The open thread produced a couple of interesting articles I thought worthy of highlighting.
The first is a story from Canada about the growing godless movement. It's very positive and avoids the cheap tactic of presenting this as a scary or worrisome prospect.
Ms. Gaylor [of the Freedom From Religion Foundation], who said her group has grown from 7,000 to more than 10,000 since the fall, is not sure that the recent rash of books is winning converts to atheism, but she is certain it is emboldening those in the closet.
When Herb Silverman became a professor of mathematics at the College of Charleston in South Carolina in 1976, people would say to him: "You're the only atheist I know," and he would respond: " No I'm not. You know hundreds of atheists, I'm just the only one who acknowledges they're an atheist."
I predict a slow, steady growth of atheism in the coming years — not because all these vocal atheists have been converting people, but because they are removing the stigma from atheism and getting people to take some pride in their freedom from faith. And what are all these atheists going to do? One of the annoying, baffling habits some people have is to dismiss the idea, because all atheists could possibly do is sit around and talk about nothing. Not true!
"Big questions have been monopolized by religious institutions," says Justin Trottier, 24, who has a degree in engineering, comes from a secular Jewish background and is the centre's executive director. "Atheists are just as interested in questions of meaning, purpose and beginning. Why shouldn't we have a place where we can chat?"
See, we can talk about and do important stuff, the same as goes on in religious institutions … we just do it without larding it full of supernatural monkeypoop, or worse, elevating the monkeypoop to the status of the Most Important Issue. A secular institution should be more effective than a religious one in any significant endeavor, since it doesn't bear the burden of commitment to dogmatic malarkey.
This other story from the LA Times is more depressing. It's about a reporter, a fervent Christian, who joyously leapt into the religion beat, and steadily lost his faith to the incessant corruption of pedophilic priests, greedy Prosperity Christians, and faith-healing frauds. I see another goal for the godless here:
My soul, for lack of a better term, had lost faith long ago -- probably around the time I stopped going to church. My brain, which had been in denial, had finally caught up.
Clearly, I saw now that belief in God, no matter how grounded, requires at some point a leap of faith. Either you have the gift of faith or you don't. It's not a choice. It can't be willed into existence. And there's no faking it if you're honest about the state of your soul.
It's a painful piece, and you can tell the writer is grieving for the loss of his faith — but faith is not a gift. Faith is a delusion. This is a man who should be grateful that he has opened his eyes. He's opened them to an ugly, disillusioning world, true enough, but now he is better able to do something about it. Something far better than praying for an intervention that will never come from an entity that doesn't exist. There should be no sorrow in casting the scales from your eyes.
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I went through that when I was 17. It was a nasty experience, but extremely liberating.
There are countless people who are atheists, but aren't willing to state it openly.
There are even more people who are atheists, but won't even admit it to themselves - they claim to believe in deities that they define as not being part of existence and part of existence simultaneously. They say that their deity is 'supernatural' and unobservable by science, and use this as an excuse to deflect analysis, but they don't follow that road to its end to see what conclusions follow from their assumptions.
Nietzsche was right - as far as thinking people are concerned, 'God' died a long, long time ago.
When it was playing-for-keeps time, when life was drawing a line in the sand, he suddenly knew which side he stood. It was cold, dark and scary that side of the line, and there was nobody there to help you, but once you're there you can't return. Once you've seen behind the backdrop, you can't walk out front again and believe that what's painted on it is real. The world this side of the line is indeed a more foreboding place, but even though you have to tread with more caution, you walk with more dignity.
--Christopher Brookmyre
Ted, all the de-conversion stories I've ever read have that as one of their themes. It seems that it takes a while for de-converts to realize that the idea that faith is the only thing that makes life worth living is just another one of the many lies they've been told.
Well, one has to come to the conclusion that no matter how brutal reality is compared to one's religious fantasy, you don't have that long to try to understand it.
I can relate to Obdell's story, because I spent a lot of time looking at different religions and never finding God's voice speaking through me. I thought there was something I was doing to block God from speaking to me or through me. So, I faked it, hoping that if I kept up appearances then eventually I would feel that Voice in the same way the people around me felt it.
But the amazing thing was that they told me they could see it in me. I realized that while I envied people's experience of the spiritual reality that I was faking they envied me for the same thing. No matter which religion I tried, they told me the same thing, that I was a light for them.
I experienced the "break 'em down to build 'em up" retreats that Obdell did.
And then, I was molested by a Lutheran choir director. I never told anyone about it. Not the cops, not the preacher, not my parents. I told my best friend, and he really didn't believe me and told me not to worry about it. I told my girlfriend, and she broke up with me for being gay.
So now, when I read about how the Catholic Church has been blaming the victims of priestly molesters I get very angry. I get angry when they choose the priest over the victims. I get angry whenever I hear that we need religion in order to be moral. All I know is that we need religion to effectively fake morality and spirituality. And I also know that we don't need religion in order to face reality.
Or as Cap'n Tightpants said, "That's a long wait for a train don't come." And y'know...
After an embarassing number of times watching Serenity, I've decided I really like its take on faith:
Love is a good deal more dangerous than madness, if you're the bad guy.
Believing hard, killing and never asking why, is the essence of bad guy.
Belief, in yourself, in your goals, in your fellow found-family members, is what makes all things possible.
And of course the answer to that stupid question of what meaning life has to an atheist. "As in... You mean to say, sex?"
Plus hey, Equality Now. Hmm, where's that thread about man-crushes? Mmmmmm.... Joss....
There are, however, plenty of aspects of faith that seem like gifts. A really big one is the sense of community. Sure, it's based on a mutual fantasy, but it's powerful. I kept going through the motions of faith by attending Sunday mass at the local Newman Center for several years after I had pretty much decided that Catholicism was just an intricately elaborated hollow shell. But I saw friends there, people I liked to see and talk with.
Friendships (and even family bonds) tend to weaken or break when shared experiences and feelings are no longer shared. Should friendship be stronger than that? Sure, but I think most friendships are friendships of convenience. People I used to consider pretty good friends just sort of faded away when we were no longer traveling in the same circles, going to school in the same places, or working in the same offices. Only a few of those friendships survived the transition to no longer seeing each other regularly.
If anything, family can be even worse. Religious dissension in a family can be nasty stuff indeed. I almost never go to mass with Mom & Dad anymore, but we maintain a quiet courtesy about it and don't bait each other over it. I'm grateful for that. My parents are counting on religious faith to provide them with a happy-ever-after afterlife, and I can't see any value in trying to persuade them that it's all a delusion. I would probably be violating the terms of our tacit truce if I did. It's an awkward situation.
Compared to what?
I would argue that the world is neither ugly nor beautiful (or equally ugly and beautiful), since the terms are relative and we don't have anything else to compare it to.
"He's opened them to an ugly, disillusioning world, true enough, but now he is better able to do something about it."
I'm looking out my window at snow capped mountains, a small city humming beneath them, and a river winding down to the sea. Yes... it is cold. Yes, the river is a bit polluted (but much less polluted now than 50 years ago).
It is only when you believe the world should be perfect that it is disillusioning and ugly. If you realise the world just is, and that good and evil are our own constructs, that you know it could be a lot worse than it is.
Thanks PZ for posting the links.
Re: the LA Times article
I still have the capacity to be shocked at the lengths that Catholics will go to cover up child abuse amongst their ranks.
The idea that religions have "monopolized" the big questions is rather absurd. Especially in today's day and age. There are websites and forums devoted to the topic. Nobody is stopping atheists today from inviting some friends over, sitting down, and having a chat.
