Atheists: the most distrusted minority in USA - II

Continued from this thread.

Atheists throw down the gauntlet quote:Here on the first days of the year of our lord 2007 it seems awkward to talk about a Godless world, but the fact is that in the waning months of 2006, a kind of militant atheism was making itself felt across the land.

There were two best-selling books declaring belief in God to be a kind of mass delusion, and a harmful mass delusion at that, occasioning a vigorous and often angry response from many people who believe the repeated announcement of the death of God to be wrong, spiritually deaf and dangerous.

Perhaps the fundamentalist whackos should have studied science because the rise of "militant" atheism is more likely a reaction to the whackos.

Poetry, love, romance, and a sense of wonder are human qualities that give rise to learning and science and continue on in spite of the religious strait jackets imposed on far too many.

You say there is a greater market for religion. I say you are wrong. People turn to religion for certainty and mostly they are rewarded with chaos and hate.

Peace will come when people realize religion is the philosophical equivalent of fools gold. But probably too late.

Their is the need to differentiate between the fundies that are in every religion and those who are open to change and modernization.

I will just focus on my synagogue which is Conservative.

Historically in Conservative Judaism women did not wear a tallit, tefillin or were counted as part of a minyan.

the COnservative movement has modenized and at my Conservative synagogue all has changed. Women wear talit, lain tefillin and yes are counted as part of a minyan.

So to group all religion together stating that they do not change, can not be modernized is simply false.

While we must keep our eyes open against the fundies no matter what religion they come from we must also recognize that not all religions or religious people are fundies.

To group all together is to do a great disservice to those who have chosen a path that includes belief in a God etc.

ETA: recently my family has gone through a couple of tragedies and deaths. One thing that has kept me going was my belief in God and my knowledge that my relatives were reunited together.

I have never considered myself a fundy before.

[ 03 January 2007: Message edited by: johnpauljones ]

quote:Originally posted by johnpauljones:

the COnservative movement has modenized and at my Conservative synagogue all has changed. Women wear talit, lain tefillin and yes are counted as part of a minyan.

Sorry for chuckling when I read this, but before I read your punch line, I honestly thought you were going to say:

quote:The Conservative movement has modernized and at my Conservative synagogue all has changed. Men no longer wear tallis, or lay t'fillin, nor do we go by the magic quorum of 10 Jews.

I guess there's more than one way to "modernize"!

PS: Pardon my dogmatism, but "laying t'fillin" is a translation from the Yiddish, "leg'n t'fillin". So you can't say "lain t'fillin" (which sounds a bit like "lehn Torah"). It's either "lay t'fillin" or "laig t'fillin".

quote:Originally posted by unionist:
So you can't say "lain t'fillin" (which sounds a bit like "lehn Torah"). It's either "lay t'fillin" or "laig t'fillin".

You are right. Oy Gevalt. a shunda I say a shunda [img]smile.gif" border="0[/img]

quote:Originally posted by Frustrated Mess:

Geneva wrote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

in Canada, religion generally means your local neighbourhood United Church of Canada or Reform synagogue, hardly hotbeds of violent rhetoric and extremists,
more likely home of Tommy Douglas or David Lewis voters

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

That is what religion once meant. But if you put down your Margaret Wente column for just five minutes and visited those churches, you would notice the declining pools of grey. That is because those shining examples of liberal Christianity are on the decline while angry pools of narrow minded bigots who call themselves Christians are on the rise. The same is true for all the major religions.

In a world context (or an American one) I'd agree with you. However, in the Canadian context, I believe Geneva is correct. If you look at the statistics, reactionary and bigoted churches such as the evangelicals or Catholic Church are experience a massive exodus of young people, who attended with their parents as children. I know several who have followed this course, and wound up joining the United Church. Some are LGBT's who were disgusted with the hatred and bigotry expoused in the Churches they were brought up in, but did not want to abandon religion all together. For young people today, the dogmatism, bigotry, and hatred of backwards Churches is a non-starter. Progressive churches such as the UCC are the only ones with the opportunity to gain members from large parts of younger Canadians because they have a message that resonates with tolerant, progressive minded people who don't want to spend 60 minutes every Sunday morning listening to some demagogue preaching hatred and bigotry.

For the churches that refuse to follow the path of progress and grow with society, they will slowly disappear all together over the next few decades as their membership dies off, and whose children want nothing to do with hatred and extremism.

