Richard Dawkins reads his hate-mail aloud
Check out this video in which famed atheist Richard Dawkins reads aloud the profane, violent, hateful email he gets from believers. PT sez, "I would buy this if it were an audiobook." So would I! Richard Dawkins reads his email
the latest
latest episodes
Hearing people swear, who normally don't...makes me all tingly.
I too would buy the audio tape (well i would download it).
Excellent. I think he should remake HOW IS BABBY FORMED?
I suspect Dawkins is probably right, but if he's wrong, I hope the Lord has a sense of humour and reveals it thus:
"... in other news, well-known agnostic Richard Dawkins has improbably begun to perform miracles at book signings and conventions.
oblivious to his powers, Dawkins gives sight to the blind, hearing to the deaf and speech to the mute through the agency of his atheism.
Lame men and leppers are presented to him, to secretly grasp his jacket while he initials their copy of "The God Delusion" or "The Enemy of Reason" whereupon they rise up, able to walk once more and filled with renewed vigour, praising the absence of God in a mechanistic, brutal and ultimately meaningless universe...."
This is a clip from a three-part documentary that Dawkins presented on Channel 4 in the UK to highlight the genius of Charles Darwin. As I recall, this clip was included to illustrate the hostility that Darwin's views still elicit 150 years after On The Origin of Species was published.
You can watch the whole documentary in 10-minute YouTube chunks on Dawkins' website here:
http://richarddawkins.net/article,2925,On-TV-The-Genius-of-Charles-Darwin-Presented-by-Richard-Dawkins,Richard-Dawkins-Channel-4
lovely, lovely, henceforth when I channel my Muse of Faith I shall employ the handle: FartofGod. Beats Metatron.
It never really occurred to me before hearing those love-notes, but it doesn't make sense that Satan would enjoy torturing people who disbelieve in God.
If we allow that Satan and God are antagonists, he should invite the disbelievers into Hell's VIP lounge for brandy and cigars, offering toasts to them for pissing off God during their lifetimes. I imagine that Satan would reserve his cruelty for people who professed belief in God but didn't quite make it into Heaven.
#3 If he's wrong then surely Thor will forgive him.
It was kind of Dawkins puzzle out the words and meanings to read the hate mail to us. If you have a glance through the written versions of similar mail received by Pat Condel or Unknown News you can see the truly original spellings and sentence constructions used (I hav a nif ...)
Maybe the writers should be rounded up and sent to a gulag under the control of my old grammar teacher until they could spell, parse and identify nested subordinate clauses. They'd still spew hatred but we could at least read it
Fundamentalists irritate me. They believe in an all-powerful deity who can do anything -- except, apparently, employ the properties and mechanisms of the natural universe. Not one of them has the sense to say, "God made Richard Dawkins, and we have to trust that He had His reasons."
I do like this business of reading flames aloud in front of a video camera. I think it could be a viable business model. The internet is full of people who can't get their hoped-for audience to pay attention to their flamage. It struck me a while back that attractive readers might provide this service on a commercial basis: for (let's say) a dollar a minute, three bucks for two, you could hire a not-overdressed young lady to videotape herself reading your flames out loud, and have her post the results to YouTube.
All thought raises conflict.
Brought this to mind immediately
YOU MAKE ME TOUCH YOUR HANDS FOR STUPID REASONS
YMTD, make sure you have your headphones on at work.
Not one of them has the sense to say, "God made Richard Dawkins, and we have to trust that He had His reasons."
Some do. They're just the ones who keep quiet. Probably like most of our parents.
If there's a Heaven, I'm sure Dawkins will be welcomed with open arms for The Ancestor's Tale alone.
I sympathize with him.
It's hard being smarter than the majority of people some times.
People get very defensive when their world view is threatened. They take it as an attack on themselves personally and their ability to think and reason flies out the window. Hell, even some of the tenets of their faith flies out the window. I hardly think this sort of behavior is Christian. :)
#11, comedy gold. Would have been slightly better had he been able to entirely stifle his giggling, but I can hardly blame him.
#7- For Thor's favour, he'd have to slay his enemies in battle, not just read their email.
But yeah, I wonder if these people realise how stupid they sound. The whole "the Bible is true because it says it is" bit really makes me giggle. Like how can such a concept even makes it's way into a mind smart enough, to oh... tie a shoelace?
#6:
That's a common misunderstanding of the Christian outlook based (primarily) on popular culture representations of Hell. According to the Bible, Satan and the demons will be tortured alongside the damned, and Satan tries to draw people away from God due to hatred of God, not a specific desire to torture humans.
What's most sad about all of this is that these people are not acting like Christians. They're wishing pain and suffering upon a man. Where's your "turn the other cheek" now?
Pretty wonderful. Rivals Kos comments section for witless vitriol.
"People get very defensive when their world view is threatened. They take it as an attack on themselves personally and their ability to think and reason flies out the window.
That's true for more then just religious arguments. The trick is recognizing when your the one doing it.
This video is an excellent example of what happen to individuals who start going against the status quo ( religion,politics,economics, name it). What happens next to this renegades, is they face social punishment because their ideas might shake the believes of the established order.
The reactions of the people to Dawkins idea, made me think of the movie where people would yell and point in unison when they saw someone who had feelings ( I think it was the Body Snatchers movie..not sure).
#9..that's a great idea!
#17: aye, valid point. Could be I've been guilty of similar myself at times. I'm hardly above such things.
Its no wonder in some respects why these people get fairly defensive about their religious beliefs I mean Richard eloquently destroys their faith and thats hard to take, I mean its almost like going up to a young teen girl and telling them in a sincere voice that their musical god crush (of the last 20 minutes) was found dead with a dirty needle in his arm... and sit and watch them collapse and whimper and cry, burbling, and pretty messed up. Which is about the same mindset of your typical rabid fundamentalist (that of a young female teen crushing on some idol-of-the-moment, which is totallyforeverandnevereverwilltheylosetheirfaithintheirdreamydreamyeyesamen, like a Meryn Cadell piece). So of course they are going to be a little pissed off. Granted I tend to side with Richard.
He should pay John Hurt to read these.
#9
Not one of them has the sense to say, "God made Richard Dawkins, and we have to trust that He had His reasons."
"Not one"? That seems like kind of a broad brush. There are most likely quite a few who do say that very thing -- they just aren't the ones sending hate mail.
