That Willikers fella has a fine post on the differences between science and religion. Even if he obstinately refuses the label of "atheist" I have to go along with him on this:
So, science is universal, while religion is rather local. One relies on an epistemology everyone in the world has access to; the other relies on an epistemology that barely works for that religion. To say of all religions that "each is valid" is to assert an absurdity. If each religion is separately valid, and all religions contradict each other, we are way past postmodernist silliness and out the other side into pure fiction and flights of imagination. It basically causes the very idea of knowledge to be degraded to the point that it no longer has the slightest meaning.
I think he ought to be invited to speak at that Australian creationist conference. If he and I were to show up there, I'm sure they'd hate him far more than me.
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Paging Matthew Nisbet...
I think that sums up the difference nicely. Does anybody here know how many "offical" religions there are in the world? Here in the US? And every one is correct and the others wrong........
Wilkins: "So when the two conflict, as they must given that they often attempt to explain the same phenomena, which one is it rational to adopt and teach?"
They aren't interested in rationality. That's the problem.
A nun:
"Religion, you see, does not call us to the rational. Religion calls us to the Beatitudes, to the works of mercy, to the casting out of demons, to the doing of miracles for those in need, to the being and act of irrational love and burning justice of God. That is what the Transfiguration is about, that is what religion is really about, changing ourselves so we can change the world."
The difference between science and religion is actually very simple. Science accepts that there are things we don't know yet, religion assumes that there are things we can't ever know. Think about the difference between the notion of the 'powerful alien' (a staple of science fiction) and the notion of a 'god' in a religion. What's the essential difference between them? In the stories, they both do amazing, astonishing things. But a powerful alien is (ultimately, eventually) comprehensible - often in the story humans are able to figure out some way of duplicating its powers, or interfering with them, etc. Gods, though, are beyond what humans can do, and there's no point in trying to figure out why or how they do what they do.
Accepting that there are things that we don't know is not the same as accepting that there are things that we cannot, even in principle, know. The notion of 'the unknowable' adds nothing from a practical perspective. There is no way we can tell the difference between 'something we can never understand' and 'something we can eventually understand but do not understand yet.' We've seen plenty of cases where giving up on ever understanding something turned out to be unjustified.
With this in mind, it becomes clear that atheism is not a religion in the most critical sense of the term - it does not accept the notion of supernatural (and thus unknowable) beings or forces or influences. It's worth noting that the 'religions' that least depend on such notions - e.g. Buddhism or Confucianism - are also the most likely to be called 'philosophies' or something similar. There's already doubt that they 'count' as religions.
Could we maybe refrain from ever mentioning Nisbet again? I don't think he adds anything to any conversation.
mea culpa
How about Roger Nisbet?
They said the same thing about Carrot Top.
It never even occurs to them to just go and change the world themselves, does it? People at my work pass around one of those big "monthly prayer" sheets from some megachurch; you know the kind -- three or four paragraphs of of submission and whining for change and the strength to do this and that. I never hung up the copies that were left for me, and finally posted my own item, which stays up:
His description is to the point and simply explained.
To sum up succinctly; all religions are insane bullshit.
#8
Kind of a secular Desiderata - well said!
Well, I hope y'all enjoyed the exchange on the meaning of life further down the thread.
Meanwhile, I'm discovering that there are more kinds of instrumentalism (and probably more kinds of scientific realism) than I could ever have imagined from my limited background in the purer, more epistemological, end of philosophy of science.
PZ: "Could we maybe refrain from ever mentioning Nisbet again?"
Okay... how about Jim Nisbet, author of THE OCTOPUS IN MY HEAD?
To Ranson@8
Wow, that is a beautiful and powerfully expressed sentiment. The atheists 'prayer' perhaps?
Wait, what about Michael Nesbit? Oh, wait,I'm thinking of Michael Nesmith. Nevermind.
PZ said: "Which religion?"
Obviously, the correct religion is the one that gives me the biggest benefits package. Duh! :P
I've deconverted more than one person by pointing out essentially the same thing in a slightly different way:
All religions are divergent.
(because everyone's imagination is different)
All sciences are convergent.
(because facts are the same wherever you go)
Depending on the person, you may have to provide a lot of examples, but eventually they will come to understand that the reason why there is not separate and contradictory "American Science", "British Science", and "Japanese Science" is because they all draw from the same well of facts, so inevitably converge (eventually: individuals an be stubborn and in places, like the former USSR, political pressures can slow, but not stop, science)
After you get this through, ask why no two religions have ever come to the same conclusions. If there is one, presumably loving, God, why didn't Spanish conquistadors come to the new world and find a bunch of Mayans reading an independently-revealed Old Testament? The simplest explanation is, even if there is a God, we as a species are not in communication with him/her/it. We basically just make stuff up, and so observe the expected pattern of different mythologies that only have similarities based on geographical and temporal proximity (much like language, actually: every language is useful and well-fit to its users, but it would be ridiculous to search for a "one true language"), and common physical metaphors and observations (eg metaphors based on fire, water etc can have similar functions in different religions, cosmological systems based on astronomical observations can have natural similarities)
"To sum up succinctly; all religions are insane bullshit."
This is exactly why Skepticism and Atheism have such a horrible PR problem and seem to loose the fight for the public sympathy so often.
I am a skeptic, and very scientifically minded person. I also believe ( though I struggle with reconciling the two views) in some kind of god or spiritual force in the universe. To me all religions do have value in that they are all attempts to explain that force in a way that the average person can understand. They all, if taken at a symbolic level, have ostensibly the same message.
They almost all also have some very bad messages wrapped up in the dogmatic content due to the fact that they are mostly all very old and based in a misogynistic and authoritarian world view. I believe that being able to recognize the good in all religions as well as the bad and being able to respect other peoples beliefs while still promoting a progressive interpretation of them is a good thing.
There are a lot of people like me out there, people who can be persuaded away from the dangerous siren call of fundamentalism.
Calling me and insane moron who's beliefs are bullshit is definitely not the way to do that. We would all be far better served if we could promote the view that it's ok to believe in god and accept the reality of science. The idea that it is either or is the same kind of black and white, us and them thinking that the fundamentalists we all abhor use.
Of course, science has the same advantage (universality) over rationalism and atheism as it has over religion. I read rationalists and atheists on this blog arguing all the time over animal rights, gun control, etc. I read rationalists/atheists that are adamantly for the war, and others that are passionately against it. I read rationalist/atheist libertarians, and rationalist/atheists who denounce libertarianism as, if you will, the spawn of Satan. Uber- rationalist Sam Harris gets Japanese-animation doe-eyed over eastern mysticism, while other rationalist atheists denounce it as poppycock. The differences that rationalists/atheists have, as far as I can tell, are as broad as the differences among the religious. Rationalism (outside of science) appears to be little better at forming a consensus than a random draw.
What religion you ask? I ask "what rationalism?" If rationalists don't agree on non-scientific questions, then exactly what does it mean?
And inside of science, those of us who are believers operate the same way as our unbelieving colleagues. There the issue of one's religion is effectively irrelevant.
So--what's the point?
Be careful when bringing up Michael Nesmith. He only lends credence to the notion that apes evolved from man. (And so soon after Charlton Heston's death, no less. Have some respect!)
How about Miles Naismith?
Troy @ 17
What is religion without dogma? I'm not trying to be a jerk, that is the honest question that came to mind when reading your post above. Where does the dogma end and the symbolic belief begin?
