Pharyngula

Posted by: JR Cash | September 14, 2009 3:39 PM

I don't care about your damn yellow buzzards.

Posted by: amstrad | September 14, 2009 3:40 PM

Vultures doing what they do best. Plus I don't think that guy was using his body anymore. I think it's a win-win.

Posted by: Ellestra | September 14, 2009 3:46 PM

This is a very good idea. No taking up space or polluting the air.

I never quite understood that obsession with what happens with ones body after death. If I'm dead what do I care. Just do something to avoid spreading disease. No need to delay reentry to the carbon cycle.

Posted by: Tony | September 14, 2009 3:52 PM

Porn ads confirmed. NSFW!!!

Posted by: Sven DiMilo | September 14, 2009 3:53 PM

Clearly Zoroastrianism...is the true religion.

Threre was a good article in a recent Harper's about a Zoroastrian sect in India (Parsis, I think) and how the recent severe decline in India's vultures (due to a cheap drug that they ingested in carcasses) has...uh...messed with their traditional treatment of their dead.
In short: Pee Yew!

Posted by: Karen | September 14, 2009 3:55 PM

Ironically, it was just a couple of weeks ago that I mentioned to my husband that he could feed me to vultures if I died before him (I'd rather that than my body rotting away in an expensive box). Maybe if he sees these photos, and how happy those vultures look, he'll do it. Then again... probably not.

Posted by: AZ Writer (Kim Hosey) | September 14, 2009 3:56 PM

Um, yeah. The NSFW factor is definitely a little higher/in your face with the porn ad. I don't have a problem with it, but, yeah. Fortunately, I work from home, and my son's at school.

The actual topic of the post though, very interesting (is excarnation the word for that? didn't know that). I don't have a problem with that. Burial, donation of organs or to science, cremation ... we have a variety of things we do with bodies already. And as was already pointed out, the person certainly isn't using it anymore.

Posted by: Tulse | September 14, 2009 3:58 PM

Perhaps we could create a new tradition by combining this approach with the Monday Metazoa, and have a coconut crab funeral. The advantage there is that the crabs themselves are also edible!

Posted by: possummomma | September 14, 2009 3:59 PM

That was really cool, actually. I'm all for it. My only concern would be whether this could spread diseases, but that's only because I'm not educated enough to know the answer to that one. Perhaps someone else is?

Posted by: debaser71 | September 14, 2009 4:01 PM

There's pr0n at the bottom.

Posted by: aratina cage | September 14, 2009 4:04 PM

Heyyyyy! That's how I always wanted to go after I learned about a similar Zoroastrian practice. It sure beats being buried in a coffin and is more energy efficient than cremation.

Posted by: Jack Krebs | September 14, 2009 4:06 PM

I have a friend who actually went on a pilgrimage and attended one of these. Her guide spent a lot of time counseling her about the religious perspective behind the practice in order to prepare her for the sight. Things that shake one's cultural perspective are good for the soul, so to speak, as they help break one out of the unconsciousness parochialism of thinking the way you see things is the only way possible.

Posted by: Sili | September 14, 2009 4:07 PM

Whaddayknow - I'm squeemish. Of course, I knew that - having lectures next to the 'wet room' was uncomfortable. I just thought I'd grown out of it.

Ah well.

(The pr0n didn't even look all that good.)

-----

Hmm. I realise this isn't a concert performance, but I have to say I'm a bit disappointed in this version of See the conq'ring hero comes.

And then again - it picked up a bit on the repeat.

Posted by: llewelly | September 14, 2009 4:10 PM

PZ, if you notice a site has porn ads, you should mark the link as NSFW, because there are people who browse from work. And people who browse from work ... you should always, always use adblock, to protect your prudish cow-orkers from porn ads.

PS, did anyone else notice the lone raven?

Posted by: Rev. BigDumbChimp | September 14, 2009 4:12 PM

PS, did anyone else notice the lone raven?

Yes and I think I heard it say something

Posted by: JiminKy | September 14, 2009 4:15 PM

Now that I think about it, I'd rather go delivery-style. Vulture take-out, if you will.

I'll get a friend with a catapult to hurl my body skyward. Whoever catches me can have me. If I happen to land all over Dick Cheney, so much the better.

Posted by: Stephen Wells | September 14, 2009 4:15 PM

That's awesome (in the proper sense of the word), horrifying and beautiful.

Anyone else read the sky-burial story in Neil Gaiman's Sandman series? "...and the stain, on the rocks. But the next rain will wash it away."

Posted by: Carl Buell | September 14, 2009 4:18 PM

I made a silly comment about becoming chicken food before I looked at the pictures. I actually found it a bit uplifting and positive. California Condors, Griffin Vultures, Coyotes, or maggots, I don't care, I'd honestly like to be used by life that way after I'm gone, not that I'll care.

Posted by: pascalle | September 14, 2009 4:21 PM

Hmm..i'm not as squeemish as i thought i would be.
Though i think i would still prefer to be rolled in a sheet and burned (i so don't want some stupid expensive box, what a waste of money).

Posted by: Phaedron | September 14, 2009 4:23 PM

And here I was, planning to have my ashes fired out of a cannon like a sucker.

Posted by: JPH | September 14, 2009 4:23 PM

Dang, that's some impressive efficiency! But, would it have killed the guys to use some gloves?

Posted by: natural cynic | September 14, 2009 4:24 PM

What's with the complaints about the porn? It's just the other end of the circle of life.

As for me, I think that I'd rather be fertilizer.

Posted by: Fred The Hun | September 14, 2009 4:26 PM

Anyone else remember the old Far Side Cartoon of man at various tourist spots around the world quietly feeding the birds and his wife beside him always nagging... the last drawing of the strip shows the man in a desert spot, alone and feeding the buzzards scraps from a suitcase.

Seriously though, those pictures are quite amazing and as much as I like looking at attractive semi naked young women, it's a rather bizarre juxtaposition of stimuli to say the least.

Anyways I think I might arrange for a burial at sea when my time comes. I would have no problem letting the crabs pick apart my decomposing remains.

Posted by: Irene Delse | September 14, 2009 4:29 PM

Pr0n, what pr0n?

(Mozilla Firefox + AdBlockPlus = happy safe Net browsing. Really, I feel like a well fed vulture, now.)

Posted by: Louis | September 14, 2009 4:32 PM

I went to the site out of morbid curiosity and was faced with a large erect penis and a cheerful looking young lady or two. There were two consequences to this:

1) I laughed so hard at the juxtaposition of life affirming acts and death that you now owe me a new keyboard. Coffee + Electronics = Bad. I shall pursue this matters in a Kwokesque fashion and demand my keyboard!

2) My wife came into the room and saw the photos and the porn ads and said "Ewwww vultures! What the fuck are you looking at? Snuff sites?". I am now in trouble. When I get out of the doghouse I want my camera keyboard PZ.

{shakes fist}

Damn you! Damn you all! Etc

Louis

Posted by: shyster | September 14, 2009 4:33 PM

PZ, I will never eat condor meat again.
I've made arrangements for the local hospital to take any part of me that they can use. the rest is to be burned and the ashes scattered in the ocean.
Can anyone explain the condor service and its history?

Posted by: Yngve Sjølset | September 14, 2009 4:34 PM

@Tony
Point taken, the comment was actually meant a bit tongue in beek so to speak ;)

Posted by: Lee Picton | September 14, 2009 4:34 PM

The husbeast and I have left our bodies to the state of Maryland, which (if you die within the state borders), will come and fetch the remains, and distribute it to medical schools, where we will be sliced and diced for educational purposes. When the kiddies are done, we will be put in simple boxes and delivered to the spawn who can transfer us to bookend urns (if we buy them) or dispose of as he chooses. I think that is ecologically and financially practical. The idea of vultures is pretty cool, though.

Posted by: Mike Latiolais | September 14, 2009 4:36 PM

I can confirm that any porn ads are killed by my blockers in Firefox(well, Iceweasel). The use of a proper browser is essential :)

Posted by: bc23.5 | September 14, 2009 4:38 PM

Wow, they even removed the brain for the 2nd course, that was considerate of him.

Posted by: mfheadcase | September 14, 2009 4:41 PM

If you want to feed the carrion beasties, donating your body to the Forensic Antropology Center at the University og Tennesee is an option. It is also known unofficially as the Body Farm.

IIRC, they are the original, though the Wikipedia page: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Body_farm shows that there are others.

Posted by: Justin | September 14, 2009 4:44 PM

What, there are people not using ad blockers?

Seriously though, there needs to be a warning.

Posted by: RamblinDude | September 14, 2009 4:49 PM

Less than an hour ago, I kid you not, there was a gathering of about 10 vultures in the front yard socializing over a squirrel’s carcass. The last one just flew off as I type this sentence.

Oooooh, it’s like an omen.

Posted by: bobxxxx | September 14, 2009 4:50 PM

That was great. Nothing wasted.

But I would prefer something less gross. Perhaps just throw the stinking body on the wood pile in the back yard. Spray on lots of lighter fluid. And have a few beers while watching a bonfire that includes grandma.

The idea is don't waste money on a dead person, who is worth no more than a dead cockroach, no matter how wonderful that person was when alive.

Let the god nuts waste their hard earned money on a worthless corpse. Atheists should know better.

Posted by: Patricia, OM | September 14, 2009 4:53 PM

Carl Buell - The Pullet Patrol will happily accept you as a bag of feed. Very considerate offer. :D

Posted by: Louis | September 14, 2009 5:06 PM

Got Mozilla Firefox, got adblocker, got flash blocker. Don't use Adblocker because how else am I going to see mucky images on the interwebs without ads?

What? There are specialist sites you say? My my! And we have interthread singularity!

Louis

Posted by: Muzz | September 14, 2009 5:11 PM

Must be where the expression "...for the birds" comes from.

Posted by: E. Fisher | September 14, 2009 5:25 PM

My immediate reaction was one of disgust... but as I stop to think about it, really, that's not a bad way to dispose of someone's remains.

Sure, it looks crude... but it's not, at the heart of it, any more or less disturbing than the processes of cremation and/or burial. It's certainly more earth-friendly too.

I can't say that I would choose this option for myself or for family/friends... I'm still leaning toward natural burial... but it's a groovy way to go.

Posted by: Sniper | September 14, 2009 5:29 PM

Gosh, Troy, always nice to hear from a concerned citizen.

Posted by: Anna | September 14, 2009 5:29 PM

You do realise that this is a religious ceremony, don't you? (Specifically, Buddhist.)

@Joe #14: There is no disrespect. That's kind of the point, or one of the points, of the ceremony. The body is just the body. It's not "you". (In fact, there isn't a "you".) Once it's finished its job as a human body, it might as well be food for some other being. The ceremony is about understanding and remembering that this is the case.

As a Buddhist (though not Tibetan), I would think that showing these pictures is a meritorious act, as it will enable other people to reflect on this and deepen their understanding of impermanence.

Posted by: Piltdown Man | September 14, 2009 5:36 PM

PZ Myers:

I think I'd like to bring a little joy into the life a few carrion-feeders after I die, too.

Rob Clack @ 8:

Fantastic! What a way to go! Wish I could do that.

Karen @ 12:

I mentioned to my husband that he could feed me to vultures if I died before him

FastLane @ 18:

I've been saying for years that that is pretty much my plan when I die.

Rev. BigDumbChimp @ 20:

I think I'll go with vultures ripping my flesh.

aratina cage @ 21:

That's how I always wanted to go

&c.

Interesting how it's always a personal affirmation on the part of the writer -- no-one ever seems to say they'd be happy to look on as their wife/mother/daughter's body is devoured by vultures.

Odd that.

Tulse @ 15:

Perhaps we could create a new tradition by combining this approach with the Monday Metazoa, and have a coconut crab funeral. The advantage there is that the crabs themselves are also edible!

Taking that line of thought a bit further, why not process dead bodies into food for hungry humans? Efficient and humane. What possible objection (other than Christofucktard superstition and bigoted cultural parochialism) could there be?

Oh yeah, I forgot. It would be speciesistcentric to care more about hungry humans than hungry vultures.

