Pharyngula

Posted by: 60613 | March 28, 2009 10:35 AM

I am apt to find the "reasoning" of any devoutly religious person to be specious. Except perhaps for Mother Theresa and (at some points) Martin Luther.

I admit that I rather over do on this point. :)

Posted by: Alison S | March 28, 2009 10:45 AM

I guess then that Hitler was counted as a Catholic holocaust victim.

#2 What possible "reasoning" could you find in Mother Theresa who never met a vicious dictator she couldn't cozy up to and who was really big on keeping people poor and suffering. Read Christopher Hitchens on the evil witch for a real eye-opener.

Posted by: Newfie | March 28, 2009 10:56 AM

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/On_the_Jews_and_Their_Lies

Whoah! What a fucking asshole.

Posted by: Jadehawk, OM | March 28, 2009 11:04 AM

penismartyr envy

Posted by: recovering catholic | March 28, 2009 11:07 AM

Again I am suffering from cognitive dissonance as to how someone like Ken Miller can possibly reconcile his excellent science with his evil religion...

Posted by: raven | March 28, 2009 11:11 AM

And Martin Luther was a deranged anti-semite. Read The Jews and Their Lies for a real look at the founder of Protestantism.

1. Martin Luther hated the Jews and proposed a Final Solution to eradicate them. At Niremburg, one defense of the perps was that they were just carrying out Luther's plans.

2. Luther also was a fervent believer in demons and the devil. He saw demons everywhere and claimed to talk with satan often.

3. He didn't much like women either. He said they were only good for childbearing and should be kept pregnant until they wear out and die.

In Sunday school and secondary school, we got a rather white washed history of Luther and the Reformation. "Luther nailed some large number of thesis to a door and lots of people left the RCC."

The reality was a bit different. To some extent he was just a product of his time, but as a hero he is definitely a bit weak. He was right about the RCC as even they acknowledged. I think you can still buy Indulgences and human body parts with magical properties called Saints relicts, but the trade is way down. Anyone interested could check Ebay for current prices.

And the Reformation wars lasted for 400 years and killed tens of millions.

Posted by: Zeno | March 28, 2009 11:12 AM

In case there's not enough weirdness coming from the Catholic church and its apologists, the Catholic media in the U.S. have been babbling this week about the "orchestrated" campaign to concentrate negative attention on the pope's condom statements and to ignore the "rapturous" reception accorded to the pontiff during his African sojourn. When it comes to conspiracy theorists, it's difficult to beat the Catholic media. They can't understand why international attention would focus on a dumb statement by one of the world's leading religious figures ("Pope Screws Condom Facts") at the expense of coverage of mundane events ("Dog Bites Man", "Pope Conducts Mass"). It's yet one more demonstration that Catholic media are a propaganda arm of the church, not an actual journalistic endeavor.

I should work up a post on the subject this weekend. Some of the Catholic media quotes are pretty funny (or scary; both adjectives are correct).

Posted by: Sili | March 28, 2009 11:18 AM

To give 60613 the benefit of doubt, perhaps they meant Martin Luther King.

Posted by: Jerry O | March 28, 2009 11:21 AM

I agree with the wholehearted condemnation of Catholic and papal authority on this issue and all others, but I think you have misread the Brazilian bishop's statements. It appears to me he was saying that there were a total of 22 million Holocaust victims, of which a significant number were Catholic, not that there were 22 million Catholic victims. This is probably reasonably accurate, but still doesn't justify demeaning or underestimating the Jewish experience of the period.

Posted by: Tom | March 28, 2009 11:21 AM

Again I don't understand - if no God and therefore no global definition of good and bad how can we rationally condemn even the Holocaust - it ends up just being our opinion versus the perpetrators'! Also any rational system has to start from some sort of axiom - look e.g. at mathematics. I still think the arguments for and against religion are a bit more complicated than the relatively easy shots against creationism etc that usually appear here. The above argument for religion as the axiom for rational morality goes back to Kant. Also I thought science was about keeping some sort of open mind, even in this case about religion.....

Posted by: bootsy | March 28, 2009 11:22 AM

Even if this arch-dipshit's figures were accurate, there are a billion catholics in the world, and only 14 million jews. It's not a numbers contest, but clearly there is a difference between attempting to destroy a minority and fighting with some of the few fair-minded members of a majority.

Besides, there's a lot of Nazi/catholic overlap, even if we discount Hitler's catholicism. The Nazis tried to destroy other minorities that the catholics still do, like Gays. And that if anyone listened to the Nazi Pope (hopefully fewer will), there would be even more genocide going on due to AIDS.

Posted by: Rich | March 28, 2009 11:26 AM

Someone should calculate how many people the Catholics have killed with their 'no condoms' policy.

Posted by: Matt Heath | March 28, 2009 11:32 AM

Why Catholics who disagree don't leave the church:
A lot of people I'm close to are in this category and it varies. Often it's just that they never cared enough about their religion to renounce it. Sometimes is probably about community. In other cases though, they genuinely think that while flawed, often wrong and somewhat corrupt the church has something special in it that is worth preserving: some privileged closeness God or whatever. I actually think this sort of position takes a lot less mental gymnastics than being a consistently "correct" catholic (if you think of some of the church doctrines, this isn't saying much). If you think the church is Very Good but not perfect, then, when the church brass say you have to believe things you don't, you can just assume it's one of the imperfections and not hold against the Very Goodness.

It's not terribly rational, but it's I think it's a common human tendency to see a good "true" version of entity you care about behind the corrupt everyday version. People do with nationality all the time.

Posted by: bootsy | March 28, 2009 11:33 AM

@20 Tom: Account for the fact that the same catholics who almost appear to be decrying the holocaust (it's kind of hard to tell, actually) were the same ones who launched the Crusades. The same 'god' endorses genocide when it's explicitly launched by his own believers?

Clearly morality has evolved, and is no more 'eternal' or 'absolute' than anything else.

Posted by: Anon | March 28, 2009 11:37 AM

About 3 million Catholics were killed by the Nazi regime in camps…but it wasn't for being Catholic. It was for being Polish.

Thank you so much for saying that. I never mention it because I don't want to sound like I'm somehow trying to belittle the scale of the Jewish catastrophe. But many Polish gentiles lost nearly an entire generation of our families to Nazi (and also Soviet) torture and execution. Our parents grew up with scars and with few role-models. My dad remembers his dad being taken away at night. That sort of thing does real and lasting damage.

Also, because both Nazis and Soviets made a systematic effort to destroy the intelligentsia, Polish universities were literally gutted. It didn't matter if you were Jewish or gentile; it sufficed that you were Polish. Again: that sort of thing does lasting harm. Maybe Poland will be a less freaky -- less conservative, less homophobic, less Catholic -- contributor to the community of nations once the damage has healed. I'd give it another 50 years or so.

Posted by: faux mulder | March 28, 2009 11:40 AM

give up catholicism? sorry, but i'm much too fond of the fine, hessian undergarments.

Posted by: JD | March 28, 2009 11:45 AM

Dont be a wafer denialist PZ.

Posted by: Tom | March 28, 2009 11:47 AM

No. 27 - So what happened to the genetic tendency towards good in 1930's Nazism?

No. 20 - Morality has almost certainly evolved but at each point there may still be a right and a wrong way to proceed. One argument for the religious view is that at least it looks for good acts to be meaningful. The alternative route suggests that good and bad may just be a matter of personal opinion and this leads to the question of how to decide whether the Holocaust perpetrators' views are as valid as ours!

I also find Richard Dawkins views somewhat contradictory. For someone who doesnt believe in a global moral code he spends a lot of time debating the morality of religion etc!

Posted by: Tabby Lavalamp | March 28, 2009 11:48 AM

Sili wrote:

To give 60613 the benefit of doubt, perhaps they meant Martin Luther King.

That would be an improvement, because at least King's sexism wasn't as rabid as Luther's antisemitism.

Posted by: Ex-PFC Chuck | March 28, 2009 11:49 AM

That Brazilian outrage was the last straw on the camel's pope's back in the view of my heretofore Catholic wife of nearly 43 years. She now says "I believe in God, but not the church." Progress. All along she's been "her own kind of Catholic" as she used to put it. For example, all three of our 30 something children have long since left the faith, and if she had a problem with that I never heard about it. Nor did they, as far as I know. But the martinet who recently mounted the St. Paul archbishop's throne and, finally, the Brazilian thing, pushed her over the edge. To her eternal credit, she never tried to proselytize me. For that matter, neither did I her.

Posted by: Tony P | March 28, 2009 11:52 AM

I have an enhancement to suggest to the million condoms. Make them 'used' condoms.

Posted by: Aquaria | March 28, 2009 11:54 AM

I also find Richard Dawkins views somewhat contradictory. For someone who doesnt believe in a global moral code he spends a lot of time debating the morality of religion etc!

Looks like we have a new Catholic chew-toy.

Tom, are you willfully obtuse, or just brain dead?

Where in Richard Dawkins's writings does he posit anything about a global moral code? Citations, please, and not from the voices in your head.

For that matter, where does any religion offer a global moral code? They don't think morals are global. You only get to be "moral" in their book if you follow their particular code. Doesn't sound global to me.

And why not point out the immorality of pious frauds claiming to be moral when they are anything but?

Posted by: Ex-PFC Chuck | March 28, 2009 11:57 AM

Actually, I should clarify my comment #40. It was not the quote re the holocaust that PZ refers to in the post that set off my wife. It was the incident of a few weeks ago, in which a Brazilian archbishop excomunicated everyone involved in the abortion that was performed on the 9 year old girl who had been raped.

Posted by: Jadehawk, OM | March 28, 2009 11:57 AM

I've talked about the Catholics who were victims of the Holocaust. usually it is in response to those atheists who claim the event was entirely religious in nature and due to Christian anti-semitism. When you point out that in reality there were a large number of Christians and disabled people killed in camps too they tend to shut up

the nazis exterminated those they found inferior: the gays and disabled people because they were "degenerate", the Polish (those Catholics you're speaking of) because they were "racially inferior", and the Jews... because they were Jews and by default worse than Christians. The nazis were many different flavors of evil, their Christian anti-semitism is in no way contradicted by their racism.

Posted by: Vic | March 28, 2009 11:59 AM

I can not imagine how anyone could stay a member of the Catholic Church after all the diarrhea that has spewed from their leaders over the years. Another example of the religious being consistently excused for their ignorance where a secular org would have been condemned.

Posted by: Tom | March 28, 2009 12:02 PM

No. 43 - So what happened in the 1930's is only to be condemned on the grounds that the Nazis didnt survive and on no other grounds - because there is no way to decide right and wrong? Now the world may even be like that but I think we have to be clear about what the full implications of the non-religious view is! This is why I think the debate about religion is perhaps more balanced than people usually see it these days.

Posted by: Tim | March 28, 2009 12:04 PM

"The Popes ridiculous and wrong stance on condoms"?

The reality is that we should live moral lives. The reality is that we should be in control of our desires and not be controlled by them. The reality is that there are consequences to immoral behavior. The use of condoms will not and cannot eliminate the consequences of immoral behavior. The solution to the spread of sexually transmitted disease, is to behave morally. So many people lack the common sense to realize this simple Truth. It's impossible to combat immorality with immorality. Immorality can only be defeated with morality. That's the point that the Holy Father makes and he, in fact, proclaims the Truth. The reason that people are outraged is because they deny the Truth and wish to be confirmed in their sin. Here's a little bit of Truth, if the Holy Father wasn't being persecuted, then it wouldn't be so obvious that he's proclaiming the Truth.

Posted by: Matt Heath | March 28, 2009 12:05 PM

For what it's worth (and given what the Archbish did say (see #31), it isn't worth a lot) I think Jerry O @ 18 is probably right on the number 22 million referring to all victims. I can't find the exact equivalent part in Portuguese but I have from Brazilian news site:

Os judeus falam em 6 milhões de mortos. O nazismo matou mais de 20 milhões de pessoas – compara.

The Jews speak of 6 million deaths. Nazism killed more than 20 million people - compare.

Posted by: chancelikely | March 28, 2009 12:09 PM

Any morality system that condemns the Holocaust but assumes that the actions taken by Joshua in the book of Joshua are both historical and moral is a deficient system.

Posted by: Jadehawk, OM | March 28, 2009 12:11 PM

It's impossible to combat immorality with immorality. Immorality can only be defeated with morality.

Posted by: Matt Heath | March 28, 2009 12:13 PM

Maybe Poland will be a less freaky -- less conservative, less homophobic, less Catholic -- contributor to the community of nations once the damage has healed. I'd give it another 50 years or so.

not likely. you don't digest 150 years of traumatic history that quickly. or, as a friend was fond of saying: "other nations have a history, the Irish and the Polish have a psychosis"

Posted by: Dennis N | March 28, 2009 12:14 PM

Tom is working under the standard Christian belief that sex is immoral. SEX IS NOT IMMORAL. In fact, it's fun and healthy. Often times I skip my daily run just to have sex, as a good work out. Deal with it Tom.

Posted by: genesgalore | March 28, 2009 12:15 PM

PPRAAWK!!! polly wants her cracker.

Posted by: Jadehawk, OM | March 28, 2009 12:18 PM

Except as I understand it, taken as whole Ireland is considerably less conservative, less homophobic and less Catholic than Poland

Posted by: Zar | March 28, 2009 12:20 PM

Tim:

The reality is that sex is not immoral. The reality is that your parents should have used birth control instead of conceiving you.

Posted by: Tom | March 28, 2009 12:26 PM

No. 44 - I didnt say Mr Dawkins had advocated a global moral code - I was equating his lack of belief in God with the opposite. I was just remarking that if there is nothing in the end to globally say that one person's view is better or worse than another's then why does he spend so much time making the case that his views must be (globally) correct?

No 64 - there are subtle differences at least between the views of Tim and Tom - I assume you mean Tim!

Posted by: rimpal | March 28, 2009 12:28 PM

Aquaria #3, Teresa was the ghoul of Calcutta as Hitchens puts it correctly. She availed of the best healthcare possible while leaving behind rags and filth for her wards - only a few 100 were ever "taken care" of by her at any time. Her impact on the actual state of living in Calcutta is negligible although she did manage to project an image of a saviour. An utter fraud, undiluted.

Posted by: Dennis N | March 28, 2009 12:32 PM

Yes, it seems I meant Mr. Tim

Posted by: Jules | March 28, 2009 12:40 PM

Why is the church trying to "compete" for the most dead by Nazis? When did it become a competition?

Besides, Hitler was Catholic for most of his life.

Posted by: Invigilator | March 28, 2009 12:42 PM

In Bocaccio's second story on the first day of the Decameron,a Jew goes to Rome at the behest of his Christian friend, and on seeing the wickedness of the clergy there, becomes a Christian. He reasons that no institution so thoroughly corrupt and depraved could have survived so many centuries without divine favor.

I don't recall many Catholics having used that argument . . .

Posted by: Capital Dan | March 28, 2009 12:48 PM

Sending condoms to the Pope is kind of a dumb idea. I mean, the message is nice, but it wouldn't surprise me in the least to learn that the "kind and compassionate" Catholics poked holes in them before sending them off to Africa and saying "See? We're right! The sun really does go around the Earth too."

Posted by: Tim | March 28, 2009 12:49 PM

Who said sex was immoral?
Sex is not immoral, when seen in the light of God's intentions, it is a great gift which draws us closer to Him. It is meant to be life giving and shared between husband and wife. Nothing immoral about that at all.
Lust, on the other hand, IS immoral. Promiscuity IS immoral. Sex outside of a Sacramental marriage IS immoral. Deny the Truth if you wish, it's still the Truth.
The Holy Father by NO means, lied. The use of condoms condones promiscuity which IS an immoral act. I'm not at all surprised that the Truth bothers some of you.

Posted by: Flapper | March 28, 2009 12:51 PM

Why you are following an ignorant, superstitious kook as a moral authority is mystifying to me.

Posted by: Guy Incognito | March 28, 2009 12:52 PM

For something that is supposedly "globally bad," we don't ever seem to do a fucking thing about genocide.

Posted by: Dennis N | March 28, 2009 12:56 PM

#89 Hey, just like the real world!

Posted by: DJ | March 28, 2009 1:00 PM

@Tim,

You are definitely in the wrong place. Are you trying to convince people of the validity of your faith? Or perhaps make some converts? Or maybe you are here to experience the "persecution" so many of your faith seek out to fulfill scripture? Whatever your reason for coming here, unless you can furnish observable evidence of a magical wizard that created everything and only has our best interests at heart, you are wasting your time and ours...

Nah, I'm kinda enjoying reading your idiotic justifications for self delusion. Viva La Spaghetti Monster!

Posted by: Jadehawk, OM | March 28, 2009 1:02 PM

Sex outside of a Sacramental marriage IS immoral.

Posted by: AdamK | March 28, 2009 1:04 PM

See, all the Jews whom the Mormons baptized postumously? They're actually Catholics, since it's the One True Choich. QED.

And the Nixon doctrine -- "When the President does it, it's not illegal" -- apparently extends to the Poope. "When the Poope does it" -- lies and contributes to the disease and deaths of thousands, or coddles child rapists, or curses doctors for performing life-saving surgery -- "it's not evil."

Posted by: Stephen Bain | March 28, 2009 1:05 PM

@Tim #84
"The Holy Father by NO means, lied."

True. You can't lie if you don't exist.

Posted by: ArchangelChuck | March 28, 2009 1:09 PM

The use of condoms condones promiscuity which IS an immoral act.

We think you're a moron because you make ridiculous statements such as this. Using condoms does no such thing. The only plausible explanation for condom use not decreasing the spread of the virus is the phenomenon of "risk compensation" coupled with inconsistent use.

Posted by: AdamK | March 28, 2009 1:09 PM

I fail to see how that snarling bigot Ratzinger can be described as either "holy" or as a "father" (unless he has some bastards hidden away I don't know about.)

Posted by: Jadehawk, OM | March 28, 2009 1:11 PM

Why is the deadly disease present in the world? As a consequence of immorality.

Posted by: Janine, Insulting Sinner | March 28, 2009 1:19 PM

Why is the deadly disease present in the world? As a consequence of immorality.

Huuummmmm, so the Flu Epidemic of 1918-19 and the Bubonic Plague, which killed more people then HIV/AIDS were also a consequences of immorality?

Posted by: ArchangelChuck | March 28, 2009 1:20 PM

Janine: No, them were evil spirits.

Posted by: raven | March 28, 2009 1:23 PM

tom the evil idiot:

It's a very simple choice; abstain or spread the virus.

There are 300 million people in the USA. 800,000 are HIV+. For 99.7% of the population that isn't even remotely true. Since they aren't infected, having sex has zero probability of spreading the virus. In point of fact, these numbers are holding despite the fact that the vast majority of the population has been, is, and will be sexually active. Sorry Tom, your equation sex=death is not correct. Not much for reality, are you?

This is the so called xian morality that many have contempt for. Sloppy thinking, lies, and doing nothing while people get sick and die because....well who knows or cares. God's will or maybe the thought that someplace, somewhere people are living successful, happy lives without their particular brand of god delusion.

Posted by: JohanSebastianMill | March 28, 2009 1:27 PM

Right. So, in general, when we say that someone is a "realist" (or ontological realist) about something, it means that they think that that something exists independently of human conventions, languages, ideas, and such. If I say that I'm a realist about atoms, or evolutionary processes, or the laws of physics, it means that I think there are such things and that they are not just down to conventions, or ways of speaking, or whatever.

