Pharyngula

Posted by: Glen Davidson | December 30, 2010 11:52 AM

That's totally unfair to people who have no accurate facts. Plus, it's unfair to point out that their "facts" don't have anything to do with reality, part of the suffering that the holy ones are forced to endure.

When your conclusion is The Truth^TM, how you get to it barely matters at all.

Glen Davidson

Posted by: DrGonzo666 | December 30, 2010 11:56 AM

This should be "discussing anything with anyone."

Posted by: T. Bruce McNeely | December 30, 2010 12:00 PM

While I enjoy it immensely, I think you might be cheating just a little: can you honestly conceive of anything that would change your mind on the whole GAWD(TM) issue?

Picture ID?

Posted by: The other Tim | December 30, 2010 12:03 PM

There should be a list of topics/phrases that are off limits as being too stupid/trite/ridiculous to countenance:

...2LoT
..."half an eye"
..."hydraulic sorting"
...I don't see how [X] could evolve"
..."No transitionals"
..."Goo to you" (all variations thereof)

And so forth

Posted by: svulev | December 30, 2010 12:06 PM

I'm tempted to send this to my wife..

Posted by: Lauren Ipsum | December 30, 2010 12:08 PM

This is FABULOUS. I'm printing this out for my wall. And OCRing it for ready pasting into emails and posts.

Posted by: Dick the Damned | December 30, 2010 12:10 PM

This doesn't recognize that there are 'other' ways of knowing.

I listened to the archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, on BBC Radio 4 the other day. He was talking about 'faith' to the novelist, Diane Athill, (in her 90s & getting more irreligious as the years go by). He talked a steaming pile of horseshit. It was all meaningless twaddle, tacitly posited upon 'other' ways of knowing, that never really got beyond 'feelings'. Unfortunately, she didn't call bullshit on him. Sorry, horseshit - the silly bugger is a horse's ass.

Posted by: Erulóra (formerly KOPD) | December 30, 2010 12:10 PM

The other Tim,

How about a "no pratt" clause? Should be a footnote on the second step of the chart, or a parenthetical statement.
"If one of your arguments is (or has repeatedly been) shown to be faulty ..."

Posted by: egaeus | December 30, 2010 12:10 PM

I posted it to my local atheist group, and will be printing it out for the spring proselytizing season. I love how Christians love to come to your home and try to save your soul, but only when the weather is nice.

Posted by: Data Venia | December 30, 2010 12:14 PM

Nice chart. Bookmarked for future use.

can you honestly conceive of anything that would change your mind on the whole GAWD(TM) issue?

Yup. How about a simultaneous appearance around the world of a visually and audibly detectable entity speaking in each region's local dialect and delivering an identical message in each case, such encounters being recorded and measured via technological means as having occurred in physical space and time. That, at least, would pique my interest to investigate the god claims further.

Posted by: UXO | December 30, 2010 12:19 PM

daedalus4u @ #11 / irenedelse @ #19:

But that's just it - even those kinds of examples wouldn't do it for me. I'd just assume I was hallucinating, or that it was being done with mirrors, or that the telescope had been tampered with, or et cetera, et cetera, et cetera... Rillion @ #17 pegged it.

Posted by: Sastra | December 30, 2010 12:20 PM

This chart reminds me of the 4 Questions I like to ask at the beginning of any God/religion/spirituality discussion:

1.) Can you consider the possibility that you might be wrong?

2.) If you are wrong, what would change your mind?

3.) If you are wrong, would you want to change your mind?

4.) Tell me what you mean by "God" as clearly as possible: define it so we can both stick with it throughout the discussion.

The questions evolved over time because it became apparent that the beliefs of the run-of-the-mill average Believer are a muddled mess. The beliefs of the thoughtful, well-informed, superior Believer are usually even worse. And it's all mixed up with the confusion of faith and love, with both of them considered to be elite methods of knowing.

I think that most apologetics start out as rational arguments but eventually reduce down to a lot of elaborate verbal disguises for feelings masquerading as facts. Evangelists have a hard time dealing with people who don't start out agreeing that it's a virtue to WANT to believe, and an even greater virtue to be loyal to a belief as if it were your friend.

Posted by: Elijahtruth | December 30, 2010 12:21 PM

{{PZ MYERS ESQ; Is a Great Man, whom "i" believe has posted this Post/Topic due to my answer/response to a video he posted, forgive it is just that much on the video's had meaning to me, and "i" know some what of the subject matters on them! SO PZ MYERS ESQ; stated he may have to ban me! Now surely he the Eloquent professor would not ban ""me"" just for joining his ""Parade!"" HAH! Much respect to the Great PZ Myers and Blog, for reference the post on the Little girls letter and subject before Videos "i" have pasted below...much respect}} Isn't it strange and unsual, that there is actually a satan that causes all death, even accident and most certainly suicide as now proven by Science! As the Great Physician foretold unto us, He the first being to document unclean spirits/phages and viruses, and the dictator of sickness/death which is satan, a mobile nucleus of the 8 unclean bacterial spirits our Lord exposed so long ago, and then He lead us through our Truth/directed us Isaiah 61:8 leading us too the evidence that there are not just unclean bacaterial spirits in the air that harm us and want us dead, but actually has a beast spirit which is the nucleus called satan that has what??? Utterance!

The reason suicide is high among scientist and theologists is due to the nucleus of death/sickness attacking any that even get near/close to where it hides! But strong Men such as Isaac Newton who literally chased satan {{the shadow he chased nearly into madness said Isaac, and is the same shadow/buffeter Paul of Tarsus wrote of, AND the Unclean spirit our Lord the Physician fought in the desert Matt:4:1-10 where it tried getting our Lord the medical scientist to do WHAT? Commit suicide/cast Himself down, as many other scientists have done}} So for proof that science has now finished Gods mystery Rev:10:7 and been given the Keys/code by the Great Physician who first documented death/satan/principalities of the air Rev:1:18 ...Go to the website and on the about page and services page are literal images of death/satan that many little girls are brave enough to stand against while others laugh and deny!
http://www.adamandeveseedgatheringministry.com

{{You know "i" feel cheated, PZ MYERS ESQ; Esquire used as a title of courtesy before American lawyers tried stealing it, websters seventh collegiate! But just one MOTHERSHIP WIT, and Pz Myers esq; stayed up and posted an unusual video after 10:30 last night after 11:30 here! The video had very proper Grammar, and sang of truth, but Rap "i" cannot stand, better was the "F" THE CREATIONISTS due to it being side by side with a some how eloquent song of God, while "F" Creation used the normal dumbed down mentality of the atheists the news trys painting as people of knowledge {{ interviewed people on the streets in alabama and other southern states who eastern collegiates out witted bearly}}, but the viewing and hearing the atheist version of cooly "O" was interesting to say the least!

The mentioning of stephen hawkins, whom "i" contact each week now for years, who changed His theory of black holes after my contacting him years back and to this day! Sad that the world of atheism is controlled greatly by a man who died long ago, who is now in a wheel chair, his body now ruled by who?? the dictator of disease who was as shocked as God by an entire society allowing satan to speak from a man it has complete control over {{all shocked that Stephen has not died, and say it is WHAT? Miraculous}} satan stopping its death roll with Stephen thinking how can i be stopping the destiny of so many with a dead mans mechanical voice!}}

So short changed almost but now this day, allowed to comment on the rap war of Words given us by THE Professor of rapology, PZ MYERS ESQ; the man who has found the Light through MOTHERSHIP WIT.. Much respect to all of Gods book of Life especially the Mothership commander PZ MYERS ESQ...

Posted by: Watson | December 30, 2010 12:25 PM

Dunno about the [blockquote]position that is more reasonable and has more supporting evidence should be accepted as true[/blockquote] part.

First, in a lot of discussions, "more reasonable" becomes somewhat subjective.

Second, if we were having this discussion in the 2nd Century, the second part of that proposition would imply that an earth-centered universe featuring celestial epicycles was a "true" description of reality and therefore better than, say, Aristarchus's hypothesis that the earth moves around the sun because it was more better model that allowed for accurate predictions.

Posted by: co | December 30, 2010 12:27 PM

Elijahtruth . . ..

You know those little pill thingies that you sometimes forget to take? Have a few, now.

Posted by: valayas-chosen | December 30, 2010 12:31 PM

KOPD@December 30, 2010 12:25 PM Wrote:

Elijah, if you took all that and wrote a screenplay, it might be half as good as Battlefield Earth!

(emphasis mine)

That's mean!
Though I'm note entirely sure who to; Elijah or Elron...

Posted by: UXO | December 30, 2010 12:33 PM

I take it all back. The fact that Elijahtruth still hasn't managed to strangle himself while trying to tie his shoelaces must be proof that God exists... and looks out for the dangerously insane...

And mikerattlesnake @ #21, I'm not saying there's anything wrong with our arguments - I'm saying that our (or my, at least, and as te24hours @ #25 pointed out, PZ's) position is not open to being changed by them, so why pretend they're the only ones breaking these debate rules? I freely admit I stumble on point number 1, simply because there is no rational way to postulate theoretical evidence for irrationality.

Posted by: Dick the Damned | December 30, 2010 12:38 PM

PZ, shouldn't this Elijahtruth bozo be banned now for insulting Stephen Hawking? I realize that I may have misunderstood Elijahtruth, whose broken English i find difficult to interpret.

I know we don't like censorship, but there has to be some sanction against ignorant, borish, bozos who come here to cause trouble.

Posted by: Q.E.D | December 30, 2010 12:46 PM

I just tried to read ET's verbal diarrhoea

now have migraine

how do I install a kill-file?

Posted by: raven | December 30, 2010 12:47 PM

Should have some more no go's in there.

Don't start spouting bible verses like they were cruise missiles. Don't prove that the bible is true by quoting the passages from the bible that state that the book is true.

Don't start praying for atheists (to what, go to hell) or tell them they are going to hell. This should be an automatic loss.

Posted by: blf | December 30, 2010 12:54 PM

Whilst this is PROFESSOR poopyhead's blog, my quick 2p is insulting a person isn't necessarily a reason for banning (it can be, depending on the insult), but threatening a person is.

Posted by: ThirdMonkey | December 30, 2010 12:57 PM

Elijatruth,
I have to know. Please can you explain why you always quote "i" when referring to yourself? Since you appear not to be a native English speaker you may not be aware that the use of quotes in this manner generally infers sarcasm. So whenever you quote “I” it’s as if you are referring to yourself sarcastically. As if you weren’t really yourself. You would probably find that you can communicate more clearly if you simply used a capitalized “I” without quotes.
Also, when using parenthetical asides (which you do often) you should use parenthesis, “(“ and “)”, rather than the curly brackets “{“ and “}”. You should also try to avoid embedded parenthetical asides, that is an aside within an aside. Just start a new sentence.

Thanks

Posted by: Legion | December 30, 2010 12:59 PM

UXO:

While I enjoy it immensely, I think you might be cheating just a little: can you honestly conceive of anything that would change your mind on the whole GAWD(TM) issue?

While god had been credited with everything from curing cancer and heart disease, to ordering the paths of the stars, the one thing not even believers credit him with is the regrowth of missing body parts. So assuming the theist could come up with a coherent working definition of 'god', here's what would give me cause to reconsider my views:

Priest/Preacher prays for a guy with a missing leg and the amputated leg grows back right before my eyes. Even then, I would adhere to the "correlation does not equal causation" position, my interest would certainly be piqued.

For me to be convinced though, the theist would have to provide sufficient evidence that the agent behind this phenomenon is, in fact, the god of the xtian bible and not some "sufficiently advanced" entity like the Q-Continuum.

Posted by: RijkswaanVijanD | December 30, 2010 1:01 PM

That's utter bullshit Glen!
like that Azkyroth?

Posted by: RationalMind | December 30, 2010 1:03 PM

This is excellent. It goes beyond just faith and creationism. it can be used to cover anywhere where poor thinking, pseudoscience, conspiracy theorising etc apply.

Posted by: Nepenthe | December 30, 2010 1:04 PM

When I see Elijahtruth's posts, I'm reminded to take my medication. If only he felt the same way.

Posted by: Sastra | December 30, 2010 1:06 PM

Gregory Greenwood #33 wrote:

I might suggest one refinement. While I know that it is covered by the provisions for providing evidence for one's arguments, I think that the specific false equivilancy of 'atheism is a religion too', or any variation thereof, should be grounds for the immediate termination of the discussion.

I think this rule would probably terminate just about every discussion on this topic, since the real heart of the disagreement isn't over specific arguments. It's about the nature of how we know what we think we know.

My own take is that if you can make a case on why X is wrong, then keep X in. What if X = "Nothing would ever change my mind?" Hell, I go after that one, too -- since that's the vice they're accusing atheists of holding, it means they recognize it as a vice: aha, common ground!

Ultimately, I think the only way to persuade someone to change their mind is by pointing out that one of their beliefs/values is contradicting another one of their belief/values -- and you both agree on which one is more important. The argument isn't with you, then. It's internal. They fight and win against the smaller part of themselves.

Elijahtruth #26:

I place this guy in the same category as M*bus. Though I don't usually argue in favor of banning people, this is different. He cannot be addressed or responded to, except maybe as a kind of academic practice. There are some people who do indeed require forbearance. I hope he continues to enjoy his computer somewhere else.

Posted by: onion girl, OM - Social Workers: Fixing Fuck-ups Since 1880 | December 30, 2010 1:07 PM

This is awesome. I should print a copy to keep in my purse so I can whip it out when needed. But I don't know if many fundementalists would understand or appreciate it--it's based on logic, an entity frequently unfamiliar to them.

Dick the Damned: PZ, shouldn't this Elijahtruth bozo be banned now for insulting Stephen Hawking?

If everyone on Pharyngula was banned for insulting someone, there wouldn't be many people left. :)

I think there have been folks banned for pointless spamming, though, and ET might fall into that category.

Posted by: mikerattlesnake | December 30, 2010 1:12 PM

I think elijahtruth actually thinks stephen hawking died and his computer is pulling a "Weekend at Bernies" only with more theoretical physics (just a bit more). This dude is a nut. I say ban him, he admitted to spamming in this very thread.

Posted by: Legion | December 30, 2010 1:14 PM

ElijahTroof, even though I'm a monolingual English speaker, I suggest you post your missives in your native language, as I believe they might make more sense to me.

Posted by: https://me.yahoo.com/a/SaqGVG0xvJEQVwURVamS3DTCdvov0BLhXK1jOsYPPJQ-#b4893 | December 30, 2010 1:17 PM

I'm looking forward to the DI "rebuttal" flowchart. It's coming; you know it is.

"DEBATING A DARWINIST"

Then, later on...

"No, we didn't copy 'DEBATING A CREATIONIST'. See? Ours is brown."

MikeM

Posted by: mikerattlesnake | December 30, 2010 1:18 PM

@61

So you can't google, but you theorize that it is possible for someone else to do so? Link please.

Posted by: skeptifem | December 30, 2010 1:21 PM

Oh, if only flow charts could accurately describe what a rational conversation is.

Posted by: э̀иэЯ | December 30, 2010 1:22 PM

Just raising a question: would you be able to put this flowchart up in your workplace? Even if cutting off the header?

Seriously, I want to know, and I want to know why, or why not.

Posted by: UXO | December 30, 2010 1:25 PM

Woo! I'm an "ESQ", just like PZ! I feel faint, hobnobbing with the quality...

Posted by: Dianne | December 30, 2010 1:27 PM

Do you really not see the contradiction in your arguments here?

Not really, since I see them as 57 replacing 51. My first thought was that if Yaweh (or Thor or Quetzelcoatil or whoever) started coming to dinner on a regular basis I'd start believing in him based on the physical evidence. If god shows up for dinner and does a few miracles before dessert, that's fairly good evidence of a god, right?

But now I'm not sure that makes sense. Why did god just show up now? And how do we know that the being in question is a god rather than a more powerful (but not all-powerful) being ala Q? And if the universe starts behaving very differently from the way it did previously, i.e. gods suddenly show up for no good reason where they haven't been in evidence for at least hundreds of years, doesn't that suggest a trick of some sort? If reality isn't...real...then it can be changed at whim.

In short, if confronted with "magic" I'd most likely look for the naturalistic explanation. Or for a good reason to disbelieve in nature entirely. If it's all the holodeck or the matrix or a hallucination brought on by particularly good drugs, then there's no reason to expect physical rules to apply consistently, making this an attractive explanation for a situation in which physical rules appear to suddenly not apply.

Posted by: Sastra | December 30, 2010 1:29 PM

If I could add another rule to the flowchart, it would be this one:

Are you willing to keep to the topic and avoid shifting it to the psychological ground of the perceived personality flaws of either atheists in general, or the specific atheist you're talking to?

That's a big one. When they start to lose the argument they will try to change the subject to YOU.

"You sound so hostile -- are you always like that? Why do you feel the need to crush others? I noticed the way your arms are folded: it denotes a closed mind. Was there something in your past that hurt you and made you turn from God? You know what: I don't like your tone. You swore. You look unhappy. You make people unhappy. It's not what you're saying -- it's the way you're saying it. I can see right through you, and what I see is fear. Are you afraid? You know deep down that your life is empty, don't you? Have you ever really loved anyone, or considered anything outside of yourself and your need to dominate others? I want to go into the subtle little ways that I can see that the real problem here is you, so let me get started or I'll say you're too sensitive to criticism and not sufficiently skeptical about YOU." And on and on...

I'll say it again. The first tactic to avoid addressing the hard question of the validity of religious belief is to reply with a criticism of those who don't believe. Don't fall for it. (PZ Myers)

Amen.

Posted by: Timberwoof | December 30, 2010 1:31 PM

UXO, you asked, "While I enjoy it immensely, I think you might be cheating just a little: can you honestly conceive of anything that would change your mind on the whole GAWD(TM) issue?"

Sastra gave the answer in requirement #4: "Tell me what you mean by "God" as clearly as possible: define it so we can both stick with it throughout the discussion."

What would change my mind is a self-consistent statement about the nature of God that makes testable predictions, followed up by experimental results that confirm those predictions. In other words, turn theology into a real science with observations, hypotheses, theories, predictions, experiments, and results.

The problem is that the god of the Bible, Jesus, and all the theology since then is not self-consistent, not logical, and there cannot be any evidence that would verify his existence and not be explainable by some Occam-simpler phenomenon.

Elijahtruth: tl;bp;dnr

Gregory Greenwood, you "think that the specific false equivilancy of 'atheism is a religion too', or any variation thereof, should be grounds for the immediate termination of the discussion."

I think it is a teachable moment … if a tedious one. Frequently people do not understand how science works.

For example, most often in debates about global warming, they bring up how in the 1950s climatologists were talking about a cooling trend. Well, yes, in the 1950s, they did. Since then, new methods for investigating climate were invented and new data have been discovered. Science does not pretend to know everything; it is perfectly prepared to change theories to fit the facts. A religion bends the facts to fit the revealed truth.

One could explain, no, I do not deny the existence of God out of faith. I deny his existence because the definition of god makes no sense and cannot be tested scientifically. You cannot give a logical explanation of what the God of the Bible is; therefore you cannot come up with a scientific experiment that shows that it exists. It's like a square circle. You can say it but it means nothing.

You can't just give up on that point! The difference between science and religion is the point.

Posted by: Anri | December 30, 2010 1:38 PM

And herein we have the problem of evidence for god again.

I'd like to ask, as an open question, anyone who is of the opinion that evidence for god is impossible:

If there is no state of the universe that could provide evidence for god, than how is the state of the universe relevant to the existence of god?

In other words, saying 'There is no state of the universe that could demonstrate god,' while also saying 'The observed universe does not demonstrate god, therefore do not believe' is incoherent. If the answer to Question A has no possible bearing on Postulate X, than answering Question A gives you no hint as to the truth of Postulate X, yes?
The argument that the state of the universe is a good reason not to believe in god must tacitly recognize that different states of the universe might provide more or less evidence for this concept.

Please let me know if I'm barking up the wrong tree here, and if so, howso?

Posted by: UXO | December 30, 2010 1:39 PM

Timberwoof @ #76

What would change my mind is a self-consistent statement about the nature of God that makes testable predictions, followed up by experimental results that confirm those predictions. In other words, turn theology into a real science with observations, hypotheses, theories, predictions, experiments, and results.

I suppose that would do the trick - but the problem is, I think you're postulating the impossible. Moreover, this:

The problem is that the god of the Bible, Jesus, and all the theology since then is not self-consistent, not logical, and there cannot be any evidence that would verify his existence and not be explainable by some Occam-simpler phenomenon.

