Pharyngula

Posted by: Richard Harris | June 28, 2009 6:15 AM

For crazy thinking from religionists, this takes some beating. On BBC Radio 4’s program, “Sunday” this morning, there was the following little gem of cognitive dissonance, in a report by Nazameem Ansari (spelling guessed at):

“Unfortunately, the biggest victim of the Islamic Republic has been religion. Because of the atrocities committed in the name of religion & in the name of god, many of our young people, many of our youth, have turned away from religion & from faith, & this is the most dangerous thing I think happening.”

You can hear it here, about 10 min 30 sec in, http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b00l97z1/Sunday_28_06_2009/

Posted by: RM | June 28, 2009 6:26 AM

People hate hearing there is no Santa Claus. Please, don't take their Santa. It's the only one left.

Posted by: Steven Carr | June 28, 2009 6:30 AM

Science can tell us the chemical composition of bread and wine.

But, as PZ knows very well, only religion can produce the knowledge that this bread and wine is literally the flesh and blood of Jesus.

And which accomodationist is prepared to say there is no clash here, as science deals with one sort of knowledge while religion deals with another?

Posted by: Michael Kingsford Gray | June 28, 2009 6:43 AM

Accomodationists are starting to urk me to an alarming degree.
Is there something in the drinking water that is making them fawn so theatrically and incoherently?

Sam Harris has recently engaged in a fight with a confused atheist who is willing to prostitute his integrity in order to pander to murderous misogynist theocrats.
(As it appears, has that once-esteemed journal "Nature")

I am rapidly moving to the point where I admire religious fundamentalists more than atheist accomodationst wimps.
(At least the fundies are being as honest as they are able to their beliefs.)
My mantra has become: "Accomodationism is lying"

Posted by: MadScientist | June 28, 2009 7:00 AM

Hehehe - Chris Mooney brought up Wilkins on his blog and I posted essentially to say Wilkins is all wrong and for the most part dredging up old religious lies which have been soundly beaten many times in the past. I presume some religiotards are still there spouting non-sequiturs which they believe refute any phrase at all in my response.

I'll have to commend Michael Neville on the Lawrence Krauss thread though for valiantly defending against the seemingly drug-induced and repetitious rants of Kwok, Jon, and AnthonyMcCarthy.

Posted by: MadScientist | June 28, 2009 7:09 AM

"Once again, we've got a caricature of the atheist position: who among us claims perfect self-knowledge and flawless rationality?"

Last time I checked, it was the religious camp that was infallible.

[OT] For those who haven't done their fair share of work in voting for Grrlscientist, head on over to her blog, head onto the voting site, register, and vote for her to win a trip to Antarctica.

http://scienceblogs.com/grrlscientist/2009/06/update_todays_antarctic_vote_c.php

Of course you can enter the contest yourself or vote for someone else. If you take time to read a few of the leading entries you'll probably be convinced that grrlscientist really is the best choice, so get on over there.

Posted by: 'Tis Himself, OM | June 28, 2009 7:13 AM

Actually, John, I don't think he does.

So the next time you hear someone say that religion and science do not conflict, the key question to ask is: which religion? The speaker’s? Of course they would say that. But is it true? Science constrains rational religion, while no religion, Plantinga notwithstanding, constrains rational science. So when the two conflict, as they must given that they often attempt to explain the same phenomena, which one is it rational to adopt and teach?

The differences between Christian, Muslim and Hindu fundamentalists may be important to members of these three groups, but the similarities are obvious to outsiders. Adnan Oktar is as much a creationist as Rick Warren.

Posted by: Rob W | June 28, 2009 7:18 AM

PZ, a warning: those monkeys in your pants may land you some legal trouble. There is precedent:
http://www.wtop.com/?nid=502&sid=605477

And agreed on accomodationalism in general, though I am in favor of recognizing the difficulty involved for many people to challenge their religious beliefs, and sympathize with them for that (though I don't extend that to give those ideas any validity... it's just more like recognizing that leaving a cult can be psychologically traumatic, and some people need to be led and supported, not just ridiculed).

Posted by: NewEnglandBob | June 28, 2009 7:24 AM

Good analysis PZ, and succinct too. I also comment madscientist who said the same things over at Mooney's. His blog has become a place where irrational people like Kwok spout verbal diarrhea trying to justify accommodation with twisted thought.

Wilkins also said:

What strikes me as regrettable is that this got personal very quickly. I’m not pointing fingers, but...

..and then he finishes his article by calling people names!

His article is quite dishonest.

Posted by: MadScientist | June 28, 2009 7:27 AM

Oooh, llewelly is telling folks what they think and why - no doubt the knowledge was acquired through divine revelation because it sure doesn't conform to the real world.

Posted by: John M | June 28, 2009 7:34 AM

"Once again, we've got a caricature of the atheist position: who among us claims perfect self-knowledge and flawless rationality?"

I do - at least in front of the wife.

Posted by: Kel | June 28, 2009 7:39 AM

It really needs to be owned up to the fact that secular reasoning (and science in particular) does conflict with religious knowledge. This is not just trivially true, it is amazing that people still pretend that arguments put forth don't conflict.

Let's see:

• the existence of the soul
• absolute morality
• zombie Jesus
• Virgin birth

Posted by: John Morales | June 28, 2009 8:07 AM

[correction]
re my #23, that's clearly Himself's quote of JW, not mine.

Sorry.

Posted by: Rorschach | June 28, 2009 8:21 AM

John Wilkins is British?
Or does Australian count as British lol

Wilkins-CV

Posted by: echidna | June 28, 2009 8:54 AM

Accommodating religion is wrong.
I am outraged at how an Christian cult, the Exclusive Brethren have destroyed a family:
http://www.theage.com.au/national/exbrethren-father-loses-battle-for-children-20090627-d0lc.html

I thought our courts weren't as stupid as to say that the children have been so brainwashed that they need to stay inside the cult.

Posted by: Christian A. | June 28, 2009 9:09 AM

Religion has always been wrong about the natural world, but religion is seeking knowledge of something different

Posted by: The Science Pundit | June 28, 2009 9:18 AM

This is so funny. Chris Mooney also commented on Wilkins' post, but the only point he disagreed with was #4 (which--like you--I thought was the only valid point he made in his whole screed). Mooney also quoted the same paragraph you did, but called it "Wilkins’ very best point". Very funny indeed.

Posted by: Darby | June 28, 2009 9:25 AM

Sorry, but somebody has to point this out, and I guess I be that nerd:

http://vrya.net/bdb/clip.php?clip=2497

Critical quote: The monkey's the only cookie animal that gets to wear clothes, you know that? You have the sweetest smile I've ever seen. So, I'm wondering, do the other cookie animals feel sorta ripped? Like, is the hippo going, 'Hey, man, where are *my* pants? I have my hippo dignity!' And you know the monkey's just, (with a French accent) 'I mock you with my monkey pants!' And there's a big coup in the zoo.

Posted by: Kel | June 28, 2009 9:45 AM

Kel @24, good points, but "zombie Jesus" is (and I think you know it) a mischaracterisation.

That should be "trascendent risen Jesus" or similar.

Posted by: Cuttlefish, OM | June 28, 2009 9:51 AM

There are limits, this I know
Flying monkeys tell me so
Darting out from in my pants
They're the source for all my rants

Yes, flying monkeys
Yes, flying monkeys
Yes, flying monkeys
The monkeys tell me so

Though no light they do reflect
They deserve your full respect
None can claim that they're absurd
You'll just have to take my word

Yes, flying monkeys
Yes, flying monkeys
Yes, flying monkeys
The monkeys tell me so

Monkeys see the men obey
All the things religions say
Monkeys want to play that, too
Monkey see and monkey do

Yes, flying monkeys
Yes, flying monkeys
Yes, flying monkeys
The monkeys tell me so

Posted by: strangebrew | June 28, 2009 9:53 AM

Any affiliation to s completely man made and abhorrent negation of human rights to the point of running your morality as dictated by the often hysterical and politically led agenda scribblings of folks 2000 years ago based on woo...lies and superstitious claptrap is dangerous self defeating backward and rather childish in the worst possible sense.

What is worse is that idiots openly support this lunacy even try and defend it as a valid world view... that for some inexplicably asinine reason... is given special dispensation to preach lies bigotry and hatred at every opportunity.

Where were these 'oh so balanced thinkers' when toads like Cormac Murphy O”Connor that preaches gay rights publicly but fires gay workers privately...

http://www.mygayonline.com/uk-roman-catholic-head-says-he-opposes-antigay-discrimination-but-fires-gay-staffer.html

or claims Atheist means sub human...

http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2009/05/cardinal_cormack_murphy-oconno.php

And his successor Archbishop Vincent Nichols who tends to spout the same putrid rhetoric...and has far more personal ambition apparently then his predecessor.

And this is just the poisonous little enclave surrounding the RC dogma...the C of E is in far worse state with evangelicals attempting to split the edifice from stem to stern and introduce creationism as a valid bit of bollocks in science classes in Blighty...

This bogus crap will only wither away when some folks grow up a bit intellectually and rightfully condemn the premise as a bronze age myth gone gangrenous.
Playing silly buggers and pretending balanced view even supporting the nonsense is the real danger...that is what will cement the religious position precarious though it is!

Posted by: Stimbo | June 28, 2009 10:12 AM

re Butter @ #31,

I think you'll find that the word 'zombie' is not mentioned anywhere in Romero's works; instead, the word 'ghoul' is used when mention is made at all. IIRC this was a deliberate move on his part to avoid offending religious sensibilities (and we all know how fragile those are).

This fact was used to comic effect in the excellent "Shaun of the Dead" when, at one point, Simon (Shaun) Pegg delivers the rebuke: "We're not using the z-word!"

Posted by: bobxxxx | June 28, 2009 10:27 AM

The usual excuse that making nice with religion is strategic, coupled with the claim that religion is always going to be around.

This "religion is always going to be around" is a cowardly excuse to give up any hope for the world. If more people attacked religious stupidity, instead of sucking up to it, religions would have to become obsolete eventually, because bullshit can't last forever.

Posted by: AJ Milne | June 28, 2009 10:50 AM

The invisible monkeys in my pants are more invisibler than the invisible monkeys in your pants! Bow to my more invisibler flying monkeys!

(/'Cos every thread needs a holy war. And in case anyone's asking: the concept that somethin' can be 'more invisibler' is 'ineffable', not incoherent. Oh why must you fail to understand my terribly complex theology?)

Posted by: 'Tis Himself, OM | June 28, 2009 11:03 AM

Not all magically risen corpses are zombies. Some are vampires.

There's also liches, ghouls, mummies, skeletons, wights, and all the other critters listed in the Monster Manual (aka Jane's Fighting Monsters).

Posted by: antistokes | June 28, 2009 11:09 AM

Each religious sect feels it has the right to criticize any and all beliefs of any other sects. Why the special exemption for criticism by atheists?

well, 'cause ours are (anti?)Holy Truth, obviously!

seriously, though, we get an exemption because we don't resort to folklore, and instead resort to Observations That Are Repeatable By Other Observers, and A Lot Of Them, So We Can Do An Accurate Statistical Analysis. Name me a religion that whose creed involves in statistics, and....well, i'll give you a cookie, is what i'll do.

