Shuggy didn't tag you at all. You just wanted to talk about yourself, didn't you? 
"There are plenty of parts of Africa where the sudden dawn of an era of enlightenment and rational inquiry would mean a lot of enlightened, rational minds inquiring into how machetes could be made longer and sharper..."
That's very pessimistic. I'd agree with a lot of your 'which came first' argument though. But surely different religions have different impacts? There are few countries that have a Muslim majority that also have reasonably humane governments.
Are you saying that they are just impoverished parts of the world that would have shitty governments anyway? And why is there a fairly clear dividing line in south-eastern Europe above which democracies seem to be able to flourish and below which they don't?
In the same way that the results of the reformation have a big impact upon the character of local modern European democracies (the Protestant ones seem to be more highly regulated and ordered), Islam seems to have facets that rule out the evolution of a fair or prosperous society.
(I would add that this is only a half-formed argument - but wdyt?)
I think I can say, with a fair degree of certainty, that my response to every one of those questions would have been 'Booze!'
My best advice to anyone who wants to raise a happy, mentally healthy child is: Keep him or her as far away from a church as you can.
-- Frank Zappa
Islam seems to have facets that rule out the evolution of a fair or prosperous society.
Wot a load of old tosh that is.
An example of a reasonably successful democratic society whose dominant religion is Islam would really underline the forcefulness of your argument Justin.
That's very pessimistic
Paulie, if you think so, it's because you must know little about Africa and less about human nature. This notion that the dominant battle of the era is between secular humanism and religion is not borne out by reality - the big showdown is between order and chaos, just as it always was. It's between those areas where you enrich yourself through industry and those where you do so by shooting your neighbour and taking his stuff.
I'm not going to tell you religion and repression are accidental bedfellows, because they're obviously not. Reactionary religious movements always retard personal liberty, as a rule.
But look around the world - religions are just local identities. Sure, they're handy for drumming up support from other tribes against whatever infidel you've decided to wipe out, but if you cancelled religion tomorrow the gingers would be fighting the blondes by teatime.
Take a look at this...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nika_riots
...a riot in mid-period Constantinople, in which men killed each other and burnt much of the city to prove that the green chariot racing team was better than the blue. Or this...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/
Ast...stor_Place_Riot (edit)
...A New York riot where men killed each other because two productions of MacBeth were running concurrently and the crowd wished to prove that the American lead in one play was better than the British lead in the other.
It's always been like that, all over the world - we just didn't notice because in the latter half of the 20th century just about all war was seen as part of the Cold War, an ideological struggle between two gangs of well-fed white people.
You want to know why Islamic states are nastier than western ones? Most of those majority-Islamic states were once majority-someone else states, and the Muslim invaders didn't do their exterminating with the same methodical calm other states did. Nowadays, you have lots of countries like Lebanon - artificially created warzones filled with fractious and belligerent tribes ruled by clan warlords, maintaining an uneasy peace... You know, "democracy".
Continued below...
Sure, sharia and suchlike may just be irrational lunacy codified in law, and if it disappeared tomorrow it might rain tits and champagne, but I doubt it. These systems grew up as an attempt to control the chaos that is the natural state of human society and to unify huge rabbles of different gangs and cultures behind one flag. I don't like it any more than you do, but I wouldn't want the responsibility of removing the only thing that passes for order in a lot of places. My guess is it'd be back to machine-gunning each other into ditches in about five seconds.
And so, why are we Anglo-Saxons so different? Well, like I say, we made sure we crushed rebellious tribes long ago - witness the highland clans, the sole reason why modern Scots dress up in kilts. Dead tribal minorities are a bit of kitsch nostalgia - live ones have a tendency to set off bombs in city centres.
Once we'd established total dominance over our own countries, we realised that letting people live by their own rules was far more profitable than restraining them with sharia and religious Stasi. Look back to the golden era of the British Empire and you'll see that there was simply no need to police public morality, since the average Briton could be relied upon to seize, settle and populate any area he moved into. That's why, despite our relatively secular philosophy, loincloth-clad natives learnt to run like hell every time they spotted the Union Jack on the horizon.
I would love to think that Britain promotes peace and freedom because of our rich philosophical tradition and because we see it as every individual's right. Other nations, however, think we do so because we've gamed the international system to our advantage by shooting everyone who got in our way.
Both viewpoints have an element of truth about them...
...And finally, why did the biggest, scariest religions come rampaging out of the middle east?
Well, imagine the last time you were way out in the countryside at night, with the great arc of the universe above your head.
Now imagine you're five hundred miles from anywhere in the middle of the desert, with a billion stars grinding your own lonely insignificance into your face.
Hell, no wonder prophets used to emerge from the desert babbling about communing with God. I'd be seeing angels and demons after about twenty minutes of that.
"An example of a reasonably successful democratic society whose dominant religion is Islam"
Turkey? Malaysia?
Enjoyed that post, FR - your views seem to match up with mine.
I love the stuff about about ID being 'politics' and I may steal it for future argume...discussions).
I've read a few other people's replies to that meme and they were pompous, self-regarding drivel.
I've read a few other people's replies to that meme and they were pompous, self-regarding drivel.
Nicht sheisser.
If I manage to get away with people just calling this post "drivel", I'll be laughing. Frankly, I regard Paulie's but what about the Muslims comment above as an ominous sign.
Since you're asking, I can cope with religions. Monotheistic religions are the ones that frighten me [and Yes, it would be interesting to learn why the Middle East has produced a succession of bull-goose-crazy rampaging monotheisms].
Up to a few thousand years ago, when the default condition was to have a whole rampaging pantheon of deities, every tribe seems to have had its own collection of idols so as to keep up with the tribe over the hill, but no-one took them very seriously. It comes across as a rather hyperbolic form of metaphor... lots of personification without the crap poetry.
