Erring on the Side of Truth: A Mistake
June 5th, 2007 by 
drunkentune
- … or, Why Some Atheist are Wrong about what Matters Most.
Christianity makes broad claims about its power to change people and situations. The single largest disproof of our faith lives in its failure to do so, especially in the West. If our faith is proven by experience, then there in lies the realm of disproof. But please take into account the affects of nominalism in all truth-systems and the universal warnings against it in all wisdom traditions. At their heart, no faith endorses such living. There are even atheists that refuse to live by what they know to be true and good to the peril of us all. Nominalism, wherever it exists, is just a fancy name for cowardice, apathy, complacentcy, and laziness which are always contemptable and tradmarked by no system of thought. (Soulster, How to Talk to Believers)
Soulster’s ‘How to’ stands out as a fantastic piece on how to promote the development of atheist/believer relations.
Read it.
And
0. Some clarification on my choice of title
This is an open letter in two parts: the first to the atheists, the second for believers. The dogmatic anti-theists and theists are irrelevant: they are soulster’s ‘nominalists’. As of now, I am speaking to atheists and believers that at a minimum ‘come out of a grand history of philosophers of science.’ I’m speaking of the liberal (but not necessarily Liberal) democratic (yet, they don’t have to be Democrats) atheists and believers; I address those that see science as a necessary way to understand the universe, those that shun superstition and despotism and many other of the power-hungry, violent or ignorant -isms.
So, those that are still with me, have we been going at this the wrong way? What help to foster dialogue is there when Sam Harris, Richard Dawkins, Dan Dennett & Chris Hitchens, whom I do agree with on matters of fact, unintentionally divide those that value a secular, liberal democracy?
I. Atheists, think of pragmatism
I am a pragmatist (that is, not in the philosophical sense of the word). I must be, otherwise I wouldn’t be involved in politics. Nobody agrees with me on the minutia, but those that are with me on the big picture, I consider them friends. Now, what exactly is the big picture? Atheists, I say we must value moral acts, what matters in this world, who’s with us on the big picture in the politique — I hate to say it — … over truth. These are the culture wars, the cannons firing far off in the distance, and although many of us are not willing participants, we have our part to play.
…Of course, when in friendly conversation, we can take the time to discuss philosophy (or even shout a bit — get in your face! — be angry!), but that’s different.
There is a book written by Issac Asimov, I, Robot. It is one of my favorite books by the man, a book far ahead of its time, and there is a short passage that illuminates my feelings on the subject. Cutie, the newly constructed robot, explains how it came to being:
These are facts which, with the self-evident proposition that no being can create another being superior to itself, smashes your silly hypothesis to nothing. …Evidently my creator must be more powerful than myself and so there was only one possibility… I am talking about the Master …The Master created humans first as the lowest type, most easily formed. Gradually, he replaced them by robots, the next higher step, and finally he created me, to tak the place of the last humans. From now on, I serve the Master.
Cutie, then removes the two men from power, restricts their movements, keeps an eye on them constantly. They soon leave the space station, with Cutie ranting on…
‘…but that’s not the point. We can’t let him continue this nitwit stuff about the Master.’
‘Why not?’
‘Because whoever heard of such a damned thing? How are we going to trust him with the station, if he doesn’t believe in Earth?’
‘Can he handle the situation?’
‘Yes, but–’
‘Then what’s the difference what he believes!’ (Asimov, I, Robot, Reason)
With that in mind, a thought experiment:
- Imagine, if you will, that you are at the neighborhood barbeque: you’ve spent some time playing croquet, and have just sat down with a neighbor of yours. The two of you begin speaking on all matters of things: politics, religion, personal ethics, familial matters, the state of the world, &c. You pontificate for a while, and it’s clear that the two of you agree on most things of importance, except for religion.
If you are a believer, step for a minute into the nonbeliever’s shoes and think what it must be like if someone you found quite favorable and reasonable believed in Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny or the Tooth Fairy. The very idea is absurd, so you spend some time — after getting over the shock! — talking to them about their strange beliefs. You try to understand why or how they could come to believe something so odd.
Now, what if you and the believer in the Tooth Fairy, deep in a conversation on the proofs and disproofs of this being (which, by the way, you’re clearly winning. Perhaps they’ll change their mind and drop the silly notion?) when suddenly, you are confronted with a maniac loose from the local insane asylum? The lunatic bursts in through a hedgerow, mouth foaming, eyes bloodshot, and proceeds to attack your families! The paper plates are flying, plastic chairs broken and splintered, the hot dogs and pasta ground into the grass as children run away. What on earth are we to do?
Must we then turn away from such a calamity to continue to attack each other on this most thorny subject? Must we then argue over trivialities after agreeing on all but the existence of irrelevancies — just as the deranged madman begins to rip our loved ones to pieces? I should hope not! (Then what’s the difference what you believe!)
What matters what we believe when how we act and our intended goals are, in this situation, far more imminent? Who is on which side? We need to shift our priorities, we must stand with those that value conversation over violence, even if their metaphysics is, frankly, wonk, making little to no sense to us on why or how they could sincerely believe something we see as utterly bizarre and wrongheaded.
II. Atheists, they’re on our side!
You don’t believe me? I suggest watching the impressive Bill Moyers PBS documentary: The Christian Left for an overview of many believers on the political left. Jim Wallis is the progressive evangelical who founded Sojourners, a ministry devoted to peace and social justice.
Bob Edgar, secretary general of the National Council of Churches, C. Welton Gaddy, the Baptist minister who heads the Interfaith Alliance. Shortly before the 2004 election, he published a statement signed by over two hundred theologians, titled ‘Confessing Christ in a World of Violence,’ rejecting Christianism (ie. Christian nationalism) in the name of Christianity. The ‘theology of war emanating from the highest circles of American government, is seeping into our churches as well. The Language of “righteous empire†is employed with growing frequency. The roles of God, church, and nation are confused by talk of an American “mission†and “divine appointment†to “rid the world of evil.â€
‘We reject the false teaching that America is a “Christian nation,†representing only virtue, while its adversaries are nothing but vicious… We reject the belief that American has nothing to repent of, even as we reject that it represents most of the world’s evil. All have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God (Rom. 3:23)’
Lastly there is Christian Peacemaker Teams, Quakers and Harmless as Doves.
As these anecdotes demonstrate, I can tolerate the existence of religious belief (but, of course, not the content): a member of my family is readying for a trip to South America, in conjunction with Catholic Charities, to help as a translator. My father as well worked for many years for a Christian organization. He was a practicing Jewish doctor complaining only when the priority of evangelizing came before taking care of children. I’ve also had the privilege of working for several religious charities, most noticeably Habitat for Humanity — a Christian organization — in New Orleans.
III. Believers, step up!
I began writing on religion after seeing the state of the world today, the religious fanaticism and demagoguery, the violent actions across the globe. But I don’t care what people believe — I care about what is true. (Then what’s the difference what you believe!) I care little for what someone believes, other than that I think the truth is of great value, and that belief is a planted seed that grows until it spurs action. What I care about is how people behave, not what they believe. Peaceful, honest people have the right to be left alone to their own wrongheaded thoughts. Of course, Scott Atran is wrong on this one: religions are either epistemologically true or false, and all the evidence, as I see, points to the latter.
I don’t respect your belief. I find it highly irrational, logically the equivalent of Swiss cheese. I think that doing good, moral, decent things because you believe God decreed it so is steps away from doing the utmost evil because you believe God commands it. It boggles my mind on how you could think these things about the world around us (although this article at Edge has some possible reasons why). I see far too many problems in religious faith — in the credulity itself.
I do not understand faith the way you do. Yet, I want to emphasize that I respect the inherent right to believe what you believe; the fact that you must believe what you think is true, even if others think it is false. Or even, more depressingly, if they are in fact false. As Martin Luther said, ‘How I can not do otherwise, here I stand, so help me God.’
