I got into a stupid flame was the other day on Facebook with a friend (and her commenters)
She [A] posted the following to her wall:
If you think that putting up a mosque 600 ft. from ground zero and have
the opening of the mosque on the anniversary of 9/11/11, is immoral,
inhuman and a complete lack of respect for the memories of all that
perished on that day and their survivors & that politicians are
doing a grave injustice to the fallen heroes, their families and the
people of New York City, THEN PLEASE COPY AND PASTE THIS TO YOUR WALL
The first commenter followed with
[B] its digusting its even a thought in someones head…..
I saw this and saw yet another vile, right-wing sponsored attack on civil liberties. I am not religious, and abhor religion. I think it perpetuates an evil upon the world that does incalculable damage to current and future generations. However, I do support the rule of law, and the Cordoba House people have the right to build there.
So I posted, what I thought was a reasonable and factual statement to counter the right-wing memetics that have been strewn across the TV & Blogosphere in recent days:
[me] Sorry to have to say this, but the mosque (prayer room) already exists at the site. The proposed building is to be a Community Center (like a YMCA, but Muslim not Christian).
There is nothing disgusting in allowing people the right to self determination. Conflating the acts of terrorists with the wider community of people who share the faith professed by those terrorists is simply wrong!
Do you berate every Catholic because of the acts of the IRA, or because some priests are guilty of paedophilia? Every protestant because of the acts of the UDF, Timothy McVeigh, or Abortion clinic bombers?
The Constitution of the US is a wonderful thing, and it enshrines rights for EVERY American - not just the ones YOU agree with!
The US is the embodiment of the values and ethics espoused by the Enlightenment, and by philosophers like Voltaire:
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it" (Evelyn Beatrice Hall, paraphrasing Voltaire in her biography of him)
I thought this was fine – given the 700 character limits on facebook comments – but then the flaming began. I’ll just post the thread without edit and let it stand on it’s own. All I will say is that if this is the response of reasonable people, then this country is in worse shape than I thought.
[C] I have to disagree with Tony in that the basic idea of a memorial means different things to different cultures. In the Christian culture, putting a building or memorial near the site of the fallen is a way to honor the dead. In Islam, it is a way of honoring heroes and their actions. Big difference! While I don’t think it should be built there, I don’t think there is a legal way to prevent it. I would feel better if it were even just a few blocks away.
[B] Thank you (C)! Exactly!
[me] (C), I have to disagree. The community center is not, except in the minds of right-wing pundits a 'tribute' to anyone. This is NOT a memorial! It's a community center, and unless one has an agenda against people who happen to be Muslim, it is disingenuous (at least) to suggest otherwise. Care to cite the primary source of this being a 'Muslim Memorial'? Everything I've read to date states it's a community center. Not a memorial. Not a tribute to fallen heroes ( although such would be perfectly valid - many American Muslims worked and died at the Twin Towers on 9/11). It's a YMCAYMMA!
You may *disagree* with the appropriateness of their decision. But you can't *demand* that they not build their center.
And when you say “I think it should be further away”… how far away is acceptable? 5 blocks? 10 blocks? How about in Jersey City? Or perhaps in Madison, WI? As soon as you start to draw arbitrary lines on ‘appropriate’ that have no foundation in law, you start on the path of societal control that even Stalin could only dream. Our ideas of appropriate all differ. Our constitution allows us the ability to ‘meet in the middle’ recognizing that while we may disagree, we agree on the fundamental – that I may not impose my narrow perspective upon you, not vice versa.
I find it strange that the same people who shout about ‘activist judges’ and ‘the coming of Sharia law in the US’ are the same ones demanding the kind of control over the body politic that they so denigrate in others and that they see around every corner the scary ‘other – ‘ so much so they are more than willing to excise our freedoms for the imposition of more constraints and controls (but that’s OK, ‘cos it’s Christian, right?)
Lastly – I am happy that you recognize the legal right of the Cordoba House to build their community center. I’m less happy that you continue to conflate, and use denigratory terms to reference that ‘other’. They are Americans. Please accord them the same respect and rights that you would anyone else .
[D] I think we, as Americans, should do the right thing…..get even! I say we build a pork BBQ place on one side, and a strip club on the other.
Image by Erich Vieth (using Creative Commons WTC image and mosque image by Achilles (Dreamstime.com) with permission)
[A] OK Tony..stop it with the right wing bullshit. You are ASSuming this opposition is being fueled by those on the right. For most citizens, it’s not about right, left, or in the middle. It’s about the surviving family members. Where were you on 9-11? Switzerland, Canada, Spain? We were watching in horror the events of 9-11. (M) was traveling that day. I didn’t know if he was on a plane or on the ground. I remember the silence afterward. No planes in the sky. I thought the world was ending. I’m not an idiot. I know these were acts of extremism. Where’s the line? The only “agenda” I have currently is to decide whether or not I should drop your ass as a friend on facebook.
[A] EXACTLY what I was thinking, (D)! Bravo!
[me] (A) - I'm sorry you feel that way. On 9-11 I was in a building opposite the US mint in downtown Philly - watching the events unfold with two of my team members who lived minutes from the towers, - and realizing that we all had colleagues and friends at a client site in Tower one. My focus in the immediate aftermath was making certain that I could get everyone in my team to safety as all federal buildings and their vicinities were being interdicted. I lost a colleague from my office, and others from offices across the country in the attack. I have friends who were directly impacted, and many who still live in the vicinity. Despite being thus affected I can recognize appropriate versus inappropriate, and still stand by my earlier statement, and will even expand upon it: I disapprove of ALL religion, and think it exacts untold evil upon the world, but while this particular group act legally I will defend their right to do so - just as I would defend the rights of any others acting within the law. Whether you agree or not with the appropriateness of the Cordoba Group's decision to build their community center, there are NO valid objections available in law.
[me] (D) - there already is a strip club less than half a block away - and at least three BBQ (and fast food) joints within a few hundred feet.
OK – I admit this was an asinine response. 🙁 But then it’s followed by this…
[E] Where did this guy come from? I’m appauled at the justification. And for the record ….. there also is “no valid objections in the law” to the other 98% of americans having an issue w/ it and speaking that freely.
(A) – I’m w/ you on this one
I am dismayed, but unsurprised. There is no nuanced response. I find the knee-jerk reactions to be no different to those that fueled Catholic/Protestant ‘troubles’ in Ireland and the West of Scotland when I was growing up in the 60’s and 70’s. They are no different to the commentary made about ‘uppity’ blacks or white ‘apologists’ prior to integration. They are no different to the comments made about Japanese Americans interned following the attack on Pearl Harbor.
They are no different to the commentary of any bigot.
I wholly disagree with the stance of those behind Cordoba House, just as I am against those who build mega-churches, or fight to close down abortion clinics, or deny basic rights to LBGT couples. However, I will defend the expression of those viewpoints against similar bigotry.
UPDATE: One of Scalzi’s guest bloggers apparently feels the same way. Great post on this same issue at Whatever
UPDATE 2: Daryll Lang posted a Photo Essay and a blog post on this issue. Both deserve to be seen.
UPDATE 3: Some final posts over the past 24 hours…
[C] The issue has absolutely nothing to do with religious tolerance and everything to do with compassion, kindness and sensitivity to the families of the 9/11 victims who were murdered there. Period.
[me](C): Does that compassion extend to the many Muslim Americans families who lost loved ones? I know of one such family, personally (mentioned in passing above).
All I see is an 'astroturf issue "think of the families", which appears from a dispassionate perspective to be more about "Oh Noes, Teh Muslim" than it is about "values" or "compassion". I have not seen ANY outcry from anyone other than the right-wing blogosphere and pundits, such as Gingrich, Beck, Limbaugh, and their ilk. This is a manufactured issue, that has become a stain on American Democracy. Are the constitutional rights of Americans so small a thing that being a "Muslim American" makes you somehow less deserving of those rights? The outcry against this is manufactured and directed by nothing less than bigotry. I don;t mean to imply that people who are uncomfortable with the decision are bigots. Simply that the issue has been manufactured and amplified by bigots.
[A] ok. we can agree to disagree. Tony—lucky thing I’m so crazy about your wife and kids—ok, and you too—MOST of the time. I can’t believe you called me a flippin bigot! NO RESPONSE NEEDED 😉 My page, I get the last word.
You’ll notice that reading comprehension is not a strong suit here – since I specifically stated that those people who felt uncomfortable are not necessarily bigots – but the people instigating the outrage most certainly are.
I declined to comment further.
UPDATE 4: The NYT has an article that reports how the rampant and vocal opposition to the moslem center (mosque)
is playing into the hands of extremists by bolstering their claims that the United States is hostile to Islam
I'm a technophile with an enduring interest in almost anything real or imagined. I suffer fools badly, and love trashy science fiction, plot-free action movies, playing guitar, and baking (especially scones. You haven't lived 'til you've eaten my scones. I've recently undertaken bread, and am now in danger of gaining in a matter of weeks the 60 pounds I've lost in the past 2 years). My wife & I are Scottish, living north of Atlanta, GA, with two children, one dog, and a growing collection of gadgets. I work for a living.
I believe I agree with the majority of people in the USA over matters of basic morality, and religious philosophy/worldviews.
I didn't say all of the writings of such and such a person are of equal importance or that such and such a doctrine should be allowed to supersede the basic beliefs that are shared in common. – Especially that "Love your neighbor as yourself" one.
Those people with basic morality and worldviews that agree with the basic philosophy of loving your neighbor as yourself I have no issues with.
Those people with religious views or other worldviews that disdain others for their skin color, social status, degree of education, institution of higher learning, values, opinions, beliefs and yes – even attitudes towards origins, walk a very fine line in regards to loving their neighbors.
It is one thing to have a hard time actually learning and understanding what a person actually believes about some matters, but it is another thing to drag the person over the coals because you believe these ideas could never be true or that they simply just do not sit well with you.
It's when preferential ideas and beliefs get changed into disdain, hatred and abuse that most Americans would admit that a person's bias and worldview has gotten the better of them.
Radical right wing conservatives that think they are God's gift to humanity and that they have the only correct way of viewing the world show disdain for others.
Radical left wing socialists that think they are required to carry on Marxists agendas and judicial activism because they know better than the majority of the people and that they are the only ones that have the correct way of viewing the world show disdain for others.
Radical fundamental religion of any variety is only truly harmless when it is concerned with helping others as much as they themselves would like to be helped if they were in the same situation as another.
Even rational "scientific" skeptics that mock and lose their patience because their worldview is so much different and above the faith of those who actually admit they put their faith in something, show disdain for others.
Radical Moslems that are directed to kill those that won't convert to their faith aren't much different from anyone that looses their temper about matters that are an interpretation of evidences that one uses to "support one's worldview."
What I can't really fathom is how a basic right (to some a god/creator given right and for others an American/Constitutional given right) of considering everyone equal in terms of individual rights, enables some to claim we have to be equal in every other way as well.
Some of these other ways that America seems to have a problem with right now are in the following list.
Does equality of personal individual rights mean,
1) Everyone must have the same amount of material possessions – i.e. mandatory – share and share alike?
2) The government must dictate where charity and loving your neighbor begins and ends?
3) Everyone must be considered as having the same abilities as everyone else?
4) Everyone including the federal government must be allowed to buy, purchase or sell anything they would like?
5) Everyone that has a track record for direct involvement in stirring up violence – which means no intention of abiding by that "Love your Neighbor" concept have a right to preach and stir up others to do the same?
6) Everyone must have the same ability to define religious terms like "marriage" as they would like?
7) Civil unions are pointless unless they are recognized as marriages?
8) Everyone that can arrive onto American soil legally or illegally has a right to claim they belong here?
9) Anyone can simply believe that being “legally born” here actually makes them "American" in their ideas, values, beliefs and opinions?
10) We should not arrest or try a minority American because they can’t get an even playing field?
11) Anyone who can get a following be they a religious, political or secular humanist shouldn't be scrutinized to see if they really have demonstrated this love your neighbor as yourself concept?
12) Everyone must pay to the government what is needed to further any means that any political party decides will accomplish making the people actually feel more equal to their neighbors?
The only real obligation we should be under is one to love one another, and to encourage others to do the same.
The government can not make any of us want to love anyone. All they can do is to repeatedly haggle over who is complaining the most and try to satisfy those with the biggest hand out clamoring for their share of the pie.
The people of America have learned all too well that the government is at their control in terms of social spending and it will be the undoing of this nation unless people already in political office refuse to give in to the cries of the people for equality in everything!
Why are federal funds being used to assist in the funding of any building that will be directly under the auspice of an Imam that is using the tolerance of America as means of promoting his religion which is anything but a love your neighbor as yourself generic religion? If you want to know about the real religion that ostracizes and controls the population through religious doctrine then you need to look no further.
They can not hide their teachings about the infidels. The majority of their people may seem very docile, loving and gracious people. Praise Allah that there aren’t more strongly motivated Type A personalities that are recruiting as many members for Jihad as they would like.
I am in favor of religious freedom, but that is not to say I gladly approve of federal and city finds being used to keep a majority opinion of the people from being heard or even voiced in an open forum hosted by governmental leaders. I certainly don’t approve of the construction and governmental financing for any part of this particular Mosque on this particular site at this time.
Love your neighbor as yourself is not in the guidebook for this Muslim Imam unless your neighbors are also Muslims.
There is no appropriate place to build this particular community center if it is within the confines of the footprint of the destruction of 9-11 –that is all the majority of Americans are saying.
Although I still don’t know why atheists see little harm in the government spending public monies that sponsor one religious endeavor over another . . .
Perhaps some religions are more equal than others?
I never said they did't have a right to build a Mosque/community center. They most certainly do. Let them build it outside of the 9-11 destruction footprint. Let them build with their own fundraising done at their own cost and let them find their own financing . . . unless they are willing to allow even a few small christian churches in places like Saudi Arabia.
Toleration is not toleration unless it is a two way street.
One of my oldest colleagues is a bishop in the Mormon Church – I like him as a person, and he does a good job. We've spoken from time to time about his church work and it does include the, to him upsetting but necessary, act of exclusion for 'apostacy' – leave if you wish, but if you do, you're gone!
Mark has spoken from time to time about his upbringing (as a mormon). Why not ask him for the unvarnished truth? No – you'd rather make something up.
Regarding my child – you may find this hard to believe, but my son, my daughter, my wife, and my friends are all individuals. I do not, and would not wish to, control their views. However, if they choose a path I find troubling, I would definitely discuss it with them! That is what friends and family are supposed to do!
I would consider a child joining a church to be such an act requiring deep conversation (and also counselling, but you likely ascribe that response to by bias).
Wouldn't you consider me a bad parent if I simply allowed a child of mine to be brainwashed into a cult? To join a group that I consider evil, or misguided, or just wrong? Would you want me to stand idle, and would you consider my lack of action appropriate?
Would you accept it happily if your child decided to be atheist? or Hindu? or Moslem? Or if your child told you they were gay?
I find it troubling that you would think it perfectly acceptable to simply accept the fact if a child of mine joined (or considered joining) a religion. To my mind every religion is simply a cult. That my child would accept their dogma and tenets without a shred of evidence other than 'feeling good', to subsume their individuality and succumb to the authority of (as I've said before) priests or preachers in thrall to an evil and capricious god.
No. Fucking. Way.
And regarding getting married in church. Many of my friends, here and in the UK, were married in churches. I wasn't. No surprise there. I am, at least, consistent.
I find it a pointless and pompous intrusion into an otherwise joyous celebration. Two people are being joined. Not two people and an imaginary sky-fairy!
However – as I've said before. What other people do is only my concern if it directly or indirectly affects me. If they choose to celebrate with a church ceremony, then that is their right, their privilege, their choice. I would be a shallow and bitter fair-weather friend if I denied them their choice of celebration, or denied them my full and heartfelt participation in their special day.
I've participated in many church weddings – as part to the wedding party, and as a peripheral bystander simply watching from the pews. At no time have I acted as the kind of ass you portray me as.
I'm sorry your picture of me isn't quite as accurate as you think, and it tells a lot about your poor perception and hidebound stereotyping. This is a challenge for you, because the stereotypical atheist is just like me – that is, not a stereotype! We're your neighbors, your colleagues, your service people, your superiors, your subordinates. We're all just people.
Rather than hash this out, personal anecdote to personal viewpoint, let me refer you to Jon Krakauer's excellent book "Under the Banner of Heaven."
