…and this is a 
Colleen Hauser has flown the coop. She has defied a court order to bring her sick son, Daniel Hauser, to a qualified doctor for essential medical care. The boy has Hodgkins lymphoma, a disease with a very good prognosis if treated soon, but is a painful death sentence within a few years if neglected. His mother, though, is fervently religious, and no doubt smug in her righteousness, has bundled her son into a car and is devoutly driving to Mt. Moriah. I hope she's not expecting an angel of the lord to appear and spare her son.
What she has done has gone even deeper. Daniel is 13 years old; he has been tested for his competency, and has been found to be completely illiterate. He was homeschooled. Colleen Hauser has been wielding the sacrificial dagger of her faith on her son for years, crippling his brain and rendering him unable to evaluate the real-world consequences of their decisions. I wonder how many Daniel Hausers there are in this country, living lives of quiet ignorance, unexposed by the trauma of a physical disease?
And here's the real tragedy: Colleen Hauser almost certainly loves her son and believes she is doing what is best for him, every step of the way. I can identify with her in that regard — I can understand that deep, gut-wrenching love a parent can have for her children, the kind that can put you to your knees with agony at every little hurt they suffer…and Daniel Hauser faces deeper pain and an imminent threat of death that my kids have never had. But Colleen Hauser is so afflicted with the poison of religion that she has lost sight of reality, and is going to kill her son with her ignorance.
Here's another case: Leilani Neumann watched her daughter Madeline die of diabetes.
A mother accused of homicide for only praying while her 11-year-old daughter died of untreated diabetes knew the girl was gravely ill at least a day before she died, her sister-in-law testified Monday.
Susan Neumann of rural Merrill was the first witness to testify in the trial of Leilani Neumann, 41, who is charged with second-degree reckless homicide in her daughter Madeline's March 23, 2008, death.
Susan Neumann said Leilani Neumann told her that she came home from work at the family's coffee shop on March 22 and "felt the spirit of death" when she reached for the knob to open the door to the house.
"She was afraid," the sister-in-law said. "She ran upstairs to Kara (Madeline's nickname) and felt her and was relieved to feel warmth in her arm. Then she said they started praying and praying and praying and didn't stop praying until supper time."
Prosecutors contend any reasonable parent would have known something was wrong and Neumann, who believes healing comes from God, recklessly killed her daughter by praying instead of rushing her to a doctor as the girl became so weak she couldn't walk or talk.
I read that story, and it's heartbreaking. These were not uncaring parents, and you can tell that they are wracked with grief and loss — their little girl is dead. That pain is real.
But then look what they have done. Juvenile onset diabetes is easily treatable; I know healthy, successful 70 year olds who have lived with it for most of their lives, who have gone on to worthy careers and raised happy families, all things denied to Kara Neumann because her family was infected with the deadly taint of dogmatic superstition. Her parents killed her as certainly as if they had put a knife to her neck on the altar of their faith. Religion turned love into a death sentence.
And they haven't learned from this tragedy.
Before the start of the trial Monday, Leilani Neumann read from her Bible and circled the defense and prosecution tables several times in prayer.
That, I confess, hardened my heart. I hope her prayers in the courtroom are as effective as the prayers by her dying daughter's bedside.
These are cases of religion gone pathological, of belief so absurd and so deep that it denies truth and has overt negative consequences. Moderate Christian believers will read about this and dismiss it as irrelevant to their faith; sure, they'd pray, but they'd also get their children in to legitimate doctors who would give them effective treatment.
I have to say something that is heartfelt, and is also meant to offend. I do not absolve you mealy-mouthed moderates, I do not regard your beliefs as harmless. If Colleen Hauser or Leilani Neumann were in your church, you'd tell them to get medical care, but you'd also validate their belief in prayers. You would provide the soothing background muzak that says prayer is good, prayer is virtuous, prayer will connect you to the great lord who can do anything, prayer will give you solace in your time of worry. You would not raise your voice to say that prayer is useless, prayer is self-defeating, that while prayer might make you feel better while your child is suffering, that is no virtue. You pray yourselves. You think it is a noble and generous act for your representatives to prowl the corridors of hospitals, preying on the desperation of the sick. You abase yourselves before false hopes, and sacrifice human dignity on an altar built from the bones of the dead. You would spread the poison, piously excusing yourselves because you only want to administer sub-lethal doses.
You are Abraham's enablers. I hope you all feel a small tremor of guilt when you sit your own children down at bedtime to beg a nonexistent being for aid, when you plant the seed of futile supplication and surrender to delusions in their trusting minds. Damn you all.
Comments
Posted by: David Evans | May 20, 2009 12:55 PM
Wonderful. I hope you won't be offended if I say that your language is worthy of an Old Testament prophet.
Posted by: Dahan | May 20, 2009 12:56 PM
My religion states that if a child has a cold, he/she should be stoned to death, after which they will rise again in perfect health. I suppose that you Secularist Big Government folk have a problem with that too? Why do you try to force your beliefs on us?
Posted by: Dinah | May 20, 2009 12:57 PM
More on how religion can destroy lives:
http://www.boston.com/news/world/europe/articles/2009/05/20/thousands_beaten_raped_in_irish_reform_schools/
Posted by: Rev. BigDumbChimp | May 20, 2009 1:01 PM
Wow. I totally missed the part about his education throughout this whole story. That makes any claims from people that he is competent in understanding what he is doing completely unfounded.
Posted by: Beermonkey | May 20, 2009 1:02 PM
Good rant, PZ.
File these ones alongside Jehovah's Witnesses, I think...
Posted by: DS | May 20, 2009 1:05 PM
How many more Daniels are out there? I'd start my census with the Amish.
Posted by: Elppen Zhador | May 20, 2009 1:05 PM
Just Natural Selection. Let Evolution do its job. Hopefully, religion will be extinct, like trylobites or dinosaurs. It is just a matter of time...
Posted by: Eva | May 20, 2009 1:06 PM
wow, tell us, please, what you really feel...
damn them all, to sickness.
well said, pz. too bad they don't know how to read it, literally!
Posted by: Mark | May 20, 2009 1:06 PM
Hear, hear.
Posted by: Brock | May 20, 2009 1:07 PM
Damn, that's harsh. And it should probably be turned into an TV commercial and cycled once a day for months until people fucking get it >:(
Posted by: me2 | May 20, 2009 1:08 PM
Well written, as usual,PZ.
I'm going to copy this post and send it as a reply to all those people who insist on sending me those annoying "please pray for..(fill in cause)" emails.
Posted by: Susan | May 20, 2009 1:08 PM
I have to say something that is heartfelt, and is also meant to offend.
The truth hurts. I hope your rant changes some minds but, more importantly, actions. Thanks, PZ.
Posted by: rtp10
|
May 20, 2009 1:09 PM
She is just stupid. Her home schooling leads to illiteracy?
She thinks she knows more than doctors who specialize in this.
I hope she gets arrested.
http://twoandahater.blogspot.com/2009/05/what-is-wrong-with-you-part-2.html
Posted by: Rev. BigDumbChimp | May 20, 2009 1:09 PM
Yes lets just let all the innocent and powerless fall victim to the ignorant religious whims of their parents and / or community.
You're a real swell person Beaver.
Posted by: Patricia, Queen of Sluts OM
|
May 20, 2009 1:09 PM
Bravo PZ! Bravo!
Posted by: Matt B | May 20, 2009 1:10 PM
Not even Isaac killed his kid. He heard the voice of the lord at the last minute telling him to stop.
Maybe god regrets stopping Isaac and is now letting these go forward?
He works in mysterious ways.
Praise Jebus.
Posted by: Reginald Selkirk | May 20, 2009 1:10 PM
Maybe they were raptured.Posted by: dead yeti | May 20, 2009 1:11 PM
well said
Posted by: Richard Wolford
|
May 20, 2009 1:11 PM
I found and mentioned this story yesterday both here and on my Facebook page and I'm still aghast. One point that I've not seen brought up is in regards to the friends/neighbors that appeared to have some sort of knowledge of what was going on. Is there any legal ramification for not reporting a gravely ill child who is not receiving medical care?
Posted by: eljay | May 20, 2009 1:11 PM
Errm can i get an AMEN to that?
or even a HELL YES!!!
Posted by: tsig | May 20, 2009 1:12 PM
It's murder done with a holy smile.
Posted by: Glen Davidson
|
May 20, 2009 1:12 PM
Well, yes, but you have to remember that a lot of these people are indeed putting their egos first, whether they know it or not.
So she may believe she's doing what's best for him, without recognizing that it's her own pride that comes first. Not unlike many of those who oppose science in various ways.
Glen D
http://tinyurl.com/6mb592
Posted by: Joe Cracker
|
May 20, 2009 1:13 PM
Soooooo, life is sacred? Apparently not for this mother, delusions and dogma come first ... she seems to be pro-choice.
Posted by: A. Cooper | May 20, 2009 1:14 PM
Am I the only one who finds the Hauser name appropriate?
Posted by: Richard Wolford
|
May 20, 2009 1:15 PM
Apparently she supports abortion up to about the 52nd trimester. Very progressive.
Posted by: Gerinoil | May 20, 2009 1:15 PM
PZ, your heartfelt, offensive comment was excellent. I think the battle against religion is weak when it comes to confronting moderates with the implications of their continued belief. It's easy to mock and deride the extremists, but it's harder to call out our parents, siblings, and friends. It becomes personal, emotions flare, and people get hurt. But their tacit approval of religious quackery (since moderates tend to be selective and simply ignore what they believe is "the bad stuff") really does have real world consequences, and it's important that they not be let off the hook.
Posted by: Brock | May 20, 2009 1:16 PM
@Elppen Zhador (#7): That reasoning doesn't work for viral infections. If enough stupid people refuse vaccinations, they can end up lowering herd immunity and infecting others -- particularly innocent groups like children who are too young to be vaccinated.
In short, you're wrong. Letting stupid people go untreated can hurt everyone else.
Posted by: Schmeer | May 20, 2009 1:16 PM
Elppen Zhador,
I hope you're joking. Evolution describes the world as it is, not human culture and how we should treat each other. Have some compassion for other people and educate an ignoramus. There's no need for you to wash your hands of the whole situation and let the religious kill each other.
Hmmm... that sounds familiar. Where have we heard about a guy dying because someone washed their hands of a difficult situation.
Posted by: Elissa | May 20, 2009 1:16 PM
With regards to the Wisconsin case - I live there, albeit a couple of hours from where the Neumanns live. So the story is big news here. Our irony meters just about exploded when Leilani (the mom) fell ill on the first day of trial and was immediately tended to by paramedics. It's okay for her, but wasn't okay for her child?
There is little to no sympathy in this state for her - and we're in a relatively conservative area with a lot of megachurches.
Posted by: NeverTheTwain | May 20, 2009 1:17 PM
Count me as a non-accommodationist, too.
Posted by: Marty | May 20, 2009 1:17 PM
Well said, PZ.
If prayers work, medicine should not be necessary. If medicine works, prayer is not necessary.
Looks like another 1,000 comment thread coming up
Posted by: Sgt. Obvious | May 20, 2009 1:17 PM
@#24: No way. Neil Patrick Harris would never pull crap like this.
I hadn't heard about the illiteracy part, but it just pisses me off all over again.
Posted by: littlejohn | May 20, 2009 1:18 PM
In fairness, the homeschooling may not be the reason for the boy's illiteracy. He's being described as "developmentally disabled." That's a pretty nebulous, politically correct term, but the kid might be retarded.
Of course being homeschooled by nitwits hasn't helped.
Posted by: raven | May 20, 2009 1:18 PM
Some netsters read the long court document and said that Danial appears to not be learning disabled so much as retarded.
The court only has jurisdiction in Minnesota. If they flee the state, they are all but beyond reach.
If the kid actively resists chemo, it will be impossible to treat him. This is a long drawn out complicated procedure. According to the last news report, his tumor which shrank after the first cycle has now grown back. This is progressive disease and it isn't good news.
This story on its present arc has a bad ending. If they don't wake up, they are going to be in court again some day, charged with negligent homicide.
Posted by: senecasam | May 20, 2009 1:18 PM
Have we given the state control of our children's lives?
Why isn't it OK for that woman to tell the state what medical treatment her child will or will not receive? If she had chosen to abort the child some 13 1/2 to 14 years ago, that would have been legal. When did she lose the right to raise her child the way she wishes?
The outcome is the same - the abortion kills a potential child, and the with-holding of medical treatment will likely kill the young teenager.
Are these mutually exclusive issues?
Isn't it interesting that the so-called "Right to Life" groups generally remain silent in cases like this, proving they're more interested in the fetus than the child?
The fundagelical's superstitions regarding the supernatural can't reconcile the dichotomy in their minds, either.
I'll have another glass of cognitive dissonance, thank you.
Posted by: Marty | May 20, 2009 1:19 PM
Well said, PZ
If prayer works, medicine should not be necessary. If medicine works, prayer is not necessary.
Looks like another 1,000 comment thread coming up.
Posted by: NonyNony | May 20, 2009 1:20 PM
Hey, at least Abraham was stopped at the last minute and basically told "Hey, I was only joking! You were really going to go through with it? What kind of a monster are you?"
I feel a little bad for these folks who have been so misled all of their lives that they would stand aside and watch their children die. But it doesn't excuse them of their monstrousness - and make no mistake, if you can stand aside and watch your child die of a treatable disease then You. Are. A. Monster. I'm sorry if your parents raised you to be a monster, but at some point you have to take responsibility for your own life.
Times like this are when I wish I still believed in an afterlife - somewhere where these folks will understand just what monsters they were in life. It would have to be an afterlife, because until they die they're going to be convinced that their monstrousness is actually righteousness in the face of "worldly evil".
Posted by: Corey S
|
May 20, 2009 1:23 PM
In the case with Leilani Neumann, it appears she may have an obsessive compulsive disorder. I recall seeing a news report about one person constantly praying and that it interferes with their life.
Posted by: Don | May 20, 2009 1:24 PM
Well said, PZ. Thanks for taking the time to say it, reminding me yet again why this is the blog I return to every day.
Posted by: Matt B | May 20, 2009 1:24 PM
Oh yeah. It was Abraham who was set to do the killing. Isaac was the intended victim. I forgot.
Sunday school was along time ago.
Posted by: Isaac | May 20, 2009 1:25 PM
I am a modern day Isaac, but only insofar as my name happens to be Isaac and was obviously named after the biblical character Isaac much as the heading implies. As an Isaac perhaps the religious will allow me to make a declaration: "I am the great Isaac, and I do not approve of the modern day reenactment of such a deplorable incident".
It will always go pear-shaped when people hold fiction over fact. And in the case of a child's life... that is truly dark, and truly criminal.
Posted by: iain | May 20, 2009 1:26 PM
By this logic if people who leave those decisions up to god, to not watch out when crossing the street. If they were run over by a car, then that is god's will. It's a classical win-win situation: They trust more in god than they do now, and soon we don't have them to worry about anymore.
Posted by: Christopher | May 20, 2009 1:29 PM
*applause*
Posted by: Marty | May 20, 2009 1:29 PM
Sorry for the double post. I got a message that my first attempt had timed out unsuccessfully.
As for senecasam (#35), the answers to your questions are pretty clear: When did she lose the right to raise her child the way she wishes? When the child was born alive.
Are these mutually exclusive issues? Yes, they are.
Isn't it interesting that the so-called "Right to Life" groups generally remain silent in cases like this, proving they're more interested in the fetus than the child? Interesting, but not surprising.
Posted by: raven | May 20, 2009 1:30 PM
No. What the state has done is define human children as....humans. You can't kill your kids because they are legally human beings and legally citizens and not just private property anymore. Life has been a bitch for control freaks and slavers ever since.
It gets worse. In many states you can't even abuse and torture your own pets to death anymore. Legally anyway. Damn that state.
Posted by: chris | May 20, 2009 1:30 PM
Yes. It is a rant. And a nasty one. But a very bloody necessary one. I know stupidity can't be outlawed, but I live in hope...
Posted by: iain | May 20, 2009 1:32 PM
I should really read better before I post a comment.
By their logic: These kinds of people shouldn't watch out for cars when crossing the street. If they were to be run over by a car, then that is god's will.
It's a classical win-win situation: They trust more in god than they do now, and soon we don't have to worry about these religious nutjobs anymore.
Posted by: Geoff | May 20, 2009 1:33 PM
Well done again PZ! I'm sure you'll encourage the wrath of Nisbet but so what.
As an aside, this story on religious intolerance bugged me even if they have a case:
http://torontoist.com/2009/05/working_in_harmony.php
Posted by: norm! | May 20, 2009 1:35 PM
For you who turn to prayer, consider this to be God's autoreply:
Here's what the reply will sound like when it reaches you:
Use this guideline to ensure that no one suffers from your prayer.
Posted by: cervantes
|
May 20, 2009 1:36 PM
Well, obviously the thing to do is turn the kids over to the custody of Catholic priests, who will take their welfare seriously.
Posted by: t3knomanser | May 20, 2009 1:37 PM
@senecasam:
You are required, by law, to feed and clothe and educate your child. You are prohibited, by law, from physically abusing your child.
Basic medical care is not a stretch from these requirements.
Fetuses are not legal entities. They have no manifest corpus, they have no recognition under law. We do not investigate miscarriages to ensure that there was no foul play. We do not give freezers full of embryos counts in the census, not even if they've been in that freezer so long that they're old enough to vote.
Posted by: Walton | May 20, 2009 1:38 PM
As a former moderate Christian (now agnostic), and someone with many family members and close friends who are moderate Christians, I'd like to add a few thoughts on this point.
Professor Myers' language is needlessly intemperate, but he does have a point, in a sense. Moderate religion is no more intellectually defensible than fundamentalism; both rely on belief through "faith" in something which is not supported by empirical evidence. And - as I've said many times - while one certainly can believe things in the absence of solid evidence, it begs the question of how one knows what to believe, and how one can rationally distinguish between "true" and "false" religious claims. It deprives one of a valid epistemic basis for discriminating between truth and falsehood - meaning that the choice of which religion to follow is necessarily an arbitrary one. Hence why I now reject religion.
That said, there is a crucial difference between the attitudes of moderate religious believers and of fundamentalists. Every religious believer, at some point in their life, is faced with the fact that their traditional beliefs, taken at face value, contradict (a) large amounts of empirical evidence from science and history, and (b) accepted moral standards of human decency and compassion. They can respond to this in one of two different ways.
A moderate believer will twist and cherry-pick traditional beliefs, construing them "non-literally" where necessary, to reconcile his or her religion with empirical reality and common decency. So s/he will read Genesis as an "allegory" (not explaining on what basis this is to be read non-literally while other parts of the Bible are read literally), and will explain away the nastier parts of the Mosaic law and the early Hebrew histories as "rules for their time" and as part of the "old covenant". And where Jesus or Paul said stuff that doesn't fit with their fluffy image of a loving God - such as the parts about "wailing and gnashing of teeth", or the parts which imply that non-believers and adherents of other religions are denied salvation - they employ various "literary" techniques to explain it away.
In doing these things, moderate religionists certainly engage in a significant exercise of intellectual dishonesty and indefensible cherry-picking, and reason backwards from their desired conclusions. And it's foolish. But the key point is this: they don't reject empirical reality and common decency. Rather, they twist their traditional religious beliefs in order to reconcile them with reality.
By contrast, when a fundamentalist encounters a clash between his or her beliefs and empirical reality, s/he will choose the beliefs over empirical reality. Some of them will engage in denial exercises, and use every factoid at their disposal to try and discredit modern science where it conflicts with their beliefs - as we see every day, and as this blog is primarily dedicated to exposing. And this attitude is dangerous. It holds back both scientific and social progress - and, yes, it kills children. Regularly. In those countries where this kind of attitude is the dominant one in society - I'm thinking of some Islamic states, in particular - we can see what its consequences are.
In a purely abstract intellectual sense, the fundamentalists are actually more coherent than the moderates; they consistently reject empiricism in favour of blind faith, rather than cherry-picking the bits they like. But the fundamentalists are also far more stupid, far more dangerous, and far more damaging to the building of a decent, progressive, reality-focused future, than their moderate religious counterparts - and so, IMO, we should work with the latter against the former.
Sorry for the rambling train of thought (but, for once, I'm actually more or less on topic for the thread).
Posted by: ChrisKG | May 20, 2009 1:38 PM
This says it all "Not only could Daniel neither read nor understand the affidavit he signed saying he preferred "native" treatments over chemotherapy for his Hodgkin's lymphoma, but he also could not read. Period. When tested by his teacher for entrance into a charter school, according to court documents, Daniel, who had been home-schooled, could not identify the following word:
"The."
I am speechless.
Posted by: Celtic_Evolution
|
May 20, 2009 1:39 PM
I think senecasam in #35 may have been trying to make a salient point about how Right to Lifers care more for the fetus than the child, but in doing so made some pretty bungled observations that I'm sorry, but I must address...
Because the child doesn't have the capacity to protect himself, so the state must step in... Here's a question for you... if you saw a man on the street beating the crap out of his 9 year old son, would you step in? Please stop with the "the state has no right" crap. Grow some morals.
What child? Logic fail.
The moment she displayed that she lacked the capacity to do so without willfully harming or even killing the child.
you don't understand the difference between a "potential child" and an ACTUAL CHILD? I kill thousands of "potential children" after 30 minutes or so of watching Skinemax at 1 in the morning. Give a a fucking break with "potential children".
Yeah... they are.
Posted by: Jackal | May 20, 2009 1:40 PM
Though I agree with most of what was said, I can't place much stock in the effect it will have. Isn't telling a theist that their religion is bunk and that praying doesn't work kind of like telling an atheist that the Bible says they're going to hell? Both statements are only believed by the one who states them. They're only persuasive if the other person already has doubts. You can make the case that theists who seek medical treatment have some doubt, but even if they do, they might not admit it to themselves. PZ did a fine job of expressing himself, but I doubt it's going to convince anyone to change their mind about prayer.
Posted by: Emmet, OM
|
May 20, 2009 1:41 PM
Most of the news coverage in Ireland is about this at the moment. If you have RealPlayer, you can watch the 24-hour news service of RTÉ at http://dynamic.rte.ie/av/live/ngb/news-225.smil and catch the reactions (and feeble excuses from the clerics), although you may have to wait a little while for the story to come around again, such is rolling news.
Posted by: t3knomanser | May 20, 2009 1:41 PM
@Jackal: It may not convince anyone, but it still needs said.
Posted by: Wim | May 20, 2009 1:43 PM
Isn't it cruelly ironic that Daniel Hauser shares his last name with Kaspar Hauser?
Posted by: fly44d | May 20, 2009 1:46 PM
Amen. Damn them all.
Posted by: Jim | May 20, 2009 1:47 PM
I just want to say that I really found the last few paragraphs well written. I am going to bookmark this entry in particular because it is so right on.
Posted by: NoAstronomer | May 20, 2009 1:47 PM
Anybody that prays for divine intervention for a health problem and yet still seeks medical attention deserves to be scorned for the hypocrites they are.
Posted by: Jim Etchison | May 20, 2009 1:48 PM
God damn ... this is probably the best thing I've read in quite awhile.
Go PZ!!
Posted by: Qwerty
|
May 20, 2009 1:49 PM
I seem to recall that someone on the previous threat regarding Daniel Hauser said his mother should not be allowed to keep him after the judge's ruling as she would probably be a flight risk.
It's a shame that this has turned out to be true.
The other sad thing is that once her son dies she will probably say something inane like "it's God's will."
Posted by: uppity cracka | May 20, 2009 1:49 PM
said.
Posted by: gryphn | May 20, 2009 1:52 PM
Abe's kid, Isaac, was lucky. Jephthah's daughter? Not so much.
Posted by: Tom | May 20, 2009 1:53 PM
Speaking of logic fails, isn't praying basically telling God that His Almighty Master Plan for the Universe is flawed? That you know better than He does?
It appears to me that there is a slightly higher likelihood of persuading a believer that his belief system is self-cancelling, than simply telling him it's wrong.
Posted by: Paul Johnson | May 20, 2009 1:54 PM
truthfully though if you follow the story closely it seems fairly evident that she is not fervently religious but is merely using this as an excuse to avoid chemo for him which they both are afraid of and do not understand
Posted by: shamar
|
May 20, 2009 1:56 PM
Wonderful writing PZ........I've even mentioned this case last week in my blog, and again last night in my video that I posted to my blog. But alas, your response and writingstyle are far superior to my own.
I hope that you don't mind if I save and re post this to my own blog, giving you full credit for writing it and including a link hack here to your original post of course, because I'd like to show my own friends what you said.
shamarzblog
Posted by: Celtic_Evolution
|
May 20, 2009 1:57 PM
Exactly. That's the other part of the equation that PZ doesn't even mention in his rant. You would think that a person so wholly devoted to the notion that medicine is not required because "god will provide", might begin to question that thought process when it turns out he doesn't. And not only does he NOT provide, but a loved one, a child, one's own offspring, dies needlessly and painfully as a result. But that doesn't happen. As you pointed out, the dissonance sets in even deeper and claims of "god's will" and a "greater purpose in heaven" start being spewed forth in a continued display of complete disregard for human life at the behest of religious ignorance.
And believe me, any of us who have been or have known religious folks have heard that particular refrain from EVERY degree of the faithful, from the weak to the moderate to the fundamentalist zealot. So don't give me your tripe about "moderate religion", Walton.. It's ALL poisonous, dangerous bullshit.
This whole story is sad and sickening... and I for one, PZ, think you weren't nearly offensive enough.
Posted by: edw | May 20, 2009 1:59 PM
Damn you all.
"Damn you all. God damn you all to Hell!" - Charlton Heston, Planet of the Apes (sorry, couldn't resist)
Posted by: gillt | May 20, 2009 2:00 PM
@55,
Both appeal to human compassion, but PZ is also appealing to the intellect while the theist appeals to a sense of guilt. I don't need to say which one is virtuous and the other pathetic.
Posted by: AG | May 20, 2009 2:01 PM
Marvelous post. Though to my amazement I think PZ pulled a punch:
>>These were not uncaring parents, and you can tell that they are wracked with grief and loss -- their little girl is dead. That pain is real.
I disagree about whether could possibly be real to them, given what we know. Their imaginary friend comes equipped with
the Afterlife Malibu Playhouseheaven, right? So they're currently telling themselves (Leilani as the paramedics attended to her in that courtroom, love that hypocrisy) that they'll see the child again, "all better," at theGreat Zombie DanceoffResurrection. There's a serious difference between understanding that the avoidable death of your child is final and irrevocable and believing that you get some sort of magical do-over from Sky Daddy.Posted by: senecasam | May 20, 2009 2:05 PM
I may be many things, but one thing I'm not is a "dumb xian troll." I'm not a xian, and I'm not a troll. I'm just posing questions.
If the "Right to Life" are guilty of only being concerned with the fetus up to the point of birth, are we no better if we are exclusively concerned only with the child after it's removed/expelled from the uterus?
My badly expressed point is that if a woman has control of her reproductive life, allowing abortion up to legally defined points in the development of the fetus, why does that control end upon birth?
Does parent-hood automatically result in the abdication of some rights to the state?
She has the right to raise her family in a cabin in the woods, without indoor plumbing and electricity, doesn't she? She has the right to dress him a like a clown, or a sailor or a little girl, if that's what she wants, doesn't she? She has the right to raise him as s vegan, doesn't she? She has the right to teach him whatever supernatural beliefs she has, or teach him atheism, doesn't she?
Or must she live in a ticky-tacky house in suburbia, because we do? And she must dress him "appropriately" - because we all dress our kids "appropriately", And she must feed him the cardio-killing diet most of America is feeding it's kids, because its what we all do.
Aren't these similiar to the 'right to privacy' issues recognized in Roe v. Wade?
IF the state must stay out her life before the fetus becomes a child, why, absence evidence of physical abuse, starvation or unhealthy living conditions, should the state intervene between her and her choice of medical care?
Next thing you know, you'll be letting pharmacists tell you what drugs he/she will or will not allow you to have.
Posted by: Bullet Magnet | May 20, 2009 2:05 PM
Ooh. That was chilling.
Posted by: Spiv
|
May 20, 2009 2:06 PM
Sounds like PZ is outright emotionally taken by these things. You'd almost think his godless heart is able to expound upon 'love' of his own children. And for some reason he even feels for offspring not of his own? Why, what evolutionary process demands such...emphathy?
Posted by: eddie
|
May 20, 2009 2:07 PM
From the article;
I wonder which country they think is more conducive to child killing, ignorant pricks.
Also, isn't the kid's health that 'ticking bomb' scenario that xians keep using to justify torture. If the father knows, should he tell? If not it's accessory to manslaughter and he should do life too.
Posted by: Andy | May 20, 2009 2:08 PM
Good for you PZ, sometimes these things just need to be said.
The only reason all this started in the first place was because someone didn't shout "bullshit" at the top of their voice 2000 years ago...
...and now it's killing kids
Posted by: JustaTech | May 20, 2009 2:09 PM
DS @#6: Actually, the Amish are very good about getting medical care for their community, given how many of their children have uncommon and serious genetic disorders. So, not there.
Posted by: Carlie | May 20, 2009 2:09 PM
My badly expressed point is that if a woman has control of her reproductive life, allowing abortion up to legally defined points in the development of the fetus, why does that control end upon birth?
Because that's when it stops being a part of her body.
Posted by: TFK
|
May 20, 2009 2:11 PM
A great rant--if you're a member of the choir being preached at(an ironic metaphor, yes, just like the post ending with a curse). It's actually not offensive, because the intended audience doesn't accept the premise that there is no god.
Just saying that prayer is useless and self-defeating does nothing to convince moderates that they're wrong, for most of the church-going folk I know believe strongly in the power of prayer.
They would tell the mothers to get their kids to a doctor AND they would pray for them. They would validate their belief in prayer, not as a cure, but as an aid.
Without support, the slope doesn't look that slippery.
Posted by: Celtic_Evolution
|
May 20, 2009 2:12 PM
senecasam @ #73
As I said earlier, you continue to use very bad examples in trying to make a point that I think we all get... yes, this should irk "Right to Lifers" as much as abortion... yes, it's an obvious contradiction.
But trying to make the case that the state has no right to step in and defend a helpless child from abusive parents... sorry dude... you lost me at that point.
Posted by: charley
|
May 20, 2009 2:13 PM
Another way moderates enable these incidents is to obscure their cause by attributing them to poverty or lack of education instead of insane cultish religious beliefs and their proponents.
Posted by: Tyler | May 20, 2009 2:13 PM
"Professor Myers' language is needlessly intemperate..."
No, it isn't.
Posted by: MarkOfTheBeast | May 20, 2009 2:16 PM
I've been lurking for a while but I must say, that was one of the best things I've read in a long time. Isn't it ironic that the people who would no doubt refer to themselves as being "pro life" peddle this crap that kills REAL PEOPLE as opposed to balls of cells that in many cases weren't naturally conceived to begin with.
Posted by: Bill Dauphin | May 20, 2009 2:17 PM
PZ:
I'm in awe of the sheer humanity of your comments on this issue. Unlike Walton, I do not find your words "needlessly intemperate"; instead, the temperature of your words is perfectly appropriate to the heartbreaking nature of the stories you address (and, I'm horrified to imagine, who knows how many more similar stories that never make it to the public's consciousness).
Thank you.
Posted by: existentialdrift
|
May 20, 2009 2:19 PM
Truly sickening - both the Hauser issue and the Irish abuse story. And it is also sickening that the same excuses will be made by the offenders, and for them by religious people unwilling to face the inherent problems in the system they support.
I've thought about the responsibility mainstream believers have for the excesses of extremists. I try not to condemn all Christians, for instance, for the words and actions of fundamentalists. However, it is mainstream religion that provides the ground in which extremist beliefs grow; after all, fundamentalist belief does not arise spontaneously, but from a pre-existing belief system. There is always the potential for mainstream belief to develop into something deeply scary (which it has, over and over again).
Posted by: Thomas | May 20, 2009 2:19 PM
Ouch. That was harsh, but it needed to be said. Thank you for saying it.
Posted by: frog | May 20, 2009 2:19 PM
So, PZ, you do find Christianity, in essence, immoral. You've often argued that all you're saying is that Christianity is no more moral-inducing than humanism or other ideologies. But honestly, it's clear that you find Christianity actively immoral (at least, immorality inducing) --- which I happen to agree with -- if morality means anything more than mere tribal acquiescence.
Posted by: lordshipmayhem
|
May 20, 2009 2:20 PM
We are told by witnesses that a large group of the Irish Catholics on board the Titanic were in a huge circle with a couple of priests, all praying to God to save them. I note that the witnesses, who worked towards saving themselves, survived, while the prayer group, preoccupied with supplicating their deity, did not. Might they have if they'd stuck to saving their own skins? I don't know, but I suspect their odds would have been infinitely greater.
Posted by: T-bone | May 20, 2009 2:23 PM
Does the consumption of alcohol (in moderation) enable the abuse of alcohol by alcoholics?
Does the existence of alcoholism suggest all alcohol is evil and should be banned?
Posted by: Samwise | May 20, 2009 2:23 PM
"You would spread the poison, piously excusing yourselves because you only want to administer sub-lethal doses."
Chills. Well said, sir.
Posted by: ArchangelChuck | May 20, 2009 2:24 PM
Don't feed me this bullshit that parents have the "right" to raise their children as they see fit. They don't.
That is a privilege that we have in a free and open society, but it is not a right. The parent surrenders that privilege to the state if he is incapable of exercising it in a responsible way.
Posted by: Bee | May 20, 2009 2:25 PM
You, sir, are as intolerant and priggish as the people you're condemning. I don't need you to absolve me of any guilt; you don't know me, and I think it's safe to say that you will never truly know or understand true faith because you're unwilling to accept anything other than your narrow, frightened point of view.