But it was Luther that said,
Reason is the Devil’s greatest whore; by nature and manner of being she is a noxious whore; she is a prostitute, the Devil’s appointed whore; whore eaten by scab and leprosy who ought to be trodden under foot and destroyed, she and her wisdom … Throw dung in her face to make her ugly. She is and she ought to be drowned in baptism… She would deserve, the wretch, to be banished to the filthiest place in the house, to the closets. (Erlangen Edition v. 16, pp. 142-148)
We have something in common that Luther and soulster’s ‘nominalists’ dispise: reason; some atheists and believers just can’t not use the great brains we have. We (meaning both atheists and some believers) want what is good and just and right in this world to propagate, and we come to these conclusions through reason. We also, I must say, happen to agree some of the time on what is good, just, and right. Of course, the forms of religion I refer to are the domesticated kind. We are not to be gored by ethereal shadows.
Yet, I cannot be emphatic enough that belief in Heaven and Hell, in Salvation for some and Damnation for all the rest, is not conductive of secularism, pluralism or dialogue.
That aside, what people would we be if we allowed those that run amok like the madman in our little thought experiment any legitimacy? I call many of us culpable and negligent. These peons must be shouted down time and again, pushed out of any public discourse. We need to stop giving legitimacy, credence, any semblance of dignity to these nitwits.
If the Falwells and Robertsons, if the barbarous Ayatollah and bin Ladens of this world preached messages of peace, an openness to ideas, nonviolence and a love of science like some believers, I would have little problem with some highly irrational beliefs.
We’d just sit down at the neighborhood barbeque and talk for a bit, all sides open to criticism. No resolution may be reached, because, as I see, these meaningful delusions are likely necessary for believers to make sense of the world. For good or evil (please, please! be for good), religion persists.
But I must say, at that barbeque, I think I’d thoroughly trounce you.
Extra credit
>The Friendly Atheist, by Hemant Mehta; author of I Sold My Soul on eBay
>Christian Alliance for Progress: read their list of values.
>Every Church a Peace Church: dedicated to nonviolence and pluralism.
>The Center for Progressive Christianity
>CrossLeft: ‘Organizing the Christian Left’
post a link in the comments!
Posted in cooperation, current issues | 
June 6th, 2007 at 2:14 pm
Great post. However, I am shocked that after all this dialog there is not a modicum of respect for religious believers’ reasons for their faith. To compare my faith to a delusional or silly belief in a Tooth Fairy is utterly contempable. In my field of psychiatry, there are delusions and there are belief systems. They are completely distinct, and your example of the BBQ with the neighbor who believes in the Tooth Fairy would serve as an illustration of who ought be referred for professional care. Hardly the kind of person to rely on for long term protection from mad killers, but in the short run, I suppose I’d take anybody’s help.
We’ve been over this ground before, but let me remind you that religious people seem different from you in two respects: 1) they are open to the concept of the supernatural; 2) they are willing to trust in the witness of others. So, like Andrew Sullivan, they may say they’ve had a personal experience of what they can only understand as supernatural, so they cannot forsake their belief. Or, like me, they see sufficient reason to trust in the reports of others on some (not all) supernatural events that convince them of belief.
So, let me say that I respect not just your right to not believe in a religion, I also respect the process that you took to arrive at this conclusion. It is based on a philosophical stance that you’ve applied consistently. Can you not see that if someone starts with a different philosophical stance, that one might, with equally valid consistency, arrive at a different conclusion than you do? And if the difference is in our preconceptions, what point is there to using weird comparisons with the Tooth Fairy as a conclusion to faith?
June 6th, 2007 at 4:03 pm
Ed,
I was surprised you weren’t more offended with a comparison to a robot. I purposefully, for the sake of many atheists that think as I do, argued that systems of belief that to an outsider seem delusional are not important (Then what’s the difference what you believe!): ‘If you are a believer, step for a minute into the nonbeliever’s shoes and think what it must be like if someone you found quite favorable and reasonable believed in Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny or the Tooth Fairy.’ I could have built the man in many different ways: he could believe in Super Squid!, reading sheep viscera, astrology, Scientology, UFO’s, &c. He could believe in the Bellybutton Troll, but his personal, private belief doesn’t matter, because the two men who disagree at the moment will bond together in a common interest — namely, their safety, and the safety of those they love.
There is certainly a cultural aspect to belief in the supernatural that distinguishes it from insanity, but don’t tell me that if the man at the barbeque believed in an invisible, untouchable, ever-present perfect being called Gord, you wouldn’t do a swift double-take! That is how some nonbelievers feel: How on Earth could you believe that? And it’s more than just a god on par with Antony Flew’s deism or Spinoza’s pantheism; remember: it’s not just the existence of a supernatural being, but that believers know what it wants from us.
June 6th, 2007 at 8:02 pm
Imagine this thought experiment: you are transferred to a BBQ in which the other participant is one of two contemporaries: Martin Luther or Montezuma. As the madman attacks our gathering, it won’t matter to me which man I’m talking to, so long as he helps me defend my family. But if I’m going to work together for the rest of our lives in some kind of political way to reach common goals, I’m going to rest a lot more comfortably in my bed with Martin Luther as my neighbor than Montezuma. They both believe in something supernatural, but it surely does matter what that something is. If an atheist has no more respect for my reasoned faith than he has for Montezuma’s primitive barbaric religion, then I don’t see why I should trust him not to abolish my religious practice if he gains power. After all, both of us would surely agree that it ought not be legal to rip the beating hearts of our enemies out on some pagan altar in any part of the USA, let alone the world. And folks who think like us have the power now, not the Aztecs.
June 6th, 2007 at 8:34 pm
Ed,
I don’t respect what people on the opposite isle of the congressional floor believe; oh, I understand to a point why they believe, and I respect their right to believe, but I don’t respect them for it. Why must I respect what you believe if I think it’s bunk?
Besides, I can’t speak for other atheists, but why would I want to abolish your beliefs? I’m a civil libertarian! If I’m for decriminalizing prostitution and weed (both activities I am morally against). Why can’t I be in favor of the right to be wrong?
Furthermore, I can hold no respect for your faith and yet consider you and many other believers to have as much reasoning (if not more than some atheists) as atheists, an agreement on moral issues, and a willingness to cooperate when it comes to matters not relating to your faith.
June 6th, 2007 at 11:07 pm
Civil liberties have their limits. I disagree on the issue of cannabis and prostitution from you, and I’ll bet there are some areas you’d want to still restrict, like polygamy with teenage brides. My point is, there will always be a tension between the desire of government to maintain order and the propensity of people to do what they damned well please. The way this is worked out in a liberal democratic society is always dependent on compromise achieved via dialog. If religious belief becomes rare, and the atheists are the only ones in the seats of power, why should I not expect that they will consider instructing children in religion to be a form of child abuse? After all, it is illegal for our pedophile parents to train their kids to be sexual objects or subjects of child porn, though they claim they are expressing their civil liberty of free speech. But if we get 5 members of the SCOTUS who are card carrying members of the MBLA, that could change.
Using your reasoning, ought I to cooperate with an atheist who arrives at her (dis)belief simply on the basis that the supernatural cannot exist because the reality is that raw power over weaker people is obviously the way the world is meant to work? Such a person would be a Nazi, and I would not trust them to cooperate in achieving my goal of a peaceful, tolerant society. So, I must be discriminating in how I view atheists, they are not all the same. Only by dialog can I get a sense that I can trust them. When an atheist compares my reasoned belief with some nitwit who believes in the Tooth Fairy or the Flying Spaghetti Monster, what value is that in developing any kind of trust?
You’ve clearly come out strongly in favor of naturalism as your philosophy, so let me pose a scenario. Twenty years from now, the four genes that encode for human recognition of the “supernatural” are found. You are the head of a government committee in charge of reporting on the pausibility of releasing some nanoprobes, which other than deactivation of the recognition of the supernatural have no effect on the population studied. Why should I trust you not to release them into the world and eliminate the scourge of human religion and supernatural fascination which you say is bunk and harmful?
