From the WSJ:
“You can’t be a rational person six days of the week and put on a suit and make rational decisions and go to work and, on one day of the week, go to a building and think you’re drinking the blood of a 2,000-year-old space god,” comedian and atheist Bill Maher said earlier this year on “Late Night With Conan O’Brien.”
On the “Saturday Night Live” season debut last week, homeschooling families were portrayed as fundamentalists with bad haircuts who fear biology. Actor Matt Damon recently disparaged Sarah Palin by referring to a transparently fake email that claimed she believed that dinosaurs were Satan’s lizards. And according to prominent atheists like Richard Dawkins, traditional religious belief is “dangerously irrational.” From Hollywood to the academy, nonbelievers are convinced that a decline in traditional religious belief would lead to a smarter, more scientifically literate and even more civilized populace.
The reality is that the New Atheist campaign, by discouraging religion, won’t create a new group of intelligent, skeptical, enlightened beings. Far from it: It might actually encourage new levels of mass superstition. And that’s not a conclusion to take on faith — it’s what the empirical data tell us.
“What Americans Really Believe,” a comprehensive new study released by Baylor University yesterday, shows that traditional Christian religion greatly decreases belief in everything from the efficacy of palm readers to the usefulness of astrology. It also shows that the irreligious and the members of more liberal Protestant denominations, far from being resistant to superstition, tend to be much more likely to believe in the paranormal and in pseudoscience than evangelical Christians.
[Bigfoot] CorbisThe Gallup Organization, under contract to Baylor’s Institute for Studies of Religion, asked American adults a series of questions to gauge credulity. Do dreams foretell the future? Did ancient advanced civilizations such as Atlantis exist? Can places be haunted? Is it possible to communicate with the dead? Will creatures like Bigfoot and the Loch Ness Monster someday be discovered by science?
The answers were added up to create an index of belief in occult and the paranormal. While 31% of people who never worship expressed strong belief in these things, only 8% of people who attend a house of worship more than once a week did.
Even among Christians, there were disparities. While 36% of those belonging to the United Church of Christ, Sen. Barack Obama’s former denomination, expressed strong beliefs in the paranormal, only 14% of those belonging to the Assemblies of God, Sarah Palin’s former denomination, did. In fact, the more traditional and evangelical the respondent, the less likely he was to believe in, for instance, the possibility of communicating with people who are dead.
This is not a new finding. In his 1983 book “The Whys of a Philosophical Scrivener,” skeptic and science writer Martin Gardner cited the decline of traditional religious belief among the better educated as one of the causes for an increase in pseudoscience, cults and superstition. He referenced a 1980 study published in the magazine Skeptical Inquirer that showed irreligious college students to be by far the most likely to embrace paranormal beliefs, while born-again Christian college students were the least likely.
Surprisingly, while increased church attendance and membership in a conservative denomination has a powerful negative effect on paranormal beliefs, higher education doesn’t. Two years ago two professors published another study in Skeptical Inquirer showing that, while less than one-quarter of college freshmen surveyed expressed a general belief in such superstitions as ghosts, psychic healing, haunted houses, demonic possession, clairvoyance and witches, the figure jumped to 31% of college seniors and 34% of graduate students.
We can’t even count on self-described atheists to be strict rationalists. According to the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life’s monumental “U.S. Religious Landscape Survey” that was issued in June, 21% of self-proclaimed atheists believe in either a personal God or an impersonal force. Ten percent of atheists pray at least weekly and 12% believe in heaven.
Or, if you prefer, WE ARE ALL CUDLIPS NOW!
Quick bit of commentary: I’ve always described myself as agnostic — not being particularly religious, but not being quite able adequately to fend off the first cause argument for something metaphysical. But then, agnostic and atheist are supposedly different animals — and I confess, I don’t understand how a “self-proclaimed” atheist who believes in either a personal God or impersonal force can be considered an “antheist” to begin with. So I’m not quite certain where I’d fit in this study’s findings.
Beyond that, I’d just add that the secularists’ devotion to all manner of fashionable pseudo-science goes beyond belief in in things such as astrology or other new agey pursuits, becoming mainstreamed (and legislated) in areas of climate science, food consumption, second-hand smoke, etc.
For those who shout loudest about a necessary “wall” between church and state (which is not in keeping with the plain meaning of the Establishment Clause), there never seems to be any recognition that the actual problem (as opposed to hyperventilating concerns over “Christianists”) is that the new church of politicized science is actively intermingled with the business of the state, elevating political faith to the kind of religion that is infecting public policy to an unhealthy degree.
(h/t dicentra)
“Those who don’t believe in God won’t believe in nothing — they’ll believe in anything”
The act of belief in God is the same as in believing in anything else. We believe in the precepts of conservatism or liberalism, various philosophies, artistic values, and levels of beauty not because we can prove them right, but because we need to believe we’ve got it right.
“The reality is that the New Atheist campaign, by discouraging religion, won’t create a new group of intelligent, skeptical, enlightened beings.”
It’s been tried.
It’s called “communism”.
And the attempt to create the “New Soviet Man” has led to the largest mass slaughter of innocents in all of history.
I’ve said it before: the margin of error in estimating the number murdered in the name of communism is larger than the entire Nazi Holocaust, that other leftist attempt to creat the “New Aryan Man”.
I can hear nishi smacking her lips now.
Oh, wait–CUDLIPS!
There should be a wall between state and church, but what Maher/Hawkins/et al are talking about is a wall between state and faith. IE people of faith should be barred from public office and shunned from the public square.
weirdly, the religion of AGW is the only accepted state church by these same bigots.
Objective morality is nearly impossible without a belief in an ethical God.
Your #1 makes no sense to me Darleen, from my own state of mind anyhow. I don’t believe in God, but it is not the case that I will believe in anything. So, what are you driving at with your quote?
I disagree. One can reach a consensus on moral behavior, codify it into law, and then judge others objectively based on those foundations. It certainly helps, of course, to believe your rights come from natural law — but one can make that argument without the “endowed by their creator” bit, I think.
Which is to say, people can reach the same conclusions about right and wrong with or without “religious” literature guiding them. Ethics need not be tied to God. It could be tied to experience and preference of community.
Sdferr
It’s a general quote backed up by the study JeffG cites. It may be part of human nature to look for meaning and purpose in Life, and ethical monotheism provides it. Most self-proclaimed atheists I meet claim to be fully “rational” and that’s why they reject God or gods, but then turn around and believe AGW and will brook no dissent.
Or … I live in California and you wouldn’t believe how popular Feng Shui is out here. Being an observant Christian or Jew — major ICK — arranging your house according to the “scientific calculations” of Feng Shui? You betcha at $160 a lesson.
The Sci-Fi channel runs these green booster spots that include folks from their shows touting SF that has influenced them to be more “green”. The guys from “Ghost Hunters” toss their support behind “The Day After Tomorrow”. Apparently with no irony intended or realized.
Whenever folks tell me there’s no objective right or wrong, I ask them the circumstances under which rape is morally good. IMHO, it’s a pretty damned good starting point for forming an objective morality without needing to reference a divine power. And, oddly, it ends up at a pretty similar set of rules.
I just had a concern that I not fall outside the category “Human”, is all. I don’t doubt that most human beings have all sorts of silly, profound and middling superstitions and irrational beliefs. I don’t think that means all human beings categorically have such beliefs, which is more or less the flavor of the quote to which I object.
Oh, and the typical answer I get in response to my question? “Oh, shut up!”
It’s like they never considered the question and are trying desperately to keep from considering it.
JeffG
I’m not saying that individual people or groups of people cannot arrive at workable ethics by consensus. But in a larger sense, the “natural rights from our Creator” gives gravitus that mere consensus can’t. If rights come from your neighbor then your neighbor can veto those rights at any other time.
Either Life (capitalized on purpose) has meaning in the macro, or our moral worth (in the macro) is no different than the ground we walk on.
Religious evil is particularly evil because it brings God into disrepute (the true meaning of the Commandment not to take God’s name in vain) …However, it has been the rejection of God with the substitution of either a particular personality (Hitler, Pol Pot, Saddam) or secular ideology (The Proletariat) that has been responsible for the greatest waves of mass murder and evil ever seen.
