PZ Myers. 2005 Aug 13. Get out of the quicksand, Panda's Thumb!. <http://pharyngula.org/index/weblog/get_out_of_the_quicksand_pandas_thumb/>. Accessed 2008 Nov 20.
Posted on M00o93H7pQ09L8X1t49cHY01Z5j4TT91fGfr on Saturday, August 13, 2005
Get out of the quicksand, Panda's Thumb!
Ah, poor Panda's Thumb. It's getting hit with the Religious Wars. Don't they know that Pharyngula is the place to battle over atheism and religion? I'm going to side with my compatriots over there who think religion should not be a discussion topic there, but that doesn't mean I can't argue about it elsewhere.
Nick Matzke brings up one interesting but irrelevant point.
Jacob Weisberg and Julian Sanchez, who both want to argue that evolution is incompatible with religious belief, have to explain why the same logic does not also apply to meteorology, germ theory, genetics, atomism, etc. All of these contradict certain literal interpretations of fundamental Judeo-Christian-Islamic holy texts. All of these scientific discoveries have experienced objections from certain religious sects, even though, now, it seems silly to almost every religious person that there would be some kind of religious problem with genetics or meteorology.
There is a good question there: why does evolution stir up these debates? However, it's not our question to answer. If scientists were driven to crash Sunday School sessions and yell at the little kiddies that Genesis is a lie, it would be a point worth bringing up on the Panda's Thumb…but we're not. The argument is all coming from the other direction. So don't ask me or my heathenish ilk why they leave meteorology alone (although…didn't Pat Robertson make some theological assertions about the paths of tornadoes?), ask them. And please don't chew out the atheists over it—they aren't the ones trying to degrade public education or insert atheism into the school's science instruction.
This part, though, I find a bit annoying.
Michael Ruse has been getting flack from certain quarters lately for pointing this out, and perhaps he sometimes does exagerrate the sins of Richard Dawkins et al. in this area. But the very reason that Ruse has to pound the table so hard is that a certain segment of evolution/atheism popularizers stubbornly, and in the case of Jacob Weisberg, defiantly, refuses to separate their science and their religious argumentation. Basically, they take the lazy step of saying “Look, folks, it’s science or religion,” and attempt to force people to chose their favorite, rather than actually arguing for their own religious view of atheism. Make no mistake: arguing for atheism is making a religious argument, just like arguing for theism. Having religious arguments is a grand human tradition and all for the good, but history has shown that it is a Very Bad Thing if governments take sides on these arguments. Atheists insisting that evolution proves atheism make it appear as if teaching standard science in biology classrooms is actually state sponsorship of atheism, and this is what motivates creationists/IDists. It is highly doubtful that the evolution=atheism mixture has ever been a significant component of public education in the U.S., but if people who are ostensibly supporting teaching evolution can’t resist mixing in the religious argument for atheism, then it is understandable why the public will continue to be confused.
I guess I'm one of that tiny minority of PTers who will note that there really is a conflict between science and religion.
Nick has elided two very different points: 1) "evolution proves atheism" and 2) "evolution and religion are in conflict". (1) is false; I don't know of any sensible atheists who make such a claim, and Dawkins or Weisberg or any of the other boogiemen mentioned there certainly don't. (1) and (2) are not synonymous, and (2) is definitely true. We wouldn't be having these evolution-creation wars if it were not so. Go to any of the big guns of the religious right, say Johnson or Robertson or Dobson or Falwell, and try to tell them that they've got no argument with evolution. They'll disagree. Anyone wanna bet on it?
What Nick is doing is promoting one kind of religious belief, a sort of abstract deism, as compatible with evolutionary biology. Sure it is; I'll agree with him one hundred percent. But there are probably about as many people who practice that particularly fuzzy sort of religion as there are atheists, and what he is actually doing is pushing a kind of sectarian faith that will only serve to annoy the Baptist and Methodist and Catholic and miscellaneous Evangelical creationists. In order for the two to be compatible, we're insisting that these religions strip out articles of faith that they may consider indispensable.
I have no problem saying that religions that conflict with reality are wacky and should change; I'm an atheist. It's odd, though, to see people trying to fool themselves into believing that promoting their version of religion, which avoids key problems with evolutionary biology, is somehow less offensive than going whole hog and just stating that all religion is hooey.
I'll also add that if people really want to show that evolutionary biology is independent of religion, they're going to have to stop treating atheist proponents of evolution as the bad boys they'd like to keep in the closet. The evidence that evolution is not dependent on a religious point of view is that many Catholics and Baptists and Moslems and Buddhists and religious whatevers and atheists can all agree on its major ideas. Including us atheists pisses off the fundies terribly, but treating us as pariahs gives the lie to the the claim that it is not religious.
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Pat Robertson specializes in hurricanes, making the news in 2003 when he prayed for Isabel to stay away from land. How did Prayin' Pat do? Check it out:
Isabel made landfall as a category 2 storm with maximum sustained winds near 85 kts around 17 UTC at Ocracoke Island between Cape Hatteras and Cape Lookout. The storm continued to push inland, wreaking havoc in North Carolina, Virginia, Maryland, Washington and areas north.
All the hurricane details are here:
http://www.atl.ec.gc.ca/weather/hurricane/isabel/#: Posted by on 08/13 at 06:40 PM - Oh, and the tsunami, too....
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The historicans I trust inform me that Darwinism didn't have much to do with the decline of religion in Europe; but the fact, which surprised a lot of people, that natural history didn't find any evidence of a creator failed to stem a tendency towards secularism that had other causes. It's something like what happens in an experiment when the data fails to reject the null hypothesis.
#: Posted by Jim Harrison on 08/13 at 06:50 PM
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Shit.
I initially made a comment in the thread you have linked to at PT up above that I thought was a reasonably innocent observation, and all hell broke loose. It's sort of fun being an agent provocateur, except for the accusation that by being fully rational and rejecting supernaturalism completely, I am damaging the cause of science education. Is this what it's like to be a gay priest, a mob informant, or a fan of Abba?
What a rush, man. I had fancied myself a reasonable, friendly, and empathetic fellow. Turns out I'm a fricking bad boy. I wonder if I can use my no-found cred to get some action with the ladies?#: Posted by on 08/13 at 07:03 PM - Hey, what's wrong with ABBA?
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A great article on the Pat Robertson / weather thing:
Five years ago I wrote a column saying that televangelist Pat Robertson should concentrate on religion and leave weather forecasting to the professionals. The occasion then was Robertson, speaking for God, warning the city of Orlando to expect hurricanes in retribution for that city's decision to allow a gay celebration...
http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?articleID=000D88C5-279D-1F30-9AD380A84189F2D7 -
What Nick is doing is promoting one kind of religious belief, a sort of abstract deism, as compatible with evolutionary biology. Sure it is; I'll agree with him one hundred percent. But there are probably about as many people who practice that particularly fuzzy sort of religion as there are atheists, and what he is actually doing is pushing a kind of sectarian faith that will only serve to annoy the Baptist and Methodist and Catholic and miscellaneous Evangelical creationists. In order for the two to be compatible, we're insisting that these religions strip out articles of faith that they may consider indispensable.
