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When arguing with religious, one runs into many interesting aspects of the human character. Close to the top of the list is Confirmation Bias – or the idea that we tend to cultivate and seek out views and standpoints that we agree, often at the expense of the truth of the matter.
Qualia Soup illustrates the process with religious arguments he’s faced in the past.
The challenge we all face is being charitable and arguing with what people have said/are saying, not what we think they are saying. (Easy to say, hard to do, especially in the heat of the moment.)
One always hopes to find argument in the religious arsenal that is somehow more compelling than: “I believe in X, and that is enough”. The argument portrayed here might be considered ground zero for the silliness the religiously deluded foist upon others in order to win them over to their cause.
I didn’t think we’d have start at square zero…
Religion is a particularly nasty subset of the patriarchal fabric of our society. Most organized religions provide the justification for the continued male dominance in society. I mean, if the notion of a Grand Ooga-Booga isn’t preposterous enough on its own, the fact that most of His divine commands and intuitions are tethered to a male centric point of view should be the icing on the cold cake of realization that GOB (so close, I know) is a entirely a fictitious being made up by us.
So, GOB is really just scared dudes talking to themselves. This condition is not prone to produce much of anything useful (see the bible). The grim offerings that do rise from this murky swamp though, surprisingly, reinforce pretty much all that is shitty about humanity. Blind obedience, deference to authority, and of course the suspension of rationality when dealing with the world.
Bill Nye expounds on this notion in regards to Women and the deleterious bullshit they have to put up with when they are trying to make the right decision about their reproductive futures.
The take away from the video is this. Your magic book and your pious feelings are not substitutes for facts. Keep your magic in your head and stop fucking with women’s rights.
I’m consistently amazed by the audacity of organized religion and the amount of steamy-ripe-bullshit that it forces down our society’s throat. The fetid promotion and glorification of ignorance coupled with the consistent denial of science and fact is a burgeoning cataclysm for the human race. Organized stupidity, if left unchecked, will be the end of us.
There are bright spots though, in Canada organized religion is hollowing out as people move away from being scared of lights and ancient shadows (worshipping capitalism instead – woo-haa…). Baby steps and what not. Our progress though seems fruitless though as we live in the shadow of the towering mass of religious stupid that is the United States. In the US it seems as if the powers of fear and magic are still on the rise despite the fact that the rest of the world is gradually becoming more rational and more secular.
That is worrisome to say the least, as our blessed bible believers have access to enough nuclear weaponry to sterilize the earth several times over. Earth wiping out capacity isn’t something you give to people who believe in ghosts, magic, and assorted Ooga-Booga. It is unsettling to watch what is going down the GOP side of the run up to the presidential elections. There is no ‘safe’ candidate in this field of republicans, as all are afflicted, to one degree or another, with the virus of organized religious belief. Further comment on the republicans and their suicidal commitment to unreality is the topic of another post because the amount of stupid involved with their political strategy would break my blog if discussed all at once. Perhaps a more simple start to the religious problems in the US is answer?
I’m thinking that a good start in the US would be to remove the tax-exempt status of the Churches. If this info-graphic is even half true, it would be a step in the right direction for the people of the US.
I might (well not really) become a believer if the various testaments to human gullibility decided to dismantle their superstructure and actually help the poor.
Welcome gentle readers. Today I ask of thee but a kernel of patience whilst I set up the topic at hand.
Teh Role of teh Female in the Religious Stuff.
Religion and Patriarchy actively conspire against the female half of humanity. We have to look no further than Christian Patriarchy over here and Islamic Fundamentalism over there to see the corrosive effects of religion on females (and everyone else). We’ve missed talking about a segment of the world religious community that, despite a different set of ooga-booga beliefs, shockingly manages to codify and practice misogyny with great aplomb.