But overall, its a nice idea. Rather similiar to the same idea by ID. "Once all our nasty enemies stop persecuting poor little us, then we will answer all the big questions. Really, we will! We just haven't answered them for a couple of hundred years because we've been persecuted by the mean nasty Christians."
--A secular institution should be more effective than a religious one in any significant endeavor, since it doesn't bear the burden of commitment to dogmatic malarkey.--
Really? I'm curious. Do you have any evidence that any secular institution has done so? Or is this more "Once the mean nasty people stop persecuting us, then everything will be all right" nonsense?
David, are you the same David who's insisting over at Galactic Interactions that 'nature' means something more than "the stuff we can interact with", and science has a special way of observing things that doesn't include magical sky fairies?
Welcome, welcome. We're going to love having you here.
A slightly polite comment from an atheist! How shocking...
Oh... wait... I missed your obvious sarcasm at first. Oops.
I don't know Caledonian. Why don't you show me the comments in question, and I'll tell you if they are mine and you are simply twisting them to serve your own ends, or if they belong to someone else.
Ok?
Or better yet, we can get our whole conversation out of the way. I know that you think I'm either:
A. Stupid.
B. Ignorant.
C. Brainwashed.
D. Deluded.
E. Wicked.
F. Arrogant.
G. Some of the above.
H. Something almost identical to some of the above.
You know my opinion of you.
Really any conversation we have will degenerate into you insulting me, and I returning the favor.
You won't agree with me, and I severly doubt there is anything you will say that I will agree with, so I think it in both our best interests to stop the conversation before it begins, ok?
As a nurse, I am frequently told by my patients that they "see God's light" in me and no matter what religion they are, they are convinced that I am among their brethren. Now at other times, I have no problem being a vocal atheist, but when I am taking care of someone who is sick and/or dying I find that silence and a smile is all I can manage. If I say anything, it is usually praising the skills of the health care staff caring for them. Sometimes I feel like a hypocrite doing even that. But in all, I think I am good person and I work hard at being a competent caring nurse. I thank my Mom for that, not a non-entity. (Don't tell her I said that or she'll try to make me go to confession)
PZ, help! The troll is back. These jerks have no goal other than hijacking whole threads. It is amazing that they all the whole web to blabber on whatever nonsense they please, and they can't even stand us having our own little forum here.
Jazmin, it sounds like you're a very caring nurse. I think part of the profession is having to be strong enough to listen to what the patient needs, without taking it on personally. So if someone is sick or dying, and wants to talk about religion, I think silence and a smile is fine--you don't need to pretend to be something you aren't, nor is there a need to kick someone's crutch out from under them at that point.
By analogy, my sister and I tried all our child and young adult lives to get my mom to quit smoking, but her addiction was so strong, she couldn't. When she was diagnosed with terminal cancer, we dropped our campaign to get her to quit, and and we never again said another word to her about it. We suffered through the smoke in silence until she went into a coma the week before she died, and could no longer hold a cigarette. Why take away the one thing remaining that gives a dying old lady any pleasure? Same for faith, IMO.
But the other way around is definitely abusive. I spent a month in the hospital recovering from a superior mesenteric arterial thrombosis ("usually found on autopsy"--my surgeon), and I started getting a little ICU psychosis after enough time in there. Add to that a proselytizing Christian nurse, and I got convinced that she was an "angel of death" who'd put something deadly in my IV if I didn't accept her offer of salvation. I'm not blaming her for the ICU part, of course, but she had no business adding to my stress level and hindering my recovery with her witnessing.
The Falun Gong proselytizing nurse, on the other hand, was just an annoyance, because she didn't threaten hell. But I didn't need that in my recovery, either,
But I'm rambling, now. My point is, if you can silently smile as dying patients process it however they need to, without taking their stuff on your personally, rather than trying to do anything to argue with their beliefs that late in the game--I think that clearly shows that you truly are a competent, caring nurse in that way.
(In case I'm setting myself up for misunderstanding, I'm not advocating universal quietism. There are lots of appropriate times and places to promote reason and argue against the consequences of misplaced belief; I'm talking strictly about hospital and hospice professional situations.)
I'll go with idiot. Coming to a place. Acting like an ass. And expecting, what, different results than you normally get?
I find the story of the reporter striking.
Whether he feels a loss of security, or finds himself in psychological withdrawal, I hope he learns to cope with the realities of life.
David, if you are here for a purpose, other than constructively improving the lives of others, you might want to return to your philosophical studies.
Here's a good place to start
Jazmin-
I am a nurse too, and I pretty much do the same things that you do. I will not begrudge a dying person what little peace they're able to derive from their faith, even though I think it's silly.
By the way, if my dying words indicate that I am having delusions involving a naked romp with George Clooney and Janeane Garofalo in a spicy threesome, I doubt any decent nurse would bother rousing me from my comforting fantasies.
Heheheh.
Speaking of links... dunno if anyone's pointed out
http://www.harunyahya.net/V2/Lang/en/Pg/WorkDetail/Number/6539
... and apologies if they have already. It's a downloadable PDF of the Atlas of Creation.
People, don't feed the troll!
The Christian religion has been a sacred cow for too long. When I discovered that there was no solid historical evidence for Jesus and plenty of textual evidence that his biographical details were added to the testaments in the second century, I felt cheated. I felt that the availble facts that I needed to make up my mind had been concealed by our mainstream media to pander to convention.
Having several religions is a good thing if it looses the stranglehold of any one of them on the laws and culture of a society.
Cut the guy some slack, PZ. As someone who had an adult faith which once meant a lot to me, I think the experience of grieving its loss is, while not necessarily universal, at least common and natural -- a bit like losing a good friend, or maybe going through divorce on a marriage that used to be good (not that I'd know about that one). Yes, you get over it (humans have a way of doing that, about all losses), and find new ways of seeing yourself in relation to the universe, and new sources of inspiration. But you do it on your own schedule, not someone else's, and I think that process deserves respect and support, not "I told you so; now get over it".
btw, I noticed that "Wrought"'s link pretends to provide for comments, but that it is nonfunctional .... do on to others?
PZ WROTE:
"This is a man who should be grateful that he has opened his eyes. He's opened them to an ugly, disillusioning world, true enough, but now he is better able to do something about it. Something far better than praying for an intervention that will never come from an entity that doesn't exist. There should be no sorrow in casting the scales from your eyes."
As yet another of your regular readers who had to go through a similar experience, I can tell you that, in the end, we DO become grateful for having the scales taken from our eyes... but it takes time. And it's very painful, even if you KNOW it's right, and will be a positive thing in the long run. It's always difficult to let go on one's delusions, religious or otherwise. I say let the man grieve for his lost faith so he's better equipped to move on and join PZ's Army of Atheists. :)
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The LA Times guy is not out of the woods yet. I don't think the article says he's turned into an atheist -- the whole thing has that "God is testing my faith" smell about it.
I wrote him a long, encouraging email (attached below), because you just have to know he's going to get thousands encouraging him to come back into the fold, that these things happen for a reason, and that the only real love and warmth is in the community of Jesus.
Any of the rest of you who feel up to it, it won't be a wasted effort to dash off a quick note and tell him bravo for his honesty, and his progress. Some people can be influenced - never doubt it.
My email follows:
I read your July 21, 2007 piece on your Religion Beat writing.
I'm sorry you had to go through all this. And congratulations to you for being honest with yourself through this ordeal.
Your piece didn't fully convey the conclusion, but I feel hopeful that you really are finding your way clear of religion. In a way, you remind me of those Republicans who have at long last understood what Bush really is - and I mean that in a good way.
