Atheism

thomasquinn 32989 wrote:

I hold perhaps the most moderate opinion in this discussion, and this discussion is all that counts in this topic.

No you don't Thomas. You hold an opinion which has the gloss of evenness but is in fact quite biased. It doesn't surprise me that you see Bob as tolerant as history shows that you're about as tolerant on various topics and in just about the same way. I don't dislike you but I can say with immoderate glee that based on your past record of accuracy and ability to glean the heart of any particular matter I couldn't be more thrilled that it's Bob that has your endorsement here and not me.

On the rest: Stop rewriting my posts to suit your whims. I did not suggest anything about "cutting oneself off from organized religion". I have full respect and curiosity for any sane religious, atheistic or non-theistic choice and fully expect each one has many things to teach me and others. My reference was to cutting oneself off from reality of the abundance of experience and wisdom and humanity found in those who identify with a given faith or faiths and exchanging that for intellectually bankrupt statements that sweep them all into the mindless jaws of generalized derision based on vacuous bullshit. When it all skews negative, that is prejudice, by definition. This is entirely different from intelligent and fair criticism of religion. I'd love to have a conversation like that but people don't seem to be able to come up with anything that's not distilled to the point of completely self indulgent absurdity, you being one of the worst offenders. "All the good that the Catholic Church does is cancelled out because of the evil of the Pope telling Africans condoms cause AIDS." or whatever that was. Followed by three or four high fives from some other people oddly comfortable with stupid statements. Good Christ, fuck off.

Nobody I know or could imagine knowing would be remotely uncomfortable with Ishtar or any other Babylonian good time girl having historical links to Easter. However given the available evidence I wish you luck finding any scholar who will assert "Easter was originally the celebration of Ishtar, the Assyrian and Babylonian goddess of fertility and sex. Her symbols (like the egg and bunny) were and still are fertility and sex symbols (or did you actually think eggs and bunnies had anything to do with the resurrection?) After Constantine decided to Christianize the Empire, Easter was changed to represent Jesus. But at its roots, Easter (which is how you pronounce Ishtar) is all about celebrating fertility and sex." Minimizing the factual problems with that underscores that you are in fact not that moderate at all. And the real problem of course was the intent. Using such a blunt instrument of "education" to belittle Christian beliefs was it's real purpose, lost apparently only on Queenzone "moderates" but to nobody else on the internet who critically examined the meme.

As for my religious freedom and fanaticism and whatever other rot you were on about, it would benefit you to understand that I'm not even a particularly religious person and this is not a religious argument. It's an intellectual and moral position that strongly objects to the dumbing down of public spaces like the internet and on this topic the festering prejudice that encourages it. Bob is not the victim here, the people who he and others have mindlessly shoveled into his neatly but crudely labelled bins are the victims, whether they're reading here or not.

Disclaimer: Not directed at anyone in particular!

A few random things in no particular order:

1. I saw a rebroadcast of an interview with Homeland's Mandy Patinkin on Canada's Studio Q this weekend that I thought had some interesting comments about spirituality, faith and religion. His blend of influences and beliefs that include participation in organized religon is very typical in my experience. He is thoughtful, reasoned and connected to tradition yet open to ideas from all directions, all this so much in contrast to the negative stereotypes peddled here. He brings some of the wisdom that comes with age to the conversation as well. This is the brief part of the interview that deals with spirituality:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A-nyfzueAMM


2. Much has been said here about religious faith being the product of stunted thought or a failure of critical thinking. While it certainly can be something you simply inherit as a child and carry though the rest of your life without much question I'd wonder how this is so different from the characterization of the atheist bots serenely accepting their material world and simply living their lives without troubling themselves with much in the way of epistemology. Regardless, faith is in many cases clearly adopted or confirmed as the end product of deep thoughtfulness, reason and argument. Endless examples, but an interesting and current one is the conversion of atheist blogger Leah Libresco. This is her last post on the Pantheos atheist portal (she continues to blog but now in a different section) which explains her decision to convert to Catholicism. To be completely clear, my point is not that faith is THE conclusion of rational thought but A conclusion of rational thought, just as atheism or non-theism can be.

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/unequallyyoked/2012/06/this-is-my-last-post-for-the-patheos-atheist-portal.html

3. An interesting blend for music fans like us engaged in this discussion. Recent audio of Michelle Shocked evangelizing a hard line Christian based anti gay marriage position from stage in San Francisco and getting a heap of audience anger and disgust back before getting kicked off and out of the club. She later followed up with a protest playing outside of the club with tape over her mouth to symbolize the fact that she felt she had been silenced.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fYm4teuAcm0


4. Perusing my Kindle ebook collection today I noted that there are several there that relate directly or indirectly to these discussions. They cover positions from atheism, agnosticism, science, criticism of orthodoxy and fundamentalism in science, anti Catholicism and underdog inventors marginalized and hobbled, possibly quite correctly, by long held scienctific beliefs. I wondered if anybody had read any of them and if so what impressions were formed.

