All of this was for nothing, unless we go to the stars.
You knew this was coming, but how does going to the stars change anything besides making for new primetime tv shows and perpetuating the machine of human existence?
I am a big proponent of humanity going out to the stars, but the logic here bothers me. It says that as long as humanity perpetuates for all of eternity, then it all means something -- otherwise, it doesn't mean anything. Does meaning just come down to survivability? If so, then the cockroach has us beat hands-down. And you'd better hope that the current concensus in astrophysics is correct -- that a "big crunch" is unlikely. Otherwise, meaninglessness is built into the system.
...whether it happens in a hundred years, or a thousand years, or a million years, eventually our sun will grow cold, and go out.
Just a nitpick, but it's more like 5 billion years, and then the Sun will probably engulf the earth and destroy it long before it goes cold.
Yes, it was poetic -- but it missed the mark. You believe that unless humanity as a mass perpetuates forever, then all of this is for nothing. Ben and I believe that unless the individual human soul perpetuates forever, then all of this is for nothing.
Which is, I would assert, every bit as self-centered as the idea that life, the universe, and everything was created for us by some all-powerful divine being.
But we are a species filled with hubris. We dare to dream, and then dare to live those dreams.
It's unfortunate that some become nightmares, though.
Seems a bit abstract to me, given that you're focusing on assigning a value that, for all we know, no one will ever be able to judge.
Not that B5 is a bad show, or anything - I wish very much that the later spinoffs had been successful - but over a million years a lot changes. Sun-Tze becomes rather valueless when the Art of War has completely and totally evolved. In a hundred thousand years it may be well, well beyond our current understanding, nevermind that of a philosopher from even further in the past. E=MC^2 is merely an approximation, and as a result, will become meaningless as people and computers realize that particles have an inherent kinetic energy and that calculating such is 'simple'. Two dozen years ago, the idea of a mobile media the size of your thumbnail holding gigabytes of data was nearly unimaginable. Today it's commonplace, in two more dozen years no one will remember such inefficient devices, or if they do, only as a gimic or a toy.
Five thousand years ago, religion, speech, even thought processes, all were entirely different from our methods today. Most of the information from that time is completely and totally meaningless to us today. And you expect information today to last several billion years?
The only meaningful thing we can do is encourage our next generation to be meaningful, and to spread such beliefs on down. Anything else is transitory.
Just so you know, they are in pre-production of some new Babylon 5 DVDs. That's right, they are bringing the show back in direct-to-DVD format.
Given that two of the main cast are dead and I doubt significant chunks of the rest would be interested, I imagine it'd be pretty drastically different.
I'm calling shenanigans on myself. I misread a post on another site that led me to believe that The Lost Tales would be a new series and not a one time movie.
My bad. Or in Latin. Mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa.
The notion that our existence now, either as an individual or as a species, is meaningless unless the species propagates to the stars is just as silly as, although totally unrelated to, the notion that people who live now are guilty of the sins of their ancestors. Neither one makes any sense to me.
I beg to differ. There is nothing objectively poetic about mass survival. Like I said, cockroaches have been doing that brilliantly for quite a long time, and I challenge anyone to romanticize that fact.
DJ,
You don't think it's a fact of existence that people pay for the mistakes of their ancestors? How long has it been since the end of slavery, and we're still paying for that abomination...
guilty adj. Responsible for or chargeable with a reprehensible act; deserving of blame; culpable
People sometimes pay for the sins of their ancestors, Sarah, but that doesn't mean they are guilty of the sins their ancestors committed. Only their ancestors can be guilty of those sins.
I am blameless for any and all sins which my ancestors committed. I can be guilty of the sins which I have committed, but not of sins which anyone else committed.
"Sin lies only in hurting other people unnecessarily. All other "sins" are invented nonsense. (Hurting yourself is not sinful -- just stupid.)"
I like that better than the dictionary definition I quoted. But, my comment still stands. If my great-great-grandfather hurt someone unnecessarily, then he was guilty of sin, but I'm not guilty of his sin.
The various flavors of Christianity hold that the term "original sin" applies to Adam's eating of the fruit of the tree of knowledge. Orthodox Christianity holds that we inherit a human nature that is corrupted by that sin, but the guilt of Adam is not inherited, i.e. each person is guilty of only his own sins. Protestantism, however, holds that individuals not only inherit a nature that is sinful, but they inherit actual guilt for the sin committed by Adam. The whole notion of "salvation" is to convince God that one should be forgiven for having that guilt, thereby being allowed to do what Adam was denied, i.e. to eat of the tree of life and become immortal.
So, to say that "Christianity certainly does not" teach that "you are not guilty of someone else's sin" is not accurate. But, to say that Christianity does so teach, one must be careful to say just what flavor of Christianity one means, and there are lots of flavors.
See why I describe such silliness as "made by the minds of men"? A blogger might say, "You can't make this stuff up," but people did make this stuff up. The whole concept of Christianity, of being forgiven for the inherited guilt of Adam having committed a sin and thereby living forever, simply falls apart if one denies the biblical fable of Adam and Eve and the Garden of Eden.
I have literally heard people "visit the sins of the father upon the sons" by accusing Jews of killing Jesus, and I mean by literally accusing Jews who live today of being guilty of the "sin" of killing Jesus two thousand years ago. The irrationality of such thinking numbs the mind, but I have personally known people who think that way.
So, the notion arises in may forms, and Christianity is only one of those forms.
Er, "Original Sin?" I believe I've heard of that one bandied about a bit.
There is no mention of original sin in the Bible. Anyone who talks about it is full of bunk. Even if you think the Bible is made up, the "original sin" stuff is supra-made-up (how should that be spelled?).
To repeat, there is no "original sin" in the Bible. It's a strange thing made up by the Catholics.
I have literally heard people "visit the sins of the father upon the sons" by accusing Jews of killing Jesus, and I mean by literally accusing Jews who live today of being guilty of the "sin" of killing Jesus two thousand years ago. The irrationality of such thinking numbs the mind, but I have personally known people who think that way.
They are stupid. Jesus was a Jew. Did Jesus kill Jesus?
And all that other blather is made up, I'll agree with you there. It's a problem of what happens when people get carried away with dippy notions and then try to justify it with SCOTUS like contortions of the facts.
I know the Bible is made up, because it is full of contradictions. It cannot possibly be all true.
The Old Testament does not discuss in any way the notion that there is an "original sin" to be inherited by the descendants of Adam. Nor is there any discussion about the notion that someone will come along who will make it all better.
The New Testament breaks new ground, not surprisingly, with the writings of Paul the Apostle. The first mention of such a notion, although it's not called "original sin", was written by Paul in Romans 5:12 -- Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned:
Christianity in its many flavors is based on that notion, and not just for Catholics. To sum it up, Jesus did not inherit the sin of Adam, because the father of Jesus was God, but God punishes everyone else for Adam's sin and saves them by killing someone who is innocent of that sin.
My head hurts.
So, I agree in spirit with you. People did get carried away with such "dippy notions" and founded a religion on them. It's ALL made up.
DJ, that's not how it works, though I know it's tempting to read it that way. I know that scripture, and that is not its point.
All that says is that sin began with the first man. We all sin, even though we could choose not to, but good luck. You know how the rest of the story goes.
This part of the argument is going nowhere, so I'll change tack.
The major problem with supposed Christians, where they depart anything resembling what Christ and the Apostles taught, which connects them more with Islam than Christianity, is that they try to use the power of the government to force everyone else to do what they think is right. Abortion, gambling, drugs, etc. If I was elected "Supreme Cheesburger of America" right now, I would outlaw none of these things. I think abortions are disgusting and immoral, but they should be perfectly legal, and accessible, provided you can find a doctor willing to give them. On the other hand, I should be allowed to avoid associating with such a person. If I don't want to rent an appartment that I own to someone I don't like for my own moral reasons, I shouldn't be forced to by the government (as an example, not that I would do this).
The problem second to this is the "yuck! gay cooties!" problem. The Bible clearly states that morally, in terms of your salvation, no sin is any worse, nor any better, than any other. So when Christians single out a particular group of sinners, it is ridiculous. They would be better to single out themselves and the lousy things they do every day. Humility obviously isn't their strong suit.
When their life and doctrine are so far apart, it's impossible to call them Christians at all.
Do y'all know what the word "sin" means? It means to err or make mistakes, not to commit evil. Heinlein is inaccurate. People err in multitudes of ways other than hurting others. Sin, in and of itself, isn't such a big deal, but for its tendency to lead to evil.
DJ,
I commend you for spending time and effort to try to understand what it is you're rejecting. But it sounds like you have a lot invested in proving to yourself that religion is hokum. You mentioned before that you're reading some kind of expose book on Christianity (I'm curious which book that is, btw). I hope you understand that you cannot honestly reject something until you have given serious consideration to the best evidence for the thing you're rejecting.
The latest book I've read on the subject is The Closing of the Western Mind, subtitled The Rise of Faith and the Fall of Reason, by Charles Freeman. ISBN 0-965-49306-7. I recommend it highly.
Now, let's consider two statements you made above:
I commend you for spending time and effort to try to understand what it is you're rejecting.
and
I hope you understand that you cannot honestly reject something until you have given serious consideration to the best evidence for the thing you're rejecting.
You have jumped mightily to two erroneous conclusions. First, I do understand what it is that I reject, and second, I have given serious consideration to all the evidence I could find both for and against the thing I reject, and I have given that consideration for the past 43 years.
A short story is in order to give some credibility to that assertion.
Way back until I was nine years old, my father and his father were partners in a dairy farm. We lived on that farm and my grandparents' house was 200 feet away from ours.
This was small-town Bible Belt Baptist Oklahoma, and we attended the local orange-red brick building, as did most families in the area.
In July of 1962, my grandfather died. About two weeks later, I met my mother as she came out of the bathroom and asked her, point blank, "Did Grandpa go to Heaven?"
Now, to understand the significance of that question, you would have to know my grandfather. He was a mean-spirited, grudge-bearing SOB, and my brothers and I just weren't good enough, given that both my mother and father had each been married before. All I knew at that time was that I steered clear of him if he was by himself, as I didn't relish the ration of chickenshit that could come my way without warning.
Well, the question struck my mother like an axe handle. She stood stock still, turned white as a sheet, and wouldn't look me in the eye. She said nothing, and was obviously in considerable distress.
It scared the hell out of me. What had I done? All I did was ask a simple and obvious question. Why was she so upset?
She stood there for at least two full minutes, and then it hit me. She didn't know! OK, so how could she know? How could anyone know?
Then she finally said, "Yes!" and hurried past me. She avoided me the rest of the day, and we never discussed the subject again. We also never went to church again.
Three months later, my father died. I didn't ask where he went.
All that time, I couldn't help wondering how that miserable SOB could end up in Heaven. I also couldn't help wondering why my question upset my mother so much.
At the end of that school year, we moved off the farm into town. By far, the best part of that move was the nice library about five minutes away by bicycle. I made friends with the librarian and spent much of the next two years there.
A thinker was born. I read everything: history, science, physics, math, geology, you name it. I read a lot about the history of religion. At the end of those two years, I utterly rejected religion. The history of its evolution showed it to be the most utter nonsense, just made-up silliness that would be laughable if it hadn't resulted in so much death and misery. I have continued to reject it, and to read and think about it, for the past 43 years.