I think you might be discovering that religion is a bit like ... oh, say alcohol. A lot of it is dangerous, but a little of it can sometimes look like a good thing. Those of us who are moderate drinkers boast about how much we enjoy it. But in the end, it's always a little dose of poison, a chemical unreason poured into your head by your own hand. Maybe you as an individual can handle it, and you think it's benign and relaxing, but all around you, you can see people and societies destroyed by it.
Coincidentally, I was at a county fair last night in upstate New York, and passed by a tent occupied by some kind of evangelical Christian group. Two people standing out front zeroed in on me when I stopped to read their banner. "Would you like to read about the good news?" the man asked. Already knowing many of the things you've learned, I was able to answer: "I'm an atheist," I said. "To me, this is the BAD news." And the woman almost shouted "Nobody is really an atheist!"
If she only knew. Unbelief - or atheism, if that's what you've hinted at - is harder than it looks socially, especially now in the U.S., but ultimately very rewarding in a personal sense. You really can get to a place where you finally feel no gods or ghosts at all in your head. There are some things you have to give up, but the mental clarity you get out of it, the growing sense of being able to trust your own mind, of understanding that you can find your own answers, and not feeling you have to rely on some group of celestial authorities (priests) for everything, is something special.
Having written this, I imagine you're going to face immense pressure - much of it ostensibly loving - to conform and get back to where you were mentally when you were a believer. Immense pressure. The result may be that, a few years from now, you'll be even more deeply religious, and may write about this moment in your life as your "test of faith."
If you do, you will have failed yourself. You will have betrayed your own independent reason in favor of this lovingly-administered drug. You'll be like a tomcat who volunteered to be neutered because his owners convinced him in gentle, loving tones that it really was in his best interest.
Worse, you'll retreat into your own fuzzy mental comfort, but you'll leave all those molested kids still in the meat grinder, all those hopeful cancer victims still throwing out their pills and sending in their money, all the rest of us still trapped in a world that really sees reason as an enemy and ordinary humans as prey animals.
Instead, I hope you'll come to more and more fight FOR them by fighting the root of the force that enslaves them.
I know we'll never meet, but I wish I could sit down and talk with you. There are a thousand good REASONS for jettisoning religion. The problem is, the people in its grip simply can't hear them. You sound like you're open to listening, at this point in your life.
Like most of us in this society, our freedom-loving country that seems open to all views but which actively discourages freedom of thought (witness the "traitor" label applied to so many in the political arena in recent years, and the vilification of Richard Dawkins and Sam Harris as "violent" or "militant" atheists in the religious arena), you'll probably have to figure them out on your own.
The small, quiet Army of Reason - the people who produced Science, and Medicine, and real Freedom, and so much more - faces legions of bright-eyed, determinedly joyful victims marching to the orders of such as the Catholic Church, fed on by conscienceless parasites such as Pat Robertson and Benny Hinn. We could always use a thoughtful new voice, a voice such as yours.
I've been a freethinker for a good 30 years. Dashing off this note too quickly, I'm aware that I've rambled a bit, and glossed over too much, but ...
I really wish you the best of luck in your quest.
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Well, yeah, I wasn't going to give him a deadline.
I know many people suffer horrible anguish at losing their faith -- I didn't, but my religion was a fairly phlegmatic one to begin with -- and I'm not suggesting we go out and kick people who are sad about their disillusionment. I'm suggesting that if we keep plugging away and let the world know atheists are well-adjusted and happy and ordinary, loss of faith won't leave them quite as bereft. They're just leaving one club they didn't like to join one that fits them better.
I've never felt the need to be either a believer or an atheist. I just tend to be in awe of this big amazing scary wonderful universe, and that's enough. I don't have a clue about the big existential questions, and I'm quite happy to go along blissfully ignorant.
Woo! My group (CFI-Ontario) was featured in that article! We were tres excited. Although slightly dissapointed that there was yet another overlook of all the social and community development projects that we're doing. The last 3 big media breaks we got focused on atheism its self, and didn't even touch on the alternative programs we offer and the community we've really built in just a few months.
One of our social programs that has had the greatest success is our "living without religion" support group. it's really hard when you've been brought up with, and had religion forced on you your entire life - everything you do just makes you feel guilty. that program is great for helping people through that.
Hank Fox quoth:
Hank m'boy, I think you're being a bit harsh on our good friend Ethanol... a little of it can indeed be a good thing, even though a lot of it is dangerous (much the same can be said of oxygen, for that matter).
I'm one of those who had a much harder time letting go of the 'belief in belief' than in the Roman Catholic faith I was brought up in (no, I'm not amongst the sexually abused - my abuse was strictly intellectual).
I am also a former abuser of alcohol, now a happy moderate user, and looking back on it the deep unhappiness and despair I felt, and the heavy drinking it inspired, disappeared just when I finally ditched the last vestiges of religion and fully committed to the life of reason I'd really wanted to follow all along.
Atheists should get together, though. Richard Dawkins or Sam Harris should have, in their books, wrote somewhere that atheists should raise money to buy a place where they can get together, with a "leader" at the alter who speaks to us, and then a band that plays some music we can chant to. We have to make atheism a moral and fun thing to do.
PZ Myers standing at the alter, reading quotes to us out of the Bible of Atheism, and us repeating after him. It would be fun.
My suggestion is synchronized with PZ Myers'.
Zeno @ #8 said
That intricate shell is actually constructed out of thousands of tiny guilt trips.
It absolutely gobsmacks me that atheism is such a big deal to some. Living in very non-religious New Zealand, atheism is more likely than not, so that's what people tend to assume. An admission of being religious is more likely to take people by surprise, and NZ hardly has a reputation for scary amoral fanaticism. I remember being very surprised when I discovered, aged about eight, that there were people in the world who still prayed and believed in deities. Until then I thought it was some kind of obsolete thing from the 'olden days' that nobody did anymore, like wearing nightcaps or handsewing shirts by candlelight.
Shrimplate-
As a "decent" nurse, I hope to be invited to the party! Sweet fantasy! But as RavenT said, I will NEVER "pull the crutch from under" if that crutch will help a dying persons last moments easier. I know what that crutch was supposed to do, even if I felt no support.
Since coming out of the closet, though, I feel no need for a crutch. I'm more at peace, now, than I ever hoped to be. Thanks PZ and you Pharyngula folks.
I especially like this light-bulb-over-the-head moment from Ditching God:
Nietzsche was right - as far as thinking people are concerned, 'God' died a long, long time ago.
This speaks volumes. Part of the trouble that well-meaning, almost atheists types I have met have had could be traced back to not having good thinking skills. Some were fairly educated, but even a college education doesn't necessarily involve critical thinking skills.
The fallacy I find the hardest to dislodge is the appeal to consequences- that something must be believed, or something awful will happen. Sometimes, this is done with eyes wide open, and the person is just pretending to be a believer on the dubious premise that a society without gods will decay. Such people are beyond hope, and I don't care what they believe except that I want to intercept it.
I am most concerned with people who don't recognize what evidence is, why having evidence is superior to faith, and how to follow or construct a chain of evidence. I think these people are well within reach, and moreover, don't really have to have their belief attacked directly. Not that there is anything wrong with that ethically, but tactically, I am not convinced it helps.
I am one who recovered from religion fairly late. It smarted, but I don't think I was scarred by the process. Part of the process of learning to think made a certain dismantling of naive beliefs inevitable. No one 'got in my face' about atheism, and no one really helped me along with denunciations of the Catholicism I outgrew on my own. It happened because I learned to think rationally, and to insist on evidence.
Plain old rational, critical thinking is unfortunately a far more novel concept than it ought to be, even among people who are allegedly educated. I feel reasonably good about the science students that I knew going through school. Some of the others, not so much.
