FYI

By their actions you will know them. We have had a number of raving angry Catholics in various threads here…or have we? I've had a moment to clean up a few threads and post some of the stuff that was held in comment moderation, and discovered that Naz, k8, promo, baker, PZ is a fool, Burns, rumrunner, Dobbs, NYTs, KKKAthiest, Andy, CDV, BradJ, Brett, b7, PCD, NVFU, Your daddy, facebock, baker and several other loud-mouthed asses who have been braying here are all one and the same person.

This is called sock puppetry. It is trying to generate the illusion of a consensus on one side of an issue by pretending to be a multitude. It is cowardly, contemptible, and stupid — not just because a blog owner can look at the stats and detect it, but because it suddenly diminishes your point of view. It makes you look so weak that you have to lie to put up a pretense of popular support, and it makes your side, in this case the fundamentalist Catholics, look like a troop of posturing frauds.

Thanks!

More like this

"But it is not the same thing as homosexuality, if that's what you're trying to imply."

Interesting that you leaped to that conclusion on your own; I never mentioned it. Now that you have, tho, lemme ask you this: Why were 81% of the victims male, when bona fide pedophiles are indifferent as to the sex of their victims?

Dutch Hedrick digs the hole deeper @494:

Saying your "absence of belief" is not a belief is simply absurd.

Again, you state something categorically without backing it up. In fact, your statement merely shows the fact that you don't understand the distinction between lack of belief in something and positively claiming that something doesn't exist.

Belief does not have to be positive to be belief. Either you belief[sic] or you don't or you're not sure.

That's the absurdity here, and it's all yours. My disbelief in the supernatural is not a positive belief, just as bald is not an actual hair color. Get it now?

E.V.:

"Hey everybody, Dutch believes not believing in leprechauns is a belief. I guess you have a belief in no belief in Flying Purple People Eaters? Wow, what a powerful mind you have."

I did not say that. You did.

By Dutch Hedrick (not verified) on 12 Jul 2008 #permalink

Dutch, a major difference is that, if presented with evidence, I, and many other atheists, would change our opinion. Unfortunately for your world view, the more we humans investigate, the more it is revealed that there is no need for any creator. It's true that I cannot know everything, but I see less complicated answers than goddidit, so I believe there is/are no god/s.

For believers, the response to evidence of natural processes is things like "God is unknowable" (which is true, but it deflates all religious authority) or "God is mysterious" or "God is the light" or "Open your heart to cheeses". These phrases mean nothing in terms of evidence. If there's no evidence, and it's all based on faith, it's all a guess. The more that humanity learns, the less guessing needs to be relied upon.

Victor Stenger said at the future of naturalism conference that he wishes that Carl Sagan had never said that an absence of evidence is not evidence of absence, because, actually it is pretty good evidence of absence.

Indeed, as I have pointed out on this blog more than once, Sagan was wrong. Absence of evidence is not proof of absence, but it is evidence of it, and the greater the effort to find such evidence, the more its absence serves as evidence, i.e., "grounds for belief" in the negative proposition.

By truth machine, OM (not verified) on 12 Jul 2008 #permalink

jb @501:

Interesting that you leaped to that conclusion on your own; I never mentioned it.

I've had enough dealings with your coreligionists to know that this is usually the direction that argument takes.

Now that you have, tho, lemme ask you this: Why were 81% of the victims male, when bona fide pedophiles are indifferent as to the sex of their victims?

Maybe because the Vatican has always allowed altar boys but altar *girls* weren't common until the 1990s or so (and not in all parishes)? Boys were simply more available to the molesting priests than girls were.

Adrienne, Dutch is right.

See, beliefs are just like clothing :)

By John Morales (not verified) on 12 Jul 2008 #permalink

Yet you can't even provide the evidence for your own beliefs. You have faith that there is no God. I have faith that there is. It's a simple as that.

So you believe in everything until it's been shown that it doesn't exist? That's some crazy logic.

What you're really saying is that it's justifiable to believe in God because it hasn't been shown not to exist, and you've got that exactly the wrong way round. Just think about what that would mean if it were true.

We are justified in not believing, just as both you and I are justified in not believing in any of the other God's because there isn't a single scrap of evidence for them.

Adrienne:

"That's the absurdity here, and it's all yours. My disbelief in the supernatural is not a positive belief..."

It's not a positive belief -- but it IS a belief. Get it now?

By Dutch Hedrick (not verified) on 12 Jul 2008 #permalink

Neil Schipper @499:

It's a counterclaim to claims about explanations for the existence of the world, people and what people are supposed to do.

Explanations about or at least assumptions about the origin of the world, universe, etc., I can agree to. But honestly, atheists really do differ quite a bit regarding their thoughts pertaining to 1) people, 2) the meaning of life, 3) what people are supposed to do with their lives, etc. Some are humanists, some are Communists, some are Objectivists, and so on.

But your original attempt at conflating Communism (a subset) with all of those are atheist (the whole set) is faulty.

True Bob:

I have to be going soon, but I just wanted to say that even though I don't agree with your conclusions, I give you credit with being the most rational of those I've debated tonight.

As far as I can tell, you did not resort to name calling. That is the sort of debate that I would expect from anyone claiming to be champions of reason.

Have a good night, sir.

By Dutch Hedrick (not verified) on 12 Jul 2008 #permalink

jb,

I think abuse of power was a major factor in the ephebophilia aspects. Powerful authority figure, performs magic rituals all the time, controls their church life and church future...

Also, consensual is not the same as legal. Ask Roman Polanski* about that.

*How's that for a long lost reference?

In your world, Dutch, the universe still revolves around the Earth. It's called pre-Copernican thought. Galileo? Ever heard of him? I won't bother with philosophers such as Descarte, Locke, Spinoza, Nietzsche - You would love Heidegger and despise Foucault.
It is YOU(not the abstraction of the catholic church) who needs to catch up. What you don't know is stunning.

There are mathematical laws which always remain unchanged. The laws are there for us to discover. We just need to discover them. The laws themselves, however, do not change.

And there have been "discoveries" in philosophy since St. Augustine. But your understanding of both mathematics and philosophy is very poor. There's a reason that we refer to physical laws but not mathematical laws or philosophical laws.

By truth machine, OM (not verified) on 12 Jul 2008 #permalink

Dutch, you really ought to give up once you've started to blather thusly:

Math has progressed? Really! So -- you mean that possibly one plus one was three until presto! it became two? Because that's what I was talking about.

Let me guess, you've never taken a math class beyond high school, have you? Are you in high school now, by chance?

It's not a positive belief -- but it IS a belief. Get it now?

Right, just like there are all those bottles for "bald" color with the other hair dyes at my local drug store.

At any rate, you are still dodging the question that has been repeatedly put to you: what is your evidence or proof for the existence of your deity?

Dutch, I don't think the words you're using mean what you think they mean.

My position is that God does not exist. One can not prove something is non existent. The onus is on the person making the positive claim to provide evidence to back up his claim.

This is how reality works. It is an unavoidable consequence of making a positive claim should you wish to prove your claim is true.

So... Let's see some evidence.

Dutch you stated in #494,
If you don't believe something, however, then you are asserting a belief that is negative. Nevertheless, it is still a belief

Then in #503,
E.V.:

"Hey everybody, Dutch believes not believing in leprechauns is a belief. I guess you have a belief in no belief in Flying Purple People Eaters? Wow, what a powerful mind you have."

I did not say that. You did.

You never said it but it logically follows from your earlier statement.

By Feynmaniac (not verified) on 12 Jul 2008 #permalink

"Boys were simply more available to the molesting priests than girls were."

*buzzer*. Wrong. You obviously have never worked in close contact with a priest, Adrienne. Priests have more access to boys in places like the sacristy, where yes, boys outnumber girls, but have *greater* access to girls in places like the confessional, which more girls frequent than boys. In the end, it wasn't merely *access* to one sex over another, but a *marked preference* for one over the other.

As far as I can tell, you did not resort to name calling.

What is with these cretins who equate insults with irrationality?

By truth machine, OM (not verified) on 12 Jul 2008 #permalink

Well, I think Dutch really has a point.

Saying your "absence of belief" is not a belief is simply absurd.
Saying your "absence of clothing" is not a garment is simply absurd.
Saying your "absence of cancer" is not a disease is simply absurd.

What's to beef about? Sheesh.

I support Dutch every bit as much as he values reason.

Don't go away, Dutch. Your clarity and cogency will enlighten the Pharynguloids.

By John Morales (not verified) on 12 Jul 2008 #permalink

It's not a positive belief -- but it IS a belief. Get it now?

Not believing in something is a belief?

So my baldness is a hair color?

My not collecting stamps is a hobby?

Dutch wrote: It's not a positive belief -- but it IS a belief.

No, it isn't.

Personally, I don't believe there is no God. I assert the evidence does not support God's existence. There is a difference, Dutch. If you had to prove anything didn't exist in order to conclude that it didn't, we would have to effectively believe in any crazy thing anyone ever dreamed up. You cannot prove a negative.

Do you believe in unicorns? Why not? Can you prove they don't exist?

Dutch keeps harping on Augustine. I don't think that anyone who does not specialize in the history of unworthy ideas needs to spend a moment of their lives reading or thinking about Augustine. He wrote a lot of drivel that ignorant apologists proclaim to be brilliant and inspired. They are wrong. Augustine is, at best, a footnote in the history of attempts to rationalize delusion.

Theology, in general, is an utter waste of human time and energy. It consists of intricate webs of words that are about nothing - nothing real, nothing important, nothing worth reading, nothing worth thinking about.

There are things worth reading, studying, and thinking deeply about. They are not to be found in religion.

It is time for people to grow up and shed their childish superstitions.

Religious people have a great deal to answer for. Whatever their intentions, they all perpetuate a dark pattern of willful ignorance and superstition that seeks to destroy curiosity, freedom, the search for truth, independence, and human dignity.

Dutch,
Thanks you for your kind words. I am uncharacteristically engaging today.

Really there are folks here much more informed on all these topics than I am, and more eloquent, and at least as rational in debate.

As you might guess, there's a lot of annoyance here, and when arguments start becoming more and more repetitive, most of us, myself included, get rather annoyed. I think the last few days have been pretty intense. Come back another time and you'll see another face to the community here, but still little tolerance for trolling and willful ignorance. The last part is sort of a warning to come prepared and flexible enough to bring or devise new arguments.

Dutch:
you said:If you don't believe something, however, then you are asserting a belief that is negative. Nevertheless, it is still a belief."

I said: Dutch believes not believing in leprechauns is a belief. I guess you(Dutch) have a belief in no belief in Flying Purple People Eaters.

Show me the flaws in my argument from your statement above.

E.V.:

"In your world, Dutch, the universe still revolves around the Earth. It's called pre-Copernican thought. Galileo?"

Once again, it is not I who said this, it is you. You seem to like putting words into my mouth.

On the subject of science and religion, St. Augustine always maintained that the Bible is not a source of scientific knowledge and shouldn't be treated as such. He also warned that we should not hold on to scientific beliefs too firmly lest we grow to hate truth because of our love of error.

In fact, the reason I know that quote is because Galileo used it. Galileo was not only arguing against the Church, but of the established scientific community of the time.

As far as Descarte goes: He argued that everything -- even animals -- were merely complicated machines; and that when someone hurts a pig and it squeals, it's nothing more than what happens when a wheel squeaks and is in need of oil! Is this philosophical progress?

From Descarte on, it's all downhill from there. Philosophical regression is more like it.

By Dutch Hedrick (not verified) on 12 Jul 2008 #permalink

You cannot prove a negative

Technically not 100% correct but it doesn't change the point you are making.

I can prove that the shirt I am wearing is not red, because it in fact is blue.

jb@519 wrote:

*buzzer*. Wrong. You obviously have never worked in close contact with a priest, Adrienne.

And thank the FSM for that, too!

Seriously, though, what opportunity would I have had, as a girl, to "work in close contact with a priest"???

Priests have more access to boys in places like the sacristy, where yes, boys outnumber girls, but have *greater* access to girls in places like the confessional, which more girls frequent than boys.

OK, jb, how many of these molestations took place in confessionals? Because honestly, having gone to confession many times over the years, I wouldn't call it a very private situation. Whenever I went to confession, it was always with another group of children or later, teenagers. With people waiting in line outside, I might add. Not to mention, there is the divider/kneeler there (at least in my churches there were). So it would be quite tricky for a priest to molest a girl in that situation, both in terms of how easily it would have been to get caught, and in the physical obstacles said priests might have had to overcome.

But you know, the altar boys hung out in the sacristy and went in the private rooms to get the vestments, etc. A would-be molesting Father would have plenty more "private" time with an altar boy than a confessing girl.

In the end, it wasn't merely *access* to one sex over another, but a *marked preference* for one over the other.

Really? So where and what is your evidence that access to and availability of private time with boys had no effect on the outcomes of those whom the priests molested?

Dutch Hedrick: The negative claim does not require evidence. It is the valid default position in the absence of evidence. Only positive claims require evidence.

jb: Very well then, the Church has different rules. These rules are odious and unjust, and the organization that applies and maintains them exposes itself as a force for evil in the world in doing so.

Forgiveness and charity are fine ethical standards, and I credit early Christianity for increasing their prominence in western society (but not for their invention).

But modern expressions of this religion are another thing entirely. Charity, you say? What about charity for the victims and potential victims of these pederasts (as you have asked, I won't use the term pedophile)? The Church did not just refrain from punishing these abusers, it kept them in positions of authority and hid the truth so that other children and parents could not take steps to protect themselves. In short, the Church actively facilitated the abusers' ability to find new victims. How many abused children might have been spared this trauma if the Church had acted with A SINGLE SHRED OF COMMON CHARITY towards them?

Forgiveness, you say? Sending death threats to a college student and advocating for his expulsion for not eating a cracker, and then trying to get a man who comes to said student's defense fired does not sound like forgiveness to me.

I think some of the ethical teachings attributed to Jesus of Nazareth are among the finest moral guidelines human beings have ever had access to, regardless of whether or not Jesus did nor did not historically exist. My problem is that so many of the people who profess to be christians DO NOT FOLLOW ANY OF THESE TEACHINGS IN ANY WAY AT ALL. And the more prominently they declare their faith, the more odious their actions seem to be.

These are the actions of vile hypocrites, and you, jb, make yourself a hypocrite when you try to defend them.

One can not prove something is non existent.

One can prove that logically impossible things are non-existent -- like a greatest prime, a rational square root of 2, or a being that is both omniscient and omnipotent.

And I agree with Dutch that "God does not exist" is a belief -- but it is a particularly well-founded one, as the world is the way we should expect it to be if there is no God, and very much not as we should expect it to be if there were.

By truth machine, OM (not verified) on 12 Jul 2008 #permalink

I just can't understand why a large number of Christians have such a hard time understanding a lack of belief. There are billions of things they don't believe in like magical shoe elves, or Santa, or Shiva, or Thor. They have already had intimate experience with a lack of belief, yet they can not extend that to being able to understand a lack of belief in god.

It seems very simple and logical to me, so why can't they get it?

[blockquote]I can prove that the shirt I am wearing is not red, because it in fact is blue.[/blockquote]

The shirt I'm wearing is also blue! Wow! What are the odds.
Proof that God did it.

Seriously, I know sock-puppet theists who think this way.

It seems very simple and logical to me, so why can't they get it?

Well there's the problem, right there.

I can prove that the shirt I am wearing is not red, because it in fact is blue.

The shirt I'm wearing is also blue! Wow! What are the odds.
Proof that God did it.

Seriously, I know sock-puppet theists who think this way.

(*big blockquote sigh*)

Truth Machine:

"And I agree with Dutch that "God does not exist" is a belief -- but it is a particularly well-founded one, as the world is the way we should expect it to be if there is no God, and very much not as we should expect it to be if there were."

Thank you, TM. That was exactly the point I was trying to make. As far as the world not being as we expect it if there were a God, I can only say that the world is as it is because of Free Will.

"A Clockwork Orange" does a good job at presenting what it would be like if Free Will were taken away from us in order to force us to do good. Stephen Colbert had a good description of Free Will in his recent interview with Dr. Philip Zimbardo. (I know I'm not spelling his name right.)

Anyway, I'll let that be my last word for now. I've got to go. It's been fun debating, though!

By Dutch Hedrick (not verified) on 12 Jul 2008 #permalink

' Galileo was not only arguing against the Church, but of the established scientific community of the time.' THE SCIENTIFIC COMMUNITY OF THE TIME.
Exactly.
And what did Galileo argue, Holmes?

"From Descarte on, it's all downhill from there. Philosophical regression is more like it."
WOW, What a huge world view you have. I bow to your erudition. Come back when you've graduated High School.

Adrienne @510:

.. your original attempt at conflating Communism (a subset) with all of those are atheist (the whole set)..

Respectfully, I believe I did not attempt that. I wanted to point out that the relationships between atheism and any other -isms that set out ways to live and which have animated human actions in history are interesting and complex, and that it's common for people here to trivialize it.

By Neil Schipper (not verified) on 12 Jul 2008 #permalink

It seems very simple and logical to me, so why can't they get it?

Because you're wrong on this issue? Belief is assent to a proposition; it doesn't matter whether the proposition is positive or negative. Consider the propositions "there are magical shoe elves" and "there are no magical shoe elves". We aren't neutral about these propositions; we deny the former and assert the latter. i.e., we disbelieve the former and believe the latter. There are propositions we are neutral about, such as "Bill Farber is a nice guy". Since we have no idea who that is, we have no basis for a belief one way or the other. In the case of God, disbelief is only mere non-belief if one is truly neutral on the matter, as some agnostics claim to be.

By truth machine, OM (not verified) on 12 Jul 2008 #permalink

Oh don't leave on the Free Will issue! Now we have to open the Can of Omniscient Worms.

Ah well. Goodnight, Gracie.

E.V.:

Way to avoid the substance of what I was saying in regards to Descarte and his mechanical philosophy of the universe. Intellectually dodgy to the end.

By Dutch Hedrick (not verified) on 12 Jul 2008 #permalink

"Call it what you will, Craig, you just can't call it 'pedophilia'."

Golly, you got me there, champ. I just can't call it something that I didn't ever call it.

I feel so much better now about your church's policy of protecting people who rape kids.

I wanted to point out that the relationships between atheism and any other -isms that set out ways to live and which have animated human actions in history are interesting and complex, and that it's common for people here to trivialize it.

You're attacking a strawman. jb (like so many before him) attempted to attach the sins of Stalin to atheists. But the sins of Stalinists can't be attached to other atheists any more than the sins of Vikings can be attached to other air breathers. The difference between being a Viking or air breather and being a Stalinist or atheist isn't relevant; what is relevant is the set relationships -- Stalinism isn't representative of, or a necessity of, atheism, any more than being a Viking is representative of, or a necessity of, breathing air.

By truth machine, OM (not verified) on 12 Jul 2008 #permalink

I just read #262 a second time. Most funny comments I read this year.

@ jb in #109. So those goddam religio tards ruined perfectly good swimmin hole to put up a fuckin useless cathedral? that is some douchebaggery of the most egregious sort.

By bybelknap, FCD (not verified) on 12 Jul 2008 #permalink

Wow... I think I'd nominate Craig Holman for the Molly.

By Bill Anderson (not verified) on 12 Jul 2008 #permalink

re #262, I second the Lolly nomination by pcarini.

I don't care if it doesn't exist.

By John Morales (not verified) on 12 Jul 2008 #permalink

As far as the world not being as we expect it if there were a God, I can only say that the world is as it is because of Free Will.

It's not even the way we should expect it to be if there's a God and free will. But there's no contracausal free will -- the evidence against it is very strong, and growing -- neuroscience is a very active field, although that would be unknown to someone who thinks that "From Descarte (sic) on, it's all downhill from there" and doesn't value Descartes' positive contribution to our understanding of the world, and especially the part of the world that does the understanding.

By truth machine, OM (not verified) on 12 Jul 2008 #permalink

P.S., Since so many of you are questioning my credentials I'll just mention that I took as my Philosophy requirement Normative Ethics at N.C. State under Tom Regan. I got an 'A'.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tom_Regan

You may attack me for being a fool, but if I'm so foolish then how could I get an 'A' in Regan's class? From your assertions, either I'm the fool, or Regan was foolish in giving me an 'A'.

I personally would vote for 'None of the above.'

By Dutch Hedrick (not verified) on 12 Jul 2008 #permalink

TruthMachine @539:

Consider the propositions "there are magical shoe elves" and "there are no magical shoe elves". We aren't neutral about these propositions; we deny the former and assert the latter. i.e., we disbelieve the former and believe the latter.

Yes, but consider upping the ante to the point where the magical shoe elves were given powers to escape human detection and otherwise make themselves invisible to human senses and machine detection. In that case, we'd have to say that we cannot say for sure that magical shoe elves do not exist, but we simply cannot differentiate for sure between their invisible, indetectable existence and their non-existence.

In everyday speech, we'd probably say we don't believe in magical shoe elves. But if a Magical Shoe Elf Believer pressed us on it, we'd have to admit that it's beyond our capabilities to conclusively prove that Magical Shoe Elves do NOT exist or CANNOT exist.

And that's how I see Dutch et al.'s arguments for God. No, we can't prove that an omniscient, omnipotent, untestable, etc., God does not exist. But because there is no real way to differentiate between His/Her/Its existence and His/Her/Its non-existence, then we can say that we don't believe in Him/Her/It until such time as he have empirical evidence in favor of the positive claim.

"Charity, you say? What about charity for the victims and potential victims of these pederasts[?]"

Of course the Church has an obligation to treat the victims with the utmost charity! Simultaneously, it has no right to treat the abuser with a lack thereof--try balancing those twin duties yourself sometime, if ever you are in the position. Imagine if your father we suddenly thrust into the spotlight as a pederast--how would you (if you were bound to treat every person with charity, decency, respect, etc) juggle being sympathetic to the victim AND to decent to your father? Many in the Church couldn't, and reacted in one way or the other: They wanted to crucify the abuser who needed help or wanted to ignore the victim who needed their care. I can't help but think the (American) Church *still* hasn't gotten it right--it merely slapped an American panacea on the issue by throwing money at it and hoping it has gone away.

"How many abused children might have been spared this trauma if the Church had acted with A SINGLE SHRED OF COMMON CHARITY towards them?"

Hear, hear. I agree wholeheartedly.

Also, JB, forgiveness is understandable. I for example have long since forgiven those who abused me.

The church's policy has nothing to do with forgiveness, though.
If it did, it would have involved making sure the victims were helped.

It did not. Instead it involved moving priests away when there were hints of a problem so that they could simply molest others in new towns... it involved calling the victims liars. It involved blocking victims attempts to et justice.
It involved a policy of silence that expired NOT when "forgiveness" was achieved, but when statutes of limitations had expired.

The church's actions had nothing to do with sympathy for the victims or even much for the perpetrators. The church's actions were solely to protect itself from scrutiny, controversy, and above all to protect its hoarded riches.

Say anything you want to defend this predatory organization, all it does is prove your devotion to the immoral.

You show that not only are you deeply delusional, you're deeply immoral.
You say you disagree with these vile things... but did you do one thing about it?
Did you lead a group of church members in trying to reform the church? Did you write letters of protest? Did you complain loudly? Did you resign from the church in protest? Did your views of the church change at all?

No... what you DID do is come here to defend that church with all your heart.

You're not only an insane fuck, you're a twisted sick fuck.

Oh drat, I kinda garbled my last post @552. Change the first part to this:

Yes, but consider upping the ante to the point where the magical shoe elves were given powers to escape human detection and otherwise make themselves invisible to human senses and machine detection. In that case, we cannot say for sure that magical shoe elves do not exist, because we simply cannot differentiate for sure between their invisible, indetectable existence and their non-existence.

In everyday speech, this would most likely translate into saying we don't believe in magical shoe elves. But if a Magical Shoe Elf Believer pressed us on it, we'd have to admit that yes, it's beyond our capabilities to conclusively prove that Magical Shoe Elves do NOT exist or CANNOT exist. But we could still say we don't believe in them until such time as we get better positive evidence for their existence.

Adrienne:

"In everyday speech, we'd probably say we don't believe in magical shoe elves. But if a Magical Shoe Elf Believer pressed us on it, we'd have to admit that it's beyond our capabilities to conclusively prove that Magical Shoe Elves do NOT exist or CANNOT exist.

And that's how I see Dutch et al.'s arguments for God. No, we can't prove that an omniscient, omnipotent, untestable, etc., God does not exist."

I would not say that Magical Shoe Elves exist anymore than St. Augustine would argue for polytheism -- and he wrote ten books in "City of God" arguing against it. If you're interested in knowing those arguments, I suggest reading it.

By Dutch Hedrick (not verified) on 12 Jul 2008 #permalink

Dutch believes not believing in leprechauns is a belief.

Not believing in leprechauns is not a belief, but it's fair to then ask whether you believe in leprechauns. To simply repeat that you lack a belief in leprechauns isn't honest, unless you are completely neutral on the subject, which you surely aren't. So buck up and admit that, not only do you not believe that there are leprechauns, but you believe that there aren't any leprechauns. Kate came right out and said "My position is that God does not exist". That means that she believes that there is no God. To deny this is, at the very least, confused.

By truth machine, OM (not verified) on 12 Jul 2008 #permalink

I'm not sure why Christians bring out the free will excuse for why the world isn't the way we'd expect it to be if God were real.

I also hear them say that the reason God doesn't offer us proof of his existence is because that, too, would take away free will. I'm not sure if that's what Dutch is implying, but that's problematic for several reasons.

For one thing, if God doesn't want to give out proof for fear of messing with free will, how come he wasn't shy about showing himself to everyone and their brother in the Bible? Dude was showing up constantly, miracle after miracle. Did he not care back then? But wait! God is unchanging! He's eternal and the same yesterday, today and tomorrow. After all, he created time, as Dutch told us, so he must be outside of time, as well.

But let's say that ok, God changed his mind about showing himself now. Well then how come so many Christians say they KNOW in their hearts that God is real? If they know, doesn't that destroy free will in and of itself? They say they have personal relationships with him. Wouldn't that also destroy free will? And wouldn't God apparently writing a book and saying "I WROTE THIS! I AM GOD AND THIS IS MY WORD" also destroy free will?

Well, golly, this whole concept seems kind of flaky, doesn't it?

By OctoberMermaid (not verified) on 12 Jul 2008 #permalink

"Did you complain loudly? Did you resign from the church in protest? Did your views of the church change at all? No."

How the FUCK do you know what the hell I did or didn't do, you stupid cunt?!? How the FUCK do you know I'm even Catholic, and not someone who is involved in criminal justice and has intensely scrutinized this particular case study?!? You are the most goddam ignorant motherfucker I've ever met...

P.S., Since so many of you are questioning my credentials I'll just mention that I took as my Philosophy requirement Normative Ethics at N.C. State under Tom Regan. I got an 'A'.

I too went to NC State and using an animal right activist to support your cred on a science blog may not be the best tactic.

Just a suggestion.

"I too went to NC State and using an animal right activist to support your cred on a science blog may not be the best tactic."

Haven't you heard? All of us damn liberals are touchy-feely animal rights activists. Dude's got some serious street cred. He's cool now.

By OctoberMermaid (not verified) on 12 Jul 2008 #permalink

Dutch @556:

I'm glad you don't believe in magical shoe elves. Neither do I. So does that mean your lack of belief in magical shoe elves constitutes a positive belief in....something else?

Good to know St. Augustine didn't believe in magical shoe elves either. And no, I'm really not interested in reading his books. I've already read enough Catholic philosophy and "moral theology" to last me through the rest of my life.

Rev. BDC:

Ha! I never would have thought of that, but I forgot this was a science blog -- especially since we've been discussing nothing but theology and philosophy on this thread.

Is it because scientists take a dim view about animal rights activists who might argue against using animals in scientific experiments that you make your suggestion? I wouldn't think Regans credentials as a philosopher are a matter for dispute.

Incidentally, good to meet a fellow State grad.

By Dutch Hedrick (not verified) on 12 Jul 2008 #permalink

jb@559,

I think craig is a guy. That would make him a "dick", not a "cunt".

Dutch said in # 536,
Anyway, I'll let that be my last word for now. I've got to go. It's been fun debating, though!

And then he came back 6 minutes later. Is "I'm going" some sort of Trollism for "I'm staying".

By Feynmaniac (not verified) on 12 Jul 2008 #permalink

"...I love that PZ drew attention to the Webster Cook story and the CathLeag reaction. In hindsight, what if instead of his request-and-promise, he had asked readers to snow the admin of Cook's university and church (and media) with demands that the woman (people?) who laid hands on him be publicly identified and charged with assault?

Posted by: Neil Schipper NO. 118.:

HEAR, HEAR!!

By Katkinkate (not verified) on 12 Jul 2008 #permalink

Well jb, did you?

Is it because scientists take a dim view about animal rights activists who might argue against using animals in scientific experiments that you make your suggestion?

bingo! But expand that to make sure that includes medical as well.

I'd say how about that wolfpack... but well... We suck at everything right now. So I'll refrain :)

Is it because scientists take a dim view about animal rights activists who might argue against using animals in scientific experiments that you make your suggestion?

No, its because animal rights activists have started getting much more violent recently.

jb @ 559, it seems to me your posting here is unto like you wearing a cilice.

Feel free to stop when you've done your penance.

By John Morales (not verified) on 12 Jul 2008 #permalink

Yes, but consider upping the ante to the point where the magical shoe elves were given powers to escape human detection and otherwise make themselves invisible to human senses and machine detection. In that case, we'd have to say that we cannot say for sure that magical shoe elves do not exist, but we simply cannot differentiate for sure between their invisible, indetectable existence and their non-existence.

What's this "for sure" crap doing on a science blog? There's nothing we can say "for sure", including that Lincoln was assassinated and George Bush sleeps in the White House. But I believe that no such powerful magical shoe elves exist, and as do you, and it would simply be dishonest to deny it.

In everyday speech, we'd probably say we don't believe in magical shoe elves. But if a Magical Shoe Elf Believer pressed us on it, we'd have to admit that it's beyond our capabilities to conclusively prove that Magical Shoe Elves do NOT exist or CANNOT exist.

So what? We believe all sorts of things that it is beyond our capabilities to conclusively prove one way or the other. But we have good grounds for our beliefs that magical shoe elves and Gods do not exist, grounds based largely in our intuitions as to what it means for something to exist and what sorts of things we should grant existence to.

And that's how I see Dutch et al.'s arguments for God. No, we can't prove that an omniscient, omnipotent, untestable, etc., God does not exist.

Actually, we can; it's quite straightforward to prove that an omniscient, omnipotent God is logically impossible, as omniscience implies an unalterable state of affairs. Such a God cannot choose to make false what he knows to be true. To make that coherent, one must change the meanings of "omniscient" or "omnipotent" to be something else, Humpty-Dumpty-like.

But because there is no real way to differentiate between His/Her/Its existence and His/Her/Its non-existence, then we can say that we don't believe in Him/Her/It until such time as he have empirical evidence in favor of the positive claim.

All rational beliefs are provisional. I believe there is no God, and I believe that there's no flaw in Andrew Wiles' proof of Fermat's Last Theorem, but the FLT could be false nonetheless.

By truth machine, OM (not verified) on 12 Jul 2008 #permalink

OctoberMermaid:

You're confusing Free Will with Faith. Just because one has faith doesn't mean they don't have free will.

God does not change, but he does reveal himself to us in time. Just because God does not reveal himself at all times as he would with Moses or through Jesus doesn't mean he "changes his mind."

If I show up at a friend's door at times and not at other times, it does not necessarily mean that on the times I visited my friend that I "changed my mind."

By Dutch Hedrick (not verified) on 12 Jul 2008 #permalink

Now now, PZ. You don't know that. All you can say for sure is that many internet sigs came from one IP address, right?
It could be a single computer in a Catholic seminary.

Granted, sock-pupets are simpler.

"Way to avoid the substance of what I was saying in regards to Descarte and his mechanical philosophy of the universe. Intellectually dodgy to the end."

No, it's just I don't have the time for you to catch up to modern arguments in order to have meaningful discourse, especially from your brilliant summation of Descarte. One philosphy course doesn't really prove you can discuss philosophy intelligently, much less imagine yourself a philosopher, "A" or not. However, now I know who to go to when I need arcane info on Augustine...
City of God, anyone? Anyone?... yeah, me neither.

"You're confusing Free Will with Faith. Just because one has faith doesn't mean they don't have free will."

But I hear from many Christians (Baptists, admittedly. They're who I have to deal with the most) that if we knew and had no need for faith, we would instantly lose free will. Why?

And while you may have faith, most Christians I hear don't say "I believe without evidence" when they say they have faith. In fact, they typically just say "I know that I know that I know" and that they know beyond a shadow of a doubt that God is real and they are saved. In fact, many of them have told me repeatedly that the only way to get into heaven is to know without doubt "in your heart" that God is real.

That doesn't sound like faith, which is just believing without evidence. That's just knowing something without evidence, which is.. ignorant and/or crazy.

I think the waters are deliberately muddy here because, well, it suits "people of faith."

By OctoberMermaid (not verified) on 12 Jul 2008 #permalink

I'm not sure why Christians bring out the free will excuse for why the world isn't the way we'd expect it to be if God were real.

Because they need it to rescue their belief. Remember, for them belief comes first and argumentation comes later. That order is the difference between apologetics and reason.

By truth machine, OM (not verified) on 12 Jul 2008 #permalink

truth machine @ 44:

what is relevant is the set relationships -- Stalinism isn't representative of, or a necessity of, atheism, any more than being a Viking is representative of, or a necessity of, breathing air

I make no claims about necessities. I do claim that Stalinism and atheism have some kind of non-trivial historical connection.

