Very good video -- just bookmarked it.

The #10 was an invocation of Godwin's Law.

But I've used it in a similar way. When everyone was hot to allow Arnie to run for president, my only comment was "Well just so you know -- Hitler was from Austria too."

very, very tired subject. Why must you try to belittle folks who have a faith that gets them through the day? It only makes folks look small when they challenge anothers belief system

Entertaining video, very much so. The only quibble I have is that they treat a belief in evolution and a belief in God as mutually exclusive. It's not. I've never accepted the creation stories (there are two in the Bible) as anything but allegorical.

ron:
Why must you try to belittle folks who have a faith that gets them through the day?
- - - - - - - - - - -

Hi - I'm an Orthodox Jew who posts here. I also have a background in science and engineering.

Faith is not about ignoring reality or not thinking clearly. Faith - and morality - are done a disservice by intellectual laziness or dishonesty.

Most people's "faith that gets them through the day" is also a source of truth and morality. How does that jibe with a lack of honest intellectual inquiry?

Nothing in evolution or the scientific method challenges traditional Jewish beliefs. if anything, these are gifts from God, and scientists are fulfilling the Biblical command to Adam and Eve to cultivate and improve the world.

I resent it when fundamentalists distort my faith - like the Christian faith, misusing religion as covers for their ego/power trips.

I also resent it when non-believers (like the Goddess) drape their cultural, political, or moral agendas in the mantle of science. This is equally dishonest and a misuse of science - which can only tell us about the physical reality.

Read this

These surveys and 275 lengthy follow-up interviews reveal that scientists often practice a closeted faith. They worry how their peers would react to learning about their religious views.

Notice how the video engages in the same cherry-picking it argues against. It doesn't help to infantilize the other side of a dispute like this. The discourse has become utterly feminized in this sense. To win the argument, men appeal to facts. Women appeal to the audience.

I've never - never! - met an opponent of Intelligent Design (other than myself, of course) who has actually studied the theory. It's a mathematical theory, and it's consistent. that is a cold, logical fact. Whether the theory can be applied to evolutionary problems is an open question. To me, it appears not. But I don't infantilize the opposition or engage in band wagon appeals. The issue ought to be decided upon facts.

People who criticize ID without understanding it are exactly like fundamentalist creationists. They believe without evidence.

Cute. Merely saying this doesn't make it true.

Yes, it does make it true. It's elementary logic. Belief without understanding is mere faith. What I say is true from the bare meanings of the words.

There's no evidence the universe was created by some supernatural force.

Intelligent design doesn't make that claim. Some people have used Intelligent Design as evidence of the claim you've written. You fail to make the elementary distinction between a theory and the application of a theory. Typical.

Thanks Amy!! I enjoyed the video and so did Dayton. It will be the discussion on our hike today. Last week we talked about the Bill of Rights, and why they are so important. He can still rattle off and explain 6 or 7 of them!

(I was so appalled at the study a few weeks back that showed high school seniors have so little knowledge of history, it has put a real fire under my butt to teach him these things, and he is loving learning all these things.)

Very cool- I've been away for a few days! Hey Crid!

Jeff,
IF ID is something other than Creationists using pseudoscientific propaganda to sell their Koolaid, please enlighten us!

Perhaps you're reaching for something higher. I find the world to be endlessly fascinating and the beauty of it is only drastically cheapened by stale myths. You may ask how is it that so much of what we can observe and measure falls into logical, mathematical patterns that link our intellect to the natural world. Surely existence of a Creator! Perhaps, like me, you think there are Deeper Realities - but I'm just indulging my passion and imagination. Regardless of what I think or feel, I can't apply the scientific method to it and I don't attribute it to a Sky Daddy.

Ben David, I liked most of your message, but I think you're being a "tone troll" wrt Amy's agendas.

A belief in evolution is mutually exclusive with a belief in god, unless you 1) know very little about the dirty underbelly of how evolution actually works or 2) you have a well-honed ability to compartmentalise.

Lethal parasites and viruses work by the same principles of natural selection as pretty babies and flowers. The suffering of the natural world doesn't bear thinking about. Evolution doesn't give a damn about humans, or indeed, anything. We came perilously close to going extinct recently. And a million other things that make it obvious to anyone with eyes to see that there is no benevolent deity guiding evolution.

