Greg Laden has the story. It's really not much of a story, but it's local, so we care—basically, a crazy Jesus lady is buying prime billboard space around the area to flaunt her opinion that evolution is bunk, and newspapers are writing about it. It's content-free noise, and we can only hope that all of our creationist opponents continue to be this shallow and stupid (and what do you know—they are!), but still, shallow and stupid seems to draw in the fan base. The article does mention some of her sponsors: if you're planning on having a home built in the Duluth area, scratch Legacy Custom Homes in Cloquet off your list of contractors.
The article also quotes John Goodge, a geology professor at UMD. I have nothing against the guy, and don't take this as a personal criticism, but he does echo the routine sentiment that most people, even most scientists, take, and I think it's part of our problem.
But while Goodge views creationism as faith and evolution as science, he's uncomfortable with portraying the issue as a battle.
"There is no conflict between science and religion, because one is a rational way of understanding the world. The other is a faith in something that binds people together," he said.
Look. Some wacky creationist has slapped together routine statements from creationist websites (especially Answers in Genesis) that declares a central scientific theory false, that accuses scientists of conspiracy to lie to students and citizens, that demands that you have to accept their religion and repudiate science or burn in hell forever, and we've got scientists shrugging their shoulders and saying there isn't a battle. One side is shooting at the other, and my side is in a state of denial. Of course there's a freaking conflict between science and religion. We're in the middle of a war right now where what is at stake is the minds of our children (and the creationists would agree with that statement), while too many of us pretend nothing is going on to be concerned about.
That statement that religion is "a faith in something that binds people together" is also a problem, even while it is entirely true. It does not mean it is a virtue, although everyone pretends it is—racism and homophobia and xenophobia and fear are also things that bind people together, effectively it seems, but that shouldn't imply that we should appreciate them. Wrong and wicked ideas seem to be awfully powerful for binding people together, and that's another reason to oppose them vigorously instead of pretending that they should be ignored.
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One side is shooting at the other, and my side is in a state of denial. Of course there's a freaking conflict between science and religion.
Dude, the creationists hardly speak for all of religion. Yet, you, over and over and over and over again, refer to "religion" as one "side" of the battle of science versus religion, and then point to some complete antisocial creationist nutjob as what the religion side is doing.
There does not need to be a battle between science and religion. There is, because creationists are claiming that they represent religion (when for many of us they do not), and because folks like you are buying (and/or trying to help them sell) their claim.
Make no mistake, there is assuredly a cultural conflict going on here. However, except for you and for the creationists, this is not a conflict between "science" and "religion." This is a conflict between "science" and "antiscience." Many of the religious are in the antiscicence camp, and creationism comes from religion. But that is what the real conflict is. And, assuredly, there is something to be concerned about.
And, yes, I know that you personally have a conflict with all of religion. But that is not the broader conflict.
Saying "one side is shooting at the other" as a justification for jumping into a war against science and religon is no better than pointing to 9/11 as an attack by "the Arab world" and claiming that it's a battle against all Arabs. What it's doing is taking the deeply antisocial behavior of one group and misusing that antisocial agenda to falsely justify your own personal crusade against something larger that happens to include the antisocial group as a subset.
-Rob
Rob
I sympathize with PZ on this one, although I'm agnostic rather than atheist. My problem is that too many who identify as religious don't tell the creationists and other fanatics that they are just plain wrong, AND that they represent only the "antisocial subset" that you refer to. Sure, it may be offensive to be so blunt, but so are they.
Offensive, that is.
It's simple Rob.
Because the "moderate" science endorsing religious people rarely stand up and call the creationists on their B.S. If you don't want people like the billboard lady to make you look bad, do something about it. Otherwise you do get lumped in with them as part of the problem. Atheists and scientists are not buying billboard space saying "don't believe in god, it's antiscience".
If we did whose side would you be on?
Oy, another apologist speaks up.
The No True Scotsman fallacy is old and tired, you know. We have a majority of people in this country claiming that evolution is false because their religious beliefs tell them so, yet you want to claim religion can't be blamed for it. Sorry, but if this country were 90% atheist instead of 90% theist this issue would not exist.
I do not target religion because it includes an odious group. I target it because it is all nonsense. This game of "well, that subset is stupid, but really, my religion doesn't deserve to be rejected" is annoying -- it's pretending that your favorite myths ought to be accepted by default, and no, they don't deserve that much respect.
As an ingroup system, sure. But as soon as you get two rival synods -- let alone entirely opposed creeds -- the bindings fall apart.
Religion is not a binding force. It is a pernicious social evil.
Hear, hear, Rob! I am a committed atheist myself, but I have a friend who is both a student of macroevolution and an evangelical Christian. Knowing and respecting her has tempered my views on religion considerably, especially after a talk about ID which started to turn nasty toward anyone with religious leanings. To be perfectly honest, I do believe that the world would be a better place without religion, but I also recognise that that is my opinion, that that opinion may be deeply insulting to many fine and good people, and that this battle that we agree to be taking place will not be won for our side without atheists' being willing to embrace the more secular-minded people of faith as allies.
Dude, the creationists hardly speak for all of religion
This is obviously true Rob but the question is by how much. I mean that while it is certainly true that there are lots of religious people who are not creationist, do you really believe that the creationists are such a small subset that they can be thought of as some sort of radical fringe?
PZ, I sympathize with your plight. I can see how it must look frustrating to you, based on what you've written. But what if in "firing back" at the creationists, we generate more enmity than sympathy?
If you read the book _Fiasco_ by Ricks, you learn about counterinsurgency, a doctrine also broadly discussed in Tony Zinni and Tom Clancy's book _Battle Ready_. Without going into too much detail, let me simply say that, insofar as the doctrines of counterinsurgency are concerned, the least desirable option in dealing with a troublemaker is to capture or kill him. The best way to deal with him is to marginalize him and cause him to lose his base of support and recruitment. An expert in counterinsurgency recognizes that the goal is not the troublemaker; the target is the people. Thus, capturing or killing a troublemaker might lead to a short-term tactical victory, but it might very well lead to a strategic failure, giving rise to two troublemakers where before there had only been one.
Now, talking about creationists, obviously capturing/killing aren't a part of our strategy, but causing them to lose their base of support is. When a whack-job creationist tries to convince people that God and science don't mix, *your target is not the creationist.* Your target, according to the doctrines of counterinsurgency, is the people who might listen to her.
So who listens to whack-job creationists who insist that Christianity can't be Christianity without the tangy zip of alchemy, astrology, and irreducible complexity views of science? Once you answer that question, ask yourself how you're going to convince that crew of your perspective and how they can have a hand in the future you'd make for them rather than the one the whack-job creationists who say that God and science don't mix?
Always remember: your target is not the creationist; your target is the people who might listen to them. Keep this in mind and you'll understand why sometimes it's quite tactically sound to let people fire at you without returning fire yourself.
And read _Fiasco_. (Want to borrow my copy?)
BCH
If the creationists do not speak for all of the religious, then why do you let them? Your silence in this matter is another tacit approval. If people like PZ do not bring it to our attention then we have no say in this matter either. I refuse to go along with this type of nonsense and When it is presented in my local community I do let my voice be heard. Rob, by allowing them to lie about this proven factual science you too have to accept that they are lying in your name. And when you fail to speak up you become another of those that we lump into the stupid dishonest liars who have been ruining our country for far too long.
I have never seen any sign by any religious organization that attributed anything good to science. I have never seen any church sign say "Darwin and Jesus" both are right. I know many religious people work in hospitals and are exemplars of service to their local communities but not once have they ever tried to stop the liars such as the woman in this case with the billboards. So why wonder why we get so overt in our dismissal of all religious players?
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I'd argue with Rob on this one too.
Not as a personal attack, but simply as an example, I'll notice that Rob has shown up HERE to complain that this battle is wrongly joined.
But did he also go THERE? He may well have personally written a letter to the other side of the conflict, but he gives no notice of it here.
He has given explicit criticism of someone critical of this lady and her billboards. Contrariwise, and in light of that, it appears he has offered - by omission of criticism - tacit support for the billboard crusade.
It's likely that Rob doesn't mean to support the billboards. Possibly he's simply standing away from their distasteful presence.
However, in the statistical aggregate of society-wide notice of this issue, many moderate Christians will essentially "vote" to approve the billboards by saying nothing.
People will see criticism of the critics, and little or no criticism of the billboards, and will conclude unconsciously that there exists overall approval.
Even if the approval is grudging in any specific case, overall there will be a feeling toward the billboards of "Yes, that's okay. It's perfectly fine for someone to do that."
Rob, I notice - ALWAYS - that this is what my "side" of these conflicts faces: The nutball religious extremists get complete free rein to say virtually anything, yet even very mild critics of the nutballs get jumped on like they're doing something wrong.
I wish more moderate Christians (and Muslims, Jews, etc.) were at least equally outraged - and then actually spoke up about it - when the public image of their faith and culture got hijacked by these nutballs.
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Yes, exactly. Now where does that base of support and recruitment for creationists lie? Notice that I am not suggesting any kind of action be taken against Julie Haberle for publicly lying about science--I am saying that we need to stop slapping bandages on the symptoms and go right to the root of the disease.And yeah, a great way to marginalize creationists is to use their idiocy to highlight the weaknesses of religion, and draw people away from the churchly hothouse that fosters that kind of damned dumb thinking. Meanwhile, some people make excuses for the source of our nation's curse and beg us not to pick on poor, blameless religion, because that will antagonize people.Tough.
We're in the middle of a war right now where what is at stake is the minds of our children (and the creationists would agree with that statement), while too many of us pretend nothing is going on to be concerned about.
You know, I have no problem with the science of biological evolution, but I do with the sideline issues. There really are many with the attitude (I doubt it came from Darwin, as some fundamentalist Christians have claimed), "since we descended from apes, we're free to behave like 'em."
Anything goes... (I suspect there's many televangelists who are immoral closet atheists, and have no fear of using God's name in vain for their financial gain, taking advantage of poor widows, vulnerable people, and in it for the money, the glory, the occasional flings w/ vulnerable women - nieve children -or homosexual liaison, behind the backs of their followers.) They don't practice what they preach. They're living for themself. Very atheistic of themselves!
Morality seems to be a central, driving issue.
(Religion has a pat answer for this. They pull out the Bible, and cherry pick the good verses. What has the other side got? Here's an example of what I'm talking about, he seems to have a grasp on what morality really is about, but, I've read other atheists saying its okay to get drunk, speed, harrass women in the workplace (talking nasty behind their back) basically, anything goes, there's no sin, and no judgment... live life up the fullest for yourself.
But, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IJowXUnYXTI has a grasp, on what right and wrong is.
I do not want to live in a world absent of morality, because myself and the children, the small, meek, honest guy are the ones who end up paying for somebody else's "fun" and "good time", the powerful ruling over the weak... or at least wreaking havoc in their path, like the apes they are, with their "primal urges".
I think that's what most people want to get away from.
If I had the ultimatum set before me:
1. Live in a world filled with Evolution-believers, where anything goes, hey, we're apes, so immorality is fully explained and understandable, primal behavior obeyed, sin is acceptable, and primal desires of the strong are met... the powerful ruling over the weak,
or,
2. Live in a world filled with religious minds that demand men act like men, protectors of family, providers for their children, adultery frowned upon, rape is a crime, and humanist virtues prevail (as they have been doing so, in most western religion and even some eastern religion) as in "Do unto others as you want done to yourself", well, honestly, I'd choose for the second ultimatum, with no apologies.
"what is at stake is the minds of our children"
Oh, you are right. Every day, I live in fear as my children leave and return from school. I'm not worried about the cirriculum. We are now living where police must patrol the corridors, and suspect everyone who enters the school as a gun-slinger or terrorist. This, needless to say, came from the ruthless fundamentalist whacko terrorists, 911, as well as young people watching their atheistic rock music (blaspheming all the way, the painted up demonic-looking crud, that hasn't a humanist bone in its sleezy drug-riddled, miserable corpse), boys going wild, doing whatever their apelike-tendencies drove them to feel an urge... girls! girls! girls! it's a free for all out there, and life comes cheap. Get somebody pregnant, kill her. Watch "The Passion," get a guilt trip from Jesus, go to police and confess the crime.
It's a sick world the kids are growing up in.
In other words, the world would be a better place without religious fanatics or atheism. Get rid of it all, and let the kids alone to get an education in a safer, quieter, peaceful world.
Can that be done?
I have my own interests, and those are the interests of women and children. I pick and choose the ideologues from both camps that are going to work for me, my children and let's be honest, that's all anyone cares about.
My view is purely naturalistic too. Just try to mess with bear or tiger cubs, and see what the mother will do to you. Will you hold it against her, when she mauls and rips you to pieces, in an act to protect her children? I want my kids to grow up in a better and safer world, where Humanist values and moral virtues is chief. Everything else is pure crap.
All I have to say to the "moderates" is... prove us wrong.
Despite your superstitions we'll take you on as allies. Will they really pick up Darwin's flag? I doubt it. They're loyalty is with religion. Meanwhile we'll not sit back and let creationists call science a lie.
You can find the Who Is Your Creator bulletin board here -- I see neither a Rob nor a Burt posting there (maybe they used pseudonyms?). In fact, while there are many people criticizing the site, there does seem to be a disproportionate absence of good Christians complaining about their religion being hijacked.
There are Christians defending creationism, and even defending the reality of angels and other such equally absurd stories, though. They seem more representative of American religion than the pious and largely hypothetical supporters of the mythical rational religion that gets bandied about in an abstract way whenever faith is criticized.
Wow. Got any other foolish prejudices you want to share with us? I mean, strawmen and false dichotomies are pretty much all the theists have, but rarely do I seem them brought up together in such a blatant fashion.Don't forget to mention the atheist predilection for drinking the blood of Christian babies next time!
"Don't forget to mention the atheist predilection for drinking the blood of Christian babies next time!"
You know, we ought to. Plenty of them spend time, by their own admission, drinking the blood of a Christian adult every Sunday and that's generally immune to criticism. If we treat their claims as equivalent to science, which is what they want whether it's Ken Miller or Duane Gish, then they clearly have no position to criticize us for doing such a thing.
I woke up in a good mood this morning. After reading the article I sent an E-mail to Legacy Custom Homes who is in part supporting this loonie and her billboard message. Hopefully they will rethink their position. Here's what I sent.
----------------------------------------------------
From your web site:
"Deeply rooted in the area, our founders know that trust and reputation are critical. This fact is reflected in our company's determination to treat every customer, subcontractor and supplier with honesty and integrity."
Your honesty and integrity, trust and reputation have been relegated to the basement of deception due to your support of creationist ideology on billboards in your area.
Re: http://www.duluthnewstribune.com/articles/index.cfm?id=31479&CFID=11850…
Before you turn your company into a joke you may want to review the TalkOrigins web site and in particular, Index to Creationist Claims. [text hyper link to Index]
Evolution is indeed a fact and better. Evolution is an explanation of the facts. Biological evolution doesn't say how life began on our planet. It supports speciation from a common ancestor as far back as the single cell organism. There are at least 1000 pages per year published through scientific journals describing how the predictability of evolution was used in research and discovery. Tested, peer-reviewed and published. Once published other scientists try to poke holes in the research by further testing. The scientific scrutiny that has been applied by fellow scientists far outweighs the scrutiny that religious organisations have or can apply. Scientists don't want to prove each other right. They try to prove each other wrong. This is how science is self correcting. Bio-Engineers would be the first to bitch if a flaw in the Theory of Evolution prohibited their work. To date this has not happened.
You are meddling in the economics of the U.S. and the health of the U.S. and world citizenry. Is this what your religion really wants to promote?
Or skip your next flu shot because it is a direct result of evolutionary understanding in designing drugs to combat flu strains.
Get a grip and learn about the repercussions of your actions!
Gene Goldring
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Maybe there is someone at the other end with an inquisitive mind.
Wow. Got any other foolish prejudices you want to share with us? I mean, strawmen and false dichotomies
I had to withdraw from an atheist blog, because it was predominantly male atheists, scrawling that kind of drivel, no sin: okay to get drunk he wrote, okay to gawk at and mutter among male friends about her body (this is sexual harrassment in the workplace), jokes about having as many women as heart desires (sounds like biblical booty all over again, and its atheists making the jokes) when I complained about it, I was hotly ridiculed for saying anything... of course I asked other women offline, what their opinion was, and they were disgusted.
They did not understand why I was sensitive to statements that endorse their brutish lifestyle. Women jokes. Drinking beer (I divorced my last husband because of alcohol, and his abuse of the children whilst in a drunken stupor, okay?)
What works for men, does not work for women and children. Of course if nature would be good enough to supply us with 250 lb stature, big biceps with a fist that packs a punch to smash teeth down the throat of a smart mouth, we might get our way too, for a change.
Lots of things sound good in the written word, and some things women and children are having to live in the hell.
I had to withdraw from an atheist blog, because it was predominantly male atheists, scrawling that kind of drivel
Does this blog have a name or is this just another "unnamed Chinese paleontologist on an airplane who hates evolution" stories?
I had to withdraw from an atheist blog, because it was predominantly male atheists, scrawling that kind of drivel, no sin: okay to get drunk he wrote, okay to gawk at and mutter among male friends about her body (this is sexual harrassment in the workplace), jokes about having as many women as heart desires (sounds like biblical booty all over again, and its atheists making the jokes) when I complained about it, I was hotly ridiculed for saying anything... of course I asked other women offline, what their opinion was, and they were disgusted.
I call bullshit. This is a public board that claims to be aligned with a atheistic viewpoint? Give us the address.
Their. Damn it. I know the difference. (Annoyed with self)
Atheists are not devoid of morals or ethics. It has nothing to do with atheism.
You're confusing us with nihilists. You don't understand atheism at all.
Disbelief in god is all that it requires. Where you get the rest of that other crap I have no idea. Atheists have no desire to live in a world of lawlessness and brutality. Who does?
Sharon. You really don't know what you're talking about.
Don't forget to mention the atheist predilection for drinking the blood of Christian babies next time!
Speaking of strawmen and false dichotomies, who said anything about drinking anyone's blood?
Did it occur to you, ever, that godless atheist "free for all" and "anything goes" as well as "religious fanaticism" might both be wrong concepts.
I think Thomas Paine is a good example. Not only did he criticise Christianity, but he was an equal opportunity critic when it came to atheism.
So go ahead and smear Thomas Paine if you like.
The world would be better off without radicals, all of them.
I think Agnostics have the best of the spiritual views, but that's my opinion as a borderline deist-agnostic.
I saw "theist" somewhere, up there, projected on me as well. That too, a strawman and falsehood?
Did it occur to you, ever, that godless atheist "free for all" and "anything goes" as well as "religious fanaticism" might both be wrong concepts.
Again Sharon, who is it that you think holds this viewpoint? Who are you talking about? What does "free for all" and "anything goes" have to do with atheism? Where are you getting this garbage except from your mysterious unnamed atheist blog and your own fevered imagination?
Don't forget to mention the atheist predilection for drinking the blood of Christian babies next time!
Speaking of strawmen and false dichotomies, who said anything about drinking anyone's blood?
Did it occur to you, ever, that godless atheist "free for all" and "anything goes" as well as "religious fanaticism" might both be wrong concepts.
I think Thomas Paine is a good example. Not only did he criticise Christianity, but he was an equal opportunity critic when it came to atheism.
So go ahead and smear Thomas Paine if you like.
The world would be better off without radicals, all of them.
I think Agnostics have the best of the spiritual views, but that's my opinion as a borderline deist-agnostic.
I saw "theist" somewhere, up there, projected on me as well. That too, a strawman and falsehood?
Disbelief in god is all that it requires. Where you get the rest of that other crap I have no idea. Atheists have no desire to live in a world of lawlessness and brutality. Who does? Sharon. You really don't know what you're talking about.
I have seen some atheist websites, and they're appalling. Pictures of dead rotting babies, and laughing at people's sensitivity. Then we have Larry Flynt, atheist, who regularly published "rape comics"... and his counterpart in lust (which the atheist blog I withdrew from, yes, used just that term, "lust", there's no sin in "lusting", and I was scorned and ridiculed for giving my opinion, as a freethinker and a woman, that I do not appreciate this kind of sexist harrassment, I've had to work around it, and it's miserable, what the courts call a "hostile work environment" but who cares? it's not the men who suffer) do I need to continue with a list?
Somebody tell me what the hell sharon is talking about?
She's obviously never hung around here because I've never read an "anything goes" thread of a discussions about an atheist moral free for all. Those ideas only ever come from christians.
Hi,
I know I'm gonna get some flak for this, but I have to commend Rob's analogy of evangelical creationists to extremist Islam. There are extremists on both sides fighting a war:
The ID/YEC camp are extreme religionists (mostly Christian) who want to indoctrinate the world with their beliefs, much like militant Islam wants worldwide Sharia law. Obviously there are moderates who are also religious, just as there are moderate Muslims who don't want jihad. It is frustrating that you don't hear the moderates constantly railing against the extremists, but there are many reasons that they don't. Sometimes they are afraid to speak out (with good cause), but usually I think it is because they mostly don't care. It's not their battle to fight, because they don't believe that strongly one way or another. If you are outraged at this group of moderates, then you should be outraged at anyone who doesn't have an opinion on every single controversy in the world today. How about agnostics? Theistic evolutionists?
On the other side of the fence you have the U.S.-led "war on terror". Supporters on this side believe that we cannot live in a peaceful world until all "Islamofascists" are captured or killed. This is analogous to the militant atheistic view in that, while the cause might be slightly more just, it is still an extreme view with few, very vocal supporters. These people also want to convince moderates that we are at war, and that only one side can be right/victorious. This is also untrue. Obviously if you are a scientist it is in your best interest to protect the integrity of science, but it doesn't mean that you have to proselytize all scientists into fighting your battle against religion. In America, not all law enforcement officers and National Guard troops are actively seeking out Muslim extremists on our soil, there are too many domestic issues to deal with. If an American doesn't support the broader war on terror they are called 'unpatriotic', much like the atheistic/science-as-god group will call out a scientist who has faith as 'not defending science'.
Science and faith ARE two different things. You can have both, they are not mutually exclusive, and one will never prove the other wrong.
Sorry for the rant, but I kinda felt bad for Rob getting railed on like that. He does make some interesting points.
-Mike
Chauvenism and insensitivity have nothing to do with atheism. Just because you were on a board with a bunch of guys with little maturity has nothing to do with ahtiesm.
Please guys, did you read that?
Cool down and read. You are misunderstanding me.
Smear Thomas Paine if you like. He criticised Atheism too.
And the atheists smeared back:
"...wildfire was transferred to English soil. The writings of Paine won enthusiastic disciples. Some made a bonfire of their Bibles in honor of their new apostle, and some even got so far beyond the apostle himself that they deliberated whether they ought not to uncitizen him for superstitiously professing some belief in the existence of God."
-Henry Sheldon, History of the Christian Church
I do know what I'm talking about.
The world would be better off without radicals. A gentler, quieter, peaceful world, that's safe for all good citizens.
I am a deist-agnostic, and I couldn't even step foot into my mother's house, without getting screamed at, in hateful mockery and seething hostility, from my atheist brother, "why" I wasn't an atheist, like him. Then my mother, who is a fundamentalist Christian, telling me I'm going to hell.
I wish all of them would shut the &*$( up.
Oh my, Larry Flynt, sexual harassment, "hostile work environment" -- sounds like those terrible immoral atheists are really bothering Sharon. Perhaps she'd like to go live under the Taliban -- I hear their morals towards women are so strong they murder anyone who teaches to women.
I think Sharon's "atheist websites" are probably accessed through links from fundamentalist christian sites; they seem to be the sort of reverse-posterchild tactic to demonize the enemy.
She's obviously not actually tried to research the subject.
Mike out point is that sure science and religion can co-exist.
If the religious can control themselves and not lie about science, there's no problem.
If the moderates in religion can speak up for science when their radicals go astray that would be great.
But they don't.
Sharon, where is the address of this supposed blog? You came here and threw accusations at us, the readers of THIS blog, you state that aethists (or at least the male variety) are amoral and sexists (I have found the opposite to be true).
So, please, either provide proof for your accusations or shuffle off. If you continue to throw mud and unfounded accustions you are simply giving MORE reasons for us to distain god-botherers.
Yeah, Sharon, go ahead and play that "the words of a former abused wife are always sacred" card. I'll see your drunken child abuser and raise you my stone-cold-sober wife-and-child abuser who used his religion to justify his abuse and control. That bastard actually went and joined a strict Christian cult that didn't believe in divorce, just so he could thumb his nose at the court and claim that it had no jurisdiction over his marriage (so naturally couldn't dissolve it).
While you sit over there arnd whine that religion is the source of morality and atheists are inherently immoral, I'll simply rub your nose in the millions of examples of people using religion to get their sordid little way.
Sharon,
Please explain how atheism is a radical view.
All atheism means is "I do not believe in any gods".
Sharon - have you spent any time reading through this blog? How about reading through the comments? I'm a woman and have yet to see anything that even comes close to the behavior that you are describing. Your anger seems to be misplaced.
The "ape-like" behavior that you are describing is outrageous - however I've seen that behavior exhibited by all kinds of people - almost all are people who believe in God (since I know very few atheists).
How do you account for the behavior of the priests who abuse children? There are many examples of people who preach morality yet behave quite badly - so your claim that having religion guarantees moral behavior is naive.
Preaching about the supposed moral character of the people who participate in the conversation at this site tells us more about you than it does about anyone here.
She's obviously never hung around here because I've never read an "anything goes" thread of a discussions about an atheist moral free for all. Those ideas only ever come from christians.
SteveC, you really need to get off this blog for awhile and take a tour of what's going on around elsewhere on the web in some of the darker "godless liberal" hovels.
There is no god, no sin, no judgment, so naturally they deduce, Anything goes. There are in fact, sites like those. Christians are not the only ones who claim "Only Christians monopolize morality". Oh no, there's rotten coming from both atheist and christian side.
I have spent considerable time, surfing the net and I know precisely what I am talking about. Many of the "godless liberal" sites are not "family friendly" like this one.
In fact, when Ed sent me the link to PZ Meyers' blog, he wrote the description out as "godless liberal", and I erased that description, and published the link on the site/s because, by comparison, PZ Meyers' blog is mild compared to some of the crud I've seen on the web, published by atheists. Atheism holds no monopoly on morality, anymore than Christians do.
There are bad atheists, just like there are bad Christians.
Do you deny this fact?
BTW, biological evolution is not atheism and you cannot prove atheism in biology or chemistry or any science, anymore than intelligent design can be proven.
Still no links???
I have seen some atheist websites, and they're appalling. Pictures of dead rotting babies, and laughing at people's sensitivity.
Once again sharon, you need to cite where you are getting this information. It is simply not credible. If you are not able to provide an actual link to a blog which specifically cites atheism as justification for such odious opinions then I will have to assume that you are simply a liar.
Moreover, the fact that someone thinks that atheism is justification for such things does not make it so. The truth is that the number of atheists who believe such things has to be pretty close to zero.
Then we have Larry Flynt, atheist, who regularly published "rape comics"
This is an absurdly lame ad hominem argument. Whatever one thinks of Larry Flynt, the notion that his work can be thought of as some outgrowth of atheist philosophy is stupid beyond belief. One does not have to be an atheist to be a pornographer, even a particularly execrable one. I am sure that you will find that pornographers come from all types of backgrounds, even agnostics.
and his counterpart in lust (which the atheist blog I withdrew from, yes, used just that term, "lust", there's no sin in "lusting"
I don't know about sin but if by lust, you mean sexual attraction to another person, then there is certainly nothing wrong with that. Sexual harassment is quite something separate and the fact that you confusedly conflate the two is pretty telling.
do I need to continue with a list?
You need to provide some evidence that what you are talking about has anything to do with atheism. There are plenty of terrible things out there in the world. The world is sometimes an unpleasant place. You have yet to do anything to demonstrate that any of this has anything at all to do with atheism.
If Sharon isn't a troll, she's acting in a manner pretty hard to distinguish from that of a troll.
I suggest attention starving her until she produces the URL to this messageboard of drunken, nihilistic, chauvinist "atheists." She's danced around that for 2 or 3 posts now.
This is the problem today: this whole entitlement privilege. I don't understand why people think their own personal anecdotal experience is somehow transferable to the world at large. The supreme arrogance of such a stance is appalling. Before opening your mouth and inserting your foot in it, you are obligated to get informed about what you are talking about. Steven Dutch says it better than I could:
Ken Miller? Dr. Rowan Williams? Perhaps even Francis Collins?
Steve_C, are they (a) not moderate, or (b) not in religion?
Bob
There are bad atheists, just like there are bad Christians.
Do you deny this fact?
Of course no one denies this fact. In fact, it is precisely the point that morality is something separate from belief in a deity. You are the one trying to suggest otherwise. You are the one arguing that atheism is responsible for so many of the mysterious horrors you have been finding on your tours around the web.
You still haven't posted a link.
And I have no doubt you've ran into some bad behaviour.
However, you are the one lumping atheists into some bacchanalian moral free cult.
"BTW, biological evolution is not atheism and you cannot prove atheism in biology or chemistry or any science, anymore than intelligent design can be proven."
That statement doesn't even make sense.
I'll try to decipher it. No god cannot be disproved through biology.
Nothing disproves a god, or the faeries, or Thor.
ID is a supposed science... it MUST be proven in order to have any validity.
Evolution is a proven scientific fact.
Sharon do you believe in Zeus or Mithra?
Sharon you obviously have done little to no research on this subject and are better off slinking away at this point. I as well as well as many readers here and as a matter of fact my Grandfather are atheists. You'd be hard pressed to find any of the ones I mentioned here acting with any "free for all" attitude or lifestyle. I hold a good job, make a good salary, pay my taxes, am happily married, never have or would cheat on my wife, I treat people with more kindness than I see people of belief treating others every day and I have a moral character that not only does not condone sexual harassment (using your example) it detests it. You may be a deist-agnostic as you say, but you also need to do some more research on what it means to be atheist. Being an atheist does not mean being a nihilist as Steve_C pointed out you are describing.
You are extremely confused and really need to bow out of this discussion if you are going to choose to remain willfully ignorant on the subject.
And oddly enough, no links are forthcoming for this mythical group of atheists. Steve_C has it right. Sharon has mistaken nihilists for atheists (or assholes who decided to drive out an annoying commenter by pushing buttons). I have yet to meet an atheist without a moral compass, not to say that such people don't exist. Atheists just don't need imaginary angels and demons to tempt and bribe us into right and wrong decisions.
Looks like I was right; it seems sharon is flying around with Chinese creationist paleontologists.
Sharon --
Have you sought counseling? Really. Your home environment sounds horrible. Or is that all in the past? Maybe your own home is a peaceful place? We can hope.
And I too have stumbled across pornographic sites. Get a blocker on your computer. Some of the stuff online is not fit for . . . well, any living creature.
And workplace harassment is a crime. Document and report.
And if you can recall the names of any science blogs (not hateful porn-type places) where men are misbehaving as badly as you say, there might be some posters here who could pay the site a visit and set them straight on what an adult conversation is supposed to look like.
And, otoh, there are sites that just use language in a way that would make your hair curl! I gird my loins and visit the Rude Pundit's site every once in a while. Because I think he's funny and insightful. He is also the most vile sort of obscene! But you know what you're getting into visiting a site called "rude."
Good luck sorting all of this out.
Nance
Well, it looks like almost nobody (thanks Steve_C) paid attention to my little rant due to an easier target (thanks Sharon) popping up.
Steve_C - thanks for the support of my statement that science & faith are not mutually exclusive. You could twist your statement around and say that moderates in science (like me) should speak up when atheists like Dawkins and PZ fire barbs at people's faith (and I guess I am). The biggest difference is, when Dawkins and PZ make their arguments, they are articulate and mature, and usually based on factual scientific evidence. This doesn't make their view that 'science proves religion does not exist' any less extreme, it just forces the more intellectual crowd to respect their arguments, but not necessarily their views.
As for Sharon, your argument that atheists don't have morals is ridiculous. Obviously you've been traumatized by a bad experience somewhere, or you're just putting too much weight on some radical, and possibly fictitious websites. Christians and religious folks don't have a monopoly on morality, and believing in the bible or scripture doesn't give someone a better sense of right vs. wrong. Sometimes it's just the opposite, look at how many people use scripture to support bigotry and racism.
Thanks again for letting me rant...
-Mike
Bob. Dr. Williams has no voice in the US. And they don't have nearly the same amount of confusion in England as we do here.
Francis Collins IS part of the problem. He conflates religion and science all the time.
Yes he supports evolution. But it's the most contrived confused rambling that rarely
comes off as a defense of science, but of religion.
This is another example of the whole morality issue, which seems to be the biggest one among theists. If there's no god to kick your ass into hell, why not go hog-wild? Those people do scare me a little, because I think they might be projecting and would be the type to go nuts if they decided there wasn't a god. Here's the rebuttal, Sharon: A godless world probably wouldn't disintigrate into chaos, because most people wouldn't let that happen. Most people understand that they have to treat others nicely in order to have a decent world to live in. Bizarre, nihlistic people get marginalized from society, and yes, atheists do support laws to punish those who break them.
If you want to say that all atheists are like the small subset you're describing, then I'll say that all theists are like Ted Haggard and Mark Foley. Fair?
Captain Obvious' proud pronouncements that there are unpleasant atheists in the world aren't exactly earth-shattering, and her general behavior is suspect. I have to agree. Troll.
Sharon:
It sounds like your brother and your mother are just run-of-the-mill assholes, and their particular religion or non-religion is nothing more than the means to the end of being a schmuck, rather than an end in and of itself.