You assume, though, that the agony was mine. It was not. I saw what I described, though it was not directed at me. (My parents had a rough departure and certainly some of that bled over into my own perceptions, but still I wasn't personally attacked.)
"Drinking the kool-aid" is so geared into so many religions that after a certain point the idea of tolerance within the faith is ludicrous. The Mormons are very good at masking that aspect because they have excellent P.R. discipline. I actually respected them for a long, long time because they were the only ones I met who didn't default to the "it's a mystery" line when confronted with an unanswerable question—they simply admitted they didn't know.
But they are a rather scary bunch on certain levels with an amazingly bizarre theology. Tolerance for them is only for outsiders. Letting their children freely decide is another matter entirely.
Google William Shunn as well. He has a memoir online about his experiences as a missionary and and apostate Mormon.
Tony—thank you for correcting my mistake, I meant Coughlin, not Conklin. Old age and neuronal pathways, etc…
I meant no personal affront to you in any way, if that is how it was perceived please forgive my choice of words and the apparent tone conveyed. My point was to say that before a parent lets a child "freely" decide a worldview different than their own there would likely be some times where the child might very well question the "love" of that parent.
How much more debilitating is this to a follower of a religion or worldview when he or she begins to come to the realization that the leaders of some group are willing and ready to resort to "the withholding of fellowship" (ostracism) or perhaps even murder when it is discovered that someone has some serious doubts and questions that really do need to be addressed with more than just the typical "thats not the way we beleive around here."
Exclusion or expulsion for that matter from any collectivist group is not the same thing as ongoing continuing love and concern for someone as an individual.
Show me where the LDS teachings ever officially excommunicates for life, to the degree you believe your bishop colleague in the Mormon Church stated.
Sure there are instances where leaders feel no other recourse to keep the peace in their local gatherings but the scriptural model for this to happen is for it to be done in an open public assembly and not behind closed doors or in some "counselling" session. One or two people should never have the authority to do this – that's just plain maniacle and egotistical.
This becomes the unwritten SOP of a desperate leader or departing followers that have only one desire – that their part or involvement in not being able to work things out be kept from public scrutiny.
If people didn't feel threatened there should be little need to afix blame for a difference of beliefs or worldviews on the other person.
It's just a simple common human SOP when it comes to dealing with differing worldviews that are considered to be irreconcilable unless one or the other can agree to some common shared authoritarian point of view.
The Koran inspired by Mohammed does contain much good, but Muslims admit it is their preference to keep people in line through fear. They consider it better, easier and more direct to simply wipe out the opposition point of view and instill fear in their ranks so they keep their authority from being challenged.
Not many skeptics are actually Muslims as far as I have ever heard, unless of course there are some Muslims sent on missions where they claim to be athiests or agnostics to further widen the reach and spread freedom and tolerance as a deception so these Muslims are true to Allah but as deceptive as all getout towards their fellow humans. Jihad, I believe permits this kind of activity.
The common shared point of view for a follower of Jesus Christ is suppose to be agreement upon the personal work, teachings and example of Jesus and sometimes very great tolerance over matters that are of a very much secondary importance.
Every organized religion that has real estate, bank accounts and boards of directors seldom have the opportunity or luxury of patience when it come to who ultimately gets possesion of these worldly goods. If the trustees of a group are more concerned with keeping order than they are with helping the hurting this is the kind of SOP that shakes out when the dust all settles down.
This is why so many people say "I would love to be a follower of Jesus, its just this bunch of his followers that I've had experience with that are oblivious to the harm they do to otherts."
Erasing this SOP from humasn nature seems to me to be the last thing to go, I know I constantly struggle with it.
Karl writes:—"Show me where the LDS teachings ever officially excommunicates for life, to the degree you believe your bishop colleague in the Mormon Church stated."
Since reading this, I've been mulling something over and I conclude that this is exactly where the disconnect comes in.
Karl, it doesn't matter if its written down. That's the problem. People internalize their religion and it gets bound up with who they are as people and comes out in many ways that, over time, become identified with people of a particular religion even though the founding documents don't seem to support it. What people do in the name of their religion is actually just as much a part of that religion as the source material.
And that's where the trouble enters.
People of all faiths "worship in their own way", as it were. If enough of them take up a practice that seems consistent with their beliefs, in the name of those beliefs, then eventually that behavior IS part of their religion.
So looking for this stuff in the books and arguing over provenance really does, in a way, avoid the main question, which is how do these folks manifest their faith in their daily lives. It really begs the question to say such-n-such a practice is actually not in the Bible (or the Koran or the Book of Mormon) when many, maybe most, of the adherents to that faith do something as part of their expression of faith.
SO maybe all this nitpicking really is kind of pointless. If someone says to me that their religion dictates that they ostracize apostates, even if they are family, or that they should hate gays just because, or that they think women should go around covered head to toe and have no say in their own lives, it doesn't matter to me if such practices or prejudices are in their holy books or not—I find those practices morally repugnant NOW, today. If they claim these things are part of what they think their god wants them to do, then I will have nothing to do with their god and will, in fact, criticize them for being assholes, period.
Turning their backs on people who have been Mormons and then reject the Church is a common Mormon practice, whether it's in the Book of Mormon or The Pearl of Great Price or not. That makes it a Mormon practice.
"You assume, though, that the agony was mine. It was not. I saw what I described, though it was not directed at me. (My parents had a rough departure and certainly some of that bled over into my own perceptions, but still I wasn’t personally attacked.)
I do not know if your parents were articulating their own worldview(s) or that of their son or both. You may not have been involved directly and personally, but certainly you were privy to some of matter. Your parents worldview(s) and your world view (what ever it was then or what it has become since then) were most definitely apart of the ordeal. I don't see how you could make such a claim unless your worldview was different from your parents, or hadn't been leaning one way or the other at the time. We're you still quite young?
Many rival worldviews discussed by civil human beings do end in agreements to disagree, but obviously this is not the case when it comes to matters of how one claims they have arrived at their interpretation of the evidence.
When people can agree that they are potentially equally flawed in matters of interpreting evidence, they are likely to respect each other. When one claims a superior manner for their appeal to the authority of their methodology, be it divine revelation or undivine interpretive insight that a collective group considers proper concerning either directly observed events by others or unobserved events all together, there is still the human faith or belief factor involved.
The basis of authority in each is not much different to me because it was people one way or the other who arrived at the meaning of their revelations or the ramifications of their insights as to what the evidence means to them.
When a group of people are involved in putting together a worldview there is also a "spirit" to their collective work. If that "spirit" is one of
Love your neighbor as your self – I kind of like that Spirit. Some call it the Holy Spirit. If the Spirit involved says lets see how long or what we need to do before we make them see the error of their futile ways I kind of think that an obnoxious and impersonal appeal to authority that I'd rather not anything to do with on a personal level.
Its like saying – the only thing left is shock therapy or a lobotomy and if that doesn't help who cares anymore because the problems is medically or surgically beyond hope.
The matter is a matter of the collective spirit that people use to defend the basis of their appeal to authority. People of most persuasions however are no very patient in dealing with differences of worldview.
Moses sees a burning bush that's not consumed and determines he's on holy ground. Someone else might finally comes to their senses and then says it must have been something that messed with their sensibilities. Without hard and fast evidence in hand it couldn't have any faith implications.
But stating it couldn't have any faith implications is like saying "I see nothing" unless it agrees with my worldview. This is why people will often get bent out of shape to protect the founder of their faith or those who have collectively put together the tenants of their creed.
This thread seems to be making a case for the equality of people. If that is the case then why not treat people with unequal worldviews the same?
Tolerance is not tolerance unless it is a two way street.
There is no equality of people's worldviews if someone mistakenly believes that they can eliminate a worldview by killing or shunning the people who possess it.
That pretty much back fires in most cases, unless you are a Muslim, or a tyrannt that wishes to rule the world.
Karl writes: Tolerance is not tolerance unless it is a two way street.
Welcome to my world.
I may not state my views, because to do so is offensive to my religious neighbor.
He, on the other hand, feels absolutely no compunction about speaking his views, and if called upon them and told they are offensive to me, the response is invariably that I am the one in the wrong, I am being strident, or hard, or callous, or some other term with profoundly negative connotations.
I must be tolerant of the religious authoritarians who would turn our classrooms into extensions of their church, who would require a religious test for public office, who consider anyone not proclaiming faith and fealty to god as being somehow dangerous, criminal, and immoral.
From an unbiased perspective, atheism in America is only tolerated if it is done quietly, behind closed doors, and never spoken of in public. Recall the recent furore over the completely innocuous bus ads, or the billboard in the Carolinas that simply stated "one nation, indivisible" only to be defaced by the inclusion of "under God" (just as congress did in 1954).
I am sick of that one sided behavior and I refuse to stand idly by while theocrats destroy the institutions that made this nation great.
Tolerance is a wonderful thing. Pity it seems to be in such short supply/
You would be surprised how many people in America do not feel compelled to speak up about matters of faith. Our President sure doesn't dare speak with clarity what he believes about either his Muslim heritage and upbringing or about his stated declaration of his Christian faith either.
I believe he is about as private of a person can be regarding matters of his own faith – because when he discusses them his pole numbers drop.
So tolerance actually means those with faith need to shut up because those without faith are offended. Lets see, that kind of thought process would mean that scientific skeptics have something besides rational thoughts governing their ideas about the world – kind of reminds me of Spock's ways of having to deal with both his Vulcan and Human heritage.
What people need to be careful about in their disagreements is the manner by which they disagree.
Disagreements are inevitable between people – the question is will the manner by which the people disagree enable an ongoing relationship to continue or not.
Some here on DI can agree with others as long as Evolution is their assumed commonality. The Blog is suppose to be focused on human animals after all.
Others here can agree as long as they don't believe in an after life and hold to a presumed scientific skeptic attitude which means the possibility of God is out of the picture.
The most obvious of disagreements that occur on DI are when it is presumed by some individual that people could really have come to a clear rational choice concerning non-belief in spontaneous macro-evolution or the hopr of an afterlife. How could people have a brain when thinking either or both of these could be possibilities.
Often just the glimmer of an inckling that someone believes the collective writings of any historical non-scientifically verified ideas earns the label of chopped liver.
It apears to me that the "doctrine of inclusion" and "act of exclusion" are a two sided coin around here but the rules are always set so that the outcome is clearly going to be in favor of he who has the right to make up the rules as they go along.
Kind of like – Tall tales you lose and better heads we win.
If tolerance is a two way street, then there's not special need for an individual to exercise it, is there? Wasn't Jesus' point about turning the other cheek is that the responsibility is on you regardless?
Equally flawed in matters of interpretation does not equate to being equally right—or equally wrong. (Boy, that comes close to the relativism of postmodernist deconstruction, Karl. Sometimes I wonder what exactly it is you're defending.)
—"Our President sure doesn’t dare speak with clarity what he believes about either his Muslim heritage and upbringing or about his stated declaration of his Christian faith either."
Please. Not you, too.
I rather like it that he keeps it to himself. He should. He's supposed to speak for America, not one specific group of Americans, and declarations of faith, like it or not, have become rather divisive—because they're fundamentally elitist. "I belong to this club and you don't. Nyah nyah!"
—"But stating it couldn’t have any faith implications is like saying “I see nothing” unless it agrees with my worldview."
Cuts both ways, doesn't it? If my worldview says Moses was doing magic mushrooms at the time—or was a savvy politician who knew the Hebrews wouldn't follow him without claimed divine backing—then the interpretation comes out differently. Erich von Daniken thought he was seeing an alien spaceship. But that's not quite the same as "seeing nothing", is it?
You are willing to bend the entire corpus of observed scientific theory around into tessaracts to make it fit your world view, and your main defense is often that we are no more capable of objective seeing than you are. Which is unprovable, really, but rather beside the point. You are perfectly capable of objectivity, Karl, but you tend not to use it.
There does come a point in the mixing of ideas when some simply fail to pass muster, not because they run afoul of worldviews, but because they can't defend themselves—they're wrong. Their introduction into the forum is welcome until that point is reached. Afterward they become a nuisance.
As to my perspective at the time my parents split from the Mormons, yes, I was quite young, and many of the things I saw didn't make sense till years later. I knew my parents were upset and that the people at church were upset with them. For their part, my parents didn't push an explanation on me. When I asked later, they told me what had happened. I read the Book of Mormon, we still had modest contact with the LDS through visiting teachers (who made for some very lively conversation—I said the LDS is a science fiction religion, a fact I realized long after, but their conversation was the basis of my "interpretation") and I was allowed to make up my own mind.
I was never censored or forbidden to learn something.
(Probably why I continually ran afoul of religious authority—I had questions, sometimes answers, they didn't like, regardless of denomination.)
The problem finally, though, Karl, is that all religion relies on argument from authority—you must simply believe. There's nothing to question, god is real, believe. You can't see it, hear it, touch it, taste it, feel it—but it's real. Only believe.
Do you actually watch TV, read newspapers, or participate in american cultural life? If so, you must do so in a vacuum, because from where I sit, religion is on the sleeve of every pundit, every commentator, every politician.
I see ads and billboards that force religion down my throat, that tell me I need to be 'saved'. I am surrounded by a multitude of churches, whose billboards proselytize 24/7 – some of them in neon lights. Commercial companies include 'jesus fish' signs in their advertising, to proclaim their solidarity with other christians. School boards and other elected officials impose religiously inspired dogma into otherwise secular education.
Are. You. Blind?
Religion is the default. Everywhere I go is it presumed. If I meet someone new, one of their first questions is likely to be "where do you church?"!
People in America don't feel compelled to speak up on behalf of their faith because THEY ARE IN THE MAJORITY!
Finally – regarding your strawman about how we argue here.
No – there is not a presumption of "we are right and you are wrong". There is a presumption of "If you make a claim, you better be able to point to corroborative evidence."
Things that are presumed to be "reasonably true" but worthy of discussion includes almost every topic under the sun. There are no proscribed topics, not proscribed comments – with a single recent exception, and that merely amplifies the presumptive expectations of the site – if you want to argue against something that is well founded, you better have a solid understanding of the case 'for' before you try to build a case 'against'.
You'll note that almost all of us are willing to argue with you (and others) on your turf – on religion, on interpretation, on history and contingency, and so on.
We (try to) take the time to learn the background and take the time to learn about religion before we attack (and usually we only attack in response to a comment).
I don't see any reciprocation regarding your like-minded fellows attacks on Science. All I see are religiously motivated attacks on science – talking point attacks that are ill-founded, ill-conceived, and generally badly (if at all) supported by evidence. Even when a real study is cited, it is usually one outlier study out of many conforming studies. Science does not work on the basis on 'one study'. It does not work on the basis of 'I like that answer'. It works only on the basis of multiple studies and experiments, independently repeatable, and independently corroborated with alternative and competing lines of evidence.
Cherry picking is a religious trait – both in selecting verses from your holy books to support an argument, and in selecting or discarding evidence to support your particular anti-science stance of the day.
You may not like it, but facts invariably do have a liberal bias – because education and fact gathering are intrinsically non-conservative activities.
You are only pissed because the many thousand year religious hegemony is crashing down on your watch!
I'd be very glad just to see those seeking truth be honest and quit with ad hominem attacks on other individual people, or other groups of people. This shows disdain for people even when you say its not meant as an offense. Many here on DI know they are being offense and just seem to be unable to help themselves.
As much as Erich says in his seemingly non-condescending way that people have to read and state the "merits" of evolution before they will be heard concerning any skepticism is like saying to Erich, you have to defend a client that has confessed his role in a criminal activity to you but you are dutifully called upon to either get hijm clear of the charges or to at least get him the most favorable sentence, perhaps as little as time served. All of this of course will be done knowing there is evidence that's being withheld from the full procedings because it serves the purpose of you the defense attorney.
I've witnessed enough ad hominem attacks and grow weary of them. I've seen the establishment and defense of straw men as well as enough appeals to this, that and the other authority of this, that and the other person, or the defense of one epistemological method over another.
What I have heard the loudest are claims of overwhelming but circular and interdependent interpretive evidence that could be used to sway the thoughts of anyone who was being called upon to join the ranks of the naturalists, skeptics, rational thinkers, but most of all the least biased of people in the world – the scientists.
Evolution is only possible if genetic mutations from random chance produce changes in existing species and that these changes provide an adaptive value in association with the interaction of a species and its environment that favors the mutations expression through repeated successive reproduction of more organisms. This is micro-evolution. I have no problems with this.
