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Preaching the Word of Atheism
Humanist association gets serious about making converts.
Secular rapture?
No scientific surveys have shown that the Christmas season drives people to atheism. But, since rabid seasonal consuming and the January urge to repent for holiday indulgences sends gym memberships skyrocketing, humanist groups are hoping more of us add, "become a card-carrying atheist" to our New Year's resolution list. They can't say we'll go to hell if we don't heed their advice, but atheists here and round the globe are certainly becoming more militant about recruiting non-believers.
"The goal is to target youth and pack B.C. Place with the converted within five years. We're sick of playing nice. Society is in jeopardy, so it's time we started playing hardball. I won't stop, even if someone drops a 500-ton bomb on my home."
This is the rally call of Robert Light. His name and his loaded message sounds like that of an evangelical Christian hawking an impending rapture, but Light is actually the new president of the B.C. Humanist Association, a Vancouver-based group of about 100 atheists, secularists, agnostics, "free-thinkers" and rationalists. Light and others want to make atheists more of a unified force to be reckoned with: a force with greater numbers, media profile and political clout. But as they contend with apathy and disinterest among non-religious types, they are also taking some heat from both established humanists and emerging youth-oriented groups.
Seeing the Light
"I seized power in a bloody coup," says Light about his new post. He's joking a bit since "non-violence typically erupts at humanist gatherings." But, Light is serious about making converts out of almost 700,000 Vancouverites who ticked off "no religious affiliation" in the 2001 census.
His in-your-face methods reflect a growing militancy among atheists. Richard Dawkins formed his own eponymous foundation in 2006, stating that "the enlightenment is under threat...We have to devote a significant proportion of our time and resources to defending it from deliberate attack from organized ignorance. We even have to go out on the attack ourselves, for the sake of reason and sanity."
Underlying the various emerging atheist hardball efforts is dissatisfaction with the traditional humanist movement. Light is one of a handful of Canadian atheists who believes the community is in desperate need of a facelift. They hope better marketing drums up active support from the quarter of Canadians who don't believe in God, and sway over five million others who ticked "no religious affiliation" in the 2001 census.
Spreading the atheist word
But their various proselytizing strategies and ideals are making waves in Canada's tiny humanist community. "There's always been a lot of in-fighting going on in the humanist movement, even about how we should label ourselves: secular, atheist, agnostic? Let's stop arguing," says Light, the 49-year old real estate photographer, environmentalist and writer who has created a five-year plan for an organization that had never before had a one-year plan. "We must stop being a philosopher's café. We need to become activists and get on the map."
That's not an easy thing to do from part-time digs at a senior's network in Oakridge Mall, so Light's first step was location-related. BCHA moved to a new office in the Society for Promotion of Environmental Consciousness building in Kits this past September to give the group an active street presence and cross-pollinate with environmentalists. There, they promote their traditional Monday night meditation classes, their Sunday public brunches and monthly seminars. Soon Light hopes to also launch "Secular Sobriety" and "Religious Recovery" support groups and he wants to "corrupt youth" by targeting university students to start humanist groups on campuses, including lapsed groups at UBC and SFU.
"The religious groups have their celestial fire insurance policies and the ear of the politicians and the media. They're not playing nice these days," says Light, citing the aggressive lobbying tactics of various hardline Christian groups (including Christian Coalition Canada and a half-dozen groups with "family" in their titles, like Focus on the Family Canada, that actively challenge gay marriage, abortion, secular education, evolutionary science and a wide range of social programs ranging from day cares to domestic abuse shelters.
They "plan to put Harper on his heels" by challenging church tax exemptions which allow religious groups to save 15 billion per year in taxes. They also hope to repeal the blasphemy law, and start a separation of church and state committee that could "grow to be a big monster," by raising a potential half million dollars to use in advocacy. "Religious groups with very different agendas have banded together, so why can't humanists?"
Congregation of the un-believers
Light says banding together is the next logical step for the many Canadians citing "no religious affiliation," a group whose numbers have been on the rise over the past two decades, from seven per cent in 1981 to 16 per cent in the 2001 census, making "non religious" the second largest belief community in Canada. One 2004 survey found that 22 per cent of Canadians don't believe in God (compared to only six per cent in the U.S.). In another 2002 survey, six per cent of Canadians responded "no" to the question, "Do you believe that God exists?" while another 13 per cent said, "I don't think so."
In Vancouver, you probably couldn't swing a rosary without hitting a non-believer: non-religious citizens outnumber Catholics and Protestants according to the 2001 census. Maybe that's why Vancouverites are less likely to find it necessary to seek out like-minded people by joining clubs than atheists and agnostics in more religious cities. For example, Vancouver-based Peretz Centre, an organization for secular Jews, has only about 100 active members, and Victoria-based Victoria Secular Humanist Association has about 80 members.
But, three of seven board members of umbrella humanist group The Humanist Association of Canada (HAC) are B.C.-based, and Vancouver played host city to the second national HAC conference this past June. The conference looked like it was shaping up to be quite the rabble-rouser, on the heels of a provocative rally call published in HAC's April newsletter.
'Under siege from within'
In the essay, Paul Zollman writes: "Canadian society is under siege from within (with some help from south of the border)." He argues that because "the enemy is at the gates, victims must unite for their mutual defence," and believes that "reasonable people" need to face the fact that they are "under siege by a horde of fanatics bent on our conversion."
In order to counter the well-organized and well-funded religious groups, Zollman urges humanists to "STOP BEING REASONABLE AND UNDERSTANDING," [caps his] and "develop an appropriate guerrilla campaign." He says humanists need to raise their media visibility, and challenge the credibility of religious leaders.
Zollman closed the essay by noting that, "I know this will alarm many in HAC...But we can't afford to debate our differences unless we want to continue" as nothing more than a "genteel debating club."
Off the godless radar
What happened when these atheists descended on Vancouver? It didn't make the news. A mere 78 delegates from across Canada showed up at the Coast Plaza Hotel to politely partake in panels on genocide, environmental issues and the fundamentalist threat, and of course take the obligatory harbour cruise.
That's one of the reasons some Canadian youth groups are skeptical that established atheist groups like BCHA can really motivate the masses, particularly young people. "Maybe they could have at least thrown bibles out of the windows," says Justin Trottier, head of the year-old youth-based Toronto Secular Alliance, acknowledging that card-carrying humanists tend to be older academics, doctors and scientists: not a demographic prone to swinging on chandeliers and donning lampshades as party hats or acting like hedonistic libertarians.
Of course, there are some compelling reasons for atheists to be conservative in public. In the U.S., according to a University of Minnesota survey, atheists are seen as immoral hedonists and ranked as the most distrusted minority, even though various studies have documented that "nations marked by high levels of organic atheism -- such as Sweden, the Netherlands and France -- are among the healthiest, wealthiest, most educated and most free societies on earth," according to Phil Zuckerman, an American sociologist. Regardless, in some American states, including Bush's home state of Texas, atheists are banned from holding public office and are more likely to lose their kids in child custody courts.
Canada: supremacy of God
Here in Canada, we tend to believe that secularism and religious freedoms are safely entrenched in our culture. But our constitution recognizes the supremacy of God, which is why Pat O'Brien, from the B.C. Humanist Association, says that unlike the U.S., we have no official separation of church and state. Canadian school boards have sporadically pushed creationism in public schools, including attempts by the Abbotsford School District in the early 90s. And atheists have also experienced bias in the family court system.
Humanist fundraising abilities have also been periodically stymied by Canada's tax-exemption system: the Humanist Association of Toronto only gained charitable status from the Federal government in 2004, after years of political lobbying. All of this means that many humanist and atheist groups tend to behave with the opposite of fire and brimstone. So, how do they inject some spice into the mix in order to recruit young members?
"We could be a little bit more sexy," acknowledges Trottier, who has been busy trying to recruit students at Ontario campuses full-time as the first paid Canadian staffer of the New-York based Center for Inquiry, a group that he says "has invested considerable funds of money on U.S. campuses." Canadian campus atheist groups will need their support, considering that Campus Crusade For Christ Canada has 27 active university clubs across Canada and received over $23 million in donations last year (see page four).
Humanist inertia
Trottier says there's been almost nothing happening in the humanist movement for the last decade, which means there's a great deal of inertia. He also says atheists tend to be "freethinkers with anarchist streaks" which means they aren't naturally geared to PR, marketing and branding. While they "get behind all sorts of causes" like environmentalism, peace marches and other social justice issues, they "don't wave an atheist flag while doing it." But he says they need to because the current political climate makes it urgent. "Harper's 'God Bless Canada' speech caused a bit of a backlash and we need to ride the momentum."
So far, so good. Since Trottier started campaigning, the number of campus humanist groups has shot up from one to at least a dozen this semester. The bulk of those are in Ontario, though he's now talking to students at UBC and SFU. "Hopefully, in five years, we'll have a thriving network of atheist groups all across Canada. If churches can exist on every corner, we should have a similar gathering place for freethinking humanists."
Light of BCHA and Nancy Swartz of the Victoria Secular Humanist Association (VSHA) share similar atheist visions. All acknowledge the importance of community-based resources and the basic human desire to band together, whether it's for big-picture cultural issues, job-related networking or rallying around a sick friend with casserole dishes. But some atheists are skeptical that these ideas don't go far enough in engaging the public consciousness.
Atheist infighting
Derek Madson, founder of the University of Victoria-based Carpe Diem Club thinks that the Canadian humanist movement has failed miserably. The philosophy and psychology student started Carpe Diem after attending the Victoria humanist group's meetings. "I was quite disgusted by everything about them. They were void of vision, and meetings were gripe sessions that accomplished nothing," says Madson, which he says is also the case with BCHA and particularly HAC. "They refused to listen to my ideas. They actually conspired to have me turfed from their board...we have radically different views on humanism."
Madson calls Carpe Diem "a philosophical world view that rejects all forms of the supernatural, embraces scientific epistemology and informs all aspects of moral life and social community. The goal is to live a good, healthy life. It's similar to the YMCA without the C for Christian." So, the 100-member group does outdoor activities, holds social events like Friday night ballroom dancing and hosts word game nights. Interestingly, it's the kind of good clean fun traditionally promoted by Christian religious groups with their Friday night mixers and summer camps, but according to Madson, without the "religious dogma." His club started in 2003, at about the same time as The Brights conceived their "naturalistic world view" partly as a distancing from what they perceived as negative atheist branding.
Carpe Diem is indeed making a radical departure from traditional humanism and what Madson sees as a "cobbling together of special interests. Carpe Diem is not trying to save the whales or ensure abortion rights." Considering that Dr. Henry Morgentaler was one of the early leaders in the Canadian humanist movement, inspiring pro-choice groups around the globe to push for legal abortions, Madson is doing a bit of biting the hand that has at least partially fed his own atheist activist principles.
Will this kind of youth rebellion further disenfranchise the humanist movement at a time when leaders like Light of BCHA are pleading for a unified front? Will the masses and the media start paying attention without a strong foundation of politically vigilant humanists doing exhausting bureaucratic lobbying and generating critical think pieces through magazines like Humanist Perspective? Or is this injection of youthful rebellion and energy just what the movement desperately needs? Ironically, the very existence of an off-shoot like Carpe Diem might illustrate that atheism is evolving, whether the elders like it or not.
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nightbloom
5 years ago
I enjoyed this
I enjoyed this article
It’s important to remember that Humanism today possesses a distinctly inhuman side:
Putting the Human back into Humanism
http://www.spiked-online.com/index.php?/site/article/2044
As an agnostic humanist myself, I find the humanist critique today to be largely a negative one – that is to say, it doesn’t assert a genuine sense of hope, it simply seeks to negate the hope offered by its competitors. Mainstream Humanists today make the ridiculous assumption that everyone on the planet can do an M.A. in philosophy and Enlightenment history at a Western university, and find comfort therein. It ascribes to deism those very flaws which make us human while stripping human virtue of it s transcendent nature. It also does not distinguish between religion, faith and spirituality. All three are caricatured with the same broad brush as “fundamentalism” (fundamentalists are undeiably a tiny minority of believers in the West…and even a minority among bona fide Christian evangelicals, even if they are a somewhat influential one at the present time).
Ironically, the university professoriat is no longer the flag-bearers of Humanism. The fast-disintegrating grail we know as the Western philosophic tradition is being attacked, not passed on, by the universities (whose liberal arts faculties have become hijacked by transient revisionist ideologies and wanton careerism). Ironically, the legacy of Athens is being upheld by the caretakers of Jerusalem, the same people who preserved and brought forward the Greek spirit through the long Dark Ages. In fact, the most lucid articulation and defence of Western Humanism I’ve ever read was written by a young philosopher-theologian in the late 1960’s….a rigorous thinker who just happens to have gotten himself elected Pope in 2005.
It's worth keeping in mind that Humanism is NOT synonymous with atheism. Atheism is just another brand of fundamentalism – a closed-mindedness and militant literalness that seeks to set bounds on human possibilities and jealously deny the hope and reassurance that some people find in transcendent ideas.
bpither1
5 years ago
Saved From Myself
When I discovered this sublime message from the crucifixion it me cured of philosophical angst: http://www.geocities.com/fang_club/Bright_side_of_life.html
bpither1
5 years ago
Mea Culpa
Now doesn't that feel better?
Booker
5 years ago
Wonder
Atheism is just another brand of fundamentalism – a closed-mindedness and militant literalness that seeks to set bounds on human possibilities and jealously deny the hope and reassurance that some people find in transcendent ideas
Funny, I find atheism freeing. I find the world amazing and beautiful. Could nightbloom be wrong? Could it be that actual atheists don't fit that description?
MyBrainIsOnFire
5 years ago
great news
I went to humanist bc meeting here went ot one in To years ago and they struck me exactly as stale profs, frightened and simply unwordly enough to properly engage in a campaign against the loony believers....and it's not that the believers are a problem per se, it's when they impose theiur idiotic beliefs on others, that it becomes an issue....
I may go back to thre BC Humanists and see if I can get my voice heard tyhis time - I have a lot of experience in advertising/writing/politics and would be a great resource to actallu fight instead of flailing about and navel-gazing, which is my impression of the well-meaning and nice people I met at the BC Humanist Assoc.
Time for the gloves to fly off boys and girls - but that doesn't mean you go around insulting people to feel good about yourself - messages can be crafted that are in-your-face, factual, and only insulting to those who feel the need to be perpetual victims....
Tom Lal
5 years ago
Atheism for gods sake
Back a couple of decades ago this topic took on an almost evangelical furor. US Athiest Leader Madeline Ohare pounded her godless pulpit with a zeal that rivaled even the most outspoken Christain Leader, court cases were started, and defended as Ms Ohare often found herself charged with a variety of offences such as refusing to pray at government meetings etc. A few years ago Ms Ohare's body was found, her son having become born again and the Amrecian movement has for the most part gone silent. It is indeed intersting of attempts to revive the movement above the 49th parallel. The reality is that for the most part this is a non issue in Canada although with the Harper neo cons it may change to some degree. Canadians seem to be not so intersted in extremes in either direction. From my observation it would seem the so called Humanist movement spends about as much time being anti as it does being pro non theism. No doubt there are times when such movements serve a purpose but we are no as under attack by the Christian gladiators here. But a great article to read if for nothing else but information purposes
MyBrainIsOnFire
5 years ago
and I'm awesome with spelling - after my morning tea
ouch. hey it's an online forum...
I forgot to add engaging to my list of needs for a campaign against the imposition of supernatural beliefs.
Cynic
5 years ago
I don't get this rejection
I don't get this rejection of religion thing. I mean, everybody knows that Jesus was born in a manger to a virgin with a new star shining in the sky and surrounded by oriental kings and a menagerie. It's absurd to think otherwise.
Yes, I'm a recovering, and former, Catholic.
alive
5 years ago
About time
Great to see that a few people are taking up the fight against the invasion of religious ideas spawned by Bush.
We need a lot of media coverage to let people know that the spindoctors only represent a small part of the population, and that all the hoopla about religion is just that B.S.
MyBrainIsOnFire
5 years ago
some sites to get you started...
great podcasts, Dan Barker is one of those former fundamentalist preachers who turned to atheism when he reaized it was nonsense and hurtful to believe.
http://ffrf.org/radio/podcast/
great links to what is happening in the u.k. and definitely you can see how the believers want dominion over everyone...
http://www.secularism.org.uk/whatthepaperssay.html
The number one public speaker prior to the advent radio/tv in the USA and you don't know his name? - could be because he was an articulate, popluar person whose speeches focus on disputing religious claims - he was awesome and disappeared in todays world...
Ingersoll's Complete Works..
http://www.infidels.org/library/historical/robert_ingersoll/
biography
http://www.atheists.org/Atheism/roots/ingersoll/
others of note...
Losing Faith In Faith: From Preacher To Atheist
http://ffrf.org/books/lfif/
The holy blitz rolls on:
The Christian right is a "deeply anti-democratic movement" that gains force by exploiting...
http://www.salon.com/books/feature/2007/01/08/fascism/
http://richarddawkins.net/index.php
http://www.nobeliefs.com/
http://www.atheists.org/
http://www.news.faithfreedom.org/ - more of a takedown of Islamism by former islamist
http://www.samharris.org/
James Burns
5 years ago
NB no agnostic
NB you've repeatedly stated in other threads you believe in God. You also are an ardent defender of Roman Catholicism. Calling yourself agnostic is a misappropriation of the term.
You also trot out the tired misrepresentation of humanists and atheists common to the religious; namely that they define themselves merely in negative terms. Nothing could be further from the truth.
Humanists revel in the sublime aspects of the natural world particularly those we have been enlightened to by science. That they today oppose fundamentalists, and pseudo-humanists like yourself, is merely a function of the times.
Religious fanatics are bent on perverting the structure of society to conform to their rigid belief systems, which are based on literal interpretations of mythical literature. Those fanatical nuts are supported in that effort by guilt-ridden soft-core believers intent on covering their spiritual ass in the event of a possible afterlife. They (you) justify those beliefs by denigrating those who oppose your delusions, point out your errors, and argue for a naturalistic explanation of the world based firmly on what we actually experience in it.
What humanists need to offer the disaffected and non-religious is simply an approachable version of their understanding of the real world. One not overly laden with jargon from science, and that simply incorporates the enjoyable social aspects that congregating humans like so much. But they also need to be assertive, perhaps even aggressive, in their opposition to religious foolishness, and to the apologists for religious dogma, a camp of which, I'm sorry to say NB, you most certainly can count yourself as a member.
nightbloom
5 years ago
The New Fundamentalism
Great points, Tom Lal.
I can't remember ever being harangued by a religious fundamentalist, but I can recall plenty of occasions when I was privy to an earful of righteous vitriol from a convinced secular humanist fundamentalist.
'MyBrainIsOnFire' makes an interesting comment about the professorial nature of secular humanism. It's a worldview that people with time and aptitude must read their way to. Proponents of it don't seem to recognize that their doctrine is necessarily a creed of the literati. It is elitist by its very nature. Far from liberating people from priestly hierarchies and hegemonic orthodoxies, secular humanism merely creates new priesthoods out of the secular specialists and professional castes which control the legitimacy of information and process. Establishing such rarefied systems of control is intrinsic to the collective human organism, and is therefore subject to the fallibility of human nature.
Atheism stakes a claim for itself on absolute rationality, but it's actually just another belief system alongside all the others, which takes for granted its own peculiar brand of faith. Unlike agnosticism, atheism posits certainty about something that cannot truly be known. To borrow the jargon of Rationalism, the premise of deism lacks falsifiability. It cannot be proven or disproven. Atheism goes well beyond open-minded agnosticism, and constitutes a dogmatic fundamentalism in and of itself.
MyBrainIsOnFire
5 years ago
well mr. nightbloom - since
well mr. nightbloom - since you decided to troll oput your lies, let just say this - ATHEISM HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH BELIEF AND EVERYTHING TO DO WITH EVIDENCE.
PERIOD. SImple - all the bullshit you religious dominionists pull out of your heads won't change that.
Frankly, your position is that people like me should die/be homeless/no part of society if we do not believe....cuz that's what happens when religious bigotry takes hold and we have 1500 years of history to prove it.
dolphin
5 years ago
Atheist Fundamentalists
Yesterday I received a message from a colleague who who typified Christians as persecutors and violently hateful. So much for tolerance. Look at the 20th Century winners of the Nobel Peace Prize--a good chunk of them were/are committed Christians and excellent representatives of small h humanism, i.e. selfless concern for their fellow human beings. I get really tired of the anti-Christian bigotry promulgated by atheistic fundamentalists. When I think of the most murderous 20th century despots: Pol Pot, Stalin, Hitler, Mao--all fall into the atheist camp. So who really is violently hateful and purveyors of persecution?
mjf
5 years ago
Is there a difference
What is the difference between religion, faith and spirituality?
Are religion and spirituality different from superstition? Is faith the opposite of reason and the glorification of ignorance?
Truman Green
5 years ago
yup, there's a "god," but it's very weird
The truth is that 'something'(could be just an alien species from Europa, or somewhere) invented the genetic code, which is the universal algorithm by which four, sometimes five nucleotides intersect with twenty amino acids to build proteins, which are, in turn, the building blocks of all the biochemicals, organs and organisms that we know as life.
While it may be impossible to prove that the biochemicals did not invent themselves by 'natural selection,'(although severely counter-intuitive), it is hopelessly ridiculous to imagine that the genetic code invented itself slowly by 'selecting' the most advantageous proteins over millions of years.
UNLESS THERE WAS A TELEOLOGICAL PURPOSE FOR THE COMING INTO EXISTENCE OF THE GENETIC CODE.
The 'magic' is not in the chemical composition of the nucleotides, but in their sequencing, which yields the prerequiste amino acids for specific protein construction.
Darwinian 'selection theory' adds nothing to explain this mystery.
There is a 'purpose' in the code. The origin and existence of that PURPOSE comprises the biological mystery of he origin of life.
The genetic code predated the organisms that it constructs. It did not develope by means of 'natural' selection, 'mutations,' or 'genetic drift'--the three pillars of darwinian and neo-darwinian evolutionism.
Therefore, weirdly, there is some kind of creative energy in existence about which we have no understanding.
Nobody understands how this energy works or its derivation, so all religions which claim to know the intent of this pre-singularity entity, are merely faking.
Sorry, atheists, but there is something there. It is very weird and totally amoral. (Imagine a world in which animals terrorize each other and consume each others' flesh for sustenance, or where millions of infants rot to death because of malnutrition and disease--imagine disease, itself!).
god is bizarre, and probably of atheistic intent itself. (no doubt just experimenting--fooling around).
And totally unreliable.
So, we have to find decency within ourselves, folks.
mjf
5 years ago
Re; Building blocks of life
Truman Green:
Look up "chemical evolution" in Google.
MyBrainIsOnFire
5 years ago
unlike a lot of idiots I
unlike a lot of idiots I won't tolerate intolerance - I'll tolerate people not looking to wipe me off the face of the earth - that's you believer, that's you and you just don't want to admit it.
Don't you just love the way believers try to stick the crap that is wrong with them on the non-believers - we're fundamentalists, intolerant, etc as a way of deflecting those values they hold onto us - I think psychobabble speak call it transference.
here let me help you: Fuck Jesus Christ, Fuck God, Fuck Allah, Fuck Mohammed, fuck all that bullshit.
damn -no lightning struck me down - what I expected as this god character you worship has never contacted me....not so all-powerful cuz it does not exist.
....these links are what you are really trying to hide with your nonsense troll posts, aren't you...
great podcasts, Dan Barker is one of those former fundamentalist preachers who turned to atheism when he reaized it was nonsense and hurtful to believe.
http://ffrf.org/radio/podcast/
great links to what is happening in the u.k. and definitely you can see how the believers want dominion over everyone...
www.secularism.org.uk/whatthepaperssay.html
The number one public speaker prior to the advent radio/tv in the USA and you don't know his name? - could be because he was an articulate, popluar person whose speeches focus on disputing religious claims - he was awesome and disappeared in todays world...
Ingersoll's Complete Works..
www.infidels.org/library/historical/robert_in
biography
www.atheists.org/Atheism/roots/ingersoll/
others of note...
Losing Faith In Faith: From Preacher To Atheist
http://ffrf.org/books/lfif/
The holy blitz rolls on:
The Christian right is a "deeply anti-democratic movement" that gains force by exploiting...
www.salon.com/books/feature/2007/01/08/fascis
http://richarddawkins.net/index.php
www.nobeliefs.com/
www.atheists.org/
www.news.faithfreedom.org/ - more of a takedown of Islamism by former islamist
www.samharris.org/
Truman Green
5 years ago
exactly, mjf
Yes, mjf, studying 'chemical evolution' is a good idea. I got interested in it in l997 when I read that NASA scientists wrongly identified polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons on Mars as some kind of bacteria.
So, yes organic (organic actually only means carbon-containing) molecules undoubtedly 'evolved' away fron the earth.
But to what end?
ubiquitous
5 years ago
intolerance
I find that one of the greatest ironies in this day in age is we secularist, aetheist, or what ever label you wish to impose, are accused of intolerance by the intolerant. Religion is based on intolerance (in spite of the really good works some faith-based organizations do). Religions are based at the group level where the definition of a group stems from common characteristics shared by its members. Religion also works in black and white (think good vs. evil) so that if an individual does not share the same group characteristics, they are deemed as belonging to the "other" group. The slippery slope of intolerance starts. When one defines their own group as holding some kind of mystical authority to define the great mysteries in life, intolerance really begins to take over. Unfortunately, intolerance is circular as some of us can admittedly say that I am, in fact, intolerant of intolerance.
And dolphin, for each one of your lists, other lists can be created to counter yours. Think of all the deaths at the hand of Bush's regime.
Bluenose
5 years ago
Dualistic
I have often been harangued by religious believers but never by secular humanists.
One can invent definitions to suit one's purposes but an assertion alone does not constitute evidence.