Did it ever occur to you that they'd probably behave exactly the same even if the particulars of their belief system were different?
Welcome to the real world, where not everyone behaves exactly the way you want them to. Most of us roll with it and move on with our lives. You, obviously, do not.
But don't pretend that your "people don't behave the way I want them to" complaint somehow invalidates atheism or evolution.
This sentence makes absolutely no sense whatsoever to me. Was anyone else able to parse it better than I was?
Of course there's a freaking conflict between science and religion. We're in the middle of a war right now where what is at stake is the minds of our children (and the creationists would agree with that statement), while too many of us pretend nothing is going on to be concerned about.
The central thesis, was laid out in black and white.
It really has nothing to do with science. It's a battle over moral issues. I'm simply addressing the issue PZ raised, with some of the realistic observations I've made. You're not going to convince christians, the world would be a better place with deadbeat dads running amuck, and children having orgy sex in the locker room... soforth for "no sin, anything goes". Maybe not on this blog, but it is often the opinion expressed on other popular atheist hovels. Anything goes! We're animals afterall.
Darwinism and evolution (because Atheism is implied), are perceived threats to the stability of family, something which Americans as a whole, tend to hold sacred. The government is finally cracking down on deadbeat dads, and children being provided for. Don't pay guys, and you'll spend time behind bars. Ah, the godless sixties, flower power, "free love". Babies have got to be fed, clothed, provided for.
I know precisely what I am talking about, having kept an open mind through the years to all viewpoints, including the most vile, godless views, which espouse getting laid, abort the baby, in one newsgroup recently a certain godless type was chuckling about rock stars, and how to get "all those girls," -- speaking as an American, a Deist-Agnostic, a Mother, I sure don't want his rotten (presumably atheistic) infidelity around my daughters.
I think the moral implications are central, to why, Christianity has created such an obstacle to having evolution taught in schools. It is a threat, to the very real issues which concern most Americans.
Let's face it, a deadbeat dad, who thinks its okay to lay up with this woman, that woman, the other, silicone implants are draining from my monitor when I visit some atheist websites.. make a baby with your careless, godless, "primal urges"... ABORT IT before it grows. godless liberals... what a hoot.
Anyway, its reasons like this, the Christians don't want evolution taught, and they will continue to be obtuse.
If a Deist-Agnostic mother feels this strongly, how much then, Christian mothers. The hand that rocks the cradle, rules the world. So much for "the minds of children being at stake".
This sentence makes absolutely no sense whatsoever to me. Was anyone else able to parse it better than I was
You understand what you want to, genius.
>>1. Live in a world filled with Evolution-believers, where anything goes, hey, we're apes, so immorality is fully explained and understandable, primal behavior obeyed, sin is acceptable, and primal desires of the strong are met... the powerful ruling over the weak,
or,
2. Live in a world filled with religious minds that demand men act like men, protectors of family, providers for their children, adultery frowned upon, rape is a crime, and humanist virtues prevail (as they have been doing so, in most western religion and even some eastern religion) as in "Do unto others as you want done to yourself", well, honestly, I'd choose for the second ultimatum, with no apologies.<<<
As a casual, not an expert observer of apes and there lives I would say that we could do a lot worse than live like they do and have.
Some might pick out of all the behavior of the apes that is "bad" in our eyes while at the same time looking at the behavior of those with a "religious mind" that is good while ignoring that which is negative.
Is it really a religion = morality natural world = immorality?
I understand that is the fear of some of the religious thinking people.
If we are going to have to make a choice between either one or the other then we should understand what the choice really is.
what is the behavior of the apes? (animals in the natural world)
What is the behavior of the humans with or without a religious mind (what is a religious mind)?
Can man be separated from the natural world at all?
Otherwise the discussion is meaningless.
If she's gonna keep doing that *points at post above*, I'm gonna keep doing this:
Troooooooooooooll
Sharon, it sounds like you are describing a rugby team or something. Does The (fill in city or college name) Atheists exist? I have never experienced what you are talking about either. Then again, it could be that I'm not prone to making shit up to try to make a point. Sounds like you can go and work for Fox News with the sense of right and wrong that you have. Whatever sells, eh?
I call for disemvoweling. A troll by any other name.
Proof has been asked for by at least half a dozen readers and nothing but sputtering bile has been given in return.
As an aside. PZ, I've learned to use such mindless drivel as those billboards as an educational opportunity for my children. I ask them if they understand what those signs are trying to say and why. The looks they give me when I explain the ID/Creationist point of view is priceless.
Oh, and Sharon, my children are honor roll students, well behaved and morally grounded. No religion involved, we don't need the threat of an invisible sky-daddy to follow the rules of society.
It sounds like your just looking at porn and assuming it's been made by atheists.
Dan,
I think what Sharon meant here:
"BTW, biological evolution is not atheism and you cannot prove atheism in biology or chemistry or any science, anymore than intelligent design can be proven."
Is that science will never disprove the theory of G-d, and that religion will never disprove evolution.
Actually, I have to agree. I don't think you can make assumptions about science based on religion, and you can't make assumptions about religion (by that I mean faith in a higher power, NOT scripture) using science.
Sharon - what the heck is a deist-agnostic? Isn't that an oxymoron? Or is it that you think you might probably believe in God, but who cares anyways? My opinion is that you are not agnostic, based on your misperceptions of atheists.
-Mike
"you're", dammit.
You're doing it again! Where are these "popular atheist hovels" that promote locker room orgies and animal behavior? There's nothing in atheism that says people should be deadbeats, quite unlike religion that urges people to be irrational as a tenet of faith.
I'm still not clear on the complete list of figures whom Creationists disavow; Darwin, of course. Hubble and Einstein and other cosmologists. But do they equally attack, for instance, Freud? Man is not the Crown of Creation, but a relative of apes (viz Darwin), and not the missing link between beast and angel, but in fact a beast with all of consciousness and civilization a thin veneer over Id-driven unconscious beastliness (viz Freud).
Which brings us to something that Creationists should then love, on Moral Values criteria:
Hotel log hints at desire that Freud didn't repress
By Ralph Blumenthal
Published: December 24, 2006
I think the moral implications are central, to why, Christianity has created such an obstacle to having evolution taught in schools. It is a threat, to the very real issues which concern most Americans.
And here we have it.
Evolution is no threat. Science is not a threat. But people feel threatened by them because they are n[t easily understood without study, or they contradict their own closely held beliefs. The real threat is that the American education system is being held back by superstition.
Sharon, you seem to be posing as a deist and an agnostic in order to have your own anti-reason and anti-evolution beliefs be accepted. I need neither God nor Devil to tell me to cheat on my wife or not. My love and respect for my wife and her feelings do that. I don't need them to push me one way or another on theft, murder, drug abuse, etc. I know better.
Maybe not on this blog, but it is often the opinion expressed on other popular atheist hovels. Anything goes! We're animals afterall.
Ok. I guess its clear at this point that sharon is simply unable to provide evidence of her claims. Obviously she is a troll and worse, a liar. What interests me however is the odd separation of agnosticism and atheism in terms of a moral philosophy. I mean, if this mysterious cabal of atheists, that can never under any circumstances be identified, is of the opinion that atheism justifies amorality than why would an agnostic feel any different? There is no significant ontological or epistemological difference so why would their views on morality be different? Does the agnostic (in terms of sharon's obviously absurd formulation of that term) behave morally because there might be a God? This seems a bit cowardly.
I do sympathize with the wish for moderate religionists to join the opposition against religious extremism - Islam's claims of peacefulness come to mind. But really, many religious people just conceive the issue differently than we do. My wife attends a Mennonite church; they "oppose" extremism by modelling a constructive lifestyle. Most of their work is in peace & justice, medical outreach, and disaster relief. Only a few of them are creationists; many are educated professionals and view the creation in naturalistic terms. But that issue is simply not what they meet for. They'd rather go build a new home in Lousiana.
Should they divide their attention to include creation vs. naturalism just because it is what gets us all worked up? It sounds too much like "If you are not for us, you are against us."
The gigantic hole in your argument, which you continue to miss, is that atheism implies none of what you say. I've never known a single atheist with an "anything goes" philosophy, and although it's certainly possible that some may exist, I don't think it's the result of atheism.
I don't believe in sin, but that's not the same thing as thinking that "anything goes". I value ethics over morality, and I think you'll find most other atheists do, too. When you are the only person responsible for the state of the world around you, you tend to develop some pretty high standards of conduct. A deadbeat dad is not OK by atheism because there's no god to offend. He's bad because he's broken a contract with his wife and child. All in all, I think you'll find the majority of misogyny flowing from religion, not atheism.
You're falling for the naturalistic fallacy. Nature is not a moral or ethical guide.
Links, Sharon! Post the goddamned links to these atheist/hedonist websites so we can check 'em out and judge for ourselves!
"Is it really a religion = morality natural world = immorality?"
Whatever that's suppose to mean, but to make this quick:
Obviously, religion is the best man so far knows, to control the masses, in his very limited understanding of how to reach utopia, that's fit for mankind to live in. There is no perfect ideologue, because individuals will do as they please. But all religions have some merit to them.
I know, as a mother, one of the millions, who make up the collective, who's decisions are based on "how is this going to affect my children? does it threaten their well-being, safety, peace, and how is it going to benefit us?"
Sometimes, I am reluctant to participate in some freethought activism, or discussions, because of the wanton wrecklessness I see in it, goes against my standards.. else I'd probably be more outspoken on many more issues.
If _place ideologue here_ doesn't benefit myself and my children, I don't want any part of it.
That, sums up the way most people think.
Now, you can apply that to Christian mothers everywhere, and ask yourself, if they want evolution, aka, godless common descent from apes, taught to their children.. so their children can be indoctrinated to live like apes...
for confirmation, just read some atheist (whom ahem, claim to be evolutionist!) websites and publications, all I've said, is based on their godless, liberal rantings.
And no, PZ Meyers blog does not even qualify under "godless liberal".. I'm talking about the heathens I've seen who call themselves "atheist" and "evolutionist", their blaspheme against God does not bother me half as much as their mockery of family, children and women.
Of course, when I say there must be family as the focus for stability in society, I am berated, scorned, ridiculed, by some atheists, in fact, it's happened often. One blog I found so offensive, I withdrew from.
What I say is offensive to atheists? The Christians meanwhile, are sitting back saying "Amen, preach it sister!"
Ever heard of "Promise Keepers"? Even though I am a freethinker, I am moved by this concept -- I wish more non-Christians could recognize the importance, including that miserable excuse for an anti-human, Larry Flynt.
Amusing. Some days ago, I was looking at our stats... and found a particular school teacher who'd linked to us for the students to be exposed to "Creation vs. Evolution" controversy.
Here's Ed's response:
"Sheesh, cool that he included us, but I didn't see other sites listed there! Maybe he thought ours was more Christian friendly? Well it is a bit more Christian friendly, theistic evolutionary wise."
One thing I purposely set out to do with our Agnostic Evolutionist website, was to make them "family and kid friendly". Otherwise, you've lost the attention of the very people you're trying to reach, before you get started.
No, stupid, it's a battle over power. Nothing else. Morality doesn't have a damn thing to do with it, else you wouldn't see so many of the people allegedly on the side of morality, including you, lying directly out of their assholes so often.
It sounds, Sharon, like you assume that everyone who doesn't do exactly what you want them to is a "godless liberal." That is, to put it lightly, bat-shit insane.
And really, if you think that newsgroups are somehow representative of normative human behaviour, you don't actually have the slighest clue what you're talking about, no matter how many times you claim otherwise.
So you'd prefer that the world to be run by the most ignorant, parochial, self-serving and paranoid members of society? Like a sort of reverse-meritocracy?
Actually, I think you rather would.
Ah, I see. Because it's my fault that you write like a home-schooled fundamentalist 12-year-old.
decrepitoldfool -
Thank you!!!! If you are indeed a fool, then you are a wise fool. I wonder if that's anything like a deist agnostic?
As a woman, I'd just like to state that I've found the opposite of Sharon's claims to be true, as far as how women are treated by atheistic males vs Christian males.
Of course, Christian males will claim that any so-called Christian who mistreats a woman is not truly Christian, but this is so much bullsh*t as to be laughable. Many Christian males seek to codify laws (that aren't already a solidified point of dogma) in order to ensure their dominion over women, while claiming to support women. "Good" women, that is, wink wink.
I have, at times, found myself sort of agreeing with Sharon's wish that women had been gifted with a man's build, but upon further reflection (I have to admit a kind of fondness for the male body type) I think we might both agree that instead of women having a man's build, we would just rather men behaved themselves.
Contrary to what Sharon believes, though, I think it's more likely that a religious man will justify aggressive violent behavior towards women through religion.
Personally, I think the atheist male has less of a burden on him to behave badly towards women, as atheists have no Bible telling them women are the cause of man's woes on earth, and that this particular biblical view is sanctioned by God, who decides if you go to heaven or not.
Sharon, you shouldn't believe everything Dennis Prager says about Christian Morality vs Atheistic "Anything Goes," if this is where you're getting your opinions about the topic.
(Oh! PZ - can we atheists have an "anything goes" sheet, please? I think it would be edifying for Sharon to see how the men here are NOT likely to condone abuse of women, even when given free reign to express this behavior.)
Yeah. They're so amazingly popular, we've never heard of them!
And the whole stupid "animal" nonsense is so amazingly invasive in the atheist sphere, atheists like me post repeatedly about how stupid it is.
Ah, yes. Making stuff up entirely out of nowhere. How noble.
Wow, you're mind is so open, it's been exposed to viewpoints that probably don't exist!
Are we in some kind of causality-reversing Star Trek phenomenon? Those "moral implications" were fabricated ex nihilo by Cretinists in order to justify their denial of science.
Yeah, let's all talk about fictional atheists made up specifically to demonize all the atheists who don't believe in any such thing. And let's pretend that theism somehow prevents that sort of nasty thing from happening.
Yeah, we're definitely in one of those Star Trek causality reversal things.
So stop buying into their poison and teach your kids what evolution and atheism are really about, rather than pathologically lying to them.
Linky linky Sharon.
>>Atheists just don't need imaginary angels and demons to tempt and bribe us into right and wrong decisions.
Posted by: Robster | December 26, 2006 12:40 PM
Still, it would be nice. I could really use the supernatural help it would take to weed my garden.
"One thing I purposely set out to do with our Agnostic Evolutionist website, was to make them "family and kid friendly"."
Do you at least know the URL to your own website???
sharon:
At this point in the discussion, you should be well aware that unless you provide actual links to these alleged websites you're talking about, we're all going to assume that you're making them up.
Thank you for finally admitting that to you, "godless liberal" does not actually mean "godless liberal" in the conventional sense of "someone who does not believe in the supernatural and who holds progressive political beliefs."
To you, it obviously means "someone who offends my incredibly delicate and quite idiosyncratic sensibilities." I suppose it could also mean "someone who doesn't do exactly what I want them to do," depending on the context in which you use it.
And by the way, I've never seen an agnostic -- or anyone with even remotely progressive leanings, for that matter -- who blithely threw around religiously charged terminology (like "heathen," "Darwinism," "blaspheme," etc.) the way you do.
Links, Sharon! Post the goddamned links to these atheist/hedonist websites so we can check 'em out and judge for ourselves!
I perceive this as a total waste of time. Easy to post lots of links showing big bobbly boobies with silicone dripping down the screen... definately not friendly to women and children. Other "rotten" websites, which have articles upon articles ridiculing the religious right, and then other pages, showing babies with their innards cut wide open... and the publisher mocking people's sensitivity about dead babies. Hey, we're animals... brutality in nature, is the rule!
and I'm not wasting any further time discussing this. If you've really had spent any time surfing such atheistic sites like the ones I'm speaking of, then you know already where to find them, without my help. The web is crawling with filth of this type. I don't see Christians setting up sites with beheadings and pimples and other nasty filthy photography and people sitting around discussing obscenity... but there is an atheist that has. It was *ommitting name - don't want to give him credit* -- he claims it's "free speech". -- There's plenty of anti-religious, anti-humanity, godless sites. He wants to sell T-Shirts, and magazines, off the suffering of others -- people's dead bodies are entertainment! -- and hackers were so angry at him for showing the beheading of Kim, they tore up his site. Korean authorities banned the site from reaching Korean internet users. I've visited there, everything from huge bulging pimples to skanky maggot-infested corpse flesh. Don't tell me this is the work of a "sane mind".. he's got his site riddled with porno ads. Recently switched over to a different domain name trying to make his site appear more "legitimate", to attract advertisers to make money.
If you don't know who I am speaking of, I'm not telling you. It's not my fault you're not familiar with more atheist hovels.
For atheists.. nothing is off limits.
You wouldn't understand anyway.
you'd visit, "hmm, I don't see a dman thing wrong with this, looks good to me."
People like me, are disgusted.
Arrrr, me hearties, I be sayin this scurvey wench has dredged up enough mud wit us. She should either be handin over her links, or by the noodles above and tentacles below, she should be loosin her vowels like the troll she seems.
Yes, please, tell us where to find these sites. I know there are some major assholes on both sides of the religious divide, but here's this post where I complained about the feeble ripostes of the moderate Christians to creationism, and you have a perfect opportunity to send us right-thinking atheists off on a quest to police our own. I swear, I'm not at all reluctant to shiv even people on my own side for that kind of thing.
be loosin her vowels like the troll she seems.
Grow up.
Also sprach PZ:
"Oy, another apologist speaks up.
The No True Scotsman fallacy is old and tired, you know. We have a majority of people in this country claiming that evolution is false because their religious beliefs tell them so, yet you want to claim religion can't be blamed for it. Sorry, but if this country were 90% atheist instead of 90% theist this issue would not exist."
If it is even a majority (if such a poll is respectable, but i'm not much of a sociologist).
Anyway, my point is: to say that the denial of evolution is directly because of religion seems off the mark. People like Ruse have been saying this for a while, creationism is an American phenomenon, brought on because of moral questions. An atheist or agnostic afraid of either nihilism or the uglier side of Spencer's social Darwinism, may be tempted at the most extreme to reject evolution, but more realistically to merely downplay evolution.
If the question of evolution is about a moral (and not a scientific) question, then all people, religious or otherwise, have some stake in its answer - not matter how our country is religiously gerrymandered.
Sorry, I just don't see this particular fallacy at play and I wanted to type that nietzschian quip above :)
Cathy in Seattle:
My dad always told me that that's what kids are for. :)
A spirit familiar would be pretty handy, though. As long as it wasn't intangible, anyway.
Sharon wrote:
The question Christians - and other theists - have to answer is whether an act is moral or immoral in and of itself or whether it is only moral or immoral because God has said so.
If an act is only moral or immoral because God so decrees, then Christians are faced with a God who, in the Old Testament, approves what we now judge to be the most appalling crimes and atrocities, quite as bad as anything you say some atheists have been defending.
If, on the other hand, we decide that certain acts are intrinsically moral or immoral then we can decide these matters for ourselves. In other words, atheists and agnostics can be just as capable of moral behaviour as theists.
Which one is it, Sharon?
I was working on a response to Sharon about how she was undermining her own purported goals, when I noticed that Cathy in Seattle said it much, much better than I could.
On the off-chance, Sharon, then, that you're not just a troll but genuinely searching (an assumption that is becoming increasingly difficult to maintain as you continue writing): what Cathy said.
Which one is it, Sharon?
Come on, now, we all know she's not going to answer any question that doesn't give her a chance to ramble on about anonymous evil atheist pornography.
I think somebody didn't take their meds this morning. Sharon, the bottle that says Thorazine, take one now!
If you don't know who I am speaking of, I'm not telling you. It's not my fault you're not familiar with more atheist hovels.
Yes, it is your fault. You have the perfect opportunity to enlighten us atheists on the horrible transgressions of our brethren. Yet you choose not to. You have left us with the only possible conclusion which is that you are simply lying to try and make a point which is unsupportable by any other means. You have instead of demonstrating the righteous truth of your seemingly absurd statements, demonstrated instead that your atheist hovels very probably don't exist except in your own mind.
The amoral atheism you have been positing here is a fantasy. We know that now even if we didn't before. The question is, do you?
I'd like to speculate a bit about Sharon, based on what we've seen in this post and before.
First, about the "deist-agnostic" label. Yes, Mike, it is an oxymoron. I believe it was Sharon who railed aginst me a month or so ago when I pointed out that an agnostic is an atheist, because (s)he does not believe in any gods. Sounds like Sharon has now retreated to the deist position. Fine, but Sharon, try to be honest and drop the "agnostic" label if you believe in a nebulous hands-off Creator. If you're trying to say "I don't know", that's fine too, but it still means you're an atheist until you decide to believe in some supernatural being.
Second, on the whole "atheist hovels" BS, perhaps the reason Sharon is retiscent to name even one is because she will reveal them to be sites like Myspace - hangouts for kids. After all, she says she's a mother; perhaps she was checking out sites her kids ask to be permitted to visit. Her description of "atheist" attitudes reminded me of nothing more than the juvenile, immature attitudes of some kids in high school. In my day, the favorite form of rebellion was to claim to be a Satanist. Today, with the Church's vocal and frequent demonization of atheism, perhaps the rebellion of choice for kids today (especially in the Bible Belt) is to call themselves atheists, and adopt the same ignorant mis-characterizations that Sharon spouts.
Third, as for her brother's behavior, I have to wonder if we are seeing a clear picture here. Given her rabid response here and her unrepentant ignorance, how would you react if your sister railed at you like that in front of family? I suspect that after being accused of every evil short of baby-killing once too many times, you'd get a bit hostile too! The pity is that Sharon probably has an ally in her brother, when dealing with her mother, but she has squandered the opportunity.
All speculation, I admit.
Finally, Prof. Myers, I am concerned by the vehement change of tone that Sharon's posts have taken. I am concerned that we are fueling a mental breakdown here. I respectfully and reluctantly ask that you consider cutting her off.
>>You're not going to convince christians, the world would be a better place with deadbeat dads running amuck, and children having orgy sex in the locker room... soforth for "no sin, anything goes".
You're not going to convince anyone that this behavior is worthwhile or justifiable.
>>ABORT IT before it grows.
Ok, let's talk about abortion.
http://www.wprc.org/23.78.0.0.1.0.phtml
Statistics gathered from agi-usa.org. Developed by Physicians for Reproductive Choice and Health and The Alan Guttmacher Institute. Copyright Jan 2003
Incidences of Abortion and Religious Identification. (Women who have had abortions identify themselves this way)
42.8% Protestant
27.4% Catholic
22.2% None
7.6% Other
So, in other words,
70.2% of those having abortions are women who identify themselves as having Protestant or Catholic "faith'.
"I don't see Christians setting up sites with beheadings and pimples and other nasty filthy photography and people sitting around discussing obscenity... but there is an atheist that has."
Funny, I don't see atheists beheading people for believing in god.*
*Yes, I know these particular executions weren't based on religious belief, and they weren't Christians committing them, but someone owes me a new irony-meter.
Yeah, atheist hovels that are so obscure no one here at one of the bigger sites has never heard of, has never linked to, and have never had a chance to authenticate.
My guess: If these websites exist at all, they were
A) Made by sharon and her ilk through heavy sockpuppetry,
or
B) They're made by alleged ex-fundies who never actually heard an in-context word from an atheist,
or
C) Really, really obscure nuts who think they actually represent atheism and have never, ever studied Game Theory or evolution.
"I'm talking about the heathens I've seen who call themselves "atheist" and "evolutionist", their blaspheme against God does not bother me half as much as their mockery of family, children and women."
Hmmm. She call atheists heathns, blasphemy against god bothers her. I spy an Xtian.
I'm beginning to think that Sharon just has a problem with sex in general.
She thinks that promise keepers is a good idea. Virginity pledges don't work.
They just have oral or anal sex instead. Which is not any safer.
I suspect she either has a young daughter and is afraid for her purity. Or is afraid of sex herself. Atheists in general aren't concerned with what people do in their private sexual lives. Me thinks that Sharon may be a bit of a prude. But I could be wrong.
Sounds like Sharon has been browsing rotten.com and mistaking it for an atheist website.
PZ: "I know there are some major assholes on both sides of the religious divide,"
Thank you. And until such time, when the atheist assholes decide to wake up and realize the dark shadow they're casting on the evolution they claim to believe in, and rely upon for their heathen ideologues (oh, no, they don't want a clean, decent blog like this one that discusses news and issues) they want images of murdered children (the one site I speak of was showing an 8 or 9 year old girl (no more than 10 years of age) who'd been raped and murdered. I ask myself, "Would that girl have wanted her body exposed like that on the internet?"
Victimized twice, but it's "just free speech".
You see, it's atheists like this, self-fulfilling of everything Christians said "evolution" would cause people to be, if they adopted evolution and became atheist.
I myself, am staying out of that religious "war" that's going on.
I will return to making a clean, family friendly, educational website, for decent moral people who have an interest in learning about biological evolution.
At least there's one site on the web, that tries to put evolution in the light of decency. This blog, PZ, is one I have linked to, and it wasn't a decision I took lightly. I do not link to outside sites, which fall below my standards.. the very moral concerns, I perceive, will drive Christians/Creationists away, in droves...
images and text are both important to the decorum.
MJ:
I think youre right.
I think we've found a christian in agnostic clothing.
Or just a former christian who can't shake the brain washing.
I think bPer may be right. Looking at how her posts have progressedm I think we should just leave sharon alone at this point. I don't think there is anymore that can really be said.
Sharon,
Where's the link to your site?
Arghhh. You keep repeating this!. The fact of evolution implies nothing about how we should live. No one is ending chapters on evolution with, "So feel free to rape and murder".
You want something that's bad for women? Look no further than Promise Keepers.
Sharon:
Now, you can apply that to Christian mothers everywhere, and ask yourself, if they want evolution, aka, godless common descent from apes, taught to their children.. so their children can be indoctrinated to live like apes...
If you ask a question like this, rhetorically loaded and based on a host of false premises, of any parent (Christian or otherwise) who doesn't have the means of identifying it as the fallacious nonsense it is, then the answer is probably going to be "No". Are you endorsing this line of reasoning, or are you just pointing out that given a question phrased in this manner, a negative reaction is understandable? Because it's a little hard to tell.
for confirmation, just read some atheist (whom ahem, claim to be evolutionist!) websites and publications, all I've said, is based on their godless, liberal rantings.
And of course, the only deciding causal factor in anybody's life that determines whether or not they indulge in "rantings" of the kind you find so offensive, is their exposure to a certain scientific theory in school. Confirmation, indeed ...
Of course, when I say there must be family as the focus for stability in society, I am berated, scorned, ridiculed, by some atheists, in fact, it's happened often. One blog I found so offensive, I withdrew from.
If the behaviour you've been subjected to is as appalling as you describe, then why not name and shame these websites, blogs etc? Your reluctance to do so is more than a little puzzling.
...
...
Oh, well, jeez. Sharon, you obviously define EVERYBODY WHO DOESN'T HOLD YOUR PARTICULAR BELIEFS as an atheist.
Reading your comments, I conclude that in your mind, because god-believers are defined as moral, immorality is automatically atheistic.
Thus, rape is what ATHEISTS do. Murder is what ATHEISTS do. Child molesting is what ATHEISTS condone. Posting disgusting photos on websites is what ATHEISTS do.
To do or allow any of that stuff is automatically god-hating and atheistic. To YOU.
Rather than explaining any further - which I can see won't make any difference - I'll just speak as an actual atheist:
The attitudes you've expressed are unbelievably condescending, massively prejudiced and blatantly hateful. Typical Christian attack-dog bullshit.
And you think there's something wrong with ME??
...
...
I myself, am staying out of that religious "war" that's going on.
Good plan. In a real war you'd be terrible at intel.
"Sir, the enemy... they have tanks! Lots of them! They kill innocent women and children too!"
"My god, where are they? None of our other intelligence has said anything about this!"
"Didn't you hear me?! Tanks! And children!"
"Yes, but where are the tanks and the women and children?"
"THINK OF THE CHILDREN! THEY HAVE TANKS!"
"You need to tell us where they are so we can do something about them! None of our other agents have heard about these enemy tanks and soldiers killing children."
"These tanks are going to destroy our way of life! Why aren't you doing something?! THE CHILDREN!"
"How fast can you peel a potato, soldier?"
"One blog I found so offensive, I withdrew from."
So, uh, PZ- do you have some particularly racy cephalapod photos you could post? The secret stash in your bottom desk drawer? If we're lucky, Sharon might find them offensive.
You know, I'm surprised no one here has bothered to fisk Sharon-troll over her claim concerning apes, given as how the vast majority of primates, with the exception of non-lemur prosimians and orangutans, live in complex social systems where each individual reinforces positive relationships with both their relatives and their neighbors?
Also, Sharon, how exactly does studying other organisms, living, recently extinct and or fossil, leads a person to become a God-hating, womanizing wife abuser?
I mean, how would studying the extinct Brontotherium inspire me to impregnate 10 women with the express purpose of denying God as well as give me a flimsy excuse to beat my lovers bloody?
One generally has to go to the fringes, typically the farthest right fringes, to see or hear commentary such as:
"Jews are not really to be trusted, because their interpretation of the bible gives them the right to hoard and steal"
"Islam is dangerous because the Koran preaches holy war."
etc.
But one does not have to go nearly as far to hear similar comments about atheists. Such as:
"In other words, the world would be a better place without religious fanatics or atheism. Get rid of it all"
Ouch. I don't specifically blame Sharon for this, though I quote her here. This is widespread in our culture. That does not make it OK.
Sharon, if you are reading this, let me ask you for a clarification. What is the "non radical" form you wish for all? Does it involve a belief in god or not? Can I be "non radical" and not believe in god at all? Can I be "non radical" and believe that when people claim that god has spoken directly to them, that they are either being dishonest or are somehow disturbed? Can I be non-radical and believe that every single "miracle" described in the Judeo-Christian bible is something that did not happen as described, because these things are physically impossible? Can I be a non-radical and believe that it is NOT ok to expect me to bow my head during a prayer that someone else chooses to say in a place that is not a place of worship, (i.e., a resturant) and to believe that it is NOT ok for someone to expect me to say "amen" at the end of that prayer?
Please be specific. I really need to know if I am an undesirable radical!
That was perfect, Patrick.
I think we've found a christian in agnostic clothing.
Or just a former christian who can't shake the brain washing.
You've discovered nothing little atheist dickweed.
you're precisely what I call the height of ignorance, and vile if you think it's perfectly normal to show 9 year old rape victims on the internet, like some atheists do. Then turn around and say, "I'm an atheist and believe in evolution."
If unleashing wanton desires and primal urges in the name of evolution is all evolution is any good for, I'll say, we don't need it.
But to help you better understand, I think atheism has nothing to do with biological evolution. Unfortunately, Christians cannot see this, because the biggest mouths promoting evolution are the atheists, who would try to imply evolution implies atheism. Or do you need help translating this to English?
That's precisely what I have been attempting to get through that thick skull of yours, by how agitated everyone is behaving, I don't think any of you are prepared for the harsh truth of why you're hitting obstacles with Christianity and evolution being taught in the schools and have done so, for over a century now.
I don't want to shake my former religious hold on morality... nope, I do not. I look to men like Gandhi, and am moved, Christianity has its good points.. even the Koran has good passages, Buddhist and Hindu alike, and I will not disparage the good. Most atheists with half a wit, wouldn't either. You know, "do to others as you want done to yourself," a universal code of conduct among most religions.
I think we've found a christian
So what, bigot? Do you hate Christians? Do you want to see them harrassed and harmed, because their belief is different than yours?
I hate a freaking bigot, you know that bigot.
PZ (a scientist) be trying to educate the Christians, while you're trying to drive them away in your hostile bigotry.
So, you're saying there's something wrong with being a Christian, in a predominantly Christian nation? Huh atheist bigot?
It's the only thing that separates people like me, from people like ... well um, do you want to act like an animal?
Yes, you do?
If you want to call that "progress".
I don't like bigotry, even from the same people I identify with.
Now, you take that, put it in your pipe and smoke it bigot.
I know I'm not following my own suggestion vis-a-vis feeding the troll, but, seriously, what the fuck are you talking about, and who are you talking about it with?
Oh, and stop throwing random praise for PZ into each post, I'm pretty sure he's not buying that tactic.
So what, bigot? Do you hate Christians? Do you want to see them harrassed and harmed, because their belief is different than yours?
Actually he was saying that you may have been lying about or misrepresenting your religion in order to appear more impartial than you really are. It happens all the time, you know. It's nice to know that your lack of comprehension extends to all areas of discourse.
Speaking of which, are you going to tell us where these evil evil atheists are doing their evil evil atheist deeds, or should you just get sent to peel potatoes?
Steve_C:
No, Sharon's problem is that she's a bit of an idiot. She's not a Christian in agnostic clothing, she's a moron in Christian clothing, with an upside-down "Hi, my name is" sticker on her lapel that says "Deist-Agnostic" in barely-legible orange crayon.
This is a person who thinks that porn and atheism are the same thing. We're not dealing with an intellectual giant, here.
sharon:
This claim would be much more convincing if you hadn't just spent the entire day spouting the same ignorant bigotry against atheists that we hear every day from people who are just as self-servingly deluded about their own moral purity as you are.
In short, you're a monumental hypocrite.
"'I think we've found a christian'
So what, bigot? Do you hate Christians? Do you want to see them harrassed and harmed, because their belief is different than yours?"
I believe you're being called a liar, that's all.
the term for people who call other people Bigots is "Bigot"
Incidentally, Sharon, since you mention Buddhists, you are aware that we're also atheists, right? And we don't have any religious issues with evolution. Not big on rape and murder, though, so I guess we don't qualify as REAL atheists in your world.
