…and this is a 
Minnesota has more than a few local conservative wingnuts; there are a few very popular blogs emanating from these parts to testify that, and in addition, the major metropolitan newspaper, the Star Tribune, has a shrill blitherer they regularly put front and center who has most of us scratching our heads in wonder that they keep such an incompetent hack on the staff. All the Minnesotan readers here know already who I'm talking about, and I don't even need to mention her name…but for all of you lucky out-of-staters, I'll fill you in: it's Katherine Kersten. "Who?", you all say, and that's definitely the right attitude. But we locals have to deal with the spike in our blood pressure when we read the paper and stumble across her byline.
What brings up this keening harpy of the right today is that she published another of her inane columns this weekend, and her target is atheism. She doesn't like it, nosir.
More and more, we see outright hostility to religion -- particularly to Christianity. Consider the wild popularity of a recent spate of best-sellers by "New Atheist" superstars, including Richard Dawkins' "The God Delusion" and Christopher Hitchens' "God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything."
Far from being dispassionate critics of faith, the New Atheists are zealous crusaders for their own creed: materialism. They are passionately committed to the idea that the universe is a random accident, that transcendent truth is a myth, and that man's life has no inherent purpose or meaning.
Well, yes! I think that's great. There are no higher purposes discernible, but we happen to be here, so I think that looking for knowledge and value and even personal purpose in what is and what we are is far more sensible than asking a cold and mostly empty universe to whisper marching orders to us. Let's strip away imaginary cosmic dictators (who are always nothing but an Oz-like showpiece to empower little, petty, earthly dictators anyway) and search for meaning in how we live our lives and how we can better the world for our children.
I accept the simplistic summary of my premises, but you know that Kersten has to go a step further, and tell me why I think that way…and of course she gets it wrong. I don't think she actually has read the books she's complaining about.
Why the growing audience for notions like these?
Religion poses a serious challenge to our cherished idea of personal autonomy. Unlike our forebears, we define freedom as the right to live as we choose -- to "be ourselves" -- unconstrained by social norms or a morally grounded sense of guilt or shame.
Atheists may not believe in gods, but we do believe in social norms. We also believe in limits to our rights to live as we choose — much as I might like to, I appreciate that bulldozing my neighborhood so that I can turn it into a slug and snail breeding ground would impose on my neighbors' rights, so I don't do it. I even appreciate that maintaining happy and cooperative neighbors is a greater good than having my own personal escargot farm.
I should think Kersten might have noticed that Christopher Hitchens always seems to appear in public fully dressed…and even in clothes that are quite conventional. I wonder why, if he's unconstrained by social norms, he doesn't appear naked, or dressed up as a clown?
She might have also noticed that Richard Dawkins doesn't seem to have any pending arrest warrants (well, Oklahoma did try to criminalize him, but that's different). He also seems to have succeeded in working within the social norms of academia, which, contrary to wingnut delusions, is actually not an anarcho-socialist ultra-Darwinian environment.
It all seems rather obvious to me, but Kersten persists in denying the evidence to the contrary. This seems to be a universal property of the religious — after all, if you can believe with no evidence that dead gods have walked the earth and turned water into alcoholic beverages, it must be trivial to accept that fellow law-abiding citizens with similar cultural preferences must actually be slavering sociopaths and unconscionable hedonists.
But this is all Kersten has got, the raising of spectral straw-men atheists who lack all restraint.
Judeo-Christianity throws a wrench in this, teaching that universal standards of right and wrong trump our personal desires.
In addition, it raises troubling questions about the vision of scientific "progress," so central to our modern age. The mere fact that we are capable of, say, genetically altering or cloning human beings doesn't give us moral license to do so, it cautions.
I always like how these doctrinaire promoters of "Judeo-Christianity" primly declare that they have such moral authority, when their faith has such a poor track record of promoting morality. Christians have advocated slavery, have murdered people for the awful crime of miscegenation, have decreed that people who don't have the kind of sex they prefer are second-class citizens. Christians are thieves, murderers, rapists, and jay-walkers; it seems that having a belief in a transcendent authority actually doesn't equate to being necessarily law-abiding and ethical or even, shocking as that may be, immune from the temptations of their natures.
I would very much like to see the Judeo-Christian documents that caution us about genetic alterations and cloning. These aren't very biblical concepts, you know — there's nothing in Leviticus about them. These are new phenomena, and the scientists who have worked on them haven't necessarily been Christian or Jewish…yet somehow we've worked out that there are moral challenges in the technology without any dictates from burning bushes or salamanders handing out golden tablets.
Funny, that. You'd almost think that people were autonomous agents who recognized perils and responsibilities, and worked out among themselves what kinds of behaviors were right and would lead to less troublesome futures.
The entirety of Kersten's piece is full of these nonsensical examples.
What, for example, is the source of the bedrock American belief in human equality? It has no basis in science or materialism. Some people are brilliant, powerful and assertive, while others can't even tie their shoelaces. If "reason" alone is the standard, the notion of equality appears to be nonsense.
How can I even sort out that godawful muddle?
A belief in human equality also has no basis in the Judeo-Christian literature, which endorses inequity everywhere: there are "chosen" people, there are slaves, there are the righteous and the wicked, the crippled are excluded from the temples, the women are inferior chattel, the foreigners may be slain or enslaved.
Kersten herself asserts that equality is a "bedrock American belief", and then goes on to show that she doesn't really believe it — some people are brilliant, and others are stupid, and reason demonstrates that (to which I would add, so do Katherine Kersten's columns…at least, they expose the latter half of her comparison).
Equality does not mean that everyone is a clone of each other with identical abilities, which would be in contradiction to reason and evidence. It is equality of opportunity that we are assigning — everyone should have the same rights and be granted the same chance to exercise their abilities as best they can. And that is something entirely compatible with reason.
And why should we act with charity toward the poorest and weakest among us? "Reason" -- untempered by compassion -- suggests that autistic children and Alzheimer's sufferers are drags on society. In ancient Rome, disabled babies were left on hilltops to die. Why lavish care and resources on them?
We Americans take the moral principles of equality and compassion for granted. Yet these ideas are deeply counterintuitive. We've largely forgotten that their source is the once-revolutionary Judeo-Christian belief in a loving God, who created human beings in his image and decreed charity to be the first of virtues.
Why do these wackjobs always assume that reason and compassion are antagonistic? Reason tells me that it is a smart idea to be compassionate to the less privileged: maybe they have some ability that my society would find useful, to be pragmatic about it; there is no reason to assume that if someone is destitute, I must therefore do what I can to make their life more miserable; someone may be poorer or weaker than I am, but in turn, I'm poorer and weaker than someone else — does this warrant that I suffer? I also possess empathy, and when I see others harmed, I feel an echo of that pain myself. And, of course, perhaps someday I will have Alzheimer's, and I'd rather not encourage the growth of a culture that would someday discard me.
I also think there are a set of ideas that are entirely the product of reason: that we should build a whole culture that enables and sustains equal rights and equal opportunities for everyone, because that will maximize the happiness and productivity of our society. I really don't need a deity to tell me that, and it rarely seems to be a message promoted by religious hierarchies.
There are even more curiosities in that passage. Why does the right always talk as if Americans are exceptional? Do the French lack compassion, maybe, or are Canadians opposing equal rights for women and gays and Hispanics? It's as if Kersten thinks moral principles are unique to this country.
And guess what: compassion and equality are not counterintuitive. Well, at least not among people who are not brought up with right-wing religious values. Children brought up in healthy, loving families seem to naturally share their toys, love puppies and kittens, and socialize well with other kids…all without reading books about it, or receiving psychic messages from angels. The source of these ideas isn't Judeo-Christian at all: I've seen no evidence that Chinese children, for instance, are amoral beasts (well, no more so than any other kids), or that Inuit adults are unfeeling and don't believe in justice.
We do have intrinsic natures that have been necessary to our success as a species: empathy, and the tendency to respond in kind to the actions of others. These can be accentuated by culture. We don't need any gods to be good to others, just the opportunity and the examples of our upbringing.
Ah, well. That's enough, you can see what level of ignorance went into Kersten's complaints — she continues on to invoke Hitler, of course (he was trying to replace Christianity with reason, would you believe) and eugenics, which she claims is what happens when science is unconstrained by religion.
This is what readers of the Star Tribune have to groan over week after week. I really pity them, although it's also the kind of thing that contributes to the decline of newspapers — pandering to ideology instead of intellect puts them on a par with propaganda organs.
Comments
Posted by: Glen Davidson | June 8, 2009 5:13 PM
With that, and without the rest of her overwrought nonsense (the rest of the sentence, for one), she's not that far off. Of course the enforced conformity of religion is one of the reasons we don't like it.
PZ:
Um, I don't know about that, especially in the examples of the autistic and Alzheimer's victims. We have to appeal to human social instincts if we're going to give a "reason," not invoke something that is improbable in the extreme in many examples.
Glen D
http://tinyurl.com/6mb592
Posted by: Michelle R
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June 8, 2009 5:15 PM
I have one thing to say to this Lady.
Read the damn bible you supposedly preach and love, woman. You obviously failed to do so...
Why do atheists know the bible better than these wackaloons?!
Posted by: Looseleaf | June 8, 2009 5:18 PM
Very well said. I would quibble about columns like hers being "the kind of thing that contributes to the decline of newspapers — pandering to ideology instead of intellect puts them on a par with propaganda organs." If pandering to ideology is, or ever has been, a problem for newspapers, we would never have seen the success of the tabloids or, indeed, any yellow journalism at all.
Newspapers in print form are in decline because news and a lot more has become free on the Intertubes. Pandering to ideology has nothing to do with it and, in fact, probably sells better than reasoned intellectual inquiry, wouldn't you think?.
Posted by: AK47 | June 8, 2009 5:20 PM
Shhhhhh!!! Didn't you get the memo from Mooney? You're not supposed to criticize the religious! It's bad strategy!!!
Posted by: littlejohn | June 8, 2009 5:21 PM
Not only has she not read the Bible, I'd wager a hefty sum she has never read any of the "new atheist" books she reviles. I'm guessing, in fact, that reading generally isn't her strong point. I wonder how good she is at tying her shoelaces.
Posted by: Cliff Hendroval | June 8, 2009 5:23 PM
Meanwhile, Newt Gingrich claims that us poor Americans "are surrounded by paganism".
Why don't those mean old pagans leave America alone and go pick on Norway?
Posted by: Zeno | June 8, 2009 5:24 PM
I daresay that Kersten is quite proud of her specious arguments and rambling rant. ("I'll show those damned God-deniers!") But she's making stuff up from nothing. (Ex nihilo. Does she thinks she's God?) It does, however, have some entertainment value. But a ground-breaker she is not.
A scruffy little believer at Fresno State outdid her several years ago. Kersten is way behind the curve.
Posted by: DavidD | June 8, 2009 5:26 PM
Great response, PZ. I would guess that the Star Tribune wouldn't publish this piece, but have you sent it off to them? Oops. I guess they wouldn't want people to actually think about the issue.
Posted by: Scote | June 8, 2009 5:31 PM
"Judeo-Christianity throws a wrench in this, teaching that universal standards of right and wrong trump our personal desires."