Posted by: AJ Milne | June 28, 2009 11:17 AM

Each religious sect feels it has the right to criticize any and all beliefs of any other sects. Why the special exemption for criticism by atheists?

Oh, but I expect you'd find the accomodationists are agin' that too, see. That's bad, that criticizing what other folk believe, regardless of how and why you do so. See, religion is to be this special play nice place, where the ideas are to have exactly no impact upon the physical world, and one one is to say anything bad about what anyone else thinks, ever. So if the flying monkeys in someone's pants were to tell them to murder people at random, we really shouldn't focus on the flying monkeys, certainly couldn't express any opinion about them. We could put 'em in jail for the murders, sure, but the flying monkeys would be off limits... Indeed, if someone during the murder trial were to suggest maybe this flying monkey thing suggests the accused might just be a bit nuts, this would be, well, rude.* And we can't have that.

*And technically, non-proveable, lest we forget. Yes, the monkeys really could be there... So let's not get all mixed up in saying: 'Yo, dumfuck, what the hell are you on, there are no such monkeys'. It's just going too far.

Posted by: Peter McKellar | June 28, 2009 11:20 AM

Accommodationists are the "moderate whites" of which Martin Luther King expressed such disdain. PZ has posted on this previously

http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2009/01/there_are_good_reasons_to_hono.php

The similarity of situations is striking, but instead of waiting 340 years, rational people have waited millennia for their "season of change". We've been butchered and burnt and imprisoned. The atheists that take an accommodationist position are really just content to live in an endless winter of oppression. Hitch is right - religion poisons everything.

I know King's Birmingham, AL - and where I was living you couldn't drive a block (on the main roads) in the suburbs without there being a church on both corners - large, small - even lots of converted garages. At night the fast food places were thick with teenage religious groups that had broken from classes. Single women are told by their friends the best churches locally to meet other singles - with different churches known to have congregations that cater to certain age groups. These are little more that xian meat-markets. Mega-churches were on the freeways, their electronic signs screaming psychosis at the drivers going by.

In less fanatical countries like Australia were I am now, it is easy for scientists to overlook just how much a problem this is. But even here the insidious evil permeates all. The New South Wales state government screwed everything throwing hundreds of millions of dollars at ratszinger for World Youth Day ($200m is mentioned, but they spread the costs far and wide and we will probably never know the full amount). Since then, the same losers that underwrote this madness are near bankrupt and are attempting a fire sale on assets and income streams (eg selling lotto that produces $500m per year). They are going to allow our area to be strip mined for coal (we get nothing, the mining company and state govt get it all) and we won't get a say or be able to prevent the destruction. They want to outsource our prisons, the schools are falling apart and (here's the good bit), the hospitals are a shambles.

With the poor situation in the hospitals, doctors are understandably getting irate and many are quitting. With Obama now looking at national health systems worldwide, Australia's appears in crisis and inmsho an inferior system could end up being selected. If the money had been spent on infrastructure (as is their responsibility) instead of being pissed down the toilet chasing kudos with god and his temporal lackeys, the USA would have a level playing field instead of a hamstrung competitor when assessing models to work from.

Not all our ills are the cause of this, just a significant proportion. Without religist woo pedlers, we could maybe even afford the waste and rorts of the state politicians.

So, the Vatican has managed to indirectly influence Obama's decision on a national health care strategy. Did accomodationists speak out at the time? No, of course not, accommodationists accommodate. They tolerate other worldviews and "hidden knowledge" revealed from outside reality - that on examination is discovered to be (not surprisingly), incompatible with reality. With such a cavalier attitude to the little details, the stoning to death of a 13yr old rape victim doesn't seem quite so bad when its way over in Somalia.

Tolerance is an affront to human dignity and takes from us all, not just in the realm of science but in every part of our lives. I agree religion will always be with us, but not in the way John indicates. There will always be mental illness (while we remain fundamentally human) some of these patients will fabricate god delusions spontaneously, even if never exposed to the long forgotten biblical texts.

Posted by: Scott Hatfield, OM | June 28, 2009 11:22 AM

PZ, it seems to me that you and Wilkins are talking past each other.

After all, your chief point of disagreement seems to be as follows: when one says 'so-and-so shouldn't say or do this', the other replies 'I never said such-and-such, what are you talking about?' It's all about perceptions. A lot of the 'accomodationists' react very poorly to criticism, it seems, to the point where they interpret it as a 'demand' or an 'insistence.' But this is not much different, it seems to me, from an atheist who behaves in a knee-jerk manner to any mention of religion or faith. One might as well argue over the taste of broccoli.

To me, what it comes down to is this: the culture tends to privilege religion, but the practice of science does not. NOMA fails as soon as the consequences of religious claims are subjected to scientific inquiry. Attempts to privilege religion within science clearly threaten the integrity of the scientific enterprise. If that's what is meant by 'accommodation', count me out.

On the other hand, attempts to privilege science and the use of reason within the culture, however, are not obviously harmful to the culture as a whole...though they will definitely make it more difficult for any outfit that it attempting to privilege its views with arguments not based on reason. Again, if that's what is meant by 'the practice of science', count me in.

It should be obvious that there is no need to privilege atheism either within the practice of science or in the larger culture. I don't see that either of those are happening for the most part, and I don't see anyone I read regularly arguing for either position. Instead, what I hear is over-the-top rhetoric about who should be privileged and who shouldn't. If that's all we really mean by 'exclusivism', count me disinterested rather than aggrieved.

Posted by: JLowe | June 28, 2009 11:32 AM

"Other people can be strategic. [s]cientists just ought to be honest," speaks volumes and is a sign for why we're still marginalized in today's society. Despite the gains of the past few years, we'll remain marginalized if there aren't strategies for creating a larger voice for atheism in society. And, scientists need to be a part of crafting and implementing those strategies, if for no other reason than to be able to preserve the ability to do their jobs.

One of the strategic considerations is how to roll out the messages. One "strategic" example is to have a book by Chris Hitchen as an introduction and a bridge to Richard Dawkins, who has written a very well reasoned book on unbelief which is, let's face it, a turgid read.

PZ, you've had a similar complaint in the past about why scientists need to craft approachable messages (I recall this because I blogged about it http://impact_analysis.blogspot.com/2007/04/were-right-who-cares-if-were-boring.html). The same argument holds here. Not having a strategy for articulating, expressing and distributing messages of unbelief is misguided. Arguing that scientists don't need to think strategically or be a part of developing such messages is naive.

Posted by: Iason Ouabache | June 28, 2009 11:39 AM

People who don’t want their beliefs laughed at shouldn’t have such funny beliefs.

Posted by: SEF | June 28, 2009 11:58 AM

@ Spacesocks #45:

Not all magically risen corpses are zombies. Some are vampires.

Particularly pertinent given the (Roman Catholic) Christian insistence on that blood ritual. What's unclear is where/when vampire-cheesus acquired his own blood taint.

Perhaps that was the holy spirit's job and explains why he counts as a son of god at all rather than of Mary and Joseph (or incestuous family relationship or previously stipulated random rape by Roman soldier). The important factor in determining his sire is the vampire lineage rather than the mere human one.

Posted by: Blake Stacey | June 28, 2009 12:09 PM

Stonewall was terrible strategy. What did it accomplish, after all, other than frightening the moderates?

(One fruit of civil-rights struggles has been the recognition that you do not have to be gay, black, female or any combination of the above to support equal rights for people who are gay, black, female or any combination of the above. If you want to see atheists and religious folks getting along, that might be a book worth opening.)

A while back, everybody in these parts was abuzz over some survey results which said that nonbelief was the fastest growing "religious" affiliation in the United States. (To the census taker, "unaffiliated" probably lumps together atheists, agnostics, deists and the "spiritual but not religious", but that isn't so critical for this purpose.) I'm curious: at what point are the nonbelievers so numerous that we constitute a minority for which one should bend over backward not to offend?

Posted by: Richard Harris | June 28, 2009 12:38 PM

Rev, please take your medication.

Posted by: Horwood Beer-Master | June 28, 2009 12:48 PM

Michael Kingsford Gray (#8),
Could you provide us with more information regarding Sam Harris' argument with this accommodationist atheist?
I for one always find Sam's particular brand of clear minded bullshit-busting to be quite refreshing.

Posted by: SEF | June 28, 2009 1:01 PM

@ Jim T #69

I'd say it's a study of what it means to be human

It seems that you're the one reading the texts in a (modern) relative way. Where's your credible evidence that ancient peoples didn't believe quite literally in powerful nature spirits etc, which they desperately tried to placate with rituals and sacrifices?

Posted by: antistokes | June 28, 2009 1:07 PM

@Jim #69

So if you force me to say what it *really* is, in real world terms, for my part, I'd say it's a study of what it means to be human

What it means to be human? Wasn't there a Pratchett quote about that, something about humans are at the intersection of where the falling angel meets the raising ape?

I know that the universe is a big, scary place for us little monkeys, and to want to control the uncontrollable is quite natural and a common reaction to the fundamentally statistical and random nature of the universe.

But, seriously, what little control you have is yours and yours alone. The actions you take, for good or ill, are yours. It is your responsibility to accept the consequences of your actions. No god can do this for you--- if anything, gods depend on humanity.

Posted by: Sven DiMilo | June 28, 2009 1:19 PM

Oh, man, PZ, you're lucky!
Yours are invisible?

Posted by: Tulse | June 28, 2009 1:23 PM

religion is asking a different question.

This is nothing but historical revisionism promoted by modern squishy liberal theologians. For most of human history, religion was precisely about people attempting to control the physical world through the placation of supernatural entities. Cultures performed sacrifices so the crops would grow, or carried out rituals to ensure success in battle, or prayed to avert or ameliorate natural catastrophes like drought and disease. The notion that religion is primarily about personal "meaning" and individual morality would be laughed at by the Aztecs, or even the biblical Jews. This notion of a god primarily as personal therapist only arose because the traditional sphere of making sense of the physical world became increasingly untenable. Religion did indeed used to ask the same questions as science, and it is only because it failed to provide tenable answers that it retreated solely to the domains of personal meaning and morality.

Posted by: amphiox | June 28, 2009 1:33 PM

Religion became about "personal meaning" and "individual morality" because in reference to its old job as a means of understanding, mediating with, containing, and controlling the natural world, science came along and kicked its sorry ass all the way up and down the Himalayas.

Posted by: Holbach | June 28, 2009 1:47 PM

Rev Finchette @ 67: is that doctor of divination or dimwitty?
You disagreed with a commenter on his knowledge of religion. Knowledge of what? How can there possibly be knowledge of something that does not exist? Come on, do you take us all as halfwits, rendered senseless and insane by religious bullshit? "Fabrications about our lord"? The first word definitely states the obvious about your "lord", and apostasy is as laughable as excommunication, "banishment from fantasyland". Your imaginary god is a figment of your imagination as is knowledge of nothing.

Posted by: Lynna | June 28, 2009 1:56 PM

I've baked some ungodly pies in my time. It's some kind of special cruelty for Patricia to be always subjecting us to tales of her latest culinary success. I suppose we could all move next door to her.

Posted by: Lynna | June 28, 2009 2:01 PM

Canuck @#43: There's an entire site devoted to Mormon underwear. See
http://www.mormon-underwear.com/

Mormon underwear is itching for satire.

