Atheists can be such uptight downers. And I say that completely seriously and non-sarcastically, despite being a card-carrying atheist myself.
The latest example appears at the Illinois State Capitol, where someone from Freedom From Religion Foundation had the genius idea of erecting this sign among the holiday displays (via PZ):
At the time of the winter solstice, let reason prevail. There are no gods, no devils, no angels, no heaven or hell. There is only our natural world. Religion is just myth and superstition that hardens hearts and enslaves minds.
Well now, there’s an uplifting and positive message. I’m sure that lots of religious folks came along to read that sign, and immediately thought “Gee, whoever wrote that sounds so much smarter and more correct than me! I will throw off my superstitious shackles and join them in the celebration of reason.”
There is a place to argue for one’s worldview — but not every single place. I happen to agree with all of the sentences on the sign above, but the decision to put in front and center in a holiday display merits a giant face-palm. (So does calling it “hate speech,” of course.) It’s like you’re introduced to someone at a party, and they immediately say “Wow, you’re ugly. And your clothes look like they were stolen off a homeless person. And you’re drinking a domestic beer, which shows a complete lack of sophistication.” I don’t know about you, but I’d be thinking — “Such taste and discernment! Here’s someone I need to get to know better.”
Until atheists learn that they don’t need to take every possible opportunity to proclaim their own rationality in the face of everyone else’s stupidity, they will have a reputation as tiresome bores. They could have put up a sign that just gave some sort of joyful, positive message. Or something light-hearted and amusing. Or they could have just left the display alone entirely, and restrained the urge to argue in favor of waiting for some more appropriate venue. (Maybe they could start a blog or something.)
Understanding how the real world works is an important skill. So is understanding human beings.
We know perfectly well when we are being jackasses, which is the point of the sign, and the reason that Barker and Gaylor used this particular quote. The nativity scenes are put there as a “nice little family scene”‘ of a God who gave us free will, then we sinned and for 4004 years were totally unable to be in His presence when we died. It’s a reminder that all of those people went to Hell, and if the moderns don’t get this lesson from the little baby inside, that is the fate that awaits them.
Christians don’t realize when they are being jackasses, they just want us to be happy that the baby Jesus was born and that in order to do that, they need to put it front and center in State Capitols and that it is a violation of the concept of the Establishment Clause. We want it to be all nice, and make children happy when they come to the Capitol and know that this is a Christian State, don’t we?
The sign is offensive to people who will then realize, if they can get past their whining, that it is time to stop this state-sponsored prosletyzing.
#68: Joel, no one said that Lenin and Stalin were nice guys or that Communism was or is a good system for governing. Further, it’s not like the Russian Empire wasn’t under a totalitarian-like system before 1917. The “holy” Czar was ahead of the Russian Orthodox Church and had ultimate control for centuries. With the Russian Revolution, unfortunately, Lenin and then Stalin simply replaced the Czar and brought another dogmatic form of government, which for all it’s brutality, did alleviate widespread poverty and make the country into a super power before falling apart. Regardless, life in the Soviet Union for many, specifically in the many decades after Stalin, was nowhere near as bad as it was portrayed in the West.
As for being good guys…atheists can be good or bad like anyone else. I don’t see your point. I’ll still take reason, science, and Enlightenment values over bronze age superstition and dogma.
Atheism will always be grim, there is no way around it. I make no statement about the concourse of atheist lives; but in the general sense, succumbing to the idea that you and everything around you are completely inconsequential by-products of an immense conglomerate of innumerable, interrelated chance events.. that will never be a pleasant thought. Thinking about it can be avoided, for sure, but it’s always there, always eating at you if you have the imagination to understand it. No amount of artificial decoration or joys of pretty lights and warm homes in some canvas of modern civilization can make it go away. The joy itself is an accident. Every smile, every laugh. Enzyme secretions triggered by a complicated set of processes that just happened to give you drive to continue living and reproducing. Try that for a downer.
This is not an argument for monotheism, only a statement of reality.
I was a very outspoken atheist. People who think they recognize an obvious truth that others don’t will always speak out. There is a certain pleasure derived from it, and it drives the religious and the anti-religious alike. The pleasure goes away slowly when you realize how little you really understand, the magnitude of the claims you make.