More like millions, Melior. Millions!
I've always felt that the majority of people really don't analyze their "beliefs" because it scares them. I think that if they did, they would find them wanting. All we can do for these people is let them know that we are out there and that were still good, moral, happy people. I've helped several friends and family through this transition by simply being there to help answer their questions and assure them that everything will be alright. Hopefully, the reporter from the LA Times can find someone to be his atheist role model.
Great e-mail Hank. You reached out to let him know that he is not alone. Sometimes that is all it takes.
This thread is a great collection of de-conversion stories.
Come to atheism, you'll be happier in the end... trust us!
You'll at least be dealing with reality.
You won't be deluded, you'll be thinking rationally... and all that.
As long as people ignore the stories of religious believers who found atheism intellectually, emotionally, and spiritually unfulfilling you'll have a rock solid case.
Atheist, I think its a wondeful idea. Build churches of atheism, while at the same time keeping with the same dogma that atheism isn't a religion.
I mean, beyond the fact that atheism involves a set of beliefs about life and death, the nature of God (he doesn't exist), meets in a church with an appointed leader who reads from a specific text which they view with veneration... atheism and religion would be totally distinct if your idea works. Besides all that it would be great.
Chaoswes,
I agree. People don't often analyze their beliefs. But of course, all atheists have analyzed their beliefs completely. So really, when you are talking about "people" you aren't talking about the englightened atheist, you are talking about the rest of the unenlightened, unintelligent public.
I love atheists. They are great for comic relief.
Well, fortunately your commentary so far has certainly acquitted you of any of those charges. Particularly F.
I guess technically I am an agonistic, in that I recognise that the question of the existence of God(s) is one that cannot be answered. But I have never been a believer, despite a liberal Catholic upbringing (and no one in my immediate family has been a believer or church-goer for over 25 years), so I call myself an atheist.
Someone said to me once that the question is less does God exist, and more does it matter? Does it make any difference? Sounds like the question the journalist is grappling with.
Pharyngula, a place to learn new things. I now know who I can ask if I'm in need of an effective and durable scarecrow.
I remember being, oh, about seven years old, looking through my toybox, and finding one of my very favorite toys, a thing I'd always loved. At that instant, though, something hit me: It wasn't interesting to me anymore. I'd outgrown it. The feeling of loss was profound, and was something I'd never experienced before.
A similar kind of grief swept over me just a couple of nights ago during a discussion about the plausability of The Flood and Noah's Ark...
Letting go can be difficult. Not everyone can. Not everyone needs to, or chooses to. Some go halfway, get scared, and run back.
Why do people believe in bad ideas?
Let's formulate a hypothesis for the origins of faith, beliefs and so on. It might be much simpler than anticipated.
Human beliefs might be seen as instruments for survival, helping humans to fix upcoming problems of all kind (spiritual as well as practical).
Just like we have a natural inclination to select the most useful looking tools (or actions) to solve practical problems, we may as well be inclined to select those beliefs that seem to have the greatest perceived utility for solving various sets of problems, for which an immediate straight-forward solution is not at hand.
These beliefs in turn have evolved over time from primitive
assumptions (thunder comes from a mighty angry actor or "God") towards more sophisticated systems like christianity that even is able to solve difficult problems like that of an inevitable impending annihilation (death) or limitation of selfishness.
This way beliefs would be essential tools generated by highly evolved problem solving capacities of human brains.
In a similar way, one might assume that these beliefs are valued according to their perceived utility. Since religious beliefs apparently are able to resolve the most difficult problems (death is not the end, today's misery will be replaced by a future paradise and so on...), those beliefs are higly valued. Asking a believer to give up his faith might be similar to asking him to give up a car riding to paradise and to change it for one riding towards an abyss.
The only way to change those beliefs is to let believers find out more about the real world, in which their tools turn out to be illusionary and can give only illusionary solutions. That's probably what's happening these days, with science making progress and where it becomes harder and harder to maintain for believers to get away with assigning more authority to their sources than to the results of scientific exploration.
Key factors are:
The acceptance of a belief because of its perceived utility.
The assignment of a value to a belief that is proportional to its perceived utility.
The devaluation of a belief that is proportional to its incompatibility with perceived reality.
I never claimed to be enlightened. That was Buddha's gig. Religious people feel they are the enlightened ones. I'm talking about personal belief systems. Religion forces people to believe in a set of rules and dogma that are completely unfounded and have proven to be bullshit on more than one occasion. No one here asks anyone to change their belief system. We merely point out that most people that question their dogma find themselves at odds with its so called "truth." The funny thing about trolls is that they never wonder what life would be like if they stepped out from under the bridge.
"It's a great bridge. In fact this bridge is so great and it fits me so perfectly that there is no need to think about other bridges."
David's got a point. I have never really analyzed my atheism. The reason is that I just haven't had time to analyze my disbelief in God, as I have been too busy coming up with a proper analyis of my lack of belief in Santa, the Easter bunny, the tooth fairy, Zeus, Thor, and the celestial teapot. Eventually, though, I hope to get around to analyzing why I don't believe in God.
You don't believe in Thor?
[Kseniya backs slowly towards the door]
Come to atheism, you'll be happier in the end... trust us!
I think this comment very much misses the point. One doesn't become atheist because it is just one of a handful of competing narratives promising some sort of result, like a diet pill (Lose 10% more unjustified beliefs when you switch to Dr. PZ's Curiously Strong Atheism).
The worldview that I advocate is, plainly stated, that we can usefully and, coincidentally, in an emotionally fulfilling way, understand the world and our life in it by means of rational thought guided by empirical data. I argue that not only is this true, but that there aren't any other proven ways to get the same results.
Some sort of understanding of how we know anything is true or how something is supported by argument is decided one way or another (usually by default) prior to taking up the question of the existence of gods. It isn't possible to think anything true without hewing to some epistemology, and these philosophical questions left alone are what have people talking past one another, I think. I advocate a rational point of view not because it is a road to happiness (though I guess nothing prevents this) but because it is demonstrably better to know what actually is than to believe what may not be.
Yet the truth will remain stubbornly what it is, my or your happiness counting for exactly nothing. More importantly, the epistemological underpinnings of critical thought vs religion are the most important point- if you and I don't agree how truth is found, known and judged, then there really isn't much to discuss past these points.
I don't think that a religious teacher or a holy book automatically contains truth or wisdom, and I can justify my disbelief because these things are often not consistent with other established and supported facts when examined and tested, and often give weird, self-contradictory or meaningless answers.
Science, mathematics, and rational thought are difficult and fraught with tricky conceptual problems, and the answers they give are contingent. But I believe them because they are supported by evidence and are subject to the scrutiny of everyone. Not everyone's scrutiny is of equal value, to be sure, but there is still an openness that is important to the process. The assumptions are stated, the process is subject to critical review at every stage, and while human beings are often stubborn and irascible, the scientific process is self-correcting.
A slightly polite comment from an atheist! How shocking...
When I was in the fold of religion, I was polite. When the last vestiges of religion were leaving me, I was polite. As a stiff-necked nonbeliever, I tend toward being polite, except sometimes when I'm drinking, and then it's usually an abortive attempt at humor. It doesn't stop me from advocating my position.
Despite your prophetic litany of the assumptions and/or insults I as an atheist might make, I counter by taking you seriously. I am a nonbeliever because I see no empirical reason to believe, and a handful of rational reasons to be skeptical of the truth claims offered for religions. I am unmoved by appeals to the authority of a pope, rabbi, messiah, or holy book, or whether a set of beliefs are conducive to happiness. Feel free to try something else, though.