And there was none of this evangelism nonsense. You don't read of the Greeks charging into Asia Minor, determined to save the souls of the Persians by converting them to the worship of grey-eyed Athena, at the point of the spear if necessary. If they went around slaughtering their neighbours, it was for more comprehensible motives of profit.
So basically I think that things went to custard when religion mutated into its malignant form: monotheistic, evangelistic, and universal.
For the purposes of the current argument I choose to classify Catholicism as monotheistic.
Well if you think Dawkins is a c**t, then wait until you read Sam Harris!
For a review of resent work try this:
http://
www.whatnextjournal.co.uk...EndofFaith.html
Or Harris’ blog:
http://www.samharris.org/
When I said 'pessimistic', I didn't mean 'wrong'. I do mean 'I hope you're wrong' and I suspect that there are less despairing arguments that can be illustrated by examples of where scientific / economic progress hasn't just resulted in better mass-murderers.
I know that I've suggested in the past that you make blanket assumptions about 'decents', but it seems to me that you may be saying that 'humanitarian intervention is *always* folly and can *never* work'.
I understand that there is a reasonable argument to be had between 'generally sceptical' (you) and 'ends sometimes justify the means' (me), but I didn't think that you were *that* far down the scepticism path.
"You want to know why Islamic states are nastier than western ones? Most of those majority-Islamic states were once majority-someone else states, and the Muslim invaders didn't do their exterminating with the same methodical calm other states did."
I'm not really qualified to comment on that one, but it doesn't have the look of a particularly robust argument to me. And I'm guessing that the 'stars-in-the-dessert-would-make-anyone-mad' argument isn't intended to be more than a bit of speculation. On the other hand, the unlikely 'tits and champagne' downpour is a good point - the counterfactual for Afghanistan minus Islam is unlikely to be Swedish-style social democracy.
But Turkey (aggressively secular until recently) and Malaysia are states that have had their internal dissidents squashed for long enough to be compared with, say, Greece, and I know which one I'd prefer. Surely the way that religions have developed *do* have an impact on the way that cultures react to historical events? The 'Protestant Work Ethic' for instance enabled some countries to maximise their ability to get the most out of investment while Catholics were wringing their hands about usury (as Muslims do today in some cases).
Dawkins' 'Religion is like a computer virus' argument (insofar as I remember it, having read it before the old King died) is that religion is a bit like a bit of malware on a PC. It has properties that allow it to spread rapidly, be subject to criticism less, and dominate and crowd out other solutions to problems, often leading to a destruction of their host culture.
From what I can see, Islam seems to be less open to interpretation than other religions, and as a result, Muslim countries have a less thriving intellectual life.
it seems to me that you may be saying that 'humanitarian intervention is *always* folly and can *never* work'.
Never crossed my mind - the point I'm making is that we as a species are perfectly capable of horrific acts without the supposed sanction of a deity. So when you say Surely the way that religions have developed *do* have an impact on the way that cultures react to historical events? I'd respond, yes, of course they do, but that's not where the story begins or ends.
When we look at warzones in places like Africa, we think it's some new form of mass insanity, but it really isn't - it's the way it always was, times twenty thanks to modern weaponry. See, it's not hard to get young men to kill each other or even themselves. Think back to when you were seventeen - how much encouragement would you have needed to pick up a rifle and join in whatever glorious defence of the nation/town/street?
Before you answer, look at WWI. Standing in the fourth wave, knowing the first three were almost certainly cut to ribbons within ten feet of the trench, and even in 1918 the kids would go over the top the second the whistle sounded. To pampered modern westerners like us, that's total insanity - walking into almost certain death without making contact with the enemy. I've never heard of any serious mutinies in the trenches, but put you or me into that situation and we'd probably prefer to face the firing squad for cowardice.
That's because we're old enough to value our precious hides and smart enough to appreciate that bullet vs. skull is a winner for lead every time. Young lads with barely any concept of death, though, they'll charge a machine gun nest before breakfast.
Look at some of the things countries have fought over and it's pretty clear we have sufficient aggression to whip out the whizz-bang at the slightest pretext, and that's true from big liberal democracies like Britain to crazy failed states like Somalia. All it takes is weapons+animosity+somebody to tell them it's a good idea.
...it doesn't have the look of a particularly robust argument to me
It's probably not for countries like Iran or Iraq, but it'll do fine for Lebanon, Indonesia or any number of African warzones.
(Turkey/Greece) ...I know which one I'd prefer
So do I - it'd be kleftiko for lunch every time. Point is, if I was a Turk, I'd far prefer Turkey, because the Turks quite like the place.
The world isn't just sitting there ready and receptive for the moment nice liberals like us show up to show them how it's done, you know. A lot of places, they like things the way they are just fine, and get all riled and ornery when some well-meaning westerner tries to tell them there are better ways of doing things.
Actually, there was another point I was making, so let me summarise this better here...
If I held the Off-switch for religion, I'd think long and hard before I pressed it and be prepared for some seriously unintended consequences if I did.
I wouldn't dispute your point about chauvinism. The existence of Derby County fans were enough of an affront to me when I was 17.
"Off-switch" - I'd agree with that as well - the old line that when people stop believing in something, they don't start believing in nothing, they start believing in anything. But I think it may be a mistake to underestimate how attractive Western liberal democracy is in lots of demonstrable ways that aren't lost on lots of people who don't live in one.
Also, people may sometimes get 'riled and ornery' but not always - sometimes they're relieved. But some religions also have elements in them that make them particularly impervious to alternatives.
In particular, economic growth makes a difference. In places where people have economic shackles of some kind - a plan for self-advancement - they seem to be less likely to want to get involved in a war. It's the slightly imperfect 'two countries with a McDonalds have never been to war' argument.
I suppose I'm asking if such an element - one that is designed to make a society impervious to the temptations that other societies are open to - exists in Islam, and if so, is it partly an explanation for the very low standard of governance that most Muslims enjoy?
