God is not Great, a book by Christopher Hitchens

[blp]

I'm a non-believer, but I've been wary of anti-religious books by the likes of Richard Dawkins, assuming a certain pomposity and tilting at windmills. I actually feel a bit stupid now. What I thought were windmills really are giants and Hitchens does a devastating job of showing how overwhelmingly destructive they are.

A number of points I think Hitchens is making:

Proponents of religious belief repeatedly offer proofs until all are debunked. At which point they state that the proofs against are irrelevant because the divine does not operate according to the logic of this world, normal human understanding etc.

Religion all over the world repeatedly shows itself to be hostile to the intellect and to the senses, both the evidence of the senses and the pleasure that may be derived through them.

Religion is frequently defended on the grounds that it instills morality and provides comfort, when, in fact, it instills a far from comforting terror of punishment and perpetually creates a veneer of morality for acts and persons that are extremely harmful.

Scientific knowledge, even when described as theoretical, is based on rigorous, peer-reviewed testing and re-testing of the available data. Theories are so described because they may be superceded by new and better information. They are not so described because they are based, as religious beliefs are, on no evidence at all.

[Redzeppelin]

I'm a non-believer, but I've been wary of anti-religious books by the likes of Richard Dawkins, assuming a certain pomposity and tilting at windmills. I actually feel a bit stupid now. What I thought were windmills really are giants and Hitchens does a devastating job of showing how overwhelmingly destructive they are.

An atheist evaluating religion is like a man afraid of heights evaluating the sport of rock climbing: there is already a built in bias that precludes any objective examination. Religion cannot be objectively examined because one is either a believer or not (agnostics are non-believers waiting for sufficient "evidence"). Is it really a surprise that an atheist wrote a book hostile to religion? Is that supposed to be news? Care to qualify what religion is "destructive" of or to?


A number of points I think Hitchens is making:

Proponents of religious belief repeatedly offer proofs until all are debunked. At which point they state that the proofs against are irrelevant because the divine does not operate according to the logic of this world, normal human understanding etc.

Christians enter this trap when they try to argue with atheists on the atheist's own playing field of Naturalism; instead of beginning from the conclusion that God is real, many Christians who try to argue with atheists will try to establish their position in terms of "reason" and "logic" that the atheist agrees with - but at some point, the apologist finds himself in trouble because he gave away too much ground in the beginning by conceding to the atheist's ideas of "reason" and "logic" and "evidence." Both Christians and atheists begin by begging the question: the Christian begins by assuming that God is real and looks for "proofs" - the atheist begins by assuming God doesn't exist and then he looks for his "proofs" - BUT: since the atheist is confined to Naturalism/materialism, he feels he has plenty of "ammo" because the Christian acknowledges an unseen reality that informs his vision of the world - so he appears to be at the disadvantage - but only because he is trying to play on the atheist game field, by the atheist rules. Don't bother telling me about how atheists start out objectively to examine the evidence to make their decisions - no: their quest is already begging the question by deciding to seek "evidence" that only a naturalist would accept.


Religion all over the world repeatedly shows itself to be hostile to the intellect and to the senses, both the evidence of the senses and the pleasure that may be derived through them.

Not "hostile" to the intellect - but suspicious of how it can be manipulated; the spiritual has to guide the intellectual because the devil deals primarily with "logical" arguments when it comes to tempting people towards evil. There are plenty of intelletual arguments for genocide, bigamy, even bestiality (cf. Princeton's head of ethics dept. Pete Singer's articles).


Religion is frequently defended on the grounds that it instills morality and provides comfort, when, in fact, it instills a far from comforting terror of punishment and perpetually creates a veneer of morality for acts and persons that are extremely harmful.

Religion's job is not to "instill" terror so much as it is to inform people of the consequences of their choices and actions. When teens take drivers ed or traffic school, or a sex-ed class, we generally show them some of the frightening realities connected to driving and sex so that they understand the gravity of their choices in these areas. Religion - if conducted properly - is doing the same.


Scientific knowledge, even when described as theoretical, is based on rigorous, peer-reviewed testing and re-testing of the available data. Theories are so described because they may be superceded by new and better information. They are not so described because they are based, as religious beliefs are, on no evidence at all.

The "evidence" that religion "doesn't" have is classified as such because it doesn't fall into naturalistic science; but there are other ways of "knowing" in this world besides "I see it, I hear it, I touch it, I taste it, I smell it." (By the way, all of our senses can be fooled/manipulated).

[blp]

Care to qualify what religion is "destructive" of or to?

Female genitalia in parts of Africa and the Middle East; Male genitalia under Judaism; the lives of baby boys whose circumcisions by orthodox Jewish mohels have gone wrong; the lives of Kamikaze pilots who believed they were dying in the service of the divine Emperor; the lives of Islamic and buddhist suicide bombers and their victims; the lives of the numerous children raped by members of the Catholic clergy who were not investigated because their position of religious authority was thought to make them unimpeachable; the life of Galileo; the followers of charismatic religious leaders who gave up families, possessions and sometimes lives under their influence; the victims of Italian fascism and Nazism, the actions of which were supported by the clergy (with a few, very few, notable exceptions); the victims of the Rwandan genocide who mistakenly sought shelter in churches and were handed over to their killers by the clergy; the works of the great Greek philosophers, which were deemed irrelevant by European Christian authorities for having predated Christ and only survived because copies were kept in Baghdad; the victims of the Spanish Inquisition; the women who are continually imprisoned, beaten, stoned and hung in Islamic countries under Shariah law for sins of impropriety such as sitting in a car unchaperoned with a man; the numerous people who died on both sides in the internecine conflict between Irish Catholics and Protestants; the same in the Israel/Palestine conflict; the freedom of Salman Rushdie to live and write without fear because of a fatwah imposed by the Ayatollah of Iran and not condemned by leading European and American religious leaders, including the Pope; Catholics persecuted by reforming Protestants; the people who gave their money to Jim and Tammy Bakker; the American blacks whose persecution and segregation was justified by the idea that they were the descendants of Ham, who was condemned to servility.




instead of beginning from the conclusion that God is real, many Christians who try to argue with atheists will try to establish their position in terms of "reason" and "logic"

Why start from that position? Starting from a conclusion is getting things a bit backward here in the real world.



Don't bother telling me about how atheists start out objectively to examine the evidence to make their decisions - no: their quest is already begging the question by deciding to seek "evidence" that only a naturalist would accept.
Oh well, I guess we can discount all the evidence at the top of this post then too. Still, it was you who asked. You wouldn't have been 'seeking evidence that only a naturalist would accept' would you?

Interesting that you use the word 'naturalist'. I guess you'd say it was dumb of Darwin to have wasted so much time with the Galapagos, but he did do it thinking he'd be able to maintain his religious belief - but at the end of his life he realised he couldn't. Are you saying that religious people shouldn't look at anything at all in the natural world at all in case it shakes their faith?



Not "hostile" to the intellect - but suspicious of how it can be manipulated; the spiritual has to guide the intellectual because the devil deals primarily with "logical" arguments when it comes to tempting people towards evil.

How do you know this and, anyway, isn't your denigration of logic couched as a rather simple logical argument itself?



There are plenty of intelletual arguments for genocide, bigamy, even bestiality (cf. Princeton's head of ethics dept. Pete Singer's articles).
Sounds like a catalogue of activities carried out by the heroes of the Old Testament.



Religion's job is not to "instill" terror so much as it is to inform people of the consequences of their choices and actions. When teens take drivers ed or traffic school, or a sex-ed class, we generally show them some of the frightening realities connected to driving and sex so that they understand the gravity of their choices in these areas. Religion - if conducted properly - is doing the same.
Those teen education examples you give depend on your despised 'evidence'.
No such evidence for hell exists.



The "evidence" that religion "doesn't" have is classified as such because it doesn't fall into naturalistic science; but there are other ways of "knowing" in this world besides "I see it, I hear it, I touch it, I taste it, I smell it." (By the way, all of our senses can be fooled/manipulated).