We are either all under God, or we will spend our existence under Man.
And there is no third possibility Dar? I think there may well be.
When a Man stops believing in God he doesn�t then believe in nothing, he believes anything.
The rest of the story here:
http://chesterton.org/qmeister2/any-everything.htm
After Heinlein, moral behavior is behavior that tends to improve the chances of the survival of the human race.
Discuss.
#15
Not without worshiping something. A commited athiest and a devout christian both act on faith.
What is worshiping, Rusty? What does it look like, in what behaviors will you make it consist?
Sdferr
I’m certainly open to a third way.
Please understand, I’m not a member of any church. I’ve studied religions, I was raised in the Presbyterian Church, I’ve got Jewish friends and family, I was married to a Roman Catholic and took RCIA classes, raising my girls Catholic (they are non-practicing), my dad’s family was Mormon (I have my paternal grandma’s Book of Mormon packed away here) … I don’t believe that any ONE denomination has The Truth(tm).
But I also understand human nature and its needs. I’ve also had the dubious honor of seeing a lot of the most heinous acts on the micro level.
I see the great value that ethical monothiesm brings to society and human relations. I see it as the most rational choice among many, simply because it emphasises that rights come to individuals OUTSIDE, therefore making the abbrogation of those rights more difficult for those who look upon their fellow citizens as prey.
As Ben Franklin said “If men are so wicked with religion, what would they be without it?”
Baracky went to a church for a long time. He gave it up cause it was a lot of trouble and started his own. nishi goes there, and thor, and most of the women on The View, and Warren Buffett, and Jessica Alba and both of her breasts, and also all the people who work at NPR. Baracky’s church is the only true faith. It is the church of non. Nonracist and nonChristian and nonJewish and noncapitalist and nonAmerica. It’s a church which feeds the emptiness from which it was born. This is something new I think.
hey y’all should see me I’m making my deep thoughts face
‘feets: Not really.
“Reason is always a kind of brute force; those who appeal to the head rather than the heart, however pallid and polite, are necessarily men of violence. We speak of ‘touching’ a man’s heart, but we can do nothing to his head but hit it.”
Or, per the Heinlein ref noted above, under natural law — survival instinct. We can codify that into a series of laws or “commandments” that don’t necessarily need to come from a creator.
Not that I don’t think that construct is not useful. Just saying that one can arrive at a morality that is permanent by other means.
“hey y’all should see me I’m making my deep thoughts face”
Fierce, I’m thinking.
Vikingish.
I don’t know. I think an institutionalized American nihilism what has an imprimatur is something new. The wobal glormingism really put it over the top this time around, anyway. There are proscriptions and rites and sanctified things.
N O’Brain
:-) I’ve read Heinlein’s Baboon example and I agree as far as small groups go.
But it begs the question on whether followers of a Cult of Personality entity can call themselves “moral” because their behavior of committing genocide against a “parasite” group of humans at the behest of their beloved entity is being done for the survival and improvement of the human race.
Look at ni-nazi and her demand that scientists be “free” of any ethical rules because they are about “improving” the human race …
… or the recent articles saying that Gov. Palin had a moral duty to abort Trig.
Objective morality is nearly impossible without a belief in an ethical God.
I think it was Bacon that said that morality is but religion’s handmaiden. Not to toss a mouse into the elephant show here, but I think the way atheists are able to know that something is immoral is the same way the Soviets “knew” a pair of shoes cost less than a tractor: By peeking.
Not that I don’t think that construct is not useful. Just saying that one can arrive at a morality that is permanent by other means.
True, but when have we? I like Heinlein as much as anyone else (hey, he’s a good Missouri boy), but what where did he get the idea that the survival of the human race is a good thing? And Darleen’s comment in #28 applies here, too.
Dennis Prager
Like Dennis, I do NOT believe people are basically good. I believe “goodness” has to be taught, like politeness and empathy.
And Heinlein was a great believer in manners and politeness.
“…simply because it emphasizes that rights come to individuals OUTSIDE, therefore making the abrogation of those rights more difficult for those who look upon their fellow citizens as prey. […]”
Nature’s god has long seemed to me to be a phrase with some, well, friction built into it. God, generally speaking, isn’t usually thought to be obedient to nature’s laws, ruling as He does, over everything.
I was taught that the concept of nature, physis, was invented by the Greeks, named by them, and that they began the search to understand the meaning of that thing. We inherited their search for understanding and continue it to this day, (see the LHC for instance).
I was further taught that the Torah has no word for nature, no concept of nature (as the Greeks understood it) contained within it.
So we have got ourselves TWO traditions of great value to reconcile if we can and otherwise preserve if we can’t. It’s not going to be any easier for us than it has been for our forefathers. I’m willing to keep trying, but I am not certain for our success.
“…where did he get the idea that the survival of the human race is a good thing?”
SPECIEIST!!!
More seriously: are you going out and commiting suicide this afternoon?
where did he get the idea that the survival of the human race is a good thing?
Well, a strict Darwinian (which I’m not, necessarily) would say that species that don’t have an instinct for survival don’t stick around.
“There are no dangerous weapons; there are only dangerous men.”
-Robert A. Heinlein
“A zygote is a gamete’s way of producing more gametes. This may be the purpose of the universe.”
-Robert A. Heinlein
“All societies are based on rules to protect pregnant women and young children. All else is surplusage, excrescence, adornment, luxury, or folly, which can  and must  be dumped in emergency to preserve this prime function. As racial survival is the only universal morality, no other basic is possible. Attempts to formulate a “perfect society” on any foundation other than “Women and children first!” is not only witless, it is automatically genocidal. Nevertheless, starry-eyed idealists (all of them male) have tried endlessly  and no doubt will keep on trying.”
-Robert A. Heinlein
Well, a strict Darwinian (which I’m not, necessarily) would say that species that don’t have an instinct for survival don’t stick around.
That may be true, but that’s just an observation. What makes us say that such survival or extinction is good or bad? What’s the mission?
“What’s the mission?”
Occupying Known Space.
What makes us say that such survival or extinction is good or bad?
The same instinct that tells us to eat when we’re hungry?
(again, playing Devil’s advocate here)
Occupying Known Space.
Roger that.
Gotta go into my office for a little while.
Back later. I’ll hope the thread hasn’t been derailed by then.
Occupying Known Space.
So what tells me that exterminating the Jews that want to occupy that same space is a bad thing?
Jews are fine.
Skinnys or Bugs, not so much.
It’s lipstick on an aged pig, ‘feets.
“A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly.
Specialization is for insects.”
Lazarus Long in “Time Enough For Loveâ€Â
-Robert A. Heinlein
One of the benefits of puting morality under God is that it isn’t amendable; of course, that can also be a detriment.
Putting morality under Man means that it is very amendable – ‘Animal Farm’ being an example.
All things considered, I would rather not put morality under Man, just let man act. That’s bad enough, but letting Man not only rationalize away the morality, but just change the morality as it suits? I think that would be worse because then you get rid of that little voice that says ‘this is wrong – no matter how you slice it, it is wrong’.
One that little voice is stilled, then anything is possible. And God help us all then.
Jews are fine.
Not everyone seems to agree on that. How do we dissuade those of a different view?
Sdferr
God, generally speaking, isn’t usually thought to be obedient to nature’s laws, ruling as He does, over everything.
With all do respect, let me give you an analogy (as imperfect a it may be).
As a parent, I “ruled”, my children. IE I had certain rules for the good of the family and also as means of teaching my children and hopefully imparting lessons that they would someday understand and acknowledge as worthy. In making those rules, it was incumbent upon me to ALSO obey and honor those same rules. Because if I had to discipline my child (ie impose the natural consequences of breaking a rule) and listen to “not fair! not fair! You don’t have to do this! You made the rule, you’re just being a big meany!” how would the child learn anything if I constantly broke my own rules?
Joke:
A great storm comes up and people evacuate ahead of it. Joe’s neighbors urge him to come with them but Joe stays in his house “I believe in God. God will save me.” It starts to flood and Joe goes to the second story. A boat with two men row up to the window and urge him to get in. Joe waves them away, “I believe in God. God will save me.” More flooding and Joe goes to the roof. A helicopter comes by and lower a rope to him. Joe waves them away, “I believe in God. God will save me.” Joe is swept off his roof and drowns. Joe arrives in heaven and is brought before God. Joe is a bit ticked, “God, I believed in you. Why didn’t you save me?” God looks at him and says, “I sent you your neighbors, a row boat and a helicopter, what more did you expect?”
