What's freakier is that God wants that flattery even if you don't mean it. And he can read your mind, like Santa checking it twice. The Christian Creator brooks none of what Hitchens calls "loyal opposition."

It's fun to live a bitter bachelor life out here in Godless Tinseltown. But in recent weeks an inexplicably accelerating tally of (renewed) Facebook "friendships" from the hinterland of my youth has reminded me how much rhetorical space faithful people will presumptively claim in daily life.

I am so not about politely surrendering that space any more. So not. So very, very not.

Go ahead and construct your straw man (straw God).

As Heinlein says:
Yet this absurd fantasy, without a shred of evidence to bolster it
- - - - - - - - - - -
Judaism clearly indicates that sacrifices and lip service are not enough. The prophets of the Jewish Bible constantly repeat this theme.

Christianity diluted this a bit with the doctrine of salvation by grace alone - but there is still clear understanding that true, sincere repentance and change are part of the service desired by God.

So go ahead continue your nervous, puerile pontificating about things that scare you in your ignorance.

Who are the primitives here?

Sex can only be sinful if you believe in sin.

Copulation IS only sinful, for those what believe in sin, outside the bounds of marriage. There is no prohibition against sex in the Christian or Judaical faith per se. Merely that it is reserved for marriage.

I love Heinlein's books, but the dude was a serious perv.

Steve B - and you must recognize the Fosterite church in Stranger in a Strange Land; look around at the megachurches.

Heinline clearly had no love for organized religion of any type. Actually, I'd probably stand with RH on that one. I have no love for the mega-churches, nor (as a Protestant) for a great deal of what the monolithic Roman Catholic Church stands for either.

Don't even get me started on "emergent" theology.

It doesn't have to be in for a penny, in for a pound.

I'd love his sites for "lip service is enough". The bible and christianity is pretty clear that one must wholly embrace Jesus as our savior, and that people who fervently and truly ask forgiveness for their sins will be granted it. I don't see either of those as lip service.

I think the most preposterous notion we've come up with is that we just happened. Trillions upon trillions upon trillions of things all just happened to happen right in the correct sequence at the correct time. Sure. You can say a certain number of monkies banging on a certain number of typewriters would eventually come up with the works of Shakespeare, but until someone does it, I'm not going to bet my everlasting soul on it. I know there is a God. I know it like I know I exist. That others don't know it is sad to me.

Problems with the monkey/typewriter analogy:

Where'd all the monkey's come from?
Who built the typewriters?
Where do you get that many bananas? Or paper?
What do you do with all the monkey shit?

Enquiring minds want to know...

I think it's a personal matter anyway. Believe it, don't believe it, I don't care. But to have a need to broadcast it far and wide smacks of insecurity. And if "God" is that insecure, that he needs everyone to talk about, shout about his "greatness" far and wide, well, do you really want someone that insecure about himself to be taking care of you in any kind of "afterlife"? Or to be taking care of you and your needs in this life? Really, who's doing that anyway? You are. And YOU are the only one really looking out for you and your family's best interests, right? Lately, it seems to me the only real interest any organized religion has in you is how to best separate you from (at least some of) your money without it looking like that's what they're doing.

I have this argument with my girlfriend who is a believer (well actually I keep my mouth shut and think it :) ) but the same God who "answers" prayers also doesn't answer them. Whether you pray or not he is going to do "His Will", which may not be what you want. BUT he still wants you on your knees begging him.

That is not a loving father, that's an abusive husband.

Most of that is just excuses priests had to make up to explain why the gods don't do what you want. But taken to its logical conclusion the Jewish / Christian / Muslim God is just as petulant and capricious as the gods of the Greek myths.

Whatever it is Heinlein chooses to disbelieve bears only the most superficial resemblance to anything taught in any church I've ever attended. It's as meaningful as me insisting that your hat is ugly, when in fact you don't have one on.

Whatever it is Heinlein chooses to disbelieve bears only the most superficial resemblance to anything taught in any church I've ever attended. It's as meaningful as me insisting that your hat is ugly, when in fact you don't have one on.

I was about to say the same. I agree that it's ridiculous to think that God wants empty praises, hypocritical behavior or celibacy.

My favorite Heinlein quote, though, is the one from Life-Line:

"There has grown up in the minds of certain groups in this country the notion that because a man or corporation has made a profit out of the public for a number of years, the government and the courts are charged with the duty of guaranteeing such profit in the future, even in the face of changing circumstances and contrary to public interest. This strange doctrine is not supported by statute or common law. Neither individuals nor corporations have any right to come into court and ask that the clock of history be stopped, or turned back."

That was in 1939. The more things change, the more they stay the same.

Sigh. I say this as a huge fan, Amy. When you post these things you really, really remind me of Charles Johnson and his whole sad "creationist" obsession.

Many people have in the past, and will continue to say and write very poignant things about the silliness of organized religion, and particularly about Christianity, since it's such a soft target.

But really, can't you think of a better use of your time and prodigious talent? Every time I see one of these posts, all I can think is that you were feeling a little underappreciated or needed some approval, so you throw out a bone and wait for the affirmation to role in.

Whether you pray or not he is going to do "His Will", which may not be what you want

So, in your opinion, does a good father always do whatever his children want, whenever they want? Or, does he sometimes tell them "No" because, based on his greater wisdom as an adult, he understands things they don't, and does what's best for them, even if they storm up the stairs screaming "I HATE YOU!!" and slam the door because he wouldn't let them go to the rock concert?

BUT he still wants you on your knees begging him....That is not a loving father, that's an abusive husband.

Agree absolutely. However, that is simply not the God I see revealed in the Bible. Although, if you get most of your talking points from Christopher Hitchens, well then I guess I could see how you'd get that opinion.

Sure. You can say a certain number of monkies banging on a certain number of typewriters would eventually come up with the works of Shakespeare, but until someone does it, I'm not going to bet my everlasting soul on it.

"We have all heard the notion that a million monkeys bangin on a million typewriters would eventually reproduce the works of Shakespeare. Now, thanks to the internet, we know this is not true." - Robert Sileski

"I think the most preposterous notion we've come up with is that we just happened. Trillions upon trillions upon trillions of things all just happened to happen right in the correct sequence at the correct time. Sure. You can say a certain number of monkies banging on a certain number of typewriters would eventually come up with the works of Shakespeare, but until someone does it, I'm not going to bet my everlasting soul on it. I know there is a God. I know it like I know I exist. That others don't know it is sad to me."

I don't think that "we just happened" is some preposterous notion that isn't based on scientific evidence that has been confirmed over time. Reducing it to a "preposterous notion" is rather shortsighted. That discounts the creative works of man that rely not on a higher power, just higher thinking.

"That others don't know it is sad to me."

I'm a "non-believer" and I give space to those who are faithful thinkers, right up until they waste their sorrow on me for not being a like minded. The idea that you need to feel sad for anyone that doesn't believe is really again indicative of closed minded short sighted thinking.

Crid, my more fervent FB "friends" beat a hasty retreat after a few pro-choice posts. I post them now in part for that added bonus of house cleaning. This week's offending fodder courtesy of the Iowa state legislature:

http://womensrights.change.org/blog/view/pregnant_iowa_woman_arrested_for_falling_down

I feel no need to defend or denigrate faith, but I have some requests regarding faith or the lack thereof.

Keep it to yourself unless I ask.

Don't ask me to fund your faith in any way.

Don't charge me more for anything based on any faith, or lack thereof, I may exhibit.

Don't try to alter my lifestyle based on your faith.

In short, it is your faith (or lack of faith), so leave me out of it.

Also, consider this: given the muliplicity of faiths, it is highly likely that not just one of us, but all of us are wrong to some degree or another. Only the agnostics' profession of ignorance appears accurate.

> Who are the primitives here?

The people who believe in things without evidence —elaborate, determinative, authoritarian things— are the primitives, Bed-David.

If you just want to be wrong, go ahead. But there is NO "clear understanding that true, sincere repentance and change are part of the service desired by God." And even if there were, you haven't presented any reason to say so, which is the matter under discussion by you: you're not even drawing air before you cluck. So maybe you shouldn't try to cluck.