(emphasis mine) is exactly my point, and renders your first statement obsolete.

Posted by: skeptifem | December 30, 2010 1:44 PM

@moonkitty #75, replying to the question "why envision anything?"

Because many theists have decided a priori that nothing will change their minds about god's existence/the literal truth of the Bible/creationism/whatev. Therefore there is no way to have a discussion with them on those topics. They will cheat, however, and claim they wish to have a discussion, when what they really want is a chance to proselytize.

I guess you missed PZ's posts about evidence for god?

http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2010/10/its_like_he_was_reading_my_min.php

teve Zara has a nice article at RD.net that is actually saying the same thing I've been arguing at recent talks: There is no possibility of evidence to convince us of the existence of a god.

I guess PZ isn't rational then. OR, a CHART is a fucking stupid way to try and describe rationality (!!!!!!!!!!!!)

Posted by: Steven Dunlap | December 30, 2010 1:47 PM

The experiment I would want to see to verify the existence of God™ :

God™ must send us an angel. This angel will then shoot a flying monkey out of its ass. The flying monkey will then play Beethoven etudes flawlessly on the piano. This experiment must be repeated for any who request it, including variations such as the angel shooting Schubert out of its ass so he can finish his symphony. The experiment and repetitions thereof must conform to ethical standards (ours, not his - The God™ of the Old Testament is a sociopath) in that, for one example, the angel will not shoot some clawed monster out of its ass who will then rip open Ken Ham and strangle him with his intestines - no matter how many people make that request.

Posted by: KG | December 30, 2010 1:50 PM

Anri@78,

No, you're not barking up the wrong tree: that is indeed the tree that the squirrel ran up!

Posted by: UXO | December 30, 2010 1:55 PM

shekay @ #85: My point. I'm not saying he's wrong, I'm saying he doesn't succeed according to the chart. Nor do I, so it would be a bit of a cheat for me to whip it out the next time the Nice Polite Young Men^®&trade knock on my front door... the jury's still out regarding what else I might whip out, mind you!

Posted by: Timberwoof | December 30, 2010 1:59 PM

UXO, my statement that there cannot be any evidence for God is a logical result of my implied statement previous that there is no good definition of it. I think we basically agree on the theology here; we just state it somewhat differently.

Posted by: UXO | December 30, 2010 2:03 PM

Timberwoof: yup.

Posted by: Glen Davidson | December 30, 2010 2:14 PM

At first it made me giggle in embarrassment, but to be quite sincere; it saddens me a lot and I can't stand it any longer!

Yes, you seem not to understand it at all. Might as well project.

For instance when you claim: "The fact that information evidently interacts within consciousness would suggest "action-at-a-distance," and thus the kinds of forces for which electric fields are responsible."

The point is that nerve impulses are essentially discrete, while information in consciousness is not. What could connect what are, after all, electric phenomena, the nerve impulses? Nerve impulses do propagate as a result of electric fields, and electric fields are capable of action at a distance, that is, of interacting with neighboring electric fields, particles, etc.

I'm like sure; light perception is an example of electromagnetic fields conveying info that's eventually conceived by the mind.. But I guess that's not what you're saying.

No, you have to deal with brain phenomena in consciousness, not whatever conveys information to perceptual organs.

One thing I've found is just how ill-conceived electric fields are by people. For most people, there seems to be no intuitive notion of how they actually exist within the brain. In fact, some guy who has a degree in neuroscience couldn't see how interactions could occur apart from magnetic operations (in play--typically at a very low level, much weaker than the electric forces--any time a charge moves in the brain), when in fact electric fields are what open the voltage-gated channels at play in nerve conduction.

Glen Davidson

Posted by: Sastra | December 30, 2010 2:20 PM

QuestionAuthority #91 wrote:

Can anyone here honestly tell me that they ever got one to admit in any way that they were wrong? I can't say that, no matter how defeated, I've gotten a surrender and a changed mind out of a xtain "witness."

You have to be more cynical than this: don't expect any admission or capitulation at the time. The best you're likely to do is jump start a private chain of thought which may eventually lead someone to change their own mind -- and you're unlikely to ever know about it.

I say this because I've heard many atheists on line and in person say that this is pretty much what happened to them. They walked away from a discussion with an infidel insisting that they were just more sure than ever now and faith had never been stronger ... but there were some things that didn't sit quite right, let's play that back and come up with something better for a next time. Or not.

That said, I have had theists in debate rooms concede small points, and even a few medium points. I've also had die-hard fundamentalists say that they discovered that the issue is harder than it looks -- and now they can understand how someone else might be able to think there is no God and still be a reasonable sort with no extra super hard malice in their heart. For a fundy, that is a big point, and a major breakthrough.

Be a pessimist and keep your expectations very small: you will seldom be disappointed, and will sometimes be pleasantly startled.

Posted by: badgersdaughter | December 30, 2010 2:30 PM

Last night I was talking in a chatroom with a young lady (I use the term loosely) who identified as a Christian. I say "identified" because she obviously didn't know enough about Christianity to even define what she meant by "being a Christian". Sad.

Anyway, she was asked by another chatter, "Which do you prefer, a comforting lie, or the truth?" The little twit princess said, "Depends." After picking my jaw up off the floor, I declared the whole argument moot. That is what we have to contend with when debating many Christians. We can declare, even prove, something scientific and real and true until we're blue in the face, but if truth has a low value to the individual we're debating, then further argument is pointless.

By the way, it's obvious to me that ET is saying that Hawking is, to all intents and purposes, dead, and the Satan of disease is possessing and operating the shell of his body. I can't tell whether I'm getting hotter from the sheer outrage, or from eating tom yum soup as I read the utterly batshit post in question.

Posted by: Kevin | December 30, 2010 2:34 PM

Needs to have the "Gish Gallop" in there.

As in -- You will not introduce 50+ non-related concepts, already refuted arguments, irrelevant factoids, and bold lies in the space of a single sentence.

Posted by: moonkitty | December 30, 2010 2:46 PM

Skeptifem, the chart isn't describing rationality. It's describing the terms under which (rational) debate or discussion can take place. PZ has clearly said that he's convinced the god concept itself is incoherent ("vague and undefined and most annoyingly, plastic"); therefore (as the chart predicts) it would be pointless to have a "does god exist" discussion with him. But that's not because he's not open to evidence; it's because in that particular debate one of the terms ("god") is placed outside the rules from the start.

I find the chart quite useful (also funny.) I know a few libertarians who'd never get past item 1, due to their belief in the awe-inspiring powers of Teh Free Market.

Posted by: Legion | December 30, 2010 3:09 PM

QuestionAuthority @91:

Can anyone here honestly tell me that they ever got one to admit in any way that they were wrong? I can't say that, no matter how defeated, I've gotten a surrender and a changed mind out of a xtain "witness."

After two hours of carpet bombing the fairyland of christian mythology, I did get a christian to admit that the bible makes no sense, but then after a brief stutter and a pause, he respawned and said I should believe anyway.

facepalm.

Posted by: alexcummings11 | December 30, 2010 3:16 PM

JT (the person who inspired this chart) is a dear friend of mine, and someone who had a big hand in my atheism conversion.

For everyone asking if there is anything that could possibly persuade an atheist that there is a higher being, or what a good example to tell a theist would be, I've adopted JT's technique: He keeps a 10-digit number written on a piece of paper in his wallet, and if any theist can simply pray to god to reveal that 10-digit number, then he will consider that as proof.

Posted by: sandiseattle | December 30, 2010 3:19 PM

Kevin Anthoney @ 59:

Answering #10 would have to be: If such an event occurred it would not be a sign of evolutions wrongness but proof that someone with some really powerful mind control technology was having a good joke.

Sastra @ 79: It goes both ways, atheist and theist alike are equal offenders in that regard.

Posted by: Rillion | December 30, 2010 3:33 PM

@106 The ability to read a number off a paper in someone's wallet would indeed be impressive, but I sure wouldn't be willing to worship anyone who could do it, much less consider them a god.

Posted by: sandiseattle | December 30, 2010 3:40 PM

Way to miss the point there Ich, Sastra was applying the idea only to theists and I called it.

Posted by: sqlrob | December 30, 2010 3:45 PM

ElijahTroof, even though I'm a monolingual English speaker, I suggest you post your missives in your native language, as I believe they might make more sense to me

I think his native language is gibberish, so you're out of luck.

Posted by: sandiseattle | December 30, 2010 3:57 PM

Well Data Venia you are right I have not studied such a thing. I have however seen enough of the debate to be confident that my assertion is indeed substantiated. Think of it thus: it's an agree to disagree thing. Both sides do it, and both sides believe that they do it less and the other side does it more and both sides believe the other side is evil/wrong/angry/whatevs for doing so.
EOF

Posted by: 'Tis Himself, OM | December 30, 2010 4:03 PM

ET: tp;dr

(too pretentious; didn't read)

Posted by: Legion | December 30, 2010 4:09 PM

TYP:

In short, I don't have a problem with you all making fun of the stupid religious people, I find it fun too. But there is something to be said for meditation...

Belief in gods, demons, angels, and fairies aren't necessary to benefit from meditation.

connecting with the odd sense in this world that what you do has a tendency to come back to you...

Well yeah, if you work in the illegal drug trade for a living, you're more likely catch a bullet than someone who works as an accountant. Nothing mystical about that. What about when bad things happen to good people? That would "refudiate" the claim that "what you do has a tendency to come back to you."

But most older people will tell you that those types of happenings *seem* to be out there...

Yeah, it "seems" that the IRS has it in for me personally, every April 15th, but that's just my subjective impression isn't it?

You can close your eyes and ears and just chalk it up to people seeing things, or you can give it a try...

Like many theists, you don't seem to realize that many (perhaps most) atheists were theists themselves at one time. We have already "tried" it and decided that living a life with reason, rather than one ruled by superstition, is a better way to live.

Keep posting.

Posted by: phantomreader42 | December 30, 2010 4:14 PM

typ @ #115:

So, yes, it is fun to feel all superior to those who think the earth is 6k years old and stuff like that, but that is not where the most interesting questions are. The most interesting questions would be more around trying to understand the implications for life and existence if it does turn out to be true that there really is a god.

And what "implications" are you talking about?

There is no actual evidence in the real world that there is a god. This implies that, if it turns out there is a god, it has been deliberately hiding itself, and does not WANT us to believe in it. That further implies that your faith is an INSULT to god, because it denies all his hard work to make it look like he's imaginary.

Christians claim that god is all-powerful, all-knowing, intelligent, ethical, and benevolent. Yet countless people and animals suffer horribly, in ways that cannot possibly be construed to be their fault, and which do not in any way improve the lives of any other organisms. This implies that a god with the above alleged attributes cannot exist, and that therefore if there is a god it is either ignorant of the suffering of the innocent, incapable of helping those in need, unwilling to do so, or a vile, sociopathic monstrosity that revels in the pain of others. If there is such a god, it is unworthy of worship, either irrelevant, incompetent, or malevolent.

Christians claim that god will take anyone who does not beleive the right myths, and torture them forever, magically making them immortal for the sole purpose of savoring their unending torment. This implies that if there is such a god, it is the most evil being imaginable, a cosmic horror of literally infinite cruelty and malice, and the only moral response to such an entity is to seek a method to eradicate it, preferably in as painful a fashion as possible.

So, what implications are you speaking of? That one should not believe in a god, as doing so disrespects god's work and skill at hiding himself? That god cannot possibly be what his followers claim him to be? That god is an abomination which all men of good character have a duty to take up arms against?

Posted by: Amphiox, OM | December 30, 2010 4:14 PM

I have however seen enough of the debate to be confident that my assertion is indeed substantiated.

And I have seen enough of the debate to be confident that your assertion (specifically, "equality" between atheists and theists on the particular issue referred to) is horsehooey.

Unless, of course, you cleave to a very different definition of the word "equality" than I do, one to which the concepts of quantity and frequency do not apply.

Posted by: typ | December 30, 2010 4:21 PM

Legion, thanks for taking the time.

As i said, I too was atheist, by oldest son is atheist. So I understand. Most of my problems with religion are not around the seemingly central issue of the existence of god, but more so the structure of the religions that the goofballs put up who believe in god.

Religious people really do give religions a bad name.

Having said that, I know that life is much more than what meets the eye. It is universally accepted that our experience of the universe is not in keeping with the actual structure of the universe. Whether we are in a brane verse or holo projection of digital information or strings in a 11 dimensional space, it is clear that the universe and existence is not how we see it to be. Given that we only have scattered theories around the true nature of the universe, it seems safe to me to assume that we do not know how things act in reality.

So it does come back to your definition of God. I for one do not have a god of the gaps approach to life and figure that eventually we will be able to figure out he rules by which everything operates and therefore it is silly to presuppose a god based on a lack of understanding of the universe.

The question is, once we understand the mechanics of the operation of the universe, will we still have a *how* or *why* question left unanswered? What if we will? What does that mean to the way we bahave today?

Posted by: typ | December 30, 2010 4:26 PM

phantomreader42 - It seems to me that you are arguing against religions and I view religions to be quite different that a belief in god. I agree with nearly everything you wrote and I am dead set against nearly every religion out there. Personally I am convinced that the Buddhists have the best one for world impact and I am committed to help change Christianity to have a more favorable impact. I don't think Jesus would be in favor of the Christianity that most practice.

Posted by: phantomreader42 | December 30, 2010 4:29 PM

typ, are you aware that when a christian comes in here with the claim, "i used to be an atheist", it nearly always turns out that they're just Lying For Jesus™?

And the few that AREN'T lying about it end up showing that they were really shallow, gullible, lazy atheists who didn't bother to think things through?

What evidence do you have that a god exists? Not some mystical vague undefinable feeling of "something"; tell us what this "god" you believe in is, what it does, and what there is in the real world that demonstrates that it's actually there.

Have you ever even bothered to consider that question?

Posted by: sqlrob | December 30, 2010 4:30 PM

The question is, once we understand the mechanics of the operation of the universe, will we still have a *how* or *why* question left unanswered?

No.

And you're committing another fallacy; in science how = why, there is no difference.

Posted by: Atheism Resource | December 30, 2010 4:33 PM

You can get the updated chart on our site here: http://atheismresource.com/wp-content/uploads/Debate-Flow-Chart1.jpg

Changed the title to "RATIONAL DEBATING" since it does apply to more than just religious talks. Thanks, PZ, for the plug! We are all big fans at AtheismResource.com.

Posted by: sqlrob | December 30, 2010 4:35 PM

Science does not. It provides the best approximation that we can have at the time. Generally speaking we try to make science self consistent, but that is not reality. It is a model of reality.

Way to miss the point, you didn't add anything to what I said and completely missed the point.

We try to make science an accurate model. Religion is nowhere near accurate and is in many cases counterfactual. Why is religion something to be clung to when it is useless?

Posted by: Amphiox, OM | December 30, 2010 4:37 PM

But as I said, if there is a god then I don't think one definition can encompass it therefore each person may be able to sense or commune with a part of god.

You aren't limited to just one. You may if you wish, consider several, a set of definitions if you will. However, you must have at least one, and you cannot have an infinite number. An infinite number of definitions is no different from no definition at all. And there is nothing meaningful to contemplate without definitions to set parameters upon that which is being contemplated.

So I guess I would have the most generalized definition of god possible

See above. The more generalized the definition, the less useful it is, and the less meaningful it is. If god is a manifestation of a non-zero Higgs field, then what is the point of calling it god? Why not just call it a non-zero Higgs field? If god is everything then god might just as well be nothing.

because I recognize that if a god exists then it would probably be incomprehensible to me.

If you cannot comprehend it, then you cannot recognize that it exists. If you cannot comprehend it, then you cannot distinguish what it is from what it is not. If you cannot comprehend it, you cannot ascertain what aspects of it are important to you and what are not, and in what ways. If it is incomprehensible to you, then your contemplation of it cannot and will not, by definition, have any implications of any kind for you. It would be as meaningful and useful for you to consider god as it would be for a goldfish to contemplate Kant.

To derive meaning is to comprehend.

The very act of attempting to contemplate is a tacit admission of faith in one's ability to comprehend, even if one says otherwise. For that which is utterly incomprehensible one cannot even choose to think about.

Posted by: phantomreader42 | December 30, 2010 4:44 PM

typ @ #129:

phantomreader42 - It seems to me that you are arguing against religions and I view religions to be quite different that a belief in god.

Are you capable of articulating what that difference is? I've heard this claim before, that god has nothing to do with religion. It's a load of horseshit, and not once has anyone been able to offer anything that come close to making it look like anything other than a load of horseshit.

typ @ #129:

I agree with nearly everything you wrote and I am dead set against nearly every religion out there.

and yet, you claim to be a member of one. Specifically, one that worships a cosmic horror that tortures people eternally for fun. You are a member of a religion that is, among other things, devoted to the worship of absolute evil. Why?

typ @ #129:

Personally I am convinced that the Buddhists have the best one for world impact and I am committed to help change Christianity to have a more favorable impact.

Are you convinced that what the buddhists believe is TRUE? Do you even care if what you believe is true or not? Or does only the "impact" matter to you? Is your religion nothing more than a set of comforting lies to fleece the gullibile? In that case, I'd recommend Bokononism. It at least ADMITS to being pure foma.

typ @ #129:

I don't think Jesus would be in favor of the Christianity that most practice.

What kind of christianity do you think jesus WOULD be in favor of? Is it the brand you practice (which you have never identified from among almost forty thousand different cults)? If not, why not? Why is the opinion of a (possibly fictitious) dead Palestinian relevant anyway? What evidence is there in the real world that "jesus" actually existed at all, much less that he had magical powers and was the product of a horny deity screwing someone else's wife (which, incidentally, is supposed to be a no-no)?

Posted by: Amphiox, OM | December 30, 2010 4:48 PM

It provides the best approximation that we can have at the time.

The best approximation (by definition nothing better is available) is indistinguishable from reality, and for all practical purposes we may as well assume that it is.

The question is, once we understand the mechanics of the operation of the universe, will we still have a *how* or *why* question left unanswered? What if we will? What does that mean to the way we bahave today?

Since we currently do not understand all the mechanics of the operation of the universe, and do not know if there will still be anything left unanswered, it means absolutely nothing to the way we behave today. If one day we do, we will find out, that day, if it will have anything to do with how we behave, that day. For not today. For today it is irrelevant.

Posted by: Brownian, Most Vicious & Petty of Pharyngulites | December 30, 2010 4:51 PM

it is safe to assume that most have meditated, in their own ways

And many of us have done so in the way Typ refers to.

I too ascribed to Buddhism at one point, practiced yoga and qigong, and had a few mystical experiences as a result (ever slowed time by breathing through your dān tián, Typ? I have.)

If you'd like to understand the bigger picture of all this, then I suggest you meditate upon the mantra you wrote here:

many days this seems like I am fooling myself

Bam! That'll open your mind more than anything.

Posted by: Legion | December 30, 2010 4:53 PM

TYP:

I know that life is much more than what meets the eye. It is universally accepted that our experience of the universe is not in keeping with the actual structure of the universe.

A few thousand years ago, some anonymous guy probably said something similar. He may have thought that the earth was flat, or that it was impossible for humans to fly.

Now look how far we've come. Was it really necessary to invent gods to figure out that the earth is a sphere (well almost) and that human flight was possible? I think not.

Given that there is no evidence for god(s), filling in the questions we have about the universe with belief in a god sounds like a god-of-the-gaps excuse to me.

So it does come back to your definition of God.

Funny you should mention that because your "defintion" sounds awfully vague. Most of the theists who post here say the same thing. Their god is different from the god of those silly fundamentalists/catholics/literalists, but whenever you ask for a concrete definition, they usually can't supply one.

The question is, once we understand the mechanics of the operation of the universe, will we still have a *how* or *why* question left unanswered?

My guess is that there will always be how and why questions, but we don't need to conjure imaginary gods just because we don't have the answers. It seems to me that doing so gets in the way of real truth seeking and can lead to intellectual laziness. I mean, why bother seeking answers if you already know that goddidit?

Posted by: mikerattlesnake | December 30, 2010 4:54 PM

"What is it that I believe in? I came down on the conclusion that I would need to become open to the idea that the things that I experience in this world and life may not be like I sense them to be, and that the reality of the world may be much better described by a presence that is intimately involved in everything. "

You didn't just describe a belief, you know. You described a vague possibility that you accepted. We accept a probability that we are wrong too, we are just realistic about what that probability is. It sounds like you inflate the probability of the supernatural so that you can feel more important in the universe and that feeling is more important to you than being honest or rational.