What are these other ways of knowing and why do they appear to be unavailable to so many of us?

[Dark Star]

I haven't read his text and I don't intend to, except for 'fun reading' perhaps. Not something I'd take seriously. There are many texts on atheism and the problems with religion...based on what I've seen, Hitchens paints with an extremely broad brush. Nice to see a prominent neo-con with no interest in a theocracy, though.

[blp]

I don't think he's a neo-con, but it's a great flaw in his position that he didn't have the sense to oppose the war solely on the grounds of the bozos who were perpetrating it. Rather undermines his profession of rationalism, I admit.

But yeah, go on, read it for 'fun' then. I was as skeptical as you, but it's great. A damn site better and more interesting than Bertrand Russell's 'Why I am not a Christian' for starters.

[Redzeppelin]

Female genitalia in parts of Africa and the Middle East;

Unacceptable behavior (and I'd need you to verify which religion condones this behavior.)


Male genitalia under Judaism; the lives of baby boys whose circumcisions by orthodox Jewish mohels have gone wrong;

Statistics please: how many are "going wrong" these days? As many as young people with serious complications from having their tongue pierced?


the lives of Kamikaze pilots who believed they were dying in the service of the divine Emperor;

What religion would that be?


the lives of Islamic and buddhist suicide bombers and their victims;

You conveniently pick the radicals and ignore the mainstream.


the lives of the numerous children raped by members of the Catholic clergy who were not investigated because their position of religious authority was thought to make them unimpeachable;

Horrific behavior - but not unique to religious people; Christians are human beings - nothing about adhering to a religion implies perfect, sinless behavior; the same God that these men have sinned against holds them VERY responsible for their behavior. They too shall be judged.



the life of Galileo;

There were a lot of backwards attitudes back then - from all walks of society, not just religion.


the followers of charismatic religious leaders who gave up families, possessions and sometimes lives under their influence;

Cf. comment about Catholic priests.


the victims of Italian fascism and Nazism, the actions of which were supported by the clergy (with a few, very few, notable exceptions);

Ditto. That religious people are guilty of the same atrocious behavior doesn't negate the value of religion per se - it means that people who claim religious affiliation may not necessarily be adhering to it properly, or they have allowed their beliefs to be manipulated.


the victims of the Rwandan genocide who mistakenly sought shelter in churches and were handed over to their killers by the clergy;

Can't comment on this one - don't know enough about it.


the works of the great Greek philosophers, which were deemed irrelevant by European Christian authorities for having predated Christ and only survived because copies were kept in Baghdad;

Hardly even in the same class as the other things you've listed; Irish monks also preserved classic Greek manuscripts - if it weren't for the European monks, much of antiquity's greatest writings would have been lost.


the victims of the Spanish Inquisition; the women who are continually imprisoned, beaten, stoned and hung in Islamic countries under Shariah law for sins of impropriety such as sitting in a car unchaperoned with a man.

The inquisition was an ugly error of the first order; Islam is WRONG.

An impressive list - but banish religion and guess what? None of these behaviors would disappear. As such, while it is a terrible stain on religion to have these truths said about it, they are not unique to it, and as such, cannot be blamed for their existence. People commit sin and evil in the name of religion - but people can do so in the name of government, of philosophy, of "love."


Why start from that position? Starting from a conclusion is getting things a bit backward here in the real world.

All reasoning is ultimately circular in nature because human beings cannot approach any issue totally unbiased or objective; we are subjective beings - I know I won't get anywhere with this line of arguing, but go look up "presuppositionalism" and it will explain my position much better than I can.



Oh well, I guess we can discount all the evidence at the top of this post then too. Still, it was you who asked. You wouldn't have been 'seeking evidence that only a naturalist would accept' would you?

You have not responded accurately to my post - your evidence up above is sufficient; I was referring to the idea that atheists like to flatter themselves with the idea that they are clear-minded, objective thinkers while we believers are "brain-washed," unable to "think for ourselves." I'm challenging that ridiculous idea by contending that atheists have settled into their own limited world view and that they chose that world view because of a conclusion they'd already come to even before they started "investigating" God.


Interesting that you use the word 'naturalist'. I guess you'd say it was dumb of Darwin to have wasted so much time with the Galapagos, but he did do it thinking he'd be able to maintain his religious belief - but at the end of his life he realised he couldn't. Are you saying that religious people shouldn't look at anything at all in the natural world at all in case it shakes their faith?

"Naturalism" is the dominant philosophy in the modern world - it basically stipulates that only what is material and observable/measurable is real; that there is no such thing as a spiritual world, no such thing as God.

We can look at the natural world, but the scriptures make it clear in many instances that the world offers illusions - that sight is one of the easiest of the 5 senses to be tricked, manipulated.



How do you know this?

I've spent many years reading the Bible and other Christian thinkers. I have experienced this reality.


Sounds like a catalogue of activities carried out by the heroes of the Old Testament.

Ha ha. Bestiality was never committed by a biblical hero. As far as genocide and bigamy - well, those did happen, and those occurred for various reasons - sometimes due to God's will, sometimes against His will. The Bible is full of human beings, and no human (aside from Christ) can be utterly without sin.


Those teen education examples you give depend on your despised 'evidence'.
No such evidence for hell exists.

Easy does it there - I don't "despise" evidence and I'd prefer you don't misrepresent me as you attempted to do; empirical observation and the scientific method are very valuable - but I'm not ready to simply brush off what God said simply because science appears to have contradicted what I believe. When one acknowledges the existence of a spiritual world, then many things become possible.



What are these other ways of knowing and why do they appear to be unavailable to so many of us?

Philosophy, intuition, "gut instincts." They're available to all.

[NikolaiI]

Red, the whole point of your long paragraph was not simply to show disrespect for others' beliefs, but in fact to get others to feel the same way. I have seen other people say they support you and agree with you and are glad of what you write, but Red, I am no longer a believing Christian, but if I were, you would surely unconvert me in a quick minute. You sadden me.

[Redzeppelin]

Red, the whole point of your long paragraph was not simply to show disrespect for others' beliefs, but in fact to get others to feel the same way. I have seen other people say they support you and agree with you and are glad of what you write, but Red, I am no longer a believing Christian, but if I were, you would surely unconvert me in a quick minute. You sadden me.

1. I disrespected nobody's beliefs here. Show me where I've disrespected somebody here.

2. I'm allowed to challenge positions I disagree with as much as an atheist is allowed to do so. Why my status as a Christian is being made an issue by you strikes me as a veiled ad hominem attack. Instead of discussing my argument, you evaluate what kind of Christian I am based on a discussion forum posting. You do not know enough about me to make the judgment you are making. I do not recall judging your character by your posts.

[NikolaiI]

An atheist evaluating religion is like a man afraid of heights evaluating the sport of rock climbing: there is already a built in bias that precludes any objective examination. Religion cannot be objectively examined because one is either a believer or not (agnostics are non-believers waiting for sufficient "evidence"). Is it really a surprise that an atheist wrote a book hostile to religion? Is that supposed to be news? Care to qualify what religion is "destructive" of or to?

I was talking about this. And I wasn't saying anything about your being a Christian.

An atheist cannot be open-minded? Wow. I mean, just wow. An atheist cannot be objective? This blows my mind. And yes, that is what I would call disrespecting someone's beliefs. And you go on to warn people not to be swayed by these horrific and hostile atheists.

I wasn't going to get into it with you, but where do you get...????? What kind of Christian you are? I said I am no longer a Christian etc... I didn't judge you...???? We weren't in a debate, and I really wasn't using an ad hominem argument.

Okay, maybe you thought I was juding you when I said "You sadden me." Perhaps it was better to say "The main gist of your post saddened me," what I meant was you sadden me by the act, or words, of that post.

[MaryLupin]

Female genitalia in parts of Africa and the Middle East...

blp...nice to meet someone who both demonstrates understanding and practical familiarity with both evidence and logic.

So have you read Dawkins as well? You mention him and I assume you are referring to The God Delusion.