Now, you can apply that to Christian mothers everywhere, and ask yourself, if they want evolution, aka, godless common descent from apes, taught to their children.. so their children can be indoctrinated to live like apes...
News flash. I don't even think Sharon's a woman. "She" sounds too much like a certain UD commenter who told me that it was impossible, IMPOSSIBLE! for me to be a good person and an atheist--and then said, when I rattled off the number of altruistic projects that I'm involved in, that it was impossible, IMPOSSIBLE for me to be an atheist and consistently good... yadda yadda.
I call a man playing dress-up.
Linky if I'm wrong.
Right, because no one commited horrors and atrocities against other people before evolution was taught in schools.
If, and that's a big "if", anyone believes that evolution says it's OK to act "like an animal", it's because Christians told them that.
Can anyone remember the author or title of the science fiction story, where an extraterrestrial sells a human what is blatant pornography from some other planet which has giant intelligent unicellular organisms? The human purchaser republishes the color photos in what becomes a best-selling cellular biology textbook.
Sharon:
"One man's meat is another man's poison"
"What is good for one person may be bad for another; what is pleasant to one person may be unpleasant to another."
[The New Dictionary of Cultural Literacy, Third Edition. Edited by E.D. Hirsch, Jr., Joseph F. Kett, and James Trefil. Copyright © 2002 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.]
I have read perhaps a hundred books on evolution, and at least a thousand papers. With that database, I agree with mothworm: "No one is ending chapters on evolution with, 'So feel free to rape and murder.'"
I also read the Bible carefully, in various editions, and, for that matter, the Koran (which has no standard English edition). Historically, Islam has believed strongly in Evolution. Indeed, at the time of the polymath genius Erasmus Darwin (Charle's father, and author of the poetry epic "Zoonomia") they actually used the term "Mohammedan evolution."
In face-to-face discussion at one of the International Conferences on Complex Systems (where I've chaired up to 3 session and presented dozens of papers) with Ian Wilmut, the Scottish embryologist who in 1996, was the first to clone a mammal, a Finn Dorset lamb named Dolly, Dr. Wilmut agreed with me that when a human being is reproductively cloned and born, it will proibably be in an islamic country.
I've taught Human Evolution, several times, and we look long and hard at the moral and theological considerations.
What do YOU read, when not looking at blogs? Some folks on this blog can't decide if you are: (a) ignorant, (b) stupid, (c) lying. Ignorance is curable. It uses what we call "education."
"Against stupidity, the Gods themselves contend in vain."
[Friedrich von Schiller; but see also Isaac Asimov]
So, Sharon, you claim the worst scum on the internet are atheists (a claim not backed up btw by any proof from you), but, when someone muses that you may be a Christian, you hold up the bigot card?
You do understand that while a particular pornographer may be an atheist (again, there's no proof), it does not follow that all atheists are pornographers, right?
Pimples?
(wondering why, upon encountering photos of either pimples or moldering cadavers, one would feel compelled to keep looking at them... must... see... more!)
(Really? Pimples?)
richCares:
No, not really. "Bigot" is a perfectly useful label for a certain kind of behaviour.
Said behaviour often involves spouting preconceived notions about a person or group of people that are often blatantly and demonstrably false, then refusing to withdraw said comments -- or even to acknowledge that they ought to be withdrawn -- when they are repeatedly demonstrated to be blatantly false.
This is usually accompanied by the appropriate rhetorical equivalent of sticking your fingers in your ears and screaming "LA LA LA I CAN'T HEAR YOU LA LA LA" at the top of your lungs.
Great post. It wasn't until recently that I gave up the warm and fuzzy belief in the possibility of coexistence of science and religion. I know religious people who, through sheer strengths in cognitive dissonance, are able to accept evolutionary theory, but there is no doubt that religiosity is at the heart of evolution's failure in the United States. While religious extremism is most harmful to critical reasoning faculties, the elimination of all supernatural belief would be a great triumph for science. Unfortunately, I doubt the human desire to believe in divine protection will go away any time soon.
It is a shame that this comment thread is filled with incoherent ramblings against atheists.
I was right. We can move on. No agnostic deist to be found. She's a christian who was lying the whole time. Her views are purely that of a christian. If it's not moral in her view it's atheist.
Did I ever say it was ok to publish photos on the internet of young victims of violent crime? Nope.
Did I ever say anything should ever be done to christians? Nope.
You being a christian just explains your incoherence and venom. We've seen it all before. Only christains use the word heathen.
This is what makes a person an atheist... read carefully.
a·the·ist [ey-thee-ist] -noun
a person who denies or disbelieves the existence of a supreme being or beings.
Quit telling us what it means to be an atheist when it's obvious you haven't the slightest idea.
Another possibility, or one that could run concurrently with yours, Kristine, is that [s]he is throwing out as many weird and abhorrent positions as possible in hopes that, in the confusion, a poster on "a prominent atheist blog" (a real one this time!) will respond with vague enough language to end up quoted (with ellipses, of course) as proof of atheist immorality on some other blog.
So, are we being trolled, farmed or mined? Let's start a pool!
Kristine:
"... I don't even think Sharon's a woman. ...I call a man playing dress-up."
I was about to say the same thing.
The rape-atheism link is standard. By cloaking as a girl, Ron (short for Sharon) would be more effective in making his arguments. Or at least, so he would believe.
Sharon:
Your ignorance is jaw-dropping, your view of what atheists actually believe and do best categorized between "straw man" and "paranoid-delusional," your grammar execrable, your repetition of arguments after their fallaciousness has been demonstrated repugnant, and your refusal to provide citations to back up your slanderous accusations damning. Until you have something worth reading to post, I suggest you find somewhere else to spew your bile.
As for what happened to you in your personal life, you have my sympathies, but I find your habit of projecting your experiences onto me (as a subset of "atheists") consummately tiresome. Knock it off.
Steve_C:
She can't help it. One of the side-effects of her particular breed of "Christianity" is the absolute, unshakeable conviction of one's own personal infalliability, no matter how groundless that conviction is by any objective standard.
I have seen it many, many times before. Sadly, there is no known cure.
Thanks, Fox1--I now have a bastardized version of Lee Dorsey's song stuck in my head. "Workin' in a troll mine, goin' down down down..."
And the person still won't post a link to their blog which is supposedly a christian who supports evolution... but seemingly in her/his post doesn't seem to understand what evolution means. Seems to have a problem with sharing a common ancestor with apes and believes we want to act like apes/animals because if it. Does that sound like someone who understands evolution?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homo_sapiens
We are primates and we are animals.
Steve_C:
But what about PYGMIES + DWARFS??!??!?
Yeah, atheist hovels that are so obscure no one here at one of the bigger sites has never heard of, has never linked to, and have never had a chance to authenticate.
My guess: If these websites exist at all, they were... [to summarize: deliberate fakes, deluded demonization, or people that make Noam Chomsky look like Joe Lieberman.]
I'd guess none of the above. After multiple posts, with more description but still no links, she seems to be talking about stuff like rotten.com, "Piss Christ," or (all) porn Web sites. Pinning this on atheists -- more generally, as she seems to be doing, on atheism itself -- only makes sense of you assume that any bit of art or media that your average Christian would be offended by is
(a) motivated by a desire to offend that person specifically for being a Christian and
(b) is believed to be good and right by the person producing them.
Those assumptions seem crazy to me, but until she gives us links so we can judge for ourselves, it's the only explanation I can imagine for what she's written so far. Note also that they will be mutually exclusive in some cases.
Cyrus:
Note also that it's all about her and how she reacts to it.
Not a single thought is given to how anyone else on the planet might react. It's almost as if the rest of us, good and bad, don't even really exist in her mind, except as tools to promote her prudish, solipsistic little worldview.
PS: I will address the silliness of the blanket objection to "porn" I'm seeing on both sides when I have a chance.
Sharon:
when the atheist assholes decide to wake up and realize the dark shadow they're casting on the evolution they claim to believe in, and rely upon for their heathen ideologues
I think you mean "ideology". An ideologue is a person who advocates an ideology. You still haven't explained how these people's ideologies supposedly rely upon the theory of evolution. If they're using evolution as a supposed justification for an ideological point of view, then they're using the same fallacious reasoning as the creationists who claim that the theory of evolution has (im)moral consequences.
they want images of murdered children (the one site I speak of was showing an 8 or 9 year old girl (no more than 10 years of age) who'd been raped and murdered.
Although you make this sound completely sick and gratuitous, you haven't provided any information about the context, the comments or the point (if any) that was being made by the person posting such an image. So it's a little hard to know what to make of it, distasteful as it certainly appears. And what it has to do with that poster's atheism or acceptance of evolution is unclear.
Your point about not pandering to the worst fundamentalist misconceptions about evolution and/or atheists, would have been better served with little less vagueness, and a little more precision.
If we can leave off the distraction provided by Sharon and return to what Rob Knop wrote way upthread: with respect, PZ, you are wrong and Rob is right.
First, Rob is not guilty here of the No True Scotsman fallacy. He isn't claiming that fundamentalists and creationists aren't 'really' religious while he is. Nor is he suggesting that you ought to 'respect his favourite myths by default'.
What he is doing is much simpler. You wrote that science and religion are in conflict. He notes, by contrast, that there are a lot of religious people who have no conflict with science. Religion is simply not sufficient cause for creationism. (And as we can see from your old friend Charlie Wagner, it is not always even a necessary cause, though admittedly he was rather an odd case.) It's hard to see a war of religion, full stop, against science when most religious people aren't fighting in that war and don't support the war's aims.
This might be easier to understand when looked at from a different angle. Creationist attacks on education are a very largely American phenomenon. Almost everywhere in Europe, by contrast, creationism is a mere lunatic fringe -- and it's regarded as such by the general population, including the religious. So when you talk about a war of religion against science, one could just as easily speak of a war of Americans against science. After all, America is Creationist Central HQ. Almost all efforts to infect education with creationism take place in America, and as you point out there are distressing numbers of creationists there. But if I claimed that Americans, full stop, are in conflict with science, you (being an American, after all) would very justifiably protest that I was painting with too broad a brush.
I do agree with you that religious people who understand something about nature and support honest, high-quality science education should close ranks with like-minded atheists to oppose the yahoos and mouthbreathers. But what, realistically, do you expect somebody like Rob to do? People like Ken Miller or Wes Elsberry can take an active role in exposing liars and nincompoops and in providing an educational counterforce. (And in that sense, they are not very different to you -- you disagree with them on the religious question, but you are all trained scientists and educators who possess a public pulpit and use it in the cause of science.) Most people, though, aren't in that position. They can vote against politicians who pander to troglodytes; they can tell people who parrot creationist myths to stop being stupid. They can even do one thing you can't, and that is to explain to their creationist-minded co-religionists why they are wrong even from a theological perspective. (And for all I know, Rob does exactly that, though I suspect it does little good -- many of these people would say that any Christian who believes in evolution is no Christian at all.)
As for me, I am on the whole glad to be living, and raising my children, in Europe, where there really is as good as no conflict between science and religion.
Cathy's already covered it well, but I'll add mine in the mix. As a woman, a mother, an atheist, a former Christian, and a generally decent person, I say: Sharon, you're insane.
Prof. Myers,
Regarding Sharon, I withdraw my recommendation that she be banned. At the time, I was concerned for her mental state. Now I see that she is nothing but a lying fundie posing as an "deist-agnostic". What I saw as signs of mental instability were just her difficulties keeping in character. I regret that I took her at her word.
In hindsight, I should have recognized her characterization of atheists as a faithful regurgitation of typical church propaganda. I suspect that she is one of those immoral fundies who think it is acceptable to lie "in the service of the Lord". Please don't ban her - she is too useful as a worthy exemplar of the true nature of fundies.
Oh, and Sharon, thanks for the (late) Christmas present. I had felt a bit concerned that I had treated you harshly over the "agnostic" thing. Now that concern is gone.
No conflict between science and mainstream religion. Conflict between science and fruitcake theology all over the place.
I'm not sure which is worse: Scientists who deny the conflict, or Christians who don't call those making the conflict for the fruitcakes they are and rail against the damage they do.
Sharon:
I think atheism has nothing to do with biological evolution. Unfortunately, Christians cannot see this, because the biggest mouths promoting evolution are the atheists, who would try to imply evolution implies atheism.
Or it could have something a little more to do with fundamentalist ideologues (note the correct use of the term) who persists in telling their flocks that evolution=atheism, and who are far more numerous and influential than any atheists sufficiently ignorant of logic to believe such an inference to be valid. I'm also unsure who you have in mind, since I can't think of any atheist popularisers of evolution who actually argue this way. Dawkins doesn't, Dennett doesn't. So who?
I'm surprised (well, not really, being all too aware of the religious bigotry that infects some atheists, just as it does religious fundamentalist whackjobs).. by the juvenile behavior I'm reading. Reactions all nasty-like, hateful, all base, the primitive ape within emerges when "intellectual territory" is threatened. *laughs* I'm completely calm and been discussing the original topic, whilst hypersensitive atheists have gone ballistic... hurling personal attacks. BIGOTRY sums up the worst of all insults.
But I couldn't have chosen a more appropriate term, under the circumstances.
Is there something wrong with being a Christian? I ask this again, in all sincerity -- or do you admit you're a bigot?
Do you hate Christians this much, for real?
Hmmm, they don't bother me, unless proselytizing.
It's obvious those who've responded with such uncontrolled hostility, cannot see through the issues, clearly and rationally and putting things into perspective. Instead of being a solution the problem, they are the problem. So easily offended, and by the truth too.
Bigotry is one aspect. Disgusting. Had this been a Christian blog, and a Muslim posted, and the Muslim hounded off the board through wild, uncontrolled, infantile responses -- bigotry would be the proper lable. Had this been the workplace, and a Muslim apply for a job, but is denied on basis of his ethnic background, and some of the things written above, spoken to their face, bigotry would be the proper lable. But I've read a lot of hatred toward Christians above. So you guys hate Christian people... Sorry for you.
Is there something wrong with being a Christian?
I don't think so. Some of my best friends are Christians.
A comment like "A Christian in Agnostic clothing"... was that really meant as a put down? is there anything wrong, with being a Christian? What about that? Or, are you simply that deluded and full of hatred toward others of another belief system?
Do we need these haters controlling the government, the school system?
Revolting. Thomas Paine and other founding fathers would roll over in their graves to read such anti-humanist rubbish.
I can skim over half the garbage that's been posted, and childish is what I'm deducing. Seriously, I was replying to the topic in discussion -- Science vs. Religion -- why the divide? Not one sensible, rational response yet. Just insults by children, or adults behaving like children.
Instead of pissing me off, I've taken a step back and observed and considered the extreme bigotry ... posts upon posts upon posts upon posts of hostile BIGOTRY. That word scorches the sensibilities of all civilized people.
All along I have been staying on topic of the original topic posted by PZ and the initial responses.
We are, or were at least, discussing why there is a battle between science and religion. Not? You peeps don't want factual discussion, about the Christian mother perspective... the perspective of women? I have listened to the documentaries on Evolution, on sex education in the classrooms, soforth -- one thing becomes clear when all is taken into perspective, the driving force behind all of it, is concern about the denigration of the family. Or perhaps you'd rather I'd responded with the la-la version out of atheist wonderland.
I suppose we could go farther, and discuss fairies and Santa Claus, but nope, being a Mom with kids, like most Christian moms, and understanding why I don't want atheistic influences in my home... figure it out for yourselves. Don't want the alcohol, drugs, casual sex (I remember one gal I used to pal around with, had a bunch of guys over, and her son kicking in her door, "I hate you Mama!") Breakdown in family.. it hurts everyone it touches. Christians are also concerned, and reacting in record numbers to the "secular influence in media". They're many good people, and they are afraid of outside influences threatening what little stability can be made for a family.
WAIT! Atheism and its lascivious element, doesn't have a dang thing to do with Evolution. Now if I can figure that out, maybe Christians can one day.
THAT is where the conflict between science and religion come in at. That's my opinion as a mother, a woman, and former Christian.
I merely commented on what I see, and perceive as the central cause to why Christians are creating such tremendous obstacles toward evolution being taught in the schools. Moral concerns. Many who are the driving force behind denouncing evolution... are women. Surprised?
Wipe the wax out of your ears, boys.
you listening? ...no matter what the schools teach, as I stated, "The hand that rocks the cradle rules the world," Therefore they can teach whatever they may, but where it's going to count, if the education even sinks in, that's going to be at home, what mother and father say, will ultimately dictate the belief the child and morality the child is guided by.
Those atheists who want to stomp people for being Christian, forget it. This nation and the world will never be atheist. Hang it up. Pee on the fire. The belief in God will never die.
In fact, most folks just aren't interested in all the science-babble stuff about genomes and chromosomes, they're worried about issues, that affect their family.
Being calm, and sticking to the facts here, I'm confident that all I've said is reasonable, and in fact, the truth. Though harsh truth, a truth is still a truth.
I'm not going to allow myself to get carried away in the wild anti-religious bigotry I seen written in some of your responses, and juvenile atheist hostility.
Really. You guys *do* have an anger management problem.. most religious people do.
Sharon Quote 1:
Sharon Quote 2:
Comment about irony.
Yes, yes, very nice, atheism is evil and mommy and daddy need God to raise their kids right and all atheists hate Christians and blah blah hurf durf.
So, uh, about all those evil atheists who are having orgies and destroying lives and all that... I don't suppose you could point out where these people are so we can chastise them for being immoral and making us look bad? We'd really appreciate it.
Ah, but Mrs Tilton...your ability to enjoy a rational and mostly non-conflicted religion can be attributed to the fact that you live in a place where the religious do not have the upper hand, where religion has been laughed out of government and science education, and where you can practice it as a purely personal endeavor with no threat of it spilling over into the public sphere.
That's what we lack here, and the only way we're going to beat back the darkness is if we all do our part to shame the religious. If Rob wants to practice his beliefs without my mean-spirited braying to distract him, he and his pals do need to recognize that his traditions earn only tolerance, not respect.
It is interesting to note that the protaganists for evolution are all almost entirely atheists.
The truth is that atheism is to evolution as Christianity is to creation. It is a conflict of world views, not science. Otherwise such a Christian Nation as the United States would not have advanced and led the world in technology.
I'm bored now.
Still no link to her blog/website. Still has no idea what atheism means. Doesn't answer questions. I'm done. Still don't understand why she claims to be an agnostic.
Is she a secular humanist? I doubt it. She hasn't said she doesn't believe in god. Seems to think the only people who have a moral code are christians.
The way she hates atheists only comes from judeo christians and muslims.
Okay, I've read a bunch more, and once again I'm mostly on P.Z.'s side.
But please give some credit where some credit is due: Most mainline Christian denominations have discussed this very issue at length. When the fundies start talking about what scriptures order them to believe about evolution, you may want to inquire as to their sect. The major Methodist, Episcopalian, and Presbyterian sects in the U.S. have resolutions out of their various general assemblies supporting the teaching of evolution. Same with the Disciples of Christ and UCC. Catholics almost go without saying (but watch the current Pope, eh?). Mormons, too.
Who is left over? Southern Baptists (I believe the American Baptists have a resolution supporting evolution, too). 7th-Day Adventists have doctrine rending away from evolution. That's about it.
All the other stuff is independent commentary. Notice, please, that creationists like Dembski, Gish, Morris, etc., are almost always unaffiliated with any major denomination. Notice that, when they do claim a denomination, if one checks to see what is taught at the major universities of that sect, one finds evolution.
The mystery to me is why such a small minority who cannot even get Christians to go along with them, carry such weight in popular media. They are radicals even within their sects, and clearly at odds with their own sponsored educational institutions.
I think those of us who belong to these sects need to correspond with the leaders more, insisting that they make these messages and stands clear.
But at the same time, we need scientists to keep harping on the facts of evolution. A daily dose of science will do wonders. We don't have a daily dose of science, any more.
There is plenty of work for everybody in making sure the field is level and fair. Ben Franklin said that truth wins in a fair fight. The fight hasn't been fair, and we need to make it so.
Sharon, I admire the calm gentility with which you post one 900 word rant after another.
I vote that she started out this post a concern troll, but quickly sputtered out into Legion-like incoherent spittle. Her absolute refusal to provide links to this 'bad schtuff ZOMG' just shows her whole tale to be fabricated, right down to the mean atheist brother and poor home life.
Do I contradict myself?
Well, then, I contradict myself.
I am shallow; I misapprehend multitudes.
Stunning. Utterly, unbelievably stunning. How about removing that beam in your own eye before you go further?
We're not a christian nation. Are we a white nation? An urban nation? A fat nation?
Demographics do not make this country anything.
Yes people who shed superstition tend to support scientific fact. Is that such a shock?
Quit stating the obvious. Atheists consistently defend evolution because we're not clouded by faith. Why is it only the religious that think the earth is 6,000 years old.
Or, to steal something I heard earlier this morning: Get rid of the redwood in your own eye, sharon.
Ahh PZ Myers...
The darkness of which you speak of has done more humanitarian good this past Christmas, then any atheist institution care to do.
If religion offends you so, then you do well to consider moving to Sweden were atheism thrives.
It would be like me moving into Iraq and complaining about all the muslims.
Sharon:
Atheism and its lascivious element, doesn't have a dang thing to do with Evolution. Now if I can figure that out, maybe Christians can one day.
Jolly good. Maybe some day you can also figure out what atheism is, and how it doesn't have a dang thing to with the drink, drugs, casual sex, and the desire to view photographs of murdered rape victims that you keep banging on about.
Haven't we seen this lady before? Or is it just that there are many ladies that sound like her?
"If religion offends you so, then you do well to consider moving to Sweden were atheism thrives. It would be like me moving into Iraq and complaining about all the muslims."
Or A Good Christian Man coming to an atheist science blog complaining about atheists.
AGCM, what? Did you just pull out the tyranny of the majority card? The "We're obviously all Christians here in Murika so you can get the fuck out" card? Sorry, but that's not how democracy works.
As for the supposed 'charity' works: how much of that money went towards religious indoctrination/pastors' pockets instead of providing real lasting aid and improvement? What do you say we cut out the middle-man and make sure it all does good.
(note the correct use of the term) who persists in telling their flocks that evolution=atheism, and who are far more numerous and influential
sounds like, reads like, you've summed up the root of the problem. *smile*
but also, the small detail, the same preachers teach their congregation the belief that all atheists are immoral. I know some good atheists, agnostics (preachers do not distinguish the difference) or deist like myself. Unfortunately, the cliche applies "One bad apple spoils the cart," in the minds of those who don't know any non-Christians, or know any better.
There's a lot of stereotypes that must be broken down, before Christian cooperation to teach evolution in schools (with support of majority of Christians), will ever be gained.
let's face it, a man like Kent Hovind wasn't getting the bulk of his support from educated Christians, but I'd say, playing on the ignorance, instinctive fears and superstitions of people... most people I know are concerned about their family and spiritual welfare, first. Not necessarily in that order. Uphill battle, Darwin was around over a century ago, and still, little progress has been made as far as winning support from the majority of citizens, and immoral behavior from people calling themself "evolutionist" doesn't help any. I've read too many atheists myself, who are self-fulfilling of Christian propaganda, "Atheism is immorality," and atheists sometimes pride themselves on this "blasphemous, infected" stereotype, revelling in it.
I don't need to publish a list of links. Google gives loads of sites by combining common keywords.
Let's try "atheist" + "bastard".
Atheist Bastard: If you're against us, you're purely negative
Atheist Bastard. Please unsubscribe me from your believing-list. ... A common feature with apologetics is to cry that atheism is just parasitic on, ...
atheistbastard.blogspot.com/2006/10/if-youre-against-us-youre-purely.html -
Never heard of this one before, but the example serves to demonstrate my ealier points.
How nice. Sounds like a nice, wonderful, friendly atheist... who will cuss you out like a dog!
Can this be more descriptive on their standard of atheist "morality"?
I would venture that no ladies sound like her.
Ed, there's a disconnect between the official theology of christian religions and what their pastors preach in the pulpit and what the people believe.
I'm in a western Minnesota town, with scarcely a Baptist in sight. We're mostly Catholic and Lutheran with occasional outbreaks of evangelical weirdness. Creationist shills fill packed houses when they come out here to talk. I've paid close attention to what your average Joe down at the cafe says, and he plunks down in favor of a 6,000 year old earth and an Ark full of animals. We have local pastors skulking around the university, showing kids Kent Hovind videos on the sly.
I wish they were a minority. I wish the mainline churches were coming down with writs of excommunication and promises of hellfire to those idiots who stray from the official (but weakly promoted) official doctrine of rendering unto the scientists what belongs to science. They don't. It's not that important to them. It's easier to fill the pews by turning a blind eye to idiocy than to try and educate their followers.
The darkness of which you speak of has done more humanitarian good this past Christmas, then any atheist institution care to do.
This is, of course, irrelevant. The issue isn't the good that people do. The issue is what harm an anti-science point of view can cause. Whether or not you agree with PZ, the good performed by religious institutions is a complete non-sequitor. Unless you are somehow making the argument that people would not do such goods and form charitable organizations without religion, which of course would not be a supportable argument.
If religion offends you so, then you do well to consider moving to Sweden were atheism thrives.
Why? Are we no longer allowed to be offended by other's actions in America?
It would be like me moving into Iraq and complaining about all the muslims.
Really. One should simply accept the anti-science positions of many religious believers if they choose to live here? Is that really what you mena to argue?
Never heard of this one before, but the example serves to demonstrate my ealier points.
How nice. Sounds like a nice, wonderful, friendly atheist... who will cuss you out like a dog!
So, in sharon-land, using cuss words is as terrible as having sex with children and posting rape victim pictures online. Good to know!
Sharon, read very, very carefully:
understanding why I don't want atheistic influences in my home... figure it out for yourselves. Don't want the alcohol, drugs, casual sex
Most atheists do not have problems with drugs, alcohol, or casual sex. Read that over and over until you get it. In fact, most people who have problems with drugs, alcohol, and casual sex are people who profess to be Christians. Atheism has no causal connection with drugs, alcohol, or casual sex. Atheists do not drink, do drugs, or have random sex with any higher frequency than do theists. THERE IS NO CONNECTION.
It's more interesting to note that this old canard gets trotted out so often. My experience in the lab was that most biologists have a faith (our lab was Catholic, Presbyterian, Mormon, Orthodox, and me). Anyone who thinks most "protaganists" for evolution are atheist doesn't pay much attention to science, or to protaganists for evolution. These days, there may be a slight majority in the agnostic/atheist side, but that was certainly not so in the past.
Now, watch that guy. Next he'll be claiming that Darwin "invented" evolution in a fit of pique against Jesus and the church, glossing over the facts that Darwin was a creationist when he sailed, a committed Christian when he discovered evolution, and that he remained active in parish affairs and a tither his entire life.
Once people slip out of the realm in which facts are regarded as facts -- where facts can still but "stubborn things" -- there is no fact which cannot be ignored. Creationism is the quick banana peel to a life of sinning, even while still in the arms of a church. It's so insidious that most of its victims will claim the contrary.
Here's one thing I've found to be true: Protaganists for evolution tend to have a high regard for the truth, and they work hard to make sure science is done to the highest standards of accuracy. And there is this corollary: Creationists stop having regard for truth, especially in science. They will deny anything so long as they are convinced that their faith urges them to deny it, including science and simple facts of the universe and life.
Creationism is a disease. We don't know the cure for certain.
Or A Good Christian Man coming to an atheist science blog complaining about atheists.
I am not complaining that you are atheist. You have a perfect right to believe in atheism. I find it quite interesting that atheists complain about religion in Christian nation. If you trully hate religion, go to Sweden and show the world how atheism, once embraced, can serve the greater good of the world and become the #1 superpower in the world.
Is that not what Christians have done with the United States?
Around here we had several denominations actively telling their sheep how to cast their votes in the '06 elections. The best response to that behavior is to document it and report the churches to the IRS, since they're not supposed to be (1) tax-exempt and (2) politically active.
What it comes down to is the filthy, obscene sensationalistic right-wing extremist crap gets butts in pews; the "gentle Jesus meek and mild" image is (according to more than a few religious nitwits) for pussies.
So we must bow down the the christian majority to have evolution taught in schools?
Does that make sense to anyone? Evolution is science fact. Despite what christians want to believe. You're right, it has nothing to do with atheism other than it is in direct conflict with the bible and genesis. You've endorsed every christian stereotype of atheists and seem to think it's our job to prove them wrong. You're just wrong.
Sharon where is your website?
As for the supposed 'charity' works: how much of that money went towards religious indoctrination/pastors' pockets instead of providing real lasting aid and improvement? What do you say we cut out the middle-man and make sure it all does good.
Well, I will allow you to figure it out. Until then I will simply deem it as a frivolous strawman.
Although sharon is kind of dominating the kook market in this thread, cougar's post was a real gem!
So, you think accepting or denying reality is a moral question? Wonderful. Can I deny gravity if I find it immoral? (All those poor people dying every year because of gravity...)
sharon:
So before your complaints were all about pornorgraphic violence and child molestation promoted from a specifically atheist point of view and now its about cursing and incivility? And even that is taken completely out of context. In fact if you trace the links in google you will find that they do not say what you imply they do.
This is seriously the best you can do? That was even more ridiculous than I could have possibly imagined. This is literally pathetic.
Sharon, just give it up. You were wrong. You made a statement based upon preconceptions that you later realized you could not support. Just admit it. You will feel better.
Hopefully, PZ Myers also ban people for obscenities, not just those who have a different world view.
FYI, "sharon" is a known troll at several other sites I visit. Funnily enough, it's playing the feminist card here, but over at Pandagon and Echidne of the Snakes where I've seen it many times before, it likes to claim it doesn't believe in feminism, and generally ascribes to feminists many of the negative qualities herein attributed to atheists.
In other words, pay no attention to the man (undoubtedly a man, in my experience) behind the curtain.
I wish I'd seen this thread earlier; I could have posted much sooner and saved a lot of people some grief.
AGCM, If you truly hate the First Amendment of the constitution of the United States maybe you should move to a good christian nation.
I think we are/were (it's debateable now) the world's superpower. China is the next superpower. And we owe them alot of money too.
You can't possibly think that we're a superpower because of religion. Try this... democracy and capitalism. The dollar is king in the U.S.
And
Superb example of irony. Thank you.
Nice the way you sidestepped the definition of democracy, BTW, in order to continue to advance your own theocratic delusions. This is why it's important to not let nitwits like you get into power -- all dissent, all discussion, indeed, all freedom would be crushed under the juggernaut of your "convert or leave" fervor.
And for the record, the US is not and never has been a Christian nation.
You really should look into American history a little bit more before you try to further engineer US society. You'll find yourself almost diametrically opposed to pretty much everything that did in fact make this nation great -- once.
Actually, the only world view I've seen PZ ban people for is "it's okay for me to be a complete and utter douchebag in the comments of someone else's blog". Mrs. Tilton posts here all the time, and she's a Christian who hasn't been banned yet. Charlie Wagner lasted for several months, maybe even a year or so, until he started getting obnoxiously sassy.
10 myths--and 10 Truths--About Atheism
This is for shaRON and AGCM.
Apparently bigot= anyone who asks for evidence of someone else's claim.
"Dr. Milquetoast, you say you've witnessed perpetual motion in your lab, but you refuse to elaborate..."
"I don't want to expose anyone to the harmful fumes that result from the lubrication process."
"But then how can you expect us to believe-"
"Boy, you guys sure are bigoted!"
This is, of course, irrelevant. The issue isn't the good that people do. The issue is what harm an anti-science point of view can cause. Whether or not you agree with PZ, the good performed by religious institutions is a complete non-sequitor. Unless you are somehow making the argument that people would not do such goods and form charitable organizations without religion, which of course would not be a supportable argument.
Obviously, the anti-science (religion as I preffer) to which you object to has done more good then an atheism. If you are going to measure the good of a world-view, I think you will find that the proof is in the pudding. You want to wipe out a world-view that does more humanitarian good than atheism would not even care to think about. I think this is destructive to society.
Why? Are we no longer allowed to be offended by other's actions in America?
No. But it is quite ridiculous when you think about it. Here you have a nation (Sweden) where you can feel free to allow the pudding to speak for itself, but you refuse to do so in favor of complaining about the woes of religion in a Christian nation.
Really. One should simply accept the anti-science positions of many religious believers if they choose to live here? Is that really what you mena to argue?
Not really. It is the Christians that gave you the liberty to reject Christianity. But what it seems you want to do is to shove a worldview claimed by a few elitist down the throat of the majority.
That is not democracy.
I was watching Meerkat Manor a few months ago, and was just reminded of it while reading some of the above comments by sharron. People who make comments about us just being animals, and if there is no god, anything goes, obviously don't know how other social animals behave.
We behave very similarly to many other social animals, where behavior that threatens the family or larger community is punished, often severely. The meerkat matriarch punished one of her daughters by kicking her out of the family home, with the protection and food that came with it, simply for getting pregnant.
I've seen a documentary about monkey or ape group that killed a member of their own, because of that member's bad behavior.
All of these examples really hit home that we are living like the social mammals we are right now, with most of our behaviors having direct homologies within other animals.
-tiskel
If you trully hate religion, go to Sweden and show the world how atheism, once embraced, can serve the greater good of the world and become the #1 superpower in the world.
Is this your standard? If you are not able to blow up the rest of the world or coerce its compliance economically then your point of view is deserving of less respect?
Is that not what Christians have done with the United States?
I cannot believe this is a serious question but in case it is, the answer to your question is no. The US has become a superpower for many many reasons, including its geography, its resources, its high valuation of democracy and its Bill of Rights. If you have some reasonable argument that christianity in particular should get the credit as opposed to say our country's cultural diversity which has employed contributions from christians, buddhists, atheists and hindus, then I would love to hear it. Needless to say, I am very skeptical that you can pull that off.
