…and this is a 
Go ahead — take the Lord's name in vain
Category: Godlessness
Posted on: January 17, 2007 6:28 PM, by PZ Myers
Scott Aaronson has a revelation: it's OK for a "disbelieving atheist infidel heretic" to refer to a god.
What I'm trying to say, Bill, is this: you can go ahead and indulge yourself. If some of the most brilliant unbelievers in history — Einstein, Erdös, Twain — could refer to a being of dubious ontological status as they would to a smelly old uncle, then why not the rest of us? For me, the whole point of scientific rationalism is that you're free to ask any question, debate any argument, read anything that interests you, use whatever phrase most colorfully conveys your meaning, all without having to worry about violating some taboo. You won't endanger your immortal soul, since you don't have one.
It's a liberating feeling to be freed from the senseless rules of nonexistent beings.
Comments
okay then, goddammit.
Posted by: jamie | January 17, 2007 7:20 PM
It's extremely liberating just to see someone refer to Paul Erdös as if he expected others to know who he was talking about and why, to be free from the senseless rule of "I wonder whether they'll get my reference?"
Posted by: Ed Darrell | January 17, 2007 7:25 PM
Ed Darrell, are you suggesting there are people out there who may never have heard of Pál?
Posted by: Fernando Magyar | January 17, 2007 7:42 PM
Over in that comment thread, Greg Kuperberg wrote the following:
To which I replied,
God, I love the sound of my own words.
Posted by: Blake Stacey | January 17, 2007 7:46 PM
Hell Damn Fart!
Christ on a Cracker!
Etc etc
Posted by: Stogoe | January 17, 2007 8:40 PM
The idea of a anthropomorphic scribe of scientific law is a useful literary device. The day will come when we can use it comfortable in the knowledge that nobody would ever dream of taking it literally. Until then I think it's best to consider your audience. You're just begging to be misquoted if you use the Literary Device God in popular articles and books; not so much if you use it with fellow scientists.
Hey, maybe atheists should worship the Literary Device God? He's fictional but He loves us.
Posted by: poke | January 17, 2007 8:45 PM
So, he's saying atheists don't have souls? Real nice fellow, there...
Posted by: Kesh | January 17, 2007 8:52 PM
If atheists take the name 'Brights', do they dub theists 'Dims'?
I just wondered.
At the risk of majorly pissing off mathematicians, what would be wrong with Real and Imaginary?
So when a religionist utters some babble, I can say, "Imagine that," hold for a beat, and then bust out laughing. Ridicule pissed them off. I know from experience. They hate being laughed at.
Posted by: Roy | January 17, 2007 9:25 PM
So, he's saying atheists don't have souls? Real nice fellow, there...
No, he's saying nobody has a soul - devout theists and atheists alike. To quote Bart Simpson, "Listen: you don't have a soul, I don't have a soul, there's no such thing as a soul!"
Posted by: woot | January 17, 2007 9:30 PM
Unfortunately, the rest of that episode went to great lengths to prove him wrong.
Posted by: John Marley | January 17, 2007 9:59 PM
Actually, if you want atheists to be called 'Brights', theists are 'Supers'.
Posted by: Stogoe | January 17, 2007 10:05 PM
@Roy:
Actually, Daniel Dennett (among others, probably) says that the proper antonym for "Bright" is "Super", as in supernatural. Nobody thinks of this, naturally, and despite what I'd consider good intentions "Bright" comes off as incredibly insulting.
On the one tentacle, I'd say, the time for velvet gloves has passed, and if you're getting riled up over a word, you've got problems besides. On the other tentacle, I never thought there was anything wrong with the word skeptic.
(I have to use my tentacles, since having two extra cost me a date with Skepchick Rebecca Watson.)
Posted by: Blake Stacey | January 17, 2007 10:08 PM
Well, I for 1 never waited around for someone's okay on the matter.
A presuppositionalist will function on the assumption that unbelievers are believers anywhoways, so it makes no difference what 'loaded' words we use. Most of them make allegorical inferences (read: mountains outta molehills) thanks to that foolish holy book & it's metaphorical crapshoot & parables, based on little or no context.
It's a tough call, but I don't like having my vocabulary hamstrung just because some nutter decides I can't use the words 'design', or 'darkness', or mother nature.
I'll not have my language held at gunpoint.