What's relevant is that about two hundred years ago, challenges to Abrahamism started to emerge in a big way, and occupied increasing numbers of thinking people, some quite brilliant. This "increase of rationality" led to non-supernatural claims about how people should live, claims often defended as scientific.

The question raised is about the degree to which human minds, vessels of all kinds of beliefs with varying degrees of truth value, as they get emptied of Abrahamism (or any other supernaturalism), become vulnerable to new beliefs that threaten my genes.

By Neil Schipper (not verified) on 12 Jul 2008 #permalink

'Actually, we can; it's quite straightforward to prove that an omniscient, omnipotent God is logically impossible, as omniscience implies an unalterable state of affairs. Such a God cannot choose to make false what he knows to be true. To make that coherent, one must change the meanings of "omniscient" or "omnipotent" to be something else, Humpty-Dumpty-like.'

To say that God "cannot choose to make false what he knows to be true" means that he lacks omnipotence ignores the concept of Divine Nature.

"Nature" is a word that has had its meaning altered somewhat, but what I mean by nature is "what something TENDS to do." Such as -- A rock tends to lie still unless it is acted upon by an outside force.

It is NOT in the nature of the rock, however, to get up and start singing show tunes. The rock is what it is. Similarly, it is not in God's Nature to deceive. God cannot be un-Godlike, or otherwise he would not be God.

To say that God is powerless for not behaving unlike God is absurd. God acts as it is natural for him to act. We just have to find out what that nature is.

Theologically speaking, of course.

By Dutch Hedrick (not verified) on 12 Jul 2008 #permalink

Incidentally Dutch, if I'm not misremembering it, Regan was a good friend of my grandfather's. He was a prof at NC State as well (entomology). Being that my grandfather was was in the biology field, a professed atheist and supporter of animal testing I think they had some spirited debates.

Way to go Dutch!

I think you're getting through.

It's impressive seeing someone who got an 'A'in Normative Ethics at N.C. State under Tom Regan operate.

PS thanks for responding to my earlier entreaty, Dutch.

By John Morales (not verified) on 12 Jul 2008 #permalink

"It is NOT in the nature of the rock, however, to get up and start singing show tunes. The rock is what it is. Similarly, it is not in God's Nature to deceive. God cannot be un-Godlike, or otherwise he would not be God."

How do you know this? How do you know what God is like at all? Seems all you have to go on is a book and he DID in fact wrote it, it could be all or paritally lies. Yes, even the part where he says he is always truthful.

Uh oh.

By OctoberMermaid (not verified) on 12 Jul 2008 #permalink

"Remember, for them belief comes first and argumentation comes later. That order is the difference between apologetics and reason."

Worthy of putting on Billboards everywhere!

As Dutch said regarding a supposed 'attack' on theology:

What arrogance it takes to reduce an entire disciple to one argument and judge it based upon that. But then again, that's what you guys do best, isn't it? That's what Myers does in his original posting -- judging all Catholics based upon one person.

That would be like me dismissing mathematics and saying, "Yeah -- I don't need anything so idiotic which would concern itself over whether one plus one makes two."

I consider myself to be more of an agnostic than an atheist, but the Xtian god is certainly one I wouldn't choose to believe in.

Theology is the study of religion from a religious perspective. As such, it has no scientific relevancy. As far as I am concerned, it's not a valid discipline, and the 'angels dancing on the head of a pin' comment sums it up perfectly. Theologists discussing issues related to something for which there is not a shred of valid, supporting evidence is, in my opinion, nothing more than mental masturbation.

OctoberMermaid:

I agree with much of what you said here. There is a difference between Faith and Blind Faith. I do not believe in Blind Faith.

Frankly, even the Pope does not believe in Blind Faith. He points to Doubting Thomas and how God (through Christ) allowed Himself to be questioned. (I think I'm getting that right, but I'm recalling from memory. I don't have his writings in front of me.)

I think it's unfortunate that so many Baptists have given religion a bad name. Although I'm Catholic, I do know of some good Baptists -- I think John Edwards is one of them. Anyway, they get picked on a lot because, unfortunately, there are so many of them here in the south and they seem to shout the loudest.

There's a good reason, however, the Church does not recognize their theology.

By Dutch Hedrick (not verified) on 12 Jul 2008 #permalink

Morales, you're so right: these are nuthin' but a bunch of pricks diggin' into one's flesh...'tards opining on shit they CLEARLY haven't a clue about... Only Adrienne shows any familiarity with Catholicism, the object of the professor's ire--it's pathetic.

Alph1: I am in law enforcement. I probably hate pedophiles worse than you. I testified on the stand regarding a case against a particularly notorious priest-abuser in Philadelphia which led to a conviction. The case was cited as one of the reasons the diocese of LA settled their land-mark case almost exactly one year ago. Long answer short: A helluva lot more than "craig" would believe, but he's a little shit who'd like to snipe from the sidelines without doing even a modicum of research.

I do claim that Stalinism and atheism have some kind of non-trivial historical connection.

You continue to miss the point. As I said originally "Of course, being a Viking is not separate from breathing air, but breathing air is separate from being a Viking." The point of the analogy was that Stalinism has a historical connection to atheism, but not vice versa.

What's relevant is that about two hundred years ago, challenges to Abrahamism started to emerge in a big way, and occupied increasing numbers of thinking people, some quite brilliant. This "increase of rationality" led to non-supernatural claims about how people should live, claims often defended as scientific.

But this does not show the sort of causal relationship that jb was claiming between atheism and Stalinism, or Communism. As I said, you're arguing against a strawman. And as was pointed out by others, the original Christians were communists, and they lived a lot more than 200 years ago.

By truth machine, OM (not verified) on 12 Jul 2008 #permalink

The question raised is about the degree to which human minds, vessels of all kinds of beliefs with varying degrees of truth value, as they get emptied of Abrahamism (or any other supernaturalism), become vulnerable to new beliefs that threaten my genes.

Well, really. That can be asked about any shifting of beliefs. When a group of people stop believing in one thing the possibility of a new system taking its place is high. As can be seen throughout history large groups of people are sometime susceptible to being duped into believing in bad or wrong or crazy things. That or a small group of people start believing in new things an assert power to force others to be affected by their beliefs.

Yeah, Dutch, gotta echo what OctoberMermaid said @585: How do you know all this stuff about God's nature? How do you know God cannot deceive because it would be unGodlike? How is it you fully understand the Divine Nature such that you speak with this authority? Seems to me the only way that could be true is if you were God.

#580:
Neil, your last paragraph. I'm intrigued. Please elaborate. How would your genes be threatened from the loss of supernaturalism?

I've read all these threads and I have to admit, the theists have convinced me. They have convinced me beyond a shadow of a doubt. I wouldn't have thought they could have convinced me of anything at first, but, wow. They have.

They have convinced me -- that they are idiots.

I mean really the "arguments" the theists have presented do not just fail to be good. The fail to not be blatantly, in-your-face retarded.

Rev:

"I'd say how about that wolfpack... but well... We suck at everything right now. So I'll refrain :)"

hahaha! Best laugh I had so far tonight! :)

By Dutch Hedrick (not verified) on 12 Jul 2008 #permalink

Richard Carrier made what I consider to be an interesting argument about the distinction, or lack thereof, between atheists and agnostics:

Atheist or Agnostic?

Personally, I don't care all that much if nonbelievers prefer to call themselves agnostics rather than atheists. I think by now most everyone knows these are the same thing (after all, either way, you don't believe in God). And eventually the social stigma attached to the latter will float over and latch onto the former anyway, leaving no place left to hide. Well, okay, maybe the squeamish atheists will once again invent some new word to call themselves, so they can confuse a prejudiced society into not realizing they are (gasp!) really atheists. But that will just go the same way. In the end, the advantage will be lost, yet another word will have to be invented to hide behind, and 'round and 'round it goes. Good luck with that.

For me, this is all just a social game, semantic trickery, that is hard to have sympathy for, but I can't honestly criticize nonbelievers who want to avoid the social stigma falsely attached to a maligned word. Prejudice in this country, in some places and situations, is certainly real and harmful enough to justify a desire to dodge it. If black people could pretend to be white, I'm sure some of them would. This is frequently enough true for gays that they have a whole terminology of social disguise (like "in the closet" and "beard"). You can't condemn this until you've walked a mile in their shoes.

There is also a silly and heated debate (even so far as to cultivate outright rage) between atheists and agnostics as to who is really what. Of course, these terms don't even have a single meaning. Just as "atheist" can mean "denier" or "unbeliever" (generating the rather lame, confusing, and misleading terminological distinctions of "hard" and "soft" atheist or "positive" and "negative" atheist), so can agnostic mean "undecided" or "dunno!" The latter is more etymologically and historically correct, since agnosticism is supposed to be the formal position that one cannot know whether God exists or not (whether by definition or as a contingent fact of a particular agnostic's limited access to relevant evidence), but the former meaning is still very common in actual use, and both have crept into other contexts (so, for example, you can be an "agnostic" now, in either sense of the term, as to whether Robin Hood actually existed).

I say more about all this in Sense and Goodness without God (see pp. 253-56). Beyond what I say there, technically I would prefer "undecideds" to call themselves anapophasists (the actual Greek for "without a decision"), so agnostics can be identified as those who formally claim not to know (since a-gnostikos means "without knowledge"), but you can probably see how these overlap a great deal. The line between them is certainly blurry. And at any rate, I have no illusions about my prospects for changing linguistic convention. My prospects are better in the other direction, since I prefer "atheism" to be used in its equally literal sense: a-theismos, without theism, i.e. without a belief in god. For in actual practice, this is how it is almost always used. And, as far as I see it, any other usage rhetorically violates the Law of the Excluded Middle.

Some theists, however, who are often fond of playing word games, have tried to act the linguistic imperialist and insist (contrary to any etymological or historical or philosophical precedent) that "atheism" means only the positive denial of every god's existence. In my opinion that's just verbal thuggery, since it does not agree with English usage or actual fact and is basically a "special" definition invented solely for polemical purposes, not for any authentic aim, like knowledge or practical application.

But even some atheists (or, I should say, "nonbelievers") jump into this fray, usually with "agnostics" accusing "atheists" of playing verbal games when they deny this religiously contrived definition of "atheism," or with atheists accusing agnostics of accepting it. It gets even crazier when either side starts rambling on about babies being either "atheists" or "agnostics" because they've never even heard of God and certainly have no "belief" in one, and eventually fictional cultures get invented where no one has ever heard of or thought up any notion of any god. No one seems to notice (or care) that examples like these constitute a kind of category fallacy, since there is a mountain of difference between someone who has a belief-state (of either belief or disbelief in some proposition) and someone who has no corresponding belief-state at all. You might as well argue that stones and trees are atheists. Sure, in a sense that's true, but why should anyone care?

This merry-go-round isn't very common. The whole tussle is limited to a rather small segment of nut-headed youths and grumpy old men within the atheist community. But it's all so silly that I find the whole "who really is an atheist?" debate rather pointless. In actual fact, every unbeliever is both an atheist who denies God and an atheist who merely doesn't believe in God. So there is no sense in which anyone can just pick one and deny they are the other. Shocking thing to claim, you say? Well, it can be demonstrated quite easily.

Let's invent two gods, extreme cases each, but you should be able to see how all other gods fall on a continuum between them:

Bumpypoo is a supremely powerful God, creator of the universe, who uses his powers to make sure you never have any reason to believe he exists.

Can you deny the existence of Bumpypoo? Or do you merely lack belief in him? Assuming there is a difference, you can only assert the latter. Because you can never, even in principle, have any evidence against Bumpypoo's existence. By definition he will ensure that the evidence always misleads you, therefore evidence of his absence is not at all predictive of his non-existence. This is true even for a devout Christian: it is logically impossible for you to deny the existence of Bumpypoo. You can only disbelieve in his existence. This constitutes what I call a "Cartesian Demon" in Sense and Goodness without God, so to learn more about that you can check the index there. But my point here is, everyone is an agnostic with regard to Bumpypoo. They haven't any choice.

Okay. Now consider this:

Monkeybutt is a supremely powerful God, creator of the universe, who uses his powers to make sure you have tons of clear and undeniable evidence that he exists.

Can anyone say they don't outright deny the existence of Monkeybutt? It would be patently irrational to say you "merely" don't believe in Monkeybutt, because you would have the vast evidence of your own direct experience against the existence of Monkeybutt. The absence of evidence in this case is not only highly predictive of his non-existence, it virtually entails his non-existence. Hence you can be as certain of his non-existence as of anything you claim to know about anything.

Therefore, everyone is a soft/negative atheist vis-a-vis Bumpypoo and at the same time a hard/positive atheist vis-a-vis Monkeybutt. Therefore, there is never any real separation between an atheist and a formal agnostic. Any atheist who denies one god's existence will also be an atheist who merely doesn't believe in some other god's existence, and vice versa, since everyone, always, does both. Ergo, no agnostic can ever claim they are not an atheist and no atheist can ever claim they are not an agnostic. Bumpypoo and Monkeybutt dash any hopes atheists or agnostics might have had of avoiding each other's label.

Of course, even Christians are, in a limited sense, atheists of both types, with regard to Bumpypoo and Monkeybutt (and thus agnostics with regard to Bumpypoo). So the only thing that separates believers in God from the rest of us is a belief in at least one god. Ergo, the only thing that can ever logically matter in distinguishing theists from "atheists" is whether we believe any god exists. Hence all that matters in defining an atheist is that an atheist does not believe in any god. Whether there are some gods atheists also deny is wholly irrelevant--because there are some gods everyone denies, even believers! And as long as we don't believe in any God, we are not theists, and are therefore atheists. Unless you want to invent some new stupid word. But until you invent a mind-altering machine that can insert this new word into the brains of billions of people, your new word won't be of any popular use. Indeed, even if you could accomplish such a thing, I doubt your stupid new word would even be useful.

At most you can bicker about "which" gods certain atheists deny and which ones they merely disbelieve (again, assuming you can actually identify a difference). But how can that ever matter for whether you are an atheist or a theist? Even if Atheist A disagrees with Atheist B as to which gods can be denied and which merely disbelieved, it remains the case that the only thing distinguishing both Atheist A and Atheist B from all theists is that neither A nor B believes in any gods. Otherwise, both A and B deny some gods and both A and B merely disbelieve in some gods, and since we have no terminology in the English language to distinguish Atheist A from Atheist B (or from atheists C, D, E, etc., ad infinitum), there is no sense in trying to deny that A or B is "really" an atheist, or trying to claim A or B is "really" an agnostic, or really "not" an agnostic, or debating whether it's Atheist A or Atheist B who's the hard or soft atheist. They are always both. Because of Monkeybutt and Bumpypoo, they're all of the above.

Therefore, there is simply no such thing as a "soft atheist" who is not also a "hard atheist," or a "hard atheist" who is not also a "soft atheist." If you don't believe in any god, then you will always be both. The only difference will be which gods you put where. Hence all unbelievers are both atheists and agnostics, and neither can deny either name. They can never be separated. Though these categories aren't synonymous, you still can't sort unbelievers into "atheists" and "agnostics" any more than you can sort them into "persons" and "people." Thus it is simply stupid to debate which you are.

Sorry, but I have to call it like I see it.

Katkinkate (#567): Be gone from this place! It's unhealthy, fraught with danger, for the likes of you!

By Neil Schipper (not verified) on 12 Jul 2008 #permalink

jb, you missed my point completely. Forgiveness and charity to the offender is a wonderful thing to strive for, and the teachings attributed to Jesus on this point is one of the things I admire most, but at the same time you have an absolute responsibility to protect potential victims from the possibility of the offender offending again. If I found out my father had abused a child, I would try to find it in my heart to forgive him, even if it was my child who was abused, but I would damn well do everything in my power to make sure he never gets unsupervised access to children ever again!

The Catholic Church could have moved the abusers out of the communities they harmed and assigned to positions where they would not have had contact with children, and supervise them to ensure that that they had no contact with children. I would have been satisfied with this plus compensation of the victims alone--no vindictive punishments, no public disavowals, not even a private reprimand. This would have been easy, EASY, for the Catholic Church to do. THEY DID NOT DO IT. THEY DID NOT EVEN TRY.

By this failure, they forfeited in my mind any privilege they might once have had to be considered an organization worthy of respect.

"I agree with much of what you said here. There is a difference between Faith and Blind Faith. I do not believe in Blind Faith."

The problem is on my end, because I can't personally see a difference between faith and blind faith. Since faith is apparently "believing without evidence" isn't that already blind? This has always been the sticking point for me with religion. I need evidence, something I can stand firmly on and say "This objectively proves that and so I can reasonably continue to believe it." I've never found anything like that with Christianity (which, being the religion I was raised in, was understandably the religion I was seeking most desperately to hold on to during my initial time of doubting).

I read Lee Strobel's apologetics (basically saying that doubting is ok and offering a whole lot of "Well, we had a lot of eyewitnesses, apparently. The Jesus story would totally hold up in court!") and I even sunk so low as to go to Answers in Genesis, but nothing has ever impressed me as being solid, objective proof for a God of any kind, much less the Christian God which was the one I had been primarily interested in.

So that's about where I stand on this. I tried the faith thing, but I'm a constant doubter and the one and only thing that has ever helped me with doubting, no matter what it is that I'm doubting about, is reminding myself of all the evidence. And when I don't have it... well, maybe those doubts have a point.

By OctoberMermaid (not verified) on 12 Jul 2008 #permalink

Maybe there are more people alive than have ever died?

(half of them are sock puppets)

By splendidmonkey (not verified) on 12 Jul 2008 #permalink

Adrienne:

Because my belief is in a God that is perfect Truth (rational) and perfect Love. It would not be truthful or loving to deceive. If it is not perfectly true or perfectly loving at once, then it cannot be God and should not be worshiped as God.

Discovering Truth and Love is discovering God. I believe in Truth and I believe in Love. I need no proof for those things. That means the only question that remains is whether Truth and Love act as a person. That's what the atheists -- and I do not use that term as a putdown as so many theists would -- must argue against.

I know some, however, will go one step further and argue that Truth and Love do not exist. I will not debate that tonight. That's outside the scope of my arguments.

By Dutch Hedrick (not verified) on 12 Jul 2008 #permalink

Again, Dutch blathers on about 'god' as if this is something real. It is not. Dutch should be ashamed of himself for wasting bits on such an unworthy topic.

I doubt that we'll ever be free of religion - too many people are infested with that particular complex of nasty memes - but I sure as hell don't have to listen to this idiot spew forth his mindless and immoral theological diarrhea without calling a spade a spade.

Life is too short to let this garbage go unanswered.

If Dutch's 'god' were to exist, it would be contemptible and unworthy of respect, let alone worship. It does not exist, however, so what would have been an interesting confrontation will never occur.

There is no point in arguing with these people - they have been infected with something that renders them immune to reason and uncaring about truth.

Simply put up quarantine signs warning the children to stay away.

Mark writes:

"I've read them.

My point is how do I know they're not all fabricated?

How do I know that they were written by whom they purport to be written by?

How do I know any of those people really exist?

How do I know that this isn't one big scam foisted on us by Myers and others for their own benefit?

Just presenting something to me and saying, "Look, someone wrote this" doesn't tell me anything about the truth of what's written there or the authentic authorship.

To present all of these emails and comments in this environment in which things like this can be so easily fabricated without firmer evidence that these writers are actually who Myers says they are is asking me to take Myers' word..

...on faith. "

How about on logic and the principle of least astonishment. I could accept that either PZ or PZ and a cadre of sycophants spent hours of time and forged literally hundreds of letters and posts on Pharyngula or they are actually written by people with no sense of perspective.

If you're trying to put *faith* that PZ didn't forge these letters on par with *faith* that the body of Christ materializes in the Eucharist, then you also have no sense of perspective and no clue.

By Stuart Weinstein (not verified) on 12 Jul 2008 #permalink

OctoberMermaid @599: I had 12 years of Catholic religious education, six of them in an Opus Dei school. The Opus Dei education aimed for "faith based on reason", which is different from the "blind faith" that Dutch spoke of earlier, in that it's supposed to be faith based on reason or on what's reasonable. As in, it's reasonable to think that there is a God, that he wants to get to know His creatures, etc. But while certainly better than the "don't question anything" blind-faith approach, ultimately the "faith based on reason" approach devolves into believing on faith those things that are supposedly beyond human understanding: Transubstantiation, the Nature of the Triune Godhead, etc.

"Morales, you're so right: these are nuthin' but a bunch of pricks diggin' into one's flesh..."

Wow, jb. I mean, I'm usually not the one to point out this sort of thing, but that's such a fascinating, bizzare little word picture you painted there, I have to wonder... Some sort of secret fantasy or something? I wouldn't be surprised if DeviantArt doesn't have a chat group for that sort of thing.

By OctoberMermaid (not verified) on 12 Jul 2008 #permalink

Dutch Hedrick, I do believe you're starting to grow on me.

@601 you wrote:

Discovering Truth and Love is discovering God. I believe in Truth and I believe in Love.

But I believe in those things too, yet I have no problem in believing in them as abstract concepts that do not need to be instantiated in a supernatural being.

I need no proof for those things.

Actually, you can make a case in favor of each one without resorting to the supernatural. But even so, aren't you basically admitting here that you have no real objective proof of your God, you just believe in Him as some sort of supernatural manifestation of these ideals?

OctoberMermaid:

I see your point. It reminds me of what Pope Benedict wrote (when he was Cardinal Ratizinger) in the early part of "Introduction of Christianity." He points out that with lack of firm evidence on either side -- theism and atheism -- one has to constantly question one's own system of belief.

The theist always has the question challenging him: "But what if it's not true," -- and certainly, I have. But the atheist also, without firm evidence, question himself, "But what if it IS true."

I'm not getting into Pascal's Wager here. Ratzinger's point was that the question of God -- or no God -- is essentially the question about Life itself. Concerning the question of God we have three choices: Theism, Atheism, or Polytheism.

Whichever choice we take -- whichever we believe -- is the path our lives shall take. But if we are to begin walking, we should at least have faith that the path we're traveling upon is the right one.

By Dutch Hedrick (not verified) on 12 Jul 2008 #permalink

Because my belief is in a God that is perfect Truth (rational) and perfect Love. It would not be truthful or loving to deceive. If it is not perfectly true or perfectly loving at once, then it cannot be God and should not be worshiped as God.
Discovering Truth and Love is discovering God. I believe in Truth and I believe in Love. I need no proof for those things. That means the only question that remains is whether Truth and Love act as a person. That's what the atheists -- and I do not use that term as a putdown as so many theists would -- must argue against.

blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah

By MAJeff, OM (not verified) on 12 Jul 2008 #permalink

OctoberMermaid, I must protest.

The problem is on my end, because I can't personally see a difference between faith and blind faith. Since faith is apparently "believing without evidence" isn't that already blind? This has always been the sticking point for me with religion.

See, blind faith is belief despite the evidence, faith alone is belief without evidence.

The best kind to have is both, of course. I'm sure Dutch will support my metamathematical-metalogical pseudo-theological contention that surely [(faith) + (blind faith)] > [(faith) xor (blind faith)] in terms of raw faith.

Not that I have an 'A' in whatever it was, but, still, it's obvious. To have both is to be as faithful as one can be.

By John Morales (not verified) on 12 Jul 2008 #permalink

It is NOT in the nature of the rock, however, to get up and start singing show tunes. The rock is what it is. Similarly, it is not in God's Nature to deceive. God cannot be un-Godlike, or otherwise he would not be God.

There is so much wrong with this, not the least of which is that, through a process that took billions of years, rock turned into something that gets up and sings show tunes, and now we can, in a much shorter time, form rock into something that you can put on your desk that can display non-existent figures dancing and singing show tunes.

The "nature" of rock is determined by observation and analysis of its components and how they interact, in light of what we know of physics and chemistry; it is a posteriori, not a priori. But there are no such grounds for these claims about "God". It is certainly within the realm of logical possibility that the universe was created by a deceptive entity. And if one rules that out by fiat, then there's all the more reason to think that this "God" does not exist, as its existence is well hidden and this book that people claim it wrote is full of falsehoods, as are the mouths of its proponents.

By truth machine, OM (not verified) on 12 Jul 2008 #permalink

Adrienne:

I do believe Him to be a "supernatural manifestation of these ideals," in the sense that Plato spoke of when he spoke of Ideals. That's why the Church sees a lot of truth in Platonism -- even if it doesn't agree with everything Plato said.

By Dutch Hedrick (not verified) on 12 Jul 2008 #permalink

@ #142: What does it say about someone when they list google.com as their web page?

(Of course, maybe I shouldn't talk, since I don't even have one. But WTF, I had to ask anyway.)

By themadlolscien… (not verified) on 12 Jul 2008 #permalink

"Whichever choice we take -- whichever we believe -- is the path our lives shall take. But if we are to begin walking, we should at least have faith that the path we're traveling upon is the right one.
"

I think I disagree with how you see atheism as kind of a belief, but I DO agree with the quoted section.

I absolutely feel that way, but instead of faith, I need proof. Maybe it's my own failing for being prone to doubt (I'm not about to say I'm smart or more rational than most people or even nearly as smart or nearly as rational as most of the people who comment here. The main reason I'm an atheist today is because of this tendency I have always had to doubt things. They led me to question stuff I don't think I may have otherwise questioned. I really can't say), but that's the way I am and I can't do anything on faith alone. For better or worse, I need to have objective proof for what I choose or believe.

Granted, I make poor decisions and even have had a bad habit of ignoring or disregarding evidence at times in support of things I WANT to believe, but in the end, the doubts will eventually win out and the questions will come back. The only thing that can ever dispell that is solid evidence.

By OctoberMermaid (not verified) on 12 Jul 2008 #permalink

To say that God "cannot choose to make false what he knows to be true" means that he lacks omnipotence ignores the concept of Divine Nature.—Dutch

Yes, and as a rational, thinking being, I choose to ignore concepts that have no scientific basis.

Dutch@611: Yes, and the Church still holds to Aristotelian/Thomistic principles of biology and philosophy, even though they are demonstrably false in light of modern science. The whole substance vs. accidents bit, for instance. The Church holds quite a lot of beliefs that do not hold up under logical scrutiny, Transubstantiation being one of them.

OctoberMermaid and Adrienne:

I've just got to say that I've really loved chatting about these things with you because the questions you guys ask me get me to think about things I wouldn't have thought of myself. It challenges me and helps me to learn and grow, so it's been richly rewarding. I hope it's been that way for you guys, too. It's made me stay much later than I originally intended.

Thanks, by the way, for putting up with my sloppy typing and spelling. I try my best. :)

Here's hoping we all find what we're searching for in Life! Bye! :)

By Dutch Hedrick (not verified) on 12 Jul 2008 #permalink

OK, so now we know why Bill Donohue is so up in arms about the cracker business (aside from the clinical insanity, but I digress...).

From the Guardian:

Lourdes fears priestly scandal will make profits dry up
t is called the 'Zambelli Affair' and for the town of Lourdes, one of the world's most famous sites of pilgrimage, it could not have come at a worse time. Last week it was disclosed that Fr Raymond Zambelli, the priest in charge of the sanctuaries of Lourdes, was being investigated by financial police after a computer highlighted suspicious deposits in his personal account, amounting to £360,000. Rumours of money-laundering were soon rife and, since then, the town has waited anxiously for the next dramatic twist.

Zambelli, at a hastily called press conference, denied all wrongdoing and explained that the cash was a donation from an ageing worshipper. But though he has been backed by the Bishop of Tarbes, Jacques Perrier, the damage has been done.

'What every one fears is that the image of Lourdes will be tarnished,' Francis Dehaine, who manages the Lourdes sanctuary and its £23m annual budget, said. 'Nobody ever thought something like this could happen. And it's the image of the shrine that suffers.'

Lourdes is in the spotlight like never before. It is the 150th anniversary of the apparition of the virgin Mary to Bernadette Soubirous, a poor, illiterate local girl, in a cave beside the Gave de Pau river and a total of eight million pilgrims are expected at the shrine this year, a third more than usual: in September, Benedict XVI is coming. According to a leaked letter, prosecutors have even suggested soft-pedalling the investigation until after the pope's visit.

The Zambelli Affair has laid bare the long-standing resentment that seethes among the 15,000 inhabitants of Lourdes, where the residential and administrative 'upper town' has a sometimes tense relationship with the highly commercialised 'lower town', with its souvenir shops selling religious bric-a-brac.

In the upper town, the investigation into Zambelli's finances has unleashed a strong sense of Schadenfreude. Every visitor at the shrine spends around €100 - manna from which those who are neither hoteliers nor souvenir shop owners are excluded. 'Serves them right,' said one waiter in the upper town. 'About time they got their comeuppance.'

For those selling Lourdes water for €3(£2.50) a litre, the rosaries, the statuettes and the flashing plastic models of Bernadette , the fear is that the scandal will cost hard cash. 'It's like the Tour de France. One rider done for doping and the public think they are all on drugs,' said Anton Dupont, a taxi driver.

Church authorities have acted recently to restrain the souvenir sellers' commercial excesses. Bottles of wine with the Virgin Mary on the label and place mats picturing the shrine's famous cave were banned, though healing mints made with holy water from the Lourdes spring are still on the shelves.

Nor is the Church itself immune to the fallout. For the priests, the fear is for the big donors. More than a quarter of the sanctuary's revenue comes from gifts. 'The pilgrims themselves will come whatever,' said Dehaine. 'But the donors might be affected.'

Local prosecutors are now weighing up whether to act against Zambelli, who has not been suspended.

'Without the shrine, most of us would be out of business, so we have to get on,' said Philippe Bianco, head of the local Chamber of Commerce. There was also little sign that the thousands flowing up the long esplanade leading to the basilica, dropping a donation of a couple of euros in a box for a candle or queuing for the grotto were worried by the state of the Zambelli bank account.

Must distract the flock. Keep that cashflow going.
Same old same old..

Adrienne:

Before I go, could you elaborate on the substance/accidents thing of which you speak? Thanks.

By Dutch Hedrick (not verified) on 12 Jul 2008 #permalink

P. Z. Meyers' bad behavior toward the body of Our Savior
Is at minimum appalling, and it's blasphemy at most!
This is more than merely naughty--this is Christ Almighty's Body--
There's a special place in Hell for those who desecrate the Host!

Dr. Meyers would be safer if he just ignored the wafer;
'Cos the Prince Of Peace has followers who will not mess around.
There's no blogger, nerd, or hacker who can simply steal a cracker--
These are people who have re-defined the phrase "too tightly wound".

Now it's more than merely prattle, it's a First Amendment battle;
Can the Catholics demand the recognition of their views?
And if transubstantiation is supported by the nation
Will the other faith communities each, likewise, get to choose?

When you lean toward theocratic, it is far from automatic
That the legal recognition of your rituals will follow--
If our goal is "not offending", then the list is never-ending,
And the spectrum of religions is too big a bite to swallow.

If the nation acts as proxy for one form of orthodoxy
Then the other True Believers could be truly in a lurch;
But our brilliant founding fathers saw through this and other bothers
And decided to prohibit the endorsement of one church.

If believers were offended, that's what Myers had intended--
While it may not be polite, he has the right to be a jerk;
It's the nation's Constitution that prevents his prosecution,
Sure, it's not the Holy Bible, but it kinda seems to work.

http://digitalcuttlefish.blogspot.com/2008/07/all-this-over-ritual-cann…

But if we are to begin walking, we should at least have faith that the path we're traveling upon is the right one.

Utter nonsense. One doesn't need any sort of "faith" to simply not waste time on one's knees, in church, stupidly capitalizing words like "love" and "him", or assaulting people who don't swallow crackers.

By truth machine, OM (not verified) on 12 Jul 2008 #permalink

Owlmirror @ #262 is win teh hol intarwebz x lebentylebenhunderd!

By themadlolscien… (not verified) on 12 Jul 2008 #permalink

Before I go, could you elaborate on the substance/accidents thing of which you speak? Thanks.

Accidents is the term used to refer to the appearance of the host after endergoing transubstantiation still being that of a simple wafer of unleavened bread. This is as opposed to the substance of the host actually being that of the body of Christ.

And if you truly believe that those wafers are the actual body of a supposed prophet who died nearly 2000 years ago, and not simply a symbol, then you are not a rational being.

G'night, Dutch. I actually find your earnest manner rather refreshing, even if I do not agree with you. I'm going to bed too. If you're still going to hang around Pharyngula (I'm sure there will be many more long comment threads after this one), we'll discuss substance/accidents another time, OK? If you don't hang around Pharyngula, tried googling the relevant terms and see where that leads you. Or go to catholicanswers.com. Best of luck in life to you too.

#616

Don't get me wrong, I really DO enjoy discussing this stuff. The trick is for me to put aside my typical habit of being snarky or sarcastic. I'm used to talking to a very particular kind of theist and so I tend to go straight into "that mode" which is obviously not fair to people who really do want a discussion, and I just end up being a total dick. So I do appologize for that, because I came off pretty lousy for a while there.

By OctoberMermaid (not verified) on 12 Jul 2008 #permalink

truth machine:

You don't have to "swallow crackers" if you do not want to. As the Torah in the Jewish community contains the Word of God, Catholics believe the Eucharist IS the Word of God. If one were to go into a Jewish synagogue an take the Torah from the Ark and try to leave with it, I'm sure someone would make a fuss out of that.

It is on that level of respect the Catholic's hold the Eucharist. One does not have to agree with them; but it's also true that one should not show such blatant disrespect for a religious group and its customs as that student did.

By Dutch Hedrick (not verified) on 12 Jul 2008 #permalink

Not a problem, Adrienne. Good night! :)

By Dutch Hedrick (not verified) on 12 Jul 2008 #permalink

Dan J.

Thanks for responding. THAT -- I understood. I was just wondering how science "proved" this platonic assertion to be false.

By Dutch Hedrick (not verified) on 12 Jul 2008 #permalink

Are they finally gone?