Not good to feed the troll, but since this gives me the opportunity to recycle a recent comment which gives an IMO better perspective:
I can see the contingent and arbitrary, and yes, reactive, part of atheistic groupings in the face of discrimination and exclusion, but it seems to me there are more reasons.
I don't think empirical rationality is as much affirmative as accepting, but there is a close connection to skepticism which can be affirmative. Meanwhile skepticism doesn't necessarily deal with what I used to call spirituality for lack of a better term, but essentially describe appreciation of beauty in nature and art and the awe of "getting it" when models work. Maybe you don't need special groupings in the future, but today much of this discussion and sharing takes place in environments that are skewed towards mysticism.
In Sweden the most active social grouping organizing atheists doesn't seem defineable by atheism, but by humanism in the larger sense. Humanisterna ( the Swedish Humanist Association) have become more active in the social debate of late.
Btw, their latest suggestion threw me a bit, partly because it seems I still have to get rid of lingering adolescent idealism (people grow up late nowadays :-), partly because the american or international debate has a different context. They are questioning the necessity of laws concerning religious freedom!
The context is that the laws for freedom of speach, freedom of organization, et cetera are robust enough. Apparently Humanisterna see no problem with the state - my guess is that it is defined in law as independent (secular) which would explain why we have no special laws separating state and religion as I suspect. (I have to get to the bottom of this now.)
So Humanisterna wants to deflate the special status that the seemingly superfluous religious laws lend to religion. If it works it would be nice, though perhaps not the usual method among secular nations. I can tell you that while I don't see much of a reaction unfortunately, the christians who spoke up were as non-sequitur and whiny as we are used to see. ('They are making us second level citizens!')
Oh, and I learned that Björn Ulvaeus from ABBA (remember them ?) is one of the spokespersons.
I once came to the conclusion that philosophic agnosticism (as opposed to "not enough data" agnosticism or atheism or "enough data" atheism) is fundamentalist, since nothing can move it.
The philosopher I argued with didn't like my conclusion. :-o
"News at 7: A pair of twin gods were born yesterday in Springfield, US. While the christians claim one of them, unclear which, is their savior, buddhists claim it is just reinventing the wheel. The hinduists are indifferent - they have seen this so many times before. The mohammedans doesn't care since it isn't prophesied. Apparently atheists are now converting en masse to the nearest church, while the agnosticists aren't sure if they should and in that case which church.
In connection with this the grave of Nietzsche is reported as trembling, apparently from the philosopher rapidly spinning within. Latest reports is that a voice is emanating from within, shouting "I was wrong! The gods were not born, damn it!"
In other news, dog bit man."
PZ will need every man, woman or gender agnostic he can get.
The opposing Axis of Evil has WMD's (Weapons of Mass Delusion) and inhuman brain eating memes.
While PZ can only wield Occam's Razor and the sharp tongues of the New World Order..., ehrm, excuse me, New Atheists. But of course we all expect the greater strength of truth and freedom to win out in the end.
I have analyzed my atheism and I disagree strongly with the idea that atheists are a group bound together by dogma.
I came to my atheism entirely alone.
All of my immediate family remain evangelical christians. My brother is a prominent evangelist and district youth president. My sister & brother-in-law also pastor a church. Four uncles and one grandfather are/were preachers and/or missionaries
When I posted the link to the Atlas of Creation...
Did I say I was a creationist?
Did I even say I was a theist?
Did I say I thought it contained a grain of truth?
However, since it's been spoken of on this blog I thought you might like to actually see it. You'd be quick to lash out at it without reading it - I thought you (other bloggers) might like some evidence for your so-called rational dismissal of it.
I assume Ben Abbott isn't making a personal point about the link-poster, but valhar2000 is obviously such a rational athiest that he didn't read the tone of the post, didn't look at any of the facts (there was nothing to go on) and assumed the worst in his over eager desire to spend his time bashing those who don't tow his party line.
There's really too much of this going on. So called rationalists really being (very probably teenage) trolls giving a bad impression of their fellow educated atheists, like myself.
Sorry if I didn't make my reasons for posting the link clear enough. I found it, I found it fascinating, and I wouldn't have know it even existed if not for PZ's excellent blog which I read daily.
There's another piece to getting rid of faith that hasn't been touched on much yet. It's not just realizing that you've been wrong for so long, but that other people you love and respect are wrong, too. It's one thing to admit you've been wallowing in fantasy for most of your life. You feel stupid, cheated, gullible, a little (or a lot of) righteous indignation. That's all on yourself. But right along with that is seeing the fallibility of people you trusted. It's the same blow that you get when you're around 5 and find out that your parents don't really know everything. Especially when you're in a fairly insular group, it's a big shock to think that almost everyone you care for is deluded, and you don't know what to do about it. It makes the world kind of big and scary for awhile.
Mike, no one's addressed your post yet, but I'm truly sorry for what you went through, and for the secondary betrayal religion foisted on you.
David - feeding the troll, but I wanted to address this:As long as people ignore the stories of religious believers who found atheism intellectually, emotionally, and spiritually unfulfilling you'll have a rock solid case.
From what I've seen, the only people who went that direction were "by default" atheists, meaning that they were only "atheist" because they had never been in a church, and had never stopped to think about it at all. They were never looking for intellectual, emotional, or spiritual fulfillment from atheism in the first place. I'd be interested if you have any actual data, or even anecdotal evidence, of anyone who had carefully examined religions and found them wanting for evidence, but then changed their mind later. Most of the atheists you'll see here know the Bible and texts of other religions quite well, possibly better than you do, and many have quite lengthy and tortured stories not of wholesale rejection of religion with a handwave and a sneer, but of having it ripped from their tightly clenched fists bit by bit as they tried to find evidence to bolster their beliefs and instead found nothing there.
Who you callin' 'we', Torbjörn? *I* expect delusion and madness to consume the world like a wave of carnivorous locusts sweeping over a daycare.
That's assuming humanity doesn't simply become extinct first, of course.
"News at 7: A pair of twin gods were born yesterday in Springfield, US. While the christians claim one of them, unclear which, is their savior, buddhists claim it is just reinventing the wheel. The hinduists are indifferent - they have seen this so many times before. The mohammedans doesn't care since it isn't prophesied.
Priceless.
It will be interesting to see the letters to the editor from this article in the National Post. The Post is a very conservative newspaper and has run a whole series on global warming denialists. They do carry some of Christopher Hitchens columns. The letters to the editor from past articles on atheism have been mostly negative.
funny thing, I state my atheism openly, but hardly anyone believes me, especially my mom. Perhaps I'm not professing my atheism with a straight enough face?
From what I've seen, the only people who went that direction were "by default" atheists, meaning that they were only "atheist" because they had never been in a church, and had never stopped to think about it at all. They were never looking for intellectual, emotional, or spiritual fulfillment from atheism in the first place. I'd be interested if you have any actual data, or even anecdotal evidence, of anyone who had carefully examined religions and found them wanting for evidence, but then changed their mind later.
The anecdotal evidence I have is my own life. Of course, you will deny this without knowing a thing about my life. I am curious what fundie tactic you will use to deny it.
Also, the fact that skeptics here can rip verses off of their favorite website hardly qualifies as knowing their Bible well.
Deny it? You've been around the wrong sort of people. We don't deny evidence, but we do expect to be able to actually examine it. So, go ahead, spill the beans. You saying "my own life" doesn't count unless you actually give some details.
