At last, we have a simple definition of an atheist.
(via GrrlScientist)
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« …and those cheapskates at Monsanto haven't given me a penny! | Main | Physics! »
!(rich && insane) && (god==0)
Category: Weirdness
Posted on: October 26, 2009 4:07 PM, by PZ Myers
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Comments
Posted by: Glen Davidson
|
October 26, 2009 4:16 PM
You mean not rich? Or one of those other things?
Glen D
http://tinyurl.com/mxaa3p
Posted by: Aunt Moe | October 26, 2009 4:18 PM
And Pantheism? Is this an anti-pantheist screed? Never get any respect . . .
Posted by: Holly Hackett | October 26, 2009 4:20 PM
Meanwhile, Jesus is appearing again.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/religion/6373674/Jesuss-face-spotted-on-the-toilet-door-in-Ikea-Glasgow.html
Posted by: T_U_T | October 26, 2009 4:22 PM
nitpicking :
would't that be gods.GetCount() == 0, or at least god_count == 0 instead of just god == 0, which is rather confusing.
Posted by: scikidus | October 26, 2009 4:22 PM
Technically, "god==0" could be replaced with !god, since a 0 int is evaluated as a false boolean.
Then you have:
!(rich && insane) && (god==0) = !(rich && insane) && !god =
!((rich && insane) || god)
Posted by: Mr. GrrlScientist | October 26, 2009 4:23 PM
Oh? Trying to steal Grrl's traffic then, eh, Myers?
Posted by: Naked Bunny with a Whip
|
October 26, 2009 4:29 PM
No autotheist option? My wife will be so disappointed.
Posted by: Candace | October 26, 2009 4:29 PM
BRILLIANT!
Posted by: Brock | October 26, 2009 4:30 PM
Hm, sometimes I do think it boils down to this for a lot of people. But it's not always what THEY follow on the flowchart, but what their parents chose (or their grandparents, etc).
Anyway, this doesn't preclude atheists from enjoying Chinese takeout and bacon, so it's all good.
@Aunt Moe: I guess you could throw two more questions after "rich & insane", asking whether a person "feels vaguely spiritual" and whether they like lasers and/or swords. One could direct to Pantheism, the other to Jedi :D
Posted by: B166ER
|
October 26, 2009 4:31 PM
That is an awesome flowchart, P.Z. I especially like the bacon/hummus thing...
@Holly Hackett #3
That link was RAD!!
"Jesus, or possibly Gandalf, as spotted on the door of the gents' toilets in a Glasgow branch of Ikea"
Never have I seen a case of pareidolia be possible proof of the accuracy of the New Testament or The Lord of the Rings. BRILLIANT!
No Gods, No Masters
Cameron
Posted by: Jon H | October 26, 2009 4:34 PM
Not very well-informed. "Lots of gods" doesn't really describe Buddhism, except maybe Tibetan. Also, since Buddha was from India, the Indian/Chinese food thing is silly. I can only assume this branch was an afterthought and they were more concerned with the right side of the diagram.
Posted by: jshiv | October 26, 2009 4:34 PM
IF (god == 0 && PZ > 0){
PZ = PWN(Creationism);
}
Posted by: Cycle Ninja
|
October 26, 2009 4:35 PM
Bill Donohue is currently drafting the press release about how outrageous it is that Catholics are discriminated by their lack of inclusion in this flowchart.
Posted by: Teliria | October 26, 2009 4:43 PM
Jon H.: " I can only assume this branch was an afterthought and they were more concerned with the right side of the diagram."
That is really the ONLY assumption you can make? I think you could pretty safely add "They were being silly when they came up with a cute concept and were not seriously attempting to make a flow-chart which would encompass ALL of humanities > 6000 god concepts."
I think it would be ok to expand your assumptions list to include maybe one or two more assumptions. Just in case.
Posted by: Michelle R | October 26, 2009 4:44 PM
@Cycle Ninja: You know what? I'm in a catholic area, and I keep calling them christians because I have no idea what the difference is... They're all just Jesus Cheerleaders to me.
Posted by: Steve | October 26, 2009 4:55 PM
I'd modify it slightly, thus:
...