Theists are invariably realists about morality: they think there are moral laws and that they are not merely human conventions.

Atheists too have ways of being moral realists. One obvious way is to say that an action is morally right to the extent that it tends to promote the happiness of sentient beings and to diminish their suffering. More happy creatures = good; More sad creatures = bad. This is a perfectly objective, non-conventional definition of moral rightness. It slices. It dices. It allows us to make sense of the nature of moral wrong. It lets us say that someone -- or indeed all of society -- can be mistaken about the moral worth of an action. And, best of all, this sort of realism is also perfectly consistent with scientific naturalism. Read Mill for a development of this idea. If you want a more modern approach, check this out.

I'm not sure why theists have got it into their heads that they are the only moral realists around. I sure wish they'd read a few books now and again though.

Posted by: raven | March 28, 2009 1:36 PM

tom the idiot:

Why is the deadly disease present in the world? As a consequence of immorality.

Malaria, TB, respiratory infections, GI infections kill tens of millions worldwide every year, many of them young children.

And mostly in poor third world countries. Another of Tom's bogus equations, poor third world kids=immorality=dead and it is their own fault.

Tom, keep telling us all about your xian morality. In your own case, we are getting an electron microscope ready. So far it is either very small or nonexistent.

Tom is one of those AIDS is god's punishment to people for being people kooks. And malaria, dengue, and yellow fever are god's punishment for being young and living near mosquitos.

Posted by: AdamK | March 28, 2009 1:39 PM

There you all go again, with that nonsensical oxymoron "christian morality." Christians absolve themselves from all moral responsibility by foisting it off on their fictional god.

Posted by: Jadehawk, OM | March 28, 2009 1:41 PM

#112 that's the weirdest definition of "realism" i've ever seen. and here i thought it had something to do with reality

Posted by: Steven Carr | March 28, 2009 1:47 PM

Hitler was still an official member of the Catholic Church when he killed himself.

Hitler - was he killed in the Holocaust? The Catholic Church says 'yes'

Posted by: Jadehawk, OM | March 28, 2009 1:49 PM

There is no correct use of condoms because the gift of sexuality that was given to us by God,

Posted by: Marc Abian | March 28, 2009 1:51 PM

Jadehawk, I can't speak for the north of Ireland, but in the south Ireland is liberal. You really are wide of the mark here.

Posted by: raven | March 28, 2009 1:55 PM

Tim, you are just repeating RCC doctrine that the vast majority of catholic laity have heard from birth and stopped paying attention to shortly thereafter. The catholic birth rate in the US is identical to the national average. Like all sane, responsible adults, they plan their families for their own good reasons.

Just repeating something doesn't make it true. Got any proof of what you are regurgitating? Otherwise it has as much chance of being true as the Flying Spaghetti Monster, Islam, Scientology, or any book in the fiction section of any public library.

Posted by: rimpal | March 28, 2009 1:58 PM

[quote]Sex for the True purpose and reason is a beautiful and pleasurable share in God Himself. Sex for ones own selfish desire is in complete contradiction to the Truth.[/quote] Like when the "guy up in the sky" impregnated a minor in Bethlehem called Mary. Sure they guy up there is an expert. Maybe the guy in the funny hat in Rome is also an expert who has had a "beautiful and pleasurable share in xxx hisself. All those hyperactive cassocked padres who can't keep their desires to themselves

Posted by: 'Tis Himself, OM | March 28, 2009 2:01 PM

Why is the deadly disease present in the world? As a consequence of immorality.

Of course the families of Isaac Asimov and Arthur Ashe are deeply ashamed of the immorality of these two men.

Posted by: Janine, Insulting Sinner | March 28, 2009 2:09 PM

Tim, are all epidemics the result of immorality? And if not, how do you tell apart those that are merely natural in cause from those directed by the big sky daddy?

Posted by: Jadehawk, OM | March 28, 2009 2:10 PM

ah. NVM, i found it: "Status: Rejected at Referendum". that's at least something.

Posted by: Alyson Miers | March 28, 2009 2:21 PM

I think the Church is longing for the good old days when the Romans kept throwing them to the lions.

Posted by: Patricia, OM | March 28, 2009 2:22 PM

Been trolling long Tim?

Inquiring minds want to know.

Posted by: Tim | March 28, 2009 2:24 PM

[quote]and i will be forever grateful for my parents' "immoratily". well, at least the first time around. they really should have become abstinent after my birth, then I wouldn't have an annoying little brother ;-)[quote]

God is quite capable of bringing about good, out of any circumstance. (take the crucifixion for instance)

Posted by: Janine, Insulting Sinner | March 28, 2009 2:32 PM

Posted by: Jadehawk| March 28, 2009

tim is 2000 years old? oh my! it's a miracle!

Two Thousand Year Old Man.

Posted by: Janine, Insulting Sinner | March 28, 2009 2:38 PM

Posted by: Tim | March 28, 2009

God is quite capable of bringing about good, out of any circumstance. (take the crucifixion for instance)

Funny, the Promise Keepers used to say the same thing about American slavery.

Personally, I take this idea to mean that a true believer can justify not taking actions against a wrong by saying that the big sky daddy wants it this way.

And Tim, how can we tell the difference between a big sky daddy caused epidemic and a natural epidemic?

Posted by: Don | March 28, 2009 2:40 PM

Talking of Luther, John O'Farrell in his amusing An Utterly Impartial History of Britain - Or 2000 Years of Upper Class Idiots In Charge points out that at the time Luther nailed his papers to the door virtually the only route for advancement for non-aristocrats was through the church. Scholarship, administration, whatever was pretty much confined to ordained clergy. Celibate ordained clergy.

When they read the bit about dropping the celibacy requirment the entire administrative sector of Europe said, 'Hey, wait a minute, maybe this guy has a point.'

Posted by: Tim | March 28, 2009 2:43 PM

[quote]@Tim,

You are definitely in the wrong place. Are you trying to convince people of the validity of your faith? Or perhaps make some converts? Or maybe you are here to experience the "persecution" so many of your faith seek out to fulfill scripture? Whatever your reason for coming here, unless you can furnish observable evidence of a magical wizard that created everything and only has our best interests at heart, you are wasting your time and ours...

Nah, I'm kinda enjoying reading your idiotic justifications for self delusion. Viva La Spaghetti Monster![quote]

Thanks for your advice, I do appreciate it. I won't stay around here long. I'm not looking to make converts or be persecuted. I just read the article and posted a comment. I don't think I'm better than anyone on this Earth, honestly. I've committed more sins in my life than I care to remember. Including sexual immorality. Through God's grace, I'm not a slave to that anymore like I used to be. I see through my experience that I had it all wrong.

Posted by: 'Tis Himself, OM | March 28, 2009 2:45 PM

Tim,

If you're going to quote somebody here, the HTML code is <blockquote>blah blah blah</blockquote> which comes out as:

blah blah blah

Posted by: Tim | March 28, 2009 2:45 PM

[quote]Tim,
Well, I won't argue with you, I don't think you will understand why your statements about the Truth are not convincing (it would be nice if you gave some evidence for instance) but I just wanted to tell you that I am pretty lustful right now, and tonight I plan on some hot, out of wedlock sex. Hell, I plan on not only sex but kinky BSDM activites![quote]

Your choice.

Posted by: Jadehawk, OM | March 28, 2009 2:50 PM

i figured as much, janine. and no, i'm not familiar with it, so i'll look at it later

Posted by: paul fauvet | March 28, 2009 2:56 PM

I find Tim's comments amusing because they remind me of the Jesuit priest who taught us about the ten commandments in my London Catholic grammar school several decades ago.

An inordinate amount of time was spent on the two anti-sex commandments (6 and 9). But it boiled down to the claim that the only permissible sex is penetration between a heterosexual married couple. Anything else, the Jesuit claimed, is not only sinful, but mortally sinful. You burn in hell for it.

Sex before marriage? Mortal sin, burn in hell.

Sex outside of marriage? Mortal sin, burn in hell.

Masturbation? Mortal sin, burn in hell.

Gay sex? Mortal sin, burn in hell.

Use of condoms or any other form of artifical contraception? Mortal sin, burn in hell.

And this was what a supposedly loving religion was teaching vulnerable 14 year old boys !

I think the best answer ever penned to repressed people like Tim comes from the great English radical poet, William Blake:

I went to the Garden of Love
And saw what I never had seen:
A chepel was built in the midst,
Where I used to play on the green.

And the gates of this chapel were shut,
and "Thou shalt not" writ over the door;
So I turn'd to the Garden of Love
That so many sweet flowers bore;

And I saw it was filled with graves,
And tombstones where flowers should be;
And Priests in black gowns were walking their rounds,
And binding with briars my joys and desires.

Posted by: FlameDuck | March 28, 2009 3:00 PM

What? So now we have Fatwa-envy and Holocaust-envy? Can't these guys figure out once and for all whether they want to be oppressors or opressees? Or is it a bait and switch thing?

Hitler sounds a lot more like Martin Luther

Much more than read something like "The God Delusion" written by a moral and compassionate person who disagrees with them, you really should start reading books written by immoral, despicable, and generally disagreeable people, who say the exact same things. But it'll make you angry if you do.

The use of condoms condones promiscuity which IS an immoral act.

By the same metric, does using antibiotics condone eating off the ground? Does using insulin injections condone unhealthy eating? Does using painkillers condone beating your head against the wall? Does getting a polio shot condone not wiping?

Here is what causes sexual promiscuity: Having sex (preferably good sex, but even bad sex is better than none at all). You should try it some time.

Posted by: Tim | March 28, 2009 3:21 PM

[quote]Tim, are all epidemics the result of immorality? And if not, how do you tell apart those that are merely natural in cause from those directed by the big sky daddy?[quote]

God doesn't cause suffering. It's all around us, that's obvious. There is a cause, a root cause that's traceable. The cause of creation is all good, the cause of suffering is all evil. dark - light, Truth - lies, good - evil, everything is subject to this. Both have consequences, the choices we make determine the consequences. Death and suffering came into the world through sin, life and freedom came into the world through love. The proof that some have been asking for is existence itself. Truth revealed by God. Believe it or deny it, it's our choice. We've been given many gifts, free will is one of the greatest.

Posted by: Marcus Ranum | March 28, 2009 3:25 PM

Did anyone bother to point out to him that it was an "own goal"?? Plenty of the guys with the guns killing the catholics were - catholics. If what he's complaining about is that catholics are stupid, I think he's made his point.

Posted by: Marcus Ranum | March 28, 2009 3:30 PM

(III) Demons can take over a person but can be magically poofed away by men wearing dresses.

That is true. I saw it happen in a bar, once, in Glasgow.

Posted by: Janine, Insulting Sinner | March 28, 2009 3:35 PM

God doesn't cause suffering.

No, of course not. He accepts a bet with Lucifer and lets Lucifer have as he pleases with Job. And while Abraham was willing to murder Isaac because the big sky daddy told him to, I am sure that if he existed, Abraham was suffering while he put the plan in action.

Posted by: Marcus Ranum | March 28, 2009 3:37 PM

Tim, attempts theoidiocy:
God doesn't cause suffering. It's all around us, that's obvious. There is a cause, a root cause that's traceable. The cause of creation is all good, the cause of suffering is all evil.

God created everything. Therefore god created evil.

God is either all-powerful, in which case he could just magic the evil away - or he's not. If he's all powerful and doesn't magic the evil away, he's a nasty bastard himself. And if he isn't all powerful and can't magic the evil away, then he's not worth worshipping.

I hope that clarifies things for you a bit.

Posted by: Matt Heath | March 28, 2009 3:39 PM

re: 163: Yahweh is an even worse dick than Superman

Posted by: Tim | March 28, 2009 3:40 PM

[quote]Tim,

If immorality cannot fight immorality it stands to reason that a lie (an immoral act) which directly results in the spread of deadly disease (an immoral result) will not combat what ever sexual immorality you were referring to. If you're going for absolute morality here you need to be consistent.[quote]

The problem with this line of reasoning is the fact that what the Holy Father said isn't a lie. Condoms is indeed an answer, but it's the wrong answer. Condoms can't solve the problem. Individual choice can. Unrealistic? maybe, but we're not incapable of having control. The message that condoms sends is; you're going to spread this disease anyway, so here, use these. The message that the Pope sends is; You have dignity, you're worth more than that, you're capable of much virtue.

[quote]Thus we see the compassionate merciful nature of Christianity as it stands. Abstain or you and your children deserve to die, believe or burn, sacrifice for the Church or they'll wring it out of you whether you like it or not.

Repeating "Truth" over and over is not an argument, at least give us something to chew on. [quote]

No. Abstain because you deserve to live. Believe because God is our Hope. Sacrifice because it brings forth strength.

Posted by: David Marjanović, OM | March 28, 2009 3:46 PM

ARGH! I mean "in the social life". I hate this kind of typo.

Posted by: Nerd of Redhead, OM | March 28, 2009 3:51 PM

Nothing, when it's embraced in Truth.

Posted by: Jadehawk, OM | March 28, 2009 3:54 PM

Actually, I do think [eating bushmeant] is immoral.

But it only introduced the disease. It didn't noticeably spread it.

so i guess immorality is right after all. just not the way tim meant it.

Posted by: dean | March 28, 2009 4:04 PM

"He's too well connected to not know the reality that he's trying to deny."

I'm not so sure. I doubt that the pope really cares about the people to whom he was speaking, he cares about keeping them in the church - preserving the empire, so to speak. He knows that according to his church, condoms use is bad, and he's trying to reinforce that to show the consistency of the church.

Care about the people, not so much - probably not at all.

Posted by: Jadehawk, OM | March 28, 2009 4:05 PM

Tim, read your bible:

Isaiah 45:7 I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the LORD do all these things.

Posted by: Tim | March 28, 2009 4:08 PM

I make peace, and create evil: I the LORD do all these things.

Tim, you really should read the bible

You should learn how to interpret it properly. In it's original language, through it's translations. Why would you quote Scripture anyway?

Posted by: Jadehawk, OM | March 28, 2009 4:11 PM

because you're too dumb to know your own religion.

there's no room for interpretation in this, or several other passages. god says he creates evil.

or are you saying the serpent was not one of gods creations? are you saying the serpent came into existence by itself, without the help of god? tsk tsk, such heresy.

Posted by: Tim | March 28, 2009 4:18 PM

Tim, the TRUTH is that your god is imaginary, existing only between your ears. That makes your holy book a work of fiction, and the dogma derived from there just batshit insanity. TRUTH, yes it matters, but you idea is wrong.

What makes you so sure?
Is there something wrong with loving what's good and hating what's evil? If a person has Faith in God and believes that He is Good and strives to please Him by trying to do good, in his own life and toward his neighbor, what has he lost?

Posted by: Nerd of Redhead, OM | March 28, 2009 4:22 PM

Tim, you god doesn't exist. That makes your TRUTH a LIE.

Posted by: raven | March 28, 2009 4:25 PM

Edward C. Green is the director of the Harvard University AIDS Prevention Research Project. He is a medical anthropologist who has 30 years of experience in research projects in developing countries.

Green has written several books including Rethinking AIDS Prevention: Learning from Successes in Developing Countries.

Never heard of him. Wikipedia has nothing much. He isn't an MD. The world AIDS establishment is very large. Green and Harvard are just a twig on the tree.

Posted by: Jadehawk, OM | March 28, 2009 4:27 PM

Is there something wrong with loving what's good and hating what's evil? If a person has Faith in God and believes that He is Good and strives to please Him by trying to do good, in his own life and toward his neighbor, what has he lost?

Religion is an insult
to human dignity.
With or without it
you would have
good people doing
good things and
evil people doing
evil things.
But
for good people
to do evil things,
that takes religion.
--Steven Weinberg

Posted by: Travis M | March 28, 2009 4:29 PM

I'm not sure about how to start something like this but perhaps we could send those condoms to a country in need of them rather than to the Vatican. It's sort of a hollow gesture to flood the Catholic Capital with prophylactics that are going to be wasted. Why not send these life saving things that are so readily available in the West to a place that doesn't have access?

That would send a real message to the Pope and his peers. Any ideas on how to start this?

Posted by: raven | March 28, 2009 4:31 PM

Straight off the Templeton Foundation website. Green is a Templeton guy. Right there, a red flag goes up. The guy is a religious nut.

Grant ProfileTitle:
Harvard AIDS and Behavior Change Program

Principal Investigator:
Edward C. Green, Ph.D., Senior Research Scientist
Harvard Center for Population and Development Studies
Harvard University (Cambridge MA)

Grantee:
Harvard University (Cambridge MA)

Description:
Suite of 4 separate grants, totaling: $2,246,514

Start date: July 2004

End date: February 2009

Grant ID#11364 #11869 #11874 #12345
These grants support the development of an innovative study center to examine the importance of human character and moral choice in HIV/AIDS prevention.

This support includes a symposium in Kampala, Uganda to advance scientific and scholarly understanding on the efficacy of behavior based programs in preventing population-wide HIV-infection. A scholarly edited volume will present the findings of the symposium participants.

Posted by: Feynmaniac | March 28, 2009 4:36 PM

Think "race realist".

I always found it funny that racists had their own politically correct term.

Posted by: Jadehawk, OM | March 28, 2009 4:39 PM

Does that mean that since you deny the existence of our Creator, you don't have certain inalienable rights (Life, Liberty, Pursuit of Happiness) which are endowed to us by our Creator?

Posted by: raven | March 28, 2009 4:47 PM

It turns out both Green and the Pope are wrong: Not much on the web about Green. Apparently he and Templeton are minor players in the AIDS fight.

NYTimes, published: March 17, 2009 :

Pope Benedict XVI has every right to express his opposition to the use of condoms on moral grounds, in accordance with the official stance of the Roman Catholic Church. But he deserves no credence when he distorts scientific findings about the value of condoms in slowing the spread of the AIDS virus.

Times Topics: Pope Benedict XVI | AIDS / H.I.V.As reported on Tuesday by journalists who accompanied the pope on his flight to Africa, Benedict said that distribution of condoms would not resolve the AIDS problem but, on the contrary, would aggravate or increase it. The first half of his statement is clearly right. Condoms alone won’t stop the spread of H.I.V., the virus that causes AIDS. Campaigns to reduce the number of sexual partners, safer-sex practices and other programs are needed to bring the disease to heel.

But the second half of his statement is grievously wrong. There is no evidence that condom use is aggravating the epidemic and considerable evidence that condoms, though no panacea, can be helpful in many circumstances.

From an individual’s point of view, condoms work very well in preventing transmission of the AIDS virus from infected to uninfected people. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention cites “comprehensive and conclusive” evidence that latex condoms, when used consistently and correctly, are “highly effective” in preventing heterosexual transmission of the virus that causes AIDS. The most recent meta-analysis of the best studies, published by the respected Cochrane Collaboration, concluded that condoms can reduce the transmission of the AIDS virus by 80 percent.

However, both groups warned that condom use cannot provide absolute protection. Condoms sometimes break, slip or are put on incorrectly. The best way to avoid transmission of the virus is to abstain from sexual intercourse or have a long-term mutually monogamous relationship with an uninfected person.