*rubs eyes* bwAAH?
Actually explain your reasoning here in a little more detail, please. Do you really think that... God gave America more inventors than other countries because we're more faithful to him? Or that Christianity is significantly more intellectual than any other belief system? (All forms of Christianity, or just the ones practiced here?) Or what? I'm curious.
Or have you just never in your life heard the phrase post hoc, ergo propter hoc?
Wagner had been around for three long, annoying years. What finally got him banned was when he ignored a request to restrict comments to a single topic, and he responded by posting the same, boring, identical comment almost 20 times, and then insisted that I could not ban him.
My main criteria for banning anyone are: 1) do they derail threads with the same crap over and over again? 2) are they dead boring (original kooks get to hang around and be entertaining)? 3) do they cause extra work for me in maintaining the comments?
Neither profanity nor Christianity nor creationism get you booted. There are a fair number of people who can breathe a sigh of relief at that.
Actually, the only world view I've seen PZ ban people for is "it's okay for me to be a complete and utter douchebag in the comments of someone else's blog". Mrs. Tilton posts here all the time, and she's a Christian who hasn't been banned yet. Charlie Wagner lasted for several months, maybe even a year or so, until he started getting obnoxiously sassy.
So I guess PZ Myers favors obscenities over a douchebag.
Interesting.
Wagner had been around for three long, annoying years.
Wow, I suck at the whole "noticing the passage of time" thing.
Here's a link for you, sharon:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Pioneer_plaque.svg
Now there's vile, atheistic boobies dripping onto your screen, via a comment on Pharyngula.
Do you feel vindicated now?
So I guess PZ Myers favors obscenities over a douchebag.
So I guess you get more worked up about a few words that have to do with pooping and sex than you do about people with unsocial and obnoxious behavior.
Nice the way you sidestepped the definition of democracy, BTW, in order to continue to advance your own theocratic delusions.
Actually in a democracy (more specifically in the US= a liberal democracy) the majority of the people rule.
What you desire is a oligarchy were an elite few dominate the majority.
Read the first amendment. We're explicitly not a Christain nation. It's funny, they all come from different types of christian denominations but come together to assert their credit for everything that's happened here. Are we a Puritan nation? Episcopalian? Lutheran? Baptist? Quaker? Methodist? Evangelical? Seventh Day Adventist? Christian Scientist? Mormon? Jehovah's Witness?
Which is it?
Break them down into their component parts and they're not a majority. And the population is becoming LESS christian every year.
http://www.gc.cuny.edu/faculty/research_briefs/aris/key_findings.htm
Now there's a swift smackdown from Sharon. Yes Sir, the Atheist Bastard talks about rotting babies , deadbeat dads and the hedonistic glee of immoral atheism
A Good Christian Man (sic) said:
I think I am the only person on this thread to have mentioned banning, and I regret doing so. At the time when I called for Sharon's banning, I honestly thought she was having a mental breakdown (perhaps exacerbated by the season), and I thought that by responding to her we would exacerbate her condition. When it became clear that she was deceiving us, I changed my mind.
Prof. Myers has stated (and demonstrated) that he is very retiscent to ban anyone, and only does so when it is clear that the banned poster is deliberately being disruptive. He certainly doesn't ban posters for merely having different worldviews. For example, check out the contributions of Scott Hatfield (a Christian), whose opinions I have come to enjoy reading immensely.
I don't know what you would classify as 'obscenity', but if it is coarse language, I don't recall him ever having a problem with it. If you do, perhaps you should find another blog to read. ;)
Oh, and regarding your "good Christian" bit: my father was a Protestant minister. He was a good man and a good Christian, much beloved by his family, his congregation, and his community. I see no evidence that you are anything like him.
So I guess you get more worked up about a few words that have to do with pooping and sex than you do about people with unsocial and obnoxious behavior.
Actually, obscenities is not only obnoxious but revealing of one's moral fortitude.
But if PZ Myers chooses to favor obscenities over "douchebagging" it is within his perfect right. I was simply making a critical observation.
"Regarding Sharon, I withdraw my recommendation that she be banned. At the time, I was concerned for her mental state. Now I see that she is nothing but a lying fundie posing as an "deist-agnostic". What I saw as signs of mental instability were just her difficulties keeping in character. I regret that I took her at her word."
For anybody that has spent anytime in the talk.origins newsgroup, Sharon is a character given to wild tangents; ready to attack people that disagree slightly with her. She is not a fundamentalist Christian, and she has stability issues.
It is best to ignore her, to not encourage her. She'll rant and then go away.
Not really. It is the Christians that gave you the liberty to reject Christianity.
I imagine liberty flourished in America not due to the whims of the religious, but in spite of them.
I have heard many people speak of the Constitution with utter contempt. All of them sucking up to God (or Godly Republicans) in the same breath.
Oh wait- by "gave us the liberty", you mean "decided not to burn us at the stake", right?
Obviously, the anti-science (religion as I preffer) to which you object to has done more good then an atheism. If you are going to measure the good of a world-view, I think you will find that the proof is in the pudding.
That isn't at all obvious. I prefer to think that people do good for each other because that what living in a society means. it is certainly true in Sweden which you have cited as an atheist society. You apparently believe its only because people are following the directives of an invisible wizard. Why that point of view should be obvious to anyone escapes me.
You want to wipe out a world-view that does more humanitarian good than atheism would not even care to think about. I think this is destructive to society.
I don't want to wipe out anything. I want people to stop trying to use the force of the State to inculcate their anti-rational positions. It is you, as you say, who conflate anti-science with religion.
No. But it is quite ridiculous when you think about it. Here you have a nation (Sweden) where you can feel free to allow the pudding to speak for itself, but you refuse to do so in favor of complaining about the woes of religion in a Christian nation.
That might be true, although I am far from allowing that it is, if this were a Christian nation. That fact that you say it is does not make it so. This is a nation that was founded and has shed a great deal of its own blood in order to accomodate a wide diversity of viewpoints. For some reason this seems to offend you. In that case I suggest that maybe you ought to think about moving.
Not really. It is the Christians that gave you the liberty to reject Christianity.
It was christians, and deists and atheists. Later it was all those, and buddhists and hinduists and native americans and hell probably even shintoists. A lot of different people have fought for my right for self determination. A lot of different peple have gone through a great deal of hardship so that you can reject all non-christian contribution to our nation's history of civil rights with no fear of reprisal.
But what it seems you want to do is to shove a worldview claimed by a few elitist down the throat of the majority.
How do I want to do that? By asking that our schools teach things that are objectively true as opposed to a favored mythology? Before you say anything else, I want you to explain how it is that I, or PZ or anyone else is trying to shove anything down anyone's throat. This claim, more than anything else I hear, galls me because the bottom line is that it is religious groups that are trying to enshrine their beliefs in the public and private space. It is religious groups trying to interfere with science education and trying to encode into law who can have sex with whom and how.
It was interesting how the person posting as "Sharon" evolved through the comment thread. Someone already mentioned the concern troll stage, but I see the whole thing like this (hindsight, of course):
1) Concern troll, but was called out as one (basically)
2) Nearly insanse ramblings that caused concern troll mask to fall off.
3) Victim of mean atheist attacks when the only attacks were from Sharon, unless you call asking for a link an attack. Could this be David Brooks trying to bait for another "angry left" column?
4) Attempt to put concern troll mask back on, but would have been better wandering off after saying: "I can't help you horrible atheist 'anything goes' heathens, and I have better things to do...."
If you read that survey you also find that Catholics are the top dog when it comes to major Judeo Christian faith. Are we a Catholic nation? I think most Protstants would bristle at that idea.
In fact nonchristain/nonbeleivers out number all denominations individually except for baptist and catholic. And these are 2001 numbers. The trend is not in the christians favor.
If you have some reasonable argument that christianity in particular should get the credit as opposed to say our country's cultural diversity which has employed contributions from christians, buddhists, atheists and hindus, then I would love to hear it. Needless to say, I am very skeptical that you can pull that off.
I think you missed the simple fact that:
1. This country was FOUNDED by Christians not buddhists, atheists and hindus.
2. This country is deemed a Christian Nation not buddhist, atheist nor hindu nation.
3. The fact that we allow buddhists, atheists and hindus to contribute to society speaks to the true good nature of Christianity in contrast to other nations were these religions are dominant and in contrast to atheism of your breed where you seek to silence opposing views.
I do not have to give Christianity the credit, the world and the erasable mark of history have already done a good job. That's why we got the title of A Christian Nation .
I know that you hate to admit this but intellectual honesty should at least contest to the fact.
Ah, yes and no. The US was once a liberal democracy. It's resembling, more and more, a fascist plutocracy. (That's on the top of the pyramid -- on the lower levels, of course, you have the right-wing extremists busily removing as many rights as they can lay hold of from they people who don't agree with them.)
This seems a case of projection. By suggesting that there is some sort of "received truth" (i.e., Christianity) that is somehow responsible for the "greatness" of the US, it is you who are suggesting that rule by an elite minority (there are more non-Christians in the world than Christians) is somehow the desired ideal.
Sharon, shouldn't you have internalized something about not bearing false witness? Either admit you're a stinking liar, or post a link to these "atheist hovels" you've airily handwaved into existence from formless straw.
Also, please stop repeating CA001 ("Evolution is the foundation of an immoral worldview") and CA009 ("Evolution teaches that we are animals and to behave as such") unless you have something new to add. I assure you, everyone here has heard the same tired nonsense before. Please either come up with something new, or explain why, for instance, a description of the way the world is implies a description of how we ought to act. (This is called an "is-ought" problem, and philosophers from David Hume to T. H. Huxley have explained why it's fallacious to confuse the two.)
"Regarding Sharon, I withdraw my recommendation that she be banned. At the time, I was concerned for her mental state. Now I see that she is nothing but a lying fundie posing as an "deist-agnostic". What I saw as signs of mental instability were just her difficulties keeping in character. I regret that I took her at her word."
For anybody that has spent anytime in the talk.origins newsgroup, Sharon is a character given to wild tangents; ready to attack people that disagree slightly with her. She is not a fundamentalist Christian, and she has stability issues.
It is best to ignore her, to not encourage her. She'll rant and then go away.
Of course, this democracy is also about protecting the rights of the minority which really seems to bug you for some reason.
Prove it. I say that you are imagining this in much the way sharon imagines her dangerous pornorgraphic porn atheism. I won't even ask you to refer to anyone prominent. Point to someone here who has expressed a belief in anything of the sort. And no, requiring that science be taught in science classes does not count.
Good Chr. Man wrote: No. But it is quite ridiculous when you think about it. Here you have a nation (Sweden) where you can feel free to allow the pudding to speak for itself, but you refuse to do so in favor of complaining about the woes of religion in a Christian nation.
What's your beef with Sweden, anyway? FYI atheism is not an official creed. Just that the daily life is mostly irreligious. And what horrible societal ills has that led to in Sweden?
(btw, most of my comments are being held for some reason, does anyone else have the same problem?)
I am not complaining that you are atheist. You have a perfect right to believe in atheism. I find it quite interesting that atheists complain about religion in Christian nation. If you trully hate religion, go to Sweden and show the world how atheism, once embraced, can serve the greater good of the world and become the #1 superpower in the world.
Is that not what Christians have done with the United States?
The U.S. has no monopoly in virtue. It behaves like any other country. It ruthlessly confronts its enemies. It forms alliances of convenience with dictators. It uses its technological advantages and first-world status to rape the world of resources (our consumption patterns are destroying the planet) and to wipe out less advanced societies. Christianity is nothing but a pretty veneer we use to justify all the crap we do out of self-interest and greed. Go tell the Native Americans how wonderful we are. In my neck of the woods, the Wiyot Indians were massacred in 1860. Here's how a newspaper editorialist perceived the Indians at the time:
"For the past four years we have advocated two--and only two--alternatives for ridding our country of Indians: either remove them to some reservation or kill them. The loss of life and destruction of property by the Indians for ten years past has not failed to convince every sensitive man that the two races cannot live together, and the recent desperate and bloody demonstrations on Indian Island and elsewhere is proof that the time has arrived that either the pale face or the savage must yield the ground."
The Indians were massacred. How did Christians respond? They did nothing. Bret Harte wrote a letter at the time that said: "The pulpit is silent, and the preachers say not a word."
Go read some Howard Zinn and get an education in how wonderful we are as a Christian nation, you idiot.
This nation was founded by MEN. Are we a Male nation?
It was founded by men who recognized that the majority can be an oppressor.
That's why we have the First Amendment. The establishment clause was created to that NO RELIGION could dominate any other despite its majority. Our freedom is not a gift from christians. That's a stupid thing to say.
What denomination are you AGCM?
Someone seems to be ignoring a lot of deists involved in the founding of our nation.
Someone here seems to think that his fiat overrides what the founding fathers said.
Someone here seems to think that lying is a virtue or that criticism is "silencing".
Someone here has no sense of irony.
Ok, lets address the issues that effect families...
Fact 1: It was religion that declaired that if evolution was true, then people could do anything they wanted.
Fact 2: It was also *religion* that insisted that atheism = evolution, just as it insisted that evolution = immorility.
Fact 3: Animals don't ***ever*** behave as horrifically and stupidly as people that use BS like #1 to justify what they do.
Fact 4: People that claim to *be* atheist and also subscribe to #1 and #2 are atheists the same way that pedophiles are priests. They chose the label as a means to justify their own nihilistic stupidity, and they got there *from* religion. Let me just repeat that, nihilists start out "with" religion of some sort, believe in the *religious* mischaracterization of atheism, then choose to use that false label to jutify their own bullshit. This isn't any more sane or reasonable than if some nut killed a bunch of people on the grounds that, "The world is sick, so I am going to help them reincarnate." Its not atheism, its a sick nihilistic version of it invented by the church to cast a shadow over the entire idea, which some insane idiots *choose* to use to justify their own immorality. The funny thing being, most people find it much easier to justify such immorality while staying inside religion, then making up some justification out of a cut and paste version of Bible verses to justify it.
You want to claim we are not attacking the nuts in our own camp and that these people represent us. Problem is, these people are no more atheists than I am a Catholic bishop. They are lying and using a "church created" definition of atheism to justify their own sickness. I stated a while back that their where two ways to become an atheist, grow up with it, without ever actually thinking about it, which *can* lead to stupid mistakes based on false ideals, and where one can end up conflating total BS with their atheism, OR through long struggle, which leads to better understanding of the world. I stand by that, though the former "could" lead to some of the behaviour you are talking about, since atheism isn't about moral codes at all, just rejection of the fictions and myths behind some of them. However, you can "claim" to be atheist in three ways, 1. grow up as one, 2. fight to become one, 3. decide you want to be a complete ass and that religions insane definition of atheism sounds like a good way to justify it.
One could also get education three ways, 1. scools, 2. self education and taking test to prove you know what you claim, and 3. buying a fake diploma from some email advertisement. **Both** the 3rd way to claiming atheism and the 3rd way of getting a college degree are lies. They are fictions. They are sad justifications for pretending to be what you are not, to justify the right to do things you could never get by with without such justifications. You obvious have a lot of experience dealing with atheist type #3. The liers, who claim atheism, because claiming nihilism is too obvious and would get their asses kicked, while atheism *might* get you ignored most places. This doesn't make it correct or accurate. And its even stupider because the only difference between the idiots you *claim*, but have yet to prove, post pictures of babies cut open to mock Christians and Christians that post pictures of babies cut open to mock abortion activists (while *calling them* atheists), is that you are offended more by sick bullshit that directly mocks your beliefs than that which uses the same sick bullshit to mock others.
As for anger management... By now on a "religious" site you would have posts with idiots insisting that you are going to hell and God would strike you down, not to mention some who would be babbling about how the one atheist challenging them is "proof" that atheists should all be hustled off into concentration camps and shot. Nothing here has risen close to that level yet. What *is* present is an understandable frustration and anger at your refusal to post anything but endless ranting and tilting at what we can only presume are imginary windmills. I would have the same reaction to someone random person claiming that my neighbor was planning to kill me, over and over again, when they can't even prove they know who the hell my neighbor actually is, let alone that they have done anything to suggest that they want me dead.
We want evidence, not idiotic ranting that is indistinguishable from the useless garbage posted by any number of people who a) refuse to read anything that might challenge their presupposition about what the *truth* is, and b) can never do anything but rant about what they *think* the truth is, without doing anything to prove it. Oh, and in my experience, the people that usually post the sort of BS you are talking about *are* religious, either making fun of themselves, rebelling against their sad existence or just making up shit to make actual atheists look bad. Replacing one idealogy, in which some fictional god tells you what to do, with one in which *they* are the god, and thus anything they want goes, isn't any more "atheist" than gluing a outboard engine to the back of a motorcycle makes it a boat, no matter how often the owner of the new ideology or motorcycle lies about how it really truely is one. All it means is that they either don't know what the hell they are talking about, or they are using some bullshit definition that leaves out "every" aspect of the real thing, other than the label.
Forgive me, but damn right you are pissing people off. Just as much as you would be if someone showed up at your house and kept babbling about nonexistent and random men that say your second cousin is a slut and therefor you must be too.
Some facts about the founding fathers. (from wikipedia)
In terms of religious affiliation, the men were mostly Protestants. Only three, C. Carroll, D. Carroll, and Fitzsimons, were Roman Catholics.
Several were not particularly religious, and many of the more prominent Founding Fathers were opponents of traditional religion. Many of them considered themselves to be Deists or had strong Deist and anti-church leanings in their speeches and correspondence, including George Washington, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson (who created "Jefferson's Bible"), Benjamin Franklin, James Madison, Ethan Allen, and Thomas Paine.
However, a few of the more notable founders, such as Patrick Henry, were strong proponents of traditional religion.
Although not a religion, a significant number were Freemasons including John Blair, Benjamin Franklin, James Mchenry, George Washington, Abraham Baldwin, Gunning Bedford, William Blount, David Brearly, Daniel Carroll, Jonathan Dayton, Rufus King, John Langdon, George Read, Roger Sherman, James Madison, Robert Morris, William Paterson, and Charles Pinckney.
So are we a Freemasonic nation?
I have heard many people speak of the Constitution with utter contempt. All of them sucking up to God (or Godly Republicans) in the same breath.
Interesting, I have been in more churches than you and I have yet to hear a Christian do that. In fact, it has been quite the opposite from my experience.
Anyone who suggest atheists should leave the country if they have a problem with christians has contempt for the Constitution. They just don't seem to know it.
If this were a Christian nation, I wouldn't be allowed to vote.
Hell, a Christian nation wouldn't have any voting, period, (well, it would, but the would surely vote for the elite's- sorry, "God"'s will). As long as we're all defining government systems, a Christian nation would be a theocracy. The only Christian nation I know of is Vatican City.
So, even if it was by the oh-so-tolerant and gracious will of the Christians that there came to pass a secular nation...then that's what it is.
A.
Secular.
Nation.
Karley nails it. It's exactly what the First Amendment establishes.
AGCM:
I find it quite interesting that so many people think that America is somehow an objectively Christian nation, despite the fact that it A) has no official state religion, and in fact cannot legally have one, B) specifically mandates freedom of religion at both the state and federal levels, and C) is conceptually based on humanist, not religious, principles.
Sweden is one of the most economically stable, well-educated and socially just nations in the developed world. America is one of the least economically stable, least well-educated and least socially just nations in the developed world.
If America is indeed a Christian nation, then it seems fairly obvious that Christianity fails spectacularly as a basis for a modern government. Unless, of course, you think that the best countries are the ones that act the most like a stereotypical elementary school playground bully, rather than the ones that are the most concerned with providing equally for each and every one of their citizens regardless of color, creed, gender, or sexual orientation.
Actually, it was the secular humanists who gave us the liberty to reject Christianity. But that's a nice stab at self-serving revisionist history, there. Although making shit up as you go along tends not to impress those of us who actually know what we're talking about.
Most people don't really care about "obscenities," because we recognize that they're just arbitrary strings of phonemes with a semantic value attached to them. Stupidity, on the other hand, especially the willful stupidity so gleefully demonstrated by Sharon and people such as yourself, tends to be pretty frustrating to those of us in the reality-based community.
So in short, yes, you being a douchebag is far more offensive than me saying "fuck" a few times a day.
Thank you, Captain Obvious. Democracy does not, however, guarantee that the majority of the people are either intelligent or socially conscious enough to make those decisions for everyone else. Neither does it guarantee that those decisions will be the right ones, or that they will be in service to the greater good.
No, what we desire is for you not to use democracy as an excuse to hand-wave away the very real American trend towards Christian theocratic fascism of the last 10-25 years.
You Christian apologists regularly forget that the rest of us are real people, too, with the exact same Constitutional rights and privileges that you have. So every time you vote to deny someone equal rights (e.g., gay marriage) or discriminate against someone for a trait you do not share with them (e.g., Keith Ellison) or advocate the revocation of bodily autonomy from slightly more than half of the world's population (e.g., abortion), you are not only actively working against the greater good, you are actively working to undermine America itself.
Terrorists don't scare me. All they can really do is blow shit up, maybe kill a few people here and there. But American Christo-fascists scare the piss out of me. Not only do you have far more opportunities to attack the ideals that underpin this country, but you're even more proud of doing it than al-Qaeda is.
That's not "moral fortitude," that's shrinking-violet prudery. Get over yourself. Seriously.
Prove it. I say that you are imagining this in much the way sharon imagines her dangerous pornorgraphic porn atheism. I won't even ask you to refer to anyone prominent. Point to someone here who has expressed a belief in anything of the sort. And no, requiring that science be taught in science classes does not count.
Yes. It is a product of my imagination. I can deduct this only from your insistance that the the world view of an elite few (atheists) should be forced upon the majority.
If you do not believe so, then you have my apologies.
Please either back up that claim with definitive evidence or retract it.
Ah, darn it. I was replying to the last comment by Sharon before she posted this comment. I got distracted, and when I came back, there was a fat stack of comments between here and there. Whoops.
But then again, a link to "Atheist Bastard" doesn't exactly meet the standard that sharon set for herself. What was that she said? Ah, yes.
"Atheist Bastard" didn't write anything of the sort, and there were no comments on the linked post. Apparently you were such a shrinking violet that... what? A somewhat-abstruse disquisition on the derivation of the word "atheist" made you clutch your pearls and skitter here?
If you're going to lecture people about morality, you could start with that whole false-witness thing. Or you could, again, either admit you're a liar, or post the link you were talking about.
I am sorry Warren. Did you go to church this past Sunday?
Some of the people who founded this nation were christian. Others were not. You do know that don't you? We don't really have to do a History 101 excersise here do we?
But more importantly, whatever their religious affiliations they were very clear on separating the State from interference in religious matters. Perhaps you missed that.
Deemed by you and others like you. I don't care what you deem this nation. I say this is my nation as much as it is yours and I am not a christian. Most people in this nation respect that and they don't suggest that I have to accept their absurd doctrine or move to Sweden. Thankfully people who think otherwise are in the minority. That is why saying this is a Christian nation is meaninless as it should be. Label this nation whatever you like. Fortunately, we are not compelled to agree.
I will skip by the unbelievable arrogance of that statement for the moment. But you had to know when you wrote this that I would ask for proof of our attempting to silence opposing views. You know that you cannot because you know that we do no such thing. Nonetheless here is your opportunity.
What would make me concede to the fact, as I assume you meant, is evidence. I imagine that as with most of what you said, you have none.
Relevance? You said: "I have been in more churches than you" -- you did not say, "I have been to church more frequently than you".
You can see that there's a difference between those two claims, can't you?
Seems theologists agree with me too... well at least one school of theology does.
http://www.theology.edu/journal/volume2/ushistor.htm
Can you back that assertion up, buckwheat? It sounds like Pharisaic posturing to me.
I can deduct this only from your insistance that the the world view of an elite few (atheists) should be forced upon the majority.
Where is this insistence of mine? Please point it out. In fact, point it out from anyone here.
Apparently, being "A Good Christian Man" means pathologically lying about what everyone says to you.
As well as where you spend your time "educating" yourself about religion, religious diversity and US history.
Someone seems to be ignoring a lot of deists involved in the founding of our nation.
I did not ignore it, your buddy did:
Quote:
If you have some reasonable argument that christianity in particular should get the credit as opposed to say our country's cultural diversity which has employed contributions from christians, buddhists, atheists and hindus, then I would love to hear it. Needless to say, I am very skeptical that you can pull that off.
Someone here seems to think that his fiat overrides what the founding fathers said.
Well maybe you should provide a quote from a founding father.
Someone here seems to think that lying is a virtue or that criticism is "silencing".
Not really. You are welcome to criticize as much as you like. But I think that your analysis from your propagandists go beyond simple criticism.
Interesting, I have been in more churches than you and I have yet to hear a Christian do that.
How's that old saying go? Assuming makes something out of you and me?
Although I don't doubt your claim that you've cycled through more temples than I have, I have sat through several services, went to several family gatherings and read through several cheap pamhplets, where someone would eventually use the old saw about how God's law trumps man, and then tirade about how something in the Constitution is non-Christian. Heck, I bet you can mosey on over to FreeRepublic or someplace and find some right now.
AGCM won't ever admit that history differs from his belief. Historians are clear, the major figures of the founding of the constitution were deist and some even anti-religion.
Anyone see christianity mentioned below?
"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances."
"This has been interpreted as the prohibition of 1) the establishment of a national religion by Congress and later, by a Supreme Court Judge, 2) the preference of one religion over another or of religion over non-religious philosophies in general. The first approach is called the "separationist" or "no aid" interpretation. In separationist interpretation, the clause, as historically understood, prohibits Congress from aiding religion in any way even if such aid is made without regard to denomination. The second approach is called the "non-preferentialist" or "accommodationist" interpretation. The accommodationist interpretation prohibits Congress from preferring one religion over another, but does not prohibit the government's entry into religious domain to make accommodations in order to achieve the purposes of the Free Exercise Clause. The clause itself was seen as a reaction to the Church of England, established as the official church of England and some of the colonies, during the colonial era."
AGCM:
If you can't quote it, no one said it. QED.
Seriously, why is substantiating your claims such anathema to you people? It's trivially easy to do, unless, of course, you're lying through your teeth.
Hell, I've known pre-teens that had a better grasp of how to construct and maintain a cogent argument than you do.
I can deduct this only from your insistance that the the world view of an elite few (atheists) should be forced upon the majority.
So saying "please do not force me to practice your religion" is somehow forcing my ideas upon you?
My error Warren. How many churches have you've been to in the past year?
I would think that atheists have been to fewer churches than Christians.
How about John Adams, in his ratification of the Treaty of Tripoli, which stated in part:
I don't imagine this Founding Father-turned-President would have affixed his imprimatur to a document which stated, in any way at all, anything that he found objectionable.
Still waiting for you to back up the "more churches" claim, while you're scratching your head over this one.
Yes, Carlie, you hit the nail on the head. That's how twisted they are.
And in case anyone still has doubts, the dead giveaway that Susan is using the MSU technique (Making Shit Up) is her claim that she saw an atheist site where the people on it referred to themselves as "evolutionists".
Susan, if you paid any attention to what happens in the real world, you'd note that atheists never refer to themselves this way. It's another straw man erected by atheism's opponents.
Again, irrelevant. Your statement was "I have been in more churches than you", not "I've been in more churches than you in the last year".
Provide a number. Or retract your claim as pontification. Period.
I would think that atheists have been to fewer churches than Christians.
I'd think the opposite.
AGCM:
You dont have to go to church to hear someone talk about god. Nor do you have to go to many churches (or even one) to be a christian. Unless of course you define christian as 'someone who goes to church' as opposed to, say, 'someone who believes the teachings of christ'
So saying "please do not force me to practice your religion" is somehow forcing my ideas upon you?
But prohibiting ID to be taught as an alternative to evolution is. Is this not what your propagandists are doing?
Reality is not propaganda.
ID is not an "alternative" to evolution any more than "Fairy dust makes the flowers grow" is.
As for the "more churches" line ... still waiting...
Thomas Jefferson:
Because religious belief, or non-belief, is such an important part of every person's life, freedom of religion affects every individual. State churches that use government power to support themselves and force their views on persons of other faiths undermine all our civil rights. Moreover, state support of the church tends to make the clergy unresponsive to the people and leads to corruption within religion. Erecting the 'wall of separation between church and state,' therefore, is absolutely essential in a free society.
This response seems a bit confused particularly because it seems to mix together what bronze dog and I were saying. If you were referring to me as his "buddy" then your point is pretty far off the mark. You suggested in your post that it was Christians who made this Nation great. I pointed out in the quote that you cite that, on the contrary, it was a lot of different people from a lot of different backgrounds. Are you now trying to suggest that that isn't true? Because that would be quite a hoot!
This response seems a bit confused particularly because it seems to mix together what bronze dog and I were saying. If you were referring to me as his "buddy" then your point is pretty far off the mark. He and I were making quite separate points.
You suggested in your post that it was Christians who made this Nation great. I pointed out in the quote that you cite that, on the contrary, it was a lot of different people from a lot of different backgrounds. In Are you now trying to suggest that that isn't true? Because that would be quite a hoot!
AGCM:
So like Sharon's "atheists," this schmuck's "propagandists" are really "anyone who says something I disagree with."
It must be wonderful to live in a world so filled with absolute, unshakeable certainty. You don't have to waste all that effort in learning anything new, since you already know everything there is to know about absolutely everything there is.
HAHA. AGCM is an IDist! Too funny. No wonder he thinks we're in a christain not secular nation.
You need a designer for ID to function... therefor a god. There's a seperation of church and state therefor ID is not permitted to be taught in school.
It's not our propaganda that keeps it out of schools it's yours. Oh and the complete lack of science behind ID.
Warren, I take it by your unwillingness to answer my question that you are merely trying to provide a smokescreen.
If you want to believe, that Christians are anti-constitution, then I guess that does not surprise me giving the numerous strawmen I enocunter.
But the simple truth is that if Christian were anti-constitution, then it would seem a bit nonsensical for this nation to be called a Christian nation.
Which is exactly what everyone has been saying.
HAHA. AGCM is an IDist! Too funny. No wonder he thinks we're in a christain not secular nation.
Do you think that your friend, Sam Harris, also was wrong in reffering to the US as a Christian nation in his book Letter to a Christian Nation.
sorry for the double post. And on this:
But prohibiting ID to be taught as an alternative to evolution is. Is this not what your propagandists are doing?
If this is your example of our attempted oligarchy, the insistence that actual science be taught in science classes, then I see that we are all wasting our time trying to have a discussion with you. Yeesh.
It is interesting that strongly religious people seem to completely miss the beauty and strong progressiveness of the founding fathers' work, not to mention the plain meaning. The documents are all there, but somehow they must be ignored if the words don't support their particular faith. Be as religious as you want, just don't look for government support and leave the non-science in the church or at home.
Wow. Talking in circles much? Where in the Constitution does it say we are a christian nation?
Do you understand what the establishment clause means?
We're only called a christian nation by christians... doesn't make it true.
What form of christian church do you attend?
Prove it. I say that you are imagining this in much the way sharon imagines her dangerous...
Posted by: A Good Christian Man
Hey dumbass, just because you're all alone in what you're saying, don't jump my name for a popularity bandwagon.
Lose your arguments fair and square.
I do have statistics to back me up. Google up Dr. Diana Russel, PhD for starters, idiot. Marlene Goldsmith, australian government " is another to Google up.
http://www.aic.gov.au/publications/proceedings/20/goldsmith.html
Lots more research twit.
There, read it, big mouth.
Now.. to follow up on what I was saying earlier.
"atheists who feel that ridicule and intolerance of religion is just what this country needs"
Great, and if that's true, I'll start with attacking THEIR religion first.
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=6632129
a story to atheists, but not just any story. It was a story about atheists who feel that ridicule and intolerance of religion is just what this country needs. The message was simple: atheists look forward to when "religious tolerance is no longer tolerated.
Co-anchor Robert Siegel began: Atheism has never gained much of a foothold in the United States. Barely one percent of Americans describe themselves as atheists. Now, a small group on nonbelievers has a new approach to getting their message out, challenging the faithful with a fiery rhetorical blend of reason and ridicule, especially ridicule...
New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof has written that this Charge of the Atheist Brigade is intolerant and mean toward conservative Christians. Brooke Gladstone, host of NPR's On the Media, reports on the new atheist offensive.
So saying "please do not force me to practice your religion" is somehow forcing my ideas upon you?
But prohibiting ID to be taught as an alternative to evolution is. Is this not what your propagandists are doing?
If insisting that a non-falsifiable and thus non-scientific belief be taught in a science class is an idea that needs to be forced- then YES WE ARE SO GOING TO FORCE THIS IDEA UPON PEOPLE.
Much like we need to force the idea that you need to eat food to fuel your body, or that live-action shows shouldn't be on Cartoon Network, or that 2 + 2 =4.
Wrong. You were the one to submit the claim to having been in "more churches" than others here. You are the one required to provide evidence supporting that claim.
Unlike you, I have nothing to prove by quantity of religious worship attendances -- however I am fully aware of the likely tactic you will make, which will be to attempt to triple or quadruple any number I might put forth.
So let's make this easier. Rather than enumerate the number of churches you have been in -- something you obviously don't want to do, because you don't like it that your bluff has been called -- how about listing the denominations, both Christian and non-Christian? That is, if you've been in a Christian church, that counts as 1. If you've also been to a mosque, that counts as 2. (Extra points for holy texts you have read outside of whatever your belief system might be; if you've read both the Bhagavad-Gita and the Bible, more power to you.)
You seem to be laboring under at least one false impression here, so allow me to clarify. Most atheists are not atheists because of ignorance of religion. The precise opposite is usually the case. Most atheists are considerably better-informed about many religions than are practitioners of the very religions in question.