> I agree that it's ridiculous to think
> that God wants empty praises

So you're not a Christian (they of the 'jealous God'), after all. Good on ya! After all, what does it even mean to believe something upon command? Could that 'belief' possibly, possibly be anything more than resentment-inducing social submission?... Submission not to divine authority, but to the all-too-human milieu in which the rubbery, sniveling 'believer' seeks to find base sustenance, fellowship and maybe –if his wife is a believer, too– tail? Anyway, even in your anonymous (not even 'pseudonymous') context, I think we've made a real breakthrough today.

> can't you think of a better use of
> your time and prodigious talent?

Oh, don't be a fuckhead. If your perspective on these globally-contending belief systems is so keen, and your judgment about the insights which other people can offer is so precise, than why do you bother to come here and read at all? If you know what everyone else is supposed to be talking about and saying, not just to you but to everyone else, why don't you close your browser and just write everything you want to be reading into Microsoft Word?

(When you finish, go ahead and delete the file. There's no need to print it out at Kinko's and mail it in or anything.)

People have been doing that one a lot lately: 'Um, while I think you have all these gifts, you really shouldn't be bothering with this-or-that topic, and should instead be taking about X & Y.'

People new to communicating with strangers through text, and to doing anything anonymously, will often pretend to be wiser than they actually are.

(Gotta say, though, that makes a lot of the girly housewife-y types who comment at Amy's blog all the more attractive in comparison: They just want to talk about the advice Amy gave to some woman in Paducah whose brother-in-law's an alcoholic... They're not really trying to convince anyone that they've got some Clark Kent secret identity cooking.)

Bullshit blog commentary of this sort has an antecedent pertaining to the music business.

> I'm not going to bet my everlasting soul on it.
> I know there is a God. I know it like I know
> I exist. That others don't know it is sad to me.

CLUCK. "That others don't know it is sad to me." THIS IS ALL ABOUT LOOKING DOWN ON OTHERS.

That's yer Christian example, people. Someone who's THAT DESPERATE to be condescending.... 'From my exalted position, it's really kind of sad...'

It's hard to imagine anything good from the company of such needy, snotty people.

I'm a believer. In something. I can't be otherwise. It's hard-wired into me. You know how a lot of European kids can speak a dozen languages because they're exposed to them as they grow?

Well, I was raised Lutheran, (Sunday School, Catechism, confirmation, etc.) but I was also encouraged to read anything and everything. Plus I grew up in a town and a time where even the churches gave out candy at Halloween, and all kids were free-range, and we were ruled more by our imaginations than by special effects.

One belief I always stuck with is the omnipotent thing. God can do anything, I was taught. To me that meant there was room for vampires, Bigfoot, everything I was told didn't exist. Why not? (I don't have a philosophy. I have a melting-pot of ideas in my head and it has made me insane.)

As for God--I think he was just a kid in the Old Testament, making demands, throwing tantrums. By the New Testament he was getting older, and just wanted us to play nice and BE QUIET!

BUT he still wants you on your knees begging him....That is not a loving father, that's an abusive husband.

Agree absolutely. However, that is simply not the God I see revealed in the Bible
Posted by: Steve B

Then what bible have you been reading?

Someone said earlier they wonder why it matters to anyone else if this topic comes up, and why should it matter what other people think, well there are many reasons it matters. A few of them:

1. Our laws can be changed based on people's ideas of "faith", not to mention people in power making decisions based on their discussions with "god";

2. People are currently denied treatment and/or medical procedures based on a hospital organization's ideas about what "god" says is right or wrong; even though the pope himself thinks he has such a connection with "god" that he can change doctrine;

3. There are public schools in this country where the curriculum is being changed to support the idea of "god", instead of teaching them science and biology based on research and facts(waiting for all the "believers" to jump on this one regarding evolution-yippee);

4. Since funding for proper health classes are cut if abstinence-only education isn't taught, now we have an entire generation who don't know how to properly put on a condom or what methods are available for birth control ... nice job, U.S. (although I think this is a parent's responsibility, but we shouldn't punish the kids for having crappy parents);

Isn't that enough to show that Amy should be bringing attention to the ridiculousness of the belief in the supernatural??

And to address some a-hole who asked why atheists don't just run around killing people if natural selection is true, I'm going to patiently respond that that is not natural selection/survival of the fittest and you should do your own research before stating something so ridiculous. Natural selection means that nature takes care of the species on it's own and encourages the healthiest genes to propogate by making it difficult or impossible for the "disabled" of the species to reproduce.

I'd go further than Heinlein. To me, the idea that an infinite, omnipotent being could have the slightest interest in the thoughts, actions and fates of individual humans is preposterous.

If there is a God, It must be the sort envisioned by the Deists of the 18th century: one who created the universe and then moved on to Its next project, whatever that might be.

'Since funding for proper health classes are cut if abstinence-only education isn't taught, now we have an entire generation who don't know how to properly put on a condom or what methods are available for birth control ... nice job, U.S.'

From watching American movies, and TV dramas and comedies, I always assumed the high rate of unwated pregnancy was merely a plot device. First I wondered why no-one had any idea about contraception, then I started to suspect a conspiracy orchestrated by the government to keep women barefoot and pregnant, and men financially hamstrung, so that they don't have the time or energy to agitate for change. Fear mongering in the media also helps with keeping the population under control.

The few times I was planning on hooking up with guys from the US, they were offended that I insisted on a condom, for both health & pregnancy reasons. Now I know why.

I always found that organized religions were obsessed with sex and money, and I didn't want to be around people that had such an unhealthy obsession. I enjoy sex in an amateur, recreational manner, and I like money for the freedom it gives me, and I had no interest in giving either away to twisted pervs.

"But it is hard to see how a man who has been given a mandate from on High to spread tidings of joy to all mankind can be seriously interested in taking up a collection to pay his salary"

These shamans are called "Plastic Shamans".

While I don't practice the Native American Way, I have two friends that do (and are themselves Native Americans). Neither of them do what they do for profit, they would consider that abhorrent.

Amy- you're writing out against God, and I notice you currently have 666 friends on Facebook. Conincidence? I find that too difficult to believe.

Eric, you have just proven once again how silly religious people can be. Do you have anything to REALLY add to the discussion?

New around here Jess?

PS Jess- the only thing missing from Jesus is "u".

(It was a JOKE Jess!!!! Though Amy really does have 666 friends on FACEBOOK at the moment.)

Oh Lord, ooo you are so big, so absolutely huge, gosh we're all really impressed down here, I can tell you!

Forgive us, oh Lord, for this our dreadful toadying...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fINh4SsOyBw

*all sing*
Oh Lord please don't burn us ...

All those who don't want to be crucified here, raise your hands. Right!

For you believers: Don't miss the fact that if you claim that a deity built what we see around us, you have NOT solved where the deity came from.

When you get to the point where you (may) claim that your personally-customized, anthropomorphized deity was "always" here, you're just guessing - without once built anything on careful observation of the things around you. And that stuff, by your own reckoning, had to be "built" by your favorite idea.

But don't think for a moment that your personal incredulity means that you can take a few minutes to read a favorite book and get all the answers. Here's something you've never considered:

The universe is not random. It can't be, because it has a law of physics. It has a minimum of four fundamental forces at work in it at all times. These cannot be set aside by begging anyone, deity or not. They are gravity, magnetism, and the strong and weak nuclear forces.

Perhaps you use the word, "chance". I am sure you don't know what it means if you use the expression, "preposterous", above. But it doesn't mean "random". What you are looking at, really, is "unpredictable". You can't call a coin toss every time, even when there are three and only three choices; why should anyone consider you qualified to talk about the "preposterous"-ness of nature when you can't see all materials behaving in the same ways because of those fundamental forces?

Why should this matter to you? Because that's how everything around you is really built. You might be indignant to find that the chimp has 95% of your DNA, or that the common rat is built of the exact same materials you have. Well, it's time to really be offended, because all of the raw materials that make you you came from somewhere else and were assembled fully in compliance with natural laws.

The question of whether there is a "builder" or "law-giver", out there somewhere can't be answered, and in fact even the "big bang" guys don't say when they are being strict.

But the question as to whether your favorite exists is easy: NO.

Because you're being completely sloppy about reasoning. You're just not doing it when a fallacy is key to your expressions.