Posted by: blueelm | September 14, 2009 5:41 PM

Interesting how it's always a personal affirmation on the part of the writer -- no-one ever seems to say they'd be happy to look on as their wife/mother/daughter's body is devoured by vultures.

Odd that.

Not odd at all to me. Few people really enjoy looking at corpses. The nice thing about being one is that you don't have to look : ) But also I'd hate to give people the sense that I look forward to other people's deaths either. Seems impolite?

Taking that line of thought a bit further, why not process dead bodies into food for hungry humans? Efficient and humane. What possible objection (other than Christofucktard superstition and bigoted cultural parochialism) could there be?

Oh yeah, I forgot. It would be speciesistcentric to care more about hungry humans than hungry vultures.

Oh bad idea, that creutzfeldt-jakob disease is a terrible thing. Why do you equate disposal of corpses by natural carrion eaters with disposal of corpses by cannibalism? Latent canibalistic fetish?

Posted by: Happy Tentacles | September 14, 2009 5:44 PM

Wonder if I can arrange for my physical leftovers to get fed to the Red Kites in Wales? I went to see them being given chunks of dead livestock a couple of years ago; it was wonderful to see these fabulous birds swooping down and snatching the meat from the ground without landing, and the few things the Kites left got eaten with speed and efficiency by the ravens, buzzards and crows.

Posted by: Random McRandomson. | September 14, 2009 5:46 PM

The NSFW and the complaints about the porn ads seem a bit.. superfluous?

You know?

Considering there's.. yeah? The images of the dead guy?

Posted by: Gyeong Hwa Pak | September 14, 2009 5:50 PM

Taking that line of thought a bit further, why not process dead bodies into food for hungry humans? Efficient and humane. What possible objection (other than Christofucktard superstition and bigoted cultural parochialism) could there be

Stupid. That would cause disease. If you are going to go and make sarcastic remarks Pilty, at least make sensible and tough out ones.

Posted by: amber of theambershow | September 14, 2009 5:54 PM

Beautiful.

Posted by: Owlmirror | September 14, 2009 5:55 PM

Piltdown Man | September 9, 2009 8:52 PM:

Time for a long holiday from Pharyngula methinks.

Piltdown Man | September 14, 2009 5:36 PM:

[Return of the Hoax!]

That was a brief long holiday.

So, how were the Muslims? Friendly?

Posted by: NelC | September 14, 2009 5:58 PM

Stephen & Owlmirror: I was just re-reading Petrefax's Story this morning. If I lived in a Neil Gaiman story, I'd take this coincidence as a spooky omen. Though it is time I mentioned excarnation in my will, I think. I don't know how my executor will manage to arrange it, but I figure that's his problem.

Posted by: Nerd of Redhead, OM | September 14, 2009 6:00 PM

Ah, Pilty is back lying and bullshitting again with his nonsense. Time to revise my Pharyngula Survivor list...

Posted by: northern virginia | September 14, 2009 6:03 PM

"Boy, those are some happy vultures." And, healthy (apparently)! They look much better than the scrawny ones I occasionally see. I guess they're well-fed?

Posted by: Cuttlefish, OM | September 14, 2009 6:03 PM

In my Last Will and Testament
(if anyone cares):
"In case of an accident,
Please feed the bears."

(the idea is not mine, but Edward Abbey's. I think. Maybe Dave Foreman's.)

Posted by: Gyeong Hwa Pak | September 14, 2009 6:08 PM

Anna @ 79:

there isn't a "you".

Says who?

Pilty:

Take a comparative religion course. That way you can stop sounding dumb.

While you are at it, refresh your entire education.

Posted by: Owlmirror | September 14, 2009 6:09 PM

Anna @ 79:

there isn't a "you".

Says who?

Silly question. Not even your religion says that the soul or any aspect of the self remains inside of the body after death.

Posted by: Piltdown Man | September 14, 2009 6:10 PM

Owlmirror @ 93:

That was a brief long holiday.

It felt a hell of a lot longer I can tell you. Haven't had a cigarette for almost a week either & something had to give.

So, how were the Muslims? Friendly?

Never got there. Got sidetracked into a discussion with a messianic Zionist. Nice guy but a bit of a kook.

Posted by: NoXion | September 14, 2009 6:15 PM

"Interesting how it's always a personal affirmation on the part of the writer -- no-one ever seems to say they'd be happy to look on as their wife/mother/daughter's body is devoured by vultures" - Piltdown Man

If that's what my mother/sister wants, I would be happy to go along with that. Seriously, people speak for their own personal preferences rather than claiming to speak for others and you think there's something wrong with that?!

Posted by: Joshua Zelinsky | September 14, 2009 6:21 PM

Maybe go back in time and kill Johnny Cash before he had a chance to start the fire that killed have the population. Yes, that Johnny Cash. Yes, he did actually do this. His response was "I don't care about your damn yellow buzzards."

Makes me wish I believed in hell so I could imagine him roasting there.

Posted by: Brownian, OM | September 14, 2009 6:22 PM

It felt a hell of a lot longer I can tell you. Haven't had a cigarette for almost a week either & something had to give.

Hey, keep up the good work. Quitting is a tough slog.

(I say that as a cancer surveillance analyst and a smoker.)

Posted by: SerenAur | September 14, 2009 6:25 PM

Eminently sensible in a country with no spare land for burial and no spare fuel for burning.

PZ, you are mentioned in yesterday's London Times article on the silly Telegraph story from last week:

http://timesonline.typepad.com/science/2009/09/no-evidence-for-evolution-really.html

“For a full debunking of these and all the other Telegraph claims, have a read of PZ Myers' typically forthright take on Pharyngula”

Posted by: Luke M | September 14, 2009 6:30 PM

Cool! I've long wondered exactly how a sky burial works. Very neat solution to the problem of having a corpse; rocky, frozen ground; and basic tools...and hundreds of carrion birds specifically evolved to dispose of dead animals. I can see why people not of that culture could be squicked out, but really, this is an elegant and straightforward, eco-friendly practice. (My wife's not buying it for me personally, though -- I asked. *So* outside her comfort zone.)

Posted by: Stephen Wells | September 14, 2009 6:32 PM

Pilty, Anna was referring to the Buddhist belief that the self is an illusion. It's at least as well evidenced as anything you believe, or more so.

Posted by: Anonymous | September 14, 2009 6:36 PM

The words in parentheses suggest there isn't any "you" there even before death. Which is just plumb crazy, no?

No.

Posted by: Gyeong Hwa Pak | September 14, 2009 6:39 PM

Owlmirror @ 105:

Anna @ 79:

there isn't a "you".

Says who?

Silly question. Not even your religion says that the soul or any aspect of the self remains inside of the body after death.

Not so fast, Kemo Sabe. Anna said:

The body is just the body. It's not "you". (In fact, there isn't a "you".)

The words in parentheses suggest there isn't any "you" there even before death. Which is just plumb crazy, no?

No, Pilty, you didn't read all of Anne's post. Anne's a Buddhist. Buddhists, depending on sect, oppose the Hindu concept of Atman, which is the idea of a hidden inner self that connects to Bhraman. They believe in the idea of Anatman, which is "no self". This means, according to Buddhist, there was never a “you” to begin with because the ultimate goal is the extinguishing of the idea of "you."

Posted by: Jafafa Hots | September 14, 2009 6:40 PM

Adblock Plus rather than adblocker is my preference.

Also, for total surfing safety, the NoScript addon. Whitelist the sites you trust.

Posted by: Gyeong Hwa Pak | September 14, 2009 6:51 PM

I thought the ultimate goal was extinguishing attachment, which is the root cause of all suffering.

the concept of self is just one attachment that must be severed.

Posted by: Seeker | September 14, 2009 6:52 PM

What a way to go... and so fast and effective as well. Not to mention ecologically viable and cheap (have you any idea how much a frigging coffin costs? My BiL makes them for a living, so I've got some kind of idea... talk about a waste of good money)

Where can I sign up for it? (that is, if there's anything of my body left after being harvested for organs and having spent time on the cutting-table of the local universitary clinic to which I've bequeathed my body).

Posted by: kestrien | September 14, 2009 6:54 PM

Reminds me of one of my favorite quotes! From the poet Robinson Jeffers:

"To be eaten by that beak and become part of him, to share those wings and those eyes--What a sublime end of one's body, what and enskyment; what a life after death."

Posted by: d | September 14, 2009 6:56 PM

I've been toying with the idea of a natural burial - here in the UK (and the USA) you can be buried unembalmed in a cardboard or bamboo casket (or even just a sheet) in a meadow. No marker or tombstone, although some sites allow a tree to be planted or bury the stiff with a radio locator thingummy, or record GPS coordinates.

Now I'm wondering about burial at sea, plus squid...

Posted by: Marc Abian | September 14, 2009 7:02 PM

It's interesting, but there are no condors where I live. There are probably some attractive necrophiles though...

Posted by: Piltdown Man | September 14, 2009 7:09 PM

Ichthyic @ 108:

Nice guy but a bit of a kook.

let me be the first to jump on that: pot kettle black

Oops, that should have read "kookist", as in a follower of Rav Avraham Yitzchak Kook.

Gyeong Hwa Pak @ 123:

No, Pilty, you didn't read all of Anne's post. Anne's a Buddhist. Buddhists, depending on sect, oppose the Hindu concept of Atman, which is the idea of a hidden inner self that connects to Bhraman. They believe in the idea of Anatman, which is "no self". This means, according to Buddhist, there was never a “you” to begin with because the ultimate goal is the extinguishing of the idea of "you."

So what you're saying is that, just as the supposedly solid, stable physical body is but an impermanent flux (cf the Heraclitan "no man can step into the same river twice"), so the seemingly unified consciousness of self is equally impermanent and illusory, with no transcendental subject?

But ... that's crazy!

Ichthyic @ 124:

where are YOU in this: first there is a mountain then there is no mountain then there is

I'm right here, typing this.

@ 126:

ultimate goal is the extinguishing of the idea of "you." I thought the ultimate goal was extinguishing attachment, which is the root cause of all suffering. the concept of self is just one attachment that must be severed.

Surely it's THE attachment underlying all others? After all, once you've got rid of the self, there's nothing left with which to feel any attachment to anything. I can inhale vast quantities of cheap tobacco in the blissful awareness that it's all an evanescent illusion.

Posted by: Ichthyic | September 14, 2009 7:17 PM

This means, according to Buddhist, there was never a "you" to begin with because the ultimate goal is the extinguishing of the idea of "you."

first there is a mountain - that's where you/we are Pilty.

then there is no mountain - that's where you/we should strive to be.

then there is - that's what happens after.

clear?

Posted by: Cthulhu | September 14, 2009 7:19 PM

Mmmmmmm, in your face porn ads

Posted by: Awesome McCool | September 14, 2009 7:22 PM

Reminds me of the old story about Diogenes: Someone asked the old Cynic what they should do with his body once he was dead. Diogenes replied "Throw me over the wall of the city and don't concern yourself any further." The inquirer responded, somewhat incredulously, "But you'll be eaten by wolves." Indefatigable as ever, Diogenes replied "Tell you what: throw me over with a sharp stick in my hand. If I don't want the wolves to eat me, I'll use it to chase them off."

Posted by: Bunk | September 14, 2009 7:26 PM

Just in case all you people were lying, I went back for a second look. Yep, It's porn, all right. I'm not sure if it's hard core, though. brb

Posted by: Fil | September 14, 2009 7:34 PM

I've seen film of sky burials before, but it was very interesting to see more detail of the practice.

As for me, I'm more of a dog lover than a bird man, so I'd rather get minced and end up in a can of pet food. A few chew bones too, maybe. :-)

Flesh after all is just an illusion, along with all matter; there is nothing solid there at all (sub-atomic particles are not little dots of "stuff").

Posted by: Whatevermachine | September 14, 2009 7:37 PM

Oh man, it really annoys me when people talk about how it's only 'prudes' who don't like porn. I don't mean to get into an argument over why I feel this way, but I agree with PZ. These ads treat women like trash.

