…and this is a 
Atheism is a condom for your mind
Category: Religion
Posted on: April 28, 2008 3:53 PM, by PZ Myers
Matt Taibbi went off on a three day Christian retreat, and discovered how ridiculous they are…but he also discover the deep emotional, anti-intellectual pull of these kinds of events.
By the end of the weekend I realized how quaint was the mere suggestion that Christians of this type should learn to "be rational" or "set aside your religion" about such things as the Iraq War or other policy matters. Once you've made a journey like this -- once you've gone this far -- you are beyond suggestible. It's not merely the informational indoctrination, the constant belittling of homosexuals and atheists and Muslims and pacifists, etc., that's the issue. It's that once you've gotten to this place, you've left behind the mental process that a person would need to form an independent opinion about such things. You make this journey precisely to experience the ecstasy of beating to the same big gristly heart with a roomful of like-minded folks. Once you reach that place with them, you're thinking with muscles, not neurons.
By the end of that weekend, Phil Fortenberry could have told us that John Kerry was a demon with clawed feet, and not one person would have so much as blinked. Because none of that politics stuff matters anyway, once you've gotten this far. All that matters is being full of the Lord and empty of demons. And since everything that is not of God is demonic, asking these people to be objective about anything else is just absurd. There is no "anything else." All alternative points of view are nonstarters. There is this "our thing," a sort of Cosa Nostra of the soul, and then there are the fires of Hell. And that's all.
Insulating yourself against the taint of all religion is a kind of psychological, informational hygiene. Abandon all rigor and requirement for reality-based evidence for one's ideas, and you open the door wide for the kind of conditioning in dogma modern religion promotes.
Comments
Condoms are effective when used correctly. :op
Posted by: LP | April 28, 2008 3:59 PM
I have no idea what I meant by that. lol. Just sounded clever.
Posted by: LP | April 28, 2008 4:00 PM
Heh heh... you said "taint".
Posted by: DaveX | April 28, 2008 4:01 PM
What's agnosticism then? The rhythm method?
"Mom, Dad, I have something to tell you. I, I went with my boyfriend to his Unitarian church on Sunday. I really love him, and I just wanted to be spiritual with him. It, well, it only happened the one time, and we thought we were being safe, but it was an accident and I just feel so foolish, especially after the talks we've had and all those classes in school..."
Posted by: Brownian, OM | April 28, 2008 4:06 PM
"One of the saddest lessons of history is this: If we've been bamboozled long enough, we tend to reject any evidence of the bamboozle. We're no longer interested in finding out the truth. The bamboozle has captured us. It is simply too painful to acknowledge - even to ourselves - that we've been so credulous." - Carl Sagan
Posted by: Ray Ingles | April 28, 2008 4:07 PM
Hitchens put it very well in his closing remark in answer to the question "Does science make belief in God obsolete?" in a John Templeton Foundation conversation http://www.templeton.org/belief/
"But the original problem with religion is that it is our first, and our worst, attempt at explanation. It is how we came up with answers before we had any evidence. It belongs to the terrified childhood of our species, before we knew about germs or could account for earthquakes.
It belongs to our childhood, too, in the less charming sense of demanding a tyrannical authority: a protective parent who demands compulsory love even as he exacts a tithe of fear. This unalterable and eternal despot is the origin of totalitarianism, and represents the first cringing human attempt to refer all difficult questions to the smoking and forbidding altar of a Big Brother.
This of course is why one desires that science and humanism would make faith obsolete, even as one sadly realizes that as long as we remain insecure primates we shall remain very fearful of breaking the chain."
Posted by: CS | April 28, 2008 4:08 PM
Thanks for penning that headline, Professor Myers. I'm now hearing in my head the Bonzo Dog Band performing, "In the Condoms of your Mind."
Posted by: Mikey M | April 28, 2008 4:08 PM
I've said this before, but I think it's relevant here: When I was growing up as a creationist, what was "debated" was whether or not evolutionists were all deliberately opposed to God, or if some were just duped by others who were not willing to consider God as the creator.
And indeed, usually they felt quite magnanimous in allowing that many were decieved into "believing in evolution" by scientists' unwillingness to consider God. This is why I tend not to be very tolerant of creationist spokespersons, either, not because they themselves belong to this "we've always been already right" attitude, but because they're feeding it. Plus the few who might learn open-mindedness through the action of others will probably do so only if they're confronted (they might then turn to the "good cops" among us, which is fine with me, but the confrontationalists are the ones more likely to turn them in the first place).
Believe me, those of us who grew up in a strong fundamentalist religion know how closed-in upon itself it really is. One simply cannot get out while believing their religion as they are supposed to do, for there is absolutely no opening to look into the beliefs of others. I was not supposed to read evolution, which somehow struck me as an odd position for truth to take on the matter (probably one reason I turned away from it).
