Ah, those blessed Scandinavians. Reputedly cool, calm, collected, rather good race drivers and, it would seem, not really that concerned about gods one way or the other. During my time observing and participating in discussions about religion and its public role over the last few years, Scandinavia has often been held up as a bastion of faithless virtue, a shining beacon of godless goodness, a prime example of what can be accomplished on a transnational scale without referring to scripture but merely concentrating on what works for the populace.
Atheist/secularist/humanist commentators often to point to Scandinavian social successes (for example low unemployment, high standards of living, functioning democracies, effective public health care & education) as evidence against the claims of many religious people that if we in the West abandoned our “Judeo-Christian” values or kept our church & state separate, our nations would all fall, unrestricted by fears of celestial surveillance, into a grimy, black crevass of murder, pillage and hedonism (one could argue that the US in the last eight years has fallen into an economic & diplomatic hole of a similar depth, led by a very religious man who was happy to pander to very religious people for his entire reign, but that’s a whole other article).
According to a recent New York Times article by Peter Steinfel on a study by Californian sociologist Phil Zuckerman (here), it seems that far from there being only two sides to the god coin, the Scandinavians, almost characteristically, have ended up on a third side. And here it is:
They don’t care.
Zuckerman, after 14 months of talking to Danes & Swedes about religion, discovered that far from being a nation of atheists in the Dawkins/Hitchens mould of actively promoting freethinking and condemning inappropriate religious behaviour, Scandinavians seem to be completely unconcerned by religion. He was perplexed, as I’m sure a lot of people would be. I think this quote sums up his experience:
The many nonbelievers [Zuckerman] interviewed, both informally and in structured, taped and transcribed sessions, were anything but antireligious, for example. They typically balked at the label “atheist.” An overwhelming majority had in fact been baptized, and many had been confirmed or married in church.
Though they denied most of the traditional teachings of Christianity, they called themselves Christians, and most were content to remain in the Danish National Church or the Church of Sweden, the traditional national branches of Lutheranism.
At the same time, they were “often disinclined or hesitant to talk with me about religion,” Mr. Zuckerman reported, “and even once they agreed to do so, they usually had very little to say on the matter.”
Zuckerman asked himself:
Were they reticent because they considered religion, as Scandinavians generally do, a private, personal matter? Is there, perhaps, as one Lutheran bishop in Denmark has argued, a deep religiosity to be discovered if only one scratches this taciturn surface?
“I spent a year scratching,” Mr. Zuckerman writes. “I scratched and I scratched and I scratched.”
And he concluded that “religion wasn’t really so much a private, personal issue, but rather, a nonissue.” His interviewees just didn’t care about it.
Not even a private, personal issue, as I’m sure many of my US friends – religious and otherwise – would prefer it; an actual non-issue. Doesn’t come up in conversation, public policy, education. It’s something not even worth considering. Something so unimportant it barely even gets discussed. Something so insignificant in day-to-day life that you don’t get Swedish evangelists trying to sneak Genesis into biology classes; multimillionaire Danish preachers with their own TV stations & Lear jets blaming natural disasters on godlessness and depravity (then being caught with their hands in the till or down someone’s pants); Viking priests demanding to have their mythology written into national constitutions or religious monarchs sowing murder and disease with misguided rhetoric (no hyperlinks necessary, this religious madness is unfortunately so commonplace I’m sure every reader could go and google up a dozen individual stories on each topic). And certainly no Ragnarokians going around telling everyone to repent because the Fenris wolf is off his leash so they’d all better bloody well repent!
However, it seems many Scandinavians are happy to identify as Christians despite their obvious non-religiousness.
At one point, [Zuckerman] queries Jens, a 68-year-old nonbeliever, about the sources of Denmark’s very ethical culture. Jens replies: “We are Lutherans in our souls — I’m an atheist, but still have the Lutheran perceptions of many: to help your neighbor. Yeah. It’s an old, good, moral thought.”
Naturally I’d take issue with any assertion that kindness & charity are uniquely Lutheran traits but I admire the general attitude described in this article. “God or not – meh, I don’t worry about that. I get on with my life and try to be good.” It’s an attitude I’ve held for a long time – until somehow, a few years ago, I got interested in spirituality & the reasons behind it and eventually got myself drawn into religious discussions online, chiefly with Americans, first through Off-Topic sections at a few gaming forums I visited, then in comment threads at blogs like this one. As I got drawn into rant after rant and argument after argument with strong religious types, I think I completely lost sight of where I actually stood on the issue of gods and was just having fun swinging my sword around.
Here it is: I don’t believe, but I really don’t think about it that much. The claims of religious people don’t stand up to scrutiny, but it doesn’t bother me (that is, until I read something about some fundie getting too big for his sandals). The problems caused by religious people in Australia simply aren’t of the magnitude that reasonable people face in the US. We don’t have Phelpses or Robertsons publicly condemning gays to hell or dentists inserting creationism into biology textbooks or anti-gay pastors being caught with their pants down & noses full of meth. Most religious people in Australia do indeed keep it private (I still don’t really know what my parents think on the subject – because it doesn’t come up) and people who overstep the un-drawn line of decency are ridiculed as bible-thumpers or simple pains-in-the-arse. Hell, our most successful creationist, the inimitably thick-as-shit Ken Ham, had to move to Kentucky to build his “Fred Flintstone & The Vegan Dinosaurs” Creation Museum. I can’t imagine the ridicule he would’ve copped had he tried to build it here (maybe he could though, which is maybe why he left – plus I’m sure he would’ve known there’d be no cash in it for him down here. Maybe he’s not as thick as he seems – maybe he just knows there’s a particular kind of person born every minute).
To close, I have decided Scandinavians (and myself, for that matter) should be called “Apatheists” – they don’t believe and furthermore don’t even care if there’s a god. The universe functions as it does with or without one. They get on with their lives, try to be ethical and don’t even think about whether they’re on Pan-Dimensional Big Brother. There’s an elegant simplicity in that attitude – a refreshing shift of focus onto things that are important, like here, now, you, me and everybody.
It's a wager you would lose, but of course you'd have to play by the rules of the game.
I will agree that social policy, outside the realms of how best to materially serve a community, probably ought not be set by science, but social policy uninformed by science is often broken before it's even put into practice.
Just to be clear, I do not use the term "innumerable" in any but metaphorical senses, and I don't think I use it at all.
Jabbing at science is nothing to be ashamed, apologetic, or dismissive about. Jabbing at it is what makes it work. The problem is, you jab, get an answer, and brush it aside as a misinterpretation. We jab at the Bible and you accuse us of misinterpretation. Fair is fair, as far as it goes. But it's a mistake to assume the objects in question are in any way equivalent to each other.
Question-begging and wishful thinking is what it comes down to, this whole "something beyond our perception" malarkey. Say for the sake of argument that there actually is something – beings, a superphysical realm, hyperspace, The Force – beyond our perception. How exactly is it that you know it's there in the first place if it's beyond human perception? By definition we can't perceive it, unless as previously mentioned, it intersects in some way with what we can perceive – in which case it's no longer beyond our perception, which in turn raises the question "how do we know that it actually is – or was – beyond our perception if we can perceive it?"
The next obvious question is "how do we even know the limits of our own perception?", followed by "is it even possible to know the limits of our own perception well enough to define something we couldn't perceive when we saw it? Or, more to the point, when we didn't see it?" I suppose you could always take someone else's word for it … but then you'd need to demand how they hell they knew it was there.
Further, I'd ask "why would any super-awesome divine being that's beyond our perception leave it up to that very limited perception to understand him and take his alleged words as truth? Why would such a being leave the alleged truth of its existence to a cadre of fallible, limited beings who consistently act more in their own self-interest than in the interests of the alleged truth?"
Finally, I'd ask, as an aside (as I'm prone to more and more these days) "If you were raised in Country A at time X, according to the principles of Religion B, simply because Religion B was the dominant paradigm and all B'ites considered Religions A & C-Z one-way tickets to Hell, what could change your mind to consider Religions A or C-Z? Is the simple unavoidable fact of the place & time of your birth the single defining factor in you being a B'ite or did you arrive at B'ism through a calm, logical examination of the claims of all the other faiths? How sure can anyone of Religion B be that they simply aren't unthinkingly following the well-worn trail of their forefathers? How is it that people from Country X and Religion C are just as sure of the truth claims of C'ism as B'ites are of their own claims? Can they both be equally true, or is it more likely that they're equally false?"
Please excuse the tangent.
"I’d wager the same million evidences just as easily support a view of creationism as one opposed to a creator."
Sounds like a bet. Since it's your bet and your claim, you go first: lay out your peer-reviewed articles, experiments, well-supported theories and physical evidence for the truth of the Bible and we'll link you to every palaeontological, cosmological, evolutionary, astronomical, anthropological, dendrochronological, genetic, archaeological & geological piece of evidence we can lay our googles on. Then we'll compare that to the one book you get all your info from.