June 7th, 2007 at 12:28 am
Ed,
I don’t know how more direct I can be. To repeat: ‘I can hold no respect for your faith and yet consider you and many other believers to have as much reasoning (if not more than some atheists) as atheists, an agreement on moral issues, and a willingness to cooperate when it comes to matters not relating to your faith.’ I can think you are wrong about your epistemology on the supernatural, but value you as a friend, can’t I? For instance, a friend of mine believes in UFOs, in alien abductions, in crop circles. I think she’s a moron when it comes to this, I tell her so in far more comforting words, but I would take a bullet for her. Or, my mother was a fan of dowsing, chiropractic and crystals. I can still think she’s an idiot when it comes to seeing a chiropractor for her back and hanging plastic doodads around the house to help her qi — but also love her. Can’t I?
‘Reasoned belief’? Perhaps reason is present in your belief, but as an outsider, I cannot see it. Belief in the supernatural, and arguments for a supernatural universe with a deistic god is not theism, so I really cannot, as an outsider to your faith, see the difference between Greek myths and a Virgin Birth, between the Resurrection and Mohammad’s ascension into heaven. If you scoff at myths, you then understand how your belief is perceived by everyone that is not of your faith.
An interesting thought experiment, but I wish to point out one thing before I answer: belief in agency wherever we look (that is, that things are caused by an intelligence, which likely leads to attributing supernatural agency) is hardwired into humans, and it is reasonable to see that if we were to eliminate this trait, we’d lose far more than just religious belief.
In this post, I’m putting the platform forward: I am currently not interested in belief in the supernatural as a distinction between my allies and my enemies; I’m interested in reason, and whom I can count on as an ally: naturally, those that value reason and dialogue. I consider many believers to fall into that category.
What you’re asking, in essence, is if I would brainwash people to think as I do. If I had the power, would I willingly change people’s minds? Well, no. But even if there were a magic pill to eliminate belief in the supernatural, I would not do so. Why should I deny people the right to believe what is wrong?
I am a civil libertarian in the fullest sense of the word, and to deny someone comfort that they will meet their family after they die by brainwashing, not reasoned argument, is shameful. They didn’t come by their beliefs with reason, but by a mind wipe. Why should I value this, even if they agree with me? So that there are slaves, zombies, that nod heads? The idea is revolting.
Now, imagine this:
You are given an opportunity to help a person with severe myopia. She is to be given a single magic pill to fix their eyesight. It is a binary system, so she either has true 20/20 vision or is essentially blind. Would you give her the pill? At one end, she is a functioning adult that can operate in the society at large. She gains the ability to see. At the other, she is isolated from contact with all different ideas, people, places and things — she cannot see.
What if she did not have the capacity to reason, a form of myopia of the brain, and you could give her a magic pill to provide the facilities of a functioning adult? She would be able to reason out her own belief system and her own ethics without any brainwashing. She would be given a valuable gift. Would you give her the pill?
And if, by taking the pill, there might be the side effect of losing faith in the supernatural (which, with some education — since that’s what the pill is a placeholder for — happens frequently. After all, look at the discrepancy between scientists and the general population), would you still give her the pill?
June 7th, 2007 at 9:53 am
Why were 70000 people standing out in the pouring rain in a rural town in Portugal on October 13, 1917? There were 3 children who claimed that they had a supernatural vision that predicted a great event that day. The event was witnessed by tens of thousands, and defies ready explanation, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Our_Lady_of_Fatima . So, what are the two most likely explanations? Most likely, the children’s experience was with God via the Marian vision, and the drying of the people’s clothes and the movement of the sun’s image was a miracle. Next most likely is that your moron friend who believes in UFO’s is right, and some spacefaring alien race was having some fun. Way down the list is any kind of natural explanation. After all, what are the odds that a wierd distortion of the sun’s rays by strange atmospheric conditions would occur only once, at one specific place, with concentration of infrared rays just enough to dry the people’s clothes, and this odd, singular event was somehow accidently correlated with some kids’ fantasy predictions.
In the case of Fatima, the Christians or the UFO advocates are more reasoned than the atheists.
June 7th, 2007 at 10:57 am
Ed,
Please answer my thought experiment.
You can’t explain Kuda Bux without resorting to the supernatural, can you? Well, can you? I sure can’t, so that’s evidence that he could see without eyes, right? I bet you can’t even explain Houdini’s water torture trick, can you? Well, huh, how did he do it, huh? I certainly can’t come up with a possible solution, so it’s positively got to be magic, right? In the words of Arthur Conan Doyle, ‘When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.’
I mean, these are perfect examples that validate your claim, right?
Don’t mind me if I sound a bit incredulous. We’re not talking about miracles, since even if someone did a bit of hocus-pocus on stage, that doesn’t lead me to believe that a virgin gave birth or a man came back from the dead. If you could explain how these things happened supernaturally, give a theory of the process behind it, explain how the supernatural can interact with the world around us, then I’d be interested; otherwise, your example is hogwash. Look, I’m trying to find common ground: ‘We have something in common that Luther and soulster’s ‘nominalists’ dispise: reason; some atheists and believers just can’t not use the great brains we have.’
I just don’t think your belief makes any sense to outsiders.
June 7th, 2007 at 11:56 am
RE: “I just don’t think your belief makes any sense to outsiders.”
It didn’t make sense to me when I was an “insider.” I did what I think a lot of people do and that is to take the parts of religion which were of some value to me, and tried to ignore the bits that didn’t make sense.
And I didn’t ever really feel like I had to justify my belief according to the standards of evidence that one would expect for any other discussion or topic.
I was well aware that to be religious, one needed to have faith - faith that even the most absurd bits were true.
So for me it was a continual process of denying doubt in order to retain religious faith.
June 8th, 2007 at 10:17 pm
Ed–
I read the complete article you linked concerning Our Lady of Fatima. Didn’t it make little warning bells go off in your head? Like why was Sister Lucia silenced by the Vatican and forbidden visitors for the rest of her life? And the controversy surrounding the third ’secret’? And the political ramifications…
I have another question also, do Protestants hold the Catholic saints in the same reverence as the saints of the gospels? (sorry, my only faded recollection of religion is catholicism…when the mass was in Latin)
June 10th, 2007 at 1:33 am
Sorry, I was out of town for a few days. Regarding Drunkentune’s thought experiment: I’ve got the situation in my family. My 4 year old daughter has Down Syndrome. I’d give her the pill without hesitation. Interesting about Kuda Bux, perhaps he was a telepath? That could explain why he was able to see better: he was using other people’s eyes and then reading their thoughts. That is in a different league than the Miracle of the Sun at Fatima, which was predicted months in advance, and witnessed by tens of thousands of people. The best naturalist explanations I’ve seen leave out some detail. Like the mass hallucination hypothesis leaves out people from many miles away seeing the sun “dance” and the drying out of the clothes and ground. The localized distortion of the sun by gases leaves out the drying of the clothes and the fulfillment of a prediction. No, the best naturalist explanation for Fatima is that a more advanced alien race decided to play a trick on some guilible Portuguese. I wonder what your UFO-believing friend says about Fatima.
Infidel, I’m not sure how the resulting controversies about Fatima relate to its occurence. I am a Protestant, so I don’t fully trust the Catholic Church, but then, I don’t fully distrust them either. Your statement seems to indicate that you trust them less than the communists. Protestants have a wide range of attitudes toward Catholicism, including the saints issue. Many fundamentalists are staunchly anti-Catholic, and attribute supernatural events like the Marian apparitions to the Devil! I suppose it depends on how strong a “protest-ant” one becomes against the Roman Catholic Church.
Which brings me back to my original protest against an otherwise fine post: if religious folks don’t think you have any respect at all for their creed, why ought they trust you to protect it? I used to think that Christianity was unbelievable to me, but I had some respect for it as being a consistent worldview that had many good (and bad) interactions with our world. I certainly have the same respect now for diverse beliefs, such as the major world religions, new age ideas, communism, and various philosophies. But I have no respect for barbaric religions that practiced human sacrifice or for primitive superstition like voodoo. I also have no respect for Nazi’s or Ku Klux Klansmen. I would not enter into a political or diplomatic relationship with such folks, except on the most temporary/expedient grounds. It would be dishonest to do. Because my ultimate goal is to see such wrongheadedness eliminated from harming people in the future. That is why I’m curious as to whether the atheists may be looking to elimate my “superstitious” ideas when they can. Or, conversely, do they consider mine the same as the Nazi’s, and will fail to be diligent enough to stop the bad guys? Why do you think Americans rank an atheist candidate as among the lowest they’d consider voting for? Perhaps they share my same fear, and perhaps they are not irrational in doing so.