Pfft! This reasoning is just as poisoned by the Levantine megafaiths as the fundies' beliefs are. Too many of us can not get out of the exclusionary religious mindset that is a hallmark of middle-eastern faiths. The idea that all GODS are valid is a cornerstone of both western humanism and, in a more obtuse sense, far-eastern faiths of immanence like Mahayana Buddhism or Taoism. As Cicero said in the era before Christianity and Mithraism were introduced to the west, "to the common man all gods are equally real, to the statesman all gods are equally useful and to the philosopher all gods are equally false".
What is really being said here is that the idea that all DOGMA is equally valid is absurd (and it is). But the idea of infallible dogma is pretty much a product of Zoroaster and, through the Persian influence, the faiths of the book and, to a lesser extent, Hinduism and Therevada Buddhism. And because of Christianity's long-term influence we modern westerners often find it hard to separate the ideas of dogmatism and faith. But they are not, necessarily, one and the same.
Jason @ 21
The difference is between a literal and a symbolic interpretation of scripture.
As a quick example, the bible says that god created the world in 6 days, made man in his image out of clay, the devil made eve eat from the apple and the knowledge destroyed mans happiness.
Obviously the creation of our universe may have happened in an instant with the big bang, but required billions of years to result in earth, and then humanity. I can read this and understand it all as a symbolic interpretation of how a creator may have guided or set in motion the process of the universe and still see value in it without accepting the dogmatic view.
The problem with religions today is not the core message (most of the time) it is how that message is used and twisted to justify whatever agenda is on the minds of those who wield the weapon of religious authority on the masses.
My point is that you dont win people over to your viewpoint by insulting what they hold dear, but by translating that so that it can be seen as the same meesage as your own.
Hard to form these ideas at work, I hope my point is coming through.
Isaiah Berlin the pluralist applies here. You can discover physical laws that are universal. Human institutions, customs, art, language, etc. are another matter. The Enlightenment philosophes thought you could discover these things like you could Newton's laws. Berlin argued that this thinking, put into practice, caused a lot of trouble.
When the pope calls a news conference to announce that the Vatican is working on cures for cancer, then I might re-think organized religions' usefulness in this world......
#18 Heddle,
Yes, atheists argue with each other consistently. This is because the statement "There is no god" does not lead inexorably to any conclusion about the Iraq war, animal rights, or gun control.
What being an atheist does allow is the removal of scripture as a means of argumentation.
Science, of course, is quite powerful, but there are times when decisions need to be made on imperfect evidence or a lack of ability to experiment. In these cases, using rationalism over religion makes decisions less of a random draw. You're at least restricting your set of evidence to evidence you know exists. A single-religion society also reduces randomicity, but by mandating an extra set of unwarranted assumptions.
I think a better way to say it is that you can respect the core ideals of christianity or islam or buhddism without beliving in the literal interpretation espoused by the fundamentalists of those sects.
I can belive in the value of trying to live a spiritual Zen like life without accepting that a monk can cast an "ultimate cures of destruction" after midnight and kill me.
I can belive in the value of Christ's teachings without accepting the ressurection, the rapture or that "god hates fags."
I can belive in the value of Mohammed's ideals without blindly following the next jihad of the week or running of to kill my daughter if she dates the wrong guy.
That is what I mean by accepting the ideals and not the dogma.
CrypticLife,
Rationalist/atheist A1 looks at all relevant evidence and concludes that the Iraq war was justified.
Rationalist/atheist A2 looks at the same evidence and concludes that the Iraq war is an atrocity.
Religionist R1 reads the bible and the Koran and concludes that Islam is correct.
Religionist R2 reads the bible and the Koran and concludes that Christianity is correct.
Is there a substantive qualitative difference here that I am missing? If at least one of the rationalists is not assuming facts not in evidence--unwarranted assumptions as you called them when attributing them to the religious, why do they reach polar opposite conclusions?
I have often wondered why xian/jewish/muslim faiths can say their god is the original one and only god when there are religions that predate the Abrahamic religion(s). Hinduism is a still surviving belief system that is older, but most of the oldest religions have long since faded into obscurity and, interestingly enough, almost none of them were monotheistic.
If the premise is that a god/godess exists, wouldn't the very first religion be the only true religion/deity(ies)? Or is the Abrahamic god so racist that he refused to reveal himself to earlier people, opting instead to wait until the Hebrew nation came into being?
Oh that would make sence since Jeebus became the only way to salvation in a time before global mass media. "Fuck those bastards who aren't within my posse's range", saith he. "Out of site - out of mind, them's are the breaks...except for those native American dudes (in what will be known as Utah) that I'm going to magically appear in front of." And Jeebus began to berate himself for ending a sentence with a preposition.
heddle, you are missing something big. Whether something is justified or an atrocity is a matter of moral judgement; the difference between Islam and Christianity is a matter of facts.
That is, there are facts about the world that would determine whether belief in Islam or Christianity are warranted, but there are no facts about the world that would determine whether the Iraq war was justified or not.
heddle,
As usual you miss the point. One can have different opinions about a variety of topics. But rationalist/science will usually arrive at the same point given the same set of facts. Being rational doesn't mean one has to agree on every multifaceted point as their is no central idea pushing outwards.
Not so with a religion which as another poster pointed out are obviously divergent.
This is abit of a strawman as it rarely happenes this way in reality. Most people don't read either one and those that do amazingly choose the religion prevelant in their own culture nearly 100% of the time. Then depending on their brain power will often create bizarre arguments and justification for them doing so.
It basically causes the very idea of knowledge to be degraded to the point that it no longer has the slightest meaning
It basically causes the very idea of knowledge to be degraded to the point that it no longer has the slightest meaning
It basically causes the very idea of knowledge to be degraded to the point that it no longer has the slightest meaning
It basically causes the very idea of knowledge to be degraded to the point that it no longer has the slightest meaning
I could do that all day! I've hardly ever seen it put so well.
It basically causes the very idea of knowledge to be degraded to the point that it no longer has the slightest meaning
Actually I disagree on some level. Of course one need not always be insulting but a place for jokes is ok. I mean you wouldn't sit and not laugh with a variety of individuals who believe in many forms of woo-woo so why does religion which is larger but the same woo-woo get a pass?
Troy, what you mean is that you can accept the humanist principles of these faiths without accepting the supernatural commitments. That's fine, but it turns religious belief into a social club or benevolent society, and not a religion as usually conceived.
You may be right that, in a practical sense, society would be better off promoting that idea. But it would be a lie, unless the god one believes in does not in any way interact with the physical world. I know of no religion (with the exception of Deism) that would accept that position. If you don't accept that position, then you don't really accept the reality of science.
Would you tell someone who denied that gravity existed that they could reconcile their belief with science, or would you make the black-and-white statement that they will fall if they jump off a skyscraper? The truth often is black-and-white, and the difference between rationalists and fundamentalists is not in how they view the truth, but how they determine it.
It's very simple troy, because then I should give the same respect to wiccans, alien abduction theorists, scientologists, or any other guy who shows up claiming crazy shit, as I would to any christian or muslim or buddhist or hindu. Because the evidence for their beliefs is just as good (or bad). Now, are you as open minded to the fact that aliens may exist, or witches roam the world, or faith-healing as you are that jesus might have been resurrected?
There is only one system of belief that actually happens to work for everyone, irrespective of how or where they were brought up, and that's science.
the difference between Islam and Christianity is a matter of facts
See sentence quoted above.
That statement is so mind numbingly obvious you have to wonder why so many people just don't get it.