(I only suspect I know the answer to this as well, by the way).
I suppose I'm asking if such an element - one that is designed to make a society impervious to the temptations that other societies are open to - exists in Islam
Quite possibly, but I'm nobody's religious scholar so I'm not about to back that up with evidence. Any reactionary, religious government is going to impair social and economic growth and repress its citizens, epescially a twisted medieval throwback one like they have in Iran. I'd say the adoption of extreme punishments for minor infractions just encourages societal and personal extremism as people compete to be the most censorious.
I still say it's a mistake to ascribe all the region's problems to reactionary monotheism though. The middle east was plenty violent before the arabs swept the entire region, it just never settled down with one faction or ideology cementing its authority. In terms of flammability, I'd say the middle east has always had the potential to be a very unpleasant place indeed - not a lot of water, lots of desert, mineral wealth in abundance attracting outside attention, lots of people from different traditions with lots of shared history, forced to live cheek by jowl in overcrowded cities.
If I was holding that Off-switch, it's places like that I'd expect to go berserk. If you believe Hitchens et al, you'd expect them all to wake up and start working on medical science and literature. You'd think the Dude would've learned this lesson post-Iraq, but no matter how bad things are there's always the potential for them to get much, much worse. Perhaps people would decide that, since they live in a morally neutral universe indifferent to their actions, there's nothing stopping them launching a pogrom on the local minorities and looting all their stuff...
Trouble is, you can never tell until you take the lid off the box, and once that's done there's no putting everything back the way it was.
"I still say it's a mistake to ascribe all the region's problems to reactionary monotheism though."
Yes - Not 'all' by any means. I'd blame oil more than anything else. I can't remember where I read it recently, but it was a very good argument that mineral wealth generally leads to poor government - the wealthy hold their power not because of their ability to innovate but because of their ability to appropriate what should be common goods. They can take the credit for economic growth as well, and use it as political capital creating the illusion that bloody awful policies work. Britain in the 1980s was a low-level example. North Sea Oil + privatisation revenues + piss-poor governance = Thatcherite success.
I'll confess I'm better on the crusades and the twentieth century than I am on the Ottoman Empire, for instance, but I don't recall that as an enlightened era either. I suppose the problem with the oil is that it funds stupid wars and repressive security measures, while giving regimes the leeway to throw bread and circuses at restive populations. It gives regimes that would be unstable and soon ousted elsewhere a measure of stability.
Can I take it nobody was interested in the parts about the culture wars or moss living on mountains then?
"Sure, they'd like to drag us all into their grand delusion, but Jesus-humping religion in the US is not aimed at turning the rest of the populace into Body-Snatchers pod-people - without us Godless heathens, they'd be nothing."
Sorry to be a bother but could you possibly provide a translation of the above? Particularly, "Jesus-humping religion" and "Body-Snatchers pod-people". I realise that the religiously inclined have a difficult sales pitch to make in this 'brave, new world' but at least they make it intelligible so that one might understand it, if not agree wiht it. You should try it!
As for the late but not-very-great, Frank Zappa, my advice for "anyone who wants to raise a happy, mentally healthy child" is *not* to name it either Moon Unit, or Dweezil, or Ahmet Emuukha Rodan, or Diva Thin Muffin Pigeen, as he called his four children.
Certainly, Duffles. In less lively language, it means Without the dire threat of Godless heathens, the evangelicals would find it impossible to attract a mass following. Hence, their sales-pitch for Jesus is not intended to convert the unsaved, but to enrage believers.
And wait a minute, wasn't Invasion of the Body-Snatchers released in about 1956? You've no excuse for not knowing that one, David.
Can I take it nobody was interested in the parts about the culture wars or moss living on mountains then?
I liked 'em.
What better way to keep the faithful committed than to give them a ludicrous theory like intelligent design, then set them flocking onto the internet like the flying monkeys of Oz to do battle with the unsaved?
It's a good point - but you make it sound like a master plan formed by people who don't believe this bullshit themselves...
The evangelicals are bankrolled by serious money, and you mean to tell me they couldn't come up with anything better than intelligent design?
Well, yeah. Biblical literalism does somewhat tie their hands you know... What would you suggest? I don't think it's about "shoring up" belief: they believe what they believe, and no contrary evidence can make the slightest impression against 100% certainty in God's Own Testamant. It's a done deal for them - not a jot of shoring up needed. But as a reframing of the "debate": taking the attack to the evolutionists on superficially scientific terms, ID's about as good as it gets, given the inflexible absurdity of what they have to defend. Don't forget, the tactic in this culture war is to invert the whole thing: rather than advocating ID, they confine themsleves to plausible sounding "critiques" of evolution, and portray scientists as closed-minded dogamatists, turning a deaf ear to honest dissent. Exactly what this "intelligent design" involves is left as undefined and detail-free as possible, so to smuggle it through as a default. Hence there can be no mention at all of any Ark or 6000 year old universes.
And the best way to take on evolution is with impressive-sounding pseudoscience. In fact, "irreducible complexity" is about the best example of "making sure the argument never ends" that you're ever going to find FR - just by virtue of the deliberately, prohibitively high level of technicality of the argument. Why open yourself up to the masses by asking what good half an eye is, when you can wax on indefinitely about "coordinate reciprocal expression of flagellar and virulence genes"? Hardly anyone's in a position to challenge you, and if they do, why, then it's two scientists having a scientific debate isn't it? Teach the controversy!
You can't deny, it's quite a make-over for old school bible-bashing, creation-science.
. Don't forget, the tactic in this culture war is to invert the whole thing: rather than advocating ID, they confine themsleves to plausible sounding "critiques" of evolution, and portray scientists as closed-minded dogamatists, turning a deaf ear to honest dissent. Exactly what this "intelligent design" involves is left as undefined and detail-free as possible, so to smuggle it through as a default.