[ 03 January 2007: Message edited by: Kevin_Laddle ]

anyways, the core subject of the thread is the existence or non-existence of God,
and the manifestations of religion or not in Canada are secondary issues,

although the notion that talking about God = fundamentalism is wrong, remains important, otherwise no debate is possible without accepting a very restricted discussion

quote:Originally posted by Palamedes:
Michelle - in your last post you suggested that you were against having parents let their children die. What if the children want to die? Will that be OK?

No. Children are not old enough to decide that, especially since it's likely that their nutcase parents will have influenced the decision.

Suicide, like drinking, like sex, like driving, like everything else with consequences that children don't fully understand, is for adults.

In any case, I put forward to you that any supposed major surge in bigoted/fundie Christian churches in Canada is for the most part alarmism. Religious attendance is plummeting, as it has been for the past 30 or 40 years. There may be the odd group of evangelical kooks whose church is having modest growth relative to mainstream churches such as the UCC, but they are so small to begin with that it really isn't a concern. As for the RCC, young Canadians simply do not buy into their dogmatic bigotry and hatred. There flock is slowly leaving, as the Church becomes more and more out of touch with the modern world. But even if it weren't, nature will take its course over the next few decades, and most of the hateful old bigots will have passed on by then anyways.

By the way, I don't want it to sound as if this is some huge victory for progressives, and an end to right-wing hatred and reactionary tendencies (though it's a big help). Certainly right-whingism will persist to some extent even as their religions are rejected by mainstream society. But the most hateful aspects of modern conservatism - hatred of women, gays, Muslims - are driven primarily by the ideology stemming from the relgious right.

I'm tired of playing this game with you. Sorry. Go troll with someone else for a while.

(Edited to add - whoops. I didn't think abut the fact that, as moderator, this would look like I just banned him. I didn't. That was just me saying I'm tired of debating with him. If I felt like sitting around all day debating right-wingers who think it's intolerant to be intolerant of intolerant religious freaks who harm children, hate women, and want to shove their fundy views down society's throat, I'd go post on FD.)

[ 03 January 2007: Message edited by: Michelle ]

*moderator hat currently on my other head*

While Michelle of course speaks elequently for herself, I suspect she called you a troll for being intentionally vexing, and continually baiting with what have been clearly pointed out to be circular and really rather sophmoric arguments. I would call that trolling.

I however think you're engaging in the perseveration of the true zealot, one who is capable of learning nothing and forgetting nothing. You don't debate, you parry; you don't listen to understand you listen to oppose. From my reading of this debate, I'd say you were not doing either all that well.

quote:
If I felt like sitting around all day debating right-wingers who think it's intolerant to be intolerant of intolerant religious freaks who harm children, hate women, and want to shove their fundy views down society's throat, I'd go post on FD

Lovely, more childishness.
I don't agree with you. Therefore I must be a right-winger. Simply because someone does not have complete disdain for all religion and does not assume that they know with absolute certainty that God does not exist - does not make them a right winger.

But fuck, you're a moderator here, so do whatever you like.

Incidentally, I've never voted Conservative in my life and don't believe in God but you seem to be unable to imagine that someone might actually try and defend points of view that aren't their own.

[ 03 January 2007: Message edited by: Palamedes ]

quote:Originally posted by Palamedes:
"Children are not old enough to decide that, especially since it's likely that their nutcase parents will have influenced the decision."

So children are not old enough to give up their lives, but they are old enough to give up their soul?

Is that what you believe? Why do you think that the life is more important than the soul? Or is it because you don't think that they will lose their soul?

More wows. Sorry Palamedes, but this is an Extremist statement which goes against even the most basic assumptions of reformation Protestantism, as well as almost universally held principles of consent. Children simply canNot make those kind of life and death decisions for themselves, least not in any rational society. This is a thin red line which all religious beliefs have to respect, it begins right about where harm is being done to another, which by definition means our children. They are not property to be disposed of for Any ideological reason, not even by their parents, or more accurately legal guardians. If any refuse to accept that little, then they too should be willing to martyr Themselves to our criminal justice system. No rational society can tolerate any less than that.

Erik,

Let me give you an example:

In Saudi Arabia, a building containing 15 schoolgirls was on fire.

They could have been rescued but the religous police deemed that since they were not properly attired, they could not come out of the building.