Hank asks,
"Finally, I’d ask, as an aside (as I’m prone to more and more these days) “If you were raised in Country A at time X, according to the principles of Religion B, simply because Religion B was the dominant paradigm and all B’ites considered Religions A & C-Z one-way tickets to Hell, what could change your mind to consider Religions A or C-Z? Is the simple unavoidable fact of the place & time of your birth the single defining factor in you being a B’ite or did you arrive at B’ism through a calm, logical examination of the claims of all the other faiths? How sure can anyone of Religion B be that they simply aren’t unthinkingly following the well-worn trail of their forefathers? How is it that people from Country X and Religion C are just as sure of the truth claims of C’ism as B’ites are of their own claims? Can they both be equally true, or is it more likely that they’re equally false?”
When taken as a whole way of attempting to understand the nature of reality and life in general, I have very few problems with the basic perspectives or claims of most of the worlds major religions, except naturalism that claims it isn't a religion. It claims to have the right to pre-empt any other perspective as inferior to whatever any group of naturalists happens to think isn't supportable by their interpretation of the evidence.
People of faith who honestly have come to their conclusions without ignoring these seven factors I'd say have much going for them.
1) Natural law – I place this one first because most do as well, however I do not isolate it from the other six, nor do I consider it as a tool to dismember the other six.
2) Moral law – most of which is basic stuff like in the code of Hammarubi or the Ten Commandments. Some aspects of moral law find a direct connection to natural law itself, if these are separated and held in apposition, moral law can become whatever a group of people decide it should be.
3) Mutual respect – basic respect for the lives and perspectives of other people from the time of conception until death. You hear people say things like, "I may not agree with you but I'll defend your right to say it," but this is not true when natural law and moral law become separated from one another.
Life turns into shouting matches in these cases.
4) An honest appraisal that non-inclusive people, i.e other societal groups, should not the dominant factor in determining right from wrong for a specific culture or religion, nor should non-inclusive people be an intrusive force that works to re-interpret historical meanings or religious writings to suit the desires of the non-inclusive people. This is like saying, "Maybe I can't re-educate you, but I can sure force you to surrender your children to others who can make them into something you don't want them to be.
5) A willingness to stay open to honest consideration of what your conscience (consistent consideration of how well one's inductive premises can remain valid through the repeated use of careful deductive analytic logic)is trying to tell you about your own thought process.
6) Open non-threatening communication that doesn't resort to logical fallacies to force others to surrender their sensibilities regarding their understandings of matters of faith that may be different from oneanother.
7) Honest consideration of the historical and moral claims of other religions. It is obvious differing Dieties will probably be irreconcilable, but most historical and moral teachings should be able to speak in some similar spiritual perspectives that reinforce oneanother. The most alarming situations arise when one societal group tries to force another to convert through some type of coercion. Common decency and mutual respect may be slow to some people, but the only other alternative is usually war of some sort.
I would hope that most rational sane thinking individuals would be able to evaluate their own and other religions by considering these basic seven factors.
Unfortunately, most relgions like "Lucky Strikes" would rather fight than switch, or even consider the merits of another. I have not examined all other faiths, but I have examined my own well enough to now that I try to hold to all seven of the above factors in my dealings with other people.
When Christianity is billed as fire insurance it is at least half misunderstood, it is more importantly a means by which to overcome bondage to one's own habits of wrong behavior and personal affronts given to others.
The Bible is historically accurate, literally exact, and truthfully specific throughout. A surprising amount of scripture is verified through modern day findings, backed by objective investigation, and supported by the writings & artifacts of several nations both past and present. As a time-line of events, chronicle of leadership, and catalogue of culture, the Bible stands up to the scrutiny of all historical & cultural sciences (archeology, anthropology, etc.).
Most reasonable atheists admit to the validity of most geographical, genealogical, and historical information found in the Bible, accepting the apparently factual while foregoing only that which seems fantastically impossible. Blind-antagonists of scripture, on the other hand, are unwilling to accept any of it in fear of that "I was caught picking a booger" feeling they get when their anti-religious / religiously atheistic peers catch them being only mostly anti-religious. Unwittingly they deny the eye-witness account method of truthful story telling understood and accepted by Jewish culture in passing down their nation’s history and heritage. Equivalently (and disrespectfully) an 'adarwiniest' could say, in 2000 years from now, that Charles Darwin was a mythical being thought up by a mindless group of Neanderthals in some effort to explain the 'genesis' and 'exodus' of the universe in which they lived. They could then further their blatantly skeptical view by denying the validity of all scientific 'scripture,' ignoring tracts on biology, and mocking those Evolutians for their fundamentalist scientifery. I digress. Can you guess which group of atheists I have no respect for?
Be careful not to disregard the Bible altogether. To deny it entirely is as unreasonable as the fundamentalists you oppose and as ignorantly close-minded as a chandelier-swinging Pentecostal maniac preaching “science is the devil” theology.
This “you don’t know what ‘theory’ means,” poor excuse for an argument is nonsense. I am not inclined to boast about my accomplishments or tout my intellect as some authoritative perspective on life, but I know what ‘theory’ means. Let my argument be my argument without lazily rebutting with a challenge of whether or not I understand the connotative or denotative meanings of particular words. I respond with the “you don’t know what ‘faith’ is” reaction:
If, and only if, faith is accepted as evidence of God's existence, will the scientific prerequisite for proof in practice be satisfied. The Bible defines faith as "being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see" (Heb. 11:1) not unlike the surety and certainty attained by the literally defined evidence accepted in science. Further, scripture warns that, "without faith it is impossible to please God" (Heb. 11:6). The elusive 'sign' longed for by the critical will not be given: "Do not put the Lord your God to the test" (Deut. 6:16) and "A wicked and adulterous generation asks for a miraculous sign! But none will be given…" (Matt. 12:39).
Case and point: FAITH IS the Christian's 'scientific EVIDENCE' for believing in God, but not merely evidence – it’s a requirement; a conundrum confronting the materialist with a quid pro quo / de nihilo nihil, chance of choice / do or don't ultimatum. This should be respected, not carelessly mocked or, from bias, reduced as simple-minded and effortless. Faith takes work. It's not a cop-out for the unintelligent or a scapegoat for the unrealistic. It's substantive. It's real!
Those who believe have 1.) Observed the amazing world around them, 2.) Hypothesized it to be the result of some creative & transcendent being, 3.) Experimented with the inexplicable spiritual longing to know said being, and 4.) Concluded that this being, God, would thusly be authoritative and just, having a plan & purpose for mankind.
This conclusion is derived not by some discovery a specimen or dissection can provide; not by a punnett square, system cycle, data chart, or chain. It won’t be found by a physic’s reaction or chemical attraction; in a layer of archeology or sample in biology. You won’t find it with a microscope, telescope, test tube, or scale. The postulated existence of God is substantiated by the evidence of faith and faith alone. Those without faith deny the method by which Christian’s conduct their tests, interpret their results, and formulate their ‘theories’ concerning God, but if you are unwilling to appreciate the evidence, you will NEVER understand the theory. I think this settles the standoff between those who believe in God and those who believe otherwise. We choose to believe the ‘God Theory’ based upon the evidence of faith we have in God.
Hanna wrote: "The Bible is historically accurate, literally exact, and truthfully specific throughout. We choose to believe the ‘God Theory’ based upon the evidence of faith we have in God."
I don't mean to insult, but if you can write those lines with a straight face and really mean it then I'll just back off at this point. If you can't see how that "logic" is not logic at all then nothing I can say will convince you. Nor should I try.
When I see reasoning like that I see someone who is desperately clinging to hope. In a recent conversation similar to this one on another forum I was accused of being a "destroyer of hope". I do not want to be that guy.
I wish you well.
I don't need you to back off. I just want you to understand my views as expressed by the evidence I provided. As I've already explained: "if you are unwilling to appreciate the evidence, you will NEVER understand the theory."
Your "'logic' is not logic" comment is matched only by your "I don't mean to insult, but…" comment.
Thanks, at least, for the more so kind than most reply.
Hanna: You are again using words orthogonally to their accepted meaning in Science. You may know what 'theory' means in common parlance, but that is not what the technical term 'theory' means. Look it up. (I gave you big hints, as did other posters here)
To your latest point regarding 'faith', you state the bible defines faith as "being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see".
That is exactly why science is not faith based.
A hypothesis is not 'hoped for'. A result to an experiment may be 'hoped for' but it really just 'is'. Hope is irrelevant to the science. Negative results are as (more?) valuable than positive results. Science (as a process) cares not a whit about your aspirations. Politicians may have hopes. people may have hopes. science simply has method.
The second part of the quote "certain of what we do not see" is not a general instruction for discovery and seeking knowledge – from my reading, it points directly to god. An instruction, in other words, that you should be certain of god, even though you may not (cannot!) see him/her/it. That is the definition of 'religious faith' that you berated Hank for positing!
Also – I fail to understand why religious people feel a need to inject their 'personal' religion into everything. You have religion? Fine! Good. For. You.
You may wish to counter with "Why do I inject science into everything?". That's a tautology. Science already *is* everything observable, by definition. We may not understand it deeply, yet. We may not have crafted more than tentative hypotheses. But it is still science.
Even areas that you may consider immune to science (why do I think?, what is life? what is thought?) are in fact beginning to be addressed and examined. If we can observe it, it is amenable to the scientific process, and it is, therefore, science.