Nature is red in tooth and claw, primateus, and that doesn't exclude a creator. This world was never promised to be perfect. I do believe in evolution AND God. Creation is allegorical-God did create everything, and to think a day means 24 hours at the beginning of the universe is to a being who is timeless is...odd.

Personally, to think Amy believes she is more capable of rational scientific thought than, say, Sir Francis Bacon, Descarte, Kelvin, or Plank is just highly amusing.

Hiya Eric.

Here's one of my all-time favorite twitter jokes.

Why must you try to belittle folks who have a faith that gets them through the day?
Posted by: ron

Because they faithful have the termerity to tell me how to live my life. I'll make you a deal ron. Get all the jebus freaks to stop saying what I am allowed to do with my own penis, and look at with my own eyes and I'll only make fun of them in the privacy of my own home.

I also resent it when non-believers (like the Goddess) drape their cultural, political, or moral agendas in the mantle of science
Posted by: Ben David

Imagine how we feel when you belivers proclaim your evdice free, unverifiable beilfs as all the authority you need to tell the rest of us how to conduct our lives.

We just ridicule you, you try to limit our freedoms. Which do you think is really more resentful?

These surveys and 275 lengthy follow-up interviews reveal that scientists often practice a closeted faith. They worry how their peers would react to learning about their religious views
Poseted by: Jeff

Boo, hoo. So what the article you linked is saying, is that the interviews scientists dont have the strength of will to defend their beiliefs? They'd better hope there is no god, becuase not defending your beiefs is worse then murder according to most christian dogma

This world was never promised to be perfect.

You need to reread genisis momof4

@ momof4, I can guess with pretty high confidence that you don't know anything about evolution, or you accept that (by human standards) your god is a mentally retarded, capricious psychopath. But nothing could strip you of your delusion, because you're emotionally invested in it, and you can always revert to the safety net of "god dun it".

And your invocation of Bacon, Descartes, etc, reveals your speciousness. When in doubt, appeal to authority. (And then ad hominems will come).

"Personally, to think Amy believes she is more capable of rational scientific thought than, say, Sir Francis Bacon, Descarte, Kelvin, or Plank is just highly amusing."

Ahem. It's "Descartes", and "Planck".
And, that is an example of the fallacy, "appeal to authority".
And - and this is a big one - you cannot point to an example of "creation".

Three strikes. Good thing this isn't baseball.

Everything you can see was converted from something else. No, that question has not

...been resolved, although statements have been made.

"People who criticize ID without understanding it are exactly like fundamentalist creationists. They believe without evidence."

Without understanding it?

Are you serious?

I've had so much trouble communicating with fundamentalists about how the real world works that I had to start a thread about it on local paper's fora.

If you had to point at a group of people flatulently ignorant of ordinary physics, chemistry, astronomy, biology... anything -- you'd find out the Thumper population was highly over-represented. There is no limit to their certainty when it comes to what they do not know.

What if I was to show you failures of the "design" you advance?

I'm always amused at the yelps of outrage that come whenever Amy posts about religion. She's an atheist, she has the right to be one, and she has the right to ridicule those of us who believe on her own blog.

And the sob-sobs from those who resent being made fun of for their beliefs are hypocrisy at its most blatant. Like momof4 has never ridiculed anyone for personal aspects of their lives which don't concern her in the least. Or Ben-David, for that matter. Acquire thicker skins, folks, or abandon your own over-the-top nastiness and find a blog where the tea and scones conversation is more suited for your delicate-flower sensibilities.

I'm not the least bit bothered by the fact that Amy is an atheist and I'm not. On the contrary, I enjoy hearing about the spiritual convictions (or the lack thereof) of others, and am often surprised by how much we have common.

Did I yelp or sob? I think some people on here take some posts in way too serious and outraged a fashion. I said I find it amusing Amy thinks she knows better than some brilliant scientific minds. That she doesn't believe, personally, worries me but does not insult me. It was amusing I misspelled them, that's what I get for typing with the "help" of a 2 year old yanking on me.

