Well, I had been told by db0 that I would eventually be blocked from commenting on Evanescent’s site and indeed I have been. I think db0 had a similar experience. It was in part terrible use of bad language that eventually got me banned (yeah right). Poor ole evanescent and his unassailable logic where not able to handle certain collections of letters.
Ole Evan has swallowed Randianism so completely that he is no longer able to think in a non-randian way. Everything he thinks and writes is drawn directly from Randianism to the point where it is the dictionary and presumably everyone else that is wrong and Rand who is right. A few fringe lunatics following a novelist is not quite a majority last I looked. Still, if redefining the terms to suit yourself is what it takes to try to pretend you can think, Evenscent is more than happy to leap in and start messing with meanings.
I don’t mind that he is bad at thinking or that he is unbelievably pompous about it (sure it is irritating but each to their own) but Evanescent has done the most cowardly thing you can do on a blog. He has banned me from comment even though he goes right ahead and responds to my last post. By the way, for anyone interested the foul mouth language I used amounts to two words bullshit and holy shit. So essentially I said the word shit twice. I had been under the impression I was debating an adult by I suppose all the “I’m better than you, nananana” stuff should have given away that I was in fact arguing with a child. A brainwashed one at that.
Objectivism is Evanescent’s religion. I say this because he accepts everything Rand writes even the redefining of commonly well understood words. He is literally incapable of thinking outside of Randianisms. This is evidenced by the nearly incessant asserting he does without justifying the thinking. He claims I don't know enough about objectivism to comment. He is overlooking the fact that I was commenting on what he wrote, not objectivism. I should say at this point that from what I have read from Rand was also full of baseless assertion. Objectivism is not a philosophy, it is a dogma.
If anyone wants to take a gander at our little spat you can find it here in the comments section.
According to Evanescent I embarras myself while he gives me the spanking of a lifetime. I am not worthy of even sharing blog space with the great and mighty intellect that is EVANESCENT. I was out of my depth.....well according to him anyway. It seems it is a habit of his to ban people who don't just accept what he is saying is right. It is sad thing.
Perhaps he should have some kind of proviso on his web site banner warning people that questioning the almighty Rand will not be tolerated and any dissenting voice will be silenced. Would save some time.
Shame on you Evanescent. Having to have the last word and then banning. Shameful and cowardly.
Monday, December 8, 2008
Wednesday, December 3, 2008
Playing with Ray
I posted a vary brief comment over on Ray Comfort's site on his latest horrible and pathetic attempt to explain away bible contradiction.
The comment was as follows:
"...ahem......Bulls....."
That was the entirety of it. Ray did not allow it through, apparently the partial spelling of the word bullshit was too vulgar for his readers.
Because I don't like my job and spend most of my day not working, I decided I was going to try to sneak the entire word bullshit onto his site.....I know, I know.....like I said I was bored and at work.
I managed it by posting the following poem (although without the bold):
Bible stories are all a mess
unless you to your God confess
let not my senses find the cracks
let not my reason see the lacks.
so evident in bible tales
holes and gaps and epic fails.
it's so obvious and downright plain
that Christian simply can't explain
It got through :), even better, it might function on a subliminal level and a Christian or two might utter that horrible, offensive and downright disturbing word somewhere without even knowing why......I really need a new job.....
The comment was as follows:
"...ahem......Bulls....."
That was the entirety of it. Ray did not allow it through, apparently the partial spelling of the word bullshit was too vulgar for his readers.
Because I don't like my job and spend most of my day not working, I decided I was going to try to sneak the entire word bullshit onto his site.....I know, I know.....like I said I was bored and at work.
I managed it by posting the following poem (although without the bold):
Bible stories are all a mess
unless you to your God confess
let not my senses find the cracks
let not my reason see the lacks.
so evident in bible tales
holes and gaps and epic fails.
it's so obvious and downright plain
that Christian simply can't explain
It got through :), even better, it might function on a subliminal level and a Christian or two might utter that horrible, offensive and downright disturbing word somewhere without even knowing why......I really need a new job.....
Almighty 101
Let us for humour sake consider a possible God of the twenty-second century. “101 the almighty”, the software engineer and technological God who laid the foundations of quantum mechanical law, biology and UML and who created on a mountaintop somewhere a computer circuit that reveals the new rules by which humans were always supposed to live. What might 101’s "1010 Commandments" be and will there be updates available free online. Will he be an electronic God who distributes his “1010 Commandments 2.0” from a magical server some people say exists even though no one knows the IP address or has ever recived a message from it?
Electronic temples with free wifi might spring up all over the world where the prime-geek will declare in his fancy costume (baring religious symbols such as the binary ‘01’) in a loud voice (CAPS LOCK)
“LET US NOW SUBMIT OUR FEEDBACK FORMS TO SUPPORT”
To which the drone like congregation respond in unison
“Send!”
“LET US GIVE THANKS TO ALMIGHTY 101 FOR BLESSING US WITH 500Mbit BROADBAND”
“Thanks”
“AND THE 101 SAID ‘I AM THE ONE AND ZERO, THE BINARY AND HEX, I AM THE PC AND THE MAC, THE WINDOWS AND THE LINUX’”
“101 is trans-format an will plug into any port”
He might then recount the tale of how 101’s chief designer was send to earth to upgrade our telecommunications infrastructure and how he managed by 101’s magical compression algorithms to cram the entirety of wikipedia onto a 2gig USB memory stick.
101’s Commandments
0001: Don’t worship any other magical programmer/biologist/engineer (every other God uses this rule so there must be something to it - right?)
0010: Be careful with my name because that’s really important…I think, ok maybe not. Knock yourselves out.
0011: Remember to celebrate Bob’s day, which is Monday. It is the day that Bob was compiling the universe and he put his feet up and had a double mocha latte. It someone wants to go off and be a wet blanket though, let them, their loss!