Today I strongly believe in some of the things that I scorned. I am not Christian, but I celebrate with the Christians (and others) at least in spirit. You see, I have the luxury of doing that which from an atheist would be a sign of hypocrisy or madness. I have the luxury of relaxing rationalism in favor of fate.
Sean, you want the materialists to be nice, but materialism does not know about these things.
two cents:
“I suppose I’ve never seen water either by your logic.”
In no way does a statement I’ve made suggest any idea even remotely similar to this, and I cannot think of any way you might reasonably interpret any statement of mine in such a way.
“I think the second definition of belief is sufficient that underlying any “absence of belief” is a structure of beliefs.”
No, it’s not. I do not have “mental acceptance of and conviction in the truth, actuality, or validity of something” because a lack of belief is not “something.” The statements “I don’t believe in God” and “I believe there is no God” simply are not equivalent. “Waterskiing” is a sport, and “not waterskiing” is not a sport.
“Did the belief system change the probabilities of the outcome?”
I don’t understand how that’s a relevant question when we’re discussing the unproven and often unprovable claims made by the belief system, not the existence of the belief system itself.
“What is the absence in the belief of superheros called again? I can’t imagine that anyone would dedicate their lives to collecting comic book character memorabilia…and I can’t imagine that such economic activity has an impact on other people.”
You continue to make irrelevant statements and miss the actual point of the conversation. The vast majority of people who collect comic book memorabilia do not, in fact, believe that superheroes actually exist. Further, no one denies the existence of churches, religions, or believers, or that they can have physical impact on the world; again, it’s their wild, unsupported claims that are questioned.
“Since atheists apparently live in bubbles and are immune to the activities of others, then it would appear that a true atheist doesn’t actually interact with the world they live in.”
The only thing that’s apparent here is that the world you live in has a very different form of reading comprehension from the world the rest of us inhabit.
John I:
“When scientists can tell me what existed “before” existence or exactly why there was slightly more matter than anti-matter, I will credit atheism as something more than another idea. Until then, the notion that it was just a lucky chance seems a bit naive.”
This is a terribly flawed argument. Science (in particular physics, which has only existed in something resembling its modern form for a few centuries) cannot completely explain several phenomena (at least in ways that are consistent with data), so this makes the existence of God not just an equally valid explanation, but actually a more valid one? That’s absolute nonsense.
Also, the concept of “luck” in regard to the fact of the existence of the universe in its present form does not appear in either credible scientific publications or in non-religious philosophy; it is only used by those who oppose such things and do not truly understand the concepts. For the current state of the universe to be “lucky” there would have had to have been a significant chance for it to be otherwise, and despite anthropic-principle supporters making arguments about “fine-tuning” we don’t have any real idea about what determined the fundamental constants, and therefore any argument about their “likelihoods” is pure conjecture.
A.H:
See my above reply about “luck.” I will add that such usage is highly typical of people who trap themselves in a false dilemma: if one believes something was not done on purpose, one “must” then believe that it was done by accident. The fallacy here is that both of these outcomes (on purpose or by accident) assume the potential for an inherently meaningful action, which implies the existence of some sort of autonomous being that could have had intentions. In fact, because atheists do not believe that such a being exists, the entire dichotomy between “purposeful” and “accidental” is not even something to consider. Someone glancing away from the road and hitting a squirrel is an accident; a star going nova just IS.
I do not believe in water skiing
I believe their is no water skiing
I have an absence of belief in water skiing
I suppose in some experimental lab on rhetoric you’ve won. Congrats! The first statement is a negation of belief, the second is negation of water skiing and the third is a clever nullification of the superposition of the two. Wow! What brilliance!
(-x) +y
x+ (-y)
0*(x+y)
What is also cool is that:
[(-x) +y] + [x + (-y)] = 0*(x+y)
So I can’t imagine where the confusion in logic originates.
Listen, before I go any further, I have no problem if atheists want to destroy god. They can hack at it all they want. My beef with atheists is that they have consistently demonstrated that they lack the intellectual rigor to achieve their goal. Do they really think they can defeat god through rhetorical tricks?
Their chief flaw is the assumption that religion is some sort of environmental manifestation. While they typically are okay with the notion that something like homosexuality has genetic factors (and for the record, I think there is nothing wrong with homosexuality, I am not a homosexual, but I have some good friends who are) atheists think that somehow people’s religious predilections will miraculously vanish with some simple logical rhetorical statement (or through brute force and executions…aka the communists).