Oh, what silly and tiresome creatures they are.

They exchange utter nonsense and then praise themselves and each other for the service they've done to their 'god'.

Where are the Daleks when you need them?

@ #403 "jb"
The data are prevalence rates, not absolute numbers. The comparison of abuse rates between catholic priests and educators shows a diff of at least an order of magnitude. These are not "my" data, they are from the source you had mentioned, and they are tabulated on page 25 of the citation I had posted (#391).

The John Jay College (JJC) study you cited also states that the 4,392 out of 109,694 priests were "credibly accused of abusing children and youths...".

By dubiquiabs (not verified) on 12 Jul 2008 #permalink

delurking to add my praise to 262. epic and hilarious.

By Gûm-ishi Ashu Gurum (not verified) on 12 Jul 2008 #permalink

It is on that level of respect the Catholic's hold the Eucharist. One does not have to agree with them; but it's also true that one should not show such blatant disrespect for a religious group and its customs as that student did.

(Sorry if I have sounded too vitriolic over this at times.)

I think many people have failed to read about the incident in question. The student is a member of the Catholic Church. He attended mass that day with an acquaintance who is not Catholic. He had intended to take the eucharist back to his seat and show it to his acquaintance, then consume it afterwards.

E.V.

Sorry I missed this earlier, but I just thought I'd point out that if St. Augustine is now invalid because of its age, then Descartes will be just as invalid with time.

Personally, I don't belief that Truth has an expiration date.

(And, truthmachine, I capitalize 'Truth' because I mean ultimate Truth, not just a particular portion of truth. So you see -- my capitalizations DO have meaning behind them. You just refuse to acknowledge what I'm communicating with such capitalizations. That however is your decision and has nothing to do with me.)

By Dutch Hedrick (not verified) on 12 Jul 2008 #permalink

You don't have to "swallow crackers" if you do not want to

tell that to Donowhore, there, dutch.

In fact, this whole thing arose BECAUSE apparently many Catholics do indeed feel one has to "swallow crackers".

so much so, that they apparently would be happy to kill you for not doing so.

I just can't believe, after thousands and thousands of posts, that there are STILL a few who refuse to comprehend the real issue at hand.

Would you kill someone who attempted to remove a book from a box?

seriously, I'm asking.

Would you kill someone who removed the "torah" from the "ark"?

why not?

It's not sock puppetry. Truly, it must be the miracle of the oafs and the phishers.

Alert the Vatican!

so much so, that they apparently would be happy to kill you for not doing so.

...or even kill you for criticizing and ridiculing those who would kill someone for not doing so.

To say that God "cannot choose to make false what he knows to be true" means that he lacks omnipotence ignores the concept of Divine Nature.

To say it is to state an analytical truth. "the concept of Divine Nature" is tantamount to admitting that God isn't omnipotent. Which is fine -- people who want to believe in "divine nature" should simply give up omniscience as a property of their god. Except that omniscience is part of the dogma, and so they aren't allowed to give it up. So they cling to obviously inconsistent views even though they could make them somewhat less obviously inconsistent, and then blather about all of that being rational.

By truth machine, OM (not verified) on 12 Jul 2008 #permalink

Dutch:

Thanks for responding. THAT -- I understood. I was just wondering how science "proved" this platonic assertion to be false.

I don't know that you could say anyone has scientifically proven it to be "false", per se. As I see it, the accidents/substance issue is purely philosophical, and falls outside the real of scientific proofs.

And now it's off to bed.. 6am rolls around too damn early.

Dan J.:

As someone who was brought up Catholic himself, he should have known better. His protesting school funds being used for the Church seems to undercut his argument that he had no intention other than to show his non-Catholic friend the Eucharist.

If one wanted to see what it looked like, there are other ways of doing so. When I was young, I remember a priest letting us taste a non-consecrated communion wafer because we were curious about what it tasted like.

The student obviously wanted a consecrated wafer because he knew what it means to Catholics. He just did a sloppy job at getting away with it.

By Dutch Hedrick (not verified) on 12 Jul 2008 #permalink

So they cling to obviously inconsistent views even though they could make them somewhat less obviously inconsistent, and then blather about all of that being rational.

funny, I've used what you said there almost word for word as a description of religious apologetics.

At least when feeling less than charitable about apologetics.

well, OK, being honest that's pretty much always.

I wonder if I'm the first to congratulate Cuttlefish on another masterpiece?

By John Morales (not verified) on 12 Jul 2008 #permalink

Dan J:

That's what I was thinking, too -- about the philosophical nature of Platonism. Thanks for your time, however! Goodnight!

By Dutch Hedrick (not verified) on 12 Jul 2008 #permalink

(And, truthmachine, I capitalize 'Truth' because I mean ultimate Truth, not just a particular portion of truth.

A stupid, meaningless notion.

So you see -- my capitalizations DO have meaning behind them.

No, they have retardation behind them.

You just refuse to acknowledge what I'm communicating with such capitalizations. That however is your decision and has nothing to do with me.)

What I said was that one doesn't need "faith" in order not to waste one's time doing that. So yes, it is my decision and has nothing to do with you, moron.

By truth machine, OM (not verified) on 12 Jul 2008 #permalink

About xians understanding of belief and the lack thereof:

(Note: this is an observation from personal experience with a fundie xian family, and may not apply to all fundies, although I suspect that it might)

An atheist says "I don't believe in X" and means "I don't believe X exists"

My xian relatives say "I don't believe in X" and mean "I do actually believe X exists, but it is evil/sinful/demonic, so I oppose it"

So certain commenters here, who have been asked to present evidence for the non-existence of Thor, leprechauns, unicorns, etc, may actually believe those things do exist, and are tools satan uses (or has used in the past) to lure man astray. They don't understand the concept of non-belief because they really do believe in every crazy notion anyone has ever had.

Again, this is just my observation of fundies I know personally, and only tentatively ascribe it to all fundies. I have neither the training, time, or funding to research this hypothesis on the general population of fundies.

The student obviously wanted a consecrated wafer because he knew what it means to Catholics. He just did a sloppy job at getting away with it.

You're obviously an ignorant jackass who is willfully ignoring the facts of the case, facts that have been discussed in these threads at length.

By truth machine, OM (not verified) on 12 Jul 2008 #permalink

The student obviously wanted a consecrated wafer because he knew what it means to Catholics

are you denying that he actually had a buddy in the pew that requested the consecrated wafer for viewing?

because if so, I'm sure the other witnesses, including the priest, never said that person wasn't there.

you are making rather grand assumptions about what the student's intent was.

all we know is what is presented in the articles, and in those articles, he says he took the cracker to show a friend sitting in the pew, and nobody denies that the "church leader" essentially assaulted him in order to try and get it back.

that's why there are counter-claims filed with the relevant UCF organizations.

"If one were to go into a Jewish synagogue an take the Torah from the Ark and try to leave with it, I'm sure someone would make a fuss out of that."

I understand what you are saying about depth of feeling, though your analogy fails to take into account that the Catholics are GIVING these things out freely. It's not at all like stealing the Torah from its Ark. It would be as if at the synagogue they were handing out Xerox copies of their Torah (made using a special kosher Xerox machine) and then sending death threats to the poor schmuck who dog-eared one of the pages so he could study it back at the dorm.

you are making rather grand assumptions about what the student's intent was.

What he's doing is demonstrating that he's just another vile Catholic. In his first post here he wrote "Way to judge an entire group of people and their beliefs based upon one idiot" ... which is not what PZ did, but considering how often a little scratching under the surface reveals people like DH, it's not all that unreasonable.

By truth machine, OM (not verified) on 12 Jul 2008 #permalink

truth machine #590:

But this does not show the sort of causal relationship that jb was claiming between atheism and Stalinism, or Communism. As I said, you're arguing against a strawman.

Spinoza and Voltaire challenge Abrahamism ==> atheism gains a foothold in European intellectual life, there is a profound malaise ==> Marx, bolstered by many scientific discoveries in biology and geology, claims a scientific understanding of society, feeds a powerful human urge for an end to pain and sorrow, gains many adherents ==> revolutions are attempted, some succeed ==> Stalinism.

These are not simple causal relationships of abstract entities. Only a charlatan would make such a claim. But these relationships matter to me. And you trivialize them. Over and over and over.

E.V. #580:

How would your genes be threatened from the loss of supernaturalism?

Roughly speaking, I think the massive loss of mechanisms and rituals that promote positive social interaction and mutual reliance can render societies vulnerable to grandiose ideologies and charismatic saviours whose solutions involve killing fields. (I am not saying that supernaturalism is the only conceivable source of positive social interaction. It doesn't have an unblemished record, but it has had some darn good moments.)

By Neil Schipper (not verified) on 12 Jul 2008 #permalink

#643

One entire side of my family acts and believes in the exact same way you described. When they say "I don't believe in..." they mean they don't approve of.

They're always vigilant about "not letting Satan get a foothold." Apparently Satan loves his footholds and he's always on the look out for the smallest ones.

By OctoberMermaid (not verified) on 12 Jul 2008 #permalink

Naz, k8, promo, baker, PZ is a fool, Burns, rumrunner, Dobbs, NYTs, KKKAthiest, Andy, CDV, BradJ, Brett, b7, PCD, NVFU, Your daddy, facebock, baker.

LLLLAAAAAAAHHHHHOOOOOOOOZERS!

--S.

truth machine:

Well -- I believe in omniscience as I just defined it, i.e., being within his Nature. If it weren't his Nature, then he wouldn't be God. That is how Jews and Christians both understand God to be, which is what made it different from polytheism.

Ratzinger explains all this very well in his "Introduction to Christianity" by explaining how humanity's understanding of "God" has changed through time. (Not that "God" has changed, mind you, but our understanding has.)

That's why the Jews were considered "God's Chosen People" because he chose to reveal these truths about him to them first. That was his way of introducing himself to humanity. Christianity was his way to spread knowledge of him throughout the world.

Unfortunately, we humans are flawed and have done a bad job of communicating who he is. That's where the trouble starts. The problem, however, isn't the message, but the poor quality of the messengers.

By Dutch Hedrick (not verified) on 12 Jul 2008 #permalink

#126 - Hank Fox - gawddamit, you owe me three monitor wipes and an ice cold glass of sangria.
What to do with the holy cracker my ....!
At least two wine curdling blasphemys come instantly to mind. Dammit, cut that out. ;)

Neil?... Hello?...Neil!
Did you go away? I was sincerely interested in your exchange with Truth Machine. Remember your premise regarding the loss of supernateralism and the danger to your jeans?
If you post, I'll have to read it tomorrow.
And Truth Machine, Dutch wanted me to remind you not to swallow the Torah, or something like that. He wasn't exactly clear...

Sorry, Neil, I caught your post after i posted. I'm reading it now.

Neil Schipper #648,
Spinoza and Voltaire challenge Abrahamism ==> atheism gains a foothold in European intellectual life, there is a profound malaise ==> Marx, bolstered by many scientific discoveries in biology and geology, claims a scientific understanding of society, feeds a powerful human urge for an end to pain and sorrow, gains many adherents ==> revolutions are attempted, some succeed ==> Stalinism.

Stalinism====> USSR getting Nuclear Missles and confronting JFK====> Oliver Stone makes movie JFK with Kevin Bacon. Yes, made it within 6! Never thought I would play that game starting with Voltaire and Spinoza.

By Feynmaniac (not verified) on 12 Jul 2008 #permalink

Ichthyic:

I most certainly am NOT denying that he had a friend there. Just because he had a friend there, however, does not prove that his intentions were what he claimed them to be.

And TruthMachine -- your assuming that I was denying the student had a friend there is a grand assumption in itself.

Let's look at what PZ said:

"It makes you look so weak that you have to lie to put up a pretense of popular support, and it makes your side, in this case the fundamentalist Catholics, look like a troop of posturing frauds"

So 1) the Sock-puppet looks weak because he has to lie, so 2) the Sock-Puppet's behavior makes the "fundamentalist Catholics" (are there any other kind? If they're Catholic, they believe the Church's teachings) look like a "troop of .... frauds."

I disagree with PZ. I don't think the sock-puppet's actions reflect poorly upon anyone but himself. If PZ believes that the Sock-Puppet's actions reflect anyone's but his own, he should say something like, "Well, this was one idiot but he's not speaking for all Catholics everywhere."

Instead, PZ implies that one person's behavior makes the Catholics look like "frauds." That's his value judgment. But PZ's judgement doesn't make it objectively true.

By Dutch Hedrick (not verified) on 12 Jul 2008 #permalink

E.V.:

Your representations of my arguments only demonstrate how theologically illiterate you are. If you don't know how the Torah is similar to the Eucharist in that they both represent the Word of God, then there are two explanations:

1) You do not understand.
2) You choose not to understand.

In the first case, you're simply ignorant. In the second, you're willfully ignorant. I hope for your sake it's the first case that's true and not the second. After all, ignorance can be cured with a little knowledge. When it comes to willful ignorance, however, no amount knowledge could ever cure such a condition.

By Dutch Hedrick (not verified) on 12 Jul 2008 #permalink

You don't have to "swallow crackers" if you do not want to. As the Torah in the Jewish community contains the Word of God, Catholics believe the Eucharist IS the Word of God. If one were to go into a Jewish synagogue an take the Torah from the Ark and try to leave with it, I'm sure someone would make a fuss out of that.

I carried a Torah around a synagogue when I was 13, but I don't recall ever eating it, moron. However, had I dropped it, the little old men in their yarmulkes and talises might have reacted as crazily as the Catholic nutcases did to Cook.

"Making a fuss" is a lovely euphemism for assault and death threats.

By truth machine, OM (not verified) on 12 Jul 2008 #permalink

Tom L:

I don't agree with your analogy. Perhaps it is human nature to think that scarcity increases worth and lack of scarcity cheapens, that is not what Catholics believe concerning the Eucharist.

That is because even when broken, the Eucharist is still One Bread -- just as there is only One God. God does not become cheap because he gives himself freely -- just as love does not become cheap because one loves more.

Love is not a commodity to be bought and sold. One should not give God or love attributes that are similar to goods of trade. A different standard must be used.

By Dutch Hedrick (not verified) on 12 Jul 2008 #permalink

Spinoza and Voltaire challenge Abrahamism ==> atheism gains a foothold in European intellectual life, there is a profound malaise ==> Marx, bolstered by many scientific discoveries in biology and geology, claims a scientific understanding of society, feeds a powerful human urge for an end to pain and sorrow, gains many adherents ==> revolutions are attempted, some succeed ==> Stalinism.

So it's a bad and dangerous idea to challenge Abrahamism, to make scientific discoveries in biology and geology, or to try to end pain and sorrow?

*headdesk* *headdesk* *headdesk* *headdesk*

Webster Cook takes tiny wafer -> Catholics enraged -> PZ writes post -> attracts inanity -> my head hurts. Webster Cook made my head hurt!

These are not simple causal relationships of abstract entities. Only a charlatan would make such a claim. But these relationships matter to me. And you trivialize them. Over and over and over.

Care to examine the relationships between Christianity and the Holocaust?

"Awwww--you martyr, you!! lol.lol.lol..."

I saw this post and just felt it was the pinnacle of JB's intellectual competence. Thirteen year old AOL users beware.

jb:How the FUCK do you know what the hell I did or didn't do, you stupid cunt?!?

As the first generation in a French-Canadian family not to have her life directly damaged or indirectly ended by the Catholic Church, let me say - KISS MY ATHEIST ASS, you personification of medieval misogyny.

"Roughly speaking, I think the massive loss of mechanisms and rituals that promote positive social interaction and mutual reliance can render societies vulnerable to grandiose ideologies and charismatic saviours whose solutions involve killing fields."

Like, say, the streets of Jerusalem in 1099? Or perhaps you mean the World Trade Center, Sept 11, 2001?

One of the ways to reduce the effect of grandiose ideologies is an ever greater willingness to point and laugh when someone or some idea is obviously batshit crazy.

Well -- I believe in omniscience as I just defined it, i.e., being within his Nature

You mean apparently omnipotence, humpty fucking dumpty, but you don't get to redefine words willy nilly. You believe in an omniipotent God, only it's not omnipotent, only you say it is. That's called lying.

And TruthMachine -- your assuming that I was denying the student had a friend there is a grand assumption in itself.

The word is "you're", and I never said anything about a friend, cretin.

Instead, PZ implies that one person's behavior makes the Catholics look like "frauds."

This lie has been addressed more than once. He referred to "Catholic fundamentalists".

But PZ's judgement doesn't make it objectively true.

Duh. But neither is your disagreement. Nor anything else you have to say, although much of it is objectively false. Unlike you, PZ is reasoned, informed, and intelligent.

By truth machine, OM (not verified) on 12 Jul 2008 #permalink

TruthMachine:

You seem to be trying to make me argue in favor of justifying those who would "assault and make death threats." Nice try, but I can't bring myself to do so for some reason.

I understand that Jews and Catholics don't see the Eucharist in the same way. I actually have more Jewish friends than Christian -- living in a very secular environment as I do -- and we've had this discussion several times. It's difficult for them to understand because they don't believe Jesus was Christ. Therefore, I wouldn't expect them to believe that the Eucharist is the Word of God.

To Catholics, the Eucharist is the Word of God because it is Christ. That's why we have a tabernacle in place of the Ark, and that's where the Eucharist is taken at the end of Communion.

For some reason, my Jewish friends have been able to listen to me explain this to them without calling me names. I don't understand why you find it necessary to.

By Dutch Hedrick (not verified) on 12 Jul 2008 #permalink

Dutch @ 601: "Because my belief is in a God that is perfect Truth (rational) and perfect Love. It would not be truthful or loving to deceive. If it is not perfectly true or perfectly loving at once, then it cannot be God and should not be worshiped as God."

2nd Thessalonians 2:11 " And for this cause God shall send them strong delusion, that they should believe a lie:"

So clearly, the God of the Bible is not the real God. Glad you could clear that up for us, Dutch.

Dutch Hedrick:

I think that you have misunderstood. PZ is saying that the sockpuppet, using so many different pseudonyms, made it look as though there were many Catholics who were behaving poorly.

While I certainly wouldn't have thought that it was indicative of all Catholics, it certainly doesn't reflect well. That was PZ's point.

"One should not give God or love attributes that are similar to goods of trade."

I could not agree more.

Care to examine the relationships between Christianity and the Holocaust?

There is no pattern between the two, it's just a political correct way of using certain labels to degrade another belief...The core base of Christianity is found only in the Bible, and there is no teaching that is similar to that of the holocaust for Christians to follow, unlike other religions such as Islam which states...

"And slay them (the infidels) wherever you catch them, and turn them out from where they have turned you out, for tumult and oppression are worse than slaughter" --Quran Sura 2:191

atheism gains a foothold in European intellectual life, there is a profound malaise ==> Marx,

What part of "The point of the analogy was that Stalinism has a historical connection to atheism, but not vice versa" are you too stupid to understand, Neil? Even if you want to blame Marxism on atheism, that has nothing to do with us disbelievers.

By truth machine, OM (not verified) on 12 Jul 2008 #permalink

"You mean apparently omnipotence, humpty fucking dumpty, but you don't get to redefine words willy nilly. You believe in an omniipotent God, only it's not omnipotent, only you say it is. That's called lying."

I'm not "redefining" words. I'm using the words as they were originally intended to be used. It's Protestants protesting Catholicism and secular atheists who -- over hundreds of years -- have been doing the redefining. If you go back to the early theological writings you will see that omnipotences and omniscience as I used them are ideas that go back hundreds of years.

Just because you guys wanted to re-write Webster's doesn't mean that should be any reflection upon me. That's why Catholicism continues to use Latin. As G.K. Chesterton put it: "It's the difference between a so-called dead language [Latin] and a dying language [English]." Or a deteriorating language to be more accurate.

At least the Latin meanings never change.

By Dutch Hedrick (not verified) on 12 Jul 2008 #permalink

Cuttlefish! Good to see you again.

By RamblinDude (not verified) on 12 Jul 2008 #permalink

Neil, I'm not sure I can follow your premise. As a species, it is doubtful we will ever lose our irrationality and tast for formalized superstition, though we are witnessing a modern conglomerization of religion/celebrity/politicians as ideological totems as well as bastardized cafeteria-style dogma. If mass education results in the loss of supernaturalism, then the ability to introduce the great unwashed to higher levels of reason and logic is dependent on our ability to maintain our current levels of civilization. Any major catastrophes and loss of technology will send us scurrying back to the dark ages in more ways than one. And once again their will be a struggle to extricate ourselves from mystycism and dogma. I say "ourselves", there will always be a large contingency of people who follow religions (whether Abrahamic religions survive intact is speculative) despite the irrationality of it. As long as there is poverty, ignorance, university sanctioned theological study and people who isolate themselves ideologically - you guessed it.
We are near to an equalibrium where we, as a species, will soon (decades?) face major ecological/meteorological crises that will hinder any major leaps forward for a time. We've piled the sand just so high and it will collapse and then eventually it will rise slowly again.
Damn, now I sound like a apocalyptic doomsayer. I'm going to bed now.

SteveC:

Now put that quote into context.

By Dutch Hedrick (not verified) on 12 Jul 2008 #permalink

happy whistling, cane pole over shoulder, walking to riverbank:

short time later...

sitting on river bank, adjusts float to about 18 inches, clamps lead weight near hook, takes consecrated host and attaches to hook....

swings line into river, and waits for float to bob.....

Hello Professor Myers,

My apologies regarding the Catholic League: They're a bit hot under the collar for me. Everything seems to set him off to the point where it's hard to take him seriously even when there's a valid argument.

In either case, I'm a Catholic that is respectfully asking you to respect our belief and leave us alone. We believe that piece of bread becomes the Body and Blood of Christ. If you don't believe it, fine, but let us be.

Some folks are calling each other idiots and whatnot, making widespread generalizations. I try not to do that.

Honestly, I don't care what your reasons are for wanting to take the most sacred thing to me and "play" with it. I don't want to debate you on any point, much less argue. I don't want to suggest that you shouldn't say whatever you want regarding the Catholic faith, or any faith. I just ask that you please give me a little respect and let me have what is sacred to me.

I don't know what item in this world you consider the most sacred, special, or meaningful, but I promise you that if you ever feel threaten that I will do something to it, I'll take back whatever action and apologize.

Thanks in advance,
Brandon Kraft
A Catholic from The University of Texas at Austin

P.S. I do apologize that a vocal section of Catholics aren't being very nice right now. Not cool.

troll fishin....

"Care to examine the relationships between Christianity and the Holocaust?"

There is no pattern between the two

That wasn't the question. Would you care to discuss, say, the role of the myths that Jews killed Christ and that they drank the blood of Christian infants?

By truth machine, OM (not verified) on 12 Jul 2008 #permalink

In either case, I'm a Catholic that is respectfully asking you to respect our belief and leave us alone. We believe that piece of bread becomes the Body and Blood of Christ. If you don't believe it, fine, but let us be.

Why should he?

I just ask that you please give me a little respect and let me have what is sacred to me.

Why should anyone respect foolishness?

By truth machine, OM (not verified) on 12 Jul 2008 #permalink

SteveC:

Clever how you changed one word when quoting scripture -- from "may" to "should."

It makes a big difference. The difference is that between me saying, "You may eat pudding," and "You should eat pudding."

I'm sure you can work that difference out yourself.

By Dutch Hedrick (not verified) on 12 Jul 2008 #permalink

Alright everyone,
I'm an honest-to-God (no pun intended) Catholic, and am not a sock puppet (you can verify my IP and check). I'm an avid scienceblogs reader, and have been a reader of Pharyngula for a few months now.

A few people have commented that there have been no Catholics that have come forward to denounce the actions of Donahue and others who have called for or issued death threats (either directly or indirectly) against PZ and Cook.

I'd like to do so now - it's abhorrent behavior. It might have been appropriate for them to ask Cook to leave the church and to not allow him back, but that's it. Physical violence and death threats were not warranted and are frankly ridiculous.

On Donahue, there is a relatively small minority of American Catholics who are members of his Catholic League (about 0.3%), and the organization has no official standing with the Church, although it has received endorsement from several prominent American Archbishops (surprisingly enough, some of the same bishops accused of covering up sex scandals). He isn't even well liked among Catholics, and his League's own newsletter publishes a "Hatemail" section which includes letters from Catholics who claim they decided to leave the Church after seeing Donohue speak.

This isn't the first time Donahue has issued threats, and it won't be the last. Bill Maher hasn't been attacked yet, and Donahue's been doing this sort of thing to him for years, so I think PZ's going to be safe.

Donahue's a windbag and a publicity whore, nothing more.

Damnit Brandon@677, get back in the water, you aren't a troll!

Or at least a very tiny one. I respect your not wanting to push your faith on the rest of us, and apparently asking for the ability to practice your faith with your own group, without pushing it on others.

Go in peace.

Damnit, I go troll fishing and keep getting the little ones.

PAK, thank you for your post, and this comes from an ex-Catholic.

Go in peace.

Atheism and communism are related by their connection with human beliefs about people and the good life.

The fuck you say. You insist on ignorantly confusing communism with (state-)Communism. And you're evidently unfamiliar with anarchism or anarcho-communism (ever heard "No gods, No masters"?). Two books by Peter Kropotkin:

http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/4341

http://dwardmac.pitzer.edu/Anarchist_archives/kropotkin/ethics/toc.html

I agree that William Donohue is a "windbag" and he makes Catholics look bad. Hopefully, for every Donohue there is out there, there's a faithful Catholic such as Stephen Colbert out there as well who can present the best of us.

One can only hope.

By Dutch Hedrick (not verified) on 12 Jul 2008 #permalink

I'm not "redefining" words. I'm using the words as they were originally intended to be used. It's Protestants protesting Catholicism and secular atheists who -- over hundreds of years -- have been doing the redefining. If you go back to the early theological writings you will see that omnipotences and omniscience as I used them are ideas that go back hundreds of years.

Just because you guys wanted to re-write Webster's doesn't mean that should be any reflection upon me.

You're a dishonest fool. "omnipotence" means unlimited power. The history of scholastic sophistry of carving exceptions out of omnipotence, back at least to Aquinas, in order to protect the claim that God has it is thoroughly dishonest -- the essential nature of religious thought.

Here's a clue for you: every one of your posts just further confirms the negative views of the religious among those who aren't.

By truth machine, OM (not verified) on 12 Jul 2008 #permalink

Care to examine the relationships between Christianity and the Holocaust?
There is no pattern between the two, it's just a political correct way of using certain labels to degrade another belief...

Michael, that was a bit dishonest, you cut my question out of context. Which is more far fetched: a connection between Spinoza and Stalin or a connection between Christianity and the Holocaust?

So you see -- my capitalizations DO have meaning behind them.

No, they have retardation behind them.

You're no slouch yourself, tm :).

"Truth" Machine:

"You're a dishonest fool. "omnipotence" means unlimited power. The history of scholastic sophistry of carving exceptions out of omnipotence, back at least to Aquinas, in order to protect the claim that God has it is thoroughly dishonest -- the essential nature of religious thought."

Omnipotence means unlimited power, yes, but it does NOT mean that power will be used contrary to one's nature! God is not evil. God is Good. Evil does not come from God. It comes from TURNING AWAY FROM GOD!

To say that God cannot turn away from himself is absurd! That's like saying YOU can't turn away from yourself or leave yourself. God is what he is. God cannot be not-God. This is because God is God.

I don't know what more I can do to explain this. But at least because you cannot grasp this I won't resort to calling you a "fool".

Your insulting attitude and unwillingness to represent my arguments as I present them lend one to believe that it is YOU who is either dishonest or foolish.

I offer you a clue in return: Your lack of civility demonstrates the negative views theist have of atheists. Keep on posting. You're giving us more positive proof of why people need God in their lives!

By Dutch Hedrick (not verified) on 12 Jul 2008 #permalink

Clever how you changed one word when quoting scripture -- from "may" to "should."

Fuck but you're dumb. There isn't just one scripture, and googling that phrase brings up things like
http://bible.cc/2_thessalonians/2-11.htm

And it doesn't matter in that context whether it's "should" or "may", as it isn't normative; it means "will result in".

By truth machine, OM (not verified) on 12 Jul 2008 #permalink

"Truth" Machine (machine -- as in operating mechanically without a soul?):

OH! So are you trying to get me to argue for translations of the Bible which aren't approved by the Catholic Church? Well, I hate to disappoint you because I'm not going to do it.

I don't acknowledge translations as being legit unless the Church approves -- and even then I'd say it's better to go back to the Latin or Greek.

By Dutch Hedrick (not verified) on 12 Jul 2008 #permalink

Malcolm X: Good Catholic, I'm sure, but I won't be defending his translations either. Nice try. Play again.

By Dutch Hedrick (not verified) on 12 Jul 2008 #permalink

I don't acknowledge translations as being legit unless the Church approves -- and even then I'd say it's better to go back to the Latin or Greek.

You are beyond stupid and dishonest. The page I gave quoted the ISV the KJB, and a dozen other bibles.

Again, every one of your posts just further confirms the negative views of the religious among those who aren't. Your turnaround is irrelevant, if for no other reason than that this is not a theist's site.

By truth machine, OM (not verified) on 12 Jul 2008 #permalink

Brandon Kraft:

Again, why don't you respect Hindus by not eating beef? Do you realize that you offend Jains whenever you kill a bug in your house?

Why should we genuflect to lunacy?

I don't want to debate you on any point, much less argue. I don't want to suggest that you shouldn't say whatever you want regarding the Catholic faith, or any faith. I just ask that you please give me a little respect and let me have what is sacred to me.

Sorry. Adults don't get to have sacredity blankets. Grow up and get over it (and stop supporting an institution that oppresses and kills people, while you're at it).

I don't acknowledge translations as being legit unless the Church approves

what is this?

night of the endless circular reasoning zombies?

Your lack of civility demonstrates the negative views theist have of atheists.

You mean as opposed to getting death threats for not eating a cracker?

Omnipotence means unlimited power, yes, but it does NOT mean that power will be used contrary to one's nature! God is not evil. God is Good. Evil does not come from God. It comes from TURNING AWAY FROM GOD!
To say that God cannot turn away from himself is absurd! That's like saying YOU can't turn away from yourself or leave yourself. God is what he is. God cannot be not-God. This is because God is God.

Now I know that you're going to be a great theologian, because that is the most awesomely incoherent description of My eternal and transcendent nature.

God job, there.

Look it up. And I will go ahead and say in advanced: "I accept your apology."

You stupid fucking asshole, SteveC gave a quote using language which appears in numerous versions of the bible, but you accused him of changing a word -- but that change doesn't even change the meaning -- it's not about permission, but you're too stupid or dishonest to comprehend that. And you blathered about Greek and Latin, but didn't offer any to refute SteveC. You owe the universe an apology for being such a foul dishonest piece of shit.

By truth machine, OM (not verified) on 12 Jul 2008 #permalink

Just one thing to add to what #703 said:

"God is what he is. God cannot be not-God. This is because God is God."

What the fuck? You call that an argument?

Kobra:

I ran through many of those supposed "death threats" and I could barely find anything that could be considered to be legitimate treats.

I remember when I put a pro-life bumper sticker on my car, my friends were telling me, "You'd better expect to get your tires slashed." I didn't, however, assume that they were "threatening" me with destroying my property.

Of all those emails, only one or two could be seen as threatening in any way, but hardly anything to be concerned about. Only something like, "Better not go to Florida," or "I've got 4 guns. Liberals like you probably have none."

For me, even this is over the line. If I were PZ Myers, however, I wouldn't take them seriously.

Like I said before, if you guys want me to defend "death threats," I'm not going to do it. However, I think if Myers wants us to take him seriously when he's asserting that his life is being threatened, he's going to have to show me something more than what he did.

A bunch of people saying that they're praying for him hardly seems threatening to me.

By Dutch Hedrick (not verified) on 12 Jul 2008 #permalink

What the fuck? You call that an argument?

It's what passes for an argument in the pus-filled cavity in his head.

By truth machine, OM (not verified) on 12 Jul 2008 #permalink

#706:
I disagree, but let's not split hairs. DON'T CHANGE THE SUBJECT.

I paraphrased business laws in my posts, and not ONE Catholic has challenged it yet. I demand that someone (not necessarily you, mind) justifies their claim that Mr. Cook is a "thief" by addressing my post.

SteveC:

I apologize for accusing YOU of changing the line in the Bible. I should have realized that it was a bad translation that you were using against us.

In the future, when challenging Catholics on their beliefs, I suggest you stick to Bibles that Catholics recognize as being legitimate. It would save a lot of confusion.

Happy now, "Truth" Machine?

By Dutch Hedrick (not verified) on 12 Jul 2008 #permalink

Well, PZ, it's also possible that it's not sock puppetry at work here, but a person with a true psychological disturbance of multiple personality disorder.

Really, is it so difficult to believe that such a person would find a comfy home with the Catholic League folks?

Happy now, "Truth" Machine?

No, asshole, it's beyond the point where anything you could do would make me happy.

By truth machine, OM (not verified) on 12 Jul 2008 #permalink

Kobra:

Oh! You're arguing that the Catholic Church is a business! I see. Funny. I always thought it was a religion. Also, was there any legal tender exchanged for the Eucharist? If so, perhaps Mr. Cook should bring his receipt with him to court.

It would help his case tremendously.

By Dutch Hedrick (not verified) on 12 Jul 2008 #permalink

#713:

I would recommend refreshing to check for corrections. It doesn't have to concern "legal tender" to be a "transaction." Technically, borrowing a cup of sugar is a "transaction." My point stands. Focus.

If so, perhaps Mr. Cook should bring his receipt with him to court.

It would help his case tremendously.

Possession is 9/10 of the law. If he has the Eucharist in his possession and the Cult Church had no evidence that the particular piece of dough was theirs, it would be thrown out.

Cuttlefish, OM @#619.

*Jaw dropped.*

MADE OF WIN!