From a national perspective, condom promotion has been effective in slowing epidemics in several countries among high-risk groups, such as sex workers and their customers, but less effective in slowing epidemics that have spread into the general population, as in much of sub-Saharan Africa. That is probably because far too few people use condoms consistently and correctly.

Even so, health authorities consider condoms a valuable component of any well-rounded program to prevent the spread of AIDS. It seems irresponsible to blame condoms for making the epidemic worse.

Posted by: David Marjanović, OM | March 28, 2009 4:52 PM

Tim, HTML commands are ended with /. So, to end a quote, you need to write </blockquote>.

Posted by: Azkyroth | March 28, 2009 4:53 PM

Also any rational system has to start from some sort of axiom - look e.g. at mathematics.

In general, people should be happy. There's your starting axiom.

Posted by: Capital Dan | March 28, 2009 4:54 PM

Gotta admit: it's fun watching Tim try to negotiate the simple quote feature and fail about as miserably as his twisted beliefs.

Whoever explained the block quote to him, I owe you a beer with cake and maybe a lapdance.

Posted by: 'Tis Himself, OM | March 28, 2009 4:57 PM

I observe that countless martyrs gave up their very lives as opposed to denying Him.

Here's a song about a martyr. Ever hear of Horst Wessel?

Posted by: Nerd of Redhead, OM | March 28, 2009 4:59 PM

Still no evidence for you imaginary god Tim. Yawn, these godbots never present anything interesting. Their testimony is BORING.

Posted by: DJ | March 28, 2009 5:00 PM

LOL. I thought the preservatives comment was about the J-man handing out jars of grape and strawberry jelly to the masses!

Me and my stupid American english!

Tim, our inalienable rights are endowed in the Constitution of the U.S. which I'm pretty sure was written by a bunch of guys who did not claim to be gods... You aren't making any convincing arguments so far. Why not just drop your faith and live free and happy in the knowledge that your life is your own? What's the harm? (please don't answer that, your substanceless arguments are getting pretty sad).

Posted by: Max von Schuler-Kobayashi | March 28, 2009 5:05 PM

The figure of 22 million deaths in WWII is the one that is generally accepted for total Soviet deaths, both civilian and military. Some say 21 million, but who can be precise with such a huge event?

I am a military historian specializing in WWII, I know. The above gentleman should recrack the books.

Posted by: raven | March 28, 2009 5:12 PM

These xian Liars for jesus have been quote mining Green. It turns out that he supports condom use as part of a comprehensive AIDS prevention program. Just like anyone sane and honest, the CDC, and everyone except a few trolls and the pope.

Green supports a comprehensive approach to HIV prevention that includes abstinence, condom use and faithfulness to sexual partners, with the latter likely being the most important, according to Green.

Bush Administration Appoints Edward Green to Presidential Advisory Council on HIV and AIDS

August 8, 2003

The Bush administration has appointed Edward Green, a senior research scientist at the Harvard School of Public Health who supports the "ABC" HIV prevention model, to the Presidential Advisory Council on HIV and AIDS, the Washington Times reports (McCaslin, Washington Times, 8/8). Green supports a comprehensive approach to HIV prevention that includes abstinence, condom use and faithfulness to sexual partners, with the latter likely being the most important, according to Green (Kaiser Daily HIV/AIDS Report, 6/23). According to the Times, Green has said that "it is not 'abstinence only' or 'condoms only.' Both are needed. There is a need for condoms if A and B fail. Some people will never change their behavior," including some high-risk groups such as sex workers and their customers. After being sworn in this week by HHS Deputy Secretary Claude Allen, Green said in a letter, "I hope to have some influence on how we conduct AIDS prevention in the future (effective prevention remains my primary focus)" (Washington Times, 8/8).

Posted by: Irene Delse | March 28, 2009 5:14 PM

@ chancelikely: Yes, thanks. It's a tempest about the cartoon Jesus giving away condoms, of course.

Posted by: Tim | March 28, 2009 5:22 PM

Tim quotes the American Declaration of Independence, apparently unaware that it was written, not by Catholics, but by Deists.

Yes, I'm aware of that. I've hardly mentioned the Catholic Church. Here's a sad fact, though, the majority of Catholics indeed don't practice their faith. Many don't hold true what the Church teaches, and don't embrace what they profess to believe. Many priests commit evil acts, as many other people do in many other walks of life. Many Popes have been evil men. These people, like many others were by no means following the teachings of the Church, quite the contrary. The Church is attacked from within it's own body. I won't try to convince anybody of the Truths that I hold dear, and many other faithful Catholics, but I will proclaim them, to no ones harm. I'm glad I stumbled in here, I'm not a troll, I'm just a guy in a kitchen, communicating with others and learning a little about myself and you all. Take it easy.

Posted by: Ken Cope | March 28, 2009 5:25 PM

I'm glad I stumbled in here, I'm not a troll, I'm just a guy in a kitchen, communicating with others and learning a little about myself and you all. Take it easy.

Next time you want to take such a steaming dump in order to learn about yourself, stumble into your own private bathroom. And light a match, will ya?

Posted by: Nerd of Redhead, OM | March 28, 2009 5:28 PM

No, just human frailty.

Posted by: AdamK | March 28, 2009 5:31 PM

Tim, the Catholics who "don't practice their faith" aren't anywhere near as disgusting as the ones that do, like your destructive, deadly pope, with his anti-human dogma.

Give me a fallen-away catholic over a faithful one any day. The farther away you fall, the closer to reality you get.

Posted by: Tim | March 28, 2009 5:35 PM

The "root cause" of AIDS is the HIV virus. The use of condoms prevents infection. That is how you "get at the root cause,"

Nope, gotta go deeper than that.

Posted by: AnthonyK | March 28, 2009 5:38 PM

Brief interaction, on a Catholic thread.
I'm watching a programme on the BBC about the fall of Communism in Roumania. "Secret History of Communism" IKYAI.
So, in Roumania 1970s- , under Ceauşescu, all abortion and all contraception were banned. This was to increase the working population. Under the regulations abortionists, and women who went to them, were jailed. Worse - all schoolgirls and factory workers were regularly pregnancy tested to discourage abortion as effectively as possible.
Catholic heaven? Excepting, of course, the fact that the atheist regime banned all religion, except of course dictator worship.
That's almost exactly what Catholics want, isn't it?

Posted by: AdamK | March 28, 2009 5:39 PM

Dear Tim,

Fuck you.

Yours in Christ,

+Adam

Posted by: ArchangelChuck | March 28, 2009 5:44 PM

#220: I read that also, which is why I brought the question forward. I don't know how everybody feels on a comprehensive approach as suggested by Green, but the way I see it, such a thing could certainly work. I only prefer to see it done through education rather than superstition. Sane and rational people believe in personal responsibility, with or without a god. That means being educated, taking the necessary precautions, and being responsible in one's actions.

Of course condoms alone probably won't do the trick for such a widespread problem. We know that and we don't need condescending Christians coming in here and talking about "common sense" to us. That doesn't mean condoms are part of the problem, as he so brazenly suggests (and too many Catholics blindly swallow). If the Pope had left it at, "We need to do more than just throw condoms at them," instead of being a dogmatic warrior in the Church's battle against contraception, then I doubt we would be nearly as angry about this whole thing...

Posted by: AnthonyK | March 28, 2009 5:48 PM

Nope, gotta go deeper than that.

Posted by: kwandongbrian | March 28, 2009 5:56 PM

I hope this wasn't covered already - I looked over the first eighty or so comments- but there might be good reason for the Pope's wish to reduce condom use in Africa.

http://www.ilsussidiario.net/articolo.aspx?articolo=14614

As I understand it, whenever more 'protection' is offered, people engage in riskier behaviour. Anti-lock brakes and the like encourage people to drive faster. Body armour for hockey and football players increases the force of the tackles.

I can't say that Dr Green is right, but, well, what do you lot think?

Posted by: raven | March 28, 2009 5:59 PM

I read that also, which is why I brought the question forward. I don't know how everybody feels on a comprehensive approach as suggested by Green, but the way I see it, such a thing could certainly work.

Worked in the USA.
A multipart comprehensive approach is the conventional wisdom. AIDS has proven difficult but not impossible to drive down in many countries, mostly poor and third world. One really needs all the ammo they can get and no one bullet in isolation is going to do much.

There is a new addition to the arsenal. Widespread early treatment with HAART makes carriers much less infectious. Computer models show that this should drop the HIV rates way down. Problem is, such a program would be expensive, not hugely expensive but enough that no one is doing it right now.

Posted by: Ken Cope | March 28, 2009 6:01 PM

As I understand it, whenever more 'protection' is offered, people engage in riskier behaviour. Anti-lock brakes and the like encourage people to drive faster. Body armour for hockey and football players increases the force of the tackles.

Did I miss a call for entries on who can make the most outrageously stupid claim?

I'll just strap my three year old to the roof with some moldy twine, and everybody will drive more safely, then, shall I?

I can't say that Dr Green is right, but, well, what do you lot think?

I can't say as how it would make any sense to try and explain what thinking is to you.

Posted by: Cat of Many Faces | March 28, 2009 6:02 PM

ok, ban Tim.

Anyone who says that aids is a punishment by an all loving god is a complete fucktard and a waste of skin.

You don't understand morality at all you imbecilic shit. All you're morality equates to is 'if x says so, it is moral'

That is NOT morality! That is obedience.

The rest of us fully cogent bipeds will actually continue trying to come up with an actual moral system.

Maybe when you give up masturbating against a large wall that says 'OBEY' you can join the rest of us.

Probably not, as i suspect you can't recover from the lobotomy.

(I seem to be a bit cranky lately... ahh well :P )

Posted by: ArchangelChuck | March 28, 2009 6:03 PM

#242: Yes, that was brought up. He describes it as "risk compensation," but also acknowledges the inconsistent use of condoms despite their availability. There is nothing that definitively links condom usage to an increased prevalence of the disease. Who is to say that poor education isn't to blame?

#244: Agreed, 100%. Worked, and continues to work. I doubt the Pope would like to spread our effective -- yet immoral -- standards to Africa, though. Those people are just ripe for indoctrination! Poor, destitute, sick, suffering, superstitious... The perfect targets.

Posted by: DJ | March 28, 2009 6:08 PM

Sounds to me like a scientist Tim. You are making extraordinary claims without presenting extraordinary evidence. You are willfully deceiving yourself. Stop propping up faith as your "proof". It is not proof no matter how hard you wish it were.

Posted by: chancelikely | March 28, 2009 6:16 PM

Nope. Especially when faced with the ridiculous (and competing) claims of Catholics, Muslims, Scientologists, astrologers, psychics, homeopaths, Reiki healers, and Nigerian princes.

Posted by: Feynmaniac | March 28, 2009 6:17 PM

Tim,

I'd rather have faith than doubt, wouldn't you?

That's the problem. You would rather have certainty than truth.

Posted by: Azkyroth | March 28, 2009 6:25 PM

Does that mean that since you deny the existence of our Creator, you don't have certain inalienable rights (Life, Liberty, Pursuit of Happiness) which are endowed to us by our Creator?

No. These rights are possessed by virtue of being sentient, not "given" by anyone or anything.

Posted by: Nerd of Redhead, OM | March 28, 2009 6:33 PM

That's the problem. You would rather have imagined certainty than truth.

Posted by: AdamK | March 28, 2009 6:44 PM

Invigilator, you're right.

AA is a religious establishment. It's an ongoing scandal that attendance is frequently mandated by the courts and probation departments.

Moreover, its claims of effectiveness are not supported by anything objective, since its claims of anonymity are used to prevent any test of its worth.

Another religious affront to the Constitution.

Posted by: Nerd of Redhead, OM | March 28, 2009 6:54 PM

Yawn, Tim and his testament. BORING. Guess what Tim, this is an atheist blog, and we find your testament worthless. Even less than worthless. Still no physical evidence for your god or proof that your Jebus is real. YAWN. We need some better trolls.

Posted by: Kel | March 28, 2009 7:00 PM

I do believe that without God there is no hope.

Posted by: Patricia, OM | March 28, 2009 7:35 PM

Tim the toad is one of the worst slacker trolls we've seen in months. Jadehawk gives him one small dose of the bible and he can't even respond. F.

Posted by: Tim | March 28, 2009 7:52 PM

Tim the toad is one of the worst slacker trolls we've seen in months. Jadehawk gives him one small dose of the bible and he can't even respond. F.

Sorry, I missed that Scripture, you can give it to me again if you like.

Posted by: Dust | March 28, 2009 8:16 PM

The A-B-C policy for Africa means abstinence, behaviour and condoms, right? Several years ago on some TV program (sorry, no link or cite-going on memory) it was reported that the abstinence involved was not the same type of abstinence as it is thought of in the USA.

What it meant primarily was not engaging in extra marital sex, especially with sex workers. GWB and right wing and religious organizations, latched on to the word abstinence for African Aids policy without understanding it's cultural context.

So in this regard, abstinence makes more sense than the idea of no sex at all. But like condoms, it is only part of the puzzle.

Posted by: Ciaphas | March 28, 2009 8:27 PM

Tim:

If I did that, it would mean that I'd lost hope. That's not good.

Tim, do you not realize the great Truth "hope is the first step upon the road to disapointment"? You must turn yourself away from your silly little church and false gods and open yourself to the light of the Immortal Emperor. Not only for what he has done, but for what he will do!

He walks amongst us even now, a man but more than a man, shaping us in secret, driving us towards our destiny. In thirty thousand years, when we stride across stars, that is when Chaos will come for us and He will be ready.

In a starship above Holy Terra itself, He will strike down his most beloved son who had fallen to Chaos and give His very life in the process.

This will come to pass and we should venerate the Immortal Emperor even now for in death his power reaches through time and he can hear our prayers. This is Truth and I have here revealed it.

Posted by: raven | March 28, 2009 8:40 PM

K-brian, try to think it through.

Do you wear a seat belt? After all this to prevent injuries after a crash. So do people wearing seat belts drive worse? In point of fact, it is illegal not to wear a seat belt in most states. This is because they do a great job of preventing injuries and death.

You could use the same logic for motorcycle and bike helmets. In most states, motorcycle helmets are required. Which is OK with me. A childhood friend crashed his cycle without a helmet. His head was so smashed up that it was hard to identify the body.

Same thing with life jackets which are required in some situations, children, charter fishing boats etc..

Fuses and circuit breakers? Do they encourage overloading your sockets?

There is little evidence that humans use risk compensation and a lot that they don't. In our society, safety precautions are ubiquitous in work, transportation, and every day life. We have not produced a nation of sloppy haphazard dare devils.

Condom use was part of a multifaceted anti-AIDS effort in the USA and Europe. It worked.

Greens point if he actually has one is that tossing boxes of condoms at AIDS in third world countries by themselves without ABC and other efforts isn't going to do much. Big deal, we knew that 20 years ago.

Posted by: Lucius | March 28, 2009 8:49 PM

Do you regard your remarks about the Pope as reasoned discourse? By and large what you did was utter personal attacks. The Pope was not wrong about condoms. He was backed up by a group at Harvard university. Uganda which has not followed the "condom cure" for AIDS has lower rates than the African counties following the "condom cure." Of course these rants against the Pope have little to do with the reality as much as they have to do with the fact that the Pope does not follow an agenda of political correctness.

I think the Archbishop is reacting against the "Holocaust industry" which uses the Holocaust to pursue other agendas and that really trivializes that genocide. Yes, millions of other people were killed including gypsies because Hitler was basically following a eugenic program similar to the likes of Margaret Sanger and her Birth Control Movement now Planned Parenthood. However the Archbishop is wrong in not acknowledging that no matter what the other numbers were, the Jews were the prime target for extinction. For them Hitler/Nazis had special rant and hatred.

Posted by: Ken Cope | March 28, 2009 8:55 PM

Everything in the Bible is not to be taken literally.

What makes you think any of it should be taken any other way? Is any of the story better if it's actually really for real true? Are any of the parables attributed to that socialist hippie character (the one who got religion, becoming what god morphed into after being the whiney-ass genocidal punk of the Hebrew scriptures, and got his ass nailed to a cross anyway) better if they really happened?

I like Tolkien's Lord of the Rings, but our personal taste in fairy tales doesn't trump anybody else's. If I have faith in the certainty that Frodo Lives, I don't look any less stupid than you and your pathetic dead and resurrected zombie hippie who will come back to judge the dead, I bet.

Posted by: Ken Cope | March 28, 2009 9:11 PM

Hitler was basically following a eugenic program similar to the likes of Margaret Sanger and her Birth Control Movement now Planned Parenthood.

According to Lucius, the misogynist Godwin's Law contestant, personal reproductive autonomy = eugenics.

I'm sorry, that's not how we play Catch It and You Keep It here on pharyngula. The next round you'll get to play is Beat the Reaper!

Posted by: Last Hussar | March 28, 2009 9:14 PM

Everything in the Bible is not to be taken literally

OK. I choose not to take the bits about sexual conduct 'not literally'. And the bit about Worshiping God- that's just a metaphore for being nice to your fellow human, and not denying him rights due to them being Gay.

Posted by: Wowbagger, OM | March 28, 2009 9:28 PM

If you belief is that god created the universe and everything in it you are then stuck with him being responsible for all the nasty, ugly shit as well. Just because you love him for making rainbows and puppies and sunsets you can share with your sweetheart doesn't mean you can ignore the fact that, if he did, he also created AIDS, necrotizing fasciitis and Céline Dion.

Posted by: Tim | March 28, 2009 9:48 PM

OK. I choose not to take the bits about sexual conduct 'not literally'. And the bit about Worshiping God- that's just a metaphore for being nice to your fellow human, and not denying him rights due to them being Gay.

It's not for you or me to interpret Sacred Scripture. It's for the Magisterial teaching Authority of the Church, through Apostolic Succession, who declared it inspired, and included it in the Canon in the first place.

Posted by: Gutenberg | March 28, 2009 10:06 PM

Damn! I am brasilian and,man, I get really ashamed when I hear this kind of thing. A few weeks ago, an archbishop excomungated half a dozen physicians who made an abortion on a 9-year old girl who had been raped by her father. I wish I hadn't returned from Canada...

Posted by: dean | March 28, 2009 10:15 PM

"Many writings were not included and were not deemed to be inspired"

No, many writings were not included because they didn't meet the political + personal desires of the men who decided to put things together. (I'm assuming that you meant "inspired" to be a reference to holy inspiration rather than "appropriate for continuing the authoritative structure": correct me if I'm wrong)

Posted by: Jadehawk, OM | March 28, 2009 10:27 PM

The Church, inspired by the Holy Spirit, in all Truth, as promised, by Jesus Christ Himself, is responsible for the proper interpretation of Sacred Scripture.

Posted by: John Morales | March 28, 2009 10:58 PM

Ginger, hey troll!

You're in shitty form, this evening.

Posted by: Last Hussar | March 28, 2009 10:59 PM

And if you are wrong, how do you propose for us to let you know?

Posted by: Tim | March 28, 2009 11:01 PM

So, which is correct: Protestant or Catholic? You'll say Catholic, I presume - but can you say why?

Yes, I can say why; because the reformers left the Church 1500 years after Jesus instituted it. The Church is One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic. Always was and always will be.

Posted by: Invigilator | March 28, 2009 11:01 PM

Why, Ginger, now that is a real loving Christian suggestion, but do you suppose it would be OK if I shot myself instead? Much more convenient for me at the moment.