I see why you're having trouble sussing out facts regarding US history -- you can't even keep your respondents straight. I've not yet put forth a claim that Christians are anti-constitution.
Ah, but you're the only one calling the US a Christian nation. Or have you totally overlooked the last dozen or so responses, from various posters?
I don't think Sam Harris was endorsing your majority way or the highway crap.
Yes, I recognize that over 70% (and slipping) of the country is christian. However we are a secular nation whether the majority is christian or muslim or taoist.
AGCM:
No, it isn't, in much the same way that prohibiting the use of a Magic Eight Ball as an "alternative" to teaching prob/stat or prohibiting the teaching of astrology as an "alternative" to astronomy isn't "forcing our ideas on you." Out here in the real world, that's actually called "determining between fact and fiction."
You know, whenever you have to resort to calling the people who think you're an idiot "propagandists," you've already long since lost the argument. Paranoia and willful, self-serving ignorance do not grant you any intellectual authority whatsoever.
The fact remains that the alternative to evolution is not ID or creationism. It's ignorance.
Oops, sharon seems to have reduced his/her arguments to mostly name-calling. That would be a replay of phase two, I think.
"Where you get the rest of that other crap I have no idea."
Well, I am an atheist and I do like "drinking beer". I think sharon's onto us.
There should be a "shouldn't" in my last post.
If this is your example of our attempted oligarchy, the insistence that actual science be taught in science classes, then I see that we are all wasting our time trying to have a discussion with you. Yeesh.
Well, if the majority of Americans, are in favor of ID and a few elitist say no, then yes.
Example of oligarchy:
If insisting that a non-falsifiable and thus non-scientific belief be taught in a science class is an idea that needs to be forced- then YES WE ARE SO GOING TO FORCE THIS IDEA UPON PEOPLE.
I was the one stating that any christian who suggests non christians leave the country if they don't like it was anti-constitution.
I feel that attitude is very unamerican and unpatriotic.
Read my Jefferson quote above.
Prove it. I say that you are imagining this in much the way sharon imagines her dangerous...
Posted by: A Good Christian Man
Here, twit for brains... read these pages. You've never even studied the issue, so I know where you're talking from, your backside.
Note -- FOCUS ON THE GOD ASPECT in the mix:
"These groups usually trace their beginnings to a male supreme being (Benderly 1982, p. 42)"
God as Abuser: Similarities Between the Christian God and Abusive ...God is the "man" of the house to whom humanity owes obedience, respect, and honor. ... Between the Christian God and Abusive Spouses.
From Austin Cline, ...
http://atheism.about.com/od/whatisgod/p/AbuserAbusive.htm
Oppressive Male Gods Encourage Domestic Abuse
From Austin Cline, Your Guide to Agnosticism / Atheism. FREE Newsletter. ... it's not unreasonable to regard the Christian God as an abusive spouse himself. ...
http://atheism.about.com/b/a/258321.htm
combined with what anthropologist concluded:
Status, violence and culture: anthropological issues
An anthropological perspective on rape is provided by Sanday (1981) using a cross-cultural examination of 156 separate societies. Although these societies were studied at different times by different anthropologists with different focuses (this last a relevant point in the likelihood of disclosing sensitive information about rape), Sanday nevertheless found sufficient information about rape to analyse ninety-five of the societies.
Some 47 per cent of the societies experienced little or no rape, 17 per cent were 'unambiguously rape-prone', while the remaining 36 per cent had evidence of rape but no clear indication of its incidence. These last were incorporated into the 'rape-prone' category. Sanday found patterns of behaviour that differed markedly between the two kinds of society. As Benderly (1982) summarises:
Societies with a high incidence of rape . . . tolerate violence and encourage men and boys to be tough, aggressive, and competitive. Men in such cultures generally have special, politically important gathering spots off limits to women, whether they be the Mundurucu men's club or the corner tavern. Women take little or no part in public decision making or religious rituals: men mock or scorn women's practical judgment. They also demean what they consider women's work and remain aloof from childbearing and rearing. These groups usually trace their beginnings to a male supreme being (Benderly 1982, p. 42).
Benderly's conclusion is that:
The way society trains its boys and girls to think about themselves and each other determines to a large extent how rape-prone or rape-free that society will be (1982, p. 43).
In other words, societies that provide negative images of females and female roles are societies which are rape-prone. Pornography specialises in negative images of women.
http://www.aic.gov.au/publications/proceedings/20/goldsmith.pdf
--
Just because some on this blog might disagree w/ my opinions, which I do have research I've referred to, to form my opinion... you're clueless dude, don't try to ride on bandwagon fallacy here, to boost your credibility. You have none, if it's not of your own making. Understand? Coward.
Wrong. You were the one to submit the claim to having been in "more churches" than others here. You are the one required to provide evidence supporting that claim.
Well Warren how am I suppose to prove it to you if you are so reluctant to come out on the carpet and tell us how many times you have been to church this past year. Or as you prefer: how many different churches have you been to within the last year?
Is it okay to post something that's on topic?
Goodge's statement regarding there being no conflict between science and religion may be accurate if he were referencing only those denominations that have a reasonable approach to science (as many of the "mainline" denominations seem to have).
But there is a growing divide between science and religion in the US. It is a divide created and exploited by highly politicised literalist fundamentalist Christians.
As long as reasonable, well intended, Christians continue to allow the instransigent creationists to spout their hate filled ignorance without disavowing it or countering it, then those nice reasonable Christians will continue to be lumped in with the extreme religious nut cases when these arguments get going.
For example, when evangelical leaders fail to denounce those who murder doctors at abortion clinics, they are part of the problem. In that case they are part of the "problem" of systematic murder.
Similarly, when moderate Christian leaders fail to denounce the efforts of creationists to undermine our Constitution and our public school sysstems, then those silent, moderate Christians are part of the problem. Even though they may not have created the problem, they are accomplices after the fact and should be called on it.
Although I'm not likely to be an atheist rabble rouser, I am glad that people like PZ, Dawkins, et al, are out there doing the job and taking some of the heat. Because it's going to take some loud voices before anyone hears us at all. And these louder atheist voices give us all a jumping off point to engage others in a quieter dialogue.
Isn't it some kind of violation of nonproliferation treaties to engage in battles of wits with individuals wholly incapable of defending themselves? Nevertheless, here we go again.
AGCM, teaching facts as facts is not an example of oligarchy; it is an example of good education.
It doesn't matter what "a majority" might think about ID (BTW, you now have two claims you must back up with facts, not just one); opinion doesn't matter at all where reality is concerned. Evolution is not up for referendum, and your objections to it on philosophical grounds are utterly without value.
Now. Back up your claims with numbers, please. Both of them.
Or withdraw them.
If elitists you mean, educated about the constitution and science then we have to go with the elitists. I never understood why people think elitism is wrong? Damn them people who strive for knowledge and excellence.
The judicial system is keeping ID out of schools. They seem to understand the constitution very well.
Sharon. Who are you talking to? Try and focus for a minute ok.
AS for your citations, neither Russel or Goldsmith have anything to say about atheism. Citing quotations that are irrelevant to your point but that you hope that noone will actually bother to check is a pretty lame tactic. I don't think you would even get away with that in some of your poorer grade schools.
Secondly, you are now complaining that atheists are mean to religionists. You do remember that your accusation regarding atheists was regarding some link to rape and molestation and sexual harassment before right? In fact, you talked about all these crazy sites that linked atheism to female mutilation but repeatedly refused to provide any evidence of these claims. Does any of that ring a bell? So are you retreating from that position for this new position about how atheists are forever ridiculing people of faith? I realize that you apparently don't feel at all obligated to provide a coherent argument but I am still a bit curious as to what in the world you could possibly be thinking.
I'm not even reading her anymore. Just annoyed I have to scroll past her ranting.
Please stop feeding Sharon the UberTroll.
Disemvowelment is too good for it.
Unlike you, I have nothing to prove by quantity of religious worship attendances -- however I am fully aware of the likely tactic you will make, which will be to attempt to triple or quadruple any number I might put forth.
That's exactly my point. You claim that you hear Christians who are anti-constitutional. I as a faithful churchgoer (I hardly think that you consider yourself a churchgoer) have not at all once heard a Christian make any such comment.
If that's your experience, then fine. But I having visited more churches than you, strongly disagree. I guess it comes down to what one wants to believe.
Sharon,
Admittedly, I'm having a hard time following your train of thought, but it seems pretty obvious that the last study you cite undermines everything you've said here.
Again, this is irrelevant. Your claim was to "more churches", without specification of any time period, and so far you have failed to offer one shred of evidence to support that claim -- which suggests you are lying.
You haven't bothered to put forth any data to support your claim, you consistently wiggle around answering a simple question with a simple number, and you seem to feel oppressed because your bluff has been called.
Answer the question, directly and honestly, if you're even capable of it -- or withdraw your claim.
Impress me with your religious scholarship.
"Well, if the majority of Americans, are in favor of ID and a few elitist say no, then yes."
Are you really suggesting scientific theory by majority opinion? How about brain surgery by majority opinion? Does scholarship mean nothing to you? How about evidence? I guess you are also in favor of verdict by majority rule too? Tyranny of the ignorant majority sounds like your goal. Every theory starts out in the minority, then people learn and accept based on evidence. On the basis of your argument, we would still teach that the world is flat. Afterall, only one guy (or a few) believed that at the very beginning.
Hello. Thumping for ripe melon.
I say that you are imagining this in much the way sharon imagines her dangerous pornorgraphic porn atheism.
Brent: Who are you talking to? Try and focus for a minute ok.
Sharon: Both of you smartmouths, I presume.
Stereotypes. Women aren't focused, huh? Use me for leverage as your "village idiot" to make your boring, lame arguments looks better?
"Women Know Your Place"
Hysterial satire of how men are and women "haven't the brain power to form their own opinion" -- their thoughts are scattered, and need a man to help me focus. Screw you Brent.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SjxY9rZwNGU
No sir. Atheists are a small minority in this religious country, and I know many atheists who came away from religion, with their sexism, bigotry, ignorance and pathetic hatred intact. Unlearning those things, takes time. Attitudes do not change overnight, just because you lose belief in the Bible. I know atheist racists.
What's your point there? Saying Atheists are better people? Most of them are former Christians, so they have their some of their outlook on society, rooted in the very manure pile they claim to denounce.
It explains why atheists are some of the most religiously zealous people I've known. Trading off the religious for anti-religious of course. But you can exchange the definition of Christian with anti-Catholic, anti-Jewish, anti-Muslim...
I don't think that AGCM gets that I think he's anticonstitution.
He hasn't heard any christians make statements of the sort?
He has. Didn't he tell me and PZ to move to Sweden for not sharing his beliefs?
Funny that a chruch goer won't admit to what religion he belongs.
I never made any such claim. You are suffering from confusion.
Again, provide evidence to back up your assertion. Precisely how many churches have you attended? (Or, if you can't think of a precise number, ballpark it. Is it less than ten? More than thirty? Five hundred? Several thousand? π?)
At this point it seems I may be ahead, because I've certainly been to more than one church in my life. I'm guessing (based on your squeamish sidestepping of actually coming up with a figure) one is about where you are right now, and likely as high as you'll ever get.
If that's your experience, then fine. But I having visited more churches than you, strongly disagree. I guess it comes down to what one wants to believe.
What the heck is going on around here? What on earth are you talking about? How would the number of churches you have been to refute his experience? Why would it be relevant in the least? How can you strongly disgree with what someone else has experienced? Have we been invaded by 9 year olds today?
No, I think it's two eighteen-year-olds with a fourth-grade education.
Focus there, little men.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SjxY9rZwNGU
Focus yourself little atheist bigots.
Your attitudes are sometimes the basis for mockery and ridicule.
Focus. :o)
Warren,
I think that I am done playing your game. If you do not want to tell me how many times you have been to church in the past year, then I do not see the point of me continuing with you.
But since you want numbers:
I have attended church services at least 156 times this year in 50 different churches.
That's almost a different church every week.
Are you a touring speaker? Preacher? What denomination?
I guess my comment was too subtle for you, AGCM. I like how, instead of conceding that teaching facts doesn't fall into the "forcing of propaganda" spectrum, you simply take my snark seriously.*
*In case this was too subtle- by "like", I mean "was LOLing at your sheer brickheadness".
BTW,
If you cannot provide a quote from a dominant Christian group that demonstrates that they are anti-constitutional, then I would think that YOU are lying.
She's really easy to ignore now.
YOU said it. No group. Any christian that thinks someone should leave the U.S. or anti-american because they don't share their beliefs is anti-constitutional.
You're good company though. Bush Sr. said it too.
Sharon:
Oh, boy. A paper arguing that porn == rape, neither of which have a damn thing to do with atheism.
Way to stay on point. Oh, right. You define "atheist" as "anyone who isn't me."
Conservative Christians have spent the last 2000 years being mean to anyone who isn't a conservative Christian, but you have the shameless audacity to get upset over a few atheists who think it's high time that religious fascists get their comeuppance?
The difference, of course, is that when atheists are "mean" to people, they tend to call them names and mock their silly ancient tribal superstitions, but when conservative Christians are "mean" to people, they tend to stick red-hot pokers up their asses and revoke their basic human rights.
AGCM, teaching facts as facts is not an example of oligarchy; it is an example of good education.
I think that begs the question. Their are two worldviews here. What you deem as fact does not give you the right to censor valid alternatives to it, especially when the majority of Americans favor it.
Aha, 50 churches -- at last, a substantial number. That's fairly impressive, and considerably more than I've attended. (Lifetime total is perhaps a dozen.)
I've been to only five Christian churches -- Baptist, Lutheran, Unitarian Universalist, Metropolitan Community Church and Mormon; however I've also attended synagogue; Buddhist services of three major varieties (Zen, Tibetan and Vietnamese); and the Hare Krishna variant of Hinduism.
Never made it into a mosque. I became marginally interested in Islam only after I'd ventured far enough into atheism that service attendance didn't matter to me any more.
As to Bibles, I've made it through much of the KJV -- it's a standard text among Mormons -- as well as the Book of Mormon, the Gita, some of the Hindu Vedas, the Upanishads, Dhammapadha, and three interpretations of the Koran (the most useful for study being a parallel translation that has the Arabic next to the English, with usually more than half of any page devoted to translator's footnotes; the prettier one being Arberry's Koran interpretation); and several renderings of the Tao Te Ching, the most interesting to me being LeGuin's delightful version.
As for commentary on all the foregoing ... for any one text enumerated, figure a good five additional commentaries read to amplify my understanding. Highlights include Thich Nhat Hanh's Living Buddha, Living Christ; Mitchell's The Gospel According to Jesus; and Oswald Chambers's daily My Utmost for His Highest.
So while you've outdone me in number of churches attended, I've got a sneaking hunch that I understand a lot more than you might suspect. (Or might even realize is out there to be understood at all.)
The easiest is the objection to the separation of church and state. Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell say it all the time. Here are a few other sources.
World Net Daily
Liberty Counsel
Young Earth Creation Club
How revolting - a fundamentalist Christian post-modernist. It's the worst of both worlds, together at last.
YOU said it. No group. Any christian that thinks someone should leave the U.S. or anti-american because they don't share their beliefs is anti-constitutional.
You're good company though. Bush Sr. said it too.
Tell me of a Christian who is forcing you to leave or is legistating that atheists should be deported or I should consider this as another strawman.
Sharon, Admittedly, I'm having a hard time following your train of thought, but it seems pretty obvious that the last study you cite undermines everything you've said here. Posted by: mothworm
That of course translates to "I'm threatened by your opinions, and don't want to understand."
I've been amply clear. It's your failure to read with comprehension.
Those Wacky Rape Scenes
Do you think rape is funny? Playboy, Penthouse and Hustler do. From Penthouse ...
http://www.oneangrygirl.net/wackyrape.html
The Atheist list "imagined" or are you guys totally deluded? Or at least, in denial atheists are the ones responsible for turning sexuality into crud for sale?
Talk:Hugh Hefner - Celebrity Atheist List
Talk:Hugh Hefner ... Hefner was quoted as saying "its nice to be home." This was recently. Apparently Hefner has changed his mind about not believing in God ...
www.celebatheists.com/index.php?title=Talk:Hugh_Hefner
Larry Flynt - Celebrity Atheist ListIn 1984, Larry Flynt sought out the services of Madalyn O'Hair, and announced in his magazine Hustler, that he was an atheist. The infamous "satire" ad, ...
www.celebatheists.com/index.php?title=Larry_Flynt
Deny it, liar. Violent... Atheist... Pornography.
The biggest pornos shoving crap in women's faces, are in fact atheist. They're not doing humanity any "favors".
"TEACHER KILLED BY SICK INTERNET PERVERT
Jane's family demand vile porn web ban as murderer gets life
By Vanessa Allen
GRIEVING relatives of murdered Jane Longhurst last night called for a clamp on sick websites which fuelled her killer's lust.
The loved ones spoke out as depraved musician Graham Coutts was jailed for life. He must serve a minimum 30 years. Coutts, 35 - hooked on sites showing necrophilia and women being raped and hanged - strangled Jane, left, while fulfilling his obsession with asphyxial sex.
-mirror.co.uk
...having sex with the corpse of the girl he murdered. Like some atheists, he doesn't believe in sin either.
http://tinyurl.com/yxcjs8
[Open in new window]
Or, http://preview.tinyurl.com/yxcjs8
The key word there is valid, which ID is most definitely not. There are no "alternatives" to facts.
Ah, but in A Christian Nation*, there are.
====
* Which America is, remember?
The easiest is the objection to the separation of church and state. Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell say it all the time. Here are a few other sources.
The whole of Congress is debating over statements in the constitution. The "separation of church and state" has been in debate since its inception.
Debate is not anti-constitutional.
Again. What major Christian group is anti-constitutional?
I think that begs the question. Their are two worldviews here. What you deem as fact does not give you the right to censor valid alternatives to it, especially when the majority of Americans favor it.
You know, I just want to be clear that this statement is as absurd as it seems. A couple of people have already broached this issue with you but just so I am absolutely clear, are you actually trying to make that argument that science education, that is the discipline that we employ to try to determine fundamental laws of nature, ought to be a matter of majority rule? That is, if enough people think the world is flat or Earth moves around the sun, then that is what ought to be taught? Is that really what you are arguing? I see no other logical conclusion from what you have said but I would still like to see a clear statement from you on this.
The key word there is valid, which ID is most definitely not. There are no "alternatives" to facts.
Well, that is your opinion, not the opinion of the majority of Americans.
Sharon,
Maybe you didn't read your own article.
You seem to have missed the multiple references to God and religious societies quoted above. Pornography may specialise in negative images of women, but religion practically has a patent on it.
You made the statement. I didn't. And you continue to deny the seperation of church and state and endorse majority religion rule. Suggesting I leave because I don't share your views is unamerican. Taking credit by virtue of your religion for the success of the country us rather unamerican and anti-constitutional. Doesn't matter if I think it'll be enforced. You believe it. That's enough. Your beliefs go against what this country was founded on.
Anyone who tries to get religion INTO schools and government is anti-constitution.
They are trying to establish a government endorsed religion which the constitution forbids.
The founding fathers were onto you.
Are you actually trying to make that argument that science education, that is the discipline that we employ to try to determine fundamental laws of nature, ought to be a matter of majority rule?
No, most Christians education have a science curriculum.
No need to employ strawmen. What I am saying is that if the majority of people are in favor of allowing an alternative paradigm of the world around us and if their are profesional teachers that are in favor of it, then it would follow that this should be allowed.
AGCM
No, debate is not anti-constitutional. I wasn't objecting to debate. I was objecting to the people on the side of the debate that think that government should endorse or enforce religion.
How about Christian Reconstructionists, then. They positively favor turning the US into a theocracy and have pretty strong times with several of the larger right-wing christian groups. If that's not anti-constitution, then I don't know what is.
You think that most Americans believes that there are alternative to facts?
Moreover, if you think that most Americans believe that science education ought to be a matter of majority rule, you would be wrong about that as well.
But again, it does not matter. The notion that science or indeed any kind of education ought to be based upon some sort of pluralism is a frightfully stupid idea that you can be absolutely assured that no founding father would agree to.
Wow, two complete nutjobs railing on different subjects in the same thread. Quite exciting! Sharon, you do realize that your post a few up makes the case that religious societies in effect promote the culture of rape and domestic violence, right? That after your first major point that you didn't like the idea of an atheistic society because of all the sex and cruelty. You just shot yourself in the foot.
AGCM, why the hell are you such a church-hopper? Can't find one that's conservative enough for you? I mean, 50 in the past year, that's pathological. Most devout Christians take the view that the Church is the body of Christ, and must function as such, each member having a job to do within the body. They also feel that the church family is a vital part of one's Christian life, and that one has to find a church to make "home" and settle in with helping that church to function. Unless you're a motivational speaker or church planter manager or something, there's no excuse for you to claim a traditional Christian mantle when you don't even have a home church. And how many different denominations do you count in there? If they're all the same, it doesn't really mean you have much diversity of experience.
It's not a popularity contest and there is no alternative paradigm unless you plan to do the same for all groups who claim as much such as scientology.
AGCM:
Have you ever wondered why we don't determine the validity of scientific theories by popular referenda? Science is not a popular democracy, stupid. You don't get to vote on it just for showing up and pretending you have a coherent thought in your pretty little head. If you don't have the slightest clue what you're talking about, your opinion doesn't count.
That's not oligarchy, moron, that's actually THE WHOLE GODDAMN POINT OF SCIENCE. Science, by definition, will weed out non-falsifiable, non-scientific beliefs, NO MATTER HOW MANY STUPID PEOPLE BELIEVE IN SAID BELIEFS. If you don't have the slightest clue what you're talking about, your opinion doesn't count.
Here's the point you're so obviously missing:
SCIENCE IS NOT A DEMOCRACY. YOU DON'T GET TO VOTE ON IT.
Much like how calling the US a christian nation doesn't actually make it one, calling a clown school a science class doesn't make it one either.
Sharon:Oh, boy. A paper arguing that porn == rape, neither of which have a damn thing to do with atheism.
Way to stay on point. Oh, right. You define "atheist" as "anyone who isn't me."
Godbejeebus. Are you really that thick-headed?
I just posted where both scumbags, Hugh Hefner and Larry Flynt are known as atheist... as in A T H E I S T for lack of better word: I mean, Atheist! How difficult is that to understand?
Here's the discussion of a pro-porn lesbian on the issue of Sexual Violence=Porn. Focus guys. Put brain in gear. It may not be what you want to hear, but plenty of facts and statistics are discussed.
Theamaranth, pro-porno lesbian, starting with this:
when 1 / 3 women are raped, i don't think they like the idea of being forced into sex again.
the group of people who are routinely raped are children. the most helpless and innocent. maybe these fantasies are because they've been taught to like it, or think its normal? many children who were abused grow up to look for the same thing; pain, humiliation, degredation, because that's how they were raised.
"Half the women I knew outside porn had been sexually abused as little girls, so it only stood to reason that the statistics might apply in porn as well. One study of the general population claims it is two out of three. The puzzling refrain I'd begun hearing from porn outsiders: "There are plenty of people with histories of sexual abuse who didn't grow up to be porn stars." That's missing the point: The ones who did become sex workers were abused. All of them, that's my guess."
---From Ian Gittler, A Diary of Six Years in the Life of a Porn Star. Rolling Stone October 14, 1999
"Well, I grew up in a small town in Ohio , and when I was 10 years old, I was raped by a high school boy that was about 16. And from there, my mother had an older boyfriend that molested me, so my entire childhood was really shaped by these really traumatic sexual experiences, which ultimately led me to the streets of Hollywood and to porn."
-Traci Lords
so... makes sense. but a sick, horrible, nauseating kind of sense. our children are being raped and abused, and they grow up thinking its ok to make films about that, to train the next generation on how its done.
http://theamaranth.livejournal.com/151874.html
Get that URL. Read it.
Further research exists by experts across the web. Girls that are preyed on by these predators for profit, devils like Flynt, seldom mentioned his victims are often traumatized rape victims who slipped through the system, unnoticed, without counseling.
I will leave that research on you to do.
Do some googling. Over in foreign countries, young virgins are raped, sold for five hundred dollars to some sleezy businessman. That's where the majority of prostitutes and porn stars come from.
Waste of time to post further research. Because its quite obvious, you're a hearty consumer, and don't care who gets hurt. No, not as long as your precious atheist philosophy goes unscathed and you're getting your own full satisfaction out of life.
People who go to church and believe in an omnipotent omniscient invisble god already have an alternative paradigm of the world around us. It's not based on fact or reality. We really don't need that in our public schools.
So while you've outdone me in number of churches attended, I've got a sneaking hunch that I understand a lot more than you might suspect.
I am not negating your understanding of certain things. I was just making my own observation.
If one is going to make such an outlandish claim that Christians are anti-constitutional, I would think that at the least, a quote from a prominent Christian group would be in order. I, personally, would be against such a group of Christians. Since, no quote was given, and my experience tell me otherwise, I would simply ignore such an outlandish statement as wishful thinking at best.
My theory is the AGCM is a speaker who goes around encouraging churches to get ID into their local schools. A different church each weekend attending 2-4 masses.
No need to employ strawmen. What I am saying is that if the majority of people are in favor of allowing an alternative paradigm of the world around us and if their are profesional teachers that are in favor of it, then it would follow that this should be allowed.
First of all you are, for the most part, simply repeating what I attributed to you in what you somehow believe is a more favorable way. You are saying that if the majority of people believe in a particular paradigm then it ought to be taught. Whether or not it ought to be taught as science is something you leave out of this statement but let us assume that is what you mean since that is, after all, the topic of this discussion and the only real point of contention. The bottom line is that you have the completely nonsensical idea in your head that enough people believing something makes it appropriate to be applied to science education which of course is functionally the same as making it accepted knowledge. Thankfully, few enough people in the history of the world have agreed with you or I truly can't imagine where we would be.
Suggesting I leave because I don't share your views is unamerican. Taking credit by virtue of your religion for the success of the country us rather unamerican and anti-constitutional.
Actually, that is called freedom of speech.
You have your opinions, and I have mine. I am not forcing you to leave, I only believe that if you are going to condemn a Christian Nation for being Christian that you should demonstrate the superiority of atheism in an atheistic society. You can earn the title of the Atheist Nation while us dumb Americans stay here in our Christian Nation.
And the search for an intelligent IDist goes on.
It's general knowledge that Pat Robertson has openly declared that the Constitutionally-derived separation of Church and State is invalid and that it should be abolished.
AGCM, please provide us with a link to a major Christian organization making clear that Christianity is compatible with the U.S. Constitution.
You're putting up strawmen for us.
Not christians in general. Christians who wish to blur or remove the seperation of church and state and or beleive that those who don't share their religion should "move to sweden" are anti-constitutional.
Keep ignoring the fact you have said both.
If one is going to make such an outlandish claim that Christians are anti-constitutional, I would think that at the least, a quote from a prominent Christian group would be in order.
How many times does Warren have to post that he said no such thing?
People who go to church and believe in an omnipotent omniscient invisble god already have an alternative paradigm of the world around us. It's not based on fact or reality. We really don't need that in our public schools.
You are judging your reality by the reality of the majority of Americans. That can hardly be considered reality.
I'm done. He thinks and talks and circles.
Still doesn't say what religion he is either.
We're not a christian nation. We're secular.
You are judging your reality by the reality of the majority of Americans. That can hardly be considered reality.
No. He is judging reality by the things that we can all objectively observe. Invisible superheros are not in that category.
Brent. No one did. I said he was and anyone who suggests the same things he does, is too.
Sharon,
Christ on a stick. Can you please stop overgeneralizing??? Larry Flynt preys on young women, and he's an atheist. Tedd Haggard preys on young men, and he's a pastor. Done, ok? Porn and rape have nothing to do with atheism. If anything, they have more to do with paternalistic misogynistic religions, as you yourself showed in an article you linked to and quoted liberally from. I have yet to see an atheistic organization claim that women have no right to lead their households, no right to teach others, no right to complain or try to leave a bad marriage, but those are basic tenets of many religions, including those that your beloved Promise Keepers are based on. Stop confusing patronizing behavior with respect, and stop conflating atheism and horrid treatment of women.
(And as we can see from your old friend Charlie Wagner, [religion] is not always even a necessary cause, though admittedly he was rather an odd case.)
News flash: Chuckie was not religious in the same way that the Pope ain't Catholic.
AGCM:
No, facts are not opinions. Facts are facts. That's why we use a different word, "facts," because they're not opinions. A fact is a fact regardless of whether or not you're willing to accomodate it in your personal ideology. That means that you can claim that America is a Christian nation as much as you like, but that doesn't actually mean that it is one. Because the fact is that it's not. See? This is why we use two different words for facts and opinions. Because they're not actually the same thing, no matter how much you scrunch up your forehead and wish.
And if you can't back up your opinions with facts, your opinions are worthless, and should be discarded. ID cannot be backed up with facts, therefore ID is a worthless opinion that should be discarded. A worthless opinion that should be discarded but is held by the majority of people is still a worthless opinion that should be discarded. Therefore the majority of people hold a worthless opinion, ID, that should be discarded. QED.
I think that most halfway-intelligent people would agree that we have a moral and ethical obligation, both to ourselves and to society as a whole. to discard worthless opinions that should be discarded. If you feel otherwise, please let us know.
You can pretend that the mob-ocracy you're advocating is really a democracy, but it's not. That's the funny thing about opinions. If you can't back them up with facts, they're completely worthless.
Then yes, you are claiming that science education ought to be a matter of majority rule.
Christ, at least be man enough to admit it. Because if you have to resort to such transparent sophistry in order to pretend that you're not saying what you're saying, you've already lost the argument. Mostly because you're tacitly admitting that your opinion has no basis in fact, and as such will be discarded by any halfway-intelligent person.
Mothworm,
What you gave is not statements that show hate towards the constitution, but rather a different interpretation of the constitution. Is that not what all the fighting in Congress is for? Yet none of them are anti-constitionalist.
Pat Robertson is not anymore anti-constitution anymore than PZ Myers objection to the billboard add against evolution.
Debate does not equal anticonstitution
Free speech can still be anti-constitutional speech. There's a difference between anti-constitutional and unconstitutional. If I wanted to say, for instance, that the right to free assembly was crap, than I could. I'd be anti-constitutional, but it wouldn't be unconstitutional (assuming I'm a private citizen doing non-goverment work, etc.).
In America anyone is free to hate on tenets of the country, as much so as other people are free to call them out on it.
Wow. AGCM now changes his name. Isn't Al Franken jewish?
No. He is judging reality by the things that we can all objectively observe. Invisible superheros are not in that category.
Well, the objective observations of the majority of Americans should not be censored in favor of yours.
All I'm hearing is, "You are judging Smurf by the Smurf of the Smurfiest of Smurfs. That can hardly be considered Smurf."
A Good Jewish Man?
"I'm good enough, I'm smart enough, and doggone it, people like me!"
Ha! Sorry for the change in name. My computer remembered the name from a search I had.
Free speech can still be anti-constitutional speech. There's a difference between anti-constitutional and unconstitutional. If I wanted to say, for instance, that the right to free assembly was crap, than I could. I'd be anti-constitutional, but it wouldn't be unconstitutional (assuming I'm a private citizen doing non-goverment work, etc.).
So I guess the whole of congress are against the consitution since all they do all-day is debate over what it states.
Thanks for the chat. But I think we have all made our points. It is time for me to eat and retire.
"For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish but have everlasting life."
Well, the objective observations of the majority of Americans should not be censored in favor of yours.
Aww darn, is the majority of America out gathering empirical data for guardian angels when I've had my back turned?
Dang, and I thought they were all too busy making ends meet.
Seriously though- the majority of Americans associate the heart with love- how come cardiologists think they can censor that view in favor of elitist "pump theory"?
Well, the objective observations of the majority of Americans should not be censored in favor of yours
What in the world is wrong with you? Do you even understand the meanings of the terms you are using? "Objective" ACGM means that we can both observe something whatever our beliefs. I say falling objects accelerate toward the earth at 9.8 meters per second/per second and we can both run the same experiment to determine it to be true - objectively true. You say there is a God and he thinks its wrong for me to eat shellfish. I say prove it. You cannot provide any objective evidence supporting these claims. Therefore it does not count as reality.
Science is based upon objective observations. That is how science works and how it is defined. Religion is based upon non-objective observations, on faith. That is how religion works. That is how it is defined. You can say that your religious beliefs are scientifically viable all you like but that does not make it so. Only independent verification makes it so. See how easy that is.
"For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish but have everlasting life."
{giant juicy fart noise)
No, that would be the Supreme Court. And, since the Constitution is a living document, you can always claim that something is only unconstitutional until it is changed in the Constitution. Ergo, nothing can ever be unconstitutional or anticonstitutional.
Thank you, brent. :)
Now, just to be clear, I'm posting in response to your comment to yet another poster.
When your response to discussion -- which you claim to laud -- is to suggest that someone leave the US, you are not actually fomenting the discussion you claim to hold so dear.
And -- once again -- the US is not actually a Christian nation. As an example take the case of Keith Ellison, who intends to use a Koran to be sworn in as a Minnesota representative. This has made at least one right-wing Christian representative quite upset; however, what Rep. Goode seems to be overlooking is the fact that there is no religious litmus test required to be a US Representative -- nor Congressman -- nor even President. (Not a few were probably very upset, for instance, that JFK was a Roman Catholic.)
I suggest that it is you who are erecting strawmen by repeatedly insisting that the US is a Christian nation. As was pointed out earlier, many of the US founders were Freemasons, yet we don't see anyone suggesting -- well, not anyone taken seriously -- that the US is a Masonic nation.
