Letters to the Editor
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Atheism
A great many posting about atheism from the side of the believers are making a significant mistake. Atheists aren't saying there can't be spirituality or a sense of wonder about the universe or faith in something other than one's-self. Atheists state that since there is no evidence for a god, I shall not assume there is one. Given the utter lack of proof for whatever god is presented, I shall conclude there is no god. It isn't about any of these other things, it is about the existence of a god or gods and another human being's ability to tell me what they want.
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Walter
Perhaps it would have been clearer if I had said "It does not so limit all scientific conclusions." But I gave you an example of one that is not so limited, so you should have been able to see what I meant. Clearly all scientific conclusions are not limited by the uncertainty principle. Constants (such as Planck's) are observables in Quantum mechanics since one can devise an experiment to measure them, and the accuracy of such measurements is not limited directly by that principle as are momenta/position pairs.
I think you do not have enough knowledge of physics to be grading people. You missed the unicorn thing, and that was bad enough.
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Quadraphone
I see your point, or actually several of them. I am being too picky.
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Atheist Morality
"what would stop me from cheating on my fiancé? It wouldn’t hurt him if I was careful and made sure he didn’t find out. What stops me now is the belief that truth is better than lies and that it matters if I tell the truth or not. Not that it matters to any person, but that it matters to god."
Here you get to the heart of the matter. Why should an atheist be moral? Let me say that it does matter whether you tell the truth or not - not to god, which does not exist, but to yourself, your partner and your family. If you love your partner, why would you want to cheat on him? And if you did, how would you feel lying about it for the rest of your life? And lying to your children. Would you feel good? There is you answer. I will not cheat in my marriage not because there is some god in the sky, but because of my committment to and love for her and my family. Simple, really.
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Predictable drivel....
I wondered last week if Salon had reached it's Catholic bashing quota for 2007. I suppose if the Church had condemned the Golden Compass, there'd have no need to run this article and spur 300+ letters about what lunatics those Christians are. It's a shame they couldn't have been of service in that regard, it might have drummed up a larger audience. Somebody brought up Africa, AIDS and condoms, so I guess they'll be closing the letters section soon enough.
This interview was interesting, and much of the athiest letters prove Haught's point. Calling bull-shit, calling Haught an idiot, and the numerous false assumptions about Haught, about Christianity in general and about Catholocism in particular make the authors of said letters sound like paranoid adolescents at best and fundamentalists at worst. Even Dawkins and Hitchens are not that sloppy, though they, too, could do a whole lot better. On that point, I have to agree with Haught.
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debaser
The Catholic Church hasn't proclaimed The Bible as The Unadulterated Word of God since at least The Council of Trent in the 1560s
Quite right.
And since the bible obviously cannot be infallable, in the 19th century the church resorted to explicitly claiming that instead the pope was infallable, although the implicit claim goes back at least to Luther.
Further, the Catholic Church has explicitly prohibited any interpretation of the bible except for its own since Constantine. In fact, the Vatican prohibited the laity from owning a bible for centuries, lest somebody point out that some of their interpretations have no basis in the bible, or contradict what the bible says. Vernacular versions of the Catholic bible didn't come out until the 19th century and none were approved until the 20th century.
The Church has had a bad enough time trying to keep its own clergy, like Luther, from pointing out those contradictions, which demonstrates that their prohibition wasn't extended far enough. You can't just keep some people stupid, you have to keep them all stupid.
In its early history the church spend hundreds of years and fought dozens of wars, largely through political proxies, stomping out dozens of 'heresies', meaning groups that had interpretations or included different texts. One schism in the church was the result of disagreement over whether to include a single iota. The church has historically relied on various rulers to carry out the appropriate massacres, pogroms, and inquisitions to enforce its religious authority.
We've been waiting on the Vatican's pronouncement on how many angels can dance on the head of a pin since the late Middle Ages. They won't be making one any time soon, mostly just to avoid appearing silly.
"To assert that the earth revolves around the sun is as erroneous as to claim that Jesus was not born of a virgin."
Cardinal Bellarmine, 1615, during the trial of Galileo
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Mike Sulzer
Constants (such as Planck's) are observables in Quantum mechanics since one can devise an experiment to measure them, and the accuracy of such measurements is not limited directly by that principle as are momenta/position pairs.
You're quite wrong.
Would you like to look it up yourself, or shall I rub it in your face?
You're C minus now Sulzer, going for D. You might prefer a retraction.
I think you do not have enough knowledge of physics to be grading people.
Is that what you call it? Thinking?
You missed the unicorn thing, and that was bad enough.
I missed nothing. Neither I am not responsible for your sophomorism, Sulzer.
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@ jared2
You beat me to it, so I'll simply second your post.
Same here -- I love my wife, and I wouldn't dream of hurting her. I don't see why fidelity (or honesty, or any other virtue) is somehow nobler because you do it out of fear of punishment or promise of reward. Why can't we simply be decent human beings for its own sake? Seems to me that human beings who are psychologically mature & reasonably grounded, rather than driven by insecurities & fears, would find the Golden Rule an excellent model for living. As kids, weren't we told that honesty is its own reward? Why shouldn't that be just as true when we're adults?
Look, I'm not promoting myself as some shining paragon of virtue. But I'd like to think I'm a fairly decent person, simply because it's a more satisfying way to live. We've all seen people eaten up by fear, or greed, or the hunger for power -- who wants to be that miserable? Why not strive for as much wholeness as we can manage?
You know, I sometimes get the feeling a lot of believers fear that without their belief, they themselves would run wild. So they think the rest of us are the same way. Not unlike many religious attitudes toward sex: they're so busy repressing it, striving to control it, that it's all they can think about as they struggle constantly with their normal desires. So they think the rest of us are just as consumed by it as they are, and living the hedonistic lives of excess they fear & secretly yearn for themselves.