By Owlmirror (not verified) on 12 Jul 2008 #permalink

And BTW, it's not a "bad" translation, and it doesn't matter which word you use, the point is the same -- a point you evaded, fuckhead. As the New American Standard Bible says, "For this reason God will send upon them a deluding influence so that they will believe what is false". The Bible in Basic English says "And for this cause, God will give them up to the power of deceit and they will put their faith in what is false". It is your interpretation of clause that is bad.

By truth machine, OM (not verified) on 12 Jul 2008 #permalink

"God is what he is. God cannot be not-God. This is because God is God."

Jesus loves me, this I know
for the Bible tells me so...

"death threats,"

I'll pray for you. I mean that.

Truth Machine:

That's funny. I thought atheism was supposed to make civilization more -- civilized. You seem to be getting progressively uncivilized when addressing me.

Kind of blows that whole crazy-religious-people-are-the-source-of-all-aggression argument, doesn't it?

By Dutch Hedrick (not verified) on 12 Jul 2008 #permalink

Dutch: I didn't change anything.

http://bible.cc/2_thessalonians/2-11.htm.may

You have picked one particular translation which fits your agenda.

Context?

Ok, what exactly is the context that makes it ok for God, who never lies, to lie?

I thought atheism was supposed to make civilization more -- civilized.

You think a lot of things that are false, asshole.

You seem to be getting progressively uncivilized when addressing me.

I despise liars.

Kind of blows that whole crazy-religious-people-are-the-source-of-all-aggression argument, doesn't it?

There is no such argument, asshole.

By truth machine, OM (not verified) on 12 Jul 2008 #permalink

SteveC:

I picked the one particular translation endorsed by the American Catholic Bishops. If that happens to "fit my agenda," then I guess it's just a co-incidence.

I'm sure that if you try to disprove my faith through more scripture using that version, you'll find the same is true.

By Dutch Hedrick (not verified) on 12 Jul 2008 #permalink

Kobra,
I read your previous post. Mr. Cook has committed no crime, so there isn't much to say. The church is within its rights to ask Mr. Cook to leave and not return. That's about it. He was given the Eucharist, and while it is expected of Catholics that it is immediately consumed, he's well within his rights not too. While it is asked that only Catholics receive Communion, there is no announcement to this effect, nor is it effectively communicated to visitors - only printed in the back of the hymnals. From reading details of his story, it seems like an honest mistake, and this whole thing has blown out of proportion because of some angry parishioners at the UCF church and idiots like Donahue.

If it wasn't innocent and there is someone legitimately trying to disrupt a service, that wouldn't even really bother me - it shouldn't be an issue as a church is private property, and they can disallow anyone they choose from attending (although, I believe I read somewhere that this particular church is on UCF property? If that's the case, I disagree with more than just some of the response to this, as there should never be a church on public property... but that's a different issue).

#724:

Cool. A person capable of rational thought.

That satisfies my criteria, but I was kinda hoping one of the batshit-insane guys would try to argue this point. Oh well. Thanks for making my day.

Oh! You're arguing that the Catholic Church is a business! I see. Funny. I always thought it was a religion

well, see that's where you keep getting all these things called "definitions" wrong.

see, the Church IS a business (at least in this country), a non-profit 501c3.

Catholicism is a religion.

Or was that a freudian slip on your part to call the church itself a religion?

dangerously close to heresy.

btw, you're a worse apologist than Phil Spaz, and that's saying something!

I picked the one particular translation endorsed by the American Catholic Bishops

By truth machine, OM (not verified) on 12 Jul 2008 #permalink

D. Cuttlefish: That one was extremely pleasant to read out loud to my fiancé, and we enjoyed it very much, thanks!!

By speedwell (not verified) on 12 Jul 2008 #permalink

Oh really? Because THAT'S the argument all your heroes seem to make in favor of atheism. So I guess those are false also. I guess that means YOU GUYS believe a lot of things that are false.

BTW -- you Bible quoting also nicely avoided the one I acknowledge as being legitimate. There's a big difference, as I said before, in saying, "You MAY eat pudding," and "You WILL eat pudding."

To say that "may" means "will" does not hold up. This is a point you keep evading, so it seems.

By Dutch Hedrick (not verified) on 12 Jul 2008 #permalink

Just because God gives us the ability to turn from him doesn't mean that's what we SHOULD do. Free will and all that.

By Dutch Hedrick (not verified) on 12 Jul 2008 #permalink

#731: You're splitting hairs and ignoring posts. Please take the time to address all of the posts that were addressed to you. Thanks.

There's an interesting cross reference at the bible.cc site. Let's see, what does the "approved" translation say?

1 Kings : Chapter 22 : Verse 23:
"So now, the LORD has put a lying spirit in the mouths of all these prophets of yours, but the LORD himself has decreed evil against you."

Well, alrighty then. Obviously God wouldn't deceive anyone just because he would put a lying spirit in the mouths of prophets. Nosiree, no deceiving going on there...

Say, how about this line:

Judges : Chapter 1 : Verse 19
Since the LORD was with Judah, he gained possession of the mountain region. Yet he could not dislodge those who lived on the plain, because they had iron chariots.

Real omnipotent God, there...

By Owlmirror (not verified) on 12 Jul 2008 #permalink

I guess I'm guilty, too.

In the name of humor, I posted as Phil Gramm. One time.

Take it down if you want.

Disregard that; I suck cocks.

(Sorry, I just had to do it. This is Kobra.)

Because THAT'S the argument all your heroes seem to make in favor of atheism.

You're lying again.

There's a big difference, as I said before, in saying, "You MAY eat pudding," and "You WILL eat pudding."

As I said, you dishonest asshole, that's not what it means in this context.

To say that "may" means "will" does not hold up.

Looking at the other translations makes it clear that it does, asswipe.

This is a point you keep evading, so it seems.

You're lying again.

In any case, the may/should/will distinction is irrelevant. That I don't believe you, George Bush, and other liars doesn't mean you aren't deceptive. From your precious fucking approved translation: "God is sending them a deceiving power". EVERYONE here can clearly see that you're the evader.

By truth machine, OM (not verified) on 12 Jul 2008 #permalink

Kobra:

Are you trying to equate the buying and selling of property to the distribution of Communion? It doesn't work because the Eucharist is NOT property. We Catholics never claimed it to be property. We claim it to be God.

That is our CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHT under the first amendment. If you want to start writing laws that determine our theology, you're going to have to change the Constitution first. (There's another "meaninglessly capitalized letter for you, TruthMachine.)

We have the right to worship as we see fit. You cannot write laws changing this without re-writing the Constitution.

I suggest you guys pool your resources and work on that if you ever want to get somewhere.

By Dutch Hedrick (not verified) on 12 Jul 2008 #permalink

#739: Regardless of what you Catholics consider the Eucharist (and the law will disagree if the Church presses charges), Mr. Cook did not commit theft by walking away with the wafer. That is my point.

Just because God gives us the ability to turn from him doesn't mean that's what we SHOULD do. Free will and all that.

That's not the point, you lying piece of evading shit. According to your fucking precious bible translation, God set out to DECEIVE, whether or not anyone was deceived.

By truth machine, OM (not verified) on 12 Jul 2008 #permalink

Free will and all that.

Ha! You didn't capitalize "will"! The sentence is meaningless!

1 Kings : Chapter 22 : Verse 23:
"So now, the LORD has put a lying spirit in the mouths of all these prophets of yours, but the LORD himself has decreed evil against you."

Actually, I told both sides of that particular argument that I had sent a lying spirit to the other, then watched how it played out.

Funny!

There's another "meaninglessly capitalized letter for you, TruthMachine

It's a proper noun, moron.

By truth machine, OM (not verified) on 12 Jul 2008 #permalink

It doesn't work because the Eucharist is NOT property.

which is why stealing one is not a crime, right?

when, exactly, does the Eucharist become NOT property, such that a Catholic Church leader doesn't feel obligated to assault someone in order to retrieve it?

which way do you want it?

Truth Machine:

Just because you don't have the ability, it seems, to comprehend the Truth does NOT mean I'm lying. It's an argument Christopher Hitchens constantly makes.

And your understanding of how to interpret Scripture shows you have a profound ignorance of the history of the Church and other Christian denominations.

There are several different translations for the same reason there's several different denominations. Don't give me a damned Protestant translation and expect me to justify it. I won't. I'll justify the translation approved by the Catholic Church because I'm CATHOLIC! Why do you fail to understand this?

You seem intelligent. You CAN NOT be that dense that you do not understand this. There must be some other explanation.

Could it be that YOU'RE the liar? You seem to be hitting that ball into my court so much that one suspects you're trying to distract us from your own deceptions.

By Dutch Hedrick (not verified) on 12 Jul 2008 #permalink

""God is what he is. God cannot be not-God. This is because God is God."

... and that there folks, after reading six and and half odd thousand posts, is the quote that finally did my head in.

By Bride of Shrek OM (not verified) on 12 Jul 2008 #permalink

We claim it to be God.
That is our CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHT under the first amendment.

One of the dumbest strawmen seen.

By truth machine, OM (not verified) on 12 Jul 2008 #permalink

You cannot write laws changing this without re-writing the Constitution.

indeed.

so why are the religious, like a former republican nominee for president who shall go nameless, trying to ammend the constitution in order to establish religion as law?

funny, but I can't recall anyone here, or any atheist EVER for that matter, suggesting we remove the freedom of speech clause from the constitution.

you have a very large fantasy world.

It doesn't work because the Eucharist is NOT property. We Catholics never claimed it to be property. We claim it to be God.

Except that it's not. It's just a piece of cracker. If you believe that it's god, then you are deluded. There's absolutely no difference between a normal cracker and the 'consecrated' one.

By Siddharth (not verified) on 12 Jul 2008 #permalink

I suggest you guys...

Who gives a pillar of saltines what you suggest?

Here's the explanation of that passage from 1 Kings according to the NAB:

"The prophet Micaiah uses as a last resort to deter Ahab from his foolhardy design of fighting against Ramoth-gilead the literary device of describing false prophets as messengers of a lying spirit which God, after holding counsel with his angels, permits to deceive them."

Unlike many Protestants, Catholics are not literalists when it comes to the Bible.

By Dutch Hedrick (not verified) on 12 Jul 2008 #permalink

#751:

Ichthyic, my fishy friend, was that last sentence inspired by Captain Obvious? On the other hand...

"you have a very large fantasy world."

... the more I think about it, the more I realize that my fantasy world (D&D) is larger, but I'm not stupid enough to confuse it with reality.

:P

Just because you don't have the ability, it seems, to comprehend the Truth does NOT mean I'm lying. It's an argument Christopher Hitchens constantly makes.

Christopher Hitchens is not "all your heroes", you lying piece of garbage; in fact he's none of my heroes. And without you actually quoting him, your claim that he has made that argument is dubious, especially given how demonstrably stupid you are and quick to misinterpret arguments.

There are several different translations for the same reason there's several different denominations

Continuing to evade, you foul piece of shit. As I noted repeatedly, your own approved version contradicts you. pus brain.

By truth machine, OM (not verified) on 12 Jul 2008 #permalink

#751 - Huckabee is frightening. When even Donahue is disturbed by how far you're going, you've crossed that threshold from evangelical to radical fundamentalist.

Bride of Shrek:

That's what comes from trying to explain theology to someone who refuses to think on a level higher than that of a child. Still, it has not been without amusement on my part.

By Dutch Hedrick (not verified) on 12 Jul 2008 #permalink

Catholics are not literalists when it comes to the Bible

...just when it comes to magic biscuits.

LOL

at least you're semi-entertaining.

Dutch Hedrick wrote:

The prophet Micaiah uses as a last resort to deter Ahab from his foolhardy design

I'm confused. Is this from the bible or Moby-Dick?

By Wowbagger (not verified) on 12 Jul 2008 #permalink

Are you trying to equate the buying and selling of property to the distribution of Communion? It doesn't work because the Eucharist is NOT property. We Catholics never claimed it to be property. We claim it to be God.

Well, you claim the substance to be God. Yet the accidents that lead to that must still be harvested, milled, baked, and transported, so all of that must be paid for and must be someone's property, at some point.

However, the accidents are then given away. Whee!

I think Cook would be within his rights to assert that he took the accidents, and that the substance of God must have remained in church, where it belonged. What, are you going to disprove that?

By Owlmirror (not verified) on 12 Jul 2008 #permalink

Just because God gives us the ability to turn from him doesn't mean that's what we SHOULD do.

Yeah but that's a faith. You're making it sound like you know what you're talking about. But you don't know what you're talking about. You "believe" what you're talking about.

But you keep going on and on like you know what you're talking about. This is a sure sign of kookiness. Sorry!

735 posts! Apparently there are a lot of angry catholics! We've got ourselves a bit of a donnybrook here!

Catholics are not literalists when it comes to the Bible.

The ultimate evasion. But at least we all, even the NAB, agree that the passage means that God deceives, you stupid fucking piece of lying corrupt foul garbage.

By truth machine, OM (not verified) on 12 Jul 2008 #permalink

Ichthyic:

I thought I mentioned it before: The Eucharist is God and God is not property.

I know you have a hard time grasping the concept of God so you would therefore not know why God is not to be considered property. I suggest you go and pray on it before going to sleep tonight. It may come to you eventually.

As far as our literal interpretation, just go to John, Chapter Six. Jesus never insists he's not being literal when he speaks of eating his flesh. The Jews he's talking to assume he's being literal, but Jesus never says, "No! You misunderstand me! I wasn't being literal! Come back! Let me explain..."

No. He let them go. He didn't argue he wasn't being literal because he was being literal. See? Simple.

By Dutch Hedrick (not verified) on 12 Jul 2008 #permalink

Unlike many Protestants, Catholics are not literalists when it comes to the Bible.

You've been freewheeling in your interpretation of the arguments here as well. Consistent, at least.

BoS: I send you a virtual excedrin.

Cuttlefish: You rock! Amazing. Thanks!

Is this from the bible or Moby-Dick?

Call me Ishmael, but I rather think our resident religious apologists are indeed chasing a rather large white whale.

"All that most maddens and torments; all that stirs up the lees of things; all truth with malice in it; all that cracks the sinews and cakes the brain; all the subtle demonisms of life and thought; all evil, to crazy Ahab, were visibly personified, and made practically assailable in Moby Dick. He piled upon the whale's white hump the sum of all the general rage and hate felt by his whole race from Adam down; and then, as if his chest had been a mortar, he burst his hot heart's shell upon it."

Truth machine:

hahaha! You -- calling ME foul-mouthed! [more laughing]

By Dutch Hedrick (not verified) on 12 Jul 2008 #permalink

#768:
"I thought I mentioned it before: The Eucharist is God and God is not property."

Let's stop assuming God exists for a second, for the sake of showing you what my point is:

A man hands you a piece of bread. Or a sammich. Most people (especially hungry people) eat it there, but one person decides to pocket it and walk away. Is he stealing? No.

Therefore, he is not a thief. Fuck what the Church thinks; I'm talking legally.

I thought I mentioned it before: The Eucharist is God and God is not property.

And I thought I mentioned it before, it's not. It's only a piece of cracker.

Just because you assert something as true, it doesn't mean that it's true. Even a child can understand that.

To think you are mocking the intelligence of a child ...

By Siddharth (not verified) on 12 Jul 2008 #permalink

Don't give me a damned Protestant translation

I love religious conflict. Keep it up!

Truth Machine@680

In either case, I'm a Catholic that is respectfully asking you to respect our belief and leave us alone. We believe that piece of bread becomes the Body and Blood of Christ. If you don't believe it, fine, but let us be.

Why should he?

Why? Perhaps there's not a reason that would be satisfactory to all. Mutual respect? I won't bad mouth what is to him the most meaningful object? The same reason that people wave to you when you let them merge their car in front of you--it's a nice thing to do. I'm not claiming to have an argument that is free of some sort of "human element" (i.e. pure logic won't win me the day, or if it will, in either case, I'm not going to go that route.)

I just ask that you please give me a little respect and let me have what is sacred to me.

Why should anyone respect foolishness?

Foolishness, in this context, is completely subjective. Some people think people who enjoy model railroad are foolish for wasting time on such a hobby. Personally, I don't see the appeal in building model railroads, but I can respect that someone else finds pleasure/enjoyment in that. If the Eucharist is such a foolish thing, why would the Professor care to waste any of his time on the subject at all? I'm sure he has better things to do.

---
NeutralT@699:

Brandon Kraft:

Again, why don't you respect Hindus by not eating beef? Do you realize that you offend Jains whenever you kill a bug in your house?

Why should we genuflect to lunacy?

Fair point. The Professor made a public statement asking someone to acquire an object held sacred to some for the purpose of acting upon the object in a way that is offensive to said group. I won't parade around Hindus with a steak and I won't go to someone else's home to kill a bug if their offended by it (well, I don't think I'll ever go to someone's home with the intention of killing a bug, but I digress).

The next time I have lunch with a Hindu individual, I won't eat beef.

I'm not asking you to genuflect toward anything. I'm asking the Professor, and by extension others, don't solicit a sacred object with the purpose of offending the people who hold it sacred.

SC@700:

Sorry. Adults don't get to have sacredity blankets. Grow up and get over it (and stop supporting an institution that oppresses and kills people, while you're at it).

I didn't say the Professor had to give me a blanket; it's rather warm in Texas. In seriousness, perhaps adults should get a sacredity blanket. I think most of us agree that if someone's spouse was murdered in a brutal fashion, people should tell the widow/widower "get over it-the funeral was yesterday". Something about general respect toward each other. While you may not believe the Catholic Church has that respect (an issue in which we disagree), I still think it isn't a bad thing for people to have reasonable boundaries.

Regarding institutions that oppress and kill people, I did the best I could to get all of the taxes I paid into the IRS refunded back to me. I'll try better next year. (Please take this in jest. My small attempt at humor.)

You -- calling ME foul-mouthed!

Just another lie. But certainly your mouth, as part of your foul whole, is foul, and what comes out of it, and from your fingers, is foul. My use of "foul" words are to describe you -- that's what it takes to properly do so.

By truth machine, OM (not verified) on 12 Jul 2008 #permalink

Dutch Hedrick,

I believe tm called you a stupid fucking piece of lying corrupt foul garbage. That's not the same as calling you foul-mouthed.

By Wowbagger (not verified) on 12 Jul 2008 #permalink

I know you have a hard time grasping the concept of God so you would therefore not know why God is not to be considered property.

funny, that church leader must have disagreed with your interpretation, given she felt the need to assault someone in order to attempt retrieval.

I see you've made YOUR choice, though.

It's nothing.

The churchlady, and the church, were wrong by your own dogmatic conclusions to have persecuted someone to return property that wasn't really property to begin with.

just want to keep that clear.

you're an apologist who agrees with Cook's position, and our own wrt to what the Eucharist IS:

nothing.

For Owlmirror @262:
LolCatz FTW!
I laughed my way through it. Thanks.

Foolishness, in this context, is completely subjective.

Sure. So why should anyone respect what they consider foolishness?

If the Eucharist is such a foolish thing, why would the Professor care to waste any of his time on the subject at all?

Because these foolish beliefs do harm -- which is how this came to be an issue here. Have you forgotten already?

By truth machine, OM (not verified) on 12 Jul 2008 #permalink

Kobra:

If we lived in a country where religion were outlawed, then you might have a point. The thing is: The guy was on Catholic property and there at the pleasure of the Catholic community. All they asked from him was respect for their rules and customs.

If I were to go into your house and start behaving contrary to your rules you would probably take objection, too. Depending upon what I was doing, you might even get upset enough to use physical force to prevent me from doing it.

What complicates this is that Catholics do not believe the consecrated Eucharist is anything but God. If you start treating it in a way that shows it disrespect, you should expect them to act accordingly.

Since we're in America under this Constitution -- with no further amendments -- we have the right to worship as we choose. The State should not make any laws prohibiting us from doing so.

So -- if you guys want to pass a law saying that the Eucharist (consecrated) is just "property," then you're going to have to amend the Constitution to do so. Until then, whine somewhere else.

By Dutch Hedrick (not verified) on 12 Jul 2008 #permalink

"The prophet Micaiah uses as a last resort to deter Ahab from his foolhardy design of fighting against Ramoth-gilead the literary device of describing false prophets as messengers of a lying spirit which God, after holding counsel with his angels, permits to deceive them."

"Literary device"? So.... In other words, Micaiah was the one who was lying?

I ask only for information.

By Owlmirror (not verified) on 12 Jul 2008 #permalink

New Jerusalem Bible -- Ah yes, the one Tolkien helped to translate. Still, I'm sticking to the one endorsed by the Bishops. I'm assuming they chose that one for a reason.

By Dutch Hedrick (not verified) on 12 Jul 2008 #permalink

Dutch wrote: "Ichthyic:

I thought I mentioned it before: The Eucharist is God and God is not property.

I know you have a hard time grasping the concept of God so you would therefore not know why God is not to be considered property. "

And with that, you lose all credibility, and you are officially batshit insane. You argue a cracker is literally your god. That is completely, utterly, inexcusably idiotic. You're an idiot. Period.

Your beliefs deserve not respect, but ridicule.

Tough shit, cracker boy.

All they asked from him was respect for their rules and customs.

What planet are you on? They assaulted him and then threatened his study and his life.

Re: Post #91. Did everyone miss Ron in Houston hitting on True Bob?
And shoe elves? I'm still afraid of the Undewear Gnomes.

SteveC:

Take your anti-Catholic bigotry to the next Klan rally, then.

By Dutch Hedrick (not verified) on 12 Jul 2008 #permalink

Dutch Hedrick wrote:

we have the right to worship as we choose

This is true - but you don't have the right to make others worship as you choose, which is what the people in the church were trying to make Webster Cook do. Even if he was on church property.

If a vegetarian comes to my house am I allowed to force him or her to eat meat?

By Wowbagger (not verified) on 12 Jul 2008 #permalink

From http://www.catholic.org/bible/book.php?id=60

Too late ... he finally remembered his ultimate dodge, that he doesn't take the bible literally, so he can claim that his God by nature doesn't deceive regardless of what his bible actually says. It's rather bizarre, though, that he seems to think that the NAB's mention of Micaiah -- a character in the bible -- using a literary device has something to do with not taking the bible literally.

By truth machine, OM (not verified) on 12 Jul 2008 #permalink

then you're going to have to amend the Constitution to do so

actually, since the only demonstrable thing it is a glutenous biscuit, no, we don't.

It's yourself that would have to alter all laws regarding property in the US in order to claim that something that was purchased by a local church is not actually property of that church.

and again, perhaps you should tell it to the church, members of which assaulted Cook to get the biscuit back, and insisted he return it or face dire consequences afterwards.

so, what's it gonna be?

choose.

will you now write a letter to the UCF Catholic church, insisting that your interpretation of Catholic Dogma means that they should not have asked for the return of the cracker?

#432: Man, I wish we had a kill file for this board

I use Greasemonkey's killfile (with Firefox) here; it makes things a lot easier.

Wowbagger:

Even in the Army there's a saying: "Take all you want, but eat all you take."

If that's the rule of the house, you follow the rules. He knows better. After all, he calls himself a Catholic.

By Dutch Hedrick (not verified) on 12 Jul 2008 #permalink

TruthMachine@782

Foolishness, in this context, is completely subjective.

Sure. So why should anyone respect what they consider foolishness?

If the Eucharist is such a foolish thing, why would the Professor care to waste any of his time on the subject at all?

Because these foolish beliefs do harm -- which is how this came to be an issue here. Have you forgotten already?

What harm does my belief that a piece of bread turns into the Body and Blood of my savior do to anyone? I'm not trying to say that the folks in Florida did things the right way. I think situations like this require a certain bit of prudence, which I think should have been exercised in a much better fashion.

In either case, I know I won't convince you that I have a point worth any bit of respect. I respect that. I do hope that someday if you find yourself in a position where you need someone to respect you for no good reason, that someone will actually do so.

Go in peace, Truth Machine.

Wowbagger@792:

Dutch Hedrick wrote:

we have the right to worship as we choose

This is true - but you don't have the right to make others worship as you choose, which is what the people in the church were trying to make Webster Cook do. Even if he was on church property.

If a vegetarian comes to my house am I allowed to force him or her to eat meat?

If you went to a vegetarian's home, are you allowed to demand from them meat?

"The guy was on Catholic property and there at the pleasure of the Catholic community."

Are you saying that laws don't apply in churches?

#775: Are you by any chance related to Sarda?

Not in the least. Sarda is some imaginary, made-up, completely fictional, pretend entity.

Whereas I am the completely real, transcendent, ineffable, inconceivable Almighty God.

Although some people don't know Me as well as they think they do...

But they'll find out.

Since we're in America under this Constitution -- with no further amendments -- we have the right to worship as we choose. The State should not make any laws prohibiting us from doing so.

Strawman. No one here suggested that worship should be prohibited. You are lying if you suggest that someone here said it. This is completely irrelevant to this topic.

If I were to go into your house and start behaving contrary to your rules you would probably take objection, too. Depending upon what I was doing, you might even get upset enough to use physical force to prevent me from doing it.

And that physical violence will be illegal, if you invite someone into your house, and freely hand over an object, then threaten to beat him up if he doesn't eat it.

What complicates this is that Catholics do not believe the consecrated Eucharist is anything but God. If you start treating it in a way that shows it disrespect, you should expect them to act accordingly.

"accordingly"? Death threats? Threats of expulsion from school? Physical violence? All or taking a cracker which was freely given to him. If you really believe that such behaviour is acceptable, then you are a really vile human being.

By Siddharth (not verified) on 12 Jul 2008 #permalink

Even in the Army there's a saying: "Take all you want, but eat all you take."
If that's the rule of the house, you follow the rules.

Army == church? Close enough for authoritarian pus brains. But even the Army won't throw you in the brig for not cleaning your plate.

By truth machine, OM (not verified) on 12 Jul 2008 #permalink

[Reposting of the first part of 797 due to some HTML problems... second attempt to get the blockquoting correct.]

TruthMachine@782

Foolishness, in this context, is completely subjective.

Sure. So why should anyone respect what they consider foolishness?

If the Eucharist is such a foolish thing, why would the Professor care to waste any of his time on the subject at all?

Because these foolish beliefs do harm -- which is how this came to be an issue here. Have you forgotten already?

What harm does my belief that a piece of bread turns into the Body and Blood of my savior do to anyone? I'm not trying to say that the folks in Florida did things the right way. I think situations like this require a certain bit of prudence, which I think should have been exercised in a much better fashion.

In either case, I know I won't convince you that I have a point worth any bit of respect. I respect that. I do hope that someday if you find yourself in a position where you need someone to respect you for no good reason, that someone will actually do so.

Go in peace, Truth Machine.

I think I get it, Dutch: the Eucharist is God, and God is meant to be eatenworshipped through theophagy, because God is not property, so God can't be stolen but he was...

Wait, no. I'm still confused.

By John Morales (not verified) on 12 Jul 2008 #permalink

Truth Machine:

My mistake. It's a bit hard to keep up when it's I-don't-know-how-many-against one. I apologize for thinking you called me foul-mouthed.

I would point out, by the way, that just because someone makes a mistake does not mean they're a "liar." You seem to make lots of rash judgments like that, however. Don't you.

Keep the insults coming, buddy. I need a good laugh.

By Dutch Hedrick (not verified) on 12 Jul 2008 #permalink

If you went to a vegetarian's home, are you allowed to demand from them meat?

How is that analogy even remotely related to this topic. Please, enlighten me.

By Siddharth (not verified) on 12 Jul 2008 #permalink

An unrelated FYI...

This video is currently making the rounds on youtube as one of the most active. I don't know what I find more infuriating about it: the obviously fabricated story, the terribly slow-paced and dull way in which it is told, the obviously faulty analogies used in telling it, or the terrible quality of the video itself, which is nothing more than the aforementioned awful text set to obnoxious music (and typed in a rather dull Arial font).

I didn't say the Professor had to give me a blanket; it's rather warm in Texas.

You've already got it.

In seriousness, perhaps adults should get a sacredity blanket. I think most of us agree that if someone's spouse was murdered in a brutal fashion, people should tell the widow/widower "get over it-the funeral was yesterday". Something about general respect toward each other.

Oh, sure, because mocking a cracker and a ludicrous belief that's part of an authoritarian and patriarchal system is the same as cruelty toward a grieving spouse. You know, there's someone here who recently lost his spouse tragically. I hope he never reads what you wrote. And screw your respect. I'll respect the rights of women and gay people not to live circumscribed, guilt-ridden lives, people's rights not to be infected with HIV,...

While you may not believe the Catholic Church has that respect (an issue in which we disagree), I still think it isn't a bad thing for people to have reasonable boundaries.

No. This is a democratic society. No beliefs are sacred. Free your mind.

Regarding institutions that oppress and kill people, I did the best I could to get all of the taxes I paid into the IRS refunded back to me. I'll try better next year. (Please take this in jest. My small attempt at humor.)

"Small" being the operative word. You're obviously unfamilar with the past or present of your church. You should try to remedy that.

What harm does my belief that a piece of bread turns into the Body and Blood of my savior do to anyone?

Read Carl Sagan's "The Demon-Haunted World".

By truth machine, OM (not verified) on 12 Jul 2008 #permalink

Although, I must point out... it really isn't a cracker. When I think of cracker, I think of a saltines, or at least something crunchy,

Most churches I've attended, it really isn't like a cracker. It's closer to a thick piece of bread crust on sliced bread. That's not perfect either, but all this talk of crackers is making me hungry for something that isn't really like the piece of bread we're talking about here.

Dutch Hedrick wrote:

If that's the rule of the house, you follow the rules. He knows better. After all, he calls himself a Catholic.

I'm sorry, what? If I let someone into my house, and once they're there I point a sign that says 'thou must eat meat' I can then force them to eat meat?

What if, after the cracker was in his mouth, he decided he didn't want to be Catholic anymore?

Brandon wrote:

If you went to a vegetarian's home, are you allowed to demand from them meat?

Who demanded anything in this story? Webster Cook certainly didn't. The cracker was given to him freely.

By Wowbagger (not verified) on 12 Jul 2008 #permalink

it really isn't a cracker

That's been mentioned many many times in these threads.

By truth machine, OM (not verified) on 12 Jul 2008 #permalink

Ah yes, the one Tolkien helped to translate.

and that's relevant, how?

I-don't-know-how-many-against one.

poor, pitiful you.

if your arguments had any weight behind them, you wouldn't feel so outweighed.

simple.

What harm does my belief that a piece of bread turns into the Body and Blood of my savior do to anyone?

I don't know about YOU, but evidently believing in biscuit-deities can result in physical violence and death threats for many.

sounds like one o them thar "dangerous ideas" to me.

truth Machine:

You have a way of taking the superficial aspects of my arguments and presenting them as something I wasn't arguing at all in the first place. You would do well in politics. Demand for guys who twist words as you do is high in that field.

Do you do this because you have a hard time understanding the concepts I'm trying to explain? Or do you do this out of deliberate deception.

When I was young, the Church taught me that any effort to deceive is considered a lie. So if you're being deliberately deceptive, you're lying.

Are you lying?

By Dutch Hedrick (not verified) on 12 Jul 2008 #permalink

Most churches I've attended, it really isn't like a cracker. It's closer to a thick piece of bread crust on sliced bread. That's not perfect either, but all this talk of crackers is making me hungry for something that isn't really like the piece of bread we're talking about here.

could you actually poot your irrelevancies utilizing fewer words?

makes it easier to ignore them.

I would point out, by the way, that just because someone makes a mistake does not mean they're a "liar."

It becomes the default assumption after a long string of false statements and willful evasions, and when the person's whole mental framework is essentially dishonest.

By truth machine, OM (not verified) on 12 Jul 2008 #permalink

Late to the party,but some of us have to work !

Reading through the last 800 comments now and I have to say,the Catholics once more havent sent their brightest to fight the good fight ! (or have they?)

Brandon,
when you say "Go in peace',is that like,"I pray for you"? Yeah thought so...

Dutch Hedrick,
I give you one thing,you are probably nice.But logic and sound argumentation isnt ur thing.
And as to your No 784 :
As someone 3000 posts before said : You have the right to call a cracker god,but I have the right to call a cracker a cracker !

That's why the Church sees a lot of truth in Platonism -- even if it doesn't agree with everything Plato said. - Dutch Hedrick

It does, of course, particularly like the totalitarianism, which it practiced just as long as it could, and would love to get back to.

By Nick Gotts (not verified) on 12 Jul 2008 #permalink

| God is what he is. God cannot be not-God. This is because God is God.|

Which confirms that Gegen die Dummheit kämpfen die Götter selbst vergebens.
(We of the Germanic (Viking) tribes prefer LOTS of gods (hence Götter) that all are pretty much like ourselves, just with the powers we wish for. And when we celebrate them, it is with a Blotgilde, - not some lame crakers and piss-weak, sour wine, distributed by a pedophile ponce during a cannibalistic ritual.)

I think a closer analogy would be for a vegetarian to invite another vegetarian to his house, give him a salad to eat, then recoil in horror and attempt to forcefully wrest the meal back because the miscreant wasn't using his salad fork.

clinteas: "Go in Peace" was said to me awhile back in this forum, so I thought I'd repeat it. I literally meant go forward from this day in peace. What does peace mean? Whatever TruthMachine means it to be.

You have a way of taking the superficial aspects of my arguments and presenting them as something I wasn't arguing at all in the first place.

Yet another lie.

When I was young, the Church taught me that any effort to deceive is considered a lie. So if you're being deliberately deceptive, you're lying.

Too bad you didn't apply that to your own behavior, as you have repeatedly been deliberately deceptive. In fact, your entire belief system can only be sustained through the application of deliberate deception.

Are you lying?

No.

