During the last season of “West Wing,” reporters tried to pin down candidate Arnie Vinnick (Alan Alda) on the subject of his religious beliefs. Vinnick–who wanted to keep the fact that he’d lost faith in God under wraps–stated that his personal views on God were off limits, he’d never discuss them, that they weren’t relevant to the job he was to do as president, and that as far as he was concerned that was the end of it. To all intents and purposes it was. It never came up again in the series.
I commented at the time that in the real world, that would never happen. That such an assertion would only be the beginning of the story, not the end of it.
Now it seems that we’re seeing the scenario played out in real life as Rudy Giuliani asserts that his personal religious beliefs are just that–personal–and should have no bearing on his campaign.
This promptly became front page news on “Newsday” and now we’ll see just how fast the question goes away. I suspect it won’t anytime soon.
The ironic thing is that Giuliani is both right and wrong. The fact is that his personal beliefs *shouldn’t* be a factor. If he doesn’t want to discuss them, he should be entitled to that. The problem becomes that the automatic assumption is that he is either agnostic or atheist, and in a society where the vast majority of people assert a belief in SOME sort of divine spirit, that’s not going to go over very well.
On the other hand it really IS a relevant question because look who we’ve got running the country now: A man who believes that he’s operating at the personal behest of God. Bush doesn’t simply believe in God; he KNOWS there’s a God and that he and God are tight. If a little knowledge is a dangerous thing, too much “knowledge” can be a lethal thing.
If Giuliani is an atheist and doesn’t want to discuss that beause he figures it’s nobody’s business and that it might cost him votes, I can understand both viewpoints. Still, knowing that a candidate will not run this country and world affairs under the belief that he’s taking his marching orders from God might not be such a bad thing.
PAD
• 
Posted by: Bill Mulligan at June 12, 2007 02:41 PM
I wonder, would Obie II do that?
No.
A freak mishap due to a flaw in the cloning process will result in Obie II possessing beyond genius intellect. While you’re sleeping, Obie II will not only study technology but will make leaps heretofore thought impossible. He will graft cybernetic implements onto himself and become a Cyborg Super-Cat. He will begin raising an army of cats whose intellect he will enhance through genetic engineering (injecting them with a specially designed retrovirus that will carry the re-sequenced DNA) and provide them with cybernetic implements as well. This army of amped-up cats will dominate the world, only to realize that world domination is boring. They will then take naps while we, their slaves, fetch catnip for them.
Keep an eye on Obie, that’s all I’m saying.
But Bill, how exactly would this be different than the current state of affairs? Other than the cyborg part it sounds pretty much like the world as it is…
Then why in one passage does the monster compare Victor to God and himself to Adam? There is also the rest of the title, “or, The Modern Prometheus.”
Because the narrators making the comparison, Victor and the Creature, are consummate egotists. As for the title, I didn’t realize Prometheus was the Christian God.
There is also the rest of the title, “or, The Modern Prometheus.”
Prometheus gave humans fire and was tortured for it. Calling Frankenstein a modern Prometheus makes sense–he advanced human knowledge and suffered for his attempt. The only puzzling bit is that Prometheus is generally thought of as heroic and Frankenstein is anything but…however, some have claimed that Shelly saw Prometheus as a villain, that she lamented the loss of the simple life (although going without fire seems a bit extreme to me but hey, it’s all allegorical)
Also, I find it interesting that I am called a bigot for saying nihilism is a logical outworking of atheism. And yet there is no shortage of atheists who are nihilists. Clearly they agree with me. Are they bigots? Or are they just self-hating atheists?
The existence of nihilistic atheists is no more evidence of the truth of your statement than if someone said that “Corruption is a logical outworking of Christianity” and pointed out a few high profile Christian crooks.
Also, where are you finding all these atheist nihilists? Nihilism seems to me to be a pretty unpopular philosophy, limited mostly to mopey adolescents and even they usually grow out of it once they get over themselves.
So, if a hypothetical cloned cat would be Obie II, does that make your current cat Obie I?
Well, sure, just like the men who fought on July 21 1861 called it The First Battle of Bull Run. They knew they’d be back.
A freak mishap due to a flaw in the cloning process will result in Obie II possessing beyond genius intellect. While you’re sleeping, Obie II will not only study technology but will make leaps heretofore thought impossible. He will graft cybernetic implements onto himself and become a Cyborg Super-Cat. He will begin raising an army of cats whose intellect he will enhance through genetic engineering (injecting them with a specially designed retrovirus that will carry the re-sequenced DNA) and provide them with cybernetic implements as well. This army of amped-up cats will dominate the world, only to realize that world domination is boring. They will then take naps while we, their slaves, fetch catnip for them.
I’m not worried, I can always distract her with her favorite toy, little mouse filled with catni….Hey!
You said “In a general sense that may be true, but in terms of the degree to which theists will rationalize the irrational when it’s derived from their religious beliefs, and the way society gives them a free pass when that’s the derivation of one’s actions, atheists can’t compare. Not by far.”
I admitted to being wrong in my memory that you cited specifics (I was getting it confused because Bill Myers mentioned the crusades shortly thereafter), but it does *imply* that Christians are responsible for worse actions than atheists. You even use the term “actions” and say atheists can’t compare in getting away with them. This certainly *implies* that Christians commit worse.
No, it doesn’t. First of all, I don’t see the word “Christians” anywhere in the sentence; the statement refers to all theists. Second, what you can get a pass on is not at all the same thing as what you actually do. If I say, “Children can get away with actions that adults can’t, because society gives them a free pass,” that doesn’t mean children are doing worse things than adults. The sentence contains no qualitative words that refer to or modify the word “actions.”
Okay, let me try to post my Sunday evening post again, this time in pieces. I edited some of it for length, and some of it because the points and exchanges therein were responded to by others. I apologize that it’s still long, and if its placement here seems not to chronologically mesh with what surrounds it.
Ben Lesar: My understanding has always been that PAD is not a religious Jew.
Luigi Novi: Then why does he attend a synagogue, as he stated on the 10.21.03 WHAT’CHA WANNA KNOW? thread? Does he really like their Bingo Night, or something?
Ben Lesar: He practices Hanukah to be sure, but I believe he has said before that he holds an agnostic position regarding the existence of God.
Luigi Novi: Which does not preclude belief in him, since there are and have been agnostic theists (those who believe in him, but do not know him). Atheism and theism deal with belief. Agnosticism deals with knowledge. Deism could be viewed as another example of a viewpoint that encompasses both agnosticism and theism (though the being in question is a non-specified natural force, rather than the Judeo-Christian God).
As far as Peter is concerned, one possible clue that may indicate that he understands this distinction between agnosticism and atheism (pending his jumping in on this point to clarify, since I don’t presume to speak for him) is that when asked how he felt about atheism and atheists on the last Q & A thread in April, he responded, “I don’t believe in atheists.” While this remark appears to be at least partially humorous, I’m guessing that it is authentic in the sense that he is not an atheist himself, and does believe in, or allow for the possibility of the existence of God. So being an agnostic does not preclude one from being religious, and in any event, none of this precludes the reasonable observation that he and his family assimilated into the U.S.
Ben Lesar: Until the last one hundred years or so most Jews did not do so. We were speaking of historical anti-Semitism so I was referring to what the majority of Jews historically were (religious) that led them not to assimilate. That I was speaking in the present tense does not matter because I was using a historical definition. I specified that I was not refering merely to ethnicity earlier, so don’t claim I am making this up after the fact.
Luigi Novi: “We” were not talking about historical assimilation. The first person to bring up the word on this thread was Micha, who said, in his June 7, 7:46pm post:
“So it doesn’t really matter if one Nazi hated Jews because of what he heard in Church, another because Jews were the wrong race, a third because they were capitalists, a fourth because they were communists, or because they kept to themselves, or assimilated to much, or were too rich, or too poor, or too traditionalists, or too modern and liberal, or all of above. Christianity made its contribution to the mix, as did other ideologies.”
He did not specify historical assimilation, and indeed, he mentioned the 20th Century, so unless he was referring specifically to a portion of that century that he considered to be operationally separate from recent times for the purposes of this discussion (which he can clarify if he wishes), he did not mean historical assimilation. Even you, in your first mention of assimilation in your June 8, 10:18pm post, said nothing that indicated to me that you were referring to the historical. You said:
“The fact is that may people all over the world don’t like Jews. One possible reason is that races and cultures of one kind don’t tolerate those of others coming to their nation and not assimilating. But to me the reason is spiritual. I believe that since the Jews are God’s chosen people those under sinister influence direct anger towards them without even knowing why.”
Nowhere in that did you mention or imply “historical” assimilation. Even if you wanted to clarify now that you were doing so, that does not mean that “we” (Micha, you, myself) were doing so.
Moreover, let’s be clear, what specifically are you referring to by “assimilation”? Learning the language? Following the laws? Paying taxes? Eating the local cuisine? Making friends in the community? What?
Ben Lesar: You said it was derived from Christianity specifically, not just religion.
Luigi Novi: And last time I checked, Christianity is a religion. Are you implying that saying “derived from Christianity” in one passage, and then, merely to avoiding repetition or because the distinction between the specificity and generality was moot in that particular situation, saying, “derived from religion” in another, changes the validity of the specific point being made? Does the generality-specificity distinction in this particular case alter the reasonability of the assertion being made?
Ben Lesar: Christianity is not responsible for Gandhi’s anti-Semitism; ergo Christianity cannot be the cause of anti-Semitism.
Luigi Novi: This is a false syllogism. In the first place, why does not being responsible for one man’s anti-Semitism mean that it cannot be responsible for any of it? You really do not know how to form coherent logic if you think this is anything other than a non-sequitur.
While I was unaware that Gandhi was an anti-Semite (I was only aware of his holding racist views of African blacks), let’s assume for argument’s sake that he was. First of all, how have you established that Christianity is not responsible for his anti-Semitism? I assume you’re not implying that it could not inform anti-Semitism on his part because he himself was not a Christian, right? Putting aside the fact that religion is not the sole source of bigotry, one can absorb ideas and sentiments from the community in which they live. Since Gandhi lived in Britain, South Africa, and British-ruled India, he could easily have absorbed through osmosis the anti-Semitism present in those British-rules societies, which are/were predominantly Christian. Since he experimented with some “English” customs when he lived in London, like taking dance lessons, why could he not adopt anti-Semitism if he encountered it? Since he developed a racist attitude towards the blacks he encountered in South Africa (he called them “only one degree removed from the animal”), why could he not become an anti-Semite through his exposure to those same communities? According to professors Surendra Bhana and Goolam Vahed, who specialize in South Africa, in The Making of a Political Reformer: Gandhi in South Africa, 1893–1914, in which they explain the relationship and conflict between the African and Indian communities under the white rule: “the young Gandhi was influenced by segregationist notions prevalent in the 1890s.” So why could he not be influenced by anti-Semitism if he encountered it?
Ben Lesar: By definition being subjective renders meaning a matter of opinion… and not a fact. That means you don’t believe meaning is something that exists, but something that you make up. That is no meaning at all.
Luigi Novi: Wrong. The meaning in question is one that a non-believer can perceive in life. If you want to use the phrase “make up” because that wording sounds a bit more crude and pejorative, be my guest, but the fact that a theist’s meaning may be derived from an centralized authority or holy book and an atheist’s may be one that he or she discovers in a more personal manner does not mean that the former is valid, and the latter is “no meaning at all.” What you mean is that the atheist’s meaning is not one that you personally find valid. That doesn’t meant yours is a meaning and theirs is not. And either case, both are indeed matters of opinion and viewpoint, since religious dogmas and doctrines are matters of faith, and not fact.
Ben Lesar: You ignored my use of the world “objective.” This means that something is right or wrong regardless of what people approve or disapprove of.
Luigi Novi: No it doesn’t. It means that the conclusion or idea in question was formed with the person’s biases and preconceptions held aside. “Objective” does not mean “right” or “true” or “good” or “really”, nor does “subjective” mean “wrong”, even if theists like yourself commonly use those concepts as a crude synonym for those things. Your use of the word was not ignored, just recognized as having no effect on my response to your statement.
Ben Lesar: To say that what is best for the species is a universal law is completely unfounded.
Luigi Novi: I didn’t say it was a universal law. I said that such behavior evolved and survived because it gave that advantage to the species that exhibited. Species that don’t exhibit it are more likely to kill each other and go extinct, which is why they’re not around. Moral behavior is natural. But a universal “law” sounds like a moral assessment, which is not natural. This is why Michael Shermer distinguishes human morality from pre-moral behavior found in non-human animals: humans are capable, in addition to behaving morally, of forming moral assessments. Other animals cannot. Humans come up with moral “laws”. Other animals cannot. Bats, when they return to the cave from the hunt with food, will sometimes regurgitate it into the mouths of fellow bats who were not so lucky, knowing that someone else will eventually do the same to them. This is a pre-moral example of reciprocal altruism. This is why your musing about “killing undesirables” doesn’t apply. Bats cannot form intellectual assessments about what’s best for their species; they can only act on the inborn instincts they have. The only ones who can make assessments of morality, however—and therefore are subject to sometimes making assessments that we can agree wrong—are humans. In fact, even within humans, Shermer distinguishes between morality and ethics by asserting that morality is thoughts on behaviors about right and wrong, and that ethics are theories about moral thoughts and behaviors. “Laws” of man are derived from ethics, or moral assessments, but not necessarily from natural moral behavior. Some basic moral assessments are direct extension of natural moral behavior—the vast majority of us do not go around killing each other because our empathy (which is natural) prevents us from doing so, and would make us feel bad if we did. But some moral assessments—killing undesirables, on the other hand, are not, as they are more distant from these basic drives. Shermer even goes into where/when in the evolution of our species between 1.5 million years ago and today we crossed the Bio-Cultural Transitional Boundary, when our moral behavior began to be influenced primarily by our modern environment, and not our ancestral environment.
Ben Lesar: I would like to know when I have done so.
Luigi Novi: Any time that you make a statement about a group—in this case atheists—that is not based on any type of empirical evidence, but a completely unscientific and undocumented preconception or bias that you refuse to put aside in the possibility that it might wrong, even when presented with reasoning or evidence that shows that it might be, and that statement is particularly pejorative, judgmental, accusatory, etc., and you show no compunction about leveling that assertion at a member of that group without even first asking them about their point of view about it in order to confirm it, then you are judging an entire swath of people, not based a detailed or informed assessment of their character or personality as a person, but on a superficial aspect of their personhood, and doing so in a way that is clearly hateful, whether you admit it or not. That is bigotry, and is both intellectually untenable, and morally indefensible. Examples?