If science is able to change in reaction to new evidence (as it should), then why do people complain when religions do the same thing?
If religions remain static in the face of real-world evidence, they are called fundamentalist. (I believe that fundamentalism is an intellectual blight, BTW.) But if religion changes in the face of real-world evidence, is it called "a kind of fuzzy deism". The critics of religion appear to be having it both ways.
It saddens me, because we atheists' greatest allies against fundamentalism are the "liberal" theists, the ones who have their faith but do not believe that science provides evidence for it, and that do not treat their faith as the sole source of truth. To treat even those who would support us in our fight as if they were in the opposing camp is a terrible waste. It smacks of fundamentalism on our own side, an intolerant belief that we are the only source of truth, and that offends me on some intellectual level, being fully aware of my own lack of knowledge. -
"There is a good question there: why does evolution stir up these debates?"
I posted something at Sanchez addressing exactly that point:
"This is a point I've been making for a while, and I feel it's an important one. That said, I do think this article misses the real thrust of religions antipathy toward evolution. It isn't just that science demystifies the universe and makes the need for God less urgent, although that surely plays a part; the real crux is that many scientific theories have implied or assumed philosophical corollaries that are hostile to religion. Consider Galileo. The reason he got in hot water with the Church wasn't simply because his reordering of the heavens demystified the universe, but rather because moving the Earth out of the center of the universe had severe theological repercussions. Evolution is the same, but on a much larger scale. Evolution, while theoretically compatible with religion, posits a "vulgar ontology" that, in practice, is highly toxic to any form of transcendental belief. Such beliefs revolve around giving the world meaning, and the idea that our existence is due solely to the fact that our ancestors were quite good at surviving is obviously going to conflict with them. Religion does have an issue with science in general, but its real beef is with the specific aspects of science which are actively corrosive to religious belief."
That one can claim Evolution doesn't conflict with religion because abstract deism is compatible is missing the point. In a very real sense, Deism isn't a religion. Sure, it has God and such, but religion exists to explain the world and scratch the metaphysical, what is the meaning of life itch. You only really see deism as the thinking mans alternative in deeply religious societies.#: Posted by on 08/13 at 07:54 PM -
But there are probably about as many people who practice that particularly fuzzy sort of religion as there are atheists, and what he is actually doing is pushing a kind of sectarian faith that will only serve to annoy the Baptist and Methodist and Catholic and miscellaneous Evangelical creationists.
Hey hey hey, leave us Catholics out of it -- our Church has officially believed in evolution since 1950. The late Pope JPII even published an official encyclical about it: http://www.cin.org/jp2evolu.html
Sure, they dress it up by saying that where atheists see random occurrences, the Church sees the hand of God, but that's always been an area where it's kinda hard to argue that one side is definitively right or definitively wrong. Still, belief in evolution and the Big Bang are official doctrines of the Roman Catholic Church.#: Posted by on 08/13 at 07:55 PM -
It's a fact that evolution is incompatible with certain forms of religion. Reality itself is incompatible with certain forms of religion. If you want to assert, as a religious tenet, that the earth is six thousand years old, and you claim that this assertion is a foundational one for your religion, then your religion is, demonstrably, a false religion. Science really does invalidate some kinds of religion.
The problem with making this argument, I've found, is that most people are the most incredibly sloppy thinkers you could possibly imagine. Most people, like Alice's Red Queen, are quite capable of believing six impossible things before breakfast each morning. And if all six things contradict each other - well, that's not much of a problem, either.
I know that sounds harsh, but it isn't really meant as an insult. Most people are still good, decent people who love their families and pay their taxes and just want to have a nice life. If the logical extension of their belief x is A, and the logical extension of their belief y is ~A, they really don't care. It's only amongst people for whom intellectual rigor is a part of their livelihood - like scientists - that I find any real concern for these sorts of problems.
This is why people are able to hold at the same time both the belief that "The bible is a good guide to morality" and the belief "child abuse is wrong" (because lord knows you find plenty of child abuse among the righteous in the Bible). There isn't an ounce of critical thought that goes into their forming either of these beliefs as far as I can tell. The Christians that I've spoken to on this topic give me the impression that the reason they think the Bible is a good guide to morality is because when they used to go to church as children, they felt warm happy feelings inside, so it must be good. It's not how I choose to form my ethical values, but as long as they aren't stoning my kids to death before the city gates, I can't really complain.
So, really, evolution is only a problem for people who make the attempt to be consistent in their thinking, but choose to privilege the Bible over their own experience of reality.#: Posted by on 08/13 at 08:12 PM -
Whenever someone argues for the particular kind of deism that people argue for when defending the compatibility of science and religion, I think they should include a list of what, exactly, it implies. I.e., if you're a Christian,
1. You can go to church, but you can't think you have to go to church.
2. You can pray, but have to acknowledge it's not capable of achieving anything.
3. You can read the Bible, as fiction (mostly).
4. You can think Jesus is a great guy, but not the son of God or even a capable magician.
5. You can believe in God (sort of), but He hasn't done anything of note in billions of years.
6. You don't get to be a better or more moral person for having Faith.
It's not very appealing.
Of course, what really happens is people defend this version while practising something entirely different.#: Posted by on 08/13 at 08:12 PM -
As a serious religionist, a Lutheran and fairly traditional in my Lutheranism, I have to take some umbrage at some of the assertions in the comments.
I do think there is a conflict between religion and science if you assume that truth is unitary. If all knowledge is and must be scientific and empirical, then of course you have to give the nod to Western experimental sciences is all things. But I would contend, and many would contend with me, that not all knowledge can be subsumed under the heading of science. That does not invalidate the knowledge, it merely makes it of another type. Evolution does explain much. It does not, at least not for me, demystify the world or the workings of human beings.
In fact, science seems to me to make the world a more awe inspiring place, not less.
This doesn't mean I would remove the conflict between science and religion. I would probably speak of it as a tension rather than a conflict. I would also think of it as a relatively healthy place for dialog between science and religion, rather than as a place that led folks to be dismissive of the arguments of others.#: Posted by Carl Isaacson on 08/13 at 08:35 PM -
Thank you for this, PZ. I, like Greg, am baffled -- and a little troubled -- by the fact that his (fairly innocuous) comment ignited a firestorm of controversy.
I'm especially dismayed at the implication by one PT poster (whom I once admired) that "ideological atheists" should be kicked out (from what?) because their views run contrary to some percieved strategy. (And what, exactly, is an "ideological atheist"?)
And while I'm on the subject... is it possible that there are many educated, otherwise well-informed people (including some posters on PT) who don't know what it means when someone identifies himself as an atheist? I find it offensive that atheism (a lack of belief in a god) is so often conflated with anti-theism.
In any case, I refuse to shut up and sit at the back of the bus just because some of my fellow evolution proponents think that my lack of belief makes them look bad.#: Posted by on 08/13 at 08:50 PM -
Poke said:
It's not very appealing.
It's actually appealing enough to be a pretty decent description of modern liberal theology.
Carl Isaacson said:
But I would contend, and many would contend with me, that not all knowledge can be subsumed under the heading of science.