Agree with an above poster's take on the funeral - the idea of returning a body to nature is kind of beautiful and respectful. I'd hate to know my body was just going to lie in the ground and slowly decompose. Get it over with, for goodness' sake, I'm gonna be cremated. The worst thing to do with a body, I believe, is to preserve it like Lenin's.

Posted by: Gyeong Hwa Pak | September 14, 2009 7:47 PM

same thing that drove those mad motherfuckers to invent the concept of "intelligent design"

ID, the piece-of-crap-wannabe-science whose only purpose is to put a wedge in our education system so that we can preach theocracy in our school.

Well, actually it's second purpose is to give me a reason to rant. lol.

Posted by: Lynna | September 14, 2009 7:49 PM

I'd like to be put on an ice floe off the coast of northern Alaska. I hear the polar bears could use a snack.

Posted by: Barry | September 14, 2009 8:03 PM

“How to save the California Condor” Sorry, I’m a skeptic. Feed the condors a steady diet of Americans and you’ll end up killing more condors than you save. Ever see an analysis of the stuff of modern civilization that is present in human fat? Many older people especially still have high levels of DDT present. Not to mention lots of other nasty stuff. And the only thing that saves those old people is that it’s locked up in their fat cells. Put those older people on a 4-week fast and you’ll kill them. Or don’t, wait till they die and give it to the Condors instead.

Posted by: Freelance | September 14, 2009 8:22 PM

Not too long ago the thought of cremation was unthinkable to most Christians. Now it's rather commonplace. That said, I don't think this will catch on.
Can you imagine the headlines if some William Price style crackpot offered his dead child to the birds?

Posted by: RC | September 14, 2009 8:39 PM

Ermine @ 130

"I liked the idea of a burial at sea myself"

Plus, you can help prevent global warming by adding upwelling units! (Gospel of the FSM, of course)

Posted by: J-Ball | September 14, 2009 8:48 PM

Not bad, but i think ill stick with my original plan: having my entire body shot directly into the sun.

Without GA maneuvers it would take less fuel to launch it into interstellar space. Be sure to time your death right so you can take advantage of Venus.

When I go, I plan to be vaporized on impact so there's nothing left to dispose of. If I'm going fast enough, I might even generate some x-rays!

Posted by: Rev. BigDumbChimp | September 14, 2009 9:02 PM

My Grandfather was one of 9 siblings and 7 of the 9 all died of Alzheimers, he was not one of the 7. For the last 15 years or so of his life he went to Duke to get tests periodically and when he died they came into his room, packed his head in ice and took him from Chapel Hill over to Duke to study his brain.

It was very cool as he was a scientist.

Posted by: JackW | September 14, 2009 9:30 PM

I'm surprised after looking at the images, no one has posted that this might be an alternative explanation for all those paleo-human burial sites where the archaeologists have suggested cannibalism.

Posted by: Harry Trunckles | September 14, 2009 9:35 PM

Finally! Something I can agree with Peasy on. I've been leaving my family members on top of mountains for years. Mostly due to forgetting about them when done camping, but its nice to know that I'm helping an endangered species.

Posted by: chrisD | September 14, 2009 9:55 PM

I'm surprised after looking at the images, no one has posted that this might be an alternative explanation for all those paleo-human burial sites where the archaeologists have suggested cannibalism.

You offer up a topic here... Aside from the health issues, is mutually consensual human cannibalism unethical?

I got into an argument with my mom over this and her faith-based moral absolutism precluded any progress in the discussion. She was willing to concede that she wouldn't want to be eaten and the thought of anyone wanting to eat another person disgusted her therefore she believed it was wrong in all cases.

We also argued about assisted suicide, which she also disagrees with on religious grounds alone. She claimed all the suffering the person endures was "part of god's plan", suicide is wrong, therefore a suffering terminal case has no right to end their own life, according to her wishes.

So, anyway, human flesh: tasty or off-limits?

I have no proclivity to deny another their right to consume another consenting adult, but what about children brought up in the 'tradition?' They haven't had enough experience and can't really base their decisions on personal thought processes, so even if they consented it would be off-limits due to societal pressure on impressionable minds.

A question to those unaffected by this Tibetan 'Sky burial' as we're calling it: would cannibalism be as mundane or would the practice be altered in some way since it's not 'nature' reclaiming the energy? Aren't people part of nature?

Thoughts?

Posted by: Pygmy Loris | September 14, 2009 10:08 PM

Also, I'm among those who didn't even notice the porn ads. I think I've become nearly immune to internet advertising. It just doesn't register for me anymore; my brain simply doesn't see the ads.

Posted by: Travis | September 14, 2009 10:29 PM

Very interesting. I had heard about this practise many times but had never seen the details of it.

I felt nothing other than interest when looking at the photos though, no disgust, nothing at all negative. It was just neat!

Posted by: Ompompanoosuc | September 14, 2009 10:39 PM

I want to feed the wet critters. Maybe I'll ask the wife to have me thrown in that 2000m trench on the north side of Little Cayman. She would do it, that woman is not squeamish at all. In fact, I better make sure she understands she is to wait until after I'm dead.

Posted by: Notagod | September 14, 2009 10:58 PM

The pictures are educational to christians. They can see what the ingredients look like before the crackers are mixed and baked.

Posted by: MadScientist | September 14, 2009 11:20 PM

Consumed by scavenger birds - how Zoroastrian. Did the Nepalese evolve this tradition independently of Zoroaster's followers and therefore Zeusdesignedit or did they simply run out of breadcrumbs for the birds?

Posted by: NelC | September 14, 2009 11:25 PM

As I recall, the problem with vultures on the Indian sub-continent is that a common drug used on cattle was lethal to the birds, which crashed the population by 95% in the space of a few years. Efforts are currently under way to save all nine Indian vulture species from extinction.

Posted by: doug l | September 15, 2009 12:04 AM

Very interesting...a bit gruesome but not overly so and I do have a respect for others' practices even when I don't share them provided it's all consensual, which brings to mind the erotica on the site. You think the females were treated like meat but it looks like it's equal opportunity for meat of either sex and entirely consensual, but not too much to my liking. As they say, porn is erotic art as expressed by someone else.
I noticed a raven in there too. I kinda prefer ravens...smart and so entertainingly mischievous, like when they try to eat an entire bag of bagels or rather figure out to get as many as possible before their fellow ravens do. When I'm dead maybe I could be cut up into bagel sized chunks for the ravens; might find parts of me lodged in an old tree as the Raven stashes bits of me for later, which I've watched 'em do on occasion...'cept for the skull which I hope a nephew or someone will cast in stainless steel and pave with cubic zirconium crystals..in homage to Damien Hirsh.
I do love condors though. I'm friends with a couple of the "old hands" of bird biologists involved with one of the reintroduction program in CA, did some backbreaking volunteer work at their sight overlooking Big Sur and have seen the birds in their hack boxes and in the wild...6 or more of 'em sitting in one tree in Bryce a few years back and at another time watched 'em swoop along the south rim of the grand canyon, attarcted by the dumpsters, the allure is just too great to pass up...who'd a thunk the species would ever get back to even that kind of numbers.
Thanks for bringing it to our attention...all that mumbo jumbo can lead to some interesting human behaviors.

Posted by: Travis | September 15, 2009 12:29 AM

Oh, and as it came up, I would happily try to arrange this if it was possible and requested by a parent, my brother, or someone else I love. I would hope they would be able to do whatever I would request done to my body, and not pretend that preserving, packaging, and burrying is somehow more right, or even more comforting.

Posted by: MikeS29 | September 15, 2009 2:05 AM

hje @ 182

Took a while, but we have a winner!

Posted by: Larry | September 15, 2009 3:02 AM

@ #14 and #186.
Having a tree planted on your remains ( grave ) is all well and good until the tree is pulped to make paper for the bible to be printed on and then your DNA or whatever becomes part of a sickness==bad.

Posted by: Connor | September 15, 2009 3:30 AM

Nevermore.

Posted by: Lord Zero | September 15, 2009 4:36 AM

I remember reading about it for first time
when i was a little lad back then in the novels
of "Lobsang Rampa" about a tibetan monk adventures.

Its great to know they still do it.

Most enviromental friendly "buring" ever.

Love it.

Posted by: Piltdown Man | September 15, 2009 5:01 AM

Ichthyic @ 138:

After all, once you've got rid of the self, there's nothing left with which to feel any attachment to anything.
consciousness and self are intertwined, but separate in Buddhist philosophy.

You mean consciousness exists apart from the illusory self? Some kind of super-consciousness as opposed to individual self-consciousness?

I'm right here, typing this.

then you don't understand.

Don't blame me -- I don't even exist.

@ 139:

first there is a mountain - that's where you/we are Pilty.
then there is no mountain - that's where you/we should strive to be.
then there is - that's what happens after.
clear?

You seem to be saying the dissolution of the illusory ego leads to a mystical state of undifferentiated is-ness.

Why should we strive for this state? Because it means an end to suffering? The desire to end suffering is itself a form of egotistical attachment, so the whole process of seeking and attaining enlightenment is poisoned at the root.

@ 140:

btw, Pilty, I'm surprised, being the supposed xian acolyte you claim to be, you haven't seen the parallels within Christ's teachings.

Apart from some superficial resemblances - eg the stress on renunciation & compassion - the two seem diametrically opposed. Christ affirms the existence of the individual soul and insists that suffering cannot be negated, only transfigured by an acceptance of the Cross. There is no way out but there is a way through.

Gyeong Hwa Pak @ 146:

1. Buddhist assert that the you typing now is fake, it's an attachment to emptiness (non-self/anatman). Zen takes it further by saying it's all illusion.
2. Once you've reached Nirvana, there is nothing else. Everything is gone. (With the exception of certain Mahayana and Syncretist sects.)
3. If that seems bizarre, well hey it's religion, not science.

It's from the pit of Hell, that's what it is. Some of these syncretist sects seem to be close to the truth though.

Ichthyic @ 148:

that's why Pilty keeps coming here.
pure, unadulterated, jealousy that religion cannot give him the same material satisfaction science can.

When it comes to material satisfaction, you can't beat a pleasingly hieratic memeplex.

Jack Krebs @ 160:

I've tried explaining this idea to Christians who just can't see that they are wrong to think that the only two possibilities are that either people have a soul as they envision it or there is no immaterial, spiritual component to people at all. The Buddhists believe that there is a spiritual component to the world, but that the coherence into a "self" soul is just as transitory and un-ultimate as the coherence of the body out of elementary particles. Upon death the spiritual aspects of soul are thought to return to the undifferentiated oneness, much as a drop of water thrown back into the ocean loses it's individuality.

How does that differ from Hinduism?

Posted by: strangebrew | September 15, 2009 5:15 AM

That burial rite was very cool!

So when death comes a knocking on me mortal door... it will be just that end and nothing more.

Posted by: Piltdown Man | September 15, 2009 5:30 AM

ChrisD @ 169:

Aside from the health issues, is mutually consensual human cannibalism unethical?
I got into an argument with my mom over this and her faith-based moral absolutism precluded any progress in the discussion. ...
I have no proclivity to deny another their right to consume another consenting adult...

The mere fact that this question is being asked reveals the dangers of so-called "free thought".

It's the inevitable Three-Stage Dialectic of Liberal Thought:-

1) Why not?

2) What could it hurt?

3) How were we supposed to know?

By "mutually consensual human cannibalism" I presume you mean that one consenting human would consume the other consenting human after the latter has died a natural death. But suppose a consenting adult agreed to be slaughtered and eaten by another. If the free exercise of the autonomous will is all, how could you object in principle? Why not?

Posted by: Stephen Wells | September 15, 2009 5:47 AM

Pilty, the desire for _yourself_ not to suffer may be egotistical but the desire for there _not to be suffering_ is not; so you're wrong about nonattachment, as you are about so much else.

Posted by: geru | September 15, 2009 5:57 AM

...or I don't know, that would definitely make of an interesting day at the zoo. :)

"C'mon kids, we must hurry to the lions cage, grandpa's funeral starts at 11."