Either way it doesn't sound like you are particularly christian, just afraid of atheism and too cowardly to admit that you don't believe in God.

Posted by: Carlie of the lacy, gently wafting adjectives | December 30, 2010 4:57 PM

Atheism resource - thanks for the updated version! That makes it useful for all kinds of things. :)

Posted by: 'Tis Himself, OM | December 30, 2010 5:01 PM

typ #115

Good day to all of you. A first time poster here and will probably not post much more since the shear volume of postings on this site is too time consuming for me.

I do hope you won't be a one-time, drive-by poster. I'll be spending some time writing this post and it'll be a waste of time if you don't see it and respond.

Background - Former theist, atheist, and now theist again on good/bad days.

What are good days and what are bad days? Does your theism appear and disappear to match your mood? Are you more fervent on good days or bad days?

Question - Do you all consider Buddhism in these debates? I was Buddhist for quite a few years and that is essentially atheistic.

We do discuss Buddhism occasionally. We tend to discuss the Abrahamic religions more than others because of familiarity.

Some forms of Buddhism are more theistic than others. Originally Buddhism was a reformation of Hinduism, but later it went off in various directions.

Observation - I am a Christian, and I totally agree with you about using much of these type of arguments for testing many of the aspects of faith. There are many many Christians out there who are reasonable people. I happen to count myself as one of them. On some days I doubt the whole thing and can't imaging what it was I was thinking. And on other days I am blown away and happy that I am in the fold.

Reason and faith are opposites. An intellectual notion can be reached either by faith (aka wishful thinking or "I really want this to be true even though there's no evidence for it") or by reason. I'm only guessing but I think you're in the "I really want this to be true" position on Christianity. BTW, which particular flavor of Christianity do you go in for?

The fact is that there is no real proof of god in the sense of the god I think there is out there. I am also humble enough (just barely) to believe that if there is a god that is responsible for the things I attribute to him, then most likely that god would be nearly incomprehensible to me because I cannot comprehend how that god does what he does.

So what sorts of things do you attribute to your god? Do these attributes include omnipotence, omniscience, and various other omniscient? Is your god the stand-offish, non-interventionist deist god or is he The Big Guy In The Sky who occasionally looks up from his knitting to answer prayers from non-amputees and is deeply concerned with your sex life or is god something in between?

So, yes, it is fun to feel all superior to those who think the earth is 6k years old and stuff like that, but that is not where the most interesting questions are. The most interesting questions would be more around trying to understand the implications for life and existence if it does turn out to be true that there really is a god.

We can't ignore the fundagelical Biblical literalists. They're the ones trying to get myth taught in schools in place of science. They're the ones using religion to push a right-wing socio-political agenda. And they're the ones who would put atheists against the wall if they set up the theocracy they want.

I spend enough time considering the implications for life and existence without god to add a further complication to the mixture. Also we're back to you having to define your particular, pet god before we can discuss its implications further.

I put it to you people that it seems that you all are generally high fiving each other when you blow up (figuratively) someone like Ken Ham. I feel good about that too. But I have found that the unexpected can happen when you leave the door open for it to happen.

I really have to doubt that you ever were an atheist. I suspect you were between religions, dissatisfied with your old one and looking for a new one. The reason for my doubt is that the vast majority of atheists not only don't believe in god(s) but don't find a need to believe in god(s). I don't see how my life could be any more fulfilling or purposeful if I "accepted" TBGITS or even Spinoza's god. As a result, "the door is not open." Why should it be?

In short, I don't have a problem with you all making fun of the stupid religious people, I find it fun too. But there is something to be said for meditation...

Mediation doesn't require god. As a supposedly ex-semi-atheistic Buddhist you should know this.

...connecting with the odd sense in this world that what you do has a tendency to come back to you, and also that your intentions seem to have disproportionate impacts in the world.

You're not pushing god, you're pushing the warm feeling you got when you were a child and your mother tucked you into bed and kissed you goodnight.

Yes you can deny those things. But most older people will tell you that those types of happenings *seem* to be out there.

I'm 62, is that old enough? If it is, I'll tell you that in rhetorics what you're pushing is called bullshit. Sure there are coincidences that happen, there are odd-ball things that happen, and not everything can be explained. Those things do not imply TBGITS.

Again, many days this seems like I am fooling myself, and many it does not.

Seems to me you're good at fooling yourself but not so good at not fooling yourself.

The fruit is in the journey.

Gordon Bok put it better in his song "Old Fat Boat":

Well mercy, mercy, I do declare
If half the fun of going is the getting there,
Mercy, Percy, you better start rowing,
'Cause the other half of getting there is going.

Posted by: Brownian, Most Vicious & Petty of Pharyngulites | December 30, 2010 5:03 PM

Deism could be true.

The only thing Deism does is posit an original actor and imbues it with intent.

Given the counter-intuitiveness of the origin of the universe, I can see the appeal of the former, but what does the latter actually add?

"Well, I used to be really lost; you know, never found a vocation I could call my own until I became a Deist. Now that I feel it's really possible that some sort of god caused the Big Bang I realise my destiny lay in podiatry."

Is that how it works?

Posted by: Kel, The Privileged View From Nowhere | December 30, 2010 5:09 PM

Given all we know about human psychology, I really don't get how people still persist in anthropomorphising the universe by attributing intentional states to it. God as an explanation is just our ability to attribute personal cause and mental states to other phenomena. When attributing it to humans - very useful. When attributing it to other animals - less so. When attributing it to the universe - you get God.

Posted by: Randy (not Randy) | December 30, 2010 5:10 PM

Paraphrasing a brilliant young child from some other thread that I don't currently have the opportunity to quote properly:

"If God can't make Typ leave for a couple of hours and not come back unless he brings me some glue doughnuts, what good is he?"

Posted by: oihorse | December 30, 2010 5:12 PM

@Typ

Why bother calling it Christianity? Why not all it Typ's Guide to Life instead and remove massive amounts of confusion?

Posted by: borko | December 30, 2010 5:15 PM

Post number 26 by Elijah whatchamacallit was fun.
I used to buy Dr Bronners soap for camping trips, and we would read the endless screed on the label as we sat around the fire. I never understood what he was saying but it sure was amusing.

Posted by: Amphiox, OM | December 30, 2010 5:17 PM

My Christianity does not

By what authority do you assign yourself the right to define Christianity. And if your definition applies to just you and your own beliefs, and not to anyone else, then why call it Christianity?

Posted by: Legion | December 30, 2010 5:21 PM

TYP, you posted your definition of god. Here's how I interpret what you're saying:

I came down on the conclusion that I would need to become open to the idea that the things that I experience in this world and life may not be like I sense them to be...

I'm not sure what reality is.

and that the reality of the world may be much better described by a presence that is intimately involved in everything.

Therefore, god.

That's pretty standard theist fare. Surprising that you were once an atheist, because for someone who's thought through both sides of this issue, your arguments don't seem very sophisticated.

Posted by: typ | December 30, 2010 5:24 PM

re 'Tis Himself, OM#152

Thanks for the long post.
Good days and Bad Days - Considering there is no proof of god there are days where it seems silly and days when it seems obvious. I totally get the atheist thing, I have just opened myself to continuously entertaining the big *what if*. I find it quite cool.

Reason and Faith being Opposites - Good point. I know many for whom the definition of Faith is that you believe without reason, thereby supporting your hypothesis. But I don't use Faith in that sense. I do believe that Faith requires a first step that is much like the leap of faith talked about by Kierkegaard (those of you who have not read him really should), but only insomuch as it takes the leap to open the door and allow the possibility of faith to exist. I don’t believe people can cross the faith/no faith border without sampling the other side in earnest. Sometimes it is worth just saying, OK, assuming that is true, where does it take me?

Which Christianity is typ? - Well, they kicked me out of my church last spring and another church wants me to come there (Methodist) and I might since they seem to be very open to rational views. In the end, here is my thought. Jesus is the king that the Israelites were waiting for throughout time. He did everthing they thought he would and therefore he is the Messiah (which just means King). He defeated all the enemies (the religious body of the day, the Jews, the government, the Romans, and the final enemy that we all have to overcome, death) and that proved he is the king of the Jews that will be a savior to the world. Given he is the savior, the messiah, the king they all waited for, what he said when he is alive is the right way to live our lives. He had two commandments, to love God and love others. That’s it. If you are not loving others then it is wrong. That’s my Christianity.

Attributes of God – Difficult to say, he is after all, God…..

Literalists – They are a very difficult problem. I am waaay against their view of the Bible, but they play to our modern view of the world. I know that many of you will have a difficult time with this, but they are born of the same world as the atheists. The literalists are children of modernity. The enlightenment brought about the modern world where we think we can think through everything. I think firmly entrenched atheists and biblical literalists are carved from the same mold. No insult intended…

More to come, if my wife lets me....My Lord and My God!!! just kidding.

Posted by: Amphiox, OM | December 30, 2010 5:26 PM

that the reality of the world may be much better described by a presence that is intimately involved in everything

First, define "presence", and provide a means by which it can be distinguished from no presence.

Second, define "intimately", and provide a means by which it can be distinguished from not intimately.

Finally, tell us what would be difference between "a presence that is intimately involved in everything", and just "everything", and point out the pertinent details about our present reality that is consistent with the truth of the former and not with the truth of the latter.

Posted by: Amphiox, OM | December 30, 2010 5:31 PM

a religion where loving God and loving others is the criterion for living

Typ, please consider the following:

a religion where loving others is the
criterion for living.

Now tell us what the addition of "loving God" brings to the equation, and why it should be preferred.

Posted by: Brownian, Most Vicious & Petty of Pharyngulites | December 30, 2010 5:33 PM

Did anybody else get "There certainly is a god. Because if there is no god, I'll be very very sad." out of the vast majority of Typ's posts?

Yes, but I understand that.

Going from what he's written here, Typ sounds like the average moderate who'd be an atheist or agnostic if he weren't raised in the Western cultural bath awash in Jesus tub-toys.

Sort of like Shelby Spong, minus the theological training.

Posted by: Amphiox, OM | December 30, 2010 5:40 PM

Attributes of God – Difficult to say, he is after all, God…..

Let's make it easier then. You don't have to describe them in any great detail. Just tell us the differences between the attributes of God and the attributes of no God.

And if even that is still too difficult, then simplify it even further and just tell us what is it about the one that prompts you to believe in it, as opposed to the other.

Posted by: typ | December 30, 2010 5:42 PM

oihorse brought up the Christianity question and I would like to put a bit more meat around that.

I think that the first step is generally to be open to a god existing, and then looking for that god. While Buddhism does not attribute any of its teachings to a god, per se, it can easily be seen as at least deistic.

I don't think it is particularly productive to start into a conversation with my detailed thoughts around the way the Bible is set up and what was really going on with Jesus if someone does not take the leap to concede the possibility of the existence of god. The reason is self evident.

Having said that, many here can take solace that over the past 2 decades Christianity has had new groups springing up that reflect my views more closely than traditional Christianity. This is a good thing. Many of the Christians out there feel my views are at least as bad a heresy as atheist views, and worse because they are an apostasy.

But I can hang toe to toe with the bible thumpers out there and present a view of Jesus that is more in accordance with what is in the bible than they can (given they are willing to abide by rules of argument much like you all are doing).

So I repeat, yes, the initial leap of faith to say there is a god is a difficult thing to do and you all can certainly shoot me down on that one. That is easy. But once you are willing to entertain that thought, there is more to discuss.

Posted by: Randy (not Randy) | December 30, 2010 5:45 PM

Typ, I've been an 'open minded' member of a religious sect before. I am more than willing to entertain the thought of there being a god.

Your turn. Show me some actual reason to.

Posted by: typ | December 30, 2010 5:48 PM

Brownian, OM #169 - No, wrong thing. I am not talking about good things happening to good people etc. There is no divine scale that it all works out in this life.

I am talking about knowing false prophets. You will know them by their fruit. I think this is a good criterion for the people on this blog to use. Good people will produce (or at least advocate) good results. The Christians who support shunning the non-believers and other atrocities are not producing good fruit.

Posted by: Antiochus Epiphanes | December 30, 2010 5:49 PM

Amphiox: *giggle*

Posted by: Kel, The Privileged View From Nowhere | December 30, 2010 5:53 PM

KG - I said True, not true.

What is capital-t Truth? Can you explain how you, someone who is fallible, can know a Truth?

Posted by: CJO | December 30, 2010 5:53 PM

He did everthing they thought he would

Well, that is, the authors of the gospels mined the psalms and the prophets for passages they thought referred to the Messiah and cooked up narratives featuring events that "fulfilled" these passages. Most Jews were evidently not impressed.

and therefore he is the Messiah (which just means King).

It means "annointed." There were a great many mutually exclusive beliefs among Greco-Roman era Jews about what the Messiah was supposed to do and be like, and not all of them had any political expectation attached.

He defeated all the enemies (the religious body of the day,

Second Temple Judaism was "defeated" by the Romans with the destruction of the temple in 70 CE.

the Jews,

There are still Jews who have evidently failed to recognize their defeat.

the government, the Romans,

Redundant, but the Roman empire persisted for centuries after the supposed date of the crucifixion.

and the final enemy that we all have to overcome, death)

Uh huh...

and that proved he is the king of the Jews that will be a savior to the world.

As noted, clearly his subjects, the Jews, disagreed and still do. But even if he was king of the Jews (and there are numerous textual problems with that title), why should anybody who is not a Jew or in the least concerned with their political arrangements consider him their savior. Oh, and from what?

Posted by: Amphiox, OM | December 30, 2010 5:58 PM

I am talking about knowing false prophets. You will know them by their fruit. I think this is a good criterion for the people on this blog to use. Good people will produce (or at least advocate) good results.

I see. Well by that definition, PZ is a true prophet.

Posted by: Dhorvath, OM | December 30, 2010 6:01 PM

Rey,
You can't even use it as fertilizer.

Posted by: typ | December 30, 2010 6:09 PM

Antiochus Epiphanes#177 – testing my bibling here, let’s do it!

Well, amphiox nailed it. In the first verse you quoted (let me see if blockquote works here)

“Do not think that I have come to bring 60 peace to the earth. I have not come to bring peace but a sword. 10:35 For I have come to set a man against his father, a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law, 10:36 and a man’s enemies will be the members of his household. 61

10:37 “Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me, and whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. 10:38 And whoever does not take up his cross 62 and follow me is not worthy of me. 10:39 Whoever finds his life 63 will lose it, 64 and whoever loses his life because of me 65 will find it.
Rewards

FYI – I use net.bible since it has a very literal interpretation as well as an excellent cross reference of various versions as well as the original Hebrew and Greek.

Jesus clearly came to upset the establishment. The Jews were all centered around obeying the minutia of the laws of Moses thinking that unthinking devotion to their letter will gain favor with God. Jesus knows the old people will be unwilling to change, so it is the younger against the older (in all cases). He is telling the young to rebel against this tradition and instead follow his simple commands.

The Son of Man will send his angels, and they will gather from his kingdom everything that causes sin as well as all lawbreakers. 58 13:42 They will throw them into the fiery furnace, 59 where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. 13:43 Then the righteous will shine like the sun in the kingdom of their Father. 60 The one who has ears had better listen!

To get this you have to understand the bible in terms of it being a story of covenants and less of a book of rules. The fundamental story of the Christian God is that he will redeem creation and reconcile it to God so that heaven and earth will share the same space and everyone will live in the world that God intends it to be. This piece of scripture is talking about the process of reconciling the world in the end times. Some interpret the fiery furnace etc as being an eternal hell that people who don’t believe will be thrown to. The correct interpretation is that this is a purifying furnace, not a punishing furnace, a purification of those who have not been righteous and it will not be a pleasant experience to be purified like that. No mention of hell here.

I tell you the truth, 53 people will be forgiven for all sins, even all the blasphemies they utter. 54 3:29 But whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit will never be forgiven, but is guilty of an eternal sin”

One of my favorites. What is the HS? He is the counseler, the one who searches your heart and helps to give you power and ability to follow God. What happens if you sin against the HS? Well, it means you are not listening even though you know in your heart of hearts that what is being said is correct. That person will endure the purifying fires until they learn to listen! That does make sense, right? No hell, purifying fire to reconcile to God. Of course they are not real fires, the literalists believe that. What it actually is we do not know but I think it is a great metaphor.

Posted by: 'Tis Himself, OM | December 30, 2010 6:14 PM

typ #168

Others have covered most of the topics you've brought up so here's my thoughts on one thing not covered:

Literalists – They are a very difficult problem. I am waaay against their view of the Bible, but they play to our modern view of the world. I know that many of you will have a difficult time with this, but they are born of the same world as the atheists. The literalists are children of modernity. The enlightenment brought about the modern world where we think we can think through everything. I think firmly entrenched atheists and biblical literalists are carved from the same mold. No insult intended…

I think you're both right and wrong here. Certainly modern atheism has origins in the Enlightenment. Many historians and sociologists see Biblical literalism and fundamentalism as a reactionary rejection of the Enlightenment. Essentially atheism, or more specifically secular humanism, and literalist fundamentalism are both strongly influenced by the Enlightenment, the first in a positive way and the second in a negative way.

Michelle Swensen's essay Democracy Under Assault considers the socio-political aspects of religious fundamentalism.

Framing issues to disempower historically marginalized groups, the right brands women "murderers," gays "pedophiles," immigrants "criminals," and public schools "unconstitutional and unbiblical." As occurred during the welfare reform debate, poverty, abuse and injustice are dismissed, and all problems imputed to the moral failure of women and minorities ... David Kopel pronounced gun control laws "dangerous" because they divert attention from welfare and single parenthood as the "primary cause of crime." Tom DeLay directly linked school shootings to birth control, small families, daycare, working women, teaching evolution, and the absence of prescribed school prayer. Blanket indictments of marginalized groups for societal ills have historically served the dual purpose of oppressing the powerless while preserving dominant power structures.

Posted by: Dhorvath, OM | December 30, 2010 6:15 PM

Typ,
Lack of the word hell doesn't change what is described. Likewise, your apparent willingness to ignore the term eternal doesn't allow you to claim that punishment is until a person learns.

Posted by: Antiochus Epiphanes | December 30, 2010 6:18 PM

The correct interpretation is that this is a purifying furnace, not a punishing furnace, a purification of those who have not been righteous and it will not be a pleasant experience to be purified like that. No mention of hell here.

The Catholics call this Purgatory: literally a place for spritual purification (see OED etymology below, bold is mine).

Anglo-Norman and Old French purgatore, Anglo-Norman and Old French, Middle French purgatoire, (chiefly Anglo-Norman) purgatorie(French purgatoire) place of temporary suffering for the souls of the dead (c1190; the fig. use in sense 2is apparently not paralleled in French until later (late 16th cent.)) and its etymon post-classical Latin purgatorium purgative substance (end of the 4th cent.), spiritual purification, expiation (5th cent. in Augustine; c1180, 1562 in British sources), place of temporary suffering for the souls of the dead (frequently from 12th cent. in British and continental sources), sewer (c1507 in a British source), use as noun of neuter of purgatoriuspurgatory adj.Compare Old Occitan purgatori(probably a1230; also porgador, porgatori; Occitan purgatòri), Catalan purgatori(13th cent.), Spanish purgatorio(a1263), Portuguese purgatório(14th cent.), Italian purgatorio(end of the 13th cent.).

Posted by: Skippy | December 30, 2010 6:22 PM

typ, if I'm reading you correctly, I think your "descriptions"/"definitions" of "God" are so slippery, as to be utterly useless. First it's a "presence"--quite nebulous and vague and something that probably/maybe/just might/possibly interact with humanity. Then, you move to a much more anthropomorphic description of this god--you trip yourself up when you start talking about Jesus; why would this "god" need to be reconciled to humankind? Leaving aside for the moment that you haven't shown that this god exists in the first place, your own ill-defined deity as well as your presentation of Jesus falls apart under close scrutiny.

Finally, where are you deriving your interpretation of Jesus and the gospels from? You do realize that the concept of a messiah was, at its core, a political role--Jesus was by no means the only person in 1st century Palestine to claim that he was the Messiah and have followers.

Posted by: Brownian, Most Vicious & Petty of Pharyngulites | December 30, 2010 6:24 PM

Jesus clearly came to upset the establishment. The Jews were all centered around obeying the minutia of the laws of Moses thinking that unthinking devotion to their letter will gain favor with God.

Do I really have to be the one to respond with Matthew 5:17?

What it actually is we do not know but I think it is a great metaphor.

Think on that for a second. My very soul is at stake, and the great redeemer, the Saviour upon whom my salvation rests is playing nebulous word games?