HF, can you scan your Deep Thoughts face and post it?
What Darleen @ #14 said. Creator and Divine Purpose.
And what Bob Dylan wrote: “…it may be the devil, or it may be The Lord, but you’re gonna have to serve Somebody.”.
Free Will being a Lipstick wearing Bitch and all, and not a Matt Damon movie.
#36 N’Obrain:
Yeah, you don’t discuss things with the weapon, just the man (and fervently wish he didn’t have that weapon in the first place…)
I think the biological basis of consciousness necessarily comes with a concept of a “Divine” layer. Be it the collective soul of the infinite, the deep unknowable mystery of the whole of which we are a part, we come into the word with a natural sense of a “watcher” who sees the big picture. And maybe some people hear voices.
N. O’Brain
“Women and children first”, then you know the likes of Mandy, Hamsher, ni-nazi, et al, are immoral.
Anyone who saw the clip where Sully went off about Sarah Palin on Maher’s show should watch the rest of the segment. Maher goes on to disparage anyone who believes in the supernatural, and Sullivan basically owned his ass. You should have seen the look on Maher’s face when will.i.am said he believed in angels and demons; the fact that someone who shares Maher’s political beliefs doesn’t share his religious beliefs is completely beyond his comprehension.
Maher’s reaction to will.i.am’s opinion shows that his “atheism” is less a product of any real internal soul-searching or self-awareness and more a product of his narcissism.
Keeping up with the Heinlein quotes; “I don’t know the face of God and I don’t believe you do either.”
Ok, it wasn’t Heinlein that said that, it was some other DWM, but it encapsulates my own agnosticism perfectly.
It’s the ones who do know the face of God and what exactly he means for us to do that scare the shit out of me.
Believers, whether Christian, Islamic or atheistic, can practice their religion any way they choose,(as long as they don’t frighten the horses), but when they want to make me change my ways they better come up with a lot more than “God, (or Gaia or Marx or whoever), says so.”
And no, “the world would be much more perfect” doesn’t cut it.
SarahW
The nihilists like Maher denigrate “the watcher” for their own reasons…they wish to act in any manner they wish and suffer no consequences.
It is the ultimate ‘spoiled child’ writ large.
My comment got totally dumped. N. O’Brain:
Birkenhead Drill.
#58 Darleen:
It is easier to rationalize your way around the rules when you made the rules to begin with.
21% of self-proclaimed atheists believe in either a personal God or an impersonal force. Ten percent of atheists pray at least weekly and 12% believe in heaven.
I’m still trying to wrap my head around that one, and so far no luck.
Feet’s ‘It’s a church which feeds the emptiness from which it was born’ has helped a bit.
KevinB
As long as any religious person is trying to persuade me via argument and reason why “X” is better than “Y”, then I have no beef with them and they certainly don’t scare me.
Religious bigots and radical secularists like Maher and Dawkins do, because they would LEGISLATE against religious people even engaging in speech.
oh. I can’t scan my face cause I did just a quick shave last night without being too particular but this morning I forgot and wanted to get into the office early and now I am trying to avoid running into people cause I have splatches to where it’s not just sort of unkempt looking but sort of special needs looking. I wish I had remembered that before I stopped at the grocery store.
Mikey NTH
When I was a kid my mom was pretty strict about sweets and desserts. Hungry mid-afternoon, piece of fruit NO COOKIES. Dessert after dinner, veggies had better have been eaten and ONLY TWO COOKIES.
I can distinctly remember thinking “I can’t wait to grow up, then I’ll have cookies any time I want, EVEN before dinner!”
Well, I grew up and realized the reason behind those rules and voila I haven’t been having a pile of cookies instead of veggies on my dinner plate.
Imagine that!
Religious bigots and radical secularists like Maher and Dawkins do, because they would LEGISLATE against religious people even engaging in speech.
And let’s not forget that when guys who aren’t exactly stuffing the pews on Sunday get hold of the levers of power, folks didn’t exactly get the rational, scientific governance they were promised, either.
I’m an atheist, and I’m always tickled when other self-proclaimed atheists toss around words like “right” and “wrong.” If you truly don’t believe in a supernatural moral order, then those terms are meaningless. The closest a true atheist can come to saying something is “good” is to say that “I want it to happen.” Similarly, “bad” can only translate to “I don’t want that to happen” or possibly “it will lead to things which I don’t want.”
Which is why I _never_ want to live in a society made up of atheists.
An aside —
65 comments of excellent, thoughtful, serious discussion regardless of differences. Not an ad hominem in sight.
I salute you all!! Well, done!
er… 66 comments (I was writing when Trimegistus posted)
And here I thought I was doing so well :(
Jeffersonian
I think it impolite of me to include my “congrats” comments in the total I cite.
:-)
Kudos on the h/t, Dicentra.
You’ve got cojones!
Dar, I don’t mean to be overly harsh here, but really, there is little “due respect” in your analogy that can help to root out the fundamental contradictions lurking in what I’ve described as our two antecedent western traditions. They just don’t go together that easily I’m afraid. Would that they did (or could). But alas, it is not so, nor will asserting it is so make it so.
Pope Benedict’s Regensberg Address goes as far as anything I’ve seen lately in an attempt at a reconciliation of faith and reason under God (but I notice he does it in the context of a declared War on the part of religious Islam with the secular west). Even so, I do not believe Pope Benedict will have the last word on the subject. Do you?
I recall wondering in a thread (months ago) whether it might have been possible that Christ had read any of Plato’s dialogs, whereupon a sincere believer, RiverC(ocytus) informed me that Christ would certainly not have done so, as he had within himself all books already, that to read Plato’s dialogs (or anything else, for that matter) would be utterly superfluous, so to say, ridiculous.
I guess he showed me.
Even so, I do not believe Pope Benedict will have the last word on the subject. Do you?
Obviously not. Man’s relation to God and God’s dominion over Nature will always be subject to thought, reason, argument. It is part of the condition of human conscience. We exist, we grasp past, present, future. We ARE of the animal kingdom but we are more than it.
If God is the Creator … the reason for The Big Bang (ie the Universe has a beginning) then God created all the rules in it to make it work. God created Nature and Nature runs by those rules. A man cannot step off a cliff and call to God to make him sprout wings and fly away from danger. That’s breaking the rules. God is as constrained by His own rules as a parent is.
I may need to go back and re-read all those philosophy books from college but I don’t see any problem with squaring the circle of God and Nature.
In the short term, however, I’m mostly concerned in the now and how people like Maher and Dawkins are just pointmen in the larger hatred of anyone of faith and their willingness to do whatever it is necessary to dismiss and dismantle the Judeao-Christian traditions and history of America.
#19
I don’t know,Sdferr, I can only speak for myself.YMMV
#32 Don’t those two traditions only describe those two traditions and not the nature of god?
I have no interest in Maher, none whatsoever. He is a little man of little consequence who will be forgotten twenty minutes after he is gone.
Richard Dawkins, on the other hand, is of particular interest to me, at least with regard to his popular books on evolution. There is a great deal of value there, I think, useful knowledge for one and all, believer and non-believer alike. Contrariwise, I have read none of his anti-religious polemic (though I have heard tell of it often enough) and don’t really care to do so.
I do care for our traditions, for the beauties they contain, for the teachings they impart, for the current circumstances they have made possible and for the future well being of myself and my fellows which I trust will be tied to their preservation.
So.
“If God”, etc. …okay, we can work our way through that.
But what about, “if not God”? This too, is one of our traditions and is, to my way of thinking, also worth preserving in its fullness, granting it every bit of deference I grant the religious supposition, as I make my way to understand the intent of the utterer.
I’ve always held to “‘Taint nobody’s bidness buy my own”, m’self. And that includes smarmy cunts like Bill Maher. Have fun, Billy. Hope ya lose a bundle.
Myself, when young, did eagerly frequent
Philosopher and Poet, and heard great argument
About it and about, but ever came
Out by the same door where in I went…
Bah. This has been canvassed for centuries. nishi sums it up perfectly: she wants to do something unethical, so demands that the source of ethics be discredited so she can declare “whatever I do is ethical.”
