 |
Comments |
|
 | Wednesday, May 21, 2008 at 0:32:14 mst
Comment ID: #1
Name: Adam Reed
E-mail: adamreedatalumdotmitdotedu
URL: http://www.calstatela.edu/faculty/areed2
Weirdest is the ascription of science to Christianity. Archimedes did science exactly as science is done today: by the application of reason, in the form of inductive and mathematical logic, to observations and measurements. This back when the Christians, if any, were denouncing nude bathing as a sacrilegious pagan practice.
Next weirdest is the ascription of Atheism to Stalin. Stalin was trained in a seminary for the Orthodox Christian priesthood. Stalin, and the Communist party, reversed Kerensky's separation of the Orthodox Church from the Russian state, re-established the Russian Orthodox Christian Church as a government agency, funded the re-building of Orthodox Churches, paid government salaries to priests and so on. In Communist Poland, where I grew up, Stalin's proxies went farther: they made attendance at Roman Catholic Mass compulsory in the Polish People's Army; they ordered compulsory Roman Catholic Catechism classes, taught by priests, in government schools from the first grade on, and so on.
De Souza's preposterous lies don't stop there, of course. The percentage of the population murdered in the Roman Catholic extermination of the Hussites in Bohemia was higher than even the percentage murdered by the (relatively most murderous) Communist Pol Pot regime in Cambodia. The first religious war of total extermination, the Crusade against the Albigensians (Cathars) - "Kill them all, God will know his own" - was the first recorded 100% democide in history.
None of this diminishes the contrast of reason and unreason, a.k.a. force, especially force in the form of mass murder. But how can one get to induction of this contrast in the minds of people who are as ignorant of history - and filled with absurd inventions that they regard as facts - as typical graduates of what pass, in America, for "schools?" |
|
| Wednesday, May 21, 2008 at 0:54:10 mst
Comment ID: #2
Name: Adrian Hester
Adam Reed writes: "Weirdest is the ascription of science to Christianity. Archimedes did science exactly as science is done today: by the application of reason, in the form of inductive and mathematical logic, to observations and measurements. This back when the Christians, if any, were denouncing nude bathing as a sacrilegious pagan practice."
Well, he was a couple of centuries before Christ, but if Christians had been around then, yeah, they'd have attacked his whole milieu as thoroughly worldly and evil. (I'm assuming you're striving for humorous effect--certainly it made *me* laugh.)
But are there any important scientists at all who have never been attacked by major Christian figures as fomenting heresy or irreligion? I'm not sure there's a one. In any case, assume there is one. Is this anything to praise him for? Hell, no! At best it means the religionists were more amenable to reason than usual. |
|
| Wednesday, May 21, 2008 at 2:16:03 mst
Comment ID: #3
Name: Morpheus
E-mail: neo(at)wakeup.com
URL: http://www.neoteric.net/a-flash/index.html
http://www.neoteric.net/a-flash/index.html |
|
| Wednesday, May 21, 2008 at 5:31:04 mst
Comment ID: #4
Name: L Bourque
E-mail: EstiTiEsti(at)gmail.com
URL: http://3-ring-binder.blogspot.com/
Thank you for this excellent article. It has never been more obvious to me that I need to begin talking in terms of being a man of reason rather than an atheist. The first is full of meaning; the second is just an empty placeholder, allowing others to fill it with all sorts of junk. |
|
| Wednesday, May 21, 2008 at 6:30:52 mst
Comment ID: #5
Name: Kevin Delaney
E-mail: ctprods-at-yahoodotcom
URL: http://www.kevindelaney.net
This article is one of the best things I have ever read! Thank you, Mr. Perkins, for the cogency. |
|
| Wednesday, May 21, 2008 at 6:38:44 mst
Comment ID: #6
Name: Burgess Laughlin
E-mail: burgesslaughlin(at)macforcego.com
URL: http://www.aristotleadventure.blogspot.com
Greg Perkins's article: "First, consider that atheism is not itself an ideology; there is no such thing as an "atheist mindset" or an "atheist movement."
This is an astute observation, particularly the last point about an atheist movement. A MOVEMENT, I hold, is a mental grouping of individuals who are taking action toward a goal which they *happen* to have in common, even if they are unaware of others who share their goal. A movement is just a bunch of people who are walking across the cultural landscape in the same direction.
