You are currently browsing the category archive for the ‘Religion’ category.
I’m glad the Globe and Mail fired Rick Salutin because we certainly need more of the risible god-bagging apologetics and whinging over the evils of ‘strident Atheists’. Irshad Manji grapples with these great problems(?) with considerable aplomb as she is a card carrying member of the religiously addled, reality challenged sect. Her first paragraph does incite some hope, maybe this piece will not be a festival of banal accommodationalist drivel.
“In this, the season of giving, I propose we give novelty a chance – novelty, that is, in the debate between atheists and people of faith.”
Ooh… so far so good…
“Let’s move beyond the stale polemics that insult everybody’s intelligence.”
*sigh* It is those humourless irascible Atheists and their tone! Let us just be clear here about who has the problem and who does not.
Rational people inform their decisions based on evidence that is available to them. Informing your decision making process on mythology and declared ‘truth’ is the path that wends distinctly away from any sort of rationally coherent underpinning. Having a distinct preference for reality based decision making, as opposed to “my sky daddy says so”, is not a particularly strident position, but rather an overreaction on the part of the deluded when you point to their pet mythology and magic men and call ‘bullshit’. Sorry believers, but without evidence it sounds like you are arguing for the existence Unicorns and Santa Claus. Rational people find it hard to take mystical arguments like this very seriously.
We must soldier on though, and hit the low-points of this particular bit of whinging about the evils of atheism.
“I’m riveted by a new biography of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, the German Lutheran pastor who famously opposed the Nazi regime – and was hanged for his role in a plot to assassinate Adolf Hitler. Bonhoeffer grew up in a household that valued science, logic and independent thinking. A habit of asking questions helped him pierce Nazi orthodoxy early on, and his vascular faith motivated him to do something about it. Bottom line: His moral courage came from a combination of reason and religion.”
Citation needed. Did his moral thinking explicitly come from a combination of reason and religion? The qualities mentioned, valuing science, logic and independent thinking are atypical of those encouraged by religious institutions. Of course, he could be the insider and saw religion for the hokey sham that it is and decided to rely on reason instead of magic to inform his decision making processes.
“So it’s shallow to suggest we must choose between God and progress.”
The world is 14 Billion(ish) years old. The world is 6,000 years old. One statement is based of fact, the other… well, not so much. Is it important to note that even a little magic in one’s thought processes can have deleterious effects. Ask those who lecture on the evils of ‘refined sugar‘ or those who believe you can make happy water; see what a little magic in your thinking can do for you? So, the divide between rational and religious influenced thought is a little deeper than the “shallow” pond Manji suggests.
“But if it’s entertainment value we’re after, we should know that the “new” atheists are only rehashing what’s already been said umpteen times. In the late 1700s […]”
Unfortunately the delusion known as religion has formidable staying power, praying to the sky-daddy makes people feel good. Furthermore, repeating a fact when faced with irrational nonsense is not necessarily a bad thing. The religious bullshit has not changed over the centuries (more handwaving granted, but still no proof), so why should the rational response change? Ahh, but instead of talking about how transparently false religion is, lets project the evil that religion is known for onto Atheism:
“[…] historian Edward Gibbons – a luminary of the British Enlightenment and a consummate skeptic – observed that the “bigotry” of the anti-God squad mimics the fanaticism of churchmen.”
Oh ho! Checkmate Atheists! Your religion dedication to rationality is just as bad as our belief in Jeebus (allah,etc, insert your fairytale here, not to mention our fallacious friend the Tu Quoque argument)! I wonder when apologists will stop comparing non believers to the deluded when the real issue is the inherent irrationality of religious belief.
But apparently, I am being to harsh on Ms.Manji as she advocates a “different” debate. It must be my stridency, inherent in Atheism, showing through.
“Today’s conversation can be different. In January of 2009, novelist Salman Rushdie and I had a public discussion in New York to mark the 20th anniversary of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomaini’s death warrant against him. Mr. Rushdie and I thoroughly agreed on the need to defend freedom of thought, conscience and expression.
Toward the end of our exchange, he took a jab at my belief in God. I chuckled and retorted that the existence of successful atheists like him is proof positive that a merciful God exists. Mr. Rushdie laughed affectionately. Clearly, this debate can be had with deep appreciation of the other.”
From xkcd
Wow. Proof positive a merciful god exists. Oh wait, no proof here, just anecdotal evidence that a noted Atheist when confronted with a dyed in the wool believer, just does not want to go there, again, because the bullshit is the same, just coming from a different mouth. Dragging people up Mount Rationality is a difficult, often frustrating process and frankly, until people see the delusion for themselves it is often not worth a rational persons time and effort explaining that god, like unicorns and santa (most likely) do not exist.
“Here’s my humble contribution: It may be that atheists themselves are inadvertently affirming the existence of a loving God. Lao Tzu, the ancient Chinese sage, noted that a great leader makes his followers believe they’ve led themselves. In that sense, a scientist, humanist or atheist who chalks up all progress to the human mind could be showing what an empowering and effective leader God actually is.”
I just vomited up my corpus callosum and it is yelling at me for feeding it such inane batshittery.
It could be, also Ms.Manji, that these people inspired by Reason and the quest for knowledge did some remarkable things. No god or magic required. Of course you could defend your position on how awesome a leader god is by explaining how righteous and purposeful smallpox, AIDS, hell even malaria, are without resorting mysticism. We’ll just leave the floor open for your response on that one Ms.Manji, but please watch your tone for stridency.