I'm dropping this in, a quote from another blog. It was posted in relation to the recent Monique Davis atheist-hysteria incident.
"Does the name Charles Templeton ring a bell? He became a big, big evangelical preacher sixty years ago. Even co-founded Youth for Christ International with Billy Graham. Five years before he died he wrote a book called Farewell to God, which details his conversion to agnosticism. The last two pages contain a bullet-list of the core principles that guided him (and, I would assert, guide virtually all atheists and agnostics in this country) as he lived a non-religious life. Here are a few. They don't look very dangerous to me:
>> I believe that selfishness is the root of all evil and that caring is the greatest good.
>> I believe that, because we have the ability to control our actions and to discriminate between what we understand to be good or bad, we are responsible for the way we live.
>> I believe that the greatest motivating force in life is love. Caring for someone we will be motivated to seek the best for that person and will be ennobled in so doing.
>> I believe that you cannot love your neighbor as yourself, but that you should care about your neighbor, whoever he is and wherever he lives, help him when you can and co-operate with him to make our world a better place.
>> I believe that life is the superlative gift and is to be celebrated.
Can we still mention Mrs. Nesbitt, one of Monty Python's Pepperpots?
Yes, your first pair of statements concerns what is morally justified, and your second pair of statements concerns what is 'correct', I assume meaning 'true'. If you had asked why atheists disagree on moral claims you might have had a point, but now you're just being obtuse.
Troy #17
[tut, tut. whose. But, seriously ... ]
Come on Troy, one angry commentator here or there is enough to drive you back into the dark cave of ignorance? (And it's Holbach, for goodness sake; he's our pet pitbull, but don't worry, we keep him on a chain.)
Heddle #18
And again at #28
The time factor, for one thing. One side has been wrong about the Iraq war for 5 years now. In a few more years we'll have a preyty definitive answer to that. (See: Wars, Korea, Vietnam, Bosnia ...) One side has been wrong about Christianity for two fucking millenia now. And we know which side too. That's an awful lot of wrong.
Historical and present-day debates over emotive issues like slavery, women's rights, the death penalty, animal cruelty, don't get settled overnight by rational debate. But they don't just hang in the limbo of 'Godsaidso' either. And when they do get settled it's because the science - the facts - were gradually accepted over the emotions. Science does work, just not always as fast as we'd like.
PeteC,
I don't get it. Then what does it mean to look at the question of the Iraq war rationally? If it is not facts that you are evaluating, where does rationality enter the picture?
JimC
You used rationalist/science when I was speaking outside of science--using rationalist/atheist. Of course within science all we scientists (atheists or religious) tend to agree except, perhaps, on bleeding edge stuff that is still being explored. (Of course we might vehemently disagree on the philosophical implications of the science.)
Outside of science I don't know how you conclude rationalists, given the same facts, usually arrive at the same point. I gave examples of contentious debates I have seen on this blog--say on animal experimentation. Are both sides being rational? If so, what exactly is rationality achieving? Is one side being irrational, even though they believe they are being rational? If so, how to distinguish the True Rationalist™?
Jsn #29 asks:
I've spent a lot of time in Islamic countries and I'm always being told that Islam is superior precisely because it is the last of the revealed religioned, thus the most correct. Just like Einstein is more correct than Newton who was more correct than Ptolemy. It's one of their favourite tea-garden arguments.
People keep saying this kind of thing, and it's not true. Some of my most satisfying learning experiences have been when people tell me I'm wrong, WRONG, WRONG, and then I'm motivated to get down to the data and see whether I am. And sometimes I am, and sometimes I'm not, but either way, it's the pursuit that is what helps me figure things out.There is so much wrong-headed insistence that we must always pull our punches lest we offend or bruise the thin and delicate skin of our opponents, and that they'll only learn if we gently coax them. Bullshit. Sometimes all the mollycoddling does is confirm in their own minds that they're right. We need people to be kind and nice and help those who want to learn, but we also need combative arguers who'll motivate the fools to actually look something up on their own.
"Science gives us major answers to minor questions, while religion gives us minor answers to major questions." --Oliver Wendell Holmes
Troy @ #17 Even if i had couched my comment in inocuous
terms the meaning and result would be the same answer.
Why is it that I was a religionist years ago, and yet with
simple observation, commom sense, a good amount of reading
to comprehend the thoughts of superior minds, and the
overriding realization that life went on with no results
from an avenging imaginary god, the upsurge in a very
sensible life free from all superstitions only proved that
religion is a restriction both to the mind and living a
sensible life. Why is it that you and others of your ilk
can not seem to divest yourselves of this same stultifying
and demeaning drivel when all the means to do so are just
so damn obvious? The only logical answer is the current
state of your mind that even though it can reason otherwise
you will not attempt to do because of a combination of fear
for the nonexistent and a seriously weak will. I did so,
yet you cannot. What else can I glean from this example
but that you are deficient in character and intelligence.
You are hopeless and will remain so because it can be done
but you refuse to exercise your evolutionary prerogative.
heddle-
This was answered above in #41. I think you are viewing the process as the answer. Both sides can disagree as they are progressing through material but eventually the sieve will tilt one way until we have consensus.
The basic problem is that morals are simply opinions. It is safe to say that many enter discussions basing these opinions on few facts or observations. As more information becomes known or shared rational individuals tend to reach consensus.
In religion you are starting from a point of 'knowledge' ,which is obviously not so, but then working often feverishly to prop it up. There is no process at all.
Woof woof...
Down, boy. Down.
Enough Troy. You've preached three sermons. One more will make me strap on the bronze bra and magical bracelets.
PZ: There is so much wrong-headed insistence that we must always pull our punches lest we offend or bruise the thin and delicate skin of our opponents, and that they'll only learn if we gently coax them. Bullshit. Sometimes all the mollycoddling does is confirm in their own minds that they're right. We need people to be kind and nice and help those who want to learn, but we also need combative arguers who'll motivate the fools to actually look something up on their own.
That's right. People are not so thin-skinned that they can't accept a little criticism. Give them some credit!
Insult is therapeutic - for the insulter and the insulted.
JimC,
Where is the evidence for that? Am I to believe that if I took 100 rational Obama supporters and 100 rational Clinton supporters and let them have a rational debate then, given enough time, a unanimous consensus would be reached? How about 100 "new atheists" and a 100 umbrella toting appeasers? 100 framers and 100 non-framers?
No, I don't buy it. If it is true, the time scale must be so long as to be impractical. Again, where is the evidence?
Inside science-yes, outside science-no. And within science it is irrelevant, since we all follow the same tried and true scientific method.
Strangely enough, Epicurus seems to have invented it independently, because he was short-sighted enough to believe that doubt was irreconcilable with happiness. And that guy was a major influence on the Apostle Paul...
Actually, I don't think this has ever happened. Keyword "all".
(And, Holbach, please stop hitting Enter when you don't want to make a paragraph break. All those line jumps make your comments difficult to read -- seriously.)
David Marjanović
Let me assume you are a rationalist and were opposed to the war. Are you saying that, at the time, if you and Hitchens could have just gotten together, unioned your two sets of relevant facts, discussed the implications of the shared pool of data, then one or the other would have been turned?
Nah, I don't think so.
So all parts of science are universal? Bullcrap.
Parts of science isn't excepted by all scientists or people.
I see the evdence shown by scientists that have a world view that is atheistic and a limited point of view at that when dealing with evolution. Do I accept it? No, I think for myself and view the evdience in a different light as do others. Therefore science as a whole is not universal.