Posted by: Dr. P | June 28, 2009 2:05 PM

@67,

So, you proclaim false knowledge of religion, you aid and abet the imbibition of a mind-altering substance, and your fabrications about our Lord amount to apostasy. I denounce you as a fraud.

Posted by: Rev. BigDumbChimp | June 28, 2009 2:17 PM

I disagree vehemently about your so-called religious knowledge. The flesh of Jesus is indeed bread as you claim, but the blood is NOT wine at all. In the olden days, many things were called wine, including the juice from the karambaha tree, a pure essence devoid of any intoxicants. It is this juice, the karambaha juice, that is truly His blood. So, you proclaim false knowledge of religion, you aid and abet the imbibition of a mind-altering substance, and your fabrications about our Lord amount to apostasy. I denounce you as a fraud.

I'd like to register a WTF here please.

Posted by: Lynna | June 28, 2009 2:24 PM

Patricia @91: Ahhh, I see. Well, what about rhubarb, then? So my pies were more ungodly than I even realized.

Mormons have the same problem with their inerrant book:
There are four major crops mentioned in the Nephite records. These are:
Barley (Mos 7:22, 9:9, Alma 11:7, 15)
Figs (3 Ne 14:16)
Grapes (2 Ne 15:2, 4, 3 Ne 14:16)
Wheat (Mos 9:9, 3 Ne 18:18)

Archeological findings for the time period of the Book of Mormon:
Barley NONE {new world variety was found in Arizona and totally unrelated}
Figs NONE
Grapes NONE
Wheat NONE

Don't know about the cherries.

Posted by: Owlmirror | June 28, 2009 2:30 PM

Patricia -- if the Comic Sans text should be part of sentence, rather than its own paragraph, use <span> instead of <p>

So:

Because <span style="font-family: Comic Sans MS">every true christian knows the babble is inerrant</span> the cherry, apricot, elm, etc cannot exist. Or perhaps like fossils, trees are proof of the debils trickery.

==

Because every true christian knows the babble is inerrant the cherry, apricot, elm, etc cannot exist. Or perhaps like fossils, trees are proof of the debils trickery.

/pedant

Posted by: Patricia, Queen of Sluts OM | June 28, 2009 2:35 PM

Lynna - Welcome sister to the Pie to Hell Club. Rhubarb is your ticket to the flames, as well as strawberry, and blueberry. If Brownian eats one more mouthful of pumpkin he's brimstone bound too.

All of you may save your souls with some Fig Newtons.

Posted by: Owlmirror | June 28, 2009 2:48 PM

Gandhi had a very religious perspective. However, some of Gandhi's early followers were atheists who could not share his belief. Gandhi replied that what mattered was devotion to truth, and so God was truth and truth was God. He even said that although he could conceive of no possible conflict, that if one arose, he would cleave to truth.

I wonder what people think about this. Is this a religious perspective even atheists can agree with, or has it, by rejection of a personal god ceased to be religious? Shouldn't it be up to the religious to decide?

Once again: It's all about the method of approaching truth; analytical empirical skepticism. Truth is either axiomatic, derived from axioms, or derived from evidence.

But all too often, for religious people, "truth" is used to mean "revealed truth" -- something which is not axiomatic, not derived from axioms, and not falsifiable by experiment.

Saying that "God is truth" strikes me as being like pantheism -- nice for those who like the semantic escape hatch, but leading inevitably to confusion, given that for most religionists, God means a person; a personal God.

And if such usage ever leads to equivocation of "the truth" with a personal God, well, I think that would actually be dishonest. So there's that as well.

Posted by: Holbach | June 28, 2009 3:01 PM

Has the Rev Finchette quit the onslaught or is he planning another strategy, perhaps enlisting help from his imaginary god? Come back rev; we will either drive you mad or laugh you from this site. But don't go away mad. Just, er, you know.

Posted by: Patricia, Queen of Sluts OM | June 28, 2009 3:09 PM

Holbach - Sorry, there is no such thing as a monkey either. There are 41 kinds of animals including dragons and unicorns. And something called a Pygarg. Apes do exist, they are gift items.
If the Rev. isn't a poe it should be interesting to see him explain the bald faced lunacy of his bible.

Posted by: Janine, OMnivore | June 28, 2009 3:14 PM

No stop signs, speed limit
Nobody's gonna slow me down
Like a wheel, gonna spin it
Nobody's gonna mess me round
Hey Satan, payed my dues
Playing in a rocking band
Hey Momma, look at me
I'm on my way to the promised land

I'm on the pieway to hell

Posted by: Patricia, Queen of Sluts OM | June 28, 2009 3:32 PM

Good one Janine!

Posted by: Rev. Mrs. Finchette, D.Div. | June 28, 2009 3:37 PM

Patricia O says:

"Rev. Finchette - I denounce you as a fraud. The Karambaha tree does not exist in the bible.Quote us the book and verse, or stand down."

Yes it does exist in the Bible. You did not seek for it with the right Intention. And beware, there are many sacrilegious translations from errant religions which are empty of Religious Knowledge!

I can supply you with the one True version, if you wish. I only ask for a small donation, to defray the costs of my ministry. Religious Knowledge truly is priceless, isn't it? And you can have it right at your door tomorrow, my child, by using VISA or MC and selecting next-day delivery.

Religious Knowledge could be on its way to you as we speak! Act now, before the Devil convinces you that your money would be better spent on, say, rent and food.

When you call, ask for the Special. Just for the next 5 hours, you too can become a doctor of Religious Knowledge, with the coveted D.Div. following your name. You will receive a certificate suitable for framing. All this plus the Bible of Truth, for just a modest offering of 4 easy payments of $29.99.

But wait, if you act now I double the offer. You receive 2 True Bibles and 2 personalized D.Div. certificates! Act now to get DOUBLE the amount of Religious Knowledge!

P.S. When you call, also ask about karambaha juice in bulk quantities of 500 aliquots, and channel the Lord's blood directly to your oral cavity. It is 100% Certified by our Religious Hematology Knowledge doctors.

Posted by: Janine, OMnivore | June 28, 2009 3:43 PM

It is a good thing that Rev. Mrs. Finchette, D.Div. is here. There is a new opening for a pitch person because Billy Mays just died.

Posted by: Holbach | June 28, 2009 3:53 PM

Oh crap, we have been wasting our brain cells on the rev Finchette, and now the missus pitch hits for him to let us know we have been bamboozled.

and Janine, Omnivore @ 110:
I saw that on the Internet news of Billy Mays death. It's a wonder he could not use that Okyclean on his matted facial filth, or was that a well-applied black marker pen?

Posted by: Dust | June 28, 2009 3:54 PM

Patricia,
Is putting Mediterranean Style Cheese yoghurt on a Fig Newton a sin? It's not like combining two different fabrics is it? 'Cos if that sends me to hell.....please, can I have some more?

Posted by: Jim T | June 28, 2009 3:57 PM

SEF @72,
"It seems that you're the one reading the texts in a (modern) relative way"

Ah yes, the old revisionist re-interpretation trick. Definitely a dubious ploy. No, I'm just seeing underlying consistencies in people's stories. It's the old 'all religions are the same' thing, despite the obvious surface differences and fundamentally different approaches.

Antistokes @74

Yeah, I think Pratchett writes pretty deep on occasion :)
And I agree with all your points, *shrug*. I feel that accepting and understanding that responsibility is the point, we tend to bury a lot more stuff than we'd like to admit, or even realise. Psychotherapy helps a lot too, so I'm led to believe.

Tulse @78
Of course Aztecs wouldn't recognise my description of it. And I'm not saying people haven't been largely confused and misled by it.
I'm talking more about an armchair observation of root motivations. With any one religious person there many motivations, and that motivation just appears consistent, if somewhat buried.
Religion has historically been a jumble of several lines because of this multiple motivatoins. Most lines split out around the enlightenment. As far as the campaign goes to keep them split out, I'm all for it, hell, you don't shout loud enough. But your shouting becomes ineffective when you demonstrate that you don't understand what you're shouting at - you just sound small and petty. That damages the cause and risks further growth of fundamentalism, which could lead to a regression. This scares me.

Holbach @85
I think the illogical aspect can be a cue that it's not meant to be taken as a description of this relative world. Certainly that's the case in buddhism, where a teacher might say something like "I have no tongue".
It's hard to say that without a tongue.
But from some point of view all these things make as much sense as if you were describing a flower in front of you.

There's a technique called Big Mind(tm) (yes, that's a trademark, sigh) that temporarily guides you into the necessary states to actually understand where all this stuff comes from, and it makes so much sense that you find yourself saying the same kind of stuff. The technique can be oversold, and has many detractors who point out that the guy who developed it has completely sold out, which he probably has, which is a shame.

But the point is that these things do make sense, and that most people get horribly confused by poor understanding of it. A scientific look will never see it (it should be able to study its effects and correlations though). Mainly because science necessarily looks at things from an external perspective - "what can be measured", "how does it behave".
This is fine, religion just looks at things from an internal perspective - "what's it like to be".

Posted by: Chris | June 28, 2009 4:03 PM

For fucks sake don't go near the Karambaha tree! It's crawling with Invisible Monkeys!

Posted by: B | June 28, 2009 4:10 PM

@Jim T
Wow. I didn't know it took so many words to say absolutely nothing.

Posted by: Chris | June 28, 2009 4:17 PM

Remember how they did the invisible creature in 'Predator'? That shimmery thing. Now imagine it's hundreds of Magic Invisible Monkeys'! I think this should be the final scene in 'PZ goes to the Museum - The Movie'

Posted by: Grendels Dad | June 28, 2009 4:26 PM

Hmmm, they said my Rum-Pumpkin pie was “heavenly”. Now you tell me it’s hellish?

That’s it. Now I’m a baking agnostic. Way too much metaphysical pressure riding on it for just a tasty snack.

Posted by: Janine, OMnivore | June 28, 2009 4:31 PM

The silly old goat has just brayed about special knowledge that is accessible only to people of faith. How bloody useful.

Posted by: Patricia, Queen of Sluts OM | June 28, 2009 4:40 PM

Silver Fox, why don't you and your imaginary friend jump on a unicorn and go on a dragon round-up? That load of crap you just dumped doesn't mix well with the sweet smell of bubbling Bing cherries.

Posted by: Nerd of Redhead, OM | June 28, 2009 4:42 PM

There is no way that the knowledge sought by science and the knowledge obtained through religious FAITH is ever going to be accommodated.

Posted by: Owlmirror | June 28, 2009 4:48 PM

There is no way that the knowledge sought by science and the knowledge obtained through religious FAITH is ever going to be accommodated. They are ESSENTIALLY different kinds of knowledge; different by their natures.

Yes. Scientific knowledge is empirical; knowledge obtained through religious FAITH is entirely imaginary.

The knowledge possessed by the religious includes ontological knowledge of the natural world - because there is a "real" world out there-, but also, a knowledge borne of FAITH, which is a divine gift, available to all. This is epistemic knowledge to the knower.

Stop misusing the phrase "epistemic knowledge" as if it were a synonym of "revealed knowledge".