And these are the audience at which Expelled was aimed. The good thing is, they're unlikely to convince many fence-sitters, and might even turn away many of these. The bad thing is, they're trying to whip up these incredibly close-minded people into fear and hatred of the "other," indeed, in a kind of fascistic propagandistic diatribe. We have to hope that they will not become dangerous(I mean in an Al Qaida or Taliban sense)--and they may not, but it should not be considered to be an impossibility.
Glen D
http://tinyurl.com/2kxyc7
Posted by: Glen Davidson | April 28, 2008 4:09 PM
Fanatics are scary. What that guy described is really, REALLY crazy fanatics.
Sigh.
Posted by: Michelle | April 28, 2008 4:09 PM
Remember: No glove, no love. Speaking of which my local paper won't be getting any tonight. They ran a Front Page story about Expelled today written by none other than the religion editor. Check out the link and see if you can find a more credulous story that leaves out any mention of critical reviews or science = atheism = holocaust. If anyone living in Northwest Ohio is commenting then be sure to write to these fine folks and let them know how you feel they did:
David Yonke the author :dyonke@theblade.com
The newspaper's ombudsman, Jack Lessenberry: OMBLADE@aol.com
Posted by: Brett | April 28, 2008 4:10 PM
Shit, forgot the URL.
http://toledoblade.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080428/NEWS10/804280334
Posted by: Brett | April 28, 2008 4:12 PM
Someone from the media who is leftest hates religion because they have a set of morals that they can't understand.
Typical simple minded thinking. This kind of mentality shows why the media in this country is stupid. This is why we have Britney Spears and paris hilton all over and not what is really going on in the world.
Posted by: Kenny | April 28, 2008 4:14 PM
The big punchbowl full of free condoms at the Wellness Center on my campus should be sitting on a bookshelf full of free copies of The God Delusion.
Posted by: Vanessa | April 28, 2008 4:22 PM
"In the name of Jesus, I cast out the demon of anal fissures!"
I'm speechless. I have an -- er, heartfelt testimony of my own on this topic. Someone in the congregation needs not a faith healer, but a good colorectal surgeon. Then again, anyone who has been cured of this condition by modern medical or surgical means is probably going to become a lifelong convert to evidence-based medicine, and we can't have that, can we?
Posted by: Julie Stahlhut | April 28, 2008 4:22 PM
Someone from the media who is leftest hates religion because they have a set of morals that they can't understand.
Who's leftier, though?
And it's not that we don't understand your morals. The problem is that you have bad morals.
Posted by: MAJeff, OM | April 28, 2008 4:23 PM
Hey, Brett, Brian linked to that article in the previous thread.
I'm not sure what a 'doctorate in evaluation' is, but with nine degrees, Jerry Bergman must be qualified to talk about evolution. (I have two, which I assume qualify me to talk about theology--it's like philosophy, only really stupid. Nonetheless, churches have been expelling people from their ranks if they refuse to tow the party line. For instance, do you know that in many churches, you can't be a priest if you're a woman? In many cases, they'll laugh you out of the seminary if you even admit you don't believe in God. This by the people who are supposedly looking into 'The Truth.')
Posted by: Brownian, OM | April 28, 2008 4:23 PM
Ahh...brings back misty water-colored memories of my days as a teen during my brief-but-intense flirtation with Xianity....Christian summer camp...singing "I Just Wanna be a Sheep" (yes, this is a real and non-ironic Xian song)....the promise of a being who would love me unconditionally even though I couldn't love myself, so long as I was willing to just believe and accept that love...good times...or not.
Posted by: Etha Williams | April 28, 2008 4:24 PM
I think it's more like a vaccine. Once you are inoculated with atheism and critical thinking skills, religious ideas won't make it past your rational antibodies.
Posted by: charley | April 28, 2008 4:25 PM
I'm wondering how many local newspapers assigned their science writer to the movie, as opposed to the religious writer? I've been looking around and I've only seen movie critics and religious writers in the local papers. I'll keep looking though. Any reports?
Posted by: Dennis N | April 28, 2008 4:28 PM
"Yearn not for earthly goods and pleasures. Cast off this taint, and become taintless." - Stormy, Sealab 2021
But seriously, that story is astounding. You'd have to be pretty gullible to swallow the author's story about his alcoholic clown father...
Posted by: Leukocyte | April 28, 2008 4:30 PM
@#20 Leukocyte --
Gullible, or psychologically/emotionally desperate. Believe me, I've been there. It isn't pretty.
Posted by: Etha Williams | April 28, 2008 4:33 PM
Kenny @12, I don't understand the morality of the fundamentalists, and I was raised as one. It seems to consist of a hatred for the Other, a loathing of reality, and a profound terror of introspection ("If I'm wrong, I'll die!"). Genuine compassion was uncommon, and the foundation for their moral code seemed to be authority and fear. Taibbi described the mindset perfectly.
You may see Paris Hilton and Britney as the alluring succubi of the World Out There, but those of us who live in the world see them - if at all - as insipid and boring.
Morality isn't about what kind of sex you have - it's how you treat other people.