So, kindly don't jump to the conclusion that my comments in Kevin's parlor are nothing more than "Google, cut, and paste", as they are nothing of the sort. Google makes it easy to find the quotes, but my opinions come from a lifetime of effort.
That's funny, DJ. At 18 I thoroughly embraced Rand and Objectivism. At 33, I became a Christian. Where the two are compatible, that's ok, but where not, I've rejected Rand.
The simple fact is that nobody, neither you nor me, knows anything about anything.
I am continually amused how otherwise-sophisticated thinkers in the West confuse the validity of Christianity in particular(in any of its myriad forms) with the validity of a Supreme Being as a general concept.
I know where you're going with this question. When astrology starts dictating mass movements, then I'll answer the question. :)
DJ,
What I assumed was: (1) you made up your mind about religion at an early age, due to a bad experience, and this formed the basis of your prejudice -- that assumption, unfortunately, has now been validated; (2) though you have no doubt read a lot on the subject, you tend to stick to that which reinforces your belief. Have you, for instance, read C.S. Lewis, Lee Strobel's series of books on faith and Christianity, and Dinesh D'Souza? With respect to Freeman's book, I'm aware of it and considerable criticism of it. Even Amazon.com's editorial review isn't very flattering. And here is a more detailed rebuttal.
...just made-up silliness that would be laughable if it hadn't resulted in so much death and misery
You mean, as opposed to humanism, which has resulted in incalculable misery, oppression, and the slaughter of 100 million people? Look at any institution or culture in the world that has ever been based on the belief that man is the measure of all things and I'll show you an utter failure.
As for the crimes of religion, I've said this before -- you are making the terrible mistake of lumping all religions together. Christianity cannot be held responsible for the misery created by other religions (i.e. Islam) nor even the shortcomings of Catholicism. Protestant Christianity is responsible for almost everything that you enjoy in the Western world. It gave rise to individual rights, the end of slavery, the industrial revolution, and provided the fertile ground out of which modern science flourished -- the very things you claim to cherish are products of the Christian faith. If you doubt this, then you must read D'Souza's What's So Great About America.
Mastiff,
I am continually amused how otherwise-sophisticated thinkers in the West confuse the validity of Christianity in particular(in any of its myriad forms) with the validity of a Supreme Being as a general concept.
It's not necessarily confusion. Look at it this way. You can test the validity of an unprovable assumption by seeing if you can produce anything worthwhile with it. Geometry is based on a set of nine unprovable assumptions. The proof of their validity is that geometry works -- you can do stuff with it. The same test can be applied to religious faith, including Christianity, which is based on some unprovable assumptions. As with geometry, look to see what the end product is -- does it work or does it just produce nonsense? With Judaism, you see an almost miraculous ability to survive outrageous persecution and prejudices, and a disproportionate degree of success in just about every field. With Christianity you get nearly everything that we enjoy about modern, Western, civilized life. That's not to brush aside the defects of these faiths, but in the mean you get a lot of good things from them -- and they are based on the unprovable assumption that there is a rational, purposeful Supreme Being, the God of the Bible. As for the validity of Islam's assumptions or those of humanism... I think the results speaks for themselves. But even with Islam you get survival of the culture. Humanism, which is the prevalent system of belief in places like Canada, Europe, and parts of the U.S., has failed to promote its own perpetuation -- these places are being overtaken by other more aggressive cultures. Secular humanism is a religion based on belief in man as the measure of all things, and what it produces is a slow, painful demise. It doesn't work, therefore its assumptions are probably invalid. At some level the validity of a Supreme Being is tied to the validity of a particular faith.
What I assumed was: (1) you made up your mind about religion at an early age, due to a bad experience, and this formed the basis of your prejudice -- that assumption, unfortunately, has now been validated;
Let's see now ...
prejudice 1. n (with my emphasis added)
a. An adverse judgment or opinion formed beforehand or without knowledge or examination of the facts.
b. A preconceived preference or idea.
2. The act or state of holding unreasonable preconceived judgments or convictions.
3. Irrational suspicion or hatred of a particular group, race, or religion.
No, my opinions are precisely the opposite of prejudice. The were formed after examination of facts and history and thereby acquiring knowledge. They were not preconceived, rather they resulted from years of thought. They are not unreasonable, indeed they are based upon reasoning from the observable facts. I am not given to hate, and my opinions of those who believe in God and such not only do not include hate, they are not irrational.
... you tend to stick to that which reinforces your belief.
Given that you have almost no knowledge of what I have read or studied on this subject, you have no way of knowing whether or not I have "stuck" to anything. Again, you jump to conclusions.
You have accused me of, in effect, not properly doing my homework and so having beliefs which I cannot justify. You, however, have not properly done your homework so as to know what I have done and so be able to pass judgement on me. You have done precisely what you erroneously accuse me of. You should be ashamed of yourself.
In truth, I retired in 2001 at an early age, partly because I could (everyone's dream, right?), but mostly because I could no longer tolerate, in my employer and his hand-picked fair haired boy, exactly what you accuse me of. I believe in reality. As I've stated before, a man's beliefs should be proportional to his evidence, and I follow the evidence.
With respect to Freeman's book, I'm aware of it and considerable criticism of it. Even Amazon.com's editorial review isn't very flattering. And here is a more detailed rebuttal.
Try reading it for yourself. It's a very good read. We can't have you forming preconceived notions, or getting stuck on what reinforces your beliefs, now can we?
Freeman does not "attack" Christianity. What I find amazing is that I cannot tell, from reading his book, whether or not he is a believer. I can tell that he has an extreme breadth of knowledge about the founding of Christianity. Indeed, 21% of his book is endnotes and bibliography; his research must have been exhausting.
He documents and chronicles the founding of Christianity. He does not condemn it, rather the premise of his book is that Christianity ultimately resulted in the suppression of thinking based on reason, on evidence, and on facts, i.e. on Greek philosophy, all in favor of faith in God and in enforcement of that faith by the state. A glimpse of the flavor of this is a quote from Augustine: A characteristic of heretical sects is to be incapable of seeing what is obvious to everyone else. His closing paragraph begins: I would reiterate the central theme of this book: that the Greek intellectual tradition was suppressed rather than simply faded away.
... you are making the terrible mistake of lumping all religions together.
I have stated before that I do not lump all religions together. They are all equally silly in their beliefs in deities and such, in my opinion, but the are vastly different in the history of their effects on the human race, and in the threat they pose to the future of us all.
... Christianity cannot be held responsible for the misery created by other religions (i.e. Islam) ...
I have never stated otherwise, but it can, and should, be held responsible for the misery that it did create.
... nor even the shortcomings of Catholicism.
Catholicism is a flavor of Christianity. Indeed, its name originally meant the "whole of Christianity". Such was rather presumptuous, but religious dogma is like that.
Protestant Christianity is responsible for almost everything that you enjoy in the Western world. It gave rise to individual rights, the end of slavery, the industrial revolution, and provided the fertile ground out of which modern science flourished.
I've stated it before and I'll state it again. I believe such happened despite Christianity in general, even Protestant Christianity, not because of it. Such happened because people came to be able to think, to reason, to speak, to hear, to write, to read, to converse, and to do without being suppressed and/or executed for the religious crime of heresy. Protestant Christianity still afflicts us with its stifling effects. For example, and as I commented before, Protestant Christianity still cannot abide the teaching of evolution.
... the very things you claim to cherish are products of the Christian faith ...
No, they are the products of thinking outside the constraints of faith and of heresy. Christian faith suppressed such for more than a millenium, and we enjoy those things only because Christian faith is no longer allowed to suppress such thoughts.
Good response, DJ. I have a couple quibbles though. Near the end you refer to "Christian faith" where I really think you mean to say "Christian institutions" or "doctrine of Christian institutions." Faith is a part, but faith itself didn't suppress anything. Maybe you just meant "the faith?"
I've stated it before and I'll state it again. I believe such happened despite Christianity in general, even Protestant Christianity
This is your greatest error and it is nearly impossible to avoid, I know. On the face of it, this contention seems to be correct nearly to the point of axiom, which is why this is such a difficult mistake to avoid.
Now, without explanation of the above, I'm going to switch topics one more time. The definition you give above mentions that prejudice is judgment without knowledge or examination of the facts. Then you claim that your judgments have come with knowledge and examination of the observed facts. So if these observed facts are not the whole facts, or omit some facts that you are unaware of, then you are guilty of prejudice too. We may never know for sure, and you do try your best, but there it is all the same. Kinda dumb, but kinda true.
Unfortunately the important distinction between the scriptures of Christianity and its cultural institutions is infrequently made- or when it is, a pointless argument about just who the REAL Christians are and how REAL Christianity would lead inevitably to love and truth and happycakes follows. (I always find it hard to read those without mentally inserting "real communism".)
Religion and the forms it takes are as much shaped by culture as cultures are shaped by the religion. Trying to pull them apart is almost always pointless- even if you succeed, by the time you're done you're now having a conversation about a completely hypothetical fantasyland.
Near the end you refer to "Christian faith" where I really think you mean to say "Christian institutions" or "doctrine of Christian institutions." Faith is a part, but faith itself didn't suppress anything. Maybe you just meant "the faith?"
I meant what I wrote. Consider the thinking of Pope Gregory (509-604) as noted by Freeman:
He distrusted secular learning, and for him the deadliest of the seven deadly sins was pride, by which he meant intellectual independence. "The wise," he said, "should be advised to cease from their knowledge," to be "wise in ignorance, wisely untaught." The philosophers, he went on, were so concerned with finding the immediate causes of things that they were blind to the ultimate "cause," which was the will of God.
So much for engineering, huh? For more than a millenium, the "constraint of faith" was an inhibition on thinking at all.
This is your greatest error and it is nearly impossible to avoid, I know. ... Now, without explanation of the above, I'm going to switch topics ...
Don't give me that and don't cop out. Why do you think this is an error, especially "my greatest error"?
So if these observed facts are not the whole facts, or omit some facts that you are unaware of, then you are guilty of prejudice too.
There are very few things for which knowing all the facts is possible. Thus, by that standard, to judge almost anything, regardless of the care and thoroughness by which it is done, is to be guilty of prejudice, which reduces the term to meaninglessness. I don't buy it.
"Look at it this way. You can test the validity of an unprovable assumption by seeing if you can produce anything worthwhile with it.
-- "With Christianity you get nearly everything that we enjoy about modern, Western, civilized life. That's not to brush aside the defects of these faiths, but in the mean you get a lot of good things from them -- and they are based on the unprovable assumption that there is a rational, purposeful Supreme Being, the God of the Bible."
I knew I'd find a place to put this quote one day:
It is often argued that religion is valuable because it makes men good, but even if this were true it would not be a proof that religion is true. That would be an extension of pragmatism beyond endurance. Santa Claus makes children good in precisely the same way, and yet no one would argue seriously that the fact proves his existence. The defense of religion is full of such logical imbecilities. – H.L. Mencken
"constraint of faith"? I can defeat that with your own argument that that is just that one guys version of faith, but then you can just stick it back to me, and so on it goes.
Kevin's quote gets the jist of why the protestants were so important, and yes, that has nothing to do with whether or not it is true.
Quoting my buddy Garan, here's the short of it:
"The central problem is the extreme difficulty of man to restrict his pleasures. He not only overenjoys his social feelings, through the use of intellect, but also needs pleasure as inducement for accepting restrictions as sources of potentials and of conditioned social sacrifices [or perceived sacrifices - ed]."
