An interesting artical by the British publication "Guardian Unlimited" suggests/hints at Dawkin's potential monitary motives, which is, in part, a reaction to Dawkin's latest TV broadcast "The Enemies of Reason".
quote: Dawkins's declared interest in making atheism more publicly acceptable - exemplified by the sale of 'A for atheism' T-shirts on his website - demonstrates that this phenomenon is not simply about philosophical debates concerning the existence of God. The sheer ferocity of many of the atheist critiques of religion also suggests that we are not in the territory of reasoned debate, but witnessing the birth pangs of a new, anti-religious cultural identity.
We are now seeing a concerted effort being made to validate an atheist cultural identity through media and consumer products, just as evangelicals have already used these resources to consolidate their form of Christian identity in the modern world.
The author, Gordon Lynch, also states:
quote: What is arguably more interesting about Dawkins's TV work is the sense in which his public advocacy of atheism is coming to look more and more like media-savvy forms of contemporary religion, particularly evangelicalism. One of the reasons evangelicalism has flourished in contemporary society is precisely the way in which it has used publishing, consumer products, educational resources, film, television and new media as resources by which its adherents can develop particular kinds of religious experiences, identities and social networks. Evangelicalism has proven more successful in surviving the secularising trends of the contemporary world than other branches of Christianity because it has been able to develop into a religious subculture in which likeminded individuals and groups support each other and sustain their particular vision of the world.
In an interesting summary, Lynch discussed the problems of the athiest movement:
quote:Finally, does any of this matter? To those of us who identify with liberal and progressive cultural movements, whether religious or humanist, there are potentially worrying trends here. The intensity with which new atheist identities are being forged through a hatred of imagined religious others is matched by the hatred felt by some conservative religious groups towards those they perceive as godless.
In the same way that global conflict emerged when American neoconservatives and radical Islamists found in each other the perfect enemy, so future conflict between militant atheists and religious conservatives may have the rest of us ducking in the crossfire.
In this sense, while Dawkins's intentions are doubtless well meant, the rise of the atheist movement he symbolises could do more than the alternative spiritualities he disparages to threaten the fragile cohesion of our societies.
web page Posted by Blayne Bradley (Member # 8565) on :
Hmm, lemme see, I think I can scrounge up a "meh".
That is all.
Posted by Krankykat (Member # 2410) on :
or scrounge up a meme?
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
quote:. The intensity with which new atheist identities are being forged through a hatred of imagined religious others is matched by the hatred felt by some conservative religious groups towards those they perceive as godless.
I would argue that these two "hatreds" are categorically different from each other, even at their most similar.
quote:the rise of the atheist movement he symbolises could do more than the alternative spiritualities he disparages to threaten the fragile cohesion of our societies.
In this, however, he may be right. Blaming the atheists for this is like blaming uppity blacks for lynchings, though.
Posted by Icarus (Member # 3162) on :
I find it interesting, Blayne. I guess it's a good thing you're not Hatrack's content monitor.
quote:Originally posted by TomDavidson:
quote:. The intensity with which new atheist identities are being forged through a hatred of imagined religious others is matched by the hatred felt by some conservative religious groups towards those they perceive as godless.
I would argue that these two "hatreds" are categorically different from each other, even at their most similar.
Why do you think so? Can you elaborate? They seem pretty similar to me.
-o-
Do you think atheists today are in a position analogous to that of blacks fifty or more years ago?
I don't.
Posted by aspectre (Member # 2222) on :
Dawkins is a typical religious nut : If you don't believe what I believe about God, you are not only wrong but a threat to my integrity.
Listening to him talk about science and logic "proving that God does not exist" is more annoying than listening to YoungEarth "Scientific"Creationists. The first thing he should have learned in school is Science does not deal with infinities. In science, running into infinity means "Start over. You've asked the wrong questions."
[ August 13, 2007, 01:05 AM: Message edited by: aspectre ]
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
Um....What? Seriously, aspectre, where are you coming from on that one?
Posted by Mucus (Member # 9735) on :
Here's a response:
quote: I think it's quite right that richarddawkins.net and Dawkins' TV work represents an effort to use the media to share information about a social and intellectual movement, and it's also true that evangelical Christianity has also taken advantage of it. It's also pretty much standard nowadays: if you want to build recognition and an identity, you use multimedia and you have a web presence. Somebody who notes this and starts drawing parallels in content and tactics because two groups are using similar, ubiquitous, common communications techniques is, well, clueless.
...
Lynch compares Dawkins' book, The God Delusion, to Rick Warren's The Purpose-Driven Life. Dawkins has sold somewhere in the neighborhood of 1 million copies, while Warren has sold almost 25 million. But the important thing is … they both have published books. The DaVinci Code has sold about 40 million copies, to put those in perspective.
And of course, Dawkins has made a few television programs. Evangelical Christians have whole television networks: TBN, CBN, Pax, Cross TV, CTN, Sky Angel, TCT Ministries, etc., etc., etc. There are also networks dedicated to news, to old movies, to cartoons, to comedy, to science fiction. These are all just the same, of course.
I think you can all see the sneaky and ultimately dishonest game Lynch is playing: compare the things atheists do to those that evangelical Christians so you can say "Gotcha! You atheists are just another loony religious cult!" I'm surprised he didn't mention that both atheists and Christians use their voices in a process called "talking" to communicate among members of their local cells. As it is, though, we're still going to have to face the fact that Volkswagens, the French health care system, cheap pulp novels, and Fox News are all also cults. Basically, Lynch is looking aghast at the standard media techniques used for selling soap and health club memberships and using that to link disparate ideas under the category of "evangelical."
quote: Ah, if only these whiny apologists for religion would spend more time (heck, any time) criticizing the evangelical/fundamentalist religious movements to which they compare us than in deploring the great harm the imaginary fundamentalist atheists are doing. Especially when the only "harm" they manage to document is that atheists are mobilizing to make their message heard using modern media.
quote:Originally posted by Icarus: Why do you think so? Can you elaborate? They seem pretty similar to me.
*shrug* Perhaps you could compare what Richard Dawkins is advocating for to combat fundamentalism to what fundamentalist Islam or Christianity are advocating to combat...well...pretty much everyone else.
For another enlightening comparison, compare what fundamentalist Islam proposes to deal with Jews, to what he proposes to deal with agnostics.
Posted by rollainm (Member # 8318) on :
quote:Originally posted by aspectre: Dawkins is a typical religious nut: If you don't believe what I believe about God, you are not only wrong but a threat to my integrity.
Listening to him talk about science and logic "proving that God does not exist" is more annoying than listening to YoungEarth Creation"Scientist"s.
From The God Delusion:
quote: We believe in evolution because the evidence supports it, and we would abandon it overnight if new evidence arose to disprove it. No real fundamentalist would ever say anything like that.
It is all too easy to confuse fundamentalism with passion. I may well appear passionate when I defend evolution against a fundamentalist creationist, but this is not because of a rival fundamentalism of my own. It is because the evidence for evolution is overwhelmingly strong and I am passionately distressed that my opponent can't see it -- or, more usually, refuses to look at it because it contradicts his holy book. My passion is increased when I think about how much the poor fundamentalists, and those whom they influence, are missing. The truths of evolution, along with many other scientific truths, are so engrossingly fascinating and beautiful; how truly tragic to die having missed out on all that! Of course that makes me passionate. How could it not? But my belief in evolution is not fundamentalism, and it is not faith, because I know what it would take to change my mind, and I would gladly do so if the necessary evidence were forthcoming.
Posted by Icarus (Member # 3162) on :
Fair enough, Mucus. The similarity that I see is not to gun-toting fundamentalists like Al Quada, but to garden-variety Christian fundamentalists like we have in this country--the kind who don't advocate killing anybody for their religion, don't blow up abortion clinics or whatnot, but who simply can't see believers from the other side as anything but idiots. You know, the kind who conflate atheism with belief in evolution, versus the kind who conflate theism with belief in creationism.
Posted by kmbboots (Member # 8576) on :
There is an interesting book called, if I recall, "The Great Transformation". One of the idea that I encountered in the book is that religions go through cycles. Mature, healthy religion is concerned with how people behave - are they charitable, do they do good works and so forth. Immature or decaying religions concern themselves with what people believe, and worse, concern themselves with changing what other people believe.
This is what concerns me about the current trend of evangelism in atheism. I support efforts to protect the us from the political machinations of the religious right. In my wallet you will find my ACLU card right next to my priest's phone number. I am concerned, though, when they concern themselves with my beliefs. I don't like evangelism from Christians; I don't like it much better from atheists.
Posted by Icarus (Member # 3162) on :
I wish I could support the ACLU; I'm with them on so many things. But their aggressive support of abortion rights has made it impossible for me to rationalize supporting them.
Posted by Blayne Bradley (Member # 8565) on :
The thing Icarus is that there is a fundamental divide that goes 3 ways generally among this issue and all I can really muster is a *sigh* that people can get all hot and bothered about what people ultimately determine for themselves because of the evidence or lack thereof they perceive.
Also I find the "I'm glad your not Hatrack's cotnent personthingy" to be highly funny considering everyone and they're forgotten relatives seems to take an interest in denouncing my trivial and inconvenient threads *tsk tsk to those with ADD on Hatrack always with the urge to click on every thread*
By no means am I criticizing your thread, I am simply giving my opinion on the topic of conversation not your right to post it or not post it.
Posted by Icarus (Member # 3162) on :
Easiest thing first: It's not my thread.
Second, your second paragraph really does not make a point for you; if anything, it makes mine. I'll leave it at that, for now, unless you really do want to get into it.
Posted by Blayne Bradley (Member # 8565) on :
your threads, his threamd het thread, this thread, that thread, EVERYONES! and.... nooo onnnnesssss.....
*sinister snicker*
Posted by Orincoro (Member # 8854) on :
I think Blayne is a convincing argument concerning god.
Not going to say what that argument is. Posted by AvidReader (Member # 6007) on :
I have the same argument about Dawkins that my atheist friends have about random people who walk up and try to sell them on God. I don't buy stuff from the OxyClean guy cause I just don't see why he's all excited about his product. Same way, I don't see what the excitment is about evolution and the "proof" that there's no God. My friends don't see what the big deal is about God.
I really think religion is one of those things where you need a shared frame of reference before you go trying to convert folks. My friends straight up don't care about God. Why would I spend my time trying to convert them? All it would do is annoy them and push them farther away from what I believe.
Same thing with Dawkins. Calling folks stupid for not seeing the inherent rightness of your views isn't the best way to win converts.
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
Is there anything worth convincing someone else of, Avid?
Posted by Mucus (Member # 9735) on :
quote:Originally posted by Icarus: ... but who simply can't see believers from the other side as anything but idiots. You know, the kind who conflate atheism with belief in evolution, versus the kind who conflate theism with belief in creationism.
First, I'd be really surprised if he ever said believers *are* idiots. I could be a little more convinced that he might have called "specific" believers idiots, but I'd be surprised if even that is a large number. Perhaps you could back up that charge.
I can say that the majority of times I've seen him interact with believers, that he has been pretty gracious, certainly more gracious than many of his detractors. I submit as evidence:
Interview with Alister McGrath (This is an author who seems to be famous for nothing else but writing rebuttals to Dawkins, a person who you would expect to see fireworks with)
Reading and QA at Lynchburg This is probably the most telling example, a free-form QA in Lynchburg, Virginia where you would expect plenty of hostility and the majority of questions are definitely from rebuttals from believers.
Perhaps you confused Dawkins with Christopher Hitchens who probably *would* call believers idiots en masse
Second, I do not believe he conflates the latter two. The hypothesis of his book is specifically "here exists a super-human, supernatural intelligence who deliberately designed and created the universe and everything in it, including us" which he then spends the rest of the book disproving. As a consequence of this, he specifically notes,
quote:I shall not be concerned at all with other religions such as Buddhism or Confucianism. Indeed, there is something to be said for treating these not as religious at all, but as ethical systems or philosophies of life
He also notes his appreciation for the Deism of several of the founding fathers and the impersonal god of Einstein.
Posted by Tresopax (Member # 1063) on :
quote:Why would I spend my time trying to convert them? All it would do is annoy them and push them farther away from what I believe.
That depends on how you "convert" them.... Telling people what to do is disrespectful, because it assumes that you are smarter and wiser than they are - that's why it pushes people away. People don't listen to you telling them what to do unless they have some special respect for what you have to say. And arguing with people doesn't work either because treating religion as a set of deductions (as arguments do) largely misses the point of religion. I think the best way to "convert" people is to live your life as you believe you should, and then allow them to choose whether or not they should act similarly.
Posted by Icarus (Member # 3162) on :
Mucus, you are misinterpreting me. The words you quoted were used by me as a generic description of extremists on both sides, not specifically of Dawkins. I'm not particularly knowledgable about Dawkins, and really just comparing evangelical Christians with evangelical atheists in broad terms. I have seen the extremes I referred to on both sides, and they both give me the exact same impression. From my vantage as someone who finds neither side convincing, they seem remarkably similar in their shrillness.
I've actually not referred to Dawkins in any of my prior posts in this thread--go check. The statements you challenged were in reply to a statement by Tom that didn't reference Dawkin specifically, but atheists in general (or, at least, those atheists who are vocal in their opposition to and disdain for theism).
Posted by Teshi (Member # 5024) on :
quote:fundamentalist atheists
Can you really be a "fundamentalist atheist"?
I can see an "evangelical atheist"- someone who goes about 'preaching' atheism but it seems to me there is only one stripe of atheist; the kind that doesn't believe in God. You can't not believe in God more- or you can but really the people who only kinda sorta don't believe in God are agnostic or "mostly atheist".
Posted by dkw (Member # 3264) on :
And "mostly atheists" are still a little bit theist!
If you coat the creeds in chocolate they go down easy.
Posted by sndrake (Member # 4941) on :
*ahem*
As a died-in-the-wool agnostic, I take issue with the "sort of deist" and "sort of atheist" redefinitions of people like me.
At the SickO rally here in Chicago, I had a brief exchange with someone who, in the course of conversation, did some religion-bashing. I immediately pointed out that pro-peace, anti-poverty, and social justice movements really were populated by religious people and they'd be pretty empty without them.
This resulted in a riff on his atheism and the irrationality of faith, so I self-identified as an agnostic.
He said:
"you agnostics just can't get off the fence"
My reply:
"Gee, that's the same kind of respect that bisexuals received from both the gay and straight communities for years. But having said that, I want to tell you that I admire the leap of faith that atheism requires."
He found a reason to go wander away at that point. Posted by MightyCow (Member # 9253) on :
Agnostics are just afraid of commitment Posted by sndrake (Member # 4941) on :
I have made a commitment - to embrace doubt and uncertainty - and to avoid the propaganda from either direction.
Posted by MightyCow (Member # 9253) on :
That's just what I'd expect from a fence-sitter Posted by MattP (Member # 10495) on :
quote:"Gee, that's the same kind of respect that bisexuals received from both the gay and straight communities for years. But having said that, I want to tell you that I admire the leap of faith that atheism requires."
There are different flavors of atheist. Most atheists I know could also be referred to as agnostic, presuming that agnostic doesn't mean "there is an equal likelihood of God and not God."
I am an agnostic in that I accept the possibility that God exists. I've chosen to describe myself as an atheist because I see that possibility as being very small, given the information currently available to me. Since I think God is unlikely, I make no provision in my life for his existence. That is different than affirming that God does not exist. That would be a leap of faith.
Posted by King of Men (Member # 6684) on :
I think it's useful to consider 'theist' and 'atheist' to be nouns, while 'agnostic' and its opposite 'gnostic' are adverbs. Thus we get four combinations:
Gnostic theist: Believes that we can have knowledge about the existence of gods, and also believes that a god exists.
Agnostic theist: Does not believe that there is certain knowledge to be had, but nonetheless believes in a god.
Agnostic atheist: Does not believe in certain knowledge, and does not believe in a god.
Gnostic atheist: Believes that there is certain knowledge, and disbelieves in gods.
Obviously the gnostic bit is something of a spectrum; you can say "We can reduce the probability to 0.0001% and that's certain enough for me", and thus label yourself a gnostic; on the other hand, somebody who believes in strict zeroes might still consider you an agnostic - "Well, that's not certain, is it?"
Posted by sndrake (Member # 4941) on :
KoM,
Frankly, none of that is useful really useful to me.
I'm somewhere in the "don't know, don't expect to know, don't spend time trying to figure it out, and leave all that particular field of debate to other people" type category.
Posted by sndrake (Member # 4941) on :
FWIW, the Merriam-Webster dictionary lists "agnostic" as a noun first and an adjective second. Definition for the noun:
quote: ::a person who holds the view that any ultimate reality (as God) is unknown and prob. unknowable ; broadly : one who is not committed to believing in either the existence or the nonexistence of God or a god
Posted by King of Men (Member # 6684) on :
Ah. Sounds like an agnostic apatheist to me.
Posted by pooka (Member # 5003) on :
I think King of Men has an interesting point. Being an atheist does not mean one is a relativist, nor does being a theist mean one is non-relativist.
Posted by Nato (Member # 1448) on :
quote:Originally posted by AvidReader: I have the same argument about Dawkins that my atheist friends have about random people who walk up and try to sell them on God. I don't buy stuff from the OxyClean guy cause I just don't see why he's all excited about his product. Same way, I don't see what the excitment is about evolution and the "proof" that there's no God. My friends don't see what the big deal is about God.
I really think religion is one of those things where you need a shared frame of reference before you go trying to convert folks. My friends straight up don't care about God. Why would I spend my time trying to convert them? All it would do is annoy them and push them farther away from what I believe.
Same thing with Dawkins. Calling folks stupid for not seeing the inherent rightness of your views isn't the best way to win converts.
I don't know how effective Dawkins will ultimately be at "converting" people. Most atheists I know didn't get it "proved" to them, but found it as a fairly natural organic process while exploring ideas.
Before I became nontheist, I saw the beauty in the world as a product of God's creation, and that was pretty cool. I appreciated the bigness of the universe and the complexity of the human eye, etc.
It's hard to describe, but I feel I have a far more profound appreciation for nature (including humanity) now that I am nontheist. I think about humanity's future (and our past) completely differently now. The possibilities for what we could become are virtually endless if we don't mess it up. I don't want to go into my personal philosophy here, but I do want to just use it as evidence that a person can find deep meaning in existence through a nontheist perspective that is completely different than anything he could imagine under a theist framework. I believe I have found deeper meaning in my version of atheism than I ever found while Catholic, and I believe others could experience the same thing. But I will not be out there trying to disprove theism or actively convert people, because I think that an organic transition to nontheism is healthier anyway.
quote:Originally posted by sndrake: *ahem* ...I immediately pointed out that pro-peace, anti-poverty, and social justice movements really were populated by religious people and they'd be pretty empty without them...
This doesn't carry any water with me. There are many religious people who believe in these Good Things, but you can't say that these movements wouldn't exist or would be weaker if those people were not religious. If religion didn't exist, there would still be a need for social justice and peace. We would still need to alleviate the horrors of poverty, and these people would still be interested in doing it. I am more involved in social justice campaigning and thinking now than I was when I was a theist, for example.
On a separate note, I hardly ever classify my beliefs as atheist (or my preferred "nontheist") anyway. I don't like thinking of my beliefs in opposition to theism, like "the other side of the coin." There is no coin.
quote:Krankykat: An interesting artical by the British publication "Guardian Unlimited" suggests/hints at Dawkin's potential monitary motives, which is, in part, a reaction to Dawkin's latest TV broadcast "The Enemies of Reason".
I think anybody who claims Dawkins is doing what he is doing for monetary or political gain is doing him a great disservice. That is as offensive as saying theist missionaries are out there, not to offer what they believe is eternal salvation, but instead just to trick people into something to increase the weekly take in the offering. It is clear to me that Dawkins has a vision of a humanity not shackled to a belief system he thinks is wrong, and it is a positive, collective vision--I believe I can tell from what he says that he is not out to just make some quid.
Posted by Flaming Toad on a Stick (Member # 9302) on :
Haha.
Posted by BlackBlade (Member # 8376) on :
Nato: Just as there are priests who are in it for the money, do not be surprised if atheists who evangelize are accused of the same crime, and eventually one is found to be guilty.
Posted by sndrake (Member # 4941) on :
quote:This doesn't carry any water with me. There are many religious people who believe in these Good Things, but you can't say that these movements wouldn't exist or would be weaker if those people were not religious. If religion didn't exist, there would still be a need for social justice and peace. We would still need to alleviate the horrors of poverty, and these people would still be interested in doing it. I am more involved in social justice campaigning and thinking now than I was when I was a theist, for example.
I realize I left out some significant context. I am working on some other stuff right now and am typing in this thread a little too quickly.
The comment that triggered my own remarks was a blanket condemnation of religious people on the political scene - period. What kind of strong emotion provoked that totally unsolicited attack on religion in this particular setting?
What you as an individual do is one thing - I work in social justice issues as well, and I am not religiously motivated either. Nevertheless, when it comes to the "lifers" in the movements promoting peace and social justice, they tend to be spiritual people.
I don't understand spirituality or belief, really. But I tend to respect it.
Posted by Teshi (Member # 5024) on :
quote:You can't not believe in God more- or you can but really the people who only kinda sorta don't believe in God are agnostic or "mostly atheist".
quote:As a died-in-the-wool agnostic, I take issue with the "sort of deist" and "sort of atheist" redefinitions of people like me.
If you were responding to me, sndrake, the "or" in my sentence is important.
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
quote:Just as there are priests who are in it for the money, do not be surprised if atheists who evangelize are accused of the same crime, and eventually one is found to be guilty.
I'm trying to imagine someone falsely claiming not to believe in God for cash, and not quite getting my head around it.
Posted by kmbboots (Member # 8576) on :
Do they make money from the books they sell?
I'm not saying that is their motivation. I'm just saying that the more people they can sway, the more books they are likely to sell.
And claiming to believe something is different from evangelizing - trying to get others to believe what you believe.
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
quote:I'm not saying that is their motivation. I'm just saying that the more people they can sway, the more books they are likely to sell.
If you're not saying that's their motivation, why is it a relevant assertion?
Posted by kmbboots (Member # 8576) on :
You said you couldn't imagine it; I was giving a possible reason. I have no way of knowing if this motivation applies to any particular person, but I don't think it is unimaginable.
Posted by Primal Curve (Member # 3587) on :
If I were into men, and, more specifically, older men, I would totally find Richard Dawkins to be incredibly sexy.
Posted by MrSquicky (Member # 1802) on :
quote:I'm trying to imagine someone falsely claiming not to believe in God for cash, and not quite getting my head around it.
There's a very active market for what Dawkins is selling. Anytime you have that, you have the potential for people to try to exploit it.
I don't know, while I don't see any signs of this in Dawkins, I think the idea of someone not really caring about evangelical atheism but thinking "Man, I could sell a lot of crap to these people." isn't outside the things I'm able to conceive.
Posted by kmbboots (Member # 8576) on :
Thank, MrSquicky. Once again you have articulated what I was thinking much better than I did.
I also, though, think there is a lot of middle ground between pure believer and pure cynic. And I think a lot of that ground is covered without really knowing it.
Posted by Ron Lambert (Member # 2872) on :
Speaking of atheism trying to nose its way into public acceptance, it will be interesting to see what kind of movie will be made of Phillip Pullman's The Golden Compass, part of Pullman's "His Dark Materials" trilogy. Pullman expresses his atheistic views in his fiction. He is most obvious in the third book of the trilogy, The Amber Spyglass, where he has a decrepit, senile, drooling old angel carried around in a protective crystal cage, who is called "The Ancient of Days." When the heroes cause his cage to be broken, so the wind can shred his wispy angelic body, he whispers "Thank you" as he dies. So the heroes kill "god."
See, this trilogy is viewed as a fairy tale, and fairy tales are generally regarded as being mainly for children. So how is American society in general going to take to fantasy for children that contains a blatant atheistic viewpoint? How far would Walt Disney have gotten if Mickey Mouse had espoused atheism?
It will be interesting to see how the producers of the Golden Compass movie handle the anti-God elements, whether they will be downplayed or what.
Pullman is a good story teller. His narrative abilities and inventiveness, are excellent. In my opinion he is better than fellow British fantasy writer C.S. Lewis, but not quite as good as J.R.R. Tolkien (both of whom he despises).
[ August 13, 2007, 06:12 PM: Message edited by: Ron Lambert ]
Posted by AvidReader (Member # 6007) on :
quote: Is there anything worth convincing someone else of, Avid?
I don't know. I like to have conversations to find out what other people believe and sometimes to find out what I believe when I look past the obvious to the stuff I didn't know I believed. Understanding the points of view is more important to me than changing someone's mind.
I also don't see people flipping out when I try to convince them Tia is a great restaurant and swear off Mexican food in general. It hits a nerve with a lot of folks, and I just don't want to misrepresent what I believe.
Plus most of my friends are in sndrake's category. It's not that they like or dislike God, it's that they don't care about the question. Why push the issue? I talk about what I believe when it comes up with the folks who don't mind hearing about it, and I leave everyone else alone. It's not like my religion is a secret. If they ever want to ask the question, my viewpoint is there for them to consider.
Posted by Krankykat (Member # 2410) on :
quote:Nato: I think anybody who claims Dawkins is doing what he is doing for monetary or political gain is doing him a great disservice.
Dawkins is hawkin' his books and CDs, his upcoming BBC program, the "new scarlet letter t-shirt" & about 20 other books by other athiest writers. In addition, his RDF foundation (whose "mission statement" is still in the works) is asking for donations (Major credit cards and pay-pal). The "RDF is now in the process of applying for charitable status."
The god Delusion has sold more than a million copies.
Like Lynch said in his artical:
quote: Dawkins's TV work is the sense in which his public advocacy of atheism is coming to look more and more like media-savvy forms of contemporary religion, particularly evangelicalism. One of the reasons evangelicalism has flourished in contemporary society is precisely the way in which it has used publishing, consumer products, educational resources, film, television and new media as resources by which its adherents can develop particular kinds of religious experiences, identities and social networks.
I am curious as to what charities Dawkins is going to support. I bet it won't be the Salvation Army.
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
quote:How far would Walt Disney have gotten if Mickey Mouse had espoused atheism?
Just to nitpick: Pullman's fiction doesn't actually espouse atheism; God very definitely exists in his work. Posted by Mucus (Member # 9735) on :
Icarus: I think I'm cool with that, as long as you're aware that you really are describing a "generic" extremist. I'm just pointing out that those attributes that you are ascribing to generic extremists hardly apply to Richard Dawkins.
Thus while you may be aware of the distinction I just pointed out, I would argue that Lynch, the author of the words that Tom was quoting (and which you subsequently responded to) is also blissfully unaware of the distinction.
kat: Our local museum, art gallery, nearby (over-the-border) PBS station, and local university also "hawk" books, CDs, television programs, t-shirts, and indeed solicit charitable donations.
I am a bit confused by Lynch's implication (and perhaps yours, although I would appreciate elaboration) that they should refrain from modern mass media simply out of spite to avoid what evangelical Christians are using. Or is your argument that books, CDs, and so forth are inherently ineffective or unwise?
Posted by Earendil18 (Member # 3180) on :
quote:Originally posted by TomDavidson:
quote:How far would Walt Disney have gotten if Mickey Mouse had espoused atheism?
Just to nitpick: Pullman's fiction doesn't actually espouse atheism; God very definitely exists in his work.
I'm going to have to re-read the books now, it seems. I was too busy conceptualizing the scenery while listening to mystical a cappella music. Posted by Icarus (Member # 3162) on :
Fair enough, Mucus.
Posted by Krankykat (Member # 2410) on :
Mucus: Where is it implied that Dawkins/athiests should refrain from media or [their] books are ineffective? I pointed out that a million+ copies of The god Delusion have sold. It seems like a popular book like that is a great money maker and an effective message spreader.
There is more evidence of the evangelical zeal of the athiest movement. Although this is not Dawkin's brain child, it has been promoted on his site since December. It is sort of opposite of a "public" testiment of faith done in front of congregations in Christian churches. Now you can denounce Christ on YouTube in front of millions as you rip pages from the Bible.
quote:The Rational Response Squad has launched a $25,000 campaign to entice young people to publicly renounce any belief in the sky God of Christianity. "The Blasphemy Challenge,"this campaign encourages participants to commit what Christian doctrine calls the only unforgivable sin -- blasphemy against the Holy Spirit. (The "Holy Spirit" is an invisible ghost who Christians believe dwells on Earth as God's representative.)
I wonder of this will ever be the rage among young people in the Islamic nations of the world?
Posted by Glenn Arnold (Member # 3192) on :
quote:This is what concerns me about the current trend of evangelism in atheism.
I don't think the current trend is toward evangalism any more than people evangelize anything: Mac/PC, Coke/Pepsi, favorite beer, best brand of car, best sports team. Within any group of people you've always got a variety of personalities, and some of them tend to evengelize their beliefs.
What has changed with atheism is simply that we've reached a point where we don't have to stay in the closet. It's very liberating to be able to wear our belief on our sleeves, if for no other reason than that it allows us to identify and talk to other atheists, and to not feel alone in a culture that's steeped in religious assumptions. If you don't want to feel like an outcast, you need to find people who have similar beliefs to your own. To do that you have to be able to identify yourself.
One of the things that I've noticed that has changed is that since atheists used to have to "pass" in a theist culture, we used to be better at seeing things from the theist perspective. Today we don't need to make an effort to disguise our beliefs, but you used to have to subconsciously check your behavior to make sure you didn't do something that would give you away. That was good practice, because in order to do it effectively, you had to take on the theist mindset. But part of what makes the newest generation of atheists seem "uppity" is simply that they haven't had that practice, and consequently, they state things very matter of factly in such a way that can be quite offensive, even if they don't mean it to be. And that can be taken for evangelism as well.