Any of you out of work? Check this out. The rapture is coming.
http://eternal-earthbound-pets.com/

"The rapture is coming."

And when that hot chick from the corner Baptist church gets raptured and goes a-flyin' up into heaven, I'll be standing on the ground, looking up her dress.

I agree that it's ridiculous to think that God wants empty praises

So you're not a Christian (they of the 'jealous God'), after all.

You're slipping, Crid. I expect that kind of analysis from lujlp, bless his heart.

4. Since funding for proper health classes are cut if abstinence-only education isn't taught, now we have an entire generation who don't know how to properly put on a condom or what methods are available for birth control ... nice job, U.S. (although I think this is a parent's responsibility, but we shouldn't punish the kids for having crappy parents);

In related news, Wisconsin has abolished abstinence-only education in public schools. A school can opt to not provide any sex ed at all, but if it has any, it has to discuss birth control and STD prevention.

momof4 said, "I think the most preposterous notion we've come up with is that we just happened. Trillions upon trillions upon trillions of things all just happened to happen right in the correct sequence at the correct time."

And Amy said, "The profession of shaman has many advantages... "

I'm an agnostic. I can't accept what momof4 said, the scientific evidence of the formation of the universe in over 13 billion years, and the often happenstance evolution of life on earth over less than 4.5 billion years is just too overwhelming. And the point has been made the point that if God is responsible for all the wonders of the universe and life, then God is also responsible for an endless host of troubles and mishaps, such as malaria, cleft palates, etc., to a lengthy degree.

Yet I don't rule out the possibility of a God, either. Amy cited Heinlein's derisive quote about shamans, yet many of the religious orders undertake many thankless tasks on behalf of suffering people over a period of many years. What motivates them, I can't say, but they may well be animated by the spirit of a loving God.

My agnosticism is derived by a keen awareness of what I don't know.

> I expect that kind of analysis from lujlp

We note that you only have energy to mock it; you can't find time to fault it... And even then, you work it to make social distance from other people, M4-style. I think this, as much as anything, is the rewarding function of religious participation, to convince yourself that you're better than other people; or at least to give you cover to infer as much without getting your teeth kicked in. (We have a body of evidence to suggest that if you pulled any of that shit on Lou in person, he'd take you down hard and fast, if only rhetorically. [But no promises.])

> many of the religious orders undertake many
> thankless tasks on behalf of suffering people
> over a period of many years.

So do non-believers. The impulses for compassion and good works are human, not religious.

My great grandmother died because no doctor was allowed to see her without the veil. My great grandfather was the religious leader of the community and all rituals were done in secret. By the time I came along nobody remembered what religion we were supposed to be. Or what country we came from. Aint that a great ending?

Lesson: Nobody will remember your God beliefs, however sacred or powerful they were to you. When you die, they die and be replaced but whatever other shit people choose to believe. YOU ARE JUST NOT THAT IMPORTANT.

>>Perhaps you use the word, "chance". I am sure you don't know what it means if you use the expression, "preposterous", above. But it doesn't mean "random". What you are looking at, really, is "unpredictable".

Well said, Radwaste.

A short, real story to illustrate the difference between complexity and randomness:

Casual friend Sarah was a DOE rep where I work. She was a passenger on the back of her husband's Harley one fine evening, as they decided to visit Columbia for dinner. It was about 30 miles, one way. On the way back, they hit a deer.

Sarah died in the hospital two days later, never having regained consciousness after hitting the ground.

Now, consider the factors which produced the fatality.

On the deer's part: she ran out into the road, having been immediately startled by something. In her previous years of life, predation and food supplies brought her to that road.

On Sarah's part, they arrived at the spot, on a rural two-lane road, after two hours of travel to and from a minor Eastern city. They stopped for some traffic lights and breezed through others. They didn't have the dessert. You can also be amazed by a simple observation: if the waiter had dropped a spoon, she'd be alive today.

Not one thing in the deer's life was "random". Predators chase deer to eat them. Deer move to new food sources. Speed is their defense; when startled, they run.

Not one thing in Sarah's life was "random". The traffic lights operated on timers and sensors, the soup cooled as it always does. The bike rumbled down the road with no problems, being carefully maintained.

Choice, so often debated as "free will" by the religious - even though it has nothing whatsoever to do with religion - is always driven by cause/effect. Some choices result in no change in an outcome. Others are significant. And, as this example shows, outside forces change the magnitude and direction of events for you, often against your will.

You say "miracle" when you don't know what happened. What happened was ordinary: a long chain of events occurred. You are just surprised, having lived in ignorance of the process.

You really shouldn't be surprised. You play games like baseball, Lotto, poker, football and automobile racing and you know you can't predict the outcome, even though rules restrict the variation which can appear in the results.

Guess what? Natural laws are rules. Don't let their complexity make you think they can be set aside. You pay close attention to the rules when you think you can win a pack of French fries. I suggest it's time to pay attention to natural laws - the rules the Universe runs by.

We note that you only have energy to mock it; you can't find time to fault it...

Nothing in the Bible or in Christian tradition (there is a significant divergence) says that God wants empty praises. On the contrary, empty praises are a sin.

Color me hopeful agnostic, but I am vehemently against organized religion. Anyone asking you for money to basically line their pockets...no. I don't see much difference between religious entities and the unions. Both want cash to "protect" you, one for your job, one for your sins. And don't even get me started on the people who feel compelled to either convert me or tell me how I should live my life based on THEIR religion. And, if there is a Supreme Being, I doubt he/she/it is any one religion, so let's all just stop with the holier-than-thou, mmmkay? Yeah, my Catholic schoolgirl scars are showing - sue me.

Believe, don't believe. I don't care. Just leave me (and my wallet) out of it.

> So is not praying at all

I was going to say that, but look at her. Look at Big Red. She slammed the door in FIVE MINUTES.

So the work is done. This is just cleanup, OK?

Outside of California ninnydom ('I'm a very SPIRITUAL person'), there are no faiths introducing their precepts with the preamble: To whatever the degree the Believer is into this, he should try to _____________.

Take at took at this chart, top left, column 2. M'kay? Right there: "I am the Lord your God." Not a lotta wiggle room! You're in or you're out. So again, and it would be great if you could make time to give us a one-sentence answer on this, what does it even mean to be compelled to believe?

(Would hate to think the topic makes you uncomfortable. You seem to be saying you've brought no judgment to the matter, as doing so would violate the maxims. But if you've brought no judgment to the matter, you ought to be able to concede as much without shame.)

> empty praises are a sin.

Good to know! Good to know! Writing that down!

Goddamn HTML tags.

Y'know, these discussions are more mundane than engrossing, and it's not like the numbnut faithful are really into reasoning anyway... They're into faith, which is the numbing part. So I apologize if I risked the atmosphere of Amy's little cocktail party. But these people are such snots...

On the contrary, empty praises are a sin.

So is not praying at all. God is a needy guy. If you were Supreme Being, would you need people to get on their knees every Sunday to tell you how great you are?

Yes, absolutely. It's impossible by definition for an omniscient, omnipotent being to say "you're OK" if you're not because that would be lying to himself.

The correct response to an actual omniscient and omnipotent being is acknowledgement, a.k.a. worship. Describing that as God "needing" prayer or worship isn't quite accurate; God doesn't "need" anything, but he won't lie and say you're doing what he wants (telling the truth) if you're not.

Ultimately sin comes down to truth and falsehood; to sin is to say "it is OK to do this thing" when it is not actually OK. To act in accordance with what God wants is to not sin.

I don't claim that the above proves that God is real, but that the Christian story of God is internally consistent. Something can be consistent and false. Consistency is evidence of truth, though, because lying consistently is hard.

it's not like the numbnut faithful are really into reasoning anyway...

We note that you only have energy to mock it; you can't find time to fault it...

I fault faith all the time, almost every day. Here, watch me do it for you now:

Faith is belief without logic or reason. That's almost never good.

The capacity for reason is the distinctive human quality. Your dog's ears sit atop its head. Your own ears are on the side, as your braincase has swollen almost violently in a famously short number of generations, dropping your ears without regret: The ability to walk forward and make logical sense of what you hear is far more beneficial than is additional auditory acuity while hiding meekly under the grassline as you guess what your predators are up to.