-You claim that a logical extension of this lack of belief in god is the belief that there is no truth, morality, or value in anything, which is clearly false, since atheists do not believe this, and you did not offer any evidence that they do. The attempt to connect the two is a common lie spread by some theists, but that does not make the lie true. Indeed, if I’m sitting here saying that I don’t believe in or have any tendencies toward nihilism, and you cannot cite any statistically significant example of atheists who do, then how can it be true? And since it’s not true, how can stating that it is not be an example of a bigot judging others?
And subsequent to my prior statement that you were doing this, continued:
-You claimed that atheists do not realize what their philosophy entails. And yet, atheism is not a philosophy, because it does not make any statements of assertion, has no organized principles, holy texts, rules, or authorities. It is merely the lack of a belief in god, which is not a philosophy. “I recognize the validity of the Scientific Method, testability, falsification, and the Peer Review Process, and a consistent adherence to those things does not yield any evidence of an omnipotent being” is not a philosophy. It’s a statement of my viewpoint, which is based on facts, reason, rationality, and the consistent application thereof.
-You called atheists moral parasites. While you did claim in the sentence that preceded this that they were “emulating” Christians, which is not derogatory (though untrue), “moral parasites” is a clearly derogatory, inflammatory choice of wording that any intelligent, honest person would see as insulting. At the very least, it’s a poor way to elaborate on the preceding sentence about emulating Christians.
-You are remarkably intolerant of philosophical ideas that you do not share, claiming that they are not merely not the answers that you prefer, but that they are not answers at all, and are “emotional garbage”, as with the matter of purpose and meaning in a Godless universe, as if somehow you alone get to decide what the definition of “purpose” or “meaning” are, instead of simply respecting someone else’s point of view, which you cannot prove to be wrong on the basis of fact, evidence, reason, or reference. That’s certainly an intolerant attitude.
Ben Lesar: They have a Christian cultural tradition to emulate.
Luigi Novi: To me, this would seem to imply that the basic principles that govern Western culture and law were originated by Christians. But they were not. Most of the basic principles upon which our laws were based predate the Bible. The Code of Hammurabi, for example, which was a secular codex, had the same basic laws, and it predates the Bible by several hundred years. Some Biblical concepts, in fact, were actually based on it, such as “an eye for an eye”, “an arm for an arm”, and many other rules in the Torah.
Moreover, some of the principles upon which America was founded were based on a combination of ancient Greek ideas about democracy, Native American practices of egalitarianism, ideas popularized during the French Enlightenment, and yes, some basic laws that were not invented by the Judeo-Christian religion, but which some of the Founding Fathers were raised with.
And many of our laws and principles clearly contradict the Bible, and Christianity in particular. Principles of equality among people of different color, and the outlawing of slavery are in direct contradiction of Jesus’ endorsement of slavery. Free market capitalism is contrary to his instruction that a wealthy man could pass through the eye of a needle more easily than get into heaven. And that’s just Christianity. If we open it up to the Bible in general, or Catholicism in particular, there’s lots more that conflicts.
And there is also the matter of numerous indigenous, pre-industrial tribes that have been isolated from the Bible and from industrialized society, that possess principles identical to Biblical or Christian ones—both good and bad—which shows that such things arise independently in multiple locations on Earth, and were not invented by either the Bible or Christianity.
Ben Lesar: They are moral parasites, leeching off morals that suit them and discarding just a few that don’t.
Luigi Novi: Everyone does this, including, I’ll wager, you, unless you want to tell me that you’re for slavery and the complete abandonment of all your worldly goods.
Ben Lesar: This is another thing I have never seen atheists actually formulate. An original moral system.
Luigi Novi: Neither have Christians or Jews. Much, if not all of Judaism and Christianity, are based on earlier religions and traditions.
Quick note for Bill Myers: I don’t know if you are still on this thread but I just wanted to thank you for your kind words. Actually, I know I am capable of reasonable erudition and incisive argument (too many years in the debating club) but frankly these days I rarely have the time to sit down and analyze a case and construct one. Also, since I now earn my living through this dámņ box of electronics (I’m a translator), there are days when I simply can’t stand to look at the thing.
I find the discussions here interesting and stimulating. On occasion, I like to throw in my two cents worth (almost worth 2 cents American these days) but the reading is usually enough to satisfy me.
I must say I found Luigi Novi’s ruminations about religion and his current reactions to those who advocate it similar to mine. As I get older and crankier, I seem to have less patience for absolutism. Although in the past I used to content myself with dissecting (figuratively not literally – please don’t call the cops) the occasional Jehovah’s Witness foolish enough to ring my doorbell. Now I find myself reacting to people trying to save me when I’m out in public. I tend to get quite sarcastic (particularly when I know the 10 commandments and they don’t). Typical nasty question from me: “Have you even read the Bible?” In response to the inevitable “of course”, I ask “Really? Where did you learn to read Greek?” Another is why don’t you call your Saviour by his proper name ‘Yeshua bar Miriam’?” which usually gets me a blank look. I realize that I am being infantile and petty when I do this but, dammit, why do people never challenge their own belief systems but have no problem with not only challenging mine but denigrating it and dismissing it as though I were some poor, besotted nincompoop?
End of rant. Back to your regularly scheduled thread.
Regards, The Rev.
Since he developed a racist attitude towards the blacks he encountered in South Africa (he called them “only one degree removed from the animal”
He was referring specifically to hardened criminals in the jail he was being kept in. He may have been bigoted against Blacks but I’m not sure that quote, in context, tells the tale.
Okay, this is part 2 of 2:
Rene: I don’t know what depresses me more. The atheist’s view of a world lacking any extrinsic meaning or you Christian guys believing we humans are so deeply flawed and fallen that the only thing stopping us all from killing babies is a stern God threatening us with eternal burning.
Luigi Novi: Just out of curiosity, why does meaning not being extrinsic depress you? When you experience the beauty of a sunset, the miracle of childbirth, the wonder of photos from the Hubble Telescope, are the sentiments generated in you lessened for their being intrinsic instead of extrinsic?
Jerry Chandler: Would Mother Teresa or any of the various affectionately revered figures in religious history acted differently if they were removed from the Church?
Luigi Novi: You mean if they were never indoctrinated in it in the first place? Speaking solely of the things they did that stemmed only from religion, and would not have seemed appropriate to them if they were atheists, well, of course they would have. Take Mother Teresa. You don’t see atheists performing baptisms on people without their consent. You don’t see atheists refusing to accept food to give to the needy because they think God will provide for them. You don’t see atheists running “hospitals” where people die because advanced medical care is withheld, while availing themselves of that same advanced care for themselves. You don’t see atheists condemning divorce while okaying it for celebrities like Princess Diana. You need religion for that. (Source: Christopher Hitchens’ book, The Missionary Position: Mother Teresa in Theory and Practice.)
Jerry Chandler: Religion means exactly jack-all. The person and who and what they are at their core is what matters…It aint the belief that matters as much as it is the person who holds it.
Luigi Novi: Well, it depends on both the person and the belief. If the belief in question is the literal six-day creation, and one theist wants that taught in science classrooms and thinks any opponent of that is inherently immoral and another theist does think this, then that is an example of a morally neutral belief whose application is predicated on the character or personality of the adherent. But if the belief in question is “Thou shall not suffer a witch to live,” then it’s not just the person, but the belief is one that inherently lends itself to crimes against humanity, especially if taken and adhered to literally. Granted, the aforementioned non-extremist religionist may choose not to kill women he thinks are witches, which would also go to personality and character, but even then, that’s because he’s making a decision not to follow that particular belief—in other words, he doesn’t have that belief at all.
Jerry Chandler: Well, an atheist believes that he’s going to die in the end and that it is the end. They don’t believe that they’re going anywhere else after death other then maybe haunting the Playboy Mansion. They don’t believe that their is a reward given for living a good life once you die. In other words, they’re not being bribed into being a good person. They’re not being a good person or trying to live a good life because they believe that they’ll get something for it in the end. They’re also not working from a perspective of fear.
Luigi Novi: Michael Shermer touches upon this in The Science of Good & Evil:
“What would you do if there were no God? Would you commit robbery, rape, and murder, or would you continue being a good and moral person? Either way the question is a debate stopper. If the answer is that you would soon turn to robbery, rape, or murder, than this is a moral indictment of your character, indicating you are not to be trusted because if, for any reason, you were to turn away from your belief in God (and most people do, at some point in your lives), your true immoral nature would emerge and we would be well advised to steer a wide course around you. If the answer is that you would continue being good and moral, then apparently you can be good without God. QED.”
Ben Lesar: You can say that people claiming to be Christians (whether they were or weren’t isn’t mine to judge) shared in promoting it, but not that Christianity is responsible.
Luigi Novi: Both individual Christians and the church have at times help spread anti-Semitism. If, however, you mean the religion apart from its practitioners, then yes, that would sound reasonable.
Ben Lesar: How could it be when the Bible says that Jews are God’s chosen people. Jesus was a Jew.
Luigi Novi: Because bigots are invariably irrational.
Or to put it another way:
“I believe that since the Jews are God’s chosen people those under sinister influence direct anger towards them without even knowing why.”
Bill Mulligan: But it’s actually a bit pointless to apply much of Darwinian theory to humanity–we have largely taken ourselves out of the natural selection loop.
Luigi Novi: Not really. As long as there are environmental pressures at work, we will constantly be undergoing infinitesimally minute mutations, which cannot be easily seen when looking at that the timeline of human lives, which is too short a time span to make them evident, though we may be able to see such changes by looking at the span of all of human existence, which may show changes in how our brains work.
Ben Lesar: I never said Christian governments did not promote anti-Semitism. I was merely responding to the claim that Christianity is responsible.
Luigi Novi: What in your observation is the difference?
Ben Lesar: The universe can have no purpose if it was an accident. If there is no purpose to the universe as a whole, any “purpose” we create upon earth is meaningless. It is just bags of chemicals– robots if you will– going through the motions.
Luigi Novi: The universe is without any intelligence or purpose, as it came into being through natural causes, and may eventually end via natural causes as well. It may even be expanding and collapsing a multitude of times—or having done so many times already—completely indifferent to our existence during this one cycle in which we have come to exist. Similarly, animals evolved until the dinosaurs dominated the Earth, until they went completely extinct long before man arrived, a purposely set of events if I know of one. Just out of curiosity, what was God’s purpose was in that?
Ben Lesar: Emotional rhetoric regarding the simple enjoyment of eating grilled burgers or the like is not an answer to a philosophical argument.
Luigi Novi: No, it’s not the answer that you prefer. That doesn’t mean that it’s not an answer. Atheism is at least informed a consistent adherence to empirical methods of testing knowledge. It is religion that, while possibly originating with some attempt to explain natural phenomena based on intelligent observation in its beginnings, is certainly defended on an emotional basis today, particularly as embodied in most of the arguments used to defend or rationalize its ideas stem from emotional, or at the very least, logically flawed arguments.
Ben Lesar: Natural selection does lead many to moral conclusions though.
Luigi Novi: It may be responsible for the pre-moral behavior found in animals, but it does not lead to intellectual conclusions, except to those who misunderstand or deliberately ignore the fact that it’s a description of a natural process, and not a prescription for behavior.
Ben Lesar: I could point out that studies show that religious people are, on average, much happier than their non-religious counterparts.
Luigi Novi: And yet, you chose not to cite even one. Why is that?
I’m not sure about happiness, but a study in The Journal of Religion and Society shows that religion does not lead to a healthier society:
http://skeptic.com/the_magazine/featured_articles/v12n03_are_religious_societies_healthier.html
Even if your assertion were true, it would not validate the asserted facts or moral principles of religion, or the existence of God. Cocaine can make a person “happier”, but I wouldn’t recommend using it.
Jerry Chandler: First, you’re wrongly putting forward the idea that the morals being adopted are in some way exclusively Christian. A number of cultures and faiths all around the world developed with a number of moral codes that mirror some of those in Christianity. The simple fact that some many have developed prohibitions against murder, theft, etc. should go toward showing that man does have an innate set of moral values that he will develop even if he has to ascribe some sort of mystic meaning to them.
Ben Lesar: There are cannibalistic tribes in different places in this world. There is no reason to believe atheists wouldn’t adopt the morality of those tribes if they were born there, just as they have adopted Western morality being born here.
Luigi Novi: I don’t see how this answers Jerry’s point, which is that the existence of universal principles, even in cultures that were not touched by the Bible, shows that the Bible did not originate them. As to your point, if these hypothetical atheists were to be born there, then how can they be atheists, when they would be indoctrinated into the religion of that tribe?
Jerry Chandler: Second, you wrongly put forward the popular but widely debunked idea that western culture and law is based on Christianity. It’s not.
Ben Lesar: Seeing as how you’re the one making the ad hoc claim it is on you to support it.
Luigi Novi: In the first place, you have not established that it’s an ad hoc claim, since there’s nothing that indicates that this is not a firm and consistently-held conclusion of Jerry’s, as opposed to one he’s only making situationaly (the definition of ad hoc). In the second, the burden of proof is on the person making a bold claim, particularly when it flies in the face of all evidence to the contrary. That our culture is based on things other than Christianity is established through all the evidence which exists for it, which is available to you, and unobscure. Because any new or bold idea that is opposed to the current consensus of facts must muster evidence that shows that it explains phenomena better than the current model, and since the current consensus among historians is not that Western culture was based on Christianity (rather, it’s merely a contention of Christian apologist who ignore the same historical info that you do), it is you who shoulders the burden of proof. Not Jerry.
Ben Lesar: Calling something widely debunked does not make it so.
Luigi Novi: Correct. It is debunked by virtue of the evidence or reason offered that disproves it, and Jerry and I pointed out sources that influenced American democracy in particular and Western society in general, that are not only not Christian, but opposed to a number of aspects of it. That’s what debunks it.
Ben Lesar: Richard Dawkins…seems to favor some sort of eugenics program.
Luigi Novi: He supports the idea of asking questions about it, such as asking what the difference is between breeding for musical ability and forcing a child to take music lessons. This is a commonly-held view among many scientists and doctors who feel that genetic engineering can be used to eliminate prenatal diseases, correct deformities, etc. They do not advocate the murdering of entire races of people, as Hitler did, for that is not an immutable part of eugenics. You could’ve discovered this with a Google search, or by going to Dawkins’ site, but you did not. It took me about a minute or so to do so. Not doing so at all presumably took you even less.
Ben Lesar: Even the full title of Darwin’s book “On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life,” seems to indicate that he is not that far off.
Luigi Novi: Only for those who are dead-set on believing the worst things about him and his book, and dead-set against revising that conclusion, instead of what good faith inquiry might reveal. Darwin’s book was about natural processes. Not artificial eugenics, let alone the type practiced by the Nazis.
Jerry: Even atheists, although this may be a huge surprise to you, don’t enjoy the idea of spending time in the stocks or locked up behind bars.
Ben Lesar: It does suggest that atheists only refrain from criminal activity because they are afraid of punishment, however.