Posted by: Tim | March 28, 2009 11:06 PM

This is exclusively a Roman Catholic Church view, and antithetical (for example) to those who claim to be True Christians™ (cf. Sola scriptura)

That's correct. Sola Scriptura is un-scriptural. It's not supported by Scripture itself.

Posted by: 'Tis Himself, OM | March 28, 2009 11:09 PM

Ginger, do us all a big favor. Eat shit and bark at the moon.

Posted by: Tim | March 28, 2009 11:16 PM

but the Catholic Church has also had numerous and horrible disputes over scripture

Such as?

Posted by: Tim | March 28, 2009 11:21 PM

No, that's not the way it happens. Job asks God about evil and what's the response?

Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth? Tell Me, if you have understanding. Who set its measurements? Since you know. Or who stretched the line on it? On what were its bases sunk? Or who laid its cornerstone, When the morning stars sang together And all the sons of God shouted for joy? (Job 38:4-7 ASV) [And in the same vein for the rest of the chapter.]

Like I said, God proclaims the Truth, end of story. Which part are you having trouble with? I wasn't asking you to believe anything, I was just trying to answer your question.

Posted by: Ken Cope | March 28, 2009 11:31 PM

Like I said, God proclaims the Truth, end of story. Which part are you having trouble with? I wasn't asking you to believe anything, I was just trying to answer your question.

You can do whatever blows your skirt up, Tim. I just have to laugh when morons like you think that your suspension of disbelief should be the standard for sane people over here in the real world. You'll find that most of us here have more familiarity with, and authority regarding, fairy tales and their tropes, than you can hope to attain. You've already told us that it's more important to you to believe you are right than to be right about what it is that you believe, so we already know that you can't be bothered to make claims that correspond with reality.

Posted by: John Morales | March 28, 2009 11:40 PM

Tim,

I don't know much about Atheists, do you believe in any kind of after life?

Me, I don't subscribe to dualism. The life is the life of the body, which generates a mind. When the body dies, the mind dies.

Perhaps technology can, in some future time, provide an alternate substrate for the continuance of the mind beyond its current body, but for now, no.
No such thing as an afterlife - it's but a wishful concept.

Posted by: Tim | March 28, 2009 11:41 PM

You've already told us that it's more important to you to believe you are right than to be right about what it is that you believe, so we already know that you can't be bothered to make claims that correspond with reality.

I'd say that they're pretty much equally important.
You gotta love reality.

Posted by: Ken Cope | March 28, 2009 11:47 PM

I don't know much about Atheists, do you believe in any kind of after life?

I'm just a small "a" atheist. There is no such thing as Atheism. We atheists live without theism, and we don't miss it; the luckier ones never had to abandon theism for apostasy.

An after life is what most of us sane people call "being dead" or "no longer living." I expect I'll be dead for almost exactly as long as the period of time when I wasn't alive before I was born, for various values of infinity.

It's one of the reasons that, when I contrast this corner of existence with how much of the universe doesn't appear to be aware of itself, I consider that I am an arrangement of matter, born in the death of stars, that is a pattern that can reflect, for an infinitesimal fraction of cosmic time, on how much bigger the universe is than a load of fairy tales you'd have to be daft to take as reflecting reality accurately. Life, therefore, to an atheist, is far more precious than it could be to any theist who thinks it's all just pretend until we go to heaven or hell.

Posted by: Last Hussar | March 28, 2009 11:50 PM

Tim, perhaps you should look at what you think and examine it from a neutral point of view.

Jesus didn't institute a church. His purpose was to 'save' the Jewish faith. Christianity is a post Christ construct.

Jesus actual aim is confused and confusing- he both said some Jewish law could be disregarded, while also saying he was not changing Jewish law, which would 'out last the Kingdom of Heaven'.

Catholic practises commit some of the crimes that Jesus was to stamp out- Idolatry is big in Catholicism- all those Saints days are treading a very fine line. Most Christian sects Idolise to some extent- the Cross worship being the most widespread.

Given the wealth of major Christian organisations- spent in adornment of property- one can only imagine what the Biblical Jesus would say to the current Pope.

While the Bible has Jesus pronouncing a man’s faith isn't judged by what a man puts in his mouth, thus the justification for Christians not keeping Kosher, he didn't make pronouncements on a wide range of things, yet these have been dropped.

Part of the reason for the split by Protestants is that they believed the Church was not following Biblical teachings- its not whether they were 1500 years later, its that the Catholic church was corrupt. Though the choice of Pope is supposedly guided by God, the Borgias managed to get quite a dynasty going. Some of those Protestants believed themselves to be guided by God themselves into opposing the Pope.

And of course the biggest problem –“ It's not for you or me to interpret Sacred Scripture. It's for the Magisterial teaching Authority of the Church, through Apostolic Succession, who declared it inspired, and included it in the Canon in the first place.”
The trouble is they keep getting it wrong. Tim said that not all the bible should be taken literally- What would have happened if you said this 600 years ago? Over the years the Church has changed its view of the Bible in response to science- Evolution, Geocentricity etc- to a point where you can utter this inanity, and not see the lunacy of your position. The change in doctrine was not Magesterial led, it was following the truth. And you don’t question why the Vatican keeps being wrong. Instead you give it a carte blanche- “Truth is whatever the Pope says- you’re opinion doesn’t count".

Most Christian sects Idolise to some extent- the Cross worship being the most widespread. However given the wealth of major Christian organisations- spent in adornment of property- one can only imagine what the Biblical Jesus would say to the current Pope.

While the Bible has Jesus pronouncing a mans faith isn't judged by what a man puts in his mouth, thus the justification for Christians not keeping Kosher, he didn't make pronouncements on a wide range of things, yet these have been dropped.

Posted by: Rick T | March 29, 2009 12:14 AM

Why does anyone talk as if Jesus was ever a real person?
He was a spiritual entity championed by Paul, who was very gnostic in his writings, so much so, that he was the favorite of various gnostic sects until they were killed of a few hundred years later when Christianity came to resemble the orthodoxy that we recognize today. The scriptures were compiled in the 4th century and beyond. Paul's writings were purged of most gnostic flavor (although much remains if one looks), redacted and even added to in his name (the Pastoral Epistles). His writings then became a major part of the Canon. Read the highly respected Elain Pagels on this subject.

A spiritual being was transformed into a "real historical figure" by this several hundred year process. To accept it as truth and not bother to try to understand how Christianity developed is giving it a crediblility that is not warranted.
I suppose it is proper to use scripture to defeat scripture and dogma even if one doesn't believe it but to concede the fact of a literal Jesus when this is doubtful is unwise.

Posted by: Jadehawk, OM | March 29, 2009 12:54 AM

wowbagger, tim actually sounds like the "inept at life and scared of it, so crawled into the most mindnumbing church he could find" type of convert.

Posted by: gma | March 29, 2009 1:23 AM

Tim,

Before wasting more of your and our time, you should take a little time off to write all of us concisely with clear scientific peer-reviewed evidence that proves without the shadow of a doubt that:

(1) there is a god,
(2) he, she or it is the christian god,
(3) he, she, or it created the universe, listens to prayers and forgives sin,
(4) he, she, or it defines morality for all mankind.

I have more questions in mind, but this would be a good start.

Posted by: Kseniya | March 29, 2009 3:15 AM

Ginger! So full of love for all of humanity!

Posted by: Azkyroth | March 29, 2009 4:48 AM

Yes, I can say why; because the reformers left the Church 1500 years after Jesus instituted it. The Church is One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic. Always was and always will be.

How do you know?

Posted by: clinteas | March 29, 2009 6:08 AM

Ginger the hating religious fundie hated:

You can all go drown yourselves, then when you die and reach HELL you will all have the proof you need. Now, don't you complain that I didn't warn you Ok ?

Is anyone keeping these classics for future generations to see what religion did to the human mind,what it was all about? We really should.

Hussar @ 320,

one can only imagine what the Biblical Jesus would say to the current Pope.

Well,we can imagine speculate fantasize what the fictitious biblical jesus would say to the Pope,true,its an interesting variation of the no true scotsman fallacy,but nothing more.

Posted by: Last Hussar | March 29, 2009 8:09 AM

There is no correct use of condoms

What you mean is the Catholic Church is an idiotic organisation that is still rooted to a medieval philosophy that makes no sense in the 21st century. You mean that a married couple should not have sex ever if they can not cope with any more children.

Let's face it Timbo- the Vatican has been wrong on plenty of time before. When they going to update their dark age thinking.

Oh- Condoms are the cheapest, most reliable, least harmful way form of birth control on the planet. Yes, not shagging is effective, but 'abstience only' programmes are a failure, so abstience doesn't work, because the people involved can not keep it up (well they can, but in a different way). Remember that 'Abstience Only' requires TWO failures to happen, so the actual number of people failing is DOUBLE the number of pregnacies.

Posted by: Nerd of Redhead, OM | March 29, 2009 8:20 AM

Tim, nice, but meaningless testament. Your god doesn't exist. Makes everything else fall apart.

Posted by: AdamK | March 29, 2009 9:03 AM

Per Tim, Job isn't to be taken literally, but the "Jesus" character rambling on about rocks is dead-on fact.

Tim is way over there ---->
Reality is thataway

Posted by: Gruesome Rob | March 29, 2009 9:42 AM

There is no explanation for the "holy" part unless we redefine "holy" as in "ass holy" :)

Sure there is, you foolish heretic. The proof has been evident every time he speaks.

Who else has in their description the answer to "What's between their earsy?"

Posted by: Last Hussar | March 29, 2009 10:39 AM

Jesus didn’t say Church- the word would have been unknown to him [Middle English chirche, from Old English cirice, ultimately from Medieval Greek k rikon, from Late Greek k riakon (d ma), the Lord's (house), neuter of Greek k riakos, of the lord, from k rios, lord; see keu - in Indo-European roots.]. Did he actually mean he wanted a mega-rich politically powerful organisation that spent much of the last 1000 years dictating who should be heads of state? Maybe he meant his Temple- a single building? Thats thetrouble with oral tradition that isn't written down until any thing up to 300 years later, and translated through Greek and Latin.

Any chance of explaining how the Church is the final arbiter of the truth. You haven’t replied to how 500 years ago ALL the bible was LITERALLY true, yet now not all of it is, and only Papa can say which is true and which is fiction

Posted by: raven | March 29, 2009 11:30 AM

Tim, aside from HIV what is your opinion of birth control in general, especially in terms our current world overpopulation?

That is the single most useless and destructive of RCC doctrines.

There is no scriptural basis for it, some pope just made it up and not all that long ago. It is also almost completely ignored by all catholic laity who figured out long ago that a celibate male stuck in the 16 century tossing out arbitrary rules isn't a great source of advice on how to plan your family and why in the 21st century.

In a world with 6.7 billion people and full of unwanted and poorly cared for kids even in the USA, this is just anti-human.

The other ones which are very weird involve marriage outside the religion and divorce. The pope never excommunicated the catholic nazis, of which there were many including Hitler except one. Joseph Goebbels, minister of propaganda, was excommunicated. Not for attempting to take over the world or killing 6 million jews. He was excommunicated for marrying a divorced protestant.

The message is clear. Marrying a divorced protestant is far worse than industrialized murder of millions of innocents. This is that god inspired sophisticated theology that is beyond the comprehension of mere humans.

I doubt that catholics in the US pay any more attention to that these days than birth control. Most catholics I know are married to protestants or other nonRCC.

Posted by: raven | March 29, 2009 11:40 AM

Regulars - this "Tim" construct - aka "Ginger"? - what is it?

That Ginger freak might have been Gingi Edmunds, the one who celebrates when her god kills uninvolved innocents to punish someone she doesn't like. Same name and very similar personality. Nice that she took time out from her busy schedule of praying for god to kill who knows how many people for no particular reason to spread some toxic trash here.

She and her mother, Saxon have got a mini Fred Phelps Wendover Baptist class cult going. With very sophisticated theology.

(Hate, hate, hate, more hate, huge amounts of hate)repeat infinite times More sophisticated theology and an example of why xian morality is a self contradicting phrase.

Posted by: Tim | March 29, 2009 11:50 AM

While the Bible has Jesus pronouncing a man’s faith isn't judged by what a man puts in his mouth, thus the justification for Christians not keeping Kosher, he didn't make pronouncements on a wide range of things, yet these have been dropped.

He's talking about purity of heart.

Posted by: 'Tis Himself, OM | March 29, 2009 12:03 PM

SB ate my left-pointing arrow.

You can borrow some of mine: < < < < <

Posted by: AnthonyK | March 29, 2009 12:11 PM

No Catholic worships a crucifix, statue, or any other Sacramental.

Posted by: Tim | March 29, 2009 12:14 PM

Sorry, I don't think you've answered that clearly - did you convert to Catholicism after being convinced, intellectually, of its merits over other religions and sects of Christianity?

Yes, but not only through much study, through the witness of how God changed me when I let Him. How the Sacraments were beneficial and life changing. Lives of the Saints, Early Church Fathers, Scripture, etc....The fruits of conversion are a convincing proof in my view. I trust in the one who a came to know.

Posted by: Tim | March 29, 2009 12:32 PM

Or does your use of the term "worship" preclude praying to pictures and symbols, prostrating oneself in front of them, and constantly invoking them in prayers,

I've already told you that no Catholic worships a picture or a statue or any other Sacramental. If I pray before a picture of a Saint and ask for his or her intercession, I'm not asking the picture. If I pray before a statue of a Saint and ask for his or her intercession, I'm not asking the statue. I'm not worshiping a piece of stone or an image, I'm asking for someone to pray for me, to intercede on my behalf. The statue just gives me a visual image to aid in my prayer. It's also a reminder. Very simple.

Posted by: Nerd of Redhead, OM | March 29, 2009 12:48 PM

Yawn, Tim, you are a bore. We don't give a shit about cat-o-lick teachings or your godbotting.

Posted by: 'Tis Himself, OM | March 29, 2009 12:56 PM

The Church is a visible presence through the ages, through history, as more things are discovered and realized, the Church so too grows in knowledge and understanding. The Church is not a body that has always had all knowledge at all times.

In other words, they make it up as they go along.

Case in point: In 1343 Pope Clement VI decided that indulgences were a saleable item. Indulgences originally granted a release from all or part of the good works required of a sinner to satisfy a penance imposed by a confessor. Over the years, indulgences came to include complete or partial remission of punishment in purgatory and even a release from the guilt of the sin itself. By the early 1500s the grace once granted in return for pious donations for church repairs, hospitals, ransom of captives from the Turks, and other good works had grown into a vast traffic of which a third of the receipts customarily went to Rome and the rest was split between the local parish, the bishop, and various agents and pardoners who held concessions for sale of indulgences.

Indulgences had become a machine for making money. They had become so commonplace and so abused that they were given as part of dowries and even used as gambling stakes. The whole thing came to a head in 1517 when Pope Leo X authorized a special sale of indulgences in Germany. Offering "complete absolution and remission of sin", Leo's indulgences involved a financial arrangement of massive complexity. This involved payments to Albrecht von Brandenburg, who had bought (!) the archbishoprics of Mainz and Magdeburg and the bishopric of Halberstadt for an estimated 30,000 ducats. Representing simony, plural benefices, and an unqualified candidate (Albrecht was 24 and had been ordained a priest just two years earlier), this transaction was arranged while the Lateran Council was engaged in outlawing the same practices. Unable to raise the money, Albrecht had borrowed from the Fugger Bank, which loans he would be able to repay from the sale of indulgences.

The infamous Fr. Johann Tetzel, a Dominican monk, was the official "pardoner." Displaying the Bull of Indulgence, Tetzel would announce "I have here the passports to lead the soul to the celestial joys of paradise." For a mortal sin, seven years of punishment in purgatory was due. "Who then would hesitate for a quarter-florin to secure remission of punishment? ... The Holy Father has the power in Heaven and earth to forgive the sin and if he forgave it, God must do so also."*

In partial response to Tetzel, Martin Luther nailed his 95 Theses to the church door in Wittenburg. In 1567, Pope Pius V cancelled all grants of indulgences involving any fees or other financial transactions.

*Barbara Tuchman. The March of Folly. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1984. Pages 114-115.

Posted by: 'Tis Himself, OM | March 29, 2009 1:29 PM

Pope Leo X paid for much of St. Peter's in Rome through the sale of indulgences. Most of the rest of the money came from sale of church offices. The price of a bishopric was from 5,000 to 10,000 ducats, depending on the estimated value of the diocese and how far in debt Leo was.

I strongly recommend Barbara Tuchman's The March of Folly. She looks at how certain groups and governments insituted policies contrary to their own interests. Tuchman distinguishes folly from other types of misgovernment. To her, folly is self-destructive acts carried out despite the availability of a recognized and feasible alternative. The book contains four sections:

• The Trojans take the wooden horse within their walls
• The Renaissance Popes provoke the Protestant secession
• The British lose America
• America betrays herself in Vietnam

Posted by: Alex Deam | March 29, 2009 1:52 PM

Apologies if this has been covered before, but I've only got down to post #312 so far.

Tim said:

Everything in the Bible is not to be taken literally.

then said:

Tim, if it isn't all meant to be taken literally, can you explain to us which parts are and which parts aren't? By what method did you determine this?

The Church is the custodian of the Bible, the Bible is not the custodian of the Church. One of the main reasons for the division in the protestant Church is interpretation of Scripture. It's also one of the reasons for the breaking away of protestants from the Catholic Church. Scripture is not up for individual interpretation. Scriptural interpretation is reserved for for the Church that decided what books of Scripture would be included in the Canon in the first place. Many writings were not included and were not deemed to be inspired. This is the part you're really going to love; The Church, inspired by the Holy Spirit, in all Truth, as promised, by Jesus Christ Himself, is responsible for the proper interpretation of Sacred Scripture. Not me.

This is a nice bit of circular reasoning. Tim doesn't believe that the Bible should be taken literally. So to decide which parts of the Bible are God's "Truth", he appeals to the authority of the Catholic Church, who he claims are inspired by the Holy Spirit to choose the correct passages. But Tim, how do you know the Church is inspired by the Holy Spirit? In fact how do you even know the Holy Spirit exists? Your basis for the Holy Spirit existing seems to be either from the Bible, or from the Catholic Church (unless I'm missing something), and that creates a circular argument.

Either you believe in the Holy Spirit because the Bible says it exists, then:

1. "Everything in the Bible is not to be taken literally."
2. You know which parts to take literally from the teachings of the Church.
3. The Church's teachings are correct because they are inspired by the Holy Spirit.
4. You know the Holy Spirit exists because the Bible says so.
5. See step 1.

Or you believe in the Holy Spirit because the Church says it exists, in which case:

1. The Church's teachings are correct because they are inspired by the Holy Spirit.
2. You know the Holy Spirit exists because the Church says so.
3. See step 1.

I hope you can see the circular reasoning there.

Let's face it, your "Truth" comes down to a whole lot of hand waving when you really look at it, doesn't it?

Posted by: AdamK | March 29, 2009 2:00 PM

(Thanks, 'Tis!)

Posted by: MAJeff, OM | March 29, 2009 2:44 PM

The entire Bible is God's Truth, inspired by the Holy Spirit. The Church was given Authority by Jesus Christ.
I have no need to decide which parts are God's Truth.

blah blah blah blah blah

Posted by: Tim | March 29, 2009 2:54 PM

Tim admits that some popes were evil men - can he be certain that the former Hitler Youth member Josef Ratzinger is not one of them? And if an all-powerful, all-knowing, all-merciful deity is looking over the Catholic Church, why has it allowed so many mosters to occupy the papal throne?

