This is Thunderdome, the unmoderated open thread on Pharyngula. Say what you want, how you want.
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Pharyngula
Evolution, development, and random biological ejaculations from a godless liberal
This is Thunderdome, the unmoderated open thread on Pharyngula. Say what you want, how you want.
Status: UNMODERATED; Previous thread
Hail Tpyos and Her Sacred Wherewolf:
werewhere{pours libations}
Fucking portcullis! Now my long and elaborate screed at #500 will never get read.
{sobs}
Why not? I did, enjoyed it too.
Folks, thanks for the links. There does appear to be more of Hell in the Bible than I thought.
But I can still say that it is a confused and incoherent account. The various references don’t mesh together, and aren’t distinct from other mythologies. It doesn’t seem like a real place being reported on.
I can also say that the Biblical Hell cannot be precisely matched with the popular idea of Hell, because neither one is really defined. So if I was feeling stubborn, I could still say it Hell isn’t in the Bible. But I’ll give it to Txpiper—there is a lot of damnation and fire and torment in the Bible, more than I’d realized. Yay, Tx! You happy now?
I’m going to say that Hell being in the Bible doesn’t really matter to me a whit. It’s still a gruesome idea, and people do not have to believe in it. I’ve been thinking that accepting Hell in order to get into Heaven is kind of like being a hit man—you are killing folks for pay—while my earlier position that people were building up Hell from a few scattered references made them more like serial killers—killing folks for the fun of it. Either way. folks are dying.
Except, of course that with Hell, people are burning alive forever. And the whole thing is a matter of belief, either way. Myself, I’d not go to Heaven if it meant anyone else going to Hell. But I’m just an atheist.
By the way, I don’t want to read any more about Hell—-that is one sick and twisted concept. I’ll just go back to reading E. M. Goatthwacker’s _Techniques of Forcible Sodomy_, it’ll make me feel clean by comparison. (No, not a real book.)
Theophontes and others, there seems to be some good sense in your speculations about the value of vagueness in the myth business. I wonder if the work of patching it all together makes it more valuable to the chumps.
I know that the Nigerian scammers are said to put out such crappy come-ons to filter out the non-idiots.
And, in a friend’s Diagnostic Statistical Manual, there was a caveat after one description/diagnosis of psychosis or some such, that if enough people had the same symptoms, it was considered a religion.
Theophontes, I read your #500, and appreciated it.
I was typing a long screed while looking at comment #500, but not noticing it was #500. My comment wound up on the next page, but my screen refreshed to the page with #500 on it. I panicked, and nearly hit Submit again. I didn’t know it would do that. Oy.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xITLBRkOd2k My music video for tonight: P-51 Mustangs in the air, accompanied with guitar by Buckethead
Cute tortoises
{enter theophontes, wearing “I survived the portcullis” tee-shirt.}
Thanks Lofty and Menyambal.
I sometimes wonder if we don’t approach this whole assault on god in the wrong way. As much as we take science very seriously, most people have no need for it in a practical sense. At least in the very first instance. Technology yes, but a hard-nosed scientific approach?
What IS important, to all of us, is the social realm. We can ignore science (as willful idiots such as txpiper, joey, annejones et al so clearly prove) far more easily than we can ignore our need to insinuate ourselves into the social domain. In the social domain there is always intent. There are always causes underlying our life trajectories. If we could but transpose this to the (unsociable) reality of the universe we live in. Why, we would only need to assume a magical super-ape that is the cause of all things. Fear, doubt and uncertainty would disappear.
Or:
The social and scientific. These things are fundamentally different. In issues concerning STEM, we can make accurate projections about the future. We can understand cause and effect (often) with incredible precision. This answers a very powerful human need. But more than this. Through science we have the mechanisms in place to handle doubt. We have the tools to deal with any shit that happens. We can adapt. Fear, uncertainty and doubt evaporate.
…
In the absence of a scientific worldview, we are left to our own devices. The desire is there to see causality, yet there is no means to attend to the uncertainties of life. Further, as an integral part of how our minds are wired, we have all evolved as the weavers of narratives. As spiders spin webs, we weave these narratives. We make “sense” of the world about us. We live out our lives in narrative space that only maps to reality indirectly and imperfectly. Even our “scientific” worldview suffers this problem. Our very real, critical, advantage – in science – is that we adapt to ever changing realities. We can compensate for our very human fallibility.
On the other hand, there is no reason one couldn’t, in principle at least, live out one’s entire life in a narrative quite at odds with reality. We see enough evidence in people like txpiper, who can survive in modern society in spite of (and certainly not because of) his godfapping.
Why then, if one can happily go through life in a GAWD-induced haze, should we care? I’ll leave it there as I seek out a couple of cans of beer … thereby suppressing my consciousness and seeing the world as the religious do.
Sláinte!
txpiper accidentally giving us “txpiper in a nutshell”.
I believe the best answer is “politics”.
(I’m sure you already knew that, but I love pretending to contribute.)
He doesn’t have an answer, nor an evidenced opinion. Which means he has nothing to contribute, but delusionally thinks he does. Obviously never learned the concept of shutting the fuck up and listening….
“with Hell, people are burning alive forever”
Excepting one specific category, this is probably not correct.
Do I smell some Sophisticated Theology a-brewin’?
Like anything based on an imaginary deity and mythical/fictional holy book is sophistimacated….Nothing but lies and bullshit from start to finish….
The thing where people admit that the images of Hell are based on Dante and then immediately pivot to “Hell is fire” give me a lot of stress, because Dante has Hell being 70% non-firey. The “worst” part of Hell (i.e. for the worst sinners), in fact, is a fucking frozen lake.
Cafeteria Christianity: Not just for Bibles anymore! (Or, ever, really)
Hell is people on fire—I learned that in Sunday School, church, VBS, revivals and tracts. If Hell really isn’t all about folks in flames, you’ve got some serious communicating you need to do with your fellow-religionists, not with the atheists.
Tx, every argument you make that Hell isn’t what Christians think it is, is confirmation of my earlier statement that Hell isn’t in the Bible. Remember? You gave me shit for saying exactly that, now here you are arguing MY point as evidence for whatever-the-fuck-it-is that you think that you think today.
If Hell is in the Bible, people chose to believe it, perhaps because the fell they have to—that’s bad. If Hell isn’t in the Bible, people chose to believe it just because they want to—that’s very bad. People believe that something is in the Bible when it really isn’t in the Bible—that’s nothing new at all. And it’s a blistering condemnation of the entire religion.
txpiper:
Except it wasn’t “three days and three nights”, it was one night, a day and some part of another night. Remember? Friday evening entombed, Sunday morning long gone—Jesus skipped a Saturday for your sins.
That “heart of the earth” is poetic, but what does it mean? Does it mean in Hell, the center of the Earth, maybe? If so, which kind of Hell, hot cold, boring? Or was Jesus just not alive? (I don’t care if he spent all that in the fiery Hell, as some folks believe, that doesn’t pay for even a fraction of any one person’s eternity, let alone everyone’s.)
I’m going to say that as a heart has chambers, and a tomb is a chamber, it probably just translates properly as “in a tomb in the earth”, which is just “in a grave”. He was dead, then he got better—that’s the entire trick.
Coming back from a completely flat-lined dead, reconstructing just from force of will while the will isn’t even there, is a lot better trick than sneaking back from an immaterial after-party where all the souls are awake, aware and looking for the exits.
So “hell, along with death, are consumed in the lake of fire”. Death dies? Hell gets burnt up? See, this is the crazy shit that the religious have to try to make sense out of. No wonder their brains are twitching all the time—they are in a lake of fire.
I can make a poetical interpretation of it, but I’m disgusted again. The afterlife of your immortal soul is on the line, and this is the kind of help you get from the instruction manual?!?!?
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-23410858 Female genital mutilation: 30 million girls ‘at risk’
“Obviously never learned the concept of shutting..up and listening….”
Yeah Nerd, but it’s what and who you listen to that is important. I’ll give you a good example of the kind of things that prevent me from becoming a science guy like you.
Your teeth are a remarkable collection of complex devices. And they are functionally arranged in mirroring pairs from incisors, to canines, to premolars, to molars, with complimentary matching counterparts in the opposing jaw, sitting in a bed of nerves in your jawbones which signal your brain that something foreign only a fraction of a millimeter thick is stuck on the surface of any given tooth.
Now you believe that random mutations resulted in the precise and specialized shapes, and that natural selection removed countless failures, but persevered until all the aberrant contending designs were eliminated, and the molars quit showing up in the front…or some such frimp, till a tidy arrangement and sequence was conserved in human DNA, or perhaps that of a distant ancestor, with accidental refinements and improvements occurring between their teeth and yours. And you also accept, without any hesitation, that the neuro-detection apparatus between your teeth and your brain, which is the real show, is an accidental system produced by DNA replication errors.