Citing the possible religious leanings of some founders as "proof" that the US "is" a given thing is treading dangerous territory; Jefferson was actually a Deist, for instance, not a Christian. And absolutely nowhere in the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, nor any of the amendments will you find claims that the US is a Christian nation. Contrarily, you will find official documents (as I posted earlier) from the US government, endorsed by a founder, that explicitly state the opposite.
It is true that many of the principles of the US -- egalitarianism, justice, democracy -- are Christian principles; yet so are those principles to be found in Islam, Judaism and Buddhism. Outside the religious sphere, those principles exist in many secular writings and philosophies as well.
Michael Shermer, Bertrand Russell, Carl Sagan, Stephen Jay Gould, PZ and Richard Dawkins have all espoused as valid and meritorious precisely the same principles that you seem to want to attach exclusively to Christianity -- while, at the same time, you want to suggest that anyone who disagrees with you should leave. Strange fruit for a Christian tree to be bearing, it seems to me.
As for atheistic societies that work: In addition to Switzerland, Finland comes to mind. Oh, and Holland. Uh, and Japan. Oh golly, and Canada too. And England. (All these nations have churches, of course -- but they are all officially atheist.)
In the realm of non-Christian but still principally religious societies that at least give lip-service to ideals such as democracy, justice, etc., you will find India and Thailand. (When they aren't suffering from the odd demicentennial military coup.)
Finally, while you might have opinions on the interpretations of history, the reality -- the fact -- is that Intelligent Design is simply not a valid scientific teaching, and no amount of social engineering will change that fact, any more than Lysenko's sad socialistic claptrappery was valid agricultural science. Thousands starved in Soviet Russia because ideology won out over reality; what you are attempting to impose through promoting ID (which is ideological) over evolution (which is science's product) is essentially the same thing, only through theistic rather than atheistic means.
Extremes in either direction can be devastating, particularly when appeals are made not to fact, but to popular opinion.
Carlie:
Well, he was, for a while.
AGCM:
Actually, that is called "being completely full of shit."
The simple fact that you're legally allowed to say whatever you want does not mean that what you have to say is even remotely intelligent. Free speech doesn't make you smart. It doesn't make you right. It doesn't mean that you have the slightest clue what you're talking about. It doesn't mean we have to listen to you. It doesn't mean that we're not allowed to mock you for your self-righteous pomposity and presumption of absolute personal infalliability.
You're pathologically incapable of listening to anyone but yourself, aren't you? There obviously isn't a single thing that anyone has said in this entire thread that has even come close to penetrating that thick, lead-lined skull of yours.
So yes, you have your opinions (not facts). When contrasted with facts, however, your opinions mean precisely diddly-shit. That you insist that your opinions are magically capable of trumping inconvenient facts (not opinions) just makes you an arrogant crapsack, regardless of the religion you claim to practice.
Just think: "A Good Christian Man" and his brethern probably negated your votes in the last election.
Can you please stop overgeneralizing??? Larry Flynt preys on young women, and he's an atheist.
There's been no overgeneralizations. The issue is too complex to post a couple URLs and be finished with it.
Flynt is a butthole atheist whose spent his life pawning his damaged wares to sexist Christian men. Flynt finds the young vulnerable girls to prey on, and selling them off to Christian men, who have a sexist view of women. Atheists and Christians in unison, imagine that! I see a clear underlying relationship going on... it's called supply and demand, and the bottomline: THE LOVE OF MONEY.
Tedd Haggard preys on young men, and he's a pastor.
But he didn't go out and start a raunchy publication promoting the degenerate lifestyle, now did he? Lots of liberals are tickled by his behavior, his wife never seemed to figure into the equation, because, well, women aren't relevant.
But the atheist slimebag, Flynt did.
Done, ok? Porn and rape have nothing to do with atheism.
Really. This crap was produced by an atheist's magazine:
Do you think rape is funny? Playboy, Penthouse and Hustler do. From Penthouse ...
http://www.oneangrygirl.net/wackyrape.html
It took an atheist to print that kind of sexist garbage. What's failing understanding?
Can you guys comprehend that women don't find rape humorous? But Flynt isn't a humanist, he's a self-serving pimple on the ass of society. Why do you want to deny Flynt's an atheist, I thought he was one of atheism's brightest shining stars of secular freethought. Disgusting.
If anything, they have more to do with paternalistic misogynistic religions
And Flynt, Atheist, is supplying their demand.
as you yourself showed in an article you linked to and quoted liberally from. I have yet to see an atheistic organization claim that women have no right to lead their households, no right to teach others, no right to complain or try to leave a bad marriage, but those are basic tenets of many religions, including those that your beloved Promise Keepers are based on.
In Traci Lords case, young men who'd seen the atheist degenerate larry flynt's smutrags ... done been convinced by the rape comics, that gals like and enjoy getting raped. They trained Traci to learn her place early on. She was pumped and prime, ready for her place on Sunset Strip... working as a porn star. In my view, men are men, and atheist men are no better than Christian men. Really, I have seen little or no difference. Sometimes, worse in fact. At least around Christian men, (I'm speaking of practicing Christians) I don't have to put up with smutty degenerate nasty talk, dissecting women down into "dirty little body parts". I have heard guys talk like that, I see it on the internet quite much. Just go to some newsgroups, entire threads dedicated to butts, breasts and penises. People have got to where they don't even know how to distinguish inappropriate.
atheism and horrid treatment of women.
Merely calling things by their right name.
Larry Flynt is often held up by atheistic liberals as the "shining star and bright boy of Atheism".
He's an a sick, disgusting, crippled, drug-addled, perverted, fat, shit-covered pig of a man and a pimple on the ass of society.
I sure don't see Flynt using any of his "Humanist influence" to discourage boys from doing to other young girls, what brutality was done to Traci. Nope, Flynt was too busy trying to come up with his next "rape comic".
"Atheistic liberals" such as...?
no bronze dog. ignore. ignore. danger.
Sharon,
You are the very poster-child for hasty generalization and shrillness. Reading your rants inspires horror and fascination in me; I can't help but rubberneck at your spectacular wreck of argumentation... The horror! The horror!
I give up. You're completely obsessed with Larry Flynt, and seem to think that he single-handedly represents every atheist on the planet. At the same time, you're glossing over every awful thing that's been done to women in the name of Christianity, including forcing women to stay in abusive marriages, forcing women to marry their rapists (that one's in the Bible!), and forcing women to stay home and shut up. You know what? I'd take Larry Flynt over the entire Catholic priest cover-up any day. He's out in the open, able to be castigated and shunned by society at large. Dozens, if not hundreds, of men in the Catholic hierarchy kept quiet about known sexual abuse of children while hypocritically preaching the goodness of God. It's easy to stay away from obvious assholes and for society to register displeasure of such. The quiet ones who simply believe in their hearts that women are lesser than men in the eyes of God are much more of a threat.
"For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish but have everlasting life."
Dag, man, you got me there.
I might as well sign off with some quotes too. But mine're better ;). All c/o fstdt.com
[In reply to 'So you want a theocracy?']
YES! and a monarchy, too, with Jesus as King! Personally, I don't give a rip about our constitution, equal wealth distribution, civil rights, equal rights, etc. All I care about is Jesus. This life isn't about us; it's about glorifying God, and how someone feels about his/her place in our society doesn't interest me."
tim3, Christianity.com Forums
"Everyone who has read the bible knows what God thinks of other religions and I'm sorry if it offends but I'll side with God before I side with the constitution."
JWD, Rapture Ready
"Free speech? Satan wants freedom to corrupt minds and to corrupt our children and the constitution was written by a bunch of Christians who never intended for freedom of speech to be used AGAINST us..."
architectlink, Rapture Ready
"Dawkins, you and your atheist friends cannot win. America WILL become a Christian Republic even if we have to write a whole new constitution. Millions of us are dedicated to this righteous cause. We will suceed. And then we will invade godless countries like "Great" Britain and kill all of your heathens. First we need to take care of things at home and in the Middle East but we will get around to Europe. You Godless freaks will die but then you will roast in hell for infinite time. Goodbye you loser"
John Doe, RichardDawkins.net
*Back to not feeding trolls*
Yeah, I think these two cannot be reached and will never add anything to the discussion. Not trying to be "angry left" or anything, but it seems well beyond pointless by now. I think I will wander off to another thread.
AGCM:
The fact that you don't have the slighest goddamn clue what you're talking about is now completely indisputable. I'm sure that fact will roll right off of your feathers, though, just like the rest of reality.
The beliefs of the majority of Americans you're referring to are neither objective (in the sense that they can be agreed upon by all observers) nor are they observations (in the sense that observation presupposes an actual intellectual engagement with the object of study, rather than simply parroting what your preacher tells you every Sunday morning).
Being too stupid to know how ignorant you are -- or too arrogant to care -- doesn't grant you any intellectual authority. None. Zip. Zilch. Nada. If you don't know what you're talking about, your opinion doesn't count. If only we could enshrine that in law.
How boring and shallow must it be to believe that you know everything about everything? Never the possibility of learning anything new, never the desire to read or explore or enjoy. Just absolute, unshakeable certainty about everything there is, no matter how little you actually know about it.
What a pointless, purposeless existence. No possibility of change or improvement, no need to appreciate the beauty and diversity of the world around you, no doubts or shames or joys of any kind. Just the dull, soul-sucking pain of the same things happening over and over and over again, for no discernable reason. So empty and meaningless that you have to invent a whole different life after this one where things will be so much better just to keep from killing yourself and everyone around you.
Back to the billboards - I saw a pic that had one saying "Stop using my name for your billboards - God" in that black background and white text so ubiquitous across the midwest with inane sayings supposedly attributed to said deity. Unfortunately, I think it was a computer-generated image. I'd chip in for one of those.
Citation, please.
While Mark Foley was so busy passing laws against child porn that he had to suspend a Senatorial vote in order to finish a cybersex session with a teenaged boy.
Seems that the muddled ethics of which you accuse atheists actually exist everywhere. I know others have said this; I doubt this will sink in.
But I'm trying anyway.
Yes, it's undeniable that atheists do terrible things -- but it's equally undeniable that the goddish do equally terrible things. Remember the institutionalized rape of boys in the Catholic church (which is still going on, surely)?
If your argument is that sick minds can attach to any ideology and attempt to rationalize their behavior through that ideology, you won't find dissent from me. If your argument is that such sickness should damn well be rooted out, you won't find dissent from me.
However, if your argument is that sickness is soley the bourne of atheists, I'll have to disagree. The vast majority of Western Christianity is dominated by sickness perpetrated by the very goddish whom you seem to laud as being exclusively meritorious.
Or perhaps you're more comfortable with the bumperstickerism, "I'm not perfect -- just forgiven."
That does not constitute a "get out of jail free" card.
afterthought:
Indeed. There's only so much to be gained from spending an entire day yelling at a brick wall and a nicely framed picture of Gandhi.
I hate to even make the comparison, but it's a lot like trying to have a conversation with a low-functioning autistic kid. Or maybe one of those severely brain-damaged piano savants that show up on 60 Minutes pieces every few years. They can speak and form coherent sentences, but when it comes to sustaining a conversation, it's just a complete no-go.
Dan:
Just how well-feathered is an ostrich's backside, anyway?
Why not just put up offensive lines from the bible and let them speak for themselves.
*Back to not feeding trolls*
Posted by: Johnny Logic |
That's translated into "my inability to communicate in an intelligent manner, with people with whom I disagree."
I give up.
You never tried to begin with.
You're completely obsessed with Larry Flynt, and seem to think that he single-handedly represents every atheist on the planet.
I think I've made my point. He's disgusting. He is no example of any bright shining star for atheists. He is one of the main reasons, I would not want to identify myself as an atheist. People like him -- advocate a raw, wanton free for all, don't care who they step on.
They sure do hail him as a shining example. Saw his name scrawling up a list of notable atheists on a video over on B.C. -- was disgusted. Of course, I wouldn't doubt its a fat, lonely miserable old fart of an atheist, and a man who made the video. I was thinking "why" would they put that prick's name on the list, for goodness sake, Flynt is nothing to be proud of. Why not put a list of Communist murderers on that list while you're at it??
At the same time, you're glossing over every awful thing that's been done to women in the name of Christianity
I give up on getting my point across to you. Or?
*smile* You listening??
When it comes to sex industry, there is no difference between Atheist abusers (some, not all) and Christian abusers (some not all). They have the same plundering spirit. Atheist porno supplies sexist Christians with images of "humiliated women". Men like and have always like seeing women raped, abused, plundered... exploited for profit. Just like slavery. Flynt makes a profit selling women ... Christians made a profit selling slaves some centuries ago.
Men will be men. What is so difficult to understand?
In other words, atheism doesn't make a man any better, than a Christian. In fact, I'd go so far to say, Flynt picked up his sexist ways from Christianity, became atheist, and then became an asshole, ten times worse.
Atheism and Christianity are both loaded full of chauvenism and sexism. And the women victimized by it, are brushed under the rug by both camps, as long as men keep on getting their supply of rock-jollies.
Flynt is just one of many examples of human crud, and atheism is in fact, the ideologue he clings to, to explain his vile industry from which he's sucked millions from living women's blood and bodies.
Don't compare that anti-human to a man like this, for instance:
Humanist Philanthropy
COLUMN By ELAINE FRIEDMAN
HumanistNetworkNews.org
July 19, 2006
Two weeks ago Warren Buffett, the world's second-richest man, stunned the world by announcing that he will begin donating $37 billion of his fortune to five foundations. Five-sixths of the money will go to The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, run by Bill Gates, the world's richest man.
The Gateses credit Buffett with having inspired their thinking about giving money back to society. Guided by its belief that "every life has equal value," the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation "works to reduce inequities and improve lives around the world" by aiding the fight against diseases and improving US libraries and high schools.
While news of Buffett's announcement has been broadcast worldwide, it has not been widely circulated that Buffett, as well as Gates, is an atheist. Indeed, some of the most generous philanthropists, beginning with Andrew Carnegie, have been or are free thinkers.
http://humaniststudies.org/enews/?id=252&article=0
My point is very simple: Atheism does not make people better, it is the humanism that some sensitive Atheists practice, that make better human beings.
What in this, is really so difficult to understand?
Everyone please just ignore Sharon. Don't encourage her rants.
Biblical law, as taught by cute plastic people.
Sharon, you're actually several people sharing the same computer, aren't you?
I mean, we have this:
along with this:
On the one hand is something rational and sensible; on the other hand is a spew of angry invective. This suggests to me either a radically bipolar disorder that's still adjusting its meds; or several different people using the same login -- indeed, computer -- to attempt to present a united front.
I'm not surprised you (or is that "ye"?) had to retreat from at least a few fora. The irrational, confronted steadily by the rational, always eventually has to crawl into a shelter and lick wounds, while complaining about how "persecuted" it's been.
You are a hypocrit. You can't have it both ways.
Move along. Nothing to see here.
Sharon, you're actually several people sharing the same computer, aren't you?
No, of course not. Do you want to make me believe you are a jackass by accident, or behaving so on purpose?
My point is very simple: Atheism does not make people better, it is the humanism that some sensitive Atheists practice, that make better human beings.along with this:
[Y]ou're precisely what I call the height of ignorance, and vile if you think it's perfectly normal to show 9 year old rape victims on the internet, like some atheists do.
Then turn around and say, "I'm an atheist and believe in evolution."
Do waaaahhh, are you attempting to mislead readers, by misrepresenting what I posted? Splicing together RANDOM excertps, out of context, that are not related.
Why would you practice such dishonest debate tactics? Why would you lie?
A conundrum of unrelated sentences, which are in fact a reflection on your own scattered reasoning skills.
Then turn around and say, "I'm an atheist and believe in evolution.
I am not an atheist. You have taken my words out of context. Check the original post buckwad, I have never claimed to be an atheist. I am not wasting time copy/pasting the original post. It's clear I was referring to sick infamous perverts, who are atheist, head guys at top in sex industry making money on bodies of little girls, or having websites with hacked up babies, or defending the most vile causes... like legalizing sex for little girls (so these liberal lawyers presumably can get their share of the pie)... these are on the forefront of espouding themselves as freethinkers and evolutionist.
I am ashamed to be associated with them.
Why don't you stick some Nazis up there... a prime example: Mengele.. these dudes had a thing for evolution too.
On the one hand is something rational and sensible; on the other hand is a spew of angry invective. This suggests to me either a radically bipolar disorder that's still adjusting its meds; or several different people using the same login -- indeed, computer -- to attempt to present a united front.
You're a stupid, ignorant person.
Playing net psychiatrist? You, are suffering from a delusion. You wouldn't know anything about the field of psychiatry. Foremost, pathetic little liar, true professionals in the field never put diagnosis to identifiable individuals "in the public" for ridicule. I do know something about medical policies, privacy, and confidentiality. My sister was a LPN.
Next, professionals in the field do not ridicule individuals for mental illness.
Silly net psychiatrist delusion! You need some anger management counseling, do you know this little angry man?
It's obvious to me you're nothing more than an ignorant insulter. Your opinion means bullshit.
Unaffected here. You're ranting and stupidities doesn't invalidate anything I've said.
Here, to clear up for you dimwit... back to original post, the conflict between science and religion?
If atheists actually practiced humanism, since they are usually the biggest mouths promoting evolution, it would reflect much better on science if they behaved themselves. I have provided ample example of atheists who do not possess a humanist streak in their body. aka, Flynt, Hefner.. they enjoyed a lifetime of preying on young girls, no better than your child-rapist Priests. How many Communists were atheist?
They're raunchy, they're atheists!
Your brain is too scattered to put the extensive point I've made together. I mark that down as simple lack of intelligence perhaps, perhaps not understanding the issues? Narrow mind, who knows, but it doesn't matter, your anger management problem has been amply noted.
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I wish you'd begun with that, since it's a lovely, succinct summation of your oeuvre.
G'bye. I'm done too. There's no point in carrying on with you at all. I've had to hold, as a writer of fiction, many opposing viewpoints in my head from time to time in order to paint realistic characters as opposed to cardboard bad guys; but I bow in homage to your singular talents at the art. To on the one hand revere Ghandi while on the other behave in an unconscionable hateful way is truly the work of a master of schizophrenia.
Too bad Tolkein didn't have a chance to talk to you; he could have given Sauron a lot more depth just by borrowing from your screed.
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Steve, you remind me of a hypocrite.
Scathing, but true.
PZ Meyers recently was distressed when Crichton wrote a fictional account of child rape, and accusation of a "small penis". Men go ballistic over such things. But tonight you read how your pervert hero, Flynt is a real-life, useless, filthy old creep... and his kind (he is an atheist, deny it if you want), have preyed on rape victims like Traci Lords. Oh, you don't want to discuss child rape now? How cowardly of you.
You had no problem discussing the fictional Crichton version, why avoid discussing reality now? Traci Lords was raped, and then victimized by atheist pornos. Including ... you. How many videos of her, have you bought, and been "entertained" by and gotten your rocks off?
Sicko.
I've presented facts and one idiot above tries to splice random sentences from my posts to mislead readers and play a lousy "net psychiatrist", a field which becomes blindingly obvious he's utterly ignorant of, though wouldn't hurt him to seek a psychotherapist to arrange some anger management sessions.
But you, Steve, I can tell what I have to say deeply troubles you. Facts hurt. You think your atheism has some monopoly on morality. How wrong you are. How you deal with controversy, is either by ignoring it, or childish tantrums.
Facts are facts. One of your atheist heroes is a scumbag. Quite a few actually. Atheism does not make people better human beings. What part of that did you fail to comprehend?
Most humanists do not exploit their fellow man.
What part of that did you fail to understand?
Not all atheists are humanists.
Are you confused on what I mean?
A six year old can put this together.
Evolution is distrusted by most people because its overshadowed by nasty atheists with warped minds who need anger management sessions with psychotherapists.
Warren said:
Sorry, Warren, but as a Canadian, I wouldn't call us atheistic. Especially politically, which is I think the point here. Our Preamble to the Constitution of 1982 (see this Wiki article for an overview) states "Whereas Canada is founded upon principles that recognize the supremacy of God and the rule of law". While I believe (I'm not a laywer) this statement has no actual impact on the law, it nonetheless clearly banishes any thought that we're an atheistic society.
As well, the religious right has been flexing its muscle lately, and our current PM is from their camp. So far, he has been keeping his theistic predilections to himself, but it is generally thought that this is because his government is in the minority, and he's still trying to woo the more liberal populace into giving him a majority in the next election.
So, no, I wouldn't call us atheistic ... yet.
BTW: Got it, Steve, thanks.
Sha(u)ron and A Good Christian Man: If you want to carry on your missives elsewhere, I'll open a thread on my site just for you. You can rant, post and discuss, and I won't censor (unless you get threatening).
Here, if you want. Your first comment will be moderated until authenticated; after that, flame yourselves to complete satisfaction.
Really. Seriously. Since it seems you want a public forum (another?) on which to post what you want to post, please, feel free to fire away. I'm sure my own archives will give you plenty of fuel. Last time I checked, my tiles were all in good order.
Consider it my belated Christmas gift to you.
Enough. Sharon, go away -- you won't be wasting our time here. This paranoid delusion that we atheist all regard pornographers as our heroes is simply the final straw.
A six year old could put that together. It's about as random a collection of sentences as I'd expect from a six year old. You've said that you hate atheism and are a Christian because atheists are dirty sex perverts. Then you turn around and say that no, Christian men are just as perverted as atheists, but somehow that still means that atheists are worse. Then you say that Flynt is some kind of atheist hero, when no one here has ever said that or defended him, and called people here "sicko" because you have some fantasy that all men watch porn irrespective of any evidence of the sort. Then suddenly humanists come into the picture. It's impossible to even follow you to know what version of yourself you're writing with from moment to moment.
I'm off to watch Doctor Who. Much more entertaining and intelligent.
Regarding the fact that this is a predominantly Christian country, founded by Christians...
True patriots, such as Jefferson, Franklin, Adams and others, were painfully aware of that fact. As our first true American Patriots, they carefully crafted language in our Constitution to PROTECT AMERICAN CITIZENS from the abuses of government sponsored religion. How smart they were... The history of Christianity in Europe: Inquisitions, persecution, death and destruction, was fresh and foremost in their minds. This government was not to be a Spain, or a France, or an England. True American Patriots did then, as now, cherish the freedom from government sponsored religion. Unfortunately, our country is filled with evil and ambitious and UN-AMERICAN Christian leaders who, desire the power that religion has OVER the people. These charlatans are NOT patriots. They are NOT conservative Americans, (they stole that term). They are insurgents, trying to steal our heritage in the guise of the "Moral" good. It sickens me to see a Falwell, or a Robertson, wave MY flag in the air as if they actually cared about the United States of America. They are to the US, as Hamas is to Lebanon; subversives who want to steal the power of the people for themselves.
Secondly, one could easily make an argument that more death, destruction, pillaging, human sacrifice and infanticide, has occurred in the name of God, than in an in the cause of atheism, but that would not satisfy Sharon. She doesn't really care that, though I am an atheist, I have never abused my children, taken crystal meth, hired a male prostitute, or sent sexual emails to young boys. These facts do not help her make her point, so she will not hear, as others will not hear.
Christians believe that atheists lack moral standards. Muslims believe that Christians lack moral standards, etc. etc... I do not even argue that one. The evidence speaks for itself.
bPer:
Noted, thanks, and I sit corrected. I was conflating the idea of a largely rational, decent and polite citizenry with atheism, and that was probably a biased read.
Thanks, I think, for correcting me.
Sharon had reminded me of Joan Brewer, someone I had argued with a lot about a decade ago at the Usenet newsgroups alt.fan.bill-gates and alt.destroy.microsoft -- I remember calling her JoanieDearest.
She is a former Microsoft saleswoman who had written MS CEO Bill Gates lots of e-mails full of her advice, including lots of anecdotes, pop psychology, and discussions of animal behavior. BG got an injunction against her for online harassment and she left M$.
She made lots of bizarre charges, like how M$ women had slept their way to the top. And despite her complaining about how she was being picked-on for being a woman, she also complained that feminists are perpetually-whining "Eeyore Amazons" who want to do things like keeping their last name when they get married, and she even declared that some of her female critics were not Real Women.
She also claimed that she wanted a more female-friendly user interface, but I was unable to get her to describe what she meant.
She did like M$ Bob, that ill-fated GUI shell from long ago, because it allowed her to do something that she claimed that women like to do: rearrange furniture.
URL's:
http://www.eff.org/Censorship/Academic_edu/CAF/law/gates-v-brewer
http://www.matadorrecords.com/escandalo/4/joan.html
http://dev.null.org/psychoceramics/archives/1995.11/msg00044.html
http://dev.null.org/psychoceramics/archives/1995.12/msg00061.html
And search Google Groups for "Joan Brewer" and "Joan L. Grove"; those female critics were Martina Umlauft and Rhonda Rubin.
bPer, I spend a lot of time in both countries but I'm an American. The difference that I have seen between the two countries is although Canadians can be some of the most judgemental people in the world they are humble enough to know that they don't have any right to tell other people how to live. Americans are self-righteous and arrogant. We like to say that we are individualists but we march in lock step on a lot of stuff as long as someone waves the flag or mentions Jesus. Schoolchildren almost pray to the flag every morning! It's like our brains shut off and the rose colored glasses get put on and anyone who disagrees is somehow unamerican. There's no other way of saying it other than the inmates are running the asylum so please pardon the cliche.
PZ, do Sharon and AGCM have the same IP address?
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Sharon, drop in and post here.
Oh my Dog, Loren, talk about a blast from the past! But I think we'd best let Joan rest, because rodvan might show up on her heels, and I don't think my constitution could take that at my age...
Sharon, you need to spend less time at rotten.com!
Welcome to Pharyngula, sharon.
I'm only about 1/4 the way through the comments so I apologise if this was already asked, but when you say that moral values are important and also suggest that atheism might not lead to planting moral values in children are you aware that you are separating truth from pragmatism there?
Are you saying that you think people should believe because it would be handy for them to believe regardless of the truth? That sounds like an elitist neo-conservative style view. The common people need a crutch / moral basis for their life so teach them religious nonsense to control their bestial nature....
Or are you saying that you think whether a religion is true or not is effected by what it's pragmatic effect is? For example the way Jesus says that you can tell who is a christian from their life (good deeds), and also says that christianity spreads by means of demonstrating a holy lifestyle?
Naturally your statement assumes that religion really does lead to better values. I dispute that, but it is hard to say what does lead to better values. I think just teaching moral values leads to moral values. It doesn't matter if the values are associated with a religion or many, or none IMO so long as people have an expectation of moral values, shame the guilty and reward the virtuous with recognition.
Sharon, whatever happened to you in your past to make you hate men so much, I'm very sorry and you have my sincere sympathies. But whatever it is has left you trapped in a nighmarish cornfield maze haunted by scarecrows... or to be more precise, strawmen of your own creation. Luckily for society, the overwhelming majority of women, even those who've suffered all kinds of cruelty from men, have a much healthier perspective and firmer grasp of reality...
I don't know what's more frustrating, your misguided misandry/androphobia, or AGCM's obtuseness/willful ignorance .
And please forgive me if english is not your native language, but you've brought Inigo Montoya to mind quite a few times in your posts... "You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means."
LOL. I think you should read a bit more through the comments before you attempt to have any sort of a rational conversation with sharon. You will thank me.
AGCM said earlier, "Here you have a nation (Sweden) where you can feel free to allow the pudding to speak for itself...." What I want to know is, can the pudding in Sweden actually DO that? What language does it speak, Swedish or English? Can I get one of those suckers over the internet? Because it would absolutely MAKE my New Year's dinner. AGCM, honey, get me that talking pudding, and I'll start to think ID has some scientific basis, after all.
My last comment was directed toward davidbyron if that was not obvious.
Someone -- oddly enough, a guy claiming to be a "Christian man" -- said, "It is the Christians that gave you the liberty to reject Christianity."
I would urge you to study the case of Stephen Girard. At one time he was reputed to be the richest man in the world (a shipping magnate, of course). When his nation ran out of money to continue fighting a war to keep secure its freedom, to avoid becoming a mere colony again, Mr. Girard stepped in with his personal fortune and financed the war out of his own bank. He was not paid back the money.
And so it is that every American, Christian, Jew, Moslem, Buddhist, Hindu, Wiccan, Native American, agnostic and atheist, owes a deep debt to the atheist Stephen Girard of Philadelphia, who financed the second revolution against Britain in the War of 1812.
When Jesus cured the blind men, at least one of them turned back to thank Jesus for the cure. When will Christians thank Stephen Girard? And when will some of them give up the canard that it was only Christians who fought for freedom, when that has never been so?
Sweden? But until recently, Sweden had a state church . . .
Does the creationism virus wipe out the ability to see irony?
Awww, all the fun stuff happens while I'm away.
BTW, I've been doing tons of searching for Atheism, Atheist, Freethinker, Humanist, etc., trying to find some good discussions and maybe some people of like mind in my geographical area, and not once have a found a single site with the stuff sharon was originally going on and on about. Pity, really, because then the rest of us moral atheists could give them the what-for. Giving everyone a bad name. . .just like Larry Flynt, a paragon that so many people want to emulate. Not. Unlike, say, St. Francis of Assisi, who kind of wanted women to just vanish from the face of the earth, and who wanted the Inquisition to torture people more mercifully. (Clearly, he - much like Mr. Flynt for atheists - is an example of what is typical for all christians!)
Oh, well. My husband thinks I'm nuts for enjoying troll shows, but it really just makes me even more thankful that people I know in person are smarter and more rational and never give me this sort of entertainment.
Hmmm...well, I learned something new. I knew of Girard College from when I was living in Philadelphia -- it was this strange great walled compound smack in the middle of North Philly, and I'd looked it up and been impressed by the fellow who founded it (in addition to the patriotism bit, he also stuck with poor Philadelphians during one of the major yellow fever epidemics), but strangely enough, I hadn't known until now that he was an atheist.
"It is the Christians that gave you the liberty to reject Christianity."
Well, that's jolly good, since it was allegedly the Christian God who didn't give anybody the liberty to reject Christianity (without consequences).
So I wouldn't brag about that, Good Christian Man, if you don't want to get in big trouble. You can explain it to the Big G in your head, while I kick back with more of my vacation reading. (I've been to 4 parties in 4 days.)
*Relaxes*
The ironic thing about someone calling themself "A Good Christian Man" claiming that the US is a christian country is that no real christian would ever say that.
Presumably he is a christianist / patriotic state cultist with the trappings of christianity. That would explain his mythological patriotic utterances too. I guess it is fair to say that America is a christianist county.
Thank you for being merciful, PZ, and ending it before she got even uglier. However, I do hate being called a liar, even if it's in the disemvoweled form of "l". So, I'll finish off my bit against Sharon with the following quotes of hers from this thread to remind her that she did indeed throw in her lot with the Christians and then turned 'round and called them perverts:
Sharon quote #1:
I don't want to shake my former religious hold on morality... nope, I do not.
Sharon quote #2:
nope, being a Mom with kids, like most Christian moms, and understanding why I don't want atheistic influences in my home... figure it out for yourselves.
Sharon quote #3:
When it comes to sex industry, there is no difference between Atheist abusers (some, not all) and Christian abusers (some not all). They have the same plundering spirit. Atheist porno supplies sexist Christians with images of "humiliated women". Men like and have always like seeing women raped, abused, plundered... exploited for profit. Just like slavery. Flynt makes a profit selling women ... Christians made a profit selling slaves some centuries ago.
Men will be men. What is so difficult to understand?
In other words, atheism doesn't make a man any better, than a Christian. In fact, I'd go so far to say, Flynt picked up his sexist ways from Christianity, became atheist, and then became an asshole, ten times worse.Atheism and Christianity are both loaded full of chauvenism and sexism.
I call cowardice on sharon. For nearly two hours now she's been welcome to post comments, censure- and disemvowellment-free, at my site -- and she has failed to do so.
Really. There isn't even one post there lying in my moderation pool. It's as dry and dusty as AIG's site is of truth.
The thread remains as empty of comments as ID and "deism-atheism" are of intellectual merit, it seems.
I guess we really know a lot about what she's made of now, huh? Just like any other IDiot -- give them a free, open forum, and they lose all the fire in their bellies.
Oh, maybe my pages aren't public enough. Maybe there isn't so much a "controversy" there as a quiet, ongoing discussion regarding the value of extremism and demagoguery on every level -- which is nil.
This is what happens when you stop feeding trolls and give them, instead, a place to walk free, to actually air their minds in an open, free and consequence-nonexistent way: They turn into well-fed cripples.
It's obviously all about politics to them.
"Oppressed", my left cheek. Sad.
A Good Christian Man,
I would think that atheists have been to fewer churches than Christians.
Depends. A christian has to attend the same church a lot, not scores of different churches. It's supposed to be about accountability to a community of peers. Do you visit a lot of foreign churches in the evenings and attend you regular church in the mornings? or do you have a job that means you have to travel a lot?
It's disgraceful for a professional scientist to take such a weak stand at such a crucial time. Of course, there would be no conflict if religion stayed in its proper place. But when religion encroaches upon the domain of science, when religious zealots push to have their dogma established in state institutions, and when well established scientific theories are defamed on public billboards, then scientists have a professional responsibility to fight back. They must champion the causes of education and science, for if they don't then who will? Retreating to their ivory towers when things get hot is simply not acceptable!
Well, is it all about politics, Warren, or all about attention? When you described the space you were offering them, it kind of gave me the impression that it would just be the two of them there talking to themselves. Isn't it all about the audience for trolls? If they go to your site, will there be others there for sharon to insult and AGCM to condescend to?