0100: Your folks may not understand facebook but if not for them using their ZX spectrums, you would not have X-BOXs. So be nice to them.
0101: Don’t make computer viruses. It is not cool, it just makes you look like a bitter nerd.
0110: Don’t log on to someone else account. Doesn’t matter what kind of account or even if they are using it anymore. It’s not yours, leave it alone.
0111: Don’t pirate software…well not too often anyway and definitely not if it is being offered at a reasonable price. Same goes for music and movies.
1000: Don’t flame people just because you disagree with them.
1001: Don’t feed the trolls.
1010: Exercise common sense when it comes to everything else. You don’t need me to tell you that killing people isn’t nice. In short. Don’t be an asshole.
If the world lived by 101’s commandments rather than Yahweh’s, would it be much different?
Electronic temples with free wifi might spring up all over the world where the prime-geek will declare in his fancy costume (baring religious symbols such as the binary ‘01’) in a loud voice (CAPS LOCK)
“LET US NOW SUBMIT OUR FEEDBACK FORMS TO SUPPORT”
To which the drone like congregation respond in unison
“Send!”
“LET US GIVE THANKS TO ALMIGHTY 101 FOR BLESSING US WITH 500Mbit BROADBAND”
“Thanks”
“AND THE 101 SAID ‘I AM THE ONE AND ZERO, THE BINARY AND HEX, I AM THE PC AND THE MAC, THE WINDOWS AND THE LINUX’”
“101 is trans-format an will plug into any port”
He might then recount the tale of how 101’s chief designer was send to earth to upgrade our telecommunications infrastructure and how he managed by 101’s magical compression algorithms to cram the entirety of wikipedia onto a 2gig USB memory stick.
101’s Commandments
0001: Don’t worship any other magical programmer/biologist/engineer (every other God uses this rule so there must be something to it - right?)
0010: Be careful with my name because that’s really important…I think, ok maybe not. Knock yourselves out.
0011: Remember to celebrate Bob’s day, which is Monday. It is the day that Bob was compiling the universe and he put his feet up and had a double mocha latte. It someone wants to go off and be a wet blanket though, let them, their loss!
0100: Your folks may not understand facebook but if not for them using their ZX spectrums, you would not have X-BOXs. So be nice to them.
0101: Don’t make computer viruses. It is not cool, it just makes you look like a bitter nerd.
0110: Don’t log on to someone else account. Doesn’t matter what kind of account or even if they are using it anymore. It’s not yours, leave it alone.
0111: Don’t pirate software…well not too often anyway and definitely not if it is being offered at a reasonable price. Same goes for music and movies.
1000: Don’t flame people just because you disagree with them.
1001: Don’t feed the trolls.
1010: Exercise common sense when it comes to everything else. You don’t need me to tell you that killing people isn’t nice. In short. Don’t be an asshole.
If the world lived by 101’s commandments rather than Yahweh’s, would it be much different?
Why I think evolution theory is trouble for religion.
Throughout history there have been many scientific discoveries that have cast a long shadow on religious belief. From discovering the water cycle to heliocentricity. Of course, some people do still pray for rain. Undoubtedly these people would sneer at a tribal rain dance but think their own version is a serious and worthwhile undertaking. Some people just refuse to learn!
The one theory in modern science that really seems to make the religious uncomfortable is evolution. Evolution is an almost universally accepted theory amongst people who know anything about it. There are of course some dissenting voices in the scientific community but almost every theory has a few detractors. It is a reasonable statement to make that evolution is a proven theory is so far as any theory can be proven. There are libraries of evidence to support the idea. Infact, there is so much evidence that a lot of religious groups and organisations have been forced to accept it. They usually do so with some made up new idea that God started it off or something to that effect. In the modern world, educated people laugh at creationists. We laugh because they continue to believe something that has been shown to be false. They are sticking to their guns (and/or bibles as the case may be). The more reasonable theists out there are not quite so stubborn as to simply deny evolution. They know it happened so they instead try to go around it and pretend it doesn’t really matter to their faith. They decide that their reading of the bible as metaphor is more sophisticated that those silly creationists. This strikes me as one of the most intellectually dishonest things any large movement has ever done. They are claiming that the countless generations of people who came before them who were almost all creationist were wrong to read the bible literally. Silly creationists. The reasonable and honest conclusion would be that the bible is wrong and has been clearly shown to be. They can’t do that though. To acknowledge such massive errors in the bible would reduce its value to roughly what most atheists take it be already; for all but historical/mythological purposes: worthless. It would become much the same as a statue of Zeus. It may have some value as a cultural artefact but it has nothing to say about our reality. The standard tactic employed is to simply overlook the old testament. That is the part of the bible with all the really nasty bits where God acts like a complete asshole. If we can just overlook that half of the bible we can still hold on to the good stuff. Well, we will still pretend that the old testament stuff is still valuable but that it is written in a metaphorical way and you have to be really clever to understand it properly Lets pretend that instead of some ignorant babble written by a couple of ancient goat herders, it is actually really amazing and important insights into human behaviour! Cool.
So what about the New testament? That is surely immune to evolutionary attack. After all, it was only about 2000 years ago and evolution doesn’t have much to say about a time span that short. Right?…..well no, not quite.
We are apparently made in God’s image. People once thought that meant he looked human but the more modern evolution-friendly interpretation is that we are made in his image spiritually. Ah, right. We have souls you see, they are what make us like god and what elevate us above animals in the grand scheme of things. Uh-oh. Doesn’t evolution posit that we were once animals. Even worse, it suggests that we are still because evolution is a continuous process. We are still evolving. Maybe we are animal-like now in comparison to what we will become? If were animals in the past, did we still have souls back then? Could we commit crimes like murder? When a lion kills another males cubs in order to mate with the female, is he committing infanticide. Will God be angry with them? Was there some point in our evolution when God popped in and decided it was time for us to start having souls? That would have been an uncomfortable generation.