I feel sorry for you. I respect you for bringing these issues to the foreground, because what these mothers have done is heinous, but your poison is just as powerful as theirs.
Posted by: james | May 20, 2009 2:25 PM
Well said.
...
Well said...
Posted by: tyaddow | May 20, 2009 2:27 PM
senecasam@ #73
Does personhood automatically result in the abdication of certain rights to the state? As an adult, can I not choose to drive drunk or without a seat belt? Can I not punch random people in the face? Can I not dump my garbage in the street?
Is the logical failure of your statements not obvious to you yet? How does being a parent give you the right to abuse or neglect your child to the point of harm? We can agree that there are some difficult areas here, but your basic argument is absurd. Give it up.
Posted by: Blondin | May 20, 2009 2:29 PM
This is the sort of event I'll bring up the next time a Saturday morning proselytizer asks me, "What if you're wrong?"
What if you're wrong, shit-for-brains?
Posted by: Mathematician | May 20, 2009 2:31 PM
Yes. Well said.
Posted by: RedSonja | May 20, 2009 2:31 PM
Thank you. This is how I have felt for years, but this is more clearly articulated than I have ever managed. I will be sharing this as needed.
Posted by: Ken Cope | May 20, 2009 2:33 PM
And what the fuck is wrong with you for being tolerant of the people PZ is condemning?
Sorry? It's now poisonous to put a "toxic" label on poison? That must be another one of those faith positions I'll never understand.
Posted by: GregB | May 20, 2009 2:33 PM
I am a former Christian Scientist who is now an atheist. PZ, I am in full agreement with you. I have seen people in my own family harmed by these rediculous beliefs.
There is a way out of that stupidity and that path is logic, reason, evidence, and non-magical thinking.
By the age of 9 I was already aware that something was really wrong with this religion. Even at that age it seemed that there was one world in my science books (I loved books about space. The first moon landing happened when I was 10) but there was a different world being described to me in church. But once you walked out of the church the world they were telling you about didn't seem to exist. I got cut while playing and prayer didn't fix it. I got beat up at school and prayer didn't stop it. Karate classes were much more effective.
By the age of 12 I was asking not to go to church any more but my parents refused to let me stay home. They felt I was learning something and to be honest, I was. But I don't think they realized that the lesson I was learning was how to recognize confimation bias and logical fallacies.
When I moved out of the house I never attended church again. When people asked about my religion I'd always say "I was raised as a Christian Scientist which is why I'm an Atheist now."
If I had a hope (but not a prayer) for America it would be that we learn to grow up about religion and realize that it's simply a stupid, primitive relic of our past.
It's time to get over it. It's time to grow up.
Posted by: DaveL | May 20, 2009 2:33 PM
Oh? How many people has PZ killed by refusing to call dangerous superstition anything but dangerous superstition?
Posted by: Celtic_Evolution
|
May 20, 2009 2:35 PM
#93
Wow... powerful authoritative statement, Bee...
So... ummm... how for example??
Posted by: tyaddow | May 20, 2009 2:36 PM
Bee,
When PZ advocates benign treatments and uses unimpeachable dogma to condone the abuse and neglect of children, feel free to shriek in outrage. Until then, spare us your whining and false-equivalencies. Ideas do NOT have to be tolerated, especially harmful ones.
Posted by: JarrodB | May 20, 2009 2:36 PM
I have a rant. And it's more inspired by reading this article elsewhere than here. But I don't post often. So, forgive me.
On Newsvine.com and certain other blogs, people are commenting (with the implied sneer): 'Yes, killing her child. It's the "christian" thing to do.'
And I just think, oh please. Can we not put the word christian in quotation marks? Is it somehow ironic that her beliefs will result in the death of her child? Is it somehow metaphorical?
No, religion teaches people superstition over reason and a very warped definition of "love".
So, I hate seeing quotation marks around the word. Letting your child die and shunning a basic education are christian things to do.
I hate that the words "christian" and "good" are interchangable to these people, when their actions would show the opposite. And I hope everyone is aware enough to challenge it when they hear it.
Posted by: Geds | May 20, 2009 2:37 PM
I feel sorry for you. I respect you for bringing these issues to the foreground, because what these mothers have done is heinous, but your poison is just as powerful as theirs.
As someone who spent the first twenty-five years as a fundamentalist and ended up using Kierkegaard's Fear and Trembling as one of the most important proof texts in his decision to quit religion altogether, I like to think I have a bit of background to say this: you are wrong.
Free thought and self-determination are medicine. Religion is at all times a potentially lethal poison.
Not all believers are the type who would sit by and watch their child die. In fact, my heart breaks for the friends of Neumanns in article I wrote who stood helplessly in the room at the end and tried to convince their friends that they needed to call the hospital.
However, there were any number of paths that could have been taken to avoid the situation altogether. Diabetes doesn't show up and kill overnight. The doctor who examined the child said that she was probably in trouble for a month before she died and her organs were taking damage for three or four days beforehand. That was plenty of time for the friends to say, "You know, maybe we should notify the authorities."
But they didn't. Because up until the end they, too, apparently believed that god had some sort of fucked up plan wrapped up in the death of a child whose only crime was being born to parents who could not think rationally.
I'll take PZ Myers' medicine over the poison of irrationality any day of the week, thanks.
Posted by: Dahan | May 20, 2009 2:37 PM
Bee @ 93,
You probably have no idea how laughable that sentence is. It's not us atheists who live our lives according to fear. A brilliant example of projection. Thank you.
Posted by: Stark | May 20, 2009 2:38 PM
PZ,
Not nearly harsh enough... but, it's never going to be harsh enough to wake the willfully ignorant, is it?
Posted by: Celtic_Evolution
|
May 20, 2009 2:38 PM
T-bone @ #90
Did you just compare alcoholism to religion? Really?
Posted by: Nominal Egg | May 20, 2009 2:40 PM
Don't be an asshole.
Alcoholism is an actual physical addiction, not just a choice by someone of weak character.
You may want to learn something about how the liver normally metabolizes alcohol, and how it differs in alcoholics.
Then you may understand why this analogy is so full of FAIL.
Posted by: Emmet, OM
|
May 20, 2009 2:41 PM
In exactly the same way that one rationally distinguishes between “true” and “false” for any claim — why should religious claims be subject to a different scheme?
Posted by: Jackal | May 20, 2009 2:42 PM
@71
I've changed my estimation after giving it more thought: I bet there are quite a few fence-sitters who do religion more as a habit than a belief, so this post has a chance of chainging their behavior.
However, you're analysis of guilt vs intellect is wrong. PZ didn't use any data to back up his claims, just an anecdote. That's evidence that that God doesn't always step in and save a child, but a lot of moderates believe that God's way of saving the child would be to work through medical professionals. And He'll perform mini-miracles of medicine if they pray hard enough. It's a rationalization, for sure. But telling people they shouldn't pray because prayer doesn't do anything isn't very convincing if those people believe prayer does something. And in that way, it's still like using the bible as evidence when talking to an atheist. And don't tell me PZ's second to last paragraph isn't an attempt at shaming people who pray.
Posted by: X. Wolp | May 20, 2009 2:43 PM
I have seen people argue that it was not certain that she would have been ok just by simply seeing a doctor. Which is blatantly wrong.
Of course she would have been better, even in the worst imaginable case she could have been easily saved with as little as a single injection.
As an example, let me show what they did in 1922, back when they only had pancreas extract to treat diabetics:
"Children dying from diabetic keto-acidosis were kept in large wards, often with 50 or more patients in a ward, mostly comatose. Grieving family members were often in attendance, awaiting the (until then, inevitable) death. In one of medicine's more dramatic moments Banting, Best, and Collip went from bed to bed, injecting an entire ward with the new purified extract. Before they had reached the last dying child, the first few were awakening from their coma, to the joyous exclamations of their families."
Ketoacidosis is a horrible death that I would not wish upon anybody. Even a mild case can make you wish you were dead, I speak from experience.
Posted by: AJS | May 20, 2009 2:44 PM
Well in there, PZ.
The problem with moderates is that they lend undeserved credibility to hardliners.
Believing things that are not true is anything but harmless. Oh, perhaps not all the time, for sure; but for every untrue thing you can think of, there exists a situation where believing it would place others beside the believer in mortal danger.
Posted by: james | May 20, 2009 2:46 PM
Well said.
Posted by: Steve | May 20, 2009 2:47 PM
Well said, PZ.
Posted by: JarrodB | May 20, 2009 2:48 PM
To 111,
Who would you trust more: a doctor or a witch doctor?
Superstition and medicine do not even belong in the same discussion. That's why it's dangerous.
Posted by: Isherwood
|
May 20, 2009 2:51 PM
Spoken like someone whose mind has always been held captive by religion. "Narrow"? Hardly. Freethinkers examine anything openly. Can you say the same?
"Frightened"? You, friend, are clueless to your own emotional projection. Many far more faithful than you have broken free of your brand of mental slavery. You can't possibly understand until you do as well. Don't dare, however, call an atheist frightened. That type of fear only comes from faith in a petty god.
Posted by: uppity cracka | May 20, 2009 2:51 PM
Bee @ 93,
Would you mind if I use a slightly water downed version of your "argument" and go straight to calling you an idiot?
Posted by: Matt Heath | May 20, 2009 2:53 PM
Um..yeah, kind of. If you live in society where it's the norm to have drink it probably is a bit easier to slip into alcoholism than if you lived where it was universally frowned upon. Not to me, no; I suspect not to many people here. Is that relevant to anything? Look at the top where PZ calls himself a liberal; that's true. I can see no call for anything like a ban on religion here. All I can see is the claim that "moderate" religion is not harmless.Posted by: Zar | May 20, 2009 2:55 PM
The kicker about the Madeline Neumann story is that the mother had a bit of a nervous breakdown during the trial and opted to receive medical attention for it. Medical attention. From doctors. Her fit of hysteria warranted medical intervention, while her daughter's severe illness did not. Her daughter's life was expendable, an acceptable bit of collateral damage, but her own health is not.
There... I haven't the words to describe how horrified I am. There isn't an obscenity vulgar enough to describe what Leilani Neumann is. Deep down, she knew prayer wouldn't work. She knew. It wasn't good enough for her, but it was good enough for her daughter.
This is unspeakably evil. Her daughter's death was an act of human sacrifice in the name of religious ignorance, little different from tying the girl to an alter and tearing out her still-beating heart as an offering to the sun god.
Posted by: Ben | May 20, 2009 2:55 PM
Religion, imposed on children, is child abuse. It's just that simple. This is one of several areas where political correctness does not serve society at all.
Posted by: Bad Albert | May 20, 2009 2:57 PM
-- Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary
Posted by: Rev. BigDumbChimp | May 20, 2009 2:58 PM
That's about as hilariously self unaware as I've read in while.
Posted by: RamblinDude
|
May 20, 2009 2:58 PM
Nor do I. Many of the faithful, though they be more pragmatic, want her to succeed in her prayerfulness. They see her fanaticism as merely accepting the challenge of “pure faith,” and that we need more people like her in the world. They want Daniel to get better so they can point to it as a miracle and proof of the effectiveness of prayer, but even if he dies, they will feel that surely such faith will be rewarded somehow, someway.
They may shake their heads in concern that the boy may very well die (if it’s the Lord’s will), but silently, they are cheering her on with a “Praise the Lord!” and “You go girl!”
Sure, not all of them, but far too many of them to dismiss as insignificant.
Religion fucks people up.
Posted by: Knockgoats | May 20, 2009 2:59 PM
Why, what evolutionary process demands such...emphathy? - Spiv
Evolutionary processes do not demand anything, as they are not agents. If you mean "what evolutionary process produces such empathy", the difficulty lies in deciding between the many candidates. Evolution of the capacity to feel empathy for those who are not one's children could results from kin selection (most of those our ancestors encountered until a few thousand years ago would have been close kin), reciprocal altruism (if we are more likely to help those who have helped us or our close kin, selection can favour empathy for apparently unrelated children), group selection (those social groups in which unconditional empathy existed did better than those where it did not), or reputational effects (it may be selected for to help those who show altruism, as such help is likely to be reciprocated, or, like other apparently "wasteful" behaviours, altruism may be selected for as a signal of fitness - help the strong - they will be able to help you in turn).
Posted by: siddharth
|
May 20, 2009 3:00 PM
Because, an embryo or a fetus is not a person which has consciousness and can sense the world around it; it's just a collection of cells.
Yes, there is the issue of where to draw the line, and this is a hard decision. I think in most countries, the limit is around ~ 20-22 weeks, after which the baby would survive external to the mother's womb.
But, in this case, we are talking about the potential death of a developed child, who *does* have consciousness and does not wish to die. So, the two situations are mutually exclusive.
Posted by: Jackal | May 20, 2009 3:00 PM
@ #116
I don't believe in prayer. I'm not defending religion. I'm talking about whether PZ's argument is effective to people who believe in prayer. The argument summarizes to:
IF prayer does nothing THEN you shouldn't pray.
Prayer does nothing, THEREFORE you shouldn't pray.
People who don't believe that prayer does nothing will not come to the conclusion that they shouldn't pray from that argument. And I don't think PZ provided sufficient support for the statement that prayer does nothing to convince many theists.
Posted by: DonZilla | May 20, 2009 3:01 PM
One of the reasons I think that religion will never die is because human children are so dependent on their parents for so long. People grow out of childhood physically, but with religion, can hang on to childhood emotionally forever. Which is easier: following a religion or thinking for oneself?
God is just one big fuzzy dysfunctional parent.
Posted by: mattmc | May 20, 2009 3:02 PM
several actually, see:
inclusive fitness
reciprocal altruism
Or maybe you are just a fucking moron who believes that no one can have empathy for others without the fear of reprisal from a magic invisible superbeing.
Posted by: siddharth
|
May 20, 2009 3:02 PM
> And I don't think PZ provided sufficient support for the statement that prayer does nothing to convince many theists.
Why should the burden of proof for an extraordinary claim lie on PZ?
The fact that prayer has no efficacy in treating ill patients has been established in controlled studies.
Indeed, if you're claiming that prayer works in healing, you'd better have extraordinary evidence, as it goes against much of modern science and biology.
Posted by: Marcus | May 20, 2009 3:05 PM
Excellent post. Almost made me want to stand up and yell "Amen brother", but the irony of that was a little to strong. Maybe I should print this out and stick it up next to the prayer circle flyer in the break room.
Posted by: AJS | May 20, 2009 3:06 PM
Spiv @ #75,
It borders upon the trivial to demonstrate, using game theory, that altruism is the most viable strategy for gregarious predators.
Or are you asserting that humans are not gregarious predators?
Posted by: Sastra
|
May 20, 2009 3:08 PM
Well, not quite. I think that in this particular case you're right only if you're using a very broad definition of "religion" -- one that would include alternative medicine. Orac over on Respectful Insolence has been making a strong case that the religious excuse is really an afterthought, and not what's driving the Hausers:
http://scienceblogs.com/insolence/2009/05/daniel_hauser_and_the_rejection_of_chemo.php#more
Of course, the irrational, dogmatic, paranoid antiscience attitude which finds it plausible to think that there are simple, easy, "natural" cures that they don't want you to know about is basically religious (or 'spiritual') in its approach to the world, so I think your criticisms against the attitude of faith apply just as well, even if the specific pseudo-Native American pagan religion is not really the motivation.
Bee #93 wrote:
Oh, you mean you have the true and correct understanding of faith, and how it works, and how it ought to be used -- and people like the Hausers and PZ get it wrong? Well, glad to clear that up so easily.
The problem is not with people who "misuse" or misunderstand true faith -- it's that there is no objective test in reality for things demonstrated by a method which basically rests on 'knowing' things in your heart, and trusting in a Higher Power. What are the rules, the restrictions, and the means of judging where to draw the line between what's reasonable, and what's not reasonable -- by using faith methods?
There are none. It's left up to the individual "and their God" -- and God goes all over the place, leaving us no common ground to persuade.
I think that religious moderates are similar to the people who advocate "complementary medicine" -- take the best of alt med, and combine it with the best of scientific medicine, and voila! You've got a holistic system which works for everyone, because it's so reasonable!
Trouble is, that the "best alternative medicine" consistt of evidence-based therapies and elements which are already included in scientific medicine (nutrition, exercise, tested herbal remedies), and therefore not representative of alt med at all. The category only exists because of unproven, unscientific modalities like homeopathy and energy healing. People who think that "Complementary Medicine" will somehow police itself and eventually eliminate the woo are kidding themselves. And they're providing cover for the nonsense.
Ditto for the religious moderates, who think that faith-based thinking is capable of weeding out those "extremists" who go too far, pointing proudly to those elements of their religion which actually fall under secular philosophy and ethics.
(And because I could not decide between them, two quotes by Sam Harris)
“Everything of value that people get from religion can be had more honestly, without presuming anything on insufficient evidence. The rest is self-deception, set to music.” (Sam Harris)
The very ideal of religious tolerance – born of the notion that every human being should be free to believe whatever he wants about god – is one of the principal forces driving us toward the abyss. (Harris)
Posted by: Peter | May 20, 2009 3:08 PM
Irish Catholic Church knew abuse was endemic:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/8059826.stm
"Suffer little children to come unto me." Very ugly indeed.
Posted by: ZK
|
May 20, 2009 3:10 PM
#73 Does parent-hood automatically result in the abdication of some rights to the state?
Parenthood automatically imposes responsibilities upon parents, not least of which is the responsibility to protect your kids from harm, which in some cases means making sure they get the medical treatment they need.
If you don't want to give your kids over the counter medicines when they get a snotter that's your choice, they'll live. Snotters come and snotters go, we all get over them after a few days. No harm done.
However if your kid breaks a limb, or opens an artery, or develops Hodgkins lymphoma and you deny them appropriate medical treatment then you're a monster.
The state also has responsibilities, one of which is to protect us from the monsters in society, even (especially?) when that monster is the victim's parent. Sometimes that may mean going against a parent's wishes and/or removing a child from the parent's control.
So no, you don't abdicate rights to the state. Your kid gains rights the moment they're born, and you acquire responsibilities.
ZK
Posted by: ZK
|
May 20, 2009 3:13 PM
#88 So, PZ, you do find Christianity, in essence, immoral.
I don't know what P.Z. thinks, but I'll vote Aye! that xtianity is immoral.
ZK
Posted by: whatever
|
May 20, 2009 3:14 PM
I'm sure prayer has killed more people than modern medicine-
"Did you know that the Journal of the American Medical Association, says that over 225,000 people die each year due to medical malpractice? As a matter of fact, medical malpractice has become the 3rd leading cause of death in America. Those 225,000 deaths due to medical malpractice are caused by these types of errors:
7,000 people die each year due to medication errors in hospitals
20,000 people die each year due to other types of errors in hospitals
12,000 people die each year due to unnecessary surgery
80,000 people die each year from nosocomial infections in hospitals
106,000 people die each year from adverse reactions to medications"
You're an angry man PZ- very angry! I'll pray for you though that one day your anger will be replaced with the joy of knowing Jesus Christ as your personal savior!
Posted by: Jackal | May 20, 2009 3:14 PM
If you're trying to convince someone of something, you either show them the evidence that supports your argument, or explain why the burden of proof is on them. This post did neither.PZ didn't site any evidence that prayer doesn't work in healing, and I am only discussing the persuasiveness of this post.
Posted by: Olorin | May 20, 2009 3:16 PM
"You would provide the soothing background muzak that says prayer is good, prayer is virtuous, prayer will connect you to the great lord who can do anything, prayer will give you solace in your time of worry."
There is a story about a Minnesota farmer caught in a flood. A neighbor paddled by in a boat and offered to take the farmer to higher ground. "The Lord will provide," the farmer replied. Later a sheriff's boat made the same offer, and was refused. Finally, a helicopter offered to lift the farmer to safety, but he said God would save him.
After the farmer died, he approached God and demanded to know why God had not answered his prayers. God replied, "Well, I did send two boats and a helicopter."
Posted by: Geds | May 20, 2009 3:17 PM
You're an angry man PZ- very angry! I'll pray for you though that one day your anger will be replaced with the joy of knowing Jesus Christ as your personal savior!
Make sure that you don't eat or go to the doctor while you're praying. I'll bet that will get you up to the big, gold mansion in the sky a hell of a lot quicker...
Posted by: GregB | May 20, 2009 3:19 PM
Pot, meet kettle.
As I related a few post above, I was raised as a Christian Scientist. What I dodn't say was that I also went through a period where I wondered if may it was just Christian Science that had it all wrong. So I went to a traditional Christian Bible study group and a Christian church for a while. But it was all full of the same stupidity.
Same crap, different brand.
So yes, it is possible for a person to be fully informed about religion, raised in a religion, and to study a religion and still realize that it's all garbage and superstition.
And by the way, I was much more frightened when I was a Christian and had to constantly worry about whether or not there was a sin I didn't realize I was doing and would that sin send me to eternal torment. My point of view now is substantially less narrow and less frightened.
Posted by: Jennifer B. Phillips (aka Danio) | May 20, 2009 3:25 PM
I applaud the general sentiment--and exceptional eloquence--of this post. However, in the Hauser case I'm in agreement with Orac's view that this is less about true religious conviction and more about more general-altie woo dressed up in a choir robe for effect. It is likely that the family's use of this freedom of religion defense against their actions bought them some time and sympathy within the legal system and in the community at large.
Sadly, these specifics don't make a damn bit of difference as far as Daniel's health and life are concerned, but it does bring us back to consideration of the ease with which one can employ this excuse without any actual faith to back it up. People in my community routinely use the 'religious exemption' dodge to get out of vaccinating their kids--who then attend public school with my kids. It's an absurd by-product of 'respecting diversity' and an infuriating reluctance to impinge on anyone's precious beliefs. I really hope this is a wake-up call for the people who don't think there's any real harm in allowing these practices, and the legal protection thereof, to continue. Alas, this is my hope every time a child dies under similar circumstances.
Posted by: siddharth
|
May 20, 2009 3:25 PM
I'm sorry, but that's not how it works. If you're making a crazy claim, like "whenever I close my eyes, an elephant pops into exsistence in front of me", you better present some evidence before people take you seriously.
So, it's common knowledge among the scientifically literate that prayer does not work, just like it's common knowledge that the earth is not flat.
It's basically common knowledge that prayer doesn't work.
And, if you were really interested, you'd have probably used google, or some other attempt to try to find evidence.
Here you go:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11761499?dopt=Abstract
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11142453?dopt=Abstract
Posted by: Tanya | May 20, 2009 3:25 PM
@73
>>She has the right to raise her family in a cabin in the woods, without indoor plumbing and electricity, doesn't she?
Not in all cases, no. I had to state that my home had indoor plumbing, electricity, and heat before I was allowed to take my son home from the hospital. If I had not, Child Services would have visited the home to insure it was sanitary and safe before we left.
>>She has the right to dress him a like a clown, or a sailor or a little girl, if that's what she wants, doesn't she?
Again, not in all cases. If she dresses him in a way that leads to his continued public humiliation it would likely be considered mental abuse and the child would be removed.
>>She has the right to raise him as a vegan, doesn't she?
Only if he's receiving adequate nutrition to maintain health and growth within the accepted standards for his age. Malnutrition due to dietary restriction, regardless of intent, is considered neglect.
To address your "pro-life" straw man:
A fetus is biologically dependant. It depends solely on the individual it's attached to for survival. As such, the individual it's attached to has the right to remove it regardless of the effect the removal has on the fetus.
A child, however, is not biologically dependant. A newborn infant certainly depends on others for survival, but that care can be given by any capable individual - it is merely socially dependant, not biologically dependant.
The child in question is socially dependant. As a dependant member of our society, he has certain rights. One of those rights is to be protected from willful harm in the form of abuse and/or neglect.
Currently, this child is in the "care" of a woman who is inclined to sit idly by and watch him die a slow and painful death rather than providing him with medically necessary treatment. Her actions are as much neglect as allowing him to die of hunger in a house full of food. Her relation to him is of no consequence - she would be just as guilty of neglect if she were a stranger responsible for his care.
There is no slippery slope here. No thought police. No fuzzy line. No grey area. This boy's rights are being denied by another individual. End of story.
Posted by: Dwight | May 20, 2009 3:26 PM
I take it that PZ believes there's a continuum between the prayers of this mother and those of moderates. I don't see it. Prayer doesn't make disease, death, or other features of our life go away. It's a means of approaching those realities with some courage. To pray for wisdom, discernment(which is in short supply in this story) in going through a difficult (or a good) patch is not the same thing as expecting that medical science can be overturned. And I've never been in a moderate church where it was said otherwise. You might as well have two different words because what is done and said and hoped for are just not the same thing.
Posted by: TaiYoukai | May 20, 2009 3:27 PM
@35 (senescance or something)
Enough control to keep parents from murdering their children.
She lost that right to murder her child when it was past the stage at which the basic neural growth for it is mostly complete (the birth of an individual). Wait, did you just compare a ball of cells or a semi-human melange of cells to a fully cognizant, thinking individual? Didn't your mother teach you the lesson on the world being not just black/white? We agree. I believe that is the wanting of a false reality in attempts to replace the current one. And so will I.
Posted by: siddharth
|
May 20, 2009 3:29 PM
Yes, and you would also know that modern medicine has actually saved (*gasp*) millions upon millions of lives.
And do you know how many lives prayer has saved? Zilch.
Posted by: Brownian, OM
|
May 20, 2009 3:35 PM
You're an idiot Whatever- very idiotic! I'll meditate for you though that one day your anger will be replaced with the joy of knowing the Three Jewels of the Tao: Compassion, Moderation, and Humility--especially humility!
Posted by: angela | May 20, 2009 3:39 PM
The father was on the news this morning. Based on his speech, he exhibited an IQ of perhaps 80-90. There is no way that these two parents have done anything in an "informed manner" in their adult lives, and that includes home schooling their illiterate children.
Posted by: Jackal | May 20, 2009 3:39 PM
siddharth,
News flash: most theists don't think belief in prayer is ridiculous. You're comparison will just make them less likely to listen to you.
If a moderate Xian thought it was common knowledge that prayer didn't work, PZ wouldn't need to convince them not to pray.
Those links will only be useful if the moderate Xians PZ addressed read this far down in the comments.
I don't think you understand the difference between analyzing the effectiveness of an argument and agreeing/disagreeing with its content.
Posted by: Dahan | May 20, 2009 3:39 PM
whatever @ 137,
All of us here know that when you or any other christian says "I'll pray for you" in a context like this, what you're really saying is "fuck you". Could you please have the honesty to say it properly?
If you aren't aware that that's how it comes across to us, you're thicker than a brick, which, certainly also seems possible after reading your comment.
Posted by: gillt | May 20, 2009 3:43 PM
Jackal said: "PZ didn't site any evidence that prayer doesn't work in healing, and I am only discussing the persuasiveness of this post."
So, are you being willfully ignorant or just plane ignorant? Why would you assume this post was meant to answer and offer counterpoints to every religious claim ever made? PZ has already dealt with prayer's impotence many times in many other posts. Read a little.
Posted by: Sarcastro | May 20, 2009 3:44 PM
I do not absolve you mealy-mouthed moderates, I do not regard your beliefs as harmless.
Yet we argue vociferously against the merest hint that the radicals of rationalism - like, say, Stalin - are in any way whatsoever enabled by moderate rationalists like ourselves.
Posted by: Sastra
|
May 20, 2009 3:46 PM
Dwight #145 wrote:
But that's the point. If religious moderates secularize the concept of prayer, then they end up with something that works just as well for an atheist, as for a believer. Take time, slow down, consider things seriously, and try to focus on strengthening your ability to change what you can, and accept what you can't change. Use different words, and we're talking about the same process.
That's nothing at all like petitionary prayer -- asking God for favors. Except, of course, that even you framed it in terms of praying to God for something (wisdom and discernment) -- asking God to grant you these abilities. So, it's not really nothing at all like petitionary prayer. It is on a continuum.
And I don't think that even those 'moderate churches' ever argue against anyone claiming that their prayer was answered -- their mother got well, their husband got a job, the tree that fell down last night missed their house, etc. As long as someone is happy, nobody is a skeptic, and you will not hear a discouraging or critical word.
They will only speak out against petitionary prayer if someone is disappointed that it wasn't answered. Then -- and only then -- do they trot out the "that's not how God works you pray for emotional strength to deal with life" explanation. So claiming that the moderates keep prayer, but eliminate the whole idea of supernatural intervention, is perhaps a bit disingenuous.
Posted by: Passerby | May 20, 2009 3:48 PM
I hate to say it, but if enough kids die like this, the ^%$# politicians who kowtow to religious wingnuts will finally be forced to put through a law that makes this a crime. It should be considered a form of homicide to prevent your sick child from getting medical attention.
Posted by: CS | May 20, 2009 3:49 PM
This story is personal for me. I get so angry reading about it but I have to follow it, right up to the painful conclusion.
When my aunt was diagnosed with breast cancer, she chose to treat it with prayer and diet as opposed to surgery/possible chemo. Her tumor grew so much it CAME OUT of her chest and was a revolting, oozing mass that required frequent dressing. She wasted away to nothing. And she died.
And the worst part? About a week before she died she confessed that she made a terrible mistake. THE CANCER WAS CAUGHT EARLY TOO. She would still be with us. She would have seen her daughters marry, her grandchildren born. But no. She's dead.
This woman is killing her child. The child needs to be rescued from his mother.
Posted by: Jackal | May 20, 2009 3:50 PM
Jackal, your bit about burden of proof, anecdotes, preaching to choir etc. is all correct but a little misplaced. The final, overriding takehome point of this piece isn't the worn factual claim that "prayer doesn't heal", though admittedly it's a premise. The point is to accuse, upset and provoke moderates by making the social points that their recreational delusions are not qualitatively different than this kind of fundamentalism, and that they are enabling this kind of behavior every time they set part of their book above factual investigation.
Posted by: Jackal | May 20, 2009 3:52 PM
Jackal, your bit about burden of proof, anecdotes, preaching to choir etc. is all correct but a little misplaced. The final, overriding takehome point of this piece isn't the worn factual claim that "prayer doesn't heal", though admittedly it's a premise. The point is to accuse, upset and provoke moderates by making the social points that their recreational delusions are not qualitatively different than this kind of fundamentalism, and that they are enabling this kind of behavior every time they set part of their book above factual investigation.
Posted by: Dahan | May 20, 2009 3:53 PM
@153,
"radicals of rationalism "
What the fuck does that mean? Yeah, Stalin sure was a rational guy, right? Let's list the horrors visited upon the world by people being to rational. You go first.
Posted by: Bill Dauphin | May 20, 2009 3:57 PM
Single malt or blended?
Posted by: uppity cracka | May 20, 2009 3:58 PM
"7,000 people die each year due to medication errors in hospitals
20,000 people die each year due to other types of errors in hospitals
12,000 people die each year due to unnecessary surgery
80,000 people die each year from nosocomial infections in hospitals
106,000 people die each year from adverse reactions to medications"
(sigh) if you're taking dangerous medications that kill you due to a dosing error you either have a preexisting condition, which necessitates the medication, that would have killed you anyway. it's hard to speak to "other types of errors". nosocomial infections are a problem, of course. but a person who dies from a post-op infection or is immunosuppressed would obviously die without medical attention. adverse reactions to medications is difficult to predict, but these numbers will rise as our life expectancy is drastically increased...by, uh, medications. fuck. learn to interpret some data at some point or just stop stat-mining altogether.
Posted by: Hypocee | May 20, 2009 4:00 PM
Sarcastro, I have one word, or rather one name for you.
Lysenko.
The time for shutting up is now! You're welcome.
Posted by: Flying Goose | May 20, 2009 4:01 PM
Prayer is not like magic, and anyone who teaches that it is, is guilty as charged.
Prayer is just communication, mostly, or seemingly one way.
PZ before you damn everybody who prays, get out of the US now and then, come over to the UK, meet some people who pray but not in a quasi magical way. Do not knock those of whom you have no personal knowledge, after all isn't evidence more important than sentiment.
Posted by: Emperor Zar | May 20, 2009 4:03 PM
Well, that's it. If another poster can claim to be a doctor with no evidence for it (while displaying a shocking ignorance of medicine, chemistry and public health issues to boot), I'm declaring myself emperor.
Note: ethyl mercury =! methyl mercury. Also, aluminum compounds =! straight-up aluminum. It's like with sodium vs. sodium chloride: the latter can be consumed without problems, but if you try to eat the former your face will catch fire and explode.
Posted by: Dwight | May 20, 2009 4:03 PM
Sastra
It seems like you've said two things. That my understanding of prayer is secularized and could be affirmed by atheists. But secondly that such prayers still "ask" and therefore are on a continuum with this woman's neglect of her son. So when an atheist is reflective, tries to draw on some strength for the task ahead they are no different than this woman? The slippery slope takes one to odd places.
I think how one understands divine agency and the problem of good is a messy one but I do think moderates can be doggone unreflective (and not consistent) about it.I take that as something I'm responsible to address as someone seeking ordained ministry.
Posted by: Geds | May 20, 2009 4:05 PM
Yet we argue vociferously against the merest hint that the radicals of rationalism - like, say, Stalin - are in any way whatsoever enabled by moderate rationalists like ourselves.
Yes, because Stalin was not at all a demagogue using pseudo-religious wackjobbery in service of his own ends.
Nope. He was one of those rationalists whose biography exposes the absolute worst of free thought and self-determination. People were banished to the Siberian gulags in service of the Libertarian ideals of Stalinism and chose to back the Communist Party because it was obviously the best of the many, many options presented in Russia at the time.
Thank you for your coherent point. We rationalists consider ourselves hoisted by our own petards.
[/sarcasm]
Posted by: Zar | May 20, 2009 4:06 PM
Oh crud. That was meant for another forum. Sorry about that.
Posted by: Ichthyic | May 20, 2009 4:07 PM
News flash: most theists don't think belief in prayer is ridiculous.
you seem to repeatedly be missing the point that this is EXACTLY what needs to be pointed out to those that DO believe in prayer.