[NikolaiI]

The God Delusion is a good book. I was a Christian at the time, and I didn't find his counter-arguments to proofs terribly convincing usually, but soon I realized the God I believed in wasn't the Christian God, or even pantheist, so that developed my own belief a lot. I would recommend the God Delusion to any Christian, because there's a lot of truth in it, and if it doesn't convert you to atheism, it will at least hone your belief a lot. And, it's hardly hostile in any way, trust me.

My dad's a big fan of Dawkins, and he says some of his other books are great. We had some talks about the Ancestor's Tale, and I'd like to read it sometime.

[kiobe]

I haven't read his text and I don't intend to, except for 'fun reading' perhaps. Not something I'd take seriously. There are many texts on atheism and the problems with religion...based on what I've seen, Hitchens paints with an extremely broad brush. Nice to see a prominent neo-con with no interest in a theocracy, though.

Hitchens is no neo-con.

[kiobe]

Female genitalia in parts of Africa and the Middle East; Male genitalia under Judaism; the lives of baby boys whose circumcisions by orthodox Jewish mohels have gone wrong; the lives of Kamikaze pilots who believed they were dying in the service of the divine Emperor; the lives of Islamic and buddhist suicide bombers and their victims; the lives of the numerous children raped by members of the Catholic clergy who were not investigated because their position of religious authority was thought to make them unimpeachable; the life of Galileo; the followers of charismatic religious leaders who gave up families, possessions and sometimes lives under their influence; the victims of Italian fascism and Nazism, the actions of which were supported by the clergy (with a few, very few, notable exceptions); the victims of the Rwandan genocide who mistakenly sought shelter in churches and were handed over to their killers by the clergy; the works of the great Greek philosophers, which were deemed irrelevant by European Christian authorities for having predated Christ and only survived because copies were kept in Baghdad; the victims of the Spanish Inquisition; the women who are continually imprisoned, beaten, stoned and hung in Islamic countries under Shariah law for sins of impropriety such as sitting in a car unchaperoned with a man; the numerous people who died on both sides in the internecine conflict between Irish Catholics and Protestants; the same in the Israel/Palestine conflict; the freedom of Salman Rushdie to live and write without fear because of a fatwah imposed by the Ayatollah of Iran and not condemned by leading European and American religious leaders, including the Pope; Catholics persecuted by reforming Protestants; the people who gave their money to Jim and Tammy Bakker; the American blacks whose persecution and segregation was justified by the idea that they were the descendants of Ham, who was condemned to servility.







Darn, too big for a bumber sticker, maybe I'll try to put it on a T shirt. Well done.

[NikolaiI]

But you forgot witches? The Pope in 1252 made it okay for the use of torture in those cases. I forget, is it if you float tied down with weights you're a witch, or if you sink?

[kiobe]

Unacceptable behavior (and I'd need you to verify which religion condones this behavior.)



Statistics please: how many are "going wrong" these days? As many as young people with serious complications from having their tongue pierced?



What religion would that be?



You conveniently pick the radicals and ignore the mainstream.



Horrific behavior - but not unique to religious people; Christians are human beings - nothing about adhering to a religion implies perfect, sinless behavior; the same God that these men have sinned against holds them VERY responsible for their behavior. They too shall be judged.




There were a lot of backwards attitudes back then - from all walks of society, not just religion.



Cf. comment about Catholic priests.



Ditto. That religious people are guilty of the same atrocious behavior doesn't negate the value of religion per se - it means that people who claim religious affiliation may not necessarily be adhering to it properly, or they have allowed their beliefs to be manipulated.



Can't comment on this one - don't know enough about it.



Hardly even in the same class as the other things you've listed; Irish monks also preserved classic Greek manuscripts - if it weren't for the European monks, much of antiquity's greatest writings would have been lost.



The inquisition was an ugly error of the first order; Islam is WRONG.

An impressive list - but banish religion and guess what? None of these behaviors would disappear. As such, while it is a terrible stain on religion to have these truths said about it, they are not unique to it, and as such, cannot be blamed for their existence. People commit sin and evil in the name of religion - but people can do so in the name of government, of philosophy, of "love."



All reasoning is ultimately circular in nature because human beings cannot approach any issue totally unbiased or objective; we are subjective beings - I know I won't get anywhere with this line of arguing, but go look up "presuppositionalism" and it will explain my position much better than I can.




You have not responded accurately to my post - your evidence up above is sufficient; I was referring to the idea that atheists like to flatter themselves with the idea that they are clear-minded, objective thinkers while we believers are "brain-washed," unable to "think for ourselves." I'm challenging that ridiculous idea by contending that atheists have settled into their own limited world view and that they chose that world view because of a conclusion they'd already come to even before they started "investigating" God.



"Naturalism" is the dominant philosophy in the modern world - it basically stipulates that only what is material and observable/measurable is real; that there is no such thing as a spiritual world, no such thing as God.

We can look at the natural world, but the scriptures make it clear in many instances that the world offers illusions - that sight is one of the easiest of the 5 senses to be tricked, manipulated.




I've spent many years reading the Bible and other Christian thinkers. I have experienced this reality.



Ha ha. Bestiality was never committed by a biblical hero. As far as genocide and bigamy - well, those did happen, and those occurred for various reasons - sometimes due to God's will, sometimes against His will. The Bible is full of human beings, and no human (aside from Christ) can be utterly without sin.



Easy does it there - I don't "despise" evidence and I'd prefer you don't misrepresent me as you attempted to do; empirical observation and the scientific method are very valuable - but I'm not ready to simply brush off what God said simply because science appears to have contradicted what I believe. When one acknowledges the existence of a spiritual world, then many things become possible.




Philosophy, intuition, "gut instincts." They're available to all.

Red my friend, if you were bowling and trying to get a strike the ball would have ended up 8 lanes over and on someones foot. The explanitions you have given to blp are a bit like trying to cut a hanging rope in half and have the now cut part still somehow hang in mid air. You know me and I am being honest, your replys continually skirt the point blp is making. Maybe if you 2 dial in on one or two issues. Just a thought. :)

[MaryLupin]

But you forgot witches? The Pope in 1252 made it okay for the use of torture in those cases. I forget, is it if you float tied down with weights you're a witch, or if you sink?

If you drown you were innocent. If you float they kill you in another way.

[NikolaiI]

Damned if you do, and damned if you don't, huh?

[NikolaiI]

You conveniently pick the radicals and ignore the mainstream.

But what about when it is the mainstream that is the problem? I can't give you an example, because that would be politics.




Horrific behavior - but not unique to religious people; Christians are human beings - nothing about adhering to a religion implies perfect, sinless behavior; the same God that these men have sinned against holds them VERY responsible for their behavior. They too shall be judged.

This is a myth. The supernatural recorder is your conscience.





There were a lot of backwards attitudes back then - from all walks of society, not just religion.

And what we are saying is that God is a [somewhat] backwards belief.


Ditto. That religious people are guilty of the same atrocious behavior doesn't negate the value of religion per se - it means that people who claim religious affiliation may not necessarily be adhering to it properly, or they have allowed their beliefs to be manipulated.

Are we really arguing this? I want to get to where you say atheists can't be objective.


Can't comment on this one - don't know enough about it.

THaaaank you for not leaving anything out.


The inquisition was an ugly error of the first order; Islam is WRONG.

Eh? I thought it was right because . Having a mother, father, brothers and sisters who believe something and want you to believe it to can be very compelling.


An impressive list - but banish religion and guess what? None of these behaviors would disappear. As such, while it is a terrible stain on religion to have these truths said about it, they are not unique to it, and as such, cannot be blamed for their existence. People commit sin and evil in the name of religion - but people can do so in the name of government, of philosophy, of "love."

So we are defending religion here, this is ridiculous. You discount all the atrocities done in the name of religion because the people weren't adhering properly? In their minds they were.


