fiction like it means something just shows your delusions. Prove your basics first without presupposition. Until then, you are just another delusional godbot.
The Jehovah’s Witless has come to testify again.
The JW hasn’t grasped the concept that the her testament is worthless opinion. Not backed by fact. And will always be opinion until she proves her deity exists from sources outside of the bible. And proves that the bible is inerrant based upon the true (not JW’s) historical record. Like showing that the flud actually happened from sources outside of the babble, say from the scientific literature.
KLT:
It would certainly be nice (and novel) if you exhibited a degree of intelligence. For all your preaching and wishful thinking, that fantasy isn’t going to happen. J-Dubs have a bad track record in the “he’s a comin’!” prophecies.
KLT,
The irony here is overwhelming.
Spoing!
And we were having such a nice time until the eschatologist decided to defecate on the thread.
No True Scotsman fallacy?
Worth noting the Jezebel’s Witnesses believe Revelation 14 literally, which states that only 144,000 celibate men will get into heaven (“These are those who were not defiled with women, for they are virgins”); the rest hope to be resurrected into some post-Armageddon paradise. Guess that counts out a lot of Catlick priests.
KLT, please stop shitting all over threads at random. you never stay to discuss your droppings, and it’s getting really bloody annoying. drive-by preaching is an ugly habit.
says the coward who needs the drug of religion to be able to survive reality.
@John Morales: the two quotes you grabbed were exactly the ones that struck me as well.
I’ve never met an atheist who was “intolerant” of believers believing any crazy $#!+ they want to. Ever. Or an atheist who “outright pressured” anyone to deconvert. Now “mockery” on the other hand…
Mock, mock, mockety mock.
(This is a sign of the apocalypse? Bwah hah hah hah mock mock hah ha ha!)
Of course not. From what I can observe, the JW god clearly wants only big, brawny, brave warriors! Manly, macho, meaty men, who in reality (a concept with which JWs appear to be sadly unfamiliar), are fearful little cowards unwilling or unable to ever even question the obvious immorality and insanity of their faith. Peer pressure? Why, that sweet, sweet persecution (must be from Satan!) just makes one all the more certain he’s extra special to Jeezus!
Mock. Mock, mock. MOCK!
Wonder how KLT feels being treated as a “second-class citizen” by her toxic religion if she’s indeed female.
I would have thought they’d be on the downward trend now like the Millerites, which had their Great Disappointment back in 1844, but apparently there are millions of not very happy gullible idiots who still believe the hopeless goalpost shifting of dates.
Given that we were supposed to be entering the “last days” in 1914 (“Many now living will never die!” as they stated c.1925!), and we’ve had about thirty-five thousand days since that time, obviously something is a teensy bit wrong with the Jehovah’s Witlesses’ eschatology.
Jadehawk, at least lemme get some snine in.
After all, KLT at least preaches by stealth, disguised as taunting.
The more religion is revealed as a sham, the more it shows how religion is true. Or something, I’m not that great at pseudologic.
—
¹ Amongst the many, many amusing aspects of that post is the fact that JW’s have only existed since the late 19th century.
Heh. According to them, it took 19 centuries after the story-Jesus tales before the True Christianity™ was founded.
What is up with all the deference to and fascination with virgins, of all people? In my experience, both male and female virgins suck (no pun intended) at oral sex. I just don’t understand what kind of god worth worshipping would want to be hanging around with them.
You know something KLT?
I was brought up as a Muslim.
I find it amazing the arguments I hear from you and people like you are precisely those that I heard for many years in the past-only to prove a point that is incompatible with yours.
The imams also claim that there are numerous predictions in the koran that have come true. Further, they say, anything about their religion that doesn’t make sense is part of god’s bigger plan to test the strength of their faith. And, true to form, the heathens and infidels are also part of that same plan.
Your script matches theirs to a T. And both are equally risible.
Iris,
Get the bleach ready, Iris.
…
…
…
…
Ready?
This is how it is:
—
Women are possessions.
Virgins means you’re not getting used goods.
They’re brand new possessions, in mint condition. Yours, all yours!
To do with as you will, because, dammit, you’ve earned it!.
right. except in this case, it’s male virgins they’re talking about.
All apocalyptic cults seem to have had an obsession about refraining from “procreating”.
Um, good point, Jadehawk.