“Hey God, will I see my mommy in heaven when I die?”
“Nope sorry, your mother is an animal”
Evolutionary theory should and to the critical and unclogged mind does remove the notion of a soul and with it washes away most if not all religious belief.
Clinging to a concept long after it has been rendered obsolete is not the act of a rational mind. Neither for that matter is the belief in invisible people. We once believed in all manner fantastical creatures and happenings and powers, but all of these, every last one that has met the scrutiny of scientific investigation has fallen away. Most of the core doctrines of modern religions have also been shown to be false; the religious just refuse to notice. One day, Jesus Christ as the son of God will take his place along with Yahweh amongst the dead Gods who all lament those two powers they could not overcome. Reason and Science.
It is sad but I think almost inevitable that new religions will rise to replace those who that have fallen, making grand claims about the universe and all powerful entities who created and command it until the next wave of scientific progress washes away those fantasies with a torrent of fact and evidence. What form will these gods take? What will their miracles be in a technological society? Would you doubt for a second that the adherents of those religions will look back on the followers and Yahweh and Allah and shake their heads, wondering why people believed they were communicating with God? They might even ask their God about it.
The one theory in modern science that really seems to make the religious uncomfortable is evolution. Evolution is an almost universally accepted theory amongst people who know anything about it. There are of course some dissenting voices in the scientific community but almost every theory has a few detractors. It is a reasonable statement to make that evolution is a proven theory is so far as any theory can be proven. There are libraries of evidence to support the idea. Infact, there is so much evidence that a lot of religious groups and organisations have been forced to accept it. They usually do so with some made up new idea that God started it off or something to that effect. In the modern world, educated people laugh at creationists. We laugh because they continue to believe something that has been shown to be false. They are sticking to their guns (and/or bibles as the case may be). The more reasonable theists out there are not quite so stubborn as to simply deny evolution. They know it happened so they instead try to go around it and pretend it doesn’t really matter to their faith. They decide that their reading of the bible as metaphor is more sophisticated that those silly creationists. This strikes me as one of the most intellectually dishonest things any large movement has ever done. They are claiming that the countless generations of people who came before them who were almost all creationist were wrong to read the bible literally. Silly creationists. The reasonable and honest conclusion would be that the bible is wrong and has been clearly shown to be. They can’t do that though. To acknowledge such massive errors in the bible would reduce its value to roughly what most atheists take it be already; for all but historical/mythological purposes: worthless. It would become much the same as a statue of Zeus. It may have some value as a cultural artefact but it has nothing to say about our reality. The standard tactic employed is to simply overlook the old testament. That is the part of the bible with all the really nasty bits where God acts like a complete asshole. If we can just overlook that half of the bible we can still hold on to the good stuff. Well, we will still pretend that the old testament stuff is still valuable but that it is written in a metaphorical way and you have to be really clever to understand it properly Lets pretend that instead of some ignorant babble written by a couple of ancient goat herders, it is actually really amazing and important insights into human behaviour! Cool.
So what about the New testament? That is surely immune to evolutionary attack. After all, it was only about 2000 years ago and evolution doesn’t have much to say about a time span that short. Right?…..well no, not quite.
We are apparently made in God’s image. People once thought that meant he looked human but the more modern evolution-friendly interpretation is that we are made in his image spiritually. Ah, right. We have souls you see, they are what make us like god and what elevate us above animals in the grand scheme of things. Uh-oh. Doesn’t evolution posit that we were once animals. Even worse, it suggests that we are still because evolution is a continuous process. We are still evolving. Maybe we are animal-like now in comparison to what we will become? If were animals in the past, did we still have souls back then? Could we commit crimes like murder? When a lion kills another males cubs in order to mate with the female, is he committing infanticide. Will God be angry with them? Was there some point in our evolution when God popped in and decided it was time for us to start having souls? That would have been an uncomfortable generation.
“Hey God, will I see my mommy in heaven when I die?”
“Nope sorry, your mother is an animal”
Evolutionary theory should and to the critical and unclogged mind does remove the notion of a soul and with it washes away most if not all religious belief.
Clinging to a concept long after it has been rendered obsolete is not the act of a rational mind. Neither for that matter is the belief in invisible people. We once believed in all manner fantastical creatures and happenings and powers, but all of these, every last one that has met the scrutiny of scientific investigation has fallen away. Most of the core doctrines of modern religions have also been shown to be false; the religious just refuse to notice. One day, Jesus Christ as the son of God will take his place along with Yahweh amongst the dead Gods who all lament those two powers they could not overcome. Reason and Science.
It is sad but I think almost inevitable that new religions will rise to replace those who that have fallen, making grand claims about the universe and all powerful entities who created and command it until the next wave of scientific progress washes away those fantasies with a torrent of fact and evidence. What form will these gods take? What will their miracles be in a technological society? Would you doubt for a second that the adherents of those religions will look back on the followers and Yahweh and Allah and shake their heads, wondering why people believed they were communicating with God? They might even ask their God about it.
Thursday, November 6, 2008
Do we really value the things we claim to? and do we tolerate too much nonsense?
If you asked anyone, they will probably tell you they value honesty and forthrightness for example. Do they really value honesty though? Men lie to women all the time. When a woman spends a figure comparable to the GDP of a small African country getting her hair done and her partner can’t tell the difference from the way it was before; he will generally tell that her hair looks great and that she looks beautiful. He will say this even if her hair looks decidedly not great and she unbeautiful. Most people will agree that there is no major harm in this kind of lie. I would agree. If he tells the truth in this instance lots of bad things will happen. She will probably go out the next day and spend a figure comparable to the GDP of a large African country getting her hair done again, her feelings will have been hurt and he isn’t going to be getting laid any time soon. On the other hand, the lie will have her feeling good about herself. Where is the harm? I really don’t think there is any.
