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Sunday, Nov 8, 2009
agore goes in over the blue line, he winds up for the shot: "If we're going to get serious about this whole atheism thing..."
He lets it rip: "...then are liberals finally going to admit that trees and rocks don't actually have souls?""
And the crowd moans . . .
Too bad you didn't have a real hockey mom.
Maher is of a piece with all the "new atheists," who are only new if we all forget that Diderot, Voltaire, Bayle, etc. ever existed and act like they're not just repeating 18th-century talking points. (You may say: better 18th-century talking points than 1st-century talking points. To which I'd say: maybe.)
The question is: what does he want to DO about it? Make silly movies? Write angry books? When do the political teeth sink in? What policies is he proposing? Getting prayer out of schools? We did that already. It was a good idea worth defending if its achievement is endangered. Anything else? Gonna round up the religious people and put them in reeducation camps? No? What then?
The biggest threat to democracy, as Jeffrey Stout has written, is not theocracy but plutocracy. And coalitions against plutocracy are historically formed of religious and non-religious groups working together. All Maher and his ilk do is exacerbate cultural rifts that make it harder to form such coalitions.
You don't have to be Alexander Pope to make fun of fools, which is what Bill Maher does.
I wonder though, does he make fun of black Hoodoo or African animists too? Does he call the people who celebrate the Mexican day of the Dead, retarded shitheads too? Does laugh at Native Americans and their silly belief systems?
I bet not. I bet he's smarter than to say something offensive against people who actually have a vested interest in not being singled out by Bill Maher's insane bigotry.
Everyone else's beliefs look stupid to someone else too, Bill. Don't forget that the Left's Demi-God, Noam Chomsky continues to this day to support and defend his support of Pol Pot's regime in Cambodia. If that's not retarded religious fervor, nothing is.
... did not believe that Jesus of Nazareth was a god. That's one so far.
Can we please let go of the idea that you need theological training to have an informed and rational opinion about religion?
Can we accept that, despite the fact that professional theologians are adept at spinning all sorts of "arguments" to support their particular beliefs, the underlying logic is fundamentally flawed?
Could we please move beyond that idea that in order to criticise the beliefs of one particular religion, you also have to give "fair" treatment to the beliefs of every other religion?
I'm not certain about many things, but I'm pretty bloody confident that the Emperor has no clothes.
The Courtier's Reply
by PZ Myers
I have considered the impudent accusations of Mr Maher (originally Dawkins) with exasperation at his lack of serious scholarship. He has apparently not read the detailed discourses of Count Roderigo of Seville on the exquisite and exotic leathers of the Emperor's boots, nor does he give a moment's consideration to Bellini's masterwork, On the Luminescence of the Emperor's Feathered Hat. We have entire schools dedicated to writing learned treatises on the beauty of the Emperor's raiment, and every major newspaper runs a section dedicated to imperial fashion; Maher cavalierly dismisses them all. He even laughs at the highly popular and most persuasive arguments of his fellow countryman, Lord D. T. Mawkscribbler, who famously pointed out that the Emperor would not wear common cotton, nor uncomfortable polyester, but must, I say must, wear undergarments of the finest silk.
Maher arrogantly ignores all these deep philosophical ponderings to crudely accuse the Emperor of nudity.
Personally, I suspect that perhaps the Emperor might not be fully clothed — how else to explain the apparent sloth of the staff at the palace laundry — but, well, everyone else does seem to go on about his clothes, and this Maher fellow is such a rude upstart who lacks the wit of my elegant circumlocutions, that, while unable to deal with the substance of his accusations, I should at least chide him for his very bad form.
Until Maher has trained in the shops of Paris and Milan, until he has learned to tell the difference between a ruffled flounce and a puffy pantaloon, we should all pretend he has not spoken out against the Emperor's taste. His training in biology may give him the ability to recognize dangling genitalia when he sees it, but it has not taught him the proper appreciation of Imaginary Fabrics.
... that we happen to be fighting a Religious War right now, after having been attacked by fanatic Muslims (who see their world as having been defiled by infidel Christians). That's why we have a Global War On Terror and a Clash Of Civilizations, instead of doing what we would do about mass-murdering criminals under any other circumstance: track 'em down and lock 'em up.
The first books of the Bible speak of man as a physical being, formed from the dust and then infused with a divine “breath of life.” The New Testament, however, describes the individual as a spiritual being, temporarily clothed in an earthly body of flesh.