No, I can't be certain any more than I can be certain of the state of anyone's soul. And I don't need to be certain as to the state of another's soul. Jesus Christ promised, not the Pope, that the Holy Spirit would guide the Church. He didn't promise that men would become sinless, even within the Church. In fact he clearly stated that the Church would be attacked from within. A person's sin, even a person in the hierarchy of the Church, doesn't re-define what the Church is, and Who guides it.

Posted by: Kseniya | March 29, 2009 3:02 PM

Pierce R. Butler: Yes, I understand, but I would argue that i the context of the Third Reich, Jewish religious and "racial" identities were inseparable. Good point, though.

Posted by: AnthonyK | March 29, 2009 3:16 PM

Your problem is that your thinking is too limited.

Posted by: AdamK | March 29, 2009 3:28 PM

Tim: God is fictional, as are Jesus and the wholly ghost. Jesus couldn't have founded your church because he never existed. Neither could he have guided it. Neither could the ghost have informed it, because ghosts are imaginary. Frodo Baggins and Mary Poppins had exactly as much to do with your church as Jesus and the ghost did.

The actual, real people who formed your church were deluded and/or dishonest, much as you are. They built in a whole nonsensical systems of rules, dogma and ritual in order to maintain control of the ignorant masses, and counfounding, paradoxical rationalizations for the rest. All of it is bunk.

Moreover, it's hateful, anti-human bunk, that belittles fundamental realities of human nature and turns good things, such as sex and community, into evil guilt-trips and power games. It is fundamentally misogynistic and misanthropic. It raises nasty sociopaths like Ratzinger to positions of gilded tyranny.

You are being spiritually raped and destroyed by it. Willingly. How sick and sad.

Posted by: Pierce R. Butler | March 29, 2009 3:34 PM

Kseniya @ # 372: ... [in] the context of the Third Reich, Jewish religious and "racial" identities were inseparable.

Trying to keep their "scientific racism" straight sometimes tied the Nazis in knots:

... one famous anthropological study conducted among German schoolchildren had revealed that 11.17 percent of Jewish children possessed fair skin, blond hair, and blue eyes. ... Reputedly, the [Crimean] Krimchaks descended from Jews who fled the Spanish Inquisition, but they closely resembled their Muslim neighbors, the Tatars. They spoke a variant of Tatar, lived in Tatar-style houses, married into Tatar families, and followed many Muslim customs. Their women, for example, wore veils in public. The second group, the Karaites, equally confounded the SS. They were a Turkish people who spoke a Turkish language, but they practiced Judaism devoutly. ... This conundrum seems to have sparked great anxiety in the SS headquarters in Berlin. ... Himmler intended to wipe out every last Jew in the German-occupied territories of the Soviet Union. He solicited the opinions of various self-proclaimed SS authorities on Judaism, for their views on the Krimchaks and Karaites. He then resolved to eradicate those belonging to the fictive Jewish race in the Crimea, and turn a blind eye to those who followed the Jewish faith. He ordered [Einsatzgruppen leader Otto] Ohlendorf and his men to liquidate the Krimchaks, who followed all manner of Muslim customs, and to spare the Karaites, who were devout Jews. ... As the murder squads moved eastward into the Caucasus - a borderland between East and West, Europe and Asia - the lines between ethnic groups and tribes became more and more blurred. SS troops stumbled upon villages of the Christian Ossetes, who physically resembled their Jewish neighbors, lived in villages with Jewish names, married their sons and daughters off in Jewish-style marriage ceremonies, and buried their dead in Jewish-style funerals. And they met Mountain Jews who rode their horses superbly, bred fine cattle, and seldom stirred anywhere without strapping on their daggers and guns - all qualities greatly admired by SS men.”

Heather Pringle, The Master Plan: Himmler’s Scholars and the Holocaust, pp 240-241

Posted by: Mary Poppins | March 29, 2009 3:40 PM

Frodo Baggins and Mary Poppins had exactly as much to do with your church as Jesus and the ghost did.

Posted by: Azkyroth | March 29, 2009 3:55 PM

No Catholic worships a crucifix, statue, or any other Sacramental. They are there to remind us of in a visual way (by use of the senses)of aspects of our faith and heritage. The same principal as having pictures of your family in your wallet or displayed in your home.

This is almost a reasonable answer (for once), but I'm curious as to how it accounts for the fact that prayers are, as I understand it, addressed on occasion specifically to one of these saints.

Posted by: AnthonyK | March 29, 2009 4:11 PM

So Tim thinks that the entire Bible is true.

Posted by: AnthonyK | March 29, 2009 4:17 PM

Time admits

Posted by: Matt Heath | March 29, 2009 4:20 PM

The entire Bible is God's Truth, inspired by the Holy Spirit. The Church was given Authority by Jesus Christ. I have no need to decide which parts are God's Truth.

A modest proposal: thenceforth whenever anyone else refers to Tim's purported "Truth" they spell it "Troof".

Posted by: Kingasaurus | March 29, 2009 4:23 PM

"This is almost a reasonable answer (for once), but I'm curious as to how it accounts for the fact that prayers are, as I understand it, addressed on occasion specifically to one of these saints."

Azkyroth, see #359.

Catholics aren't supposed to "pray to" a saint. They are supposed to ask the saint to pray to God to intercede on the supplicant's behalf. It's sort of like asking a close friend to pray for you, although in these cases you're asking a dead person to intercede for you instead of a living person.

Whether Joe average Catholic understands the distinction - or prays in a manner the church thinks is correct - is another matter.

Posted by: Tom | March 29, 2009 5:03 PM

And after all that - the problem is that asking Tim for proof of a God may make religion seem absurd. But asking a humanist for a peer reviewed proof of why Happiness rather than Spirituality or even Racial Purity is the grounding axiom for humanist morality would produce equally absurd results. The problem is that there isnt much neutral territory between a global moral code and no global moral code. I have no truck with the ideas of Heidegger and Nietzche but at least these philosophers were clear about what their death of God meant - it meant the death of any meaningful morality and therefore the potential equivalence of man-made ideals like happiness and racial purity.

Another way to look at it is that the very moral Prof Dawkins who spends a lot of time discussing the rights and wrongs of faith schools etc etc may be a little bit closer to believing in God than he realises!

Posted by: Tim | March 29, 2009 5:08 PM

It damn well looks like idolitory to the rest of us. What is is with the Virgin Mary worship anyway? Praying to Saints and Mary is asking for a third power outside of God for help.

Catholics don't worship Mary, we honor her and venerate her, we ask her for her intercession, just like we'd ask anyone else to pray for us. She's not worshiped or considered to be Divine.

Posted by: Alex Deam | March 29, 2009 5:16 PM

Another way to look at it is that the very moral Prof Dawkins who spends a lot of time discussing the rights and wrongs of faith schools etc etc may be a little bit closer to believing in God than he realises!

Yes Richard Dawkins is actually a closet Seventh-day Adventist. Seriously, what the fuck are you talking about here?

And to claim that we need God to have a morality would require ignoring 90% of philosophy from the last 4 centuries.

Posted by: AnthonyK | March 29, 2009 5:16 PM

I have no truck with the ideas of Heidegger and Nietzche but at least these philosophers were clear about what their death of God meant - it meant the death of any meaningful morality and therefore the potential equivalence of man-made ideals like happiness and racial purity.

Occasionally we get a christard on here quoting
Neetcher as if to say - this guy was an atheist but look how absurd he was! I don't buy any of it.
And what's necessarily man-made about happiness? I can tell you the difference between a happy and unhappy dog - what's your point here?

And please don't quote Neetcher back to me, to prove this, or any other point.

And yes, I know. It's my solution to a common problem.

Posted by: AnthonyK | March 29, 2009 5:24 PM

She's not worshiped or considered to be Divine.

Posted by: Alex Deam | March 29, 2009 5:32 PM

Tim, earlier you said:

Everything in the Bible is not to be taken literally.

You now say:

The entire Bible is God's Truth, inspired by the Holy Spirit. The Church was given Authority by Jesus Christ. I have no need to decide which parts are God's Truth.

Has coming to Pharyngula turned you into a Biblical inerrantist? Seriously, how do you reconcile those two statements?

Furthermore, according to you, both the Catholic Church and the Bible are inspired by the Holy Spirit. I ask you again: how do you know the Church and the Bible are inspired by the Holy Spirit? In fact, how do you even know the Holy Spirit exists without appealing to the Church or the Bible?

Posted by: Nanu Nanu | March 29, 2009 5:36 PM

"how do you reconcile those two statements"

contradictory statements held to be both true simultaneously... holy fuck Tim IS the bible! No wonder he has no need to interpret it!

Posted by: Tim | March 29, 2009 5:42 PM

Indulgences had become a machine for making money. They had become so commonplace and so abused that they were given as part of dowries and even used as gambling stakes. The whole thing came to a head in 1517 when Pope Leo X authorized a special sale of indulgences in Germany. Offering "complete absolution and remission of sin", Leo's indulgences involved a financial arrangement of massive complexity. This involved payments to Albrecht von Brandenburg, who had bought (!) the archbishoprics of Mainz and Magdeburg and the bishopric of Halberstadt for an estimated 30,000 ducats. Representing simony, plural benefices, and an unqualified candidate (Albrecht was 24 and had been ordained a priest just two years earlier), this transaction was arranged while the Lateran Council was engaged in outlawing the same practices. Unable to raise the money, Albrecht had borrowed from the Fugger Bank, which loans he would be able to repay from the sale of indulgences.

The infamous Fr. Johann Tetzel, a Dominican monk, was the official "pardoner." Displaying the Bull of Indulgence, Tetzel would announce "I have here the passports to lead the soul to the celestial joys of paradise." For a mortal sin, seven years of punishment in purgatory was due. "Who then would hesitate for a quarter-florin to secure remission of punishment? ... The Holy Father has the power in Heaven and earth to forgive the sin and if he forgave it, God must do so also."*

In partial response to Tetzel, Martin Luther nailed his 95 Theses to the church door in Wittenburg. In 1567, Pope Pius V cancelled all grants of indulgences involving any fees or other financial transactions.

*Barbara Tuchman. The March of Folly. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1984. Pages 114-115.

Evidence that members of the Church abuse their autority, cheat, lie, steal, commit all sorts of immoral acts...Who's denying that? Not me. There have also been members of the Church body who have followed the Doctrines of the Faith, lived their lives accordingly, done great things for mankind. Great minds, great humility, great love. The Church is indeed infiltrated by evil. I don't and wouldn't want to deny that, because it's the truth.

Posted by: Nerd of Redhead, OM | March 29, 2009 5:46 PM

I don't and wouldn't want to deny that, because it's the truth.

Posted by: dean | March 29, 2009 5:51 PM

"Why is that so hard to comprehend? "

I believe the implication was that the argument of intercessory prayer made for those who are seen to be praying to a saint is a convenient cover for them, but may not be true.

Posted by: AdamK | March 29, 2009 6:02 PM

Mumbling to your Special Invisible Friend is NOT AT ALL the same thing as mumbling to your regular ordinary invisible friends! Why is that so hard to comprehend??!!??

Posted by: Ichthyic | March 29, 2009 6:05 PM

Jesus Christ promised, not the Pope, that the Holy Spirit would guide the Church.

which church?

don't recall any specific names being mentioned.

maybe the "holy spirit" is busy guiding some small dozen strong congregation somewhere in the South Mediterranean?

what makes you conclude, if you really believe any of this nonsense to begin with, that it is YOUR church Jesus spoke of?

what evidence do you have that your church (or ANY) is under any "divine" guidance whatsoever?

Posted by: Mrs Tilton | March 29, 2009 6:06 PM

NoR,OM @405,

Show us the physical evidence to back up your insane assertion

Actually, Altar-Boy Tim's assertion would be full of Fail even if there were evidence for it.

Posted by: 'Tis Himself, OM | March 29, 2009 6:09 PM

Tim #403

Because Mohammad isn't God, Jesus Christ is.

Mohammad never claimed to be divine. He claimed he was a prophet and so was Jesus. Now that we've cleared that up, explain again why the Bible is inspired and the Koran isn't. For that matter, why aren't the Elder Edda, the Vedas and the Upanishads, and the Vinaya Pitaka and the first four Nikayas of the Sutta Pitaka inspired?

Posted by: AdamK | March 29, 2009 6:12 PM

Christ came into the world and turned Tim's brain into magic porridge. It's all so simple now, nice and fuzzy. Who needs details?

Posted by: Stephen Wells | March 29, 2009 6:16 PM

By being fixated on details like the ancestry of Helen and the historicity of Achilles, you miss the point of the Homeric narratives. The gods came into the world, that's the point.

Remember, poetry is dictated by the Muse Calliope under the guidance of Apollo himself, so the Iliad and Oddysey are completely reliable.

Posted by: Wowbagger, OM | March 29, 2009 6:18 PM

So Tim thinks that the entire Bible is true. Does this include the bits that contradict each other?

Ah, but you've forgotten there's a difference between truth and Truth - at least in Tim's mind. Kind of convenient, really, since it means that, no matter how incompatible the details are, as long as there's something in common you can argue that they share a common 'Truth'.

"This piece of paper has the name 'Jesus' written on it - it must be 'Truth'"

"But it says here on this document got tired of the whole scam and changed his name, got back into the carpentry business and went off to nail Mary Magdalene and raise few kids."

"That doesn't matter! It says Jesus, so what they must have really meant is that 'changed his name' means 'be one with God', 'nailing Mary Magdalene' means 'screwing the unbelievers', 'furniture' means 'faith' and 'raise a few kids' means 'founding the Church'."

"Oh, okay"

Posted by: Ichthyic | March 29, 2009 6:22 PM

Christ came into the world and turned Tim's brain into magic porridge. It's all so simple now, nice and fuzzy. Who needs details?

not I.

not I.

Posted by: Tom | March 29, 2009 6:26 PM

No. 417 - see posts 20, 35, 52 above for examples.

No. 423 - aside from being somewhat unkind, this remark is far from being a peer-reviewed solution to the humanist moral dilemma as discussed in above posts.

Since am not hopeful of a breakthrough on this issue this evening and it's getting late - i wish you good-night!

Posted by: AdamK | March 29, 2009 6:39 PM

Oh dear!
Apparently I was unkind to Tom.
Oh dear me.
What a terrible moral dilemma that places me in.

Posted by: Nerd of Redhead, OM | March 29, 2009 6:54 PM

Oh dear! Apparently I was unkind to Tom. Oh dear me. What a terrible moral dilemma that places me in.

Posted by: Invisible Pink Unicorn | March 29, 2009 7:21 PM

Her Holy Onehorned Unseeable Pinkishness!

Posted by: Last Hussar | March 29, 2009 8:13 PM

Guys- I think you are confusing Tim with Tom again.

Because Mohammad isn't God, Jesus Christ is.

Can you actually understand the dichotomy at which I'm aiming? Imagine I was from a remote tribe. I come out of the jungle, never having heard of Jesus or Mohammed, and am confronted by a priest and an imam. Both hold a book that they state is 'Truth', and the other book is wrong. How do I pick?

Also you have not addressed the issue- if the Vatican et al is the arbiter of 'troof' (don't weasle this by say this post didn't say that, when the intention, if not the wording is clear- call it the magestarium or what you like- we all knoe we are talking about the guys at the top) why is it 'troof' changes in response to scientific knowledge- eg Genesis?

Posted by: Alex Deam | March 29, 2009 9:06 PM

By being so fixated on the details, you miss the point of the Gospel narratives. They were written by different authors. The point is that Christ came into the world, that's what you miss. Two different authors writing to different faith communities will not write the exact same account. The Truth that the Sacred Scriptures contain and teach is much greater than that. Scripture never contradicts itself because the Truth that the various authors are pointing too is the very same Truth.

But it's not the same "Truth" though, is it? The two accounts are completely contradictory. It's not the kind of thing you can just shrug off and say, "Well they got the main parts wrong". Other than "Jesus was born", most of the main ideas are completely contradictory. This is no, "Well they wrote the accounts after a number of years, they can be forgiven for not remembering the account perfectly", they disagree over large chunks that you don't just forget in time! It's the equivalent of two people coming home from a football (soccer) game, and being asked the score. The first person replies "1-0 to Arbitrary United", but the other person then says, "No it was 6-1 to Arbitrary United", and the reply to this being, "What does it matter? Either way it's the same "Truth", the same team won either way."

Posted by: Ichthyic | March 29, 2009 9:17 PM

another lob at tim:

It's not necessary to make things so much more complicated than they actually are.

but in Tim's case, it most definitely is necessary to make things MUCH simpler than they actually are.

devil's in the details, dontchyaknow.

Tim, on seeing someone being buried alive in concrete, would have no problem with it so long as you smoothed the concrete out so no details show.

Tim, how is what you're doing any different than this:

Posted by: Nerd of Redhead, OM | March 29, 2009 9:24 PM

there is a god,

Posted by: Ichthyic | March 29, 2009 9:32 PM

Well, ask them, they're your ancestors, not mine.

actually, they're not mine either, we both had a common ancestor. However, assuming you are "smoothing over details" again, let's say you deny common ancestry. The vast majority of xians don't.

are they all wrong too?

have they not managed to smooth over the details like you have?

or is this one detail that still irks you?

c'mon now, where's your consistency?

Posted by: Tim | March 29, 2009 9:35 PM

Who is our common ancestor?

Posted by: Tim | March 29, 2009 9:37 PM

actually, they're not mine either, we both had a common ancestor.

Who is our common ancestor?

Posted by: Tim | March 29, 2009 9:40 PM

Yes, Tim

How do you know that it's wrong to persecute a person? Can you give me any evidence to prove that it's wrong?

Posted by: Tim | March 29, 2009 9:45 PM

If the church didn't think it was wrong, why then, did they apologize for it?

I've already agreed that people in the Church have sinned and committed all sorts of immoral acts over the centuries.

What I'd like to know is: how do you know that what they did was wrong?

Posted by: Ichthyic | March 29, 2009 9:52 PM

how do you know that what they did was wrong?

how did THEY know that what they did was wrong?

do YOU think it's perfectly OK to burn someone at the stake because they disagree with your ideology?

hey, we disagree with a lot of what you have said here, Tim. Yet, even though you appear to think it would be just fine for us to burn you alive, none of us here are even remotely inclined to do so.

and yet, we're atheists.

go figure.

maybe your god is not required to explain how we got here, nor is it required to explain why we care about each other.

blessings don't flow from things that don't exist.

Posted by: Tim | March 29, 2009 9:55 PM

are you interested in knowing what they are, or would you just prefer to smooth over those pesky "details" again?

Yes, I'm interested to know. I'll check out the info you gave me. Before I do can you tell me if this common ancestor was a human being?

Posted by: Tim | March 29, 2009 9:58 PM

how did THEY know that what they did was wrong?

do YOU think it's perfectly OK to burn someone at the stake because they disagree with your ideology?

hey, we disagree with a lot of what you have said here, Tim. Yet, even though you appear to think it would be just fine for us to burn you alive, none of us here are even remotely inclined to do so.

and yet, we're atheists.

go figure.

maybe your god is not required to explain how we got here, nor is it required to explain why we care about each other.

blessings don't flow from things that don't exist.