Atheists really do need to watch nature shows more often. Several years back there was an excellent documentary on the social behavior of wolves. What was rather remarkable was that wolves are apparently very spiritual…they actually mourn the death of their members.
What surprises me is the complete utter denial of connections between hero worship and religion. What is also surprising is the lack of understanding of simple economic principles. Whether or not most people believe in a superhero is irrelevant; the value of the memorabilia is determined in the margins, and that some of those potential purchasers have a strong emotional connection to the superhero (even if it technically falls short of belief) significantly determines the price.
The persistence and the weakness of your rebuttals, and the complete lack of comprehension of subtleties indicates that your next response will be equally inane.
two cents: “So who was the first person to have the thought of the existence of god? Surely since all people were children, absent of any belief, then what was the progenitor of such a pernicious myth? What occasion would allow the child to develop such a wonderful fantasy? What broke the perfectly godless symmetry of the world?”
The concept of god evolved with humanity, it’s origin is the natural concept of a pack leader. Since humans evolved from pack animals they instinctively revere powerful leaders. After such powerful and successful leaders died members of their pack naturally tried to preserve their memory, wisdom and spirit in hopes that it will help them in the future. The development of speech gave them the tools needed to do it and memories of ancestors eventually lead to the cult of ancestors.
As such cults grew and were passed from generation to generation the number of people who actually remembered each ancestor declined and the power ascribed to them kept growing. This led to ancestors being used to explain more and more of the unexplainable phenomena in the natural world slowly evolving into local deities. Some such cults spread far and wide due to conquest and as more and more people unrelated to the original tribe became worshipers the ancestor aspect was de-empathized and eventually completely lost meaning leading to polytheistic gods.
With the advent of farming humanity began to prosper – large cities were build many trade routes were established greatly facilitating communication between cultures. The awarness of other cultures lead to a problem – how can people believe in so many different gods? If our gods are the correct ones how come others are not punished for believing in the wrong ones? This diminished the faith of believers and to counter this and the fragmentation of beliefs some enterprising individuals came up with monotheism. This new form of religion had a natural appeal of simplicity – one god, one doctrine, one rituals, etc. But it also had another important advantage – it centralized religion giving much more power to those who controlled it. This made religion an even more important tool for leaders who could leverage it to control their subjects like never before making monotheism a preferred choice for an official religion and eventually leading to it’s domination.
This is where the concept of god comes from and each stage of it’s evolution can be easily identified in historical and archaeological records, furthermore even nowadays one could probably find tribes whose beliefs conform to each of those stages.
So would you characterize the root cause as an adaptation for survival?
two cents: So would you characterize the root cause as an adaptation for survival?
Yes, most of what humanity stands for can be traced back to that root cause.
#77 Sputnik – my point was that nobody should EVER give ANYONE that amount of power
or let them take it. It does not seem to make much difference whether the power grabbers
are atheists or religious. The whole case for Limited Government is that we should have
learned from History. The problem is what to do about it. If the people are kept in a state
of ignorance and the Czar co-opts and corrupts the clergy, or if the clergy is corrupt, then
you get serfdom. And the Politburo kept the people in ignorance of computers for obvious
self serving reasons. What is worse is that people internalize a serf mentality that this is
just the way life is, and then Reason and Science and Enlightenment Values do not amount
to much.
#81 arrow – what a sweeping generalization. I wonder how God Given Rights fit into this
scheme. Have a look at Sermons preached during the American revolution in case you
think that it is all about controlling the subjects.
How about a sign that says
“Why believe in a God? Just be good for goodness’ sake!”
I read that somewhere once… I like it a lot. Conveys a similar message while not being such a downer.
I agree about aggressive atheists. They’re as bad as those people who come knocking on your door to proscelytize about their religion or those that think they have to “save” you because you don’t believe in their God. I get irritated with the people who show up in the news because their kid refuses to say the words “under God” in the Pledge of Allegiance. It’s pretty easy in a crowd reciting the same thing, just to not say the words rather than make a spectacle of themselves. Likewise, those who get upset because specifically religious articles are being removed from government buildings (i.e., Alabama courthouse where a representation of the 10 Commandments were removed). Especially with a court building where justice is supposed to be served, how confident can someone who is not Christian feel in the justice if there are icons of Christianity in the building?