<blush>
I guess I’m still in Old Testament mode, not New Testament. Purity, that’s the ticket.
(BTW, presumably a bit of masturbation here or there doesn’t impugn one’s virginity — and men have no hymen).
Why should it?
You mean, you’ve been claiming that since smart people point out stupidity for what it is in the past, they will continue to do so in the future.
How very unsurprising.
Go crazy.
Yes, that’s crazy all right.
So… God is so damn weaksauce that he can’t do that himself?
Why do you use metaphors that let you forget that you’re talking about people, here?
The “chaff” are human beings that God will destroy utterly, with no hope of redemption or salvation. Burned up, utterly annihilated. And you think this is a good thing? Genocide is a good thing?
Um, you do realize that you’re completely misreading the article, don’t you? In fact, you’re getting it backwards.
The pressure is not on the pastors to “conform” to either atheism or apathy. The pressure is on them to be religious.
It’s just that studying the history of religion and the bible — something I am certain that you would never ever do — erodes faith, because it becomes clear to the most honest and most intelligent students that the entire enterprise is fake.
So God will murder those who have no reason to believe. I see.
So God will murder those who love their families. Indeed.
Note that by implication, Jesus likes evil exactly as much as he likes good.
You know, if your afterlife contains all of the mass-murderers, serial killers, torturers, mobsters, rapists, thieves, slavers, and so on, from all of history, the righteous will be way outnumbered. And you’ll have no-one but yourselves to blame. Clearly, being lukewarm is a much better strategy if you want to avoid Hell on Earth.
If you’re so sure of that, how about you go to a seminary and take the exact same courses that they take? Go through the whole long process of education, then come back here boasting of your new knowledge, but old and strongly-held faith.
“Accurate knowledge”, of course, being mindless indoctrination like yours.
What KLT won’t tell you because he is a religious kook, is that the JWs are a mind control cult. They have a high conversion rate offset by a high defection rate. Quite often kids of JWs defect as well when they grow up.
One of their mind control techniques is “disfellowshipping”. They don’t like their cultists to hang around with normal people. They will split members from friends and split families up any way they can.
I read a statement by an exJW recently. She grew up terrorized by abusive and uneducated religious control freaks. She managed to break free. And hasn’t talked to her family in 20 years. Business as usual for the JWs.
Hmmm, looks like the JWs have a problem. They have the highest rate of leaving members of any sect in the USA. Two thirds of their kids eventually leave the cult.
Nice cult you got there KLT. Looks like people run out the door screaming all the time. The JWs never really caught on and it doesn’t look like they ever will.
One of their mind control techniques is “disfellowshipping”. They don’t like their cultists to hang around with normal people. They will split members from friends and split families up any way they can.
ayup.
one of my cousins is a JW…
he has refused to come to any family functions (including funerals) since his conversion decades ago.
To me paganism is all symbolism and suggestion, but I think some of my fellows take it seriously.
My favorite Unitarian minister had a sing in his office reading’ Maybe God meant me to be an atheist.
Gaypaganunitarianagnostic
Re #223
You’ve got to love prophecies that predict things that are indestinguishable from the normal course of history / human nature.
(And when I say “love”, I mean “mock contemptuously”).
Wait, wait, I’m getting a revelation!
One day somthing will happen!
No-one will know exactly what will happen, or when, and numerous false prophets will come up with false dates!
And because of that, lots of people will dismiss my prophecies as nonsense!
But it will happen!
And it will be heralded by war and corruption, and things going missing, and the sun rising in a generally easterly direction!
And best of all, if any of you mock my ideas (or come up with an alternative date for it), you will just be proving me right, because I just predicted people would do that!
Andreas Johansson:
Yes. Sorry if it sounded like I was disagreeing with you; I was playing off what you said and running with it. (Without really knowing whether you’d follow me that far, but not guessing you wouldn’t, either.)
Sastra, Joe Bleau, et al. (@various):
Thanks for the interesting comments (and thanks, Sastra, for finding those Greta Christina posts). I have some further thoughts, but I’m on my way out for my typical Saturday morning round of errands, so it’ll be later today before I get to it… if anyone’s still listening by then! ;^)
A couple more Greta Christina posts in a similar vein to the ones linked above…
Trekkie Religion and Secular Judaism:
http://gretachristina.typepad.com/greta_christinas_weblog/2009/12/trekkie-religion-and-secular-judaism.html
Why Religion is Like Fanfic:
http://gretachristina.typepad.com/greta_christinas_weblog/2007/10/why-religion-is.html
No. He was insufferable sycophants with long noses to pleasure his anus, apparently.
