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Sunday, Nov 8, 2009
I find it amusing hearing Bill dismiss religion with logic and reasoning when so many of his own core beliefs are just outright nutbaggery. Try to imagine this movie if it were Bill talking to people about how antibiotics are poison or that nobody should drink milk.
When I decided to reject my Catholicism as a teenager, I have to admit it was more to be able to play golf on Sunday morning than anything else. My justification in m own mind was that I couldn't imagine an all-powerful, all-compassionate God that would condemn a person to eternal agony for having an impure thought or eating a hot dog on Friday. Being a good guy(whatever that is) I just decided that I would be a good for nothing person for the rest of my life, that I would be good without any thought of a reward when I died, that I would be good so that other people wouldn't suffer as much and so that they and I would have more moments of happiness before they died. I decided that I could be holy without the pretend stuff, that i could be good-for nothing.
Especially when it is regarding events that have deep emotional resonance. Bernal Diaz did regarding Hernan Cortes' march into Mexico. It is an exquisitely detailed account.
You know, every time the secular utopians start talking about the ridiculousness of religion and how bizarre its ideas are, I want to ask them to explain, in detail, how they feel about Schroedinger's Cat. If there was ever a bizarre, ridiculous-sounding theory, which makes no sense whatsoever to anyone not initiated into the mystical discipline it springs from, it's that one. And yet, the folks who aren't scientists are just supposed to relax and take it all on faith, just because science says it's so.
This is simply not true. If you are willing to learn a bit of mathematics and sit still for a few hours, a physics teacher can walk you through every single step of the theory that leads up to the paradox of Schoedinger's Cat. You can question every step, you can ask for all of the underlying assumptions to be explained. There is absolutely no "faith" involved. In fact, if you find that it requires faith to accept a scientific theory, then you are doing it wrong. Science doesn't work that way.
Now, try sitting down with the theologian of your choice and have him explain the underlying assumptions of his religion to you with a similar degree of rigor. In fact, try getting him to even admit that there are any assumptions involved in religion, let alone subjecting those assumptions to any kind of reality check. Try getting him to consider changing or abandoning his religion because it doesn't add up--this is something that happens to scientific theories all the time.
I believe it literally both existed and didn't exist, no more than six thousand years ago. I spend my Sundays singing His praises. Whenever I have a decision to make, I think 'What Would Schroedinger's Cat Do and Not Do?' and I'll vote for anyone who says they do the same, even if they blatantly don't believe a word of it. And I heard Obama was a secret Einsteinian, so I won't be voting for him.
That's utterly crazy, of course. And what half of Americans do, with a different brand name.
Anyway: yes, there are big and complicated and counterintuitive ideas in science. There are, in fact, bigger and more complicated and more counterintuitive ideas than were ever made up or hallucinated by the bronze age loonies and chancers and politicos who cobbled the Bible together. As an atheist and a scientist, my universe is an older, larger, richer, stranger one than that of any literalist Christian. And that can be scary, but the solution to that is striving to find out more, not cowering with a comforting lie.
especially if you've only believed the lies your preacher told you all your life.
I am indeed Jewish (Orthodox), and I really enjoy arguing with Rabbis, I do it all the time. Sorry, you're still wrong.
Remember, if you read the Bible from left to right, you're reading it backwards.
"If men get into a fight with one another, and the wife of one intervenes to rescue her husband from the grip of his opponent by reaching out and seizing his genitals, you shall cut off her hand; show no pity."
Not a great translation, but that doesn't matter. "you shall cut off her hand" means that she is to be fined.
Just like the Torah never commands anyone to poke someone's eye out, this section is frequently misunderstood.
Nothing angers me more than when snarks like yourself (usually conservatives) start wagging their educated fingers at others while pointing out the fact that we live in a republic and not a democracy. Though technically true, the terms "republic" and "democracy" have been used equally to describe ourselves and our system of government throughout our history.
Woodrow Wilson, War Messages, 65th Cong., 1st Sess. Senate Doc. No. 5, Serial No. 7264, Washington, D.C., 1917; pp. 3-8, passim.
...for the rights of nations great and small and the privilege of men everywhere to choose their way of life and of obedience. The world must be made safe for democracy. Its peace must be planted upon the tested foundations of...
FDR, Fireside Chat, December 29, 1940
Democracy's fight against world conquest is being greatly aided, and must be more greatly aided, by the rearmament of the United States and by...
Ronald Reagan, "Evil Empire Speech", June 8, 1982
Optimism comes less easily today, not because democracy is less vigorous, but because democracy's enemies have refined their instruments of repression.
I could go on, but you get the point. So please spare us your gotcha wisdom.
Your repeated assertion that the only system people have left in the absence of religiously imposed morality is nihilism is absurd and flies in the face of over 100 years of philosophy and ethics.
Even Immanuel Kant, who was a Christian, was able to formulate a system by which human beings can act morally that does not require divine retribution or an afterlife as the metaphorical stick or carrot incentives. Look up the categorical imperative.
Being an atheist doesn't equate with being a nihilist. You can quote The Big Lebowski all day long; it's a clever film, not a philosophical argument. Atheism just rejects belief in anything without tangible evidence. We have no problem believing in anything for which some proof is provided.
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"
The survivor and author is upset about comparisons some on the right are making to genocide
Once seen as a lunatic fringe, reactionary anti-women groups are courting respectability
Salon headlines in your mailbox