Don't get me wrong – I'm enjoying this dialog. You are obviously more personally involved in this dialog and appear to be thinking about your responses – for which I applaud you. (other than your comment about the literal accuracy of the bible – but others have commented on that, so I have nothing to add)
Hanna: I just noticed your response to Mike P. regarding evidence.
I'll say this as plainly as I can.
You state the bible provides evidence for (your belief in) god.
You state that 'faith' (as described and defined by the same bible) is your prima facie evidence for belief in god.
But you just defined faith (per your bible) as 'belief in god'.
So:
1)belief_in_god requires faith (since there is no physical evidence sans your book).
2)faith requires belief_in_god (otherwise it is just wishful thinking, per the definition in your book).
It's circular, and I truly don't get it.
I'd appreciate some clarity around this, but I don't think I'll get it – apologetics has been around a long time, and still reduces to that tautology. You need faith to believe, and you need to believe to have faith.
regards
TC
Are you saying what I am saying or am I saying what you are saying?
Hanna: cute, but no banana (!)
Your definition of god relies on 'evidence' from a book that you *say* is the word of god. You cannot provide any other corroborating evidence, and beyond your book you can only provide hearsay.
I am saying you are relying on circular reasoning. There is no 'there' there!
You posit 'faith' – but a special kind of faith. A kind of faith that 'just tells you' the faith is from god – but that you need to 'believe' in god for the faith to be effective.
When I said I don't get it, I was being sarcastic. I get it. I understand quite clearly the level of cognitive disfunction you must voluntarily accept to enable such 'reasoning' to be meaningful.
The only reason religion is not generally equated with other delusions, is that it is endemic (so considered a normal 'part of life').
Guess what. Dying before 50 used to be considered normal. That's why 'ancients' became so venerated – they were *rare*!!! Most children dying before their 'majority' used to be normal – that's why the important naming ceremonies are *after* puberty – we know by then that you've survived and are worthy of a real name!
You're now playing at being sophisticated – playing at 'knowing the words' sufficiently well to stand toe to toe against those evil atheists and evilutionists (darwinists? really?) proclaiming your mission from god to proselytize.
Sorry – you fail.
You still don't really know the words.
You still don't argue coherently.
Arguing from authority is bogus at the best of times – but when your authority is a heavily edited set of goat-herd memories transcribed as manuscripts by theocracies with personal agendas – then you are really trying to walk on water.
Argument Fail.
Conversation Fail.
Intelligence Fail.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religious_Naturalism…
“I have very few problems with the basic perspectives or claims of most of the worlds major religions, except naturalism that claims it isn’t a religion.”
I’m not familiar with this alleged “religion” of naturalism. What are naturalism’s doctrines, deities, holy books? If you are attempting to paint any non-religious people who seek (and will only accept) natural explanations for observed natural phenomena as religious, it is a gross fallacy.
“[Naturalism] claims to have the right to pre-empt any other perspective as inferior to whatever any group of naturalists happens to think isn’t supportable by their interpretation of the evidence.”
Anything based on evidence by definition pre-empts anything that isn’t based on evidence. Ask a lawyer, forensic scientist or competent doctor. Any perspective on the natural world (or on anything) which denies actual evidence and instead relies on unsupported faith claims is by definition inferior if it’s meant to be a claim of truth or fact. You can’t expect a claim of truth or fact to be accepted simply by saying “I believe …”
1) ? Please define “Natural Law”
2) ? Also define “Moral Law” – especially since you’ve linked it to “Natural Law”
3) Mutual respect is vital
4) Fair enough – can’t think of many religions that haven’t behaved in such a bullying manner at some stage
5) Personally I think about my own thought processes and am relentlessly self-analytical more than most healthy people should be. Indeed, it’s how I left my own religion and arrived at my current opinions. If more people, faithful or faithless, were a touch more self-analytical and understood (as best they could) why they thought what they thought, it would be a good thing for everyone
6) If more religions and religious people behaved like this, I would have nothing to write about
7) Also vital, and also would render many, many blogs contentless if applied across the board. Interestingly, it often does more to discredit religion as a whole rather than support any specific religion.
To address your final comment, I agree entirely that our own bad habits, carelessless in our personal dealings with others and other costs of humanity are things that we all must overcome. Naturally we disagree about the best way to go about that, but agreement on anything is always a good thing.
Thanks for the perspective Karl
Basic tenets of this Religious Naturalism (which until now has been a complete mystery to me):
To rely on mainstream science to answers questions of being
To adopt a spiritual attitude towards living and the natural world
To be benevolent stewards of the earth
Adherence to devout environmental ethics and personal morality
A consilience of religious thinking acceptable to most peoples
Live by the Golden Rule common to most societies
Respect for the opinion of others
Well, going by that list I wouldn't meet the definition of a Religious Naturalist. Much as I prefer natural answers to questions about nature and try, like most people, to be a decent occupant of this planet I certainly don't take a "spiritual" attitude to anything and certainly can't even define a "consilience of religious thinking", let alone conform to it – suffice it to say none of my thinking would meet the definition of religious. If Religious Naturalism is what you're thinking of when you think of a non-religious person who thinks science is our most dependable (but not infallible) method of gleaning facts from observations, I think you might be a little off-target. Not everyone can be slotted into a religious category, especially people who aren't religious!
Nice reply, Hank. Isn't it funny how just a little "give" in a definition allows people to turn a position upside down. For instance, many of us at this site have expressed reverence toward life, a recognition that life is full of mysteries and an assumption that natural laws pertain throughout the universe. Based on these elements, Einstein declared himself to be a believer in "God."
This situation temps me to dispense with the words "religion" and "God" altogether. Whenever someone says that she is "religious" or believes in "God," I usually follow up with a request to explain further (maybe asking them to speak for a few paragraphs). Such is the rampant ambiguity of these words. I try to get their believes boiled down into something really basic, such as "When your body is completely dead on Earth, will you still be able to think thoughts in English?" Questions like these prove to me that there are stark and dramatic differences among those who claim to be "religious." Many of them (I think most of them) prove themselves to be agnostics when asked to explain their positions carefully.
Quoth Hanna:
"The postulated existence of God is substantiated by the evidence of faith and faith alone."
So, what you're essentially saying is this: the fact that people believe in God without a shred of evidence is evidence that God exists.
Brilliant. If that argument were any more circular we could work out its area using the formula pi x R squared.
Excuse me while I go and talk to the squid in my attic. I can't see them or hear them or smell them or perceive them in any way and the claims made in the squid scriptures don't stand up to any serious scrutiny, but the fact that I have faith that my squid exist pretty much proves they're there. Those without faith deny the method by which squiddists conduct their tests, interpret their results, and formulate their ‘theories’ concerning squid, but if you are unwilling to appreciate the evidence, you will NEVER understand the theory.
I think this settles the standoff between those who believe in squid and those who believe otherwise.
Hank states:
"Anything based on evidence by definition pre-empts anything that isn’t based on evidence. Ask a lawyer, forensic scientist or competent doctor. Any perspective on the natural world (or on anything) which denies actual evidence and instead relies on unsupported faith claims is by definition inferior if it’s meant to be a claim of truth or fact. You can’t expect a claim of truth or fact to be accepted simply by saying “I believe …”
I never deny that evidence means something hard and fast. I am however not so blind to think that all people approach the meaning of evidence from the same set of presuppositions. People can work the evidence to the exclusion of opposing points of view and convince themselves and others that they have the hard and fast meaning when they may not have it at all.
I fully believe that natural laws that describe and help explain measureable and repeatable physical observations are what most naturalists believe they take for the basis for their perspective. I believe this is proper use of natural law. The use of presuppositions as to the rates of change in non-observable pre-recorded history of the earth is beyond hard and fast evidence.
"The use of presuppositions as to the rates of change in non-observable pre-recorded history of the earth is beyond hard and fast evidence."
Sorry, you'll have to clarify that statement for me. Are you saying, for example, we can't be reasonably sure the Earth is 4 billion years old because nobody was around back then to see it form?
All I'm saying is this.
No one has the ability to declare without reservation which events that shaped the earth's surface were catastrophic and which were slow gradual changes over millions or billions of years. Geologists that lean either way reveal a bias in their preferred manner of interpreting the evidence. Those that do so will of course have imaginations that agree with their presuppositions.
In the same manner, no one has the ability to declare without reservation what/which events in the chain of evolution brought physical life into existence and enabled it to change into the life forms that now exists on this planet. Those that do so must also have imaginations that agree with their presuppositions.
Hypothetical science that can be imagined and for which interpreted evidence can be declared to exist should not be so quick to presume that these interpretations are what the actual best interpretations of the evidence that does point to some kind of a hard and fast reality concerning the past.
Karl: Framed in this absolutist manner, your statements can't be denied. But educated guesses fall along a continuum. Some are heavily supported by observations (evolution by natural selection) and others are based only on the flimsiest of evidence (the story of Noah's Ark, for which one must rely on an ancient set of writings by mostly anonymous authors, filled with contradictions and nonsense. Yes, I said nonsense, unless (and this is merely one example of thousands) you really believe that Noah lived to be 950 years old (Genesis 9:29).
You're uncomfortable with talk about absolutes? So am I. Then jump on the other path. Consider not merely whether claims are perfectly provable. Consider that claims are always provisional, though some of them are supported by mountains of evidence while others are laughably unsupported. Welcome to the world of good science.