Posted by: Piltdown Man | September 15, 2009 6:08 AM

Stephen Wells @ 201:

Pilty, the desire for _yourself_ not to suffer may be egotistical but the desire for there _not to be suffering_ is not

Isn't it? Isn't it possible that the desire to end others' suffering is primarily motivated by a desire to escape the unpleasant personal emotions associated with contemplating such suffering? Empathy requires an ego.

Posted by: Eidolon | September 15, 2009 6:49 AM

hje @182:
Yeah but with my luck, my atoms would end up as part of some alien prattling on about how Qezzz!!s gave his/her/its 28 hatchlings to save all believers in him/her/it. This would exclude believers of the misguided faith of Qezz!s and Mormons of course.

Posted by: Piltdown Man | September 15, 2009 6:56 AM

geru @ 202:

Am I completely inhuman, or does this seem like a smarter way to take care of corpses than the tradition of burying them underground in carefully crafted boxes that cost thousands of dollars?
The bones seem a bit gruesome, but why does this same process seem perfectly reasonable when I see it on National Geographic, between a lion and an antelope?

"Are not you of much more value than they?"

Posted by: valhar2000 | September 15, 2009 7:03 AM

#200:

Who says they had a choice? Pornographers are not noted for their chivalry.

And your evidence for this is... where is it again?

Posted by: Valhar2000 | September 15, 2009 7:27 AM

To further elaborate on my point: who is more sexist, the guy who places a porn ad on a website, or the guy who assumes that the women featured in those ads must, I say, must, have been duped because women are weak simple-minded little things that cannot possibly make any decisions about sex the guy in question disapproves of by themselves?

I go for #2 on that one, but hey! Must be the lack of chivalry talking, right?

Posted by: Bruce Gorton | September 15, 2009 8:10 AM

I think I am going to stick with my original plan:

My body is to be harvested for transplants, with my brain going to transplant research for young, attractive rich people.

Posted by: Chemist | September 15, 2009 9:04 AM

Surprised nobody has suggested the use of carrion beetles to dispose of your remains. Once saw what I thought was a dead mouse "come to life" -- it was actually *moving*. Closer inspection showed it was full of these beautiful red and black beetles who were recycling death into life. By morning, it was all gone.

Do we all realize that Bill Donohue and the Catholic League is going to use this post and thread to further damn and demonize Father PZ and The Cathedral of Nature??? I say, bring him on ... should be FAR more interesting than a bunch of vultures eating lunch. ;-)

Y'all say there are porn links accompanying this educational video??? Better go check this out ... Might just learn something! ;-)

Posted by: Tulse | September 15, 2009 9:49 AM

By "mutually consensual human cannibalism" I presume you mean that one consenting human would consume the other consenting human after the latter has died a natural death. But suppose a consenting adult agreed to be slaughtered and eaten by another. If the free exercise of the autonomous will is all, how could you object in principle? Why not?

"And he took bread, gave thanks and broke it, and gave it to them, saying, 'This is my body given for you; do this in remembrance of me.'"

Do you really think that sky burial is any weirder than the Catholic Eucharist?

Posted by: Denise | September 15, 2009 10:19 AM

K, it's tomorrow, and no nightmares. I have to admit that since I studied the photos before bedtime I was worried I may have to replay them within the unconscious.

About 15 years ago I was hugely into birding, and I used to insist to my husband that I wanted to go this way. I never actually internalized it before last night. Maybe I am immature but the images to me are beautiful AND frightening.

Posted by: ewoo | September 15, 2009 11:01 AM

You just looked at pictures of a body being mutilated with a butchers knife and most of you are worried about the porn ads?
WTF?
Anyway... I wish to be cremated, my ashes ground into a fine powder, mixed with a kilo of Columbian's finest and then distributed to the ladies of Vegas's finest dancing establishments.

Posted by: Valhar2000 | September 15, 2009 11:13 AM

"It was then that I realized that people watch this stuff some times not because they like women but because they hate them."

And I once saw a group of people on a forum organizing a boycott of one of their favourite porn websites because a particular photoshoot they released was degrading to the models involved; the website apologized and removed the shoot. We can throw anecdotes back and forth all day, but it's not going to get us anywhere.

Posted by: Meera | September 15, 2009 11:21 AM

Do you have any idea who took these photos? Or where they were taken? I'm a journalist working on a story about vultures and I'd like to contact them.

Posted by: blueelm | September 15, 2009 11:38 AM

#225

Where did I say that all porn should be taken down? Who are you trying to intimidate here, me? Why? All I gave you is one human being's reason for feeling the way I do. I also have PTSD from an assault, so some things trigger me. Do you think I should shut up about that too?

I have a right to decide what *I* myself want to and do not want to look at. You do whatever you please, but do not trivialize me or my own life experience.

Posted by: blueelm | September 15, 2009 12:08 PM

And lastly:

Since you aimed you comment at me and not Endor, I'll respond to it directly.

I find it very ironic that you are complaining about people being offended by particular porn ads and the site owner's decision to put a warning due to those ads with an example of just that kind of occurence.

Kudos to PZ. Those particular ads that I saw didn't bother me that much, but he saw them and found them offensive himself so why should he have to say otherwise? To keep from offending your porn gods?

Posted by: blueelm | September 15, 2009 12:27 PM

Why should we strive for this state? Because it means an end to suffering? The desire to end suffering is itself a form of egotistical attachment, so the whole process of seeking and attaining enlightenment is poisoned at the root.

Jeff Eyges, I was thinking rather the same thing. He really *does* seem to get it. I'm not religious, but I was at the home of a good friend who has been practicing Zen for most of his life. He had another friend there who was saying this and so angry about it. The friend-of-friend was convinced he had attained enlightenment and felt so jilted by the idea of deprivation of self that he was downright angry. Now as to his claims of an enlightened state I'll make no comment, it's not for me to judge and I honestly don't know the guy very well, but it seems to me that people can get the concept but find it very distasteful. It was interesting to watch the conversation between the two, however. It's been interesting to watch this conversation with Piltdown as well.

Posted by: justdisa | September 15, 2009 1:19 PM

@74 Regarding composting a human body: I'm really glad to know someone else has thought about this. Everybody looks at me like I'm crazy when I say it.

I talked with an undertaker about it a few years ago. He said there was no law against it, but also no provisions for it to be done. It's uncharted territory.

He said some undertaker would have to work out the details and get approval for it, and that the way to get someone to do that would be to have a market for it. So far, it's just you and me. Do you know anyone else? If we could get a few dozen people together, we might be able to convince someone.

I don't want to be cremated. That's an awful waste of organic material. =D

Posted by: Gyeong Hwa Pak | September 15, 2009 1:46 PM

Pilty,

Truth? What ultimate truth? You seek an ultimate in a religion? Good luck...
IMO, the "truth" of this Dharmic religion seems a lot better then most Abrahamic relgion. Both still irrational though and still don't compare to empirical truths in science.

It's from the pit of Hell, that's what it is. Some of these syncretist sects seem to be close to the truth though.

How ironic that you should chose a Theravada depiction of Naraka (Naruk in my language), or Hell. Did you know Pilty, that in the Theravada Naraka they punish you according to your sin? For example harassing people and using scornful language results in you becoming a Preta, a hungry ghost. Bad mouthing zealous Preta have their mouth and arse exactly in the same place. They take your sin and multiply by 5 or 10 and that's how long you have to stay there until they recycle you back to earth as something else. Since you think this is closer to the "truth", then you should brace yourself. :)

Posted by: Fred The Hun | September 15, 2009 2:51 PM

Perhaps OT but kinda funny to me in a twisted survival of the fittest kind of way...

"Jessica Simpson's dog snatched by coyote"

http://www.cnn.com/2009/SHOWBIZ/Music/09/15/jessica.simpson.dog/index.html

Especially loved the photo of her with a fur collar.
I thinks it's an appropriate revenge of the coyotes.
I'm a little sad for the Maltipoo but such is life and death in the wild.

There's an email listed where you can send your condolences.
I thought of sending this message but I didn't.

Yay! Coyotes 1, Maltipoos 0.

Posted by: strange gods before me | September 15, 2009 3:06 PM

and followed it up with a description of the fear, that people (a number big enough to be feared), who watch porn (aka men?)go around raping/killing women (men?) _BECAUSE_ they watch porn.

You're lying, Nicolas Keller. I read blueelm's post, and she said nothing like that. You are lying. You are not interested in an honest discussion.

Posted by: Kraid | September 15, 2009 3:48 PM

Endor said:

Bingo. Its obvious. Those men pretending this is all about "prudish" feminists are either clueless, or deliberately ignoring the obvious, overt misogyny inherent and explicit in a great deal of porn (yeah, yeah, yeah not all). Because it benefits them, of course. This faux concern for the women involved is ridiculous.

Posted by: Owlmirror | September 15, 2009 3:59 PM

You seem to be saying the dissolution of the illusory ego leads to a mystical state of undifferentiated is-ness.

Why should we strive for this state? Because it means an end to suffering? The desire to end suffering is itself a form of egotistical attachment, so the whole process of seeking and attaining enlightenment is poisoned at the root.

Sort of like how attaining heaven is poisoned at the root because it's really a selfish desire to continue existing without suffering in a universe where an all-powerful God condemns those he doesn't like to an eternity of suffering?

Christ affirms the existence of the individual soul

Meh. According to your exegesis, anyway.

It's from the pit of Hell, that's what it is.

Renunciation and compassion are from the pit of Hell?

Do tell.

When it comes to material satisfaction, you can't beat a pleasingly hieratic memeplex.

Actually, Pilt, I'm pretty sure that you come here to heap scorn on all that do not believe as you do, and take mental notes for who will be set on fire when the Inquisition is started up again, and you're hired to interrogate those accused of "subversion" against conservative Roman Catholicism.

The mere fact that this question is being asked reveals the dangers of so-called "free thought".

Says the hypocrite who said "protein is protein".

Isn't it? Isn't it possible that the desire to end others' suffering is primarily motivated by a desire to escape the unpleasant personal emotions associated with contemplating such suffering? Empathy requires an ego.

Extrapolating from this, either God is either a sociopath with no unpleasant emotions associated with contemplating suffering or is a monumental sadist who actually enjoys the suffering of others.

Which one is it, do you think?

Posted by: blueelm | September 15, 2009 4:06 PM

where i actually was wrong, was that i stated that she said that they ONLY do it because they watch porn. this is wrong. i reread her post. i get the impression that she thinks that porn boosts these rapist/killer tendencies, but she doenst think they cause it in the first place. im sorry that i did get this wrong.

Let me clarify. What I said is that it REMINDS me of those tendencies and that TRIGGERS fear. Until those things are gone the fact will still remain that inside my head I will still feel a bit of that fear. I don't know what goes on in other people's heads, I only know what goes on in my own.

I also said that I DO NOT THINK THAT CENSORING PORN WILL DECREASE VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN.

What I do think is that people have lots of reasons for NOT WANTING TO LOOK AT IT ON A SITE, and they have a right to bitch WHEN THEIR FACES ARE RUBBED IN IT WITHOUT THEIR SEEKING IT.

Posted by: strange gods before me | September 15, 2009 6:17 PM

I'm glad you got to understand a little better what blueelm was saying. You are still jumping to strawman conclusions regarding Endor.

In any case, Valhar2000 was being a shithead; blueelm just explained why she did not like most porn, and Valhar2000's response was to argue that her explanation was insufficient. That's a shithead response. She doesn't have to have a fucking thesis ready to explain her feelings to anyone else's satisfaction.

Hence your defense of Valhar2000, "it [Pharyngula?] is just the wrong place, because deep emotions are not known to be a good basis for objective debate/discussion", is similarly flawed. No one is owed an argument for why another person doesn't like something and would prefer not to have it shoved in her face unexpectedly.

Posted by: Piltdown Man | September 15, 2009 8:14 PM

SEX

Nicolas Keller @ 208:

Soooo you think _all_ pornography is demeaning to women?

I see it as a matter of human dignity.

#1 Apart from being intensely pleasurable, sex is the most intimate possible contact between two human beings this side of heaven.