A movement is not even a mere NETWORK, which is a series of individuals related to each other, directly or indirectly, through communication from one individual to another (but not necessarily to everyone in the network). A knows B and B knows C, but A and C might not even know of each other. They are part of the same network through which information and goods might travel.
A movement is not an ORGANIZATION, which is a social entity defined, in part, by the presence of a gatekeeper. Movements have no gatekeepers. (Which is why every movement has grossly ignorant or destructively mentally ill or dishonest people in it.)
Of course, some of the individuals *in* a movement might network, and then, in the next step of sophistication, some of the members of the network might form an organization, a social entity defined in part by a structure, a method of selecting leaders, and a gatekeeper (applying membership rules). The last step in social sophistication is the formation of an INSTITUTION, an organization designed to continue even if all the founders die off, one by one. ARI is an example.
Indeed, atheists do not form even a mere movement, and the reason is that being a "not-theist" is not a goal (something to act toward) but is simply a negative state of being. |
|
| Wednesday, May 21, 2008 at 7:13:30 mst
Comment ID: #7
Name: Jimfw
E-mail: jimfw(at)hotmail.com
Dear Greg:
Thanks for the excellent article. I think the core of the difference between the two groups (those who believe in reason, and those who believe in force) is the most striking point you raised. Mathematicians often disagree about the nature of number; but I am not aware of any war started by mathematicians over this issue, or a mathematical jihad. Poets often have intense disagreements about the nature of poetry (free verses formal verse, for example), but I am not aware of anyone slain over this disagreement. Only in the realms of religion and ideology do we come to these kinds of murderous results.
Consider what can happen when two people, say X and Y, disagree.
1. X can say to Y, "I'll punch you out if you don't change your mind." That is force and coercion.
2. X can deceive Y by using imaginary data or hiding information not supportive to X's claim. That is deception or propaganda.
3. X and Y can agree to disagree; because it isn't important to them, because there's not enough information to settle the dispute, they lack the time for a full discussion, or for other reasons.
4. X and Y can each offer their view in an arena of open discussion and critical inquiry. This is dialectic. The key to dialectic is that in this kind of exchange it is a win-win for X and Y because both are committed to the truth. That is to say, in a situation of genuine, reason based, inquiry, if X turns out to be right, or if X turns out to be wrong, X still wins in either case because the commitment is to truth. In addition, in a situation of open dialectical investigation, based on reason, a third possibility can emerge from the exchange; something that neither X nor Y had considered previously.
Options 3 and 4 are the realm of reason and they are founded on, and lead to, a basic ethical stance. This is why, in ancient philosophy, reason was often linked to living an ethical life; in a sense one can look at reason as a branch of ethics, or that the two are intimately intertwined.
Again, thanks for the fine post.
Best wishes,
Jim |
|
| Wednesday, May 21, 2008 at 7:57:25 mst
Comment ID: #8
Name: Diana Hsieh
E-mail: diana(at)dianahsieh.com
URL: http://www.dianahsieh.com/blog
Adam (and others),
Do you know of any books or articles discussing Christianity and communism? I'm well aware that the ethics of subservience and resignation preached in the Russian Orthodox Church greatly helped communism take an iron grip on power, but I wasn't aware of the requirement to attend church in communist Poland, for example. It's not surprising, but I'd like to know more.
I'd also like to read about Christianity in the Third Reich. Any sources on that? (Does Peikoff discuss it in Ominous Parallels?) |
|
| Wednesday, May 21, 2008 at 9:23:31 mst
Comment ID: #9
Name: Kyle Haight
E-mail: khaight(at)alumni.ucsd.edu
URL: http://www.leftist.org/haightspeech/
Are you interested in the relationship between Christianity and Marxist Communism specifically? I gather there were a number of deeply religious communist movements in Europe before Marx, with God's Divine Plan(tm) playing the historical driving role that Marx assigned to economics. The transition to "atheistic communism" took place around the time of the French Revolution. One could view the modern resurgence of liberation theology as a return to communism's original religious roots. |
|
| Wednesday, May 21, 2008 at 10:10:33 mst
Comment ID: #10
Name: Jim May
E-mail: seerak(at)gmail.com
Greg writes:
"For example, several of the New Atheists point to the Inquisition and Crusades and Witch Trials of early Christianity, the deadly Jihad waged in the name of Islam today, and so on--and D'Souza agrees this is a terrible toll that religion is responsible for. But he goes on to argue that when you actually look at the numbers, this responsibility is minuscule in comparison to the slaughter of over 100 million by the atheistic regimes of the 20th century. So he contends it is obvious that "Atheism, not religion, is responsible for the mass murders of history."