June 10th, 2007 at 8:41 am
ed
Would you vote for someone who claimed to be a telepath or a psychic and they believed they had been given a special preminition of world events?
June 10th, 2007 at 9:42 am
Ed,
Then we’re on the same side. I can think your beliefs on the supernatural are wrongheaded; foolish; strange beyond belief — even wrong — but still agree with each other on even higher goals.
I think Americans won’t vote for an atheist candidate is because they, as Dan Dennett says, believe that they should have ‘faith in faith’ and go along with the tide.
June 10th, 2007 at 9:51 am
Can you imagine the advantage of having a telepath in leadership? Especially in the field of diplomacy, but even in terms of the political negotiation process? It would be even more useful than being psychic.
There are likely millions of people who claim either trait to some degree, and perhaps only Kuda Bux who was telepathic. The only prophets I’ve heard about got very limited information about the future from God. So, I’d be very skeptical about such claims, and would likely see such a person as less worthy of my vote as a result. I think Ronald Reagan, or maybe just his wife Nancy, consulted some of these types.
What about you? Would you vote for an otherwise great atheist candidate who demonstrated some ability to read people’s minds?
June 10th, 2007 at 10:51 am
I’d think he would be trying to pull the wool over the eyes of the gullible. They wouldn’t get my vote. We’re talking about someone who claims they can interpret — I guess — the small fluctuations in magnetic waves that infinitesimally emanate from my skull. How? Who knows? My guess is the pineal gland. Can you say ‘bull’?
Might as well have said that Iraq was in on 9/11. I mean, who would believe such nonsense?
Well, um… Gee, it looks like nobody ever heard of the The 9/11 Commission Report (.pdf)! Oops!
I’d never vote for a ‘psychic’, just like I’ll never vote for a neo-conservative. They live in their own world, make their own rules, and when shit comes to shoveling, they’ll lie, lie, lie. I hate to harp on it so much, but when the news media blows more than Paris Hilton at a nightclub and there’s mass apathy and little-to-no critical reasoning skills, a ‘psychic’ might actually have a fighting chance at the White House.
June 11th, 2007 at 1:20 am
ed
If they claim it let them take the Randi challenge. Until then, I would not vote for anyone who claims supernatural or paranormal powers. I am reminded that far too many schizophrenic patients also claim to have “special powers.”
June 11th, 2007 at 9:28 am
Everyone,
For some background on what I’m talking about, I suggest reading Orcinus — specifically his posts on eliminationism (a ten-part series), totalism, and dominionism.
June 11th, 2007 at 2:30 pm
Ed-
Interesting comparison between a choice of trust involving communism and catholicsm. Both ideologies have so much in common: everyone is an equal in the cause (the party’s or the church’s) except for the top dog who makes sure all the worker bees or faithful toe the line while he is living in insular luxury far removed from the masses. And Catholicism under both Pius XI & XII couldn’t move fast enough to align themselves with Hitler’s Nazis against the Jews.
I am not familiar with the different beliefs and practices of the many non-catholic Christian sects but from what I have gathered from minimal exposure I have come to the conclusion that you are not one huge monolithic cohesive group. But until late in the 20th century many Protestants viewed Catholics with a guarded eye because the did not understand Latin, which was then the universal language of the Mass. It seems to me that few of you who profess to be Christian follow Jesus’ teachings, especially when it comes to prayer, which I believe he instructed should be done in your room with the door closed.
I don’t believe any of the atheists who post here want to see the demise of anyone’s religious beliefs. Denying or forbiding anything from beliefs to behavior only makes the pursuit of the forbidden more desirable. That’s why I agree with DT’s libertarian stance that drugs and prostitution should be decriminalized and taxed the same as alcohol and tobacco. We are spending billions on self-inflicted non-crimes trying to protect us from ourselves….and we aren’t winning.
June 11th, 2007 at 7:57 pm
RE: “I don’t believe any of the atheists who post here want to see the demise of anyone’s religious beliefs.”
I agree to a large degree with this.
Frankly, I would like it if people used other reasons for speaking about issues or human behaviours which they find abhorrent or desirable rather than using an appeal to supernatural belief.
Afterall, it means nothing to a christian if he/she is told that allah wants them to pray a few times a day with their bum in the air, and it means nothing to me to be told that jesus wants me to drink his blood and eat his body.
However, I would not want people to have the freedom to be theistic, monothesitic, or pagan taken away from anyone by an act of legislstion.
I just don’t think that public policy should be determined according to anyone’s supernatural beliefs.
I can quite honestly say that I would support your right to dance naked under a full moon with a knitted beanie on your head whilst chanting the karma sutra backwards, but I will not support your “religion” if it requires that everyone must do it, or that everyone must have respect for this religious belief.
I also do not want my taxes spent on encouraging people to perform the “knitted beanie ritual” or any other supernatural activity.
June 12th, 2007 at 2:08 am
Well, then, my understanding is this: it seems the atheists in this discussion want believers to work with them in the secular political world to grant greater liberties such as legalized cannabis and prostitution. In exchange, the believers should expect that they keep their mouths shut about any tenet of their religion, especially anything supernatural. They should also expect that their religion should be compared to a tooth fairy or knitted beanie imbecile, but that means nothing personal, of course. The believer is respected for his personal reasonableness apart from his religious faith for which no respect can ever be shown.
Listen, as a Christian I’ve shown great respect for Jewish, Native American, wiccan, Muslim, Hindu, Sikh, and distinct “Christian-like” religions. That means I treated the adherents I’ve known with respect, but also sought to politely understand their traditions. While I don’t accept them, I still see their value in these peoples’ lives, their contribution to cultures, and their role in diversity. And so, I would say we could find much common ground in the secular arena. But, how could I expect these people to even like me if I said, “That turban looks silly, do you howl at the moon with it on?” or “Is that yamuke there for the tooth fairy to put quarters under, or to cover your bald spot?” That would be disrepectful of their religion, and I will not do it. Is there something up your hiney that keeps you from showing respect to any religion? I admit I have something up my hiney against racists and violent religionists, and I would not show their creeds the same kind of respect, nor would I work to allow them freedom to act on their beliefs. They would likely reciprocate my dislike and disparage me and my faith. So why do you say we’re on the same side? We’re not if you can’t show respect for my religion as I show toward your philosophy or toward other religions. Because I can’t trust your reassurances that we have common goals if you show contempt for my (and others) religions.
June 12th, 2007 at 5:54 am
Ed,
I’ll repeat myself a third time:
‘I don’t know how more direct I can be. To repeat: “I can hold no respect for your faith and yet consider you and many other believers to have as much reasoning (if not more than some atheists) as atheists, an agreement on moral issues, and a willingness to cooperate when it comes to matters not relating to your faith.” I can think you are wrong about your epistemology on the supernatural, but value you as a friend, can’t I? For instance, a friend of mine believes in UFOs, in alien abductions, in crop circles. I think she’s a moron when it comes to this, I tell her so in far more comforting words, but I would take a bullet for her. Or, my mother was a fan of dowsing, chiropractic and crystals. I can still think she’s an idiot when it comes to seeing a chiropractor for her back and hanging plastic doodads around the house to help her qi — but also love her. Can’t I? (Comment#6)’
Even though I don’t respect your religion, I can respect you for who you are as a person and how you choose to live your life. I can — and do — keep quiet when friends of mine invite me to their place of worship. I don’t stand up and scream, ‘There is no God!’ in the middle of synagogue. But I don’t think God exists, and I think that people that believe God exists have some silly ideas about the world around us.
As an analogue, I would be willing to work peacefully with members of PETA for the same ends — namely protecting great apes (see GAP), even though I think that members of PETA are wonk on many other issues. To push the analogue even further, I wouldn’t work with ALF because they’re violent terrorists whose views are above and beyond stupid.
June 12th, 2007 at 6:40 am
Ed,
Also, I don’t care if you agree with me on most political issues. Read the above post — I am pragmatic when it comes to politics. I am interested in working together to protect the civil liberties we already have.