The concept of natural selection however was first suggested in the published observations of Edward Blyth in 1835 which was 24 years before the publication of Darwin’s Origin of Species. Blyth’s work is not likely to have been unknown to Darwin, who appears to have “borrowed” the concept from Blyth, ever since which time natural selection has been erroneously attributed to Darwin and cited as evidence of evolution. Blyth was a scientist that held to a creationist philosophy of origins.
The leap of faith that all naturalists must make then is two directional, both backwards and forwards in the accumulation of small changes over time amounting to significant large scale changes that morph one species into another. One must go backward in time to the place where random chemical combinations began to make cellular components that could possess an ability to reproduce a component repeatedly that could persist long enough to reproduce itself. Then the logical scheme blossoms into a grand order of descent from the simple to the complex.
Nice story – I don't believe it.
Welcome to everyone's world of wounded egos.
I've read plenty of the popularized Darwin, Huxley, Gould, Sagan, and Dawkins to see how the ideas of men that began with phrases like "perhaps this . . . " or "this could suggest . . ." through the need for ever increasing time frames continuing through one interpretation and onto the next re-interpretation of this and that and the other evidences to the point where if there could exist no other philosophical perspective beyond naturalistic science, evolution would be the only sensible vantage point besides some kind of alternate reality science fiction hoax created in a holodeck.
People have the ability to interpret evidence either in favor of one set of inferred proposed observations and/or against another set of inferred proposed observations.
The problem for scientific rationalism in this regard is that there will never cease to be skeptics to the claims of naturalism. That naturalistic philosophy is all there is, so don't to say it isn't the only perspective worth consideration. There are simply too many people with worldviews that can not be dismissed as unreasonable just because many claim that a scientific means of studying life and world we live in relegates other worldviews or philosophies to secondary positions.
Too many people have an ability to be skeptical of those who claim to be the true skeptics because they do not concede to the authority of any manmade interpretive scheme to be fool proof.
It is obvious that the individual fields of science, history and philosophy are cherry picked by evolutionist, to support their interpetation of the properness of elevating science above the others. Those who elevate science to the level that they believe it holds the answer to questions that science has no business answering are not able to fool philosophers who know where the scientific method is appropriate and where it is not appropriate.
Even if all of the people who respond to Erich's request to read, read, read from this point of view, he will not get people with skepticism about evolution to go away.
It is obvious that nearly everything written or spoken about concerning origins, and the earlist recorded ancient history of civilizations on earth is not scientific simply because there will always be the ability to doubt the authority of the worldviews of those describing their interpretation of the evidence.
Saying scientistific rationalists are required to be skeptical about any and everything except the models and theories they believe because they are the best we have to work with and are therefore scientific is the same thing as saying there are not any credible scientists that can possibly have any doubts about the importance of macro-evolution because they are twits.
Saying that scientists who honestly say there are clearly some matters that science itself can't answer using the scientific method are wrong and need to read what such and such a scientist says about the matter is the reverse of a straw man attack – it a straw man defense.
The people who put together the models and theories you claim are scientific are potentially as biased and subject to look for meaningful interpretations of evidence that can be used to bolster their worldview.
There are none so blind as those who will not see…
Evolution is as close to proven as can be…
Lenski, et al, and the citrate eating E. coli – a demonstration of random mutation leading to beneficial and complex activity — Lenski's website has more and better details, but suffice to say – this 20 year study demonstrated evolution in action
Ring Species. The act of speciation is demonstrably evolution (and runs counter to the creationist's 'theory of kinds'). Lots of sources for informaiton, but UC Berkeley's Understanding Evolution is a great starting point.
Talk Origins provides a host of specific 'creationist claims' about evolution, and rejoinders based on current scientific knowledge – it also points to resources for more information
There are many, many more. The Panda's Thumb is a great resource for understanding evolutionary thinking – including the wrangling over the details that underlies every scientific endeavor.
You may choose to dismiss these, but you cannot claim that they do not exist, nor can you claim that there is no investigation into evolution. It happens every day, in labs all over the world. That their findings support rather than refute evolution may be galling to you, and may be personally unpalatable, but that is science.
Finally – you said: Saying that scientists who honestly say there are clearly some matters that science itself can’t answer using the scientific method are wrong…
Sorry – not even wrong. Which questions are not in the realm of science? If you find one that is not mere fantasy, I'll eat my hat. If you find one that does not begin with philosophic presumptions (of godhood, of spirituality, or soul/body duality, etc) – again, I'll eat my hat.
Science deals with what is observable – directly or indirectly. No one has ever directly seen an electron, yet the fruits of 'electronic science' surround us. So no strawmen about 'direct observation', please. If something impacts the 'real world' then it has a measurable effect on the real world, and that effect should be measurable by instruments. (How and where does it impinge upon reality?).
So – your supernatural is only non-congruent with science if you deny it any real world impact. if there is a real world impact, then that effect is material, and subject to scientific scrutiny. If there is no real world impact – then you are simply making shit up.
Yes, well, that's the bottom line, isn't it? The question is why you don't believe it. Because the evidence is lacking or because it doesn't include the one factor you insist must be there?
My mother, who is a bright woman, with an intellectual bent, rejects evolution outright. She can comprehend the arguments, follow the logic, concedes even that some of the evidence is persuasive. But at the end she says "I am not descended from a monkey." For her it's entirely personal. She came from god. Period. Like you, she refuses to make the leap from the results of breeding for type to the possibility of long-term random mutation resulting in new species.
That's not an argument. That's an aesthetic statement.
—"The concept of natural selection however was first suggested in the published observations of Edward Blyth in 1835 which was 24 years before the publication of Darwin’s Origin of Species. Blyth’s work is not likely to have been unknown to Darwin, who appears to have “borrowed” the concept from Blyth, ever since which time natural selection has been erroneously attributed to Darwin and cited as evidence of evolution. Blyth was a scientist that held to a creationist philosophy of origins"
If that is an attempt to undermine or discredit Darwin, it fails. The notion of "evolution" had been "in the air" for a long time—Darwin's own uncle, Erasmus, proposed something of the sort. Of course we now all famously know about Wallace. Darwin did the long, difficult taxonomic research and drew methodological conclusions from what he found, codified them in a coherent manner, and took it out of the arena of mere speculation and made it a science. Attempting to take it away from him by implying that "creationists got there first" is kind of underhanded. And a red herring.
—"Saying that scientists who honestly say there are clearly some matters that science itself can’t answer using the scientific method are wrong and need to read what such and such a scientist says about the matter is the reverse of a straw man attack – it a straw man defense."
Clever. But beside the point. This is not an area where scientists *in the field of study under discussion* disagree much. (Most of the ICR bunch, while scientists, are scientists working outside their discipline.) That there is a small number of biologists who disagree with evolution is actually of little consequence—there are still a few astronomers who disagree with the expanding universe model in spite of ample evidence to deny steady state.
The disagreements in evolutionary biology are not over whether evolution is true but over how it occurs. Discussion about mechanism is still lively, but that doesn't discredit the theory.
—"The people who put together the models and theories you claim are scientific are potentially as biased and subject to look for meaningful interpretations of evidence that can be used to bolster their worldview."
No one here has ever disagreed with that, but that is not the same thing as saying they are no wiser as a group and that their conclusions cannot be trusted, tested, proven (or disproven) according the the methodology. Knowing you have a bias is the first step in controlling it and science offers a method whereby bias can be minimized to the point of near nullity.
You mention ad hominem attacks. You're quite gifted in them yourself. Very diplomatic. From time to time you damn with faint praise, backhandedly compliment someone while implying that the standard is skewed, etc etc. It gets difficult eventually to take an impersonal tack on arguments that clearly stem directly from a personal—not bias—preference.
You want god to be in the mix. Before, during, and after all else, you want god in there, and if something appears to eliminate god, it must be in error. That's your preference, certainly your bias, and colors almost everything you write. It becomes an argument from personal authority and at that point it is natural to start questioning your assumptions in the course of debate. If at times that rises to the level of ad hominem attack, well, that's where you're putting yourself.
Because "you don't buy it."
I've tried to be fair in my responses to you. And accordingly I haven't done bad "for a secular humanist"—there's that qualifier, in this instance perhaps praising with faint damns. The inference to be drawn is that there's something about secular humanists that makes what I say unique, which is a slap toward secular humanism and by extension almost an expression of pity toward me—"poor Mark, he's not a bad sort, if only he weren't so deluded by secular humanism."
You have a lighter touch than many who post here (certainly a far more enlightened approach that most of the self-professed Believers who post responses here) but you do the same thing. That's normal. That's human. This is an awkward forum for this at best, and does pretty well in spite of its limitations, but the limitations often squeeze quicker, less nuanced reactions than might occur in a formal, in-person debate.
Ultimately, this whole "is it evolution or is it creation" argument seems to have come down to the level of "Well, if our side doesn't have any physical evidence, neither does your side" kind of little kid arguing. Biblically based evolution deniers know they don't have evidence of a scientific nature to back up their claims, so they've attempted to deny that evolution has any, either, and your approach has the virtue of at least causing us to look at our bases, but it comes down to the same thing. It's another species of the church fathers who refused to look through Galileo's telescope (apocryphal as that story may be, it's illustrative) or the refusal to admit scientific evidence into the Scopes trial. If evidence can be successfully ignored, recategorized, or explained away as "bias" then it can safely be dismissed. That would put us all on the same level and the debate could resume without possibility of conclusion.
Protestations of fairness on the part of people who make such arguments falls into the same category for me as evolution does for you—I just don't buy it.
I mentioned that my family had contact after the split with the LDS with visiting teachers. I actually enjoyed these visits—these were bright, well-read folks who didn't seem to mind engaging in any topic and they gave as good as they got. But finally I realized that their attitude toward me was a bit condescending—they treated me like a dancing bear. "Oh, isn't he so bright and clever! Pity he's wrong about so much. But then what can you expect from a nonbeliever?" In retrospect it infuriated me.
Joseph Smith established a phony religion, made up out of practically whole cloth, and got people to buy into it. It can be demonstrated as based on B.S. all the way back to the first "revelations" and yet people believe it with such a fervor that nothing—NOTHING—will dislodge that faith. If I haven't made myself clear, let me be even clearer—it's BULLSHIT. But they believe.
That example alone is enough for me to conclude that belief is not evidence of truth. It is, in fact, enough for me to conclude that pretty much all such examples are about the same—BULLSHIT that people cling to out of motivations which, I suspect (my opinion entirely, have mostly to do with aesthetics. When I see someone who stands there and says "Oh, all those others are wrong, but mine is the right way" my impatience program uploads. Because they are arguing entirely out of their bias. Unmitigated, undiluted. They aren't even trying to be unbiased. They embrace their bias, they love their bias, they are at home with their bias.
And yes, that is very different from the practice of science, which tends to toss such people out on their ear. Maybe not immediately, but eventually.
In any case, I hope I have expressed myself clearly. Evolution may well be wrong. I await a superior explanation. Divine creation ain't it. The collapse of evolution as a theory would not be a concession that those desiring special creation as the answer are right. They'll still be wrong.
Yes, that is somewhat out of my bias—I have had so much holy smoke blown up my ass in the last 40 years that I flat don't trust people who use it.
"The Koran inspired by Mohammed does contain much good, but Muslims admit it is their preference to keep people in line through fear. They consider it better, easier and more direct to simply wipe out the opposition point of view and instill fear in their ranks so they keep their authority from being challenged."
Karl,
How many Muslims do you know personally? I know several Muslims, I dated an Iraqi Moslem girl in college. I've had close friends that were Moslem, My wife's best friend is Moslem, (My wife is Palestinian Christian). I have never known any that attempted in any way to force their beliefs on me or my family. Most have said it is a personal choice involving a lot of self discipline.
I cannot say the same of Evangelical Christians, My wife was pressured by members of the International Churches of Christ, a christian cult, in attempts to bring her into their church. Having lived the first 20 years of her life in Bethlehem where she was born, she could easily spot the outright lies the Church members believed.
But the ICOC IS a cult.
My wife now watches televangelists on Sunday morning TV. She often comments on how wrong and misguided the end-times theology of Nashville Cornerstone Church Pastor Maury Davis is. She is a big fan of Joel Olsteen, who is an engaging and charismatic orator, but she disagrees with his "Prosperity Gospel" messages.
Karl wrote:
"Not many skeptics are actually Muslims as far as I have ever heard,"
Well Karl, I can't say I've heard of many (or any for that matter) right-wing Christian Fundamentalists that were skeptics. Of course they COULD be posing as atheists or agnostics to infiltrate Free thought web logs in an attempt to turn us all into compliant little Aryan zombies.
Now for a bit on the post topic.
In the psychology of conducting wars, it has always been useful to gain the support of the public by dehumanizing the "enemy". In the so-called "War on Terror" (which should honestly be called "the War for Corporate Control of Middle East oil), the indigenous personnel are portrayed as suicidal zombies under the control of evil religious fanatics who want to take control of the world and enslave everyone.
I occasionally listen to talk radio, to get an idea of the extent of the right-wing radicalization in this country. A recent caller to one of the nationally syndicated radio program had an almost Monty Python-esque train of illogic "proving" that Moslems do not worship the same god as Christians and Jews.
He claimed that in the Koran, there were a dozen passages claiming the Jews and Christians do not worship the true god. Based on this information he implied that is the Moslems who worship a false god.
It sounded to me like the caller had not actually researched this. I took about 15 minutes to locate and download an English translation of the Koran from Project Gutenburg, open it with a word processor and search for the passages. Every one of the passages explicitly stated that the Jews, Christians, and Moslems worshiped the same god, except those that did not practice the articles of their faith in their day to day life, who were liars and unfaithful.
Why should this matter to an atheist or agnostic? The religious belief is not the point. The point is that political leaders are manipulating the followers of religion to promote their agenda by spreading fear, paranoia and hate that can only lead to violence and the total opposite of peace.
There is a political movement in the middle east called Islamism that twists Islam to promote hate. There is a similar political movement in the US that twists Christianity to promote hate. This is a problem for all.
This is not meant to be or even sound convoluted but I'm sure someone here will probably take it in some way unintended.
I'm very confident that a very large majority of the members of the Muslim faith are peaceful and much beleaguered by the few who claim to be of their same ranks but who in essence have hijacked the masses through the control of the message the world hears about them from extremists, radicals and media markets.
Most Muslims would not kill an "infidel" even if Mohammed was to hold them down and say cut here along the dotted line – unless they were threatened with death themselves. That death might be by literal execution or by the easy manner by which an offense to the Law can be manufactured without much effort.
It's an awful way to view it, but in uncivilized cultures, this is how Islamic leadership is promulgated.
Why? Because they know their faith has been hijacked by the mistranslation of the Koran and the improper teachings of zealots who do not even care about anything but the politics that is married to their religion so that they change living into a "Holy War" when things aren't going well for the leaders. There is no other way for a zealous extremist Muslim to ever change their ways unless they are forced into retirement through medical incapacity.
But once even in this role many have directed the ongoing affairs of Jihads for years as we see Ben Ladin still doing.
Leaders of this sort must win even if it means silencing those of their own ranks who speak in any way against them. They simply impose their leadership onto others who mostly don't want it but who have no way of bringing back the full message of the Koran because Sharia Law is the most conservative thing on the planet once in place. Those who then control what God says is the Law, rule with an iron hand.
Sharia Law then imposes not only the content of the codified law but also forces the leadership to propagate itself by what come natural to human nature – silencing the opposition, or killing the opposition if they won't shut up. By experience they know this controls the rest of the population by fear and at the very least leaves great anxiety about how worse the next leader could be.
It like when a preacher in Florida that announces he's going to burn Korans on 9-11 to make sure everyone knows where the lies and deceit in this world are coming from. It's in human nature to lie and perpetrate all manner of selfishness. If someone thinks the Muslims do a worse job at self-correcting their leaders errors there is good reason for it.
The rank and file members of Islam who would love nothing better than to love their neighbor as themselves, have a hard time stating that they agree that certain groups of extremists are "terrorists" because they either fear for their lives if they say it, or they don't know which small fraction of the members of their own Mosque would make life extremely unpleasant for them if they really spoke out or made it appear that there were skeptical of the motives of their leaders.