So my question to you, which you will not answer, is about who you listened to until you started believing in stuff like this? Was it a landmark, peer-reviewed paper? Whoever it was had to be a heavy-hitter with airtight explanations, because you are a cool, objective science guy who accepts nothing but conclusive physical evidence.
The more complex a thing is, the more complex and unlikely your designer has to be to design it, and the sappier and more useless your creationism becomes.
E pur si evolves, texpip.
txpiper
I don’t believe you.
It would be interesting to ask the texpip’s designer why it thought impacted wisdom teeth were a good idea.
WHY OH MIGHTY MAKER, WHY?????
Or why chickens possess the genes necessary to grow teeth, which can be turned on by mutations.
WHY OH MIGHTY MAKER, WHY?????
The SO never grew wisdom teeth.
He is
2122
____
2122
cm’s changeable moniker @496:
Thanks. Your response forced me to reevaluate my thoughts on the drone strikes. I realized my thinking lacked sufficient nuance. There is more to the drone strikes than ‘innocent civilians’ and ‘militants’.
(I will say that the numbers I used were specifically about drone strikes in Pakistan, not the total number of people killed in FATA insurrections. I should have been clearer that my response was to StevoR and his ilk that support US-led drone strikes).
[My reworked thoughts…]
Is the threat level of the drone targets in Pakistan sufficient to justify the loss of civilian life and the state of fear many Pakistanis live in?
No.
As noted in the link you cite, the percentage of militants killed has increased to 89% under Obama. However, these numbers are quite possibly inflated as this report does not distinguish between high level and low level ‘militants’. Nor does it touch on the legality of those drone strikes.
(The source for the link above is from http://www.livingunderdrones.org/report/ . For some reaason, my phone is acting up and preventing me from copy/pasting anything from the link ((aside from the quote I have below, which is annoying the crap out of me)) ).
Exact numbers of civilians deaths are difficult to ascertain (the problems with the use and defining characteristics of ‘militant’ as seen above, as well as lack of transparency from US government, unreliability of reports ((such as those produced by the US stating few or single digit civilian casualties)), conflicting media reports, the US’s questionable use of the ill-defined ‘combatants’ and possibly more), but the extensive study at the link below finds that:
The 182 page report was crafted by the International Human Rights and Conflict Resolution Clinic of Stanford Law School and the Global Justice Clinic at New York University School of Law and is a strong indictment against the US led drone policy and its supporters.
****
And of course there is the news today:
My emphasis.
The God of Irony is in stitches (the Stanford/NYU report details the difficulty facing any attempts to obtain accurate information whether from “credible” US sources, media outlets, or even the Pakistani government).
Evolutionary theory explains the origins of teeth and their shapes so well that mammal paleontologists can reconstruct entire phylogenies based only on the shapes of teeth.
The texpip’s sad, useless creationism concluded that tyrannosaurs used their teeth for crunching coconuts.
txpiper:
You presume Nerd will not answer and assume he was born into an appreciation for science. Your presumption is without merit unless you know Nerd quite well. Do I have to even mention how unlikely THAT is?
You assume your god is responsible for human teeth.
A Godidiot Laden with Presumptuous Assumptions*.
Never seen one of those before.
__
*I really wanted to have a witty acronym for this, like P.L.A.G.U.E., but could not come up with the appropriate ‘U’ and ‘E’…
Amphiox:
Come on be fair.
Txpipers mythology states that early humans domesticated T-rex’s and trained them to open coconuts.
And yet, “coconut”, like “hell”, is a word that is not found anywhere in the bible.
It is notable to see the texpip once again justifying “skepticism” of the scientific worldview by raising an example of something “complex” which he thinks science does not fully explain. And yet the example he gives is one where science provides at least a partial explanation (if not a very complete one which the texpip has simply been too intellectually dishonest to bother looking up), while his own creationist worldview provides NO EXPLANATION WHATSOEVER.
A partial explanation should trump no explanation, which by the texpip’s own metric should lead him to favor science over his religious fantasies.
If the texpip were actually an intellectually honest dealer.
But of course he is not.
Said arrangement existing only in the mammals, with a long series of already known transitional forms demonstrating how it arose from the mammals’ synapsid ancestors.
Why this arrangement is unique to the mammals, even though many other lineages could have benefited from it, but do not have it, is yet another example of something evolutionary theory explains very well, and which the texpip’s sad, useless creationism can’t explain at all.
(And “mirroring” part of course is simply a consequence of bilateral symmetry, which again is something which evolutionary theory explains very well, but which the texpip’s sad, useless creationism can do nothing but presuppose.)
txpiper:
No. It’s how you think about what you hear and read that’s important. Txpiper, your authoritarian assumptions are strong in that one.
Actually, they are bits of bone grown in a few layers, with some repetitive simple shapes. Not a lot of complexity, compared to the brain, really, just a bunch of budded-off bits that kinda work.
Txpiper, you’ve got some spinach or something stuck on your front tooth. You’ve also got something stuck in your brain if you think all that information-reporting happens. I can barely tell that something is stuck between two teeth, and then I have to feel around to find where it is. Your complexity is once again ‘way overdone.
No, it’s not a matter of faith. It’s accepting evidence, more like. Or understanding.
Yep. Except they weren’t failures, just not quite as good. And be careful of the purposefulness, there.
That. Don’t do that.
I’d not call it tidy.
Random variations, rather than accidents, but yeah, pretty much.
“Accept” is good, but not in the sense that someone is just shovelling shit and we take it.
Of course there’s hesitation. Call it skepticism, or science. Again, you seem to not get that we aren’t just sucking down some preacher-man’s spewing.
Again, what show system are you raving about? My teeth are very sensitive to pain, these days, and that’s more info that they’ve ever given to my brain. We can tell when we’ve bitten something hard, but that’s about it.
You make it sound like we have Conrad Pooh’s Dancing Teeth. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3IvXNo_5LMk
No, evolved systems are useful systems, produced by variations about other useful systems. And I’d not call the DNA replication an error—the gene-mixing from sexual reproduction is a feature, not a bug. The errors in replication occur at a level that adds useful variation—we’ve adapted to it, you might say.
If your designer doesn’t like errors, he did a damn bad job.
What? I listened to my Sunday School teachers, myself, but you seem to be asking what triggered a conversion event.
It wasn’t a conversion event, because abrupt conversions based on single authority is a religious thing. You really don’t understand how different science is from religion, and how scientific thought differs from religious faith.
No. I accepted a coherent, well-rounded, robust and logical theory. You again are being religious, not scientific—your strawman is your own way of thought.
Txpiper, variation happens—that’s a fact. If that variation keeps up, there’s gonna be evolution. If that variation makes a difference in reproduction, that’s natural selection.
Our teeth, with their kludged-up arrangement and their resemblance to the teeth of every other mammal, and their very poor sensory nerves, are exactly what we expect from evolution.
That’s partly because evolution was figured out by looking at things like teeth and working out the best possible explanation for how they got the way they are. Then looking for predictions based on those explanations and working from there. That system of working is a coherent, well-rounded, robust and logical way to work.
Science works, and it has produced a coherent explanation of teeth, and everything else, called evolution. One fact—evolution—and a coherent theory of how it happens—one theory. Ir’s like it true. (It is true, but scientists always deliberately keep some doubt going.)
Religions, on the myriad other hands, have produced a cacophony of competing crazinesses. There, in all the religions, is the accidents, there is the errors, there is the impossibility, there is the misunderstanding, there is the belief, there is the assurance. There is not the truth.
catholic church up to no good, as usual.
Lofty:
Fuck the fucking fuckers.
Putting the privacy of the priests and the name of the church ahead of the sexual abuse of childen. That is evil.
****
PZ, the commenting rules
need updatingwould benefit from an update* , for the Dungeon is no more.—
* In your copious free time! ;)
All explained by evolution. Your presupposiiton of an imaginary designer is sophistimicated philosophy, built on the quicksand of lies and bullshit. Which is why everything you say is lies and bullshit, not one citation to the peer reviewed scientific literature. Where is your imaginary deity???? Prove it exists, or shut the fuck up about it. Without a deity and an inerrant holy book, nothing but bullshit on bullshit on bullshit. Which is religion.
Isaac Asimov Wellsprings of Life.
Now you answer me txpiper, where is your conclusive physical evidence for your imaginary deity, physical evidence that would pass muster with scientists, magicians, and professional debunkers as being of divine, and not natural, origin. Something equivalent to an eternally burning bush. The same level of evidence is reqiuired for babble to be anything other than a book of mythology/fiction. No such physical evidence exists, ergo, your argument that your deity isn’t imaginary is false. And your “arguments” are nothing but bullshit and misunderstanding of a delusional fool.
Creationists and Intelligent Design proponents love bringing up the things that are “too complex” to have evolved.