Orthodox Judaism. And behold yet another goldmine of misogyny in which to revel in! (?) Let’s take a peek at a small sample of what we are talking about:
“During the 1970s feminist critics began to expose the absence of women’s voices within the male-dominated structures promoted by Judaism’s exclusively male-authored texts. Feminists also strove to reconstruct the lost voices of women, trying to recover evidence of women’s history and self-understanding that would allow a more diversified picture of the multiple Judaisms that have flourished throughout the Jewish past. While Judaism traditionally defines itself as a divinely revealed religion, its beliefs and practices have been interpreted and regulated almost exclusively by male authorities until the modern period. Feminist analysis has pointed out that men have created the legal systems articulated in the Mishnah, Talmud, and codes of Jewish law, and acted as supreme arbiters of its interpretation by reserving the rabbinate for men. Courts of Jewish law were historically run by male rabbis, and women were excluded as witnesses in most court cases. In rabbinic law, men may contract a marriage or divorce a wife, but women can neither acquire a husband nor divorce him. Women enter into rabbinic discourse as objects of discussion, when their ritual purity, sexual control, or marital status impinges upon men’s lives.
Many Jewish feminists have suggested that the insistence on overwhelmingly male imagery for God was a deliberate effort to strengthen the male-dominated institutional arrangements of Jewish life and undergird male authority over women in the religious and societal realms. As a result, feminist analysis views Jewish texts with suspicion for their collusion with societal patriarchy in silencing women’s voices, or, even worse, as creating patriarchal oppression and endowing it with the aura of divine sanction. At the same time, some feminists have culled biblical and rabbinic texts to find counter-patriarchal traditions that support principles of justice and equality, or voices of trickster women seeking to correct halakhic inequities (Pardes; Adler). Even as D. Setel argued that the prophet Hosea’s metaphor of Israel as God’s adulterous wife was pornographic, R. Adler noted that God’s reunion with the adulterous Israel, which violates Deuteronomic law (20:4) mandating a husband’s divorce of an adulterous wife, might be understood as a “constructive violation” of Jewish law – “the metaphor that preserves the covenant breaks the law” (Adler, 163–64).”
I gave up with the highlighting and bolding after the whole “objects of discussion” malarkey (lobe blown). Anyhow, now with a little background established we can talk about the Hunger Games.
What?
How does one win an argument with another that doesn’t accept the basic tenets of reality. Recently over at Violet Wisp’s blog the religious element was once again taking the moral low road on abortion and left with trying to explain how their religion was explicitly “pro-life” when in fact their magic book is, in fact, pro-abortion. You can go over and read the thread yourself here, but I’ve screen captured the parts that I want to talk about.
Observe what is going on here. JZ is attempting to establish a coherence in what christian dogma demands and what its believers actually say. This of course won’t be pretty.
The hell? Just answer the damn the question. I mean this should be a slam dunk for a true believer – the bible is god’s word – this should be elementary stuff.
Oh, I see. Rather than admit your book is wrong, you obfuscate. Why all the smoke and mirrors? Here is my theory:once you admit one tenet of your religion is invalid the rest of the contradictory bullshit that you conveniently look past, will hit you squarely in the brainpan. Religious world view destroyed – welcome to atheism.
But it looks like CS has chosen Plan B: Evasively confabulate until you have to flounce from the thread because no one is accepting the rhetorical squirrel-farts that serve as the basis for your defence of your contradictory and indefensible arguments.
I think we can let John Stewart summarize the results….
Religion treats people like shit, the further away you are from the white male ideal, the shittier your deal will be. The recent anti-choice propaganda wave in the US caused enough whinging in wordpress blogosphere that I felt compelled to wrestle with the full-blown stupid that is the anti-choice position. .
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I went to this saintly dudes page and left my usual inflamatory comments – women are people, they have rights et cetera – the mind-blowing stuff that makes the zealots wail and froth.
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But rather than approve my comment, this dipstick emails a response to me because apparently, tainting his blog with reality is just a touch beyond the pale for his religiously addled sensibilities.
We’ll spend some time going over this condescending POS’s response.