#2 The fact of sexual differentiation adds an element of profound mystery to this experience -- the sexual act emphasizes the brain-buggering gulf between man & women at the very moment of their closest union.

#3 As if all this wasn't enough, it is through sex that humans participate in the act of creation, the generation of new life.

Religious considerations aside, it surely follows that this universal human experience is no trivial one and that any attempt to trivialize it undermines the dignity of the human person at a very deep level and inflicts grave psychic damage on individuals and communities. This seems to me sufficient reason to regard promiscuity, masturbation, abortion, sodomy and pornographic fantasies as they have traditionally been regarded -- as perversions. By contrast, the work of burger-flippers, road-sweepers, middle managers and athletes, however gruelling it might be at times, does not involve quite the same degradation of an absolutely primal human experience.

the evil manipulations of these intellectually overpowering puppeteers called men..errrr.. everybody-except-me-men? ... they actually are equal. E-Q-U-A-L. even when they are young.

&

Valhar2000 @ 213:

...who is more sexist, the guy who places a porn ad on a website, or the guy who assumes that the women featured in those ads must, I say, must, have been duped because women are weak simple-minded little things that cannot possibly make any decisions about sex the guy in question disapproves of by themselves?

When I suggested the unfortunate young ladies who appeared on the sleazoid website in question may have had no choice in the matter, I wasn't thinking of submission to an "overpowering intellect". I was thinking of submission to overpowering physical coercion. Pornographers are not noted for fastidiousness in these matters.

Obviously I don't know this was the case, but the mere possibility demonstrates the limits of E-Q-U-A-L-I-T-Y. It doesn't matter how many adolescent girls feel "empowered" by watching Buffy beat hordes of monstrous foes to pulp: in the real world most women are ultimately at the mercy of most men's superior physical strength. Deny it all you want, but in the real world women's physical autonomy exists on suffrance. Should a scantily-clad woman have the right to walk down a dark alley unmolested? Of course! But that "right" exists as long as men recognize it.

Most women might think it ought to be otherwise and men might think so too, but who "by taking thought, can add to his stature by one cubit?"

I would suggest that it is against this background of harsh reality that traditional sexual morality should be understood. The prohibitions and taboos, the emphasis on purity, chastity and chivalry exist not to keep women down but to keep women safe by regulating the predatory instincts of men.

But who knows? Maybe the women on that website suffered no coercion, either physical or psychological. Maybe they entered into it of their own free will. Would you still be able to view it with equanimity if it was your mother, wife, sister or daughter up there on that website? If so, what sort of man would that make you? And what sort of mother, wife, sister or daughter would it make them? Shame is a great civilizing (I would say humanizing) influence.

Either/Or

Posted by: Piltdown Man | September 15, 2009 8:55 PM

Owlmirror @ 245:

You seem to be saying the dissolution of the illusory ego leads to a mystical state of undifferentiated is-ness.

Why should we strive for this state? Because it means an end to suffering? The desire to end suffering is itself a form of egotistical attachment, so the whole process of seeking and attaining enlightenment is poisoned at the root.

Sort of like how attaining heaven is poisoned at the root because it's really a selfish desire to continue existing without suffering in a universe where an all-powerful God condemns those he doesn't like to an eternity of suffering?

Even if that caricature were true, at least it wouldn't be self-contradictory!

It isn't true, of course. Attaining heaven is a matter of having a selfless desire to love God in a universe where those who hate God condemn their selfish selves to an eternity of suffering.

Christ affirms the existence of the individual soul
Meh. According to your exegesis, anyway.

Tell me, o mighty exegete, how you would understand "For in the resurrection they shall neither marry nor be married; but shall be as the angels of God in heaven."

It's from the pit of Hell, that's what it is.

Renunciation and compassion are from the pit of Hell?
Do tell.

No, the doctrine of anattā is from Hell. Renunciation and compassion are the sugar-coating Satan uses to disguise the poison.

I'm pretty sure that you come here to heap scorn on all that do not believe as you do, and take mental notes for who will be set on fire when the Inquisition is started up again, and you're hired to interrogate those accused of "subversion" against conservative Roman Catholicism.

As some day it may happen that a victim must be found,
I've got a little list — I've got a little list
Of society offenders who might well be underground,
And who never would be missed — who never would be missed!
There's the pestilential nuisances who write for autographs —
All people who have flabby hands and irritating laughs —
All children who are up in dates, and floor you with 'em flat —
All persons who in shaking hands, shake hands with you like that —
And all third persons who on spoiling tête-á-têtes insist —
They'd none of 'em be missed — they'd none of 'em be missed!

Chorus He's got 'em on the list — he's got 'em on the list;
And they'll none of 'em be missed — they'll none of 'em be missed!

The mere fact that this question is being asked reveals the dangers of so-called "free thought".

Says the hypocrite who said "protein is protein".

That was sarcasm, Owlmirror. Sheesh.

Isn't it possible that the desire to end others' suffering is primarily motivated by a desire to escape the unpleasant personal emotions associated with contemplating such suffering? Empathy requires an ego.

Extrapolating from this, either God is either a sociopath with no unpleasant emotions associated with contemplating suffering or is a monumental sadist who actually enjoys the suffering of others.

Which one is it, do you think?

I don't see how you extrapolate that from this. Why can't God feel sorrow and pity when He contemplates suffering?

Gyeong Hwa Pak @ 237:

IMO, the "truth" of this Dharmic religion seems a lot better then most Abrahamic relgion.

I've noticed a lot of scientifically minded atheists seem quite sympathetic to (or at least respectful of) oriental mysticism, Buddhism in particular. Probably something to do with anattā.

Did you know Pilty, that in the Theravada Naraka they punish you according to your sin?

It wouldn't be much of a hell if they didn't.

For example harassing people and using scornful language results in you becoming a Preta, a hungry ghost.

Since you previously accused me of sarcasm, I imagine my punishment would be an eternity trading combox posts with Owlmirror, who is apparently unable to detect it.

(On the subject of Buddhist hell, isn't this eerily reminiscent of the Tibetan funeral?)

Posted by: Ichthyic | September 15, 2009 9:07 PM

Even if we are just animals (and I don't believe that we are just animals) we don't feel that we are.

Of course, this has NOTHING to do with why these people chose this kind of way to dispose of the remains of their loved one.

I've noticed a lot of scientifically minded atheists seem quite sympathetic to (or at least respectful of) oriental mysticism, Buddhism in particular. Probably something to do with anattā.

bullshit.

you're projecting because we don't respect YOU and YOUR religious ideology.

deciding you want your remains eaten as opposed to buried has fuck all to do with mysticism.

If you wonder why any of us know anything about Buddhism, etc., it's for the same reasons we know about xianity; some of actually have spent time studying it.

Posted by: Piltdown Man | September 15, 2009 9:22 PM

Scientists were baffled when a Zen monk caught syphilis while masturbating - until they realised it was a case of one-hand clap.

[/rimshot]

Posted by: strange gods before me | September 15, 2009 9:38 PM

Hey Pilty, you got any jokes about Catholics?

Posted by: John Morales | September 15, 2009 9:45 PM

Piltdown:

[Owlmirror] Extrapolating from this, either God is either a sociopath with no unpleasant emotions associated with contemplating suffering or is a monumental sadist who actually enjoys the suffering of others.

Which one is it, do you think?

I don't see how you extrapolate that from this. Why can't God feel sorrow and pity when He contemplates suffering?

Isn't it obvious? An omnipotent God can undo all the suffering and make it never have been. That She chooses not to means she wishes it so.

D'oh.

Posted by: Piltdown Man | September 15, 2009 9:52 PM

strange gods before me @ 259:

Hey Pilty, you got any jokes about Catholics?

Q: What do the Dominicans and the Jesuits have in common?

A: Both orders were founded by Spaniards - St Dominic and St Ignatius respectively. Also, both were founded to combat specific heresies - Albigensianism and Protestantism respectively.

Q: What's the difference between the Dominicans and the Jesuits?

A: Met any Albigensians lately?

+ + +

John Morales @ 260:

I knew he was addicted.

A guilty pleasure.

I've noticed a lot of scientifically minded atheists seem quite sympathetic to (or at least respectful of) oriental mysticism, Buddhism in particular. Probably something to do with anattā

What?

Mysticism is the antithesis of a scientific mindset.

Perhaps monism would be a better word.

Posted by: Nicolas Keller | September 15, 2009 10:07 PM

sgbm:
first the bickering (the unextended version->3:55 am here):
valhar2000 did not etc.... (pls lets just let him/her comment and settle it)
about endor:
you left out the whole portion where i ironically summarized her/his statement.
also, before i asked my questions i made the remark "im curious:". as you may have noticed in my case this is not even remotely a sarcastic statement. i really wanted her/him to answer them. to give a quick "if-you-say-this-then-i-say-that"-responses are hardly an unfair treatment in this blog discussion format. i really WILL wait for a response ;)- if she/he will answer these questions with "no, i dont believe this" i will patiently hear her/him out.

"Your answer to #1 is not an answer, but an insult. You are not willing to consider any argument for it; all such arguments must necessarily be outrageous."

that actually suprised me :P- because i really dont think you would see your own arguments as being necessarily outrageous ^^. i also would discuss this.really.

"I went over it very recently in this thread. You can read what I said there if you want, but I really don't have the energy to go over it again, so you'll be wasting your time if you ask me to keep on discussing it. I hope you understand. And hey, at least I warned you before you typed up any questions."

heh, i read all your posts in the thread.oh boy/girl, i really dont think we would agree on most things :D (your theory of economics? revolution? the repressed? :-O )
one last question though: why is it that i have the feeling that a scattershotlike debate style with a lot of insults and generalizations is often preferred in this blog (non-science-threads) over dialoguelike discussion with time to let everyone explain himself? heh,i would really like to see a live discussion on tinychat with cams on ;DD

Posted by: strange gods before me | September 15, 2009 10:28 PM

"Your answer to #1 is not an answer, but an insult. You are not willing to consider any argument for it; all such arguments must necessarily be outrageous."

that actually suprised me :P- because i really dont think you would see your own arguments as being necessarily outrageous ^^. i also would discuss this.really.

No, you said it was outrageous. Read your own words:

"you have a quiet outrageous opinion of both sexes involved. especially concerning the idea of gender equality."

Without hearing what argument anyone might give in favor of that proposition, you declared it outrageous.

Posted by: blueelm | September 15, 2009 10:30 PM

one last question though: why is it that i have the feeling that a scattershotlike debate style with a lot of insults and generalizations is often preferred in this blog (non-science-threads) over dialoguelike discussion with time to let everyone explain himself? heh,i would really like to see a live discussion on tinychat with cams on ;DD

I probably can't speak for everybody on that but a lot of people here have been here for a looooong time so by the time some one fresh and new comes in and starts talking there's a good chance that this is a long ongoing debate, not to mention one in which some feathers were ruffled already on both sides. Also I think a lot of people on this board are scientists and so when discussing a science thread they are in familiar territory. When talking about other issues there is usually a good mix of people who are actual experts but an awful lot of people who will be operating in less familiar territory. Some times it's very hard to pin down exactly why I think a certain thing, for instance. It's much easier for me to talk about music or art. I know something about those things for sure and I can find resources to support my assertions.

I'm slightly ok with economics. I can tell you lots and lots about computers. I get less good with math and with sociological questions. I'm completely at a loss on philosophy and religion actually. I know some various religious histories, but the actual current content of religions? No, I'm afraid I'm at a loss for instance with customs at churches and who currently believes what.

At that point I'm basically like a kid. I have questions. I have vague impressions. What I don't have is solid backing or 10 plus years of research. I'm kind of reminded of that
"No I won't read your fucking screenplay" screed though. If you're talking to an expert you can't assume that they feel like being pinned into a conversation they probably get pinned into all the time. For instance, it's probably not a great idea to ask a physicist if they can really make a light saber.

Oh and one last thing. Correct me if I'm wrong everybody but I believe:

Endor = Female, SGBM = Female I don't know about valhar2000.

Posted by: strange gods before me | September 15, 2009 11:14 PM

strange gods is male.