This point has devastated the New Atheists."
That really exposes how weak the New Atheists are. I mean, the rejoinder for this point is a slam-dunk -- the SINGLE REASON why this is so, is OPPORTUNITY. The communists had a vastly larger pool of potential victims available to them, supplied by the preceding era of relative prosperity brought about by the secular Enlightenment and its liberal capitalist social system. The religionists had no such thing.
Heh, given the religionists' confusion of the potential versus the actual re: abortion, consider this: all the *potential* human lives that were never realized during the millenia of religious rule must outnumber the "atheist" death toll by an order of magnitude or three....
Demolishing the rest of D'Souza' lies, however, is going to require a solid grasp of ideological causality on our part. We need to be able to show how ideas have moved through history -- and why they MUST lead to certain consequences so long as they are dominant in a culture. Knowing history is necessary to this goal, but not sufficient -- we also have to be able to understand the internal logic of ideas, understand how they direct a man's actions (and that of the culture at large), and identify these logical patterns in the data of history.
In this case, we have to be able to show why the religiosity of many of the Founders is *incidental* to America's founding, Aristotle's ideas are *fundamental* to it. We have to be able to prove why America *could not* have resulted from Christian ideas -- and why Christianity will kill America as surely as Islam would.
Rest assured, it would be both D'Souza and the Left that would be unable to answer such an onslaught. This is because they both conflate human *character* (which is a function of the choices made by each of us) with human *nature* (which is a function of the species, not subject to our choice) -- that is, they both see human behaviour as a function of things "built-in" to the species. They differ only in the particulars of this view: the Left despises man as he is, but seek to "solve" the problem by remaking man into something he is not. The religious conservatives also despise man as he is, but declare that we are stuck with man as he is, a "fallen being" with innate moral weaknesses. Both will acknowledge that ideas have some power, if pressed, but they do not believe that fundamentally, and cannot -- outside of hypocrisy, the logic of their ideas forbids it!
The Enlightenment/Objectivist notion of man's *nature* as a metaphysical given, but a man's *character* as being "tabula rasa", to be authored by each of us via the ideas we choose -- is completely alien to both of them. The power of ideas -- the principle of ideological causation -- only makes sense in the context of individuals possessing free will and a conceptual form of consciousness. Ideas move men, but not rocks -- and you can't force a mind via physical causation. |
|
| Wednesday, May 21, 2008 at 10:39:57 mst
Comment ID: #11
Name: Burgess Laughlin
E-mail: burgesslaughlin(at)macforcego.com
URL: http://www.aristotleadventure.blogspot.com
Diana: "I'd also like to read about Christianity in the Third Reich. Any sources on that? (Does Peikoff discuss it in Ominous Parallels?)"
On pp. 48-51 discusses the Nazi movement's ambivalence about religion. On p. 50, bottom, he wraps up:
"The Nazis did not survive long enough to complete this development [attempting to turn Nazism into a new religion]. To the end, they could not decide whether to retain Christianity, construing Nazism merely as its latest, truest version ("positive Christianity," this wing often called it)--or to concoct a distinctively Nazi creed out of a hodge-podge of elements drawn from pagan Teutonic mythology and romanticist metaphysics."
There are a few more references to Christianity throughout *OP*. Except for the leads provided on pp. 48-51, your best bet might be to look in the massive overviews--such as William Shirer's old *Rise and Fall of the Third Reich* or its more recent equivalents--to see if a whole chapter is devoted to relations with the Church and other religions. They might provide leads. |
|
| Wednesday, May 21, 2008 at 10:58:24 mst
Comment ID: #12
Name: Burgess Laughlin
E-mail: burgesslaughlin(at)macforcego.com
URL: http://www.aristotleadventure.blogspot.com
Adam Reed: "Weirdest is the ascription of science to Christianity."
There is a movement among conservative Catholic intellectuals today to reclaim the Dark Age as being not such a bad time (less "big government," you see). Examine Rodney Stark's *The Victory of Reason: How Christianity Led to Freedom, Capitalism, and Western Success*. Andy Bernstein wrote a first-class critique of it in *The Objective Standard*:
http://www.theobjectivestandard.com/issues/2006-winter/tragedy-of-t ...
