How about another sample of creationist nonsense from my mailbag? I wrote about Caroline Crocker back in February—she's the Intelligent Design creationist who was released from her job teaching biology at George Mason University, and I said she had demonstrated incompetence in the discipline, and deserved to be let go. That article seems to elicit regular bursts of outrage from the creationists, who don't seem to have been able to comprehend it.
SOOO it is ok for you and others to teach YOUR OPINIONS in the classroom documented only by YOUR OPINIONS and most not supported by fact. However, according to your article, if a theory other than YOURS - creation - is taught, it is an infringement upon you and others of your persuasion. I believe that Caroline has done a noble thing. She is giving students an opportunity to decide for themselves. You apparently do not. Let me tell you, sir, that I believe your view of the world stands as an infringement upon my rights in the classroom. I happen to believe in creationism and you and others like you have infringed upon my rights by teaching only one way to look at the world. I will argue no further but I guess IN TIME, we will all know the truth. If I am right, I will gain eternity. If I am wrong, I lose nothing. On the other hand, you, my friend, will have lost everything.
As I thought was clear from my article, this isn't about opinions—it's about teaching evidence-based science, something Crocker was unable to do. She wasn't teaching the facts, she actually had many of her ideas completely wrong, and contrary to the facts.I don't care what you believe—believe whatever you want—but a science classroom is a place for solid theory backed by observation and experiment, not the whims of the religious.
And please…Pascal's Wager? Does this creationist also believe she must follow Moslem law to maximize her chances of avoiding Jahannum?
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Show me one person who's used game theory to choose a religion and I'll show you someone who doesn't truly believe. Does anyone seriously think that God exists and likes people who try to play the odds like that?
They've always had the opportunity to decide for themselves. I'm just against influencing that decision by use of lies and propaganda. I'm sure PZ's the same way.
Sorry, but reality is objective and doesn't care about what rights you think you have. A different worldview isn't going to change that, and thus far, all the experimental results are against Cretinism.
Of course, you have the right to teach Cretinism, just not as a government official in a science class. They have this funny little idea that science should be taught in science classes.
Yawn. Appeal to the future coupled with a argumentum ad baculum. Why don't you base your ideas on their actual merit, rather than the merit you say they'd have if they were true?
My feeling on Pascal's wager mirrors Andrew's: it's not real faith, so why on earth would God (assuming he existed) be moved by that kind of belief?
There are occasionally times when I think it *would* be better to present all the serious scientific arguments in favor of ID in conjunction with the serious scientific scientific arguments in favor of evolution. The presentation could go something like this:
Here are all the serious scientific arguments in favor of ID:
[hear the crickets chirping]
OK, now here are all the serious scientific arguments in favor of evolution:
[continue with long list of established scientific understanding]
The real reason we can't do this is that to do so would require us to allow the crickets to chirp for thousands of different religious theories about how the world was created and populated. Otherwise we are privileging one particular form of Christian world-view. But that's exactly the point, isn't it?
Hell is reserved for those who insist you will go there if you do not believe in it.
Varient I've heard of Joker's comment:
"The hottest part of Hell is reserved for the people whose only reason to do good is to avoid going there."
I'm probably butchering the quote, though.
You know, this really echos the post-modern stuff that you'd get from the left back in the 90s.
You know - that even the very idea of measuring stuff is some kind of Western patriarchal hegemony (and therefore somehow invalid) and that if you're not comfortable with some aspect of a subject, then you shouldn't have to learn it.
Funny how the same nonsensical mindset can come from any sociopolitical angle.
What's that saying again? Oh yeah = There are no cultural relativists at 30,000 feet.
Some days I like to think that God does exist, but hates everyone who believes in him. The look on all the Pascal's wager types' faces as they tumbled down into hell would be priceless.
Bronze:
"Hell is reserved exclusively for them that believe in it. The lowest rungs of Hell are reserved for them that believe in it because they believe they should go there if they did not." - Robert Anton Wilson.
Anytime you get to quote Robert Anton Wilson, it's a good day. But this is what these people really don't understand: if you don't know what you're talking about, YOUR OPINION DOESN'T COUNT.