Well, dammit, let me turn the tables.
If god (or your “designer”) did in fact design and build us from the ground up, please explain the following. In detail. Justify these things:
(1) The rabbit hindgut.
(2) The mammalian vermiform appendix.
(3) The male prostate.
(4) The human spine.
(5) The human female genitourinary system.
(6) Autosomal dominant genes that cause devastating phenotypes.
(7) The venom of the Ornithorhynchus anatinus.
That’s just a few. Let’s hear your justifications of why any benign and wise creator would make those things.
While we’re at it, can your creator justify persistent idiopathic itching? Or chronic pain disorders?
@ anteprepro
The question was more in the sense of why we keep resisting slurping on the religious kool-aid. Our natural proclivity is to flop down on the (intellectual) sofa that YHWH provides. What motivates us? We could simply let go of the intellect, and do as people like txpiper, Jim Bob “Fucking-for-jeebus” Duggar, Ken Ham, Ray Comfort, etc. Jeebus Soma is so seductive.
Our natural inclination, as naked apes, is to be intellectually lazy, make up shit and grant equal weight to fantasies as to facts. Religion is the most obvious outcome of the way our minds are wired. It is very much “going with the flow”. Why do we put ourselves through the tedious exercise of engaging our intellects?
This brave new world that we, through science, seek to create. It should be to make our lives simpler?
@ Nick Gotts
Al-Sisi’s desperate scramble for legitimacy: Egyptian army chief calls for street protests
African Proverb:
One thing, concerning the issue of how do you explain x?” When proposing an explanatory model, it’s not sufficient to simply explain why we see the evidence we do. The model also has to explain why we don’t see what we don’t.
So, it’s not enough to say that “god did it.” You also how to explain why god didn’t do it in one of the other billions of ways that a supposed omnipotent deity could have done things.
The more possible outcomes a theory allows, the less support that theory receives from any given outcome.
@ txpiper
I am fascinated to know how a goddist, like yourself, explains away animal breeding. You reject the truth of evolution, yet when we look at transformations to animals wrought by mere humans, I cannot say I understand your position.
This is a special case of evolution where the issue of “survival of the fittest” is under the guidance of human agency. The breeding of dogs is particularly interesting, in that breeders determine the evolution of features with intent and that the process has been well recorded. Godlike, they have had a pretty clear idea of the intended outcomes. They have molded the animals as they have seen fit.
Classic examples would be the Staffordshire Terrier or the Bulldog. Teeth, musculature, size of body parts (they have relatively large heads and jaws), fur … even temperament have been very carefully controlled. The breeders essentially forced their animals onto a very extreme evolutionary trajectory. Those dogs that were not extremely aggressive towards other dogs (Staffordshire) or highly impervious to pain (both Staffies and Bulldogs) did not get the chance to breed. Those that displayed aggression towards humans were quite simply killed. The result of these actions was to evolve the breeds that we know today. They are very different from their common ancestor.
My question is simple. Did your imaginary sky-god have to get involved in these evolutionary processes, or do we get to thank the breeders for transforming dogs into such breeds?
I have yet to be convinced that anyone in Pakistan has any means of being a ‘threat to the U.S.’ This is a major reason why I’m categorically opposed to military action there, be it drones or boots on the ground.
Dalillama:
Sadly, unconvinced you shall remain since the US government does not comment on the drone strikes. I would be interested in hearing the justification for our continued attacks in that region. I guess since they are ‘others’, the loss of life simply is not an issue. ::pukes
Given that the US has been caught defining “14+ and male” as “combatant” …
If only the USAF would air-drop thousands of packs of Skittles into the areas they plan to hit. Then there would be no question who was innocent and who was guilty of being suspected of possibly holding terrorist candy.
Tony
Indeed, I will go further and say that I have yet to hear a convincing argument that anyone at all who is not currently a member of the U.S. government or major lobbyist to same poses a plausible threat to the U.S., military or otherwise.
Myeck:
Wouldn’t they also have to drop some firearms to ensure vigilantes perform their duties? Pshaw! Like the US would ever deliver arms…
Ok, correction. Some state governments can screw the country pretty bad too, especially when they cooperate.
“The more complex a thing is, the more complex and unlikely your designer has to be to design it”
Fair enough, but if He can steer human history to a conclusion forecast many centuries ago, I don’t think that is much of a problem.
===
“I am fascinated to know how a goddist, like yourself, explains away animal breeding. You reject the truth of evolution, yet when we look at transformations to animals wrought by mere humans, I cannot say I understand your position.”
What is there to “explain away”? That is only evolution if you think that Mendel’s peas were evolving.
“Classic examples would be the Staffordshire Terrier or the Bulldog. Teeth, musculature, size of body parts (they have relatively large heads and jaws), fur … even temperament have been very carefully controlled. The breeders essentially forced their animals onto a very extreme evolutionary trajectory. Those dogs that were not extremely aggressive towards other dogs (Staffordshire) or highly impervious to pain (both Staffies and Bulldogs) did not get the chance to breed.”
Pit Bulls, not Bulldogs. Rotts rule.
Sorry Theo, I misread your wording. Yes, Bulldogs.
I see Morton’s demon is manifest in the piper’s plaintive piping.
He’s ‘steering’ humans along a pre-destined path?
How does that work?
The ability to steer the destiny of one small species for a mere couple centuries is utterly insignificant compared to the mind-bogglingly unlikely level of complexity required to design an entire universe and an entire biosphere of life.
An ant would have a better chance of moving a mountain.
And of course, even for that first criteria, he can’t. He couldn’t even erase a single puny city and prevent it from being found again.
Face it texpip, your pitiful, useless creationism is simply the sappiest of all sappy ideas that have ever been sapped.
We can now add Mendel’s pea experiments to the long list of topics about which the texpip has been shown to know nothing about, or been caught lying about.
The texpip’s poor, useless creationism couldn’t even predict the establishment and founding of the texpip’s own nation. Nor does it even mention that nation, at all, (merely the most powerful and most influential nation that has ever existed in the history of humanity) in its prophecies about the end times.
It also failed to predict, or indeed say anything at all, about the bloodiest, most destructive conflict involving the most populous nation on the planet. Or indeed anything at all about most of that nation’s history.
Sometimes…
The easiest way to steer human history to a conclusion forecast many centuries ago, is to shoot everybody who isn’t cooperating with the program. Which is artificial selection.
Menyambal, look deeper.
(It’s pure Panglossianism)
Yet you cowardly evade the answer. Godbots lie and bullshit to avoid the answer.
Still no evidence for your imaginary deity. Nothing but evasions and bullshit.
WHY ARE YOU AFRAID TO PROVIDE CONCLUSIVE PHYSICAL EVIDENCE FOR YOUR IMAGINARY DEITY? ALL YOU QUESTIONS DON’T NEED YOUR IMAGINARY DEITY, EVOLUTION RULES, YOUR IMAGINARY DEITY DROOOLZ.
It is also a category error. It makes no more sense than saying that if beavers can build dams, then it isn’t a problem to assume that the white gloop that just fell five hundred feet through the air and plopped all over the texpip’s face could not have been deposited by anything other than a flying beaver.
All I’ve gotten from this thread is that now I want my own coconut opening T-Rex
Oh and that the pip is as mindnumbingly dense as ever.
Rev.
Here at Casa de Groupthink Hivemind we prefer tentacled helpers to open our coconuts.
Me, I need no help with nuts. Coco or otherwise…
Because a bar is a great place to bring a gun:
“Nor does it even mention that nation, at all, (merely the most powerful and most influential nation that has ever existed in the history of humanity) in its prophecies about the end times.”
No, the US is not a player. Little surprise there.
There are some who think that a reference in Ezekiel 38:13 to young lions could be referring the US and perhaps England. The chapter is decribing a future invasion of Israel by a alliance of nations/peoples, and the lions and other merchant nations sound concerned, but are apparently unable to intervene.
There are also some who think that Babylon, whose quick destruction is described in Revelation 17 & 18 could be the US.
txpiper:
“Some”?!? How there be any disagreement? The book was written by God himself, for the edification of the people. Wasn’t it? Why put out a prophecy that nobody understands? Why put out a prophecy at all, and then half-ass it? Aren’t you guys in touch with God?
Or is the point of the religion to deal with shit like that? I think Theophontes is right, the religious get off on that confusion. I have argued before that faith has become the point of modern Christianity, with the ability to believe impossible things as the goal.
These folks have sacrificed their minds to their god. They do not realize how bad they make their religion appear. Txpiper, I used to be an agnostic—not the God-is-unknowable kind, just the I-have-no-proof-God-doesn’t-exist kind—then I found people like you. You, Txpiper, and your little friends are what convinced me there cannot possibly be a god.
By the way, your book says you’ll go to Hell for that.
Ah-ha-ha-ha-ha!