Consequently, they all died.

Now, here in North America, where the majority of people are not extremely devout Muslims, we view this as a tragedy brought on by foolishness.

Obviously, not everyone in Saudi Arabia thinks so because they do not have a culture of atheism as the presiding assumption in making their laws.

We in North America do. Our laws essentially allow religion, unless it gets in the way of another right, or could cause harm - regardless of any religious consequence.

Thus, in the case of a Jehovah's Witness, the government will not allow a child to lose its life, but will allow it to lose its soul(in the view of the JW's). This is because it is understood that religion is not real - and therefore it will be tolerated so long as there are no real sacrifices to be made for it.

Fortunately, Christianity requires very little in the way of sacrifice, particularly in the way it is practiced today - and thus there are very few conflicts between what the religious believe, and what makes sense for modern day society.

quote: In any case, I put forward to you that any supposed major surge in bigoted/fundie Christian churches in Canada is for the most part alarmism.

Take a drive through a new sub-suburb. You know, the kind built around a "powercenter" of Walmarts and Mcdonalds, and there will inevitably be one or two brand new megachurchs. Calgary is lousy with them, and Edmonton, that liberal city, isn't too far behind (Red Deer is in an Ozark all its own).

[ 03 January 2007: Message edited by: Jingles ]

Why is it that someone so fervently behind atheism is so desperate to be a martyr?

last weekend the Intl Herald Tribune published a good piece asking why Dawkins has been getting hammered by serious critics who might otherwise be expected to sympathize:
http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/03/06/news/atheist.php

best line:
one writer used to call Dawkins a "professional atheist", but now thinks he's just "an amateur" ...
[img]biggrin.gif" border="0[/img]

"The most disappointing feature of 'The God Delusion,'" Orr wrote, "is Dawkins' failure to engage religious thought in any serious way. You will find no serious examination of Christian or Jewish theology" and "no attempt to follow philosophical debates about the nature of religious propositions."

Eagleton surmised that if "card-carrying rationalists like Dawkins" were asked "to pass judgment on phenomenology or the geopolitics of South Africa, they would no doubt bone up on the question as assiduously as they could." He continued, "When it comes to theology, however, any shoddy old travesty will pass muster."

.

[ 10 March 2007: Message edited by: Geneva ]

Funny, millions of deluded individuals manage to believe in God without knowing anything about "theology". Nobody criticizes them for that.

But apparently people who do not believe in holy ghosts need to demonstrate a thorough knowledge of "theology" in order to justify their non-belief.

Go figure.

So, if atheists are so distrusted, why is Dawkins's books so popular? And is everybody who believes in God writing a book about it? It's nice though, that for someone arguing for the robustness of the scientific approach is defending someone for writing a book out of ignorance.

This reminds me of the audiences of Left Behind, who, though Kirk Cameron's DVD's hit the top ten DVD sales every time they are released, convince each other that Christianity is under attack because the mainstream theatres would never show this stuff!

quote:Originally posted by M. Spector:
Funny, millions of deluded individuals manage to believe in God without knowing anything about "theology". Nobody criticizes them for that.

But apparently people who do [b]not believe in holy ghosts need to demonstrate a thorough knowledge of "theology" in order to justify their non-belief.

Go figure.[/b]

OK, I will "go figure":

Individuals are just that, they have every right to their private individual views. Not believing in God and/or being indifferent to the issue is a dime-a-dozen viewpoint these days. No need to reply or criticize.

If your Uncle Floyd presses you about your personal religious beliefs over Thanksgiving dinner, it is usually considered gauche, out of place, whatever, since those views are not publicly discussed by many people.

By contrast, when a prominent professor and public figure, one who is moreover a veteran polemicist -- and whose Oxford job title requires him to engage the broader public with science-related issues -- publishes a topical book, you have every right to debate /challenge its method and conclusions.

A polemicist is expected to:

- propose solid arguments;
- offer sustained reasoning in support of his thesis;
and generally:
- show an unusually sound grasp of the subject matter, even by comparison to his specialist readers.

The critics quoted in the article above, many of whom have published records as religious skeptics, found that Richard Dawkins fell way short on most counts. They concluded he did not deliver the convincing and structured arguments he promised. In short, no "knock-out punch" for theism.

So, they panned his book -- just as they would any book they judged poorly reasoned or superficial on, say, climate change or foreign policy or economic trends.