Last night, I came up with a great thought-experiment for the fundies. So you go to some global backwater, where no one has ever read, much less heard of, the Bible. You find some person whose first reaction upon being told about it is "your Bible is crap." How much consideration would you give that person?
None, right? Because they're dismissing out of hand something about which they, quite literally, know absolutely nothing, right? Interesting.
Because that's how we feel about you.
"She has given students an opportunity to decide for themselves." People push this idiotic line of thinking because they know, given the choice between homework and not, given the choice between learning and not, most students will choose as their dorkimer creationist parents want them to choose. If the students actually "made up their minds" and accepted evolutionary theory on their own, guess how quickly these dingbats would rally the troups against "relativism" and the "breakdown of authority in the classroom" and the allowance of "opinions"!
Another sad example of the terrible "benefits" of a conservative world order.
It is truly ironic that all the big tough religious people on that side of the fence are actually the most "humanist" - ergo, arrogant "humans-are-gods" types - people out there. How else do they explain their valuing opinion over agreed-upon fact? The insistence that their views, however assanine and unreasonable, be accepted as logical alternatives, even in the face of baltant evidence to the contrary? The very real fact that their economic policies favor the very few privileged? The acceptance of many people in their own political circles who espouse religiosity, but practice criminality? Their tendency toward absorbing and consuming, rather than sustaining? Their refusal to face true questions about the foundations of their thinking?
They fail daily to answer these questions, and they care less and less every day to answer those questions.
Yeah, well, that's just, like, YOUR OPINION, Man....
I don't know how postmodernism got so inextricably associated with cultural relativism but it gives me hives. I am a perfectly good self-respecting postmodernist and I wouldn't touch relativism with a ideologically-reinforced ten-foot pole. If I ever go back to grad school I am going to figure out who made postmodernism out to be all relativist, and then... decry them. Loudly.
Cultural relativism is a disease among college students, and not even just the Christian nutcases. In fact, this email should be circulated among college professors -- maybe distributed to every freshman comp teacher -- to be presented to their classes as an example of how goddamn stupid relativism makes you look.
I love how they called you "my friend" at the end of that letter. Because they're full of religion and call you their friend, they couldn't possibly hate your guts and wish harm upon you.
Why not? God's own penchant for gambling was revealed in the Book of Job.
(And give the devil his due for betting against someone who is omniscient.)
Based on the available evidence, if there is a deity with a particular interest in the actions of individuals, She is at least somewhat malevolent, albeit possibly incompetent.
In which case any arguments against Pascal's wager on the basis of logic, reason, or compassion do not stand. Such a mercenary calculation, inspired by fear, might indeed be effective -- irregardless of which religion one opts for.
The real problem is that there an infinite number of such strategies. If God is both involved and twisted, then maybe it's all about the chickens...
Pascal (clever guy that he was) had some good work-arounds for some of these problems. He thought that, with time, you could actually bring yourself to believe sincerely even if you motive, at the outset, was the wager. And he thought that the possibilities that needed to be taken up in the wager didn't include every conceivable God-- just the ones that were real possibilities for you. (James said things along this line too.) I think the weakest part of the argument is the set-up of the options as 'believe' vs. 'don't believe.' After all, Pascal doesn't claim we can either simply make ourselves believe or ensure (somehow) that we do not come to believe. All we can do is try to believe (with the possibility that we'll fail), or not try to (with the possibility that grace will favour us, and we'll come to believe anyway). But as soon as we divide up the possible actions & outcomes based on the options 'try to believe' and 'don't try to believe,' the apparent advantage of believing disappears. (I don't know the original source of this response to Pascal, but it's my favourite.)
Bryson Brown:
Actually, I suspect that that's possible: start out by pretending to believe in order to get along with others around you, then grasp any particle of not-disbelief in your mind and use that to tell yourself that you do believe, and bootstrap from there.
I wouldn't be surprised if a lot of "gay cure" programs worked that way. We humans are pretty good at lying to ourselves.