/* Gods none */
if !insane
/* You should be an atheist */
else
if rich
/* You should be a $cientologist */
else
/* Ah, you ARE a $cientologist */
endif
endif
Posted by: Personal Failure | October 26, 2009 4:56 PM
Crap. Turns out, being a vegetarian and f*cking LOVEing hummus, I'm actually muslim. Who knew?
Posted by: Brock | October 26, 2009 4:57 PM
Of course people on GrrlScientist's blog are bemoaning the "miscategorization" of Buddhism and the exclusion of Taoism, Confucianism, Ancient Norse, Ancient Egyptian, Amish, Zoroastrianism, New Age, Rastafarianism, Pastafarianism, Narcissism, Cthulhu Mythos, and so on. Luckily most seem to have a sense of humor about it ;)
Posted by: Doug Little | October 26, 2009 5:05 PM
But I f*cking love bacon, we need bacon on the atheist side, by default.
Oh and for the Catholics they need to add a new branch. Do you like crackers Yes->Catholic No->Mundane Xian.
Posted by: Susan | October 26, 2009 5:09 PM
HA! This could come in real handy for Paul Haggis about now.
Posted by: 'Tis Himself
|
October 26, 2009 5:27 PM
I f*cking LOVE bacon and I'm a naturally annoying person...but I don't want to be a Jehovah's Witless.
Posted by: Russell | October 26, 2009 5:29 PM
Scientology has no gods? What about Xenu?
Posted by: Melissa | October 26, 2009 5:38 PM
Buddhists don't have to worship gods. My friend is an atheist and Buddhist.
Posted by: Scooty Puff, Jr. | October 26, 2009 5:42 PM
If god is a pointer, then god == 0 is a perfectly legitimate (if slightly unconventional) way of representing it. It would also make sense that god is a void pointer -- of unspecified type, dangerous to follow.
Also, remember that !(rich && insane) == !rich || !insane. You have to be poor or sane, but not necessarily both.
Posted by: marcus
|
October 26, 2009 5:42 PM
@21 I'm sorry you completed the survey so you're a Jehovah's Witness. ps Please don't come by my house with your stupid handouts.
Posted by: Desert Son
|
October 26, 2009 5:46 PM
No Elder Gods? They're sure gonna feel sheepish when the stars are right.
No kings,
Robert
Posted by: The Beautiful Kind | October 26, 2009 5:51 PM
Someone just told me my girl parts look like the Virgin of Guadalupe.
See this link for visual:
http://www.facebook.com/thebeautifulkind
Posted by: DominEditrix | October 26, 2009 5:59 PM
We old-fashioned Norwegians prefer our original pantheon and, after a life of glorious battle, retiring to the mead hall for an afterlife of carousing. It gets us through those long winter nights.
Posted by: D | October 26, 2009 6:02 PM
@ Naked Bunny with a Whip (#6): Autotheism? I'm scared to look that up at work. Sounds fun, though!
@ Brock (#18): Gosh, someone told a joke, and some people got upset over it? Be still, my heart! Who could have imagined such a thing?! I'll have to get on the line with the "Generic Religion Anti-Defamation League of Nincompoops and Pantywaists" right away!
Posted by: yonatron | October 26, 2009 6:29 PM
At least in Israel, Jews love hummus too.
Posted by: Moshe Reuveni
|
October 26, 2009 6:29 PM
I hate to be picky about this wonderful flowchart, but in the spirit of things I would like to point out that the most popular food in Israel is humus yet the majority would be truly offended if you were to suggest they should worship Allah.
Which sort of proves the entire point behind the flowchart.
Posted by: Kapitano
|
October 26, 2009 6:30 PM
Do you think it's possible to be spiritual without being religious? If you're under 25 and own some black eye-shadow, you're a wiccan. Otherwise, you're a humanist.
Do you want to call yourself a christian but don't want to believe anything specific? You're a unitarian.
Do you believe vaguely in world peace? Are any of the traditional gods too abstract for you? Are you okay with worshipping a bald man and whoever his current girlfriend is? You're Bahai.