Imagine you're a father, and you wish your child to walk to school in safety. Would you walk with them along the safest route, pointing out dangers as clearly as possible, or would you write them a haiku which could lead them safely to school as well as into the arms of drug-dealing gang members, depending on the interpretation?

What a fucking load of bullshit you're defending.

Posted by: sqlrob | December 30, 2010 6:26 PM

A terrible thing for someone who wanted to believe so much, and did so much good

Effectively torturing = good? Is your chocolate ration increasing from 30 grams to 25 grams?

Posted by: Dhorvath, OM | December 30, 2010 6:28 PM

typ,
The passage makes no mention of any way to be forgiven. How could anyone read that and say that there is a way out?

Posted by: nigelTheBold, Minister of Spankings | December 30, 2010 6:32 PM

type, #201:

I agree. On good days I think it is obvious there is a god and on bad days no way.

I'm familiar with The Dark Night of the Soul. Though I think I prefer the Danger Mouse/ Sparklehorse collaboration.

In any case, here is where epistemic uncertainty leads: to the certainty that, if there is a god, there is no way to know the attributes (including divine desire, plans, or other holy machinations) of the god.

I'm not entirely sure how you can jump from the acceptance of the possibility of a god, to the certainty that if the god exists, it is a specific god (in this case, the Christian god).

That's the bit I'm not getting. What is your logic for concluding both that god exists, and that god is the Christian god?

Posted by: Brownian, Most Vicious & Petty of Pharyngulites | December 30, 2010 6:35 PM

There is a Christian concept called the dark night of the soul. Mother Theresa apparently experienced it throughout most of her life. A terrible thing for someone who wanted to believe so much, and did so much good, to go unfulfilled like that.

Much more terrible for those who suffered while she stoked her ego praying over them, wouldn't an honest person say? She sure has a beatific smile receiving the Medal of Freedom from Reagan, whose policies ensured she'd have no end of poor people to 'minister' to.

Posted by: Rixaeton | December 30, 2010 6:38 PM

I am unsure why you are debating the points of a book of fiction? Since the validity of the source material is of questionable origin and veracity, why debate it at all? It would be just as valid as using Star Trek as a basis for reality, and argue about Spock's dealing with the duality of being a rational Vulcan and an emotional Human is a good way to establish an ethical framework or morality.

As per the chart at the top; Are you willing to accept the possibility that the basis for your conclusions is a work of fiction, therefore not a valid basis to derive any truth (capitalised or otherwise), just as I am willing to accept it so long as it has any corroborating evidence?

Posted by: Skippy | December 30, 2010 6:39 PM

@213: Seems like everyone on this thread's a daggone prophet. This one has all the earmarks of a Liar For Jesus (tm).

Posted by: Samantha Vimes | December 30, 2010 6:39 PM

Okay, *now* I'm okay with banning Elijah. There's something spectacularly hateful about calling a man struggling with a horrible disease "dead" just because he has to use a speaking device and you don't like what he has to say. And trying to put your own words in his mouth and claiming what he says is really Satan.

Posted by: Kel, The Privileged View From Nowhere | December 30, 2010 6:42 PM

Very, god-like, if you will.

It's meaningless pap. Sounds impressive and insightful, but there's no substance underneath.

Posted by: Aratina Cage | December 30, 2010 6:44 PM

@typ #115

So, yes, it is fun to feel all superior to those who think the earth is 6k years old and stuff like that

I imagine I would have just as much fun, if not more, listening to someone like you list all the reasons you think there is such a thing as a god.

It isn't that atheists are superior (who am I kidding--of course we are!), it is that atheism is a more harmonious way of thinking about reality. Why add a bunch of unnecessary entities and try to fit reality around them? Why pretend, or even hope, that there is more to life and to reality than there is?

Posted by: Brownian, Most Vicious & Petty of Pharyngulites | December 30, 2010 6:45 PM

Typ is morphing into the typical godbot pretty damn quickly.

The progression is pretty damn typical as well. Start off pleasant and vague, refer to an atheist past with a tolerance for meditation and Buddhism, and then whammo! Same ol', same ol'.

Dear Jesus, YHWH, and the Holy You-Are-Whatever-I-Need-You-To-Be-For-The-Purpose-Of-This-Argument, please save us from the tedious purgatory of your rank-and-file apologists.

Posted by: Rixaeton | December 30, 2010 6:47 PM

That is how the nation of Israel will rule the earth. Very counter intuitive. Very, god-like, if you will.

Then Mohammed came along and pwned them, so now Islam is the most followed of religions. Would that be a Fail or Epic Fail?

Posted by: nigelTheBold, Minister of Spankings | December 30, 2010 6:56 PM

Owlmirror,

A close analysis of her actual deeds certainly makes it look much more that she wished to appear to be doing much good, while not in fact doing anything at all beyond the pretence.

Hey! That's my M.O. I am just like Mother Theresa the Frightful!

Posted by: Legion | December 30, 2010 7:03 PM

Rixaeton:

I am unsure why you are debating the points of a book of fiction? Since the validity of the source material is of questionable origin and veracity, why debate it at all? It would be just as valid as using Star Trek as a basis for reality, and argue about Spock's dealing with the duality of being a rational Vulcan and an emotional Human is a good way to establish an ethical framework or morality.

Hey now. Don't you be dissin' Star Trek.

Yes, the bible is a work of fiction, as is Star Trek, Grimms Fairy Tales, and The Canterbury Tales. Nevertheless, they're all based on our colective human experience, which makes them useful.

What's interesting about the bible is that its internal inconsistencies lack the rich color and cohesiveness of cherished fairy tales like Little Red Riding Hood and Snow White.

So when a theist like TYP comes along preachin' the gospel, while being blissfully unaware of those inconsistencies, the bible becomes a useful tool for dismantling those arguments -- that and it also makes for serviceable toilet paper in a pinch.

Posted by: typ | December 30, 2010 7:04 PM

You all have been great fun. The only comment that gets me at all is affirmation of my god bottedness. I should have stuck to the shallow end of the pool (you jabbed first).

In summary - I made the argument at a church last year that most atheists have better reasons to not believe in god than most theists have to believe in one. I get where you are. Like I said, on many days I question the whole thing too. It is not an easy existence for intellectuals because we tend to work of the modern notions and not post-modern notions. Heck, I was a Mech-E until I found the light.....

There is no proof for god. None. If you get into more esoteric spirituality (e.g. Buddhism) eventually you start wondering what the *more* really is.

As I said, I am an engineer, but am married to an artist. It is difficult to fully marry the two positions, but I have found great satisfaction in trying...not that way.....I mean intellectually. I found complexity beyond my imagination in trying.

God bless you all, and happy Karma, or synchronicity (I am a Jungian too).

Posted by: Randy (not Randy) | December 30, 2010 7:10 PM

I should have stuck to the shallow end of the pool

Yep.

(you jabbed first)

I'm sorry that we didn't just tell you that your nonsense was right, pat you on the head and give you a cookie.

Posted by: Amphiox, OM | December 30, 2010 7:12 PM

There is no proof for god. None.

That is not the problem. The problem is there is no possible, even in theory, disproof of god. At least not as you have defined that term.

If there is no way to know if it is wrong, then the idea is useless.

Posted by: Skippy | December 30, 2010 7:12 PM

There is no proof for god. None. If you get into more esoteric spirituality (e.g. Buddhism) eventually you start wondering what the *more* really is... God bless you all, and happy Karma, or synchronicity (I am a Jungian too).

Dude. Seriously? If there is no proof for the existence of your deity then do you not concede you cannot make ANY definitive statements about what this entity might have intended (i.e., your unsubstantiated statements about Jesus and Israel and what-not)?

Posted by: Kel, The Privileged View From Nowhere | December 30, 2010 7:16 PM

is not an easy existence for intellectuals because we tend to work of the modern notions and not post-modern notions.

Why would anyone want to go post-modern? It's intellectual rubbish. Modernity brought the computer in front of you, what has post-modernity brought? And doesn't that say something about the validity of the endeavours?

Posted by: Legion | December 30, 2010 7:22 PM

Skippy:

What's interesting to me is how typ never provided evidence for any of his claims of this deity and then segued straight to this...fucking nonsense.

Well that may have been the plan all along. Sometimes I get the impression that the Zombies for Jeebus^TM who show up here are like frat pledges who've been sent to witness to the heathens as a sort of hazing trial. Can't say if this part of the pledging comes before or after the panty raid of the girl's dorm.

Well at least he didn't sign off with "I'll pray for you."

Posted by: hockeybobs | December 30, 2010 7:24 PM

I just stole that chart, and posted it in a Facebook album of mine (that has lots of other religious and/or political photo commentaries in it), and within 5 minutes, one of my former co-workers (who is a big time fundagelical, *plus* a rabid anti-choice fanatic) comments on it - "BOB! Seriously. Are you that bitter?"

Gee - I must have posted the wrong photo; exactly *where* is there anything "bitter" in that chart?

(Unless she considers basing a debate on reason, logic, facts, and evidence to be a "bitter" act?)

Posted by: Skippy | December 30, 2010 7:32 PM

@hockeybobs: you should write back: "Yes, I am THAT bitter. I want to destroy all of Humankind with my Athesitic Atheist Ray of Atheism. You will be atheisticated. Resistance is futile."

Posted by: sqlrob | December 30, 2010 7:34 PM

Lots of good questions here people. I am enjoying this. Some of you just spout slander

What slander? Every comment I've seen against you is supportable by your own statements.

Posted by: Menyambal: Making sambal (it isn't dragon magic). | December 30, 2010 7:39 PM

Typ was interesting, but the regulars here were far more interesting--I learned some things. If typ was a godbot trying to witness to us, his plan backfired in my case. Dang.

I noticed that typ said something about atheists being just like adamant Christians, or something. Which was a big clue right there.

I have met a few people who believed there was no god, rather than failing to believe there was a god. one was a fuzzy-headed Christian who had something bad happen and therefore believed that God must not exist--no evidence, no logic, just a grudge against the old boy and a firm belief that he was not good, which meant that he couldn't exist.

But most atheists, especially those here, are a whole different kettle of fish. Typ didn't believe that, evidently.

Posted by: Randy (not Randy) | December 30, 2010 7:43 PM

Know they (sic) enemy? No way, man. I'm totally on your team. I told you two hours ago to bring me some evidence and that I'd be all aboard.

Posted by: Kel, The Privileged View From Nowhere | December 30, 2010 7:45 PM

Know they enemy, its not me.

Fluffy thinking and the faux-enlightened attitudes aren't the enemy of rational thought?

Posted by: 'Tis Himself, OM | December 30, 2010 7:48 PM

I start with the assumption that the bible is true. Then I have to qualify truth. It is obviously not historically, or scientifically true. The truth in the bible, if you are to join me in going down the path of thinking there may be a god, is that it is true in our relationship to god. It is not easy for people, who wrote the bible, to be clear about this relationship.

In other words, the Bible is a confusing, ponderous mess full of contradictions and from which can be teased anything from evangelical fundamentalism to deism. Thanks for explaining.

Posted by: Legion | December 30, 2010 7:56 PM

Skippy:

dear heart, you haven't provided the evidence/proof of the existence of your deity...

Well in TYPs defense, he did ask us, very nicely I might add, to suspend disbelief and concede that one, tiny insignificantly inconsequential, hardly-worth-mentioning, trivially unimportant point. After that, all the other god-talk makes hella sense.

PROTIP for TYP: If you make the claim, you gotta bring the evidence.

This is the price of entry up in here. Errbody knows that.

Posted by: Jessie | December 30, 2010 7:57 PM

....except that I don't really think the Muslims have a very accurate view of god

So what is the accurate view of god then typ?

Posted by: Rixaeton | December 30, 2010 8:03 PM

I start with the assumption that the bible is true.

In my experience, as soon as you need to use the "a" word to explain something, expecially when in the context of something that has been found to be incorrect, it is time to change those assumptions into researched facts. It is better to abandon those assumptions that are demonstrated to not be true than to cling to them in the hope that some other vague interpretation will validate it. I am sure that, as an engineer (as I am), you would have experienced something going wrong or at least in ways that are unexpected, and if you try to explain it with a sentence that contains, "Well, I assumed..." then you have a very good candiate as to where the first mistake was made (as I have done, many, many times), and can then take action to correct it.

Also, you mentioned that Islam does not have a good understanding of what god is, but you also said there is no proof of god, none. I would have gone with the word "evidence" instead of "proof", but still, if you acknowledge there is no proof of god, how can your conception of god be any more or less valid than Islam?

On good days I think it is obvious there is a god and on bad days no way.

Ah, here is a mental exercise to do; try considering the days that you think it is obvious that there is no god as a good day, as you are being a more clear and rational human being. A change of perspective on your attitude to belief and rationality may make all the difference.

Posted by: Kel, The Privileged View From Nowhere | December 30, 2010 8:05 PM

Whoops, posted #261 on the wrong thread. Sorry about that.

Posted by: sqlrob | December 30, 2010 8:16 PM

I have a hard time distinguishing between the Xtian god and the Muslim god. Do please explain how you tell them apart.

You don't. Christianity / Judaism / Islam aren't called the Abrahamic religions for nothing. Same god, different prophets.

Posted by: https://www.google.com/accounts/o8/id?id=AItOawmVT1LBhwmO9ej9LNg7a5e9d-AVJ8ezfmE | December 30, 2010 8:20 PM

can you honestly conceive of anything that would change your mind on the whole GAWD(TM) issue?

Sure, that's easy. Demonstrating an ability to violate causality would be a good start. Demonstrating the mechanism whereby universes are created would be another, or demonstrating possession of the knowledge of such a mechanism.

For example, if we discovered tomorrow that there was a strand of 10,000 mile-high letters in pure diamond, reading (in HTML) "Yes, Dear readers of Pharyngula, there is a god and I am it." that had been there since the formation of the solar system, I'd be impressed. It would demonstrate either control over causality or some bad-ass capability to predict or control the future. As well as considerable industrial fabrication skills. Of course it could just be super-duper powerful alien life-forms that had CausalityBusters(tm) and went forward and backward in time to play a little joke on is, but for all intents and purposes they'd kick god's ass in a straight fight anyway so we may as well call them gods.

Posted by: https://www.google.com/accounts/o8/id?id=AItOawmVT1LBhwmO9ej9LNg7a5e9d-AVJ8ezfmE | December 30, 2010 8:26 PM

SallyStrange writes:
I have a hard time distinguishing between the Xtian god and the Muslim god. Do please explain how you tell them apart.

By their followers. :D Other than that, you can't.

Posted by: https://www.google.com/accounts/o8/id?id=AItOawmVT1LBhwmO9ej9LNg7a5e9d-AVJ8ezfmE | December 30, 2010 8:33 PM

I've adopted JT's technique: He keeps a 10-digit number written on a piece of paper in his wallet, and if any theist can simply pray to god to reveal that 10-digit number, then he will consider that as proof.

Be careful, because that might mean that Penn and Teller or Banachek could prove the existence of god. Especially if JT knows the number well enough to be cold-read; Banachek's really awesome at that. And then there's the ever-present possibility of god's ninjas sneaking in and raiding JT's wallet in advance of the show.

Posted by: SallyStrange, Spawn of Cthulhu | December 30, 2010 8:43 PM

You don't. Christianity / Judaism / Islam aren't called the Abrahamic religions for nothing. Same god, different prophets.

I guess the question then is, how do you know which group has the most "accurate" view of god?

It's a rhetorical question anyway. Designed to point out the nonsensical nature of saying "I don't know exactly what god is, but I think THESE people are more right about god than THESE people."

Posted by: a_ray_in_dilbert_space, OM, A little FUCKING ray of sunshine | December 30, 2010 8:56 PM

Again we keep coming back to the question of what is God--or more elegantly Sastra's 4th criterion:

4.) Tell me what you mean by "God" as clearly as possible: define it so we can both stick with it throughout the discussion.

What defines God in a way that could not be mimicked or confused with any other entity.

Is it merely power? Couldn't a sufficiently technologically advanced race of aliens potentially do the same?

Is it the ability to violate the laws of physics? Which ones? How do we know they are inviolable under all circumstances to begin with?

Is it miracles? How do we distinguish between these and the previous two criteria?

The problem is that the concept of "god(s)" is so ill defined that you can't distill it down to its essence.

Posted by: abb3w | December 30, 2010 9:04 PM

I'd also be willing to consider a discussion of exactly what are "basic principles of reason", and how more advanced principles of reason may be developed from more basic ones. (For instance, the example principles given are not actually "basic", but result as inferences from more fundamental principles.)

However, working at that depth of mathematical philosophy tends to make people's heads implode.

Posted by: Rixaeton | December 30, 2010 9:12 PM

#279: Heh, I find that bad days are good days if you are buying shares for investing... sorry just thinking out loud again.

Posted by: Antiochus Epiphanes | December 30, 2010 9:15 PM

I have never heard of anyone complain about Mother Theresa. You are a very bad boy. I am going to research that.

Let me tell you a little about Mother Theresa. Before she was famous, she used to share a house with me and some guys I knew from college. And she was always down on her luck because of some stupid vow of poverty or something, and would come up short when it was time to pay rent, water, gas, and electric. The other guys wanted to throw her ass out, but I said, "Be cool."
Long story short, after 9 months, MT owes me $460 and comes home one day all jubilant and shit because the RCC had a steady gig for her. The next day, she splits for like Calcutta or something. She took a really nice guitar chord of mine, my ski jacket, and a really nice suitcase that one of the other guys got from his dead grandmother, and left us with her stupid stinking dog who needed insulin shots like, four times a day. That asshole never even tried to get me back my $460, and from what I hear, she did pretty well in Calcutta.

So if you see Mother Theresa, tell her AE wants his fucking money and that she can go fuck herself.

I took her dog to the pound by the way. Tell her that too.

Posted by: llewelly | December 30, 2010 9:38 PM

sqlrob | December 30, 2010 8:16 PM:

Christianity / Judaism / Islam aren't called the Abrahamic religions for nothing. Same god, different prophets.

Christianity views Jesus as God, God's Son, or both. Islam views Jesus as just another prophet. Judaism views Jesus as a nobody. And there are hordes of other incompatible differences. They do not believe in the same god.

They have much shared history, culture, literature, and art. But they do not share the same god any more than Star Wars and Star Trek share the same fictional universe.

_{(And no, the existence of Commander Riker/Han Solo or Data/R2D2 slash fiction does not invalidate my analogy, so don't link to it. )}

Posted by: no2ndhandgod | December 30, 2010 9:39 PM

quote scripture against them

Perhaps you should quote to them their own saint of hatred and revenge, Saul of Tarsus:

27 God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong. 28 He chose the lowly things of this world and the despised things, and the things that are not, to nullify the things that are. . .1Cor1:27-28 NIV

Xianity is nihilism.

Paul and his fellow revenge seekers created a god out of their antisocial and anti-intellectual rants.

He and the primitive church shared a perverse self-understanding characterized by inverted snobbery: We stink, but stinking is godly. Nothing has changed in 2,000 years.

xians’ core beliefs are irrational. xianity cannot be refuted; it can only be dismantled.

The de-deification of western culture is our task for next 100 years.

the anti_supernaturalist

Posted by: LilPoppa | December 30, 2010 10:11 PM

So this may be a little off topic, but...

I was listening to an interview on this show with Peter Hitchens. He started going on about how most athiests were bitter about something else, and how he came to the logical conclusion that jesus "died on the cross, was ressurected three days later and the whole world depends on this", blah blah blah.

I kind of zoned out until he got to the part where he was talking about how he and his brother traded each other manuscripts of their latest books to read. He said that one of the greatest compliments he received was when his brother said that some parts of his book made him "scratch his head and ponder" or something.

That kind of intrigued me, and I was wondering if anybody here has read his book. I beleive it was called Rage Against God. He ws making the same old tired arguments in the interview, but I want to know what stumped his brother.

Anybody?

Posted by: Skippy | December 30, 2010 10:17 PM

but I want to know what stumped his brother.

How is it we share the same genetic material?

Posted by: UXO | December 30, 2010 10:27 PM

Skippy @ #287: Rule 34. No exceptions.

And gee, I sure am glad I missed that whole Typ mess by the simple expediency of going for dinner and a movie...

Posted by: Owlmirror | December 30, 2010 10:31 PM

God made a covenant with his chosen people that they will be a blessing unto all people in the world.

You might want to clarify this.

How does a "emergence of individuation" or a "non-zero higgs field expectation" or whatever, make a covenant with anybody?