Posted by rollainm (Member # 8318) on :
"I am a bit confused by Lynch's implication (and perhaps yours, although I would appreciate elaboration) that they should refrain from modern mass media simply out of spite to avoid what evangelical Christians are using. Or is your argument that books, CDs, and so forth are inherently ineffective or unwise?"
That's an excellent question that I'd love to hear the answer to.
---
I really like KoM's categorization. I'd just like to add to that something I mentioned in another thread awhile back. I think there is an important distinction separating these two labeling terms “atheist” and “agnostic” that many seem to be unaware of (granted there are also those that just don't care, as is evidenced in this thread). Atheism concerns belief about the existence of a god while agnosticism deals with knowledge that a god does or does not exist. Knowledge and belief are obviously related in many ways (you cannot, for instance, have knowledge without belief), but they are neither synonymous nor polar opposites. It is very possible, as has been mentioned by others, for someone to believe there is no god without claiming to have knowledge that this belief is true. In this way, I am one of those that consider themselves both atheist and agnostic in respect to the existence of any god, ultimate creater, first mover, etc. Given some thought on the matter, I think nearly all of us at least on this forum could consider themselves agnostic when the term is defined simply as "without knowledge". In fact, I think the only people who claim to have knowledge that a certain god does or does not exist is defining "knowledge" a bit differently than the rest of us.
Posted by pooka (Member # 5003) on :
quote: I wonder of this will ever be the rage among young people in the Islamic nations of the world?
Probably not, at least not as long as there are folks who I imagine would kill them for it.
Not that I don't think that is a greater blasphemy- the killing in God's name, that is. P.S.(and let's just pretend you rebut me about a bunch of Christian killing in God's name and go forward).
So is there any reservation about the death toll under atheistic communist regimes?
Posted by stihl1 (Member # 1562) on :
It's obvious to me that the crucial question is, is atheism an alternative religion or an alternative TO religion? The former implies an organized belief system to that of the popular religions. In Dawkin's case, it's a religion that's anti-christian, imo.
The latter implies you just don't believe anything and just want to be left alone.
Imo, I've always thought of atheists as people who don't believe and just want to be left alone. Lately, it has become more of a religion that stands opposed to christianity for the sake of opposing christianity.
Frankly, if it were me chosing, I'd want to be left alone and allowed to think what I want. Isn't that the point? You don't want to be organized or forced to believe like everyone else?
Posted by rollainm (Member # 8318) on :
"It's obvious to me that the crucial question is, is atheism an alternative religion or an alternative TO religion?"
Or how about simply the absence of religion?
"Imo, I've always thought of atheists as people who don't believe and just want to be left alone."
Why?
Posted by rollainm (Member # 8318) on :
"Frankly, if it were me chosing, I'd want to be left alone and allowed to think what I want. Isn't that the point? You don't want to be organized or forced to believe like everyone else?"
You can make your own decisions sans the solitude. Besides, most of us as individuals don't have all the answers. We need the experience and insight of others sometimes.
Posted by Nato (Member # 1448) on :
quote:Originally posted by Primal Curve: If I were into men, and, more specifically, older men, I would totally find Richard Dawkins to be incredibly sexy.
Why hello, mrs. garrison
Krankykat, I don't believe that the fact that somebody's book is popular and that they also sell other things is any proof at all that that person is only in it for the money. Furthermore, even if he or she did recognize the profit potential of a certain position and exploit it, that does not discredit the position. I can realize that a ton of people out there want to read a book that claims 2 + 2 = 4, and even if I make a killing on it, it doesn't change the content of the book. And we have a few authors and aspiring authors on this messageboard. Ask any of them if they think Dawkins knew his book was going to sell millions of copies before he wrote it, knew well enough to bank on it. Sure, now we know his marketing was effective, and he continues to market aggressively, but I don't think that has anything to do with a primary profit motive. We just had a thread here the other day about how authors have to market their books strongly to be successful. Dawkins has written a book that is controversial because of a slightly taboo subject (so it has a high "pundit factor"), that makes strong claims, and is about a topic that is of high import, and he has marketed it well. So?
Posted by Krankykat (Member # 2410) on :
Nato:
quote:...is any proof at all that that person [Dawkins] is only in it for the money.
Who ever said "only in it for the money?" But Dawkins has become a millionare off of his athiestic rantings.
Krank
Posted by rollainm (Member # 8318) on :
"But Dawkins has become a millionare off of his athiestic rantings."
I feel compelled to quote Nato: So?
The only reason I can imagine mentioning this is to allude to the possibility that his intentions are somehow morally unacceptable. What exactly do you think makes them so?
Posted by Mucus (Member # 9735) on :
kat: Lynch makes this implication very clearly. He pretty much declares by fiat that Dawkins is evangelical by virtue of using mass media and then somehow (this step is unclear to me) declares that this form of atheism is militant and hates "imagined" religious others and could threaten societies "fragile cohension".
Thus, it seems that the only way Dawkins could avoid being labelled as militant is to avoid modern mass media since Lynch carefully avoids exploring any specific ideas of Dawkins.
Your position is more unclear, which is why I specifically asked for elaboration.
If you share his position, perhaps you could answer my question. If you do not, thats cool too, and I would pose my question to the thread in general.
--
pooka: It would depend on whether the death toll was due to the victims opposition to communism or their opposition to atheism (or perhaps, neither).
--
stihl1: Neither. Both since atheist religions exist and since atheism on its own is no more a "system of beliefs" than a carburetor is a car.
I'd also note that not everything is about Christianity. As I noted on the first page, Dawkin's target is at much bigger than Christianity. It is bigger in the sense that he specifically targets a Creator god which would cover Islam, Judaism, Christianity, and so forth. I could certainly make the case that he is much harsher on Islam than Christianity.
Posted by Nato (Member # 1448) on :
quote:Originally posted by Krankykat: Nato: Who ever said "only in it for the money?" But Dawkins has become a millionare off of his athiestic rantings.
Krank
This is the second time you've backed off in this thread saying you didn't ever say what you implied.
Here, you also respond to my statement (paraphrased), "making lots of money from writing something doesn't mean you're wrong" with "but he made a lot of money". What are you trying to say? Are you indeed trying to undermine Dawkins' credibility on this matter by introducing the possible profit motivation? If you're not trying to undermine Dawkins' credibility, why did you post this thread and include this information?
Posted by Mucus (Member # 9735) on :
kat: I'd also add that I'd like to see where you found the information that Dawkins became a millionaire from his latest book.
While he probably is a millionaire, I strongly suspect that he became a millionaire from his salaried position as a professor at Oxford combined with his first five books on evolution (the first of which also sold a million copies) long before the publication of his latest book and its "atheistic rantings".
Posted by Krankykat (Member # 2410) on :
Nato: I really don't know what you want me to say, but I will give it a try.
Dawkins surely is passionate and sincere with his message that god does not exist. He is also making a bunch of money, too. So much he has set up a foundation and is trying to get tax exempt status. This is something rich people do to avoid paying taxes.
Do I agree with Dawkins? No I don't. Do I think he has a right to say it? Yes I do. Do I believe in God of the Bible? Yes I do. Am I trying to undermine Dawkins credibility? I doubt me posting on Hatrack will even make a blip on Dawkins' credibility scale. Why did I post this thread? Because I thought Lynch had an interesting pov with his comparison between Dawkins & TV evangelists which might lead to interesting discourse.
Nato, did I clear things up for you?
Krank
EDIT- Mucus: I did the math in my head. A million books sold will make the author a millionare. I guess I should have said his latest book has made him a multi-milloinare. Like you said Dawkins already had 5 books published...
[ August 14, 2007, 01:33 AM: Message edited by: Krankykat ]
Posted by Nato (Member # 1448) on :
quote:Originally posted by Krankykat: Nato: I really don't know what you want me to say, but I will give it a try.
Dawkins surely is passionate and sincere with his message that god does not exist. He is also making a bunch of money, too. So much he has set up a foundation and is trying to get tax exempt status. This is something rich people do to avoid paying taxes.
Do I agree with Dawkins? No I don't. Do I think he has a right to say it? Yes I do. Do I believe in God of the Bible? Yes I do. Am I trying to undermine Dawkins credibility? I doubt me posting on Hatrack will even make a blip on Dawkins' credibility scale. Why did I post this thread? Because I thought Lynch had an interesting pov with his comparison between Dawkins & TV evangelists which might lead to interesting discourse.
Nato, did I clear things up for you?
Krank
I was basically asking if you believed Dawkins was insincere in his statements because of a possible profit motive, so this post did clear up one thing for me.
Many nonprofit organizations seek tax exempt status. [url= http://"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/501%28c%29"]Here's the Wikipedia page on 501(c) organizations[/url], referring to a section of the US tax code that allows certain types of nonprofit to be exempt from some income taxes. (I don't know much about the UK system, so if it varies so substantially that rich people seeking tax shelters are the primary people to seek tax-exempt status, I might be wrong). I think nonprofits that seek to improve public wellbeing in their own way(aimed at specific needs, employing specific methods) are the primary seekers of tax-exempt status, and I don't see why an organization like Dawkins' is any different.
quote:Among its planned activities, RDFRS will finance research into the psychology of belief and religion, finance scientific education programs and materials, and publicize and support secular charitable organizations.
If you take them at their word (and if you are going to apply any other standard, please explain why), why do you think this is an attempt at a tax shelter?
As far as your reason for posting this thread, to highlight the comparison between Dawkins' techniques and those of evangelical religious organizations, I don't think it is very surprising, and I don't think it says anything significant about Dawkins. Multimedia marketing of your memes is what is necessary in this culture to propagate ideas, so it does not surprise me at all that both evangelical religious groups and antireligious groups use these techniques.
I am not on Dawkins' crusade. I don't think it is very effective on the individual level, although perhaps it will help create a more forgiving environment for somebody to "come out" as a nontheist, and that would be nice. Both these points have been mentioned a couple times in this thread.
Posted by dean (Member # 167) on :
quote:Originally posted by stihl1: It's obvious to me that the crucial question is, is atheism an alternative religion or an alternative TO religion? The former implies an organized belief system to that of the popular religions. In Dawkin's case, it's a religion that's anti-christian, imo.
The latter implies you just don't believe anything and just want to be left alone.
Imo, I've always thought of atheists as people who don't believe and just want to be left alone. Lately, it has become more of a religion that stands opposed to christianity for the sake of opposing christianity.
Frankly, if it were me chosing, I'd want to be left alone and allowed to think what I want. Isn't that the point? You don't want to be organized or forced to believe like everyone else?
I guess I see somewhat differently. Atheism isn't my religion. It's my philosophy on religion. My position, if you will, in regards to religion.
But it's not really enough to be "left alone to think what I want." I would like my philosophy to be respected as a valid choice-- even if it's not a philosophy that you share--, something that I don't have to hide. Something that's not an automatic impediment to public office. I would like to not have to life my life in a closet.
I guess from my perspective, what I really want is to be able to talk as freely about my beliefs as it seems that Christians are. No one is obligated to agree with me, but I would like to be able to, say, join in on conversations about current events, by offering my opinion, without people acting as though I'm out to destroy the world or that I'm only pretending to believe what I believe for some nefarious purpose. I would like for people to feel as obligated to be respectful towards my beliefs as they are about other beliefs that they don't hold.
I would like my atheism to be treated, perhaps, the same way that I or someone else might treat a vegetarian. If I were to meet a vegetarian, I might ask them how they became a vegetarian or what they eat. I might say, "I don't think I could ever do that." I would feel free to eat meat in front of them, but I wouldn't sneak meat onto their plates.
Too often as an atheist in the US, I get the feeling that most of my acquaintances respond to the knowledge that I'm an atheist by trying to do the analogous thing to sneaking meat onto a vegetarian's plate, perhaps from the idea that if I only tried it, I would like it.
Posted by Strider (Member # 1807) on :
quote:It's obvious to me that the crucial question is, is atheism an alternative religion or an alternative TO religion? The former implies an organized belief system to that of the popular religions. In Dawkin's case, it's a religion that's anti-christian, imo.
The latter implies you just don't believe anything and just want to be left alone.
man...so much disagree with here! where to begin? atheism is neither an alternate religion OR an alternative to religion(in the sense you mean i think). atheism is simply a statement about a person's non-belief in a deity. that's all.
Dawkins isn't anti christian either. he's anti religion. he believes all religious beliefs hurt our society, not just christian ones.
why should not believing in a deity necessitate someone "just wanting to be left alone"? It just means that i don't believe in god. But I still crave social interaction and a sense of community. I still want to live a good moral life based on whatever values are important to me. I might seek out other atheists in an attempt to come together and discuss the best ways of doing this, though this isn't necessary.
I'd also like to take a crack at maybe explaining a bit about why Dawkins might be doing what he's doing now. Having read a decent amount of his books that have now spanned over 30 years of writing, I have a pretty good idea of his views and how he's expressed them over time and how they've changed. Dawkins was always obviously an atheist. It comes out in The Selfish Gene, and The Blind Watchmaker was a book who's purpose was to squash the idea of intelligent design by showing how the process of evolution most definitely did not "intelligently" design anything. Dawkins took a lot of heat from religious folk about these books. In his republication of these books he responds to a lot of this criticism, and you can tell he was extremely frustrated with constantly being attacked.
Some of the books he published after this seem like they are in response, or at least prompted in part, by all this. Climbing Mount Improbable dealt with "probability and how it applies to the theory of evolution, and specifically is designed to debunk claims by creationists about the probability of naturalistic mechanisms like natural selection producing complex organisms."(from wikipedia) Unweaving the Rainbow was a book that attempted to show that science doesn't explain away the mystery and magic of the world thus making it mundane and boring, but that scientific understanding of the world can be beautiful and awe inspiring. The Devil's Chaplain was a book of collected essays dealing with religion, evolution, society, science and more. I think all these books grew out of experiences Dawkins had from writing his earlier works.
But so far he had never gone out of his way to attack religion I don't think. That all changed on September 11th.
"Many of us saw religion as harmless nonsense. Beliefs might lack all supporting evidence but, we thought, if people needed a crutch for consolation, where's the harm? September 11th changed all that. Revealed faith is not harmless nonsense, it can be lethally dangerous nonsense. Dangerous because it gives people unshakeable confidence in their own righteousness. Dangerous because it gives them false courage to kill themselves, which automatically removes normal barriers to killing others. Dangerous because it teaches enmity to others labelled only by a difference of inherited tradition. And dangerous because we have all bought into a weird respect, which uniquely protects religion from normal criticism. Let's now stop being so damned respectful!"
I think The God Delusion grew out of a response to that, as well as a long building up of resentment over constantly being attacked for his attempts to bring a clearer understanding of science and evolution to the public. Particularly by religious folk who wanted to invoke god or religious text to counter his writings. Atheism and atheist writing has been more popular in general recently and I think since the publication of the book everything has served to fuel the fire more. Dawkins has become the leader of the atheist movement, whether he wanted to or not, and I think he's just trying to do the best job he can with his new role.
That said, I would personally rather see Dawkins spend more time working to bring general scientific understanding to the public, rather than trying to convert people to atheism. I think someone already said it on this thread, but my journey to atheism took a long time and felt very organic. it came about through years of reading physics, and biology(evolution), learning about different religions, philosophizing, etc...and i appreciate my position much more now and truly believe it through and through. bombarding someone with a bunch of atheist talking points, might get the job done, but i don't know if it's as effective.
Posted by Nato (Member # 1448) on :
quote:why should not believing in a deity necessitate someone "just wanting to be left alone"? It just means that i don't believe in god. But I still crave social interaction and a sense of community. I still want to live a good moral life based on whatever values are important to me. I might seek out other atheists in an attempt to come together and discuss the best ways of doing this, though this isn't necessary.
I agree completely. (On a side note, if you ever need a place to stay in Oregon, I'd love to visit with you, hang out and have some fun)
Posted by Andrew W (Member # 4172) on :
I hate to get dragged into anything... and I probably won't since I have only the slightest interest in this - but Dawkin's is probably best described as a fundamental evangelical atheist.
I don't want to labour the point, (though I could spend my time dragging up endless examples) but R.D. does seem to despise most religious people, either tarring them with the same brush as extremists, or criticising them as 'betraying faith as much as they betray reason' - i.e. being a moderate. He's 100% convinced of his position, and feels that his 'arguments' are overwhelmingly convincing, which is a pity since he has the philosophical talent and understanding of a Bible Belt homeschooled (and I mean in the bad way) numpty like Jack Chick (with a little less of the frothing at the mouth crazy).
He's a good - nay - very good scientist, and has done some impressive work, but he feels qualified to talk about things he clearly knows little about, and that's a real, real pity. He misses every target - takes down only the most stupid and useless of the opposition - but then tars the rest with the same brush and declares victory.
Even my most die hard, militant atheist biologist friend doesn't bother to defend him from these types of accusations, as there is no defence except to admit that he's a right twat, with little philosophical merit behind his bitter, hate-or-sneer filled forays out of the field of biology.
Posted by Andrew W (Member # 4172) on :
p.s. - I've never been entirely sure why people insist on complicating the definitions of words like atheist, agnostic etc when it seems so simple to do it like this:-
Since no-one actually knows anything (beyond perhaps the fact that they themselves exist in some way or another) - there seems little reason to bother with 'knowledge' as that is clearly a grandiose way of terming 'belief', therefore there can only really be three categories:
Atheist - believes there is no God Agnostic - does not know if there is a God or not Theist/Religious - believes there is/believes in a religion
easy as pie - when asked the God question you either reply positively, negatively or you don't know - there is no other option.
AW
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
quote: Atheist - believes there is no God Agnostic - does not know if there is a God or not Theist/Religious - believes there is/believes in a religion
Most of the self-described agnostics I know are atheists by that definition. I'm okay with that, but I'd revise it as follows:
quote: Atheist - believes there is no God Agnostic - believes that the issue of whether a god exists or not cannot be resolved Theist - believes there is a God
Posted by kmbboots (Member # 8576) on :
Andrew, that is not quite true.
It is more complicated than that. You can choose to believe even while acknowledging that there can be no objective proof.
Which leaves room for acknowledging that other people can make valid choices that may be different from yours.
This is where I see evangelical atheism making the same mistakes as evangelical anything else. They seem to be going past wanting the freedom to believe what they do to wanting other people to believe as they do. Worse, to thinking that other people should believe as they do. And are starting to use tactics such as derision and contempt (see "sky god" reference).
Posted by Mucus (Member # 9735) on :
Andrew W: See, thats just silly. As was pointed out on the first page, he could hardly be considered fundamentalist when he has clearly shown what evidence would be required to change his mind. Similarly, separating out what you declare by fiat is the strength of his argument or his extremism, you have never mentioned any actual advocated policy of his that could considered extreme.
There is a very good reason for this. When it comes to his actual ideas, he is actually fairly mainstream. Douglas Adams has pretty much exactly the same views as he does and I've never heard him as being accused as being extremist. Isaac Asimov gave a glowing review of The Blind Watchmaker with the same lack of criticism. I could list a great number of scientists and writers that share his ideas.
The only difference is in how he expresses those ideas and how vocal he is. Most atheists and agnostics who criticize him never have a problem with what he is saying, but simply how he is saying it.
In addition, thats why those who call him "extremist" can never point to a specific policy of his that is actually extreme. There are none! However, they believe that if they say that he is extremist often enough, then people will believe it regardless.
Here is a very good example of what I'm getting at link There is a mild language warning at the end of the anecdote.
Posted by Xavier (Member # 405) on :
quote:Most of the self-described agnostics I know are atheists by that definition. I'm okay with that, but I'd revise it as follows:
quote: Atheist - believes there is no God Agnostic - believes that the issue of whether a god exists or not cannot be resolved Theist - believes there is a God
My problem with this is that, to me, "believes there is no God" and "does not believe there is a God" have different meanings. I would self-identify with the latter, but not necessarily the former.
Posted by Strider (Member # 1807) on :
I sort of agree with Tyson there. And if you've seen the whole Beyond Belief conference, I also think Tyson's lecture was one of the most interesting and thought provoking.
I really thoroughly enjoyed all those lectures and what that conference was trying to do. They put a bunch of atheists and agnostics, all scientists, in a room together and had them talk about the best ways of getting their message across to the public. Obviously there was some disagreement about how to go about that, and it made for some fascinating debates. I think both sides have some extremely valid points.
Posted by King of Men (Member # 6684) on :
quote:Originally posted by Andrew W: Even my most die hard, militant atheist biologist friend doesn't bother to defend him from these types of accusations, as there is no defence except to admit that he's a right twat, with little philosophical merit behind his bitter, hate-or-sneer filled forays out of the field of biology.
Wow. Talk about the kettle and the pot. Dude, didn't your mother teach you to go for the ball and not the man? How about you try to find some example of these 'hate-or-sneer-filled forays'?
Posted by sndrake (Member # 4941) on :
quote: why should not believing in a deity necessitate someone "just wanting to be left alone"? It just means that i don't believe in god. But I still crave social interaction and a sense of community. I still want to live a good moral life based on whatever values are important to me. I might seek out other atheists in an attempt to come together and discuss the best ways of doing this, though this isn't necessary.
I know that for me this is not only unnecessary, it's irrelevant. I attach little importance to that part of my identity - it's pretty far down on the list (which is another thing that tends to separate me from evangelical types of the believing and nonbelieving varieties).
At one point in my life, someone suggested that I check out a Unitarian Church as a way of being part of a community. It just never made any sense - I know that the Unitarians have a lot of agnostics in their ranks, but why would I want to devote time and relationships around that part of me?
There are things much more important to me than worrying about a supreme being or an afterlife. My life is built around those things.
Posted by kmbboots (Member # 8576) on :
As an aside, I have been a religious person and have hung around other religious people of various denominations for the better part of forty years. To the best of my recollection, the only place I personally have heard evolution seriously disputed is here.
I believe all these scary people are out there. Some of them are running for national office. I just don't run across them in real life.
It is a somewhat surreal disconnect.
Posted by Strider (Member # 1807) on :
quote:I know that for me this is not only unnecessary, it's irrelevant. I attach little importance to that part of my identity - it's pretty far down on the list (which is another thing that tends to separate me from evangelical types of the believing and nonbelieving varieties).
At one point in my life, someone suggested that I check out a Unitarian Church as a way of being part of a community. It just never made any sense - I know that the Unitarians have a lot of agnostics in their ranks, but why would I want to devote time and relationships around that part of me?
There are things much more important to me than worrying about a supreme being or an afterlife. My life is built around those things.
sndrake, i'm not sure how anything you said refutes anything i said. my point was simply that atheism is a statement of a lack of belief in a deity. Any questions about the importance of worrying about a supreme being or an afterlife are irrelevant to that. I personally find thinking about those topics and discussing them interesting and thought provoking, if that's not your cup of tea, so be it.
though i don't see how not believing in a deity is "irrelevant" to your life or identity. where do you get your morals and ethics from. do you get them from religion? if not, then the fact that you don't believe in a deity is pretty relevant to your identity in that it in some way shapes the way you live your life and treat other people. I'm not trying to focus on the "atheist" part of this. I don't specifically seek out atheists to be a part of a "non-believing" group. the important part isn't that we all don't believe in god. the important part for me is developing a moral framework that isn't based on religious dogma but that comes from empathy and interaction with other people. An ethics that is based on an understanding of how the universe works, how and why we came to be here, how and why we function the way we do as human beings. My atheism is relevant to me in the sense that I never stop searching for answers, that I don't have any holy writ that steers my judgment one way or another. Take what you will from that.
Posted by Strider (Member # 1807) on :
quote:As an aside, I have been a religious person and have hung around other religious people of various denominations for the better part of forty years. To the best of my recollection, the only place I personally have heard evolution seriously disputed is here.
I believe all these scary people are out there. Some of them are running for national office. I just don't run across them in real life.
It is a somewhat surreal disconnect.
kmbboots, your post just made me think of something that happened last week. Did you read any articles about the archeological find that homo habilis and homo erectus probably co-existed at the same time? Link . Well some people I work with were talking about it and one of them then turned to me and said, "so i guess this blows that whole we evolved from monkey's theory out of the water right?" This is the state of evolutionary knowledge among our general populace. I spent like 30 minutes explaining what that article was saying and giving a general rundown of evolution, and I don't think it made much of a dent. The majority of americans are just plain hostile to the idea.
Posted by Ron Lambert (Member # 2872) on :
Earendil18, TomDavidson, I just finished reading the "His Dark Materials" trilogy by Phillip Pullman within the past month, so it is pretty fresh in my mind. I do not recall anywhere in any of the three novels where a positive statement is made that God exists. I remember some statements that are qualified with "if He exists." There are several statements that someone who claimed to be the Creator was not really the Creator. There was once even a qualification to that, "if a Creator is really necessary."
But one thing Pullman does in spite of himself, is present good behavior and bad behavior, faithful and loving relationships, etc., that are essentially Christian in premise. To write a novel in which everything, every character, every behavior, were truly atheistic (meaning all morality must be relativistic), would produce a really strange story, that probably no one in today's world would be able to relate to.
As for atheism becoming evangelical, I have to maintain that everyone has a right to promote what they believe. Then let the best ideas win in the free marketplace of ideas.
This is why I have little regard for Islam, when every nation it dominates has laws forbidding evangelism, and imposing a death penalty on any Moslem who converts to Christianity. This is a virtual admission of inferiority by Moslems, a recognition that given a free choice, most people will prefer Christianity.
Parents do have a right to educate their children in the belief system they prefer, and shield them from belief systems they abominate; but this ends when the child reaches the age of moral accountability, and is able to choose for himself what he will believe.
Posted by King of Men (Member # 6684) on :
quote:were truly atheistic (meaning all morality must be relativistic),
That-does-not-follow, as you well know.
Posted by kmbboots (Member # 8576) on :
Strider, I believe you. I just never meet those people. Except here.
Posted by Strider (Member # 1807) on :
can i move in with you? it would remove a lot of heartache from my life.
Posted by MrSquicky (Member # 1802) on :
According to National Geographic, around a third of the people in the US say that it is false and around 21% aren't sure. The only western-type country that has worse numbers than that is Turkey.
Posted by kmbboots (Member # 8576) on :
Of course! Say...you wouldn't happen to like doing dishes and dusting, would you...?
edit: I remember when, in fourth or fifth grade, we studied evolution. I was a religious kid - mostly on my own as my parents wanted us to find our own religious path. Anyway, I puzzled over the difference between Genesis and my textbook for less than an hour before coming to the conclusion that Genesis was not meant literally.
I still find it bizarre that adults don't reach what seemed to me to be crystal clear even to a 10 year old.
That was as close as religion and science have ever come to being in conflict for me.
Posted by MattP (Member # 10495) on :
quote:I'm not trying to focus on the "atheist" part of this. I don't specifically seek out atheists to be a part of a "non-believing" group. the important part isn't that we all don't believe in god. the important part for me is developing a moral framework that isn't based on religious dogma but that comes from empathy and interaction with other people.
There are plenty of people that do not put much effort into these matters and just go with the flow. Thankfully, a reasonable morality develops in most people that grow up in modern culture, or at least one that is reasonable to that culture.
I can understand that someone might consider philosophical introspection a low priority if they don't perceive an aspect of their lives which such pondering might improve.
Posted by Foust (Member # 3043) on :
It's rare that I come across an essay that I'm basically willing to let speak for me, but Terry Eagleton's "Lunging, Flailing, Mispunching" pretty much sums up what I think about Dawkins and the other "new atheists."
The first two paragraphs are fist-pumping-in-the-air strong truth.
quote:Imagine someone holding forth on biology whose only knowledge of the subject is the Book of British Birds, and you have a rough idea of what it feels like to read Richard Dawkins on theology. Card-carrying rationalists like Dawkins, who is the nearest thing to a professional atheist we have had since Bertrand Russell, are in one sense the least well-equipped to understand what they castigate, since they don’t believe there is anything there to be understood, or at least anything worth understanding. This is why they invariably come up with vulgar caricatures of religious faith that would make a first-year theology student wince. The more they detest religion, the more ill-informed their criticisms of it tend to be. If they were asked to pass judgment on phenomenology or the geopolitics of South Asia, they would no doubt bone up on the question as assiduously as they could. When it comes to theology, however, any shoddy old travesty will pass muster. These days, theology is the queen of the sciences in a rather less august sense of the word than in its medieval heyday.
Dawkins on God is rather like those right-wing Cambridge dons who filed eagerly into the Senate House some years ago to non-placet Jacques Derrida for an honorary degree. Very few of them, one suspects, had read more than a few pages of his work, and even that judgment might be excessively charitable. Yet they would doubtless have been horrified to receive an essay on Hume from a student who had not read his Treatise of Human Nature. There are always topics on which otherwise scrupulous minds will cave in with scarcely a struggle to the grossest prejudice. For a lot of academic psychologists, it is Jacques Lacan; for Oxbridge philosophers it is Heidegger; for former citizens of the Soviet bloc it is the writings of Marx; for militant rationalists it is religion.
Posted by MattP (Member # 10495) on :
Dawkins gets that response a lot. Here is his reply:
quote:There's a common refrain in the criticisms of Dawkins' The God Delusion that I've taken to categorizing with my own private title—it's so common, to the point of near-unanimous universality, that I've decided to share it with you all.
I call it the Courtier's Reply. It refers to the aftermath of a fable.