Not to argue with your basic point, but perhaps to add a little something to the mix. Noah's age—as with the ages of most of the antediluvian patriarch's (and how come we never hear about the long lives of the women?) this is an example of where the literalness of the text comes headlong into interpretation and might be resolved by a little creative thinking along these lines:
Many cultures, some local to that region of the world, had calendrical systems systems based on lunar cycles and—months! Just a simple thing, but if you take Noah's age as, instead of years, 950 months, you get an age of a bit less than 80 years. That's still old and might in his day have been considered ridiculously ancient, but it's not unbelievable.
As for Hank's "religion", Karl—one of the problems we've had for millennia is the confusion of faith with dogma. Hank may have faith in his worldview, but it is not a religion. Many people certainly have religions, but no faith. Nevertheless, the chief connective aspect of all religions is their assertion in nonethereal, spiritual beings and the reality of the ephemeral. I don't see Hank claiming that as a position.
(Admin – my comments are not going to the bottom of the post – I'm not sure why – Thank You!)
So, let's face it! TRUTH vs. truth – what is actually vs. what is perceived has come to a head in the classic "does God exist?" debate. In it let us not be guilty of filtering everything we hear through our own small Brita-life experience and claim, because of it, to grasp the eternal. Until we know everything, we should hesitate towards our choice version of certainty, because the object unknown could possibly alter the reality of what is perceived. If that object is a Creator, divine and transcendent, what then? — Our nonsense in speculation becomes an exercise in futility. Until we attain omniscience, we should be careful to deny the existence of an omniscient God.
Erick, most of your comments on this post presuppose that the scientific prerequisite for evidence in practice makes 'faith as evidence' reasoning, the crux of my position, impossible for the materialist to accept. If this is the case, we have come to an impasse and must politely agree to disagree.
I thought you were being typically obstinate, but changed my mind about you after reading the article on your experience with The Journey Church. I think you to be a decent person, rather, and despite our differences, likewise wish that we could all work together to make the world better place.
Yes, I will continue to share my beliefs. No self-respecting Christian mandated by their faith to "Go into all the world preaching the Gospel…" should do otherwise. I will do it out of love, though, and would willingly work with anyone, A-theist to Z-oroastrian, if it meant helping someone in need.
Peacefully, Hanna
Hanna: you said: Until we attain omniscience, we should be careful to deny the existence of an omniscient God.
I don't need omniscience – no-one has ever provided any proof for *any* god, let alone an omniscient (or omnipresent, or omni-anything) god.
Would you care to provide us anything in the way of evidence that is not based on circular reasoning (the bible says it is the word of god, therefore it is the word of god. If the bible is the word of god, then god exists. qed. NOT)
I'd like to pose the question directly to you — what independent proof (again, not the bible) do you have that other gods are false? Zeus or Zoroaster, Azura Mazda, Isis, Ra, Quetzalcoatl, Odin, Ganesh?
How is your belief in god any different from Hank's posited belief in the 'attic squid'? (Other than the obvious: your particular belief is shared by many others, and taught to children at a very early age)
True Mark, I'm not claiming any such thing, yet it's being repeatedly asserted that I actually am in some way.
I don't see much more of a conversation possible when Karl refuses to even acknowledge my position or accept it as I describe it (a courtesy I've repeatedly extended to him without reservation). No, not even close; Karl feels the need to completely redefine my position for me using his own terms, to the point where it's the opposite of what it is (and doubtless is now in a form he recognises). This points to a clear lack of empathy and imagination or just plain obstinance.
Hank
Given the tone and content of his latest posts – I see Karl's position being one of 'confident arrogance' and obstinance. I was appalled to learn that he is a Science Teacher, and that he admits to teaching creationism in his classroom!
He is not having a discussion. He is proselytizing.
Horrors of horrors, I don't tow the secular humanist manifesto into the science classroom.
I'm sure if I taught in a public school you'd start looking for a way to force me into silence or out of the profession. Now isn't that a real neighborly way to treat someone.
I don't cow tow to the ideas that you can teach anything (including science)in a vacuum of values.
You can attempt to take values out of the curriculum (If you really think that is possible I've got some ocean property for you in Cuba), but you can not take values out of the people who try to first establish and then alter the curriculum.
I teach creationism as a perspective on science that doesn't run away from theories of origins. I do this with a view of developing critical thinking skills, the same as I do for the theory of origins and gradual unobservable progressive development called evolution. I teach the apparent likihood of micro-evolution of varying degrees, but I do not insist that the only scientific explanation for life as we know it is entirely based only upon the secular belief that a creator can't be proven to exist and therefore He doesn't exist.
If you can't discuss theories of origins and varying methods of interpreting scientific evidence in a science classroom, then lets call science what it really should be a branch of Philosophy called Natural Philosphy.
This way the values can be discussed without someone screaming foul.
What you say is true, Mark, regarding the use of lunar cycles for measuring time – but so too were 'seasons' and years. I've seen no evidence that those in the fertile crescent measured their time using anything other that 'years' and 'seasons'. Months not so much, except for very specific lunar observances. The study and use of the zodiac (in Mesopotamia pre-Balylonia and post-) suggests that major events reference a position in the zodiac, which had an annual cycle, and there are very few events which would demand alternative measures.
Tony. Are you suggesting that Noah might have only been 734 years old?
I think I'm suggesting that the actual evidence is way too sparse to make any attempt at understanding the 'true' age of Noah. We have a single book, that is a transcription of verbal histories.
Note that we have contemporaneous 'histories' from Sumer and other places in the fertile cresent which would (you'd expect) at least note the existence of such long-lived beings – somewhere.
No such record exists.
Personally, I think the Hebraic story of 'the ancients' got bigger and bigger (in the way of 'explanatory tales' versus 'personal history') – similar to the way the Norse Eddas refer to giants and frost demons and so on. If you're 4'9" anyone over 5'6" is going to be a giant! If you spend your life in permafrost (hail the Finn) you might well be talked about as 'frost demons'.
But that's just my opinion.
But I want to know the exact inerrant age of Noah so that I can advise Karl, without reference to any of my uniformitarian prejudices!
good luck with that.
Maybe you should just ask Karl, since he appears to be an 'Authority'
Look into the absurdly long life spans or "reigns" of the antidiluvian kings of ancient Sumer.
http://www.answersingenesis.org/tj/v12/i3/sumeria…
Nothing wrong in my science book with converting between time units. The fact that they didn;t state that so many weeks worked out exactly so many years could have been because they had to much conflict in finding an exact way of converting between them.
Before the flood, weeks were apparently used by the Sumerians to measure the duration of a kings reign, whereas the Hebrews used years in the Genesis narrative for the entire life span of the individual.
Years which weren't exact could have been more carefully decribed by the more definte measure of weeks. This way the days involved could be actually very definite.
If their "years" or "reigns" actually were weeks or groups of seven days then we have corroboration that the antidiluvians did indeed have much longer life spans.
This is getting quite abit off topic from Scandi-atheits . . .
It appears from the several Summerian clay tablets that the pre-flood kings in their history had "years" or "reigns" measured in an even shorter standard as well, or their thousands of "years" is even more off the wall than the Bible's.
The easiest cycle to use would be one that set off a specific number of days, like the week and multiples of weeks.
In fact Moses specifically called for superimposing the ideas of the Sabbaoth upon years as well as days. This may have been a common way of measuring multiples of time for many generations. This wouldn't have caused consternations as to when the year should actually start and when the early and latter rains showed up.
Moses may have been attempting to make a cohesive way of unifying the religious concept of the sabbaoth with the annual calendar. After seven year, and 49 years there were specific directions given concerning the land, debts, bondage, slavery and restitution. Sounds like something this whole world needs to get rid of the financial fiasco we're finding ourselves in.
It would have taken many years of astronomical/astological study to begin to grasp the relationships between hours, days, weeks, months, lunar cycles, seasons, years, solar cycles and even solar sun spot activity to fully grasp the extent that the earth interacted with its immediate and more distant lights in the sky.
Several Biblical references use the term weeks or weeks of weeks and appear to be based upon multiples of sevens. Daniel, a Hebrew prophet, wrote from Babylon and would have used their historical way of measuring and describing time to some degree.
AFAIK, Sumer used 'days' as the primary unit – a fact helped by their use of positional (place based) number systems that made large numbers easy to handle. They would reference other 'units' for convenience when discussing things relevant to those units (they had annual and seasonal periods related to solstices, and zodiacal repetition)
Oh, I'm aware of that. I wasn't making a strong case, just pointing out an interest bit of arithmetic. What I find most interesting is that these absurdly long lifespans decrease to what we would call normal after the Flood. If you (inventing this as one goes along, of course) take the Flood as, say, the end of a civilizational epoch rather than an actual physical event, then you have a kind of destruction of Atlantis scenario, in which the myths and (misinterpreted) artifacts of an antediluvian culture would be carried over in mangled form. All this to point out that through the wonders of interpretation, the Bible can be made to yield all manner of "explanation" for what it purports to record "accurately."
Karl again displays his innocence from knowledge of geology, and of the basic chemistry and physics on which its conclusions depend.