You love to say how subjective we are, do you understand this? Let's do a Pascal-like wager here. Either religion did cause these or not, what should we bet on? Logically we would bet on no religion, because safer. But wait!- without a knowledge of God, there can be no goodness. Without Christianity, there is no love. Because those things aren't innate or anything. Do you remember how I gave an example of a community, almost a utopia, a possibility, that had no religion, and yet there was still goodness in all those people, and the people raised there were blissfully happy, and Gorilla King said, there was no objective truth. So then the reason for religion is to [I]save our eternal souls. Yet everything we observe tells us we are impermanent.


All reasoning is ultimately circular in nature because human beings cannot approach any issue totally unbiased or objective; we are subjective beings - I know I won't get anywhere with this line of arguing, but go look up "presuppositionalism" and it will explain my position much better than I can.

What?! You mean I can't write an objective paper, put together an objective paragraph, or create one single sentence that is objective? You mean I can't put words together in a way that makes sense? Nor do a logic or math problem?

Let's say humans cannot think perfectly (for the sake of argument) that should mean we can't see a problem perfectly. I don't see why that means we see things perfectly wrong.

You say all reasoning is circular, but we have axioms in math and mathematical proofs that are not circular. There are even philisophical proofs. Okay, like in math an axiom would be addition and multiplication, and from those we can prove algebra problems.


You have not responded accurately to my post - your evidence up above is sufficient; I was referring to the idea that atheists like to flatter themselves with the idea that they are clear-minded, objective thinkers while we believers are "brain-washed," unable to "think for ourselves." I'm challenging that ridiculous idea by contending that atheists have settled into their own limited world view and that they chose that world view because of a conclusion they'd already come to even before they started "investigating" God.

Ah, this is the meat of it. What is most wrong with this paragraph is probably the last sentence. It might be true for some, but I'd say it's not true for anyone I've seen on lit-net. Did you stop listening already? Will you tell me that with some random connections no one could have thought you'd draw? If you're still here, let me tell you that I acknowledge the tendency of humans to be subjective in their reasoning. I think our minds are made up of a mix between subjective and objective understanding. But it's like Zarathustra said, don't ask my why I have my opinions- I can barely remember all my opinions, and I cannot remember the reasons I came to these opinions years ago. We are subjective, but we question our beliefs. And this is how we learn, grow, expand, discover, all of that. Expand the microcasm to fit the macrocasm. Isn't science supposed to be about discovery? No one ever called you sexist, a bad character, close-minded or anything. You frequently seem to almost randomly take offence when none is meant, especially not subtely, and entirely miss the point.

Anyway, what is your point, you say that the atheists here have "settled into their limited world view". You know, some people you believe to be atheists could really be Christians. You could have it so wrong. And if someone you think is an atheist is actually a Christian, don't you think it's possible then that there might be an ex-Christian among the atheists? I daren't think what you think of pantheists. Don't worry, I understand how you feel.


"Naturalism" is the dominant philosophy in the modern world - it basically stipulates that only what is material and observable/measurable is real; that there is no such thing as a spiritual world, no such thing as God.

The Christian God is not the only idea of God, and I am sure there are pantheistic naturalists. Let's say God is a natural force. Or let's not, since it's blasphemy.


We can look at the natural world, but the scriptures make it clear in many instances that the world offers illusions - that sight is one of the easiest of the 5 senses to be tricked, manipulated.

It's good to be aware. But then, you probably shut off a long time ago.

[kiobe]

"Naturalism" is the dominant philosophy in the modern world - it basically stipulates that only what is material and observable/measurable is real; that there is no such thing as a spiritual world, no such thing as God.

We can look at the natural world, but the scriptures make it clear in many instances that the world offers illusions - that sight is one of the easiest of the 5 senses to be tricked, manipulated.






The evolution of science and the resulting information harvested from the labor of some of the greatest minds the planet has known to date is a separate issue to spiritualism. Einstein said "God does not play dice". Does this mean that he believes in God? Well the first question is, which God? A God that man has created, or one of 3 Gods accepted by the 3 major monothiestic religions, a personal God, or a general feeling that 'some' force gave a beginning to everything we know and everything we haven't learned about yet? Pluralism is the key to the survival of our species.

Sight is tricked by?....manipulated by?

[kilted exile]

The July edition of SciAm contains some great articles on the subject of Science & Religion, including a discussion between Lawrence Krauss & Dawkins. The discussion can be found on SciAm's website at www.SciAm.com/ontheweb

[blp]

blp...nice to meet someone who both demonstrates understanding and practical familiarity with both evidence and logic.

So have you read Dawkins as well? You mention him and I assume you are referring to The God Delusion.

Thanks ML. Nice to meet someone who appreciates these things too. No, haven't read Dawkins, due to the half-baked prejudice I outlined at the start of this thread. I've seen him on TV a few times and always felt a little concerned that there was a grain of fantaticism on his side too, but I think I'll probably give him a go now.




Darn, too big for a bumber sticker, maybe I'll try to put it on a T shirt. Well done.

Thanks, but I can't really take credit for it. It's pretty much all in Hitchens' book, except maybe the Jim and Tammy Bakker example. Would make a rather nice t-shirt, I agree, though as Nikolai rightly points out, the list could be longer...


But you forgot witches? The Pope in 1252 made it okay for the use of torture in those cases. I forget, is it if you float tied down with weights you're a witch, or if you sink?

Yes, of course, no doubt based on the primitive biblical injunction, 'Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live.' If you float you're a witch, that's the real kick in the teeth. You lose either way – except that, according to the Christians, it's OK because if you drown and you're not a witch, you go to heaven. That's one of the big problems as I see it with religion – in its attempt to mitigate the seriousness of death, it causes people to treat death without anything like the seriousness it requires.

[kiobe]

Thanks, but I can't really take credit for it. It's pretty much all in Hitchens' book, except maybe the Jim and Tammy Bakker example. Would make a rather nice t-shirt, I agree, though as Nikolai rightly points out, the list could be longer...





Yea, I think we're gonna need a bigger shirt. ;)

[PrinceMyshkin]

The basic structure of the argument put forward by your really hard-wired believer is:

1) Everything that fits my concept of God is true.

2) Anything that does not fit my concept of God is

a) unfamiliar to me (and I have no intention of looking into it);
b) untrue;
c) an example from some other religion, not my own true one;
d) the result of sin, which entered into a hitherto perfect world via the agency of a talking serpent;
e) imperfectly put forward. I require more statistics or other evidence.

3) I have available to me an extensive library of Christian (or whichever) apologists and theologians, and for every argument you put forward I can provide a response from X or Y or Z, and I am prepared to outlast you.

[blp]

Unacceptable behavior (and I'd need you to verify which religion condones this behavior.)

Islam.



Statistics please: how many are "going wrong" these days? As many as young people with serious complications from having their tongue pierced?
I don't know, but is that relevant? Young or old people who pierce their tongues choose to do so. Also, the tongue is possibly the most resilient organ in the human body, capable of completely healing itself even when its tip has been cut off (note: nevertheless, don't try this one at home, kids). The ceremony in question, by contrast, is performed on babies without, naturally, their consent having been obtained. It removes sensitive and protective parts of the penis that can never be adequately replaced and, in the orthodox Jewish ceremonies Hitchens describes, involves the mohel sucking the foreskin off with his mouth. He cites several instances of this going wrong in a single year in New York alone, resulting in a number of the infants contracting genital herpes and at least two deaths. Mayor Bloomberg, however, declined the opportunity to make the practice illegal. So much for the separation of church and state.



What religion would that be?
Buddhism according to Hitchens' book. Something for my friends down the health food shop to chew over. I was in Japan a few years ago and was much taken with the atmosphere at both Buddhist and Shinto temples. Later I found out that the Shinto temple at Harajuku is a site of controversy due to the burial there of a number of fascist war criminals. Hitchens is at pains to point out that woolly liberal dreams of finding more humane religious practice in the fabled 'East' are chimeras.