I have considered the impudent accusations of Mr Dawkins with exasperation at his lack of serious scholarship. He has apparently not read the detailed discourses of Count Roderigo of Seville on the exquisite and exotic leathers of the Emperor's boots, nor does he give a moment's consideration to Bellini's masterwork, On the Luminescence of the Emperor's Feathered Hat. We have entire schools dedicated to writing learned treatises on the beauty of the Emperor's raiment, and every major newspaper runs a section dedicated to imperial fashion; Dawkins cavalierly dismisses them all. He even laughs at the highly popular and most persuasive arguments of his fellow countryman, Lord D. T. Mawkscribbler, who famously pointed out that the Emperor would not wear common cotton, nor uncomfortable polyester, but must, I say must, wear undergarments of the finest silk.
Dawkins arrogantly ignores all these deep philosophical ponderings to crudely accuse the Emperor of nudity.
Personally, I suspect that perhaps the Emperor might not be fully clothed — how else to explain the apparent sloth of the staff at the palace laundry — but, well, everyone else does seem to go on about his clothes, and this Dawkins fellow is such a rude upstart who lacks the wit of my elegant circumlocutions, that, while unable to deal with the substance of his accusations, I should at least chide him for his very bad form.
Until Dawkins has trained in the shops of Paris and Milan, until he has learned to tell the difference between a ruffled flounce and a puffy pantaloon, we should all pretend he has not spoken out against the Emperor's taste. His training in biology may give him the ability to recognize dangling genitalia when he sees it, but it has not taught him the proper appreciation of Imaginary Fabrics.
The gist is that, regardless of the nuances of any specific sect and his familiarity, or lack thereof, with these nuances, there is a set of basic core assertions common to the most popular revealed religious traditions which are unsupported by evidence.
Posted by kmbboots (Member # 8576) on :
How charming.
What he seems to miss is that, for many people, "evidence" is not the point.
Which he might have learned if he weren't finding it so much more fun to pull apart the worst aspects of religion.
And, heck, anybody can do that.
Posted by King of Men (Member # 6684) on :
There is no possible nuance of theology that can get around the central fact of theist belief:
"We believe that there exists a god."
Dawkins disagrees with this. No theologist, however learned, can dance around this point. It doesn't matter what you believe about the nature of this god, its commandments to humanity, its fine moral sensibility and habit of bathing three times daily; Dawkins' quarrel with you is that he does not believe it exists, and that has nothing to do with theology.
The example of Asian geopolitics misses the point: Dawkins would presumably agree that South Asia actually exists, and hence he would want to know something when discussing it. If you were to ask him about the geopolitics of Atlantis, however, I think you might find him dismissing your question without having studied it very much; and so would you, if you are honest. He would not be ashamed of his lack of learning about Atlantean customs and economics, because there is nothing to learn. The subject matter of the study does not exist. And so also with theology.
Posted by King of Men (Member # 6684) on :
quote:Originally posted by kmbboots: How charming.
What he seems to miss is that, for many people, "evidence" is not the point.
Which he might have learned if he weren't finding it so much more fun to pull apart the worst aspects of religion.
And, heck, anybody can do that.
What you seem to miss is that "Evidence not being the point" is the worst aspect of religion. To not demand evidence of extraordinary assertions reduces you to the level of a child, who will blithely swallow the candy that the nice man gave them, and get in the car.
Posted by Mucus (Member # 9735) on :
Just for the record, that is not Dawkin's reply. Thats actually PZ Myers' reply, although Dawkins has quoted it before. link
I would expand on that summary to add that another big point that the replay is making is that no one seriously expects this standard to be applied to anything but Christianity.
Orson Scott Card often rails against elitists in English writing classes who simply dismiss contributions to literature from people "not in the field." You can simply read one of those rants to see the parallel.
It is not that Dawkins ideas are actually wrong. Instead, the claim is that he's a biologist and not a theologian, and thus his ideas are *automatically* wrong.
This is just silly. No one expects Christians to know every Greek myth before their atheism in respect to Zeus and Venus can be justified.
Posted by Foust (Member # 3043) on :
Yeah, I saw a video of Dawkins reading that bit to a debate audience. The story plays with a stacked deck, though. The emperor's naked body is verifiable by Dawkins' standards, while the non-existence of God isn't.
Dawkins also has a habit of making statements about what Christians believe and of the content of the Bible. What he focuses on, however, is the most base, vulgar, common form possible. Much of Dawkins' logic and many of his arguments depend upon a certain understanding of religion and therefore a certain understanding of systematic theology -- but no such explicit understanding is on display.
For that parable to be more accurate, Dawkins would have to come from a land that had never before seen clothes. No experience with clothes at all. He'd then be very careful and selective in his education about clothes, perhaps coming to the conclusion that a coffee cup is meant to be worn like a glove or that bras are actually slingshots. His opinion on whether or not the emperor is clothed would then be worth considerably less.
Posted by kmbboots (Member # 8576) on :
Yes. I understood his whimsical little analogy.
The definitions of "God" and even "believe" and possibly "exists" are open to interpretation and matter to the discussion.
He, from what I can tell, is arguing proof where no proof is relevant or applicable. He is arguing science on a topic that is outside of the realm of science.
He is, in other words, missing the point.
Posted by orlox (Member # 2392) on :
I wrote a response to Eagleton/Dawkins on another forum. Specifically, to Eagleton's statement just two paragraphs further:
quote:But this is a mistake: to claim that science and religion pose different questions to the world is not to suggest that if the bones of Jesus were discovered in Palestine, the pope should get himself down to the dole queue as fast as possible. It is rather to claim that while faith, rather like love, must involve factual knowledge, it is not reducible to it. For my claim to love you to be coherent, I must be able to explain what it is about you that justifies it; but my bank manager might agree with my dewy-eyed description of you without being in love with you himself.
I see this assertion as essentially the same as the philosopher Chalmers argument that materialism cannot explain consciousness.
My essay, if it is of interest:
A great thread with great links and great comments. I really love you guys!
Unfortunately, that love IS reducible.
The most persistent justification that materialism is insufficient is that it seems insufficient. Given materialism’s unrivaled success, one might expect the focus to fall on ‘seems’ rather than ‘insufficient’ but we are an ungrateful lot.
Love is not reducible to material facts. Seemingly.
I could provide you every nuanced fact and detail related to my beloved but that would not necessarily cause you to love her. And if you did, that love would not be the same as mine. Even if love is dependent on those material facts, it is not reducible to them. The same argument is offered for faith.
Yet love and faith are central to being human. They are profoundly causal. So materialism is insufficient to explain causation, to explain faith, to explain love.
God is love. God is causation. He is both transcendent and immanent: Beyond observation but plainly obvious.
Or so it seems.
Essentially the same argument has also been made by some philosophers of consciousness such as Chalmers. Why stop at love, faith and causation? All of human experience is not reducible to the material facts. There is something about the redness of red, the experience of redness, which cannot be reduced to the material stimulus of the real world and the neurological components of visualization. Qualia, as it were. Life is beautiful.
Chalmers calls for an “extra ingredient” as do the better theologians. For Chalmers consciousness and experience are extra, not reducible to material and therefore fundamental. For theologians god, love and faith are extra, not reducible to material and therefore fundamental. You can add your own fundamental extra ingredient to the universe! Materialism, after all, can explain red but not the redness of red.
The first thing that needs to be parsed is the difference between ‘not reducible to’ and ‘irreducible’.
Irreducible is an adjective. It requires that there be something remaining that can no longer be simplified. In this way, we discover the fundamental.
‘Not reducible to’ is a much more slippery construction but it does not equal ‘irreducible’ nor does it identify the fundamental.
Love, consciousness and experience are reducible. Leaving aside what they can or cannot be reduced to, it is plain that each can be reduced. They are complex phenomena, each with easily identified components. That which is fundamental, in an empirical sense, does not have components, by definition.
The supposedly fundamental nature of these things springs from the idea that each is more than the sum of its components. So in a grand feat of supposition it is concluded that if we could strip away the material substance there would be something left fundamental to the phenomena that was non-material.
The materialists and non-materialists make the same mistake here in thinking that substance alone is a tenable analytical concept. Substance is not sensible when divorced from process. Even if we can imagine something standing outside of time, we cannot sensibly imagine how that might be accomplished. And that is certainly not how we discover the universe to be.
We regard a universe in process. We are embedded in time, in process, and there is no sensible way to imagine ourselves, or the universe, otherwise. We once thought of space and time as separable concepts but have come to understand there is only spacetime. Still, the old division is lively in our analytical concepts. Much like we still think of the sun rising and setting even though we know that it does no such thing.
In viewing love, consciousness and experience as process (or substance in process if you prefer) rather than substance (alone), we can see that whatever is ‘extra’ is higher-level phenomena not fundamental. What is lacking is not a non-material ingredient but a better explanation of how these higher-level phenomenon emerge from lower level processes. That love is made, consciousness arises and experience is had, is not debated, even by Chalmers.
If the non-problematic material universe cannot be sensibly thought of as merely substance, then an “extra ingredient” that is somehow non-material is doubly nonsensical. Instead of correcting materialism’s conceptual error, it is compounded.
Posted by Strider (Member # 1807) on :
quote:For that parable to be more accurate, Dawkins would have to come from a land that had never before seen clothes. No experience with clothes at all. He'd then be very careful and selective in his education about clothes, perhaps coming to the conclusion that a coffee cup is meant to be worn like a glove or that bras are actually slingshots. His opinion on whether or not the emperor is clothed would then be worth considerably less.
so the fact that i was raised jewish, went to an orthodox jewish school for 8 years, and understand the jewish community gives me the right fully criticize religion from my new atheist mentality, but Dawkins can't because he was never a member of any particular religion?
quote:He, from what I can tell, is arguing proof where no proof is relevant or applicable. He is arguing science on a topic that is outside of the realm of science.
I understand why many religious folk believe this, but i see no inherent reason for the topic of god to be outside the realm of science. the only thing that makes it outside the realm of science are the claims that are made in holy books and what many of it's members believe based on the claims of those holy books. Science is just a way of asking questions about the world working under the philosophy that all events are ultimately explainable. That the universe functions under certain constraints and rules and that all events that happen within said universe are subject to those laws. I see no reason why religion and god should get a free pass to be outside the realm of critical analysis, nothing else does.
Posted by Foust (Member # 3043) on :
quote:There is no possible nuance of theology that can get around the central fact of theist belief:
"We believe that there exists a god."
Actually, it's not that simple. "Existence" is an ontological catagory that can be surprisingly tricky. Arguments over what "being" is have been going on for hundreds of years; they have become nuanced and delicate. Just because these distinctions and concerns don't filter into a popular audience doesn't mean that a serious, penetrating, non-casual discussion of God can ignore them. See: the Scholastic tradition, negative theology, God Without Being.
quote:If you were to ask him about the geopolitics of Atlantis, however, I think you might find him dismissing your question without having studied it very much; and so would you, if you are honest.
There is a vast difference between saying "God talk is meaningless" and "God talk does not exist." Your argument here confuses "Atlantis talk is meaningless" with "Atlantis talk does not exist."
Orlox, there's materialism, and then there's materialism, you know what I mean? Richard Dawkins' scientific/popular materialism is light years apart from a more philosophical materialism, which is not reducible to chattering endlessly about matter and energy. I'm talking here about the tradition that runs Lucretious -> Hobbes -> Spinoza -> Marx -> Althusseur -> Deleuze, etc.
Posted by Foust (Member # 3043) on :
quote:so the fact that i was raised jewish, went to an orthodox jewish school for 8 years, and understand the jewish community gives me the right fully criticize religion from my new atheist mentality, but Dawkins can't because he was never a member of any particular religion?
Critique to the extent that you understand. The problem is that Dawkins shows very little understanding.
Posted by kmbboots (Member # 8576) on :
quote:Originally posted by Strider:
quote:He, from what I can tell, is arguing proof where no proof is relevant or applicable. He is arguing science on a topic that is outside of the realm of science.
I understand why many religious folk believe this, but i see no inherent reason for the topic of god to be outside the realm of science. the only thing that makes it outside the realm of science are the claims that are made in holy books and what many of it's members believe based on the claims of those holy books.
That is not true, in my experience. Scripture is one record of our relationship with the Divine.
quote:
Science is just a way of asking questions about the world working under the philosophy that all events are ultimately explainable.
Are they?
quote:
That the universe functions under certain constraints and rules and that all events that happen within said universe are subject to those laws.
And why would it do that?
quote:
I see no reason why religion and god should get a free pass to be outside the realm of critical analysis.
And I see no reason why it shouldn't. That something is beyond our capability to understand doesn't mean it can't be.
Posted by Strider (Member # 1807) on :
quote:Originally posted by kmbboots:
quote:
quote:Originally posted by Strider: He, from what I can tell, is arguing proof where no proof is relevant or applicable. He is arguing science on a topic that is outside of the realm of science.
I understand why many religious folk believe this, but i see no inherent reason for the topic of god to be outside the realm of science. the only thing that makes it outside the realm of science are the claims that are made in holy books and what many of it's members believe based on the claims of those holy books.
That is not true, in my experience. Scripture is one record of our relationship with the Divine.
Well, you'll obviously disagree with me, but i believe that any other beliefs or records not scripture related stem from a pre-existing belief about the existence of a deity or supernatural events occurring. Meaning, a religious person and an atheist can be present for the same event or have the same feeling, and depending on what their beliefs are they will experience that event differently, ask different questions about it, and attempt to explain it in different ways. An atheist looking for a natural explanation, and a person of faith looking for an explanation that meshes with their religious views. I realize i'm oversimplifying here, and that not every religious person will see every weird event as a miracle or act of god. but i'm trying to make a general point about how a persons beliefs will affect how choose to interpret events and feelings in their life. And yes, this is the same for atheists, but i feel this is the safer route, to always look for a rational explanation. If enough things couldn't be answered through this method, than maybe i would leave atheism behind.
quote:
quote:
Science is just a way of asking questions about the world working under the philosophy that all events are ultimately explainable.
Are they?
i've never seen any indication that they aren't. even if we currently don't have the means to explain all things(and may never with certain things), the fact that most previously unexplainable things have succumbed to rational/scientific explanation is enough to make me believe that ultimately everything is explainable.
quote:
quote:
That the universe functions under certain constraints and rules and that all events that happen within said universe are subject to those laws.
And why would it do that?
Well there are a number of competing theories and answers to that question. One might be that a universe which didn't function according to set laws would be unlikely to behave in a manner conducive to galaxies, stars, and planets forming, let alone for life to develop. And so we shouldn't be surprised that the universe we happen to exist in functions that way.
Posted by King of Men (Member # 6684) on :
Ok. Any time somebody answers a criticism with "It depends on what you mean by exist", my bullshit detectors go off. I'm not interested in such a discussion. If you want to go off and have Deeply Meaningful Debates On What We Mean By 'Exists', go right ahead; just be aware that you've defined yourself right out of any sort of claim to being interesting. I just don't care, neither does Dawkins, and neither does Dawkins' audience. Nor, I would suggest, do the vast majority of theists. Those of us who haven't overdosed on philosophy classes have a pretty good idea what we mean by 'exists'. If you want to join our debates, you'll have to agree to not quibbling about these really trivial issues. Otherwise, fine, go over and play in your own little sandbox, but you can't play with us.
Posted by kmbboots (Member # 8576) on :
Why is a "natural explanation" contrary to "act of God". They don't have to be mutual exclusive. In my view, they generally aren't.
I'm not surprised that the universe behaves according to set laws. Or that life as we know it might not exist if it didn't. I'm just asking why it does.
edited for typos
[ August 14, 2007, 06:50 PM: Message edited by: kmbboots ]
Posted by King of Men (Member # 6684) on :
quote:There is a vast difference between saying "God talk is meaningless" and "God talk does not exist." Your argument here confuses "Atlantis talk is meaningless" with "Atlantis talk does not exist."
You totally misread my post. Try again. A hint: My point is that "If X does not exist, then X talk is meaningless". There is no mention of "X talk does not exist" in my post, that's your own misreading.
Posted by orlox (Member # 2392) on :
quote:Originally posted by Foust: Orlox, there's materialism, and then there's materialism, you know what I mean? Richard Dawkins' scientific/popular materialism is light years apart from a more philosophical materialism, which is not reducible to chattering endlessly about matter and energy. I'm talking here about the tradition that runs Lucretious -> Hobbes -> Spinoza -> Marx -> Althusseur -> Deleuze, etc. [/QB]
Using the phrase 'not reducible to' in a response to my essay suggests a certain reading.
Posted by Strider (Member # 1807) on :
quote:Why is a "natural explaination" contrary to "act of God". They don't have to be mutual exclusive. In my view, they generally aren't.
Well at what point do god and religion become insignificant if nothing needs god to explain it? And what's more, given that, when does it become hurtful when multiple religions all contradict each other as well as contradict themselves and contain many laws and customs that i think many people today would find very immoral?
Posted by MattP (Member # 10495) on :
quote:Why is a "natural explaination" contrary to "act of God".
If you just want to call everything in nature an act of God, I've got no beef with that. If, however, you believe there are individual acts of God that interact with the natural world in ways which contradict known natural mechanisms, expect to have those claims questioned and evidence demanded.
Posted by mr_porteiro_head (Member # 4644) on :
quote:If, however, you believe there are individual acts of God that interact with the natural world in ways which contradict known natural mechanisms, expect to have those claims questioned and evidence demanded.
Feel free to disagree with me, but you don't have any right to demand evidence for what I believe in.
Posted by Leonide (Member # 4157) on :
If you want to call everything in nature an act of God, I *do* have a beef with it. That's the same as saying that everything is God, which is certainly a description I've heard before. But if everything is God, that means God is either subject to the laws of the universe, or God is the law of the universe itself, in which case I think we shouldn't call that entity "God" because it's misleading.
Posted by MattP (Member # 10495) on :
quote:Feel free to disagree with me, but you don't have any right to demand evidence for what I believe in.
I didn't mean that to be an aggressive statement. What I mean when I say that evidence will be demanded is that acceptance of your claim may be contingent on your producing evidence to support it.
Posted by mr_porteiro_head (Member # 4644) on :
According to the LDS conception of God, God is subject to the laws of the universe.
Posted by Strider (Member # 1807) on :
this thread is quickly turning into every other religious thread we have here.
oh btw, kmbboots cleaning is cathartic for me, and I also enjoy cooking.
quote:Feel free to disagree with me, but you don't have any right to demand evidence for what I believe in.
what if you believed that murdering me would solve all the world's problems?
Posted by mr_porteiro_head (Member # 4644) on :
quote:what if you believed that murdering me would solve all the world's problems?
Then I would be a blue penguin.
Posted by mr_porteiro_head (Member # 4644) on :
quote:Originally posted by MattP:
quote:Feel free to disagree with me, but you don't have any right to demand evidence for what I believe in.
I didn't mean that to be an aggressive statement. What I mean when I say that evidence will be demanded is that acceptance of your claim may be contingent on your producing evidence to support it.
Fair 'nuff.
Posted by kmbboots (Member # 8576) on :
KoM, why should we use your rules in our sandbox? And "interesting to you" may not be the end all of "interesting".
Strider, God and religion, for me, are less about explaining how things happen than examining the significance of those things and what it means about how I should live.
It becomes hurtful when we demand that others to reach the same answers.
Matt, I would expect the same thing if I expected others to accept those claims.
Posted by Strider (Member # 1807) on :
what do all these damned blue penguins have against me anyway??
Posted by MattP (Member # 10495) on :
quote:Originally posted by Leonide: If you want to call everything in nature an act of God, I *do* have a beef with it. That's the same as saying that everything is God, which is certainly a description I've heard before. But if everything is God, that means God is either subject to the laws of the universe, or God is the law of the universe itself, in which case I think we shouldn't call that entity "God" because it's misleading.
That's the basis of a number of peoples' religious world view and I don't think they are trying to be misleading. It's how they understand the universe.
Posted by Leonide (Member # 4157) on :
*snerf* edit: @ Porter (i'm too slow!)
actually, i don't think this thread has been so bad as all the others. there's a "yet" inherent in that statement, though.
and porter, i did know that about LDS theology.
edit: also, i don't think religious people *themselves* are being misleading, i just think the term itself, in that context, is. That word has certain connotations, and stretching it to include "the natural order of things" is not a commonly accepted one.
Posted by kmbboots (Member # 8576) on :
quote:Originally posted by Leonide: If you want to call everything in nature an act of God, I *do* have a beef with it. That's the same as saying that everything is God, which is certainly a description I've heard before. But if everything is God, that means God is either subject to the laws of the universe, or God is the law of the universe itself, in which case I think we shouldn't call that entity "God" because it's misleading.
Leonide, I think it is leading to a better understanding of God. God is the Lover, the Beloved, and Love Itself. It is seeing God as an old tribal dude in the sky that is misleading.
edit to add: Strider, move in anytime. I am only an adequate cook, but I give excellent backrubs.
Posted by mr_porteiro_head (Member # 4644) on :
Leo -- in that case, are you saying that LDS shouldn't use the word God to describe what we believe about God?
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
quote:My problem with this is that, to me, "believes there is no God" and "does not believe there is a God" have different meanings.
You know, I shared this opinion for years, until I realized that I was looking at it the wrong way. That's actually when I started calling myself an atheist.
The default state is one of no belief. Someone who believes there is no God doesn't believe in God less than someone who does not believe there is a God; they both simply don't believe. There's no practical difference between the two, assuming all else is held equal.
The only place the distinction comes into play is when we reverse the assumption of belief; if, for example, we feel that John has a legitimate reason to think that God exists, but that he willfully refuses to acknowledge this. The distinction is one of will: atheists, according to this definition, choose not to believe despite evidence to the contrary, while agnostics don't believe but would be willing to reconsider.
A few years ago, I realized that this definition fit none of the real atheists I knew and only a handful of the fake ones; it effectively makes every atheist in the world into an agnostic.
Why should we be reluctant to say that, as things now stand, we do not believe in a God? This doesn't preclude us from being "open-minded" on the issue; after all, it's a rare atheist indeed who, presented with actual evidence of God, would not change his mind.
Posted by Leonide (Member # 4157) on :
Kate: but the word came about as basically meaning an old tribal dude in the sky. to change the definition in modern times is, i think, ill-advised. the description you just gave is for Everything. so when you say everything, i'll understand that you mean everything. When you say God, well, i just don't know what to assume.
Porter: no, i'm sorry, in re-reading my initial post i realized i was not clear. I think calling "Everything" "God" is misleading. I think calling the natural order of the universe "God" is misleading. I don't think if you have a conception of an entity that is subject to the natural order of things (although, again, ignorance of the entirety of LDS doctrine makes this following statement possibly inaccurate)but somehow also better-than, or above it, or able to bend those laws in a way that humans can't or can't yet, then that's fine, you can call that God.
Posted by kmbboots (Member # 8576) on :
quote:Originally posted by TomDavidson: The default state is one of no belief.
Why?
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
quote:God is the Lover, the Beloved, and Love Itself.
But Love Itself is not sentient.
------
Kate: the default state is unbelief because that's the default state for any assertion. Otherwise we'd walk into walls, believing them to be the same color as the doors. And simultaneously believing them to be tigers in wall form.
There is a minimum level of evidence necessary for any assertion of reality. The claim of "God" makes it past the first threshold, in that it isn't obviously and immediately false. It may even make it past the second threshold -- that of actual positive evidence -- for some people who believe that their experiences constitute evidence of a God. People who have not had those experiences, or people who have found other explanations for them, have no reason to move beyond the baseline of "does not believe."
Posted by kmbboots (Member # 8576) on :
You think?
Posted by Leonide (Member # 4157) on :
Love is also one of those tricky words I would ask someone to define before trying to understand what they were saying.
Posted by twinky (Member # 693) on :
quote:Originally posted by kmbboots:
quote:Originally posted by TomDavidson: The default state is one of no belief.
Why?
Did you believe in god when you were born, or did someone have to tell you about god first?
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
quote:You think?
I know. When, for example, I tell Christy "I love you," the sentence does not admit the possibility that my love for her might suddenly decide to go get some ice cream.
Posted by Leonide (Member # 4157) on :
I think my parents really missed the mark with me -- i believed in Santa Claus with such conviction and passion that I actively, willfully ignored evidence of his non-existence until age 10, when I demanded to be given affirmative confirmation. Which of course, I wasn't. If God had been described to me in similar terms from childhood on up, I don't know that you'd be talking to an atheist right now Posted by kmbboots (Member # 8576) on :
quote:Originally posted by Leonide: Love is also one of those tricky words I would ask someone to define before trying to understand what they were saying.
Tricky, isn't it, trying to pin down the infinite with words.
Tom, I would say belief is the default otherwise we wouldn't walk anywhere because we wouldn't believe in the walls or the door or tigers.
twinky, it predates memory so I really couldn't tell you. I can say that when I first recall hearing about God my response was more, "Oh, that's what you're/it's called" than "Oh, that's a new idea." I don't think that probably answers your question. I had experience God before I had words to frame that experience.
Tom, you may be talking about the feeling of love which isn;t exactly what I mean by concept of Love. Again, tricky using words.
Posted by King of Men (Member # 6684) on :
quote:Originally posted by kmbboots: KoM, why should we use your rules in our sandbox?
I didn't say you should. I said, if you're going to quibble about what it means 'to exist', then you can't play in my sandbox. Take it or leave it. I also asserted that most theists and most people don't want to play in a sandbox where the semantics of 'existence' is in doubt. If you have evidence to the contrary, give it.
Posted by kmbboots (Member # 8576) on :
KoM, I think we all "play" in different sandboxes depending on the questions we are asking and the discussions we want to have. The "science" sandbox is not the only sandbox on the playground and it's rules shouldn't necessarily apply to other sandboxes.
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
quote: Tom, I would say belief is the default otherwise we wouldn't walk anywhere because we wouldn't believe in the walls or the door or tigers.
I disagree. If "evidence" is to mean anything, it has to mean the evidence of our own senses. We don't spontaneously believe in walls; we perceive the wall, then conclude that, based on our perception, the wall is there.
----
quote:Tom, you may be talking about the feeling of love which isn't exactly what I mean by concept of Love.
I'm not sure what distinction you're making. What is the "concept" of Love when divorced from the "feeling" of lowercase love? And why is the concept more likely to be sentient than the feeling? Are we talking about memes as if they possessed volition?
Posted by King of Men (Member # 6684) on :
quote:Originally posted by kmbboots: Tom, you may be talking about the feeling of love which isn't exactly what I mean by concept of Love. Again, tricky using words. [/QB]
If you have to wave your hands and say "I can't explain it, you just have to feeeeel it", then isn't it time to consider that you may be basically talking nonsense? The unclearly spoken is the unclearly thought; words are the only means we have of communicating concepts, even to ourselves, and a concept that cannot be properly communicated is, quite literally, nonsense.
quote:Tom, I would say belief is the default otherwise we wouldn't walk anywhere because we wouldn't believe in the walls or the door or tigers.
And how many three-day-old babies have you seen walking around? There is a vast process of exploration and testing that goes on before we are ready to believe in the most basic of concepts. Young children, for example, have no concept that a large object will not fit into a small container. They have to figure this out by experiment. By the time they are ready to walk, they believe in the walls because they've checked them out and found them sound. Not because of some mystical default state of belief. After all, in that case, what separates your god from the leprechauns at the end of the garden?
(I know, I know, you've heard it before. But you've never given a satisfactory answer. If you insist on taking the same old garden path, you're going to see the same dang leprechauns, every time.)
Posted by BlackBlade (Member # 8376) on :
quote:Originally posted by twinky:
quote:Originally posted by kmbboots:
quote:Originally posted by TomDavidson: The default state is one of no belief.
Why?
Did you believe in god when you were born, or did someone have to tell you about god first?
How can you be sure that the default state is not to have a need for there to be some sort of order behind everything, and that need often latches onto the concept of God? Heck perhaps that need could even be described as a desire to have an all powerful authority figure govern things.
Also it's nonsense to say the default state is atheism as SOMEBODY at sometime had to out of the blue for whatever reason say, "There must be a God." Who told him?
Or else at some point God appeared to a man who then declared his existence.
I just don't see how just about EVERY single culture in recorded history has had a religious structure that describes a God type figure and yet the default state is atheism. I can't think of any other concept that is so common in humanity yet is not part of human nature.
And why does a default even matter? Is there something inherently correct or better about the blank slate that is the human mind upon being born?
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
You're confusing a default state with a natural state, BlackBlade. Man needs to eat; man's default state is not "eating."
Man may well need to believe in things. But the default state of any assertion is not "true."
(Note: this sort of default only matters when talking about -- for example -- whether one can fairly call an "atheist" someone who has decided not to believe in God, as opposed to someone who simply does not believe in God.)
Posted by BlackBlade (Member # 8376) on :
quote:Originally posted by TomDavidson: You're confusing a default state with a natural state, BlackBlade. Man needs to eat; man's default state is not "eating."
Man may well need to believe in things. But the default state of any assertion is not "true."
Mmmm perhaps. I need to think about that one.
Posted by King of Men (Member # 6684) on :
quote:Also it's nonsense to say the default state is atheism as SOMEBODY at sometime had to out of the blue for whatever reason say, "There must be a God." Who told him?
You are forgetting that the original religions didn't have your rather ethereal and rarified conceptions of gods. They dealt in very tangible lion gods, water gods, and tree gods. I trust you'll agree that it doesn't take very much effort to accept the existence of lions, and it is hardly a very large conceptual leap to the idea that if you feed Ug to the lions, they won't eat you. What you're seeing is a vast abstraction strucutre built on top of the idea of lions plus the intentions of lions.
Posted by kmbboots (Member # 8576) on :
KoM and Tom, there are limits to words. We expand those boundaries, but infinite concepts still lie beyond those boundaries. Because something doesn't fit into the box we have for it, doesn't mean it can't exist or that it is nonsense.
I know this is frustrating for you. I'm sorry.
If it helps at all, know that I have no wish at all to change your mind.