Atheism cannot be a belief system because it lacks loci of belief. Read for example:
http://atheism.about.com/od/definitionofatheism/p/AtheismReligion.htm
It is often said that ignorance is the parent of credulity, and superstition is a natural response to the unknown and the unknowable. People do not need to "read their way" into superstition: does its egalitarian nature make it more likely to be true than "elitist" atheism?
My difficulty with secular humanism is that it seems so dualistic: it seems like just another example of "either/or" as in "either you're for us or you're against us." There is nothing nuanced about its position.
The Brights (for example) claim that a naturalistic worldview is one which is "free of supernatural and mystical elements" I agree with the exclusion of supernaturalism from the definition, but not with the exclusion of mysticism.
Rudolf Otto defined nature mysticism as "the sense of being immersed in the oneness of nature, so that man feels all the individuality, all the peculiarities of natural things in himself. He dances with the motes of dust and radiates with the sun; he rises with the dawn, surges with the wave, is fragrant with the rose, rapt with the nightingale: he knows and is all being, all strength, all joy, all desire, all pain in all things inseparably."
This humanist organisation will likely hold the same appeal to many people that Scientology seems to hold for many more. Unless it can make room for some forms of agnosticism and nature mysticism (without resorting to straw man arguments in order to caricature such positions) it will probably appeal only to core enthusiasts.
As for an afterlife: we're in it now. If we do change at death -- in a flash, in the twinkling of an eye -- then we will in effect have become flash fried and no longer ourselves anyway -- at least not in any form we would recognise, or even be capable of recognising. The reflexive self will no longer exist, even if there is a continuity of consciousness, of one kind or another, from one state to another.
Orson Welles once said: "We do not live on the edge of the abyss, but in its depths, and there is neither faith nor philosophy which can touch the souls that still breathe beneath the ruins." The stark desolation of those words is truly inspiring.
Bluenose
5 years ago
yup, there's a "god," but it's very weird
Truman Green wrote:
Some ancient Gnostics believed that the Creator of the universe was a blind idiot God. It is the task of the human race to redeem God: to save God from himself by healing our humanity.
James Burns
5 years ago
Bring on the narcissistic fanatics
NB the only reason you haven't been harangued by a religious crackpot, is because you are an apologist for them and their beliefs, because you yourself are a believer. Why would they harangue you?
Dolphin, Hitler was no atheist. To say he was is an outright lie. As you well know murder in the name of religion has been taking place since religion was first dreamed up in the likely drug induced hallucinations of stone age shaman millennia ago. I think it's well past time we relegated our stone age beliefs to the academy where nebbishy scholars can debate the esoteric details like a bunch of Star Trek fanatics.
As for the modern murderousness of the religious we have to look no further than the United States and successive christian presidents, who have murdered and supported the murder of countless millions around the world. Hiroshima and Nagasaki are two words that should bear witness to the monstrousness of a christian nation. American depredations in Central and South America for most of the 20th century, along with Vietnam, Cambodia, Iraq, Iran, Somalia... the list goes on and on and on. Your foolish notion that atheists are some how more prone to violence and horror is certainly not borne out by history.
A fundamentalist belief in a system of morality that isn't grounded in a naturalistic understanding of the world that pays attention to the current contextual environmental conditions we find ourselves in, will always lead to delusional actions that will harm some sector of humanity.
As for you Truman, you construct your delusions about science merely to support your desire to believe in a creator. That's nothing new. Creationists have been doing that at least since Darwin. You just load up on the pseudo-scientific jargon, and intentionally misinterpret actual scientific findings. I suppose proclaiming the superiority of your fevered imaginings over the scholarship of countless scientists does something to satisfy your over inflated sense of self-importance, but it's really just an incontinent jumble of gobbledygook. Narcissism is not only ugly, it's intellectually fatal.
What you guys need is a good dose of adult behaviour. Your indulgence in childlike fantasy, and self-important navel gazing is distasteful and adolescent. There is a real world out there, try living in it for a change.
Percy
5 years ago
Can we still put up Christmas trees in public?
There's something ingenuous about boasting that "we're going to put Harper on his heels", and then citing issues which are historical in nature and certainly had nothing to do with "Harper". "Harper" is not responsible for the preserved rights of Catholics set out in the Constitution Act, 1867, nor for the text of the Charter, nor for the historical exemption of churches from taxation. So this agenda, and its focus, appears to be based on historical illiteracy, or dishonesty, or both.
And as for Mr. O'Brien's comment that there is no separation of church and state because of the Charter's preamble...uh, surely any reporter with basic civic education would know that this scenario pre-dates the Charter by, oh, only 114 years.
Just tell me, can we still put up Christmas trees in public?
nightbloom
5 years ago
Isn't it ironic
How ironic. Listen to James Burns clucking and scolding inquisitorially from his judgmental pulpit.
It's not only funny...it demonstrates the verity of my initial points. The only people acting like fundamentalists here are the secular humanists. It happens with ever more predictable regularity these days.
Thanks for the help James - Cheers and God Bless ;-)
MyBrainIsOnFire
5 years ago
James Burns Brightly cuz he
James Burns Brightly cuz he is correct and based in reality. mr. nightbore comments have no relation to reality - only woshful thinking.
Facts have no need for belief - they just are....
MyBrainIsOnFire
5 years ago
James Burns Brightly cuz he
James Burns Brightly cuz he is correct and based in reality. mr. nightbore comments have no relation to reality - only wishful thinking.
Facts have no need for belief - they just are....
nightbloom
5 years ago
Atheist Fundamentalism
Well, once the name-calling starts, a thread usually goes downhill quickly from then on.
I think the only thing "Mr. Nightbore" can add is James Burn's own pointed (if misdirected and somewhat high-handed) prescription:
What you guys need is a good dose of adult behaviour.
Have at it, boyz. Cheers =)
MyBrainIsOnFire
5 years ago
oh trying to take the high
oh trying to take the high moral eh mr. bore? good luck buddy - takes more than self-righteousness and a kiddy-I'll-tell-my-mommy-you-were-using-bad-words...when you idiots start talking hitler and all the harm we non-believers do, that is infinitely more insulting to the intelligence than anything else and also places you squarely in the cross-hairs of anyone wishing to make fun of you...
if you ran around proclaiming the easter bunny your god, you would also be ridiculed - don't like it eh - sucks to be you.
Stand up
5 years ago
It is obvious, reading your
It is obvious, reading your comments, that you have an old history of baiting either other. It is too bad, because this is a great magazine which could, and occasionally does, create some thought provoking discussion. I don't understand how it could be bad to have a humanist voice in government. I don't understand how a new (again) voice in our universities challenging assumptions can be a bad thing. University is the place for the investigation of the truth.
I don't understand the vicious hate mongering. What is religion being accused of here? Well, first of all, universal uniformity. Not one of you has challenged the assumption that there are only two camps. Us and them. Not a discerning rhetorical device. And the intolerence displayed. One cannot seriously suppose that such blanket prejudice blasted at a completely stereotyped group could be expressed in any but an ironical tone. Yep. I am definitely religious. Nope. I am definitely not a fundamentalist. And definitely, I have been accosted by both the beleiver and the atheist and both have condemned me to their version of hell. I have also had wonderful, stimulating, respectful, discussions with both. Don't you think that a little reality and a little less typecasting would make your discussions a little less.....ummm.... useless? How about actually discussing the potential roles of atheist or humanism (NOT the same thing) and/or the relationship of people of faith to political policy?
mopled
5 years ago
Goodness me!
Whoops, how touchy this subject is. Not meaning to cop out, but I think we need a visual. Think of the Taoist/Buddist symbol of Yin/Yang. It is about balance, not either/or, God/Devil, you all know the drill. We must stop being so dualistic.
Truman made a good point about mysticism.
I threw out the vengeful control freak god I was raised with and went without for a long time considering myself an athiest.
Then, I had one too many mystical experiences, stone sober I add, and I had to rethink it all. Have I come to any conclusions? No, I don't think one can in the small lifetime we're accorded.
I think there is some kind of internet-in-the-sky thingy going on. I can dowse and get a kick when others I have shown how-to
feel that forked stick twist in their hands. Often, they jump back and drop the rod as though stung.
I get pissed by the athiest/supposed scientist who reject automatically and snearingly without examining the evidence.
Yes, they are fundies.
clubofrome
5 years ago
Sunday School
The only thing I remember from my forced education at some place called Sunday School when I was too young to figure things out for my self: The golden rule. Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.... or whatever it is. Good rule. Keep out of my space, and everything would be fine. Except that most of you can't do that one simple thing. You have to force your rules on the rest of us so that the laws now reflect your morality. Marriage, abortion, all the commandments and their various permutations that come into play. War and all the holiness. Contraception. Corporate theft of resources and our future. Based on laws that respect not nature but mans devine right to rule the roost. I wonder where they got that idea?
James Burns
5 years ago
Fighting like cats and dogmas
The point of my broadside was to level an attack directly at misrepresentations and in some cases the outright lies of those deluded by fantasies of supernatural nonsense.
Nightbloom misrepresents both agnosticism and atheists in general. Dolphin simply lies about historical fact, and Truman... sigh... well Truman clings to his desire for a final cause like a drunk to his last bottle of aftershave.
I dislike religious dogma precisely because people take it literally. As something to study, on its own merits as a mythology that sheds light on aspects of the human condition through history, religion is enormously useful. And it can, at times, have a truly sublime ethic. But all literature is valuable precisely for that reason. The stories are in one sense lies, yet they tell a kind of truth. But as systems of literal belief that people worship and invest actual faith in, religions far too frequently pervert and distort human behaviour, in many cases horribly. There are far better ways of knowing.
As far as the mystical impulse goes, that ever present recognition of the wholeness and interconnection of what is, well that is an enormously valuable thing to talk about. It undoubtedly is a human sense that has largely been misappropriated by religion. And it is not uncommon for atheists, as well as fundamentalists of any stripe, to dismiss it. Wonder and awe toward the natural world is perfectly understandable and entirely workable within the realm of science. In fact, I would argue that the best scientific minds are simply saturated with it, while they concomitantly reject fetishized dogmas, whether they be religious or ideological.
Truman Green
5 years ago
You gotta come up with ideas, James Burns
James Burns, if I'm wrong about there being some kind of entity we think of as 'god,' you gotta come up with some ideas to challenge my assertions about the genetic code having some 'purpose' that predates the organisms it constructs, and molecules such as polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons existing on other planets--'chemical evolution'--all serious conventional 'science' by the way.
Instead of just calling me names.
James, if you think I, "construct my delusions about science merely to support my desire to believe in a creator," then I would say that YOU are delusional.
I have no desire to believe in anything except whatever my brain tells me is true--
(no agenda, which is what you are claiming) whether I'm mistaken, or not.
So yes, James, it should be obvious that there IS a pre-singularity creative energy in the world.
We just don't understand it, and probably won't for thousands or hundreds of thousands--even millions, of years.
Personally, I suspect that humans are not cerebrally equipped to understand this creative energy.
But not to worry--surely a darwinian evolutionist like yourself understands that we're evolving, and perhaps the next human-like species will be better equipped to recognize the hints.
Probably even get up some mathematical formulae based on probability theory and thermodynamics with which to identify the existence--possibly even source--of negative entropy, by which I mean the temporary suspension of the laws of physics.
And I bet I understand science as well as you.
James Burns
5 years ago
Ideas are wasted on you Truman
I've tried it before. You aren't interested in dealing with science beyond misinterpreting it in a manner that shapes any conclusion to fit your predetermined worldview. A view that is spectacularly inflexible, and suffused with a fanatical belief that you know better than all the scientific minds out there who have taken the painstaking time to do the actual research. I see no need to debate someone who repeatedly ad infinitum ignores evidence, and merely engages long exhalations of jargon.
ubiquitous
5 years ago
Purpose
All due respect Truman, but why does there have to be creation and why does it have to have a purpose? I mean, you're right, things are too complex and may always be well beyond our understanding, but that doesn't preclude the existance of some kind of "god". And to say that there is a "god" entity for that reason is, in my opinion, rather shortsighted.
Booker
5 years ago
Holier than thou
oh trying to take the high moral eh mr. bore
That's Nightbloom's schtick. Throw out an insult (see the first post) and then pretend it's everyone else who is mean and nasty.
It would be interesting to hear him argue the agnostic position (though he doesn't appear to actually be an agnostic, as James notes).
My experience is that agnostics (intellectually honest ones) tend to look at the "god question" as a question of knowledge. They usually argue that whether god exists or does not exist, is unknowable, therefore it is an irrelevant issue.
People who call themselves "atheist" (which is the position I take) tend to look at the "god question" as one of belief. I lack any god-belief, therefore I am an atheist.
I am waiting for anyone to give any evidence for the existence of a god, and no on can, so I remain an atheist. Regardless of the labels and stereotypes that believers want to place on we atheists, I find the naturalistic, rationalist world-view beautiful, fulfilling, and meaningful.
Truman Green
5 years ago
here's your chance, James
So what science have I misinterpreted, James Burns?
Is it not a viable idea that organic molecules evolved away from the earth--as have aromatic hydrocarbons on Mars?
Does anyone understand the origin of the genetic code? I don't think so. Google it to see the confusion.
Does it not seem that the immune system takes a 'proactive' (intelligent) role in the construction of immunoglobulins?
Is it not a good theory that the 'selection' referred to by conventional darwinians is not actually a device whereby the best equipped individuals within a species are chosen IN ORDER TO PREVENT THE SPECIES FROM CHANGING, RATHER THAN AS A CONDITION OF CHANGE. In other words, evolution by assumption of tiny advantages and benefits is just a logical fallacy.
Its (natural selection, that is) real purpose is to ensure that genetic drift and mutations DON'T CAUSE EVOLUTION.
Rather than the other way around!
Which is, the exact opposite of conventional darwinism.
And therefore, in order for a device such as this to be in existence, one can theorize with fairly decent certainty, that there is some kind of intelligent creative energy operating in the world.
So, although evolution appears to be a 'fact,' how or why appears to be mysterious.
That's all we know, James. I wouldn't kid you.
mjf
5 years ago
So we don't have an
So we don't have an explanation for every natural phenomenon. That is tough, live with it. Don't wimp out by resorting to beliefs in the supernatural.
Coyote
5 years ago
Spent some considerable time
Spent some considerable time around "official" humanists, years ago, shortly after getting out of the Navy and deciding I was on the wrong damn side.
And make no mistake, I am an atheist and advocate for the "secular" society. And in argument as the subject arises, I will stoutly defend the materialist/humanist view of the universe and life as is able to arise up and out of the chaos of it.
Never did so, though, see much point raising the banner and manning the barricades of "official" atheism -, unless of course them goddanged Christian zealots, or of other similar frames of "the one true God" mind interfered just a tad too much in how me and mine want to live our lives too. Otherwise I understand that life and society, at any time, is a rivalrous, not infrequently violent, "interplay" of competing interests, the whole and the individual, the struggle to understand, and the overarching need to get on with the dirty business of being about breeding, raising families, working, and hopefully a successful species.
Other than that one caveat, still don't see any special need to "take up the cause" here in time either. But failing that, where we disagree, why we's both just gonna hafta continue with the policy of trying to wear down and kick each others butt for dominance, in all its multi-faceted theatres of operation. At which you have been the historical early winners, but we've been coming on and gathering strength in quantity and quality in later, more "scientific" times.
It's just that in times of war, rumours of war, economic collapse and rising oppression, religion seems to still have the built in "tendency/edge" to be seen more "opiate comforting", :-) to the most "desperate". Like the child needing comfort, sucking on its thumb.
And no doubt, we are still, nay more of recent again, with the rise of the Neocons, in the kind of wars and rumours of wars, and ruling class corruption time. as makes folks, even myself from time to time, still want to suck on our thumbs.:-)
seanorr
5 years ago
Church and State
I don't think a single atheist is anti-Christian, in that they refute their right to belief. However, as Coyote noted, we believe in a secular society free from the complications that arise from the binding of Church and state. If we were to call for an end to Islamist governments, the Xtans would be all in favour, but when we call for an end to Christian fundamentalism a la GW Bush or the rabid zionists of Israel, then we are struck down as ant-Christian or anti-semitic.
Booker
5 years ago
Believers in trouble
Believers get in trouble when they try to use science to defend their supernatural beliefs. The ones who do this see "science" as having the kind of prestige that they would like to have accorded their supernatural beliefs. The scientific process requires training, demands real results, has to withstand severe scrutiny, and has to explain how nature really works (as opposed to how we humans would like it to work). But these particular believers don't seem to appreciate why science gained the prestige it has, and they just want us to give their supernatural beliefs a "free pass". They want the prestige without having to earn it.
The scientific process works; it gets results. Supernaturalism doesn't. No scientist (not even a religious one) designs an experiment with the expectation that a supernatural force or being is going to meddle with it. Prudent Believers don't attempt to co-opt science -- it's a losing game, and it only makes them look foolish.
The Dalai Lama said recently that if a scientific discovery proved a Buddhist belief wrong, Buddhists would have to change. If only more Believers had that attitude, we atheists would be much more quiet about religion.
Truman Green
5 years ago
seems incongruous to me
It seems strange to me that darwinian evolutionists and atheists who look to 'science' for all the big answers--believing as they do that there's a 'natural phenomenon'reason for everything, somehow arrive at the conclusion that, in spite of this 'ipso facto' truth, THERE'S NO REASON, AND NO PURPOSE FOR THE EXISTENCE OF THE WORLD.
Why this one exception?
Why does everything have a 'naturalistic' reason with the one exception of the existence of the world?
When, in order for them to be consistent, they would have to conclude that there IS a reason for the existence of the world, too, and that reason might just be 'naturalistic'--meaning a universal condition of life; that it is inspired and maintained by a creative energy, with which we are not yet familiar--that same energy by which gravity keeps the earth in the sun's orbit (instead of the earth just taking off into space in a straight line) in spite of the fact that gravity, itself, HAS NO KNOWN SOURCE OF ENERGY. Big things just attract small things as a ratio of the size (mass) and distance between them.
Now, that 'creative energy' might just have set the whole place on creative algorithms and taken off to other universes to let ours evolve blindly.
There are 'laws of physics,' afterall, upon which we can all agree. So why not 'creative algorithms?'
Who knows, besides James Burns, of course?
And that 'god' (whatever that turns out to be) is not a supernatural force, but a natural one.
I think part of the problem is that so many are able to blithely refer to things as 'natural.'
To me all life appears to be supernatural because I honestly have no idea how it came into existence--even with millions of tiny improvements a la Dawkinsian and James Burnsian revelation--or why whales evolved backwards (back into the sea) from herbivores or wolves. (Wolves are the lastest progenitors, according to the neo-darwinians, I think) Supposedly.
mjf
5 years ago
True believers have been
True believers have been raising armies and killing each others for centuries. They are still at it in a big way. I have not heard of scientists who favour quantum mechanics practicing suicide bombing against those who prefer Newtonian physics, or those using the metric system exterminating those still using feet and pounds.
RickW
5 years ago
"The ways of the lord are
"The ways of the lord are often dark, but never pleasant"
nightbloom
5 years ago
Church and State
I don't think any sane Westerner raised in a democracy seriously questions the imperative of maintaining the separation of Church and State. I've argued many times that the long-standing faith traditions in the West have internalized this imperative, and have even actively upheld it. The only exception I can think of are relatively recent non-traditional fringe groups which have a arisen in the U.S. since the 1980's as part of a backlash against post-modernity - the true evangelical fundamentalists.
In his post immediately above, Booker is (inadvertently, I suspect) articulating the modern-day Roman Catholic position on the separation of science and religion. This is why the traditional 'moderate' Christian groupings (Roman Catholic, Orthodox, Lutheran, Anglican-Episcopalian) distanced themselves from the Intelligent Design movement (which is driven principally by American Evangelicals). This schism along traditional-versus-evangelical lines was played out publicly over the past year and a half, and shouldn't be news to anyone.
Pope Benedict has been explicit is saying that scripture cannot be regarded as a blueprint or textbook to the natural order. This would upset a lot of fundamentalists. For the Roman Catholic believer, such texts convey spiritual truths through parable, allegory, symbolism and poetry. Scripture is regarded as a human interpretation, not a literal transcription of the word of God (unlike Muslim belief in the literalness of the Koran, to give an opposite example).
This presents liberal Catholics with an interesting dilemma vis a vis their more orthodox (i.e. "conservative") co-religionists: Can one still be a "secular Catholic", and not believe literally in (for example) the Jesus miracle stories....in the same way that one can remain a member of the Jewish community and yet be totally secularized...?
Can there be such a thing as "secular Christians" in a socio-cultural sense?
If nothing else, this dilemma demonstrates the danger in painting all religion with the same fundamentalist brush. The reality is much more complex.
Unfortunately, the extemists on both sides need each other. Dawkins' argument wouldn't go very far without rabid, froth-at-the-mouth fundamentalists to set up his argument. But if anything, the schism over intelligent design demonstrates the falsehood of his hypothesis that moderate mainstream religion actually enables the tiny minority of hard-core religious extemists. That theory doesn't hold up to scrutiny, at least not when applied to the Western faith tradition (Christianity).
mopled
5 years ago
Buddism is atheistic
That's why the Dalai Lama is so sensible.
There is a conciousness that informs everything and I don't want to call it god because that gets us tangled in the kind of nastiness that has been displayed.
I talked about PEAR to a friend with a PhD in math and computer science a few years back and he said that if they what they had found was true, he'd have to change his life. He was visibly distressed about it. I later gave him a copy of the book, which he returned, without a word, unread.
http://www.princeton.edu/~pear/
nightbloom
5 years ago
Oppenheimer's Deadly Toy
Oh, really. Ever hear of something called a "nuclear bomb" mjf...?
Hint: it was invented by modern science for the sole purpose of killing hundreds of thousands of human beings in one shot.
mopled
5 years ago
The Spiritual: Cultural Implications
http://www.princeton.edu/~pear/implications.html
mjf
5 years ago
PEAR
The PEAR lab is closing, apparently.
http://www.princeton.edu/~paw/archive_new/PAW06-07/04-1108/notebook.html#Notebook8
Here is a critique:
http://www.tricksterbook.com/ArticlesOnline/PEARCritique.htm
James Burns
5 years ago
When things go PEAR shaped...
Please, please, please at least try to do a little bit of a search before swallowing any tasty looking hooks line and sinker...
http://www.csicop.org/si/2006-03/pear.html
Maybe send the above link to your math and computer science Ph.D. friend.
MyBrainIsOnFire
5 years ago
i'm working on that now -
i'm working on that now - religion is not required - consciousness is a function of nature as you shall be able to see shortly - within the next 60 days.
the profound implications the author refers to is the end of religion as a source of knowledge and authority forever = a truly profund change human civilization is inexorably advancing towards.
RickW
5 years ago
nightbloom
Yeah, but it wasn't invented by scientists. It was invented by politicians. That "scientist" stuff is just an urban myth.............
Coyote
5 years ago
That theory doesn't hold up
That theory doesn't hold up to scrutiny, at least not when applied to the Western faith tradition (Christianity).
I wonder if Christianity really is the "Western faith tradition."
The reality is , Christianity as the Western faith tradition" only seriously rises with the collapse of the Roman Empire, as a European wide phenomena. Which gives it what, from the time it succeeds at "terrorizing" and "torturing" the much earlier and actally longer lasting and more influential Celtic/Norse paganism, but the last less than two thousand years.
Even then, that accepted, most of the major Christian holiday events around which their particular mytholody events, like Xmas, were but grafted onto the much older Celtic and other pagan celebrations of the Winter Solstice, for example, drawing upon its much older legitimacy. Easter similarly has its own particular roots, with the bunny and the eggs, in pagan tradition-, to which Christianity has but sought to graft itself on.
Indeed, taking Xmas again, what remains most celebrated most universally throughout "the West" about "Christmas" are those very traditions of feasting, drinking, giving gifts, and gathering family tribe members, the festooned tree etc. that come almost directly to us still, through late in decline Christianity from the "pagan and Celtic" West. Such that we could well argue here for a long time, precisely who has influenced who to the greater degree.
And then already, for its intense but historically brief flame existance, Christianity is already beginning to show signs of serious decline, even perhaps, impending demise. Never has "Western Society" been more secular and materialist in its view of the universe and morals.
Which is only as it should be, of course. :-) And what to be expected with an ever more real, scientific and material understanding of the universe. Now all that need be are compassionate, caring societies capable of peace and equality amongst us, and capable of meeting the material and "intellectual/emotional" needs of humans more equitably, and we will have stood entirely up of our own, thrown off the crutch, and proved capable of fully standing and ambulating on our own.
Indeed! Take up thy bed and walk!
jimmy_laroux
5 years ago
Scientists and their differences...
nightbloom:
The point mjf was making was that scientists embracing different theories have never attacked each other because of their differences. A few experiments usually suffice to figure out who is right and who is wrong.
jimmy_laroux
5 years ago
nightbloom: Quote:Atheism
nightbloom:
I'm curious as to why you consider atheism "fundamentalism". How is it a faith?
Seems more like this:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inductive_reasoning
to me.
Since there is not the slightest shred of empirical evidence for a god or gods or what have you, it seems rational, to me, not to believe in a god or gods.
Booker
5 years ago
Church and State
NB wrote:
I don't think any sane Westerner raised in a democracy seriously questions the imperative of maintaining the separation of Church and State
Canada does not have church/state separation; see Ontario Catholic schools, and our constitution. Britain obviously does not have church/state separation; the head of state, the Queen, is head of the Church, and "Faith Schools" are funded by the government. Britain has an "official religion". Intelligent Design creationism is making inroads into the British educational system.
While I agree that in Canada, religion is not a big problem at this time in terms of public policy (as long as Harper is rejected at the next election), in the United States it's a huge problem. Conservative Christians explicitly want to end church/state separation, and they are a large minority in the U.S. They have had an enormous effect on public policy. One of them happens to be President.