So let’s see if I have this down:
txpiper: Teeth are complex (and so are brains, and nerves, and jawbones, and ears, and bears, and dolphins, and whales, and and and . . . ), therefore, they must have been made by a magic man using magic, and they cannot possibly be the result of naturally occurring mutations and natural selection over the course of several hundred million years . . . because I say so.
Response: If being complex means that a magic man is required to make it by magic, then your magic man needs an even more magic man to create it, using even more magic. The amount of magic and the number of magic men required becomes infinite! And yet there’s no sign of any magic men using any magic at all.
txpiper: My magic man can magically make things happen by magic after a few centuries, while leaving no sign whatsoever that it happened by magic, so that’s not a problem.
Response: That doesn’t even begin to address the previous response. Say, what about dogs? There’s a large gene pool, the result of many mutations in the population, and additional naturally occuring mutations as well. Do you think that breeding dogs — human-originated selection on the gene pool — is magic as well?
txpiper: Magic happens magically from the magic man! Dog breeding is not evolution!
Response: That’s… even more of a non-sequitur.
txpiper: Magic man does magic!
Response: What?
txpiper: Magic magic magically magical magic!
Response: Is this some kind of weird mantra? Can you even try to address the problem demonstrated with your argument?
txpiper: You can’t fool me! It’s magic all the way down!
Nobody who is ration thinks about what the babble says, unless they have shown it isn’t a book of mythology/fiction. And you haven’t done so, and your presuppositional fuckwittery is rejected before you complete your inane argument. Where is the solid and conclusive physical evidence for your imaginary deity and your babble not being a book of mythology/fiction. It has been missing in action for several years, like it doesn’t exist. Which is why you are a confirmed liar and bullshitter. Either prove your claims with real evidence, or shut the fuck up about them. In which case, you should have been silent before you said anything if you were intelligent, honest, and had integrity, and understood real evidence…..
And yet Txpiper and their ilk believe they traffic in absolute certainty. You can bring up any number of incoherent prophecies or deranged divine visions like burning chariots with rims covered in eyes and the Fundamentalist stripe will fall back on bullshit like “God works in mysterious ways”. Then they’ll say that their god put forth absolute truth in their mythology book which is totally clear and inerrantly convincing so if we aren’t believers it’s because we’re stubborn children rebelling against an authority figure because we don’t want to be accountable for our sins. That’s some heavy-duty doublethink there.
You can’t have it both ways Txpiper. If the god hypothesis has the smallest glimmer of truth prove it. If your holy book holds the mysteries of life then back it up. If the bible really did tell us how the world works then surely you could back it up with secular evidence? Or once again do we fall back on the idea that god works in mysterious ways so turn off your brains and commit faith? Isn’t it funny that whenever god works his mysterious ways on the world it’s literally as though he never did anything at all? Ever?
@txpiper
Why is god acting like a second-rate psychic? Making vague predictions that can be interpreted a million different ways is a common strategy of scam artists. If he’s got something to say, why not simply say it?
Extra point if you can answer without appeal to “god works in mysterious ways” or equivalent.
Like “[Tyre] will never be found again!”
(Oh, look! Tyre!)
“Why put out a prophecy that nobody understands?”
The presentation depends on the subject. Future things are dependably accurate, but deliberately obscured so as not to eliminate the single required element of faith. In other words, there is enough to work with.
There are lots of details about the events that occurred during the crucifixion. But they are scattered and buried so that they only make sense after the fact. Psalm 22, composed a thousand years before Christ is a good example:
15 My strength is dried up like a potsherd; and my tongue cleaveth to my jaws; and thou hast brought me into the dust of death.
16 For dogs have compassed me: the assembly of the wicked have inclosed me: they pierced my hands and my feet.
17 I may tell all my bones: they look and stare upon me.
18 They part my garments among them, and cast lots upon my vesture.
There is no record of any of these things happening to David. This is a pre-record of the Lord’s experience while He was on the cross. You can find the references in the Gospel accounts for yourself if you are interested.
Another interesting example would be Psalm 69:
21 They gave me also gall for my meat; and in my thirst they gave me vinegar to drink.
Again, this appears in a narrative that King David wrote about himself, but it has nothing to do with him. It anticipates this, from the Matthew 27 account:
34 They gave him vinegar to drink mingled with gall: and when he had tasted thereof, he would not drink.
48 And straightway one of them ran, and took a spunge, and filled it with vinegar, and put it on a reed, and gave him to drink.
The reason for the deliberate vagueness is not that hard to figure out. A clear, blow-by-blow account before the fact would be an invitation to fraud, but an imposter would not be able to manage scattered details.
What do you want to do next? Isaiah 53, the Tabernacle of Exodus or the Levitical Feasts?
Rebelling against God because we …. yeah, nothing they put after that can make any sense at all, given the prospect of Hell. I may eat ice cream even though I’m going to be fat for the rest of my life, but there’s no way I’d be eating ice cream if it meant I’d be in Hell for eternity.
The fundies accuse atheists of mind-bogglingly stupid stupidities, like choosing Hell from petulance, and they act so wise for having made up that shit about people they can’t comprehend. And, actually, they’ve copied that shit off some dumb-ass preacher man that they give money to—they haven’t thought it up themselves.
If I thought there was any chance of Hell, I’d be studying the holy books with both eyes and doing good works with both hands and have both cheeks of my ass in a pew of every church in town until I found just the right church. Then I’d get out and really work on communicating with the unbelievers. None of which the fundies do, they just assume they are already right with God, then go harass people in the least convincing way possible.
Protip, fundies: The best market for your religious crap is other religious people. They are already halfway to your version of God, just help them along the rest of the way. Then, when all of God’s children are once again in one church, come out after us unbelievers, and say, “Look, we aren’t a bunch of squabbling schismatics anymore. You now have a chance of believing we have a central truth and are communicating with God.” (By the way, I’ll still need convincing, but until the churchly are in one small-c-catholic church, you haven’t got a prayer.)
So, Jesus knew the prophesy and set out to fulfil the prophesy (by sending his minions to steal a couple of donkeys) and that is miraculous?
Your sentence was broken, so I fixed it.
Moar fixed!
Helping!
Oh, look! Your translation was broken, too!
Which is irrelevant.
Not quite done fixing your broken sentences…
Onwards.
Note that the attribution of the Psalms to David is traditional but unsupported. There’s lots of them which are obviously not about David, or about “recorded” events in David’s life, so claiming that point does not at all support Jesus. It supports a greatly varied body of composers, in time, place, and personality.
Lots of help needed here!
I can fix anything you can dish out.
But try to understand
Try to understand
Try try try to understand
He’s a magic man, Mama
He’s a magic man
txpiper:
Now see, we’re done right there.
What, precisely, is faith? Define it so everyone, including the faithful, will agree, and so that I, a dog of an unbeliever, can distinguish it from obsession and insanity.
Seriously, you’ve just said that you have to believe that this stuff is true. Which is another way of saying that it isn’t.
There are lots of scientists picking out obscure threads of fact from the world, but when they are done, the findings are no longer matters of faith, they are facts. One guy may believe that he has something, but by the time he is done, and it becomes science, Science, as a whole, is not taking it on faith.
Religion and Science are dead opposite, there. They really have no common ground. Religion, now, is all about faith. Science is about facts, with a healthy element of doubt.
Why?
Jesus was strong enough to carry a cross, he gave tongue to several verses while on the cross, and the cross was up out of the dust.
Dogs, where? Assembly, like a congregation? The dogs pierced his feet? Oh, I see, the dogs bit his hands and feet.
BTW, tests have shown that hands can’t take the strain of crucifixion, the spikes go through the wrists. Notice that no mention is made of piercing his side. (So it was said while he was on the cross, right? But see above about talking.)
Does that mean that he can see all his own bones? When was that ever the case? (The language is very obscure, here, but I’m sure it means he was skinny as hell. “Tell”, as in telling one’s beads.)
I like the poetry here. But lots of people have had their clobber divvied up (I have), and the casting lots business is one way to make a fair split. (Also, this is the kind of stuff that can be added into a story for a little verisimilitude.)
But, yeah, haunting.
David was a psalmist, which means he made up songs. He is also the guy who was once accused of prophesying poorly, when the context makes it clear he was singing. There’s some translating error, at least.
There are also a lot of psalms that didn’t predict anything, like some of the verses above. You’d got to have faith to figure out which is prophecy and which is just poetic imagery.
You can also find a few spots where Jesus allegedly said something, just to fulfill prophecy, and it says so right there that that’s why he said it. It really sounds like doctoring the books to me.
Who is “they”?
If he wrote it about himself, was he lying? Or was he just making music?
So the gall wasn’t for his meat? It was for his drink?