And why does this alleged covenant involve so many rules? Why the death penalties? Why the land grant and conquest? Why the cult monopoly, enforced by death penalty?

The prophets further clarified that in saying that there will be a new king, a new *anointed one* that will lead them out from their current situation to be the light of the world.

The prophets made no such clarification. The alleged "prophecies" about Jesus are some of the most ludicrous examples of selective reading, cherry-picking, and quote-mining the texts.

Oh, wait...

He says all the law can be summarized by loving god

Why does "loving god" matter?

=============================

When I spew drivel like that, it is the generally drivel drawn from a large study to determine a rational and cohesive theology. Simply alleging it is drivel is not thoughtful.

Sigh.

Look, I think I get what you're trying to say. You want to be a good person, and you want God to exist and be a good ... whatever-the-hell, and you want for there to be a reason for being good beyond just human benefit...

But when you try and force that perspective back on the the texts of the OT and NT, you're ultimately engaging in the most ludicrous selective reading, cherry-picking, and quote-mining of the texts in order to support your conclusion, rather than deriving it naturally from anything outside of your own head.

You're trying to be "nice", fine. And you also want to make the God of Christianity be "nice". But the only way that you can do the latter is at the expense of intellectual honesty.

And I'm afraid that atheists who have a bit of scholarship can see that, and are rather forthrightly derisive of your efforts.

Sorry.

I start with the assumption that the bible is true.

Why?

Seriously, why is this even necessary?

What does "true" even mean about a book that starts out with a talking snake and magic fruit, and an alleged genocide-by-global-flood (which as far as we can tell never happened)?

The truth in the bible, if you are to join me in going down the path of thinking there may be a god, is that it is true in our relationship to god.

Gah.

Why does a "relationship" with an alleged god involve so damn much bloody killing and blood sacrifice?

Posted by: Amphiox, OM | December 30, 2010 10:36 PM

They do not believe in the same god.

They believe that they believe in the same god.

However, the gods they believe in are different.

Posted by: Randy (not Randy) | December 30, 2010 10:46 PM

and I never answered what the distinguishing factor is between the two

Listen, Mr. Feng Shui With The Goalposts, you probably didn't want to open the door of legitimate questions asked of you that you have no answers for, so you have just ignored them.

Posted by: sudomabinusri | December 30, 2010 10:58 PM

I like this:

...except that I don't really think the Muslims have a very accurate view of god.

'S funny, that's exactly what the Muslims say about you. Maybe all you godists could go off and talk among yourselves until you figure out who/what god really is. After that we might be able to have a conversation.

TYPical xian, all full of arrogance and self-rightousness.

Posted by: sudomabinusri | December 30, 2010 11:10 PM

There is no objective evindence [sic]

DIng! Game over, typical concedes.

Posted by: Pierce R. Butler | December 30, 2010 11:27 PM

typ @ # 297: Yes, it would be a lot better if God would have suffixed many of his sentences with e=mc2 ...

Y'know, that alleged Jesus dude would've made a more persuasive prophet had he told his cult to boil water before washing wounds with it; revealed that pregnant women and children should eat lots of dark green veggies; and spun a parable about the glassblower who made a clear disk, sanded it carefully to the shape of a lentil, and seen unimagined wonders when looking through it.

Being such a whiz kid, little JC could've written, say, a commentary on Aristotle that would have lifted eyebrows from Athens to Alexandria, a scroll to persuade the great minds of his generation and carry his "spiritual" message much further, without a drop of blood shed.

But now we're getting back into the judeochristianislamic god's endless ethical flaws, which only his nonexistence redeems.

Posted by: Tulse | December 30, 2010 11:41 PM

If god (or God) said to them that “In the beginning, God let there be a high energy field out of a singularity” then the writer of that part would have put their pen down and never written it.

"In the beginning, all that would ever be burst forth from a seed smaller than a mustard. All that was expanded into the void hotter than the hottest fire, and the void itself expanded, for more years than grains of sand in a desert. After this long time, what was cooled, and burning balls of fire formed, which men call stars..."

Posted by: Ragutis | December 30, 2010 11:43 PM

typ , you believe because you want to believe. In a dozen-ish posts you've gone from a vague deism or panthiesm to quoting the gospels. Quit pretending that you've reached your belief through anything resembling reasoning or investigation. Tiresome.

Elijahtruth, on the other hand, is becoming more entertaining. I know I told him to eff off in another thread last night, but now it's getting funny. I mean:

The mentioning of stephen hawkins, whom "i" contact each week now for years, who changed His theory of black holes after my contacting him years back and to this day!

That's just gold! Dude's saying he taught SH physics!

I know he's annoying you, PZ, but look at it this way: You have a crank in common with the world's most famous scientist! That's a feather tentacle in your cap. Let him keep posting. I really want to find out what he thinks about Richard Dawking.

Posted by: Sastra | December 30, 2010 11:47 PM

typ #297 wrote:

But it helps to realize that God (again, presuming there is one and in some sense is talking to us through the bible), God is using the abilities of people at that time to help reveal truth(or Truth, and I never answered what the distinguishing factor is between the two)

If you're using the time-honored method of generously- bending- over- backwards- to- come- up- with- a- strained -but- reasonable- interpretation, I daresay the Bible could have said anything at all and you would find some way to figure out that it's saying something reasonable. Try to come up with some hypothetical nasty passage that would have forced you to say "no, the Bible can't be holy after all." Good luck.

Assuming that something is true and looking to see if you can see evidence for it is called "confirmation bias." You're assuming that God has to appeal to humanists or it's not really God. But humanism doesn't need God -- and you're a spinmaster trying to sell it anyway.

At #121 you said:

So I guess I would have the most generalized definition of god possible because I recognize that if a god exists then it would probably be incomprehensible to me.

The reason you start out with "the most generalized definition of God possible" is that if you look at your post there your definition manages to encompass atheism. Then, when you have the atheists on board with "the sum total of the universe," "something outside the universe," or, for good measure, "both" (???) you switch to God as a Presence and then proceed rapidly to a King who picks his Favorite People and gets involved in some implausible and elaborate historical plotline. God is whatever you want it to be. It's whatever anyone wants it to be. It doesn't matter. The important thing is to believe in it.

What if we don't? Seriously. What if we believe in the value of love, the importance of honesty and goodness and joy and life and compassion and loving our fellow man -- but we don't love God because we think God is an invented human concept? Does it matter?

I made a list at #24, and just for fun I'm going to ask you question #3:

3.) If you are wrong, would you want to change your mind?

If God doesn't exist, is it a good idea to believe it does any way? Or would God not actually existing not impact whether or not it actually exists, because you're really talking about what WORKS for people, and makes them happier and better and satisfied and that's all we need to make God real for us. Bad therapy means wrong God. Good therapy means right God.

You're in Therapy Mode. My guess is that you don't believe that God exists at all: you believe in belief. The search for a truth beyond the self has become a search for personal benefit and meaning for selves.

Posted by: DontMakeItHarder | December 30, 2010 11:56 PM

Yup. How about a simultaneous appearance around the world of a visually and audibly detectable entity speaking in each region's local dialect and delivering an identical message

Sounds like TV to me... or the Interweb. Frankly, because the god concepts are typically all very simplistic in religions I can't really see that anything would be very convincing of the idea of blind obedience and worship, servitude, etc.

Say an even more profound example: A creature appears "out of nowhere" and creates a new world. Spectacular, perhaps worthy of respect, but blind devotion and trust? I don't think so.

Posted by: SallyStrange, Spawn of Cthulhu | December 31, 2010 12:01 AM

Likewise, if someone was trying to record an event in history with absolute accuracy to the event that took place and not embellish it at all to give a better story, then it would have never happened.

Do you even know what you wrote? That doesn't make one damn lick of sense.

Like I said: the written version of Charlie Brown's grown-ups. Mwah-wah wah-wah wah-wah.

Posted by: Rev. BigDumbChimp | December 31, 2010 12:05 AM

I can't speak for all nihilists, only myself - but: we don't want 'em. Christians are delusional supernaturalists; they - believe in stuff.

Nice marmot

Posted by: Kel, The Privileged View From Nowhere | December 31, 2010 12:09 AM

That should say "bad" not "bas"

Posted by: Janine, The Little Top Of Venom, OM | December 31, 2010 12:43 AM

Does the method to read the bible change according to the technological level of society the reader is from?

Posted by: Kel, The Privileged View From Nowhere | December 31, 2010 3:48 AM

But it would be far more interesting to ask whether the believer can change his mind (according to the poster's list) within his belief system.

There's a blog that talks about this very problem:Failing The Insider Test, the name being a reference to John Loftus' outsider test for faith.

Though I've got to say, for me to take that route would require me to learn much more about Christianity than I would ever want to.

Posted by: KG | December 31, 2010 4:47 AM

I believe that the true reality of the universe is that it is the relationship between entities that is important, but that is a difficult concept to grasp. - typ

Er, no. No, it isn't that difficult. It's also, of course, fundamental to physics, and indeed to the whole of science.

This crap about "God had to speak in terms that would be understood" just won't wash. Why not, for example, provide a handy list of 10 "health commandments", such as:

1. Always wash your hands after relieving yourself and before eating.
2. Never treat a menstruating woman as dangerous or unclean.
3. Cover your mouth when you cough or sneeze.
4. Keep flies off food.
5. Avoid getting fat.
6. Have a regular sleep pattern.
7. Eat fresh fish once a week if you can.
8. Don't get drunk more than once a month.
9. Don't deliberately inhale smoke.
10. Take one day in seven off work. (OK, I'll give the Bible 1/2 out of 10 here,but only 1/2, as it makes the Sabbath a time of stressful obligations, not relaxation.)

Why not some simple natural facts:
A. The earth is roughly spherical.
B. The sun is much bigger than the earth.
C. The earth goes round the sun once a year, and rotates on its axis once a day...

Why not commandments establishing the equality of the sexes, and of all racial or ethnic groups? (Why, indeed, would a supposedly universal god pick out one such ethnic group for special treatment?) Why not clear prohibitions on aggressive war, enslavement and rape of captives, ethnic cleansing and genocide, instead of commands to carry out these atrocities?

In short, the claim that the Bible is the best that could be done is quite plainly ludicrous, and so cannot be made by someone both sincere, and in full possession of their rational faculties.

Posted by: RijkswaanVijanD | December 31, 2010 7:02 AM

Dear Glen,

You state:
"The point is that nerve impulses are essentially discrete, while information in consciousness is not. What could connect what are, after all, electric phenomena, the nerve impulses?"

Howerver, nerve impulses are not discrete as nerves essentially communicate or else they die. In my opinion this is where consciousness arises, nerve interaction. Electric fields do not think but are means or emergent properties of nerve communication which holds, coveys and manipulates information..

"No, you have to deal with brain phenomena in consciousness, not whatever conveys information to perceptual organs." Just makes no sence.

"when in fact electric fields are what open the voltage-gated channels at play in nerve conduction"
yeah but these electric fields are created by other nerve cells in an elaborate dynamic network and i.e. simply means of communication among these nerves. Still no need to get all Cartesian about it.

Posted by: typ | December 31, 2010 8:41 AM

KG#324 - Jesus did say the most important thing is love. I think that answers your "why not" questions. He did say it.

And the proof that his view is right is in the resurrection. I know it seems absurd, but it really seems that lots and lots of eye witnesses really believe it happened. These people's lives really changed in an amazing way overnight. And seriously now, don't you think it makes sense that if god were to come on earth and directly communicate with us his message would be to love each other? That is what happened. All the other crap you are talking about is crap wrapped up in people trying to read tea leaves.

Posted by: Antiochus Epiphanes | December 31, 2010 8:55 AM

And seriously now, don't you think it makes sense that if god were to come on earth and directly communicate with us his message would be to love each other?

Ummm...no? Nothing about that idea makes any sense at all.

And the proof that his view is right is in the resurrection. I know it seems absurd, but it really seems that lots and lots of eye witnesses really believe it happened. These people's lives really changed in an amazing way overnight.

Lot's of eyewitnesses to the resurrection? What are you talking about? What credible account can you produce?

Posted by: Data Venia | December 31, 2010 9:10 AM

First thing, you can't look at the bible as god's attempt to communicate with people.

You make a lot of assertions, but you provide little in the way of supporting evidence for your views. Most Christians look at the bible as their god's attempt to communicate with people, some look at it as the literal, inerrant word of their deity, including the Pentateuch, which was allegedly dictated to Moses directly. So, people can and do look at the bible in a way you say they cannot. Why is your view correct and theirs in error? If anything, the many different interpretations and views of the bible should give you pause. This is exactly the situation you'd expect to find if the Christian god didn't exist and humans were left to their own devices to figure out what an alleged holy book means. You'd expect lots of different irreconcilable interpretations. If anything about it were deity-inspired, you'd expect more unity in interpretation.

However, Truth for them is not the same as it is for us in the modern world.

I daresay that it was, or did the physical laws of the universe change in the last couple thousand years? Their interpretation of it was certainly different, but the truth (reality) wasn't. Or are you suggesting there is nothing objectively real and knowable? Are you, for instance, suggesting that if they didn't believe that a dropped object would fall, it wouldn't? Sure, we might have a scientifically more sophisticated interpretation of the event observed, but the objective phenomenon we're each differently interpreting would be the same. It would really help your thinking to flesh out what you mean by truth and how it purportedly differs from cap-T truth. You seem to use these terms as weasel words.

Look, I don't even think Jesus felt he was talking directly to God when he was alive. I think he had a vague premonition that what he was doing was the correct thing to do and he also was aware that his actions could be taken as fulfillment of the prophets that he could be the Messiah (the anointed one which means king).

And yet most Jews, then and now don't accept that Jesus' actions could be taken as fulfillment of Messianic prophecy. Why should Judaic scholars be written off as wrong and the Typ version be accepted as true? Please explain.

When Jesus says either kingdom of god, kingdom of heaven, or eternal life do not interpret that as being heaven or life after death. Interpret that as bringing the reign of god (being kind to each other) here on earth. Those were not statements of the after life.

It doesn't take belief in a god or any religious dogma to accept and/or communicate being kind to each other as a fundamental ethical principle. You can accept and practice the principle, which arises quite naturally out of human interactions as a social species, without the Goddidit. So, why is the god part even necessary?

Again, prefacing it all with assuming that there is a god (because there is no proof

Do you routinely assume the existence of and believe in that for which you have no proof? If so, why? If not, why the exception here?

Posted by: Data Venia | December 31, 2010 9:32 AM

So my definition of truth does not vary depending on religion vs. other things, but it depends on trying to make the best of incomplete information.

So, an obvious question here is how does one "make the best" of incomplete information? If the info isn't complete, is this license to accept anything you want to believe as true? Anything that makes you feel all warm and fuzzy inside? That appears to be what you're doing. By what mechanism do you fact-check your beliefs against reality to distinguish what's true from what is false?

There is no objective evindence, only judgmenat.

So, an electroencephalogram of the heart (EKG) and brain(EEG) are not objective measurements? They are only judgments? I'm with you that one can take these measurements and make subjective interpretations of the data to come to a conclusion that may be true or false (e.g. clinical death has occurred or the person has had a myocardial infarction), but how do you get that the measurement itself wouldn't be objective evidence?

With relation to the bible, aren't you rather overlooking that the bible itself is an objective piece of evidence that can be subjectively interpreted, or is the physical fact of a compilation of ancient texts only someone's subjective belief, and no such texts truly exist anywhere in reality?

Posted by: KG | December 31, 2010 10:10 AM

typ,

Stone me, you do come out with a load of stale bilgewater.

First thing, you can't look at the bible as god's attempt to communicate with people. The OT is a collection of stories of various genre's from a specific nation.

So why should we pay it any particular attention, over and above that we give to the mythology of any other primitive culture?

The stories made it into their book because the people acknowledged that there was Truth in the books.

You still haven't told us what "Truth" (as opposed to truth) is. I conclude that you can't - that it doesn't actually mean anything determinate at all. For lack of any alternative, I'll treat it as if you just meant "truth".

However, Truth for them is not the same as it is for us in the modern world. People back then did not report in a post-enlightenment way.

There is plenty of material which shows this to be false: notably from the Greeks from the 5th century BCE (Herodotus and Thucydides) onward, but also from earlier annals of many cultures - that's how we actually have a reasonably coherent history of Mesopotamia and Egypt from the third millennium BCE. Sure, there are mythological elements, and political spin, in these annals, but unlike the OT, they do appear to report real events, not stories made up centuries after the supposed events to justify priestly rule.

if God is then he obviously did not even attempt to communicate to the people in a way that makes in obvious what he wants. I don't take the lack of communication as a lack of existence though it clearly could be an indication of that. Again, prefacing it all with assuming that there is a god (because there is no proof), he must think there is value in letting us make up our own minds about things.

What stupid nonsense. How can we make good decisions if we do not have the relevant facts? I've given multiple examples of the kinds of factual information that would have been both useful and comprehensible to people from the time when the Bible was written. Clearly, either there is no god, the god(s) are not interested in us, or they are weak, or are not benevolent.

Since the message of Jesus is one of Love

No it isn't. Yes, he's reported to have said some nice things about love, but also a lot of vile things, many of which have been quoted already. The NT is full of threats and diatribes against those who do not believe and grovel.

Jesus did say the most important thing is love. I think that answers your "why not" questions. He did say it.

It most certainly does not. He did not condemn slavery, nor women being treated as subordinate to men, as he could easily have done. He condemned whole towns for failing to accept him - where's the love in that? He told people to hate their families and themselves - again, where's the love? He threatened those who do not believe with eternal torture - that's a "love" I can do without. In fact, he looks to me like a typical bullying cult-leader - the L. Ron Hubbard of 1st century Palestine.

And the proof that his view is right is in the resurrection. I know it seems absurd, but it really seems that lots and lots of eye witnesses really believe it happened.

What utter tosh. We have no eyewitness or contemporary accounts at all: only four mutually inconsistent stories from decades later - and, oddly enough, Paul, writing before the gospel accounts, says almost nothing about this supposedly world-changing event.

These people's lives really changed in an amazing way overnight.

Blistering barnacles, how naive can you be? The phenomenon of a cult leader's following reacting in such a way to an apparent failure is well-attested: look up Joanna Southcott, or the way Jehovah's Witnesses dealt with successive prophetic failures, or the reactions of Shi'a Muslims to the deaths of Hasan and Hussein. When people have sacrificed much to a cause, it is very hard for them to admit it was all for nothing - any way of avoiding this will be seized.

And seriously now, don't you think it makes sense that if god were to come on earth and directly communicate with us his message would be to love each other?

No. This universe does not look in the least like one created and sustained by a loving being. And if a god did want to convey such a message - or any message at all, why not do it clearly?

If Jesus was not resurrected by God then Christianity is baseless.

Yes indeed, something we agree on; and since there's absolutely no evidence he did other than four absurd and mutually inconsistent stories from decades later, that about wraps it up for Christianity.

Posted by: Skippy | December 31, 2010 10:38 AM

Holy mother of Spock, even typ's Christology is fucked up six ways to Sunday. But then again, that shouldn't surprise me, since his theology is equally fucked up.

Look, I don't even think Jesus felt he was talking directly to God when he was alive. I think he had a vague premonition that what he was doing was the correct thing to do and he also was aware that his actions could be taken as fulfillment of the prophets that he could be the Messiah (the anointed one which means king).

Really? So now you're saying the gospel accounts--which, heretofore, you've treated as instructive and correct--are now lying when Jesus makes comments about his "Father" and claims to be from his "Father" and, according to the narrative of the Transfiguration, is in direct contact with "god"? And "vague premonition"? What the frak? First, you try to make allusions to the OT being a predictor of Jesus and now you're saying that Jesus was kinda sorta maybe taking a stab in the dark about being the "Messiah"?

I mean, seriously. Have you even read the damn Bible?

BTW, I personally have come to the conclusion that the facts do seem to support the resurrection of Jesus and that is the linchpin to the whole thing. If Jesus was not resurrected by God then Christianity is baseless. I realize that it seems miraculous, but we are talking about God here.

Again, you haven't even provided an internally consistent description of this god of yours (much less delineated why and how you think Islam gets this god wrong).