There, I went and figured: there is no double standard.
Just a single standard: the arguments in a book have to be solid and convincing.

Otherwise, the author gets hammered. QED.

.

[ 11 March 2007: Message edited by: Geneva ]

very good question!
look, I am just outlining (above) why Dawkins' book got hammered by many critics;

as to my own views, I am interested in all points of view about God and I would love to read a slam-dunk debunking of theology -- Marx is full of energy, Nietzsche of course is sensational -- but neither of these obviates the relentless human need for a sense to life; here we are in the 21st century with religion often the No.1 public discussion topic

there are millions of pages of discussions of the use /misuse /sense of theology, dating over 20 centuries, and it was of course the core and founding discipline of most Western universities, from the Sorbonne to Laval;

so read a resume of the views of , say, Augustine, Aquinas or Pascal, who would give way way better reasons for studying the ineffable and unprovable than I would ever venture

Pascal offers the advantage for today's sensibility of being a top-class A-rank scientific mind historically, so his theological reflections (Pens'ees) probably answer you best:
http://tinyurl.com/2fudaz

Blaise Pascal (pronounced [blez pɑskɑl]), (June 19, 1623–August 19, 1662) was a French mathematician, physicist, and religious philosopher. He was a child prodigy who was educated by his father. Pascal's earliest work was in the natural and applied sciences where he made important contributions to the construction of mechanical calculators, the study of fluids, and clarified the concepts of pressure and vacuum by generalizing the work of Evangelista Torricelli.

Pascal also wrote powerfully in defense of the scientific method.

He was a mathematician of the first order. Pascal helped create two major new areas of research. He wrote a significant treatise on the subject of projective geometry at the age of sixteen and corresponded with Pierre de Fermat from 1654 and later on probability theory, strongly influencing the development of modern economics and social science.

Following a mystical experience in late 1654, he abandoned his scientific work and devoted himself to philosophy and theology. His two most famous works date from this period: the Lettres provinciales and the Pensйes.

[ 11 March 2007: Message edited by: Geneva ]

quote:Originally posted by M. Spector:
What do the religious believe, by the way?

They believe in an all-knowing, all-powerful invisible entity. They believe that they should worship this entity. They believe that this entity will reward them if they are "good" and punish them if they are "bad". They believe that this entity listens to their prayers and actually grants requests from time to time. They believe in heaven and hell. They believe in angels. They believe in miracles.

A strawman if I've ever seen one. Essentially you completely ignore anything but the most base, literalist and childish form of "belief". Never mind that there are subtler levels of meaning present even in the charicature of ideas you've chosen to represent "the religious". Any one of the key nouns you've mentioned can be taken on many different levels; literal, analogical, allegorical.

quote:Those who accept the Nicene Creed, for example (one of the basic statements of belief in the Roman Catholic, Syrian Orthodox (Jacobite) Eastern Orthodox, Oriental Orthodox, Assyrian, Anglican, Lutheran, and most other Protestant Churches), believe that this invisible entity created heaven and earth. They believe that Christ came back to life after being brutally killed. They believe their spirits will live forever after they die.

The idea of a rebirth after self-sacrifice (Jesus wasn't just "killed", he offered himself up for the taking) is far more poignant than the literalist notion of a physical rebirth after a physical death. Again, as Dawkins does, you take only the outermost layer of the onion for the whole thing.

quote:And you don't see any conflict between those sorts of beliefs and "what makes sense for modern day society"?

Not at all, although it all depends on what you mean. Eagleton's criticism stands as well for your position as for Dawkins'.

[ 11 March 2007: Message edited by: B.L. Zeebub LLD ]

quote:Originally posted by M. Spector:
These theological "giants" all lived centuries ago. Thanks to science, we now know a lot more about the world than we did then. "Theology" has not advanced at all in the meantime.

Theology is more than just arguments for the belief in God. In fact, if it were, you could master theology in an afternoon, because the arguments are pretty thin.

Dawkins considers all the arguments for the belief in God and demolishes them. Read the book and see for yourself, instead of just relying on hostile critics. Having demolished the underpinnings of theology, there's no need to do more. The edifice will collapse on its own.

there seem to be 4-5 arguments/assertions here, each confusedly jockeying for a place:

- 1. "many top theologians lived long ago";
a non-argument, so did Galileo, Shakespeare, Da Vinci, Descartes: are they "invalid"? would 2+2=4 be more compelling if proven just 100 years ago, or 2000 or more years ago?