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“I offer a few responses (with the disclaimer that my words are not at all said with malice or ill-will, but with blunt plainness) to your comments, particularly the ones, that to me, seem to be emitting an abundance of hypocrisy:”
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Oh you just know this is going to be good and chock-full of projection, and of course, Full Bonus Points for a mansplination of why teh abortion is the evils for the womenz.
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“Any sex men or women engage in should be within the bounds of husband and wife, legally and lawfully married.”
LoL-forever. And all time spent by teenage boys on the internet is time spent listening to the heavenly music of the spheres and praying to god. Are there any other idealized states you’d like to discuss as if they were relevant to the topic at hand?
“Obviously there are additional purposes of sex than procreation alone, such as strengthening the relationship of husband of wife and expressing love within that marriage; however, procreation is certainly one of the main purposes of sex and that should not be taken lightly.”..
Ah yes, and in this ideal world men only wish to engage in sex to make babies. Why not? Unicorns also exist in this world, and fairies too!
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“You seem to think people should be allowed to kill children that are unwanted simply because it is easier to let people do that than to teach them proper moral and values; I think you should put a little more effort into seeking the moral option and not the easy way out.”
Ah, there we go. Let the anti-choice false equivalency begin. It is so typical of the pro-slavery crowed to make this fundamental error and then proceed to base their entire ‘argument’ on it.
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A fetus is a fetus, not a child. It has none of the rights we give to born children. So, let’s not go into hypotheticals because you are really terrible at making them jive with reality. (He will, of course, but first we need to be offended about his sky-daddy not being afforded the proper respect.)
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Predictably, whiny-pissbaby gets all up in arms because I dismiss the patriarchal religious bullshite angle he goes for in his post. My comment first, then his.
[Me] “LOL. Religion has been oppressing women since its inception. Maybe citing a book that is famous for its murder, rape, and genocides isn’t the best source to strengthen your case?
Cherry picking your favourite bible verses to make a ‘point’ is about as useful as spitting into the wind, or pissing up a rope. Your choice.”
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“Again, I find it very hypocritical that you dare say I am ‘cherry-picking’ bible verses when you scoff and ‘lol’ at the very idea of religion. It couldn’t be more obvious that you haven’t read the bible or other religious text in any recent time, if ever at all; so you have no ground to stand on in saying I ‘cherry-pick’ verses”
Oh hey there cherry picking is what you fucking zealots do to justify your shitty claims about reality.
Ah, christianity, so moral, so ethical. Thank god for the bible…
Let’s take a peek at what the bible says:
“The God of the Bible also allows slavery, including selling your own daughter as a sex slave (Exodus 21:1-11), child abuse (Judges 11:29-40 and Isaiah 13:16), and bashing babies against rocks (Hosea 13:16 & Psalms 137:9).”
Daaaaaamn son. You step back now and think about owning up to the bullshit in your magic book before you get all out of sorts about being called on your cherry-picking. Of course being held to a truthful standard is going to get more painful as this email continues…
“Also, try to remember that America is a Christian nation.”
Holy LoL-copters Batman! America is a secular nation and is founded on the belief that church and state should be two separate entities, although do feel free to keep pining for theocracy.
“Over 80% of Americans identify themselves as Christian, so the scripture verses I quote mean a great deal to most people and greatly affects their decision-making processes.”
Billions of horseflies love eating shit, should we also embrace the luscious poo-banquet ideal just because so many do it? Bad ideas are bad ideas – how many people that endorse said (bad) ideas is irrelevant.
“It would be an extremely arrogant prospect to think that you are personally wiser than 86% of the world’s current inhabitants, as well as the billions of people who lived before now, that all came to the conclusion that there is most certainly a God.”
Most thought the earth was flat, the earth was the centre of the universe and knew fuck all about germ theory. Why I’m not accepting their ‘wisdom’ shouldn’t be that hard to piece together. What is more troublesome and more pertinent to the discussion is the fact that *you* do and you seem to be proud of that fact. This is officially Scary-Unhinged-Stuff to those of us who inhabit rational land.