You conveniently pick the radicals and ignore the mainstream.
Kind of depends what you mean by mainstream. Emperor worship was mainstream in Japan during WWII. Mormonism is mainstream in parts of America, despite the fact that it seems to be little more than a giant piece of hucksterism. Jim and Tammy Bakker were pretty much mainstream evangelicals weren't they? Catholicism is dominant in numerous European countries and it is in these countries that the sexual abuse cases took place. I was at a Christian missionary school in Kenya when I was 12 where we were taught that merely thinking about sin was a sin. Presumably this kind of abusive, mind warping nonsense was the good word that was being brought to Kenya's benighted heathens and thereby becoming 'mainstream'. And presumably some of those missionaries are the same people proselytising against condom use in Africa today, doing the lord's work of spreading HIV and AIDS infection – while eagerly hoping for the end days scenarios to play themselves out in Palestine so that Jesus can hurry up and come back. Charming stuff. I was actually told to expect these events sometime during the eighties back then by these same missionaries. I wonder how they explain that one.



Horrific behavior - but not unique to religious people; Christians are human beings - nothing about adhering to a religion implies perfect, sinless behavior; the same God that these men have sinned against holds them VERY responsible for their behavior. They too shall be judged.
Can I just get this absolutely clear: You do not think that religion instills morality? You're sure about that one? Because I'm very glad if you are. I heartily agree.
That's my first question on this bit of your post. My second is, does this mean you reject the notion that merely accepting Christ's sacrifice absolves us of sin? Because that seems to be the implication in saying that even religious people who commit sins 'shall be judged'.



There were a lot of backwards attitudes back then - from all walks of society, not just religion.
Yes. I second Nikolai's response to this. Hitchens says further that most religion (except for the new stuff that's widely recognised to be lunatic fringe – Scientology, the Moonies) came into existence when humanity knew virtually nothing at all about the natural world or the cosmos. Understandable then that they would have resorted to supernatural explanations in the absence of anything else. Unsurprising also that the primitively inhumane practices are not just born of later interpretations, but are actually there in the old and new testament themselves. The 'thou shalt not suffer a witch to live' example is a very minor one. Do you condone that (as you appear to acts of bigamy and genocide)?

Give Israel back to the Canaanites! Er...and the Hittites. Sorry, couldn't resist an aside. Or two.



Ditto. That religious people are guilty of the same atrocious behavior doesn't negate the value of religion per se - it means that people who claim religious affiliation may not necessarily be adhering to it properly, or they have allowed their beliefs to be manipulated.
Well, there seems to be a humongous margin for error. So...what do you see as the 'value per se'?



Hardly even in the same class as the other things you've listed; Irish monks also preserved classic Greek manuscripts - if it weren't for the European monks, much of antiquity's greatest writings would have been lost.
I have to admit to ignorance here too, but the way Hitchens has it, as I understand it, European monks didn't come around to this stuff until a lot later – at which point there was a desperate collective squirming to somehow prove that Socrates, Aristotle et al. were somehow Christian even though they lived before the time of Christ.



The inquisition was an ugly error of the first order; Islam is WRONG.
Oops and oops again. And again and again and again. :D



An impressive list - but banish religion and guess what? None of these behaviors would disappear. As such, while it is a terrible stain on religion to have these truths said about it, they are not unique to it, and as such, cannot be blamed for their existence. People commit sin and evil in the name of religion - but people can do so in the name of government, of philosophy, of "love."
The bald statement that none of these behaviours would disappear is not an argument you appear to predicate on any evidence, but then, we've already heard your views on evidence. Still, I think it would be stupid to claim that there's no wrongdoing without religion – and I'll admit that, if Hitchens' book has a failing, it's in edging a little too close to this argument. However, he also shows, repeatedly, that religion has a strange tendency not only to perpetrate great wrong itself, but to collude with wrongdoers, especially when they are the ones in power. One reason for this seems to be its overweaning need to spread itself as far and wide as possible. Another is its peculiar inability to engage with reality. A recent example, not from Hitchens: a documentarist making a film on global warming, approached Hinu priestess expecting support for environmental measures. Instead, she gave him some standard mystical mumbo jumbo along the lines that even great destruction was merely part of the cycle of existence and of no significance to the godhead.



All reasoning is ultimately circular in nature because human beings cannot approach any issue totally unbiased or objective; we are subjective beings - I know I won't get anywhere with this line of arguing, but go look up "presuppositionalism" and it will explain my position much better than I can.

All reasoning is ultimately circular? What are you still doing here?

I jest. ;)

Sorry, but I just think you're projecting or grasping at straws. I gave the example of Darwin earlier because he was a religious man for most of his life. He gave up his beliefs because his observations did not support them, but he did so with great disappointment.



You have not responded accurately to my post - your evidence up above is sufficient; I was referring to the idea that atheists like to flatter themselves with the idea that they are clear-minded, objective thinkers while we believers are "brain-washed," unable to "think for ourselves." I'm challenging that ridiculous idea by contending that atheists have settled into their own limited world view and that they chose that world view because of a conclusion they'd already come to even before they started "investigating" God.

Well, sorry, but I actually think you've misread me. I didn't say anything about you being brainwashed and I didn't set out to flatter myself. You seemed to say that looking at evidence and using reason were mistakes because they were tools of the devil to divert us from the truth of religion. I understand that you meant this only in the context of arguments about god, but I don't see how you can keep the boundaries there. Darwin's observations of the real world led him away from belief. Many other thinkers can say the same. Were they tricked by the devil too? Should they have avoided making their observations? That was my question.

To expand on that, your suggestion that all atheists start from the position of atheism and look for proofs is, I'm sorry to say, simply risible. The origin of atheism is in scientific and philosophic inquiry and atheism was arrived at very gradually and with considerable difficulty in overwhelmingly religious societies in which the price of an honest profession of atheistic belief would often result in death. The pressure was all towards belief and virtually everyone was inculcated with belief from birth.



I've spent many years reading the Bible and other Christian thinkers. I have experienced this reality.

Well, it's a blindingly obvious point, but lots of Hindus and Buddhists and Muslims and Jews and Zoroastrians and on and on believe they have 'experience' that backs up their belief systems.



Easy does it there - I don't "despise" evidence and I'd prefer you don't misrepresent me as you attempted to do; empirical observation and the scientific method are very valuable - but I'm not ready to simply brush off what God said simply because science appears to have contradicted what I believe. When one acknowledges the existence of a spiritual world, then many things become possible.

Yeah, you really have contradiction on your hands claiming you see the value of evidence, but also fear it as a tool of the devil.

No offense, but since you've basically made it clear you're impervious to logic, I think this is all I have to say to you. Feel free to carry on with your logic/evidence/gut instinct combo. All the best and all that.




Philosophy, intuition, "gut instincts." They're available to all.[/QUOTE]

[PrinceMyshkin]

The foregoing (message #24) is a fierce, fierce piece of work! I hope that others will help me to keep it in a prominent position for the possible benefit of any one or two who are perfectly open-minded re the case that can be made for and against Christianity or any other religion.

Insofar as my objective perception is worth (given that I am, like Albert Einstein: "a deeply religious nonbeliever - this is a somewhat new kind of religion."), this is a brilliantly lucid, fair-minded, animus-free refutation of everything in the post it addresses.

[MaryLupin]

Thanks ML. Nice to meet someone who appreciates these things too. No, haven't read Dawkins, due to the half-baked prejudice I outlined at the start of this thread. I've seen him on TV a few times and always felt a little concerned that there was a grain of fantaticism on his side too, but I think I'll probably give him a go now.

No doubt in my mind that he has more than a "grain." He has a forum as well. There are a number of interesting battles within its threads but just suggest that Dawkins might have a few flaws in his argument (whether in Selfish Gene or his more recent The God Delusion and watch the accusations of blasphemy fly like spittle from a laughing drunk. People (not just religious ones) are prone to this need to have a big dog to adore.


Thanks, but I can't really take credit for it. It's pretty much all in Hitchens' book, except maybe the Jim and Tammy Bakker example. Would make a rather nice t-shirt, I agree, though as Nikolai rightly points out, the list could be longer...

The credit is due not to the list itself, at least not in my mind. The credit is due to the recognition of evidence and the capacity to refute a case based on the way the argument was constructed. My pleasure comes from knowing that when you read you see the pattern made by the underlying bones of what was said and not just the glitter of what was intended to be seen.


