Pharyngula

Posted by: QuestionAuthority | May 24, 2011 8:53 AM

The fact that so many people in this day and age believed him and gave him their money is profoundly disquieting to me. When people are that easily misled, really bad things can happen on a global scale.

Posted by: Beatrice, anormalement indécente | May 24, 2011 9:00 AM

In my country, papers joked about the end of the world and mocked Camping. I haven't spoken with any "true Christians", but from the comments on most of those articles it was clear that the apocalypse happening now is a joke. Apocalypse happening eventually, according to that Matthew quote that shall not be mentioned... not a joke.

It really is sad how people can on one hand use reason and logic when it suits them, but turn a blind eye on something that is exactly as crazy.

Posted by: StarScream | May 24, 2011 9:01 AM

I've always thought it a wee bit curious that Jesus--who supposedly shares omnipotence and omniscience and all that jazz with "God the Father"--doesn't know something according to Matthew 24:36.

Could it be that the gospel writers didn't quite have a consistent theology figured out yet when they were writing their largely fictional books?

Posted by: bananacat | May 24, 2011 9:02 AM

Isn't it obvious? God was so excited about the new Lady Gaga album that he completely derped on the Rapture thing.

Seriously though, I'm not surprised that people are still following Camping. It's how human psychology works. The more we have invested in an idea, the more mental energy we will put in to stick with it. It's the reason why I'm tempted to keep throwing thousands of dollars in to keep my crappy car running, because I've already put thousands of dollars into it. I'll probably end up just getting a new car, but there's definitely an urge to try to make my current one keep working simply because I've invested so much into it. I think it's called the endowment effect.

I have hope for the followers who were only minimally invested in this idea, but the hardcore followers will do anything to avoid admitting they made a mistake.

Posted by: mxh | May 24, 2011 9:07 AM

With so much stupidity in the world, I sometimes feel stupid for not taking advantage of them. I'm all for education, but when people actively ignore facts and shun education, they're asking to be taken advantage of.

Posted by: https://me.yahoo.com/hairychris444#96384 | May 24, 2011 9:10 AM

Well, having posted a podcast with an interview with these tards on a certain popular social website, I mainly got chortles (the interviewee is 100% on date, time, plus certainty) but one person referenced Acts. I facepalmed but didn't say anything as she's a mate's wife...!

Posted by: Ben Goren | May 24, 2011 9:12 AM

If somebody's gonna quote Matthew in the context of prophecies of the Rupture, the only relevant verses are Matthew 16:27-28. Even the nutjob who penned that bit of fanfic was a ``REPENT OR DOOM NOW!'' fundagellical. And, yes, this is the Jesus character quoted as saying Teh End will come Real Soon Now -- and right after the whole ``Peter! You rock! Now grab my behind!'' schtick, to boot. You know? The one the Poop cites as the basis of his authority?

Camping's problem isn't that he put a date to the Rupture. It's that he bought, hook line and sinker, into the notion of the Rupture in the first place. But it's hardly surprising; not a single generation of Christians has been without a prominent ``We're domed!'' faction, for the exact same reason that there've always been anti-Semitic Christians. It's built into the very fabric of the fantasy; how could you expect any less?

Cheers,

b&

Posted by: sue.welsh | May 24, 2011 9:15 AM

Good writing. As I get older and see the damage done by religion to individuals and to the world, I get angrier. I used to passively stand by while people I knew wrecked their lives with religion. (Admittedly, they would probably have done as good a job without religion, but that's another story.)

The Great Disappointment of 2011 could be a laughing matter, but it shows how gullible many people are. Not for nothing are they called "sheep" and "flocks".

Posted by: Beriaal | May 24, 2011 9:19 AM

Reminds me of DarkMatter2525 last video. It's great. Maybe you could add a link.

Posted by: oihorse | May 24, 2011 9:20 AM

@googlemess #16

Mirror, mirror on the wall... Gnu Atheists and Pharyngulians are better than everyone else. They are the true elite of the world, compared to Xians etc.

Just better than you, cupcake.

Posted by: Kobra | May 24, 2011 9:27 AM

I like it when people piss you off, PZ. It makes for some of your best writing.

Posted by: Cuttlefish, OM, CR | May 24, 2011 9:29 AM

There is good news, and you can blame it on the atheists.

Time was, the various religions would point and laugh at one another; if Camping was wrong, it's because he was a false prophet--the implication being, there are true ones. Tribal definitions were religious; this sect, that cult, this faith, that pathway to enlightenment. The one law they all agreed upon was "I'm right, everybody else is wrong".

Then came atheists. Unwillingly, perhaps. Defined by what they are not, importantly. There had been heathens, infidels, goyim, kaffir, yadda yadda yadda, each group naming a "not us" that included believers in the wrong god or gods. Now, there were "none of the above" atheists. This is more than simply "one fewer god than you", this is a new dichotomy. Because with atheists, we suddenly had a meaningful term "theists".

"Theists" are no more a monolithic group than are atheists. Theists are doubly negatively defined--they are not atheists, and atheists are not christians, muslims, hindus, jews, (or more, or the myriad subsets of these umbrella categories). There is no reason at all to put Camping and the pope into the same category, but thanks to atheists, they are both theists, and the events of last week tarred them both with the same brush.

Thanks to atheists (and no, it is nothing necessarily active on our parts, simply our existing), the church on the corner is in the same category as Bin Laden. The temple up the block is in the same category as Camping. The synagogue has to worry about child-molesting priests.

We've seen it with atheists-- "the gnus are giving atheism a bad name", followed by "there are no atheist leaders, so what X says has nothing to do with me". True, and so what? The same is true of theists now, and their numbers are starting to shake. And, frankly, there's nothing the gnus are doing that can compare to Camping, Bin Laden, or Hullerman.

Before the recognition of atheism, PZ would not have been able to say "they're demented fuckwits, every one...", because they were not a natural group. They were opposing factions, rather than facets of the same polished turd.

So... if Harold Camping did not exist, atheists would be tempted to invent him. He has, for his 15 minutes, been the face of religion worldwide. And that face is the face of a clown.

Posted by: A. Vonidas | May 24, 2011 9:33 AM

[...] the apocalypse happening now is a joke. Apocalypse happening eventually, according to that Matthew quote that shall not be mentioned... not a joke.

I'm not Christian, or any kind of theist, but honestly this is fairly easy to explain, historically and psychologically.

First of all, for the early Christians, who expected the End Times to come soon (but on an unspecified date), the prevailing mentality would be to be ready for the End at any given time. In other words, to be "good Christians" - regardless of whether or not we would call such a person good or moral. Obviously, the Church would benefit from such a mentality. To a lesser extent, christian society would benefit, since believers could go about their everyday lives without mass hysteria breaking out.

Unfortunately, there would appear now and then some maverick preachers, soothsayers and "prophets" who would yield to the temptation of starting their own little cult and going for the grand prize in the here and now. (Some of those cults weren't that little, by the way. Besides, the Church itself started off as a cult).

Now, I think the trick works particularly well on people who are not that "good" Christians (by the Church's standards). Why? Well, by analogy, it is the mediocre students who dread surprise exams, and try desperately to predict them - good students are confident they can pass any exam, any time.

What I find particularly intriguing is this: consider the viewpoint of the teacher (i.e., God). He(She? It?) uses surprise exams as a means to keep his students alert, and expects them to study hard. He probably thinks of wise arses, who try to "beat the system", even less than of slackers who at least have accepted the consequences of their inadequate efforts.

Therefore, from the christian viewpoint, shouldn't there be a special Hell reserved for End Times numerologists?

Posted by: Data Venia | May 24, 2011 9:35 AM

but at least they get to know they're better than everyone else. And that's the real lesson here: it's all about elitism

Mirror, mirror on the wall... Gnu Atheists and Pharyngulians are better than everyone else. They are the true elite of the world, compared to Xians etc.

Logic FAIL.

It doesn't take elitism on our part to point out that someone else is exhibiting the trait. Perhaps you also think you have to be an idiot to point out that someone else is being one.

Posted by: Sastra | May 24, 2011 9:37 AM

Amen.

I found it very strange that Christians seemed to think that Camping and his 'false prophesy' helps to highlight how reasonable other Christians are. They also seemed to think this is an issue on which atheists and Christians could agree: extremism is bad, isn't it?

It's like someone telling you that his neighbor put out a trap to catch leprechauns, laughing with you for a bit, shaking their head, and then saying "What a moron! It says right there in the Brothers Grimm that leprechauns can't be caught." Suddenly, you realize that no, you're not on the same wavelength. There's not much to choose between the guy who's trying to catch a leprechaun, and the guy who thinks that's silly because leprechauns are too tricky.

googlemess #16 wrote:

Mirror, mirror on the wall... Gnu Atheists and Pharyngulians are better than everyone else. They are the true elite of the world, compared to Xians etc.

No, you're missing the important difference. We atheists are arguing that we're correct not because we're better, but because the facts, evidence, and reasoning back our position up. Christians are empirically wrong -- and could and should change their minds.

People of faith, on the other hand, believe that truths of faith aren't arrived at through a careful process of reasoning, but through a leap of hope and trust. They arrived at the right answer because they were the right kind of people -- humble, loving, seeking God. Atheists apparently get it wrong not because we simply reasoned incorrectly, but we reason incorrectly due to moral defects of character. In their view, the only way an atheist can change their mind is by changing their heart.

That's a crucial distinction. It shifts mistakes from being the result of reasoning errors to arising from character defects. And that divides humanity on a moral hierarchy.

Posted by: Anubis Bloodsin the third | May 24, 2011 9:39 AM

Camping...

“I’m not a genius,” he said

Really?

“I pray all the time for wisdom.”

T'aint working sherlock!

Got to agree with PZ

They're demented fuckwits, every one, and the big lie rests right on the fundamental beliefs of supernaturalism and deities, not on the ephemera of one crank's bizarre interpretations.

And every bunny that farts even the mildest of theist claptrap are in many ways far more guilty then a deranged babbling old fucktard with global assassination as a wet dream!

Their combined delusion poisons the atmosphere to a toxicity that chokes the very life out of rationality and reality.
And the ensuing putrescent miasma acts as a feculent legal barrier to allow any barking numbnut to cower behind jeebus droolers with any agenda involving scam, offering a very comfy niche indeed in the society they prey on.

An escorted to the 'dark forrest' and banishment forever and a day seems 'to balanced', let their invisible 'fwend' take care of them.
Without the benefits of a secular society, let 'em hang themselves with their own cretinous dogma, and let them take the brain dead enablers, supporters and sycophantic clowns with them.

Posted by: Denis Robert | May 24, 2011 9:40 AM

There's only ever a single Bible verse which deserves quoting:

Matt 6:5-6:

"""
And when thou prayest, thou shalt not be as the hypocrites are: for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and in the corners of the streets, that they may be seen of men. Verily I say unto you, They have their reward.

But thou, when thou prayest, enter into thy closet, and when thou hast shut thy door, pray to thy Father which is in secret; and thy Father which seeth in secret shall reward thee openly.
"""

In short: leave me the F*** alone with your religious babble!

Posted by: erlendaakre | May 24, 2011 9:41 AM

Who can blame them, Revelations starts by saying "what must soon take place".. After almost 2000 years it's no wonder these morons are getting antsy about the whole apocalypse thing.

Posted by: nigelTheBold, Minister of Spankings | May 24, 2011 9:43 AM

james.goetz:

PZ, I gather that you like to say hateful words to Bible believing Christians. But you could do better than this sweeping generalization.

How is calling superstition "superstition" hateful? It might be hurtful, but the truth often hurts.

Posted by: Darreth | May 24, 2011 9:49 AM

Please correct the typo below:

"...it's vagued, confused, ambiguous, and contradictory..."

vagued --> vague

Thank you,

The Grammar Police

Posted by: raven | May 24, 2011 9:51 AM

Dumb troll:

PZ, I gather that you like to say hateful words to Bible believing Christians.

Naw. It is just the truth.

It's not our fault if the truth about xianity is ugly.

Run along now troll. Don't you have a society to destroy to make room for your New Dark Age?

Posted by: AJ Milne OM | May 24, 2011 9:52 AM

... Just better than you, cupcake.

Yeah. Which, I'm afraid, seriously, isn't so much an achievement.

... 'tis the very trouble with religions in general. They do tend to lead one to set the bar so very, very, very low.

Anyway, and sorta more seriously, it does strike me a little confusing calling it 'elitism' exactly, too, but then, sure, I guess, psychologically, it's the same game. We're the elect, we're gonna show yew, y'all...

It's just such a flexible word. As those most guilty of it in the worlds I've known would probably call themselves profoundly 'anti-elite'. As their in-group sees itself as the suffering salt of the earth, at war with them dang secular overlords...

Not so much on point, mind you, as--and as someone else pointed out somewhere in the threads--Christians, particularly, do seem fond quite of and quite flexible about seeing themselves as martyrs. Quite regardless of their actual circumstances*.

Anyway, either way, the general psychology does kinda fit with something one of the guests on that Current program I mentioned the other day said...

He said essentially that this is probably a bit of that opium of the people thing happening (my phrasing). One Eric Chaline, a sociology PhD, said, generally, much of the appeal is probably to those who don't have or figure they don't have such a great deal in the current world, figuring blowing the whole thing to bits really is no great loss, and rather likely to better their lot, even. Verbatim:

People who feel disenfranchised for some reason because they're politically impotent or they're poor or for personal reasons... I think they are attracted to the idea that the world will be completely destroyed or remade and in one way or another they'll be saved. Or they will become the elect or whatever or they will run the future world. So I think for a lot of people that's probably an important aspect of it.

Does make sense, I guess. If you figure or you've been convinced your deal in this world sucks, and there's a guy standing there saying the King Of Everything loves ya and is gonna put you up in a heavenly mansion--oh, and also, he's gonna nuke everyone else, too, who you figure's got it better now first, possibly put you up on a pedestal from which you may gloat over their misfortune--well...

... well, sure, I guess there'd be some appeal.

Kinda an ugly picture all 'round tho', when you think about it even halfway hard. As, of course, (a) said movie hero isn't coming anyway, and (b) said disenfranchised wind up wounding themselves economically further still giving their cash to a fruitcake...

Not to mention, if you'll pardon a little finger wagging, that it really seems a pretty fucking toxic coping strategy to me...

Sure, sure, easy for a relatively privileged, pampered westerner to say, I guess. But seriously, think even beyond the fact this schtick is pure bullshit in terms of what it's actually going to do for your real world lot, and think toward what it encourages in people.

As, sure, sure, there's all this chin music about 'praying for people', how you're not supposed to want this to happen to anyone...

... but oh, the whole of the world is so sinful against what you are, and here's this alleged role model, at the pinnacle of existence, the king of all kings, the authority figure to trump all authority figures, who's going to demonstrate what you do to those who just won't listen, and, generally, this involves rather extensive--even eternal--physical torture...

... somehow, you consider this, it doesn't surprise me so much that--and as anyone who's spent any time talking to those who like to make noise on the web at least may have noticed--this lot rather can be a smug, vengeful lot.

Ah, for their god is coming to wreak his revenge up on you. You made fun of them, well you'll see, you bastard. Vengeance is his 'n all, but there's nothing sayin' we don't get to watch.

Poisonous, really, at the end of the day. One more sick, sick thing about this 'religion of love'. Were it a drug, it would be on schedule one: marked appropriately as of uncertain and unknown benefit, and having a high potential for abuse.

Segment's at this link if anyone's looking. Bonus material in the same segment: he also talks a bit about some other predictions infamous predictions, from Joseph Smith, Charles Taze-Russell, and, of course, the classic from the new testament itself. He also talks about N*str*d*m*s at an appropriately comic level, references Randi's pointing out said fraud's plagiarism, so on.

(*/As, let's remember, all of this aside: a lot of those imagining themselves so persecuted, and so wanting their god to smite the meanies what hold them down, in global terms, probably aren't exactly genuinely the lowest of the suffering and trod-upon, ultimately, either.)

Posted by: james.goetz | May 24, 2011 9:52 AM

"How is calling superstition 'superstition' hateful?"

I never suggested that.

Posted by: Quodlibet | May 24, 2011 9:53 AM

PZ: "...the poison of religion that twists minds away from reality..."

A gem of a phrase from an excellent essay.

====

Raven @ #30, re: atheists being better: Don't forget the better sex. :-) http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2011/05/this_has_to_be_our_new_selling.php

====

oihorse @ #32:

I predict at least 3 accommodationist feinting spells

It's great how our typos sometimes create such funny mental images. :-)

Posted by: uberd00b | May 24, 2011 9:55 AM

Well false prophecy goes all the way back to Jesus' "some of you standing here..." So at least it has pedigree.

Posted by: Sastra | May 24, 2011 9:58 AM

They're demented fuckwits, every one, and the big lie rests right on the fundamental beliefs of supernaturalism and deities, not on the ephemera of one crank's bizarre interpretations.

Agree -- but I would modify that to "When it comes to religion, they're demented fuckwits, every one ..."

Not because it's nicer, but because it's more accurate and closer to what is really meant. Gnu atheism is inspired not just by passion, but by the clarity of the scientific approach.