Also, your discourse on the NT/OT is almost criminally wrong (much like your distortions of Buddhism). I can only surmise that you know virtually nothing of the construction of the NT. Here are a few simple questions: where does the notion of a "new" testament come from in Church history? Which gospel was written first? Why does the Johannine gospel differ significantly from the Synoptic gospels? (goddidit is NOT an answer)

Posted by: typ | December 31, 2010 11:37 AM

Antiochus Epiphanes#329 – As I have said before there is no proof of god that someone can give to another and have them believe. That is why I found it key for me to define the term *believe* which in #141 I wrote as:

getting from atheism back to a least deism (and I need to address the deism to theism better too), was related much more around the definition of *believe* than anything else. I have seen those preachers that believe! And I have seen my Grandma believe! But could I believe like that. The answer is a resounding no. I cannot believe the way I see those people believe.

So what does it mean, for me, to say that I believe? What is it that I believe in? I came down on the conclusion that I would need to become open to the idea that the things that I experience in this world and life may not be like I sense them to be, and that the reality of the world may be much better described by a presence that is intimately involved in everything. So I guess you have it there, my definition of god, and also that I have lowered the bar on believing to be that I consider it reasonable to entertain the thought and would be willing to give it a *real* try.

As you see, I don’t view the world as black and white. As much as we would like to have concrete proof there is none. I have made the conscious choice to believe and see where it takes me. If that is too much for you to do then that is fair. I am not advocating that it is appropriate for everyone, but I am simply sharing my realizations in the hope that some may find their experience to be similar and benefit from my sharing.

Antiochus Epiphanes#330 – re: witnesses to the resurrection. If you will not accept anything in the bible then you will see no witnesses to the resurrection. But in short, the bible does make a rather odd story of the whole thing. There are many witnesses per the bible and a whole lot of people who, for some strange reason, suddenly were willing to lay down their life to attest to the belief that this man Jesus was the Messiah. We have what we have as far as evidence and it is up to you to make of it what you want. There is no certainty in this. I am not claiming there is.

There are a lot of questions here about basis for belief. I would suggest one would start by reading C.S. Lewis and Mere Christianity to get a good overview of the more or less common concepts without a lot of the baggage many of the specific sects put on it. Then it starts to get much more interesting. I think the single best theologian today is N.T. Wright. He has published many books and has given many lectures. He is probably the leader today of thinking about Christianity in this new way. My favorite by him is Jesus and the Victory of God (which I am currently reading) but at 700 pages it is highly technical. I believe what I am saying is consistent with his thoughts, though I am certain I fall short. There are other more accessible authors too who are trying to reinvent Christianity. Brian McLaren, and definitely give a listen to Rob Bell.

If I were to recommend one thing to get a feel for some of the interesting interpretations I would (and have) listened to the following conference about Tom Wright and a bunch of people alternatively supporting and trying to poke holes in his theology.

http://www.wheaton.edu/wetn/lectures-theology10.htm

I actually don’t agree with everything the good Bishop says, but I agree with more of what he says than anyone else.

I think I need another post to continue this…

Posted by: Q.E.D | December 31, 2010 11:44 AM

I would suggest one would start by reading C.S. Lewis and Mere Christianity - Typ

Typ, I think you will find that a large majority of people on this thread have read CS Lewis. I have and found his brand of "muscular christianity" to be misogynistic, repulsive and utterly unconvincing.

Posted by: Matt "Nora" Penfold | December 31, 2010 11:47 AM

Someone is seriously suggesting reading C.S Lewis ?

All I can say is that you must have piss-poor arguments if you cannot come up with anything better than Lewis.

Posted by: KG | December 31, 2010 12:01 PM

I would suggest one would start by reading C.S. Lewis and Mere Christianity - Typ

*snort* "Trilemma." *guffaw*

My favorite by him is Jesus and the Victory of God (which I am currently reading) but at 700 pages it is highly technical.

Like the appendices to The Lord of the Rings you mean? Or maybe more like the Necronomicon of the "Mad Arab" Abdul Alhazred?

Posted by: typ | December 31, 2010 12:06 PM

#331 – We can’t prove Jesus existed if you are not willing to take the bible seriously.
I think the first step is to think of Jesus as a first century Jewish rabbi who was sick of the current religious establishment putting their rules and laws above treating people well. That is what he was.

Data Venia#332 – View of the Bible – The Bible is a text, it is not God. It did not magically appear from God, and certainly there were not people sitting around taking dictation from God. The bible is a series of scriptures that have different genre’s and are written for different purposes. They are the best that the Jewish people, an ancient near eastern culture, had and put together. I personally view that it has a great amount of Truth in it, but also a great amount of interpretation. The literal interpreters are wrong.

Let me give a brief example, you all know how the Ken Ham folks interpret Genesis. Well, that is just plain stupid. If you are to assume that Genesis contains Truth, but not literal scientific or historic fact then what do you walk away with out of the first chapter.

The first chapter clearly is making the statement that there is one god and not the multiple gods that many of the nearby near eastern cultures expect. That is one of the most important points. It also alleges that this one god is responsible for everything that existed and he created everything that exists in a way that he thought it is good. That means that the natural world out there is not evil, it is good. The universe is good and we should treat it that way. We can also take away from chapter 1 that god does not control creation in the sense one would control the pieces on a chessboard. He says Let there be light, and let it bring forth life. This gives important clues to the nature of god the creator. He is not making the universe for people to suffer, but to be good.

Another great thing about chapter 1 is that it is a wonderful poem. It is written as poetry, plain and simple. I think it is a rather beautiful poem with the imagery of the spirit of God hovering over the waters. This is not someone making swords in a blast furnace, it is more like the wind.

So reading the bible and studying the bible is an exercise in judgment.

I daresay that it was, or did the physical laws of the universe change in the last couple thousand years? Their interpretation of it was certainly different, but the truth (reality) wasn't.

You are right, I was not clear. What I meant to say is that we tend to think of all the minutia and technicalities as being part of truth (small t) but they were not really concerned with it at that level. They were just trying to convey big T.

Why should Judaic scholars be written off as wrong and the Typ version be accepted as true? Please explain.

I think some of the reference readings, particularly Jesus and the Victory of God would answer that one.

It doesn't take belief in a god or any religious dogma to accept and/or communicate being kind to each other as a fundamental ethical principle. You can accept and practice the principle, which arises quite naturally out of human interactions as a social species, without the Goddidit. So, why is the god part even necessary?

A great question. If we are to look at the state of the world at the turn of the first century we would see a world who somehow really did miss this important idea that we should be nice to each other. The Jews were concerned with a Messiah that would come and physically defeat their enemies, they were more worried about ceremonial cleanliness than helping someone (the good Samaritan), the Romans proclaimed that Caesar is Lord and Son of God (when you read the gospels recognize just how political it is when Jesus claims those titles), the Greeks were off declaring some strange Aristotelian duelism of perfection outside the world which is not good (see my commentary on Gen 1, the world is good). Somehow they did miss the point.

And still today if you look out there in the world do you really think we are loving others? PZ and most of you would be the first ones to say that organized religion is one of the biggest culprits of not loving others.

So it is obvious that we need to rethink what is going on, and if you read about Jesus the way modern scholarship is then we really can make the world a better place.

Posted by: Matt "Nora" Penfold | December 31, 2010 12:20 PM

#331 – We can’t prove Jesus existed if you are not willing to take the bible seriously.

Why not just admit you cannot prove Jesus existed ? If you cannot offer any evidence he did, and you have just admitted you cannot, then that is the only honest position to take.

You are not being honest. I suspect you are not being honest with us because you are not being honest with yourself, but that is no excuse.

Either start offering real evidence, or admit you cannot not and have been dishonest with us.

And as for a decent book looking at Christianity, why not suggest A History of Christianity by MacCulloch ? Although MacCulloch is a Christian he presents a factual history of Christianity, and explains how Christian belief has varied over time, and between denominations. It is a work of genuine scholarship, which is not something that can be said for anything by Lewis.

Posted by: Kemist | December 31, 2010 12:22 PM

We can’t prove Jesus existed if you are not willing to take the bible seriously.

I wonder how we're supposed to do that when nothing in the bible can be verified as to historicity, and that it is quite abhorrent morally in most of its writings.

I see more morality in Harry Potter novels, which are equally ahistorical and more entertaining. Perhaps I should use them as holy books.

I think the first step is to think of Jesus as a first century Jewish rabbi who was sick of the current religious establishment putting their rules and laws above treating people well. That is what he was.

You ask to assume a lot. Jesus, if he existed, was just one of the several contenders for the title of new prophet of that particular burned-over district.

There is no need for divinity to rebel against establishment. So if you've read and have been convinced by Lewis, he of the stupid trilemma, you should not be using that argument.

Posted by: Matt "Nora" Penfold | December 31, 2010 12:27 PM

I wonder how we're supposed to do that when nothing in the bible can be verified as to historicity, and that it is quite abhorrent morally in most of its writings.

I see more morality in Harry Potter novels, which are equally ahistorical and more entertaining. Perhaps I should use them as holy books.

Well Typ seems to suggest there is nothing wrong with taking Harry Potter and pretending it is real. And once you have pretended it is real you can claim it really is real.

Typ seems to think all works of fiction can be true if only someone would just believe they are.

Posted by: Glen Davidson | December 31, 2010 12:28 PM

Howerver, nerve impulses are not discrete as nerves essentially communicate or else they die.

That's a non sequitur. They are discrete, which has nothing to do with the fact that nerves communicate or they die.

In my opinion this is where consciousness arises, nerve interaction.

Duh. Obviously nerve interactions have to do with it, but you have to actually explain something, not just invoke vague concepts. Electric fields are at the very least a possibility for nerve interactions, notably laterally.

Electric fields do not think but are means or emergent properties of nerve communication which holds, coveys and manipulates information..

Of course electric fields don't think. Was slaying your strawman satisfying for you? You really don't understand much.

They're hardly "emergent properties." They're simply basic to most nerve conduction.

"No, you have to deal with brain phenomena in consciousness, not whatever conveys information to perceptual organs." Just makes no sence.

You have to be pretty fucking stupid not to recognize that what I wrote was correct. However, since you aren't actually interested in real mechanisms, rather in strawman attacks and meaningless claims like "In my opinion this is where consciousness arises, nerve interaction," you just respond to a reasonable point with mindless bleats.

yeah but these electric fields are created by other nerve cells in an elaborate dynamic network and i.e. simply means of communication among these nerves.

Another idiotic non sequitur. You're uninterested in mechanism of consciousness, only in writing mindless platitudes and unthinking denials. So you just deny, without any sort of reasoning, or intelligence, let alone comprehension of the arguments I've made.

Still no need to get all Cartesian about it.

Strawman, again. You're really not capable of discussing these matters at all, are you? You're prejudiced against what you don't understand, which is just about everything involved with even the questions of consciousness, let alone the fact that your dimwitted generalities never could explain anything at all.

And I've wasted enough time with your brand of pseudoscientific reasoning. You don't understand anything well, including rather plain and fair writing, you attack strawmen, and fail to comprehend any arguments made. Any further coddling of your bad faith and lack of mentation would be not only wasted, but coddling of ineptitude. (95% sure that I'll not be back)

Glen Davidson

Posted by: raven | December 31, 2010 12:33 PM

#331 – We can’t prove Jesus existed if you are not willing to take the bible seriously.

What does this even mean? Nothing really.

The question is, how much of the NT is true? Very little. There are 4 biblical Gospels written decades after the fact, anonymously. They disagree wildly among themselves. There are two birth narratives and they are completely different. The crucifixion narratives are different as well. A lot of the historical details are just wrong.

There are 56 other Gospels known that weren't included in the bible, mostly for political reasons. They differ wildly among themselves as well.

Why should we take an old book of fiction "seriously", whatever "seriously" means?

Typ, you don't actually know much about the bible, jesus, or xianity. We know this because many of us do. Read the scholars who know more than all of us. Bart Ehrman, Mackie, Crossan, Avalos, etc.. Which many of us have.

You are arguing from profound ignorance. BTW, most of the people on this thread, including myself, are exXians. We know.

Posted by: Hurin, Nattering Nabob of Negativism. | December 31, 2010 12:35 PM

Typ @ 297

But it helps to realize that God (again, presuming there is one and in some sense is talking to us through the bible), God is using the abilities of people at that time to help reveal truth(or Truth, and I never answered what the distinguishing factor is between the two). If god (or God) said to them that “In the beginning, God let there be a high energy field out of a singularity” then the writer of that part would have put their pen down and never written it.

Meet Typ @ 327

Many of you are assuming quite a bit in my view of the bible. First thing, you can't look at the bible as god's attempt to communicate with people. The OT is a collection of stories of various genre's from a specific nation. The stories made it into their book because the people acknowledged that there was Truth in the books.

I'll let the two of you argue about which it is, but lets be clear about one thing. If there is a God, and it didn't attempt to use the Bible as a means of communication, then the Bible has no bearing on our relationship with said God. If it wasn't trying to communicate with us through the writing of that book (as Typ 297 suggests) then it contains exactly as much "Truth" about our relationship with that being as any other book ever written.

On to Jesus...

BTW, I personally have come to the conclusion that the facts do seem to support the resurrection of Jesus and that is the linchpin to the whole thing. If Jesus was not resurrected by God then Christianity is baseless. I realize that it seems miraculous, but we are talking about God here.

On what grounds is the ressurection more verifiable than anything else in the bible?

I agree with Typ @ 245

That is one of the most difficult points of my position. I start with the assumption that the bible is true. Then I have to qualify truth. It is obviously not historically, or scientifically true.

Finally, what was the point of the resurrection in your view, and how does is square with your statement...

Typ @ 327

When Jesus says either kingdom of god, kingdom of heaven, or eternal life do not interpret that as being heaven or life after death. Interpret that as bringing the reign of god (being kind to each other) here on earth. Those were not statements of the after life.

... that the afterlife isn't literal? What, he went through the trouble of bringing himself back to life so that he could say a few goodbyes and then disappear forever?

Why would that act have any meaning outside the context of eternal life?

Finally, on Jesus' message of love:

Mat.

7:19 Every tree that bringeth not forth good fruit is hewn down, and cast into the fire

10:37 He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me: and he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me.

10:38 And he that taketh not his cross, and followeth after me, is not worthy of me

10:39 He that findeth his life shall lose it: and he that loseth his life for my sake shall find it.

18:9 And if thine eye offend thee, pluck it out, and cast it from thee: it is better for thee to enter into life with one eye, rather than having two eyes to be cast into hell fire.

25:46 And these shall go away into everlasting punishment: but the righteous into life eternal.

Posted by: typ | December 31, 2010 12:37 PM

Data Venia#334

So, an obvious question here is how does one "make the best" of incomplete information? If the info isn't complete, is this license to accept anything you want to believe as true? Anything that makes you feel all warm and fuzzy inside? That appears to be what you're doing. By what mechanism do you fact-check your beliefs against reality to distinguish what's true from what is false?

Unfortunately the real world seldom allows us to have complete evidence before we have to make a decision. Yes, in designed experiments we can increase our odds of getting it right, but try to tell your future wife how you experimented your way into a proposal.

The reality is we do the best we can with the facts we have. There is no way to go back to the first century and see what happened. If we find new documents or invent a time machine then it would be great to check it out and know for sure. But the fact is we don’t know and we are forced to make a decision without all the information. If you hold the bar so high that you need proof for everything then you will run into problems.

Seriously folks. One of two positions is true. Is god/not god. If the Truth is that there is and you spend your whole life stubbornly insisting that you will not consider it because there is no proof then you have missed out on a part of life that I personally find quite fulfilling. I doubt it regularly, but what do you have to lose?

I have tried nearly everything there is to try in this life. I have come to the conclusion that desire leads to satisfaction which immediately leads back to desire. An endless cycle. What if God really can make that cycle stop? What if there really is God and that really is what its all about? I simply am choosing to believe that and see where it leads me and I personally have found it to be a great place to go. But please, choose wisely.

Yes, he's reported to have said some nice things about love, but also a lot of vile things, many of which have been quoted already. The NT is full of threats and diatribes against those who do not believe and grovel.

Not true. The bad stuff is for those who don’t love. The criterion as far as I am concerned is not whether you acknowledge Jesus is God or not (to the best of my knowledge I have not advocated for that in this thread, though I think it is true), but whether you love. If you believe in your spouse you do not think they are god, you just believe that they are righteous and would largely support their perspective. Think of believing in Jesus that way. If you don’t believe in your spouse it’s not that you think they are fictitious, its that you don’t believe in what they espouse. If you don’t believe in loving others you won’t believe in Jesus (whether he is or is not part of the trinity is irrelevant to that statement).

He threatened those who do not believe with eternal torture

If that is how you choose to interpret it. I don’t. I think the language is a bit hyperbolic to make a point.

Think of it this way. If you agree that love is the way and you do not hate others, you care for others and give to them then you are following Jesus. If you do not do those things then you are not believing in, or following Jesus. Those who do not love generally are not very happy in life. I would contend that they are experiencing torture because they never find fulfillment and are constantly moving on to the next thing to find satisfaction. I would hate to have that level of discontent for my whole life. But, if you want to have a life of the ages (which is a better translation of eternal life), then you would love. This would be the same as living in the kingdom of god here and now. You will be full.

Here is the gospel, per Paul, 1 Corinthians:

15:1 Now I want to make clear for you, brothers and sisters, the gospel that I preached to you, that you received and on which you stand, 15:2 and by which you are being saved, if you hold firmly to the message I preached to you – unless you believed in vain. 15:3 For I passed on to you as of first importance what I also received – that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures, 15:4 and that he was buried, and that he was raised on the third day according to the scriptures, 15:5 and that he appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve. 15:6 Then he appeared to more than five hundred of the brothers and sisters at one time, most of whom are still alive, though some have fallen asleep. 15:7 Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles. 15:8 Last of all, as though to one born at the wrong time, he appeared to me also. 15:9 For I am the least of the apostles, unworthy to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God. 15:10 But by the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace to me has not been in vain. In fact, I worked harder than all of them – yet not I, but the grace of God with me. 15:11 Whether then it was I or they, this is the way we preach and this is the way you believed.

15:12 Now if Christ is being preached as raised from the dead, how can some of you say there is no resurrection of the dead? 15:13 But if there is no resurrection of the dead, then not even Christ has been raised. 15:14 And if Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is futile and your faith is empty. 15:15 Also, we are found to be false witnesses about God, because we have testified against God that he raised Christ from the dead, when in reality he did not raise him, if indeed the dead are not raised. 15:16 For if the dead are not raised, then not even Christ has been raised. 15:17 And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is useless; you are still in your sins. 15:18 Furthermore, those who have fallen asleep in Christ have also perished. 15:19 For if only in this life we have hope in Christ, we should be pitied more than anyone.

15:20 But now Christ has been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep. 15:21 For since death came through a man, the resurrection of the dead also came through a man. 15:22 For just as in Adam all die, so also in Christ all will be made alive. 15:23 But each in his own order: Christ, the firstfruits; then when Christ comes, those who belong to him. 15:24 Then comes the end, when he hands over the kingdom to God the Father, when he has brought to an end all rule and all authority and power. 15:25 For he must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet. 15:26 The last enemy to be eliminated is death. 15:27 For he has put everything in subjection under his feet. But when it says “everything” has been put in subjection, it is clear that this does not include the one who put everything in subjection to him. 15:28 And when all things are subjected to him, then the Son himself will be subjected to the one who subjected everything to him, so that God may be all in all.

Posted by: phantomreader42 | December 31, 2010 12:41 PM

typ @ #348:

We can’t prove Jesus existed if you are not willing to take the bible seriously.

Now, I expect you to weasel around and declare that your definition of "take the bible seriously" reduces to "mindlessly believe whatever typ says about the bible". But I'll give you the benefit of the doubt. I'll take the bible seriously IF you'll demonstrate to me that it is actually true.

Do you believe, as stated in the book of Matthew, chapter 21, verse 21 and 22, that whatever a true believer asks for in prayer will come to pass? Do you believe, as stated in the book of James, chapter 5, verse 15, that “the prayer of faith shall save the sick”? Do you really believe, as your cult teaches, that merely talking to yourself and pretending the creator of the universe is listening has magical healing powers?

The verse in Matthew is alleged to be the words of jesus. If jesus did not say this, then you've got a lot of explaining to do about why we should believe anything he said. If jesus said this, and it is not true, then he is a liar, and his words are worthless.

Well I’ll give you a chance to actually accomplish something, and prove that you’ve got more to offer than delusional wanking. I know you’re too much of a coward to even try, but the very fact that you’ll flee in terror from my challenge is just another bit of evidence that you’re full of shit.