“Wants,” by Jehovah’s left testicle. “He wants insufferable sycophants.”
Not enough coffee yet this morning.
Not all that fond of the word enlightenment in an otherwise good article
smacks of handed down from on high…..
Understanding is internally generated ..better term IMNSHO
macdoc @251:
So terming the period in human history which formed modern Western secular society The Enlightenment — wherein reason was held up as the best source of knowledge, rather than religion…that doesn’t appeal to you, then?
Jehovahbot said:
If any selection is occurring, it is for the thickest skulled idiots who can rationalize away any stupidity religion harbors.
Interesting how some brands of Christianity always feel that a purge of their ranks is necessary. Baptists come to mind, along with Jehovah’s Witlesses.
They all got into Christianity when it was ‘underground’ and now that all the posers are dropping like flies, their precious religion can go back to ‘cult’ status. Funny how all group-think is the same.
(italics from comment 150 not restored below out of laziness)
Unbelievable? :-)
Here on Pharyngula we’ve had deconversion stories from people who had, as children, always assumed religion was just make-believe play-acting and were very surprised indeed when it turned out some people actually believe it.
Perhaps that last step still hasn’t happened to the person in question.
ROTFL! I had no idea! :-D :-D :-D
The atheist and those in that class observe that “organized Christianity” is even worse than the acknowledged heathen [pagan] religions, because in Christendom there is a greater degree of intelligence. – KLT
Wrong! Christianity is undoubtedly the stupidest of all religions (and it has some strong competition) – and Jehovah’s Nuisances are the stupidest of all self-proclaimed Christians.
I wouldn’t say that. Surely Scientology beats every other contender for that particular title? :-)
Hmm, you have a point there Walton. OK, the second stupidest religion! How are you, BTW?
Improving rapidly. I’ve left Oxford for a few days and am at home getting some rest. The penicillin seems to have worked quickly.
Christianity is definitely up there, but I’m gonna have to go with Heaven’s Gate. Honestly, how many other religions actually make use of Star Trek nomenclature?
As for dumbest Christian sect, I’d go with Mormons. They got the magic underwear and think that the Garden of Eden was in Missouri.
Perhaps the next Sunday sacrilege should be a post asking commenters here on their thoughts on who deserve the title of dumbest religion.
@97 > Actually, I think what Dowd means by “transtheist” is deist – he won’t admit that, but look at his words – “Reality is my God …”.
That sounds more like Pantheism than Deism. Pantheism usually involves no supernatural belief (unlike both Deism and Panentheism).
Jadehawk “KLT, please stop shitting all over threads at random. you never stay to discuss your droppings, and it’s getting really bloody annoying. drive-by preaching is an ugly habit.”
lol. I know I felt bad that I didn’t come back to our previous discussion …not that you were dying to talk to me or anything =) but I actually did mean to get back here sooner. It’s hard for me to keep up with all your conversations sometimes because there are so many posts and comments which I want to respond to but I have narcolepsy and I end up getting sleepy before I can finish…yes, now you have another thing to make fun of me for. =)
“says the coward who needs the drug of religion to be able to survive reality.”
-it aint the drug of religion I need, it’s the sleep meds which my dumb health insurance hasn’t been covering lately, so I can stay awake and finish a conversation for once.
I actually wanted to address Raven’s 3 points about the Bible, but now I’ve gotta clarify the JW misinfo. ex-JW’s aren’t the ones to get info from…(at least not the ones on the internet who seem to have an ax to grind), because they say all kinds of weird things that I’ve never even heard of about my religion. One site even said we weren’t allowed to play chess or buy girl scout cookies. what the??? =) And in case you guys hadn’t noticed, members of other religions don’t like us either, and have also made up all kinds of stuff that’s not true. Including pretending to be ex-JW’s or “experts” on our religion, and even going so far as to tell their entire congregation not to talk to us when we come to the door because we are “false prophets” of Satan. lol.
Which is mostly because they don’t like being asked Bible questions by their parishoners, (which they have a hard time answering) after having a discussion with one of us. It happens all the time.