Also, even after the dozens of separate times we've told him, he still doesn't "get" the inherently adversarial nature of scientific discourse. Brilliant young scientists make names for themselves by proving that the accepted theory is somehow incomplete or even in error. No one gets ahead by parroting existing conclusions.
Admittedly, no one will get ahead in science trying to prove that the world is flat, or young, or the center of the solar system, either.
There is no doubt (zero conflicting evidence, no competing theories) that the T-K boundary event was catastrophic. There is no doubt that the growth rate of coral is constant within a known range with the small deviation being based on water temperature. Discontinuities in coral growth are easy to spot (in the coral core record) and are used to date related seismic and meteorological events.
And I applaud Karl for acknowledging how far off course this discourse has coursed.
Karl, you may look at evidence through a different set of presuppositions – but that does not mean all starting points are equally valid – nor does it mean all conclusions are equally valid.
Hank used the 'squid in my attic' trope regarding faith. The presupposition there is that his evidence is personal. Can you also use his personal evidence in the same way? Not at all. So is Hank's 'personal evidence' rational or rationally considered as evidence at all? No. It would not be evidence until it could be independently corroborated.
Likewise, inference from evidence.
You may view all evidence through the lens of 'magic pixie dust'. So all your conclusions come from investigations of how 'magic pixie dust' influenced reality to satisfy our observations (the evidence).
I don't think you would have any problem agreeing that this is not a useful set of presuppositions.
Science is a strong and well founded set of agreed presuppositions. All of Science is founded upon core principles of observation and correlation. If it can't be observed (or it's influence can't be observed, before you go all 'have you seen a quark?', on me) and those observations cannot be correlated by other non-congruent experiments, then it's hearsay, not science! (google cold fusion and sonoluminescence for examples)
If you are coming at the evidence with presuppositions less strongly correlated than science (magic pixie dust, for example), then good luck with that, but don't expect me to necessarily believe your conclusions without the requisite supporting, non-congruent 'evidence'
As soon as you get into the 'meaning of evidence' you are on a very slippery slope, my friend. How sure are you that your support is more relevant (or accurate) than pixie dust?
TonyC,
Thanks for your interest in my comments.
As a science teacher, I teach all manner of theories that try to establish links between presuppositions and corroborating evidence – and no, I haven't seen quarks, charmed as some might be.
I do teach the theory of evolution, from a critical thinking perspective. I do teach creationism from a critical thinking perspective. I hold that this is the only honest way to present contrasting theories that purport to have claims to be able to use scientific study in all of its various forms to establish links to any of the presuppositions of these theories.
For all of the attempts to establish corroborating evidence, I still see both as lacking sufficient ability for science to treat the issues detached from the presuppositions.
Evidence can be used by either set of holders of the presuppositions to my satisfaction that it is not science alone that is at work here. These matters of origins are not "scientific" alone but have their roots in the presuppositions even more so than the evidence.
Many creationists win debates with evolutionists, at least in the eyes of the general public. A topic so full of controversy should never be forced by academia one way or the other. Academia should welcome critical thinking, not subdue it.
I've seen too many times when the presuppositions of uniformitarianism or evolution have shaded the interpretatons of evidence only later to be in need of reconsidered in light of other details that come to light under further scrutiny.
I know how science works, I don't agree that peer review alone by people with the same sets of presuppositions is going to lead academia out of this quagmire.
As Erich should say, let the evidence speak for itself, not the presuppositions of the experts.
Hanna writes:—"The Bible is historically accurate, literally exact, and truthfully specific throughout. A surprising amount of scripture is verified through modern day findings, backed by objective investigation, and supported by the writings & artifacts of several nations both past and present. As a time-line of events, chronicle of leadership, and catalogue of culture, the Bible stands up to the scrutiny of all historical & cultural sciences (archeology, anthropology, etc.)."
Within certain limits, so does Homer's "Iliad". After all, Troy was found using that text as a guidebook. However, you as a Christian would automatically disregard all the bits about the pantheon of the gods (Athena, Poseidon, etc) as merely contemporary embellishment while sifting the text for what could be substantiated as history. Turnabout would then be fair play. I do not disregard the Bible for its value as a piece of evidence for historical events. That would be absurd.
But as "evidence" that Yahweh is real? I would no sooner credit that than credit the existence of Zeus and Company based on the Iliad and the Odyssey.
Oh, and it's really not "literally exact" (if I understand what you mean by that) because too much has been added, deleted (inferentially), and misinterpreted over time. This, too, is a factually accurate statement. A great deal of archaeology has been done that confirms in broad terms a great deal that is in the Bible—but a much else is anywhere from slightly to largely questionable.
If you lead with your convictions and those convictions tell you to disregard any contrary evidence, then you're heading for error.
Within certain limits, Jack and the Beanstalk is accurate. There were children living in Europe. If you plant beans, they can grow. If you fall, you might hurt yourself. Therefore, Jack in the Beanstalk is "historically accurate, literally exact, and truthfully specific throughout."
Hank states:
"I certainly don’t take a “spiritual” attitude to anything and certainly can’t even define a “consilience of religious thinking”, let alone conform to it – suffice it to say none of my thinking would meet the definition of religious."
I see your "spiritual" attitude in this case as a dedicated acceptance of your decision to refuse to deal with spiritual matters because you claim they don't exist because they can't be studied in the scientific sense.
Everybody's got religion of some sort, yours is that you claim not to be religious and that is why you don't view the misuse of interpreted evidence in favor of your presuppositions as a problem. You fully believe you have the best science (naturalism) has to offer so why tamper with it.
That's a religion no matter how much you say I'm open to hearing more evidence.
"Everybody’s got religion of some sort, yours is that you claim not to be religious."
Oh my sweet flapping tentacles. I thought we might have been getting somewhere, but no. Here in all it's breathtakingly thick-headed, inane & sub-retarded glory is the "Are Too!" argument.
Nutshell: "the fact that you say you're not religious proves that you are." Are you kidding me with this shit?
Karl – you assert that “everybody’s got religion of some sort”
Care to support that claim with some evidence. Care to provide a definition of religion that (a) is acceptable to mainstream religionists, and (b) also defines me.
I personally do not have any religion. Unless you count being human as my religion! (I don’t even support a sports team!)
I addressed this in a previous article:
http://dangerousintersection.org/2009/01/07/scien…
Karl seemed appreciative, but somehow seems to have slid back into thinking anyone with a belief system is practicing a religion.
Secular humanism is a religion, although no one at DI would claim to have entered into its holy places.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secular_humanism
http://www.secular-humanism.com/
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=843634996…
As I see it, If you truly held to not having a religion you would not put your faith in anything, and nothing would have any more importance to you than anything else in your value system.
A possible case in point. Today you might be an evolutionist, tomorrow you might be a creationist, the day after that you might help an old lady across the street and the day after you'd refuse her meciacl care. If your vales were always open to the randomness of a coin toss I'd say you were fairly close to being irrelgious. If you have settled upon a code of ethics of any sort, you are at least somewhat relgious, even if you only believe you have faith in what you believe in.
As for the evolution – creation debate.
One side says ‘You’re backwards, and
primitive,’ the other side says ‘You’re godless, and love Satan.’ Sadly,
the debate itself has not evolved in over 150 years.”
Atheists like to equate "religion" with theism. Atheism, according to this logic, is not a "religion" and is post-"religion" or superior to "religion."
This is a classic logical fallacy: the straw man or redirection fallacy.
Faith, religion, and life-stance are all words for the same thing: the core set of sincere beliefs particular to a person that (in the United States) the Constitution recognizes as legally protected and freely expressible. In other words, if you have the right to be Catholic, Orthodox, Protestant, Islamic, Jewish, Wiccan, Buddhist, or a Scientologist, you also have the right to be an atheist.
So, when atheists make this straw man argument, they are not only steamrolling the philosophers and logicians they aspire to emulate, but are also stomping on theists' rights under the First Amendment. They have the right to be an atheist but you don't have a right to believe in any type of God associaed with a religion.
Karl:
project, much?
No-one is arguing that you may not hold views that are religious, or that your religious views in any way suggest that you should be treated as a second-class citizen. That *is* the status accorded atheism, however.
For example: how should I make an oath to god, an imaginary entity in my opinion. Would such an oath be valid – I hope not. I'd rather make an oath to my country, or president, or something else real.
As an atheist I am considered somehow immoral, lacking in some 'undefined but real' substance that make it impossible for me to get past the god bots and into politics (except in a very few cases, and substantially fewer than the demographics would suggest).
Far from 'stomping on theists rights', I find my own rights infringed at every turn. I am surrounded by tax exempt edifices to delusion – but I could not erect a 'church of no-god' – firstly such would be ludicrous, since atheism is not a religion, and secondly since it is only religions who have such favored status.
Why should my taxes have to support so many tax-exempt operations? (and before you argue – here in GA there are police stationed at every single church for every single service to manage the traffic flow. Why should I pay for this?) The absence of tax revenue from these operations mean those of us who pay taxes have to pay more than we otherwise would (were they normal taxpaying entities). That is an infringement of my rights.
So – please don't spout bullshit and expect it to pass as gospel.
Secular-humanism.com belongs to All About God Ministries, Inc. and is as inaccurate a representation of humanism as the Discovery Institute site EvolutionNews.org is about evolution.