Second of all, Christians follow both the old and new old testaments. The jews have the same religion and same God, they just don't follow Jesus and thus the new testament.
That doesn't mean it's any less true. It means man who is coruptable doesn't always follow God. Science most people who are anti-religion don't get it and are not educated with religion and thus they won't know this.
I see the same ignorance over and over again from the anti-religion folks. Again if you are going to know science you should also know relgiion before you can comment on it.
Miles Naismith? What about James Naismith? Quite the good week for his legacy, what.
[Rock Chalk!]
Tulse @ 34
"If you don't accept that position, then you don't really accept the reality of science."
That is the key that I think we disagree upon, and it is the key that excludes the vast majority of the world from being able to relate with us.
I cant find the source of the quote but the statement "Mathematics is the language of God." Summs up what I belive and is something that can help bridge the huge chasm between the deeply religious and the deeply skeptical.
You are correct in that accepting a truly scientific world view excludes the possiblity of wild magickal miracles. However, to bring someone over into the camp of the rational you have to start somewhere and conceding the possiblity that god(or whatever) is the force behind the laws we currently understand of the universe gives you at least some common ground on which to build a foundation.
JimC @ 33
Actually I would not laugh and that's the point. The idea here is not to sit back, say HA HA you're a retard and Im better than you, then go back to our ivory towers and look down on the multitudes of morons beneath us.
If you want a world where GW Bush is the future and not a relic of the past then we need to get past this and fast.
The enemy understand this, they don't talk down to people and it works. If you doubt this just take a look at the box office figures for Passion of the Christ, and remember that the same marketing and grass roots mobilization juggernaught that turned that horrific bit of torture porn into one of the highest grossing films of all time is massing behind Expelled and none of them care that the movie is a mass of lies.
If you want to compete with that you will NOT do it by laughing at them and calling them stuipid. You will do it by relating to people in a way they can understand and accept by finding some common ground and expanding upon it.
Coriolis @ 35
Yes wiccans deserve the same respect as christians, and for exactly the reason you give because if any religion has any validity as a philosophy then all have some.
I do draw a distiction between religions and Alien Abdutees, 9/11 Truthers, Lunar Landing Deniers, Holocaust Deniers ect... One is a faith based belief, the other is pseudo science and cloaks itself in the language of science without understanding the facts of how science actually works.
As for Scientology, well now we are talking about cults and that's a whole different conversation.
Ranson @ #8 - can I steal that? and if so, who should I credit? it's *wonderful*
Heddle ~51
Consensus about what? For a scientist, you make awfully woolly statements. So anyway, the answer is this:
About matters of taste and opinion, no.
About matters of fact, yes.
In fact, most of the debates centre round the question of which category a particular argument fits. Capital punishment can have a moral component and a factual component. As the facts become clearer they have more weight. And the timescale is not "so long as to be impractical" (see Slavery for example), it's just a bloody sight longer than the more rationally minded would like. Often thanks to irrational theists. Try contraception, for one example.
Pedlar @ # 41 I am honored to be considered Reason's
Pittbull, as Thomas Huxley was bulldog to the great
Charles Darwin. Absolute intransigence to all religions
and nonsense is a most intellectual and fulfilling role,
if even in print. Nobody coaxed me into sloughing off all
religion and nonsense; we all have the available common
sense and a wealth of scientific evidence to determine
what is logical and what is bullshit. Simple as that. If
a person chooses to live in a state of moronic nonsense,
then he should incur the wrath of reasonable people who
posess the same opportunity on an equal basis. No quarter
to those who continue to think irrationaly in spite of all
the available evolutionary evidence that our brains can
figure out.
Please forgive my spelling, I am writing this in 10 second snippets while alt-tabbing at work. I know I should just wait till I get home but I find this discussion compelling.
Gee Holbach, you are soooooo scary.
Following up:
You know, Heddle, none of this is hard to see. This is Science and Philosophy 101. And you're not a stupid man, you've demonstrated that. You're well-read; you have a good grasp of logic. I just don't understand why you let your particular dogma drag you down like this.
It's just so ... unnecessary. Embrace the fucking world, man. This world, not some whacked-out fairy tale. What a creepy way to live.
Heddle @ 28 said:
What you are missing is the next step, R1a reads the Koran and decides that the war is immoral; R1b reads the Koran and decides the war is immoral; etc for R2a&b. In this case, the religionists are not, and need not, consider evidence regarding the war, only doctrine.
Poptart (#54) -
Nice projection! Care to present any evidence for the anti-religious or atheists commenting on this site not knowing anything about religion?
Many of us are quite well-versed in historical fiction.
Holbach,
are you certain that the ability to make deductions based on repeatable, objective evidence, is just a matter of choice ?
I would direct at the religious Mark Twain's sentiments about royalty:
"I would like that irreverence to be preserved in America forever and ever - irreverence for all royalties and all those titled creatures born into privilege. Merit alone should constitute the one title to eminence, and we Americans can afford to look down and spit upon miserable titled nonentities."
Religion has achieved extra-privileged status in our country. Why?
Because there isn't enough spitting upon the miserable nonentities who use it as a title to eminence.
It's beyond time for this country to wake itself up!
@ Becca #57:
Steal away. If you like, drop by the link in my name and leave me some way of contacting you, and I'll send you a real name to credit it with.
Troy #56
Whoo, where is Vox Day when we need him? A little selective memory here, I think.
Couldn't agree more. As people, full respect. As Wiccans/Christians, none.
#65 Yes, I make a choice to deem what is rational and what
is nonsense. I make the choice to be rational because it
will do me no harm and it imprints in my brain for every
action that I determine in the future. I made the choice
on a rational basis to determine if religion is irrational
or not, and since our brains directs all that we are, even
affairs of the heart and impulse, then I react according
to it's rational dictates and it has served me well. It is
the brain that gave birth to the word god, and it is also
that same brain that rejects it's premise on a logical basis as having no meaning other than to encapture the
weak willed and irrational.
If you think fundamentalism has a "siren call" you probably are an insane moron.
You missed my point about morals/taste being an opinion. When dealing with facts rational people will reach consensus. The above is not a factual inquiry but a matter of preference.
I thought #58 a pretty good reply so I'll leave it there.
In any event even if I accepted your argument it still would leave a rationalist perspective well ahead of a religious one simply because of the open minded aspect of it. Your not pretending to have knowledge or an answer you don't really have and in this regard it makes things much more 'real'.
And presumably we should do the same for the believer in homeopathy -- to bring them into the camp of the rational we should concede that there might be medicinal powers in shaken water? We should do the same for the believer in astrology -- to bring them into the camp of the rational we should concede that objects unimaginable distances away from us might influence the day-to-day outcome of our lives? We should do the same for those who believe vaccinations cause autism -- we should, in spite of the mountain of scientific evidence that autism is primarily genetic, and that vaccination has no causal link to the disorder, concede that a former Playboy Playmate might know more about this topic and that maybe getting injections against childhood diseases might cause a neurological disorder?
Sure, on a purely pragmatic level, saying conciliatory falsehoods might be comforting to some, and might get some folks over to the side of rationality. But what is really more respectful: telling someone a patronizing bromide you know is a lie, or directly confronting them about their beliefs? I think the latter is actually far more respectful of the person's intellect.
** Better take theology seriously or you'll look very stupid **
There's no excuse for ignorance of one's opponents. I'm not kidding. This thread reeks of sophomores -- wise fools.