Ah, the the claim that Christianity provides moral absolutism. Funny, because in reality Christianity is a religion founded on moral relativism, founded on the idea that the Laws of the Pentateuch were for a certain time and a certain people, and we can ignore all those laws now in favor of the New Testament. What was immoral--eating pork, working on Saturday, etc.--is now moral. What was moral--sacrificing animals, killing witches, gay people, Sabbath breakers, being Jewish, etc.--is now immoral. Christianity **is** moral relativity.
Posted by: RobertDW | June 8, 2009 5:31 PM
Well, in the case of autism - speaking from experience, I don't put my son out to die of exposure because I love him, and I can afford (with assistance from the state) to care for him. I worry a lot of what will happen when he is an adult, but for now I can ensure he lives a happy life.
The Romans didn't put deformed and autistic children out to die out of religious duty. They did it because they couldn't afford not to. The religious trappings around it came into place to provide some sort of moral support - to make it easier to do this and survive yourself. Similar for the Inuit - in a culture that lives on the edge, you can't afford to take care of the permanently crippled or old, so you expel them from the tribe (or they leave by themselves). But with modern resources, the Inuit now look after the elderly instead of letting them die from exposure.
We provide care to these people because we can afford to, and because we've always wanted to. No religion required.
Posted by: daveau
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June 8, 2009 5:31 PM
Looking at her blog, she seems to be a little short on original ideas.
Maybe she's just there for balance. Too bad she's apparently never had an interesting experience.
Posted by: Feynmaniac | June 8, 2009 5:35 PM
Hunter-gatherer societies, which is how early humans societies would have likely been organized, tend to be fairly egalitarian. Far from being counterintuitive, I think people tend to naturally be for equality. The people at the top get the average citizen to accept the massive inequalities in society is by constantly drilling it into their heads that this is either unavoidable or even a good thing.
As for compassion, this is also older than the human species. Chimpanzees have been shown to be capable of this. Kersten doesn't know what she is talking about.
Posted by: Gregory Gadow | June 8, 2009 5:38 PM
An excellent rant, but I feel obligated to take exception to this, as there will no doubt be some Talibangelicals who use this as "proof" of their alleged persecution:
This seems to be saying that all Christians everywhere are thieves, murderers, et al., when this is clearly not the case.
Posted by: Longtime Lurker | June 8, 2009 5:38 PM
The fact that she was able to write this so soon after the revelations of widespread, endemic sexual abuse at the hands of the clergy in Ireland, and the assassination of a doctor by a "pro-lifer" here at home, is very telling.
Posted by: Ed B | June 8, 2009 5:40 PM
I may not be the brightest wick but they lost me at the 6000 year old earth thing... I still don't know where they came up with that number. That and the fact that most churches are fashion shows filled with hateful people. I don't know. Neither do they we're all guessing. I think I'll take an educated guess and think that the Bible was useful in it's day which was a couple of thousand years ago.
Posted by: Happy Tentacles
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June 8, 2009 5:41 PM
I'm glad I've never heard of her.
Posted by: Raiko | June 8, 2009 5:43 PM
What kind of person claims equality and compassion are counterintuitive?! Does she mean to say she feels that way and only her Christian peers (for there's no emphasis on equality and compassion in the bible) pressure her into acting as if she felt compassion?! What kind of sociopath slumbers behind that woman's facade?
Posted by: Red John | June 8, 2009 5:44 PM
"How can I even sort out that godawful muddle?"
Damn. It can't get much worse than godawful.
Posted by: JD | June 8, 2009 5:48 PM
Kersten's turbo tard manifesto clearly displays how purpose has been undeservedly conflated with religion for too long.
Posted by: Physicalist | June 8, 2009 5:50 PM
What percentage of the American prison population is atheist?
Posted by: Last Hussar | June 8, 2009 5:52 PM
Re: the snail farm. From reading various comments and blogs etc, there appear to be lots of US Americans who believe exactly they should be allowed to do this (well maybe not this precisely, but you get my drift), and B. HUSSEIN Osama and the rest of Big Gubmint stopping them is just Socialism. Look at the responses to
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/earthnews/5389278/Obamas-green-guru-calls-for-white-roofs.html
"It may be a good idea for hot countries to have white roofs" becomes "Liberal Socialists will force you to paint your roof white". Any idea from left of Limbaugh is a Socialist plot. Columbines on the internet make me scared of you. ("They can't all be nutters, surely. Look at PZ, he's not a nutter. So why do the US nutters post so much, given the tiny proportion of the Western population they are?")
Which brings me onto equality. Unfortunately too many people seem to think it is every one is equal. "Why should I have to listen to elitest scientists. My opinion is just as good as theirs". I've seen a theory (colloquial theory, not the scientific one) that says the coasts are 'blue' because that is where the liberals are waiting for the European and Japanese rescue boats.
During the American Civil War the notion that the soldiers fought for democracy caused all sorts of problems, especially early on in the Union army. "You are no better than me, so I won't take orders from you". Some Units were actually allowed to vote for CO's, that meant hard task masters were removed, and in one case a Jew, for being ,well, Jewish!
Posted by: Slaan
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June 8, 2009 5:52 PM
[quote]Christians are thieves, murderers, rapists, and jay-walkers[/QUOTE]
Hey, hey, hey! Leave us Jay-Walkers out of this! I'll have you know that the artful sport of cardodging is just the latest in a long-line of adrenaline sports: see Boulder Dodging, Chariot Racing, French Carriage Stopping and Execution Triathalon for just a few!
Posted by: Last Hussar | June 8, 2009 5:55 PM
Re: the snail farm. From reading various comments and blogs etc, there appear to be lots of US Americans who believe exactly they should be allowed to do this (well maybe not this precisely, but you get my drift), and B. HUSSEIN Osama and the rest of Big Gubmint stopping them is just Socialism. Look at the responses to
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/earthnews/5389278/Obamas-green-guru-calls-for-white-roofs.html
"It may be a good idea for hot countries to have white roofs" becomes "Liberal Socialists will force you to paint your roof white". Any idea from left of Limbaugh is a Socialist plot. Columbines on the internet make me scared of you. ("They can't all be nutters, surely. Look at PZ, he's not a nutter. So why do the US nutters post so much, given the tiny proportion of the Western population they are?")
Which brings me onto equality. Unfortunately too many people seem to think it is every one is equal. "Why should I have to listen to elitest scientists. My opinion is just as good as theirs". I've seen a theory (colloquial theory, not the scientific one) that says the coasts are 'blue' because that is where the liberals are waiting for the European and Japanese rescue boats.
During the American Civil War the notion that the soldiers fought for democracy caused all sorts of problems, especially early on in the Union army. "You are no better than me, so I won't take orders from you". Some Units were actually allowed to vote for CO's, that meant hard task masters were removed, and in one case a Jew, for being ,well, Jewish!
Posted by: t3knomanser | June 8, 2009 5:55 PM
I dispute the claim that atheists are materialist. I am anything BUT a materialist, no, I am an idealist, in the metaphysical sense (as opposed to the emotional sense the word is often used in). I do not believe there is a physical world, but that our experiences of a physical world are interactions not between physical objects but among informational entities.
What I am, however, and what these people really object to, is an empiricist and a skeptic. What I am not is a dualist, that is willing to explain events through unseen causes.
Posted by: Qwerty
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June 8, 2009 5:55 PM
Mea culpa - I've given up on religion, but I am still a....
jaywalker.
Anyhow, I always thought it was the Spartans who left the weak and sickly child on a hillside to die. This was a common practice in ancient Greece which may have had more to do with a lack of advanced medicine then any thoughtless cruelty.
This said, for those who've never heard of Ms. Kersten, this column is typical of her simplistic right wingnuttery.
Posted by: Slaan
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June 8, 2009 5:55 PM
[quote]Christians are thieves, murderers, rapists, and jay-walkers[/QUOTE]
Hey, hey, hey! Leave us Jay-Walkers out of this! I'll have you know that the artful sport of cardodging is just the latest in a long-line of adrenaline sports: see Boulder Dodging, Chariot Racing, French Carriage Stopping and Execution Triathalon for just a few!
Posted by: t3knomanser | June 8, 2009 5:59 PM
I dispute the claim that atheists are materialist. I am anything BUT a materialist, no, I am an idealist, in the metaphysical sense (as opposed to the emotional sense the word is often used in). I do not believe there is a physical world, but that our experiences of a physical world are interactions not between physical objects but among informational entities.
What I am, however, and what these people really object to, is an empiricist and a skeptic. What I am not is a dualist, that is willing to explain events through unseen causes.
Posted by: t3knomanser | June 8, 2009 6:02 PM
Owned by not reading instructions. Oops.
Posted by: Smoggy Batzrubble | June 8, 2009 6:03 PM
The prose... the prose... can't (gasp) see... whole world (choke) turning purple...
Still, she does supply an interesting 'found poem':
"Katherine Kersten: Crhapsody in Purple"
elite gatekeepers
warn shrilly
a new Dark Age is upon us.
outright hostility
wild popularity
Poisons Everything
zealous crusaders
passionately committed to
no inherent purpose or meaning.
universal standards
give us moral license
to embrace the New Atheist
the bedrock American
can’t even tie their shoelaces.
Why lavish care and resources on them?
deeply counterintuitive
Judeo-Christian belief
The signs aren’t promising.
vindictiveness and cruelty.
Judeo-Christian ethics
ended in massive bloodletting.
Posted by: William | June 8, 2009 6:04 PM
"Equality does not mean that everyone is a clone of each other with identical abilities, which would be in contradiction to reason and evidence. It is equality of opportunity that we are assigning — everyone should have the same rights and be granted the same chance to exercise their abilities as best they can. And that is something entirely compatible with reason."
Something I like to point out when this comes up in discussion, is that the Declaration, in saying "We hold these truths to be self-evident..." is not actually making the claim that these are supposed to be obvious statements! Rather, the passage is making a logical argument: "Our decision rests upon the following axioms..." which they then lay out, and proceed to declare the facts of the case.
More delicately, one might also put forth the claim that the invocation of a Creator as the source of rights was nothing more than a rhetorical formality; the modern equivalent would be more along the line that "all citizens of a nation, in equal measure, have rights to life, liberty," etc. The remainder of the Declaration's argument requires no hypotheses concerning the nature of a Creator or invoking any authority derived therefrom; it's little more than a rhetorical formulation.
Posted by: Spaulding | June 8, 2009 6:06 PM
I don't know about naturally; I think this stuff is the product of the upbringing you describe. The point is that it's just as easy to teach kids how to be sociable, generous, and compassionate without invoking those angels, invisible gods or eternal torments, etc.Posted by: K. Signal Eingang | June 8, 2009 6:08 PM
Worse still, it appears that she's conflating equality with charity.
In other words, in her view civil rights are a handout, something bestowed on the less favored out of the goodness of our collective hearts?
The woman sickens me. Perhaps she ought to take Paul's advice to heart and no longer suffer herself to teach. The rest of us have suffered enough.