Of course, the statement is also obviously meant to be hyperbole and exaggeration -- people who miss or ignore that are being a bit fuckwitted themselves. Which is a fair point.

Comes down to preference, then. The rant is better writing without the cautious little qualification, no doubt. But it's not always a bad idea to sacrifice style for the substance.

Posted by: Celtic_Evolution | May 24, 2011 9:59 AM

Mirror, mirror on the wall... Gnu Atheists and Pharyngulians are better than everyone else. They are the true elite of the world, compared to Xians etc.

Pointing out reality doesn't make us better than everyone else. Just those that choose to ignore it.

Am I supposed to feel bad about that? I take no comfort in ignorance, and have no patience for those that do.

Posted by: james.goetz | May 24, 2011 10:01 AM

PZ, Do claim to be anything but an ignorant hatemonger?

Posted by: DaveL | May 24, 2011 10:05 AM

This has been driving me crazy since Camping started really garnering media attention. Imagine if some guy started telling everyone how his dog told him the world was going to end on such-and-such a date. Think of how bizarre it would be for the media to give this lunatic a soapbox form which to speak.

Now try to imagine other people being given space in the media to sagely chime in about how they know this individual's cat, and he says the dog has a screw loose...

Posted by: nigelTheBold, Minister of Spankings | May 24, 2011 10:08 AM

james.goetz:

Quick question: do you support same-sex marriage? If not, why not?

Posted by: Ing: PhD Trollologist | May 24, 2011 10:09 AM

1)

PZ, I gather that you like to say hateful words to Bible believing Christians.

I see that James Goetz is writing a book titled "CONDITIONAL FUTURISM: NEW PERSPECTIVE OF END-TIME PROPHECY."

Sweet jebus, but you are a fucking moron.
3)

PZ, Do claim to be anything but an ignorant hatemonger?

Holy crap one of them actually did it for a fuck up they themselves did!

Posted by: Sastra | May 24, 2011 10:11 AM

AJ Milne OM #45 wrote:

But seriously, think even beyond the fact this schtick is pure bullshit in terms of what it's actually going to do for your real world lot, and think toward what it encourages in people.

I was witness to an ecumenical "aren't our religious differences great" wankfest where the nice Jehovah's Witness told the others that she found it so interesting to hear them talk about how their love of God inspired them to become environmental activists, because it was of course her faith that none of that was necessary: soon Jesus would wipe the earth clean of all pollution.

It was interesting to watch the shocked faces try to settle into smiles of respect and approval. They apparently hadn't realized that hey, belief in a literal Armageddon has actual negative policy consequences. But it was more important to accept the good intentions, apparently, so my pointing this out was not appreciated.

Posted by: Data Venia | May 24, 2011 10:13 AM

Posted by: james.goetz

PZ, I gather that you like to say hateful words to Bible believing Christians. But you could do better than this sweeping generalization.

I doubt PZ really wants to spend his day pointing out how wrong and dangerous Christian dogma is. He'd probably prefer to use his time on other pursuits, just as I'm sure I'd prefer not to have to tell my kids to watch out when they cross the street lest they get run over by a car. His desires aside, the message still needs to be delivered.

What you fail to do is say in what way PZ was wrong in what he said. Could that be because there's nothing there you can show is wrong, and you simply don't like the truth that he presents? Your disagreement with his words doesn't make them "hateful."

Posted by: Ing: PhD Trollologist | May 24, 2011 10:16 AM

"Across the United States, atheists are gathering at Rapture parties to celebrate another day of life on this corrupted Earth. Their joy as Camping’s error is plain mean. While they knock back cheap imported beer and make-out in hot-tubs, thousands of evangelicals will be providing care and love to prisoners, homeless people, drug addicts and the poor. It is a noble calling worthy of a little tolerance."

That is very very true. What the FUCK does it have to do with evangelicals?

Posted by: Mr Spikey | May 24, 2011 10:17 AM

@chrisbloom7 #4:

One has to wonder WHY they went through the trouble of having someone redesign the site (clearly someone from the year 1999, but I digress) if the world was going to end?

I'm not surprised at all they redesigned the site.

I am quite surprised they took the time to remove all the "So you weren't Saved...how to avoid burning in hell for all eternity" links from the replacement site before putting it up.

Posted by: Jennifer T | May 24, 2011 10:21 AM

...they're never right, but they are great at rationalizing.

Irrationalizing, surely?

Posted by: Laffo | May 24, 2011 10:22 AM

He now claims that Jesus did arrive 'spiritually' on the 21st...

What the fuck does that even mean? Is it some kind of Christian code word, or do they literally think that Jesus is invisibly floating around the planet now doing, well....nothing? Fucking-A it's like these people just completely make shit up and then expect everyone else to swallow it all hook line and sinker without question...oh wait.

Posted by: raven | May 24, 2011 10:24 AM

Across the United States, atheists are gathering at Rapture parties to celebrate another day of life on this corrupted Earth.

News to me.

Since when is the earth "corrupted".

The earth may not be much but it is the only planet we have. And I rather like living on a planet with water, breathable air, sunsets, and a 1 g gravity field.

Compared to the other planets we know about, it is a very nice place to live.

Posted by: nigelTheBold, Minister of Spankings | May 24, 2011 10:27 AM

james.goetz:

Why do you ask this quick question in this thread?

Because if you'd answered the opposite way, I'd know something more about you. If you answered the way you did, I can point out that religious belief is detrimental to society, causes harmful behavior, and that speaking out against the regressive nature of religious belief is not hateful.

Certainly you can see that the religiously-motivated actions of well-funded churches across America have caused harm? And perhaps from that you might understand that people who are interested in the effects of an unsubstantiated -- and honestly irrational -- belief might stand against that belief?

Posted by: AJ Milne OM | May 24, 2011 10:28 AM

... It was interesting to watch the shocked faces try to settle into smiles of respect and approval. They apparently hadn't realized that hey, belief in a literal Armageddon has actual negative policy consequences. But it was more important to accept the good intentions, apparently, so my pointing this out was not appreciated.

Hee hee. Well, awesome that you were there to point it out, anyway. And did.

And ah, to be a fly on the wall. Please tell me you have video?

And more seriously: no, I guess it really isn't that funny, on reflection. Except as deeply black humour. As it's actually pretty seriously fucked up. And I get to thinking the negation of this really should be somewhere in some sorta atheist, rationalist or humanist creed, if it isn't already*:

That no, you don't get second chances. This world is it, and if you fuck it up, your descendants aren't going to be next to you on some cloud with some damned harp saying 'oh, hey, well, like we miss that place anyway...'

No, dear. They're going to be neck deep in the mess you left, cursing your fucking nihilistic name. Consider it your proud legacy.

(*/Actually, come to think of it, I'm pretty sure it is at least in one writer's prose, but the precise reference escapes me. Sounds a familiar sentiment, somehow, tho'.)

Posted by: myeckwaters | May 24, 2011 10:29 AM

raven #79:

Since when is the earth "corrupted".

Well obviously it was corrupted when Slartibartfast was assigned to do Africa instead of Norway.

Posted by: Ing: PhD Trollologist | May 24, 2011 10:32 AM

You know in fiction when someone starts to go on a speech about how the world is rotten or corrupted...typically they're about to do something that will really really fuck up the world more and torment people.

Posted by: james.goetz | May 24, 2011 10:35 AM

Nothing against anybody here, but the delay for posting on ScienceBlogs totally sucks.

Posted by: captnkurt | May 24, 2011 10:36 AM

PZ, Do claim to be anything but an ignorant hatemonger?

Hey James, you left the subject out of your sentence there, grammarmaster.

PZ, Do I claim to be anything but an ignorant hatemonger?

FTFY

Posted by: oihorse | May 24, 2011 10:40 AM

Nothing against anybody here, but the delay for posting on ScienceBlogs totally sucks.

Maybe that's the issue with the edit button. It never actually loads.

Posted by: deadly | May 24, 2011 10:44 AM

Maybe that's the issue with the edit button. It never actually loads.

There's an edit button? O_O

Posted by: TomZ, a Miasma of Incandescent Plasma | May 24, 2011 10:44 AM

THANK YOU THANK YOU PZ!

Finally, I hear said (er, "find typed") what I've been thinking when someone uses that quote or anything out of the bible, the same book that predicts the events Camping is saying will happen. Effectively, what's really happening can be paraphrased by the following conversation between Camping and a fictionalized "normal" believer (or whoever throws out that Matthew line in dispute of his claims)...

Camping

"A few religious people will be taken, body and all, with enough energy and force to achieve escape velocity, into the vacuum of space, and they'll all really enjoy that, and the g-forces won't flatten their skulls and space won't make them suffocate due to no atmosphere or freeze to death almost instantly. These people, along with already dead people that are taken into space too, will be taken with their material and physical bodies and brains and all to a place that we've argued can't be found with physical evidence."

Normal X-ian

"Yeah, ok, that seems reasonable."

Camping

"Oh, this will happen in October."

Normal X-ian

"WHAT?! OMGLOL, you're trying to put an exact date on it?!?! Now THAT'S crazy!!"

Posted by: Quodlibet | May 24, 2011 10:47 AM

Sastra @ #55:

...atheism is inspired not just by passion, but by the clarity of the scientific approach

QFT. "clarity" - I love that - it implies light, transparency, cleanliness.

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

boxmaker @ #68

...monitoring my large nestbox trail for threatened cavity nesters

Thank you for your work in this area. My heart breaks a little each time someone in my community cuts down an "ugly" old dead tree; it never occurs to them that they are destroying important habitat. One day a few years ago, on my daily birding outing in my local "patch," I watched one old dead tree - in just 30 minutes I counted 35 different species of birds...wow! I went back the next day to enjoy it again...it had been cut down. I wept over that. This spring there are NO kestrels in the areas where I have watched them nest year after year... This week I watched a female common merganser struggling to get into the opening on a large flagpole...not enough dead trees around. She finally gave up...hope she found a tree or a box. And of course, it's not just birds that suffer from lack of nest cavities. Sigh.

Posted by: kaltrop | May 24, 2011 10:51 AM

The joke is you guys. There are no Christians spouting the vitriol that you guys do. We are not mad, we knew it was garbage when Camping first started saying this. But wow you guys are really mad aren't you? You are so funny and the Bible calls you fools.

You say we just make stuff up but then you make up your own myth about the big bang. (Yeah first there was nothing...then it exploded!) Then you just throw some math at it that none of you understand and the rest of you atheist lemmings just follow your own false prophets into the sea. When someone disagrees with you, you curse and make ad hominem attacks so you don't have to hear their side.

You are never going to shut us up. We will always be there, preaching to your sons, your daughters, your wives, your sisters and your brothers. The Roman empire threw us in the arena, and set us on fire to light up the roads. Do you think you are going to shut us up, little men, with these oh so impotent little angry blogs of yours?

All your hatred will be returned to you as love from us.

"For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life." Yeah that is so offensive.

I can just see the veins in your angry heads popping out. Be careful. Stress will kill you. Given your final destination, I would think you'd want to live as long as you can.

I have one thing to say about your science religion: Thalidomide.

Posted by: Quodlibet | May 24, 2011 10:52 AM

do they literally think that Jesus is invisibly floating around the planet now doing, well....nothing?

He's here in the hot tub, drinking beer.

Posted by: raven | May 24, 2011 10:55 AM

Goetz namecalling some more:

PZ, Do you claim to be anything but an ignorant hatemonger?

Dumb troll can only name call. Boring.

Who are the leading hate mongers in our society are the fundie death cult xians like Goetz.

Fundie xianity is based on pure, raw hate. They use it for ingroup outgroup tribal identification, organizational purposes, and a motivator.

Fundie xianity can't exist without their main sacrament, hate. We see it every day. Hate the gays, atheists, nonwhites, scientists, science, Moslems, other xians, Democrats, other religions, and when they run out of targets, they hate each other.

H.L. Mencken. "Evangelical Christianity, as everyone knows, is founded upon hate, as the Christianity of Christ was founded upon love"

This was noticed a century ago. It's been frequently noticed ever since. Bishop JS Spong comments often on it.

I'm sure Goetz can easily relate to hate. He probably spends hours every morning trying to figure out which group to hate that day. So many people to hate, so little time. This morning it must be PZ Myers and the atheists.

Posted by: Beatrice, anormalement indécente | May 24, 2011 10:56 AM

...and the rest of you atheist lemmings just follow your own false prophets into the sea.

The things I experience on Pharyngula.

Posted by: Ing: PhD Trollologist | May 24, 2011 10:57 AM

The joke is you guys. There are no Christians spouting the vitriol that you guys do

Seriously, are you HIGH? have you not listened to Christian radio or TV?

Also you do know that lemmings do not commit suicide like that right?

Posted by: arachobia | May 24, 2011 10:59 AM

October!

I had a bet that the back-up date would be in September.

Dammit.

Posted by: Ing: PhD Trollologist | May 24, 2011 11:01 AM

All your hatred will be returned to you as love from us.

"For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life." Yeah that is so offensive.

I can just see the veins in your angry heads popping out. Be careful. Stress will kill you. Given your final destination, I would think you'd want to live as long as you can.

This baffles me how someone can call this hand clapping delight at the image of someone upset and then being tortured in a grotesque demonic orgy "Love".

Posted by: grudgedk | May 24, 2011 11:02 AM

"I’m not a genius. I pray all the time for wisdom." - Harold Camping. And that statement should tell you everything you need to know about the value and effectiveness of prayer.

When people are that easily misled, really bad things can happen on a global scale.

Posted by: AJ Milne OM | May 24, 2011 11:03 AM

... Too clean to be a troll.

Damn you. Prolly true, now you mention it.

Still, you can find 'em. With authentic punctuation. I swear. Jes' check FSTDT.

(/Shorter: 'the wanks are out there'.)

Posted by: Data Venia | May 24, 2011 11:04 AM

kaltrop, Cupcake, you might want to pull out the Windex and some towels and wipe the spittle off your face and keyboard.

Posted by: raven | May 24, 2011 11:05 AM

kaltrop the troll lying:

There are no Christians spouting the vitriol that you guys do.

Oh really? What a stupid lie.

Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O'Connor: Atheism is Greatest of EvilsJun 1, 2009 ... Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O'Connor:

Atheism is Greatest of Evils ... To blame atheism as the "greatest of evils" even as it's just been ...

Cardinal Cormac Murphy
Atheists 'not fully human', says Cardinal Cormac Murphy O'Connor. By BBC RADIO Added: Wed, 13 May 2009 23:00:00 UTC.

Cardinal Cormac called atheism the greatest of evils and responsible for all the wars in history. He also said they weren't fully human.

Cardinal Cormac is also up to his pointy hat in the Catholic child sex abuse scandals.

All the xians can do is hate and lie. And that is why the religion is dying and who will miss it?

Posted by: InfraredEyes | May 24, 2011 11:10 AM

I have one thing to say about your science religion: Thalidomide.

OK, let's talk about thalidomide for a moment. Thalidomide was fairly widely used in the UK in the 1950s/early 60s, resulting in several thousand births of severely deformed children. The problem was very nearly completely avoided in the US; according to Wikipedia:

> The impact in the United States was minimized when pharmacologist and M.D. Frances Oldham Kelsey refused Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approval for an application from the Richardson-Merrell company to market thalidomide, saying further studies were needed.

A scientist working at a scientifically literate agency made a sound decision based on scientific reasoning. And your point was?

Posted by: Quodlibet | May 24, 2011 11:10 AM

nigelTheBold @ #120, well done, sir.

Posted by: Janine, The Little Top Of Venom, OM | May 24, 2011 11:11 AM

You say we just make stuff up but then you make up your own myth about the big bang. (Yeah first there was nothing...then it exploded!)

You should look into the background of the scientist who first proposed what became dubbed as the Big Bang.

Also, you are not even wrong about the conditions that formed the Big Bang.

Then you just throw some math at it that none of you understand and the rest of you atheist lemmings just follow your own false prophets into the sea.

Just because geometry and trigonometry is beyond your comprehension does not mean that no one understands the math. Though there is no many who do.

Also, the so called lemmings follow because the end results work.

I can just see the veins in your angry heads popping out. Be careful. Stress will kill you. Given your final destination, I would think you'd want to live as long as you can.

You are the one going off about how we will end up in hell and you whine that we have the vitriol?

(Checks the veins of my head. None are popping.)

How much work did you put into creating your persecution complex you are showing off?

(Unlike you, I am basing this on your words. You are talking about the imaginary atheist in your head.)

Posted by: TomZ, a Miasma of Incandescent Plasma | May 24, 2011 11:15 AM

Poe @101 There's so much to address, but I'll just pick on one line,

Be careful. Stress will kill you.

Yeah, you know how we know that?? Science. Physical evidence. Testing. Falsifiable hypothesis.

Religion's answer for thousands of years to what was really stress? "Witches"

You are typing on a computer, communicating your thoughts around the globe with a lasting impression, show more respect for the method (scientific) that allowed for the progress.

Tell you what, we'll give religion a 10,000 year head-start to give humanity explanations regarding natural phenomenon (earthquakes, tornadoes, etc...), expand the average life-span by 100%, understand what those stars in the sky are, and identify what makes a person sick and reliable means to cure many diseases.