That didn't really answer my question. How do YOU know that what they did was wrong?

Posted by: Alex Deam | March 29, 2009 10:03 PM

Is it just me, or has Tim evolved into Tom?

He's asking the same "But without a God, where do we get morality?" questions as Tom now.

And Tim, in answer to your questions, see post 437, which was originally intended for Tom.

Then go and Wikipedia "ethics".

Now I've answered some of your questions, oh inquisitive one, how about you answer some of mine, which I've already asked twice, namely:

How do you know the Church and the Bible are inspired by the Holy Spirit? In fact, how do you even know the Holy Spirit exists without appealing to the Church or the Bible?

Posted by: Tim | March 29, 2009 10:14 PM

And therefore, wouldn't something even more complex have to have created God?

Why would this have to be the case?

And again, assuming that your argument was correct, why should such a God be the Catholic God?

Because Catholic, by definition, means Universal.

All you've done is presented us with an argument for a deist god.

And that's all I intended to do.

So, you're saying that the universe and the world we inhabit, and you, yourself, have absolutely no design?

Houses require design, but universes don't? Sorry, but that's definitely another lame position.

Posted by: Ichthyic | March 29, 2009 10:16 PM

That didn't really answer my question.

actually, Tim, it did.

read it again.

Posted by: gma | March 29, 2009 10:20 PM

#439 Tim

Evolution tells us that complex life comes later and that everything starts from simple single cell life forms.

Cosmology/Astronomy tells us that complex compounds come later and that everything starts simple elements like Hydrogen.

There is no evidence whatsoever of anything more complex preceding the first single cell life from or simple elements in the history of the universe.

If you are postulating a god(s), how did She/He/IT (abbreviated to SHIT) get there? Postulating gods does not explain anything and is meaningless. We do not need anything supernatural to explain what we can observe.

The golden rule is embedded in us (and many other species) from our evolutionary past. Again we do not need to invoke any supernatural being to define what is morally right or wrong. Evolution (nothing else) gave us consciousness so we have the ability to reason and further evolve the golden rule into ethics rules for the betterment of society. History teaches us that religions (and the religious) have constantly opposed refinements to the moral zeitgeist.

You'll have to do better than this to win any hearts of the enlightened atheists (the 6.9+ on the scale of 1 through 7 from RIchard Dawkins).

Posted by: Tim | March 29, 2009 10:22 PM

Is it just me, or has Tim evolved into Tom?

You can just call me Timmy-Tom

Now I've answered some of your questions, oh inquisitive one, how about you answer some of mine, which I've already asked twice, namely:

How do you know the Church and the Bible are inspired by the Holy Spirit? In fact, how do you even know the Holy Spirit exists without appealing to the Church or the Bible?

I have Faith, just like you do.

Posted by: Ichthyic | March 29, 2009 10:24 PM

Because Catholic, by definition, means Universal.

so if I create a "Universal Church of Dagon", then that must mean it is the one true church, right?

are you fucking serious???

Posted by: AnthonyK | March 29, 2009 10:26 PM

Sorry, but that's definitely another lame position.

Posted by: Nerd of Redhead, OM | March 29, 2009 10:28 PM

I have Faith, just like you do.

Posted by: Ichthyic | March 29, 2009 10:29 PM

How do you know that what they did was wrong?

you have reading comprehension problems.

How did I "know" that burning you alive right now was "wrong"?

review; the answer is there.

Posted by: Nerd of Redhead, OM | March 29, 2009 10:43 PM

Isn't that what you guys require? Proof?

Posted by: Tim | March 29, 2009 10:50 PM

Evolution tells us that complex life comes later and that everything starts from simple single cell life forms.

Do you have undisputed, 100% absolute proof that this is true? Or do you, in fact, put your faith into the unproven?

Why do you believe in evolution? What driving force compels you to do so? You all have faith, that's for certain, you just put your trust in something different than I do.

Posted by: Ichthyic | March 29, 2009 10:52 PM

Isn't that what you guys require? Proof?

actually, no.

what we require is EVIDENCE.

not the same thing.

no theory in science is ever "proven". We actually try NOT to "prove", but rather to disprove. Hypotheses that, after many attempts to disprove them, still remain, tend to gain support as good explanations for whatever they pertain to. Especially if they are also able to successfully make predictions.

The theory of evolution, for example, has had literally tens of thousands of attempts to disprove various aspects of it ever since it was first proposed, and the first testable mechanisms were deduced by Darwin. It stands as one of the most well-tested theories in all of science.

You see, that's what differs between those who use reason, and those who utilize "faith". Those who use reason insist that whatever explanations are put forward be soundly tested, and then accept whatever results indicate. If the results indicate the proposed explanation was wrong, we move on to the next one and test that... and keep testing it even if it doesn't fail under any given single test. This results in explanations that are not only rigorous, but typically generate practical applications as well.

those who utilize faith, cannot employ reason without becoming circular, and can never produce explanations that are rigorous OR practical in any way, shape, or form.

the explanations religions use to explain the world are in essence no different, nor can they be, from what was first proposed in the books they base their religion on.

all you get to do is play the sophist. Which, other than being employable as a theologian or priest, has no practical relevance whatsoever.

Posted by: Nerd of Redhead, OM | March 29, 2009 10:56 PM

Why do you believe in evolution?

What driving force compels you to do so?

You all have faith, that's for certain

Posted by: Rilke's Granddaughter | March 29, 2009 10:58 PM

Tim, you're clearly neither a scientist nor someone with any education in the sciences.

Do you have undisputed, 100% absolute proof that this is true?

Or do you, in fact, put your faith into the unproven?

Why do you believe in evolution?

What driving force compels you to do so?

You all have faith, that's for certain, you just put your trust in something different than I do.

Loser.

Posted by: Tim | March 29, 2009 11:05 PM

The golden rule is embedded in us (and many other species) from our evolutionary past.

How did the Golden Rule get embedded in you from your evolutionary past? Do you have proof of this, or do you just believe it as an act of faith? And if so, how is it that you have faith or even know that you have faith? If there is no Moral law, than how do you determine what is moral and what is immoral? What is the origin of your belief? A couple of cells?

Posted by: Tim | March 29, 2009 11:10 PM

Just what in the universe has to be designed?

I don't know, how about a toohbrush?
So, let's see, toothbrush requires design, universe does not.
And you guys are supposed to have common sense?

Posted by: Kel | March 29, 2009 11:16 PM

How did the Golden Rule get embedded in you from your evolutionary past? Do you have proof of this, or do you just believe it as an act of faith?

Posted by: Josh | March 29, 2009 11:25 PM

Do you have undisputed, 100% absolute proof that this is true?

Oh for fuck's sake. We DON'T PROVE THINGS IN SCIENCE. Do try to keep up.

Tim, do you have undisputed, 100% absolute proof that the Earth orbits the sun? I'll answer for you--no, you don't. There is a ton of evidence that supports the theory, and it's extremely unlikely that we'll ever end up falsifying it, but it hasn't been proven to be True with a capital T. That's simply not the way it works.

If you measure the length of a board with a ruler to be 12" long, you will see it as a fact. And it is--it's an observation. But you haven't proven that the board is 12" long. There is error attached to that observation. No facts in science are incontrovertible, because nothing in science is incontrovertible. 12" isn't the true length of the board, if we're using true as being incontrovertible. There is always going to be a more precise possible measurement out there (e.g., a set of calipers might well measure the board to be 12.002" long, a precision the ruler simply cannot achieve), or perhaps you didn't hold the ruler exactly the way that would return the most precise length measurement (can you make sure that the ruler is 100% parallel with the sides of the board (are the sides straight) and it's hard to determine which, at the microscopic level, of those various valleys and peaks on the edge of that board constitute the true end of the board anyway. Whatever. There true incontrovertible length of the board isn't something we will measure. But we will measure a length of the board.

And that's for a fact. An observation. Theories are explanations for facts. We explain the observations, but even if we hit upon the actual True explanation for those facts, how do we know it's the true one? How do we guarantee it? Let me clue you in--we don't.

We don't prove theories; please stop misrepresenting what we do.

And before you start going on about how useless science must be then, do try to keep in mind how much science you use in a given day... And you might also try to keep in mind that by that standard of proof that you evolution deniers are always trying to throw in our faces, historians haven't proven that Henry VI existed, either.

Posted by: Azkyroth | March 29, 2009 11:29 PM

Tim, how is what you're doing any different than this:

Tim, unfortunately, is only emulating the first two of those pictures.

Posted by: Kel | March 29, 2009 11:38 PM

Faith in our own senses and faith in a God are two very different things. 3 is a number and 25,000,000 is a number, so therefore they are the same? Of course not. If you use faith in only the most diffuse sense and then compare it to faith in the unknowable, you are being intellectually dishonest.

Posted by: Alex Deam | March 29, 2009 11:44 PM

I have Faith, just like you do.

No, Tim I don't have faith. In fact, as someone 2/3 of the way through the first year of a physics degree, and a desire to go into scientific research, I consider it intellectually bankrupt to practice the scientific method and have faith.

Nevertheless, your answer to my question(s) provides me with another question:

You have faith that there's a Holy Spirit, and it inspires the Church and the Bible, but where did you originally get the idea of the Holy Spirit from?

Posted by: gma | March 29, 2009 11:55 PM

Tim,

For us scientists, everything has to be based on mountains of observable evidence. We have no faith in the theory of gravity, the theory of electromagnetism, the theory of evolution, etc... all supported by mountains of evidence and no evidence that disproves them, we accept the mountain of evidence.

Introducing anything supernatural whether you call it "god" or "intelligent designer" does not explain anything and is simply a cop-out to stop searching for a scientific explanation.

You will have to cross the bridge from "faith" to "evidence-based reason" to understand what everyone on the reason side is telling you. If you don't you'll keep bringing up silly questions and waste your an our time.

We live in different worlds: we don't give up the search for scientific explanations and you are way to eager to throw arms up into the air and say "GodDidIt or "IntelligentDesignerDidIt.

Posted by: Rilke's Granddaughter | March 29, 2009 11:56 PM

Tim:

Faith in nothing, or faith in something, I don't know. It doesn't make me mad though. Why is that?

Why, oh, why doesn't Pharyngula attract trolls of even moderate intelligence? Trolls who might actually be able to construct a half-way interesting argument? Trolls who might actually have something interesting to say?

Why do we only get dim bulbs like Tim here who clearly has never thought about anything more complicated than how to eat his Wheaties without messing himself at his mommy's table?

Posted by: raven | March 30, 2009 12:37 AM

Coming from the UK, I am well aware of the Troubles. However, you said "400 years" not 500, which was one of the reasons I was confused, since I thought that if you wanted to include all wars between Protestants and Catholics, why would you stop at 1917?

I chose 400 because it was a round number and the Reformation was so long ago it seemed about right. We barely covered this in school, it was whitewashed to the max. Luther, a nice guy (he was a not very nice crackpot) nailed some papers on a door and the church split. Not a mention of the decades of bloody wars that followed.

500 years would be closer, but to the point, Catholics and Protestants traditionally hate each and occasionally kill each other, it doesn't really matter.

During that 500 years it hasn't been nonstop bloodshed. Full scale wars don't last that long continuously and if they did, by now both sides would have invented nukes and history would be different or finished.

The way we use war colloquilly today doesn't necessarily mean nonstop violence. We have cold wars, wars on drugs, wars on terrorism, wars on family planning clinics, wars on Xmas, wars on Halloween, and the War on Easter is coming up.

The 500 year RCC-Protestant war was cold for most of that time with sporadic violence that continues today, although it is getting rarer. If you are from the UK, you might not know that in the USA, hostility and discrimination between Catholics and Protestants was common up until the late 20th century. When JF Kennedy was elected president, he was the first and so far only Catholic in a nation with 23% RCCs and it was a big deal. This is before my time barely and of most people reading blogs. And the reality today, most but not all people don't care anymore.

There is still a large amount of anti-Catholic bigotry among the fundies, a not insignificant fraction of the population. The WELS, Wisconsin Lutherans, have on their website that the pope is the antichrist, a common belief along with the RCC being the church of satan. I've long maintained that the only reason the two major divisions aren't still fighting somewhere is that the secular governments got sick and tired of the conflicts over dogma and took away their armies and heavy weapons.

Posted by: Monado | March 30, 2009 1:22 AM

Last Hussar [47], the sperms' journey is always getting the publicity. Meanwhile the egg travels down the Fallopian tube, a journey that has been likened to paddling down the mighty Mississippi River in a canoe.

Posted by: Monado | March 30, 2009 1:28 AM

As LotStreetWiz's grandmother said when told her daughter was going to marry a Jew, "Well, at least he isna a Catholic."

Posted by: Tim | March 30, 2009 1:59 AM

Is it wrong to murder your mother, and can anyone give me an objective moral standard as to the reason why?

Posted by: paul fauvet | March 30, 2009 2:04 AM

Tim must be a very recent convert to Catholicism, or else someone who is too lazy to find out what his church actually believes.

Unlike Protestant fundamentalists, the Vatican has no problem with evolution by natural selection. Recent Popes have at least been intelligent enough to understand that the last thing their Church needs is another Galileo scandal.

Mainstream Catholic intellectuals will tell you that God created everything at the Big Bang, and then let the universe potter along by natural means, intervening every now and then, by popping a soul into Homo Sapiens, or by sending his son to earth to be horribly tortured and killed.

What is the common ancestor? Depends how far back you go. A few million years ago, it was an ape a bit like a chimpanzee, but which moved bipedally. A hundred million years ago it was a rat sized mammal scampering under the feet of the dinosaurs. Four hundred million years ago it was a fish. A billion years ago it was a bacterium.

If Tim rejects natural selection, then he is in the company, not of the mainstream Catholics, but of the Lefebvrists, such as the holocaust-denying Bishop Richard Williamson.

As for faith - well, in reality Tim, you, like the rest of us, live by reason, not by faith. You don't switch on youur computer by the force of prayer. You use the on/off switch, and the elctrons flow in line with the laws of electro-magnetism.

You don't just turn up at an airport or a station and have faith that a plane or a rain will whisk you where you want to go. You consult the timetable.

And you don't step out onto a busy road in the hope that your faith in God will take you to yhe other side. You look and see whether there is any traffic coming first.

Posted by: echidna | March 30, 2009 2:27 AM

Tim asked:

#512 Is it wrong to murder your mother, and can anyone give me an objective moral standard as to the reason why?
#513 Does your life have value, and if so, why?

Tim,
expecting people to answer these type of questions is really inane and insulting. I will answer anyway: in short, yes, and yes, because life has value to the owner of that life. We cooperate because (limited) cooperation has a good survival value.

What sort of answers are you expecting? Do you think that scientists do not value life?

Posted by: Azkyroth | March 30, 2009 2:34 AM

Well there's no physical evidence that murdering your mother is wrong either but you believe that????So you must at the very least have faith in your own embedded "Golden Rule". Oh, there's no physical proof for that either, though, so you must just believe it as an act of faith. Oh wait, how is that you have the ability to believe anything, there's no physical proof for it, so you must just accept the fact that you're able to believe things, and imagine things, and look at the Grand canyon and say wow, that's amazing. But there's no physical proof that you find it amazing, so you must just trust your own perception. You guys have more faith than you're willing to admit.

Taking inductive reasoning, and pretending it's the same thing as unquestioning acceptance of logically absurd and morally problematic commandments from a virgin male in a dress who claims to know better than you how to interpret the transcribed myths of a tribe of iron age desert nomads, is jaw-droppingly dishonest. Isn't "thou shalt not lie" one of the commandments?

Posted by: Azkyroth | March 30, 2009 2:42 AM

I'm looking for an objective moral standard, can you give me one?

Perhaps if you were to define the phrase "objective moral standard" in a way that explains why you do not accept what we have been telling you for the last 350 comments or so?

Posted by: Tim | March 30, 2009 2:48 AM

Perhaps if you were to define the phrase "objective moral standard" in a way that explains why you do not accept what we have been telling you for the last 350 comments or so?

An absolute standard of right and wrong?
You guys are the scientists, I figured you'd know what an objective moral standard is?
Can you give me one?

Posted by: Azkyroth | March 30, 2009 3:08 AM

An absolute standard of right and wrong? You guys are the scientists, I figured you'd know what an objective moral standard is? Can you give me one?

We have.

Now explain what's wrong with the answers we've given, or sit down and shut up.

Posted by: Tim | March 30, 2009 3:11 AM

We have.

Now explain what's wrong with the answers we've given, or sit down and shut up.

The answers you've given me are your subjective opinions. I don't agree with them. I'm looking for an Objective moral standard. Can you give me one?

Posted by: Tim | March 30, 2009 3:17 AM

There's no such thing as an absolute standard of right and wrong, morals are contingent on our existence and if we didn't exist then whatever morals that applied to us wouldn't either.

OK, so you can't give me one because one doesn't exist.
No objective moral standard exists as to the reason why it is wrong to murder your mother?

Posted by: Nominal Egg | March 30, 2009 3:23 AM

No objective moral standard exists as to the reason why it is wrong to murder your mother?

Now you're gettin' it!
As I understand it, morality is always subjective, based on whatever society one happens to live in.

Posted by: Azkyroth | March 30, 2009 3:24 AM

The answers you've given me are your subjective opinions. I don't agree with them. I'm looking for an Objective moral standard. Can you give me one?

Not if you're just going to plug your ears and go "THAT'S YOUR SUBJECTIVE OPINION LA LA LA I CAN'T HEAR YOU!" whenever we offer a formulation of one.

How about you, Tim? Can you give us one?

Posted by: AV | March 30, 2009 3:25 AM

OK, let's humour Tim for a moment.

Tim, why does God think it's wrong to murder your mother (since this where your line of questioning is leading)?

Either God can offer sound reasons for why it is wrong to murder your mother, or he's just arbitrarily concocted this rule for his own amusement. If God can offer such reasons, what are they?

Posted by: Janine, Insulting Sinner | March 30, 2009 3:31 AM

So it is the fear of eternal punishment from the big sky daddy that keeps Tim from murdering his Mom. I love his objective morality.

Posted by: Tim | March 30, 2009 3:33 AM

OK, let's humour Tim for a moment.

Tim, why does God think it's wrong to murder your mother (since this where your line of questioning is leading)?

Either God can offer sound reasons for why it is wrong to murder your mother, or he's just arbitrarily concocted this rule for his own amusement. If God can offer such reasons, what are they?

That's not where my line of questioning is leading.
I've asked the question, I'm just waiting for an answer.
I got one so far, he says that an objective moral standard as to why it's wrong to murder your mother, doesn't exist.
Is his answer accurate?
Can you give me one?

Posted by: AV | March 30, 2009 3:34 AM

How about you, Tim? Can you give us one?

No, he can't. Tim is in a bind: if his God exists, either there is an Objective Moral Standard (TM) to which his God is subject, or his God invented said Objective Moral Standard (TM) out of whole cloth.

As I said, Tim's in a bind. And that's why he's taken the infantile route of sticking his fingers into his ears and repeating the same question ad infinitum. (See #535.)

Posted by: Nominal Egg | March 30, 2009 3:41 AM

That's not where my line of questioning is leading.

Apparently, Timmy-Tom is frustrated that we're not giving him the correct set-up for his punchline.

There is a punchline, right?

Posted by: AV | March 30, 2009 3:45 AM

There is a punchline, right?