NPR had a guest on this past week talking about the Humanist “religion.” It was interesting to me as it more closely resembles my feeling on the topic–let’s make the most of this life here and now and not worry about the next life. That is, be good people, help others and take care of the Earth on which we depend for our existence. I’ve never been convinced there is a single creator/omnipotent being that created the universe. And unfortunately, knowing several people who think the Earth is only 6,000 years old despite mountains of evidence to the contrary, doesn’t reinforce any kind of positive view of organized religions. If we were omniscient, time would have no meaning. A day could be a billion years.
Native Americans refer to “God” as “the Great Mystery” (Wakan Tanka), which is a great concept. Because what else is the entity that many religions call God, but a mystery? Yet they were persecuted and forced to accept a more limited Christian religion in the settlement of this country when their own was more earth-based, reverent and was expressed every day in the way they lived.
Atheists, for the most part the ones I know, don’t buy into the God concept because if you’re only living this life to get to one that is unknown, unproven and based on many descriptions of “heaven” I’ve heard, one we wouldn’t like anyway, then you’re missing the best that this life has to offer. Focusing on the now and making this world a better place, regardless of any later “reward” is to me, a loftier goal than trying to get to “Heaven.”
By the way, many animals mourn the deaths of companions and buddies. I’ve seen this with our dogs, cats, and horses. Mourning (grief) is not spiritual, it is emotional and exists throughout the natural world. (two cents’ post) What we don’t know is how long animals mourn and do they keep the memory of the one they lost.
Kevin:
Physics has existed only for several centuries, and therefore cannot be held accountable for what it does not know. Fair enough, but…can it even attempt to know what it unknowable? What experiments or data attempt to determine the quesstions, or myriad others that I proposed such as what existed “before” the big bang (in quotes because how can time exist prior to the existance of time). Some propose that this universe is a chip off another larger universe, and that that universe is a chip off another, etc. etc. Fine, but at some point it must come back to some kind of creative intelligence.
Man sends his consciousness and intelligence to discover principles behind the universe, and he discovers many mysterious, counter-intuitive and paradoxical things. He finds that only one substance, that he knows of, is denser in the liquid state than in the solid, and this simple contradiction makes life on earth possible. He finds that neutrons have just the tiniest more mass than protons. which allows matter to exist in its known form. He finds that electrons, the smallest particles, create solidity, or the illusion of solidity, by spinning in orbits, and yet in heavy stable elements, they never interfere with each other and can combine and exchange flawlessly, while other particles bump into each other all the time.
Man discovers with his intelligence all of these wonders and thousands more which permit his life and consciousness to exist, and then is told to declare that his is the only intelligence, that all these things just happened, that some other alternate universe might have been very different but just as satisfactory if these “random” chances had not occurred, that man can discover these marvels but that they are not accounted for by an intelligence greater than man. You say it isn’t random, it just “is.” Yes, I agree. It just Is.
It is either random., or it isn’t. What is the third possibility?
Sean gives an example in his lectures (not about this subject but I think it is germane) of someone blindfolded at one end of a basketball court making a “nothing but net” shot at the other end 100 times in a row. That is what you are asking me to believe when you deny a creative intelligence. (I do not say “God” or “religion” or “dogma.” You do.)
You note that physics in its present form has only been around for a few centuries. But mankind’s great thinkers have been contemplating his connection to higher intelligence for 10 to 20 times that long.
And there is nothing in present science which denies the connection.
In fact the mysteries of physics tend, in my opinion and that of many others, including Einstein as I understand him, to support (not confirm) these concepts.
Or to paraphrase the old joke, “When I was 300 I couldn’t believe how stupid my parents were, but when I turned 600, I was amazed to discover how much they had learned in a few short years.”
“The concept of God evolved with humanity. It’s origin is the concept of a pack leader”
Or maybe a big black rock descended a la Stanley Kubrick and taught all the apes how to use tools and weapons.
Evolution, as I understand it, concerns the physical nature of species. The evolution of thought is a lot more dicey. At least until we get civilization and writing. And by that time spiritual inquiry was a long established idea.
You don’t think you were there, but you know what happened. I think I probably was there, but frankly, I don’t remember
Leslie:
“Native Americans refer to ‘God’ as ‘the Great Mystery.'”