The Catholic church nominally accepts science, though there has been some backsliding of late with the new Pope. I was careful in my previous post to point out that only some believers try to co-opt science to support their supernaturalism.
Dawkins' argument wouldn't go very far without rabid, froth-at-the-mouth fundamentalists to set up his argument
His argument (that there is almost certainly no god), is not dependent on the existence of fundamentalists. Either there is a god, or their isn't.
RickW
5 years ago
Cathars
http://www.languedoc-france.info/12_cathars.htm
is likely the REAL Christianity. The cult that resides in the Vatican snuffed it out about 800 years ago because it preached "peace, love, and understanding".
Dale Jackaman
5 years ago
BC Humanist web site
http://bchumanist.ca
Some interesting polls on there.
8-)
Dale
nightbloom
5 years ago
The existence of God (or the
The existence of God (or the pre-Socratic Logos, the Word-Will at the heart of creation) cannot be proven or disproven by inductive reasoning. Ultimately a leap of faith in either direction is required, however that leap might be camouflaged or rationalized.
Booker - You're misinformed and are proceeding on false premises. The separation of Church and State never meant the exile of religion from the public sphere or human society and culture generally. That's what the Terror tried to accomplish when the French Revolution spun out of control and began cannibalizing French society. It ultimately resulted in the unity of State and Cult (remember Robespierre's "Cult of the Suprime Being"). These are forces that can't be trifled with lightly.
And this is where post-modern atheists are tripping blindly into dogmatic fundamentalism. The Separation never entailed the kind of sand-blasting, acid-washing, antiseptic sterilization of public space which secularists now seem to be demanding. The examples you name are spurious. Hospitals, schools and charitable service organizations that are funded and operated by religious institutions are not a violation of the Separation. They are a legitimate expression of human interest. Scarcely one hundred years ago the very notion of Big Government running the entire education and healthcare sectors would have been totally outlandish. Both the notion and practice evolved over time. The modern UNIVERSITY itself is the creation and intellectual brainchild of the Church. This is the factual history, the reality of our socio-cultural inheritance.
Incidentally, Creationism was taught alongside the theory of evolution in my public school loooong before the new jargon of "Intelligent Design" came on the scene. I can think of far more scarring adolescent experiences than that, for pete's sake. Kids know what's what, and they know when to indulge the adults. They're not as dumb as adults and education policy wonks sometimes think. I'd worry about all the other cant that has crept into the curriculum before I'd beat the war drums over Creationism in the classroom. I mean really - these kids of i-n-t-e-r-n-e-t. Do you really think anything teacher has to say on the subject is going to matter that much--?
The Catholic church nominally accepts science, though there has been some backsliding of late with the new Pope.
The Catholic Church today embraces science, and employs some of the sharpest minds in the world in both the sciences and the social sciences. Only on the principled issues of the violation of human dignity and the commercialization of the human person is the Church at odds with modern science in any fundamental way (and therefore at odds with the modern commercial and Big Pharmacy interests bankrolling the Life Sciences Industry.....and science is a self-interested industry just like any other. Remember that.).
The new Pope has steered Catholic doctrine firmly and decisively out of the way of science throughout his career in public life. The ironic truth is that historically the Catholic Church has been the biggest patron of scientific inquiry going back to the 12th century and beyond. This isn't to say there weren't well-known crackdowns on the scientific community (often synonymous with the clerical community) as well as a full panoply of documented and undeniable abuses where freedom of inquiry was periodically stifled. But both Renaissance science and high art owe a massive and monumental debt to the Roman Catholic Church. This is one of those cases where you've just gotta acknowledge the good as well as the bad and chalk it up to human perversity.
His argument (that there is almost certainly no god), is not dependent on the existence of fundamentalists.
Oooooh yes it is. His argument is more than a denial of God. He doesn't just take on God, he takes on the use of nature of religion-faith-spirituality in a Utilitarian way. He argues that fundamentalist minorities are enabled by the moderate majority. This is simply not the case in the West, and hasn't been for a very long time. Even on the hot button single issues (gays, abortion) there is a stark contrast between moderate and fundamentalist Christian. Dawkins' argument just doesn't hold up (not to mention that it's an unscientific and ahistorical agument). My own argument has always asserted the oppositie of Dawkins: that tolerance of moderate religion in mainstream society undercuts fundamentalism. The fundamentalists have nowhere to go; they have no choice but to isolate themselves in dwindling enclaves.
The rise of this new strain of evangelical fundamentalism in the 1980's is a direct result of the marginalization of moderate religion in the 1960's and 1970's, and the radical changes to society that we now identify as post-modernism. We are reaping the whirlwind, as it were.
MyBrainIsOnFire
5 years ago
nightbore employs the
nightbore employs the clerics weapon of penultimate resort - reams and reams of rationalizations, meant to stun into unconsciousness anyone wishing to further engage the subject.
all the blather in the world can't refute reality, evidence or reason.
.....
great podcasts, Dan Barker is one of those former fundamentalist preachers who turned to atheism when he reaized it was nonsense and hurtful to believe.
http://ffrf.org/radio/podcast/
great links to what is happening in the u.k. and definitely you can see how the believers want dominion over everyone...
www.secularism.org.uk/whatthepaperssay.html
The number one public speaker prior to the advent radio/tv in the USA and you don't know his name? - could be because he was an articulate, popluar person whose speeches focus on disputing religious claims - he was awesome and disappeared in todays world...
Ingersoll's Complete Works..
www.infidels.org/library/historical/robert_ingersoll/
biography
www.atheists.org/Atheism/roots/ingersoll/
others of note...
Losing Faith In Faith: From Preacher To Atheist
http://ffrf.org/books/lfif/
The holy blitz rolls on:
The Christian right is a "deeply anti-democratic movement" that gains force by exploiting...
www.salon.com/books/feature/2007/01/08/fascis
http://richarddawkins.net/index.php
www.nobeliefs.com/
www.atheists.org/
www.news.faithfreedom.org/ - more of a takedown of Islamism by former islamist
www.samharris.org/
nightbloom
5 years ago
Still namecalling, I
Still namecalling, I see.
Am I getting cross-eyed, MBIOF, or are you posting the same links over and over again.
It's no skin of my nose, but doing so is an insult to the intelligence of all the other participants on this thread.
We heard you the first time. And the second. And the third...
Anyway, if anyone's interested, an original link to a Prospect Online review of Dawkins' 'The God Delusion':
'Dawkins the Dogmatist'
http://www.prospect-magazine.co.uk/article_details.php?id=7803
oeanda
5 years ago
"-Christian bigotry
"-Christian bigotry promulgated by atheistic fundamentalists. When I think of the most murderous 20th century despots: Pol Pot, Stalin, Hitler, Mao--all fall into the atheist camp. So who really is violently hateful and purveyors of persecution?"
in each case you mention, atheism was a component of a larger political ideology.
the thing about revolutions is that they depend on a small intellectual core empowered by a large base of ignorant - for lack of a better word - supporters. when people suffer long enough, they come to a point where they'll be willing to suspend their natural skepticism and put their trust in a saviour. the average bolshevik could no better comprehend marx' economic theories than the average 17th century catholic could read latin.
they simply took it on faith.
in all facile comparisons between the enlightened christian democracies and despotic athiest regimes of the 20th century, the elephant in the room is that, in practical terms, political ideologues and religious zealots are indistinguishable.
whether it's a down-on-his luck german looking to hitler to rescue germany from the post-versailles economic catastrophy, or an evangelical in colorado springs looking to jesus to cure her son's leukemia, the mechanics are the same.
and when making such comparisons, try to be a little bit more honest about it.
in past centuries, the colonization of africa and the new world, and the extermination of tens of millions, was spearheaded by christian missionaries, and secured through brutal military campaigns bankrolled by "enlightened christian democracies."
just in the last 20 years of the 20th century, you have conflicts in africa and the middle east, chechnya, the balkans, india, etc., resulting in the deaths of millions, all said to be caused, justified or defined by religious tension.
of course, the underlying causes of most such conflicts are buried a little deeper than religion, but religion is a convenient delimiter. wherever there is suffering, there is relief in the spectre of an enemy. and where all suffer equally and all wear the same shade of skin, what easier distinction to make than between those who enjoy the favour of god and those who do not?
notwithstanding, in the case of the european colonists and their churches, the primary directive was profit.
as far as i can tell, humility is the cornerstone of a free, productive and healthy intellectual and emotional life. i don't mean humility as art of self-subjugation to an overwhelming but incomprehensible truth. the name for that is cowardice. no, humility the acknowlegement that "truth" is elusive and variable and that every one of us is fallible.
that, though you won't hear it mentioned often, is the foundation of secular humanism. all of us, from every culture and faith, have the capacity to do good or evil - usually both and often at the same time.
MyBrainIsOnFire
5 years ago
Among the most precious
Among the most precious achievements of our liberal and open society is the space it gives everyone to their personal commitments - including religious observance - under the entirely reasonable requirement that it does no harm to others. Disliking what some people do, or disagreeing with them, does not harm you. In a pluralistic dispensation there will be plenty of things people do that you do not like. It is when they begin forcing their choices on you that the line has been crossed. The Christian B&B owner who does not like homosexuality because of the herdsman's morality of the Old Testament, where all sperm must be directed at an ovum otherwise the sexual act involved is impermissible - the same morality, incidentally, that underwrote Catholic teaching to the effect that rape is preferable to masturbation because at least in rape conception might occur - is not being asked to like homosexuality (the practice), but at the same time he is not being asked to engage in it. By wishing to be exempted from having gay couples in his B&B he is asking the rest of us to join him in bed, so to speak. That is the asymmetry; and bigotry, always blind, fails to see it.
excerpt:
http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/ac_grayling/2007/01/post_897.html
Cruel faith - The Guardian UK
MyBrainIsOnFire
5 years ago
that url got cut
that url got cut off
http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/ac_grayling/2007/01/post_897.html
James Burns
5 years ago
Hee Hee
MBIOF,
I love the following comment from the Guardian link you provided:
Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. The End
That's not religion, that's common sense.
MyBrainIsOnFire
5 years ago
re: common sense
straight up, totally.
Stand up
5 years ago
I'd like to thank nightbloom
I'd like to thank nightbloom for " the clerics weapon of penultimate resort - reams and reams of rationalizations,"
I think it is also called rational argument in some circles. But it does, (or should) indeed "stun into unconsciousness" those unfamiliar with it. :-)
It is interesting that the topic where the faith community is always challenged is in the area of sexuality. It seems it is only certain values we do not want imposed. It has often seemed in this convo that the imposition of atheist values is considered no imposition. One cannot argue that atheists do not have values or else then there is nothing to argue about. So why is it considered neutral and non-oppressive to advocate atheism as the controlling political ideology?
Birch
5 years ago
sublime mystery
Although I have been too lazy to read the abundant commentary provided by all of the colleagues above, I've scanned enough of it to be reassured that the issues of God and religion, or of His (Her?) absence and its foolishness, have not left us and are likely to be around for another few thousand years, at least.
Our inner experience--memory, imaginings, ratiocination, hallucination, dreams, semantic meanderings--is wildly complex, and given that most efforts to share this experience with others involve language, language's very limitations tend to become the boundaries of God insofar as we can pretend to understand Him. Most religious adherents with any backbone, however, would argue vociferously that language cannot do justice to God, and that the infinities of wisdom, compassion, justice, etc. of which He is thought to be the apotheosis are truly beyond the power of language to describe. That never stopped people from trying, though.
Despite the complexity of our inner experience (religious or otherwise), surely the reality around us within which we are immersed is of far greater complexity, and our models of it are truly limited by the scale of our brains and the perimeters of our perception. I can only imagine that a God that I could understand would not be worth believing in.
All the above notwithstanding, I have never experienced God, have never been spoken to by Him in any way that I could with any realism claim to be sure was such a message. I have never spoken to God in any way in which I could be sure that some celestial or omnipotent being was listening to or understanding (mumbling wishful childhood bedtime prayers or subvocalizing hopeful curses have been longtime conditionings and later mental habits, but certainly haven't been conversations).
A serious question about all this God debate is, I think, "What difference does it make?" The world does not become less mysterious or beautiful if a God described in some ancient scribe's holy book didn't make it. We still need to learn to get along and love one another if we hope to survive, whether Jesus and Buddha said we should or not.
I am fabulously grateful to exist, to have had a shot at this amazing "gift" (not necessarily presuming a giver here) called life. If God exists, He knows that. If He doesn't, I still feel the gratitude, the pleasure, the miraculous nature of consciousness within the immeasurably startling surround of our existence.
There are so many nonsensical contradictions in most religious doctrine that it's astonishing that they have managed to gather the vast numbers of adherents which aver belief in them. But this merely supplies evidence that we're not a very rational species (if we're honest enough to admit it).
There are also some intensely powerful guides to life and its decisions that are coded within the narratives of the world's holy books. To be drawn to such wisdom supplies evidence that we can recognize good and practical homiletics whose application can better our own lives and the lives of others. That's a good thing, when the messages we adopt aren't telling us to go out and murder the unbeliever next door.
I like the article above because it shows resistance to the kind of thoughtless certainty that is so evident in the stance of "true believers" everywhere, secular or religious (Eric Hoffer had a lot of insight here, I think). However, certainty that there is no God seems as arrogant as the certainty of the suicide bomber or the televangelist.
I don't believe in God. But I would be a fool not to believe in the existence of religious experience. There is far too much evidence of its presence and power throughout history, including the present.
If God does exist, He will forgive my skepticism, or so I like to imagine. As Heinrich Heine said on his deathbed, "God will forgive me; that's His business."
IAMC
5 years ago
Death and religoen
Not to get emotional about it, I had a death in the family tonight.
She was my daughters husbands mother.
Within this family God is taking care of this tragedy.
Faith, is a powerful healer. Whatever that faith is in.
How can you be atheist? When there is all the proof that being faithful works?
aorangi
5 years ago
athiesm
Can't believe the animosity and violent emotion this subject evokes and wonder if it's because each side is putting down whatever they were taught by their parents when very young, in other words, people's early parental teachings are being trashed. Excepting the apostates of course.
This war's been going on for 2000 years and nothing new is said because there's nothing new to say, unless it's to a new generation. And all that torture and burning at the stake for nothing.
My own rage erupts not because someone believes in something absurd like virgin births, walking on water or burning bushes talking, but because of the cruelty, violence and eye-for-an-eye philosophy that has always been partner to Christian belief and is the action that walks hand-in-hand with the theory. Most religions are anything but benign and the world still suffers for it as Christians, Jews, Muslims and all the other brands slaughter each others children.
But I can cool off pretty easy with this thought: Illiteracy in Africa has been reduced 20% in the last 20 years (Stephen Lewis,UN), and as literacy spreads and grows, so, by inverse ratio does religious belief decline because an educated mind cannot accept irrational belief that can't stand up to academic scrutiny and clinical analysis.
Most atheists don't want to meet once a month as do car clubs and Christians. In our case there's nothing to say unless it's in a social context e.g. why would a bunch of non-mathematicians or a bunch of people who dont like fishing want to meet to discuss why they don't like to fish or why other people shouldn't fish? Atheists just wait, knowing that education is thriving all over the world and that one day there'll be one less thing to fight about.
nightbloom
5 years ago
Thanks for the kind words,
Thanks for the kind words, Stand Up! =)
aorangi - Yeah, the threads on religion are always a little bit fiery. Everyone wants to push their own brand of "tolerance" :-P
MBIOF said:
...the same morality, incidentally, that underwrote Catholic teaching to the effect that rape is preferable to masturbation because at least in rape conception might occur
That is simply an untrue, ignorant, ridiculous, not to mention lazy slander. Catholic sexual ethics could use an overhaul, but at no point was it ever "Catholic teaching" that it was preferable to rape women than use contraception. You lose more credibility with each of your harebrained posts, MBOF. I've got nothing against kids and teenagers participating in mature-themed threads like this, but at least make an effort at civil discourse. At least your continual name-calling possesses a certain juvenile honesty....But spare us the outright lies and deliberate slander.
nightbloom
5 years ago
Correction
I should have said:
"...but at no point was it ever "Catholic teaching" that it was preferable to rape women than indulge in onanism (masturbation)."
I was having a momentary flashback to a previous discussion that included a similar anti-Catholic insinuation....
But you get the idea.
sickofrel
5 years ago
Preaching the Word of Atheism
Dolphin said: "When I think of the most murderous 20th century despots: Pol Pot, Stalin, Hitler, Mao--all fall into the atheist camp. So who really is violently hateful and purveyors of persecution?"
Hitler was a Christian.
Stalin was brought up in an eastern orthodox seminary. He only became an atheist when he was sixteen.
Pol Pot was originaly taught in a budhist school, and later in catholic schools.
I wonder where these folks learned their problem solving skills.
Perhaps the character of Christ explains it best:
"Think not that I am come to send peace on earth: I came not to send peace, but a sword.
For I am come to set a man at variance against his father, and the daughter against her mother, and the daughter in law against her mother in law."
(All sorts of juicy bits like that in the New Testament.)
Coyote
5 years ago
Quote:Atheists just wait,
Yeah, I'd say that's about right, aorangi. To everything there is a season-, turn, turn, turn... :-)
MyBrainIsOnFire
5 years ago
Popes and Power: Part ten million five hundred and twelve
Pope Benedict XVI is reported to have been left "furious" and "isolated" by events of recent days when the man he approved as the next Archbishop of Warsaw was exposed as an agent of the Polish secret police.
........snip..........
"Ratzinger is not a courageous man," said one Vatican specialist, "he didn't stand up to the Nazis, and he doesn't expect others to be courageous."
But Benedict once again appears short on wise advisers or - worse - is being deliberately led into error by forces in the Vatican who are out of sympathy with him.
In public, the Pope takes aim at the media. "I think the Pope believes the media is responsible for much of his problems," said Robert Mickens, the Vatican correspondent of The Tablet. During his Epiphany sermon last week, the Pope warned against the "immense expansion of the mass media which, on the one hand, multiplies information indefinitely and, on the other, appears to weaken our capacity to make a critical synthesis."
http://news.independent.co.uk/europe/article2149730.ece
The tradition continues! From Constatine, oops I mean from Jesus to today....knowledge is bad, burn the libraries, burn the media...keep the people dumb and under control - now that's catholicism revealed in all it's naked glory - or is that naked and gory?
MyBrainIsOnFire
5 years ago
nightbloom you fool
I never said those words, if you had a brain that had normal cognitive abilities, you would see that it is a quote from an article on the Guardian UK subsite, Comment is Free, and the author of the words is A.C. Grayling, not I.
Go pick a fight with him - oh wait, he has facts to back his argument and you have...what was it again, oh yeah, no facts, no evidence, no reality and apparently the inability to read and understood what is before you. 'nuff said.
Booker
5 years ago
Apologetics
NB wrote:
The Catholic Church today embraces science, and employs some of the sharpest minds in the world in both the sciences and the social sciences
Cough...Jesus I spilled my coffee. You should write ad copy for the Pope.
The fundamentalists have nowhere to go; they have no choice but to isolate themselves in dwindling enclaves
Nightbloom, it doesn't seeem to be working out like that. Moderate religion is not forcing out the fundamentalists, and for the most part, I'm not impressed with the way "moderate" believers take on the fundies.
The rise of this new strain of evangelical fundamentalism in the 1980's is a direct result of the marginalization of moderate religion in the 1960's and 1970's, and the radical changes to society that we now identify as post-modernism. We are reaping the whirlwind, as it were.
Moderate religion was never marginalized in the U.S., except by fundamentalists. The fundamentalism of the eighties and nineties is just a reawakening of the old-time American religion that's been there all along. I think your second point has some validity -- there was a backlash against the counterculture, civil rights for African Americans, and liberalism generally. (I would argue, though, that modernity is more antithetical to religion than postmodernity is). But the sixties gave rise to New Age religion, (which most would call "moderate"), not a wave of atheism. Church attendence in the U.S. did drop for a time, but not because of a marginalization of moderate religion -- it was because of the baby boomers. A large chunk of the population was finding other ways to experience their "spirituality". Once they settled down and had families most of them reverted to the ways of their upbringing.
I just don't buy your argument that the "moderates" reign in the loonies.
Dawkins's point, and the one that bugs "moderate" believers like yourself the most, is that both religious fundamentalists and religious moderates start from the same incorrect premise, that there is a god. Correct that mistake, and things get a whole lot simpler. I think he is correct that, in an environment where supernaturalist thinking is respected, fundamentalism is more likely to arise than it is in an environment where supernaturalism is treated with skepticism. You disagree. Okay.
Booker
5 years ago
Scientific Giants
Is this representative of the great minds at the Vatican?:
Father Amorth says that people may need an exorcism after becoming spiritually possessed or obsessed after taking part in satanic rituals, fortune telling, practicing magic, using astrology and being cursed. On curses he states that, "A curse can originate from such things as maledictions by close relatives, a habit of blaspheming, membership in the Freemasonry, spiritic or magic practices, and so on.
Boy, they really want to crack down on the competition.
He's the Pope's personal exorcist, btw.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Father_Amorth
Bluenose
5 years ago
The existence of God
Nightbloom wrote:
Sure.
Read:
http://www.radicalacademy.com/askacademy30.htm
To quote from the above article:
Another quote from the above article:
A final quote from the above article:
Nightbloom wrote:
Not true. The Catholic Church does not accept the results of social science research in the areas of human sexuality in general and homosexuality in particular.
The Roman Catholic Church is locked into an Aristotelian philosophical orientation that has led its collective thinking to certain conclusions. It was Aristotelian philosophy that reigned during the Middle Ages, a mode of thinking that sought Turth through reasoning, i.e., inference from pre-existing premises, rather than Facts from hypotheses based on observed phenomena.
Finally:
http://www.beliefnet.com/story/178/story_17875_1.html
I especially like this from the above article:
A few facts go a long way.
Bluenose
5 years ago
The Existence of God
Nightbloom wrote:
Sure.
Read:
http://www.radicalacademy.com/askacademy30.htm
To quote from the above article:
Another quote from the above article:
A final quote from the above article:
Nightbloom wrote:
Not true. The Catholic Church does not accept the results of social science research in the areas of human sexuality in general and homosexuality in particular.
The Roman Catholic Church is locked into an Aristotelian philosophical orientation that has led its collective thinking to certain conclusions. It was Aristotelian philosophy that reigned during the Middle Ages, a mode of thinking that sought Turth through reasoning, i.e., inference from pre-existing premises, rather than Facts from hypotheses based on observed phenomena.
Finally:
http://www.beliefnet.com/story/178/story_17875_1.html
I especially like this from the above article:
A few facts go a long way.
Truman Green
5 years ago
not quite, bluenose
Bluenose, I wouldn't fall for that old 'you can't prove a negative stuff,' if I were you.
Of course you can prove a negative.
If you swear in court that you saw me steal a fifty dollar bill by reaching, with my right arm, into your cookie jar, and I can prove that I lost my right arm in an accident ten years ago, I can prove a negative--that I didn't do it as you claim.
Perry Mason used to prove negatives all the time.
Science does it too. For instance, in order to prove a causal correlation between a virus and disease, virologists accept a requirement known as Koch's Postulates. If the virus doesn't fulfill the conditions set by the postulates, the conclusion is that the virus is innocent.
One of the postulates is that a healthy person will get the disease if he/she is injected with the virus.
In Aids, for instance, researchers have been trying to give Aids to chimps and monkeys for years, (to prove that hiv causes Aids) by injecting them with hiv, but so far have only succeeded in making one or two a bit headachy, and another couple throw feces--no fatal illness, and especially not fatal immune suppression.
Unfortunately 'science', being somewhat bought and paid for, refuses to accept that 'it' has proven a negative.
Btw, here are my candidates for editing in the Christian bible:
1st Timothy, Chapter 2, verses 11 and 12
"Let the woman learn in silence with all subjection.
"But I suffer not a woman to teach, nor to usurp authority over the man, but to be in silence."
And this from St. Paul: 1st Corinthians, Chapter 14, verses 34 and 35:
"Let your women keep silence in the churches: for it is not permitted unto them to speak; but they are commanded to be under obedience, as also saith the law."
"And if they will learn anything, let them ask their husbands at home: for it is a shame for women to speak in the church."
So you see why the Pope doesn't want women priests? The bible told him so.
Booker
5 years ago
Proof
If you swear in court that you saw me steal a fifty dollar bill by reaching, with my right arm, into your cookie jar, and I can prove that I lost my right arm in an accident ten years ago, I can prove a negative--that I didn't do it as you claim
That's disproving a "positive"; that you did something that you could not have done.
Prove to me that there are no fairies.
Gerhardius
5 years ago
negative proof
Truman Green wrote:
Of course you can prove a negative.
The fallacy is the appeal to lack of evidence as "proof." The fallacy is not that one "can't prove a negative" but that one reverses the burden of proof from the initiator to the challenger: X is true because there is no proof X is false. This argument is used by both sides in the supreme being debate, passionately arguing the unprovable riding the same illogical horse.
Your example of the court case is not fallacious because there is evidence that can be proved or disproved: the arm. The science examples are also flawed because they are examples of abductive reasoning. Incidentally, there are other examples besides HIV/AIDS where Koch's postulates do not hold true . Those who have zero clue about Koch can go:
postulates here http://www.asm.org/microbe/index.asp?bid=42490
decent short piece with some history http://www.asm.org/microbe/index.asp?bid=42390
There is another structure that can be used in the fallacious argument involving negative proof but I have to run for now and will get to it after lunch.
SayBlade
5 years ago
useless athiesm
Wow, lots of commentary! And, on a hot topic.
Athiests gathering together are not much different from any religious group with their infighting, conflicts and zeal for converts. The key here, is gathering together and attempting to form a group of like-minded folk. They are never going to agree on everything and could suffer the splits and schisms that Baptists have endured since Smyth and Helwys went their separate ways some 400 years ago.
Unfortunately with athiests, there is such an emphasis on disproving everything in the Bible. It's not true, they say. But it stops there. What useful purpose has it served? It's not true, then, so what?