Divinity of Doubt - The God Question by Vincent Bugliosi
The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins
The Science Delusion by Rubert Sheldrake
Mad Like Tesla by Tyler Hamilton
The Demon Haunted World - Science as a Candle in the Dark by Carl Sagan
The New Anti-Catholicism - The Last Acceptable Prejudice by Philip Jenkins
Dogmatism in Science and Medicine by Henry H. Bauer
Hunting Down the Universe by Michael Hawkins (this one was a library book and I don't think available electronically unfortunately as it was one of the more interesting books I've every read)

There's an interesting trend in education in Ontario that sees Catholic schools in the aggregate perform better academically than their public counterparts. Because the organization and funding mechanism for education in Ontario means all schools are operating under the same core curriculum and the same rules and constraints the only difference between the two seems to be the faith based model of learning. Because the stats are already adjusted for demographics and all the other things that can affect achievement nobody has ever been able to do anything but speculate about the reasons why on this one measure of school achievement there is this odd Catholic advantage. A couple of articles a few years apart describe the trend: http://www.thestar.com/life/parent/2009/08/19/catholic_schools_get_as.html http://www.thestar.com/yourtoronto/education/2012/06/07/catholic_schools_test_scores_often_better_than_public_schools_cd_howe_report.html I'm mentioning all this today because last night while processing Roger Ebert's passing I was reading some of his journal entries, something I had never done before. I discovered through one entry there reflecting on Pope Benedict's unprecedented resignation that Roger was Catholic. He referred to his early Catholic education and said this: The morning hour in religion was my favorite class. As we advanced through the grades, it began simply, in memorizing chapters from the Baltimore Catechism, and concluded in eighth grade with the four lives of Christ as told in the New Testament. We made a side tour through Genesis, observing it's "all the Jews have," but cautioning that it was written as a fable not to be taken literally. Some Protestants took it as fundamentalist truth, but not Catholics or modern Jews. That led us toward the Theory of Evolution, which in its elegance and blinding obviousness became one of the pillars of my reasoning, explaining so many things in so many ways. It was an introduction not only to logic but to symbolism, thus opening a window into poetry, literature and the arts in general. All my life I have deplored those who interpret something only on its most simplistic level. I grant you that artworks like Andres Serrano's "Piss Christ" are hard to embrace and you will never find it displayed in my home, but I understand the impulse behind it. And it struck me immediately that connecting a hard scientific principle like evolution with symbolism seemed counterintuitive, and that perhaps it was the link with the stories in Genesis in this instance that gave a particular shape to the leap into other areas of learning, the laying down of the physical synaptic connections that form memory and comprehension in our brains. I just thought it interesting because it's the first thing I've ever seen that might hint at a unique process for cross-curricular connections in faith based learning as a possible or partial explanation for academic achievement on standardized tests. All the other theories so far have focused on a smaller school system trying harder and other things not related to the actual model of faith integrated learning. So just a little thing, but I thought it intriguing. The whole entry titled "How I am Roman Catholic" was interesting, winding up with the fact that he didn't believe in God but didn't identify as an atheist. One more in the vast sea of the reality of the diversity of the people who embrace some from of organized religion. Roger Ebert, like about 33% of Catholics, didn't believe in God. Tangentially related is a clip I saw today of Roger Ebert and Gene Siskel clearly annoyed at each other duking it out on outtakes of promos for Siskel & Ebert. A funny bit in the middle where they each envision a typical trip to MacDonalds for the other. Near they end they wind up to a rather uncomfortable slash at various religions that aren't their own. Marginally funny in that context but it would certainly bother me if anybody tried to make a serious argument out of it. http://www.thestar.com/entertainment/2013/04/05/video_outtakes_with_gene_siskel_show_another_side_of_roger_ebert.html

Adding a post script because I wanted to be sure to dispel any impression I might have inadvertently left that I was trying to say that Catholic education is inherently superior or that faith makes people smarter or any such thing. The stats I referred to are Ontario only and more importantly relate to standardized tests in reading and writing and mathematics which are only a limited way to measure achievement in a given system. They make no claim about anything like intelligence etc. and I certainly did not intend to either.

Sorry to interject, but:

I would very much like to wed GratefulFan in holy* matrimony.

She/you is/are the most intelligent, insightful, erudite, bang-on-the-nose, winningest, well-rounded, shrewd, humourous, empathic, readable, long-winded but bang-for-your-buck, enlightening person/Canadian ever to post on Queenzone. I could read (and I do) her/your posts all bloody day long. She/you has such an unbelievable way with words. I get such delight from disentangling the numerous subordinate clauses in your sentences that I feel I deserve some kind of prize when I get to the end and still have a grasp on what your thrust is. Sounds sarcastic, but I mean that sincerely.