To really explain this I'd have to tell you why it's important that we "restrict our pleasures" which would take a while. Given that, though, protestantism was very good at giving people "reasons" to restrict their pleasures, which made them, uniquely in history, capable of creating a society based on saving, capital accumulation, honesty, and all the other components necessary to a capitalist economic society. Nothing else has done, nor could do that. The intellect is too easily deceived by seemingly rational "value delusions," as Garan calls them, since intellect inevitably, when applied by a primitive people, seeks only to directly enhance the immediate pleasures, which leads to exhaustion of the meager resources they posses, and no chance for accumulation.
Now then, here's one of my favorite quote from Garan:
"Any human terms are demeaning in our thinking about God. Even viewing God as pure intellect is degrading. As we saw [or didn't - ed :)], intellect is a very clumsy capacity, of proceeding by "ones", while nature works with myriads of elements at every point and instant. The only advantage intellect has is that it can relive or remember the past, and project future from it. If one such simple advantage makes the whole difference, the world of human intellect must be limited indeed. The more learned a religion is, the more fatuous it becomes. Anything men can say or pretend o know about God is preposterous. Yet thousands of books are being written and uncountable words said every day, in explaining God, by millions of highly learned men. The plain waste of talent and effort is deplorable.
...
The simple men who live by this restrictive tradition and bow in awe before the severe will of a mysterious, incomprehensible God, are closer to a true religion than the learned theologians in their fatuous, endless "explanations" of a humanistic God.
Love it, Kevin. That's one by Mencken that I hadn't heard.
It's even better than my old claim that the invisible elephant in my wife's garden is a Very Good Thing, and so he simply must exist, because he keeps the armadillos away. The proof, you ask? Well, we don't have armadillos in the garden. Ta daaa!
Anything men can say or pretend o know about God is preposterous. Yet thousands of books are being written and uncountable words said every day, in explaining God, by millions of highly learned men. The plain waste of talent and effort is deplorable.
Yup, and ALL of that effort and talent would have been better spent in digging better latrines and inventing sewers.
... and bow in awe before the severe will of a mysterious, incomprehensible God ...
I have tried hard and for a long time, but I still cannot get beyond the silliness of this. To bow in awe before something whose existence, not to mention the properties of, one cannot even detect, is simply something my mind is not capable of.
Argh, DJ, that wasn't the point. All he said was if you do that, you will be closer to a true religion. He makes no claims whatsoever that God exists. Sheesh, quit being prejudiced when you read my posts, and read them for what they actually say.
Yup, and ALL of that effort and talent would have been better spent in digging better latrines and inventing sewers.
So you claim. While I agree with Garan's point, I disagree with yours. Garan had superior things in mind when he was thinking of what the learned men might have done with their efforts.
I got his point, and he was correct -- such thinking is much closer to a true religion. My point was just how silly a true religion is. Did you get it?
So you claim. While I agree with Garan's point, I disagree with yours. Garan had superior things in mind when he was thinking of what the learned men might have done with their efforts.
So you claim. While I agree with Garan's point, I disagree with yours. If you don't think sanitation is important, go visit London about 1840. I can think of very few things that are more important than sanitation when it doesn't exist, and religion ain't even close.
Just to save time, I'll insert the in between comments involved in getting to my dippy point.
Someone: Wha? But sanitation is always important. It would have helped them avoid disease, bad smells, and would generally improve the appearance of the place.
And now, double Argh! You've decided to address the lesser important points and skip the more interesting ones. The stuff that is related to why protestantism was important. Why did you do that?
Step 3: After reading about it, consider your dippy point again. Consider what it was like to live in London in 1840.
Step 4: Consider my dippy point. If you lived in London in 1840, knowing what it's like living with the benefit of modern sewage systems, at what point would you prefer a toilet to a Bible? When would you begin to wipe your arse with its pages? When would what Paul thought of Jesus matter less to you than what you think of the stink you cannot avoid in your own home, or what you think of the excrement that you cannot avoid stepping in when you walk outside, or what you think of the excrement that rains down you from the chamber pot upstairs as you walk down the sidewalk?
Second, Protestantism:
Yeah, the enjoyment of life was holding back the standard of living. I've heard it before. I'm ignoring it until you "really explain it".
Step 5: then you die and it doesn't matter anyway.
If I could press a button and obliterate all life on earth, and I did it, would it matter? Would that be an immoral act? If so, why?
--------------------------
Now, have you ever noticed how easy it is to give people a pittance of an "entitlement", and have that suffice to make them incapable of expending the tiniest amount of energy to make things any better for themselves? It is precisely because that life, although sucky, is easy. Getting up and doing any work, for persons accustomed to such "entitlements", is nearly impossible because they cannot bear the unpleasant feelings associated with the work. You can try to hang the carrot in front of their face: explain that they'll have a more enjoyable life if they get up and do some work for their own benefit, but they still can't do it. All the rational discussion in the world will not help. There is nothing you can say, no ideas you have, that will make any difference, as all those things in themselves are causally weightless.
The two things you can do are
1. make things harder for them (take away the entitlement)
2. gradually ...
oh heck, I give up. We could go at this for years and it wouldn't make any difference. We're each swine of a sort, and our particular pearls are wasted.
Step 5: then you die and it doesn't matter anyway.
We've been there. I didn't buy it then and I don't buy it now.
If I could press a button and obliterate all life on earth, and I did it, would it matter?
Yes.
Would that be an immoral act? If so, why?
Yes, it would. It's called mass murder, among other things, and in such a case it would be the murder of billions of people who have done you no harm. I have no problem with calling that immoral. Do you?
Regarding the remainder of your comment, I suggest staying away from the mushrooms.
But, if you can't get your act together, I'll get mine.
Consider how the end of feudalism affected peoples' work ethics, and that said end began long before Martin Luther got pissed. Then explain how the work ethic also improved in predominately Catholic areas of the world contemporaneously with Protestant areas.
Notice an aspect of religion that I have addressed repeatedly but you have thoroughly ignored. Consider that Isaac Newton was born the year after Galileo Galilei died, and consider how differently they were treated by organized religion in their own lifetemes.
Galileo proved by observed evidence that the earth moved around the sun along with the other planets, and was ordered by the Pople to recant on pain of death for the crime of heresy. Galileo recanted and publication of his works was prohibited by the church.
Newton not only proved by observed evidence that the earth moved around the sun along with the other planets, he also developed the mathematics and the physics to describe that motion in exquisite detail. Further, he took issue with many of the teachings of the church, notably the western concept of the Trinity. Despite this, not only was he not accused of heresy, he was revered as the greatest scientist of all time during his own lifetime.
What a difference a little time and tolerance make, huh?
Do you suppose people were willing to do more to improve their lot in life once the product of their work was their own, and once doing their work did not put them at risk of life and limb from the local shaman? Wouldn't it have been grand if the founding of Christianity had led to the remarkable advance in the standard of living that the industrial revolution provided, instead of to the dark ages?
Newton not only proved by observed evidence that the earth moved around the sun along with the other planets
Proved, my butt. He's just a brain in a vat.
Now then, I submit that if there is no purpose to life, other than what you seem to think, then there is absolutely nothing imoral about pushing the button. There are NO consequences for ANYBODY, except that life is a little shorter, but then once they are dead THEY DO NOT KNOW THE DIFFERENCE. THEREFORE, SINCE NOBODY IS LEFT TO CARE, HOW CAN IT MATTER?
Naw, I'd get caught monologing, and then someone would find my secrete weakness.
I almost would buy into what DJ is saying, except I lost all faith in humanity when they pulled the plug on firefly. That's what has turned me to my evil overlord ways.
If that's what you call it. I gave up on reason as its own end a while back when I realized it is a dead end and has no answers, no compact truth. There is nothing more to be said about that either, since you can prove nothing, in the end. Inevitably, you must always resort to assumptions taken as axiom, and that's not good enough for me.
Now don't go eating any hamburgers today, because that would be murder.
"Inevitably, you must always resort to assumptions taken as axiom, and that's not good enough for me. "
Sure it is. You've accepted "God did it" as an axiom. That's obviously a good enough assumption for you. Then you convinced yourself that such acceptance constitutes an answer, a "compact truth" that absolves you from having to reason out answers on your own - or accepting that you might never be able to reason out an answer for some of the more difficult questions.
Not true. I don't accept "Got did it" as an axiom. Actually, I accept only that "I don't know, and neither do you" as an axiom.
In my political life (dealing with everyone) I stick mostly to objectivist type stuff as a model for government, laws, etc. I just don't base my morality on it.
Even your formulation of morality requires faith. You've just put your faith in "reason," which is pathetic. Human reason, while neat and fun and all, is unbearably feeble in matters of truth, and yours is no different. Yes, reason is fine for inventing TV remotes, figuring out how to put an AR-15 together, and writing treatise on hamster migration, but it cannot prove in the slightest that "murder is wrong." Try to do it by reason alone. You can't.
I gave up on reason as its own end a while back when I realized it is a dead end and has no answers, no compact truth. There is nothing more to be said about that either, since you can prove nothing, in the end.
If you want an absolute authority, then yes. Otherwise there is room for disagreement.
Now, DJ, the definition of "abdicate" is
ab‧di‧cate /ˈæbdɪˌkeɪt/ Pronunciation Key - Show Spelled Pronunciation[ab-di-keyt] Pronunciation Key - Show IPA Pronunciation verb, -cat‧ed, -cat‧ing.
–verb (used without object)
1. to renounce or relinquish a throne, right, power, claim, responsibility, or the like, esp. in a formal manner: The aging founder of the firm decided to abdicate.
–verb (used with object)
2. to give up or renounce (authority, duties, an office, etc.), esp. in a voluntary, public, or formal manner: King Edward VIII of England abdicated the throne in 1936.
So it's nice that you consider "reason" to be like a throne, right, power, claim, or responsibility, and that you think I've given it up in that regard, but I only said I gave it up as an end in itself, as a way to find a compact truth. It isn't.
Now quit being such a serious jerk. I'm just farting around here, and you're being a bit of a tit.
Simmer down a little, would you. Your particular sect of "reason is king" is grinding with my former half as sect of the same, and I don't dig heretics of reason.
Read it again. "Abdicate" is to "renounce responsibility". It says so right there in your quote. You have renounced responsibility for using reason in your own life.
Now quit being such a serious jerk. I'm just farting around here, and you're being a bit of a tit.
I'm often serious, Ben. People who think often are. I'm never a jerk.
You are obviously not an empty-headed youth, given your earlier statement that you became a Christian at age 33. One makes such a decision by choice, i.e. as a result of a reasoning process. Yet you claim not just to have abandoned reason, but that, because you will one day be dead, nothing matters -- not your life, your death, nor the manner thereof.
I'll wager that you have lived sufficiently long that you have undoubtedly evaded the designs of any number of assailants who would cheerfully take from you all your possessions and then your life. To avoid once such encounter is easily no more than chance, but to avoid them for decades requires active intent. But, why would you do that if it didn't matter?
Puzzling, ain't it? And it's the tip of the iceberg.
You either do believe that your being alive matters and that the manner of your eventual death matters, or you lack the courage of your convictions. The point is that you do not live your life as if you believe what you claim to believe, and so I don't believe that you believe what you say.