Posted by: Kraid | June 8, 2009 6:10 PM
Damn. That article is hard to parse through, because I find myself stopping after -every- -single- -sentence- to mentally refute her garbage. It's an overload of bullshit.
Posted by: Bull of the woods | June 8, 2009 6:10 PM
Longtime lurker,first time poster. PZ your site is a wonderful discovery for me. As an atheist in rural Alabama we (my wife and I)are surrounded by the most ignorant attitudes you can imagine. Just today we received in the mail a flyer from,of all places the geocentric bible foundation.(www.geocentricity.com) I have never seen such nonsense. This is far and away the most wackaloon crap. I couldn't believe it was for real until went their website. Are these people serious? Anyway thanks for being an oasis in the desert.
Posted by: Kristine | June 8, 2009 6:12 PM
So what does Brillo Hair Kersten expect people to do about the alleged lurking atheist threat?
After all, when one invokes (as did Ben Stein) the spectre of Hitler and Stalin in speaking of these "lightweight" atheists (she may as well just have called us Brownshirts), one is not proposing mere conversion back to the one true god via gentle persuasion, is she? Otherwise, she would have written a different column.
Is she proposing that Christians (her particular form of Christians, that is - few people seem to pass muster with her) essentially "stop" us before we form the new Godless Tyrannical Horror, as we should have stopped Hitler at Munich, as they say?
What does she want people to do about us? What's Kersten's final solution - questionnaires at the office, mass firings, prohibitions against marrying and reproducing, hanging, stoning? And if not, well, why not? Does she and whoever doesn't deliberately dribble Pollock-like doodles in strategic places on her insufferably cheerful photo really have the strength of their convictions to go all Old Testament on atheist ass? And if they don't, why not STFU already?
What was the point of this column?
Posted by: Porco Dio
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June 8, 2009 6:12 PM
Dear Katherine,
These morals you claim to have a monopoly on and are so poorly understood by your ilk were most lucidly explained to me by Sam Harris thus: we define morals as that which promotes happiness in other beings.
Clearly religious people are immoral as they are most steadfast in that which is in their own interests or in the interests of their professed beliefs as told them by meaningless scripture or simply made up by whoever they regard as a moral, and thus immoral, authority.
The time has arrived when even people like you will understand that religion has less to say about how to live your life than even the most basic logic my 6 year old nephew can bring to bear on how to treat your fellow man well and live a meaningful existence.
Yours,
Porco di Minchia con Cazzo Dio
Posted by: Liveliest Crib
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June 8, 2009 6:15 PM
Michelle R:
By definition, we atheists tend to know the Bible better than its purported devotees. Reading the infernal thing turns them into one of us. {Gooble Gobble} ;)In all seriousness, though, I have known many religious people who only abandoned their faith because they bothered one day to begin reading the book for themselves, and discovering what was truly in it.
Posted by: marcus
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June 8, 2009 6:19 PM
@# 35I think she believes that we should be shunned, exiled, executed(not necessarily in that order).
Posted by: gaypaganunitarianagnostic | June 8, 2009 6:20 PM
Exposing infants was more a Greek that a Roman thing but many cultures did it. In the 18th and 19th centuries it was common to see inconvenient infants flouting down the Themes.
Posted by: steve | June 8, 2009 6:21 PM
@#10
Actually what the Inuit have these days are youth solvent abuse, a legacy of child abuse brought to you by the catholic church, abuse of women and children in family relationships and a suicide rate many times higher than the national norm.
The Canadian indian reservation system is designed to isolate indians and keep them from fully participating in Canadian society.
As late as 1962 the South African ambassador to Canada, W. Dirkseven-Schalwyck, made an extensive tour of reserves in western Canada, meeting churches and visiting agency headquarters and educational and agricultural facilities. The ambassador studied the form of band government, the relationship of the central state apparatus of Indian Affairs to the bands, and social and economic problems encountered on the reserves. The ambassador’s interest was in how the Indians were maintained in their “homelands,” and how the central state related administratively to their maintenance.
Ring any bells ?
So in a sense the Inuit are still living on the edge, just closer to it. I suspect the permanently crippled or old may have been better off in days of yore.
Posted by: Chris Davis
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June 8, 2009 6:23 PM
Point of order: La Kersten, being of the female persuasion, shouldn't ordinarily be referred to as a pillock - a term referring to the male generative organ.
Kathy is, more properly, a TWAT.
Posted by: marcus
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June 8, 2009 6:25 PM
@#41 A Twat! We vagitarians resemble that remark!
Posted by: CJO | June 8, 2009 6:25 PM
What was immoral--eating pork, working on Saturday, etc.--is now moral. What was moral--sacrificing animals, killing witches, gay people, Sabbath breakers, being Jewish, etc.--is now immoral. Christianity **is** moral relativity.
Purity codes shouldn't be equated with morality. The morality of Judaism as it developed into its rabbinical form in the 1st and 2nd centuries, side by side with the development of Christianity, was "Love God with all your heart and love your neighbor as yourself." Spot the difference.
Yes, of course, Christianity ditched the purity codes altogether as it morphed into a primarily gentile movement. But those were never equated with morality or ethical conduct. They were always focussed on the technicalities of the sacrificial cult and they became increasingly irrelevant and/or problematic for Jews as well, especially in the diaspora, as we can see in the writings of Philo of Alexandria, for instance, who argued for a metaphorical understanding of ritual purity, and was against even the literal necessity of circumcision, favoring the somewhat icky but presumably painless "circumcision of the heart." So earliest Christianity was not unique among Jewish sects for abandoning the traditional temple-cult trappings of ritual purity and opting for an ethical approach. The difference was that proto-rabbinical Judaism maintained some of the signifiers of the old covenant, while Christianity envisioned a new covenant, open to all without formal conversion to Judaism, signified by baptism and partaking of a ritual meal.
Posted by: Qwerty
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June 8, 2009 6:27 PM
Chris Davis @ #41
Shouldn't that be "ignorant twat?"
Posted by: Sarah | June 8, 2009 6:30 PM
The same screed was posted as an "Opinion" piece.
The commentary on that one is much more ... rational .... the the comments on KK's blog.
http://www.startribune.com/opinion/commentary/47071262.html
Posted by: marcus
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June 8, 2009 6:31 PM
@44 As opposed to what? An educated twat?
Posted by: Watchman | June 8, 2009 6:35 PM
Katherine Kersten, PhT.
Posted by: RobertDW | June 8, 2009 6:40 PM
Ed B @15:
The 6000 year number is one of the few rational aspects of YEC. The recipe is simple:
* start with an unshakeable belief in the Bible, especially Genesis, as the literal word of God.
* pin the birth of Christ at 4 BC (due to a clerical error in the 600s AD).
* take advantage of the fact that the Bible provides a lot of chronological data (e.g. so-and-so lived 734 years; King somedude reigned for 50; wandered in the desert for long enough to walk around the earth, proving that Jews get lost easily...)
* add some shaky mathematics
and hey, presto: an age for the Earth pops out. Different scholars have come up with different ages, but about 6000 years is common. Probably the most widely-accepted version is the Ussher Chronology, developed in the 1700s. According to the good Archbishop of Amargh, the Earth was created in the evening of October 22, 4004 BC. He also pinned Jesus as being born October 22 (not December 25) - 4000 years to the day after the Earth was made. Terry Prattchet has pointed out that this makes the Earth a Libra.
The takeaway point is this: if you believe Genesis to be a literal account, and the unerrant word of God, you must believe in a young-earth. The reverse is not true, but has a high correlation (albeit to other religions as well as Christianity).
Posted by: Newfie | June 8, 2009 6:41 PM
I guess that if there were no Jeebus or Yahwhatever, Katherine Kersten would be a murderous whore of Babylon.
Too bad she isn't Muslim.... her religion then, might make her keep her stupid mouth shut in public.
Posted by: Sastra
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June 8, 2009 6:43 PM
By saying that the concept of human equality "has no basis in science or materialism," Kersten's essentially claiming that one could not derive the principle of human equality from one's observations and studies of Nature -- a claim which the deists and theistic rationalists who founded the U.S. would certainly dispute. They believed that an understanding the Creator's will was best arrived at through reason applied to the world, and that it was special revelations which could justify what was 'contrary to nature.' As Jefferson pointed out, observation would conclude that men were not born with either saddles on their backs, or spurs so they might ride the ones with the saddles.
At the time, religion in general and Christianity in particular were being invoked in support of the Divine Right of Kings -- a view that made perfect sense to those who felt that we were only placed on this earth to learn to submit to authority. God is at the top of an innate cosmic hierarchy that reflects ruler and ruled all the way down. If revealed religion alone is the standard, the notion of equality appears to be nonsense.
This sort of shallow reasoning is too common. Human rights come from the Bible? Really? With all that talk about Christ as King and Lord and man rebelling against God his Master, they think heaven is democratic? You can't ground concepts like democracy and equality in "because this is the ORDER and COMMAND of the Divine King!" You can institute it that way, I suppose -- but you're not going to be able to explain it well.
Posted by: JV | June 8, 2009 6:45 PM
And for shame, all those atheist leaders being sued and criminally charged for sexually abusing all those children … . Oh right, it wasn’t all those counter compassionate/cooperation atheist buggering and raping the little children it was the comfortable christian moral absolutists !!
Posted by: Otto | June 8, 2009 6:48 PM
The poor dear knows how she would behave if not restrained by a god threatening to toss her into hell and thinks that the godless would act in the same way.
She is obviously quite ignorant and scared.
Posted by: RamblinDude
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June 8, 2009 6:54 PM
She reminds me of a commenter here called “Person” who posted on a thread last year or before, and who kept trying to get us to admit that we have no morality nor any need of it, and that the real reason we believe in evolution is so that we can sin. It’s one of the few times I’ve gotten riled while posting, but I finally lost my temper with him/her.
Of all the fairy tale lies perpetrated by religion, the idea that you can’t be a compassionate, altruistic person (let alone happy and fulfilled) without accepting Jesus as your lord and savior is one of the stupidest, and yet millions of people repeat it among themselves, and whoever else will listen, over and over and over again. Every Sunday, a million sermons are built around the theme. It tinges everything Fundamentalists do with a close-minded, supercilious fanaticism.
I’m glad atheism is on the rise; let’s make sure rationalism and critical thinking accompany it.
Posted by: Kate | June 8, 2009 6:56 PM
Ah, Pharyngula, my daily dose of satisfying rants against ridiculousness. I'm always amazed that I have to explain to people that it's possible to be atheist AND a morally upstanding person; it's not as though I run around kicking puppies, right?
@40: Now there's a great source of national shame. So many of the truly awful social problems endemic to First Nations communities in Canada have roots in religious institutions, and no current institutions, religious or secular, have been able to successfully help them recover in the long term.
Posted by: MrMarkAZ | June 8, 2009 6:57 PM
She'd call The God Delusion and God is Not Great a "recent spate?"
Someone needs to look up the definition of "current events," methinks.
Posted by: CMFlyer
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June 8, 2009 6:59 PM
Whoa. Without her Bible, she would be very dangerous.
Posted by: slang | June 8, 2009 7:00 PM
Good grief.. that says a terrifying lot about the one doing the reasoning.