The person of FAITH has no way of offering proof of measurable, scientific quality to support the validity of his subjective epistemic knowledge make-believe which to him or her is as ontological as any knowledge could be denied to be make-believe.

Fixed!

Posted by: Anri | June 28, 2009 4:52 PM

a_ray_in_dilbert_space sez:

"Anri, I agree that I've never seen a need for God to explain what I see in the Universe. I have seen a seeming need for God in some of the people I know and have read about. I rather doubt that will go away."

I think I see where you're coming from, but I tend to think of it this way: MRSA might get people to wash their hands more often, and likely isn't going away anytime soon. But that doesn't mean we shouldn't do our level best to get rid of it.

"I do agree that the conventional idea of a bearded old fart on a mountain top lobbing lightning bolts is kind of hard to square with what we know about the Universe. However, that's not the only conception of deity out there."

And, so far, we have found exactly as much evidence for any of them as we have for the bearded old fart on the mountaintop. None.
So far, every single contest between religious explanations and scientific explanations has gone, hands down, and 100% to science. That's the kind of track record that's not wise to bet against.

"Even for people who want to play "God of the Gaps," I rather doubt we'll be exploring all 26 dimensions of spacetime any time soon."

Which is quite true. So, since some things are beyond our awareness and/or theories to get any data on, let's not fill them with imaginary stuff - let's wait for some hard data first, ok?

"My point is that there are some folks out there who need to believe in their invisible monkeys, and how do we know that they don't. And in some cases, it might even make them better people (and in some cases worse, I know)."

And my point is that the more we give privileges to the belief in flying monkeys, the worse off society is as a whole. Pretty much any survey of religion vs. general quality of life shows this to be the case.
If some people require a Big Daddy to keep them from doing Bad Things, they are not adults, and I'd hate to think we're basing our world around them. The more we can make people be aware that they are responsible and answerable for their actions right here, right now, to other people around them, the more adult we will be as species.

As Carl Sagan noted, the tools we have nowadays are very dangerous. We shouldn't let children play with them.

Posted by: Lynna | June 28, 2009 4:57 PM

Patricia @105: okay, then. Maybe that's why the birds around here all gets the shits when it's chokecherry-eating time.

Funniest bird/berry scenarios, though, are the drunken forest grouse in the autumn. The berries ferment and the birds reel around, bump into stuff, fall over...

Posted by: Chris | June 28, 2009 4:59 PM

'There is no way that the knowledge sought by science and the knowledge obtained through religious FAITH is ever going to be accommodated.'

I get it. Science merely SEEKS knowledge while religious faith OBTAINS it. That's obviously where science has been going wrong! Scientists search for knowledge while the faithful have it handed to them. Shame the knowledge they get is bollocks!

Posted by: Carlie | June 28, 2009 5:01 PM

I can't believe no one has yet mentioned bacon pie. Apostates!

Posted by: Lynna | June 28, 2009 5:07 PM

Janine @104: LOL, greatly enjoyed that take on "pieway to hell"

articulette @111: I read your post on the Wilkin's site and liked it then. Worth reading twice. For once, thanks for a duplicate post. Particularly liked this bit:

their minds are desperate to find a reason to vilify the messenger and miss the message. Wilkins sounds like he is asking scientists to be part of this enabling without giving a coherent reason as to why.

Posted by: Crudely Wrott | June 28, 2009 5:18 PM

Billy Mays

And just the other day I thought, "How long can this guy go on and how long can I suffer him?"

I now know the answer to the first question.

My condolences to his family and friends. They surely loved him for good reason.

A while back I realized that while I was busy living people that I knew personally and people I knew from two degrees of separation were dying. Asimov and Sagan were particularly tough to bid farewell to. Equally tough was a roadie I worked with in 2001 and gave CPR to. He'd already OD'd. And the guy who was stabbed the other night four miles from here and the kid that lost control of his car early this morning. All deaths diminish me. How glad I am then that each day brings new birth.

Posted by: Chris | June 28, 2009 5:27 PM

Whoops! almost sounded there like I was defending religion. Never happen. The mere thought of Janine or Patricia coming after me gives me the shudders!

Posted by: Crudely Wrott | June 28, 2009 5:44 PM

Lynna at 136 says:

Funniest bird/berry scenarios, though, are the drunken forest grouse in the autumn. The berries ferment and the birds reel around, bump into stuff, fall over...

I've never seen the grouse getting soused but here's another example of avian excess.

Location: Sarasota, Florida.
Time: Thanksgiving season.
Situation: 1) Lots of robins heading to the fabled land of flowers for the winter;
2) Millions of bright red berries weighing down the branches of the pepper bush. They've been fermenting since Halloween.

One afternoon I looked across the yard and the lot beyond the street to see what appeared to be hundreds of befuddled robins. They flopped on the ground, staggered through the air, hung by one foot from branches and wires and otherwise looked to be having quite a good time. Unfortunately, an unusual number met their fates on the nearby highway as they competed for airspace with grilles and bumpers and the rollin' of the wheel.

There are more accounts of animal intoxication including insects. (Honey bees and thistle blossoms.)

Now that it has been established that drunkenness is not specific to humans, why aren't religious injuctions against drinking alcohol directed at all "kinds" and not just us poor, puny humans?

Is this distinction related to the fact that in most popular creation tales, the making of people is distinct from the making of everything else?

While such a distinction may have once had an import that actually made a cultural difference or enhanced survival, it is unclear that it has such a useful effect today. These days, in other words the past few centuries, have served to bring humanity closer to the rest of the universe. The evidence of and the need for a distinct moment of advent vanishes.

Posted by: Knockgoats | June 28, 2009 5:56 PM

I wonder how you guys would respond to Gandhi's approach:
Gandhi had a very religious perspective. a_ray_in_dilbert_space

He also gets a quite unjustifiable amount of veneration. Gandhi was in some ways a complete idiot; check out his advice to the British in 1940:

"I would like you to lay down the arms you have as being useless for saving you or humanity. You will invite Herr Hitler and Signor Mussolini to take what they want of the countries you call your possessions. Let them take possession of your beautiful island, with your many beautiful buildings. You will give all these, but neither your souls nor your minds. If these gentlemen choose to occupy your homes, you will vacate them. If they do not give you free passage out, you will allow yourselves, man, woman, and child, to be slaughtered, but you will refuse to owe allegiance to them." (Non-Violence in Peace and War)

He favoured the retention of the caste system, and opposed technological advance. He is defended against the charge of anti-modernism in an unintentionally amusing way at
http://www.thebreakthrough.org/blog/2008/06/gandhi_the_modernist.shtml:

"while Gandhi criticized modern printing technology, saying "now, anybody writes and prints anything he likes and poisons people's minds," he himself edited one newspaper or another throughout most of his political life.

Gandhi lived his life on three continents. Between 1888 and 1931 he made as many as 15 international voyages between India, England and South Africa. Though Gandhi eulogized small self-contained and relatively isolated "village republics," he himself was a global traveler long before words like "globalization" came into vogue. And though he denounced the railways on the grounds that they "spread the bubonic plague," "increased the frequency of famines" and "accentuated the evil nature of man," he himself traveled extensively by rail across the length and breadth of India, getting to know India and her people."

I don't know about you, but to me this behaviour has more than a whiff of hypocrisy about it. One of his followers, Sarojini Naidu, used to wonder if the "Mahatma" knew how much it cost to keep him in poverty.

Whether he advanced or retarded Indian independence (or, more probably, neither) is doubtful.

He also had a professed hatred of sexuality, along with some peculiar and morally dubious personal habits, such as sharing his bed with naked young women in order to test his own commitment to chastity (http://www.hvk.org/articles/0197/0041.html). Or at least, that was his story. If this commitment had failed him, how likely is it that these young women would have dared complain, or been believed if they had?

Posted by: Lynna | June 28, 2009 6:12 PM

Patricia @147, Crudely Wrott @148: Adding to our drunken animal stories; on the southeastern edge of Glacier National Park (near the border with the Bob Marshall Wilderness), a train track closely parallels the highway. A train carrying corn once wrecked there. The corn spilled out on the ground and soon began to ferment. The smell brought grizzly bears and the bears proceeded to have a corn-eating drunken party. Grizzly bears are unpredictable enough without adding corn liquor.

We had close encounters with grizzly bears when we hiked in Glacier N.P. Man, I sure wouldn't want to meet one of them when they were drunk!

Posted by: Ed Darrell | June 28, 2009 6:22 PM

Once again, we've got a caricature of the atheist position: who among us claims perfect self-knowledge and flawless rationality?

Among us humans? Or among "us" atheists?

Who claims perfect self-knowledge and flawless rationality? Newt Gingrich, Pat Robertson, Don McLeroy, Sally Kern, Michelle Bachmann, Casey Luskin, William Dembski, Anthony Watts, Bill O'Reilly, Sarah Palin, and Rush Limbaugh.

Of course, they are not among the atheists. Nor, to rational people, are they among the rationalists. They do like to mingle with the loudly-self-proclaimed Christians.

Also note that, to the extent the claims of rationality or perfect self-knowledge are testable, none have passed the test.

In the land of the spineless and brainless, the jellyfish is king.

Posted by: Crudely Wrott | June 28, 2009 6:32 PM

@ Lynna at 152--
A similar event happened in the Big Horns in Wyoming back in the 80s. Because the bears were hanging around the tracks while under the influence and getting hit by trains, the corn was hosed down with diesel fuel. (I know. Dumb idea. It was either the F&G or the RR, don't remember which.)

The bears, in there fervor, were undeterred. They dug down deeper to partake of the golden nectar. The corm was in places over eight feet deep and the fuel didn't penetrate all the way. Trains were slowed through the area for several months until the liquor was all gone. Sad bears . . .

Now all scientifically oriented and hell-bound atheists have to do is figure a way to hose down dogmatic religious addiction.

Posted by: Lynna | June 28, 2009 6:52 PM

@156. Interesting. I didn't know about the incident in the Big Horns. The incident I referred to was 1990 (I think), and the closest town was Hungry Horse, Montana. The spilled corn was a draw to grizzlies for a few years. In the Hungry Horse incident, I think they tried burning the corn.

As far as making religious blather unpalatable, I'm at a loss. Pouring diesel fuel on it probably won't work. The holy books are already mind-numbingly awful (if one bothers to read them). The books condemn themselves. I tried hard with the Book of Mormon: reserve judgement, etc. -- find out what my friends, whom I respected in other areas, saw in all this. But, holy buckets! That stuff reeks. Style, check off as awful with the exception of copied King James Bible sections; history, check off as total cock and bull easily proven wrong; moral injunctions, check off as maybe 10 percent good stuff and 90 percent wallowing in bloody violence or anticipating wallowing in blood violence; there's more, but the memory is making me sick, so I'll stop there.

I like the idea someone came up with previously of an atheist billboard campaign that simply put up bible quotes that illustrate the moral depravity of the whole enterprise.

Posted by: Lynna | June 28, 2009 6:58 PM

@157: It is hilarious to watch. If you set up camp nearby, the drunken birds will also stagger right into camp, heads lolling, glassy eyed. Bird dialogue looks very much like, "What the fuck?! I love you man! 'the crap's wrong with this ground?" I wonder if they have hangovers?