That's like saying, "not one of 'them' has come out and condemned suicide bombings", no?
It is funny, but that's precisely why I don't like this new instance of Dawkins, the crusader against all religion.
By reading his hate-mail he is effectively cherry-picking the most stupid and hatred correspondence he gets from religion-nuts and making all religion look a bit nutsy. He is reinforcing a stereotype of religion as something that dumbs people down and spreads hate.
He does the same as when a priest tell stories of how drug addicted atheists, or school shooters that loved rock music. Cherry picking the worst examples as a metaphor of the whole.
Dawkins is putting a lot of effort aiming at the wrong target. There is nothing wrong about religion per se. There is nothing stupid about following human traditions. But there is stupidity everywhere, and we should all be fighting that.
Hey Alexandre Van de Sande,
The difference between Richard and the priest you mention is that people are offering these insights to Richard, so he is not cherry picking from ALL letters, he has a small group of letters to select from, whereas the priest is not selecting from the drug addicted atheists, or school shooters that loved rock music that have personally contacted him/her, but ALL stories about drug addicts or shooters, then finding the atheists. The priest is cherry picking as he is actively ‘finding’ bad apples, Richard is not actively ‘finding’ the bad apples, they are contacting him, and he is letting everyone know what kind of person writes a negative letter to him
If religious nuts don’t want to make the many look bad because of the few, then maybe they should not be offering their opinions directly to the person who is most likely to do something with them.
Really? What if the traditions are stupid?
Oops. #26 should have referenced #24.
A stupid mistake on my part. Let's not make it a tradition.
In other news, the hate mail Richard Dawkins has written to almost everyone alive is published in book form and sold in supermarkets. It, however, it read quietly by other haters.
Naw, we atheists and agnostics leave the hating to religionists; history proves they're MUCH better at it.
'' Ravenous hordes of atheists breached the walls and set fire to the city, raping and killing....''
Doesn't read right, does it?
#6 great post. I'm going to borrow that idea.
While I don't agree with everything Richard Dawkins does or says, he has made substantial contributions and I respect him a fair amount. I particularly love his sense of humour in reading these emails, especially the deep breath he takes during the one with no punctuation. Hate mail of this kind strikes me as just so silly, I would probably really enjoy readings of hate mail from even people I dislike entirely. If Fred Phelps weren't in the business of generating hate mail himself, I bet I'd really enjoy the stuff he receives.
#28 I find it hard to mock your phrasing as my last post was another cliched "In other news..." joke. Seriously though, if you're going to insult people can you do it better please because otherwise it's no fun for anyone.
#26,27 Haha! I was going to say something similar. People do dumb stuff when they follow mindlessly:
http://www.damninteresting.com/?p=788
Admittedly, this is a fringe case, but why do the origins and following of Catholicism have to be special?
My thoughts on this subject: early dumb humans saw some crap they didn't understand, made big stories from them. Once something turns into an establishment where people make their livings from it, it's very hard to get rid of (see DEA, TSA for examples). Therefore religions (and big, dumb governmental agencies) persist.
#32, Touche! You have just shown me what real wit looks like. I'm humbled.
#25
so he is not cherry picking from ALL letters, he has a small group of letters to select from
Are you asserting that Dawkins is not cherrypicking from the set of letters that he has received, and that the presented subset is an accurate representation of the whole?
I would argue that Dawkins is most likely "actively finding bad apples"; he's just choosing them from the subset of those that have presented to him directly. The fallacy is not in the selection of the subset, but rather the application of the presented subset characteristics to the superset. If I read aloud a selection (the most poetic spam, for example) of the emails that I receive, would you think it valid to assume that either (a) all email sent to me is poetic spam, or (b) all poets are spammers?
If religious nuts don’t want to make the many look bad because of the few, then maybe they should not be offering their opinions directly to the person who is most likely to do something with them.
Really? So it's okay to judge the many because of the actions of the few?
Religious leaders understand the reason people go to Church (/insert your religion of choice) isn't primarily to learn about the history of the earth, or how old the dinosaurs are, or why we have fossils, etc, so it doesn't matter if the religious texts (which are allegorical) are factually wrong when read at face value.
A few hundred years ago the church tried to suppress the ideas of Galelio because they thought those new ideas were threatening.
Today it's conceivable that a bishop might drive to visit a church by SatNav without even a twinge of guilt - even though GPS relies on Galelio and Newton being right about the orbits, and Einstein, Bohr, Heisenberg being right about Quantum mechanics for the atomic clock on board, etc. etc.
Science is not actually in conflict with religion, only dummies who can't understand when a story is literal and when it might be metaphorical see conflict.
I am truly surprised that the letters are not better written. After all, if there is one thing that is synonymous with fundamentalist extremists, it's gooder educatin.
Take, for example, this article, that explains how future soldiers of Christ are being taught that dinosaurs helped build the pyramids:
http://www.maltatoday.com.mt/2007/10/14/n5.html
@6 It makes perfect sense given the older (and more accurate interpretations) of satan. Many scholars see the satan as an office / role played by a member of God's court. Satan is in god's employ - he tests the faith of man (a la Job) and punishes those not up to snuff. Satan (or the satan) is not the same as the devil.
Like Dawkins, I am an atheist - though not as astute or eloquent - so I don't beleieve any of the above but it was one of my favorite little trivia areas of study in comparitive religion studies back in school. Pagels writes quite accessibly about this subject.
Hokano, others, THE NUMBERS CHANGE.
If you refer to a post by number, and a few minutes later a moderator does something that changes the thread sequence (such as: removing a spam post, or approving a queued anonymous post which will then be inserted by date) it turns the conversation into "Man Ray meets Salvador Dali" right quick.
Refer to a post's content, and you will always seem as coherent as possible. In some cases that will not be particularly coherent, I grant you, but it's a start ;).
THE NUMBERS CHANGE. Don't use 'em as referents.
--Charlie
PS: I kind of like Dawkins, despite our religious differences. He doesn't come across as a whiny little crybaby like Hitchens does. Dawkins is welcome in my church.
--C
This is my simple religion. There is no need for temples; no need for complicated philosophy. Our own brain, our own heart is our temple; the philosophy is kindness. - Melvin Schwartz
I wonder - and I'm just asking here - what percentage of atheists believe in the existence of other life forms in the universe?
As a Christian, I am ashamed that there are fellow "believers" who would debase themselves in such a way. Such behavior shows that trolls know no religious boundary, and brings into question what the writers of such emails truly believe in.