Thank you for stating that in very clear, direct words. It's certainly what I believe, as an atheist. -
It's odd, though, to see people trying to fool themselves into believing that promoting their version of religion, which avoids key problems with evolutionary biology, is somehow less offensive than going whole hog and just stating that all religion is hooey.
This argument would imply that science is also all hooey. Agreed science is what is in accord with reality; but the pile of scientific theories that were once accepted as being in accord with reality and later discarded is quite large. Likewise with philosophy or with any other human endeavor. Difficulty in apprehending reality is not unique to religion.
What is hooey is the claim that One Book contains the complete, final, eternal and infallible truth. If all religion consists of such claims, then yes, all religion is hooey. But thinking that these claims is all there is to religion is like considering the cold fusionists to be representative of physical chemists. -
IMO, evolution and religion are only compatible in the sense that evolution can concisely explain religious behaviour. In short, religious people are simply falling back on their Darwinian instinct for survival when then strive for immortality. Would there even *be* any Christians if Christianity didn't promise them immortality? Of course not. In the end, it is their natural selfish instinct for survival and continuity that drives them to religion. Anything that gets in the way of that will be subject to the same kind of snarling primal attack that a mother would launch in protecting it's offspring. Evolutionists shouldn't be suprised at all.
#: Posted by on 08/13 at 09:30 PM
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getting back to the original question: why is evolution singled out from among all the other natural phenomena that have been claimed to contradict the bible?
i think it's because the fundamentalists have a lot at stake in believing that humans are special in nature. they got their own day in genesis, after all. and evolution challenges that belief, of course. if some atmospheric facts contradict some biblical passages, the stakes aren't very high. but if evolution is true, humans just aren't that exceptional anymore, and that challenges much more of the foundations of fundamentalism.
also: i agree that religious believers of evolution have something valuable to add to the discussion...they might be the only ones that the fundamentalists will ever listen to.
also: it's not that the fundamentalists simply ignore the facts in favor of their world view. it's that they honestly believe that creationism IS a fact. if the evidence contradicts it, there must be something wrong with how we gather/interpret evidence. if you found out that something incorrect was being taught in your kids' school, you'd try to get it changed, too. that's how they're seeing it, and all the evidence in the world won't change their mind because the bible's account is (for them) a priori fact, and therefore what should obviously be taught. the sad fact is there can't be a logical counter-argument because they've twisted the logic. - No, Mnemosyne, you aren't off the hook. I was referring specifically to Catholic creationists, and we all know such things exist...Pat Buchanan, for instance.
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PZ wrote: "I guess I'm one of that tiny minority of PTers who will note that there really is a conflict between science and religion."
What specific religion and what specific conflict in science? There are MANY religions, most which conflict with science are, in fact, Judeo-Christian in form. There are prominent religions in the East which do NOT have a conflict with science, as can be told of predominantly Christian, Shinto, or Buddhist Japan. Buddhism itself, like Hindu, holds no truck with "creation vs. science" polarized arguments, and such dramatization only serves to indict those of the world who have no issue with deity as well as empiricism.#: Posted by on 08/13 at 11:15 PM -
I think the glass of lemonade tea I spilled on the computer ate my comment, so:
Jillian - bravo! I had tried to mutter this half-heartedly over at the Thumb - this is much better.
Don't forget, 38% of 2004 Gallup-polled-people claim to be theistic evolutionists. What this actually means, who knows, but it's interesting.
Jim - references?
Poke - I too think the beliefs you describe are pretty appealing. I'm sticking with atheism, but if I had to change . . .
This isn't an accurate description, though. At least, it doesn't acknowledge other kinds of religious belief that have some reasonable claim for compatability with science.
" I would probably speak of it as a tension rather than a conflict."
That's kinda nifty.
And remember, if you're feeling down - just think what it would be like to be an Abba-loving gay priest informing on the mob?
See? Don't you feel better now? -
The ongoing multi-blog discussion on whether or not religion is compatible with evolution has shaped up as a few excellent insights lost in a sea of vagueness. Therefore . . .
I would like to announce that entries are now being accepted for the very first Evolution/Religion State Fair (I was going to do a Carnival, but was just a little too . . . exciting); All entries must be in by August 21; winners will be displayed at One Long Argument on August 22. There will be numerous classes for all sorts of entries (including, of course, humorously-shaped vegetables - I mean posts)
Additional information will be available at
http://onelongargument.blogspot.com
Entries can be submitted at -
Steve Bruce, a sociologist of religion, argues the case that Darwinism had little to do with the advent of secularism in his book God is Dead--I don't think his opinion is idiosyncratic, though writers like Owen Chadwick (The Secularization of the European Mind in the 19th Century)afford a larger role to the popularizations of Darwin in influencing Middle Class folks. Which probably just means that sociologists think of religion differently than historians of ideas. For the former, religion is an aspect of culture that orders the actual conduct of life. For the later, as it has become for many Americans and Europeans, it is a mere set of opinions that have hardly any obvious effect on one's day to day existence.
That it did make a difference in the long run that biology did not provide evidence for God is my own idea, though I'm sure this dog that didn't bark bit has occured to many people before me.#: Posted by Jim Harrison on 08/13 at 11:57 PM - County Fair, I meant County Fair. (It's hot over here). Entries can be submitted in classes covering all aspects of the relationship between evolution and religion, from NOMA to open warfare.
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Perhaps the concept of the soul explains some of the difficulty the religious have with evolution. Wouldn't it be blasphemous to suggest that our kinds of apes evolved a soul? Did Cro Magnons have a soul, but not Neandertals?
#: Posted by on 08/14 at 12:32 AM
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As a serious religionist, a Lutheran and fairly traditional in my Lutheranism, I have to take some umbrage at some of the assertions in the comments.
Yes, religionists do take umbrage when their unsupported claims are challenged; it's virtually a defining characteristic. And another way that science and religion are incompatible.
But I would contend, and many would contend with me, that not all knowledge can be subsumed under the heading of science. That does not invalidate the knowledge, it merely makes it of another type.
Yes, there's the kind of knowledge that's true, and then there's the other kind of knowledge that's people making arbitrary and unsupported claims. Just another type.
Here's the deal: the scientific method repeatedly and reliably produces predictions that turn out to be true. This makes the scientific method a reliable epistemic source. Reliable doesn't mean guaranteed; but if you believe a scientific prediction, there's a good chance that your belief is true. The other kind of knowledge, where people just say stuff because, well, they believe it, is not that sort of epistemic source. What it is instead is a big festering boil of arrogance. Go ahead, take umbrage, but try not to burst a vessel.
Now, of course, the story is a bit more complex, and, there are other kinds of knowledge. There's derived knowledge, where we infer something from some other knowledge. This actually results in a deductive net of knowledge. And there's the sort of bodily knowledge where you know whether you're in pain. That stuff is tricky, and the philosophers and linguists fret over it. But it's not that sort of unjustified-claim-arrogantly-called-knowledge stuff; it's understood and accepted by everyone that you know you're in pain if and only if you really are in pain, because that's inherent in what we mean by "pain", or how, per Wittgenstein, we use the word. Whereas for "I know God loves me" there's no sort of consensus at all as to what might make it true or even meaningful. But of course that doesn't stop people from gathering in groups and proclaiming "I know God loves me" and pretending that, by using that word, they get any of the real true blue epistemic inferential goodies that come with actually knowing something.#: Posted by on 08/14 at 12:42 AM -
PZ, the word "elided" means "omitted"; you may have meant "conflated".