How strange, but the faith and teachings of Christ can just as easily be hijacked by those who raise the standard of Christian, but who would decry we must protect the faith from external "infidels," all the while the real struggle is to not distort or change the true message of Christ even if it means eating their meat and potatoes as humble shepherd's pie..
Seems the answer to the basic flaw in how poor leadersjip is at the root of many of the problems this world faces can only be somewhat safeguarded against by term limits.
Wonder if Muslim Clerics would every submit to the idea?
Wonder if any strong authoritative class, royal or divine rulers, perhaps even the "popular mandate" variety of leaders of democracies will ever admit that even their ability to shape or control those they lead can corrupt absolutely?
I respect any leader or group of people for that matter who agree that their perspective may need either fine tuning or major adjustment for that matter.
This of course can't easily be done once these leaders or groups of people have made it known that all they care about is getting their agenda in place and imposing it upon the will of others for as long as they can maintain control.
This applies to political parties, religious organizations, educational cooperatives at any level and even those who claim no religion but who would see their worldview silence all others and reign supreme in dominant philosophical terms without a means of considering of there is any need to reconsider the assumptions of their presumed authority.
The Universal Life Church which just about claims they can ordain any living breathing person proves those with various religious views or even lack of them are not much different from anybody else. In this scheme only a few dollars buys the affiliation and the accompaniing documentaton that certifies the person is alive and breathing at the time the certificate was issued. This ordination was no other stipulations as far as I can see. Not much room to state anything else on the appliation other than name, address and method of payment. If you would like however other materials are markeyed that make a mockery of the term "accredited."
seems like a great way to get the trappings of being religious with no standards other than your own.
I wonder if that was how most corrupt leaders got control of other people's lives, by first defining terms and establishing standards as they saw fit.
It reflects upon the current situation in the US congress, with Republicans proud to be the party of NO. (leadership? or self-interest?)
It reflects upon the opposition to the Cordoba House project (principled leadership, or sheer demagoguery?)
It reflects upon the government in Iran – seemingly democratic, but subject to the whim of the clerics. (principled leadership based on religion, or authoritarian dogma?)
It reflects upon the actions and statements of the Catholic Church regarding paedophile priests (compassionate leadership, or dismissive authoritarianism?)
It reflects upon the attitudes of those who would ban abortions in all cases (principled leadership, or plain misogyny?)
And on, and on, and on.
The common thread throughout all of these issues, is that the leadership problem seems to be enhanced and supported by organised religion – authoritarian dogma (common to almost every religion) seems to lead to authoritarian leadership – and past a certain point that becomes simply corrupt leadership.
Karl – regarding your comment on extremists taking over religions (if I may so paraphrase).
Welcome to the world we live in. This is exactly why we, as non believers, feel so beleaguered in our daily lives.
It is not the moderates who cause us angst. We are troubled by the extremists who would turn this and every other country into their theocratic authoritarian playgrounds. Places where their choice of scripture dictates the law, the public behavior, and the private behavior of every citizen. Where public office is available only to the select. Where nonbelievers and people of other faiths are, at best, second class citizens.
We know there are moderates. We are appalled that they will not speak out against the extremists. Regardless of the religion.
I do not want to abolish religion. I do want to remove its stranglehold on public and private life.
Karl we're are not drinking the toxic kool-ade here.
"This is not meant to be or even sound convoluted but I’m sure someone here will probably take it in some way unintended."
Actually it doesn't sound convoluted at all. It sounds like a misguided and biased point of view.
"I’m very confident that a very large majority of the members of the Muslim faith are peaceful and much beleaguered by the few who claim to be of their same ranks but who in essence have hijacked the masses through the control of the message the world hears about them from extremists, radicals and media markets."
This does seem to be the case. at least in English speaking nations but particularly here, where the media lead by the Fox Corporation has greatly conflated the Islamist fringe organizations as being representative of all Muslims. In actuality, this is akin to the idea of claiming all Christians are racist terrorists because of Eric Rudolf and his ilk.
"Most Muslims would not kill an “infidel” even if Mohammed was to hold them down and say cut here along the dotted line – unless they were threatened with death themselves. That death might be by literal execution or by the easy manner by which an offense to the Law can be manufactured without much effort."
Most Muslims will not kill. Period. Their religion forbids it. However the fringe Islamist
groups, like Al-Qaeda, and the Taliban have twisted the precepts of religion to suit their political agenda.
"It’s an awful way to view it, but in uncivilized cultures, this is how Islamic leadership is promulgated."
It's also the very same way the right-wing political movement is gaining its power. Does this imply we are uncivilized?
"Why? Because they know their faith has been hijacked by the mistranslation of the Koran and the improper teachings of zealots who do not even care about anything but the politics that is married to their religion so that they change living into a “Holy War” when things aren’t going well for the leaders. There is no other way for a zealous extremist Muslim to ever change their ways unless they are forced into retirement through medical incapacity."
This part is a bit nonsensical in light of your earlier admission that the majority of Muslims are peaceful and non political.
"But once even in this role many have directed the ongoing affairs of Jihads for years as we see Ben Ladin still doing."
Osama bin Laden, has never been a leader, but a major supporter of the Islamist movement, as well as a spokesman.
:Leaders of this sort must win even if it means silencing those of their own ranks who speak in any way against them. They simply impose their leadership onto others who mostly don’t want it but who have no way of bringing back the full message of the Koran because Sharia Law is the most conservative thing on the planet once in place. Those who then control what God says is the Law, rule with an iron hand."
You should really read up on Sharia. It is not what you think it is.
Also we would never ever silence people with an unpopular opinion. just ask the Dixie Chicks, or any of the people censored by Fox.
"Sharia Law then imposes not only the content of the codified law but also forces the leadership to propagate itself by what come natural to human nature – silencing the opposition, or killing the opposition if they won’t shut up. By experience they know this controls the rest of the population by fear and at the very least leaves great anxiety about how worse the next leader could be."
You really really should read about what Sharia is instead of taking some right winger asshole at his word.
"It like when a preacher in Florida that announces he’s going to burn Korans on 9-11 to make sure everyone knows where the lies and deceit in this world are coming from. It’s in human nature to lie and perpetrate all manner of selfishness. If someone thinks the Muslims do a worse job at self-correcting their leaders errors there is good reason for it."
And the reason is that we are bing lied to by the Corporate media.
"The rank and file members of Islam who would love nothing better than to love their neighbor as themselves, have a hard time stating that they agree that certain groups of extremists are “terrorists” because they either fear for their lives if they say it, or they don’t know which small fraction of the members of their own Mosque would make life extremely unpleasant for them if they really spoke out or made it appear that there were skeptical of the motives of their leaders."
Except in the dictatorships supported by the USA, such as Saudi Arabia, They speak out.
"How strange, but the faith and teachings of Christ can just as easily be hijacked by those who raise the standard of Christian, but who would decry we must protect the faith from external “infidels,” all the while the real struggle is to not distort or change the true message of Christ even if it means eating their meat and potatoes as humble shepherd’s pie.."
How equally strange is it that that Christians, who profess their belief in peace and love and non violence can be so easily duped into believing the diatribes of hate mongering, bigoted warhawks like Glen Beck simply because he claims to promote "Christian Values"
Koran burning doesn't bother me. Neither does burning the bible. the flag, or any symbol. Burning the constitution, and particularly what it stands for bothers the shit out of me.
Don't know if your Mom and I are alike in our reasons's for rejecting chance based Macro-evolution over deep time or not. It doesn't personally bother me that the DNA or "blueprints" for chimps or a human are very similar. What bothers me is that there are those who turn statements like, "if we can't scientifically discover or model an answer to our philosophical questions of meaning and values" then there any not any other potential answers worth considering either.
Tony states,
"The common thread throughout all of these issues, is that the leadership problem seems to be enhanced and supported by organised religion – authoritarian dogma (common to almost every religion) seems to lead to authoritarian leadership – and past a certain point that becomes simply corrupt leadership."
I can see exactly what you say happening in all manner of people, including myself just as you can see it in others. However, when the leaders of the scientific rationalists believe they can speak on all manners of philisophical questions of meaning and value with authority just because they have discounted the value systems of those who are not scientific rationalists what is really going on when they discuss ideas like evolution that forms the basis of their worldviews and subsequently at least some part of their values as well?
If some being didn't create then there must be a way of explaining it all in terms of what is already here.
This explains nothing as all, it is seen by those on the outside as a logic game or a circular round robin event where it is claimed that time and chance are involved to an extent that we will never fully know.
It seems to me that people who say they are skeptical of everything except for what they have agreed together is the least likely to not need to be reconsidered are no longer be skeptical of themselves or their own motives, so they end up living of beliefs that are matters are fundamenatally not scientific at all.
Do sceintific skeptical rational naturalists really have the least biased and therefore best worldview? or do they simply have a worldview that attempts to utilize what they claim are scientific claims that are interpretive bias that fits into an acceptable worldview in their way of thinking, feeling and valuing?
Niklaus,
I have no problem accepting accusations thrown at me or even the conservastive right for that matter. I have no problem admitting that there are areas where my bias gets the better of me.
Why do highly trained intelligent people that are considered the leaders in their fields of endeavor often not believe that could be trapped in the types of viscious leadership styles we have been discussing?
In nearly all instances it is because those who would be able to help clarify these matters are seen as a threat to the leader's ability to stay the egotistical leader they see themselves as.
"Don't mess with my worldview or I might have to do something I won't like."
1) Macro-evolution there is no macro, no micro – there just isevolution – it's turtles all the way down.
2) unsubstantiated strawman, in “if we can’t scientifically discover or model an answer to our philosophical questions of meaning and values” then there any not any other potential answers worth considering either.. Care to provide some citations in support of that position? The accurate statement is that if it can't be observed, directly or indirectly, then it's just shit you made up. In such a case, it's not amenable to science (other than the psychology of abnormal brain chemistry, or fertile imagination – take your pick). Claiming that science refuses to give your particular brain-farts credence is not the fault of science, and is not a lack in science.
3) If some being didn’t create then there must be a way of explaining it all in terms of what is already here. Yep – theories abound. Brane theory, multiple variants of string theory, and so on. None postulate the existence of a 'creator'. Just because you wish it were so, doesn't make it so
4) Why do highly trained intelligent people that are considered the leaders in their fields of endeavor often not believe that could be trapped in the types of viscious leadership styles we have been discussing? again this is a strawman with regards to science. Have you not heard of peer-review? It helps to ensure that regardless of ones ego, one needs to substantiate findings and support one's position with repeatable evidence. The kind of leadership you reference here is one that infests politics, commerce and religion. It rarely infests science for long – the peer-review mechanism of science is intrinsically self correcting (unless you also postulate a wide ranging conspiracy to support such egotistical leaders). Of course, if you have meat for that particular sandwich, I'd be happy to see the evidence – citations please.
I'll close with a quote that you might like to consider…
If at first you don't succeed, try, try again. Then quit. There's no point in being a damn fool about it. W.C Fields, with (absolutely no) apologies to Thomas H. Palmer
Karl writes:—"Don’t know if your Mom and I are alike in our reasons’s for rejecting chance based Macro-evolution over deep time or not. It doesn’t personally bother me that the DNA or “blueprints” for chimps or a human are very similar. What bothers me is that there are those who turn statements like, “if we can’t scientifically discover or model an answer to our philosophical questions of meaning and values” then there any not any other potential answers worth considering either."
No, for her it's very direct—there's everything else, then there are people. Sh will not accept that the line came from another line that relates her in any way to something not human. It's an emotional rejection. Very similar, I imagine (based on my reading), to white bigots who discover a black in the family tree. Common sense has nothing to do with it.
However, the second part of that always gives me a turn. Of course the fact of evolution does not call into question the value of philosophical and moral questioning. Why should it? And I don't hear any scientists saying that.
Very simply, why should one's origins bear on how we treat each other morally? And next, why should an origin not based on divine creation limit our search for meaning or limit our dreams?
I've never understood that particular syllogism. "Without god there's no meaning."
Bullshit.
Meaning comes out of the act of living and trying to live well. We have to come to grips with that whether we believe in a deity or not and the same basic answers seem to emerge from both sides. My experience with religion, in sum, was always how to live a decent live IN SPITE of the nonsense rules I was taught in theology. Firstly, because I never got an explanation in catechism class as to why these rules are better than others (because Jesus wants us to do this is not an answer, it's a dodge—maybe he does, metaphorically, but there is still a reason why), and secondly because I found far too much non-negotiable judgment of Others in theology that looked too much like simple prejudice disguised as holy writ.
But the search for meaning is not limited by what science reveals. If it does that for someone, then they were ready to give up in the first place.
—"Do sceintific skeptical rational naturalists really have the least biased and therefore best worldview? "
That's an interesting question and well worth debate, and I don't have a simple answer, but I'll suggest this:
The view that evolution is the way things work ought to provide us with a recognition that we are part and parcel of the whole kit-n-kaboodle—nature is One, in this sense—and that maybe, to save ourselves, we should stop treating the planet like our own personal pissoir. The special creation crowd, however, allows a view that humans are somehow special, somehow "above it all" and have a god-given right to use and abuse the real estate without regard to long term consequences.
Now note, in both instances I made my statements with qualifications. Special creation "allows" for such a view—it's not automatic and there is a vital, religiously-based environmental movement. Likewise, in the case of evolution, I said "it ought to provide" although it doesn't necessarily.
Enlightenment is not automatic from either position.
Which means that your question about "meaning" is not really bound up in either position. Meaning is something you have to do for its own sake.
There is a point where the two positions approach each other in this matter. The best religions tell us that we are all One in the family of god. It's all bound up together. Evolution shows us that this is genetically true—that everything alive is related to everything alive, and therefore we are all One in the family of nature.
But achieving satori from these statements is a third thing and work that has to be done whether you begin from the religious or the secular. And so there is philosophy, which is accessible to the deist and the secularist alike, and makes basically the same demands of both.
The only edge a scientist may have is that the discipline of analysis and understanding systems may predispose him or her to thinking through these questions in a way that could then be elucidated for any point of view. The interconnectedness of living systems and the environments in which they exist might allow for a quicker grasp of fundamental moral obligation as opposed to the religionist's effort to convince square pegs to accept a place in the round hole of faith before such understanding might be achieved.
When is there sufficient evidence for a claim that proposed events unobserved in real time but caused by chance (or with somekind of unknown causes) can be assumed to have really existed?
For example, We discover what appears to common perceptions to clearly be a human artifact stuck in the middle of hardened coal that is scientifically dated to time frame when humans were thought not to exist yet for hundreds of millions of years.
Sinilarly are the laws of chance physical laws, or mathmatical models of physical events?
"meaning and values" is a big equation in human life. For instance, how do we know what is right and wrong? How is it that we inherited genes for morality? Couldn't we have inherited genes for immorality? For instance , rape, stealing, murder being the right thing to do.
How is it that we inherited genes for morality? Couldn’t we have inherited genes for immorality? For instance , rape, stealing, murder being the right thing to do.
First some misconceptions:
Our actions and behaviors are not solely genetic – but based on a combination of genetics, epigenetics, and memetics.
Genetics provides the baseline inheritance and mutability at that baseline level. For example – predisposition to 'sickle cell leukemia' is related genetically to gene complexes that code for proteins that also protect against malaria. So genetics are not all good or bad, merely 'survivalist'. Given that the inheritance mechanism is essentially stochastic, the expression and progression of gene factors are driven by population dynamics.
Epigenetics determines WHEN and WHAT genes get expressed. This is why we all have similar genes for body morphology, and indeed many creatures show the same neotenous morphology during development – but diverge later as other genes are expressed epigenetically.
Memetics is the development and transmission of 'mental thoughts' (which is conceptually closer to lysenkoism than darwinism). As animals who communicate and learn, we share our abilities memetically (as do many fellow tool-using primates, among other creatures).
On to morality.
I would question whether there is such a 'gene' for morality, but would suggest that we are 'socially empathic' creatures by instinct – which has a genetic underpinning (it exists in all primates, and in many other creatures too – it may be an emergent property of a multiplicity of genetic traits, or a directly coded predisposition, but it is, undoubtedly, inherited). We are also learning creatures, so our behaviors are also transmitted memetically – generation to generation through what we teach our children, and through what we observe as children and adults. Our behaviors are not fixed in stone, nor are they infinitely malleable.
You likely believe that the source of morals is god, and that he has shared those moral precepts though the inspired words of the bible. I would respectfully disagree.