Lets look at another situation though. Suppose our hapless friend is asked what he finds attractive in a woman. He responds truthfully and forthrightly by saying that he likes slim woman and that he finds excess weight to be extremely off putting. Is there a problem with this honest response? He is only taking about his personal preferences. In many situations it will be fine. It may not go down quite so well at a obesity conference. It is worth noting here that he would not have to lie to preserve tact, just omit some information. Consider instead if he said, “I like white women”. How many people would consider this a racist statement or an implicit suggestion that non-white women are not attractive? It is neither of course. It is a statement of personal preference. In no way different to saying, “I prefer blondes”. Is that a brunette-ist statement?
Regardless of how innocuous his intent with his honesty, we are well trained to omit or even lie about much of what we think in order to safeguard the sensibilities of others or possibly to avoid their anger.
There are things we all lie about instinctively. The facts is that not all babies are beautiful, neither are all women, the interior decoration of many a friends house might be even verging on the hideous. Big is not generally regarded as beautiful. It is not just what is on the inside that counts. We all judge books by their covers. Harry potter books are children’s books regardless of how many of your adult friends have read them. The car he has loving restored will likely always look old and tatty to her and will convince her that he really is just a large child. Men generally prefer to be taller than their partner. Women generally prefer to be shorter than theirs. Women are generally not very good at hand to hand combat, no matter how many American tv shows like to pretend there are. Men are not all sex-obsessed narcissists…well ok most of us are. Men do like to be in control. Women in general prefer a supporting role in most situations no matter how politically incorrect it may be to say so. We all think that killing a man is less bad than killing a woman. Yes, we really do and yes you do too. The glass ceiling does not exist. Shush, don’t say that in front of women. It may be true but that won’t save you. Men are not better at business than women. Both are equally bad at it. Women are not more virtuous than men but also they are not less so. I always find it funny how women can be portrayed as both the paragons of virtue and purity and at the same time, indulgent, materialistic temptresses. Women are more prone to illogical belief. Men are more prone to pretending they know things that they don’t. Men are afraid to appear weak. Women prefer it that way. Men are far more concerned with their partners appearance than women are. This does not make men shallower than women. It makes them different. Men are more prone to infidelity; it is their natural instinct. This is not so for women. This is not an excuse for men to cheat. Women are more social by nature. Men are more competitive and aggressive. Men are more violent. Men take more risks. Everyone, yes, you too! is capable of doing terrible things given the right circumstances/treatment. Some are more amenable than others though.
Here is some popular bullshit which most of us do not loudly decry (as we should): America is not the land of the free, it may have been, but is not anymore. Justice and fairness are not overly important concepts in American society. Most religious people to not have the courage of their convictions and most do not live by the tenets of their faith. Islam is not a religion of peace. Anyone who thinks it is does not know the first thing about it. Fine art is predominately utter crap. Liking it does not make you intellectual or cultured, it makes you gullible, tasteless and largely incapable of independent thought. Faith is not a virtue. It is synonym for gullibility. Positive thinking is a constructive thought process. “The secret” is some utter bollox which makes no sense. People who believe it should be institutionalised for their and others safety. There is no “law of attraction” unless we are taking about opposing magnetic poles. Stars and planets have no impact on your personality or on your life. You cannot be “in touch” with nature. You can like it, sure but you are no more “in touch” with it than the least environmental friendly oil barren who likes to burn oil just to see the smoke. Nature is not a force or an entity. It is the name we give to all the naturally occurring things that are not us. Homeopathy does not work; it cannot work. It is retarded. Depleting global oil reserves are a big problem. They do not signify the end of the world though. Recycling is a huge pile of rubbish at least at the current level of technology. With the exception of a few products, it generally cost more to recycle than to just dump something and make a new one. Recycling does hold come promise in the future but right now it is nothing more than a political gimmick and a handy way for people think they are helping when they are really not. Reducing your carbon footprint is very unlikely to have a significant effect on the global climate or ecology. A forecast on Chinas CO2 emissions expected an increase of about 2.5% to 5% each year from 2004 to 2010. As it turns out the rise has been around 11% per year. If you think that your driving a hybrid car is helping to save the environment, well it isn’t really. Don’t drive a car, don’t eat food you didn’t grow yourself, don’t use gas, oil, coal, peat or electricity in your home and don’t buy anything that is or contains plastic and I will be VERY impressed.
Ahhh, that’s better. Nothing like a good rant to clear the head!!
Lets look at another situation though. Suppose our hapless friend is asked what he finds attractive in a woman. He responds truthfully and forthrightly by saying that he likes slim woman and that he finds excess weight to be extremely off putting. Is there a problem with this honest response? He is only taking about his personal preferences. In many situations it will be fine. It may not go down quite so well at a obesity conference. It is worth noting here that he would not have to lie to preserve tact, just omit some information. Consider instead if he said, “I like white women”. How many people would consider this a racist statement or an implicit suggestion that non-white women are not attractive? It is neither of course. It is a statement of personal preference. In no way different to saying, “I prefer blondes”. Is that a brunette-ist statement?
Regardless of how innocuous his intent with his honesty, we are well trained to omit or even lie about much of what we think in order to safeguard the sensibilities of others or possibly to avoid their anger.