I like what Tom Harpur has done in his book The Pagan Christ. While eschewing all belief in an historical Jesus, he redeems Christianity -- and other faiths that follow scriptures -- such that bridge building between people of different faiths and those who profess none is possible.
Irshad Manji follows a similar process with Islam in The Trouble with Islam.
I have a Baptist minister friend who is a Buddhist. I have other Baptist friends who have declared that "The Bible is true, and some of it happened." I guess I am an athiest AND I believe in God too.
So, those athiests better think again before throwing Bibles out the window (they could be fined for littering) or burning them (more greenhouse gasses). For if writings like this are tossed, we might find folk tossing out Peter Rabbit, Anne of Green Gables and all the Greek myths simply on the basis that they are not true. Stories like these are precious and useful to someone.
What a boring world that would be if it was all gone!
Truman Green
5 years ago
good Gerhardius, but
Good stuff, Gerhardius, but no seriously intelligent person would really argue that x is true because there is no proof that x is false. The fact that there is no proof proves one of two things: That there is no agreed upon area of information that both parties will accept as proof, or that there IS an agreed upon body of information, but nothing has been shown to satisfy the criteria.
The non-existence of proof in either of these categories still fails to prove that x is true. And, I think, an argument to the contrary will fool noone except those who would rush out to buy a seasons' ticket because Beckham is playing for LA.
So, as you say, although both sides in the existence of god debate may try to use such arguments, they are never really helpful, but rather specious non sequiturs.
The bottom line is always the same: Whether or not you can prove something is totally irrevelant to its truth or falsity.
Arguments about 'proving negatives' are not really meaningful because it's all a matter of semantics. If both sides will agree on the kind of evidence that will be accepted as proof, it is theoretically possible to prove anything, either negative or positive.
For example, I believe that I can prove, using my knowledge of science and logic, that 'something' (some kind of so-far unknown creative energy) exists in the world which can roughly be considered as analogous to the 'god' idea--although I can say nothing of the location, dimension, intention, morality, appearance, loyalties to special peoples, or anything else about such an existence--only that it seems to be present.
However, if noone will accept my standard of proof as conclusive, my evidence will remain of little interest.
maestro
5 years ago
Re Humanism/Atheism: "
Re Humanism/Atheism:
" Cogito, ergo sum "
aka : I think, therefore I am. (Rene' Descartes)
" I am, therefore I'll think " (Ayn Rand)
" I THINK that I think, therefore I THINK that I am . " ( Ambrose Bierce )
" I am what I am and that's all that I am " (Popeye the Sailor Man)
" There are no Atheists in Foxholes...", (unknown)
Truman Green
5 years ago
I knew you gonna say that, Maestro
I knew you were gonna say that, Maestro.
doggone
5 years ago
This may have been said above
It occurs to me that a lot of people who respond to polls :"No affilliation" might simply be unimpressed with any formal gathering process. Catagorizing everyone as beleiver/non beleiver; Christian/Muslim/Hindu/Budhist/Taoist/aethiist leaves me out.
I do not need to be preached at once a week nor have my wishy washy sentiments against organized religion reinforced on a regular basis.
Attendance at mainstream religious functions is dwindling (at least some of them - according to "The Little Mosque").
I'll take a walk in the snow with my "Best Beloved" grandson any time. But I will not attend any formal function (funerals and weddings and such excepted) where some one wastes my time either to praise God or attempt to prove He/She does not exist.
SayBlade
5 years ago
"any formal gathering process."
Doggone said
This is quite true of many people. That said, however, there is always a need for people to gather in small groups, family, community to reflect, tell stories, and provide nurturing and growth. While church provides this for some, others find it in clubs, activism, whatever. Unfortunately, as I wrote earlier, there are points where groups section themselves off from a larger group, seeking some sort of purity to their living. This can be helpful, but it can also be dangerous, i.e. Branch Davidians in Waco, Jim Jones in South America, etc.
Truman Green
5 years ago
So true, sayblade, but
Yes, sayblade, even a gathering based on a pack of dubious claims can be fun if you're out to feel wanted, but there will always be those who insist on the major tenents of any philosophy, like religion, for instance, actually being 'true'-- as in 'the truth will set you free'-- not, you'll notice, attributed to whatever makes you feel welcome and loved.
aorangi
5 years ago
BEING IN A FOXHOLE
Maestro, No wonder you have no author to "There are no Atheists in Foxholes" because it's such a stupid quote who would put their name to it.
Those of us fortunate enough to be raised without religion don't need to be continually asking Jesus to save us from this and that, so we develop the strengths we need to go it alone.
Neither do we have a need to "worship" something which would put us in subjugation and make us weaker while battling in the foxhole.
If I did have a need to worship something, which I don't, I think I'd worship the sun. At least I can observe its existence and understand its function.
nightbloom
5 years ago
A few facts
Bluenoes said:
Newsflash: Most gay people don't either. And that's not science, it's "social science". Big big diff.
Trust me, the campus gurus of "queer theory" and "womynz studeez" have nothing meaningful to the gay community. They've been as mute on the current meth crisis as they have been throughout the AIDS epidemic. From a realist gay perspective, these ivory tower satrapies are totally useless consumers of government grant money. And they've totally failed to put forward a viable post-modern sexual ethic for the constituencies they claim to be studying and speaking for.
The quote from Schonborn is interesting. He was basically saying what any scientist can tell you - that micro-evolution has been demonstrated, while macro-evolution remains theoretical. You see, there are two sorts of "evolution", as Truman can explain.
Granted, Schonborn was one of the most 'friendly' towards U.S. Intelligent Design partisans, but he was warned away from endorsing the movement. You're always going to get a spectrum of opinions in any organization. Intelligent Design as the evangelicals have set up the argument is not part of Catholic teaching, and I'm relieved that Benedict moved quickly to distance the RCC from it.
MBIOF - You did not place that statement in quotes, and I tuned out your links after you started re-posting them ad nauseum. And the statement is not only wrong, it's an outright lie. Catholic teaching never condoned the rape of women....not even, as the you seem to assert, to avoid masturbation. You brought it up, and either way it's a stupid statement to make or repeat.
MyBrainIsOnFire
5 years ago
nightbloom you are simply
nightbloom you are simply incorrect in everything - you cannot wish away the centuries of hate, war, and thievery the cathjolic church has supported - all the catholic bribes bullshit in the world will never erase that.
you're still a fool for responding to something you did not understand, old man.
www.jesusneverexisted.com
maestro
5 years ago
Atta Boy Truman: P.S. Can
Atta Boy Truman:
P.S. Can you pick my 6/49 numbers ???
maestro
5 years ago
Aorangi: Foxholes and
Aorangi:
Foxholes and Atheists et al
Like Puddy on Seinfeld once said to the atheist Elaine " I'm not the one going to Hell ".
Acknowledging a quotes' authorship often detracts from the quotes' inherent classic wisdom.
Now try this simple secular humanist atheist "test"/experiment:
Sign up for the Afghanistan Mission...practice digging FOXHOLES, and report back.
PS you will note that my "Ambrose Bierce quote" in my past post was placed in the middle of the pack...(he also authored The Devil's Dictionary ). Mr. Bierce should also be the Buddha of Humanism/Atheism ( oops.....is that an Oxymoron?)
Truman Green
5 years ago
here's your numbers, Maestro
I've got your 649 numbers ready, Maestro, but first you have to admit I was pretty funny.
MyBrainIsOnFire
5 years ago
No Evidence of Non-existence
from url:
http://www.jesusneverexisted.com/exist.html
"No Evidence of Non-existence" – Welcome to the Twilight Zone
In an oddly distorted, negative universe Christian apologists declare that there is "no evidence" for their godman's non-existence, as if it should be quite natural to believe in the most fantastic, illogical and unsubstantiated claims unless there was evidence to the contrary. If this stance had any viability, why stop at Jesus? Why not believe in Zeus, leprechauns and the tooth fairy?
A favourite tack of the Saved is to affect a yawn, mutter "that old stuff again" and impatiently declare that Jesus's non-existence is a 19th century rationalist's heresy long since disposed of by "solid evidence".
The ringing claim of "more evidence for the existence of Jesus than there is for any other person of his day" is followed by a potpourri of ancient sources, as if a list made long enough could disguise the fact that NOT A SINGLE SOURCE EVER QUOTED IS FROM THE TIME OF THE GODMAN.
Early non-Christian writers, including the favourite hostages – Josephus, Suetonius, Pliny and Tacitus – are discussed here http://www.jesusneverexisted.com/josephus-etal.html
But stepping around the smokescreen thrown up by evidence that early Christians certainly existed (and had a motley assortment of beliefs!), is the evidence for many of history's greatest heroes and villains really so tenuous?
VS REALITY....
Evidence that Confirms the Existence of Caesar is Legion
– in stark contrast to the utter dearth of evidence for Jesus!
Unlike the mythical Jesus Christ, we know what Caesar looked like and we have a complete history of his life. In turn, general, orator, historian, statesman and lawgiver. We have words written by Caesar himself and words written by both his friends and his enemies. Artifacts confirm his life and death, as do his successors. Caesar established a style of government – and a calendar – which endured for centuries.
...go to url for more....
maestro
5 years ago
The world according to Truman
Truman:
Other than that H*&^%rse Sh#t ( LOL ) you sermonized about the WTC 9/11 last year......I enjoy the contributions you make.
Sorry, I can't admit on-line you were funny, that implies some sort of Deification...too many TYEE people are already putting themselves on pedestals spreading their own "absolute truth"(cc)version 2007 about "Absolute Truth ." Tough to pick a winner. Toss a tithing coin ?
PS 6/49 Numbers SVP....the draw is coming up soon...or just tell me the 43 LOSING numbers. Sure glad "666" isn't in the #'s pack , eh?
Now back to the pagan NFL game in that heathen Nation south of us. I think I'm becoming a born -again Colts fan , at least in the short term.
nightbloom
5 years ago
MBIOF - So far you've
MBIOF - So far you've demonstrated that you know how to:
1. Cut-&-Paste
2. Call people names
So good on you, kiddo. Now why don't you get out on the limb with the rest of us and assert something you thought up all by your little self. Your latest evocation of historic violence in the name of religion is not only a massive cliché, it's intellectually dishonest and ahistorical. Violence is universal in human societies, and occurs for an indescribably variety of reasons. One could just as easily condemn all science as evil because it "caused" the nuclear bomb.... Unless you think weapons of mass destruction were invented by rapine Roman Catholic priests....? Anyway, enough of you...
I'd like to revisit a salient point that someone raised: they seemed to feel that the separation of Church and State was not just getting smaller, but that it had never been completed in the first place. Having a symbolic Head of State also acting as the Symbolic Head of the Church (i.e. the Queen) was a good example, but does it really impinge on the neutrality of policymaking or the nature of the public sphere?
Does "God Save the Queen" or "God keep our Land" reallly lend the imprimatur of the State upon Deism? Or are these nice and conventional formalities, like coming to a full stop at stop signs, or asking the nameless cashier how she's doing today.
And if religious constituencies can muster enough money and votes to send a representative to Parliament, isn't that just democracy? Is it really wrong for a duly elected Prime Minister who believes in God to say publicly "God Bless Canada" if that is his sentiment?
I actually had a great debate on this latter point with a friend of mine who was also a priest. Ironically, he felt that what Harper said was totally inappropriate (as much because he considered it an "americanism" as because it apparently lent the imprimature of the state on Deism). I disagreed, and was inclined to see it as a formality, a figure of speech, and a manifestation of simple freedom of expression.
mopled
5 years ago
Romans did it better
This from the jesusneverexisted website gave rise to a black humoued laugh on my part.
'But anonymously posted accusations ought to have no place in any prosecution. For this is both a dangerous kind of precedent and out of keeping with the spirit of our age.'
(Trajan to Pliny, Letters 10.96-97)
Compare this ruling of the 'pagan' Trajan in 113 AD with that of the Christian Inquisitors thirteen centuries later – for whom 'anonymous accusations' and 'seeking out' of heretics was the modus operandi !
Compare it to today's anti-terrorism legislation!
Anyway, back to the topic. I saw an interesting film on CBC Newsworld last night called "Without God", which brought up work being done by Persinger which suggests that spirituality may be "hard wired" in our brains.
For reference:
http://www.cbc.ca/thelens/program_090107.html
lynn
5 years ago
Space/Time will tell
I just think it's curious that in a universe where we often can't get even the smallest of mysteries right ...where one week the drinking of coffee is condemned by scientists and the next week a cuppa of the brew is exalted for its invigorating benefits...that so many of you are so sure of the bigger mysteries like the existence... or not... of God.
Why are we so afraid to admit what we do not know?
While no doubt science and education are wondrous in themselves, some of those so-called mainstream "certainties" of both science and education may just turn out to be temporal flashes in an ever-expanding mindscape.
mikev
5 years ago
religion
I am an atheist. I'm here to live my life the best I can, and if after I die there is an afterlife or a reincarnation, I'll deal with it then. I'm not going to base a single decision I ever make on what might happen after I die.
If my karma is good, then Zeus or Yaweh or Thor or whoever, should want to hang out with me. If they turn me away because I didn't sacrifice enough goats in their name or convert enough non believers or "accept Christ as my saviour", then they can f*ck right off because I wouldn't want to talk to them anyway.
I don't disrespect people who might believe in the Flying Spaghetti Monster (look that one up lol), but if they want to talk to me about how great their religion is and how I should consider it for myself, I will tell them how silly I find it all.
Deep down I have a little envy for the comfort that must come with blind belief. It must be nice. But I can't just give up like that.
I see no need to join a group to talk about how great atheism is. For someone who has managed to turn away from organized religion to want to create an organization in it's place seems totally bizarre to me. I can see how there might be a need for some sort of counter to the Christian fundamentalism that seems so powerful these days, I'm more of the opinion that as they make themselves known their power will wane on it's own. It's kind of my slightly different take on non violence - if someone is attacking you, let them, encourage them to be as harsh as they are able, for everyone to see their true nature, so that in the future they will find it harder to get into the kind of position that let them attack you in the first place.
I'm just as interested in learning about the myths and beliefs of the ancient desert peoples of Arabia (the Jewish, Christian, or Muslim sects) as I am in learning about the turtle on whose back rests the world or about how raven was involved in creating first man or about the great hall where all my warrior brothers will greet me after I die. It's all interesting, but nothing that a sensible modern person should base their lives on, imho.
Science sure seems to me like a fundamentalist religion to some people. "Science has never done anything but good for mankind, nothing but Science can possibly do any good for mankind." "Don't worry about global warming, Science will save us!" "There's no widely accepted sound scientific basis for X so I'm 110% certain that it's nonsense." Is science infallible? Butter will kill you, eat margarine!! Margarine will kill you, eat butter!! This fat free zero calorie synthetic alternative is the way to go, and it's perfectly safe for human consumption (nevermind a little "anal leakage", that's perfectly normal). Science never hurt anyone? Eugenics, anyone? Forced sterilizations?
Everything in moderation. Do unto others. There are certain themes, they get expressed in the stories/fables/oral traditions of most religions. We all know how to live a good life, if a religion helps reinforce that for some people then I guess it's not all bad. Learning about them isn't likely to make you worse as a person. Just be careful about letting it make you a crazy nutbar.
Eddy Haskel
5 years ago
"spirituality may be "hard
"spirituality may be "hard wired" in our brains."...Interesting. If only it were that simple that we could extract a 'god-gene' or g-spot from our brains and enter reality.
god is dead.(and boy is he mad)...nes't pas?
mopled
5 years ago
Why extract it?
You don't have to believe in any of the godheads to experience spirituality. That moment of peace and contentment that comes when looking at the beauties of nature qualifies as a "spiritual" moment. Would you really want to deep six those times.
Religions are sets of rules, some useful, some not, but too often relgion and spirituality are antithetical.
MyBrainIsOnFire
5 years ago
good bye mr naggingbore
peace out to everyone else.
MyBrainIsOnFire
5 years ago
but yeah, the Romans were great under Trajan
so much history denied to prop up the power of the clerics and it is sadly sickening to hear those who would quash free thought and human exploration of the universe in our own age.
woody
5 years ago
PEW
mikev said,
I would suggest, be carful where thou sits one self in the church, Pew!
doggone
5 years ago
siteth thy (replaces "sits one")
Woody:
Thanks for bringing this to our attention.
Wish my problem was "a little" leakage in stead of explosive eruptions of undetermined materials.
Maybe that is why I can not be part of any regular schedule of "worship": my gut won't sit still for it
nightbloom
5 years ago
Religion vs. Spirituality
Moppled - Thanks for bringing us back to the distinctions between religion, spirituality and faith.
That was a point I was trying to make at the top of this thread (the very first post).
What you describe - that spontaneous contentment and feeling of spiritual unity with nature and the universe - is sometimes called revelation.
In a lot of ways, organized religion is an attempt to tap it, control it, and redirect it.....in other words, to institutionalize it.
John Ralston Saul described an interesting example of this in his book "Voltaire's Bastards". He discussed the institutional Church's co-optation of St. Francis of Assisi. Francis was a free spirited nature-lover who rejected religious formalism and lived entirely through his sense of "revelation" in the "now" of every moment. He also dangerously rejected the Manichean strains of St. Augustine and St. Paul by embracing the sacredness of nature and physical being. You could even say that he was the first "environmentalist". Francis developed the following of a super-star while he lived, and introduced a potent but unpredictable animist strain into Christianity. His movement could have been very damaging to the institutional Church, and he was seen as a threat by many. But after his death his movement was institutionalized, his "revelation" was ironed out and integrated into the established religion. The bomb was defused.
In my humble opinion, atheists and secular humanists would make more converts (or at least gain sympathetic cooperators) if they dropped the frontal assault on Deism and opened up a mature and historically informed dialogue on the distinctions between religion, faith and spirituality, and how these distinctions impact politcs, society and culture.
Just a suggestion.
Eddy Haskel
5 years ago
Spirituality
I'll believe in spirituality when I see someone actually feel my pain or maybe when I can reflect upon the memories of that cow that used to be that steak I ate last night.
doggone
5 years ago
Hi Ed
I ain't touchin' that one!
Oh yes I am: Who is supposed to "feel your pain"?
I would never ask that from anyone - let alone the other posters here. Talk about setting the bar very high! If I see you get any form of satisfaction I will certainly get on here with my list of complaints. I ate fish this night (and saurkraut) but there is no need to reflect
upon their memories
Come to think of it: maybe you do have a point.
Eddy Haskel
5 years ago
The Force
Obi wan Kenobi, apparently, could feel the pain of others. Of course, he's a fictional character, of Star Wars fame.
aorangi
5 years ago
FOXHOLES AND GOD
Well Maestro, The foolish quotation isn't meant to be literal. I've been in some scary, some heartbreaking and some dangerous situations during my long life and never has it occurred to me to seek help from a supernatural being. You have to have this crutch imposed upon you as a toddler and before you develop reasoning powers to make it stick. Is that what happened to you?
You say that "Acknowledging a quote's authorship often detracts from the quote's inherent, classic wisdom". Is that because you'll qualify the quote according to what you know about the author and whether or not you like or dislike him? I suppose that could be. But it wouldn't "often" detract - it would always detract or never detract.
Humanism/Atheism isn't an oxymoron - they overlap.
coco_mees
5 years ago
Parody of American Anthem-includes fundamentalism
I am agnostic and I think that the human mind will never be able to comprehend the complexities and wonders of nature and the universe's history. I think many people are afraid of not understand things and religion is often used as a filler for what people do not know. Not everyone, many people.
It IS possible to be spiritual without having a religious affiliation. We are all embedded in nature but there are different ways of easing the mind spiritually.
Here is a good parody of the American Nationa Anthem in light of the Democrats' recent win:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UJyWIoMtAyE
Bluenose
5 years ago
A Few Facts
Nightbloom wrote:
How could you possibly know that? How could you possibly know that "most" gay people "don't either"? This is conjecture, not knowledge, factual or otherwise.
There are several universities that offer courses in the science of social science. Your dismissal of social science seems to me like an attempt to distract and to obscure.
Newsflash: There is no gay "community" per se. There is a subculture, and there are many communities within the subculture, but it does not speak with one voice.
It is neither the mandate nor the responsibility of the "campus gurus" you dismissively caricature to formulate a single, one-size-fits-all "sexual ethic" for anyone. Perhaps if you were to take a course in "queer theory" or "womynz studeez" (God, you're witty) you would at least have the opportunity to relate to and interact with the very people you seem to excoriate. In any event, it seems unlikely that queer theorists and women's studies professors see it as their job to produce a universal catechism for queer communities. The issuance of universal edicts is best left for those whose interests are more ambitious, more bent toward domination and control.
Pardon me if I am somewhat less than enthusiastic about placing my trust in Truman's explanations of science.
To quote an extract from the American Association of Physics Teachers:
You further state:
Since you seem to self-identify as an agnostic, why would you be "relieved" that the Roman Pontiff has moved to "distance" the institution over which he presides from the theory of intelligent design?
The Church has poured the social and spiritual equivalent of toxic sludge over and into the world for the past two millenia and then taken credit for trying to clean up the mess its own principles and policies have created. In acting as a crypto-apologist for the willfully ignorant and arrogantly manipulative institutional edifice of Roman Catholicism, you defend the indefensible.
maestro
5 years ago
Great: Woody's back !
Woody's back !!!!
...my Faith is restored.
From a past sermon...I feared he was going to maintain a Vow of Silence...
Hallelujah !
maestro
5 years ago
To aorangi
Aorangi:
Well, setting aside the classic universal wisdom of " No Atheists in Foxholes " , I guess I can conclude you agree with the other( 4 )quotes I mentioned.
Specifically, Ambrose Bierce's " I think that I think therefore I think that I am ".
Sorta like his definition of Lawyer:
LAWYER: " One trained to circumvent the Law " .
I seem to recall Bierce was an aetheist, but his insight into the human condition almost makes one wonder of his "higher calling". Many of these humanist /atheist arguments and discussions posted here would be prime fodder for Bierce.
Truman Green
5 years ago
just to clarify my point of view
Bluenose, nightbloom misinterpreted my point of view regarding micro and macro evolution. I agree with the teachers that both must be considered on the same continum.
However, just to clarify, I'm claiming that neither micro nor macro evolution has been demonstrated; that natural selection, mutation and genetic drift--the three pillars of darwinian and neo-darwinian evolution do not cause speciation.
That the competition and selection of the most fit individual and variety within a species is a device which is in place, not to allow the accumulation of tiny 'improvements, which, in turn cause speciation, but JUST THE OPPOSITE: the stasis or prevention of degradation of a species.
Darwinian selection depends upon competition among all individuals within a species, rivalry among males for mating rights, and the presentation and preservation of advantages or benefits, due to an accidental change in habitats and environments.
I believe that these elements have been wrongly identified as speciation mechanisms, when they are, in fact, elements causing stasis--and therefore that the entire idea of darwinian evolution is WRONG.
These devices prevent change; they do not allow it, as Darwinians have been claiming for one hundred and fifty years.
If I am correct, the entire idea of selection of advantageous varieties being the precursor of selection is merely a logical fallacy.
The second pillar, mutations, are well known to be retrograde or degenerative, so that their role in speciation must be incidental at best.
Genetic drift, which is the supposed shifting of alleles over time within a population is little more than a cover for the doubt that is arising that mutations and natural selection could have a serious role in speciation. The idea is that the slow 'drifting' of alleles has a one-way arrow of time so that every minute alteration of a sequence will be locked in place in future generations, and the gradual accumulation of changes will slowly alter the speciates.
This, is in fact, a huge intellectual tautology; species exist exactly because the sequences which built them have some kind of 'remembrance' or their origins. Without such a 'genetic memory' the species would collapse into phenomic chaos. Not even 'varieties' would survive; rather every individual would be only barely recognizable as a member of any species. And it is this chaos which is prevented by the mechanisms which evolutionists have long claimed allow change.
I'm sure that natural selection, mutations and genetic drift will be seen as a kind of scientific comedy in years to come.
And perhaps most obvious will be the humour when they are applied to the pathways for assembly of biochemicals, complex biochemically-derived systems (such as the immune system and the origin of the GENETIC CODE) and organs Darwin referred to as "organs of extreme specialization," which most advocates of intelligent design believe have been assembled in a manner that is non-reducible to accidental events.
Evolution is an obvious fact; how it works is a matter of opinion--and theory.
Life has progressed (evolved) from procaryotes to eucaryotes to vertebrates to humans in something less than four billion years. A sentient entity can not really seriously pretend that this has not happened.
The question is: how has it happened?
Is the assembly of organisms, biochemicals and complex systems, in some way beyond our underestanding, aware, that is, intelligent, or is everything just an accident with the best accidents defining future generations?
DJT
5 years ago
Religion and spirituality
mjf asked "what is the difference between religion...and spirituality?
My mom used to say "Religion is for people who are afraid to go to hell. Spirituality is for people who have been to hell and don't want to go back".
Bobb999
5 years ago
2.4% of World's Population Atheistic
...according to an '04 poll sponsored by Encyclopedia Brittanica. In addition, the Poll found 12.5% of the world pop. to be "irreligious".
An earlier, '95 poll sponsored by the CIA found 3.8% of the world's population atheistic, and 14.7% "irreligious".
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_atheism
The numbers are not very encouraging for proselytizing fundamentalist materialist atheists, who would want to see the world become "enlightened" to their particular (historically aberrant) materialist cult.
Their efforts to gain adherents are going unrewarded, as the percentage of atheists and irreligious appears to be declining, not growing.
2.4% represents a tiny rump of the population that ascribes to fundamentalist materialism.
Burns and his ilk should admit they're part of a tiny and diminishing cult, which demographically seems to have poor future prospects as a paradigm ever likely to be accepted by the population at large.
As Truman points out, many scientific findings of recent years suggest the materialist paradigm does not adequately explain many aspects of life and the Universe.