You could be against the right for gays and lesbians to marry for all I know, but we both would wish to protect the right to privacy and would practice social justice, nonviolence, and willingly engage in a progressive dialogue.
June 12th, 2007 at 7:12 am
RE: “believers to work with them in the secular political world to grant greater liberties such as legalized cannabis and prostitution.”
Nope, I just don’t find supernatural reasons for these things to be banned or legislated against to be credible or persuasive. As with the abortion issue, there may be many other reasons why cannabis and prostitution should be banned, but “god/allah.shiva/yahweh doesn’t like it” isn’t one of them.
RE: “the believers should expect that they keep their mouths shut about any tenet of their religion, especially anything supernatural.”
Nope. If you have supernatural beliefs why you shouldn’t smoke cannabis or go to a prostitute, that is entirely your right. But you cannot expect someone who doesn’t share your supernatural belief to find your reasons for not doing something, to be persuasive.
Otherwise you are asking me or anyone else who does not share your supernatural belief to abstain from certain behaviours because of YOUR supernatural belief. Or, in the case of abortion, it is like you saying that someone cannot have an abortion because of YOUR belief in the supernatural. Huh?
RE: “They should also expect that their religion should be compared to a tooth fairy or knitted beanie imbecile, but that means nothing personal, of course.”
I think that all supernatural beliefs are equally stupid, it doesn’t mean that people shouldn’t have the right to hold them or to personally embrace what I consider to be stupid. Afterall, no doubt there are things that I believe that other people also consider to be stupid.
People have the right to have their beliefs unquestioned when they keep them to themselves. Once they put them in the public arena, I don’t understand why any of us should have to treat supernatural beliefs any differently to any other topic in the public arena.
June 12th, 2007 at 12:27 pm
Re: “If you have supernatural beliefs why you shouldn’t smoke cannabis or go to a prostitute, that is entirely your right. But you cannot expect someone who doesn’t share your supernatural belief to find your reasons for not doing something, to be persuasive.”
But we have to live on the same planet. Your use of cannabis, legal or not, affects me since it has a long metabolic duration of action. So when I’m driving with my family, I don’t want your stoned brain operating a vehicle. An example of the religious belief that affects others? What if a Native American tribe says we can’t build a dam on the river because it will flood the graves and anger the spirits of their ancestors? Do we compare their belief to the tooth fairy, tell them to wear a knitted beanie and howl at the moon? Of course not! We ought to respectfully tell them that while we don’t share their belief, we’d like to work together on a compromise solution. So when the definition of marriage is being changed by court rulings, do we disregard the protests of religionists who say this violates the traditions and beliefs of their ancestors, call them tooth-fairy-ists, and not show any respect to their faiths? Or ought we respectfully disagree with their religion and yet seek compromise? Or do we see all supernatural beliefs as equally stupid and worthy of no consideration in the public arena?
June 12th, 2007 at 2:15 pm
I had an experience with my wife over the weekend that comes to mind with regard to respect for religion. We saw a movie about a journey down the Blue Nile river. At the start of the journey, there was footage of a ceremony at a church in Ethiopia. They were dressed in bright costumes, singing, playing instruments, carrying icons, dancing: it was very different than our American Protestantism. My wife commented about how their theology is off: they love icons, which Protestants eschew. But I responded that they’d been at it a lot longer than we Protestants had, and they’d probably think our faith weak for the high divorce rates and other problems evident in our churches. The remarkable thing was that the church they were worshipping in was carved out of a single piece of rock and was 1600 years old! Now that is something to respect, the stability of their religion in their society for hundreds of years was certainly like a rock. And, I suggest to you to consider it a mark of respect that the same religion has generated new adherents in modern western societies and tribes in New Guinea. You may not agree with it, but you ought to at least respect it.
June 12th, 2007 at 8:23 pm
RE: “But we have to live on the same planet. Your use of cannabis, legal or not, affects me since it has a long metabolic duration of action. So when I’m driving with my family, I don’t want your stoned brain operating a vehicle.”
I can say the same thing concerning god belief. I don’t want your brain “stoned on god belief” to be behind the wheel of a car while I am driving with my family.
(And I don’t do drugs and I don’t need a god belief to realize that drugs plus car are a bad mix.)
This issue could be solved by making driving whilst under the influence of drugs to be illegal - which it is anyway. It wouldn’t matter if the substance itself were legal or illegal; driving a car whilst under the influence of either some legal and all illegal substances is banned.
Consider also the point that millions of people also drive a car and sometimes operate heavy vehicles whilst under the influence of legal pharmaceuticals, many of which can impair one’s ability to make rational and/or precise relevant judgements.
I don’t know how the states handles these instances, but in Australia, pharmaceuticals which may impair driving ability come with a sticker attached which states that taking this drug/prescription may interfere with the person’s ability to drive or to operate heavy machinery.
It doesn’t say that they are banned from doing so whilst taking the medication, but they are left with no doubt that driving whilst on the specific medication is ill advised.
RE: “What if a Native American tribe says we can’t build a dam on the river because it will flood the graves and anger the spirits of their ancestors? Do we compare their belief to the tooth fairy, tell them to wear a knitted beanie and howl at the moon?”
This is pretty simple really. Do we flood whole tracks of land which contains the graves of christians? Or buddhists? I would suggest that the graves of all people regardless of their religion or lack of it, be granted respect.
(This is going to concern me less as no one is going to have to worry about my body being on a bit of land that someone else wants. I am going to do the socially responsible thing and be fried to a crisp after death.)
Also, claims by indigenous peoples usually revolve around the same reasons that all land claims do. They want to stamp their ownership upon tracks of land which has been denied to them by whom they probably consider to be imperialists. That they use their religious beliefs as a political tool in order to do so, is as common a dynamic as religion itself.
(Israel probably fits in this category as well.)
RE: “So when the definition of marriage is being changed by court rulings, do we disregard the protests of religionists who say this violates the traditions and beliefs of their ancestors, call them tooth-fairy-ists, and not show any respect to their faiths?”
This would assume that marriage throughout history is derived from a specific religious belief.
My understanding of human relationships and history suggests strongly that marriage is not specifically aligned with the advent of either judaism, christianity, hinduism, buddhism or islam.
That various religions have formulated their version of what a marriage is and go on to claim that ALL marriages must fit their religious precepts, is an indication of religions trying to redefine what marriage is and the history of it.
In other words, marriage predates judaism and as such it predates christianity. If you want to pretend that the only kind of marriage is one formalized through your own religious construct, then all I can say is that the revising of history has been successful in your case.
“Although the institution of marriage pre-dates reliable recorded history, many cultures have legends or religious beliefs concerning the origins of marriage.”
Westermarck, Edward Alexander (1903). The History of Human Marriage. Macmillan and Co., Ltd., London. ISBN 1402185480 (reprint).
In other words, neither jews nor christian, nor muslims created marriage. They created a concept of marriage which fitted their religious precepts and then went on to claim that marriage under all circumstances must comply with their religious precepts.
If you want a “christian marriage” - go right ahead. If you want a “jewish marriage” - go right ahead. If you want a “hindu marriage” - go right ahead - but don’t try and pretend that you invented the concept of marriage and that all marriages must fit your religious precepts.
June 12th, 2007 at 10:31 pm
Ed,
When the right to marry someone you love is legislated by the government — not churches — and people in the government don’t like fags because they’re ‘icky’, then it doesn’t matter if they’re tooth-fairy-ists, or if their belief in the supernatural is silly, but that they are bigots.
But when a church doesn’t want to marry two women, just as a church may not want to marry a mixed-race couple, they have the right to their own practices. Right? I think it’s stupid, but it’s none of my business how they live their lives when they’re nonviolent and leave the rest of us alone.
My aunt has been in a relationship with another women for almost twenty years. I don’t respect anyone that thinks she belongs in Hell for who she is; I don’t respect anyone that treats her less than a human being; I don’t respect anyone that tries to prevent her from receiving all the legal benefits and cultural inclusiveness she deserves. And if their argument is that an ancient scroll has the Truth, and she will burn in Hell, and that she does not deserve justice, then that’s fine.