There are things we all lie about instinctively. The facts is that not all babies are beautiful, neither are all women, the interior decoration of many a friends house might be even verging on the hideous. Big is not generally regarded as beautiful. It is not just what is on the inside that counts. We all judge books by their covers. Harry potter books are children’s books regardless of how many of your adult friends have read them. The car he has loving restored will likely always look old and tatty to her and will convince her that he really is just a large child. Men generally prefer to be taller than their partner. Women generally prefer to be shorter than theirs. Women are generally not very good at hand to hand combat, no matter how many American tv shows like to pretend there are. Men are not all sex-obsessed narcissists…well ok most of us are. Men do like to be in control. Women in general prefer a supporting role in most situations no matter how politically incorrect it may be to say so. We all think that killing a man is less bad than killing a woman. Yes, we really do and yes you do too. The glass ceiling does not exist. Shush, don’t say that in front of women. It may be true but that won’t save you. Men are not better at business than women. Both are equally bad at it. Women are not more virtuous than men but also they are not less so. I always find it funny how women can be portrayed as both the paragons of virtue and purity and at the same time, indulgent, materialistic temptresses. Women are more prone to illogical belief. Men are more prone to pretending they know things that they don’t. Men are afraid to appear weak. Women prefer it that way. Men are far more concerned with their partners appearance than women are. This does not make men shallower than women. It makes them different. Men are more prone to infidelity; it is their natural instinct. This is not so for women. This is not an excuse for men to cheat. Women are more social by nature. Men are more competitive and aggressive. Men are more violent. Men take more risks. Everyone, yes, you too! is capable of doing terrible things given the right circumstances/treatment. Some are more amenable than others though.
Here is some popular bullshit which most of us do not loudly decry (as we should): America is not the land of the free, it may have been, but is not anymore. Justice and fairness are not overly important concepts in American society. Most religious people to not have the courage of their convictions and most do not live by the tenets of their faith. Islam is not a religion of peace. Anyone who thinks it is does not know the first thing about it. Fine art is predominately utter crap. Liking it does not make you intellectual or cultured, it makes you gullible, tasteless and largely incapable of independent thought. Faith is not a virtue. It is synonym for gullibility. Positive thinking is a constructive thought process. “The secret” is some utter bollox which makes no sense. People who believe it should be institutionalised for their and others safety. There is no “law of attraction” unless we are taking about opposing magnetic poles. Stars and planets have no impact on your personality or on your life. You cannot be “in touch” with nature. You can like it, sure but you are no more “in touch” with it than the least environmental friendly oil barren who likes to burn oil just to see the smoke. Nature is not a force or an entity. It is the name we give to all the naturally occurring things that are not us. Homeopathy does not work; it cannot work. It is retarded. Depleting global oil reserves are a big problem. They do not signify the end of the world though. Recycling is a huge pile of rubbish at least at the current level of technology. With the exception of a few products, it generally cost more to recycle than to just dump something and make a new one. Recycling does hold come promise in the future but right now it is nothing more than a political gimmick and a handy way for people think they are helping when they are really not. Reducing your carbon footprint is very unlikely to have a significant effect on the global climate or ecology. A forecast on Chinas CO2 emissions expected an increase of about 2.5% to 5% each year from 2004 to 2010. As it turns out the rise has been around 11% per year. If you think that your driving a hybrid car is helping to save the environment, well it isn’t really. Don’t drive a car, don’t eat food you didn’t grow yourself, don’t use gas, oil, coal, peat or electricity in your home and don’t buy anything that is or contains plastic and I will be VERY impressed.
Ahhh, that’s better. Nothing like a good rant to clear the head!!
Tuesday, August 12, 2008
A Response from Sam
Rev. Sam Norton has responded to the questions I posed to moderate christians. Sam’s post is here. Sam's answers are in blue Italics. Original questions in green. Some of these questions will have seemed simple, maybe even naive. The point is to get down to some very simple questions and use the answers to build up a more informed idea of what the other side really thinks about some of the really basic things upon which a faith has been built. Is it as irrational as I think? Maybe, maybe not. Let's find out. Thank you Sam for providing me with some answers to work with. I have some follow up comments/questions. I think it is important to mention also that when I ask for evidence, I am in this case asking for any kind of evidence, including biblical justification.
1. Do you think the bible is the inerrant word of God? If not, why not?
No, simply because Jesus Christ is the inerrant word of God. Treating the Bible this way is a Protestant innovation, by and large.
The first sentence is possibly a little confusing and I think exploring it more might be quite interesting. “Jesus is the living word”. What does this mean? My first reaction to this statement (quite a while ago) was to assume it was just a poetic way of saying something like “Jesus lived perfectly according to God’s word” or “Jesus was the epitemy of godly living”. I have since come to wonder if some religious people mean something more literal when they say this. If that is so, what exactly does it mean?
Also, saying that the bible in not the inerrant word of God because Jesus is, is a little vague. Maybe the answer to this question would bring more clarity. Do you think that all the actions/saying/teachings/commands etc of God and Jesus in the bible are accurate and are indeed from God and Jesus. If not, how reliable would you say the bible is in terms of it’s describing historical events?
2. If you answered no to question 1, why do you think that a) it is reasonable to believe that a man wielded magical powers and b) rose from the dead and c) was a god and a man at the same time; I am assuming that you do not generally believe in these things. What is it about the Jesus case that is so compelling as to make believing the impossible reasonable?
a) I don't think Jesus did anything which isn't (in principle) available to the rest of us to do.
b) I think i) the historical evidence is robust, and ii) science doesn't have anything to say about it.
c) My understanding of God (and man!) is different to yours.
On a). Are you suggesting that we could all perform Jesus like miracles? Have you any evidence to believe this is true (of any kind, biblical etc.)
On b) If I told you I saw someone come back from the dead after three days you would not likely believe me. If 1000 people all attested that they saw it happen, you would most likely still be sceptical. A very poorly corroberated claim from an age where such a claim was hardly unique can surely not be said to be historically robust. Are there any particular pieces of historical evidence you find particularly compelling? Also, I think science can comfortably illustrate that a corpse cannot come back to life after 3 days.
On c) Presumeably you think Jesus has some attributes or some essesence which was different from and unatainable by a normal human (i.e. he was not a regular human). Do you think there is good evidence for this and if so what is the most compellnig evidence in your opinion?