Posted by twinky (Member # 693) on :
Tom and KoM have actually essentially made the replies that I would have made.
Posted by King of Men (Member # 6684) on :
quote:We expand those boundaries, but infinite concepts still lie beyond those boundaries.
Sez you! The mere assertion doesn't make it true.
Posted by King of Men (Member # 6684) on :
quote:Originally posted by kmbboots: KoM, I think we all "play" in different sandboxes depending on the questions we are asking and the discussions we want to have. The "science" sandbox is not the only sandbox on the playground and its rules shouldn't necessarily apply to other sandboxes.
Once again: If you have some evidence that a large number of people want to play in a sandbox where the meaning of 'to exist' is in doubt, give it. Otherwise, accept that most people do in fact play in the one where we know what we mean when we assert that there is, or is not, a god. This has nothing to do with science versus religion, this is sophomoric word games versus the rest of the world.
Posted by kmbboots (Member # 8576) on :
Sez you, back.
You don't think words have limits?
I must go sing now. But it looks like BlackBlade is here. He's probably more fun anyway.
Strider, let me know when you plan on arriving. Soon I hope. I am running out of clean dishes.
Posted by King of Men (Member # 6684) on :
quote:Originally posted by kmbboots: Sez you, back.
You don't think words have limits?
Of course they do. But that doesn't mean that your mere assertion of infinities beyond those boundaries is true. And besides, since you acknowledge that you cannot properly understand those 'infinities', how can you have the gall to assert that they consist of "Love, the Beloved, and whatever-it-was"? Since you know nothing of the kind, you're just making meaningless noises that sound good to you. You might as well say that your god consists of "The La-La, the Tinky-Winky, and the Pooh", that would be just as meaningful and accurate. Or, indeed, "The Torture, the Pain-Inflicter, and the Pain". If words have no meaning in a domain, then any words you like can be substituted. So when you then start reasoning from the particular words you've chosen, assigning the meanings that those words commonly have, you are not even building on sand, you're building on air.
Posted by BlackBlade (Member # 8376) on :
quote:Originally posted by King of Men:
quote:Also it's nonsense to say the default state is atheism as SOMEBODY at sometime had to out of the blue for whatever reason say, "There must be a God." Who told him?
You are forgetting that the original religions didn't have your rather ethereal and rarified conceptions of gods. They dealt in very tangible lion gods, water gods, and tree gods. I trust you'll agree that it doesn't take very much effort to accept the existence of lions, and it is hardly a very large conceptual leap to the idea that if you feed Ug to the lions, they won't eat you. What you're seeing is a vast abstraction strucutre built on top of the idea of lions plus the intentions of lions.
There is nothing ethereal or planar about the God I worship and in the texts I read, he is more or less the same throughout history.
I can see your point as a valid possibility of where the concept of God may have come from. But to me it is also possible that God appears to men and in the course relaying the information of who God is and what He has said the original message can become completely transformed.
I think of it as like a global game of telephone.
Posted by King of Men (Member # 6684) on :
quote:There is nothing ethereal or planar about the God I worship
Good! Point to it!
quote: and in the texts I read, he is more or less the same throughout history.
Well, yes, they would say that, wouldn't they. In the world of actual archeological evidence that the rest of us inhabit, this is nonsense.
Posted by ricree101 (Member # 7749) on :
quote:Originally posted by kmbboots: Sez you, back.
You don't think words have limits?
The question isn't whether or not words have limits, the question is whether the word "exists" isn't sufficient for our discussion here. I'm going to agree with KOM that the generally accepted definition of the word is enough to look at the specific factual claims made by most religions I know of.
Posted by BlackBlade (Member # 8376) on :
quote:Originally posted by King of Men:
quote:There is nothing ethereal or planar about the God I worship. Good! Point to it!
That's almost intentionally insulting, I might as well argue that you can't point out quarks and what they look like so therefore they are ethereal. More to the point though, God has already said in effect, "I am not yours to command."
quote: and in the texts I read, he is more or less the same throughout history.
Well, yes, they would say that, wouldn't they. In the world of actual archeological evidence that the rest of us inhabit, this is nonsense.
What? Are you saying the concept of God worldwide is different, or the God I believe in is inconsistent throughout history?
edit: also kmbboots leaving makes this thread a sausage fest and therefore far less fun. Posted by King of Men (Member # 6684) on :
Does your god have a definite physical lotus, or does it not? If not, then in what way is it 'not ethereal'?
As for quarks, if you want to disbelieve in them, be my guest. Many people do. They're a convenient mathematical abstraction, though.
quote:What? Are you saying the concept of God worldwide is different, or the God I believe in is inconsistent throughout history?
I'm saying that the Book of Mormon, being untrue, does not give an accurate picture of god-worship through the ages. But there is considerable evidence for the beginnings of religion in lion gods and whatnot.
Posted by King of Men (Member # 6684) on :
And as it happens, by the way, I can certainly show you the track of a quark in a detector. Which is more evidence than you're able to show for your god.
Posted by BlackBlade (Member # 8376) on :
I believe my God could be in possession of a that particular genus of flowers yes. He does have a corporeal body wherewith he could pluck the flower from its roots as well; but that's just an aside.
quote:I'm saying that the Book of Mormon, being untrue, does not give an accurate picture of god-worship through the ages. But there is considerable evidence for the beginnings of religion in lion gods and whatnot.
OK my move, I say that the Book of Mormon, being true, does give an accurate picture of god-worship through a time period as early as approximately 6000BC all the way until about 400AD (with a focus on 500BC-400AD), with slightly brief yet descriptive treatment of God-worship in this very day and age.
If we conjoin the accounts of the Old Testament, New Testament, Book of Mormon, Doctrine and Covenants, and The Pearl of Great Price we find a picture that is even more clear.
Posted by BlackBlade (Member # 8376) on :
quote:Originally posted by King of Men: And as it happens, by the way, I can certainly show you the track of a quark in a detector. Which is more evidence than you're able to show for your god.
I can show you a book that a 20 year old uneducated farm boy could not possibly have written. You showing me the track of some quark and telling me that the detector device works would not persuade me of anything.
Posted by King of Men (Member # 6684) on :
Well, we're down to the bone, then: I don't believe the Book of Mormon, and I do believe it is precisely the sort of book that an uneducated farm boy would write, if he wanted to sound religious. I don't see where we can make any progress from here.
Posted by BlackBlade (Member # 8376) on :
quote:Originally posted by King of Men: Well, we're down to the bone, then: I don't believe the Book of Mormon, and I do believe it is precisely the sort of book that an uneducated farm boy would write, if he wanted to sound religious. I don't see where we can make any progress from here.
Well first off have you actually read it? Having read it can it be said that you clearly understand it?
I really don't think you can make your statement if you have indeed read it in its entirety or even in part. If so, your view of the mental capacities of 20 year old uneducated farm boys in early 19th century America clearly does not mirror my own.
Posted by King of Men (Member # 6684) on :
I am not getting into any discussions of what I "clearly understand" or not. As for the prose, consider this piece, ripped completely at random:
quote:1 And it came to pass that in this same year, behold, Nephi delivered up the judgment-seat to a man whose name was Cezoram. 2 For as their laws and their governments were established by the voice of the people, and they who chose evil were more numerous than they who chose good, therefore they were ripening for destruction, for the laws had become corrupted. 3 Yea, and this was not all; they were a stiffnecked people, insomuch that they could not be governed by the law nor justice, save it were to their destruction.
"Nephi resigned from being judge, because he was tired of the people electing the wrong politicians and writing the wrong laws; and besides, they kept breaking the laws."
What's hard about that? Dressing it up in pseudo-Biblical language is a really childish trick, for yea, verily, any half-bright teenager can do it.
Posted by BlackBlade (Member # 8376) on :
You are also educated KOM. And much more so then the smartest men in Joseph's day.
Being able to paraphrase a random passage that is historical in nature does not mean that you yourself could have written the book itself, which is a long comprehensive history with many reoccurring people, places, and themes. There are sermons saying things that Joseph himself did not even understand or expound upon until late in his life, and the book was put together if we are to believe the many witnesses who helped publishes it in the period of just over 3 months.
I suspect that saying stuff like this will get you as close to believing in the Book of Mormon's authenticity as you would in getting to me to positively believe in quarks.
Posted by Andrew W (Member # 4172) on :
Well I was clearly away for a moment of flurried posting - but if anyone can remember back to page two:
kmbboots said:
quote:Andrew, that is not quite true.
It is more complicated than that. You can choose to believe even while acknowledging that there can be no objective proof.
Which leaves room for acknowledging that other people can make valid choices that may be different from yours.
This is where I see evangelical atheism making the same mistakes as evangelical anything else. They seem to be going past wanting the freedom to believe what they do to wanting other people to believe as they do. Worse, to thinking that other people should believe as they do. And are starting to use tactics such as derision and contempt (see "sky god" reference).
Well yes, you can believe in those two different ways - but they are both aspects of belief, by my simplified classification they are both theists/religious. They may be in different subcategories of belief - but they both believe in God.
Mucus said:
quote:Andrew W: See, thats just silly. As was pointed out on the first page, he could hardly be considered fundamentalist when he has clearly shown what evidence would be required to change his mind. Similarly, separating out what you declare by fiat is the strength of his argument or his extremism, you have never mentioned any actual advocated policy of his that could considered extreme.....
.....The only difference is in how he expresses those ideas and how vocal he is. Most atheists and agnostics who criticize him never have a problem with what he is saying, but simply how he is saying it.
In addition, thats why those who call him "extremist" can never point to a specific policy of his that is actually extreme. There are none! However, they believe that if they say that he is extremist often enough, then people will believe it regardless.
Well you mistake me, I didn't ever call him extremist - though he certainly is, if you take that to mean saying things like raising children religious is tantamount to child abuse - or in his words "labelling children" I'm sure many would consider any religious figure extremist if they suggested that raising children atheist or in a different religion was that.
I would defend the suggestion he is fundamentalist by saying that for all his protestations of waiting for evidence he acts far more like someone who believes absolutely in the fundamentals of his position - to whit - there is no God. Now I can't read minds or souls so I can't prove that - but he does stomp around acting like he has the answer to all 'important' questions about religion and that people are all wrong or stupid if they disagree with him. And that's something that far superior philosophers to him would scarecely do.
And yes - I don't like the way he expresses himself. He's condescending, nasty and seems deeply out of touch with the world to such an extent that he blames religion for far more ills than seem remotely reasonable (without ever presenting any scientific evidence that the presence of religion was a direct and responsible cause for them) and seems paranoid of 'attacks on reason' etc that he's blowing all out of proportion. He spent the last few days attacking 'enemies of reason' that amounted to tarot card readers and all sorts of pointless dreck that's essentially only an enemy to the continued association of the Stupid with their Money.
If you feel I didn't present any evidence of his attitude (you're right) then allow a momentary search to deposit a little Dawkins Gospel:
quote:"I saw a picture of this woman," Dawkins says. "She had one of the most stupid faces I've ever seen. She actually said, 'Christians should be allowed to work for British Airways."'
He continues, face reddening: "Well, of course, Christians are sodding well allowed to work for British Airways. It's got nothing to do with it. She is clearly too stupid to see the difference between somebody who wears a cross and somebody who is a Christian."
Nice guy this. And for the record the airline did let people of other faiths wear special items used in their faith - and after this did relent and change their policy - because it was stupid and wrong - the cross posed no risk to anything - and not the woman herself.
If you really want some more then you just have to read his books, and try and look at the things he's actually saying - not ever outright attacks like that - but essentially (though not constantly) rude, brash, and framing everything from a very simplistic and narrow-minded view - without ever examining (at least in his books) his own 'platform' of beliefs from which he observes religion.
There's something that has plagued the gay rights movement, and now plagues the many transexuals, (I forget the specific term right now) where things are framed with them as 'different' from the 'norm' and all that is needed to criticise them from this position is to point out how they differ from this (mostly unstated) default position and say 'isn't that bad' He does this all the time. Whenever he mentions a religious failing he decrys it in no uncertain terms, but never acknowledges that these things are often only 'failings' when observed from the humanist position he seems to take (but almost never identifies as anything). If I'm an anarchist, onanist, dadaist, almost any other type of atheist - then I'm essentially ignored here. And he never delves into the roots of "which positions is right/true/better or whatever - the religious or his personal humanist one". This makes it very hard to defend against (irrelevent of the content of the argument) - and makes arguments seem like slam dunks to those of the 'faithful' - since when you say : (par example, just made up by me)
"Under religious faith raping children is ok if God says so" - that seems true, and horrific, what a damning indictment of religious morality! - but really avoids the real issue of the fact that were that true - then it would be true, and thus ok, depending on your definition of morality and whether or not it radiates from God - none of which actually gets discussed.
And to pretend he is anything but deliberately provocative would be silly after programs like "The Root of All Evil?" an obviously polemical and non-literal title to his attack on religion, yet, if a Catholic Cardinal wrote a book of the same name about Atheism no-one would hesitate to call him 'extreme' or 'hardline' or whatever.
Posted by Andrew W (Member # 4172) on :
P.s. I don't really have any of his books to hand, nor a handy online reference beyond googling away - so I'm not going to give much here but:
KOM said:
quote:Wow. Talk about the kettle and the pot. Dude, didn't your mother teach you to go for the ball and not the man? How about you try to find some example of these 'hate-or-sneer-filled forays'?
Well for starters his statement that the God of the old testament as:
quote:arguably the most unpleasant character in all fiction. Jealous and proud of it, a petty, unjust, unforgiving control freak, a vindictive bloodthirsty ethnic cleanser, a misogynistic, homophobic, racist, infanticidal, genocidal, filicidal, pestilential, megalomaniacal, sadomasochistic, capriciously malevolent bully
pretty much puts paid to that. And he doesn't even go on to defend his point of view - he just takes it as read that, for example, that God's actions seen from his point of view, was how they actually were.
And he doesn't believe that religious beliefs should be 'respected', as shown by his happy reference to the Bible as 'fiction', (again starting from his own unmentioned scientific world view), as he feels this respect happens unfairly all the time- and yet people still think that I'm just stirring when I say he's a bit of a cock. If you don't give people's views some respect then you are being rude and sneering, whether or not you think you are. And I think that he himself would not shy from admitting that, any more than I would be shy of admitting sneering at pointless fortune telling things, or horoscopes - things that are easily and often proved wrong in all their claims. (And no, my religion is not in the same category, though Dawkins would mostly just like to ignore more sophisticated or nuanced religious beliefs, as if they didn't exist.)
Posted by MattP (Member # 10495) on :
quote:Originally posted by Andrew W: P.s. I don't really have any of his books to hand, nor a handy online reference beyond googling away - so I'm not going to give much here but:
KOM said:
quote:Wow. Talk about the kettle and the pot. Dude, didn't your mother teach you to go for the ball and not the man? How about you try to find some example of these 'hate-or-sneer-filled forays'?
Well for starters his statement that the God of the old testament as:
quote:arguably the most unpleasant character in all fiction. Jealous and proud of it, a petty, unjust, unforgiving control freak, a vindictive bloodthirsty ethnic cleanser, a misogynistic, homophobic, racist, infanticidal, genocidal, filicidal, pestilential, megalomaniacal, sadomasochistic, capriciously malevolent bully
pretty much puts paid to that.
I don't see how. If the topic is religion, God is "the ball."
Posted by King of Men (Member # 6684) on :
quote:Being able to paraphrase a random passage that is historical in nature does not mean that you yourself could have written the book itself, which is a long comprehensive history with many reoccurring people, places, and themes.
But all you are saying is that the BoM is a long story. It's just not very hard to make up long stories about fantasy countries, and the wars they fight, and brave people who go out and preach what they know is right, and so forth. Children do this almost unconsciously; certainly if you were to write down my own fantasy life from the age of twelve or so, you'd have a rather nice multiverse with brave heroes, foul (if one-dimensional) villains, sacrifice, magic, and what-have-you. Raise me in 1810s America and no doubt I too would have couched my dreams in folk-Christian terms. This is not difficult, and it doesn't require any education; the only unusual thing is that JS wrote the stuff down and it resonated with some others. And as for being long, here's an exercise for you which I suggest in all honesty, without any intention of being derogatory: Take the chapter that I quoted from above, Helaman 5, which I picked quite at random, and strip away all the "And it came to pass" and "behold" and the other sentence elements that are just scaffolding. I'm not talking about adjectives, here, but only about those parts that are there purely to sound formal. How much actual narrative is left? If you haven't cut it down by a fourth I'd be highly surprised. For example, consider this lot:
quote:Behold, my sons, I desire that ye should remember to keep the commandments of God; and I would that ye should declare unto the people these words. Behold, I have given unto you the names of our first parents who came out of the land of Jerusalem; and this I have done that when you remember your names ye may remember them; and when ye remember them ye may remember their works; and when ye remember their works ye may know how that it is said, and also written, that they were good.
Which, paraphrased as I suggest, becomes:
quote:Keep the commandments of God, and preach them. Remember the names of our ancestors who came out of Jerusalem, and their works, and that they were good people.
That's an 80 percent saving right there. Granted that Helaman is clearly a long-winded old bugger and this is therefore an extreme case, I think you'll find that this treatment doesn't leave that much in the way of actual events.
Posted by MattP (Member # 10495) on :
quote:If you don't give people's views some respect then you are being rude and sneering, whether or not you think you are.
Should I give them respect if I believe they are harmful? Should I respect, to take an extreme example, the views of Fred Phelps and his "God Hates Fags" church, or neo-nazis, or Osama bin Laden?
Posted by Javert (Member # 3076) on :
Do neo-nazis count for Godwin?
Posted by MattP (Member # 10495) on :
quote:Originally posted by Javert: Do neo-nazis count for Godwin?
Oh crap! Can we get ruling? (nervous fidgeting) Posted by King of Men (Member # 6684) on :
quote:(And no, my religion is not in the same category, though Dawkins would mostly just like to ignore more sophisticated or nuanced religious beliefs, as if they didn't exist.)
I'm sorry, but you don't get to decide this. Everybody has to decide for themselves what falls into the fortune-cookie category that's worthy of dismissal; but there has grown to be a convention in the West that you don't mention it if you happen to believe this about somebody else's religion, because they would sneer right back at yours. What you are objecting to is that Dawkins doesn't respect this implicit ceasefire.
quote:Well for starters his statement that the God of the old testament as:
quote:arguably the most unpleasant character in all fiction. Jealous and proud of it, a petty, unjust, unforgiving control freak, a vindictive bloodthirsty ethnic cleanser, a misogynistic, homophobic, racist, infanticidal, genocidal, filicidal, pestilential, megalomaniacal, sadomasochistic, capriciously malevolent bully
pretty much puts paid to that. And he doesn't even go on to defend his point of view - he just takes it as read that, for example, that God's actions seen from his point of view, was how they actually were.
We are talking about a character who gleefully orders children killed, mind you.
quote:And he doesn't believe that religious beliefs should be 'respected', as shown by his happy reference to the Bible as 'fiction', (again starting from his own unmentioned scientific world view), as he feels this respect happens unfairly all the time- and yet people still think that I'm just stirring when I say he's a bit of a cock.
Do you believe the Rig-Vedas are fictional, or true? In particular, in those parts where actual gods are referred to as using magical powers that could not possibly have a natural explanation, is that fact, or fiction?
Posted by Andrew W (Member # 4172) on :
You misunderstand me MattP, I'm not saying he's not the ball, I'm saying that that statement is sneering and hate filled.
If I slip the referee a tenner to rule in my favour, that means I win... right?
Posted by stihl1 (Member # 1562) on :
quote:Originally posted by rollainm: "It's obvious to me that the crucial question is, is atheism an alternative religion or an alternative TO religion?"
Or how about simply the absence of religion?
"Imo, I've always thought of atheists as people who don't believe and just want to be left alone."
Why?
Because that's how I'd want it if I was atheist. "I don't believe in God, leave me alone and stop trying to evangelize me."
quote:Originally posted by rollainm: "Frankly, if it were me chosing, I'd want to be left alone and allowed to think what I want. Isn't that the point? You don't want to be organized or forced to believe like everyone else?"
You can make your own decisions sans the solitude. Besides, most of us as individuals don't have all the answers. We need the experience and insight of others sometimes.
I'm not talking about being a hermit, I'm talking about people of other religions leaving you alone and allowing you to live as you see fit.
It just seems to me that once you start to organize around a central belief, socializing around that belief, holding meetings to discuss that belief, defending that belief and evangelizing that belief, you've got a religion. Even if that belief is that you don't believe. And once you have a religion, aren't you just like the Christians and Jews and Muslims and Hare Krishnas or whoever that want you to believe like them?
In my humble opinion, if I were to be an atheist, I'd just want to be allowed to do my own thing and not believe in God all I wanted without people giving me a hard time about it. I mean, isn't that the appeal of being atheist? No religion, no forced beliefs, no arbitrary dogma or doctrine, no oppressive organized church? At least it was in my day.
Honestly I don't care if atheists want to get together and have conventions or march on Washington or form political action committees. But it does seem to me that the atheist thing is organizing and becoming its own religion, which just seems like it defeats the purpose to me.
That's all.
Posted by BlackBlade (Member # 8376) on :
KOM: But that is not how people talk. People DO put some poetic or artistic, as well as individualistic tones in their speech. If one reads the separate books found within the BOM you DO find stylistic differences in the writings that are particular to each author. The tone of the book is not consistent throughout.
quote:Keep the commandments of God, and preach them. Remember the names of our ancestors who came out of Jerusalem, and their works, and that they were good people.
You failed to mention that the two boys were named after two specific ancestors and that is significant to the story.
Again its far simpler to simplify it then it is to jazz it up. Go ahead and try it, I am genuinely interested. Remember the Book of Mormon is not supposed to be just a history book, its SUPPOSED to let the reader know important significant events in the history of these people that relate to God's dealings. There are sermons that are of very mature and insightful mien.
I have myself a book that chronologically lists much of what Joseph Smith himself said in sermons and in remarks to his friends. His journals are also open to the public.
Why is it that his language early on is very unrefined and even ignorant but only by about the time of his death do we see his speech reach the majestic prose that the Book of Mormon frequently utters?
Even in his prepared sermons his command of the English language does not come close to what the Book of Mormon demonstrates.
Again the book was written in 3 months. I could spend all day talking about how complex the book is but until you've read it in its entirety and had somebody explain to you some of the things that are not obvious to a first time reader you just won't see that there is no way the book was written by Joseph Smith unless we decide that he was a genius, which is a distinct possibility.
But he also has to be a genius who masked it and gradually revealed it in degrees until his death.
Posted by Andrew W (Member # 4172) on :
quote:I'm sorry, but you don't get to decide this. Everybody has to decide for themselves what falls into the fortune-cookie category that's worthy of dismissal; but there has grown to be a convention in the West that you don't mention it if you happen to believe this about somebody else's religion, because they would sneer right back at yours. What you are objecting to is that Dawkins doesn't respect this implicit ceasefire.
Nope. My religion makes no empirical claims that can be tested - and therefore cannot be proved wrong. Astrology makes claims about our physical universe that are demonstrably untrue (vis a vis it's predictive power.) If people's religion makes empirical claims that it does not fulfill, feel free to sneer at it, as I would, and as I would sneer at an invention that did not do what it claimed - but where it does not, you cannot be sure you are right and it is not, so have some respect.
quote:Do you believe the Rig-Vedas are fictional, or true? In particular, in those parts where actual gods are referred to as using magical powers that could not possibly have a natural explanation, is that fact, or fiction?
What sort of magical powers could not have a natural explanation? Surely 'natural' really means 'that which is' - and if they did in fact use them - then the powers are clearly natural. I don't believe in these guys, but I wouldn't declare them fiction. I'd simply say, - I do not believe in them. But here - I'm being respectful to something that I believe to be wrong, but have no absolute proof about, (I'm unsure of the specific claims of the Rig-Vedas but if they make some empirically testable ones- I say lets go for it - test away). Is that so hard?
And anywho - I'm not here to defend the principle of not being a dick to religious people - I'm merely pointing out that Richard Dawkins repeatedly is one.
Posted by MattP (Member # 10495) on :
quote:My religion makes no empirical claims that can be tested
If it doesn't do anything that you can detect, then what purpose does it serve?
Posted by BlackBlade (Member # 8376) on :
KOM:
quote:We are talking about a character who gleefully orders children killed, mind you.
This is a completely disingenuous statement. It makes discussion of religion with you a pointless waste of time, which is a pity because I enjoyed what you had to say up until that point. But why take my word for it, here is some fire and brimstone Old Testament for you.
According to God himself,
"Have I any pleasure at all that the wicked should die? saith the Lord GOD: and not that he should return from his ways, and live?"
and from the same chapter,
"For I have no pleasure in the death of him that dieth, saith the Lord GOD: wherefore turn yourselves, and live ye."
Nothing cryptic about the language either.
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
quote:Which, paraphrased as I suggest...
In fairness, I think your second sentence lost some of the meaning. Try:
"I have named you for our ancestors who came out of Jerusalem, so that you might recall their good works whenever you recall your own names, and know from those works that they were good."
---------
quote: It just seems to me that once you start to organize around a central belief, socializing around that belief, holding meetings to discuss that belief, defending that belief and evangelizing that belief, you've got a religion.
By this logic, NAMBLA is a religion.
-----------
quote:I could spend all day talking about how complex the book is but until you've read it in its entirety and had somebody explain to you some of the things that are not obvious to a first time reader you just won't see that there is no way the book was written by Joseph Smith unless we decide that he was a genius, which is a distinct possibility.
Card makes this argument, too, which I find ludicrous in the extreme.
After all, is it REALLY more unlikely that someone is a genius than it is that he's the chosen of God? There have been thousands of geniuses in recorded history; how many prophets have there been?
Posted by MattP (Member # 10495) on :
quote:I can show you a book that a 20 year old uneducated farm boy could not possibly have written.
Muslims make a virtually identical claim about the Koran. Since their prophet was even less educated than Joseph Smith, should we give Mohammed's work more weight or does the fact that his followers didn't claim that his only took three months cancel that out?
Posted by Andrew W (Member # 4172) on :
quote:If it doesn't do anything that you can detect, then what purpose does it serve?
I didn't say that. I said that it makes no empirical claims that can be tested. With the assumed proviso of 'by us'. It's a very different thing.
Posted by rollainm (Member # 8318) on :
When the term "empirical" is used, I think the observations or experiences it refers to are generally assumed to be universally replicable, not subjective interpretations.
Posted by MattP (Member # 10495) on :
quote:I didn't say that. I said that it makes no empirical claims that can be tested.
If there are detectable phenomena, how is a claim regarding such phenomena not an empirical one? Could you provide an example?
Posted by Strider (Member # 1807) on :
quote:This is a completely disingenuous statement. It makes discussion of religion with you a pointless waste of time, which is a pity because I enjoyed what you had to say up until that point. But why take my word for it, here is some fire and brimstone Old Testament for you.
According to God himself,
"Have I any pleasure at all that the wicked should die? saith the Lord GOD: and not that he should return from his ways, and live?"
and from the same chapter,
"For I have no pleasure in the death of him that dieth, saith the Lord GOD: wherefore turn yourselves, and live ye."
Nothing cryptic about the language either.
This is the problem with religious texts. Both sides can cherry pick to bolster their argument. My problem with religion or any group or organization is that when you have to cherry pick which parts you follow and agree with, i find it disingenuous as a follower or member of that group, and a black mark on the whole organization.
quote:edit to add: Strider, move in anytime. I am only an adequate cook, but I give excellent backrubs.
well, i never said i was a great cook, just that I enjoy it. Either way, you had me at "backrubs".
Posted by King of Men (Member # 6684) on :
"Happy shall he be, that taketh and dasheth thy little ones against the stones."
But we can play dueling quotations all day. The Bible contradicts itself in any number of places.
quote:Nope. My religion makes no empirical claims that can be tested - and therefore cannot be proved wrong.
Unless you don't believe prayers are answered, this is untrue.
quote:I don't believe in these guys, but I wouldn't declare them fiction. I'd simply say, - I do not believe in them.
Oh, right. You don't believe X is true, but you don't believe it's a fiction, either. If I may ask, just what do you call whatever is in between these two options? A fictruth? Or to put it another way, just what is the difference between
"I don't believe the Rig-Veda is true" and "The Rig-Vedas are fictional"?
quote:What sort of magical powers could not have a natural explanation?
For example, when somebody throws a spear and a city is destroyed.
quote:Why is it that his language early on is very unrefined and even ignorant but only by about the time of his death do we see his speech reach the majestic prose that the Book of Mormon frequently utters?
Excuse me? You're asking me why he gets to be a better speaker as he gets more experienced, and more formal as people come to expect it of him? Further, I don't actually find the sort of stuff you find in the BoM very impressive; it's basically scaffolding, like when a politician says "I'm glad you asked that question" to give himself time to think. An unbiased observer might not notice the pattern you've been trained to see. Or are you going to tell me that this was your own, original insight, and nobody in any study group gave you so much as a hint that this might be the case?
quote:Remember the Book of Mormon is not supposed to be just a history book, its SUPPOSED to let the reader know important significant events in the history of these people that relate to God's dealings.
Well then it should get on with the events, and enough with the "It came to pass" already! This is not the act of a skilled storyteller, it's the cheap parlour trick of someone who wants to look impressive and learned. Further, you didn't address my point that anyone can make up stories of faraway lands.
quote: There are sermons that are of very mature and insightful mien.
You know, it's not actually very difficult to write a sermon. Humanity has known for 3000 years how to treat each other. The difficulty has always been in living up to it. Writing a pious-sounding sermon is proof of nothing except having listened to the preacher every Sunday for some years.
