Monthly Archive for April, 2009

“Considering the Bible and Christianity Without A Prior God Belief Is Meaningless”

Published

on April 30, 2009

"And, I concur; considering the Bible and Christianity without a prior God belief is meaningless."

Commenter MS Quixote raised this point in the midst of a discussion on the blog Daylight Atheism.

I have seen this point raised so many times that I feel it is necessary for me to address this point directly, once and for all, on record.

First, what exactly does it mean to consider the Bible and Christianity?

I state here that I am assuming that what I mean by "considering the Bible and Christianity" is that I am considering whether I believe the spiritual claims are true. If this can be said more precisely, please let me know how I can summarize this in a more accurate way.

I assume that MS Quixote wants to know if the claims of the Bible and Christianity are true, and that he assumes that other people want to know if the claims of the Bible and Christianity are true, and that this is what he means when he says "considering the Bible and Christianity".

I hope I have made correct assumptions in determining what each of us is trying to accomplish when we consider the Bible and Christianity, because those assumptions are fundamental to this exercise.

In the comments section of the original entry by MS Quixote, I noted that Muslims do approach the Bible and Christianity with a prior god belief, but they still have different god beliefs than Christians.

MS Quixote was gracious enough to recognize this, and amended his statement to say that one needs a Christian god belief before considering Christianity and the Bible in a meaningful way. At least, I hope this is what he meant to say, and that I have correctly stated his position.

In suggesting an experiment with MS Quixote's line of reasoning, I am providing the following counter-examples for comparison:

"And, I concur; considering the Qu'ran and Islam without a prior belief in Allah is meaningless."

"And, I concur; considering the Book of Mormon without a prior belief in the revelations of Joseph Smith is meaningless."

"And, I concur; considering the Bhagavad-Gita without a prior belief in Krishna is meaningless."

I wonder if MS Quixote would have any objections to these lines of reasoning if he encountered them in a discussion from a fellow theist, albeit one of a different belief system than his own?

If Christianity can be a properly basic belief, then can Hinduism also be a properly basic belief? Can Islam be a properly basic belief? What about Mormonism?

According to the basic tenets of these religions, not all of them can be true. Therefore, if one can say that the followers of all of these religions have properly basic beliefs, one can say that out of a large number of the people who have properly basic beliefs, many of them have properly basic beliefs that are wrong.

I believe that this circumstance should give anyone who defends religious belief with the notion of "properly basic belief" a moment of pause.

If a large number of people who have properly basic beliefs about a subject are wrong, then one should acknowledge that having a properly basic belief alone is not good enough as a standard for one to be confident of one's conclusions about a subject.

The idea that only consideration of Christianity with a prior belief in the Christian god can be meaningful does not account for the way human beings actually believe in things and acquire beliefs about the subject of religion. I have given counter-examples of patterns of belief in other religious belief systems to demonstrate where I believe that this argument is deficient.

Lastly, there are probably many areas where I have said something that is not as precise as it could be, or I have said something which is a mischaracterization or a misinterpretation, or I have not been clear enough in articulating my ideas. I openly acknowledge the possibility of errors, and if someone can identify them, I will gladly revise my statements. I freely admit that I am a relative novice in discussions of religion and philosophy, but I hope to learn as much as possible as I increase in experience and practice, and to continue a civil and productive discussion of belief and knowledge and "life, the universe, and everything".

First Night – Atheists on a Stick

Published

admin

on April 30, 2009

quincy-tony-in-paul-and-eddie

First night…. The gasp as the lights go up. The indrawn breath as the first obscenity is heard. The guilty titter as they get the first joke. The silence as they listen.

Second night… The gasp as the lights go up. The indrawn breath as the first obscentity is heard. The shushing as some idiot answers his cell phone!

splat-2

The realization that I miss my hair!

Bizarre Evangelical Singer

Published

Martin

on April 30, 2009

I've been a bit slack with my blogging the last couple of the days since contrary to popular belief I am not paid to blog by Big Pharm, and I have a full time job. Rest assured I have awesomeness up my sleeve, but in the meantime let's point and laugh at a crazy looking fundie! Now, this starts off kind of normal at first, but at 1:08... well, you'll hear it. You'll hear it in your sleep. (Hat tip: You Ruddy Guys via Robert Popper)

Bizarre Evangelical Singer

Published

Martin

on April 30, 2009

Oh, so that’s why we had the 3/5ths clause…

Published

James F. Elliott

on April 29, 2009

So, Byron York is saying that, because President Obama is so popular with black folks, "sky-high ratings among African-Americans make some of his positions appear a bit more popular overall than they actually are." Aside from being totally intellectually indefensible from a point of sheer logic, as a friend pointed out, this is just about the most racist thing that's been printed by a supposedly reputable intellectual in a long, long time.