Pope Maledict DCLXVI-Who said the 144,000 were only virgin men? That’s a crock.
They are men and women, and they aren’t virgins in a *literal sense* since many of them were married, (including some of the apostles – contrary to popular opinion)
You’d be surprised how many additions & alterations crept into Christianity that were never a part of the original teachings…including mandatory celibacy vows. Which I’m sure causes a ‘crisis of faith’ to many priests when they crack open a Bible and read what it really says in contrast with what they were taught.
That’s what I meant by having your faith rooted in an “accurate knowledge” of the Scriptures. I couldn’t believe that the Bible wasn’t even on the required reading list of many Catholic seminaries and universities that teach theology! They put more emphasis on the teachings and ideologies of theologians that were influenced by Greek philosophy and Jewish traditions, rather than on the original Scriptures themselves. That’s the whole problem. Of course your faith will falter if you don’t believe the Bible is the inspired Word of God, and you realize that the religious doctrines you’ve been teaching all these years aren’t based on Scripture at all, but based on the doctrines and traditions of the Church which altered what the Bible actually says.
So the anointed are *virgins* in the sense of not being defiled or contaminated by all that false religious doctrine and political involvement with the governments of the nations that stand in opposition to God and his laws.
Throughout the Bible, you’ll notice that false religion and idolatry is symbolically referred to as prostitution or adultery, in order to illustrate (in human terms) how God feels about people who are dedicated to him, but who then choose to ‘defile’ themselves by worshipping other gods or engaging in false religious practices or celebrations. Or if a person is ignoring God’s laws for the sake of political alliances (which Christendom has continually done over the centuries, along with most other religions) then they aren’t being loyal or true to God and his laws. To make the pretense of being a Christian and then be involved with conflicting political or religious practices that go against God’s laws would be tantamount to cheating or being unfaithful.
So the 144,000 anointed class in Revelation are referred to as *virgins* in the sense of being spiritually clean and undefiled by idolatry, false religion, or nationalism since they’ve remained pure and faithful to the teachings of Christ.
You obviously feel no guilt whatsoever about telling people that God hates their guts and wants to destroy them.
What’s the use? You just repeat your mindless dogma and ignore everything you don’t like anyway.
How about not posting anything and getting the sleep you need? Since all you do is zombiebarf anyway.
=======
If you didn’t need it, it wouldn’t have such a profound grip on your brain, preventing you from thinking for one single tiny little second how completely moronic the whole business is.
You mean, it’s completely impossible that there are JWs crazier than you and everyone you know?
Kind of how you don’t like being asked Bible questions.
=======
The bible, of course. Revelation 14:4.
14:4 […] ούτοί εισιν οι μετά γυναικών ουκ εμολύνθησαν; παρθένοι γαρ εισιν
14:4 […] These are the ones with women not tainted; virgins for they are
There are no women, since women are a taint that is not with them, and they are virgins who are not tainted with having been with women.
I’m sure that the monks of Athos believe that the 14400 will be from their monastery.
I agree that the bible is a crock of shit, but I’m an atheist. What’s your lame excuse?
Because you, of course, get to decide what is literal in the bible, and what isn’t. How very special.
And where did you read that ridiculous notion?
And where did you get the idea that Catholics don’t believe that?
You mean like the “doctrines and traditions” of the Jehovah’s Witnesses which decree which parts of the bible are literal and which are not, sometimes altering them to mean the opposite?
Fancy that.
Case in point, Ms. Follower-of-doctrines-and-traditions-that-alter-what-the-Bible-actually-says.
The text of Rev 14:4 does not say “false religion” or “idolatry” or “prostitution”. It says women.
Kind of like how Jehovah’s Witnesses ignore those of God’s laws they simply don’t want to follow.
Catholics — and every other one of the various Christian sects — insist that they are being loyal to God, and everyone else is the one that’s “cheating” and “being unfaithful”.
That does include you, of course.
Or in other words, not actually virgins at all. Because the Church of JW says so, even though that’s not what the bible says.
Does your hypocrisy really never bother you? I suppose not. You wouldn’t be such a blatant flaming hypocrite if it ever did.