BTW, the Roman soldiers used vinegar in their water as a germicide and to give it some taste. I did that for a while, and did fine with it. So they weren’t just being mean to Jesus if they actually did offer him vinegar and water. Most vinegar is 95% water, anyhow. (The sponge may have been a cruel joke, though, but I’m not gonna explain.)
Did he drink, or not? That verse sounds like he did. (No, I can’t be arsed to look it up. I’m just going off what was posted.)
That makes sense to you? A clear, blow-by-blow account before the fact, of things that no-one could control, such as weather and Roman soldiers uniforms, would be impressive as all hell. When the audience turns, and there come the dancing blue elephants, just as predicted, there could be no doubt.
As for fraud, there were lots of frauds. And since your crucifixion did not manage all the scattered details you just gave—the dogs, the bones, the hand-piercing, the meat—it’s obviously a fraud.
Thanks for clearing that up.
How exactly can something both be dependably accurate and also obscure enough to require faith? If you need faith, then clearly, the prophecy isn’t clear enough to convince people on its own merits.
It sounds like you’re saying that if you believe the prophecy is accurate, you can find some interpretation, which allows you to claim it hasn’t been disproved, which is exactly what I was criticizing in my previous comment.
Asinine. Even a clear prediction would require faith.
Fuckboy doesn’t even know how Messiah work? Well I’m fucking shocked. YEshua failed to kick the Romans out of Judea, and the predictions called for a military king next. He isn’t the Messiah. It’s that simple.
Your God can direct human history but can’t stop individual charlatans?
I would so read a column by Owlmirror that fixes the delusions of the deluded. The corrections made to txpiper were quite entertaining.
Jules Verne “prophesied” that the first trip to the moon would be done by Americans, launch from Florida, in a ship made of aluminum.
Scientists “prophesied” that the microwave background radiation curve would be of a certain shape, and it was.
The Bible “prophesied” that Jesus would be in the tomb for three days and three nights. He only made it one night, one day, and part of another night.
What is the point of Biblical prophesy, anyhow? “In two thousand years, some crazy shit will be going down? Um, okay?” Wouldn’t something more immediate be handier? “In two years, goat-meat will be out of fashion? I’ll start selling off.”
Prophesy is another case where doctoring the documents can easily be done. And, in the Bible, much is now claimed to be prophecy that clearly wasn’t. Anyone without faith can clearly see that.
I think the importance of prophecy is something that has grown over time. It really wasn’t a thing, at first, but it has grown into a fashion, and become the greatest “evidence” for the accuracy of the Bible. It’s like faith becoming the purpose of the religion—prophecy is now the purpose of the Bible.
I have evidence of that, but you’ll just have to take it on faith. I prophesy that you will.
Are you fucking kidding me? Matthew misinterpreted David’s words to think they were a prophesy and so the(Matthew) account reflects that. People think David is talking about himself because he is, FFS!
Anyways, WTF?! A fucking storyteller repeats something written in the past is not fucking prophecy! It is such a pathetically transparent attempt at creating credibility that my mind boggles.
And what’s this shit about Jesus riding into Jerusalem on an ass. That Matthew author, eh, what a little dickens, eh?
– – –
Enough of your red herrings. Let’s hear your attempt to explain how ‘Mendel’s peas must’ve evolved’:
is a reasonable conclusion. Tell me what Mendel’s experiments had to do with evolution?
Evolution can only work if characteristic’s are inherited! What The Fuck was your point? How do arrive at the conclusion that we have to equate inheritance with evolution? Where do you get that?
It’s akin to you saying that because overeating can cause obesity, eating obesity!
Fuck your tap dancing.
texaspip’s theology resembles the cheshire cat, scrutinize it closely and all that remains is the sneer.
How about Jesus’ prophesy that he would return before the next generation, before His disciples died?
Failed. The one thing, the one prophesy, that would’ve made everything else irrelevant, it was wrong.
(It wasn’t the only one)
I’m a prophet and you know it
For my words they clearly show it
The truth, it seems that it does ring
From songs that foretell anything.
My words are vague and they can mean
What it might be you want to glean
They are not deep but merely shite
Fit for minds that are truly trite.
Looks like txpiper has shrunk his inane and stupid arguments to straight proselytizing of his imaginary deity and holy book of mythology/fiction. Not convincing at all. And unlike evolution, it must be accepted on faith, not on evidence (those pesky million or so scientific papers that txpip never, ever, refuted with more science).
By the way txpiper, proselytizing is banhammer offense everywhere on this blog.
Menyambal:
What is this, Reverse Babble Jeopardy?
(A: Hebrews 11:1)
[ObChristianistJoke]
(Provenance uncertain)
Faith is the froth on the cup of coffee of life.
every time i read the pip shooting himself in the foot, this song comes into my head
I could wile away the hours
Conferrin’ with the flowers
Consultin’ with the rain
And my head I’d be scratchin’
While my thoughts were busy hatchin’
…
@ txpiper
Your quotes sound like they describe younger me, back in the day, when I did super-triatholons:
Anyone who has done a major endurance event (particularly in a semitropical climate) will recognise these symptoms precisely. Particularly when an idiot, like myself, heads off into the hills without sufficient water.
Yeah, I usually just “KLAP” the fuckers with my bicycle pump. A bulldog once attacked me so badly I broke a large stick over its head … and it just kept coming. Never mind my feet, the vindictive hound started biting my bicycle! They can be deadly. Jesus had it easy.
(For those of the horde foolish enough to cycle, a squirt from your water bottle often does the trick … that is, if you have any water left.)
Want to lose that kind of weight? Over-train and then go vegetarian. I seriously warn against this.
Anyone who has donated their clothing to Oxfam knows how this goes. Donate when you’re up, buy when you’re down. Actually, it has worked very well for me.
Obviously you haven’t lived in China. Apple vinegar is delicious and (supposedly) very good for one – I drink it all the time. Gall? Fuck. I’ve eaten a shitload worse stuff than mere gall. (Bear gall is a major (and appalling, like shark’s fin soup) luxury out here. Jesus would have starved to death if he was that fussy.)
theophontes
A squirt of vinegar works even better on the doggies.
Let’s be fair to the Cheshire cat, it actually was knowledgable, helpful, and had predictive power. The directions and information it gave to Alice were both fully accurate. It wasn’t really a sneer either, it was just jazzed all the time on account of being mad. Additionally as we know from Alice 6:38 it only left behind its grin at Alice’s own request making it better at intercessory prayers than YHVH.
@ Menyambal
Just to be clear on a few points:
1. Yes, religion allows for cherry picking and personalisation of the narrative. The implication is that an infinite number could be generated. This is, however, much less the case than one would, at first, think. There are only a fairly limited number of strong religious narrative elements. They tend also to be universal both in time and geography. They tend to evolve to the same restricted number of tropes.
An example, is the idea of a Superior Moral Agent ™ . These may take the form of a single “Supreme Being”, but are usually extended over a number of metaphysical (overtly human) beings.
The idea is very much that, because we are judged by the people about us – who inevitably lack the full picture of any situation – we can envisage an agent that, in order to fully understand the situation and thereby pass judgement, is all-seeing. Only such a being would know that I (always “I”, this is the ultimate ego trip. In txpiper’s case, the “I” is txpiper) is a Good Person ™ and a Worthy Person ™ . “I” is always decent, and justified. In the absence (and even prevalence) of mere human endorsement, a figment delivers on just such a requirement.
2. Superstition, “intuition” and emotion is the normal way for humans to interact with reality. The scientific method, even mere conscious consideration… mindfulness, is exceptional. We are the so called “freaks”. Not txpiper. The human mind is exceptionally well suited for brute survival, relatively well evolved for complex social interaction and pathetic at logical thought.
3. Human apes have evolved to consider “other minds” (at least those that do not suffer from Autism). It matters not that the agent considered is real or not. It will be given equal weight. (WWJD), What Would Jeebus Do? That he is a (rather cheesy) fictional character is of little consequence. The question is as coherent as asking: What Would My Own Mother Do?
4. Humans grant salience not to the reality of the situation but to the coherency of the narrative. This is very hard for a sane (by our lights) person to understand. What to us looks, and sounds, like complete gobbledygook, is to a person such as txpiper a fully coherent story. When his tale jars with reality, he patches up his narrative. It would take a level of intellect above his capability to think himself out of such a situation. We are quite simply incapable of changing this. (I find it a worthwhile exercise only in that we learn to argue such, and that uncertain lurkers may form their own opinions.
@ chigau
Jeetje! Where were you when I needed you‽
It was actually one of our neighbours’ dogs. Perhaps it thought of me a galloping metal gazelle, … or more likely a very thin metallic bull?
theophontes
I expect that the neighbour-dog knew exactly what it was doing.
by the way
If you carry a bottle of water and a bottle of vinegar, be sure to LABEL them.
Watching a yuman after it takes a big gulp of vinegar makes the dogs laugh so hard, the poor dears can’t even stand up.