The pigs in the peach orchard that Patricia mentioned must surely have hangovers the next day, being so nearly like humans as they are.

Posted by: Dust | June 28, 2009 7:05 PM

Patricia sadly opined: If the yogurt is made from some milk other than cow, then yes, see you in hell, via the commandment not to bring confusion into the world. Otherwise you get to join Silver Fox, Piltdown Man, Heddle and Tammy Faye Baker in heaven. Sorry, I know that's harsh.

Dust retorts: The hell with the fig newtons and yogurt then-give me some pumpkin pie! I don't want to miss the party!

(Patricia your post was so shocking my flying monkeys swooned. Poor monkeys!)

Posted by: naturalist | June 28, 2009 7:08 PM

As an afterthought to my post at @153 I will acknowledge that religious faith has led to charitable endeavors that helped gpoups of people in poverty and sickness, but those better qualities of our species are something entirely obtainable through a secular and rational worldview.

Our social and alturistic behaviors are a result of how we have naturally and culturaly evolved in groups. Religion was a part of that cultural evolution, but not something we must forever hang on to feel whole which brings up another point Silver Fox. Just as you have no objective certainty about your faith, how can you presume to "know" for certain that atheists only live half of life?

Posted by: Rev. BigDumbChimp | June 28, 2009 7:14 PM

The knowledge possessed by the religious includes ontological knowledge of the natural world - because there is a "real" world out there-, but also, a knowledge borne of FAITH, which is a divine gift, available to all. This is epistemic knowledge to the knower. It is subjective epistemic knowledge not objective ontological knowledge. There is no second party confirmation. It is knowledge based on a MODE of KNOWING; not on a MODE of BEING.

This is a completely full of shit thought you are trying to stand up as fact. Total baseless assertion.

Like most of what you say here.

Posted by: Knockgoats | June 28, 2009 7:27 PM

a_ray...,
On the claim that Gandhi invented non-violent resistance, see:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nonviolent_resistance#History_of_nonviolent_resistance. Let's remember that the end of the campaign for Indian independence was the disaster of partition. I'm not saying Gandhi was responsible for this, but his methods certainly did not prevent it. Violence had a large part in the end of apartheid, and a significant part in the US Civil Rights struggle. It worked in eastern Europe only because Gorbachev had already removed the threat of Soviet invasion to bolster the satellite regimes. I'm not saying NVDA is unimportant (indeed, I've frequently taken part in it), but it can only be used with any hope of success against an opponent constrained (internally or externally) in their own use of violence.

Posted by: Knockgoats | June 28, 2009 7:31 PM

a_ray...,
Read Dennett's Freedom Evolves. Free will is entirely compatible with a causally closed material world. The problem, not the thing, is illusory.

Posted by: a_ray_in_dilbert_space | June 28, 2009 7:50 PM

Knockgoats,
The Partition had much more to do with the ambitions of Jinnah, the interests of the Zamindars (Pakistani loansharks), the internal politics of Congress and the divide and conquer policies of the Brits than it did with any blunders Gandhi made. Indeed, the extent to which Gandhi was willing to compromise with Jinnah was one of the justifications Hindu fanatics gave for killing him!

As to whether nonviolence can work against violent thugs, I am certainly not a believer to the extent of Martin Luther King or Gandhi, but there are instances where it worked even against the Nazis (the village of Le Chambon in occupied France, which openly sheltered Jews throughout the war), and I would hardly call Bull Connorsor the KKK men of peace. Even the Brits were often brutal (e.g. Amritsar).

I fully agree it is a mistake to venerate Gandhi. He's a lot more interesting as a human being. I do, however, think that nonviolence is applicable in a lot more situations than we have applied it. It would get the Palestinians a state a lot more quickly than firing rockets.

Posted by: Knockgoats | June 28, 2009 8:07 PM

a_ray,
Le Chambon is an interesting example I was not familiar with - thanks. I'm very mujch aware of British brutality in India - it was restrained partly by purely pragmatic considerations - Britain had nowhere near enough troops to cope with a full-scale rising - and partly by domestic political concerns.

It [non-violence] would get the Palestinians a state a lot more quickly than firing rockets.
Frankly, this is nonsense, and arrogant nonsense at that. Have you noticed that there is actually a Palestinian semi-state - an area where no non-Palestinian writ runs - in Gaza? It was not non-violent resistance that forced the Israeli withdrawal.

Posted by: bastion of sass | June 28, 2009 8:15 PM

religious faith has led to charitable endeavors that helped groups of people in poverty and sickness,

And religious faith has also caused groups of people to remain in poverty and sickness.

Yes, there are religious people who help the poor and sick. But too often, religious leaders take more than they give to the poor and the sick.

No one tends to notice when atheists go about doing good deeds because atheists don't announce, "I'm doing this for the glory of no god." Or because "atheism commands me to do so."

Groups of people who are really interested in helping others, and not just gaining brownie points with god, will continue to do so even if religion ceased to exist tomorrow.

Posted by: 'Tis Himself, OM | June 28, 2009 8:18 PM

a knowledge borne of FAITH, which is a divine gift, available to all.

Yes indeed, anyone can indulge in wishful thinking and self-delusion.

Posted by: Kel | June 28, 2009 8:25 PM

There is no way that the knowledge sought by science and the knowledge obtained through religious FAITH is ever going to be accommodated. They are ESSENTIALLY different kinds of knowledge; different by their natures.

Do you honestly believe the shit that comes out of your mouth? (well in this case, comes off your hands and onto the keyboard)

Posted by: Kel | June 28, 2009 8:31 PM

a knowledge borne of FAITH, which is a divine gift, available to all.

Personally I'm just going to look at the task manager because actually measuring things works and faith does not.

Posted by: pdferguson | June 28, 2009 8:50 PM

Silver Fox#125:

There is no way that the knowledge sought by science and the knowledge obtained through religious FAITH is ever going to be accommodated. They are ESSENTIALLY different kinds of knowledge; different by their natures. Accommodation presents when these different knowledges are seen as quantitatively different not qualitatively.

Others have already commented on the execrable horse shit in your post, but I do want to single out this particular pie for comment.

Just like creationists desperately want their idiocy about design to be seen as a legitimate approach to science, religionists desperately want their idiocy about faith to be seen as a legitimate approach to knowledge. Both are crude attempts to claim a seat at the adults table. Both fail.

As Friedrich Nietzsche so eloquently put it, Faith is not wanting to know what it true. Faith is wanting to know what you hope is true, regardless of how untrue it might be. It is wishful thinking borne of superstition and mythology. Historically, faith is the foundation for the dark ignorance of religion, so to talk about faith as being just a quantitatively different way to acquire knowledge is just plain, well, horse shit...

Posted by: Crudely Wrott | June 28, 2009 8:51 PM

Kel, by virtue of having been washed in the blood (I got dirty again) I am qualified to answer in part for SF.

The memory usage of your browser is not part of a larger body of knowledge that just seems to have the ring of truth. So many mundane facts become background noise when something just feels so right, that witnesses so truly with his wishful thinking.

It's not very comfortable to discover that one is not the center of the universe when one has been persuaded that one is. And all the supernatural personalities? Oh, they are just to complicated to explain without a thorough introduction embracing the Mind of God (whose activities are apparent to only the elect).

It takes a special understanding to see a light that is invisible to those less encumbered.

Special.

Right, Silver Fox?

Posted by: Kel | June 28, 2009 8:56 PM

Kel, If you would get the same result with the same inputs, that wouldn't really be free will.

Posted by: bastion of sass | June 28, 2009 9:04 PM

Crudely Wrott @ 186:

It takes a special understanding to see a light that is invisible to those less encumbered.

Sounds kinda like the special understanding that allowed one of my acquaintances to see gigantic animals that were invisible to those less encumbered, lurking in the hallways of her high rise apartment building .

I don't know if she sees them anymore, as the medications she was given in the mental hospital may have wiped out her "special understanding" abilities.

Posted by: Patricia, Queen of Sluts OM | June 28, 2009 9:07 PM

I think Owlmirror skeerit jezus right out of Silver Fox, and he had to run back to his closet to pray.

Posted by: Ed Darrell | June 28, 2009 9:11 PM

Otherwise you get to join Silver Fox, Piltdown Man, Heddle and Tammy Faye Baker in heaven. Sorry, I know that's harsh.

Heddle's probably not so bad, but having to live with the others is harsh indeed.

Posted by: articulett | June 28, 2009 9:11 PM

I'll accomodate the accomodationists so long as the accomodate my view that all faith based claims and delusions of divine knowledge are indistinguishable from superstition and mental illness.

Is there any pie left? (Save some of the humble pie for SF).

Posted by: Patricia, Queen of Sluts OM | June 28, 2009 9:18 PM

Surely 3,000 years is enough time to show that you are totally wrong?

Has gawd shown up lately? How do you account for there being more than 41 kinds of animals and 25 kinds of trees within the last 3,000 years?

Entirely wrong minds want to know!

Posted by: a_ray_in_dilbert_space | June 28, 2009 9:19 PM

AG, not sure how you get from "The current state of your mind is one of the "inputs" and can react nonlinearly to other inputs to alter future inputs and its own future state."

to

"You have some control over what you will experience and who you will become."

In a delayed choice experiment, I have to decide, for example, whether to measure spin up/down or spin right/left. It is that choice that gives rise to all the wierdness of simultaneous knowledge of incompatible quantum numbers. If there is no choice, there's not (necessarily) any quantum wierdness.

Posted by: africangenesis | June 28, 2009 9:24 PM

a ray in dilbert space,

Of course there are experiences we can't control, but there are also those we can that are pretty reliable, such as changing the temperature setting on the thermostat or taking a trip to a foreign land. Just because quantum effects underly causality, doesn't mean that intelligence doesn't increase survival value. Even this nonlinear dynamic chaotic universe is somewhat predictable in the short term.

Posted by: Knockgoats | June 28, 2009 9:26 PM

And now africangenesis has arrived to stink the place up with his stupidity and lies, I'm off to bed.

Posted by: a_ray_in_dilbert_space | June 28, 2009 9:35 PM

Knockgoats, My criterion for strategies of resistance is that they be effective. Lobbing unguided rockets into civilian targets is not. Have you talked to Israelis? I agree that there are some nutjob fundies who will refuse to give up an inch of their oil-free, desert of a promised land. Most, however would make peace if they thought they could. Fear of the Palestinians intimidates those who would make peace and emboldens the hardliners.

My argument to the Israelis would be the same--the defensive tactics they use should be effective. Sixty years out to be sufficient time to say the cycle of terror and revenge isn't working. The problem is that each is too afraid of the other to try anything else. Someone has to break the cycle, and it is unlikely to be the Israelis.

Posted by: Patricia, Queen of Sluts OM | June 28, 2009 9:40 PM

Ed Darrell - Sorry, Heddle is my personal choice of troll I most love to hate. He is a Calvinist. Check out http://www.sebts.edu/prospective_students/what_we_believe/articles_inerancy.cfm

As a friendly warning, strap on a Depends before you read just A Short Statement #1-5, if you don't soil yourself, you are made of stronger stuff than most. The total depravity thing pulls my chain.

Posted by: Crudely Wrott | June 28, 2009 9:50 PM

Quoth he,

First we have to start with the notion that humanity is made in the image of its creator.