144,000 thousand of them? You’d be lucky two find 3 – and really are those the kind of people you want to spend an eternity with? Don’t get me wrong, I’m down with the whole hypocrisy thing where the pretence of moral superiority is only matched by the total and utter failing to live up to an impossible standard. It’s an impossible standard after all, you’re fighting millions of years of evolution. But still, this is an eternity we are talking about.
KLT @ 261,
but I have narcolepsy and I end up getting sleepy before I can finish
Then you do not have narcolepsy, maybe you’re bored or tired.Those folks don’t get sleepy, they fall asleep.Big problem when you drive a car.
KLT
Do you willfully choose to be a narcoleptic?
I don’t think so. Therefore, whyever would any reasonable person make fun of you for it?
NB: Number of humans who have ever lived.
So, around 0.0001% of those who have so far lived are “anointed class”; the 99.9999% remaining are just chaff. No wonder you mob hope these are “the last days”! ;)
either she’s just describing it very clumsily, or she’s simply using a fancy-sounding label for what is simply a symptom of clinical depression: switching back and forth between sleeping all the time and not sleeping at all, and being damned exhausted all the time.
Actually, the JWs have apparently reconciled themselves to the hard numerical limit by
pretendingmaking upinterpreting that what the bible really means is that the 144,000 are just those who get into heaven, and all the rank-and-file JWs will be granted pie on Earth instead of in the sky (eternal life on a remade world). And everyone who died in the right time periods will be resurrected and granted the chance to do it right.But you and me and everyone else who doesn’t become a JW before the world ends? We’re chaff, all right. Dead as doornails. Burnt toast.
/SJWOTI
Owlmirror, thanks, that’s informative.
I’d forgotten that particular eschatology.
KLT, I feel so sad for you, trapped as you are in that grim fantasy. Why can’t you just be good, for goodness’ sake?
It’s really important to consider the theological implications of the JW doctrine. Can eternity with 144,000 JWs really be considered heaven? It seems as paradoxical as the problem of evil.
See what I mean? I haven’t even had a chance to respond to Raven’s comment or any one elses yet, and OwlMirror is asking me even more questions! =)
OwlMirror, do you think you could be a little more patient and give me a chance to explain one topic before jumping to the next? I promise you I’m not dodging your questions, but you’re not giving me a chance to answer the first few, before you ask 5 more.
Wait, first I want to clarify something about the 144,000, since I’m not sure if we’re talking about the same thing here.
Can you at least give me an idea of what YOUR personal interpretation is of what I’m about to say in regards to the Bible? (I’m not asking if you BELIEVE it, I just want to know your interpretation so I get an idea of where you’re coming from) Ok?
1. The *theme* of the Bible revolves around the establishment of God’s Messianic Kingdom and the blessings it will bring to mankind.
Agree or Disagree?
2. The 144,000 (whether that number was meant to be taken literally or whether it is symbolic) represents the “little flock” (Luke 12:32) of Jesus’ anointed followers who would make up that heavenly kingdom government, with the specific job of acting as co-rulers or “kings and priests” over the earth (Revelation 5:10) during Jesus’ 1000-year/millennial reign.
Agree or Disagree?
3. Their perfect rulership would establish peace, justice and righteousness on the earth made up of a “Great Crowd” (Revelation 7:9) of obedient mankind and resurrected humans, who are willing to submit to God’s rulership, after centuries of wars, violence, racism, injustice, and oppression…which has been experienced on account of imperfect man-made rulership, “[during] the time that man has dominated man to his injury.” (Ecclesiastes 8:9)
Agree or Disagree?
4. The purpose of Armageddon is to finally eradicate from the earth those of rebellious mankind who consistently and unrepentantly refuse to change their ways, or submit to God’s rulership…(demonstrated by their action and conduct, which causes suffering and harm to their fellowman)
Agree or Disagree?
JadeHawk – Yes I do have *clinical* narcolepsy (it was misdiagnosed as depression for many years since it’s an *atypical* form which resembles the hypersomnia symptoms of depression and Kleine-Levin Syndrome rather than repeatedly falling asleep on a dime throughout the day, as is the case with *typical* Narcolepsy. Without meds I can sleep like 16-20 hrs straight, get up and still be tired and have to go back to bed. (which is the whole reason I mentioned it in the first place so you’d understand) and also so Owlmirror would slow down a bit, instead of assuming I’m just a Bible-question dodging villain for not being able to keep up with his superfast, energizer bunny neurological capacity =)
KLT, “The purpose of Armageddon”?