By truth machine, OM (not verified) on 12 Jul 2008 #permalink

News item: "Cook stored the Eucharist in a Ziploc bag for a week and then returned it last Sunday."

Right now the most famous cracker in world history is in some priest's garbage can.

Ichthyic:

I never said I felt "out-weighted." I just said I was having trouble reading all your comments accurately enough.

And must EVERYTHING I say be relevant? Is there no room in the atheists' conversation for casually pointing out bits of trivia? Wow. What a joyless world you guys must live in.

Or perhaps you're expecting EVERYTHING I say to be relevant. If so, I've raised your expectations of me farther than I intended. To dispel any such notions I'll just say: Sorry, I'm just another human being. You should treat me as such. I'm not a prophet. I'm just a Catholic who's trying to understand God.

Please respect that, and if you can't: Stay out of the Church and let us worship as we wish.

My only intention coming here was to explain Catholicism, not to argue. Also, not to call names. I may have toed the line at times, but hopefully I haven't crossed it.

Don't get so angry though, truthMachine. Life's too important to take it so seriously. :)

By Dutch Hedrick (not verified) on 12 Jul 2008 #permalink

Merciful heavens! I just noticed that I have posted under "TomL" and "Tom L" What a lying sack of sockpuppetry I am!

Brandon,
when you say "Go in peace',is that like,"I pray for you"? Yeah thought so...

I took it as sincere good will.

By truth machine, OM (not verified) on 12 Jul 2008 #permalink

truthMachine:

'Too bad you didn't apply that to your own behavior, as you have repeatedly been deliberately deceptive. In fact, your entire belief system can only be sustained through the application of deliberate deception.'

That is your opinion. That is your belief. You are free to hold it as I am free to hold mine. I'll show you as much respect as you show to me.

If you insist on being uncivil, then I'll show you more respect than you show me. That's just my nature, I guess. At least, it has been since my confirmation, so there's probably something else behind it -- just to give credit to where it's due.

By Dutch Hedrick (not verified) on 12 Jul 2008 #permalink

SC@807:

Oh, sure, because mocking a cracker and a ludicrous belief that's part of an authoritarian and patriarchal system is the same as cruelty toward a grieving spouse. You know, there's someone here who recently lost his spouse tragically. I hope he never reads what you wrote. And screw your respect. I'll respect the rights of women and gay people not to live circumscribed, guilt-ridden lives, people's rights not to be infected with HIV,...

You're right. I didn't think of someone reading that post who just had lost a spouse. I apologize for that. My point is that if you think that it is proper to give respect to someone who has recently lost someone, you can't say that nothing is "sacred". To you, respect for a loss of life is sacred, whether you want to call it that or not. That was my point. I really am sorry if someone is hurt by that. I lost my father when I was 12 and I can understand how careless comments, like mine, can hurt someone. Again, I apologize.

No. This is a democratic society. No beliefs are sacred. Free your mind.

The belief that every person has the right to express what they think is sacred in a democratic society.

"Small" being the operative word. You're obviously unfamilar with the past or present of your church. You should try to remedy that.

I'm very familiar with the faults of my church over the past 2000 years. I thought that issue was not on topic in this discussion, but I saw the very obvious joke that folks in the United States all support an institution that is known to do some nasty things itself.

My only intention coming here was to explain Catholicism, not to argue.

Yet another lie, perhaps the most blatant of all. Just a glance at your first posts here, #422 and #434, will do.

Also, not to call names. I may have toed the line at times, but hopefully I haven't crossed it.

More lies: "You guys aren't intellectually honest enough to have a true debate about theology. As Christopher Hedges said, you guys are theologically illiterate and proud of it, too. Therefore, there's not much point in debating theology with you. You don't even know enough about it to make it worth the time."

By truth machine, OM (not verified) on 12 Jul 2008 #permalink

Ichthyic@814

Most churches I've attended, it really isn't like a cracker. It's closer to a thick piece of bread crust on sliced bread. That's not perfect either, but all this talk of crackers is making me hungry for something that isn't really like the piece of bread we're talking about here.

could you actually poot your irrelevancies utilizing fewer words?

makes it easier to ignore them.

Using less words:
Trying to have a little fun while being the underdog.

hahaha :) How AMAZING! So it seems that there IS NO GOD that knows the sincerity of every man's heart, but there is TRUTHMACHINE!

Oh wow! Thank God -- I mean thank Truthmachine! There we go, everyone! Prove that God DOES exist! And his name is Truthmachine!

That's great. Mystery solved! Now, I can go to bed.

By Dutch Hedrick (not verified) on 12 Jul 2008 #permalink

That is your opinion. That is your belief.

Gee, my posts reflect my opinions and beliefs ... who woulda thunk it?

Everything about you is phony, dishonest, and cowardly.

By truth machine, OM (not verified) on 12 Jul 2008 #permalink

Alright everyone:
I've enjoyed this little back-and-forth, but the hour is late and I have other things to do before bed.

I wish you all well and hope the rest of your days bring you closer to your desires in life.

TruthMachine:

You argue like a child on a playground: "Liar! Liar! Liar!" Ah -- but children are charming, though, aren't they? :)

By Dutch Hedrick (not verified) on 12 Jul 2008 #permalink

Now, I can go to bed.

One can hope, but that's what you said over 5 hours ago.

By truth machine, OM (not verified) on 12 Jul 2008 #permalink

All hail TruthMachine! The One True God. He must be the embodiment of Truth. After all, it says so in his name.

Or perhaps THAT'S a lie... Or at the very least, deceptive.

By Dutch Hedrick (not verified) on 12 Jul 2008 #permalink

You argue like a child on a playground

Just another lie.

By truth machine, OM (not verified) on 12 Jul 2008 #permalink

"One can hope, but that's what you said over 5 hours ago."

Ha! I never thought, however, that you guys would be so entertaining! I'd better go, though. Otherwise, you'll accuse me of lying again!

But if you say I'm lying, who am I to argue with the One who knows the hearts of all men?

By Dutch Hedrick (not verified) on 12 Jul 2008 #permalink

I never said I felt "out-weighted." I just said I was having trouble reading all your comments accurately enough.

*looks back*

nope. not what you said at all.

shocker.

And must EVERYTHING I say be relevant?

not why i asked.

I'm just a Catholic who's trying to understand God.

and so of course, you came here.

LOL

you really can't separate the lies in your own mind anymore, can you?

oh well, enough for now. I'm sure you, or someone just like you, will be along tomorrow to provide us all with more Jester-like apologetic acrobatics.

don't forget to write the CC at UCF and tell them they were wrong to ask for that cracker back, now.

hahaha :) How AMAZING! So it seems that there IS NO GOD that knows the sincerity of every man's heart, but there is TRUTHMACHINE!

Oh wow! Thank God -- I mean thank Truthmachine! There we go, everyone! Prove that God DOES exist! And his name is Truthmachine!

All hail TruthMachine! The One True God. He must be the embodiment of Truth. After all, it says so in his name.

If one is looking for immaturity, there it is.

By truth machine, OM (not verified) on 12 Jul 2008 #permalink

"Just another lie."

Exhibit 'A'. I rest my case.

By Dutch Hedrick (not verified) on 12 Jul 2008 #permalink

who am I to argue

You are indeed not up to it.

By truth machine, OM (not verified) on 12 Jul 2008 #permalink

truth machine:

You atheists take yourselves SOOOOO seriously.

By Dutch Hedrick (not verified) on 12 Jul 2008 #permalink

Exhibit 'A'. I rest my case.

Which you then lose. It does no good to complain that I label your obvious lies as lies.

By truth machine, OM (not verified) on 12 Jul 2008 #permalink

You atheists take yourselves SOOOOO seriously.

As I said, you're phony, dishonest, and cowardly.

By truth machine, OM (not verified) on 12 Jul 2008 #permalink

You atheists take yourselves SOOOOO seriously.

so seriously, of course, that we regularly assault xians for their assinine beliefs, and send them death-threats via email, and threaten to have them fired for saying atheists are poopy-heads.

uh huh.

do you know what "projection" means?

So,
Farewell then, Naz,
Also known as
k8, promo, baker,
PZ is a fool,
rumrunner, KKKAthiest,
and other aliases
too tedious to mention.
I don't think it's much fun
in the dungeon.
But at least you'll have
plenty of yourselves
to talk to!

By E.J. Throbb (17 3/4) (not verified) on 12 Jul 2008 #permalink

You're right. I didn't think of someone reading that post who just had lost a spouse. I apologize for that.

That's very thoughtful of you to say. There really is someone in that situation (do a search on this page for "JeffreyD"), so it struck a chord.

My point is that if you think that it is proper to give respect to someone who has recently lost someone, you can't say that nothing is "sacred". To you, respect for a loss of life is sacred, whether you want to call it that or not. That was my point.

I can't acept your characterization of grieving as "sacred." I don't believe anything is sacred, and in fact find this a dangerous concept (see Giorgio Agamben's Homo Sacer for some of the story - not that I agree with him 100%). I appreciate what you're saying - believe me I do - but shock and offense are far from human rights violations, and I care very much about the real oppression of the Catholic Church as an institution and superstitious beliefs in general.

The belief that every person has the right to express what they think is sacred in a democratic society.

Again, it isn't sacred. It's a right that needs to be constantly defended. And this right applies to PZ Myers.

I'm very familiar with the faults of my church over the past 2000 years. I thought that issue was not on topic in this discussion, but I saw the very obvious joke that folks in the United States all support an institution that is known to do some nasty things itself.

I'm an anarchist. I do not :).

//All hail TruthMachine! The One True God. He must be the embodiment of Truth. After all, it says so in his name.//

Dutch,
you did really well until then LOL.

//I'm just a Catholic who's trying to understand God.//

Good luck with that buddy.You seem to be doing an awful lot of confabulating to unite your god with the reality around you already,reading your posts !

I realize that this is stomping a long-crumbled cracker, but I just wanted to address the false equivalence raised between taking the Eucharist and treating it improperly, and other forms of desecration suggested here, like the destruction of the buddhas of Bamiyan, or tearing up a torah, or something like that.

The difference should be obvious, but just in case it isn't: All of the objects being offered exist as genuine property that many people spent a great deal of time and effort to make. The buddha statues took a great deal of time and effort to carve, and they were notable works of art in their own right, as well as being tourist attractions that brought money to the local communities.

A torah requires a great deal of time and effort to prepare properly — the proper sort of leather must be acquired, cured, tanned, and scraped, and of course, the actual scribing of the words is a long-term intensive calligraphic exercise.

Now contrast this with the Eucharist: It's a frackin food item. It's meant to be swallowed, broken down in the stomach and intestines, and the remnant shat out the other end. There is no sense at all that it is even meant to last more than a human lifetime. Whereas a sacred statue or scroll is intended to last.

So "desecrating" the host is destroying something in a particular way, when it's in fact meant to be destroyed anyway.

A work of sacred art that is meant to be permanent, or at least last a long time, is not the same thing.

Although now that I typed all of that, I find myself wondering about Buddhist sand paintings. There, the impermanence is central to the art: created with a great deal of effort ... and then wiped away.

Somehow, I don't think Buddhists would get their robes in a twist because of a premature destruction of a sand painting (which I have a faint memory of hearing about happening).

By Owlmirror (not verified) on 12 Jul 2008 #permalink

I'm firmly against desecration of the host - James F.

Oh so am I! It is an established rule of social etiquette in Britain that a guest should never desecrate his or her host; and if the occasion is appropriate, should bring a small gift such as a bunch of flowers or a bottle of wine.

By Nick Gotts (not verified) on 12 Jul 2008 #permalink

The belief that every person has the right to express what they think is sacred in a democratic society.

Again, it isn't sacred. It's a right that needs to be constantly defended. And this right applies to PZ Myers.

That was confused - my apologies. Your original argument was silly. No one is disputing that right. We're affirming the right to challenge ridiculous beliefs and hold them up to ridicule.

Sleep tight.

Thanks for playing, Dutch.

You scored an 8.7 on the pomposity meter.

This bit really hurt the rating:

#826

[truthMachine] If you insist on being uncivil, then I'll show you more respect than you show me. That's just my nature, I guess.

then #830

hahaha :) How AMAZING! So it seems that there IS NO GOD that knows the sincerity of every man's heart, but there is TRUTHMACHINE!

Dutch, I counsel you to strive for pseudo-gravitas. I know it's hard to keep a consistent tone, but come on! This is your mission.

By John Morales (not verified) on 12 Jul 2008 #permalink

Dutch:

"who am I to argue with the One who knows the hearts of all men?"

"You atheists take yourselves SOOOOO seriously."

Remember what you said in one of your first posts in this thread?

As I said earlier: You guys aren't intellectually honest enough to have a true debate about theology. As Christopher Hedges said, you guys are theologically illiterate and proud of it, too. Therefore, there's not much point in debating theology with you. You don't even know enough about it to make it worth the time.

Looks like you claimed to know our 'hearts' and were taking yourself quite seriously, too. You might think that you are just responding in kind to truth machine, but you come off as the pot calling the kettle black. I suggest you sleep on it if you aren't already doing so.

Somehow, I don't think Buddhists would get their robes in a twist because of a premature destruction of a sand painting (which I have a faint memory of hearing about happening).

But note the disanalogy; with the cracker, it was overly mature destruction. And for it be otherwise analogous, it would have be some non-Buddhist, or Buddhist non-monk (or whatever rank the sand painters have) making a sand painting but not following the sequence properly.

By truth machine, OM (not verified) on 12 Jul 2008 #permalink

And what THEY did reflects badly on atheists EVERYWHERE, if what some pedophile priests did reflects badly on Catholics everywhere, right? - jb

Quite right. I'll write a protest letter to the world leader of atheism, telling him it's high time he apologised for the crimes of Stalin, and ordered every official of the vast, immensely rich sovereign body he rules to turn over all Cathedral-dynamiters to the appropriate authorities. Could you please inform me of his name and address? I don't seem to have heard of him before.

By Nick Gotts (not verified) on 12 Jul 2008 #permalink

Better have a subtle knife handy when you go up against the Magisterium. - Blake Stacey

We have one Blake! It's called reason. Better yet, anyone can use it, and it doesn't make holes in the fabric of reality.

By Nick Gotts (not verified) on 12 Jul 2008 #permalink

I'll write a protest letter to the world leader of atheism, ... and ordered every official of the vast, immensely rich sovereign body he rules

Damn, called out at last.

which reminds me, have you all sent your tithes recently?

the vast immense sovereign body is looking a bit threadbare of late.

You know, Nick Gotts, one of these days you're going to say something I disagree with, and...well, I guess I'll cross that bridge when I come to it.

"My point is that if you think that it is proper to give respect to someone who has recently lost someone, you can't say that nothing is "sacred". To you, respect for a loss of life is sacred, whether you want to call it that or not."

Actually, no: I simply recognize that sort of behavior as incredibly cruel. I even managed to figure that one out all on my own, without needing "thus sayeth the Lord" tacked on the end to put the conclusion out of bounds for further argument. It's based on logic, observation, and personal experience. Insisting that I consider that "sacred" is about as nonsensical as insisting that I consider it "mustard," whether I call it that or not.

Just because God does not reveal himself at all times as he would with Moses or through Jesus doesn't mean he "changes his mind."

Unfortunately, we humans are flawed and have done a bad job of communicating who he is. That's where the trouble starts. The problem, however, isn't the message, but the poor quality of the messengers.

When I was young, the Church taught me that any effort to deceive is considered a lie. So if you're being deliberately deceptive, you're lying.

For some reason, I copied off these particular quotes. I saw the faint glimmerings of... something. But now I'm too tired to think what I wanted to do with them.

Well, perhaps I'll figure it out in the morning.

By Owlmirror (not verified) on 12 Jul 2008 #permalink

Looks like you claimed to know our 'hearts' and were taking yourself quite seriously, too. You might think that you are just responding in kind to truth machine, but you come off as the pot calling the kettle black.

Note that his blather about me "knowing the sincerity of every man's heart" was in response to my labeling as a lie "My only intention coming here was to explain Catholicism, not to argue". But I simply made an inference from his behavior in his initial posts, which were argumentative and not at all instructive about Catholicism. It's hard to reconcile "Therefore, there's not much point in debating theology with you" with his later claim about his intentions. When caught in an apparent lie, he took a rather evasive approach -- par for the course -- rather than explaining how his behavior could be consistent with his claim about his intent.

By truth machine, OM (not verified) on 12 Jul 2008 #permalink

You know, Nick Gotts, one of these days you're going to say something I disagree with, and...well, I guess I'll cross that bridge when I come to it.

So he's not your sock puppet?

:-)

By truth machine, OM (not verified) on 12 Jul 2008 #permalink

Etha #806,

the obvious tactics of evangelicalism, the farce that it is, the same as advertising and propaganda, make up a story, no matter how baseless, trivialise it, focus on the emotional content and not on the rational content, and just try to repeat advitam eternam...
Production quality is bad, but that's what's needed nowadays on the net, it simulates something more "authentic", more personal, it's all just bullshit of course, but it'll work with all those who are just too dumb
, just can't think critically and are too lazy to verify if this has any kind of basis.

Evangelicals are terrible scientists (!?!) but unfortunately they are quite good marketeers and propagandists. So, this is not new, that's what they've been doing in the USA for the last 60 years for chrissakes, who cares about telling the truth when you are trying to sell a product like "belief in Jesus Christ", just now they've got a new competitor called atheism so they've got to adapt their adverting message.

By negentropyeater (not verified) on 12 Jul 2008 #permalink

So he's not your sock puppet?

No more than I'm yours, babe :).

Finally had a moment to glance at Brandon's web site. He's a real Catholic! (Don't know exactly what I expected.) Nice young man, though - hope he returns.

No more than I'm yours, babe :).

But we don't agree on everything, sweetie. :-)

By truth machine, OM (not verified) on 12 Jul 2008 #permalink

But we don't agree on everything, sweetie. :-)

Keep stirring that pot, it'll boil over on ya.

I heard the following somewhere and liked it: "Nothing is either good or bad, but only thinking makes it so." - ajani57@275

The exact quote is "there is nothing either good or
bad, but thinking makes it so." spoken by Hamlet, in the play of the same name (Act 2, Scene 2) by one W. Shakespeare. According to
http://www.enotes.com/shakespeare-quotes/nothing-either-good-bad-but-th…
"Hamlet is a prisoner of his own thinking, and of his knowledge that his stepfather is a fratricide and his mother incestuous. When he states that "there is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so," he's not indulging in ethical relativism as much as wishing for blissful ignorance. He's also implicitly damning the naïveté of the king's new yes-men*."

*Rosenkrantz and Guildenstern

/Quote-Nazi

By Nick Gotts (not verified) on 12 Jul 2008 #permalink

Not doin' any stirring, just meant to return a friendly like for like.

By truth machine, OM (not verified) on 12 Jul 2008 #permalink

P.S. SC, I was very impressed by your erudition and ... well, everything else, in the torture thread, and regretted having gotten into that previous battle with you about weapons, and thought about going back to look at it to better appreciate your position -- although I never did. Sincerely.

By truth machine, OM (not verified) on 12 Jul 2008 #permalink

Not doin' any stirring, just meant to return a friendly like for like.

And I'm just trying to build my femme fatale cred ;).

Okay so it may have been tasteless for student senator Cook to keep a wafer in a plastic baggie in his dorm room of all places.

It was WRONG for a woman to man-handle him because he didn't swallow. No excuses for assault, period.

And as far as Bill Donahue's comment about not being able to think of much that is worse than holding a host hostage--
here's one:
Roman Catholic priests who rape kids.
Roman Catholic dioceses that cover up the rapes by transferring said priests.
Ah, that's two.

Now that the wafer has been returned, perhaps it should be sold on e-Bay. The money raised there can be used to pay off a few of the folks who were molested by priests as children. Just a thought.

In Catholic High School, a friend and I used to steal the hosts from their hiding place in the priest's secret part of the school chapel. We always had a supply of wafers for snacking. That WAS stealing, yes. The statue of limitations has long since run out though. Fortunately, we didn't get assaulted over it as we didn't get caught.

Owlmirror, your LOLcatified Crackergate was brilliant.
Mind if I reproduce it with credit?
And do you have a blog, journal, or something anywheres on the web?

spike

And I'm just trying to build my femme fatale cred ;).

Oh. Well in that case, maybe I should be stirring. :-)

By truth machine, OM (not verified) on 12 Jul 2008 #permalink

P.S. SC, I was very impressed by your erudition and ... well, everything else, in the torture thread, and regretted having gotten into that previous battle with you about weapons :), and thought about going back to look at it to better appreciate your position -- although I never did. Sincerely.

Wow - how nice. Same here, in fact. *bonding*

#159 Truly Shocking!!!!

@brokenSoldier, OM

I took a break from the screen for a while and read over the whole thing again after, and I see I was being a bit of a dick over a simple misunderstanding. I got all worked up over a different commenter, and I let it bleed over, so my apologies for that, MB.

And TM, my street's not quite one-way, though I do have to say that it can get congested at points. But thanks for the slap - it was quite needed.

I missed this earlier. An unusual, and very impressive, response. People like you and Brandon (notably on opposite sides of the theistic divide) give me pause about my "style".

By truth machine, OM (not verified) on 12 Jul 2008 #permalink

May God have mercy on your soul. - Dutch Hedrik

I think the xians are using Pharyngula as the venue for an online contest - the winner being whoever can use the most words to say "Fuck you".

By Nick Gotts (not verified) on 13 Jul 2008 #permalink

#850

It is an established rule of social etiquette in Britain that a guest should never desecrate his or her host; and if the occasion is appropriate, should bring a small gift such as a bunch of flowers or a bottle of wine.

Ha, ha.

To me,JeffreyD @ No 266 wins the thread by summing up perfectly and beautifully all that is wrong and hypocritical about the Christian commenters arguments on this and the other 20 crackergate threads,very well done indeed !!

Only the first 2 as a reminder:
//I am sorry that your vision of a god is so weak that he cannot protect his cracker form.//

//I am sorry that you engage in idolatry in regards to said cracker.//

Superb !

Bob Munck, Ted Powell: any scheme for hashing IP addresses into identifiers is trivially reversible. There are only 4 billion IP addresses, so you can just run the forward function 4 billion times to build a complete dictionary (or a rainbow table).

Nick, #856

We have one Blake! It's called reason. Better yet, anyone can use it, and it doesn't make holes in the fabric of reality.

Well that's not really a subtle knife ! Go and try to use reason on the Vive Christus Rex ! blog and see if it's that subtle. They just block it.

I mean it is not just a block at that level, it is also a mental block, how can you use critical reasoning to convince someone who categorically refuses to accept that critical reasoning alone can explain something ?

They dislike reason profoundly, reason is our God, they say.

I mean look at this issue of the Eucharist, it can't be more trivial : with reasoning one immediately comes to the conclusion that it's just a fracking cracker.

But the other guy is absolutely convinced that reason alone can't solve this matter, all his faith depends on it. It's a complete waste of time to try to convince him, on such a trivial matter, that he should give up his faith.

No the best you can achieve, and this what I think needs to be achieved, is to convince him ;

a) that you have no reason to force him to believe that it is anything less than the body of Christ
b) that he has no reason to force you to believe that it is anything more than just a fracking cracker
c) from the moment you take the Eucharist, because you do not have any faith, it is just a cracker
d) and that the more Catholics are reacting with violence, the further away they are going away from the tenants of their faith

By negentropyeater (not verified) on 13 Jul 2008 #permalink

When I was young, the Church taught me that any effort to deceive is considered a lie. So if you're being deliberately deceptive, you're lying.

Sorry to jump back to a seemingly lost argument, but did Dutch just admit that because God was deliberately deceptive (as previously quoted) then God must have lied? Therefore God (according to the bible) went against His own nature? Therefore cannot be God because God cannot be un-Godlike, or otherwise he would not be God? Or something?

#885:
Or, you could hash the host name of the resolved IP address.

For example:
The md5 has of my host name is 1859a6465ce2dc08d472d424076661ec
The sha1 of my host name is d637c816910d249e3ed2297bd5f4c5bede3867b2

You could also salt your hashes based off another identifier (cookies?).

Different companies have different host name schemas.

you can just run the forward function 4 billion times

Only if you know what it is. A one-way hash that depends on a secret key isn't "trivially reversible".

By truth machine, OM (not verified) on 13 Jul 2008 #permalink

Then combine IP addresses, user agents, and (timestamps?).

User agent strings are settable, and timestamps would defeat the purpose of using equal strings to detect sock puppets.

By truth machine, OM (not verified) on 13 Jul 2008 #permalink

Neg,No 883 :

//and that the more Catholics are reacting with violence, the further away they are going away from the tenants of their faith//

Or are they?

A 32-bit hexadecimal number only has 1,208,925,819,614,629,174,706,176 possible combinations (MD5), while a 64-bit hexadecimal number has 79,228,162,514,264,337,593,543,950,336 possible combinations. (That's 65,536 times as many.)

That's why I said SHA512.

Kobra,truth machine and the other net whizzbangs,

Im curious,I used to have a little online shop and my provider had a little cgi thingy that gave me countries,timestamps and not only IP but also machine names,if I recall correctly,and I assume that would be similar with Seed,so shouldnt the chance that those guys with the same IP were indeed different people be infinetesimally small?
Dont know enough about the matter,I admit.

A 32-bit hexadecimal number only has ...
Doh! I did that backwards. Instead of 16^64 and 16^32,

Um, there are 2^32 32-bit numbers, regardless of the representation.

By truth machine, OM (not verified) on 13 Jul 2008 #permalink

Im curious,I used to have a little online shop and my provider had a little cgi thingy that gave me countries,timestamps and not only IP but also machine names,if I recall correctly,and I assume that would be similar with Seed,so shouldnt the chance that those guys with the same IP were indeed different people be infinetesimally small?

I don't understand your "so". Two posts with the same IP address are from the same computer (or local network, via NAT); the other info you mention, such as country and machine (host) name are determined from the IP address.

By truth machine, OM (not verified) on 13 Jul 2008 #permalink

Interesting !

Apparently Donohue already had an "affair" with Pres. Bruininks in the past on a similar issue;

http://www.catholicleague.org/release.php?id=1163

... and Bruininks ignored Donohue.

So I guess PZ doesn't have much to worry about, on top of this, PZ has many more supporters, from the whole world.

By negentropyeater (not verified) on 13 Jul 2008 #permalink

#589: jb: I probably hate pedophiles worse than you.

So you agree there is a time for hate speech.

We shouldn't outlaw hateful words, even though they can be upsetting. We may need them ourselves one day.

Well pray my frackin cracker, so many posts, so little time.

Brandon, I appreciate you pulling back a bit about the death of a loved one. My wife's death was in no way sacred. Nor do I venerate her. I loved her, her death hurt. That is about it. However, I must note that the only people who have been rude about it to me all did so from religious motives, according to their own words. I have been told several times, twice to my face, couple of times in email and on my blog, that it is sad she is in hell and of course she is in hell because she committed suicide and because she was not a believer - did not know she needed two reasons. How I avoided physical violence I do not quite know, but I did - I would not test that again in person (smile).

You know what? You, the big general world you, have the right to be rude to me about her, my life, her death, my recovery. It is not sacred. It may be in poor taste, but it is not a sacred thing. You are not required to give a damn about what I consider important and lovely and wonderful. Understand that - it is not required, period. My feelings, my beliefs are mine, many are shared with others, but they are not sacred in any way. I would not act as has been done toward me, but I have my own hard won and thought out sense of what is right and wrong. It was this sense that kept my fist from the throat of those who attempted to hurt me with their words. No gods, no excuses, no sacred gee-gaws or doo-dads. Just trying to live treating others as I would like to be treated. It is called ethics, no gods need apply. However, if you put your sacred in front of my face, use it as an excuse to be an asshole, then I will ridicule your belief. And yes, that is living up to my code, treating others as I expect to be treated. If I have something holy and sacred, feel free to ridicule it. Good luck.

Bella SC, as always you are a darling and your posts are fun.

Clinteas, you are too kind about my little post. Owlmirror's and Cuttlefish's, along with many others are far more delightful.

Sunday morning coming down, and thus a disjointed post which should probably be skipped by those awake and alert.

Pax Nabisco

Both "belief" and "faith" are words that get abused a lot in these discussions. For instance, the meaning of "belief" changes from "something demonstrable that I've observed before" to "something I find pleasing to assume".

The discussion would be more convincing and useful if the meaning of these words didn't change so much with the context they are used in.

And thanks for shortening Dutch Hedricks name to Dutch guys. Really :/

By Dutch Delight (not verified) on 13 Jul 2008 #permalink

Sorry, Dutch Delight. Shoudla called him DuH.

By John Morales (not verified) on 13 Jul 2008 #permalink

For instance, the meaning of "belief" changes from "something demonstrable that I've observed before" to "something I find pleasing to assume".

Belief is simply assent to a proposition: "I believe P" = "I agree that P". Some beliefs are well justified and some are not. Faith, OTOH, is unjustified belief ... not merely unjustified, but acknowledged by the believer to be unjustified. Although the religious often cheat on that, offering all sorts of justifications for their beliefs while continuing to refer to them as faith.

By truth machine, OM (not verified) on 13 Jul 2008 #permalink

AlanWCan @ #617
No no no, you don't understand. That money was just resting in his account!

By Father Ted (not verified) on 13 Jul 2008 #permalink

Clinteas, you are too kind about my little post. Owlmirror's and Cuttlefish's, along with many others are far more delightful.

I think highly of yours too. When I went looking for Owlmirror's #262, I encountered your #266 and thought at first that was what people were referring to. Not exactly "delightful", but on point.

As for Cuttlefish ... I understand how people are wise and clever, but I have no understanding of how Cuttlefish does what s/he does; it's like an advanced alien technology to me, or like flipping ten coins and having them all land on edge; it just doesn't seem possible.

By truth machine, OM (not verified) on 13 Jul 2008 #permalink

truth machine@901:

Belief is simply assent to a proposition: "I believe P" = "I agree that P". Some beliefs are well justified and some are not. Faith, OTOH, is unjustified belief ... not merely unjustified, but acknowledged by the believer to be unjustified. Although the religious often cheat on that, offering all sorts of justifications for their beliefs while continuing to refer to them as faith.

Well, it seems 'equivocation' is one of the main ingredients of apologetics, so "what can be said can be said clearly" is certainly not the apologist's motto.

By Christian (not verified) on 13 Jul 2008 #permalink

I wonder if any convicted pedophile ex-priests will use the "Eucharist defense" for an appeal... Consuming too much "soul of Christ" in blood and wafer form caused corruption of an otherwise good soul in the priests. It could be something that Jesus learned from the Book of the Dead, like in the Mummy movies. Perhaps his plan was to bugger Altar boys for all eternity, and have the poor priests take the rap.

By Bill Anderson (not verified) on 13 Jul 2008 #permalink

Because God is the Creator and the Universe is the creation. Included in the Universe is Time, which is also a creation. Nothing created God because God is the uncreated Light.

That's deep thinking? That's complex theology?

That's nonsensical handwaving and language games. There's no "there" there.

By MAJeff, OM (not verified) on 13 Jul 2008 #permalink

John Morales:
Sorry, Dutch Delight. Shoudla called him DuH.

I'm not sure if that helps me much, are you implying you'd short me down to "DuD" ? I'll drop it, since it was an attempt at humor anyway :)

The belief thing get abused up and down though, usually trying to establish belief as something important and then in a dash for the door exclaim "and thats why believing in my particular god makes just as much sense as you believing that this ball will bounce back up as it lands".

By Dutch Delight (not verified) on 13 Jul 2008 #permalink

jb (Comment #200):

Just name me a Communist state that wasn't officially atheist, or some state-system set up by atheists that wasn't Communist. That's all.

Well, Nehru was a (if not the) key figure in the founding of the state of India. He seems to have been an agnostic if not an outright atheist, and India wasn't (and isn't) a Communist state.

But the question is misconceived. Setting up states isn't part of atheism, but is part of the Communist tradition (even if that wasn't quite what Marx had intended). All that your observation that officially atheist states tend to be Communist shows is that only Communists are interested in setting up officially atheist states. Non-communist atheists tend not to be.

It keeps coming back to the peculiarities of communism as an ideology, of which atheism is a non-essential part.

Hitler's regime was anti-smoking, and passed numerous laws restricting tobacco advertising and smoking in public places. Does this mean that the modern anti-smoking lobby is somehow tarred (as it were) with the crimes of the Nazis? No, because although the Nazi's anti-tobacco campaign was a fairly logical extension of it's preoccupation with "racial" health and hygiene, it was quite irrelevant to the core ideology underlying the Holocaust. Subtract the anti-smoking element, and you still have a genocidal totalitarian ideology.

Ditto with Communism and atheism. Even if the atheism were a consequence of the underlying assumptions of the ideology, subtracting atheism from communism still leaves you with a repressive totalitarian ideology capable of justifying mass murder.

By Iain Walker (not verified) on 13 Jul 2008 #permalink

truth machine at #903 - thank you. Not sure I mentioned it before, or if you saw it if I did, both you and SC carried the Hitchen's thread and made it a must read for me every day.

Cuttlefish...hmmmmm. I think you may be right about the alien thing. Wonder if I can get poetry installed if I submit to an alien anal probe. Might be time to go frog gigging out in the swamps. Do I have to wear one of those NASCAR hats?(smile)

Pax Nabisco

As a former priest who is deeply repentant for my sins against the youth in my charge, I must say with complete candor that I never had those feelings of lust for innocent children until after I had been a priest for a few years, and had consumed many Eucharist. And then, those sinful impulses became stronger and stronger as my consumption of Eucharist increased. I think, even though I did those terrible things to my Altar boys, that it wasn't my fault after all - it was the fault of the Roman Catholic Church, who made me work under those conditions. The Catholic Church poisoned my soul, and I want it to be restored to its original condition!