Posted by Andrew W (Member # 4172) on :
Again MattP -
quote:If there are detectable phenomena, how is a claim regarding such phenomena not an empirical one? Could you provide an example?
They are of course empirical, - just not testable.
For example : God is outside time. God can create a beach ball right in front of me out of nothing. God created the universe + everything.
All of these are empirical claims that cannot be tested. If you have a test that can falsify any one of these, be my guest.
quote:Oh, right. You don't believe X is true, but you don't believe it's a fiction, either. If I may ask, just what do you call whatever is in between these two options? A fictruth? Or to put it another way, just what is the difference between
"I don't believe the Rig-Veda is true" and "The Rig-Vedas are fictional"?
Politeness mainly. I don't think that there is a binary between truth and fiction. Fiction is a word reserved mostly for deliberately fictional works, or direct lies. I would not describe scientific texts of the past as 'fiction', nor anything else that people write, believing it to be true. I would however suggest that they are wrong.
Would you describe Newton's Laws as fiction?
But that's not really the issue (neither's this, the issue was actually that Dawkins was an annoying creep, which I'm glad no-one seems to dispute any more) - I personally believe that some atheists (as in those that believe there is no God, including in particular those who think they 'know' there isn't) are deluded faith-holding morons who are just as bad as the cretinous religious people who've often inspired them to reach for the other extreme in exactly the same way - but except for here, for the purpose of making that analogy, I wouldn't say it like that because I'm not out to be a dick to people just for kicks. I'd probably say that "positively asserted atheism is a position that requires faith, as the truly logical position is that of agnosticism - since none of us know for sure."
quote:For example, when somebody throws a spear and a city is destroyed.
If that happened - it is natural. If it didn't is isn't. You're just assuming it didn't because it seems unlikely to you, knowing what you do about the world around you. But the real question at the root of this is - did it happen? Because the property of 'naturalness' derives directly from the answer to that.
It's easy to look back on things that are different from that which occurs in our own lives and call bullshit, but it is both scientifically and philosophically flawed to do that. The easy flaw in that argument, is to look at the hypothetical situation where God(s?) did create the universe, with a set of rules, but also changed the rules/used a magic Godspear to destroy that city. How would that situation appear to us - exactly the same as this one does right now, i.e. no spears destroy cities now, but there is a record of one that did. Obviously this is not a claim towards that happening - since it is equally possible to look at the corresponding hypothetical - how would it look if that wasn't the case and it's just a legend from the time before science - wow just the same. But this goes to show that you cannot make any judgements about the likelyhood of something having happened in the past - merely on the basis of your own experience of the present. i.e. no spears blow up now =/ no spears have ever blown up, nor can ever
Posted by Andrew W (Member # 4172) on :
rollaim said:
quote:When the term "empirical" is used, I think the observations or experiences it refers to are generally assumed to be universally replicable, not subjective interpretations.
I'm not talking about subjective interpretations. For example - it's empirically provable that I can raise my arm above my head - and we can try that experiment any time you like and it will succeed. However, try that experiment when I have no interest in co-operating then there is no way you can test this. You could forcibly move my arm above my head, but that provides no evidence that I can raise it myself. This is the situation with God. Yes we believe things that could be empirically tested with God's cooperation - i.e. He can create energy from nowhere etc, but without God onside (and He seems to have no interest in involving himself in my hypothetical experiment here) there's no way of testing these things - so when I say God created the universe and everything in it and is either maintaining it moment to moment, or designed it perfectly to flow from the word Go, I am not making any empirical claims about the universe.
Posted by Strider (Member # 1807) on :
andrew, try not to swear. I don't think the Cards or our fellow Hatrackers appreciate it.
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
quote:I'd probably say that "positively asserted atheism is a position that requires faith, as the truly logical position is that of agnosticism - since none of us know for sure."
Again, by that logic, I am "agnostic" on the issue of unicorns and Santa Claus -- as are you. That definition of "agnostic" is functionally useless, for all that it's the only "truly logical position."
The idea that none of us can refute an assertion unless we can demonstrably disprove it is a courtesy that is extended to religion only because we traditionally extend it to other personal claims. If a friend tells you he saw George Bush the other day, you are likely to believe him unless he has a history of lying, or unless you have evidence of George Bush's whereabouts that contradict your friend's story; that sort of claim of personal experience is one for which we tend to reverse the burden of proof.
We do not generally reverse the burden of proof for claims about the natural world. Rather, we let those unchecked claims of personal experience represent just one data point in favor of the possibility. If a friend tells you that he saw an apple fall, you believe him; if a friend tells you that he saw an apple leap off the ground and fly into the distance, you cross-check that with your other experiences involving gravity before deciding to believe.
Would you say that the only logical position, when a friend tells you that he saw an apple fly into the sky, is to not be sure one way or another? What if he told you that he saw your long-dead mother? Or if he told you that he was abducted by aliens? What if he said he saw an apple fly into the sky at the moment he was thinking of your long-dead mother, and that this proved the existence of ghosts?
There is no way to obtain direct experience of these items, and no way to testably refute them. Does that mean that our default assumption should be to consider them true, out of deference to our friend -- or should we instead (and still charitably) conclude that our friend may be being honest about his experiences while still drawing the wrong conclusions from them?
Posted by Mucus (Member # 9735) on :
quote:Originally posted by Andrew W: Well for starters his statement that the God of the old testament as:
quote:arguably the most unpleasant character in all fiction. Jealous and proud of it, a petty, unjust, unforgiving control freak, a vindictive bloodthirsty ethnic cleanser, a misogynistic, homophobic, racist, infanticidal, genocidal, filicidal, pestilential, megalomaniacal, sadomasochistic, capriciously malevolent bully
Arguing about whether this is true is likely to get us no where. Again, I go back to my original problem, when you separate the idea from the rhetoric, is this actually an extreme idea?
No. The idea that the God of the Old Testament is a horrible character is common among atheists. Even among many Christians, the objection would not be "Well thats not true" but would much more often be "Well, thats not the case any more and besides, we focus more on Jesus and the New Testament."
The other problem is that unless you are pyschic, how could you possibly know whether he was filled with hate when he wrote it? Here were his actual intentions.
quote: My nearest approach to stridency was my account of God as “the most unpleasant character in all fiction”. I don’t know how well I succeeded, but my intention was closer to humorous broadside than shrill polemic. Restaurant critics are notoriously scathing, but are seldom dismissed as shrill or intolerant. A restaurant might seem a trivial target compared to God. But restaurateurs and chefs have feelings to hurt and livelihoods to lose, whereas “blasphemy is a victimless crime”.
While he failed for you, I would say that that a very Christian audience in Lynchburg, many from Liberty University to boot found it very humourous and even applauded.
He even follows with an example of Thomas Jefferson saying pretty much the same, but shorter.
quote: “The Christian God is a being of terrific character - cruel, vindictive, capricious, and unjust”
So extreme and hate-filled? Hardly, more like mainstream and humourous.
I'll have to handle the longer earlier post when I get a longer off-time.
Posted by BlackBlade (Member # 8376) on :
quote:This is the problem with religious texts. Both sides can cherry pick to bolster their argument. My problem with religion or any group or organization is that when you have to cherry pick which parts you follow and agree with, i find it disingenuous as a follower or member of that group, and a black mark on the whole organization.
This has little to do with cherry picking. KOM made a statement that if true basically blows the Christian God out of the universe.
KOM:
quote:"Happy shall he be, that taketh and dasheth thy little ones against the stones."
1: That is a Psalmist talking, possibly David, not God.
2: That quotation specifically speaks of destroying Babylon which is an oft repeated metaphor for the element of wickedness in the world. Christians to this day speak of leaving Babylon as a metaphor for shrugging off sin.
And no the Bible does not contradict itself all the time, and no you don't have to straint the verses to get them to harmonize.
quote:Excuse me? You're asking me why he gets to be a better speaker as he gets more experienced, and more formal as people come to expect it of him? Further, I don't actually find the sort of stuff you find in the BoM very impressive; it's basically scaffolding, like when a politician says "I'm glad you asked that question" to give himself time to think. An unbiased observer might not notice the pattern you've been trained to see. Or are you going to tell me that this was your own, original insight, and nobody in any study group gave you so much as a hint that this might be the case?
Yes, are you astounded that I noticed this gradual increase in inteligence on my own without any suggestion of the idea? From my own observations the Joseph Smith who translated the Book of Mormon would not have been capable of writing that book on his own until at the very earliest, close to his death.
quote:Well then it should get on with the events, and enough with the "It came to pass" already! This is not the act of a skilled storyteller, it's the cheap parlour trick of someone who wants to look impressive and learned. Further, you didn't address my point that anyone can make up stories of faraway lands.
Sorry if the people of the BOM don't write in a style that is friendly to modern day readers. The BOM is not just a story of faraway lands. Its a narrative compilation of several historical texts written by different authors, with a purpose of bringing people to Christ. Why make it so complex if your making it up in the first place? Why not just create one author who paraphrases everything written throughout history. No, instead we get juxtaposations from Mormon in the middle of the text where he talks about the compilation process, some books are ceremoniously begun and concluded while others are reduced to, "Person X got the book, didn't write anything, gave it to his son."
I agree that anyone can just write a story, but there is too much complexity to the language, and world of the BOM that makes a quick 3 month write impossible for Joseph Smith.
quote:You know, it's not actually very difficult to write a sermon. Humanity has known for 3000 years how to treat each other. The difficulty has always been in living up to it. Writing a pious-sounding sermon is proof of nothing except having listened to the preacher every Sunday for some years.
You sound just like somebody who looks at a complex chemistry equation pages long and says, "Thats no big deal! See look I can do that too! "OH+2NZ ----> Na5N.""
Sermons in the Book of Mormon are of so many different topics its mind boggling. Many are on topics that Smith would have NEVER heard in any church house within 1000 miles. There are sermons directed to the BOM people, there are sermons directed to indiviual characters, there are expositions on the Law of Moses, Christ's role in fulfilling the law, the relationship of Christ to the Father, there are even sermons directed to the reader themselves.
All wrapped together in a congruent story that spans centuries, deals with multiple civilizations, and has a purpose behind it all.
I just don't believe you could duplicate the feat KOM, I don't think anyone can.
Posted by BlackBlade (Member # 8376) on :
Tom: I agree there are plenty of geniuses. But I don't think Joseph Smith was one of them. He either has to be genius or chosen of God to bring the Book of Mormon forth.
Posted by MrSquicky (Member # 1802) on :
quote:He either has to be genius or chosen of God to bring the Book of Mormon forth.
That's a false dichotomy.
Posted by Javert (Member # 3076) on :
quote:I agree that anyone can just write a story, but there is too much complexity to the language, and world of the BOM that makes a quick 3 month write impossible for Joseph Smith.
A quick question, how do we know it was just three months? Where was it recorded, and who recorded it?
I don't know enough about Smith or the BOM to give an opinion about his truthfulness.
But, at least hypothetically, if he made up this story I don't think it would be too much of a stretch to think he might lie about the amount of time he took to write it. Or lie about getting help from others to put it together.
Posted by BlackBlade (Member # 8376) on :
quote:Originally posted by Javert:
quote:I agree that anyone can just write a story, but there is too much complexity to the language, and world of the BOM that makes a quick 3 month write impossible for Joseph Smith.
Just a quick question, how do we know it was just three months? Where was it recorded, and who recorded it?
I don't know enough about Smith or the BOM to give an opinion about his truthfulness.
But, at least hypothetically, if he made up this story I don't think it would be too much of a stetch to think he might lie about the amount of time he took to write it. Or lie about getting help from others to put it together.
There were many people around Smith while he was translating, obviously any of them could be liars, but they all wrote in their journals and said it took Joseph Smith more or less 3 months to complete translation work.
Many of them were never permitted to even be in the room while he translated. They just knew when he got the plates and when he said he was done. There was incident where a portion of the plates were done and the manuscript was lost and translation had to stop and after some time resumed. Obviously none of this proves that Joseph Smith didn't lie about all of this and got his entire family and several friends/neighbors to go in on it and never reveal the lie ever in their lives. Seems like a pretty superficial detail to go through such great lengths to lie about. He could have easily taken his time and written the plates at a slow pace and then published them.
Posted by Javert (Member # 3076) on :
quote:Originally posted by BlackBlade: There were many people around Smith while he was translating, obviously any of them could be liars, but they all wrote in their journals and said it took Joseph Smith more or less 3 months to complete translation work.
Here's my issue. Who's to say that he didn't take several years of his life coming up with the BOM, and that it just took 3 months to finally get it down on paper?
And am I wrong, or did no one else ever actually see the plates?
Posted by MrSquicky (Member # 1802) on :
Why are we assuming that Joseph Smith was the only author? Why couldn't the BOM be a collaboration on the part of some sect of the Masons, for example?
Posted by BlackBlade (Member # 8376) on :
15 people in total claim to have seen the plates and handled them. Oliver Cowdery wrote down most of the manuscript as Joseph Smith dictated it from across the table behind a curtain.
Joseph Smith was 21 when he finished the plates, the younger we take him the less likely he would have been able to write the story in the first place.
Posted by Javert (Member # 3076) on :
quote:Originally posted by BlackBlade: 15 people in total claim to have seen the plates and handled them. Oliver Cowdery wrote down most of the manuscript as Joseph Smith dictated it from across the table behind a curtain.
Joseph Smith was 21 when he finished the plates, the younger we take him the less likely he would have been able to write the story in the first place.
Why are you being so age-ist?
But anyway, this thread has gotten way off course. I don't want to help turn it into a big Mormonism debate. Unless everyone else wants to...in which case, cheers.
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
quote:Why make it so complex if your making it up in the first place?
Well, for one thing, I know at least one person who says that its complexity is an argument for its validity. If you were intending to make a convincing hoax, that might be helpful.
Posted by BlackBlade (Member # 8376) on :
quote:Originally posted by MrSquicky: Why are we assuming that Joseph Smith was the only author? Why couldn't the BOM be a collaboration on the part of some sect of the Masons, for example?
Joseph Smith to the best of my knowledge did not associate with the masons until he moved to Illinois which was decades after the BOM was published.
Posted by BlackBlade (Member # 8376) on :
quote:Originally posted by TomDavidson:
quote:Why make it so complex if your making it up in the first place?
Well, for one thing, I know at least one person who says that its complexity is an argument for its validity. If you were intending to make a convincing hoax, that might be helpful.
That is true. But why make the actual book itself complex, rather then the details of the story intricate and historically accurate?
Why make up the story of God punishing Joseph Smith for not obeying him in regards to the original manuscript and taking away the plates? Wouldn't propegating such a story weaken his position as a prophet?
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
Smith's father and older brother were Masons. He was around 19 when he started looking for buried treasure with folk magic, and 24 when he gave his friend Oliver his first "divine" instruction. I think it's not unreasonable for skeptics to conclude that he may well have been knocking around the idea of a new religion for a while; at the very least, it seems disingenuous to refer to him as a "farm boy."
[ August 15, 2007, 11:55 AM: Message edited by: TomDavidson ]
Posted by Javert (Member # 3076) on :
I finished Christopher Hitchens' "God is Not Great" recently, and I believe he makes the claim that many portions of the BOM were taken directly from the bible with only slight changes (names and such). If the thread is still on this topic when I get home, I'll supply his actual quotes.
Posted by MrSquicky (Member # 1802) on :
quote:Joseph Smith to the best of my knowledge did not associate with the masons until he moved to Illinois which was decades after the BOM was published.
I don't think your knowledge is correct then.
quote:Freemasonry provides a point of entry into this very complex story. As it had been in Vermont, Masonic fraternity was a dominant feature of the cultural landscape in Joseph Smith's Ontario County. . . . The dense network of lodges and chapters helps explain the Masonic symbolism that runs through the story of the discovery of the Golden Plates. Most obviously, the story of their discovery in a stone vault on a hilltop echoed the Enoch myth of Royal Arch Freemasonry, in which the prophet Enoch, instructed by a vision, preserved the Masonic mysteries by carving them on a golden plate that he placed in an arched stone vault marked with pillars, to be rediscovered by Solomon. In the years to come the prophet Enoch would play a central role in Smith's emerging cosmology. Smith's stories of his discoveries got more elaborate with time, and in June 1829 he promised Oliver Cowdery, David Whitmer and Martin Harris that they would see not only the plates but other marvelous artifacts: the Urim and Thummim attached to a priestly breastplate, the 'sword of Laban,' and 'miraculous directors.' Oliver Cowdery and Lucy Mack Smith later described three or four small pillars holding up the plates. All of these artifacts had Masonic analogues. . . . Smith's sources for these Masonic symbols were close at hand. Most obviously, Oliver Cowdery would have been a source, given that his father and brother were Royal Arch initiates; one Palmyra resident remembered Oliver Cowdery as 'no church member and a Mason.' . . . A comment by Lucy Mack Smith in her manuscript written in the 1840s, protesting that the family did not abandon all household labor to try 'to win the faculty of Abrac, drawing magic circles, or sooth-saying,' suggests a familiarity with Masonic manuals: the 'faculty of Abrac' was among the supposed Masonic mysteries (Refiner's Fire, Cambridge University Press, 1994, pp. 157-158).
---
Moreover, I presented that just as a possibility. Joseph Smith was deeply involved in occult societies (e.g. magic treasure finders) for most of his early life, any of which could have constructed the BOM.
I honestly don't care. I'm just pointing out that there are tons of more options than you seem to be allowing...which, ultimately, is sort of the point of the thread.
Posted by BlackBlade (Member # 8376) on :
quote:Originally posted by TomDavidson: Smith's father and older brother were Masons.
Of this I do now know. It's quite possibly true. But again neither of them were educated. And you'd think that if a group of mysterious masons all came together to create this elaborate hoax that Joseph Smith would be the face of you'd think they would have figured prominantly in the church he eventually started. As it is the only individual people who are mentioned in the creation of the book are,
Joseph Smith + family, Emma Hale, Martin Harris, Oliver Cowdery, and the Whitmer brothers.
And the more complex we make this hoax the more you have to consider why it was done in the first place. Certainly not for financial gain.
Posted by Scott R (Member # 567) on :
I don't think it's much of a stretch for someone to copy the style of the Book of Mormon. I do think that by the time he was...say, 24, Joseph Smith could have done it. Of course, I also think Joseph Smith was a lot more intelligent than people (even church members) give him credit for.
Keep in mind that in those days, even the uneducated, when they could write, wrote very formally-- read some letters from some enlisted men in the Civil War, and you will note that they can be quite stilted. Similar to the way that we think the Bible is written.
IMO, if you're going to argue about whether or not Joseph wrote it, stay away from the 'uneducated-farm-boy' argument. He wasn't unintelligent. No one, not even his detractors, ever called him stupid. Just unschooled.
I believe Joseph translated the Book of Mormon the way he said he did. I think he COULD have written it-- but I don't think it was in his nature to do so.
Posted by BlackBlade (Member # 8376) on :
quote:Originally posted by MrSquicky:
quote:Joseph Smith to the best of my knowledge did not associate with the masons until he moved to Illinois which was decades after the BOM was published.
I don't think your knowledge is correct then.
quote:Freemasonry provides a point of entry into this very complex story. As it had been in Vermont, Masonic fraternity was a dominant feature of the cultural landscape in Joseph Smith's Ontario County. . . . The dense network of lodges and chapters helps explain the Masonic symbolism that runs through the story of the discovery of the Golden Plates. Most obviously, the story of their discovery in a stone vault on a hilltop echoed the Enoch myth of Royal Arch Freemasonry, in which the prophet Enoch, instructed by a vision, preserved the Masonic mysteries by carving them on a golden plate that he placed in an arched stone vault marked with pillars, to be rediscovered by Solomon. In the years to come the prophet Enoch would play a central role in Smith's emerging cosmology. Smith's stories of his discoveries got more elaborate with time, and in June 1829 he promised Oliver Cowdery, David Whitmer and Martin Harris that they would see not only the plates but other marvelous artifacts: the Urim and Thummim attached to a priestly breastplate, the 'sword of Laban,' and 'miraculous directors.' Oliver Cowdery and Lucy Mack Smith later described three or four small pillars holding up the plates. All of these artifacts had Masonic analogues. . . . Smith's sources for these Masonic symbols were close at hand. Most obviously, Oliver Cowdery would have been a source, given that his father and brother were Royal Arch initiates; one Palmyra resident remembered Oliver Cowdery as 'no church member and a Mason.' . . . A comment by Lucy Mack Smith in her manuscript written in the 1840s, protesting that the family did not abandon all household labor to try 'to win the faculty of Abrac, drawing magic circles, or sooth-saying,' suggests a familiarity with Masonic manuals: the 'faculty of Abrac' was among the supposed Masonic mysteries (Refiner's Fire, Cambridge University Press, 1994, pp. 157-158).
---
Moreover, I presented that just as a possibility. Joseph Smith was deeply involved in occult societies (e.g. magic treasure finders) for most of his early life, any of which could have constructed the BOM.
I honestly don't care. I'm jsut pointing out that there are tons of more options than you seem to be allowing...which, ultimately, is sort of the point of the thread.
I don't know this author or book you are quoting, and I can't simply accept his sweeping statements as factual.
The whole vault in the hill is nonsense, Smith found the plates in a box, not a vault, and there we no pillars to speak of in anyone's accounts that I have read.
Posted by Javert (Member # 3076) on :
quote:Originally posted by BlackBlade: And the more complex we make this hoax the more you have to consider why it was done in the first place. Certainly not for financial gain.
Power and control?
Isn't one of the things that all religions do (real or not) is control people?
And by 'control' I mean give them rules/guidelines to live by that you are required to follow to be a part of the religion. That certainly would give the leaders and founders of said religion a lot of power over people.
Posted by kmbboots (Member # 8576) on :
Goodness! You guys have been busy!
A couple of things I an interested enough to interject then you can go back to having fun with the BOM.
Strider, of course certain parts of Scripture are going to be more right, useful, comprehensible and so forth than other parts. Remember is is not one cohesive book written by a single author, but a collection of writings, by many authors, for many different purposes, in many different styles, from many different cultures, over the course of many different centuries. They are writings that record some of humanity's idea of their relationship with the Divine. A relationship that, it is to be hoped, matures and grows in understanding.
Another more complicated idea. I think we tend to think of God as something separate from the natural world. I don't think this is true - or at least not complete. I believe that God is incorporated in the natural world. In us, in "nature". The questions of "did God do that or was it natural law?" or "did a person do that or was it God?" are, for me, framed in a way that leads further from what I think is true.
Posted by MrSquicky (Member # 1802) on :
quote:Why make up the story of God punishing Joseph Smith for not obeying him in regards to the original manuscript and taking away the plates? Wouldn't propegating such a story weaken his position as a prophet?
Constructing an excuse that is consistent with God's actions in the Bible (denying things from his prophets because of their actions, e.g. Moses and Caanan) for not having the original miracle/magic plates would be a very good reason, to me.
Posted by BlackBlade (Member # 8376) on :
quote:Originally posted by Scott R: I don't think it's much of a stretch for someone to copy the style of the Book of Mormon. I do think that by the time he was...say, 24, Joseph Smith could have done it. Of course, I also think Joseph Smith was a lot more intelligent than people (even church members) give him credit for.
Keep in mind that in those days, even the uneducated, when they could write, wrote very formally-- read some letters from some enlisted men in the Civil War, and you will note that they can be quite stilted. Similar to the way that we think the Bible is written.
IMO, if you're going to argue about whether or not Joseph wrote it, stay away from the 'uneducated-farm-boy' argument. He wasn't unintelligent. No one, not even his detractors, ever called him stupid. Just unschooled.
I believe Joseph translated the Book of Mormon the way he said he did. I think he COULD have written it-- but I don't think it was in his nature to do so.
I would agree that he was not stupid, his potential for intelligence was quite formidable in my opinion, but I still don't think the 21 year old Joseph Smith could have written it. It's why the initial charges against him were that he plagerized the document, nobody believed HE could have written it.
Posted by MrSquicky (Member # 1802) on :
quote:you'd think they would have figured prominantly in the church he eventually started
Didn't the masons feature very prominently in the early LDS and doesn't Masonic imagery and ritual persist in the religion to this day?
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
quote:But why make the actual book itself complex, rather then the details of the story intricate and historically accurate?
Well, if you accept the premise that it's a hoax, it's easy to understand why historical accuracy couldn't've been a goal.
quote:Why make up the story of God punishing Joseph Smith for not obeying him in regards to the original manuscript and taking away the plates?
It gives you a good excuse for not having the plates to show people -- and also humanizes you, helping to smooth over any errors you may commit now and in the future by pointing out that even prophets make mistakes. This makes you a sympathetic figure and gives you some leeway to screw up.
Posted by BlackBlade (Member # 8376) on :
quote:Originally posted by MrSquicky:
quote:Why make up the story of God punishing Joseph Smith for not obeying him in regards to the original manuscript and taking away the plates? Wouldn't propegating such a story weaken his position as a prophet?
Constructing an excuse that is consistent with God's actions in the Bible (denying things from his prophets because of their actions, e.g. Moses and Caanan) for not having the original miracle/magic plates would be a very good reason, to me.
Except that he supposedly had the plates, had a partial translation, pestered God into letting a friend borrow the manuscript who then lost it, the plates were taken away, Joseph Smith is rebuked by God, gets the plates back, starts over again.
He could have easily said, "God wants the plates back for now because they are not safe." I don't know of many religious leaders who fabricate stories that make them look bad, do you?
Posted by Scott R (Member # 567) on :
Ahem-- a little clarification.
The plates weren't stolen. The first part of the translation-- 116 pages of manuscript-- was. We don't actually know if they were stolen. We just know that Martin Harris had them, and came back to Joseph saying they were gone.
EDIT: Nevermind. I misread Tom's post.
Posted by Foust (Member # 3043) on :
quote:Ok. Any time somebody answers a criticism with "It depends on what you mean by exist", my bullshit detectors go off. I'm not interested in such a discussion. If you want to go off and have Deeply Meaningful Debates On What We Mean By 'Exists', go right ahead; just be aware that you've defined yourself right out of any sort of claim to being interesting. I just don't care, neither does Dawkins, and neither does Dawkins' audience. Nor, I would suggest, do the vast majority of theists. Those of us who haven't overdosed on philosophy classes have a pretty good idea what we mean by 'exists'. If you want to join our debates, you'll have to agree to not quibbling about these really trivial issues. Otherwise, fine, go over and play in your own little sandbox, but you can't play with us.
Meh. All I see here is someone saying "I don't understand it, therefore it sucks." You don't have to "overdose" on philosophy classes to know that the question of "being" is one of the deepest and richest questions the western tradition has ever tackled. And guess what? Some of the answers offered aren't shackled to "common sense."
If you're not interested in the question, that's fine. Some are. And when they see someone that expressly refuses to discuss what the nature of God's existence might be, and yet deny that wholly undefined, unquestioned existence, they rightfully sneer and role their eyes in the same way you just did.
Posted by BlackBlade (Member # 8376) on :
quote:Originally posted by MrSquicky:
quote:you'd think they would have figured prominantly in the church he eventually started
Didn't the masons feature very prominently in the early LDS and doesn't Masonic imagery and ritual persist in the religion to this day?
I've seen many attempts to harmonize the two things, but have never seen more then a very superficial similarity. I think proponents of that position stretch the truth far too much in order to be taken seriously.
edit:
Tom:
quote:Well, if you accept the premise that it's a hoax, it's easy to understand why historical accuracy couldn't've been a goal.
Why is that?
Posted by Mucus (Member # 9735) on :
quote:Originally posted by Andrew W: Well you mistake me, I didn't ever call him extremist - though he certainly is, if you take that to mean saying things like raising children religious is tantamount to child abuse - or in his words "labelling children" I'm sure many would consider any religious figure extremist if they suggested that raising children atheist or in a different religion was that.
You're completely changing what he actually said. He suggested that the *labelling* of children was child abuse, not the actual raising up of children (although obviously he would not be a fan of that either).
quote: What I think may be abuse is labeling children with religious labels like Catholic child and Muslim child. I find it very odd that in our civilization we're quite happy to speak of a Catholic child that is 4 years old or a Muslim of child that is 4, when these children are much too young to know what they think about the cosmos, life and morality. We wouldn't dream of speaking of a Keynesian child or a Marxist child. And yet, for some reason we make a privileged exception of religion. And, by the way, I think it would also be abuse to talk about an atheist child.
That is hardly an extremist position. Heck, if you separate the rhetoric (child abuse) from the idea, this is pretty much TomDavidson's position earlier in the thread. This goes back to my original point. Most atheists would not have an issue with the actual position, just the actual term. This is a problem with *how* he phrases his argument, not *what* he is saying. Thus, he cannot be extremist unless most atheists are extremist, which kinda renders the term useless.
quote:"I saw a picture of this woman," Dawkins says. "She had one of the most stupid faces I've ever seen. She actually said, 'Christians should be allowed to work for British Airways."'
He continues, face reddening: "Well, of course, Christians are sodding well allowed to work for British Airways. It's got nothing to do with it. She is clearly too stupid to see the difference between somebody who wears a cross and somebody who is a Christian."
A) *shrug* He's admitted that he lost his temper on this one.
quote: I should also say something about the BA stewardess whom I unfortunately insulted. As various people have said, this was not my finest hour. Just occasionally, even the most even-tempered person can be goaded beyond endurance, and I was goaded by this woman. She had succeeded in bringing one of the world's great airlines almost to its knees by her religiously-inspired refusal to abide by a simple dress code of the kind which is implicit in the very idea of an airline uniform. If you don't like wearing a uniform I entirely sympathize, but then don't join one of the very few professions that requires you to wear a uniform. BA also didn't cover themselves with glory. They allowed the essentially frivolous row over this ridiculous woman to escalate to a point where they obviously were going to have to back down. They eventually did back down, but not soon enough.