3. Why does God command and condone evil acts in the bible (genocide, Rape, slavery etc.) if he is good?
i) God is beyond good and evil, so my basic answer is 'I don't know'
ii) Some of what is predicated of God is a projection of local culture
iii) Some of what is predicated of God is about obedience or something else (Abraham and Isaac)
On i) God is beyond good and evil, what evidence is there for this? He seems to expect people to be firmly on the good side. If God truly was beyond good and evil (not sure that actually makes any sense), why would he prefer one over the other?
On ii) Are you saying here that God did not actually commit these acts? If you are, how do you know?
On iii) Does the idea of God having to test someone seem a little inconsistent to you? I am thinking of Abraham and Isaac. Would God not already know whether or not Abraham would do it or not, why the need for the test?
4. Why is it not more reasonable to assume that God is evil given his rampage of destruction throughout the O.T?
It's all in how you read the OT. I read it as the story of a people discovering that YHWH wasn't the bloodthirsty tribal God that they thought he was.
I presume you mean by this that many of the old testement stories where the authors wrongly interpreting what they thought God was like. Many times in the O.T. God speaks to people. Were they just making it up? There are many stories in the O.T. which simply can’t be viewed in a positive light no matter how hard you try. God’s orders to utterly wipe out the Amalekites for example.
5. In what way would an evil God have acted differently and can you imagine a way in which God might have acted more morally at any point in the O.T.?
I have no view on the latter part, but on the former part - he would have resembled the Baals and the Molochs.
Are you referring to sacrifice? YHWH fancied a bit of that himself. If you are referring to something else, can you elaborate.
Do you think God might have found a better way of dealing with sinners than wiping out all life on earth?
6. Why is Jesus’ character so different from the God of the O.T. if they are (inexplicably) the same person?
Technically that's Marcionism. The whole point of Christianity is that Jesus is NOT different to the God of the OT.
Do you think that the pacifist, ever merciful and forgiving character of Jesus is compatible with the jealous, violent, draconian YHWH?
7. It appears I can't count quite as well as I had formerly presumed. There was no question 7. :)
8. Is it conceivable to you that Christianity might not actually be true (in the sense that Jesus might just have been an irregular Joe.)?
Yes. It's perfectly conceivable that the resurrection didn't happen.
Willingness to accept even the possiblity that it may not be true (even if you believe it is true) is probably the single greatest distinction between the moderate and the fundamentalist. Glad to see you are in the moderate camp!
9. When considering the idea that there is no God, is your reaction one of distaste or disagreement and could you be happy living in a universe where there was no God?
More disagreement; specifically a sense that it was an incoherent perspective. I wouldn't know what to do with various things that I understand about the world (eg how to link together justice, integrity, knowledge and so on).
I would be interested to hear more about how your Christianity (or even just God belief) informs your views on justice, integrity etc.
10. Why do you think (assuming you do) that Mohammed was not in direct contact with God (Allah)? There is a holy book and many witnesses who profess he was. If you are willing to believe such things are possible, why do you not believe this?
Mohammed was a completely different character to Jesus. He was more like Napoleon.
Agreed. In fact, that may be doing Napoleon as disservice. But in what way does that make it less believable?
1. Do you think the bible is the inerrant word of God? If not, why not?
No, simply because Jesus Christ is the inerrant word of God. Treating the Bible this way is a Protestant innovation, by and large.
The first sentence is possibly a little confusing and I think exploring it more might be quite interesting. “Jesus is the living word”. What does this mean? My first reaction to this statement (quite a while ago) was to assume it was just a poetic way of saying something like “Jesus lived perfectly according to God’s word” or “Jesus was the epitemy of godly living”. I have since come to wonder if some religious people mean something more literal when they say this. If that is so, what exactly does it mean?
Also, saying that the bible in not the inerrant word of God because Jesus is, is a little vague. Maybe the answer to this question would bring more clarity. Do you think that all the actions/saying/teachings/commands etc of God and Jesus in the bible are accurate and are indeed from God and Jesus. If not, how reliable would you say the bible is in terms of it’s describing historical events?
2. If you answered no to question 1, why do you think that a) it is reasonable to believe that a man wielded magical powers and b) rose from the dead and c) was a god and a man at the same time; I am assuming that you do not generally believe in these things. What is it about the Jesus case that is so compelling as to make believing the impossible reasonable?
a) I don't think Jesus did anything which isn't (in principle) available to the rest of us to do.
b) I think i) the historical evidence is robust, and ii) science doesn't have anything to say about it.
c) My understanding of God (and man!) is different to yours.
On a). Are you suggesting that we could all perform Jesus like miracles? Have you any evidence to believe this is true (of any kind, biblical etc.)
On b) If I told you I saw someone come back from the dead after three days you would not likely believe me. If 1000 people all attested that they saw it happen, you would most likely still be sceptical. A very poorly corroberated claim from an age where such a claim was hardly unique can surely not be said to be historically robust. Are there any particular pieces of historical evidence you find particularly compelling? Also, I think science can comfortably illustrate that a corpse cannot come back to life after 3 days.
On c) Presumeably you think Jesus has some attributes or some essesence which was different from and unatainable by a normal human (i.e. he was not a regular human). Do you think there is good evidence for this and if so what is the most compellnig evidence in your opinion?
3. Why does God command and condone evil acts in the bible (genocide, Rape, slavery etc.) if he is good?
i) God is beyond good and evil, so my basic answer is 'I don't know'
ii) Some of what is predicated of God is a projection of local culture
iii) Some of what is predicated of God is about obedience or something else (Abraham and Isaac)
On i) God is beyond good and evil, what evidence is there for this? He seems to expect people to be firmly on the good side. If God truly was beyond good and evil (not sure that actually makes any sense), why would he prefer one over the other?
On ii) Are you saying here that God did not actually commit these acts? If you are, how do you know?