Posted by: Sastra
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June 8, 2009 7:01 PM
By the way, I like this odd little contradiction:
Oh my, we do have a tricky line to walk, don't we? We shouldn't show 'hostility to religion' -- but we shouldn't provide a positive view either. That's crusading. We need to be dispassionate critics of faith, and criticize faith without actually being negative about faith.
If only atheists could be dispassionate critics of faith, then Christians would be okay with it. And we can't offer an alternative either, of course. Just criticize, but without passion. Then they'd buy and read our books. Katherine Kersten would have been happy to read a book like that. Must be why she refused to read the other sort, before reviewing them.
Posted by: Patricia, OM | June 8, 2009 7:01 PM
Pillock is now a days a stupid person. The word you meant by male member was pillicock which is no longer in common use. Of course the Ilk can snine it up and make it popular again.
I don't know what this Kersten woman can possibly hold against atheists, we're the bacon and beer crowd.
Posted by: Kate | June 8, 2009 7:02 PM
Ah, Pharyngula, my daily dose of satisfying rants against ridiculousness. I'm always amazed that I have to explain to people that it's possible to be atheist AND a morally upstanding person; it's not as though I run around kicking puppies, right?
@40: Now there's a great source of national shame. So many of the truly awful social problems endemic to First Nations communities in Canada have roots in religious institutions, and no current institutions, religious or secular, have been able to successfully help them recover in the long term.
Posted by: Chant | June 8, 2009 7:08 PM
Ahh yes, thank goodness that such people doesn't exist here in good ol' Denmark...
oh wait, they DO!
This makes me very sad :(
Posted by: co | June 8, 2009 7:08 PM
#59: Well, pillock is also a slang term for member, perhaps (nay, probably) from the same root (ahem) as pillicock, but the OED is uncertain on the point (ahem).
Posted by: 'Tis Himself, OM
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June 8, 2009 7:08 PM
Kersten claims:
Ken Lay and Oral Robers were Christians, Bernie Madoff is a practicing Jew. They didn't appear to learn the lessons that Judeo-Christianity supposedly teach. Jimmy Swaggert, Ted Haggard and Kent Hovind weren't paying attention in Sunday School either.
Posted by: JacobV | June 8, 2009 7:10 PM
And for shame, all those atheist leaders being sued and criminally charged for sexually abusing all those children … . Oh right, it wasn’t all those counter compassionate/cooperation atheist buggering and raping the little children, it was the comfortable christian moral absolutists !!
Posted by: Evolving Squid
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June 8, 2009 7:10 PM
I dunno... I could see bulldozing my neighbour two-doors down and creating a cephalopod aquarium on the site. But maybe that's just the atheist in my talkin' :)
Posted by: Basset_Fan
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June 8, 2009 7:11 PM
PZ wrote:
Thank You, PZ
In early 2006 my trophy wife, Missi, learned a friend of hers from high school was in need of a kidney transplant. She was tested and found to be a good match.
Kevin, the recipient, is a church going Catholic.
Missi, age 54, is an athiest and has been since her early teens.
She jumped thru all the required hoops and over the various hurdles involved in the process of becoming a live donor. It was not easy. When the people at Yale-New Haven tried to disqualify her due to a bad result on one of the tests, she fought them, insisted on being retested and passed with flying colors.
Due to a few things in Missi's medical history, this operation was going to be riskier for her than "normal" and the people at Yale were constantly reminding her that there would be no shame in her changing her mind and not going thru with it.
In October of 2006, she did go thru with it. Kevin has one of her kidneys and is doing great!!
Of course, he's still a Catholic, but he does have a little bit of athiest plumbing keeping him going. (And I suddenly find him strangely attractive.) ;-)
I'm very proud of my wife. When people try to play the "athiests have no ethics, morals or reason to be good" card, I take great pleasure in telling them about her willingness to put her life on the line for a friend - not because of belief in some god, but because it was the right thing to do. (I have to do the bragging, cuz she doesn't mention it unless someone else brings it up.)
And, while I'm at it, please open your mind to being tested and becoming a live donor. You, too, can give the gift of life.
Posted by: MadScientist
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June 8, 2009 7:13 PM
"How can I even sort out that godawful muddle?"
Oh, that's an easy one. If you're talking about historical documents around the time of the establishment of the USA, the "equality of men" was an idea popular in some types of French philosophy at the time. Basically, no person is born with special rights granted by sky fairies (divine right of kings). That's all, really. Other interpretations such as 'equality of opportunities' was a later development. Of course, following the line of arguments, the concept is also against slavery - the workaround of course is to say that slaves aren't human, a popular religious notion of the time.
Posted by: Feynmaniac | June 8, 2009 7:20 PM
Re: Canadian Native Reserves
Kate is right. This is a national shame. First Nations people face much higher rates of unemployment, crime, and substance abuse than other Canadians. They also have an 8 year lower life expectancy (Source). I was recently talking with my father about the third world Latin American nation he is from. I asked if they had Native reserves there and he responded "Yeah, but there much better than the ones here [in Canada]".
I used to live very near one. During a night of debauchery I ended up staying a night in the reserve. After returning my white friends were surprised I made it out. Perhaps being part Native (albeit Mesoamerican Native) was why I wasn't harassed.
/rant
Posted by: David Marjanović, OM | June 8, 2009 7:21 PM
:-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D
Hey, that's just an ordinary civics fail. Nothing to write home about.
Freedom is the most precious gift we offer our citizens.
– Tom Ridge, first Secretary of Homeland SecurityOf course.
And so are the flat-earthers.
There's even a Flat Earth Society in Australia!!!
You can always appeal to "all are equal before God". Many do it. Even revolutions have been justified by "I have no lord other than the Lord".
You can, in fact, read Scripture for your purpose, even if you're not the devil. :-)
Posted by: Qwerty
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June 8, 2009 7:22 PM
'Tis Himself @ # 63
Yea, it seems that there are a lot of Christians who don't play the Biblical trump card.
Posted by: Blake Stacey | June 8, 2009 7:25 PM
Among all the books of the Bible which Katherine Kersten has not read must surely number Genesis 30, in which Laban artificially engineers a population of speckled goats, with the approval (and perhaps the outright connivance) of God.
Posted by: FlameDuck | June 8, 2009 7:26 PM
Which I suppose is the main difference between you and Roman Catholic icons, like Al Capone and Pablo Escobar.Posted by: justlurking | June 8, 2009 7:33 PM
That was fucking beautiful, PZ. Well worth the 20 or so paragraphs.
Posted by: Last Hussar | June 8, 2009 7:35 PM
Basset Fan @66
Better he not read this then
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/8084936.stm
Posted by: Ichthyic | June 8, 2009 7:39 PM
Ah, the the claim that Christianity provides moral absolutism.
Which one of the 36000 sects of xianity has final authority then, I wonder?
I say we stage cage matches until only one remains!
Then THAT one can claim moral absolutism...
and the rest of us can finally get down to properly ignoring them without all the extra noise.
Posted by: MartinM | June 8, 2009 7:39 PM
Well, excuse me for existing. I'll just wander outside and die in the cold, since apparently society has no use for my abilities.
Posted by: Anton Mates | June 8, 2009 7:39 PM
...and if there's one culture which epitomizes the triumph of pure reason, it's ancient Rome! "The Vulcans of Antiquity," as the Romans are often called by classicists with severe brain damage.
Posted by: i_am_toast
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June 8, 2009 7:42 PM
Christopher Hitchens always seems to appear in public fully dressed…and even in clothes that are quite conventional. I wonder why, if he's unconstrained by social norms, he doesn't appear naked, or dressed up as a clown?
Or a giant bat, perhaps? Now that would be a comic worth writing...
Posted by: 'Tis Himself, OM
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June 8, 2009 7:42 PM
Basset Fan, your wife's one of the good folks. Cherish her.
Posted by: Bob Carroll | June 8, 2009 7:44 PM
@39: I'm curious- Which themes did they flout? :-) Bob
Posted by: Rorschach | June 8, 2009 7:44 PM
Yeah so??
:D
Posted by: Steve | June 8, 2009 7:47 PM
Lady, I'll believe that atheists are being treated as equals to christians when even >ONE
Ya know, if you'd just LEAVE US ALONE we wouldn't have a problem.
Posted by: Bob Carroll | June 8, 2009 7:47 PM
@39: I'm curious- Which themes did they flout? :-) Bob
Posted by: Roland Branconnier | June 8, 2009 7:49 PM
A suggested reading list for Ms. Kersten:
De Waal, F.B.M. Good Natured: The Origins of Right and Wrong in Human and Other Animals. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1996
Hartung, John. Love Thy Neighbor: The Evolution of In-Group Morality. Skeptic 3(4): 86-99, 1995
Hauser, Marc D. Moral Minds: How Nature Designed Our Universal Sense of Right and Wrong. New York: Ecco, 2006
Posted by: Roland Branconnier | June 8, 2009 7:52 PM
A suggested reading list for Ms. Kersten:
De Waal, F.B.M. Good Natured: The Origins of Right and Wrong in Human and Other Animals. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1996
Hartung, John. Love Thy Neighbor: The Evolution of In-Group Morality. Skeptic 3(4): 86-99, 1995
Hauser, Marc D. Moral Minds: How Nature Designed Our Universal Sense of Right and Wrong. New York: Ecco, 2006
Posted by: Anton Mates | June 8, 2009 7:53 PM
Martin Luther on disabled children:
-------------------------------------------------
In 1540 came the notorious reported discussion about a strange 12-year-old boy at Dessau, who was said to do nothing but eat voraciously and to excrete.
"Luther suggested that he be suffocated. Somebody asked, "For what reason?" He {Luther} replied, "Because I think he's simply a mass of flesh without a soul. Couldn't the devil have done this, inasmuch as he gives such shape to the body and mind even of those who have reason that in their obsession they hear, see, and feel nothing? The devil is himself their soul."
................
Could Luther have suggested suffocating the boy on the grounds that there was really no boy there at all, but only a devil in the shape of a child? Apparently Luther did sometimes credit such stories, as he wrote in his second commentary on Galatians (1535), explaining the craft of the devil:
"Through his witches, therefore, he is able to do harm to children, to give them heart trouble, to blind them, to steal them, or even to remove a child completely and put himself into the cradle in place of the stolen child. I have heard that in Saxony there was such a boy. He was suckled by five women and still could not be satisfied. There are many similar instances."
-------------------------------------------------
Damn hyperrationalist atheists, always neglecting disabled kids on the grounds that they're minions of Satan.
Posted by: SwedishGuy | June 8, 2009 7:54 PM
Guys, just a quick Question to you all.
To the comment about CHARITY etc which this woman commented on, Does she know that the United States is one of the LOWEST AID GIVERS in the world?
And that the MOST SECULAR NATIONS on the planet, Like Sweden, Denmark, Norway etc are the HIGHEST AID GIVERS....
Anyone? I am surprised Myers did not point this out.......