Our morality, I would argue, is founded in our social empathy. This does not make us naturally good, nor naturally bad. It merely makes us naturally social. As such, we have a 'social predisposition' towards promulgating the success of our 'in group' – those like us – versus any out groups – those unlike us. Morals stem from our desire to act favorably towards our in group, in competition with those out groups
I think that morals are an emergent property of any social group larger than a family, which needs to maintain social cohesiveness, while competing for (possibly scarce) resources against other groups. That is why every human society has had very similar 'morals' for in group persons, but have diverged widely in their behavior towards out groups. The details for a society's morals need not be identical to those you follow – I don't think that morals are ever absolute. Indeed, the Christian definition of 'what is moral' has changed and mutated many times, as society (the in group) has evolved. It once was moral to own slaves, to beat children for minor infractions, to inflict severe punishment for minor crimes. I'm pretty certain you would not agree with those morals.
To therefore answer your last point – I don't think that *any* human society would consider rape, theft, or murder as moral – when enacted against the in-group. With regards to the out group, the definitions change (raping your dead brother's childless widow to produce a child is a moral act, according to the book of Onan; taking goods belonging to an opposing army is appropriation, not theft; killing a criminal is not murder, but justice)
So, in closing – morals are relative. They are (in my opinion) an emergent property of social groupings larger than the family, propagated memetically among the members of that group, and subject to change as the population recognized as 'like' changes, and as the external competitive environment changes.
Tony: I agree with the outline you've offered. Thank you for taking the time express this idea so succinctly and in such an elegant framework.
As you know, attempting to understand the genesis of what people consider to be "moral" conduct is almost an obsession for me. It is driven by my repulsion at the widespread social strife these days, wherein groups are constantly making claims against other groups that their version of morality is the best, or even the only legitimate type. I agree with you that naturally occurring empathy is a major component to all moral systems, and that moral action does not ultimately depend on anything supernatural (though this natural tendency toward empathy is steered (sometimes snuffed out) by rules, sometimes in subtle ways. http://dangerousintersection.org/2010/09/01/the-f… ). It's a constantly-occurring thought that the big trick to achieving social harmony is to expand the conception of in-group, to make "moral principles" meaningful (many people choose to allow its expression only to members of their in-group). Your mention of beyond the family is an observation that thus resonates with me.
Walter writes:—"“meaning and values” is a big equation in human life. For instance, how do we know what is right and wrong? How is it that we inherited genes for morality? Couldn’t we have inherited genes for immorality? For instance , rape, stealing, murder being the right thing to do."
Good question and I'm not altogether sure it has anything to do specifically with "genes for morality" but maybe genes that promote choices for optimal behaviors. That is still being researched.
But just for the sake of argument, let's take it as asked. Obviously some people did inherit "genes for immorality" but for a lot of people, maybe most, it's not even an issue. I mean, let's be real—I, at least, do not have to have holy laws telling me not to commit rape and murder. I already don't want to do that. Raping and murdering have no interest for me, I do not have fight an impulse in order to avoid them.
On the other hand, it's obvious that people can be trained to do those things (just look at the child armies in parts of Africa). Training is obviously a big deal here.
How do you know what is right and wrong?
That which promotes a beneficial life and suppresses destructiveness—and those things, at a basic level, are not hard to identify.
As civilization gets more complex, though, issues of ethics (which are related to but not the same as morals) arise because of the complications of the systems we build and live in. And that requires study and training.
There will never be a total separation of values and beliefs from human experience. In like manner, as long as "We The People" are the very agents of the government it will be impossible to remove the influence of values and beliefs upon the government.
The best hoped for goal of the founding fathers was to prevent any one set of values and beliefs (be that a religion or even some proposed scientific theory about life in general) from taking control of the government and becoming flat out tyrannical.
The separation of church and state principle is such that it prevents any such relationship from becoming codified into laws that would show preference for one set of values and beliefs (a religion) over another.
Providing funding and/or assistance for the construction of a not-for-profit Moslem community center has opened a door that we should recognize as one we as a country do not want to go down.
This should be shown to be an unconstitutional use of public tax funds. Those promoting this should be held accountable at the ballot box.
This is how the balance desired is to be maintained.
If we intend to try to keep the separation of church and state equally applicable to any and all religions, we must not let the goverment fund or codify any precedents in favor of any religion over and against another.
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I believe I agree with the majority of people in the USA over matters of basic morality, and religious philosophy/worldviews.
I didn't say all of the writings of such and such a person are of equal importance or that such and such a doctrine should be allowed to supersede the basic beliefs that are shared in common. – Especially that "Love your neighbor as yourself" one.
Those people with basic morality and worldviews that agree with the basic philosophy of loving your neighbor as yourself I have no issues with.
Those people with religious views or other worldviews that disdain others for their skin color, social status, degree of education, institution of higher learning, values, opinions, beliefs and yes – even attitudes towards origins, walk a very fine line in regards to loving their neighbors.
It is one thing to have a hard time actually learning and understanding what a person actually believes about some matters, but it is another thing to drag the person over the coals because you believe these ideas could never be true or that they simply just do not sit well with you.
It's when preferential ideas and beliefs get changed into disdain, hatred and abuse that most Americans would admit that a person's bias and worldview has gotten the better of them.
Radical right wing conservatives that think they are God's gift to humanity and that they have the only correct way of viewing the world show disdain for others.
Radical left wing socialists that think they are required to carry on Marxists agendas and judicial activism because they know better than the majority of the people and that they are the only ones that have the correct way of viewing the world show disdain for others.
Radical fundamental religion of any variety is only truly harmless when it is concerned with helping others as much as they themselves would like to be helped if they were in the same situation as another.
Even rational "scientific" skeptics that mock and lose their patience because their worldview is so much different and above the faith of those who actually admit they put their faith in something, show disdain for others.
Radical Moslems that are directed to kill those that won't convert to their faith aren't much different from anyone that looses their temper about matters that are an interpretation of evidences that one uses to "support one's worldview."
What I can't really fathom is how a basic right (to some a god/creator given right and for others an American/Constitutional given right) of considering everyone equal in terms of individual rights, enables some to claim we have to be equal in every other way as well.
Some of these other ways that America seems to have a problem with right now are in the following list.
Does equality of personal individual rights mean,
1) Everyone must have the same amount of material possessions – i.e. mandatory – share and share alike?
2) The government must dictate where charity and loving your neighbor begins and ends?
3) Everyone must be considered as having the same abilities as everyone else?
4) Everyone including the federal government must be allowed to buy, purchase or sell anything they would like?
5) Everyone that has a track record for direct involvement in stirring up violence – which means no intention of abiding by that "Love your Neighbor" concept have a right to preach and stir up others to do the same?
6) Everyone must have the same ability to define religious terms like "marriage" as they would like?
7) Civil unions are pointless unless they are recognized as marriages?
8) Everyone that can arrive onto American soil legally or illegally has a right to claim they belong here?
9) Anyone can simply believe that being “legally born” here actually makes them "American" in their ideas, values, beliefs and opinions?
10) We should not arrest or try a minority American because they can’t get an even playing field?
11) Anyone who can get a following be they a religious, political or secular humanist shouldn't be scrutinized to see if they really have demonstrated this love your neighbor as yourself concept?
12) Everyone must pay to the government what is needed to further any means that any political party decides will accomplish making the people actually feel more equal to their neighbors?
The only real obligation we should be under is one to love one another, and to encourage others to do the same.
The government can not make any of us want to love anyone. All they can do is to repeatedly haggle over who is complaining the most and try to satisfy those with the biggest hand out clamoring for their share of the pie.
The people of America have learned all too well that the government is at their control in terms of social spending and it will be the undoing of this nation unless people already in political office refuse to give in to the cries of the people for equality in everything!
Why are federal funds being used to assist in the funding of any building that will be directly under the auspice of an Imam that is using the tolerance of America as means of promoting his religion which is anything but a love your neighbor as yourself generic religion? If you want to know about the real religion that ostracizes and controls the population through religious doctrine then you need to look no further.
They can not hide their teachings about the infidels. The majority of their people may seem very docile, loving and gracious people. Praise Allah that there aren’t more strongly motivated Type A personalities that are recruiting as many members for Jihad as they would like.
I am in favor of religious freedom, but that is not to say I gladly approve of federal and city finds being used to keep a majority opinion of the people from being heard or even voiced in an open forum hosted by governmental leaders. I certainly don’t approve of the construction and governmental financing for any part of this particular Mosque on this particular site at this time.
Love your neighbor as yourself is not in the guidebook for this Muslim Imam unless your neighbors are also Muslims.
There is no appropriate place to build this particular community center if it is within the confines of the footprint of the destruction of 9-11 –that is all the majority of Americans are saying.
Although I still don’t know why atheists see little harm in the government spending public monies that sponsor one religious endeavor over another . . .
Perhaps some religions are more equal than others?
I never said they did't have a right to build a Mosque/community center. They most certainly do. Let them build it outside of the 9-11 destruction footprint. Let them build with their own fundraising done at their own cost and let them find their own financing . . . unless they are willing to allow even a few small christian churches in places like Saudi Arabia.
Toleration is not toleration unless it is a two way street.
Karl
One of my oldest colleagues is a bishop in the Mormon Church – I like him as a person, and he does a good job. We've spoken from time to time about his church work and it does include the, to him upsetting but necessary, act of exclusion for 'apostacy' – leave if you wish, but if you do, you're gone!
Mark has spoken from time to time about his upbringing (as a mormon). Why not ask him for the unvarnished truth? No – you'd rather make something up.
Regarding my child – you may find this hard to believe, but my son, my daughter, my wife, and my friends are all individuals. I do not, and would not wish to, control their views. However, if they choose a path I find troubling, I would definitely discuss it with them! That is what friends and family are supposed to do!
I would consider a child joining a church to be such an act requiring deep conversation (and also counselling, but you likely ascribe that response to by bias).
Wouldn't you consider me a bad parent if I simply allowed a child of mine to be brainwashed into a cult? To join a group that I consider evil, or misguided, or just wrong? Would you want me to stand idle, and would you consider my lack of action appropriate?
Would you accept it happily if your child decided to be atheist? or Hindu? or Moslem? Or if your child told you they were gay?
I find it troubling that you would think it perfectly acceptable to simply accept the fact if a child of mine joined (or considered joining) a religion. To my mind every religion is simply a cult. That my child would accept their dogma and tenets without a shred of evidence other than 'feeling good', to subsume their individuality and succumb to the authority of (as I've said before) priests or preachers in thrall to an evil and capricious god.
No. Fucking. Way.
And regarding getting married in church. Many of my friends, here and in the UK, were married in churches. I wasn't. No surprise there. I am, at least, consistent.
I find it a pointless and pompous intrusion into an otherwise joyous celebration. Two people are being joined. Not two people and an imaginary sky-fairy!
However – as I've said before. What other people do is only my concern if it directly or indirectly affects me. If they choose to celebrate with a church ceremony, then that is their right, their privilege, their choice. I would be a shallow and bitter fair-weather friend if I denied them their choice of celebration, or denied them my full and heartfelt participation in their special day.
I've participated in many church weddings – as part to the wedding party, and as a peripheral bystander simply watching from the pews. At no time have I acted as the kind of ass you portray me as.
I'm sorry your picture of me isn't quite as accurate as you think, and it tells a lot about your poor perception and hidebound stereotyping. This is a challenge for you, because the stereotypical atheist is just like me – that is, not a stereotype! We're your neighbors, your colleagues, your service people, your superiors, your subordinates. We're all just people.
Karl,
Rather than hash this out, personal anecdote to personal viewpoint, let me refer you to Jon Krakauer's excellent book "Under the Banner of Heaven."
You assume, though, that the agony was mine. It was not. I saw what I described, though it was not directed at me. (My parents had a rough departure and certainly some of that bled over into my own perceptions, but still I wasn't personally attacked.)
"Drinking the kool-aid" is so geared into so many religions that after a certain point the idea of tolerance within the faith is ludicrous. The Mormons are very good at masking that aspect because they have excellent P.R. discipline. I actually respected them for a long, long time because they were the only ones I met who didn't default to the "it's a mystery" line when confronted with an unanswerable question—they simply admitted they didn't know.
But they are a rather scary bunch on certain levels with an amazingly bizarre theology. Tolerance for them is only for outsiders. Letting their children freely decide is another matter entirely.
Google William Shunn as well. He has a memoir online about his experiences as a missionary and and apostate Mormon.
Tony—thank you for correcting my mistake, I meant Coughlin, not Conklin. Old age and neuronal pathways, etc…
Tony,
I meant no personal affront to you in any way, if that is how it was perceived please forgive my choice of words and the apparent tone conveyed. My point was to say that before a parent lets a child "freely" decide a worldview different than their own there would likely be some times where the child might very well question the "love" of that parent.
How much more debilitating is this to a follower of a religion or worldview when he or she begins to come to the realization that the leaders of some group are willing and ready to resort to "the withholding of fellowship" (ostracism) or perhaps even murder when it is discovered that someone has some serious doubts and questions that really do need to be addressed with more than just the typical "thats not the way we beleive around here."
Exclusion or expulsion for that matter from any collectivist group is not the same thing as ongoing continuing love and concern for someone as an individual.
Show me where the LDS teachings ever officially excommunicates for life, to the degree you believe your bishop colleague in the Mormon Church stated.
Sure there are instances where leaders feel no other recourse to keep the peace in their local gatherings but the scriptural model for this to happen is for it to be done in an open public assembly and not behind closed doors or in some "counselling" session. One or two people should never have the authority to do this – that's just plain maniacle and egotistical.
This becomes the unwritten SOP of a desperate leader or departing followers that have only one desire – that their part or involvement in not being able to work things out be kept from public scrutiny.
If people didn't feel threatened there should be little need to afix blame for a difference of beliefs or worldviews on the other person.
It's just a simple common human SOP when it comes to dealing with differing worldviews that are considered to be irreconcilable unless one or the other can agree to some common shared authoritarian point of view.
The Koran inspired by Mohammed does contain much good, but Muslims admit it is their preference to keep people in line through fear. They consider it better, easier and more direct to simply wipe out the opposition point of view and instill fear in their ranks so they keep their authority from being challenged.
Not many skeptics are actually Muslims as far as I have ever heard, unless of course there are some Muslims sent on missions where they claim to be athiests or agnostics to further widen the reach and spread freedom and tolerance as a deception so these Muslims are true to Allah but as deceptive as all getout towards their fellow humans. Jihad, I believe permits this kind of activity.
The common shared point of view for a follower of Jesus Christ is suppose to be agreement upon the personal work, teachings and example of Jesus and sometimes very great tolerance over matters that are of a very much secondary importance.
Every organized religion that has real estate, bank accounts and boards of directors seldom have the opportunity or luxury of patience when it come to who ultimately gets possesion of these worldly goods. If the trustees of a group are more concerned with keeping order than they are with helping the hurting this is the kind of SOP that shakes out when the dust all settles down.
This is why so many people say "I would love to be a follower of Jesus, its just this bunch of his followers that I've had experience with that are oblivious to the harm they do to otherts."
Erasing this SOP from humasn nature seems to me to be the last thing to go, I know I constantly struggle with it.
Karl writes:—"Show me where the LDS teachings ever officially excommunicates for life, to the degree you believe your bishop colleague in the Mormon Church stated."
Since reading this, I've been mulling something over and I conclude that this is exactly where the disconnect comes in.
Karl, it doesn't matter if its written down. That's the problem. People internalize their religion and it gets bound up with who they are as people and comes out in many ways that, over time, become identified with people of a particular religion even though the founding documents don't seem to support it. What people do in the name of their religion is actually just as much a part of that religion as the source material.
And that's where the trouble enters.
People of all faiths "worship in their own way", as it were. If enough of them take up a practice that seems consistent with their beliefs, in the name of those beliefs, then eventually that behavior IS part of their religion.
So looking for this stuff in the books and arguing over provenance really does, in a way, avoid the main question, which is how do these folks manifest their faith in their daily lives. It really begs the question to say such-n-such a practice is actually not in the Bible (or the Koran or the Book of Mormon) when many, maybe most, of the adherents to that faith do something as part of their expression of faith.