#: Posted by on 08/14 at 12:47 AM
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"Don't forget, 38% of 2004 Gallup-polled-people claim to be theistic evolutionists. What this actually means, who knows, but it's interesting."
Not even close. IIRC, your poll is from 1993 and you're treating a question that asked whether "Human beings have developed over millions of years from less advanced forms of life, but God guided this process" as if it asked whether they were theistic evolutionists. Not the same thing.
From the Harris poll conducted this June (http://www.harrisinteractive.com/harris_poll/index.asp?PID=581), only 22% of all American adults believe in evolution.#: Posted by on 08/14 at 01:19 AM -
This is why people are able to hold at the same time both the belief that "The bible is a good guide to morality" and the belief "child abuse is wrong" (because lord knows you find plenty of child abuse among the righteous in the Bible).
I think to get at the heart of the contradiction here, you have to supplement the all-too-common view that the Bible is, cover to cover, the revealed Word of God, and the best way to understand that Word-o-God is to read the Bible literally. -- Because you can escape the contradiction by believing either
A) That only parts of the bible are gospel truth. The other parts are the ramblings of an early civilization making their best effort at figuring the world out-- and batting less than 1.000 in the process.
B) That the bible might be (in some way shape or form) gospel truth, but not literally so. That is, you could read the Bible as something other than a list of fact-statements. In fact, I'm sure someone could go through a produce a sophisticated reading of the Bible, separating literal wheat from metaphorical chaff, and come up with something both consistent with empirical reality, and consistent with itself. I happen to think that this is a difficult-to-impossible task, because I happen to believe quite strongly in thesis A.
The problem, as I see it, is that most people actually believe A or B about the Bible, but there is a select class of people who don't admit to believing A or B, and instead continue to claim that the bible provides the literal, gospel truth about how one should act and behave. Strike that belief from the record and you're free to use the Bible as a source of moral guidance, or pretty much whatever you like- and you can assent to both statements "The Bible's a good moral guide" & "Child abuse is wrong" without fear of directly implying a contradiction. And I'd like to believe this is what's going on with most people who would agree to those statements. The troubled set are the group who maintain-- in spite of ostensibly believing A and/or B-- that the Bible was somehow "written by God" and must be followed to the letter. If you encounter one of these people, kindly offer to give them a back massage (if you're willing): they must be very sore from bending over backwards all the time.
My $0.01 (special 50% off sale) is that it is perfectly possible to be a robust evolutionist and a (liberal) christian at the same time-- but people have to be sensible about where they take their grain of salt. I suppose what I mean is-- there's still plenty of room for some kind of Christianity in a modern scientific, reality-based culture (I can dream of one, can't I?), but it would require a lot of modifications to the creeds that currently exist. You can be more than a deist, though.
Finally...
"The Christians that I've spoken to on this topic give me the impression that the reason they think the Bible is a good guide to morality is because when they used to go to church as children, they felt warm happy feelings inside, so it must be good."
Wow. Almost a hundred years after Frege, Husserl, Popper, et al. roundly refuted psychologism, the idea is still around and kicking. I think the philosophical discipline needs a better PR machine...#: Posted by on 08/14 at 01:25 AM -
i think it's because the fundamentalists have a lot at stake in believing that humans are special in nature. they got their own day in genesis, after all.
No they didn't. They had to share one with the other living creatures / beasts of the earth (as opposed to the water and the sky). At least make a little effort to get the positions/myths you are criticising right first.#: Posted by on 08/14 at 03:33 AM -
from the Harris poll:
Apes and man do not have a common ancestry.
1996: 43%
2005: 47%
Words fail me. Literally. Beldagabudaba.
People want to believe fairy tales, not unpleasant facts. I suspect the % of americans who can ballpark how much their per-capita share of the national debt has grown since Bush took over would be on the order of 5%, and even less for the number of years of oil the US has on hand (domestic reserves / domestic consumption).
(The numbers are $7,000 and 3 years, respectively)#: Posted by on 08/14 at 06:00 AM -
My $0.01 (special 50% off sale) is that it is perfectly possible to be a robust evolutionist and a (liberal) christian at the same time-- but people have to be sensible about where they take their grain of salt.
I completely agree with you. I would simply point out that the two positions entailed in doing so, when held together, contradict each other and make no sense. Science is going to have us ground our beliefs about reality in things like observation, empiricism, and causality. Religion is going to have us ground our beliefs about reality - even if it's only a small subset of "reality", like morality or the existence of an afterlife - in things like faith.
Now, this is fine. Like I said before, just because I think it's better to avoid taking multiple, contradictory approaches to comprehending the world around us doesn't mean that it actually is better. And while there is an underlying epistemic gap between us that can never be bridged, that really only matters if you come to one of my drunken philosophers'parties and we start arguing about it - otherwise it's not likely to come up much at all.
I freely concede that this is a position on which reasonable minds can disagree. However, I'm still sure I'm right. <grin>#: Posted by on 08/14 at 06:52 AM -
My synthesis argument would be that El Supremo values Free Will such that it would not create a universe where "Special Creation" was the only real rational conclusion his createes could form. Ie no geocentrism and other empirical crutches to Faith. You wanna believe in the Creator, you've got to trust personal revelation and/or have Faith.
I really don't understand why this is so controversial. A universe that demanded "Special Creation" would drive mankind crazy, looking for where goddamned creator was hiding out.#: Posted by on 08/14 at 07:46 AM -
Jillian said:
Science is going to have us ground our beliefs about reality in things like observation, empiricism, and causality. Religion is going to have us ground our beliefs about reality - even if it's only a small subset of "reality", like morality or the existence of an afterlife - in things like faith.
(ts said something vaguely similar but with more insults.)
You know, whenever the ignorant start complaining that "evolution = social darwinism" or "teaching evolution is making our children amoral", the correct response is to state that science does not make value judgements. Science is not a source of ethics or morality. It says "this is what is", not "this is what should be".
Therefore, to claim that everything is somehow suspect if science cannot provide evidence for it, puts the entirety of human ethics in that class. The alternative is to claim that ethics are based on science, which is, I believe, an abuse of how science is supposed to work. -
"I don't know of any sensible atheists who make such a claim,"
Well now you do. I make the claim (although you might say I'm not a sensible atheist, I don't know). Evolution does prove atheism. See this argument :
http://www.strongatheism.net/library/atheology/argument_from_evolution/#: Posted by Francois Tremblay on 08/14 at 08:29 AM -
I guess I'm one of that tiny minority of PTers who will note that there really is a conflict between science and religion.
and, as a theist, i strongly believe any insight i have about religion must necessarily be modified by what science teaches about how the world works. that's because science is a sacred text more readily verified than any handed down and moldy writings. -
Yes, religionists do take umbrage when their unsupported claims are challenged.
Duh, that's what matters of faith are -- unsupported claims. Every single person makes declarations of faith, including you.