Posted by: 'Tis Himself, OM
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June 8, 2009 7:55 PM
Steve #82
That's the thing, they don't want to leave us alone. They feel commanded by The Big Guy In The Sky to proselytize until we believe exactly like they believe. That's why they push for things like Proposition 8 and teaching creationism in school. If they don't want GLBT people to get married, then nobody should think GLBT people should get married. If they believe the Earth is 6000 years old, then everybody should believe the same thing.
Posted by: Stardrake
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June 8, 2009 7:57 PM
Just FYI for the non-Strib readers, Kersten is also one of the founders of our local conservative "think" tank, The Center For The American Experiment.
Given her hatred of science, one wonders why they used that name....
Posted by: Owlmirror | June 8, 2009 8:02 PM
Fixed.
But that's an interesting point. They weren't speckled before Jacob started messing about with speckled sticks, so he must of engineered them so.
Of course, if it's with God's approval, that makes it all OK. See, it's playing God without God's approval that's wrong.... Or something like that...
Posted by: Jam | June 8, 2009 8:04 PM
Atheists don't inherently share any beliefs PZ, you're outside your authority to declare that atheists believe in social norms.
Even if 100% of atheists believe in some social norms, that qualifier ("some") is what would give that statement truth. I'm atheist and there are very few social norms to which I whole-heartedly subscribe.
Posted by: Jam | June 8, 2009 8:06 PM
Atheists don't inherently share any beliefs PZ, you're outside your authority to declare that atheists believe in social norms.
Even if 100% of atheists believe in some social norms, that qualifier ("some") is what would give that statement truth. I'm atheist and there are very few social norms to which I whole-heartedly subscribe.
Posted by: Basset_Fan
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June 8, 2009 8:10 PM
Last Hussar @74 - He's already commented that getting Missi's kidney has made him a nicer guy, so I don't think he's too concerned about any personality transfer.
Tis Himself @79 - I do cherish her. Thanks.
Posted by: Nominal Egg | June 8, 2009 8:15 PM
Damn. I hope you don't live in my neighborhood.
Posted by: 'Tis Himself, OM
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June 8, 2009 8:17 PM
Jam #91 & #92
Reading notices that say "Do not resubmit your post" appears to be one of the things you don't subscribe to.
Posted by: Michelle R
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June 8, 2009 8:22 PM
@Liveliest Crib #37: I agree, the bible's the best way to become an atheist... for someone with decency. Some people still read the thing exulting in its glory and so called righteousness... These people are not really my friends.
I became a full fledged atheist (before I was just sorta...blank on the subject)only when I read the bible from a cover to the other after a chat with a christian internet buddy.
Posted by: Ranger_Rick
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June 8, 2009 8:33 PM
I (and I'm sure other Minnesota atheists) have been patiently waiting for that lancing of KK to happen, PZ. Nice job!
Who are the editors that give her "opinions" the go ahead to be published? Next target, please?
Posted by: vhutchison | June 8, 2009 8:52 PM
A minor point on the statement that 'Oklahoma did try to criminalize him' in regard to the resolution in the Oklahoma House of Representatives against Richard Dawkins. It was only a single Republican fruit cake that introduced the resolutions against Dawkins AND the University of Oklahoma Department of Zoology. These resolutions were his alone and not co-authored. Any legislator can introduce resolutions. Neither resolution received a vote on the House floor or elsewhere and they died with adjournment of the legislative session.
So, please don't blame the whole state for this one idiotic act. We have lots to complain about here in this most red of states, but for the tenth year in a row, all creationist and anti-science bills did NOT become law.
Posted by: Julie Stahlhut | June 8, 2009 9:09 PM
Every time I see someone insist that life has "meaning" or "purpose", I reach for the off switch.
Words and sentences have meaning. Novels, films, and poems have meaning. We're people, not symbols or artworks.
Appliances and other machines have a purpose. We're not machines.
As humans, we like to feel a sense of comprehension and purpose. But almost anyone, religious or not, can have those feelings. And the idea that we have "meaning" or "purpose" separate from context is -- well, meaningless and purposeless.
Posted by: Dahan | June 8, 2009 9:11 PM
Silly bitch.
Posted by: anon | June 8, 2009 9:13 PM
"if you can believe with no evidence that dead gods have walked the earth and turned water into alcoholic beverages"
Hey, if I understand the idea of transubstantiation, it's a dead god turning himself into an alcoholic beverage (and a cracker, of course).
Posted by: Cliff Hendroval | June 8, 2009 9:19 PM
Basset Fan @ 64:
Your nick already prove that you (literally) side with the underdog, so you're wife's choice isn't that surprising.
I have to admit, I've only volunteered parts of myself to people I know personally who have needed them. One is of unclear religious background, the other is a good liberal old-line Protestant.
Posted by: natural cynic | June 8, 2009 9:20 PM
Well, there actually is:
Gal 3:28 - There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus
but then, again, Paul has it both ways - "you are all one", but there are still slaves. And there's always Paul's attitude towards women...
Posted by: Susan | June 8, 2009 9:23 PM
While I was searching around to find the "right" relgion I discovered that there were no gods who met my high moral standards!
Re: Neighbors......my husband once said he was going to put a sign in front of the neighbor's house that said "For Sale By Neighbor."
Posted by: RamblinDude
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June 8, 2009 9:31 PM
We need religion to be moral?!
Pastor Drake prays for Obama's death.
WTF?
Posted by: DLC | June 8, 2009 9:38 PM
Oh, but didn't you know, it was Thor or Odin or Zeus who created the code of morality and that you're just hating them when you claim they do not exist ?
It's all so simple. . . So mind-shakingly neuron-apoptosing
simple. now, if I bashed my head against the brick wall over there I might come to agree with it before dying of a subdural hematoma.
Posted by: Bckcntry | June 8, 2009 9:44 PM
I heard a interesting radio program where the interviewee (I can't recall her name) demonstrated that the bible teaches that morals do not come from god.
She uses the story of Soddom and Gemorrah. First she points out that god doesn't want to destroy them because they're getting laid, or are gay, but rather, they practice gang-raping guests to death (which is pretty shitty any way you look at it).
Anyway, god tells Abraham that he's going to kill all these people, and Abraham is like, "Well what if there are 50 rightous people? Are you going to kill them?"
To which god replies, "Alright, if there's 50 righteous people I'll spare them."
Abraham then says, "What if there's 45 people?"
The point she's making, is that it isn't god with the morals in this situation. He's just going to kill all these people. It's Abraham, the patriarch of the three big western religions, the guy who, up to this point had done everything god had asked of him, who's like, "Whoa man. What the fuck? That isn't cool." Abraham is giving god lessons in ethics.
Posted by: Rojosal | June 8, 2009 9:49 PM
What, for example, is the source of the bedrock American belief in human equality?
A bedrock American belief? How long ago was segregation? How along ago that gays could not marry?
Posted by: Smoggy Batzrubble | June 8, 2009 9:50 PM
RamblinDude @ 105
Wow dude! Amazing. Pastor Drake just set a whole now standard for wackaloonery.
"Ah'm prayin' an imprecatory prayer fer th' deeyath of praysident Obumma."
I couldn't even carry that off as satire. What an evil and delusional fucker. He sounds like he stepped right off the set of 'Deliverance.'
Pastor Drake's Paranoid Delusions Provide Demonstrable Proof of Perverted Deviance.
Posted by: CelticGoddess | June 8, 2009 9:59 PM
OMG, some fuckwad in Oklahoma wanted to make Richard Dawkins illegal? Holy shit, get me the hell out of here!!! I'm so glad at this moment that I wasn't born here and don't claim this backward state. I realize that the law didn't pass and it was just one idiot, but STILL, it's embarassing that someone even thought it up, much less had the balls to propose it in public. The sheer asshole-ness of some religious people makes me glad to be an agnostic and therefore not associated with them.
Posted by: Smoggy Batzrubble | June 8, 2009 10:14 PM
SMOGGY'S LETTER TO BRAVE PASTOR DRAKE
Dear Pastor Drake,
Bless you, Pastor, for your bravery in praying an imprecatory prayer for the death of President Obama. As you say, he's disobeying God and he deserves every nasty thing he gets. I'm sure we can all agree that God is love and that a few bullets in the presidential spine should stiffen it for Jesus.
You are indeed a courageous holy warrior Pastor, out there winning the world for Krist, Kristendom and the Kingdom, bravely inciting other brain-dead believers to murder and mayhem. I'm even more impressed when I factor in the handicaps you labour under. Just think what you'd be able to achieve if your family hadn't always married its cousins and your ears weren't ingrown.
Yours in holy hate-speech, s. Batzrubble
PS I've been practicing imprecatory prayers myself. If a large and terrifying man with a shaved head and tattoos on his eyelids should sweep you up onto his Harley and take you madly and passionately right there in the saddle, don't worry! He's my old cell mate Floyd Rubber and he's sharing with you his version of Christian love. In fact you can REJOICE, Pastor Drake, and be exceeding glad, for my exact imprecatory prayer will have been answered and you will have proved to the atheists that there really is a God!!
Posted by: Tex | June 8, 2009 10:17 PM
My god, PZ! Don't give him any ideas. Hitch is balanced on a knife edge, and not necessarily because he is an atheist. Still, anyone who would have himself waterboarded just for fun, hardly needs encouragement to appear naked in public. Think of the children!
Posted by: Jonathan | June 8, 2009 10:19 PM
You're preaching to the choir ;) saying all this on your blog, PZ.
Write an Op-Ed, see if they'll publish it. If they don't, shout! We'll write letter and emails.
After all, if they're as moral and accommodating as they say they are, wouldn't they allow you your side of the story?
Posted by: RamblinDude
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June 8, 2009 10:40 PM
Pastor Drake's Paranoid Delusions Provide Demonstrable Proof of Perverted Deviance.
Heh, yeah, that. Not to mention that he’s a pernicious douchbag with a propensity for discord and pointless divisiveness pandering to dumbasses.
Posted by: Smoggy Batzrubble | June 8, 2009 10:50 PM
"pernicious douchbag with a propensity for discord and pointless divisiveness pandering to dumbasses"
Perfect Description!
You win!
Posted by: Pierce R. Butler | June 8, 2009 11:07 PM
... maintaining happy and cooperative neighbors is a greater good than having my own personal escargot farm.
Besides, wouldn't it be easier to work out a barter deal with Prof. Stemwedel?
Posted by: Ouchimoo | June 8, 2009 11:51 PM
Ugg! I'd rather you had posted a link to the actual StarTribune rather than KK's page. At least half the people on the StarTribune comments are rational. KK's page is just insane.
Posted by: raven | June 9, 2009 12:00 AM
This is simply witchcraft. Begging or ordering a supernatural entity to do one's bidding.
There really are satanists around. Most call themselves "fundie xians".
Posted by: elucifuga | June 9, 2009 12:13 AM
Celtic Goddess AKA Liz: Maybe newspapers do not reach Pawhuska, but that was news all over the state of Oklahoma, including papers in OKC, Tulsa, etc.
Posted by: Greta Christina | June 9, 2009 1:25 AM
Out of all the dreck, this for some reason jumped out at me:
Um... Did she really mean to say that? Is she really saying that the only people in the history of the human race who thought that standards of right and wrong trump personal desires have been either Jewish or Christian? Is she really saying that the histories of pre-Christian China, of pre-Christian India, of pre-Christian Africa, of the pre-Christian Native Americans in North and South America, are all just one big cesspool of selfish immorality?