I believe that you have found it impossible to defend your religious beliefs via reason, so you have resorted to the ultimate copout, namely that reason itself is unreasonable.
I don't buy it. I don't live my life as if I did, and you don't either.
Just farting around, eh? I'm not, and I'm not interested in discussions that are no more than farts.
So, Ben, is the killing of innocents in war - say, as collateral damage from precision-guided munitions - murder?
No, why would you think that I might think that this is. Actually, yes, it is murder, unless everyone on the planet dies at exactly the same moment. As long as someone is left to care, then it is murder, or figgie pudding.
DJ:
OK, now you are failing to understand me, or read me fairly. I know, you will claim that you are.
What I said was this, and I'll quote myself exactly:
So it's nice that you consider "reason" to be like a throne, right, power, claim, or responsibility, and that you think I've given it up in that regard, but I only said I gave it up as an end in itself, as a way to find a compact truth. It isn't.
There. All I said was I don't accept reason as the absolute authority on moral issues. I use reason all the time and have abdicated no responsibility. If you think reason is the panacea, then PROVE that you can have an OBJECTIVE morality, free from assumptions and axioms. It cannot be done.
I do not claim that I have the answer. I have only found, logically, that one thing seems to be certain: Using laws of nature, God could not prove his existence to us. If he came down and performed outlandish miracles, all that would accomplish for me is to make me think powerful space aliens were at work, or that I was a brain in a vat. So what has he got left?
The thing that got me on this track was the following, and it is from AYN RAND herself! If we were all indestructible robots, what need would we have for morality? She answered that of course we would need no such thing. Isn't that a little thought provoking?
"Yet you claim not just to have abandoned reason, but that, because you will one day be dead, nothing matters -- not your life, your death, nor the manner thereof."
You don't get it. Ben argues that without God this is the case. Ben believes in God, therefore he does not believe this. I think you two are talking somewhat past each other.
Ben: I wasn't suggesting that you believed that such a death was murder. I'm trying to determine what you think God considers to be murder.
I don't either. I'll consider a semi-worthless incomplete conjecture:
For sure, if I walk up to a random person and kill him on the spot, that is murder. I think intention and circumstances has everything to do with it, unlike our current legal system, in which intent and knowledge have nothing to do with it, like in the case I posted on my blog about the guy with the sawed off shotgun. Sheesh.
I only said I gave it up as an end in itself, as a way to find a compact truth. It isn't.
You wrote considerably more than that. For example:
The simple fact is that nobody, neither you nor me, knows anything about anything.
And you state this to an engineer. Do you want to be taken seriously?
Someone: Wha? But sanitation is always important. It would have helped them avoid disease, bad smells, and would generally improve the appearance of the place.
Me: So what? They're all dead.
Again, do you want to be taken seriously?
Now then, I submit that if there is no purpose to life, other than what you seem to think, then there is absolutely nothing imoral about pushing the button. There are NO consequences for ANYBODY, except that life is a little shorter, but then once they are dead THEY DO NOT KNOW THE DIFFERENCE. THEREFORE, SINCE NOBODY IS LEFT TO CARE, HOW CAN IT MATTER?
And I submit that it matters regardless of whether or not there is any "purpose to life". Your writings have led me to believe, for quite some time now, that you believe there is no purpose to life, and, to you, there is no "if" about it.
I do not claim that I have the answer. I have only found, logically, that one thing seems to be certain: Using laws of nature, God could not prove his existence to us. If he came down and performed outlandish miracles, all that would accomplish for me is to make me think powerful space aliens were at work, or that I was a brain in a vat. So what has he got left?
I agree completely, and I would think the same thing. More importantly, what have you got left? Why then do you believe in God?
If we were all indestructible robots, what need would we have for morality? She answered that of course we would need no such thing. Isn't that a little thought provoking?
Yup, it is. It makes me wonder what would be the point of making robots to fight wars for us. The robots won't care who wins.
Now read my response to Kevin and I'll get back to you.
Kevin:
DJ, you have misunderstood Ben.
Possibly so.
Ben argues that without God this is the case. Ben believes in God, therefore he does not believe this. I think you two are talking somewhat past each other.
Yup. Your words and his are light years apart in clarity, and I can't read his mind.
Ben:
Quite seriously, I can't read your mind. I have taken your words, over many months, to mean what they say. Absent any explicit qualification of "if God exists", I don't find such an implicit qualification. The understanding of what you mean is light years apart without it.
Explicitly, the existence of God would not change what I think, simply because the characteristics of such a God are no more detectable than the existence itself, and so the notion that life has "meaning" only if God exists is still just plain silly. Such a "meaning" is what you personally would attribute to it, or what you would allow others (via abdication) to attribute to it, and that's no different from just making it up or applying reason.
I agree, DJ. Now, I did mean to imply the "if" part, but never said it because I just figured it would be understood. Sorry for the confusion.
As an example of what I really mean, here it is: I think murder is wrong independent of whether or not there is a God. Without a God, I cannot say why it is wrong exactly, except that it seems wrong and I don't like it. There's lots of "reasons" that I could come up with for why it is immoral, but none of them would ever be entirely satisfying. I'll be honest, faith is not "entirely" satisfying either, but I like it better than the alternative.
Also, when I said "nobody knows anything about anything etc." I meant "in its fundamental essence" or "with absolute, in the full meaning of that term, certainty." As an engineer, there's lots of practical facts which I rely on by experience and faith to stay true one moment to the next (e.g. gravity makes things fall down), and there are no exceptions to this rule. As an engineer, I require myself to do this. Also, life is enjoyable to a great extent, even without an answer to the fundamental questions of existence, however I'm not afraid to probe the possibilities with an open heart and mind. In the end, Reason is not enough. It's just like Spock said after probing vger in "Star Trek: The Motion Picture" (my favorite Star Trek movie, btw).
That settles my position doesn't it? I honestly believed that you would make the assumptions about my points of view that I have clarified here. Sorry for the obfuscation.
I confess to sometimes being what some call a "tightass", in that I'm usually quite literal. That's my nature. I'm not prone to sarcasm or wacko-ness, rather I assume that people mean what they say unless it is blitheringly obvious otherwise. I'm the ultimate straight man. Mea culpa. It drives my wife nuts.
It is a self-taught approach to the written word, born of necessity. I spent about a fourth of my career as a fact witness, expert witness, and inventor in endless litigation over patent validity, claim infringement, and such. I'm an engineer, goddammit, not a lawyer, and I found it utterly infuriating how many millions of dollars can be spent in endless argument over the meaning of something that the author just couldn't be bothered to write carefully, especially when doing so is his whole job. A picture is worth a thousand words, you say? A word or two, by their presence or absence, can be worth millions of dollars.
OK, rant mode off. If my writing has a high dork coefficient, that's why, but my patents set the standards for an industry.
It appears that the primary difference between us is that, for me, reason is enough. I formed a very simple philosophy at a very early age, meaning so early that I can't remember when it happened, but I can't remember being without it. Reality is what it is, regardless of what I think about it, and regardless of whether or not I like it. So, I simply refuse to let whether or not I like reality have anything to do with any analysis I make of it. I have never understood how or why anyone can do otherwise.
That is why I follow the evidence. Any other method simply doesn't work for me and doesn't make sense to me.
That is also why I cannot make the leap of faith that religion requires. I have no desire whatever to and there is no evidence at all to compel me to.
I have read much on the history of religion. If it is read from the point of view that the existence of deities must be demonstrated by evidence, and that religious dogma must be in accord with that evidence, then all religious belief and dogma are immediately recognizable as being nothing more than inventions of the minds of men, just one made up notion after another. The comedy is in how silly the notions are and the tragedy is in how much evil they have justified.
"The comedy is in how silly the notions are and the tragedy is in how much evil they have justified."
And that's Mencken's (and many other people's) position. I understand it, and am sympathetic to it.
But I realize that such reasoning is not for everyone, else atheists wouldn't be a minority, and a small minority at that. From my perspective, religion must serve a purpose, else (as D'Souza points out) evolution would have weeded it out of the population rather than reinforced it.
So, my take on the topic is academic. I find the arguments generally enjoyable and interesting. I usually learn something from them, even if it's just something about the parties involved in the argument.
If it is read from the point of view that the existence of deities must be demonstrated by evidence, and that religious dogma must be in accord with that evidence, then all religious belief and dogma are immediately recognizable as being nothing more than inventions of the minds of men, just one made up notion after another. The comedy is in how silly the notions are and the tragedy is in how much evil they have justified.
True, true and true. I think we're on the same page now.
My appendix is there for me to not see, and not know about. I have no faith that it is there, but no faith that it isn't either. It might be, but short of cutting me open, it's just a guess, with high probability of one outcome.
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All of this was for nothing, unless we go to the stars.
You knew this was coming, but how does going to the stars change anything besides making for new primetime tv shows and perpetuating the machine of human existence?
I am a big proponent of humanity going out to the stars, but the logic here bothers me. It says that as long as humanity perpetuates for all of eternity, then it all means something -- otherwise, it doesn't mean anything. Does meaning just come down to survivability? If so, then the cockroach has us beat hands-down. And you'd better hope that the current concensus in astrophysics is correct -- that a "big crunch" is unlikely. Otherwise, meaninglessness is built into the system.
...whether it happens in a hundred years, or a thousand years, or a million years, eventually our sun will grow cold, and go out.
Just a nitpick, but it's more like 5 billion years, and then the Sun will probably engulf the earth and destroy it long before it goes cold.
I think I'll have a beer.
Yeah, and the cockroach, in its current form, couldn't survive the sun going cold. But then neither could we. Hail to our cockroach overlords!
Sun grows cold, my ass.
We'll move out into the Cosmos, and detonate the sun for amusement.
"I think I'll have a beer." - DJ
I'll pop the popcorn.
Y'all just have no poetry in your (alleged) souls! ;-)
meh. It's true. But have you seen the new trailer for the movie "300"? That is going to kick butt!
Kevin,
Yes, it was poetic -- but it missed the mark. You believe that unless humanity as a mass perpetuates forever, then all of this is for nothing. Ben and I believe that unless the individual human soul perpetuates forever, then all of this is for nothing.
Nope, it didn't miss "the" target, it missed your target.
Perspective, perspective, perspective!
And yes, I've seen the trailer, and I want to see the movie!
Just so you know, they are in pre-production of some new Babylon 5 DVDs. That's right, they are bringing the show back in direct-to-DVD format.
Can I get a WooHoo!
C'mon, guys and gals. Why do you have to look outside your own life to find some validation for your existence?
Lessee now. You're nothing unless you are something's toy, and your whole existence is meaningless unless the race propagates forever?
Sheesh.
I'm gonna have another beer.
Not my existence, DJ.
Man's.
Which is, I would assert, every bit as self-centered as the idea that life, the universe, and everything was created for us by some all-powerful divine being.
But we are a species filled with hubris. We dare to dream, and then dare to live those dreams.
It's unfortunate that some become nightmares, though.
its tough to say that it woudn't be a shame of all of humanity, great or crass, was extingushed. Does E=MC^2 mean anything if no one remembers it?
Seems a bit abstract to me, given that you're focusing on assigning a value that, for all we know, no one will ever be able to judge.