No. We can start where we will. Get it?

Posted by: pdferguson | June 28, 2009 9:51 PM

First we have to start with the notion that humanity is made in the image of its creator. Now that does not mean that we look alike but that we share some essential property.

What "essential property" would that be? Superstition ignorance? Father figure fixation? Homophobia, maybe?

Please enlighten us, oh silver one. We really are trying to understand what the fuck you're talking about, but frankly so far, it just resembles age old religious gibberish.

Posted by: a_ray_in_dilbert_space | June 28, 2009 9:52 PM

AG, you misunderstand the issue:

If the Universe is material, how do you get free will when all interactions at the macroscopic level are effectively deterministic?

If there were such a thing as an immaterial soul, how would it act on the material world without itself being acted upon to the extent that it too lost "free will"? Or put another way, how do you keep the reaction force less than the force?

Posted by: Wowbagger, OM | June 28, 2009 9:55 PM

Damn, I missed Silver 'Kwa-Kwakalonooksiwae lights up my life' Fox's standard tactic of cowardly make-nonsensical-assertion-and-then-run-away-crapping-himself-in-fear visit?

That's a shame; I'm still waiting to hear back how someone can distinguish between two competing and necessarily incompatible belief systems (e.g. Christianity and Wowbaggerism), if both are reliant on 'revealed knowledge' instead of evidence to justify their existence.

When you can do that, SF, we might actually bother to listen to what you have to say.

Posted by: Owlmirror | June 28, 2009 10:01 PM

First we have to start with the notion that humanity is made in the image of its creator. Now that does not mean that we look alike but that we share some essential property.

You keep writing dumb things. This is one of them.

First we have to start with the notion that humans appear to have the ability to choose, yet choices either arise from randomness or deterministic events.

Since the creator is the absolute good, the choosing element of the person, the human Will, is oriented to and directed toward the absolute good. Free Will is free only when the Will is able to choose the good.

Nice incoherent question-begging, assuming of conclusions, and argument by pure fiat. This is another dumb thing you've written.

Note that you contradict the entire meaning of "free" if choice is biased in one particular direction.

So the Will is free only when it is able to choose that to which it is by nature inclined, the absolute good. This is a bit different from what we usually think of when we casually say that man has "free will", implying that these are no restrictions on his choices.

Great. You assume your conclusion, then rephrase your conclusion in several ways for several paragraphs, and then conclude with your incoherent assumption. It's terribly dumb, squared and cubed.

You are a lovely poster boy for philosophical Dunning-Kruger.

Posted by: africangenesis | June 28, 2009 10:03 PM

a ray in dilbert space,

You are correct, I don't get "free will". I get MY will (occasionally thwarted by irressible impulses, especially for chocolate milk shakes) and I get the illusion of free will. Other people are more predictable if they are responsible people, or believe they will be held responsible for their actions. We and they have some control.

I agree the metaphysical "free will" question is settled. The more interesting question is why the illusion persists. I believe it has survival value, and social value. Perhaps it is the illusion we should cultivate. Perhaps not the illusion, but the cultivation of responsibility for ones own will and respect for the will of others to the extent they don't seek to impose their will on others.

Posted by: Crudely Wrott | June 28, 2009 10:09 PM

@ africangenesis who asked,

Does too much intelligence decrease evolutionary fitness? Why are we doing this instead of seeking mating opportunities?

Too much insistence on special insight and privileged knowledge might demonstrably decrease fitness if the arguments consume time and resources better spent elsewhere. I cannot think of a surfeit of intelligence, unattended by endless bickering, being detrimental to human evolutionary fitness.

Speaking only for myself, and taking myself as a middle of the bell curve example, my mating opportunities are long accomplished. Now I enjoy the leisure of attempting to acquire too much intelligence.

Will you wish me good luck?

Posted by: AJ Milne | June 28, 2009 10:11 PM

Free Will, what is it?

A typo. See 'Free Willy'.

First we have to start with the notion that humanity is made in the image of its creator. Now that does not mean that we look alike but that we share some essential property...

Incorrect. We must start with the notion that doughnuts are tasty. You will see from this that will is actually also the second word in this sentence, but the first verb. Will you also realize that will is the first word in this sentence? I will not point out where it in this one; you will have to work that out for yourself, Will. Anyway, follow this chain of bizarrely disjoint reasoning to its end and I expect you will realize that it goes nowhere roughly as quickly as did Silver Fox's, but at least it started somewhere involving doughnuts, and we were able to work the word 'will' in roughly as frequently, and claims pulled out of the writer's ass really no more so. Also, given the doughnuts, I'd point out the whole thing was somewhat less of a waste of your time than was his, at least. Now, people also make bad choices and good choices--the bad one here was to read this paragraph in the first place.

Choice, however, is also a noun, which is fascinating information I did not pull out of my ass, but which is roughly as irrelevant to the thrust of the nonexistent argument here as could be arranged, and thus mirrors the theology above in spirit, if not thrust. It's also entirely irrelevant here to note that voice rhymes with choice, but not entirely with moist, which is more of an assonance. Which, again, is not to be confused with something pulled out of anyone's ass, nor is it meant to remind you that anyone is being a spectacularly vapid ass in this forum, tho' it would be a happy coincidence if it did.

Anyway, the point is: I worked in doughnuts. So I win.

Posted by: Janine, OMnivore | June 28, 2009 10:19 PM

Patricia, it is obvious. The big sky daddy has both a penis and a vagina.

Posted by: Jadehawk, OM | June 28, 2009 10:23 PM

feh. a thread with AG and SF in it.

and it had so much potential for interesting discussion :-(

Posted by: Kagato | June 28, 2009 10:26 PM

Free Will - What is it?

First we have to start with the notion that humanity is made in the image of its creator.^[why?] Now that does not mean that we look alike but that we share some essential property.^{[which is?]}

Since the creator is the absolute good^{[citation needed]}, the choosing element of the person, the human Will, is oriented to and directed toward the absolute good.^[why?] Free Will is free only when the Will is able to choose^* the good. This it must do^* in its first order choice.^{[*why? If it must, how is it free?]}

However, most choices are about routine everyday choices. In these, there are good and bad choices. Insofar as these second order choices are influenced by cultural and social preferences, external pressures, and are formulated through the intellect,^[zzz] the desirable choices need not necessarily comport with the Will's innate disposition toward the absolute good.^{[citation needed]} The Will is free only when it is able to necessarily choose that to which it is innately disposed.^{[does this sentence mean anything?]}

The choice of evil where there is a deflection from the absolute good is a defeater of freedom, a turning away from the absolute good toward which we have our deepest inclination.^{[how about this one?]}

So the Will is free only when it is able to choose that to which it is by nature inclined, the absolute good. This is a bit different from what we usually think of when we casually say that man has "free will"^{[no shit]}, implying that these are no restrictions on his choices.

Ah, I get it now. "Free Will" is only really "Free Will" when there is actually no choice in the course of action.

That makes sense now.

Oh wait. No... no, it's still bullshit.

Posted by: Patricia, Queen of Sluts OM | June 28, 2009 10:28 PM

Janine - You'll probably have to sacrifice a pair of Turtle Doves for making that wisecrack.

Posted by: Kel | June 28, 2009 10:29 PM

And to argue from personal experience... (I know, I know)

My partner is with me because of my intelligence. That I have a degree, a decent job, and especially that I have a desire to learn. She likes that I'm curious about the world and always looking to improving my understanding of it.

So in an evolutionary context, why am I here? The same part of my brain that I'm exercising on here is what is being selected against. It may not be that I'm having 400 babies and pressing gene survival, but nethertheless I just might get a chance in the future.

Besides, talking about genes ignores the memetic component of our evolution - and the exchange of ideas we will all agree is a valuable contribution to our species. Stephen Pinker's legacy will live on without a genetic line ;)

Posted by: africangenesis | June 28, 2009 10:37 PM

Kel,

"Stephen Pinker's legacy will live on without a genetic line"

That is kind of sad. Some damn fine genes there, although he is apparently concerned about some of those he carries. Perhaps he can be induced to donate. Hopefully he is investing resources in close relatives who share his genes.

Posted by: Patricia, Queen of Sluts OM | June 28, 2009 10:41 PM

If we are created in the image of god, then why aren't we invisible?

Hey! Good point. And how come I can't fly?

Posted by: africangenesis | June 28, 2009 10:46 PM

Kel,

"just remember that this whole discussion is in part down to the words of a virgin jew who lived some 2000 years ago and an impotent disfigured petty excuse for a man who made it his life's work to preach that message."

Of course, that was the "true" religion. The true practioners died out within a few decades waiting for the 2nd coming. The "false" religion that survived preached "be fruitful and multiply" and "love one another" and "wives obey your husbands". Some memes are just a little more catchy that others.

Posted by: Rev. BigDumbChimp | June 28, 2009 10:57 PM

You are a lovely poster boy for philosophical Dunning-Kruger.

I'm not sure that anything more correct has ever been written about our little Vulpes dumbassis.

Posted by: Cuttlefish, OM | June 28, 2009 11:20 PM

a_ray_ , et al.

Our free will, or its illusion,
Is the source of much confusion;
We make choices all the time, but can we say that they are free?
Mind and body in cohesion
Make us think we are Cartesian,
But the whole of modern science makes me want to disagree!
A causal mind’s existence,
Though a meme of some persistence,
Has the weight of long tradition, but the evidence is slim.
Our environment controls us;
Though Cartesian thought consoles us,
The truth is, we’re reactive, and we never act on whim.
Even my creative rhyming
Is controlled by sound and timing
And a history of consequences leading to this end;
Rhymes appear as chosen freely,
When the truth is different, really—
There are multiple parameters to which I must attend!

(Parenthetically, I mention
That “free will” will draw attention
To the action and its consequence, but little to its cause;
The resulting shift of focus
Makes it seem like hocus-pocus;
Through a bit of misdirection, it appears we break the laws!)

http://digitalcuttlefish.blogspot.com/2009/06/on-free-will.html

(a previous post of mine, from some time ago, examined free will and Dennett, and had quite a fascinating series of comments, most in verse. Feel free to visit, and feel free to comment, even if in prose.
http://digitalcuttlefish.blogspot.com/2009/02/daniel-dennetts-darwin-day-delivery.html)

Posted by: Kel | June 28, 2009 11:42 PM

I'm looking forward to Silver Fox finally showing some physical evidence to demonstrate that we are in the image of the creator. I wonder what it will be...

Anthropic deism - that the laws of the universe were fine-tuned to support life and conditions perfect for this species in particular. God is the breaker of supersymmetry, but there's no conflict between science and God because God is part of the process. Looking forward to a non-god-of-the-gaps argument for this alleged fine-tuning that demonstrates empirically Yahweh.

Intelligent design v1 - that the process of life had a universal selector, much in the same way that dogs and pigeons were intelligently designed. God came down and acted in the environment, protecting the organisms that would inevitably lead to humans because otherwise we would not be here. Looking forward to some actual evidence of God's hand in nature.

Intelligent design v2 - that the process of heredity was modified by a universal selector, that God caused the mutations to occur that will inevitably lead to humanity. Because you can't rely on chance for such an event. Again, looking forward to some actual evidence of God's hand in nature.