“You appear to identify with the 2.4% of Americans who don’t believe in a God, or the 14% of the world who don’t believe in a God, and that is your choice, but don’t for a second assume that because you personally do not or have not found the value that scriptures hold or found a relationship with God, that others are also unable to find those things.”
Less than two-shits, I say, is all I care about identifying with other people when it comes to living a world based on rationality and evidence rather than superstition and myth. Hey it’s great you have a relationship with your sky-daddy, I hope he tucks you in and changes your nappy at night and gets you warm fucking milk – but believing in bronze age mysticism in the 21st century is no badge of honour. It is about as noble as admitting that yes indeed, you have fart-beans for brains and any coherence you manage to display is just a sad accident.
Dude finally gets back to why autonomy and women shouldn’t mix. Thank you, kind readership, for not glazing over yet the sheer amount of religious-wordfap is positively stultifying.
“According to bodily autonomy, a mother could not be judged harshly for smoking, drinking, doing coke, and going skydiving (hopefully not all in the same day) while 6 months pregnant. If you really believe that a woman’s body is autonomous — that she has absolute jurisdiction over it — then you must defend a mother who does things that could seriously harm her unborn child, even if she hasn’t chosen to abort it.”
Why yes. That thing with breasts and arms and a brain and stuff is not just a walking womb. It is almost like she is human being deserving full human rights and autonomy. But we should get on with your important reasons on why women should be brood-slaves.
“Most pro-aborts will not (vocally) defend abortion at 8 or 9 months. But — if bodily autonomy is your claim — you must. Is a woman’s body less autonomous when she’s been pregnant for 35 weeks? There is no way around it: bodily autonomy means that it is moral to kill a fully formed baby, at seven months, or eight months, or nine months. You say that our bodies cannot be ‘used’ without our ‘consent.’ “
If you believe that women are people then yes, it is her choice whether to remain pregnant or not. You may begin to clutch your pearls now.
“Why should this apply only to pregnancy and organ donations? Children, at any age, create profound demands on their parents’ bodies. Whether it’s waking up in the middle of the night for the crying baby, working long hours to pay for their food and clothing, carrying them around when they cannot walk, staying home when you’d like to go out, going out (to bring them to the doctor, or school, or soccer practice) when you’d like to stay in, etc, etc, etc, and so forth. “
Hmmm…well this might be a complicated answer for you, but when the fetus is in the woman’s body it is her choice whether to keep it or not. Once born, the exclusive use of a mother’s body is over and thus other external actors can care for the child. So yah, I hope you’re not going the false equivalence on top of a false equivalency argument. Let me review your first fail and append the second that I just bet you’re going for – because this is a long article –
1. A fetus is not a child
2. Before birth and after birth are functionally different states.
“An argument for absolute bodily autonomy means that it can’t be illegal, or considered immoral, for a parent to decline to do any of these things, so long as their decision was made in the name of bodily autonomy.”
Game, set and Match?? Hmmm… Apparently you are that fucking dense. Way to try and compare apples to octopuses. Parental responsibilities to their children (because they are born now, separate entities) are not the same as a woman’s pregnancy. [meta thought: The fact that this needs to explained is troubling.] [meta-meta thought: Arguing with the religiously deluded is like trying get a close shave with a banana.]
“If I can ‘do what I want with my body,’ then it becomes very difficult to launch a salient moral or legal attack against a man who chooses to sit in a playground in front of children and pleasure his own body. I’m often accused of oversimplifying, but I’ve never oversimplified to the extent of you bodily autonomy proponents.”
This shit is rock-solid argumentative GOLD! If you ignore context. And reality. And the structure of good arguments…
“Once we’ve considered every complexity and nuance, we can rightly say that our bodies are autonomous in some ways, and in some circumstances, but not in others. We cannot say that they are absolutely autonomous, and I find it hard to believe that anyone truly thinks that.”