Not that B5 is a bad show, or anything - I wish very much that the later spinoffs had been successful - but over a million years a lot changes. Sun-Tze becomes rather valueless when the Art of War has completely and totally evolved. In a hundred thousand years it may be well, well beyond our current understanding, nevermind that of a philosopher from even further in the past. E=MC^2 is merely an approximation, and as a result, will become meaningless as people and computers realize that particles have an inherent kinetic energy and that calculating such is 'simple'. Two dozen years ago, the idea of a mobile media the size of your thumbnail holding gigabytes of data was nearly unimaginable. Today it's commonplace, in two more dozen years no one will remember such inefficient devices, or if they do, only as a gimic or a toy.
Five thousand years ago, religion, speech, even thought processes, all were entirely different from our methods today. Most of the information from that time is completely and totally meaningless to us today. And you expect information today to last several billion years?
The only meaningful thing we can do is encourage our next generation to be meaningful, and to spread such beliefs on down. Anything else is transitory.
Just so you know, they are in pre-production of some new Babylon 5 DVDs. That's right, they are bringing the show back in direct-to-DVD format.
Given that two of the main cast are dead and I doubt significant chunks of the rest would be interested, I imagine it'd be pretty drastically different.
Source?
Here and here are my sources for the return of Babylon 5, albeit not in it's original form.
I'm calling shenanigans on myself. I misread a post on another site that led me to believe that The Lost Tales would be a new series and not a one time movie.
My bad. Or in Latin. Mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa.
(It's "mea culpa" - Kevin)
Edited By Siteowner
Andreas Katsulas is dead, I know. Who else shuffled off this mortal coil?
Richard Biggs (Doctor Franklin) died from an aortic tear in 2004.
Well, damn! I hadn't heard that. Same thing that got John Ritter.
It's all the same to me, Kevin.
The notion that our existence now, either as an individual or as a species, is meaningless unless the species propagates to the stars is just as silly as, although totally unrelated to, the notion that people who live now are guilty of the sins of their ancestors. Neither one makes any sense to me.
Kevin,
I beg to differ. There is nothing objectively poetic about mass survival. Like I said, cockroaches have been doing that brilliantly for quite a long time, and I challenge anyone to romanticize that fact.
DJ,
You don't think it's a fact of existence that people pay for the mistakes of their ancestors? How long has it been since the end of slavery, and we're still paying for that abomination...
guilty adj. Responsible for or chargeable with a reprehensible act; deserving of blame; culpable
People sometimes pay for the sins of their ancestors, Sarah, but that doesn't mean they are guilty of the sins their ancestors committed. Only their ancestors can be guilty of those sins.
I am blameless for any and all sins which my ancestors committed. I can be guilty of the sins which I have committed, but not of sins which anyone else committed.
DJ: "The only sin is hurting someone unnecessarily." That's a paraphrase of Heinlein, I think.
Sarah: When cockroaches write poetry, get back to me on the romanticization thing.
Wired magazine issued a science fiction challenge: create a six-word short story.
I think the best was by Ken MacLeod:
"We went solar; sun went nova."
Kevin, the full quote is:
"Sin lies only in hurting other people unnecessarily. All other "sins" are invented nonsense. (Hurting yourself is not sinful -- just stupid.)"
I like that better than the dictionary definition I quoted. But, my comment still stands. If my great-great-grandfather hurt someone unnecessarily, then he was guilty of sin, but I'm not guilty of his sin.
Oh by the way, a third actor from B5, Tim Choate, aka Zathras, died in a motorcycle accident sometime ago.
DJ, of course you are not guilty of someone else's sin, who or what ever said you were? Christianity certainly does not.
Ben:
Er, "Original Sin?" I believe I've heard of that one bandied about a bit.
The various flavors of Christianity hold that the term "original sin" applies to Adam's eating of the fruit of the tree of knowledge. Orthodox Christianity holds that we inherit a human nature that is corrupted by that sin, but the guilt of Adam is not inherited, i.e. each person is guilty of only his own sins. Protestantism, however, holds that individuals not only inherit a nature that is sinful, but they inherit actual guilt for the sin committed by Adam. The whole notion of "salvation" is to convince God that one should be forgiven for having that guilt, thereby being allowed to do what Adam was denied, i.e. to eat of the tree of life and become immortal.
So, to say that "Christianity certainly does not" teach that "you are not guilty of someone else's sin" is not accurate. But, to say that Christianity does so teach, one must be careful to say just what flavor of Christianity one means, and there are lots of flavors.
See why I describe such silliness as "made by the minds of men"? A blogger might say, "You can't make this stuff up," but people did make this stuff up. The whole concept of Christianity, of being forgiven for the inherited guilt of Adam having committed a sin and thereby living forever, simply falls apart if one denies the biblical fable of Adam and Eve and the Garden of Eden.
I have literally heard people "visit the sins of the father upon the sons" by accusing Jews of killing Jesus, and I mean by literally accusing Jews who live today of being guilty of the "sin" of killing Jesus two thousand years ago. The irrationality of such thinking numbs the mind, but I have personally known people who think that way.
So, the notion arises in may forms, and Christianity is only one of those forms.
Er, "Original Sin?" I believe I've heard of that one bandied about a bit.
There is no mention of original sin in the Bible. Anyone who talks about it is full of bunk. Even if you think the Bible is made up, the "original sin" stuff is supra-made-up (how should that be spelled?).
To repeat, there is no "original sin" in the Bible. It's a strange thing made up by the Catholics.
I have literally heard people "visit the sins of the father upon the sons" by accusing Jews of killing Jesus, and I mean by literally accusing Jews who live today of being guilty of the "sin" of killing Jesus two thousand years ago. The irrationality of such thinking numbs the mind, but I have personally known people who think that way.
They are stupid. Jesus was a Jew. Did Jesus kill Jesus?
And all that other blather is made up, I'll agree with you there. It's a problem of what happens when people get carried away with dippy notions and then try to justify it with SCOTUS like contortions of the facts.
Ben:
I know the Bible is made up, because it is full of contradictions. It cannot possibly be all true.
The Old Testament does not discuss in any way the notion that there is an "original sin" to be inherited by the descendants of Adam. Nor is there any discussion about the notion that someone will come along who will make it all better.
The New Testament breaks new ground, not surprisingly, with the writings of Paul the Apostle. The first mention of such a notion, although it's not called "original sin", was written by Paul in Romans 5:12 -- Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned:
Christianity in its many flavors is based on that notion, and not just for Catholics. To sum it up, Jesus did not inherit the sin of Adam, because the father of Jesus was God, but God punishes everyone else for Adam's sin and saves them by killing someone who is innocent of that sin.
My head hurts.
So, I agree in spirit with you. People did get carried away with such "dippy notions" and founded a religion on them. It's ALL made up.
I need yet another beer.
DJ, that's not how it works, though I know it's tempting to read it that way. I know that scripture, and that is not its point.
All that says is that sin began with the first man. We all sin, even though we could choose not to, but good luck. You know how the rest of the story goes.
I disagree, Ben. I can read, too.
"I disagree. I can read, too."
Thus, sectarianism.
"Die, heretic scum!"
This part of the argument is going nowhere, so I'll change tack.
The major problem with supposed Christians, where they depart anything resembling what Christ and the Apostles taught, which connects them more with Islam than Christianity, is that they try to use the power of the government to force everyone else to do what they think is right. Abortion, gambling, drugs, etc. If I was elected "Supreme Cheesburger of America" right now, I would outlaw none of these things. I think abortions are disgusting and immoral, but they should be perfectly legal, and accessible, provided you can find a doctor willing to give them. On the other hand, I should be allowed to avoid associating with such a person. If I don't want to rent an appartment that I own to someone I don't like for my own moral reasons, I shouldn't be forced to by the government (as an example, not that I would do this).
The problem second to this is the "yuck! gay cooties!" problem. The Bible clearly states that morally, in terms of your salvation, no sin is any worse, nor any better, than any other. So when Christians single out a particular group of sinners, it is ridiculous. They would be better to single out themselves and the lousy things they do every day. Humility obviously isn't their strong suit.
When their life and doctrine are so far apart, it's impossible to call them Christians at all.
Do y'all know what the word "sin" means? It means to err or make mistakes, not to commit evil. Heinlein is inaccurate. People err in multitudes of ways other than hurting others. Sin, in and of itself, isn't such a big deal, but for its tendency to lead to evil.
DJ,
I commend you for spending time and effort to try to understand what it is you're rejecting. But it sounds like you have a lot invested in proving to yourself that religion is hokum. You mentioned before that you're reading some kind of expose book on Christianity (I'm curious which book that is, btw). I hope you understand that you cannot honestly reject something until you have given serious consideration to the best evidence for the thing you're rejecting.
So, Sarah, what do you think of astrology?
I have it on good authority that Sarah Loves astrology.
Sarah:
The latest book I've read on the subject is The Closing of the Western Mind, subtitled The Rise of Faith and the Fall of Reason, by Charles Freeman. ISBN 0-965-49306-7. I recommend it highly.
Now, let's consider two statements you made above:
I commend you for spending time and effort to try to understand what it is you're rejecting.
and
I hope you understand that you cannot honestly reject something until you have given serious consideration to the best evidence for the thing you're rejecting.
You have jumped mightily to two erroneous conclusions. First, I do understand what it is that I reject, and second, I have given serious consideration to all the evidence I could find both for and against the thing I reject, and I have given that consideration for the past 43 years.
A short story is in order to give some credibility to that assertion.
Way back until I was nine years old, my father and his father were partners in a dairy farm. We lived on that farm and my grandparents' house was 200 feet away from ours.
This was small-town Bible Belt Baptist Oklahoma, and we attended the local orange-red brick building, as did most families in the area.
In July of 1962, my grandfather died. About two weeks later, I met my mother as she came out of the bathroom and asked her, point blank, "Did Grandpa go to Heaven?"
Now, to understand the significance of that question, you would have to know my grandfather. He was a mean-spirited, grudge-bearing SOB, and my brothers and I just weren't good enough, given that both my mother and father had each been married before. All I knew at that time was that I steered clear of him if he was by himself, as I didn't relish the ration of chickenshit that could come my way without warning.
Well, the question struck my mother like an axe handle. She stood stock still, turned white as a sheet, and wouldn't look me in the eye. She said nothing, and was obviously in considerable distress.
It scared the hell out of me. What had I done? All I did was ask a simple and obvious question. Why was she so upset?
She stood there for at least two full minutes, and then it hit me. She didn't know! OK, so how could she know? How could anyone know?
Then she finally said, "Yes!" and hurried past me. She avoided me the rest of the day, and we never discussed the subject again. We also never went to church again.
Three months later, my father died. I didn't ask where he went.
All that time, I couldn't help wondering how that miserable SOB could end up in Heaven. I also couldn't help wondering why my question upset my mother so much.
At the end of that school year, we moved off the farm into town. By far, the best part of that move was the nice library about five minutes away by bicycle. I made friends with the librarian and spent much of the next two years there.
A thinker was born. I read everything: history, science, physics, math, geology, you name it. I read a lot about the history of religion. At the end of those two years, I utterly rejected religion. The history of its evolution showed it to be the most utter nonsense, just made-up silliness that would be laughable if it hadn't resulted in so much death and misery. I have continued to reject it, and to read and think about it, for the past 43 years.