Yes, of course, no doubt based on the primitive biblical injunction, 'Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live.' If you float you're a witch, that's the real kick in the teeth. You lose either way – except that, according to the Christians, it's OK because if you drown and you're not a witch, you go to heaven. That's one of the big problems as I see it with religion – in its attempt to mitigate the seriousness of death, it causes people to treat death without anything like the seriousness it requires.

My personal favorite on this theme of the disrespect of life that shows through a cavalier treatment of death: "Cædite eos. Novit enim Dominus qui sunt eius," used (supposedly) by one group of Christians when slaughtering another (Albigensian Crusade).

[MaryLupin]

...it means that people who claim religious affiliation may not necessarily be adhering to it properly...

Well, there seems to be a humongous margin for error. So...what do you see as the 'value per se'?

What I want to know: how is "properly" defined (what is its content) and, more important, who is going to judge it?" And lastly, how is it going to be enforced or is it just a statement of "ought" without any practical utility in human lives (i.e. is its value ephemeral or practical?)

What do you think blp, are my questions associated with the content of "value" in this context?

[PrinceMyshkin]

I believe that this exchange between Redzepperlin & blp deserves the widest possible audience:


Originally Posted by Redzeppelin
Unacceptable behavior (and I'd need you to verify which religion condones this behavior.)

Islam.


Statistics please: how many are "going wrong" these days? As many as young people with serious complications from having their tongue pierced?

I don't know, but is that relevant? Young or old people who pierce their tongues choose to do so. Also, the tongue is possibly the most resilient organ in the human body, capable of completely healing itself even when its tip has been cut off (note: nevertheless, don't try this one at home, kids). The ceremony in question, by contrast, is performed on babies without, naturally, their consent having been obtained. It removes sensitive and protective parts of the penis that can never be adequately replaced and, in the orthodox Jewish ceremonies Hitchens describes, involves the mohel sucking the foreskin off with his mouth. He cites several instances of this going wrong in a single year in New York alone, resulting in a number of the infants contracting genital herpes and at least two deaths. Mayor Bloomberg, however, declined the opportunity to make the practice illegal. So much for the separation of church and state.


What religion would that be?

Buddhism according to Hitchens' book. Something for my friends down the health food shop to chew over. I was in Japan a few years ago and was much taken with the atmosphere at both Buddhist and Shinto temples. Later I found out that the Shinto temple at Harajuku is a site of controversy due to the burial there of a number of fascist war criminals. Hitchens is at pains to point out that woolly liberal dreams of finding more humane religious practice in the fabled 'East' are chimeras.


You conveniently pick the radicals and ignore the mainstream.

Kind of depends what you mean by mainstream. Emperor worship was mainstream in Japan during WWII. Mormonism is mainstream in parts of America, despite the fact that it seems to be little more than a giant piece of hucksterism. Jim and Tammy Bakker were pretty much mainstream evangelicals weren't they? Catholicism is dominant in numerous European countries and it is in these countries that the sexual abuse cases took place. I was at a Christian missionary school in Kenya when I was 12 where we were taught that merely thinking about sin was a sin. Presumably this kind of abusive, mind warping nonsense was the good word that was being brought to Kenya's benighted heathens and thereby becoming 'mainstream'. And presumably some of those missionaries are the same people proselytising against condom use in Africa today, doing the lord's work of spreading HIV and AIDS infection û while eagerly hoping for the end days scenarios to play themselves out in Palestine so that Jesus can hurry up and come back. Charming stuff. I was actually told to expect these events sometime during the eighties back then by these same missionaries. I wonder how they explain that one.


Horrific behavior - but not unique to religious people; Christians are human beings - nothing about adhering to a religion implies perfect, sinless behavior; the same God that these men have sinned against holds them VERY responsible for their behavior. They too shall be judged.

Can I just get this absolutely clear: You do not think that religion instills morality? You're sure about that one? Because I'm very glad if you are. I heartily agree.
That's my first question on this bit of your post. My second is, does this mean you reject the notion that merely accepting Christ's sacrifice absolves us of sin? Because that seems to be the implication in saying that even religious people who commit sins 'shall be judged'.



There were a lot of backwards attitudes back then - from all walks of society, not just religion.

Yes. I second Nikolai's response to this. Hitchens says further that most religion (except for the new stuff that's widely recognised to be lunatic fringe û Scientology, the Moonies) came into existence when humanity knew virtually nothing at all about the natural world or the cosmos. Understandable then that they would have resorted to supernatural explanations in the absence of anything else. Unsurprising also that the primitively inhumane practices are not just born of later interpretations, but are actually there in the old and new testament themselves. The 'thou shalt not suffer a witch to live' example is a very minor one. Do you condone that (as you appear to acts of bigamy and genocide)?

Give Israel back to the Canaanites! Er...and the Hittites. Sorry, couldn't resist an aside. Or two.


Ditto. That religious people are guilty of the same atrocious behavior doesn't negate the value of religion per se - it means that people who claim religious affiliation may not necessarily be adhering to it properly, or they have allowed their beliefs to be manipulated.

Well, there seems to be a humongous margin for error. So...what do you see as the 'value per se'?


Hardly even in the same class as the other things you've listed; Irish monks also preserved classic Greek manuscripts - if it weren't for the European monks, much of antiquity's greatest writings would have been lost.

I have to admit to ignorance here too, but the way Hitchens has it, as I understand it, European monks didn't come around to this stuff until a lot later û at which point there was a desperate collective squirming to somehow prove that Socrates, Aristotle et al. were somehow Christian even though they lived before the time of Christ.



The inquisition was an ugly error of the first order; Islam is WRONG.

Oops and oops again. And again and again and again.


An impressive list - but banish religion and guess what? None of these behaviors would disappear. As such, while it is a terrible stain on religion to have these truths said about it, they are not unique to it, and as such, cannot be blamed for their existence. People commit sin and evil in the name of religion - but people can do so in the name of government, of philosophy, of "love."

The bald statement that none of these behaviours would disappear is not an argument you appear to predicate on any evidence, but then, we've already heard your views on evidence. Still, I think it would be stupid to claim that there's no wrongdoing without religion û and I'll admit that, if Hitchens' book has a failing, it's in edging a little too close to this argument. However, he also shows, repeatedly, that religion has a strange tendency not only to perpetrate great wrong itself, but to collude with wrongdoers, especially when they are the ones in power. One reason for this seems to be its overweaning need to spread itself as far and wide as possible. Another is its peculiar inability to engage with reality. A recent example, not from Hitchens: a documentarist making a film on global warming, approached Hinu priestess expecting support for environmental measures. Instead, she gave him some standard mystical mumbo jumbo along the lines that even great destruction was merely part of the cycle of existence and of no significance to the godhead.


All reasoning is ultimately circular in nature because human beings cannot approach any issue totally unbiased or objective; we are subjective beings - I know I won't get anywhere with this line of arguing, but go look up "presuppositionalism" and it will explain my position much better than I can.

All reasoning is ultimately circular? What are you still doing here?

I jest.

Sorry, but I just think you're projecting or grasping at straws. I gave the example of Darwin earlier because he was a religious man for most of his life. He gave up his beliefs because his observations did not support them, but he did so with great disappointment.


You have not responded accurately to my post - your evidence up above is sufficient; I was referring to the idea that atheists like to flatter themselves with the idea that they are clear-minded, objective thinkers while we believers are "brain-washed," unable to "think for ourselves." I'm challenging that ridiculous idea by contending that atheists have settled into their own limited world view and that they chose that world view because of a conclusion they'd already come to even before they started "investigating" God.

Well, sorry, but I actually think you've misread me. I didn't say anything
about you being brainwashed and I didn't set out to flatter myself. You seemed to say that looking at evidence and using reason were mistakes because they were tools of the devil to divert us from the truth of religion. I understand that you meant this only in the context of arguments about god, but I don't see how you can keep the boundaries there. Darwin's observations of the real world led him away from belief. Many other thinkers can say the same. Were they tricked by the devil too? Should they have avoided making their observations? That was my question.