Your problem is that you simply are intolerant and a bigot.#: Posted by on 08/14 at 09:29 AM - Atheism, as talked about here, only makes sense as the negative of Christianity/Judaism/Islam. If these religions didn't exist then the atheist position wouldn't make sense. In any case, the discussion is about as limited as if we were discussing evolution based purely on organisms found on the North American continent.
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No, Mnemosyne, you aren't off the hook. I was referring specifically to Catholic creationists, and we all know such things exist...Pat Buchanan, for instance.
Yes, and there are also pro-choice Baptists, despite the position of the Southern Baptist Conference. Do you take those people as representative of all Baptists?
Pat Buchanan (and Cal Thomas) are directly opposing the Roman Catholic Church by persisting in their erroneous belief in creationism and rejecting the clear teachings of the church. Think we'll have any luck trying to get them excommunicated (or at least denied communion) the way they keep trying to have pro-choice Catholics excommunicated for persisting in erroneous beliefs and rejecting the clear teachings of the church?#: Posted by on 08/14 at 10:22 AM -
"Science is going to have us ground our beliefs about reality in things like observation, empiricism, and causality. Religion is going to have us ground our beliefs about reality - even if it's only a small subset of "reality", like morality or the existence of an afterlife - in things like faith."
I really like what you're saying, but here I want to hem and haw a little. I'm not sure this is necessarily exactly contradictory. It would be tough to ground our beliefs about at least a certain subset of reality in observation, etc. Basically, is it intrinisically necessary that we adopt one or the other entirely to avoid contradiction, whether or not that's better, are they in fact total views? Or something; I shouldn't try philosophy . Anyway, coming from that PT thread, this is like staggering in from a blizzard to find a warm, sunny meadow, probably with colorful butterflies fluttering around . . .
Well, mostly.
" In any case, the discussion is about as limited as if we were discussing evolution based purely on organisms found on the North American continent."
Yep. Although that's not entirely nonsensical, given the debate . . . but it really limits and confuses things.
The Harris poll is . . .just . . . oh dear. I wish I knew how to explain these results. What are the various influences of lack of knowledge, religious convictions, cultural politics, poll weirdness . . . ?
"Not even close. IIRC, your poll is from 1993 and you're treating a question that asked whether "Human beings have developed over millions of years from less advanced forms of life, but God guided this process" as if it asked whether they were theistic evolutionists. Not the same thing"
I think that was the 2004 result? Anyway, I was going by religioustolerance.org's definition (from older polls). But here's an important question: what would formally count as believing (hate the phrasing) in both religion and evolution? Can you go with non-scientifically-verifiable divine guidance - and to what degree - or are you completely restricted to a non-meddling wind-it-up-and-walk-away God? (and can that only apply up to evolution, not human history; granted, an bizarre proposition). And is this at all relevent to what is going on in people's heads? -
Atheism, as talked about here, only makes sense as the negative of Christianity/Judaism/Islam. If these religions didn't exist then the atheist position wouldn't make sense. In any case, the discussion is about as limited as if we were discussing evolution based purely on organisms found on the North American continent.
Arun has a good point. I'm a theist, but I'm live-and-let-live: I don't insist that anyone else follow my (admittedly quirky) belief in a deity. What I believe is my own business. And as long as other people don't push their beliefs on me, I don't care what their beliefs are. My boyfriend is an atheist, but I don't follow him around going, "C'mon, be a theist ... c'mon ... why not?" And you know what? He doesn't pressure me to be an atheist, either.
I know very few atheists who seem to simply not believe in god(s). Most atheists seem to be in strong reaction to a religious upbringing and they overreact when other people admit to believing in any kind of deity.
Obviously, I have a problem with my fellow theists who run around insisting that they have all of the answers and everyone should conform to their religious beliefs. That is not only morally wrong, it's antithetical to everything this country stands for.
But it's also wrong for atheists to confront believers who are minding their own business and insist that they become atheists on the spot.
Live and let live, people. It's the only way to go.#: Posted by on 08/14 at 10:30 AM -
I would very much like to meet some of these "evangelical atheists" some people constantly talk about.
I've read PZ being called such, and now ts, and others; but since they are definitely not "preaching" their atheism, at least in these cases I think this approach is nothing more than a strawman.#: Posted by on 08/14 at 10:45 AM -
It is not true that (most) Asian religions are compatible with evolution: most of them are incompatible in the same way that orthodox Catholicism is: namely, by espousing one variety or other of mind-body dualism.
As PZ will no doubt be able to tell us, mental faculties (i.e. specific properties of nervous systems) clearly have evolved also.
That said, I think the way around this debate is to note that one can be more or less in conflict, i.e. that conflict between world views can occur to varying degrees. The Catholic and (say) Hindu position I alluded to are much less in conflict than the "6000 year" creationists, etc.
As for deism, I would scarcely call it a religion as it has no doctrines, worship, etc. I regard it as incompatible with science for other reasons, but again, it is a matter of degree with the amount of conflict.
I might finally add that one place where religion conflicts with science has been brought up by the poster who mentioned the "different sorts of knowledge". Well, contemporary science-oriented epistemology suggests in certain ways all other knowledge is unified. (Argument available on request.) It seems to me that saying religion is different amounts to special pleading. "Seeing by the light of the soul" runs into the mind-body dualism problem mentioned earlier, for example.#: Posted by on 08/14 at 10:46 AM -
Therefore, to claim that everything is somehow suspect if science cannot provide evidence for it, puts the entirety of human ethics in that class. The alternative is to claim that ethics are based on science, which is, I believe, an abuse of how science is supposed to work.
Well, plenty of people don't have a problem with the idea of human ethics being considered suspect...there are several schools of thought encompassed by the term "moral skepticism"
But I don't think it's necessarily an abuse of science to think that one might find a basis for making ethical claims within it. It's not even "science" I'm thinking about here so much as some of the basic tools science uses, like observation and belief in the principle of causation.
From a revealed religion point of view, if killing people is wrong, then it's wrong, irrespective of how people feel about it. God said so, so it's wrong. From my fast-and-loose appropriation of science's toolkit, killing people could be wrong because your killing my kid is the cause of my being sad, and other people's observation of my sadness evokes sadness in them. It's admittedly not the strongest foundation in the world for establishing an ethical system - and this is probably why people have a tendency toward moral skepticism, even when they don't realize they do.
Oh, crap....I just invoked the Euthyphro dilemma, didn't I? crap, crap, crap...sorry.#: Posted by on 08/14 at 10:53 AM -
" Most atheists seem to be in strong reaction to a religious upbringing and they overreact when other people admit to believing in any kind of deity."
I would be very interested in a comparison of 1st generation atheists vs 2nd, 3rd, etc. generation ones . . .
"(Argument available on request.) "
Yes? -
" Most atheists seem to be in strong reaction to a religious upbringing and they overreact when other people admit to believing in any kind of deity."
That is, American atheists. How about millions of 2nd generation atheists growing up in atheist homes in atheist societies across former USSR, China and Eastern Europe?
No need for any "reaction" there - you just naturally grow up not believing in fairy tales. - I have earlier described growing up atheist in an atheist family in an atheist country....
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Basically, is it intrinisically necessary that we adopt one or the other entirely to avoid contradiction, whether or not that's better, are they in fact total views? Or something; I shouldn't try philosophy .