As for your last sentence, you are obviously the type who absolutely can't believe that anyone could know the Bible who isn't a fundamentalist. Get off your high horse. A lot of people know the Bible well, and a good portion of those went through a lot of religious training. It doesn't work well on the internet (with Biblegateway at the ready in a separate window), but I'd bet good money that if you got a roomful of regular Pharyngulites together they could both outquote you and school you in the finer doctrinal points of most of the more common denominations.
A common supposition is that religion is hardwired into the human brain and that it had some evolutionary advantage. Which may or may not now be as obsolete as the giant antlers of the Irish elk.
This would explain why it is universal in human cultures. Why serious attempts to eradicate it in totalitarian countries were failures. And why ideologies like communism end up looking very much like secular religions. Complete with schisms, dogmas, sacred books, saints, apostates, etc..
Not going to agree or disagree with the supposition. I don't know and like to answer questions with data rather than rhetoric and hand waving. If it is the case, religion will never go away. It might however, evolve into something benign like secular humanism or unitarian universialism or even apathetic agnosticism.
Some atheists seem to behave rather like fundamentalists, another secular religion. It's OK. Issue the fatwas and accusations of heresy, put on your Jihadi hat, and go crusade. LOL
My experience has been that the fundie cultists don't have the slightest idea what the bible says. They quote mine it and take quotes out of context so that whatever point they are making ends up being a lie and completely wrong.
And of course, ignore anything that doesn't fit their falsehood and violence drenched subculture. They don't even have ten commandments. The ones about lying and killing always get forgotten.
Try it next time some crazed fanatic quotes a bunch of stuff at you. Look it up in biblegateway and read the whole chapter for context. Quite often the quote doesn't mean what they say it does. A lot of the quotes are specific to certain individuals for doing certain bad things and ticking off some old guy who claims to be channeling god.
raven - oh, you're absolutely right. And to go along with David's asinine comment again, I usually know where the stuff they're quotemining came from because I know the damned Bible. I had to read it umpteen times, I had to memorize swaths of it, I taught it to preschoolers and gradeschoolers and college students and occasionally adults.
Although, now that you mention it, something just occurred to me. In all of the memorizing of tract verses and how to get people convinced they need a god and all, the Romans Road, the ABCs of Salvation, the little blue book, the sequence was always a series of verses cobbled together from different chapters, different books. Hm, wonder why it was never spelled out all in one place? Couldn't be quotemining out of context, eh, David?
Carlie, there is no point in talking about the details of my life with you, as you will just deny the details. So don't try and give me the usual atheist dogma about how you don't "deny" evidence. You deny all sorts of evidence.
Moreover, I know quite a few atheists/non-believers who have excellent knowledge of the Bible. Actual knowledge. As far as I've seen on this board, "knowledge of the Bible" usually means the ability to search for verses at your favorite skeptic website. So as per usual, the atheist psychic powers fail... again.
As for you last little crow about how Pharyngulites could out quote and "school" me, its been tried. It failed rather miserably. Not only did the atheist not even have the faintest idea as to what the passage he quoted was about, (he still doesn't), he had to result to a completely unsubstantiated metaphorical interpretation of a verse, in order to get past the fact that there was a verse that blatantly contradicts what he said before. After that, it degenerated into mere spaghetti throwing.
You of course, will deny all of this. Just as I expect you to. Fundies are predictable, no matter what the stripe.
One last thing,
--Couldn't be quotemining out of context, eh, David?--
Actually, it could very well be quote-mining out of context.
I'm a nurse. In college we were taught to consider a patient's spirituality as part of their activities of daily living. That means respecting their religious viewpoint and keeping my atheist views to myself, as a professional duty. I'm an NHS employee, so the Government are paying my wages, so if a patient has spiritual needs, it's my job to ensure they're catered for, whether that's ordering halal meals, calling the chaplain, or just accepting a Mother Teresa medallion with good grace. My personal lack of beliefs is irrelevant. Patient comfort is a priority, and that is not acheived by imposing an opposing belief system upon them. I am shocked therefore at Raven T's ICU experience with proselytising nurses [#17] Such behaviour is unprofessional.
PZ, where are you?Why do we have to tolerate this asshole?
I rarely ever wish banning on people. But hasn't David filled the "boring" requirement yet? Could we at least install a script that replaces everything he posts with:
"You're all fundamentalists who don't know the Bible. I know the Bible way better than anyone here. I have perfectly logical reasons for being Christian, but I won't tell anyone any of them because they'll just be mean and fundamentalist to me. I, however, will continue to take petulant potshots at everyone because I have nothing better to do. Fundamentalist fundamentalist fundamentalist."
It would work. David would still get to post here, and we wouldn't miss anything.
Carlie, there is no point in talking about the details of my life with you, as you will just deny the details.
How do you know? Do you know me at all? No? Then you're just as guilty of lump categorization as you accuse others of being. I'm not even sure how a person would go about denying information from someone else's life, anyway. Scorn, deride, and mock, maybe, but deny? I'm not sure how that could work, unless you started it out by saying that you had been known to hallucinate a lot.
As far as I've seen on this board, "knowledge of the Bible" usually means the ability to search for verses at your favorite skeptic website.
How do you know that's what's going on? Do you have magic Christian psychic powers that lets you know that people are looking up verses rather than quoting them from memory? Most people here don't feel the need to preface each statement they make with a litany of their credentials in studying the Bible. Rest assured, there are people here who have advanced degrees in theology right alongside those who are checking websites for backup.
Moreover, I know quite a few atheists/non-believers who have excellent knowledge of the Bible. Actual knowledge
Then why did you say that they didn't? That wasn't "atheist psychic powers", it was taking your words at face value.
Not only did the atheist not even have the faintest idea as to what the passage he quoted was about,
So, atheist in the singular? Again taking a single instance and generalizing it to the masses, then.
You deny all sorts of evidence.
Like what? Examples, please.
As one who was born again, raised as a fundamentalist Christian and later entered the ministry, I would like to speak to the difficulties in transitioning from a life of faith to a life of reason. It may seem counter intuitive but the easiest part of the journey for me was the realization that the Bible was untrue. Once you open your eyes the evidence is overwhelming. Much harder for me was filtering through the myriad of things I was taught. For example, such issues as life after death and the existence of God seem obviously Christian teachings but does the fallibility of the Bible mean that these concepts are wrong or did the Bible get some things right and some things wrong? What about marriage, or ethics and morals? I had to examine everything over again. I soon discovered that my old beliefs were entangled with values and attitudes but I couldn't tell whether the values flowed out of my beliefs or vice verse. Through counseling (ironically by a nice Christian psychologist) I was able to see what my values were and then proceed to define life's meaning for myself based on the values I chose to keep. I have learned to depend on myself instead of an imaginary being and live in the moment instead of for the afterlife.
Another irony is that this experience is what is encouraged by the Toltecs. The say we must realize we have been domesticated, quiet our noisy mind and eliminate the self defeating beliefs and replace with new ones and create a new life of our own choosing. This jives with the Zen teaching of no mind and living in the now.
This makes me think of Freud who basically said (I'm butchering his thought now) that religion is a constriction of life, an imprisoning of the mind. I wonder whether or not most religion was an attempt at teaching others how to live a worth while life and it became instead a "finger pointing at the moon" situation. Or maybe some religions were started just to let some rat bastards control and exploit others.
Anyway, good luck to those who have broken free of religion. Your new life will be great in that it will be one of your choosing and a life you have created.
Rick T: Thanks for that.
My own path went through a heterodox Catholic and Southern Baptist upbringing, included a stint in RC seminary (which, incidentally, put to death much of my faith and all of my illusions about the church).