Oh yeah, we already gave you that 10,000 year head start, and religion's answers are, in that order, "God's pissed, you pissed god off so no you die scum, stars are pretty lights for us humans, and witches, and cure the disease by burning/hanging witches (but it still never gets little Timmy feeling any better)."

Science gives us this knowledge, along with unnumerable amount of knowledge in other areas, and in about 5% of the time religion had.

Science wins, religion loses.

Posted by: raven | May 24, 2011 11:18 AM

Kaltrop making idle threats:

We will always be there, preaching to your sons, your daughters, your wives, your sisters and your brothers.

While you are babbling away like loons, your families and kids will quietly and not so quietly leave the religion and find better ways to spend their time.

That is just a fact. It is happening now every day.

According to the National Coucil of Churches yearbook for 2011, 1 1/2 million US people left the churches last year.

The few xians who can count and think know they have a problem.

Posted by: SallyStrange, Spawn of Cthulhu | May 24, 2011 11:21 AM

Ooh! A chew toy! Can I play with it, guys?

The joke is you guys. There are no Christians spouting the vitriol that you guys do.

Lie #1. Christians are regularly vitriolic, and they claim that their supernatural authority figure gives them the right to tell people that they are morally decrepit sinners based on nothing more than what they do with their naughty bits. If that’s not vitriol then I don’t know what is. I can offer scads of real-life examples if you’re interested. The harassment and ostracism of a high school senior who objected to being railroaded into participating into a Christian prayer at his high school graduation springs immediately to mind. That happened last week. I wonder how many lies you will work into your screed.

We are not mad,

we knew it was garbage when Camping first started saying this. But wow you guys are really mad aren't you?

I can’t tell how it is that you distinguish between Camping’s claims and other Christian claims. How do you know he’s wrong? What, just because he was wrong about the exact date of the apocalypse? The Wholly Babble has been wrong about a lot more than that, but it doesn’t seem to stop you.

You are so funny and the Bible calls you fools.

That wouldn’t be the first time the Babble was completely wrong about something. The Babble also says that the world was created in 7 days, that creating a new human being isn't honorable work, but a punishment for ancient sin, that slavery is totally legal as long as you don’t beat your slave too much, and that if you capture female prisoners of war, you should wait a while before raping them. I'm not worried about being called a fool by whoever wrote that tripe.

You say we just make stuff up but then you make up your own myth about the big bang. (Yeah first there was nothing...then it exploded!) Then you just throw some math at it that none of you understand and the rest of you atheist lemmings just follow your own false prophets into the sea. When someone disagrees with you, you curse and make ad hominem attacks so you don't have to hear their side.

Myths are not theories. Theories are not myths. If myths and prophets are so disreputable then why do you continue clinging to them? If myths and prophets are reputable, and a worthy source of information, then why do you attempt to insult science by accusing scientists of following myths and prophets? You seem confused.

You are never going to shut us up.

We will always be there, preaching to your sons, your daughters, your wives, your sisters and your brothers.

And my family are going to continue laughing in your face.

The Roman empire threw us in the arena, and set us on fire to light up the roads. Do you think you are going to shut us up, little men, with these oh so impotent little angry blogs of yours?

All your hatred will be returned to you as love from us.

That’s one of religion’s worst poisons: allowing people to convince themselves that hatred is love.

"For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life." Yeah that is so offensive.

The idea of eternal life after death is a comforting fantasy, which can be used and perverted by unscrupulous manipulators like Camping to convince people that it’s not worth investing their time and effort into making this world a better place to live in. So yes, it is offensive. Also, there’s no god or gods and there was probably no Jesus either, and if there were, he was certainly not a supernatural entity. Just another apocalyptic preacher who was perhaps a bit more savvy than Camping.

I can just see the veins in your angry heads popping out. Be careful. Stress will kill you. Given your final destination, I would think you'd want to live as long as you can.

Threats of eternal torture and punishment are useless when your audience knows full well that those threats are purely fictional. It does, however, reveal that you are a sadist and your claims of loving us are just lies.

I have one thing to say about your science religion: Thalidomide.

Thalidomide, that’s it? Weak. Couldn’t you have gone with the atomic bomb or something? Thalidomide was a mistake, for sure—which was then discovered and corrected, within a couple decades. Religion deliberately circumvents the correction of inaccurate and harmful information. How long did it take to convince Christians to disregard the parts of their holy book that condoned slavery? A few centuries? And they're still fighting for their right to treat LGBT people as second class citizens.

If it weren’t for science, we’d still be trying to cure disease by casting out the evil spirits.

Posted by: Pierce R. Butler | May 24, 2011 11:30 AM

DaveL @ # 61: Now try to imagine other people being given space in the media to sagely chime in about how they know this individual's cat, and he says the dog has a screw loose...

Uh, what's your point?

Cats always say that about dogs.

Posted by: james.goetz | May 24, 2011 11:31 AM

nigelTheBold, General Gadabout said, "Therefore, everything you believe about God (outside the bare and simple fact of his existence, which I will not really grant, but allow because it doesn't matter) is conjecture."

All conclusions are conjectures or do you claim to know anything that is not a conjecture?

Posted by: DLC | May 24, 2011 11:33 AM

And Cuttlefish @25 shows us why he's got that OM, CR after his name. Thanks for the well-written opinion.

Posted by: SallyStrange, Spawn of Cthulhu | May 24, 2011 11:36 AM

Yeah, the "love" part is baffling. They either don't understand the word, or have the same understanding as the abusive father who puts out cigarettes on his daughter's face does.

I totally agree. In fact I sometimes wonder if this whole religion thing wasn't started as a culture-wide respond to parental abuse of children. It's so abusive! "Yes, God is your heavenly father, and he will subject you to eternal torture if you slip up on any of his rather arbitrary rules, and he MIGHT forgive you your sins, but I can't tell you for sure if he will... but he loves you. He really, really loves you. You must believe that he loves you with all your heart, and if you can't find it in your heart to believe that then it's your own fault when he decides to subject you to eternal torture."

@ James Goetz:

All conclusions are conjectures or do you claim to know anything that is not a conjecture?

Sliding into solipsism, so quickly? What a pity, you were on the verge of participating in a genuine exchange of ideas. Well, not really, but it's nice to think so.

Posted by: DLC | May 24, 2011 11:37 AM

And to add irony, the top right border ad is for a Christian College, and contains the typical widow's peak haired ultra-squeaky clean preacher-man pic.

Posted by: Data Venia | May 24, 2011 11:44 AM

James the Troll wrote:

All conclusions are conjectures or do you claim to know anything that is not a conjecture?

So, what you present here is a deepity.

In the trivial sense, all conclusions are conjectures, because we can (arguably) never have complete information on any subject.

On the other hand, you imply that you can flatten a continuum of knowledge to where all beliefs, no matter what the belief, are equally supported by evidence and therefore equally reasonable to believe, since they're all just conjecture, don'tcha know! This is clearly false.

You are getting lamer and lamer.

When are you going to present a single logically valid and sound reason to believe in your religion or your god? Don't have one?

Posted by: GunboatDiplomat | May 24, 2011 11:49 AM

@ updoc101

"On October 21st, the date of the next rapture, I intend to purchase as many blow up sex dolls as I can, fill them with helium and at the appointed hour release them. "

Man stop making me spill my coffee!

Thats a really really good idea. Cna we start a fundraising campaign or something?

Posted by: https://me.yahoo.com/a/jHsAdlN82OxG8kznlM44nOzFXC3ATihM#c0bde | May 24, 2011 11:49 AM

PZ and Harold Camping are pretty much one in the same... both misleading large numbers of people.

Posted by: Akira MacKenzie | May 24, 2011 11:53 AM

@james.goetz

All conclusions are conjectures or do you claim to know anything that is not a conjecture?

So, by that rationale, the findings of physics that power and control the computer you're using to bang out you inane replies are nothing more than "conjecture?"

Are airplanes kept aloft by Brunulli's Principal or by magic? Why not? "All conclusions are conjecture..."

Posted by: KG | May 24, 2011 11:54 AM

All conclusions are conjectures or do you claim to know anything that is not a conjecture?

Yes. Logically necessary truths, for a start. One of these is that 7 is a prime number. Another is that doctrinally orthodox Christianity (doC) is false. The doctrine of the hypostatic union claims that Jesus was "wholly God and wholly man" or "true God and true man". However, "God", as defined by doC, has attributes (omnipotence, immateriality, etc.) which are incompatible with those of human beings. Therefore nothing can be "wholly God and wholly man" or "true God and true man". Therefore, doC is necessarily false.

Even beyond logically necessary truths, there are simple factual statements that it is absurdly pedantic to call conjectures. For example, I am quite certain that I am not an elephant. I am nearly as certain that you are not an elephant, that the sun is hot, that Paris is the capital of France. All these will be agreed to be true by anyone sane.

Even among claims that it is reasonable to call conjectures, we can distinguish testable and well-tested conjectures, of which there many in science (of course, not all scientific conjectures are of this kind), from the kind of pull-it-out-of-your-arse conjectures religious "thinkers" such as yourself deal in.

Posted by: azumahazuki | May 24, 2011 11:55 AM

It's so cute when they try to turn complicated words around and use them like weapons, isn't it? Or when they try to appropriate people like Einstein, Darwin, and Popper. Like a monkey playing with a nuke.

...okay, not cute at all then.

Posted by: Nerd of Redhead, OM | May 24, 2011 11:56 AM

All conclusions are conjectures

Posted by: Sastra | May 24, 2011 11:57 AM

azumahazuki #128 wrote:

Yeah, the "love" part is baffling. They either don't understand the word, or have the same understanding as the abusive father who puts out cigarettes on his daughter's face does.

[Worshipping God] is like fellating someone who intermittently stubs fags out on your head for no good reason. And we all know how unsatisfying that can be.
--Charlie Brooker,

Posted by: truthspeaker | May 24, 2011 11:58 AM

James, do you think it's a conjecture that the earth revolves around the sun?

Posted by: Quodlibet | May 24, 2011 12:00 PM

"Keep your hands by your ears. Your brain just might fall out of one of your ear canals."

LOL

Posted by: Howard | May 24, 2011 12:03 PM

It occurs to me, after lo these long years, christian eschatology, including the rapture, are effective terrorist tools to keep the "flock" in line and the coffers filled! During the last 2,000 years, christianity has perfected these tools of terror (like the threat of "passing the deadline" or the unpardonable sin if you don't give your last dollar to the church). It is incredibly effective in suppressing objective critical thinking and knowledge outside the churches' imposed epistemological bubble.
This is a fact and really pathetic!

Posted by: nigelTheBold, Minister of Spankings | May 24, 2011 12:04 PM

james.goetz:

So, another quick question:

Do you fight against creationists who try to remove evolution from education? Do you argue against those who use the Bible to fight against same-sex marriage? Do you fit the profile I described in #120?

Because that's what this thread is nominally about -- theists who chuckle at the absurdity of Harold Camping, but save for the date, believe the exact same shit. Theists who enable people like Camping to take money from gullible believers to the point of ruin, and excuse it all as being slightly misguided, but get all upset when atheists call out stupid dangerous shit as stupid dangerous shit.

Kind of like you're doing right now.

Posted by: First Approximation, L'esprit de l'escalier | May 24, 2011 12:06 PM

But it's unoriginal.

http://youtu.be/WDkN7L6r27s

Which itself was taken from this:
http://www.snopes.com/religion/rapture.asp

Posted by: Phere | May 24, 2011 12:07 PM

I was joking about the rapture last week in front of a new coworker. She got very serious and said "He (Camping) is nothing to laugh at." Then she went on to say "I HOPE the rapture doesn't happen Saturday, there are still too many people who don't know the Lord." What a buzzkill. I was enjoying myself before she got all haughty about it. We were getting ready to open for customers so I couldn't really go at her...but it's coming...oh yes...

Posted by: Sastra | May 24, 2011 12:10 PM

kaltrop #101 wrote:

Do you think you are going to shut us up, little men, with these oh so impotent little angry blogs of yours?

If your beliefs are not true, then reality is your enemy. So are honesty, clarity, consistency, and curiosity -- virtues which are structured into science, but notably lacking in "faith."

We don't want to shut you up. We want to drag your so-called evidence and arguments out from behind the knee-jerk sympathetic respect which has protected it and into the open light of public and scientific scrutiny. Game on.

Posted by: JakeJarmel | May 24, 2011 12:13 PM

I think you nailed this one, PZ. The only difference between the "real" Christians and Camping's gang is popularity. None of them have a shred of good evidence for their supernatural claims, which are all equally wrong. It's not surprising different Christians interpret different messages from the Bible. It's a compendium of more or less unrelated books all written by different people at different times and for different reasons. Given that, it can pretty much say anything you want it to say.

And considering the huge percentage of Americans that believe supernatural events can and do occur, what I find kind of ironic is the universal mocking of someone who claims such an event actually will happen, like the weirdest part of Camping's claim is that he was putting a date on the rapture, not the rapture itself. I know next to nothing about this stuff, but there must be some kind of psychological principle at work here. We believe in the apocalypse, but at the same time, don't think it's very likely to actually happen (or maybe we just don't want it to happen).

Posted by: Katherine Lorraine, Chaton de la Mort | May 24, 2011 12:16 PM

@james.goetz:

I know a good fifty Christians who would say you're not a real Christian because you don't condemn gay-marriage and don't believe in an inerrant Bible.

Posted by: https://me.yahoo.com/a/SaqGVG0xvJEQVwURVamS3DTCdvov0BLhXK1jOsYPPJQ-#b4893 | May 24, 2011 12:17 PM

To The Janine Is A Lonely Hunter, OM:

But we have done the same thing. I've seen it.

Example: The posting about tattoos. Hold on a second while I get the link:

http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2011/02/blasphemys_easy_everyone_must.php

That's pretty much the spirit in which I took the sign.

MikeM

Posted by: joed | May 24, 2011 12:17 PM

Goddamn, I am waiting for james.goetz to answer the question at #154.
nigelTheBold, General Gadabout asks the question of the ages. Will james.goetz answer in any manner.
this is going to be interesting!

Posted by: No One | May 24, 2011 12:19 PM

James Goetz & Kaltop

I see no evidence for the supernatural.

It's that simple. The "Big Bang scientists" cure disease, and land men on the moon.

Your idiotic meme wastes time, effort, and potential.

You are ridiculous until you stand in the way of true progress and knowledge.

Posted by: Katherine Lorraine, Chaton de la Mort | May 24, 2011 12:23 PM

@my 177:

Why yes, I did have a complete thought.

Addendum, it's good to know that some Christians can act human.

There, thank you brain for failing me.

Posted by: Is it fishing season yet? | May 24, 2011 12:23 PM

Perhaps #50 got it right when he said "

You have one old-ass bible! The "neither the son" line in Mat. 24:36 is only found in very old Greek manuscripts. Even the Vulgate elides the line."

Camping was reading the wrong babble! That's why his arithmetic was wrong.

OOOPS! The babble is supposed to be the inerrant and revealed word of Mr. Sky Fairy. How can there be more than 1 version, unless people tweeked the wording? Different bull, different pile of bullshit?

Posted by: nigelTheBold, Minister of Spankings | May 24, 2011 12:26 PM

Here. I know how to solve this little straw-man argument. Let me edit my original post at #120:

Therefore, everything you believe about God (outside the bare and simple fact of his existence, which I will not really grant, but allow because it doesn't matter) is conjecture made-up bullshit.

Posted by: Janine, The Little Top Of Venom, OM | May 24, 2011 12:28 PM

MikeM, that is a different scenario. A gay man was assaulted. Those responsible were arrested. A small rally was held in support of those arrested. The tattooed asshole was showing off that he was willing to embrace some scripture and ignore others. It was not a case of using scripture to disprove scripture. It was showing off how incoherent many christians are.

It was not an argument to use scripture to disprove scripture.

Posted by: Aquaria | May 24, 2011 12:34 PM

Moving the goal posts for $1000, Alex.

Typical Christard.

Posted by: nigelTheBold, Minister of Spankings | May 24, 2011 12:35 PM

AJ Milne:

Conjecture! It could be! O, ye sinful doubters. This could be God talking here! For shame!

And all that because I was trying to be, you know, respectful and shit. And not call his bullshit beliefs bullshit, right there in the middle of everything.

See, folks: that's what you get when you treat these bullshit beliefs with undue respect. You get theists who will focus on the respect in an attempt to twist it to their advantage, rather than address the guts of your argument.

Posted by: oihorse | May 24, 2011 12:39 PM

I'll first clarify that this is not science but metaphysics. Anyway, compelling evidence of a multiverse containing an infinite number of verses (quasi-universes) with initial conditions similar to the observed universe would falsify the proposed necessity for a creator of the spacetime continuum.

Wrong.

Bible says God created all things. Therefore he's quite capable of creating the multiverse.

Reading comprehension ftw.

Posted by: truthspeaker | May 24, 2011 12:40 PM

We not talking about a creator of the spacetime continuum, we're talking about the God described in the Christian Bible, which is alleged to have specific properties and characteristics.