Though I do not agree with much of what Mr. Dawkins teaches, I am glad he is teaching it. We need more variety of opinions in the world, not less. Also, if I am truly secure in what I believe, why should I be afraid of hearing, and even considering an alternate viewpoint (gasp!).
#35 "Really? So it's okay to judge the many because of the actions of the few?"
Perception is VERY important. Most people aren't deep thinkers, in case you didn't notice. They take what they see at face value, do not seek other viewpoints.
Case in point: Bud Day and the Swift Boaters in the 2004 US presidential election. Voice of a few, very loud (but misguided and wrong) words, heard and accepted by many.
Keeping the fringes under control is a weird and sometimes very necessary thing. Whoa that was strange coming from me; I'm about as loud and left-wing as they come :)
#40
Either camp could easily believe such a thing:
1) Whatever accidental process that kicked off life here could easily have happened elsewhere.
2) God made life on other planets too.
Why on Earth does opinion on the existence / non-existence of god matter at all WRT this question?
You want a good laugh, watch the Fox News piece on the "fad" of atheism that comes up as an option after you watch the Dawkins video.
Their proof that God exists? "The intricacy of the human eye." And, "How do you explain the incredible … geological reality out there?" And the miracle of birth.
No, seriously.
Unfortunately, all of these things CAN be explained scientifically. What's more, you CAN'T prove a deity does or does not exist, and no real scientist or person who understands science would claim to do so.
What can be demonstrated are the inaccuracies and improbabilities and cultural and historical roots of specific religious texts and dogma.
You can also make a philosophical argument that if a god or goddess could exist with no beginning and no end, then so could the Universe without a god. And in a rather spacious Universe, in what is likely a good-as-infinite multiverse, anything is possible. Including humans, eyeballs, and even Thor.
Even a Thor who is really the supreme commander of the Asgard fleet.
Or a superhero.
Although Dawkins is painted as an acerbic, tactless jerk, I think the hatred directed at him is a case of shooting the messenger. The message being: Why do people adopt and vehemently defend belief in completely arbitrary and groundless claims? Dawkins isn't fabricating facts out of thin air to support his position. Meanwhile, the typical defender of religion either avoids the debate altogether or resorts to quoting baseless anecdotes, all conveniently devoid of physical or living witnesses. When his arguments fail, he then moves on to insults and threats.
If I adopted the belief that the sky is blue because, every morning, a unicorn flies overhead and paints it as such (and added that the unicorn is invisible and does the work in such a mystical fashion that humans cannot register the change as it occur... Not to forget adding that disbelief in the unicorn leads to grievous bodily harm in this life or some 'other life' somewhere...), could I still expect to be viewed as a sensible, intelligent person?
Maybe if I wrote it down and gave it 2000 years...
It's very easy to prove God exists. Er, the real God, that is, not some fantastical bearded giant hiding behind the clouds.
AXIOM: God is greater than all other things.
AXIOM: A thing that contains other things is not greater than its container.
Therefore, God is the set of all things that are. (The more philosophically inclined will realize that God also contains all things that aren't, but let's save that for an advanced course.)
PROOF: Touch your nose. OK, Simon says touch your nose! You just empirically proved that God exists.
I have posted this before (link follows) my apologies for the repeat...
http://www.boingboing.net/2008/04/14/mark-dery-on-evagnel.html#comment-164682
--Charlie
Alexandre Van de Sande wrote:
"Dawkins is putting a lot of effort aiming at the wrong target. There is nothing wrong about religion per se. There is nothing stupid about following human traditions. But there is stupidity everywhere, and we should all be fighting that."
Um, Dawkins' position is that there is something inherently wrong with religion per se, and he makes a fairly persuasive case for that in "The God Delusion." He does a nice job of updating Hume's obections; i.e. that at the core of all religion is the idea that there is knowledge that can be obtained true knowledge through revelation, which is absurd and inherently dangerous.
Ah. Radical atheists on a crusade again. Telling other people what to think always goes well. I'll see any of your popes and raise you a Stalin.
The problem is, there is no way to control the few radicals that make the rest look bad. It's not the majority's fault is it? It is shareful that so-called Christians would send hate mail to Dawkins, or anyone.
#47: The pope? How many leigons does he have?
Also, Christians get hatemail like this too, butI don't see them reading it outloud to make a point.
To #40: A better analogy would be "what percentage of atheists HAVE FAITH that intelligent life exists elsewhere in the universe," and even that isn't a 1:1 with religious belief. If you asked me, as a non-atheist but someone whose belief system is very hard for most atheists and non-atheists alike to distinguish from atheism, whether I could believe in an agent of creation who can only operate in the created universe in ways bound by the laws of physics (i.e., no miracles after the Inflationary Period), I could probably get behind that; and could equally get behind the idea of intelligent extraterrestrials, as long as you don't ask me to believe that they're traveling at Warp Speed. But I do not have the *certainty* that intelligent extraterrestrials exist that the average person of religious faith has in the existence of their activist God, and that he has done things that stand outside the normal rules of the phenomenal universe, and I certainly don't believe that aliens are always watching us, giving aid to their favorites, judging people according to irrational standards that are somehow morally superior to the standards most of us would consider appropriate, and violating the laws of physics at a whim.
An excellent project would be Dame Judy Dench, Ian McKellan, Patrick Stewart et al reading the emails.
Someone should write a book about groups that attack other groups but act like they're the ones defending against an attack.
Example #1: Homophobes who want to ban gay marriage, claiming that the mere existence of it is a threat to heterosexual marriage so that they're simply "defending marriage".
Example #2: The radical atheists who carry on this culture war against religion but seem to truly believe that they are somehow defending themselves against a perceived threat that religion poses to them.
Oh, and Example #3: The Iraq War, of course.
Hm, I just thought of another one but I know bringing him up in internet debates is apparently a cliche. Still, it seems like such a common tactic! Is there an acadamenic name for it?
#54
Example #4: Jack Thompson
:)
while i am not religious, i understand that this can sometimes cloud people's judgment, making them think that MOST of Christianity is like that. it is certainly not. Christian belief is not stupid or wrong. it is simply a different way of seeing things, of understanding. it is those that take the belief too literally or strongly that suffer some amount of delusion.