By Friar "Tuck" (not verified) on 13 Jul 2008 #permalink

Friar "Tuck:"

Amen, Brother! You and me, BOTH!

By Felonius Monk (not verified) on 13 Jul 2008 #permalink

Intelligent sockpuppeting would at LEAST involve using different computers to not have the same IP.

Apparently some of these insane anti-reasonable people can't even do trolling intelligently.

Apparently some of these insane anti-reasonable people can't even do trolling intelligently.

Apparently, neither can some of us:

Posted by: Friar "Tuck" | July 13, 2008 9:20 AM
Posted by: Felonius Monk | July 13, 2008 9:23 AM

By MAJeff, OM (not verified) on 13 Jul 2008 #permalink

Friar "Tuck" & Felonius Monk:

Just a suggestion - you could start a class-action appeal. It sounds to me as though you have a strong case. Call on me if you need me to testify as to the effects of long term exposure to Eucharist. However, I don't want to join your appeal. I've still been taking Eucharist here in prison. I have connections, and can get all I want. Besides, buggering goes on here everywhere, every day. Granted, most of these boys aren't altar boys, but I don't have the pangs of guilt that I did from doing it with altar boys. Besides, with my special connections for getting all of the Eucharist I want, and your defense that Eucharist leads to sexual depravity, I'm sure that I will become wealthy selling Eucharist to my brother inmates.

By Defrocked Cock (not verified) on 13 Jul 2008 #permalink

Well Holy Guacamole on a Godless Tostito! I am quite surprised at y'all's tenacity. I wouldn't have guessed that Dutch H would have stayed around so long or that we'd be pushing this thread up towards 1000 as well. I'm just sorry we didn't get to talk about free will vs hardening Pharaoh's heart, or vs omniscience.

And Felonious Monk - LOLSnort!

Also, thanks truthmachine, I think you may be onto something about Cuttlefish. Cuttlefish is like spooky action at a distance - HOW does s/he DO it??!?!?!!!11!

Sorry for such a long post. If only one person reads it -- as most tend to skip over long posts, I'm sure -- it will have been worth the formatting.

I thought that a chapter from, "Ethics of Belief: Essays in Tribute to D.Z. Phillips" was relevant to the discussion about how we should formulate our beliefs and opinions.

Allen Wood

Abstract: 'Evidentialism' is the conventional name (given mainly by its opponents) for the view that there is a moral duty to proportion one's beliefs to evidence, proof or other epistemic justifications for belief. This essay defends evidentialism against objections based on the alleged involuntariness of belief, on the claim that evidentialism assumes a doubtful epistemology, that epistemically unsupported beliefs can be beneficial, that there are significant classes of exceptions to the evidentialist principle, and other shabby evasions and alibis (as I take them to be) for disregarding the duty to believe according to the evidence. Evidentialism is also supported by arguments based on both self regarding and other-regarding considerations.

Is there an ethics of belief?

Are beliefs a matter for morality? Can we be blamed for what we believe, or have an obligation to believe one thing and not another? Some think that nothing of this kind makes sense, on the ground that our beliefs are not voluntary. I believe that G.W. Bush is President of the United States, that koalas are marsupials, that Charlotte Brontë wrote Jane Eyre, and that gold has atomic number 79. I cannot change any of these beliefs at will. Neither offering me money to change them, nor threatening me with blame or punishment if I do not, will have any effect. I may wish that Bush were not President, but that wish is powerless to affect my belief about who is President. My beliefs might change in response to new arguments or evidence, but it is also not in my power whether such evidence is put before me. In short, what I believe is not up to me. What I cannot help, what isn't voluntary, can't be a matter for morality. So belief can't be a matter for morality. That's one case that is sometimes made against the ethics of belief.

There are at least two ways, however, in which beliefs have been regarded as subject to morality. First, it is sometimes held that we have an obligation to believe certain things, and that it is wrong to believe others, simply on the ground of the content of what is believed or not believed. Some people have held that we ought to believe in God, or even that we will be damned to hell, and deservedly, unless we believe that Jesus Christ was crucified and then rose from the dead on the third day. Others find it blamable to believe that some races are naturally superior to others or blamable not to believe that the Holocaust occurred. I will call such supposed obligations regarding belief 'content obligations.'

Second, some hold that some beliefs can be obligatory or blamable on account of something about the way in which they are formed and maintained. Some people think that we ought to believe what we are told by the Bible or by certain religious authorities simply because that is what they tell us. Others think it is wrong to hold beliefs on any basis except your own untrammeled thinking and experience. Some also think we have an obligation to believe only that for which we have good reasons or evidence. All these people think we have what I will call 'procedural obligations' regarding belief.

Both content and procedural obligations to believe at least make sense, and easily survive the objection that belief isn't a matter for morality because it is involuntary. For one thing, although it may be true of many beliefs that it is not up to us whether to hold them, this is by no means true of all beliefs. I've heard people say, "I choose to believe that the President is telling us the truth." I once heard Stephen King, the author of horror stories, say in a radio interview: "I choose to believe there is a God." I see no reason to doubt that such people are accurately reporting what is going on in their minds.1 They believe certain things because they choose to, and they would hold different beliefs if they had chosen differently. Those beliefs really are up to them. Such cases typically occur where the evidence is scanty or mixed, especially where the subject of the belief is important to the person, so that their emotions, or hopes, or moral commitments have the opportunity affect their beliefs at least as much as the evidence does. Even if they admit that the evidence against God's existence is stronger than the evidence for it, some people still try to believe in God, and some apparently succeed.

William James, using a metaphor derived from electric wires, distinguished between what he called 'live hypotheses' and 'dead' ones. For James, a 'hypothesis' is anything proposed to our belief. It is live if we are capable of believing it if we will to do so, while it is dead for us if (as James puts it) it "scintillates with no credibility at all" and so it is beyond our power to believe it.2 Whether we actually have any content obligations to believe, such obligations at least pass the test of voluntariness when they have to do with live hypotheses. Perhaps, on grounds of involuntariness, you can have no obligation to believe a hypothesis that is dead for you, but as far as voluntariness is concerned, you might be blamed for believing or not believing any hypothesis that is live for you. In that case, the obligation to believe in God or in the Holocaust, might in principle apply to all those for whom the existence of God, and the occurrence of the Holocaust are live hypotheses.

1 I take belief to be fundamentally a dispositional state rather than a psychic occurrence, much less an act. So choosing to believe something cannot be like choosing to crook your finger or stick out your tongue. The choice to believe that p no doubt involves a complex set of choices--to affirm rather than deny p on various occasions, to attend to evidence favoring p and to avert attention from considerations that might lead to doubting p, and so on. But it would be impossible to specify all the chosen acts of this kind that have gone into the choice to believe that p, and even more impossible to specify in advance all the choices that will constitute in the future one's continuing to choose to believe that p. Therefore, "I choose to believe that p" is exactly the right locution to describe what Stephen King is doing. No philosophical quibbles should lead us to say that he misspoke, still less that what he said cannot be literally true.

2 See John McDermott (1967), pp. 717-718.

As for procedural obligations to believe, they simply aren't the least bit dependent on the idea that it is voluntary what we believe. They depend instead the voluntariness of the actions of thought, attention and inquiry through which we form and maintain our beliefs. It is often up to us whether we defer to authorities or think for ourselves, whether we let ourselves consider arguments or evidence, or undertake further research before making up our minds. Wherever this is so, procedural obligations to believe or not believe pass the test of voluntariness.3 Some beliefs, of course, are formed through psychological mechanisms such as wishful thinking, self-deception, or accepting the beliefs of those around us. It may not always be easy to resist such mechanisms, or even to be aware of them, but it is up to us whether we try or not try to be aware of them, and whether we try or not try to resist them. Often such voluntary tryings, when they occur, meet with success. In fact, procedural obligations regarding belief are important precisely because our beliefs are not wholly up to us or under our voluntary control. For in general, when a state that affects our behavior (for instance, an emotional state, such as anger) is not under our voluntary control, it is all the more important to watch carefully over all the voluntary processes through which you might get yourself into such a state. In this respect, belief is like anger or other emotional states.

The obligation to believe on the basis of evidence or reasons

I won't be considering content obligations to believe any further here, simply because, on moral grounds, I deny that there are any content obligations to believe. If it is wrong not to believe in the Holocaust, for instance, that is due to procedural obligations to believe, such as that we have a duty to believe according to the evidence, together with the fact that evidence for the Holocaust is overwhelming. The main principle that I think governs the ethics of belief, in fact, is the procedural principle I have just invoked and also stated in the title of this talk: Apportion the strength of your belief to the evidence; believe only what is justified by the evidence, and believe it to the full extent, but only to the extent, that it is justified by the evidence.4

3 Of course there are some who think that nothing at all is voluntary or up to us, and that everything we say or think or do is involuntary and happens by a necessity that is beyond our power, determined by our genes or operant conditioning or the laws of physics. But unless you take that extreme position (which would do away not merely with obligations to believe, but with all obligations whatever), you should admit that it is up to us what we believe and how we form and maintain our beliefs often enough for an ethics of belief to pass the test of involuntariness.

4 Clifford writes as if belief is an all-or-nothing matter--either you believe something or you don't, and there are no degrees of belief. (He never directly asserts this, however, but merely omits to consider issues raised by strength of belief or degree of subjective certainty.) Since I think degree or strength of belief, and strength of evidence, are sometimes real factors in belief, I do not want to make a similar omission. But I do not think that the notions of strength of belief and strength of evidence are equally applicable to all cases. They seem most appropriate in cases where there is a careful, disciplined weighing of evidence that is hard to come by, or mixed--as it is for historians, for example, or in many branches of science. In many cases, however, it seems right to say that a person simply believes something or doesn't, and not to speak at all of degrees or strength of belief. Especially artificial is the practice of some epistemologists who think of all belief as the assignment of a precise probability--as though my saying that I believe fairly strongly that the outcome of the Iraq war will be unfavorable to the U.S. must consist in my assigning some precise probability (60%? 75%? 90%?) to the proposition "The outcome of the Iraq war will be unfavorable to the U.S." I do not think the assignment of such probabilities, even when it occurs, belongs to the same category as having a strong or weak belief. For instance, I might assign a probability of 80% to the proposition "The U.S. adventure in Iraq will be rightly judged in retrospect to have been a failure," while having either a strong or a weak belief that this is the correct probability assignment. Theorists who think this last strong or weak belief must consist in my assigning yet another probability are merely being silly, and if they do not see this, that shows only that they are hopelessly committed to a wrong theory.

Using a term that is employed more often by opponents of this principle, I will call this the 'evidentialist principle.' The evidentialist principle is perhaps most often associated with the name of the 19th century British mathematician, scientist and philosopherWilliam Kingdon Clifford. But other contemporaries of Clifford, such as Thomas Henry Huxley, were equally strong supporters of this principle, and its pedigree in modern philosophy goes back much farther. Among the important modern philosophers who explicitly endorse the evidentialist principle in one way or another are Descartes, Locke and Hume.

The evidentialist principle is a moral principle. It holds that beliefs not justified by the evidence are immoral. Yet if the term 'justified' that occurs in it referred to moral justification, then the principle would seem tautologous, or even vacuous. However, I do not intend the term 'justified,' as it occurs in the principle, to refer to moral justification. Rather, I mean employ a notion of justification that is wholly epistemic in character. The evidentialist principle, in other words, is to be understood against a background of a set of epistemic standards telling us, relative to a given context, what a certain set of considerations, regarded as rational arguments or evidence, justify a person in that context in believing. In the evidentialist principle, I therefore understand the term 'evidence' in a very broad way, encompassing not only empirical information but also a priori arguments and anything else that can authenticate itself as a genuine epistemic ground for assent, acceptance or belief. Clifford probably intended 'evidence' too narrowly (having inmind only empirical evidence, and a certain then fashionable interpretation of 'the scientific method'), but there is no reason that an evidentialist has to follow him in this. To broaden the notion of evidence, however, by no means trivializes the evidentialist principle. For no matter how you think of evidence or epistemic justification, people do often hold beliefs that fail to meet the epistemic standards, and it is still highly significant to point out that this is morally wrong. The point is rather that the evidentialist principle itself does not take a position on what our epistemic standards should be. That is for epistemologists to decide. And it is also open to the evidentialist to insist that the proper standards for a given person on a given occasion are contextual, depending on that person's epistemic position (the questions it is reasonable for them to ask, the information available to them, and so on). To say that epistemic justification is contextual in this way is not, however, to say that the standards of epistemically justified belief are "subjective" or "person-relative." It is only to say that the objective standards (which, however, may be subject to controversy, even to endless controversy and endless correction) apply differently to different people because different people begin in different situations, are asking different questions and have different evidence available to them.

Alvin Plantinga and others have sometimes tried to attack evidentialism on the ground that it presupposes a mistaken epistemology. But in this they are clearly on the wrong track. The evidentialist principle is compatible with any epistemology that has any use at all for some notion of epistemic justification that can be employed in determining what to believe.5 It is suspicious, however, that those who wish to dispute the evidentialist principle fasten on epistemological issues (which are essentially irrelevant to it). For this suggests that they realize they cannot controvert the evidentialist principle directly, and must resort to obfuscating or diverting attention from the real question. The real question is simply this: Given the right epistemic standards--whatever we decide the right ones are--if it is decided that there is insufficient evidence to justify a belief epistemically, there is still the moral question whether holding the belief is morally permissible. Some people, such as James and Pascal (to name only two), think this is permissible. But the evidentialist principle says it is not morally permissible, that it is morally wrong and blameworthy.

5 Even those, such as William Alston, who have questioned the common notions of epistemic justification, still endorse using a set of evidential criteria to assess beliefs. Whether we use the term 'justification' to sum up the results of using such criteria seems to me a verbal matter, not a substantive one.

Belief, as I have said, sometimes comes in degrees of strength. At the time he was first running for President, GeorgeW. Bush's belief that Clinton was President was clearly stronger than his belief that Atal Bihari Vajpayee was Prime Minister of India, since he could not name the then Prime Minister of India when asked, but he certainly could name the abominable adulterer who defeated his father for the Presidency in 1992. Evidence that justifies a weaker belief may not justify a stronger one. For instance, Bush thought he had some evidence at the beginning of 2003 that there were weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, but this evidence pretty obviously justified only a much weaker belief in the existence of these weapons than Bush held at the time. If so, then when he ordered the invasion of Iraq, offering the existence of weapons of mass destruction as his chief reason for doing so, Bush was violating the evidentialist principle. Long after it was determined that there were no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, Bush still avowed on national television the belief that in 2003 Iraq posed an immediate military danger to the security of the United States. Whatever may have been true before the invasion, that belief was clearly not justified by the evidence about Iraq's military capabilities that we all obtained quite soon after the invasion. The evidentialist principle thus clearly condemns that belief as immoral.

It will often be a non-trivial, or even a difficult and controversial matter to determine what standards of evidence apply to a given context or justify a certain person in holding a certain belief to a certain degree of strength or certainty. For instance, it may be a non-trivial question how strong a belief in the existence of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq was justified by the evidence U.S. intelligence services provided the Bush administration (or whether any belief at all in their existence, even a weak one, was justified then). But for almost every significant moral principle, such as the moral principle condemning all wars of aggression, there are non-trivial issues of fact, and sometimes even deep issues of theory, involved in applying the moral principle to particular cases. So the evidentialist principle is no different from many other moral principles in that respect.

Evasion and denial regarding the evidentialist principle

How often is the evidentialist principle violated? Pretty often, I think. A majority of those who voted for Bush in 2004 told pollsters they believe both that weapons of mass destruction had actually been found in Iraq, and that Saddam Hussain was behind the terror attacks of September 11, 2001. These beliefs were never at any time supported by any credible evidence whatever. The violation of the evidentialist principle not only occurs very frequently, it is also quite often not merely winked at but even approved, sometimes even provided with a philosophical defense, such as the one offered by William James in "The Will to Believe." A world in which people always abided by the evidentialist principle, like a world in which human rights were always respected, in which there were no wide gaps between rich and poor, and in which all nations and peoples were at peace with one another, would be a very different world from the one we live in, and like those other possible worlds, I think it would also be a much better world than the one we live in.

I think that many realize at some level how far most people are from complying with the evidentialist principle, but for various reasons they fear having to abide by the evidentialist principle in their own lives, so the main effect of this awareness is to induce in them a state of denial regarding the evidentialist principle. By a 'state of denial' I mean that they find all sorts of indirect ways of evading the principle or putting it out of action. The idea we examined right at the start, that beliefs are not a matter for morality at all, is one of these ways. So is the idea that the evidentialist principle assumes a doubtful epistemology.

The context in which disputes about the evidentialist principle have most often taken place is the philosophy of religion. Some people seem to think that religion is a special area of human life where beliefs are simply exempt from the evidentialist principle. They often express this by saying things like: "Religious questions are matters of faith, not of evidence or proof." Sometimes they even infer that religion has to be exempt from the evidentialist principle merely from the premise (which they apparently take to be too obvious for meaningful dispute), that there could not possibly be adequate evidence for religious beliefs. Their inference is invalid to the point of downright impudence: You might as well argue that professional hit men should be exempt from the laws against premeditated murder just because it is obvious that killers for hire can't justify their actions under those laws. In any case, religious beliefs clearly differ in the degree to which they are justified by evidence. A belief in divine creation that is consistent with astronomical and biological science is clearly better supported than one that requires us to deny the facts of evolution or to claim that the universe only 4,000 years old. The Judaeo-Christian scriptures themselves frequently offer what they take to be evidence in favor of the true faith and against contrary religious beliefs, as when they report that Elijah's sacrifice was miraculously accepted while those of the prophets of Baal were not (1 Kings 18:30-40). An evidentialist need not agree with the scriptural conclusion that the people were justified, at Elijah's command, in killing the proponents of the evidentially unsupported religious belief. But evidentialism does agree with Scripture in maintaining that evidence is relevant to religious beliefs, as to beliefs of other kinds.6

James accuses Clifford of holding that we must abstain from every belief until it has been evidentially certified, and then points to the absurd practical consequences of such a policy. But this is a red herring, since Clifford accepts no such picture. When Clifford's famous ship owner is about to send out his emigrant ship, his belief that it is seaworthy is taken for granted until doubts about this are suggested to him. His wrongdoing consists in ridding himself of these doubts in the wrong way, not in failing to provide an evidential justification for each of his beliefs separately and singly before believing anything.7 James's criticism here seems to me typical of the dishonesty and evasion we find in all attempts to challenge or quibble with the evidentialist principle.

When people become truly desperate, the form taken by the state of denial is sometimes a sudden and extremely acute attack of epistemic scruples. The believer, for whom skepticism in any form is normally themost deadly enemy, all of a sudden falls into a state in which there seems to be no good evidence for believing anything--that the sun will rise tomorrow, that fire will burn you, that drinking water is any better for you than drinking gasoline. From this the believer immediately draws the wildly invalid conclusion that we are at liberty to believe anything we like without ever attending to any evidence at all. The fallacious reasoning and even more desperate dishonesty represented by this form of denial are so disarmingly transparent that it is hard to keep a straight face in dealing with those who have subverted their intellects in this degrading manner.

6 I submit that whenever it is stated or implied that religious beliefs are all equally unsupported evidentially, this is either a simple case of anti-religious bigotry or else a patently dishonest attempt to exempt one's own religious beliefs, which one knows to be unreasonable, from all critical standards.

7 The obvious instance of a philosopher who does something like what James is attacking here is Descartes, in the practice of his method of first philosophy. But anyone who reads Descartes' Discourse on Method with any care will see clearly that requiring us to support our beliefs from scratch by intuitive certainty or demonstration applies only within the domain of philosophical method, which Descartes clearly partitions off from all the beliefs he holds for practical purposes. Further, even within the specialized method, Descartes does not require his beliefs to be separately authenticated until after they have been called into question by his special methodological doubt. Even there he does not begin by considering all his beliefs guilty until proven innocent, and then asking for a justification from scratch for each one. James's charge would therefore be a red herring even applied to Descartes, much less to Clifford, or any other evidentialist I know of.

I won't have time here to go through all the shameless evasions I've run into in the course of defending the evidentialist principle. The kinds of prevarication and sophistry people go through in the course of rationalizing their evasions of the evidentialist principle are virtually inexhaustible, so even an infinite time would not suffice to reply to all the possible quibbles, alibis and excuses that might be dredged up from the bottomless pit of human self-deception. What I do want to address here are some philosophical arguments, such as those of William James, for the thesis that the evidentialist principle is too restrictive. I should preface this discussion, however, by saying that I think those who, like James, directly dispute the evidentialist principle through such arguments are less in a state of denial about it than those who engage in the wide variety of more dishonest evasions. Worse even than they, however, are those who do not dispute the evidentialist principle at all, but merely interpret all evidence they get dishonestly, so as to confirm their pet faiths and prejudices, without even acknowledging that their conduct even raises a moral issue.

The basic idea behind the most thoughtful objections to the evidentialist principle is that there is a class of beliefs that are not justified by the evidence, but holding then either does no harm or even does some positive good. For instance, James and others argue that religious beliefs unsupported by evidence provide joy and consolation to those who hold them, enrich their lives, and encourage the believers to engage in actions that benefit others and theworld at large. There is even a body of empirical evidence, summarized in a 2003 article in American Psychologist by Carl E. Thoresen and William R. Miller, that religious involvement leads to a longer life and greater contentment.8 James argues that sometimes people can succeed in doing something worthwhile only if they believe in advance that they will succeed, so that to forbid them the belief that they will succeed (when it is not supported by evidence prior to the attempt) is to condemn them to failure, which James argues would be harmful and even irrational.

There are several different worries that an evidentialist will have about these supposed cases and the arguments based on them. First, as regards the joy and consolation afforded by unsupported beliefs, the empirical studies do not deal directly with religious belief (as distinct from participation in religious activities), and do not distinguish among religious beliefs regarding their evidential support, or even between beliefs that the believers themselves do and do not take to be evidentially supported. So the studies do not directly address the question whether evidentially unsupported beliefs contribute to human well-being.

It cannot be denied that in exceptional cases, it can benefit someone to hold a belief that is false. For example, a cancer patient's morale, and hence his chances of beating the disease, might in some cases be improved by his not believing he has cancer at all. In that case, the issue would arise for his physician and family whether to deceive him for his own good. This is not an easy issue to decide in general, however, since to deceive someone is to treat them paternalistically, so it needs to be carefully considered whether the benefit to them of holding a false belief outweighs the disrespect shown them by deceiving them. But the fact erroneous beliefs can sometimes benefit people does not show that it is ever permissible to seek such supposed benefits for yourself by manipulating yourself into believing something that the evidence shows is probably not true. For to do this would be to corrupt your procedures of belief formation and deliberation in a fundamental way. It is to show lack of respect for yourself that is so radical that it is hard to see how you could permit this and still retain intact even your capacity to deliberate rationally about what benefits you and what does not, in which case there would be no reason for you to trust your judgment that the evidentially unsupported belief really benefits you.

8 See Thoresen and Miller (2003). The American social psychologist Shelley Taylor regularly praises what she takes to be the biologically advantageous tendency of medical patients to hold illusions about their condition. See Taylor and Brown (1988). These claims raise somewhat different issues from those I am discussing, since Taylor and Brown are claiming that people are benefited by holding false beliefs as well as beliefs not supported by evidence. But it should be clear that in a case like this no one could stably hold both the belief that is supposed to benefit them and also know that it is false. So no one could know about themselves that they are being benefited by such a belief while continuing to hold the belief. Hence even if illusions do benefit people's health, it does not seem that this is a justification a person could stably or self-consistently apply to their own beliefs.

Even if we grant that evidentially unsupported beliefs do sometimes make people feel joy and consolation, it is still not clear that a person is really better off feeling joy and consolation in cases where those feelings are based on illusions.

Suppose I am elected "Most Popular Guy" in my high school graduating class, and feel joy and consolation in receiving this token of esteem and affection from all those cool jocks and groovy chicks who I never thought liked me at all; but in fact I was elected to this honor only because the election was a sham, a nasty conspiracy, a cruel joke played on me by my malicious classmates, who in fact without exception regard me as a contemptible dweeb, and now laugh at me behind my back for being such an easily deceived geek. In this case, it seems to me, my condition is pitiable rather than enviable, and my feelings of joy and consolation even constitute a significant part of why my state is so pitiable. (If I knew they were kidding, I might still be a revolting nerd, but at least I would not be such a ridiculous sucker.)

If this is right, then the joy and consolation afforded by beliefs unsupported by evidence normally count as something good for the person only if those beliefs are actually true. To think that a person's real condition is so bad that they would truly be better off living an illusion surely is to rate the person's state as wretched beyond any hope of improvement. To lie paternalistically to people may sometimes help them (for instance, to overcome a life-threatening illness), but like most forms of paternalism, it shows a lack of respect for the person, and seems justifiable only temporarily, under very special conditions. To regard it as an acceptable general policy in forming people's basic beliefs about themselves and the world (for example, their religious beliefs) is incompatible with respecting people at all. And of course to adopt such a policy regarding yourself, when it is possible at all, is to engage in a systematic pattern of self-deception that is incompatible with self-respect. Hence even if we considered it possible that we might really be better off holding beliefs that are not only evidentially unsupported but also false, we should not consider the miserable and contemptible level of well-being we might achieve by this device to be any genuine good, certainly not a good sufficient to justify making exceptions to the evidentialist principle.

In general beliefs unsupported by evidence are false more often than true. (If you doubt this, then I think you would also have to doubt that there is anything deserving the name 'evidence.') So granted that we truly benefit from holding epistemically unjustified beliefs only if the beliefs are true, it could never be true in general, but only in exceptional cases (when, namely, contrary to the evidence, the beliefs are true), that the joy and consolation afforded people by such beliefs will turn out to be genuinely beneficial to the believers. It follows that the general policy of seeking joy and consolation in beliefs not supported by the evidence could never benefit people, even if in exceptional cases people do sometimes accidentally benefit from holding such beliefs. But then let's ask this question: Could we ever know that a given case is exceptional in this way? Defenders of epistemically unjustified belief often argue by simply stipulating, plausibly enough, that there are such cases, and then claiming that the evidentialist principle is mistaken in condemning those beliefs. If such cases are necessarily exceptional, and we can never know whether we are dealing with one of them, this objection to the evidentialist principle can never justify any particular belief that violates the principle, even granting for the moment that the benefits of believing would suffice to justify it. Yet it is not clear how we could obtain good evidence that we will succeed if we believe without also getting pretty good evidence that success is pretty well within our grasp anyway, which casts doubt on the supposition that our belief that we will succeed is evidentially unsupported.

These arguments also do not usually distinguish between the effects of believing we will succeed and the effects of hoping we will succeed. It probably also requires evidence to be justified in hoping something will be true, since (as I would argue) hope always requires at least a very weak or tentative belief. (It makes no sense to hope for what you are firmly convinced is not the case.) How, then, can we be sure we are not dealing with a case in which epistemically justified hope will do just as good a job of promoting success as epistemic ally unjustified belief? In the face of such subtle and difficult questions, I am tempted to offer the modest suggestion that we might try just being honest with ourselves, both hoping and believing what the evidence justifies hoping and believing, and see if we can't somehow muddle through without having to lie to ourselves.

We might also raise the question in these cases whether there really is good evidence that evidentially unsupported beliefs enrich people's lives, or promote success, more than possible alternative beliefs that are better supported by the evidence. (The empirical studies about religion, once again, never specifically address that question, since they do not even ask about the evidential support there might be for various religious beliefs.) It seems to me a telling point that James, in the course of his defense of evidentially unsupported religious beliefs, counts it as one of the affirmations of religion--hence one of the beliefs for which he claims evidence is unnecessary--that we are better off believing that religion is true.9 This might seem illegitimate and question-begging. Yet it is only consistent with the basic position for which James is arguing. For if the joys and consolations to be derived from a belief are truly beneficial to a person only if the belief is true, then in the case of evidentially unjustified beliefs, it is evidence for that which is lacking. And as we have already seen, someone who is prepared to subvert his belief-forming procedures by believing what is unsupported by the evidence can also not trust himself to deliberate reliably about what it might benefit himself (or other people) for him to believe. It follows that particular violations of the evidentialist principle simply cannot be honestly defended to the believers themselves by providing evidence that they are beneficial to the believer, even if we agree that such beliefs might occasionally exist. In order to accept such justifications, we must shift to a
kind of third person perspective on beliefs, in effect treating ourselves with a disgusting attitude of condescending paternalism, and assert propositions about ourselves that we cannot consistently hold while also holding the beliefs that are to be justified.

Generally speaking it is obvious that true beliefs tend to lead to good consequences and false beliefs to bad ones. There may be ironic exceptions to this general truth, but it would be folly (or worse) to live your whole life as if just the opposite generalization were true. Further, if the word 'evidence' means anything at all, it means that beliefs supported by evidence are more likely to be true than those lacking evidential support. So if, as we have admitted, there are cases in which good consequences follow from holding unsupported beliefs, they are necessarily exceptional, and when these exceptional cases occur, we can never be in a position to know (or justifiably believe) this.

9 James, Op. cit., p. 732.

The mere existence of such cases would be would be far from constituting a moral justification for holding those beliefs. This is especially the case when the good consequences consist solely in some alleged benefit to the believer--such as pleasant feelings of joy, consolation and contentment. For it is often true of immoral actions (for instance, betraying the trust of a friend) that they benefit the person who performs them. (By betraying your friend, you can get his money away from him, or you can get away with some of your other bad actions by causing your innocent friend to take the blame for them.) These benefits to yourself obviously do not show that your act of betrayal is morally justified. Just as little would the fact that a believer benefits in some specific way from holding an unsupported belief (by feeling joy or consolation, or by succeeding in his projects) show that belief to be morally justified.10

Sometimes beliefs on insufficient evidence are defended on the grounds that they make the believer a morally better person. But what is the evidence for this? Does religious belief in general make people better? (Often enough, people who make such a claim simply take the question-begging and dishonest Jamesian line of treating it as one of the affirmations of religion, for which therefore no evidence is necessary.) But if we ask seriously and honestly whether religionmakes people better, this turns out to be very hard to say, partly because there is considerable controversy about what counts as a good person, and partly for other reasons. There is empirical evidence, however, that criminal behavior is not negatively correlated with religious belief.11

There is a lot of anecdotal evidence that some religious people are, on the whole, very good people, and often these people themselves think that their religious faith contributes to whatever moral virtue they possess. But there is also massive anecdotal evidence that other religious people are not good people at all, yet they too usually believe they are good, and that their religious beliefs make them good. So the former group, who are good, might be mistaken in believing that religious belief makes them good, just as the latter group, who are not good, are mistaken in thinking both that they are good and that religious belief makes them good. In both cases, both the religious belief and the belief that religious belief makes them good seem to belong to the class of evidentially unjustified religious beliefs, rather than counting as beliefs for which there is good evidence.

10 It is quite possible, of course, to imagine cases in which the benefit of violating the evidentialist principle is not supposed to go to the violator but to others. And it is equally possible to imagine cases where the motive for violating the principle is not self-interest but some generous or otherwise laudable motive. But people can have laudable motives for doing blamable actions, and the actions can be blamable nonetheless. And not just any means is permissible to reach a state of affairs, even if the state of affairs is good, and something a good person would want to bring about. If we have very general and very powerful moral reasons, of both a self-regarding and an other-regarding character, for adhering to the evidentialist principle--as I will argue later that we do--then it is merely a corrupt way of thinking that tries to tempt us to violate the principle by pointing to the good that can be obtained, or the evil averted, by violating it. This is a point that can be made equally well by a consequentialist and a non-consequentialist moral theorist, as long as the consequentiality understands the powerful reasons (which for him are consequentialist ones) for following the moral principle in question. It is a general human failing to rationalize the violation of important moral principles by magnifying the importance of some immediate good to be obtained or evil to be averted. And people make moral judgments all the time that are bad and corrupt when they think that the desirableness of some immediate end outweighs the importance of some principle of honesty or integrity But as John Stuart Mill points out, a thinking utilitarian is no more susceptible to this failing than anyone else (see Mill (1979), pp. 22-23, 25). It should not be thought that consequentialist theories can be criticized by charging them with a tendency to reason in such corrupt ways, or, conversely, that such corrupt reasoning can be defended by subscribing to a consequentialist moral theory. But the basic point, which is valid generally of all moral principles, was stated quite precisely by St. Paul when he condemns "doing evil that good may come" (Romans 3:8).

11 See Argyle (1958), pp. 90-99.

Some argue, however, that it is not a question of the actual effect of religious belief. The point, they say, is rather that without evidentially unsupported beliefs, you would not have any reason to be good, and it's to give yourself such a reason that you ought to hold those beliefs. For instance, they hold that the belief that there is a real difference between good and evil, or the belief that there is some powerful cosmic force co-operating with our efforts for good and opposing the forces of evil, is required to motivate us to do right and avoid doing wrong. Their claim is that if we did not hold these epistemically unjustified beliefs, we would have no reason to care about morality at all, but would be justified instead in taking the selfish and unprincipled course in everything we do. To put it bluntly, those who think this way have to believe that based on a rational assessment of the evidence, being honest and kind is only for fools and suckers and the only rational course of life is that of an unprincipled sociopath. But I submit that if that's how you see the world, then I you are already a person of very bad moral character, since this is not how a morally decent person could possibly see the world. Moreover, I don't think your attempts at dishonest self-manipulation, through professing beliefs you know lack evidential support, are likely to do much to improve your bad character.12

12 As David Hume put it: "The smallest grain of natural honesty and benevolence has more effect on men's conduct than the most pompous views suggested by theological theories and systems." See Hume (1970), p. 115.