To grasp the misguided logic of fideism requires taking it seriously enough to examine its supposed foundations. There's no philosophical view which cannot be perverted by xians in their vain search to hide their so-called "truths" from informed argument and refutation. They've been doing this for 2,000 years -- so don't imagine that you'll get around their theologians easily!
Catholics still depend on Augstine's massive reinterpretations of Aristotle. Other RCs think that Chesterton's (Brideshead Revisited) holier than thou British put downs are the Pope's meow. Protestants are always more trendy -- how they love good ol' Kierkegaard. No . . . there are no contradictions, only paradoxes of faith. Yeah. Right.
Well, also trendy is the philosophy of the later Wittgenstein. But, let me quote a reasonably authoritative source, Dictionary of Religions 2nd ed 1995. Penguin.
Fideists have "taken up the notion of a 'language game' put forward by L[udwig] Wittgenstein (1889-1951) to argue that":
a religious or theological position is a self-contained system of understanding with its own presuppositions and rules which cannot be validly criticized or justified outside the system. p. 170.
Basically, the form of argument here takes shape as an "immunizing strategy" -- it renders impossible any rational critique by ruling certain "truths" immune from doubt. An immunizing strategy is simply a form of begging-the-question. That is, just another form of circular argument -- presupposing what one otherwise needs to prove.
Talk about "not pouring new wine in old skins." Have you read your NT lately? (Start with 1st Corinthians Chpt 1. Verses 18-28.) And, who is your favorite theologian?
bipolar2
© 2008
So, as far as I understand you (tory) think that the important difference between "normal" religions, and psychics, alien abductionists, and any old conspiracy theorist is that normal religions don't pretend to be scientific, and the others claim to be scientific, and they aren't?
Ok, that's a distinction that can be made for some of those, however, certainly not all of them. I really doubt that most people into ghosts/psychics/astrology/eastern mystics/faith healers, etc. would claim to be scientific, if not the vast majority at least quite a few don't. So all of them that do not claim to be scientific, should be taken just as seriously as mainstream religions? You'd say "Oh yeah he's a good astrologer"?
Not to mention that you claim the scientology is a cult. I of course, agree with that, but what exactly is the difference in the evidence for the truth of scientology vs. that of any other religion? What makes you claim that it's "a whole other story"? On what basis am I supposed to judge that one should be afforded respect and not the other one. It's certainly not money since all mainstream churches get quite a bit of that from their followers. Without even going historical with what the christian church used to get away with in terms of indulgences, etc.
All of what I'm saying is not to say that I think we "should" definetly not respect religious people. What I'm pointing out is the hypocrisy of most people who go on and on about respecting people's beliefs, when in effect they are really only willing to respec their own, and maybe a few other mainstream religions.
Tulse,
"But what is really more respectful: telling someone a patronizing bromide you know is a lie, or directly confronting them about their beliefs?"
I think that's clear. But here is another question : is direct confrontation the most efficient manner to get people to question their irrational beliefs ?
gort,
You guys are sending mixed messages. PeteC and others have argued that it is not facts that lead one to support/disapprove of the war. JimC argues that if we share facts and have enough time, we'll agree. You are saying the difference with R1/R2 is they base their choice on doctrine, not evidence--but again others here have said it that it is opinions not facts--even for the rationalists--so what exactly is the difference?
JimC,
So if there are not enough facts to decide, rationally, if Obama is preferred over Clinton, then the decision, for the rationalist/atheist, is based on opinion? Fair enough. And exactly how is that different from a conclusion based on the opinions of a religionist? What is superior about the rationalist? After all the rationalist's opinions cannot be fact-based since, by your theory, all rationalists would have arrived at the same opinions given the same facts.
Heddle, did you flunk reading comprehension? Like in Grade 3?
You guys are sending mixed messages.
No, we're not. Slowly and carefully, now, for the folks reading along in their books (turn the page when you hear the "AAARGH!")...
PeteC and others have argued that it is not facts that lead one to support/disapprove of the war.
That's right, because even working from the exact same set of facts two people may have different opinions on the ethical or moral implications of those facts. Facts aren't in dispute. Matters of taste or opinion -- even if derived from an interpretation of stone cold facts -- often are.
You're drawing a false equivalence here. You're not even comparing apples and oranges; you're comparing apples and whether Holbach likes Led Zeppelin more than PZ does. (I hate Led Zeppelin, which is a matter of taste or opinion, but Holbach, PZ, and I can all agree on the fact that Led Zeppelin was a band that released a lot of music in the 1970s.)
JimC argues that if we share facts and have enough time, we'll agree.
Yes, we'll agree on matters of fact, if we're rational and not driven to disregard facts by the overweening weight of one or other opinions we might be carrying around.
Fact != opinion, except in the heads of people like creationists and political nutcases...
Edith Nesbit?
Of course we are gaining facts and moving towards consensus! A micro example at work.
The opinions of the rationalist don't add an uneeded superstitious step. Although I will grant you that all a religion is trying to do is influence the opinion of an individual although in their case they use emotions more often than anything resembling a fact.
And I still think your missing the boat on the above. Take GWB as an example. When the election was held years ago people rationalist and religionist had to choose whom to cast their vote. We only have so much information at that time to form a hypothesis on who we think would be the best President.
Now as time has passed and more evidence has come in regarding GWB performance even many of his former supporters have regretted their choice. Given national polls it seems a consensus has been reached that he is a poor choice as a president. There are the limited numbers though who hold dogmatically to him.
They always exist I think and are the opposite of rationalists.
So your question above really is just the very first stages of the sci method. We have observed the candidates and we are currently forming a hypothesis. We must wait for the evidence to confirm or rebut it.
Ranson (#8), that's brilliant. Thank you.
And if humans need religion to change themselves, and therefore change the world, why are there still wars? Haven't religions had plenty of time to change people so they can figure out how to end war?
It's been a few thousand years, right?
Pedlar,
Tea talks, eh?
It seems odd that religion, claiming it is the ultimate truth and that god is omnipotent and omniscient, relies on revisionism. Science depends on revising points of view as new technology/data is revealed just as you pointed out with the Copernicus
Oops, I missed a couple of periods.
Interrobang
I must be doing better, I usually don't get a concession that I have reached the 3rd Grade level.
Um, let me try again.
1) In science, rationality works. To first order we all agree on the widely accepted theories, certainly those within our own areas of expertise. The scientist-atheist and the scientist-believer both do science the same way, both agree on most things, and disagree (on science) as much with each other as with the other camp.
2) Outside of science, as I think many people have stated, opinion, to a far greater extent, combines with an insufficient fact database, which is why we have militant atheists and appeaser atheists, liberal atheists and conservative atheists. It is a difference of opinion.
3) Given 2, what is the advantage over religionists? We too base our conclusions on a convolution of facts and opinions.
The bottom line is, inside science I am as rational as any atheist scientist. And outside science the atheist scientist, just like me, will arrive at conclusions based, to some extent, on opinions. And the conclusions they reach will be as full spectrum as the diversity of religious believes. And, for example, the Obama crowd will think they are right and the Clinton crowd is wrong with the same opinion-based conviction that the baptists think they are right and the Presbyterians are wrong.
JimC,
What are they based on? It can't be cold hard facts, otherwise you could just present the facts and convince all other rationalists. You could say "look here, I understand you are for Clinton. But let me fill you in on a few facts and I'll change your mind."