Could it be . . . . Goddidit?

Posted by: Nominal Egg | March 30, 2009 3:46 AM

There is a punchline, right?

Could it be . . . . Goddidit?

Probably, but it's not very funny.

Posted by: Kel | March 30, 2009 3:49 AM

OK, that's your subjective opinion and Albert Einstein's subjective opinion. What I want, is an objective moral standard as to why it's wrong to murder your mother? Can you give me just one? Please?

Posted by: Janine, Insulting Sinner | March 30, 2009 3:50 AM

Well, the punchline for The Aristocrats is not funny.

Posted by: AV | March 30, 2009 3:53 AM

The evidence further suggests that you can't give me one.

I asked you an honest question, Tim. Why do you need one?

Others have made honest endeavours to answer your question. That you fail to understand the answers is certainly neither their problem nor their fault.

By ignoring their responses, as well as the questions put to you, and simply repeating the same words over and over again, you demonstrate to all who are paying attention that you are acting in bad faith and have nothing constructive to offer to this debate.

Come back when you've grown up.

Posted by: Nominal Egg | March 30, 2009 3:54 AM

Well, the punchline for The Aristocrats is not funny.

Good point.

Posted by: Tim | March 30, 2009 3:59 AM

Fucking hell Tim, if you ever want to understand where we are coming from, you are going to have to put yourself into our headspace. Like I said, there is no absolute standard, morality for humans is contingent on humanity existing. Without us, there is no morality applied to us and thus you aren't going to find the absolute you are looking for.

Other animals behave without any higher power dictating terms to them. They'll cooperate in groups, they'll protect their offspring from danger. There's even evidence that dogs have an innate sense of fairness. Morality sorts itself out through repeated interactions, and this can be shown both mathematically and in nature. For better or worse that is the basis for morality.

Can you please answer the question that you would kill your mother if God didn't tell you not to? If not, why not?
#549

Posted by: Nominal Egg | March 30, 2009 3:49 AM

Of course I wouldn't, she's my mother. Silly atheist!!

OK, you've explained your position. Thank you. What you say, though, is still your subjective opinion. I don't agree with it. So, the reason why it is wrong to kill your mother is based on everyone's own subjective opinion? Since there is no objective moral standard?

Posted by: echidna | March 30, 2009 4:04 AM

Tim is asking scientists a philosophical question, and is surprised when he is asked to define his terms.

Still, I do not want Tim to imagine that no atheist could satisfy what, to him, seems a simple request.
so, here it is Kant's categorical imperative, which fits the bill as an objective moral standard:
Act in such a way that you treat humanity, whether in your own person or in the person of any other, always at the same time as an end and never merely as a means to an end. ”
—Immanuel Kant, Groundwork of the Metaphysic of Morals

Posted by: Stephen Wells | March 30, 2009 4:07 AM

Tim, we've established that you don't need an Objective Moral Standard to not kill your mother. We don't either. So, end of pointless questions, OK?

Posted by: Tim | March 30, 2009 4:09 AM

Whoever asked me "why I needed one"? The answer is: Because I want to know why an atheist believes it's wrong to murder one's mother.

If an objective moral standard can't be produced because one doesn't exist, then all you will ever be able to give me in answer to my question, is your own subjective opinions. No matter how long you answer my question, the only answer that you will ever be able to give will be your own subjective opinions. What do you think?

Posted by: Nominal Egg | March 30, 2009 4:14 AM

No matter how long you answer my question, the only answer that you will ever be able to give will be your own subjective opinions. What do you think?

I think you are brain-dead.
I'm tired of this fuck knuckle.

This troll is stale...

Posted by: Kel | March 30, 2009 4:18 AM

If an objective moral standard can't be produced because one doesn't exist, then all you will ever be able to give me in answer to my question, is your own subjective opinions.

Posted by: Kel | March 30, 2009 4:21 AM

That's Mr. Kant's own subjective opinion, I want an objective moral standard as to the reason why it is wrong to murder your mother.

Posted by: Sven DiMilo | March 30, 2009 4:23 AM

I want an objective moral standard

Posted by: Azkyroth | March 30, 2009 4:27 AM

Give us an example of something you would acknowledge as being an "objective moral standard."

Posted by: Kel | March 30, 2009 4:29 AM

So therefore, since Hitler had the might his subjective opinion was right and he therefore was right in killing millions of people.Was Hitler right? and if not why wasn't he.

Posted by: Tim | March 30, 2009 4:38 AM

Morality is a social construct, and because it's social it can't be subjective.

But your opinion can be and IS subjective and it's the only basis you have for determining that murder is wrong. Morality is based on your subjective opinion. You don't see the problem with that?? Think about it.

Posted by: Kel | March 30, 2009 4:44 AM

But your opinion can be and IS subjective and it's the only basis you have for determining that murder is wrong.

Posted by: John Morales | March 30, 2009 4:55 AM

Nerd @387, sure sounds like the F troll.

Yawn.

Presupps are boring.

Posted by: Stephen Wells | March 30, 2009 5:02 AM

Tim, welcome to the world of moral responsibility. There is no big daddy in the sky to say, No, bad, daddy smack; _you are going to have to make your own moral decisions_.

The objective moral standard, like the ether, is not there, and it was never there even when you thought it was.

Now play nicely with others, like I suggested, and act they way you'd want people to act in the sort of world you'd want to live in. Have a nice life.

Posted by: mrcreosote | March 30, 2009 6:12 AM

apropos the subject

"As Newt Gingrich converts to Catholicism, a leading Catholic conservative says his sins—including an affair with a congressional aide—"no longer exist.""

http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2009-03-29/newts-resurrection/

Posted by: clinteas | March 30, 2009 6:24 AM

OT

For anyone interested,here is Ed Brayton's radio show with PZ from March 26:

http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/declaringindependencepodcast/~3/1BydoYCVMFQ/declaring_independence_show014.mp3

Posted by: AV | March 30, 2009 7:29 AM

The answer is: Because I want to know why an atheist believes it's wrong to murder one's mother.

Why?

(Incidentally, there is no single atheist position on whether or not there is an objective morality. Atheism is simply the lack of belief in a deity or deities: nothing more, nothing less. And nowhere in the definition of atheism is implied a particular position on objective morality. So, since no single atheist here is the spokesperson for TEH ATHEIST HIVE MIND, you might as well stop demanding one. Thankyou.)

Posted by: AnthonyK | March 30, 2009 7:34 AM

What I want to know is: Is it wrong to murder your mother?

The answer to your question is obviously "it depends". There are situations in which it would be, if not "right" certainly "reasonable". It might not be wrong to murder my murder if, for example, she were terminally ill and had decided to kill herself, an act in which you she needed my help; if she were pregnant and the child would not survive unless a risky medical procedure were performed on her (she herself to die soon anyway); if she had gone insane and were holding hostages - only I could approach her, and her death were the only way to prevent murder; or if she had abused me throughout my childhood, looked set to continue with other children, and the effects of it had made me matricidal; or, if I had gone insane, felt my mother was possessed by demons, and the fate of the world lay in killing her (this would be regrettable, but hardly wrong...).

So it would not always be wrong to kill my mother, no. Normally, of course, it would be wrong, because I love her, abhor violence, and lest I considered it I would find it illegal and punishable by jail. It is a truly stupid question, and one only asked by religious morons. You do not have a monopoly on morals just because sky-daddy has to tell you what to do. Morals are innate, to some extent culturally determined, and, we would argue, possibly an evolutionary adaptation to allow us to live together in society.

Fuckwit. Tim = SF? No doubt a brief textual analysis, together with a compilation of his troll questions, should provide an answer.

Now, anyone know a good contract killer? My mum's getting on my nerves and I'm an atheist.

Posted by: AV | March 30, 2009 7:40 AM

What are the moral teachings of a father who let his daughter and son be a "hooker" and a gay ?

Wow. Scratch a loving Christian deep enough and you unmask a hate-filled sexual predator. Much is explained, though I'm sure I'm not the only one to find Simon's obsession with PZ's children to be getting creepier by the day.

Posted by: AV | March 30, 2009 7:48 AM

I learned HTML from my crazy aunt, before she died . . . in the bath.

Posted by: Kingasaurus | March 30, 2009 7:52 AM

Nobody has "objective" morality in the way the nutters on this thread want to define it.

What theists do is PRETEND their morality is "objective." Saying your morality comes from a god is no good unless you can demonstrate (for starters) that your particular beliefs are the real thing. But none of that cuts any ice with your Muslim or Hindu next-door neighbor, who also believes their morality is "objective," yet they believe in different gods than you do with different "objective" rules than you have.

Pretending your morality is "objective" and then tsk-tsking the atheists who won't agree to your definitions is the ultimate stupidity.

Now explain to me why I should follow your "objective" morality instead of the Muslim "objective" morality. "My god is real because I say/feel so" doesn't count.

Since someone has been asking for peer-reviewed answers, I'll ask the same for this question. I'm not holding my breath, though.

Posted by: AV | March 30, 2009 8:04 AM

"My god is real because I say/feel so" doesn't count.

Now, now, let's be fair. Tim's god is real not because he says so, but because his church says so. His church says so because it's "filled with the Holy Spirit," whatever the fuck that means.

Posted by: Pierce R. Butler | March 30, 2009 11:12 AM

(sigh) If you can't stifle the troll-feeders, join 'em:

Tim, never mind killing mothers, what about mothers killing sons?

Posted by: JohanSebastianMill | March 30, 2009 1:10 PM

So, OK, no. I do not believe that there are any "objective" moral laws. You may now move on to your point, if you have one. However, note that my statement does not preclude the existence of universal or near-universal subjective (i.e. the result of judgments made by conscious entities) ethical rules, including one against matricide in nearly every case.

Umm... that's not such a great move in this game. You really don't want the foundation of morality to rest on human rules, social norms or anything like that. That's because you want to be able to recognize that *all* of us can sometimes collectively get things wrong. (Think: sexism, slavery, racism, &c.) If you define 'right' just to be 'consistent with our rules or choices' then you can't do that.

You're better off saying that our laws and ideas about right/wrong are *hypotheses* about the correct set of moral laws. So, for instance, we have laws about not murdering our mothers because that's our best guess about what the *right* moral code consists in.

Once you do that, you owe some account of what *correct* moral laws consist in. You owe a story about the objective ground or foundation of morality. No biggie. Tim thinks it's the word of Jebus. Maybe that's true. But we have absolutely no (non-circular) evidence that it is. Also, since the word of Jebus makes lots of people unhappy, disease-ridden, poor and fucked up, it's plausible that this is not the right sort of answer. Much earlier (#112) I suggested that another way of grounding an objective morality is in the real, actual, palpable consequences of actions: more happy sentient beings = morally right; more miserable sentient beings = morally wrong.

This is intended as an objective standard and that our hypotheses about what will make us happy in no way determine what is the case. So it seems sensible. Also, it's consistent with how lots of us *actually* make sane moral decisions. (Governments get this sort of thing wrong all the time and so do parents.)

At about this point, Tim will tell you that (a) happiness is subjective. He will tell you that (b) our hypotheses about what will lead to less worldly misery are just guesses and so subjective. And he'll tell you (c) that he disagrees with the proposed standard. No worries: (a) think of happiness like bodily health. People's *assessments* of their state of cardiac health are subjective. But the state of their heart is a real, objective state of affairs. So this argument is pretty bad. Secondly, (b) hypotheses are not somehow rendered 'subjective' (whatever that means) simply in virtue of being held true by fallible beings. Limited, finite being can have a hypothesis about how some objective facts turn out. No contradiction there. Finally (c), it's not very useful to know that Tim disagrees with our hypothesized objective standard. If our hypothesis is in fact correct, all that means is that Tim is wrong. (surprise, surprise)

So there we go: an objective moral standard for the atheist, courtesy of John Stewart Mill. Go read the book Tim and leave us in peace.

Posted by: Birgitta (is not a biologist) | March 30, 2009 2:37 PM

at #453 Ichthyic wrote:

”the current thinking on the evolution of hominids ...
start with some very basic facts:
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/evolution/library/faq/cat02.html ”

I followed that link, but the below paragraph doesn't reflect current knowledge:

1. Did we evolve from monkeys?
Humans did not evolve from monkeys. Humans are more closely related to modern apes than to monkeys, but we didn't evolve from apes, either. Humans share a common ancestor with modern African apes, like gorillas and chimpanzees. Scientists believe this common ancestor existed 5 to 8 million years ago. Shortly thereafter, the species diverged into two separate lineages. One of these lineages ultimately evolved into gorillas and chimps, and the other evolved into early human ancestors called hominids.

I think the current understanding (in part based on DNA analysis) is more like this:
http://scottsdalecc.edu/ricker/psy101/readings/Section_2/images/human_tree.jpg
according to which we evolved from monkeys and apes, and our latest common ancestor with the chimps was an ape.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_evolution#Before_Homo

Posted by: Azkyroth | March 30, 2009 4:39 PM

Not buying the JSM argument above; saying we're making "a hypothesis about the right set of laws" implies that the right set is somehow an intrinsic property of the universe like electrodynamics, which doesn't seem to be the case.

The psychological and physiological characteristics of humans (and, by extension, sentient beings with a remotely similar physiology) are such that certain stimuli and situations will predictably result in a response which is interpreted neurologically as pain or suffering, and others will result in a response which is interpreted positively. A sufficiently complete and insightful understanding of these phenomena and a sufficiently robust and precise descriptive language would allow the development of rigorous heuristic approaches for identifying, and following, the course of action most likely to minimize the latter and increase the former. Moral laws are not measurable independent of sentient agents, but gravitational behavior is not measurable independent of objects with mass -so what? The relationship remains in the abstract. The other objection I've seen is that the laws of physics or their derivatives cannot tell us that we should want people to be happy. So what? They also can't tell us that we shouldn't want bridges to collapse.

Posted by: Alex | March 30, 2009 6:02 PM

Re Tim and his epic quest to find an objective moral standard:

At about this point, Tim will tell you that (a) happiness is subjective. He will tell you that (b) our hypotheses about what will lead to less worldly misery are just guesses and so subjective. And he'll tell you (c) that he disagrees with the proposed standard. No worries: (a) think of happiness like bodily health. People's *assessments* of their state of cardiac health are subjective. But the state of their heart is a real, objective state of affairs. So this argument is pretty bad. Secondly, (b) hypotheses are not somehow rendered 'subjective' (whatever that means) simply in virtue of being held true by fallible beings. Limited, finite being can have a hypothesis about how some objective facts turn out. No contradiction there. Finally (c), it's not very useful to know that Tim disagrees with our hypothesized objective standard. If our hypothesis is in fact correct, all that means is that Tim is wrong. (surprise, surprise)

Yes I outlined something similar to this idea at post #437 (which was originally addressed to Tom), which I already told Tim to read once. We can use empirical research to deduce such a moral standard if needs be.

Tim, just because a complete objective moral code hasn't been found yet, doesn't mean one can't exist. To say therefore that we must follow the code of God (who we don't believe in anyway) is just a God of the gaps argument and is a logical fallacy.

So there we go: an objective moral standard for the atheist, courtesy of John Stewart Mill. Go read the book Tim and leave us in peace.

Ah Mill. His Harm principle is one of my favourite ways to formulate a code of ethics. (Plus I support the Lib Dems). It's my opinion that a code formulated empirically like I outlined above, and one formulated via the Harm principle, would be virtually the same.

Tim said:

No matter how long you answer my question, the only answer that you will ever be able to give will be your own subjective opinions. What do you think?

I'll tell you what I think. I'm thinking, why should I agree with God's subjective opinion of morality?

By the way Tim, you still haven't answered my question from post #500:

You have faith that there's a Holy Spirit, and it inspires the Church and the Bible, but where did you originally get the idea of the Holy Spirit from?

Posted by: JSM | March 30, 2009 6:33 PM

@Stephen. If I understand you, you are making two arguments in your last post: (1) There are no iron-clad, counter-factual supporting generalizations concerning what makes people happy. In order for there to be objective moral standards, such generalizations would need to exist. Therefore no objective moral standards exist. And (2): The universe does not care if we are happy or unhappy. For objective moral laws to exist, the universe would need to care. And so, objective moral laws don't exit.

Please correct me if I'm wrong. I'm sincerely trying to read you correctly.

Regarding (2): The universe does not care, just as you say. But the universe also does not execute computations. It by no means follows that parts of the universe (like my laptop's motherboard) do not execute physical processes that count as computations. And so, computations exist. The same applies to caring. We care; the universe doesn't. But that's enough. (All that is just a way of saying that I reject premise 2 of that second argument.)

Regarding (1): I agree with you that there are no laws concerning what makes people happy. That's why I'm not really an utilitarian; I'm something more of a negative consequentialist (like Karl Popper). I think we can make predictions about what makes people miserable: repression, torture, lack of political freedom, rape, and so on. The role of government is to remove as many of these harmful stimuli as possible for as many people as possible. They will have to take care of their 'happiness' for themselves. So, in short, I agree with the first premise of your argument. But I want to stress that just because we can't discover the objective regularities that govern a system or just because such regularities are devilishly complex does not entail that such regularities don't exist. The weather is a complex but deterministic system governed by regular laws; we still can't predict whether it will rain 17 days from now. What we know and what is the case are two different issues though. Ceteris paribus morality.

Posted by: JSM | March 30, 2009 7:07 PM

Stephen: fair enough. It looks like we actually agree on the issues and any remaining disagreements are terminological.

I'm actually very suspicious categorical moral imperatives for the very same reasons that I think categorically optimal biological fitness is a contradiction in terms. There are no 'best' organisms; there are ones that are well-suited to their local environments. There are no 'absolute' moral standards; there are merely ones that promote the thriving of the kind of creature we are. (Why thrive? I don't know: why survive? Same question.)

Posted by: Alex Deam | March 30, 2009 7:19 PM

But the universe also does not execute computations.

Not necessarily, see Digital physics at Wikipedia.

(Incidentally, is it just me, or is Wikipedia down right now?)

Posted by: Kel | March 30, 2009 7:22 PM

Because even though I don't know you, I don't want you to suffer.

Posted by: Stephen Wells | March 30, 2009 7:25 PM

tim, if you don't want us to suffer then you're already following our morality. Good night.

Posted by: Tim | March 30, 2009 7:30 PM

ANd thanks for explaining nothing at all. You are so good at being completely oblivious to any knowledge on this matter. Please get at least a cursory education before posting again.

I was asked to answer it, not explain it.

Posted by: Kel | March 30, 2009 7:34 PM

I was asked to answer it, not explain it.

Posted by: AV | March 30, 2009 7:47 PM

Because even though I don't know you, I don't want you to suffer.

Why don't you want us to suffer?

Posted by: Rev. BigDumbChimp | March 30, 2009 7:56 PM

His Divine Mind so far exceeds my comprehension.

argument by sappiness.

I think I'm going to vomit.

Posted by: gma | March 30, 2009 7:59 PM

The Euthyphro dilemma is a false dilemma because it starts from the premise that there is a god and there is absolutely no evidence that She/He/IT exists or ever existed.

Someone recently told me that churches Europe are empty because people are too lazy to go to church. I said, why don't we make a list of ALL possible reasons before we conclude what the exact reason was but that person was 100% convinced that there was only 1 reason and that it was her explanation.