Through a series of wordy and degrading (but faux-humble) homilies, you're preparing to argue that belief without evidence is appropriate. This will not go well for you. Similarly, I'm impatient with starving giraffes who won't nibble glowing fruit from treetops, and with famished anteaters who resist licking dirt because it is, after all, beneath them.

And again, Soody –and I'd hate to become a pest about this– you've not yet explicated the meaning of commanded belief... You've only kinda hemmed and hawed and said it's not a problem, which is what I meant earlier about religious people being mundane. Nothing ever pays off with you guys, y'know?

Puesdonym if the "Christian story of God is internally consistent" and to "act in accordance with what God wants is to not sin"

Then why dont you own slaves?

And why cant I rape a couple of teenagers give the fathers fifty buck and force marriage on them.

And why do christian seat chesburgers agisnt kosher laws at backyard barbeques?

Faith is belief without logic or reason. That's almost never good.

When someone demands blind obedience, you'd be a fool not to peek.

And why do christian seat chesburgers ... at backyard barbeques?

If chesburgers want to come to my backyard barbeque, they'll have to stand!

you're preparing to argue that belief without evidence is appropriate.

Close: I believe that belief without evidence doesn't exist, and that everybody believes lots of things without proof.

As far as the supernatural goes, there cannot be proof of its existence or non-existence. People who believe it does not exist have as much faith as people who believe it does.

I empathize with your dislike of faith; I don't like it either. I'd rather have truth clearly spelled out.

you've not yet explicated the meaning of commanded belief...

"I am the Lord your God" is, in the story, an accurate description of reality. I don't think it makes sense to call it a commandment. If God doesn't exist, commands attributed to him have no force; they cannot cause him to come into being by themselves.

Saying that religionists can't prove God created the universe is absolutely true. Of course, science can't prove how the universe was created either. It can make educated guesses, but there's no way to prove them one way or the other.

Science simply cannot answer the question of original causality. For the theist, "God did it" simply has a touch more credibility than "it just sorta happened." For the atheist, "in the beginning there was nothing, and then it exploded" makes more sense that this god critter stretching out universes. Tomato, tamahto.

To say that no one can really agree on who or what God is, is also true. There are also a variety of "denominations" within the scientific community with regards to evolution, cosmology, global warming, genetics, you name it. "Most scientists believe" their theory is the best, most supportable explanation based on the evidence, sometimes even in the face of strong evidence otherwise. I'm sure the same goes for denominations of faith.

There is no such thing as "pure" science, because, like everything else, it is colored and tainted by human errors and foibles. And yet the atheists demand that we revere science as the end all be all of rational thought. That is what I call "dogmatic."

The rabid atheist demands solid PROOF from the theists, and yet can provide so little themselves.

> As far as the supernatural goes…

I said you were going to be wordy, degrading and faux-humble, and you came through like a champ. (Can I call 'em, or what?) Emergency call into to work, so response willl have to wait until later today, but watch this space.

> There is no such thing as "pure" science,
> because, like everything else, it is colored
> and tainted by human errors and foibles.

Bullshit.

Besides, who are you quoting with the quotation marks? Good science, of which there is a great deal, prevents coloration, error and foible.

_____________

See you tonight.

Where's Eric? I HATE jokes ... ha ha just kidding but the one about the only thing separating me from "jesus" is a "u" (me) was a good one. I'm new here! Thanks for breaking the SERIOUS ice:)

"Science is the search for truth

So is religion. The search just takes a different form, and approaches the same problem from a different direction.

"When you don't know, you just say "I don't know" -- you don't make shit up"

Unless you study global warming.

I do believe I've said all along that I can't prove God exists. I'm almost certain he does, based on what I've seen, heard, read, and experienced. I theorize that God exists.

A hypothesis is just somebody's wild eyed idea. Through experimentation and analysis, you attempt to prove the validity of your hypothesis, OR change it accordingly based on the results, so that you now have a NEW hypothesis. It becomes a theory as experimentation and validation
repeatedly fail to disprove or modify the original hypothesis. Over time, as it applies more and more consistently and universally, it can be viewed as a natural law.

Scientific theories are consistently being dis-proven and overturned. Some stand for years, and are assumed to be nearly inviolate, only to have some new technology or research method discover information which suddenly turns everything on its ear. The proven truth is suddenly out in the street. Researchers continue to search for missing links which will fill in the fossil record and one day tie everything together and prove evolution exists. As yet, there are still too many holes, too many missing pieces. Too many intuitive leaps one must make. So it is, at best, the best prevailing THEORY, though so many treat it as fact, if only because the alternative is too distasteful for them to consider.

One would hope that "scientific dogma" would be an oxymoron, but alas...

I've been scorned and belittled, called an idiot and a fool because I believe in something that I can't prove. The point I keep trying to make is that a great deal of what we so willingly accept in the scientific world, we also believe even though IT CAN'T BE PROVEN. We take what we read in a book, and what we hear or are taught by others to be the truth because we consider them to be from credible sources.

I consider the Bible to be a credible source. If that makes me an idiot in your eyes, oh well. I've been called worse by better people.

Here's a great article which makes my point better than I've been able to.

http://the.ricethresher.org/opinion/2005/09/30/evolution_diversity

I propose that science is not a search for truth, but a search for facts. We are all looking for answers. Some of us are just looking for different answers.

When "facts" become "truth" is almost entirely subjective.

"A theory is a based upon a hypothesis and backed by evidence.
http://psychology.about.com/od/tindex/f/theory.htm

"A theory is built upon one or more hypotheses, and upon evidence. The word "built" is essential, for a theory contains reasoning and logical connections based on the hypotheses and evidence. "

" In a strict sense, no theory is ever proven in any field, with the possible exception of pure mathematics, since new data might come along that require a change, and there are always details that haven't been tested. Sure, there are things not yet understood about evolution, as in many other fields; but that is why scientists do research! I have encountered the statement - meant as a put-down - that scientists don't know everything. Well of course not, but we expect to know tomorrow more than we know today"

http://www.nebscience.org/theory.html

You were saying?

Since I was maybe 5 years old, religion/faith just didn't pass the smell test with me. I often wished I could buy it; I have even envied those who profess to "know" "the TRUTH." I tend to think that religion is humankind's way to deal with the unknown and scary, and - as I think Freud posited - that as science continues to explain away more of the universe's mysteries, our need to attribute them to the cosmic muffin will fade away. Wish I could remember who it was that said, "Man created God in his image."

Science is the search for truth. What could be wrong with that?

There's nothing wrong with that, and it really bothers me when people think that my religion requires them to put down science. (Some other religion, it doesn't bother me so much.)

Religion is anything but the search for truth. It's "believe this because we say it's true."

Some religions, certainly, but religions are subsets of philosophy, and philosophy is all about the search for truth.

According to my religious upbringing, it's OK, and even desirable, to think for yourself. That's one reason why we (Christians) have more denominations than I know of; we even disagree about which denominations count as Christian.

> I believe that belief without
> evidence doesn't exist

Then you haven't done the reading. Each indigenous culture on the planet has weird ideas about things, completely different ones, that have no helpful alignment to truth. Folks used to think the world was flat, basing their understanding on no sample greater than a single sunset seen from the villages where they lived and died. But it's not possible to navigate the world correctly until this belief is surrendered... So humanity stayed put. For tens or hundreds of thousands of years. When people aren't able (or inclined) to collect evidence, human nature always, always offers some silly daydream to fill the gap in understanding.

I've been reading a gift book from a few years ago called "Cleopatra's Nose". It describes something called the Great South Continent, believed as late as the 18th century to connect Asia and Antarctica. There was no real reason to think it existed... Except that plunder-minded Europeans imagined it as a vast new land of teeming rivers, verdant valleys, and taxable Silk Roads. This daydream was so intoxicating that meaningful investment for exploring the real world wasn't available until James Cook decisively proved that the imagined one could not exist.

> everybody believes lots of
> things without proof.

The wretchedly narcissistic, such as perhaps yourself, will often seek to imagine their cowardice as no worse than that of anyone else. But there are many courageous and open-minded people who'd rather confront unpleasant truth than be comforted by sheltering lies. Your failure to acknowledge those people in your work-a-day rhetoric is not admirable.