The soul - that evolution continued on its merry way until some bipedal apes were gifted a soul by God, and thus were partially made in God's image. Looking forward to see the interface in the brain between the body and mind.

If there are any options I neglected, please let me know. But how can you pretend that science and religion are compatible if you are rewriting the story of the universe and the nature of man to put God in there when naturalistic processes are sufficient to explain us?

Posted by: Patricia, Queen of Sluts OM | June 28, 2009 11:48 PM

This blat-assed wrangling and whining by christians like Silver Fox, Piltdown Man, and to a short extent by Heddle, irks the hell out of me. When I was a good christian I would never have given one iota from the truth of the inerrant word of gawd. PZ would have thrown me in the dungeon, but this sniveling backing down inch by inch is pathetic.

Come on you christians at least try to come up to the density of a chicken turd in defense of your gawd. HE isn't manning up to it. The invisible monkeys are winning.

Posted by: RamblinDude | June 28, 2009 11:59 PM

I'm trying to figure out whether I had any choice in writing this

Without a period

And then thinking about it

Posted by: Holbach | June 29, 2009 12:12 AM

Kel @ 242

It is obvious and definite that Silver Fox will not and can not offer any physical evidence of our being created in the image of an imaginary god other than it looks like us, rather than we look like it, however one is prone to interpret this insane bullshit. Of all the billions of people that have died on this planet, not one has returned to prove that there is indeed a supreme being to give credence to that belabored concept over the course of human history. This is precisely the point; human history. Without humans, there would be no gods. It just boggles the mind that this blatant fact can not be comprehended by the morons who think otherwise. It seems incredible that this fact is embraced by us and yet not done so by the insane rabble who have an equal state of obvious comprehension. Religion has shone over the centuries, and through actions of outright irrationality that it is a wonder to behold, and this of abject incredulity. The simplest reasons of why religion is bullshit seems to elude the greater majority of humans on this planet, even with the evidence in so many instances of religion's total falsehood and stupidness.

Posted by: llewelly | June 29, 2009 12:29 AM

The invisible monkeys are winning.

Posted by: Patricia, Queen of Sluts OM | June 29, 2009 12:41 AM

Silver Fox - You simply don't get it.
You do not get to add one jot or tittle to the holy scripture. Matthew 5:18. Your interpretation of the word of gawd is wrong, sinful and will take you straight to hell.

Please don't try to sit by me. I only share my Walnetto's with intelligent folk.

Posted by: Wowbagger, OM | June 29, 2009 12:44 AM

I expect to be put in my place by the cowardly christian trio - 1 Tim. 2:11 - 12.

Oh, that delightful piece of women-hating bilge. How do today's modern, enlightened, liberal Christians interepret that particular piece of Scripture?

It's NT so they can't write it off as being superseded by Jesus and the whole 'making a new covenant so the old rules (well, except the ones we still like; the one about teh gay, for example) aren't relevant anymore' defence they like to use whenever it suits them - particularly when ordering shellfish at the Cafeteria de Jesus or buying a poly/cotton t-shirt at the gift shop.

Posted by: Janine, OMnivore | June 29, 2009 12:50 AM

Let's try this again.

Silly old goat, I fear the monkey in your soul.

Posted by: Zarquon | June 29, 2009 1:06 AM

my fucking pants-monkeys will NOT shut UP tonight...

always with the darting-out

You need to http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_oaSZxd9jOY

Posted by: Snoof | June 29, 2009 2:28 AM

Kel @259

So you're suggesting that the decision-making processes in the human brain are fundamentally deterministic yet strongly chaotic (in the mathematical "sensitive to initial conditions" sense)?

I'm not saying I disagree with you (actually, that's where my opinions on the matter lie), but would it be fair to call it "free"?

Also, because nobody's brought it up yet, and because it's been bothering me for a while now: I find it profoundly irritating the idea that quantum randomness allows for free will. If someone suggests that decision-making processes are in some way quantum, then isn't that saying that at some level they're _random_? It's free (in the sense of lack of constraints allowing multiple valid outcomes), yes, but it hardly seems like "will".

Posted by: Kel | June 29, 2009 3:15 AM

So you're suggesting that the decision-making processes in the human brain are fundamentally deterministic yet strongly chaotic (in the mathematical "sensitive to initial conditions" sense)?

I'm not saying I disagree with you (actually, that's where my opinions on the matter lie), but would it be fair to call it "free"?

But as I said earlier in the thread, it's free will in the same way that Penn & Teller do magic. There's the magic which we see performed by people time and time again, and then there's magic that violates the laws of our universe. What we consider real magic is fantasy while what we consider fake magic is reality, same goes for free will. What we would consider real free will cannot be so, while what we would consider as fake free will (the kind I'm talking about) is what reality can give us.

Also, because nobody's brought it up yet, and because it's been bothering me for a while now: I find it profoundly irritating the idea that quantum randomness allows for free will. If someone suggests that decision-making processes are in some way quantum, then isn't that saying that at some level they're _random_? It's free (in the sense of lack of constraints allowing multiple valid outcomes), yes, but it hardly seems like "will".

Posted by: africangenesis | June 29, 2009 5:39 AM

Kel,

"It's not free will, it's indeterminite. It's not going to change anything about our current condition, just add a touch of randomness to a non-random (i.e. causal) decision making process."

Evolution's course seems to have been to eliminate randomness. Processes at neural synapses average over too large a system to exploit quantum randomness. The survival benefit is more likely to come from reliability and reproducability than from randomness. Perhaps the bounding of a deer in flight from a predator might benefit from the unpredictability of randomness. However, even there the deer's options are physically constrained, and the persuing predator may be able to achieve a high enough success rate within its modeled envelope of the deer's available repertoire.

At the limit, where options are equally weighted or the organism just doesn't care, randomness may swing the issue. My thinking, and thus the gist of what I am going to write is generally consistent determined by who I am. But I wonder if there is a random element to word choice, since I am so frequently frustrated at not recalling a particular word that I know exists, but has just slipped my mind. I have to make do with a less apropo phrasing, when I know I could do better. It is not like the word is permanently gone, because there are often aha moments later, when I suddenly recall and recognize a word as the one I had wanted. Could it be that the poorer working of memory such as this with age, involves a process operating with less of a margin above the quantum randomness?

Posted by: Knockgoats | June 29, 2009 7:59 AM

The palestinians are not fighting oppression, they are fighting for the right to oppress not just their own, as they are want to do in Gaza, - africangenesis

Yeah, all those wicked Palestinian children oppressing their own. Disgusting.

but unsatisfied with that, they are oppressing others in Isreal as well.

True. Just like the poor are oppressing the rich, women are oppressing men, gays are oppressing straights, blacks are oppressing whites. Who's going to stand up for the rich white heterosexual men like poor, poor, oppressed africangenesis?

Posted by: John Morales | June 29, 2009 8:20 AM

KG, FWIW, I reckon AG really ain't worth your time. He's just, as we say here in Oz, 'stirring'.

Still, it's Pharyinguloid tradition to poke the trolls, I guess. So long as you know that's what you're doing.

Posted by: DGKnipfer | June 29, 2009 9:47 AM

Damn, I'm gone a week and PZ unleashed the flying monkeys in his pants. See what you miss out on when you take a week off.

Posted by: Lynna | June 29, 2009 10:26 AM

Cuttlefish @244: great free will poem -- truly enjoyed that one, especially the inclusion of ars poetica references. Well done.

Posted by: a_ray_in_dilbert_space | June 29, 2009 10:45 AM

Knockgoats,
As I am not advising anyone who actually has any power on the Middle East, I'm not sure how you could consider my suggestion a "demand". The point is that the current situation is only advancing the agendas of the extremists. What is more, the Palestinians don't have a monopoly on victimhood. I rather doubt whether teenagers in pizza joints care that much about annexing land in the West Bank. That's the problem with terror--the chances of hurting those who are responsible are nil.

Right now, the Palestinians and Israelis are like a bad marriage where the couple refuses to just sign a divorce decree because they feel like their spouse will get the better of them. The facts as I see them are:

1)There is a minority in Israel who are bound and determined to take as much land as they can, either for material gain or for religious reasons. While their numbers are small, they are dominant politically in part because of the stalemate.
2)The majority of Israelis would gladly sign most if not all of the West Bank away in return for real peace. Maybe not Jerusalem, maybe not ALL of the settlements, but most of the West Bank and all of Gaza
3)There is a minority Palestinians who will not be satisfied until they push the Jews into the sea.
4)The majority of Palestinians, though, would settle for real peace if they at least had a homeland where they could sleep in their own beds without fear of Israeli's bulldozing down the house around their head.
5)Israel isn't going away.
6)The Palestinians aren't going away.
7)The status quo is merely reinforcing the extremists.
8)The people with the power are rarely willing to make changes because they perceive they have more to lose.
9)Those who are most desperate are precisely those who can make changes because they perceive they have less to lose. It's not right. It's not justice. It is how progress gets made, though. Do you think it was easy for Mandela to shake deKlerk's hand?
10)Let me know when there are more Palestinian voters in the US than there are Jewish and conservative Xtian voters.

We have peace today--or a sort--in South Africa. To get that peace, they had to settle for Truth and Reconciliation rather than demanding justice. We have peace today--of a sort--in Northern Island. To get that, politicians had to sit across from and work with men they considered murderers. The compromises involved were not made because the participants were weak, but rather because the were strong enough to put the welfare of their people above "winning". I think the Palestinians would show similar strength if they channeled the spirit of Gandhi or Martin Luther King (or Badshah Khan, if you want a Muslim example) that they will by channeling Arafat or Abu Nidal.

Posted by: RamblinDude | June 29, 2009 11:53 AM

I'm still going to "think", to "make decisions", to believe I have choice - to use higher thinking and critical thinking skills to weigh up options and act on what I see as the best option. Even if that is just neurons firing in my brain that's causing me to do these things, it's still my brain, that's me making the decisions - even if those decisions are nothing more than a blind process of interaction among a particular kind of cell.

This is pretty much where I am, too.

There is another aspect to this that I find interesting. There seems to be a compulsion when thinking about the nature of free will, to feel that if we’re not really free to choose our next action then nothing matters. There’s a psychological feeling of being imprisoned that we rebel against. While it may be true that, ultimately, nothing matters, it doesn’t follow that lack of choice is the cause, as intelligent decision-making is ultimately choice-less, anyway. Only when there is confusion do we wonder what to do. When there is accurate perception, the proper course of action becomes obvious. This is our intelligence at work—eliminating choices.

So how far can one take this?

We embrace the cultivation of intelligence as a good thing. Most of us strive for greater perception, better understanding, but this greater awareness leads to decreased confusion, which in turn leads to less choices to make, not more. The truth sets you free—and reduces your options!

Posted by: a | June 29, 2009 12:42 PM

a_r_i_d_s:

You're still making the same assumption of symmetry. To elaborate on Knockgoats spousal abuse analogy, you're pointing out that you can't possibly expect the man to stop beating his wife until he's absolutely sure she won't burn a roast sometime in the future.

Israel has the upper hand in the situation. The only reason the Palestinians haven't been firebombed into oblivion under the current regime is international pressure, weak as it is. You say both sides need to make concessions, but in such an asymmetrical situation Israel is in the best position to do so without endangering itself in the process.