The true Euthyphro dilemma dilemma should have at least 1 extra choice: "Is what is moral commanded by God because it is moral, or is it moral because it is commanded by God, or is it because humans, as consciousness evolved, determined that morality is determined by the golden rule (don't do to others what you don't want done to yourself) ?"

Therefore "both" is an answer from ignorance and the only credible answer is the Golden Rule.

By the way, we society is still struggling with this. The roman catholic pedophilia institute had to solicit the help from mor(m)ons to enshrine discrimination against homosexuals in the California constitution. Another proof that the Euthyphro dilemma is a false dilemma.

Posted by: Tim | March 30, 2009 8:03 PM

Why don't you want us to suffer?

That's just the way I am.

Posted by: Kel | March 30, 2009 8:08 PM

Yes, I do have the mental faculties to understand what the dilemma means. You've hit the nail on the head, though, because I lack the mental faculties to explain why it's "both". It's beyond my comprehension. I know that you don't believe in the Trinity, but I do, and to explain a Tri-une God is also beyond my comprehension. I would have to know the Mind of God and I don't. His Divine Mind so far exceeds my comprehension.

Posted by: Alex Deam | March 30, 2009 8:16 PM

You have faith that there's a Holy Spirit, and it inspires the Church and the Bible, but where did you originally get the idea of the Holy Spirit from?

From the source.

What fucking source?

Posted by: Tim | March 30, 2009 8:50 PM

You need to demonstrate God's existence if you think that morality comes from God. We can demonstrate the social nature of morality, that behaviour can be mathematically explained and seen hard-wired in other creatures through natural selection. What do you have to support your assertions?

You claim allegiance to evidence, but the most you will ever be able to provide is opinion. You claim rights in a system of law that has it's very source in the premise that the truth is self evident that we are endowed these unalienable rights by our Creator. Yet you deny the existence of a Creator and still claim the rights under the system of law that has as it's very source the existence of a Creator. If you were true to your beliefs, you wouldn't claim the rights that are endowed to us by our Creator, because you claim that the truth is; there is no Creator. This is hypocrisy.

I, on the other hand, am entitled to these rights.

My subjective opinion has nothing to do with it. It is NOT my opinion that I live under a system of law that has at it's very source the existence of a Creator, it is indisputable FACT, pick up a copy of the Declaration of Independence and read it any time you like.

Therefore, the case for the Creator is stronger than the case against the Creator. And it has nothing to do with my subjective opinion, and everything to do with yours.

Based on the evidence, I'd say that you need to demonstrate God's non-existence. You have a system of law that you claim rights to that directly contradicts your own position.

Posted by: Kel | March 30, 2009 9:02 PM

You claim allegiance to evidence, but the most you will ever be able to provide is opinion.

Based on the evidence, I'd say that you need to demonstrate God's non-existence.

It is NOT my opinion that I live under a system of law that has at it's very source the existence of a Creator, it is indisputable FACT, pick up a copy of the Declaration of Independence and read it any time you like.

Posted by: Janine, Insulting Sinner | March 30, 2009 9:13 PM

Posted by: Tim | March 30, 2009

I answered "both" because a dilemma for me, is not a dilemma for God.

For the first time, I agree with you. But the reason I do agree will not make you happy. There is no dilemma for non existing creatures.

Posted by: Last Hussar | March 30, 2009 9:19 PM

Ah- Tim believes the writers of the Declaration of Independence are qualified to rule on the existence of God. And there he was saying it was only the right people in the Catholic Church.

Course they also said that white land owning men could have a say in running the country, and allowed slavery. Is it ok for racists to reference them as proof that there is nothing wrong with racism?

But as God told Muhammed that the Koran is all his word, that sure revises the New Testament.

Posted by: Ichthyic | March 30, 2009 9:23 PM

Tim believes the writers of the Declaration of Independence are qualified to rule on the existence of God.

hmm, I wonder if he considered what Jefferson had to say on the issue?

for example (and there are of course hundreds more from Jefferson):

"The natural cause of the human mind is certainly from credulity to skepticism."
-Thomas Jefferson

Posted by: Kel | March 30, 2009 9:27 PM

I can however, dismiss it as opinion because it is in fact opinion. No objective moral standard, all you will ever be able to give me is opinion.

I didn't say anything about religion I said that the system of law that you claim rights to has at it's source the existence of a Creator, which you deny. Yet you still claim the rights under that system of law, Which is hypocrisy.

I don't claim any rights under Saudi Arabian law.

Posted by: Alex Deam | March 30, 2009 9:31 PM

You claim allegiance to evidence, but the most you will ever be able to provide is opinion. You claim rights in a system of law that has it's very source in the premise that the truth is self evident that we are endowed these unalienable rights by our Creator. Yet you deny the existence of a Creator and still claim the rights under the system of law that has as it's very source the existence of a Creator. If you were true to your beliefs, you wouldn't claim the rights that are endowed to us by our Creator, because you claim that the truth is; there is no Creator. This is hypocrisy.

I, on the other hand, am entitled to these rights.

My subjective opinion has nothing to do with it. It is NOT my opinion that I live under a system of law that has at it's very source the existence of a Creator, it is indisputable FACT, pick up a copy of the Declaration of Independence and read it any time you like.

This is perhaps the most moronic thing I ever read.

You are aware that the Declaration of Independence is a work of politics? You asked several times for an objective moral code, and yours is a political document! How is that objective?

You should also know that these "inalienable rights" aren't guaranteed by a single word in the Declaration of Independence. You don't go to court and have it decided whether something is "Declarational", you go to decide whether its "Constitutional". And guess what? There's not a single mention of a "Creator" in the Constitution. But there is a clause saying that religion and the state should be separate.

Besides, you realise that the writers of the Declaration were Protestants, Deists and Catholics, not Catholics, so if we accepted you argument, you've just proved the wrong God.

And by the way, the Declaration of Independence is specifically an American document. It doesn't apply to me, a British citizen. And hell, it doesn't apply to Kel, who you were replying to, since he's from Australia.

EPIC FAIL.

Posted by: Alex Deam | March 30, 2009 9:33 PM

Whoops, I meant they were "Protestants, Deists and Atheists", not "Protestants, Deists and Catholics".

Posted by: JSM | March 30, 2009 9:35 PM

You claim rights in a system of law that has it's very source in the premise that the truth is self evident that we are endowed these unalienable rights by our Creator. Yet you deny the existence of a Creator and still claim the rights under the system of law that has as it's very source the existence of a Creator. If you were true to your beliefs, you wouldn't claim the rights that are endowed to us by our Creator, because you claim that the truth is; there is no Creator. This is hypocrisy.

First off Tim, don't assume that everyone here is an American. Lots of people think they have rights for reasons that have nothing to do with American law. Here's one good story: "rights" are actually a convenient shorthand for duties (or the converse of duties, if you want to be specific). When I say that I have a right to my property, that just means that others in society have a duty to leave my stuff alone. When I say that I have a right to life, it means that others have a duty to preserve my life, no matter what. And so on.

Why do we recognize duties to each other? Because that makes things run much more smoothly than if we didn't. (See above.) Some duties are reasonable: the duty to leave others' pocket-watch and umbrella alone, for example. Some duties that others claim are silly: your duty to preserve my life no matter what is a silly one. You have no such duty and so I don't have a blanket right to life.

See...? No sky daddy anywhere in sight. Now, you may wonder why Americans respect each other's rights? Well, in fact, it's for the same reasons that any other people on the planet do, actually. The odd thing about Americans though is that they have some very weird behavioural ticks when it comes to talking about rights: they seem to be prone to a kind of verbal spasm that has them ejaculate nonsense about 'Creators' and 'inalienabilty' whenever the topic comes up. It's really the darnedest thing. Funny folks those Yanks. But what can you do?

Posted by: Ichthyic | March 30, 2009 9:37 PM

The constitution of the US is founded on secular values, it has at it's source the notion that men are equal in the eyes of the law. Nothing to do with a creator at all.

Tim is confusing the DOI with the US constitution.

surprised?

not.

Posted by: JSM | March 30, 2009 9:40 PM

errr... present company excepted, of course. :-p

Posted by: AnthonyK | March 30, 2009 9:54 PM

You have faith that there's a Holy Spirit, and it inspires the Church and the Bible, but where did you originally get the idea of the Holy Spirit from?

From the source.

Posted by: Nerd of Redhead, OM | March 30, 2009 10:02 PM

Rather than trying to answer Tim, we should make him defend his ideas. Put the burden of proof where it belongs. After all, he is the one trying to convince us of some cockamamie idea. If he can't sell it, it is worthless.

Posted by: Rev. BigDumbChimp | March 30, 2009 10:17 PM

I really think, Tim, that you should lay off the source..

nice

Posted by: Kel | March 30, 2009 10:26 PM

May nothing? the force be with you.

Posted by: Anri | March 30, 2009 10:39 PM

Greetings!

I have no problem being an atheist and holding that rights came to me by my creator.

I know who my creator is. Or rather, are, both of them. I call them on their (and sometimes my) birthdays and other holidays.

Is Tim confused about where babies come from...?

Posted by: Stephen Wells | March 31, 2009 4:51 AM

Leaving aside the point that the USA is not the universe, has Tim not noticed that the Declaration of Independence has no legal standing anywhere? The rights of US citizens are guaranteed by your constitution which doesn't have any gods in it.

Somebody show him the Treaty of Tripoli already.

Posted by: Tim | April 1, 2009 1:59 PM

I never, ever understood the "intercessory" prayer.

Intercessory prayer is simply asking one's brother or sister to pray for them, whether on Earth or in Heaven. It has to do with family, the communion of Saints, without union there can be no communion. It has nothing to do with polytheism.
We believe in one God, the Father Almighty, Creator of Heaven and Earth, and of all that is seen and unseen.

I have to say I find most attempts to explain it away as fairly pathetic.

Because you make it too complicated

I also have to agree with Stephen that the Declaration is not a legal document, nor the bass of our laws and country.

Without first declaring independence, there would be no constitution, therefore it is the basis for our system of law.

IN CONGRESS, JULY 4, 1776
The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America

When in the Course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

I find that you guys can never get to the heart of matters, which is understandable. No source, no destination, little hope. I found the same thing in reading Mr. Dawkin's book.

Anyway, something to chew on:

http://www2.nd.edu/Departments/Maritain/etext/gc.htm

Posted by: AdamK | April 1, 2009 2:21 PM

Tim, you might also want to study up on Jefferson and his theology before you continue foolishly assuming that you understand what he meant when he wrote of "Nature and Nature's God" and "Creator." (He was a politician who knew very well how to craft a noncommittal phrase.)

Hint: he was not talking about anything even vaguely resembling Jahweh or your Wholly Threeway.

Posted by: Tim | April 1, 2009 2:38 PM

Tim, you might also want to study up on Jefferson and his theology before you continue foolishly assuming that you understand what he meant when he wrote of "Nature and Nature's God" and "Creator." (He was a politician who knew very well how to craft a noncommittal phrase.)

I'll rephrase that.

Some parts of the Declaration of Independence are not to be taken literally and other part are?

Posted by: Nerd of Redhead, OM | April 1, 2009 2:43 PM

Tim, the DoI is rheotoric, and not to be taken literally by idiots like you. This is not a "christian nation". Period. End of story. Trying to prove this is a futile waste of your time, and we will immediately be able to refute all attempts due to the amount of attempts we have refuted. Keep in mind you are only the latest in a very long string of people trying to say that. The "christian nation" side has yet to score.

Posted by: Tim | April 1, 2009 2:46 PM

Tim, you might also want to study up on Jefferson and his theology before you continue foolishly assuming that you understand what he meant when he wrote of "Nature and Nature's God" and "Creator." (He was a politician who knew very well how to craft a noncommittal phrase.)

You mean that it was the intent of the author to speak figuratively? In order to covey some truth? Or did he just flat out lie?

Posted by: Sastra | April 1, 2009 2:57 PM

One can easily consider the phrase "Nature's God" to be similar to the phrase "Mother Nature" -- and absolutely nothing is lost from the meaning of the Declaration of Independence. If someone says to you that Mother Nature has been in a bad mood this winter, you don't feel obligated to take it literally. It's obvious metaphor. Nobody would argue that, if you don't really, truly believe in Mother Nature, then you have no right to talk about the weather.

It's surprising how easy it is to substitute the words "Mother Nature" for "Nature's God." They can be taken in the same spirit; they're neither one of them spirits.

Posted by: Nerd of Redhead, OM | April 1, 2009 3:09 PM

Who really asks the deeper questions?

Posted by: Rev. BigDumbChimp | April 1, 2009 3:25 PM

Without first declaring independence, there would be no constitution, therefore it is the basis for our system of law.

That's some shitty logic right there.

I don't disagree that the DoI is important as part of the framework of our Constitution, but it is just a part of all that occurred during the Constitutional Convention that led to the actual document. Saying because it came before makes it the basis of our Constitution is historically myopic and ignores the much broader field of ideas that led to the Constitution and all the law contained therein.

Posted by: Nerd of Redhead, OM | April 1, 2009 3:51 PM

Like I said, your depth has a limit.

No Tim, all godbots like yourself are shallow. We know that due to experience. Your imaginary god is simply not needed by us, since we asked the hard, deep questions and got the hard, deep answers earlier. Pretending you ask better questions than we do just shows your own ignorance.

Posted by: Kel | April 1, 2009 4:10 PM

Who really asks the deeper questions?

Posted by: Anri | April 2, 2009 1:09 PM

Greetings!

If this thread isn't utterly dead, I wanted to ask a question of Tim.

Earlier on, there seemed to be a very large fuss made over the difference between an Objective and Subjective idea. Tim asked repeatedly if something was 'an objective moral standard'. I'm not certain what the criteria for this are, or how one would demonstrate such a thing.

And chance you could let me know how that works, Tim?

Thanks in advance.

Posted by: Tim | April 2, 2009 6:38 PM

Greetings!

If this thread isn't utterly dead, I wanted to ask a question of Tim.

Earlier on, there seemed to be a very large fuss made over the difference between an Objective and Subjective idea. Tim asked repeatedly if something was 'an objective moral standard'. I'm not certain what the criteria for this are, or how one would demonstrate such a thing.

And chance you could let me know how that works, Tim?

Thanks in advance.

I'll get back to ya later, Thanks.

Posted by: Nerd of Redhead, OM | April 2, 2009 6:47 PM

Ultimately there is one Authority.

Posted by: Tim | April 2, 2009 8:02 PM

Greetings!

If this thread isn't utterly dead, I wanted to ask a question of Tim.

Earlier on, there seemed to be a very large fuss made over the difference between an Objective and Subjective idea. Tim asked repeatedly if something was 'an objective moral standard'. I'm not certain what the criteria for this are, or how one would demonstrate such a thing.

And chance you could let me know how that works, Tim?

Thanks in advance.

I was getting at the idea that we as human beings have value. It's been said here that the Golden Rule is virtuous and that we should treat others the way that we would desire to treated. The origin of the Golden rule, in man, is the question.

Morality, according to what I've heard here, is dependent on others, we can see morality through the behavior of animals, morality is a social concept, etc… We know that nobody says it’s wrong for animals to kill each other, why is it wrong for human beings to kill each other? If morality is dependent on the things listed above (and perhaps others), then that will always leave an opening for someone or some group at some point in time to say that my life or your life doesn’t have value, or is insufficient in value. That’s exactly what has happened so many times and was, in most cases, deemed to be immoral. Since the Golden rule remains depite man’s obvious defiance, it stands to reason that there’s something about that Golden Rule that’s superior to man’s ability to follow it. Man breaks it, yet it still remains, but if man developed the Golden rule, then it should change accordingly with man’s development. An absolute law (or rule), on the other hand, should not and could not. With the idea of moral relativism, morality is ultimately, and can only be, dependent on conflicting and changing subjective opinions. That’s chaotic and no order can be rendered because the means by which to render order are conflicting and changing.
So……… I try to follow the Golden rule because you have value, if you didn’t have value there would be no reason. We take care of things because they have value. So why does a human being have value? I say that a human being has value if, and only if, he is loved by God. What would your reason be?

I suppose that the criteria for an objective moral standard would be something that exists, which is free of personal bias and opinion and is the absolute standard of right and wrong?

Posted by: Anri | April 3, 2009 7:53 AM

Greetings!

I just wanted to address a few statements made here..

"It is because of the unwilling that an authority is required.
If soldiers were left to their own willingness to train for combat, we wouldn't have much of a military, in fact, we wouldn't (those of us who live in the U.S.) have the rights that we spoke of earlier, that were fought for."

The US has an all-volunteer military. Everyone there willingly agreed to be there. This is widely seen in the modern world as a good thing.

"Are you willing to go to work everyday for free?"

I'm not, but many people are, such as charitable workers and, it could be argued, full-time hobbyists.

"Do you happily pay your taxes because you want to?"

No, I happily pay my taxes because I realize that they are, to some extent, required for a functioning society.

"Are you the authority over your children?"

Well, I don't have any kids, and don't plan to, but if I did, I would like to think that they would become their own authority figures when they became adults and didn't need Mommy & Daddy anymore.

"If you commit a crime aren't you sought after by an authority, or do you just willingly tote yourself off to jail?"

Many people do. They turn themselves in and confess.

"And, in fact, isn't it an authority that makes and enforces the law that was broken?"

Yes, one that, at least in theory, derives its right to govern from the consent of the governed.

"Ahh, but shouldn't that authority, in reality, be there to serve you?"

Yes, it should. And to a suprising extent, it does. And, not suprisingly, the more that a temporal authroity is concerned about, and works towards, serving actual people, rather than holding to some supposedly unchanging moral code, the better in general it does. A brief overview of the relative living conditions in theistic or non-theistic dictatorships versus secular or theistic democracies should show that.

I believe dictatorships are not good. I believe authroity figures derive their power from the people they have authority over. Does your 'ultimate authority' serve you, or are you supposed to serve it?

(And I'm typing this quickly and without the benefit of spellcheck, so my apologies in advance.)

Posted by: Sastra | April 3, 2009 11:43 PM

Tim #696 wrote:

Since the Golden rule remains depite man’s obvious defiance, it stands to reason that there’s something about that Golden Rule that’s superior to man’s ability to follow it.

The Golden Rule is more or less an objective statement of fact regarding what it means to be fair inside any particular group. "If you wish to be fair, then you will treat others as you would want to be treated." To universalize this, you universalize the group.

People who don't want to be fair, can always decide to not be fair. That pretty much holds with or without God. People who reject the ideal of being fair would also reject God, wouldn't they? Adding God into our condemnation of that person adds nothing but an additional condemnation which isn't really needed.

We take care of things because they have value. So why does a human being have value? I say that a human being has value if, and only if, he is loved by God. What would your reason be?

Two problems with your standard. First, it allows virtually anyone to reject the worth of anyone else, simply by claiming that "God does not love them." How would you -- or anyone -- prove that wrong, if they claim to have God's word on that? You're left with competing faiths.

Nothing is more subjective than whatever supernatural beliefs people 'choose' to have faith in. Throwing morality to faith isn't going to ground it in an objective place everyone can see and agree with. We have better luck with grounding things in the world we can all see, rather than a God which everyone sees differently.

The second problem is that it doesn't explain why God has value. God loves someone. So what? Why should we care about God? What gives God value?

When you answer that question, then you've answered my question about why human beings have value. God only has value to us, if it embodies those things we already love -- in each other.