No, they are based on emotions. Pehaps a "feeling" that it would be wonderful to have a woman president. Or a feeling that more liberal is better, and Obama is more liberal. In is based on things that you cannot use to convince your fellow rationalist, because he won't share the same feelings.
That's no different, as far as I can see, from a believer who, outside of science, reaches conclusions based in part on what you called superstition.
In the various threads regarding The Topic That Shall Not Be Named, any number of people put forth affirmative evidence on this matter. In terms of persuasion in general, I would argue that the huge shift to the political right in the US was largely due to the polarized, partisan, vitriolic work of talk radio and conservative pundits. It is, at the very least, hard to argue that that strategy was unsuccessful.
So I think it is indeed an open question as to whether direct confrontation is effective, but I think there is indeed evidence for that position. What evidence do you have that, overall, in terms of shifting the culture, such a strategy doesn't work?
DonZilla
Yup. And even today, there's plenty of violence to go around - even between people who disagree on relatively subtle points of doctrine within the same religion.
This alone qualifies as an impressive accomplishment, does it not?
To dismiss the attractive power that fundamentalism has for many people is to dangerously underestimate the enemy. Any fundamentalist view point can be very comforting to a person who is in a difficult situation. For a person who is poor, has lost his job, and has a terrible living standard it is much easier to believe that it is all part of god's plan and everything will be ok because you get 77 virgins when you blow yourself and a few hundred innocent bystanders to bits, than to accept that your life and situation is a result of your choices and the choices of those around you.
To accept a scientific world view requires that you accept responsibility for your own life. That can be a terrifying proposition for a vast majority of people especially those in sub standard living conditions.
I just don't understand how anyone can seriously believe that the best way to try to combat that is to take an insulting and dismissive attitude.
Im not saying that you lie to people, it's perfectly valid to say something like this.
"I understand why you believe in god but this is why I do not." That is a much more effective way to start a conversation than "You are an insane idiot because you do not share my views."
Do you really believe that Newton, Einstein, Darwin, Galileo, Copernicus and so many others are all insane morons simply because they were able to reconcile the idea of a god with the idea of a rational and predictable universe?
Mr. Heddle,
Of course it's different. Opinions, even when vague, are based on knowledge and/or experience. They fail to fully support rational decision-making processes due to their incompleteness - not due to their completely fantastic and factually vacuous nature, as is the the case with superstitions.
Yes, but heddle, there is a difference in the expectations that scientists have about knowledge and how it changes and religious expectations.
In your example of clinton vs. obama, a rationalist would always be open to new facts on clinton or obama that could change his mind. I.e., if it turns out obama voted extremely conservatively then he'd be considered less liberal. Furthermore, just because we cannot come to the exact same conclusion based on the same sets of facts does not mean that all conclusions are equally "reasonable".
More importantly, in science, no theory is assumed to be unchangeable - in fact it is expected that all theories are incomplete and open to change. On the contrary, religious doctrine is not open to change. Nobody is trying to edit the bible or quran to make it a better moral guide or anything of that nature. Every scientist is trying to modify current theories, or flat out dissprove old ones.
This radically different attitude towards new facts and their ability to change old conceptions is what is why science and religion are just not comptatible at a basic level. Not to say that religious people cannot do good science - I know some who do, but when you realize about 90% of the US is religious, and about 90% of National academy scientists are not... that's pretty huge.
Strangely enough, Epicurus seems to have invented it independently, because he was short-sighted enough to believe that doubt was irreconcilable with happiness.
I'd call Epicurus an ideologue not a dogmatist.
And that guy was a major influence on the Apostle Paul...
That is a common, although I believe overstated, theory. Paul being from Tarsus, a center of Epicurean thought, was without a doubt familiar with the philosophy and borrowed quite a bit of language and method from the Epicurians. But his theology of exceptionalism is Levantine not Hellenic (again, he borrowed the imagery of the Hellenic Mysteries but not the substance) and his philosophy is antithetical to Epicurianism.
Now, one could argue that the truly horrendous bits of misogynistic, homophobic, millennialistic and religiously intolerant claptrap in the Pauline epistles are actually the works of Psuedo-Paul (ie, later additions placed in Paul's mouth) but effectively they are part and parcel of Pauline Christianity (which is all of it these days).
And I must add my favorite Paul joke:
Catholicism represents the victory of Peter's theology over Paul's.
Protestantism represents the victory of Paul's theology over Peter's.
Evangelicalism represents the victory of Paul's theology over Jesus'.
Could we maybe refrain from ever mentioning Nisbet again? I don't think he adds anything to any conversation.
What does Nisbet know about PYGMIES + DWARFS?
@Sarcastro
That joke puts it all much more succinctly than any argument I've tried to put together on the matter.
Also, too few people reference The Tick on this blog. Five bonus points to you.
To a point I agree but again #87 put it pretty much on point.
No, they are decisions based firmly in this world. No need or reason to pretend any other way.
For whoever was looking for the number of religious sects in the world, www.adherents.com/ is probably the best site that details that.
I recall (probably incorrectly) a number of discinct xian sects being upwards of 30k, but 1) I could be misremembering the number; and 2) it probably would depend somewhat on how one defines a distinct sect.
Cheers.
Kseniya ,
I'm not convinced. If a conservative rational atheist argues "less government means more money in the hands of the achievers which leads to a stronger economy and consequently is more beneficial to the working class" (clearly such people exist--the Ayn Randians) and a liberal rational atheist argues "more government is needed to redistribute the wealth and spur education which will lead to a stronger economy" each will view the other's opinion as something akin to a superstition--a belief with no basis in evidence.
Coriolis,
Of course it is. To take a sad example, before the 19th century the idea that there would be a rapture followed a seven year tribulation and reign of a anti-Christ followed by a thousand year reign of Christ in Jerusalem in a rebuilt temple was unknown. Now millions of Christians believe it.
Yes, with lots of possible explanations. Not the least of which is that scientists are self confident. In general, most people acknowledge that (speaking only of Christianity) that there are far fewer practicing Christians than those who answer yes to the "Are you a Christian?" question (which is nowhere near 90%). Out of peer pressure/cultural inertia people answer yes. Scientists, it may be, have the confidence to say "no I am not a Christian." This is one of the great benefits of the new atheism. If you can get more people who are not Christians to admit it by reducing the stigma of being an atheist, then it's a win-win.
Another is self-selection. Christian schools are abysmal when it comes to teaching science, and there is an unfortunate and pervasive anti-science bias in many churches, denominations, and Christian schools and seminaries. So a good fraction of the best and brightest Christian students have no opportunity for (or have been discouraged from) a science field. They end up in seminary. This self-selection is not unlike what happens with women. I don't know the statistic, but based on conferences I would say physics is around 90% male. Surely we agree that it is not because men are smarter.
Some here might find the articles on Irrationalism, Religion, Ecology and Democracy found below to be useful:
http://www.democracynature.org/vol4/vol4.htm
A few points in relation to rationality outside science:
1) Maybe a quibble: there are other domains of rational enquiry: mathematics and logic, parts of history and philosophy, even parts of literary criticism. I can accept "science" as shorthand.
2) Once we get into taste and morality, we can still apply the criterion of internal consistency. If I simultaneously hold that all human beings should be granted equal rights, and that it's acceptable for men to coerce and mistreat their wives, my "morality" is inconsistent. similarly if I say I prefer tea to coffee, coffee to cocoa, and cocoa to tea.
3) Also, morality and taste appear to have important innate components - OK, this is still opinion, but this is likely to lead to more agreement than you would otherwise expect.