Nor is “survival of the species” a useful criterion, with all due respect to RAH. As hinted by a previous poster, survival of the species requires offspring. If a woman refuses to mate and produce offspring, clearly rape is ethical to insure survival of the species.
The only thing that comes close to a definition of “rights” referring only to men (humans, people) is the “man alone in the forest” concept. A man alone in the forest may go where he pleases, may speak as he pleases, may worship as he pleases, may in general do as he pleases, subject only to the physical constraints of Nature; the things a man alone in the forest may do are “inalienable rights”. Leftists reject this concept in toto because there is no way to extract a right to be fed from it; others can use it only as a starting point, because as soon as you introduce the second individual the lines blur; it doesn’t scale at all.
In general, again, if rights depend on the behavior of others then they can be withdrawn by the others, and so do not meet the definition of “rights” as any of the parties want it to be. The only way to extract rights-as-absolutes from the morass is to postulate an Absolute granting them. Whether you call the Absolute “God”, “Philosophy”, or “Cheez Whiz” is up to the individual.
Regards,
Ric
Rusty, dude, in answer to your 74 (I can only speak for myself) following 18 (Not without worshiping something.) in response too my 15 (I think there may well be.) I can only implore you, speak some more!, fill it out, tell me what you mean, give us some meat, project some flesh onto those bones lying there. Then we’ll (you and I) see what we’ve got, maybe something, maybe nothing, but we’ll both know better where we stand.
Hmmm. I can’t help but think ONLY FOUR COOKIES would have had the same effect really, and, well, that would have been more cookies.
“Beyond that, I’d just add that the secularists’ devotion to all manner of fashionable pseudo-science goes beyond belief in in things such as astrology or other new agey pursuits, becoming mainstreamed (and legislated) in areas of climate science, food consumption, second-hand smoke, etc.”
I’m curious which parts of climate science is “psuedo” or “new agey”? Is it the Newtonian physics and fluid dynamics? Is it the rigorous peer review process? Climate prediction has it’s weaknesses: namely that we do not have a perfect historical record of past climate, or a perfect understanding of the climate systems that force climate change, but the research methods are the best possible. Weather forecasting, while also imperfect, has saved thousands, if not millions of lives and hundreds of millions of dollars. Climate forecasting is an extension of that. If you’d suggest an alternative, that can prove to be as effective, I’d like to hear it. Belief in God is irrelevant here.
Oh, bullshit, gatsby.
[W]e do not have a perfect historical record of past climate, but we do have a sufficient record, historical and otherwise, that tells us that climate changes and has always done so. To seize upon the latest such change and insist that we must upend the entire structure of our society in order to prevent it — which the historical record is sufficient to tell us that we cannot do — is a perfect example of magical-thinking irrationality. As is the ABSOLUTE INSISTENCE that the approximately one-half of one percent of atmospheric change due to human activity is THE ONLY POSSIBLE REASON for the change, in the face of clear evidence that equivalent change has occurred on three other planets in the Solar System and suggestive indications on two more, and the ABSOLUTE INSISTENCE that the ONLY POSSIBLE RESULT is disaster for everybody, including the Siberians who would get longer growing seasons. The capper is the wholesale use of thirteenth-century rhetoric (slightly modified: “denialist” instead of “heretic”) to characterize doubters.
Meanwhile the Sun went out, and the Church of Anthropogenic Global Warming is desperately searching for new Prophets.
Regards,
Ric
I’m curious which parts of climate science is “psuedo†or “new agey�
The part that pretends that New York City will be under water in a decade, when the worst-case estimate is about 1 foot rise per century (run away, it’s a tsunami!).
The part that pretends that current CO2 levels are “unprecedented” (they aren’t).
The part that screams about “global warming” when there’s an unusually bad hurricane or tornado year, but ignores the subsequent years when the number of sever storms is below the mean.
The part that ignores the fact that the world has apparently been cooling since 1998.
The part that feels the need to shout down any dissent.
I’m curious which parts of climate science is “psuedo†or “new agey�
Also, the fact that there hasn’t been any warming in 10 years. And the fact that global temp dropped 0.7 C last year just about wiping out the 1 C increase that started this whole AGW in the first place. Or the fact that climate models do not take solar activity into account. But, you know the prophet, Gore, has spoken, “The science is settled11!!!!!1!!!!!1”
This was the coolest summer in Los Angeles since I’ve moved out here and no one has said a word about it. Our NPRs for sure haven’t mentioned it. I did say to NG the other day that hey this has been the coolest summer since I moved out here. It’s weird she said, and looked troubled.
I doubt this will be on NPR, either.
Mr. Brain #33: The term you were searching for is SPECIES-IST; a SPECIE-IST worships at the Church of the Holy Doubloon….. which on the Sunday after Talk Like A Pirate Day is where I would expect to find a scurvy matelot such as ye!
After Darleen’s facile reconciliation of God and nature, I’m surprised practicing R. Catholics haven’t stepped forward to expound and defend the doctrine of the church where miracles are concerned, just so no one is confused and all. Or is confusion part of God’s plan for mankind?
Oh and speaking of specie, taking what you can, and giving nothing back, my own personal favorite Heinlein quote is “Be wary of strong drink; it can cause you to shoot at tax collectors — and miss!”
Unless you’re confronted with the Chinese Human Wave of tax collectors the Obama administration will employ, in which case you couldn’t miss after a case of Rumpleminze Peppermint Schnapps…..
I like the Ayn Rand approach (if I understand it correctly). While hard to define, a right is something that is tied to the nature of man (people). Rationality is what separates us from other animals, and using it is how we survive. Therefore we must be allowed to use our own rationality (life, liberty, etc…).
This is why animals (and children for that matter) don’t have the same rights as adult people…because their natures are different.
Now, you can say that our nature just is and leave it at that, or you can say that we were created like that by God(my choice), but it still works either.
Or maybe the Great Spagetti Monster is behind the scenes, who knows?
Sed. I think the third way you mentioned may be nihilism. Which does not necessarily deny the existance of a god but places us outside his framework. It is, I think’ also narcessistic. Either that or wander around in a state of perpetual befuddlement. Which when you think about it pretty much describes the liberal mind.
To my mind the hebrew search into the nature of god and the greek persuit in the nature of man are not that far removed.Wasn’t Aristotle a deist? Knowing full well that his inquirey can only go so far. I think following either one will lead you to the other. Does this beg the question that man created god? I don’t know , but we are still left with what started all this in the first place. Like prime numbers. You might think you’ve discovered the largest prime number out there, but give it a week or two and somebody will come up with another one. I’m not a big fan of intelligent design either, since it implies a human like intelligence, therefore limits, on an entity that is by nature infinite.
Forgive my typing and grammatical errors. I haven’t had my bourbon yet.
No probs on the spellerating from me R., I haven’t had my ale. I’ll get to work on a response to 91 straight away though. And how about that Anthony Kim guy, hey?! I see his take down of Garcia on the internets and look forward to watching the TiVo to see how he did it.
It isn’t nihilism I had in mind in response to Darleen’s binary posit (“We are either all under God, or we will spend our existence under Man”), no (is that nihilism?). I don’t know what name to put on what I had in mind either, really. As a human pursuit it does entail a philosophical turn of mind, I guess, in the absence of a more straight-forward scientific career bent.
If not under God, and not under Man (an immediate man, a collection of immediate men I take Dar to mean), why not in the world, a world we see to be governed by regularities we have little to no control over, a world found, as it were, to be here (hi, worldy!) long before us and expected to be here long after us, in which, of course there are many other men finding themselves in the same uncertain condition as we find ourselves?
And seeking to understand that world and their place in it, men have for centuries studied it and its stuff carefully (and sloppily, to be sure), testing themselves and their understanding constantly, inquiring, questioning, refuting, retracing, questioning again, studying further and so on. Experimenting here, modifying there, improving this, worsening that…but, and here is where I place my faith, so to speak, learning. And carrying what we learn along with us into the future, in songs, in books, in recitation, and now in computers and databases, adding to the pile, honing the edge, managing in simple matters even, through our accumulated knowledge to be able to predict events (probe punches hole in asteroid, spews dust, other probe observes! Another example: naked mole rats! who knew? But someone did know, before they’d been discovered.)