Posted by: blueelm | September 15, 2009 11:34 PM

Gah! Sorry StrangeGods. I get people's gender confused all the time on here. Well, I'd be happy to have you as a member of mine :P

Posted by: strange gods before me | September 15, 2009 11:39 PM

It's okay, blueelm.

I am the Lord thy God, who brought thee out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage.

But there's been some confusion about my gender since then.

Posted by: Nicolas Keller | September 16, 2009 12:55 AM

cant sleep. jsut wanted to grab a glass of water, my screen was still flashing...oh well, insomnia. i hope, i can stay coherent ;).

"You then wrote "its obvious? sooooo all men who are part of pornos (the implied 99,999999% misogynic ones) are misogynic and all men who watch porn are misogynic/rapists/killers? OR are ignoring "the obvious" (really: im interested in scientific back up here), because they benefit from these evil wrong doings?
(...)
The logical jump there is going from her declaration that misogyny is an obvious part of pornography___to an implication that ALL men who are involved are misogynists and then to an even greater jump (here comes the strawman) that she then has asserted, albeit passively, that ALL men who view pornography are misogynists____."

first, i really think that the "its" in

""It was then that I realized that people watch this stuff some times not because they like women but because they hate them. "

"Bingo. Its obvious."

refers to people (i assume most of them men) watching the porn because they hate women.

furthermore i dont think that it is a big jump to go from "the stuff they do in porn is inherently misogynic"(A) to "the persons who do this stuff to women are misogynic"(B). formally you are correct, but in the end most of the persons who endorse A also endorse B.

concerning the second jump: if someone aa.)deliberately ignores the obvious, overt misogyny and bb.) benefits from it and cc.) hypocritically covers it up (faux concern for women etc.), he surely is assisting misogyny and is guilty of complicity.

in any other analogous context this would be the logical continuance.

if we would have this discussion face-to-face i wouldnt have to make these assumptions. here ill just wait if i made the correct ones and otherwise will apologize, even though i phrased the assumption as a question (not a real strawman).

"You also managed to vent some vitriol at feminists. That was quite an assertion too. All those feminists did? What exactly do you mean by that anyway?"

i vent some virtriol at feminsits??? im really shocked that you think that. i said:
"#2: if its that bad,do what you would otherwise do: gather the victim,witnesses and press charges against the parties involved. if its not, gather scientific evidence that the women/men involved feel abused and raise public conscientiousness as feminists did with alot of things."

please note that the things she "would otherwise do" are exactly the same things i would do (btw,fun fact: im a man ;)).
feminists did a lot of really important things, amongst others raising conscientiousness in a gazillion day-to-day situations. i was in no way venting vitriol at them.promise.

....sleepattack: ZZzzzzZzzzzz ;)

Posted by: windy | September 16, 2009 5:02 AM

Take a good look at those photos which PZ linked to of pagan priests cutting up dead bodies for the vultures. Then compare them to these snapshots of a traditional Requiem Mass. Which is more human? Which would you want to be typically human?

Dude, chanting and playing dress-up is all very well, but at the end of the day you still need to dispose of the body somehow. Your comparison is not very fair (surprise, surprise). Got any snapshots of the traditional backhoe in the cemetery? Is it gold-encrusted, too?

Posted by: Piltdown Man | September 16, 2009 7:10 AM

Jeff Eyges @ 282:

It isn't even good Christian theology.

What do you mean?

Posted by: Owlmirror | September 16, 2009 2:34 PM

Posted by: Piltdown Man | September 9, 2009 4:43 AM

My defence of the Inquisition, like my defence of the Crusades, is a defence of what I take to be the basic principles involved -- namely that a polity has the right to defend itself against external aggression and internal subversion, with lethal force if necessary.

Posted by: Piltdown Man | September 15, 2009 8:17 PM:

I see it as a matter of human dignity.
[...]
A dead body is not just a piece of meat. It is a relic of something unique, irreplaceable and precious and the correct attitude towards it should be one of awestruck reverence.
[...]
Anything that strips the corpse of its basic humanity will tend to degrade this life-affirming awareness and have an insidious effect on how we view the living (as vulture meat in waiting). Even if we choose not to watch the butchery, we still know.

Posted by: Piltdown Man | September 15, 2009 9:52 PM:

A: Met any Albigensians lately?

Juxtaposed for your daily dose of irony.

Posted by: Owlmirror | September 16, 2009 10:57 PM

You lose a lot of credibility

There may be a place where Piltdown Man has some credibility to lose, but Pharyngula is not that place.

Posted by: Steve Dutch | September 17, 2009 12:17 PM

I have a plan for saving any endangered species. Put a nuclear waste repository right in the middle of its prime habitat. Now, even if you actually DO build a repository, it will be less of a threat than habitat encroachment by urban sprawl (and to you believers in radioactive voodoo, go take some science classes). But, and here's the sneaky part, you don't actually have to put anything there. Just put up a fence with big radiation warning signs on it. Property values for 100 miles around will plummet. Nobody will want to come near the place.

There's a Superfund site in Ohio loaded with unexploded ordnance. Who needs to spend money cleaning this up? Make it a wildlife preserve and put signs up saying "When we say keep out, we mean keep out!" Yeah, the occasional deer will set off a shell, but that will be nothing compared to the number killed by hunters and cars.

Posted by: Piltdown Man | September 18, 2009 5:13 AM

Ichthyic @ 255:

Even if we are just animals (and I don't believe that we are just animals) we don't feel that we are.
Of course, this has NOTHING to do with why these people chose this kind of way to dispose of the remains of their loved one.

I never speculated as to the motivation for this ritual. I merely remarked that its physical exigencies seemed to me degrading and inhumane.

Windy @ 281:

Take a good look at those photos which PZ linked to of pagan priests cutting up dead bodies for the vultures. Then compare them to these snapshots of a traditional Requiem Mass. Which is more human? Which would you want to be typically human?

Dude, chanting and playing dress-up is all very well, but at the end of the day you still need to dispose of the body somehow. Your comparison is not very fair (surprise, surprise). Got any snapshots of the traditional backhoe in the cemetery? Is it gold-encrusted, too?

True, the process of disposing of a body, or preparing it for disposal, is not going to be pretty. And as many have pointed out on this thread, an interred corpse will still end up as worm food. No arguments.

What the Requiem ritual does is ADD something that is not "naturally" there -- surpassing dignity. Contemplation of the raw facts of death is necessary for spiritual health but it is not sufficient. Post-Christian Western culture is particularly schizophrenic in this regard, either fastidiously sanitizing death or dwelling nihilistically on its paraphernalia.

justdisa @ 286:

The ceremony you saw, the sky burial itself, is only the very last part of a much longer ceremony. I wonder if you would reach the same conclusion regarding the humanness of the traditions if you compared Western embalming and burial practices with a Tibetan Funeral Ceremony, which is highly complex and ritualized, lasting as many as 49 days.

Fair enough, and I also read that this ritual is hedged around with taboos & not intended for public viewing.

Although I would still dispute the appropriateness of actually integrating the destruction of the corpse into the ritual, I would revise my opinions accordingly . The real barbarism lies in photographing this part of the ritual and disseminating the images over the internet. The Tibetans in question would be guilty of complicity insofar as they (presumably) gave permission for these photographs to be taken, thus negating the supposedly private nature of the ceremony.

Posted by: John Morales | September 18, 2009 6:52 PM

Piltdown:

[3] Permitting something to occur is not the same as wishing it were so (in the sense of deriving pleasure from contemplating it). [2] A judge who sentences a criminal to death or a general who orders his soldiers to kill the enemy need not be a sociopath or sadist. [1] (Or perhaps you think otherwise.)

1. I do think otherwise.

2. Get your analogy right.
A judge who creates a criminal knowing what crimes will be committed before such creation (and who defines what is criminal!), and who then sentences the criminal to death.
A general who creates both his soldiers and his enemies knowing there will be war, and then orders his soldiers to kill his enemies.

3. Permitting something to occur is the same as wishing it so, when such permitter has no limits and can prevent that something from occurring.

Basically, you can't excuse an O³ deity that purportedly made reality for anything, because everything is Her will.

PS. You can't even bring "free will" into it when She knew every choice that ever would be made and every outcome 'before' the moment of Creation.

PPS. Conclusion: if suffering and evil exist (and they do) then if your deity is real, it is Her choice that suffering and evil exist.
Benevolent is not the appropriate term for such a cruel being.

Posted by: Owlmirror | September 19, 2009 2:33 PM

Pharyngula is Piltdown's "guilty pleasure"¹ — his version of a cilice, I suspect.

I suspect that, given that he sees other Christians as “bitch dogs in heat”, he sees himself as a domini canis.

Of course, I suspect that "sick puppy" would be a more accurate description.

Posted by: Piltdown Man | September 20, 2009 5:10 PM

Owlmirror @ 280:

Even if that caricature were true, at least it wouldn't be self-contradictory!

Attaining heaven is a matter of having a selfless desire to love God

"Selfless desire"? Right there is your contradiction.

If you've got a slide-rule for a mind.

in a universe where those who hate God condemn their selfish selves to an eternity of suffering.

And this also contains a contradiction, although it's somewhat more subtle.
If God is the judge, it is God that condemns.
If God is not the judge, then they are not condemned.

God as judge is a useful image but it can be helpful to supplement it with others. Imagine a doctor treating a seriously ill patient. The doctor prescribes a course of medicine for the patient to administer to himself. Because it's quite complicated, the doctor gives the patient an instruction booklet containing precise times & dosages etc. He gives the patient a stern warning that if he deviates from the instructions he risks worsening his condition and suffering excruciating agony for the rest of his life.

Out of arrogance or indifference, the patient disregards the instructions and suffers the consequences. Is the doctor to blame?

Besides, that isn't how it goes, according to your religion, as you yourself proudly proclaimed in another thread: Extra ecclesiam nulla salus.
Someone can love God with all their heart, and all their soul, and all their being -- and your Church says that they burn just like an atheist if they are not baptised into the One True Church.

On the other hand, the Church cannot and does not say that any given individual is definitely in Hell.

If someone loves God with all their heart, and all their soul, and all their being, they would certainly want to enter God's Church if they knew of it; and I have no doubt God would give them the opportunity to do so by contriving to get the Faith to them. If they are unable to receive baptism for reasons beyond their control, the desire for it is efficacious in itself.

Perhaps your indignation at EENS arises from the prospect of a Gandhi or Martin Luther King suffering in Hell; but then you don't have the power to see into men's souls. For all you or I know, they could have been thoroughly evil men.

Tell me, o mighty exegete, how you would understand "For in the resurrection they shall neither marry nor be married; but shall be as the angels of God in heaven."

Heh. Interesting choice of verse. Are God's angels actually separate beings from God?
Is any being a separate being from God?
I don't make any claims myself, since it's all fiction. I'm just saying that depending on what your particular mystical hermeneutic is, you can arrive at pretty much any conclusion you like regarding scripture.

True. Which is why it helps to have an authority on these matters to which one can refer and defer. Speaking of which ...

No, the doctrine of anattā is from Hell. Renunciation and compassion are the sugar-coating Satan uses to disguise the poison.

If you're going to describe it like that, you have no way to distinguish between the doctrine of anattā and the doctrine of salvation. You can invoke Satan all you like, but that's the same basis that other branches of Christianity use to call the Roman Church the Church of Satan.
Really, you can't win.
Besides, Satan is God's servant, so God must be ultimately responsible for all of Satan's actions. Hey, maybe the liberals are right, and there are many paths to the same goal.
How would you know? How would you know if you were wrong?

In the same way that you "know" it's all fiction -- by applying reason to experience. Obviously we can't both be right. Perhaps we're both wrong and Zeus is calling the shots up there. We'll find out soon enough.

[Gilbert and Sullivan]
But shun profane and vain babblings: for they grow much towards ungodliness.

I'm not sure if Gilbert and Sullivan were disciples of Simon Magus!

Pilt, you worship a God who commands cannibalism.

Oh no I don't.

You approve of the death penalty for nothing more than religious disagreement.

Oh no I don't.