... She actually said, 'Christians should be allowed to work for British Airways'."
This latter statement by her was part of what had provoked my temper. She seemed to think that anybody who does NOT wear a cross can't be a Christian.
Of course I regret losing my temper, as anybody must. Losing it in the presence of a reporter was even worse. But that is what temper means: you temporarily lose control.
quote: And to pretend he is anything but deliberately provocative would be silly after programs like "The Root of All Evil?" an obviously polemical and non-literal title to his attack on religion, yet, if a Catholic Cardinal wrote a book of the same name about Atheism no-one would hesitate to call him 'extreme' or 'hardline' or whatever.
I never said he was not deliberately provocative. Quite clearly he is, but that does not make him an "extremist." That quite neatly fits into the *how* of what he says than the *what* he says.
If a very polite man promotes eugenics or young earth creationism, that is extremist. If someone swears and yells at me that glucose is a sugar, thats not extremist, its just impolite. Extremism is characterised by ideology and actions, not politness (or lack thereof).
Of course you've neatly made a very strange point. If a Catholic priest made that point, it would not be extremist because it would be pretty mainstream for religion. Heck, even the supposedly secular President can say "No one who disbelieves in God and in an afterlife can possibly be trusted" link or "No, I don't know that atheists should be considered as citizens, nor should they be considered patriots. This is one nation under God." link
It would not be extremist for religion because it *would* be mainstream.
Posted by Scott R (Member # 567) on :
Since we're dipping into the temple ordinances a bit, please be reminded that the Cards have asked us not to discuss specifics here.
Posted by MattP (Member # 10495) on :
quote:Originally posted by MrSquicky:
quote:you'd think they would have figured prominantly in the church he eventually started
Didn't the masons feature very prominently in the early LDS and doesn't Masonic imagery and ritual persist in the religion to this day?
Yes, particularly in the temple. I, of course, have no direct knowledge, but a formerly temple-going friend of mine has confirmed that the web sites that catalog the many Masonic elements of temple ordinances are accurate. Out of respect for the hosts, I will not provide links or details here.
Posted by MrSquicky (Member # 1802) on :
I thought the story (and goodness knows I don't know much about the origins of LDS) was that the friend's wife took the translation and said that he should retranslate that section so that they could compare what he had already written with what he would write the next time to see if they matched. And then, Joseph Smith claimed that God wouldnt' let him translate that section again.
If so, the motive is pretty darn obvious to me.
1) Avoid the comparison.
2) Establish that any sort of checking would result in God stepping in to prevent it.
And, as I said, the Old Testament is full of stories of prophets being rebuked by God. So a story involving that would likely increase, rather than decrease in credibility.
Likewise, one of the techniques that con men use is to make small mistakes or tell stories in which they are shown to be humiliated. It, if done correctly, plays on people's sympathies and leads people to trust one more.
---
Again, the point isn't so much to specifically criticize the beginnings of LDS, but rather to demostrate that there are actually potentially valid explanations that aren't even being considered.
Posted by MattP (Member # 10495) on :
quote:I've seen many attempts to harmonize the two things, but have never seen more then a very superficial similarity. I think proponents of that position stretch the truth far too much in order to be taken seriously.
I have to strongly disagree with this. Perhaps you haven't seen the same material I have, but the similarities are astonishing in some *very* key elements.
Brigham Young described the temple endowment ceremony as follows:
quote:"Let me give you the definition in brief. Your endowment is, to receive all those ordinances in the House of the Lord, which are necessary for you, after you have departed this life, to enable you to walk back to the presence of the Father, passing the angels who stand as sentinels, being enabled to give them the key words, the signs and tokens, pertaining to the Holy Priesthood, and gain your eternal exaltation in spite of earth and hell."
Again, I won't go into detail here, but suffice to say that a person who is well versed in Masonic rituals will already know a fair portion of these "key words, signs, and tokens."
Posted by BlackBlade (Member # 8376) on :
Mr S: According to Joseph Smith and Martin Harris (the man who lost the manuscript) he took the manuscript home and showed it to his family and close friends as Smith had instructed him. He then showed the manuscript to some men that had doubted the authenticity of the manuscript so as to persuade them that it was real. The manuscript disappeared, and Martin Harris returned empty handed. Joseph Smith stated that God told him the manuscript had been stolen specifically so that alterations could be made by the men who stole it. The point being that were he to write again they would then present their altered copy and claim Smith could not write the same thing twice. Joseph Smith instead started translating from a later part of the plates and never revisited the stuff that had already been written.
I can easily see how this might set off somebody's BS alarms, but there it is.
Posted by MrSquicky (Member # 1802) on :
So why did you present that story as being somehow proof that Joseph Smith must have been a conduit for God?
Posted by Scott R (Member # 567) on :
quote:I won't go into detail here, but suffice to say that a person who is well versed in Masonic rituals will already know a fair portion of these "key words, signs, and tokens.
:shrug:
It's hardly endemic to the Masons, either. A variation of these three things exist in rituals all over the world. (Think of the coins that the Greek dead presented to Charon before they could cross to the other side for judgment)
Posted by MrSquicky (Member # 1802) on :
quote:The point being that were he to write again they would then present their altered copy and claim Smith could not write the same thing twice.
I've got to admit, that sounds like an incredibly suspect justification to me.
It seems remarkably easy to counter.
Posted by MrSquicky (Member # 1802) on :
Scott, I don't think that Matt was saying that having words, signs, and tokens were the commonalities, but rather the specific words, signs and tokens.
Posted by Scott R (Member # 567) on :
I was being pedantic.
Posted by MrSquicky (Member # 1802) on :
I don't think I'm familiar with that usage of the word pedantic. I can't get a meaning out of what you just said. Could you explain how you meant it?
Posted by MattP (Member # 10495) on :
quote:Originally posted by Scott R:
quote:I won't go into detail here, but suffice to say that a person who is well versed in Masonic rituals will already know a fair portion of these "key words, signs, and tokens.
:shrug:
It's hardly endemic to the Masons, either. A variation of these three things exist in rituals all over the world. (Think of the coins that the Greek dead presented to Charon before they could cross to the other side for judgment)
I mean the specific words, signs and tokens, not just the concepts of words, signs and tokens.
If you Google "masonic secret handshakes," the first few hits are to sites that describing some of the Masonic ceremonies. These sites DO NOT make any reference to LDS temple ceremonies, though my understanding is that several of these Masonic elements do appear in these ceremonies in identical or virtually-identical form.
Posted by BlackBlade (Member # 8376) on :
Ignoring the schtick about Masonic rituals in the Mormon temple ceremonies. It seems strange to have masons create the Book of Mormon which does not dabble in ANY of these supposed similarities.
Mr S: I already admitted that I could see how it appears suspect but the only people who know the truth of the matter are Joseph Smith and Martin Harris. Their justification for acting as they did makes sense and is certainly plausible. I mentioned the whole situation as indicators that Joseph Smith was translating plates and not creating some elaborate hoax as not many hoaxers are willing to paint themselves in a negative light as often as Joseph Smith was. His revelations frequently contain reproofs directed at him along with everything else. It's not enough to make you think, "Why does God even stick with this guy?" but it is enough to make you wonder, why a person is willing to let so many people read criticisms of his person if he is trying to dupe them all.
Posted by MrSquicky (Member # 1802) on :
quote:Their justification for acting as they did makes sense and is certainly plausible.
No, see, to me, their justifications make no sense at all.
Changing stolen pages (assuming they have some sort of advanced forgery techniques so no one could tell the difference) to say that he can't write the same thing twice is almost infantile as is being unable to counter it.
All you need to do is show that you can write the same thing twice. It would be incredibly easy to do. Write a bunch of stuff, then have someone select a part to take away without you knowing which part they are going to take, then retranslate that part so that they can be compared.
Posted by Scott R (Member # 567) on :
Pedantic:
Ostentatious in one's learning.
I was showing off my knowledge that there are other societies that use keys, signs, and tokens to navigate through rituals, especially as concerning rituals involving the passage of the dead into the next life.
Posted by MrSquicky (Member # 1802) on :
quote:It seems strange to have masons create the Book of Mormon which does not dabble in ANY of these supposed similarities.
I'm not sure what you mean by this. Could you explain what you mean by dabbling in the supposed similarities?
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
quote:Their justification for acting as they did makes sense and is certainly plausible.
Is it really that plausible a justification? How easily forged was Smith's handwriting?
quote:it is enough to make you wonder, why a person is willing to let so many people read criticisms of his person if he is trying to dupe them all.
Have you never tried to con someone? If you know they don't necessarily think much of you, your credibility is improved enormously if you incorporate your flaws into your narrative.
Posted by Scott R (Member # 567) on :
quote:All you need to do is show that you can write the same thing twice. It would be incredibly easy to do.
Okay, if it was really that easy, there would never have been a stink about deleting threads.
Posted by MrSquicky (Member # 1802) on :
quote:Okay, if it was really that easy, there would never have been a stink about deleting threads.
That doesn't make any sense.
When we write threads, we're not translating, with the aid of God, from holy golden plates. We're creating the content at that moment, which is very hard to replicate.
---
That's sort of the whole point. If he was translating, the two texts would match up very well. If he wasn't, it would be very difficult for him to write the same or very similarly.
Posted by Foust (Member # 3043) on :
A debate over the literary quality of the BOM is going to be futile, surely? There's juuuust enough personal taste involved to create an unresolvable dispute.
What's always struck me about the BOM is the obviously 19th century American character of it. Search for the word "liberty" in the BOM. The good guys are consistently concerned with what comes down to a defense of personal property and rights. This kind of perspective just didn't exist until modern Europe.
See in particular Alma 54 and Alma 51. If that's not social contract theory pulled straight out of American common sense, than I don't know what is.
Annnd then 2 Nephi 5:21-24. I know that's a touchy verse to bring up, and I'm not doing so to call mormons racist. let's make that clear. What I want to point out here is that the villains the BOM fit perfectly with 19th century negative perceptions of black people.
It all screams "written in the 19th century by an American."
Posted by Strider (Member # 1807) on :
quote:And to pretend he is anything but deliberately provocative would be silly after programs like "The Root of All Evil?" an obviously polemical and non-literal title to his attack on religion
just an fyi, Dawkins has been very vocal about the fact that he was strongly against that title for his documentary. And that the network chose it and didn't give him a say in it.
Posted by Andrew W (Member # 4172) on :
Tom Davidson said:
quote:Again, by that logic, I am "agnostic" on the issue of unicorns and Santa Claus -- as are you. That definition of "agnostic" is functionally useless, for all that it's the only "truly logical position."
Not so much, since Santa Claus and Unicorns both make specific testable claims. And I would be agnostic on the possibility of there having been a horse-like creature with a horn on its head, either in the past or even on another planet. Hell I can't be entirely sure there aren't any hiding away in the deepest forest. This attitude is not functionally useless, it is the best one for proper scientific and philosophical investigation. If you write off as 'untrue' things that are merely 'in our estimation highly unlikely' without testing them, then you're going to get nowhere. If I said that an electron fired at a two slit apparatus can go through both and interfere with itself, yet when we observed its motion it clearly only goes through one of the slits, and you just said - 'look the rest of scientific understanding makes that highly unlikely' which is true, and then didn't investigate any further you would be wrong which is exactly the same problem people run into when they say - 'look at how the world works, it doesn't seem likely that a God was involved' without actually rigorously investigating it (and hopefully finding out that eventually investigation will not provide enough answers and philosophy is your only hope) then they're doing exactly the same thing.
It's like aliens - anyone with a firm position, a belief, in the existence or non-existence of aliens holds a faith position. Taking 'logical' to mean, 'has logical and verifiable reasons for a belief', the logical position on the existence of aliens, at this point, is agnosticism. It's exactly the same thing with God. Unless of course you have some very damning evidence for the lack of one.
quote:We do not generally reverse the burden of proof for claims about the natural world. Rather, we let those unchecked claims of personal experience represent just one data point in favor of the possibility. If a friend tells you that he saw an apple fall, you believe him; if a friend tells you that he saw an apple leap off the ground and fly into the distance, you cross-check that with your other experiences involving gravity before deciding to believe.
Would you say that the only logical position, when a friend tells you that he saw an apple fly into the sky, is to not be sure one way or another? What if he told you that he saw your long-dead mother? Or if he told you that he was abducted by aliens? What if he said he saw an apple fly into the sky at the moment he was thinking of your long-dead mother, and that this proved the existence of ghosts?
There is no way to obtain direct experience of these items, and no way to testably refute them. Does that mean that our default assumption should be to consider them true, out of deference to our friend -- or should we instead (and still charitably) conclude that our friend may be being honest about his experiences while still drawing the wrong conclusions from them?
Well I'd say that we should be very careful before dismissing things out of hand, just because of existing prejudices. If I trusted my friend I would absolutely believe them. Why would I not? No-one I know is in the habit of making up stories about apples. Of course I wouldn't either jump to any attitude changing beliefs about the truth about gravity - I'd be most likely waiting for the kicker of "and it all happened because someone tied a very thin string around it". If none came I'd be puzzled, but I'd not neccessarily disbelieve them. Hell, for all I know, the collision of two Higg's Bosons does cause a reversal of gravity that radiates in a narrow cone in exactly the way to make an apple nearby shoot off. There's no reason to believe that that's impossible.
Being stuck with our assumptions has often held back the progress of science. When people first had tentative theories about the movement of continental plates, it was assumed that the earth's crust was stable and motionless, and people didn't give the idea the time of day, or bother to look at the evidence fairly.
You bring in talk of proof. But you're right, him seeing my dead mother throw an apple from a distance doesn't prove the existence of ghosts, to me, at least. But that's because proof requires testing - and there were no tests going on there. I've never said that we should ever "consider [experiences of others] true, out of deference to our friend" - because that would not be logical. However the logical default position about anything that you do not have evidence for or against, should be agnosticism.
For example if a friend says to me "I have discovered that hyperspatial linear charge trails wrap around each other to interfere constructively and destructively so as to cause the existence of the dimensions we experience or have discovered", there's two things for me to think.
1. I have some evidence that he hasn't discovered that, I know him, I know he's no good at maths, and is 8, and prefers to draw, I've been around him a lot and know he hasn't been running off working on this, so can probably safely assume he's lying
2. I know jack shot about what causes the existence of our dimensions and so am absolutely agnostic as to the existence of interfering charge trails. And if you think that I can assume it's wrong because he's probably made it up, I can't really, because he could easily have read it somewhere and merely be lying about the fact that he himself discovered it.
And to hop off on a tiny tangent - I think this is something that Dawkins has done, he's been so caught up with #1 that he rides roughshod over #2 and especially (to get the analogy right) because of #1.5 which is the claim my friend made that his discovery can make him invisible. He can't. He repeatedly fails to, often and in public. His only claim. (If anyone gets that reference I'll actually send them ten pounds and respect them for life) Dawkins has seen all sorts of spiritualists do this, in all sorts of situations, and this blinds him to the logical agnosticism that a scientific rationalist should take. Since so many people do claim this and that, much of which is wrong, it's easy to fall into the trap of feeling that the very concept of religion is a silly one, when really one should either adopt a 'wait and see' attitude, or man-up and take on atheism as a faith position.
If your friend claims it happened, and you trust him, then you should 100% believe that he experienced it, 50% believe that something happened that looked exactly like that (the other 50% of course being that they've had a schizoid episode) and 0% believe that you can draw any conclusions about why the apple flew upwards, unless you have some evidence.
Posted by vonk (Member # 9027) on :
quote:"No, I don't know that atheists should be considered as citizens, nor should they be considered patriots. This is one nation under God." link
Wow, I'd never heard that. That is seriously messed up.
Posted by camus (Member # 8052) on :
quote:The point being that were he to write again they would then present their altered copy and claim Smith could not write the same thing twice. Joseph Smith instead started translating from a later part of the plates and never revisited the stuff that had already been written.
I would think the value of having the complete word of God would far outweigh the value of omitting a portion for fear of a possible false accusation.
Posted by Scott R (Member # 567) on :
Er... I don't see the evidences you see in Alma 54 or Alma 51. Social contract what?
Contrast what's said in 2 Nephi 5:21-24 and what said by Nephi (same prophet, same general era) in 2 Nephi 26:33. Also, the rest of the Book of Mormon in regards to race. (SPOILER: The white folks loose because they become more wicked than the black folks)
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
quote:However the logical default position about anything that you do not have evidence for or against, should be agnosticism.
Using this definition of "agnosticism," can you explain to me the functional difference between this and disbelief?
I am saying that, unless you have evidence for something, the default position is to not believe it.
Posted by MrSquicky (Member # 1802) on :
I am trying to respond to specific things that BB and Scott are saying. I don't think that this is the place to bring up random accusations against LDS.
Posted by Andrew W (Member # 4172) on :
Mucus
quote:You're completely changing what he actually said. He suggested that the *labelling* of children was child abuse, not the actual raising up of children (although obviously he would not be a fan of that either).
I used that very word in my own sentence. And it's not possible to bring up a child as a member of a religion (which requires labelling them as a member of that religion) without labelling them. That was what he was getting at. He thinks of it as unfairly pushing children into things.
Extremism is not my main beef with the moron, innacuracy, bad presentation and lack of understanding about what he is talking about, along with a total ignoring of atheists who don't think like him, and constant hectoring paranoid drivel, lapped up by many as "speaking truth to power!", would be a brief summary of it. Extremism however, is also, not an absolute. It is relative, and relative to how people think, and act, now. It would be extremist to promote armed gay resistance against homophobia in Iran (no matter whether or not it'd be a good thing), but would you call the French Resistance extremist?
He is suggesting that it is a form of child abuse (a very serious allegation) to merely call children "christian children" or "muslim children", and many people have gone on to say "yeah! no-one talks about capitalist children!". Well irregardless of the validity of his point (very invalid, if you ask me, but you didn't) it's a position that is extremely different from what most people believe, and levels a very serious accusation against a large proportion of the world. If that's not extremist, then I guess you're only thinking about violent extremism, which he doesn't do.
quote: My nearest approach to stridency was my account of God as “the most unpleasant character in all fiction”. I don’t know how well I succeeded, but my intention was closer to humorous broadside than shrill polemic. Restaurant critics are notoriously scathing, but are seldom dismissed as shrill or intolerant. A restaurant might seem a trivial target compared to God. But restaurateurs and chefs have feelings to hurt and livelihoods to lose, whereas “blasphemy is a victimless crime”.
Yes, it is a real pity that he left out the actually strident words that immediately followed his cherry picked sentence. And a greater pity that he does come closer to shrill polemic than humorous broadside. What's humorous or broadside-y about labelling someone's God lots of nasty things, without considering whether in the event of his existence, this would be true? Everyone can say things from their side of the border and criticise the other .. sorry gtg, I'll finish this later
Posted by Scott R (Member # 567) on :
quote:If he was translating, the two texts would match up very well. If he wasn't, it would be very difficult for him to write the same or very similarly.
Er...I think this has already been covered. And you already raised objections to the explanation.
:shrug:
Neither proves anything about the Book of Mormon, either way. I don't blame anyone for being skeptical. There's a lot of good reason to be skeptical of it.
Posted by MrSquicky (Member # 1802) on :
quote:Er...I think this has already been covered. And you already raised objections to the explanation.
I don't see it. I'm not sure if you are following this conversation very well Scott. It seems to me like you might be distracted.
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
quote:He is suggesting that it is a form of child abuse (a very serious allegation) to merely call children "christian children" or "muslim children", and many people have gone on to say "yeah! no-one talks about capitalist children!".
Is it child abuse to raise a racist? I think it's clear that this is the sort of "abuse" that Dawkins means.
Posted by King of Men (Member # 6684) on :
quote:Originally posted by vonk:
quote:"No, I don't know that atheists should be considered as citizens, nor should they be considered patriots. This is one nation under God." link
Wow, I'd never heard that. That is seriously messed up.
To be fair to the senior Bush, there is considerable dispute about whether or not he actually did say this. Drawing from memory here, but as I recall it, the only witness is a reporter whose veracity is not utterly unchallenged.
Posted by BlackBlade (Member # 8376) on :
quote:Originally posted by MrSquicky:
quote:Their justification for acting as they did makes sense and is certainly plausible.
No, see, to me, their justifications make no sense at all.
Changing stolen pages (assuming they have some sort of advanced forgery techniques so no one could tell the difference) to say that he can't write the same thing twice is almost infantile as is being unable to counter it.
All you need to do is show that you can write the same thing twice. It would be incredibly easy to do. Write a bunch of stuff, then have someone select a part to take away without you knowing which part they are going to take, then retranslate that part so that they can be compared.
Joseph Smith did send a set of characters and a translation to the best linguistic scholars he knew of in New York City.
There are a handful of characters that have been copied down from the gold plates that anyone can observe. But nobody can really translate a dead language anyway, not without a rosetta stone.
Several of Joseph Smith's scribes to make mention of the fact that he never asked where he left off when he took a break from translating, he always just ended and without queue started translating again even if it was mid sentance.
Nitpick point: The forgers would have to forge Martin Harris' handwriting not Joseph Smith's. Also how hard would it be for them to simply say, here is an exact copy of the text, we have hidden the original text we stole because we don't want it tampered with. Then raise a big stink about the difference that THEY made? Why allow for a scandal even an fake one to attend the publication of the most important book published in over a thousand years? Even to this day people often claim the Book of Mormon was plagerized from a book written around the same time. It was only recently that this was proven to be absolutely lacking in truth, yet I still hear people repeat that mistake.
Posted by Scott R (Member # 567) on :
quote:Joseph Smith stated that God told him the manuscript had been stolen specifically so that alterations could be made by the men who stole it. The point being that were he to write again they would then present their altered copy and claim Smith could not write the same thing twice. Joseph Smith instead started translating from a later part of the plates and never revisited the stuff that had already been written.
There's the explanation for why the plates weren't retranslated.
Here's your objection:
quote:I've got to admit, that sounds like an incredibly suspect justification to me.
It seems remarkably easy to counter.
quote:It seems to me like you might be distracted.
I'm going on a weekend trip with my wife for our tenth anniversary. I'm exceptionally giddy about it.
Posted by MrSquicky (Member # 1802) on :
I'm not sure how any of that answers what I said, BB.
Posted by Foust (Member # 3043) on :
Verse 6 of Alma 51:
quote:6 And those who were desirous that Pahoran should remain chief judge over the land took upon them the name of afreemen; and thus was the bdivision among them, for the freemen had sworn or ccovenanted to maintain their rights and the privileges of their religion by a free government.
Covenant social theory!
And about the Alma verse, I actually think I'd prefer not to discuss it much. Last time I brought it up on hatrack, I was nearly banned.
Posted by Scott R (Member # 567) on :
quote:And about the Alma verse, I actually think I'd prefer not to discuss it much. Last time I brought it up on hatrack, I was nearly banned.
You mean the Nephi 5 verse?
Posted by BlackBlade (Member # 8376) on :
quote:Originally posted by Foust: Verse 6 of Alma 51:
quote:6 And those who were desirous that Pahoran should remain chief judge over the land took upon them the name of afreemen; and thus was the bdivision among them, for the freemen had sworn or ccovenanted to maintain their rights and the privileges of their religion by a free government.
Covenant social theory!
And about the Alma verse, I actually think I'd prefer not to discuss it much. Last time I brought it up on hatrack, I was nearly banned.
How is a commitment to remain free from an evil monarch a 19th century idea? Not only that, the government of the Nephites in the BOM is not remotely close to the government of the United States. Their judicial system is completely different from ours. And I have to agree with Scott, the whole whites losing to the blacks is not something most American authors would have been willing to say. edit: Perhaps not even willing, completely incapable of fathoming or suggesting.
Posted by MrSquicky (Member # 1802) on :
Right...maybe I'm the one not being clear here.
If accused of not being able to write the same thing twice by this pack of apparently expert forgers, Joseph Smith could easily show that this is not true by saying "Okay, choose any piece of what I've written away and then I'll retranslate it and then we can compare the pages." It's not the original stolen things he'd be comparing to, but rather two new translations that he made.
---
quote:Also how hard would it be for them to simply say, here is an exact copy of the text, we have hidden the original text we stole because we don't want it tampered with. Then raise a big stink about the difference that THEY made?
Errr...if they didn't want to get laughed at, I imagine it would be very hard for them to do this. Do you not see how ridiculous this scenario you created is?
Posted by BlackBlade (Member # 8376) on :
Mr S: We are talking about frontier folks from New York/Vermont. These men STOLE the manuscript and clearly it was not for the sake of the truth. With how negatively the Book of Mormon was received by Christians as they saw it incredibly presumptuous I don't think it hard to see them latching on to ANY mud anybody threw concerning the actual translation process.
If they had approached Joseph Smith with your very honest query perhaps things would have been different.
But how is your suggestion any different then Joseph submitting characters and his translations for scholars to approve?
Posted by Foust (Member # 3043) on :
quote:You mean the Nephi 5 verse?
*smacks forehead* Yes. Sorry.
quote:How is a commitment to remain free from an evil monarch a 19th century idea?
The "freedom" that is repeatedly articulated is the freedom of the (lower case letter) liberal democrat. It's not a specifically 19th century idea, but it is post-enlightenment.
Posted by BlackBlade (Member # 8376) on :
quote:Originally posted by Foust:
quote:You mean the Nephi 5 verse?
*smacks forehead* Yes. Sorry.
quote:How is a commitment to remain free from an evil monarch a 19th century idea?
The "freedom" that is repeatedly articulated is the freedom of the (lower case letter) liberal democrat. It's not a specifically 19th century idea, but it is post-enlightenment.
Not really. The only freedom being espoused here is the freedom to worship God and to not have kings. The Chinese had freedom of religion for thousands of years, and plenty of cultures don't have kings. The Nephites as far as democracy was concerned elected their local level judges, and it was those judges who elected everyone else, all the way to the top. That's about as democratic as a match is a camp fire.
Posted by MattP (Member # 10495) on :
quote:There are a handful of characters that have been copied down from the gold plates that anyone can observe. But nobody can really translate a dead language anyway, not without a rosetta stone.
Tell that to the folks that have figured out how to read ancient Mayan writing, one of the most complex scripts we've discovered, with no rosetta stone-like assistance.
Posted by Scott R (Member # 567) on :
The attitude of the general public against Joseph Smith was such that villifying him was a good part of the local gossip scene. There wasn't an atmosphere to engender a meeting of equals, in which Squicky's match up could be conducted. Furthermore, the attitude the Lord displayed to resolve this conflict was one that would be well ingrained within Mormon society until they left the East Coast.
In the early days of the Church, the Lord made it quite clear that the Mormons were NOT to confront their detractors. They migrated, they fled, they ran-- they did just about anything BUT demand justice for the wrongs committed against them. And when Joseph finally did decide to run for political office to call attention to his people's plight, he was killed shortly thereafter.
:shrug:
Mormons believe that the Lord had already prepared a better way around the loss of the 116 pages. Nephi's abridgement of Lehi's writings supposedly contains a more spiritual history of their journey-- and it's that account that we have now.
Posted by MrSquicky (Member # 1802) on :
quote:These men STOLE the manuscript and clearly it was not for the sake of the truth.
I'm not sure how you could say that. They could quite easily have been concerned with demonstrating an obvious fraud committed by Joseph Smith.
quote:With how negatively the Book of Mormon was received by Christians as they saw it incredibly presumptuous I don't think it hard to see them latching on to ANY mud anybody threw concerning the actual translation process.
Somehow, I think that the "Well, God won't let me translate that part now, because otherwise people could come forward with an incredibly easily debunkable attack." throws a lot more mud on the translation process than "We stole a copy to prove that he can't retranslate the same thing, but we can't show you the original. Instead here's a copy which we swear is actually what in on the original." both at the time and now, looking back on it
Yes, there are still people who would latch onto the second part, but they started out as lost causes. The people you might affect are going tosee the ridiculousness of second situation while possibly being very troubled by the first.
quote:But how is your suggestion any different then Joseph submitting characters and his translations for scholars to approve?
I'm not sure how it is the same.
The scholars would not be able to translate the characters. They could be completely made up marks for all they knew. This doesn't answer the accusation that he wasn't really translating because he was unable to write the same thing twice in any way that I see, whereas writing the same thing twice in the manner I'm suggesting would do so.
Posted by Scott R (Member # 567) on :
quote:Tell that to the folks that have figured out how to read ancient Mayan writing, one of the most complex scripts we've discovered, with no rosetta stone-like assistance.
The difference being, that there exist only a few characters to go on from the Book of Mormon. There are reams of examples of Mayan language. Or...well, probably not reams, but more than a single slip of old paper with ten characters on it.
Also, it helps that the Mayans developed codices, and were able to preserve some of them through the years.
quote:There are a handful of characters that have been copied down from the gold plates that anyone can observe. But nobody can really translate a dead language anyway, not without a rosetta stone.
Tell that to the folks that have figured out how to read ancient Mayan writing, one of the most complex scripts we've discovered, with no rosetta stone-like assistance.
With the help of some translations made by Catholic colonialists who wrote in Latin. We still have not cracked the entire language.
Are you saying that you think Egyption glyphs would have ultimately been translated just fine without the Rosetta Stone?
And apparently God wanted the BOM to come out precisely when it did. Had he used your method we would have had a completed book that I doubt every scientist would have agreed on sometime in the 1900s.
Posted by King of Men (Member # 6684) on :
I'm sorry, but this particular bit of pleading is definitely going to be taking the short bus to school.
Posted by BlackBlade (Member # 8376) on :
quote:Originally posted by King of Men: I'm sorry, but this particular bit of pleading is definitely going to be taking the short bus to school.
Whatever that means.