Armageddon is a place, not an event.
Why don’t you write “battle of Armageddon” since that is clearly to what you refer?
PS Here’s your opportunity to show your gnostic erudition, by providing the co-ordinates of Armageddon.
Is it anywhere near Megiddo (32°35′N, 35°11′E)?
We could check it out on Google Earth.
[meta]
KLT,
Sympathy for that, you get.
But it’s not necessarily an excuse for your apparent avoidance.
You do have meds, right?
Do they not ameliorate your condition to a degree that you can function effectively?
Yawn, KLT still hasn’t shown any evidence for her deity, so all talk about the babble is the same as describing the latest Daniel Brown novel. Meaningless to the real world.
JadeHawk – one more thing. I read some of your blog about “toxic masculinity” and between that, and some of the other comments you’ve made about Biblical/patriarchal oppression of women, I wanted to get your opinion on why you think Christian principles are harmful to women. (after you read this first, though) =)
I’m sure the terms “male-headship” and “submission” (in the congregation and marriage) sounds like nails on a chalkboard to you, but I wanted to elaborate, since people tend to misapply or misunderstand exactly what those terms really mean.
A person doesn’t automatically know the right way to show respect, love, and appreciation for their partner in a relationship if they’ve never been properly taught how. And that’s especially true if they’ve come from an environment where male-dominance, chauvinism, and abuse or belittling of women was prevalent.
The reason I mention that, is whenever men (who I’ve personally known throughout my life) have begun taking the Bible’s counsel seriously about how they are supposed to treat women, it always brings out *the best* in their personality…no matter who they are.
Whereas, the men who’ve previously been elders or who’ve taken the lead spiritually, but then later left the congregation, have exhibited a marked deterioration in how they treat their wives and other women in general. They become MORE aggressive, selfish, demeaning, and unresponsive when they stop applying Bible principles.
So I understand the reason why it may seem oppressive or chauvinistic on the surface, but who is a more perfect ‘rolemodel’ for men to follow when it comes to how they should treat women, than Jesus Christ? He was compassionate, loving and tender, but also courageous and strong when it came to protecting those he cared about. What advice is better or more loving than this command he gave to men:
“In this way husbands ought to be loving their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself, for no man ever hated his own flesh; but he feeds and cherishes it, as the Christ also does the congregation,…“For this reason a man will leave [his] father and [his] mother and he will stick to his wife, and the two will become one flesh.” …Nevertheless, also, let each one of YOU individually so love his wife as he does himself; on the other hand, the wife should have deep respect for her husband.” (Ephesians 5:28-30, 33)
“YOU husbands, keep on loving [your] wives and do not be bitterly angry with them.” (Colossians 3:19)
A man who is taught to “cherish” and “love his wife as his own body” and “not be bitterly angry with her” won’t cheat on her, won’t abuse her verbally or physically, won’t sexually demean her, but will take his responsibility from God to care for her needs (like he does for his own needs) and will learn to become kind and compassionate (as Jesus was towards women).
He will also learn to “take the lead” when it comes to his responsibility to provide physically and emotionally for her and for his family, as this verse counsels:
“Certainly if anyone does not provide for those who are his own, and especially for those who are members of his household, he has disowned the faith and is worse than a person without faith. (1 Timothy 5:8)
…rather than just staying at home playing video games, or surfing the internet looking at porn sites, or going out to bars with his buddies drinking all the time,…like so many women have complained to me about their husbands and boyfriends =)
Dont you agree that’s good advice for men to follow? So I guess I’m confused as to why you think Christian principles would be oppressive or harmful to women.
In fact, based on this article: Machismo–A Global Problem it would seem more dangerous not to educate men about God’s standards.
KLT (to JadeHawk):
I see you’re not au fait with popular culture, or its “Beavis and Butt-head” subset.
Specific comment regarding your rationalisations I leave to the Mad Women of Pharyngula.