Why can't God feel sorrow and pity when He contemplates suffering?

Compassion leads to "unpleasant personal emotions associated with contemplating such suffering" -- your words.
These emotions lead to the desire to end others' suffering -- your inference.
God must not have the desire to end others' suffering, since despite having the knowledge and power to end the suffering of others, the suffering of others has existed and will exist for all time.
Therefore, God does not have "unpleasant personal emotions associated with contemplating such suffering".
Therefore, God has no compassion, no sorrow, no pity.
QED.
I acknowledge that there are some additional premises pulled in there, but hey, feel free to deny that God has the knowledge and power to end suffering, and watch my syllogism break down.

John Morales @ 261:

An omnipotent God can undo all the suffering and make it never have been. That She chooses not to means she wishes it so.

John Morales @ 293:

A judge who creates a criminal knowing what crimes will be committed before such creation (and who defines what is criminal!), and who then sentences the criminal to death. A general who creates both his soldiers and his enemies knowing there will be war, and then orders his soldiers to kill his enemies. ... Permitting something to occur is the same as wishing it so, when such permitter has no limits and can prevent that something from occurring. Basically, you can't excuse an O³ deity that purportedly made reality for anything, because everything is Her will. PS. You can't even bring "free will" into it when She knew every choice that ever would be made and every outcome 'before' the moment of Creation. PPS. Conclusion: if suffering and evil exist (and they do) then if your deity is real, it is Her choice that suffering and evil exist. Benevolent is not the appropriate term for such a cruel being.

Touching on John Morales' PS about free will, should God then not have created man, knowing as He did how man's exercise of free will in a natural world would inevitably cause abysses of suffering? Was creation itself an act of cruelty?

Owlmirror @ 280 contd:

Speaking of detecting sarcasm, in this psalm, is verse six serious or sarcastic in tone?   http://www.newadvent.org/bible/psa081.htm

Good question. As you know, I am no expert at biblical exegesis, but I wouldn't put it past God to indulge in a little divine sarcasm. Just look at Genesis 2:22.

@ 285:

My defence of the Inquisition, like my defence of the Crusades, is a defence of what I take to be the basic principles involved -- namely that a polity has the right to defend itself against external aggression and internal subversion, with lethal force if necessary.

I see it as a matter of human dignity.[...]
A dead body is not just a piece of meat. It is a relic of something unique, irreplaceable and precious and the correct attitude towards it should be one of awestruck reverence.[...]
Anything that strips the corpse of its basic humanity will tend to degrade this life-affirming awareness and have an insidious effect on how we view the living (as vulture meat in waiting). Even if we choose not to watch the butchery, we still know.

A: Met any Albigensians lately?

Juxtaposed for your daily dose of irony.

Modern methods of making war on enemies (unleashing indiscriminate death by remote control) and executing criminals (the grimly utilitarian apparatus of the electric chair or lethal injection) do indeed deprive the victims of their human dignity. But from the beginning it was not so ...

+++

John Morales @ 284:

Piltdown, Satan serves for Christianity's de-facto adoption of Manichaeism

Right. And Keaton is just a de facto version of Chaplin.

@ 288:

Pharyngula is Piltdown's "guilty pleasure" — his version of a cilice, I suspect.

You're not too far from the truth; it is indeed a form of mortification. (Unfortunately it's all too often also a temptation to anger and pride.)

Posted by: Owlmirror | September 22, 2009 3:45 AM

"Selfless desire"? Right there is your contradiction.

If you've got a slide-rule for a mind.

Right back at you, then, regarding your claim: "The desire to end suffering is itself a form of egotistical attachment"

God as judge is a useful image but it can be helpful to supplement it with others.

I am pretty sure that there is no image or analogy or illustration that you can think of that I have not heard before -- many times, too, since I first started arguing with believers.

Imagine a doctor treating a seriously ill patient. [...] Out of arrogance or indifference, the patient disregards the instructions and suffers the consequences. Is the doctor to blame?

Given that the doctor made the patient ill in the first place (or brought about all of the conditions that made the patient ill), then yes.

I've presented the following syllogism to apologists, and I haven't seen one of them ever address it head on:

1) Power and knowledge confer responsibility.
2) God has all power and all knowledge.
3) Therefore, God has all responsibility.

Plenty try to weasel around it, though. Others just ignore it. Some try first one tactic, then the other.

Although, as John Morales notes below, Theodore Beale/Vox Day gets around it by declaring (2) to be entirely false in both clauses (and his God isn't particularly benevolent, either, but that's actually a seperate issue from responsibility itself -- an evil or neutral God who had all power and all knowledge would still logically have all responsibility).

On the other hand, the Church cannot and does not say that any given individual is definitely in Hell.

Then what meaning does "Extra ecclesiam nulla salus" have?

If someone loves God with all their heart, and all their soul, and all their being, they would certainly want to enter God's Church if they knew of it; and I have no doubt God would give them the opportunity to do so by contriving to get the Faith to them. If they are unable to receive baptism for reasons beyond their control, the desire for it is efficacious in itself.

Then the phrase "Extra ecclesiam nulla salus" is false. You might better say "Extra Deum nulla salus", or something like that.

Perhaps your indignation at EENS arises from the prospect of a Gandhi or Martin Luther King suffering in Hell;

MLK,Jr? Oh, of course: Baptist, therefore heretic, therefore damned, just like any atheist.

but then you don't have the power to see into men's souls. For all you or I know, they could have been thoroughly evil men.

And so could every Catholic who ever lived. So could Jesus. So could God.

And every death-dealing gun-wielding Stalinist Bolshevik and militant Maoist could have been true God-lovers, on the inside.

Once you've given up on judging someone by their external actions, you've pretty much rejected "good" and "evil" having any real meaning whatsoever.

Besides, Satan is God's servant, so God must be ultimately responsible for all of Satan's actions. Hey, maybe the liberals are right, and there are many paths to the same goal.

How would you know? How would you know if you were wrong?

In the same way that you "know" it's all fiction -- by applying reason to experience. Obviously we can't both be right.

Yet we're reaching such different conclusions, so at least one of us is using the wrong reasoning, or has not had the right experience.

Perhaps we're both wrong and Zeus is calling the shots up there.

And if Zeus is not providing either of us with evidence of his existence, is he not at fault if neither of us believe in him?

Pilt, you worship a God who commands cannibalism.

Oh no I don't.

“And taking bread, he gave thanks and brake and gave to them, saying: This is my body, which is given for you. Do this for a commemoration of me.”

You approve of the death penalty for nothing more than religious disagreement.

Oh no I don't.

So you've changed your mind and now repudiate the Inquisition?

Touching on John Morales' PS about free will, should God then not have created man, knowing as He did how man's exercise of free will in a natural world would inevitably cause abysses of suffering? Was creation itself an act of cruelty?

Does God not have free will? Is God constrained by anything whatsoever from acting to end, or at least ameliorate, the abysses of suffering?

I refer you again to the syllogism above.

Speaking of detecting sarcasm, in this psalm, is verse six serious or sarcastic in tone?

  http://www.newadvent.org/bible/psa081.htm

Good question. As you know, I am no expert at biblical exegesis, but I wouldn't put it past God to indulge in a little divine sarcasm.

Odd, then, how Jesus seemed to think it was meant to be read straight.

Modern methods of making war on enemies (unleashing indiscriminate death by remote control) and executing criminals (the grimly utilitarian apparatus of the electric chair or lethal injection) do indeed deprive the victims of their human dignity. But from the beginning it was not so ...

So personally hacking someone to bits, or gutting them and yanking out their intestines, or setting them on fire while still alive -- these do not deprive victims of dignity?

I ask only for information.

Posted by: Knockgoats | September 22, 2009 5:50 AM

Nice guy but a bit of a kook. - Pilty

let me be the first to jump on that:

pot

kettle

black - Ichthyic

Come now, Ichthyic, you really mustn't make unfounded accusations. Pilty's a kook all right - but when did you ever catch him being anything other than thoroughly unpleasant?

Posted by: John Morales | September 25, 2009 8:37 PM

Piltdown (my emphasis):

Would it have been better if God had never created man?

John Morales responded to this with another question: "Is suffering for all and eternal damnation for the many necessary for the salvation of the few?" I would answer: Damnation is not a necessary precondition, but it is surely a necessary possibility.

Then you grant my point: If your deity is constrained by necessity, it cannot be omnipotent.

This demonstrates you're indulging in doublethink.

Posted by: Nerd of Redhead, OM | September 27, 2009 6:50 PM

A man unable to choose Hell instead of Heaven is a square circle.

Posted by: WowbaggerOM | September 27, 2009 7:37 PM

Hmm, I really should have used preview. And not just for the blockquoting...

Posted by: 'Tis Himself, OM | September 27, 2009 8:12 PM

No, because an omnipotent being cannot by definition commit an evil act.

Jeezus, Pilty, don't you even know about your own deity? Or is it you have problems with big words with meanings you're not quite sure about?

Omnipotence is the ability to do anything. It has nothing to do with good or evil. However, according to the propaganda, the god that invented hell and sends people there for ever and ever is benevolent. That's a high-falutin' word meaning "all good." It's the benevolent attribute that prohibits the god who had whole bunches of people killed from doing evil.

Posted by: Owlmirror | September 28, 2009 9:35 PM

Imagine a doctor treating a seriously ill patient. [...] Out of arrogance or indifference, the patient disregards the instructions and suffers the consequences. Is the doctor to blame?

Given that the doctor made the patient ill in the first place ...

The patient inherited a fatal disease.

Created by the "doctor".

... (or brought about all of the conditions that made the patient ill), then yes.

But those "conditions" were inherent in the creation of humanity. Would it have been better if God had never created man?

Why are you assuming, not just that God created man, but that the only way that God could create man was in the flawed manner that must fall into sin, and that God himself could not ameliorate this in any way other than the ridiculously convoluted manner described in your creed?

Why are you defining God as having these limitations and restrictions on his own actions?

Regarding your syllogism, I would say that it is unanswerable as far as it goes. God has all responsibility. He created the conditions in which suffering would inevitably arise, did so in the knowledge that suffering would arise and permits suffering to arise.

Interesting. OK, let's put that to one side for now...

No syllogism can make the jump from that to "God is not benevolent" or "God is cruel".

Oh?

Is not judgement of benevolence or lack of benevolence based on the freely-chosen actions taken by someone, for which they are held responsible?

1) Humans are judged good and evil; benevolent and malevolent, or lacking in benevolence or malevolence, by their actions, or lack of actions, given their (limited) knowledge of the consequences of their actions, and their (limited) powers to act.
2) God has all knowledge of his own actions and the consequences of those actions, and all the power necessary to effect any action.
3) Humans are in the "image" of God.
 3a) Inasmuch as God is incorporeal, this must refer to some essential psychological, intellectual, emotional, analytical, and/or moral quality that humans share with God -- and which God, perforce, shares with humans.
 3b) Inasmuch as these essential mental/spiritual qualities are the root of human knowledge and the source of human motivation, they must also be the root of God's knowledge and the source of God's motivation.
4) Therefore (1,3), God can be judged, based on his actions or inactions, in the same way that humans are.
5) Therefore (1-4), God can be judged benevolent and malevolent, or lacking in benevolence or malevolence, by God's own actions and intentions, or lack of actions and intentions, given God's unlimited knowledge of the consequences of God's actions, and God's unlimited powers to act.

That's more convoluted than the previous syllogism, but if there's anything logically wrong with it, feel free to point it out...

The only way suffering could not have arisen would be for man to never have existed. Is that a price worth paying?

Theologians put a great deal of stress on human free will, but they often neglect, or implicitly deny, God having free will. So you, too, rescue God from judgement by denying him free will... Well, I suppose you do what you must to retain faith.

The only thing that "constrains" God is His own nature. That nature is loving and merciful and also just.

Sigh. And then you contradict yourself...

The only way we have knowledge of what the concepts of "loving" and "merciful" and "just" are is by the examples of the actions of flawed human beings. We see those who, with their limited knowledge and power, exercise that knowledge and power in a way that we can see as benefiting others besides themselves; of striving to meet some larger universal goal of laws, traditions, and precedents that benefit all.