Amen, Brother Teabag. You only forgot the part about how scientists have nothing but contempt for the honest working man, and emit condescending sniggers at his home-spun wisdom - it's just another part of the Let's pretend we're standing up for the people against those elitist snobs wankfest that is Republican Party politics.
I wonder if it ever occurs to these closet-case oil men that if they ever lose control of the Jesus-sucking evangelists, their Lexuses and Lear Jets are going to look pretty damn "elitist" too? Maybe they figure that when the torch-weilding mob shows up at their door, they'll be able to Aw, shucks, we're just regular folks their way out of trouble.
Hell, I suppose it's worked so far.
Thank you for your courtesy but I remain confused.
"Without the dire threat of Godless heathens, the evangelicals would find it impossible to attract a mass following"
In so far as I understand it (ie, not very well), the evangelicals have achieved considerable success within the Christian churches not least because of the *help* they have received from the success of the, er, "Godless heathens", or liberatti, as I fondly think of them, who seized the 'zeitgeist' in the 1960s. It is the *non*-evangelicals who have suffered and of whom it may now be said in all truth that they couldn't fill a church on Sunday! (Although things might be due for a change - I gather that Westminster Cathedral was packed for a rare Tridentine mass the other day, a sort of Christian neo-con conversion!)
"their sales-pitch for Jesus is not intended to convert the unsaved, but to enrage believers".
Alas, I fail to follow your logic - no irony intended. If one believes with certainty in a version of the God theory why would you not desire to spread the word to anyone who is not a believer, or indeed, to anyone who believes in a different version of the God theory? It makes difference to the believer whether the non-believer is theist, deist or athiest.
I should add that the same thing applies to believers in atheism, a faith-based view of existence for which no proof exists and which is based on propositions that cannot be falsified. Frankly, I'm fed up with atheists forever pushing their tracts and pamphlets at me where-ever I turn. At least my local vicar leaves me alone once I told him that I was never going to be a customer of his church.
In 1956 I had only just lost my virginity and the only body I was intent on snatching (no American pun intended) was the next continental au pair girl I could pick up in my local coffee bar - they being the centre of social life in those far off, innocent days of yore!
the evangelicals have achieved considerable success within the Christian churches not least because of the *help* they have received from the success of the, er, "Godless heathens"
Yes, that is what I'm saying David, thank you for your agreement. Without these great hordes of sixties hippies with their anything-goes worldview and their mad desire to turn Christian children onto the joys of bumsex, there would be no great threat to terrify the faithful into voting for your preferred candidate. This is America we're talking about - religion and politics are eternally intertwined. Recall that there was great discomfort in Democratic ranks about the electability of JFK, simply because he was Catholic.
If one believes with certainty in a version of the God theory why would you not desire to spread the word to anyone who is not a believer
In their ideal world, I'd agree. The fact is they've long since realised that there is precisely no chance of converting a majority of people to their cause. This is why they spend their time bashing away at lost causes like evolution or radioactive topics like abortion - because it's easy to paint in black and white, and it infuriates their partisans.
American political Christianity is all about keeping the faithful so pissed off that they'll go out leafleting and campaigning. Their zeal is their sole advantage over other interest groups, and all of it is based upon hatred of those god-damned hippies.
It's all based on bullshit, of course. Perceptive watchers of American politics will notice that Barrack Obama doesn't wear dreads and Hillary Clinton doesn't finish her speeches with the phrase Peace, Man.
the same thing applies to believers in atheism, a faith-based view of existence for which no proof exists and which is based on propositions that cannot be falsified
This is the most wrong-headed bit of writing I've ever seen from you, and that's saying something. I never wake up and think Right, the universe exists independent of religous morality, what's for breakfast?
I just get on with it as best I can, without seeking out validation from nobbers like Hitchens and Dawkins. There's no ideology here - I just decided that the whole religion deal sounded a bit whiffy and resolved to ignore it in future. I feel a lot better for it, I have to say - you should give it a go.
In 1956 I had only just lost my virginity and the only body I was intent on snatching (no American pun intended) was the next continental au pair girl I could pick up in my local coffee bar
More power to your withered arm, Duff. I can get down with that.
(edit) ...And just to make you feel better, my dad was born in 1956.
Can I take it nobody was interested in the parts about the culture wars or moss living on mountains then?
OK, if you insist --
Lichens on mountain-tops emit oxygen rather than carbon dioxide.
As for the culture wars, I suspect that you're wrong about what motivates the Talibangelists in the States. Seems to me that the majority do indeed aspire to turn the US into the Republic of Gideon (having misinterpreted The Handsmaid's Tale as a prescription rather than a dystopia), and that they would not simply go away if P.Z. Myers and the other cohorts and myrmidons of atheism stopped antagonising them. The fact that they are committing Epic Fail in their choice of tactics and power base -- since the genuinely scary theocrats are the ones like Rev. Moon who have invested their money in infiltrating Washington insider circles -- is in fact central to my point.
I have read quite a few atheist posts over recent years - it's impossible to avoid them these days and I'm almost expecting soon to open my front door to a pair of smiling atheists instead of Mormons - and in a way yours could stand as an archetype, 'Ratty'. Because when you cut through the beer and froth (I often think the beer imput is an important factor in the composition of these tracts!) it really boils down to good, old-fashioned anti-Americanism, or to be precise, anti-Republican Americanism.
As a neutral in this internecine (and interminable) war I can detect very little difference between either party. The sort of choleric, confused (and confusing) rant that you produced above is a mirror image of what I might expect from a good, ol' Southern Baptist minister, or, dare I say, a sermon from 'Oprah' Obama's ex-favourite minister and ex-best friend. (By the way, you will have noticed how reliable and steadfast Obama is when the going gets tough!)