As to the similarities and differences between the (few) Greeks in pursuit of nature and the (many) Hebrews in pursuit of piety, I’ll leave for another time.
ohnoes… reality … ouchy ouchy reality make it stop
hf, why does the link say “Sorry! We couldn’t find the page you requested. The page you requested is no longer available on Yahoo! News.”?
Thanks, Sdferr. That’s weird. Here.
Ah, so it’s expensive being Green. We should tell Kermit.
“…The EU’s Environment Commissioner Stavros Dimas has nevertheless also publicly called on politicans and businesses not to oppose the measures. […]”
It’s kinda sad what happened to the Greeks, really.
Sdferr, I don’t believe I was being facile, I just don’t think it is Nature vs God.
That’s the problem when people get up in arms about so-called “creationism”. There is a tendency to leap to the conclusion that if God started the universe and made the rules therein, then such believers are incapable of science/math/rationality.
I mean, as I posted in the Pub, Excitable Andy is screeching that Palin cannot CANNOT hold both her faith and a belief in evolution … so says a man who claims to be both a practicing Catholic and a practicing homosexual.
BTW, the Roman Catholic Church is quite skeptical of “miracles.”
Doctrinal Miracles Darleen, doctrinal, please.
Consecration of the host, for instance. Rising from the dead three days on for instance. Being born from a virgin, for instance. Please, take the glasses off the end of your nose.
Also, This book is on my list of future “must reads” …
Sdferr
So God is parsimonious in His intentional communication with us. You might like to take it up with Him.
“drinking the blood of a 2,000-year-old space god,â€Â
Son of a Space God.
Jaggoff
Tony
South Haven,MI
And seeking to understand that world and their place in it,
Sdferr
But if we are nothing more than just another animal living out our brief existence – grow, eat, reproduce, die – why should we be looking for any purpose? The IS none. Our rationality is a delusion since we are nothing but complex chemicals acting and reacting to the environment.
Thus, indeed, the death of six million chickens is the moral equivalent of the death of six million Jews (so argues PETA)
“…There is a tendency to leap to the conclusion that if God started the universe and made the rules therein, then such believers are incapable of science/math/rationality. […]”
I for one believe nothing of the sort about believers in Christ (Georges Le Maitre stands in the way, no?). And I try very hard not to leap to conclusions about people and their beliefs.
“All men are created equal”
I posit that is a very UNNATURAL statement.
Who said anything about “looking for a purpose”? Or should I ask, why do you bring this up just now?
“grow, eat, reproduce, die ” Did I not just moments ago describe other things we do in our now “animal” lives? Write, sing, tell tales, research, do maths, send probes into outer space with a view to finding out what’s up there?
Why do you leap to reduce the manifold beauties and uncertainties of human existence to the Holocaust or a holocaust of chickens (I’ll have two thighs and a breast, please, with biscuit!)?
Sdferr
I for one believe nothing of the sort about believers in Christ
I hope you know I am only discussing issues with you, not telling you what YOU believe, I am only recounting the numerous arguments I have heard, read, had tossed at me, during these kinds of discussion.
Well, assume for a while that the creeps that throw such notions at you are not here now and I’ll be ok with that. I take you as a friend Darleen, one with whom I share much in common and I have no wish either to injure nor misunderstand.
Write, sing, tell tales, research, do maths, send probes into outer space with a view to finding out what’s up there?
But to what purpose? Really, if we have no soul, no divine spark, answer to no one for either our goodness nor our evil (no ultimate justice) then why is doing math of any greater value that murdering another human being? We all die in the end.
Yikes!
Sdferr
I consider you a friend, too! I confess, I love these kinds of discussions. It’s a way to explore, to push at boundaries and I feel comfortable and not threatened at all here. Indeed, this has been one of the best behaved threads in a long time!!!
I would definitely buy you several rounds of beer and chat like this for hours! :-)
Sdferr
Let me refer to Ayn Rand (mentioned above). She was an avowed atheist and based her sense of morality ethics on Man qua Man. Man as rational being with his own rational self interest at the center of his morality and ethics.
There is not too much to argue with her. Reading her works one comes away that she really does believe in her Romantic view of Man and she gets a lot of it from her Jewish background.
While eschewing God, she has made Man divine. She has removed Man from Nature and given him dominion OVER nature. From “We, the Living” through “Atlas Shrugged” each one delves into what Man SHOULD be.
I don’t know that I can say definitively what drives my life, my purpose as such. I acknowledge that I have drives or thing-a-ma-bobs that drive me, but what exactly they are and how exactly they work (and interrelate amongst themselves) I’m not certain. I could detail them (listy like) but that would prove boring for one and all I fear.
Sdferr
Do recall early on I stated that individuals can and DO find much meaning and purpose within their own lives. That includes all manner of individuals from atheist to agnostic to believers.
And I really don’t care WHERE a person gets their personal morality and ethics – faith or reflection – I only care WHAT those values are and HOW the person who claims them behaves.
I was speaking in the macro that Life, or Human Life, has no purpose without God. Why would human beings be of any value greater than a colony of ants upon this earth?
If we take Genesis’ teaching on the subject we find God wanting to finish his creation with man. So we are taught. Has God changed his mind on the question? I haven’t heard the like. We’re still here, so…
I don’t think Humans can do otherwise than to value themselves more highly than the other critters, since after all, we do (must) eat them.
I personally struggle with the question when it comes to our near relatives, the great apes. I see no good reason to treat them with any less respect (or rights we bequeath to them) than we insist that we treat our fellow human beings, particularly the most vulnerable human beings among us. But I do see a whole lot of people get all riled up about that question, launching instantly into all sorts of dire predictions of loss of moral orientation and the like. I’m just not much for gratuitous killing.
Rand (who I haven’t read since I was a teenager and have forgotten almost all of that) puts me in mind of Protagoras (who had propounded the doctrine “Man is the measure of all things”) in Plato’s “Theaetetus”, who Socrates made rise from the ground (just his head as far as his neck) with whom to argue on behalf of Protagoras disciple, Theodorus, who had just done a crap job of upholding Prota.’s theory.
There too, though, I need to go back and refresh my memory of the argument that was at hand in the Theaetetus and what exactly was going on at the moment Soc. made Protagoras re-appear.
– Belatedly, but just to fill some space –
I’m curious which parts of climate science is “psuedo†or “new agey�
All of it. The “Climate Scientists” are not practicing Science. Simply presuming that they are, gatsby, then trying to argue within that presumption is your basic mistake,I hope – for your sake.
If you are capable of it, in the sense of actually understanding how Science works, take a look at exactly how the “Climate Scientists” do their “science” yourself. It’s so ugly that one can only assume the “Climate Scientists” were instead bent on specifically not doing Science.
Nope, I remember wrong of course — (Age is a killer) — Soc. makes Protagoras arise in order to goad Theodorus, who had been ducking every invitation to join in (most likely for fear of being shown up in front of his beloved, Theaetetus), into the dialog
Political tags – such as royalist, communist, democrat, populist, fascist, liberal, conservative, and so forth – are never basic criteria. The human race divides politically into those who want people to be controlled and those who have no such desire.
Robert A. Heinlein
Interesting discussion. A couple of points:
1) In Darkness at Noon the Survival of the State, and thereby the Revolution, and thereby the People, is cited as the overwhelming rationale for the destruction of the main character, Rubashov. If one is “wrong” and thereby undermines “correct” policy, one is a “threat,” and thereby subject to extermination. Indeed, they boast of their austere and stark realism in shuffling off the pernicious doctrine that men should agree to disagree. It can thus be made to follow that the starvation of the Ukrainians in the 1930’s, as it gained Stalin the capital needed to build a modern army and thus withstand the Wehrmacht, was justifiable.
2) Ayn Rand has her good points, but she is a dedicated un-realist in terms of Heinlein’s “Women and children first”. Her writings on sex are at best juvenile and at worst positively laughable. Children violate her dictum that no one must be made to live for someone else, which is why all mothers in her fiction are portrayed as empty-headed screechers, and why despite the myriad of sexual relationships, no one ever gets pregnant. Without hazarding to much of a guess, I would say that motherhood and children revolted her as it revolted Simone de Beauvoir.