Here we go. Rheumatoid arthritis is a painful, debilitating disease, with no known cure. It is an autoimmune disorder, not a result of a pathogen but a flaw in the human immune system which causes the body to attack it’s own tissues. It has been known to render infants permanently blind. In adults, it leads to advancing disability and deformity, and can only be held off with extremely powerful drugs that have harmful side effects. This disorder causes extreme suffering through no fault of the victim, is currently incurable, and exists solely because the human immune system is a buggy load of kludges and fucked-up feedback mechanisms (the exact opposite of what a competent and benevolent god would design).

So, if you are a true believer as you claim, quit praying for me and pray that every single RA sufferer on the entire planet be completely cured and all the existing damage to their bodies repaired, within one week from the time this post appears, and that no living thing ever have to suffer this agony again. Such a feat would be child’s play to an all-powerful god. Just a matter of fixing what he fucked up in the design phase. If you will pray for this, and if it comes to pass by the deadline, then I will accept that your god, or something like it, actually exists, and consider the possibility that it might not be wholly evil. Heck, if this works I’ll be praying every day, and watching all the fucked-up shit in this world actually getting fixed! If you refuse, then you prove that even you do not really believe the bullshit you’ve been polluting this site with. If you refuse, you expose yourself yet again as a coward and a fraud.

So what will it be? Will you pray to actually help some people in need? Or are you too much of a whiny, lying coward to put off your public masturbation and show some compassion for five seconds?

I have issued this challenge before. Not one believer has had the courage to take it up, or even to so much as admit that they don't believe the verses in question when they are painfully obviously false. You have one week. Countdown begins the instant this post appears.

What do you say, typ? Do you really want me to take your cult's book of myths seriously? Then show me it's more than a pack of lies. Show me there's more to religion than self-delusion and the celebration of evil.

Posted by: typ | December 31, 2010 12:44 PM

Nerd of Redhead, OM#361

Typ, can you answer this question honestly? What are you really trying to accomplish with your continuing posts?

Are you trying to convince us to give religion a try?

Are you trying to convince yourself your beliefs are rational?

Or did you get started, and now just can't stop?

A bit of each of those things. I spend a lot of time thinking about this so debating the subject is one of the best ways for me to work through my beliefs. If I am believing something that is a bunch of crap then I really don’t want to be doing that so I think it is good to see if you all can convince me I am wasting my time.

I also realize that someone out there may be similar to me and if I can help them then that is a good thing. I find my position to be satisfying.

And I can stop this any time I want to, really, I am in total control of myself and can stop any time I want…….yes, any time.

Posted by: Matt "Nora" Penfold | December 31, 2010 12:47 PM

Typ,

I note there has been no apology from you as yet.

I take it then that you seen nothing wrong with dishonesty, nor with being rude.

I am quite convinced you are Christian, since you act (and lie) like one.

Posted by: raven | December 31, 2010 12:49 PM

Typ:

I don’t believe people can cross the faith/no faith border without sampling the other side in earnest.

Most of us on this blog are exXians. We know.

Most of us also know far more about the bible, xianity, and religion than Typ does.

He is arguing from ignorance of common and easily available facts.

It's OK. Knowing you are ignorant is the first step on the road to being educated. Some go further, many do not.

Posted by: Randy (not Randy) | December 31, 2010 12:51 PM

The ironic part is that this assclown has violated each and every one of the steps listed in the flow chart that started this thread.

Posted by: Matt "Nora" Penfold | December 31, 2010 12:55 PM

The ironic part is that this assclown has violated each and every one of the steps listed in the flow chart that started this thread.

Of course he has. If he had followed the chart he would never have opened his mouth in the first place.

What is sad is that he cannot even bring himself to apologise for it. Which tell us he is not a very nice person despite all his talk of love for his fellow man. Well on aspect of love for your fellow man is respect, and saying things like I can prove the bible is true if you believe in it already is not showing respect: Quite the opposite in fact. Love of your fellow man means you keep to the rules of scholarship when discussing history, yet Typ refuses to do that. He arrogantly thinks he is allowed to make his own rules up.

Posted by: Nerd of Redhead, OM | December 31, 2010 12:59 PM

Way to go Typ. You wish us to consider you an authority. Lets look at facts. You have nothing but presupposition and wishful thinking. No hard facts. Not happening.

Therefore, the problem becomes how big a delusional fool are you. Citing the babble, which we see as a book of mythology/fiction, doesn't help your cause. We might cite the babble to you, as you believe it means something. In trying to convince us of anything, hard concrete evidence, not testimony, is required. All you have is your testimony, which is getting increasingly incoherent.

Posted by: Janine, The Little Top Of Venom, OM | December 31, 2010 1:01 PM

No one will be able to debate about the evidence for a deity until one believes in the deity that typ believes in. So what is the point?

Posted by: Carlie of the lacy, gently wafting adjectives | December 31, 2010 1:12 PM

phantomreader42 - thanks. Sadly, that's because I used to be a godbot myself, and that's what I used to say. Well, except for the end where I note that it makes no fucking sense. That part came later. A favorite metaphor of the religious is that it's as if God is weaving a tapestry, but we only ever see the backside where all the threads are messy and clumped sometimes and get clipped and knotted in ugly ways. Only God can see the front side of the tapestry that has the beautiful design on it. Somehow this is supposed to make all the suffering and death and terror ok, because God is a shitty weaver or something.

Posted by: typ | December 31, 2010 1:14 PM

Sastra#310

Favorite People and gets involved in some implausible and elaborate historical plotline. God is whatever you want it to be. It's whatever anyone wants it to be. It doesn't matter. The important thing is to believe in it.

What if we don't? Seriously. What if we believe in the value of love, the importance of honesty and goodness and joy and life and compassion and loving our fellow man -- but we don't love God because we think God is an invented human concept? Does it matter?

You have been talking to my son. He pretty much is in the same place as you on this (your second paragraph, not the first).

I don't believe the point is believing, I am much more on the impact of believing and would tend to support your second paragraph.

More on this. Even if Christianity is true, and I think the basic gospel as I noted in other posts is true, I believe the world and most people would be much better off converting to Buddhism. Its only been in the past 20 years or so that scholarship has gotten to the point where I think it is practical to be a Christian. I actually agree with most of you and pretty sure PZ too in that the world probably would be better off without all this religion.

Having said that, I think the scholarship of the past 20 years is starting to undo the damage that has been done to Christianity over the past couple thousand years. Particularly the crap that has been brought out saying that the bible is basically the equivalent of god.

One more slant on this. You find that many people in the world consider socialism to be evil. Take any right winger you find walking down the street. The thing they don't normally think through is why socialism is evil. Socialism is really not evil in and of itself, its just that it concentrates power too easily and makes it so humans that sin will do bad things with it.

Religion is much the same way. Unfortunately every power hungry person with a concept of god is drawn to religions because it allows them to concentrate power easily and get followers who do not question things. Religion is not inherently evil, it is just that it is easy for the power hungry to use it.

Call me an idealist, but I think the scholarship of the past couple of decades is pointing toward a religion that may be better able to deal with the natural nature of humans. I further think that religion is always going to have a role in the world so I feel it is important for me to help spread a more positive religion that will put the world on the right tracks. Yes, you can be cynical about the probability of success, but I think Christianity finally has the ability to do this. It will take the next 100 years to start to get this new view out there, but it has to start somewhere.

Posted by: typ | December 31, 2010 1:19 PM

Hurin, yes, I know the Screwtape letters. It is fiction. One of the cool things about it is he never says that, you just have to know it. Per Wikipedia

The Screwtape Letters is a satirical Christian apologetics novel written in epistolary style by C. S. Lewis, first published in book form in February 1942.[1] The story takes the form of a series of letters from a senior demon, Screwtape, to his nephew, a junior "tempter" named Wormwood, so as to advise him on methods of securing the damnation of a British man, known only as "the Patient".

Posted by: Janine, The Little Top Of Venom, OM | December 31, 2010 1:25 PM

*facepalm*

Posted by: typ | December 31, 2010 1:31 PM

Sastra#335

Or can faith be reduced down to nothing more than personal therapy: truth doesn't matter, content doesn't matter, just find a personal narrative that "works" for you?

That is one of the problems with much of current Christianity. Many have taken it to be exactly what you are saying and the catch phrase for that type of think is Moralistic Therapeutic Deism http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moralistic_therapeutic_deism

I think people would be better off going to see a real shrink than to believe that their god is someone there making them feel good and at their side. Like a big teddy bear. That's not it at all.

Following Jesus is difficult. To really follow him requires you to give your whole life to truly loving others, not idolizing yourself, not putting others down, really loving others. Going to church 1 hour a week to make you feel better about yourself is not what it is about. That is churchianity, not Christianity.

Posted by: typ | December 31, 2010 1:34 PM

Matt Penfold#387 - Apologize?!? Did I hurt someone?

Posted by: Beatrice, anormalement indécente | December 31, 2010 1:37 PM

Typ:

Religion is not inherently evil, it is just that it is easy for the power hungry to use it.

I further think that religion is always going to have a role in the world so I feel it is important for me to help spread a more positive religion that will put the world on the right tracks. Yes, you can be cynical about the probability of success, but I think Christianity finally has the ability to do this.

Your statements are contradictory. According to you, whatever values religion promotes is irrelevant because power hungry people will distort it and use it for their own gain. I can agree with that. But why do you think Christianity might get better results? You said it yourself, power hungry will use it, so how did you come to the conclusion that Christianity would be any different?

Posted by: Randy (not Randy) | December 31, 2010 1:41 PM

Odd that it took you 400 posts to actually reply to something that someone said with substance.

Actually, it's not odd at all. I had you pegged as just another Liar for Jesus when you first came in.

Posted by: mikerattlesnake | December 31, 2010 1:42 PM

"Frankly, I don't even see Lewis as sincere in his own belief. I think he wrote his apologetics as much to try (and fail) to convince himself as anyone else. He started from the point of view that "one should believe" this crap and then set about trying to come up with a post hoc rationalization for why."

That certainly sounds familiar, eh typ?

Posted by: Randy (not Randy) | December 31, 2010 1:46 PM

my 18 year old atheist son says he wants to get on here.

Get your bets in quick. Another Liar for Jesus or a sockpuppet?

Posted by: Janine, The Little Top Of Venom, OM | December 31, 2010 1:46 PM

It is not not right. You are asking people to accept your unsubstantiated premise and to buy into your unsubstantiated conclusion. You have given no reason why people should believe as you do except for the ludicrous idea that one has to believe in order to find the proof of your deity. And then you use folklore lore as facts.

You have presented nothing.

Posted by: mikerattlesnake | December 31, 2010 1:51 PM

If you're having trouble nailing down why people think you are dishonest try the following:

Go back and just read your posts in this thread. Ask yourself:

1) Do I sound like someone with a clear, internally consistent philosophy throughout the discussion?

2) If so, did I do my best to articulate that philosophy as honestly, completely, and concisely from my first post on?

3) Have I honestly considered the other side and changed my views accordingly when shown to be inconsistent or wrong, acknowledging such with attribution to the poster/argument in question?

If you weren't you, would you be convinced by you? I can't help but think that your apologetics are some of the most pathetic, least compelling ones that I have come across, and that's saying something.

Posted by: typ | December 31, 2010 1:56 PM

beatrice#392 -

Your statements are contradictory. According to you, whatever values religion promotes is irrelevant because power hungry people will distort it and use it for their own gain. I can agree with that. But why do you think Christianity might get better results? You said it yourself, power hungry will use it, so how did you come to the conclusion that Christianity would be any different?

Given that 1) there will always be religion and 2) power hungry people will always try and contort it to their ends, I conclude that we need to have a religion that is less likely for the power hungry to contort. Note that that conclusion would be independent of my actually believing in said religion.

If I was interested in me just being the best Christian I could be then I would be a Buddhist. But, I have gifts (including an obviously thick skin) that I feel I should use to try and make the world a better place at a bigger level than just going away and meditating on the single drop of essence....

So here I am, for today debating with all of you. And this has been quite fun for me.

To answer your question, I think that the reality of Christianity that has not been sufficiently communicated and documented is that it really is about loving others. And I think that we have enough scholarship coming online to combat the literalists at their own game. I want to see that happen and I am making it part of my life to try and make that happen.

Posted by: SallyStrange, Spawn of Cthulhu | December 31, 2010 2:01 PM

"I conclude that we need to have a religion that is less likely for the power hungry to contort."

Why do we need to have a religion? Wouldn't the least contortable belief system be one that doesn't promote belief in an invisible authority figure? I don't think we need any religion at all. We need reality.

Posted by: Data Venia | December 31, 2010 2:09 PM

If I was interested in me just being the best Christian I could be then I would be a Buddhist.

Wait. What?

Posted by: Beatrice, anormalement indécente | December 31, 2010 2:11 PM

To answer your question, I think that the reality of Christianity that has not been sufficiently communicated and documented is that it really is about loving others. And I think that we have enough scholarship coming online to combat the literalists at their own game.

So this makes you think that Christianity is less likely to be contorted? That is laughable. YOu say it yourself - some take bible literally. You are picking and choosing whichever parts you prefer. Others are also picking what they like and in the end it really does get deformed in every possible way. That doesn't exactly make it difficult for someone to use it for their own nefarious purposes.

Posted by: Sastra | December 31, 2010 2:12 PM

typ wrote:

If I am believing something that is a bunch of crap then I really don’t want to be doing that

Ok. I will ask another question from #24:

If you are wrong, what would change your mind?

It sounds to me that your method of belief involves believing something is true and then figuring out ways to make everything fit with the belief. You've made a personal commitment to spin-doctor any discovery so that it simply confirms what you already believe.

But there is no way to discover you're wrong with that method. There is no way to change your mind. God can't not exist -- God can only exist in a "different way." The most you can do is change the way you understand God. You can't say "there is no God."

You can't be wrong. You've made yourself infallible -- turned yourself into God in order to "find" God. This doesn't fit in with the idea of the "humble search." A humble search is willing to accept a negative answer. A humble searcher says what you say above -- "I don't want to believe what is not true." And then they use a method where they can find out.

Remember, you can defend anything if you simply redefine what you're defending around the objections. And you can believe anything if you've decided that you NEED to believe it.

Posted by: Nerd of Redhead, OM | December 31, 2010 2:14 PM

Typ, no need to provide links to other weaselly wafflers. Since we don't see you as anything other than a weaselly waffler, we won't take your obviously stinking bait that even skunks avoid.

Posted by: Data Venia | December 31, 2010 2:36 PM

Typ,

What is it you think starting a new religion (Typ-ified 'Christianity') is going to accomplish -- especially given your claim that religions are prone to misuse by power-hungry individuals -- that simply promoting the Platinum Rule wouldn't accomplish? You still haven't explained why we need to God up or why it would be in any sense better to do so. In fact, you've given a very good reason why it might be better not to.

Posted by: athensguy | December 31, 2010 2:46 PM

I must admit that I will convert to the religion of the person that passes my test:

1) Get Saw
2) Get Torch
3) Remove arm with saw
4) Cauterize nub with torch
5) Ask their god to fix it while I wait.

They may receive no medical assistance. Leaving my sight before full recovery voids the gambit.

Posted by: mikerattlesnake | December 31, 2010 2:52 PM

"I don't know, good question."

You've said this a lot, but have yet to provide any good answers. Why do you think your version of christianity has any? What makes you different from the other 30k (or so) folks who have tried to "fix" christianity by inventing a new definition of it (and a new sect in the process)?

Posted by: redstone | December 31, 2010 3:03 PM

Get your bets in quick. Another Liar for Jesus or a sockpuppet?

Not really. My dad is full of shit and outright denies the eternal hell his "loving" Jesus damns me to.

Fuck, come on, at least Jesus was honest about it.

Posted by: Janine, The Little Top Of Venom, OM | December 31, 2010 3:09 PM

Only one statement and redstone already made more sense than his father.

And typ was worried that his son would embarrass him. He has not, typ has embarrassed himself all on his own.

Posted by: Sastra | December 31, 2010 3:20 PM

typ #404 wrote:

Given that 1) there will always be religion and 2) power hungry people will always try and contort it to their ends, I conclude that we need to have a religion that is less likely for the power hungry to contort. Note that that conclusion would be independent of my actually believing in said religion.

First, a note: check out Rev. Michael Dowd. He has written some books and even comes in here from time to time. I suspect you will really like him. We like him too -- but mostly on a personal level.

Second, an analogy:

You discover and gain some authority in a society where the inhabitants firmly believe in astrology. They all agree that the movements of the stars in the sky give valuable advice to those who study their coded messages. What they do not agree on is what those messages say.

One school of astrologers believes that the messages are very specific and critical indeed. Go to war; do not go to war; your wife is cheating on you; give the job to your nephew; invest your money in stocks; give your money away; move your car; move your house; move the dark-skin people to another country. This is serious stuff with serious outcomes. They think they are getting "insider" information which doesn't need to be checked.

What they do is a crap shoot. Might be a good outcome, might be a bad outcome they only THINK is a good outcome. All bets are off. The only thing you know for sure is that they will always be confident that the stars never steer you wrong.

Another school of astrology is more lax. Yeah, it's serious stuff all right, but they never seem to say anything that someone couldn't have come up with if they'd never studied a sky chart. Love one another. Don't lend money to strangers. Today is a good day for getting to those projects you've been putting off. Be careful not to trip and hurt yourself. Be honest and polite.

There's less of a crap shoot with this version of astrology.

So ... what do you do?

1.) Agree and assure them that it's perfectly fine if they believe in astrology and follow the advice the stars and planets are giving to them. BUT the REAL school of astrology is that second one. If the stars and planets are giving advice, wouldn't it be reasonable, sensible advice that would make just as much reasoned sense to people who never even heard of astrology? Sure it would! That's what stars and planets are like! Astrology is a fine method to use -- but only if you use it the right way.

2.) The system of astrology as a whole is a crap shoot. It's a recipe for disaster. The stars and planets are NOT telling us special, secret things so there is no check in reality for anything they say. No matter how much you push the Newspaper Column School of Astrology people who think they are learning special, secret things are going to want to discover something that is actually special and secret and different than what makes common sense. It's all arbitrary. So treat these folks like grownups and tell them the truth. Astrology is bunk. Do what makes sense because it makes sense -- not because some arbitrary authority "told" you to do it.

Bottom line, if God is a humanist then we don't need God. And religious people need God to be the sort of thing we need. You are not more reasonable than the fundies because you are "really following God." There is no way to check that. When your interpretations of what God is and what God wants makes sense, that is a matter of luck. Like someone saying that the moon being in Uranus doesn't mean "kill the infidel" -- it means "pick up litter." Whew -- dodged a bullet with that one.

Posted by: sudomabinusri | December 31, 2010 3:32 PM

Redstone,

I hope you stick around, I think you'll fit in well.

Posted by: Kemist | December 31, 2010 3:51 PM

And as far as healing goes it could be that a healing is different than a cure. Someone could be healed of problem and they are able to accept it and carry it throughout life but they are not cured.

Well, it's not worth anything then. I'm able to do this on my own, or with a good psychiatrist + good meds. What a load of bollocks.

If I was interested in me just being the best Christian I could be then I would be a Buddhist. But, I have gifts (including an obviously thick skin) that I feel I should use to try and make the world a better place at a bigger level than just going away and meditating on the single drop of essence....

FYI, you can be a buddhist and not be a monk. Most japanese are buddhists and they still managed to get a few things done.

Posted by: Kel, The Privileged View From Nowhere | December 31, 2010 3:51 PM

If Jesus was not resurrected by God then Christianity is baseless.

Meet David Hume... Are you saying there's any reason to transcend scepticism about the resurrection? That is to say that case for the resurrection is stronger than any alternate possibility.

Posted by: Beatrice, anormalement indécente | December 31, 2010 3:57 PM

Jscherfjr,
I think Glen Davidson was being sarcastic.

Posted by: Randy (not Randy) | December 31, 2010 4:02 PM

JScherfjr,

Try this on for size.

Posted by: Jscherfjr | December 31, 2010 4:03 PM

Well played . . .

Posted by: Owlmirror | December 31, 2010 4:11 PM

First thing, you can't look at the bible as god's attempt to communicate with people.

OK, then why did you write "If god (or God) said to them"?

The stories made it into their book because the people acknowledged that there was Truth in the books. However, Truth for them is not the same as it is for us in the modern world.

What does "Truth" even mean?

People back then did not report in a post-enlightenment way.

What does this even mean? People were not capable of not making shit up?

Again, prefacing it all with assuming that there is a god (because there is no proof), he must think there is value in letting us make up our own minds about things.

Even whether or not this alleged God exists? This is just ridiculous.

I personally have come to the conclusion that the facts do seem to support the resurrection of Jesus

Based on what "facts"?

For pity's sake.

I realize that it seems miraculous, but we are talking about God here.