- 2. "science has advanced, theology has not";
the former excellent, the second again unproven and/or irrelevant;

- 3. "arguments for God are thin";
asserting the conclusion in the argument, invalid;

- 4. "Dawkins demolishes arguments for God";
see above, unproven;

- 5. "theology will collapse";
unproven and/or irrelevant.

quote:Originally posted by N.Beltov:
Until the [b]origin of religion is properly explained and understood, which neither Dawkins nor anyone else has accomplished, this "edifice" won't collapse any more than the state will "wither away".[/b]You don't think Dennett's Breaking the Spell goes a long way to doing just that?

ETA: And the point of my edifice metaphor, if I didn't make it clear, was that without a basis for believing in a god, there's no need for "theology" at all. I wasn't trying to say that religion was going to disappear any time soon.

Indeed, as long as there is a class society, with powerful interests seeking to suppress and confuse the masses, there will be powerful and well-funded religions, and plenty of misguided progressives ready to defend them.

[ 11 March 2007: Message edited by: M. Spector ]

quote:M. Spector: You don't think Dennett's Breaking the Spell goes a long way to doing just that?

It's a good contribution. I hope Dennett lives long enough to continue and advance this work. However, my point is just that I don't think it makes much sense to predict the demise of an institution, like religion, when its origin isn't fully understood. There's much to be done in the sociology of religion, the history of religion, etc.

I should add that I myself am a church-goer. I also come from an atheistic tradition, both in my family and personally. The kind of democratically-minded , socially conscious congregation that I belong to [Unitarian Univ.] feels pretty comfortable and, for the time being anyway, I get something out of it. Why shouldn't I get such benefits ... even if it from an institution that could be, for all I know, doomed? People won't dispense with something if it is still useful to them. I think a large part of what atheists need to do, to be successful, is to skillfully disentangle the harmful from the useful in religion. If the state and society can provide what people get from religion and churches then we will, finally, have no need of them.

quote:Originally posted by N.Beltov:
Progressives should go where the people are and not only where we wish them to be.I agree, but that doesn't mean they should be defending the indefensible.

quote:Originally posted by Geneva:

- 2. "science has advanced, theology has not";
the former excellent, the second again unproven and/or irrelevant;

a) this statement ("science has advanced, theology has not"} is based in some pretty insular modernitst conceptions of the world. For instance "progress" is a term entirely reified in the empircist modernist framework, and so naturally, science when judged by its own standards, winc out over theology, since "progress" is no a notion of theological interest.

b) It is clearly evident that theology has changed substantially over the last 400 years. For instance, no one in the Catholic church seems that interested in arguing that the sun revolves around earth. But that is just an obvious example, there are for more subtle shifts in the paradigm, for instance the theology of athiesm has made an appearance.

For instance this argumentfor "faith-based" athiesm;
quote:Originally posted by M. Spector:

But apparently people who do [b]not believe in holy ghosts need to demonstrate a thorough knowledge of "theology" in order to justify their non-belief.[/b]

comes nearest to asserting the non-existance of god, through a theological device: faith.

[ 11 March 2007: Message edited by: Cueball ]

quote:Originally posted by Cueball:
It is clearly evident that theology has changed substantially over the last 400 years. For instance, no one in the Catholic church seems that interested in arguing that the sun revolves around earth.Oh yes, that was a big advance in "theology". [img]rolleyes.gif" border="0[/img]

In fact, it was a total capitulation to science. Were it not for empirical scientific proof that the "theology" was wrong, the Catholic church and everybody else would to this day believe that the sun revolves around the earth once a day.

And if some upstart came along in the 21st century and tried to present empirical evidence against the church's position, they would be attacked by so-called progressives for not having a complete understanding of "theology".

quote:Originally posted by N.Beltov:
[quoting Shermer]Thus, contrary to what most religions preach about the need and importance of faith, most people believe because of reason.Shermer's assertion is easily disproved when you consider how religious belief is in most cases impervious to reason.

Intelligent design has been shown many times over to be a fallacious conclusion from observable facts, yet many people still cling to it even when presented with the truth.

In fact, there are millions of religious people who have been convinced, on a rational basis, by the arguments against ID, and who have as a result accepted the Darwinian explanations of natural selection, complexity, and design in nature, and yet still insist on clinging to their religious beliefs.