To expand on that, your suggestion that all atheists start from the position of atheism and look for proofs is, I'm sorry to say, simply risible. The origin of atheism is in scientific and philosophic inquiry and atheism was arrived at very gradually and with considerable difficulty in overwhelmingly religious societies in which the price of an honest profession of atheistic belief would often result in death. The pressure was all towards belief and virtually everyone was inculcated with belief from birth.


I've spent many years reading the Bible and other Christian thinkers. I have experienced this reality.

Well, it's a blindingly obvious point, but lots of Hindus and Buddhists and Muslims and Jews and Zoroastrians and on and on believe they have 'experience' that backs up their belief systems.


Easy does it there - I don't "despise" evidence and I'd prefer you don't misrepresent me as you attempted to do; empirical observation and the scientific method are very valuable - but I'm not ready to simply brush off what God said simply because science appears to have contradicted what I believe. When one acknowledges the existence of a spiritual world, then many things become possible.

Yeah, you really have contradiction on your hands claiming you see the value of evidence, but also fear it as a tool of the devil.

No offense, but since you've basically made it clear you're impervious to logic, I think this is all I have to say to you. Feel free to carry on with your logic/evidence/gut instinct combo. All the best and all that.

[blp]

The credit is due not to the list itself, at least not in my mind. The credit is due to the recognition of evidence and the capacity to refute a case based on the way the argument was constructed. My pleasure comes from knowing that when you read you see the pattern made by the underlying bones of what was said and not just the glitter of what was intended to be seen.
Well, that's the fun of it. I'm blushing a little.


What I want to know: how is "properly" defined (what is its content) and, more important, who is going to judge it?" And lastly, how is it going to be enforced or is it just a statement of "ought" without any practical utility in human lives (i.e. is its value ephemeral or practical?)

What do you think blp, are my questions associated with the content of "value" in this context?
Pretty much. Or the virtual impossibility of establishing value according to the criteria laid down. Unless of course you use your 'gut'. (now why didn't we think of that?)



I believe that this exchange between Redzepperlin & blp deserves the widest possible audience
And I blush again. Though partly because I didn't have a chance to correct my numerous typos before I rushed off for dinner, but never mind. ;)

[blp]

Cædite eos. Novit enim Dominus qui sunt eius

Oh yeah, meant to ask – what did that mean?

[PrinceMyshkin]

Oh yeah, meant to ask – what did that mean?

"Kill them all. God will sort them out."

[blp]

"Kill them all. God will sort them out."

Nice.

Thanks, PM.

[jon1jt]

hitchens, great book, blp, right on. god is not great. amen.

[Redzeppelin]

I was talking about this. And I wasn't saying anything about your being a Christian.

An atheist cannot be open-minded? Wow. I mean, just wow. An atheist cannot be objective? This blows my mind. And yes, that is what I would call disrespecting someone's beliefs. And you go on to warn people not to be swayed by these horrific and hostile atheists.

I wasn't going to get into it with you, but where do you get...????? What kind of Christian you are? I said I am no longer a Christian etc... I didn't judge you...???? We weren't in a debate, and I really wasn't using an ad hominem argument.

Okay, maybe you thought I was juding you when I said "You sadden me." Perhaps it was better to say "The main gist of your post saddened me," what I meant was you sadden me by the act, or words, of that post.


Red my friend, if you were bowling and trying to get a strike the ball would have ended up 8 lanes over and on someones foot. The explanitions you have given to blp are a bit like trying to cut a hanging rope in half and have the now cut part still somehow hang in mid air. You know me and I am being honest, your replys continually skirt the point blp is making. Maybe if you 2 dial in on one or two issues. Just a thought. :)


But what about when it is the mainstream that is the problem? I can't give you an example, because that would be politics.

This is a myth. The supernatural recorder is your conscience.

And what we are saying is that God is a [somewhat] backwards belief.

Are we really arguing this? I want to get to where you say atheists can't be objective.


THaaaank you for not leaving anything out.

Eh? I thought it was right because . Having a mother, father, brothers and sisters who believe something and want you to believe it to can be very compelling.


So we are defending religion here, this is ridiculous. You discount all the atrocities done in the name of religion because the people weren't adhering properly? In their minds they were.

You love to say how subjective we are, do you understand this? Let's do a Pascal-like wager here. Either religion did cause these or not, what should we bet on? Logically we would bet on no religion, because safer. But wait!- without a knowledge of God, there can be no goodness. Without Christianity, there is no love. Because those things aren't innate or anything. Do you remember how I gave an example of a community, almost a utopia, a possibility, that had no religion, and yet there was still goodness in all those people, and the people raised there were blissfully happy, and Gorilla King said, there was no objective truth. So then the reason for religion is to [I]save our eternal souls. Yet everything we observe tells us we are impermanent.



What?! You mean I can't write an objective paper, put together an objective paragraph, or create one single sentence that is objective? You mean I can't put words together in a way that makes sense? Nor do a logic or math problem?

Let's say humans cannot think perfectly (for the sake of argument) that should mean we can't see a problem perfectly. I don't see why that means we see things perfectly wrong.

You say all reasoning is circular, but we have axioms in math and mathematical proofs that are not circular. There are even philisophical proofs. Okay, like in math an axiom would be addition and multiplication, and from those we can prove algebra problems.



Ah, this is the meat of it. What is most wrong with this paragraph is probably the last sentence. It might be true for some, but I'd say it's not true for anyone I've seen on lit-net. Did you stop listening already? Will you tell me that with some random connections no one could have thought you'd draw? If you're still here, let me tell you that I acknowledge the tendency of humans to be subjective in their reasoning. I think our minds are made up of a mix between subjective and objective understanding. But it's like Zarathustra said, don't ask my why I have my opinions- I can barely remember all my opinions, and I cannot remember the reasons I came to these opinions years ago. We are subjective, but we question our beliefs. And this is how we learn, grow, expand, discover, all of that. Expand the microcasm to fit the macrocasm. Isn't science supposed to be about discovery? No one ever called you sexist, a bad character, close-minded or anything. You frequently seem to almost randomly take offence when none is meant, especially not subtely, and entirely miss the point.

Anyway, what is your point, you say that the atheists here have "settled into their limited world view". You know, some people you believe to be atheists could really be Christians. You could have it so wrong. And if someone you think is an atheist is actually a Christian, don't you think it's possible then that there might be an ex-Christian among the atheists? I daren't think what you think of pantheists. Don't worry, I understand how you feel.



The Christian God is not the only idea of God, and I am sure there are pantheistic naturalists. Let's say God is a natural force. Or let's not, since it's blasphemy.



It's good to be aware. But then, you probably shut off a long time ago.


The evolution of science and the resulting information harvested from the labor of some of the greatest minds the planet has known to date is a separate issue to spiritualism. Einstein said "God does not play dice". Does this mean that he believes in God? Well the first question is, which God? A God that man has created, or one of 3 Gods accepted by the 3 major monothiestic religions, a personal God, or a general feeling that 'some' force gave a beginning to everything we know and everything we haven't learned about yet? Pluralism is the key to the survival of our species.

Sight is tricked by?....manipulated by?


Islam.


I don't know, but is that relevant? Young or old people who pierce their tongues choose to do so. Also, the tongue is possibly the most resilient organ in the human body, capable of completely healing itself even when its tip has been cut off (note: nevertheless, don't try this one at home, kids). The ceremony in question, by contrast, is performed on babies without, naturally, their consent having been obtained. It removes sensitive and protective parts of the penis that can never be adequately replaced and, in the orthodox Jewish ceremonies Hitchens describes, involves the mohel sucking the foreskin off with his mouth. He cites several instances of this going wrong in a single year in New York alone, resulting in a number of the infants contracting genital herpes and at least two deaths. Mayor Bloomberg, however, declined the opportunity to make the practice illegal. So much for the separation of church and state.