3) It’s best to understand the Pope as a kind of Prime Minister, or better yet, the Steward of Gondor. His authority is not his own, rather he is the vessel of a greater authority. This is more significant than it seems (do not all prophets claim such?). And the narrow avenue in which he enacts that authority is testimony to the seriousness with which even the most vile of them have taken their task. One finds in the history of the chair of St. Peter (a vain, cowardly illiterate) pimps, gangsters, doddering old fools, and other assorted hypocrites. But one does not find anyone who takes the easy route and simply runs a black line through the parts of the doctrine that condemn him. Even John XII and Alexander VI were, after their fashion, pious (whether this saves them from barking in Hell is another matter, about which Benedict XVI is too intelligent to speak).
I’d go on, but I suspect that a great many are already saying “HUH?” in response to this last. Although it seems that this thread has gone far too long without quoting Voltaire or Sade on the “If there is no God…” question.
In general, again, if rights depend on the behavior of others then they can be withdrawn by the others, and so do not meet the definition of “rights†as any of the parties want it to be.
A right is a moral principle in a social context. It acts to define when one person’s behavior constitutes infringement upon another, and thereby warrants retaliatory force to punish the transgression.
The behavior of “murder” does not invalidate the “right to life”; it is a violation of the right in question. Precisely because it violates a right, it is moral, dare I say right to abridge the perpetrator’s rights to life, liberty, and property. The behavior of “theft” does not invalidate the “right to property”; it violates that right,. . .
I might add that behavior that is self-destructive, and does not infringe upon the life, liberty, or property of anyone else; therefore does not have a victim (other than the perpetrator himself), and as such does not justify retaliatory punishment on behalf of a (non-existent) victim. Instead, it carries its own punishment. (See also “Darwin Awards”.)
Bill Maher has a poor grasp of historical achievement
Comment by happyfeet on 9/21 @ 4:18 pm #
The link in the hf comment leads to a story about Devonian fishes.
I was fossil hunting a few weeks ago up in central Penna. and found some amazing pieces, fish scales, bone pieces in rock matrix and a tooth from one of the lobed fish of that era.
Amazing stuff.
Point of Order, Andrew:
Children violate her dictum that no one must be made to live for someone else, which is why all mothers in her fiction are portrayed as empty-headed screechers,
There is a mother in Galt’s Gulch, the wife of an engineer who separately took the oath. She puts motherhood in excellent perspective from Rand’s philosophy. She has embraced motherhood as it SHOULD BE, not as the morally bankrupted society defined it as a domestic drudge. (I’ll have to dig out my copy of Atlas Shrugged)
It may be that Rand wanted to distance herself from the accepted “women’s writer” of the age so she doesn’t want to clutter her novels with domestic scandals.
Andrew the Noisy
Andrew, you are right about Ayn Rand.
There are so many ways that I agree with her.
But her problem is that, for all her rationality, she is uninformed by Darwinism.
The struggle for survival is an imperative for rational Darwinian agents.
And survival, in the long run, means children not self.
She wants us to choose “life”, but forgets that life = biology.
Comment by Daniel Dare on 9/21 @ 8:26 pm #
That’s always niggled the back of my mind while reading Rand.
Well put.
Maher believes that he is funny and wise – talk about irrational belief!
Darleen-
Objective morality is nearly impossible without a belief in an ethical God.
Fuck you.
(I would offer an argument… but I do not cast my seed upon barren ground.)
The biggest problem I had with Rand is an almost nishfong level obsession of mine, and that is people who perpetuate the Robin Hood rob from the rich, give to the poor, income redistribution myth.
Robin stole from his mortal enemy the Sheriff of Nottingham, who was the King’s tax collector. He took tax money from the government and returned it to the middle class. He was a tax reformer, not a fucking Marxist.
Thank You.
When this sort of thing comes up I tend to think about how Scooby-Doo has changed in my life-time.
The show originally had a very simple structure. The Scooby-gang would travel around and encounter a “mystery” that always, invariably, involved adults being manipulated through their superstition. But the kids, being modern, rational sorts, never really believed it (even though Shaggy and Scooby were always afraid) and set out to use reason to solve the mystery. The solution to the mystery was always, invariably, that the ghost/monster/spirit was a person who was trying to enrich him or herself by playing into superstition, hysteria, and fear. Velma was a scientist. She was the picture of rationality. And she was very clear… there is no such thing as ghosts.
There were intermediate abominations such as Scrappy-Doo that lead to what Scooby-Doo has become today. The monsters, ghosts and aliens are always and invariably real.
Which may be why, in some versions, they’ve ditched Velma.
Fletch
Don’t strain yourself by actually reading my arguments. I mean, the choice between thinking and standing is a mighty task for your two brain cells.
Rob Crawford-
Whenever folks tell me there’s no objective right or wrong, I ask them the circumstances under which rape is morally good.
“Exogamy”.
Which is proven to increase the tribe’s chance of survival.
“Rape” was easily defensible until 1500 AD in most societies- otherwise you just ended up impregnating a close relative and creating a “Hapsburg”. :o)
65 comments of excellent, thoughtful, serious discussion regardless of differences. Not an ad hominem in sight.
Made it to 129 before Fletch had his little poo poo storm. Gotta love someone who bases his whole argument on the first post of a 100+ comment thread. Really sorry we missed out on the argument of someone that thoughtful.
B Moe
Huh? Her character Ragnar’s stated purpose was to wipe the legend of Robin Hood out of existence specifically for the reason you mention.
N. O’Brain
Consider Ayn Rand’s age, upbringing and when she was writing her novels. It goes a long way to explaining why she didn’t get distracted with pregnancy side stories.
But she fails to acknowledge the wrongness of the legend she is opposed to. She wants to do away with Robin Hood rather than point out people are getting it all wrong.
“Exogamyâ€Â.
Which is proven to increase the tribe’s chance of survival.
Just because you would have to rape to procreate outside your family Fletch doesn’t mean everyone does.
B Moe
But she did. Oh crap, looks like I do have to go dig up my “Atlas Shrugged” book. I’m not finding the relevant passage online.
Darlene-
Don’t strain yourself by actually reading my arguments.
You ‘believe’ in a fantasy… how can I possibly argue with you?
I don’t claim to know God’s will!
Your religion makes you exactly as “moral” as the Muslims when stoning an adulterer.
Poor little Fletch
“Comment by synova on 9/21 @ 8:40 pm”
That’s why I found Warner Bros. ‘toons more interesting. No Lib bias.
B Moe
From AS, 13th printing, Page 785
“They represent my particular career, Miss Taggart” said the young mother in answer to her comment, wrapping loaf of fresh bread and smiling to her over the counter, “They’re the profession I’ve chosen to practice, which, in spite of all the guff about motherhood, one can’t practice successfully in the outer world. I believe you’ve met my husband, he’s the teacher of economics who works for Dick McNamara. You know, of course, that there can be no collective commitments in this valley and that families or relatives are not allowed to come here, unless each person takes the striker’s oath by his own independent conviction. I cam here, not merely for the sake of my husband’s profession, but for the sake of my own. I cam here in order to bring up my sons as human beings. I would not surrender them to the educational systems devised to stunt a child’s brain, to convince him that reason is impotenet, that existences is an irrational chaos, with which he’s unable to deal, and thus reduce him to a state of chronic terror. ….”
Robin Hood… page 577
“It is said that he fought against the looting rulers and returned the loot to those that had been robbed, but that is not the meaning of the legend which has survived.”
is Fletch really ephebophile Maher’s sockpuppet?
oops… typos in #144. Please excuse.
NEVAR!!!
B moe-
Gotta love someone who bases his whole argument on the first post of a 100+ comment thread.
And you gotta love an idiot who can’t read!
While it was the first comment I chose to respond to when I read it, it was actually the 6th comment in this thread- but I’m quite sure that you ‘heard’ that little voice in your head that you have named ‘God’- and He personally told you it was the “first comment” just so you could spew your Christian reply.
It’s called “schizophrenia”.
Darlene-
is Fletch really ephebophile Maher’s sockpuppet?