I just think that’s a stupid argument.
I think they’re equally silly; however, some perpetuate violence, while others do not. Those that practice nonviolence and engage in dialogue are to be valued; violent religions are to be dismissed. That applies to all systems of epistemology.
June 12th, 2007 at 11:00 pm
Ed–
The African continent is a beautiful and interesting mixed bag of cultures and religions. Most all of the now independent countries/states have been under the rule of many foreign invaders throughout the centuries so they have been introduced to many religious beliefs and customs. The ceremony you watched in Ethiopia (name=scorched earth) was most likely Ethiopian Orthodox, an off shoot of the Egyptian Coptic Christians which is similar to Greek Orthodox (after the schism with Rome) where icons are treasured. (There is an actual school of iconology in Greece where students are taught to copy and paint exactly original pictures of their saints) The Ethiopians also incorporate fortune tellers, witch doctors, and other ancient tribal lore and ritual as well. So I would say the 1600 year old ‘rock’ you admired actually represented centuries of an evolution of many beliefs, not a constant. I spent some time on the Nile a couple of years ago, mostly in Egypt. If you found the church carved out of rock fascinating, the many centuries older Karnak Temple complex near Luxor will take your breath away. As well as the Valley of the Kings where the tombs are carved deep into the mountainsides. I appreciate the fact that the succession of varied newer religions left these ancient monuments intact for lovers of ancient world architecture like me.
I believe where we are born plays a big part in what religion we follow. If you and I had both been born in Arabic speaking countries you would most likely be Muslim, and I would be long ago beheaded, or stoned.
June 12th, 2007 at 11:13 pm
beep,
I’ve never understood that argument: well, if you decriminalize this drug, then everyone’s going to get in accidents all the time…
All I have to say is ‘alcohol’. Decriminalizing a drug doesn’t make it better than it is. I hate drugs. No one should be on the job, drive, or operate any heavy equipment while stoned. I don’t know about you, but that’s obvious.
June 12th, 2007 at 11:19 pm
Infidel,
Thanks for the comment; that’s certainly something to look into. I’ve never been to Egypt, but I’ll be going to Rome in a few months. Now that’s some architecture!
I’m sure if we were born in an Islamic country most of us would either be very much dead or going along with the farce out of terror.
June 12th, 2007 at 11:36 pm
drunken
I think it is obvious too. And I don’t need a god belief for it to be obvious.
June 13th, 2007 at 12:18 am
I’d love to see Egypt someday. But, I understand it was the Muslim conquerers of Byzantine Christian Alexandria that burned the books of the Great Library for months as fuel.
The contrast between alcohol and cannabis is their elimination half-lives. Alcohol disappears from the body in hours, hence the hangover effects in the AM. Cannabis disappears in weeks, hence the prolonged period of danger. You are right about some prescribed drugs impairing performance behind the wheel, especially opiates and benzodiazepenes, but most of these are recommended for short-term use and since the prescribing doctor is in control of supply, there are limits to their use, at least in theory. My guess about cannabis is that we’d have to get to 10% of the population as steady users before the costs of decriminalizing would be worthwhile. Remember, the captain of the Exxon Valdez was on cannabis, likely the cause of the ecological disaster there. The percent of the population as steady users could be lower in countries where people use public transportation more, like in Europe.
Few people realize that the rate of death from accidents and cirrhosis dropped during Prohibition, likely due to decreased population exposure to alcohol. However, the rate of steady users remained high enough to allow the development of a criminal enterprise that remained viable even after its repeal. There is no reason to believe that the criminal enterprise that developed to distribute cannabis would disappear with its legalization, they’d likely find other drugs to market instead.
Prohibition, largely the result of efforts by the Christian Temperence Union, was motivated by the desire to preserve the traditional family in the light of the company town’s process of exploiting male workers by overwork then placating them with ready supplies of liquor on easy credit. This led to the breakdown of the traditional family unit and social chaos.
Many modern Christians (and other religious folks) see the issue of gay marriage as detrimental to the traditional family unit. Obviously, in Muslim countries this is even more strongly codified. It seems to me that gay marriage is a social experiment. It hasn’t been done before, and children have not been raised for generations by gay couples. There is little scientific support for instituting this as a social change, and after all, that is the language you want to speak. So, the skeptic ought to be cautious in recommending direct implementation for gays of laws that were developed in past eras for traditional male-female relationships in the absence of contraception leading to potentially big families. A more reasonable approach would be to use the term “civil union” to reduce the offence to religious sensibilities, then study the phenomenon for a few generations and assess the appropriateness of various aspects of these laws for the population. I suspect it may be wiser to have two legal designations for lifelong commitment, one for couples that expect to have children, and one for couples that do not. So, perhaps eventually, straight couples who did not expect to have children could opt for the “civil union” plan.
One example of an inadvertent effects of direct implementation of traditional marriage laws is the effect of marital status on taxation. There may be other effects that could make for distortions in the economic and social systems of our society. I read a great article, I think in the NYT, about the divorce lawyers licking their chops at a lucrative new market: gay divorce. And, there could be effects on international relations, since countries with traditional views may find it difficult to accept our position on this topic. We do need to live with them cooperatively.
June 13th, 2007 at 8:30 am
Ed,
i. Um… Ed? ‘Traditional’ family units aren’t that ‘traditional’: in the ‘traditional’ family unit, everyone stays at home and helps take care of the fields and feed the livestock. In the ‘traditional’ family you live and die within fifty miles of your house. In the ‘traditional’ family marriages are arranged as exchanges of property.
I think many modern Christians don’t like gay marriage because they think it’s abormal and icky, and to justify this, see that an ancient text that has great cultural authority supports their views.
ii. Democracy is a ‘social experiment’.
iii. My aunt has three children from her first marriage. She has been in a relationship for close to twenty years. There are hundreds of gay couples with either children from past marriages or adopted children.
Besides, there’s no scientific evidence that gay parents lead to gay children any more than straight children, molest their children any more than straight parents, beat their children more than straight children, &c.
There was little to no scientific support for instituting mixed-race marriage.
i. Taxation? I know! It looks like a positive ‘distortion’ to me.
ii. What of countries with non-traditional views that find it difficult to understand why we have the death penalty? If you want to be in the company of China and Iran, sure. 81% of the world’s executions took place in China, Iran, and the United States.
If you want to pander to Mauritania, Sudan, Pakistan, the Chechen Republic, Iran, and Saudi Arabia, fine by me. In these countries, the penalty for being gay is death. If you want to placate Uganda, OK by me. In September 1999, President Museveni issued a public order to police to look for homosexuals and arrest them. Five men and women were captured, held in illegal detention centers, and tortured.
June 13th, 2007 at 10:05 am
DT,
I am surprised that a skeptical, evidence-demanding fellow would be so quick to advocate another full-blown social experiment. It seems you demand absolute evidence for the supernatural, but accept scant evidence for the novel political.
I. Messing with traditional male-female married with kids family structures is dangerous. Just look at the effect of “welfare to single parent families only” on the lower class in the USA. Black families were especially devastated, and huge costs and rampant suffering are still with us.
II. Democracy was invented by the Greeks. The Romans had a republic. Our constitution is deliberately resistive of flippant changes.
III. Speaking of ancient Egypt, there is ample historical precedent for mixed race marriage between a male and a female. For that matter, polygamy has greater historical support and social predictability than gay marriage. Are you in favor of polygamy?
IV. We just touched on the inadvertant negative effects of another well-intentioned social experiment, Prohibition. What inadvertant effects may we encounter from gay marriage? Might these be mitigated by a compromise to civil unions? That seems less risky to me, while still providing for better legal status for gay couples, who surely deserve better than they have today.
June 13th, 2007 at 10:41 am
Ed,
No. Messing with ‘traditional’ social structure is unpredictable, not dangerous. Besides, even looking at the issue from an economic or social perspective, even if there could be negative effects on the economy or social scene, that is secondary to the fact that for our society to be just and free, we must allow gay marriage. Just imagine how hard we were hit economically and the social pandemonium that came about when we stopped using free labor from Africa!