4) Both religious and non-religious ideologies can mandate factual beliefs which are false, and use these as premises in arguments which have important implication. One religious example: the belief that God adds a "soul" to every human zygote. One non-religious one: the belief in "recovered memories" from hypnosis.
5) The fact that someone argues something does not imply that they believe it (I'm thinking here of the example of Randians soemone gave). They may be simply lying, or in more complicated psychological states where they simultaneously know and conceal from themselves that what they are saying is false.
Troy #86
Strawman! Strawman!
Come on, Tony, people are going to stop responding to you if you make up shit like this. No-one is saying "You are an insane idiot because you do not share my views." [Well, no-one except Holbach, woof woof.] Now, you might infer that, you might think we imply that, but we do not say that. Don't lie to yourself, and don't lie to us.
We think certain specific religious claims are idiotic, even insane, and we say so.
We think certain specific religious people are idiotic, even insane, and we say so.
We give certain, specific reasons for saying so.
We NEVER say it is "because you do not share my views."
No. Do you really think even for a tiny moment that we do? So why ask such a stupid, dishonest question? Why not use it as a starting point for thinking for yourself?
Jsn #81
They're quite sophisticated about, really. See when God first appeared to the Old Abrahamic tribes people were uneducated and childish so God spoke to them like little children, laying down nursery rules and telling them nursery stories. That's the Old Testament. Then by Jesus' time they were able to appreciate modern morals and parables and more adult behaviour. That's the New Testament. Then by Mohammed's time God figured they were finally ready for a real grownup version so he dictated the Koran. And that's as perfect as it gets. All the answers. See? I knew it would make sense to you when I explained it so simply.
Gee, thanks guys. And thanks for all the tea. And no, no carpets today, thank you.
Of course, just to add to my last post, it is by now obvious that Angel Moroni's Golden Plates are the final even more perfect revelation that we have all been waiting for and boy are those muslims going to be pissed when they realise it.
All hail the prophet Joseph Smith. (Neither idiotic nor insane, no way.)
Re #98 If you really want to annoy them (and have a line of retreat ready), ask devout Muslims about the Druse or the Baha'i - their prophets both made direct claims to supercede Muhammed!
Struggle on. If you are indeed a very scientifically-minded person, I trust you will eventually examine that belief to the point that it properly evaporates. You'll find you've lost nothing of value.
The translation of which you speak is not possible without undermining either the science or the religion - even your vague spirituality. The scientific method does not justify that kind of belief.
I just want you to know that I feel sorry for you and that I am praying for you. To live without God is an empty life. You can try to fill it with things and try to spend your whole life proving God doesn't exist, but in the end what have you spent your life on. If God doesn't exist, then you can feel sorry for me.
I know that you probably don't want me to, but I am going to pray for you anyway and I wish you the best.
Peter Brown
I like bananas, because they have no bones.
Thanks Mr. Brown. And I'm sure you're not wasting time in futile wish fulfillment also known as prayer. Have fun with your full life. Now run along so the adults can talk.
"To live without God is an empty life."
For you, maybe. No need to generalize you paltry experience to the rest of us, thank you very much.
One person's "woo!" is another person's "blah".
Yay! A complete stranger in another country wants his sky-friend to be nice to me! Do I get to make a request?
Actually, to live a life based around a falsehood is to live an empty life. Fortunately, most believers don't actually do this - religion is more an add-on or a lot of stories that they find inspiring or whatever. But a helluva lot buy into it far more seriously.
Imagine spending your life seriously devoted to spreading the word about spiritual salvation, and to promulgating a specifically religious morality (not a secular morality like "try to be kind and honest and non-violent, etc." but, rather, "sex is bad unless redeemed by the possibility of procreation, so the use of contraception is a sin and homosexuality is evil; even early abortion is bad because, even though an embryo is insentient, it is made in the image of God and has an immortal soul, etc."). Then you realise late in life that it was all bullshit. You'd be thinking that you wasted your life.
From my point of view, that's exactly what believers are doing. They're wasting their lives if they take religious metaphysics and ethics seriously and build their lives around them.
So many wasted lives ...
@#10: Yo! Ranson! Way to go!
You speak for me as well. Thanks.
Oops. @8.
Russell,
Beautifully stated. You're fast becoming a favorite along with Cuttlefish, Ichthyic, MAJeff, Glenn D, Sarcastro and Kseniya (and a few others I can't think of off the top of my head).
Heddle,
I just spent 15 minutes working on another reply to you, and then re-read all the comments and found that all of the arguments have already been stated, multiple times.
Yet you keep asking about why we think a rational position is "superior" to a religious one.
I think it's because a religious person develops their opinions using "evidence" (doctrine, dogma) which is demonstrably false and completely untestable by way of the scientific method to which you subscribe.
Rational people at least try to establish their opinions using evidence that is material and available directly, without the need create additional evidence that cannot be shown to even exist.
Have you read Aldous Huxley's Perennial Philosophy? If you have, then you see the point. If you haven't, read it, because you will not get a better answer to how all religions can be truly true without truly contradicting each other. It gets down to something like Crowley's distinction, always cheerfully ignored by Xians, twixt "you" and "Thou."
Pedlar @97
"Come on, Tony, people are going to stop responding to you if you make up shit like this. No-one is saying "You are an insane idiot because you do not share my views." [Well, no-one except Holbach, woof woof.] Now, you might infer that, you might think we imply that, but we do not say that. Don't lie to yourself, and don't lie to us."
Come on, does it really make a difference if I substitute the phrase "because you do not share my views" with your "Because you believe in certain specific religious claims that are idiotic, even insane."
That is simple semantics and it confers the exact same message to the listener. I am not even disagreeing that certain religious views are idiotic, even insane. And remember, I am on your side here.
My goal is to prevent the public education system, the court system and the legislature from being overrun with fundamentalist religious types who will subjugate our freedoms beneath the iron boot of their own dogmatic morality.
I work in sales and marketing, and I can tell you from two decades of experience in that field that you do not promote your viewpoint by insulting someone.
In public discourse the truth is irrelevant, your intentions are irrelevant, all that matters is the message received by the listener. And the message they receive from the kind of discourse recommended here is exactly what I stated.
"you don't share my views, so your an idiot."
If that is not the message you intend to convey then you need to reconsider your delivery. When you say things like, we may infer or imply but we don't say, that's missing the point completely. I am trying to point out that if that is what your are inferring and implying then that is exactly the message that you are communicating.
I mentioned the list of luminaries exactly because I do not think anyone here would assume those people are idiots. Therefore I hope it might be possible for you to consider that since those people held views that you consider to be "idiotic, even insane" but were still brilliant capable people, that you might just consider the possibility that many others are as well and treat them with some tiny shred of respect instead of dismissive and insulting derision.
And though it may amaze you, I actually do think for myself. Perhaps the fact that I am a reader of this blog, enjoy it and agree with 95% of what I see here, despite being raised as a bible thumping, gay hating, mindless bible belt Baptist would shed some light on that.
Seriously, if this is how you treat your allies, how do you possibly expect to convince those who are already very strongly disposed to be skeptical of you?
#86
OK:
"I understand why you believe in a god, but this is why I do not:"
You believe in a god because it's a comforting fantasy, I do not, because it is not real.
Better?
Oh yes, that's not insulting or demeaning at all.
I am obviously wasting my time here, my limited brain could not hope to adequately communicate with the vast arsenal of intellectual power on display here.