Nor was I appealing to authority. Amy said people who believe are irrational and that she is not. I think most people would agree that certain people who have made brilliant scientific leaps were (and are) perfectly capable of rational thought that exceeds her own. Does that mean she should believe in god? Not if she feels the need not to. But I have the right to think that "is just highly amusing" when she touts her superiority.

"Nor was I appealing to authority."

In one word, nonsense.

You put forth the names of scientists who are experts in a field other than theology in an attempt to give their position, and yours, weight - in a field which is NOT the one in which they are trained.

Hey, you think Adam and Eve spoke Parseltongue, don't you? Wait - the snake had freakin' vocal chords?

Wanna explain how rational that is?

Now, the unheralded sacrifice for another makes sense. An Ark is total fiction. Some words of wisdom make sense. That they came from a burning bush does not. That ordinary people can make predictions makes sense. That they can produce a prophecy does not.

I'm not going to hold my breath waiting for an explanation about a "young" Earth, either. I've been asking for more than ten years on the Augusta Chronicle forum, and all the believers have shown me is that they refuse - refuse! - to merely go outside and study the Earth under their feet. The Bible™ is too important. It's more important than the Earth itself!

Is that rational?

-----

very, very tired subject. Why must you try to belittle folks who have a faith that gets them through the day? It only makes folks look small when they challenge anothers belief system

Agreed. I cannot imagine why somebody would go on and on about a book that takes a few hours to read. Oh. It's confusing? Gee. Why is that?

Oh, yeah... what's the harm, you say?

> Faith - and morality - are done a disservice
> by intellectual laziness or dishonesty.

And clarity is "done a disservice" by goofy wording.

Here's a favorite tweet joke, one directly on point (so to speak).

The only difference I can discern between intellectual laziness and the laziness we all grew up with is that someone's trying to be extra-snooty about it.

These people are usually academics... Or, as in this case, wannabes from the religious sector trying to feign philosophical muscle during squabbles.

It's pathetic.

"Wait - the snake had freakin' vocal chords?

Wanna explain how rational that is?"

No, a snake did not actually speak in the garden of eden. The entire story is an allegory on 1) the temptation to sin inside us or 2) Our explicit rejection of perfection, depending on which theologian you read. As if one would give weight to an expert in the field one is denigrating, when mocking it.

Feel free to mock the idea of an actual serpent talking to an actual (1st) woman, if you like, though. Better minds than mine or yours have talked this for thousands of years, I can't pretend to come up with The Point that changes all any more than Amy can find the right combination of "rationality" and "proof" that will kill my faith. And yet here we are.

Ok then, if the story of the sanke is an allegory then what was it god let into the garden to tempt Eve in the first place?

After all they went all that time without diobeying the only rule they were given.

And if there was no snake what did god curse for tempting Eve?

See what happens when you try and explain away questions without really finding a sutible answer? more questions pop up

And another thing, after banishing Adam and Eve from the garden he remarked they (man) had "become like us" in knowing good and evil.

Who was he talking to? Another god? If there is another god then why are we monotheistic?

Better minds than mine or yours have talked this for thousands of years

I'd just like to point out that if those greater minds had ever stumbled across a reasonable answer we wouldnt be having this conversation.

So in the context of theology at least, those "greater minds" werent all that great

"...I can't pretend to come up with The Point..."

Noted. And you are not alone in faithful company. The Just So Story is too important to challenge.

But you CAN make distinctions of merit when you are careful. Please look up the term, "logical fallacies", so that you know when what you argue is made flatly wrong by how you argue the point. This isn't about me - it's about reasoning power.

Primate:
A belief in evolution is mutually exclusive with a belief in god, unless you 1) know very little about the dirty underbelly of how evolution actually works or 2) you have a well-honed ability to compartmentalise.
- - - - - - - - - - - - -
Well, no.

Although your assertion is a good example of how lefties try to claim the mantle of scientific, rational inquiry.

Again: Science only works to clarify physical reality. Regarding a creator - absence of proof is not the same thing as proof of absence. Evolution describes accurately how the world developed once it existed.

If you were as knowledgeable as you thought you were about religion, you'd know that this is not at all incompatible with faith - in fact the Jewish tradition makes it clear that God's existence cannot be rationally proven, on purpose: the choice to believe is given over to free will.

