Big Men With Imaginary Friends
Oh, fantastic...the men leading the great powers of the free world both believe in Santa and the Easter Bunny. Well, okay, so they believe in god, entirely without proof. Why is that evidence-free, irrational living any less scary? In an interview on Britain's ITV, Tony Blair mistakes the will of the British People for that of the Big Guy In The Sky:
Asked about joining the US-led invasion in March 2003, he said: "That decision has to be taken and has to be lived with, and in the end there is a judgment that -- well, I think if you have faith about these things then you realise that judgment is made by other people."Pushed to clarify what he meant, Blair, a devout Christian, replied: "If you believe in God, it's made by God as well."
...In October last year US president George W. Bush US allegedly said God told him to invade Iraq and
Afghanistan, according to a report.Blair's comments were immediately criticised by opposition political parties and families of some of the 103 British soldiers who have died since the start of the conflict.
Menzies Campbell, leader of the smaller opposition Liberal Democrats, which opposed military action, said: "Going to war isn't just an act of faith, it requires rigorous analysis of the legality of doing so, the likelihood of success, the number of possible casualties and the long-term consquences.
"My complaint of the prime minister is that while he may have believed what he was doing was right, the prospect for military action was flawed."
His Lib Dem colleague Evan Harris, an honorary associate of campaign group the National Secular Society, agreed.
"Our political system relies on decisions being made by accountable and elected politicians, not by their or anyone else's gods," Harris said.
Yeah, yeah, so a lot of people in the world sequester a part of their brains from rational thought, allowing themselves to believe in god. This being 2006, isn't it time we started being guided by rationality and evidence-based belief rather than primitive god mumbo jumbo? And, for starters, how about we all get too horrified to elect people who make decisions without first consulting The Great Pumpkin?
http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,,1725799,00.html
Apparently, God is very, very angry at Tony Blair.
moe99 at March 8, 2006 11:46 AM
Blasphemer! You will singe for all eternity in the Great Pumpkin's Root Cellar for this!
I'm going to back to my KJV bible to read about unicorns now.
Russputin at March 8, 2006 2:51 PM
Ok, now post more photos of girls with candles on their heads.
OC_Will at March 8, 2006 4:55 PM
You are off on this. I've known people, my whole life, who are religious and absolutely irrational about it. ...but there are others...
To say that "there is no proof of God", well, logically, there's nothing wrong with that statement, but to say that there is "entirely no proof" or that belief is "evidence-free"--well, that's just incorrect. People do find evidence of God through prayer, through applying the principles of whatever religion to the world around them, etc. The proof they have may not be objective proof, but it is evidence.
...and believing in something like that, with evidence, isn't irrational. I've mentioned aesthetics here before, beauty is highly subjective--objective evidence for its existence is hard to come by. ...but that doesn't mean I can say for certain that there is nothing pleasing to the eye universally.
I've mentioned String Theory before here too. There is no objective evidence for the central tenets of String Theory, but there is subjective evidence for the String Theory. ...and, I assure you, regardless of whether String Theory is true, believing in it is not irrational.
When no objective evidence is possible, it is not irrational to use the subjective evidence at hand. Science does this--it simply qualifies the conclusions drawn from such evidence. There are people, who believe in God, that do this too. ...you, however, did not qualify your statement above.
A person can't have been at all places in the universe at once, at all times, and, thus, logically, have come to the conclusion that there is no God.
...One person looked, saw no evidence of God and assumed that, given the evidence so far, there likely never would be any evidence of God, and so stopped looking. Another person looked in the same place, perhaps, and saw the same things, but thought, maybe on the word of a trusted friend, that the evidence might come yet and kept looking.
Neither is irrational.
Ken Shultz at March 8, 2006 5:28 PM
Helloo? You don't find evidence of god through prayer. Are you nuts? What if you pray really hard to Bugs Bunny? Is that evidence Bugs Bunny is sitting next to you, wasting his life on a pew? I'm never so stunned as when the religiosos let you know exactly how little their thinking is connected to their untapped ability to reason.
"A person can't have been at all places in the universe at once, at all times, and, thus, logically, have come to the conclusion that there is no God."
The person with the extraordinary claims is the one who must prove those claims. While you're at it, do what you can to prove there really is a real live Bugs Bunny.
"...One person looked, saw no evidence of God and assumed that, given the evidence so far, there likely never would be any evidence of God, and so stopped looking. Another person looked in the same place, perhaps, and saw the same things, but thought, maybe on the word of a trusted friend, that the evidence might come yet and kept looking."
That's simply intellectual mush.
Very sad.
Amy Alkon at March 8, 2006 7:35 PM
Well, if Bugs doesn't exist, who invented the modern drag queen? HMMM?
Kimberly at March 9, 2006 12:26 AM
Kimberly: Exactly! Every time somebody plays Tristan und Isolde, I hear Fudd singing "Kill da wab-bit, kill da wab-bit!" Every time they play bluegrass, I hear Bugs calling the tune:
http://tinyurl.com/ekkqo
Grab a fencepost hold it tight,
whomp your partner with all your might;
hit him in the shin hit him in the head,
hit him again the critter ain't dead.
Crid at March 9, 2006 6:20 PM
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