Write a book, please. On anything**. I will buy and read it. I promise her/you. And then I'll marry her/you.



*civil

**Other than ice-hockey.

Sob. I don't even know what a subordinate clause is! For the sake of peace however I am willing to concede that it might be Jesus, thus effectively ceding Christmas to Santa and the atheists.

I am a reasonable woman. If we are to marry I am perfectly willing to compromise. I will forgo a preist and instead get us a rabbi. You can then claim that the word rabbi actually comes from the word rabbit and that at the heart of it religious ceremony is in fact all about screwing copiously in a field and unusually dry and startlingly uniform poop. TQ can affirm. Everybody's happy. :)

True story: Your post was kind and energizing enough to me that I uncancelled my plans for the gym tonight in a burst of good cheer. Thus you may be directly responsible for 15 minutes or so of extra life I might eventually earn due to tonight's investment in good health. If you really do like my posts you should know I plan to use those minutes blathering on the Internet. If, as I allow possible due to your signature this is some kind of tardy April Fool's joke, you should know I plan to use those minutes blathering on the Internet. :P

PS. Dear everybody. I know my posts are often too long. I'm sorry. :)

Meant every word (even if I was rather sozzled when I posted it). :)

Ironically - given which thread I posted the little love letter above - probably the only area where I don't side with you 100% is religion (hence my signature). Oh, and your love for Meatloaf too. What's that all about?!

Still, that's very nice that I somehow positively influenced your evening.

Anyway, as you were...

"To be completely clear, my point is not that faith is THE conclusion of rational thought but A conclusion of rational thought, just as atheism or non-theism can be"

My issue is that not enough people bother to perform the thought process themselves, rational or otherwise. Whether you get an opinion because it's the one you were born with, or whether you arrive at it after thinking about an issue for a couple of decades whenever you're on the shitter - I mean, that's a pretty big difference right there.

I'm in the Sagan/Fox Mulder bucket. I WANT to believe. But I'm in my own bucket, in that I don't 'believe'. Ultimately, every thought process that leads to an actual belief in 'something out there' (at least that I can think of) is marred by emotional interference. And I don't see that as something that should be judged outright, because we're all emotional and we all want the same shit (on a basic level).

I've been let down too many times, really. I think of this lass I was chatting up from America last year, who turned me onto a whole lot of spiritual stuff. Turns out that she'd had a lot of instances of head trauma in her life that would probably account for half of the things she was talking about; and the other half could've been put down to anything from sleep paralysis to simple ringing in the ears.
No; that's not me screaming into a packed church "THERE IS NO GOD!" - I'm just saying that it's more likely that she had tinnitus than it was that she was hearing bells from Heaven.

Everyone's got some experience in their life that defies explanation - myself I've only got one, but I mean ... that was almost a lifetime ago for me. One event. And it could've been anything - I'm not prone to hallucination, and I was wide awake at the time. It wasn't a corner-of-the-eye thing or anything. But again ... the best I can say is that it could've been a number of things.

All of which is to say that there's nothing wrong with feeling like you're turned onto the Universe, or even having a particular name for it like Ganesh or whatever - and shit, even gathering in groups to celebrate that feeling of Turned On-ed-ness is pretty neat.

But people, look at the fucking calendar already. We should be past so much of the bullshit that goes along with this stuff. Every time I see a religious leader on the television I want to cry into my soup; they can't (or won't) acknowledge how ridiculous it is for them to be wearing their stupid pyjamas and giving people (frequently) irrelevant advice on how to live. Half the time I feel like I've backed into a time machine and I'm lost in some quaint, idiotic alternate reality where civilisation is stuck in second gear or something.
I mean, that bloody Papal Conclave - I stayed up and watched the announcement, and it took a while for it all to sink in that there's probably a billion people watching this religious event take place, and it has *nothing* to do with God. God didn't cast a vote, he didn't pick anyone - it was a bunch of old codgers in a fuckin' room.

I really am rambling but honestly - enough's enough. I think (and I wouldn't know where to begin as far as making the distinction goes) that there's a way to have your belief and feel that connection to 'whatever', and share that with people - *WITHOUT* all of the bullshit that goes with it. Without sharia law or Mormon doorknockers or a Pope with poisonous attitudes concerning just how much he should be allowed to meddle in the affairs of real people who are going to be influenced by his backwards and nonsensical ideas about contraception. We have enough of that from our elected officials. The only thing the Pope should ever fucking say - the only thing - is "Love each other!".