The New Testament distinguishes between the carnal and the spiritual. “It is the spirit that giveth the body life,” taught Jesus, “the flesh profit nothing.” (John 6:63) Paul taught that Jesus had both an earthly and a spiritual nature (Romans 1:3), and referred to his own spiritual self. (Romans 1:9)
The soul is in a body doomed to death; it is merely a prisoner to sin and the flesh. (Romans 7:18-24) The brethren are to behave in a spiritual manner, rather than in a fleshly way. (Romans 8:4; 13:14; I Peter 2:11) The desires of the Spirit and those of the flesh are in opposition to one another. (Galatians 5:13,16-17) Those who belong to Christ have “crucified the flesh with its passions and desires;” they “live by the Spirit” and are “directed by the Spirit.” (Galatians 5:19-26)
To be carnally minded is to die, but those under the control of the Spirit transcend their lower, bodily nature. (Romans 8:5-14) Paul regarded envy, strife and divisions among the brethren as carnal or unspiritual. (I Corinthians 3:3) He distinguished between saving the spirit of an individual and the destruction of the person’s flesh. (I Corinthians 5:5)
God’s kingdom is not carnal, but spiritual: “But I make this statement, brothers, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, neither does the perishable inherit the imperishable...For this perishable must put on imperishability and this mortal must put on immortality." (I Corinthians 15:50,53)
The body is like a lump of clay. (Romans 9:21; II Corinthians 4:7) Although one’s outer nature decays, one’s inner self is continually renewed in spiritual life. (II Corinthians 4:16-17) The body is merely a temporary, earthly tent in which the soul resides; the spirits of the faithful shall soon be clothed in everlasting, heavenly bodies. (II Corinthians 5:1-3) The soul resides inside a body of flesh. (II Corinthians 10:3) To identify with the body is to be absent from the Lord. (II Corinthians 5:8-10)
Paul spoke of being “caught up as far as the third heaven...whether in the body or out of the body I do not know...” (II Corinthians 12:2-3)
Paul gave an example from his own life to distinguish between being with Christ and remaining “in the body,” to illustrate that one’s actual self is spiritual and separate from the physical body. (Philippians 1:21-24) He told his followers to set their sights on heavenly, not earthly things, and to put to death their earthly nature. (Colossians 3:1-5)
To indulge in fleshly desires is to follow the inclinations of one's lower nature. (Ephesians 2:3) The sensual are considered “lost,” because “their minds are set on earthly things.” Paul told the faithful their real home is in heaven, and they would soon be clothed in spiritual bodies. (Philippians 3:18-21)
The flesh decays, but the word of God is eternal. (I Peter 2:23-25) One must not love this world nor the things in this world, because the passions of this world are temporary. (I John 2:15-17)
God rewards each individual according to his deeds. (Romans 2:6) One reaps what one sows. (II Corinthians 9:6; Galatians 6:7) Some souls remain entangled in decaying flesh and blood, while others turn to the Spirit. “The one who sows for his own flesh will harvest ruin from his flesh; while the one who sows for the Spirit will harvest eternal life from the Spirit.” (Galatians 6:8) According to Paul, a kernel of spirit is sown into a particular kind of body.
“...God gives it a body as He plans,” explained Paul, “and to each seed its particular body. All flesh is not the same; but one kind is human, another is animal, another is fowl, and another fish.” (I Corinthians 15:38-39) Paul distinguished between earthly, or physical bodies, and heavenly, or spiritual bodies. “There are heavenly bodies and also earthly bodies; but the radiance of the heavenly is one kind and that of the earthly is another kind.” (I Corinthians 15:40)
Resurrection, then, is not the reassembling of dust into living bodies, but rather, the clothing of the spirit with a new body; the placing of a kernel of spirit into a new body, from where its existence continues.
Paul’s letters emphasize the distinction between the soul and the body, the clothing of the spirit with a new body, and the eternal nature of the soul and its relationship to God versus the temporary nature of the flesh and the material world. These concepts can all be found in the doctrine of reincarnation.
According to Dr. Geddes MacGregor, Professor of Philosophy and Religion:
“Reincarnation is, of course, a kind of resurrection. Great importance was attached by Christian theologians, however, to the notion of the resurrection of the ‘same body’ that we now have, though in a glorified form. The so-called Athanasian Creed affirms that all men shall rise again with their bodies...and a council held at the Lateran...asserted that all shall rise again with their own bodies...
“St. Thomas Aquinas considered that the body that is resurrected must be in some sense the same as the one on earth; otherwise, he thought, one would have to talk, not of a resurrection, but of the assumption of a new body...such very Latin teaching about a carnis resurrectio does not seem to fit Paul’s teaching in the New Testament, which is that the body is to be of a new order...not otherwise recognizable as the same body as the one on earth. The curious notion of the revivification of the material particles of the body does not arise in St. Paul.”
Dr. MacGregor suggests, however, that just as we have ceased to take literally Archbishop Ussher’s biblical concept of a 6,000 year old universe, so also might reincarnation be consistent with a more enlightened world view.
Much of the initial coverage about Fort Hood turned out to be wrong. Is there anything wrong with that?
The accountability imposed by another country for the CIA's kidnapping and torture reveals much about our own.
Fox News' morning show plays to type, talking about whether Muslims in the Army should face "special debriefings"
219 Democrats and one Republican join in favor of the legislation, which passed by a narrow margin
The survivor and author is upset about comparisons some on the right are making to genocide
Salon headlines in your mailbox