Dawkins seems to follow a legacy of great men - Immanuel Kant, who tried to prove Gods existence and Salman Rushdie in a way. I wonder, if those "Christians" get just a little more heated, would they declare a fatwah?
"God told me to skin you alive" - Dead Kennedys
ANON: Honest, chewy, inarguable answer. Though, as to where God operates, we know even the laws of physics seem to be in rebellion against the laws of physics, subatomically.
DFLETCHER: I posed the question because, in general, the visitors to this site are sort of science/tech/sf folks. And I find those with scientific minds are amused by, even scornful of, those who believe in God since such a thing is completely irrational and unprovable. Yet, with the same lack of proof, they happily entertain the existence of ETs.
Of course, a) it's human nature to have faith, so choose what makes you happy; b) I shudder to think of the heads exploding if SETI discovers advanced ETs only to find they advocate a strict moral code to live by and, c) my joint just went out.
PaulM 59: I don't understand your b) point in your last para. So what if an alien culture has a strict moral code? I can name a bunch of alien cultures right here on Earth that have strict moral codes, and none of them makes my head explode. Or do you think advanced ETs would somehow be more exciting if they didn't have a moral code?
It almost sounds like you're saying it's impossible for atheists to have a moral code. I assume you mean something else, though, because that belief would make you a bozo.
That's fantastic! I turned it into a set of MP3s.
1) Belief, PaulM, is not a binary switch. The Drake equation gives a neat gloss on the probabilities for the existence of life elsewhere in the universe, and provisional acceptance (or denial) of a probabilistic claim is not the same as 'faith without evidence.'
The difference seems to lie in the admitted fallibility of the claim.
(2) Anonymous, your neat a priori 'proof' is just an empty re-definition of a sequence of letters. The set of all things can be called Zq++ or Cookie Monster for all I care. The ontological status isn't settled. Nor is the predication of traditional divine properties established.
(3) Back Seat, you must admit that, from the point of view of an atheist, public policies that are based solely on religious precepts must seem entirely indefensible. Ergo the 'perceived threat' of religion. Historical knowledge only compounds the suspicion.
PAULM, Certainty and probability are two different thing.
The Genius of Charles Darwin (where this clip comes from) is also now on DVD, or as part of the Dawkins collection.
http://www.amazon.co.uk/The-Genius-of-Charles-Darwin/dp/B001B8NPL6
and the collection:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Richard-Dawkins-Collection/dp/B0016OMFLQ/ref=pd_sbs_d_h__1
X: Bad use of 'moral code'.
I meant how ironic it would be if those who find religious types laughable, but ETs possible, were to come upon ETs who were strict religious types.
And since you asked, yes, I think ETs would be a lot more exciting without a moral code.
http://i66.photobucket.com/albums/h256/Calatar/religion.gif
I can't imagine a culture of sentient beings without a moral code. Can you? How could that be possible?
Not all atheists believe in ETs; in fact, I don't know any who do. There are a lot of people who WISH there were ETs, and I am unapologetically one of them; that would be. . . fun. (Almost had me; I almost said ''awesome.'')
I am unaware of a ''culture war'' being waged by atheists against religionists. It would be impossible for me to keep a job as a public school teacher in America (if I again wanted such a thankless task) if I were to announce myself an atheist; whereas I could proceed to acquire tenure, all other things being satisfactory, if I were a member of any superstition-based religion — excepting, possibly, $cientology. Just because a few guys write books saying God is an empty cloud, doesn't mean the armies of darkness are marching against the bright towers of faith. We know enough history to know who brandishes the torch. And who is tied to the stake.
Dang, I thought I was going to see a video of Richard DAWSON reading hate mail. *sigh*
PaulM: Wow, so you WERE equating being religious with having a moral code. Do you know how insulting that is?
And I still don't see how it would make any atheists' heads explode. People who are strict religious types are certainly plausible; one encounters them every day. If one believed advanced ETs were possible, it's not a stretch to believe in strictly-religious advanced ETs.
See, I think you think atheists believe that advanced ETs will be perfect, or at least in some sense "better" than we are. This is because you assume that evolution == progress; aliens advanced enough to come visit us would therefore be better in every way, and you project this idea onto atheists.
In fact most atheists believe no such thing. In the unlikely event that we would be visited by advanced ETs, there's no way of knowing whether they'd come here to save us, help us, exploit us, or eat us—or for some utterly incomprehensible motive of their own. If they were deeply religious, it's possible we couldn't even figure out that fact, but there's no reason for it to be a surprise.
While I consider myself an atheist, at least in the strict sense of "not adhering to a theistic view of reality," Dawkins &co frankly bore and irritate me by turns. Reducing several complex and divergent fields and issues - conservative politics, ethics and metaphysics, scientific reasoning, the anthropology of religious belief, etc. - to a single binary opposition of God Versus Reason is damning enough, from the point of view of anyone who considers themselves a thoughtful and tolerant thinker. Atheism is not the same as rational materialism. Liberal critiques of xenophobic or irrational political economy can't be conflated with rational critiques of religious claims to empirical fact. Attacking articles of faith and systems of meaning on scientific grounds is worse than pointless.
On top of that, portraying Western culture as universally adhering to One Side Or The Other insults a vast spectrum of thinkers and believers - atheists who don't subscribe to anti-religious ideology and Enlightenment materialism; the non-literal, intellectual faithful; and many others. This isn't fair, and it doesn't contribute to anyone's nuanced understanding or tolerant mindset.
I'm not even sure Dawkins' atheism scans with his Darwinism. Consistently across the world within the most populous faiths, the more religious a person is, the more children they produce; the less religious, the less children they produce. There's no point arguing whether that's a casual or correlative relationship-- it exists, and it's having a direct, perceivable impact on the world right now. The most secular part of the world, Western Europe, also has the lowest birth rate, well below the necessary average replenishment rate of 2 children per woman. (Except, of course, for Europe's Muslim population, which is growing at an exponential rate.) The non-religious are quite literally under-breeding themselves out of existence.
Forget for a moment whether religious faith in itself makes empirical sense. On the raw metrics of natural selection, atheism is a poor evolutionary adaptation. Dawkins is promoting the Darwinian equivalent of short necks in a world of tall trees.
Somehow, this makes me want to receive hate mail of my own.
#71
I believe that religion only propagates itself through less intelligent or less curious children. This comes from my own experience of denouncing religion and sharing this belief with my own family.