Michael Behe deserves a Congressional Medal of Honour for writing his excellent book and thereby smoking out all the red-neck or red-shirt bigots on both sides. The fact that the theories proposed by both him and by Darwin are precisely that - *theories* - that seek to offer an explanation for the otherwise inexplicable, is lost by both sets of supporters. Or, to be precise, it is lost by the 'lumpen' supporters, although the tiny claque of leaders on both sides have a very clear, cold eye on the political aims they seek to achieve.
I say, a curse on both your houses!
Top post FR. I couldn't give a monkeys if people want to believe in ID or any other loony nonsense. The only people who lose out in the ID controversy are those that believe in it - more biology places at school available for the rest of us.
In much of the atheist/theist debate, being a puce-faced c*ck seems to score more points than engaging people with opinions different to your own with a degree of respect. No, that's the last thing people want, because then they actually might be persuaded. Which of course, is exactly the point with ID - they don't want to be persuaded at all.
Frankly, I'm fed up with atheists forever pushing their tracts and pamphlets at me where-ever I turn.
Me, I am disappointed by the lack of brainwashed bright-eyed atheist converts offering me their publications at every airport.
More to the point, if atheists get organised enough to set up restaurants around the world where they offer atheistic food at heavily-subsidised prices, and all you have to do is join in the ritual chanting before the meal ("Hare hare Emerson! Hare Hare Dirac! Hare hare Dawkins!"), then the world will be a better place
Michael Behe deserves a Congressional Medal of Honour for writing his excellent book
Michael Behe deserves to be invited onto a Candid-Camera style program where he is filmed making an intellectually-dishonest doofus of himself, and then screened on TVs under the rubric of "America's Biggest Plonkers", as a reminder to people who think that people adjust their philosophy to fit their rational conclusions (rather than the other way around).
This comment was brought to you by beers from Fullers and Adnams, if that was not already obvious.
Lichens on mountain-tops emit oxygen rather than carbon dioxide.
Jesus, how embarrassing. I read that through twice before I posted it and never spotted that howler - edited.
Seems to me that the majority do indeed aspire to turn the US into the Republic of Gideon...
That's the hoped-for result, HDB, but it's not the practical strategy. They tried that and it didn't work. Remember, the aim here is to make sure that they can get the most Jesus-crazy right-wingers into positions of power, and that's done through the ballot box. That's the focus.
...it really boils down to good, old-fashioned anti-Americanism, or to be precise, anti-Republican Americanism
I get it - I'm nothing but a bigoted racist, which is ironic, since people call you that. Is there no end to the hypocrisy of tha librulz?
Michael Behe deserves a Congressional Medal of Honour for writing his excellent book...
No, he doesn't, and if you think his position mirrors your frankly suspect a curse on both your houses! you are considerably more gaga than I'd previously thought.
It's odd, isn't it, that from the outside looking in the "puce-faced c*ck[s]", referred to by Don, are equally ranged on both sides of the argument. When it comes to what Don describes, optimistically, as "engaging people with opinions different to your own with a degree of respect", he will find very little of it here (see our host's title to this post, for example); or in the discourse (I only use the word out of politeness) to be expected from the spittle-flecked keyboard of, say, Dr. 'Teabag' and his ilk. For sheer vicious and vituperative malice there is little to choose between either party.
Even the normally calm and controlled 'Herr Doktor Bimler' loses himself in a manner reminiscent of Dr. Strangelove (no relation, I trust?) and resorts to phrases like "intellectually-dishonest doofus" and "America's Biggest Plonkers" which are hardly composed as an aid to intelligent conversation.
'Ratty', not for the first time what passes for your thought processes leaves me bewildered. How can an accusation against you of being anti-American Republicans be interpreted as me calling you a "racist"? And people call me all sorts of things, but that hardly makes them true - only boring.
As for your constant re-iteration of the 'Truth' (I feel the word in this context deserves a capital plus the inverted commas) of atheism, it's rather similar to people saying over and over again that it is random genetic changes under the influence of outside factors that results in the appearance of new taxa. Repetition and increased volume does not make it true. It's a theory, a working hypotheses, if you like, for explaining the multiplicity of life forms, but no-one has seen it happening, and no-one can disprove it because it makes no predictions. Bit like saying that the meaning of life is a Ford Cortina - well, it's a theory, no better or worse than yours, or Darwin's.
As the good 'Doktor', above, has suggested a TV program for the ID-ers, allow me to suggest that that all you fanatical neo-Darwinists and the more extreme religious evangelists be locked into the Big Brother studios and threatened with Jane Goody until you all learn some manners!
Oh dear, I've just had a dispiriting second-thought! I have a horrible suspicion that many of you would actually enjoy the company of Jane Goody ...
For sheer vicious and vituperative malice there is little to choose between either party.
Did you even read the post, or just jump in with both feet at the mention of ID? Because I did address this point, and it looks a lot like you didn't bother with it, especially when you throw out phrases like all you fanatical neo-Darwinists.
Is it not clear from the post? I don't go reading up on atheist theory so I can argue with religious people. I don't have a framed picture of Dawkins next to my bed. I simply decided long ago that the whole shebang sounded extremely unlikely, and resolved to ignore it.
I also ignore cricket, but that doesn't make me fanatically anti-cricket - I just pay it no mind, until some joker starts telling me that my intense cricket-hatred is just the kind of typically smug, self-important belief people like me hold.
Further, don't imagine that I'm fooled by your pearl-clutching preciousness over swears and nastiness here. Nobody with a blog is shy about their opinions, especially not you.
And of course, if you think I'm buying your dispassionate observer horrified by the incivil loonies schtick, you're completely daft. Despite your claims to intellectual curiosity, your record shows that your inquiries don't extend much further than gobbling up the latest reactionary pronouncements from all manner of cranks so you can regurgitate them into my comments section and those of similarly unfortunate bloggers. You're not aloof here - you're an enthusiastic participant. Any attempts by you to suggest otherwise will be treated with the respect they deserve, i.e. none.