Posted by: Patricia, Queen of Sluts OM | June 29, 2009 1:07 PM

Windy - I'll be at the Saturday Market in front of Full Sail Brewery. (Don't tell anyone, but we'll be so close to the Chimps secret lair you can almost smell the bacon.)

Posted by: Knockgoats | June 29, 2009 1:46 PM

a_r_i_d_s,
Difference between the terms "God" and "free will": the latter has a coherent interpretation as a real property of undamaged human beings past infancy, entirely consistent with a causally closed material universe: in brief, the behavioural and cognitive flexibility that allow us to formulate, pursue and revise goals, anticipating and avoiding obstacles, and dealing with unanticipated contingencies as they occur. Read Freedom Evolves!

I'd be interested in your response as a physicist to my #273.

Posted by: Janus | June 29, 2009 2:05 PM

If Israel makes concessions, Muslims will ask for more. And if Israel makes too many concessions and finds itself in a position of weakness, Muslims will either annihilate it or subjugate it. They might do the latter even if there are no concessions, of course, merely as a consequence of demographics and misguided tolerance on the part of certain Israelis.

Many Jews and Muslims are guided by scary ideologies, but there's scary, and then there's SCARY. Ultimately, Zionism is about self-preservation. Traditional Islam is about the subjugation of all infidels under Islamic law, with a good dose of murderous anti-semitism thrown into the mix.

Posted by: Anonymous | June 29, 2009 2:18 PM

And there's zero chance there will be international pressure as long as the yahoos on the Palestinian side insist on lobbing rockets and strapping on suicide vests.

A claim quite contrary to the evident facts ... and those facts are related to what Knockgoats has pointed out -- rational people expect victims to fight back. The yahoos are people like you who treat the victims of Israeli aggression as equally morally culpable. Not only are their circumstances wildly different, but the number of deaths is grossly disproportionate. It's also worth noting that only a tiny fraction of Palestinians lob rockets or put on suicide vests; your collective punishment of the Palestinian people (by withholding support for their freedom due to the actions of a few) is morally criminal.

Posted by: Anonymous | June 29, 2009 2:27 PM

Do you really expect Israel to sit down with Hamas when the latter has as a plank in its charter the destruction of Israel?

There are many sane Israelis who would do exactly that, but they didn't win the election. I've never quite understood the level of stupidity it requires to so misunderstand political reality as is reflected in your question.

Posted by: a_ray_in_dilbert_space | June 29, 2009 2:45 PM

Knockgoats,
Quantum Mechanics doesn't get really wierd until you get to measurement. It's the least satisfying part of the theory. It's also where all the woo seeps into the theory--from reputable physicists as well as new-age sewage types.

It's not really the indeterminism of quantum mechanics that gives the problems. Take a concrete example of an entanglement experiment:

Suppose we have 2 spin-1/2 electrons that interact with each other to form a spin 0 state. Now we trap our electrons with a magneto-optic trap and carry them to opposite sides of the galaxy. There is no way they can causally interact. All we can say is that if we measure the spin of one electron, the other must have the opposite spin.

However, quantum mechanics says that UNTIL we measure the spin, it doesn't have a definite value--each electron is half spin-up and half spin-down, or half spin-right and half spin-left. The thing is, though, it can't be both, because the operators for spin-up/down don't commute with the operators for spin-right/left. So if we know we have spin-up, our spin-right/left is maximally uncertain (half left, half right). (Sorry if this is tedious or review.)

Now our scientists on the opposite side of the galaxy measure the spin up or down. Simultaneously, we measure the spin right or left. They get spin up, so they know our spin must be down. We get spin right, so we know their spin must be left. Now, neither of us knows the other's results, but it looks as if we've just violated the uncertainty principle, or caused information to travel faster than the speed of light. We haven't really, since neither of the experimental groups has all the information.

And the really weird thing is that they've done measurements very like these (across campus rather than the galaxy), and half the time they get spin right, half spin left--just as quantum mechanics would predict if they had measured the up/down spin first, collapsing the wave function of the first particle into the spin up state.

If you move free will out of the equation, then the whole thing can be determinate, and the quantum mechanical indeterminacy merely represents our lack of knowledge. It's either that, or there's no physical world underlying the measurements or the Universe is noncausal. This is one of the reasons why Bohr said anyone who wasn't disturbed by quantum mechanics hadn't understood it.

Posted by: sikiş | June 29, 2009 3:10 PM

That can mean that the identical pronunciation may be "brytning" for one person (they learned it as a second language) and "accent" or dialect for another (they're monolingual but from an immigrant family, say).

Posted by: CJO | June 29, 2009 3:28 PM

To my (admittedly amateur) way of thinking, a lot of the supposed spookiness of quantum mechanics is a perception caused by a category error. Quantum-scale objects exhibit all kinds of properties that classical-scale objects don't and can't, but why do we expect that they should? The simplest answer is that quantum-scale objects shouldn't be considered objects at all, and we should quit expecting them to act like objects at a classical scale.

An example would be entanglement. If you consider two entangled particles, no matter how separated by distance, a single system, the seeming spookiness of "communication" between them goes away. There are not two objects between which information must travel, there is a single system that can theoretically be the size of the universe. Still spooky, perhaps, but no more so to me than the vast emptiness "inside" all atoms that can yet form solid substances.

Posted by: Janus | June 29, 2009 3:53 PM

I strongly recommend Eliezer Yudkowsky's An Intuitive Explanation of Quantum Mechanics.

Posted by: a_ray_in_dilbert_space | June 29, 2009 9:26 PM

CJO and Knockgoats, the point is that, yes, the quantum world is different and that categories of our perceptions, such as particle and wave do not apply, but those are the categories we have for perceiving the world. We don't have a category that perceives the photon as it is.

And while this might seem trivial, you have to remember that one of the theories by which we understand the world is inherently local--general relativity--while the other is inherently nonlocal. So, the wierdness really does have some important manifestations.

Posted by: Anonymous | June 29, 2009 11:08 PM

CJO and Knockgoats, the point is that, yes, the quantum world is different and that categories of our perceptions, such as particle and wave do not apply, but those are the categories we have for perceiving the world. We don't have a category that perceives the photon as it is.

As CJO said, this is a category error. QM is understood by modeling it, not by perceiving it, and limiting the models to those of human perception is inadequate.

Posted by: africangenesis | June 30, 2009 2:22 AM

Knockgoats#270,

"Yeah, all those wicked Palestinian children oppressing their own. Disgusting."

Of course, the blame belongs with the parents who couldn't resist the subsidies to their food and shelter and the lure of being able to have children at other peoples expense. I would much rather have been investing my resources in my own children than subsidizing their terrorism, i.e., the basic right of mammalian existence. These Palestinians are not like the victims of the Iron Curtain. They don't have to traverse mine fields or dodge bullets while trying to emigrate. They are among the worlds most fortunate oppressed, they are the voluntary oppressed, exploiting their own children. You should can you intergenerational racist attempts at a guilt trip.

Posted by: africangenesis | June 30, 2009 4:25 AM

Knockgoats,

You don't get to make up facts. There are far more palestinians outside the west bank and gaza than inside. What is left are the ones who chose to stay. The same tunnels used to smuggle weapons into Gaza can be used to smuggle people out. If they left palestine, they might have to get a job, like those who left before them. But even within these territories, they could choose tomorrow to start building factories and schools instead of launching rockets and live in peace.

You excell at namecalling, but not at backing it up.

Posted by: Jadehawk, OM | June 30, 2009 4:29 AM

These Palestinians are not like the victims of the Iron Curtain. They don't have to traverse mine fields or dodge bullets while trying to emigrate.

oh yeah, I vividly remember all those mine fields and bullets we had to dodge to emigrate. Oh, wait, that's not true. And no one launched rockets at our apartments or evicted us from our homes, either. Quite unlike what Palestinians have to go through.

You're racist lying scum.

Posted by: africangenesis | June 30, 2009 4:46 AM

Knockgoats,

It is a shame that immigration isn't open and legal. But that doesn't prevent 100s of thousands from emmigrating to the US each year. Yes the palestinians are stateless, although there is no reason they couldn't start issuing documentation, even the US supports a two state solution. If they emmigrated to Egypt or Jordan or any number of other countries, they might have to become "undocumented workers", but most of the workers in the third world are undocumented, falling far short of the Soviet Union's bureaucratic and police state excesses. I'd be happy to take all 2+ million into the US, if we could have real assurances they would give up terrorism and we would have to provide them health care. But I'd rather have the Israelis, they have been remarkably productive. They could make our deserts bloom, but I'd want them to give up their oppressive love affair with conscription.

Posted by: africangenesis | June 30, 2009 5:51 AM

windy,

It is easy to say there are no mammalian "rights". After all "rights" have no mass, you nihilist. My point wasn't a right to have children anyway, it was the mammalian characteristic of parental investment in their OWN children. Yes, Palestian's have been evolutionarily fit in growing their population, they have played the victim and sapped the resources of others quite well. I put the blame more on those others than on the palestinians. Like I said, the are among the most fortunate "oppressed" in the world, because they choose to stay and be oppressed voluntarily.

Posted by: africangenesis | June 30, 2009 6:49 AM

Windy,

I choose an offspring quality rather than quantity strategy. Until the palestinians living there want them rather than picking a fight with the Israelis whenever foreign aid starts to run low, it won't be a good place to build factories or schools. That is why the palestinian parents who really care for their individual children emmigrate.

Posted by: africangenesis | June 30, 2009 9:14 AM

Knockgoats,

Do try to make sense. If I ALWAYS side with the privileged, how is that "massively inconsistent", or consistent with my opposition to conscription of teenagers, or my opposition to discrimination of against those under 21 in regard to drinking? You can't just pull your favorite characterizations out of your hat and apply them to anyone you dislike. You should try to fit the facts at least, in order to preserve some credibility.

Posted by: africangenesis | June 30, 2009 9:37 AM

John Morales,

I agree that it was easier to emmigrate earlier. The Gaza palestinians have made themselves most unwelcome elsewhere. But perhaps they shouldn't all be blamed, the strip is hardly a democracy, but has been talibanized by a bunch of religious nuts. It is the leadership that should be punished, although the longer they control the media and the education system, they may be moving the general population in a direction incompatible with civil society.

Posted by: africangenesis | June 30, 2009 10:02 AM

Stephen Wells,

thanx, I see. But the second and third lines are only an inconsistency if it is the "lies" that I parrot. Surely, we are all free to relate the truth and insist on historical perspective. However, Knockgoats is specifically referring to something Windy pointed out. I don't see anything she pointed out that discussed Neocons or zionists, whether lies or truths or misunderstandings. I fear Knockgoats has his own version of the "truth".

Posted by: africangenesis | July 1, 2009 6:57 AM

Come on knockgoats,

I can revel in Bush's takedown of an oppressive state without being a supporter of a strong state myself. No contradiction there. I oppose the US strong state, but admit I wouldn't mind an affordable take down of the totalitarian regimes in Iran and N. Korea. From a historical perspective these take downs, like that of Iraq would be just in terms of both means and intent and hopefully there would be a reduction of the mild (compared to other wars) civil rights sacrifices domestically.