Because apparently fapping in public is the same issue as whether a woman is a incubator slave or not. OH religion! You are sooo silly when you try and talk all rational and stuff.
Here comes some amazing reasoning. Just let it wash over you, like toddler up-chuck.
“Any claim or responsibility placed on me, automatically includes a claim and responsibility on my body. Everything I do involves my body. I am my body. CS Lewis would say that I am my soul and I have a body. I agree with him, but for our purposes in this discussion, leaving souls and spirits aside, we are our bodies. Whether we are expected to pay taxes or drive the speed limit or provide a safe and sanitary home for our children, we are using our bodies to meet these expectations. We experience and participate in life with our bodies. Absolute bodily autonomy is inexorably linked with personal autonomy. If my body is autonomous, my person must be autonomous, and if my person is autonomous, then my very existence is autonomous, and if my very existence is autonomous, then it is simply unacceptable and (by your logic) immoral for anyone to expect me to do anything for anyone at any point for any reason.”
1.*Le Sigh* – CS Lewis.
2. Taxes and driving the speed limit – social constructs not autonomous obligations.
3. “ it is simply unacceptable and (by your logic) immoral for anyone to expect me to do anything for anyone at any point for any reason.” – Free will; what the fuck is it?!?!?
This argument seems a little to pat to be coming from your typical anti-choice zealot. The ‘gotcha’ at the end is, on the surface, compelling, but only if don’t worry about the little things – burden of proof, arguing charitably, et cetra.
“If you concede that we ought to be expected or even required to do certain things, then you are placing limits on our bodily autonomy. If you place limits on our bodily autonomy, then you are admitting that limits can be placed on our bodily autonomy. If you are admitting that limits can be placed on our bodily autonomy, then you must consider whether abortion falls within or outside of those limits. And here’s the rub: if you contend that abortion falls within the limits on bodily autonomy, you must justify that belief beyond simply reasserting our right to bodily autonomy.”
Wow. The knock down argument of the day….*sigh* This ‘argument’ was lifted from another anti-choice douche – Matt Walsh. Of course, it is bullshit and refuted in full here. I’ll reproduce the conclusion – meeting copypasta with copypasta. The next quote from the Daily Kos article:
“And again, Matt’s got his burden of proof all wrong. It’s not up to pro-choicers to prove that a woman should be able to decide when and if she will be pregnant. It’s up to pro-lifers to prove that she shouldn’t – because that’s their position. When people say that a person’s right to free speech should be curbed in relation to inciting mass panics, we can (and have) present(ed) good reasons as to why this is the case. When we say that a person’s right to bear arms can be curbed if that person is a violent felon, good reasons have been provided. When we tell Matt’s masturbating man to stay away from playgrounds, we have good reasons for limiting that use of bodily autonomy or expression. But Matt is alleging that a woman’s right to bodily autonomy should be limited inside of pregnancy; and every bit of evidence he provided for that is nonsense that crumbles under the slightest honest scrutiny.
I don’t have to prove that it’s wrong to limit my free speech; the person trying to do the limiting has to prove why it’s right. I don’t have to prove that it’s wrong to take away my ability to make my own medical decisions; the person trying to take that power from me has to prove that it’s right. I don’t have to prove that it’s wrong to incarcerate me; the person attempting to do so has to prove that it’s the right choice. And I don’t have to prove that it’s wrong to limit my choice to be pregnant or not; that falls to the person trying to do the limiting.
Though the burden of proof is on him, Matt didn’t prove his case.”
So, my religiously-deluded-christian-pro-patriarchy-hack, funtime is almost over. The christian fart-beans you shat out – cheekily masquarading as arguments – have been humanely put down and thus, the religious shit-show is concluding…
“I mean you no ill-will and I fully support your right to an opinion, I simply hope that my comments have shed some light on the weak foundation your current opinion stands. I wish you the best and hope you will come to see truth in its proper light.”
Umm…your comments had shed light on where your arguments are coming from: straight out of your ass.
bleatmop
Mystro
Dead Wild Roses 
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