Luigi Novi: Why you would think that atheists, if removed from a situation where there was law enforcement, would turn into a bunch of murdering, raping robbers, and that none of them would be prevented from immoral behavior through the natural empathy most of them feel for other people, I don’t know, but you further put the lie to the notion that you are not a bigot when you make such ridiculous assertions.
True, there are some people for whom fear of punishment from the law is the only barrier between them and criminal behavior, but this is not exclusive to atheists. In fact, according to the Bureau of Prisons, atheists are proportionately underrepresented in prisons, at least on the federal level (http://www.abarnett.demon.co.uk/atheism/crimechart.html). And that’s aside from the fact that religion itself uses fear of punishment as the main motivating factor for teaching moral behavior.
It is a common practice among bigots to “otherize” those who are different in some way from them, and impugning their inherent morality is one of them. Claiming that they are in fact not doing this is yet another.
Okay, Part 2 of 2 did not go through. I’m wondering if like at Nitcentral, this is because there were two url’s in that part, and posts won’t go through will more than one url. Let me try by splitting up that post so that each url is in a different part. If it still doesn’t work, then maybe it’s a matter of how many lengthy posts are made within a brief time, so I’m not sure what I’ll do then:
Rene: I don’t know what depresses me more. The atheist’s view of a world lacking any extrinsic meaning or you Christian guys believing we humans are so deeply flawed and fallen that the only thing stopping us all from killing babies is a stern God threatening us with eternal burning.
Luigi Novi: Just out of curiosity, why does meaning not being extrinsic depress you? When you experience the beauty of a sunset, the miracle of childbirth, the wonder of photos from the Hubble Telescope, are the sentiments generated in you lessened for their being intrinsic instead of extrinsic?
Jerry Chandler: Would Mother Teresa or any of the various affectionately revered figures in religious history acted differently if they were removed from the Church?
Luigi Novi: You mean if they were never indoctrinated in it in the first place? Speaking solely of the things they did that stemmed only from religion, and would not have seemed appropriate to them if they were atheists, well, of course they would have. Take Mother Teresa. You don’t see atheists performing baptisms on people without their consent. You don’t see atheists refusing to accept food to give to the needy because they think God will provide for them. You don’t see atheists running “hospitals” where people die because advanced medical care is withheld, while availing themselves of that same advanced care for themselves. You don’t see atheists condemning divorce while okaying it for celebrities like Princess Diana. You need religion for that. (Source: Christopher Hitchens’ book, The Missionary Position: Mother Teresa in Theory and Practice.)
Jerry Chandler: Religion means exactly jack-all. The person and who and what they are at their core is what matters…It aint the belief that matters as much as it is the person who holds it.
Luigi Novi: Well, it depends on both the person and the belief. If the belief in question is the literal six-day creation, and one theist wants that taught in science classrooms and thinks any opponent of that is inherently immoral and another theist does think this, then that is an example of a morally neutral belief whose application is predicated on the character or personality of the adherent. But if the belief in question is “Thou shall not suffer a witch to live,” then it’s not just the person, but the belief is one that inherently lends itself to crimes against humanity, especially if taken and adhered to literally. Granted, the aforementioned non-extremist religionist may choose not to kill women he thinks are witches, which would also go to personality and character, but even then, that’s because he’s making a decision not to follow that particular belief—in other words, he doesn’t have that belief at all.
Jerry Chandler: Well, an atheist believes that he’s going to die in the end and that it is the end. They don’t believe that they’re going anywhere else after death other then maybe haunting the Playboy Mansion. They don’t believe that their is a reward given for living a good life once you die. In other words, they’re not being bribed into being a good person. They’re not being a good person or trying to live a good life because they believe that they’ll get something for it in the end. They’re also not working from a perspective of fear.
Luigi Novi: Michael Shermer touches upon this in The Science of Good & Evil:
“What would you do if there were no God? Would you commit robbery, rape, and murder, or would you continue being a good and moral person? Either way the question is a debate stopper. If the answer is that you would soon turn to robbery, rape, or murder, than this is a moral indictment of your character, indicating you are not to be trusted because if, for any reason, you were to turn away from your belief in God (and most people do, at some point in your lives), your true immoral nature would emerge and we would be well advised to steer a wide course around you. If the answer is that you would continue being good and moral, then apparently you can be good without God. QED.”
Ben Lesar: You can say that people claiming to be Christians (whether they were or weren’t isn’t mine to judge) shared in promoting it, but not that Christianity is responsible.
Luigi Novi: Both individual Christians and the church have at times help spread anti-Semitism. If, however, you mean the religion apart from its practitioners, then yes, that would sound reasonable.
Ben Lesar: How could it be when the Bible says that Jews are God’s chosen people. Jesus was a Jew.
Luigi Novi: Because bigots are invariably irrational.
Or to put it another way:
“I believe that since the Jews are God’s chosen people those under sinister influence direct anger towards them without even knowing why.”
Bill Mulligan: But it’s actually a bit pointless to apply much of Darwinian theory to humanity–we have largely taken ourselves out of the natural selection loop.
Luigi Novi: Not really. As long as there are environmental pressures at work, we will constantly be undergoing infinitesimally minute mutations, which cannot be easily seen when looking at that the timeline of human lives, which is too short a time span to make them evident, though we may be able to see such changes by looking at the span of all of human existence, which may show changes in how our brains work.
Ben Lesar: I never said Christian governments did not promote anti-Semitism. I was merely responding to the claim that Christianity is responsible.
Luigi Novi: What in your observation is the difference?
Ben Lesar: The universe can have no purpose if it was an accident. If there is no purpose to the universe as a whole, any “purpose” we create upon earth is meaningless. It is just bags of chemicals– robots if you will– going through the motions.
Luigi Novi: The universe is without any intelligence or purpose, as it came into being through natural causes, and may eventually end via natural causes as well. It may even be expanding and collapsing a multitude of times—or having done so many times already—completely indifferent to our existence during this one cycle in which we have come to exist. Similarly, animals evolved until the dinosaurs dominated the Earth, until they went completely extinct long before man arrived, a purposely set of events if I know of one. Just out of curiosity, what was God’s purpose was in that?
Ben Lesar: Emotional rhetoric regarding the simple enjoyment of eating grilled burgers or the like is not an answer to a philosophical argument.
Luigi Novi: No, it’s not the answer that you prefer. That doesn’t mean that it’s not an answer. Atheism is at least informed a consistent adherence to empirical methods of testing knowledge. It is religion that, while possibly originating with some attempt to explain natural phenomena based on intelligent observation in its beginnings, is certainly defended on an emotional basis today, particularly as embodied in most of the arguments used to defend or rationalize its ideas stem from emotional, or at the very least, logically flawed arguments.
Ben Lesar: Natural selection does lead many to moral conclusions though.
Luigi Novi: It may be responsible for the pre-moral behavior found in animals, but it does not lead to intellectual conclusions, except to those who misunderstand or deliberately ignore the fact that it’s a description of a natural process, and not a prescription for behavior.
Ben Lesar: I could point out that studies show that religious people are, on average, much happier than their non-religious counterparts.
Luigi Novi: And yet, you chose not to cite even one. Why is that?
I’m not sure about happiness, but a study in The Journal of Religion and Society shows that religion does not lead to a healthier society:
http://skeptic.com/the_magazine/featured_articles/v12n03_are_religious_societies_healthier.html
Even if your assertion were true, it would not validate the asserted facts or moral principles of religion, or the existence of God. Cocaine can make a person “happier”, but I wouldn’t recommend using it.
Posted by: The Rev. Mr. Black at June 12, 2007 06:55 PM
Actually, I know I am capable of reasonable erudition and incisive argument (too many years in the debating club) but frankly these days I rarely have the time to sit down and analyze a case and construct one.
Maybe it was someone else who said they usually held off posting on account of a small group of people including me. Whatever. They obviously don’t realize that:
a.) I’m not that bright.
b.) My posts aren’t usually that interesting.
and
c.) My best posts were written by cheap third-world elven labor.
It worked. Here’s Part 3 of 3 (the shortest of the three):
Jerry Chandler: First, you’re wrongly putting forward the idea that the morals being adopted are in some way exclusively Christian. A number of cultures and faiths all around the world developed with a number of moral codes that mirror some of those in Christianity. The simple fact that some many have developed prohibitions against murder, theft, etc. should go toward showing that man does have an innate set of moral values that he will develop even if he has to ascribe some sort of mystic meaning to them.
Ben Lesar: There are cannibalistic tribes in different places in this world. There is no reason to believe atheists wouldn’t adopt the morality of those tribes if they were born there, just as they have adopted Western morality being born here.
Luigi Novi: I don’t see how this answers Jerry’s point, which is that the existence of universal principles, even in cultures that were not touched by the Bible, shows that the Bible did not originate them. As to your point, if these hypothetical atheists were to be born there, then how can they be atheists, when they would be indoctrinated into the religion of that tribe?
Jerry Chandler: Second, you wrongly put forward the popular but widely debunked idea that western culture and law is based on Christianity. It’s not.
Ben Lesar: Seeing as how you’re the one making the ad hoc claim it is on you to support it.
Luigi Novi: In the first place, you have not established that it’s an ad hoc claim, since there’s nothing that indicates that this is not a firm and consistently-held conclusion of Jerry’s, as opposed to one he’s only making situationaly (the definition of ad hoc). In the second, the burden of proof is on the person making a bold claim, particularly when it flies in the face of all evidence to the contrary. That our culture is based on things other than Christianity is established through all the evidence which exists for it, which is available to you, and unobscure. Because any new or bold idea that is opposed to the current consensus of facts must muster evidence that shows that it explains phenomena better than the current model, and since the current consensus among historians is not that Western culture was based on Christianity (rather, it’s merely a contention of Christian apologist who ignore the same historical info that you do), it is you who shoulders the burden of proof. Not Jerry.
Ben Lesar: Calling something widely debunked does not make it so.
Luigi Novi: Correct. It is debunked by virtue of the evidence or reason offered that disproves it, and Jerry and I pointed out sources that influenced American democracy in particular and Western society in general, that are not only not Christian, but opposed to a number of aspects of it. That’s what debunks it.
Ben Lesar: Richard Dawkins…seems to favor some sort of eugenics program.
Luigi Novi: He supports the idea of asking questions about it, such as asking what the difference is between breeding for musical ability and forcing a child to take music lessons. This is a commonly-held view among many scientists and doctors who feel that genetic engineering can be used to eliminate prenatal diseases, correct deformities, etc. They do not advocate the murdering of entire races of people, as Hitler did, for that is not an immutable part of eugenics. You could’ve discovered this with a Google search, or by going to Dawkins’ site, but you did not. It took me about a minute or so to do so. Not doing so at all presumably took you even less.
Ben Lesar: Even the full title of Darwin’s book “On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life,” seems to indicate that he is not that far off.
Luigi Novi: Only for those who are dead-set on believing the worst things about him and his book, and dead-set against revising that conclusion, instead of what good faith inquiry might reveal. Darwin’s book was about natural processes. Not artificial eugenics, let alone the type practiced by the Nazis.
Jerry: Even atheists, although this may be a huge surprise to you, don’t enjoy the idea of spending time in the stocks or locked up behind bars.
Ben Lesar: It does suggest that atheists only refrain from criminal activity because they are afraid of punishment, however.
Luigi Novi: Why you would think that atheists, if removed from a situation where there was law enforcement, would turn into a bunch of murdering, raping robbers, and that none of them would be prevented from immoral behavior through the natural empathy most of them feel for other people, I don’t know, but you further put the lie to the notion that you are not a bigot when you make such ridiculous assertions.
True, there are some people for whom fear of punishment from the law is the only barrier between them and criminal behavior, but this is not exclusive to atheists. In fact, according to the Bureau of Prisons, atheists are proportionately underrepresented in prisons, at least on the federal level (http://www.abarnett.demon.co.uk/atheism/crimechart.html). And that’s aside from the fact that religion itself uses fear of punishment as the main motivating factor for teaching moral behavior.
It is a common practice among bigots to “otherize” those who are different in some way from them, and impugning their inherent morality is one of them. Claiming that they are in fact not doing this is yet another.
Actually, Rev, I’ll bet that you can’t tell me the ten Commandments. I’ll even open the floor to everybody else on this little test of knowledge. One question with two parts:
Tell me how you know what the Ten Commandments are (how are you able to identify them as the genuine article) and what are they (the list.)
No cheating and looking them up. I’ll be nice and just trust everybody here to play fair. Believe it or not, there is a point to this beyond merely playing trivia games.
I know I’m going to regret this, but I have a question for Ben Lesar: In all this ongoing diatribe about the purpose of life, inter alia, at no point do you state (and if you did, I’m sorry if I missed it), what exactly is the purpose of life, from your pseudo-Christian perspective? And please do not try to tell me it is to “give glory to God” as another pseudo-Christian tried to tell me the other day. As I said to him, “why would you want to worship a deity that is so insecure that he needs to be worshiped by a lifeform that is far less to him than bacteria are to us?” I mean of all the deities available (of which there are many in the various human pantheons – in fact, if one were of a snarky mode, the First Commandment implies this. Why tell us to have no other gods before us if there are NO OTHER GODS?)
Just wondering.
Regards, The Rev
By the way, IMHO, and as presented to others clearly and I think, irrefutably, the purpose of life is life. C’est tout. Don’t need no omniscient, omnipotent (by the way, those two notions are, ipso facto, mutually exclusive), omnipresent, omni-fill-in-the-blank) guy in the sky to give it meaning.
I have a post in which I respond to things said between yesterday and now, but I’ll wait a bit to let other posts breathe.
To Jerry Chandler. Touché. What I should have said was that I knew the Ten Commandments as they are commonly believed to be better then the person who was trying to get me to pass an “intelligence” test (which included questions like “How many of each animal did Moses (sic) allow on the Ark”). It was a not-so-clever attempt to demonstrate to me how stupid I actually was and how direly I was in need of guidance.
As a professional translator and interpreter, I recognize, as you point out, that it would take considerable research to determine (if that is possible) exactly what the original, non-translated, unamended, unemended Commandments were, what the author(s)’s motive and purpose was, etc.
Sorry if I was unclear. As I wrote earlier, one of the reasons I rarely post here is that I do not have the time to properly construct my offerings.
Regards, the Rev
I’m wondering if like at Nitcentral, this is because there were two url’s in that part, and posts won’t go through will more than one url.
I’ve had posts get lost in the spam filter that only had one URL in them. (Which is kind of ironic, since the purpose of including a URL was to provide factual support for my answer to a question someone had asked–the “Jesus as vegetarian” discussion a few months ago was one of them–and that’s kind of the opposite of the reason for having spam filters.)
