How exciting! I’d like to say thank you for the honor, I appreciate the efforts of all the little people who have lofted me to join this distinguished company, and is there a stipend, an honorarium, some token that would help me buy groceries?
Of course there isn’t. The Shadow League
is an imaginary organization invented by Calvin Smith of AiG Canada, and it only pays in shadow money, which is as imaginary as his shadowy god. What this really is is a truckload of bullshit dumped in my lap, on this morning I had intended to work on my nefarious plan of instruction in cell biology, which begins in two weeks. I don’t really have time to deal with all the Christian nonsense in this video right now.
While I appreciate the loving attention he gives to my head shots, he really doesn’t understand my words. I think it is true that there is no moral law, dispensed by an invisible man in the sky, but that does not mean that there is no such thing as morality, or that we are free to murder and steal without consequence. The nonexistence of a deity makes it a necessity to find a moral foundation in something other than stupid words in an old book, and my solution is humanism and the development of principles of empathy and equality. He complains that the idea of evolution is leading to the slow collapse of Christian churches, and I say good — the false morality of authoritarian should be dismissed and abandoned.
There is a lot more I would say, but responsibility is leaning heavily on me today, and I should pay attention to that, because I have a social contract and an obligation to do the best job I can to present the scientific facts of biology to my students. In two weeks! Yikes!
I will return to this inane video sometime soon. For now, I’ll leave it to you all to make comments and give me tips for a future episode of shit-shoveling.
Somebody should introduce that guy to the Euthyphro dilemma.
Religion claims to have invented the obvious notions that murder and stealing are wrong and then uses that undeserved moral authority to order us around, and claim that we owe them money. The Golden Rule is all the basis for morality that one really needs, and there is no God in that.
@2
Or grift.
I have heard of dark money. The sums I hear mentioned are pretty staggering.
If it sounds too good to be true, then it probably isn’t true.
No, the Theory of Evolution isn’t leading to the slow collapse of Christian churches.
In fact, most xians don’t have a problem with the Theory of Evolution.
If your xian cult believes things that are lies and contradict reality, that is your cult’s problem and not ours. Reality doesn’t care what you believe.
What is actually leading to the slow collapse of the fundie xian churches are the…fundie xian churches.
When xian became synonymous with hater, liar, bigot, and sometimes killer, a lot of people didn’t want to be one any more.
I expect my dark money check soon. I’ve been doing this for a long time.
Calvin has been increasing his visibility in AiG over the past few years. My guess is he will replace Ken Ham. He is very big into the culture war of creationism, and is very effective at whipping his acolytes into a frenzy. He is, as would be expected, full of shit and doesn’t get anything correct.
Apologists have their entire identity built around not understanding the words of atheists.
I’ve got a better idea.
You can enroll in the… Universal Galactic League of Reality Based Heroes.
Membership is self selecting and self sustaining.
If you are a Reality Based Hero, you are a member.
It pays off only if you win battles.
You get a free and fair society, you can live in safely, that has a future for you and your descendants.
I’ve never understood Christers willingness/enthusiasm to tell on themselves… “We’re all a bunch of bloodthirsty psychopaths, and we only behave out of fear of the bearded sky bully.”
And if you criticize any of those aspects, they defend it as an intrinsic part of their faith. Oh, and don’t forget pedophile.
How utterly moronic. That is the very opposite of profound. If there is absolute morality, then there could be no change in morality., but he is proclaiming the exact opposite. What knots his neurons have become twisted into.
He needs to learn how adjectives work. If there were no absolute morality, that would not mean that there is no morality at all.
Or he could just acknowledge that (a) thermodynamics tells us that reaching an absolute baseline of anything based in the physical world is impossible, (b) that validating an exception to an apparently universal law requires exceptional proof, and (c) he hasn’t got exceptional proof (any proof, even) that a no-physical-manifestation hairy thunderer obsessed at various times with pigs, penises, and Roman taxes exists in the first place, let alone is the source of that absolute morality or that such absolute morality is explicable enough to argue about… or actually follow.†
That’s not just some TV astronomer demanding exceptional proof for exceptional claims, either. The earliest statement in English (of which I’m aware) is from David Hume in the eighteenth century, and there are similar statements traceable to BCE (of which Hume was at least partially aware). But then, those proclaiming absolute bases for behavior usually end up spending most of their time ignoring any inconsistent evidence anyway, so I shouldn’t be surprised.
† Which is, at best, all about criticizing, shunning, and exerting power over anyone who expresses even the tiniest doubt, let alone noncompliant with the self-appointed disciples’ interpretation of that absolute morality. Internal inconsistency is not a flaw to absolute morality! Just ask the advocates of any absolute morality!
And they claim to have access to an ultimate authority, that just happens to match what we would expect from a relatively Canaanite, and even older, primitive tribe. And this ultimate moral guide sanctions slavery (you can beat your slaves, but try not to kill them immediately because they are your money, and if they recover after a couple of days, that is OK) and for killing your own disobedient children, punishing children for generations for any alleged parent errors, and everyone is born a disease that only religion can cure (gaining an education [by eating a smart fruit, no less] is a sin), etc. All the perfect perpetual scams aimed at the ultra-credulous. And by the way, the gods ALWAYS need money. Billy Graham commercials are still on TV, despite the exposure of his liking to watch his pool boy have sex with his very subordinate wife. Every TV evangelist has exhibited tons of unethical behavior, despite being the alleged moral “leaders”. And all bad things that happen are due to demons, so the world desperately requires more exorcists to fix that “problem”, etc.