Wow. Willfully ignorant, and grotesquely racist. She should get some sort of Fundie Loonball bonus.
Posted by: NoGurus | June 9, 2009 1:35 AM
"Unlike our forbears, we define freedom as the right to live as we choose...." What? The idea of being free to live our lives as we choose is the most important pillar of the American dream, and exactly why our forbears left the autocratic, enslaving, strangling Church of England. Our forefathers, our greatest presidents and statesman, explicitly rejected Christianity and its attempts at social control, and founded our country on that principle.
Adams, Jefferson, Franklin, Madison, Lincoln, all explicitly rejected Christianity. George Washington never took communion and rejected transubstantiation. James Polk was unaffiliated and never baptized when he was young because his father refused to affirm Christianity. Let's see, have I left anyone out after listing our greatest presidents? Theodore Roosevelt repeatedly enforced separation of church and state and FDR... non-religious. All right then, I have included our five greatest presidents, the writer of the Constitution, the Declaration of Independence and the Bill of Rights. "Unlike our forbears...."
I see.... they defined and wrote the law of the U.S., fought and sacrificed millions of brave lives for liberty and independence, so that people would NOT have the freedom to live as we choose. This country was never founded on religious grounds, in fact, the exact opposite. This is such an obvious statement based on the facts, but sadly, has to be repeated again and again as the unthinking, uncritical few try to mold reality to their delusions.
Posted by: Michael Hawkins | June 9, 2009 1:42 AM
The moral elite have it all wrong. Religion is a malleable source of philosophy which acts to abandon reason, thus promoting evil. It is, indeed, reason which leads to any real sense of morality or goodness.
Posted by: Patricia, OM | June 9, 2009 1:43 AM
Hitch could run around naked in front of me. :)
Posted by: TheVirginian | June 9, 2009 1:45 AM
Several things to point out.
The idea that Christians have a better track record on treating the handicapped decently is nonsense. Handicaps were usually seen as a punishment by God for something up until people began to understand the biological basis for birth defects. Even then, programs to neuter "defectives" were instituted in Christian societies with little or no opposition by churches. These policies were based upon scientific nonsense or bigotry, but I don't know of any organized church campaigns to block them. I recall a newspaper article some years ago about how Norway was apologizing to people who had been sterilized in their youth for being "defective" somehow. The story said one girl had been surgically sterilized for being "stupid" because she was so slow to learn in school. A year or two after the operation, teachers discovered she was only near-sighted; once she had glasses, she learned at a normal rate. This was the kind of idiocy Christians supported or tolerated.
As for Nazi Germany, it was a legally Christian nation under an officially Christian party led by a lifelong Christian. As for the Soviet Union, both Lenin and Stalin were brought up as Christians. While Lenin abandoned theism in his later teens (adopting a new belief system, communism, not atheism), Stalin was writing religious poetry in his 20s after attending a seminary, and talked about God to Winston Churchill in 1942!!!! When Churchill told him about Operation Torch, Stalin said that he hoped God would bless the Allies with success.
And then there's this. It's from an article I've been writing about Nazi Germany and Christianity:
Scholars Robert P. Ericksen and Susannah Heschel quoted a memoir of Treblinka death camp commander Franz Stangl who described how, in November 1940, he visited a hospital run by Catholic nuns; he said he had some qualms about killing the handicapped, but a priest and a mother superior both endorsed it; Stangl remarked, “… they thought it was right. Who was I then, to doubt what was being done?” Steigmann-Gall said: “In fact, not one public protest against euthanasia was ever launched by a Protestant churchman. [Catholics opposed it] … Whereas most Protestant churchmen could not be called active supporters of euthanasia, their ability to work actively against it was undermined …”
Finally, I've collected a number of quotes - I once gave a talk on this - about the Bronze Age origin of biblical morality. Bronze Age texts show a concern for equal justice, equal treatment of litigants no matter their class status, and include declarations of belief in welfare to the poor and needy. I've quoted one example below, from a Canaanite poem titled "The Legend of King Keret." Toward the end of the poem, when the king is elderly, his son and heir tells him it's time to step down because he's no longer fulfilling what the Canaanites considered to be the duties of a king. Ready?:
“Thou dost not judge the case of the widow
Nor adjudicate the cause of the broken in spirit
Nor drive away those who oppress the poor
Before thee thou dost not feed the fatherless
Nor behind thy back the widow.”
In other words, equal justice, welfare and activist/"socialist" government (a bit of sarcasm intended). If you look at what good Christians in Congress and on the Supreme Court have done in the past several decades, I would say that Canaanite morality is far superior to Christian morality. Kersten has history backward because her religion has dragged us down, not up!
Posted by: Mark | June 9, 2009 1:53 AM
@ 15 - Bishop Usher a fair few years ago, sat down with his bible and the geneologies in it , and worked out that creation was in October 4004 BC on a Sunday. That sort of thing is where the 6000 years ago comes from (i think)
Fear of your neighbors now seems to be a better stabilizing force in society than a fear of God at some future date.
Posted by: sav | June 9, 2009 2:02 AM
Katherine Kersten reminds me of the Bay Area's own Debra J. Saunders, who spouts the same crap, weekly, at SFGate.com and in The San Francisco Chronicle. I'm almost convinced that they're the same person who uses pictures of stock art models and various names to represent herself.
I *would* think that if I didn't know that all of these people operate from the same playbook, in "reputable news" outlets all across the country.
Posted by: Rorschach | June 9, 2009 2:26 AM
@ Greta Christina No 120,
Yeah,but strictly the north american judeo-christians are the superior ones!
I have to always giggle at this,how Americans who couldnt point to Osaka or Melbourne on a map if their life depended on it are somehow convinced they are god's greatest gift,and by default pillars of morality.
Posted by: arrakis
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June 9, 2009 2:33 AM
PZ:
Great post.
Kersten has conveniently forgotten our last president's reasoning behind an invasion of the Middle East: God told me to do it.
I have friends who are Christian, atheist, agnostic, and Buddhist, and overall I find the atheists and agnostics to be the most morally grounded of the bunch. Unfortunately, people with an axe to grind don't always listen to reason.
We can always hope that she gets struck by lightning and then we can blame it on her "invisible friend."
Posted by: Eleanor Abernathy | June 9, 2009 3:06 AM
Loved the article, but not the sexist tone. Come on, "shrill" and "harpy"? These are both insults applied exclusively to women. The idiotic hack who wrote the article quoted is an idiot regardless of sex. I did like "incompetent hack", "blitherer" and "inane", as those seem to be more descriptive of this person.
Posted by: Eleanor Abernathy | June 9, 2009 3:08 AM
Loved the article, but not the sexist tone. Come on, "shrill" and "harpy"? These are both insults applied exclusively to women. The idiotic hack who wrote the article quoted is an idiot regardless of sex. I did like "incompetent hack", "blitherer" and "inane", as those seem to be more descriptive of this person.
Posted by: Rorschach | June 9, 2009 3:15 AM
*Facepalm*
Posted by: Scrabcake | June 9, 2009 3:56 AM
It's like these far right columnists have a checklist they go down each week. Hmmmmm. In the last 3 months, have I ranted about...
"Persecuted White Protestant Males?"....check.
"Need for 'Academic Freedom'"?.....check.
"We need to bomb palestine and let god sort it out"?...check.
"No new taxes"?...check
"Frack the dirty Commies"?.....check.
"Wealth for large corporations -> happiness for small farmers?"...check.
Oh yeah. New atheists! Haven't done that in a few weeks. Lesseee.....what can I write that absolutely everyone has said before? How about that they really believe in God but pretend they don't so they can sin! Yeah! Oooh. ooooh! Atheism ignores the moral compass that came from the bible and was endorsed by George Washington, Benjamin Franklin, and all those other founding fathers whose names I can't remember and was a gift from god grafted into the constitution itself!!1 Oooooh! Better end it with the bit about how without the bible humans would just run around raping and torturing each other, you know...like chimps!
Ok! Bam! Done! SHIP IT!
Now for the sports article...
Posted by: Scrabcake | June 9, 2009 4:04 AM
I've got two x chromosomes, and I've no problem with Harpy or Shrill when there's a reason to apply them. Applying them to someone for the sole reason that they're a woman whom you don't think should be in power because they're a woman is wrong...ie. Most people who called Hillary shrill wouldn't have had an issue had a man said the same thing. Shrill was being used as a code-word for get back in the kitchen and nag your daughter like a good middle-aged-female. Likewise, no one seems to point out that a good many nasty epithets have male connotations...ie, dick, wanker, etc.
Posted by: Walton | June 9, 2009 4:09 AM
Obviously Kersten is talking bullshit. However, I do have a couple of quibbles with Professor Myers' reply to her, and would have expressed it differently.
Firstly, Kersten is failing to differentiate different senses of the word "equality". If the statement "all people are equal" were meant in a descriptive sense, then Kersten would clearly be right that it is unsupported by the empirical evidence; some people are simply brighter, better-looking, more competent, and more adapted to modern society than others.
Yet what we really mean when we say "all people are equal" is one of two different things. Some people, including some atheists, sincerely believe that all people deserve to be materially equal, regardless of their talents and abilities. There is some moral foundation to this, since a person does not choose his or her talents and abilities but is given them freely. Yet any reasonable person, looking at the empirical evidence, can see that a society with equality of outcome can never work. By taking away the profit incentive and the mechanisms of the free market, such a society would essentially destroy the driving force behind all human progress.
An alternative meaning of "everyone is equal" refers to equality before the law; the notion that the state should treat everyone equally and in a non-discriminatory fashion. Yet no modern society actually does this, nor should it necessarily do so. Progressive income tax, for instance, is an example of unequal treatment; the rich are taxed more heavily than the poor. I'm not necessarily saying they shouldn't be; rather, I'm pointing out that equality of treatment, in a literal sense, is not something which is actually practised in modern society. Instead, to define it more clearly, what we do believe in modern society is that the state should not discriminate between people on irrelevant grounds, such as race or sexual orientation. This is clearly correct. Discrimination per se is not wrong; discrimination on grounds which are irrelevant to the question at hand is wrong. Some grounds are legitimately relevant in some questions but not on others; for example, a person's gender might be legitimately relevant in determining whether she can join the Marines, but not legitimately relevant in determining whether she can vote.
I apologise for the tangent: but I think what I have established is that all people are not equal, in any meaningful sense. Kersten is actually right that people are unequal. She's wrong, of course, that the "Judeo-Christian" tradition provides any kind of justification for equality; the Bible is laced, as people have pointed out above, with nonsense about "God's chosen people", justifications of slavery, and discrimination against women. But I don't see any reason why either a believer or an atheist ought to subscribe to the myth of "equality" among human beings. Free people are not equal, and equal people are not free.
That said,
this, I think, is absolutely right. In purely rational terms, the justification for according rights to others is that we wish to enjoy those same rights ourselves.