> As far as the supernatural goes,
> there cannot be proof of its
> existence or non-existence.

Then I forbid you to bother me with it. Lives are famously short: Perhaps you have years to squander on such things, but I've been getting older since I was three, and I want the real deal.

> I'd rather have truth clearly
> spelled out.

The fuck you would. The fuck you would. This is one of those despicable pretensions of humility: 'What can I do but believe in something without evidence?' You can acknowledge the weakness in your own heart in a sincerely humble / non-manipulative / non-posturing way, that's what you can do. THAT'S what science does: It distinguishes the personality from the results. "Clearly spelled out" my ass: You're not interested in "clarity", you're interested in simplicity. You think a God who really loved you would never equip another guy to appreciate his majesty more clearly than you do... Certainly not some tweedy scientist, right? You don't want to think too hard, or learn new words, or be embarrassed when your weird conjectures are disproven. You don't want ANYTHING "clearly spelled out": You just want to be right about things by coincidence.

> "I am the Lord your God" is, in
> the story, an accurate
> description of reality.

That sentence makes no sense. In the story, the Wolf Huffed and Puffed and Blew the House Down; "in the story, an accurate description of reality." But in reality, not even inaccurate.

> I don't think it makes sense to
> call it a commandment.

Very good! I again welcome you to atheism; your rejection of the very FIRST injunction from the Old Book shows a handsome intolerance for mind control.... But you must soil our forum with that shit no more.

> A hypothesis is just somebody's
> wild eyed idea.

You didn't go to college, didja? Hell, we learned better science than that in fifth grade. For the record, hypotheses are optional components in the scientific method: While you're composing your tests of the real world, you're welcome to present speculations of what will happen and why, so long as they're distinct from experiments and reproducible data.... But if you skip the hypothesis, your well-conducted test will still be welcomed by the curious anyway.

The failure of the global warming fucktards was not a failure of the scientific method... Their failure was all too human. It was reversion to the clerk's fraud and the pandering to powerful technocracy which made the churches worth breaking away from to begin with. They forgot which team they were playing for.

> I can't prove God exists. I'm
> almost certain he does

What do you mean "almost", Pilgrim? He says He's your God, and if you doubt it, then you're a sinner. Time to get with the program!

> And yet the atheists demand that
> we revere science as the end all
> be all of rational thought. That
> is what I call "dogmatic."

Again, you're no student of science, and probably not much of anything else. Rationality is the antidote to dogma: It takes you where evidence leads, whether you like it or not... Whether your family and your church like it or not... Whether you can find convenient funding for your experiments or not. The humiliation of the global warming theorists is no surprise to those of us who've known the odors and splinters of the pew.

> I've been scorned and belittled,
> called an idiot and a fool

Have you, now? Must be fun to be such a martyr for... for... for your own preciousness.

> religions are subsets of philosophy

No, they're the precursors to philosophy. As Hrissikopoulos so beautifully put it on this very blog a few years ago, religion is the "crazy hippie mother" of art, science, and philosophy. Nowadays, we don't let her on campus until she's been sedated by the fragmentation you describe as one of her chosen virtues. But she didn't take that medication willingly: We had to pour it down her throat.

> According to my religious
> upbringing, it's OK, and even
> desirable, to think for yourself.

So TRY IT.

Know what I resent most about you fuckers? (And do you understand how much there is to choose from?)

Your lack of humility. Everything about your fat, safe lives is the product of science. It's essentially doubled your life expectancy in just a couple generations. Food is plentiful, safe, and tasty. Travel is safe and costs a tiny fraction of your wage. Communications and information are available in forms that your great-grandfather never dreamt of, and for pennies. Education's cheap, everything's reliable, and things keep getting better. Some fools are so deluded by this that they think your very health care can come to you for free.

The church didn't do this for you. SCIENCE did this for you. And you stand up today to mock it bitterly.

Many people reading these words would not be alive without science, even just the science of the previous century.

You've forgotten to dance with the one that brung ya, and that's unforgivable.

Typo: The one WHO brung ya.

Sorry.

Crid, when you bat cleanup, you really bat cleanup.

Great post.

If that's what passes for a "great post" around here, then it's all yours.

How you so roundly condemn attitudes of moral superiority when your great post is so awash in it itself, simply boggles the mind.

Just....wow.

> How you so roundly condemn attitudes of moral
> superiority when your great post is so awash in it

Like this; I don't pretend that my comforting, self-aggrandizing belief in supernatural forces makes me superior to other people.

Or you "boggle" easily.

Maybe both.

Guess who.

A Lewis, too... Good ish, Graydon.

Ha - loved this bit from Hitchens' 10 commandments piece:

(When you hear people demanding that the Ten Commandments be displayed in courtrooms and schoolrooms, always be sure to ask which set. It works every time.) The first and most famous set comes in Exodus 20 but ends with Moses himself smashing the supposedly most sacred artifacts ever known to man: the original, God-dictated panels of Holy Writ. The second edition occurs in Exodus 34, where new but completely different tablets are presented after some heavenly re-write session and are for the first time called “the ten commandments.” In the fifth chapter of Deuteronomy, Moses once more calls his audience together and recites the original Sinai speech with one highly significant alteration (the Sabbath commandment’s justifications in each differ greatly). But plainly discontented with the effect of this, he musters the flock again 22 chapters further on, as the river Jordan is coming into view, and gives an additional set of orders—chiefly terse curses—which are also to be inscribed in stone. As with the gold plates on which Joseph Smith found the Book of Mormon in upstate New York, no trace of any of these original yet conflicting tablets survives.

pretense of rationality

So, my belief in God makes me by definition irrational, correct? So that, no matter what I try to say, no matter how "pretty" I talk, or hard I try to pretend like I know the first thing about the empirical method, it's all just the lunatic babblings of a unlettered, luddite religious kook, yes?

And not until I deny my irrational belief in the existence of god, and instead embrace the heady wonders of the scientific method will I be accepted by my intellectual betters?

I wish I'd have known that sooner. All those chemistry, biology, and physics classes spent screaming at the prof, calling him a heretic, and waving a Bible in his face while condemning him to hell for his blasphemous teachings. Wasted. All wasted.

I don't pretend that my comforting, self-aggrandizing belief in supernatural forces makes me superior to other people.

No, or course not. You're convinced that your comforting, self-aggrandizing belief in purely natural forces make you superior to other (religious) people. I think that's pretty obvious.

“Who’s more irrational? The guy who believes in a God he can’t see?
Or the guy who is offended by a God he doesn’t believe in?”
~ Brad Stine

Ya know what's funny? I see rude people TOO!

Bwahaha. LOL. Etc. L8rz.

> So, my belief in God makes me by
> definition irrational, correct?

Don't translate. It's rude and it's clumsy. If you're reading this thoughtfully, you can find more graceful ways to reflect on what's being discussed. Putting words in other people's mouths is childish, unnecessary, and completely ineffective when we can scroll up the page to see what was really said.

> no matter what I try to say, no
> matter how "pretty" I talk, or
> hard I try to pretend like I
> know the first thing about the
> empirical method, it's all just
> the lunatic babblings of a
> unlettered, luddite religious
> kook, yes?

You eagerly affirm that a large region of your belief has no basis, but expect us to trust you with the rest, as if there was some impenetrable Maginot demarcating these habits of yours. It ain't likely.

> will I be accepted by my
> intellectual betters?

If you want people trust you, they'll ask you why they should.

> You're convinced that your
> comforting, self-aggrandizing
> belief in purely natural forces
> make you superior to other
> (religious) people.

It makes me more fun to be around: When I offer a precept, you'll be able to test it. You'll be able to compare it with your own beliefs and experience pound-for-pound; I won't bother you with unknowable feelings and arcane pedagogy and socially-excluding shenanigans.

Hitch quotes Einstein (and Jody softened this soil for tillage earlier in the week, IIRC): 'The miracle is that there are no miracles.' The laws of nature are NEVER suspended. They're not suspended for people who pray, who face just as many risks for cancer and auto accidents as anyone else. They're not arrayed against people who don't pray, clouding the microscopes of scientists who are trying to figure out what's going on in there. If you want to learn about the real world, STUDY IT. Maybe there will be some corner that you can't explore, but good notes will be useful to your grandson when he decides to figure it out. And if you're both stumped, it's not God's fault. Whether He exists or not, God doesn't take part here.