Doctrine doesn't hold water to those of us who believe only what we can deduce based on evidence and logic.
Therefore, there is no "breeding out of existence". From the flock, great and smart people, some of whom are atheists, will arise.
What you describe sounds something like the movie "Idiocracy" from Mike Judge.
The church van comment had me giggling for the rest of the day!
iopha , August 25, 2008 2:49 PM, said "Anonymous, your neat a priori 'proof' is just an empty re-definition of a sequence of letters. The set of all things can be called Zq++ or Cookie Monster for all I care. The ontological status isn't settled. Nor is the predication of traditional divine properties established."
I'm pretty sure you are talking to me (for technical reasons I must needs post anonymous, but I sign all my posts).
You have a point when you say there's no global definition of deity. But, it's a very minor point and not any sort of show-stopper. All religions are in some sense uniquely defined by the way they delineate the characteristics of their God(s), so your use of the word "traditional" is suspect and should probably be replaced with the phrase "my audience's unexamined ideas of". If you want to claim religious tradition, you can't just reject the majority of the world's population's definitions of God out of hand.
There are literally millions of people who define God as the greatest thing there is; ever had a meaningful discussion with a Hindu priest? How about a Bhuddist? When you say "the predication of traditional divine properties [is not] established" it sounds like you are saying "I reject your reality, and that of the majority of religions currently extant, and substitute my own!". It's not very convincing.
There are very few religions which insist that something exists which is greater than God; those few are typically animist or polytheistic (we will NOT get bogged down with Jainism here). If you accept that God is greater than all other things, regardless of how you finesse the semantics of "greater", you have to choose between jettisoning logic entirely (something that's quite popular among fundamentalists) or you end up choosing between panentheism and pantheism.
Many self-proclaimed atheists are behaviorally Christian heretics, just like most Satanists are. They accept the Christian definition of God as the only possible definition and get all haughty and self-righteously illogical if you point this out. This is both sad and funny, since atheists will often claim their beliefs are rooted in logic.
How you define God is the heart of your theology; if your whole philosophy about God is predicated on acceptance of the Judeo-Christian mythos you are functionally Judeo-Christian (though perhaps a heretic) regardless of how loudly you beat your breast and cry "hail Eris".
Dawkins, unlike Hitchens, does not make this mistake in what little of his work I have read. He takes the time to define what he means by religion, faith, and God before he makes statements about them. He doesn't use the (entirely circular) logic of pre-defining God as that which can't possibly exist. He does not incorrectly categorize Jains or Pantheists with Wahhabists when he talks about God.
If you worship a tiny green goblin that lives in your nose, I will be skeptical. However, if you then produce this creature physically, thus proving that your deity exists, I will not jettison all reason by denying physical reality, and I won't try to force you to redefine your belief system in order to fit MY pre-conceived notions of what YOUR god should be like.
My God EXISTS. I have proved it here and in other places, and many people have done so before me. If you reject this proof, you reject the physical universe. If you say my God is not worthy of your worship, that's a COMPLETELY DIFFERENT ARGUMENT.
Personally, I engage the divine as a participant, not a supplicant. The sort of "worship" that Christians do is not palatable to me, despite all my tefillin jokes. But I think this sermon is already long enough.
Gotta go, prolly won't be able to post again today. Sorry to hit and run!
--Charlie
PS: I am an ordained minister and I teach Sunday School at my church. Really. Any assumptions you might have about what that means could easily be very very wrong, though...
--C
Xopher:
1. Actually, I have no idea how insulting it is to interchange moral code with religious code, but I'm thinking pretty insulting. I do know it blew the gag - how funny it would be if all the godless science geeks discovered their long-awaited ETs were theists. Funny to me, anyway. The personal tragedy here is how embarrassed I am to deconstruct a punchline twice.
2. I don't really think space aliens will be perfect or religious or any particular thing. In fact, I usually don't think of them at all, except to use occasionally as an analogy when smug types start clucking about religious types. As far as I can tell, an equation and a radio dish are about as effective as a Bible and a prayer in discovering what's really out there. Both, however, share a couple of fundamental qualities: hope and belief.
Christopher Hitchens explaining the insulting nature of the theological argument that without gods and religions, humans would be at each other’s throats even more than they already are with gods and religions.
Moderates don't understand, religious moderates are a joke. The extremists of the three Semitic religions represent the unmasked, unvarnished truth of these religions. While moderates may represent a numerical majority they don't accurately reflect the theological truths of these religions. That moderates attempt to downplay the truths found in the scriptures of these religions is dangerous, because it creates an environment that enables extremism.
To quote Sam Harris:
@FoetusNail:
The "unmasked, unvarnished truth of these religions"? Where are you getting this from? I don't know from what holy "science" book you derive your metrics for determining what the most "true" version of a religion is, but it isn't one my self-righteousness has granted me access to.
Pll yr hd t f yr snctmnis ss. Religious extremists, which I'll loosely define as believers who take selected portions of a sacred text literally in order to justify ultra-conservative cultural structures, don't represent anything especially universal or deeply significant about religion, or religious believers in general. "Religion" is not a corporate entity, and neither are individual "religions".
They are institutional power structures, always ideological and sometimes coercive, that enforce traditional hierarchies and normative moral judgments, similar to the state, and the family. They are also (sources/inspirations of) theories of metaphysics and ethics, like existentialism and secular humanism. And they are myth-complexes, dream-stories that blur the line between social aspirations and racial memories, and form centers around which to base cultures. These things are all interlinked, and believers in "the same religion" have common features, but they all mean something different to every church and person.
Your ridiculous, unfounded value judgments are as sophomoric as Sam Harris'. Throwing rocks at the faithful for their failures of comprehension and tolerance puts your glass house at an awful lot of risk.