Posted by: Sastra | May 24, 2011 12:43 PM

AJ Milne OM #188 wrote:

That's really all they've fucking got. Yes, they really will try to imply you can elevate a completely bugfuck nuts 'conjecture' to the level of conclusions driven by, y'know, actual evidence by just pointing out there's technically an irreducible epistemological uncertainty in everything ultimately based on anything empirical, and implying everything, whichever ass it was pulled out of, is thus all on the same level.

Unless they're a presuppositionalist: then they will argue assert that no, that's what YOU have to think, because the only way to rescue the concept of truth from being leveled to indistinguishable epistemic mush is through the grace of God's innate quality and divine gift of Certainty.

Posted by: james.goetz | May 24, 2011 12:45 PM

@oihorse #197
"Wrong.

Bible says God created all things. Therefore he's quite capable of creating the multiverse."

Good point. I need to clarify: Compelling evidence of a multiverse with no beginning of time and an infinite number of verses (quasi-universes) with initial conditions similar to the observed universe would falsify the proposed necessity for a creator of the spacetime continuum.

Posted by: dinkum | May 24, 2011 12:50 PM

Good thing you don't hold your god to those standards of evidence, James. He'd be utterly fucked.

Posted by: azumahazuki | May 24, 2011 12:51 PM

@203

Wrong again. It says nothing as to what made that universe. You have a rather personalist and temporal view of God. In Catholicism he's seen as outside and orthogonal to all spacetime, so he can see everything "at once."

Also, if you'd like a hypothesis, Lee Smolin's idea of a spawning evolving multiverse that optimizes black hole production is worth a look into :)

Posted by: KG | May 24, 2011 12:52 PM

Anyway, compelling evidence of a multiverse containing an infinite number of verses (quasi-universes) with initial conditions similar to the observed universe would falsify the proposed necessity for a creator of the spacetime continuum. - james.goetz

We really do have a class A bullshitter here, folks.

1)What "proposed necessity for a creator of the spacetime continuum"? What sort of "necessity" is this? (It can't be logical necessity, as a logical necessity can't be falsified.) On what grounds is this "proposed necessity" proposed?

2) Falsifying the "proposed necessity for a creator of the spacetime continuum" would not falsify the existence of anything, unless you can first show that without that proposed necessity, nothing reasonably describable as "God" could exist.

Posted by: Sastra | May 24, 2011 12:52 PM

james.goetz #192 wrote:

Anyway, compelling evidence of a multiverse containing an infinite number of verses (quasi-universes) with initial conditions similar to the observed universe would falsify the proposed necessity for a creator of the spacetime continuum.

I think the hypothesis breaks down regardless. There's the more basic problem of forming some sort of model of the 'creator' and its methods.

Question: if God doesn't really exist, do you think this poses a serious problem for Christian theology? The Christian religion? Or would both systems remain pretty much unaffected?

Posted by: truthspeaker | May 24, 2011 12:53 PM

Leaving aside the ridiculousness of the "proposed necessity" for a creator, that's still not the God you have alleged to exist. We're talking about the Christian God, who inspired the Bible and appeared in human form on earth and who, apparently, wants obedience from humans.

Posted by: InfraredEyes | May 24, 2011 1:01 PM

Question: if God doesn't really exist, do you think this poses a serious problem for Christian theology? The Christian religion? Or would both systems remain pretty much unaffected?

Well, it hasn't exactly cramped their style for the last few hundred years has it?

Posted by: Janine, The Little Top Of Venom, OM | May 24, 2011 1:05 PM

MikeM, in the comments, I provided a link.

Posted by: hje | May 24, 2011 1:10 PM

The obvious failure of Jesus' apocalyptic prophesies was already a problem in the first century. Paul had to deal with it with a few decades of Jesus' death (including the passage that was twisted into the just-so rapture story of dispensationalism). And a few decades later, the epic fail-ness of the simple declarations that Jesus had made were even more apparent, so the early Christian evangelists tried to immunize themselves against critics by saying that questioning the second coming was proof that there was an imminent second coming. And then the decades turned into centuries, and centuries into millennia.

The dispensationalists who smugly label Camping a heretic will face their own undoing in the next few decades when all of their deliberately vague prophesies of an imminent end fall flat, and they will end up offering the same bizarre rationalizations as Camping is doing now. From Hal Lindsay onward they've tried to tie their interpretations to the birth of Israel as a nation, and every single extrapolation to a date has failed. Though it hasn't kept LaHaye and Jenkins from making millions off this fairytale from the gullible.

And the same could be said for the technological singularity prophets.

Posted by: Aquaria | May 24, 2011 1:19 PM

There are no Christians spouting the vitriol that you guys do.

Why don't you ask the family of abortions doctors who have been murdered by Christards? Do you suppose the Christards just imagined all that hate toward the doctors--or do you think your shamans and other bleaters of piety haven't had something to do with that?

Why don't you ask the children murdered for being witches in Africa--because their family and friends really do believe your deluded pile of shit book that says demons and witches are real?

Why don't you ask the nation of Uganda about why it's contemplating employing the death penalty for homosexuals. Oh, it has nothing to do with the hate of Christards spreading lies about homosexuals and homosexuality! Nothing at all, right?

How about those odious scumbags, Pat Robertson, Jerry Falwell, Kennedy, Hinn, and all the rest of the fat-ass white men with no brains or morals (AKA Christards) blaming things like 9/11, or any disaster or noxious event ,on feminists, homosexuals, abortion, atheists, and so on (and on and on)? If they said it about Jews, they'd never be on TV again! At least overstepping the bounds of humanity in the Holocaust taught the Christards that maybe they better tone down the anti-Semitism. Too bad you Christards had to face a world appalled at your willful murder of 6 million people to get the fucking hint about that.

How about the bullying fuck stains in Bastrop, LA, forcing their delusion on people who didn't want it and that is in violation of the fucking Constitution, and then throwing a kid out of his home, his community, for daring to point out what was right to them? Oh--how could we forget? Right doesn't matter nor does what anyone else or the law thinks--if it's for GAWD, that's all that matters to you disgusting hatemongers.

How about the atheists who have been treated viciously in America, up to and including murder? Google Arthur Shelton + Murder + atheist. I don't do the homework for scumbag Christard haters like you. Look it up yourselves.

Do we need to go in the time machine and take a look at just how horrible Christardery has been for the world? Because you know that people here can point you right to numerous examples of how your hate has poisoned people into committing atrocities against people in and out of your hate group of bigoted delusion. We have examples that extend back to the very fucking beginning of the origin of your delusion, yes, right to your disgustingly mis-named Prince of Peace, who himself promoted hate and divisiveness and sick fantasies of people being tortured for eternity.

All this crap is because everything is subordinate to your genocidal sadist delusion, and the genocidal sadists you worship are full of hate and bigotry and murderous rage. You can't even love unconditionally. You have to drag in your imaginary friends and try to force everyone around you to believe in your stupidity or they can just be cut off, or burned, or stolen from, or tortured, or murdered.

You don't care.

For you, belief in your imaginary friends trumps your reason, your compassion, your love, your family, your corporeal friends, your very fucking basic decency--everything. Everything in your life is put lower than and filtered through your delusion about two genocidal sadists in the sky and your disgusting hope that you can get enough gold stars for hating enough people to kiss those sadsits' asses for eternity.

And you think we should laud you for being that fucking stupid, full of yourself and hateful?

Fuck you.

You should be ashamed of yourselves for even trying to lie to us about your hatred. We are well aware of how much you hate--better than you are, because we have to deal with and witness your hate, every fucking day of our lives. You make the hate that is Christardery abundantly clear with your every fucking breath.

Posted by: Doktor Zoom | May 24, 2011 1:22 PM

Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me multiple times, and you've found a disciple.

Posted by: nigelTheBold, Minister of Spankings | May 24, 2011 1:25 PM

So.

Allow me to go back to my earlier claim. While calling bullshit, "bullshit," might seem to be hateful, it really isn't. It's brutally and viciously honest, like a baseball bat of truth to the kneecaps of superstition.

It might be hurtful. But it isn't hateful.

Posted by: AJ Milne OM | May 24, 2011 1:29 PM

Unless they're a presuppositionalist: then they will argue assert that no, that's what YOU have to think, because the only way to rescue the concept of truth from being leveled to indistinguishable epistemic mush is through the grace of God's innate quality and divine gift of Certainty.

(Cackling...)

Ah yes. Or: 'we have conveniently and for rhetorical purposes managed to make for ourselves a hilariously silly mangle of such simple and pragmatic concepts as balances of evidence and gradations of qualified certainty, therefore God.'

(/Thereby, in appropriate contradiction, revealing the one axiomatic and undeniable reality in this universe, after all. Which is: however loopy was the last argument they made, they've always got one sillier.)

Posted by: sqlrob | May 24, 2011 1:30 PM

Aquaria for OM for #221

Posted by: azumahazuki | May 24, 2011 1:32 PM

@230

Yeah, this was the best possible thing to do. They don't give a shit about anything outside their own religion; therefore, the most effective thing to do is to pound on them WITH their own religion.

We should also mention Deut 18:22!

Posted by: AJ Milne OM | May 24, 2011 1:36 PM

Personally, i thought the sign was hilarious, a real rubbing of the proverbial salt in the proverbial wound...

Seriously, that, too.

I mean, I get PZ's logical annoyance at the Matthew, since lots of folks seem to think citing it is some kind of coherent argument, as opposed to pretty much as silly in the overall context as was Camping's numerology... Or, at best, mebbe a nice lil' 'y'know... some of us actually do know that book' taunt...

... but c'mon. 'That was awkward.'? Still comedy gold.

(/Nice presentation, too. The sans-serif typeface, the period... It's got this wonderful deadpan thing going.)

Posted by: Nerd of Redhead, OM | May 24, 2011 1:43 PM

You will also note that Goetz has not, in all his ducking and diving, provided any argument or evidence whatsoever for any part of these beliefs.

Posted by: https://me.yahoo.com/a/SaqGVG0xvJEQVwURVamS3DTCdvov0BLhXK1jOsYPPJQ-#b4893 | May 24, 2011 1:44 PM

@230: That's what got me into trouble here. Like I said, I forwarded that link to PZ (probably one among many, so I don't take this personally), and it just seemed to me it's fair to point out one of the very many self-canceling parts in the bible. It's a hugely inconsistent document.

The "turn the other cheek" part is something a lot of believers forget every day of their lives. I think it's okay to point that out.

Frankly, I love quoting the bible. There's some real bullshit in there. Armageddon was just put in there to scare the Romans (who had it comin').

Now I see that Camping is saying the universe will end on Oct 21. It'd probably be best for everyone if Camping sought and received the therapy he should be getting.

MikeM

Posted by: tweedleeodieo | May 24, 2011 1:46 PM

I agree with Orac, #230, PZ. Even though the contradictions and ambiguities and non-sense of the "good book" are generally disregarded by the "faithful," it's not as if any other sort of mockery would even make a dent in some of these peoples' views. The amount of anger that sign elicited makes it seem like you really do fucking care what fucking Jesus said and it makes you fucking angry. It's a tweak to those people who claim to put real stock in what the Bible claims, I say take it in the spirit it's intended, have a beer or something, and relax.

Posted by: nigelTheBold, Minister of Spankings | May 24, 2011 1:48 PM

Nerd of Redhead:

Correct, all I see is bad sophistry being used to evade the need for solid conclusive evidence, which he can then fill with fallacious presuppositions.

The sad thing is, even the bad sophistry was inadequate. It seemed that no matter which false lead he tried to put out, all you had to do was follow it to the natural end to find the dangling fallacies.

Posted by: Loreo | May 24, 2011 1:50 PM

Harold Camping did an experiment. Like a good scientist, he formulated a clearly falsifiable hypothesis and actually put his faith to the test. He's ignoring the results and twisting the conclusion around to match his hopes, which is dumb as fuck, but he has illustrated what happens when you actually expect your god to do something measurable.

You get nothing.

Also, I need to deduct points from that billboard for using Papyrus. So over that font.

Posted by: azumahazuki | May 24, 2011 1:52 PM

@242

I've heard that the passage in John about "and there are three who bear witness in heaven" etc. is a later pseudepigraph, like the Markan addition (16:10 and later). If so, this destroys the doctrine of the Trinity.

Posted by: nigelTheBold, Minister of Spankings | May 24, 2011 1:53 PM

sqlrob:

Are duplicates allowed?

Once a year, assuming this is a precedent. It's not really a duplicate, but a molly-of-the-year.

Posted by: Paul | May 24, 2011 1:55 PM

It was a mode of expression, a means of vicarious revenge on the part of a disenfranchised local elite against the ruling elites of a conquering empire where actual political-military revenge was out of the question.

So what you're saying is that The Inferno really is a valid extension of Biblical tradition? I think that's more amusing to me than it should be. You make history interesting...

Posted by: aketzle | May 24, 2011 2:03 PM

Would it be inappropriate to say, 'AMEN!'? :) "Demented fuckwits, every one." Has a nice lyrical quality to it - sounds like a poem or a nursery rhyme. Build on it!

Posted by: Menyambal: Making sambal (it isn't dragon magic). | May 24, 2011 2:08 PM

Yes, the Rapture was probably a scriptural add-in after it was presumed to have happened.

I was elsewhere on Pharyngula proposing my idea that the "Rapture" as promised by Jesus was a retcon added after the 70 AD Roman destruction of Jerusalem and most of Judea. Another commenter (sorry I forget name) pointed out that such is indeed a view in biblical criticism.

The relevant books of the Bible were written after the destruction and death (a lot of the death was the Jewish people fighting each other (so the Romans came in to restore order?)). Whoever wrote them put words into Jesus' mouth to "predict" the events. Also, in my opinion, to make it look like some of the dead and disappeared were up in Heaven, instead of in a ditch or a Roman salt mine.

(So can I get a job in biblical criticism? Does that pay well? Do chicks dig biblical criticizers?)

Posted by: Erik The Viking | May 24, 2011 2:14 PM

21st of October? That's my fucking birthday. Damn fucking right there's going to be a Rapture. When I party, I seriously fucking party. I have provisional acceptance of my invitations from Thor, Odin, Freya and Tyr; but fuck Loki - he just drinks all the grog and tells about that time about when he turned into a mare and got fucked by a giant stallion and gave birth to an eight-legged horse. Utter horse shit, and he can't hold his mead.
Can't wait for the Ragnarok party.
P.S. If Jörmungandr or Fenrir turn up, I'm not in.

Posted by: Erulóra (formerly KOPD) | May 24, 2011 2:16 PM

"If You're Not a Part of the Solution, There's Good Money to be Made in Prolonging the Problem." - Despair Inc.
Hm... Camping Harold must have this poster somewhere.

Posted by: Aquaria | May 24, 2011 2:27 PM

Sheesh--something happened to my previous post and it tried to copy in all the fricking posts. PZ--just delete it. I have the post I intended to make here:

Yes, the Rapture was probably a scriptural add-in after it was presumed to have happened.
I was elsewhere on Pharyngula proposing my idea that the "Rapture" as promised by Jesus was a retcon added after the 70 AD Roman destruction of Jerusalem and most of Judea.

I find it very amusing that the first year attributed to the writing of the Gospels is AD 70. No sooner.

I'm reminded, though, of the scene in Life of Brian, when Reg asks, "What have the Romans done for us?' and it turns out it was a hell of a lot. The dumb goatherders reaping the benefits of it didn't seem to appreciate it, though.

Posted by: james.goetz | May 24, 2011 2:34 PM

@KG #209

1)What "proposed necessity for a creator of the spacetime continuum"? What sort of "necessity" is this? (It can't be logical necessity, as a logical necessity can't be falsified.) On what grounds is this "proposed necessity" proposed?"

2) Falsifying the "proposed necessity for a creator of the spacetime continuum" would not falsify the existence of anything, unless you can first show that without that proposed necessity, nothing reasonably describable as "God" could exist."

Posted by: azumahazuki | May 24, 2011 2:36 PM

@262

And yet this is the religion that, in various forms, claims over 2 billion human minds :/ I despair some days, I really do.

Posted by: KG | May 24, 2011 2:37 PM

james.goetz@261,

Are you really deluded enough to think you have answered the questions I asked? If so, I recommend that you go back on the meds.

Posted by: Lynna, OM | May 24, 2011 2:41 PM

Do you think you are going to shut us up, little men, with these oh so impotent little angry blogs of yours?

Posted by: InfraredEyes | May 24, 2011 2:47 PM

KG: On what grounds is this "proposed necessity" proposed?"

goetz: This is in the context of proposing monotheism.

This is not just a wrong answer, it is completely incoherent. The fact that you are hell-bent on proposing monotheism doesn't make monotheism, or any other kind of theism, necessary. Do you really not understand that?

Posted by: Thorne | May 24, 2011 2:52 PM

@SallyStrange, OM #133:

If it weren’t for science, we’d still be trying to cure disease by casting out the evil spirits.

Posted by: CJO | May 24, 2011 2:54 PM

I'm reminded, though, of the scene in Life of Brian, when Reg asks, "What have the Romans done for us?' and it turns out it was a hell of a lot. The dumb goatherders reaping the benefits of it didn't seem to appreciate it, though.