People who believe thunder is caused by angels bowling are relying on a form of "rational" belief, but if they persist in that belief even after having the real cause of thunder explained to them, then their belief is based on faith alone.

I did actually read Shermer's book several years ago. It appeared to me to have been a case of parlaying an opinion poll into a book.

One possible interpretation of the poll is commonplace: that people will resort to rationalization when asked to justify beliefs that they hold on faith (and by faith I mean that they hold them because they want them to be true).

Or as Shermer says: quote:...Sulloway and I discovered that the number one reason people give for their belief in God is the good [!? - M.S.]design of the world. When asked why they think other people believe in God, however, the number one reason offered was emotional need and comfort, with the good design of the world dropping to sixth place. Further, we found that educated men who already believed in God were far more likely to give rational reasons for their belief than were educated women and uneducated believers.... One explanation for these results is that although in general education leads to a decrease in religious faith, for those people who are educated and still believe in God there appears to be a need to justify their beliefs with rational arguments.Educated people, in other words, recognize that justifying a belief on the basis of faith alone is intellectually untenable. In order to avoid looking stupid, therefore, they invent rationalizations for their own belief, while at the same time being far more candid about the motivations of others for holding the very same beliefs.

It's interesting, but what does it prove? That atheists get nowhere by using rational arguments?

quote:Pete Stark, a California Democrat, appears to be the first congressman in U.S. history to acknowledge that he doesn't believe in God. In a country in which 83% of the population thinks that the Bible is the literal or "inspired" word of the creator of the universe, this took political courage.
....
Let us hope that Stark's candor inspires others in our government to admit their doubts about God. Indeed, it is time we broke this spell en masse. Every one of the world's "great" religions utterly trivializes the immensity and beauty of the cosmos. Books like the Bible and the Koran get almost every significant fact about us and our world wrong. Every scientific domain - from cosmology to psychology to economics - has superseded and surpassed the wisdom of Scripture.Source

The article is HERE and it's excellent.

Interesting stats in a sidebar in the Globe and Mail today: quote:Christianity is Toronto's dominant religion, according to the 2001 census. The survey of religious affiliation did not ask whether respondents are active worshippers.Here's the breakdown for Toronto from the 2001 census:

Roman Catholic 755,460
No religion 453,985
Anglican 150,215
United Church 131,825
other Christian 96,340
Greek Orthodox 54,165
Baptist 50,615
other Orthodox 45,530
other Protestant 39,360
Presbyterian 35,525
Pentecostal 30,610
Lutheran 24,665
Ukrainian Catholic 13,700
Adventist 13,515
Jehovah's Witnesses 10,400
Serbian Orthodox 5,170
Methodist 5,080
Salvation Army 4,320
Evangelical Missionary Church 3,080
Ukrainian Orthodox 2,925
Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Mormons) 2,720
Christian and Missionary Alliance 2,255
Non-denominational 1,250
Mennonite 1,240
Christian Reformed Church 1,120
Brethren in Christ 615
Hutterite 40
All Christian 1,481,740

Muslim 165,130
Hindu 118,765
Jewish 103,500
Buddhist 66,510
Sikh 22,565
Pagan 1,740
Aboriginal spirituality 650

********
For every three Christians, there's one "no religion".

The "Nones" outnumber the Muslims, Hindus, Jews, and Buddhists combined.

That French story is still avilable HERE and elsewhere.

Hey, Statscan fiddled those numbers!
I know three people at least who listed their religion as "Jedi" on the census forms.

quote:Lumpyprole: Well that NYTimes article is pretty good.

Here are a few remarks about it.

quote:Robin Marantz Henig: Today, the effort has gained momentum, as scientists search for an evolutionary explanation for why belief in God exists - not whether God exists, which is a matter for philosophers and theologians, but why the belief does.

A number of those that believe in some sort of monotheistic deity make use of the trick that they don't necessarily believe in God ... just that they believe in belief. They don't have to deal with the issues that atheists like Richard Dawkins raise. It's too much like work. So they shift the debate to "belief in belief". It's a sign that they're losing the battle, in my view. However, it's worth adding that what I have previously called Dawkins' "shotgun" approach has to be widened and deepened in the manner that researchers like Dennett have done ... in these shifting circunstances.