So, kindly don't jump to the conclusion that my comments in Kevin's parlor are nothing more than "Google, cut, and paste", as they are nothing of the sort. Google makes it easy to find the quotes, but my opinions come from a lifetime of effort.
Kevin:
Thus, sectarianism.
Yup. Christianity is nothing but sectarianism.
Ever watch The Life of Brian? Fabulous movie.
Not as fabulous as The Holy Grail. Far more memorable lines from Grail.
The Life of Brian is one of my favorites.
That's funny, DJ. At 18 I thoroughly embraced Rand and Objectivism. At 33, I became a Christian. Where the two are compatible, that's ok, but where not, I've rejected Rand.
The simple fact is that nobody, neither you nor me, knows anything about anything.
Kevin:
I agree. The Holy Grail has been my favorite movie since I first saw it. But The Life of Brian is a bit more germaine here, ain't it?
Ben:
The simple fact is that nobody, neither you nor me, knows anything about anything.
I fart in your general direction.
I am continually amused how otherwise-sophisticated thinkers in the West confuse the validity of Christianity in particular(in any of its myriad forms) with the validity of a Supreme Being as a general concept.
/puts on flame suit...
Well, actually, it's the general concept I've got a problem with. The various sects just illustrate the problem.
Oh yeah, DJ? Well, "spam spam spam spam spamity spam! spamity spam!"
Kevin,
So, Sarah, what do you think of astrology?
I know where you're going with this question. When astrology starts dictating mass movements, then I'll answer the question. :)
DJ,
What I assumed was: (1) you made up your mind about religion at an early age, due to a bad experience, and this formed the basis of your prejudice -- that assumption, unfortunately, has now been validated; (2) though you have no doubt read a lot on the subject, you tend to stick to that which reinforces your belief. Have you, for instance, read C.S. Lewis, Lee Strobel's series of books on faith and Christianity, and Dinesh D'Souza? With respect to Freeman's book, I'm aware of it and considerable criticism of it. Even Amazon.com's editorial review isn't very flattering. And here is a more detailed rebuttal.
...just made-up silliness that would be laughable if it hadn't resulted in so much death and misery
You mean, as opposed to humanism, which has resulted in incalculable misery, oppression, and the slaughter of 100 million people? Look at any institution or culture in the world that has ever been based on the belief that man is the measure of all things and I'll show you an utter failure.
As for the crimes of religion, I've said this before -- you are making the terrible mistake of lumping all religions together. Christianity cannot be held responsible for the misery created by other religions (i.e. Islam) nor even the shortcomings of Catholicism. Protestant Christianity is responsible for almost everything that you enjoy in the Western world. It gave rise to individual rights, the end of slavery, the industrial revolution, and provided the fertile ground out of which modern science flourished -- the very things you claim to cherish are products of the Christian faith. If you doubt this, then you must read D'Souza's What's So Great About America.
Mastiff,
I am continually amused how otherwise-sophisticated thinkers in the West confuse the validity of Christianity in particular(in any of its myriad forms) with the validity of a Supreme Being as a general concept.
It's not necessarily confusion. Look at it this way. You can test the validity of an unprovable assumption by seeing if you can produce anything worthwhile with it. Geometry is based on a set of nine unprovable assumptions. The proof of their validity is that geometry works -- you can do stuff with it. The same test can be applied to religious faith, including Christianity, which is based on some unprovable assumptions. As with geometry, look to see what the end product is -- does it work or does it just produce nonsense? With Judaism, you see an almost miraculous ability to survive outrageous persecution and prejudices, and a disproportionate degree of success in just about every field. With Christianity you get nearly everything that we enjoy about modern, Western, civilized life. That's not to brush aside the defects of these faiths, but in the mean you get a lot of good things from them -- and they are based on the unprovable assumption that there is a rational, purposeful Supreme Being, the God of the Bible. As for the validity of Islam's assumptions or those of humanism... I think the results speaks for themselves. But even with Islam you get survival of the culture. Humanism, which is the prevalent system of belief in places like Canada, Europe, and parts of the U.S., has failed to promote its own perpetuation -- these places are being overtaken by other more aggressive cultures. Secular humanism is a religion based on belief in man as the measure of all things, and what it produces is a slow, painful demise. It doesn't work, therefore its assumptions are probably invalid. At some level the validity of a Supreme Being is tied to the validity of a particular faith.
Sarah:
What I assumed was: (1) you made up your mind about religion at an early age, due to a bad experience, and this formed the basis of your prejudice -- that assumption, unfortunately, has now been validated;
Let's see now ...
prejudice 1. n (with my emphasis added)
a. An adverse judgment or opinion formed beforehand or without knowledge or examination of the facts.
b. A preconceived preference or idea.
2. The act or state of holding unreasonable preconceived judgments or convictions.
3. Irrational suspicion or hatred of a particular group, race, or religion.
No, my opinions are precisely the opposite of prejudice. The were formed after examination of facts and history and thereby acquiring knowledge. They were not preconceived, rather they resulted from years of thought. They are not unreasonable, indeed they are based upon reasoning from the observable facts. I am not given to hate, and my opinions of those who believe in God and such not only do not include hate, they are not irrational.
... you tend to stick to that which reinforces your belief.
Given that you have almost no knowledge of what I have read or studied on this subject, you have no way of knowing whether or not I have "stuck" to anything. Again, you jump to conclusions.
You have accused me of, in effect, not properly doing my homework and so having beliefs which I cannot justify. You, however, have not properly done your homework so as to know what I have done and so be able to pass judgement on me. You have done precisely what you erroneously accuse me of. You should be ashamed of yourself.
In truth, I retired in 2001 at an early age, partly because I could (everyone's dream, right?), but mostly because I could no longer tolerate, in my employer and his hand-picked fair haired boy, exactly what you accuse me of. I believe in reality. As I've stated before, a man's beliefs should be proportional to his evidence, and I follow the evidence.
With respect to Freeman's book, I'm aware of it and considerable criticism of it. Even Amazon.com's editorial review isn't very flattering. And here is a more detailed rebuttal.
Try reading it for yourself. It's a very good read. We can't have you forming preconceived notions, or getting stuck on what reinforces your beliefs, now can we?
Freeman does not "attack" Christianity. What I find amazing is that I cannot tell, from reading his book, whether or not he is a believer. I can tell that he has an extreme breadth of knowledge about the founding of Christianity. Indeed, 21% of his book is endnotes and bibliography; his research must have been exhausting.
He documents and chronicles the founding of Christianity. He does not condemn it, rather the premise of his book is that Christianity ultimately resulted in the suppression of thinking based on reason, on evidence, and on facts, i.e. on Greek philosophy, all in favor of faith in God and in enforcement of that faith by the state. A glimpse of the flavor of this is a quote from Augustine: A characteristic of heretical sects is to be incapable of seeing what is obvious to everyone else. His closing paragraph begins: I would reiterate the central theme of this book: that the Greek intellectual tradition was suppressed rather than simply faded away.
... you are making the terrible mistake of lumping all religions together.
I have stated before that I do not lump all religions together. They are all equally silly in their beliefs in deities and such, in my opinion, but the are vastly different in the history of their effects on the human race, and in the threat they pose to the future of us all.
... Christianity cannot be held responsible for the misery created by other religions (i.e. Islam) ...
I have never stated otherwise, but it can, and should, be held responsible for the misery that it did create.
... nor even the shortcomings of Catholicism.
Catholicism is a flavor of Christianity. Indeed, its name originally meant the "whole of Christianity". Such was rather presumptuous, but religious dogma is like that.
Protestant Christianity is responsible for almost everything that you enjoy in the Western world. It gave rise to individual rights, the end of slavery, the industrial revolution, and provided the fertile ground out of which modern science flourished.
I've stated it before and I'll state it again. I believe such happened despite Christianity in general, even Protestant Christianity, not because of it. Such happened because people came to be able to think, to reason, to speak, to hear, to write, to read, to converse, and to do without being suppressed and/or executed for the religious crime of heresy. Protestant Christianity still afflicts us with its stifling effects. For example, and as I commented before, Protestant Christianity still cannot abide the teaching of evolution.
... the very things you claim to cherish are products of the Christian faith ...
No, they are the products of thinking outside the constraints of faith and of heresy. Christian faith suppressed such for more than a millenium, and we enjoy those things only because Christian faith is no longer allowed to suppress such thoughts.
Good response, DJ. I have a couple quibbles though. Near the end you refer to "Christian faith" where I really think you mean to say "Christian institutions" or "doctrine of Christian institutions." Faith is a part, but faith itself didn't suppress anything. Maybe you just meant "the faith?"
I've stated it before and I'll state it again. I believe such happened despite Christianity in general, even Protestant Christianity
This is your greatest error and it is nearly impossible to avoid, I know. On the face of it, this contention seems to be correct nearly to the point of axiom, which is why this is such a difficult mistake to avoid.
Now, without explanation of the above, I'm going to switch topics one more time. The definition you give above mentions that prejudice is judgment without knowledge or examination of the facts. Then you claim that your judgments have come with knowledge and examination of the observed facts. So if these observed facts are not the whole facts, or omit some facts that you are unaware of, then you are guilty of prejudice too. We may never know for sure, and you do try your best, but there it is all the same. Kinda dumb, but kinda true.
Edited By Siteowner
Crud, Kevin, do you mind changing my formatting to only italicize "observed"? (Fixed)
thanks, I suck. 20 lashes, (With a wet noodle) I promise.
Edited By Siteowner
Unfortunately the important distinction between the scriptures of Christianity and its cultural institutions is infrequently made- or when it is, a pointless argument about just who the REAL Christians are and how REAL Christianity would lead inevitably to love and truth and happycakes follows. (I always find it hard to read those without mentally inserting "real communism".)
Religion and the forms it takes are as much shaped by culture as cultures are shaped by the religion. Trying to pull them apart is almost always pointless- even if you succeed, by the time you're done you're now having a conversation about a completely hypothetical fantasyland.
Hey siteowner, whoever you are, all of "judgment without knowlege or examination of the facts" should be italicized above.
20 wet noodle lashes for you, with 20 wet noodles each!
Like hell. Give better instructions. GIGO.
Ben:
Near the end you refer to "Christian faith" where I really think you mean to say "Christian institutions" or "doctrine of Christian institutions." Faith is a part, but faith itself didn't suppress anything. Maybe you just meant "the faith?"
I meant what I wrote. Consider the thinking of Pope Gregory (509-604) as noted by Freeman:
He distrusted secular learning, and for him the deadliest of the seven deadly sins was pride, by which he meant intellectual independence. "The wise," he said, "should be advised to cease from their knowledge," to be "wise in ignorance, wisely untaught." The philosophers, he went on, were so concerned with finding the immediate causes of things that they were blind to the ultimate "cause," which was the will of God.
So much for engineering, huh? For more than a millenium, the "constraint of faith" was an inhibition on thinking at all.
This is your greatest error and it is nearly impossible to avoid, I know. ... Now, without explanation of the above, I'm going to switch topics ...
Don't give me that and don't cop out. Why do you think this is an error, especially "my greatest error"?
So if these observed facts are not the whole facts, or omit some facts that you are unaware of, then you are guilty of prejudice too.
There are very few things for which knowing all the facts is possible. Thus, by that standard, to judge almost anything, regardless of the care and thoroughness by which it is done, is to be guilty of prejudice, which reduces the term to meaninglessness. I don't buy it.