Rev,
Actually, that’s not the direction that I was headed in. I’m just fine with the modern day versions in the common print of the day.
English is A-OK. I re-open the trivia floor.
Bill Mulligan: But it’s actually a bit pointless to apply much of Darwinian theory to humanity–we have largely taken ourselves out of the natural selection loop.
Luigi Novi: Not really. As long as there are environmental pressures at work, we will constantly be undergoing infinitesimally minute mutations, which cannot be easily seen when looking at that the timeline of human lives, which is too short a time span to make them evident, though we may be able to see such changes by looking at the span of all of human existence, which may show changes in how our brains work.
But we are making ourselves increasingly immune to environmental pressures through technology. What would once have been traits that would have reduced our evolutionary fitness are now mostly irrelevant. Bad yes? Get glasses or contacts or surgery. Tens of millions now living should be dead, were it not for medicine. We don’t need to modify our bodies to deal with the environment–we modify the environment.
While there will always be some changes in the gene pool I still think that any major changes in humanity from this point on will be as a result of directed alterations, not natural selection (this assumes a continuation of civilization and the absence of any mass extinction type event).
a.) I’m not that bright.
b.) My posts aren’t usually that interesting.
c.) My best posts were written by cheap third-world elven labor.
d.) I don’t know the meaning of the word “fear” – but then again I don’t know the meaning of most words.
e.) I still love nature, despite what it did to me.
Okay, here’s my response to things said between my post yesterday and now:
Ben Lesar: Not so. Even if my arguments were poor, which they are not, in a debate one is obliged to refute them or concede them.
Luigi Novi: Untrue. If their credibility is so transparently nonexistent that a reader decides that it’s unnecessary and pointless to respond, either because he thinks that the originator of it would be unable or unwilling to comprehend the logic that refutes it, or because he thinks no one else will seriously consider that poor-made argument, then he may opt to skip it. Media outlets, to use an analogy, will not necessarily check out any ol’ accusation made against the president. If some yahoo calls up a newsdesk and tells them that the president is a purple-with-yellow-polka-dot space alien from a planet where the inhabitants are all descended from Elvis, and that he knows this because he read it in a supermarket tabloid, the news desk is not going to waste their time. The issue of the assertion’s credibility, therefore, is one factor on which the decision to respond is made, and on which the potential respondent must make a judgment call. And there are also other factors, like how much time one has in the day, the importance of each point or statement made vis-à-vis space considerations, etc. In my observation, refusing to refute an argument or counterargument only calls the person into question is they are observed to do so often, in a pattern of behavior, whenever someone provides something that appears to refute their position. Obviously, this does not apply to Bill, who has not made a recurrent habit of this over the years I’ve observed him on this site. You certainly didn’t respond to all of my arguments, did you? And you yourself said that “not every point is worth responding to”. Does that mean that those you did not respond to “stand”? Indeed, what does it mean when an argument “stands”, in your view?
Ben Lesar: I would like to know when you provided the “actual” definitions.
Luigi Novi: Sorry, I didn’t realize that that was in the long post I made on Sunday evening, which did not go through. I thought it was in an earlier post. I’ve since reposted it. Sorry about that.
Ben Lesar: I accused you once of saying something you did not. I admitted to being wrong. If anything the ability to admit being wrong enhances one’s credibility. It was not an argument it was merely a statement. There are various forms of argumentation (syllogisms, for example) and it fit none of them. So, no, I have not admitted to an argument being refuted. You are the one playing with definitions.
Luigi Novi: Spitting hairs over the words “statement” and “argument” is certainly playing with definitions. Yes, I agree with your view on admitting when one is wrong, which is why I myself have done so on this board, including once with you. But while stating this is principle is certainly lofty, demonstrating it in practice is not something that many are able to do, as your continued insistence on notions that transparently false shows. Insisting on the definition of a word without citing a single source certainly qualifies. Asserting things about supposed scores of atheists without documenting it does as well. So does repeatedly mentioning “studies”, and then not citing a single one.
Ben Lesar: Finally, you did imply Christians do more evil. I used the word “imply” for a reason. You did not explicitly state it, but you did indeed imply it.
Luigi Novi: No, you interpreted it as such. That’s not the same thing as implying it, which would require you to know intent, and to the exclusion of other possible meanings. Mind you, Ben, I can acknowledge the possibility that I said something that one could might misinterpret as such, and indeed, I was forced, in my June 11, 12:02am post, for example, to clarify a statement I had made prior because Jerry’s having missed its original context in which it was made caused him to misunderstand it. But you can bridge this disagreement by pointing out the statement in question. Then, if I review it, I can consider whether “Okay, I didn’t mean what you took it to mean, but I can see how it could be viewed that way”, or “You’re wrong, it doesn’t even resemble what you claim it means.” Indeed, didn’t I challenged you to point out where I had said this? Did you do this, in furtherance of your alleged adherence to the principle of respond-or-it-stands? Of course not. You chickened out of doing so. And I can only speculate that you did not do this because you knew, perhaps on some level, that if you did so, I and others would point out that no such implication would’ve been seen in the statement when viewed in context by a consensus of reasonable, intelligent readers without some a priori bias against me.
The only people who argued aspects of quantity were you, and IIRC, Micha. I never did, and for the simple reason that it would be impossible to establish such a thing. For one thing, how do you define a theist? Someone who sorta has some ideas about God, or a creator? Someone who is religious, but a lapsed one? How devout? And how do you count a crime as having been committed by an atheist? Does it count only by virtue of the highest member of government, like Stalin, or do you have to count every member in the chain of command who bore any complicity in the crime? And how do you judge that complicity? Does “just following orders” count? What about aiding in the cleaning up the mess after the fact, like say with the sonderkommandos—Jews who were forced to help the Nazis load bodies from the gas chambers into the crematoria during the Holocaust—do they count? And what about the fact that religion of individuals in history is something that is not easily documented, especially in communist societies like the Soviet Union, where religion flourished underground, but where people would be too afraid to profess so in public? If others beside the head dictator are culpable, how do you resolve that problem for the purpose of the atheists vs. theists census that you cling to and which you falsely accuse me of clinging to? Establishing such a thing requires answering too many questions whose answers are unclear.
And in addition to the impossibility of establishing such a thing, it’s irrelevant. Who cares if say, atheists killed 100 people, and theists killed 101? Does that make theists “more” culpable? Of course not. It’s a stupid idea, the kinda that only someone incapable of forming coherent logic would promote, or at least someone with an agenda who could only promote that agenda using pseudoscientific reasoning, because that was the only kind available that would even appear to support it. This is why I did not focus on such a thing, but on something perhaps a bit more subtle, and which most people who touch upon this notion do not often mention, and anyone who reads my posts when I participated in that aspect of that discussion will see that I was quite explicit in making this point: That whereas there are crimes committed in the name of religion, there are no crimes committed in the name of atheism. Whereas there are priests, rabbis, imams and believers who interpret the rules and sayings in their holy texts to promote hatred and genocide, there are no priests, rabbis, imams, rules, or holy texts in atheism, which makes analogy between crimes committed by atheists and crimes committed by theists untenable. This is yet another point that you never answered—again, despite your “respond or it stands” musing.
So by virtue of the fact that I was explicit in what I did say and did mean, and my explicit statement that I do not subscribe to this theory you attribute to me, and your refusal to respond when I challenged you to provide a quote that “implied” what you claimed it did, you’ve been refuted. If you had any good faith intention of participating on this board with decency and honesty, you would concede this.
I’m guessing though, that you will not, and that the points raised in this passage will be another thing you don’t respond to.
Ben Lesar: That is not a purpose, but a use. Existentialists would agree. Existentialism holds that use is not purpose.
Luigi Novi: The reference sources I consulted say otherwise. Merriam Webter’s Collegiate Dictionary (Tenth Edition), The American Heritage Dictionary, dictionary.com, and the dictionary in my Microsoft Word program are either mum on the distinction, or clearly indicate that purpose can derived either from the originator of something, or from one later acquires or finds a different use for that something. None of them make a distinction between “purpose” and “use”.
As far as existentialism, that is defined as a 20th-century philosophical movement that denies that the universe has any intrinsic meaning or purpose, and requires individuals to take responsibility for their own actions and shape their own destines. This pretty much describes my feelings on the concepts of meaning and purpose, and which Jerry alluded to, and yet, I do not form a distinction between “purpose” and “use”.
So you’re not only asserting a definition of a word that none of the other people here are familiar with, but which is unsupported by four different reference sources.
So the question must be asked: What sources can you cite that document your assertion that “purpose” and “use” are distinct in the manner that you claim, and that the purpose for something cannot be different from the one originally assigned to it? What source on existentialism asserts these things about the word “purpose”?
If you cannot answer this question, then the appearance that you are just splitting hairs by making up your own definitions for words will ”stand”.
Ben Lesar: Clearly many philosophers agree with me, then, as to what purpose is. Or at least what it isn’t. And these are philosophers who are more inclined to agree with you than me.
Luigi Novi: Okay. Please cite them.
Ben Lesar: Never done it, the only studies I have mentioned are well known enough that unless someone requests I cite them I see no need to bother, you have that backwards, I know exactly what reason is and how to employ it.
Luigi Novi: You think you do. But your arguments indicate otherwise. Saying something that is not true is certainly not within the parameters of “reason”. Not citing any of the “studies” you mentioned is within “reason”, and it’s not like you have to wait for someone to ask you to provide one in order to do so. Just because it “sounds better” if one’s position is backed up by logic, and worse if it’s backed up by emotion or rhetoric, does not mean, therefore, ipso facto, that yours are automatically logical and his emotional. The same sort of fabrication of vocabulary applies to your assertions about “objective and subjective”, and “purpose and meaning”.
Ben Lesar: Of course he didn’t say it, he used it. If he wants to make a claim about “life being its own meaning” he should back it up with logic, not emotional rhetoric.
Luigi Novi: You did not establish that he used emotional rhetoric instead of logic. You simply claim he does, without illustrating it. You simply dismiss his view of life because you do not share it. That is far more emotional, and far less logical, than anything that he said. While the meaning in life that each individual finds in life may derive at least partially from sentiment, this is no less true of religious ones than non-religious ones, since neither is based entirely on things like scientific empiricism.
Ben Lesar: I only brought up Stalin in the first place because Luigi Novi implied that Christians did more evil.
Luigi Novi: I did not. If I did, then show me the post where I implied this.
Ben Lesar: You said “In a general sense that may be true, but in terms of the degree to which theists will rationalize the irrational when it’s derived from their religious beliefs, and the way society gives them a free pass when that’s the derivation of one’s actions, atheists can’t compare. Not by far.
Luigi Novi: Which does not mean that “Christians do more evil”, nor even resemble such a statement.
Ben Lesar: I admitted to being wrong in my memory that you cited specifics (I was getting it confused because Bill Myers mentioned the crusades shortly thereafter), but it does *imply* that Christians are responsible for worse actions than atheists. You even use the term “actions” and say atheists can’t compare in getting away with them. This certainly *implies* that Christians commit worse.
Luigi Novi: No, it means exactly what it says. That actions that are dubious, illegal, evil, etc. are more likely to be given a free pass by society (particularly in the U.S.) if they’re committed in the name of religion, which is true. This has nothing to do with the quantity of the acts, or the degree of the evil of the act. It has to do with what it explicitly mentions: The way it is rationalized if it is found or claimed to be derived from one’s religious beliefs.
In one example, if a couple authorize a guy to cut around the foreskin of their infant son’s pëņìš, and complete the procedure by putting the pëņìš in his mouth, sucking off the foreskin, and spitting it out with a mouthful of blood and saliva, and this leads to the spread of genital herpes to several small boys, killing at least two of them, most people would be revulsed, and call the parents and the guy to be put in prison, and the guy in question to be tried for murder. But if it is explained that it was an Hasidic fundamentalist custom called peri’ah metsitsah, even if it’s one that’s been established by most Jews, there are those who would give deference to the mohel who performed it, based on the religious implications of prosecuting him. This occurred in 2005 when New York City mayor Mike Bloomberg, reacting to the above-described incident, disregarded the reports of the distinguished Jewish physicians who had warned of the danger of this practice, and told his health care administrators to postpone any verdict on the matter, because the crucial thing was to be sure that the free exercise of religion was not being infringed. The liberal Catholic religion editor of the New York Times also said this. That was the crucial thing. Not the little boys who had their pëņìšëš in this guy’s mouth, or the two that died as a result of it. (Source: Christopher Hitchens’ book, God is Not Great)
But if someone like Jeffrey Dahmer did this, no one would bat an eye before rightfully calling for his imprisonment and execution.
Thus, evils committed in the name of religion are more likely to be excused or given greater consideration than those that are not.
And of the two situations cited, neither one was “more evil” than the other. They’re the same act, and therefore, the same amount of evil, and the point being made was about the unequal amount of rationalization given to one, and not the other.
Your interpretation of my statement, therefore, was wrong.
Ben Lesar: It is common among popular atheists…to claim that religion is responsible for most of the wars in history. This is false. Luigi Novi implied something similar.
Luigi Novi: “Again, I did no such thing. This is a notion of your own fabrication.”
Ben Lesar: I said you “implied SOMETHING SIMILAR.” That Christians are worse in some way is essentially what you were saying. This is in essence the claim that is being made by those saying religion causes most wars.
Luigi Novi: I did not say or imply any such thing, or anything similar. I made no statement that even implied that one side was “worse”. This is just an invention of yours that cannot be correlated to anything that I said, except in your mind. The only statement I made that involved any sort of comparison between atheists and theists was what I said above, which did not have anything to do with the concept of “worse”. You just like to make up meanings in your mind and then pretend that this is somehow what the other person meant, without even attempting to consider that you misunderstood them.
Luigi Novi: I do not. I said that moral behavior evolved naturally, whereas moral assessments are artificial. I never prescribed any policy with respect to evolved behavior. But if you can point out to me where I did, then again, I challenge you to do so.
Ben Lesar: In your June 9th post at 5: 37 AM you said: “Morality, like all other behaviors, was not “prepared”, but evolved naturally in our species, and indeed, pre-moral behavior can be observed in non-human animals to this day. Morality prolongs not only individual organisms, but also the species. That’s why we have it.* If you want a good book on this subject, read The Science of Good & Evil by Michael Shermer.
*In other words, “Morality exists to preserve the species.” If so, then what is moral is what preserves the species.
Luigi Novi: Wrong. “What is moral” is a moral assessment. Moral assessments do not exist in non-human animals, but only among humans, who ponder and debate what is right and wrong, because they possess the intellectual capacity to do so. Other animals lack the ability to do this. But moral behavior, does exist in other animals, which is not derived from any sort of deliberation, but evolved in animals for the same reason as other things that have survived to this day. Natural selection, therefore, evolved our behavior. But it cannot be used to prescribe things intellectually. I made the distinction between moral behavior and moral assessments quite clear, and you simply ignored it so that you could pretend that I meant you want me to have meant. Anyone other than a complete churl would at least ask for clarification, in order to understand the other person’s point of view. You simply “declare”, unilaterally, that other people mean what you say they do, without doing this. So I find it hard to take you seriously when you claim to base your statements on reason and logic.