Yes. Exactly. It has nothing to do with the rantings of fundamentalist Christians, Moslems or atheists. Jesus said “The kingdom of heaven is within you.” Not after death. Right now and forever. All the rest is commentary.
irt leslie and others
I would agree with your more general characterization, but it seems very probably that the roots of spirituality are in our ability to feel grief. I too have observed quite interesting emotional responses of critters of all sorts. Since we have agreement that religious beliefs have their roots in survival, it is seems plausible that belief in god is an evolutionary coping mechanism.
Why feel grief? Are we defective? I know that different people respond differently to circumstances; not every one feels grief in the same manner…what is the absence of grief?
Yes, I can understand such concepts as absence of something, but we have to define something to describe its absence, and if we can find a definition, then the thing described has some existence, even if it is not a purely materially stable one.
I can hypothesize all sorts of interesting solutions to some of these sorts of problems. I think those doing research on our brain are probably getting closer to understanding some of this; perhaps someday we will have a purely scientific explanation…we might even have a mathematical model that can predict the emergence of emotions and feelings of spirituality—then what? What do you do with the knowledge of what configurations lead to a belief of a god?
Well, I, too, know that my concept is right. Just wanted all of you to know that.
However, since only brain-dead fanatics will read through all the other brain-dead comments in order to read this one, those who do likely won’t be enlightened by my righteousness, either. There’s always a catch, y’know?
Sean’s commentary sounds suspiciously similar to the “rational” reactions to 19th century women’s emancipation efforts, or a 1950’s “rational” response to that unscrupulous rabble-rouser, Martin Luther King. If a great tide of atheism catches hold in America (very unlikely, in my humble opinion) 50 years from now Sean’s commentary might wind up being quoted as an exemplar of 2010 badthink. ’tis a consummation devoutly to be wished.
two cents:
“The persistence and the weakness of your rebuttals, and the complete lack of comprehension of subtleties indicates that your next response will be equally inane.”
Are you talking to yourself here? You’re the one who is unable to comprehend the difference between “not believing in God” and “believing there is no God” (the correct portrayal of this in your over-simplified logical setup is: (-x) + y != x + (-y), which quite obviously supports my interpretation). You’re the one who is making repeated references to “economic principles” without making any effort to demonstrate how they are in any way relevant to a discussion of the truth value of religious claims.
For the record, I have studied the psychology and biology of religion and I do understand that it is not simply an environmental manifestation. People have religious experiences that convince them of the existence of God, etc., and some people have greater or lower tendencies toward these experiences than others. I acknowledge that these experiences can be ultimately authoritative for those who have them, but they do not carry authority outside of the experiencer himself or herself. The problem is that many of those who experience them do treat them as externally authoritative, and have throughout human civilization. People’s personal choices, beliefs, etc. are their own business and in general, I couldn’t care less. However, people simply are not content to keep their personal issues personal, and they continue to try to enforce their own preferences on others. The point of treating religious claims empirically is to demonstrate that they do not have valid external authority, and therefore no general policy should be based upon them.
John I:
“Fine, but at some point it must come back to some kind of creative intelligence.”
How? You offer no rationale for this insistence. The argument of the first cause was disregarded as obsolete long ago. Causality is a temporal phenomenon, and time only exists, as far as anyone knows, within the universe. Using causality as we know it in extra-universal explanations simply is not appropriate.
Your entire discussion of “randomness” shows that you did not even try to comprehend my previous post. For something to be considered random, there must be the potential for it to have been otherwise, and there is simply no indication that that is the case for the universe. It may be that, because of factors we don’t yet understand, ours is the only possible universe. It may also be that uncountable differently-configured universes exist/have existed/will exist, and therefore ours is just one of many, its existence nothing inherently remarkable. Furthermore, any “creative intelligence” does not necessarily (or even probably) resemble a religious object. Aliens seeding the universe with amino acids or even creating new universes, though an unlikely explanation, is still infinitely simpler than any religious or spiritual claim.
Again, the assertion that everything must either have a quality of “random” or “not random” is a false dilemma. For something to be “not random” as you intend the term to mean, there must be a possibility of a random outcome that was somehow controlled or influenced. This is not the case in the situations you discuss.