Posted by: Kermit | April 28, 2008 4:37 PM
>And it's not that we don't understand your morals. The
>problem is that you have bad morals.
Who decides who's morals are bad? Hitler might think murder is fine. That doesn't seem like a really good way to run your life. The Bible is my guide for morals. Now you may not believe in that, but I believe the Bible is the word of God. Where do you get your morals from?
Posted by: Kenny | April 28, 2008 4:38 PM
Kenny @12, I don't understand the morality of the fundamentalists, and I was raised as one. It seems to consist of a hatred for the Other, a loathing of reality, and a profound terror of introspection ("If I'm wrong, I'll die!"). Genuine compassion was uncommon, and the foundation for their moral code seemed to be authority and fear. Taibbi described the mindset perfectly.
You may see Paris Hilton and Britney as the alluring succubi of the World Out There, but those of us who live in the world see them - if at all - as insipid and boring.
Morality isn't about what kind of sex you have - it's how you treat other people.
Posted by: Kermit | April 28, 2008 4:39 PM
Matt Taibbi is the best thing to happen to print journalism since Hunter S. Thompson.
Posted by: Brad | April 28, 2008 4:41 PM
#8 by Glen D: "We have to hope that they will not become dangerous(I mean in an Al Qaida or Taliban sense)--and they may not, but it should not be considered to be an impossibility."
Not impossible at all. Fanatics blow up abortion clinics, military recruiting stations, banks -- all kinds of things. Whatever the guru tells them is eeeeevil. No reason why some group of morons wouldn't blow up someone's lab. Bound to happen. Hey, isn't that pretty much what the unibomber was doing? But he was just a one-man cult.
Posted by: PatrickHenry | April 28, 2008 4:42 PM
Oh no. Not this one again.
Where do I get my morals from? Empathy and experience. In existential terms, the struggle to be a being for-itself-for-others.
And guess what? You get your morals from the same place. Ever wonder how you decide which parts of the bible to take literally, which parts are outdated (slavery, inferiority of women, etc), which parts are figurative statements on how to live your life? That's right -- based on empathy and experience. Either your own or that of your pastor, who may interpret the bible for you.
And seriously, if we're going to be biblical...as SteveM pointed out in Comment 53 of Depressing lunacy, presented passionately, you believe man ate from the tree of knowledge and good and evil. That means you, too have that knowledge. Use it. Please. And save the world from having another mroally blind religious sociopath endangering us all....
Posted by: Etha Williams | April 28, 2008 4:48 PM
#23: For myself, I got my morals from the same place you did, really: I got them from my life's support structure, from the authority figures in my life, and my peer group. That's where morals and ethics really come from, we just find things after the fact to point at to help justify why these things make sense.
Posted by: Jason W | April 28, 2008 4:49 PM
I don't think you understand Kermit. Nobody who is a real Christian hates homosexuals. Homosexuals are just like everyone else. God loves the sinner but does not like the Sin. Homosexuality is a sin just like cheating on your wife is a sin. A sin is the same in God's eyes.
The only issue is that some people take a sin and make it into a lifestyle of sin instead of asking forgiveness.
If I cheated on my wife for example, that is adultry, that is sin. Now if I took this and made it into a lifestyle many of you would think that it is not wrong at all.
It is not me judging sin, it is that the Bible says that it is a sin and when you do not turn away from that and not ask forgiveness and just do it day after day after day then there is a problem.
Many people who are unsaved or they don't believe in God think they can make up their own rules. Well since they have nothing to back their morality up against then they can be corrupted.
Many people on here think that if you think Homosexuality is a sin that you are spreading hate, even if you want homosexuals to come to God and confess their sins. You could do no physical or mental harm to a person who is a homosexual, but because you offer to pray for them and you say that it is a sin somehow you have become a hateful person. I don't agree with that but it is the part of the whatever goes culture.
"Basically, who are you to tell me that what I am doing in my life is sin and thus it is wrong." This is the kind of attitude that is in here. I don't have to say nothing but it is the Bible that clearly says it. So God is now full of hate speech?
Posted by: Kenny | April 28, 2008 4:50 PM
Homosexuality is a sin just like cheating on your wife is a sin. A sin is the same in God's eyes.
The only issue is that some people take a sin and make it into a lifestyle of sin instead of asking forgiveness.
F.O.A.D.
Posted by: MAJeff, OM | April 28, 2008 4:51 PM
To Brett: In my part of NW Ohio, the Blade (I love the double reference to Tagesblatt and Moorish sword making in that name) is regarded as a liberal rag. Fortunately, my local paper hasn't picked up on Expelled yet, or we would be reading really laudatory reviews.
Posted by: barkdog | April 28, 2008 4:52 PM
#27 was directed @#23 Kenny. Also to #23 Kenny:
You know, the morality of the Bible (or any other text that claims objective moral knowledge) really isn't a good way to go up against Hitler.
You say: "God says what you're doing is wrong."