Henig outlines another debate among researchers:

quote:These scholars tend to agree on one point: that religious belief is an outgrowth of brain architecture that evolved during early human history. What they disagree about is why a tendency to believe evolved, whether it was because belief itself was adaptive or because it was just an evolutionary byproduct, a mere consequence of some other adaptation in the evolution of the human brain.

He also regurgitates that misleading intellectual surrender, uttered even by someone who should know better like Stephen J. Gould, that science and religion have separate "magisteria" or mutually exclusive domains of investigation. However, I'm glad to report that the author also quotes Dennett:

quote:Dennett: Even if Gould was right that there were two domains, what religion does and what science does, that doesn’t mean science can’t study what religion does. It just means science can’t do what religion does.

Says Henig: "The idea that religion can be studied as a natural phenomenon [this is the subtitle of Dennett's most recent work - N.Beltov] might seem to require an atheistic philosophy as a starting point. Not necessarily. Even some neo-atheists aren’t entirely opposed to religion. Sam Harris practices Buddhist-inspired meditation. Daniel Dennett holds an annual Christmas sing-along, complete with hymns and carols that are not only harmonically lush but explicitly pious."

I'll take 2 lumps of Dennett and one lump of Dawkins. Hold the fundamentalist cream.

quote:Henig: What can be made of atheists, then?

A very good question. In fact, some of the theorists over at Internet Infidels even have a specific name for the argument that the existence of atheists is proof itself that God does not exist. It's an argument worthy of careful scrutiny and I recommend every atheist, agnostic or non-monotheist to have a look. Here is Henig's final paragraph:

quote:This internal push and pull between the spiritual and the rational reflects what used to be called the "God of the gaps" view of religion. The presumption was that as science was able to answer more questions about the natural world, God would be invoked to answer fewer, and religion would eventually recede. Research about the evolution of religion suggests otherwise.

Henig is wrong here, I think. Why presume the results in advance?

quote:Henig: No matter how much science can explain, it seems, the real gap that God fills is an emptiness that our big-brained mental architecture interprets as a yearning for the supernatural. The drive to satisfy that yearning, according to both adaptationists and byproduct theorists, might be an inevitable and eternal part of what Atran calls the tragedy of human cognition.

The tragedy of cognition is no more than the tragedy of human existence in general. We all must find and make meaning in a finite existence. Such questions can't be reduced to simple survival and reproduction. Furthermore, there are many occassions in social life when the surrender of one's own life is the human thing to do; this is an indication of an unwillingness to abandon our humanness, humaneness, our non-negotiable spiritual values beyond belief in some primitive deity, and remain our human selves to the death. This is no surprise at all. Such self-sacrifice is often pointed to with overwhelming social approval and unstinting admiration.

quote:Although he may be dying even his vestiges retain man's victorious efforts on the road to immortality .... He leaves behind him something unique that he creates through words, deeds, thoughts, even greetings, a handshake or only a silent smile.

Mikhail Prishvin

quote:Lumpyprole: The whole notion of the cooperative, rather than competitive element of groups seems to be ignored by the Darwinian Science community ...

Check out Dennett's Freedom Evolves in which he examines cooperative elements.

[ 21 March 2007: Message edited by: N.Beltov ]

quote:Originally posted by M. Spector:
“I have absolutely no doubt...

[Cue Eric Idle]Say no more, say no more...

The familiar first verse of an article of faith. If it were true, the zealots wouldn't bleat so loudly.

quote:Originally posted by Blondin:
I don't think saying "I believe" or "I have no doubt" indicates blind faith. It's the verses that being with "I know and nothing will convince me otherwise" that indicate the truly faithful.

Where there is no doubt, there is no science.

quote:In science, self-satisfaction is death. Personal self-satisfaction is the death of the scientist. Collective self-satisfaction is the death of the research. It is restlessness, anxiety, dissatisfaction, agony of mind that nourish science.

Jacques Monod

And from a Good Catholic:

quote: Preserve in everything freedom of mind. Never spare a thought for what men may think, but always keep your mind so free inwardly that you could always do the opposite.

St. Ignatius Loyola

The real intellectual battle of our time is not against the hokey and childish beliefs of the superstitious and the blindly faithful as their errors are apparent enough. Rather, we face an onslaught of vain and dogmatic "scienticians" who have ironically found in scientific method a place to hang their banners, a mountain from which to proudly trumpet their superiority and to speak with the authority of On High. Priests of all kinds should be doubted. Those who come dressed in labcoats no less than those in collar and habit.