Do you believe everything the Randroids believe, but want it in religious form? You're a satanist.
Posted by: yonatron | October 26, 2009 6:31 PM
Jinx!
Posted by: Quinno | October 26, 2009 6:32 PM
Well, gosh, I'm confused. I'm an atheist, but I do think underwear can be magical...
Posted by: marcus
|
October 26, 2009 6:34 PM
@27 You have very unique girl parts. My address is ...
Posted by: Rob | October 26, 2009 6:34 PM
What religion is for people who love bacon AND hummus? I should recommend that to my sister.
Posted by: nojesusplz | October 26, 2009 6:38 PM
I like this except that the Buddhism one is Completely off. The first part is wrong because Buddhism is largely Atheistic, no gods. The second part is wrong because the whole philosophy of Buddhism is centered around NOT being reincarnated by reaching enlightenment. The third part is wrong because Buddhism is from India. I really like the concept of this, but I wish it could have made the same point with at least being slightly closer to what Buddhism is. It's just as bad to make fun of something when you are wholly uninformed about it as it is to believe something without informing yourself.
Posted by: llewelly | October 26, 2009 6:45 PM
Wait. If you're an atheist, you shouldn't bother with this flow chart at all.
Calling atheism a religion is like calling a rock a programing language.
Posted by: Darren Garrison
|
October 26, 2009 6:51 PM
What? No option of Shinto? I wanna hang out with all sorts of wacky Kami.
Posted by: Biology Blogger | October 26, 2009 7:30 PM
What about us at the church of the flying spaghetti monster?
First time commenter btw, so please be nice :)
Posted by: The Pint
|
October 26, 2009 7:57 PM
Great. So not only am I poor and insane, I apparently can't f*cking love bacon. *sits in a corner weeping over the remains of a BLT*
Posted by: Krystalline Apostate
|
October 26, 2009 8:17 PM
But...so someone likes bacon, Hindu AND Chinese take-out, a Hummus agnostic, no gods, tantric lingerie, what does that make that person (besides susceptible to heart-burn & rugburns)?
Posted by: shatfat
|
October 26, 2009 8:19 PM
Silly chart. Jews love hummus.
Btw, I know way more Jews who love to eat bacon than who think a man can also be a god...
Also, no branch involving sushi and/or Elder Gods? For shame.
Posted by: David Marjanović, OM | October 26, 2009 9:10 PM
I need to go to bed and can't wait another hour whether the following will pass moderation at Grrlscientist or not. So, just so I don't lose it...
========================================================
More pharyngulite traffic!
Depends on the kind of Buddhism.
Stop right there. You can't prove anything, except in math and formal logic. Science cannot prove, only disprove.
Indeed, solipsism is not testable.
Once you accept there is a reality outside your mind, this becomes easy to answer: evolutionary epistemology. If our senses and brains were not good enough at interpreting the world, we would already have died out.
This also explains why our senses are not perfect. For instance, our pattern recognition is overly sensitive. Well, if you see a leopard in the next bush and there isn't a leopard in there, nothing happens to you except a bit of extra fear and a little sprint maybe. If you don't see a leopard, but there is one there, natural selection bites you in the ass.
Oh, there easily could be an ultimate truth. It's just... Suppose we find the truth. How do we find out that what we've found is indeed the truth? Perhaps by comparing it to the truth, which we don't have?
Truth is simply an irrelevant concept to science. Science is merely about reality.
Spheres? What spheres?
I think you don't know as much about quantum physics as you think you do. And even in connection with mystics I haven't come across the term "sphere" so far.
Please explain.
Too bad. It helps when an observation can be arranged to be repeated at will, but that's not necessary.
You seem to have misunderstood Heisenberg's Uncertainty Relation.
What do you mean?
Some do. Others believe in 330 million separate deities.
"Hinduism" is a rather artificial cover term that has no tradition in India (beyond the last, like, 100 years or less). There's a lot of diversity within it.
Most self-designated atheists define atheism as "lack of belief in deities" and make an argument from parsimony. Russell's Teapot in short.
I'd rather say the same data can be compatible with many theories, in other words, fail to disprove them.