SO maybe all this nitpicking really is kind of pointless. If someone says to me that their religion dictates that they ostracize apostates, even if they are family, or that they should hate gays just because, or that they think women should go around covered head to toe and have no say in their own lives, it doesn't matter to me if such practices or prejudices are in their holy books or not—I find those practices morally repugnant NOW, today. If they claim these things are part of what they think their god wants them to do, then I will have nothing to do with their god and will, in fact, criticize them for being assholes, period.
Turning their backs on people who have been Mormons and then reject the Church is a common Mormon practice, whether it's in the Book of Mormon or The Pearl of Great Price or not. That makes it a Mormon practice.
Mark says,
"You assume, though, that the agony was mine. It was not. I saw what I described, though it was not directed at me. (My parents had a rough departure and certainly some of that bled over into my own perceptions, but still I wasn’t personally attacked.)
I do not know if your parents were articulating their own worldview(s) or that of their son or both. You may not have been involved directly and personally, but certainly you were privy to some of matter. Your parents worldview(s) and your world view (what ever it was then or what it has become since then) were most definitely apart of the ordeal. I don't see how you could make such a claim unless your worldview was different from your parents, or hadn't been leaning one way or the other at the time. We're you still quite young?
Many rival worldviews discussed by civil human beings do end in agreements to disagree, but obviously this is not the case when it comes to matters of how one claims they have arrived at their interpretation of the evidence.
When people can agree that they are potentially equally flawed in matters of interpreting evidence, they are likely to respect each other. When one claims a superior manner for their appeal to the authority of their methodology, be it divine revelation or undivine interpretive insight that a collective group considers proper concerning either directly observed events by others or unobserved events all together, there is still the human faith or belief factor involved.
The basis of authority in each is not much different to me because it was people one way or the other who arrived at the meaning of their revelations or the ramifications of their insights as to what the evidence means to them.
When a group of people are involved in putting together a worldview there is also a "spirit" to their collective work. If that "spirit" is one of
Love your neighbor as your self – I kind of like that Spirit. Some call it the Holy Spirit. If the Spirit involved says lets see how long or what we need to do before we make them see the error of their futile ways I kind of think that an obnoxious and impersonal appeal to authority that I'd rather not anything to do with on a personal level.
Its like saying – the only thing left is shock therapy or a lobotomy and if that doesn't help who cares anymore because the problems is medically or surgically beyond hope.
The matter is a matter of the collective spirit that people use to defend the basis of their appeal to authority. People of most persuasions however are no very patient in dealing with differences of worldview.
Moses sees a burning bush that's not consumed and determines he's on holy ground. Someone else might finally comes to their senses and then says it must have been something that messed with their sensibilities. Without hard and fast evidence in hand it couldn't have any faith implications.
But stating it couldn't have any faith implications is like saying "I see nothing" unless it agrees with my worldview. This is why people will often get bent out of shape to protect the founder of their faith or those who have collectively put together the tenants of their creed.
This thread seems to be making a case for the equality of people. If that is the case then why not treat people with unequal worldviews the same?
Tolerance is not tolerance unless it is a two way street.
There is no equality of people's worldviews if someone mistakenly believes that they can eliminate a worldview by killing or shunning the people who possess it.
That pretty much back fires in most cases, unless you are a Muslim, or a tyrannt that wishes to rule the world.
Karl writes: Tolerance is not tolerance unless it is a two way street.
Welcome to my world.
I may not state my views, because to do so is offensive to my religious neighbor.
He, on the other hand, feels absolutely no compunction about speaking his views, and if called upon them and told they are offensive to me, the response is invariably that I am the one in the wrong, I am being strident, or hard, or callous, or some other term with profoundly negative connotations.
I must be tolerant of the religious authoritarians who would turn our classrooms into extensions of their church, who would require a religious test for public office, who consider anyone not proclaiming faith and fealty to god as being somehow dangerous, criminal, and immoral.
From an unbiased perspective, atheism in America is only tolerated if it is done quietly, behind closed doors, and never spoken of in public. Recall the recent furore over the completely innocuous bus ads, or the billboard in the Carolinas that simply stated "one nation, indivisible" only to be defaced by the inclusion of "under God" (just as congress did in 1954).
I am sick of that one sided behavior and I refuse to stand idly by while theocrats destroy the institutions that made this nation great.
Tolerance is a wonderful thing. Pity it seems to be in such short supply/
You would be surprised how many people in America do not feel compelled to speak up about matters of faith. Our President sure doesn't dare speak with clarity what he believes about either his Muslim heritage and upbringing or about his stated declaration of his Christian faith either.
I believe he is about as private of a person can be regarding matters of his own faith – because when he discusses them his pole numbers drop.
So tolerance actually means those with faith need to shut up because those without faith are offended. Lets see, that kind of thought process would mean that scientific skeptics have something besides rational thoughts governing their ideas about the world – kind of reminds me of Spock's ways of having to deal with both his Vulcan and Human heritage.
What people need to be careful about in their disagreements is the manner by which they disagree.
Disagreements are inevitable between people – the question is will the manner by which the people disagree enable an ongoing relationship to continue or not.
Some here on DI can agree with others as long as Evolution is their assumed commonality. The Blog is suppose to be focused on human animals after all.
Others here can agree as long as they don't believe in an after life and hold to a presumed scientific skeptic attitude which means the possibility of God is out of the picture.
The most obvious of disagreements that occur on DI are when it is presumed by some individual that people could really have come to a clear rational choice concerning non-belief in spontaneous macro-evolution or the hopr of an afterlife. How could people have a brain when thinking either or both of these could be possibilities.
Often just the glimmer of an inckling that someone believes the collective writings of any historical non-scientifically verified ideas earns the label of chopped liver.
It apears to me that the "doctrine of inclusion" and "act of exclusion" are a two sided coin around here but the rules are always set so that the outcome is clearly going to be in favor of he who has the right to make up the rules as they go along.
Kind of like – Tall tales you lose and better heads we win.
If tolerance is a two way street, then there's not special need for an individual to exercise it, is there? Wasn't Jesus' point about turning the other cheek is that the responsibility is on you regardless?
Equally flawed in matters of interpretation does not equate to being equally right—or equally wrong. (Boy, that comes close to the relativism of postmodernist deconstruction, Karl. Sometimes I wonder what exactly it is you're defending.)
—"Our President sure doesn’t dare speak with clarity what he believes about either his Muslim heritage and upbringing or about his stated declaration of his Christian faith either."
Please. Not you, too.
I rather like it that he keeps it to himself. He should. He's supposed to speak for America, not one specific group of Americans, and declarations of faith, like it or not, have become rather divisive—because they're fundamentally elitist. "I belong to this club and you don't. Nyah nyah!"
—"But stating it couldn’t have any faith implications is like saying “I see nothing” unless it agrees with my worldview."
Cuts both ways, doesn't it? If my worldview says Moses was doing magic mushrooms at the time—or was a savvy politician who knew the Hebrews wouldn't follow him without claimed divine backing—then the interpretation comes out differently. Erich von Daniken thought he was seeing an alien spaceship. But that's not quite the same as "seeing nothing", is it?
You are willing to bend the entire corpus of observed scientific theory around into tessaracts to make it fit your world view, and your main defense is often that we are no more capable of objective seeing than you are. Which is unprovable, really, but rather beside the point. You are perfectly capable of objectivity, Karl, but you tend not to use it.
There does come a point in the mixing of ideas when some simply fail to pass muster, not because they run afoul of worldviews, but because they can't defend themselves—they're wrong. Their introduction into the forum is welcome until that point is reached. Afterward they become a nuisance.
As to my perspective at the time my parents split from the Mormons, yes, I was quite young, and many of the things I saw didn't make sense till years later. I knew my parents were upset and that the people at church were upset with them. For their part, my parents didn't push an explanation on me. When I asked later, they told me what had happened. I read the Book of Mormon, we still had modest contact with the LDS through visiting teachers (who made for some very lively conversation—I said the LDS is a science fiction religion, a fact I realized long after, but their conversation was the basis of my "interpretation") and I was allowed to make up my own mind.
I was never censored or forbidden to learn something.
(Probably why I continually ran afoul of religious authority—I had questions, sometimes answers, they didn't like, regardless of denomination.)
The problem finally, though, Karl, is that all religion relies on argument from authority—you must simply believe. There's nothing to question, god is real, believe. You can't see it, hear it, touch it, taste it, feel it—but it's real. Only believe.
You must drink the kool-aide.
Karl – WTF?
Do you actually watch TV, read newspapers, or participate in american cultural life? If so, you must do so in a vacuum, because from where I sit, religion is on the sleeve of every pundit, every commentator, every politician.
I see ads and billboards that force religion down my throat, that tell me I need to be 'saved'. I am surrounded by a multitude of churches, whose billboards proselytize 24/7 – some of them in neon lights. Commercial companies include 'jesus fish' signs in their advertising, to proclaim their solidarity with other christians. School boards and other elected officials impose religiously inspired dogma into otherwise secular education.
Are. You. Blind?
Religion is the default. Everywhere I go is it presumed. If I meet someone new, one of their first questions is likely to be "where do you church?"!
People in America don't feel compelled to speak up on behalf of their faith because THEY ARE IN THE MAJORITY!
Finally – regarding your strawman about how we argue here.
No – there is not a presumption of "we are right and you are wrong". There is a presumption of "If you make a claim, you better be able to point to corroborative evidence."
Things that are presumed to be "reasonably true" but worthy of discussion includes almost every topic under the sun. There are no proscribed topics, not proscribed comments – with a single recent exception, and that merely amplifies the presumptive expectations of the site – if you want to argue against something that is well founded, you better have a solid understanding of the case 'for' before you try to build a case 'against'.
You'll note that almost all of us are willing to argue with you (and others) on your turf – on religion, on interpretation, on history and contingency, and so on.
We (try to) take the time to learn the background and take the time to learn about religion before we attack (and usually we only attack in response to a comment).
I don't see any reciprocation regarding your like-minded fellows attacks on Science. All I see are religiously motivated attacks on science – talking point attacks that are ill-founded, ill-conceived, and generally badly (if at all) supported by evidence. Even when a real study is cited, it is usually one outlier study out of many conforming studies. Science does not work on the basis on 'one study'. It does not work on the basis of 'I like that answer'. It works only on the basis of multiple studies and experiments, independently repeatable, and independently corroborated with alternative and competing lines of evidence.
Cherry picking is a religious trait – both in selecting verses from your holy books to support an argument, and in selecting or discarding evidence to support your particular anti-science stance of the day.
You may not like it, but facts invariably do have a liberal bias – because education and fact gathering are intrinsically non-conservative activities.
You are only pissed because the many thousand year religious hegemony is crashing down on your watch!
I'd be very glad just to see those seeking truth be honest and quit with ad hominem attacks on other individual people, or other groups of people. This shows disdain for people even when you say its not meant as an offense. Many here on DI know they are being offense and just seem to be unable to help themselves.
As much as Erich says in his seemingly non-condescending way that people have to read and state the "merits" of evolution before they will be heard concerning any skepticism is like saying to Erich, you have to defend a client that has confessed his role in a criminal activity to you but you are dutifully called upon to either get hijm clear of the charges or to at least get him the most favorable sentence, perhaps as little as time served. All of this of course will be done knowing there is evidence that's being withheld from the full procedings because it serves the purpose of you the defense attorney.
I've witnessed enough ad hominem attacks and grow weary of them. I've seen the establishment and defense of straw men as well as enough appeals to this, that and the other authority of this, that and the other person, or the defense of one epistemological method over another.
What I have heard the loudest are claims of overwhelming but circular and interdependent interpretive evidence that could be used to sway the thoughts of anyone who was being called upon to join the ranks of the naturalists, skeptics, rational thinkers, but most of all the least biased of people in the world – the scientists.
Evolution is only possible if genetic mutations from random chance produce changes in existing species and that these changes provide an adaptive value in association with the interaction of a species and its environment that favors the mutations expression through repeated successive reproduction of more organisms. This is micro-evolution. I have no problems with this.
The concept of natural selection however was first suggested in the published observations of Edward Blyth in 1835 which was 24 years before the publication of Darwin’s Origin of Species. Blyth’s work is not likely to have been unknown to Darwin, who appears to have “borrowed” the concept from Blyth, ever since which time natural selection has been erroneously attributed to Darwin and cited as evidence of evolution. Blyth was a scientist that held to a creationist philosophy of origins.
The leap of faith that all naturalists must make then is two directional, both backwards and forwards in the accumulation of small changes over time amounting to significant large scale changes that morph one species into another. One must go backward in time to the place where random chemical combinations began to make cellular components that could possess an ability to reproduce a component repeatedly that could persist long enough to reproduce itself. Then the logical scheme blossoms into a grand order of descent from the simple to the complex.
Nice story – I don't believe it.
Welcome to everyone's world of wounded egos.
I've read plenty of the popularized Darwin, Huxley, Gould, Sagan, and Dawkins to see how the ideas of men that began with phrases like "perhaps this . . . " or "this could suggest . . ." through the need for ever increasing time frames continuing through one interpretation and onto the next re-interpretation of this and that and the other evidences to the point where if there could exist no other philosophical perspective beyond naturalistic science, evolution would be the only sensible vantage point besides some kind of alternate reality science fiction hoax created in a holodeck.
People have the ability to interpret evidence either in favor of one set of inferred proposed observations and/or against another set of inferred proposed observations.
The problem for scientific rationalism in this regard is that there will never cease to be skeptics to the claims of naturalism. That naturalistic philosophy is all there is, so don't to say it isn't the only perspective worth consideration. There are simply too many people with worldviews that can not be dismissed as unreasonable just because many claim that a scientific means of studying life and world we live in relegates other worldviews or philosophies to secondary positions.
Too many people have an ability to be skeptical of those who claim to be the true skeptics because they do not concede to the authority of any manmade interpretive scheme to be fool proof.
It is obvious that the individual fields of science, history and philosophy are cherry picked by evolutionist, to support their interpetation of the properness of elevating science above the others. Those who elevate science to the level that they believe it holds the answer to questions that science has no business answering are not able to fool philosophers who know where the scientific method is appropriate and where it is not appropriate.
Even if all of the people who respond to Erich's request to read, read, read from this point of view, he will not get people with skepticism about evolution to go away.
It is obvious that nearly everything written or spoken about concerning origins, and the earlist recorded ancient history of civilizations on earth is not scientific simply because there will always be the ability to doubt the authority of the worldviews of those describing their interpretation of the evidence.
Saying scientistific rationalists are required to be skeptical about any and everything except the models and theories they believe because they are the best we have to work with and are therefore scientific is the same thing as saying there are not any credible scientists that can possibly have any doubts about the importance of macro-evolution because they are twits.
Saying that scientists who honestly say there are clearly some matters that science itself can't answer using the scientific method are wrong and need to read what such and such a scientist says about the matter is the reverse of a straw man attack – it a straw man defense.
The people who put together the models and theories you claim are scientific are potentially as biased and subject to look for meaningful interpretations of evidence that can be used to bolster their worldview.
Karl
There are none so blind as those who will not see…
Evolution is as close to proven as can be…
Lenski, et al, and the citrate eating E. coli – a demonstration of random mutation leading to beneficial and complex activity — Lenski's website has more and better details, but suffice to say – this 20 year study demonstrated evolution in action
Ring Species. The act of speciation is demonstrably evolution (and runs counter to the creationist's 'theory of kinds'). Lots of sources for informaiton, but UC Berkeley's Understanding Evolution is a great starting point.
Talk Origins provides a host of specific 'creationist claims' about evolution, and rejoinders based on current scientific knowledge – it also points to resources for more information
There are many, many more. The Panda's Thumb is a great resource for understanding evolutionary thinking – including the wrangling over the details that underlies every scientific endeavor.
You may choose to dismiss these, but you cannot claim that they do not exist, nor can you claim that there is no investigation into evolution. It happens every day, in labs all over the world. That their findings support rather than refute evolution may be galling to you, and may be personally unpalatable, but that is science.
Finally – you said: Saying that scientists who honestly say there are clearly some matters that science itself can’t answer using the scientific method are wrong…
Sorry – not even wrong. Which questions are not in the realm of science? If you find one that is not mere fantasy, I'll eat my hat. If you find one that does not begin with philosophic presumptions (of godhood, of spirituality, or soul/body duality, etc) – again, I'll eat my hat.
Science deals with what is observable – directly or indirectly. No one has ever directly seen an electron, yet the fruits of 'electronic science' surround us. So no strawmen about 'direct observation', please. If something impacts the 'real world' then it has a measurable effect on the real world, and that effect should be measurable by instruments. (How and where does it impinge upon reality?).