How can an accusation against you of being anti-American Republicans be interpreted as me calling you a "racist"?
It's not - it's that I thought your "good old-fashioned anti-Americanism" point was daft enough to merit a daft response. You get what you give, Duffles.
well, it's a theory, no better or worse than yours, or Darwin's.
I have no intention of debating ID with you David, because I see that Dr. Teabag - who has a far better grasp on the subject than I do - has repeatedly handed you your arse here...
http://tamponteabag.blogspot.com...s-
raelians.html
...And you've responded like a dog that's been shown a card trick. For now, all I'll say is that if you are telling me I can't comprehend the difference between theories and facts, then you are going to receive short shrift for the rest of this thread.
see our host's title to this post
Actually, that's confirmed that you didn't read the post and just instinctively dumped your load into comments. The title refers equally to the religious and the irreligious, a fact you'd have picked up if you'd bothered to have a short think before you started your trite little concern-trolling act.
I see, 'Ratty', so when you use the phrase:
"You Don't Have To Think God Loves You To Be An Insufferable Prick, But It Helps"
I should have been able to infer that:
"The title refers equally to the religious and the irreligious"
without even the teensiest-weensiest bit of bias: something akin to, say,:
'You don't have have to be a Jock to possess brains made of porridge - but it helps'.
Is that what you mean?
I should have been able to infer that -
Stop right there - you should have been able to read the post, rather than reflexively ticking me off. That way, you'd have seen I put the boot into celebrity atheists and thoroughly rubbished the idea that secularism is less violent than religion - a notion which I describe as "cretinous". In fact, I went on about it at quite tiresome length.
If you'd glanced at the thread above, you'd have spotted that I posted several thousand more words on precisely that idea, considerably more than was devoted to religious types. Hence, the title.
Double D demonstrates another advantage of the heavy-pseudoscience-and-"teach the controversy" attack: as well whipping up the believers into a foaming fury, you'll also con a few credulous fools outside the fold into peddling your propaganda for you:
It's a theory, a working hypotheses, if you like, for explaining the multiplicity of life forms, but no-one has seen it happening, and no-one can disprove it because it makes no predictions.
...until you all learn some manners!
That was an etiquette lesson by the author of A reason to detest the 'Oirish'. And next week, the Vatican releases its first sex-education video.
Even the normally calm and controlled 'Herr Doktor Bimler'
It is the contrast with Larry Teabag that makes me seem calm and controlled.
Allow me to recommend these t-shirt designs:
http://controversy.wearscience.com/
Larry, your last two links do not appear to be working and I would like to read them. Any chance you could try them again. Thanks.
'Herr Doktor', thank you for your kind suggestions for T-shirt designs but the dress code here, at Chateau Duff, is very strict - 3-piece heavy tweeds during the day, black tie for dinner and smoking jackets after the ladies have retired. Night attire is optional!
'Ratty', you reared up like a startled horse at my suggestion that your post showed bias (I use that word advisedly because 'prejudice' is so, er, prejudicial, don't you think?) and accused me of failing to read it despite the fact that I asked you to translate one of its more obscure paragraphs (now who's not reading their own site?) However, I have just re-read it, not an easy duty to fulfil first thing in the morning and at a rough count found 16 examples of insults or invective aimed at Christians and 2 or 3 against atheists. It is true that your main point appears to be (your literary style does not aid understanding) that human nature rules human behaviour which is, to say the least, something of a commonplace, but no reader would come away with the impression that you were neutral or even-handed between Christians (particularly American ones) and atheists. And why should you be? You *believe* in atheism, just as they *believe* in Jesus. As I indicated above, to an outside observer you all appear to be as excited (and excitable) as a Taleban gang finding a pork chop in their mosque!
The links are working fine, Duffles.
Apologies, O Great and Wonderful Master, I failed to click the correct button. I shall read them with interest, although the first quick dip told me the less than earth-shattering news that fat slugs (I think it was slugs) preferred to mate with other fat slugs rather than thin ones. Bit like humans really. Anyway, I can't wait to plough through it all. Cheers!
accused me of failing to read it despite the fact that I asked you to translate one of its more obscure paragraphs
Yes - you read that far then decided you didn't need to read the rest, since it was obviously the work of secular fundamentalist or some such bollocks... I've never claimed to be an unbiased observer, but at least I can read.
to an outside observer
No, Duff, I've told you - that's not going to work. I'm not thick enough to imagine that you read Mr. Behe's crank-science masturpiece out of intellectual curiosity, since I'm aware that you'll swallow pretty much anything, no matter how nutty, provided it gives you another excuse to wrestle with the evil librulz. You're not an outside observer, sunshine, you're that rarest of beasts - such an hooting oddball that you're willing to suck down religious propaganda despite having no faith yourself, purely out of spite.
And of course, this You *believe* in atheism, just as they *believe* in Jesus. is the same crap you'd get out of religious reactionaries from Pastor Hagee to Ayatollah Khomenei. I wonder why you keep regurgitating the talking points of political religion?
See, religious belief requires at least acceptance of the tenets and history of your faith. There are strictures, ceremonies and obligations - it means you live your life conscious of the existence of God and his expectations. It requires, in short, a leap of faith.
Me, all I had to was look at it, think That doesn't seem very likely then forget about it - just ignore it.
Do that, and you find time for things like politics. You'll notice the objections I have to American evangelicals are political, not religious - let them believe whatever they like, I say, so long as they're not elevating cretins to the most powerful offices in the world. That is why there are so many insults in the piece - because these are people whose political choices are adversely affecting the rest of us.
See the difference there?
You spend your spare time boning up on the latest dispatches from some of the prime movers of obscurantist science, and you're an outside observer, disinterested and amused... I ignore the issue and somehow I'm a fanatical neo-Darwinist.