Kevin:
Oh yes. I have tried. “For something to be considered random, there must be the potential for it to have been otherwise, and there is simply no indication that that is the case for the universe.”
No indication to you, but to myself and many others, including Einstein and Newton, there is. However, you want to persist in replying to my posts from the position of your clearly superior intellect, which, according to you, I cannot or do not even try to comprehend.
However, I think that anyone who can say regarding the universe, that it’s existence is “nothing inherently remarkable,” is probably so tied up in his own tautological underwear that further comment would be unproductive.
“Aliens seeding the universe with amino acids or even creating new universes….is still infinitely simpler than any religious or spiritual claim.”
WOW. I can’t wait until the rest of mankind catches up to that kind of thinking.
#84 – “my point was that nobody should EVER give ANYONE that amount of power
or let them take it.”
I don’t disagree.
“And the Politburo kept the people in ignorance of computers for obvious
self serving reasons.”
News to me. I had a computer in the 80s…Tetris was created in Soviet Russia, you know.
“It’s like you’re introduced to someone at a party, and they immediately say “Wow, you’re ugly. And your clothes look like they were stolen off a homeless person. And you’re drinking a domestic beer, which shows a complete lack of sophistication.””
Here’s a better analogy. It’s like you’re at a party given to honor the birth of Tom Cruise, son of Holy Xenu and Heir to the Galactic Confederacy, and some guy stands up and says, “You know guys, Tom Cruise isn’t the son of Xenu. What’s more, Xenu never existed. In fact, anybody who honestly believes in Scientology is crazy, and is supporting a destructive cult.”
Would you condemn the guy who said this, Sean?
Then why behave differently when the target is religion in general rather than Scientology?
irt kevin
good…my point in all this is that no one should feel so privileged as to cloak contempt for others as being some innocent statement of truth. I believe in god, but I find the behavior of many monotheists as being reprehensible (for instance, I would really like to know who the blasphemers are who keep putting up all those billboards that have messages from god on them). I fully believe the bible gives sufficient guidance that one is to practice their faith as quietly as possible. I think the bible is fairly clear that God can not be tested, so no test of God in this world would ever reveal his divine presence (so those trying to find evidence in biology are particularly interesting heretics). I do think it is interesting though to understand what leads to mankind’s apparent awareness of god…what causes the compulsion to believe?
As far as the economics, peoples beliefs are real variables in economics; that’s all I’m getting at. People typically spend there money on the things they value most.
Ultimately, I want to live in peace with other people, and in order to do that I have to accept people that don’t think and behave as I do. I just think that sometimes atheists tend to undermine themselves in the eyes of others when they tell people how screwed up they are.
This small-a atheist is more than happy and comfortable to say Merry Christmas.
One camp of non-testable hypothesis to another.
Even Shawn recognizes that being rational doesn’t mean you can’t also be stupid at the same time.
#93 sputnik – i think it was 1946. Science mag had pix of blacked out articles on cybernetics
back in the 70s. btw i have a bunch of Mir publications on QM and little green pamphlets on various math topics. Great stuff.
#87 John I – been a while since reading Barrow & Tipler. What seems to be missing is why
the world makes mathematical sense. Basically I’m an atheist because I ‘believe’ that complex octonion ‘arithmetic’ determines what exists. It seems to make sense of why math
is unreasonably effective. … but more like food for thought than a theory. I figure that if everybody hates math – then it is probably true. If it deals with atoms, cells, and minds
then what religion takes as purpose and ‘order’ is explainable in principle – and one might
expect religion to persist until one can make sense of it. (Octonions ? Good Luck !)
So the design of the world seems bigger and badder than God. If that worries Theists, well
it also seems bigger and badder than Physics. Or Darwin, for that matter. So, maybe we are
all on a bigger adventure than we think. So maybe atheists can get their act together and
contribute something useful to civilization, rather than just complaining, like explaining
why the world is the way it is. That ought to keep them out of trouble.
#73: John I’s argument is sometimes referred to as “the god of the gaps.”
I saw the same sign (put up by FFRF) at the Wisconsin state capitol in Madison two days ago. It was next to Christian and Muslim religious signs, and all three were near the Christmas tree in the center of the rotunda. My impression wasn’t that they were being party poopers. I wasn’t offended at all.
God, religion is boring!