I speak from more than just a typical or sophomoric viewpoint. I have traveled to and spent hours discussing theology with the local leadership of many religions, by local, I include the leadership of the National Islamic Mosque. They all have a few things in common. Their holy books are the only truth of their respective religions, and those that wish to selectively believe the tenants of these religions are a danger not only to their particular faith, but also to faith in general. If one does not hold the entirety of the three Semitic religious texts as the infallible, inerrant word of god then you are not of that religion. This is not extremism, but the truth of scripture and its associated texts, which must be viewed as a whole. Moderates, and I don’t blame them, are backpedaling as fast as they can, but they are not putting their parishioners in the streets to protest the so-called extremism perpetrated in their name; they are afraid of what they may discover. Because the nature of the dogma, is the texts are the complete and inerrant word of god; therefore, any microscopic hole in their story brings the whole lot down. This is not to say a few passages don’t have some universal meaning, but the point is this, moderate brainwashing is still brainwashing. When you indoctrinate children with religious dogma, moderate or not, they are then a ready victim of those that would subvert their beliefs. This explains the pathetic nature of Dawkin’s death threats. Fear. Those that send these types of threatening e-mails or post threatening vitriolic comments, have a deep-seated fear that Dawkins, Hitchens, or Harris may be right. Since they cannot conceive a universe without a god, they cannot conceive a world without religion without anarchy. As modern knowledge intrudes on scripture, feeling cornered and lost, they invent elaborate pseudo-science to bolster their crumbling belief structure, demanding others prove the negative. If these tenants mean something different in every Temple, Church, and Mosque then they should ask themselves, why, because the result is what we see around us every day and it ain’t pretty. After 6,000 years we are no better off or further away from full blown religious war than we were 1,000 years ago.
P.S. I have no house. I have no fear.
BEN and THE FANATIC
In his teachings, Ben stressed that Zen was his path because it allowed him to become himself. All other routes that allegedly lead to cosmic consciouness seemed to put him in conflict with his own nature. He advised all seekers to examine carefully what each system asked of the potential initiate, keeping in mind three simple rules:
1. What you are required to believe is what the system cannot prove.
2. Anything that you are asked to keep secret is of more value to the teacher than the student.
3. Any practice that is forbidden offers something that the system cannot sucessfully replace with an alternative.
One listener asked, "Don't you believe that giving up the pleasures of the senses will produce a different consciousness?"
"My personal experience," Ben replied, "was that it produced the consciousness of fanaticism."
Excerpt from the book Zen Without Zen Masters by Camden Benares
Anonymous/Charlie 76: If you reject this proof, you reject the physical universe. If you say my God is not worthy of your worship, that's a COMPLETELY DIFFERENT ARGUMENT.
Just so! The existence test is only interesting if there's no way to resolve it. Worship, however, is a choice.
I've sometimes suggested that the only difference between me and an atheist is that I worship the physical universe as such. (Whether this is actually true depends very much on which atheist, but I digress.) Let the fundamentalists and other extremists focus on what they believe; I will focus on the choices I make (granting, of course, that beliefs shape choices, and also the less-commonly-recognized fact that choices often shape beliefs).
One characteristic of worship is that it seeks to draw closer to the thing worshipped, often by knowing it better. Therefore doing science can be (if the scientist chooses) an act of worship toward the universe, since knowing the laws of physics draws one closer to the thing worshipped, through greater knowledge.
paulm "I wonder - and I'm just asking here - what percentage of atheists believe in the existence of other life forms in the universe?"
A poll? I can only speak for myself, but I believe in the possibility of other life in the universe. Whether we'll ever find evidence for it is another matter entirely (the universe is really big and really old. We are really small and young. Plus, ET's finger is totally radioactive. He gave Elliott cancer. Bastard).
The One True Aphrodisiac can be found in the dried and powdered heart and brains of a priest. Any religion will do. Spread the word.
Dried and powdered? That seems like an awful lot of work just to get a woody. Also, I'm pretty sure that priests need one or both of those just to get by. This explains, in part, why the RCs have such a problem with priestly wood.
OK, I did manage to get back for a tick... I see things have gotten worse.
Geez, I'm feeling like a celibate black professor who's just been told by some total stranger that everybody knows all black men are stupid and oversexed. It raises the damn blood pressure, you know.
Foetusnail, why are you telling these lies about me and my co-religionists? What did we ever do to you?
Do you hate us for speaking out for equal rights for atheists and agnostics? (We do, you know. Always have.)
Is it because we perform marriages for gay couples and welcome gay people into our churches? (Yup, been doing that for decades, some of us in defiance of physically violent opposition in fact. I don't want to talk about the July 27 incident at TVUUC now but you might consider looking it up.)
Oh, wait, maybe it's because we support equal rights for women and always have? Do fanatic anti-religionists hate women or something?
Is it because we built the Underground Railroad to free the slaves? (OK, the Quakers did that, but we helped a lot, you know. We are still working with the Quakers to free slaves outside the USA.)
Maybe it's the drug war thing. We've opposed the US war on unpopular drugs for nearly a decade now, is that why you hate us? We really don't think it's worth hurting people over.
Or maybe you like depleted uranium munitions? Do you object to our cleanup efforts in the Middle East? Landmine clearing and orphanages in Afghanistan?
And what's this nonsense about "holy books" and "institutionalized power structures"? We haven't had any of that since the 1700s. We don't even evangelize, we haven't done that since the 1800s.
I can't really speak for every member of our 1,041 churches, but speaking for myself, I really really hate being told that "all religions do this that and the other thing" by people who know NOTHING about my religion.
I wish they'd stop spreading hate and lies about religion in general and confine their vitriol to the subset of religions that deserve it. It's not like there's any lack of valid targets.
Your religion might be hateful and dishonest, but MINE ISN'T. Your god might be fake or unprovable, but MINE ISN'T. My god loves me and wants me to be happy, and my religion does not force itself on anyone who doesn't want to be a part of it.
http://www.sinfest.net/archive_page.php?comicID=2630
--Charlie
Charlie: Hug?
@FoetusNail: Elaborating on your errors of overgeneralization without accounting for my objections isn't worth my time to respond to. I'm just going to point out the limitation even of your premises to the Abrahamic religions, your specious assumption that there is any single, non-contradictory literal reading of any entire holy text, and your fallacious identification of sharing a common text with interpreting it the same way, or belonging to the same religious ideology or institution. Not to mention the ridiculous notions that the Qu'ran consistently refers to non-Moslems as damned or enemies of the faith, or that it's *logically possible* to adhere to all of the commandments of Abrahamic scriptures simultaneously.
Grow up. The obsessive-compulsive, logic-nerd need for all ideologies to conform to the stipulations of a peer-reviewed, consensus-obtained legal reading of the text(s) they claim DOESN'T REFLECT THE REAL WORLD.
@Charlie/Anon.:
First off, geez, thanks for the friendly fire. I lay into the Resident Evangelical Atheist for being an offensive, sophomoric, and unsophisticated oversimplifier, and I get slammed by the people I'm trying to defend for it...I'm not even religious, y'know. C'est la vie, I guess.