Sarah:
"Look at it this way. You can test the validity of an unprovable assumption by seeing if you can produce anything worthwhile with it.
--
"With Christianity you get nearly everything that we enjoy about modern, Western, civilized life. That's not to brush aside the defects of these faiths, but in the mean you get a lot of good things from them -- and they are based on the unprovable assumption that there is a rational, purposeful Supreme Being, the God of the Bible."
I knew I'd find a place to put this quote one day:
It is often argued that religion is valuable because it makes men good, but even if this were true it would not be a proof that religion is true. That would be an extension of pragmatism beyond endurance. Santa Claus makes children good in precisely the same way, and yet no one would argue seriously that the fact proves his existence. The defense of religion is full of such logical imbecilities. – H.L. Mencken
"constraint of faith"? I can defeat that with your own argument that that is just that one guys version of faith, but then you can just stick it back to me, and so on it goes.
Kevin's quote gets the jist of why the protestants were so important, and yes, that has nothing to do with whether or not it is true.
Quoting my buddy Garan, here's the short of it:
"The central problem is the extreme difficulty of man to restrict his pleasures. He not only overenjoys his social feelings, through the use of intellect, but also needs pleasure as inducement for accepting restrictions as sources of potentials and of conditioned social sacrifices [or perceived sacrifices - ed]."
To really explain this I'd have to tell you why it's important that we "restrict our pleasures" which would take a while. Given that, though, protestantism was very good at giving people "reasons" to restrict their pleasures, which made them, uniquely in history, capable of creating a society based on saving, capital accumulation, honesty, and all the other components necessary to a capitalist economic society. Nothing else has done, nor could do that. The intellect is too easily deceived by seemingly rational "value delusions," as Garan calls them, since intellect inevitably, when applied by a primitive people, seeks only to directly enhance the immediate pleasures, which leads to exhaustion of the meager resources they posses, and no chance for accumulation.
Now then, here's one of my favorite quote from Garan:
"Any human terms are demeaning in our thinking about God. Even viewing God as pure intellect is degrading. As we saw [or didn't - ed :)], intellect is a very clumsy capacity, of proceeding by "ones", while nature works with myriads of elements at every point and instant. The only advantage intellect has is that it can relive or remember the past, and project future from it. If one such simple advantage makes the whole difference, the world of human intellect must be limited indeed. The more learned a religion is, the more fatuous it becomes. Anything men can say or pretend o know about God is preposterous. Yet thousands of books are being written and uncountable words said every day, in explaining God, by millions of highly learned men. The plain waste of talent and effort is deplorable.
...
The simple men who live by this restrictive tradition and bow in awe before the severe will of a mysterious, incomprehensible God, are closer to a true religion than the learned theologians in their fatuous, endless "explanations" of a humanistic God.
yada yada."
I'm out.
Love it, Kevin. That's one by Mencken that I hadn't heard.
It's even better than my old claim that the invisible elephant in my wife's garden is a Very Good Thing, and so he simply must exist, because he keeps the armadillos away. The proof, you ask? Well, we don't have armadillos in the garden. Ta daaa!
Ben:
Anything men can say or pretend o know about God is preposterous. Yet thousands of books are being written and uncountable words said every day, in explaining God, by millions of highly learned men. The plain waste of talent and effort is deplorable.
Yup, and ALL of that effort and talent would have been better spent in digging better latrines and inventing sewers.
... and bow in awe before the severe will of a mysterious, incomprehensible God ...
I have tried hard and for a long time, but I still cannot get beyond the silliness of this. To bow in awe before something whose existence, not to mention the properties of, one cannot even detect, is simply something my mind is not capable of.
Argh, DJ, that wasn't the point. All he said was if you do that, you will be closer to a true religion. He makes no claims whatsoever that God exists. Sheesh, quit being prejudiced when you read my posts, and read them for what they actually say.
Yup, and ALL of that effort and talent would have been better spent in digging better latrines and inventing sewers.
So you claim. While I agree with Garan's point, I disagree with yours. Garan had superior things in mind when he was thinking of what the learned men might have done with their efforts.
Ben:
I got his point, and he was correct -- such thinking is much closer to a true religion. My point was just how silly a true religion is. Did you get it?
So you claim. While I agree with Garan's point, I disagree with yours. Garan had superior things in mind when he was thinking of what the learned men might have done with their efforts.
So you claim. While I agree with Garan's point, I disagree with yours. If you don't think sanitation is important, go visit London about 1840. I can think of very few things that are more important than sanitation when it doesn't exist, and religion ain't even close.
And how is sanitation important in 1840?
Just to save time, I'll insert the in between comments involved in getting to my dippy point.
Someone: Wha? But sanitation is always important. It would have helped them avoid disease, bad smells, and would generally improve the appearance of the place.
Me: So what? They're all dead.
And now, double Argh! You've decided to address the lesser important points and skip the more interesting ones. The stuff that is related to why protestantism was important. Why did you do that?
Ben:
First, sanitation:
Step 1: Google "sewer London"
Step 2: read
Step 3: After reading about it, consider your dippy point again. Consider what it was like to live in London in 1840.
Step 4: Consider my dippy point. If you lived in London in 1840, knowing what it's like living with the benefit of modern sewage systems, at what point would you prefer a toilet to a Bible? When would you begin to wipe your arse with its pages? When would what Paul thought of Jesus matter less to you than what you think of the stink you cannot avoid in your own home, or what you think of the excrement that you cannot avoid stepping in when you walk outside, or what you think of the excrement that rains down you from the chamber pot upstairs as you walk down the sidewalk?
Second, Protestantism:
Yeah, the enjoyment of life was holding back the standard of living. I've heard it before. I'm ignoring it until you "really explain it".
Step 5: then you die and it doesn't matter anyway.
If I could press a button and obliterate all life on earth, and I did it, would it matter? Would that be an immoral act? If so, why?
--------------------------
Now, have you ever noticed how easy it is to give people a pittance of an "entitlement", and have that suffice to make them incapable of expending the tiniest amount of energy to make things any better for themselves? It is precisely because that life, although sucky, is easy. Getting up and doing any work, for persons accustomed to such "entitlements", is nearly impossible because they cannot bear the unpleasant feelings associated with the work. You can try to hang the carrot in front of their face: explain that they'll have a more enjoyable life if they get up and do some work for their own benefit, but they still can't do it. All the rational discussion in the world will not help. There is nothing you can say, no ideas you have, that will make any difference, as all those things in themselves are causally weightless.
The two things you can do are
1. make things harder for them (take away the entitlement)
2. gradually ...
oh heck, I give up. We could go at this for years and it wouldn't make any difference. We're each swine of a sort, and our particular pearls are wasted.
Ben:
Step 5: then you die and it doesn't matter anyway.
We've been there. I didn't buy it then and I don't buy it now.
If I could press a button and obliterate all life on earth, and I did it, would it matter?
Yes.
Would that be an immoral act? If so, why?
Yes, it would. It's called mass murder, among other things, and in such a case it would be the murder of billions of people who have done you no harm. I have no problem with calling that immoral. Do you?
Regarding the remainder of your comment, I suggest staying away from the mushrooms.
But, if you can't get your act together, I'll get mine.
Consider how the end of feudalism affected peoples' work ethics, and that said end began long before Martin Luther got pissed. Then explain how the work ethic also improved in predominately Catholic areas of the world contemporaneously with Protestant areas.
Notice an aspect of religion that I have addressed repeatedly but you have thoroughly ignored. Consider that Isaac Newton was born the year after Galileo Galilei died, and consider how differently they were treated by organized religion in their own lifetemes.
Galileo proved by observed evidence that the earth moved around the sun along with the other planets, and was ordered by the Pople to recant on pain of death for the crime of heresy. Galileo recanted and publication of his works was prohibited by the church.
Newton not only proved by observed evidence that the earth moved around the sun along with the other planets, he also developed the mathematics and the physics to describe that motion in exquisite detail. Further, he took issue with many of the teachings of the church, notably the western concept of the Trinity. Despite this, not only was he not accused of heresy, he was revered as the greatest scientist of all time during his own lifetime.
What a difference a little time and tolerance make, huh?
Do you suppose people were willing to do more to improve their lot in life once the product of their work was their own, and once doing their work did not put them at risk of life and limb from the local shaman? Wouldn't it have been grand if the founding of Christianity had led to the remarkable advance in the standard of living that the industrial revolution provided, instead of to the dark ages?
Kevin, my apologies. I'd sorta forgotten what your post here was all about.
Go see http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2006/11/30/uhawking130.xml
Now if only we could find some antimatter and resurrect Scotty ...
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/asia/article2023831.ece?taliban
Ah, religious dogma. Makes life wonderful, doesn't it?
Newton not only proved by observed evidence that the earth moved around the sun along with the other planets
Proved, my butt. He's just a brain in a vat.
Now then, I submit that if there is no purpose to life, other than what you seem to think, then there is absolutely nothing imoral about pushing the button. There are NO consequences for ANYBODY, except that life is a little shorter, but then once they are dead THEY DO NOT KNOW THE DIFFERENCE. THEREFORE, SINCE NOBODY IS LEFT TO CARE, HOW CAN IT MATTER?
Ben:
You'd just better make sure you get them ALL. See items 13, 38, and 101 of the Evil Overlord's List
Naw, I'd get caught monologing, and then someone would find my secrete weakness.
I almost would buy into what DJ is saying, except I lost all faith in humanity when they pulled the plug on firefly. That's what has turned me to my evil overlord ways.
I can't spell either. It's part of the engineer's disease that I have.
Mercy sakes, Ben. What's turned you into such a bitter non-thinker?
If that's what you call it. I gave up on reason as its own end a while back when I realized it is a dead end and has no answers, no compact truth. There is nothing more to be said about that either, since you can prove nothing, in the end. Inevitably, you must always resort to assumptions taken as axiom, and that's not good enough for me.
Now don't go eating any hamburgers today, because that would be murder.
"Inevitably, you must always resort to assumptions taken as axiom, and that's not good enough for me. "
Sure it is. You've accepted "God did it" as an axiom. That's obviously a good enough assumption for you. Then you convinced yourself that such acceptance constitutes an answer, a "compact truth" that absolves you from having to reason out answers on your own - or accepting that you might never be able to reason out an answer for some of the more difficult questions.
Ben:
Ah, yes. Abdication. Is it comfy?
Kevin:
Well done. You beat me to it and said it better than I would have.
Not true. I don't accept "Got did it" as an axiom. Actually, I accept only that "I don't know, and neither do you" as an axiom.
In my political life (dealing with everyone) I stick mostly to objectivist type stuff as a model for government, laws, etc. I just don't base my morality on it.
Even your formulation of morality requires faith. You've just put your faith in "reason," which is pathetic. Human reason, while neat and fun and all, is unbearably feeble in matters of truth, and yours is no different. Yes, reason is fine for inventing TV remotes, figuring out how to put an AR-15 together, and writing treatise on hamster migration, but it cannot prove in the slightest that "murder is wrong." Try to do it by reason alone. You can't.
Now, what exactly did I abdicate?
Now, what exactly did I abdicate?
Reason.
You said so in plain English:
I gave up on reason as its own end a while back when I realized it is a dead end and has no answers, no compact truth. There is nothing more to be said about that either, since you can prove nothing, in the end.