John Morales / Nerd of Redhead
John … You know full well that “all the kings of the earth and their armies” (Revelation 19:19) could never fit on the *literal* site of Mt Megiddo! =)
However, it is used symbolically to illustrate God’s complete and final victory over the opposing forces, since Megiddo was the strategic location where many of the most decisive *theocratic* battles in Biblical history were fought and won…as noted in the following article:
Armageddon–God’s War To End All Wars
Nerd of Redhead
If I sent you back in time a few hundred years ago, with a laptop containing all the history of the world (including the info on this very blog) and you tried to explain to the people at that point in history what was going to occur in the future, telling them years worth of historical facts and events based on all news coverage, and encyclopedia info, etc….
What if, after you explained the timeline and the details of all the future events that were to come, (which were contained on your laptop), they said to you: “Nerd of Redhead, you still have no physical proof.”
So you say “This laptop and everything on it is my proof” and they respond, “anyone could have written that,…it sounds like a bunch of nonsensical stories and myths that you made up … come on, horseless chariots??? fire dragons that propel humans into outerspace and land on the moon??? Long tubes with wings that let people fly through the air??? And magical boxes that where people can speak to one another on opposite sides of the earth??? You must be crazy Nerd of Redhead, those things could never happen!”
And then you showed them PZ’s years worth of blogging with all the numerous contributors that have commented during that time. And they say: “give it a rest, Nerd of Redhead, we know you could’ve just typed the comments of all those people in by yourself,…just like an author who writes characters in a novel or a play” so you reply “Are you people completely daft?!? These are obviously very different personalities with different styles of writing, and years worth of accumulated events unfolding in their lives” and they replied: “Yawn, we don’t believe you”
How would you prove it?
KLT, symbolically or not, the conclusiion of your linked propaganda is clear:
Um.
Think about this.
God wars with forces of disobedient mankind?
You mob think you’re a 5th column? ;)
I mean it. Think about it.
<giggle>
KLT:
KLT, Nerd is a 30+ years professional chemist and educator.
A few hundred years ago, with what he knows (nevermind the laptop, miraculous at it would’ve been! Nevermind other facets of scientific knowledge he indubitably collaterally knows!), he’d be making wonders a-plenty with his knowledge of chemistry alone. He could invent marvellous solvents, medicines, drugs, dyes — you name it. It would all work, it would all be real.
I venture to say he’d be pretty damn convincing, due to the incontrovertible evidence that he could do wondrous things.
Incontrovertible evidence tends to be convincing. Where’s yours?
—
PS I can tell you’re no aficionado of SF. If Nerd were to enter the timeline and interact, that very fact would change that timeline there and then.
(I’d elaborate on the paradoxes entailed by your hypothetical, but I reckon it’d be a waste of both my time and yours.)
Suffice it to say I consider that a pretty poor hypothetical.
Shorter, pithier, more Biblical-style version:
With signs and wonders to behold; he would truly be a miracle-man.
What am I supposed to think when you skip over everything I write, and imply that you’re done?
Mostly disagree.
The books of the Penteatuch through 2 Kings have no concept of a messianic kingdom other than the Kingdom of Judah being the rightful ruler of all of the tribes of Israel because their kings were anointed — the root meaning of messiah — by prophets of YHWH and supported the cult of YHWH (except for the ones that didn’t).
The first glimmerings of the eschatology — the dead being brought back to life, and the world being ended — that eventually became the Messianic movement is hinted at in Isaiah and Job, and is depicted more fully in Daniel.
The messianic movement eventually became Christianity, which as originally depicted did not involve anyone who was not Jewish (and so was not for “mankind”).
Paul took Christianity and rebooted it, and claimed that the messianic kingdom of the remade world would be for everyone who believed that Jesus had been the messiah.
The entire book of Revelation is a mushroom dream. The number may have been important in the numerological paranoia of the writer (12,000 x 12 tribes, woo), but has no other significance.
Why does heaven need a government? Why does Jesus need a bureaucracy?
Once again, you make it sound like Hell on Earth.
I obviously disagree that the ravings of the drugged paranoiac who wrote Revelation have anything to do with anything besides the seething insanity going on inside of his head. Even granting that the work was influenced by his understanding of the bible and religion at his time, and by contemporary politics, it has no greater significance.
Are you asking whether I think this will happen, or whether the author of Revelation intended this in his writing?
Obviously, I cannot agree with the former, and I don’t think the latter is entirely correct.
Why are you asking me these questions? All you have to do is ask whether I think that Revelation is in any way true, and whether I think that the JW interpretation of Revelation is correct.
The answer is no. Why should I?