Ben Lesar: I never claimed to know what anyone’s philosophy was. I claimed, correctly, that nihilism is a logical outworking of atheism.
Luigi Novi: You also claimed in your June 9, 6:15pm post that “most atheists don’t realize what their philosophy logically entails.”
So indeed you did make such a claim.
Ben Lesar: Also, I find it interesting that I am called a bigot for saying nihilism is a logical outworking of atheism. And yet there is no shortage of atheists who are nihilists.
Luigi Novi: You are called a bigot precisely because that assertion is untrue, because you cannot cite a source that shows otherwise, and that in insisting on it, you are alleging something malicious about a group of people simply because they not share your religious views. That’s bigotry. But anytime you’d like to cite a source that supports this notion, please do, and I will happily consider that, and if necessary, revise my conclusions.
No, it implies that Christians selectively withhold application of their morality out of fidelity to the beliefs they have in common. You arbitrarily inferred that the quote addressed the degree of the moral transgression.
Nirvana is the Sanskrit word literally meaning “nothing,” and I’m pretty sure a buddhist would not disagree buddhism meets a qualifying definition of nihilism. Yet buddhism is also a religion, and provides no less a comprehensive worldview than any other religion. What’s wrong with nihilism?
Review the bolded text. You have failed to fulfill the challenge you deride atheists for failing. Going by that and by your behavior, the main virtue of religion seems to be in portraying hypocrisy as having a moral foundation.
“c.) My best posts were written by cheap third-world elven labor.”
Rev, it’s the truth. Michael Mulligan and me, Sean Moore, have filmed the all-too-close-to-home-hitting documentary, Elves Have Entered The Building(to Type Myers’ Posts). Soon to be hitting the world upside the head as soon as we can get the elves to stop clutching at our socks and screaming to be taken back to Ernie Keebler’s tree.
Six plus hours and not one nibble. Ok, I’ll just go ahead and give the reason for my query about the commandments up above. And, again, this wasn’t directed at you, Rev. You just kinda gave me an opening by reminding me about the Commandments.
See, there are issues with history as perceived by many due to the influences of pop culture. Paul Revere’s ride was nothing like what most people believe thanks to the popularity of Longfellow’s work. Good old Paul really only got a very short distance before becoming an overnight guest of the British. The ride ascribed to Revere was actually made by Isreal Bissel. William Dawes also took part in the ride that night and also did more then Revere. There was also a young girl, the daughter of a militia man if memory serves, who was involved in alerting others for a short time as well.
But pop culture has come along and made us forget the people who did the most while everybody can tell you all about the guy who a poet felt had the best name to work with. Much of our relatively short American history is likewise distorted in the minds of most by assorted pop culture works. Not even modern history is immune. There was some flack over that stupid war movie from a few years back because it had Americans stealing the German Enigma Code while billing itself as “based on the true story.” I knew a junior high school history teacher at the time who really hated that movie for about a year or so. Pop culture is even getting people mixed up about the here and now. Ever hear of a little something call the CSI Effect? It’s so much fun to talk to “experts” who earned their PHD from that show.
Now, you’re all scratching your heads and wondering what the hëll this has to do with anything that’s been debated in this thread. Well, it actually has a good deal to to with it. See, most Christians have the same kind of pop culture relationship with Christianity. For example, Mary Magdalene has long been smeared as being a prostitute because the false accusation worked its way into popular culture and became fact.
Part of this is due to the universal fact that pop culture seems to trump fact just due to sheer repetition of exposure. It’s the perfect example of the old adage about repeating the lie until it becomes the truth. Another part of this is due to the fact that Cliff Notes are just as popular with the religious set as they are with students. Walk into your local Christian bookstore and look at how many books they sell, and sell in pretty good numbers, that are essentially Cliff Notes for the Bible. Most modern Christians don’t have the time or desire to actually read the entire book more then once every leap year and many ancient Christians couldn’t read at all. This has lead to a number of age old misconceptions that are taken as fact by a majority of “Christians” across the world. And this leads me to the reason for my above question about The Ten Commandments.
See, most people when asked about the story of the Commandments will give you the Charlton Heston version of events. Chuck… Uh… I mean…. Moses goes up the Mount, God speaks to Moses, Moses does dictation and the Moses walks back down the Mount and reads the words of The Lord to the people. What he reads are the commonly accepted (ignoring the debates about murder VS kill) version of The Ten Commandments.
Thing is, that ain’t what’s written. If you read what’s actually described in the Bible, then you either have to state that the “true” story of the Commandments is wrong or that the story is right and it’s just every single copy of the Commandments posted everywhere out there that’s wrong.
See, if you go to Exodus 19 and start reading, you will cover Moses going to the mount and having his chat with God. Starting at Exodus 20, you will then begin reading “The Ten Commandments” as popularly accepted. Thing is, there’s no mention of stone slabs or Moses writing anything or even the word “commandments” anywhere in the vicinity. Beyond that, there are more then ten laws listed there after, “And God spake all these words….”
This exchange also covers the judgments (starting at Exodus 21) that Moses is to set before the people. Some of these judgments involve the rules for buying a Hebrew servant and giving the servant a wife while keeping her and the children when the servant goes free (arguably a tacit approval of forms of slavery.) Again, no stones and writing or “commandments” in there.
Jump to Exodus 31:18. God gives Moses two slabs of stone, or “two tables of testimony” as it’s written, to instruct the people with. But Moses was away a bit longer then the people expected and Aaron talked everybody into making an idol to worship. Moses finally comes down, sees what’s going on and smashes the stone slabs against the ground in a fit of rage. But still, the word “Commandments” has not been mentioned.
Now we get to Exodus 34. God tells Moses to hew two tablets like the first and containing the words of the broken set. Moses spends forty days and forty nights on the Mount and works on what are for the first time in the Bible (Exodus 34:28) laws referred to as commandments.
These commandments (short versions) as stated in Exodus 34:13-28.
I. Thou Shalt worship no other god.
II. Thou shalt make thee no molten gods.
III. The feast of unleavened bread thou shall keep.
IV. Six days thou shall work, but on the seventh day thou shalt rest.
V. Thou shalt observe the feast of weeks, of the firstfruits of wheat harvest, and the feast of ingathering at the year’s end.
VI. Thrice in the year shall all your men children appear before the lord God.
VII. Thou shalt not offer blood of my sacrifice with leaven.
VIII. Neither shall the sacrifice of the feast of passover be left unto the morning.
IX. The first of the firstfruits of thy land thou shalt bring unto the house of the LORD thy God.
X. Thou shalt not seethe a kid in his mother’s milk.
That last one is in reference to young goats.
Now, just what is the point of this? Well, The Ten Commandments, the story of their writing and the story of their teaching to the people of God by Moses is probably the second most well know story of the Bible behind only the general life story of Jesus. We’ve had viscously contentious legal battles over “The Ten Commandments” and there are copies of the popularized version in just about every church, in peoples homes and in the SCOTUS. But the hitch is that they’re not the Ten Commandments as written in the Bible. And even if you disregard what’s actually written and stand by the popularly accepted version of the commandments themselves, then you have to admit that the story as popularly told is wrong. The story has to be wrong because the words on the stones aren’t the popularly accepted version of the commandments.
Short version of the point of all this? Most Christians don’t even truly know their own faith and it’s actual writings and teachings. Like many people with any number of historical events… Mary Magdalene, the Ten Commandments and various other little blips throughout the Bible are ignored completely by Christians in favor of popular culture’s “real” versions of those Bible stories. They’re about as much of an expert in their own religion’s teachings as some twit who thinks he knows what goes on at a crime scene because of repeated viewings of CSI and just as happy in their ignorance.
Shortest version of the point of all this? Until the mouthiest and most belligerent Christians (or anyone else of any other faith) out there show that they have a better understanding and knowledge of the faith that they claim to be experts in and know intimately, they should lay off the condemning of and “definitive” statements about other faiths and beliefs that they’ve spent even less time learning about then their own.
Maybe if more people spent more time learning their own faiths and embracing what they’re taught and less time attacking anyone who walks a different path… But that’ll never happen now, will it?
“There are no shortage of racists, bigots, and killers that are christians, so they all must be by your arguments and definitions. And let’s not forget your homosexual pedophile priests! Priests, the representatives of their faiths. Pedophiles… guess you’re a pedophile too, eh Benny?”
Huh?
“The days when religion ruled the earth was called “The Dark Ages” for a reason…”
Actually it was called the Dark Ages because of a lack of contemporary historical documents on the period. You know, because historians can’t “see” what happened. Besides, religion “ruled the earth” much longer than the short period in history known as the European Dark Ages.
“Prometheus gave humans fire and was tortured for it.”
In one story, that is true. It should be noted, however, that he also was a creator according to some, fashioning mankind out of clay. He was playing a god, if you will.
“The existence of nihilistic atheists is no more evidence of the truth of your statement than if someone said that “Corruption is a logical outworking of Christianity” and pointed out a few high profile Christian crooks.”
I was not arguing that is was proof of that, but was wondering how I could be called a bigot unless atheist coming to a similar conclusion could be as well.
“Also, where are you finding all these atheist nihilists? Nihilism seems to me to be a pretty unpopular philosophy, limited mostly to mopey adolescents and even they usually grow out of it once they get over themselves.”
Google “nihilism,” and you will see that several high profile philosophers were nihilists. Almost always atheist as well. Nietzsche is on Wikipedia’s list, although some question whether or not he should be considering that he believed we could overcome nihilism through becoming “supermen.”
“No, it doesn’t. First of all, I don’t see the word “Christians” anywhere in the sentence; the statement refers to all theists. Second, what you can get a pass on is not at all the same thing as what you actually do. If I say, “Children can get away with actions that adults can’t, because society gives them a free pass,” that doesn’t mean children are doing worse things than adults. The sentence contains no qualitative words that refer to or modify the word ‘actions.’”
He was referring to the United States, so it is clearly implied that he mostly means Christians. “The degree which theists will rationalize the irrational,” seems to imply that Christians are more likely to do so.
“Then why does he attend a synagogue, as he stated on the 10.21.03 WHAT’CHA WANNA KNOW?thread? Does he really like their Bingo Night, or something?”
My parents used to attend church, but they have never been Christian. Tradition, tradition, tradition, but not necessarily belief.
“Which does not preclude belief in him, since there are and have been agnostic theists (those who believe in him, but do not know him). Atheism and theism deal with belief. Agnosticism deals with knowledge. Deism could be viewed as another example of a viewpoint that encompasses both agnosticism and theism (though the being in question is a non-specified natural force, rather than the Judeo-Christian God).”
There are at least two degrees of agnostic, it’s true. And agnosticism is not atheism any way you cut it. But what I meant when I said “agnostic” was that of a neutral position. Neither believing nor disbelieving. Which is entirely different from being a religious Jew.
“‘We’ were not talking about historical assimilation.”
You are correct. As I said in what you just quoted we were talking about historical anti-Semitism, not historical assimilation. This quote from your June 9th, 12:46 AM post shows that: “But the derivation of anti-Semitism is clearly Christianity. History shows this. It’s not about assimilation, because Jews assimilate wherever they go, and still encounter anti-Semitism.”
“Does the generality-specificity distinction in this particular case alter the reasonability of the assertion being made?”
I don’t remember exactly what this was about and have time to check right now, but I would wager that it does.
“This is a false syllogism. In the first place, why does not being responsible for one man’s anti-Semitism mean that it cannot be responsible for any of it? You really do not know how to form coherent logic if you think this is anything other than a non-sequitur.”
You claimed it was “THE” cause. If you had specified that is was just “A” cause, it would be a different matter.
“It means that the conclusion or idea in question was formed with the person’s biases and preconceptions held aside.”
No, that is using the definition as in reporting or some other discipline. When saying something is objectively true it means that is not a matter of opinion, but a fact.
“You claim that a logical extension of this lack of belief in god is the belief that there is no truth, morality, or value in anything, which is clearly false, since atheists do not believe this, and you did not offer any evidence that they do. The attempt to connect the two is a common lie spread by some theists, but that does not make the lie true. Indeed, if I’m sitting here saying that I don’t believe in or have any tendencies toward nihilism, and you cannot cite any statistically significant example of atheists who do, then how can it be true? And since it’s not true, how can stating that it is not be an example of a bigot judging others?”
Whether atheists believe such a thing or not is irrelevant. Atheist belief has nothing to do with the claim.
“You called atheists moral parasites.”
And they are. It was not meant to insult anyone, but as the most accurate way of describing something. I did not call atheists “moral reprobates,” after all. That would have been both inaccurate and inflammatory.
“And many of our laws and principles clearly contradict the Bible, and Christianity in particular. Principles of equality among people of different color, and the outlawing of slavery are in direct contradiction of Jesus’ endorsement of slavery. Free market capitalism is contrary to his instruction that a wealthy man could pass through the eye of a needle more easily than get into heaven.”
Biblical “slavery” was not based on skin color. That part of the Sermon on the Mount is widely misunderstood. The wealthy were regarded highly throughout the entirety of the Bible.
“What in your observation is the difference?”
You can’t tell the difference between a government and a religion?
“And yet, you chose not to cite even one. Why is that?”
Because anyone who reads anything at all would know about them unless they have an incredibly selective memory. Here is one:
http://www.webmd.com/content/article/78/95776.htm
“As to your point, if these hypothetical atheists were to be born there, then how can they be atheists, when they would be indoctrinated into the religion of that tribe?”
I don’t know, how can atheists here be atheists if they were “indoctrinated” into Christianity? Or anywhere were there is religion? PAD is right! I don’t believe in atheists!
“He supports the idea of asking questions about it, such as asking what the difference is between breeding for musical ability and forcing a child to take music lessons. This is a commonly-held view among many scientists and doctors who feel that genetic engineering can be used to eliminate prenatal diseases, correct deformities, etc. They do not advocate the murdering of entire races of people, as Hitler did, for that is not an immutable part of eugenics. You could’ve discovered this with a Google search, or by going to Dawkins’ site, but you did not. It took me about a minute or so to do so. Not doing so at all presumably took you even less.”
You are an idiot. I said he supports eugenics. You said he supports some form of eugenics. But apparently you think I am wrong anyway.
“Why you would think that atheists, if removed from a situation where there was law enforcement, would turn into a bunch of murdering, raping robbers, and that none of them would be prevented from immoral behavior through the natural empathy most of them feel for other people, I don’t know, but you further put the lie to the notion that you are not a bigot when you make such ridiculous assertions.”