I would add that dozens of studies of paranormal phenomena conducted under the auspices of a number of reputable universities over decades, from Prof. Rhine's successful dice and card guessing studies at Duke U in the 1930s to present (e.g. someone mentioned the statistical success of ongoing PEAR study at Princeton begun in '79)suggests the materialist paradigm is insufficient to explain the nature of the universe and human consciousness.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parapsychology
A huge percentage of the population, not only believes in some forms of paranormal phenomena, but report that they personally have experienced such phenomena. An '06 poll by Australia's Monash U. found that 80% of respondents reported having had experienced premonitions, for instance.
We see the materialist paradigm runs contrary to common experiences of a vast majority of people, who know from their own life experience that it's an insufficient paradigm, and therefore unacceptable.
Bailey
5 years ago
Sophistry
It does seem remarkable what lengths an argument can be carried to based on differing definitions of nouns.
Especially when they have no referents. Words like peace, justice, honour, love, God. These words have only the meanings their users give them. This is not to say they aren't important; they are clearly the most important words to humans, since we are willing to kill and die for them.
Physics, until recently, has offered no approach to the nature of consciousness, but it clearly exists, and has profound effect on everything.
Spirituality is a theory that all physical form is modified by discrete conscious beings that are in effective existence seperate from bodies. This theory arises from the observable fact of death. A live being has spirit and a body, a dead one still has the body, but not the spirit. What's the difference?
Also, there is a large body of human experience that points to the, at least somewhat effective discrete existence of disembodied spirits. They offer little physical evidence, but those who have experiences of ghosts, spirits, angels and the like are convinced, and remain so.
Religions, including Atheism, are political organizations that promote the various variations of this theory. The whole idea of God or gods are simply a way to approach this mystery.
It is exactly equivalent to say 'God exists' or to say 'There is no God'. Both statements are simple tools to be used in advancing an argument, which itself is a tool for advancing one's understanding of the mystery of death. Both statements are true, and both are untrue. But both give us definition.
Clearly, consciousness modifies form in the physical world. The nature of that power fascinates us. But given the nature of language, which is our main tool for understanding anything, I say there must be exactly as many ways to understand God as there are conscious beings trying to understand God.
And each of them exactly as true as all the others.
tommymoore
5 years ago
Somewhat flawed logic, Truman..
Darwinian selection involves far more than this; environmental factors and other species have their effects as well.
This "..huge intellectual tautology.." you speak about is far from dogma. It has come about through lifetimes of consideration by many thinking scientists.
Dogma enters the equation whenever explanations are requested. Billions of years of planetary change and species development do not infer a creator unless one is willing to commit the intellectual suicide necessary to stop exploring.
lynn
5 years ago
Language-locked
Thanks for that, Bailey. I was thinking somewhat the same thing but you expressed it much more clearly than my muddled thoughts.
I heard an interview on CBC radio just the other day... it was an interview about a river power project in Quebec about to go ahead under much environmental protest so the word (noun), "wilderness", was coming up quite often in the discussion. One of the reporters in the piece said a First Nations Chief had said to him quite stirringly..."What you constantly refer to as wilderness.... it is not wilderness to me."
Truman Green
5 years ago
tommymore, of course environment enters into it.
Tommymore, of course environment enters into the equation of conventional evolutionism. This actually rates a 'duh.'
The fact that you would offer such an observation is absolute proof that you don't understand the theory of evolution and the role played by natural selection, mutation and genetic drift--but rather, that you have just believed the experts and taken their beliefs as conclusive.
The entire theory is based upon the interaction between accidentally appearing genetic alterations within species, and the accidentally appearing changes in the environment. Intelligent design believers, like to refer to such changes as random, and the darwinians always fight back by saying that they're not random because there is a device known as 'natural selection' in place which mandates change.
Do you understand my use of the word 'tautology' to describe this controversy?
Briefly, here's the conventional idea:
Suppose there is a specific species of herbivores which has occupied a certain habitat for thousands or hundreds of thousands of years. By genetic (sequencing) accident, (mutations)or genetic drift some individuals are born with shorter, more powerful legs than is the norm for the species. Suppose that over time, the geology of the area changes (due to volcanic or glacial upheaval, perhaps) so that the terrain becomes more irregular, even rugged. Supposedly, those individuals which have the strongest legs will be able to cope with the environment better than others, so slowly a variety of the herbivores will appear, each of which has shorter, stronger legs.
According to the theory, this is how a new species develops from an old.
What I'm saying is that, although this kind of selection will result in the appearance of new varieties--speciation will never occur through this mechanism because regardless of the time, geological change and genetic drift that occurs, ALL members of the species, and all members of each variety can only draw from a limited number and type of sequences, and that limitation is what defined the organization into species in the first place.
Thus, no matter for how many thousands or millions of years you chose characteristics within the domestic dog species, every variety--no matter how disimilar in appearance, size, aggressiveness--whatever--will always remain reproductively viable with every other member of the species.
So that 'natural' selection will NEVER PROGRESS PAST THE VARIETY STAGE and never proceed into speciation.
It is not possible to 'select' your way out of a species by choosing varieties. All dogs, including wolves, the progenitors, remain within the same species--and always will, whether human beings invent special 'breeds' by chosing characteristics--or not.
Newfoundlanders are reproductively compatible with Pekinese lap dogs.
The claim is that when enough of these changes have occurred, speciation will result, by which the new species will become genetically isolated from the original, that is to say sexual reproduction will no longer produce living and fertile offspring if it occurs between the old and new species.
My claim is that in such a situation one of three things will happen: extinction, (96% of all species that have ever existed are now extinct, by the way) a new totally fertile variation, or, if the isolation is too extreme, hybridization such as is the case with mules, which are, except in one or two cases in a million, almost always sterile.
Bobb999
5 years ago
22% Canadians Materialist Cultists? Doubtful.
According to the article, the atheist proselytizers seem a bit over-quick to embrace the polled 22% of Canadians who say they "don't believe in God", as being - all 22% - members of their own fundamentalist materialist camp.
A question like "Do you believe in God" is so loaded: to many it may imply a male gender, or the Biblical God who dictates commandments etc. The link the article provides for the poll they cite even acknowledges the problems with using the term "God" in the polling question.
If you polled Vancouverites, asking "do you believe in God", you'd get Buddhists who answer "No", but the fact they believe in "Buddha Mind" instead , wouldn't get registered in the poll. Or a Taoist might answer "No" to God, but yes to the Tao - again the poll wouldn't register their spiritual beliefs.
Same with Wiccans who might say "No" to God, but "YES" to goddess!
It's obvious a lot of those 22% who answered "No" to a belief in God, are not in the atheistic funadamentalist camp at all, however much the atheist humanists might like to think so!
A more revealing, fairer question was asked by the most recent Eurostat Eurobarometer poll, in 2005 , 52% of European Union citizens responded that "they believe there is a God", whereas 27% answered that "they believe there is some sort of spirit or life force" and 18% that "they do not believe there is a spirit, God, nor life force".
(Apparently, Europeans are currently about the least spiritually believing people in the world. I predict this will change, as the world trend now is moving away from the materialist paradigm).
To separate the materialists from the rest, you need to ask a question with a more open definition such as "God or spirit or life force", rather than just "God" with all the
narrow connotations the term holds for many, including many who are in fact spiritually inclined.
Similarly, the 5 million Canadians, the article cites, who ticked "no religious affiliation" for the last census, are not necessarily atheists or even agnostics.
Many people nowadays are spiritually inclined, but take a broad inclusive view to religion, believing that
a variety of religious traditions and practices all have some validity. Many folks have an eclectic approach to their own spiritual beliefs and practices, and therefore cannot define themselves as being limited to having one specific "religious affiliation". So they check "No" on the census form, despite the fact they may be very much involved in spiritual belief and practice.
The fundamentalist materialist cult is
a historical quirk and aberration, now in decline, and going the way of the now dead "Shakers" religious movement. Well, at least the Shakers left us some fine collectible antique furniture to admire! I'm not sure the materialist cult will ever leave us much of anything of worth, as it slowly fades away.
James Burns
5 years ago
Lies and statistics
It's interesting how religious nuts like to project their own behaviour onto others. Science is all about debate and testing and retesting hypotheses. It's about demonstrating an accurate reflection of reality though the use of experiments that everyone can repeat.
Bob, all nuts like you can manage is to lie. You lie about the approach to scientific study and the understanding of how materialist notions of reality have come about by calling them fundamentalist. You lie by labeling pseudo-scientific wishful thinking as science (an interesting paradox of hypocrisy considering how you denigrate science in the very same breath). You lie by misrepresenting statistics by claiming they demonstrate atheism is decreasing when they show nothing of the sort.
But you know what? That you lie so much doesn't surprise me, because you clearly found your whole system of belief on a lie. You're so desperate to believe in your lie that you can only lie and misrepresent others who seek accurate reflections of reality in order to continue to believe in your fairy tales.
James Burns
5 years ago
Not a clue...
Wow, maybe try for a little more ignorance why don't ya?
lol, one ignorant assumption after another. Tell me bobby how did you manage to come to this conclusion, other than that it conveniently fits into the worldview you are creating for yourself? How do you know the minds of all these others who have filled out these forms and answered these polling questions?
Keep wishing, you just might be able to convince yourself.
Truman Green
5 years ago
James Burns, why so mad?
James Burns, Bobb999's a smart, sincere experienced and thoughtful guy. He's just got a different take on things than you. Why are you so hostile? We're all just stating our opinions here, eh.
Why would you write this, regarding Bobb:
"All nuts like you can manage is to lie."
I doubt if anybody's here on the forum telling lies.
These are our ideas, right or wrong.
mopled
5 years ago
Pity
I think Bob999 made quite valid points, and the flaming he got was interesting indeed.
Unfortunately, Science and Atheism can be turned into just other belief systems. One of the common ways people describe themselves is "Spiritual not religious." I think of myself that way and answer "no" to belief in god.
I object to religion being used to cover the wolves, bathed in the blood of the lamb or not, called politicians. I'm annoyed that God got put in the Constitution, and I would join a group to lobby for the removal of the phrase, but I wouldn't join a Humanist group per se. I think I'm part of the target 22%.
Erik Redburn
5 years ago
I believe in....secularism
I don't care much for athiesm either, at least when it tries to sell itself as a 'fact based' belief. There are very few self evident facts when it comes to whats too often called 'human nature' and noone can know what if anything happens when we die. We only know our time here is limited, that's what all religions and most philosophies have tried to address, and one thing science can't.
Therefore I can only believe in secularism -it can be athiest, agnostic, deist or whatever religion we can imagine, as long as it respects the others right to believe. That's the beauty of it. It could be argued that that too is a belief, and in a sense it is, but its belief requires no over-riding authority, it allows us to work together and vote together, without fighting over who's superstition -ooops, belief- we must follow, and therefore it allows us to live with our neighbours in peace. That is something tangeable that most could agree on, as that's all it requires from each of us, and that again is the beauty of it.
maestro
5 years ago
Separation of Church vs State
The classic line of THE SEPARATION OF CHURCH vs STATE has oft
been mis-interpreted.
It was not meant for keeping the CHURCHES aka "Religions" from influencing the STATE.
It was meant to STOP the STATE(Gov'ts) from influencing the CHURCHES (Religions).
That's why various "Freedoms of Religion" based legislation are entrenched by Laws in various Democracies.
Non -democracies have no such provisions.
Thus, the ideology of the state becomes the "humanist" religion, correct?
nightbloom
5 years ago
Just a totally unrelated and
Just a totally unrelated and irrelevant aside:
Globe & Mail columnist Lawrence Martin's current weekend edition column makes direct reference to The Tyee and explicitly cites a bona fide Nightbloom quote. I'm fairly certain I wrote it...(or at least I should have!). I can't seem to track down the Tyee article he's referring to (the architectural commentary that appeared a month or two or three ago).
It's nice to know someone actually reads this stuff ;-)
Do I win anything....?
G West
5 years ago
C'mon nightbloom
Don't be so bashful, post the whole article - it's only 750 words. Not everyone can get behind the fascist subscription wall.
James Burns
5 years ago
believe whatever you want...
Just don't call it science. I could care less if the bunch of you worshiped a flying purple people eater. My problem is with the lies, distortions and misrepresentations of science in particular, but also of atheism (and the two are not the same thing, the first simply informs the latter).
I know it's oh so hard to accept, but science is rather good at providing an accurate reflection of reality. It does so because it follows a rather rigorous method. Something no religion will do, primarily because religion is about imposing authority on others. Religions don't like thinking outside the boxes they create.
There will always be plenty of questions science doesn't have an answer for, because each answer leads to more questions. Science isn't about final causes. It isn't about providing people with a mental opiate to comfort them after the death of a loved one, or as they near their own demise. It is simply about trying to provide accuracy in our conceptions of reality.
I do find it sad that people feel they must cling to fantasy, but that clearly is a part of the human condition. At the same time I won't hesitate to object when those who cling to their delusions attempt to force their delusions on me and then lie and distort my position or that of science, or even of atheists, to assuage their need to live in fantasy.
Bailey
5 years ago
Clearly
Dear Lynn; Thank you for saying I expressed my thoughts clearly, above here.
I was afraid that, having used the word 'clearly' three times in my short post, I might be being far from clear.
Like those people who keep saying 'honestly' while lying shamelessly.
Sometimes my thought processes seem to wind through so many alleys and byways that I think they might be hard to follow.
Hard to find a way to reality check. I appreciate hearing from you. Your own thinking always seems to me to be very high quality.
Also, to mopled; (how do you pronounce that?) Your difficulty with the question 'Do you believe in god?' isn't surprizing. I think it might be one of the stupidest questions possible in English, short of 'When did you stop beating your wife?'.
No matter what answer you give, all you've done is push some button and entered the rabbit hole right behind poor Alice.
Anyway, if God exists, I can't imagine She cares much what you believe. and if God doesn't exist, then nobody cares what you believe.
Either way, the only sensible answer to give to such a question would be '42'.
mopled
5 years ago
Fair comment JB
It is really hard to explain the numenous to someone who has never had the experience. Nightbloom called it a revelation and JB seems to be refering to it as fantasy.
The nicest thing about the experience is that it comes unbidden and is unresistable.
I'd like to recommend one of my favorite CBC radio programs. Tapestry at 3pm Sunday afternoon. Today, the Theology professor who experienced one while looking at the stars referred to it as a religious experience and went on to become a Baptist from no religious background at all. But then, he was stuck in the middle of Kansas at the time and there was no where to go.
Next week Conciousness. Many back programs are available in the Archives. http://www.cbc.ca/tapestry/archives/2007/011407.html
G West
5 years ago
CBC Tapestry
Good recommendation mopled. So often the problem with revelation is that it seems to involve (by design or otherwise) trying to force someone else to share the same thing.
Apart from shared drugs, I don't think it's feasible and like drugs, not recommended. Doesn't mean we can't learn something from others' experience of the numinous.
Erik Redburn
5 years ago
Glad we can agree...
I thought Maestro made a good point, the original 'humanist' separation of church and state was also intended to protect the churches themselves from being corrupted by the interests and powers of the State.
I also agree with Burns on his central points that religion shouldn't be imposed on others ( I believe that non-Calvinist Protestants called it 'freedom of conscience') and that science involves a self correcting process of testing reality that no religion can honestly claim to match. The 'creationist' movement, and its offshoot 'intelligent design', are good examples of how religions go wrong when they try to extend themselves to explaining day to day reality, or more accurately, distort reality to match their origin myths.
I disagree with him however that religion is never more than an "opiate" for the ignorant, or that it has to involve imposing authority over others. There are some religions that have no organizational structures and collect no tithes, and some people seem to get an added sense of community and meaning from their faith. Some even claim to have experienced some mystical experience or minor miracle first hand. Just because it can't be replicated in a lab or experienced by everyone doesn't exactly prove that they're all by charlatans or fools by definition. I don't feel its any of my business either way, unless they try to sell it to my family as an extra insurance policy.
<:)
G West
5 years ago
Church and state
The only person I've heard make that suggestion was James Dobson. I don't think there was any suggestion in Thomas Jefferson's mind that that that was true. I could be mistaken, but I'd need a lot more evidence than James Dobson's somewhat questionable interpretation of what was in the minds of a group of 18th century enlightenment thinkers when they drafted the establishment clause of the Bill of Rights.
But, be that as it may, there is evidence from both Jefferson and Madison and from plenty of jurisprudence since then (to quote Jefferson):
Believing with you that religion is a matter which lies solely between man and his God, that he owes account to none other for his faith or his worship, that the legitimate powers of government reach actions only, and not opinions, I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should "make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof," thus building a wall of separation between church and State. Adhering to this expression of the supreme will of the nation in behalf of the rights of conscience, I shall see with sincere satisfaction the progress of those sentiments which tend to restore to man all his natural rights, convinced he has no natural right in opposition to his social duties.
In any case, it is an American idea and, like so many suggestions brought up here at Tyee from people who are somewhat unclear about the differences between Canada and the United States, it has very little to do with Canada and Canadian history.
RickW
5 years ago
Do I win anything....?
NB:
Only our undying envy........!
Stand up
5 years ago
It is a little less vicious
It is a little less vicious at the moment in here so I'll comment. Does it not see strange that there is so much rage and intolerance in the name of free thought and science in here? I had no idea before this just how much hate was out there against people of faith. I had no idea that there was an assumption that we were all Catholic or Southern Baptist. I had no idea that not only were we all of those two sects, but also that within those sects, that there was no one deserving of respect or anyone of a rational mind. There is a long argument in this thread about the abstracts of evolution and the proof of a negative. I'd like it if there was a little scientific proof as to the inate inferiority of the faith community. Not anecdotal Hitler was/wasn't a Christian. Not a list of the bad things done by bad people who were/weren't religious. Not the ethnocentric people-of-the-book bashing. Globally, examine the lives of people with and without faith. Meta. Do we find that we are better people without faith?
Is it possible that the generalizations about faith are perhaps just a wee bit unscientific? Since someone else quoted their mother, I'll say that mine always said that an atheist was someone who created a definition of God and then didn't beleive their own definition. (I'm sure she stole it.) But I think I would extend it to now say that an atheist is someone who has created their own definition of a spiritual person, and now, sadly, beleives it.
Despite this, I still choose to believe that there are intelligent scientific people out there who are atheists who do not collect their evidence to suit their theory. Call me naive...
nightbloom
5 years ago
Wise words, Stand Up.
Wise words, Stand Up.
Thanks for the succinct contribution.
I hope the Globe & Mail quotes you next. =)
Erik Redburn
5 years ago
Re.
"In any case, it is an American idea and, like so many suggestions brought up here at Tyee from people who are somewhat unclear about the differences between Canada and the United States, it has very little to do with Canada and Canadian history."
I think I'm fairly clear on some of the differences between Canada and the States, thanks, including the fact that we've never had so many battles over this theoretical separation of estates -perhaps because we haven't needed them so much. Praise be to Allah. Whether it was spelled out by their founding fathers or not, I'd be surprised if that too wasn't at the back of their Deistic minds, as religion and politics aren't a very good mix for either.
Re whether religion breeds a better class of people, that's the kind of claim that overly religious types usually make, but makes a few unsupported assumptions itself. Like humans can only be 'moral' with the fear of God in them. I don't buy that either, as that 'fear' only seems to make some of us even more dangerous.
Anyhow, nice to join in one of the Tyees famous discussions, been fun. :)
James Burns
5 years ago
Quote:I had no idea before
No hate here, it's just that those of faith don't like their faith challenged. It threatens their sense of reality, and they react by believing they are being persecuted, when their delusions are simply being questioned. The martyr complex seems to be a particular favorite of the monotheistic islamo-judeo-christian faiths. It's easier to believe someone who challenges you simply hates you, than to actually question your beliefs.
Those who ascribe to a scientific perspective are all about challenging, investigating, observing and testing the evidence supporting any model of reality. That seems to get them into trouble with those who have faith, because faith demands a leap that does not allow for questioning. From a scientific perspective that looks like a cop out. It looks like an argument used to exert control over those looking for an authority that will distract them from their fears.
James Burns
5 years ago
So much clinging...
I always find it amusing that the religious seem to think they have a corner on revelation or the numinous.
But I guess it all depends on what you consider the numinous to be. If it is the awareness of the profound depth and interconnection of all that is, something that people, often characterized as mystics, like Einstein or Buber, or Buddha write about when they discuss what reality may be, then that is as simple as taking the time to be aware of it, right now, in this ever present moment. For most who take the time to really pay that kind of attention to right now, it's one of the hardest things they'll ever do. Unfortunately, most people avoid it like the plague to instead cling to beliefs that assuage their fears.
For far too many it seems the numinous is a leap of faith into some traditional dogma that offers them succor for their fears of death. They will do anything to continue to believe in fairy tales of immortality, because the alternative is the threat of eventual non-existence which their sense of self cannot bear to acknowledge.
There can be no doubt that our senses, perceptions, our knowledge, and even our conception of self is imperfect. At best all these things are but mere reflections through a clouded window of reality. But some reflections are simply clearer. Some reflections can be demonstrated, time and time again, to reappear for everyone. I think it is far more fruitful to dwell on those, rather than invent reflections that obscure what we fear to see when we take the time to really look.
Truman Green
5 years ago
yeah, right Jamsie
I don't know James, you called me delusional on this and the Charles Demers Dawkins thread merely because I question the conventional beliefs regarding the mechanisms of selection in neo-darwinism--in spite of the fact that you have only a smidgeon of knowledge (if, in fact, any) about the role played by mutations, genetic drift and natural or sexual selection as precursors to speciation.
In fact your entire polemic is to repeat that the darwinian scientists all know better than anyone who would challenge them.
Seems a kind of blind 'faith,' you have there, old boy.
Delusional, even.
mopled
5 years ago
James B
You're so stuck you can't seem to get the distinction I and others have constantly made between spirituality and religion. Sometimes they go together, but they don't haveto. They are not identical dude.
nightbloom
5 years ago
The New Fundamentalism
Good for you, Truman & Mopled.
If anyone here has approximated the behaviour we typically associate with fundamentalism, it's James Burns.
"...it's just that those of faith don't like their faith challenged. It threatens their sense of reality..."
This applies far more to you, James, and your brand of judgmental, haranguing, label-crazy atheism.
You're the only "fundie" here James. From the vantage point of your pulpit, there's only one truth and it's yours, and everyone else is either delusional or dishonest or both. Sounds like fundamentalism to me.
James Burns
5 years ago
:)
Wow, you could spread the irony with a knife in here. If the creationists can't claim the "spiritual" high ground then they jump right back to laying the distortions on thick and fast.
Mopled, if you'd care to pay attention, the distinction I made was between fantasy driven to assuage fear, and what you call the numinous. In reality the two are intertwined because people experience both. Desire is ubiquitous. We can't really eliminate it, although many try. The best we can perhaps hope for is to be aware of it, and in that awareness move beyond it.
I don't mind evolution or any scientific postulate being challenged. But if you use nonsense to challenge them, I'll simply point out that you are using nonsense. Truman, I don't call you delusional because you challenge conventional wisdom. It's because you provide not a shred of scientific support for your assertions beyond "I believe...". What's more you dismiss a giant body of evidence that flies in the face of your assertions. Having an overly healthy ego doesn't make your ideas right.
Booker
5 years ago
The Truman Challenge
Over on Larry Moran's blog, The Sandwalk, he has a great new article on Evolution. Truman, you should try out your theories on him, if you dare. Or would you rather stick to non-scientific discussion boards?
I look forward to seeing how your theories fly among people who make the study of nature their life's work.
http://sandwalk.blogspot.com
Bluenose
5 years ago
Has Science Found God?
An excellent article here:
http://www.talkreason.org/articles/found.cfm
"The religion that is afraid of science dishonors God and commits suicide." - Ralph Waldo Emerson
Booker
5 years ago
Stenger
Thanks for the link, Bluenose. This paragraph is particularly apposite:
Nonbelievers recognize that they cannot prove the nonexistence of God. They simply argue that a universe without a creator is the most economical premise consistent with all the data. An uncaused, undesigned emergence of the universe from nothing violates no principle of physics. The total energy of the universe appears to be zero, so no miracle of energy created "from nothing" was required to produce it. Similarly, no miracle was needed for the appearance of order. Order can and does occur spontaneously in physical systems.
I will have to read his new book, God: the Failed Hypothesis.
jimmy_laroux
5 years ago
The existence of god...
nightbloom:
Read the wikipedia article on inductive reasoning I posted. Inductive reasoning cannot logically prove a conclusion. But it is still very useful (and forms one of the pillars of the scientific method). The point is that since there is, as I pointed out above, not a shred of empirical evidence for the existence of a god or gods, we can reson inductively that there probably is no god or gods. No "leap of faith" is necessary.
We certainly agree on this! Economics, political science, sociology, and so on are definitely *not* sciences.
G West
5 years ago
utilitarian diminshment/nightbloom
That was a nice phrase nightbloom. I couldn't find the original either.
G West
5 years ago
Sadly
In some respects, modern buildings, particularly here in Vancouver, haven't even delivered much that's effectively utilitarian either - in the traditional sense of that term.
Truman Green
5 years ago
James in evolutionism, all evidence is based upon opinion.
James, in evolutionism, all 'evidence' is based upon speculation, opinion and conjecture. You can't do experiments with mechanisms that are productive only after millions of years--although some evolutionists have claim they have succeeded.
In the thirty years that I've been studying and thinking about darwinism, I've come up with at least ten major challenges, most of which I have supplied on this forum and the Demers forum.
You, being a true believer in darwinism, merely continue to assert that they must be delusions and based only upon my ego.
Why not let me know where I've gone wrong. You're expertise would have been a real contribution.
How about my claim that mutations are retrograde and therefore the statistical probability is that they will not be 'selected' in the darwinian sense, because they offer no advantages or benefits.
As you know, Darwin proposed that characterists are 'selected' because they offer advantages.
Selection of mutations has been a MAJOR pillar of darwinian selection theory for fifty years.