There was always a division in Judean society about this. With the exception of the period of Hasmonean rule (which was really a client state for practical puposes, trying to play the up-and-coming Romans against the Seleucid old-guard), Judea had been a province of one or another imperial dynasty since the 8th century BCE. There was always a range of attitudes regarding accomodation and resistance. We learn from Josephus that there was a significant faction that did not favor the first revolt against Rome. Jerusalem was chaos, with various Zealot factions vying for control of the Temple precincts at different times during the seige, and they were clearly opposed in what was basically a civil war within a resistance to a foreign invasion. What almost no devout Jew living in Judea could appreciate was full occupation, up to and including pagan cult practices and foreign soldiers in Jerusalem proper.

Posted by: Menyambal: Making sambal (it isn't dragon magic). | May 24, 2011 2:56 PM

CJO:

Which all highlights how fundamentally literary this kind of apocalyptic eschatology was. It was a mode of expression, a means of vicarious revenge on the part of a disenfranchised local elite against the ruling elites of a conquering empire where actual political-military revenge was out of the question.

So kind of like this blog and its comments, then?

I like it.

Posted by: https://www.google.com/accounts/o8/id?id=AItOawmVT1LBhwmO9ej9LNg7a5e9d-AVJ8ezfmE | May 24, 2011 2:59 PM

james.goetz writes:
I'll first clarify that this is not science but metaphysics

Anything that's observable, or inferrable from observation is subject to science. Any means by which you might "know" something is also subject to science, since you are a material object and everything you observe, interact with, learn from, or experience is also material. How, then, can you make any claims of knowledge about something that is exempt from scientific enquiry - i.e.: metaphysical? Saying something is "metaphysical" as a way of sheltering it from scientific enquiry is a fail-move because it equally shelters you from being able to make any knowledge claims about it, even knowledge claims that it exists at all.

Posted by: SallyStrange, Spawn of Cthulhu | May 24, 2011 3:04 PM

@ Thorne -

Unfuckingbelievable.

Posted by: azumahazuki | May 24, 2011 3:06 PM

@274

First you need to show that a creator, of any sort, IS necessary. Fair warning: many of us here have studied and debunked presuppositionalist apologetic concepts such as those put forth by Craig, Bahnsen, van Til, etc. If you are going to postulate a transcendental argument, a first cause argument, or especially a moral argument, you will be bloodily ripped apart (metaphorically).

Posted by: nigelTheBold, Minister of Spankings | May 24, 2011 3:15 PM

james.goetz:

Monotheism (apart from rare exceptions such as Origin's proposal) proposes a creator of all physics apart from the creator. Likewise, typical monotheism would by falsified by compelling evidence of a multiverse with no beginning and an infinite number of verses with similar initial conditions to the observed verse.

While the first statement is mostly true, I still fail to see how a multiverse in any way is contrary to an original creator, who would have to be by definition something beyond space and time. I'm not sure what I'm missing, so I think you might have an assumption about the nature of God of which I'm ignorant.

Also, this doesn't establish your primary proposition, the necessity of such a creator. This is, after all, the heart of your proposition in the first place: if God is not necessary, God does not exist (paraphrased, but essentially your claim as I understand it).

Modern cosmology demonstrates that the proposition of God is not necessary. Therefore, by your own criteria, there is no God.

Posted by: djfav | May 24, 2011 3:17 PM

I'd like to take a look at the source code for their new site design because I found something amusing in the last one, but I keep getting a 404. Anyone else having problems?

Posted by: james.goetz | May 24, 2011 3:22 PM

@azumahazuki #281

First you need to show that a creator, of any sort, IS necessary.

Posted by: Steven Mading | May 24, 2011 3:25 PM

Posted by: Sastra Author Profile Page | May 24, 2011 9:37 AM

That's a crucial distinction. It shifts mistakes from being the result of reasoning errors to arising from character defects. And that divides humanity on a moral hierarchy.

Exactly. (I liked your leprechaun example too - spot on.)

The difference between "us" and "them" is not a difference in our capacity to be rational, not our level of intelligence. It's a difference in our willingness to be rational. There may be occasionas in which I am just as guilty as resorting to faith as a religious person is. But the difference between me and the religious person is that when a religious person realizes they've been using faith, they're, strangely enough, actually proud of it whereas I'd be ashamed of it.

Accuse an atheist and a religious person of using faith and they are both likely to get defensive, but in very *different* ways. The atheist gets defensive, trying to deny the accusation of using faith. The religious person gets defensive too, not by denying they used faith but by trying to explain why faith is praiseworthy and being PROUD of the fact that they used faith.

THAT is the key difference.

The use of faith is a common human failing and I may very well be just as guilty of it as anyone else is. But at least I have the willingness to be honest by calling it a failing.

Forgetting where you put your car keys is a common human failing, but we don't go around being proud of the fact that we do it.

Judging competence based on attractive appearances is a common human failing but we don't go around being proud of the fact that we do it.

Succumbing to pleasure-seeking motives to the detriment of important things (i.e. procrastinating on chores in order to play a video game or go to a party) is a common human failing but we don't go around being proud of the fact that we do it.

We need to remember this. The difference is not in our ability to avoid faith, but in whether or not we even think there's a reason to bother trying to.

It's a moral difference, not an intelligence difference.

Posted by: nigelTheBold, Minister of Spankings | May 24, 2011 3:34 PM

james.goetz:

I never claimed to do that. Similar to philosopher John Leslie, I propose that a creator of the spacetime continuum is a reasonable conjecture.

Though you never made that claim outright, it is implicit in your assertion that a disproof of the necessity of God falsifies the existence of God.

If God is not necessary, he does not exist, by your own logic.

Remember how this started, by you asserting you had a way to falsify the existence of God? (It actually started earlier, but this particular permutation started there.)

Posted by: sqlrob | May 24, 2011 3:37 PM

I propose that a creator of the spacetime continuum is a reasonable conjecture

Why? Arguing "First cause" goes out the window since there are demonstrated uncaused effects. What's left?

Posted by: Ichthyic | May 24, 2011 3:39 PM

#68, from the article quoted:

While they knock back cheap imported beer and make-out in hot-tubs, thousands of evangelicals will be providing care and love to prisoners, homeless people, drug addicts and the poor.

It's pretty clear to see that whatever brain malfunction causes the fiction of religion to take hold in some people, they will project that onto everyone else who they think is one of them too.

Hell, I will bet all the money I have that on the day this idiot wrote that, they didn't themselves "provide care and love to prisoners, homeless people, and drug addicts". I'm sure in their minds they feel like they did, though, and thus all xians somewhere must be doing this constantly.

It's a fucking mental illness.

Posted by: truthspeaker | May 24, 2011 3:43 PM

There are Christians in my city providing care to homeless people and drug addicts, but they aren't from evangelical denominations.

Posted by: Nerd of Redhead, OM | May 24, 2011 3:48 PM

This is in the context of proposing monotheism.

Posted by: InfraredEyes | May 24, 2011 3:53 PM

Yes, the sign is funny. It's also funny to Christians. It's a kind of ecumenical humor...but what we need is ecumenical contempt.

The part that causes the problem is "It's also funny to Christians." If any good is going to come of this extended exercise in the higher lunacy, then it will be that some of the more liberal/reasonable/non-crazy Christians will be brought face-to-face with the underlying contradictions of their faith. Allowing them to laugh it off with "Oh, but there is this other stuff in the bible that's entirely different!" is not helping, to coin a phrase.

Posted by: james.goetz | May 24, 2011 3:58 PM

@nigelTheBold, General Gadabout #291
I suppose that would falsify only the existence of a creator.

Posted by: Aquaria | May 24, 2011 4:03 PM

While they knock back cheap imported beer and make-out in hot-tubs, thousands of evangelicals will be providing care and love to prisoners, homeless people, drug addicts and the poor.

Funny, they're the ones in the hot tubs and drinking the cheap-ass imported beer while thinking they're so fucking superior to everyone.

We have a homeless camp not far from my house. Take a guess who is helping them out?

My roommate--an atheist--uses part of his food stamps every month to take them food, atheist me donates food, and the roommate works with some of the Catholics at the parish nearby who've learned about the camp to provide them more food, plus clothes and blankets. A Catholic doctor comes by every month to check up on them and give them some basic medical care.

The area is full of Protestants and evangelicals who see these people wandering around the neighborhood, they wander right by the two Protestant churches every day, obviously homeless, and the Protestants and evangelitards do absolutely zero for any of the people in that camp.

it's the Catholics who provide most of the prison outreach in this area, and do a whole fucking lot less of proselytizing than the ugly ass fundagelical morons to do their outreach.

Back where I grew up, it was Catholic Charities who provided clothes to fundagelical fuck stains who insulted Catholics to their faces as devil worshippers--but were living off Catholic charity because they gave what little money they had to a fundagelical nutbag preacher who was living in a multimillion dollar mansion.

Fuck you and fuck your scumbag delusion and bigotry.

Posted by: Owlmirror | May 24, 2011 4:03 PM

While the first statement is mostly true, I still fail to see how a multiverse in any way is contrary to an original creator, who would have to be by definition something beyond space and time. I'm not sure what I'm missing, so I think you might have an assumption about the nature of God of which I'm ignorant.

Bleh, it all boils down to Aquinas' first cause.

Does the universe have a first cause? Well, Aquinas argues that it does. And this first cause is what all men call an invisible person with magical superpowers. Wait, where did that come from? Well, technically speaking, it came from out of Aquinas' ass, but nevertheless, it has diffused through philosophy like Vibrio cholerae through a communal sewer.

If the universe is part of a multiverse which is an eternally existing, then Aquinas' first premise goes out the window, kadoosh. God can no longer be argued that way.

Of course, that doesn't stop the really sophistimacated theololgians, who argue that, no, no, no, what the first cause really means is that reality is not infinitely divisible, and the primal whosis that causes all reality to be real is an invisible person with magical superpowers. Wait, where did that come from? Well, as best I can tell, from some modern theololgian's ass, whose name I am too lazy to research right now.

Posted by: djfav | May 24, 2011 4:06 PM

Never mind about the 404. I was looking for it at the old index pages. But now I see the "new" site design is a frameset. Maybe they're going for a retro 90s look. My eyes, they bleed.

Posted by: rscott | May 24, 2011 4:13 PM

lol - "demented fuckwits"

2 problems come to mind while reading the essay and the responses (most of them).

1) does atheism really have any personal reward to it, whatsoever? and

2) are the individual and societal problems of religion being combated effectively in this forum?

What's particularly disturbing is that most of you grasp an understanding of the damages caused by religion, yet you lack genuine sympathy for those damaged by it. But, hell, the world could always use another large, elitists sect with it's own caste system.

Posted by: Kevin | May 24, 2011 4:17 PM

When I was studying for my MBA, I came across a concept that is apropos of Camping's followers.

It's called "overcommitment to a failed plan."

People know they should get out, but can't bring themselves to because they've already invested the time, energy and money.

The most difficult thing to do is to know when to cut your losses.

We'll have a little laugh at Camping's expense in October, and then he'll revise the date again and again and again, until he finally keels over (he is 89, after all). He will never admit he's wrong. And certainly will never understand that his entire life is built around a badly told myth.

Posted by: Thin-ice | May 24, 2011 4:18 PM

And to the next person who quotes Matthew 24:36 at me: you're part of the problem, too.

Exactly. The non-Harold-Camping Rapturists remind me of one alcoholic that said to another: "Here, you're drinking the wrong kind of booze. Try mine and you'll feel a lot better . . . "

Having been a former christian and fervent rapture-believer myself, I had to explain the evangelical concept of The Rapture to my non-religious colleagues at work today. They nearly peed in their pants laughing . . .

Posted by: truthspeaker | May 24, 2011 4:22 PM

His scam may be up on October 22, but then he just has to wait ten or 15 years and predict a new date, and virtually everybody will have forgotten all about this.

Posted by: raven | May 24, 2011 4:23 PM

rscott the idiot troll:

What's particularly disturbing is that most of you grasp an understanding of the damages caused by religion, yet you lack genuine sympathy for those damaged by it.

What an outrageous lie. You aren't bright enough to be any more disturbed than a turnip or dandelion.

1. Most of us are ex-xians. We know. If you could think, you might wonder where atheists come from and hint, it has nothing to do with storks.

2. Who says we don't have genuine sympathy for those damaged by toxic religion? Besides a plantlike troll called rscott.

This is an insult not very cleverly disguised as an assertion without proof. I guess that is supposed to be smart in the world of vegetable brained trolls.

And it is wrong. If we didn't care, we would be spending time and money learning about toxic religions and combating it any way we can.

And your contribution is what? Taking up a bit of space better utilized growing grass for cows. Making dumb driveby troll comments on blogs you don't even read.

Posted by: Caine, ghetto féministe | May 24, 2011 4:24 PM

Nigel:

None of Aquinas's arguments were convincing back in his day. What makes so many people think they're convincing today?

Soft brains. Comes from pickling them in Jesus juice.

Posted by: nigelTheBold, Minister of Spankings | May 24, 2011 4:27 PM

james.goetz:

I suppose that would falsify only the existence of a creator.

Okay. I think if this is going to be a rewarding discussion, you might make an attempt to be a bit more forthcoming with your intent.

For instance, I'm not sure exactly what you mean here. If disproving the necessity of a creator (which modern cosmology does) falsifies the existence of a creator, what's left, exactly?

Again, I think I'm missing something here. And I don't think it's Aquinas's First Cause this time.

Posted by: Janine, The Little Top Of Venom, OM | May 24, 2011 4:27 PM

I see that James claims to be on the secular humanist side when it comes to evolution and LGBT rights. But can James claim that there is a true difference between his embrace of magic and Palin being blessed by a witch hunter? If there is a conflict between education and rights verses his idea of magic, which will he choose? What if an other christian decides to attack him because James' acceptance of a certain type of magic makes unchristian?

Posted by: https://me.yahoo.com/a/SaqGVG0xvJEQVwURVamS3DTCdvov0BLhXK1jOsYPPJQ-#b4893 | May 24, 2011 4:29 PM

@310: I think he'll ultimately blame the calendar. He'll tell us that God is still right, and errors have been found in the calendar -- it has some years missing -- and that (some new date in the future; I don't even want to make up a date, though) is *actually* May 21, 2011.

That way, the error can be attributed to "man", and his prediction can still be "correct."

Because when Oct 21 comes and goes without incident, you can be certain of one thing: He will change his story. That's a lock.

MikeM

Posted by: Sastra | May 24, 2011 4:35 PM

rscott #311 wrote:

1) does atheism really have any personal reward to it, whatsoever?

I'll second InfraredEyes on the 'intellectual honesty' mention, and add in personal integrity. If it's true, asking whether it has additional benefits suggests a cavalier attitude towards truth, and an eye on self-gratification.

As for meaning, morals, and so forth, gnu atheism is a form of secular humanism, and has all the bells and whistles of its ethical commitments and values.

2) are the individual and societal problems of religion being combated effectively in this forum?

What, directly, and all at once? No.
But some of them are. One of the reason religion has been able to cause so many individual and societal problems has been the unearned deference and respect it's been granted. A significant step in undermining its credibility has to include some passionate arguments for a lack of such deference and respect. A cultural shift in attitude.

One can argue that doing this is more respectful than not, if we're really seeking a common ground and not just looking for ways to justify divisions.

Posted by: Kevin | May 24, 2011 4:37 PM

@287
I propose that a creator of the spacetime continuum is a reasonable conjecture.

And I propose that the creator of the spacetime continuum was an invisible interdimensional green alien monkey who shat the universe into existence out of its red monkey butt.

My conjecture has exactly and precisely as much grounding as yours.

Posted by: VulvidyniaPudendia | May 24, 2011 4:40 PM

Thank you, PZ, what you stated should be BFO but somehow I don't think I've seen it in print before.

Posted by: Loreo | May 24, 2011 4:43 PM

1) does atheism really have any personal reward to it, whatsoever?

Better sex, for one thing.

In debates with atheists, many believers will argue for religion on the basis of how good it makes them feel. They'll argue that religion is emotionally useful, psychologically useful, socially useful: that religion gives people a sense of meaning, moral guidance, comfort in hard times, etc. It's an argument that drives many atheists up a tree -- myself included -- since it has absolutely nothing to do with whether religion is, you know, true...

But if this report is to be believed, then this argument is conclusively shown to be bogus... even on its own terms. At least when it comes to sex.

Religion doesn't make people happier. Not in the sack, anyway. Religion makes people less happy. Leaving religion makes people happier. There's no reason to hang on to beliefs you don't actually believe in and that don't actually make sense to you, just because you can't imagine a happy and fulfilling life without them. We know that leaving religion can be a scary and painful process... but once it's behind you, life is good. And the sex is great. Come on in. The water's fine.

-Greta Christina

Posted by: InfraredEyes | May 24, 2011 4:45 PM

Sending you that link certainly didn't have the outcome I expected.

What did you expect? That PZ would slap himself on the brow and exclaim "Good grief, they're right! Matthew 24:36, that's what Camping missed!"

Posted by: Ichthyic | May 24, 2011 4:50 PM

I think if this is going to be a rewarding discussion

Well there's your problem, right there!

thinking a back and forth with Goetz to be even a potentially rewarding discussion.