Secondly, in response to your criticism, don't take it as a particular offense - all religious institutions, family structures, state instruments, etc. are ideological apparatuses that inculcate normative value judgments and promote certain social structures, frequently ones that convey relations of power. It isn't a critique unique (HA) to religion, but it isn't one that any belief system adequately described by the word "religion" can exempt itself from, either. I'm not making a negative value judgment, necessarily; or at least, not a universal one. It is merely a descriptive statement, not specific enough to draw conclusions from.
Third, please stop whining. Calling other people's gods hateful and dishonest and yelling in ALLCAPS that your God ISN'T "fake" like that OTHER KID'S god is immature and absurd. I liked it better when you were a voice of reason coming from a theist, not a voice of injured self-congratulation coming from another partisan religionist.
Charlieanon, put that horse back in the barn, you're not a Christian you're a Unitarian for Christ's sake. What do Unitarian Universalists believe? Anything. Here's a friendly tip, check a person's history before responding to their comment, you may find something interesting.
hereticgestalt, feeling our oats are we, to keep the metaphor going. Welcome to the medium of the Oversimplifier. Next time listen to your inner voice and don't respond if you don't like the answer. Take Care
Manners, please.
Wow. I never thought I'd see a scrap between a UU and whatever FoetusNail is (a furry, I assume).
This is almost as odd as the time I saw Buddhist monks fight. It was just a blur of bony arms and orange saffron. The horror.
Somewhere, somehow, against long odds, our pre-historic ancestors made the great leap from dumb to ignorant. Eons ago, miniature humans stuck their heads up outta the primordial daze, looked around, and then promptly lost it. Between the dawn of man and breakfast, they found their beautiful newfound minds blown. This makes me wonder, which came first panic or religion? My guess is this has been one long cycle of panic, religion, still more religion, followed by extreme panic. What would it have been like to witness the birth of human consciousness? Imagine watching from the shadows, before the creation of religion, before the shaman or priest, at the dawn of imagination, silent witness to our first group encounter with the unknown.
We must make the next great leap; we must fearlessly believe, if only for a moment, that everything we know is wrong. Where are we? How did we get here? What happens when we die? Why? We must accept there are no answers. We must admit it doesn’t even matter. This does not mean we stop dreaming. We will always enjoy sitting by a fire at night, looking out into the universe and asking, “Where are we? What’s out there? Why?” The problem arises when one persons dream becomes a cult, and the cult becomes a government.
Millions are turning to a romantic fundamentalism from our superstitious past, the very beliefs that got us into this mess in the first place. The irony in this should be obvious. What would they have us do, repeat the last two thousand years. Only this time we’ll leave out the printing press, learning to read and the Age of Enlightenment, AKA: Age of Reason. But in the end does it matter if there is a god? Why are we so afraid? If there is a god, why wouldn’t this god hope to see us grow beyond blind faith and obedience? Are we forever damned because the proverbial dumb blonde took a bite out of an apple? Why if we found god to be a figment of our imagination should all sense of right and wrong vanish? Why does my questioning their belief earn a death sentence? They profess, god gave us the freedom to believe; yet for thousands of years have persecuted, tortured and murdered heretics, apostates, and infidels for doing just that. Religious leaders know heretics do not threaten god; heretics threaten religious leaders.
Raising children, especially our daughters, free of the fear and superstitions of the Dark Ages, brings our world closer to lasting peace, liberty, and justice for all. It is important we recognize that freedom is each person acting responsibly of his or her own volition, without threat. Help children understand the difference between religion and spirituality. Give children the confidence and knowledge to defend themselves from every con man and thief, whether they come for their money, their soul, or both. When you are sitting by your fire with your children, remember the deception is not the myth of any one faith, but the false impression there are answers to the unanswerable. The details of the myth are unimportant; giving children the idea there is an answer is the danger. Giving children the false belief that religion holds some secret to the secret is the lie. Don’t be afraid to tell your son or daughter the only universal truth; don’t be afraid to say, we don’t know. Tell them the only secret is there is no secret; there is no answer. Tell them what they can know. Tell ‘em we can know our own nature, we can know our own lives, we can grow beyond superstitious beliefs, and we can achieve a spirituality that transcends religions, transcends fear. We can be happy; we can live peacefully; we can love without religion. Let’s face it no religion has ever saved anyone; we save ourselves. Not to belittle herbal remedies, but religions taking credit for saving your imaginary soul is like a witch doctor taking credit for your surviving smallpox. Children don’t need brainwashing, fairytales, or dogma; children need honesty, they need to find their place in the world, their purpose, their truth. Therefore, the real journey is one of discovery. What we learn on this journey is an appreciation for this moment, while learning to live with mystery.
MO - thanks.
Apologies, Antonious. I lost my temper & sense of humor with it. Another day, more balance.
I always poke fun at whiners and shouters, so I suppose I should mock myself now. My father was a hamster and my mother smelt of elderberries! Er, that was weak, but my head's full of perl code at the moment.
I'm glad people saw my point, though, however poorly I made it.
Foetusnail, your characterization of UUs is again incorrect. P'raps you're thinking of liberal intellectuals... ;) there's a large intersection set.
"Whoever worships God as other than the self, thinking He is one and I am another, knows not." Brhadaranyaka Upanishad 4.10.9
--Charlie
Hmm. Christians have a name for worshipping anyone or anything whose existence is verifiable and/or generally agreed upon by worshippers and non-worshippers alike: Idolatry.
(Yes, I know that the definition has been expanded by some to mean the worship of anything other than the YHVH god and his son and this other spirit thing. That's not what I'm talking about here.)
The universe does exist. I think everyone except certain types of Buddhist, and maybe (as in I'm not sure) Christian Scientists agrees on that.
I worship it. You (most of you) don't.
I don't believe different things ABOUT the universe than you do, in most cases. I believe in the Big Bang, the laws of mathematics and physics, and evolution.
In my judgement, however, all of these concrete facts about the universe justify worshipping it as divine. In your judgement they do not, and I'm fine with that. Don't tell me my god does not exist, though, because it does, and you know it does. You can deny that it is a god, but that's pretty meaningless, especially since I generally don't call it one (I say "the Divine" or just "the universe," reserving the term 'god' for metaphoric constructs like Aphrodite and Thor).