I say it's a mistake.
Many conventional darwinian theorists are backing away from it for EXACTLY the reasons that I have proposed.
What's your reasoned, well-formed 'scientific' commentary of the issue?
And how about answering with respect to the likelihood of H5N1 'mutating' into a species that will become easily transmittable between humans (or at least, why I'm only 'delusional' when I claim that it's extremely unlikely)--perhaps paying strict attention to whether our immune systems can handle the specific avian hemoglutinin--the H in H5N1.
You, of course, being fantastically knowledgable in the field of darwinian selection, and being so sure that I'm totally 'delusional,' will, no doubt, have wonderful, elegant explanations.
I can hardly wait.
Do you have a problem with me downloading your wonderful explanations for my evolution archive?
jimmy_laroux
5 years ago
scientific discussion online
Booker:
Ha! I'd love to see that.
Truman Green
5 years ago
James in evolutionism, all evidence is based upon opinion.
James, in evolutionism, all 'evidence' is based upon speculation, opinion and conjecture. You can't do experiments with mechanisms that are productive only after millions of years--although some evolutionists have claim they have succeeded.
In the thirty years that I've been studying and thinking about darwinism, I've come up with at least ten major challenges, most of which I have supplied on this forum and the Demers forum.
You, being a true believer in darwinism, merely continue to assert that they must be delusions and based only upon my ego.
Why not let me know where I've gone wrong. You're expertise would have been a real contribution.
How about my claim that mutations are retrograde and therefore the statistical probability is that they will not be 'selected' in the darwinian sense, because they offer no advantages or benefits.
As you know, Darwin proposed that characterists are 'selected' because they offer advantages.
Selection of mutations has been a MAJOR pillar of darwinian selection theory for fifty years.
I say it's a mistake.
Many conventional darwinian theorists are backing away from it for EXACTLY the reasons that I have proposed.
What's your reasoned, well-formed 'scientific' commentary of the issue?
And how about answering with respect to the likelihood of H5N1 'mutating' into a species that will become easily transmittable between humans (or at least, why I'm only 'delusional' when I claim that it's extremely unlikely)--perhaps paying strict attention to whether our immune systems can handle the specific avian hemoglutinin--the H in H5N1.
You, of course, being fantastically knowledgable in the field of darwinian selection, and being so sure that I'm totally 'delusional,' will, no doubt, have wonderful, elegant explanations.
I can hardly wait.
Do you have a problem with me downloading your wonderful explanations for my evolution archive?
Truman Green
5 years ago
James in evolutionism, all evidence is based upon opinion.
James, in evolutionism, all 'evidence' is based upon speculation, opinion and conjecture. You can't do experiments with mechanisms that are productive only after millions of years--although some evolutionists have claim they have succeeded.
In the thirty years that I've been studying and thinking about darwinism, I've come up with at least ten major challenges, most of which I have supplied on this forum and the Demers forum.
You, being a true believer in darwinism, merely continue to assert that they must be delusions and based only upon my ego.
Why not let me know where I've gone wrong. You're expertise would have been a real contribution.
How about my claim that mutations are retrograde and therefore the statistical probability is that they will not be 'selected' in the darwinian sense, because they offer no advantages or benefits.
As you know, Darwin proposed that characterists are 'selected' because they offer advantages.
Selection of mutations has been a MAJOR pillar of darwinian selection theory for fifty years.
I say it's a mistake.
Many conventional darwinian theorists are backing away from it for EXACTLY the reasons that I have proposed.
What's your reasoned, well-formed 'scientific' commentary of the issue?
And how about answering with respect to the likelihood of H5N1 'mutating' into a species that will become easily transmittable between humans (or at least, why I'm only 'delusional' when I claim that it's extremely unlikely)--perhaps paying strict attention to whether our immune systems can handle the specific avian hemoglutinin--the H in H5N1.
You, of course, being fantastically knowledgable in the field of darwinian selection, and being so sure that I'm totally 'delusional,' will, no doubt, have wonderful, elegant explanations.
I can hardly wait.
Do you have a problem with me downloading your wonderful explanations for my evolution archive?
jimmy_laroux
5 years ago
nightbloom and fundamentalism
nightbloom:
I'd really like to hear why "Atheism is just another brand of fundamentalism...".
nightbloom
5 years ago
Thanks for validating of the
Thanks for validating of the distinction I made between 'science' and 'social science'.
Re. inductive reasoning, it seems to have created a closed circuit for itself in which to operate. As I'm sure you've already surmised, there are a great many things for which empirical evidence is currently lacking. That doesn't make them non-existent. I read the other day that we've only just uncovered what might be the first genuine empirical evidence for the existence of dark matter. That doesn't mean dark matter only just came into existence with that discovery - it purportedly has always been there. ...the point being that the frontiers of empirical observation are always expanding. We can't 'see' everything yet.
On a more general note, I wonder if the atheists and secular humanists are going to open up a new front in the Culture War between Left and Right. The alignment of humanism with tangential liberal causes (abortion is the example mentioned in the article) says something interesting about atheism/secular humanism today. Atheism is a negation that doesn't assert an ethical system in and of itself. By tackling such 'secondary' hot button issues, they risk the same schisms as the traditional religions have been grappling with. In any case, such a novel battleground for the Culture War has interesting implications, since the new face of Christianity (not to mention Islam, the fastest growing religion worldwide) is non-white, non-eurocentric and, if not mostly below the equator, then definitely below the poverty line worldwide. And you know what democracy is all about: majority rules, with protection for minorities. Perhaps we should get one step ahead of the democraphics and declare atheists a protect minority, with affirmative action benefits...
Or maybe its simply a passing angst as a result of the current transient ascendence in the U.S. of the theo-cons, and we'll return to the (relative) truce that has characterized 20th century relations between secular democracies and the faith traditions present within the societies those democracies represent.
Truman Green
5 years ago
James, why not just take my ideas apart inch by inch then.
James, I could have really used your expertise in the field of evolutionism. I've supplied at least ten detailed challenges, which you dismiss as merely 'dilusional.'
How about my idea that mutations have been overrated as mechanisms of selection in conventional evolution theory?
Or do you just defer to the experts regarding this issue, in your customary 'true believer's' mode.
jimmy_laroux
5 years ago
Bailey: Quote:Religions,
Bailey:
Atheism is neither a religion nor a political organisation.
No, it is not. Can you think of why it might not be?
Can a statement and it's negation be true?
jimmy_laroux
5 years ago
Stand up:
Stand up:
I don't think you understand what science is.
How is that relevant? What do you mean by "better"? Is it something quantifiable?
jimmy_laroux
5 years ago
dark matter
nightbloom:
Dark matter was predicted theoretically before it was observed. The theory used to predict it was backed-up with experimental evidence. So there was a good reason to believe the hypothesis even before experiments confirmed it.
I'm not sure what you mean here.
nightbloom
5 years ago
Quote:I'd really like to
Jimmy, I've typed quite a bit here. Why don't you review my initial posts, and if there's any particular point you'd like me to enlarge upon, let me know.
Re. reasoning and deism. Reasoning can't go the distance either way. Atheism is ultimately just as dependent on belief as deism is. It's simply a competing belief system, not a product of science or reasoning. In fact, some identify atheism as the starting point of faith.
The only way reasoning can bridge the gap is by circumscribing or altering semantically the nature of reason itself, so that it appears to have arrived at a proof. In actual fact, reasoning pretends to make a definite statement on God (yey or nay) is really rhetoric. It's ideology, not reason.
James Burns
5 years ago
Experimental evidence galore...
Truman the fact you can't seem to find any evidence, particularly experimental evidence in support of evolution surprises me.
For a general summary of evidence:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evidence_for_evolution
For a discussion of experiments supporting beneficial mutation:
http://www.gate.net/~rwms/EvoMutations.html
For links to a database of observations of natural selection in the wild:
http://www.gate.net/~rwms/EvoNatSelWild.html
The above link in particular mentions your nubbin of purifying or stabilizing natural selection, "which creationists sometimes falsely claim is the only kind of natural selection that occurs in nature."
But Truman, if you really do as much research and reading into evolution as you claim, then you should know about all this research, right? I mean why else do you keep trotting out tired arguments used by creationists that have been refuted ad nauseum. I suspect the only reason you preach your baffle-gab here is because of the lack of knowledge most people have of the actual detailed science and supporting scientific studies for evolution. When you say "in evolutionism, all 'evidence' is based upon speculation, opinion and conjecture." you are either being monumentally and intentionally ignorant, or you are lying.
All your nuttery is refuted, detail by painstaking detail by evolutionary scientists who have taken the time to find and test the actual evidence. You don't practice science Truman, you practice self-deception in support of your need to believe in a creator.
Booker
5 years ago
What?
Nightbloom wrote:
Atheism is a negation that doesn't assert an ethical system in and of itself
and
It's simply a competing belief system, not a product of science or reasoning
So it is, and isn't, a belief system, apparently. Now, if it is a belief system, what, pray tell, is the belief?
I know of atheists who are right-wing libertarians and others who are socialists. So where is the belief and where is the system in atheism?
One thing you are correct about is that the new assertiveness among atheists is a reaction to the theo-cons. If they ever go away, things probably will settle down somewhat.
Danielle E
5 years ago
Knowing nothing
Socrates: “The only thing I know is that I know nothing.”
If today’s scientists and theologians make such humble admittances, they are still poisoned by being marginalized (in both camps by having their funding stripped), attacked and treated like fools. How do we continue to motivate ourselves to investigate the various curiosities of life while maintaining an open mind? (I’m refraining from using the term "without bias" because that is very difficult and perhaps even impossible. But it’s much less dangerous when we acknowledge our own subjective biases and core insecurities.)
The belief that the brain is “hard-wired” for belief seems as strange to me as a belief that a toaster has a conscience. Our brains are elastic and changing structure constantly, particularly when challenged, so debate is always good for the brain. This is perhaps one reason so many atheists refrain from joining humanist social clubs! And perhaps why scientists spend billions of dollars holding conferences in tropical resorts.
nightbloom
5 years ago
Booker - Those statements of
Booker - Those statements of mine are not mutually contradictory, as you seem to believe.
Let's unpack that. Is it their belief itself that enflames atheists? Is it the state of their political organization and activism (tactics they learned from the secular liberal-Left, incidentally, and largely in reaction to it)? Or is their perceived interference in public policy making?
The first two are simply their right in a democratic society. The final one is virtually unheard-of in Canada. Sure, they militate against abortion and gay marriage, but there's no genuine threat to the separation of Church and State in Canada, and those are legitimate differences of opinion over major policy issues. You realize, of course, that the "theo-cons" are a tiny minority of believers, and not representative of deism by any stretch of the imagination.
So what really, really, gets to you about believers in God--?
Could it be that you simply have a competing belief system, a different faith, and can't abide the contradiction?
mopled
5 years ago
Coop radio
Has Rob Light of the Humanist Association talking about the priviledged status of churches. He brought up that there is a still a statute on the books against 'blasphemy'.
That takes the cake!
He and Kevin Annett are on the same page when it comes to pointing out the tax free status of the churches and its attendant abuses.
Truman Green
5 years ago
Yup, James, In evolutionary theory is based on opinion.
Yup, James evolutionary evidence regarding selection mechanisms is all based upon opinion, speculation and conjecture.
Take, for example, your link presenting argumentation for the existence of beneficial mutations.
Whether you realize it or not, most evolutionists would now concede that beneficial mutations are statistically improbable--though probably not impossible.
I just take it a bit further; even if they occur occasionally, they're never going to cause speciation. And I base this on the work of other researchers who believe that bacteria have the ability to repair sequencing errors.
Bizarre, eh, if it's true--and certainly a contraindication for conventional darwinian biochemical selection.
If you'll recall, I suspect that it is possible for an accidental sequencing error, known as a 'mutation' to be heritable in future generations in BACTERIA, due to the exponential mode of asexual reproduction, in which a single organism can replicate into millions within a single hour, which might result in the new trait becoming a permanent and overwhelming characterist of a future genome.
Where you're being naive, James, is that you believe that these issues have all been settled.
Booker
5 years ago
booker
Booker - Those statements of mine are not mutually contradictory, as you seem to believe.
Yes they are. You have still not explained what atheist belief is.
So what really, really, gets to you about believers in God
Among many objections, supernaturalist thinking (if you can call it that) is often harmful and is leads to poor decision-making, especially in public policy. It can have a deleterious effect on us all. Secondly, I do actually care about what is true. Supernaturalism appears to be an incorrect hypothesis.
What bothers you about non-believers?
jimmy_laroux
5 years ago
nightbloom: In response to
nightbloom:
In response to my question about why atheism is fundamentalism you wrote:
I did, and all I could find was the following:
Here you seeme to equate "dogmatic fundamentalism" with rationality. I'm not sure why you would do this.
The only "faith" that atheism requires is the same that science requires: essentially that we can trust our senses.
Based on complete and total lack of evidence for god or gods, a rational human being would then reason inductively that there probably are no gods. It's still possible that there are gods, but no reason to believe this. No "leap of faith" required. The same type of reasoning is fundamental to the scientific process.
This same type of thinking leads people to not believe in the tooth fairy or santa claus and so forth. But I concede your point that the tooth fairy or santa claus *could* possibly exist.
James Burns
5 years ago
wow look at all the evidence you provide...
Hey Truman, care to provide support for all your assertions? Please link to the experimental studies from peer reviewed scientific journals that demonstrate your assertions have some shred of scientific evidence to support them.
Don't worry, I won't hold my breath.
Truman Green
5 years ago
Just can't resist adding this.
James, beyond my wildest imagination...I went to your recommended site and found this regarding beneficial mutations-- in BACTERIA, incidentally. (sound familiar?):
"Certain pivotal mutations were shared by all descendants in a population, and those are candidates for beneficial mutations, which are rare and difficult to find. More generally, these data show that the genome is highly dynamic even over a time scale that is, from an evolutionary perspective, very brief."
And these guys are all bona fide science-- researchers, James, (even some Phds, I bet), basically confirming what I, a Surrey carpenter, concluded about the scarcity of beneficial mutations.
And I bet some of these guys are not even looking for God, as you weirdly insist I am.
All I'm adding is: apply this statistical scarcity to probability theory and you've got yourself a fairly decent contraindication that mutations play an important role in speciation, and thus in evolution.
AS THE NEO-DARWINIANS HAVE CLAIMED FOR FIFTY YEARS.
See what I mean?
Truman Green
5 years ago
And, oh yeah, James.
May I assume that the links that you provided regarding beneficial mutations were peer-reviewed?
nightbloom
5 years ago
Jimmy, no offense, but your
Jimmy, no offense, but your application of "inductive reasoning" is nothing more than a semantic farce. You haven't demonstrated, proven, or disproven anything whatsoever. You've drawn a circle and a page and claim to have circumnavigated the universe.
I find it scandalous the way the proponents of atheism have coasted through this thread on an improvised stream of sardonic one-liners, cut-&-paste jobs, borrowed links, Wikipedia entries, circular reasoning and half-assed solipsism while baiting others into demonstrating their point ad nauseum.
This is a reductionist generalization. Has it not occurred to you that some of our best leaders, thinkers and scientists would have to be lumped into the deist camp? I would like some current Canadian examples of bad political decision-making or policy formulation that can be attributed to deism, if you please...
jimmy_laroux
5 years ago
nightbloom: Quote:You
nightbloom:
That's true. And I said so in my last post.
It *is* fundamental to the scientific method. The scientific method has worked well in my books. But anyway, I'd like to hear why you think that it is a "farce".
By the way, do you believe in santa claus? Why or why not?
Zing!
Stand up
5 years ago
Quote:No hate here, it's
I think what I am trying to say, is that the resistance to questioning seems to be all on one side in this thread. (Admittedly, I place myself on the other side--though my side does not look anything like you imagine it to be.) As a "believer", I accept the science as reality. I don't believe the goverment belongs in the bedroom, and I do not read the miraculous stories of any of the thousands of expressions of belief in the world as literal. But I am open to accepting that science is still evolving forward. Not toward superstition, but towards a greater understanding of the complexities of existence. Many scientists were open to the concept of dark matter, not because it was proven--certainly there was no more proof than of the existence of a spiritual reality--but because they understood that there were questions which seemed to be answered through the consideration of the possibility that dark matter existed. Maybe the theory will eventually completely disappear. But if it does, it will not be because physicists were insulted and denigrated for considering it. It will be because another answer fufills the necessary criteria of proof more effectively than dark matter. To the satisfaction of most scientists. This applies to the string theory or to wart removal (now there is one of the great unsolved mysteries--never mind the purpose of the universe. Scientist can't agree on that one from Reader's Digest to Reader's Digest). All I'm really saying is that there are unanswered--no, unasked questions in the science community and that the members of the agnostic/faith community represented in this thread are asking for the right to ask those questions without generalizations, disrespect or suppression. None have suggested atheists will go to hell. None have argued that gov't should suppress evolution. A few loud extremists are being accepted as the faith community. And left to themselves can cause a lot of trouble, for sure. But--I would much rather be fighting with you for tolerance and rationalism than against your intolerance of me. It is simple, narrow minded prejudice to speak of global community as if it were one stereotype--not science.
jimmy_laroux
5 years ago
nightbloom: Quote:...baiting
nightbloom:
This is a discussion board, right? Is it "baiting" to ask questions about statements others make here?
Booker
5 years ago
Nighbloom scandalized
Nightbloom dear,
The whole same-sex marriage debate was a recent example of religion being pushed into the realm of public policy.
The Surrey School Board trying to ban books that deal with gay themes.
Those are Canadian examples. Do examples from other countries not count?
Has it not occurred to you that some of our best leaders, thinkers and scientists would have to be lumped into the deist camp?
Yes. You seem to think that because I'm an atheist, I think all believers are useless. I don't. I think they are wrong about god. Like most humans, I care about where we came from and where we are going. That means I, like many people, think a lot about the origins of life and the cosmos. I want to know what's true. That's why I care. That's why I respect the scientific method, and why I have little respect for supernaturalism.
If you want to that "fundamentalism", go right ahead. It says more about you than about my beliefs.
Now, speaking of what's true, you began this discussion calling yourself an "agnostic humanist". In what way are you an agnostic?
jimmy_laroux
5 years ago
Stand up: Quote:I think
Stand up:
Could you ive some examples?
You shouldn't. Science is an approximation to reality.
I assume you are making an analogy between cosmologists' belief in dark matter and belief in god/gods. This is flawed. As I posted above:
You state that
Who is supressing you? As for generalisations and disrespect, this goes both ways. And people on this thread should expect to be challenged by others about their ideas.
Chris H
5 years ago
But, al that money ...
I don't know why we have to make such a big deal and conflict between those of us that believe in a personal god and those of us that don't. Everyone in a free and democratic society should be able to believe in whatever they want. Whether one believes in yogic hopping, the flying spaghetti monster, or Abraham's god, people shouldn't be ridiculed for their beliefs. We can just disagree.
One has to wonder, however, why there has been so little commentary in this thread on why religious organizations get "charitable" status for spreading the "word". Do you think that is appropriate? Why doesn't a martial arts school get the same tax free status? That is where the real imbalance is. The business of organized religion is alive and well. People should feel free to congregate and hold whatever spiritual world view they like, but they shouldn't be able to have special status over other groups doing the same.
Booker
5 years ago
Unanswered questions
Stand up wrote:
Regarding unanswered questions: all we atheists ask is that you don't say "there lies God" when you have an unanswered question.
Regarding unasked questions: New discoveries always lead to new questions that we humans never thought of before. Did you have something specific in mind? If the question is, "Is there a god" or "what is god's will"....it's been asked.
nightbloom
5 years ago
Quote:The whole same-sex
The Surrey School Board trying to ban books that deal with gay themes.
Those are Canadian examples. Do examples from other countries not count?
Booker, thanks for that. Those are not valid examples.
The second one isn't even an instance of Canadian public policy, nor has that backwoods schoolboard kerfuffle been quite what is has been portrayed as by liberal-Left ideologues.
The first one doesn't even demonstrate your point. It disproves it. Bill C-38 passed with flying colours and was subsequently supported by a free vote held under the auspices of a Conservative government (Harper had to do it, and as a Lesbian friend of mine commented at the time "He did it the right way"). I fail to see how policy was materially impacted by Deists in this instance. Moreover, I watched the Senate heardings quite closely. The majority of the reps from the major religious denominations were pro-C-38, many quite eloquently so...and I'm not just talking about Christian denominations. Even the Roman Catholic presentation, (by Cardinal Ouelette of Montreal), although tepidly against the Bill, was the most tame, perfunctory do-I-really-have-to-do-this performance I've ever seen).
Can you come up with any viable examples at least, please?
CF1
5 years ago
God is an imaginary friend for Grown-ups
The first person to offer a comment (nightbloom) said this:
Atheism is just another brand of fundamentalism – a closed-mindedness and militant literalness that seeks to set bounds on human possibilities and jealously deny the hope and reassurance that some people find in transcendent ideas.
You are quite wrong. Theism is the belief in a god or gods . Atheism is simply not holding a belief in imaginary, supernatural daddy figures in the sky. That's it.
Faith = belief with no evidence. If you had any evidence, you wouldn't call it faith.
Aetheists and all of science is welcoming of any & all evidence for said "gods" and you would be a very famous & wealthy individual if you were to offer any evidence, but you have none.
The onus is on the person making supernatural claims to offer the evidence, it is not the atheists job to dis-prove your fairy tales.
As Carl Sagan said: Extraordinary claims require exraordinary evidence.
You know exactly what it's like to be an atheist in regards to all of the other gods which humans have invented through time, you just go one god further.
"When you understand why you reject all of the other gods, then you will understand why I reject yours."
Here's a good website:
www.godisimaginary.com
And if you want to test your "faith", there is a forum on:
www.whywontgodhealamputees.com
I dare you.
nightbloom
5 years ago
agnostic
I've already clarified my position on religion and belief a while ago. Not that this this is about me or my beliefs, but since you ask, I describe myself as agnostic because I concede that there might be a divinity at the the root of creation, but I do not profess to be a committed believer. Culturally, I am a Roman Catholic, who still maintains an attachment based upon sentiment (not belief). All human religions and mythic narratives are cultural ciphers for something we can never perceive or know, but they nevertheless contain our cultural reflection of the unknowable. We can only draw crude pictures in the darkness upon the cave wall. If there is a God, the doctrines and rituals we've evolved are exclusively for our benefit and comfort, not his. That doesn't make them meaningless, however. Human life is much, much more than a fleeting pastiche of existential angst, genital urges, bowel movements and a repetitive succession of other animal functions.
Religions, philosophy and ethics hold fundamental truths about ourselves and our intellectual and spiritual legacy, conveyed in non-linear, non-literal narratives and rituals imbued with symbolism. They talk to the other part of our brain. In my opinion, Catholicism is the most highly developed in this regard (and ironically, simultaneously the most pagan). In one Gospel, Christ the Logos (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logos) is a cipher for something the Greeks were trying to say. This was no coincidence. The created universe - Reason-Will-Love - had achieved self-awareness in Man, like billions of bubbles effervescing to the surface of things for a brief existence in the light before dispersing into their compenent parts. So as the story says, God became incarnate in the Son of Man. Other Gospels put a different spin on the Christ figure. You get the idea. The Catholic Eucharist enacts the Incarnation and is a meme of this awakened incarnation. I always thought the paganesque god-eating was a nice touch - why not go all out, after all. Anyway, my teachers would be spinning in their graves if they heard me say all this. There's a lot more to it. The Trinity possess similar antecedents in classical philosophy, which they were trying to work out during the initial Councils to established the official orthodox Christianity. I've taken a few liberties with my explanation, and am still reading my way to a fuller understanding, but this is a quick synopsis of my opinion on the matter.
ag·nos·tic (āg-nŏs'tĭk)
n.
One who is skeptical about the existence of God but does not profess true atheism.
Booker
5 years ago
Dodger
Gee, why did I think you'd say that? Yes, it passed, over the objections of the Christian right. (Now, are you playing footsy and strictly talking about Deists all of the sudden, or the religious generally). You asked for example of bad policy formulation -- and the same-sex marriage legislation was a whopper.
You are going to define away any example I give you, aren't you? Public education does not involve public policy? That's idiotic. (I think the good people of Surrey might object to being called "backwoods".)
Enough game-playing Nightbloom.
Booker
5 years ago
Monty
John Cleese said that, right?
Truman Green
5 years ago
Nightbloom, how can you do it?
Nightbloom, I've been thinking this about you for a few months now, but I didn't really expect you to reveal it:
You admit: "...I describe myself as an agnostic because I concede that there might be a divinity at the root of creation, but I do not profess to be a committed believer."
And: "I am a Roman Catholic... based upon sentiment, not belief."
I respect your clarity, but I have no idea how you could do it. Don't you think that being a committed Catholic means--at minimum--that you believe there's a god and Jesus was its son?
Do you believe the Pope is successor to Peter, the fisherman, or even a special guy beyond all the religious hype and the funny hats?
I'm not being sarcastic (well maybe a little) or critical, I just don't get it and would like to understand.
Jeez, nightbloom, I'm not even dead (like some of your teachers) and I'm spinning, reading your account of your position on this stuff.
So you just like being in the church, whether its tenets are true or not?
Is that what's goin' down?
You're a smart guy, NB, but that's seems very, very scary to me.
Do you feel that idealism has a role at all?
By which I mean trying to live a life in accordance with one's moral, ethical and intellectual beliefs.
I'm thinking that what's happening with human evolution is that 'something' is trying to assemble a human being with a conscience and empathy, and that with a bit of luck such a species will appear eventually. My experience has been that such a thing is extremely rare.