It makes them, perhaps, just for a moment, ask WHY they believe prayer isn't ridiculous.
because, let's face it, there has NEVER been a scientific study (and there have been dozens, ones even sponsored by the Templeton Foundation) that has ever found one iota of tangible benefit to prayer.
In fact, the latest studies (again, funded by Templeton), show the reverse trend if the people being prayed for were aware of it.
Sorry, but you're simply wrong that this doesn't need to be pointed out again and again and again.
people are quite fond of their rationalizations, but just like the rationalizations for anti-vaxers, there's not only not an a-priori reason to "leave them be", there is EVERY reason to actively work against such poor, and often dangerous, rationalizations.
Posted by: Celtic_Evolution
|
May 20, 2009 4:07 PM
IOW, talking to yourself...
What in the hell does that even mean?
Yes... it is... so, go on... get to the part where you're going to talk about evidence...
Posted by: Tulse | May 20, 2009 4:09 PM
So they are not talking to an invisible supernatural being? They are not requesting some form of mystical intervention in the natural world, even if the intervention requested is just to change their own mental/psychological state?
So, in other words, they are just knowingly talking to themselves? That's what they think prayer is?
Posted by: robinsrule | May 20, 2009 4:11 PM
Prayer, as in sending an actual message to an actual deity, has never been shown to be real. Prayer as a coping mechanism to alleviate feelings of impotence and hopelessness may have some positive effect, but no matter how "noble," a lie is still a lie.
Posted by: Victor
|
May 20, 2009 4:12 PM
That's the thing about treatable illnesses. You have to treat them, otherwise they may as well be untreatable.
Posted by: Bart | May 20, 2009 4:13 PM
I'm new here, and addicted. My partner turned me on to PZ, and I'm on my feet in a standing ovation for this post. The combox is even better. Thanks to all of you for standing firm against the poetry and woo-woo we're all supposed to "respect". Religious moderates ARE complicit, in my view, because many of them wouldn't be caught dead (pun intended) taking their faith this far, but are happy to relate how that one time...you know...when I felt better that one time? Well, I just know it was Jebus, and I'm sorry, but that's my faith. And if this woman has faith...well...I wish she wouldn't go this far, but, you know, Jebus DOES have the power to heal, maybe, I think, kinda...
Blech. As a smart one said above, Grow some morals. Then start on a coherent foundation for your world view.
Posted by: Sastra
|
May 20, 2009 4:14 PM
Flying Goose #163 wrote:
Communication with what?
If we're talking about communicating with a disembodied pure Intelligence which exists outside of space and time, interacts with humans through telepathic powers, and has the ability to create and manipulate the material world through its use of meaning and intent -- then maybe prayer is kinda like magic, after all.
Or is it all -- atheism with metaphors and poetry?
Posted by: phantomreader42 | May 20, 2009 4:14 PM
Sarcastro @ #153:
In what fucking alternate universe was Stalin a "radical of rationalism"? Are we talking about the same Stalin, guy who promoted Lysenko's pseudoscience even after it was demonstrated not to work, put people in prison for pointing out the evidence, supported an economic system that was a dismal failure in the real world (again by murdering people for asking inconvenient questions), erased inconvenient past allies from history books, and created a personality cult around himself? That Stalin qualifies as "rational" on your planet? What color is the sky there?
Of course, we all know you'll never present any facts or evidence to back up your absurd claims, because doing that would mean emulating the rationalists you so despise.
Posted by: ZK
|
May 20, 2009 4:16 PM
#163 come over to the UK, meet some people who pray but not in a quasi magical way
Not "quasi magical"?
Oh do fuck off and stop pretending.
ZK
Posted by: Geds | May 20, 2009 4:17 PM
Prayer as a coping mechanism to alleviate feelings of impotence and hopelessness may have some positive effect, but no matter how "noble," a lie is still a lie.
I actually found this realization kind of sad as I was transitioning out of religion. Not for myself, though. By the time it occurred to me I was moving to the, "Just glad to be done with it," stage.
But I knew people who had been all about intercessory prayer and the idea that they could really tap in to god's power and change the world. Then they started transitioning over to this idea that says, "I don't change the world through prayer, I change myself."
It was like they'd seen the evidence that prayer didn't work, but held on so doggedly to their belief that they had to rationalize their way around it. The initial cost to me for saying, "You know what, screw this," might have been higher, but I'm probably a lot more mentally healthy right now than they are.
Like I say, though, it's still a little sad to think about...
Posted by: Anonymous | May 20, 2009 4:20 PM
Sastra
The form of it remains:
The religious person does something crazy so all religious people are implicated. An atheist does something crazy (Stalin was an atheist, yes?): all atheists are implicated. Or maybe it's that depending on what tack one takes religion or atheism are implicated. Either way, seeing the form of it on atheist and christian sites is disconcerting.
Posted by: Celtic_Evolution
|
May 20, 2009 4:23 PM
Anonymous @ #178
Still a total analogy fail.
Context matters.
Posted by: carole
|
May 20, 2009 4:25 PM
Very moving article PZ, I think I'll come back to it many times.
Posted by: Geds | May 20, 2009 4:28 PM
Stalin was an atheist, yes?
Atheist? Maybe. Although he did go to a Seminary briefly.
Rationalist? Hell, no. Stalin was a Millennarian dictator. The fact that his Millennium ended with the arrival of perfect Communism instead of the Second Coming just means he was twisting religious fervor in a different direction.
Rationalists wrote the Constitution of the United States of America. Compare Josef Stalin to James Madison. See if there's a difference.
Posted by: Dwight | May 20, 2009 4:29 PM
Prayer, auto suggestion, thoughts, meditation, some reflective mode that centers attention has efficacy. I may understand that to be in relation to God. Other people might use other words but I think the form remains.
Posted by: maureen Brian
|
May 20, 2009 4:29 PM
I think we need to remind ourselves that such education as Stalin had was entirely within religious institutions, including a seminary.
And, boy, did that show in his later life!
Posted by: Hairhead | May 20, 2009 4:30 PM
Anonymous: you said, "The religious person does something crazy so all religious people are implicated. An atheist does something crazy (Stalin was an atheist, yes?): all atheists are implicated. Or maybe it's that depending on what tack one takes religion or atheism are implicated. Either way, seeing the form of it on atheist and christian sites is disconcerting."
Aaaaarrghh! Talk about not reading or understanding anything. This blog excoriates religious persons who do something crazy IN THE NAME OF THEIR RELIGION -- which therefore implicates other who share that religion. Stalin was an atheist who did crazy things, BUT HE DIDN'T DO THEM IN THE NAME OF ATHEISM -- you disingenuous twit.
Aaargh!
Posted by: gillt | May 20, 2009 4:32 PM
Nice try #178.
Stalin deified himself for the rubes of Russia and killed the rationalists/scientists who opposed him. He used religious ignorance to gain power. Stalin was no friend of rationalism or science.
Posted by: Anonymous | May 20, 2009 4:34 PM
@73:
You answered your own question. Which category should this horror show go under -- abuse or unhealthy living conditions? Whichever one you choose, the state is absolutely right to intervene and prevent the harm that is being done to this child.
And this is just too good:
Understood. It's clearly option 1.Posted by: WBC | May 20, 2009 4:35 PM
Oh, most certainly! The world would be a much better place if we were all as "rational" as the average obscure junior academic at a rural university! Atheist pretensions of moral superiority are an endless source of amusement.
Posted by: Sastra
|
May 20, 2009 4:38 PM
Dwight #165 wrote:
I did say two different things, because I was trying to get across the idea that liberal believers tend to slip back and forth between two different ways of thinking about prayer which sound similar on the surface, but are significantly different in concept. There's the rational, secular re-translation of prayer, and the traditional, supernatural understanding of prayer. Liberals who pray are doing the first one -- except when they're doing the second one -- or perhaps they're doing the first one as understood in the idiom of the second one, or the second one as framed in the context of the first one. Let us blur the distinctions, and sneak in the irrational, on the back of the rational.
The woman who prayed that God heal her daughter of diabetes was not just "being reflective" and drawing on her own strength for the task at hand -- which would have involved taking the poor child to a doctor. She was petitioning God for a miracle.
The liberals who see prayer as drawing, not on their own strength, but on God's strength (or who see themselves as asking for God to please strengthen their strength), are still appealing to supernatural powers. They're not doing it as much. They're drawing a line, on what they think they can ask of God, and what God will (not can) do.
Are they praying the right way -- and the mother prayed the wrong way? The only way to solve a question about the supernatural is to appeal to the supernatural. See what God says, or figure out what God is. Use faith, to discern where one ought to put the brakes.
Our problem is that, when you use faith as method, where you put the brakes on prayer is ultimately arbitrary -- because the Ultimate Court of Appeal is not open to rational investigation. It's a matter ... of faith. You just gotta take that leap, and believe. As hard as you can. It's a commitment.
We may prefer the conclusion that the liberal theists come to -- but they come to it the wrong way. Problem.
Method, method, method...
Posted by: JBlilie | May 20, 2009 4:38 PM
In some cases, the state must step in and protect children from their "care" givers.
Parents are not allowed to endanger their children by exposing them to, for instance: Starvation, pornography, sex, beatings, torture, isolation, toxic materials, non-use of safety restraints in cars, etc.
Withholding proper medical care in a clear case such as this is equivalent to starving the child. Your reasons for doing so don't matter! You're just not allowed. I don't care if you think that food is evil or that children must be "toughened up" or "show respect" to a god. It doesn't fly. The same is true in these cases.
The whole point on the other side just falls back to the false "respect for religion" card. It's bullshit, full-stop.
The state has responsibly and rightfully stepped in in this case (Hausers) where the parents have shown themselves incompetent to care for their child.
Posted by: Anonymous | May 20, 2009 4:41 PM
Whereas theist pretensions of same are ... what? Less amusing? Completely ludicrous? More socially acceptable?
Posted by: Celtic_Evolution
|
May 20, 2009 4:43 PM
Funniest ironic comment I've read today. Fantastic.
So tell me again, WBC... the average obscure junior academic refers to whom? And has fuck-all to do with what?
Posted by: DistendedPendulusFrenulum | May 20, 2009 4:43 PM
If she's going to Mt. Moriah, she better pack heat. Memphis gets awful violent when the weather gets hot.
Posted by: gillt | May 20, 2009 4:43 PM
No Dwight, the form doesn't remain the same when you're simply making stuff up.
You don't get to equate real world explanations carried out by rigorous science with the explanation that a supernatural sky fairy did it.
Posted by: Dwight | May 20, 2009 4:45 PM
Sastra
I can buy your critique but I don't think moderates by necessity must engage in prayer that slips into the supernatural. I also don't think faith is a method at all. It may be an underlying comportment to the world, to a given tradition, but it doesn't adjudicate claims. So in principle it is possible for you and I to discuss what is appropriate and inappropriate forms of prayer (in this case, I think we may use a very similar method)
Posted by: Celtic_Evolution
|
May 20, 2009 4:47 PM
Or, WBC, are you just another dim bulb, like our good friend Robert, who doesn't know the difference between Assistant Professor and Associate Professor?
Would that accurately describe you? Hmmm? Come on... it's ok... admit it... you thought PZ's title was Assistant Professor and assumed it made him a "junior academic"... go on... it's ok... we already know the answer... you can say it.
Posted by: Geds | May 20, 2009 4:52 PM
Also, don't anybody tell WBC what the meaning of the word "obscure" is.
He might realize that the time PZ got kicked out of a screening of Expelled while they let Richard Dawkins in indicates that our host might actually possess a bit of notoriety...
Posted by: TFK
|
May 20, 2009 4:55 PM
@ #144
PZ's argument is not persuasive. Logically, yes, extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. However,this is not a logical argument; it is a rhetorical one.
Logic plays a part in persuasion, but so does credibility and emotion. If a person believes that prayer works, even if through confirmation bias, the studies mean nothing--especially because they've heard about a study that did show positive results. They give more credibility to 2,000 years of tradition.
To an atheist, it's a good argument, based on reason from a credible source. To a fundamentalist, PZ has no credibility because he's an atheist, and he achieves his goal of offending.
To a moderate, however, who doesn't accept the premise that there is no god, it's merely a slippery slope arqument to say that all prayer is poison because of what this wacko family is doing. To be effective, the argument needs to say why the slope is slippery.
Posted by: flaq | May 20, 2009 5:01 PM
Stupid unintentional anonymity. 186 and 190 are from me.
Posted by: DaveH | May 20, 2009 5:03 PM
come over to the UK, meet some people who pray but not in a quasi-magical way
The proper English way :)
Posted by: Knockgoats | May 20, 2009 5:03 PM
Olorin@139,
Well, I've only read that story about twenty times on this blog in the last year.
Posted by: Drosera
|
May 20, 2009 5:03 PM
Under normal circumstances only religion can cause parents to kill their own children, and this sad story is a case in point. Religious people really believe that God is more important than anything else, more important even than their own flesh and blood. You see, God has this plan... Yes, a Plan, a beautiful Plan, too grandiose for a mere mortal to comprehend, and in order to carry out this Plan it is necessary that Daniel Hauser dies a miserable death of cancer. But that's a small price to pay, because he will live happily ever after in Heaven.
Unfortunately, the idiots will never find out that there is no Plan, because they will just die and disintegrate like everybody else.
Posted by: meschlum | May 20, 2009 5:04 PM
On the Stalin / atheism front:
Besides the (I my view quite justified) statements that Stalin's activities were not founded or supported by atheism, there is another point.
Even if you assume that Stalin's actions were representative of 'extremist' atheism (I don't), atheists *condemn* Stalin's actions, and the 'reasoning' that led there.
Instead, moderate theists do *not* condemn the actions and 'faith' used by 'extremist' theists.
So even if the false analogy (Stalin is to atheism what the Hauser... are to theism) is accepted (and it should not be), it fails by its own criteria.
Because only one group appears to acknowledge that aberrant behavior must be opposed, whatever 'side' the misbehaving person belongs to. And it's not the theists.
Posted by: Smoggy Batzrubble | May 20, 2009 5:06 PM
"Atheist pretensions of moral superiority are an endless source of amusement."
Damn straight WBC! We believers know that atheists exist in a moral vacuum--the crocodile tears of those who haven't subjected their lives to God's infallible word are risible. Indeed, God was telling me during our daily chat just how much it amuses Him when atheists weep, wail and gnash their teeth over some believer's child dying for their parents' faith (as if atheists really cared!). They don't understand His perfect will, you see.
Oh yes ... and God asked me to mention the great reward in store for you for swearing off all satan-inspired medicines and life-extending technology.
Yours in blind faith,
S. Batzrubble
Posted by: flaq | May 20, 2009 5:07 PM
Disingenuous twat @ 197:
Nobody is claiming that all prayer is poison because of what this wacko family is doing. The point is that all prayer is poison because it helps validate what this wacko family is doing. Really read that, and make sure you understand the difference.
"Moderate" prayer gives this type of harmful, sociopathic behavior exactly the kind of cover it needs. It might be a lower dose of poison, but it is still toxic.
Posted by: Jen | May 20, 2009 5:08 PM
Holy crap. Another sad, depressing story about parents who rely on god to heal their children, and who believe that if they die, that's okay because it's somehow "god's will"...
Y'know, I don't get this.
I was raised a Christian but I seroconverted to pagan-agnosticism, and even when I was hanging out with more Christians, the churches I went to had priests and pastors who said, "God helps those who help themselves". I also have heard the parable about the man who is waiting for god to save him from a flood, and he turns down help from three sets of people who come by to help him (in a boat, in a helicopter) only to die and have to face an irritated god at the pearly gates who said, "Dude, I answered your prayers and send these people to help you. What the HELL were you doing in rejecting my help?"
I don't understand why the beliefs of the Christians I was hanging out with haven't totally phagocytosised the beliefs of those who believe they can only be healed by god.
Just.don't.get.it. Don't get why they can't believe in their god and also reason, "That's why god made some people into doctors, or inspired them to be nurses". Then bloody well send their sick kid to a doctor when they get very ill.
If they can't be Atheists, at least convert them to people who have some sense.
Someone took away the car keys to their brains and said there is no free will.
Posted by: Dwight | May 20, 2009 5:09 PM
"Instead, moderate theists do *not* condemn the actions and 'faith' used by 'extremist' theists."
Yes, we do. All the time actually. We have whole organizations that do just that as well as present an alternative religious and social vision. Progressive Christians Uniting, Sojourners, Center for Progressive Christianity, The Network for Spiritual Progressives. There good groups worth checking out.
Posted by: Dwight | May 20, 2009 5:15 PM
"Whenever we come upon (art and science) in secular writers, let the light of truth shining in them teach us that the mind of man is clothed and ornamented with God's excellent gifts.
If we regard the Spirit of God as the sole foundation of truth, we shall neither reject the truth itself, nor despise it wherever it shall appear, unless we dishonor the Spirit of God.
Shall we say that the philosophers were blind in their fine observation and artful description of nature? Shall we say that those men were devoid of understanding who conceived the art of disputation and taught us to speak reasonably?
Shall we say that they are insane who developed medicine, devoting their labor to our benefit? What shall we say of all the mathematical sciences? We marvel in them because we are compelled to recognize how preeminent they are."
John Calvin
Posted by: Sastra
|
May 20, 2009 5:17 PM
Anonymous #178 wrote:
You're mistaking form for content. What PZ is really attacking isn't 'religion' as such -- it's the irrationalism and dogmatism that lies under faith and belief in the supernatural. When the 'religious person did something crazy' she was doing what she thought was right, from the point of view of her religion. And, from the point of view of her beliefs, it was the right thing to do. It made sense: God does miracles to reward those who trust in Him enough to believe He will do a miracle. The most important thing is to trust in God -- not man's ways.
Stalin wasn't being reasonable and undogmatic from the secular standpoint. On the contrary.
Religion has a problem specifically inherent in religion: its ultimate justification rests on faith in supernatural truths, and the view that one therefore ought to ignore the 'wisdom of the world' -- to a point. Depending on which version of God you follow.
Pointing out that people will be dogmatic and irrational even when they're not religious isn't getting to the heart of the problem with religion. The reasonable things which religious people do are so-labeled by us because they make sense even to atheists. They're justifiable on secular, as well as religious, grounds. But there is nothing in religion which requires that it must "make sense to reasonable atheists."
If it all makes sense to reasonable atheists, then that God-part is all poetry. The religious impulse will always seek to justify its own value, against the ways of the secular world.
Posted by: NoAstronomer | May 20, 2009 5:20 PM
t3knomanser, #51:
That would make for an interesting argument to use against the idiots who want to declare that embryos are people.
Posted by: defective robot | May 20, 2009 5:20 PM
Tom @ #66,
I have a similar sentiment about the flood. If God has a master plan, what was the point of wiping out humanity with 40 days of rain? He should have known that it was going to be ineffective, so why bother?
Posted by: Smoggy Batzrubble | May 20, 2009 5:20 PM
Dwight, my brother in Christ, I'm joining all the progressive organisations you listed as soon as I'm out of prison.
I know the atheists will say that "progressives" is just an anagram of "Grievers' Sops"--but when you're grieving after God has tested your faith by killing off one of your children, having first let him or her experience prolonged suffering (and to make matters worse the atheist world now wants to crucify you for it)--then any Sop's a good Sop.
Your brother in needless Christian suffering
S. Batzrubble
Posted by: SteveN
|
May 20, 2009 5:22 PM
Late to the game here, but I just have to say "bloody well said, sir!"
Deep religious conviction of the type displayed in these two heartbreaking stories should be considered a form of mental instability and any children brought up in such an environment should be monitored very closely so that the authorities can rescue an innocent child from the lethal consequences of such crass stupity.
SteveN
Posted by: Drosera
|
May 20, 2009 5:30 PM
In a way I find moderate Christians even harder to understand than fundamentalists. The fundamentalists believe everything verbatim, from Genesis to the Revelations. They are completely immune against rational arguments. At least they are consistent.
But the moderates recognize that Genesis can't be true, that Jonah couldn't have lived for three days in the stomach of a tuna fish (thanks, Bill Mahler). And yet they invariably swallow the equally ridiculous Jesus myth hook, line and sinker. Very strange.
The moderates provide the water in which the fundamentalist sharks can swim.
Posted by: Hypocee | May 20, 2009 5:35 PM
Drosera@201 and a few others: Hey now, one step too far. This is not a case of a parent letting their kid die for the sake of a religious belief, as the Neumann case arguably was. All the commentary and evidence I've seen in this case states that the Hausers genuinely believe that prayer and herbs offer a better chance of survival than real treatment. The effects are the same, the motivation is still important in social debate, and those cases happen too, but it feels like a low blow to accuse them of being indifferent to their child's fate.
Posted by: Dwight | May 20, 2009 5:38 PM
Sastra
All solid points which is why I think it's important to divorce religion from supernatural.
Posted by: Sastra
|
May 20, 2009 5:39 PM
Dwight #194 wrote:
By necessity? No. Moderates can always either leave God out of prayer, or redefine God and prayer in purely secular terms, and deal with them that way. This method of approaching God and prayer to God is sometimes called by the technical term "atheism."
I think we could get off on a rather large tangent (or maybe not so tangential) on definitions of "faith." And what kind of claims we're talking about.
In a religious context, 'faith' is much more than hope, reasonable expectation, or pragmatic reliance. It is "the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen." With secular beliefs, you're supposed to be able to 'change your view" if you find our you're mistaken. In the language of faith, you either can't find out you're mistaken -- or you have "lost" something precious and important.
As for faith being an 'underlying comportment to the world,' I still see it as a method of approaching how one sees and analyzes the world. Religious faith is a commitment that a believer makes -- not to God -- but to themselves, that they will spin all events to fit into a conclusion they already hold (lest they become arrogant.)
Dawkins once parodied the liberal religious habit, by doing a thought-experiment on what it would be like, if scientists acted like liberal theists -- and discovered that DNA was not, after all, in the shape of a double helix.
They would say something to the effect that "well of course, this means nothing, because we never meant that the double helix be taken literally. No, the double helix DNA is still true, because it speaks to us in metaphorical ways."
Faith means never having to admit you were wrong about God's existence. You just misunderstood God before -- but don't misunderstand God now -- as much.
Posted by: arachnophilia
|
May 20, 2009 5:42 PM
as a "mealy mouthed moderate" i feel obliged to say something, because perhaps my position is a little different than what you might expect.
no, i probably wouldn't. and if i would, it would only be because it would make the person who is praying feel better.because frankly, even from a theological perspective, prayer is useless. imagine the scenario:
if you imagine an invisible sky-daddy that fixes fate and does whatever he wants whenever he wants, what in god's name makes you think that just phoning him up asking him for a favor will change his mind? it's... excessively arrogant, foolhardy, and just plain to stupid to ask for anything in prayer. if there is a god, he's not bloody santa claus. he's not a genie in a bottle. he's not marlon brando and it's not his daughter's wedding day. in many churches, this sort of practice as become almost synonymous with "children," both the literal kind, and the newly converted kind. "i want this, i want that, gimme gimme gimme." it's like a 3 year old. eventually, you hope people grow out of the whiny demanding stage. they usually do with their real parents -- why not the invisible sky daddy?prayer just is not a substitute for action. it's not even a compliment to action. these people might as well starve themselves and pray for god to put food in their stomachs.
and for what it's worth, the isaac analogy is probably even more applicable than you're aware. a modern jewish reading of the akedah says that the correct course of action was for abraham to question and ultimately disobey god.
Posted by: Brandon | May 20, 2009 5:43 PM
Just out of curiosity, has this argument ever worked? I am being serious here. Can any of you recall a time when you walked up to a religious moderate, held up a newspaper showing a dying child, said, "This is all your fault," and then the moderate became an atheist?
I'm not trying to be snarky here. I am completely sincere. Has this approach ever worked for any of you?
Posted by: Havelock | May 20, 2009 5:45 PM
Never commented before, but I just wanted to say that was a great post. Keep it up.
Posted by: Sastra
|
May 20, 2009 5:47 PM
Dwight #215 wrote:
O Gosh, now we're going to get into the definition of "supernatural."
I think religion which has been divorced from the supernatural is best termed "life philosophy."
Posted by: Fred the Hun
|
May 20, 2009 5:50 PM
Great post! Any chance the you could get the LA Times to publish it?
Posted by: Susan | May 20, 2009 5:52 PM
I really, really enjoyed reading this post!
Posted by: tyaddow | May 20, 2009 5:53 PM
Hey Brandon, you're not the first one to ask that question in this thread. You'll find several responses to that question already exist. Jackal has been barking up that tree since #55. Read the thread, then comment.
Posted by: Knockgoats | May 20, 2009 5:59 PM
Dwight,
You're obviously someone with whom, politically, I and many others here have a great deal in common - and in political activism, I've worked with religious believers who are far closer to fundamentalism than you. However, having quickly scanned the websites of the groups you listed:
1) I see no obvious condemnation of the type of lethal idiocy this post is about. I never do seem to see it, unless coupled with an attack on atheist/secularists/"scientism".
2) I see no acknowledgement that it has been precisely as religion has lost ground that "progressive" values have gained it (and indeed, there is now a clear negative correlation between progressive social values and religiosity at individual, community and nation-state level).
3) I come across stuff like this:
" God's Politics
Let Us Pray for the World’s Bad Actors
by Valerie Elverton Dixon 05-19-2009
Let us pray for Zimbabwe’s president Robert Mugabe and for the Burmese generals. Let us send them our love. This is the counterintuitive radicality of the Christian witness. This is why living the teachings of Jesus is difficult. When we invite people to become Christians, we ought to tell them that we are asking them to live a life that makes no earthly sense."
What is praying for Robert Mugabe supposed to achieve? If it's not in this instance a kind of magic, what is it?
Posted by: Sastra
|
May 20, 2009 5:59 PM
arachnophilia #217 wrote:
Well, yes. And, of course, if someone prayed over a sick child and the child got better and they credited God's intervention for that, you certainly wouldn't criticize them in that case, either -- because it makes them feel better, and love God more. And, after all -- who knows? God may still do some direct work in the world, at strategic intervals. Miracles have happened.
What's really at stake here? Petitionary prayer? The important thing is not advocating a view because it's true, but making people feel good, and letting it go. Faith can be a beautiful thing.
Unless it goes too far. Then you can wonder how the heck that happened.
Posted by: Flying Goose | May 20, 2009 6:05 PM
What I mean't earlier, is that PZ is damning an abstraction. I suspect that he does not know any flesh and blood religious moderates well enough to condemn their practices.
If he spent time with me for instance, he might find ahis preconceptions challanged. He might not. At the moment he has no evidence to damn my religious practices because he does not know what they are.
Posted by: H.H. | May 20, 2009 6:06 PM
No, because that isn't the intention. But it has kept people who weren't already indoctrinated from believing the lie that faith is innocuous. This isn't about converting anyone. It's about isolation and containment. The faith-heads will remain faith-heads. But we can influence those who might one day become faith-heads by illustrating that it isn't a useful or desirable worldview.Posted by: Merrydol | May 20, 2009 6:11 PM
Please, Arachnophilia, go read the post again. This time, realize that it applies directly to you.
And why should you make that person feel better? They're killing their child. I would feel no obligation to make them feel any better about that. In fact, I would feel an obligation to do everything in my power to stop the situation even if it means shaming and disillusioning the murderous parents.
You're right. He/she/it doesn't exist. Prayer doesn't work. Now, kindly explain that to everyone at church (or meeting, synagogue, temple etc.) so no one thinks they have support in asking for things (anything- that includes the whole "god grant me the serenity" spiel as well as curing their kid's condition).
What you seem to be saying is "No, it's not religion's fault- they're just doing it wrong! You're not supposed to actually ask for things!" But that's a pretty remarkable lapse in clarity on the part of the people who are doing it "right," isn't it? A lapse which led directly to the painful death of children. This is addressed, much more eloquently than I can manage, by the original post. I repeat, go read it again.
Posted by: PZ Myers
|
May 20, 2009 6:11 PM
I grew up in the church. I know many people who go to church. I know precisely what I am speaking of.
Go to the page in your church bulletin with the prayer requests. Follow your minister when he visits the hospital. It's there.
And sure, I also know how well-practiced church-goers are at denying the absurdity of what they do. I'll leave a little saucer of milk out to propitiate the elves, too, but we both know elves don't exist, nod to the wise, it's all just in case, and just because it feels good. No, there's nothing at all superstitious about it. No, sir. I can deny everything.
Posted by: Sastra
|
May 20, 2009 6:11 PM
Brandon #218 wrote:
Well, I can't say anything about the newspaper ambush, but, in general, I think that many reasonable theists have considered criticisms of particular doctrines -- or even religion itself -- thought it through, and eventually changed their minds. I think that's true across the board for reasonable people in general, even in politics and science and social and personal issues.
As a rule of thumb, it's usually a good idea to assume that the person who disagrees with you, is open to thinking things through, and seeing something they hadn't seen before, and being persuaded. Liberal theists have seen "isn't it a shame that some people mis-use and mis-understand religious faith" a fair amount, and been coddled for their reasonable stance on religion. PZ writes from a different -- and maybe new -- perspective.
Bit of a jolt, sometimes. ;)
Posted by: Mitch Miller | May 20, 2009 6:20 PM
Nice post, remember that this also isn't really a freedom of religion issue. If she had some religion she just made up relgion or believed soomething nobody had heard of instead of Christianity the child would have been taken from her already.
Posted by: Dwight | May 20, 2009 6:22 PM
knock
I suppose for a more circumspect descriptions of God and faith the Center for Progressive Christianity would be better than Sojourners (which while lefty in politics is evangelical in theology). That's my bad.
But I think the relation of progressivism and religion that you find is largely in the US. In Canada the largest protestant church in the country worked *for* gay marriage. Actually the largest protestant bodies in Canada are generally on the same page. It's the problem of taking our context and making it writ large.
Sastra
To go with Dawkins, if we look at how the meaning of the terms atom, universe, etc. has shifted while the terms are still being used, we may find something similar to God language's shifts over the centuries.
Posted by: Brandon | May 20, 2009 6:26 PM
No argument there. People are going to be open minded or not, and it's usually pretty easy to tell right away. But it's my personal experience that, regardless of how open minded somebody is, the shock value argument simply doesn't work. As soon as you make an issue personal, the listener is going to immediately shut the vault door on his mind. Is there some context in which people really respond to the jolt?
Posted by: Benjamin Franklin | May 20, 2009 6:26 PM
My fortune cookie message from last night's lo mein-
"The only good is knowledge and the only evil, ignorance."
Posted by: arachnophilia
|
May 20, 2009 6:28 PM
@Sastra: (#225)
think of it like alcoholism. i might understand when my friend who's just been dumped drinks himself stupid one night. but if he does it every night, he has a problem. there is a point somewhere in between where the responsible person should feel some sort of duty to point this out. a point where the thing being used to make the person feel better has actually gotten in the way of being better.
no, i think you're jumping to conclusions. perhaps i do not believe in an interventionist god. perhaps i don't believe in any god. perhaps i believe in a god who's kind of a dick. there are clearly other possibilities here -- in any case, even as a "mealy mouthed moderate," my explanation for a seemingly miraculous recovery is a lot more likely to involve leukocytes than the gospel of luke.
one would hope the real and verifiable fact that their child is well would have more of an impact than an abstract concept of whether or not god answers prayers. because frankly, if i knew god answered prayers, and prayed over a sick child who then failed to be miraculously cured, i might get fairly upset. so perhaps i find the idea that god stays out of it a little more comforting. because otherwise, it reduces to a macroscopic version of the above story: someone with the power to help who refuses. what do you think about such people? and how would you feel about a god who acted that way?
but then i'm not a person who easily ignores counter examples, especially when they are so very numerous in comparison to the seemingly miraculous.
Posted by: Walton | May 20, 2009 6:29 PM
Dwight:
Great, the worst of both worlds. Empirically indefensible religious woo and rationally indefensible leftist politics.
Posted by: Uerba | May 20, 2009 6:30 PM
I forgot that if some hyper-pious fanatic idiots do bad things, it's every member of whatever group they belong\ed to's fault--regardless of what each individual member of that group personally believes or does. Thanks for clarifying that. I forgot how valid it was to judge EVERYONE based on the actions of a few...
Posted by: Sastra
|
May 20, 2009 6:35 PM
Dwight #232 wrote:
Is 'God' then also a scientific term, which has shifted according to the outcomes of research and experiment, in order to meet a strict consensus of experts in the field?
Probably not a good analogy.
Posted by: Brandon | May 20, 2009 6:37 PM
In before Uerba gets flamed into next week.
I like your art, by the way.
Posted by: Merrydol | May 20, 2009 6:40 PM
Uerba,
Sure, I'll judge the group that made these despicable actions possible. Someone built a scaffold, someone brought a noose, and then they tut-tutted when someone else was hung. They must have just been "using them wrong." By undermining reason, religions set the scene for this kind of tragedy.
Posted by: John Morales | May 20, 2009 6:41 PM
Qwerty @63, yeah. The risk was clear even to officials - from the linked article:
(misquote in original)Posted by: Uerba | May 20, 2009 6:42 PM
@#239
Thanks, man! Meh, how can they flame me? Am I wrong? Did Meyers not bash every Christian based on the actions of a few zealots?
Posted by: Phiwilli | May 20, 2009 6:45 PM
These Hauser, Neumann, et al. stories remind me of the 1991 movie "The Rapture." At the end, an Abraham-like mother who obediently killed her daughter decides (no doubt unlike Hauser and Neumann) that god is cruel and refuses the opportunity to go to heaven. It's a good critique of the Left Behind version of fundamentalism.