Aside: Be sure to read Ta-Nehisi Coates on York's column.

100 days of Reproductive Justice under Obama

Published

Karen

on April 29, 2009

Here’s a slide show on reproductive accomplishments (and failures) during Obama’s first 100 days:

Possibly Related Posts

God an the Military

Published

Michel

on April 29, 2009

via videosift.com

God's army: the U.S . Air Force.

Here's an example where people in authority - and we know how hierarchical the military is - can push their beliefs unto subordinates. Something I'm very intolerant about.

To allow such a piece of propaganda to be shot on their premises also shows the Pentagon's interest in religion as a control tool. Now try to do the similar atheist propaganda or just an honest documentary with soldiers who are atheists or who have become atheist following their war experience...

Plus we trust incredibly powerful weapons to these irrational people and that's a scary thought.

sadness

Published

Psychodiva

on April 29, 2009

sadness, originally uploaded by psychodiva.

just seeing if the link works from Flickr :)

this is one of the photos I took on my visit up to Hull

Melanie Phillips is irritated

Published

Kristi Collins

on April 29, 2009

She is not happy with the fact that intelligent design is being misrepresented as creationism.

Here are a couple of quotes from her article titled "Creating an Insult to Intelligence"

"This is because Creationism comes out of religion while Intelligent Design comes out of science."

"And ignorance is only partly responsible for the confusion, since militant evangelical atheists deliberately conflate Intelligent Design with Creationism in order to smear and discredit ID and its adherents."

BLASPHEMY – REBUKE

Published

Riker

on April 28, 2009

Aaaaaaaaand another post!

There's sort of a trend here... while my blog post scratch pad still exists (call it a rough idea repository, perhaps), I'm not drawing from it lately. To do so requires a concerted effort and time commitment to Write A Blog Post. I'm generally busier than what would allow this on a regular basis.

But, I do still take time to read other blogs on related topics, and often enough I find a post or comment that gets my gears turning, and before I realize it I've penned an elaborate response. A few seconds after I realize I've done it again, I say to myself, "Self, this belongs on Prose Justice."

The original thread was over at Homosecular Gaytheist.

And so it gets pasted here. Oh well. It's not mine from scratch, but it's CADAVER.

Here's the comment:

Some helpful clarification in the discussion:
1. Generally, Christians differentiate between Creator and creation. The latter would necessarily have a Creator, while the same would not be said for the former. This would explain why atheists who don’t accept this argument tend to cite the same argument ad nauseum (”Your creator must have been created too! PWN’D!) and why a lot of Christians, rather than showing a little forethought and knowledge of their argument, sit slack-jawed wondering what just happened.
The argument is not stuff comes from other stuff, until you get to the biggest stuffer ever. That is dumb. The argument is simply to highlight the distinction between creation and creator and show that creation highly implies a creator.
2. The second objection is actually one of the most honest objections that I find atheists make in various forms to religion and to God, which is just that in their eyes God is cruel, so why serve him. Christopher Hitchens was never more honest than when he said in his most recent book, that even if God existed, Hitchens would be a part of the devil’s party. And looking at the world and seeing that as how things were designed by God, I can’t say that I disagree with that conclusion, except for one little thing…
My religion, Christianity, teaches that the world is not as it is supposed to be. It is screwed up. People are screwed up. Relationships are screwed up. That is pretty much conceded, though there is some disagreement to the degree that sin has affected the world and not just people. The two views being either we (people) are the problem and the world would be “perfect” without us in the equation, and the view that we are the biggest problem, but sin has affected everything in creation as well (I would put myself in the second camp, by the way). So, the good news is that both atheists and Christians should find some agreement in saying, “Something ain’t right!”
That leads to the second issue in that objection, which is that God is therefore culpable for the misery that is in the world. The good news for believers is that the Bible does have an answer. The bad news is that it really is sin is our fault and not God’s, even though he is all-powerful. If you read the Bible, that is actually what it teaches - man is responsible, God is sovereign. Believe me when I say, Mr. Atheist, I feel your pain. That is a tough pill to swallow, and any sincere Christian should be the first to admit that that is a difficult teaching. It has actually led some to fashion an understanding of God that he is not all-powerful or that man is not a responsible agent, but ultimately the Bible teaches both.
So Christianity is not without its difficulties, but let me say this final thing: taking God out of the equation doesn’t make the situation any better. You still have a screwed up world, you still have evil and violence, but now there is no real solution. That is just the way the world is. At least with God, you have some hope that things will be fixed one day, while without him, you really have no reason to expect things to be any different or better ever. Why should you? Plus, it makes the idea of “better” a moving target, which is a problem in and of itself.
I am not even toying with the idea that this will satisfy everyone, but I do hope it at least allows people on both sides to understand the other a little better.