But being a committed Catholic without believing...I don't get it.
nightbloom
5 years ago
Dodger? Right back atcha
Booker - You still haven't demonstrated how deists, theo-cons, evangelicals, or fat little friars in hemp robes and sandals are threatening the Separation between Church and State in Canada, or causing bad policy to be imposed upon the nation.
mopled
5 years ago
Something to enjoy
Wonderful serrendipity, a friend sent me this today.
http://www.candacepert.com/blog/blog.htm
Just an excerpt of what looks to be a wonderful source of concrete to build the new paradigm we so desperately need.
nightbloom
5 years ago
Be honest Truman - that's
Be honest Truman - that's not what I said.
You know from all our previous threads about this that I was raised a Roman Catholic in the French Canadian tradition, but that I no longer believe in the literal story. I can only accept it on a symbolic level. So I am not a practicing Roman Catholic, and do not believe in the literal bodily Resurrection of Christ. You already know this about me, so I don't know the reason for you huffin' and puffin'. I maintain a respect based upon sentiment for the religion of my birth, even though I disagree with a lot of things, from its sexual ethics to its politics.
Is that what I said? Nope. Either you're tired, cross-eyed or both.
Anyway, I hope that clarifies my stance once and for all.
mikev
5 years ago
fundamentalist materialist??
What the hell is a fundamentalist materialist? I am an atheist, and proudly, but I'm quite sure I'm not a fundamentalist materialist. I'm not 110% sure there is no god, in fact I'll give it even odds, but I'm 110% sure that I couldn't care less. Same thing for paranormal powers - sure they could exist, but I don't seem to have any, and nobody has proven to me that they have any, so anyone who tries to get me to admit that they are real is just being argumentative, masturbating mentally.
If anything, the "fundamentalist materialist cult" has only become possible recently. Through mass communication people are opened up to the possibility that there are other communities out there that aren't entirely 100% sure that for example any form of contraception is a sin. Go back a few centuries and hardly anyone was exposed to beliefs from outside of their own community. To the commoner the Church of England has gone from a major denomination of Christianity, the one true religion and nevermind the pagans, to just a minor splinter of a religion followed by only about a quarter of the world. That has to open people's eyes. The fact that there are whole societies who have never invoked the lord's prayer and haven't been lightning bolted into dust for it. So I think atheism is just in it's infancy, and you can't expect it to take over the world in the blink of an eye, especially with the real fundamentalists that are in power all over the place.
I think that the non-atheist "spiritualists" are on their way to recovery from religion. The people who are comfortable saying that they aren't into organized religion and going to a church every Sunday, but can't quite bring themselves to deny god just yet. Good for all of you! And then the people who have gone a little further than that, they don't believe in "God", but they still believe there must be some "unknowable" "something" out there. Almost at the finish line, keep trying.
People get raised a certain way, and live their lives surrounded by people in the same mind set, and it can be hard to look for anything beyond that. (But technology is making it easier all the time!) It can be down right pointless, because what difference does it make in the end anyway? The worms will still eat into your brain. As long as you're happy, don't let anyone make you eat the red pill.
It will keep swaying back and forth, popular people will come and go and influence the masses either way, but I firmly believe that all religions will eventually go the way of Ra the sun god in the end.
It's hard not to sound condescending when deconstructing someone's belief system, but how else can you put it? God is for scaring children into keeping their hands out of the cookie jar. None of it matters until you're dead anyway, so what's the point in arguing about it? Do you get a Nobel Prize for converting the most people to Science?
Anyway, more than enough rambling - just please don't call me a fundamentalist materialist!
nightbloom
5 years ago
Mikev - you're no
Mikev - you're no fundamentalist....how about "optimistic nihilist" :-P
Too many "ist" words!
James Burns
5 years ago
as i said before...
Truman scientific studies, ideas, proofs, evidence, whatever, are lost on you, as you so "admirably" demonstrate. You cannot help but cherry pick statements out of context while ignoring the conclusions. It's really kind of sad. But hey if it make you feel better, go for it.
nightbloom
5 years ago
Incidentally, here's a
Incidentally, here's a tangential tidbit just posted by Reuters, relative to a discussion on an earlier thread:
Skull shows possible human/Neanderthal breeding
http://today.reuters.com/news/articlenews.aspx?type=scienceNews&storyid=2007-01-16T011350Z_01_N15450153_RTRUKOC_0_US-NEANDERTHAL-SKULL.xml&src=rss&rpc=22
Truman Green
5 years ago
a catholic by sentiment, but not belief, nightbloom
Out of context, eh, Nightbloom I've been reading your Christian apologetics for more than a year, Nightbloom, as you well know.
So now you're a Catholic (culturally), not by belief, but by sentiment.
So all that nonsense in the bible has, for you, become true on a 'symbollic level.'
You have respect for the 'religion of your birth,' eh.
You had no religion when you were born, Nightbloom. Babies don't have religions.
Their parents teach them what to believe.
nightbloom
5 years ago
That's fine, Truman, but
That's fine, Truman, but don't play dumb. You've known where I've stood on all that for a long time.
That's partly what I was referring to way back on this thread, when I suggested you can have "secular Christians" in a cultural sense, in the same way a "secular Jew" is an accepted reality.
Anyway, Booker asked and I answered as honestly as I could. Take it or leave it, but I think this particular tangent has gone far enough.
Let's get back to the topic at hand.
Truman Green
5 years ago
Born a Catholic, eh, Nightbloom.
So you were just born a Catholic, eh.
That'd be something to see, I bet. Was it televised? It shoulda been. Imagine the headlines: "Baby born already a Catholic."
No wonder you have a sentimental attachment to the Catholic Church, in spite of not really believing.
Alcibiades
5 years ago
doesn't sound so strange to me
I think we're connected, as cultural beings, to a plethora of attachments and baggage; seems perfectly reasonable if one can be a non-practicing Jew that one can also be a non-practicing Catholic. That fact that one is 'taught' a tradition has very little to do with it - except in the sense that, having begun the indoctrination early, it's probably more difficult to leave it behind entirely without suffering some kind of psychic damage.
In fact, I'd say being a non-practicing Catholic, or Jew, for that matter, is probably a pretty decent and moral way to live one's life.
nightbloom
5 years ago
Let it go Truman... One
Let it go Truman...
One issue that hasn't been addressed yet by the proponents of atheism is the question of socio-cultural contribution. What does atheism give back?
Atheism contains no inherent value system, no ethic, no community. It's got all the altrusim of an Ayn Rand devotee. Granted, Christians have often fallen short of their own ideals, but upholding ideals in spite of human imperfections is nevertheless important. Notwithstanding the historic rap-sheet of inquisitions and religious wars, Christian missionaries today feed and clothe more children than can ever be reached by the UN bureaucracy or the Red Cross. They do more for the comfort of refugees and the poor than any social welfare agency. We've heard aaaaallll about the bad stuff - but there's a lot of good stuff happening too.
It is insufficient for atheists to justify themselves by simply negating the hope and belief of others, and deriding "imaginary friends" in smug sophomoric tones. What inherent benefit, aside from a kind of post-modern liberation from the burdensome past, can atheism give society? For the sake of argument, Isn't atheism just another form of nihilism? What benefit, aside from their own egocentric self-gratification, do they propose the bring to society?
doggone
5 years ago
athiism
What do athiests contribute?
The bottom line:
Water and sewer systems
Roofs and foundations
Walls and floors in between.
Faith
is going to do that?
Most of the grunts I work with rely mostly on the
Backhoe
To dig the foundation and services in
Boneheads like me to place the concrete and build some form of shelter
Drywallers and painters to make the whole thing appealing.
I have no idea whether they have "faith" or are agnostic or athiest.
Who cares as long as they do the job?
Dale Jackaman
5 years ago
What does atheism give back
"What does atheism give back?"
Well let's see. Truth, just for starters, and at least one section of humanity that does not believe in, nor support, pandering to non-existant deities. Humanity is fortunate to have at least one group of individuals who treat the universe, and our role in it, for what it really is. Nothing to do with deities, and everything to do with humanity finding its own way on its own. We've grown up, and it's about time the rest of the world did so too.
I watched a slide show a while back on Humanist African aid workers. Not much different than the faith based workers except in one regard; no expensive and impressive churches placed right next to squalid shanty towns with open sewers.
I have to question the motives and reasoning for faith based help in Africa, or any other third world country for that matter. They may be doing more harm than good.
DJ
nightbloom
5 years ago
Quote:Truth, just for
You haven't demonstrated that atheists can deliver on "Truth", or that they're a better kind of person because they "treat the universe" in the correct way, and have the 'correct' vision for our place in it. Sounds just a tad fundamentalist to me.
Booker
5 years ago
Examples
Nightbloom wrote:
Well, I gave you two examples, and you simply said they weren't examples. I expect you'll do that for whatever I say.
There is no constitutional Church/State separation in Canada. The two examples I gave you show religious superstitions or adherence to religious scripture impacting the public, in a negative way, IMO. Even if they lost, that was not your question. The whole sam-sex marriage drama happenned because of believers in the Bible.
nightbloom
5 years ago
Booker, you're not dealing
Booker, you're not dealing with the facts. The Separation of Church and State in Canada is not under threat. You're living out a paranoid delusion if you think religious interests are about to suborn the constitutional order in Canada.
What you don't like are people with opposing viewpoints participating in the political process. Sorry, but that's democracy. Resistance to same-sex marriage (a legitimate difference of opinion on a quantum value-shift impacting a fundamental institution in society) did not just originate from certain religious constituencies. I've already provided you with the facts regarding the Senate hearings. There was a diversity of opinion, expressed democratically according to our constitutionally-established processes. People had their say, and many religious groups were instrumental in placing their support behind the legislation. No one burned their passports or called for revolution.
If you'd been on top of your argument (which you're not) you would have cited the attempt to institude Sharia Law in the adjudication of family disputes within Ontario's muslim community. But that was torpedoed quite quickly, reinforcing the point that the secular order is capable of resisting such influences and bringing religious constituencies on board.
Truman Green
5 years ago
I hate religion, but...
I hate religion with a religious fanaticism, but I have to admit I'm not sure the world would be a better place without it. How would you measure such a thing?
Some people need fantasy to supply added value to their lives.
Not that there's anything wrong with that.
James Burns, do you have a science link on it--preferably peer-reviewed--proving that religion has had a (net) bad influence on the world?
Booker
5 years ago
Rights
NB wrote:
Whoever suggested such a thing? I suggest you re-read the Canadian Constitution though. If you were on top of your argument you'd know that there is no constitutional separation of church and state in Canada, as there is in the U.S.
You seem to be missing the whole point that atheists are making. Of course the Believers have the democratic right to assert their religious beliefs. That's why we are questioning the beliefs. We aren't questioning the right to hold them.
I will always defend their right to do so. You seem to be suggesting I can't question the validity of their viewpoint (or yours, whatever that is).
Lastly, I think it is better to try to discover what is actually true about the natural world. I don't think that supernaturalism is helpful in doing that. Do you?
jimmy_laroux
5 years ago
nightbloom: Quote:Atheism
nightbloom:
So what? This is irrelevant. Atheism is simply the lack of belief in god/gods. Atheism has never claimed to say about morality.
Do you have a source on this? Could you post it?
Atheists are justified by their rational approach to the existence of deities. If it hurts your feelings, and you don't want to critically examine your beliefs, don't read this board. Go to church instead where you will hear others who have made the same "leap of faith" as you have.
Your statement drips with hypocrisy, by the way.
Atheism is simply the product of looking at the world with open eyes and asking for proof before belief. As I've pointed out above, the scientific method came about by the same process. To me, understanding the world as it is (however limited our experience of it), is in itself a benefit.
So now, you claim that, in addition to "baiting" people and using circular reasoning (though you do not explain how or where), atheists are now also egocentric? Why?
I might point out to a good catholic like yourself that it might be egocentric to feel that I was so important that I should live forever after my death.
jimmy_laroux
5 years ago
Truman: Quote:James Burns,
Truman:
Do you realise how ridiculous this question is? Are you just being cute?
Stand up
5 years ago
Quote: Do you realise how
Quote:
Do you realise how ridiculous this question is? Are you just being cute?
Isn't that the point being made? That everything is provable by science if investigated? That beleivers are defective for not beleiving that? (note: I am a beleiver and I belive that myself, but that is another argument.) Of course, if religion creates a negative sum for the planet, than it should be provable. If something so simple as cause/effect here can not be measured, than why would any scientifically minded person have an opinion on the topic. Such a closed mind would make any high school chemistry teacher shudder.
jimmy_laroux
5 years ago
Stand up: Quote:Isn't that
Stand up:
Point of what? Atheism? If you mean atheism, then the answer is no.
What the hell does this mean? What has a "negative sum"?
Again, what do you mean? Now I think you're being cute.
Sound Guy
5 years ago
Please Read Richard Dawkins
I made the mistake of making a joke about the Bible at a family dinner in front of my "Born Again" mother.
The silence that followed was enough for me to realize that this was not a subject I was ever going to bring up again in front of my folks.
Sure enough, a few weeks later, my mother presented me with a brand new Bible by saying "when you have read this all, then you can comment on it"
.....I still haven't read it...
but I have read "The God Delusion" by Richard Dawkins and it has changed me.
While I still won't be bothering my mother about her "crutch", it has given me a calmness to my inner thoughts that I have never had before.
Chris H
5 years ago
cause/effect
"If something so simple as cause/effect here can not be measured, than why would any scientifically minded person have an opinion on the topic."
Of course it can. Personally, I can tell about my own negative experiences I have had; such as the nightmares I had as a child because Sunday School told us how we could go to hell. The negative religious experiences could very well be summed up by accumulating a data set and then applying statistical analysis. Perhaps, if all christians lived up to the pacifist teachings of Jesus, non-believers wouldn't get so worked up about it. One thing humanists generally agree about is that Jesus was the best thing to happen to religion. Turn the other cheek? Judge not? How novel! Too bad the organized christians don't follow his teachings.
nightbloom
5 years ago
That's the nub. Thanks for
That's the nub. Thanks for enunciating it, Stand Up. If only the atheists here demanded the same rigor of proof from themselves as they do from others.
Booker is totally confused as to what precisely the Western separation of Church and State actually means.
Atheists and secular humanists are peddling an untruth when they assert that this separation means the banishment of any and all trace of Deism or religiosity from public life.
The separation of Church and State means that the state will not uphold any single confession or faith over another. In the Westminster democracies, it is a convention (i.e. an uncodified practice established as a result of tradition, custom and consensus). What activist atheists and militant secular humanist dogmatists really want to do is overturn the status quo understanding of the separation of Church and State and replace it with their own negatory belief-system: atheism.
From the preferred authority of the atheists on this thread, the ubiquitous Wikipedia:
MyBrainIsOnFire
5 years ago
the fact you can't prove the
the fact you can't prove the existence of god in the same way can prove I own the burrard bridge negates all the nonsense you put out nb and others
All we are asking is that no laws be made that are based on religious belief - so you do not impose your view upon all of us. And that indeed is the meaning of church state seperation.
Turns out there are a lot of stupid laws on the books because of belief, including Prohibiton and the lack of sperm clinics in Canada - Maureen McTeer christian apologist who happened to chair the reproductive technologies committee (and now we have an evangelical loon in charge under harper) - hey if believers do not want to benefit from science, then don't - it's your choice - just don't restrict my choices based up[on your fantasies of a master reliogion and I won;t force you to my beliefs.
And BTW all when believers ask for respect in public, what they are asking is that we all behave as if we are believers - that is not on. And I'll fight you to the death for muy right to live in a society free from religious rule.
And my death is exactly what the believers want if I cannot obey them or perhaps to be homeless and then you can turn to your children and say look, that's what happens when yopu do not believe.
Stand up
5 years ago
jimmy_laroux 20 hours
jimmy_laroux
20 hours ago
Stand up:
Quote:
I think what I am trying to say, is that the resistance to questioning seems to be all on one side in this thread.
Could you ive some examples?
Well, yes and no. See, I really do see this debate as one in which the atheist side is agruing that to believe is, ironically, evil by some abitrary standard--"opiate", "crutch", "all nuts like you can manage to do is lie." There is a stubborn determination to overlook the repeated point that religion and spiritual openness are two different things. I also think that that there is this bizzare insistance that it is scientific to disbeleive. Almost 50% of scientists beleive in some form of the divine, (sorry, web browsers, but my most recent reference was the head of the Genome Project on the Colbert Report, the other night. Look it up and argue % if you like.) This topic is the only one in which, without definitive empirical evidence, billions of reports of anecdotal evidence are rejected or dismissed as not fitting the most accepted theory of the observers.
But I digrest. Yes, I can give you examples of the inflammatory language used, not to challenge, but to shut down debate. But I humbly admit to being new to this melee. And in rereading the thread and becoming more familiar with the characters in the ring, can see that the most offensive messages are from a limited number of sources. I'd be calling the kettle back if I insisted on my point.
As to my understanding of science--I get that science is "an approximation to reality." Sorry if my short hand made you think I was stupid. I am a believer, remember? Open to the evolving recreation of the perception of reality and all that jazz. But I don't argue something I don't understand, for the record. Hence, a lot of silence till now.
I also understand the need for falsifiable in argument in science, as well as the desire for ethical neutrality which seems to me a bigger problem in studying the effects of faith on the planet then the problem of measurability. However, as "evidence" (anecdotal, but the way) is being offered as to the problems with "religion", particularly in the area of empiricism, I think it only makes sense that that position be studied. And I actually think, with greater or lesser success, that it could be. At least in a critical model.
As to being "cute", well, I defer to greater wisdom there, (but it has been a while since someone called me that:).
And thank you, by the way, for legitimately challanging me.
jimmy_laroux
5 years ago
nightbloom: Quote:If only
nightbloom:
About what? Whether there is a "scientific proof" that atheism is overall good or bad for the world. This question is completely outside of the domain of science. Give me a break.
Stand up
5 years ago
This question is completely outside of the domain of science
I think this thread began with the article about social and political involvement re: atheism. It progressed (or degenerated) to a discussion of the merits or the opposite of faith in general. It would seeem likely that atheists would not support political policy without some rational, supported argument. I am correct so far? So some sort of science is involved. Even social science is "some sort of science". Limiting the scope of the definition of science seems to be the point of this statement. This is yet another hugely controversal topic. Cool. How fun is this?!!
Booker
5 years ago
Nope
Nightbloom wrote:
Pardon me, but, um, "western separation of church and state"? Is there some Western Constitution around that I don't know about? Somehow when I was doing my Poli Sci degree, they must have missed that. I know what a constitutional convention is NB. Separation in the U.S. is very different from that in Canada, which is different again from Britain where THEY HAVE A BLEEDIN' STATE CHURCH. Jebus. I don't need to look it up on in Wikipedia (which is where I'm sure you're heading right now).
Bull. Who's asserting that? "Public life" is a lot bigger than the state. I hope that someday supernaturalism will disappear. It shouldn't be banished.
So non-belief = belief, again. How very postmodern of you.
aorangi
5 years ago
StandUp, "How fun is this",
StandUp, "How fun is this", you ask? Maybe it's time to bid adieu to this thread which leads no-where and mirrors the last religious one with all the same arguments presented in the same way: Slivers of information plucked from here and there, random quotes the reader has to verify, diverse websites taking for ever to check, diatribes of residual Catholicism,("give me the child till he's seven"), all the takes on atheism, tempers rising....cripes! I wonder if Islamists carry on like this? Not likely, as they're forced to take their bible literally which precludes any schism from occurring and makes them the powerhouse we read about today.
Had I spent the same time reading the CCPA Monitor or picked another thread I'd have learned useful stuff relating to today's problems rather than expecting enlightenment from people who believe in the big God in the Sky.
Leave it to you, Standup. You must be a lot younger than I :)
MyBrainIsOnFire
5 years ago
www.jesusneverexisted.com
nuff said
Stand up
5 years ago
Aw, shucks aorangi. It's not
Aw, shucks aorangi. It's not that I am younger, just newer. (Though I have been told recently, I am cute :) I missed the last religious thread, see? And yep, I think it has pretty much all been said. However, I did find it interesting. So much passion, logic, illogic. The confusion of topics is absolutely amazing. Like a literary presentation of a Jackson Pollock.
Thanks guys.
Danielle E
5 years ago
Regarding Jimmy's quote:
Regarding Jimmy's quote: About what? Whether there is a "scientific proof" that atheism is overall good or bad for the world. This question is completely outside of the domain of science.
It's not outside the domain of social science research and Zuckerman gives a rundown of various studies on this subject at: http://www.pitzer.edu/academics/faculty/zuckerman/atheism.html
nightbloom
5 years ago
Yes, it has all been said
Yes, it has all been said before...and long before our great-great-great-grandfathers were born. The argument should really be against fundamentalisms of all sorts. The atheists, the dogmatic secular humanists and the nihilist fundamentalists don't want to admit that they can occasionally smell just as bad as the next guy.
- Edmund Burke, "Tract on the Popery Laws," published posthumously.
lynn
5 years ago
To be or not to be...
I think it was Gandhi that said "God has no religion"...and I think that it why a number of us who aren't much enamoured with religion take great delight... yes, actual delight, in the questions that swirl around the mystery that is/is not God.
jimmy_laroux
5 years ago
Stand up: Quote:Yes, I can
Stand up:
Fair enough, there has been some colourful language from both sides on this thread :-)
Your demand for "scientific proof" atheism is good or bad (at least I think this was what you meant, hard to tell) was silly, so I thought you were joking, hence the "cute". It is *defintely* outside of the domain of science.
That's what we're all here for, right?
Nope. "Rational, supported argument" is not the same as science (though it's necessary, of course). Social "sciences" are not sciences. Political science is not a science. Computer science is not a science. Lots of fields have the word "science" appended to the end of their names for really no good reason.
jimmy_laroux
5 years ago
nightbloom: For someone who
nightbloom:
For someone who was so angry about Dawkins calling believers "delusional", you sure like to throw around a lot of false perjorative classfications, e.g. "dogmatic secular humanists" and "nihilist fundamentalists".
nightbloom
5 years ago
The point is that the
The point is that the 'fundie' tag works both ways. There are many dogmas, and many fundamentalisms. Atheists have to wrap their minds around that fact, and take a hard look at the company they keep.
I wasn't 'angry' at Dawkins. I object to his disingenuous argumentation. The 'delusional' label exists on a different level - It is not descriptive, it is a dishonest attempt to pathologize the opposition, and to bypass their arguments by simply invalidating the person who utters them.
"Dogmatic secular humanist" is simply descriptive, as is "nihilist fundamentalist". It's possible to be both a secular humanist and a nihilist without being dogmatic or fundamentalist about it.
Bailey
5 years ago
Dear jimmy_laroux; I can
Dear jimmy_laroux; I can answer your question, though I'm unsure from reading if this is what was meant.
In the 70's, a tool for transactional analysis was devised called 'Game Theory'. Different types of social interactions were classified as zero-sum and non-zero-sum games.
Zero sum games are ones where all gains by one faction are mirrored by equivalent losses by the other. Nothing is created, only redistributed, like fiat lux's famous capitalist counterfeiting bankers.
Non zero-sum games are ones where co-operative behaviour results in the creation of mutual positive benefits, that is a positive sum, which are then available for all to enjoy.
Or, of course, in case of failure or intentional nastiness, mutual negative benefits for all to suffer. A negative sum.
It's obviously usually more complicated, since a transaction can be both at the same time, have different elements, or move from one status to another over time, but that's what it means.
Bailey
5 years ago
Nice
I have a favourite game. It was consistently rated as the highest producing, most successful game when played consistently against opponents playing any other games over a sufficiently long time period.
It's called 'Nice'. You co-operate absolutely, giving all your intention and effort to the highest goal until an opponent acts against you or the highest goal you're seeking. Then you hit him slightly harder than he hit you.
You then immediately revert to your original strategy, co-operating again until hit again, when you react exactly the same way. Hit back slightly harder, then forgive and return to co-operative mode.
It always won over the long term, if all players survived the conflicts. As far as I ever heard.
nightbloom
5 years ago
Quote:I think that it why a
Lynn - That's a beautiful way to say it.
Bailey - Good post, and refreshingly 'out of the blue'.
When I read words like the following, it makes me wonder if the 'social sciences' have really had anything truly valuable to add since its pioneering geniuses walked the earth:
“Whatever the unconscious may be, it is a natural phenomenon producing symbols that prove to be meaningful. We cannot expect someone who has never looked through a microscope to be an authority on microbes; in the same way, no one who has not made a serious study of natural symbols can be considered a competent judge in this matter. But the general undervaluation of the human soul is so great that neither the great religions nor the philosophies nor scientific rationalism have been willing to look at it twice.”
- Carl Gusav Jung, Man and his Symbols
Saphire
5 years ago
Religion
"a daughter of hope and fear, explaining to the ignorant the nature of the unknowable"
Ambrose Bierce
Stand up
5 years ago
I thought you were joking, hence the "cute".
I was finished, but Really...
I was perfectly clear on the meaning of the "cute" thing. Wow, for someone who says "cute," you sure are literal. Maybe you should stick to less playful language. Try the word "obtuse" next time.
Definitely finished this time.
Thanks again--even the compliment taker backer. :)
Truman Green
5 years ago
Jimmy and Booker
Hey Jim and Booker, as you suggested, I posted my main objections to neo-darwinian selection mechanism theory on that Larry Moran science site you sent me to. They're kind of rude over there with Moran, who, it turns out is a pal of Richard Dawkins, referring to doubters of neo-darwinism as 'IDiots,' with the ID meaning 'intelligent design.'
For some reason they take non-belief as a personal insult. One guy even used predicate calculus to assess mathematically whether 'irreducible complexity' is mathematically possible. When they arrived at the conclusion that it IS, they speculated whether they should keep it from the Intelligent Design community.
'Tis a paradigm shift we're into guys.
My post has been acknowledged but so far Moran hasn't responded. Why don't you head over and have a look. It's under the 'irredicible complexity' heading.
Great blog. Thanks for the suggestion.
Chris H
5 years ago
Delusional
"I wasn't 'angry' at Dawkins. I object to his disingenuous argumentation. The 'delusional' label exists on a different level - It is not descriptive, it is a dishonest attempt to pathologize the opposition, and to bypass their arguments by simply invalidating the person who utters them."