Hitler says: "I believe that I am acting in accordance with the will of the Almighty Creator: by defending myself against the Jew, I am fighting for the work of the Lord..." (Mein Kampf).
Unless you have a direct line to God, which I seriously doubt, there's no hope for resolution of this argument.
With a secular humanist moral code that is up for rational discussion and debate, there is.
Posted by: Etha Williams | April 28, 2008 4:52 PM
The Bible is full of genocide and hatred for anyone not in the in-group. God is full of hate-speech, yes. I have more morals than the Biblical God, I don't kill babies.
Posted by: Dennis N | April 28, 2008 4:53 PM
Most religious groups exhibit some of the characteristics associated with cults. Usually it's a matter of degree, and most don't go as far as the Heaven's Gate castration protocol. But I do know you can get some pretty scary group behavior/thinking even in your run-of-the-mill Protestant church.
I modified a list that I found online (which I can't find the URL for at the moment). I've seen a number of these characteristics even in evangelical/fundamentalist Protestant churches.
1. The group displays excessively zealous and unquestioning commitment to its leader and (whether he is alive or dead) regards his belief system, ideology, and practices as the Truth, as law.
2. Questioning, doubt, and dissent are discouraged or even punished.
3. The leadership dictates, sometimes in great detail, how members should think, act, and feel (for example, members must get permission to date, change jobs, marry--or leaders prescribe what types of clothes to wear, where to live, whether or not to have children, how to discipline children, and so forth).
4. The group is elitist, claiming a special, exalted status for itself, its leader(s) and members (for example, the leader is considered the Messiah, a special being, an avatar--or the group and/or the leader is on a special mission to save humanity).
5. The group has a polarized us-versus-them mentality, which may cause conflict with the wider society.
6. The group teaches or implies that its supposedly exalted ends justify whatever means it deems necessary. This may result in members' participating in behaviors or activities they would have considered reprehensible or unethical before joining the group (for example, lying to family or friends, or collecting money for bogus charities).
7. The leadership induces feelings of shame and/or guilt in order to influence and/or control members. Often, this is done through peer pressure and subtle forms of persuasion.
8. Subservience to the leader or group requires members to cut ties with family and friends, and radically alter the personal goals and activities they had before joining the group.
9. The group is preoccupied with bringing in new members.
10. Members are expected to devote inordinate amounts of time to the group and group-related activities.
11. Members are encouraged or required to live and/or socialize only with other group members.
12. The most loyal members (the "true believers") feel there can be no life outside the context of the group. They believe there is no other way to be, and often fear reprisals to themselves or others if they leave (or even consider leaving) the group.
Posted by: hje | April 28, 2008 4:53 PM
I was briefly involved with this sort of thing (what can I say, I was a callow youth) and I was struck by the way that any questions were always met with a set of pre-canned answers - and that there was a similarly short list of acceptable questions, which conveniently matched up with the acceptable answers. Further inquiry was tacitly discouraged. That's why I slid from evangelicalism to Quakerism and now to atheism (though I still consider myself a "lapsed Quaker" for purposes of conscientious objection and so on).
Posted by: Owen | April 28, 2008 4:55 PM
Kenny,
Excellent point; although, I must say, you don't go far enough. I'd bet I follow the Bible far closer than you do: I abstain from shellfish, don't wear clothing made from different kinds of thread, and recently sold my daughter into slavery for a good profit.
If you don't agree with me, Kenny, then you don't get your ethics from the Bible, and are just as low as these here atheists!
Posted by: drunkentune | April 28, 2008 4:55 PM
Much as I support the general principle and intention behind including gay characters in soap operas, that video you linked to was waaaay corny. Real people don't talk to each other like that!!! I didn't even make it as far as the kissing.
But then, I never watch soap operas.
Posted by: Penny | April 28, 2008 4:57 PM
Ha, ha, comment in the wrong thread. Sorry everyone, don't know how that happened!
Posted by: Penny | April 28, 2008 4:58 PM
I know what he's saying, but this isn't really true. I've known some of these people and listened to them describe the ecstasy they feel-- which is often couched in terms of "being in love with the Lord." It seems very similar to me to the infinite oxytocin feedback loop set in motion by our brains when we fall in love with real people.
We need some sort of nasal spray [perhaps disguised as a room deoderizer?] that disrupts the dopamine pathways in the reward system in the Fervently Faithfuls' brains-- at least until they're able to calm down and figure out God just isn't that into them.
Posted by: Susan | April 28, 2008 4:58 PM
@ #23: The Bible is my guide for morals. Now you may not believe in that, but I believe the Bible is the word of God. Where do you get your morals from?
From the way I was raised, and from concern for others, without the hope of Heaven or the threat of Hell. I care because caring is right, not because I'm told to under threat of eternal damnation.
Without your Bible, without bribery or fear, where would your morals come from?
Posted by: Matt | April 28, 2008 5:00 PM
The difference for me is, I got my morals from my family and loved ones. As I got older, I was able to think critically and determine my own morals and values. Part of that was realizing that being good feels good.