If God does not meet the same standard of actions of even those flawed human beings, then we have no basis on which to declare that God is loving, or merciful, or just.

I do not believe we have the authority, the right, to declare that God is cruel or unjust in letting anything happen as it does.

This is special pleading.

See also: Job.

What do we know?

We know what God putatively allows us to know -- and lack knowledge of what God putatively denies us knowledge of.

Our judgement may be flawed because of the lack of some crucial piece of knowledge -- but that too is something that God is putatively responsible for: God knows of our lack of knowledge, and does not correct it.

--------------

What it says -- that nobody who does not enter the Ark of Salvation can be saved. The Church cannot declare that someone is in Hell for the simple reason that her human personnel cannot know for sure whether or not the individual in question was baptized or desired baptism before death, thus entering the Ark of Salvation.

And yet, this seems to be in contradiction to -- or inconsistent with -- the claim that those condemned to Hell "hate God".

Some hold that a just man who is invincibly ignorant of the Faith can obtain salvation (some have speculated that God sends them angels to administer a water baptism at the moment of death, thus keeping to His own rule of EENS).

Only God really knows who's been really good.

How very nearly liberal.

It reminds me of something that heddle said; that God might well choose to regenerate some souls after death, and thereby grant them the grace to gain salvation.

And: "God has bound salvation to the sacrament of Baptism, but he himself is not bound by his sacraments", sayeth the catechism.

So by that notion, all that is necessary to attain salvation is to be just, and as for anything else, God will provide. This hints at the superfluity of the physical church, or actual religion. God, knowing goodness and just actions, will provide whatever else is necessary besides those works.

What happens to those indifferent to God or baptism? Ah, Limbo, right? Hell, but not exactly?

(I think it was Kafka who said "before God one is always in the wrong".)

If Kafka is right, we're all damned. As it is written: There is not any man just.

One could even make a case that Satan knows the truth of the Catholic Faith and is therefore a Catholic!

See: Job, again.

Finally bear in mind that Hell has many mansions, presumably ranging from the most horrendous pit of torture to mere hollow emptiness & desolation to the natural happiness of Limbo. God will assign everyone his just place.

Hm. But is it just? "Hell Is the Absence of God"

Someone who truly loved God would not act like a Bolshevik or Maoist

And if we're back to judging by actions, then we can say that if God truly loved humanity, he would not act as he is recorded as acting in the bible.

whereas a villain might have much to gain by putting on a show of virtue

And if you're going to be paranoid about false virtue, that brings us back to the "secretly evil" Jesus.

And if Zeus is not providing either of us with evidence of his existence, is he not at fault if neither of us believe in him?

Of course. But then nobody ever said Zeus was faultless ...

Indeed. A God who does not provide evidence of his existence is at fault for not being believed in.

“And taking bread, he gave thanks and brake and gave to them, saying: This is my body, which is given for you. Do this for a commemoration of me.”

Sacramental presence, not a physical one.

Then sacramental cannibalism, not physical cannibalism.

If the Inquisition believed religious disagreement alone was worthy of death, would it not have attempted to exterminate the Jews?

And contradict Bernard of Clairvaux, as you mentioned yourself previously, who was himself echoing Augustine of Hippo?

[Psalm 81:6, serious or sarcastic]
It goes without saying that I defer to Jesus when it comes to biblical exegesis.

Yet if so, we are Gods. Funny, I don't feel like a God...

But I also believe Scripture has inexhaustible levels of possible meaning, appropriate to varying degrees according to circumstance.

You mean, you can get whatever you want out of Scripture? Yes, I agree. That's why there are 38,000+ sects that claim to follow the bible and its "true meaning".

So personally hacking someone to bits, or gutting them and yanking out their intestines, or setting them on fire while still alive -- these do not deprive victims of dignity?

Not necessarily. It would depend on many things. If you believe that depriving someone of live necessarily deprives them of dignity, then that's what you believe.

I would agree that a doctor who aided someone in choosing and enacting the method and time of their own painless quietus would not be depriving them of dignity.

But killing someone against their will, painfully, and possibly even slowly, does not meet any standard of respect.

Posted by: Owlmirror | September 29, 2009 3:42 AM

Adjusting my comment @#312:

Could God choose to stop existing? No, because the source of all being cannot not be.

I am not sure I agree with this. Is eternality a necessary aspect of God? Does an effect require the cause to continue existing?

If not, I see nothing logically impossible about God creating the universe, making it entirely self-sufficient, and then self-destructing.

Didn't first pose this question, maybe a year ago? I think I also asked a different but related question: Could God create the universe, make it self-sufficient, and then make himself to have never existed in the first place?

That, I think, would indeed be logically impossible.

But given that we can hardly even articulate what it means "to exist" outside of our current understanding of space-time, perhaps I am wrong about one of responses above.

Posted by: John Morales | September 30, 2009 6:06 AM

Piltdown:

Really? Then you can conceive of a square circle? Ever heard of the law of non-contradiction?

¬(P ∧ ¬P), eh?

Of course I can conceive of it, I just think it's impossible. :)

I think it's impossible for such P to exist, yeah... but though I can't imagine how it could be otherwise, that may be because I'm bound by reality, not outside of it, such as this putative deity that supposedly created our reality.

You concede your god is bound by reality, then; it can do anything that reality allows, but nothing beyond that.
What happened to the concept of, you know, miracles? ;)

Also, I find it interesting (and most amusing) you bring that argument up, since you believe in the Trinity, which is a clear case of a violation of that very "law" by your deity.

You're trying to have it both ways.

I can conceive of a god ceasing to exist. But it wouldn't be omnipotent.

On the contrary, to possess that ability is a necessary condition for ominpotence. It's an ability: a possible choice, something doable.

Arguing that your deity lacks even one ability shoots down the case for omni potence.

Posted by: Owlmirror | September 30, 2009 6:09 PM

It is precisely because God is omnipotent that He cannot do evil.

The reasoning behind this is not "theological bafflegab" but derives from the Christian-Aristotelian understanding of what evil is. Evil is understood within a teleological conceptual framework: something is said to be "evil" or "bad" if it fails to fulfill the end (function, purpose) for which it was created. So we say a knife is a "bad" knife if it doesn't cut very well. A sexual act is "evil" if its primary purpose (reproduction) is deliberately thwarted.

I am not entirely sure where you are getting this "Christian-Aristotelian understanding of what evil is" from; I skimmed the Nicomachean Ethics, and the Catholic Encyclopaedia article on Evil, and did not see anything quite like that articulated. Although it does sound like stuff the Church has occasionally used as an excuse to maintain opposition to birth control. Pfui.

No matter where you got it from, it is indeed obfuscational theological bafflegab; it divorces good and evil from intentional actions, and ties them instead to something which no human has access to, but which theologians can claim to know: that "final purpose" is in fact real rather than apparent, and that the church that the theologian belongs to knows exactly what the "final purpose" of everything is or isn't.

This is question-begging bullshit, and all the more so because you yourself do not use this definition in any of your arguments, up until now. You, like everyone else, reference the harm done to people, rather than appealing to any failure of "teleology". For example, when you brought up the brutal suppression of the Vendée, and other anti-clerical actions of the French Republic. Or when you pointed at that instance of the young man who brandished the automatic weapon; it was the threat against the innocent that was significant, not some meaningless failure of purpose.

How can "evil" have any real meaning if it does not refer to intentional actions that cause needless harm to sentient beings? You examples of an "evil" knife and "evil" non-reproductive sex are nothing but pathetic examples of equivocation around the word "bad".

Pfui, again. You make evil arguments, for they fail to fulfil their teleological purposes of logical consistency and convincing your interlocutors.

A consequence of this is that there is no such thing as an intrinsically evil quality -- evil arises when an intrinsically good quality is lacking or misapplied. In the case of a blunt knife that fails to cut, there is nothing intrinsically bad about bluntness; in certain circumstances bluntness may be a very desirable quality (eg in fencing foils). Equally, a sharp knife could be used to commit murder but there is nothing inherently evil about sharpness.

And sex that is merely a mutually pleasurable exercise is not evil; there is nothing inherently evil about pleasure. Thus we refute the Church's stance on birth control.

Not only that, the human qualities that might enable a murderer to carry out his crime -- physical strength, cunning, determination, courage etc -- are not in themselves evil. They are simply being applied in a way that frustrates the human telos.

A sufficiently clever sociopath might well argue that his telos is indeed to commit murder. Why else would he have physical strength, cunning, determination, courage, and a strong bloodlust, and no remorse whatsoever?

In other words, evil has no positive independent existence. It is a failure or privation or disordered application of the good.
[...]
Now clearly an omnipotent being cannot suffer from any lack or privation or disorder. Hence evil is incompatible with omnipotence.

Um, no. You're saying now that an omnipotent being cannot suffer (in the sense of experience and be harmed by) evil, which I agree with (and which, if you may recall (today being Blasphemy Day), was the basis of my argument that blasphemy cannot possibly be evil). But this does not prove that an omnipotent being cannot cause evil.

Everyday grammatical structures tend to confuse us here. We say God "can not" commit evil as if evil were something you can "do", a faculty one can exercise and the lack of which implies non-omnipotence. In truth "evil" is just an word we conveniently apply to a failed or absent or disordered faculty.

Again, this is equivocation. When I write "evil", I have been meaning "intentionally causes needless harm". And I'm pretty sure that's what you yourself would mean, most of the time -- except when trying to doublethink about God.

When we say "God cannot do evil" we really just mean "God is perfect".

Which really just begs the question, twice over.

In principle I would agree with heddle

Of course. Which is why, as I said in another thread, Calvinism and Catholicism are far more similar than they are different.

unlike us, God has supreme sovereignty over His creation and we live under the rule of "do as I say, not as I do".

Special pleading noted, and bolded. I note that you haven't even tried to tackle my second syllogism; you just make assertions that contradict it without having refuted it.

Nor is there any independent moral criterion by which God's character could be evaluated -- God is Himself the criterion by which "good" is defined. However, it doesn't follow that divine fiat can arbitrarily turn evil into good, as God cannot act against His own nature.

Self-contradiction, doublethink, and equivocation noted.

The reason the Euthyphro dilemma is a dilemma is because you can't have it both ways: Either every action that God does or orders done is by definition good, no matter who it harms, or God never harmed anyone or ordered anyone harmed at all.

But you can't take the parts of the bible where God clearly harms and/or orders harm to innocents and say that they are "good" without simultaneously choosing the first horn of the dilemma, and acknowledging that you have no basis for judging evil by who it harms, since hey, maybe God wanted it to happen, and therefore it must be good.

It occurred to me that by refusing to consider the harm that God's actions and inactions do, you are refusing to use your conscience; you are rejecting its telos, which is, by your previous definition, evil.

Simply that man's status as a free moral agent capable of choosing good or evil is a central part of what defines man according to Christian anthropology.

If you reject causing harm as being evil; if you decide that the only criteria for what good and evil are is simply God and God's will, or their opposition, then the only way to choose good is to know God's will. But God's will is not obvious, so you might as well do whatever you want. Clearly you exist for God's purpose, so whatever you want to do is fulfilling God's purpose -- no matter who it harms.

Yeah, I think there's something very wrong with the above paragraph, too... but I'm pretty sure that it follows from your own equivocation about what "good" and "evil" are.

God is perfect and how can perfection cease to be?

Define "perfect". How can "perfection" exist in the first place, other than as a relative case, or as hyperbole?

Only God can be self-sufficient.

Begs the question.

A self-sufficient universe would be God

Nonsense. God might be putatively self-sufficient; this does not in any way imply that anything that is self-sufficient is God. Where is your vaunted logic?

and obviously an omnipotent God cannot create another equally omnipotent God.

Show all work. I see nothing "obvious" about this conclusion.

The deist error is to see the universe as a self-functioning mechanism that was assembled by God but thereafter can exist perfectly well without Him thank you very much. God sustains our existence and that of the entire universe at every moment. If God stopped thinking us, we would wink out of existence.

Begs the question, yet again.