I would hope I have more integrity than to ever “star” in a movie called “Cannibal Women in the Avocado Jungle of Death”.
Meanwhile, I think I remember a “Darlene” in the credits from “Deep Throat”.
Would someone like to explain to the puerile Fletch that no where in my arguments on this thread have I claimed either God exists or God doesn’t exist or even God is dead.
The child is dense along with being indecent.
Darlene was going to “shave”- the EPA said 17 different endangered might suffer extinction.
The child is dense along with being indecent.
Child?
You’re the one whose posts usually indicate an overt fixation upon children.
“Look… but don’t touch!”
Damn- Missed the “species” after ‘endangered’ in #151…
Consider it a reference to life in Darlene’s cooze. Most species are quickly eliminated…
– but I’m quite sure that you ‘heard’ that little voice in your head that you have named ‘God’- and He personally told you it was the “first comment†just so you could spew your Christian reply.
It’s called “schizophreniaâ€Â.
I’m not the one debating a persona of my own creation, dude. I ain’t a Christian, and I don’t argue with paranoid inventions.
It must be tough having to choose between being a rapist or a motherfucker, huh?
No, he’s here to evangelize atheism. See how persuasive he is?
We’d better listen to him, or we’ll all end up in… um…?
B Moe went to the “county fair” this week.
He saw a chihuahua with an erection and said, “Mine ain’t that big- must be a fake like that Ape-woman we paid $3 to see…”
Either that, or “thor” has adopted a new handle.
“It is said that he fought against the looting rulers and returned the loot to those that had been robbed, but that is not the meaning of the legend which has survived.â€Â
Exactly, but rather than try to clear Robin’s good name, she instead decides to rail against the fantasy the left has created. I prefer we try to set the record straight, and not surrender this noble heroes memory to the stinking commies.
I prefer we try to set the record straight, and not surrender this noble heroes memory to the stinking commies
Ah! I understand and see your point.
#11 “…forming an objective morality without needing to reference a divine power. And, oddly, it ends up at a pretty similar set of rules.”
It’s not “oddly” at all.
Not unless you’re starting from the assumption that God sets up arbitrary and senseless rules.
Think about it this way… if God is real, then His rules probably reflect what is real, how people really behave, and how the world really works. Rules about property, responsibility to others, hygiene, (I include all rules about sex under hygiene), actually have a purpose.
If God is not real, then the rules probably have the same basis as most rules developed by communities… they reflect what is real, how people really behave, and how the world really works.
Morality that takes into account real human behavior and weaknesses and consequences of failure, that recognize that the individual matters greatly and that the individual has obligations to the community (which may include requirements to some self-denial) and that the community has self-interest in protecting the rights and freedoms of individuals… and the result is going to be pretty similar… do your own work, watch out for your neighbor, let people keep what they build, do what you can to strengthen those who will stand beside you to defend your community, take responsibility for your offspring and don’t do stuff that confuses kin-relationship information or spreads disease.
I think that people looking to natural law come up with a pretty similar list of what is moral as those who look to religion because most religious moral codes are based on natural law rather than a capricious god.
But people who want to refuse the existence of God usually insist that traditional morality is capricious. It has no basis and no purpose other than pleasing a God that doesn’t exist. They don’t seem to often suggest that the most of the rules surrounding a “made-up” god might be the results of thousands and thousands of years worth of humans observing life and human nature and determining natural laws that work.
No. Just throw them all out! And if anyone suggests that the rules might be anything other than hateful pointless oppression… well, they’re just hateful, too.
But this isn’t really what the article was about, is it?
It’s not surprising to me that traditional, evangelical, Christianity might lead people to reject superstition. The world God created was created to be rational. The world as described in scripture may have miracles, but not magic. There are spiritual beings such as angels, but not spiritism or animism. The appearance of magic powers or anything else is attributed to satan. The supernatural has clear limits and clearly limited personalities. God… angels, some fallen, some not. No ghosts. No people hanging around walking the earth. No minor sprites or fairies or “energies”. Nothing going bump in the night other than your cat. The source of supernatural power is only God and it can’t be compelled… and since God created nature… you don’t have power over that either. So science works perfectly well. The universe works the way it works and is constant. God created it, was done, and it carries on without constant interference.
Or… for a shorter version…
I blame multi-culturalism. Have to respect the fruitcakes that think they can tell the future or talk to dead people. You might offend someone by speaking disparagingly of their religion, and we can’t have that.
B Moe (still at the Fair)-
“It takes two heats on the same day to win the Little Brown Jug?”
The last time B Moe “finished” any ‘heat’ was 1997.
This boy is completely off his moorings, me thinks.
But people who want to refuse the existence of God usually insist that traditional morality is capricious.
It’s a childish reaction or maybe childish rebellion would be a better description. “icky meany parents! when I grow up no one will be my boss …I won’t brush my teeth, I’ll eat ice cream for breakfast and I’ll stay up all night!”
Fletch is thor.
#117 Sdferr
“the great apes. I see no good reason to treat them with any less respect (or rights we bequeath to them) than we insist that we treat our fellow human beings, particularly the most vulnerable human beings among us.”
I agree with you with this caveat. Rights require responsibilities. The “most vulnerable human beings”, babies, young children, mentally ill etc. are not considered to be able to be responsible for themselves and their actions. A responsible adult human is therefore “in charge” of them and is answerable for their misbehavior. That would hold true for the Great Apes too. That would be my caveat.
Full rights require full responsibility for our own actions. I do not believe the Great Apes can or should be held to the level of responsibility that goes with full human rights.
McGehee-
Either that, or “thor†has adopted a new handle.
I’m quite sure your “cudlip” brain cannot possibly even begin to classify my comments… lulz!
If you don’t twi hawdah- Obambi will be elected!
Even the “two-digit” Repubs are puking the Jeebis fruit, and asking questions.
Maybe they’ll even ask why my questions raised this response…
Sad, lonely little boy.
SBP-
Fletch is thor.
I reject your slander! Ask Jeff G. He can easily demonstrate that I have no connection to “Thor lipth”.
Defend your candidate!
thor mated with nishi and Fletch was the byproduct I assume from the postings so far.
Lots of weird trollings lately.
That’s nice, thor.
SBP-
I can only offer the same email that has been affixed to each and every one of my comments.
sfletcher99@earthlink.net
Bring it! (It’s simply God’s will that I will now receive 47 emails telling me to kill myself and/or engage in a prohibited sexual act!)
Praise Jeebus!
Thanks for the comment geoffb. I agree with you but then I don’t think anyone is suggesting human rights as such for the great apes, rather the proposals I’ve seen have been tailored to their condition and pointed at our responsibilities not to take advantage of them.
I know (or believe) that people kill them on their native ground for food today. I’m not in the least persuaded that such killing is necessary however. Much of it I fear is faddish and in some cases driven by superstition and fantasy. And the treatment of apes in research facilities and zoos also is a problem at times, though here I believe that there have been marked improvements over the years.
I figured that was the case but I wanted to nail down the parameters. We are on the same wavelength on this.
That’s nice, thor.
Whose email address are you trying to Joe Job?
B Moe-
This boy is completely off his moorings, me thinks.
Just an “adequate” buzz, a drunken urge to fuck with the “squares”, and I literally “snapped” earlier today.
I’m too lazy to look for a “link”, but “thor” took a heavy dump on Major John in an earlier thread.
I cannot ask Jeff G. to ban “thor”- because I really don’t want to read another post where Jeff G whines that his invited guests are complaining about that huge shit pile on the living room floor.
I feel my conduct has prior encouragement by the management.
My goal is to get “thor” eliminated– BAMN
(I need more responses!- This is supposed to be an “object lesson”!)
I still have a 1/2 gallon of rum… I’ll be awake til 3AM Eastern
SBP
That’s nice, thor.
Whose email address are you trying to Joe Job?
Scott F. Fletcher
4195 Waterside Pl.
Grove City, OH 43123-8068
(614)277-0711
(614)805-0146
Call me… you ignorant child-raping fucktard!
(I wanted to start on “even turf” on an “ad hominem” basis if you ever actually call one of those numbers… I personally feel that calling me “thor” is a vicious smear on par with calling Andi a “hetero”.)
SBP-
Sad, lonely little boy.