Posted by King of Men (Member # 6684) on :
I am accusing you and Scott of special pleading. You wouldn't put up with this sort of argument in defense of anything but something you already believed strongly in.
Posted by BlackBlade (Member # 8376) on :
quote:Originally posted by King of Men: I am accusing you and Scott of special pleading. You wouldn't put up with this sort of argument in defense of anything but something you already believed strongly in.
So what? You wouldn't make such ridiculous criticisms of the text if you were actually aquainted with it. Or at least you making those criticisms would be worthy of respect.
Posted by MattP (Member # 10495) on :
quote:And when Joseph finally did decide to run for political office to call attention to his people's plight, he was killed shortly thereafter.
I think his death was precipitated more by his destruction of his opponents' printing press, a somewhat less laudable endeavor than his attempt to gain a political office.
Had he not attempted to silence them violently, they very well may not have felt it necessary to seek a more direct manner of confrontation.
Posted by BlackBlade (Member # 8376) on :
quote:Originally posted by MattP:
quote:And when Joseph finally did decide to run for political office to call attention to his people's plight, he was killed shortly thereafter.
I think his death was precipitated more by his destruction of his opponents' printing press, a somewhat less laudable endeavor than his attempt to gain a political office.
Had he not attempted to silence them violently, they very well may not have felt it necessary to seek a more direct manner of confrontation.
Except that long before the incident with the printing press many attempts had been made on Joseph's life.
Posted by MattP (Member # 10495) on :
quote:So what? You wouldn't make such ridiculous criticisms of the text if you were actually aquainted with it. Or at least you making those criticisms would be worthy of respect.
What is your reasoning behind the assumption that he is unfamiliar with the text? Can't the criticisms be addressed independently of your assessment of his qualifications to make them?
Posted by BlackBlade (Member # 8376) on :
quote:Originally posted by MattP:
quote:So what? You wouldn't make such ridiculous criticisms of the text if you were actually aquainted with it. Or at least you making those criticisms would be worthy of respect.
What is your reasoning behind the assumption that he is unfamiliar with the text? Can't the criticisms be addressed independently of your assessment of his qualifications to make them?
His own failure to state that he IS indeed familiar with the book, something I'd imagine KOM would have done had my accusation pages ago been incorrect.
I have already tried to address those criticisms ignoring his ignorance of the text. I've had to deal with random verses posted with the claim that it would be pretty easy to recreate them. I'd rather not loop through the conversation again, it's all on the previous page of this thread.
Posted by Scott R (Member # 567) on :
quote:Had he not attempted to silence them violently, they very well may not have felt it necessary to seek a more direct manner of confrontation.
Do you think that article is inconsistent with my statement, or are you just providing it interesting background information?
I'm just wondering if I'm supposed to be arguing about something or not. Posted by BlackBlade (Member # 8376) on :
MattP: I dunno but the destruction of a printing press is a pretty pathetic justification for the taking of 2 men's lives.
Posted by Scott R (Member # 567) on :
I provide the link to make clear some of the issues regarding the destruction of the press.
Posted by MattP (Member # 10495) on :
quote:Originally posted by BlackBlade: MattP: I dunno but the destruction of a printing press is a pretty pathetic justification for the taking of 2 men's lives.
I don't disagree. I just think that the act of illegally destroying a printing press as a response to the content published with it could reasonably have been expected to provoke an escalation.
Murder is never justified, but prudence on behalf of the victim can often prevent it from occurring nonetheless.
Posted by BlackBlade (Member # 8376) on :
quote:Originally posted by MattP:
quote:Originally posted by BlackBlade: MattP: I dunno but the destruction of a printing press is a pretty pathetic justification for the taking of 2 men's lives.
I don't disagree. I just think that the act of illegally destroying a printing press as a response to the content published with it could reasonably have been expected to provoke an escalation.
Murder is never justified, but prudence on behalf of the victim can often prevent it from occurring nonetheless.
Indeed, but what about the fact that Smith was assaulted several times and attempts on his life had been made long before that particular incident?
Posted by Mucus (Member # 9735) on :
quote:Originally posted by Andrew W: ... And it's not possible to bring up a child as a member of a religion (which requires labelling them as a member of that religion) without labelling them.
I think this is probably at the root of the misunderstanding. If this is impossible, an incredible number of people manage to do the impossible.
All you have to do is expose the child to the religion and when they are old enough to say that they want to commit to the religion in earnest, then you've successfully brought up the child in the religion.
This is not remotely an extreme position. The rhetoric of "child abuse" is provocative but the actual advocated policy of allowing a child to make their own decisions can be echoed even in many of OSCs columns about groupthink in university. OSC often mentions that one should educate a child to think, evaluate evidence, and come to conclusions to their own rather than have them dictated to them by authority.
quote: Extremism however, is also, not an absolute. It is relative, and relative to how people think, and act, now. It would be extremist to promote armed gay resistance against homophobia in Iran (no matter whether or not it'd be a good thing), but would you call the French Resistance extremist?
I'm not sure what you're getting at. For example, Dawkins in that sentence you brought up essentially says exactly the same thing as Thomas Jefferson. Would you consider both of them extremist? Or is Dawkins only extremist because he lives today and Jefferson lived 200-odd years ago?
quote: ... What's humorous or broadside-y about labelling someone's God lots of nasty things, without considering whether in the event of his existence, this would be true?
Did you even watch the video? Perhaps you could ask the audience of Christians in Lynchburg what was funny? Clearly you did not find it funny, but a great number of people from across the ideological spectrum do find it funny.
Posted by MrSquicky (Member # 1802) on :
quote:Indeed, but what about the fact that Smith was assaulted several times and attempts on his life had been made long before that particular incident?
Were these unprovoked attacks, or were they at least partially in response to aggressive things that Smith and his followers did and said?
Posted by MattP (Member # 10495) on :
quote:Indeed, but what about the fact that Smith was assaulted several times and attempts on his life had been made long before that particular incident?
The printing press/carthage jail incidents are well documented. Are there similarly well documented cases of these other attempts? I'd certainly be interested in reading them if you have some links.
Posted by Krankykat (Member # 2410) on :
Mucus:
Did you stray from the topic? I thought this was a thread about Joseph Smith.
Krank
Posted by BlackBlade (Member # 8376) on :
quote:Originally posted by MrSquicky:
quote:Indeed, but what about the fact that Smith was assaulted several times and attempts on his life had been made long before that particular incident?
Were these unprovoked attacks, or were they at least partially in response to aggressive things that Smith and his followers did and said?
Initial attacks were based on the fact Joseph Smith found the gold plates in a hill that nobody had a deed of ownership therefore it belonged to the county. Several attempts were made to find and obtain the plates ranging from using courts to assembling an armed mob and assaulting his home. After one particular court appearance where he was aquitted and permitted to come home in the custody of the sheriff, the sheriff admitted that he had been bribed to allow Smith to be taken from the carriage and killed by men lying in wait.
Because of persecution the church moved its main body to Ohio, it was there the first temple was constructed. Heavy immigration of converts to the area prompted fears of the long time settlers that the Mormons would obtain a controlling bloc in Ohio and impose a theocracy. Using a mixture of violence with a request the Mormons leave prompted another exodus to Missouri. Joseph Smith was dragged from his home in the middle of the night where he was beaten, poison and tar was forced into his mouth breaking some of his teeth, and he was tarred and feathered and left for dead by the mob. He crawled home and taught a sermon about forgiveness the next day with members of the mob in attendance. After the Mormons left the temple was entered by unbelievers who purposely defiled it.
In Missouri the church reestablished its base and a new temple was planned but never built. The Mormons since they did not own slaves and practiced an unconventional religion were looked at suspiciously by their neighbors who eventually decided that the Mormons were there to kick them all out and abolish slavery. Joseph Smith was thrown in Liberty Missouri's prison for several months in very unsanitary conditions without any formal charges being leveled and released with no apology.
When Mormons started getting beaten, raped, and murdered it was talked about that the church needed to move again. Governor Lilburn Bogs "Extermination Order" clinched the deal and the Mormons were forced to leave at gun point, Haun's Mill being the most tragic affair of the entire exodus.
It was reasoned that if the Mormons moved somewhere NOBODY wanted then they would be the original settlers and their rights would be respected. Subsequent events would prove them wrong, anyone can follow Scott's link.
----
Now obviously this does not account for individual acts. In fact I refuse to believe that there were NO Mormons who at best said things that inflammed their neighbor's fears and at worst fired weapons and killed their enemies.
But Joseph Smith was certainly not a violent man, he was known to be very physical, but he certainly did not seek to hurt others. He most certainly injured and possibly killed somebody when he fired that revolver in Carthage Jail, but to me knowing the history of the church, its pretty clear that Joseph Smith had he not destroyed that printing press would have eventually found himself murdered anyway. I certainly don't agree with the decision to destroy the press, but I am pretty certain there were men around him who were determined to see him dead no matter what he did.
I will take me some time to provide links to the Bribe Sheriff incident and the Tar and Feather incident but I can't really do that at work.
Posted by MrSquicky (Member # 1802) on :
quote:But Joseph Smith was certainly not a violent man
You mean the second Mohammed, who wanted to make the path to peace either choosing the sword or Joseph Smith?
It seems to me you are leaving out an awful lot of history that casts Joseph Smith and his followers in a more negative light than you seem to be showing them.
Posted by BlackBlade (Member # 8376) on :
quote:You mean the second Mohammed, who wanted to make the path to peace either choosing the sword or Joseph Smith?
I am not sure what you are talking about. Are you referring to a claim made by a man that Joseph Smith fancied himself a second Mohammed to this generation who would make one big gore from the rocky mountains to the eastern sea board?
I'm not leaving anything intentionally. I went so far as to admit that Mormons were not guiltless. But the Mormons were certainly seeking to live in peace even if their self righteous behavior pissed off their neighbors. It was not the Mormons who pulled out their guns and told their neighbors to leave.
Posted by MrSquicky (Member # 1802) on :
quote:"I Will Be a Second Mohammed"
In the heat of the Missouri “Mormon War” of 1838, Joseph Smith made the following claim,
“I will be to this generation a second Mohammed, whose motto in treating for peace was ‘the Alcoran [Koran] or the Sword.’ So shall it eventually be with us—‘Joseph Smith or the Sword!’ ”[1]
quote:[1] Joseph Smith made this statement at the conclusion of a speech in the public square at Far West, Missouri on October 14, 1838. This particular quote is documented in Fawn M. Brodie, No Man Knows My History, second edition, (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1971), p. 230–231. Fawn Brodie’s footnote regarding this speech contains valuable information, and follows. “Except where noted, all the details of this chapter [16] are taken from the History of the [Mormon] Church. This speech, however, was not recorded there, and the report given here is based upon the accounts of seven men. See the affidavits of T.B. Marsh, Orson Hyde, George M. Hinkle, John Corrill, W.W. Phelps, Samson Avard, and Reed Peck in Correspondence, Orders, etc., pp. 57–9, 97–129. The Marsh and Hyde account, which was made on October 24, is particularly important. Part of it was reproduced in History of the [Mormon] Church, Vol. III, p. 167. See also the Peck manuscript, p. 80. Joseph himself barely mentioned the speech in his history; see Vol. III, p. 162.”
Posted by MrSquicky (Member # 1802) on :
BB, You left out the entire "Mormon War", except to potray the Mormons as passive victims.
Posted by BlackBlade (Member # 8376) on :
Do you have any idea what he meant by that? It could easily have meant the way of the Lord or the sword, those are our only two options. The fact the Mormons left Missouri rather then banding together and fighting, something Joseph Smith emphatically discouraged makes me question just how violent he was.
So it's a quote that we can't read the context of that was pieced together based on the accounts of 7 men? Ignoring the fact some of those sources left the church because of less then admirable reasons, we do not know if they wrote that quote down at the time or recalled if from memory. The fact that Sampson Avard is one of the 7 men makes me immediately question the statements authenticity as he was one of the most dishonest and violent men I have ever had the displeasure of reading about. It was he who created the Danite band against Joseph Smith's explicit orders and they traveled about doing all the same vile things the Missourians were doing to the Mormons, in the name of Joseph Smith. He was excommunicated for it.
However I will note that while Fawn Brodie left the church for doctrinal disagreements alot of her work in church history has proven invaluable.
Posted by BlackBlade (Member # 8376) on :
quote:Originally posted by MrSquicky: BB, You left out the entire "Mormon War", except to potray the Mormons as passive victims.
I left out the Utah War as well, I didn't have time to write EVERYTHING. I have less SPECIFIC knowledge of the Mormon War then other events in Mormon history. The only major event of the Mormon War I know ANYTHING about is, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Crooked_River
The articles claim that Elder Patton was a leader of the Danite Band is incorrect as far I know.
Posted by MrSquicky (Member # 1802) on :
quote:It could easily have meant the way of the Lord or the sword, those are our only two options.
No, it really couldn't have. That makes no sense in the context of the Mohammed reference.
quote:The fact the Mormons left Missouri rather then banding together and fighting, something Joseph Smith emphatically discouraged makes me question just how violent he was.
They would have lost. It doesn't take a peaceful man to back down from a fight he can't win.
Posted by BlackBlade (Member # 8376) on :
Mr S: Why the Koran or the Sword instead of The Koran AND the Sword? How do you know he was not speaking in terms of suing for peace when it comes to the mobs? You didn't address my questions on the quotes authenticity.
As for the Mormons losing a war, they believed God was on their side, that's been enough for many people to fight to the last man. Or are you arguing that Mormons did not seriously believe that, or that apparently they felt it was God's will that they NOT fight?
I think the weight of evidence is against Joseph Smith being a violent person by nature, but certainly I agree that he did not shun violence in all it's forms. If a man had attempted to assault him one on one he would have almost certainly fought him.
Posted by Javert (Member # 3076) on :
quote:Originally posted by BlackBlade: Mr S: Why the Koran or the Sword instead of The Koran AND the Sword? How do you know he was not speaking in terms of suing for peace when it comes to the mobs?
Using "or" is too vague. Because 'koran or sword' can mean "Use the Koran or use the sword", but it can also mean "Use the Koran or we use the sword on you!".
'And' would mean "use the Koran...and we're gonna use our swords on you too."
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
quote:As for the Mormons losing a war, they believed God was on their side, that's been enough for many people to fight to the last man. Or are you arguing that Mormons did not seriously believe that...
If the presumption is that Smith perpetrated a hoax, it's safe to also reason that he didn't genuinely believe God was on his side.
(Who was it that said that, throughout history, one of the few constants has been how reliably God has been on the side of the better army?)
Posted by MrSquicky (Member # 1802) on :
quote:Why the Koran or the Sword instead of The Koran AND the Sword?
I'm not sure you understand the context of this reference. Islam spread through conquest. The choice offered to people that they were conquering was for peace either through the Koran (converting) or the sword (being killed).
I don't know what you want me to say in response to "Well, maybe he didn't say it and those 7 people are lying." Ummm...okay? Sure, that's possible.
quote:As for the Mormons losing a war, they believed God was on their side, that's been enough for many people to fight to the last man. Or are you arguing that Mormons did not seriously believe that, or that apparently they felt it was God's will that they NOT fight?
I'm saying that it is entirely possible and that Joseph Smith chose to not make a stand and fight primarily because he knew there was no chance of him winning.
This is especially the case if he was a con man.
Posted by MrSquicky (Member # 1802) on :
Napolean said that God fights on the side with the best artillery.
Posted by King of Men (Member # 6684) on :
'Biggest battalions', I think. Posted by MrSquicky (Member # 1802) on :
I think that was Voltaire. I'm pretty sure Napolean's quote was about artillery. That little dictator loved his big guns.
Posted by BlackBlade (Member # 8376) on :
Mr S: I didn't accuse the 7 men of lying. I said constructing a quote from the comments of 7 men is pretty tough to swallow. I even ignored that some of them later left the church. I only pointed out one as somebody who was known to lie about what Joseph Smith said and usually mad sensationalist comments about what Joseph Smith was saying.
Its a pretty distinct con man who holds on to a lie even after going to jail numerous times, having many of your friends abandon you for insisting you are not lying, getting beaten and eventually killed.
I suppose you could argue that eventually he started to actually believe the lie.
But perhaps he actually did what he said he was doing.
Posted by King of Men (Member # 6684) on :
quote:Its a pretty distinct con man who holds on to a lie even after going to jail numerous times, having many of your friends abandon you for insisting you are not lying, getting beaten and eventually killed.
There is such a thing as being committed. If after all that you admit that you really were lying, what are people going to think? You'd never show your face again in that county, for sure. And before you say that this is better than being beaten up, and so forth, consider these two things: First, would you rather be beaten, or be caught going to a brothel and have this action published to your friends and family? And second, humans will quite literally die for the approval of their friends; this is how armies work.
Posted by King of Men (Member # 6684) on :
And, by the way, you keep saying "It's possible he was telling the truth", as though this were some sort of novel insight that we weren't admitting. Yes, yes, it's possible, but then again it's also possible that Ron L Hubbard believed in the whole panoply of Scientology that he invented. The possibility that somebody believed what they were saying is not a strong standard.
Posted by Glenn Arnold (Member # 3192) on :
quote:To be fair to the senior Bush, there is considerable dispute about whether or not he actually did say this. Drawing from memory here, but as I recall it, the only witness is a reporter whose veracity is not utterly unchallenged.
Except that Bush, the White House, and the Bush Library have always responded to questions about the veracity of the claim with responses like: "The President is entitled to his opinion," or some such. Bush has never claimed that he didn't make the statement, and refuses to clarify his position on the issue. If he wanted to lay this to rest, it would be ridiculously simple to state that "the president recognizes that religious belief is not a requirement for citizenship," but he doesn't.
The Bush Library told me that they do have documents regarding the event, but that they aren't available to the public.
Posted by BlackBlade (Member # 8376) on :
quote:Originally posted by King of Men: And, by the way, you keep saying "It's possible he was telling the truth", as though this were some sort of novel insight that we weren't admitting. Yes, yes, it's possible, but then again it's also possible that Ron L Hubbard believed in the whole panoply of Scientology that he invented. The possibility that somebody believed what they were saying is not a strong standard.
Yes but when you say it, it's with the contempt of somebody saying, "Sure it could be true, and it's true that one day pigs will fly."
I only keep reiterating it because it starts to feel like the conversation is going in the direction of, "Joseph Smith may have used a masonic group to write the Book of Mormon, and then he held on to the lie the rest of his life while intentionally trying to fight a war with his neighbors in Missouri which culminated in his being murdered which could have been avoided had he not destroyed a printing press."
I think there is a more correct and plausible explanation to Joseph Smith's life.
Posted by MattP (Member # 10495) on :
quote:I think there is a more correct and plausible explanation to Joseph Smith's life.
I don't see how Joseph Smith being selected as God's prophet on earth to restore His One True Church is more plausible than the idea that a relatively small group of people perpetuated an unusually successful act of hucksterism.
Posted by King of Men (Member # 6684) on :
quote:Originally posted by BlackBlade:
quote:Originally posted by King of Men: And, by the way, you keep saying "It's possible he was telling the truth", as though this were some sort of novel insight that we weren't admitting. Yes, yes, it's possible, but then again it's also possible that Ron L Hubbard believed in the whole panoply of Scientology that he invented. The possibility that somebody believed what they were saying is not a strong standard.
Yes but when you say it, it's with the contempt of somebody saying, "Sure it could be true, and it's true that one day pigs will fly."
Which is exactly your attitude to Scientology, so what's your pork? Once again, "X could be true" is just not very enlightening. It provides almost zero distinguishing power. About the only things which absolutely cannot be true are actual contradictions, such as "A is red and A is also not red". A test which only eliminates this sort of thing is about as useful as wings on a pig.
Posted by orlox (Member # 2392) on :
mmmm... air bacon...
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
quote:I don't see how Joseph Smith being selected as God's prophet on earth to restore His One True Church is more plausible than the idea that a relatively small group of people perpetuated an unusually successful act of hucksterism.
In all seriousness, this is actually how hucksters profit: because once people become emotionally invested in the con, they would prefer to believe almost anything else to avoid being wrong about it. The perceived likelihood of anything which contradicts our own worldviews is artificially low.
Posted by steven (Member # 8099) on :
"The perceived likelihood of anything which contradicts our own worldviews is artificially low."
Yeah, and if I weren't who I am, I might still be a Young-Earth Creationist. Because, I was raised to be one.
I admit that it's probably a lot easier to stay a believing Mormon (and still be intelligent and fairly well-educated) as an adult than a Young-Earth Creationist.
I have no idea what it would be like to have been raised Mormon, or any other non-YEC religion. I am what I am. Nothing else. I don't know what that means, exactly.
Posted by BlackBlade (Member # 8376) on :
quote:Originally posted by MattP:
quote:I think there is a more correct and plausible explanation to Joseph Smith's life.
I don't see how Joseph Smith being selected as God's prophet on earth to restore His One True Church is more plausible than the idea that a relatively small group of people perpetuated an unusually successful act of hucksterism.
And that's fine. But we are not looking at the exact same data sets.
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
What extra data is necessary to make "X is a prophet of God" a more likely alternative?
Posted by MattP (Member # 10495) on :
quote:And that's fine. But we are not looking at the exact same data sets.
No doubt. You are already a Mormon. That Joseph Smith was God's prophet is an article of faith for you. I'm just pointing out that, to a non-invested outside observer, it's not a very plausible story compared to the rather mundane alternatives.
Posted by dkw (Member # 3264) on :
quote:Originally posted by Leonide:
edit: also, i don't think religious people *themselves* are being misleading, i just think the term itself, in that context, is. That word has certain connotations, and stretching it to include "the natural order of things" is not a commonly accepted one.
Actually, the idea that everything might be God goes back a long way. Cicero argued against it on the grounds that the universe is spinning and so if God is the universe God would be constantly vomiting.
Why no one ever worked that into a creation myth I'm not sure.
Posted by steven (Member # 8099) on :
"Why no one ever worked that into a creation myth I'm not sure."
Stephen King did. He mentions the "giant turtle who barfed out Everything" in "It".
Posted by Leonide (Member # 4157) on :
Makes me even more interested in taking my Anthropology of Religion course this Fall!
Posted by Mucus (Member # 9735) on :
quote:Originally posted by Krankykat: Did you stray from the topic? I thought this was a thread about Joseph Smith.
Heh.
Although, I would point out that this thread is a good example of why there would have been very little point to Dawkins going into more theological detail about specific religions Posted by Krankykat (Member # 2410) on :
quote: Leonide: Makes me even more interested in taking my Anthropology of Religion course this Fall!
quote:American Heritage Dictionary: an·thro·pol·o·gy The scientific study of the origin, the behavior, and the physical, social, and cultural development of humans. That part of Christian theology concerning the genesis, nature, and future of humans, especially as contrasted with the nature of God
Mucus: Considering the defination, Leonide could use this thread for the source of >>>HER<<< term paper this Fall: "Anthropology of Religion: Genesis, Nature, and the Future of Humans, Especially as Contrasted with the Nature of Hatrack"
>>>(EDIT for Ms. Leo!)<<<
[ August 16, 2007, 03:04 AM: Message edited by: Krankykat ]
Posted by Strider (Member # 1807) on :
That screenname has been the bane of your Hatrack existence Kira.
Leonide is a she Kranky.
That was a great link btw Mucus...the Salon interview with Dawkins. I had never read that before!
Posted by Krankykat (Member # 2410) on :
Thanks for the heads-up Strider!
Posted by Samprimary (Member # 8561) on :
quote:Originally posted by TomDavidson: In all seriousness, this is actually how hucksters profit: because once people become emotionally invested in the con, they would prefer to believe almost anything else to avoid being wrong about it. The perceived likelihood of anything which contradicts our own worldviews is artificially low.
This is that whole cognitive dissonance thing that I've talked about way too often. The mechanism is absurdly powerful in the human mind.
The most potent examples of how fast and how completely it can go to work on a person of faith is to look at sects which had predicted an exact date of a very serious foretold happening. I like this:
quote:Festinger's theory of cognitive dissonance can account for the psychological consequences of disconfirmed expectations. One of the first published cases of dissonance was reported in the book, When Prophecy Fails (Festinger et al. 1956). Festinger and his associates read an interesting item in their local newspaper headlined "Prophecy from planet clarion call to city: flee that flood." A Chicago housewife, Mrs. Marion Keech, had mysteriously been given messages in her house in the form of "automatic writing" from alien beings on the planet Clarion, who revealed that the world would end in a great flood before dawn on December 21. The group of believers, headed by Mrs. Keech, had taken strong behavioral steps to indicate their degree of commitment to the belief. They had left jobs, college, and spouses, and had given away money and possessions to prepare for their departure on the flying saucer, which was to rescue the group of true believers.
Festinger and his colleagues saw this as a case that would lead to the arousal of dissonance when the prophecy failed. Altering the belief would be difficult, as Mrs. Keech and her group were committed at considerable expense to maintain it. Another option would be to enlist social support for their belief. As Festinger wrote, "If more and more people can be persuaded that the system of belief is correct, then clearly it must after all be correct." In this case, if Mrs. Keech could add consonant elements by converting others to the basic premise, then the magnitude of her dissonance following disconfirmation would be reduced. Festinger et al. predicted that the inevitable disconfirmation would be followed by an enthusiastic effort at proselytizing to seek social support and lessen the pain of disconfirmation.
Festinger and his colleagues infiltrated Mrs. Keech's group and reported the following sequence of events:[1]
* Prior to December 20. The group shuns publicity. Interviews are given only grudgingly. Access to Mrs. Keech's house is only provided to those who can convince the group that they are true believers. The group evolves a belief system—provided by the automatic writing from the planet Clarion—to explain the details of the cataclysm, the reason for its occurrence, and the manner in which the group would be saved from the disaster.
* December 20. The group expects a visitor from outer space to call upon them at midnight and to escort them to a waiting spacecraft. As instructed, the group goes to great lengths to remove all metallic items from their persons. As midnight approaches, zippers, bra straps, and other objects are discarded. The group waits.
* 12:05 A.M., December 21. No visitor. Someone in the group notices that another clock in the room shows 11:55. The group agrees that it is not yet midnight.
* 12:10 A.M. The second clock strikes midnight. Still no visitor. The group sits in stunned silence. The cataclysm itself is no more than seven hours away.
* 4:00 A.M. The group has been sitting in stunned silence. A few attempts at finding explanations have failed. Mrs. Keech begins to cry.
* 4:45 A.M. Another message by automatic writing is sent to Mrs. Keech. It states, in effect, that the God of Earth has decided to spare the planet from destruction. The cataclysm has been called off: "The little group, sitting all night long, had spread so much light that God had saved the world from destruction."
* Afternoon, December 21. Newspapers are called; interviews are sought. In a reversal of its previous distaste for publicity, the group begins an urgent campaign to spread its message to as broad an audience as possible.
Posted by Mucus (Member # 9735) on :
Ok, catch-up time. So Leonide = Krankykat, or Lenoide is Krankykat's significant other? And Kira is Krankykat?
Second, I can agree with what Krankykat said about the term paper, I just don't see why it was addressed to me?
TomDavidson, Samprimary: I agree, although I'll just add that the idea is really just a special case of the concept reflected the in the paraphrased old adage "don't throw in good money after bad", it does not have to be a con or religion. You hear that phrase a lot in investing for example.
[ August 16, 2007, 10:09 AM: Message edited by: Mucus ]
Posted by Strider (Member # 1807) on :
hah, Leonide = Kira who is not = Krankykat.
quote:>>>(EDIT for Ms. Leo!)<<<
Call me now for a free reading!
[ August 16, 2007, 11:26 AM: Message edited by: Strider ]
Posted by Leonide (Member # 4157) on :
*reads the portents*
*charges $5.99 a minute*
Posted by rivka (Member # 4859) on :
Whaddaya mean? There's no Hatracker discount?!?
Posted by Leonide (Member # 4157) on :
It's usually $10.99.
Posted by BlackBlade (Member # 8376) on :
quote:Originally posted by MattP:
quote:And that's fine. But we are not looking at the exact same data sets.
No doubt. You are already a Mormon. That Joseph Smith was God's prophet is an article of faith for you. I'm just pointing out that, to a non-invested outside observer, it's not a very plausible story compared to the rather mundane alternatives.
I can certainly see this.
edit: It would be nice though if somehow the opposition realized something along the lines of, you don't have to be duped in order to believe this stuff. To me, though the physical evidence is secondary to the divine, I still find that it's quite rational to believe there sound reasons to believe Joseph Smith, if one looks deeply enough. The conclusion to believe in him might be just as rational as the conclusion that the world exists.
[ August 16, 2007, 01:39 PM: Message edited by: BlackBlade ]
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
quote:It would be nice though if somehow the opposition realized something along the lines of, you don't have to be duped in order to believe this stuff.
Um. Definitionally, if you believe this stuff and it was an intentional con, you have been duped.
Posted by BlackBlade (Member # 8376) on :
quote:Originally posted by TomDavidson:
quote:It would be nice though if somehow the opposition realized something along the lines of, you don't have to be duped in order to believe this stuff.
Um. Definitionally, if you believe this stuff and it was an intentional con, you have been duped.
OK but you keep posing that possibility as the only conclusion that could be reasonably drawn from this.
Posted by King of Men (Member # 6684) on :
Yes. It's the only conclusion we have, in fact, drawn. I'm sorry, but we are not required to keep an open mind for infinite periods; there comes a point when you have to say "No, this is not a reasonable theory and I will spend no more effort keeping my mind open on the subject." Just as you have done with Scientology, a point I have made several times and you have signally failed to address.
Posted by Javert (Member # 3076) on :
To be fair, it isn't the only conclusion. It is also possible that it was an unintentional con and that Joseph Smith really believed what he preached.