Exodus 21:20-21
Deuteronomy 21:18-21
Exodus 20:5 Compare that to the obvious contradiction shown in Ezekiel 18:20
https://www.vatican.va/content/catechism/en/part_one/section_two/chapter_one/article_1/paragraph_7_the_fall.html
The Catholic Church desperately hangs on to those fables because without that alleged “original sin” the church is out of business. And there is a big push in the Vatical to “train” more priests how to drive out “demons” using their magic chants.
Brain death taken to its logical end point all the way down.
Word ordering problem ==> “[] Canaanite, and even older, [relatively] primitive tribe”
Too bad that WordPress (I assume that is what this is) remains stuck in a previous century.
“The Shadow League” – Well, at least, the Shadow knows.
One thing that frustrates me while we’re on the topic of Christian fundie assholes: Funny how when you criticize them being assholes, they immediately spin it as hating their god. If there weren’t so many religious bigots and such using their god as an excuse for meddling in politics and committing crimes against innocent people, I’d leave their god out of the conversation entirely. Christians have earned my wary attention. Their god hasn’t visibly done anything to earn my attention, much less my hate.
Everything is a conspiracy theory to these people. Even their theology.
@14
I think you mean Jerry Fawell Jr.. Billy’s been dead for a few years now although his equally odious spawn, Franklin, is still spew his scion’s nonsense.
@Akira MacKenzie, 19:
Oh, Franklin is definitely worse than his father. Billy Graham was an utter anti-semite, but was smart enough to realize that if he wanted to seriously push Christian hegemony, he needed to not make the divisions within Christianity worse, so he put on a good show of working together, especially when it came to Black churches. (This is why he got a little wary around Nixon, even though he was otherwise very chummy with high-ranking politicians.)
Franklin is running in full culture-warrior, ‘let your hate-freak flag fly’ mode, something that Billy at least actively downplayed. Hard to say how much of that is Franklin being more hatred-driven than his father, and how much is just him figuring it’s easier to get away with. Doesn’t really matter, though: Billy at least put on a good show about caring about people, while Franklin is a straight-up politician first and minister when he remembers it might look good to pretend.
Does that mean you’re about to go on Joe Rogan’s podcast? /s
Fancy trying to impose your world view on society PZ. Don’t you know only people like Calvin can do that?
Akira MacKenzie@19: Whoops, you are absolutely correct! Billy was involved in a different family sex scandal. With so many of these pious frauds involved in sex, or other fraud scandals I obviously got confused. Not that the sheer number of them excuses my sloppiness.
gijoel@21: “Does that mean you’re about to go on Joe Rogan’s podcast? /s”
That would surely boost PZ’s international standing. After all, Rogan pronounced Terrance Howard a “jenius” for inventing new math (1 times 1 equals two), and new physics, combined with ancient mysticism and flower-like designs, etc. Collectively called Terryology. Proceeding beyond this point may be hazardous to your mental health, Howard actually has cult followers who will continually defend him for his new takes on “establishment” “math” and “science”. Some even insist that since math is made up [sic], his views are just as valid. Apparently, self-consistency is not a requirement for anything with them. Howard is just insane.
https://www.cracked.com/article_33061_empires-terrence-howard-invented-his-own-weirdo-version-of-math.html
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/terrence-howard-gravity-joe-rogan-b2548800.html
https://symkublog.com/the-growing-popularity-of-terryology-a-pseudoscientific-trend
@ larpar : “The Shadow League” – Well, at least, the Shadow knows.
The Shadows! Now that is an impressive group indeed and at least a bit spider~ish in species even! (Babylon 5, under 15 misn long.)
Even if Rogan asked (and he hasn’t), I wouldn’t go on his stupid show.
No point engaging on the terms of dishonest people. “Debate” spectacles are pointless, especially live ones. I’ve seen some biologists pause to give a stern look that said to me “are you actually serious?” and the Creationists interpreted it as confusion to the point of speechlessness.
Sorry PZ; love your work, but I don’t love you enough to watch that.
Are the answers in genesis different in canada?
Didn’t watch the video because I don’t have time to watch some fool rehash the same crap we’ve already heard. But: as a scare-tactic, this “without God [and our particular narrow one at that], there is no morality, which would be a Very Bad Thing” is self-refuting. I agree with the second part, i.e. that without some basic pro-social norms constraints on human behaviour, things would be pretty terrible. So let’s all agree to observe some basic pro-social norms okay? And take action against anyone who violates them, out of self-protection. No divine directives needed, only a bit of enlightened self-interest, which is conveniently backed up by a bunch of innate emotional mechanisms around empathy, a sense of fairness, reciprocity, etc.
Not OK.
Just because norms are pro-social does not entail they are beneficial or enlightened.
(Ever heard of honor cultures?)
We evolved.
A beneficial trait of evolution for us is the development of instincts: survive, avoid harm, mate, care for familly.
To further those instincts we form community, which requires cooperation and trust. Wired in empathy assists with that (not fully fixed across the population).
Morals encode behaviours that support this. There are many moral systems with differing levels of success.