And here's my reply:

Trey, I'd like to address a couple points you brought up: "The argument is not stuff comes from other stuff, until you get to the biggest stuffer ever. That is dumb. The argument is simply to highlight the distinction between creation and creator and show that creation highly implies a creator." You've probably heard atheists disregard the 'creation requires a creator' argument as tautological and/or circular, but even besides that is the greater issue that when an atheist looks at your analogy and at the world, they conclude that what you call 'creation' most definitely does *not* imply a conscious creator. We can all see the fingerprint of a house's maker in a house because we all have great knowledge of houses, and we can see them being built by people. One can appreciate that houses are logically planned out. When you look at a planet, however, or a body, all the mechanisms at work that yield those end products are documented and understandable, and they show no real signs of intelligent planning. I wear glasses because my eyes are not perfect. People get cancer because their bodies are not perfect. Almost all planets are uninhabitable because their orbits are not perfect. So on and so forth. There's a very clear trail of evidence that explains this... basically everything about us, everything about our solar system is cobbled together by mechanisms that worked just well enough to persist... exactly as science verifies, and exactly not what a perfect creator being would have created. Your answer to this, is sin. But if this entire universe was created by your god, then sin is either a direct manifestation of his, or a creation of one of his creations. I can envision a more perfect god than yours: one that did not allow for imperfection in his creation. Your god is either unable or unwilling. If man is responsible for sin, then God is responsible for creating man with the ability to ruin all God created. That's a pretty complicated and convoluted explanation for the imperfection we all acknowledge as existing in the world. Science does a better job explaining it in far fewer steps, and without requiring any mental acrobatics. In response to your last point, "taking God out of the equation doesn’t make the situation any better. You still have a screwed up world, you still have evil and violence, but now there is no real solution. That is just the way the world is. At least with God, you have some hope that things will be fixed one day" We think it does make things better, because it removes the sense of complacency people have with suffering. Christians may sit around waiting for someone else to fix the problem, or they convince themselves that the problem is unfixable, and simply wait for their heavenly reward where nothing is ever going to go wrong. We atheists realize that there's nobody out there to take care of our problems for us, so it is up to us to do it. We have no overbearing force telling us not to bother. It's only up to us to learn enough about our problems that we can in turn solve them. Rational inquiry, not faith, is the mechanism responsible for every advancement of our society. It gets us 100 year lifespans and air travel and the ability to communicate instantly with anyone, anywhere. It operates far better on far simpler rules. Perhaps most importantly, it makes no such atrocious claim that there is something inherently wrong with being human. We don't waste any time or energy apologizing for ourselves, which leaves us able to spend that time and energy improving the lives of real people all around us, people who just would not survive on faith alone.

Why debating with Jehovah’s Witnesses is pointless

Published

reasonnotfaith

on April 28, 2009

I must admit to a degree of naivety when I had my first debate with two Jehovah’s Witnesses a few months ago. I say ‘naive’ because when they asked me “Do you believe in God?” I didn’t lock the door and ignore them like any sensible person should.

Instead, I stood there fully expecting to have an interesting debate on the existence of God. I remember my response well. “No” I said, while racking my brain at what I was going to say next. “Actually I’m a staunch atheist. I read a lot of books by the likes of Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, Dan Dennett and…” I looked over and saw blank expressions. Clearly, they hadn’t heard of them.

To be honest, it took me 4 fairly lengthy discussions and 3 Watchtower books to fully realise that I was wasting my time with them. No matter how logical my arguments were and how much scientific evidence I could point them to, they just weren’t open to any suggestion that the Bible might be wrong.

But why would they be? Clearly they’re not going to be reasoned out of beliefs that they obviously haven’t reasoned themselves into. And besides, the Witnesses who go preaching from door to door aren’t the ones sitting on the fence.

No, their intention is to preach the Good News, as they term it, in order to convert people to a belief in God to save them from the impending annihilation that awaits unbelievers following Armageddon. It’s safe to assume that these viewpoints aren’t the result of an evaluation of the existing evidence for such claims.

The last conversation I had with them was probably the most absurd. It was about the story of Noah’s Ark, which they believed was absolutely true. I tried to point out the extreme unlikelihood(!) that a 600 year old man built a boat containing several million species of animals in order to save them from a future flood that would cover the tops of every mountain on earth. (And that’s not to mention that the guy lived until he was over 900 years old… and that many of the animals would have been natural predators… and that animals from continents unknown to Noah would have had to have swam oceans and walked continents to arrive at the Ark.)