I galls me to say that even Shiloh was likely at least more entertaining.

I've never understood the point of having a discussion with someone who understands nothing of logic and reason.

point and laugh?

sure thing.

anything else?

waste of time.

Posted by: Dhorvath, OM | May 24, 2011 4:53 PM

Ben in Texas,

Does not believing in dragons have any personal reward to it?

Posted by: blf | May 24, 2011 4:55 PM

I propose that the creator of the spacetime continuum was an invisible interdimensional green alien monkey who shat the universe into existence out of its red monkey butt.

The mildly deranged penguin still thinks that is one of her best practical jokes. If you could have seen the look on the alien monkey's faces…
_{Which of course, you couldn't, as the green monkey is invisible.}

Posted by: https://me.yahoo.com/a/SaqGVG0xvJEQVwURVamS3DTCdvov0BLhXK1jOsYPPJQ-#b4893 | May 24, 2011 4:58 PM

Okay, now I'm finding material to defend myself.

The billboard was the result of a lengthy discussion on reddit.com where Redditor xtcg123 posted a picture titled 'Thinking of renting a billboard on May 22. Thoughts?' The picture/thread received over 1,508 comments with suggestions and comments about the billboard.

On Sunday, the billboard went live in Greensboro.

In a thread on reddit.com, the user explained his decision to put up the billboard message.

"The point here...is that if you're going to use any source (in this case, the Bible) to promote an agenda, you can't just leave out the part that completely goes against what you have just 'guaranteed."

The billboard was funded through an online campaign that encouraged online users to donate money to help pay for the billboard campaign.

See? I told you.

My apology still stands, but I do kinda think people flew off the handle a bit here.

MikeM

Posted by: peejaybradshaw | May 24, 2011 4:59 PM

I feel your pain PZ. On Saturday morning Barbara Bradly Haggerty began her non-rapture story on Weekemd Edition saying "it's safe to assume the rapture has been postponed." I jumped out of bad and raged for a bit. But then, BBH has been working her agenda for a long time.

Posted by: Ichthyic | May 24, 2011 5:01 PM

See? I told you.

useless, since BECAUSE it's entirely consistent to view the sign in the way many here did, it's still a fail.

sign=fail.

do better next time, Greensboro.

Posted by: https://me.yahoo.com/a/SaqGVG0xvJEQVwURVamS3DTCdvov0BLhXK1jOsYPPJQ-#b4893 | May 24, 2011 5:02 PM

@337: No. I expected something else.

Read my above post. This wasn't a bible school at all. It was a joke. I feel vindicated now. Still apologetic, but at the same time, vindicated.

I knew it'd turn out to be something like the "Miss me yet?" Bush billboards. I just knew it.

MikeM

Posted by: sqlrob | May 24, 2011 5:05 PM

If you believed actual, giant, flying, fire-breathing dragons existed, what would you be doing RIGHT NOW.

Seeing if I could get a cub(?) for a pet most likely.

Posted by: InfraredEyes | May 24, 2011 5:06 PM

> I've heard that some people who are ignorant of modern cosmology believe that it has already disproved the existence of a creator

Stephen Hawking recently published a book in which he asserts that modern cosmology has disposed of the necessity for a creator. If you want to go a few rounds with Hawking on the subject of cosmology, I'll be happy to hold your coat. I may also sell tickets.

Posted by: makyui | May 24, 2011 5:07 PM

Googlemess:

"PZ Myers: Now you are talking to your mirror image again."

PZ's name isn't "Googlemess", dumbass. Your grade-school retort fails.

james.goetz(onfire)

"Are you suggesting that modern cosmology has come remotely close to empirically "disproving the existence of a creator" or are you merely saying that multiverse hypotheses in modern cosmology propose to disprove the existence of a creator?"

Maybe you should read that part you quoted again?

"...disproving the necessity of a creator (which modern cosmology does)..."

Posted by: Ichthyic | May 24, 2011 5:08 PM

Seeing if I could get a cub(?) for a pet most likely.

I bet you're one of those kids whose parents flushed your pet alligator down the toilet?

:)

Posted by: Caine, ghetto féministe | May 24, 2011 5:11 PM

Ichthyic:

If you believed actual, giant, flying, fire-breathing dragons existed, what would you be doing RIGHT NOW.

Hiding. Well, and making sure any dragons were completely aware of my non-maiden status.

Now I have a hankering to read Guards! Guards! again.

Posted by: sqlrob | May 24, 2011 5:16 PM

I bet you're one of those kids whose parents flushed your pet alligator down the toilet?

Dunno why, but I'm a big fan of dragons.

But I mean, come on, who wouldn't want Gleep for a pet?

Posted by: KG | May 24, 2011 5:17 PM

Either Goetz is incapable of understanding the difference between the claim that a creator exists and the claim that a creator is necessary, or, as I suspect, he's simply being dishonestly evasive.

Posted by: Dhorvath, OM | May 24, 2011 5:20 PM

If you believed actual, giant, flying, fire-breathing dragons existed, what would you be doing RIGHT NOW.

Posted by: Ichthyic | May 24, 2011 5:23 PM

Peeing my pants.

well, some might not consider it a benefit to not be peeing their pants.

I will assume that in most cases it is.

:)

Posted by: Owlmirror | May 24, 2011 5:25 PM

( Following up on my #307...) I am reminded that heddle is on the record as writing this:

I think you grant that God's a hypothesis, when you agree that a steady-state universe would and should falsify it. Or would it only falsify one version? Another version could always be invented by defining it around the new evidence.

It would, for me, falsify scripture in way for which there could be no hope of reconciliation—which then meant that the promises in scripture are also suspect. And it would destroy, for me, the notion of a creator God. It would destroy my faith.

And when I asked for a bit of clarification:

Would you consider verification of oscillating universes or a self-causing universe to be sufficiently equivalent to the steady-state model?

Depends on the details. Oscillating models, probably. self-causing models, probably not--for they must be pregnant with something, even if it is a quantum fluctuation.

Which seems odd to me, given that he also says that "I also dislike Aquinas’ God proofs." So... why would an eternal universe "destroy his faith"?

Figuring out what heddle really thinks is kinda like figuring out how a blivet works.

Posted by: Ing: PhD Trollologist | May 24, 2011 5:28 PM

Hiding. Well, and making sure any dragons were completely aware of my non-maiden status.

Off topic but I remember early in my teenage years reading a book about the maiden dragon sacrifice story...wish I could remember its name (Dragonbait?). The Dragon cut the maiden down and talked to her instead and sort of explained that no Dragons don't want maidens...it's that town elders see maidens as the most expendable as they're not boys, not working men, not elders, not mothers, and not wives.

Seeing if I could get a cub(?) for a pet most likely.

Wurlmling?

1) does atheism really have any personal reward to it, whatsoever?

Is there a single Christian who asks this bullshit who doesn't realize they're saying "I am a selfish douche, what's in it for me?"

Posted by: Ichthyic | May 24, 2011 5:30 PM

or, as I suspect, he's simply being dishonestly evasive.

or he's just bugfuck nuts.

if you waste a few precious minutes of time reading the drivel on his site, you'll see what the most likely conclusion is.

Took me less than 30 seconds.

Posted by: Ichthyic | May 24, 2011 5:33 PM

If you have to explain the joke, maybe it wasn't that funny.

close enough.

Posted by: Ichthyic | May 24, 2011 5:36 PM

I went to Google News, typed in "that was awkward billboard", and got over 3,000 results.

Yes, because of course the point of a BILLBOARD message should be so clear as to warrant someone looking up what the fuck it's referring to with google.

and 3000 results on google is the equivalent of saying it's so obscure as to be near non existence.

Posted by: Ichthyic | May 24, 2011 5:41 PM

example of google and number of hits and obscurity:

the phrase:

"Thin at one end..."

some would know what this refers to immediately, some would rightly have no clue at all.

google it:

25,600,000 results for something that is obviously obscure to anyone who never saw the python skit it came from.

3000 results?

please.

Posted by: rscott | May 24, 2011 5:41 PM

True, atheists usually come out of Christian homes (in the U.S., at least). Even devout homes, though most Christians would like to think otherwise.

This has everything to do with how you promote your world view; and even how you rant. It's not just about the believer at the crossroads. It's about the family and friends they care about. When such a person reads the comments made here, they often see those they love at the other end of the insults. In a broken home, that isn't so bad. But in a home where this person feels loved and loves back in return, the remarks made here can easily (and even rightfully) be taken as hostile. Where is the Humanism in this?

Ranting is a great way to unload, and its a natural and probably necessary human activity. I should have shown greater consideration for that aspect of this forum. You've got your needs to meet, I understand, but keep in mind the open nature of the dialogue. Studying our own ranting in order to know ourselves is still a good thing, even if a troll says it is so. Thanks for reading.

Posted by: https://me.yahoo.com/a/SaqGVG0xvJEQVwURVamS3DTCdvov0BLhXK1jOsYPPJQ-#b4893 | May 24, 2011 5:45 PM

Yes, Ichthyic, those are excellent examples of obscurity. I get it.

This wasn't one of those examples. I literally put an entire 30 seconds of research into it.

This was as obscure as the sun on a cloudless day.

MikeM

Posted by: truthspeaker | May 24, 2011 5:47 PM

And nobody has shown that a creator is necessary, or even that the concept of "creator" is logically coherent.

So, we're back to evidence. Got any?

Posted by: Ichthyic | May 24, 2011 5:47 PM

Mine was just a sarcastic retort to 311, but I was just too damn lazy to make it any good.

I understand. My response really has nothing to do with you personally, it's just that what you said needed to be fleshed out though. Do recall we have believers reading this thread, so everything must be repeatedly and clearly spelled out for them, as if they were children.

because that's what they are. Children with invisible friends that they like to think are real.

the funny thing is, most kids who make imaginary friends up for themselves actually make ones that don't threaten them with nonexistence or endless torment. Which, of course, is why I chose the most fearsome dragon mythology to use as the example, since that's really where their god came from anyway: fear.

go figure. Takes an awfully sick mind to carry around an imaginary friend that is so cruel and threatening.

Posted by: https://me.yahoo.com/a/tQdT.KEo2IfjM3W5ZiBPMyKhbYIM74t3eQ--#21f2a | May 24, 2011 5:49 PM

Hey Makyui, I think you just re-invented Mormonism...

Loki

Posted by: https://www.google.com/accounts/o8/id?id=AItOawmVT1LBhwmO9ej9LNg7a5e9d-AVJ8ezfmE | May 24, 2011 5:50 PM

Y'know I'm surprised that the religiots haven't hit on the idea that dark matter and dark energy are probably heaven and god and all that stuff. It's bullshit, but it's weapons grade.

Posted by: makyui | May 24, 2011 5:52 PM

"This has everything to do with how you promote your world view; and even how you rant."

Toooooone troooooooll.

Nobody plays nice to the kid who still believes in Santa Claus, forever. Eventually he gets told that Santy ain't real, often by his peers, who don't hold back in telling him how silly it is.

Of course, the difference is that we're dealing, usually, with full-grown adults who should know better, and who've substituted Santa Claus with another fairy tale.

Your hypothetical theists at the crossroads, instead of getting pissed at the messenger, should maybe instead be concerned for their hypothetical family and friends who have devoted their lives (and possibly the lives of children) to idiocy. Where, pray tell, is the humanism in letting them continue to fall prey to charlatans and predators that not only take their lives, but may even make the world a living hell for everyone else?

You don't seem to get that no matter how nice an atheist may say that he disagrees, he's still going to be called an asshole. Because disagreeing is "rude", at least when religion is involved.

But no, nevermind, atheists are supposed to be nice and kind no matter what. Even in our own designated spaces. Because someone might be listening who will get their feelings hurt by the truth.

Hell, let's never talk about flat-earthers either, just in case they're listening.

Posted by: Ichthyic | May 24, 2011 5:53 PM

I literally put an entire 30 seconds of research into it.

guess how much time I put into:

"Thin at one end..."

you just don't get it.

moving right along...

Posted by: Ben in Texas | May 24, 2011 5:56 PM

@389 Well said, as usual. Agree on all counts.

Posted by: Ichthyic | May 24, 2011 5:57 PM

Where is the Humanism in this?

ah, I see where you went wrong.

You confused what you said with "humanism".

Instead, it's a textbook example of projection.

Posted by: sqlrob | May 24, 2011 5:58 PM

Takes an awfully sick mind to carry around an imaginary friend that is so cruel and threatening.

I only smite you because I love you?

Posted by: Ichthyic | May 24, 2011 6:00 PM

I only smite you because I love you?

Yes, Mommy Dearest.

:)

Posted by: Ing: PhD Trollologist | May 24, 2011 6:03 PM

Goddamn it.

What the hell are you trying to get us to falsify? God? Outside of teh bible bearded guy, dunno what that means. Explain it. What are it's characteristics.

Posted by: makyui | May 24, 2011 6:04 PM

James, what if this creator god actually created this multiverse with no beginning etc etc., except he did it last Thursday and simply made it appear like it had no beginning of time?

Why are you limiting your god so much, and in such specific ways?

Posted by: InfraredEyes | May 24, 2011 6:05 PM

PZ coulda googled this in 1/20th of the time it took for him to comment on it.

You really, really don't get it, do you? PZ is reacting to the billboard as if he had seen it in real life, and his reaction is perfectly valid. If it was intended as an ironic comment on biblical literalism, it failed, as many attempts at ironic humour do. Not PZ's fault, because jokes stand or fall on their own merits, not based on the intentions of the jokers.

Posted by: Ichthyic | May 24, 2011 6:06 PM

Of course cosmology did not even come close to dispose of the necessity of a creator. It just pushed the question backward a little.

that's right, just shove that god into an ever smaller gap.

I think Miller has his crammed into quantum space at this point.

It's fucking turtles* all the way down...

*no offense meant to turtles, some of my best friends are turtles.

Posted by: Ichthyic | May 24, 2011 6:10 PM

Which raises the question of how small a turtle do we have to have before calling it God is ridiculous?

well, I assume that would depend on who you ask.

If you ask me, I shouted "ridiculous" at the first mention of turtles (again, no offense to turtles).

If you ask Goetz, no turtle can ever be small enough.

Posted by: Ing: PhD Trollologist | May 24, 2011 6:10 PM

And shouldn't something as big as an all powerful creator BE evident in cosmology as we go back? Cosmology shouldn't have to disprove God...it should be suspicious that there are no gods way back here.

Posted by: Ichthyic | May 24, 2011 6:14 PM

jokes stand or fall on their own merits, not based on the intentions of the jokers.

thankyou.

you do indeed, get it.

What's more, now that THAT point has been made, I'd also like to point out that PZ DID GET THE JOKE, but had an entirely different point to make about it, which MikeM apparently entirely missed in his rush to 'splain it to PZ:

I was sent that image by someone who clearly thought it was a joke, but I am not laughing. I'm angry, instead. I don't fucking care what fucking Jesus fucking said.

which is exactly his point, even knowing this is a joke, there is a much more important point to be made, and PZ made it.

Mike the clueless git should take notice, but he's run off claiming victory for himself.

Posted by: Aquaria | May 24, 2011 6:20 PM

1) does atheism really have any personal reward to it, whatsoever?"
Freedom.

And integrity. We don't have to twist ourselves into knots trying to make reality fit our delusions like idiotic theists do.

2) are the individual and societal problems of religion being combated effectively in this forum?

Ask that of churches, fuckface, then you might be asking in the right direction.

Posted by: AJ Milne OM | May 24, 2011 6:22 PM

Cosmology shouldn't have to disprove God...

More to the point, it's effectively impossible, as long as the theologians have their goalposts* mounted to a turbofan.

The whole 'oh, let's just push it back another step' thing is roughly as logical (and more or less the same form) as is the 'you've just created two new gaps' thing creationists employ every time another fossil fills out the story of natural history.

The deity, see, will always be 'just one more step' out of sight, over there, thataway. The original goatherds responsible tucked it in the lightning 'til people figured out weather and electrical charges, then their descendants hid it in the design argument a while until evolutionary biology matured...

Now it's back behind the physical laws. Completely extraneous, of course, to 'em, but hey, let's pretend it could still be there, anyway. It's a 'conjecture' stuck in there with crayon, sure, but what the hell, they've lots of crayons.

(*/Which has always been a fun sports metaphor. But hey, why stop there? You could also accurately enough say it's a little like we were playing baseball, and each time science hits one out of the park, they just keep saying, damn, well, we'll just put our outfield a little further out there...

... and right now, the outfield is somewhere in the Ooort cloud, in spacesuits, hoping to catch the next ball. But still, they figure they can win this thing.)

Posted by: makyui | May 24, 2011 6:24 PM

Aquaria:

And integrity. We don't have to twist ourselves into knots trying to make reality fit our delusions like idiotic theists do.

Indeed. There's a distinct lack of cognitive dissonance going on, and it's very refreshing.

Posted by: Ichthyic | May 24, 2011 6:25 PM

How is the step up to a multiverse going to change your minds?

easy:

they say it will, until it's proven, then they'll come up for a rationalization as to why it doesn't.