Posted by: Krystalline Apostate | January 17, 2007 10:20 PM
"It's a liberating feeling to be freed from the senseless rules of nonexistent beings."
Deja vu - when my daughter decided for herself to reject religion, she said "It's such a relief not to have someone watching everything I do."
Posted by: John | January 17, 2007 10:45 PM
Come to think of it, that was my feeling too when I decided to stop trying to make myself believe in things that were increasingly clearly not believable - palpable relief.
About the same age too.
It's obviously genetic. Hot damn.
Posted by: John | January 17, 2007 11:00 PM
I vote for the use of the word Thoth instead of God. If you're going to use an imaginary being for theatrical effect, why not the god of science? Plus, you can start any scientific statement with, "Well, as Thoth would say...", since Thoth would always agree with science.
Posted by: Kent Kauffman | January 17, 2007 11:33 PM
I not only use the idea of God as a handy metaphor, but I go ahead and capitalize it. Why the hell not? It's embarrasing to see freethinkers dance around 3000 years of shared cultural history and avoid saying God, or Allah (pbuh), or Jehovah ("He said 'Jehovah'! Stone him!"). I quote scripture as it pleaseth me, and I parody it just as often. (I will also put "The Shield of Haephestus" up against "The Song of Solomon" in a literature contest anytime. Because it's a million times better. I mean seriously, the Illiad and the Old Testament were first recorded at roughly the same time in history, and people say the OT is a great literary work? Please. Solomon was a piker compared to Homer. And if erotic poetry's your bag, check out the Homeric Hymn to Aphrodite. Va-va-voom! But I digress.)
I cringe every time a self-described atheist avoids magic words. Hell, televangelists talk about God all the time, and they don't believe it any more than your or I do. Did not Jesus himself say, "Be not like the hypocrites, who say there is no God, yet inwardly they are as seventh-graders"? (Gavin, 24:3)
Posted by: HP | January 17, 2007 11:54 PM
When using God as in Christian (or Jewish) God it is appropriate to capitalise it. God is being used as the name or title of a specific (ficticious) individual and should therefore be capitalsied.
After all I capitalise Harry Potter, but that doesn't mean I worship him or even believe he exists.
Posted by: James | January 18, 2007 12:15 AM
Lovely notion... but it runs the risk of having your sexual partner think you're having some sort of intracerebral hemorrhage.
"Oh Thoth! Oh Thoth!"
"Darling! Should I call 9-1-1?"
Less than romantic, at best...
Posted by: RedMolly | January 18, 2007 12:26 AM
It'll never work.
Try saying "Oh for Thoth'th thake"
Damn, I can't even type it.
Posted by: John | January 18, 2007 12:44 AM
Only if it advances the plot.
Bob
Posted by: Bob O'H | January 18, 2007 1:19 AM
Like the old joke: What's the worst thing about being an atheist? You have no 1 to talk to during sex. (rim shot)
Posted by: Krystalline Apostate | January 18, 2007 2:10 AM
If only they would make 5 days of community service the criminal sanction for blasphemy, I could do mine with Naomi Campbell.
Posted by: John | January 18, 2007 2:16 AM
Every once in a while someone will ask how atheists celebrate christmas. What they do when they are invited to weddings, christenings, funerals etc in churches.
I always found it a silly question. I can fall down to my knees and pray at the alter, I can receive the holy communion, (the Danish church is lutheran and has communion).
Christmas, funerals etc are traditions, they are acts that have meaning by themselves, if the participants finds meaning in them. So my answer is, why shouldn't I do these things. There are no such thing as a atheist creed or religion, I do not blaspheme against atheism if I recite the lords prayer. Hell I am godfather to my niece.
The only limits are the ones you set yourselves (if that doesn't strike fear into the hearts of the faithful I do not know what will).
I go to church when I am invited (weddings, christenings etc), but generally I do not participate in the prayers, or the communion, but that is out of respect for the people attending who believe in the stuff. I will not mock them on their turf.
Posted by: Soren | January 18, 2007 4:44 AM
OK, I will pull a Blake (nice comment, btw), and quote my own comment from Aaronson's thread:
If I should use a god it should obviously be Tor. ("Thor" for you heathens.) Come to think of it, I quote his name daily!
But "O Tor!" would then be goofy in several ways. Similar sounding "otur" is "mishap" in swedish. Not exactly what the girls need to hear...