Having read Dawkin's latest book, I don't believe his "delusional" argument was disingenous. We label people who claim god directly talks to them as delusional all the time. Anyone who is "hearing voices" be they from god or anyone else is generally sent towards the nearest mental health professional. I don't think it is unreasonable to use the word "delusion" in that context. Many children have imaginary friends during their younger years. It gives them comfort and is not necessarily an unhealthy thing. No one would argue that their "friend" exists however. I bet many would say that I was "delusional" if I believed in the flying spaghetti monster and claimed to have had a personal spirtual experience with him. But, if you said the same about Jesus, there would definitely be outrage by some. You may not like the argument, but disingenous? I don't think so.
nightbloom
5 years ago
Quote:Anyone who is "hearing
And you feel this is an accurate charactization of the vast majority of the believing population worldwide, I suppose?
You've illustrated my point. The most far-out examples are invariably used to pathologize an entire segment of humanity. It's reminiscent of an argument I once had from a militant lesbian separatist and 'marxist-feminist' who claimed that all white men are latent serial killers because white men are statistically over-represented among the .0003% of the population that are bona fide members of 'serial killer community' (she didn't use that term, of course!). Gimme a break.
I didn't buy the Dawkins book, but I read several chapters of it while sipping my starbucks at the local Chapters outlet. One of the most disingenuous sections I read is the chapter addressing religious crimes against homosexuals. Granted, there's an unhappy history there, which is slowly changing, just as the rest of society is gradually changing. But this is where Dawkins just gets totally sloppy. He cites the prosecution of the eminent British WW2 codebreaker and homosexual Alan Turing by secular civil authorities (Turing subsequently committed suicide), and then Dawkins goes on to describe ignorant comments made by televangelist Jerry Falwell (of all people!) in the early 1980s before launching into a rant against religious attitudes to homosexuality (with no acknowledgment that those attitudes were at one time ubiquitous in society regardless of the degree of religious devotion or church attendance)...Falwell, incidentally, is the same nut who saw latent homosexual messaging in the Teletubbies children's show, and who blamed 9/11 on liberals and feminists. Enough said. Flipping to the back of the book to check sources, I noted that Dawkins exhibited an appalling lack of rigour that would have gotten him laughed out of any graduate level Arts & Social Science graduate seminar. I only knew where and when Falwell made those precise comments because I've had this argument so many times over the past 15 years, and was familiar with the Turing case because I'd read so much about the sordid history of British sodomy laws, Oscar Wilde, the Bloomsbury Group, Quentin Crisp, the entrapment of homosexual civil servants by military and police (secular authorities), blah-blah...
Anyways...
As I said at the top of this thread, his argument relies upon the most egregious of examples, which are used to pathologize moderate believers everywhere and lambaste any and all religion, spirituality and faith as inherently "fundamentalist", "delusional" and therefore pathological.
It's totally disingenuous, not to mention shallow, lazy polemic rather than genuine rational argumentation or cultural critique.
nightbloom
5 years ago
The New York Times wan't too
The New York Times wan't too impressed with the intellectual rigour of the book either:
Beyond Belief
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/22/books/review/Holt.t.html?ex=1319169600&en=d9a0ba69b41f32df&ei=5088
nightbloom
5 years ago
Another authors' debate
Andrew Sullivan debates Sam Harris ("The End of Faith"; "Letters to the Christian Nation"), linked thru Sullivan's "Daily Dish" Blog:
http://time.blogs.com/daily_dish/2007/01/debating_sam_i_.html
G West
5 years ago
Turing
Although Dawkins is playing politics a good bit of the time, your critique of the Turing example won't hold water in the British context.
The secular authority in Britain - at least until after the implementation of the Beveridge reforms (the report itself dates to 1942) was clearly anti-homosexual. Furthermore, the Church of England is the state Church in Great Britain and, as such, was mostly indistinguishable from the state itself. In the US, given the events of the last dozen years, one has often had cause to wonder whether the separation of church and state is still valid there as well.
nightbloom
5 years ago
The secular authorities in
The secular authorities in this case were enforcing the popular will in its ghastly treatment of homosexuals, as well as enforcing the laws enacted and upheld by the elected Parliament of a democratic constitutional monarchy. Ascribing the long history of homophobia in mainstream society to religious influence alone isn't tenable. It's letting everyone else off the hook, including science itself.
If religion is solely to blame, as Dawkins' clearly suggests, then why not also impugn science and scientists for developing quack 'cures' for homosexuality through hormone treatments, eletroshock, castration, and lobotimization?
CF1
5 years ago
Hair Dryer
Imagine that someone was claiming to hear messages or the voice of god through their hair dryer. That person would be considered to be suffering from a mental disorder. How is their mental condition any different if you simply remove the hair dryer from the equation?
"Stupidity transcends when all the fools agree."
Chris H
5 years ago
Voices
"And you feel this is an accurate charactization of the vast majority of the believing population worldwide, I suppose?"
Not at all. I haven't met too many people that have claimed to have a personal conversation with god. Their belief does not mean that they have experienced this immortal being personally. I would guess that the vast majority of believers have atleast a bit of doubt about the existence of god (just as Dawkins does about his non-belief). Isn't there a possibility that god did, infact, talk to them if he really does exist? Isn't there a chance that Falwell (who had a very large following) was being guided by god? Isn't there a chance that god isn't really all that great of a supreme being? If you are going to discount those possibilities then it's not really too much of a stretch to discount god altogether. Just because the belief is mainstream, maybe harmless, doesn't necessarily mean it's correct. And, conversely, just because the belief is not accepted as reasonable doesn't make it untrue either. Your example about all white men being latent serial killers is a poor analogy. If you want people like Dawkins to respect your religion shouldn't you respect everyone's beliefs? You certainly don't Jerry Falwell's.
nightbloom
5 years ago
Dawkins presented Falwell as
Dawkins presented Falwell as somehow archetypal of Christianity. He used Falwell as a straw man to develop his thesis. This much is pretty clear.
I think it's fair to say that nothing representing a moderate, mainstream, reasonable practice of faith was reflected in the book. Dawkins erected a bogey man constructed from the worst examples, to act as a foil for his arguments. That's dishonest.
Chris H
5 years ago
Falwell
Falwell is an important christian religious leader in the Southern US. When he gets sick, the president of the US phones him to wish him well. Your assertion that he doesn't follow a reasonable practice of faith is disresptful to the thousands in his ministry. There are way worse examples then Jerry Falwell. His teachings and fundamental beliefs are actually a good representation of Southern Baptism at this time. He is no way a straw man.
G West
5 years ago
Dawkins and religion
I doubt Dawkins would disagree with your point that it wasn't just the Church of England's attitude that was wrong relative to Turling and I wasn't implying that either. I don't think the church gets off scot free when it comes to the way marginalized groups are treated is all.
I think Falwell is a schmoe. A much more dangerous figure is Dobson:
http://www.defconamerica.org/meet-the-religious-right/james-dobson.html
G West
5 years ago
errata
should be 'Turing' not Turling, sorry.
nightbloom
5 years ago
Yes, Falwell is a snake oil
Yes, Falwell is a snake oil salesman. And there are still nastier sorts (Fred Phelps, for example).
The whole televangelism phenomenon is an unfortunate development. It illustrates something I've argued previously about the need to tolerate moderate traditional religious establishments who've developed in-built restraints and internalized the lessons of the Enlightenment as well as the secular norms of society. The virulent resurgence of fundamentalism is in response to a void which opened up beginning in the late 1960s and fermenting through the '70s. The fundamentalist religious Right had grown strong enough by the 1980s to earn Reagan's deep distrust. The external symptoms of this void go well beyond the 'Culture War', of which the current religious controversy is only a part. We've only acknowledged the tip of the iceberg. The societal schism that has been quietly in the works is huge. I believe the secular order is ultimately dependent on such tolerance of traditional moderate social bulwarks, rather than jeopardized by them. Far from institutions of oppression, they are speedbumps and bulwarks evolved to stabilize mass society. The Church of England, with its curious amalgamation of Protestant ("Low Church") and neo-Catholic ("High Church"), it's internalization of democratic processes to vote on and resolve doctrinal disputes (they vote on doctrine! scandalous!), and the nearly total autonomy of its constituent parts, is one such evolved speedbump and bulwark which arose explicitly to resolve the social fractures of its day. It remains to be seen whether too much flexibility and tolerance will be its undoing in the global era. But its rise did bring an end (more or less) to the religious wars in Britain (granted, a Roman Catholic still cannot ascend the throne...but by the late 17th century all other groups were guanteed their freedom of conscience by the Act of Toleration). By the late 19th century a secular Jew could even become Prime Minister (Disraeli....granted, he had nominally converted, but it shows the change in attitude in society, and the legislative changes weren't far behind).
If we look at the 'end state' desired by the atheists and secular fundamentalists, what we actually get is a void reminiscent of the state that existed between the degeneration of the state religion of imperial Rome and the rise of Christianity as the official dogma of the state. I think atheists are going to have to accept that we've already achieved the closest possible approximation to their desired end-state, and may in fact already be planting the seeds for the next cult upon which our future inquisitions, unmindful of the lessons of history, will be based. Perhaps Islam will continue to win converts in the West, as the old faith slowly dies out. If so, we've got a loooong development curve ahead of us that we're going have to relive collectively as society re-learns the lessons of the Anglo-European past.
nightbloom
5 years ago
As you can see, the real
As you can see, the real challenge to maintaining a viable secularized and tolerant public space today isn't Catholic knitting clubs, the Queen's confessional status, Christian sex hang-ups, or Protestant peevishness about yoga in the classroom:
http://time.blogs.com/daily_dish/2007/01/exposed.html
G West
5 years ago
Disraeli
While Disraeli was far from conventional, I don't think you could call him anything but a practicing Christian.
Here's what Blake says:
Disraeli, Robert Blake p 503
lynn
5 years ago
It's not all about us...there's a whole cosmos out there
Thanks for the kind words above, nightbloom.
When reading through this thread I can't help but think of a poem by DH Lawrence called "Terra Incognita". In it he writes about the unknown, about the need for mankind to finally "escape the barbed-wire entanglements of our own ideas and our own mechanical devices". Perhaps that's why Lawrence preferred the many gods of paganism and the animistic vision to the cloyingly personal, "nailed down" didacticism often inherent in both science and religion.
As ol' DH once said:
"Perhaps the greatest difference between us and the pagans lies in our different relation to the cosmos. With us, all is personal. Landscape and the sky, these are to us the delicious background of our personal life, and no more. Even the universe of the scientist is little more than an extension of our personality, to us. To the pagan, landscape and personal background were on the whole indifferent. But the cosmos was a very real thing. A man lived with cosmos, and knew it greater than himself.
Don't let us imagine we see the sun as the old civilisations saw it. All we see is a scientific little luminary, dwindled to a ball of blazing gas. We may see what we call the sun, but we have lost Helios forever, and the great orb of the Chaldeans still more. We have lost the cosmos, by coming out of responsive connection with it, and this is our chief tragedy."
G West
5 years ago
Rilke
Thanks for that Lynn. Maybe you'd appreciate this from Rilke:
If you trust in Nature, in what is simple in Nature, in the small Things that hardly anyone sees and that can so suddenly become huge, immeasurable; if you have this love for what is humble and try very simply, as someone who serves, to win the confidence of what seems poor: then everything will become easier for you, more coherent and somehow more reconciling, not in your conscious mind perhaps, which stays behind, astonished, but in your innermost awareness, awakeness and knowledge.
from Letters to a Young Poet
Chris H
5 years ago
evangilists
"The whole televangelism phenomenon is an unfortunate development."
That may be your opinion, but to deny its growing popularity is like putting your head in the sand. Roughly a third of the people in the US identify themselves as evangelical. You may call him names, but you can't put Falwell on the sidelines. Therefore, Dawkins use of him in his book was appropriate. I would hope that a moderate christian opinion on gay marriage is that it's not right for me, but I can't deny others. Is that what is happening? Is that the opinion of the majority of church congregations? No. They want to impose their beliefs on others. Dawkins is merely using examples of the reality today.
nightbloom
5 years ago
Quote:Roughly a third of the
Only a tiny minority of these are the sorts of evangelical christians that mainstream society finds overtly objectionable. You're painting with that broad brush again. There's even a huge gay evangelical movement in the states, did you know that? Go figure.
You've also sidestepped the point that the growth in influence of non-traditional sects is in response to forces which secular society set in motion four decades ago. The phenomenon is very, very new. In this sense, it is a break from the past, not necessarily a blanket continuation of it.
You've also sidestepped a few other issues. If we can read Christianity the riot act for their judgment and treatment of homosexuals, why not do the same for science for devising and implementation their physical and psychological mutilation? Seems a double-standard is at work here. Dawkins doesn't even acknowledge the culpability of science and scientists in the chapter dealing with this particular subject.
There are several other valid arguments on this thread which the proponents of atheism have sidestepped, but it's a moot point now. The atheists and secular humanists here have simply not made a strong case for why the status quo should be further altered to accomodate their creed.
Stand up
5 years ago
Quote:Only a tiny minority
A great example of this is Jimmy Carter's book, Our Endangered Values. While there is plenty in there to validate even the most rabid Christian-hater, Carter himself demontrates that the term "evangelical" covers a hugely diverse set to beliefs and resultant behaviors.
Booker
5 years ago
Status Quo
I think you continue to underestimate the influence of fundamentalism, and evangelicalism generally, as Chris H and others have noted. One need only look at the success of the anti-gay marriage forces in the U.S. (more than half of the states in the U.S. have passed constitutional amendments banning same-sex unions). Furthermore, the fact that only half of the U.S. population accepts the reality of evolution is a sad statement of the state of scientific knowledge there. It is somewhat better in Canada, thankfully, and the forces of reaction have been dealt a few blows recently. Intelligent design is being pushed strongly in schools now in the U.K., and the creationists will continue to get it into school systems around the world. This, in my opinion, is a problem. There have been many other examples given on this thread and the Dawkins thread, and you disagree that those examples are real, or are in fact issues at all, and that's your right. You think that the status quo is okay. I'm glad you like it! Keep fighting for the status quo. I won't be.
nightbloom
5 years ago
I don't underestimate
I don't underestimate fundamentalism. I simply refuse to accept that the way to diffuse it is to answer it with another fundamentalism. What do you really want - to revoke the voting rights of non-atheists? To make
atheism the official state dogma, and actively promulgate it through the education system?
Atheists will not accomplish what they think they would be scrubbing the public sphere of Christianity and the other traditional creeds. Vaccuums are dangerous, and the watery unsweetened gruel of atheism doesn't provide the rich nourishment many people crave. They will find replacements, and you might not like what they replace it with. Not everyone can read their way to a humane and life-nourishing secular humanism without lapsing into life-depleting nihilism. As I said at the top of this thread, true ethical and compassionate secular humanism unleavened by faith only really works for the few. It's a religion of the professors and literati.
Incidentally, the irony of using gay marriage as a litmus test for social tolerance is that up until a few years ago (before the court rulings started to stir up the Right) the most militant opponents against the idea of gay marriage were the Lesbian separatists and the anti-assimilationist queers. The gay press was very much against it, to the relief of their ideological masters on the Left. That wasn't very long ago. Now all of a sudden anyone who so much as raises an eyebrow at the notion is somehow 'worse than Hitler' or something. Don't get me wrong, I'm all for it, but enough with the kvetching already. It's a done deal for Canadians, as Harper himself said.
G West
5 years ago
purple prose
Whoa nightbloom, settle down!
I thought you were trying to be dispassionate lately. That's a little too purple for my taste.
I think you're really saying that the uneducated masses need something a little more 'colourful' to stimulate their little brains and keep them out of trouble. I'm not sure there's much evidence of that; and it certainly doesn't indicate a high opinion of your fellow men and women.
If the churches would just settle for helping folks who’re trying to attain some kind of 'personal' attachment for the numinous I think we'd be all right. The problem is all those generations of proselytizing - some Muslims and some Christians drink the same Kool-Aid, I'm afraid. Moreover, the whole culture suffers for it.
First thing you do is remove the tax-free status of religious institutions and stop allowing folks to deduct donations for tax purposes. Put all such ‘searches’ on the same level playing field and remove the opportunity for profiteering. My view.
jimmy_laroux
5 years ago
nightbloom: Quote:Atheists
nightbloom:
The company they keep? I smell a red herring. We were discussing the validity of atheism, right?
The 'delusional' label exists on a different level - It is not descriptive, it is a dishonest attempt to pathologize the opposition, and to bypass their arguments by simply invalidating the person who utters them.
What about calling atheists "egocentric", as you did? Is that descriptive or an attempt to invalidate?
Secular humanists have a set of principles to which the adhere, and I suppose you could call those principles "dogma". But then every religion is "dogmatic" in this sense. I assume you used the term "dogmatic" in a derogatory sense, since that's your style.
jimmy_laroux
5 years ago
nightbloom: Quote:I simply
nightbloom:
You continue to falsely describe atheism as a kind of "fundamentalism". Fundamentalism requires religious principles to believe in. Since atheism is not a religion or a "faith", it cannot be described as "fundamentalism".
Stand up
5 years ago
Since atheism is not a
Since atheism is not a religion or a "faith", it cannot be described as "fundamentalism".
The American Heritage Dictionary.
Wikipedia
I am sure this won't help, but here are sections of the first two definitions I found online. They also, of course, referred to the common interpretation relating to protestantism.
jimmy_laroux
5 years ago
Sorry, but...
I've got to post this again because I formatted so poorly last time...
nightbloom:
The company they keep? I smell a red herring. We were discussing the validity of atheism, right?
What about calling atheists "egocentric", as you did? Is that descriptive or an attempt to invalidate?
Secular humanists have a set of principles to which the adhere, and I suppose you could call those principles "dogma". But then every religion is "dogmatic" in this sense. I assume you used the term "dogmatic" in a derogatory sense, since that's your style.
nightbloom
5 years ago
Quote:I thought you were
Sorry Gwest, I was hoping to score another prime time Globe & Mail quote ;-P
But let's be honest here jimmy: that's exactly what it is. Atheism doesn't really dispose of God. It simply relocates him in each person's petty ego (not even the superego, at that). Besides, it's much, much different from calling 6,000+ years of human cultural development and spiritual reflection "delusional", which is a psychiatric pathology by definition. You're basically saying that the moderate faithful are insane. That's just silly. Atheists are essentially trashing all of human culture and demanding that everyone live up to their rarefied sense of scientifically entitled superiority. That has certainly been the tone from the atheists all thru this thread. They've staked out an illegitimate and unjustified monopoly on Reason, based upon a semantic circumsciption of the nature of Reason itself.
Wrong. Fundamentalism is a little more ecumenical than that. You can have a fundamentalist strain of any ideology or dogma. It doesn't have to be religious belief only. There are many, many examples outside of the phenomenon of Deism. There are fundamentalists of all sorts everywhere.
jimmy_laroux
5 years ago
nightbloom: Quote:But let's
nightbloom:
Please explain (clearly) why atheism is “egocentric”.
If you mean by this that it can’t be proven that god/gods do not exist, this is obviously true.
I have no idea what you are talking about. Please explain.
*I* did not call anyone delusional. Dawkins did. I dare you to find a single quote where I did.
Wow. Atheism does not “trash all of human culture”. This is nonsense. As for the rest of this statement, you are generalising. Do all atheists really have a sense of superiority? And how can someone “live up” to a sense of superiority? This does not make sense.
Please define “Reason” with a capital R. And once you’ve done that, please describe (clearly) how atheism limits “Reason”.
Fair enough, if you feel fundamentalism is more general than what I’ve written, please define it for me.
nightbloom
5 years ago
That's just lazy. You've
That's just lazy. You've spliced up a succession of statements which are clearly based upon the progress of this thread, and asked for clarification on each. I've noticed several instances where some of the proponents of atheism on this thread have simply sat back and baited the others into chasing their own tails, which little expenditure of effort on their part. No thanks. Here's one example:
Please define “Reason” with a capital R. And once you’ve done that, please describe (clearly) how atheism limits “Reason”.
This is a clear reference to the exchange on inductive reasoning earlier in the thread. Atheists only achieve their argument by placing a semantic 'cap' on the application of Reason itself. You've mistaken a finite method for Reason itself.
You're also continuing to sidestep the mountain of valid counter-arguments that have accumulated during the course of this thread. Cut-&-Paste those for a change, and reply in line.
Chris H
5 years ago
LOL
"You're also continuing to sidestep the mountain of valid counter-arguments that have accumulated during the course of this thread. Cut-&-Paste those for a change, and reply in line."
A little bit of a hypocrite? You claim that Falwell is some fringe televangelist and then call the gay evangelist movement "huge"? You want religion to be judged by its positive effects as of today, but when faced with an argument on the percieved negative effects of religion that are happening today, you point your finger at the unethical scientific probings of a hundred years ago that are used as examples in university science/social science courses as "OMG" who would do such a thing? If anyone is being "egocentric" and "disengenous" it is you nightbloom. You throw labels at people in a lame attempt to discredit their arguments. I think everyone deserves to have their ideas heard without names being thrown at them. Christians, if they follow the bible, should believe I am going to hell. I believe they are delusional in believing in a supernatural being as described by their dogma. That doesn't mean they aren't nice, productive members of society. In this one instance, they refuse to respect my beliefs, so why should I pretend that I don't think that their "imaginary" friend exists? That being said, good luck to you. I think anyone who voted for Bush, thinking he was going to be a good president, was delusional as well. So ... perhaps I am too judgemental.
nightbloom
5 years ago
Quote:You claim that Falwell
Both aspects of that statement are true, and don't justify the "hypocrite" silliness.
You're confusing a number of things. Falwell is a televangelist. Viewership is a sketchy criteria to go by when examining attitudes on specific issues. Try applying that assumption to any other form of television, and you get the idea. As far as its relationship with Evangelism, Televengelism is a phenomenon unto itself, with overlap.
The Christian Evangelical movement is something much bigger and broader. Just look at the census data in the U.S., Latin America, and some parts of Asia.
But I think we both know that you knew what I was saying all along. I've been pretty succinct.
Truman Green
5 years ago
Chris, you've got ole nb on the ropes.
Nightbloom, no sarcasm intended, but do you see why I actually suspected that you were a priest, or something, (what with all these many months of religious apolegetica) until you professed your non-belief of all the major Christian tenets a couple days ago.
Why all these many months of defending these decrepid old religions?
And did you really say this: "Atheism trashes all human culture."
I think atheists are just as honourable and realistic--even intelligent-- as 'believers'--even non-believers such as yourself, nightbloom. They just don't see any higher power hanging around.
If your read Danielle E's provided link to an excellent study, you'll find that the countries with the highest number of atheists, with only the rarest of exceptions, do very well indeed, and the poorest, most corrupt nations are almost exclusively full of believers.
Of course one must be careful in coming to conclusions. It might be that the atheists have just made better thieves and raw material appropriators than the believers.
But anyway, why you keep defending religion is a big tyee forum mystery. Not as big as whether G. West is actually Alcibiades and Gerhardius, too, but nevertheless, BIG.
nightbloom
5 years ago
Quote:until you professed
No, I'm pretty sure I explicitly stated my take as far back as the epic "War on Christmas" thread, or at least very soon thereafter.
I don't see it that way. I think there's a lot of sloppy thinking going around, particularly on the secular liberal-Left, regarding culture and especially Western culture and history. Their carping re-hash of rap-sheets going back 2000 years is sooooo tedious and invariably one-sided. I find something almost self-loathing about the way members of the secular liberal intelligentsia really go for the jugular on these issue. A lot of their justifications don't hold up, and are actually based on an extremely narrow and quite neo-puritanical viewpoint. That's why I sometimes find them worse than the fundamentalists. Look at how they throw their weight around so obnoxiously - At my undergraduate Alma Mater last week, they've revoked all funding for a campus student club with a 'pro-life' viewpoint that dared to organized a public academic debate on abortion with invited guests arguing each side. They said it violated women's Charter Rights. Don't get me wrong: I'm pro-choice...But where on earth do these people get off??
.....
LOL - Gwest, Alcibiades and Gerhardius, eh? Do people really think that?
jimmy_laroux
5 years ago
nightbloom: Quote:Wrong.
nightbloom:
I asked you to provide a suitable definition. You have not, so I will provide my own (from the Concise Oxford English Dictionary, 10th ed.):
fundamentalism: 1. a strict and literal interpretation of the Bible. 2. strict maintenance of the ancient or fundamental doctrines of any ideology.
Now I will proceed as I did before. Fundamentalism requires doctrines or principles to believe in or maintain. Since atheism is has no principles or doctrines to follow, it cannot be described as "fundamentalism".
jimmy_laroux
5 years ago
nightbloom: Quote:That's
nightbloom:
You make vague statement and speak in metaphor, and when I ask for you to say what you mean, you call me lazy. Hmmm. Here is an example:
First, the ego/superego is just a bunch of Freudian quackery. Second, God is supposed to be a supernatural being, so how could god be "relocated" into a person's "ego". So I'm wondering if this is just nonsense or if it's a metaphor, though I think it's probably just nonsense.
jimmy_laroux
5 years ago
nightbloom: Quote:This is a
nightbloom:
As I pointed out above, your statements are often vague and ambiguous, and sometimes totally meaningless, so I am asking for clarification. I asked you a while back what you meant when you said that "inductive reasoning... seems to have created a closed circuit for itself in which to operate." I asked you what you meant. You replied with:
Now I've asked you what you mean by "semantically circumscribing Reason", and you refuse to explain. What is "Reason", as opposed to "reason"? Do you mean something by capitalising the "R" in "Reason"?
jimmy_laroux
5 years ago
nightbloom: Quote:You're
nightbloom:
If you provide any, then I will respond. If you continue to spout nonsense or metaphor, or make vague statements, then I will continue to ask for clarification.