Damn, that's some nutty approximation of logic you've cobbled together there, Duffles.
This Irreducible Complexity argument seems to be an inversion of the Holmesian adage. The idea is that once you've made everything else sound implausible, then you have an excuse to believe in the impossible.
I think we can all agree that Divine Interventions are, by definition, impossible. The idea that there is an entity outside the physical universe, that can still interact with the physical universe, and occasionally irrupts into the universe (3 billion years ago, or 3 million, or 2000) and places its normal functioning in abeyance in order to meddle... this is basically the opposite of "possible" (for values of "possible" that include "compatible with the normal functioning of physical reality").
I'm not saying that we know all the rules that govern reality. Or even a large proportion of them. But I find it convenient to assume that there are rules, and that reality behaves with a sense of decorum and consistency. The idea of Miraculous Interventions is a cop-out -- no predictive or explanatory value. Like my main man David Hume said, it's a statement of ignorabimus rather than ignoramus. Nor does it help me retain my child-like sense of wonder.
The point of all this is that I am irritated by theists who claim that "one cannot disproof the existence of God" (and therefore atheism is a statement of faith, no different from theism) -- when the activities of this God are impossible by feckin' definition.
'Herr Doktor', just to ensure that I am understanding you correctly are you saying that:
1: There is *no* God (I use that title without any religious overtone, you may replace it with the word 'Thing' if that suits you) and therefor there can be no supernatural interventions,
or,
2: There may be a God but beyond starting a process with a certain set of rules, in a manner not known to us, it remains quiescent and non-interfering.
I suspect that the former describes your position but I have found on this site that it does not do to infer matters merely by reading the contributor's actual words (see: 'Ratty', passim).
I think we would both agree that there are many enormous unknowables in this universe and it is a *possibility* that one day we will gain definitive answers, although the progress to date does not look encouraging, as it appears to be the case that the closer we look the more confusing, irrenconcilable and self-contradictory things are - eg, wave/particle duality. It is also a *possibility* (a theory, a hypothesis, a guess?), that only a very foolish man would deny that something very much more powerful than humans began this process. Personally, I doubt that Man will ever find the answer to that no matter how hard he looks. Still, if it provides you comfort in this cold, uncaring universe, to *believe*, or perhaps, to put your *faith*, in the non-existence of such a power, despite there being no proof of its non-existence, then who am I to disabuse use you, or even, abuse you in the style of our witty host?
I choose Door #1.
Though I prefer to turn the argument the other way around -- there can be no supernatural interventions, therefore there is no God.
I would suggest, diffidently, that the creation (small 'c', please note) of the universe might be described as 'supernatural', in other words, above, beyond and outside of our comprehension.
Still, if it provides you comfort in this cold, uncaring universe, to *believe*, or perhaps, to put your *faith*, in the non-existence of such a power, despite there being no proof of its non-existence
I knew that you would appreciate the irony.
Ah, 52 comments, I thought, that'll be interesting.
Then I saw who was involved and I realised it wouldn't be.
Yes, I quite agree, but alas, there is no changing 'Herr Doktor Bimmler's' teutonic tediousness! In the meantime, I suppose, we shall just have to wait patiently for you, Justin, hand down to us some words of wisdom in order to raise the intellectual standard around this place. Please don't think we are ungrateful.
I think that was a very good post and a most reasonable one. The only quibble I'd have is with the bit about the US. After all, it was a very religious country (as was the UK) long before Dawkins was cobbled together by that blind watchmaker. Didn't seem to need godless hippies then.
Thought you might appreciate this, by (who else) Winston Churchill, describing his reaction against a religious upbringing.
"As it was I passed through a violent and aggressive anti-religious phase which, had it lasted, might easily have made me a nuisance. My poise was restored during the next few years by frequent contact with danger. I found that whatever I might think and argue, I did not hesitate to ask for special protection when about to come under the fire of the enemy: nor to feel sincerely grateful when I got home safe to tea. I even asked for lesser things than not to be killed too soon, and nearly always in these years, and indeed throughout my life, I got what I wanted. This practice seemed perfectly natural, and just as strong and real as the reasoning process which contradicted it so sharply. Moreover the practice was comforting and the reasoning led nowhere. I therefore acted in accordance with my feelings without troubling to square such conduct with the conclusions of thought.
It is a good thing for an uneducated man to read books of quotations. Bartlett's Familiar Quotations is an admirable work, and I studied it intently. The quotations when engraved upon the memory give you good thoughts. They also make you anxious to read the authors and look for more. In this or some other similar book I came across a French saying which seemed singularly opposite. 'Le coeur a ses raisons, que la raison ne connait pas.' It seemed to me that it would be very foolish to discard the reasons of the heart for those of the head. Indeed I could not see why I should not enjoy them both. I did not worry about the inconsistency of thinking one way and believing the other. It seemed good to let the mind explore so far as it could the paths of thought and logic, and also good to pray for help and succour, and be thankful when they came. I could not feel that the Supreme Creator who gave us our minds as well as our souls would be offended if they did not always run smoothly together in double harness. After all He must have foreseen this from the beginning and of course He would understand it all.
Accordingly I have always been surprised to see some of our Bishops and clergy making such heavy weather about reconciling the Bible story with modern scientific and historical knowledge. Why do they want to reconcile them? If you are the recipient of a message which cheers your heart and fortifies your soul, which promises you reunion with those you have loved in a world of larger opportunity and wider sympathies, why should you worry about the shape or colour of the travel-stained envelope; whether it is duly stamped, whether the date on the postmark is right o
... "whether the date on the postmark is right or wrong? These matters may be puzzling, but they are certainly not important. What is important is the message and the benefits to you of receiving it. Close reasoning can conduct one to the precise conclusion that miracles are impossible: that 'it is much more likely that human testimony should err, than that the laws of nature should be violated'; and at the same time one may rejoice to read how Christ turned the water into wine in Cana of Galilee or walked on the lake or rose from the dead. The human brain cannot comprehend infinity, but the discovery of mathematics enables it to be handled quite easily. The idea that nothing is true except what we comprehend is silly, and that ideas which our minds cannot reconcile are mutually destructive, sillier still.