So – your supernatural is only non-congruent with science if you deny it any real world impact. if there is a real world impact, then that effect is material, and subject to scientific scrutiny. If there is no real world impact – then you are simply making shit up.
Karl writes:—"Nice story – I don’t believe it."
Yes, well, that's the bottom line, isn't it? The question is why you don't believe it. Because the evidence is lacking or because it doesn't include the one factor you insist must be there?
My mother, who is a bright woman, with an intellectual bent, rejects evolution outright. She can comprehend the arguments, follow the logic, concedes even that some of the evidence is persuasive. But at the end she says "I am not descended from a monkey." For her it's entirely personal. She came from god. Period. Like you, she refuses to make the leap from the results of breeding for type to the possibility of long-term random mutation resulting in new species.
That's not an argument. That's an aesthetic statement.
—"The concept of natural selection however was first suggested in the published observations of Edward Blyth in 1835 which was 24 years before the publication of Darwin’s Origin of Species. Blyth’s work is not likely to have been unknown to Darwin, who appears to have “borrowed” the concept from Blyth, ever since which time natural selection has been erroneously attributed to Darwin and cited as evidence of evolution. Blyth was a scientist that held to a creationist philosophy of origins"
If that is an attempt to undermine or discredit Darwin, it fails. The notion of "evolution" had been "in the air" for a long time—Darwin's own uncle, Erasmus, proposed something of the sort. Of course we now all famously know about Wallace. Darwin did the long, difficult taxonomic research and drew methodological conclusions from what he found, codified them in a coherent manner, and took it out of the arena of mere speculation and made it a science. Attempting to take it away from him by implying that "creationists got there first" is kind of underhanded. And a red herring.
—"Saying that scientists who honestly say there are clearly some matters that science itself can’t answer using the scientific method are wrong and need to read what such and such a scientist says about the matter is the reverse of a straw man attack – it a straw man defense."
Clever. But beside the point. This is not an area where scientists *in the field of study under discussion* disagree much. (Most of the ICR bunch, while scientists, are scientists working outside their discipline.) That there is a small number of biologists who disagree with evolution is actually of little consequence—there are still a few astronomers who disagree with the expanding universe model in spite of ample evidence to deny steady state.
The disagreements in evolutionary biology are not over whether evolution is true but over how it occurs. Discussion about mechanism is still lively, but that doesn't discredit the theory.
—"The people who put together the models and theories you claim are scientific are potentially as biased and subject to look for meaningful interpretations of evidence that can be used to bolster their worldview."
No one here has ever disagreed with that, but that is not the same thing as saying they are no wiser as a group and that their conclusions cannot be trusted, tested, proven (or disproven) according the the methodology. Knowing you have a bias is the first step in controlling it and science offers a method whereby bias can be minimized to the point of near nullity.
You mention ad hominem attacks. You're quite gifted in them yourself. Very diplomatic. From time to time you damn with faint praise, backhandedly compliment someone while implying that the standard is skewed, etc etc. It gets difficult eventually to take an impersonal tack on arguments that clearly stem directly from a personal—not bias—preference.
You want god to be in the mix. Before, during, and after all else, you want god in there, and if something appears to eliminate god, it must be in error. That's your preference, certainly your bias, and colors almost everything you write. It becomes an argument from personal authority and at that point it is natural to start questioning your assumptions in the course of debate. If at times that rises to the level of ad hominem attack, well, that's where you're putting yourself.
Because "you don't buy it."
I've tried to be fair in my responses to you. And accordingly I haven't done bad "for a secular humanist"—there's that qualifier, in this instance perhaps praising with faint damns. The inference to be drawn is that there's something about secular humanists that makes what I say unique, which is a slap toward secular humanism and by extension almost an expression of pity toward me—"poor Mark, he's not a bad sort, if only he weren't so deluded by secular humanism."
You have a lighter touch than many who post here (certainly a far more enlightened approach that most of the self-professed Believers who post responses here) but you do the same thing. That's normal. That's human. This is an awkward forum for this at best, and does pretty well in spite of its limitations, but the limitations often squeeze quicker, less nuanced reactions than might occur in a formal, in-person debate.
Ultimately, this whole "is it evolution or is it creation" argument seems to have come down to the level of "Well, if our side doesn't have any physical evidence, neither does your side" kind of little kid arguing. Biblically based evolution deniers know they don't have evidence of a scientific nature to back up their claims, so they've attempted to deny that evolution has any, either, and your approach has the virtue of at least causing us to look at our bases, but it comes down to the same thing. It's another species of the church fathers who refused to look through Galileo's telescope (apocryphal as that story may be, it's illustrative) or the refusal to admit scientific evidence into the Scopes trial. If evidence can be successfully ignored, recategorized, or explained away as "bias" then it can safely be dismissed. That would put us all on the same level and the debate could resume without possibility of conclusion.
Protestations of fairness on the part of people who make such arguments falls into the same category for me as evolution does for you—I just don't buy it.
I mentioned that my family had contact after the split with the LDS with visiting teachers. I actually enjoyed these visits—these were bright, well-read folks who didn't seem to mind engaging in any topic and they gave as good as they got. But finally I realized that their attitude toward me was a bit condescending—they treated me like a dancing bear. "Oh, isn't he so bright and clever! Pity he's wrong about so much. But then what can you expect from a nonbeliever?" In retrospect it infuriated me.
Joseph Smith established a phony religion, made up out of practically whole cloth, and got people to buy into it. It can be demonstrated as based on B.S. all the way back to the first "revelations" and yet people believe it with such a fervor that nothing—NOTHING—will dislodge that faith. If I haven't made myself clear, let me be even clearer—it's BULLSHIT. But they believe.
That example alone is enough for me to conclude that belief is not evidence of truth. It is, in fact, enough for me to conclude that pretty much all such examples are about the same—BULLSHIT that people cling to out of motivations which, I suspect (my opinion entirely, have mostly to do with aesthetics. When I see someone who stands there and says "Oh, all those others are wrong, but mine is the right way" my impatience program uploads. Because they are arguing entirely out of their bias. Unmitigated, undiluted. They aren't even trying to be unbiased. They embrace their bias, they love their bias, they are at home with their bias.
And yes, that is very different from the practice of science, which tends to toss such people out on their ear. Maybe not immediately, but eventually.
In any case, I hope I have expressed myself clearly. Evolution may well be wrong. I await a superior explanation. Divine creation ain't it. The collapse of evolution as a theory would not be a concession that those desiring special creation as the answer are right. They'll still be wrong.
Yes, that is somewhat out of my bias—I have had so much holy smoke blown up my ass in the last 40 years that I flat don't trust people who use it.
Karl wrote:
"The Koran inspired by Mohammed does contain much good, but Muslims admit it is their preference to keep people in line through fear. They consider it better, easier and more direct to simply wipe out the opposition point of view and instill fear in their ranks so they keep their authority from being challenged."
Karl,
How many Muslims do you know personally? I know several Muslims, I dated an Iraqi Moslem girl in college. I've had close friends that were Moslem, My wife's best friend is Moslem, (My wife is Palestinian Christian). I have never known any that attempted in any way to force their beliefs on me or my family. Most have said it is a personal choice involving a lot of self discipline.
I cannot say the same of Evangelical Christians, My wife was pressured by members of the International Churches of Christ, a christian cult, in attempts to bring her into their church. Having lived the first 20 years of her life in Bethlehem where she was born, she could easily spot the outright lies the Church members believed.
But the ICOC IS a cult.
My wife now watches televangelists on Sunday morning TV. She often comments on how wrong and misguided the end-times theology of Nashville Cornerstone Church Pastor Maury Davis is. She is a big fan of Joel Olsteen, who is an engaging and charismatic orator, but she disagrees with his "Prosperity Gospel" messages.
Karl wrote:
"Not many skeptics are actually Muslims as far as I have ever heard,"
Well Karl, I can't say I've heard of many (or any for that matter) right-wing Christian Fundamentalists that were skeptics. Of course they COULD be posing as atheists or agnostics to infiltrate Free thought web logs in an attempt to turn us all into compliant little Aryan zombies.
Now for a bit on the post topic.
In the psychology of conducting wars, it has always been useful to gain the support of the public by dehumanizing the "enemy". In the so-called "War on Terror" (which should honestly be called "the War for Corporate Control of Middle East oil), the indigenous personnel are portrayed as suicidal zombies under the control of evil religious fanatics who want to take control of the world and enslave everyone.
I occasionally listen to talk radio, to get an idea of the extent of the right-wing radicalization in this country. A recent caller to one of the nationally syndicated radio program had an almost Monty Python-esque train of illogic "proving" that Moslems do not worship the same god as Christians and Jews.
He claimed that in the Koran, there were a dozen passages claiming the Jews and Christians do not worship the true god. Based on this information he implied that is the Moslems who worship a false god.
It sounded to me like the caller had not actually researched this. I took about 15 minutes to locate and download an English translation of the Koran from Project Gutenburg, open it with a word processor and search for the passages. Every one of the passages explicitly stated that the Jews, Christians, and Moslems worshiped the same god, except those that did not practice the articles of their faith in their day to day life, who were liars and unfaithful.
Why should this matter to an atheist or agnostic? The religious belief is not the point. The point is that political leaders are manipulating the followers of religion to promote their agenda by spreading fear, paranoia and hate that can only lead to violence and the total opposite of peace.
There is a political movement in the middle east called Islamism that twists Islam to promote hate. There is a similar political movement in the US that twists Christianity to promote hate. This is a problem for all.
This is not meant to be or even sound convoluted but I'm sure someone here will probably take it in some way unintended.
I'm very confident that a very large majority of the members of the Muslim faith are peaceful and much beleaguered by the few who claim to be of their same ranks but who in essence have hijacked the masses through the control of the message the world hears about them from extremists, radicals and media markets.
Most Muslims would not kill an "infidel" even if Mohammed was to hold them down and say cut here along the dotted line – unless they were threatened with death themselves. That death might be by literal execution or by the easy manner by which an offense to the Law can be manufactured without much effort.
It's an awful way to view it, but in uncivilized cultures, this is how Islamic leadership is promulgated.
Why? Because they know their faith has been hijacked by the mistranslation of the Koran and the improper teachings of zealots who do not even care about anything but the politics that is married to their religion so that they change living into a "Holy War" when things aren't going well for the leaders. There is no other way for a zealous extremist Muslim to ever change their ways unless they are forced into retirement through medical incapacity.
But once even in this role many have directed the ongoing affairs of Jihads for years as we see Ben Ladin still doing.
Leaders of this sort must win even if it means silencing those of their own ranks who speak in any way against them. They simply impose their leadership onto others who mostly don't want it but who have no way of bringing back the full message of the Koran because Sharia Law is the most conservative thing on the planet once in place. Those who then control what God says is the Law, rule with an iron hand.
Sharia Law then imposes not only the content of the codified law but also forces the leadership to propagate itself by what come natural to human nature – silencing the opposition, or killing the opposition if they won't shut up. By experience they know this controls the rest of the population by fear and at the very least leaves great anxiety about how worse the next leader could be.
It like when a preacher in Florida that announces he's going to burn Korans on 9-11 to make sure everyone knows where the lies and deceit in this world are coming from. It's in human nature to lie and perpetrate all manner of selfishness. If someone thinks the Muslims do a worse job at self-correcting their leaders errors there is good reason for it.
The rank and file members of Islam who would love nothing better than to love their neighbor as themselves, have a hard time stating that they agree that certain groups of extremists are "terrorists" because they either fear for their lives if they say it, or they don't know which small fraction of the members of their own Mosque would make life extremely unpleasant for them if they really spoke out or made it appear that there were skeptical of the motives of their leaders.
How strange, but the faith and teachings of Christ can just as easily be hijacked by those who raise the standard of Christian, but who would decry we must protect the faith from external "infidels," all the while the real struggle is to not distort or change the true message of Christ even if it means eating their meat and potatoes as humble shepherd's pie..
Seems the answer to the basic flaw in how poor leadersjip is at the root of many of the problems this world faces can only be somewhat safeguarded against by term limits.
Wonder if Muslim Clerics would every submit to the idea?
Wonder if any strong authoritative class, royal or divine rulers, perhaps even the "popular mandate" variety of leaders of democracies will ever admit that even their ability to shape or control those they lead can corrupt absolutely?
I respect any leader or group of people for that matter who agree that their perspective may need either fine tuning or major adjustment for that matter.
This of course can't easily be done once these leaders or groups of people have made it known that all they care about is getting their agenda in place and imposing it upon the will of others for as long as they can maintain control.
This applies to political parties, religious organizations, educational cooperatives at any level and even those who claim no religion but who would see their worldview silence all others and reign supreme in dominant philosophical terms without a means of considering of there is any need to reconsider the assumptions of their presumed authority.
The Universal Life Church which just about claims they can ordain any living breathing person proves those with various religious views or even lack of them are not much different from anybody else. In this scheme only a few dollars buys the affiliation and the accompaniing documentaton that certifies the person is alive and breathing at the time the certificate was issued. This ordination was no other stipulations as far as I can see. Not much room to state anything else on the appliation other than name, address and method of payment. If you would like however other materials are markeyed that make a mockery of the term "accredited."
seems like a great way to get the trappings of being religious with no standards other than your own.
I wonder if that was how most corrupt leaders got control of other people's lives, by first defining terms and establishing standards as they saw fit.
Karl
You astound me with a (mostly) cogent post.
It reflects upon the current situation in the US congress, with Republicans proud to be the party of NO. (leadership? or self-interest?)
It reflects upon the opposition to the Cordoba House project (principled leadership, or sheer demagoguery?)
It reflects upon the government in Iran – seemingly democratic, but subject to the whim of the clerics. (principled leadership based on religion, or authoritarian dogma?)
It reflects upon the actions and statements of the Catholic Church regarding paedophile priests (compassionate leadership, or dismissive authoritarianism?)
It reflects upon the attitudes of those who would ban abortions in all cases (principled leadership, or plain misogyny?)
And on, and on, and on.
The common thread throughout all of these issues, is that the leadership problem seems to be enhanced and supported by organised religion – authoritarian dogma (common to almost every religion) seems to lead to authoritarian leadership – and past a certain point that becomes simply corrupt leadership.
Karl – regarding your comment on extremists taking over religions (if I may so paraphrase).
Welcome to the world we live in. This is exactly why we, as non believers, feel so beleaguered in our daily lives.
It is not the moderates who cause us angst. We are troubled by the extremists who would turn this and every other country into their theocratic authoritarian playgrounds. Places where their choice of scripture dictates the law, the public behavior, and the private behavior of every citizen. Where public office is available only to the select. Where nonbelievers and people of other faiths are, at best, second class citizens.
We know there are moderates. We are appalled that they will not speak out against the extremists. Regardless of the religion.
I do not want to abolish religion. I do want to remove its stranglehold on public and private life.
Karl we're are not drinking the toxic kool-ade here.
"This is not meant to be or even sound convoluted but I’m sure someone here will probably take it in some way unintended."
Actually it doesn't sound convoluted at all. It sounds like a misguided and biased point of view.
"I’m very confident that a very large majority of the members of the Muslim faith are peaceful and much beleaguered by the few who claim to be of their same ranks but who in essence have hijacked the masses through the control of the message the world hears about them from extremists, radicals and media markets."
This does seem to be the case. at least in English speaking nations but particularly here, where the media lead by the Fox Corporation has greatly conflated the Islamist fringe organizations as being representative of all Muslims. In actuality, this is akin to the idea of claiming all Christians are racist terrorists because of Eric Rudolf and his ilk.
"Most Muslims would not kill an “infidel” even if Mohammed was to hold them down and say cut here along the dotted line – unless they were threatened with death themselves. That death might be by literal execution or by the easy manner by which an offense to the Law can be manufactured without much effort."
Most Muslims will not kill. Period. Their religion forbids it. However the fringe Islamist
groups, like Al-Qaeda, and the Taliban have twisted the precepts of religion to suit their political agenda.
"It’s an awful way to view it, but in uncivilized cultures, this is how Islamic leadership is promulgated."
It's also the very same way the right-wing political movement is gaining its power. Does this imply we are uncivilized?