I have no idea what you mean by this. Are you saying that the author of Revelation was a Universalist, or that JWs are Universalist, or what?
Why does God need a bloodbath of plagues and falling stars and wars and crap to get rid of those he doesn’t like, anyway? Is he too incompetent to just kill them on the spot?
I’m not that fast. I’m just thorough.
Look, if you need time, just say that you’re going to answer partially now, and answer the rest as time permits.
Is that so hard?
If God wants us in heaven, why doesn’t he just put us there straight away without all this toss-potting about on Earth?
God doesn’t want most of humanity in heaven. He only wants 12,000 virgin males from the 12 tribes of Israel.
According to Revelation, anyway.
JWs are more lenient in interpreting Revelation than the author of Revelation, but God is still horrendously picky.
You are talking about the guy who kicked Adam and Eve out of the Garden for listening to a talking snake that he put in the garden and eating a fruit that he put in the Garden.
Or in other words: He’s not a clear thinker, and not a nice guy.
KLT, I don’t know where you get your information from, but religions as a whole, biblical or otherwise, are all patriarchal societies. the JW, too. The bible is a book written by men for men, and is used as such. And I have this entire website as evidence that biblical patriarchy only serves as as a tool for assholes, and can even turn relatively normal men into oppressive abusive assholes. If you read the site, you’ll see that most of the time the men made a nice image on the outside, for the congregation, but abused their wifes. So actually, you’re being tricked into thinking all these men are great because they’re following biblical rules. in fact, any number of them might be abusing their families, and their families have no recourse and no one to talk to about the abuse, because they’re made to believe that it would be their fault if their families were broken apart over the abuse.
Plus, I have all the men of Pharyngula as evidence that godlessness makes good, caring, and non-misogynist men. My anecdata beats your anecdata (that means that arguing from anecdotes is meaningless, in case you don’t get the joke).
well, you’ve got that part right. it just so happens that feminism and liberalism teaches more about love and respect than biblical anything, because the bible was written by men who considered women the property of their fathers/husbands. just because jesus said to be nice to your property (he did the same with slaves btw), doesn’t mean he didn’t think of them that way either.
I don’t see the connection between providing and caring for your family and not being allowed to have some fun. What’s wrong with any of the things you’ve mentioned? they are not the things I was writing about on my blogs, because they don’t actually harm anyone. hierarchical relationships, one-size-fits all relationships with predetermined roles, and a book full of contradictory and misogynist stories harms relationships; videogames, porn, and the occasional guys night out do not. But i can see a relationship where a guy is banned from those things, or his wife/girlfriend complains about them isn’t going to work well for anyone involved.
The only exception of course is if the guy does these things INSTEAD of pulling his weight… and then why would a woman in her right mind stay with him? oh that’s right… because your religion teaches women that there’s something wrong with them if they don’t have and keep a man. how convenient for the lazy fuckers.
because despite the propaganda your church has been feeding you, that IS the empirically well documented effect that religions, including all flavors of christianity, have on the lives of women. women’s lives have gotten a million times better since the advent of feminism, which is being fought by all religions. religions don’t want women to be free and full members of society.
“Male-dominance, chauvinism, and abuse”, you say? Like the vastly different standards in the OT for women and men in terms of sexual behavior and ritual purity? Read Deuteronomy 22:13-29, and consider how utterly foul and unjust it is in the way women are ordered to be treated.
And “belittling of women”, you say? You mean, like calling them “a taint” or “defiling”, like in Revelation 14:4?
Or like this guy:
1 Timothy 2:11-14: A woman should learn in quietness and full submission. I do not permit a woman to teach or to have authority over a man; she must be silent. For Adam was formed first, then Eve. And Adam was not the one deceived; it was the woman who was deceived and became a sinner.
Do you really not see how utterly nasty that is?
=====
Hmpf.
What excuse do JWs give for God not providing for Christian believers? Are they not “his own”?
oh, and I completely missed the time-traveling crap yesterday. Are you kidding me? This would be a piece of cake, because I could name precise dates and names, instead of vague metaphors and generic “predictions” that happen to already be true. For example, if I were catapulted back to Ancient Rome, I could say that 62 days after the death of Emperor Vespasian, Mt. Vesuvius would erupt and completely destroy Stabiae, Herculaneum, and Pompeii.
Details and names; piece of cake.