Posted by: MadScientist | May 20, 2009 6:46 PM
I was always a nasty unbelieving catlick. At the age of 8 when I was forced to waste time in church I'd often grab my sister's arm as she reached for the "holy font" and shout "don't touch that, it's filthy!" In high school whenever a classmate would ask for people to pray for a sick family member or friend I'd say "prayer is for the dead, and if all your friend/relative is getting is prayer, they'll be dead soon enough." I was never excommunicated though, but at least people agreed that my behavior exempted me from ever going to church. Not a single goddamned prayer for decades now and I'm still alive and well.
Posted by: Anonymous | May 20, 2009 6:46 PM
From CNN article on the Hauser case:
"But the family opted for a holistic medical treatment based upon Native American healing practices called Nemenhah and rejected further treatment."
No Xtian-insanity here, folks. It's homegrown Native American insanity instead.
Posted by: Uerba | May 20, 2009 6:47 PM
@#240
Yes actually, they would have been using them the wrong way. This isn't the fault of religion, it's the fault of idiocy and fanaticism.
Posted by: Dwight | May 20, 2009 6:47 PM
"Is 'God' then also a scientific term, which has shifted according to the outcomes of research and experiment, in order to meet a strict consensus of experts in the field?"
No God is a religious term that has shifted according to the outcomes of the experiences of given religious communities and their understanding to the world they live in (whether that has been affected by the science, the zeitgeist, etc)
Posted by: Glen Murdock | May 20, 2009 6:48 PM
Parents who let their children die end their contribution to the future. Just don't let your children die and in a few years the world will be terminal religionitis free. That's your contribution to the future, if you think you can keep your kids religionitis free (give them condoms - they either prevent transmission or reduce the severity of the symptoms).
Posted by: Merrydol | May 20, 2009 6:48 PM
Just so ya' know, I'm not trying to flame anyone :)
I genuinely think, Uerba, that the moderate Christians are doing no one any favors and that Dr. Myers has a good point to make here.
Posted by: Sastra
|
May 20, 2009 6:49 PM
Brandon #233 wrote:
Well, I can't remember who, but some of the commenters on this blog (and elsewhere) have at least claimed that a jolt of ridicule turned out to be just what they needed. They didn't change right away, but when they tried to come up with a rebuttal. They'd only seen belief treated with kid gloves before. The idea that it doesn't necessarily merit automatic brownie points was a shockingly new point of view.
Daniel Dennett talks about the undue respect religion has gained through a sort of cultural 'gentleman's agreement' that we never criticize people's faiths. We treat them gently, for faith is fragile, special, personal, and -- a virtue. He titled his book Breaking the Spell, meaning eliminating the exaggerated deference given to religion, and faith -- so that they may be examined on their own merits, analyzed, and taken seriously as phenomena in their own right, making claims for truth.
It's not a new idea:
"The pedant and the priest have always been the most expert of logicians--and the most diligent disseminators of nonsense and worse. The liberation of the human mind has never been furthered by such learned dunderheads; it has been furthered by gay fellows who heaved dead cats into sanctuaries and then went roistering down the highways of the world, proving to all men that doubt, after all, was safe--that the god in the sanctuary was finite in his power, and hence a fraud. One horse-laugh is worth ten thousand syllogisms. It is not only more effective; it is also vastly more intelligent.' -- HL Mencken
Maybe. Sometimes.
Posted by: flaq | May 20, 2009 6:50 PM
This is not a case of all members of a group being judged by the actions of a few. This is a case of pointing out that the actions of the group helped enable and justify the behavior of two individuals.
Many, probably most members of the group in question (those who pray) are outraged by this story. Nobody is assuming that because they pray, they are likely to behave in that way too. Rather, the point here is that by worshiping and praying to an imaginary deity, they make it socially acceptable to behave as though that deity were real, and would even listen to all those prayers.
The parents of this poor sick child were encouraged to pray. They were encouraged to believe in a divine being who would help them in times of need. The only problem was, they were dumb enough to believe it.
(Or, as it starts to look in this case, they were cynical enough to claim this religious motivation as a justification for their indefensibly stupid actions.)
Posted by: kamaka | May 20, 2009 6:50 PM
Meh, how can they flame me? Am I wrong?
Moderation is the pavement extremism walks upon.
i.e. you are an enabler
And you can't deny that the christers, islamists and judaics murder in the name of god, easily and often.
Posted by: Merrydol | May 20, 2009 6:51 PM
Yes actually, they would have been using them the wrong way. This isn't the fault of religion, it's the fault of idiocy and fanaticism.
And religion undermines reason, disguises abuse and promotes idiocy and fanaticism. Exactly.
Posted by: Brownian, OM
|
May 20, 2009 6:53 PM
Which is occasionally synonymous.
Let's do it the other way 'round, okay?
Why is it that religion gets a free pass just because some of its adherents are too apathetic to do anything but defend the beliefs of its fanatical zealots from criticism?
Posted by: CJO | May 20, 2009 6:54 PM
Did Meyers not bash every Christian based on the actions of a few zealots?
Not really, though I'm sure believing so obviates the need to think about what he actually did write.
Myers is bashing the "moderately religious" for their own inaction in the face of madness, and for providing cover for said madness with their slightly less mad practices. In the idiom of the post: prayer is poison. Just because you only take a little bit, now and then, and know your limits, doesn't excuse decaring it harmless and leaving it laying around where those who don't know better can get their hands on it.
Posted by: Dwight | May 20, 2009 6:55 PM
Sastra
I'd be in favor of an open examination of any and all religious and non religious claims. But too often one can only sort through some caricatures at best. The Dawkins-Eagleton-D'Sousza-Hitchens route hasn't shed much light on things as far as I can tell.
Posted by: flaq | May 20, 2009 7:00 PM
And there's the problem. Religion provides haven and encouragement for the very same idiots and fanatics who are killing this child with their ignorance.Posted by: Sastra
|
May 20, 2009 7:01 PM
arachnophilia #235 wrote:
No, religious belief is not like wine, and "being extreme" like being an alcoholic. Religious belief is like astrology, and believers are arguing over whether Jupiter in the 7th house of Capricorn means that a war must be started between mighty nations, or just "today is a good day to get to some of those projects you've been putting off."
Once you're appealing to "what the stars are really trying to tell us," all bets are off.
Posted by: Brownian, OM
|
May 20, 2009 7:01 PM
They're partial caricatures, but do you really expect a polemic against every variant viewpoint among the 30,000 or so sects of Christianity alone?
At some point Dwight, one has to give up the illusion that, sure, all the other Christians are wrong and harbour dumb beliefs (Faith over Works? Idiot. It's Works over Faith, I think), but I was born/reborn/converted into the one faith that makes clever and nuanced arguments that must be treated with serious reverence before I give any polemic a listen.
Trust me; I've been there.
Posted by: Anonymous | May 20, 2009 7:02 PM
Dwight sounds concerned.
Posted by: Uerba | May 20, 2009 7:02 PM
Merrydol: I'll have to disagree with you, there. It depends on which religion you're talking about.
Flaq: So what if they were encourged to pray? Thier prayers have already been answered, and there are possibly millions of people willing to help thier sick child. Those who pray (many, anyway) know not to hope for magic. If these people don't, it's not the fault of Theists, or prayer.
kamaka: Oh yeah? When did I enable them? See, it's happening again...
Posted by: Santaclaus | May 20, 2009 7:04 PM
This is a message to grown ups: I do not exist. In any form. Get real.
Posted by: CJO | May 20, 2009 7:05 PM
some caricatures
My goodness, no! That ghastly outfit is nothing like the glorious raiment the emperor wears.
Dude, we hear it every day. It even has a name.
Posted by: Sastra
|
May 20, 2009 7:06 PM
Uerba #237 wrote:
The argument is that the system of religion doesn't have any built-in brakes which distinguish between the radical and the 'reasonable.' The only one who can really arbitrate is God: this means that the people who are most sure of God, are the most sure that they are correct -- in any situation.
The method and system is being criticized. Not so much the people. They're mostly good people -- even the idiot fanatics.
Posted by: D Dave | May 20, 2009 7:07 PM
Wonder if they are related to Kasper Hauser...
Posted by: flaq | May 20, 2009 7:08 PM
Well, for starters, if they lived in a society where superstitious belief in magical deities was behavior that was mocked and ridiculed instead of encouraged, the kid might be getting medical attention right now.Posted by: Uerba | May 20, 2009 7:08 PM
CJO: He was clearly going after a specific group, and all of its members. How is that not bashing everyone?
Brownian, OM: It's not about a "free pass" it's about defending the innocent from the guilty. Every single person who prays shouldn't be attacked because of these people, simple as that.
Posted by: John Morales | May 20, 2009 7:12 PM
Uerba @246:
By this interpretation, any action the perpetrator of which honestly claims is motivated by their religious belief is not the fault of that religion, but of the idiocy and fanaticism of the perpetrator. I suppose next you'll say that religions, not being volitional entities, cannot be held at fault for the actions of their adherents when those act according to their interpretation of that religion's dictates.That's just apologetics for religion.
Posted by: Sastra
|
May 20, 2009 7:17 PM
Dwight #256 wrote:
Open examination? Excellent! In religion, that means that one would have to start out by formulating the God concept clearly, as a falsifiable hypothesis, and checking it against the background of modern scientific theories, to see if it can be derived from the evidence, and stand up to critique and alternate theories. Science is all about open, objective examination.
Posted by: Dwight | May 20, 2009 7:18 PM
Sastra
The methods in theology in mainline protestantism are much the same as they would be in any discipline that makes normative claims (esp. philosophy). It's certainly *not* on who has most faith or who gets special access to the divine. In fact that has so not been the case that Tillich even gave a name to it. The Protestant principle which is that principle which casts doubt,skepticism, on any and all human creations (including our theologies, religious practices, and such)
CJO
It's not a glamorization of religion nor a demonization that is called for. We're just as human (for good and for ill) as anyone else. There's no ideal religion to look to but to use this sad story as representative of what happens when your local neighbors visit their Episcopal church strikes me as absurd. Or at least not helpful in understanding a thing about your neighbor.
Brownian
I think the recognition or engagement with liberal religion would help. It'd help not because somehow Hitchens would become religious. It's just so that your target practice would be better :) After all if you attack Judaism because only they believe they can go to heaven, you may not have noticed as Hitchens did not that most Jews don't believe in heaven. That kind of thing. It's there that we just end up talking past each other.
Posted by: NeverTheTwain | May 20, 2009 7:18 PM
About the "Has this ever worked?" question(s): In my experience, entrenched beliefs are almost never routed by a single argument, however brilliant. Change usually results from the erosion caused by many windy grindings...with an occasional chunk torn out by posts like this.
Also, to Zar (comment 120): "Her daughter's death was an act of human sacrifice"... Exactly. Well put.
Posted by: Brownian, OM
|
May 20, 2009 7:18 PM
Further to that, CJO, prayer is a poison that's only harmless when used incorrectly, that is, if one has insufficient faith in it. If one really had sufficient faith in prayer (specifically the kind of faith Jesus talks about in Matthew 21:21-22), one would be exhorted not to go to a doctor. The fact that moderates joke about "God helping those who help themselves" does not excuse them from defending a practice that they themselves do not fully believe in at the same time that they defend and celebrate the concept of faith. How can they do anything but support the zealots and fanatics by their arguments?
All the zealots have to do is look at what the moderates are doing and say, "Yeah, we do the same thing, but we take it seriously."
Posted by: Tualha | May 20, 2009 7:19 PM
PZ, while it's true that prayer does no good, it's equally true that prayer per se does no harm. What caused the harm in these cases was not prayer, but thinking that prayer alone was sufficient. Moderate theists do not enable that attitude. You're blaming the wrong people.
Posted by: Uerba | May 20, 2009 7:19 PM
Flaq: But they ARE being encouraged to help thier young son. Did you miss the rest of that message?
There are brakes on the unreasonable, though. Obviously if thier child is in the threat of death and millions are begging them to save him, that's a brake!
Posted by: Merrydol | May 20, 2009 7:20 PM
Uerba,
I'm talking about Christianity, are you? All flavors of Christianity that I've run across/read about promote belief in a supernatural force and tend to call it "God" or "Jesus" or "The Light Within." Whatever they call it, supporting this irrationality promotes (and sometimes demands) idiocy and fanaticism. Would you prefer to talk about another religion?
Once you share a belief in any kind of supernatural intervention, you are enabling the people who pray for change in the world- it's inherently irrational, like in Sastra's astrology analogy. To then turn around and say those people are just doing it wrong is pretty hypocritical.
Posted by: MikeTheInfidel | May 20, 2009 7:21 PM
@WBC in #187
"Oh, most certainly! The world would be a much better place if we were all as "rational" as the average obscure junior academic at a rural university! Atheist pretensions of moral superiority are an endless source of amusement."
Find me some atheist parents who let their child die because all they did was sit and do nothing and try to justify it by saying they thought it would help.
Posted by: flaq | May 20, 2009 7:21 PM
Is this basically the "No True Scotsman" defense? No REAL religious adherent would behave so badly... only an idiot or fanatic. Funny thing is, if you exclude idiots and fanatics, you won't have many people left.Posted by: Qwerty
|
May 20, 2009 7:24 PM
I read the linked articles and one says that Daniel Hauser could not recognize the word "the." This is also a tragedy for this young man. How can he survive in this world even if he is lucky and doesn't die from his disease?
Posted by: PixelFish | May 20, 2009 7:27 PM
Regarding the question at 218 about whether or not this argument works to convince people to rethink things: Yes.
Not right away, usually. And that's really as it should be. Frankly, as a skeptic, I'm just as worried about people who are swayed by a single rhetorical device without researching it for themselves. They are likely to be swayed just as easily in another direction, until they find themselves attached to one argument enough that their life is embedded with it.
But the person who files this away or decides to look into this later, or think, hey, that makes sense, let me test it against some other ideas. That person will usually build up a preponderance of other such evidences over the years. And eventually they will rationally admit that prayer and faith produce such wildly differing results that it seems evident they do not work. You can not consistently reproduce the effects of faith and prayer--largely because they are logically irrelevant against actual causes. If god helps me find my keys because I prayed one day, and the next I'm late for work because god didn't deign to tell me that cat thought they were a shiny toy and the third day you didn't have to pray about the keys, but just the stoplights on the commute, and god got 87% of them, but missed the nasty turn signal at 124th....well, you might start getting the idea that god's results aren't very consistent. And that's one more item in the evidence pile.
When I eventually broke with the religion of my childhood, there were a thousand tiny such pieces of evidence. Things I had initially dismissed. Things I had set aside to be investigated later.
The reason PZed rails on about these folks is they seem perfectly willing to test their faith by using their own children as the stakes. It's not just about finding their car keys or having a warm fuzzy throughout the day. Children can and do die because of their parents insistance on using them as proof of faith.
Even now when there is often a prolonged court battle, as in , whose parents were divided over the idea of treatment. Even though the court battle was decided in favour of getting her transfusions, she was so indoctrinated by her mother, that she actively tried to thwart the treatment, attempting to rip medical tubes from her arms. Her father wanted the treatment done, and considered that his daughter had been pressured to demonstrate her faith. (He said that church members had been giving her arsenic and orange juice treatments and promised that she would be featured in a JW magazine if she did die.) She died, and the church community encouraged shunning her father for attempting to get his daughter the best health care he could. Her mother divorced him. He bankrupted himself in the initial court battle to save his daughter's life. He is, incidentally, no longer a Jehovah's Witness.
.............
Found after poking around online:
Another Jehovah's Witness kid in Washington was granted the ability to choose to refuse blood transfusions because the judge seemed to think that he felt passionately about the prospect. Ignored was the context that the child's guardian had likely inculcated this particular passion. Furthermore, when I was a kid, there were times when I felt passionately about stupid things that I didn't have a larger context for.
.............
While poking around the Nemenhah band forums and website, I happened on this thread about Daniel Hauser.
http://www.nemenhahforum.info/forum/viewtopic.php?f=12&t=22
It's terribly enlightening, in the way that it isn't at all. One of my favourite bits is when somebody complains that Daniel Hauser's lawyer doesn't know anything about basic nutrition. (Because he's a LAWYER, not a nutritionist, maybe?) Lots of references to "real" medical doctors (with the quotes around "real" very much intact) and "big pharma". Incidentally in another thread, there's a small discussion about how they plan on using copals to combat outbreaks of H1N1, and that the Cherokee Calendar says someday in October will be very important. (I had to look up copals, but I'm not sure that burning incense does much to combat the spread of germs. Anyone want to take on that idea?)
Posted by: Brownian, OM
|
May 20, 2009 7:29 PM
I guess so, Dwight, but the problem is that liberal religion isn't much but a vague belief in some deity and a sense that the vague belief itself is good.
I had an argument with my Catholic niece and sister awhile back about local Catholic School Board's refusal to vaccinate students with Guardasil. It was trying, mostly because they're moderates who don't care what the Pope or some bishops have to say other than the fact that the Pope and some bishops are being criticised and therefore an attack on them. I stopped in my tracks when I realised they're in the same position I was a dozen or so years ago. I mean, how can you argue against a same-sex marriage supporting, pro-choice, pro-condom Catholic other than to point out that they're not really Catholic at all? (which I didn't do, for better or for worse.)
Essentially, they and I are on the same side; but they throw a weekly $20 bucks in the collection plate of those they disagree with because of some bullshit adherence to tradition.
Posted by: flaq | May 20, 2009 7:29 PM
So the encouragement you're imagining must go something like this: "Believe in god. God will help you. It's very important to believe. All good people believe in god. We all believe and so should you. Pray to him. He will help you. ... Oh -- wait! Crap! What are you doing? Don't believe in him THAT much! Your kid needs a doctor! For God's sake, stop praying and get that kid to a hospital!"Posted by: Dwight | May 20, 2009 7:33 PM
Brownian
While I could disagree with your assessment of liberal religion that would be a discussion that could be it's own thread. But I would note that I don't put money in the coffers of folks I disagree with. There are actually denominations and religious movements hose overall identity could be understood as liberal. Unitarians anyone? Quakers? The United Church of Christ. Reform Judaism. etc, etc.
Posted by: Brownian, OM
|
May 20, 2009 7:34 PM
@ Tualha:
Shall we blame Jesus then?
I hardly think the moderates would find that more palatable.
Posted by: PixelFish | May 20, 2009 7:37 PM
Argh. Messed up some of the html accidentally. The first link is supposed to be about Bethany Hughes, a case famous while I lived in Calgary. But that info got clipped out. My bad.
Posted by: John Morales | May 20, 2009 7:41 PM
Tualha @273,
Replace 'prayer' with 'homoeopathy' and it's just as true. Misuse of either to treat real ailments is contra-indicated. Refer to what's the harm? for examples.I suppose your position is consistent if you see no harm in homoeopathy, either.
Posted by: Brownian, OM
|
May 20, 2009 7:41 PM
Yes Dwight, there are some denominations that are less harmful than others and actively do good in many cases (and kudos to you, of course, for not financially supporting those more harmful kinds). The question remains as to how much those denominations enable the more harmful ones.
I'm not entirely of one mind on this. If we lived in a different world, I'd be all about the UU or the Quakers (even if not interested in joining them myself.) Tell you what: you moderates get rid of all the fanatics, and we'll stop being so critical of religion.
Exactly the point I've been trying to make about moderate prayer, flaq.
Posted by: Sastra
|
May 20, 2009 7:44 PM
Dwight #270 wrote:
Is this because, after much prayer and study, it was concluded that this approach reflects how God wants you to do it -- or is it because the Protestants decided, on their own, as human beings, to do it the way they felt like, and to heck with God and what God wants?
I think that all religions, at heart, trace back to having faith that they've accessed the divine. And only God could arbitrate a dispute on that.
Posted by: DistendedPendulusFrenulum | May 20, 2009 7:47 PM
Posted by: Qwerty May 20, 2009 7:24 PM
I read the linked articles and one says that Daniel Hauser could not recognize the word "the." This is also a tragedy for this young man. How can he survive in this world even if he is lucky and doesn't die from his disease?
OK, he's got an IQ of 40, the family has eight kids--perhaps the mom wants him to die. Maybe she's not looking forward to a lifetime of taking care of him.
____
I think also that there is a distinction between religion and religionism. These people are clearly religionists.
Posted by: Tanya | May 20, 2009 7:49 PM
I've noticed a few comments sprinkled about regarding Daniel Hausers' apparent lack of responsible education - it should be noted that the boy is classified as learning disabled and may, in fact, be mentally retarded.
This isn't to say that he has received a responsible education in his mother's care, of course... for all I know she tried to pray the retardation away while feeding him ayurvedic herbal concoctions.
Either way, his inability to read "the" is a concern that can be sorted out after the growing mass in his lungs has been poisoned.
Posted by: Tanya | May 20, 2009 7:51 PM
Sorry about that DPF. Seems I inadvertently echoed your thoughts regarding the boy's disability.
Posted by: kamaka | May 20, 2009 7:54 PM
Uerba @ 261
kamaka: Oh yeah? When did I enable them?
Suicide bombers believe they get the fast trip to heaven. You encourage their belief in an immortal soul.
Posted by: TO'B
|
May 20, 2009 7:58 PM
Overseas on a slow connection, so sorry if this link is already posted, but this is a stupid poll that must be destroyed...
http://www.polls.newsvine.com/_question/2009/05/15/2822182-should-parents-be-allowed-to-refuse-cancer-treatments-for-their-sick-children?GT1=43001
Posted by: Uerba | May 20, 2009 7:59 PM
Merrydol: In Christianity, you should recognize when a supernatrual force is trying to help, or is outright helping you. If you break your leg you don't pray for wings so you can fly to a hospital, you find a reasonable method from what you've been given. The same applies here; they shouldn't ask an angel to dance on his chest and heal him, but they should take the help provided, and run with it.
Flaq: Even though that made me laugh it's actially more like "God has given you millions of people begging you to take this kid to a hospital. Your prayers have been answered, now get your ass moving."
What "No true scotsman?" Just as you are not a vegetairian if you eat meat, so too are you a fanatic if you worship a book instead of the being it's based off of. It's not that hard to figure out, man.
Posted by: Dwight | May 20, 2009 8:00 PM
Sastra
Neither. God is to be understood or engaged with the best resources, methods we have in making sense of our tradition, our environment, one another, other traditions, the sciences, etc. The method of adjudication would be closer to philosophy
Brownian
Some of us are working to transform the religion.
Posted by: Uerba | May 20, 2009 8:08 PM
Kamaka: And when did I say I believed in an immortal soul? See, this is what I mean. Just like Myers, you talk regardless of whether or not you've any idea on what the subject matter's about.
Besides, even if I did believe that, so what? Should I get in trouble for injuring someone in a fight, just because I encouraged them to take boxing?
Posted by: flaq | May 20, 2009 8:13 PM
It almost sounds like you're suggesting that it's GOOD that these people have dragged this out to the brink of fatality, created an international spectacle of themselves, and thereby incurred the outrage of millions of people. That is, after all, the mysterious way in which their prayer is being answered.
It sure would be a lot more effective to just skip the superstition and go straight to the hospital, as any reasonable person would.
Posted by: John Morales | May 20, 2009 8:14 PM
Dwight:
So, you're pretty high up in the religious hierarchy and influential to boot. Impressive.Posted by: Sastra
|
May 20, 2009 8:15 PM
Dwight #294 wrote:
Which stands in stark contrast with those religions which have decided to understand or engage God with what they believe to be poor resources, methods they deliberately employ so that they may make no sense of their traditions, their environment, one another, other traditions, the sciences, etc. These religious folk would no doubt agree that, in their theology, their methods are not at all like those of philosophy: they throw darts at a board, and roll dice, as the whim suits them. Somewhere. I guess.
Does your religion not access the divine, though?
Posted by: flaq | May 20, 2009 8:23 PM
But these people presumably believe in an all powerful being who hears the prayers of the faithful. If that being is real, why is it unreasonable of them to expect fervent prayer to be the most effective way to help their son?By your definition, it sounds like a fanatic is someone who doesn't know when to back down from their belief.
Posted by: Dwight | May 20, 2009 8:25 PM
Sastra
Obviously I gave a general description. But for instance, I do think it matters what you draw from. Presumably many Christians would not want to draw from evolutionary theory for instance nor would they feel constrained by science in the kinds of claims they make. I think that's a mistake.
And yes there is an engagement with God but that doesn't entail the means of winning or securing an argument nor does it remove the finite limitations of human descriptions.
John
You bet! I'm part of the priesthood of all believers *coughs*
Posted by: Uerba | May 20, 2009 8:25 PM
Flaq: I don't at all condone thier behavior, but this experience has definitley had its good effects: It's opened the eyes of millions to the importance of education, community, and reason. Personally, prior to this I didn't know people still thought this way. Sometimes the best way to defeat a problem is to expose it when it's at its worst.
Posted by: Smoggy Batzrubble | May 20, 2009 8:29 PM
Bless you brother Dwight, and count me amongst those faithful souls working to transform the religion. Let's kick out the atheist appeasers and then start burning books and things.
Posted by: Uerba | May 20, 2009 8:35 PM
Flaq: Thier fervent prayer is unreasonable because exactly what they want has already been provided. This IS God's way of helping thier son, but they're just expecting magic.
Not quite. I'd have to say that a fanatic is someone who is unreasonably, harmfully, and selfishly dedicated to thier idea of something.
Posted by: flaq | May 20, 2009 8:43 PM
Uerba, you completely lost me with this one:
Following that logic, it's good when someone throws puppies in a meat grinder, because it reminds us all how bad puppy burgers are, and how important it is not to make them.
Wouldn't it be even better if this never happened in the first place? Personally, I don't need to see this kind of lunacy to be reminded that it's bad.
Posted by: Uerba | May 20, 2009 8:53 PM
Flaq: I don't quite understand or agree with your analogy. But that aside, even though it would be better if this didn't happen, seeing as how that's not an option, it's better that there is something to show that it does, and shows us that we should stop it.
Posted by: Uerba | May 20, 2009 8:53 PM
Flaq: I don't quite understand or agree with your analogy. But that aside, even though it would be better if this didn't happen, seeing as how that's not an option, it's better that there is something to show that it does, and shows us that we should stop it.
Posted by: flaq | May 20, 2009 8:58 PM
So, their prayer was reasonable right up until the point where they had millions of people all over the world begging them to stop being such idiots, and then it became unreasonable. Because those millions of people were god's answer to their prayers. Man, that right there is some seriously convoluted thinking.
You're right about one thing: what they want has already been provided. It's called a hospital.
Posted by: Sastra
|
May 20, 2009 9:00 PM
Dwight #300 wrote:
A limited engagement, then? ;)
Even the 'fanatical' religions will insist that man's arguments and man's nature and man's abilities are limited -- they are flawed, poor, untrustworthy, and not to be relied upon. Only God can be relied upon. They, themselves, are nothing, and to be ignored. They only follow and obey, in humility.
Up thread somewhere someone stated that, ethically speaking, Abraham should have refused God's request to kill his son Isaac. I will go further than that. Abraham should have refused to believe that what he heard, was the voice of God. Even though it really was God. He should have thought it more plausible, that he was deluded. And then reconsidered the entire system.
God sinned in the story of Abraham and Isaac. His greatest sin was not in rewarding Abraham for obedience to a wicked command -- though that was bad enough. His greatest sin was in casually accepting -- and expecting the reader to casually accept -- that Abraham could know God's voice. He should know it, because it was really His voice. That part, then, is not supposed to be problematic for the believer. The question is not belief, but obedience.
How sure are you, that God exists? With an apparently infinite ability for it to "shift according to the outcomes of the experiences of given religious communities and their understanding to the world they live in," I wonder if whether it really exists or not even matters.
Would the methods in theology of mainline Protestantism really depend on there actually being a God in the first place? Do they check up?
Posted by: flaq | May 20, 2009 9:12 PM
Uerba:
Oh, it's an option. The way for this not to happen in the future is to stop telling people to believe in fairies who live in the sky and can cure the sick and feed the hungry and give sight to the blind, etc. These things require people. Real people with tools and skills and knowledge. Not prayer.
Yes, we should stop it. If by "it" you mean coddling absurd religious superstitions.
Posted by: Crudely Wrott | May 20, 2009 9:13 PM
An unavoidable consequence of accepting contemporary Christian belief is that you are required to accept certain claims at face value. Many of these claims are not congruent with experience or observation and that is frequently pointed out, to little apparent avail.
Among the things that are foundational to the Christians is that you must believe that people are, without exception, worthless. Even worse, evil. Nothing we can do will survive eternity, for the ISS will scuttle all our expeditions into knowledge and artifice. According to this notion, that anything not involving the constant supplication of an Iron Age spook is doomed to fail or backfire (and become a parable), it cannot matter what we do. It is written. It is done.
There is no excuse for such dereliction. Shit. Even Popeye said it: "I am what I am."
Damn. That's familiar. Would it be out of line to suggest that a self-aware organism has a view of itself somewhere between a cartoon character and a cartoon god?
Posted by: Libbie | May 20, 2009 9:14 PM
"You are Abraham's enablers. I hope you all feel a small tremor of guilt when you sit your own children down at bedtime to beg a nonexistent being for aid, when you plant the seed of futile supplication and surrender to delusions in their trusting minds. Damn you all."
Beautifully and truthfully said.
Posted by: Hypocee | May 20, 2009 9:19 PM
Perhaps one could write a polemic article exhorting those most likely to fall into the same trap to examine their own behavior and keep their house in order.Posted by: Bachalon | May 20, 2009 9:31 PM
Uerba, are you trying to tell us you're a christian who doesn't believe in the soul? How the hell does that work?
Seriously, you didn't know that there are people out there who believe this stuff? Yet you wonder why we might regard moderates as enablers?
Why is it that we only hear from you when it's you telling us, "hey! we don't all believe that!"
Where were you before this?
Posted by: Timebender13
|
May 20, 2009 9:32 PM
That rant in the last two paragraphs was easily the most chilling I have ever heard. That wasnt anger. That was cold, cold hate. And it was deserved. I'm glad it wasnt directed at me!
Posted by: Uerba | May 20, 2009 9:35 PM
Flaq: Well...yeah, basically. The sooner (fanatical) people realize that God works through us, the sooner they can realize that it's not bad to seek "man's medicine"
Posted by: Dwight | May 20, 2009 9:41 PM
Sastra
I think folks differ on that question. There are negative theology folks who don't believe anything can be said about God. God is wholly other. But I think to the degree that we experience saving and transformative realities in our world, we have the subject matter even if our descriptions are limited and conditioned.
Crudely
I don't think that's original sin. I think any Christian doctrine well recognize *some* good. But it's insufficient. I think as we watch the torture scandal unfold or reports of genocide certainly suggest something is afoot and it's not all good.
Posted by: Sastra
|
May 20, 2009 9:47 PM
Dwight #316 wrote:
"Saving and transformative realities?"
Examples?
Posted by: Dwight | May 20, 2009 9:52 PM
Sastra
Your teachers? Medicine that could cure this kid. Interactions the elderly have with animals that seem to bring them joy if not longevity. Situations that call out for some form of self sacrifice for the other. Something that expanded your horizons?
Posted by: Uerba | May 20, 2009 9:56 PM
Bachalon: Nope! I'm not a Christian at all, even though I am Deistic. Where was I? I was working on finals, drawings, reports, stuff related to work\school\real life, and my own hypothesis. You don't see me around a lot because A) I don't have (that much) time to waste, and B) I only show up when such cold, ignorance-fueled hate is spouted by the same mouth that criticizes it.
Otherwise, I'm quite the fan of this blog!
Posted by: Anonymous | May 20, 2009 9:56 PM
Uerba:
And the sooner moderate religious people realize that they are comforting and nurturing the fanatics among them, the sooner they can realize that they are actively contributing to the problem.
Posted by: Ken Cope | May 20, 2009 10:00 PM
I only show up when such cold, ignorance-fueled hate is spouted by the same mouth that criticizes it.
Then piss off and fail, you fatuous twit. Otherwise, you are a waste of bandwidth.
Posted by: flaq | May 20, 2009 10:00 PM
Gah. 320 was me.
Posted by: Ken Cope | May 20, 2009 10:06 PM
I think folks differ on that question.
Folks that differ are just plain wrong, especially if all they have to offer in their defense is the belief that they are right.
Posted by: Uerba | May 20, 2009 10:06 PM
Anynomous\Flaq: Moderates don't enable fanatics any more than the Police enable vigilantes. Why is that so hard to understand?
Ken Cope: Obvious troll is obvious.
Posted by: Crudely Wrott | May 20, 2009 10:09 PM
Dwight, I wasn't referring to original sin in particular though that is a constant background to contemporary Christian belief.
By simply entertaining the idea of an uberGot one is left with the unavoidable diminution of human effort and expertise. The closer the ISS is claimed to be to perfection, the more shabby and lackluster appear the works of honest and dedicated people since whenever. At some point people start getting the message: "You are not able . . ."
As a result we have people who can't learn new stuff and unlearn old stuff, who cannot speak in whole sentences, and can't fill out a ballot. But their ISS can. Why should they worry?
Posted by: Ken Cope | May 20, 2009 10:12 PM
Uerba, please don't write more clearly than you can think, especially when it's clear to everybody else that you can neither think nor write clearly at all.
Posted by: Uerba | May 20, 2009 10:17 PM
Ken Cope: Oh, I get it; if you don't agree, it's obviously bullshit. Thanks for clearing that up!
Posted by: Dwight | May 20, 2009 10:18 PM
Crudely
It depends on how it's taken. It could be a devise to relativize us (Bush could have used a bit of that)
Posted by: Brandon | May 20, 2009 10:20 PM
Can't say I didn't call it. I sincerely hope you weren't expecting a logical, rational discussion from a group whose premise for existing is being more logical and rational than everybody else. Also, every atheist who has less than 7 degrees of seperation to Ken Cope has enabled him and is just as guilty of being a douche.