Of course, remembering that moral rights and duties are not handed down from heaven but are the products of human reason, it is not surprising that we disagree radically between ourselves about what they are. And the inevitable problem is that governments impose "rights" and "duties" in such manner as they see fit, while I am not free to opt out of subscribing to the "rights" and "duties" imposed on me by society. For example, my government insists that I, if I own a television, must pay a "television licence fee" (under threat of going to prison if I do not cooperate), in exchange for the "right" to receive BBC TV services. As it is, I would be just as happy to forfeit access to the BBC and not pay the licence fee. But I can't opt out of the government's control, and so I must put up with other people's ideas about what my "rights" and "duties" are.
The mark of the autonomous human being is that s/he can, and must, decide for him or herself what is right and what is wrong, and what course of action should be taken in given circumstances. Deferring to the authority of governments, or of the social consensus, is a way of abdicating this responsibility.
I realise this is a digression. But the upshot of this is that I do not agree with Professor Myers that "social norms" are morally binding. If a social norm is objectively wrong, it should be rejected and disobeyed. (He, too, believes this, if he were to think about the question more thoroughly. In many societies, for instance, racism has been a very strong social norm; but that doesn't make it any more moral.) I don't give a damn about how my neighbour, or a consensus of my neighbours, thinks I ought to act. I am a sovereign human being, I own my own body and my own mind, and I answer to no one. This doesn't mean that I don't care about my neighbours and their interests; I certainly do. But concern should not be confused with submission. If the law and the social consensus are wrong, an ethical and responsible person can and should disobey them. As atheists and agnostics, and as rational people, we need to break own the absurd idea - promoted by the religious - that morality consists in submission to the will of powerful institutions. It does not. Morality consists in thinking for oneself about what is right, and doing it, whatever anyone else thinks about it.
Posted by: Rorschach | June 9, 2009 4:11 AM
Let's just not go there !
LOL
Posted by: Knockgoats | June 9, 2009 4:20 AM
Walton,
I pity you - how sad to believe that human creativity is motivated only by the desire for material gain.
Posted by: Jadehawk, OM
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June 9, 2009 4:22 AM
Walton, this time you ARE hijacking the thread with your ideology. kindly take your L-word back to the designated thread. we don't need to have this discussion here as well
Posted by: Rorschach | June 9, 2009 4:26 AM
Walton doing a lil libertarian naughty :
Walton,for once this is not actually about material equality,or dividing wealth equally between people(nice try tho !),but equality of rights and opportunities.
What becomes of you and what you make out of your chances and talents,still depends on oneself and one's skills,means,intelligence,strength etc.
And the source for this "bedrock" belief in equality is certainly not religion,and as PZ points out,that belief is not at all at odds with reason.
Posted by: Kitty | June 9, 2009 4:28 AM
Here we go again!
Walton apologises for his ranting but carries on regardless. Same old stuff - TV license, taxes, equality, taxes, his sovereign rights, taxes, government control, taxes, free market, taxes - oh did I mention taxes?
Please don't answer him. It is just too boring. I used to feel sorry for him, now I just want him to go away. The record got stuck long ago and it's time to switch off.
Kill file.
Posted by: Jadehawk, OM
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June 9, 2009 4:30 AM
*sigh*
Posted by: Bruce Gorton | June 9, 2009 4:31 AM
I posted this in the comments.
DJ
Actually, a lot of Hitler's rise to power was on the back of a long history of anti-semitism in the German church - he was tapping into centuries of sentiment. It does actually reflect on the form of Christianity present in Germany at the time.
This is one of the reasons why the current Pope's stance on WWII is important, because positive changes were made to the faith post WWII that are being eroded.
Back on topic:
You see, as an atheist I hold that gods probably don't exist, that means I hold that morality has a human root.
Hence humans, no matter what culture they come from, are likely to develop some form of morality - and there will be points of commonality due to some things simply working better than others.
So I can get on with Hindus, Animists, Shintoists, Muslims, Christians etc..., because to me they may be wrong, but they aren't horrible monsters with no morals - and the morals I disagree with can be changed via talking things out.
The morals they disagree with in me, can also be changed.
You on the other hand hold that your God is the source of all morality, and that those who don't believe in him are not capable of morality. Evidence to the contrary is irrelevant to you because you hold this on faith, evidence be damned.
In essence you hold us atheists as being subhuman because we don't agree with you, but you also hold every member of every non-Abrahamic religion as being subhuman - their gods are false and therefore so is their morality. You are in essence, the perfect hate-filled bigot.
That I point this out will probably have you beating your chest about how I am being "anti-Christian", and how much of a victim you are when in fact I am pointing out a flaw with your moral argument - which is the precise sort of argument which has been heard way too often, generally just before people start comitting genocide.
Yet you will cling to this argument.
There is another problem with your argument on morality, because your morality comes from a perfect source, it is essentially more perfect than you could make it.
My morality can change as I see the other side to arguments, and grow with life experience, people who make sense to me, can even change my Platonic ideal of myself.
I am still me, and I make my own decisions, but I am open to the idea that my concept of "right and wrong" can, with enough evidence or strong enough reasoning, be corrected. I am flawed, but in my flaws, I have the strength to change.
With you your concept of right and wrong is set in stone, so the moral standards you hold do not change with evidence or reasoning.
They were granted by God, so if this "God" is a figment of your wish fulfilling imagination, and you hold to these "Moral standards" regardless, you can believe things to be morally right when they are repugnant.
Examples of this in action: On Youtube you will find Christians willing to defend slavery. Bill Donahue, a strong Catholic, attacked rape survivors for criticising priests who were rapists.
Islam, you have people who believe their morality was handed to Mohammed by God, so they can sell their girl children to dirty old lechers as wives because Mohammed had sex with a nine year old.
Human morality claiming godly origin, it seems to me that at some point it stops being "moral" and starts being sanctified bad behaviour.
Posted by: Smoggy Batzrubble | June 9, 2009 6:12 AM
Hehehehe...
Scrabcake said "dick' and "wanker"...
hehehehe...
Bet she'll say "bunghole" and "fartknocker" next...
hehehehehe...
Posted by: Michelle R
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June 9, 2009 6:19 AM
I'm motivated by LOVE! Like SAILOR MOON!
...woah, early morning. Sorry.
Posted by: Martin R
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June 9, 2009 8:34 AM
Funny, I just blogged about being OK with no external meaning to life.
Posted by: DebinOz | June 9, 2009 8:38 AM
Wow - I can't remember the last time I read such absolute illogical and poorly-written drivel! I had to go open a bottle of wine to get the full effect.
I'm going to get my teenage daughter to go through it with a red pen for homework, and we can yell and scream with laughter and frustration together.
Posted by: Thundergunn | June 9, 2009 8:47 AM
She is also a plagiarist. Remember, that on May 17th the L.A. Times columnist Charlotte Allen wrote a piece almost identical to what Kerstens wrote. After comparing the two opinion pieces, I find it hard to believe Kersten wrote hers independant of Allens.
Posted by: St. Tabby Lavalamp | June 9, 2009 9:25 AM
If Christians are the ones with all the morality, why are they the ones who can't see what a monster their god is?
Posted by: Rey Fox | June 9, 2009 9:48 AM
"and that man's life has no inherent purpose or meaning."
Wouldn't it suck if it did? I mean, from what I can tell, the "higher purpose" that Christians allude to is basically sucking up to God for eternity. What if our higher purpose was that God was recruiting us to build a giant laser beam in heaven that he's aiming toward some distant civilization that he happens to hate? Silly, but it just seems to me that a "higher" purpose isn't necessarily a good thing. I'm sure that slaveowners had "higher purposes" for their slaves too.
Posted by: MarkW | June 9, 2009 9:52 AM
Walton you can easily opt out of buying a television license. Simply do not watch any broadcast television service.
Posted by: David Marjanović, OM | June 9, 2009 9:53 AM
Isn't the very existence of Australia incompatible with a flat Earth?
Wow. Source, please.
I mean, I know Stalin didn't leave the seminary of his own free will, he was kicked out because he read communist literature. But still…
Behold the Socialist Kingdom of Spain.
ROTFL!!!
"Thou shalt […] steal“.
=====================
Walton, it's sadly predictable. Your Socialism Detector™ beeps, you automatically post a comment that defends libertarianism – no matter how far off topic it is, and no matter even how well calibrated your Socialism Detector™ actually is.
This particular comment of yours wasn't actually bad, but, off-topic as it is, it still falls under Insipidity.
Posted by: Watchman | June 9, 2009 10:13 AM
Oh, buttbricks! Are we talking about Walton's television license again?
Wow. Absolute moral relativism! The problem with this, Walton, is that people who operate in a vacuum can sometimes be wrong without realizing it. The romantic archetype of the hero standing alone for what he believes is right is attractive, yes, but is of limited utility. Consensus does have a place and a value in any society, regardless of whether or not that any your theories. (Yeah, yeah, I know you "didn't ask" to be part of a society, bub - but you are. You are.)
Posted by: Stephen Wells | June 9, 2009 10:15 AM
Isn't talking about the "meaning of life" a bit like talking about the "speed of car"? The question is meaningless until you specify which car and relative to what; and similarly, which life, and to whom.
Posted by: Watchman | June 9, 2009 10:19 AM
Edit: "regardless of whether or not that fits with any your theories."
Posted by: Craig A James | June 9, 2009 10:21 AM
One thing not mentioned is that Kersten's entire article is a classic example of circular logic. The core of her rant is a claim that morality can only come from God. An atheist can simply point to the Bible, which has many good (and bad) moral lessons, as proof that morality can originate from the human mind: God didn't write the Bible, people did. My blog for today is devoted to this argument (click on my name, above).
Posted by: Craig A James | June 9, 2009 10:28 AM
One thing not mentioned is that Kersten's entire article is a classic example of circular logic. The core of her rant is a claim that morality can only come from God. An atheist can simply point to the Bible, which has many good (and bad) moral lessons, as proof that morality can originate from the human mind: God didn't write the Bible, people did. My blog for today is devoted to this argument (click on my name, above).
Posted by: Stu
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June 9, 2009 10:37 AM
Goddammit Walton, I've told you a million times to stick to religion as a topic. You make an immense ass out of yourself on any other -- and by extension, since I, as promised, nominated you for a Molly for some excellent posts on religion -- you're making an ass out of me.
Oh well, live and learn. I won't make THAT mistake again.
Posted by: Uppity | June 9, 2009 11:01 AM
Equality does not mean that everyone is a clone of each other with identical abilities, which would be in contradiction to reason and evidence. It is equality of opportunity that we are assigning — everyone should have the same rights and be granted the same chance to exercise their abilities as best they can.
On what logical basis should the stupid get the same opportunities as the smart? Why waste scarce resources?
Posted by: The good lookin' fatman | June 9, 2009 11:04 AM
Hey PZ. It's your unwillingness (or inability) to objectively discuss the glaring limitations of your own worldview that make you and your blog cult a place for only the elect of new atheism.