Such a story may not resonate as much with PZ or anyone else who didn't start in a position of ardent belief larded with deeply ingrained fear and guilt about doubts that might emerge. Being lukewarm was particularly bad- special damnation reserved for believers who were not properly serious, ardent, penitnet etc. To actively doubt was likely a sign of having a demon or something.
For some people, there are wrenching personal conflicts that are inevitable when leaving the faith of their upbringing. So I have a lot of sympathy for people who don't shout their atheism from the rooftops.
Thanks, Carlie. It was thirty years ago, and after therapy I am no longer pained by it. I feel guilty at times that I never went to the cops, maybe it would have saved someone else from the anguish. But it does shape my viewpoint over what the churches are doing to cover up their crimes. And again, it makes the whole "moral argument" point moot to me. Morality is a humanistic trait, people understand it or they don't and religion doesn't make morality "so." There.
And through this thread, I have come to the conclusion that it is pointless to try to argue or debate over who knows the Bible better - atheists or Christians. While it has some interesting writing in it, it really isn't all that relevant to my atheism. And as the work of people, it really has a lot of completely different "Truths." It is kind of handy to have for some of the literary references to it.
Long ago, the BBS's had wars over the contradictions and I grew tired of that particular line of argument. It seemed to serve best the people who just liked to argue.
The question for me is more along the lines of why religious people are trying to twist science around to try to provide some "proof" for God, and that is a large part of the reason that I frequent this blog (plus, I am a sycophant.)
PZ's presentation today made a great deal of sense, and helped explain a great deal of why people are religious. But after years of reading talk.origins and lots of reading here and at other blogs (like Wilkins' Evolvingthoughts and Moran's Sandwalk, I still haven't figured out the vehemence of creationists and ID'ers.
Sir Richard Owen, I understand. But his time ended well over 140 years ago.
If she and Dan Barker got even a fraction of the TV time that people like Dawkins and Hitchens do, the atheist community's PR problems would be well on the way to being solved. Barker and Gaylor are about as demonic as Mr. Rogers, and they just ooze avuncularity, right down to Dan's predilection for telling corny jokes.
I'm curious if there are any fundies that branch out of their little hole to read any other religious texts. Our pet troll seems to be accusing us of this but yet somehow I doubt he/she knows anything about any other religions at all.
"But after years of reading talk.origins and lots of reading here and at other blogs (like Wilkins' Evolvingthoughts and Moran's Sandwalk, I still haven't figured out the vehemence of creationists and ID'ers"
If I may hazard a guess Mike, I think it all ties into the inerrant word of God and the message of salvation. If Genesis isn't true then there was no original sin, thus, no need for a redeemer. If we have evolved from "monkeys" then that challenges the accounts in Genesis and then also the need for a saviour.
Other science doesn't seem to strike a nerve even though upon consideration it too would challenge the veracity of their gospel. It's just that it takes longer for them to figure out. But Genesis, not taken literally, is the beginning of the end of their good book's message.
Dave Eaton: It sounds like we've had a similar journey.
My wife was raised Catholic and is no longer one, yet she hasn't had the difficulty that I have had with the process. She thinks its because of family issues which at times get tangled up with religion like I mentioned earlier. Each of us has a different experience so I thought I might share mine in case it resonated with someone else. I hope you're doing well with your lack of faith, or better said, you're life guided by reason.
Rey Fox,
Funny you should say that. About two comments prior, I was just thinking "Hey, this troll is really boring!" Definately replaceable by a computer script...
For the troll: Trolls should be, as a minimum, interesting - raising points that don't appear in the usual Troll Book of Balderdash that we've all heard a zillion times before. The very best of trolls are those with a sense of humour.
Sadly, trolls with a sense of humour a rarer than hen's teeth at a bachelor's party...
One thing that hasn't been discussed much in the responses is the concept of "faith as a virtue" that PZ mentions and, most deservably, questions.
IMO, this has been the most important delusion that religion has pulled on people, the idea that "believing something without the basis of evidence or logical proof," which boils down to, "believing whatever feels right," has any legitimacy at all. Probably the most important realization for me was that the concept of "faith" was completely unsustainable as a means to legitimate knowledge, and, in the end, all faith is equal. If every belief by faith is equally legitimate, it seems that the probability that we randomly pick the right answer is trivially small, and, as such, we are almost undoubtedly wrong.
So why is "faith" such a good thing? Yes, _religion_ considers faith a virtue, but then again, it has to! If not for faith, what is there to sustain religion? In fact, that religion considers faith a virtue is merely a reflection of its attempt to sustain itself. A religion that says, "Require material evidence for God" is not going to last very long. "Faith" is just people's justifiction for believing in God. People do not believe in God because they have "faith." They believe in God, but because they can't justify it in any way, they attribute it to faith, which is just an admission that they don't have a reason to believe. It's not a virtue. It's a crutch.
For my next lecture, we will talk about the fallacy of the "Gift of Life."
Let's see here.
--I'm not even sure how a person would go about denying information from someone else's life, anyway. Scorn, deride, and mock, maybe, but deny?--
You do have a good point here. I apologize. You won't deny what I have to say about my life, but you will scorn, deride, mock and deny that the decisions I made were "rational".
--How do you know that's what's going on?--
How do I know that's what's going on? A couple of reasons.
The verses that have been thrown in my direction so far, have been the same verses posted by skeptic websites. So if people are finding these themselves, they are either being really unoriginal, or really lucky.
Secondly, the amount of Biblical scholarship shown when these verses have been thrown at me, is pretty much less than nothing. When I entertained a discussion about one, it was clear that the poster didn't have the foggiest idea what the verses said. At all. Which makes me think that he did not get these verses through any Biblical study. Now, I admit, he could have just been lucky, flipped to a random page in the Bible and happened to land on the right verse.
--Rest assured, there are people here who have advanced degrees in theology right alongside those who are checking websites for backup.--
Sorry, but I'm not going to "rest assured". Moreover, so what? You wouldn't take Behe's or Dembski's "advanced degrees" as a sign of intelligence. Thinking that if they have advanced degrees in something, they must actually know about that thing is a bit fallacious, don't you think?
--Then why did you say that they didn't?--
Where did I say that ALL atheists have a dismal understanding of the Bible? All atheists here (as far as I can tell) seem to. But all atheists in general? No, not so much.
--So, atheist in the singular? Again taking a single instance and generalizing it to the masses, then.--
No. Citing the best example out of the bunch.
I haven't been paying attention. Has David produced any evidence of his theological mastery yet, or is he still blathering on about the lack of intellectual challenge posed by us dumb atheists?
I'd ask him why a benevolent god that supposedly loves us and dearly wants us to heed his message would send it in the form of a book that requires an advanced degree in theology to understand (seriously, He couldn't have created FTD a few millenia earlier and said it with flowers?), but he'll just say it's a dumb question that's been so neatly answered before that it's beneath him to answer. (You see, unlike evolution which as a 'theory in crisis' is full of dissenting opinions, theologists are all in agreement and so our questions merely demonstrate our lack of scholarship.)
For the rest of you I pose this puzzler: if we can predict David's responses so accurately, does he have free will?
Brownian, its nice that you case me as a proponent of ID.
It's not true, and its not surprising that you would stoop to that level, but it does serve as a wonderful example of dishonesty from the supposed truth loving, rational atheist.
David, show me the quote in which I claim you are a proponent of ID.
Ain't our fault that you fit the type so well.
I predict a Davidian evasion to my request for evidence in comment #81 that will resemble at least one of the following:
A) I don't jump through fundamentalists' hoops;
B) Your demand is too trivial to be responded to;
C) You don't know anything about religion, you fundamentalist dummy;
D) I have already answered, but you don't like my answers;
E) Complete avoidance of the request altogether by criticising some aspect of this comment instead.