Certainly nothing could be more repulsive both to our minds and feelings than the spectacle of thousands of millions of universes—for that is what they say it comes to now—all knocking about together for ever without any rational or good purpose behind them. I therefore adopted quite early in life a system of believing whatever I wanted to believe, while at the same time leaving reason to pursue unfettered whatever paths she was capable of treading."
And from Laban :
"Let's scan the last 2,000 years of British history in five paragraphs. Up until the late Victorian era, the default mode was uncertainty about this years crop and whether you would have enough to eat. For the first 1200 or so years (longer in Scotland and Ireland) there was also the risk of strangers descending to kill or enslave you. Or perhaps you were doing the killing, if you were Saxon, Scot, Dane, Norman, Viking. Life expectancy was short and medicine primitive. Your wife could die in childbirth, your children in infancy. Unsurprisingly, this was a religious era. Nothing concentrates the mind like personal acquaintance with death - not on a six-month tour of duty, but in your home and everyday life.
The basic instincts needed regulating too. Copulation meant children, and of the two available models (monogamy or winner-takes-all), Christian Britain went heavily for the first, with a leavening of the second for princes and mighty lords.
Over on the mainland, the risk of the descending stranger continued on a large scale up to 1945 - and to pretty much this day in Kosovo and Bosnia. But isolated by the sea, with her Navy key to keeping the descending stranger at bay, the nations of Britain developed a culture, Christian, scientific, patriotic, mercantile, which reached its full flowering in the Victorian era and was still very much alive in 1945. To be born British was to have won first prize in the lottery of life.
Some things changed in the hundred years before 1945. Technology had expanded life expectancy, infant mortality was slashed, there was enough to eat. We had again - twice - beaten off the descending stranger.
The generation growing to maturity after WW2 - the Sixties children - grew up in a world where the possibility of sudden death existed (nuclear attack) but somehow never seemed relevant to everyday life. What could one do about it ? Otherwise they were safe - safer than any generation in history had ever been. They felt able to forget the Christian culture that had brought them thus far - indeed to begin the forty-year task of dismantling it. The invention of reliable contraception, enabled a base instinct (I'm not knocking it, btw) to be satisfied without worrying about children being born. And if they were, another new invention, the Welfare State, would care for the child. Christianity began its long decline, hastened by a host of cultural revolutionaries who are now growing old. To a lesser extent this process happened in all of Europe.
Now it could be that what we have now - a state, secular in all but name, prosperous and secure (although not as secure as in, say, 1970) - is the future. From now on it'll always be like this.
I beg to differ."
http://ukcommentators.blogspot.c...s-about-
us.html
Another bloody atheist that took the trouble to get married. You're just as tied by the hemp cords of Christianity as the next man. When you've screwed your best mate's daughter because "you fancied it" come back and tell me you don't believe in god, but not before. You're just another bloody Christian in denial like Richard Dawkins. He's been married three times. Fecking atheist genius he is! Makes one stupid mistake for the sake of social compliance, then does it twice more! Next we'll hear the "I don't need to be a Christian to be moral" nonsense. Which just means you ARE already a Christian but you simply refuse to attach the label to yourself.
I'm an atheist, but I LOVE Christians. They are good people, nice people. A world full of real atheists like me wouldn't be worth living in for anybody else.
Another bloody atheist that took the trouble to get married.
Is this directed at me then Ryan? I'm not married, mate, I call my girlfriend "Mrs. Rodent" because I find it funny. Plus, she hates it, which I also find funny.
You're just as tied by the hemp cords of Christianity as the next man.
See that whole screed in the post talking about how it's daft to confuse religion and culture, because the two overlap all over the place?
Point taken and all, but like I say, there's no need to be a cunt about it. You can try working on that, if you like.
Didn't seem to need godless hippies then.
Entirely true, though religion had its uses back then too - check out how the Yanks responded to massive immigration from Ireland. Some pretty nasty stuff about Papal conspiracies there.
It may well be that we'll see a rebirth of religion in Britain, and who knows? Maybe it might be for the good. My instincts tell me otherwise, but I suppose you never know - I'd certainly resist it.
...although not as secure as in, say, 1970
An odd thing to say if you've just finished talking about the very real possibility of nuclear annihilation in the seventies. Unless you mean the likelihood of being attacked by some nutter, which is probably a little more likely now than it was then. Not that much more likely than some would have you believe, however.
Given the activities of Mr A Q Khan and the current work going on in Iran, I wouldn't rule out the possibility of nuclear annihilation - although probably not on a global scale. One of the advantages religious people "can" have in a scrap against the secular is not being too squeamish about lots of deaths - including their own, either because "God will recognise his own" or because "this life isn't really the one that counts".
Who knows what Mr Ahmadinnerjacket may get up to if he's decided that the 12th imam has returned ? What's one's death compared to eternal life ?
I may be hopelessly naive here, but I find the Iranians a damn sight less scary than the Soviet Union was. Functional nuclear warheads - 0. ICBMs - 0. Likelihood of instantaneous annihilation if a nuke goes off anywhere on Earth - 100%. The Soviets had thousands of cutting-edge nuclear missiles, and any attack would've sent us back to the stone age. The Iranians don't even have long-range missiles, let alone functional nukes.
If you're looking for a genuinely crazy country filled with fanatics just itching to nuke us all, I recommend North Korea. They've pulled stuff that would turn your hair white, and they're every bit as keen on martyrdom as the Iranians, if not more so, despite their lack of religion.
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