> I see rude people TOO!

Know why I like being such peckerhead in exchanges like this? BECAUSE YOU STARTED IT. I was raised to be a pleasant little guy— Especially around religious people, whom, I was assured, could be counted on to come through during crises (or plain workdays) in ways that other people could not. But at this point I know it's not true. There are plenty of decent people, well-attached people who don't Believe; decency is a human tradition, and not an especially religious one.

More to the point, and I believe this with all my heart, atheists forego cosmology as a social weapon, where as the believers almost never can. A wonderful example from M4 is listed above:

> I know there is a God. I know it
> like I know I exist. That others
> don't know it is sad to me.

What are we to make of such infantile fuck-headedness? What kind of social world does she live in where she thinks she can walk through the salon, pissing down her skirt, without mopping up?

I'm perfectly good company for religious believers, in person and on blogs. Pleasant, warm, unfailingly polite, even conciliatory in most matters of belief. But from now until the day I die, I will fart aloud at anyone who uses their religion for condescension. And there's no social occasion, no business transaction, and no family observance which deserves protection from such unpleasantness once the believer has decided to play these games.

And certainly no blog post. I'm into it, OK? Let's DO this.

> Bwahaha. LOL. Etc. L8rz.

No! Wait! PLEASE don't threaten to leave! Without you, we're NOTHING. Come back!

I believe that belief without evidence doesn't exist

Then you haven't done the reading.

No, you haven't, if you persist in insisting that "evidence" is a superset of "proof". It's not. Hearsay is evidence. The shaman telling you something is evidence. I agree that original thoughts are original, but they're unfortunately quite rare.

everybody believes lots of
things without proof.

The wretchedly narcissistic, such as perhaps yourself, will often seek to imagine their cowardice as no worse than that of anyone else.

Your personal attacks diminish your argument, but you do articulate a common misconception worth addressing. How do you know the Space Shuttle exists? Have you ever seen one in person? Most people haven't. I believe the Space Shuttle exists because I see evidence of it: pictures in magazines, people talking about it, video purportedly of it from different sources that don't contradict each other. None of that is proof. It's just evidence.

How do you know that George Washington once existed? Not because of any proof. All we have to go on is evidence from the historical record.

(Aside: Don't think that I'm suggesting that if you believe in George Washington you must believe in Jesus. I'm only talking about George Washington.)

How do you know that the periodic table is correct? I haven't done any experiments to verify it for myself. I believe my science textbooks were generally correct because they agreed with my teachers, who were trusted authorities. That's not proof.

How do you know that your political beliefs are correct? Over time different people shared political ideas with you; some you accepted and some you rejected, based on your experience. None of that has been proven, but you believe political things, just like I have my political beliefs, Amy has hers, Barack Obama has his and everyone else in the world has theirs.

Face it, Crid: you have faith in many of the same things that I do.

Don't translate.

Not translating. Attempting to clarify. How else am I supposed to take the phrase "pretense of rationality" except as condescending and patronizing?

"Putting words in other people's mouths is childish, unnecessary, and completely ineffective"

Complete agree. Now if you'd only refrain from doing the same to me....

"I won't bother you with unknowable feelings

Feelings are unknowable? We all experience feelings. It's a hallmark of our humanity. How are they unknowable if they are common to the human condition?

"Know why I like being such peckerhead in exchanges like this? BECAUSE YOU STARTED IT.

So much for claiming the moral high ground, eh?

Crid, I repeatedly tried to engage you on an intellectual level, and yet you've done nothing but mock and belittle me for my beliefs. How is it that I am somehow now the one who has behaved condescendingly? Honestly? How did I start it, other than getting uppity and forgetting my place? By applying the same criticisms and demands for proof to your worldview that you've demanded of mine, I've become condescending? Seems like a bit of a double-standard there, no?

"If you want to learn about the real world, STUDY IT"

Why do you continue to insist that because I hold religious beliefs, that I can't possibly have studied the natural world in a scientific manner? You refuse to entertain the possibility that someone can be a person of faith, and still embrace science as a way to explore and understand our environment. The two do not have to be mutually exclusive. Is it your view that a true scientist must by definition be an atheist, or at best an agnostic? The simple fact is that though I am not a scientist or researcher by trade, I DO in fact have a background in science and technology. And yet you seem to want to insist that because I still manage to believe in God, that I must have slept through my classes.

How is that not condescending on your part?

I'm perfectly good company for religious believers, in person and on blogs.

Not based on what I've read of your comments on this blog, but maybe there's another "you" out there that discussed things with a little more equanimity that when you're "batting clean-up" here.

How else am I supposed to take the phrase "pretense of rationality" except as condescending and patronizing?

Just me, but I think you should worry more about BEING pretend-rational, which you are.

"pretend-rational". My goodness gracious. Such a delicious phrase at least calls for a specific citation.

It is common for two perfectly rational people who have had different experiences to come to different conclusions. It is common for a perfectly rational person to come to a false conclusion based on their personal experiences. Just because someone disagrees with you does not make them irrational.

Tyler Cowen recently linked to this test of religious open-mindedness.

> if you persist in insisting
> that "evidence" is a superset
> of "proof".

Again with the bogus deployment of quotation marks. When did I say evidence is a superset of proof? Gonna need a cite for that... Go ahead and quote the whole passage of mine where this thinking was seen.

You're the guy who keeps using the word "proof", perhaps to leverage the rhetoric of the popular hillbilly preachers down in the holler, high school dropouts who are proud to have had no study of science beyond the third grade. ('Eee-voe looshin is just a *theory*, but we have the unalterable word of Gawd!') You're choosing to confuse these matters ("a common misconception worth addressing"), even though children can easily make sense of the system: The best explanation carries the day until a better one comes along, and personal attachments must not slow this sequence. Scientists don't mock Newton merely because Einstein was better and might have fully eclipsed some of the Briton's 18th century understanding. Each carried the load over a great deal of territory. To understand the world to only Newton's degree of accuracy still brings you well into modern times.

I never asked for proof that God exists. Well, maybe I have, but probably not in this thread. If I've asked for anything along those lines, it was for mere testable evidence, something beside the contents of your own dear heart, and it's not been forthcoming.

> I agree that original thoughts
> are original

Huh? Did anyone challenge this tautology? (You're flying on fumes, aren't you? Let's keep going—)

> Your personal attacks diminish
> your argument

No. They make it entertaining for myself and others.

> you have faith in many of the
> same things that I do.

First of all, no such question was ever under contention. Secondly, it's an appeal to a false brotherhood, as described above ("faux-humble", a cousin of argumentum ad misericordiam). Third, it crudely diminishes the distinct meanings of the word faith. Fourth, tu quoque: In no context do we share anything resembling faith in an omnicient, omnipotent, benevelent creator from the supernatural realm with a personal interest in human lives. Your faith in such a thing staggers so far out of bounds that other comparisons of our thinking are probably not appropriate... Golly, I find myself taking offense. (Again, keep your racquet on your own side of the net.)

Fifth, and most importantly for now, your understanding of "faith" in science is particularly troubling, again for your lack of humility. It's been a few years since I poked around on the periodic table, myself; or made any serious chore of biology, or chemistry, or physics. None
of these things has been proven to me in the extreme degree to which you seem so attached:

> there cannot be proof of its
> existence

But on the other hand, the answers supplied always explained as much as I studied. While I might have had trouble with certain chapters of a textbook, the problem was always with my understanding of the material or the way it was presented by a particular author. Science will keep serving as much wisdom as any normal man can absorb, if not as readily as he might like. When there was something I really wanted to know (osmosis comes to mind) there was eventually a text or lecture to make it as clear as I needed it to be. My trust was never betrayed.

Not so with faith, where outcomes mock prayers and where one's character is always said to be the hurdle, and quite often a definitively condemnable one... probably just an attitude problem. Remember M4? "That others don't know it is sad to me," she writes, though neither she nor twenty centuries of howling geniuses in Christianity have ever been able to make a convincing description of their machinery. But that's cool, because humility is not what you're about; you want a book you can finish, so you know how it ends, whether you actually do or not. You want answers that don't summon further investigation: No Einstein to your Newton and no Hawking to your Einstein. You value conclusions more highly than accuracy.