You really have trouble with reading comprehension. I never claimed that such a thing would happen, but instead pointed out that whoever I was quoting implied such.
“In all this ongoing diatribe about the purpose of life, inter alia, at no point do you state (and if you did, I’m sorry if I missed it), what exactly is the purpose of life, from your pseudo-Christian perspective?”
I don’t appreciate being called pseudo-Christian. And I’m the one called a bigot…
“And please do not try to tell me it is to “give glory to God” as another pseudo-Christian tried to tell me the other day.”
Sorry, but it is. To obey and give glory to God is the purpose of life.
“why would you want to worship a deity that is so insecure that he needs to be worshiped by a lifeform that is far less to him than bacteria are to us?”
God loves us. He want’s use to obey and worship him because he deserves it. Doing those two shows that we truly love him.
“Why tell us to have no other gods before us if there are NO OTHER GODS?”
I could say that it is because money is a false god and so are many other things that are not actually “gods.” If you consider that a cop out then know that Christianity distinguishes between “God” and “gods.” The latter being powerful demons.
“Asserting things about supposed scores of atheists without documenting it does as well.”
Do you really need me to cite the genocide numbers of various atheist regimes?
“Establishing such a thing requires answering too many questions whose answers are unclear.”
I was referring to officially Christian or atheist governments. This is easy to establish.
“Whereas there are priests, rabbis, imams and believers who interpret the rules and sayings in their holy texts to promote hatred and genocide, there are no priests, rabbis, imams, rules, or holy texts in atheism, which makes analogy between crimes committed by atheists and crimes committed by theists untenable.”
Not so. Which philosophy leads to more destruction is all that really matters. Not that it proves the truth of either, but it does prove that it is not a good idea for people to believe the one that causes the most destruction.
“The reference sources I consulted say otherwise. Merriam Webter’s Collegiate Dictionary (Tenth Edition), The American Heritage Dictionary, dictionary.com, and the dictionary in my Microsoft Word program are either mum on the distinction, or clearly indicate that purpose can derived either from the originator of something, or from one later acquires or finds a different use for that something. None of them make a distinction between “purpose” and ‘use.’”
That is because normal dictionaries are horrible about philosophical terms.
“So the question must be asked: What sources can you cite that document your assertion that “purpose” and “use” are distinct in the manner that you claim, and that the purpose for something cannot be different from the one originally assigned to it?”
Existentialism differentiates in that matter. That you do not is of little more concern to me than that not all atheists are nihilists. You clearly don’t understand the philosophy you claim to subscribe to. Maybe I am wrong to assume you watched “Firefly.” But if you have you may remember the episode “Objects in Space.” In it River looks at Jayne’s gun and sees it is a branch. This is because it has no purpose; one can put whatever meaning they want on it (according to existentialism.) But it can be used in whatever way a person can think of. That is the difference between “purpose” and “use.”
“Okay. Please cite them.”
Remind me to do so tomorrow and I will cite several. But it is getting late and I have more to write before going to sleep.
“The liberal Catholic religion editor of the New York Times also said this. That was the crucial thing. Not the little boys who had their pëņìšëš in this guy’s mouth, or the two that died as a result of it.”
Of course the reaction to it was actually due to liberals who want every religion but Christianity to have huge protections. If it was a Christian practice the media wouldn’t stop talking about it and the government would step in immediately.
“You are called a bigot precisely because that assertion is untrue, because you cannot cite a source that shows otherwise, and that in insisting on it, you are alleging something malicious about a group of people simply because they not share your religious views. That’s bigotry. But anytime you’d like to cite a source that supports this notion, please do, and I will happily consider that, and if necessary, revise my conclusions.”
You didn’t answer the question. Are atheists who are also nihilists bigots, or are they just self-hating?
No, because no one has demonstrated the contribution of the belief or non-belief in god to genocide — as opposed to the belief in dominance as a virtue (“survival of the fittest”).
You cite the inherent purposeless of atheism — but your criticism of atheism depends on attributing to atheism the resolve to kill. The contradiction sheltered by your pretense of logic is obvious.
Who has more faith than the person with no religion?
“Are atheists who are also nihilists bigots, or are they just self-hating?”
Again, neither. You’re about as dense as a rock, aren’t you?
You are a religious bigot. You’ve established that quite well. While calling you a religious bigot, no one here is make the blanket statement that all Christians are bigots. My best friend is not a bigot, my wife is not a bigot, I’m not a agnostically inclined, slightly lapsed bigot and I’m sure each and every person here can claim any number of practicing Christians that they know who don’t fall under the header of being a religious bigot.
The reason that you are a religious bigot while all those many others are not is because the actions of one do not define the actions of all or the faith itself. We’ve discussed the likes of Robertson and his ilk here and many have made the point of clarifying that they is not their faith. The Robertsons of the world do not define Christianity. WE can understand this concept. We are not attacking Christianity or Christians as a whole by holding up co-artists, liars and hypocrites like Robertson, Falwell and Swaggart as the definition of all Christians.
You, in your seemingly obsessive need to attack and smear any faith but the one that you personally approve of, keep attempting to hold up the worst of humanity that identified themselves as atheists and then attempting to paint all atheists with that brush. That tactic is no different then the Klansman that points to a black criminal on the news or a tribe of cannibals in Africa and then explains that these example are just the natural condition of blacks and that it’s merely logical to expect this type of behavior from the condition of being black.
There’s no difference in what you’re saying. You could replace the word “atheist” with “black” and “atheism” with “being black” in much of your argument and it would read like it was straight from the Klan’s talking points book.
We are not condemning an entire faith because of the actions of the worst of its followers. You are. The arguments and tactics you’ve used to explain your POV is no different then the Klansman’s attempts to explain his point of view towards blacks. And like the the Klansman, you’re a bigot. The only difference being that his bigotry is racial while yours is religious in nature. You are a religious bigot.
“Sorry, but it is. To obey and give glory to God is the purpose of life.”
Pretty useless life if you spend it glorifying something you can’t even prove exists. How about finding purpose in your own life and helping your family and loved ones?
I am officially done with you, you have shown no interest in being rational.
Posted by: Ben Lesar at June 9, 2007 06:15 PM
[Atheists] are moral parasites, leeching off morals that suit them and discarding just a few that don’t.
Posted by: Bladestar at June 13, 2007 11:46 AM
Pretty useless life if you spend it glorifying something you can’t even prove exists.
Pot, meet kettle. Kettle, meet pot.
I know the two of you believe yourselves to be worlds apart but that is due to a lack of self-awareness and not to any real differences between you. You are bigots, the both of you, no more and no less. And you should be ashamed of yourselves.
We are discussing concepts of morality and faith! When properly applied, these things can elevate us. How appalling, then — how obscene — that we use these things instead to justify our baser natures, and to inflict our hate upon each other like projectiles from a firearm!
If believing in God helps someone cultivate charity, tolerance, compassion, and love, then that belief is a good thing even if there is no God. If an atheist’s belief system allows a person to cultivate the same qualities, that too is a good thing.
The hatred espoused by the two of you, Bladestar and Ben, is on the other hand a very bad thing. As I said, you should be ashamed of yourselves.
Whatever Bill.
I’m not the one telling everyone who doesn’t worship their silly god that they’re evil.
If you think that puts me on the same level with Ben, then that’s your mental problem.
Believe whatever you want, but don’t go around legislating your beliefs or trying to force them on others.
My wife is a christian, but she doesn’t talk about it force it on others, she holds her beliefs and leaves everyone else alone, the Ben’s of the world could really learn a lesson from her.
I don’t really care if you don’t like it or not, I’m not ashamed to stand up to bullies that brandish religion as a club, and anyone who does let them get away with it deserves what they get.
To any of the regulars here who may feel that I’m being extremely harsh or unnecessarily cold in my assessments of and statements to Ben:
Sorry if it may bother any of you, but religious bigotry, whether it’s fueled by ignorance or just plain hate, is one of my “issues” with people. It’s one of the reasons why I’m no longer a member of any organized church.
I find religious bigotry to be one of the most offensive things in existence. Faith can be one of the greatest and most beautiful things that mankind can create. But there’s always the idiot crowd in every religion that has to twist and pervert it and wield it like a club to beat, abuse and persecute others with.
There are always the jáçkáššëš that can’t just be happy in their personal belief. Noooooooo, they have to proclaim that what makes them feel good must be “the one true way to feel good and that everyone else MUST acknowledge the rightness of this opinion. And of course, if you don’t do this, you’re wrong, misinformed, living in sin, evil and on the path to eternal dámņáŧìøņ.
And of course, in the case of the Bens of the world, they are always the aggrieved party. They are always the victim. That’s their excuse for attacking others. It’s just righteous indignation and simple self defense. That’s been Ben’s excuse for launching his attack. He was defending the faith against Luigi’s Godless attacks and lies.
Thing is, Luigi pretty much debunked that. He’s explained what he actually said several times. Not that he needed to. It’s way up top in black and white. But Ben continues to persist that Luigi made statements that he did not in order to attack a faith that he does not personally approve of. He’s even taken the extra step of pointing out how Christian beliefs are under attack while others are being protected. It’s just defending the faith.
But it isn’t even that. Even if Luigi had said that both a simple reading of his posts and his subsequent posts have made clear he did not say, Ben has gone well beyond defending his faith from a perceived lie or attack. I could have defended such an attack that Ben claims was made by simply pointing out the untruth of it. I and others have made attempts to defend atheism from his attacks against it without attacking Christianity or Christians. I’ve pointed out Christians who’ve done horrible things and acts that have been done in Christianity’s name, but I’ve stressed the fact that it is the person/people and not the faith that is what failed in each case. I and others have not gone the extreme route of defending atheism and then claiming that Christianity itself is evil or that it logical leads to religious persecution or atrocities against non-Christians by its followers.
Ben has. And like many who preach hate, he spins what he says when cornered. He displays cowardice to stand behind his statements when light is shown clearly on his hatred or prejudice.
Posted by: Ben Lesar at June 13, 2007 03:04 AM
“You called atheists moral parasites.”
“And they are. It was not meant to insult anyone, but as the most accurate way of describing something. I did not call atheists “moral reprobates,” after all. That would have been both inaccurate and inflammatory.”
Yeah, he only called atheists an insulting term, but it wasn’t reeaallyyyy an insulting term. It wasn’t an insult meant in a bad way at all. Hey, Ben, do you know that you’re a religious urinal? You sit there and let others fill you with their “knowledge” of religion before flushing it all out the other end of your system as one big mess and at people like us. But that’s not an insulting thing calling you a urinal. They’re really great things. They use less water then a toilet and I’ve been soooooooooo thankful to see them when on long road trips.
No, you’re not a urinal and I’m not calling you one. And if I really had, then it would be an insult. Just as calling others parasites is an insult. And if I had wanted to call you a religious urinal, I wouldn’t have backpedaled later to claim that it wasn’t really an insulting term because I wasn’t throwing insults around. I also wouldn’t attack your faith in such a manner. I’m not like you after all.
Ben feels the need to take something as wonderful as personal faith and turn it into something hideous and ugly. I despise people like that. I despise such people whether or not they are Christian or they are the ones attacking Christianity in the name of their faith or god. To me, they’re vile, lowlife, religious scumbags. And they inarguably fit the requirements to be defined as a religious bigot.
And, Bladestar, your last comment is running pretty close behind Ben’s comments on the bigot scale. People of faith find strength in there faith. They find joy and peace in their faith. If they feel that the end product of their faith or the purpose of it is to glorify their faith or chosen deity, then that’s fine and dandy so long as they’re not attacking others as pert of their “glorifying.” Just as been could defend his faith without attacking atheists or others, your attacking others faith is equally wrong.
Posted by: Bladestar at June 13, 2007 01:27 PM
“I don’t really care if you don’t like it or not, I’m not ashamed to stand up to bullies that brandish religion as a club, and anyone who does let them get away with it deserves what they get.”
But, Bladestar, did you need to attack the idea of many peoples faith in order to refute the idiot Ben. Ben’s attacks on faiths other then his own could be excused by him in the same manner you excused your attack.
Ben has made any number of statements that could be easily refuted without attacking the faith itself. The fact that you chose to use that statement and attack it in the manner you did was as wrong as Ben’s attacks on others.
And your beliefs or your wife’s faith does not change the fact that, if you did not mean to attack other people’s faith rather then Ben himself, you picked a poor tactic.
Then let me clarify, have any belief you want, but don’t sit there and talk about it to everyone and tell everyone who doesn’t belief the same as you that they are all evil, moralless scum.
Posted that second one too fast.
Ok. We ll slip up and say something in a less then thought out way from time to time.
God knows I’ve done it on this site more times then I really care to admit.
Posted by: Bladestar at June 13, 2007 01:42 PM
Then let me clarify, have any belief you want, but don’t sit there and talk about it to everyone and tell everyone who doesn’t belief the same as you that they are all evil, moralless scum.
I wholeheartedly agree. At the same time, don’t let religious bigots provoke you into making statements that tar all religious folk with the same brush… particularly if that’s not how you really view things.
Religious bigots, atheistic bigots, cybernetic cat bigots — bigotry is bigotry and it all stinks.
“You cite the inherent purposeless of atheism — but your criticism of atheism depends on attributing to atheism the resolve to kill. The contradiction sheltered by your pretense of logic is obvious.”
I never said anything about the “resolve” to kill. The point is that atheism has nothing preventing one from doing so.
“Who has more faith than the person with no religion?”
Good question.
“We are not condemning an entire faith because of the actions of the worst of its followers. You are.”
That is not true. I have repeatedly said that is a different argument. I condemn atheism based on its philosophical implications, not for any other reason.
“The arguments and tactics you’ve used to explain your POV is no different then the Klansman’s attempts to explain his point of view towards blacks. And like the the Klansman, you’re a bigot. The only difference being that his bigotry is racial while yours is religious in nature. You are a religious bigot.”
There is no philosophy known as “blackism.” If there was I may consider criticizing it depending on its merits. I would love to see you replace the words atheism or atheist with “black” in my arguments and see how that works out. The only thing I can think of that could be construed that way is the comment that atheists are moral parasites. But I don’t know if the Klan uses that argument against blacks. I could no doubt change a few of your posts in the same manner to sound racist too.
Now I repeat the question. If my believing something makes me a bigot, does an atheist believing the same thing make them a bigot too, or just self-hating? Why or why not? Until you and everyone who has accused me of being a bigot answers this I will not answer any more of your or their questions.
“I’m not the one telling everyone who doesn’t worship their silly god that they’re evil.”
I never said anything such thing. Either you are lying or stupid. I have atheist friends. (At least one admits there is no objective morality under atheism.) Do you think I would be friends with them if I thought they were evil?