I think that, together with your alleged surname, this is a joke.
As far as I can see, that's only narcissistic if you find yourself sexy. And to be capable of that, you need to be homo- or bisexual, and not everyone is.
You absolutely don't want to see that. That's why you want to be eaten first. Or at least to go mad.
At least it says so.
Hey! Epicureanism! :-)
Posted by: The Chemist | October 26, 2009 9:28 PM
I thought this was annoyingly simplistic on the center-to-left part of the diagram. Especially regarding the Chinese-Indian divide over Buddhism. It starts with Hindu beliefs and the Upanishads' influence on Hinduism inspiring various offshoots partly as a response to the repressive caste system- and then it spread further East, through trade. Chinese merchants found it especially promising since traditional Chinese philosophies looked down on merchants since they were seen as a group that didn't produce wealth. And, of course, merchants spread more than exotic goods.
But yeah, let's reduce a fascinating history of syncretism and meme-spreading down to ethnic food choice.
There are plenty of Jews who like hummus too. There's even (and let the record show I rolling my eyes heavily enough people can hear it in the next room) a dispute over it's origins.
(And let the record show, at least the way Arabs pronounce it, the emphasis is on the second syllable. But, if I sat here and corrected common English mangling of other languages- I'd be here all day.)
Don't get me wrong, it's not that I can't stop being a pedant long enough to laugh at a joke- but not if the joke falls flat right from the get-go.
Posted by: Vhyrrimyr
|
October 26, 2009 10:36 PM
bool foobar(Gods& p_gods, bool rich, bool insane)
{
return (*p_gods.get_count() == 0 && !rich && !insane) ? 1 : 0;
}
int main()
{
Gods *p_gods;
p_gods->set_count(0);
bool rich = 0;
bool insane = 0;
cout << (foobar(p_gods, rich, insane) ? "Atheist" : "Scientologist") << endl;
return 0;
}
Posted by: Steve LaBonne
|
October 26, 2009 10:55 PM
Not only that, but they make the best commercial, prepared hummus on the market (Sabra).
Never met an American Jew who didn't love hummus, either. Not that I can imagine how anybody could not love hummus...
Posted by: "GrrlScientist"
|
October 26, 2009 11:31 PM
love hummus, but d00d, it makes people fart!
not good to eat on a date.
Posted by: Mike Wagner
|
October 26, 2009 11:39 PM
I've been doing battle in a forum with a bunch of Christians who are offended that we atheists should belittle their belief system. As an olive branch I posted the following open letter to them this evening. I hope you guys enjoy it:
Hi Everyone,
I guess we've gotten off on the wrong foot. You don't like the atheists and agnostics denigrating your world view.
That's understandable. So how about we compromise?
You contact the editors of your religious text and have them remove all references or threats to unbelievers, and I'll ask the atheists to return the favor and cease attacking the belief in said text. Of course I can't guarantee that individuals offended by other portions of the text won't speak up.
Seems fair enough.
Here is a list of passages subject to editing. It's a start.
See, you're including the atheists in your religious texts without their consent. If you wrote a rap song saying bad things about me, I could sue you. I'm sure you understand.
We've all heard this one before. "You're either with us, or you're with the terrorists." Well, we all see where that got us.
More inclusion. I didn't put you in my book. Leave me out of yours. And why the threats? It's not enough to say "Oh hey, if you join my club you get to party in the penthouse when you die." It's also "If you don't join my club, you get raped in the gimp closet in the basement." This does not seem very magnanimous of the author.For my American compatriots this would appear to violate their constitutional guarantee of equality. Shameful.
This would appear to be a case of inappropriate physical behavior. Unbelievers wouldn't typically give permission for an entity to enter their minds and blind them. Legally this would likely constitute simple assault. But a written apology would likely suffice to mend things. Again, denying civil rights in the freedom of assembly for believers and non-believers, and accusing the unbelievers of being unrighteous. Substitute "black men" for unbelievers and you'd have the NAACP and ACLU kicking your ass all over the legal system. Denying civil rights to atheists and other religions alike. Freedom of religion. The editors should strike that one out altogether, don't you think? More threats against atheists and members of other religions, by terroristic threats of arson. It's enough that your religion intends to torment its followers. We ask that you respect our rights to not be included in your religious observances, torture, etc.