F) No response.
C'mon David, show us your fate isn't predetermined! Step out of the mould! Shock us all by giving us a straight answer! You can do it!
I have faith™ in you.
I thnk Dawkins is just as TV-friendly as Barker, myself. In person, he sounds like an incredibly sweet and honest writer of children's storybooks; and I find him less smug than, say, Carl Sagan was. Even the guys on Fox had to be polite to him, because he's just so dang nice.
Hitchens is another story.
When you imply that I believe that evolution is a "theory in crisis".
Its not.
What? No comment about how I have no idea what faith™ is?
I do not retract the implication that you seem to see theology as some sort of case-closed subject. I believe an example from this thread should be sufficient.
You were asked in comment #90:
You dismissed the question in #93:
When I noted that your responses consistently failed to address the questions posed to you and that you should be disemvowelled as a troll #111, you lied in #114 with:
When asked to explain how your response was an answer (twice, in #117 and #131), you glossed over it in #165 with:
The above suggests that you might be unaware that theologians continue to vigorously debate the existence and nature of the trinity. Since the trinity is not explicated anywhere in the bible, your assertation that the Abrahamic god is triune is perfectly open to question, and there is nothing stupid about a request for backing evidence for the concept, and in particular, evidence for whatever version of the concept is yours.
Noting that many Pharyngula commenters' adjurations (thanks Mr. Korn!) to creationist anti-evolutionists to research the answers to their questions on Talk Origins may be interpreted as similarly dismissive, I contrasted the study of evolution in which most objections to the theory can be dealt with simply (in under 5 minutes on the internet in many cases) due to the accumulation of evidence and refinement of the theory over time with the study of theology, in which prevailing thinkers have failed to achieve consensus on core questions let alone anything approaching a definitive answer that could be researched in '5 minutes', most likely due to a lack of evidence.
Too bad you inferred that I was writing about you specifically.
Ok, now I'm bored with David, too. Those answers were so inane and uninformed that I can't even bring myself to be bothered with addressing them.
I'm starting to miss Jinx.
But hey, it's worth noting that David gave Carlie some pretty straight answers, and that he even offered an apology for the right thing, for the right reason. Even if its value did drop dramatically by the end of the paragraph in which it was made, it was still a decent gesture.
I don't mind admitting that that's far more than I expected from him. Sometimes I enjoy being wrong.
Likewise, I enjoy being right from time to time. Hoo-boy, am I glad I held off on posting my scathing critique until after he'd had a chance to respond to Carlie. It was so nasty, I had to include an apology to Carlie for even mentioning her name in it. Heh.
:-)
"Ok, now I'm bored with David, too."
Don't worry; I can fill the void. I know much more than David about the bible (I wonder what kind of fundie tactic he'll use to deny this claim? Probably repetition, from what I've seen so far.)
What's my evidence for this claim? It's exactly the same as David's plus some navel lint.
Nah, I won't use a fundie tactic. At least not a fundie Christian one. I will note the complete lack of evidence. Since that's the best you seem to be able to come up with in regards to your atheism, I figure its a fine tactic to use.
Also, as for the nature of the trinity, I did not say that can be understood with 5 minutes research. That is still a matter up for debate. As for the existence of the trinity, the only "scholarship" that denies that is scholarship that re-transalates the Bible specifically to get rid of the doctrine. If you equate deception with scholarship... well then no wonder you are an atheist. Any port in a storm I suppose.
Have you ever seen two Star Wars devotees go at it over which design of the Death Star was the one that was used to guide its construction and which was the flawed design that was circulated amongst the faithful and believed by some to be the correct design? One of them is surely wrong.
Kseniya, that is the best analysis of the situation I've ever seen.
It would be a sorry state of affairs if people like David weren't allowed to express their views fully and completely.
That doesn't mean that you're obliged to pay attention to them past the first few posts - and arguably you have an obligation NOT to.
If you feed the trolls, they'll just learn there's an easy meal there, and keep coming for handouts. Wildlife is just that - wild - and should be left that way.
That is true. The "starve the cat" technique is an effective way of attenuating any manner of unhealthy craving. (A stray cat will continue scratching at the back door if it knows from experience it has a chance of being fed if it persists. The only solution is to abstain, completely, from succumbing to the temptation. Eventually it will give up and try elsewhere.)
"If you feed the trolls, they'll just learn there's an easy meal there, and keep coming for handouts."
Ahh, I understand. Parasitism.
I knew it was common among pastors and churches (well, what do they provide in return for their daily bread of 'donations'?), but I didn't think it extended to mere followers as well.
Sorry David. You'll have to go. Mom and Dad say I can't keep you.
Not good to feed the troll, but since this gives me the opportunity to recycle a recent comment which gives an IMO better perspective:
I can see the contingent and arbitrary, and yes, reactive, part of atheistic groupings in the face of discrimination and exclusion, but it seems to me there are more reasons.
I don't think empirical rationality is as much affirmative as accepting, but there is a close connection to skepticism which can be affirmative. Meanwhile skepticism doesn't necessarily deal with what I used to call spirituality for lack of a better term, but essentially describe appreciation of beauty in nature and art and the awe of "getting it" when models work. Maybe you don't need special groupings in the future, but today much of this discussion and sharing takes place in environments that are skewed towards mysticism.
In Sweden the most active social grouping organizing atheists doesn't seem defineable by atheism, but by humanism in the larger sense. Humanisterna ( the Swedish Humanist Association) have become more active in the social debate of late.
Btw, their latest suggestion threw me a bit, partly because it seems I still have to get rid of lingering adolescent idealism (people grow up late nowadays :-), partly because the american or international debate has a different context. They are questioning the necessity of laws concerning religious freedom!
The context is that the laws for freedom of speach, freedom of organization, et cetera are robust enough. Apparently Humanisterna see no problem with the state - my guess is that it is defined in law as independent (secular) which would explain why we have no special laws separating state and religion as I suspect. (I have to get to the bottom of this now.)
So Humanisterna wants to deflate the special status that the seemingly superfluous religious laws lend to religion. If it works it would be nice, though perhaps not the usual method among secular nations. I can tell you that while I don't see much of a reaction unfortunately, the christians who spoke up were as non-sequitur and whiny as we are used to see. ('They are making us second level citizens!')
Oh, and I learned that Björn Ulvaeus from ABBA (remember them ?) is one of the spokespersons.
I once came to the conclusion that philosophic agnosticism (as opposed to "not enough data" agnosticism or atheism or "enough data" atheism) is fundamentalist, since nothing can move it.
The philosopher I argued with didn't like my conclusion. :-o
"News at 7: A pair of twin gods were born yesterday in Springfield, US. While the christians claim one of them, unclear which, is their savior, buddhists claim it is just reinventing the wheel. The hinduists are indifferent - they have seen this so many times before. The mohammedans doesn't care since it isn't prophesied. Apparently atheists are now converting en masse to the nearest church, while the agnosticists aren't sure if they should and in that case which church.
In connection with this the grave of Nietzsche is reported as trembling, apparently from the philosopher rapidly spinning within. Latest reports is that a voice is emanating from within, shouting "I was wrong! The gods were not born, damn it!"
In other news, dog bit man."
PZ will need every man, woman or gender agnostic he can get.
The opposing Axis of Evil has WMD's (Weapons of Mass Delusion) and inhuman brain eating memes.
While PZ can only wield Occam's Razor and the sharp tongues of the New World Order..., ehrm, excuse me, New Atheists. But of course we all expect the greater strength of truth and freedom to win out in the end.