Having slayed "God" (or so they tell themselves and us) they would anoint themselves Masters of the Universe, the pinnacle of Evolution, the vanguard of a teleological progress ongoing for eons.

Science is a highly useful tool. It is also a very dangerous one, the results of which have been mixed, to say the least. It is not coextensive with truth, reality, nor human evolution - be it intellectual, spiritual or otherwise. Anyone who tells you they have "no doubt" is a snake oil salesman.

quote:Originally posted by M. Spector:
Are you absolutely sure of that?

Without a doubt.

Atheists are distrusted to roughly the same degree as rapists, according to a new University of British Columbia study exploring distaste for disbelievers.

Dec.1, 2011

I'm open to evidence if and when any is presented, because I'm generally against 100% absolutism.

It's either the case that this guy prefers living on the edge, or it just amounts to one more thing in the Bible that the higher ups no longer take seriously for themselves.

@ Boom Boom

It's interesting, but hardly a revelation. 

You want different bibles? Take your pick; some of them translate the same passage with completely different meanings. And there are a number of different versions I know of which aren't even on this list.

http://www.biblegateway.com/ 

Why doesn't he just compile a modern book of scripture/philosophy - preferably one that isn't god-centred and can apply to atheists as well? Near as I can see trying to put new books in the bible is an exercise that is going to satisfy no one, as you say.

Excellent idea. I looked for his email address, not available. He has a website.

I'm leaving .5% or so out of a possible 100% certainty that Santa, the Tooth Fairy, the Easter Bunny and a supreme designer do not exist, just in case. To me that would better represent an antithesis to the typical 100% certainty we normally encounter with theism.

Sineed:

Meanwhile: Council of Chalcedon to Be Re-fought on Bethlehem Quidditch Pitch

excerpt:

BETHLEHEM - Following a broomstick brawl between priests of the Greek Orthodox and Armenian Apostolic Churches in the Church of the Nativity, the two churches, at odds since their falling out over the definition of Christ's nature at the Council of Chalcedon in 451, have agreed to decide the theological question once and for all in a game of Monastic Quidditch here in Bethlehem.

"We'll show those stinking Monophysites," said Greek team captain Nikodimos Apollonarios. "Christ has two natures and we're going to beat you by two points!"

"We are not Monophysites!" said Armenian captain Aghexandr Lylozian, "and we're going to beat the Chalcedon out of you heretics."

"Is that really the way Christians are supposed to speak to one another?" asked your intrepid editor.

"We have a dispensation from our bishop," said Lylozian. "Talking Quidditch smack is allowed under ekonomia."

I'm not sure if I am or not.

@ Sineed

That's as interesting as it is terrifying. Just a bit more evidence that many so-called literalists aren't really interested in following what they say is the word of god.

Also, I see some problems. I know the Shocken translation of the Books of Moses points out that the god in those books was neither male nor female, so their whole patriarchal image is based on a mistranslation.

As well, this reminds me of Jim Wallis's exercise of taking all the references to poverty (the thing Jesus apparently spoke of more than anything else) out of the bible. He found over 3,000 references.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jim_Wallis 

(lest anyone think all evangelicals are on the right wing)

And Thomas Jefferson's de-magicked bible.

Well that's strange. Because according to Al Franken and Don Simpson, Jesus was a conservative.

Now I'm really confused.

You must mean Republican Jesus™ , Fidel

lol! It's obvious to me only now that Jesus was an ordinary conservative who advocated on behalf of the rich and powerful. If he were alive today, the wretched poor would be jealous, steal his fine robes,  and crucify him all over again. And then they would describe his teachings as those of some kind of socialist. It's all a pack of lies, really.

Great story, jan - thanks for the find! Some excerpts:

So all he has to do is declare atheism as his "faith", and he'll be able to enjoy his freedom of speech and conscience à l'Ontario!? Cool!

And my favourite:

Love it!

Hmm. Remember the case a month or so ago up north involving bibles being handed out in schools? 

I believe this would be a case in which challenging that is not complicated by an infringement on Native culture.

But again, this is extremely common.I am sure no political party would ever touch it because of the possible backlash, but it would be nice if these infringements could be worked into a legal challenge.

Closing for length.