Posted by: Sastra
|
May 20, 2009 10:22 PM
Dwight #318 wrote:
I asked if theology could check up on whether God exists or not -- and if it really mattered whether or not God exists, since the "understanding" of God in 'good' religions seems to be capable of morphing to accommodate itself to the reasonable secular values and views of modern cultures; and you answered (I think) that we can be sure we have the "subject matter" (God) as long as there are good teachers, medicine, puppies, kitties, rainbows, human progress, self-sacrifice, kindness and love etc. I'm not sure this answer really engages with the question.
Try it this way. Let us say that, for the sake of argument, there is no God. The hypothesis was wrong. There is only our natural world -- which happens to contain good teachers, medical discoveries, and all sorts of fine and wonderful joys, as we see today. And the problems we see today.
Would the 'methods of theology of mainline Protestantism' be able to continue as they do, affirming the existence of God through what it labels "saving and transformative realities" -- realities which are, in actuality, products of a natural, godless universe, and saving, in this particular context, the idea of God, and transforming it into something that exists? Would the lack of an actual God make any dent at all, or cause any problems, or be noticed in some way?
Or are you now going to save and transform God into a symbolic way of referring to "that which expands our horizons" and claim that, in my scenario, it still does exist. It exists in a way similar to, say, Santa Claus existing in the "spirit" of the parents who enjoy giving presents to their children, or as we might say Cupid 'exists' as romantic love. Keep the word around as a symbol, and say that our understanding of God simply "grew."
Posted by: Uerba | May 20, 2009 10:23 PM
Brandon: Too true man, too true...
Posted by: Jack
|
May 20, 2009 10:23 PM
PZ, that final slam on "moderate" believers is dead on, and it's something that needs saying more often. I say it a lot, and I get no end of outrage for doing so, but goddamn it, it's so obviously true. Things like this just serve to illustrate that, and you put it beautifully. "Abraham's enablers".... I like that.
Posted by: Ken Cope | May 20, 2009 10:24 PM
Oh, I get it; if you don't agree, it's obviously bullshit. Thanks for clearing that up!Oh, I get it; if you don't agree, it's obviously bullshit. Thanks for clearing that up!
No, in the real world, if you want to make a claim, you must be prepared to support it with something more than bullshit. If you want to claim that everything is bullshit, you're just stinking up the joint. Why do you promote belief in toxic nonsense?
Posted by: flaq | May 20, 2009 10:26 PM
Uerba:
When you pray, and tell others to pray, you are spreading the notion that it is reasonable and good to plead your case to an all-powerful being. You cannot then act surprised when people take you at your word, do as you have encouraged them to do, and beg their creator for help in curing their sick child.
From what you've been saying, it still sounds to me like the only difference between a moderate and a fanatic is that the moderate knows when to back down and say, "well, no, in this case, praying to god is not going to cut it. Because although he is all-knowing, all-powerful, etc., he's more into things like turning water into wine or appearing in toast. When it comes to Hodgkins lymphoma, you better get yourself a real doctor."
Posted by: Jack
|
May 20, 2009 10:28 PM
T-bone, that is an analogy so obviously flawed it leaves me utterly breathless that you can't see why.
Posted by: Ken Cope | May 20, 2009 10:32 PM
In before Uerba gets flamed into next week.
I like your art, by the way.
Brandon, your lack of taste may be sufficient, but not necessary, to get your sorry ass laid.
Posted by: Sastra
|
May 20, 2009 10:33 PM
Uerba #324 wrote:
Because the internal standards of the category of 'religion' cannot allow its followers to distinguish between moderate and fanatic, any more than the category of astrology can tell its adherents how to distinguish between reasonable astrology, and astrological readings which have gone off the deep end. All we can do is evaluate the output of religion and astrology from outside, through secular, rational, worldly standards, and say "ok, this part here makes sense anyway."
Making sense anyway is not what distinguishes religion, from the secular reasoning of this world.
Posted by: Cthulhu's minion | May 20, 2009 10:34 PM
It would be easy enough to prove the efficacy of prayer. Show a single case where amputated limbs have regrown, or destroyed eyes have regenerated or a down's syndrome child that now has a normal IQ and then I might believe in supernatural intervenion. If prayer worked at all, surely at least some amputees have sufficient faith for god to heal them.
Posted by: Brandon | May 20, 2009 10:34 PM
I'm pretty sure Uerba's a dude. My apologies if I'm wrong.
Posted by: Crudely Wrott | May 20, 2009 10:36 PM
"It depends on how it's taken."
Dwight, I assume you mean the less than precise definition of human worthlessness that we have batted about for a couple of comments? If so, I only know one way to take the import of the claim that the efforts of my parents as they raised me, mine as I raised my children, and they as they now raise theirs, are for naught.
Screw that notion.
It offers no option. It is often used as a set up to sermons. It assumes that over four generations nobody taught and nobody learned. If you told my eldest that she'd knock your block off.
Posted by: flaq | May 20, 2009 10:36 PM
Brandon:
oh, because that's like saying that moderate religion paves the way for fanaticism. I get it.
Except I'm not asking Ken to be a douche. He's doing it all by himself. And if he stops being a douche, nobody here is going to give him a hard time. Whereas religious people ask and expect each other to pray. And if a religious person suddenly declares that prayer is worthless, they're going to have a hard time with their brethren.
So your analogy sucks.
Posted by: Damn | May 20, 2009 10:37 PM
This is horrendous. This woman needs to get her son to the hospital like yesterday. Doesn't she know what cancer does to a person?
Posted by: Cthulhu's minion | May 20, 2009 10:37 PM
*intervention
Posted by: Dwight | May 20, 2009 10:40 PM
Sastra
I think in some measure 20th century mainline Protestant theology presumes a naturalist understanding of the world. How they talk about God in light of this is quite different (Tillich, Barth, Hartshorne, Feminist theologians; very different but the same general sense of the world in that important regard)
Posted by: Uerba | May 20, 2009 10:40 PM
Ken Cope: Promotion of what "Toxic nonsense"? Why do you talk without having any idea of what the hell the other person actually belives\knows, and then criticize others for doing that?
Flaq: Dude, you didn't get a thing I said, did you? The difference between a moderate and a fanatic is HOW they are helped; A moderate would realize that thier prayers had been answered in the form of millions of sympathizers and modern medical wonders. A fanatic would rather ignore the blessing in front of them in favor of magic and fairytales.
Posted by: Smoggy Batzrubble | May 20, 2009 10:42 PM
Brandon: Too true man, too true... AND Uerba: Too true man, too true to you too...
You guys are rocking this thread for Jesus and the Holy Roman Empire, and I, Smoggy, am right with you, all the way... with bells on... (just as soon as I get day release). Keep up the Holy Crusade, there's some warm toilet-seats in hell for all these uberatheists and their Hell-bound pseudo-morality. If God wants us to kill our children ... well... Praise His Holy Name is what I say!!
Yours in Christ the Savior
S. Batzrubble
Posted by: Uerba | May 20, 2009 10:44 PM
Brandon: Sorry dude, I'm not a guy. Why does everyone assume that? Is it really that hard to click on my name?
Posted by: Brandon | May 20, 2009 10:46 PM
I can't tell if you're being sarcastic or not, but I'm not a Christian. If you must have a label, I am a deist reform Jew.
Posted by: Ken Cope | May 20, 2009 10:46 PM
I'm pretty sure Uerba's a dude. My apologies if I'm wrong.
My apologies if your gender biases are more horrifying to you than your lack of taste in art, and if you think that anybody who rejects fatuous reasoning makes them a douche.
Posted by: Uerba | May 20, 2009 10:46 PM
Smoggy Batzrubble: Fail.
Posted by: Brandon | May 20, 2009 10:49 PM
Lol, sorry. Is it sad that I noticed the e-mail address "busboy" but not the word "female" at the top?
Posted by: Uerba | May 20, 2009 10:51 PM
Ken Cope: That's right, insult my art. After all, that's so very relevant to the discussion at hand...
Posted by: Uerba | May 20, 2009 10:53 PM
Brandon: That's okay, man.
Posted by: flaq | May 20, 2009 10:56 PM
Sorry Uerba, you're going in circles. You're right back to this odd assertion that Colleen Hauser was good and reasonable to pray, but she crossed the line into fanaticism when she actually believed that prayer would be effective. After all, god is all-powerful, and he listens to our prayers, so why should she expect otherwise?
And those millions of sympathizers? See the expressions of open-mouthed horror? That's not sympathy. That's a mixture of outrage and disgust.
Posted by: Sastra
|
May 20, 2009 10:59 PM
Dwight #344 wrote:
Ah, so God's effect on the theologians' understanding of the world is today pretty much confined only to how they talk about God.
I'm not sure that the concept of God as Ultimate Value -- let alone Ruler of the Universe -- is going to naturally slip into this pragmatic way of looking at God. I think doing this may take a bit of work.
Maybe you should all just jettison the God-talk, and deal directly with those natural things that save and transform our lives. Re-label as 'secular humanists,' and avoid accidentally encouraging fanatics to take God so literally.
Posted by: Smoggy Batzrubble | May 20, 2009 11:00 PM
Sniff...I can feel the love emanating from this thread. Uerba's a guy who's really a girl who does artwork for Jesus, and Brandon's a deist reform Jew who may be a guy or a dude but not a girl and has a mind-connection with Uerba, and I'm an illegitimate son of a Polish shepherd (due for day release soon) and together we're taking on the pharyngulating hordes of darkness for a parent's right to pray their kid's to death.
I hope someone's going to make a movie about this.
Posted by: TFK
|
May 20, 2009 11:00 PM
flaq @ #204 (a long time ago--I hope you check back)
You prove my point. If you are going to persuade moderates that praying for someone to recover from chemotherapy supports praying for someone to recover instead of chemotherapy, you need to show why the slope isn't as slippery as it looks to disingenuous twats like myself.
The alternative is to hurl insults (extra points, btw, for the five-syllable word) and just say that it's so--it works at the World Nut Daily. See my earlier comment about preaching to the choir.
Posted by: Brandon | May 20, 2009 11:03 PM
You crack me up, Smoggy.
Posted by: Uerba | May 20, 2009 11:03 PM
Flaq: No, rather she was unreasonable as soon as she expected prayer to be the only thing she needed to do. If God can do anything, why shouldn't she expect it to contact her through material means?
By sympathizers, I mean people who would be more than willing to help this kid out in any way possible
Posted by: Uerba | May 20, 2009 11:08 PM
Smoggy: Someone's already made a song about it: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_QyYaPWasos
Posted by: flaq | May 20, 2009 11:17 PM
Sure, but if god can do anything, why is it unreasonable for her to expect god to simply cure her son? Surely he's capable of it. After all, he's done much bigger, flashier miracles than that.I'm not really interested in debating the efficacy of prayer. Or the nature of miracles. The point here is that you can't spout this nonsense about imaginary beings with supernatural powers, and then act all shocked when people actually believe you and act on that belief.
Posted by: Sastra
|
May 20, 2009 11:22 PM
I remember reading Bishop John Shelby Spong on the topic of prayer. He once steeped himself in the theology of prayer, and advocated it to his flock, and wrote about it very eloquently. Then his wife got cancer -- and his congregation prayed very hard that his wife might survive.
She did survive -- but, as a consequence, Spong stopped believing in the power of prayer.
Why? Because he started thinking it through. Did his wife survive because, as the wife of a bishop, she got so many prayers? Had she been the wife of, say, a plumber, would God have let her die? What, exactly, does petitionary prayer say about God? Spong decided that it made God smaller, and dropped it from his theology.
That's integrity. He was in a situation where his expectations were apparently fulfilled, his faith rewarded, his wife blessed, and God's presence made manifest in his life -- and he gave up the temptation to accept it and strengthen his faith in prayer -- because it didn't make sense. It didn't reason out. And it elevated him over others, whose prayers were not 'answered.'
I don't agree with Bishop Spong on some things, but I respect him here, a great deal.
I once told this story to a room full of (mostly) fundamentalist Christians, and they saw it completely differently. God had showed his love for Spong -- and Spong had rejected it. This wasn't a story about integrity and honesty in the face of temptation -- it was a story about ingratitude, and someone holding themselves and their reason as more important than God (or something like that.)
I prefer Spong's version of Christianity to the Fundamentalist version, but that's because it's closer to humanism. If the best that can be said about a religion is "it's not that far from secular humanism," that's not saying much about the religion. It's rather like praising venison because there are ways to cook it where it doesn't taste at all like venison, but like chicken instead. Given a choice, one ought to just buy chicken.
Posted by: flaq | May 20, 2009 11:25 PM
TFK:
Oh, I called you a five-syllable word. And then a one-syllable one. Well, I'm sure you'll recover.
Anyway, I still think you're disingenuous. You sum up PZ's argument as "all prayer is poison because of what this wacko family is doing." And then you complain that this is not a persuasive argument. I agree. It's also not the argument he's making.
So now it's your turn to scroll all the way back up there. Read what I said in response to your strawman argument. (Not the part where I called you a twat. After that.) And respond to that. Otherwise, I'm not interested. Too much scrolling.
Posted by: Ken Cope | May 20, 2009 11:25 PM
If God can do anything, why shouldn't she expect it to contact her through material means?
Because God can't do squat, you twit, except be the focus of the belief that her son died, because she didn't believe in god fervently enough. God can never fail, only one's belief in god can fail. Help her believe, Uerba, if Isaac dies, it's your fault because you didn't help Isaac's mother believe sufficiently fervently. You don't believe me? Where is your faith? Why haven't you finished drawing the twenty thousand bad drawings every artist has to get out of their system?
Posted by: Sastra
|
May 20, 2009 11:35 PM
Ken Cope #364 wrote:
I think Uerba's art is fine, and impressive. And irrelevant to the topic at hand.
Posted by: Uerba | May 20, 2009 11:39 PM
Flaq: Because such expectations are stupid, plain and simple. You don't expect God to just do something when you've been given the rescources to go do it yourself.
I'm not here to debate prayer or magic, either. My point is that he shouldn't attack everyone just because some people are idiots. Moderates say "Pray if you need help", but that doesn't mean "Expect things to magically get better with an extreme minimum\absence of actual effort". It means "Don't get too down, as there is still hope." If nothing else it'll help the mind, which could better one's overall situation...provided they get the appropriate help when necessary.
Posted by: Ken Cope | May 20, 2009 11:42 PM
I think Uerba's art is fine, and impressive. And irrelevant
And I think her remarks about belief and prayer and god are ugly.
I think telling people their art is fine, and their beliefs are fine, is neither healthy nor productive, and does nobody any favors. My insulting remarks were aimed more at Brandon's taste in art and for his motivations for raising the issue, than at Uerba's skill, which, like reason, can be strengthened, but only with exercise.
Posted by: Amanda | May 20, 2009 11:43 PM
As I finished reading this article I realized that PZ Myers needs something close to anger management. So what if I did say to pray in addition to seeking professional medical help? If you seek medical help, then what harm would praying do, as a believer or not? Just because you do not believe in "religion", should the rest of us not? How do you justify offending and shoving your thoughts onto others while at the same time ranting about those that do the same with their "religion" by praying? Um...coo-coo!
Posted by: Smoggy Batzrubble | May 20, 2009 11:44 PM
"Why haven't you finished drawing the twenty thousand bad drawings every artist has to get out of their system?"
Typical rational-atheist-sciencebot, always having to put a finite, knowable number on the mysterious and the infinite. I'm up to 53,286 bad drawings, and I've still got plenty in the tank. Through Christ I can do all things!! Which is why I've decided to take up Christian mime. I've been practising hard, but it's not easy in handcuffs. Once I'm on day release, I'm taking my art on the road. Call me if you'd like me to mime at your child's party.
Yours in Godly creativity.
S. Batzrubble.
Posted by: Ken Cope | May 20, 2009 11:44 PM
I'm not here to debate prayer or magic, either.
Then don't, as you're clearly qualified to do neither.
Posted by: Uerba | May 20, 2009 11:49 PM
Ken Cope: Did you see a damn thing I said, you belligerent troll? If you did, you'd see why I criticize belief-only "medicine". But then again, what else can I expect from you when all you can do is shoot off your mouth with, and not know what the hell you're talking about. Maybe if you put this much effort into insulting that woman out of her irrationality, that kid wouldn't be in this situation. Nice going man, you've contributed to his decline. Oh well, at least you can always insult my art to feel better about yourself.
Sastra: Thank you!:)
Posted by: Smoggy Batzrubble | May 20, 2009 11:49 PM
"I realized that PZ Myers needs something close to anger management"
Yes! You tell them Amanda. Anger management and a red-hot-poker where the sun don't shine! God's sure going to have a party with PZ in the afterlife. I agree with you on the power of prayer! Come all ye faithful and join with me in praying that all these terrible atheists get their comeuppance on judgment day. There sure will be a party in heaven while we watch our godless neighbors sizzle.
Amen
Posted by: Amanda | May 20, 2009 11:49 PM
I am in no way excusing any of these people for their utter ignorance and self-rightousness. I am simply remarking on the overall "conclusion" of this article.
Posted by: Ken Cope | May 20, 2009 11:50 PM
How do you justify offending and shoving your thoughts onto others
Could you justify how one might have the reasonable expectation of living free from offense? With a name that includes the letter "Z" how could you expect PZ's thoughts to be anything other than pokey? Don't let your mind get too close, especially if you water it and till it regularly.
Posted by: Uerba | May 20, 2009 11:53 PM
Ken Cope: Believe what you want about me, but there's no need to be a dick about it.
Posted by: Ken Cope | May 20, 2009 11:54 PM
Believe what you want about me, but there's no need to be a dick about it.
Encouraging people to believe what they like is what dicks do.
Posted by: Anonymous | May 20, 2009 11:59 PM
Ken Cope: What ARE you talking about?
also,
"Could you justify how one might have the reasonable expectation of living free from offense?"
I am certainly not delusional enough to ever expect that. The last part of my question made my point...
... while at the same time ranting about those that do the same with their "religion" by praying?
Posted by: Uerba | May 21, 2009 12:01 AM
Ken Cope: No, insulting people because they don't hold your beliefs is what dicks do. This is espescially true if its done for no good reason
Posted by: flaq | May 21, 2009 12:03 AM
Uerba @ 366: there are so many difficulties with that position.
It may help the mother's mind, but it is not helping the boy. What you see as a harmless, victimless, 'it's all good' mindset, when put into practice in the wrong situation with the wrong people, is actually threatening to kill a child. True. They must seek the necessary help elsewhere. This only serves to point out that they could seek that help, skip the superstitious appeal to god, and achieve exactly the same effect.When you tell people like Colleen Hauser that it's good and useful to pray, you are contributing to her current abominable behavior. It may be that she's doing it wrong, or she's too stupid to see that she needs to think about prayer differently, but the fact remains: people encouraging her to believe in god and pray to him have contributed to these events.
Posted by: Ken Cope | May 21, 2009 12:03 AM
I've decided to take up Christian mime.
Yet another sign of the end times! Mimes!
Posted by: PapaHans | May 21, 2009 12:04 AM
The Neuman's are particularly despicable; they have a web site set up by their "preacher" and church, the gist of which is comparing the failure of prayer to heal their daughter to the documented examples of medication and treatment errors and nosocomial hospital infections, "sometimes, nothing works." I do not believe they love their child, at all. I am an RN and have a pretty good idea of the torture their daughter went through before dying, horror and anguish easily, permanently preventable. They literally make me ill. If you did to a stranger, a neighbor child, what they did to their daughter, you would go to prison for the rest of your life, (and as a former MN Dept. of Corrections RN, I can promise you their life in prison would not be a happy one either). Charge them with murder, imprison them for life, take their other children away permanently, and do this with ever religiously insane and cruel imbecile, every single time they murder, or even endanger their child(ren).
Posted by: Ken Cope | May 21, 2009 12:07 AM
No, insulting people because they don't hold your beliefs is what dicks do. This is espescially true if its done for no good reason
Moving right along to mockery and derision is good and reasonable when people believe that belief is all the reason and justification they need.
Posted by: Uerba | May 21, 2009 12:13 AM
Flaq: Well then you've said it right there; If she's doing it wrong, how's it the fault of anyone who tells her to do it? Is my math teacher at fault every time I use an equation she taught me for the wrong kind of problem, and get the wrong answer?
Posted by: Ken Cope | May 21, 2009 12:16 AM
If she's doing it wrong, how's it the fault of anyone who tells her to do it?
If I swallow anything evil
Put your finger down my throat
If I shiver, please give me a blanket
Keep me warm, let me wear your coat
Posted by: Uerba | May 21, 2009 12:16 AM
Ken Cope: Wonderful! Since I've established numerous times that I don't believe that belief is all the justification one needs to do something, I guss you can stop insulting me. But you already knew that...
Posted by: flaq | May 21, 2009 12:21 AM
Ken: you are staggering around in here like an angry drunk. Please stop. You're knocking things over.
Posted by: EagleAZ4
|
May 21, 2009 12:23 AM
Both situations remind me of the classic "shit in one hand and pray in the other..."
Both mothers should be found guilty of murder, but will mostly likely be found guilty of manslaughter, becuase that seems to always be the case when one kills a child.
My christian cousin is visiting us. I like him - he's not the prosletyzing type by any means, and is a kind and generous person...and is "family". And my mom likes him "best" (in spite of the fact that I live with and take
care of her. "How did I raise such a heathen"??!!). She has raved about him to me for forty years.
However, last night he asked me why I was an atheist. I was kinda anticipating this, and instead of my usual "why are you an xian?" response, I laughingly said that I though politics and religion were usually off limits in family conversations.
He became persistant, in spite of my retorts that I don't want to insult you personally, my thoughts are only my own...blah, blah, blah. He became more persistant and I finally said what I thought...organized religion is silly, evil and deadly. Of course, he became suddenly quite belligerent, and pretty much damned me to hell. There was no using facts and figures to prove my point, he became what we call a troll.
I got up and went to bed. I learned a long time ago that one can't be reasonable with one that refuses to see reason.
So now my poor mother has a heretic taking care of her (as my cousin goes comfortably back to Alabama without a care in the world, having done his duty as an evangelist).
And I will continue to take care of my elderly mother - in spite of the fact that I'm now officially damned to hell.
Which I will spend with both ex-husbands.
So much for justice and keeping the peace.
Sometimes, as in mostly, reality sucks.
P
Posted by: John Morales | May 21, 2009 12:24 AM
Uerba:
There's justified belief and otherwise. Deism falls into the latter category, by the principle of parsimony.Posted by: Ken Cope | May 21, 2009 12:24 AM
Please stop. You're knocking things over.
Oh dear, I hope the religious tolerance for fatal stupidity doesn't shatter!
Posted by: Dwight | May 21, 2009 12:31 AM
Sastra
I don't think of humanism and Christianity as that far apart (at least in terms of it's historical traditions, the resources it draws from in the west). The difference is whether one chooses to engage this from specific communities with a set of practices and ways to engage the holy or not.
Posted by: flaq | May 21, 2009 12:31 AM
Uestra:
My bad. I guess I thought the sarcasm would come through with "doing it wrong". Surely you can see that your definition of how someone should pray will not be shared universally.
This woman presumably believes in god and is appealing to him for help. Maybe she believes that he is more powerful than any doctor. If that god is real, then she's doing the right thing.
How can you say that she's right to pray, but just not in quite the way she's doing it?
The kind of prayer you're describing sounds more like "positive thinking". It might help you feel good, but it wont actually DO anything.
Posted by: Marcie Dietrich
|
May 21, 2009 12:43 AM
Very well said, PZ.
Posted by: Sphere Coupler | May 21, 2009 12:48 AM
With religion, there is no end to ignorance.
There should be an Amber alert, to save this kids life.
Tho the mother would probley look at this as the Lord working in mysterious was...
What you said P.Z....well said.
Posted by: Sitakali
|
May 21, 2009 12:49 AM
A good example of PZ using a real tragedy to make an extreme point which frankly has nothing to do with the tragedy. "Damn you all." Yes, damn all of us, even those who look for the truth, who believe Western medicine works, who respect science and observation, who are atheists or agnostics...damn us for ever meditating or putting a thought out there in the form of *gasp* a prayer, because that's degrading to human dignity. Reverence, solace, euphoria and hope should not be experienced by anyone, lest we taint our purely scientific lives with anything short of robotic objectivity. Because ANY form of prayer or meditation would be the SAME THING as being a Christian, as forcing our beliefs on others, as beleiving that supernatural elements influence our world.
No, Damn you, PZ. Damn you for using an example of dangerous religious extremism to promote your complete lack of tolerance for anyone and everyone who feels reverence for the world, who closes their eyes and whispers when someone they care about is dying, who calms their mind and body after a stressful day.
Posted by: Ken Cope | May 21, 2009 12:50 AM
The kind of prayer you're describing sounds more like "positive thinking". It might help you feel good, but it wont actually DO anything.
And if prayer doesn't sound this good, it's your fault god won't listen.
Posted by: Uerba | May 21, 2009 12:53 AM
Flaq: Sorry dude, I wasn't aiming for sarcasm. All these responses and Ken Cope are just getting under my skin a little...
But she should see that if it's help she wants, she's got it. If she's talking about more power than any doctor, she's got that too. What other entity could summon an entire nation and beyond to take notice?
I'm saying that her method of prayer is wrong because if she keeps it up, a child is going to die. Even though she has an entire nation BEGGING her to treat her kid, she's just looking at modern medical wonders and saying "No". How's that not doing it wrong?
I find that this kind of prayer is useful as a motibvating factor. Obviously though, it's not all one should do...
Posted by: John Morales | May 21, 2009 12:54 AM
Sitakali, I don't impugn your honesty, but
is a gross mischaracterisation (on multiple levels) and a false comparison. Absonding with a mortally ill child to deny it treatment and comforting the dying are not incompatible only when treatment would not be efficacious, as is prognosticated here. Wherefore your basis for this claim?Posted by: John Morales | May 21, 2009 12:59 AM
Situation: medicine help, prayer will not. Prayer is chosen and medicin excluded.
Claim: [Uerba] "I find that this kind of prayer is useful as a motibvating factor."
Um. How does the claim follow from the situation?
You're asserting something contrary to the evidence and to any reasonable inference therefrom.
Posted by: Uerba | May 21, 2009 1:03 AM
John Morales: Did you not catch the last part of that statement?
Posted by: arachnophilia
|
May 21, 2009 1:07 AM
@Merrydol: (#228)
please read my post again. i understand that it applies directly to... well, maybe not me specifically. but moderately minded people somewhat like (and inclusive of) me. i believe i acknowledged this fact.
this is what i mean when i ask you to read my post again. this is essentially a quotemine. nothing i said in any way condones prayer as a substitute for action -- or as anything other than a personal placebo. in fact, quite the opposite. it might make you feel better (sometimes) but it sure isn't doing anything. and if you'd like your sick kid to get better, doing something is a whole hell of a lot better than not doing something. as they say, shit in one hand, pray in the other...
and you've snipped off the part where i said that i probably would not also validate their belief in prayers. for the reasons sastra posted about above regarding john shelby spong: it just doesn't make any sense theologically, rationally, or even irrationally.
you've also snipped of the "if god exists" part of the section you quoted. if god exists, he's not there to simply grant your every desire. that's a pretty big if, wouldn't you say so? i was speaking from a hypothetical situation, and alluding to a theology these people would probably have some basis to identify with. the point may be moot, but i rather enjoy making arguments that begin "supposing your initial assumptions..." did you suppose that i really have a kid with leukemia as well? you interpret the literalness of a text as astutely as a fundamentalist. to which church did you formerly belong?
i've tried. most churches i've been don't appreciate it.
no. i'm saying it's stupid.
@PZ: (#229)
i agree. it is rather absurd. of course, so is leaving out milk (and cookies) for that great big jolly elf that comes once a year. he doesn't exist either. but the kids seem to like doing it. personally, i'm not ever starting that nonsense if i ever have kids.
@Sastra: (#259)
i would say the comparison is valid. they both (sometimes) encourage people to do stupid things, and sometimes engage in acts of violence. both can be extremely destructive social behaviours, but not always in a clear objective way. and certainly, if you've ever been to a pentacostal church, you might think everyone there had had just a little too much. i was originally going to go with another drug and neurological effects, but i figured the alcohol comparison was easier to make.
i was trying to make an analogy based on social behaviour, not how ridiculous i find the ideas. people don't especially need an excuse to be irrational creatures.
@Brownian, OM: (#272)
i don't celebrate faith. faith sucks. it's truly a burden i would rather do without. anyways, no. i don't think god helps those who help themselves. i don't even think he necessarily helps those who help others. and i'm not sure how such a position could even be remotely gathered from the bible, either. that god is actually sort of a dick most of the time. look at job.
yes, this is true. they do. at least they're not on the fence about anything, right? it's actually not quite that simple. i suspect that such zealotry is really an illusion. they don't really take it seriously; they just really really want to. and convince themselve that they do. it's not so obvious until you start comparing their claims about other things to their supposed source, and find that there's a lot of biblical issues that they're moderate on as well. for instance, you don't see many stonings these days...
(#283)
sure, why not? you might have also chosen the end of mark, which encourages believers to drink poison and get bitten by snakes. yes, i completely understand this point -- moderation, when it comes to faiths such as these, is basically intellectual dishonesty. you are on the one hand saying that you believe something ludicrous, and on the other trying to temper it with reality. and that's silly, i agree.
@Sastra: (#308)
ooh, ooh, that was me!
ah, wait, no, that's not it at all! one of particular versions of the modern jewish interpretation is that abraham should not only have questioned god's command, but the voice itself. why would the same god who promised isaac to him suddenly demand his death? imagine for a second that tomorrow's posts on pharyngula were all jesusy -- wouldn't you question whether PZ wrote them? i certainly would.
and as a slight clarification, there's no reward in the story (other than the continued covenant established earlier), and it's not god who stops abraham. this is actually quite a sticking point for another version of the modern jewish interpretation -- that in some sense abraham "passed" the test because he was so willing to stop what he was doing for any reason. he took the angel's command over god's, which was part of the test. i'm not sure i follow that one, but i'm just providing an example of the importance of this seemingly minute point.
no, just the catholics. because, you know, god has to be there every sunday to perform a miracle you can't even taste. :D
anyways, what you say wrt: spong is valid, i suppose. this is actually something i ponder myself. if good faith is very much like humanism or atheism, why bother at all? at the end of the day, i have to recognize that faith simply is not a rational behaviour. it's not something you reason. but then, i suppose we all knew that already.
Posted by: Elisabeth | May 21, 2009 1:07 AM
While I have to admire and agree with PZ's original post, the comments seem to have degenerated over time. If you all had the sense God gave to a door knob, you'd see the whole religious question is irrelevant. Who is going to pay for the treatment?
Posted by: JeffS | May 21, 2009 1:12 AM
As much as I hate the parents for what they are doing to their child, and as much as I want them to be shown how terrible a mistake they are making, I sincerely hope that the boy does not die even without treatments.
The child has been revealed as not competant to make the decision. It is not his fault. I would not wish anyone to die because they hold different beliefs than I do. The whole situation frustrates me and fills me with anger.
I'm hoping for a miracle (though not divine, just the everyday lucky sort) that either the boy is found or he somehow recovers without treatment.
He is a 13 year old boy and deserves to live even if his parents are ignorant fools being taken advantage of by some delusional moron, if not some consciousless conman.
Posted by: JeffS | May 21, 2009 1:12 AM
As much as I hate the parents for what they are doing to their child, and as much as I want them to be shown how terrible a mistake they are making, I sincerely hope that the boy does not die even without treatments.
The child has been revealed as not competant to make the decision. It is not his fault. I would not wish anyone to die because they hold different beliefs than I do. The whole situation frustrates me and fills me with anger.
I'm hoping for a miracle (though not divine, just the everyday lucky sort) that either the boy is found or he somehow recovers without treatment.
He is a 13 year old boy and deserves to live even if his parents are ignorant fools being taken advantage of by some delusional moron, if not some consciousless conman.
Posted by: John Morales | May 21, 2009 1:14 AM
Uerba @399,
You mean this?Yeah, I caught it. It's an admission that prayer is placebo.
I stand by my comment.
Posted by: Brownian, OM
|
May 21, 2009 1:17 AM
Uerba, how is that not a double win for religion? If God steps in, burns a bush, rubs a little spittle on Hauser's tumour and cures it, then he exists by virtue of the miracles he performs. If Daniel is cured by the work of millions of Christian, Muslim, Buddhist, Hindu, Atheist and other doctors, then he still exists and is credited with the miracle.
If there's anything that's the antithesis of reasonable thinking, this is it.
arachnophilia, you'd make an excellent Gnostic. (No, that's not an insult. There was a substantial point in my apostasy when I realised there was no intellectually honest way in which God couldn't be anything but a douche, unworthy of worship.)
By the way, steer clear of Mark and his poison. You'll summon the Heddle.
Posted by: Ken Cope | May 21, 2009 1:26 AM
You'll summon the Heddle.
The heddle seldom challenges even the most execrable theist behavior. To heddle, the worst crime is that of an atheist criticizing the most execrable theist behavior, since we'll scare the theists away from science, which only the heddle is equipped to evangelize for among the faithful.
Posted by: Janine, OMnivore | May 21, 2009 1:29 AM
Heddle. Heddle! HEDDLE!
Posted by: Ken Cope | May 21, 2009 1:37 AM
I read PZ's post and my first thought was that heddle will ignore PZ's post. Heddle is more likely to win a Templeton Foundation Grant than PZ.
Another random thought. Even though I didn't clap for Tinkerbelle, she survived anyway. Was it because I didn't disbelieve in fairies earnestly enough?
Posted by: Brownian, OM
|
May 21, 2009 1:42 AM
No, a moderate would conclude that your clapping...mumble, mumble, something, something...modern medicine saved Tinkerbell, therefore, the clapping...mumble...yay!
Good job!
Posted by: Ferin | May 21, 2009 1:50 AM
Honestly, I laugh at people who claim homeschooling is better. (Might revise that if that jerk in Texas gets confirmed.)