Says the dude who is taking sloppy seconds from Jeff G. to get 13 readers/day.
Sad. Lonely. Little. (sounds like “projection”…)
Refilz!
Geoffb-
thor mated with nishi and Fletch was the byproduct I assume from the postings so far.
Geoff- I welcome your input, and I would likely subscribe to your newsletter- if I had ever met even one ‘geoff’ in my 44 years of life that wasn’t gay.
I think you have a “political bias”.
Give it up, thor.
Your inability to blockquote properly gives you away every time.
Sad, lonely little boy.
http://maps.google.com/maps?q=4195+Waterside+Pl.,+Grove+City,+OH&ie=UTF8&ll=39.872786,-83.039609&spn=0.001301,0.002342&t=h&z=19
Nice neighborhood, Fletch.
Don’t ya just hate that Jeff G. won’t ban me?
All day.
Every day.
Get used to it!
nishi brags about her (+2 std dev.) on the Stanford-Binet. I’m going to ram my +3.5 right up her ass! (“In the land of the 2″ dick, the 3.5” dick is KING!)
lulz!
Recycled to save bits.
It’s just the opening bars of that old time favorite, “In Your Face!â€Â.
This and many many replays are brought to you courtesy of “Obama’s Lonely Hearts Club Band and Community Organizer Summer Camp Ensemble.
Maher’s a complete hypocrite. A few years ago on Politically Incorrect, Steve Allen was a guest (prior to his death, of course). Maher reeled off two or three weird things he believed in (I don’t remember the exact ones, but they were things like UFOs, channeling, astrology). He then said to Allen, “Does that make me stupid?” Allen smiled and replied crisply, “Yes!”
There should be a wall between state and church
There should be a wall between Maher and TV cameras.
So, Fletch, you’d be perfectly OK if someone raped one of the women in your family if they needed to maintain the genetic mix of their tribe?
Curious.
Damn! I gotta go to work.
[…] We’re all cudlips, now. […]
Some industrial strength lunacy popping up round here lately, eh?
I find my Oath a lot more compelling with the “So Help Me God” at the end. But being a Natural Rights, US Constitution kind of guy, I guess I am a sucker for sticking to a promise to the Almighty.
Darleen –
“….each one delves into what Man SHOULD be.”
I think that this view is the thumbnail of rational, ethical, and above all moral man, no?
I think the Left screws up first by rejecting all ideals, then immediately and viciously assigning the goals they think will lead to an ideal. Call me judgemental.
I call them fools. And dishonest, since stupid would be too far a reach.
The irony is, you can be a student, believer and proponent of natural-rights theory and still have cookies for dinner.
Don’t ask me how I know this.
Ok, I’ll bite into that delicious looking chocolate chip ya got there, how do you know that?
::Urp:: What?
We hold these truths to be self-evident, the macarons with the wrinkled tops should not go to complete waste.
Oh, the Cookiclaration of Eatdependence, gotcha.
I saw the absolutely dumbest horror movie of all time this weekend. Now, that may leave a lot of ground open for most people, but I’ve seen “Children Shouldn’t Play With Dead Things”, the remake of “The Blob”, and a few of the Freddie and Jason franchises.
This was part of Showtime’s “Masters of Horror” annual thing. They’ve made some good shows in the past — a decent interpretation of Lovecraft’s “Dreams in the Witch House”, “Cigarette Burns”, a few others — but this one was atrocious.
The premise was that George Washington was a cannibal, and had founded the US to be a nation of cannibals. But the real history was kept secret, except among a small group of Washington admirers who held cannibal feasts in Revolutionary garb. In the end, the brave heroes — along with a history professor and a squad of federal agents — wiped out the cannibals and revealed the truth to the world!
And at the end, Washington’s picture on the dollar bill was replaced with George W. Bush’s.
This piece of crap didn’t just fail as a piece of political satire, it failed as a horror movie. There was no suspense, there was no horror. There was a bit of gruesome, but that’s the easiest damned thing to do. There was no humor, no likable characters, nothing really there but a bad premise poorly executed.
I can’t imagine how that made it into something called “Masters of Horror”.
The horror part for the makers was Bush’s picture ending up on the dollar bill.
Personally, I’ve always liked the Eskimo creation myth – the one with the deity that had to use the, um, available materials…
Derb
Kudos on the h/t, Dicentra.
You’ve got cojones!
Uh, not last I checked. But kudos on spelling it right. Most people go for “cajones” which means “drawers,” as in chest of.
Nishi, I read through this whole comment thread looking for your response and it was so much anti-climax. Pity.
My take: Religion is a social technology that was superior to all others in the promulgation and maintenance of morality and ethics. Was. The enlightenment pretty much obviated it. I subscribe to the Hayekian notion that morality is evolutionary; the prosperity of a particular culture is in part a demonstration of the quality of its morality. We know that proto-humans didn’t bury their dead just as one example. That religion was a very effective tool for creating social cohesion through the imposition of morality seems just painfully obvious. That pundits go into histrionics vis-a-vis religion is, I suspect, more an artifact of having been told as a child by a cleric that they’re bad for having stars on thars than a demonstration of any kind of real utility.
Regarding Nishizono-kun’s unending vitriol for cudlips, I can’t help but wonder about her ostensible smarts. I have certainly known a great many religious people who have very rational views about, say, wave-particle duality or punctuated equilibrium or the trolley problem without feeling any particular compunction.
The big metaphysical problems have no satisfactory answers. RAW had a card on his desk that read, “If you think you know what is going on you’re probably full of shit.” There is just as little evidence militating against the existence of God as there is for it. For fuck’s sake Nishi, did you miss Kant? Quine? Is your intellectual curiosity so truncated that you can’t ever find yourself wondering about transcendental meaning? How about this, simianlips: demonstrate that parallel lines never intersect.
One thing I find very odd is that people get all wrapped around the axle when a person makes the assertion that there can be no objective morality absent a deity. It doesn’t mean you can’t have a good moral structure, it just means that it has to be kind of made up and is a bit ad hoc. The way that religiously-derived morality gets around the issue is by pointing over there at something nobody can see and loudly proclaiming that “He” did it. Why the angst?
Much as I like you Darleen, I’m afraid I must disagree. The sensorimotor gating issue is not the only neurological component of AS; equally important to understanding the nature of AS is the lack of connectivity between the prefrontal cortex and the limbic system. In the neurotypical neuroanatomy, there is what has been described as a “superhighway of connectivity” between these two brain centers. The result is that in neurotypical people, meaning is created through a combination of the social cues presented and the high-level conceptualization that takes place in the prefrontal cortex. In other words, neurotypical people learn much of what is expected of them socially through osmosis. Indeed, neurotypical people learn most things through osmosis.
An example is perhaps useful. In a somewhat well-known experiment, 12-month olds are placed at one end of a carefully prepared table and their mothers are seated at the other end. The table has a black and white checkerboard pattern on the surface that extends to the half-way point of the table. The other half of the table is clear acrylic. The checkerboard pattern extends downward at the midpoint of the table and extends on the floor beneath the clear acrylic to the end of the table. Neurotypical 12-month-olds, when they reach the midpoint of the table and notice the apparently insubstantial nature of the clear acrylic will invariably look at mom. If mom is demonstrating an inviting countenance, the child will continue and vice-versa. The child with AS, when they reach the midpoint, never looks at mom. They may decide to go forward or back, but whatever predicates that decision, it isn’t a social reference. The behavior of the NT child is known as “referencing.” Those of us with AS don’t do this.
Morality is transmitted, in large part, through referencing. It has been suggested elsewhere (saw it discussed at Gene Expression for example) that AS is an evolutionary vector for novelty precisely because the AS brain is unconstrained by social expectations. It follows that if morality is evolutionary (which is consistent with the Hayekian notion of morality that <a href=”https://proteinwisdom.com/?p=13293#comment-543447″I have suggested I find compelling), people with AS might one means by which it evolves. The first shaman to suggest burying our dead just might have been an Aspie.
Again, YMMV. And I’m no neurologist so, y’know, I have no bona fides. I’ve collected this knowledge over the last 4 years through a number of sources and I have no special ability to evaluate those sources. Plus, I’m an Aspie and so is my son, so I’m probably biased.
Damn! Wrong thread!!!!
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