The bible was written by man. Sure, there are some nice take-a-ways, but if you think the bible is the word of god, how do you reconcile all the inconsistencies and the really awful parts of it? Do you pick and choose?
Also, I don't think that being good out of fear of punishment is very moral at all.
Posted by: Jay | April 28, 2008 5:01 PM
Most religious groups exhibit some of the characteristics associated with cults. Usually it's a matter of degree, and most don't go as far as the Heaven's Gate castration protocol. But I do know you can get some pretty scary group behavior/thinking even in your run-of-the-mill Protestant church.
I modified a list that I found online (which I can't find the URL for at the moment). I've seen a number of these characteristics even in evangelical/fundamentalist Protestant churches.
1. The group displays excessively zealous and unquestioning commitment to its leader and (whether he is alive or dead) regards his belief system, ideology, and practices as the Truth, as law.
2. Questioning, doubt, and dissent are discouraged or even punished.
3. The leadership dictates, sometimes in great detail, how members should think, act, and feel (for example, members must get permission to date, change jobs, marry--or leaders prescribe what types of clothes to wear, where to live, whether or not to have children, how to discipline children, and so forth).
4. The group is elitist, claiming a special, exalted status for itself, its leader(s) and members (for example, the leader is considered the Messiah, a special being, an avatar--or the group and/or the leader is on a special mission to save humanity).
5. The group has a polarized us-versus-them mentality, which may cause conflict with the wider society.
6. The group teaches or implies that its supposedly exalted ends justify whatever means it deems necessary. This may result in members' participating in behaviors or activities they would have considered reprehensible or unethical before joining the group (for example, lying to family or friends, or collecting money for bogus charities).
7. The leadership induces feelings of shame and/or guilt in order to influence and/or control members. Often, this is done through peer pressure and subtle forms of persuasion.
8. Subservience to the leader or group requires members to cut ties with family and friends, and radically alter the personal goals and activities they had before joining the group.
9. The group is preoccupied with bringing in new members.
10. Members are expected to devote inordinate amounts of time to the group and group-related activities.
11. Members are encouraged or required to live and/or socialize only with other group members.
12. The most loyal members (the "true believers") feel there can be no life outside the context of the group. They believe there is no other way to be, and often fear reprisals to themselves or others if they leave (or even consider leaving) the group.
Posted by: hje | April 28, 2008 5:02 PM
Posted by: Emmet Caulfield | April 28, 2008 5:04 PM
At least there are some rational people left in the country. This DA is going to get it rough:
:A couple who prayed as their 11-year-old daughter died of untreated diabetes will be charged with second-degree reckless homicide, a prosecutor said Monday."
http://www.cnn.com/2008/CRIME/04/28/prayer.death.ap/index.html
Posted by: RobertC | April 28, 2008 5:05 PM
Oops, I left out mentioning how we tend to internalize and adjust our own personal morals over time with experience and what not, but looks like Etha and others covered that well already.
Posted by: Jason W | April 28, 2008 5:05 PM
Are you joking? Have you never read the book?
In a word, yes, yup, absolutely, unquestioningly, indeed, ja, oui, and sí.
Here's a quick guide to all of God's hate speech.
And for the record, Kenny, unless you've stoned your children to death for being disobedient, you most certainly don't get your morality from the bible.
Posted by: Brownian, OM | April 28, 2008 5:06 PM
Question: "The one obvious conclusion anyone making a demographic study of the Cornerstone Church population would come to would be that it's a solidly middle-class crowd. These are folks who are comfortable eating off paper plates and drinking out of gallon jugs of Country Time iced tea over noisy dinners with their kids. They're people who grew up in houses with back yards and fences, people with families. This particular journey to God is not a pastime for the idle rich or the urban obnoxious."
Why do Americans define working class people as middle-class? The description here is clearly not of "bourgeois" folks (they're explicitly eliminated as "urban obnoxious"), but of working class and rural people. Not the sons of lawyers, doctors and academics, businessmen and local politicos - the traditional middle class, but of farmers and salesmen and factory workers.
Doesn't all this derangement begin with an inability to even describe social class transparently? How can you even be bitter, when you don't even exist?
Posted by: frog | April 28, 2008 5:06 PM
Kenny, why do you hate Allah? Why do you reject his love? You know in your heart he's there. I think you are just rejecting Allah's morals so you can live a heathen lifestyle where you do what you wish. I see you letting your women run around uncovered.
The Koran is my guide for morals. Now you may not believe in that, but I believe the Koran is the word of Allah.
It is not me judging sin, it is that the Koran says that it is a sin and when you do not turn away from that and not ask forgiveness and just do it day after day after day then there is a problem.
Many people who are unsaved or they don't believe in Allah think they can make up their own rules. Well since they have nothing to back their morality up against then they can be corrupted.