This is merely a sampling, but a good start towards healing the rift between Christians and non-Christians.
Once your newly revised religious text has been issued by the committee at Nicea, we'll immediately seek to halt all hostilities.
Thanks for your attention to this matter.
Posted by: JustinC | October 27, 2009 12:25 AM
That's chart is great!
Giving up magic underwear and abrasiveness to leave Mormonism was hard. But now, finally, the way is clear.
To complete my Path to Scientology, all I need is loads of mercury-covered cash!
Posted by: Scrawny Kayaker | October 27, 2009 2:50 AM
I worship this flowchart!
Posted by: Darren | October 27, 2009 3:06 AM
Ooh, a C theme :D
int life()
{
if (!(rich && insane) && !god) goto hell;
else goto heaven;
heaven:
hell:
return EXIT_SUCCESS;
}
Posted by: Dahan
|
October 27, 2009 6:58 AM
BB @ 40,
Well, you could just Google this stuff, but here's a link for ya.
http://www.venganza.org/
Posted by: catgirl | October 27, 2009 7:55 AM
Well, I came into the comments to nitpick about Buddhism being closer to atheism than to polytheism, but I see that others have already taken care of that.
Posted by: shane | October 27, 2009 9:44 AM
"Indeed, solipsism is not testable."
for some reason i am reminded of the story of the man who wrote to Russell explaining that the argument for solipsism is perfectly reasonable and he didn't understand why more people didn't believe it.....
Posted by: PMC | October 27, 2009 10:34 AM
while (awake) {
WriteCode();
}
Posted by: Spiv | October 27, 2009 12:14 PM
I said this somewhere else earlier: there are buddhists who believe in gods, or jesus, or rebirth. But it's not exactly part of the 'religion' (rebirth is a question of dependent origination, which can be taken a few ways. Some of which I think the folks here would appreciate in a sagan-starstuff way).
I'm only slightly less comfortable referring to "atheism" as a religion as I am applying the same label to buddhism. One is just a statement of position, the other is philosophy.
I don't think there are many buddhists out there who aren't used to having their positions mischaracterized though. Sometimes I just make stuff up to mess with my friends. I mean after all, isn't your god the one with all the arms?
Posted by: Colm | October 27, 2009 2:05 PM
I prefer my version http://colm.cc/Religion.png
Posted by: astrounit | October 27, 2009 6:44 PM
Scrawny Kayaker, #51: "I worship this flowchart!"
Good. Me too. Worship more. Worship flowchartness.
Flow charts have a fantastic aptitude for branchiness out of single-trunked premises, don't they?
Notice how this one branches out in many-fingered ramification.
Like most other flow charts of the kind, across a wide range of disciplines.
Much branchiness everywhere.
As specified: a tree that completely fills the space with ever-tinier twigs becomes, at first glance or from afar, a solid cone exhibiting no differentiaton at all. A proper and readily-recognizable tree is one that calls upon a very discriminating set of branching rules...and thereby grows out an optimum usage of the available space, depending.
But nobody would suggest that the end-points in this one, however weirdly arrived at, don't exist or may at least be potential outcomes.
Not to downplay its monumental role in the biological sciences, but it must be said: evolution is much MUCH BIGGER than JUST cumulative natural selection of "living" organisms. We've only begun noticing it's EVERYWHERE.
Everything evolves, even thinking or reasoning processes as exemplified by (weird) charts like this. Evidently, even for the ends of humor, evolution plays a serious role.
It has no choice...other than to imagine everything may better be conceptually modeled after a single gigantic phallic shoot that ends up at the head the same as it started from the base.
As linear as one can get, with no off ramp possibility. It's all there in one complete gushing hose. Like a gun, it gets pointed around at "targets" in order to call attention to the error of the target's ways.
A single pipeline of certitude, vs a branched array of plausible outcomes.
A monolithic tower of power, everything invested in the Single Way.
Which means no alternative is available.
Which means no thinking is possible.
Do I need to draw a chart?