Posted by kmbboots (Member # 8576) on :
If you winged monkeys are no longer having fun with the Joseph Smith strawman* I would love to discuss what evangelical atheists hope to gain by lumping all (or almost all) theists together.
If their concern is the erosion of civil rights by the religious extremists wouldn't it make more sense to get those theists (and there are a lot of us) who agree with them to work with them rather than lumping us all together and calling us idiots? There is common ground and a common cause. Making it an "us against them" proposition and casting moderates and liberals as "them" along with the extremists seems counter-productive.
*no offence, but for the purposes of my argument, he is.
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
quote:If their concern is the erosion of civil rights by the religious extremists wouldn't it make more sense to get those theists (and there are a lot of us) who agree with them to work with them rather than lumping us all together and calling us idiots?
Perhaps. But that's looking at it as a strategic battle, which most atheists don't.
In my experience, to most atheists, the issue is not one of societal warfare but rather simple rationality -- and by that standard, the claims of liberal theology are no more rational than the claims of fundamentalist theology; they're just less easily falsified.
Posted by Javert (Member # 3076) on :
Unfortunately kmbboots, our issue is just as much with religion itself as it is with the extremists.
And so, while I will never call anyone an idiot just for being a theist, I will criticize your religion if I believe it is harmful.
Posted by kmbboots (Member # 8576) on :
Tom and Javert, that, in my opinion is where the atheists make the same mistake that religions do; they care more about what people believe than what people do.
If this struggle is to accomplish anything good, I think that the "battle lines" should be drawn not between theists and atheists, but between those who want to control what other people believe and do (beyond demonstrable harm) and those who don't.
Posted by Strider (Member # 1807) on :
Tom made an important point that i would've said as well, but there are a few other things too.
I'll start by saying that in theory I agree with kmbboots. For most of my life I've been a very to each their own type of person. You can believe whatever you want to believe as long as it doesn't affect me adversely. My goal isn't to make everyone think the same way as me, it's to have everyone be able to leave in peace together. Converting you to an atheist is not a necessary condition for that, or at least shouldn't be or doesn't have to be.
But it's not all as simple as that. Like Tom says, it's a matter of rationality. So though our major beef is with extremists(whether they be muslim suicide bombers or the religious rights eroding our civil liberties), how exactly do you combat that? It's a matter of faith for them. And by allowing the faith of moderates and vaguely spiritual people to go unquestioned and uncriticized, it leds directly to the inability to criticize the faith of the extremists. All they're doing is following their holy books, and doing what they believe is right based on their faith.
Dawkins has chosen to attack all religion because it's something he views as irrational as a whole. I've said before I don't know if it's the most effective way of ending extremism OR converting people to atheism. But that's also not to say that it's completely ineffective. He's stated on multiple occasions that his book isn't necessarily written to convert the faithful, but more for the people who are confused, who are questioning their faith, who feel that something is wrong or missing but don't have or know enough information to help them through the process.
So while I have many problems with religion itself, i think it's important for me to state that I'm not interested in converting everyone to atheism, but when trying to combat irrationality it's toeing a fine line to work with people of faith and yet not offend them at the same time. How do I convince the extremists that gay marriage isn't a sin without attacking the religion itself? I can pose countless rational arguments, but if the other side always comes back to "my book says so", we're at an impasse.
Posted by MrSquicky (Member # 1802) on :
quote:Unfortunately kmbboots, our issue is just as much with religion itself as it is with the extremists.
And so, while I will never call anyone an idiot just for being a theist, I will criticize your religion if I believe it is harmful.
I'm not sure that those statements (at least how I'm reading them) go together well.
Are you assuing that religion itself does harm? Or do you have a problem with religion even if it doesn't do harm and even if it does good?
Posted by MrSquicky (Member # 1802) on :
quote:Like Tom says, it's a matter of rationality.
It's not really. It's a matter of materialism. Rationality doesn't necessarily have a problem with religion. While specific religions or specific religious beliefs may violate rationality, religion as a concept itself does not.
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
quote:Rationality doesn't necessarily have a problem with religion.
I disagree, of course. But we're working from two different definitions of "religion," so YMMV. Posted by kmbboots (Member # 8576) on :
Demonstrable harm. The truth that religious freedom for others is essential to religious freedoms for oneself. The argument that secular authority is as bad for religion as religion is for secular authority.*
Look at cultural and social justice issues that might make people more extreme than they need to be? What is really religion and what is a "religious" response to social issues.
Moderates can and do criticize extremists. And often we can be effective when we "speak the language". But because we are not extreme, we tend to get drowned out by either end.
And, practically, I don't think the evangelical atheists are going to change as many minds to their point of view as they are going to harden hearts against it.
*Did you see or read Obama's speech?
Posted by MrSquicky (Member # 1802) on :
quote:But we're working from two different definitions of "religion,"
As I said, I'm more inclined to think that we're using different definitions of rationality.
But you could be right. What is the definition of religion that you are using?
Posted by Javert (Member # 3076) on :
quote:Originally posted by MrSquicky:
quote:Unfortunately kmbboots, our issue is just as much with religion itself as it is with the extremists.
And so, while I will never call anyone an idiot just for being a theist, I will criticize your religion if I believe it is harmful.
I'm not sure that those statements (at least how I'm reading them) go together well.
Are you assuing that religion itself does harm? Or do you have a problem with religion even if it doesn't do harm and even if it does good?
I should have specified that I will criticize the parts of the religion that I see as harmful.
I don't think I'm as extreme as Christopher Hitchens, but I do share his view that there doesn't seem to be anything good that religion does that cannot also be done without religion. (For example, yes religions facilitate giving money to the poor. But, do you need a religion to give money to the poor? No.)
Whereas there are many things that religions do that cause harm that are primarily done because of religion.
Posted by MrSquicky (Member # 1802) on :
You know, I was looking forward to this turn of the conversation, but I don't think I'm going to have the time to address it adequately for a little bit. I'm going to withdraw, while reserving the right to re-enter it either tonight or this weekend at around this point.
Posted by kmbboots (Member # 8576) on :
I think that religions start doing the most harm when they make exactly the mistake that the evangelical atheists are making: deciding what others should believe. That we alone have the truth and others should think as we do. The worst things religion has done have stemmed from this.
I believe it is our most grievous error; I don't want it to be yours.
edit to add: Aw, MrSquicky. Come back soon.
Posted by Strider (Member # 1807) on :
quote:You know, I was looking forward to this turn of the conversation, but I don't think I'm going to have the time to address it adequately for a little bit. I'm going to withdraw, while reserving the right to re-enter it either tonight or this weekend at around this point.
Please present your ticket upon arrival, your reservation will be good for up to 48 hours at which time it will become null and void, though redeemable for one free hamburger at McDonalds.
Posted by orlox (Member # 2392) on :
The problem is that we have to teach the kids something. Posted by Javert (Member # 3076) on :
quote:Originally posted by orlox: The problem is that we have to teach the kids something.
If you mean we have to teach them some sort of religion or some form of atheism, I disagree.
I think we should expose the kids to as much as possible and let them decide for themselves.
Posted by BlackBlade (Member # 8376) on :
quote:Originally posted by King of Men: Yes. It's the only conclusion we have, in fact, drawn. I'm sorry, but we are not required to keep an open mind for infinite periods; there comes a point when you have to say "No, this is not a reasonable theory and I will spend no more effort keeping my mind open on the subject." Just as you have done with Scientology, a point I have made several times and you have signally failed to address.
Don't presume to tell me what I have done with Scientology. I said right now that my conclusion is that it is not true, but I never ONCE have said there is no way it could ever be true. I've always conceded that I could be wrong in my convictions, but they are what they are.
You on the other hand presume to know factually that I am wrong when time and time again your knowledge on MY theology has been shown to be inaccurate and faulty. By admitting that you have reached a point where you will not even consider that you may be wrong, you have closed all discussion on the matter and I won't bother discussing this topic with you.
I've enjoyed much of what you had to say, but obviously I did not appreciate your insults to me personally. If you can decide that perhaps you don't know ENOUGH to prove that God can't exist we can talk again, but until then no.
Posted by King of Men (Member # 6684) on :
I have not insulted you personally. Your theology is not relevant, because it is all based on the premise that JS was telling the truth, which I do not believe; what you build on top of that faulty axiom is irrelevant to the truth of the axiom. As for proving that your god does not exist, I don't need to; the burden of proof is on you to show that it does, or else you are going to have to go about disproving every other religion in the world.
Posted by kmbboots (Member # 8576) on :
quote:Originally posted by King of Men: As for proving that your god does not exist, I don't need to; the burden of proof is on you to show that it does, or else you are going to have to go about disproving every other religion in the world.
I don't quite understand this. I don't necessarily have to disprove other religions in order for mine to be true. Our understanding of God is necessarily incomplete. Other religions could very well have parts of the picture that I don't have or need. Or could be valid paths to the truth.
Posted by King of Men (Member # 6684) on :
Yes, yes, kmb, but now I was talking to BlackBlade, who for all his faults is at least willing to appeal to evidence and doesn't consider truth to be a matter of personal choice.
Posted by Mucus (Member # 9735) on :
kmbboots: Of course there is no real similarity in that regard. There is no inherent harm in "thinking" that someone else should believe something else. There is no inherent harm in "saying" it either* Where the line crosses into demonstrable harm is when physical force or governmental power is co-opted into influencing thought. Dawkins has never proposed any governmental restrictions on religion (beyond what is already covered by separation of church and state of course). As extreme as Hitchens is (and I'm not a big fan of him actually), even he has not advocated anything beyond talk, albeit very eloquent and provocative talk This is part of (along with the extremist argument) why I have such a strong issue to the over-simplification that people often make which is of the form, "there are two sides and if we just go with the average, that is the moderate position which by default must be reasonable and correct". Sometimes this just encourages sloppy thinking. People often believe whatever label is repeated most loudly rather than actually examining positions.
There are real people, real fundamentalists that do wish to co-opt governmental power in favour of specific religions.
Dawkins and Hitchens or any of these atheists that are labelled as "evangelical" or "extreme" in this discussion have not really advocated this or other actual policies that *are* extreme. To say they have and then attack it is just a strawman.
*I'm not even sure if one could avoid thinking or saying that one may have discovered "a better way." For example, all of capitalism is predicated on the belief that better alternatives do develop and have to compete after being exposed to the public.
Posted by MattP (Member # 10495) on :
quote:I think that religions start doing the most harm when they make exactly the mistake that the evangelical atheists are making: deciding what others should believe.
The problem is that even religious moderates want to decide not what others believe, but what they do. How many states have passed amendments by popular vote to make gay marriage illegal? What is the non-religious reasoning behind this sort of law?
Posted by Mucus (Member # 9735) on :
quote:Originally posted by orlox: The problem is that we have to teach the kids something.
We could teach them the scientific method, logic, how to evaluate evidence, how to do their own research.
Atheism is often the result of this process, but it is not actually the process itself.
Posted by kmbboots (Member # 8576) on :
quote:Originally posted by MattP: The problem is that even religious moderates want to decide not what others believe, but what they do. How many states have passed amendments by popular vote to make gay marriage illegal? What is the non-religious reasoning behind this sort of law?
Not all of us. Some of us think that government should stay out of the business of issuing Sacraments. And if government insists on it, it should be done equally.
But still, too many states.
I think that the reasons are as cultural as they are religious. I think that people use religion (and it is a powerful tool) to justify their own prejudices. Easy to do. My faith requires (whether official policy or not) that I work for justice rather than discrimination. You will find that there are other faiths that - even officially - believe this. Even mainstream ones.
But things do take too long to change.
I still maintain that thinking that your way is the only right way for everyone will lead to actions and coercion. Atheism is not exempt from this. See the Soviet Union and China.
edit to add: I'm not saying Dawkins and his crowd are anywhere near this or have any intention of it or even that it will occur in their lifetimes. Just that this is where is starts.
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
quote:I think that religions start doing the most harm when they make exactly the mistake that the evangelical atheists are making: deciding what others should believe.
Do you believe people should be entitled to believe that they are Napoleon?
---------
quote:I still maintain that thinking that your way is the only right way for everyone will lead to actions and coercion. Atheism is not exempt from this. See the Soviet Union and China.
Your examples are exactly why I keep making the point that this isn't some culture war about "atheism," but is rather about the importance of rational epistemology. Chinese "atheism" was just religion, with the state as "god."
[ August 16, 2007, 05:03 PM: Message edited by: TomDavidson ]
Posted by orlox (Member # 2392) on :
My point, was to kmb's plea for moderation. Sometimes we do know the truth. The earth is billions of years old. If this contradicts some particular religious belief, too bad. I see no need to give such nonsense equal time. Any more than the extreme ideas of any other group religious or secular.
And most kids are gonna be told that the world is round and that the earth spins around the sun long before they can marshall the analytical skills to evaluate evidence.
Posted by MattP (Member # 10495) on :
quote:Originally posted by TomDavidson:
quote:I think that religions start doing the most harm when they make exactly the mistake that the evangelical atheists are making: deciding what others should believe.
Do you believe people should be entitled to believe that they are Napoleon?
Sure. They shouldn't necessarily be entitled to do some of the things which might result from that belief though. That's why some of what people believe, even if they feel that it is benign, is important to me.
Posted by kmbboots (Member # 8576) on :
Tom and Orlox, I was refering specifically to matters of faith. Matters where there can be no applicable evidence. Not to matters of science where there is applicable evidence.
I should have been more clear about that.
Posted by King of Men (Member # 6684) on :
There is always evidence, even if it is negative.
Posted by Javert (Member # 3076) on :
quote:Originally posted by kmbboots: Matters where there can be no applicable evidence.
Which is why so many atheists have absolutely no respect for faith.
Posted by kmbboots (Member # 8576) on :
Because they need evidence? Fine - for them.
I believe that the question of whether something that is beyond evidence can exist is a matter that is beyond evidence.
edit to add: I know that is annoying. Sorry.
Posted by orlox (Member # 2392) on :
How does one evaluate that without evidence?
Posted by Mucus (Member # 9735) on :
quote:Originally posted by kmbboots: edit to add: I'm not saying Dawkins and his crowd are anywhere near this or have any intention of it or even that it will occur in their lifetimes. Just that this is where is starts.
Of course many people believe that a nuanced position does not necessarily have to be simplified to a dangerous fundamentalist belief.
Ideas and speech may very well occasionally lead to actions. We may observe that walking may very well occasionally lead to fist-fights. Are we to avoid that too?
Posted by kmbboots (Member # 8576) on :
Mucus, it isn't ideas and speech in general that I caution against. It is - how do I say this? - conviction that extends beyond one's personal realm of responsibility. Maybe.
I believe that people can be as convinced as they like about what is right for themselves. Deciding what is right for others (again subject to demonstrable harm) that a level of arrogance enters that leads the way to justifying coercion.
Posted by orlox (Member # 2392) on :
We have no choice though.
We must act. We have to decide something.
We must live together. We have to come to some agreement. We have to have limits of behavior, limits even to speech.
There are many, many beliefs that we do not allow free rein within the community. Mostly because they inevitably do harm, even if only to the deluded themselves.
The limits are established by public discourse. Like this conversation.
Posted by 0Megabyte (Member # 8624) on :
I've actually been reading Dawkin's book, The God Delusion, recently.
While he's certainly not for religion, and considers it negative, he's no evangelical or fundamentalist of the kind we talk about in religious people.
Sure he's passionate about his views - who wouldn't be? But there's a major difference.
It's like... any of us would get annoyed listening to people talk about how the Earth is not round, but flat.
If millions and millions of people began to believe this, and acted hostile towards those who believed the Earth is round, spoke ill of them, said they will burn in hell, and tried to push laws that would force schools to teach it as a viable alternative (The Earth being round is just a theory. Literally, it's a theory, in the same way as evolution is), regardless of the evidence, in fact, even STATED that the evidence is either a vast conspiracy of scientists or else is just there to test their beliefs, or simply ignore it entirely and say, "that is what's true, and if the evidence says otherwise the evidence is wrong", if all of that occured, you bet all of us round-earthers would become, ahh, what's the word, hostile back.
Because it's not just a matter of free speech anymore, it would be a matter of keeping people from annihilating truth.
Wouldn't you get pissed if people started doing that in regards to the theory that the earth is round?
In the same manner, Dawkins is upset. Not because of a fundamentalist belief, but because people are not just being willfully ignorant, but would gleefully change the laws to force that ignorance on everyone else, at the very least in a social if not legal manner.
Posted by kmbboots (Member # 8576) on :
Orlox, demonstrable harm. With the emphasis on demonstrable.
Megabyte, honey, there is evidence that the earth is round. I am talking about stuff that is beyond evidence.
Evangelism, in the way I am using it here, merely means that you proselytize or work to convert others to your point of view.
And I agree about the wrongness of laws that force belief on other people.
Posted by orlox (Member # 2392) on :
What about harm that is beyond evidence?
Posted by 0Megabyte (Member # 8624) on :
"Megabyte, honey, there is evidence that the earth is round. I am talking about stuff that is beyond evidence."
Yet the flat-earthers, too, would claim that their stuff is beyond evidence. That evidence doesn't matter in this case, that it's something outside of it.
And there's evidence that life on Earth wasn't made 6000 years ago by a rather insecure and unfathomably cruel god.
That doesn't stop people from saying it was, regardless...
Posted by kmbboots (Member # 8576) on :
Orlox, like what? Wouldn't it also be non-demonstrable?
Megabyte, if those people want to believe it, don't expect others to believe it and don't expect others to behave in certain ways based on that belief...well, I think they would have to work pretty hard at avoiding the evidence.
And you might want to read what I have already said about scripture.
Posted by 0Megabyte (Member # 8624) on :
"Megabyte, if those people want to believe it, don't expect others to believe it and don't expect others to behave in certain ways based on that belief...well, I think they would have to work pretty hard at avoiding the evidence."
Yes. Yes they do. They work very hard on it, in fact. Some people even lately went so far as to create a museum showcasing their hard work avoiding evidence.
Which parts of what you wrote did you have in mind again, btw?
Posted by orlox (Member # 2392) on :
I was being flippant. I apologize.
Posted by kmbboots (Member # 8576) on :
No need to apologize. I'm just a bit slow with the funny. My flippant meter must be off. In a bit of a hurry.
Megabyte, the flat earth people?
The part about scripture being a lots of books not just one, various culture, record of relationship with the Divine....
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
quote:The Earth being round is just a theory. Literally, it's a theory, in the same way as evolution is...
While I think we're on the same page, I just need to point out that this is a misuse of the word "theory," at least in a scientific context.
Posted by 0Megabyte (Member # 8624) on :
From what I've learned, what I know, there are two definitions of theory.
One of which is the way most people use it, which basically means hypothesis.
The other is the way scientists use it, which means, well, essentially the running conclusion on a subject to account for all the data, which is subject to change at any point if data goes against it or new data comes to pass.
In this sense, technically, the earth being round is a theory.
It's also a fact in the sense that it's an observed data point, but that's the same for evolution as well. Not that certain people care about that.
To kmboots:
I think I've lost you. I'm sorry, I was vague, and perhaps unclear what you were saying, so... I've lost you! I apologize!
Posted by pooka (Member # 5003) on :
I think it's possible to come up with a perspective from which the earth is not round, like considering some kind of fourth dimension, it's more of a ring, or a turning or something. In it's fourth dimension it is a turning sphere. In it's fifth dimension it is a ring. Maybe? I don't know.
I was thinking about the pole star as I was driving home from work the other day, as it related to this conversation. It only appears stable because it is so far away, right? I mean, if we are going in circles around our sun, how does it appear fixed? How is it not moving? Does it, in fact, move?
I had wanted to ask, but it was many pages ago, if Dawkins or any other Atheists espouse particular virtues. Truth is obviously one. The whole purpose of objecting to religion is they believe it is false. I think they value other virtues, they just find them inherent to man rather than emanating from God, such as Love, Intelligence. Would it be safe to say they believe in every virtue normally attributed to God? What about Justice and Mercy?
km: Faith is the evidence of things not seen, which are true. It is not simply to wish to think for something that has no evidence. Setting aside the existence of God, I think faith (with a small f) is involved in the growth of Love. It is to act on Hope.
I don't think it is that Atheists eschew everything traditionally associated with God. They just believe these things are human. But can they be bound by rational argument?
Posted by 0Megabyte (Member # 8624) on :
"Would it be safe to say they believe in every virtue normally attributed to God? What about Justice and Mercy? "
Yes. They do.
Except, of course, for those misanthropic few who don't. But such exceptions also exist in every group.
"I don't think it is that Atheists eschew everything traditionally associated with God. They just believe these things are human. But can they be bound by rational argument? "
Most everything good about humanity, altruism, love, justice, kindness, humility, mercy, agape, etc, can all be explained and understood by rational arguement.
So can the bad things.
Atheism itself, though, isn't a belief system per se.
Not anymore than Athorism is.
The lack of belief in, say, the Norse god Thor is not a systematic set of beliefs. And neither is the lack of belief in any god.
However, science, and rationalism, can explain much, including the basic human values.
But atheists can have different philosophies of life, very easily, since they are a group only in the sense that those who disbelieve in the ancient Greek gods are a united group. That is, not very united at all.
Posted by pooka (Member # 5003) on :
quote:Most everything good about humanity, altruism, love, justice, kindness, humility, mercy, agape, etc, can all be explained and understood by rational arguement.
What about the soft sciences? Psychology, Linguistics, Philosophy, Sociology? These sciences all have an annoying amount of play and subjectivity in them.
Well, what I wanted to talk about was Mormonism as Humanism. Like OSC's conclusions on Harry Potter that I was so annoyed by, that people (Or Harry Potter, anyway) are innately good.
I did move along in my understanding of this. I was thinking last night about how I really have come to a point of loving my husband more and more. I used to think people just said that because they heard it. And then I knew that Love can increase much more than my rational mind had supposed, that there may even be infinite Love.
P.S. What I had been missing about Card's discussion of Harry Potter is that Harry Potter did not obtain Virtue (power) but seeking it, but by submitting to Love.
Posted by Javert (Member # 3076) on :
quote:Originally posted by pooka: Well, what I wanted to talk about was Mormonism as Humanism. Like OSC's conclusions on Harry Potter that I was so annoyed by, that people (Or Harry Potter, anyway) are innately good.
You're annoyed by the idea that people are innately good? Or am I reading that wrong? Please explain.
Posted by Leonide (Member # 4157) on :
I, personally, don't think people are innately "good" because I don't think there is a "goodness" that exists to be inherent in us. Or a badness. Just biology and heredity, environment, and timing.
Posted by kmbboots (Member # 8576) on :
Megabyte, no problem. I'm just too lazy to retype all the stuff I've already written in this thread. I was objecting to the idea that all theists have a view of scripture that insists on a literal understanding.
pooka, I was using the word "evidence" in this discussion to mean something both observable and demonstrable.
AS the conversation seems to have back to Mormonism and on to Harry Potter, I haven't much to add anyway. Have fun!
Posted by pooka (Member # 5003) on :
quote:You're annoyed by the idea that people are innately good? Or am I reading that wrong? Please explain.
Well, it's an odd question. One of the problems I'm sure a lot of Atheists have is the idea that people need religion, need to be taught how to make "good" choices, that there is something wrong with people they way they are.
Strangely, most Mormons have a similar viewpoint as humanists in this matter (humanists not really being synonymous with atheists) that people are not born sinful. While I would certainly grant that people are not born sinful, I have had trouble understanding why sin appears to be inevitable. Anyway, as km said, this isn't a Mormonism thread. It's not even a humanism thread, really.
I was just wondering what some of the Atheists thought on the concept of human virtue and how one avoids the eugenics trap and things of that nature.
Posted by kmbboots (Member # 8576) on :
pooka, I didn't say that at all. Threads go where they will. It can be about Mormonism, if you want it to be. Or about Harry Potter. Really.
I was just explaining the nature of my participation. Nothing more. When and if it swings back to where I can poke my nose in, I will.
Posted by Javert (Member # 3076) on :
quote:Originally posted by pooka:
quote:You're annoyed by the idea that people are innately good? Or am I reading that wrong? Please explain.
Well, it's an odd question. One of the problems I'm sure a lot of Atheists have is the idea that people need religion, need to be taught how to make "good" choices, that there is something wrong with people they way they are.
Strangely, most Mormons have a similar viewpoint as humanists in this matter (humanists not really being synonymous with atheists) that people are not born sinful. While I would certainly grant that people are not born sinful, I have had trouble understanding why sin appears to be inevitable. Anyway, as km said, this isn't a Mormonism thread. It's not even a humanism thread, really.
I was just wondering what some of the Atheists thought on the concept of human virtue and how one avoids the eugenics trap and things of that nature.
Gotcha. I can only answer for myself, and I don't think people need religion. I believe people are generally good and moral, and that is the result of our evolution. Human virtue is a survival function.
You can see it in nature. A group of groundhogs, for example, will be feeding out in the open. At least one of the animals serves as a lookout at feeding time, and if it sees a predator it screeches (or make whatever sounds groundhogs make) and sends all its fellows back into their holes.
The act of screeching at the sight of a predator is immensely selfless, as the groundhog is making itself the most visible target. If 'morality', at least in this instance and as we define it, were not natural, the groundhog would just run off and leave the rest of its group to the predator.
I explained it to a friend of mine that I think people are generally good, and that fact itself is the reason for evil. People are good, but somewhat naive, and so they expect everyone else to be good. Because there are always exceptions to the rule, it becomes easy for the minority of 'bad' people to convince good people to help them in their 'bad goals' and 'bad methods'.
Posted by pooka (Member # 5003) on :
Oh, yeah, trust is a virtue. It's how we learn as children.
But where do the bad people come from? Is it just a matter of different values? I tend toward the "self-interest" explanation.
In a way it goes back to the question of ambition. Certain instances of ambition allow for innovation and progress of humankind, so it is beneficial for it to exist, but it also creates a lot of problems.
Posted by Javert (Member # 3076) on :
quote:Originally posted by pooka: But where do the bad people come from? Is it just a matter of different values?
To me, that's sort of like asking "where do the left handed people come from?". A combination of nature and nurture. Scientists are working now on trying to figure out if there is any difference in the brains of sociopaths and those of 'normal' people. But I personally doubt that brain chemistry is the only thing that makes people 'bad'.
Posted by pooka (Member # 5003) on :
quote: But I personally doubt that brain chemistry is the only thing that makes people 'bad'.
As in, also learned behavior, or literally chemistry, so it could also be structure?
Posted by MightyCow (Member # 9253) on :
There are lots of varieties of bad behavior, and lots of reasons for it. The same act might be considered moral in one circumstance, and immoral in another, or legal in one setting and illegal in another, completely dependent on circumstance.
Basically, "bad" comes down to causing problems for the society at large in one way or another. Much of morality has to do with the expectations of the surrounding culture.
Posted by Javert (Member # 3076) on :
quote:Originally posted by pooka:
quote: But I personally doubt that brain chemistry is the only thing that makes people 'bad'.
As in, also learned behavior, or literally chemistry, so it could also be structure?
Also learned behavior.
As in, if we were to clone Stalin (for example), we could assume that the clone brain is identical to the original (or at least started that way). But depending on how the clone was raised and what were his experiences, he wouldn't necessarily be 'bad'.
More prone to it? Perhaps. That's what scientists are working on now.
Posted by orlox (Member # 2392) on :
quote:As in, if we were to clone Stalin (for example), we could assume that the clone brain is identical to the original (or at least started that way). But depending on how the clone was raised and what were his experiences, he wouldn't necessarily be 'bad'.
I don't believe brain structure is principally determined by genetics. I think brains are like trees, and you can have one grow next to another that is a runner off the first, so they are genetically identical. And you can tell the type of tree from the pattern of shapes, but they won't have branches and leaves in the same locations or quantity.
But that's just my belief.
I haven't caught up on Nova in a while. I'll have to get back to that, though for some reason I feel guiltier watching videos than reading text when I should be cooking dinner.
Posted by MattP (Member # 10495) on :
quote:The team found that the amount of gray matter in the frontal parts of the brain is determined by the genetic make-up of an individual's parents, and strongly correlates with that individual's cognitive ability, as measured by intelligence test (IQ) scores.
More importantly, these are the first images to uncover how normal genetic differences influence brain structure and intelligence. Brain regions controlling language and reading skills were virtually identical in identical twins, who share exactly the same genes, while siblings showed only 60 percent of the normal brain differences.
http://www.loni.ucla.edu/media/PressReleases/PR_11042001.html
Posted by Mucus (Member # 9735) on :
Thought I'd bump this. Channel four in Britain released a new documentary made by Dawkins. This time the target is new-age healers and other non-religious superstition rather than evolution and religion.
[ August 24, 2007, 09:55 AM: Message edited by: Mucus ]
Posted by rollainm (Member # 8318) on :
What I find interesting is that Dawkins tackles this particular subject just as aggressively as he does religion, and yet I'd be willing to bet that far less religious people will find this one nearly as offensive.
Posted by 0Megabyte (Member # 8624) on :
I really, really love this guy, honestly.
Posted by scholar (Member # 9232) on :
New age healers can potentially harm people. If there is a good method for treating a disease and people use crystals instead, that can lead to real harm (I feel the same way about praying rather than using modern medicine).
Posted by MightyCow (Member # 9253) on :
Thanks for the documentary links Mucus.
rollainm: It's obvious that other people's superstitions are silly, while our own superstitions are real. Posted by rollainm (Member # 8318) on :
So true.
Now where did I put that Magic 8 Ball...
Posted by MrSquicky (Member # 1802) on :
I just had a vision of a religious war started over different brands of Magic 8 Balls.
Incidentally, I'm still coming back to this thread. I didn't have internet access this past weekend.
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