They accepted all of this without a hint of doubt, and no amount of common sense or evidence to the contrary made any difference to their belief in the literal truth of the Bible.

I must admit, I was amazed to find myself having to debate the merits of these stories with adults.

In hindsight, I now realise that I completely wasted my time. I went out of my way to read their books and debate with them because I genuinely wanted to get a clearer idea of their viewpoints. Of course, I didn’t seriously think that I would convert to a belief in God but I at least wanted to know more about the beliefs of the people that I was debating with.

Did they do the same in return? No. At no point did they show any genuine interest in the literature that I quoted or the topics I raised – a lot of which had a direct bearing on the validity of their beliefs.

The next time they call, I might decide that I’m too busy reading a science book to answer the door.

Today’s food for thought:

Published

James F. Elliott

on April 27, 2009

"I return, finally, to the underlying issue: Are the results of "enhanced interrogation techniques" relevant to the judgment of their acceptability? Those who answer this question in the affirmative commit themselves to some version of the proposition that the end justifies the means. Those who commit themselves to the negative commit themselves to the proposition that there are some things we can't do--ever--even if doing them in extreme circumstances would prevent grave harm to our citizens and institutions. (In his essay "Politics as a Vocation," Max Weber formulated this as the choice between an ethic of responsibility and an ethic of intention.)

"Some people are attracted to what they regard as a middle ground--namely, that in extraordinary circumstances we should permit deviations from norms that govern ordinary situations, but without transforming these deviations into a formal program, explicitly endorsed. While it is possible that prudence may dictate such a course, it does not succeed in evading the underlying choice. To acknowledge the propriety of otherwise forbidden means in extreme situations is to accept the proposition that consequences matter.

"John Locke's Second Treatise of Government helped shape the intellectual climate from which our constitutional order emerged. It is worth remembering that it begins with the maxim Salus populi suprema lex esto--the welfare of the people is the highest law. Circumstances now compel us to ask: Do we endorse Locke's proposition, and if so, are we prepared to accept the consequences?"

-William Galston

Christianity’s latest (absurd) whine

Published

Karen

on April 27, 2009

A few weeks or so ago a British man managed to get the Church of England to officially recognize that he was no longer a member. As a result of the publicity somewhere around 100 thousand Brits have downloaded the form requesting the church quit counting them as members.

As you’ve probably guessed from the title of this post, there’s at least one Christian whose got a problem with this. According to Thomas A. Flynn, requesting that a group quit counting you as a member is an attack upon that group.

The National Secular Society in England has launched an initiative to request a certificate of de-baptism. So far they say that 100,000 Brits have downloaded the document from the Internet, disgusted by the idea of being called a Christian. Some are calling baptism “a form of child abuse”, as if the gift of faith we equivalent to the atrocious situations of violence in the home that we all know so well.

This is just the latest attack by atheistic groups around the globe. Pro-atheism advertisements have been draped on buses in several countries with phrases like “There’s probably no God. Now stop worrying and enjoy your life.” These, alongside the extensive array of anti-God best-sellers by authors like Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennett, and Christopher Hitchens, announce that atheism is on the march.

All these Brits are doing is requesting that a group they do not consider themselves a part of quit counting them as members. Nothing more, nothing less. How is that an attack by atheists?

It’s only an attack if you think that anything but absolute silence is an act of persecution. Christians may not be as violent as Muslims, but they are far from the democracy supporting freedom loving sweethearts they insist they are.

Possibly Related Posts

Clinton vs. Smith on Family Planning

Published

Karen

on April 27, 2009

I saw this video a few days ago and I thought I’d share. It’s Hillary Clinton responding to the faux-concern of some white dude named Christopher Smith on providing abortion services to women of colour in other countries:

Possibly Related Posts

If God created the earth, evidence of His existence should be everywhere

Published

reasonnotfaith

on April 27, 2009

If God is everywhere, if He created everything, if the whole universe is under His control, if He knows everything about the past and the future, why isn’t His existence blatantly obvious everywhere? Evidence of His existence should be apparent throughout the whole of nature. Why should He require faith and belief in order to believe in His existence? Why not just have concrete proof of His existence everywhere?

For instance, if the Bible is supposed to be the word of God and we are expected to believe that the earth is about 6,000 years old, then why would God create things like fossils, rocks, oil, coal and gas which have all the appearance of being formed over billions of years?

Surely God’s existence should be obvious enough that we wouldn’t even need to debate it.