@ chigau
It would have killed me, back in the day, to have carried all the extra weight of a extra waterbottle of vinegar (which, by the way, weighs in at an extra 10% , by volume , to water!!!).
…
Molly Awards: Ms Molly has volunteered her services (she’s a cat, how the hell could she refuse) as a model for the very first Ms Molly Awe-wards (pronounce “mizzz molleeeh”). To my mind Meyanbal (#574) and Owlmirror (#576, in spite of being thee public enemy number one) are major contenders.
Speaking of: Owlmirror
FIFY:
eidetic … apophenia
*frowns*
The “random or meaningless data” is the corpus of the Old Testament. The “seeing meaningful patterns” is the cherry-picking part of one verse, ignoring the parts that don’t match with the life of Jesus, and claiming that a strained interpretation of the part of one verse so cherry-picked out sort of matching up with one of the gospel narratives of Jesus, is “prophecy”.
Yeah, the new testament stuffs where it’s “this is prophecy and was fulfilled”?
That’s all good and well, with grabbing obscure texts and screaming ‘fulfilled!’
Except when it cites prophecies that are NOT IN THE BIBLE and screams ‘fulfilled!’
Example: Matthew 2:23 And he came and dwelt in a city called Nazareth: that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the prophets, He shall be called a Nazarene.
Spoken by which prophet, where? That’s not in the Old Testament in any way, shape or form.
Matthew mangles what he does quote, to make it fit.
13:35 That it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the prophet, saying, I will open my mouth in parables; I will utter things which have been kept secret from the foundation of the world.
Only that’s not what Psalms actually says.
Psalms 78:2-3 “I will open my mouth in a parable: I will utter dark sayings of old: Which we have heard and known, and our fathers have told us.”
So secret that your fathers told them you?
Matthew 27:9 Then was fulfilled that which was spoken by Jeremy the prophet, saying, And they took the thirty pieces of silver, the price of him that was valued, whom they of the children of Israel did value;
Jeremiah has absolutely nothing like that. Anywhere.
Zechariah has one that’s ALMOST like that. But misquoted, again.
Tell me again how perfect this bible is, and how prophecy is fulfilled perfectly, to the letter, indisputably?
Heh…
John told a funny
Txpiper needs to show, based on when the books of babble were “set in stone”, that the alleged prophecies aren’t right based on selective memory, and painting targets around the holes in the barn….
If you don’t write something down, and keep it “in stone”, you can toss it out. Only those predictions that sound right will be recorded as fulfilled. This is typical of how modern day psychics operate, who only remember that which came true, not the 1000 other predictions that didn’t….
Because sometimes the thunderdome just isn’t depressing enough….
I just noticed this on Dan Fincke’s blog: AA and the FFRF are opposing a holocaust memorial in Ohio.
It is notable how the texpip demands that the evidence for evolution and abiogenesis has to be exact to the finest detail, with every gap explained, every transition documented, every mutation identified, every selection pressure described, without which he refuses to believe it, but for his biblical prophecies he will happily accept language vague to the point of near-incomprehensibility.
The double standard is tellingly dishonest.
Oh, ffs! http://www.knoxnews.com/news/2013/jul/24/in-god-we-trust-sign-prompts-move-to-dismiss-try/ If you don’t want to click the link, a courthouse in Tennessee decided it was a good idea to hang a sign over the front entrance that says only “In God We Trust,” and have only Baptist preachers and an ex-mayor speak during the hanging ceremony. It’s working out real well for them ::snicker::
If that holocaust memorial only memorializes Jews, it’s kind of shit. I find it very suspect that Michael Weinstein, himself at the least a cultural Jew, is attacking something secular merely for having a Star of David, but it isn’t impossible. Let’s see here.
Actually, knowing Weinstein’s track record, I’m INSANELY skeptical of any claim that he’s acting out of ‘blind, reactionary atheism’. IT’s only been said a hundred times by fundies.
…I’m also extremely skeptical that the monument gives real mention to other groups. I mean, I guess it could put a good chunk of space into how it fucked over the Communists, Romani, Gays and the like as well, but holocaust museums and memorials pretty much always only provide a footnote for the rest of us.
Oh wait, Weinstein is the MRFF. That’s more plausible then. I’m still skeptical that the monument actually gives relevant amounts of space to non-Jewish victims. Especially when the Patheos writer seems to be focusing on a Star of David in his shot with, well, nothing else visible.
And reading a bit more… non-Jews are a footnote. Again. Big ol’ Star of David, no rainbows, blue ribbons, sickles… but it’s just mean ol’ reactionary atheists who are the problem. Fucking christ.
You could say the same of Dave Silverman.
They could actually do something to make sure it’s not just a footnote. There’s no reason the Star has to go away. They’re just whining, and I don’t see how it’s productive.
That wouldn’t appear to be a vote for “Mean ol REactionary Atheists are the problem”
If you actually read the letter explaining their reasoning, they’re pulling for one of the non-sectarian finalists that wasn’t the winner, not to just arbitrarily fill in the hole. They even state in their reasoning that the lack of other symbols is the problem with the Star of David.
Don’t get me wrong, I don’t honestly think these guys have the best interests of anyone at heart, absent particular evidence (IIRC, American Atheists did the horridly racist ads about black people, slavery, and the bible), but in this case, they’re still basically right. You can call it ‘whining’ if you want, I guess, but it doesn’t change that the memorial’s minimalizing other people. FFS, it pretends the holocaust started with Jews. Hint: It started with people who rhyme with ‘Crommunist’, and the Jews were part of a broader dragnet when they were added. They were the majority of victims – we don’t need to embellish the story to justify giving them pride of place. But really, they were the only victims that mattered, time and time again.
Dang, sounds like context is being ignored. I don’t mind the Confederate Battle flag in a parade showing military uniforms through the years, or at a civil war cemetery. Correct history, not something else. Anywhere else, I have a problem with it.
I have no problem with a holocaust museum showing the Star of David, being essentially a war memorial for the dead, although a rainbow flag and/or gypsy flags or flags for the gays would be a nice touch. Why are fuckwits bothering? This isn’t a large cross in the middle of nowhere with no proximity to the dead. etc.
Rutee:
What?
(Such ignorant, ahistorical nonsense!)
Literally the first thing the man did after he stopped having to rely on unstable coalitions was ban the communist party, and he founded the SA and SS for the explicit purpose of fighting the communists. I don’t think I’m taking things too far here.
Jews, proportionately, were fewer of those killed in the holocaust than Christians proportionately were those KIA as WWII soldiers – You all have opposed Crosses for WWII memorials as a sweeping statement on all the dead soldiers (although, to my knowledge, never on individual soldiers’ tombstones). Now, unlike Christians, Jews are marginalized, and that’d be an argument for it if the *other* groups weren’t also marginalized groups. But they are.
Right, and notice my replay also mentioned those selected for “Final Solution”, and that they should be included.
Rutee: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Socialist_German_Workers%27_Party#Origins_and_early_existence:_1918.E2.80.931923
I was saying he’s culturally Jewish and an atheist, since in your half-dozen comments of figuring out what exactly this was about and what you had a problem with, you didn’t mention him even though he’s a pretty big player in this apparently. But I’m trying to be fair.
I read it. Are they supposed to get a veto or something on who was the winner? Or is this really a Constitutional issue? Are they going to dump some money into a lawsuit? Are they going to work on expanding the “winner’s” version of the memorial, so it’s not so dismissive of non-Jewish victims? The way they’re going about this doesn’t seem…. constructive, like I said. It’s depressing.
And the FFRF’s conclusion in the letter that the holocaust would’ve been prevented if Germany had enforced a separation of church and state — presumably one every bit as strict and paranoid as they’re setting out here — what do you think about that claim?
That doesn’t look like much of a vote against “Mean ol REactionary Atheists.”
I want more than a “footnote” too (assuming that one quote is it, since that’s all I have to go on, though there does seem to be a lot more text in the photo). But if I saw a big monument like that with a Star of David, I’m pretty sure the first thing that would come to my mind is that it’s a holocaust monument. So I would be thinking about everything and everyone that’s about, not just Jews. In that kind of situation, the symbol just doesn’t carry the same meaning, for me or a lot of other people. It wouldn’t even cross my mind that it’s somehow establishing Judaism in fucking Ohio, because that’s just bizarre to me.
Given that the winner was a clearly preferential monument, I don’t think they need a veto. If you’re asking me what I think they should have done, backed the fuck off and handed it to other advocacy groups (Who I’m reasonably sure would drop it, because pushing for holocaust recognition is a very good way to piss people off, unfortunately, but them’s the breaks.)
That it’s appropriative bullshit, an unfortunate norm for Atheism. Like I said, I don’t think these people are on anyone else’s side.