Ron:
Why must you try to belittle folks who have a faith that gets them through the day?
Posted by:

Luljp:
Because they faithful have the termerity to tell me how to live my life.
- - - - - - - - - - - - -

Uh-huh. Right.
Pay no attention to the race-baiting lefties imposing their social and sexual agendas on the rest of us - oh no, that's not coercion, or a betrayal of libertarian principles - because we *know* we're right... Oprah says so...

Uh-huh. Riiiiiiiiight.

momof4:
This world was never promised to be perfect.
luljp:
You need to reread genisis momof4
- - - - - - - - - -
Well, no - it's YOU who need to read genesis (note correct spelling).

momof4 is correct - the Jewish Bible is quite clear-eyed about this world, and the shortcomings of humanity.

absence of proof is not the same thing as proof of absence

Pshaw. Things dont exist simply because you belive in them. Thus sayth the Almighty Creature in the Sky

Patrick rises majestically above the fray:

I'm always amused at the yelps of outrage that come whenever Amy posts about religion. She's an atheist, she has the right to be one, and she has the right to ridicule those of us who believe on her own blog.
- - - - - - - - - - -

It's a blog - people comment and exchange ideas. Nice try at twisting that into:

a) a "rights" issue - but that's probably a knee-jerk reaction after being steeped in the queer agenda - and

b) some odd, condescending assertion that we're thin-skinned for actually participating in this site.

Don't project your own intellectual insecurity on Amy - she seems fine with wide-open discussion on her blog, rather than the fawning admiration society you may prefer.

... do you have anything to say about the actual subject?

lujlp:
Things dont exist simply because you belive in them.
- - - - - - - - - -
I've made it clear above, and on other threads, that I understand clearly the difference between scientifically established facts and my intuitive faith in a creator.

I also clearly support your right not to believe.

So stop lumping me together with your straw-man fundamentalist.

Now - can one of the great freethinkers answer the question I ask on all these posts: if your only yardstick of truth is scientific fact - how do you establish morality, compassion, and other essential human values?

And please don't waste our time with pseudo-scientific theories about how we "evolved to cooperate", or the non-scientific speculations of "evolutionary psychology".

None of that game theory garbage, either:

There are no "rational" reasons for humans to care about anything but their own pleasure and comfort, over their own lifetimes.

There are other "truths" beside scientific ones - truths more essential to our humanity than scientific facts.

Could the "progressives" stop sneering enough to address this.

Ben-David: Now - can one of the great freethinkers answer the question I ask on all these posts: if your only yardstick of truth is scientific fact - how do you establish morality, compassion, and other essential human values?

And please don't waste our time with pseudo-scientific theories about how we "evolved to cooperate", or the non-scientific speculations of "evolutionary psychology".

You answered your own question, but dismissed it as "psuedo science." The explanations of evolutionary psychology are more plausible and have rational, scientific backing than the idea that God simply instilled these intangible qualities within us.

It would be more valid to reply to your suppositions along these lines with something like, "And please don't hand us any of your mythology about how God supposedly instilled in us these intangible qualities such as cooperation and learning how to care about each other, and your non-scientific explanations about creation."

Oh, Ben-David, excuse me, but I just now noticed your comment about me being "steeped in the queer agenda."

Fuck you. That is all.

Pshaw. Things dont exist simply because you belive in them.

100% correctamundo. And things don't NOT exist simply because you believe they don't.

lujlp, got news for ya: Carrie and Frailty are NOT documentaries, and most Christians AREN'T fire-breathing fundamentalists who want to control your precious, precious sex life.

I generally like Amy and this blog, and of course it's her property so she gets to make the rules. But so long as the Christians and other believers here are respectful toward those holding no religious beliefs, AND help foster reasonable debate, I don't understand why she's apparently so happy to seem them on the receiving end of so much vitriol from some of the atheists here. lujlp in particular seems to take it as a personal insult anywhere he sees any comment whatsoever from any openly Christian commenter.