Just remember this prediction Uhhm-Kaay.
In one year, Expelled will be at least the #2 or 3 highest grossing documentary in history and will be shown in a significant percentage of private and even some public schools in the bible belt.
So just keep on sitting behind the ivory walls of your academic nirvana while the world around you changes.
You are not making any friends in the world outside and your attitude only serves to make the lies of your adversaries more palatable to the masses.
Great work!
HAHA. Woohoo. A movie that's complete crap, has to be shown privately to creationists, because the general public would never pay $10 to listen to Ben Stein drone and lie for over an hour.
It'll never be top 3... I doubt even top 10.
But keep praying Troy. It's all you've got.
Your not getting it.
I am not a fan of expelled, it is hideous lie filled propaganda of the lowest order. Is that clear enough?
What you dont understand is the quality is completely irrelevant. The Passion of the Christ was also obvious propaganda and recieved a great deal of negative publicity prior to it's releast.
It made $610 Millon world wide.
What you just dont seem to understand, and it scares me because they do, is that your average guy who might be on the fence about ID/Evolutionary Biology is not informed. He does not read scientific american, has not read The God Delusion and does not have PZ Meyers on his RSS Feed.
When he goes to see the movie because his preacher said it is important for his kids to know about the lies taught in school, he will not have anything to compare it against because we are too busy sitting back and laughing at all the stuipid little christians and their stuipid little film.
Laugh all you want, marketing is my business and I know how it works. If the skeptical community does not start fighting fire with fire ( and that does NOT mean parading around insulting the people you are trying to convert ) then we will loose!
Why is that almost every time the expression, "The only bad publicity is no publicity" is used, it is thought to be only applicable to the creationist side?
If this cliche has any truth to it, it should apply to the evolutionist side as well. So maybe expelled is Good Publicity for evolution too.
The creationist argument of "Goddidit" is hardly new and probably more widely known that evolution. So maybe this film may get a few creationists interested in reading biology books?
Troy,
He will if he opens his eyes and ears and seeks out any number of the tens of thousands of papers, books, magazine articles, television programs or blog entries about science and evolution. There's a limit to how much responsibility the science and education communities can take for the willful ignorance of others.
I agree that throwing insults around indiscriminantly isn't a very useful approach to... well, to anything. But your comments suggest to me that you're overestimating the power of this blog to affect changes in the world or in people's attitudes about these subjects. For every Pharyngula, there are two blogs that treat the same subjects with a more moderate approach.
I also don't think you compare Passion with Expelled. Come on, now. There's some vague similarities in the quality (but not the quantity!) of pre-release controversy surrounding each, but if you think a boring documentary about alleged injustice academia starring Ben Stein will have one-eighth the box-office draw of a shockingly graphic Mel Gibson version of The Greatest Story Ever Told, I believe you are mistaken.
For that's what it will take for Expelled to reach #2: It will have to outdraw March of the Penguins, which grossed over 77M and played in over 2500 theatres - more than the top-grossing documentary, Fahrenheit 9/11.
To reach #5 it will have to out-draw Sicko, An Inconvenient Truth, and Bowling for Columbine.
To crack the top ten, this annoying, dull and dishonest film about a few allegedly mistreated professors will have to outdraw films that focus on topics which affect people's lives much more directly: Health care, global warming, fatal school shootings and gun control, sex and music, the beauty of flying in formation with birds, the unhealthy effects of eating at McDonalds, dancing, and basketball.
I admit that you could be right, but given the film's terminal lack of charisma, given that it's been roundly panned by everyone from Richard Dawkins to Fox News, I have my doubts.
(Film stats taken from here.)
Gah... poor proof-reading again. Make that:
and
Peter Brown's post reminds me of a friend I have,who had to go through a messy relationship crisis with his girlfriend and tried committing suicide a few times(all the while he was a enthusastic christian). After his ordeal(now single) he became an even harder believer and became much more insistant with the whole "there is no meaning to life without Jesus" motto.
Maybe instead of worrying about why people like Mr Brown believe in stuff without evidence, we should worry about why they find their lives so empty without God in the first place?
A pattern worth noticing here is that "deep distress and desparation seems to be a good catalyst in the formation of religious convictions".
"deep distress and desparation seems to be a good catalyst in the formation of religious convictions".
The mentally ill also tend to be religious (and I believe that's a causative as well a correlative relationship) though of course I'd never claim that the converse is also true.
yeah but they generate about 100 hits per month:-)
Exactly. This seems to be a really common theme and frankly for those who feel their lives full it is often puzzling.
I agree that it will be difficult for them to reach that height, but the reason I fear that they might is because the same marketing firm and strategies used to market the passion are being used here.
Large scale grass roots efforts to round up church audiences and send them to the film en masse at opening day.
Obviously this is not an audience we can reach, they are already lost to us in most cases. What it does do is to falsely inflate the early box office figures and help to prop up the film, give it exposure and keep it in the theatres longer than would usually be the case for a film of this type.
When you say
"He will if he opens his eyes and ears and seeks out any number of the tens of thousands of papers, books, magazine articles, television programs or blog entries about science and evolution. There's a limit to how much responsibility the science and education communities can take for the willful ignorance of others."
I think that is the core of the problem. If we sit back and hope that the American public will suddenly decide to be informed on science while the opposition is shouting Lies as loud as they can it will not be a positive result.
Look at the damage that the GW Bush Administration has done to science with it's massive budget cuts on scientific programs, politicization of government science posts and appointment of pro ID judges to hundreds of federal posts.
This is a direct result of one side actively pushing it's agenda while the other side just hopes people will educate themselves and figure out the truth.
It does not work that way, never has, never will.
On your other point, that I have taken the comments here too personally, and have expected a basically private scientific blog community to self censor it's views so as not to offend the people who would never read it anyway, well Ok.
Mea Culpa.
THe passion of the Christ told a story that people had already bought into and had a huge budget and Mel Gibsob behind it.
Expelled has... ummm, Ben Stein. Is, from all accounts, boring, poorly made and full of lies.
Almost all the press has said the same thing. The movie is doomed. Yes, we'll probably realize after it quickly disappears into obscurity that we gave it too much attention.
But until that happens, it's important to expose all of it's distortion lies and assholery.
For this film to do even moderately well is has to actually play in actual theatres. I'd be surprised if Expelled plays on more than 600 legitimate screens in the US (a usual film opening can play on upwards of 2500). And it will make what money it will primarily in the US, unlike most other films, which make a substantial amount of their revenue from overseas markets.
Troy, obviously we're on the same side of the core issues. I don't want you to think I'm even close to being diametrically opposed to the views - any of them - that you've expressed here. I may not have expressed myself well. However, I don't recall saying anything that would prompt a response like this:
Anyways, you raise valid points, and I apologize for not having the time - at the moment - to give them the time they deserve. Maybe later. :-)
Strangely enough, Epicurus seems to have invented it independently, because he was short-sighted enough to believe that doubt was irreconcilable with happiness. And that guy was a major influence on the Apostle Paul...
Actually, I don't think this has ever happened. Keyword "all".
(And, Holbach, please stop hitting Enter when you don't want to make a paragraph break. All those line jumps make your comments difficult to read -- seriously.)
Have you read Aldous Huxley's Perennial Philosophy? If you have, then you see the point. If you haven't, read it, because you will not get a better answer to how all religions can be truly true without truly contradicting each other. It gets down to something like Crowley's distinction, always cheerfully ignored by Xians, twixt "you" and "Thou."