Try http://secularhumanism.org or http://iheu.org any other actual humanist web site.
Karl
I really must disagree with the thrust of your argument.
You are equating religion (essentially a belief system with enshrined dogma not subject to rational analysis) to science (a methodology for investigating and correlating observation).
You seem stuck on the thought that ethics= religion: "If you have settled upon a code of ethics of any sort, you are at least somewhat religious". Pardon me, but I call bull!
Religion is not ethics. Religion, over it's lifetime, may have co-opted some ethics, but it is NOT ethics. If it were, then all religions would have similar understanding of right and wrong. They don't.
Ethics is relative and emergent. We have identified 'ethical' behavior in Bonobos, Chimpanzees, Gorillas, and other apes. We've identified ethical behavior in many non-ape species (birds and beasts). Do all of these animals have religion? Or is the ethical behavior we've observed not really ethics? Do you really want to split those particular hairs?
You also go off on a complete tangent, to suggest that all behavior is variable: "Today you might be an evolutionist, tomorrow you might be a creationist"
Sorry, but WTF?
What exactly *is* an evolutionist? I *know* what a creationist is – that *is* an ideological stance that denies the mass of evidence in favor of a particular world view.
Support for Evolution is not ideology. It is *lack of* ideology. It is recognizing and accepting the evidence regardless where it leads. It is being completely open to new or different interpretations *from those that we might preconcieve*.
That's the basic tenet of science. That's the basis of a scientific mindset. It's being open to the evidence no matter what. Being open to changing your opinion based on evidence. Being open!
Your false dichotomy is a canard that the religious hegemony have successfully used for millenia. Unfortunately for you, it's an approach that requires the targets to be ill-educated and unprepared to exercise rationally based skepticism.
The religious die-hards in the US may well be fighting their battles to ensure such a state of play in the nations schools – but the tide is definitely turning. There are fewer 'self-reported' religious people in the US today than 10 years ago. More a-religious. And we're fed up with your negative approach to life.
I prefer evidence to just-so stories. It appears I'm not alone.
And I suppose the way a bird builds its nest is ethical as well. Somethings in animal behavior are simply instinctive or a apart of their conditioning. Did someone ask them if they understood what ethics were?
If people'e ethics are a part of their instincts or are part of their conditoning then I would also agree that they have similar ethics to the animals you sited.
Karl said "And I suppose the way a bird builds its nest is ethical as well. "
Way to miss the point entirely.
Ethics are an 'emergent' property of socialization. For social creatures to thrive, they must have a set of 'rules' that guide them.
So yes – many rules are hard-wired (instinctual). As a result of having a pretty powerful and flexible organic pattern matching device, we have a little more flexibility in devising ethics.
But the ethics that humans have are still and always appropriate for the kind of social groups we have evolved. They are not 'handed down from on high' – they are the emergent result of our physical and social evolution.
It's not only instinct. It's an emergent property of social groups. And it's also a decision taken by individuals within those groups.
We can choose to be ethical (according to the 'group' ethics) or not. But ethics are not universal, and the appropriate ethics for one social group (even of humans) is not identical to that of another.
Maybe you should review some anthropology – there are lots of good, solid, 'man in the street' level books and documentaries available. You would learn a lot. (I'd recommend Desmond Morris & David Attenborough to start. You could even share some with your students – I'm sure they'd be interested)
Do you really believe that you can tell me that just because peer reviewed scientists with the same set of presuppositions agree with each other that they are correct?
Yes, I happen to agree with an historical record that people use to live to that age before the environment was altered in ways beyond our understanding. I have no problem because the Bible states for some reason a need to clarify in close proximity to the flood what the average lifespan was as if it was somehow affected, recalculated or restandardized by the flood.
It is also possible that "years" were once counted in growing seasons or by some other method because the same seasons might not have existed before the flood as they did after the flood. I do not take the assumption that spring, summer, winter and fall have always been as they are today, that would be a uniformitarian point of view.
Hank and MarK appear to believe in Mother Nature.
Sorry, I couldn't resist.
And we all know that it's not NICE to fool Mother Nature.
@ Hank about his belief in Squids
If you want to reduce the discussion of faith to some rude and immature ad hominem attack, you should be posting on a video share site where people seemingly think two seconds about their replies before recklessly denigrating the work put into posts.
I don't think your cut and paste argument flies on a site like this, not even with those who disagree with my position.
Follow a more educated approach to argumentation instead of piggybacking on my approach to form your own. For instance (in a robot voice): "If Squid live in your a-ttic, but squid are on-ly cap-a-ble of li-ving in the o-cean, you must think the o-cean is your at-tic."
Call for help! You and your position are drowning.
But in point of fact, he is correct in that the way you phrased your position is a tautology. Belief in something is not evidence of its existence, only evidence of belief.
Rude, maybe, immature, perhaps. Ad hominem? Not at all. I attacked the argument, not the person making it. I give arguments all the respect they deserve and all the considered, thoughtful responses they warrant.
When you'd like to present something other than Biblical infallibility, or faith as justification for itself, or belief without evidence as evidence – in something other than that starkly patronising tone – please come back.
Well put Hank. What is consistently amazing to me is how incredibly SURE people like Hanna are that they operating by the rules of evidence and logic.
From her writing I can detect in her no doubt whatsoever that she is right. She is unwavered by your arguments, rational though they might seem to us. Psychologically that is fascinating to me. It really demonstrates how much human beings fear death. Hanna is willing to reject rationality for the comfort of the promise to live forever.
Zing!
Go Hanna! That's good stuff on faith, even from an atheist's perspective.
I admire the few crazies on this site that are willing to stand off against us argumentative types, especially when they provide such carefully structured positions.
You may need to lighten up on the 'adarwinian' stuff (though it made me laugh at myself), but I applaud you nonetheless.
"Until we attain omniscience, we should be careful to deny the existence of an omniscient God."
Proclaiming the existence of such a being _without_ omniscience is equally careless.
This idea that you must necessarily know Everything before being able to judge anything as true or factual is well-worn and fallacious.
Atheists don't claim to be omniscient. All they do is assess the claims of the Bible (and other holy books) and say "I don't believe this is true." They do not dogmatically assert or make a positive claim that gods categorically do not exist – they just lean heavily in that direction.
Non-believers judge the Bible the exact same way that believers in the Bible judge and disbelieve the sacred writings of other religions. I haven't yet found a believer who believes in the inerrant truth of both the Bible and the Koran. Therefore even fundamentalists are quite capable of disproving omniscient Gods without having complete knowledge. They are quite willing to write off the existence of all Gods but their own.
Hanna writes, "To deny it entirely is as unreasonable as the fundamentalists you oppose and as ignorantly close-minded as a chandelier-swinging Pentecostal maniac preaching “science is the devil” theology."
To deny the reliability of a book that is obviously absurd and self-contradictory is not at all "unreasonable" or "ignorantly close-minded." To the contrary, it is plain common sense.
Consider, for example, the Bible. It opens with a wholly ridiculous story about how a supposedly omniscient god somehow managed to overlook the defective design of his terrarium and, in doing so, managed to kill his little pets living there. The balance of the Bible is devoted to describing how this supposedly omniscient god then tries to make his little pets the scapegoats for his incompetence and, amazingly, to have his little pets worship him.
I'll tell you how belief in the Christian god differs from my squid – the Christian god is false and and all his followers shall dry out on the sun-baked shores of hell for eternity, their ink sacs depleted, their tentacles limp and their beaks never again to grip the soft cold flesh of pilchards or crack the shells of shrimp. The chosen, in between pursuing vast shoals and schools, will look upon the hapless damned from the crests of endless waves and bubble prayers of pity and respite, our tentacles clasped in thanksgiving.
Hank,
You are correct in that I place you into a category being religious that you disdain. You disdain and mock anything with the word religion attached to it, except for your particular leaning on any specific day. Apparently squids and flying spaghetti monsters could have souls but not people.
I could have said that you have faith in the naturalistic perspective on life and you still might have been as offended. Either way, I stated my opinion from how I see it. I don't think most people on DI would have thought I was trying to offend you, I just stated my perspective that is related to the ideas and values you presented.
Maybe I should keep my mouth shut but when you ask me to define the "religion of naturalism" and then you nit pick over the fact that you don't "attend the church" that doesn't mean you don't subscribe to the major tenants of the faith.
America is gaining more and more people like that because the secular side of life tries to do just what you do, mock any one who claims to have any faith in any thing other than secular humanism.
This is apparently what has happened in Scandinavia as well. I can't speak for others, but to me its very hard to tell when you are mocking ideas, religion, dieties, people or yourself.
Enough said.
Karl, you seem to not understand that squids are ironic illustrative literary tools (you're obviously not an English teacher – certainly you'd only barely pass as a science teacher if you're placing creationism next to evolution as worth equal consideration. I hope you teach the kids about Thor's Hammer and the native American Thunderbird when you're discussing the weather – it's only teaching "both sides" after all).
Yeah, I disdain religion. I even mock it – but I equally mock Tom Clancy books because I find them having very little literary value; macho and pedestrian and with some of the most cliched dialogue I've ever seen. He should stick to writing reference books as his research is pretty good.