Just give us a break about how 'pure' human reason will lead us right into the bosom of morality. Actually, on the one hand I'd like to stop and say: congratulations, PZ, you have a conscience! On the other hand, hearing you spout about how you or we've rationalized our way to having a conscience brings me to empathize with your delusion. I'll grant you that empathy could logically be evolution induced: maybe our community survived because of a mutation that made us feel empathy for others in the community. But you've got to recognize that that ain't exactly rationality, Dr. Myers, but rather mechanical evolution programming meat robots for an advantageous trait. How many people took a college course on logic before they learned morality? Can you remember when you became moral? None of us reasoned our way into morality, just like none of us reasoned our way into love.
Rationality can clearly lead to morality, but it can also clearly lead to immorality. And there are a lot of unclears in the mix as well. If there is no God to judge and society isn't looking, then it may in some cases be more rational or logically advantageous for me to forego sympathy or morality and leave my deformed newborn on the top of a hill as the Romans did. Who's seriously going to tell me that by saving the child I will (self servingly I might add) be preserving society for my old age when I also am weak? People will tell me to have mercy on the basis of decency (maybe evolutionary but not rational), pity (maybe evolutionary but not rational), love (maybe evolutionary but not rational), or justice (maybe evolutionary but not rational), but not cold hard rationality. The Romans did quite rationally "expose" their unwanted infants on hills and trash dumps. They didn't want 'em, didn't need 'em, couldn't afford 'em or whatever, so they got rid of 'em. You can talk about the perils of creating a society in which the weak are destroyed, but when nobody is there to gripe at us do we really use that line of reasoning to make moral decisions? The problem with your standard of morality, PZ, and the point of Ms. Kerstin's argument that I'm griping about is that human rationality is an untrustworthy -arbitrary- standard. (I repeat again that your inability to openly admit this or any problematic aspect of atheism makes your site a real monastery). Your rational arguments for protecting the weak would not be shared by other rational, yet less compassionate, people. And I point out that evolution isn't stopping people from using their own "non-evolutionary" rationale for unspeakable atrocities -maybe evil folk were the reject mutations all along! Anyhow, materialism is bleak in the department of morality. Deal with your worldview like a man. Be like Provine! It would make for more interesting philosophy. Again, I congratulate you PZ for having a conscience!
Posted by: Janine, OMnivore | June 9, 2009 11:20 AM
And fat man, I congratulate you on being a long winded jack ass.
Posted by: Jeff Eyges | June 9, 2009 11:24 AM
Fatman, don't speak. You're embarrassing yourself - or ought to be.
Posted by: Stephen Wells | June 9, 2009 11:25 AM
@Uppity: because how will we know who's best at something unless lots of people have the chance to try it? If we give everyone the same _opportunity_ then the _outcome_ will reflect ability.
@fat man: yadda yadda blah. If you'd just posted "I don't know what rationality is", you'd have made the same point far more briefly.
Posted by: Nerd of Redhead, OM
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June 9, 2009 11:26 AM
Shorter fat man: I have no point, but I will waste space showing that fact.
Posted by: Matt Penfold | June 9, 2009 11:27 AM
"And fat man, I congratulate you on being a long winded jack ass."
Janine, you read all that ? I am impressed at your dedication. I gave up a third of the way through concluding it was total bollocks.
See, people here are so nice. They read the crap so you don't have to.
Posted by: Uppity | June 9, 2009 11:35 AM
161: "[H]ow will we know who's best at something unless lots of people have the chance to try it? If we give everyone the same _opportunity_ then the _outcome_ will reflect ability.
If opportunity only comes with ability there isn't equality of opportunity.
Posted by: Stephen Wells | June 9, 2009 11:42 AM
@164: which is why I advocate equality of opportunity. What's your point?
Posted by: The good lookin' fatman | June 9, 2009 12:09 PM
shorter fatman: At best rationality is unreliable for getting us to morality. You can tell people to eat atheism/rationality cake but you can't tell them it will make morality flowers grow from their butts. PZ's rationality=morality idea is total crapola.
Posted by: Janine, OMnivore | June 9, 2009 12:16 PM
The fat man cannot seem to understand that empathy is essential for social creatures. Rationality allows us to see why this works for us.
Posted by: Nerd of Redhead, OM
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June 9, 2009 12:28 PM
Fat man, god isn't needed for anything, much less morality. Rationality and empathy get you there. Since god doesn't exist, and the bible was written by falable humans, it is just an ancient arbitrary set of rules.
Posted by: Drosera
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June 9, 2009 12:33 PM
The good lookin' Fatman @158,
That wasn't rational at all. The rational thing to do would have been to put them on the barbeque and eat them. Why waste such a resource? But then, the Romans weren’t exactly atheists. Atheists, on the other hand, are well known for raping children that are placed under their care in institutions, and for deriving their moral principles from a bronze-age book that encourages genocide and prescribes the stoning of women and children for petty offences. Oh, wait...
Posted by: The good lookin' fatman | June 9, 2009 12:38 PM
Janine cannot seem to understand PZ is suggesting that reason and morality are not (ever?) antagonistic. Furthermore, Janine cannot seem to understand that rationality can be used to reject our natural tendency to empathize, rather than merely passively glorying in the wonders of our evolutionary morality. Give up or keep digging.
Posted by: Mike Olson | June 9, 2009 1:30 PM
To suggest there is no middle ground on this issue is pretty silly. Many great scientific minds have had a spiritual slant and many theologians have contributed to science. A person doesn't have to be one or the other. As far as I can tell this is just another example of the American media's and American public's desire to find drama. I happen to believe in God. But, I'm offended by what many purported Christians claim. On the otherhand, I happen to find many atheists to be intelligent, funny and more ethical than many Christians. Thing is Atheism in and of itself is not a belief system. It is a denial of a concept. The reality of course is that killers, thugs, rapists and thieves are as likely to claim some spiritual identity as they are to claim to be atheist. I'd say a belief or lack of belief, in and of itself, has little to do with personal behavior.
Posted by: Mike Olson | June 9, 2009 1:32 PM
To suggest there is no middle ground on this issue is pretty silly. Many great scientific minds have had a spiritual slant and many theologians have contributed to science. A person doesn't have to be one or the other. As far as I can tell this is just another example of the American media's and American public's desire to find drama. I happen to believe in God. But, I'm offended by what many purported Christians claim. On the otherhand, I happen to find many atheists to be intelligent, funny and more ethical than many Christians. Thing is Atheism in and of itself is not a belief system. It is a denial of a concept. The reality of course is that killers, thugs, rapists and thieves are as likely to claim some spiritual identity as they are to claim to be atheist. I'd say a belief or lack of belief, in and of itself, has little to do with personal behavior.
Posted by: Timebender13
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June 9, 2009 2:49 PM
"someone may be poorer or weaker than I am, but in turn, I'm poorer and weaker than someone else — does this warrant that I suffer? I also possess empathy, and when I see others harmed, I feel an echo of that pain myself. And, of course, perhaps someday I will have Alzheimer's, and I'd rather not encourage the growth of a culture that would someday discard me."
It's ironic, really. Even our empathy is selfish.... Thats evolution for you!
Posted by: Donatello Delucci | June 9, 2009 3:00 PM
"I should think Kersten might have noticed that Christopher Hitchens always seems to appear in public fully dressed…and even in clothes that are quite conventional."
I don't know PZ. Drunk as I've seen Hitchens I wouldn't be surprised if he'd appeared sans trousers a time or two.
Posted by: Matt Penfold | June 9, 2009 3:11 PM
"I don't know PZ. Drunk as I've seen Hitchens I wouldn't be surprised if he'd appeared sans trousers a time or two."
Well, who of us has not appeared in public sans trousers at some stage ? :)
Posted by: thedrymock | June 9, 2009 4:00 PM
I'm with Eleanor Abernathy @129. I read "shrill" and it gave me pause; I read "harpy" and I actually said "WHOA" out loud. It's entirely possible to criticize Kersten's work without using nasty gendered terms -- I know it is, because after a brief intro using those terms, the rest of the post does very well without them.
An excellent takedown, PZ, but please consider how you use gendered insults in the future. Her gender has nothing to do with why she's wrong, but those terms -- especially "harpy" -- suggest that it does.
And for those who are concerned about male-identified epithets -- they simply do not work the same way. Slurs against women, people of color, gay people, etc. are slurs because they use the invocation of the person's identity as criticism. And that means that the rest of us who share that identity get criticized at the same time. "Dick," "prick," etc. don't use the person's male identity as part of the insult, because the world at large would consider "you're such a MAN" a nonsensical insult. Whereas using "you're such a WOMAN" as an insult is still considered comedy gold.
Posted by: ElStanz | June 9, 2009 4:48 PM
thedrymock: given your comment I'm sure you mind if I point out that you are a weenie.
Posted by: wasd | June 9, 2009 5:48 PM
Yes, like an atheist might for example have a strong burning desire for something like, say, a pork sandwich, and then the universal standard of Judaism and Christianity would tell him what to do.
The Enlightenment, why?oh.. wait did she mean to imply the American revolution when she revered to a "once-revolutionary Judeo-Christian belief" and did she mean to throw the French revolution, a source for the equality you praise on one pile with the holocaust which cant have been the greatest example of equality...
history fail
Posted by: Spidergrackle | June 9, 2009 7:03 PM
The word choice speaks volumes.
Posted by: deang | June 9, 2009 8:17 PM
why should we act with charity toward the poorest and weakest among us?
My right-wing Christian father asked almost that exact same question non-rhetorically. As a ruthless businessman, he argued that his religion teaches that might essentially makes right, and he could marshall scripture as evidence. "Jesus was a warrior," another member of our childhood church once said to me. Another told me that if Jesus came back today he'd be "the CEO of a major corporation or a quarterback on the football team" - in other words, Jesus would be whoever these assholes would want him to be.
Posted by: norumaru | June 10, 2009 8:27 AM
That is what you get when you grow up in an environment where the dominant worldview can be summed up with these six words: "U! S! A!! U! S! A!"Posted by: Mrs. Jones | June 25, 2009 11:56 AM
I saw a quote from your post referenced on another blog, and stopped by to read the rest. I am a Christian, but will not attempt to bash you over the head with my beliefs. I just want to tell you that I agree with what you say about Ms. Kersten and the other conservative "Christians" like her (don't even get me started on Newt). They somehow think that Christianity is a moral authority to police the world, judge everyone and force society to follow their rules. They make enemies of people they don't deem worthy. They are so concerned with making sure no one else sins (they must not have read "He who has not sinned cast the first stone") that they really miss the entire point. Religion -for me- is my own personal spirituality and how I show compassion, love, patience, understanding and service to others. There are a lot of Christians who get this. Unfortunately, they put their actions where their mouths are instead of being sqeaky wheels like Kersten. You and I may not agree on the deity part, but it sounds like we're both tired of the likes of her.
~Heather
Posted by: James | November 20, 2009 10:47 AM
I am a devout Christian who finds Katherine Kersten just as vile as you do--possibly more so, because she's one of those nuts (like the Campus Crazies at the U of M) who reflects badly upon ALL Christians with her obnoxiousness. My one addition to this post would be a small reminder to guard against the same rhetorical sins Kersten is guilty of--be careful not to paint all Christians with a broadly dismissive brush the way she does with atheists.