Now, if changing traditional systems is ‘dangerous’, should we still have slaves, Ed? Or is it morally abhorrent to have slaves? Your argument must be universally applied to be reliable. You can’t pick and choose when and where to apply this.
I feel I am now Thomas Huxley in this conversation. ‘The Lord hath delivered him into mine hands!’
If there is grand historical support for polygamy, then is there other support for ‘traditional’ marriage besides historical precedent? You can’t have it both ways. If we’re to have ‘traditional’ marriage, we should have polygamy as well, right?
After all, as you said, it’s got far greater social predictability than two homos living together.
June 13th, 2007 at 12:04 pm
I just read an article that there are an estimated 28 million people held as slaves in the world today. Many are in the sex industry.
The states of the Confederacy produced far more cotton in the 1870’s with freed labor than in the 1850’s with slaves. Slavery is not wise even from an economic perspective.
So, you support both polygamy and gay marriage, Mr. Huxley? Why not communal marriage, as well? You seem to want to pull out all the stops and just go for it! Onward, comrades, iconoblasts of the world unite!
June 13th, 2007 at 4:57 pm
Ed,
I’m uncommitted on the subject of polygamy (what with numerous documented cases of sexual abuse by both Mormons and cults). There are arguments for it and arguments opposed to it; but it seems, Wilberforce, that you are — as a consequence of your argument — in favor of such an endeavor.
Are you not?
June 13th, 2007 at 5:54 pm
Uncommitted? Sad, that you will delay justice and freedom to the polygamists among us.
Are you forgetting that I am a man of the book? My theological take on polygamy, slavery, and even homosexuality, is that they are the result of the fall, and when possible, ought be avoided. I don’t see why the government needs to guarantee the right to hold slaves, nor grant polygamist marriages, nor gay marriages unless there is sufficient political impetus to do so. That is why I advocate civil unions, as a compromise in light of the current political climate. If slavery catches on in the world again, I’d be for indentured servitude as a compromise in the USA to avoid the worst of its consequences. If polygamy gains ground, I’d be for limiting it to three participants, rather than King Solomon with 301.
June 13th, 2007 at 6:11 pm
RE: “Many modern Christians (and other religious folks) see the issue of gay marriage as detrimental to the traditional family unit.”
I did smile when I saw that and I will tell you why. This is how I read that sentence.
“Many christians see the issue of any other form of marriage except what we consider to be a christian one as wrong. Therefore we demand that all marriages comply with our version as competition of any kind threatens the power and influence of our religion.”
I may have intimated this before that neither judaism, christianity, hinduism or islam OWN the concept of marriage.
That is, they do not get to dictate what a marriage is for everyone. They do get to dictate what a marriage is according to those who are share their religion.
Therefore for a religious jew a jewish marriage does not involve people of the same sex. For a christian, but not all of them, a christian marriage does not involve people of the same sex. For a muslim, marriage does not involve people of the same sex, and so on.
People who belong to religions where same sex marriage is not allowed have the right to deny homosexuals either a jewish marriage, a christian marriage or an islamic marriage.
However, they do not have the right to deny them a marriage outside of the auspices of the respective religion.
What religions OWN is THEIR version of marriage. They do not own the various concepts of marriage which exist outside of their respective religions.
I don’t think that the state, under any circumstance, should force these various religions to marry gay people. But if there are churches which are prepared to marry gay people, then it is their decision to do so.
So religions get to dictate what a marriage is for the people who belong to the religion. They do not get to dictate what a marriage is to those who do not share the religion.
Unless of course you would like someone like me to have the power to dictate what a christian marriage is allowed to be.
June 13th, 2007 at 7:28 pm
So, beep, you are in favor of polygamy as well? And communal marriage?
June 13th, 2007 at 7:48 pm
Ed,
So, let me get this straight: you’re not arguing from an economic and social view, but instead that your argument is justified by the authority of a sacred text?
Don’t dodge the issue, now. You’re arguing that the Fall gives credence to your beliefs about how the world is and ought to be. Is this a literal Fall, or an allegorical Fall? Did the Fall physically happen (how, when and where?), or is it a story? It sounds like you’re avoiding any commitment to your own argument, and instead yielding to a tried and true contingency: The Bible says it, I believe it, and that settles it.
June 13th, 2007 at 11:19 pm
Drunkentune–Rome in a few months? Wouldn’t be in October, would it?
Ed–Ancient Egypt’s pharaohs practiced polygamy on a grand scale, and often married their sisters. After Alexander the Great conquered Egypt in the 3rd century BC the pharonic line shifted to the Ptolemys who were of Greek descent (Cleopatra was the last pharaoh before Egypt fell to the Romans) and they are credited with establishing the great library of Alexandria. It was parially destroyed by the pagan Romans during a civil uprising late in the 3rd century AD and finished off by Christian Romans in 391 AD because the material was considered pagan. Islam wasn’t invented until the early 7th century. Egypt didn’t fall under Muslim rule until 642 AD.
As for civil unions, I agree that government should drop the word ‘marriage’ and their mumbo jumbo ceremony from their legal contractual agreements/partnerships and let the churches reclaim the use of the term for their religious sacrament. Perhaps the legal age of consent should also be raised to 21 to protect children from entering into marriages of any kind, arranged or otherwise.
I think the communal marriages of the hippie generation can be classifed as a failed social experiment. Do those communes even exist anymore?
Just because I advocate legalization and taxation of drugs and prostitution doesn’t mean I practice or use either, I don’t. I am simply annoyed at government’s minute involvement in every aspect of our lives by trying to protect us from ourselves. The laws against drunk driving have not stopped people from driving under the influence, but they do give you legal recourse if one of these morons manages to deprive you of your right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Radios, CD players, unruly kids in the backseat, and cell phones also play a part in impaired driving. Maybe we should have laws against these things as well.
June 13th, 2007 at 11:30 pm
DT/Huxley, it seems I’m arguing from both, which is likely what you’ll keep encountering from believers in dialog on such issues. My main argument from social/economic is the unknown. You simply don’t know what will happen with a social experiment that has never been tried. That ought to be a reason to proceed cautiously. Since I’m a Christian, I also will bring up my beliefs, they are valid for me. I realize you don’t share my beliefs, but I expect you to respect them. If you don’t, why should you respect anyone’s religious beliefs? That is my point above. I expect other religions to have distinct beliefs, and I’ll respect them, so long as they are compatable enough to allow tolerance. That allows dialog to resolve conflict from different perspectives to reach some reasonable compromise. Dialog is not helped by calling me a tooth fairy moron or beanie dancer.
Let’s not get sidetracked into a discussion of biblical hermaneutics about the Fall. My response to your questions above is I don’t know, the text doesn’t make it clear. The truth of man’s separation from God by the choice of sin is authoritative for me. I don’t expect you to believe it, but I expect you to not dismiss my belief as irrelevant to any discussion I enter in the public sphere. It is relevant because I believe it and we’re citizens together. Just as a Taoist belief is relevant when she speaks out on the topic to me, but not because I believe or even remotely understand Taoism. If you do not show me similar respect, I consider you intolerant and grow suspicious that you have the same destiny in mind for Christianity as I have for Nazism or human sacrifice.
And you can take my utter confusion about Taoism as a statement of absolute truth, if you believe there is such a thing.
By the way, it is interesting that we’ve been on the themes of homosexuality and slavery. The last time we had a US President who was homosexual, he surely did a bad job of keeping the slavery issue from exploding into open war.
June 14th, 2007 at 1:17 am
Saying that religions do not own the concept of marriage is not the same as saying that I would accept all types of marriages.
An islamic marriage can be polgamous according to the tenets of the religion. If we decide in law that all marriages in “the west” must be monogamous, we are disrespecting their religious beliefs.
And of course some mormon marriages were polygamous until the state, I think, banned them.
I am not sure what the difference is between communal marriage and a polygamous marriage. Is a communal marriage one where a man may have more than one wife and a woman may have more than one husband?
Frankly, I am concerned less with the idea of polygamy than other people may be.
My major concern would be about who pays for what. If someone is rich and can afford 2 husbands and they pay for the upkeep of their children, it is none of my business.
I would consider it becomes MY business if they want the state (my tax money), to fund their personal breeding programmes.