AGCM never did fess up to which form of christianity he follows or why he would go to 50 churches and 156 masses in one year.
Dan said,
Free speech doesn't make you smart.
Sort of. The free speech of others makes you smart.
Carlie:
When being called a liar by one who is a coward, where is the shame?
You have no need to rebut. Silence in the face of facts and freedom to speak says volumes about one's intellectual opponents.
Here, in our era, we don't need half a millennium to support Galileo. We say, based on facts, that the sun is the center of our solar system; we say, based on facts, that evolution is the reality of life on this nonheliocentric planet; we say, based on facts, that atheists are not raving child-raping hyperververted pornographers.
We aren't insane; they are. Their monumental silence, when given a chance to speak freely, says it all.
We may not be right. We might be actually wrong. There may be a hidden wave in the fully-exposed EM spectrum, or there may be a deep resonance in gravity waves that shows the Universal Attractant to be god; or the Krishnas might be precisely on target in saying that the soul in all of us is an indistinguishable atom of total cosmic godness [sic], far too small to ever be discerned by our crude physical methods.
Or it might all be crap.
It might be that Occam had it right after all -- even though he was a churchgoing, God-fearing man.
God keeps getting smaller. He keeps getting stuffed into tinier and tinier folds in what we know, what we can prove. Is that god's fault, or ours?
There is no god: Almost impossible to prove, since proving a negative is so difficult; it's on par with trying to prove that God is a camel in the Saudi wastes, one named Aifetz. Nice. Now try to find the camel in the Saudi wastes named Aifetz who will say, clearly and without disputation, that he is not god.
What? You can't? Then God must be a camel, named Aifetz, living in the Saudi wastes! Absence of evidence is not, after all, evidence of absence.
Ah, horse(camel)shit.
Science is littered with arrogance, such as the arrogance of physicists who said, before Einstein, that physics was mostly a done deal, that there were just a few anomalies to wrap up before the field was a shut door.
But the more we learn of physics, of biology, of he history of life on Earth, the fewer and smaller the gaps become.
This is a tiny god indeed, to be summed up in the cosmos invisibly, yet perpetually so fascinated with human affairs that it overlooks the way we are ignoring our stewardship over The Garden while obsessing on who puts what part of his or her body into whom. We have wasted billions on things like Hummers for our fat, overfed kids -- while ignoring the least of those, his brethren.
And week after week, the pulpit misdirects our compassion into lies.
Carlie, being called a liar by creatures who belieive in a god such as this is a compliment. Accept it with a courteous "thank you" and move on.
I guess we'll never know. I built it and they didn't come.
Oh my. Does this mean that Kevin Costner is the Antichrist?
Or does it just mean that Jesus freaks are impotent?
(In the face of senbsible argument, I mean, of course.)
My last comment was directed toward davidbyron if that was not obvious.
Yeah... my comment appears out of place by the time you get through the rest of what was said. Unfortunately it is all too easy to fall into a combative mode when you are posting in a hostile environment and with people you don't know yet all peppering you with questions and suspicions and barbs. The conversation deteriorated pretty rapidly just after about 1/4 the way through the thread.
In fairness I will check out Warren's blog to see if she replies there but it's all a bit of a wash and maybe it couldn't be any other way.
AGCM never did fess up to which form of christianity he follows or why he would go to 50 churches and 156 masses in one year.
I'm sure I've attained those numbers (not this year obviously, but in the past). I did it simply by going to my church on Sunday mornings and Wednesday evenings like a good little evangelical, and since my church didn't have an evening meeting I'd go visit friends' churches in the evening. Easy. However not typical for a christian either.
Warren's comment about reading oodles of religious texts rings a bell with me too so I kind of wonder if atheists really do attend more churches over a lifetime. It's not clear. I have been to a couple of Mosques and an Islamic "evangelical" meeting (the muslim Billy Graham equivalent). I used to have about 20 different versions of the bible (ok that's really scraping the bottom of the barrel to get that many -- does the comic book version really count?) and used about 4 versions on a regular basis (for accuracy of translation issues, although I never learnt NT Greek as some of my friends did).
Most people are put off by the atheist title. To call yourself that instead of say, "agnostic" (or just nothing) you have to be a bit of a thinker. I think this relates to PZ reading his Palmistry too. Atheists have this in common with true believers: they beleive in stuff and they refute stuff. They think there is such a thing as truth and such a thing as falsity.
However I think most people who are christians do NOT really do the research. That's why I wonder if the atheists, being an unbelieving curiousity "elite" might rate more churches visited than generic christians and christianists many of whom just go to the same place once a week, bringing down the believers' side's average.
This game of "well, that subset is stupid, but really, my religion doesn't deserve to be rejected" is annoying -- it's pretending that your favorite myths ought to be accepted by default, and no, they don't deserve that much respect.
No, it's not.
And I am NOT A FRACKING APOLOGIST. Geez Louize, there is not a blogger in the world that makes me madder than you. You can directly distort facts, respond condescendingly ("Oi, another apologist") with worthy-of-creationist canned responses to the arguments you'd like to respond to... and, meanwhile, your ego and arrogance is propped up by the hoardes of sycophantic commenters who just love your very popular anti-religion stance as assuredly as Rush Limbaugh's fans love his over-the-top, assholic deameaner of pushing his views.
Point number 1 : I'm not demanding you respect my religion. Where did I say that? What I was saying that I disagree with your assertion that there must be a battle between science and religion, for the reasons stated above. Where does that demand respect? All I'm demanding is that you recognize who is saying what and not paint with the same kind of broad-brush reasoning that leads to people thinking that things like the Japanese interrment, or the McCarthy witch trials, are good ideas.
Point number 2 : I sure as hell am not apologizing for creationists. Their position is idiotic, and I make no bones about that. Of course, as soon as I complain about you being your usual assholic self, your sychophantic commenters quickly jump forth to say that I'm giving them a pass, I'm excusing them because they're religious, etc. etc. etc. None of this is true. I sure as hell do my small piece fighting the creationist idiocy in this country. And it sure as hell doesn't help to have prominent and most popular science bloggers acting so tremendously antisocial in their inability to see that religion is other than creationism. Yes, it's very easy to assume that I'm all part of the problem because, as somebody who's not an atheist, I give creationists a pass. But that is very much not the case.
You want to argue against religion, that's fine. But taking the actions of creationists adn saying, "There is a battle between science and religion because they shot first" is disingenuous at best, and really is the same logic that has the conservative whackos saying that all of the Arab world is the enemy.
-Rob
Your silence in this matter is another tacit approval.
Your assertion in this matter is another directly incorrect statement.
http://brahms.phy.vanderbilt.edu/~rknop/blog/?cat=7
Am I really silent? Look, my blog has nowhere near the prominence of PZ's, of course, so I'm not surprised you haven't heard of it. What I'm annoyed by is your looking at my black skin and assuming that I'm unemployed and have spent time in prison. Oops, what I meant to say was, what I am annoyed by is your seeing that I'm not an atheist and assuming that I give creationists a pass.
-Rob
Despite your superstitions we'll take you on as allies. Will they really pick up Darwin's flag? I doubt it. They're loyalty is with religion. Meanwhile we'll not sit back and let creationists call science a lie.
Will they? They frikkin' have! There's plenty of non-atheists out there arguing against creationism, and arguing in favor of fully-scientific evolution! Wake up! Read somebody other than PZ!
-Rob
You can find the Who Is Your Creator bulletin board here -- I see neither a Rob nor a Burt posting there (maybe they used pseudonyms?). In fact, while there are many people criticizing the site, there does seem to be a disproportionate absence of good Christians complaining about their religion being hijacked.
Oh, great, I'm flawed because I don't spend my time fighting a hopeless battle at a site I've never heard of.
I'm sure, if you dig, you can find a whole lot of other whacko christain sites that I haven't gone to complain at. I guess that makes me a Bad Actor. I must do everything to not be complacently giving the creationists a pass, eh?
This is such a ridiculous assault that I'm surprised I'm still responding, but then again, wisdom in degraded-to-flamewar Internet debates has never been one of my strong points.
Scienceblogs.com is full of all kinds of great stuff. It's a place that's great, and hence I think is worth fighting a bit against the bad stuff I see here. Unsurprisingly, the bad stuff here is not creationism at all.
Thankfully, I know from reading some of the "Neville Chamberlain" types around here, it's not a site that's completely in line with PZ's views on religion. However, I found the chr-astro list too much for me (I think I blogged about that at one point; I could dig it up if anybody cares). It was overrunn with intelligent designers, and after I tried to argue back it was suggested that I unsubscribe-- a suggestion I took. The last thing I'm going to do is waste a lot of time on an bulletin board full of (ironically) irredemable bunch of convinced creationist nutcases, who don't contribute anything of value.
Scienceblogs.com is different. Hell, even PZs blog is usually different, even though about a third of the time his religion bigotry really drives me apeshit. Theoretically, people around here are succeptible to reason, and so pointing out that mischaracterizing a war between creationism and evolution as a war between religion and science is something that some people might sit back and think about, rather than jumping back with the canned responses. That's why every few weeks I come back and try posting on a PZ thread, before reminding myself why I'd avoided his blog altogether for the last few weeks.
-Rob
Maybe not on this blog, but it is often the opinion expressed on other popular atheist hovels. Anything goes! We're animals afterall.
Sharon -- this is even more stupid that PZ implying that creationists speak for all of the religious.
At least a substantial fraction of the religious in this country are, indeed, creationists! That's why many of us spend so much time blogging against it.
I'm sure you can find some athiests who state, honestly, and really believe that we can do anything we want because we're all animals and hence morality is irrelevant. That would, however, be a very tiny fraction of them. This characterization is a false characterization of athiests put forth by creationists and their ilk. You hear it repeated a lot. You see very few athiests out there actually espousing that viewpoint. It's just as false as the characterization of all of the religious as being creationists. Yeah, some of them will espouse viewpoints that you don't consider moral, but that's a point of disagreement very different from thinking that there is no point to morality at all -- which is what you seem to be saying a substantial fraction of atheists believe.
You're putting forth the worst sort of straw man.
-Rob
The conversation has obviously been derailed a bit since your original comment Rob but I did think you raised an important point. I would say I mostly agree that there need not be some sort of cultural war between religion and science but I also don't think its exactly right to think of creationism as some fringe sect as you seem to imply. Creationism and other sorts of anti-scientific viewpoints are not nearly as removed from the center of Christian belief as say, radical Jihadist thought is from pan Arabic attitudes.
Plenty of them spend time, by their own admission, drinking the blood of a Christian adult every Sunday and that's generally immune to criticism.
Actually he's a Jew. Their doctrine is that they must eat the actual flesh of a dead Jew every Sunday as a form of religious bonding (IIRC, only the priest gets to drink the blood, which just happens to resemble sweet, sweet wine).
Strange, but I would have thought a major religion preaching the eating of the flesh of dead Jews would have been a no-no after 1945, but what the hell...
I have provided ample example of atheists who do not possess a humanist streak in their body. aka, Flynt, Hefner.. they enjoyed a lifetime of preying on young girls, no better than your child-rapist Priests.
Alas, your little diatribe, Sharon, has a teeny tiny little flaw in it. Something so small I hesitate to bring it up, but ultimately must because I do so like to nitpick.
Larry Flynt published Hustler while a born-again Christian, as well as after he renounced Christianity. The obvious conclusion is that his reasons for producing this repulsive little smut-mag have nothing to do with his religion.
I don't think we do. But I have a feeling that most of us are atheist because we've been paying attention and questioning -- we might not have been to 50 churches in one year, but I bet that the churches we've been to in our lifetimes are more diverse than a once-a-week monodeominational revival tour.
I've been to all the major churches, save Isalm -- and come on, why would I go to a mosque to worship a meteorite? -- which accounts for 4 big branches of belief. Still, I bet that's more diverse than any claim to a one-per-week visit of likely Christian-only garden-window box plots.
It's all a bit of a silence over there, but there's a good link to a nice cover of a truly great punk song.
FWIW.
I'm not demanding you respect my religion.
Good, because you guys keep saying that your god made the ultimate "sacrifice", but yet an even greater sacrifice would have been for him to, oh say, jump down there into hell and stay there forever. That, my friend, would have meant something. (I'm not sure what it would have meant, but as long as there are pointless "sacrifices" being made, it might as well have been a real "sacrifice.")
Religion is simply not sufficient cause for creationism.
I will say that it is a necessary cause -- or if not strictly necessary in the pure logical sense, in the "for all intents and purposes doing math like a Physicist" sense.
It is also very difficult and troubling to try and engage this directly. I've tried a few times, and it can be extremely emotionally draining. Here's an account of one such episode:
http://brahms.phy.vanderbilt.edu/~rknop/blog/?p=74
It's much easier to rail against creationists from a distance rather than try to engage them in person in a hopefully-non-adversarial way. I'd love it if I could do a decent job of educating people. But it really is difficult.
-Rob
Well, if the majority of Americans, are in favor of ID and a few elitist say no, then yes.
Heh. A majority of Americans have no clue about Special Relativity. I would wager that if you stopped many people on the street and asked them if they believed that moving clocks run slow, they would say no.
I guess that means that the deomcratic thing to do is to stop teaching Special Relativity, or at least teach the "alternatives," huh?
Ignorance of the majority is no excuse for teaching wrong stuff in science classes.
-Rob
Why did no prophet ever predict AIDS?
Not Nostradamus, not Paul, not anyone?
I mean, really -- if we're supposed to be living in the Latter Times, how is it that no prophet ever said something like this:
No, we just get warnings about buggering sheep. Fat lot of good that did. Syphilis was not originally a French disease.
Look, AIDS is pretty specific. It's not the kind of thing you get from not washing hands or failing to brush your teeth. It's a fluid-to-fluid infection you can only get by sharing the most personal liquids.
But then, JHVH seems to get sloppy. On the one hand he seems to be in the Levitican state of "men shall not lie with men as with bla bla bla", but on the other hand there's total ignorance of blood transfusion.
How does that work?
Come on! This was a god so anal that he was willing to devote entire chapers of Holy Writ to the precise dimensions to be used for making a tent to surround his Holy Box of Commandments. Yet he couldn't project a few millennia into the future and get even vague about possible unguessed-at diseases?
So ... let's see. AIDS is a curse to kill fags. And hemopheliacs. And those who had the misfortune of accepting an organ donor's guts to save their lives.
But if you misbuild the homespun around the Ark, you're dead, and oh by the way, isn't it great that blowing trumpets next week will herald some kind of in-clan victory which allows you to dash the brains of the defeateds' children against stones?
This makes sense ... to whom, precisely?
but I also don't think its exactly right to think of creationism as some fringe sect as you seem to imply. Creationism and other sorts of anti-scientific viewpoints are not nearly as removed from the center of Christian belief as say, radical Jihadist thought is from pan Arabic attitudes.
No, I fully agree that creationism is a major force in Christianity in the USA. It would be nuts to deny that. I'm not sure I believe that a majority of Christians are creationist, although I wouldn't be surprised if that were the case. (Especially if you include all forms of creationism such as ID, rather than just YEC.) The tack I try to take when I address this -- as, in fact, I do in my introductory astronomy class -- is to point out that there are things we know from science, and to reject them on a religious basis is just repeating the Galileo Mistake all over again. However, I also point out that despite fears of the establishment to the contrary, Christianity still thrives despite the fact that nobody who knows anything quesitons Galileo's observations any more... and that the fact of evolution and a 13.7-billlion-year-old Universe also do not have to represent a threat to Christianity. They only do if you believe that Christianity requires creationism, just as Galileo was only a threat if you believe that Christianity requires geocentrism.
What I'm objecting to here is PZ's (and others') assertion that there is necesarily a conflict between religion and science. That is something I disagree with. I also think that the evidence PZ gives here -- "they shot first" -- is off base, since the "they" that shot was the creationists, who don't represent all of religion, even if they do respsent a disturbingly large fraction.
What?
Wait a minute.
You say π is the ratio of a circumference of a circle to its diameter. I say it's a Pharaohnic value set, by divine accord, to 3.15. Neither of us, 3000 years ago, has the precision necessary to defuse one another; and under my edicts, Cheops is erected.
It lasts, and it is not toppled -- an eternal paen to edict and my immortality.
But there was and is a conflict, and I just wasn't right.
In the early 20th Century, Lysenko found that evolution was contrary to the Socialist ideal of progressivism -- and so Mendel, Darwin and in fact all of 19th and 20th Century genetics was discarded, in the name of making a Safe and Secure Communist Russian state.
Thousands starved.
Ideology is frequently at conflict with reality. Ideology often co-opts facts and translates them into convenient, local -isms.
In the US, Christian fundamentalist religion is a vocal ideology; and it is in dispute with facts. This religion says that Earth is 6000 years old.
Earth is not 6000 years old.
That is a fact, yet the religious nitwits who hold to Biblical literalism insist otherwise, as the length of threads on this post readily attests.
What you say here is in direct conflict with several KB of commentary that you seem all too willing to overlook.
You had to scroll past pages of commentary about Biblical literalism in order to footnote your comment that "there is [not] necesarily a conflict between religion and science".
Any time a faith-based initiative tries to jackboot across provables, there is a conflict; and in the last half-decade, there have been bootprints in prominent evidence all across the fields of biology, paleontolgy, physics and astronomy.
And you say there is no conflict between religion and scientifically derived fact?
I've been pretty careful about my insults in this thread, so this should be remarkable. Rob, you really need to get your head out of your ass.
Because, boy, you have no fucking clue.
AGCM,
lest you think the assertion that the USA is a secular nation is but the arguing-point of an atheist, let me (as part of the theistic minority at Pharyngula) jump in to assure that, yes, the USA is a secular nation and, no, it's not just atheists who want it that way. What's more, if you really understood what secularity means and why it is important, you'd support it too.
The US constitution does two things with regard to religion. It forbids the state to establish one, or to impose any religious test for public office. And it forbids the state to interfere in the people's free exercise of religion (broadly understood -- 'religion' here is emphatically not limited to Christianity, even though practically all Americans at the time the Bill of Rights was adopted would have been at least nominally Christians). So, on the one hand, the state is ordered by the constitution to be neutral as to religion -- it may neither promote nor persecute any form of religious belief -- and on the other hand the individual is free to believe and worship as he sees fit; and that includes coming to the conclusion that there is nothing to worship. As a personal, private matter, religion enjoys a constitutional guarantee of protection; but that same constitution says that religion is not a public matter: it may play no role in the governance of the state.
Now, why did the framers of the constitution make this choice? There's no one simple answer. An anticlerical deist like Jefferson probably wanted simply to keep the influence of religion from corrupting the state. Somebody like Roger Williams (an early Baptist leader, founder of Rhode Island and outspoken advocate of tolerance) looked at things the other way round: he wanted to be sure the state did not corrupt the church. And then again people like Madison probably accepted both viewpoints: religion and public life are both better off when kept unmixed.
America is not a Christian nation. It's a nation with a lot of Christians, and that is not the same thing. Ironically, the Sweden you keep harping on is a Christian nation; or at least was until a couple of years ago. It has a national church (Lutheranism) that until very recently was the established state religion, with state support in the form of taxes and mandatory membership for the king and queen. Sweden is also, however, a nation with ever fewer Christians (according to Wiki, almost 80% of the people are nominal members of the Church of Sweden, but only 2% actively participate). England is another exemple: to this day it has an official established church, yet that church's membership numbers are crashing, and even most members are nonbelievers. And I don't think those two facts are unconnected. I am convinced that the high levels of religiosity in America are at least in part made possible by the American constitution's strict separation of religious and public life. When a state establishes a religion, that religion becomes a mere element of national ceremony, and a church becomes nothing more than a (possibly) pretty building for holding weddings and funerals.
You sign yourself 'Good Christian Man', but insofar as you seek to theologise the law of the state you are not a good American man. The founders of America set up safeguards to protect against exactly that. And I'm not even sure about your being a good Christian man. Christianists like Falwell and Robertson and Dobson, and apparently you, want to turn America into something like Iran translated into Kansan. But the founder of the Christian religion was always going on about his kingdom not being of this world, and rendering unto Caesar that which is Caesar's, and taking the beam out of one's own eye before bothering other people about the mote in theirs. And do you know what? I think that he might have been on to something there.
The conflict between science and religion lies in the latter's dependence on faith. These are radically different ways of knowing, and I aver that religion is a way of knowing that is almost always wrong (it's more a way of keeping the priest's moneybags plump).The evidence that there is a conflict is that right now there's a war going on. Who shot first doesn't matter, what matters is that there is a whole lot of shooting going on.I don't expect that creationists represent all of religion -- I know a fair number of religious people who are not creationists. However, it is a very common form of religion in this country, and the root cause of their hostility to science is....religious in nature. You're unwise to try and deny it. It's a religion stripped of the rationalizations people have built up to accommodate their irrational faith to science, but I say that whatever clumsy struts and braces people like you have contrived to prop up their superstitions doesn't change the fact that they're making excuses for foolishness.
Atheist and victim of one of the more egregious anti-atheist drives in our history -- though he was dead at the time, and his side won.
When Girard died, he left most of his fortune to establish a school for orphaned kids in Philadelphia (white, male kids, but the will has been reformed since then . . .). A condition of the will was that no clergy be allowed on campus. That irritated the tar out of the fundies of the day; plus, his relatives in France really wanted the money. So the fundies and the moneygrubbers joined to challenge the will. They argued several things, but among the offensive things they argued was that a provision in the will of an atheist banning clergy from a school the will establishes was against common law and could not stand, since common law, the suit alleged, was Christian in nature, etc., etc.
The case made it to the Supreme Court. Daniel Webster was the lawyer for the fundies and moneygrubbers; for its part, the City of Philadelphia agreed to vitiate the part about keeping the clergy away, so long as the city got to keep the money for the school.
The case, Vidal vs. Girard's Executors, is one of those frequently mis-cited by David Barton and his Unholy Historical Revisionists. The case report (from 1844) carefully notes the religious claims of the original plaintiffs, and Barton and his followers generally claim that the explication is the "ruling" of the Supreme Court. But it's not. The Court actually ruled that the will of the atheist was fine, and that the provision banning Christian clergy was no problem. The Court ignored claims that English common law with its Christian-favoring stuff was part of Pennsylvania law. The atheist won, completely.
And so Girard College stands today in Philadelphia, still educating poor kids and orphans. More, it is a monument to the incorrectness of the view that the U.S. is a "Christian nation." As Daniel Webster claimed, in a Christian nation, no school like Girard College could ever exist. And yet, there it is, as you noted, P.Z.
Now comes some fundy idiot to claim that the Supreme Court was wrong, pretending that the case never existed, and worse, that Stephen Girard never existed to save the U.S. from being taken back as a colony of Britain. You'd think that, this close to Christmas and NBC's second running of "It's a Wonderful Life," Christians might be more circumspect about making claims that the lives of people make no difference and should be ignored.
Stephen Girard was atheist. That's why he was in America, because colonial America welcomed atheists, as well as anyone who was industrious and would abide by the laws. We owe our freedom to him. He was a wonderful, moral man. Evil people claiming to be Christian work hard today to expunge his memory from history. We shouldn't let them.
Scientific thought rejects the idea of revealed wisdom, invalidates the concept of 'supernatural', and forbids taking things on faith. How is that not incompatible with religion?
What else do you 'disagree' with? Newton's Theory of Gravity? The age of the Earth? Arithmetic?
The strange thing, though, is that despite its eminence in North Philly, you're going to be hard pressed to find any acknowledgment anywhere that it owes its existence to an atheist.
I would vote for a national monument to Girard. I guess they'll erect it right after they get around to erecting Thomas Paine's (sigh).
I thought the US was the one who attacked Canada in 1812?
On what Rob says, while it's all ok as far as it goes I guess I am fundamentally just not buying it somehow, presumably an intuition based on thoughts I am currently unable to articulate.
What I'm objecting to here is PZ's (and others') assertion that there is necesarily a conflict between religion and science. That is something I disagree with.
There is a definate conflict in the US. It does not happen in Europe. I would not have agreed with PZ if I had not had experience of America. It may be that the specific terms need to be changed somewhat from "religion vs science" and that Rob wouldn't disagree if the words were changed, but there's definately an extreme hostility in the US to atheism, rationality, individualism. Christianity in America is a state cult more than following the bible or Jesus or the church. It's very much tied into belonging to a group (anti-individual) whether the church or the American nation. It's xenophobic, racist and highly suspicious of anyone who is different somehow.
I have a lot more sympathy with the "militant" atheism since experiencing life in America.
Well, no longer a complete absence.
But that board has tiny readership. It is clearly misdirected. Have we ever developed good criteria for determining when it is a waste of time to engage people who clearly have more money than sense?
There is a complaint about the hijacking of Christianity there now. If the board founders are serious, the discussion is at least started.
I don't think any individual ought to feel a sense of obligation to chase down every bush-league heretic who pops up and abuses Christianity...I merely pointed Rob and Burt down that road because they profess a sense of obligation to chastise a bush-league blog run by an atheist for insufficient piety.
PZ, I know that you think all religion if silly and I understand your position that you have to point that out but I wonder sometimes if pragmatically there wouldn't be an advantage to targeting the majority of your attacks to the ridiculous AIG believers. Once most of Americans realize the stupidity of their claims, you can move on to the more benign theists in the audience. Simply thinking out loud on a question of tactics.
"Well, if the majority of Americans, are in favor of ID and a few elitist say no, then yes."
It just illustrates the need to strengthen science education. Majority support for willful ignorance doesn't make that ignorance science.
I wonder if it would be the same if religion were opposed to economic laws and decided to vote down the laws of supply and demand, or strike the cetis parabis exceptions.
The billboard is a direct result of AIG is it not?
That's where he directed his invective.
Creationism binds these religious people together.
I'm not sure if the billboard is a direct result of AIG or not. I suspect that it might be. And yes, in this case the initial point of the thread would indeed target the AIG crowd. However I don't think you can say that PZ isn't 'aggressively dismissive' about any/all religious beliefs. (OK, I don't really know if that passes literary mustard) I'm not saying he isn't right. He certainly is consistent. However his frustration with 'The No True Scotsman fallacy ' is one that I think he's going to have to put up with all his life. While it is a fallacy, it is an effective one. I just think a targeted divide and conquer approach may be more effective.
So you're asking atheists to use the use the No True Scotsman Fallacy against christians?
Good christians believe in evolution and science and bad ones creation?
While I would almost agree with you, I don't think they would accept that view from scientists or atheists.
You either accept the science or you don't. If you don't it is almost certainly because of faith.
Windy wrote:"So, you think accepting or denying reality is a moral question? Wonderful. Can I deny gravity if I find it immoral? (All those poor people dying every year because of gravity...)"
Thanks for giving me the benefit of doubt. Given that science gets us closer to truth and/or reality, religious zealots attacking evolution have historically been concerned with moral questions while the science itself is epiphenomenal - a means to an end. For example, the scopes trail was much more of a north/south ordeal, something to which the science was just a catalyst. All i'm saying is that it is probably the case that a lot of people think the moral questions about the consequences of evolution (whether religious or not), are just as and perhaps more so, important than the science behind it. (which I think may be wrong, nonetheless, it is merely a descriptive , and not a prescriptive, tentative conclusion).
There are no moral implications to evolution. People want to deny the fact that we are primates because then what would stop us acting like "animals" or "apes"? If this is not the silliest dimwitted reason to deny evolution I don't know what is.
We are moral because that's what makes society survive. I would state (this is just me) that the less altruistic a society becomes the more violent it becomes. Not looking out for those with fewer opportunities hurts any society. We're all in it together to some extent. The more polarized and divided we become the more we all suffer. Just look at New Orleans. One of the most important ports in the U.S. and the plan and the opportunity to show what the U.S. can do is squandered.
I'll stop ranting.
Some christians' fear of evolution and a moral free society just show how little they understand the way the world really is.
Steve_C, "So you're asking atheists to use the use the No True Scotsman Fallacy against christians?
Good christians believe in evolution and science and bad ones creation?",
That wasn't quite what I was trying to say but for the sake of discussion, it's close. The point I'm trying to make is that focusing on the creationist's provides a clearer target that can be addressed with a very reasoned/scientific argument. I'm not trying to be an apologist for all theists. But I think if we want to effect change in this country, starting out with position that 90% of Americans are stupid is probably not the best starting point.
Moderates are only a problem in that they give the creationists a pass.
And they do. How can almost 50% of the country believe in creationism if the moderates themselves are not part of the problem. It would seem a good 20-30% of them accept creationism. Not saying they are fundies, that's 15-20 of Christians at most.
I don't think moderates think it is a problem. It's not an issue. They don't care.
I merely pointed Rob and Burt down that road because they profess a sense of obligation to chastise a bush-league blog run by an atheist for insufficient piety.
Let me quote Warren:
[PZ], you really need to get your head out of your ass.
Because, boy, you have no fucking clue.
You and everybody else here who likes to say that I'm an idiot because I don't buy your party line -- generally pointing to creationist nonsense as a reason why religion itself is to be feared -- just love to argue against things I didn't say.
Nowhere, ever, did I say anything about insufficient piety. I understand that you're trying to use hyperbole for humorous effect, but instead you're just doing the typical sort of straw-man shit that generally points out people who should be ignored on the Internet.
As to the troll-"Sharon" asserting that the USA is a Christian nation, with a bit of sexism, racism, and religious intolerance:
Where Are the Christians?
By William Fisher
t r u t h o u t | Columnist
Wednesday 27 December 2006
"It's not rocket science to understand why Republicans have gone into hibernation on the issue of Rep. Virgil Goode's outrageous rant against his fellow Congressman, Keith Ellison - the first Muslim ever elected to either legislative house - who wants to take his oath on the Quran."
"After all, Goode is one of their own. He's from the same party that brought us George Allen's 'Macaca Moment' and the flirtatious 'Call Me' tagline from a cute white blonde in a campaign commercial in the recent senate race against black Rep. Harold Ford...."
Umm, this would be the kind of humorous hyperbole like you just used? I don't think I've ever called you an idiot, or demanded that you follow some mythical party line.
The phrase "insufficient piety" is mine. I used it because that's basically what you're complaining about: you don't seem to have quite wrapped your head around the fact that atheists have no respect for religion, and don't believe any of the myths the religious take for granted.
But PZ you offend the moderates!
...people who should be ignored on the Internet.
What? Oh, I see. Faketheist Sharon and A Good Christian Nutcase totally upstaged you. Terribly sorry about that. Now, you were saying?
Yes! Yes! This is why we strike at the disease and not just the symptoms. As I keep saying over at RSR, every time Ken Miller throws his paean to 'Sky Papa and the World of Heavenland' at the end of a biology lecture, he gives safe haven to the magical thinking that's strangling our liberties.
I've always thought this a nearly brain dead statement when i hear it that usually is the result of an emotional connection to religion.
Religion and science as previous posters have mentioned do opposite things. Faith can never be seen as rational.
Pretty much spot on.
I would suggest that perhaps you have a problem. I am a Christian man and I certainly have no problem with PZ's rants and writings. Throwing around the word bigotry is to me absurd. He disagrees with the religious position and repudiates it very well. I am more fideist in my Christian beliefs and I think he is spot on most of the time.
Nor do I think he doesn't share the fact that religious folks do help in the evolution wars but that he also knows they allow the others to function.
I would suggest that perhaps you have a problem. I am a Christian man and I certainly have no problem with PZ's rants and writings. Throwing around the word bigotry is to me absurd. He disagrees with the religious position and repudiates it very well. I am more fideist in my Christian beliefs and I think he is spot on most of the time.
Nor do I think he doesn't share the fact that religious folks do help in the evolution wars but that he also knows they allow the others to function.
Rob Knop is clearly making a good effort to enlighten his fellow Christians (and others) on age of the universe, contradictions in the Bible (but fiction can sometimes stimulate thought), etc.
http://brahms.phy.vanderbilt.edu/~rknop/blog/?cat=7
If we're going to blame religious people for what other religious people do, are all Americans responsible for what other Americans do?
Not to feed the trolls, but this was another point which is dead wrong.
Fortunately, this set the worst of it right:
Yes, while we in Sweden like to call the former state church protestantic, it is formally evangelical lutheran. It is another difference in language. ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lutheranism_by_region )
Sweden is formerly secular now, but in practice it has been since the state ousted the catholic church. The protestantic church financed the king who did this in a deal to become the new but powerless state church.
We are still in the middle of the separation process. While no one is longer born into the church unless otherwise stated, adults have to actively leave the church. (The church fee is an incentive to do this, of course.)
Religion has still many privileges. The lutheran church was renamed the Church of Sweden as a compromise. Organizations that are seen as beneficial to society may get tax relief. Most churches are such, though not scientology for example. That is also a compromise, apart from a certain cultural importance.
In practice, while not many attend churches, IIRC more than half of the population has some private belief. So while it would be correct to (finally!) call Sweden secular, it is far from atheistic. Religion isn't much discussed because it isn't a powerful influence in the daily life, but that also means remaining problems is not dealt with. Homophobia delivered during sermons is a common enough problem, the christian democratic party's similar stance and avoidance to adcress its anti-science creationists, anti-abortionists and anti-stem cell supporters is another.
Which of course goes back to the post. It is a mistake to think that religion will not conflict with science and other good forces of society even in the best of circumstances. It is not bigotry to state such easily recognized facts, and it is also quite clear that creationism and some other anti-science attitudes are problems that religion specifically creates.
"Sweden is formerly secular now" - Sweden is formally secular now,
A few days of holiday, and the english is gone! A few others of the worst mistakes, to make it readable:
"The protestantic church financed the king who did this in a deal to become the new but powerless state church." - The protestantic church financed a king in a deal to become the new but powerless state church.