Buddhism according to Hitchens' book. Something for my friends down the health food shop to chew over. I was in Japan a few years ago and was much taken with the atmosphere at both Buddhist and Shinto temples. Later I found out that the Shinto temple at Harajuku is a site of controversy due to the burial there of a number of fascist war criminals. Hitchens is at pains to point out that woolly liberal dreams of finding more humane religious practice in the fabled 'East' are chimeras.


Kind of depends what you mean by mainstream. Emperor worship was mainstream in Japan during WWII. Mormonism is mainstream in parts of America, despite the fact that it seems to be little more than a giant piece of hucksterism. Jim and Tammy Bakker were pretty much mainstream evangelicals weren't they? Catholicism is dominant in numerous European countries and it is in these countries that the sexual abuse cases took place. I was at a Christian missionary school in Kenya when I was 12 where we were taught that merely thinking about sin was a sin. Presumably this kind of abusive, mind warping nonsense was the good word that was being brought to Kenya's benighted heathens and thereby becoming 'mainstream'. And presumably some of those missionaries are the same people proselytising against condom use in Africa today, doing the lord's work of spreading HIV and AIDS infection – while eagerly hoping for the end days scenarios to play themselves out in Palestine so that Jesus can hurry up and come back. Charming stuff. I was actually told to expect these events sometime during the eighties back then by these same missionaries. I wonder how they explain that one.


Can I just get this absolutely clear: You do not think that religion instills morality? You're sure about that one? Because I'm very glad if you are. I heartily agree.
That's my first question on this bit of your post. My second is, does this mean you reject the notion that merely accepting Christ's sacrifice absolves us of sin? Because that seems to be the implication in saying that even religious people who commit sins 'shall be judged'.


Yes. I second Nikolai's response to this. Hitchens says further that most religion (except for the new stuff that's widely recognised to be lunatic fringe – Scientology, the Moonies) came into existence when humanity knew virtually nothing at all about the natural world or the cosmos. Understandable then that they would have resorted to supernatural explanations in the absence of anything else. Unsurprising also that the primitively inhumane practices are not just born of later interpretations, but are actually there in the old and new testament themselves. The 'thou shalt not suffer a witch to live' example is a very minor one. Do you condone that (as you appear to acts of bigamy and genocide)?

Give Israel back to the Canaanites! Er...and the Hittites. Sorry, couldn't resist an aside. Or two.


Well, there seems to be a humongous margin for error. So...what do you see as the 'value per se'?


I have to admit to ignorance here too, but the way Hitchens has it, as I understand it, European monks didn't come around to this stuff until a lot later – at which point there was a desperate collective squirming to somehow prove that Socrates, Aristotle et al. were somehow Christian even though they lived before the time of Christ.


Oops and oops again. And again and again and again. :D


The bald statement that none of these behaviours would disappear is not an argument you appear to predicate on any evidence, but then, we've already heard your views on evidence. Still, I think it would be stupid to claim that there's no wrongdoing without religion – and I'll admit that, if Hitchens' book has a failing, it's in edging a little too close to this argument. However, he also shows, repeatedly, that religion has a strange tendency not only to perpetrate great wrong itself, but to collude with wrongdoers, especially when they are the ones in power. One reason for this seems to be its overweaning need to spread itself as far and wide as possible. Another is its peculiar inability to engage with reality. A recent example, not from Hitchens: a documentarist making a film on global warming, approached Hinu priestess expecting support for environmental measures. Instead, she gave him some standard mystical mumbo jumbo along the lines that even great destruction was merely part of the cycle of existence and of no significance to the godhead.


All reasoning is ultimately circular? What are you still doing here?

I jest. ;)

Sorry, but I just think you're projecting or grasping at straws. I gave the example of Darwin earlier because he was a religious man for most of his life. He gave up his beliefs because his observations did not support them, but he did so with great disappointment.



Well, sorry, but I actually think you've misread me. I didn't say anything about you being brainwashed and I didn't set out to flatter myself. You seemed to say that looking at evidence and using reason were mistakes because they were tools of the devil to divert us from the truth of religion. I understand that you meant this only in the context of arguments about god, but I don't see how you can keep the boundaries there. Darwin's observations of the real world led him away from belief. Many other thinkers can say the same. Were they tricked by the devil too? Should they have avoided making their observations? That was my question.

To expand on that, your suggestion that all atheists start from the position of atheism and look for proofs is, I'm sorry to say, simply risible. The origin of atheism is in scientific and philosophic inquiry and atheism was arrived at very gradually and with considerable difficulty in overwhelmingly religious societies in which the price of an honest profession of atheistic belief would often result in death. The pressure was all towards belief and virtually everyone was inculcated with belief from birth.



Well, it's a blindingly obvious point, but lots of Hindus and Buddhists and Muslims and Jews and Zoroastrians and on and on believe they have 'experience' that backs up their belief systems.



Yeah, you really have contradiction on your hands claiming you see the value of evidence, but also fear it as a tool of the devil.

No offense, but since you've basically made it clear you're impervious to logic, I think this is all I have to say to you. Feel free to carry on with your logic/evidence/gut instinct combo. All the best and all that.



I appreciate your various complaints against religion; I cannot answer for the atrocities done in the name of God. I wish I could. If you read through the New Testament, what you would find are the tenents of Christianity, and what you would find is a belief system that is based upon love. I'm sorry that human beings throughout history have misinterpreted and misused scripture because there is great knowledge, great encouragement, great healing to be found there. But you've all made it clear that I'm some sort of madman, so I'm not going to type my fingers into cramps to answer all these charges. You have made your points, and made them well. Maybe Hitchens is right; maybe he's blind. Both options are possible.

OK - I'm done now. Thanks for the discussion.

[bibliophile190]

It's kind of sad to see how wherever Redzeppelin posts, he's automatically branded as some kind of lunatic, no matter what he posts.

[bibliophile190]

And no, I wasn't trying to say that anyone's opinion was right or wrong. I don't want to get into a debate, I don't know enough about this to get anywhere. I just didn't want people to get the wrong idea.

[apples of gold]

It's kind of sad to see how wherever Redzeppelin posts, he's automatically branded as some kind of lunatic, no matter what he posts.


Thank you for saying that bibliophile. I disagree with the agreement I've seen here regarding some of the posts as being hallmarks of logic. As I was saying in a message to Red, the most intelligent post on this thread is ML's comment regarding the idolization of Dawkins. This doesn't amount to much more than Christian bashing.

[PrinceMyshkin]

It's kind of sad to see how wherever Redzeppelin posts, he's automatically branded as some kind of lunatic, no matter what he posts.

As one who has taken issue with practically everything he has posted, I haven't branded him as a lunatic. In my view he has "branded" himself as a zealot who, to paraprase his signature quote, sees not by the light of the sun but by the narrowly focussed light of Christianity - a powerful flashlight that cannot, however, light up more than that portion of the dark at which it is aimed.

In blp's masterful, patient response to him, for instance, he was treated in my view with respect. It remains to be seen whether he in turn will respond as respectfully.

[PrinceMyshkin]

Thank you for saying that bibliophile. I disagree with the agreement I've seen here regarding some of the posts as being hallmarks of logic. As I was saying in a message to Red, the most intelligent post on this thread is ML's comment regarding the idolization of Dawkins. This doesn't amount to much more than Christian bashing.

Those who live as if they are at war, and who present themselves at the forefront of the self-designated Army of the Absolute and Certain Truth are of course the most likely to get "bashed" (and of course do their own fair share of "bashing" - or what are the fires of eternal damnation that they promise their 'enemies'?).

[Logos]

You know, for a number of reasons which I'm not getting into, I had decided to let this particular topic stay open, even though it was started after the RT forum rules were changed.
http://www.online-literature.com/forums/showthread.php?t=15410

Because I'm tired of repeating myself:
http://www.online-literature.com/forums/showpost.php?p=415604&postcount=60
http://www.online-literature.com/forums/showpost.php?p=417091&postcount=140
http://www.online-literature.com/forums/showpost.php?p=418513&postcount=187