On iii) Does the idea of God having to test someone seem a little inconsistent to you? I am thinking of Abraham and Isaac. Would God not already know whether or not Abraham would do it or not, why the need for the test?
4. Why is it not more reasonable to assume that God is evil given his rampage of destruction throughout the O.T?
It's all in how you read the OT. I read it as the story of a people discovering that YHWH wasn't the bloodthirsty tribal God that they thought he was.
I presume you mean by this that many of the old testement stories where the authors wrongly interpreting what they thought God was like. Many times in the O.T. God speaks to people. Were they just making it up? There are many stories in the O.T. which simply can’t be viewed in a positive light no matter how hard you try. God’s orders to utterly wipe out the Amalekites for example.
5. In what way would an evil God have acted differently and can you imagine a way in which God might have acted more morally at any point in the O.T.?
I have no view on the latter part, but on the former part - he would have resembled the Baals and the Molochs.
Are you referring to sacrifice? YHWH fancied a bit of that himself. If you are referring to something else, can you elaborate.
Do you think God might have found a better way of dealing with sinners than wiping out all life on earth?
6. Why is Jesus’ character so different from the God of the O.T. if they are (inexplicably) the same person?
Technically that's Marcionism. The whole point of Christianity is that Jesus is NOT different to the God of the OT.
Do you think that the pacifist, ever merciful and forgiving character of Jesus is compatible with the jealous, violent, draconian YHWH?
7. It appears I can't count quite as well as I had formerly presumed. There was no question 7. :)
8. Is it conceivable to you that Christianity might not actually be true (in the sense that Jesus might just have been an irregular Joe.)?
Yes. It's perfectly conceivable that the resurrection didn't happen.
Willingness to accept even the possiblity that it may not be true (even if you believe it is true) is probably the single greatest distinction between the moderate and the fundamentalist. Glad to see you are in the moderate camp!
9. When considering the idea that there is no God, is your reaction one of distaste or disagreement and could you be happy living in a universe where there was no God?
More disagreement; specifically a sense that it was an incoherent perspective. I wouldn't know what to do with various things that I understand about the world (eg how to link together justice, integrity, knowledge and so on).
I would be interested to hear more about how your Christianity (or even just God belief) informs your views on justice, integrity etc.
10. Why do you think (assuming you do) that Mohammed was not in direct contact with God (Allah)? There is a holy book and many witnesses who profess he was. If you are willing to believe such things are possible, why do you not believe this?
Mohammed was a completely different character to Jesus. He was more like Napoleon.
Agreed. In fact, that may be doing Napoleon as disservice. But in what way does that make it less believable?
Thursday, August 7, 2008
Questions for Moderate Christians.
Moderate Christians generally don’t like being pinned down about the specifics of their faith. My own opinion on the matter is that they just don’t want to shine too bright a light on their beliefs. Moderate Christians have a tendency to be people who just aren’t quite gullible or unreasonable enough to embrace their faith in full. Fundamentalism is really nothing more than believing everything your holy book tells you no matter how false to fact or ridiculous it may be. The moderate desperately wants to believe in their chosen faith but can’t quite bring themselves to believe that telling a single lie and not being sorry will see you literally roasting away in hell for eternity. In order to better convince themselves that it is reasonable to believe outlandish things (Jesus was the son of God etc. etc.) they engage in impressive amounts of “theology”. Theology might be well described as an academic attempt to make bullshit plausible. Speak vaguely enough, propose all kinds of insubstantial modes of communication and knowing and soon enough the existential possibilities are endless.
There are some bitter pills to swallow along the way though. The bible simply cannot be the inerrant word of God. It is way too full of holes for that claim to stand up. The moderate then will suggest all kinds of roles for the bible and how it is sort of from God but obviously influenced by the human authors. Another problem the bible presents is that it states a lot of stuff that the moderate finds distasteful so this requires that large sections of the bible be relegated to metaphor or an expression of a concept in the language of the time, etc. etc. It can be fairly solidly shown that the bible is not a reliable historical document. Most moderates will at the very least admit that it is not 100% reliable and some will go so far as to concede that it really is not all that reliable at all. They will often suggest though that historical accuracy was not the bible's purpose. It was written to convey a message and much of it is not intended to be factual, merely parable and metaphor to get the point across. Ok. Fair enough.
What bugs me about the moderate position is that after such admissions and concessions they will pipe up with a solid concrete statement such as “Jesus is the son of God”. This bouncing between a realistic acceptance of the bibles unreliability to a ridiculous belief that some guy knocking around two thousand years ago was some form of man/god is carried off not only like it is a reasonable move but with the insinuation that it rigorously thought through and intellectually robust. I don’t doubt that many a worthy mind has invested itself in the effort to make faith reasonable but this endeavour is simply not borne of a desire for truth but from a desire to make a comforting fantasy real.
Reality has many qualities that just don’t sit well with humans. It is not fair for example. Those who do wrong quite often get away with it completely. Many of the worst villains in history have never faced any kind of justice for what they did. They were arrogant, cruel, selfish, and vicious and served only their own desires and it worked out great for them. Our desire for things to be fair drives people to believe in all kinds of silliness. Karma, reincarnation (possibly with penalties), posthumous judgement and many more wonderful justice inducing cosmic guarantees.
Life ends. This is also something that doesn’t sit too well with most people. No problem, we’ll just pretend that death isn’t the end of life. Now comes the fun bit. Lets combine some of these ideas. There will be justice (not in this life of course, that would be too visible.), and you get to live forever. The real beauty of this combination is that you can start to control people’s behaviour by threatening them with undesirable posthumous punishment and at the same time reward good behaviour (or at least compliant behaviour) with paradise, no less!, beyond the grave. Throw into the mix the all too prevalent male desire to dominate women, all manner of social prejudice and a general desire for control and supremacy and viola!, you have religion.