"Why? Because they know their faith has been hijacked by the mistranslation of the Koran and the improper teachings of zealots who do not even care about anything but the politics that is married to their religion so that they change living into a “Holy War” when things aren’t going well for the leaders. There is no other way for a zealous extremist Muslim to ever change their ways unless they are forced into retirement through medical incapacity."
This part is a bit nonsensical in light of your earlier admission that the majority of Muslims are peaceful and non political.
"But once even in this role many have directed the ongoing affairs of Jihads for years as we see Ben Ladin still doing."
Osama bin Laden, has never been a leader, but a major supporter of the Islamist movement, as well as a spokesman.
:Leaders of this sort must win even if it means silencing those of their own ranks who speak in any way against them. They simply impose their leadership onto others who mostly don’t want it but who have no way of bringing back the full message of the Koran because Sharia Law is the most conservative thing on the planet once in place. Those who then control what God says is the Law, rule with an iron hand."
You should really read up on Sharia. It is not what you think it is.
Also we would never ever silence people with an unpopular opinion. just ask the Dixie Chicks, or any of the people censored by Fox.
"Sharia Law then imposes not only the content of the codified law but also forces the leadership to propagate itself by what come natural to human nature – silencing the opposition, or killing the opposition if they won’t shut up. By experience they know this controls the rest of the population by fear and at the very least leaves great anxiety about how worse the next leader could be."
You really really should read about what Sharia is instead of taking some right winger asshole at his word.
"It like when a preacher in Florida that announces he’s going to burn Korans on 9-11 to make sure everyone knows where the lies and deceit in this world are coming from. It’s in human nature to lie and perpetrate all manner of selfishness. If someone thinks the Muslims do a worse job at self-correcting their leaders errors there is good reason for it."
And the reason is that we are bing lied to by the Corporate media.
"The rank and file members of Islam who would love nothing better than to love their neighbor as themselves, have a hard time stating that they agree that certain groups of extremists are “terrorists” because they either fear for their lives if they say it, or they don’t know which small fraction of the members of their own Mosque would make life extremely unpleasant for them if they really spoke out or made it appear that there were skeptical of the motives of their leaders."
Except in the dictatorships supported by the USA, such as Saudi Arabia, They speak out.
"How strange, but the faith and teachings of Christ can just as easily be hijacked by those who raise the standard of Christian, but who would decry we must protect the faith from external “infidels,” all the while the real struggle is to not distort or change the true message of Christ even if it means eating their meat and potatoes as humble shepherd’s pie.."
How equally strange is it that that Christians, who profess their belief in peace and love and non violence can be so easily duped into believing the diatribes of hate mongering, bigoted warhawks like Glen Beck simply because he claims to promote "Christian Values"
Koran burning doesn't bother me. Neither does burning the bible. the flag, or any symbol. Burning the constitution, and particularly what it stands for bothers the shit out of me.
Mark,
Don't know if your Mom and I are alike in our reasons's for rejecting chance based Macro-evolution over deep time or not. It doesn't personally bother me that the DNA or "blueprints" for chimps or a human are very similar. What bothers me is that there are those who turn statements like, "if we can't scientifically discover or model an answer to our philosophical questions of meaning and values" then there any not any other potential answers worth considering either.
Tony states,
"The common thread throughout all of these issues, is that the leadership problem seems to be enhanced and supported by organised religion – authoritarian dogma (common to almost every religion) seems to lead to authoritarian leadership – and past a certain point that becomes simply corrupt leadership."
I can see exactly what you say happening in all manner of people, including myself just as you can see it in others. However, when the leaders of the scientific rationalists believe they can speak on all manners of philisophical questions of meaning and value with authority just because they have discounted the value systems of those who are not scientific rationalists what is really going on when they discuss ideas like evolution that forms the basis of their worldviews and subsequently at least some part of their values as well?
If some being didn't create then there must be a way of explaining it all in terms of what is already here.
This explains nothing as all, it is seen by those on the outside as a logic game or a circular round robin event where it is claimed that time and chance are involved to an extent that we will never fully know.
It seems to me that people who say they are skeptical of everything except for what they have agreed together is the least likely to not need to be reconsidered are no longer be skeptical of themselves or their own motives, so they end up living of beliefs that are matters are fundamenatally not scientific at all.
Do sceintific skeptical rational naturalists really have the least biased and therefore best worldview? or do they simply have a worldview that attempts to utilize what they claim are scientific claims that are interpretive bias that fits into an acceptable worldview in their way of thinking, feeling and valuing?
Niklaus,
I have no problem accepting accusations thrown at me or even the conservastive right for that matter. I have no problem admitting that there are areas where my bias gets the better of me.
Why do highly trained intelligent people that are considered the leaders in their fields of endeavor often not believe that could be trapped in the types of viscious leadership styles we have been discussing?
In nearly all instances it is because those who would be able to help clarify these matters are seen as a threat to the leader's ability to stay the egotistical leader they see themselves as.
"Don't mess with my worldview or I might have to do something I won't like."
Karl
Up, then down, down, down…
1) Macro-evolution there is no macro, no micro – there just is evolution – it's turtles all the way down.
2) unsubstantiated strawman, in “if we can’t scientifically discover or model an answer to our philosophical questions of meaning and values” then there any not any other potential answers worth considering either.. Care to provide some citations in support of that position? The accurate statement is that if it can't be observed, directly or indirectly, then it's just shit you made up. In such a case, it's not amenable to science (other than the psychology of abnormal brain chemistry, or fertile imagination – take your pick). Claiming that science refuses to give your particular brain-farts credence is not the fault of science, and is not a lack in science.
3) If some being didn’t create then there must be a way of explaining it all in terms of what is already here. Yep – theories abound. Brane theory, multiple variants of string theory, and so on. None postulate the existence of a 'creator'. Just because you wish it were so, doesn't make it so
4) Why do highly trained intelligent people that are considered the leaders in their fields of endeavor often not believe that could be trapped in the types of viscious leadership styles we have been discussing? again this is a strawman with regards to science. Have you not heard of peer-review? It helps to ensure that regardless of ones ego, one needs to substantiate findings and support one's position with repeatable evidence. The kind of leadership you reference here is one that infests politics, commerce and religion. It rarely infests science for long – the peer-review mechanism of science is intrinsically self correcting (unless you also postulate a wide ranging conspiracy to support such egotistical leaders). Of course, if you have meat for that particular sandwich, I'd be happy to see the evidence – citations please.
I'll close with a quote that you might like to consider…
If at first you don't succeed, try, try again. Then quit. There's no point in being a damn fool about it. W.C Fields, with (absolutely no) apologies to Thomas H. Palmer
Karl writes:—"Don’t know if your Mom and I are alike in our reasons’s for rejecting chance based Macro-evolution over deep time or not. It doesn’t personally bother me that the DNA or “blueprints” for chimps or a human are very similar. What bothers me is that there are those who turn statements like, “if we can’t scientifically discover or model an answer to our philosophical questions of meaning and values” then there any not any other potential answers worth considering either."
No, for her it's very direct—there's everything else, then there are people. Sh will not accept that the line came from another line that relates her in any way to something not human. It's an emotional rejection. Very similar, I imagine (based on my reading), to white bigots who discover a black in the family tree. Common sense has nothing to do with it.
However, the second part of that always gives me a turn. Of course the fact of evolution does not call into question the value of philosophical and moral questioning. Why should it? And I don't hear any scientists saying that.
Very simply, why should one's origins bear on how we treat each other morally? And next, why should an origin not based on divine creation limit our search for meaning or limit our dreams?
I've never understood that particular syllogism. "Without god there's no meaning."
Bullshit.
Meaning comes out of the act of living and trying to live well. We have to come to grips with that whether we believe in a deity or not and the same basic answers seem to emerge from both sides. My experience with religion, in sum, was always how to live a decent live IN SPITE of the nonsense rules I was taught in theology. Firstly, because I never got an explanation in catechism class as to why these rules are better than others (because Jesus wants us to do this is not an answer, it's a dodge—maybe he does, metaphorically, but there is still a reason why), and secondly because I found far too much non-negotiable judgment of Others in theology that looked too much like simple prejudice disguised as holy writ.
But the search for meaning is not limited by what science reveals. If it does that for someone, then they were ready to give up in the first place.
—"Do sceintific skeptical rational naturalists really have the least biased and therefore best worldview? "
That's an interesting question and well worth debate, and I don't have a simple answer, but I'll suggest this:
The view that evolution is the way things work ought to provide us with a recognition that we are part and parcel of the whole kit-n-kaboodle—nature is One, in this sense—and that maybe, to save ourselves, we should stop treating the planet like our own personal pissoir. The special creation crowd, however, allows a view that humans are somehow special, somehow "above it all" and have a god-given right to use and abuse the real estate without regard to long term consequences.
Now note, in both instances I made my statements with qualifications. Special creation "allows" for such a view—it's not automatic and there is a vital, religiously-based environmental movement. Likewise, in the case of evolution, I said "it ought to provide" although it doesn't necessarily.
Enlightenment is not automatic from either position.
Which means that your question about "meaning" is not really bound up in either position. Meaning is something you have to do for its own sake.
There is a point where the two positions approach each other in this matter. The best religions tell us that we are all One in the family of god. It's all bound up together. Evolution shows us that this is genetically true—that everything alive is related to everything alive, and therefore we are all One in the family of nature.
But achieving satori from these statements is a third thing and work that has to be done whether you begin from the religious or the secular. And so there is philosophy, which is accessible to the deist and the secularist alike, and makes basically the same demands of both.
The only edge a scientist may have is that the discipline of analysis and understanding systems may predispose him or her to thinking through these questions in a way that could then be elucidated for any point of view. The interconnectedness of living systems and the environments in which they exist might allow for a quicker grasp of fundamental moral obligation as opposed to the religionist's effort to convince square pegs to accept a place in the round hole of faith before such understanding might be achieved.
In my humble opinion.
Lets talk some cosmology and modelling.
When is there sufficient evidence for a claim that proposed events unobserved in real time but caused by chance (or with somekind of unknown causes) can be assumed to have really existed?
For example, We discover what appears to common perceptions to clearly be a human artifact stuck in the middle of hardened coal that is scientifically dated to time frame when humans were thought not to exist yet for hundreds of millions of years.
Sinilarly are the laws of chance physical laws, or mathmatical models of physical events?
"meaning and values" is a big equation in human life. For instance, how do we know what is right and wrong? How is it that we inherited genes for morality? Couldn't we have inherited genes for immorality? For instance , rape, stealing, murder being the right thing to do.
Walter
You asked/stated
First some misconceptions:
Our actions and behaviors are not solely genetic – but based on a combination of genetics, epigenetics, and memetics.
Genetics provides the baseline inheritance and mutability at that baseline level. For example – predisposition to 'sickle cell leukemia' is related genetically to gene complexes that code for proteins that also protect against malaria. So genetics are not all good or bad, merely 'survivalist'. Given that the inheritance mechanism is essentially stochastic, the expression and progression of gene factors are driven by population dynamics.
Epigenetics determines WHEN and WHAT genes get expressed. This is why we all have similar genes for body morphology, and indeed many creatures show the same neotenous morphology during development – but diverge later as other genes are expressed epigenetically.
Memetics is the development and transmission of 'mental thoughts' (which is conceptually closer to lysenkoism than darwinism). As animals who communicate and learn, we share our abilities memetically (as do many fellow tool-using primates, among other creatures).
On to morality.
I would question whether there is such a 'gene' for morality, but would suggest that we are 'socially empathic' creatures by instinct – which has a genetic underpinning (it exists in all primates, and in many other creatures too – it may be an emergent property of a multiplicity of genetic traits, or a directly coded predisposition, but it is, undoubtedly, inherited). We are also learning creatures, so our behaviors are also transmitted memetically – generation to generation through what we teach our children, and through what we observe as children and adults. Our behaviors are not fixed in stone, nor are they infinitely malleable.
You likely believe that the source of morals is god, and that he has shared those moral precepts though the inspired words of the bible. I would respectfully disagree.
Our morality, I would argue, is founded in our social empathy. This does not make us naturally good, nor naturally bad. It merely makes us naturally social. As such, we have a 'social predisposition' towards promulgating the success of our 'in group' – those like us – versus any out groups – those unlike us. Morals stem from our desire to act favorably towards our in group, in competition with those out groups
I think that morals are an emergent property of any social group larger than a family, which needs to maintain social cohesiveness, while competing for (possibly scarce) resources against other groups. That is why every human society has had very similar 'morals' for in group persons, but have diverged widely in their behavior towards out groups. The details for a society's morals need not be identical to those you follow – I don't think that morals are ever absolute. Indeed, the Christian definition of 'what is moral' has changed and mutated many times, as society (the in group) has evolved. It once was moral to own slaves, to beat children for minor infractions, to inflict severe punishment for minor crimes. I'm pretty certain you would not agree with those morals.
To therefore answer your last point – I don't think that *any* human society would consider rape, theft, or murder as moral – when enacted against the in-group. With regards to the out group, the definitions change (raping your dead brother's childless widow to produce a child is a moral act, according to the book of Onan; taking goods belonging to an opposing army is appropriation, not theft; killing a criminal is not murder, but justice)
So, in closing – morals are relative. They are (in my opinion) an emergent property of social groupings larger than the family, propagated memetically among the members of that group, and subject to change as the population recognized as 'like' changes, and as the external competitive environment changes.
Tony: I agree with the outline you've offered. Thank you for taking the time express this idea so succinctly and in such an elegant framework.
As you know, attempting to understand the genesis of what people consider to be "moral" conduct is almost an obsession for me. It is driven by my repulsion at the widespread social strife these days, wherein groups are constantly making claims against other groups that their version of morality is the best, or even the only legitimate type. I agree with you that naturally occurring empathy is a major component to all moral systems, and that moral action does not ultimately depend on anything supernatural (though this natural tendency toward empathy is steered (sometimes snuffed out) by rules, sometimes in subtle ways. http://dangerousintersection.org/2010/09/01/the-f… ). It's a constantly-occurring thought that the big trick to achieving social harmony is to expand the conception of in-group, to make "moral principles" meaningful (many people choose to allow its expression only to members of their in-group). Your mention of beyond the family is an observation that thus resonates with me.
I offer these two links to articles where I'd explored this critical link between empathy and morality: http://dangerousintersection.org/2010/08/29/moral… and http://dangerousintersection.org/2009/12/06/the-r…
Walter writes:—"“meaning and values” is a big equation in human life. For instance, how do we know what is right and wrong? How is it that we inherited genes for morality? Couldn’t we have inherited genes for immorality? For instance , rape, stealing, murder being the right thing to do."
Good question and I'm not altogether sure it has anything to do specifically with "genes for morality" but maybe genes that promote choices for optimal behaviors. That is still being researched.
But just for the sake of argument, let's take it as asked. Obviously some people did inherit "genes for immorality" but for a lot of people, maybe most, it's not even an issue. I mean, let's be real—I, at least, do not have to have holy laws telling me not to commit rape and murder. I already don't want to do that. Raping and murdering have no interest for me, I do not have fight an impulse in order to avoid them.
On the other hand, it's obvious that people can be trained to do those things (just look at the child armies in parts of Africa). Training is obviously a big deal here.
How do you know what is right and wrong?
That which promotes a beneficial life and suppresses destructiveness—and those things, at a basic level, are not hard to identify.
As civilization gets more complex, though, issues of ethics (which are related to but not the same as morals) arise because of the complications of the systems we build and live in. And that requires study and training.
Tony,
That was elegantly stated. Kudos.
From a writer I can ask no greater praise. Thanks Mark.
There will never be a total separation of values and beliefs from human experience. In like manner, as long as "We The People" are the very agents of the government it will be impossible to remove the influence of values and beliefs upon the government.
The best hoped for goal of the founding fathers was to prevent any one set of values and beliefs (be that a religion or even some proposed scientific theory about life in general) from taking control of the government and becoming flat out tyrannical.
The separation of church and state principle is such that it prevents any such relationship from becoming codified into laws that would show preference for one set of values and beliefs (a religion) over another.
Providing funding and/or assistance for the construction of a not-for-profit Moslem community center has opened a door that we should recognize as one we as a country do not want to go down.
This should be shown to be an unconstitutional use of public tax funds. Those promoting this should be held accountable at the ballot box.
This is how the balance desired is to be maintained.
If we intend to try to keep the separation of church and state equally applicable to any and all religions, we must not let the goverment fund or codify any precedents in favor of any religion over and against another.