Many people on here think that if you think uncovered women is a sin that you are spreading hate, even if you want uncovered women to come to Allah and confess their sins. You could do no physical or mental harm to a woman who is a uncovered, but because you offer to pray for them and you say that it is a sin somehow you have become a hateful person. I don't agree with that but it is the part of the whatever goes culture.
I don't have to say nothing but it is the Koran that clearly says it. So Allah is now full of hate speech?
Do see how your preaching sounds to us?
Posted by: Dennis N | April 28, 2008 5:10 PM
Oh, fuck. Kenny's one of those homophobic douches who thinks the bible consists only of quotes prohibiting homosexuality.
Ever had your money in a savings account, Ken? Guilty of usuary, and thus no better than a homosexual. After all, a sin is a sin is a sin in God's eyes.
Now why don't you go and remove the log from thine own eye, thou hypocrite.
Fuck me, but I cannot stand these half-Christians. Fucking pagans who sorta learned to read, that's what they are.
Posted by: Brownian, OM | April 28, 2008 5:12 PM
You know, I used to believe that while unsupported by evidence and almost certainly untrue, theism is probably a good thing to help a lot of people to lead a moral life.
Having discussed morality with people who actually believe that the only way to morality is through God's divine word, though, I'm going to have to rescind that belief.
Anyone who is incapable of acting morally without belief in divinely prescribed morals is, at his core, a sociopath. And theism just provides an excuse for such sociopathy.
((I'm not saying that all or even most theists are sociopaths -- just that those who honestly would not be moral without the Bible/Qu'ran/etc are.))
Posted by: Etha Williams | April 28, 2008 5:13 PM
Kenny = parody, yes? Please?
Posted by: apophenia | April 28, 2008 5:14 PM
"Homosexuality is a sin just like cheating on your wife is a sin."
Why?
Posted by: Rey Fox | April 28, 2008 5:18 PM
Hm - I know what he means by the inside-outside self when in a place like that. It's usually how I act when I go to church with my grandparents when I'm visiting..
And did anyone else get the impression the pastor could probably speak Russian and knew what Matt was saying?
Kenny: Unless you're speaking of polygamy/polyamory - yes, most non-theists would consider cheating bad as well. As for the first two - read your old testament. God's rather supportive of the notion (albeit, polygynously, rather than equally).
"Well since they have nothing to back their morality up against" ahh...
"1 Kings 22:23
Now, therefore, behold, the Lord hath put a lying spirit in the mouth of these thy prophets, and the Lord hath spoken evil concerning thee."
"2 Chronicles 18:22
Now therefore, behold, the Lord hath put a lying spirit in the mouth of these thy prophets."
"Ezekiel 14:9
And if a prophet be deceived when he hath spoken a thing, I the Lord have deceived that prophet."
"2 Thessalonians 2:11
For this cause God shall send them strong delusion, that they should believe a lie."
You seem to have a bit of a validity problem...
"Many people on here think that if you think Homosexuality is a sin that you are spreading hate" For good reason - it's an implicit value judgment that the person is less than someone else. True, it's not necessarily _hate_ speech, but the point is the same.
"So God is now full of hate speech?" Yes. Quite a bit of it. Again, read the old testament. Jesus may have been all well and good, but Yahweh, not so much. If you're all-loving and such, why exactly would you build up an army to takeover a fair portion of the middle east from people who haven't done anything TO your "chosen people"?
Posted by: dreikin | April 28, 2008 5:22 PM
You just made my life a little bit better.
Posted by: Numerical Thief | April 28, 2008 5:25 PM
Goats are mentioned 170 times in the Old Testament. There is a clear goat theme to it. If you pinned me down and made me pick a practical use for the OT, it would be goat farming. Do you, Kenny, own a goat? How many people own goats these days? If God inspired the Bible, why was he so (coincidentally) fixated on goats as much as you would expect for a tribe of goat herders? He couldn't replace just one off-hand statement about goats with a quick, "Hey, don't hate on black people" or, "When you guys get democracy, let women vote too". Nah, he was too busy talkin' about goats.
Posted by: Dennis N | April 28, 2008 5:26 PM
@#43 Emmet Caulfield --
Door-to-door missionaries once asked my parents if they would like to be "salvaged." It was hilarious.
Posted by: Etha Williams | April 28, 2008 5:30 PM
Brownian: "Fuck me, but I cannot stand these half-Christians. Fucking pagans who sorta learned to read, that's what they are."
So which is worse, semi-literate pagans who picked up just enough of Judaism to be dangerous, literate pagans who cut Judaism to it's meanest parts, or 3rd century monarchists who grabbed the traditional literature and purged out anything that didn't justify a totalitarian theocratic state?
It seems that the more they learn to read, the more dangerous they get... Someday, I wonder if the Tao Te Ching isn't right - keep the people illiterate, and society will be harmonious.
Posted by: frog | April 28, 2008 5:31 PM
So if I understand Kenny correctly, the only thing keeping him from going out whoring, participating in wholesale slaughter, offering his daughter to the mob beating on his door if only they'll go away, or participating in anonymous homosexual activities in an airport restroom in Minnesota is his fear of some sky pixie with a great white beard? His own sense of personal responsibility and ethics is so weak, fear alone compels him to behave?