No, Dan, I totally see what you're saying. No worries there. If I understand you correctly, you're asking why an empirical outlook couldn't work perfectly well for all situations a,b.c.....y, but a nonempirical one work better for situation z.
The short answer is: nobody's ever given me a good reason why that should be the case.
If it works for you, then mazeltov. Seriously - no irony intended. But it doesn't make the slightest bit of sense to me. Why should observation and causation and the whole rest of the toolkit work perfectly well, right up until some arbitrary (at least, arbitrary to me) goalpost, after which faith becomes the preferred modus operandi? I don't get it.
And if there isn't some sound reason for this bright shining line, then I don't see a way to any other conclusion but that the position thus espoused is inherently contradictory. That doesn't make it "wrong", in some grand ontological sense - it just makes it funny looking.
But I promise not to tell you that your beliefs in god are silly if you promise not to mock my taste in music.#: Posted by on 08/14 at 11:08 AM -
Jillian said:
The short answer is: nobody's ever given me a good reason why that should be the case.
Because there are some questions that empicism is not equipped to answer. Those questions are not worthless, nor is empiricism flawed because of those questions. -
I would very much like to meet some of these "evangelical atheists" some people constantly talk about.
No, you wouldn't. Just as it's very unpleasant to have to deal with fundamentalist Christians who insist on knowing whether or not you've accepted Jesus as your personal savior, it's very unpleasant to have people say things like, "You don't actually believe in any of that God bullshit, do you? Only an idiot would believe something like that."
And yet, frequently, these same people who scoff at others' religious beliefs believe in some hella-weird things, like UFOs. Kinda funny, if you think about it.
There are about as many militant atheists as there are fundamentalist Christians: not many, but so obnoxious about it that you can't help associating all atheists (or all Christians) with the militant/fundamentalist ones.#: Posted by on 08/14 at 11:25 AM -
That is, American atheists. How about millions of 2nd generation atheists growing up in atheist homes in atheist societies across former USSR, China and Eastern Europe?
Again, the most vocal atheists one runs into in the U.S. are the "first-generation" ones who are rebelling against their religious parents.
A Catholic friend of mine is married to a guy whose parents immigrated here from Germany and raised him as an atheist. He doesn't spend all of his time telling my friend that her Catholic beliefs are stupid or immature or make no sense. She goes to church, he stays home, no problem.
Problems arise when people decide that their own way of looking at the world is the only possible way, and everyone who has a different way of viewing the world is a complete idiot who needs to be led away from their wrong belief. Proselytizing isn't attractive in anyone, even if what they're proselytizing for is atheism.#: Posted by on 08/14 at 11:31 AM -
Mnemosyne:
you keep referring this anedcdotal evidence for the existence of those "evangelical atheists", but I would really, really like to know where they roam, because apparently they:
1) do not form national associations (reading the mission statements and other documents of American Atheists, or of their corresponding organizations in other countries, reveals they cater to all atheists, both weak and strong);
2) do not write influential books or publish influential magazines proclaiming their "faith";
3) do not pressure governments on national and/or international politics;
4) do not set up booths or go door to door to "spread the gospel of atheism".
So, where are they?
On the other hand, atheists on this and other fora get often attacked because "athiests [sic] claim that no gods exist, so there!"
It strikes me as very convenient to evoke these incredibly moronic (but always hard to come by) "atheists" when confronting instead the average atheist, which in my experience is well-educated, knowledgeable of several theist traditions, and rather aware of the rational implications of his/her lack of belief.
In other words, a strawman.#: Posted by on 08/14 at 12:15 PM -
"The short answer is: nobody's ever given me a good reason why that should be the case. "
Perhaps in circumstances where empirical evidence is apparently unavailable, or hopelessly uninterpretable, and it is seen as necessary to hold some view or judgement?
"That doesn't make it "wrong", in some grand ontological sense - it just makes it funny looking."
Definitely funny looking. A lot of this sci/religion debate is.
"But I promise not to tell you that your beliefs in god are silly if you promise not to mock my taste in music."
Live and let live!
Don't believe in God, but I do in music . . . nevertheless, I vow there will be no mocking of your musical tastes from me. Unless, of course, you harbor an obsessive love for the songs of late 80s boy bands. Now that's a bright shining line . . .
Looking at that Harris poll,
http://www.harrisinteractive.com/harris_poll/index.asp?PID=581
if I'm understanding correctly, it seems that 46% of adults believe that apes and man have a common ancestory, 38% believe that humans developed from earlier species, and 22% believed that humans evolved from earlier species. Now that's funny lookin'!
Trying to make sense of it: the developed question has as its only other certain option (besides don't know/not sure) "No, I do not think human beings developed from earlier species," while the evolved question allows people to also pick the ID option: "Intelligent design says that human beings are so complex that they required a powerful force or intelligent being to help create them."
I suspect most of the 13% of naturalistic evolutionists in the Gallup poll are the 12% teach evolution only people here. Suggests that I might have been wrong about what that 38% believe . . . but hard to tell. -
With apologies to SEF, I admit I got the fact wrong about people getting their own day in Genesis.
I still contend, however, that fundamentalist Christianity considers humans as a different class of beings than other organisms (God created us in His image [and I'm not 100% sure that one is Biblical, but it's certainly espoused], He put us in charge of the other animals during the flood, He has allowed only us the possibility of sin and redemption).
It is this basic belief that humans really are different that (I think) makes evolution so unpalatable compared to other Biblical texts that seem to contradict nature.
I also take a little bit of issue with SEF's statement that this is a criticism of fundamentalism (though I fully admit that I am a strong evolutionist). In fact, I think that a lot of fundamentalists would agree entirely with me about that point. But if there's going to be any serious debate, surely it helps to clarify the reason that this becomes an emotional issue over all the other issues of science vs. the bible that could have been raised.
I make points like these because I think scientists and creationists mostly simply talk past each other when they try to argue the truth of one idea or the other. We don't share the same premises, so we can't have a logical debate. Clarifying the premises and the touchy emotional points is an attempt at cooling the situation, not inflaming it, so please take my comments in that spirit, even if my words might have been less than 100% diplomatic. -
There are atheists of the "stupid Christians, believing in their neolithic sky god, they're just so stupid!" variety. They're not evangelical in the sense Aureola Nominee describes. I really don't think Mnemosyne is trying to attack atheists as a whole using a convenient strawman . . .
Visited that moral skepticism site, felt like I had stepped into the surf only to discover that the continental shelf was far narrower than I had realized, and dragged myself back to shore, gasping and flailing. How come I never get spam offering to enlarge my brain size?
Ok - how might people usually come to have knowledge of moral claims?
(and what sort of discussion is there between the philosophy and developmental psych sides?)
I think we very well might lose the attempt to keep ID out of the classroom. -
"It is this basic belief that humans really are different that (I think) makes evolution so unpalatable compared to other Biblical texts that seem to contradict nature."
The Harris poll does seem to support this. Can't the NCSE or somebody comission a clearer poll, though (insofar as this is possible)?