There's a reason turtles was brought up. Nobody ever said it better than Hawking (though he says he is paraphrasing Russel):

A well-known scientist once gave a public lecture on astronomy. He described how the earth orbits around the sun and how the sun, in turn, orbits around the center of a vast collection of stars called our galaxy. At the end of the lecture, a little old lady at the back of the room got up and said: "What you have told us is rubbish. The world is really a flat plate supported on the back of a giant tortoise." The scientist gave a superior smile before replying, "What is the tortoise standing on?" "You're very clever, young man, very clever," said the old lady. "But it's turtles all the way down!"

just for those who've never actually seen the entire dialogue.

This is why it is entirely pointless to argue with people like Goetz.

Posted by: sqlrob | May 24, 2011 6:27 PM

OK, I can foresee the answers, but now I was just thinking about the idea of a first cause. Is a first cause an acceptable idea or not?

No. The requirement for a first cause is moot, cause and effect is a macro level idea.

Posted by: Owlmirror | May 24, 2011 6:30 PM

One can also turn it around. If a scientific first cause (e.g. gravity) is acceptable, then what's wrong with a divine first cause?

Because an invisible person with magical superpowers is not supported at all by either evidence nor logic.

Posted by: Nerd of Redhead, OM | May 24, 2011 6:31 PM

I've heard that some people who are ignorant of modern cosmology believe that it has already disproved the existence of a creator, but it will help me to know your views on this.

Posted by: Ichthyic | May 24, 2011 6:37 PM

Because an invisible person with magical superpowers is not supported at all by either evidence nor logic.

to put it another way:

which god hypothesis is supported by more evidence:

1. that it is a made up construct.

2. that it created the universe.

the answer is VERY clear as to which has more support.

Posted by: Caine, ghetto féministe | May 24, 2011 6:38 PM

"But it's turtles all the way down!"

This is why it is entirely pointless to argue with people like Goetz.

Yep. Because even if it's turtles all the way down, there's no down down there.

Posted by: Mandrellian | May 24, 2011 6:41 PM

Pfft. Theowhatsit and numerobibliobollocks be damned: everyone knows the real reason for the Rapture Fail was that Jesus is waiting for the release of Duke Nukem Forever.

Posted by: Data Venia | May 24, 2011 6:43 PM

I propose that compelling evidence of a multiverse with no beginning of time and an infinite number of verses with initial conditions similar to the observed universe would falsify the existence of a creator.

So, the existence of a multiverse with no beginning doesn't exclude the simultaneous existence of a creator deity with no beginning. The deity might or might not be present. Therefore, as a means of falsifying the existence of a god, the existence of a multiverse fails.

In any event, you still haven't provided one logically sound or valid reason why anybody should believe in the god you believe in. Why is that? Instead, you seem to be working on the "if it's not explicitly ruled out, it must be reasonable to believe" angle.

Posted by: https://me.yahoo.com/a/SaqGVG0xvJEQVwURVamS3DTCdvov0BLhXK1jOsYPPJQ-#b4893 | May 24, 2011 6:47 PM

Dear Dummy,

I came here to own it and apologize for it.

I am not claiming victory; I'm trying to prepare for a meeting tomorrow.

You're the clueless one. I win. Now I declare victory.

MikeM

Posted by: Neilgue | May 24, 2011 6:51 PM

They're demented fuckwits, every one

No more can be said...

Posted by: Caine, ghetto féministe | May 24, 2011 6:59 PM

Dear Dummy

Stop talking to yourself. Go away and don't skulk back until you figure out the first rule of holes.

Posted by: Data Venia | May 24, 2011 7:05 PM

Go away and don't skulk back until you figure out the first rule of holes.

Posted by: truthspeaker | May 24, 2011 7:10 PM

Personally, I think it's possible to get the joke on the billboard, find it funny, and still have the same take PZ does.

Our brains can feel and think different things at once.

Of course, I'm the kind of guy who thinks it's possible to feel sympathy and contempt for the same person at the same time, so what do I know.

Posted by: truthspeaker | May 24, 2011 7:15 PM

Posted by AItOawnG39uMFt69kwCKZ8DoxtmMCvmzr5chx94 makyui: Earlier You said that God is an infinitely complex magical being.

Christians describe their god that way, and that's the god this thread is about.

Posted by: makyui | May 24, 2011 7:27 PM

As an aside, Googlemess, making a statement and/or having a belief about something isn't the same as knowing about it, either. Even if I really and truly believed that God is a real being who is infinitely complex and magical, that doesn't mean I know it, and neither does anyone else.

Every religious person who claims knowledge about their god is either lying or ignorant of what constitutes knowledge. Though if they claim at the same time that their god is unknowable, then they're not only lying, they're extra delusional, because what a fucking contradiction.

Posted by: c.s.delozier | May 24, 2011 7:37 PM

Not only did Goatze shift the goal posts, he intentionally fumbled the ball at our one yard line. What a shitty tactic to imply that something science can prove will disprove god, especially when the supposed effect is to make the god-claim fallible. So we're left holding the ball when the ref calls time and have to drive however many fucking yards in order to score the lofty point.

Pretty lame, Goatze.

Posted by: james.goetz | May 24, 2011 7:41 PM

@makyu

But it would be completely indistinguishable from a universe that had no beginning, totally impervious to our puny human attempts at seeing it. Because how DARE we not just take it on faith?

Posted by: John Morales | May 24, 2011 8:10 PM

james:

I concede that I cannot refute the existence of deity who would create a universe that appears to have no beginning, given the validity of B-theory of time.

Turgid wankery on demand.

Didn't you start by trying to say you think PZ is a poopyhead?

How you got from there to here is funny.

Posted by: RT, not RTL | May 24, 2011 8:31 PM

ING, yes.

Posted by: https://www.google.com/accounts/o8/id?id=AItOawmVT1LBhwmO9ej9LNg7a5e9d-AVJ8ezfmE | May 24, 2011 8:50 PM

Owlmirror:
since no apologist appears to have a coherent concept of what either "supernatural" or "magical" even means

I'm not sure it's possible, because the only referents we can think in terms of have something to do with experience and therefore reality. Basically god is an alien so alien that it's unlike any aliens you've ever imagined or been able to imagine - because it doesn't exist in time or space or X, Y, Z dimensions - but, whoah - god is dimensionless? And all powerful!

Catch the "all powerful" bit - it's a claim that's based on negating our experience. We all understand the idea of limited ability to do stuff, so we imagine that god is the opposite. But we don't really know what that opposite would be like - which is why godbots fall into drooling confusion over simple set problems like "can almighty god create a rock he cannot lift?" That's because the notion of "all powerful" is really "not limited" and we can imagine limits, but not "unlimited" It gets even more fun when godbots say "god is love" at the same time as saying that god is metaphysical and therefore unknowable. That leaves them back to drool-inducing conundrums like the problem of evil.

If you pursue their epistemology far enough the godbots will fall back to "god is unknowable" which is the sound of the lone king moving into the corner when you've got a queen and a rook, because "then how do you know god exists at all?" is the obvious follow-up.

Belief in god and the supernatural is evidence of a believer's inability to think well. If they had the ability to think well, they would have cured themselves of religion easily and naturally, already.

Posted by: John Morales | May 24, 2011 9:03 PM

tatarize,

Unless you think that somebody from Jesus' time is still alive.

Duh.

Posted by: Nerd of Redhead, OM | May 24, 2011 9:12 PM

but that does not affect most if any proposals of monotheism.

Posted by: Menyambal: Making sambal (it isn't dragon magic). | May 24, 2011 9:17 PM

Goetz, you also need to put a sock in it.

You are arguing in excruciating detail and turgid phrases the most abstract aspects of the philosopher's god, in a thread about a billboard about the crudest aspect of Jehovah's inhumanity to man.

Posted by: truthspeaker | May 24, 2011 9:32 PM

Posted by: Menyambal, Son of Sambal Author Profile Page | May 24, 2011 9:17 PM

Goetz, you also need to put a sock in it.

You are arguing in excruciating detail and turgid phrases the most abstract aspects of the philosopher's god, in a thread about a billboard about the crudest aspect of Jehovah's inhumanity to man.

I tried to point that out earlier.

Posted by: Ing: PhD Trollologist | May 24, 2011 9:35 PM

It sounds like you've retreated so far from claims of knowledge that I don't see on what you base monotheism. If you're willing to posit one unknowable god, why not an infinity? Or, for that matter, half a god? Let's say 3/4 and split the difference, hmm?

A, B, C! ONE, TWO, THREE! ERIC THE HALF YAHWEEEEH!

Posted by: paulmurray | May 24, 2011 10:27 PM

"I don't fucking care what fucking Jesus fucking said."

Kinda sorta not the point - although many who quote the bible are indeed making that point.

a) You christians are telling me this and that about God, but you can't even get your own bible right

b) How an I - a non-believer - supposed to know which are the "true christians'? You, Mr Christian, say one thing and Harold Camping says that. Sure - after the fact it's easy to work out that HC is definitely wrong. But without that sort of definite evidence, how am I supposed to determine whether or not the "real presence" of Jesus is in the communion host?

Posted by: Quodlibet | May 24, 2011 10:39 PM

#478: the bible is "internally consistent to some degree"

"internally consistent to some degree" = not fully consistent = inconsistent

Posted by: ReaganLimbaughfan | May 24, 2011 10:51 PM

I will leave with a quote from Richard Wurmbrand , a Christian minister from Romania. He was in the underground Church in Eastern Europe when the Communists did not take kindly to Christianity. He spent a lot of time in prisons was tortured. You see the Soviets believed that people who believed in Christ were demented and they tried to torture him to give up his loyalty to Christ and declare his loyalty to the state.
Recounting his time in prison, he says:
"The cruelty of atheism is hard to believe, when man has no faith in the reward of good or the punishment of evil. There is no reason to be human. There is no restraint from the depths of evil which is in man. The communist torturers often said, “There is no good, no hereafter, no punishment for evil. We can do what we wish.” I have heard one torturer say, “I thank God in whom I don’t believe that I have lived to this hour when I can express all the evil in my heart.” He expressed it in unbelievable brutality and torture inflicted on prisoners."

Of course I'm not implying that PZ wants to have anyone tortured but this seems to be the outcome of intellectual imperialism when taken to its logical conclusion. The Communist ideology was held superior to all others and those who didn't disagree were made to see the light.

Posted by: truthspeaker | May 24, 2011 10:57 PM

Someone defending Christianity really isn't in a good position to criticize anyone else for torturing people who don't follow their beliefs.

Posted by: consciousness razor | May 24, 2011 11:04 PM

Oh, by the way, you're an asshole and your argument is wrong.

Reagan was an asshole too, and Limbaugh still does it professionally. Also wrong.

Posted by: jinoh.choi | May 24, 2011 11:09 PM

The original 'Judgement Day' document from Harold Camping and Family Radio, which is no longer available from their website.

THE END OF THE WORLD IS ALMOST HERE! HOLY GOD WILL BRING JUDGMENT DAY ON MAY 21, 2011 (Hosted by the Launceston Skeptics.)

Posted by: Data Venia | May 24, 2011 11:10 PM

Posted by: Menyambal, Son of Sambal

Goetz, you also need to put a sock in it.

You are arguing in excruciating detail and turgid phrases the most abstract aspects of the philosopher's god

Brings to mind an old saying, "If you can't dazzle them with brilliance, baffle them with bullshit."

Can you imagine him responding to the questions, "Does Susan exist? Did she make this cake?" with, {picture baritone voice and condescending stare down the nose} "Well, you see, I have to understand your epistemology more deeply before I can answer that. If we consider B-time theory and Gettier's Problem, then we can't falsify a proposal of Susan-ness, but the existence of multiple cupcakes similar to the current cupcake would falsify that proposition of a Susan...yada yada yada... ad nauseam.

Oh, yeah. He's heavy, heavy into Cow Patty Territory.

Posted by: Randomfactor | May 24, 2011 11:12 PM

So let me se if I can summarize the gist of PZ's post.

The answer appears to be "no."

Posted by: makyui | May 24, 2011 11:25 PM

Oh, you fucking did not.

when man has no faith in the reward of good or the punishment of evil. There is no reason to be human.

That's the most disgusting, hateful, anti-human thing I've heard all day. So the only thing that makes anything worthwhile is whether or not we get a present after we're dead? No beauty, no love, no excitement, no wonder, no curiosity is worth anything, unless we're told that we must live a whole live of absolute worthlessness until we die, and then we'll get a reward IF we danced the right steps our whole life without messing up?

Disgusting. Vile. Repugnant. And yet theists claim atheists take the meaning out of life.

There is no restraint from the depths of evil which is in man.

Because even the kindest person will suddenly fly into a rampage of raping and murdering the instant they lose fear of an eternal punishment. Which is why atheists think raping and killing is abominable, why religious people are the majority of people in prison, and why religiosity correlates to lower quality of life in a population. Oh wait!

“There is no good, no hereafter, no punishment for evil. We can do what we wish.” I have heard one torturer say, “I thank God in whom I don’t believe that I have lived to this hour when I can express all the evil in my heart.”

HAAAAAAAAAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAHAAAA!

You're kidding, right?

Of course I'm not implying that PZ you wants to have anyone tortured but this seems to be the outcome of intellectual imperialismbelieving in eternal punishment for finite crimes when taken to its logical conclusion. The Communist Christian ideology was is held superior to all others and those who didn't disagree weredon't sell themselves to Jesus Christ are made to see the light.

Fixed that for you.

By the way, communism =/= atheism. Communism = communism.

Posted by: jamesfrankmcgrath | May 24, 2011 11:44 PM

Here's a link to an argument, from a Christian perspective, that Christians should give up on the notion of a second coming of Jesus.

Posted by: raven | May 24, 2011 11:46 PM

death cultist trolling:

“There is no good, no hereafter, no punishment for evil. We can do what we wish.” I have heard one torturer say, “I thank God in whom I don’t believe that I have lived to this hour when I can express all the evil in my heart.”

Several things wrong with your godbot gibberish.

1. The dialogue is so hokey as to be a lie. Fundie xians always, always lie. It's one of their main sacraments.

2. The group that brought torture back to the USA as a national policy were all fundie death cult xians.

It was George Bush and his collection of psycho xian death cultists. The main supporters of torture by the USA today are...evangelical xians, the death cultists.

Of course, historically the xian churches tortured and murdered tens of millions. The Catholic Inquisition was notorious for their tortures and imaginative executions of tens of thousands at least people and synonymous to this day with evil. The witch hunters burned close to 100,000 alleged witches at the stake.

You are wrong on your facts but fundie xians are so used to lying that they never worry about things like facts or the truth.

With a nym like reaganlimbaugh, chances are you are a huge fan and supporter of torture yourself.

Posted by: raven | May 24, 2011 11:56 PM

Here's a link to an argument, from a Christian perspective, that Christians should give up on the notion of a second coming of Jesus.

Most xians did that long ago.

My natal Protestant sect never mentioned it once in several decades. They totally ignored Revelation and, I guess, hoped no one ever tried to read it.

IIRC, the Happy Genocide of 7 Billion People was never a big thing in the Catholic church. Not sure what they official position is but they don't spend a lot of time worrying about it.

Posted by: c.s.delozier | May 25, 2011 12:35 AM

Makyui

Because even the kindest person will suddenly fly into a rampage of raping and murdering the instant they lose fear of an eternal punishment.

Posted by: james.goetz | May 25, 2011 12:50 AM

@makyu #500
You ask "Why" to my statement, "Your refutation works only with the case of divine causal determinism and the B-theory of time."

I initially considered that the proposed false appearance of cosmic history would involve the actual existence of an infinite number of past universes, which would require the radical simultaneousness of the B-theory of time, which involves causal determinism. But conceivably the false appearance of cosmic history would not include the actual existence of an infinite number of past universes.

makyyu:

Your particular creator god hypothesis is completely arbitrary and no more sound a hypothesis than anything that anyone else could come up with off the top of their heads.

Posted by: John Morales | May 25, 2011 1:00 AM

James:

But conceivably the false appearance of cosmic history would not include the actual existence of an infinite number of past universes.

Conceivably, you are a nitwit.

Hmm, I made one caveat about an obscure point of a creator making a false appearance of cosmic history and you call my conjecture "completely arbitrary."

Hm, nitwits make obscure points about purported cosmic creators and fail to generalise.

No surprise that you're no exception. ;)

Posted by: fancyflyer | May 25, 2011 1:10 AM

Monday morning a surprise arrived in the two plane seats next to me, where approximately 2.95 young women sat down. They were very devout missionary girls en route to a child welfare assignment.

That Camping prediction eventually came up in our conversation, but only briefly. They had little to say, and I didn't have the heart to pursue the topic. They seemed embarrassed for the stupidity of it, and obviously had not included an imminent rapture in their own plans.

Abstractions are pretty easy to get to, but there's an innocent human face on this religion stuff. When it's not necessary to oppose, provoke or demean that face I just don't want to do it.

There was nothing abstract about that seating arrangement either.

Posted by: https://me.yahoo.com/a/Gn4xz8A0gcFPY079ml2bv9G4ZHJdTzle7A--#a54be | May 25, 2011 1:13 AM

There are just too many comments to see if this has already been said, but I think PZ missed the actual humor of the sign. Basically it is NOT an admonition directed at Camping based on yet another biblical verse, but rather the fact that Camping thought he had some kind of insight as to the end of the world based on a book chock full of self-contradictions and conveniently ignored one the larger verses in the same book letting him know, in no uncertain terms, that whatever he comes up with is bullshit.