“To me, they’re vile, lowlife, religious scumbags. And they inarguably fit the requirements to be defined as a religious bigot.”
You essentially said: “I wouldn’t actually call you a urinal, but I will call you a vile, lowlife, religious scumbag!”
It looks like you are in Crusade-denial to me.
I said, “So, if a hypothetical cloned cat would be Obie II, does that make your current cat Obie I?”
Bill Mulligan replied, “Well, sure, just like the men who fought on July 21 1861 called it The First Battle of Bull Run. They knew they’d be back.”
Back in fourth or fifth grade, I read my first Encyclopedia Brown book, Encyclopedia Brown Gets His Man. I believe it was in that book, and not another in the series, in which he proved that an “antique” sword from “the First Battle of Bull Run” was a fake. Since the date accompanying the message allegedly inscribed by some general or other fell some time before the Battle of Bull Run, Encylopedia Brown questioned how this “general” could know there’d be a second battle.
And some other kid in the neighborhood didn’t end up getting ripped off, leaving Bugs Meaney to fume, “curses! Foiled again!”
Or maybe not.
Jerry Chandler said, “See, there are issues with history as perceived by many due to the influences of pop culture.”
Very true. Consider this quote, “There’s no honorable way to kill, no gentle way to destroy. There is nothing good in war. Except its ending.” Know who said it?
If you said Abraham Lincoln, you’re wrong.
But if you said Lee Bergere, an actor who portrayed Lincoln in the Star Trek episode “The Savage Curtain”, you’d be right. But many people have attributed a line of dialogue from a TV show to “the Great Emancipator.”
This and other misquotes have concerned some Lincoln scholars. See below:
http://channels.isp.netscape.com/news/package.jsp?name=fte/lincoln/lincoln&floc=wn-nx
There are a lot of good things about pop culture, but, as we both know, a lot of bad things, too. In an article I wrote last year about why popular culture matters, I said, “Why is popular culture important? Because a well-rounded cultural education benefits both individuals and society.Cultural touchstones connect us with each other and with past generations.”
I interviewed Harlan Ellison for that article, and he agreed that familiarity with popular culture matters. He said one judges a culture by both its highest achievement and its popular culture; that if one does not remember popular culture,one doesn’t remember the history of one’s own times.
On the flip side, Ellison also pointed out many negatives of pop culture. He called TV the most powerful drug that ever existed, and the Internet the handmaiden of TV, where every “blathering idiot gets on the Internet and babbles.”
He also pointed out that The Tonight Show during both the Jack Parr and early Johnny Carson eras would feature occasional real authorities as guests, but that the context was the same as with any other guest. Over time, the show stopped booking such individuals like Carl Sagan or Michael Crichton as scientist. Instead, guests were “one actor after another talking about his or her new picture.” As a result, Ellison said, it denudes the concept of serious discussion. People don’t discuss important matters; they talk about TV shows.
While some discussions of TV shows can be insightful and informative (Roots, for example, prompted many worthwhile discussions when it aired (and yes, I know it was a mini-series, not a TV show, but it was still made for and aired on television)), the truth remains that most TV-related discussions often lack real depth.
Even most of the news people receive comes from TV. Myself, I don’t watch TV news. It lacks the depth of newspaper stories, focusing instead on the 30-second soundbite.
And speaking of which (and returning to Lincoln), back around the time of the 1996 election, I covered an event at the University of Detroit Mercy that focused on media and the presidency. One of the panelists pointed out that Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address was the 1863 version of the 30-second soundbite, coming, as it did, after a two hour speech.
One key difference, of course, is that while Lincoln made a comparatively brief speech, he did so in more than 30 seconds, and didn’t have worry that some TV editor might take snippets of his speech out of context in giving him those 30 seconds.
It’s ironic that mass communication, which has allowed us to learn more about the world than people of earlier centuries could, has also allowed misinformation to spread just as easily. A TV writer comes up with a line of dialogue that sounds Lincolnesque, and somebody else later assumes it must be a real Lincoln quote, not bothering to do any research.
On a somewhat related note, I was reading a while back about the 1985 Twilight Zone episode “Profile in Silver”, which centered around the Kennedy assassination. Actor Andrew Robinson, who played Kennedy, recorded the speech Kennedy was to have given that fateful November day (parts of it were heard over a car radio). Somebody at CBS or the studio or wherever apparently questioned whether the speech was accurate. It was. Robinson read the actual prepared speech Kennedy would have given; but by 1985 our perception of Kennedy was such that we (or at least those individuals) found it hard to accept that John Kennedy would give such an “ordinary” speech.
Probably because of the way he’d been portrayed in popular culture.
I leave you now with some good popular culture news. Later this month, my short story, “Ascension”, will be published in the science fiction audiozine, SCYWEB BEM.
http://www.scywebbem.com/html/summer_2007_edition.html
Be sure to pick up a copy (or 12).
Rick
“It looks like you are in Crusade-denial to me.”
It looks like you are full of it.
Thank you for not disqualifying my point. Or anything else I’ve said, for that matter.
So what’s your problem with nihilism that isn’t true for any religion?
Hi all,
I’ve been following this debate-that-will-not-die here for days now. As an agnostic who would like to believe in God but hasn’t quite managed to do it, I’ve been tempted to join in a few times, but then I’ve though, why bother? Debating with someone like Ben is pointless because in order to debate, you have to at least attempt to see the other person’s POV, if only so that you can properly refute it. Ben has demonstrated that he is of the mindset that there is no other POV besides his own. I’ve encountered his type before and they generally believe that deep down, everyone secretly agrees with him. Even atheists, deep in their hearts, believe in God, they just don’t want to admit it out of spite.
Debating people like Ben is therefore pointless, because he doesn’t debate, he just engages in mental mášŧûrbáŧìøņ designed to show himself how brilliant he is for putting non-believers in their “place”.
One final note, I think whole “who’s committed more atrocities” debate is pointless as well, because it’s not any one belief system, such as Christianity or atheism that causes people to commit atrocities. Atrocities are generally committed by people with the “true beleiver” mentality. It really doesn’t matter what their belief is, whether it’s Christianity, Islam, communism, or beekeeping. What matter is that they are the true believer and it’s their mission to transform the world into their image of what it should be. People with that kind of mentality can justify doing just about anything in the name of their cause. The crusaders, the nazis, and the 9/11 hijackers were all true believers in their cause. It’s not the specific belief, but the fanatical adherent to that belief that leads to atrocities. People with that kind of mentality have been the most dangerous types throughout history.
Now I repeat the question. If my believing something makes me a bigot, does an atheist believing the same thing make them a bigot too, or just self-hating? Why or why not? Until you and everyone who has accused me of being a bigot answers this I will not answer any more of your or their questions.
I put this one first since it’s so important to you.
The first problem is that you are not correct that you and the Atheist in question believe the same thing.
You said that nihilism is a logical outworking of atheism. Our atheist believes in nihilism.
This is not the same thing.
If I say that Irish are predisposed to drunken wifebeating and I am called a bigot for it, it makes no sense for me to say “Hey, my neighbor, Paddy O’Furniture, beats his wife in a drunken rage every day, twice on Sunday. Is he a bigot too?”
No. He’s an abusive drunk.
There ARE Irish drunks (no, really, it’s true) and some beat their wives. That would not in any way mitigate the bigotry of someone who considers drunken abuse to be a likely component of marriage to an Irishman. And while said abusive Irish drunks deserve a right sound thrashing about the head and shoulders that they would not soon forget, the fact that they fulfill the expectations of an anti-Irish bigot does not make them bigots or self hating themselves.
“Prometheus gave humans fire and was tortured for it.”
In one story, that is true. It should be noted, however, that he also was a creator according to some, fashioning mankind out of clay. He was playing a god, if you will.
He was playing it pretty dámņ well, in that case! What do you have to do to actually BE a god? At any rate, Prometheus was a much better parent to his creations than Dr. Frankenstein was. Shelly’s husband wrote Prometheus Unbound and considered him a great heroic figure so I don’t think that the message was supposed to be that doing what Prometheus did was necessarily evil, just making a big bullocks of it.
But who knows? I’ve also read that Mary Shelly didn’t like the idea of Prometheus, preferring a world of humans without technology.
“Also, where are you finding all these atheist nihilists? Nihilism seems to me to be a pretty unpopular philosophy, limited mostly to mopey adolescents and even they usually grow out of it once they get over themselves.”
Google “nihilism,” and you will see that several high profile philosophers were nihilists. Almost always atheist as well.
Well, by definition, it would be hard to be a devout believer of God and and also espouse a philosophy of disbelief in pretty much everything. Similarly, most religious fanatics believe in God. Fanaticism is not, however, a logical outworking of religion.
“And many of our laws and principles clearly contradict the Bible, and Christianity in particular. Principles of equality among people of different color, and the outlawing of slavery are in direct contradiction of Jesus’ endorsement of slavery. Free market capitalism is contrary to his instruction that a wealthy man could pass through the eye of a needle more easily than get into heaven.”
Biblical “slavery” was not based on skin color. That part of the Sermon on the Mount is widely misunderstood. The wealthy were regarded highly throughout the entirety of the Bible.
Slavery is wrong whether it’s based on skin color, poverty, being a member of a conquered country…personally, I don’t mind the fact that Jesus does not condemn slavery since he had little concern for the salvation of the State.
“And yet, you chose not to cite even one. Why is that?”
Because anyone who reads anything at all would know about them unless they have an incredibly selective memory. Here is one:
“>http://www.webmd.com/content/article/78/95776.htm
That’s ridiculous–this study was not exactly headline news. There was also a study that seemed to show that prayer had no effect on sick people but I wouldn’t expect that anyone who reads anything at all would know about it.
And from that article you cited–“We’re not saying that all religious people are happier than non-religious people,” Joseph tells WebMD. “It’s just that, on average, religious people tend to be happier because they have a greater sense of purpose in life.”
Actually, a spiritual path outside of organized religion works in the pursuit of happiness, too. “Religion is only one path to sense of purpose,” he says.
Not so. Which philosophy leads to more destruction is all that really matters. Not that it proves the truth of either, but it does prove that it is not a good idea for people to believe the one that causes the most destruction.
So if one finds a religion or philosophy that has had fewer adherents commit destructionthan Christianity it would prove that it is not a good idea for people to believe in Christianity???
The point is that atheism has nothing preventing one from doing so.
This bit caught me eye.
And, since I’m not going to go back and reread the whole thread, I’m asking for interpretation, although it may have already been covered.
Does the above lead to the (imo ridiculous) assumption that one cannot have morals without religion?
I decided to opt out of the ‘discussion’ with Ben Lesar, since it was not very rewarding. I said what I wanted to say, and anything beyond that will just be going around in circles. And he in turn seems to have little of value to contribute. For all his talk about philosophy, has not said much that could realy be considered philosophical. Also, Jerry is right. He is a bigot, which add an unpleasant feeling to the whole experience of conversing with him.
I come out of this discussion with a certain appreciation for my discussions with Mike, as insane as some of them were.
That said, I do want to address some of the things said by Jerry and by Luigi.
Re: The Ten Commandments.
I took a look at the text and did some reasearch in wikipedia.
Jerry said: “See, if you go to Exodus 19 and start reading, you will cover Moses going to the mount and having his chat with God. Starting at Exodus 20, you will then begin reading “The Ten Commandments” as popularly accepted. Thing is, there’s no mention of stone slabs or Moses writing anything or even the word “commandments” anywhere in the vicinity. Beyond that, there are more then ten laws listed there after, “And God spake all these words….””
First thing is that in Hebrew they are not called the ten ‘Commandments.” The word is ‘Dibrot’ (pl) that come from the verb to talk. However that word does not appear there either. Yet, in hebrew the sentence: “And God spake all these words….” is more correctly translated: And god spoke all these things (dvarim)…. The word for things in Hebrew is similar to the verb to talk, but not exactly the same. I’m not sure to what degree they are related.
Secondly, I don’t think the interpretation of the text presented by Jerry is correct. There are tablets, and the familiar commandments ar written on them. It is possible, maybe, that all the other judgements were written there as well, and piossibly also the second list Jerry mentions. (brace yourself for a long description of the text)
Exodus 20 starts with the familiar list, then there is a description of the reaction of the people, then a segment about how to worship god, and then the judgements. This goes on until chapter 24, at which point Moses writes ALL that was said: (20:4)”Moses then wrote down everything the LORD had said.” In Hebrew it says he wrote ‘Kol Divrei’ (all the words). And then there is a sacrifice ritual.in which Moses reads ‘the book of the covenant’ to the people who accept it. Then: (12) “The LORD said to Moses, “Come up to me on the mountain and stay here, and I will give you the tablets of stone, with the law and commands I have written for their instruction.”
At this point god gives instructions of how to build the ark (the one from Indiana Jones) to contain the ‘testimony’ which he has given him, and other very detailed instructions concerning worship and the priests, and then a bit about the Sabbath. This ends at the end of chapter 31 with: (18) “When the LORD finished speaking to Moses on Mount Sinai, he gave him the two tablets of the Testimony, the tablets of stone inscribed by the finger of God.” Then Moses comes down with the tablets: “15 Moses turned and went down the mountain with the two tablets of the Testimony in his hands. They were inscribed on both sides, front and back. 16 The tablets were the work of God; the writing was the writing of God, engraved on the tablets.” And he brakes them. After a whole interaction in chapter 34 god instructs Moses to sculpture new tablets on which god will write ‘the things’ that were on the original tablets. And then follows the second list Jerry enumareted, which involves rejection of the gods of the Caananites and certain other rituals. Then moses writes down on the tablets ‘the words of the conenant’ (Divrei haBrit), ‘the ten things’ (Aseret haDvarim) [“28 Moses was there with the LORD forty days and forty nights without eating bread or drinking water. And he wrote on the tablets the words of the covenant—the Ten Commandments.”].
In Deutoronomy the list of commandments we are all familiiar with appears again in a different language.
So if we read the text simply, there is something strange here, since we don’t have just the familliar ten commandments, and also, does the final reference to the ‘Ten things’ refers to the last list or the first list, or all the judgements? On the other hand, reading the text as saying that the familiar ten commandments were inscribed on the tablets, does seem quite reasonable, especially if we consider that later in Deutoronomy this is the list that is repeated.
However, Wikipedia also gives as the point of view of mosdern biblical scholars who suggest that what we have here are several sources that were written at different times reflecting different writers with different interests, and only later merged together. Of course this view doesn’t work well for a person who assumes that the text is ‘objective universal truth’, but aside from that it is quite interesting.
The third point relates to this statement by Jerry: “Most Christians don’t even truly know their own faith and it’s actual writings and teachings.”
This leads to an interesting philosophical question: what is the true faith of Christians? Is it what was really written on the tablets (assuming there were tablets), or what they believed were written, or what they believe now?