I don't find religion inherently evil as it's only one of many human inventions, but it can't be relied upon as a historical or scientific reference and it produces way more than its fair share of compartmentalised thinkers who waste a fair whack of their time attempting to 'prove' things that by definition can't be proven. It produces hordes of people who can't (or won't) argue in a straight line and perform basic conversational & logical functions.
But that's not why I'm exasperated by your attempts to label me as religious. My expasperation stems from the fact that you simply can't or won't understand that there are people in the world (like me and many DI contributors) who categorically DO NOT have a worldview or philosophy that meets the definition of a religion. You countered that by defining my position as something it's clearly not (Religious Naturalism), then re-defining secular humanism (which you just assume I or others here "follow") as a religion and expecting me to accept you throwing me in that box as well. It reveals a very dishonest side to your character. I hope this kind of behaviour doesn't fall under the "critical thinking" that you teach in class. I doubt you or any teacher would accept such behaviour from students in a debate or in any written work.
Put simply, my expasperation with you stems from a simple lack of courtesy and your arrogant presumption that you know my position better than I do. Noone likes being called something they're not, especially when it happens several times in the course of one comment thread and against repeated attempts to clarify things.
Read & comprehend the following (fear not, you will not be tested on this):
I don't believe in gods (or magic squid)
I don't pray to or worship anything or anyone
I don't hold to any commandments or dogma
I don't perform rituals of any kind
I don't hold sacred any books or scripture
I don't believe in souls, spirits, angels, devils, intelligent designers or any other supernatural force or entity
I believe that the universe functions as it does without the requirement for intervention from any deities or supernatural entities such as those listed above
I believe that answers about the universe are best found through impartial investigative methods
I believe that the fact that we don't know everything right now (and can't ever know everything) doesn't mean we should stop asking questions (or assume that they've already been answered)
I am of the opinion that when I die my consciousness/mind will also die, as both are a product of my physical brain
I am of the opinion that this list will either be comprehensively ignored or picked at to reveal Karl's presuppositions about who I am, what I think and why I think it
It's not an exhaustive list of everything I think, but hopefully I have given you enough to understand my position on religion (it's more of a list than any rational person would need, however you seem to have special needs far and beyond those of rational people). If you still manage to glean some sort of religious belief out of that list well, good for you. You'd still be flat wrong. But, in my experience, being flat wrong has never stopped a creationist from continuing to spout fallacy & falsehood as truth.
Hank
Bravo, sir! You speak for me too.
Personally, I think you write extremely well. Clear, cogent, and not-too-dry.
This thread is very hard to follow. Its making to discussion hard to stay with.
I posted this a while back:
Atheists like to equate “religion” with theism. Atheism, according to this logic, is not a “religion” and is post-”religion” or superior to “religion.”
This is a classic logical fallacy: the straw man or redirection fallacy.
Faith, religion, and life-stance are all words for the same thing: the core set of sincere beliefs particular to a person that (in the United States) the Constitution recognizes as legally protected and freely expressible. In other words, if you have the right to be Catholic, Orthodox, Protestant, Islamic, Jewish, Wiccan, Buddhist, or a Scientologist, you also have the right to be an atheist.
So, when atheists make this straw man argument, they are not only steamrolling the philosophers and logicians they aspire to emulate, but are also stomping on theists’ rights under the First Amendment. They have the right to be an atheist but you don’t have a right to believe in any type of God associaed with a religion.
Added here –
I also realize that most atheists will only accept as reasonable another statement from a peer reviewed atheist's perspective. So any website or information, even from secular humanists who have tax exempt status in some capacity, as either an educational non-profit or as community organizing group still must meet the stringent definitions of non-religious or they are not really atheists.
Even if you say you believe in values that help people, the chances are atheists only really want to agree with those other humanists that agree with their right and perogative to activly work to change the values of the culture they are cirrently in so that one day the atheists will one day be more populace then those weak minded theists.
Its really easy to force others into silence by staying separate but demanding equality when no one can define what in the blue blazes you are, only what you claim not to be.
We've been told for so long that the atheists are permitted to be atheists that they are encouraged to believe they will one day have control of the society because all they need to do is to keep insisting that they are having their rights steped on by the rest of society.
They take up the cause of everyone or every group that feels stepped on by the laws and precepts of the country that they live in because that is the quickest route to dis-establish the workings of the out in the public non-secular religious groups of the nation, but especially the major religion of the culture.
Hanks probably saying "Hey, works for me!" I don't like being told what I'm up to however.
Ethics are relative as well for the atheist and not absolute because they don't apply to the atheist because they only really need to agree with others that are definitey opposed to the open discussion that God in some shape manner or form might exist.
One can never get people likr this who refuse to acknowledge that their values and worldview consitute a religion to look in the mirror of self examination because all they ultimately care about is what that who they see there is an atheist who by definition only really cares about what they don't believe in and who refuses to see him or her self in anyway that many others in the rest of society sees them.
You can call a personal philosophy devoid of religion all you like, but the values and life-stances of individuals are on display to others by what they either place their faith in or not.
I can be accused of insulting Hank or TonyC and of putting labels on them that just do not stick because hard core atheists believe they can never be labeled as having some sort of a religion. That would likely be cause for radical action and the sooner the better. That's why some love the term secular humanist, but the real hard core atheists even detest that because there are some religious humanists in the ranks of the humanists and they do not wish to be associated with them.
They prefer rational terms devoid of any connotaions of values – like atheist, non-believer and the like. Funny how most of these preferred labels only tell us what they aren't.
Even saying that they trust in the workings of science might be a bit too positive of a definition for some atheists, because someday science might be able to be used to manipulate the general population back into the camp of the theists.
Define who you are in a negative sense and there you have it. That's what an atheist is.
Sure they have positive virtues from their societies conditioning, but they prefer to be able to drop any virtue on the spurr of the moment if that's what the rest of the gang says is now appropriate.
I could give you several Supreme Court cases and rulings but they would of course not apply because atheists don't swear by the same code that the court of justices do. Unless its a case that favors the "dis-establishment" clause which they believe is part and parcel the first ammendment. Whenever another religion or worldview that is not their own gets taken down a notch there is a cry of victory from the atheists. Sure sounds like a religious experience to me.
Supreme Course case number 1
http://www.secularhumanism.org/index.php?page=pr_…
Federal Court Case Number 2
http://www.edweek.org/login.html?source=http://ww…
An example of trying to shift strategies:
http://vftonline.org/Patriarchy/definitions/human…
When all else fails use semantics to redefine that which you prefer to stay undefinable.
http://candst.tripod.com/sechum.htm
When the term "secular" is employed to mean "non-religious," Secular humanism as a philosophy is allowed to trump any other aspect of philosophy that admits to having values placed in anything other than the basic thought content of their intellectual aguements.
Atheists fully believe this is only a rational undertaking when in reality is is based upon presuppositions about reality and origins which they cannot ultimately prove, but for which they place faith. Their faith then turns into proven factual "science" when they have enough circular loops and nested logical fallacies constructed to convince themselves and others that they are right and all others are wrong, especially those who admit to having a bias one way or the other.
Objective facts are not biases – therefore by claiming to have only the facts and just the facts – the presuppositions can be totally assumed to have complete merit and infallibility, sure sounds like a religion to me.
Humanism is a philosphy and religious humanists will admit this. Secular humanists have much the same values and beliefs but because they "call" themselves secular, they can trump anyone who thinks otherwise about their perspectives upon faith, ideology and life- stances.
Saying you are "secular" just means they try like heck to not to fit into a mold that others could say has any trappings of religion, when in essence all it is doing is allowing for the dis-establishment of culture and other religions accept their own.
Try being a "secular" humanist in a Muslim country and they will laugh at you before they kill you, if you even get a chance to describe what you claim to not believe in.
If this keeps up the entire world will be living under the rule of either dictators or muslim dominated cultures.
I don't know what else to say. This is how I view our discussons over the past several months.
Karl:
You just don't get it.
Philosophy is NOT religion, no matter how much YOU say it is. Your assertion is meaningless.
You keep interpreting everything you read through the lens of your religious mindset. It does you a disservice, since you are being completely opaque to perfectly simple and clear concepts.
A is a subset of B, does not imply that A = B, nor that B = A. That's where you fail.
The ONLY thing that makes one atheist like another atheist is their common lack of belief in gods.
Some atheists are also humanists. I would hope most, but atheism does not suddenly convey wisdom or intelligence (just as becoming religious implies nothing about your mental capacity, emotions, morals, or ability).
You continue to conflate dissimilar and disjoint concepts from the perspective of your religion, because in your religion these concepts are not disjoint. Try to think a little outside your own box.
Your apparent fear of Islam identifies you as one of those poor deluded masses who think all Moslems are fundamentalist mujahaddin intent on radical world domination. Again – try to think outside your box just a little.
The biggest religious threat to the US is fundamentalist christians. Not moslems, not atheists: christians!
The US was founded upon a desire for freedom. Most fundamentalist christians would have us remove secular freedoms and impose narrow christian strictures upon education and public morals. You would deny gay rights. Deny a woman's right to choose. Deny a child's right to impartial and honest education.