Here's an extra two cents while I'm at it: while I certainly don't agree with everything Ben David posted above (particularly this "queer agenda" stuff-- I have no idea what that is), he made a GREAT point IMHO at 3:50am. It's one thing to be against personal lifestyle coercion... but if you think ONLY the fundie righties are guilty of this charge, you're living in as delusional a dreamland as any that the fevered minds of Pat Robertson and Fred Phelps could dream up.

Then again... sigh.
http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/duty_calls.png

Amy, please check the spam folder. I just tried to rebut my own 10:05 comment. :-)

Oops... damn Amy's fast!! ;-)

Dang, spam bucketed again.

Luljp:
"Because they faithful have the termerity to tell me how to live my life."

It's always amusing when atheists/leftists (luljp - don't know or care if you're either) use this excuse to ridicule and/or persecute Jews and Christians.

Having the temerity to tell me how to live my life is apparently perfectly fine when it's the government doing it at the point of a gun.

A few things

1. Frailty is my favorite charecter movies, and probably one of the only project McConaughey has done whih show he acctualy has talet as an actor

2. If chritains arent concered about what I do with my body then why are they on the frontlines protestig drug, hookers, comprhensive sex education?

3. What gives you the idea that I endorse the bullshit I know better than attitude if it comes from the government?

4. I dont take everything any faithful person says as a personal insult.

What I find insulting is that when I ask perfectly obvious questions regaring the incongruities inherent in reigious dogma and scriptureand and the rationalizations people attempt to sidestep those questions, and then other people proclaim the very act of asking suc questions as proof positive that I find everything said by the faithful as a personal insult to me

"Regarding a creator - absence of proof is not the same thing as proof of absence."

Do be good enough to notice when a proof precludes a religious assertion.

Example: Assertions about "a Great Flood". Aside from the physics - where the literalist has to invent wave after wave of magical exceptions - when I can show you processes that went on unaffected by any of the things that MUST accompany such a great cataclysm, said cataclysm is simply set aside - it didn't happen.

It is my experience that enthusiasts of "just so" stories - be they homeopath or religious fanatic - have severe problems with definitions. I do hope you'll all avoid that.

-----

JD, who said that was the case? You obviously don't follow this blog much. Well, BOTU likes to be stripped at the airport, but not be pointed-at with guns. I think.

Also

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Oz47cNHToM

Patrick desperately flinging sand:
The explanations of evolutionary psychology are more plausible and have rational, scientific backing than the idea that God simply instilled these intangible qualities within us.
- - - - - - - - -
Well, no.
Have you read any of these "scientific" papers?

Psychology in general is hardly "scientific" - and "evolutionary psychology" consists of conjectures that cannot be proven from archaeological or historical evidence. And applying evolutionary theory to thinking beings with many more motives than passing their genes on is itself a huge stretch - especially once writing and other forms of communication crop up.

It's basically a wishful leftie re-reading of human history, without letting facts get in the way.

You want facts?
We KNOW that the moral values on which the free West is based - the moral values minorities like you and I depend on for our freedom - are uniquely Judeo-Christian. They are by no means universal.

They don't exist in the Islamic world, or in pagan areas of Africa and Asia.

We also have the clear, recent historical evidence of Germany, Russian and Western Europe - which have thrown over Judeo-Christian morality, and experienced a decay in personal freedom in direct proportion to their renunciation of those values.

Without the protection of Judeo-Christian morality, Germany and Russia deemed millions of lives not worth living, and killed/starved them - including both of us, homosexuals and Jews.

The socialism-lite of Western Europe has birthed a largely fatherless generation that isn't even reproducing itself (so much for using evolutionary theory to predict the actions of sentient humans!) - and to governments that kill of the weak, and shut down free speech without a qualm.

So - it is clear that the ideas that generate and preserve freedom are not obvious (unless you've been raised in the Judeo-Christian West) or universal.

Can all those eagerly chipping away at this moral code please explain what comes to replace it - and how that "progressive" code is justified by more than a Nitschean jackboot?

I'd love to hear the Goddess explain how she can simultaneously tut-tut about social decay and irresponsibility and fatherhood - while undercutting the source of those moral values and social codes...

This is going to be very long, bear with me please.