Another interesting tidbit is this. During the time of the second (Jewish) temple the familiar ten commandments were used to be read on certain occasions. After the temple was destroyed the Rabbis considered reviving this practice but decided against it. Why? Because they were concerned it will give credance to the view of the heretics (Christians) that only these ten commandments are important, and the other laws are not. This suggests that both Jews and Christians in the early centuries identified the ten commandments as we do today (I think). This of course is not a universal objective truth, but it is an historical objective peace of data.
———————
Re: assimilation of Jews.
Obviously it is possible for a person who is decendent of Jews to loose completely any awareness of his Jewishness, Jewish identity, customs, history, folklore etc, and adopt completely those of other cultures, at which point, the only sense that he or she would be Jewish, would be in the mind of anti-semites. In order to prevent that from happening a person has to make something of a conscious effort to maintain and pass along at least a certain awareness of being Jewish, which is quite a nuisance, especially if you are surrounded by non-Jews and want to fit in. This has been a concern of Judaism well, since the ten commandments, which is partially why there are so many restrictions meant to insure a certain level of isolation. And Jews have spent the last 3000 years in a conscious effort to maintain their identity. This, ironically, was a litle easier during the long period in which Jews were legally and culturally segregated by Christianity and Islam. About 200 years ago two processes happened. (1) There was a similar process to enlightenment among Jews in Europe that led to access to non religious culture and to the questioning of religion. (2) Because of enlightenment there was a gradual process in which the segregation of Jews lessened, giving them more opportunies to interact with non Jewish people and culture (although this did not eliminate antisemitism, only changed it). This has led to a problem of how to maintain the Jewish identity while benefiting from secularism, and emancipation of Jews. Some tried to raise the cultural walls higher. Others went as far as to convert to Christianity. Some made no effort to maintain or pass to their children a Jewish identity of any sort, while others tried to find ways to adapt the Jewish identity to the modern world (more or less successfully). And this is where we are now pretty much.
I don’t know Peter David’s beliefs. I can tell you that many Jews, especially in Israel, myself included, who do not believe in God, or the Jewish God, or who do not follow religion as strictly as orthodox Judaism expects, nevertheless practice some aspects of the Jewish religion as part of our folklore, tradition and history.
Anyway, back to the thing which started this side-issue: in Germany prior to WWII there were many Jews who went very far in adopting German culture. Some did less and less in order to maintain a Jewish identity, while others tried to maintain the Jewish identity in some ways. They also had something like Chrismuka, I am told. In any case, as much as Nazism despised the Jews who still maintained an isolated religious Jewish life, they hated with equal ferocity the Jews who became strongly assimilated in German culture, whom they perceived as ‘parasites’ on German culture.
Ben, there are so many things wrong with what you say it’s difficult to pick out the severest inconsistency to hold you to, so that my disagreement doesn’t depend on taking more hostages than I should have to, so to speak, like some of the lengthier rebuttals others are responding to you with. This seems to be the most severe:
Genocide is not genocide if there is no intent to do so. So, yes, you’ve made your criticism dependent on attributing to atheism the resolve to kill. You can cite the inherent purposeless of atheism, or you can attribute to atheism the resolve to kill, but you cannot do both, because they are incompatible agendas to attribute to anyone.
This afternoon I posted some comments, that among other things, addressed matters raised by Bill Mulligan and Jerry Chandler. But it’s caught in the spam filter. Maybe because I included two links. I’m not sure. In any event, I’ll wait until tomorrow to see if it’s shown up, then try to post it again.
If that doesn’t work, perhaps I’ll send the ghost of Junius Booth to each of your homes to give an impassioned reading of the post.
Or maybe Edwin. We’re still negotiating fees.
Until then, talk among yourselves. Perhaps you might exchange a few scattered comments related in some way to religion.
Rick
“So what’s your problem with nihilism that isn’t true for any religion?”
I have already answered this question. And even if I had not I think you are one of the people calling me a bigot. So until you answer the question I posed I will answer no questions from you. (If you are not one calling me a bigot let me know and I will excuse you from the question.)
Bill, you answered the question. Good for you. Of course it is a poor answer considering you are comparing a case where both people hold opinions with one where one holds an opinion and the other takes action. Even if the nihilistic atheists doesn’t think nihilism is a logical outworking of atheism per se, they agree with me that their universe is nihilistic. If they don’t think this is just because of atheism and it would still be nihilistic under Christianity then they are still a bigot according to you. Because they are claiming that Christianity leads to nihilism (along with everything else.)
“What do you have to do to actually BE a god?”
According to Greek mythology: Zeus, a sibling of Zeus, or of the line of Zeus. Prometheus was not.
“Well, by definition, it would be hard to be a devout believer of God and and also espouse a philosophy of disbelief in pretty much everything. Similarly, most religious fanatics believe in God. Fanaticism is not, however, a logical outworking of religion.”
I am aware that correlation does not equal causation. However, I thought it made sense to point out that there is a correlation.
“Slavery is wrong whether it’s based on skin color, poverty, being a member of a conquered country…personally, I don’t mind the fact that Jesus does not condemn slavery since he had little concern for the salvation of the State.”
1. Of course. 2. True and rightly so. Also, that seems to verify what I remember about you.
“That’s ridiculous–this study was not exactly headline news. There was also a study that seemed to show that prayer had no effect on sick people but I wouldn’t expect that anyone who reads anything at all would know about it.”
I knew about that. Or at least a similar one. I have heard of several supporting both sides of that case. Unlike with prayer, however, support is lopsided in the favor of religious people when it comes to being happy. There are more studies where that came from, but I don’t see a point in finding them.
(I have always found studies on the effect of prayer to be quite idiotic. If one wants to study the effect of positive thinking one should do that. But prayer is impossible to study for a variety of reasons. One example being, from the Christian viewpoint at least, that we are not to test God.)
“So if one finds a religion or philosophy that has had fewer adherents commit destructionthan Christianity it would prove that it is not a good idea for people to believe in Christianity???”
You got me there. That’s why I didn’t want to confuse the two arguments, the first one about genocide having been largely abandoned. It was supposed to be a throwaway statement because I wasn’t interested in that discussion, but I still should have made sure the argument made sense. Mea Culpa.
“Does the above lead to the (imo ridiculous) assumption that one cannot have morals without religion?”
I am going to give you the benefit of the doubt and assume that you not only haven’t called me a bigot, but don’t think I am, so I will wave my requirement that you answer a certain question before I answer any of yours: Not at all. It is not that atheists cannot be moral, but that if atheism is true there is no morality for anyone. Not objective morality anyway.
“Genocide is not genocide if there is no intent to do so. So, yes, you’ve made your criticism dependent on attributing to atheism the resolve to kill. You can cite the inherent purposeless of atheism, or you can attribute to atheism the resolve to kill, but you cannot do both, because they are incompatible agendas to attribute to anyone.”
I have never said within atheism is the resolve to kill. That is within many humans though. Atheism just lacks anything resisting the resolve to kill. It makes it more likely that a given individual will, in fact, kill. There is never a guarantee because an atheist can choose to do the right thing despite what his or her philosophy logically entails.
Can you provide an answer that does not depend on a strawman or a contradiction?
I didn’t called you a bigot, and nothing I’ve said depends on you being portrayed as one — therefore your question does not apply to me.
Ben: the crusades, the Spanish inquisistion, 300 years of burning accused witches — these are examples of mass killings under the pretense of serving the christian god. How does your criticism of atheism not apply to christianity?
Rick,
Drop the http:// stuff from your links. Any time I post more then one, that’s the only way I can get the things through the filter. They still work, it’s just that anybody who wants to check them have to copy and paste.
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Micha,
Good points. One thing that I should have pointed out is that I used the King James Version of the Bible. There are variances in the texts from Bible to Bible so I don’t know what may be different in the ones you looking up you references from.
I also didn’t give my interpretation of the text. I actually had the thing out and was cribbing from it as I typed. The part in Exodus 24 that you mentioned is in there but covered by what I wrote earlier. Those would be the tablets broken by Moses in Exodus 32:19. Now, supposedly the second set that’s written is supposed to be an exact match for the first. If that’s true, then the second set as described in the KJB and read by Moses doesn’t match the ten commonly know commandments.
I’ve actually read several different theories on the subject. Some hold the belief that the laws given to Moses by God as first listed in the Bible were to be verbal reminders of already established laws. While some prior religious laws don’t quite match the wording for some of those given starting at Exodus 20:1, you can find the ancient laws very close to those. And some of those listed laws are too obviously preexisting laws. Certainly no one is dumb enough to try and claim that the Jews were unaware that lying, theft and murder wrong and/or crimes.
Another is the one you referenced. There is a line of thought that the Bible as we know it is a collection of so many different bits and pieces that some of it got mashed together a bit wrong. Then there’s the issue of several of the Gospels from the life of Jesus that actually contradict one another.
I definitely didn’t make one thing clear though. I wasn’t saying that the popular version of the story was started by the Heston movie. I am aware that there are older examples of the ten laws in question being named The Commandments and the story being told in a fashion somewhere between what’s written and how the film portrayed it. Still, one thing does stand. As written in the King James Version, the events do not match the popularly held and believed version of the story of the Commandments.
I would like to know what version you where using. Obviously my Hebrew is… weak. I’ve never seen an un-translated version of the Hebrew version of the Bible and, knowing that you can’t always exactly translate old Hebrew to English, have always been fascinated by the alterations made for translation breakdowns, regional relevance and contemporary references.
I like that you posted this:
“The third point relates to this statement by Jerry: “Most Christians don’t even truly know their own faith and it’s actual writings and teachings.”
This leads to an interesting philosophical question: what is the true faith of Christians? Is it what was really written on the tablets (assuming there were tablets), or what they believed were written, or what they believe now? “
It’s actually one of the points I was going to move towards had others bitten at the bait. You’ve got variations of the modern Bible that depend on the category of Christianity using them. There are further variations that depend on translation from language to language. Then you can throw into the mix the variations that can be found over the ages due to scribe error, political whims or the changing meanings of words and their replacements by other words.
That being the case, can you have a “true” Christian? Is there even such a thing today? And, getting back into the area of PAD’s kickoff to this thread, is it truly relevant what variation of the faith someone believes in if you can in fact say that no modern version of the faith is actually 100% right?
Another point was the one I mentioned. There are… discrepancies… in what’s popularly believed and how things are actually written. Even if you don’t completely agree with the Commandments example, there is still the Magdalene example. If you’re willing to play a little more, I can even throw another one out there.
Take onanism as another example. Onanism is popularly considered and defined by Christian culture as the act of… er… self-pleasuring yourself. Although, until just very recently, it was exclusively defining only the male version of such activity. It’s also considered a no-no by many of the more orthodox Christian groups.
Thing is, onanism was named after Onan of the Bible. And Onan’s crime wasn’t exactly “onanism” as defined by modern Christian circles.
Genesis 38: 7-10 (KJV)
And Er, Judah’s firstborn, was wicked in the sight of the Lord; and the Lord slew him.
And Judah said unto Onan, Go in unto thy brother’s wife, and marry her, and raise up seed to thy brother.
And Onan knew that the seed should not be his; and it came to pass, when he went in unto his brother’s wife, that he spilled it on the ground, lest that he should give seed to his brother.
And the thing which he did displeased the Lord: wherefore he slew him also.
Slight digression: Am I the only one who grew up thinking that it was a really bizarre idea that Onan could father Er’s son? Never mind.
Anyhow, besides wondering what kind of lesson that being killed for not knocking up your dead brothers wife is supposed to teach people, there’s the little matter of Onan not committing onanism here. Onan spills his seed (which is technically coitus interruptus) and disobeys God’s will to give a woman a child that will be seen as another man’s child. That’s not self pleasuring.
Yeah, I can see the argument being formulated by several of you now. Still wrong.
But, Jerry, you’re saying, the end result is the same. If you were pleasuring yourself, and thank you sooooo much for that mental image and the nightmares that I’ll be having due to it, you would still be spilling and wasting your seed as a result of that act. So it’s not really that much of a stretch to see the one defining the other.
Well, you’re wrong. The Church is fairly clear on what Onan’s crime was and in what the act of onanism is. The end result doesn’t come into it. Bonus round: What’s another way to tell that the Church doesn’t see Onan’s crime as “onanism” as popularly defined? Well, some of the same churches that condemn onanism recommend that married couples use what they view as the only acceptable version of birth control in the form of the rhythm method. What’s the final stage of the rhythm method? Why, it’s exactly what Onan did. It is, as Billy Connolly points out in a fantastically funny bit from his Albert Hall performance, the extremely unlikely act of… uhm… uh… going the wrong way at the key moment.
The Church and most Christians see onanism as an act other then what it is. They even approve of an act that actually is the act that Onan committed. Why?
Not 100% sure. “Onanism” first appeared in English in the eighteenth century. It was quaintly defined as “the crime of self-pollution.” Somehow, it worked its way into the popular consciousness with that definition. The term has been very rarely used with slightly more accuracy in regards to the Bible’s described act. Conjugal Relations (1892) by A. K. Gardner references the act in a manner that is somewhat close to Onan’s actual crime. However, the definition has also been moving further away from it’s original meaning in modern times. George Steiner’s Language and Silence (1967) makes reference to a “recent university experiment in which faculty wives agreed to practice onanism in front of the researchers’ cameras.” I’m pretty sure that they’d be missing that whole “spilling their seed” thing. But that could just be me.
Again, what’s the point of all this? Is it just nit-picking? No. It’s pointing out that, yet again, the widespread and popular belief in the “truth” by modern Christianity is not based in the truth of Christianity’s writings or teachings. Pop Culture has supplanted the Bible in the minds of many.
Not an overly bad thing if the intent isn’t too badly changed. But I still feel that many Christians should prove that they’re a little more aware of the actual writings that they claim to know, the mistakes and flaws created in and by the passage of time in those writings and the inherent contradictions in aspects of their faith due to some of this before they can make definitive and sweeping statements about other faiths that they’ve spent even less time learning about or experiencing then their own and think that they should be seen as entirely credible.
If they were more aware of some of these issues, then maybe more “Christians” would be happier in simply enjoying their faith and not crusading against other beliefs or demanding that others understand the “facts” of their faith and accept I as their own.
But, again, that’s just a pipe-dream, isn’t it?
Just to make clear the commitment you’ve made to answer my question:
I not only didn’t accuse you of being a bigot for portraying nihilism as a logical outcome of atheism, I infer that nihilism is a logical outcome of buddhism, and portrayed buddhism as valid a worldview as any other.
To demonstrate why Ben Lesar is considered a religious bigot replace the word ‘atheism’ in his original argument with:
1) Islam
2) Christianity
3) Judaism
and then replace the word ‘nihilism’ with:
1) Terrorism
2) Antisemitism
3) Racism