Bertrand Russell pointed out that if anything exists without a cause, it might as well be the universe as God. I agree, but I go further, and assert that there's no functional difference between the two. (He might also, except that his concept of "God" was limited to the YHVH one, so he stopped short of that assertion; there are plenty of functional differences between the universe and any god of the YHVH class!)
Where I part company with Charlie is when he says "My god loves me and wants me to be happy." I'm agnostic on the topic of whether the universe as a whole is sentient; in fact I rather suspect it isn't, at least as I understand the concept. I just don't think sentience is a necessary defining characteristic of a worship-worthy entity. But it does seem to me that sentience is a prerequisite for love, and for wishing me to be happy, and that the universe as a whole is unlikely to take my happiness into account, except as every drop is part of the ocean.
And remember, we're part of the universe. So ask me "how many hands does your god have?" and I will reply "I don't know, but at least 12 billion, at the moment." No hands but ours, no thoughts but ours, no will but ours: we have to make the best of the world we have.
Amen, aché, so mote it be, shaanti.
This is what I heard.
Pass through your fear, matrix of beliefs. Within my hand, feel your life; find in it yourself as you’ve always been. Our journey will reveal me to be, that part of you denied, no longer recognized, mystery given form, sanctuary for your hopes and dreams, figurehead for your love, depository for your pain. When I cease to exist, you will be born again whole, as you always were. Until then you are my child, my love, and I your god.
On Sacred Ground
By Bo Lozoff
Transcribed from the album “Eyes so Soft”
Memories are sparklin’ diamonds, hopes and dreams are a string of pearls
We all leave and keep on leavin’, as we make our way around this world
Searching for what can’t be gathered, searching for what can’t be found
We forget, that we are standin
Always standin’ on sacred ground
I was once so young and certain, I was once so young and free
Never dreamed how I’d be thrown, by all the things life threw at me
We can sail the seven oceans, we can roam this world around
We forget, we are standin’
Always stand on sacred ground
It’s not hard to think of heaven, underneath the midnight sky
Miracles above are shining, shooting stars go shooting by
We look up and look up further, never think of lookin’ down
We forget, we are standin’
Already stand on sacred ground
Some people say, these are the end times
Some people say we’ve just begun
Some people say there’s many lifetimes
Some people say there’s only one
Points of view and speculation
Endless theories abound
We forget
We are standin’
Always stand on sacred ground
Charlieanon - I have no idea what you are talking about. I never once characterized or eluded to UU's or their incredibly wide ranging beliefs, which would cover everything between you and Xopher, and beyond. UU's are a great group, but, sad to say, they have all the impact of the Libertarian party in an off election. UU's are one voice of sanity in the darkness that no one hears.
Well said, Xopher. I confess that when I said God loves me, I was using the same format as your "many hands" image; I know I am loved, and all is One, so God loves me. I was annoyed enough at the time to want to make an explicit declaration of allegiance to deism & theism.
I think you are closer to Einstein's brand of pantheism than I am; he adhered to Baruch Spinoza's concept of an impersonal and insentient deity (although he kept his sense of wonder and respect more than Spinoza did).
Myself, I find it impossible to imagine that this ridiculous and wonderful universe is informed by a humorless deity, which is why I tend to ascribe something functionally akin to sentience to the divine. But I see no reason for God to be bound by our concept of linear time; time is probably just an artifact of the meat engine we ride, which is only capable of comprehending reality in a narrow, one-way sequential stream. I suspect we are as incapable of understanding divine sentience as our mitochondria are of comprehending our own, so the point's probably moot.
Hey, if you haven't read it already, I recommend to you Abner Kneeland's "philosophical creed". If you don't want to plow through Google Books' "Defence of Abner Kneeland" you can find it at http://home.utm.net/pan/abner.html about halfway down the page.
--Charlie
UU's are a great group, but, sad to say, they have all the impact of the Libertarian party in an off election.
Assuming you forget about Adams, Adams, Jefferson, and at least a few others. Yeah, no impact whatsoever.
The problem is that the UU's impact has had some blowback these last 100 years or so.
Quite true, MDHatter.
Thanks, Charlie. I thought that was an anomaly in your commentary, but you're right about me and Einstein--though I also worship the humanizing metaphor type of gods.
Charlie @ 76--
Thanks for the response. This puts your earlier argument in a better context.
First let me concede to you the Judeocentrism implicit in my statement concerning so-called 'traditional divine properties.' Despite this limitation, there is no denying that many adherents of Western monotheistic religions often do make the leap from ontological argument to personal God. It seems we both agree that this is invalid.
Perhaps thus the tag 'atheist' is itself as contextual as 'God' and in need of further unpacking. As a day-to-day term it serves admirably to indicate my position in regards to most religious believers I come across. The exceptions can be dealt with on a case by case basis.
I am sceptical still of any 'greater than' definition, particularly one with logical aspirations.
(1) How do we avoid an infinite regress of sets? ZFC set theory does not have any way to avoid the postulation of an infinite sequence of sets each greater than the previous, for any alleged 'final' set presumably could be a member of a greater power set (i.e. the set of all subsets of a given set).
Thus there can be no one set greater to all others without some ad hoc axiom saying so. In fact the possibility of creating larger sets is essential to deriving the natural numbers from logic and set theory alone. God being the greatest logical set is akin to saying God is the largest natural number.
But there is no such number. Ergo, there is no such God.
(2) The answer seems to be that we restrict ourselves not to logic, but logic and physical objects, which ineluctably leads to pantheism. I've no quarrel with those who define 'God' as the universe or something of the sort. I just think we already have a perfectly good word for everything there is, however--the universe. Why obfuscate by choosing such a loaded term ('God') to designate it instead?
On the other hand, like many scientifically-minded folk, I do feel deep and reverent awe at the world and the stars and the blackness of void and the calamitous ruin of entropy. Is this worship? Is this religion? I don't know. I don't feel these are salient questions, particularly.
(3) If by greatest you mean some other thing, please tell me!
(4) I'm no mathematical platonist, either. Should the existence of a 'greatest set' or thing be derived from logic alone, I would not have to be a Realist (in the philosophical sense) about it. Logical and mathematical objects need not have separate existence from our ideas of them. A further argument is required--unless you fall back on the position of (2) (pan(en)theism) with which I have little or no problem.
Until, or course, from the clever identification equivocation rises and from thence sundry moral necessities.
iopha