These are all activities supported and championed by the christian right in recent months and years. Prop 8 in California; Abstinence only sex ed, restrictions on 'Plan-B' availability and use, continuous attacks on family planning clinics, and attacks on Roe-v-Wade; 'the Wedge manifesto', 'Only a Theory' and 'Teach the Controversy' in school boards across the nation – most recently in Texas.
You, Sir, are a dishonest debater. You seek to argue from a position that has been continually rebuffed. You make claims about your 'opponents' that have continually been refuted, yet you continue the claims without missing a beat and without apology.
You continually use phrases such as 'atheists believe'.
We've said it before – the only common 'belief' of atheists is their lack of belief in god(s). The only common attribute beyond that lack of belief is that they (we) are all human.
Until you recognize that very simple fact, and start arguing from honesty rather than lies, then further conversation with you is not only pointless, it is self defeating.
Karl: I am appalled that you are a science teacher, yet (are proud to?) admit that your teach creationism.
Creationism is not science. If you want to "teach the controversy" do so in church, where your religion belongs. – not in a school, and escpecially not in a science class, where such teaching is specifically illegal (not to mention completely inappropriate).
You, Sir, are abusing your position of trust and authority.
A conversation on a blog is one thing. I can happily engage with you and discuss where I 'believe' you to be in error, and vice versa. Your duties as an educator demand that you follow the strictest guidelines, or do you believe your religion makes you exempt from common law ruling? So far as I'm aware, the 'religious waiver' pushed by the religious right, and approved by the Bush Government applied only to provision on medical treatment. It did not, and does not, apply to education!
Tony, the leaders of a culture have always been directly involved with the education of the next generation, be that in a public classroom, private school, church school or home school.
Why do you think our universities are in the shape they are in today and why some schools like MIT are beginning to open up the peer review process to the public?
I happen to be teaching in a private Christian School or I wouldn't be as vocal as I am about what I teach and how I teach it.
It is not yet illegal to teach in a public school the things I have espoused. I might not get highered or stayed employed because of the ruckus people like you would make, but I do believe you are way out of line to say that what I'm doing is illegal. That could very well end up in a court of law with libel or slander written all over it.
I do not use legal retoric to tell you how to raise your children or what to teach them regarding religion. You do that by your life style, your mannerism towards others, and the values you display before them.
If people choose to send their children to a school where I teach, knowing full well the perspective and basic curriculum of what I'm going to be teaching, are you going to fault them as well? Or are they just more pieces of the problem with America?
I stated I teach science from a creationist point of view. This includes aspects of origins that are not verifiable by any tricks of any scientific trade that I know of. I didn't say I teach creationism as science. Real science in itself has nothing to say about origins – that purely philosophical in nature.
Karl
I went to a catholic school. I don't recall science including religious instruction, or instruction in anything not covered by the defined curriculum.
Christian School or not – you are overstepping the bounds if you teach outside the curriculum.
The fact that you are at a private school makes you 'safe', but only insofar as your school can find parents who desire religious indoctrination for their children. As the religious population shrinks, so too will the desire and 'need' for such factories of falsehood.
tell me again – what the hell has origins got to do with the basic science curriculum? I presume you also talk about the big bang, the many millions of papers, the mountains of evidence, the years of work and many thousands of peer reviewed researchers who support the science side of the 'equation' – versus the few unpublished louts from 'institutes' like the Discovery Institute in Seattle whose expertise is solely in apologetics (and poor apologetics at that)?
You state that it is not illegal to teach what you do in a public school. I think you're wrong. Maybe you should pay more attention to the constitution, and the articles of your state board of education dictating what you may teach in science class – it doesn't include religion.
Lastly: your school obviously has pretty poor standards, or it would not have 'highered' (sic) you.
Karl writes:—"Secular humanism is a religion, although no one at DI would claim to have entered into its holy places."
Interesting that only people who don't like it make that claim.
Comes a point when bullshit just has to be labeled as such. Secular humanism is many things, but it does not entail WORSHIP. As it concerns itself with no supernatural deity, it is by definition NOT a religion, and the continued assertion by its detractors that it is only serves to demonstrate their lack of appreciation for it.
What certain individuals may choose to do regarding how they conduct their internal dialogues with whatever ideas pump their 'nads, for something to be a religion there must obviously be a two-way concurrence over method and dogma. Faith, however you define it, is not sufficient to define anything as a religion, it only defines an individual's stance toward something.
Secular humanism does not require faith from individuals. Like any philosophy, it is a collection of ideas that one may take or leave as one chooses.
But in order for you to make your argument more substantial, it is necessary for there to be certain equivalencies among ideologies and as I pointed out in my post on science and religion, religion cannot allow itself to be displaced by anything other than another religion. Hence it is necessary to define any competing ideology as exactly that, which would in some ways make it a "fair" fight.
Too bad. There will always be an apprehension of the numinous people experience, and often this becomes what we define as either spiritual or religious experience. The organization of these experiences within a defining set of principles is the basis for religion, this is true, but that does not exhaust the possibility of alternate systems that do not partake of the self-stated Theistic element that is also essential to a religion.
Secular humanism does not require a Theistic element. Ergo, it is not A Religion.
You have made this assertion often. It is an error. Find another way to make you point. You're smart, you can do it. But to keep claiming that peuce is magenta is dogged nonsense.
Hanna you are starting to contradict yourself.
"Until we know everything, we should hesitate towards our choice version of certainty,"
versus (another Hanna quote, written presumably without hesitation)
"The Bible is historically accurate, literally exact, and truthfully specific throughout."
Just trying to keep you from tripping over yourself!
Growth of Islam in Scandinavia
http://www.brusselsjournal.com/node/920
http://www.wwrn.org/article.php?idd=25761&con…
http://www.historyofjihad.org/scandinavia.html
Atheists and agnostics, how will you deal with this?
Karl.
First: get your own blog if you're gonna make a habit of doing that in the comments.
Second: Your own religion clearly seems to be the only lens you're able to view the world through; as such the concept of someone living without any kind of religious belief – even when they go to great lengths to explain in fine detail how they do it (detail not necessary for most intelligent, rational people, religious or otherwise, to gain an understanding, it must be said) – is as alien and incomprehensible to you as the concept of living as a fish is to any human. However, while no human could possibly hope to understand fishy-ness, the vast majority of religious people that I've spoken to do in fact understand, at least on a surface level, the concept of living without religion (even if they don't agree with it).
Your continued, dogmatic, baffling, incompetent and wishful attempts to redefine any philosophy/worldview/opinion/whatever you see fit as religious are misguided, wrong, fallacious, delusional, incorrect, bone-jarringly fuck-headed and hint toward a thickness comparable to two short planks on a rainy day. I've tried explaining to you in very simple terms, using the smallest words I know how, how my life is not governed by any sort of religious belief. Yet you continue to insist that my life is indeed so governed.
Let me state this one last time and request – no, demand – one last time, that you accept MY description of MY OWN LIFE (as I have accepted yours without reservation) and cease being so fucking arrogant to assume you know my thoughts & opinions & philosophy better than I do: I am categorically, absolutely and completely NOT RELIGIOUS. If you continue to insist that I am then you, sir, by any rational standard, can only be considered a fool.
I also don't know what else to say. Except to wonder from the back of which cereal box you cut your degree(s). My father, a senior high school science teacher for thirty years, would be as horrified as I am to see such poor analysis, flimsy arguments, wishful thinking and flawed reasoning (let alone such arrogant presumptions about another person's thoughts and ideas, especially after having same described in unnecessary detail) from one of his adolescent students, let alone from an (alleged) colleague in science.
Sincerely over it,
Hank
I've never denied you your right to judge/view me anyway you choose, as well as what you believe concerning my religion or my worldview. I could feel very offended (which seems to be how you try to handle most outspoken theists) I can't speak for Hanna, but for me, not so much.
You have every right to believe and say what you wish about me and my views which you claim to understand because you've been there and done that.
You seem to have no problem stating your peace concerning me. I state my peace concerning my interpretation of your worldview and while I guess you have every right to be offended, that will not change my perspective upon the matter.
You've told me repeatedly I've got no right to say these things about you, but you've done little if any to disuade me otherwise.
If you're alive and human you have a religion of some sort, you may not be able or willing to admit it but that's the way I and many others see the matter.
Bob Dylan put it this way – Everybody "Gotta Serve Somebody." Here are the Lyrics.
http://www.geocities.com/servesomebody2001/lyrics…
Karl: I don't see any reason to believe that everyone has to "serve" a make-believe persona. Of course you are free to believe what you want, but it appears that we've give you more than your fair share of time on this topic now.
Karl
I'm coming to think you a liar on more than one front. Are you truly a science teacher in an accredited school? Your behavior on this blog so far suggests otherwise!
You are exceedingly weak in those attributes I see as common to most teachers: your spelling is awful (piece, not peace; hired, not highered); you seem unable to analyse or discuss anything without imposing your own particular worldview/preconceptions/biases (unlike most teachers I know who seem extremely adept at managing and correcting for their biases during review/reading); you have a one track mind (most teachers of my acquaintance are adept at 'juggling'); you refuse to acknowledge the existence of alternative viewpoints, and are unable to modify your own behavior or approach based on evidence.
I'm sure you are a nice enough person 'in the flesh'. In prose, however, you are a troll.