I wouldn’t read it as establishing Judaism, but I would read it as a clear dismissal of all other groups – because it usually is. IT’s also sectarian, and generally bad.
So you saw me object to “IT STARTED WITH THE LAWS THAT WERE PASSED”, I point out which laws were first, and you then treat it as a defficiency on my part that I don’t instantly recognize you’re trying to say “The racism was there first”? You’re a funny one. Especially since you can’t even read your own PFFT article.
From the PFFT.
Your own PFFT also discusses the anti-marxism, ffs. Stop lobbing them over the plate, you’ll spoil me. I can’t say for sure out of hand and sure as fuck don’t have sources here, but I’m pretty sure the anti-marxism was a much bigger component for the majority of the party at its inception (Although anti-semitism was by no means of the imagination a limited phenomena in Germany at the time.)
I misinterpreted, based on diction. Saying it’s a ‘nice touch’ made it seem optional to me. The FFRF’s argument is, in no uncertain terms, that multiple symbols would be fine, and the problem is that it’s just the Star though, so I don’t know if you’re disagreeing with their argument?
Being appropriative doesn’t mean their arguments are wrong – the fact of the matter is the primary problem is the exclusionary monument. I’m not going to pretend for a second that they wouldn’t be appropriative without it; they would be. But it doesn’t change that the monument needs to change, and AA’s the one taking the fallout. This is pretty much a no-lose for me, at least.
But not necessarily an official Holocaust memorial. Loads of Jewish groups have paid to put up holocaust memorials all over the place, with bigass Star of David emblems on them, and that’s their prerogative; it is understandable that Jewish groups would tend to focus on Jewish victims. However, for an official monument erected by the government as a memorial for the victims of the holocaust, particularly since many, many Americans do not ‘think about everything and everyone that’s about, not just Jews;’ they only think of the Jews. American history books and classes tend to focus almost entirely on Jewish victims to the point where many Americans aren’t even aware that there were other targeted groups, and a disturbing number of Americans wouldn’t have a problem with gay people being sent to camps and/or exterminated (the latter does no small part to cause the former).
Rutee, pogroms and ghettoes.
(It was not the ideology, but rather the other that was the monster against whom the volk would unite)
—
(Not one of us)
@ Owlmirror
I think the word apophenia is great. I just thought adding the adjective eidetic would make for an even more apt term.
“De klap op de vuurpijl” ,als het ware.
The Star’s very prominent, but (1) it isn’t merely a religious symbol and (2) non-Jewish victims weren’t, in fact, excluded. So I don’t see how it’s exclusionary. And again, I would certainly like it if the representation were more balanced and more nuanced, but I wouldn’t go around calling it “shit” because it isn’t ideal.
The Jews were taken away in 1940, after being exposed to terrible oppression since 1938. The communists were taken away in 1933. ARe you really this much of an asshole?
If I accept this argument, explain in what way that makes it less dismissive to have only it as a symbol?
Horse hockey. A throwaway footnote is not inclusion. Especially not since I’m apparently wrong, and the majority of victims were most likely ethnic Slavs, not Jewish people.
It doesn’t. It’s got nothing to do with the fact that it’s dismissive. We’ve been agreeing this whole time that it is. It’s about the argument that it’s oh-so-obviously in violation of the establishment clause.
Rutee:
1938?
(You have no idea of those terms’ significance or origin, do ya?)
John, I don’t think it’s helpful or even remotely fair, to insinuate Rutee just doesn’t know there was a long of history of anti-Semitism all over the place. And it’s not relevant.
CR, yeah, it’s relevant, particularly when Rutee contends the Nazis were primarily against ideology rather than against the other.
(Most particularly, the Holocaust is rightly associated with the attempted genocide of Jews, and attempting to gaslight that is … well, obscene is the mildest I can put it)
PS Which is strange, from such an avowed anti-racist as Rutee.
I don’t think I’d buy this argument with Crosses in, let’s say, Denmark either though. Yes, it’s also a cultural symbol. That doesn’t mean it stopped being a religious one – and I’m pretty sure most Meriken still haven’t wrapped their heads around the concept of cultural judaism.
That wasn’t the claim made. The claims made was regarding their inception, and who they attacked first – and who they attacked first is a matter of very, very accessible public record; it was the communists. Your very first posts on the matter, in line with your usual jackassery took issue with that. Everything after that has been insipid attempts at gotchas. Yes, anti-semitism predates anti-communism – the Jews have only been around for at least 3500 years. That’s not the fucking point.
Gaslighting, to attempt to bring to say the othert 40% of holocaust victims (Not even counting Russian POWs or Slavs, the latter who are estimated to be almost double the number of Jewish victims)? Do you ever stop being a tool? Because right now? Great time to start trying.
Okay, apparently you’re too fucking busy being an arrogant douchebag to actually read any of the fucking materials, so here ya go.
This is part of Ohio’s stated reason for the memorial. Hence why I pointed out that no, actually, the holocaust did not begin with the passage of laws that targeted Jews – it began with laws that targeted the fucking Communists. And after them was the fucking disabled. Because the Holocaust was never just about the Jews. And everyone forgets it. And then when we fuckin’ say it, we have morons like you pretending it’s gaslighting. Fuck off now, kthxbai.
Intersectionality, motherfucker. Do you still not speak it? Race is not the only axis upon which oppression turns (and even if it were, there’s certainly… something to be said about ignoring the mass murder of Slavs and Romani)
I really do not get why the racist asshat posts anything in the Lounge. I am almost certain I am not the only one who sees anything from him and skips it. Onlybreadon I dont comment is the jindness rule. Otherwise I would tell him to shove it and get lost.
Getting back to the issue of txpiper and his god:
Above quote from Feuerbach (link to “The Essence of Christianity”, in HTML). It is interesting that he came up with all of this so long ago, whereas much of the understanding of the workings of the human brain, and its relationship to superstition/religion is quite recent.
txpiper, do you realise the implications? Your god is not to be found in the babble, or in the atom, or the vastness of space. Your own little god, your unique little god, is to be found between your own ears. And nowhere else.
…Only reason I dont comment is the kindness rule…
Theophontes, I have bookmarked Feuerbach. Thank you.
Yeah, whenever Christians try to tell me that by saying there is no god I have set myself up as God, I want to tell them that they are the ones who have set themselves up as speakers for God, and that the god they speak for is their own subconscious impulses.
@(prev. page) 422. Chigau & 465. vaiyt – 21st July 2013 at 9:56 pm
Slavery long pre-dated the British and for that matter even the Roman Empire. (It still exists in practice today albeit its illegal.)
So, no, the British Empire didn’t create the slavery and, no, there’s no question mark needed. The British Empire did much to end slavery albeit in a number of steps such as the (abolition of the) Slave Trade Act 1807 :
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slave_Trade_Act_1807
&
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slave_trade
Bonus trivia – the last nation on Earth where slavery was legal was the Islamic Republic of Mauritania in North Africa which only outlawed slavery in 1981.
Thought at least the British empires work in ending slavery was common knowledge. Seems not.
@434. Tony! The Flaming Queer Shoop :
21 July 2013 at 12:37 pm (UTC -5)
I do NOT support deliberately inflicting pain and suffering on anyone unless the individuals in question have or are seeking to cause equal or worse pain and suffering on others and can’t be reasoned out of it or otherwise prevented from doing so.
There’s a statistic quoted by you at #436 claiming that there’s “1 terrorist (eliminated-ed) per 49 citizens.”
That raises the big question – how many people would each of those terrorists kill or be involved in killing or maiming or harming? It only took a group of about a dozen terrorist to murder over three thousand innocent people on the 11th September 2001. Other terrorist attacks eg,. bombings of marketplaces, mosques etc .. kill hundreds of people.
So if we make the conservative estimate that each terrorist left on the loose and not taken out by drones (or whatever other mechanism) would kill, say, an average of sixty people then in terms of sheer lives saved versus lost it is worth it. If its even the case that on average a terrorist kills only fifty people then its still a civilians life ahead as opposed rather than behind – and how much value can you put on that one innocent human life? Especially versus the life of a guilty Jihadist warrior out to kill innocents and an enemy combat almost certainly bound for what they disgustingly consider “martyrdom” anyhow?
(Moreover, drone strikes could also deter others from joining Jihadist groups and so play a preventative role in that sense too. Not sure how you’d get honest figures for those more life–loving Islamists who decided not to become terrorists because of drone actions but surely there’d be cases.)
It’s a cold and hard to make calculation and I’m glad I’m not in charge of determining drone strike policies – but also glad you’re not in charge of determining it either. I’m sure those who are tasked with making the decision here do so with a lot more awareness and thoughtful consideration than any of us who don’t have to contemplate doing it appreciate. Its on their hands after all, not ours, and they, not we, are the experts in what they do and have all the information –mostly classified and unavailable to us – they need to make it correctly.