It's similar to us throwing Matthew 6:6 in the faces of those assholes who push their crap on us: We're calling them out on their hypocrisy.

- Sir Craig (sorry for the Yahoo mess)

Posted by: makyui | May 25, 2011 1:19 AM

They actually believe it.

I know why they believe it, and I know that (some of them) genuinely believe it. Hearing the baffling amount of "If you don't believe in God, then where do your morals come from?" questions that come from them has made that a certainty.

That doesn't make it true, nor does it make it any less of an ignorant, bigoted, disgusting statement that borders on amorality and dehumanism, if not crosses flat out into it, and flies in the face of reality, and every religious nitwit who brings it up needs to have that point plainly made to them.

Because eww.

Posted by: james.goetz | May 25, 2011 1:26 AM

makyui:

Yes, Goetz, claiming that a creator god created the universe is an arbitrary claim. You have nothing to back this notion up, except that you rather fancy the idea of a creator god.

Posted by: makyui | May 25, 2011 1:37 AM

Clearly, it's a fetish, Consciosness Razor. That's why he's so fixated on penises and hates foreskins. And why menz are the best and womenz are icky poo. And why he likes when bulls are sacrificed. And why he's offended by misshapen gonads that approach the altar. And why men who do it with other men is ickybad. And why he came to earth as a man and hung around with naked teenagers.

Et cetera, et cetera.

And he does it through Ceiling Cat, natch. Like a conduit.

Does this also mean that John Leslie's philosophical conjecture of a creator god creating the universe is an arbitrary conjecture?

Depends. What's his evidence for God?

Posted by: james.goetz | May 25, 2011 1:41 AM

@The Very Reverend Battleaxe of Knowledge #506
The concept of a "false appearance of cosmic history" in a multiverse with an inifinte number of past universes had nothing to do with that young earth creationist argument.

Posted by: makyui | May 25, 2011 1:53 AM

The concept of a "false appearance of cosmic history" in a multiverse with an inifinte number of past universes had nothing to do with that young earth creationist argument.

Actually, it did. It's just the fiddly details that are different (ain't much difference in a four-thousand-year-old universe with artificial history and a bazillion-year-old multiverse with an artificial history, when you get right down to it). The concept is still the same.

Thanks for that, Very Reverend. Now I know what its name is.

Posted by: makyui | May 25, 2011 2:13 AM

Ing:

I'm guessing it comes down to choosing comfort over truth, though the fact that they obviously cared for truth up to a certain point (or else they wouldn't have left their first religion in the first place) makes that guess kind of messy.

I guess, ultimately, that is still choosing comfort over truth, but I don't get how they can live with the cognitive dissonance. Maybe there's a dash of willful ignorance on top of it?

Posted by: Wowbagger, Man-Hating Man of Pharyngula | May 25, 2011 2:18 AM

Ing, #520

The god argued for by the theological/philosophical types seems so far removed from the god that actual, real people believe in that it might as well be another god altogether - apart from the fact that the vast majority of the theological/philsophical types forget about their nebulous, outside-of-science god the second they set foot in a church or a prayer meeting and remember that they really believe in the same bearded old man in the clouds who answers prayers and smites unbelievers that (relatively) unsophisticated people believed in a thousand years ago.

Why argue what you actually believe when you can instead dance the theological two-step and convince yourself it's the same thing?

Posted by: Owlmirror | May 25, 2011 2:39 AM

"What I have to contribute is some technical defense of the idea that if you had an infinitely rich [universe], it could be explained by reference to its value. Its goodness could be the creative force which had produced it. I think if I would like to be remembered as a philosopher for any one thing, that would be the thing I'd most like to be remembered for."

Translation: My contribution to the field of philolsophy is founded on counterfactual or meaningless premises, incoherent equivocation, and fundamentally silly semantic bafflegab. And I'd really like to be remembered for that, because I have no shame whatsoever.

Posted by: makyui | May 25, 2011 2:46 AM

I guess it's this happily useless philolsopher:

Oh good lord. Yup, he's making it up as he goes along, too.

I was holding back for the possibility that he had something novel going on, but noooope.

Posted by: consciousness razor | May 25, 2011 3:21 AM

Translation: My contribution to the field of philolsophy is founded on counterfactual or meaningless premises, incoherent equivocation, and fundamentally silly semantic bafflegab. And I'd really like to be remembered for that, because I have no shame whatsoever.

Apparently he discovered Plato had already given a similar argument, but I'm still trying to figure out which dialogue (or whatever) he's referring to.

It seems a bit like the ontological argument, except that the "necessity" is not a perfect being, but the "fact" that existence is follows from some kind of quantum fluctuation of "existence sure is nice" in the Platonic realm.

Posted by: makyui | May 25, 2011 3:51 AM

In other words, existence = good, therefore God?

Posted by: Anubis Bloodsin the third | May 25, 2011 4:16 AM

#524

I think if I would like to be remembered as a philosopher for any one thing, that would be the thing I'd most like to be remembered for." (John Leslie)

Oh I don't expect that is a great problem to get stressed over...by a few lines you have demonstrated the one fact that is inescapable...

You will not be remembered at all!

With 'fwends' like this to rely on for the 'appeal to authority' xian gambit 'Goetz on fire'

Methinks you are well and truly fucked!

Posted by: KG | May 25, 2011 5:10 AM

I found the same piece of drivel from John Leslie that Owlmirror did - which comes down to "I think existence is nice, therefore God.". Since it is this piece of drivel Leslie would like to be remembered for, we can be pretty sure we needn't waste any more time on the idiot. Yes, James, it is an arbitrary claim, or in plainer language, utter fucking bullshit.

Posted by: Sven DiMilo | May 25, 2011 6:04 AM

If I had any Latin I'd render 'I think about existence, therefore I exist'.

Posted by: blf | May 25, 2011 7:28 AM

[W]hen conversation shifts, as it so often does, to the demiurge (no, not that kind of urge) the first thing that comes to mind is peas.

The Invisible Sky Farie is that fermented^† ?

  † I meant to say demented, but fermented seems apt.
    _{Especially since, after trying to read that drivel, I need a beer.}

Posted by: Richard Eis | May 25, 2011 8:23 AM

“There is no good, no hereafter, no punishment for evil. We can do what we wish.” I have heard one torturer say, “I thank God in whom I don’t believe that I have lived to this hour when I can express all the evil in my heart.” He expressed it in unbelievable brutality and torture inflicted on prisoners."

Does anyone else get the impression that this is made up bullshit.

I thank god in whom i don't believe? Express all the evil in my heart? These are quite impressively poetic torturers.

Posted by: The Very Reverend Battleaxe of Knowledge | May 25, 2011 8:40 AM

Yeah, raven pointed that out at #497—after a while you get a nose for the style of made-up fundie crap. But for them lying is a sacrament if it makes the enemy look bad.

Posted by: Katherine Lorraine, Chaton de la Mort | May 25, 2011 9:03 AM

@sqlrob:

Seeing if I could get a cub(?) for a pet most likely.

Hatchling for dragons hatched from eggs.

I use pups for the baby dragons in my stories cause they're live birth.

Posted by: truthspeaker | May 25, 2011 10:31 AM

Posted by: james.goetz Author Profile Page | May 25, 2011 1:41 AM

@The Very Reverend Battleaxe of Knowledge #506
The concept of a "false appearance of cosmic history" in a multiverse with an inifinte number of past universes had nothing to do with that young earth creationist argument.

Are you kidding? They're identical concepts.

Posted by: Fortinbras Armstrong | May 25, 2011 10:58 AM

It's the very same rot, the poison of religion that twists minds away from reality and fastens them on hellish bogeymen. They're demented fuckwits, every one, and the big lie rests right on the fundamental beliefs of supernaturalism and deities, not on the ephemera of one crank's bizarre interpretations.

Thank you, PZ, for that unabashed piece of what can only be called bigotry. And yes, bigotry is the word I mean. You are as filled with hatred as any KKK Kleagel.

Yes, Camping should be laughed at, and he is, even by a majority of Christians. Oh, and you completely missed the point of the Matthew 24:36 reference -- it means that, even on his own terms, his prediction was meaningless.

Posted by: nigelTheBold, Minister of Spankings | May 25, 2011 11:08 AM

Fortinbras Armstrong:

Thank you, PZ, for that unabashed piece of what can only be called bigotry. And yes, bigotry is the word I mean. You are as filled with hatred as any KKK Kleagel.

Right. Because the KKK hate minorities for their ideas, not their skin color. Excellent and accurate comparison, Pup!

Oh, and you completely missed the point of the Matthew 24:36 reference -- it means that, even on his own terms, his prediction was meaningless.

You don't read for comprehension much, do you?

Posted by: makyui | May 25, 2011 11:17 AM

Right. Because the KKK hate minorities for their ideas, not their skin color.

Ideas which lead to widespread oppression, self delusion, self harm, willful ignorance, murder of "sinful" people, teaching children about eternal punishments for finite crimes, withholding knowledge from children, and killing children via pseudoscience because of belief in fairy tales!

...Wait.

Posted by: sqlrob | May 25, 2011 11:19 AM

"The cruelty of atheism is hard to believe, when man has no faith in the reward of good or the punishment of evil. There is no reason to be human. There is no restraint from the depths of evil which is in man. The communist torturers often said, “There is no good, no hereafter, no punishment for evil. We can do what we wish.” I have heard one torturer say, “I thank God in whom I don’t believe that I have lived to this hour when I can express all the evil in my heart.” He expressed it in unbelievable brutality and torture inflicted on prisoners."

This doesn't imply what you think it implies. This is an indictment of theists, not atheists.

The only reason you don't torture is because you're watched? That means you're a fucking psychopath. I don't do bad stuff because of empathy and common decency. I have a conscience, not a fucking god holding my hand saying "bad!".

Posted by: Owlmirror | May 25, 2011 11:57 AM

Thank you, PZ, for that unabashed piece of what can only be called bigotry. And yes, bigotry is the word I mean. You are as filled with hatred as any KKK Kleagel.

Is the words "demented fuckwits" that set you off? Would you prefer the more highbrow "delusional and intellectually perverse"?

Yes, Camping should be laughed at,

It astonishes me that you write this immediately after writing the paragraph above. Have you no sense of irony? Have you no sense of shame? Have you no sense of your own hypocrisy?

PZ is not allowed to condemn the nonsense you believe, but you're allowed to condemn those who believe the nonsense that you don't believe in?

Oh, and you completely missed the point of the Matthew 24:36 reference -- it means that, even on his own terms, his prediction was meaningless.

Sigh. No, PZ did not miss the point.

But PZ's point is that a useless collection of incoherent myths, written by human beings who were basically pulling nonsense out of their asses and writing it down, should never have been used to make "predictions" in the first place.

It's really easy to imagine a scenario where that verse did not exist. It's embarassing to later Christians in that it cuts the throat of the later even more nonsensical dogma of Trinitarianism, and a scribe might have, in his cognitive dissonance, simply skipped it early on.

If that verse was missing from the bible, does that mean Camping would not have been a demented fuckwit delusional and intellectually perverse to put together some wacky numbers and get "May 21, 2011" as the date of the beginning of the end of the world?

Posted by: AJ Milne OM | May 25, 2011 12:49 PM

Ideas which lead to widespread oppression, self delusion, self harm, willful ignorance, murder of "sinful" people, teaching children about eternal punishments for finite crimes, withholding knowledge from children, and killing children via pseudoscience because of belief in fairy tales!

Oh, but all y'all don't understand... I mean, me, I was totally behind PZ too...

Right up until he erected that huge, wooden atheist 'A' on Fortrinbras' lawn and set fire to it.

Oh, and those vigilante groups The Terror of Morris organized to throw Molotov cocktails through poor FA's windows in the middle of the night, to terrorize him, chase him out of town? Let's face it, that was pretty over the top.

And that stuff where PZ and the rest of the atheist town council insist that poor, impoverished Christian minority ride at the backs of buses, and regularly gather angry mobs to hang 'em from a handy tree if they look at an unbelieving woman the wrong way? Honestly, I think we can all agree that's a bit uncalled-for, too.

The drinking fountain thing. Why can't Christians drink from the same ones as the rest of us, really? What's the big deal, PZ? Geez.

And the lunch counter bit. Are we really gonna get Christian cooties if they eat in the same places we do?

And the schools. Separate but equal, sure. Let's face it, the poor, persecuted Christians can't get a decent education in this country because we of the atheist KKK insist they go to these lousy places with no budget, and freak out and start riots if they try to go anywhere else*...

I mean, sure, now you're gonna say Fortinbras' entertaining histrionics are really just meant as a standard if unintentionally comic hyperbolic ploy to try to silence appropriately sharp criticism of a hegemonic monster of a wildly delusional belief system stamping its feet, clenching its fists, bawling its eyes out for the dreadful 'bigotry' it suffers whenever anyone points out how wildly silly it is, and insisting repeatedly that 'respect' (read, again, as 'silence') is necessary for its creeds and customs even tho' it is, collectively, a bizarre cadre of weirdoes still talking to their invisible friend past the age of five...

Right. How silly. I mean, all that happened here is a total knob referencing a certain oddly revered iron age text talked his flock out of a few million dollars, and now others who revere said text are pointing out to him that his numerology was really pretty silly, considering the text itself--a solid work of history and manual for predicting the future, let's remember, containing sea monsters, giants, magic men with wings, and hallucinatory apocalyptic dreams--also sez, between equally sober bits about talking snakes, that this wouldn't work...

It's just terribly pejorative to point out they are, pretty much, demented fuckwits, in that situation, seems to me.

... well, to other, lesser demented fuckwits, anyway.

So, anyway, apart from insisting PZ stop randomly raping uppity Christian women who attempt to open schools in which Christians study next to unbelievers, I'd also like to hear a little more appropriate language, here, folk. Clearly, 'demented fuckwits' does not quite pass muster with some of the demented fuckwits themselves, so, instead, I propose we go with:

(Clears throat...)

'Complete fucking fruit loops'.

I mean, really, when you think about it, it's vastly more respectful.

(*/Oh. Right. And also 'cos some of 'em insist on a biology program that mostly references Ken Ham. That, too.)

Posted by: azumahazuki | May 25, 2011 2:28 PM

@555

Quoted for motherfucking truth. And no one who believes their God will torture even a single being (no, not even Hitler) for eternity has any right to criticize anything a finite being does in finite time. Over the equivalent torture timespan in Hell that would be equal to 13+ million deaths, their God becomes worse than Hitler.

Posted by: senviorg1 | May 26, 2011 3:04 PM

The religious warnings as crazy as they sound are an indicator of something in our society not so apparent to those attributing all this to the end of times lunacy. Meanwhile we are sitting on a fault line WAY past due for a major shift, solar cycles (larger bursts than norm), climate shifts ALL of which is SCIENCE not paranormal. This religion bashing isn't cool either and I'm am ex-Catholic Panentheistic, secular humanist for perspective.

I agree about the kooks and religion, but what I fear is complacency toward true high risk potential "disasters". It would be sad if we were so averse to the paranormal version that we forget about common sense and responsible risk assessment. Religion and science are in a struggle, don't forget the real world and the real probabilities. Vic

Posted by: John Morales | May 29, 2011 6:16 AM

mikeb, your didactic manner doesn't hide your parochial understanding of Christian eschatology.

While there is a lot of material out there on a negative, angry god please don't characterise Christian eschatology (perhaps a better word is biblical eschatology) in such a narrow way.

Well, it's a steaming puddle of runny shit, if you want a more accurate (if metaphorical) description, and you Christians just lap it up.

Posted by: Forbidden Snowflake | May 29, 2011 6:43 AM

On the contrary, christian eschatology is far better characterised as "a wiping away of every tear, for there will be no more sorrow or mourning or pain - the old order of things has passed away."

While there are parts of the Bible that suggest judgement and punishment for the "unbelievers" the overall message is one of hope. (as an aside, what should god do with the heinous?).

I think that is what Sastra means when she writes about believers perceiving "the Damned" more like props in a play than people. Because if they're props, then whatever horrendous shit happens to them in the imagined doomsday, it can't affect the doomsday's standing as a happy event, or God's "merciful" status.

Disturbing.

But, if there is oppression. If there is inhumanity. If there is fear. THEN we do need eschatology.

We need hope of a better world.

Posted by: KG | May 29, 2011 7:00 AM

as an aside, what should god do with the heinous? - mikeb

Make them good. After all, it's supposed to be omnipotent, so that shouldn't be beyond it. Really, you Christians are pretty dim.

Posted by: Nightjar | May 29, 2011 9:16 AM

as an aside, what should god do with the heinous?

You tell me. What do you think an all-powerful, merciful god should do with the human beings that you call "the heinous"?

Posted by: someareboojums | May 29, 2011 5:28 PM

Hah! I spoke too soon! As it turns out, not only did the Short-Bus Campers make an embarrassingly clumsy and transparent attempt to scrub their website, they missed a spot.