Many claims in the Bible are factually wrong or impossible

Published

reasonnotfaith

on April 27, 2009

Amongst other things, the Bible implies or claims that

the earth is about 6,000 years old
a man lived inside the belly of an animal for several days
many human beings lived for over 900 years
people were resurrected from the dead
a rod changed into a serpent
a woman turned into a pillar of salt
several animals were able to converse in human language
Jesus miraculously healed ‘every sickness and every disease among the people’
two specimens from every species on earth went inside a boat built by a man who was over 300 years old.

… the list could go on and on and on. So let’s take a closer look at the story of Noah’s Ark.

There are about 725 species of butterfly in North America alone – that’s only a minuscule portion of what Noah had to gather. Estimates of the total number of living species generally range from about 2 to 50 million. It would be simply impossible to fit that many animals into one boat. Not forgetting the fact that many wild animals are notoriously difficult, if not impossible, to control.

Also, many of the animals would have been natural predators and this would have led to instant extinction for many species.

How did the animals actually travel to the boat? A large proportion of animals can’t survive in water and certainly can’t swim. (If they could, presumably they wouldn’t need to use the Ark). Perhaps Noah gathered them himself from continents that were unknown at the time? That seems a little unlikely.

The technology and man-power to build a boat of that size simply did not exist in those days. We would have to suppose that the size of the Ark would have been vastly bigger than anything that is possible in these technological-superior times.

And where is the actual evidence that the oceans covered the tops of the highest mountains on earth, as claimed in the book of Genesis? Where is the evidence for the Ark itself? Where did all the water come from? Where did it all go? Such a huge worldwide event should have evidence in abundance in every continent.

Also, the Bible fails to mention fossils, dinosaurs and evolution. Why? These would have played a very prominent part in the story of Noah’s Ark.

Granted, the Bible isn’t intended to be a science textbook but if it really is the word of the Creator, then why it is full of such crude ignorance about the world?

God’s creation shows no sign of His existence

Published

reasonnotfaith

on April 27, 2009

In the natural world there is a constant struggle for survival which results in death, pain, waste, birth, extinction. Planets are constantly being struck by asteroids, stars are constantly dying (and being born) and there are black holes in space in which no life can possibly exist. The human body is far from perfect, it is prone to disease, our senses are very limited, mothers die during birth, babies are born with abnormalities and severe handicaps, our brains are prone to dementia and Parkinson‘s disease during old age, and so forth. Natural disasters such as volcanic eruptions, earthquakes and hurricanes happen to believers and non-believers alike. Cancers, diseases and viruses attack both believers and non-believers.

None of the above suggests intelligent design by a benevolent God. If a God does exist, He shows no ability to alter the natural order of the universe.

The reason for this blog… is sheer stupidity

Published

reasonnotfaith

on April 26, 2009

I don’t know about you but I’m getting increasingly fed up with having to “respect” religious beliefs. It’s not because I dislike religious people. Not at all. Christ, I’d even go as far as saying that the Jehovah ’s Witnesses (JWs) that have been knocking on my door for the past few weeks have been some of the nicest people I’ve met for a long time. And we all know how crazy their beliefs are. More about that in a minute.

No, the thing that really irritates me is the idea that faith is a virtue. That it brings people together. That it enhances our lives. That it should inform our decisions. That without it, we’d all be worse off.

I think just the opposite is true.

What Does the Bible Really Teach? Which brings me back to the JWs. I’m currently reading a wonderfully bizarre little book they gave me called What Does the Bible Really Teach?. Some of the stuff in there beggars belief. For instance, we’ve all heard the story that JW’s don’t give or take blood, even in life threatening situations, right? But do you know why? Because according to a few lines in the Bible, a life-saving blood transfusion would be a “misuse of blood” and if we break God’s law “we would be in danger of losing everlasting life”. This level of punishment is usually reserved for godless heathens like me!

What they’re saying is that prolonging a life is much, much worse than dying if it involves a blood transfusion. To do otherwise would have everlasting consequences. OK, best to let them die then. We mustn’t upset God’s strange ideas about blood.

It’s nonsense like this which makes me angry.

Of course, there are plenty of other dangers related to faith-based beliefs. Not that we get to hear about them. Even when the likes of Richard Dawkins get on national TV, they often get drowned out with arguments about “tolerance” and “respect” for religious beliefs. (As if God was ever a moderate with tolerance for other beliefs!)

So my aim in this blog is to redress the balance and confront this taboo head-on. I’ll be highlighting the absurdity of religious beliefs while also celebrating the most valuable thing we have – rational critical thinking based on science and evidence. In other words, reason.

Stay tuned heathens.