I had a coworker who was devout christian and home schooled. His ignorance was painful. He went on a training trip to Wisconsin and it was literally his first time out of the county. He had no idea how to interact with people. No common sense. If the bible didn't cover it, he was dead in the water.
It's really sad to think how many people might be raising their kids that way because of some religious nonsense.
Posted by: Ken Cope | May 21, 2009 1:51 AM
Good job!
Yes! It's all for the best!
Posted by: Brownian, OM
|
May 21, 2009 1:53 AM
Janine, I take Pascal's Wager seriously with regard to such stuff. I mean, I don't really believe invoking Heddle's name three times will cause him to manifest, but y'know, why chance it?
Posted by: Tualha | May 21, 2009 1:56 AM
Yes, you're absolutely right, PZ. Damn all the moderate theists. Even those who have an impressive track record of fighting pseudoscience and extremist religion.
Posted by: BeccaTheCyborg | May 21, 2009 1:57 AM
Absolutely amazing post, PZ. *bookmarks*
The heartfelt offensiveness is very moving.
Posted by: Jason | May 21, 2009 2:00 AM
Sing it PZ!
Posted by: Ken Cope | May 21, 2009 2:11 AM
Damn all the moderate theists. Even those who have an impressive track record of fighting pseudoscience and extremist religion.
Have you read Martin Gardner's justification for his religious beliefs? He holds them because they comfort him, even though he claims not to be able to rationally justify them in any way, in fact, he holds them despite his unwillingness to pretend that he could rationally justify his faith in any way, a position that does not endear him to most believers. He identifies his position as fideism. He keeps god in the gaps of Mysterianism. Perhaps because he got so many column inches out of Penrose tiles in his Scientific American essays, Gardner wrote an introduction to one of Penrose's nonsensical Mysterian screeds on quantum consciousness. Despite his opposition to woo, he has certainly chosen to cling to a flavor of it. He was also a founding member of the International Wizard of Oz Club, so he can't be all bad, despite his having written an incredibly awful Oz pastiche. Most Oz fans eventually do.
If Gardner had written his exposé on the Urantia Cult earlier, a childhood friend of mine might not have believed he would survive his teen suicide and awaken in another, better world. I wish I'd found Gardner's anti-religious writings earlier. I wish he'd be more consistent WRT theism, but hey, it gets him through the night, and "the night is large, and full of wonders."
Posted by: Brownian, OM
|
May 21, 2009 2:12 AM
Tualha, did you read that link? Nothing about it suggests Gardner beleives in an intercessory deity. In fact, quite the opposite:
Unless you've got some other sources, nothing there really supports your point.
You'd have done better to go with Ken Miller, who most definitely believes in a deity that wants us to follow the rules he laid down in a book he dictated via revelation. And Ken, despite his best work, does dive into the deep end of the woo pool whenever reality conflicts with his faith.
Posted by: Flying Goose | May 21, 2009 2:37 AM
PZ
You do not know me, nor the people with whom I worship and pray. I never prayer for cure, and have little time for intecessary prayer. That does not mean that I cannot be a calm helpful presence with people in difficult times. I owe that calmness to the fact I spend alot of time in silence and meditative prayer.
What I find difficult about your piece are the final words.
'Damn you all.' It is indiscriminate, and makes no attempt to find out anything about the people you are condemning.
I don't go out looking for people to help they come to me.
When you have been woken up at 2 am by the mentally ill person, because they know where you live (The Rectory, amd nobody else cares. When you've phoned for the ambulance to take them to the hospital, and waited whilst your pregnant wife and three year old sleep upstairs.
Then you can condemn me, and lump me in with all those religious nutters you seemed to have a lot of in the States.
Posted by: John Morales | May 21, 2009 2:45 AM
Flying Goose:
Not so.It singles out a group: You are Abraham's enablers. I hope you all feel a small tremor of guilt when you sit your own children down at bedtime to beg a nonexistent being for aid, when you plant the seed of futile supplication and surrender to delusions in their trusting minds. Damn you all.[my emphasis]
PZ does not damn those who do who are not 'Abraham's enablers', and those people (as evidenced) do exist.
You are flat out wrong.
Posted by: Ken Cope | May 21, 2009 2:47 AM
As most people do, I can suspend disbelief in a story or movie long enough to enjoy the narrative. While I once felt the need for a narrative in everyday life so intensely that I was willing to suspend my belief in reality, I am finding it increasingly difficult to respect anybody who needs to believe in woo to get by. I'm much more interested in learning what's true, than in believing that what I possess is the truth, no matter the evidence to the contrary. Believing impossible things religiously is the least rewarding investment I ever made in my misspent youth; the prospect of death is insufficient justification for believing things for which there is no evidence, so it's getting harder and harder to sing along with John Lennon, "Whatever gets you through the night."
Posted by: Brownian, OM
|
May 21, 2009 2:50 AM
And therein lies the crux of this argument, Flying Goose. You don't know that. And even if you did (ie prayer has been shown to produce feelings of calmness in people), that's not evidence for some intercessory deity working through you. You may as well be meditating to yourself as talking to gods.
Posted by: H.H. | May 21, 2009 3:12 AM
Flying Goose, are you saying you couldn't have helped those people without selling them religion?
Look, for everyone who still doesn't get it, for everyone still coming here looking to defend charity or kindness or meditation or feelings or poetry or art or love or awe or humility or whatever it is you think PZ is criticizing...you can still have that. None of those things have anything to do with bogus supernaturalism, so just do those things without religion.
And don't call it prayer unless you mean to imply that you presume yourself to be in psychic communication with disembodied spirits. That's what prayer is. And if you cloak otherwise reasonable human behavior under the veil of religious language then you are deliberately inviting confusion. Because it's no accident, you want to be misunderstood. And it's that deception, that fertile field of cultivated ambiguity which allows magical thinking to grow unchecked. You could have taken a stand against irrationalism, but you didn't. You chose to protect it. To keep your head lowered with all the rest of the gloriously deluded and celebrate faith. And because of that, the blood of every victim of religion, self-deception, wishful thinking, bad faith and delusion is on your hands as well. You are an enabler. You stand guilty. At least show a little shame.
Posted by: Flying Goose | May 21, 2009 3:21 AM
I don't believe in the supernatural, and I am not selling religion. That's my point, you don't know me so how can you condemn me. Yet i would call myself a religious moderate.
Posted by: John Morales | May 21, 2009 3:27 AM
Flying Goose ,
I do not accept you can be religious in the relevant sense if you do not believe in the supernatural.Please clarify how you can claim to be religious and yet disbelieve in the supernatural.
Posted by: H.H. | May 21, 2009 3:34 AM
But how can you be a religious moderate if you don't believe in god or the supernatural? Only by dishonestly calling non-religious secularism a religion. That's endorsement by association. If I drove a Porsche, wore Porsche sunglasses and a leather Porsche jacket, and had pictures of Porsches all over my home, would you believe me if I said I really never once care for or promoted Porsches? Of course fucking not. If you don't want to be smeared with the religious, then stop identifying as religious. Otherwise, you're just another enabler.Posted by: Wowbagger, OM | May 21, 2009 3:35 AM
I guess Flying Goose believes that the term 'supernatural' can only be applied to the religious beliefs of those who don't believe what he believes.
You're all witchdoctors to us.
Posted by: Flying Goose | May 21, 2009 3:42 AM
I am just about to go to morning prayer, I think that makes me religious by practice, naturalism notwithstanding. I am not an enabler, I am a very fervant disabler.
Posted by: Flying Goose | May 21, 2009 3:44 AM
HH what qualifies you to say what prayer is?
Posted by: H.H. | May 21, 2009 3:45 AM
Um, Goose, unless you're going there to disrupt morning prayer, then you are the very definition of an enabler.
Posted by: H.H. | May 21, 2009 3:54 AM
Oh, right? Because the religious haven't always meant prayer to mean conversing with god for centuries or anything. It's all so vague, so complicated. There are so many complex shades of meaning to prayer.Please! You know exactly what you're doing. You know that when you tell your peers and acquaintances you are going to pray that they understand the term to mean something very different than how you mean it. You might have rationalized this to yourself by pretending the word is vague enough to allow room for your alternate usage, but we're here to call you out on that deception. You are directly hurting people by lying to them like that because it perpetuates faith in magic. It's a self-serving lie of omission. Didn't they teach you about those at the rectory?
Posted by: Flying Goose | May 21, 2009 4:31 AM
HH
I tell people exactly what I am doing, I do not lie to them.
Just because I do not fit in to your nice neat and tidy definition of a religious person, Does not mean that I am not religious. And just because my prayer does not convieniently fit your narrow use of the word, does not mean that I do not pray.
It never ceases to amaze me how rigid, black and white some people are. The last person to tell me that I was not praying, religious fundmentalist.
Posted by: AJS | May 21, 2009 4:34 AM
@ Uerba, #261:
If these people really know not to expect prayer to work then why, in the name of all that is sane and wholesome, are they praying?
Posted by: Anonymous | May 21, 2009 4:44 AM
It depends how you define prayer. If you define it as 'knocking on the door of the other world for a bag of sugar' petionary prayer, then you might expect to work or not work, and be expected to provide evidence.
Contemplative prayer does not claim to achieve anything supernatural, an atheist could be a contemplative.
Posted by: AJS | May 21, 2009 4:55 AM
@ Anonymous, #433:
It depends on how you define Scottishness. If you define it as "putting salt on your porridge", then wibble wibble wibble blah moo.
Posted by: sevişmeler | May 21, 2009 4:56 AM
I looked at the graphs at #14. They look like pretty compelling evidence for climate change, not against. Bolt does the same thing. He puts up a graph he claims shows one thing when it is obvious that it shows another. John Quiggin is right. We are no longer talking about scientific debate (if we ever were). We are talking about delusionalism where the victims quite literally cannot see the evidence staring them in the face.
Posted by: John Morales | May 21, 2009 5:07 AM
@433:
At about the same time that Haynes and Lacy went to Nurse MacDougall's room, Worsel the Velantian arrowed downward through the atmosphere toward a certain flat roof. Leather wings shot out with a snap and in a blast of wind Velantians can stand eleven Tellurian gravities, he came in his customary appalling landing and dived unconcernedly down a nearby shaft. Into a corridor, along which he wriggled blithely to the office of his oldfriend, Master Technician La-Verne Thorndyke.
"Verne, I have been thinking," he announced, as he coiled all but about six feet of his sinuous length into a tight spiral upon the rug and thrust out half a dozen weirdly stalked eyes.
"That's nothing new," Thorndyke countered. No human mind can sympathize with or even remotely understand the Velantian passion for solid weeks of intense, uninterrupted concentration upon a single thought. "What about this time? The whichness of the why?"
"That is the trouble with you Tellurians," Worsel grumbled. "Not only do you not know how to think, but you . . ."
("Doc" Smith, Lensman series, my bold)
Posted by: Anonymous | May 21, 2009 5:07 AM
AJS
Excepting that there is a long tradition, hundreds of years of contemplative prayer, so no one, with any knowledge of it can be excused for not knowing what it is.
Posted by: John Morales | May 21, 2009 5:17 AM
Anonymous, pick a handle, any handle.
And please define your terms, polysemous as they are.
PS
http://www.meditationsociety.com/week16.html
"The difference between prayer and meditation can be understood by saying that during prayer, we ask God for something, and during meditation, God speaks to us."
What is meditative prayer, exactly?
Posted by: Knockgoats | May 21, 2009 6:01 AM
I tell people exactly what I am doing, I do not lie to them. Flying Goose
So, you tell them "I don't believe any of this "god" shit, I just like going through the motions"? (Pun originally unintended, but left in once recognised.)? Or what?
Just because I do not fit in to your nice neat and tidy definition of a religious person, Does not mean that I am not religious. And just because my prayer does not convieniently fit your narrow use of the word, does not mean that I do not pray.
So, how about telling us, clearly, what you mean by "religious" and "pray"? Is that impossible because you don't actually know yourself? Or just too theologically sophisticated for the vulgar hordes to appreciate?
It never ceases to amaze me how rigid, black and white some people are. The last person to tell me that I was not praying, religious fundmentalist.
Ah, the old "atheists are just like fundamentalists" gag. Heard it. Hundreds of times. It wasn't even convincing (or funny) the first time.
Posted by: amon | May 21, 2009 6:14 AM
bravo, well said
Posted by: Flying Goose
|
May 21, 2009 6:28 AM
I am the anonymous above as well as FG from earlier. Now got an account.
Religion is either derived from
1)religare, that which binds people together.
or 2)relegare that which is contemplated, reread.
So one could say that a religion is anything that creates community and enables that community to be in touch with its own past. It is not of nescessity, about the God out there, although it can be.
I define prayer in the following way. Time out for reflective rereading of what is going on in my life and those around me. Sometimes ancient words are useful, sometimes they are not, sometimes only silence is needed.
atheists are not like fundamentalists. So I take that back.
Posted by: Tualha | May 21, 2009 6:32 AM
Brownian @ 417:
I think you read the article a little too fast.
Posted by: Smoggy Batzrubble | May 21, 2009 6:53 AM
Dear Spruce Goose,
You have given me a new understanding of prayer, o my brother, and I thank you. As a child I was childish and thought praying was simply a time when it was safe to pick my nose and have a snack in church because all the grown-ups had their eyes closed. I then learned that Holy Communion was snack time, and understood that praying was the time for reflective rereading of what is going on in my life and those around me. Unfortunately that was just before God flicked my hormone switches and I discovered girls. After that my most reflective moments were spent in front of the mirror trying to get rid of pimples (I also took a lot of showers and developed tennis elbow). Sometimes ancient words were useful, particularly when we studied the Song of Songs in Bible Class and I acquired a whole new set of sexual metaphors.
Now I meditate in silence, although that's because I'm in solitary at the moment, which is better then double bunking with Floyd Rubber, my overly endowed cellmate who confuses me with his mattress.
Anyway, O My Christian Brother, sorry for the long post. I just wanted to support you in your stance against the evil fundamentalist atheists. Keep at it in the Holy Name of Christ. I'm due for day release soon--so if you'd like a new member for your prayer chain, keep Smoggy in mind (and if you could put me up for a week or two when I'm released, just say....)
Posted by: Knockgoats | May 21, 2009 6:54 AM
"But I think the relation of progressivism and religion that you find is largely in the US. In Canada the largest protestant church in the country worked *for* gay marriage." - Dwight@232
I don't know about Canada, but in Scotland/UK/EU, to name the political contexts I experience directly, it's always the religious (primarily Catholic, evangelical Protestant and Muslim) working against gay rights, good sex education, right to die etc., and pushing religiously segregated education. You can also see the difference at continental scales if you compare the USA with western Europe; and you can see it further afield, for example in India, the Islamic world, Latin America. Sure there are exceptions (in the UK, Scotland and Wales are both somewhat more religious, and more progressive than England), but even in these cases, racial, gender and sexual orientation equality have greatly increased as religion has declined. Of course, these issues are not the whole of a progressive agenda, and the situation is less clear-cut if you look at workers' rights, international justice, environmental issues - but they are a crucial item in that agenda; and the Scandinavian countries, which are among the most progressive in general, are also among the least religious.
Posted by: Knockgoats | May 21, 2009 7:04 AM
So one could say that a religion is anything that creates community and enables that community to be in touch with its own past. - Flying Goose aka Humpty Dumpty
Well, you could if you wanted to be deceive or be misunderstood. This would make every language a religion, which is just crap.
I define prayer in the following way. Time out for reflective rereading of what is going on in my life and those around me.
Since that is not what the word means in normal parlance, you are simply being deceitful if you use "prayer" in this way without telling people, and bloody perverse even if you do tell them. I could say with just as much justification:
"I define elephant in the following way: anything large and grey."
Posted by: John | May 21, 2009 7:06 AM
Loved it! Good job PZ.
Posted by: Mill | May 21, 2009 7:15 AM
I've always wondered whether morons like this live their lives without food because it's God's will that they are hungry.
Posted by: Aquaria | May 21, 2009 7:24 AM
Flying Goose, I do not think the word pray means what you think it means, and it's the reason you're getting so much crap about your definition of prayer. You apparently are using a definition for it that is unique to you, rather than the definition shared in common by literate people, the sort of definition in a dictionary.
Hm, nothing in there about reflecting, but a lot about begging and communicating with an imaginary friend.
Correct usage facilitates clear and effective communication.
Posted by: Lurky | May 21, 2009 7:26 AM
Hear hear!
Posted by: MAJeff, OM | May 21, 2009 7:30 AM
So one could say that a religion is anything that creates community and enables that community to be in touch with its own past.
So, I guess the Massachusetts Historical Society is a religion.
What a load of nonsense.
Posted by: flaq | May 21, 2009 7:47 AM
This is exactly the same drivel as "god is the universe".Please.
These people come around all wound up complaining that PZ's post doesn't apply to them, only it turns out that their definitions of terms like god and religion and prayer are so vague and mushy that they are essentially meaningless.
First figure out what you believe. Then you may feel free to complain when someone tears down your belief. But crikey - I think some of you don't even know what it is you claim to believe in.
Posted by: Aquaria | May 21, 2009 8:11 AM
Argh. Power outage here. I also wanted to include the definition of prayer (very long), so that it becomes clear that FG is pulling definitions out of its ass:
prayer 1 (prâr)
n.
1. a. A reverent petition made to God, a god, or another object of worship.
b. The act of making a reverent petition to God, a god, or another object of worship.
c. A fervent request: Her prayer for rain was granted at last.
d. The thing requested: His safe arrival was their only prayer.
e. The request of a complainant, as stated in a complaint or in equity, that the court grant the aid or relief solicited.
f. The section of the complaint or bill that contains this request.
2. An act of communion with God, a god, or another object of worship, such as in devotion, confession, praise, or thanksgiving: (One evening a week, the family would join together in prayer.)
3. A specially worded form used to address God, a god, or another object of worship.
4. prayers--A religious observance in which praying predominates: morning prayers.
5. a. fervent request: Her prayer for rain was granted at last.
b. The thing requested: His safe arrival was their only prayer.
c. The request of a complainant, as stated in a complaint or in equity, that the court grant the aid or relief solicited.
d. The section of the complaint or bill that contains this request.
6. The slightest chance or hope: (In a storm the mountain climbers won't have a prayer.)
7. Law
a. The request of a complainant, as stated in a complaint or in equity, that the court grant the aid or relief solicited.
b. The section of the complaint or bill that contains this request.
pray·er 2 (prā'ər)
n. One who prays.
The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
Again, nothing about meditation. A lot about requests and complaints. Much about begging and talking to something worshipped. A bit about rituals related to the begging and talking to the worshipped one. A lot of specificity linking prayer with God. Not gods. Not Vishnu. Not Buddha. God. Leads one to believe they specifically mean the Abrahmaic imaginary friend. So, once more, FG just made up what he wanted prayer to be, and somehow thought we'd pick it by ESP or through the aether, I suppose.
Again, clear and correct usage of words are vital for effective communication.
Posted by: Flying Goose
|
May 21, 2009 8:24 AM
Language is a little more fluid then you seem to allow for.
The dictionary is not a statute book, only a guide to meaning.
Words do not behave like chemicals in a test tube, they often have different meaning in different contexts.
Newton's laws are somewhat different to those spoken about by a judge in court. And the law courts are different to ones in which tennis is played.
Posted by: KI | May 21, 2009 8:32 AM
As someone who is very precise in my word usage, I have to say comment #453 is incredibly stupid. If everybody puts their own meaning to a word, communication is impossible.
Posted by: John Morales | May 21, 2009 8:36 AM
Shorter FG @453,
[Through the Looking Glass by Lewis CarrollCHAPTER VI]
Posted by: Knockgoats | May 21, 2009 8:38 AM
Words do not behave like chemicals in a test tube, they often have different meaning in different contexts. Flying Goose
No shit, Sherlock. Completely misses the point. When someone uses "sheep" to mean "internal combustion engine", without notifying anyone, you know they are not serious about maintaining communication.
"There abideth these three: faith, hope and clarity. But the greatest of these is clarity." - cartoonist in Private Eye, can't recall the name.
Clarity is, on the other hand, perceived as a mortal enemy by the wambling quasi-religious such as you.
Posted by: CodewordConduit | May 21, 2009 8:46 AM
I don't see the problem with people praying, just as long as they're allowing their family members access to proper medical care.
I'm sure that there's a psychological component to recovery too - if prayer is an effective placebo for some then pray on as far as I'm concerned.
This is anecdotal, sure, but my great-grandmother went into hospital with internal bleeding about five years ago - she was obviously treated professionally; but her priest came in nearly every day to talk to her and pray with her too. It bolstered her mentally (she believed in it already) - but so what?
People shouldn't be made to feel ashamed of praying. If it's just wishful thinking then I guess we're all guilty of it - nontheists just don't direct it anywhere in particular.
The danger is when wishful thinking replaces common sense, and neglect occurs.
Posted by: flaq | May 21, 2009 8:49 AM
Exactly. These sort of moderate, sort of prayerful, semi-religious types cringe at clarity, because their beliefs, if you can call them that, are liable to shrivel and drift away with the slightest prodding. They seem to prefer the "fertile field of cultivated ambiguity" HH so eloquently referred to upthread.
Posted by: flaq | May 21, 2009 8:58 AM
CodewordConduit: If it's just wishful thinking, then let's agree to call it what it is, and drop all the supernatural religious inferences that go along with the word "prayer".
Because the problem is, when you take something like wishful thinking, or meditation, or quiet contemplation, and label it as prayer, you are sending a strong signal to people like Colleen Hauser that what she is doing is right and good. You might be talking about "positive vibes," but she's talking about communicating directly with an all powerful deity. Who is telling her not to take her kid to the doctor.
And because you are both using the same word, sometimes the same gestures, even doing it in the same buildings in some cases, Colleen feels encouraged and supported by a community of like-minded believers. Prayer is good, she thinks. Yes, you tell her, it is good. And then you go off and lead your good, contemplative life and she goes off and kills her kid through ignorance.
That's the problem.
Posted by: Flying Goose
|
May 21, 2009 9:00 AM
We do not cringe from clarity,
but neither do we wished to be imprisoned by it where it does not exists. Words like prayer, religion, spirituality, are becoming more and more ambiguous and imprecise in our culture. The more imprecise words become, the more care we need when using them. It is precisely PZ's indiscriminate damning of anyone who is any way religious that began this in the firstly.
The world used to be run by self righteous men in white garb telling us how to think and what to believe.
So what's new?
Posted by: Dwight | May 21, 2009 9:03 AM
A few things to note
-The definitions of prayers are being bandied about that almost no one who is religious could work with. "disembodied spirits? You're average baptist would be ruled out. In other words the definition is getting so absurd as to rule out most folks.
-the only thing that can be agreed upon by some on here is the denial of the existence of moderate or liberal forms of religion all together. But for those of us who are we are not "pulling definitions" out of thin air. There are any number of religious groups in *your* community who practice and understand prayer and religion in that manner. They exist in PZ's Twin Cities. I can name churches if folks like
-So unless the purpose is to understand religion,which folks are doing a poor job of that. It may be to set up religion in its most absurd light to beat it down. In that, there is something fundamentally aliberal about this. And some are so invested in their caricature that what is done in the name of religion in your local synagogue, unitarian church, quaker fellowship is inexplicable and ruled out of bounds by folks on here. Who gives you the authority to determine that whole religious communities are not religious because they don't fit your caricature?
Posted by: Knockgoats | May 21, 2009 9:08 AM
We do not cringe from clarity - Flying Goose
My, my, using the royal "we" now!
but neither do we wished to be imprisoned by it where it does not exists. Words like prayer, religion, spirituality, are becoming more and more ambiguous and imprecise in our culture. - Flying Goose
And you're doing your best to hurry that process along.
The world used to be run by self righteous men in white garb telling us how to think and what to believe.
So what's new?
Careful, your paranoia's showing.
Posted by: Flying Goose
|
May 21, 2009 9:09 AM
Dwight
You have said it much better than me, but that's what I mean. I am feeling far more gruntled now.
Posted by: Flying Goose
|
May 21, 2009 9:12 AM
Knockgoats
You may be right there, I am new to this site, its a bit different to RD.net, not better or worse, but a slightly differnt culture. So far.
Posted by: Dwight | May 21, 2009 9:15 AM
knock
Though in the UK the United Reformed Church, obviously the Unitarians, the Methodists to some degree, and depending on the Anglican congregations. And Scotland has got the Episcopal Church (go Richard Holloway!) there are progressive religious communities to be sure in that country.
Sometimes such groups are *ahead* of secular society such as the UK Quakers who came out for glbt equality in the early 1960s. Not that the politics of reaction is not going full steam ahead in most religious communities of course. And so there is something to be said for your point. But the way that religion literally seems to follow partisan lines in the US I can't imagine happening in more secular countries.
In Scandinavia its hard to measure their religion and secularity. They seem to overwhelmingly not believe in the existence of God but admire their state churches, identify with them, get married, buried, confirmed and baptized in them. That's a very different sense then is in the UK I assume? I found the book on Scandinavia and religion that came out this last year interesting and confirmed anecodetely when I've been there and from the folks I know there
Posted by: Rev. BigDumbChimp | May 21, 2009 9:16 AM
I see this worked out alright.
Posted by: Knockgoats | May 21, 2009 9:19 AM
There are any number of religious groups in *your* community who practice and understand prayer and religion in that manner. - Dwight
In what manner? It is the systematic evasion, the refusal to say in plain language whether or not you actually believe in supernatural beings and their power to intervene in human affairs, that many here object to. Of course you have a right to do that; but you don't have a right to be respected for it.
A separate point - it doesn't seem to be the moderate and liberal religious communities that are flourishing. Rather it's the fundamentalists, the evangelists, the intolerant authoritarians and persecutors who are making the running.
Posted by: Anonymous | May 21, 2009 9:26 AM
CodewordConduit: If it's just wishful thinking, then let's agree to call it what it is, and drop all the supernatural religious inferences that go along with the word "prayer".
From what I can gather from discourse with many moderate Christians, they don't believe that God actually changes his mind and intervenes. It's all rather vague actually - I can't get a straight answer as to how prayer is indeed a relationship for them. It's only the "out there" fundies who believe that God answers directly and tells them what to do. Then you have Reformists who believe that God's plan is unalterable and basically repeat the old "Thy will be done" in various different ways. If they find that their wishes comported with God's wishes, they feel better.
But the old "granting requests" thing and "divine intervention"? Fundie trait all the way, and not shared by moderates. The two, in my experience, have such contrasting theologies that it pretty much warrants a split anyway.
Because the problem is, when you take something like wishful thinking, or meditation, or quiet contemplation, and label it as prayer, you are sending a strong signal to people like Colleen Hauser that what she is doing is right and good. You might be talking about "positive vibes," but she's talking about communicating directly with an all powerful deity. Who is telling her not to take her kid to the doctor.
Yes you're right. I believe that a clear distinction should be made between your garden vareity "prayer" (which has more in common with contemplation and meditation) and the very specific "intercessory prayer" - of which there are relatively few theological adherents.
And because you are both using the same word, sometimes the same gestures, even doing it in the same buildings in some cases, Colleen feels encouraged and supported by a community of like-minded believers. Prayer is good, she thinks. Yes, you tell her, it is good. And then you go off and lead your good, contemplative life and she goes off and kills her kid through ignorance.
Well just to clarify, I don't pray :p
When I meditate I usually just think about the day I've had, focus on future plans; and very often find that I can find solutions to difficult problems that have vexed me throughout the day thanks to a more serene mental balance. I think that the religiously inclined ascribe this sort of peace and clarity to the presence of a deity. So they label this successful "prayer", but this is completely different from the "telephone-to-Jesus" intercessory notion that fundies have.
That's the problem.
Yes, moderates should be more vocal in denouncing the notion of intercessory prayer - they do so privately; but IMO are a bit scared of offending their "brothers and sisters" in Christ.
(also sorry if my HTML tags mess up on here, I haven't tried them on ScienceBlogs before)
Posted by: Christophe Thill | May 21, 2009 9:27 AM
Yes, this is a tragic case. Now, on the bright (and silly) side: When I read the title "Modern day Isaacs", I thought it was a reference to Newton. Which, logically, would mean that you were going to mock William Dembski. Seems I was wrong...
Posted by: Dwight | May 21, 2009 9:29 AM
Knock
The only way I know how to talk about God affecting the world is to do it in naturalistic terms. You're last point is right overall when it comes to Christianity. There are notable exceptions but working to create a vibrant religious alternative is a passion of mine. I did this in campus ministry (with was the only glbt supportive ministry at our university) and it's why I'm in seminary today.
Posted by: Flying Goose
|
May 21, 2009 9:30 AM
knock
i did say further up the thread i did not believe in the supernatural. It follows then that I do not believe interventionist diety.
Either I give up a set of practices that I still find useful or I give them a new meaning.
It's a free world.
Posted by: Knockgoats | May 21, 2009 9:33 AM
In Scandinavia its hard to measure their religion and secularity. They seem to overwhelmingly not believe in the existence of God but admire their state churches, identify with them, get married, buried, confirmed and baptized in them. That's a very different sense then is in the UK I assume? - Dwight
That's an interesting and valid point about Scandinavia. Scandinavians do seem to be unusually attached to traditional rituals. (My wife is half-Danish, her mother moved here at 6 weeks old more than 80 years ago, but we still festoon the room with Danish flags on someone's birthday!) I suspect it's to do with the sense of being small nationalities cheek by jowl with much larger ones. There are some similarities in the UK, in that a lot of people marry in churches and are "buried with a clergyman" without believing in God, but the proportion of people involved is much smaller.
Posted by: CodewordConduit | May 21, 2009 9:35 AM
That was me at #468
I knew I'd mess up...
Sorry!
Posted by: Flying Goose
|
May 21, 2009 9:35 AM
Further to my last, of course there will be those who have their own reasons for wanting to remove that option. Their reasons may be different, the result is the same. A circumention of my freedom.
Thats why the behaviour of some atheists resembles that of evangelicals. It seems like it has to be their way or no way.
Excuse me if I call that tyranny.
Posted by: AJS | May 21, 2009 9:47 AM
Prayer might make the person praying feel better, but so does heroin. The more important point is, prayer does nothing to help the person being prayed for. Indeed, if you choose to pray (or get stoned) instead of doing anything useful, then it is actively harmful to them.
Posted by: Knockgoats | May 21, 2009 9:48 AM
The only way I know how to talk about God affecting the world is to do it in naturalistic terms. - Dwight
That doesn't seem to make sense. Either the physical world is a closed system - in which case, to affect it, God must be located within it (up in the sky? extra dimensions?), or it isn't. If the divine finger so much as fiddles with quantum processes in your brain to give you a message, that's not naturalistic.
i did say further up the thread i did not believe in the supernatural. It follows then that I do not believe interventionist diety. - Flying Goose
Sorry, I missed that. As far as I can see, then, you're an atheist who likes to play at being a Christian, like other people like to play at being Cavaliers and Roundheads, or Union and Confederate soldiers. Except for you this play is explicitly a form of therapy.
It's a free world.
Not by any means entirely - and many of the religious are doing their best to make it less so.
Posted by: Knockgoats | May 21, 2009 9:52 AM
Excuse me if I call that tyranny. - Flying Goose
No, I most certainly won't. To do so is a gross insult to all those who have suffered or are suffering under real tyranny. Grow up you pathetic cry-baby.
Posted by: Scott Hatfield, OM | May 21, 2009 9:59 AM
You are Abraham's enablers. I hope you all feel a small tremor of guilt when you sit your own children down at bedtime to beg a nonexistent being for aid, when you plant the seed of futile supplication and surrender to delusions in their trusting minds. Damn you all.
Well, damn. If I'm offended, does that make you happy, or this situation any less tragic?
It seems to me that you are skirting the same line we justifiably condemn when believers milk the personal tragedy of others as grist for their ideological mills. You have called such people ghouls. I agree, but don't you see that your heartfelt response here---no matter how cathartic for you---is similarly misplaced?
I really doubt that the conventional religion of mealy-mouthed Christians enables the outliers who practice a Native American version of animism. This zero-sum game grieves me almost as much as the child abuse described. As someone once said, "Let each man hope and believe what he can." And, in the meantime, let's promote the widest-possible application of science and reason, and let the chips fall where they may.
Posted by: Dwight | May 21, 2009 10:09 AM
knock
It's not God and the world, separate and how do we connect them. It's God as a way of describing some part of or the world in general. I'd go with the first. Spinoza with the second.
Posted by: TFK
|
May 21, 2009 10:13 AM
flaq, I read your response--did you read mine? (other than my comment on your style?)
You--and PZ--said that the prayer of moderates validates what the Hausers are doing.
If PZ's intended audience is moderates, that statement needs to be supported with more than the premise that prayer doesn't work--a premise that the intended audience doesn't accept.
Posted by: Mod | May 21, 2009 10:17 AM
Prayer is not like magic, and anyone who teaches that it is, is guilty as charged.
...
PZ before you damn everybody who prays, get out of the US now and then, come over to the UK, meet some people who pray but not in a quasi magical way.
Flying Goose it has now been established that you were using the words 'prayer' and 'pray' to mean something different than PZ was. Since you were keen to point out that language is fluid and that one should be careful - perhaps you will show care in understanding the pragmatics of language and understand that PZ was clearly using the word prayer to mean something closer to the common and established meaning.
You can't force people to use words the way you want them to be used, as you cannot be forced to use words the way other want you to. If you want to communicate with the world, and have them understand your meaning, you should probably remember this.
Now - can you think of a better word that 'pray' or 'prayer' for PZ to have used, given the context that it was talking about praying or 'natural remedies' in lieu of proven medical care?