What a sorry excuse of a man he must be.
Posted by: Larry | April 28, 2008 5:31 PM
>how do you reconcile all the inconsistencies and the
>really awful parts of it? Do you pick and choose?
If you know how to read, it is not very difficult. There are laws that are from the old testament that are for the jews only at that time and there are more broader laws for everyone.
Before you read the Bible, you have to understand it not by just taking one verse out of it, you have to examine it with other verses. So, it is multi-dimensional in that way.
It is written by the hand of man, but the words are not of man, but of God.
Many people claim they have read the Bible, but a lot of the time they do not understand that the Bible is crossed referenced with other verses to find answers to issues.
Jesus was a real person on this planet. There is a lot of historical proof and not just from the Bible. Then there are witnesses to what he did and said. There are witnesses of his rising up from the grave. Jesus referenced people from the old testament.
Now you may not believe and that is okay, but I do.
Posted by: Kenny | April 28, 2008 5:32 PM
What morals. Death Cultists lie always, hate always, and sometimes kill. They kicked Christ and several of the 10 commandments to Jupiter with Russel's teapot.
BTW, your toxic brand of group think isn't all Xian religion, just a swamp at the bottom of the hill.
For extra credit. What is the name of your sect? Do you think the Rapture is coming?
Posted by: raven | April 28, 2008 5:33 PM
@#59 Kenny --
It's okay with you that I disbelieve and am, therefore, going to hell according to your own "good" book?
Wow, you're even more morally reprehensible than I thought.
Posted by: Etha Williams | April 28, 2008 5:35 PM
I wish he really could do that. As mundane as they sounds, anal fissures are nothing to laugh at--at least not if you have one. Patients with anal fissure are often quite miserable. Worse, non-surgeons often treat them for prolonged periods of time with Sitz baths and hemorrhoid creams, when instant relief can be had in the vast majority of cases with a simple surgical procedure called a lateral sphincterotomy. Any colorectal surgeon can do it, as can many general surgeons. (I did quite a few of them when I was a surgery resident, but none since I started to specialize in cancer surgery.)
Posted by: Orac | April 28, 2008 5:35 PM
Intriguing...
So you're saying you have to cross-reference one goat reference to other goat references to discern proper goat care. I never thought of it that way. Multidimensional goat care.
You keep saying God and Bible. I thought we settled on Allah and Koran. There is solid historical evidence for Mohammad (much more than for Jesus), so that PROVES my god.
Posted by: Dennis N | April 28, 2008 5:35 PM
Kenny @29:
Didn't Jesus say that a rich man can't enter the Kingdom of Heaven? Do you hate rich people, or just folks who have sex that make s you feel yucky? The god you worship, an idol you have created for your own mind, more durable than stone, and a heart colder than steel, only punished two "sins" that I can see: disobeying him, and dissing his representatives. Slavery was OK with him, punishing children for the sins of their father was OK. He killed 42 children for mocking a high priest's bald head; he killed a woman for glancing over her shoulder from curiosity. He is patterned after the Persian despots of old: cruel, capricious, and not to be questioned. You sound like an abused child - "Thank you Daddy, for not hitting me with that coat hanger again."
Nope, he doesn't pass my test for common decency. Luckily he's imaginary.
This "objective" standard you use, the bible, was still chosen by you. You cannot escape responsibility for your moral behavior by claiming that you follow an authority, for you have to accept that authority.
You think our morality is relativistic, and we would accept any "lifestyle"? No, I would not accept the slave-owning my grandpa reminisced about. Half my family are Southern Baptists, a denomination formed to preserve slavery in America. Of course, most of the present generation would reject slavery, altho there's no biblical injunction against it. Even the Baptists are better people than their god, these days. Eternal truths come and go, I guess.
This godless heathen will reject a moral code that demands that a rapist of a virgin be "punished" by her being given to him as a sex slave, or "wife" as they so jovially referred to it in the old days.
I have been an atheist since I was thirteen, and no longer have the luxury of committing crimes against other people, then asking a god for forgiveness in private. If I wrong someone, I have to make it right (often not possible), and can't be forgiven by anybody but them.
As I said in the first post, morality isn't what kind of sex you have; it's how you treat other people. Betraying your spouse in any manner is wrong; I don't need the threat of eternal torture to understand that. And I don't give a damn if the two guys next door are gay. If you do, that's *your fevered obsession with other folks' sex lives. If it bothers you, seek treatment.
The bible is a big Roschach inkblot anyway. God always reflects the morality of any particular worshipper.
Posted by: Kermit | April 28, 2008 5:35 PM
Brett @11: Thanks for the heads-up on the [Expletive] movie coverage in the old home-town rag. The most interesting thing about the review to me was to learn that Sean Carroll was a St. Francis boy! Ha! Anyway, it was a typical wishy-washy review by a reporter who believes he is being fair. "To be fair", maybe the usual movie critic for the paper wouldn't touch it.