This is a topic that's rather personal and slightly sore for me. My father is a fundamental scientific creationist, and he preaches and teaches on the subject of creationism. He lobbies heavily for creationism to be taught in public schools, and has published two books about why evolution is wrong and why creationism is right. I was raised from birth to be daddy's little creationist. However, I became agnostic for a while, and now I am an atheist. I became so because I began looking at the world at its roots and really examining the teachings that were being fed to me.

Life is a universal constant on planet Earth. Wherever you go on this planet, you will find life. From the harsh deserts to the depths of the oceans, there will be life. Even tiny islands, isolated from the rest of the planet by the oceans, have an abundance of land-dwelling life on them. The only conditions for life are temperatures between -40 and 140ish, and some amount of water. In fact, it's difficult to get a sterile place on the planet, because life seeks to fill it. If you scour a square mile of land completely clean of life and then leave it, within a month new life of some sort will have moved in. Life is also constantly changing. New species are being discovered every day, even as fast as old ones are becoming extinct despite our best efforts. And humans are evolving too, not just in body but in mind. The question is not does life evolve, but how.

Now, does science have all the answers on how life works? Of course it doesn't, at least not yet. It probably never will, as there are always more questions to ask. We don't know exactly how evolution works. We test and re-test and re-re-test and throw out old theories and try new ones. As we pick at the edges of the unknown and look under the mats and behind the walls of reality with our increasingly complex tools, we're still kind of flailing blindly in the dark. But just because we don't know how everything works doesn't mean the theories are fundamentally unsound. And as we look at how genes really work and how each generation brings change, we do find more and more answers.

Evolution, despite what the creationists teach, does not have an agenda to destroy Christianity. I have been in many secular science classes and discussions, and unless a creationist student brings up all the creationism arguments against evolution, the subject of creationism never gets mentioned. And if a theory is proven wrong, it is discarded or taken from another angle. Argue that atheism is a science all you want, but if science proved beyond a shadow of a doubt the existence of an all-powerful god in the cosmos, it would take that god into account as a hypothesis, then theory, and then scientific law.

However, creationists do have an agenda. They start at the basis that the Bible is the infallible Word of God and that anything contradicting that is simply wrong. As science advances, they either have to incorporate the evolutionary theories into that religion somehow, or fight it. This is why creationists get deliriously excited if any tiny scrap of evidence happens to work out in their favor. This is why the creationists attack the ape-men fossils so viciously and spend so much time nit-picking the theories of evolutionists. And rarely does a creationist try to prove the existence of their God with solid evidence. It's something that must be taken on faith.

The Bible as a written work causes a very odd blend between accepted reality and fantasy. Many of the Bible stories that are taught to children have heroes that would be locked up in prisons for charges of child abuse, spousal abuse, slavery, murder, and more. As just one example, Abraham takes his beloved son Issac up to a mountain and prepares to sacrifice him to God, and is only spared from doing so by god providing a baby goat at the last second. Anyone doing this in modern days would be judged as insane. However, since they are presented in a somewhat allegorical way, they are accepted. Even the creation story has an odd pairing of acceptance as fact exactly because it's presented along the same lines as a child's fantasy story.

Now, to throw another wrench in the clock, there have been literally thousands of religions in the world. There are even more if you count all the dead religions along with the currently practiced ones. Whether a person believes in many spirits, one god, a goddess, many gods or goddesses, angels, giants, demons, reincarnated men, or the flying spaghetti monster, there are so many different beliefs out there to choose from. With so many different religions out there, it's against the very grain of science to proclaim that any one particular religion is the correct one without any evidence. Everyone who practices a religion believes that theirs is the correct one, otherwise they become atheists or switch religions. As another interesting note -- Most fantasy videogames and fantasy novels have a pantheon of their own, made-up gods. It seems almost natural for the Human race to create gods to worship.

My point here is, even if evolution doesn't have all the answers yet, there are far, far more problems with creationism. Can Christianity be a tool for teaching good morals? Yes. Are people free to believe what they wish? Yes. Should creationism be taught as fact instead of evolution? Absolutely not.

"Have you read any of these "scientific" papers?"

Yes.

And, judging from your reaction to being shown that gender is not binary...

You have not. Well, not for comprehension.

Just as you have demonstrated by stating above that nobody but the Christians have moral values by lumping all of Africa together, you just can't discriminate between fact and fiction.