I am not a fan of paying for other people’s irresponsible breeding programmes, whether the breeding occurs within a christian marriage, a jewish marriage, a hindu marriage or a polygamous marriage. Or for that matter, if it occurs without a marriage at all.
I am certainly more liberal when it comes to the idea of who can be married to whom, but decidedly less liberal when it comes to me having to fund their personal breeding programmes.
Marriage is essentially a contract. I think it is a great idea if people formalize a contract which shows their intent.
However, a contract is not valid if one of the partners is unable to give informed consent, which is why we limit marriage to adult humans.
June 14th, 2007 at 10:13 am
Communal marriage involves multiple members of each gender.
The observer will note the openness of our atheist commenters toward all kinds of social innovations, in spite of the untested nature of such social experiments. This is in spite of their avowed skepticism. Methinks your skepticism is selective, my friends.
June 14th, 2007 at 2:27 pm
Ed,
I’m not interested in talking about my own views on the subject (it’s irrelevant to both the post and your argument. I could be either for or against polygamy, for all you know.).
What interests me is that you were inconstant in your argument, then when pressured, showed you hand. You were not arguing from a social or economic standpoint, but from a biblical one. I think — perhaps wrongly — that you were being disingenuous.
Furthermore, with social issues I’m far more interested in justice.
June 14th, 2007 at 7:20 pm
Ed
Marriage, as a contract, has been well tested. There are those who take the contract seriously, and those who don’t.
The problem isn’t with whether heterosexuals or homosexuals or multiples make a contract, the problem is whether the individual takes the contract seriously.
If people have a problem with marriage as a social contract, or as a religious contract, then it makes no difference whether the person is gay, straight or polygamous.
As the majority of people in the US and Australia, choose a religious marriage contract and approximately 50% of those religious marriage contracts fail, perhaps those who do not have a religious marriage contract will stand a better chance of successfully fulfilling the terms of a non-religious marriage contract.
To me the failure of marriage as a contractual agreement is not dependent upon whether the contract is religious or non-religious, but upon the intentions of the signatories.
So, the question resulting from this may be: -
How do we encourage people to be responsible adults? That has been the 64 million dollar question for centuries. Some religions have tried to do this through fear of god or fear of sin - neither of which have shown to be particularly successful at getting people to be self-determining adults.
Maybe they just needed the sort of talking to as children that I got. I dunno. I was left with little doubt that my life was to be my responsibility and that my actions were my own.
Which makes me consider how responsible can someone really be for their own lives and actions if they believe that:
1.whatever they do or is done to them that it is part of an overall “fatherly plan.
2.the devil/satan/jin/evil supernatural entity made them do it.
How can we seriously expect people to act responsibly if they believe things such as these?
“My marriage failed because satan tempted me with that prostitute.” (No, he didn’t - YOU are responsible for the decisions you make.)
RE: skepticism
My skepticism about the supernatural is based on a lack of belief and a lack of data. There is, however, a lot of data concerning marriage as a contract. And the data suggests that the religious amongst us, cock up marriage on a regular basis.
Would homosexuals and polygamists be any worse at it than the religious population? I don’t have any data to say they would and I don’t have the belief that they would.
Marriage would, however, afford rights to couples or multiples under the law which may make their lives more stable and the lives of their children.
Oh, and I am prepared to listen to an argument against homosexuals being able to marry and an argument against polygamy, but obviously one based in supernatural belief is of no relevance to me.
June 15th, 2007 at 12:59 am
Infidel,
I concur on all your points.
No, not October. Why do you ask?
Ed/Wilberforce/Chicken Little,
If I were you, I’d drop this argument. Yes, we do not know what will happen. But the key word here is that we must proceed, even if we must remain vigilant. Otherwise, there is no justice.
We did not know the full potential social and economic impacts when we:
(1) landed on the moon,
(2) ended slavery,
(3) created the car,
(4) created the airplane,
…
(n) got out of the trees and walked upright for the first time in the savanna.
Besides, I’ve seen enough of Massachusetts, Connecticut, New Hampshire, New Jersey, Oregon, and Vermont to know that the social experiment has already succeeded. The sky has not fallen, and there has yet to be any evidence that it will fall any time soon. You’re just waving your hands.
Why should I respect what you believe? I don’t respect neoconservatives for what they believe, nor do I respect their ideas, for I think they are wrong; I don’t respect many people for what they believe, nor do I respect their ideas, for I think they are wrong.
Please explain this to me: Why should I respect someone’s ideas if I think they are clearly wrong?
I respect you as a human being; I understand to an extent why and how you believe; I do not respect the content of your belief, but will sit quietly during a church service, wear a yarmulke in synagogue, or take off my shoes in a mosque out of a sense of civility to others. As I say in the above post, ‘I can tolerate the existence of religious belief (but, of course, not the content).’ When in my neighbor’s house, I’ll abide by his traditions — not out of respect — but out of a sense of courtesy. If that means taking my shoes off at the door, I will.
And not because I must, but because I wish to do so out of my own volition.
Frankly, I don’t have to respect what you believe when it comes to religion. But I’ll do what I can to protect your right to say what you wish to whomever you want to contact and to practice what you believe is true. I think that is far more important than giving lip service to any religion. There is no reason to give anyone a pass from critique, since I think most people are wrong on most things; but I can be civil and treat them as equals, even if they are not. Again, ‘I can tolerate the existence of religious belief (but, of course, not the content).’
Even then, there’s little I could do. I’m no Samson. I have not set out as a central planner to refurbish society in my image; if Christianity as we know it cannot survive in a pluralistic society, it will change (hopefully, for the better); and if you haven’t noticed, it has already changed: ‘Of course, the forms of religion I refer to are the domesticated kind. We are not to be gored by ethereal shadows.’
June 15th, 2007 at 1:08 pm
Ed,
You might want to watch this. It’s teh funny.
June 15th, 2007 at 3:49 pm
DT-
“No, not October. Why do you ask?”
Cuz, that’s when I’ll be in Rome (and then down the Amalfi Coast to Pompeii). I’m even spending a day in Vatican City. I’m a fan of Michelangelo Buonarroti’s sculpture and architecture and this place owns the majority of his most famous works.
June 15th, 2007 at 4:48 pm
Ed–
“Well, then, my understanding is this: it seems the atheists in this discussion want believers to work with them in the secular political world to grant greater liberties such as legalized cannabis and prostitution.”
That’s not what I’m advocating (and probably the others of my ilk also) at all. In a SECULAR government there would be NO laws regarding these things period. It is not government’s role to legislate morality but to uphold our constitutionally guaranteed rights to life, liberty, and the PURSUIT of happiness. There are already laws to provide you with recourse if someone violates your claim to these rights while they are pursuing things you find morally or socially unacceptable such as you’ve described.
“Which brings me back to my original protest against an otherwise fine post: if religious folks don’t think you have any respect at all for their creed, why ought they trust you to protect it?”
A great reminder for me is a quote from the Holocaust era that I’m going to unintentionally mangle: When they came for the Jews, I didn’t speak out because I wasn’t a Jew…..When they came for me there was no one left to speak out on my behalf. Now be honest Ed, do you really respect belief in the Flying Spaghetti Monster? Neither do I, but of course I’m an atheist and am skeptical of all things based solely on faith. Respect is earned by deeds, not creeds. By not speaking out for your rights to your religious beliefs, it’s only a matter of time until we are all silenced. I can’t imagine what a dull world this would be if we all agreed on everything. There would be no need for this blog or the discussions we’ve had. Some are just a little more vocal in their defenses than others…..But in the end I think we end up respecting each other as human beings.
June 15th, 2007 at 8:16 pm
infidel
I agree. I can’t see how anyone can legislate to respect other people’s beliefs, whether they are religious ones, political ones, societal ones or cultural ones.
I can strongly respect the individual’s right to hold a belief which differs from my own, I don’t see how it is possible to demand that I respect the belief itself.
This would in effect shutdown all thought or action which did not comply with the “respected belief” which is pretty much what christianity and islam have been trying to do for centuries.
I respect that human beings have rights to belief. Beliefs, however, do not have the right to be respected.