“No doubt, this idea will come off as insane to some. But if so, why is it crazy? As a person of faith, I’m used to being challenged by atheists – among them, Richard Dawkins, who heckled me from the audience when I spoke at Oxford University. “
Good on Dawkins for speaking up when you bring your edifice of irrationality to the table and attempt to pass it off as a notion that deserves credibility. Magic and myth need to be called out each time they attempt to stick their head into goings on in the real word. Hopefully Ms.Manji, you learned something from Dawkins’ line of questioning, although your Op-Ed suggests quite another conclusion.
Depending on where you look on in the bible it is easy to a deity that pretty much acts like a malevolent spoiled douche of a child. Cue ProfMTH.
Self contradictory and internally inconsistent? No problem. :) Oh wait… (courtesy of ProfMTH)
Still the case for those who are not Male Prostitutes
It looks like 21 century ideas might begin to have the slightest bit of intellectual purchase with god’s go to guy here on earth. The pope, in his new book, has a section on condoms and reproductive health that suggests that condom use in certain situations could be considered acceptable. His popitude says:
“In a book to be released on Tuesday, the pope said that it was acceptable for male prostitutes seeking to prevent the spread of HIV to use condoms.”
Male prostitutes? That is it? No other case comes close enough to Papal reality to justify the use of condoms? Amazing progress consider this is the same individual as of 2009 that said this:
“The pope drew unprecedented criticism from European governments, international organisations and scientists in March 2009 when he told reporters while flying to Africa that condoms would not resolve the Aids problem there but, on the contrary, increase it.”
So, this is progress(?). During the inquisition it would be akin to a holy edict stating that the maximum weight used during strappado torture has just been lowered down to 5o pounds from 55 pounds. Woo ya!
Woo! Thankgoodness for papal mercy!
I am going to use the discussion points found on RichardDawkins.net as the basis of this feature.
Calilasseia is the author of the post and deserves many rich accolades for assembling so much useful information in one spot. This constitutes an open thread of sorts, please leave your opinions and observations in the comment section.
Enjoy!
[24] Inheritance basics (and the canards destroyed thereby).
Getting back on topic with respect to evolution, there is a basic concept that needs to be deal with here, and which at a stroke deals with several creationist canards, such as the farcical “I’ve never seen a cat give birth to a dog” nonsense, which, if it ever happened without laboratory intervention involving IVF and implantation, would constitute a refutation of evolutionary theory.
That concept is, quite simply, inheritance. Inheritance is a process, that even the mythology creationists claim to adhere to, accepts as valid. Though given the hard evidence from approximately four thousand years of agriculture prior to said mythology being written, not to mention the evidence of inheritance in humans that must have been visible even to pre-scientific man, said mythology would look even more ridiculous if it tried to deny the validity of inheritance. Well, guess what? Here’s the simple point that every creationist fails to understand, and which lies at the root of many of the canards they give credence to, and to reinforce this point, I’ll make it stand out:
Evolution is based upon inheritance.
That’s right. Now this is so simple a notion, that many of the people writing about evolution have failed to reinforce this achingly simple fact, presumably on the basis that they assume that their readers understand this. The problem is, of course, that creationists manifestly don’t understand this. If they did, they wouldn’t erect some of the half-baked nonsense that they do. Where evolutionary theory differs from other ideas about the biosphere, is that it postulates that inheritance unifies the biosphere. Evolutionary theory postulates that ultimately, we and all the other living organisms on the planet are linked by inheritance. Which, as a corollary, leads to numerous testable ideas, ideas that have been tested, and which, as a result of passing those tests, have in turn given rise to a whole new scientific discipline called molecular phylogeny. This isn’t magic, because inheritance isn’t magic. Inheritance is a process that is so simple, it was amenable to systematic analysis by a monk. Which once again, demonstrates the utility value of paying attention to reality, and learning from empirical test, as Mendel did.
Now, since evolutionary theory postulates that inheritance is a key process in the development of the biosphere, this should deal at a stroke with the fatuous “I’ve never seen a cat give birth to a dog” drivel that creationists erect, because there is no way that a cat could pass on an entire, complete set of genes from an entirely different lineage to its offspring. An organism can only pass on whatever genes it dispenses in its gametes, and most of those it will have obtained from its parents, the odd mutation here or there contributing a small additional amount of variation. However, thanks to meiosis, which I briefly mentioned in [14] above, offspring are not exact copies of their parents (which would be hard to achieve anyway with a 50/50 split of genes inherited from each). Meiosis involves some interesting gene shuffling, so that different gametes contains different mixtures of the parental genetic material (for which, again, that nice Mendel fellow provided evidence in those pea plant crossing experiments). As a result, variation will be disseminated across generations. It is this variation that evolution works with. To reinforce this point, inheritance is a dynamic process across generations, and it is the outcome of that dynamic process that provides the raw material for evolutionary mechanisms to work upon.
Oh, and a video bonus!
Debating people with that have a little to much faith and not enough regard for history one often runs into this particular meme that Hitler was an atheist and it was his Atheism was the prime motivation for all the horrible acts he perpetrated on humanity. Of course it is complete bollocks that Hitler was an atheist and atheistic values are responsible for his warped view of reality. Warped views of reality are religions speciality and thanks to Non-Stamp Collector we can see how wrong the religiously deluded are, thanks again NSC. :)
A new discovery on Youtube brings yet another strong voice for rationality and reason to add to the secular chorus of enlightenment.
bleatmop
Mystro
The Arbourist
Dead Wild Roses 
Your opinions…