And I note that America owes its existence to British Protestants, without which sense of service to others we'd be Mexico or Brazil.

Rad throws whatever he's got, hoping something will stick:

gender is not binary

Did you just drift in from some other thread?
Further:

nobody but the Christians have moral values

... I'm sure Hutus, Tutsis, and Maoists have moral values - just not the values that create free, open societies armchair rebels like you would want to live in...

So: you've had your moment of gleeful truth-telling, like the 2nd grader telling 1st graders that there is no Santa Claus!

But very important truths are not amenable to scientific verification or rational derivation - the truths that make us human and our society humane.

Kindly tell us how these are derived in your just-the-fact-ma'am worldview.

Are "all men created equal"? Prove it!
With "inalienable rights"? Prove it!

Objectively there are a lot of untalented, undistinguished people out there - people Plato, Stalin and other pagans gladly subdued and snuffed out.

So: how do "progressives" keep might from dictating right - without recourse to Judeo-Christian notions?

You want facts?
We KNOW that the moral values on which the free West is based - the moral values minorities like you and I depend on for our freedom - are uniquely Judeo-Christian. They are by no means universal

Moral values like slavery? rape? burning of witches? execution of heretics? Wanna try again?

Also BenDavid, Hitler was a self proclaimed chritian(catholic if I recall correctly)

Are "all men created equal"? Prove it!
With "inalienable rights"? Prove it!

Those truths are indeed self-evident, Ben David. You don't need a Bible to prove that Lenin's dictatorship of the proletariat was folly. All you need is a scalpel. Go to his mausoleum & dissect his pickled corpse. All you'll find is mortal Homo sapiens (riddled with syphilis & psychopathic mental illness, to boot). Every tyranny, whether atheistic like Leninism or theistic like the Taliban, rests on the denial of these truths, and the false claim that some men are God-like superior beings whom all others must obey. An atheist armed with a scalpel & a knowledge of anatomy can show this claim is false at least as well as any rabbi with a Torah.

A few followups/shoutouts/responses. First of all, big-time thumbs up to:

- Sarah at July 6, 2011 12:56 AM (last paragraph, but there was a lot good stuff throughout her comment.)
- Radwaste at July 6, 2011 2:18 AM (last paragraph.)

And, re Ben David's (?) claim: do I as a Christian believe only Christians have moral values? No, of course I don't. Two non-Christians who come immediately to mind, and IMHO have by-and-large pretty damn good morals: Dennis Prager (Jewish, conservative) and Christopher Hitchens (atheist and liberal, but who redeemed himself in my eyes quite a bit via his conditional support of culture change attempts in the Middle East). Would you really throw these two overboard for their lack of Christian faith, Ben David?

luj tries the same dodge Rad tried:

Moral values like slavery? rape? burning of witches? execution of heretics

... and how exactly does a just-the-facts rationalist conclude that these are morally wrong?

You write:

Hitler was a self proclaimed chritian(catholic if I recall correctly)

But Hitler (a vegetarian!) stifled the church, and revived pre-Christian pagan mythology to better justify the "rational utilitarianism" of racial oppression. In his own words:

The law of selection justifies this incessant struggle, by allowing the survival of the fittest. Christianity is a rebellion against natural law, a protest against nature. Taken to its logical extreme, Christianity would mean the systematic cultivation of the human failure.

Conscience is a Jewish invention like circumcision. My task is to free men from the dirty and degrading ideas of conscience and morality.

See - he's on your side... the side of the Spartan infanticide, and Athenians crowing about democracy while maintaining slave-based cultures... and modern Europeans killing off the elderly and other "useless eaters".

That's what I'm talking about: the moral values that assert human worth and make free Western democracy possible.

Science is great for the study of the physical world.

It is IRRELEVANT to discussions of moral and other truths that are essential to our humanity.

None of the freethinkers here ever explain how they arrive at the moral basis for a free, democratic society without recourse to Judeo-Christian thought.

BenDavid, it wasnt a dodge, the western world arrived at a moral basis for a free democratic scociety by IGNORING the majority of JudeoChristian thought and morals.

luj gets desperate:

BenDavid, it wasnt a dodge, the western world arrived at a moral basis for a free democratic scociety by IGNORING the majority of JudeoChristian thought and morals.