More often, I think people who argue this way are thinking of themselves (perhaps rightly, and with admirable candor) as susceptible at times to this corrupt view of the world, even though when things appear from the standpoint of the better side of their character, they do not truly think that dishonesty and selfishness are the only rational way to live. They think they need unjustified beliefs in order to have something to say to themselves when their bad side is in danger of gaining the upper hand over their good side. But I submit that their bad side is not likely to be fooled by such transparent attempts at self-deception, and their good side stands in no need of them. I suspect that what attaches them to the beliefs in question is not their moral effects at all, but various motives of wishful thinking, habit and self complacency which, seen for what they are, belong to their bad side and not to their good side at all.

Obviously good consequences of any kind cannot provide a justification for violating a principle whose validity is not based on its conduciveness to good consequences. Even for a moral consequentialist, however, merely to pointing to some good consequences is not enough to justify anything. It would have to be shown that the consequences are on the whole better than those of any alternative. If we remain neutral for now between consequentiality and non-consequentialist moral theories, it still holds true in general that citing the good consequences of holding a belief on insufficient evidence could provide a moral justification for the belief only if these consequences constitute a moral reason that is not outweighed by moral reasons, whether based on consequences or on something else, that count against holding the belief. This point leads directly to the next topic I want to take up, namely, the grounds for the evidentialist principle.

Grounds for the evidentialist principle

The evidentialist principle seems morally compelling both on self-regarding and on other regarding grounds. Each type of ground opens up a broad field in moral theory, and it will be impossible to do justice to either in the short time remaining at my disposal here. But I'll do my best.

Self-regarding grounds

Under this heading, I start from the idea that each of us has good reason to regard ourselves as having a certain value, a value entitling us to self-respect. This is what Kant meant in saying that humanity in my own person is an end in itself; and what Mill meant in speaking of the sense of dignity that belongs to the good of every human being.13 Our own dignity makes moral demands on us of various kinds, requiring us to stand up for our rights, and not to adopt a servile stance in relation to others, even when we might be safer or more comfortable if we let them degrade us. Our dignity also makes demands on the way we think of and behave toward ourselves. We violate it when we are dishonest with ourselves, or let ourselves fall prey to patterns of thinking and habits of mind that express self-contempt.

One such pattern is letting others do our thinking for us. Of course it is quite all right and even required by the evidentialist principle, to listen to others, acquiring evidence and arguments from them and letting ourselves be rationally convinced by it. It is also sometimes reasonable to defer to others who know more than we do, letting their informed opinions count as evidence. Kant got it right when he said that the ideal is to think for ourselves, but from the standpoint of everyone else, and to think consistently.14 But it is something entirely different from this when we defer to authorities about certain matters simply as a way of finding some semblance of mental security in the face of the uncomfortable fact that here no one really has good evidence for what they believe. Then our conduct amounts to cowardly irresponsibility, servility and slavishness of mind. In effect, to do this is to lie to yourself, treating as evidence something you know is not evidence. Such faith in authority is therefore always bad faith.15

13 See Mill (1979), p. 9.

14 Kant, Critique of the Power of Judgment Ak 5:294-295; Anthropology from a Pragmatic Standpoint, Ak 7:200, 228-229; Logic Ak 9:57.

15 More generally, there is dishonesty wherever critical judgment is called for and we don't exercise it. 'Hypocrisy' means (etymologically), 'not enough judgment.' Not every failure to exercise critical judgment is literally hypocritical, but a dishonesty always attaches to it that puts it in the moral vicinity of hypocrisy.

Beliefs held on insufficient evidence require one or another among certain kinds of psychic mechanisms to sustain them, and these mechanisms display patterns of dishonesty and self-contempt. One mechanism is wishful thinking--holding a belief because you wish it were true and because it therefore brings you pleasure or comfort to believe it is true. It is cowardly and contemptible not to face the facts, which also means facing up to what the evidence says the facts probably are. It is also cowardly and contemptible not to face up to one's own limitations regarding your ability to know what the facts are. Self-honesty and self-respect require that you be able to endure being uncertain where knowledge or justified belief is not possible.We naturally wish we knew many things we can't know--such as what (if anything) becomes of us after we die, or whether there is a benevolent power secretly watching over us, or perhaps the ultimate fate, after we are gone, of some great historical cause to which we have devoted ourselves. It is depressing and frightening to realize that you can never know these things; it is pleasant and consoling to have a belief about them (especially a belief whose content is pleasant and consoling, such as that there is a beneficent Providence and a reward in Heaven, and that good--as it pleases you to define it--will ultimately triumph over evil). But to hoodwink yourself into such beliefs is to sell yourself short. You should be ashamed to deal with your human predicament in this cowardly way.

A different pattern of misconduct, though easily combinable with wishful thinking, involves social conformity, the imitation of those around you and the desire to gain, or keep, their approval, or at least to avoid their wrath and contempt. This leads people to defer to others when they should not, and it is often easy to do because self-deception can represent it as a case of listening respectfully to their thoughts or even as believing according to the best evidence. Honest and critical people, however, know the difference and attend carefully to it. Another powerful pattern of thinking that sustains evidentially unsupported beliefs is one that combines something like wishful thinking with something like social conformity. This is where you believe something because believing it constitutes conformity to some image of yourself that you want to have. A faithful Christian believes the Bible, a patriotic American believes America has never fought an unjust war, a good communist believes the victory of the proletariat is inevitable. If there is evidence that suggests otherwise, the faithful Christian, the patriot or the devoted revolutionary dismisses it--saying that it's only the propaganda of unbelievers, or traitors, or capitalist reptiles.16 Yet whatever lofty or advantageous image of myself (as Christian or patriot or communist) I may sustain or live up to by holding beliefs in this way, one image of myself I would not be entitled to sustain is that of a fundamentally honest and self-respecting human being.

16 The openly vicious (but hardly uncommon) version of this pattern is believing something because it serves your own self-interest to believe it--as when the CEO of a logging or mining company believes that what is most profitable is also environmentally friendly, and dismisses contrary evidence as merely the misguided ravings of a few pointy-headed academics and wigged-out tree-huggers.

Self-respect imposes on us the duty to direct our lives in accordance with our rational capacities. When it comes to belief, our chief capacity is the ability to weigh the evidence and apportion our belief to it. Letting wishes or social conformity or self-deceptive aspirations to self-approval interfere with the exercise of this capacity is an abdication of our responsibility to govern our own lives through our own reason, and displays a lack of the respect we owe ourselves as autonomous beings with human dignity.

One indication of the truth of what I am saying is that exhortations to self-blame, selfcontempt, and self-despair are prominent among the arguments given, especially in religious contexts, for holding beliefs on insufficient evidence. Basic to a certain kind of unhealthy religious temper is the insistence that doubting the dogmas of faith, or even inquiring critically into the evidence for them, constitutes sinful haughtiness against God, displaying the reprobate's proud closed-mindedness against the Truth. This last charge nicely turns things
topsy-turvy, representing closed-minded dogmatism as open-mindedness, and openness to the evidence as turning your back on the truth. One could hardly ask for clearer testimony that self-respect demands free inquiry and the rational weighing of evidence and that the only way to sustain beliefs disproportionate to the evidence is to regard one's rational faculties with self-contempt.

Dishonesty with yourself about moral questions is perhaps the most fundamental possible violation of any duty of self-respect. It is not possible to violate the evidentialist principle, however, without falling into some form of self-deception. For there is a non-accidental, even a conceptual, connection between believing something and assessing the evidence for it, so that sustaining such a belief necessarily involves either a policy of misinterpreting or failing to attend to the evidence, or a policy of distracting oneself from the connection between belief and evidence. Even the conceptual connection between believing and assessing evidence can be a device for rationalizing the kinds of self-deceptions that make possible violations of the evidentialist principle. I have heard people argue, for instance, that it cannot be possible to violate the evidentialist principle, or even possible to want to, since to violate it one must hold a belief one sees is unsupported by the evidence--which (so the argument goes) is a conceptual impossibility. When it is then pointed out that human self-deception makes this not only a conceptual possibility but even a quite common occurrence, the next move made by the self-deceiver is to say that self-deception necessarily operates unconsciously, hence involuntarily, so that even if violations of the evidentialist principle do occur, no one could possibly be blamed for them. On the one hand, philosophers argue that the evidentialist principle is impossible to violate, and then on the other, that its violation could not possibly be voluntary, or therefore anything for which people could be blamed.

Faced with arguments of this sort, I do not know whether to respond with outrage or laughter. Of course people have motives for self-deceptively exploiting what looseness there is in the conceptual connection between belief and assessment of evidence to violate the evidentialist principle. And they do it all the time. And although there may be some cases in which a person's mind is so profoundly disrupted that they are unable to rid themselves of their self-deceptions, there are also a great many cases where self-deception is blamable
because it would be avoidable by anyone who had a little courage and undertook the simple resolve to be honest with himself. When a person is caught red-handed doing something wrong, two of the shabbiest and commonest alibis they offer are: (1) "I couldn't possibly have done it, because I couldn't even have had a motive for doing it" and (2) "I might have done it, but if so, I couldn't help it." Who can fail to see that the two sophistical arguments just rehearsed fit precisely these two patterns?

Other-regarding grounds

Perhaps even stronger grounds for duty to believe according to the evidence come from this source. As I mentioned earlier, Clifford tells the story of a ship owner who has grounds to question the seaworthiness of an old vessel he is about to send out with many emigrant families on board. Instead of putting himself to the expense of having the ship refitted or even inspected, he overcomes his melancholy doubts by reflecting on the many voyages the ship has returned from safely, and by trusting in Providence to protect all those poor people. He watches the ship's departure with a light heart and good wishes for all those on board. Then when, like himself, Providence apparently also looks the other way, he collects his insurance money when the ship goes down in mid-ocean with all hands and tells no tales.17

In his famous essay "TheWill to Believe,"William James defends the thesis that we have "a right to believe, at our own risk, any hypothesis that is live enough to tempt our will,"18 whether there is evidence for it or not. In this formulation, James tosses out the phrase "at our own risk" rather casually, as though it were obvious that the beliefs he has in mind concern only the believer's own interests and welfare, and could never put anyone else at risk of harm.

17 See Clifford (1999), p. 70.

18 James, op. cit, p. 733.

But is that true?

Obviously not every belief on insufficient evidence does as much harm to others as the ship owner's self-serving belief in Clifford's example. But any belief that is important to us and likely to have a significant effect on our lives and actions is also likely to have an impact on the well-being of others. To adopt a set of religious beliefs, for instance, is often to adopt an entire way of life. Some possible ways for me to live are good for others, and some are bad for them. Many religions encourage attitudes that are backward, unenlightened, repressive, authoritarian. The adherents of one religion frequently hate and persecute the adherents of others. Some religions believe in proselytizing and even in even forcibly converting others to their faith. Elijah's religious beliefs obviously put the Baal worshippers at risk, and we obviously put others at some risk by adopting any religious faith with a determinate content. So if James's principle is really that we are morally permitted to adopt a belief irrespective of the evidence only when we do so solely at our own risk, then it is not clear that the permission he is defending would apply to any significant beliefs at all.

James distracts us from all this in "The Will to Believe" by giving voice only to a set of religious convictions that are so empty and insipid that they could not possibly do much harm (or, for that matter, much good). No doubt, as we have already observed, most religious people feel that their beliefs are good for the world, but that feeling, as we have seen, is part of their religious belief itself, which, if that belief is not supported by evidence, renders it question-begging as a defense of the belief's supposed other-regarding virtues.

No doubt it is sometimes possible in retrospect to conclude that religious beliefs which we regard as unsupported or even irrational played an important role in achieving good results. For instance, it is true that John Brown and many other passionate abolitionists were partisans of certain Protestant sectarian views about the imminent second coming of Christ, which led them to regard purging the world of the sin of slavery as a divinely ordained preparation for the end-time. History, as we know, is full of such ironies. But it is an entirely different matter to suppose we ourselves could be justified in seeing some comforting or inspiring but evidentially unsupported belief of our own as necessarily leading to beneficial results for the world. That is simply a dangerous pattern of self-deception, all too common among misguided fanatics of both the religious and non-religious variety, whose evidentially unsupported beliefs usually include some historical narrative, flattering to themselves, their world-view and their aims, whose triumphant conclusion lies out there in a brightly glowing but still hazy future. Isn't it obvious that when we let ourselves believe something because it is pleasant to believe it, irrespective of the evidence, we will also find it easy to persuade ourselves that what is pleasant to believe is also beneficial to believe, irrespective of whether there is any evidence that our beliefs are beneficial? It obviously poses a danger to others all by itself that we let ourselves fall into a state in which we are subject to illusions about the goodness or badness of our conduct.

In general we owe it to others, simply as fellow human beings and partners in the collective rational search for truth, to offer them, in the give and take of communication, what is best of ourselves and our unique perspective. It is our duty not to let our self-interest and self-deception, or our personal wishes and psychological needs take precedence over the evidence in forming the beliefs that shape our communication toward others and our actions that bear on their well-being. It is not controversial that we have duties of this kind in special cases, where vital human interests are at stake and where we are specifically charged with some special responsibility for taking care of those interests. If physicians, or the food and drug administration, or building inspectors allowed their personal wishes, emotional needs or self-interest to take the place of hard evidence in determining the matters for which they have responsibility, such 'faith-based' judgments would constitute criminal conduct on their part. The general moral duty toward others to form one's beliefs according to the evidence, along with moral duties in general, has to be left to the conscience of individuals; it would be an infringement of individual freedom to subject it to coercion. But there is no reason to think that this duty is less real on that account.

We see clear evidence of the violation of the duty to believe according to the evidence, and of the harm it can do, in the conduct of the American and British governments right now. Hans Blix, the chief UN weapons inspector in Iraq, has declared that the US-British decision to go to war there was based on a clear failure to judge critically the state of the evidence for the existence of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. He has compared their conduct to that of people in past centuries who engaged in witch hunts: because they wanted to believe the evil was there, they did believe it. Anything they could interpret as evidence for this belief, they did so interpret, while they ignored all the evidence against their belief.19 Richard A. Clarke, for years the chief anti-terrorism expert in the Clinton and then the Bush administrations, reported that the administration wanted so badly to believe there was a connection between Saddam Hussein and Al Qaeda that they repeatedly asked him to find evidence for this, and simply would not accept the fact that the evidence gathered over a period of years justified precisely the contrary belief, that there never was such a connection.20 Even now these regimes still justify their actions by ignoring the chaos, the civil strife, the overwhelming sentiment of Iraqis that their occupation should end immediately, together with their own crimes and abuses that give rise to that sentiment, and then they mark every event they can--an election, however dubious the process or unhopeful the result, or the formation of even the weakest puppet government--as a "turning point" providing them with a new pretext to gesture hopefully toward an imagined future Iraq, a grateful and friendly ally of the West, a land of democracy (and of course, rapaciously free enterprise, prominently including US corporations) which their war will have ushered into existence. Most of the disasters perpetrated on the human race by failed rulers fanatical tyrants and misguided revolutionaries were, I suggest, motivated by such hopeful beliefs, contrary to the evidence, in propositions framed in the future perfect tense.21

19 Blix said this in an interview with Jim Lehrer on the Newshour, March 17, 2004. See Blix (2004).

20 Clarke made these assertions on 60 Minutes, March 21, 2004. See Clarke (2004).

21 In his book, The President of Good and Evil, Peter Singer has brought a

275 and 869 "I heard the following somewhere and liked it: "Nothing is either good or bad, but only thinking makes it so." - ajani57@275

The exact quote is "there is nothing either good or
bad, but thinking makes it so." spoken by Hamlet"

-=-=-=-=-

Try Romans 14 verses 13 and 14

14:13 Let us not therefore judge one another any more: but judge this rather, that no man put a stumblingblock or an occasion to fall in his brother's way.

14:14 I know, and am persuaded by the Lord Jesus, that there is nothing unclean of itself: but to him that esteemeth any thing to be unclean, to him it is unclean

The passage in context is about dietary rules, but what has ever prevented xians from expanding verses out of context!

now if some one can point me to a howto on html tags?

thank you kindly

By Britomart (not verified) on 13 Jul 2008 #permalink

Was it an automated troll? You know he could be a first example of artificial intelligence, at least as intelligent as their Christian ape-like counterparts, which not at all indeed!

BTW I'm hungry I am going to start chewing and spitting crackers thats more fun that eating them.

Thousands of years ago, the gods were needed to explain so much that humans didn't understand: the origin and amount of game and food; the weather; river floods and ocean tides; the rumblings and shakings of the earth; the nature and movement of the sun, moon and stars; the origin of the world and its species; birth, health, disease and death. One by one each of these and so much more has been explained as knowledge increased, so much so that our need for gods shrunk nearly to one. And here we are arguing about that one god, who is left with so little territory. He's lost almost all presence in the natural world, so we must make up a supernatural place for him to inhabit.

Just as the young child may not YET understand mathematics, it doesn't mean she won't. Similarly, we may not yet understand all things in the natural world, but history has proven time and again that human curiosity and intelligence will eventually shine light into every dark corner.

We've got 5000 years of a continuing trend that leads inexorably to one conclusion: divine faith is the representation of what we don't yet understand. And today faith is strongest where natural education is weakest.

God is ignorance. Eliminate one, and you eliminate the other.

By Post-Cana (not verified) on 13 Jul 2008 #permalink

God is ignorance. Eliminate one, and you eliminate the other.

Wow ! Just the kind of meaningless dogmatic oversimplified formulas that the religious love to employ...

By negentropyeater (not verified) on 13 Jul 2008 #permalink

(I was going to stick this on the previous thread, but yay, we have a new one.)

To Neil at 118, and others who have expressed similar sentiments:

You're right, this is the issue: PZ Myers expressed an interest in receiving consecrated hosts from his readers to desecrate. Now Bill Donohue is hardly typical of your average faithful Catholic, and all priests are not pedophiles. Nevertheless, some of us, at least on a rhetorical level, delight in an apparently pointless action (or at least the suggestion of such an action) that antagonizes a lot of people, many of whom might feel generally benevolent, or at least completely neutral, towards our ilk and our non-belief. A few of these have even commented on these threads, expressing their interest in things scientific, claiming to be readers of this blog, and finally lamenting our general reaction to the Webster Cook story.

So why desecrate crackers? Not because the clergy molest children, or because the pope lives in a palace, or because Bill Donohue is an asshole, clearly. But I think there is a good reason. I insist on it because religion, particularly Christianity (and from my perspective, particularly Catholic Christianity), demands an outsized amount of social and cultural space, and I want to beat it back. Christianity is an essentially harmful collection of memes. If you're among the faithful, it clouds your moral reasoning, it makes you feel like a worthless loser, it demands that you waste hours of time on your knees, ande it craves an inordinate amount of intellectual energy. It's like a drug without a high. And if it were a completely individual, personal matter, I couldn't care less; go ahead and waste your life delued by fairy tales. But it's not a purely personal matter. Quite the opposite: The faithful, particularly the Abrahamic faithful, form raucous and demanding communities, form wealthy and tax-exempt organizations, write a whole lot of laws, punish a lot of people, and generally inflict all manner of social distress, for no clear reason, and without an argumentative leg to stand on.

G.K. Chesterton, no atheist he, wrote that "Blasphemy depends on belief, and is fading with it. If anyone doubts this, let him sit down seriously and try to think blasphemous thoughts about Thor." And that's mostly true. But the process works in reverse, too, and nobody has proven this as effectively as the Christians. Deny religion its sacred space, and you reduce its figures to historical artifacts. The Christians embarked upon relentless campaigns of sacrilege, blasphemy, and outright vandalism, to shock the conscience of pagan believers, and as a result it became culturally ridiculous to venerate Zeus. At first even the Christians were fearful of the pagan temples (so powerful were the sacred myths that had been erected in their defense), but after a few centuries of blasphemy, the Christians felt confident enough to convert them into Christian meeting halls. Now the Christians did not only blaspheme. They also had fancy arguments and good, hard rhetoric; early Christians like Augustine were really good at making pagan beliefs look stupid. In time the Christians achieved cultural prestige, and eventually paganism came to be associated with countrified simpletons (the Latin word paganus, in fact, originally referred simply to villagers, and other non-urban things).

Now I don't want to burn churches, or assault people. Property rights and freedom of expression are important elements of society, and not just for the religoius. But I do want to take every sacred cow, every arbitrary line in the sand, and challenge it as rigorously as possible. The Catholic League can paint us as "hysterical," demand our dismissal and punishment, characterize what we propose (however jokingly) as "profound disrespect" and "abuse" and "hate," in part because challenges like ours are rare. The sacred is well protected, if not by law, then by a veritable army of social conventions. But if we keep up the pressure and desecrate enough hosts, tell enough clergy to fuck off, etc. etc., Donohue's outrage will no longer be possible. If cracker desecration became a widespread joke, how many Catholics would find it easy to maintain their belief in transubstantiation? Very few, I think. And that's what I want to achieve.

Sorry for the long post.

"and the quibble (where not swallowing is theft)"

Is it me, or did I just hear Bill Donut hole--er, Donahue, perk up at a possibility for how to turn all those little boys from victims into thieves?

If you don't believe something, however, then you are asserting a belief that is negative. Nevertheless, it is still a belief

Jeez Louise...

This reminds me of that Rush song, "Free Will."

Thanks for nothing. Now I'm going to hear that awful song in my head the rest of the day.

And then I'm going to be stumbling around muttering, "Please make it stop, please make it stop!" like the old women in Slayers (the anime).

From #676: "...sitting on river bank, adjusts float to about 18 inches, clamps lead weight near hook, takes consecrated host and attaches to hook..."

They sometimes shatter when you try to poke the hook through them, so you have to carefully drill a little hole first. And then they dissolve as soon as they hit the water. Worms work better, because they last longer.

Damian,

Do you honestly expect people to wade their way through a 12 thousand word essay? Please, next time, just give a link.

It's not sockpuppetry, it's a good ol' fashioned "loaves and fishes" style multiplication of the account, clearly due to the divine intervention of Jeeeezus, himself.

OK, believe I am caught up on all threads as of now (who am I kidding?).

Time for a Martini, hushpuppies, and fresh boiled shrimp at my local watering hole.

Pax Nabisco

Time for a Martini, hushpuppies, and fresh boiled shrimp at my local watering hole.

Bloody marys, pancakes, scrambled eggs with mushrooms and sausage here. Eggs benedict were yesterday.

(house guest, so I've been COOKING! The fires of Hell have been busy!)

By MAJeff, OM (not verified) on 13 Jul 2008 #permalink

Damian @ #917,

Read the whole thing. Excellent. Thank you so much for posting it.

OK, so I decided to test the suggestion that the Catholic League consists of Bill Donahue plus smoke. Googling on "Catholic League" plus the names of each of its directors in turn produced the following counts.
Bill Donahue (including William Donahue): just over 9000
Raymond Arroyo: just over 2000
All the others put together except David Gregory: around 1500.

David Gregory is a problem because most of the hits after the first page refer to the NBC journalist of the same name. But exclude "NBC" and you're down to a couple of hundred hits.

So it's a slight exaggeration to refer to the Catholic League as the "Bill Donahue Appreciation Society" (BDAS, pronounced "badass") - but only very slight.

Does Damian win for longest post ever?

I haven't had enough coffee to wade through it so I have NO idea the content, but that's got to be up there on the long-as-shit-o-meter

Will s/he/it go plonk?

Bloody marys, pancakes, scrambled eggs with mushrooms and sausage here. Eggs benedict were yesterday.

(house guest, so I've been COOKING! The fires of Hell have been busy!)

My weekend houseguest had to cancel :(, so no brunch for me. Eggs florentine would have been perfect. But it's a glorious day here in MA!

Rev. BDC,

Damian wasn't trying to pass it off as his own. From his post:

I thought that a chapter from, "Ethics of Belief: Essays in Tribute to D.Z. Phillips" was relevant to the discussion about how we should formulate our beliefs and opinions.

Allen Wood

In the future, when challenging Catholics on their beliefs, I suggest you stick to Bibles that Catholics recognize as being legitimate. It would save a lot of confusion.

Happy now, "Truth" Machine?

Posted by: Dutch Hedrick | July 13, 2008 2:07 AM

Dude, you're talking out your ass. Modern biblical archaeology has gone WAY beyond you and your "approved" bibles. It is quite clear, from modern scholarship, your bibles are not "legitimate" in the sense they are the "word of God as written down by inspired men."

They are, from a scholarly perspective, among a group of the most changed and full of errors. For example, the entire Lords Supper was an early Catholic change to the bible. There are many, many, many more. Some which have been codified into the entire Catholic/Protestant movement. Some which have not.

As it stands, there are over 400,000 different bibles. All of which, to a greater or lesser degree, are different. Those that are relatively similar are grouped into families. I'd even tell you what they were if remodeling didn't put all my books in storage.

So, the fact is, you don't know what the hell you're talking about when you say "legitimate." There are no 'legitimate' bibles in the Protestant and Roman Catholic faiths because they all descend from the poisoned fruit of the poisoned tree. They've all been changed to a great degree to add three important concepts held dear by the nascent Roman Catholic Church:

The Doctrine Transubstation
The Doctrine of the Holy Trinity
Women are second-class citizens and unfit for the Priesthood.

None of which are in the early versions of the Bible or practices of the Church. These were, in the first two, added to the bible. The third concept was a case or REMOVING things from the bible, deliberately mis-translating part of the bible and then ADDING a bogus epistle from Paul TO the bible.

Then, all these changes were used as evidence for these beliefs in a circular cluster fuck of nonsense -- "It's true because it's in the bible..." Bullshit. You ADDED to the bible, i.e., evidence tampering.

This is the irony. Your religion is so completely a construct of the early church inventing itself that it, frankly, really doesn't represent the original core beliefs or practices of the early Christians. And we can see it through the acts of your church compared to the Acts of the Apostles or the Sermon on the Mount.

You don't do any sort of significant good work with your TRILLIONS of dollars in riches. You don't do good work with your BILLIONS of NET INCOME each year. Your church just gets richer...

and richer...

and richer...

and richer...

While supporting dictators, engaging in horrible crimes against humanity (historically and currently), etc.

And if you think I'm singling out the Catholics, you're arrogant to the point of delusional. You're the biggest hypocrites on the block, but not the only ones. There are very, very few religions that truly live the type of life Christ would have allegedly endorsed from, let's say, the perspective of the Sermon of the Mount in where Jesus discusses how we can see the authenticity of faith. And none, that I've ever seen, that live according to the precepts in Acts. For example, the Pentecostals think that with the "speaking in tounges, prophecies, etc., that they're going to the Kingdom. Yet Jesus rebukes this shallow belief in Matthew:

"Not everyone who says to me, 'Lord, Lord,' will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father in heaven. On that day many will say to me, 'Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many deeds of power in your name?' Then I will declare to them, 'I never knew you; go away from me, you evildoers!'"--Matthew 7.21-23

I'd go on about authenticity of faith as expressed by Jesus through the Sermon of the Mount, but I doubt you'd understand. Most Christians that are Internet Forum Warriors are so full of hate, anger and judgement that they just can't get it. They read it. Sometimes. But they can't get it because it's not as fun as gay bashing and points to the massive flaws and failings.

But just in case you might be an exception to the general rule, I'll give you a summary of the importance of the Sermon on the Mount: You are judged by your relationship with God (faith) and how you behave (acts).

And if you're making death threats (or any kind of threats) over a graven idol (the cracker), you're failing both.

And if your church is a $500 billion-a-year industry (netting close to $200 billion) while it lets people starve. You're showing the entire world that you're failing and have been caught by Mammon.

Anyway, it's a bit disjointed because your particular smug-arrogance-of-ignorance tends to set me off. But if you've got any sort of brains, it should be easy enough to follow the various chain-of-ideas...

Rev. BDC,

Damian wasn't trying to pass it off as his own. From his post:

Yeah had I just read the first part instead of working from the bottom up.. i would have seen that.

My bad. That's what I get for getting up at 4:30 to catch teh sunrise on the beach... then going back to sleep and never getting coffee at any point.

Rev BDC, I thought the long-as-shit-o-meter was only for the bathroom. Thanks, I'll wire that bitch in series with my irony meter and await the next cheeses-y intertoobz diatribe.

Rev BDC, I thought the long-as-shit-o-meter was only for the bathroom. Thanks, I'll wire that bitch in series with my irony meter and await the next cheeses-y intertoobz diatribe.

I sometimes have to break out my

what-the-fuck-o-meter and my dumbfuck-o-meter too.

o-meters r us.

#739Kobra:

Are you trying to equate the buying and selling of property to the distribution of Communion? It doesn't work because the Eucharist is NOT property. We Catholics never claimed it to be property. We claim it to be God.

That is our CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHT under the first amendment. If you want to start writing laws that determine our theology, you're going to have to change the Constitution first. (There's another "meaninglessly capitalized letter for you, TruthMachine.)

We have the right to worship as we see fit. You cannot write laws changing this without re-writing the Constitution.

I suggest you guys pool your resources and work on that if you ever want to get somewhere.

Posted by: Dutch Hedrick | July 13, 2008 2:35 AM

Your CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHTS to worship are limited to your not interfering with rights and property of others. There are other limitations.

All of which are understood by people who actually understand the Constitution and what it means. And, apparently, have passed you by...

BTW, as a general rule, when you start screaming CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHTS, understand them before you scream for them. The Constitution is NOT a blank-check to do what you want.

Because, if it were, I'd found the Church of Wafer Desecration and we'd be desecrating your wafers! All your Waferz Belong to Us!!!1!!1111

JoJo:

To be honest, I hadn't realized how long it was. I shall refrain from posting such a long article in the future. See directly below.

SC: "Read the whole thing. Excellent. Thank you so much for posting it."

Thanks, SC. It's nice to share, I say. I'll include something with pictures of farm animals and colored shapes, next time. ;-)

Rev. BigDumbChimp: "Damian that is very poor form my friend."

Why so? It's from a book, for a start, and it isn't the whole article, to my knowledge. I suppose that you could say that it's unethical, but it's not like people don't give each other copies of papers on a regular basis.

The author of the paper about Ventastega, the transitional form, was handing copies of his paper out like smarties.

I'll go and lock myself in dark room for an hour.

Rev. BigDumbChimp:

Scratch that last comment. I thought that you were talking about copyright, and that my reproduction wouldn't be classed as fair use. I hadn't thought about that, to be honest, which is not very clever of me, and I can also see how scrolling past such a long post is more than a little annoying.

It's a damn good article, all the same.

I've wondered...since the cracker IS the body of christ,you think christ plays a joke on everyone and makes them eat his dick?

I know thats what I'd do if I were god.

The thing is: The guy was on Catholic property and there at the pleasure of the Catholic community. All they asked from him was respect for their rules and customs.

1. It was school property, not Catholic property.
2. He was there at his own pleasure, and he's part of the Catholic Community.
3. They asked him no such thing. They assaulted him when he didn't follow the rules exactly like the person in front decided they need to be followed. Rules that, frankly, are not codified, but guidelines.

If I were to go into your house and start behaving contrary to your rules you would probably take objection, too. Depending upon what I was doing, you might even get upset enough to use physical force to prevent me from doing it.

My house is not in a school. It is not part of a fellowship. I did not expressly or implicitly invite you to enter my house, unlike your services which do both. (This is lamest analogy EVAH on the Intertubes.)

What complicates this is that Catholics do not believe the consecrated Eucharist is anything but God. If you start treating it in a way that shows it disrespect, you should expect them to act accordingly.

You're full of crap. Most catholics I know believe it's a piece of cracker and the process is symbolic of their connection with the Divine, not literal in some way.

Some of your priests and philosophers STILL write articles, such as this one on Catholic.net, about it because they just can't let the 13th Century thinking die... http://www.catholic.net/rcc/Periodicals/Homiletic/Jan98/transubstantiat… :

Protestants reject transubstantiation, and so do many Catholic scholars. The average Catholic is vague concerning the nature of the Eucharistic presence of Christ, and one can sympathize with him, in view of the lack of clear teaching about the Most Blessed Sacrament.

That's the funny part. The average Catholic, unless told to get upset about the damn thing, by some moron like Donohue, isn't. Sure, there are a few holy rollers, like yourself, who go to war on the Internets. But, frankly, most of the Catholics have more sense, or are pretty much ignorant, about the ritual and DON'T REALLY GIVE A DAMN.

Since we're in America under this Constitution -- with no further amendments -- we have the right to worship as we choose. The State should not make any laws prohibiting us from doing so.

You just don't get it. The State can limit what you do. You can't engage in human sacrifice. You can't engage in animal cruelty. You can't codify your religion into law. You can't build churches that don't pass building codes. You can't incite to riot.

And you sure can't assault a kid who doesn't eat the cracker at the alter, but was going to eat it after showing it to his heathen friend.

Really, you should just SHUT UP about your CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHTS. Because you're making an ass out of yourself.

So -- if you guys want to pass a law saying that the Eucharist (consecrated) is just "property," then you're going to have to amend the Constitution to do so. Until then, whine somewhere else.

Posted by: Dutch Hedrick | July 13, 2008 3:07 AM

You idiot, we don't need to pass a law saying it's "property." It is property of which there are three kinds:

1. Realty (real-estate)
2. Personalty (tangible non-real-estate)
3. Intangible (copyrights, for example. Or goodwill.)

That covers it. Your wafer is, basically, like a book. It's tangible (the cracker) and you assert there is an intangible presence (Jebus writing) on it.

It's a damn good article, all the same.

It really is.

Rev. : No, it is not. This is:

As it stands, there are over 400,000 different bibles.

Holy trisquit!

I could barely articulate anything beyond sputtering noises of disbelief when I got back home after a computer-less week and read these threads. So I made a comic instead.

The author of the paper about Ventastega, the transitional form, was handing copies of his paper out like smarties.

Authors usually have an agreement with the publisher that allows them to share offprints to some extent. Copy-pasting large portions of the text is still a no-no.

Lest you walk away thinking us atheists to be unfriendly, unhelpful people...

"I really want to get away from all the highly unpleasant people on this blog."