Posted by: Knockgoats | May 21, 2009 10:19 AM
Dwight,
But is that some factual claim you are making about the world? (It was for Spinoza IIRC - he really thought those monads existed.) Or what? Why is "God", with all the cultural freight that carries - the implications of a real being that has always existed, is capable of love, wrath, jealousy, etc., sent his only son to be killed as a sacrifice to himself so he could forgive the sins he knew were going to happen before he created the world, etc. etc., a useful way of describing some part of the world? Which part?
Posted by: Dwight | May 21, 2009 10:25 AM
knock
Those features of the world which act in ways to transform the world, human life for the better. If anything it's a retrieval of Plato, in identify God and the good. The cultural and historical weight of the word suggests something which calls for a religious response, reverence, etc.
Posted by: SC, OM | May 21, 2009 10:39 AM
And this brief response just encapsulates everything I adore about Knockgoats.
Posted by: shyster | May 21, 2009 10:39 AM
I have always found it fascinating that anti-medicine fungelicals pray for miracle healing to a god who is too weak and inept to create a creature smart enough to develop drugs and learn oncology.
Posted by: flaq | May 21, 2009 10:40 AM
TFK:
I see you've dropped the specious strawman argument you were peddling earlier. Thank you. This is closer to the point:
I feel like I'm repeating myself, but here goes.
The problem is not just that prayer is ineffective (which it is.) The problem is that when you engage in prayer - any prayer, even the moderate kind - you declare it to be a good and useful thing. And then we have whole communities of people who encourage each other to pray. And some of those people are going around thinking the word "pray" means "be thoughtful and contemplative," while others think it means "speak to god and ask him for help."
Regardless of that mismatch in terminology, these two types of folks encourage each other. "Prayer is good," says the moderate. "Yes," says Colleen H., "prayer is good." They're thinking of two very different things, but she feels comforted and supported by her brethren, and she is encouraged to continue praying to god to heal her son.
The problem with moderate prayer is not its lack of efficacy, it's that it provides a cover for the less moderate, and in this case, the batshit insane.
Posted by: Pablo | May 21, 2009 10:40 AM
Jack wrote, while quoting another
Actually, Jack, I don't think it is flawed. But it doesn't help, because I think it is absolutely the case that "moderate drinkers" enable alcoholics.
For starters, the existence of moderate drinkers make it impossible to ban alcohol. Prohibition didn't fail because the alcoholics couldn't handle it, it failed because the moderate drinkers insisted on having alcohol available. Without them, we would still have prohibition, which would make it easier to control alcoholics.
Second, and more importantly, moderate drinkers generally don't do enough to prevent alcohol abuse in others. A moderate drinker sits in a bar and has a "few drinks" with the drunk sitting next to him. Shoot, he might even buy a round or two. The bartender, who is not an alcoholic, continues to peddle the booze. The drunk gets up to go home, and the enablers call him a cab (notice that even while this is a good thing to do, it is still enabling him). Alcoholics absolutely rely on the acceptance of the moderates to justify themselves.
So while I don't see T-Bone's analogy as flawed, it also doesn't help the point.
Posted by: SC, OM | May 21, 2009 10:42 AM
Reads suspiciously like gobbledygook.
Posted by: Knockgoats | May 21, 2009 10:43 AM
Those features of the world which act in ways to transform the world, human life for the better.
But these are many, various, non-obvious, and there is absolutely no reason to treat them with "a religious response" (whatever that means) or reverence. Rather, we need to identify and study both those features and their converse - of which one, most here would say, is religion - to find out how we can strengthen the former and weaken the latter.
Plato? The man who advocated a totalitarian, class-divided society ruled by lies? Are you sure you want to go there?
Posted by: Sven DiMilo | May 21, 2009 10:49 AM
Reads suspiciously like
gobbledygookphilosophy. Same thing.Posted by: Dwight | May 21, 2009 11:00 AM
There are good bits to Plato too. I suppose if I was consigned to philosophy, Plato, and gobbedly gook that would be a relief from the accusations which are to be found in PZ's post and some respondents.
Posted by: Flying Goose
|
May 21, 2009 11:03 AM
Picking up his hanky and putting it in his pocket.
Knock, I am sorry if you were insulted.
You wrote earlier about me being an atheist who likes to play the part of...
I would put it like this, I have a naturalist ontology, a religious temperament, and a christian vocation. I think that puts me in the religious moderate category.Which means Mod that I am still in that category damned by PZ, without good reason, I think. I am perfectly happy to stand corrected. But please give this dyslexic a break, writing is not my best form of communicating or thinking in a hurry.
Posted by: Logicel | May 21, 2009 11:11 AM
Welcome, Flying Goose! Yes, the atmosphere here is different from the Dawkins site. There are lots of very clever people who post here also. Chances are you will learn something. And maybe they will also.
Posted by: Bruce Gorton | May 21, 2009 11:11 AM
Entering this late, I know, anyway
Dwight:
No, actually it is worse.
Why? You are praying for the answers, and you know what? You think you are going to get the answers. And the source of those answers? Someone who is perfect in knowledge, intellect and intention.
Meanwhile where the answers are actually coming from? You, in all of your ignorance, stupidity and self-destructive cruelty.
Posted by: Knockgoats | May 21, 2009 11:14 AM
Knock, I am sorry if you were insulted. - Flying Goose
I wasn't. I am not and never have been a victim of tyranny. However, there are plenty who are, and it trivialises their suffering when you identify some astringent comments or even outright name-calling as "tyranny". Can you really not see that?
"christian vocation"? Do you mean you're in the clergy, and would have to pack in the job if you admitted (even to yourself) that you're an atheist?
Posted by: Brownian, OM
|
May 21, 2009 11:21 AM
@ Tualha:
I guess I did. However, Gardner's other good works don't make prayer unstupid.
Posted by: SC, OM | May 21, 2009 11:22 AM
So fucking what? Which bits? How do they relate to any substantive argument going on here, specifically?
Which we're not.
I.F. Stone's The Trial of Socrates might be of interest to you.
And there we have it.
Posted by: Dwight | May 21, 2009 11:22 AM
Bruce
I'm glad you know me that well
Flying Goose
I like that description!
Everyone else
I know that religion is problematic. I'm not arguing that it is always innocent or that it's some unmitigated good. I think it's a mixed bag. As a gay man I experience a number of faults in religion but some of us think it's worth retrieving something of value from it. Not everyone agrees with that. But because our response is different from many atheists doesn't mean we don't have similar values, concerns. We just disagree with what to do about it.
Posted by: Anri | May 21, 2009 11:24 AM
Flying Goose sez:
"The world used to be run by self righteous men in white garb telling us how to think and what to believe.
So what's new?"
The fact that the scientists 'telling us how to think and what to believe' have gobs of evidence to back up what they are saying... and are asking, indeed, begging everyone to come up there and prove them wrong (called 'doing science').
If you can't tell the difference between that and a priest saying "Think this because 1st century Palensinian goat herders wrote it", than I'm not certain we can help you.
Also sez:
"i did say further up the thread i did not believe in the supernatural. It follows then that I do not believe interventionist diety."
I am assuming you would say that creating the universe is intervening, yes?
Your notion of God didn't do that, right?
Putting thoughts, such as an urge towards kindness, or prophecy, or indeed anything, would be intervening, yes?
Your notion of God doesn't do that, either, right?
What exactly *does* your God do, since he does not intervene?
Posted by: Flying Goose
|
May 21, 2009 11:25 AM
Hi Logicel,
Nice to see a friendly face so to speak.
Knock, yes i can see that, which is why i apologised.
In answer to your questions, Yes and perhaps, although i might survive as a non realist.
Posted by: Knockgoats | May 21, 2009 11:40 AM
Sven@490,
Can't agree with you there. Some philosophy is gobbledegook, some is part of the "project of rational enquiry" that includes science, mathematics, parts of history, parts of politics, and (even) parts of literary criticism.
Posted by: Janine, OMnivore | May 21, 2009 11:46 AM
Posted by: Flying Goose| May 21, 2009
Further to my last, of course there will be those who have their own reasons for wanting to remove that option. Their reasons may be different, the result is the same. A circumention of my freedom.
Thats why the behaviour of some atheists resembles that of evangelicals. It seems like it has to be their way or no way.
This false equivalence bit gets really tiring. Without resorting to the "Stalin was an atheist!" canard, please explain how atheists are trying to curtail your rights and freedoms.
Posted by: JeffreyD | May 21, 2009 11:59 AM
Flying Goose, thanks for clearing up a little about your beliefs, I am always happy to see a hypocrite make a clean breast of things. Now, have you thought about telling your...what? prayer group? congregation? cult?... that you do not actually believe much of any of what you are enabling and supporting? Or am I being to harsh and you actually are honest about your beliefs with people in real life?
Oh, and since you apparently seem to believe that we can make words mean whatever we want, then I have no hesitation in stating you have a superior mind. By that, of course, I mean you are a hypocrite and fool.
Yes, the above is a personal attack so feel free to get huffy now that your dignity has been affronted and your gruntledness has been besmirched. I am not a nice person like knockgroats and others. I have no problem just calling you out as a liar and/or fool.
Back to your regularly scheduled program...what, yes nurse, I will take my meds now.
Ciao
Posted by: Flying Goose
|
May 21, 2009 12:04 PM
If people are not wanting to stop me living my life in my own way within the law, are not telling me what my prayer can and cannot consist of, then I have no problem them. I have been praying man and boy for over forty years, when i was a child a prayed like a child, then i grew up and realised that prayer, at least for me was not like magic.
like I said earlier I have a naturalist ontology, a religious temperament, and a christian vocation. That could be seen as a problem or as an opportunity to be creative, I choose to explore the latter, rather then be held back by the former.
Posted by: Sven DiMilo | May 21, 2009 12:07 PM
Euphemism Of The Day: "Being Creative."
Posted by: SC, OM | May 21, 2009 12:17 PM
Uh...yeah. To put it mildly.
You're missing the point. What are your beliefs? Do you have an evidentiary basis for them? If not, then it's wrong, and indeed immoral, to hold them.
That religions as social formations can have positive aspects (depite well-evidenced negative ones) is irrelevant, unless you're claiming that people have to believe silly things with no evidence to form communities or rebel against the existing order. This would be a very difficult assertion to support.
What are your values and concerns? How should they be realized?
Posted by: flaq | May 21, 2009 12:21 PM
Flying Goose, you really are going to have to start carrying your own glossary around with you, so people can understand what the hell you're talking about.
I'll get you started:
Flying Goose's Special Private Lexicon, Part I.
"Prayer": not an appeal to a magical deity
"Being Creative": making stuff up
Posted by: Brownian, OM
|
May 21, 2009 12:24 PM
Flying Goose, why not just call your non-supernatural self-reflection 'meditation' and end this 400-comment long exercise in fucking obfuscatory stupidity?
Yes, language is descriptive not prescriptive, yes, words are fluid, yadda-yadda (I implore you: the assumption that there's no-one here with some grounding in sociolinguistics is a grave mistake), but so far you've done nothing but muddy the conversation with your refusal to admit you're using a word in a very non-standard way and then (gasp!) feigning indignancy over it.
You want to meditate? Fill your fucking boots. Meditate all over the place. Hell, have a big ol' meditation orgy wherein you invite fifty thousand friends and neighbours to meditate together, not a one of you invoking supernatural spirits or deities.
But then, do not claim what you're doing is called 'praying' and then have a fucking hissy fit because someone dared say 'prayer does not work'.
If you are new here, then I welcome you, but I also warn: we've got a very low threshold for the kind of bullshit you've been pulling.
Posted by: SC, OM | May 21, 2009 12:25 PM
Who is doing this?
And it was like what, exactly?
Praying is by definition praying like a child.
Meaningless verbiage. Do you have a concrete substantive argument about anything at all?
Posted by: Nicole | May 21, 2009 12:27 PM
You tell 'em PZ!
Posted by: Flying Goose | May 21, 2009 12:33 PM
OK you are right, guilty as charged. I will think again.
Posted by: Janine, OMnivore | May 21, 2009 12:35 PM
I have been praying man and boy for over forty years, when i was a child a prayed like a child, then i grew up and realised that prayer, at least for me was not like magic.
How is praying as an adult different from praying as a child? You are still asking for favors and approval from a stern paternal figure.
And how are atheists taking you away from your praying?
Posted by: Tyler | May 21, 2009 12:46 PM
People who pray - not in the meditative sense, of course, but in the 'talk to imaginary entities expecting a response of some sort' sense - are, by definition, morons.
Now, there are morons who don't know any better because they've been sheltered by circumstance and/or because they are in some way physically afflicted as to render them unable to demonstrate sound judgment, and there are morons who should know better. The former have a valid excuse for their stupidity, and are by and large harmless, as most of them spend their lives either on the side of Walton mountain or in a wheelchair drooling all over themselves and occasionally grunting. The latter do not have a valid excuse, and are quite dangerous. If you pray and you're reading this, you are the latter. You should know better because the fact that you're reading this means you are aware of and have access to the wealth of information that exists outside of your superstition; a cursory study of which, in any honest, capably rational person, would cause an immediate if reluctant denouncement of superstitious behavior. Refusing to honestly face that wealth of information means you want to be a moron, and that makes you an asshole, aside from the fact that you enable the same behavior in others.
If you pray, you are intellectually on par with so many of our primate brethren. Wearing shoes and eating with silverware and shitting in toilets and having a relatively complex vocabulary with which to communicate vapid ideas like prayer doesn't make you special; it just makes you sophisticated apes. You are cowardly shells of human beings who perpetuate utterly anti-human ideas like prayer because you refuse to use your intellects to deal with the reality we all share, and you should be ashamed of yourselves. Moderate, fundy, there's no difference. You're all equally contemptible for your willful stupidity and spreading the sickness you choose to immerse yourselves in.
The first and second stages of grief as exhibited by cretins like Bee again manifest themselves in 3, 2, 1...
Posted by: SC, OM | May 21, 2009 12:54 PM
Oh...
OK...
What does it say about me that this is strangely disappointing? Some mutant SIWOTI strain? SWINOTI? Yikes.
Posted by: Sastra | May 21, 2009 12:58 PM
Dwight #498 wrote:
Flying Goose #504 wrote:
I suspect that neither one of you believes in God, technically. You're both humanists, and atheists.
What you both believe in -- very fervently, very devoutly, and with great piety -- is the belief in God. The history, the culture, the attitude, the emotions, the rituals, the traditions, the community, and the sense of wonder and connection to a fundamentally moral universe which cares, and where we belong. You want to believe, and, wanting to believe, you believe in the significance of wanting to believe. The symbols and metaphors of religion are powerful images which motivate us, connect us, and inspire us towards appreciation for what we have, and striving for the Good. It doesn't matter whether God exists or not: belief in God is not just good for us, but expresses what's best about us.
And you go out into a world where people actually do believe in God, literally, and, instead of telling them that there is no God, but there are these other things, you tell them they've just misunderstood God. It's very important to believe in God, you grant that. But you need to do it the right way -- and then you trot out secular humanism dressed up in Spinoza, and try to persuade people that this can be God, if you try. It's better.
Better according to what standard? You have become nothing more than one religion among others, all of them claiming to have a better understanding of God than the next one, and no way to arbitrate who is correct, or how much reason and science to add into the faith-based approach -- except to ask God. God goes all over the place, and is not always going to be reasonable. It defies limits. That's what makes it God.
You can't ask us "but aren't we more reasonable?" Yeah, sure you are -- because you're atheists. But we can't win that point, because your belief in belief has turned you into atheists who love the idea of God so much, that God has somehow apparently become real to you.
Posted by: Roland Pokorp | May 21, 2009 1:18 PM
All this finger pointing at one person when there are much more terrible things going on.
What about all the Christians (who can read) who blindly obeyed born again George Bush and killed tens of thousands of Iraqi Muslims.
George Bush started a war that killed more innocent people than Saddam Hussein could even think of killing.
Try solving the real problems.
Stop wasting your time on your self righteousness.
Posted by: Matt Heath | May 21, 2009 1:25 PM
@Roland Pokorp: Your comment, but addressed to you.
Posted by: Discombobulated | May 21, 2009 1:25 PM
Stunning post and stunning comment thread.
Is it possible to nominate an entire thread for a Molly...?
Posted by: AJS | May 21, 2009 1:46 PM
Flying Goose:
It's not curtailing your freedom to prevent you from believing things that are not true, anymore than it's curtailing your freedom not to allow you to go stabbing people in the street just because you own a knife.Believing things that are not is, in and of itself, intrinsically harmful. As I have stated elsewhere, any false belief -- no matter how benign you may think it -- can become deadly under the right (wrong?) circumstances.
Posted by: cicely
|
May 21, 2009 1:50 PM
All this verbiage about what is or is not religion/religious, what is or is not prayer, etc., reminds me of something that puzzles me every time I encounter it, namely, people who say that they are not religious, but that they are spiritual.
At first, I thought this was where Flying Goose was headed (particularly the part about the definition of 'prayer'), but now I just don't see what he/she is getting at. I'm not being snarky....just confused.
Religious, spiritual....is there a difference? If so, what?
Posted by: Monkeyman8 | May 21, 2009 1:54 PM
I agree with you PZ, and I must point out this juicy tid bit of irony from the rapture ready boards. Enjoy.
http://www.rr-bb.com/showthread.php?t=93601
Posted by: Logicel | May 21, 2009 1:58 PM
Sastra at #515, excellent post.
I have read quite number of comments by Flying Goose at the Dawkins site, and his ability/desire to provide empathy for folks is a positive aspect of his personality. And his job as an Vicar allows him to do that. So what can a humanist who is very contemplative do who wants to be in a position to extend empathy? I would think the field of Psychology would welcome him with open arms. I doubt however at his age, he would want to do that kind of re-training. So he remains a Vicar, one who is honest about what he is doing, to himself and to others. But yes, essentially, he just has belief in belief because that allows him to be in a job that lets him to do what he does best.
Really, it is troubling to think what kind of retraining is needed and not available for the all those people stuck in religious jobs who are actually just secular humanists.
Anyways, I have been hunting you (Sastra) down at various sites (last one, Science Based Medicine), trying to invite you to write for asktheatheists.com. We have a stable of writers who automatically receive emails of questions to be answered, usually around 5 weekly. There is no expectation for you to answer, so no pressure. If you are interested, please contact us via the contact button at the bottom of the site (click on my ID). Since your writing at the site has already been approved by the site owner, if you decide to become a write for the site, just identify yourself and that Logicel sent you, and bitbutter will set you up with an account.
Posted by: Flying Goose
|
May 21, 2009 2:00 PM
Cicely I think you will find that I, Flying Goose, am just as confused as you are, if not more.
BTW anyone What does SIWOTI mean?
Posted by: H.H. | May 21, 2009 2:03 PM
It means "Someone is wrong on the internet."Look here: http://xkcd.com/386/
Posted by: Paul | May 21, 2009 2:10 PM
I'm unpleasantly reminded of the philosophers in HGttG that manipulated the Vogons into destroying Earth so they would still have a job.
Posted by: Knockgoats | May 21, 2009 2:10 PM
SIWOTI:
Acronym for "someone is wrong on the internet." Describes the compulsion to post rebuttals to online nonsense, in the vain hope that it will somehow set the record straight. - Urban Dictionary
You can look these things up in about 5 seconds these days, you know...
Posted by: Knockgoats | May 21, 2009 2:18 PM
I'm unpleasantly reminded of the philosophers in HGttG that manipulated the Vogons into destroying Earth so they would still have a job. - Paul
Actually, what Flying Goose needs is the Electric Monk:
"The Electric Monk was a labour-saving device, like a dishwasher or a video recorder. Dishwashers washed tedious dishes for you, thus saving you the bother of washing them yourself, video recorders watched tedious television for you, thus saving you the bother of looking at it yourself; Electric Monks believed things for you, thus saving you what was becoming an increasingly onerous task, that of believing all the things the world expected you to believe." - Douglas Adams Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency
Posted by: SC, OM | May 21, 2009 2:24 PM
Knockgoats, much appreciated if you could return to the "5 Minutes with Dawkins" thread for clarification. I don't want to misrepresent you.
Posted by: AdamK | May 21, 2009 2:24 PM
When I was back there in seminary school
there was a person there who put forth the proposition
that you can petition the lord with prayer
petition the lord with prayer
petition the lord with prayer
YOU CAN NOT PETITION THE LORD WITH PRAYER!
Posted by: H.H. | May 21, 2009 2:30 PM
So he remains a Vicar, one who is honest about what he is doing, to himself and to others.
But if he was being honest, then he wouldn't remain a vicar. That's what many of us are objecting to, this idea that your can keep all the trappings, language, rituals and outward appearance of a religion founded on the ultimate authority of a supernatural being while maintaining the position that this being doesn't actually exist. Not only is that a huge disconnect, but it's impossible in practice. Religion is synonymous with faith in the supernatural. You cannot divorce the practices from the beliefs.
It would be like trying to maintain one's membership in the Nazi party while pretending that its ugly history can be overcome given enough time. Some things are just forever tainted. And furthermore, why would anyone want to perpetuate such a charade? If you don't want to be associated with Nazis, found a new political party and adopt some symbol other than the swastika. If you don't want to be associated with people who talk to ghosts, then stop calling yourself a Christian and stop using an immortal god in the form of a man nailed to a cross as your symbol. It's guaranteed to give people the wrong idea. The only conclusion one can make in such instances is that the deception is intentional.
Posted by: Bill Dauphin | May 21, 2009 2:31 PM
Sure you can, just like you can write a letter to Santa Claus. The absence (or unreality) of the recipient doesn't stop anyone from being a sender.
Posted by: SC, OM | May 21, 2009 2:32 PM
Modern Day Isaacs? The perfect excuse to link to Unzipped!
www.youtube.com/watch?v=CHOccPtGSFU
:)
Posted by: Dwight | May 21, 2009 2:42 PM
Sastra
I think the methodology would be similar to philosophy. Lots of volumes on the subject and any number of schools of thought in theology on this question. But to look for God in the world is in my mind just taking the principle of God as experienced seriously. It's not the labels that concern me so much. Spong after all says he's not a theist. But these are questions being raised in any number of religious communities today.
Posted by: Sastra
|
May 21, 2009 2:43 PM
Logicel #522 wrote:
I know -- humanist celebrants, maybe?
Although I think the folks who have put themselves into a gray area between atheism and religion -- and then called the place an 'advanced' form of religion -- are probably only feeding the "You Need to Believe in God Atheism Sucks" frenzy, I'm really not sure if they're doing more harm than good. Over the long run, they may be doing more good than harm, or, at least, helping to humanize and secularize religion, slowly turning it into something like knitting, or morphing it into something like the Unitarians Universalists (Motto: "Motto Pending in the Committee on Mottoes.")
Ooo. Interesting, and very honored. I'll have to think about it: sounds a little like work. I play.
Posted by: Dwight | May 21, 2009 2:54 PM
HH
I think quite the opposite. No religious idea, no scientific idea, no political idea has ever remained static. The old Canaanite god El, The bull of Jacob, the monotheism of Isaiah, of Plato's forms, of Aquinas' first cause of Tillich's ground of being are shifts. There are to be sure continuities with the old idea. But every religion, including that of current fundamentalists have shifted too.
We can evaluate the shifts. And that's part of the open discussion of religious ideas Sastra through Dennett has called for. Great. But there are religious communities who have raised the question of the adequacy of the sky daddy for awhile now. Not just some academic theologian here or there. But churches and synagogues. And they've been doing it for at least three hundred years or so.
I've always been open about my ontology, my sense of the world, my religious understanding and it's always gelled with the religious communities I've interacted with, with the seminary I attend, so at least for the purposes of how someone like myself or flying goose interacts it's in full honesty.
What I won't by is that fundamentalists get to define that the religion is. I mean the Catholic and Orthodox folks would have a better claim in that department probably excommunicating me and the southern baptists to boot. But in relation to who I relate to and am accountable to, we're all wrestling with the same questions, doubts, hopes, and ways of appropriating religious faith in a fitting manner for today given what we know of the world. Walking away from that calling would lack integrity not display it.
Posted by: Sastra
|
May 21, 2009 2:56 PM
Dwight #533 wrote:
One can define "God" in such a way, that most atheists can agree it exists. I don't think it's the atheists who have been confused.
"Looking for God in the world" is not taking God seriously. Asking "what is God?" is not taking God seriously.
If it's going to be taken seriously as a concept and genuine possibility, then the religious communities need to ask, in a clear, disciplined, and serious way, "does God exist?" And I think they ought to define it in such a way that it 1.) is distinguishable from godless naturalism and 2.) might not exist.
Otherwise, it's not God that's being taken seriously: it's the believers.
Posted by: amphiox | May 21, 2009 3:01 PM
They say that tale was a test of faith.
What everyone always seems to forget is that at the end of the fairy tale, Abraham was blinded, Isaac was saved and not blinded.
Clearly this was a test of BLIND faith, and good old patriarch Abraham failed it, miserably, and was punished for it.
Posted by: H.H. | May 21, 2009 3:07 PM
Well, maybe it's now time for the final shift when religious embellishments are discarded entirely. Why fight progress?Posted by: phantomreader42 | May 21, 2009 3:12 PM
Logcel @ #522:
Does he by any chance live in Bray? :)
Posted by: Dwight | May 21, 2009 3:30 PM
Sastra
The natural/supernatural distinction comes about during the enlightenment,so as to distinguish what science, philosophy outside of the church was doing contra religion. I remember teaching an intro to philosophy course where the text book ended up defining transcendence as something outside of space and time and then asked, how does religious experience work in that situation? It doesn't.
But for many religious communities, religious naturalism does make sense in terms of talking about God. It's why 20th century mainline protestant theologians has just assumed it as it's backdrop. It's why many religious communities do likewise. It's to take God more seriously than a sky daddy or a willo o' wisp but something concrete in the world of human experience
HH
I don't take it as progress for one thing
Posted by: H.H. | May 21, 2009 3:53 PM
Right. You cite religion as becoming increasingly founded in naturalism and secularism as progress right up until the point you find yourself, and then suddenly you prefer that trend should come to a stop. LOL How convenient.Posted by: Melissa | May 21, 2009 3:55 PM
I was with you until you started blaming moderate believers as well. This article simply does not support the conclusions stated in the last few paragraphs. You may well be right about religion being inherently evil, but I see nothing in this article to support it. Colleen Hauser and Leilani Neumann are simply not representative of the norm (not that "the norm" is any better, but that's not really where my issue lies) and you know it. They are morons, and morons are responsible for most of the evil in the world, plain and simple. Religion provides the idiots with a convenient ideology to continue in their ignorance. Besides, Colleen Hauser refuses to treat her son because of her belief in the views of a pseudo-american indian cult that has been thoroughly denounced as a moneymaking scam, not because of her Christian beliefs.
Posted by: Dwight | May 21, 2009 4:01 PM
HH
Again, since I don't see it as progress I'm not asking anything to stop or continue per se. I think naturalism as an ontology can ground theism and it can ground atheism. But of course there are atheists and theists who use different groundings.
Posted by: Brownian, OM
|
May 21, 2009 4:19 PM
I'm sorry, but is there some sort of difference between the pseudo-American Indian cult and Christianity that you think is relevant here, Melissa?
Posted by: phantomreader42 | May 21, 2009 4:30 PM
Melissa @ #542:
So, are you claiming that there has never been a child murdered by parents who refused effective treatment due to christian beliefs? Like, for example, there was never a little boy who was starved to death because his parents refused to feed him unless he said a prayer before the meal, which he was too young to be capable of doing? And there was never a little girl who died of diabetic ketoacidosis due to her parents refusing to take her to the hospital? Are you denying the existence of such parents, Melissa?
If you are, you're obviously delusional. If you aren't, your argument fails utterly.
There are parents who kill their children because their religion tells them to. There are children who die horrible deaths because their parents think prayer works better than medicine. These people are wrong, and they are murdering their children because they can't bear to admit they are wrong. Prayer doesn't work. And pretending it works enables and encourages the murderers of children. There are irrational beliefs that lead to death. Encouraging people to respect those irrational beliefs and never question them will only lead to MORE death.
Posted by: Janine, OMnivore | May 21, 2009 4:41 PM
Melissa, that cult is an off shoot of the Mormon faith which, despite the protests of other christian, is an american off shoot of christianity.
Posted by: H.H. | May 21, 2009 4:53 PM
No, they aren't the norm. They are just the final embodiment of everything toward which religious people strive.
Right, so let's all work to dismantle ideologies that provide such cover. Or should we continue to protect institutions which encourage people to think like morons?
She refuses to treat her son because she has been raised in a culture that says "Faith is good. Faith is noble. Distrust skepticism and anything that seeks to eliminate magical thinking." How much blame are Christian moderates responsible for when they actively promote the same faulty thinking which led to this tragic situation? Do you really think the answer is "none?"Posted by: flaq | May 21, 2009 5:07 PM
Melissa @ 542:
Nobody, not PZ nor anyone else, is making the claim you seem to think.
Of course Colleen H. and Leilani N. are abberant. They are not representative of the behavior of anyone but themselves. And the point is not to say, look, two more examples of bad people who are religious, therefore religion = bad. That's just not it.
Go back and read the article, and then read the thread. It's in there over and over, people raising the same misguided protest you just uttered, and then having it explained to them.
The good, normal, moderate believers you are defending are not being accused of behaving like these two monsters. They stand accused of contributing to the fallacious notion that prayer will help. That there is a god and he will come to your aid if you ask him.
Colleen H. and Leilani N. have done nothing more than to take that belief literally and act accordingly. And if you actually believed in god, you would do the same. Because if anyone really truly believes in a supreme being/creator/beneficent father, they would be insane not to act that way.
Take a good look at these two women. That is what true belief looks like.
Posted by: Dwight | May 21, 2009 5:10 PM
HH
I think the point is that there are religious institutions which likewise discourage magical thinking, that welcome skepticism and would never understand prayer in the manner that this woman has. So yes continue on your mission of doing such things. And we will likewise. But the only failure I feel is that you and I have not succeeded yet in this task when it comes to our wider society.
Posted by: Knockgoats | May 21, 2009 5:12 PM
The old Canaanite god El, The bull of Jacob, the monotheism of Isaiah, of Plato's forms, of Aquinas' first cause of Tillich's ground of being are shifts. - Dwight
And there is no reason whatever to believe that any of these ideas is of the slightest value either in explaining the world, or in persuading people to behave better.
Your attraction to Platonism is worrying. It is far from accidental that the essentialism he espoused was linked in his philosophy to a totalitarian ideology. If there is such a thing as "The Good" (rather than various and rationally disputable ideas about what is better and what is worse), then the idea of an infallible elite who understand it and should be obeyed by the ignorant many, follows quite naturally. It's not a logical inference, but I've yet to see a democratic and egalitarian essentialism.
Posted by: Sastra
|
May 21, 2009 5:15 PM
Dwight #540 wrote:
We're getting now into defining both the supernatural, and God.
How are you defining God?
I think that those versions which either try to eliminate anthropomorphic, mind-like characteristics from God (such as intelligence, intent, virtue, awareness, will, wisdom, creativity, and so forth)-- or which reduce God to a symbol for those things in humans -- have gone far afield from what is generally really meant by the term.
Some atheists have charged theists with a self-deceptive tendency to think about God in two very different ways, and then make strategic use of the most convenient. There is the abstract, impersonal, omni-power, mysterious, numinous Being of infinite perfection which they learn and marvel at intellectually -- and then there is the concrete, concerned, familiar creator-God which acts in their life, and to which they relate to as a person. This is the God that engages their heart.
Many theists will claim that the second one is "only a useful crutch" they use to think about something that is so Other, and so different from our earthly experience -- but when it comes to behavior and how they actually deal with God, they seem to lean on it pretty hard and often, as if comes naturally and easily. Atheists then are suspicious: the Numinous God seems to be trotted out for show, a useful crutch for debates and tight corners.
I'm kind of suspicious that the 'religious naturalism God which is nothing at all like a Person' is the same sort of thing.
Posted by: Tyler | May 21, 2009 5:16 PM
Melissa wrote:
"Moderate" believers are responsible for perpetuating the same dangerous ideas (like prayer) as "fundies." Like the man said, they're no less culpable just because they administer their poison in non-lethal doses. For that matter, "moderates" are collectively more culpable, for the simple fact that they far outnumber "fundies."
The fact that "moderates" are guilty of perpetuating inhumane, mind rotting superstition is self evident.
Posted by: Dwight | May 21, 2009 5:18 PM
flaq
So the form of it has more in common with the charge that atheists are nihilists made by some religious conservatives. That if atheism took what they believed seriously then they would be nihilists, live for the moment, rejecting any ideals outside of immediate pleasures, etc. If you took it seriously. And likewise now you tell me that if I took God seriously I'd have to be in a position to have my own child die, that I'd reject modern knowledge (which would mean that Calvin, Augustine, Aquinas were not serious either) as somehow in opposition to God. If I took it seriously and all. Both claims about where theism and atheism lead make little sense, in that they don't account for the fact that most atheists and most theists don't end up there. So something must be wrong with this descriptive claim.
Posted by: Dwight | May 21, 2009 5:37 PM
Sastra
I think the danger of slipping between the two is real depending on your religious context. But I think Reform Judaism's Gates of Prayer (which was the prayerbook from 1975 to 2007?) does a good job of avoiding that.
Posted by: Visage | May 21, 2009 5:37 PM
Depending on how they are use, certain disciplines allow people to reach the limits of human achievement. Prayer is one of the murkier ways of doing this. It is tied in with belief systems that also encourage bullshit like what's happening tho this kid.
I defend prayer as a tool to access parts of one's self and one's own abilities, and even, perhaps, as a way to control emotion in stressful situations.
That being said, Prayer used to shift blame, to avoid responsibility, or as an alternative action is entirely reprehensible. This boy is being murdered, and the same people who condemn abortion are saying that it's alright to kill him because he's been mislead to thinking he'll go to heaven. what a waste.