... so then it shouldn't be that hard for one of you "progressives" to explain what objective evidence leads to the notion that all people are created equal, with inherent value. Or that people have "inalienable rights".

That's not what I see when I take off my Judeo-Christian lenses and limit myself to objective fact.

Go ahead. I'll wait...

None of you ever answers because these foundational values grow directly from Jewish monotheism, and Judeo-Christian notions of individual conscience.

If these "truths" were so obvious - or rationally deducible - the non-Judeo-Christian West would have come to realize them long ago. But they haven't, and even formerly Christian countries that throw over their connection to Judaic values fail to reconstruct free, equal societies.

But go ahead - show me how you derive these moral values without reference to Judeo-Christian ideas.

Knock yourself out. I'll wait....

BenDavid, the greeks developed democracy before the jews, the romans developed a republic before the jews.

Also judeo-christian thought doesnt hold all men to be equal, it hold the belivers to be the chosen of god and everyone else to be less worthy then the belivers.

I have to repeat myself, B-D, because you didn't see this (I shouldn't have reminded him of Teh Gay):

Just as you have demonstrated by stating above that nobody but the Christians have moral values by lumping all of Africa together, you just can't discriminate between fact and fiction.

Annnnd, you didn't notice I credited English Protestants with the formation of America.

But all this is loony. The kingdoms of Egypt lasted for millennia, longer than all the "Western" democracies put together, without the first notion of a Bible responsible for its founding or its structure.

Everybody forgets the Upper and Lower Kingdoms because the story their parents told them about the sweaty desert shepherds of the Middle East are THE ULTIMATE ARBITERS OF TRUTH.
That's all.

Ahhh the Glories of Pagan Culture!

luj:

the greeks developed democracy before the jews, the romans developed a republic before the jews.

Both of which were oligarchies built on slavery and a level of brutality you would not want to live under. The Greeks killed live infants with even minor birth marks, and raped 10 year old boys as part of their "education". The Romans fed lesser races (now WHERE have I heard THAT phrase before....) to lions or hacked them apart for popular entertainment.

Charming - and you cite this as proof of... what, exactly?

One of the running arguments between ancient Judea and Greco-Roman powers was the Jews' refusal to return fugitive slaves to their masters - since the Sages had by then followed the Torah's initial lead in legislating slavery out of existence.

and Rad pines for Egypt - which didn't even have the redeeming feature of even limited democracy. As if the longevity of a dictatorship is some sort of advertisement of moral health.

Sure, Christians were brutal. But when a Christian targeted a Jew - there was at least a claim to be made, an appeal to the Christian's own values.

No such appeal was or is possible outside the Judeo-Christian sphere. Hitler, Stalin, and Mao were faultlessly consistent in their world view.

Which is YOUR worldview - to your great discomfort.

So: from where do you "freethinkers" and secular "progressives" draw your moral values?

Sparta?
Rome?
Egypt???????

Try picking a culture you'd really want to live in. It would make a more impressive argument.

You are coasting on the freedom and dignity of Judeo-Christian culture even as you attack it.

And hows about when during the invasion of Judea your god commanded your ancestors to commit genocide so they could 'inheret' the land of milk and honey?

You really want to go dueling bronze age belief systems to see which is more 'moral'?

luj:

You really want to go dueling bronze age belief systems

... it's you "progressive" folks who have reached back into the Glories of the Ancient World to try and sidestep my simple question:

How do "rationalists" generate and sustain the moral values necessary for a free, humane, and equable democracy - without reference to Judeo-Christian ideas?

Still waiting. Lotsa dust and smoke - no real answer.

Jesus christ you're obtuse, democracy was never a chistian or a jewish moral value.

How do rationalists generate values? Hows about do what ever the fuck you like so long as it doesnt bring danger or death unwillingly to others.

You know why I dont steal, its not because a god threaened eternal torment, its because in a society in which there is no consequence for theft is a society in which noone can earn or own anything of value.

Also I noticed you side stepped the issue of your god demanding your ancestors to ethnicaly clense the 'Holy Land'

Thought so