Well, I am not one of those people. I’m sure there are plenty of innocent civilians in Pakistan. Just as there are everywhere on Earth. In fact it’s the innocent less fanatical Muslims that are most likely to be murdered by the Jihadists so those are the ones who should logically be most supportive of drone strikes. It is ironic that many of those protesting at the “Death to America!” rallies may well not be alive to protest had the drones not taken out the Jihadists who would otherwise have killed them.
PS. Also what #496 cm’s changeable moniker (quaint, if not charming) wrote.
PPS. Oh & if you meant to refer to me with your “racist asshat” slur please recall that saying something doesn’t make it so. You are entitled to your erroneous opinion but it is exactly that. As for those who don’t read my comments and links, meh, your loss not mine.
@444. Ogvorbis: Purveyor of Mediocre Humours! – 21st July 2013 at 4:00 pm :
Name-calling abuse even when you agree with me and get my point. Yawn.
False. That misrepresents my beliefs although I admit I haven’t always been clear enough in the past.
I do NOT advocate nuking anyone back into the stone age.
I do NOT advocate and reject entirely the idea that we nuke Muslims (Islam is the religion and as an ideology or set of related ideologes cannot be “nuked” at all.)
I do, reluctantly, concede that we have to defend ourselves from Jihadist terrorist groups and Islamic dictatorships when they seek to attack us.
Really? I don’t think Poland was secretly trying to gain WMDs incl. nuclear nor, to the best of my knowledge did the Polish leaders ever use rhetoric about wiping Germany off the map! (Plus Godwin so you lose automatically too.)
BTW. I don’t support Iran being nuked.
I don’t know what the best way to handle Iran’s dictatorship and belligerence towards the Western world is but I hope it doesn’t end in anybody being nuked – or hit with daisy cutters either.
Reality is the Armenians weren’t any threat to the Turks whereas the Iranians very clearly pose a threat to Israel and the region (including arming Jihadists like Hezbollah in Syria) and Jihadist terrorism clearly poses a major threat to the Western world see :
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islamic_terrorism
Yes, I am aware that my views don’t define reality. Neither do yours or anyone else’s.
@ Menyambal
My pleasure.
I am thinking of putting together a stub for the Pharyngula Wiki called: “Psychology of Religion”, to match the existing one I put up for “History and development of religions” (with help from SG and CR).
The idea would be to the gather reading matter on this interesting subject in one place. I mainly seek out free books, so the whole thing is rather affordable to frugal Pharyngulites (and education should be free damnit!). It might take a few months to cobble together though, as I have quite a way to go through my ever expanding reading list.
I do think it a very worthwhile exercise, as this is a fresh angle of attack on the goddist position. It is here (rather than in the “religion vs science” debate) that I think their defences will be breached.
…
Ultimately it would be wonderful if we could edit together a Pharyngula Reader. I realise that would be a monumental task. But we can dream …
Aside from Jews, the other ethnic group specifically targeted for total extermination by the Nazis were Gypsies/Roma; they are currently the target of much more overt violence and persecution than Jews in Europe. A French MP is currently under investigation for saying Hitler did not kill enough of them, and some will remember that I recently told of encountering this kind of hate-speech myself.
Archbishop Tutu
(Will he now become an atheist?)
I have asserted in the past that you use definitions to weasel out of things. Whether it is you denial that racism exists (because we are all Homo sapiens) or this ^. Western authoritarians, militant Christians, and militarists use the term ‘Islam’ to refer, not to a religion (or ideology? what the fuck?), but to a claimed supranational conspiracy seeking to establish a world-wide caliphate. It also is a religion.
Fuck off, you bigoted weasel.
Oh hello. Housesitting, therefore using somebody else’s computer; runs Chrome instead of Fiefox so no Adblock and wow! Imagine my surprise, given the afaik unqualified support for Anita Sarkeesian’s vid project from these parts, and rightly so of course, to see a banner ad that’s all “MALE GAMERS ONLY” with a picture of a cartoon babe w/ big ones and the cleavage to prove it, beestung pouty-lips, and oh, her head sewed on at the neck, Frankenstein-style. “Too hot for you to handle?” etc.
I know it’s Ed’s thing and if he knew a better option he’d do it but it just seems bush-league for your ads to directly contradict your content.
(That and plus the stupid Preview STILL doesn’t show simple freaking html hyperlinks correctly, and come on.)
I’d be embarrassed.
Judging from how Christians usually deal with things like this, he’ll simply equivocate over what exactly “homophobic” means. There are plenty who will claim that any homosexual act is a ticket straight to hell, all the while maintaining that their god isn’t homophobic. Because “love the sinner, hate the sin”.
This is yet another indication of how religion acts like a Rorschach test. It ties directly back to what we’ve been talking about with regard to the vagueness inherent in theology.
StevoR, the lying, racist shistain:
You fucking lying piece of shit.
You have advocated bombing regions in the Middle East to ‘get the terrorists before they get us’. In every one of your warmongering or genocidal comments advocating daisy cutters, drone strikes or preemptive attacks that I have read, you have NEVER once uttered a word of concern for the innocents killed in such attacks.
Yes, you are a fucking scumbag, lying, shithead, racist asshat, and that is my opinion based on what you write.
Is stevoR again treating people like idiots by assuming they won’t remember what he said? Must be a day that ends in Y
to paraphrase somebody or other
I know that you believe you understand what you think he said, but I’m not sure you realize that what you heard is not what he meant.
@Chigau
Who is that referring to?
Chas
The ads are selected by a Google algorithm that matches keywords, leading to ridiculous mismatches such as you describe. When I’m on my phone, I see ads for Liberty University and suchlike as well. AFAICT, all advertising that’s available on WordPress uses the same process, so there’s nothing Ed can do about it.
@Dalilama
Well I think he CAN remove an ad from rotation if it’s reported? I think I recall him saying he can do that?
But I think maybe they should try to get some active sponsors or something? Targeting ads that far off has to be lost revenue right?
Ing
It refers to all of us and StevoR.
It’s all just a Misunderstanding™.
@Chigau
No I think StevoR’s problem is that we completely understood him.
Dedicated cmlinologists will be aware of my dissatisfaction with my department of why was I not informed about this before. Actions have therefore been taken, and my new head of w6b has delivered!
Psy — Gentleman. As originally performed in the 1920s. (Do note the dancers at 3:00.)
Ing
Yes. That’s what I meant.
(See how it works?)
I miss the 1920s.
/inb4
Does anyone want to play Race For 666?
http://www.av8n.com/how/ _See How It Flies_
Rappin’ Einstein covers Ke$ha–TiK ToK:
Space-time curvature never sounded so good.
Nearly getting killed in 90s LA, but making a career out of it?
You will be mocked in music.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E7TuoIcyBDE
.
Can it be?
Boom
Neighbor of the beast /\/\
“I can fix anything you can dish out.”
Of course you can.
You rely heavily on the idea of cherry-picking. I’m supposing you see it as a dishonest basis for the writers of the Gospels. That would require a lot of coordination, collusion and commitment. What would have been the motive? Go into all the detail you need to. I’m interested in seeing the transition from the usual ignorant goat-herders to shrewd and dedicated conspirators.
Speaking of the Gospels, do you know that the Tabernacle as described in Exodus was structured to exhibit the four Gospels and the Pentateuch, the five books of Moses? There’s lots of striking imagery going on there, though not many people have cherry-picked much of it.
“like a lion, they are at my hands and my feet”
But that is not really quite under the rug. The statement is coming from the point of view of the victim, and iterating the viciousness He would endure. There is also another variant of the word which means “dig” as in digging a well. Either one makes the point.
Two other Messianic passages speak of the piercing. One is Isaiah 53, all of which can speaking about none other than Christ as portrayed in the Gospels. Another is Zechariah 12:10 which occurs at the Second Advent, when remnant Jews finally see the Messiah. (This chapter also speaks of the peculiar preoccupation of the world with Jerusalem in verses 2 and 3.)
====
Theo,
“Obviously you haven’t lived in China.”
No, only a week in Beijing. I ate very good duck, saw the wall, and bought phony jade at the government jade shop. Not much of a sampling. I regret having to cancel plans to go to Lijiang.
“txpiper, do you realise the implications? Your god is not to be found in the babble, or in the atom, or the vastness of space. Your own little god, your unique little god, is to be found between your own ears. And nowhere else.”
Ha ha….I wouldn’t be caught drunk off in such philosophical nonsense. And honestly, since you’re stuck believing that what is between your ears is the result of DNA replication errors, I don’t know why you would.
NEW THREAD.
By the way, txpiper, this thread is not completely unmoderated, and we do have a prohibition against godbotting. If you can’t make an argument without relying on the pseudo-authority of that piece of shit book, the bible, you’ve got nothing intelligent to say and can just leave now.