The thing that you cannot even define coherently, let alone know if it exists?

I know it seems absurd, but it really seems that lots and lots of eye witnesses really believe it happened.

No.

It was written down, long after the alleged event, that there were "lots and lots" of eye witnesses who believed it.

And even if there were, arguing that what they "believed" was therefore true is the logical fallacy of the argumentum ad populum.

And seriously now, don't you think it makes sense that if god were to come on earth and directly communicate with us his message would be to love each other?

Not without presupposing that (a) God exists and (b) God is "nice" -- neither of which propositions have any evidence whatsoever in support of what they assert.

I personally view that it has a great amount of Truth in it, but also a great amount of interpretation.

How is this different from fiction?

One of two positions is true. Is god/not god. If the Truth is that there is and you spend your whole life stubbornly insisting that you will not consider it because there is no proof then you have missed out on a part of life that I personally find quite fulfilling. I doubt it regularly, but what do you have to lose?

We lose out on having a consistent epistemology. Consistency is more fulfilling than pretending that there is (or might be) an invisible person that for some strange reason does not act like any person that actually exists and speak for itself.

I have come to the conclusion that desire leads to satisfaction which immediately leads back to desire. An endless cycle. What if God really can make that cycle stop?

Obviously, God cannot -- because it's clear that you're in an "endless cycle" of desiring God.

What if there really is God and that really is what its all about? I simply am choosing to believe that and see where it leads me and I personally have found it to be a great place to go. But please, choose wisely.

Rejecting consistency is not wisdom.

The bad stuff is for those who don't love.

That is your intellectually dishonest presupposition. The text does not support your presupposition.

The criterion as far as I am concerned is not whether you acknowledge Jesus is God or not (to the best of my knowledge I have not advocated for that in this thread, though I think it is true),

You do? That directly contradicts your uncertainty about God's existence and nature, not to mention your interpretation of Jesus as just a man offering his own interpretation of God.

Are you even capable of not contradicting yourself?

Are you even capable of caring that you are contradicting yourself?

I know the Screwtape letters. It is fiction. One of the cool things about it is he never says that, you just have to know it.

Heh.

How is it more fictional than his apologetics?

I think people would be better off going to see a real shrink than to believe that their god is someone there making them feel good and at their side. Like a big teddy bear. That's not it at all.

How is it different from what you've been doing? You certainly seem to want for God to exist, and for your interpretation of Christianity to be true, because that makes you feel good.

Following Jesus is difficult. To really follow him requires you to give your whole life to truly loving others, not idolizing yourself, not putting others down, really loving others.

Why is Jesus even necessary for all that?

Don't call it "Christianity", and don't promote it as "Christianity".

Call it a consistent and selfless system of ethics, leave the religion out of it.

Posted by: phantomreader42 | December 31, 2010 5:29 PM

typ @ #419:

I assume what you are referring to is the challenge for prayer to cure and move mountains etc.

I am referring to the only challenge I have issued to you in this thread, the one detailed in post #364. You have one week to get your imaginary god to cure every case of rehumatoid arthritis in the world, and repair all damage the victims have suffered due to the disease or the medications used to treat it, with no harmful side effects, or admit that your allegedly loving and powerful god is incapable of doing this, and such a worthless asshole that it has no interest in even trying.

Actually, you don't have a week anymore. You now have six days, nineteen hours, and thirty-six minutes. Get to work.

Posted by: Amphiox, OM | December 31, 2010 5:56 PM

I personally view that it has a great amount of Truth in it, but also a great amount of interpretation.

My friend, that is one of the very best descriptions of Buffy the Vampire Slayer I have encountered in a long, long time.

Posted by: Brownian, Most Vicious & Petty of Pharyngulites | December 31, 2010 6:25 PM

Well, of course, jeebus couldn't have actually MEANT that. I'm sure typ will tell us what he REALLY meant soon. :P

I have some pet theories about what Jesus meant by that...

Posted by: Kel, The Privileged View From Nowhere | December 31, 2010 6:34 PM

Duh! I've just realised what typ means by "Truth" with a capital "T": he means truthiness!

I thought he was going for the whole deepity thing. :P lol, at least now you're getting it.

Posted by: 'Tis Himself, OM | December 31, 2010 7:51 PM

Sastra #447

Our beloved, kind, sweet, butter-doesn't-melt-in-her-mouth Sastra is actually quite vicious and underhanded when talking with goddists and spiritualists.

Posted by: Kel, The Privileged View From Nowhere | January 1, 2011 2:11 AM

thanks and cheers...i would love to debate many points posed by atheist but stop using the extremes of one sect(s) to describe the whole

Why can't you just ignore the tone and focus on the substance? There are plenty of creationists out there who say that evolution will leads to all kinds of immorality including genocide, but does that mean that the arguments creationists put forward shouldn't be addressed because of the negative tone?

"Sorry creationists, we'd love to show how the alleged problem of thermodynamics is erroneous, however we won't address that until you stop claiming that evolution means someone is an immoral person"

Surely the arguments should stand on their own. Ignore the tone and attack the substance, that will do two things. First it will show that you have a case. Second, and more importantly, it will show them as being the petulant ones.

Posted by: Matt "Nora" Penfold | January 1, 2011 5:38 AM

Typ spewed:

Matt Penfold#387 - Apologize?!? Did I hurt someone?

No, but you have shown a great lack of intellectual honesty, and have been plain rude in making the arguments you have. Claiming you can only prove the bible is true to people who already believe it is true is not being polite. Suggesting people read C.S. Lewis is not being very polite either, but that did not stop you.

Clearly you are such an arrogant fuckwit none of that seems wrong to you. Since I have already explained this to you would also seem to be very stupid.

Well fuck you, you arrogant arsewipe.

Just because you are thick, do not assume everyone else is.

Posted by: Kel, The Privileged View From Nowhere | January 1, 2011 6:40 AM

I would suggest one would start by reading C.S. Lewis and Mere Christianity to get a good overview of the more or less common concepts without a lot of the baggage many of the specific sects put on it.

I've read it. The main thing I learned from that book is that my reductio ad absurdum arguments seem out of place when they're expressed with such sincerity of belief.

Posted by: Data Venia | January 1, 2011 9:31 AM

Triple CCC,

and if you want theist to not use the same old stand by responses, can atheist stop thinking that atheism isn't its own belief system.

So, you're blaming atheists for what Christians and other theists say and do, what they post? Wow, talk about failure to take responsibility for your own ideas and actions! Perhaps so many atheists express the idea that atheism isn't a belief system -- but rather a lack of belief in deities -- because that's what's true, and they are correcting a mistaken idea many theists have in common about atheism. Or are you and other theists claiming to know better than atheists themselves what atheism is and what it is not? Pretty arrogant.

If it wasn't then you wouldn't try so hard to defend it.

Let me pose a hypothetical situation for you. I'm going to assume you don't believe in the Great Purple Goblin; that is, you are an agoblinist. First, notice that you don't believe in goblins in the exact same way atheists don't believe in deities.

Now, say that a whole bunch of other people do believe in the Great Goblin (we'll call them the Goblinists). They say prayers to it at the beginning of many public business meetings. Your government gives tax money to organizations promoting the Great Goblin. Goblinists routinely tell you that you - yes, you - are immoral and cannot be a law-abiding citizen because you don't believe in goblins, and all morality springs directly from the Great Goblin Himself, according to their belief system, which they never stop to consider might be incorrect on this point. They tell you, without knowing anything more about you than that you don't believe in goblins, that you are evil personified.

Further imagine that Goblinists are trying to pass laws telling you who you can/cannot marry, what you can/cannot buy on certain days of the week (the Goblinist day of prayer), and what types of scientific research will be banned -- all based on the Book of the Great Goblin.

Imagine that Goblinists want to post chunks of the Book of the Great Goblin on government property, in courts of law, on public playgrounds, and that they have, in the past, successfully passed laws prohibiting agoblinists from even holding certain public offices. Imagine that Goblinists on school boards want to teach parts of the Book of the Great Goblin to your kids in school.

Imagine being told repeatedly that you live in a Goblinist nation, and if you don't like that, well, you can just suck it up. Imagine your leader saying the following: "I don't know that agoblinists should be considered as citizens, nor should they be considered patriots. This is one nation under the Great Goblin." Imagine being expected to say a public loyalty oath containing the worlds "one nation, under the Great Goblin."

How would you feel?

Really. Seriously. Remember you don't believe in goblins.

How would you feel?

Would the things you say and feel be because your lack of belief in goblins was really (wink! wink! nod! nod!) a belief system in its own right or rather because you don't share someone else's belief system?

One more thought. You seem to think we 'pick' the Christians who come here to post. Typ came here on his own, as did every other theist poster I can think of. No help from us. No selection by us. Did an atheist drag you to Pharyngula kicking and screaming? Didn't think so. So stop trying to shift the blame to atheists for the poor job you perceive those posters doing.

Posted by: Iain Walker | January 1, 2011 11:39 AM

typ (#205):

as long as you eternally go against the HS you will be eternally purified...

Yup, God as Big Brother. Even nice, moderate Christians seem to have a difficulty in shaking off the totalitarian ethos at the heart of their religion.

(#245):

When I spew drivel like that, it is the generally drivel drawn from a large study to determine a rational and cohesive theology.

So trying to do theology produces drivel, eh? Who knew?

I start with the assumption that the bible is true.

Why? Do you start with the assumption that all ancient texts are true? The Quran? The Bhagavad Gita? The Iliad? Why pick out the Bible for special treatment?

The truth in the bible [snip] is that it is true in our relationship to god.

This makes no sense. If you'd said "true to our relationship to (or with) god" or "true given our relationship to (or with) god" then it would have been a bit more intelligible, but I'd still have to ask: What on earth do you mean by this?

(#251):

The people who keep bringing up the lack of an existence of god in my argument need to review the strawman argument and why it is not valid.

Except your whole position is predicated on the assumption that a (non-defined) god exists. If you can't support this assumption, then anyone who follows you up the garden path is simply engaging in an abstract academic exercise at best and pointless speculation at worst. The people bringing up the existence of god aren't attacking a straw man - they're just trying to keep things on track and do things in the right order.

(Personally, I have no particular objection to following you up the garden path to see if it leads anywhere interesting. My problem is that no path seems to be clearly visible, and that instead you seem to be inviting us to dive headfirst into a badly pruned shrubbery.)

(#297):

At day zero there is obviously no life and you can abort. At week 40 there is obviously a human and you cannot abort. But how about inbetween? There is no strictly rational way to make the judgment regarding whether it is OK to abort. So, there must be a judgment. There is the same with this argument that I am having in this thread.

Not the best of analogies. The continuity of embryonic development is a fact about the world that plays merry hell with attempts to impose simple binary either/or concepts on the process. Your argument, however, resists rational resolution because of you muddying the waters by refusing to define your terms. With abortion, the question is clear but the answer is not. With the argument you're trying to conduct, not even the question is clear.

(#362):

But the fact is we don’t know and we are forced to make a decision without all the information.

No, we are not forced to make a decision. "I don't know" is a perfectly acceptable position to take. However, we can evaluate the claims of the bible and come to a reasonable conclusion about their plausibility. For example, we have good empirical grounds for supposing that many of the incidents reported in the bible (such as the resurrection) are not physically possible, and we also know that people, especially the ideologically driven, are prone to inventing and embellishing stories. Given this, it is prima facie reasonable to dismiss the story of the resurrection as an invention. To reverse this conclusion, one would need some very strong corroborating evidence - which we do not have.

If you hold the bar so high that you need proof for everything then you will run into problems.

Who needs "proof"? Evidence that gives us a balance of probabilities would suffice. The problem, typ, is not that we are setting the bar too high - it's that you seem all too willing to dispense with the bar altogether.

One of two positions is true. Is god/not god

Not unless you define the term "god". You can't meaningfully apply binary truth values to a proposition that lacks any definite content. You said in #297 that you once took an undergraduate class in philosophy. Didn't they teach you anything?

If the Truth [sic] is that there is and you spend your whole life stubbornly insisting that you will not consider it because there is no proof then you have missed out on a part of life that I personally find quite fulfilling.

You may find it quite fulfilling, but why should anyone else find it so? Other people find it more fulfilling to apportion belief according to the evidence. And as has been pointed out to you, we do consider the possibility that a god exists. The reason we are able to make the judgement that there is no proof or evidence for it (and thus reject it) is precisely because we have considered it.

But then I get the impression that to you, "considering" something has nothing to do with intellectual enquiry or analysis, and everything to do with embracing an idea to see how good it makes you feel. I take it you're a big fan of William James's "Will to Believe".

I doubt it regularly, but what do you have to lose?

Honesty. Integrity. Intellectual and moral self-respect.

I have come to the conclusion that desire leads to satisfaction which immediately leads back to desire. An endless cycle. What if God really can make that cycle stop?

Why would we want the cycle to stop? What you're describing here sounds suspiciously like being alive, and what normally stops the cycle is death (or irreversible brain damage). In which case, you seem to have made a case for not embracing God, if what God brings is no different from death.

If you agree that love is the way and you do not hate others, you care for others and give to them then you are following Jesus.

And anyone else who has taught the same thing. You're doing two things here. Firstly, you're redefining terms to suit yourself ("to follow" and "to travel in the same direction as" do not mean the same thing). Secondly, you're trivialising people's own capacity for autonomous moral decision-making. What if someone independently comes up with the same approach to life and to others? Why does this make them a follower of Jesus, rather than a follower of their own conscience? This looks like a kind of moral imperialism, an attempt to monopolise credit.

(#382):

I don't believe the point is believing, I am much more on the impact of believing

Yep, definitely a William James fan. Tell me, typ - if someone were to embrace atheism because of the positive impact not believing in God and all that follows from this would have on their lives and the lives of those around them, would you regard this as being just as worthy as your Christianity?

Posted by: Rey Fox, Bird Caller Guy | January 1, 2011 12:26 PM

TripleCCC (does that make nine 'C's?)
"do you pick the same christian or are you like the news reporter who doesn't pick out the doctor or teacher during a disaster to tell about the event you pick the one screaming delirous half-clothed one?"

I think you'll find that the delirious half-clothed Christians tend to have a disproportionate impact on society, at least here in America. That's the problem. Chief among our goals is to skewer the prevailing notion that being religious or believing in some higher power is inherently a good thing. If we can disabuse people of that notion, then maybe the crazies will be seen as the crazies they are, and ideas can stand and fall on their own merits.

"-i would love to actually have a debate that doesn't have an 'atheist' saying words like stupid or dumb to describe an idea"

Hey, if the shoe fits. By the way, why the scare quotes around "atheist"?

"It is still just a theory like any other belief that cannot be proven."

We don't need proof, we have parsimony. No evidence for god means that no god is the best hypothesis.

Posted by: emag | January 1, 2011 4:25 PM

I decided some time ago I would no longer debate god or religion with anyone. I'm a non-believer and don't care what you think of it. I pay my taxes -- so should your church. I personally know many religious people who are good people, I take them at face value. I have childhood friends who are now catholic priests, we remain social. I also know a few holier than thou types, they can go f--- themselves. Then there are the crazies like 'Elijahtruth' above. I consider him a public menace, he should be locked up. The lowest of the low are the members of Westboro Baptist church. It is my fervent hope that one day their church will burn down with all members inside. If it was my son's funeral they protested with their hate, I would kill a few of them before being arrested.

Posted by: Ichthyic | January 1, 2011 4:49 PM

I've read it. The main thing I learned from that book [Mere Christianity] is that my reductio ad absurdum arguments seem out of place when they're expressed with such sincerity of belief.

well done!

I seriously don't recall having come across better in response to that particular piece of tripe.

*applause*

Posted by: SC OM | January 1, 2011 7:56 PM

On the evidence issue, in response to some posts above.

Posted by: SC OM | January 1, 2011 8:26 PM

Thanks, AE. :)

Posted by: Kel, The Privileged View From Nowhere | January 2, 2011 2:13 AM

Horses for courses...!

Indeed.

I guess my problem is no matter what I've argued from The Bible, I was wrong. So I listened to what they said, then used that in future interactions with others - I was still wrong. No matter what I said or did, I was wrong. So that has put me off trying to argue the insider test, because I believe it a completely futile endeavour. Of course, my sampling bias is probably not completely representative...

These would be ideal to loose his evangelists upon - hence it is called the "Conversion Model".

It would be interesting to see some real statistics for this.

Posted by: badboyjeffrey | January 2, 2011 5:33 PM

An eloquent and thoughtful model to be sure. I love good graphic organizers. Its true, you cannot debate towards any real goal when one party relies on logic and the other on faith.

I would also point out that any person of "deep faith" will simply reject the validity of the model. In fact, I don't think this would even upset them. For that to work, they would have to discern the rational truth which is quite impossible when you cling to belief in the face of facts. Once again, you can't debate against faith with logic and vice-versa.

Posted by: Kel, The Privileged View From Nowhere | January 2, 2011 6:15 PM

I think it's worse than that 'Tis. Because even if I know the dogma and we can agree on what it means (this has happened to me), my interpretation is still going to be wrong because I'm taking the wrong attitude in approaching The Bible.

It's a fool's game. I can't remember where I read or hear this (I think it was in John Loftus' Why I Became An Atheist), but it was an anecdote about an argument among a church board where both sides were using The Bible to bolster their position. They even quoted the same Bible passages. It's just like that study showing that people believe that God's morals reflect their own. They make The Bible mean what they want it to mean, thus you're never going to be able to argue against it unless you can get in their heads and point out internal inconsistencies... and that's assuming they're willing to change if shown an internal contradiction - hah!

Posted by: theophontes (θεός γαμώτο) | January 3, 2011 3:12 AM

@ Kel,OM #472/476 ; 'Tis #475

It would be interesting to see some real statistics.

Further to the above I have been googling around to see if I could put some numbers to the question of "conversion model" religious types. No luck in finding the original numbers. If you have contacts in Academia, you may be able to get hold of his thesis.

The following is an interesting statement from his company website: "Know your customer – a convertible customer is 10 to 20 times more likely to defect than an entrenched customer."

Let me transcribe that into our language: Know your godbotherer – a convertible godbotherer is 10 to 20 times more likely to defect than an entrenched godbotherer.

Any wonder that it is so difficult to argue against the entrenched christians? You really must identify and target the less batty sufferers or you are on to a wild goose chase.

As scientists we should be embarrassed. Here we have a christian who used hard science in the service of a totem sky god and got rich for his efforts! Time to start focusing on efficiency. Identify, catch and inoculate them before they become hysterically committed to their BS and start biting other people. We need to develop the methodologies of a memetic epidemiology and apply them.

On a less preachy note - some more stats to outline the extent of the problem (using his methodologies): Europeans find religion "more important" than politics in their lives!

Religion (not important = 46% : important = 53%) vs Politics (not important = 58% : important = 41%)

I'll post if I hit paydirt.

Posted by: marksman | January 17, 2011 10:44 PM

These are great guidelines for Bible believing Christians to debate Evolutionists as well. "Historical Science" is not "true science" (e.g. repeatable tests against theories), but Evolutionists will not believe otherwise that it isn't. It's the same as a belief system. Especially the ones that flat out state that the theory of evolution is on longer a theory, but a fact.

Posted by: Kel, The Privileged View From Nowhere | January 17, 2011 11:08 PM

Especially the ones that flat out state that the theory of evolution is on longer a theory, but a fact.

Scientists most often use the word "fact" to describe an observation. But scientists can also use fact to mean something that has been tested or observed so many times that there is no longer a compelling reason to keep testing or looking for examples. The occurrence of evolution in this sense is fact. Scientists no longer question whether descent with modification occurred because the evidence is so strong.

Posted by: Kel, The Privileged View From Nowhere | January 17, 2011 11:13 PM

marksman

Explain why a historical science isn't a true science. Are you saying the radiometric dating for a stratum of rock isn't replicable? If not, then why do multiple tests on the same rock in different labs reach the same result?

Posted by: tresmal | January 17, 2011 11:17 PM

Sorry Marksman, but you missed. First, as Nerd pointed out, the word theory does not mean what you think it means. Second, Evolution is tested constantly. It makes predictions about future fossil discoveries that are borne out, it does the same for genomics, developmental biology and systematics. It has been doing so for 150 years. Successfully. Third, it is supported by an enormous range of evidence in genetics, anatomy, developmental biology, taxonomy and of course the fossil record. It is also a perfect fit with what geologists working independently have discovered about the history of the Earth. Which means that it's also supported by some pretty basic and well established physics and chemistry. Fourth it is observed in real time in both the lab and in nature.