Any institution that oversteps that mandate, as far as I'm concerned, ought to be bulldozed and turned into a bowling alley. And it's upsetting to me that this notion might be, in turn, upsetting to others - but that's fuckin' life. There are people in the world who think they have a meaningful opinion about my sideburns - I tell them to fuck off and I move on.

Wow. After a storm surge of hostility inexpertly hidden behind a leaky sea wall of carefully phrased civility (yes, GratefulFan, I can do cheap jabs on the side too) and an all-out declaration of love I thought this thread was done for. And who comes along to save the day? Zeb, of all people, with careful and deep thought hidden beneath an equally inadequate layer of profanity.

Zeb, thank you. It's posts like this that still make me come back to QZ!

Zebonka12 wrote:
But people, look at the fucking calendar already. We should be past so much of the bullshit that goes along with this stuff.

This about sums it up, really.

Something else you said way back on page one of this thread has stuck with me, though -

“…it's a lot easier for humans to contemplate what might be out there than it is to shoehorn our brains into grasping oblivion. The short version of the story is that we can't do it, as a matter of practicality. When you're dead, you can't be really said to be experiencing 'nothing' because you aren't there experiencing a damn thing. You don't wake up from it and subsequently say 'I guess that's what death is like, then!'. We simply don't get what 'nothing' is. So we make shit up. More palatable alternatives…”

I agree completely and would suggest that it is precisely because of this that, despite the calendar, we are not at all past “the bullshit that goes along with this stuff”.

It's like a circle story.

What do you remember of before you were born? Nothing, you didn't exist. What do you think happens when you die?

Stop living life in fear, or even worse.. for reward.

Anyway, where is my convincing proof? I am still waiting.......

13 pages in, my argument is still VERY simple and requires a very simple response.....

I can understand the reasoning behind the theory that religion and God must have been invented to give comfort to the grieving, however, that is a small part of the comfort that God or religion could bring to a person's life. So, I would say that knowing what happens after we die or the inability to imagine nothingness is not the only reason for religion or belief in a higher power or a helpful peace giving loving type of force. It is arrogant, Mooghead, to assume that religious people (or people who believe in "God") are just afraid of nothingness or death and that you are superior because you can see the "truth" more easily... if that is your point, which I don't know for sure. You want a simple answer about God but maybe simple is not the way to go.

At my father's funeral the pastor came up to me without me initiating any communication and said to me alone, "We don't really know what happens when a person dies." At the time I wondered why she just came up to me like that. I have been told by friends that my face is easy to read (ha), but anyway, it was interesting that someone who had spent her life (and her husband was also a pastor) contemplating and spreading the "good news" of the new testament would have this to say at a funeral ... to me.

Anyway ... I think I saw something recently (flipping TV channels), about a certain part of the brain that is used for intuition and spiritual thoughts. And if I didn't remember it wrong (wrongly?), women are more likely to have this area of their brains operating. Maybe something to do with keeping kids safe or just other survival instincts - probably a biological necessity (!). But on the subject of religious experiences, or any unexplainable experience, one does have to rule out hallucinations, coincidence, medical problems, and that sort of thing, so a normal-thinking, reasonable and intelligent person would be left puzzled rather than sure (I should think), after such an occurrence. When I saw a documentary on running through Death Valley (which is super hot and dry), it was interesting that it was considered common to have a hallucination under those conditions. Conversations with people who are not there and that sort of thing. I once woke up to see a giant bug crawling on the ceiling and it faded after a few seconds. Interesting that my dream hadn't stopped though my eyes were open. But I think hallucinations or other forms of confusion about reality can also be caused by past head trauma or spinal chord trauma. Also I heard that people who have had a stroke can tell when someone is lying. So just as when a person loses their sight and their hearing gets more sensitive, we can imagine that head trauma might also increase certain abilities. But if someone does have "something unexplainable" happen to them, from my own casual gathering of stories, the experiences are also usually pretty unique: dreams, voices, visions, just knowing something by intuition. And they don't happen very often at all - maybe just one per lifetime with some people, maybe several times, maybe never.

"It is arrogant, Mooghead, to assume that religious people (or people who believe in "God") are just afraid of nothingness or death and that you are superior because you can see the "truth" more easily... if that is your point, which I don't know for sure. You want a simple answer about God but maybe simple is not the way to go. "

Prove god exists. Or at least convince me he does, I do not have a superiority complex as I have an opened mind, I am not sitting here saying I am definitely right and you are definitely wrong but I refuse to believe in the mystical sky man simply because the very idea is utterly ridiculous.

It IS simple. Believers create grey areas, lots and lots and lots of grey areas.

Your third paragraph has absolutely nothing to do with this thread and is just babble.

http://twitpic.com/chzsf4

Well, my third paragraph was responding to something another person brought up already.