"Clarifying the premises and the touchy emotional points is an attempt at cooling the situation, not inflaming it"
Amen. I was reading about Frank Marsh, who carried on an extensive correspondence with Dobzhansky, and was the first creationist to accept "microevolution," also the relationship between Darwin and Asa Gray
http://www.asa3.org/ASA/PSCF/2001/PSCF9-01Miles.html (this account is from the ASA, one of the oldest science-religion organizations, I think, and definitely from the religion end of things - SEF's professional [pretense of compatibility agenda]-ists (from PT thread - can anyone think of a better word?) -
"Don't believe in God, but I do in music . . . nevertheless, I vow there will be no mocking of your musical tastes from me. Unless, of course, you harbor an obsessive love for the songs of late 80s boy bands. Now that's a bright shining line . . ."
De Deis non est disputandum?#: Posted by on 08/14 at 01:44 PM -
The problem is that moderate religion often takes the form of anti-atheism. Look at the phenomenon of "census Christians" - people who do not live their lives in accord with Christian values, do not attend church, do not act in accordance with a belief in God, and yet they write "Christian" on their census form because they've been taught "atheist" is a dirty word.
Many "liberal Christians" have no overt Christian beliefs except that they think atheists are horrid people who run around proselytizing and are just as bad as conservative Christians. Their belief system does not come into play at any time other than arguments about religion.
This kind of belief, to me, is disingenious in the extreme and, worse, exists almost entirely as a form of discrimination against atheism. When your belief system appears to serve only the single purpose of marginalising abother group, members of that groups are going to wonder what the hell is wrong with you. It's human nature.#: Posted by on 08/14 at 01:59 PM -
The question of whether evolution is compatible with religion was imprecisely worded. And when you get a fuzzy question, you get a great deal of confusion. Obviously, some people like find evolution incompatible with religion, and some find them compatible. Those that do not find them compatible tend to be atheists/agnostics, and those can harmonize them tend to be religious.
To proclaim that religion and science cannot be harmonized in principle is disproved by the fact that millions of people do harmonize them. One may not agree with how they've accomplished said harmonizing, but we do not get to choose how other people think.#: Posted by on 08/14 at 02:00 PM -
#35522: Aureola Nominee, FCD — 08/14 at 10:45 AM
I would very much like to meet some of these "evangelical atheists" some people constantly talk about.
Here you go: John Saffran
In his most audacious project yet, John set off across the globe to take on religion. ... He doorknocks in Utah and tries to convert Mormons to atheism.
I think Saffran is an Australian TV personality. (I'm not in Australia and I don't have a TV, so corrections are welcome). My understanding is that he became weary of Mormon missionaries knocking on his door, so decided a little payback would be entertaining. That's right, most people would perceive his efforts as a joke. There's a simple reason most atheists do not proselytize: Our non-God does not grant us bonus points toward non-salvation for recruiting additional non-souls into non-paradise.
As for myself, I do not proselytize to convert others from their faith. However, I will vigorously defend separation of church and state, and if a religious person tries to claim that their position is rational (especially if they claim their position is exclusively correct), I may take up the debate to point out errors in their logic or interpretation of evidence. I care about rationality and damage they may be doing to it, not about where they spend their Sunday mornings.#: Posted by on 08/14 at 02:05 PM -
Mamma mia! There will be no dissin' of Abba here, and that's the name of the game.
#: Posted by on 08/14 at 02:17 PM
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#35562: poke — 08/14 at 01:59 PM
The problem is that moderate religion often takes the form of anti-atheism.
Case in point: the Boy Scouts of America, who will accept members of any religion, so long as they believe in a 'supreme deity', but will not accept atheists.#: Posted by on 08/14 at 02:20 PM -
The problem is that moderate religion often takes the form of anti-atheism.
yeah, and it's not only anti-atheism but can be anti-"unorthodox beliefs". example,
a memorable quote by some Israeli leader when asked about the role of Reform Judaism:The synagogue I do not attend is Orthodox.
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example, a memorable quote by some Israeli leader when asked about the role of Reform Judaism:
The synagogue I do not attend is Orthodox.
This reminds me of a joke I heard about pre-war Sarajevo:
Q: How can you tell the difference among Bosnian Orthodox, Bosnian Catholics, and Bosnian Muslims?
A: The Bosnian Orthodox don't go to Orthodox Churches, Bosnian Catholics don't go to Catholic Churches, and Bosnian Muslims don't go to Mosques.
Coturnix can probably shed more light on the true situation, past and present.#: Posted by paperwight on 08/14 at 02:41 PM -
What synchronicity that I am right here at this moment when my name is invoked.
And yes, the anecdote is correct 100%. You just need to add Sarajevo Jews not going to the synagogue. -
Because there are some questions that empicism is not equipped to answer. Those questions are not worthless, nor is empiricism flawed because of those questions.
I would argue CKW, that the real problem is that not that empiricism is not equipped to answer them, but rather that it cannot answer them in a way that is emotionally satisfying to people that start from the premise that a better and more acceptable answer must exist. A good example is when you talk about human pheromones, studies on behviour of women in estrus (like only showing up at night clubs with their friends, even when married, when 'in' estrus), the chemical and possible genetic mechanisms for both attraction and the more vague concept of 'love', all of which are very clinical, when compared to the generic spiritual concept of love that is anything but. That the former does or can explain things, but not in a way most people feel emotionally satisfied by doesn't makes the emotionally satisfying explaination 'right'. When ever people talk about 'other kinds of knowledge', they are invariably talking about something that they feel uncomfortable giving purely mechanical rules to, because simply 'feeling' it is better than analysing it. So is keeping a security blanket from when they where two, all the way into adulthood, like my cousin, who still has his in his 40s. Most attacks on scientific explainations are 100% based on comfort. Love *must* be something more than a chemical process, because otherwise its valueless. Life **must** be specially created, otherwise what is the point of it? Tornados and hurricanes **must** target evil people, otherwise, why would they kill innocent people? And so on.
Yes, there are emotion based questions for which purely statistical data cannot provide an emotionally acceptable answer. But that hardly means that a made up emotional answer makes any more sense than a child deciding, based on similar logic, that they are 'responsible' for a parents death or other false associations. While we would reject such false attribution to a mistake in logic, and attempt to correct it, other societal false attributions are considered 'normal', so are accepted at face value, until challenged. Its pretty easy to challenge something like the idea of nudity being inherently sinful, even if it persisted for over a thousand years. A lot harder, since its far more subjective and personal, to challenge the idea that love transcends mere biology. The fuzzier the concept and the less direct you can be in confrontation, the harder it becomes to challenge it. This doesn't mean it can't be challenged or that the default position must therefor be some class of 'non-empirical' knowledge. It just means the evidence isn't sufficient to override the need to believe it yet.
While I agree the questions are not worthless in the context of explaining society and our perceptions or misconceptions of it and ourselves, its not the same thing as saying that, like empirical systems, the same answers you derive from 'your' interpretation can, should be expected to be or ever will be applicable universally. Rather, they represent entirely contextual standards. They are the rare exception when the rule 'does' apply, not the universal rule that fails to apply only in special circumstances. As better empirical understanding arises, this has shifted those rules, often bringing them into direct conflict with the prior rules, such as in religions, which implied something different. Gay rights being a good example, but even science itself is another. The idea that you should look for answers, instead of simply waiting for them to be revealed.