The trick here is to NOT refresh the blog topic all day long, reading all the posts for any reference to you, and then continuing to add more comments to the discussion which will only elicit more responses.

Because some of the "angry atheists" might point out that your behavior indicates that you are lying about wanting to get away from the people of this blog. Those angry atheists think that lying somewhat detracts from the point you are making and calls your assertions into question.

-Helpful, happy atheist

Eric @922,

Thanks for the serious engagement. I enjoyed much of it (although your tone has a reaching out quality that is quite inappropriate for Pharyngula).

I'll focus on what I think are our areas of disagreement.

Christianity .. demands an outsized amount of social and cultural space

Think of the decades (say, 20's to 50's) where secularism relentlessly shrunk that space. Think of the cultural shift associated with folks like Lenny Bruce & Tom Lehrer & Vonnegut, academic sociology, psychiatric practice. By the 70's, the secularist impulse (if not outright atheism) was mainstream, disrespect of Abrahamism was a normal part of the public cultural space. Pols seeking high office wouldn't dream of pulling out their god card.

We were Sweden!

(OK, I'm overstating.. we were Sweden with a bit more homophobia and racial tension.)

Social policy, political discourse, pop entertainment, university life.. all these were "owned" by the secular mindset, especially in the big coastal cities.

With the 60's and 70's, we encounter a dramatic reduction in the habits of self-control and delayed gratification, we encounter the mainstreaming of Hefnerism and Learyism and Disneylandism, "the projects" and then BloodAndCrippsism. Many rather stupid people get PHd's and start controlling university hiring policies and areas of research. I could go on.

Today, we are expending energy fighting fundamentalists on school boards, and state legislatures allied with the Discovery Institute. Wow! Bye, bye Sweden!

So, do we have a good understanding of what went wrong?

As in prior posts, I'm not saying these are simple cause-effect relationships. But today's atheists pin so many high hopes on the beating back of religion.

Irreligion pretends that it understands brainbuilding and "community of brain" brainbuilding far more than it does. You demonstrate this when you say Christianity (and by implication Abrahamism generally):

.. demands that you waste hours of time on your knees, ande it craves an inordinate amount of intellectual energy. It's like a drug without a high.

See, at certain times and places, it has seemed more like a drug with a gentle and slow-releasing high, not merely benign but genuinely helpful.

I don't understand it, but I know that I don't.

(Small disclosure: I'm actually Canadian; I take the liberty of using "we" when I write about U.S. culture.)

By Neil Schipper (not verified) on 13 Jul 2008 #permalink

#950:

I made the post he tried to criticize 700 posts ago and that was the best he could come up with. I think you broke him.

Moses,

And you sure can't assault a kid who doesn't eat the cracker at the alter, but was going to eat it after showing it to his heathen friend

The problem, is that if he claims that he has been assaulted, they will claim that he has wilfully interrupted or disturbed the religious assembly.

And then in will be up to a court to decide.

Please note that according to Florida statute (2007) 871.01 ;

(1) Whoever willfully interrupts or disturbs any school or any assembly of people met for the worship of God or for any lawful purpose commits a misdemeanor of the second degree, punishable as provided in s. 775.082 or s. 775.083.

SO, the issue here is CLEARLY NOT an issue of property rights, but an issue of disturbance of religious worship.

You can try and do the same if you want, you will have the same problem whichever state you find yourself in.

Conclusion : go and take as many Eucharists as you want, desecrate as many as you want, outside of church, that's protected speech, but do not disturb the worshippers.

By negentropyeater (not verified) on 13 Jul 2008 #permalink

SC@858,

It's an honour to agree with you so often! As a reluctant ex-anarchist, I'm sure I could find something to say you'd disagree with - but I'll wait until the spinning of the thread requires it.

By Nick Gotts (not verified) on 13 Jul 2008 #permalink

Way back at #739, Dutch Hedrick said:

Are you trying to equate the buying and selling of property to the distribution of Communion? It doesn't work because the Eucharist is NOT property. We Catholics never claimed it to be property. We claim it to be God.

So Cook stole God?! Wow, Cook must be some real powerful dude.

I'm sorry, but what kind of all-powerful, and all knowing God lets Himself get stolen?!

Unless, of course, that what Cook did is all part of God's Secret Tricky Plan for...um...whatever His Secret Tricky Plan is for.

Seems to me that God was either powerless to stop Cook from stealing Him, or that God chose to let Cook steal Him, and, if so, Cook was merely playing his part in the God-approved plan.

"...people who want to believe in "divine nature" should simply give up omniscience as a property of their god. Except that omniscience is part of the dogma, and so they aren't allowed to give it up."

A Paradox! A Paradox!
A most ingenious Paradox!
Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha!
A Paradox!

--WS Gilbert

There's a big difference, as I said before, in saying, "You MAY eat pudding," and "You WILL eat pudding."

But... lots of languages do not normally express the differences between "so that you may eat pudding", "so that you should eat pudding", and "so that you will eat pudding". Not everyone needs modal verbs, you see.

Lo & behold, Latin uses the present subjunctive:

ideo mittit illis Deus operationem erroris ut credant mendacio

where "ut credant" means "so they believe" -- with "they believe" like "they be", not like "they are".

I don't know Greek (same webpage), but the top few versions explain every single word if you mouse over it, and it doesn't contain any modal verb either. Instead, "to believe" is in the aorist, a tense which I haven't understood. Does anyone here know Koiné? Does the aorist work as the past of the present subjunctive?

By David Marjanović, OM (not verified) on 13 Jul 2008 #permalink

"I'm sorry, but what kind of all-powerful, and all knowing God lets Himself get stolen?!"

Totally completely and fundamentally bloody inept really...tis a complete shock...well well well 'ol beardy getting bumped like that..who would have thought it ...what a pity...oh dear...how sad...never mind..!

Epicurus...

Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is not omnipotent.
Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent.
Is he both able and willing? Then whence cometh evil?
Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him God? (Epicurus)

Is Man willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he not omnipotent.
Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent.
Is he both able and willing? Then whence cometh evil?
Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him God?

Sure tis an oldy...but a goldie...guaranteed to get 'em a stuttering and huffing and puffing and finally ...muttering about atheist misconceptions and failure to understand the point of a merciful god... I once had a troll opine that of course way back then they had no real conception of what god was.....and folks way back then did not understand his mercy either...they were ignorant... apparently...blah blah blah...

One other said he would pray for me...because I was corrupted by the devil's work...and those words were from Satan himself because they were designed for trickery...what ya gonna do?

By the strangest brew (not verified) on 13 Jul 2008 #permalink

So good I posted it twice...excuses!

By the strangest brew (not verified) on 13 Jul 2008 #permalink

Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is not omnipotent.
Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent.
Is he both able and willing? Then whence cometh evil?
Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him God? (Epicurus)

Maybe God has a very alien concept of evil and morality? Few Christians, besides future toddler chopper Vox Day, will admit that their God-given morality is completely insane by rational standards.

Consider Christopher Hitchens' Atheist Challenge and how Hitchens is saying he's not met anyone who could meet it. The challenge is this: "Here is my challenge. Let anyone name one ethical statement made, or one ethical action performed, by a believer that could not have been uttered or done by a nonbeliever."

I can win that challenge. No nonbeliever would ever say what Bill Donohue said: "It is hard to think of anything more vile than to intentionally desecrate the Body of Christ."

And by "Body of Christ" Bill Donohue refers to a dry and tasteless cracker.

Is it a moral statement? When you call something vile or a hate crime you are making a moral statement. Would an atheist ever claim that abusing a cracker is the most vile thing he could think of? I don't think so.

Why don't Christians offer that as an example to prove Hitchens wrong?

When I take a look at those who actually try to answer Christopher Hitchens' Challenge they all fall into Hitchens' trap and try to make a moral argument that Hitchens would not consider insane and thus automatically make statements an atheist could make.

Dutch:
Don't have a cow, man. Lighten up. Jeeesh. My quip to Truth Machine back in the 600's about eating the Torah was a merely a joke. So unless someone prints the Torah on a fruit roll up, it is safe from being consumed by anyone except perhaps woodboring beetles or circus geeks. Feel better?

I didn't read all of the monster comment, but footnote 21 bears repeating:

In his book, The President of Good and Evil, Peter Singer has brought a broader and deeper indictment of the same kind against G. W. Bush himself, arguing that the moral and religious commitments on which the President prides himself actually involve a habit, characteristic of some forms of religious belief, though obviously not all, of believing things not because there is evidence that they are true, but because you have decided independently of the evidence to believe what it seems to you would be believed by the kind of person you want to be, the kind of person you consider morally upright and religiously devout. See Singer (2004), see especially pp. 96-104. The current American regime's disastrous errors in foreign policy and its contemptuous treatment of science (on a wide variety of topics, from stem cell research to global warming to the scientific value of the Hubble telescope) are only some of the ways in which our nation and the world are paying a heavy price for the President's system of moral and religious values, which apparently countenance an irresponsible deficiency in critical thinking and an arrogant, willful neglect of the duty to believe according to the evidence.

By David Marjanović, OM (not verified) on 13 Jul 2008 #permalink

My lack of intellect has caught up with me, dammit. I can't understand Neil's point. That Atheism is the product of the post '50's generation? (The Enlightenment must have never taken place a couple of hundred years before) Sweden and Hef destroyed moralism? Everything is an ism? My brain hurts.

At #962 the strangest brew said:
Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is not omnipotent.
Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent.
Is he both able and willing? Then whence cometh evil?
Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him God?

My trying to puzzle out that conundrum about god's omnipotence when I was in Catholic grade school was the genesis of my doubts about the what I was being taught about god. I remember wondering:
If god is almighty why doesn't he stop bad things from happening?
If god is so loving, why does he let terrible things happen--or worse, do really really terrible things himself?

Seemed to me that either god wasn't so nice, or that he wasn't almighty. Either way, those alternatives were at odds with what I was being taught. The cognitive dissidence finally became too great. Unlike many who opt for belief over rationality, I eventually resolved the issue by choosing consistency and reason.

Needless to say, that kind of thinking wasn't appreciated by the nuns who taught me.

Maybe God has a very alien concept of evil and morality?

But...but...but...

God himself explains what he considers good vs. evil, moral vs. immoral in that book he wrote (AKA The Bible), and what he neglected to write down in that book, he tells us through the voice of The Pope and his other holy messengers. (Yeah, some of the rules are inconsistent but heck, that's gotta be part of God's secret tricky plan.)

Ever since my childhood, the thing that always bothered me is that god doesn't play by his own rules. God is a practitioner of the "Do as I say, not as I do" school of rule-making.

Now bastion, those only apply to the christey god. Or any god that claims to be agin' evil.

@JeffreyD

Not sure I mentioned it before, or if you saw it if I did, both you and SC carried the Hitchen's thread and made it a must read for me every day.

You did make such a comment and I did see it. Thanks twice.

By truth machine, OM (not verified) on 13 Jul 2008 #permalink

Maybe God has a very alien concept of evil and morality?

The question of evil is the basis for the Biblical Book of Job. Note: Job is considered fiction by almost all Biblical scholars.

Job is described as a "righteous man" and examples of his righteousness are given. One day Satan goes to God and, after a bit of small talk, makes a bet with God that if Job is screwed over well enough, then Job will curse God. God accepts the bet. He kills off Job's children and servants by collapsing Job's house on everyone, then has all of Job's livestock rustled. Finally Job is stricken with painful boils over all of his body. To make a long story short, Job accepts his fate and so God wins the bet.

At one point in the book, Job and God have a discussion. Job essentially asks "If God is a loving God, why is there evil in the world." I've always found the answer interesting: "Where wast thou when I laid the foundations of the earth, declare if thou hast understanding...." (Job 34:4 KJV) and continuing in like fashion for most of the rest of the chapter. In other words, Job asks one of the most important questions in theology and God blows him off with a long winded sneer.

And the god botherers wonder why we're not impressed with their Bible.

"God is ignorance. Eliminate one, and you eliminate the other."

Wow ! Just the kind of meaningless dogmatic oversimplified formulas that the religious love to employ...

Especially ironic after the Allen Wood piece that Damian posted. And once again Damian posts a deep piece that goes to the heart of things and then some (although the posting does violate copyright). And yes, I read the whole thing, but very few people will (perhaps only me and SC), especially those who could most benefit from it. (I would definitely recommend it to Brandon.) For those who don't want to wade through the whole thing, you can skip past the very long section where Wood refutes a number of objections to evidentialism (the position that beliefs should be held in proportion to the evidence for them), to "Grounds for the evidentialist principle". Or to the juicy part that precedes it where he addresses the claim that you can't be moral without a belief in God:

Some argue, however, that it is not a question of the actual effect of religious belief. The point, they say, is rather that without evidentially unsupported beliefs, you would not have any reason to be good, and it's to give yourself such a reason that you ought to hold those beliefs. For instance, they hold that the belief that there is a real difference between good and evil, or the belief that there is some powerful cosmic force co-operating with our efforts for good and opposing the forces of evil, is required to motivate us to do right and avoid doing wrong. Their claim is that if we did not hold these epistemically unjustified beliefs, we would have no reason to care about morality at all, but would be justified instead in taking the selfish and unprincipled course in everything we do. To put it bluntly, those who think this way have to believe that based on a rational assessment of the evidence, being honest and kind is only for fools and suckers and the only rational course of life is that of an unprincipled sociopath. But I submit that if that's how you see the world, then I you are already a person of very bad moral character, since this is not how a morally decent person could possibly see the world. Moreover, I don't think your attempts at dishonest self-manipulation, through professing beliefs you know lack evidential support, are likely to do much to improve your bad character.12

12 As David Hume put it: "The smallest grain of natural honesty and benevolence has more effect on men's conduct than the most pompous views suggested by theological theories and systems." See Hume (1970), p. 115.

By truth machine, OM (not verified) on 13 Jul 2008 #permalink

The question of evil is the basis for the Biblical Book of Job. Note: Job is considered fiction by almost all Biblical scholars.

And why would one consider that part of the bible fictional but not the rest, other than to deny that their God is a brutish thug?

By truth machine, OM (not verified) on 13 Jul 2008 #permalink

P.S.

I've always found the answer interesting: "Where wast thou when I laid the foundations of the earth, declare if thou hast understanding...." (Job 34:4 KJV) and continuing in like fashion for most of the rest of the chapter. In other words, Job asks one of the most important questions in theology and God blows him off with a long winded sneer.

If most biblical scholars think that Job was fictional, then they think that Job never asked such a question and that God never blew him off.

And the god botherers wonder why we're not impressed with their Bible.

Aye, regardless of whether God exists, the biblical conception of God is unappealing, and the justifications it provides are unconvincing.

By truth machine, OM (not verified) on 13 Jul 2008 #permalink

After countless comments on cracker-gate, I apologize if I've missed this question.

When I've taken communion and looked down at the floor I've seen drops of wine on the floor from the obvious spillage. This would be wine after it's been blessed. What is the significance of that? I've got to believe that on any given Sunday, several ounces of 'blood' make it to the floor.

Note: Job is considered fiction by almost all Biblical scholars.

really? I'm genuinely curious to see their arguments as to why. My conclusion on the matter, with a slightly more than cursory examination, was exactly the same as TM's (any arguments of Job as fiction are entirely arbitrary, and inevitably could be used on any bible-book).

It shouldn't be hard to locate those arguments for someone who considers themselves knowledgeable enough of the greater body of "biblical scholars" to claim they almost all speak as one on this issue, right?

consider the question a two parter:

one: Do "biblical scholars" really "almost all" think that the book of Job is fiction?

two: How do they distinguish their reasoning (if any) used such that it cannot be utilized in a similar fashion for the rest of the books in bible?

since there appear to be so many amateur apologists in these threads, surely this will be a simple issue to resolve, right?

Is it a matter of archeology not supporting anything in Job? If so, modern archeology really doesn't support much of anything in that dusty tome, so let me cut off that line of argument by pointing those who would use it to Hector Avalos, and let you argue with him instead:

http://mnatheists.org/component/option,com_seyret/task,videodirectlink/…

Hey, maybe my bias in concluding so long ago that that whole dusty goatherder tome is pretty much orally shared myths put on paper, has lead me to miss any distinctive arguments regarding this particular piece of that book. So, with archeology set aside, could someone who feels knowledgeable of biblical scholarship identify the arguments that fictionalize Job, please?

So, with archeology set aside, could someone who feels knowledgeable of biblical scholarship identify the arguments that fictionalize Job, please?

I'm not much of a scholar, but I happen to have Jennifer Hecht's Doubt, which discusses both Job and Ecclesiastes as examples of Jewish doubt that somehow were pulled into the canon.

She doesn't go into a whole lot of detail on how scholarship treats the text, preferring to analyze it directly, but she does say that "Throughout history, Church and rabbinic readings have managed the problem of the Book of Job by reverting back to the folktale; they'd excise or play down the middle section of the poem—the rebellion—and thus make it a simple tale of faith and patience. Others have dealt much more frankly with the text but still found justice in allegory or interpretation."

I suspect that Avalos would suggest that the early scholars interpreted Job as "fiction", distinct from the rest of bible as "truth", as a result of early theological essentialism: "The essence of God is good, therefore this story, which depicts God as deliberately being unjust towards a just man, cannot be literally true."

That's my guess, anyway.

By Owlmirror (not verified) on 13 Jul 2008 #permalink

examples of Jewish doubt

hmm, I could see that. What about the other books commonly considered "fiction", like Ruth, Esther, and Jonah?

"The essence of God is good, therefore this story, which depicts God as deliberately being unjust towards a just man, cannot be literally true."
That's my guess, anyway.

nothing more than essentialism?

egads, I hoped for something a bit more meaty.

I'm betting that if there is a response from our resident apologists, it will essentially take the form of a regurgitation of CS Lewis' "ahistorical" argument.

er, not that what CS Lewis had to say about it was any better, really.

I am genuinely curious about the arguments though. I'll probably have to end up doing the work myself. I never bothered to think about really pursuing it until I heard the "all biblical scholars think it's fiction" canard.

Frankly, the book of Job was the only chapter of the goatherder's story book that ever interested me in any way.

probably because of the common "WERE YOU THERE!!!!" arguments posted by demented fuckwits like Hovind, Ham, and their zombie hordes.

plus, there's all that "wagering" going on between imaginary deities. interesting stuff.

Having spent quite a bit of time discussing philosophy and Judaism with an ex-rabbi turned atheist, I can easily imagine that Job might be internalized debate made external and put on paper.

the earliest recorded example of cognitive dissonance?

Not directly related to the fictionalization of that book, though the arguments he uses to analyze Job are quite interesting.

thanks.

Good will and wisdom speak through the mouth of Job's friends; and yet not only do they not succeed in calming him, they only irritate him more.

gee, I can't imagine why...

:p

"Job, seriously dude, you're shredding our mellow with all this talk about conversing directly with the big Kahuna. I don't care that you've got zits all over your face. You're gonna piss off the girls, man!"

How was the determination made that all these folks were the same person? With next to 1000 comments, I'm sure its in there somewhere but I cant find it.

By rarus.vir (not verified) on 14 Jul 2008 #permalink

Neil Schipper:

Thanks for the serious engagement. I enjoyed much of it (although your tone has a reaching out quality that is quite inappropriate for Pharyngula).

You would know all about reaching, I guess.

Think of the decades (say, 20's to 50's) where secularism relentlessly shrunk that space. Think of the cultural shift associated with folks like Lenny Bruce & Tom Lehrer & Vonnegut, academic sociology, psychiatric practice. By the 70's, the secularist impulse (if not outright atheism) was mainstream, disrespect of Abrahamism was a normal part of the public cultural space. Pols seeking high office wouldn't dream of pulling out their god card.
We were Sweden!

If there is a connection between unbelief and stalinism, why hasn't Sweden elected its own mustachioed dictator yet?

nothing more than essentialism?
egads, I hoped for something a bit more meaty.

What can I say? There's not much to essentialism other than its own question-begging assumptions. Just look at Dutch Hedrick's arguments:

Omnipotence means unlimited power, yes, but it does NOT mean that power will be used contrary to one's nature! God is not evil. God is Good. Evil does not come from God. It comes from TURNING AWAY FROM GOD!

Says it all, doesn't it?

I suppose there's also all of the psychological defense mechanisms that go into building up and defending essentialism in their own minds.

Although looking at Dutch's second paragraph:

To say that God cannot turn away from himself is absurd! That's like saying YOU can't turn away from yourself or leave yourself. God is what he is. God cannot be not-God. This is because God is God.

I wonder if he just made two typos while composing it ("cannot" and "can't" for "can"), or if he was genuinely trying to contradict his first paragraph by suggesting that God can indeed do evil.

Bah. Apologists can't even write two paragraphs without logical fallacy and contradiction.

By Owlmirror (not verified) on 14 Jul 2008 #permalink

The Eucharist must be respected!!

Do you not realize what a stack of two or three of these wafers will impel a hungry Altar Boy to do?

By Gingerbaker (not verified) on 14 Jul 2008 #permalink

People like you and Brandon (notably on opposite sides of the theistic divide) give me pause about my "style".

Posted by: truth machine, OM | July 13, 2008 5:53 AM

Just don't go changing your style up any, because I quite enjoy it. (Strangely enough, that holds true even when it's directed at me. ) Just keep doing what you're doing...I'll just try to keep from deserving it again in the future. (It's a bit like alcohol on a cut - you know it works, but damn does it sting...)

Hey, Soldier, welcome back. Long time no see.

Whoa, another 1000-comment thread. Seems like we're getting two a day now. I can't even keep up with one...

I can easily imagine that Job might be internalized debate made external and put on paper.
the earliest recorded example of cognitive dissonance?

Possibly...

I remember another point raised in Hecht's Doubt: Job is dated to the early Hellenistic period. It occurs to me that the book might be considered historically to be fiction because it was known to be more recent, and also because it may have been understood allegorically from the beginning (Job's life and troubles being clear analogs of the Jewish people at that time).

So perhaps the compilers of the canon had that historical detail in mind as well.

Hm.

One of the amoraim expressed his opinion in the presence of Samuel b. Naḥmani that Job never existed and that the whole story was a fable (B. B. 15a).

http://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/view.jsp?artid=330&letter=J

(see also:)

http://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/view.jsp?artid=331&letter=J

By Owlmirror (not verified) on 14 Jul 2008 #permalink

Owlmirror:

For the record, you're right. I did mistype. In that light, he substance of my argument should be clear -- even if I keep getting beating up over my poor typing abilities during what was a long night.

My whole point was this: God is essentially perfect Goodness. That's what God is. God cannot do evil because it isn't part of his essence. (That's why I say 'essentially.')

I know I shouldn't waste my time here, though. Those here do not legitimately want to understand. Just because someone believes in Science -- as I do -- doesn't mean he can't believe in God.

Physics is one thing. Metaphysics another. No true student of metaphysics would disbelieve physics. I can believe in scientific laws just as I believe in moral and ethical laws. My inquiries concerning from where those laws originate lends me to believe in God -- specifically a monotheistic God.

That's my system of belief. You're all entitled you your own.

By Dutch Hedrick (not verified) on 14 Jul 2008 #permalink

Dutch Hedrick wrote:

My whole point was this: God is essentially perfect Goodness. That's what God is. God cannot do evil because it isn't part of his essence. (That's why I say 'essentially.')

That doesn't quite clear it up, though.

Radical voluntarists (e.g., Descartes, arguably Ockham, Sunni Islam) agree that God cannot do evil. But that's only because as soon as God does something, it thereupon becomes good. So for example, God can deliberately have a child raped to death, whereupon raping a child to death becomes good.

Moral realists, on the other hand, would say that God cannot do evil because there's an independent standard of morality that (due to God's moral perfection) sets constraints on God's actions. They end up compromising God's omnipotence in order to preserve his moral perfection.

So what's your view?

My whole point was this: God is essentially perfect Goodness. That's what God is. God cannot do evil because it isn't part of his essence. (That's why I say 'essentially.')

Yes. I know. That's what essentialism is. Assume a completely unevidenced conclusion, and argue from it and all around it.

By Owlmirror (not verified) on 14 Jul 2008 #permalink

Dave2:

I do not know of an instance where God can "deliberately have a child raped to death." If a man does this it is not because it's God's Will, but man's will which is contrary to God's.

In fact, the whole point of the speech Pope Benedict gave from which he got so much heat from the Muslims was that God is the the "logos" -- which is mentioned in the Greek translation of the first chapter of John. Literally, it means "word," but it is also from where the word "logic" comes.

God, being the ideal of "the word" is the ideally logical in itself. Therefore, God cannot transcend reason because God is Perfect Reason.

That's why it makes sense to use logic to figure out God's laws: physical (scientific, or natural) or metaphysical (supernatural). Moral or ethical laws are included among these.

By Dutch Hedrick (not verified) on 15 Jul 2008 #permalink

I am an EX-Catholic {cradle} raised Catholic, and became a New Ager also atheist-agnostic for years, before converting to being a born again Christian.

What I want to tell the atheists and others here, is do not make the mistake of thinking Catholicism represents what Christianity is all about. The RCC is not true Christianity but a false fascimile of it. I didn't know myself until I was a middle-aged adult, and until I read a Bible for myself and saw what Jesus Christ truly taught away from the smoke, mirrors, and fog of Catholic superstitions, legends, power-hungry-morally corrupt leaders, and realized God, desired that I use my human mind as given:

Isa 1:18 Come now, and let us reason together, saith the LORD:

instead of shutting it down to accept the illogic of Catholic theology, I was able to move on and come into a relationship with Jesus Christ.

I want all you atheists/freethinkers and others to know...there are many Christians out there, who DO NOT support the teachings of Roman Catholicism and that the top ludicrous teaching is the idea that their priests can turn bread into "god". Many folks do not know this but Jesus Christ Himself warned against these false teachings that would come. We all know where the Catholic wafer goes in its final stage after being eaten. Jesus's words were spiritual, not about eating magic-mysterious god-wafers.

Mat 15:17 Do not ye yet understand, that whatsoever entereth in at the mouth goeth into the belly, and is cast out into the draught?

The draught by the way, was the toilets of that time, in other words the SEWER.

Some of us are smart enough to know that there is no way God can be kidnapped in a ziplock baggie by a rebellious teenager and who believe the Bible when it says:

Isa: God that made the world and all things therein, seeing that he is Lord of heaven and earth, dwelleth not in temples made with hands;

That nixes both the Catholic wafer and it's tabernacles.

It is alarming to see Catholics so upset at God being so "helpless" as if the creator of the Universe could be kidnapped! From a Christian angle this is pure blasphemy!

Now in America, we do have freedom of religion. Dominionists, Catholics and others who desire power and control over others, forget that Jesus Christ is about freedom not bondage. The force of law does not lead to true conversion or changed hearts: That is the Holy Spirit's doing. Some defenders of their false churches, desire, to use force of law that was never mandated by the Bible.

In the BIble the apostles ask Jesus Christ if they can call down fire, on some folks who have rejected Him, and Jesus rebukes them telling them they have the spirit of Satan.

Luk 9:54 And when his disciples James and John saw this, they said, Lord, wilt thou that we command fire to come down from heaven, and consume them, even as Elias did?

Luk 9:55 But he turned, and rebuked them, and said, Ye know not what manner of spirit ye are of.

I think everyone including Catholics should be left in peace to practice their religion even though I very admantantly disagree with it. Same for atheists who speak their minds about false idols, though I think the step of antagonizing people on purpose is not a good one, and grabbing wafers from your local RCC or doing websites to trash the wafer....[atheists and "freethinkers" wouldn't want Catholics storming local UU churches or Ethical Humanist societies so that favor should be returned] should be avoided. There are useful laws already on the books about not disrupting church services and more as to whether an item that is freely handed over can be stolen, that is stretching things. Isnt it the responsiblity of Catholic priests to know who is in good standing or not or even a member of their own churches?

To be frank it has been alarming to see the interaction here, and those who confess to be Christians {Catholic posters} using the language I've seen used here, the threats and more. This too goes against what Jesus Christ taught and it has been sad to see.

Matt 5:44

But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you;

This is the way things are supposed to be done.

So atheists, agnostics and other "freethinkers" do not make the mistake of thinking Catholicism automatically equals Christianity. Read for YOURSELVES exactly what Jesus Christ taught, [outside of any church even evangelical ones] and check it out. Consider your own actions in terms of how you yourselves want to be treated: understand that if you truly support freedom of religion that must be supported across the board.

Thanks, just wanted to post an alternative viewpoint here on this board.

By EX-CATHOLIC no… (not verified) on 15 Jul 2008 #permalink

Dutch Hedrik@992,
Well, the Bible records that he ordered the Israelites to commit genocide against the Canaanites, and himself slaughtered all the firstborn of the Egyptians after repeatedly "hardening Pharoah's heart" to ensure he had the opportunity to do so. Not to mention ordering Abraham to murder his own son, and numerous other heinous crimes. Moreover, the Bible repeatedly reports him as threatening to torture people for ever with fire. If that's your idea of "perfect goodness", I don't think I ever want to meet you down a dark alley!

By Nick Gotts (not verified) on 15 Jul 2008 #permalink

Nick Gotts:

I'm not familiar with the Canaanites story because you don't point to where it is. I don't doubt it's there, but my experience is that atheists' interpretations of the Bible tend to be as literal as the fundamentalists. In any case, I doubt that either the Canaanites or the Egyptians were faithful to God so they were turning away from him -- which, as I said, is synonymous for turning away from Good. Justice will prevail, however -- if not in this world then the next.

Plus, I don't recall Abraham actually being allowed to sacrifice his son. I think that was something on the order of trying to make a point.

Give me some specifics on the other things you mention. If I can't answer them, try going to the Church. They're more knowledgeable than I on these things anyway. I've found their answers satisfactory enough that I've gone from being a life-long agnostic -- well, I didn't care, to tell the truth -- to a theist. After having my questions answered enough times, I trust them enough to answer any further I have. In short, they've established their credibility with me as far as I'm concerned.

You make amazing assumptions of my personality considering that you've never met me. Is this representative of the justice we'll see when your visions of a totally atheistic society comes into being? If so, I hope I won't be around to see that day realized.

I'm sure, however, that you're just trying to be insulting, so I won't take your remarks too seriously.

By Dutch Hedrick (not verified) on 15 Jul 2008 #permalink

In any case, I doubt that either the Canaanites or the Egyptians were faithful to God so they were turning away from him -- which, as I said, is synonymous for turning away from Good.

Ah. More essentialism: "They must have deserved it! The men, the women, the children, the infants — they all must have been 'turning away' from Good. Even if they had no idea what Good was, they must have been 'turning away'. So smash their skulls in! Drown them! Give them horrible painful plagues and let them die slow and ugly! Because they all deserve it!"

Justice will prevail, however -- if not in this world then the next.

Still more essentialism: The bible promises rewards in this life. But the unjust and wicked prosper in this life, and the good and just suffer in this life. So obviously, everything will be worked out after they all die and no one living can know either way (because oddly enough, the dead do not return as spirits to reassure us of this).

Plus, I don't recall Abraham actually being allowed to sacrifice his son. I think that was something on the order of trying to make a point.

The point was an essentialist one: "Obey God's commands without question, even if the command is to murder your own beloved son. Because God is Good, so the murder must therefore be Good. And maybe he'll stop you from doing it, pleased that you're an obedient slave, and give you an alternative."

But the implication was always that if God had not stopped Abraham, killing Isaac would have been The Right Thing to Do. Because God is Good™.

By Owlmirror (not verified) on 15 Jul 2008 #permalink

Owlmirror:

Your twisting of Bible verses out of context demonstrates why the Catholics have a pope to set the record straight. I am not an "essentialist" as you claim anymore than I'm a "communist" because I take Communion or a "socialist" because I believe in social order.

I never said "God punished them so they MUST have been bad." The very fact that the Egyptians oppressed the Israelites who were faithful to God.

What you call God calling for "murder" is actually God calling for a sacrifice. The point of the story which you refuse to acknowledge is that we are expected to give everything up for God because everything we get is from God. For everything we have, we owe God for the short time that we have them. (Our lives truly are not that long. The older one gets, the more this becomes painfully clear.)

We owe God to the extent that should he ever ask from us something we love -- even if it's our beloved children -- we owe it to him without questioning; because God deserves sacred offerings (literally sacrifice) for thanks for what we have.

BUT! And this is the big "but" that you seem to refuse to acknowledge -- As much as this is what God DESERVES from us for thanks, HE DOES NOT WANT IT. That is the lesson of this story. As much as you refuse to admit it, that's what this story means. Twist it as much as you want, because your intention isn't to teach what things were meant to mean, but to confuse meaning to the point where people no longer believe. That's your doing, however.

Not to mention that as a Christian, reading the Old Testament out of context of the New is an incomplete reading. Everything must be put into the context of the WHOLE Bible -- not just parts isolated.

Because the New Testament juxtaposing of this story comes in Jesus' sacrifice on the Cross. Even though we deserve to give everything to God -- even our first born sons -- God loves us so much that he won't allow us to. We, on the other hand, deserve nothing from God -- especially as much as we turn away from Him -- but given that God loves us so much he's willing to do Himself that He refused us to do for Him: Sacrifice His firstborn son for us.

THAT is the moral of the story. Period.

By Dutch Hedrick (not verified) on 15 Jul 2008 #permalink

zzzzzzzzzzz. He finish?

God sacrificed his son?
That guy is fucked up.

Steve_C:

His son and himself. Yup. I'm sure someone who's an ethical egoist would have a hard time understanding -- which is fine. It takes some effort.

By Dutch Hedrick (not verified) on 15 Jul 2008 #permalink

Hehe. Yeahhhh. That's it. Must be my problem. I don't let the abusive, malice filled mythical god of the bible to set my morals up for me.

Firstborn? Was there a 2nd born?

Too funny. What a goofy religion.