Letters to the Editor
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ChristCracker, TW
I've read a couple versions of each. One thing about people who comment on religion without understanding it: they're pretty close to useless. There certainly is alot of doom and destruction- in the Old Testament/Pentateuch/Torah, the doom and destruction is historical, with some 'spiritual' flair added. The death and doom in the New Testament is mostly relegated to Revelations, which is the singular rantings of a religious exile against the '7-headed beast' that was the contemporary 'Roman Empire', and would never have been cannonized if humans weren't so fixated by fire and brimstone. Think of any Steven Seagal movie- now think of what many peoples lives would be like with it- that is why Revelations is so popular with Christian nutjobs. As for the Koran, the majority of the 'smite thine enemies' can be attributed to later followers, and to the power-struggle factor in the formation of Islam. More on that below.
No magikal sky being helped write a word of any of those books...or rewrite, or translate into English. Just people. There are a few very good ideas, but nothing unique to a particular sect. An awful lot of smiting and flood and fire, though, along with an occasional "turn the other cheek.
I did not mean to imply that, really. It was more a comment on the different sides of man, and the different quality of men out there- that these pluralities in our kind are reflected in the scriptures. As for the ratio of 'good ideas' to 'very good ideas' to smiting, flood, and fire- I would say that you, like a disheartening number of 'Christians', have a preferential memory for the negative/gory/violent passages, over the bulk of the texts. I don't have figures or the time to round them up, but I'm confident that the metrics would bear me out on this one.
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Pal Joey
I don't know where it all came from, and I don't really care. I'm an atheist.
And you are a troll.
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Eh?
Reading the quantity of the near death experiences, there is enough of this epi-phenomena, that the afterlife becomes real.
How does that follow, exactly? Have you ever considered that perhaps there's an entirely reasonably explanation why large numbers of people should be mistaken about something?
Have you heard sleep paralysis? You may have experienced it. Somebody's REM sleep is interrupted and they wake up in a state where their consciousness is active, but their body is not "awake" yet. So they're left with the feeling of being paralyzed-- scary indeed. Additionally, for many people it's accompanied by the feeling of a presence in the room. I've actually experienced this, a couple of times. I interpreted it as an intruder both times. But many people have (very likely) interpreted it as an alien invader, and this may well be where you get a lot of your "captured by aliens" stories. In other words, there's an entirely rational explanation for something that at first seems strange and fantastic.
So far, all of the evidence says the same for near-death experiences. Try watching the episode of Penn and Teller's show "Bullshit" on the subject to hear exactly how.
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Ktwdawg
see, what you're saying now is that you have to pick and choose what is useful and what should be left behind. And this raises the question (for me, anyhow) of what objective criteria you use to accomplish this. And if we have an innate moral sense (and really, most of us don't need the bible or the koran to come up with ideas that would help humanity live in peace, but maybe you do) then what is the point of it AT ALL? it's just a bunch of BS that ends up confusing the issue.
I'm not fixated on the gory parts. They just negate the whole moral superiority thing.
but what do I know- I'm just a useless atheist.
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End of interview
A few letters have commented on being a bit put off by the end of the interview. Paulson does seem to be attempting to push King into talking explicitly about her own religious beliefs, which she refuses to do. Paulson's series of interviews is the product of work funded by the Templeton Foundation, which (among other things) has been active in trying to resolve tensions between the communities of science and religion. So, many of Paulson's interviews seem geared to getting people to say, "I am a scientist, and I do believe in God." With King, he failed (he didn't event try with Dawkins). I'm happy King refused to play along. Though I like Paulson's interviewing generally, it's a bit uncomfortable when an interviewer seems to be trying too hard to use their interviewee to promote their own personal/political/intellectual agenda. As others have said, I think this is the source of the unfortunate and inaccurate line about how King explains "why it's OK for scientists to believe in God." It's Paulson's agenda to get across that notion, but not King's. She says no such thing.
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Re: First the nice thoughtful comments
"as communication and language are so crucial to our survival as individuals, groups, and societies, one can see how easily manipulative/misinformation can be fed to the young, who are predisposed to believe what they are told.
A veritable petri dish for the cultivation of the desease of religion!"
Very well said. The jesuits used to say "give me a child until he is seven and I will give you the man". I doubt very much that anyone would choose to become a Christian, Muslim, Jew or subscribe to any other religion had they not been indocrinated into it from an early age. Religious indoctrination of children should be considered a form of child abuse, no less serious than physical beatings or sexual manipulation. Not only are religious parents abusing their children, they are setting the stage for entire societies to be made up of deluded, narrow-minded and frequently violent fanatics. Religion is a dangerous disease; the sooner it is eradicated, the better will be our chances for survival.
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Further lack of understanding
I posted
Second, relgion and science are not about the same things. As expressed in the definitions above, science can only explain the cause, nature, and purpose of the universe when observation and experimentation in the material world yields such results. Religion automatically assumes that the cause, nature, and purpose of the universe are determined by supernatural means. Additionally, science can never dictate morality, as morality is entirely subjective, but almost all implementations of religion dictate morality to some degree.
You responded
That is a paragraph full of logical fallacies.
I disagree. However, your interpretation of the above paragraph is full of logical fallacies. See below.
Religion may assume the 'cause' and 'purpose' of the universe to be determined by a supernatural being- but so what?
Ok, you said exactly the same thing I did, except you offer an opinion on whether or not is appropriate for religion to do so, where I offer no opinion.
You do not and logically can not know the cause of the big bang, nor give any useful insight into how we should conduct ourselves, or why.
It is true that science and scientists do not currently know the cause of the big bang. In fact, it has not been scientifically proven that the big bang occurred, although there are few researchers who doubt that it did. However, stating that science or scientists "logically can not know the cause of the big bang" is an untrue statement, as neither you nor anyone has any idea of what the permanent boundaries of scientific knowledge are.
Another problem with your sentence above is that you presuppose that science should give insight into how we should conduct ourselves, in terms of morals. As I will explain below and as Grayden pointed out in his letter, that is not the objective of science nor a possible outcome of scientific investigation.
As for science not being able to dictate morality, that is just dumb. We can empirically observe what is best practice for ourselves and those around us, and also empirically observe that what is best for those around us, and is in harmony with our own nature, is best for our individual selves. Logically, then, we can scientifically deduce a set of morals and laws to facilitate 'best practice' for our individual survival through common actions.
Your argument above is fallacial because of your use of "best practice" and your lumping of "best practice" with morality. While scientific results can provide some recommendations or best practices for certain aspects of human life and survival (e.g., trans fats are bad for your arteries, exercise is good), science cannot dictate best practice or morals as a "guide to living" as you would like them to be. Best practice for one person or group may certainly not be best practice for another.
Morals are based upon individual perceptions of right and wrong. It may be morally correct for one person to serve his own purposes by not giving to charity, while it may be morally correct for others to be very philanthropic. It may be morally correct for some people to teach their children that their chosen religion is the only correct one, while it may be morally correct for others to teach their children to question all religions regardless of the parents' faith. These individual perceptions are opinions and they vary widely from person to person and across economic, social, and ethnic groups even within the same room. Science is about the systematic collection of knowledge, not opinions or perceptions. There is no correct set of opinions.
Don't try to pass off your passion for your selected religion as logic, it doesn't work.