Wait, wait. Murder is wrong only because God says so?
If you want an absolute authority, then yes. Otherwise there is room for disagreement.
Now, DJ, the definition of "abdicate" is
ab‧di‧cate /ˈæbdɪˌkeɪt/ Pronunciation Key - Show Spelled Pronunciation[ab-di-keyt] Pronunciation Key - Show IPA Pronunciation verb, -cat‧ed, -cat‧ing.
–verb (used without object)
1. to renounce or relinquish a throne, right, power, claim, responsibility, or the like, esp. in a formal manner: The aging founder of the firm decided to abdicate.
–verb (used with object)
2. to give up or renounce (authority, duties, an office, etc.), esp. in a voluntary, public, or formal manner: King Edward VIII of England abdicated the throne in 1936.
So it's nice that you consider "reason" to be like a throne, right, power, claim, or responsibility, and that you think I've given it up in that regard, but I only said I gave it up as an end in itself, as a way to find a compact truth. It isn't.
Now quit being such a serious jerk. I'm just farting around here, and you're being a bit of a tit.
Simmer down a little, would you. Your particular sect of "reason is king" is grinding with my former half as sect of the same, and I don't dig heretics of reason.
So, Ben, is the killing of innocents in war - say, as collateral damage from precision-guided munitions - murder?
Ben:
Read it again. "Abdicate" is to "renounce responsibility". It says so right there in your quote. You have renounced responsibility for using reason in your own life.
Now quit being such a serious jerk. I'm just farting around here, and you're being a bit of a tit.
I'm often serious, Ben. People who think often are. I'm never a jerk.
You are obviously not an empty-headed youth, given your earlier statement that you became a Christian at age 33. One makes such a decision by choice, i.e. as a result of a reasoning process. Yet you claim not just to have abandoned reason, but that, because you will one day be dead, nothing matters -- not your life, your death, nor the manner thereof.
I'll wager that you have lived sufficiently long that you have undoubtedly evaded the designs of any number of assailants who would cheerfully take from you all your possessions and then your life. To avoid once such encounter is easily no more than chance, but to avoid them for decades requires active intent. But, why would you do that if it didn't matter?
Puzzling, ain't it? And it's the tip of the iceberg.
You either do believe that your being alive matters and that the manner of your eventual death matters, or you lack the courage of your convictions. The point is that you do not live your life as if you believe what you claim to believe, and so I don't believe that you believe what you say.
I believe that you have found it impossible to defend your religious beliefs via reason, so you have resorted to the ultimate copout, namely that reason itself is unreasonable.
I don't buy it. I don't live my life as if I did, and you don't either.
Just farting around, eh? I'm not, and I'm not interested in discussions that are no more than farts.
So, Ben, is the killing of innocents in war - say, as collateral damage from precision-guided munitions - murder?
No, why would you think that I might think that this is. Actually, yes, it is murder, unless everyone on the planet dies at exactly the same moment. As long as someone is left to care, then it is murder, or figgie pudding.
DJ:
OK, now you are failing to understand me, or read me fairly. I know, you will claim that you are.
What I said was this, and I'll quote myself exactly:
So it's nice that you consider "reason" to be like a throne, right, power, claim, or responsibility, and that you think I've given it up in that regard, but I only said I gave it up as an end in itself, as a way to find a compact truth. It isn't.
There. All I said was I don't accept reason as the absolute authority on moral issues. I use reason all the time and have abdicated no responsibility. If you think reason is the panacea, then PROVE that you can have an OBJECTIVE morality, free from assumptions and axioms. It cannot be done.
I do not claim that I have the answer. I have only found, logically, that one thing seems to be certain: Using laws of nature, God could not prove his existence to us. If he came down and performed outlandish miracles, all that would accomplish for me is to make me think powerful space aliens were at work, or that I was a brain in a vat. So what has he got left?
The thing that got me on this track was the following, and it is from AYN RAND herself! If we were all indestructible robots, what need would we have for morality? She answered that of course we would need no such thing. Isn't that a little thought provoking?
DJ, you have misunderstood Ben.
"Yet you claim not just to have abandoned reason, but that, because you will one day be dead, nothing matters -- not your life, your death, nor the manner thereof."
You don't get it. Ben argues that without God this is the case. Ben believes in God, therefore he does not believe this. I think you two are talking somewhat past each other.
Ben: I wasn't suggesting that you believed that such a death was murder. I'm trying to determine what you think God considers to be murder.
Given your answer, I still don't know.
I don't either. I'll consider a semi-worthless incomplete conjecture:
For sure, if I walk up to a random person and kill him on the spot, that is murder. I think intention and circumstances has everything to do with it, unlike our current legal system, in which intent and knowledge have nothing to do with it, like in the case I posted on my blog about the guy with the sawed off shotgun. Sheesh.
Ben:
I only said I gave it up as an end in itself, as a way to find a compact truth. It isn't.
You wrote considerably more than that. For example:
The simple fact is that nobody, neither you nor me, knows anything about anything.
And you state this to an engineer. Do you want to be taken seriously?
Someone: Wha? But sanitation is always important. It would have helped them avoid disease, bad smells, and would generally improve the appearance of the place.
Me: So what? They're all dead.
Again, do you want to be taken seriously?
Now then, I submit that if there is no purpose to life, other than what you seem to think, then there is absolutely nothing imoral about pushing the button. There are NO consequences for ANYBODY, except that life is a little shorter, but then once they are dead THEY DO NOT KNOW THE DIFFERENCE. THEREFORE, SINCE NOBODY IS LEFT TO CARE, HOW CAN IT MATTER?
And I submit that it matters regardless of whether or not there is any "purpose to life". Your writings have led me to believe, for quite some time now, that you believe there is no purpose to life, and, to you, there is no "if" about it.
I do not claim that I have the answer. I have only found, logically, that one thing seems to be certain: Using laws of nature, God could not prove his existence to us. If he came down and performed outlandish miracles, all that would accomplish for me is to make me think powerful space aliens were at work, or that I was a brain in a vat. So what has he got left?
I agree completely, and I would think the same thing. More importantly, what have you got left? Why then do you believe in God?
If we were all indestructible robots, what need would we have for morality? She answered that of course we would need no such thing. Isn't that a little thought provoking?
Yup, it is. It makes me wonder what would be the point of making robots to fight wars for us. The robots won't care who wins.
Now read my response to Kevin and I'll get back to you.
Kevin:
DJ, you have misunderstood Ben.
Possibly so.
Ben argues that without God this is the case. Ben believes in God, therefore he does not believe this. I think you two are talking somewhat past each other.
Yup. Your words and his are light years apart in clarity, and I can't read his mind.
Ben:
Quite seriously, I can't read your mind. I have taken your words, over many months, to mean what they say. Absent any explicit qualification of "if God exists", I don't find such an implicit qualification. The understanding of what you mean is light years apart without it.
Explicitly, the existence of God would not change what I think, simply because the characteristics of such a God are no more detectable than the existence itself, and so the notion that life has "meaning" only if God exists is still just plain silly. Such a "meaning" is what you personally would attribute to it, or what you would allow others (via abdication) to attribute to it, and that's no different from just making it up or applying reason.
I agree, DJ. Now, I did mean to imply the "if" part, but never said it because I just figured it would be understood. Sorry for the confusion.
As an example of what I really mean, here it is: I think murder is wrong independent of whether or not there is a God. Without a God, I cannot say why it is wrong exactly, except that it seems wrong and I don't like it. There's lots of "reasons" that I could come up with for why it is immoral, but none of them would ever be entirely satisfying. I'll be honest, faith is not "entirely" satisfying either, but I like it better than the alternative.
Also, when I said "nobody knows anything about anything etc." I meant "in its fundamental essence" or "with absolute, in the full meaning of that term, certainty." As an engineer, there's lots of practical facts which I rely on by experience and faith to stay true one moment to the next (e.g. gravity makes things fall down), and there are no exceptions to this rule. As an engineer, I require myself to do this. Also, life is enjoyable to a great extent, even without an answer to the fundamental questions of existence, however I'm not afraid to probe the possibilities with an open heart and mind. In the end, Reason is not enough. It's just like Spock said after probing vger in "Star Trek: The Motion Picture" (my favorite Star Trek movie, btw).
That settles my position doesn't it? I honestly believed that you would make the assumptions about my points of view that I have clarified here. Sorry for the obfuscation.
Fair enough, Ben.
I confess to sometimes being what some call a "tightass", in that I'm usually quite literal. That's my nature. I'm not prone to sarcasm or wacko-ness, rather I assume that people mean what they say unless it is blitheringly obvious otherwise. I'm the ultimate straight man. Mea culpa. It drives my wife nuts.
It is a self-taught approach to the written word, born of necessity. I spent about a fourth of my career as a fact witness, expert witness, and inventor in endless litigation over patent validity, claim infringement, and such. I'm an engineer, goddammit, not a lawyer, and I found it utterly infuriating how many millions of dollars can be spent in endless argument over the meaning of something that the author just couldn't be bothered to write carefully, especially when doing so is his whole job. A picture is worth a thousand words, you say? A word or two, by their presence or absence, can be worth millions of dollars.
OK, rant mode off. If my writing has a high dork coefficient, that's why, but my patents set the standards for an industry.
It appears that the primary difference between us is that, for me, reason is enough. I formed a very simple philosophy at a very early age, meaning so early that I can't remember when it happened, but I can't remember being without it. Reality is what it is, regardless of what I think about it, and regardless of whether or not I like it. So, I simply refuse to let whether or not I like reality have anything to do with any analysis I make of it. I have never understood how or why anyone can do otherwise.
That is why I follow the evidence. Any other method simply doesn't work for me and doesn't make sense to me.
That is also why I cannot make the leap of faith that religion requires. I have no desire whatever to and there is no evidence at all to compel me to.
I have read much on the history of religion. If it is read from the point of view that the existence of deities must be demonstrated by evidence, and that religious dogma must be in accord with that evidence, then all religious belief and dogma are immediately recognizable as being nothing more than inventions of the minds of men, just one made up notion after another. The comedy is in how silly the notions are and the tragedy is in how much evil they have justified.
That's my position.
"The comedy is in how silly the notions are and the tragedy is in how much evil they have justified."
And that's Mencken's (and many other people's) position. I understand it, and am sympathetic to it.
But I realize that such reasoning is not for everyone, else atheists wouldn't be a minority, and a small minority at that. From my perspective, religion must serve a purpose, else (as D'Souza points out) evolution would have weeded it out of the population rather than reinforced it.
So, my take on the topic is academic. I find the arguments generally enjoyable and interesting. I usually learn something from them, even if it's just something about the parties involved in the argument.
If it is read from the point of view that the existence of deities must be demonstrated by evidence, and that religious dogma must be in accord with that evidence, then all religious belief and dogma are immediately recognizable as being nothing more than inventions of the minds of men, just one made up notion after another. The comedy is in how silly the notions are and the tragedy is in how much evil they have justified.
True, true and true. I think we're on the same page now.
What purpose does an appendix serve, Kevin?
Now? Probably nothing. But there seems little evolutionary pressure to have it go away.
Can you reason your appendix away?
No more than you can reason away a survival instinct.
My appendix is there for me to not see, and not know about. I have no faith that it is there, but no faith that it isn't either. It might be, but short of cutting me open, it's just a guess, with high probability of one outcome.
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