Posted by: Torbjörn Larsson | January 18, 2007 8:38 AM
Something's Fishy About Political Correctness
(excerpt from "No goddess, no God" by Craig Johnson)
If one allometrically scales the taxon mammals for encephalization quotient the results indicate that man and the porpoise are most equal. This affinity, (i.e. similar brain weight) alone could explain why porpoises and humans interact so well.
Also, whales, followed by elephants, rank highest in brain size surpassing the three-pound brain weight of man and porpoise.
These facts once led me to a complete teleological construct for the animal kingdom, plants included, and the universe.
Simply stated, plants and man, each of carbon and water, seek similar corporal and spiritual nourishment and the "big brains" speak or sing their love of God (generic).
It was a beautiful theory. All existence, all spirituality, gloriously, harmoniously, and ever so upliftingly encapsulated. Man and plants together turn to the same spiritual sun and the hauntingly beautiful whale songs were psalms to God, hymns to the infinite.
Then I found out that female whales can't or don't or aren't allowed to sing.
What a God damn bummer that was.
Posted by: craig johnson | January 18, 2007 9:13 AM
...
...
HP said:
The difference between you and televangelists is, the televangelists are clear on this point: Their listeners DO believe it.
It's damned rare for me to use the word "God" in conversation or print. When I do, I'm referring specifically to the conceptual Christian god. Otherwise I say "godS," or "The Big Magic Juju Guy."
It's not just what's happening in YOUR head when you say something, it's what happens in THEIR heads. If you say "theory" and they hear "a wild idea that came to me after a night of heavy drinking" ... YOU have failed to communicate whatever it is you wanted to get across to them. (And yeah, it sucks. We just have to deal with it until this goddy bump in U.S. history passes. A few more years.)
Godders would sieve the whole of a historical figure's life for a single use of the word "God," and then confidently declare him a devout, Bible-believing Christian. They do it with Jefferson, they do it with Twain -- hell, they probably do it with Thomas Payne and Anton Szandor LaVey. (As we all know, "Darwin recanted on his deathbed." ... NOT.)
There are plenty of good reasons to avoid buying into the terminology which they OWN. One of them is, they will always misunderstand you. Another is, eventually, if they want to, they will whore out your words as an advertisement for their beliefs.
They're not magic words. They're lie words, misleading words, deliberately DECEPTIVE words.
In all this current conflict, it helps to remember that the people who are creating the conflict and turning the crank on the other side to energize it, are not just somebody ordinary who happens to believe something slightly different from you and I. Instead, they are professional, aggressive LIARS. People who see you as the enemy, and really want you shut up, and out of the way, while they take over the public square, and everything said and seen and done in it.
It all hinges on words. If they can control the language - if they can get us to use their words (so that when we speak to the public, the public hears THEIR message) - we've lost.
...
...
Posted by: Hank Fox | January 18, 2007 10:43 AM
Well, for sex you could always yell out 'Isis' or 'Athena' or even 'Zeus', but you run the risk of ruining it for your partner, if they think you're referring to a previous participant. And, 'for Set's sake', works well to replace 'for God's sake'.
And, after thinking about it, I don't think I'll ever use God again during sex anyways. At least, a God that is supposed to resemble an old man with a beard. Not the best image for the task, at least for me.
So, as Thoth would say, (p+q)2 = p2 + 2pq + q2. Before he elaborated on it, of course.
Posted by: Kent Kauffman | January 18, 2007 1:03 PM
Even in the most militantly atheist days of Soviet Communism, loyal Party members at all levels continued to use idioms including "god," without embarassment. They stopped capitalizing it, though.
Posted by: Invigilator | January 18, 2007 2:49 PM
Þórr in Old Norse. (The extra r is the nominative ending, like all those Latin and Greek -s.)
Khrushchev said "thank God" (literally "glory to God") all the time.
Posted by: David Marjanović | January 18, 2007 5:24 PM
Well, the asa belief is a nordic variant of germanic mythology, which in turn roughly corresponded to roman and greek mythology for many gods. So it is Zeus/Herakles (greek), Jupiter/Hercules (roman), Donar (old german), Þunor (anglo-saxon), Þórr (old nordic), Hora-galles (finno-ugric).
Posted by: Torbjörn Larsson | January 20, 2007 1:55 AM