Moderates are in general basically good people who want to believe God has got their back and is going to sort everything out. No harm in that right? Maybe, maybe not. I object in general to ignorance, be it mild or gross especially when wilfully indulged. I also think that most attitudes held by humans have a tendency to go through cycles. Moderate now may not be moderate tomorrow. A moderate teacher also does not guarantee moderate students. Moderate faith also lends a notion of reasonableness to more extreme versions. A religious moderate and a religious fundamentalist agree about many of the ridiculous ideas underlying their faith. The will of their common fictional overlord is where they differ.
Here are some questions then for moderate believers.
1. Do you think the bible is the inerrant word of God? If not, why not?
2. If you answered no to question 1, why do you think that it is reasonable to believe that a man wielded magical powers and rose from the dead and was a god and a man at the same time; I am assuming that you do not generally believe in these things. What is it about the Jesus case that is so compelling as to make believing the impossible reasonable?
3. Why does God command and condone evil acts in the bible (genocide, Rape, slavery etc.) if he is good?
4. Why is it not more reasonable to assume that God is evil given his rampage of destruction throughout the O.T?
5. In what way would an evil God have acted differently and can you imagine a way in which God might have acted more morally at any point in the O.T.?
6. Why is Jesus’ character so different from the God of the O.T. if they are (inexplicably) the same person?
8. Is it conceivable to you that Christianity might not actually be true (in the sense that Jesus might just have been an irregular Joe.)?
9. When considering the idea that there is no God, is your reaction one of distaste or disagreement and could you be happy living in a universe where there was no God?
10. Why do you think (assuming you do) that Mohammed was not in direct contact with God (Allah)? There is a holy book and many witnesses who profess he was. If you are willing to believe such things are possible, why do you not believe this?
There are many similar questions that could be asked but by now I’m sure you get the gist of it.
There are some bitter pills to swallow along the way though. The bible simply cannot be the inerrant word of God. It is way too full of holes for that claim to stand up. The moderate then will suggest all kinds of roles for the bible and how it is sort of from God but obviously influenced by the human authors. Another problem the bible presents is that it states a lot of stuff that the moderate finds distasteful so this requires that large sections of the bible be relegated to metaphor or an expression of a concept in the language of the time, etc. etc. It can be fairly solidly shown that the bible is not a reliable historical document. Most moderates will at the very least admit that it is not 100% reliable and some will go so far as to concede that it really is not all that reliable at all. They will often suggest though that historical accuracy was not the bible's purpose. It was written to convey a message and much of it is not intended to be factual, merely parable and metaphor to get the point across. Ok. Fair enough.
What bugs me about the moderate position is that after such admissions and concessions they will pipe up with a solid concrete statement such as “Jesus is the son of God”. This bouncing between a realistic acceptance of the bibles unreliability to a ridiculous belief that some guy knocking around two thousand years ago was some form of man/god is carried off not only like it is a reasonable move but with the insinuation that it rigorously thought through and intellectually robust. I don’t doubt that many a worthy mind has invested itself in the effort to make faith reasonable but this endeavour is simply not borne of a desire for truth but from a desire to make a comforting fantasy real.
Reality has many qualities that just don’t sit well with humans. It is not fair for example. Those who do wrong quite often get away with it completely. Many of the worst villains in history have never faced any kind of justice for what they did. They were arrogant, cruel, selfish, and vicious and served only their own desires and it worked out great for them. Our desire for things to be fair drives people to believe in all kinds of silliness. Karma, reincarnation (possibly with penalties), posthumous judgement and many more wonderful justice inducing cosmic guarantees.
Life ends. This is also something that doesn’t sit too well with most people. No problem, we’ll just pretend that death isn’t the end of life. Now comes the fun bit. Lets combine some of these ideas. There will be justice (not in this life of course, that would be too visible.), and you get to live forever. The real beauty of this combination is that you can start to control people’s behaviour by threatening them with undesirable posthumous punishment and at the same time reward good behaviour (or at least compliant behaviour) with paradise, no less!, beyond the grave. Throw into the mix the all too prevalent male desire to dominate women, all manner of social prejudice and a general desire for control and supremacy and viola!, you have religion.
Moderates are in general basically good people who want to believe God has got their back and is going to sort everything out. No harm in that right? Maybe, maybe not. I object in general to ignorance, be it mild or gross especially when wilfully indulged. I also think that most attitudes held by humans have a tendency to go through cycles. Moderate now may not be moderate tomorrow. A moderate teacher also does not guarantee moderate students. Moderate faith also lends a notion of reasonableness to more extreme versions. A religious moderate and a religious fundamentalist agree about many of the ridiculous ideas underlying their faith. The will of their common fictional overlord is where they differ.
Here are some questions then for moderate believers.
1. Do you think the bible is the inerrant word of God? If not, why not?
2. If you answered no to question 1, why do you think that it is reasonable to believe that a man wielded magical powers and rose from the dead and was a god and a man at the same time; I am assuming that you do not generally believe in these things. What is it about the Jesus case that is so compelling as to make believing the impossible reasonable?
3. Why does God command and condone evil acts in the bible (genocide, Rape, slavery etc.) if he is good?
4. Why is it not more reasonable to assume that God is evil given his rampage of destruction throughout the O.T?
5. In what way would an evil God have acted differently and can you imagine a way in which God might have acted more morally at any point in the O.T.?
6. Why is Jesus’ character so different from the God of the O.T. if they are (inexplicably) the same person?
8. Is it conceivable to you that Christianity might not actually be true (in the sense that Jesus might just have been an irregular Joe.)?
9. When considering the idea that there is no God, is your reaction one of distaste or disagreement and could you be happy living in a universe where there was no God?
10. Why do you think (assuming you do) that Mohammed was not in direct contact with God (Allah)? There is a holy book and many witnesses who profess he was. If you are willing to believe such things are possible, why do you not believe this?
There are many similar questions that could be asked but by now I’m sure you get the gist of it.
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