Posted by: Brownian, OM
|
May 21, 2009 5:57 PM
Not at all, Dwight. Even the most cynical would admit that 'living only for the moment' is going to leave you wallowing in uncomfortable poverty a few days, weeks, months or years down the line. There's nothing about non-belief in a god that entails nihilism.
Christianity, on the other hand, entails a belief that Jesus Christ wasn't a liar. And, if he wasn't a liar, then he told you this:
So, the claim about theism does make sense, regardless of whether or not theists end up there. Of course, it's a commonly human reaction to not take prayer that seriously, but there's nothing in the bible that lets you off the hook for being human.
Posted by: Paul | May 21, 2009 6:00 PM
ITT: Plenty of religious believers (even some who refuse to admit it, or retain a shred of interventionist belief even if they consider themselves deists or atheists now) who intentionally or not obfuscate the nature of belief and religion in order to avoid PZ's main conclusion: that by "believing" that prayer has power, other people make the logical inference that prayer is more important than religious care.
It does not affect his point if you yourself (or even your congregation as a whole) draw the line elsewhere. By telling people that prayer actually effects things, you're encouraging people that draw the line further than you do. And so on. Until you get people who let their kids die because
Just because you have less faith than these people when it comes to intercessory prayer does not change the fact that you're contributing to enabling their greater faith.
You can disagree with this premise. But please, for the love of God quit misrepresenting it.
Posted by: Tyler | May 21, 2009 6:11 PM
Let us make distinctions, and call things by their right names. - HDT
Apples are not oranges, and meditation is not prayer, mmmkay?
Posted by: H.H. | May 21, 2009 6:15 PM
And I don't think such institutions should be identified as religious.
And I can't help but feel your efforts are counterproductive to mine. Earlier you wrote:
Exactly. Religion is already "owned" by people with faith in the supernatural. Why would you think you can overcome that? Why not let Protestants and Catholics keep their magical thinking and call what you believe in something else? Why this resistance to distinguishing yourself? What do you gain by maintaining the outward appearance of superstition when you claim to be against it? Explain this to me.
This doesn't really explain anything. We may be all wrestling with the same questions, but religion promotes very different answers. You want to "appropriate" faith? Are you sure the faithful haven't succeeded in appropriating you?Posted by: Walton | May 21, 2009 6:25 PM
Wow, for once I completely agree with Knockgoats. Go figure.
Plato's Republic advocates a sort of socialist-nationalist society governed by a self-perpetuating eugenic "elite". He argues that the "best" people should be selectively bred with one another to create a "superior" ruling class; and, on topic for this thread, his attitude towards religious mythology seems to be that whether it is true or not, it is a useful device for encouraging nationalist fervour and keeping the lower classes in their place. In short, Plato's political philosophy is miles away from anything that any sane person would advocate in the modern world - experiments along the same lines have caused vast amounts of human suffering - and it's a mark of this that both I and Knockgoats, who are, by and large, bitterly ideologically opposed to one another, are equally repulsed by it.
While this doesn't, of course, mean that all his moral and epistemological premises are wrong - and they're not - it means that every stage of his reasoning is suspect, as it leads to such an appalling conclusion.
Posted by: SteveK | May 21, 2009 6:27 PM
Quite sick and twisted comments there at the end, PZ. Proof that sin leads to public displays of stooopidity.
Posted by: CJO | May 21, 2009 6:37 PM
Incidentally ( this is SQAGOTI syndrome: somebody quoted a gospel!) I think that passage in Matthew is the author's spin on a passage in Mark that he didn't like or even didn't understand. It shows no awareness of the intent of Mark's fiction anyway. In Mark, the fig tree is Israel (a common metaphor in Jewish writings), which failed to bear fruit in the presence of the Lord. Matthew turns this symbolism into a literalized gee-whiz trick by the magic-man, and appended a little speech about the power of his personal brand of magic, which is completely foreign to Mark.
Posted by: TFK
|
May 21, 2009 7:40 PM
flaq,
I wasn't arguing against the point. I was saying that PZ's rant wasn't persuasive. Your post #486 makes the point well (even more eloquently than Dawkins does in The God Delusion), because you provide support for the premise that moderate prayer validates the extreme.
I was not creating a strawman. To someone who doesn't accept the premise, it is the slippery slope argument that I described. Most readers of Pharyngula accept the premise, but they're not the ones who need to be persuaded.
Posted by: Anton Mates | May 21, 2009 7:49 PM
CodewordConduit ,
Well, there’s an important question here—what is a "garden-variety prayer," at least in America, and particularly among American Christians? Is it likely to be intercessory or not?
The Pew Forum did its last U.S. Religious Landscape Survey in 2007. Among those who reported praying (apart from church services) more often than "seldom," the survey asked, "How often do you receive a definite answer to a specific prayer request?"
75% of Buddhists said they sometimes received a definite answer, and 80% of Jews did. For every other named faith in the survey (Evangelical, mainline, and historically black Protestants, Catholics, Mormons, Orthodox, Jehovah’s Witnesses, "Other Christians," Muslims, and Hindus,) at least 85% of respondents said they sometimes received a definite answer.
(Incidentally, if the figures for Buddhists and Jews seem strangely high there, it’s probably because only 69% of American Buddhists and 56% of Jews reported praying more often than "seldom" in the first place, whereas at least 80% of adherents of every other named faith did. So the Buddhists and Jews being asked about answered prayers were unusually pro-prayer to begin with.)
In a 1988 Gallup study, 42% of American adults reported engaging in "petitionary prayer," but 84% engaged in "conversational prayer" which often contained petitionary elements—just not as specific. (I.e. "Give me your blessing," or "soothe the world’s suffering," as opposed to "cure my cancer.") 52% practiced meditative prayer. Latter Gallup work seems to have bundled conversational and petitionary prayer together, and found that (as a combined category) it was far more prevalent than meditative prayer.
Finally, a 2004 study by Anne McCaffrey (not that one, I don’t think) et al. on "Prayer for Health Concerns" found that, in 1998, "35% of respondents used prayer for health concerns; 75% of these prayed for wellness, and 22% prayed for specific medical conditions."
All of this indicates, to me, that intercessory/petitionary prayer is quite common in mainstream American religion—Christianity in particular, and PZ is perfectly correct to say that "moderate" believers are generally supportive of them. Meditative prayer is certainly common as well, but few American believers would say that "proper" prayers must only be meditative or ritualistic. If that's how believers on this thread feel about it, then that's heartening, but it doesn't seem to be the U.S. norm.
Posted by: Anton Mates | May 21, 2009 7:53 PM
That said, I have yet to see evidence that moderates’ support for intercessory prayer significantly enables behavior like choosing prayer over chemo for your kid’s cancer. It certainly could be that moderate religion enables extremism. But it could also be that moderate religion dampens extremism by arguing against it and competing with it for the allegiance of believers. Or that moderate religion has no impact on extremism at all, because the fundies and fundies-to-be think moderate religion is atheism in sheep’s clothing and pay no attention to it. Rationales can be constructed for any possible relationship here, so we need data.
For instance, has there been a study on whether those raised in a community of moderate believers are more likely to end up rejecting medical procedures on religious grounds?
Posted by: uriel1972 | May 21, 2009 7:56 PM
how weak and crippled a god must be if he can't tell what's going on without people praying to him.
how insecure and malevolent a god must be if he requires you to beg for the merest crumb from his table.
I pity the faithful
Posted by: flaq | May 21, 2009 8:31 PM
Dwight:
Oh, right. I keep forgetting that believers have the luxury of defining god any way they want. So by all means, make up a god that suits you, believe in it with all your heart, and never let anyone tell you you're doing it wrong.
Allow me to rephrase my point in light of your all-changeable god. If you believed in an omnipotent deity that cares for us and hears our prayers, then it would be perfectly logical to behave as Colleen Hauser and Leilani Neumann have behaved. In fact, it would seem crazy to behave otherwise.
By the way, I'm very impressed with those names you dropped in your comment. Are Calvin, Augustine and Aquinas cartoon ninja turtles? Or maybe your divorce attorneys? Either way, I'm sure they would agree with you.
Posted by: Anonymous | May 21, 2009 8:43 PM
Martin Luther King prayed. He certainly did some positive good in the world. Daniel Berrigan prayed, and his anti-war actions did too (yeah, he later was an anti-abortion nut job, but I'm talking about what he did in the 60s). Ditto Mother Theresa, ditto Desmond Tutu.
Prayer/religion is a form of behavior modification. Modification can be for good or for bad. The American capitalist culture--you are what you buy--as broadcast via media--is also behavior modification. For some people, religion is a means to get their kids to reject capitalist values.
If prayer inspires you to be a better person and help others, what's the harm?
I don't pray; I'm not a Christian. I have little tolerance for fundamentalist nut jobs. However, some meeting people where they are is necessary. If they need to invent a God to get them through the day and focus them on being good to others, I don't object. Inclusive community is not a bad thing--Americans are atomized and isolated and religion is one of the few ways many reach out to each other.
In an ideal world, I'd agree with you (and John Lennon). In this world, some of the religious moderates are best embraced, not shunned.
You will get nowhere with anyone other than die-hard "evangelical atheists" with this sort of tone.
Posted by: Dwight | May 21, 2009 9:21 PM
"Are Calvin, Augustine and Aquinas cartoon ninja turtles?"
Yep!
Posted by: Angie Jackson | May 21, 2009 9:22 PM
I was a Daniel. I grew up in a faith healing sect of Christianity and am writing my experiences in a book. A child I used to babysit, Harrison Johnson, died of 432 yellow jacket stings, and his parents waited for 7 hours, until after he'd died, to call 911. I want "moderate" Christians to take responsibility for what their brothers and sisters do in the name of their gawd.
Posted by: Angie Jackson | May 21, 2009 9:50 PM
I was a Daniel. I grew up in a faith healing sect of Christianity and am writing my experiences in a book. A child I used to babysit, Harrison Johnson, died of 432 yellow jacket stings, and his parents waited for 7 hours, until after he'd died, to call 911. I want "moderate" Christians to take responsibility for what their brothers and sisters do in the name of their gawd.
Posted by: flaq | May 21, 2009 9:57 PM
Anonymous @568:
Well sure. No one is claiming that people who pray are incapable of doing good. And clearly, when King stopped praying, stood up and went out in the world to actually accomplish some things, he got a lot done. But listen: if you want to claim credit for MLK, Desmond Tutu and Mother Theresa, you also have to take responsibility for Colleen Hauser and Leilani Neumann.
Posted by: TFK
|
May 21, 2009 10:03 PM
flaq,
I wasn't arguing against the point. I was saying that PZ's rant wasn't persuasive. Your post #486 makes the point well (even more eloquently than Dawkins does in The God Delusion), because you provide support for the premise that moderate prayer validates the extreme.
I was not creating a strawman. To someone who doesn't accept the premise, it is the slippery slope argument that I described. Most readers of Pharyngula accept the premise, but they're not the ones who need to be persuaded.
Posted by: flaq | May 21, 2009 10:14 PM
Well geez, TFK. Now I feel like a meanie for calling you a twat. In the future, I promise not to be so quick with my twat finger.
Posted by: flaq | May 21, 2009 10:16 PM
ok, that came out wrong.
Posted by: Robert | May 21, 2009 11:14 PM
I'm sure the Aztecs loved their kids when they slit the kids' throats in front of Tlaloc to stop a drought.
Posted by: Mimbreno | May 21, 2009 11:31 PM
Still a wanker, I see.
People have an absolute right to control their bodies. In other words, refuse medical treatment. Parents exercise rights on behalf of a child.
Which of those principles are you advocating doing away with?
I personally think the actions of those parents are reprehensible. However, as in other things, I don't believe people's rights should be eradicated because I disagree with the manner in which they choose to exercise them.
See also, Kennewick Man.
Wanker.
Posted by: Orac
|
May 21, 2009 11:47 PM
So what?
Quite frankly, I don't think religion was the driving force behind Colleen's decision. I think her issues with her sister having died while undergoing chemotherapy play a far larger role and that religion is just a convenient excuse:
http://scienceblogs.com/insolence/2009/05/daniel_hauser_and_the_rejection_of_chemo.php
But do go on. It is so much easier to rag on religion than to try to understand the totality of this case.
Posted by: Ichthyic | May 21, 2009 11:59 PM
So what?
Isn't that like saying:
Believing in Snake Oil is OK, so long as you don't rely on it?
Coming from your rants against anti-vaxers, and understanding the "logic" behind their arguments, how on earth can you stand there and claim that encouraging irrational thought isn't relevant?
Quite frankly, I don't think religion was the driving force behind Colleen's decision.
*ahem* let me try it on for size:
"So what?"
Irrelevant to the point of PZ's rant here, and also irrelevant to the MANY, MANY cases where it clearly IS.
Explain how the differences in this case invalidate the idea that religion has lead to a great many poor medical decisions?
Posted by: Sven DiMilo | May 22, 2009 12:01 AM
So they are No True Religious Nuts?
Posted by: Ichthyic | May 22, 2009 12:03 AM
Which of those principles are you advocating doing away with?
The ones that never existed, like these ones:
People have an absolute right to control their bodies.
nope, they don't.
Parents exercise [limited] rights on behalf of a child.
fixed.
they don't have the legal right to starve the child because they believe it within their purview to do so.
stop living in fantasy land.
Posted by: DGS | May 22, 2009 12:44 AM
"Damn you all."
Seems a silly thing for an atheist to say. Who is it that is going to do the damning?
Just curious.
Posted by: DGS | May 22, 2009 12:47 AM
"Damn you all."
Seems a silly thing for an atheist to say. Who is it that is going to do the damning?
Just curious.
Posted by: Smoggy Batzrubble | May 22, 2009 1:03 AM
Dear Membraino,
Although as a rehearsing Christian I have problems with you using the term 'wanker' and would prefer something gentler (like "gristle gripper") I want to thank you for your firm stance on individual rights, and in particular the rights of responsible and irresponsible adults to make decisions for the children in their charge. While I never had parents to decide for me, it was my great good fortune to be placed in the hands of the Christian Brothers, who elected at an early age to introduce me to the joys of such friendly games as "hide the sausage" and "who bleeds wins" (wins the the caning trophy that is). I'm grateful the Brothers had absolute rights over my body, and that they exercised those rights without the moralising interference of evil atheists and godless do-gooders. They made me the man (well, felon actually) that I am today.
So good on you for speaking up, Membraino! Although I have to say that the Brother's would have had a thing or two to say about your potty mouth (you should have seen what they did to Alfie Scrubnut when he called them all "Mucking Forons!").
Yours in free Christian will and individual God-given rights.
S. Batzrubble
Posted by: Dennis N
|
May 22, 2009 1:40 AM
#578
That is the problem. It is too convenient and too respected. If there was not such undue respect to religion in this society, Colleen Hauser would not have been able to take it this far.
As you said elsewhere:
What else could it have been? What else in our society can be used as an all-purpose tool to hide behind without reason and rationality?
Who said we can't do both? Why not understand the case and rag on religion to the extent that it deserves it? And it does deserve it. I see not earthly reason to not rag on beliefs with no evidence or support. Even if this doesn't count in your view as a religious issue, it is still an issue of abandoning rationality, which is a common symptom of religion, which brings us back full circle. If they have a problem with the ragging, provide evidence. Whining isn't a valid defense, evidence and reasoning is.
Posted by: Rorschach
|
May 22, 2009 2:01 AM
From an USA Today article :
Link here : http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2009-05-21-forced-chemo-thursday_N.htm
I wonder which part of "Medicine and religion collide" Orac does not understand??
Even given the previous experience with Chemo,the main force for the refusal seems to me to be the religious nuttery.
Posted by: Bob Dylan | May 22, 2009 2:12 AM
God said to Abraham, "Kill me a son"
Abe said, "God, you must be puttin' me on"
God said "No."
Abe said "What?"
God said "You can do what you want, Abe, but:
Next time you see me comin' you'd better run!"
Abe said, "Where you want this killin' done?"
God said "Out on Highway Sixty-one."
Posted by: SC, OM | May 22, 2009 3:34 AM
Yeah. But it is so much easier to rag on PZ than to try to understand the larger point he's making.
Posted by: Knockgoats | May 22, 2009 3:57 AM
People have an absolute right to control their bodies. In other words, refuse medical treatment. Parents exercise rights on behalf of a child. - Mimbreno
It follows from your first sentence that people have a right to commit suicide - and as it happens I agree, they do. So, if parents have an absolute right to control their children's bodies, as your statements imply, they have the right to kill their children. Of course, if the right to control their children's bodies is not absolute, then the claim that they have an absolute right to refuse medical treatment for their children collapses.
Conclusion: Mimbreno is either a monster who beliefs parents have the right to kill their children, or a halfwit.
Posted by: Ichthyic | May 22, 2009 4:15 AM
Yeah. But it is so much easier to rag on PZ than to try to understand the larger point he's making.
perfect.
Posted by: Tassie Devil | May 22, 2009 5:42 AM
Hearing from flying goose was very interesting. Anyone who wants to know more about the church of england should read the following:
Last Rites: the end of the Church of England, Michael Hampson.
It's published by Granta (one of the best UK independent publishers).
There are many people within the CoE who have no faith in god. They seem to survive on a mix of humanism and fear of existence outside of the authoritarian structure of religion. Essentially they are social workers who dress up on Sundays, and they seem to convince themselves that because there are people who like to see someone in the pulpit each sunday, that justifies them occupying the position even though they do not, and cannot, reach the required level of faith/belief.
That said, I have less exasperation with them because the pay (for the majority) is shocking, the housing is appalling (all those gorgeous country rectories have long been sold off and they mostly live in cheap 1960s-era matchboxes). The congregation also expects the wife to be available at all times, so few of them are able to resist the pressure not to work. Their life can be interrupted at any moment with demands for money, food, clothing from anyone who turns up on their doorstep.
The CoE is under seige from evangelicals, too, but that's a whole 'nother story.
I've actually delved into this quite a lot as I'm in the process of writing a novel about a vicar who loses his faith, and the people he meets on his journey. A pity flying goose flew off. I'd have liked to talk to him.
Back on topic:
With you all the way, PZ. I was disappointed in Orac's comment. I'm sure he would agree that people who believe in homeopathy are enablers for those who 'homeopathically vaccinate' their children. The more people you can get to believe in woo, the more it validates the nutters.
Posted by: Anonymous | May 22, 2009 7:05 AM
Prayer isn't just wishing! Its wishing real, real hard with your brain turned off.
Posted by: Stephen Wells | May 22, 2009 7:25 AM
It's pretty clear that at the origins of our popular Western religions, particularly Christianity, "God" refers to an intelligent supernatural entity with thoughts, desires, emotions, the ability to communicate in language with human beings, and the ability to perform miracles, viz. dramatic events that would not happen in the course of nature; such as flooding the world, setting fire to people and animals (dead or alive), the healing of incurable diseases, and raising the dead. "Prayer", in turn, refers to direct addresses to this entity in which requests are made for specific things to happen. The Bible contains a multitude of stories in which these points are made abundantly clear, and we have an assurance in the Gospels from ol' JC himself that if you pray for things (like the movement of mountains) and have faith, they will happen.
All of the religious apologists who insist that God isn't anything like the entity described above, and that prayer isn't an attempt at communication with it, need to explain why they use the terms "God" and "prayer" at all.
It's rather like having a bunch of alchemists running around insisting that phlogiston really exists and really is responsible for combustion. When pinned down, they admit that oh all right, combustion is about chemical reactions with oxygen and phlogiston doesn't really exist as a substance the way oxygen does- but we materialist chemists are missing out on the deep true meaning of burning when we fail to reference phlogiston and we must maintain the great tradition of phlogistonic chemistry; after all, lots of great thinkers lived before oxygen was discovered and saying that they were _wrong_ or _ignorant_ about burning would be oh so crude and shocking.
Posted by: Jud
|
May 22, 2009 7:29 AM
Orac@#578: I would gently disagree with you.
First, though in this little corner of the ScienceBlogs world it might be "easy to rag on religion," in the U.S. culture-at-large the voices critical of the religious habit of mind are few and far between. As such a critical voice, I think PZ contributes to valuable discussions that otherwise might not occur at all.
Second, yes of course Mother Hauser's life experiences such as her sister's death play a huge role in her reaction to what's going on now. But I would say the way the mother has reacted to that death is of a piece with her general religious/irrational/superstitious/fearful take on life, the universe and everything. Criticizing that irrationality, and the cultural atmosphere that helps give it life (yeah, Nemenhah is batshit; now tell me the fundamental differences that logically show us Nemenhah's batshit but Christianity/Judaism/Islam are true; or to parse it more finely, that Christian Science is batshit but Catholicism is true) is not out of place.
Posted by: Carlie | May 22, 2009 7:45 AM
I'm a bit surprised by Orac's response as well. I think he is correct in that this particular mother is clinging to something far outside the mainstream because of the chemo scare, rather than the other way around. That is, she ran to find a religion as a cover-up for her desire not to use the medical treatment, not that religion caused her to distrust the treatment. However, so what? What PZ is saying is that it's the very setup of religion and our societal response to it that has allowed her to do this in the first place. We allow people to refuse medical treatment for their children under the guise of religious freedom precisely because of the people who fervently believe that God will heal all. The point doesn't really depend on whether or not she actually believes the woo; it depends on the fact that we allow people to get away with using that as an excuse. And the reason we allow it is because so many religions DO teach that, and every religious person who contributes to that zeitgeist has the blood of the eventually dead children of the zealous (or posers) on their hands.
Posted by: Dwight | May 22, 2009 8:18 AM
Stephen
Because God is still understood to be the source of value, of goodness, the object to which we religiously orientate ourselves to. That's why there is continuity. In any case your definition of God would preclude a number of the church fathers what less folks in a number of religious communities today. If you have a definition which fails to account for something happening in these communities, maybe the definition you're using is suspect? In any case a number of basic scientific terms (atom, universe, time, energy) have had all sorts of shifts over time but no one demands that it's wrong to use these words still.
Posted by: CodewordConduit | May 22, 2009 8:26 AM
AntonMates:
A thoroughly researched answer that indeed backs up the claim that the majority of practising American Christians believe in the power of prayer. However (unless I've missed it somewhere in your response, bear with me, I'm ill at the moment!) I'm unsure as to whether they are agreeing that some sort of answer is provided, or that they specifically requested favour (x) which was then granted within time frame (y); or whether they are merely repoting the results of illusory corellation and faulty induction.
Also, one can always pray that little Jimmy will recover from chicken pox and that there will be no further complications. This is likely to happen anyway. But it would be unusual (IMO) for someone to pray that the illness disappear this very night!. Most people who pray seem to factor in the general uniformity of nature and statistical probabilities of specific outcomes and tend to limit their requests therein.
In the same way that it takes an unhinged mentality to disregard the regularities and proven statistical outcomes of day-to-day living, I would argue that it takes an unhinged mentality to seriously request and expect the impossible. Moderates believe that God could make their nan's cancer go away tomorrow. They don't believe for a second that he will. They might, in their heartbreak, request it; but you can bet your ass that they'll be giving her the best healthcare they can afford too. A total fundie nutjob not only believes that God could do it, but that he will indeed do it. They believe themselves to be showing faith in action by eschewing human intervention.
There is no theological support for this extreme position - even the Torah has limited quarantine and health rules that were for the people. Okay, they were limited and often unhelpful, but at least they were prescribed on a secular rather than spiritual level. Faith healers like Benny Hinn are universally derided as shams and fraudsters by mainstream Christian academia.
The problem, I think, is that superstitious, half-crazy headcases have always existed - and they take from religion whatever suits their nutty agenda. IMO it isn't fair to slag people off for harmless superstitions like prayer - not when I'll bet a substantial amount of nontheists might hold psychiatric analysis in high regard, despite the fact that a placebo treatment of a patient does just as well or better than actual psychoanalysis (I'll source that! Shapiro, Shapiro Meta-analysis of comparative therapy studies: a replication Psychological Bulletin, 1982).
I'm an avid card-player, and see non-supernatural superstition and routine constantly at the tables. People fall to pieces if they misplace a talisman, and mutter "c'mon c'mon c'mon" at an all-in showdown. Who are they "praying" to? They're definitely doing it, begging someone, somewhere for that ace. Praying behaviour and irrational adherence to superstition and routine are not just the property of religious people IMO. Anyone who spits abuse and vitriol at harmless, praying Christians should be checking out their own lives and being sure that there aren't a few irrational/superstitious behaviours and skeletons in their closet.
However, everybody should come out against dangerous people who allow their crazy opinions to jeapordize freedom of expression and the lives of others. Skeptics and moderates should be together on this one.
Posted by: Stephen Wells | May 22, 2009 8:38 AM
@596: and some basic terms like "phlogiston" have been discarded because they don't exist. So justify why "God" is still a reasonable term to use. "Because God is what good comes from" is no more reasonable than "because phlogiston is what makes things burn".
Posted by: phantomreader42 | May 22, 2009 10:45 AM
Anonymous @ #568:
Martin Luther King prayed. He also worked. He actually did things in the real world, and organized others to do things in the real world. If King had just told people to pray for equality, we'd still have segregation today.
Prayer doesn't work. You have to do actual work in order to have any effect in the real world. The more prayer is exalted, the more people are going to abandon reality, and the more innocent children will die because of their parents' delusions.
Posted by: phantomreader42 | May 22, 2009 11:20 AM
I'm a little disappointed no one caught my Vicar of Bray reference in #539.
Posted by: Paul | May 22, 2009 12:15 PM
Orac: just another ex-religionist that still believes religion has some special privilege to not be insulted. It doesn't matter that this situation is functionally analogous to his blogging bread and butter, anti-vaccination. But no, since it's special people in a dress who make a living telling you that prayer works (and leading to the logical conclusion of people taking that advice against the urging of physicians) , it's different than celebrities who make a living telling you that vaccines don't work (and leading to the logical conclusion that kids die of measles).
Yep, totally different. Nothing to see here. Meanie PZ just wanted to attack religion. Dismiss his post cuz "he just doesn't get it".
Posted by: Tyler
|
May 22, 2009 1:29 PM
MLK fucked around on his wife too. Let's premise his dogoodery on that instead of some allegation that he liked to talk to imaginary friends. At least we know sex exists and that getting some often relieves tension and therefore inspires people to be nicer to each other, which is a lot more than can be said for imaginary friends.
Posted by: Orac
|
May 22, 2009 3:27 PM
Posted by: Orac
|
May 22, 2009 3:30 PM
Forgive the previous comment. ScienceBlogs timed out when I tried to submit. Good thing I always copy the text before submitting.
Onward:
Posted by: Orac
|
May 22, 2009 3:37 PM
Alright. One more time; I just realized that the reason for the problem is a munged up tag. My bad. Hopefully PZ will delete the repeated comments. Oh, well, onward:
Actually, if that's the case PZ was trying to make, the Hauser case was a really crappy example to try to do it with. After all, the judge utterly rejected the religious justification and ordered his parents to get him effective treatment. True, he left Daniel in the custody of his parents, but there's no reason to think that religion had anything to do with it. After all, the judge also left, for example, Katie Wernecke and Abraham Cherrix, two other teens with Hodgkin's disease who tried to stop chemotherapy, in the custody of their parents, and religion had nothing to do with their objections to chemotherapy. One of them, Katie Wernecke, went on the lam with her parents, much as Daniel Hauser is now on the lam with his mother.
Posted by: Orac
|
May 22, 2009 3:50 PM
That's because in this case, PZ really just doesn't get it. Use the word "religion" combined with a bad decision like that of Colleen Hauser, and it's like waving a red flag in front of a bull. PZ reacts; he doesn't think much.
In any case, as for the crap about my supposedly buying into the privilege given to religious views in society, give me a frikkin' break. In fact, I don't even think you bothered to read my post. In any case, go search for "Leilani Neumann" on my blog, see what I wrote about that case, and then tell me how soft I am on the role of religion in promoting practices that threaten life and limb. Go search on my blog for "Emma Gough" or "Dennis Lindberg," and then tell me how "soft" I am on religious beliefs that preclude believers from partaking of certain of the benefits of scientific medicine. The reason I objected to PZ's histrionics in this particular case is because it is not nearly so cut and dried in terms of whether it was religion or simply fear that drove the decision to refuse conventional therapy and ultimately flee.
But, hey, as I said before, it's a lot easier and more fun to engage in a little religion-bashing than to try to understand the case at hand.
Posted by: Paul | May 22, 2009 4:44 PM
You fixated on PZ's mention of the Hauser case. But instead of acknowledging he also mentioned the Neumann case, and was broadening the subject of the post to all the different cases where religion has lead to poor or no treatment. This was used to make the point that religious moderates, who argue for the power of prayer, enable this type of harmful behavior.
You didn't engage the point of the post at all, you fixated one portion and used it to toss an offhand insult.
Comparing PZ seeing possible religious influence to a bull seeing a red flag is rather apt. I've mentioned times in the past where he had points of doctrine wrong. But to use that as an excuse to ignore his whole argument (which, believe it or not, was not about something as mundane as the Hausers) is just sloppy and comes off like most of the other religious apologetics in the thread. Fixate on a small, completely tangential to the point detail so you can say "you're wrong and you smell", instead of engaging with the point of the post.
Posted by: Kellyg | May 22, 2009 6:27 PM
Thank you for reaffirming why I am not a godless liberal. They yell onto deaf ears. God forgive you.
Posted by: Rev. BigDumbChimp | May 22, 2009 6:36 PM
This is why you are not?
So you are a believer just out of spite?
Seems like a foolish reason to believe, though honestly all reasons people use to believe are foolish.
Posted by: CodewordConduit | May 22, 2009 6:52 PM
She might just be a godless conservative.
Posted by: Rev. BigDumbChimp | May 22, 2009 6:56 PM
Good point.
Posted by: 'Tis Himself, OM
|
May 22, 2009 7:07 PM
Or a nitwit.
Posted by: Anton Mates | May 22, 2009 8:10 PM
CodewordConduit,
I hope you feel better soon.
I'm not sure any of the options you list are mutually exclusive. No doubt many of the moderates were endorsing the "some sort of answer" viewpoint while many of the most devout were endorsing "God granted specific request X in time Y" viewpoint, and I imagine almost all of them were working largely off spurious correlations and faulty induction.
This may well be true. The "enabling" argument, though, holds that the moderate belief encourages the extreme one; if you're told that God could cure cancer, and occasionally does, it's easier to develop the belief that he will do so, if you just show yourself to be sufficiently devout.
That's the position for which I'd like to see some evidence. It's plausible, but so are contradictory positions. (Of course, the "enabling" argument can't apply at all to meditative or purely ritual prayer styles. I don't think, anyway.)
Sure, but there's no compelling a priori reason why your theology has to be based on the Torah or anything else in particular. Medieval Jews practiced all sorts of "medicinal magic" that was unsupported by or even condemned by the Torah; they had other theological reasons to do so.
Well, except that in the US, Benny Hinn and his ilk are more "mainstream" than Christian academia itself. There aren't millions of avid viewers watching the Jesus Seminar Power Hour on a weekly basis, I'm afraid.
I'm not going to say that Hinn is a "proper" Christian and (say) John Shelby Spong isn't—I have no authority to say that, and in any case I like Spong a whole lot more. So I figure they all have the same right to label themselves as Christians. But if you are going to define a social mainstream among American Christians, I don't see how you can claim that faith healing falls outside it.
I'm a bit baffled by this; your source paper says nothing of the sort. In fact, it says quite the opposite:
"Using this criterion, six methods were significantly superior to minimal or placebo treatments. These were rehearsal/self-control, covert behavioral, systematic desensitization, social skills training, cognitive therapy, and unclassified treatments."
And later,
"Specific comparisons between treatment methods present together in at least four studies yielded some quite clearcut results. First, active treatments were superior to minimal, placebo treatments in the majority of such comparisons."
In any case, people certainly do practice various nonreligious superstitions and irrationalities, such as the gamblers' habits you mentioned. But the folks worried about "enabling" would argue that religious superstitions are more dangerous, because they enjoy social approval and moral validation. Believing that your dice will land correctly if you shout at them is, at best, an amusing and understandable foible; but in the eyes of many, believing that God will answer prayers is a positive virtue. Hence, the latter belief can be more easily taken to dangerous extremes.
Again, I haven't personally seen much evidence of this, but that's the argument.
Posted by: CodewordConduit | May 22, 2009 8:32 PM
Anton:
I must apologize for that oversight with the sourcing - I actually took it (the citation) from Stuart Sutherland's "Irrationality" on faith instead of double-checking. He makes an argument for psychoanalysis being pretty much bullshit, and because I personally agree, I think I let my bias get the better of me instead of double-checking or even reading the bloody paper I cited... Embarrassing or what?... Again, apologies.
As for the rest I have no problem with what you're saying, but I'll leave it for now as I really must sleep :)
Best
CwC
Posted by: Thunderbird5 | May 25, 2009 2:20 PM
I'm late (bizzy week on the rural SW UK community nursing scene. I've got me some beer, phone's off the hook and I'm catching up the week past).
Anyway, Bravo PZ. Right on the money. I'd love to copy this out and nail it to a few foreheads out there and round here.
@24 - Kaspar Hauser, presumably. (Sorry, ain't been able to read more than a handful of reps yet - many must have got this one). The 1975 film by Werner Herzog is a masterpiece.
Posted by: Thunderbird5 | May 25, 2009 2:23 PM
I'm late (bizzy week on the rural SW UK community nursing scene. I've got me some beer, phone's off the hook and I'm catching up the week past).
Anyway, Bravo PZ. Right on the money. I'd love to copy this out and nail it to a few foreheads out there and round here.
@24 - Kaspar Hauser, presumably. (Sorry, ain't been able to read more than a handful of reps yet - many must have got this one). The 1975 film by Werner Herzog is a masterpiece.
Posted by: Shay | May 28, 2009 2:34 AM
"I hope you all feel a small tremor of guilt"
Nope. Not even a frisson.