Posted by: baryogenesis | April 28, 2008 5:39 PM
Kenny, near as I can tell, there is NO independent evidence of the existence of the guy. I really doubt that any such specific individual existed.
Posted by: Hank Fox | April 28, 2008 5:42 PM
@#63 Dennis N --
Hey now. Don't get too sure of yourself. There's far more evidence for the existence of L. Ron Hubbard than for Muhammad OR Jesus. Obviously, Scientology is the One True Religion.
Posted by: Etha Williams | April 28, 2008 5:43 PM
Those are metaphors, Dennis. Obviously, you don't understand biblical exegesis. Basically, the bible is to be interpreted like this: All statements are indicative of God's love, especially the ones in which he comes across as a hate-mongerer (see: Old Testament). Things that God says is bad that other people do are literal commandments. Things that God says is bad that you do are metaphors. Also, stuff that makes no sense, or clearly contradicts what we know about the earth (rabbits chew their cud; Pi=3) are metaphors. All the stuff about goats are metaphors. So are the proscriptions against usury, wearing mixed fabrics or owning slaves (the latter only since the abolition of slavery in the US.) The bit about not lying with another guy as with a women, however are literal and absolute. The rest of it is just history, which, since it cannot be correlated with any other extant texts, should be massaged and interpreted as loosely as necessary to make the book not sound like it's completely unlikely that an omniscient being would have written it.
Ta daa! God is true, and everybody else who disagrees (including other fundamentalists of different denominations) is wrong.
Posted by: Brownian, OM | April 28, 2008 5:43 PM
>fear alone compels him to behave?
It's not fear. The entire point of trying to be like Christ is what the entire point is all about.
You know, that is what Christians are all about. They are people who are not perfect but trying to be like Christ. Christians sin as well, there is no difference. They just pray to God for the forgiveness of their sins, but the entire object is to try to better ourselves to be more like Christ in those ways and to worship him because he is the savior and creator of the universe.
I know that you don't believe any of this and you will bring up the FSM or whatever. However, just because you want to close your eyes does not mean that God does not exist.
Posted by: Kenny | April 28, 2008 5:43 PM
There is a lot of historical proof and not just from the Bible.
Where Kenny? Do I just have to have faith in your word on this? Please tell us all about this ample proof.
Posted by: Mena | April 28, 2008 5:44 PM
Shorter Kenny. Pick and choose, quote mine, and Make Stuff Up.
No such thing as a biblical literalist. The book has hundreds of contradictions. Routine creo BS.
Posted by: raven | April 28, 2008 5:45 PM
My eyes are open and waiting for any evidence you have. While you enlighten us, could you please please explain that episode where Jesus kills a fig tree because it doesn't have fruit. I need to kill fig tree too, to be like Christ.
Posted by: Dennis N | April 28, 2008 5:45 PM
If you know how to read [the Bible], it is not very difficult.
"And they utterly destroyed all that was in the city, both man and woman, young and old, and ox, and sheep, and ass, with the edge of the sword." Joshua 6:21
So it is easy for you to construe the divinely-ordained slaughter @ Jericho as not being genocide? Or would you say, "They needed killin' "?
Posted by: hje | April 28, 2008 5:47 PM
Oh, and Kenny, being gay is no more of a "lifestyle choice" than my being left handed is or your being a gullible sanctimonious twit is. The only people who may be "cured" of their homosexuality are the ones who are probably not gay and those who have the luxury of having a "choice" are actually bisexual.
Posted by: Mena | April 28, 2008 5:47 PM
Kenny: "There are witnesses of (Jesus) rising up from the grave."
Ah, no. Stories, yes.
I used to be a Christian, Kenny; I even wanted to be a pastor when I was young. But now I'm an atheist. Why? Because I felt that if Christianity were true, it should be able to answer any and all challenges- really answer them in a fair and clear manner, not just avoid them.
People don't rise again from the dead. The next time you attend a funeral, take a really long, hard look at the corpse. Dead is dead. Jesus is dead. And he ain't coming back.
Posted by: Mosasaurus rex | April 28, 2008 5:49 PM
Also to be like Christ, I should keep my mouth shut about centuries of slavery of Africans that I know is coming, not speak a word about womens' suffrage, and forget to provide my followers with the evidence needed to get ID accepted into science. However I will stand by and let my name be used to slaughter millions.
Posted by: Dennis N | April 28, 2008 5:49 PM
@#69 Kenny --
Kenny, as a teenager I had a lot of mental and emotional problems, and for a while turned to religion for comfort. When my inherent rationality objected, I tried to ignore it. I prayed to a God I desperately wanted to believe in to allow me to have faith. I read religious texts, talked to religious leaders.
None of it worked, and I *really* *really* wanted to believe.
Kind of makes you wonder....
Posted by: Etha Williams | April 28, 2008 5:49 PM