"While no one is longer born into the church"- While no longer anyone is born into the church
Yes! It is one of my obligations as a citizen of this country that I must also bear responsibility for its actions—and not just those of which I approve. That doesn't mean I'm responsible for what my neighbor does in the privacy of his own home, but what this nation does in its public policy is in part my burden. The criminal presidency of GW Bush is also my crime. My only expiation lies in fighting it.Why? When your country does something evil, do you sit back and say, "Not my problem"?Oh, and I already know Rob is on the good guys' side in science.
Torbjörn,
don't worry, your English is close to perfect, and the very few very minor mistakes you made would not keep anybody from understanding what you meant.
But you are right: a few days of holiday, and eight or nine hundred pounds of salmon and prawns and goose and beef and dumplings and noodles and potatoes, not to mention a bit more wine than is good for me, and my own English has got a bit wobbly.
Pharyngula? "Bush-league?"
This must be what that line in Exodus means when it refers to a "burning bush," in that case. Some league! Some bush! (Better listen to it, eh?)
P.Z., you're right, we are responsible to try to amend the errors of all Americans. We are, in the end, our brothers' keepers.
And, by the way, that bizarre board even has its own troll already. No, I am not the troll.
Rob, why though? In what sense is a religion that has no conflicts of any kind with science still a religion at all? I'd say only in the strictest technical sense, rather than the "for all intents and purposes doing math like a physicist" sense.
Honestly, when faith is considered a virtue, science is thereby crippled. As the gaps of knowledge shrink, so must the gods shoehorned inside. Some people are more willing to let them shrink than others. If too many Americans are like "A Good Christian Man", science (and science education) in America will get dragged to a halt by the mob. I think if people could be convinced of two facts - that faith is not only not virtuous but quite dangerous, and that it is not necessary for an enjoyable life - this problem could begin to be meaningfully addressed.
Moreover, I don't think nonreligious people viewing religion as a monolithic entity is really the issue. Instead I think it is those religious people who view their own religion as a monolithic entity - especially one inextricably tied to their ego.
So the Americans were right to bomb the Iraqis --- since they were all collectively guilty of the crimes of Saddam Hussein?
Yes! It is one of my obligations as a citizen of this country that I must also bear responsibility for its actions--and not just those of which I approve.
Wow, collective guilt is such a great ethical idea. I can't believe I never thought to blame everyone else but the one who commited the acts of evil before now. Why I can blame the Democrats for electing George Bush now, and the German Jews for not stopping Hitler, or how about blaming all humankind for anything stupid deities have done?
Why? When your country does something evil, do you sit back and say, "Not my problem"?
You think there's no difference between "not my problem" and "not my fault"?
This is one of the most correct statements I've seen in some time. The way people view their religion and henceforth their belief is directly related to their own independently arrived at moral stance. There is not agreement on one single doctrine in all of Christianity and that includes salvation and in some cases the divinity of Jesus.
NO the america was wrong to bomb iraq. Whatever the crimes of saddam hussein it was not our right to over throw him. You can't blame the victim.
I blam Bush but it's our responsibility as americans to curtail and impede his dimwitted crap as much as we can. Yes we are to blame. We manged to let him get elected.
Regarding comparisons between Saddam and America, it is important to remember that Saddam was not "democratically elected", and the american government is supposed to be chosen by the people, in elections*, and as such, every american citizen eligible to vote, and who does so, is, by participating in the system, and agreeing to be represented, equally guilty of the crimes perpetuated by their representatives. In any representational democracy, the elected candidate must be considered an amalgam of their constituants, and as such, the constituants must share responsibility for his actions. After all, they elected him/her.
*Yes, there are concerns about the openness of american elections (thank you diebold, et al.) but the system is being taken here as an ideal.
Karley wrote:
Aww darn, is the majority of America out gathering empirical data for guardian angels when I've had my back turned?
I find it quite interesting that for a group of people that are so quick to blow the whistle on strawmen have no problem in using them themselves in such abundance.
Actually Karley, the majority of America are out gathering empirical data that indicate an intelligent design. And even if your strawman were true, in a liberal democracy like ours, it never gives the right to an elite few to censor such findings nor to prohibit its teaching when the majority of Americans are in favor of it.
That would be oligarchy.
Seriously though- the majority of Americans associate the heart with love- how come cardiologists think they can censor that view in favor of elitist "pump theory"?
Brent wrote:
? Do you even understand the meanings of the terms you are using? "Objective" ACGM means that we can both observe something whatever our beliefs. I say falling objects accelerate toward the earth at 9.8 meters per second/per second and we can both run the same experiment to determine it to be true - objectively true. You say there is a God and he thinks its wrong for me to eat shellfish. I say prove it. You cannot provide any objective evidence supporting these claims. Therefore it does not count as reality.
I understand Brent. But just like the majority of atheist evolutionists are not trying to objectively prove the big bang theory, the majority of Americans are not out to provide objective evidence for God, otherwise he would not be God. But just like the theory of evolution can make empirical investigations without having to explain the origin of the universe, the majority of Americans can make empirical observations that indicate intelligent design without having to explain God and the origin of the universe.
The science website About Although the Big Bang Theory is widely accepted, it probably will never be proven; consequentially, leaving a number of tough, unanswered questions
If you so hastily will rebuke those for equating evolution to cosmogony and are willing to accept that studies in evolution without considering the origin of the universe, then it would seem that you should be equally as gracious to not equate ID to theology and be willing to accept studies in ID without considering the origin of the universe as well.
It has been my experience that the evolutionists are willing to concede the distinction for themselves but not to others. It is a one way street for evolutionists.
Mothworm wrote:
Ah, I see how this will work. There's nothing you willl accept as being anti-constituion. It's all just "interpretaion".
Not really. But if you are going to claim that Christians are naturally anti-constitutionalists then you will have to provide something better than a mere difference of interpretation. Otherwise, I have to ignore it as a bias scandalous statement.
Warren wrote:
And -- once again -- the US is not actually a Christian nation. As an example take the case of Keith Ellison
Warren, just because there are some Christians in Iraq does not mean that it is not a known Muslim Nation.
Secondly, even the famous atheist Sam Harrison is able to at least concede to the fact that America is a Christian Nation.
Thirdly, if you simply go down your neighborhood and ask people if this is a Christian Nation, the overwhelming majority would say yes.
If you cannot accept this basic truth, then I am not sure how we can ever have a coherent discussion.
As was pointed out earlier, many of the US founders were Freemasons
Freemasonry crosses religious lines. There are many Christians today that are freemasons . I think that you are missing that simple fact.
And that's been published where?
And absolutely nowhere in the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, nor any of the amendments will you find claims that the US is a Christian nation. Contrarily, you will find official documents (as I posted earlier) from the US government, endorsed by a founder, that explicitly state the opposite.
True. But just because the US chose not to make Christianity the state religion, does not mean that it is not Christian. In fact this is a testimony to the true character of Christianity. Just because a nation does not force you to be a Christian does not mean that it is not Christian. The facts say otherwise:
First chief justice of the U.S. Supreme Court, John Jay, wrote:
"Providence has given to our people the choice of their rulers, and it is the duty ... of our Christian nation to select and prefer Christians for their rulers." (1816)
Justice David Brewer said this:
"This is a religious people. This is historically true. From the discovery of this continent to the present hour, there is a single voice making this affirmation ... We find everywhere a clear recognition of the same truth ... These, and many other matters which might be noticed, add a volume of unofficial declarations to the mass of organic utterances that this is a Christian nation. (1892)
First chief justice of the U.S. Supreme Court, John Jay, wrote:
"Providence has given to our people the choice of their rulers, and it is the duty ... of our Christian nation to select and prefer Christians for their rulers." (1816)
William Penn:
"Those who will not be governed by God will be ruled by tyrants."
Even liberal Supreme Court chief justice, Earl Warren, wrote in 1954:
"I believe no one can read the history of our country without realizing that the Good Book and the spirit of the Savior have from the beginning been our guiding geniuses ... Whether we look to the first Charter of Virginia ... or to the Charter of New England ... or to the Charter of Massachusetts Bay ... or to the Fundamental Orders of Connecticut ... the same objective is present ... a Christian land governed by Christian principles. I believe the entire Bill of Rights came into being because of the knowledge our forefathers had of the Bible and their belief in it: freedom of belief, of expression, of assembly, of petition, the dignity of the individual, the sanctity of the home, equal justice under law, and the reservation of powers to the people ... I like to believe we are living today in the spirit of the Christian religion. I like also to believe that as long as we do so, no great harm can come to our country."
And even George Washington the mason:
"... Let me live according to those holy rules which Thou hast this day prescribed in Thy holy word ... Direct me to the true object, Jesus Christ the way, the truth and the life. Bless, O Lord, all the people of this land."
"Reason and experience both forbid us to expect that national morality can prevail in exclusion of religious principle."
"It is impossible to rightly govern . . . without God & the Bible."
"You do well to wish to learn our arts and ways of life, and above all the religion of Jesus Christ." to a group of Indian chiefs.
Thomas Jefferson, the deist, the man "blamed" for the wall of separation between church and state said:
"I have always said, and will always say, that the studious perusal of the sacred volume will make us better citizens."
"And can the liberties of a nation be thought secure when we have removed their only firm basis, a conviction in the minds of the people that these liberties are the gift of God? That they are not to be violated but with His wrath? Indeed, I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just: that His justice cannot sleep forever."
"No power over the freedom of religion . . .[is] delegated to the United States by the Constitution."
"Of all the systems of morality, ancient or modern, which have come under my observation, none appears to me so pure as that of Jesus."
"I am a Christian, in the only sense in which he wished any one to be; sincerely attached to his doctrines, in preference to all others; ascribing to himself every human excellence; and believing he never claimed any other." Letter to Benjamin Rush, April 21, 1803
Abraham Lincoln
"Unless the great God who assisted [President Washington], shall be with me and aid me, I must fail. But if the same omniscient mind, and Almighty arm, that directed and protected him, shall guide and support me, I shall not fail ... Let us pray that the God of our fathers may not forsake us now."
Benjamin Frankin said:
"Whoever will introduce into public affairs the principles of Christianity will change the face of the world."
John F Kennedy:
"The rights of man come not from the generosity of the state but from the hand of God."
And Gerald Ford, quoted a speech made by Dwight Eisenhower in 1955:
"Without God there could be no American form of government, nor an American way of life. Recognition of the Supreme Being is the first--the most basic--expression of Americanism. Thus, the founding fathers of America saw it, and thus with God's help, it will continue to be."
I think the church fathers have a different story to tell than you Warren.
The validity of evolution doesn't rest on the explanation for the origin of the universe or life. It's supported by actual evidence for evolution. Nothing else.
ID, on the other hand, is not being rejected because we'd like Christians to explain God (although, that would certainly be helpful, since they offer no description of what this "Intelligent Designer" looks like, that we might search for it), but because there is absolutely no evidence of design, right now, here, in the real world.
Let's face it, folks: some people just aren't worth the effort.
As for atheistic societies that work: In addition to Switzerland, Finland comes to mind. Oh, and Holland. Uh, and Japan. Oh golly, and Canada too. And England. (All these nations have churches, of course -- but they are all officially atheist.)
I encourage you to do your research before you make such careless statements like the one above. Even your beloved Wikipedia states differently.
Switzerland: Christianity is the predominant religion of Switzerland, divided between the Roman Catholic Church (44% of the population) and various Protestant denominations (38.5%).
Finland: Most Finns (83.1%) are members of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Finland, with a minority of 1.1% belonging to the Finnish Orthodox Church (see Eastern Orthodox Church). These two churches are the official churches of Finland.
Holland: Well this one you come close but no cookie. 52% of the Dutch identify themselves as Christian, 40% claim no affiliation, and 8% belong to other religions
Canada: Canada has a wide mix of religions, but it has no official religion, and support for religious pluralism is an important part of Canada's political culture. However, most people report they are Christians, and this is reflected in several aspects of life there. According to 2001 census,[53] 77.1% of Canadians identified as being Christians; of this, Catholics make up the largest group (43.6% of Canadians). The largest Protestant denomination is the United Church of Canada; about 16.5% of Canadians declared no religious affiliation, and the remaining 6.3% were affiliated with religions other than Christianity, of which the largest is Islam.
England: The percentages of religion as of 2000 are as follows: Christian 71.6%, Muslim 2.7%, Hindu 1%,other 1.6%, unspecified or none 23.1%.
According to Wikipedia you have still to find a country that can be called an Atheist Nation in the same sense that America is called a Christian Nation.
Wait..does that mean that since there are lots of fast food places in America and even a book called "Fast Food Nation", that it is so?
No one ever claimed Christians were naturally anti-constitutional, just that several of the major denominations expressed anti-constitutional views. When provided with actual quotes of Christian leaders expressing anti-constitutional views, you declared they were merely "debating interpretation".
What would someone have to do for you to accept it as "anti-constituional"? Do they have to break in to the National Archives and set the original document on fire?
"Actually Karley, the majority of America are out gathering empirical data that indicate an intelligent design."
Could you point me to their research programs? Their publications? Their testable and repeatable results? Or are these data what I think they are: happy fuzzy stories about how wonderful creation is and endless arguments from not only ignorance, but willfull ignorance?
Wait, don't even answer that. You've made it abundantly clear that you don't have the slightest clue about how science works.
"But just like the majority of atheist evolutionists are not trying to objectively prove the big bang theory, the majority of Americans are not out to provide objective evidence for God, otherwise he would not be God. "
Now you're babbling. Watch as the Amazing God wriggles his way out of scrutiny!
"But just like the theory of evolution can make empirical investigations without having to explain the origin of the universe, the majority of Americans can make empirical observations that indicate intelligent design without having to explain God and the origin of the universe. "
No, sorry, you don't get off the hook that easily. The second someone says such-and-such is indicative of design, then the very next questions on any inquisitive scientific mind are "Who or what is this designer? How does he/she/it work? How do we reliably recognize his/her/its hand in other things?" I might be slightly more impressed with ID if they gave serious consideration to these questions, but invariably, they either a) go with a presupposed conclusion (it was the god of Christians), or b) dodge the subject and prove their natterings to just be one big argument from incredulity.
"But if you are going to claim that Christians are naturally anti-constitutionalists "
And watch as the goalposts shift again!
As far as I can see, all you bring to the table here is a persecution complex. Just remember: ID is, after all, taught in thousands of churches all across the country. So much for that suppression of teaching and censorship, eh?
Thousands starved in Soviet Russia because ideology won out over reality; what you are attempting to impose through promoting ID (which is ideological) over evolution (which is science's product) is essentially the same thing, only through theistic rather than atheistic means.
I find it quite interesting how you are able to give an example of the failure of atheistic ideology to refute Christianity and embrace atheism. Quite ironic.
I don't know about "coherent", but this is definitely a ridiculous argument. You honestly think that because Sam Harris titled a book (tongue-in-cheek) Letter To A Christian Nation that he thinks that America is officially a Christian nation? Did it occur to you that he might be addressing his book to Christians of the nation who, like yourself, think they represent true Americans?
It doesn't really matter what the majority of Americans think. Show me any official US document that declares this to be an official, government endorsed, Christian nation. You won't be able to do this.
It seems to me that the only cunning part to your argument is childish name calling.
I am not interested in such games. Besides it is time for me to retire.
For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten that whosoever believeth in him should not perish but have everlasting life.
I haven't had time to research all of your quotes, but I can say right away that the Jefferson quote beginning, "I have always said..." is false. The sound like they came from David Barton, who has been able to offer no original sources for the majority of his "quotations".
You left out the beginning of this quote:
"To the corruptions of Christianity, I am indeed opposed; but not to the genuine precepts of Jesus himself."
So, you think Thomas Jefferson, the man who defined the separation of church and state, thought there was no separation of church and state?
Just a few more Pat Robertson quotes, for fun. Remember, he's just interpreting the constitution.
For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten that whosoever believeth in him should not perish but have everlasting life.
I suppose it would have been easier to just snap his fingers and change the rules that he himself created to get rid of the "perish" option entirely, but never let it be said that omnipotence, omniscience, and omnibenevolence are anything more than the big plot devices of Christianity, whipped out when needed and ignored when convenient.
Going back to us 'moderates', here is what I'm willing to state in 'some audiences'. Religion has no place in determining our science curriculum and when it comes to our generic definitions of what is moral (murder, stealing, ... bad), religion can certainly influence a persons perspective but should never by the sole basis of an argument. Is that acceptable or do I still stand as an waffling moderate.
BTW: when I talk about 'some audiences', I am referring to family as we have lost my father and my sister in the last couple of years and I refuse to tell my family that they are foolish for any of their religious beliefs.
Your fault for bringing a butter knife to a gunfight. Good night, and be careful with your rainbow wig.
WOW! If A Good Christian Man set out to prove PZ's point that there is an inherent conflict between science and religion, he did a bang-up job of it. There's nothing there to work with at all. No science, no logic, no possible way of resolving anything and moving on. Just, keep insisting until you've bullied the other guy into submission. Maybe that's what creationists think evolutionary biologists do. But I've never met a scientist who didn't love to show the data, the logic train, the corroborating studies, to really convince questioners-- not bash them and guilt-trip them until they're worn down. I'd like to believe the Christian tradition has something to offer in the way of ethics-- kindness, tolerance, respect for others. But judging from the creationists on the Internet, I'd have to say evolutionists don't just have the facts on their side-- they're way ahead on ethics, too.
AGCM, your statistics for england are out of date:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/religion/Story/0,,1978045,00.html
63% not religious...
but it is not officially athiest, the Queen is the head of the Church and the state.
Also, you have failed to answer the question as to your denomination. Is there a reason for this?
I have to say that of open comment threads I visit, this one tends to be very open to discussion and contrary to the squeals of victimhood, it takes a while for most people to lose patience. I left this thread yesterday thinking it was dead or degenerated to name-calling, but I still see reasonable responses from the regulars (oops, unintentional alliteration).
While the "sharon saga" may now have ended here, the question of which web site she was referring to remains, and I'm surprised that more of the reader here didn't pick it. It is most likely the talk.origins newsgroup! For a number of months sharon was a regular poster there and while some of the T.O. readers were taking the time to help her work through some of the (side) issues, others would bait her and carry on with it while she would keep taking the bait. There were really only a couple of t.o. troll-baiter who stood out (glenn springs to mind) but it is a bit of a surprise that so many readers here don't also follow the discussions in the talk.origins group. I mean, we all have infinite time here on the internet, right? Oh - and any of you who have YECs or ID supporters to spare, point them to talk.origins and let us have a bit of fresh discussion there. (signed) marc
I haven't had nearly enough time to follow this thread. Did sharon ever quit blathering?
She hasn't posted for a while, although the disemvoweling might have had something to do with it. So: tenative yes.
I do not think "empirical" means what the resident trolls think it means.
Hey, AGCM, define "empirical" in your own words. Quick, now! No peeking at a dictionary or Google! That would be cheating!
I'm surprised no one fed the troll on this:
"For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten that whosoever believeth in him should not perish but have everlasting life."
or another opinion, "For this god decided to kill himself for making people do what he wanted them to do anyway, so they will dance as his puppets for his amusement."
Seriously, if that's your opinion, and since you want to teach opinions as facts, you should have no problem teaching the other opinions about that - the Jesus Myth, for example. Do you agree that we should teach that some people believe that this Jesus guy is completely mythical and teach the evidence they put forth?
Do you agree that we should teach the Popul Vuh along with the biblical creation stories, among others (personally, I think that Ptah masturbating the universe forth should be in sex-ed rather than psuedoscience class, but that's just me)?
Shouldn't we teach abstinence and birth control?
How about how homosexuality being a long-accepted condition in many societies throughout the last 3-4 thousand years?
Should we teach that certain ethnic groups are inferior to others, since a substantial (at the very least, vocal) proportion of people believe that? What about astrology - I'd guess a large proportion of Americans believe in that, so we should teach that as fact, right? How about UFOs? Should we teach that American Idol contestants are the best musicians, since a lot of people watch that show?
Do you think that it is correct for, Iran, say, to teach that Christians are unbelievers who should be killed (just an example, not necessarily what they teach)? Should they teach that those who kill them will be rewarded in some afterlife? If you believe that the majority holds some measure of truth, then that should be ok, right? Of course, if the majority view is somehow valid because it is a majority (argumentum ad populum?) - then why are there thousands of sects of Christianity? Which is valid, or are all of them true? What about other religions? Is Hinduism true because of all the believers in India? What are your criteria, other than what you were brought up to believe in (or want to believe in)? What are your standards of determining this?
Off topic comment - my newsfeed (using the scienceblogs aggregate) doesn't show this post. Do they not show all posts? If so, then I got to individually link to each blog - I hate to think I'm missing something.
The guy who calls himself GCM said (like Dave Barry, I can't make this up):
The example, of course, was the starvation in the Soviet Union caused by Stalin's rejection of Darwin.
So, the guy who rejects Darwin here sees the irony? Really?
Doggone! I could hear that whoosh all the way down here in Texas!
Ah, the glories of stripping quotes out of context! In that letter, written two decades after Jay left the Supreme Court and years after he ceased public service, Jay was arguing that a nation that was truly Christian would avoid war. He said that rulers of the so-called Christian nations of Europe kept leading their people into unnecessary wars -- but that if Christians in the U.S. elected true Christians, we would avoid war.
Pacifist anyone?
Jay wasn't arguing for the election of Christians; he argued for the election of pacifists. Moreover, he did NOT say in the letter that there is any legal tie between religion and government.
By his criteria, this nation ceased to be a Christian nation no later than 1846 . . .
Sharon, whatever her excuse for it, is just a plain-old bigot.
I love the idea that atheists are somehow responsible for sexism and other lovely things when just this morning I sat and listened to a hugely popular preacher on the radio give a sermon about how to treat one's wife that talked about how we men need to understand that she is moody because of her crazy ass menstrual cycle, that women are emotionally "weaker than men" (said with a straight face right after talking about how women need to work a job and then come home and do all the housework: something that might piss ME off a teensy bit) and, my favorite, that you "shouldn't be beating on your wife like she's one of your kids." I GUESS that's a step in the right direction for women's lib from fundamentalist preachers? Though implying that kid beating is kosher is not exactly my cup of tea.
If you so hastily will rebuke those for equating evolution to cosmogony and are willing to accept that studies in evolution without considering the origin of the universe, then it would seem that you should be equally as gracious to not equate ID to theology and be willing to accept studies in ID without considering the origin of the universe as well.
OK, in simple language so you can understand it...
It's not a question of "graciousness." It's a question of science, even of simple logic. The reason we equate ID to theology is because [not only is it obvious to a dead man who you think the Intelligent Designer is, but] the major proponents of ID can't seem to stop doing so. Every time you turn around, some ID-ist is sputtering about how refusing to teach ID is infringing someone's freedom of religion. Even in the Dover trial and the Cobb County sticker trials, they couldn't shut up about it. Since your religion believes God - oops, sorry, the Intelligent Designer - created everything, your bunch of hooey (I'm not dignifying it with the name of a theory) addresses the origin of the universe.
Oh, and as far as "accepting" "studies" in ID... what studies would those be, exactly? Got any links to any grown-up peer-reviewed scientific articles? (Didn't think so.)
Refute the dragon in my garage, and we'll talk about the inability to refute an unfalsifiable doctrine being equivalent to having it proven.
I imagine that you have moved on AGCM but just ion case you are still following this thred at all, I would say that your most serious problem is that you do not seem to be either confused or deliberately confusing the definitions of the terms you are using. No one disputes that most of the people in this country are Christian. Most rational people, people who know anything about American history or about how societies work, know that that does not make it officially a Christian Nation. Evolution is not a theory about origins. ID in fact is but the criticisms are not about its explanations of origins, its about its lack of empirical proof of its most obvious claims - that there is some invisible designer. Empirical data is not subject to the whims of opinion. Either we can both see it and agree to its reality or it is not empirical.
The bottom line is that you seem not to have even the most basic grasp of the underlying topics you are discussing. But that isn't even the worst part of what you are saying. The worst is your notion that the goal of science education ought to somehow limit itself to majority opinion. This would of course mean that it wouldn't be science anymore but even if one could somehow look past this basic problem with the term's definition, it is difficult to see how anyone could be so unbelievably ignorant. even most Young Earth Creationist have more respect for the actual method of scientific inquiry than that and until now, I thought that they were about as hostile to science as it was possible to be.
Obviously that first sentence should read instead of:
I would say that your most serious problem is that you do not seem to be either confused or deliberately confusing the definitions of the terms you are using.
as
I would say that your most serious problem is that you seem to be either confused or deliberately confusing the definitions of the terms you are using.
Big difference obviously.
A bit of interesting research I found recently about religion and society. As always christians make many claims about the atheists being without morals, etc, etc... Here's some work from Skeptic magazine:
quote:
"In general, higher rates of belief in and worship of a creator correlate with higher rates of homicide, juvenile and early adult mortality, STD infection rates, teen pregnancy, and abortion in the prosperous democracies"
link: http://skeptic.com/the_magazine/featured_articles/v12n03_are_religious_…
There's lots of good info there.
AGCM,
What form of christianity do you follow?
Why would you attend 156 services and go to 50 different chruches in one year?
hmm, 156 services at 50 churches would be approximately 3 services per church per week, of course... in my experience (which is considerable; I was a Christian for 35 years) most Protestant churches tend toward two services on Sunday morning and some sort of weekday prayer/worship on Wednesday or Thursday night. Some churches also have a Sunday evening service. It could be done, if he had a church-related job that required him to stop at a different church or parish each week for oversight or fundraising. Or maybe he's some sort of traveling revival preacher.
None of this would mean he's much of a theologian, though; it's just an attempt to plausibly explain that sort of church attendance. Come to think of it, my mom actually attended church more than that in the few years before she died, since she was in the choir and attended four services a week to sing, plus prayer meeting, but she was not exactly what I'd call an expert about either theology or evolution.
A fairly devout christian would attend church maybe twice a week, but that's this guy's minimum, and a different church every week? He must be some type of speaker...
ID proponent? Theocracy proponent? I don't get it.
Oh wait! He's a christain carney!
Oh wait! He's a christain carney!
Yeah, I was contemplating something like that, but I was being charitable for a change. :)
Traveling speaker/missionary fundraiser, whatever. If he attended three services a week, and two of them were Sunday morning services, he would have heard the same sermon twice every Sunday, anyway, so I vote that we discount 50 of his total service attendances as repeats.
Just a comment on the "Christian country" concept (please forgive unintended alliteration):
I've engaged in endless, and ultimately pointless, tit-for-tat quotation fights over what the Founders' vision for the United States was. In the end, what we have to work with is the document they fashioned to establish our government: the Constitution. And the Constitution is notable for the conspicuous absence of any reference to God, Jesus, or any other supernatural entity. Perhaps more telling is the inclusion of the First Amendment, as well as the wording of Article VI, Section 3, that "...no religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the United States." In both cases, if the United States was to be a "Christian" nation, neither passage would likely have been included.
Ours is not a Christian, or even a religious, nation, in any official capacity. Rather, the United States is a Constitutional Nation. Plug in any religious group (or group of non-religionists), and as long as said group adheres to the Constitution, the body politic proceeds along as usual. That is, while the majority of people in the U.S. may be Christian, the country can still function if the majority were Muslim, or Buddhist, or atheist - as long as Constitutional principles continued to be followed.
speedwell said:
Not necessarily. With my father, yes, that would usually have been the case, but I have met several ministers who prepared different sermons for each service they gave.
In my father's early career, he had a couple of "three-point charges" (three churches served by one minister). To avoid inter-congregation bad feelings, he decided that the whole family should attend all services. The same sermon, the same readings, the same hymns. We kids (aged 4 to 11 when this started) complained, but his concern over petty rivalry outweighed our feelings. It wasn't until sometime into his second charge that he felt confident enough to let the family go just to the closest church.
Another possibility is that that slimeball AGCM is an organist. I've known several, and they're always in high demand (often serving more than one congregation), and very frequently 'at church'. When reading AGCM's comments, I noted several places where he seemed to be playing semantic games with us. Maybe he meant 'at [the] church' instead of 'worshipping'.
And, to be fair to the slimeball, his point (lame as it was) to all the 'at church' counting was that he felt he had a better grasp of Christian (and thus - to him - American) opinion because of it. Arguably false and beside the point, of course.
On PI in the Bible, see:
http://magicdragon2.livejournal.com/2762.html?nc=102
"...People have been getting that wrong for a long time.
1 Kings 7:23 in the King James Version states, "And
[Solomon] made a molten sea, ten cubits from the one
brim to the other: it was round all about, and his
height was five cubits: and a line of thirty cubits
did compass it round about". 2 Chronicles 4:2 states
that the object was "round in compass" and that a line
of 30 cubits "did compass it round about". 30 cubits
divided by 10 cubits for a shape "round in compass"
(i.e. circular) means that, since pi is the ratio of a
circle's circumference to its diameter, pi = 3.0000.
Does that mean that the laws of geometry have changed
since the days of the Old Testament, or in the state
of Indiana?..."
On Christian (and other) belief in the White House, see
Believe It or Not
Presidents and their convictions.
by Joseph Epstein
01/01/2007, Volume 012, Issue 16
"... How could it be otherwise? George W. Bush is not, strictly speaking, a politician; he came, after all, to politics late. He is instead a believer. It may well be in his nature to believe, as witness his midlife conversion to earnest Christianity. But there can be very little doubt that, on the morning of September 11, 2001, he also acquired political religion. He believes American security is being challenged; he believes this challenge must be met directly and with force; and he believes that he knows what is best for the country which he has been chosen to lead. The question of the rightness of his belief may be debated; but about the sincerity of his belief there can't be much question...."
Note that Intelligent Design craftily does not call the Intelligent Designer "God" but theoretically leaves open the door to extraterrestrials to fill the role.
The great Sir Arthur C. Clarke, shortlisted for the Nobel Peace Prize, Chancellor of International Space University, inventor of the synchronous communications satellite, wrote, within the novel cowritten with the screenplay he did with Stanley Kubrick:
"Now there was only a uniform, featureless glow in the great slab, so that it stood like a block of light superimposed on the surrounding darkness. As if waking from a sleep, the man-apes shook their heads, and presently began to move along the trail to their place of shelter. They did not look back, or wonder at the strange light that was guiding them to their homes -- and to a future unknown, as yet, even to the stars."
http://locusmag.com/2006/Issues/10Sleight.html
Is that atheism, ID, or -- as I think -- somethging far more nuanced and interesting.
I'm unlcear what the various strains of Christians thought of that, at the time, or think of it now, in retrospect? Clarke now lives in Sri Lanka, clearly NOT a Christian Nation.
Mothmorm wrote:
So, you think Thomas Jefferson, the man who defined the separation of church and state, thought there was no separation of church and state?
I believe you are trying to change the subject. That was not the point of the quote, let alone, the point of the whole of the current debate. The point made was that even Thomas Jefferson promoted Christianity. You are so unwilling to accept the common fact (which even the debraved drunk down the street can consent to) that the United States is a Christian Nation in the same sense that nations in Iraq have earned the title of being a Muslim Nation.
Thomas Jefferson, the deist, the man "blamed" for the wall of separation between church and state said:
"I have always said, and will always say, that the studious perusal of the sacred volume will make us better citizens."
"And can the liberties of a nation be thought secure when we have removed their only firm basis, a conviction in the minds of the people that these liberties are the gift of God? That they are not to be violated but with His wrath? Indeed, I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just: that His justice cannot sleep forever."
"No power over the freedom of religion . . .[is] delegated to the United States by the Constitution."
"Of all the systems of morality, ancient or modern, which have come under my observation, none appears to me so pure as that of Jesus."
"I am a Christian, in the only sense in which he wished any one to be; sincerely attached to his doctrines, in preference to all others; ascribing to himself every human excellence; and believing he never claimed any other." Letter to Benjamin Rush, April 21, 1803
Again, your posts by Pat Robertson does not even mention the constitution. They were simply quotes expressing his own personal opinion from his worldview, in the same sense that you would consent that Atheists would make better leaders in America then Christians. You can accuse him of being arrogant if you like but to accuse him of being anti-constitutional you would have to provide something better than his personal preferences.
Mothmorm wrote:
So, you think Thomas Jefferson, the man who defined the separation of church and state, thought there was no separation of church and state?
I believe you are trying to change the subject. That was not the point of the quote, let alone, the point of the whole of the current debate. The point made was that even Thomas Jefferson promoted Christianity. You are so unwilling to accept the common fact (which even the debraved drunk down the street can consent to) that the United States is a Christian Nation in the same sense that nations in Iraq have earned the title of being a Muslim Nation.
Thomas Jefferson, the deist, the man "blamed" for the wall of separation between church and state said:
"I have always said, and will always say, that the studious perusal of the sacred volume will make us better citizens."
"And can the liberties of a nation be thought secure when we have removed their only firm basis, a conviction in the minds of the people that these liberties are the gift of God? That they are not to be violated but with His wrath? Indeed, I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just: that His justice cannot sleep forever."
"No power over the freedom of religion . . .[is] delegated to the United States by the Constitution."
"Of all the systems of morality, ancient or modern, which have come under my observation, none appears to me so pure as that of Jesus."
"I am a Christian, in the only sense in which he wished any one to be; sincerely attached to his doctrines, in preference to all others; ascribing to himself every human excellence; and believing he never claimed any other." Letter to Benjamin Rush, April 21, 1803
Again, your posts by Pat Robertson does not even mention the constitution. They were simply quotes expressing his own personal opinion from his worldview, in the same sense that you would consent that Atheists would make better leaders in America then Christians. You can accuse him of being arrogant if you like but to accuse him of being anti-constitutional you would have to provide something better than his personal preferences.
oops. Sorry for the double post.