_________________________

> How else am I supposed to take
> the phrase "pretense of
> rationality" except as
> condescending and patronizing?

If you took the meaning so readily, why the bit where you had to put it in your own words?

> Feelings are unknowable?

It's not that feelings are unknowable, it's that yours aren't of interest, certainly not on this most central of questions. Many people, lesser souls especially, cower in a realm that wasn't in some way composed with their fulfillment and exaltation in mind... And the natural world is just such a planet. Before people convince me that the contents of their hearts point to an extant loving God, I'm gonna want to hear that heart beating courageously in response to nature's very real bad news, instead of pulsing meekly with fear and neediness. I just don't think I'll ever know that about your feelings, or being snotty wouldn't mean so much to you. You're making distance from people for a reason.

As am I:

> So much for claiming the moral
> high ground, eh?

My certainty about your foolishness no longer requires fighting such big fights: We're in America, where (excepting a few problems with the tax code) you people are kept pretty much out of the way of the bigger project.

No, this squabble is entirely personal. But that doesn't mean it's not worthwhile! As noted above at least twice, I think most people take part in religion because it helps them look down on others... And as I've noted elsewhere on this blog more times than I can count, I regard the desire to look down on other people as one central needs of the human soul. (I think it's expressed about as often and as deeply as the love of music, though obviously to different effects.)

Of course religion has other impacts on practioners, too. It's famously analgesic, and the orderly life demanded in ritual practice has soothed many scattered souls. But as we've seen in Europe, where churches are now merely tourist-worthy archetecture, modern life has diminished these functions. I think a lot of people who nowadays claim to be religious would give it up entirely if they knew they'd get a fat lip every time they gave offense with it, no matter how transparent their jibes. We'd certainly have a more pleasant civilization for the rest of us to move through.

So giving you a hard time strikes me as worthwhile. If it bugs you, DON'T OFFEND PEOPLE, and pursue your cosmology with the quiet dignity which it deserves anyway. I'll respond to your good example as readily as your bad, I promise.

> though I am not a scientist or
> researcher by trade, I DO in
> fact have a background in
> science and technology.

Do tell. We'd all love to hear the deets.

"pretend-rational". My goodness gracious. Such a delicious phrase at least calls for a specific citation.

It's an original, well-supported by Crid in his post just above, and the one just before I thanked him for batting cleanup.

Crid, I honestly don't get you, not that that is a concern of yours, I'm sure. You glibly state that ad hominem attacks provide you and your audience with entertainment. And yet MY snottiness, as you call it, is insulting and evidence of an attitude of superiority which you find offensive? Your attacks are entertainment, but mine are fighting words?

I can only think of one place where I made this personal, and I do regret letting myself get drawn into that. To my mind I've done nothing but try to present my position in plain terms, using academic language, not as a way to "pretend" to be or sound smart, but as a way to distance myself from the stereotype of a bible-waving verse spouter. And yet by doing so, it's suggested that I'm putting on a phony rationality, while I try to hide the weaknesses of my argument in big words.

No way I can compete with that mindset. FWIW, I took a full chemistry series, physics series, calculus, biology, oceanography, psychology, political science, statistics and others in college. I even graduated and everything. Doesn't make me a genius, but it does mean I do at least understand the context and issues at play in the discussion.

Amy, just curious. What to you is real rational, instead of pretend rational?

I normally enjoy these kinds of debates, which is probably why I stuck with it as long as I have. However, if it's become nothing but a mud-slinging match, then it's probably better to let it drop.

Guilty - I tend to clump all you guys together. When people say things like M4 was saying, I hear the song of your entire choir, whether you like it or not... No one who faults atheists as admirers of Hitchens (or vice versa) can be surprised by this kind of presumption.

The problem isn't that your rationality is phony : It's that while conceding that a large part of your system of belief is not rational –perhaps the dearest part– you expect us to trust that all the other stuff is tidy. Why would it be? If a man told you he was only gay on weekends, what you think if you saw him out to dinner with his wife on Wednesday?

Miscellaneous mopping-up: In high school a friend had me glance at a Heinlein which included an episode of double penetration; I've been meaning to read some sci-fi ever since, but just haven't made the time. Perv-itude is in the eye of the beholder... There's a whole lot of sex in literature that's not so scandalous as it was once thought to be.

> For the theist, "God did it" simply has a touch
> more credibility than "it just sorta happened."

I've never heard an astronomer say "it just sorta happened." And the credibility is precisely our topic.

The monkey/typewriters thing demands no clever disputation. It's not about original causes: It's about the power of time. When you have lots of time, a lot of things can change. Shells that used to be on the bottom of the ocean will wind up on mountaintops as continents collide and buckle. Newcomer species will come up with tall tales, BIBLICAL tales, of great floods. But those first drafts of explanation aren't correct.

SJ Gould had a great essay about how Darwin's last book was a deceptive little number about earthworms. With enough time, earthworms can move a mountain.

The problem with the monkey typewriter scenario is that for it to be a valid analogy, you MUST deal with the other questions. You can't merely chalk things up to the power of time. The monkey analogy requires that you have a very real way to feed the monkeys to keep them alive long enough to complete those Shakespearean works, and a way to provide a nearly endless supply of paper this would require or the analogy fails from the start.

Allowing for immense amounts of time to accomplish things by what I'll call sequential randomness, you must also provide for a nearly endless supply of "bananas"; ,i.e. - peptides, and then aminos and so on to account for all the accidents that don't happen, the failed evolutions so to speak. The volume of material required is significant. Not mention the optimized environment. Or the fact that Oxygen is a destructive element to most microbial organisms, and yet they overcame this obstacle to evolve into oxygen breathing creatures.

I guess that's the appeal to the theist mind. Sure, it might have happened that way, but the sheer astronomically huge odds against it not only happening randomly, but of these early life forms not only surviving, but becoming MORE complex over time just doesn't compute. This leads a certain mind towards the idea of an external force influencing the process. That doesn't mean that science can't help us understand the mechanisms of what HAS happened, or give up possibilities for what COULD happen, merely that it cannot explain this other "external" force some of us suspect exists.

Many of my early arguments were not meant to discount science or the scientific method, but merely attempting to highlight that there is much "belief" or deductive reasoning in the pursuit of both scientific answers and religious answers. A certain amount of faith common to the mindset, "We don't have all the answers yet, but we keep looking" which can legitimately be applied to both the religious and secular or "scientific" quests for truth.

And it doesn't mean that any legitimate scientist who also happens to be a man or woman of faith will be satisfied with "because God did it." They are trying to figure out HOW God did it. They merely start from a different premise than randomness as causality.

if you persist in insisting that "evidence" is a superset of "proof".

Again with the bogus deployment of quotation marks.

I did it to clearly delineate which words I'm talking about.

When did I say evidence is a superset of proof? Gonna need a cite for that... Go ahead and quote the whole passage of mine where this thinking was seen.

Sorry, I may be losing track of who said what.

I claimed that belief without evidence doesn't exist. You countered with an example of people living isolated on a distant island who invented their own religion. That's not a counterexample, because the things that they observed (sun, moon, breezes, whatever) are evidence, to them, of the supernatural beings they invented.

Then I acknowledged the existence of original thoughts, thinking that they might be examples of belief without evidence. I'm having second thoughts about that, because even new ideas get evaluated against our experiences, and those that don't conform are discarded.

Your personal attacks diminish your argument

No. They make it entertaining for myself and others.

I'm interested in figuring out what's true, for my own benefit, and your personal attacks distract from that. Just FYI.

The best explanation carries the day until a better one comes along, and personal attachments must not slow this sequence.

This is exactly right, and yet you attack me.

("faux-humble", a cousin of argumentum ad misericordiam)

How do you differentiate between true humility and faux humility? In the past I've been very arrogant, and I try hard to avoid it. Maybe I'm failing.

[with science] My trust was never betrayed.

Your trust in science may never have been betrayed, but others' has. People routinely use science to come to incorrect conclusions, and over time those beliefs are overturned and replaced with theories that more accurately describe our observations, in a continual churning process.