Much of what we consider 'normal' today about ourselves, each other, the opposite sex, etc. are radically different from 100 years ago, never mind 200 or 1,000. We got here by observing the flaws in what people where 'comfortable' believing is true. Want an example of what happens when you treat non-empirical evidence as infallible and claim that science can't address, never mind change it? Just look at the rise of radical Islam in the middle east or the scitzophrenic nature of the fundimentalists in the US. People that go way beyond holding contradictions like "the Bible is literally true", and, "child abuse is wrong", but who hold onto the contradiction that every rule they believe in is both sacred and inviolate, but simultaniously will break nearly all of them to achieve the goal of getting everyone else in the world to believe the same contradiction.
Thou shalt not lie, unless to spread the faith. Thou shalt not make graven images, but shall build them and argue endlessly about if the establishment clause really requires you to tear down a 150 foot cross. Thou shalt honor your parents, unless they follow some other religion or break some rule, like saying they are gay. Thou shalt not... And so on. ;)
No, I don't agree that empirical science *can't* address such things. But I will agree that it can't address them in a way people would 'like' to have them addressed. And much of the problem arises from people liking the bad explainations far more than the correct ones. -
Wow, I just happened to find this in recent news:
Labour Party at prayer salutes Cook the atheist
ROBIN COOK would have appreciated the irony of his own funeral service. Yesterday, in St Giles’ Cathedral in Edinburgh — the High Kirk of Scotland — he was given a Christian send-off, with the congregation joining in the 23rd Psalm and the anthem pleading for God’s mercy. Yet Mr Cook had been an avowed atheist, who would, in the normal course of events, have steered well clear of organised religion.
The explanation was simple, Richard Holloway, the former Bishop of Edinburgh, said in his introduction to the service. Mr Cook was indeed “a devout atheist” but he was also “a Presbyterian atheist”.
...
It couldn't be mere coincidence that I should have happened on this article while this duscussion rages...
;)#: Posted by on 08/14 at 03:05 PM -
Is the American Legion bigoted?
...
Despite all that he isn't eligible to join the American Legion or the Veterans of Foreign Wars. Both require a belief in god.
...
Can someone verify this? I am not a veteran myself.#: Posted by on 08/14 at 03:15 PM -
" Yes, religionists do take umbrage when their unsupported claims are challenged.
Duh, that's what matters of faith are -- unsupported claims.
"
Duh is right -- isn't that what I just said? I mean, I could have worded it as "religionists take umbrage when their faith-based claims are challenged -- same thing. "Faith" isn't some magic word that protects your unsupported claims from challenge.
"Every single person makes declarations of faith, including you."
I try not to make unsupported claims, and if I do, I leave them open to challenge.
"Your problem is that you simply are intolerant and a bigot."
As predicted. Hope you didn't burst a vessel. This sort of thing is the clearest indication that religion makes you stupid. It is very difficult to have a rational discussion with a religionist about religion, about the validity of religion, about the social value or effect of religion, because they are so emotionally wedded to their religious beliefs.#: Posted by on 08/14 at 04:03 PM - well, in terms of practice, and assuming the source study is alright, it seems the harder the science, the less theistic the scientist.
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> You know, whenever the ignorant start complaining that "evolution = social darwinism" or "teaching evolution is making our children amoral", the correct response is to state that science does not make value judgements. Science is not a source of ethics or morality. It says "this is what is", not "this is what should be".
> Therefore, to claim that everything is somehow suspect if science cannot provide evidence for it, puts the entirety of human ethics in that class
But you responded to a comment about beliefs about reality; now you're talking about normative values. As no one claims that science is a source of ethics or morality, you lose a point for attacking a strawman. OTOH, it's just plain stupid to let some man holding a book behind a pulpit scaring the bejesus out of your children be the source of their morality. This tends to lead to a lot of sociopaths, people who decide, when they lose their faith, that anything goes because they've always been told that, without god, there's no morality, and they believed it.#: Posted by on 08/14 at 04:22 PM -
> Atheism, as talked about here, only makes sense as the negative of Christianity/Judaism/Islam. If these religions didn't exist then the atheist position wouldn't make sense.
I wouldn't exactly say that your statement doesn't make sense, but it isn't sensible. The Mudfluggers on planet Burpsul who don't believe in the deity Sodsgrul or any other deity are also atheists, and that's how they would be labeled if they came to visit us and we asked them about religion.#: Posted by on 08/14 at 04:30 PM -
> what would formally count as believing (hate the phrasing) in both religion and evolution?
If they agree evolution and believe in god.
> Can you go with non-scientifically-verifiable divine guidance - and to what degree - or are you completely restricted to a non-meddling wind-it-up-and-walk-away God?
Why would only believing in B restricted to R count as believing in B?#: Posted by on 08/14 at 04:37 PM -
> But it's also wrong for atheists to confront believers who are minding their own business and insist that they become atheists on the spot.
And this has to do with the discussion here ...?
Here's a hint: if you were just minding your own business, these atheists wouldn't even know you're a theist, and would have no grounds for confronting you. And no atheist has ever insisted that theists become atheists on the spot -- the general expectation is that they won't, especially if the atheist is contemptuous of believers in the first place.
The fact is that most theists want special treatment, to have their unsupported beliefs protected from challenge, to be able to insult and put down atheists, keep them out of public office, drape their religious symbols on public property and in public spaces, blare them from the TV, and create an environment where atheists can't speak freely about being atheists or what that means, even telling atheist scientists to shut up because somehow if they don't we'll lose the battle with the creationists, etc. ad nauseam. I think atheists should come out of the closet and say what they really think, that's right, not wrong, to do so.#: Posted by on 08/14 at 04:45 PM -
"Why would only believing in B restricted to R count as believing in B?"
Can science make metaphysical claims of this nature? Can it say not just that evolution *appears* unguided, but *is* unguided, even by nonnatural causes? Obviously it most definitely *can't* say that it *is* guided by natural causes. I can't imagine that science can say that evolution was *not* set into motion by God (although it definitely cannot say that it was).
in other words, to agree with evolution, does one have to accept that kinda claim? If that's the case . . .uh-oh . . . -
> From my fast-and-loose appropriation of science's toolkit, killing people could be wrong because your killing my kid is the cause of my being sad, and other people's observation of my sadness evokes sadness in them. It's admittedly not the strongest foundation in the world for establishing an ethical system - and this is probably why people have a tendency toward moral skepticism, even when they don't realize they do.
Take a look at naturalism.org -- there's some pretty strong foundation there.#: Posted by on 08/14 at 04:50 PM - even by nonnatural causes? - alternately, causes undistinguishable from natural causes.
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> Just as it's very unpleasant to have to deal with fundamentalist Christians who insist on knowing whether or not you've accepted Jesus as your personal savior, it's very unpleasant to have people say things like, "You don't actually believe in any of that God bullshit, do you? Only an idiot would believe something like that."
Why is it unpleasant? Oh, I guess it's unpleasant for Republicans when someone tells them that only an idiot would have voted for Bush, but these aren't in the same category as someone insisting on knowing whe