Not so with faith, where outcomes mock prayers and where one's character is always said to be the hurdle, and quite often a definitively condemnable one...

It sounds like you have had bad experiences with a subset of religion and have condemned all of it, and everyone who is religious, as a result.

Frequently the truth is not pretty. It seems like we'll never be able to travel faster than the speed of light, which is a significant obstacle to the long-term survival of our species. It seems that people frequently have bad character, routinely doing things that violate the median set of morals held by people on this planet. It seems that people call out to God and don't get the answer they want. You call that a betrayal, but I call it reality.

The problem isn't that your rationality is phony : It's that while conceding that a large part of your system of belief is not rational –perhaps the dearest part– you expect us to trust that all the other stuff is tidy.

A large part of everybody's system of belief is not rational, and yet religious people get singled out and accused of being less rational. Formation of belief works like this: we have experiences, we remember them to different degrees, and we reject or accept ideas presented to us based on their consistency with the experiences that we remember. Atheist and believer alike look at reality as through a glass darkly.

Why should we trust you, who base a large part of your system of belief on things that are not rational, with being rational about your approach to religion?

> you MUST deal with the other questions.

No you musn't.

> You can't merely chalk things up to
> the power of time.

Sure you can.

I mean, no one's pretending there aren't other forces being applied, only that time's gives them powers which people, with their limited scope of time, view as improbable. Those southern preachers I was talking about are famous for not getting this.

Gotta leave for work in a few minutes. More later but for now:

> I guess that's the appeal to the theist mind

Oh c'mon, let's not pretend the average believer has gotten to even that level of sophistication regarding chemistry. It's religion's other effects that attract them; and then, regrettably, put them on the wrong side of the science for for the rest of their lives. (Remind to harass you about militant islam in this respect.)

> Sure, it might have happened that way,
> but the sheer astronomically huge
> odds against it

You have no idea how great the odds are. You don't know whether, in the greatest array of outcomes, this sequence was deliciously rare or a quotidian certainty. In ten such universes, in how many would a human-type intelligence appear? I can't say, but in each where it did, that first intelligence would cook up a bunch of daydreams about a benevolent creator. Don't shuck and jive, chuckling as the preachers so often do, that the odds of the outcome are too extreme, when [A] you have zero idea what they are, and [B] we know you're not nearly so humble or avuncular.

Gotta gota work

that time's WHAT gives etc

Working, working

>> Again with the bogus deployment
>> of quotation marks.

> I did it to clearly delineate
> which words I'm talking about.

You cheated the meaning. By the "same" use of "quotation marks", I could sample "your" own postings and "get" you into terrible "trouble with the" [law] for that "time" you "confessed" to "raping" that young "coed".

> You countered with an example of people
> living isolated on a distant island

No, I said this is a problem with human nature, and cited the example of much of Europe (the financially modern, horny & adventurous part, at that) being delayed in world exploration.

> That's not a counterexample, because the
> things that they observed (sun, moon,
> breezes, whatever) are evidence, to
> them, of the supernatural beings
> they invented.

Isn't it pathetically obvious that they choose WHAT to regard as evidence by its coherence to their preferred conclusions? Is it not likely that it wasn't the roundness of the world which most frightened them, but rather the savages and beasts snarling at them from the edge of their valley as they contemplated –and rejected— deeper investigation of the horizon? And if not, how did anyone EVER figure out that the world wasn't flat (as I trust you would acknowledge), when the "evidence" said it was? Is it not blindingly obvious that this is what religious people are doing as they select explanations: resisting uncomfortable data?

And will someone please tell me what's with this "to them" stuff? If this was just heard from people who never made it to high school, it might be understandable, but all sorts of people use that seventh grader's locution as if to imply that like, man, we each have our OWN reality, man... Knowuddi mean, dude?

Y'know, to me, Obama's fiscal insanity is "evidence" that he's a blood-sucking vampire of the oldest order, a marauding, civilization-choking hate-monger of history-warping proportions.

Sure, some people say he's just a profoundly shitty politician. But to me....

> I'm interested in figuring out
> what's true, for my own benefit,
> and your personal attacks
> distract from that. Just FYI.

As well they ought. If you're full of shit, you deserve to know... Because your snarking folksiness hasn't brightened my life either, buttercup. Re-reading the earlier comments from you two, it's amazing how eager you are to present yourselves as modern. (It's like parents pretending to listen to their kids' records.) But you can't seem to take that most important step.

> How do you differentiate between
> true humility and faux humility?

By where you find the bad news. If it's always in the hearts or thinking of others, I know you've got a problem.

> Your trust in science may never
> have been betrayed, but others'
> has. People routinely use
> science to come to incorrect
> conclusions

You're confusing the parties under discussion. The people disappointed by the theories of scientists should have had the courage, and made the time, to do more of the reading themselves. Excepting the mentally retarded and the comatose, nobody gets off the hook.

> It sounds like you have had bad
> experiences with a subset of
> religion and have condemned all
> of it, and everyone who is
> religious, as a result.

Again, I can get along with anyone who watches their boundaries.

> we'll never be able to travel
> faster than the speed of light,
> which is a significant obstacle
> to the long-term survival of our
> species.

Bullshit. You watch too much Star Trek. People who worry about "the long-term survival of our species" should balance their checkbooks, fund their charities, and check in on their aging relatives.

> You call that a betrayal, but I
> call it reality.

You're toddling.

> A large part of everybody's
> system of belief is not
> rational

Close. A large part of everyone's interior life is not rational: The better people hold that stuff at bay as they compose their beliefs.

> religious people get singled out
> and accused of being less rational.

Or, in this case, accused of being inexcusably rude.

> Why should we trust you, who
> base a large part of your system
> of belief on things that are not
> rational, with being rational
> about your approach to religion?

Because we don't bullshit. The things we say can be tested.

_______________________

Y'know, we seem to be falling into a loop here, where you're making me start a lot of sentence with "Again, ..." So here's one last round about God as creator.

You, as religious people, are in retreat. In fact, you're running backwards as fast as your little religious feet can carry you. Even an illiterate, ungrateful fool (of which their are plenty) is compelled to recognize that it's science and explication that make things better, and that his own life might be richer if he had the candlepower (or, more often, the will) to do some studying. Rationality delivers the goods: Your life is longer, you're healthier, you're safer, and it goes on an on....

...But suddenly, in the matter of human origins, your humility withers. With words like golly and shucks, you say say that darn it, you just don't believe human life could have evolved as scientists say it has... There must have been a Bearded Old Guy out there somewhere who made it happen.

And so we'll ask what study of the sciences they've made... Not the condensing, simplistic popularizers, but the real hard-core fuckers in all these fields: Geology, geography, chemistry, physics, genetics, biology and so forth. And it turns out that all of the people who want say 'I just don't see how it could have worked that way,' or "'God did it' simply has a touch more credibility", have never made any immersive, heartfelt, olympic effort at these studies. (Though that effort is the only thing that brings results from science and academe.)

The believer doesn't want to work that hard. Years of degree'd study are exactly what he DOESN'T want to give to these topics. He doesn't want to have to master and refute the evidence for the Big Bang or evolution. He wants to think God will make it easy for him. So you get the aw-shucks, smirking, game-show-host manner, with lots of conspiratorial glances to the other zombies in the room, as he says something like 'Given the refinement and excellence of the human eyeball, evolution seems like an unlikely cause.'

Even though he's never studied eyesight or its precursors. Or studied ANYTHING so closely.

Even though this reliance on the stupidity and small-mindedness of the others us exactly what we face in countermanding atrocities like sharia and the economic, war-lorded primitivism of the Third World. If he can surround himself with a large enough crowd of similarly dull, incurious souls, as did Bin Laden....

And so you're in retreat, as science makes more and more of the universe unarguably obvious (Heeeeelloooo, Mr. Darwin! It would be kind of fun at this point in our argument if you stepped up to say you're no disbeliever in evolution.)

Whelp, pilgrim, no. If you resist serious, researched theorizing on these matters, you're anti-science, period. And as noted in the earlier comment, it makes you seem ungrateful.

Does your faith have anything to say about ingratitude?