It is accessible to all in Vol. I, Issue 4. |
|
| Wednesday, May 21, 2008 at 11:40:35 mst
Comment ID: #13
Name: Adam Reed
E-mail: adamreedatalumdotmitdotedu
URL: http://www.calstatela.edu/faculty/areed2
Diana,
There is not, to my knowledge, any comprehensive book-length treatment of the relationship of the Communist parties in the Soviet Union and its satellites to the established churches.
In the Soviet Union, the issue of the re-establishment of the Russian Orthodox Church as the official government church was a major point of conflict between Trotsky, an internationalist and Atheist, and Stalin, an advocate of populist nationalism and traditionalism anchored in traditional Russian Orthodox Christianity. The issue is addressed at some length in historical treatments of the Stalin-Trotsky split.
In the case of Poland, the promotion of Roman Catholic interests by the Communist government was spearheaded by Stanislaw Piasecki. Piasecki was an extreme traditionalist Catholic and an admirer of Francisco Franco's Catholic totalitarianism; he founded a Catholic Fascist organization ("Falanga") modeled on the Spanish Falange, and aspired to become, in time, a Franco-style dictator of Catholic Poland. After WWII Piasecki recognized that his best chance at his life plan lay with Stalin, and approached the latter through the Soviet secret police authorities in Soviet-occupied Poland. Stalin made Piasecki his de-facto plenipotentiary in Poland, relegating the leadership of the official "United Workers'" (Socialist-Communist) party to the role of figureheads. After Stalin's death Piasecki became the main promoter of anti-Semitism in the Polish establishment; he was the primary ideological backer of the de-facto Roman Catholic theocratic (although still nominally Marxist) dictatorship under General Moczar. Piasecki is discussed in most historical treatments of post-WWII Poland, and of the last expulsion of the Jews in March 1968. Most of those are in Polish and were never translated into English; the only exception that I'm aware of is "Between the Hammer and the Anvil" by Stefan Korbonski.
As for Christianity in the Third Reich, it is discussed by many historians; Hitler considered himself a defender of Christendom and his movement a direct inheritor of the "Holy Order of the Knights of the Cross," young Nazi leaders were trained through "castles of the Order" etc. The only exception among Nazi leaders was Goering, who tolerated an attempt at a Germanic Pagan revival among a few low-ranking early Nazis but was eventually unable to protect "his" neo-Pagans, most of whom were "liquidated" as part of Hitler's "anti-Decadence" campaign. |
|
| Wednesday, May 21, 2008 at 13:56:15 mst
Comment ID: #14
Name: Wendy
Great article, Greg! Religion happens to be one of my hot points, so I'm glad to see some good writing on the subject. I get nearly physically ill when I see people deny principle outright and devolve into a your-group-killed-more-people-than-my-group argument. I'd rather have to fight with someone who says that I can't prove that God doesn't exist because at least that's on a more fundamental level.
As an aside, I've made an observation over the years: I've noticed that when I tell a religious person that I'm an atheist, the very next thing that comes out of his or her mouth is a question asked in sheer terror. That question tells you exactly why they allow themselves to believe it. It's generally something like "So what happens when you die?" or "When something awful happens, how do you deal with it?" |
|
| Wednesday, May 21, 2008 at 14:01:27 mst
Comment ID: #15
Name: Paul Hsieh
E-mail: paul(at)geekpress(dot)com
URL: http://www.geekpress.com
Wendy: The best answer to "So what happens when you die?" is something like:
"We atheists don't really have to worry about dying. Killing babies and drinking their lifeblood has kept me young for centuries." |
|
| Wednesday, May 21, 2008 at 14:24:05 mst
Comment ID: #16
Name: Robb
E-mail: rlechevalier(at)astronixresearch.com
Greg's article is interesting and could make a good op-ed if submitted to newspapers, but two criticisms:
First, who is the target audience? This affects everything about how you write a piece. Also -- the forum. Available length is key here in how you frame your arguments. My take on this article -- too long for an op-ed, and missed the target of the New Atheists.
I would also add, get guickly to the point. The theme wasn't stated until 600 words into the article! *Don't* leave the reader hanging till the middle or end to get the key point. The place for drama is in a novel, not an op-ed. There's a lot of material which just dances around the point without really getting to it. Greg says the "new" atheists lack "philosophical grounding". A little condescending, that (are you trying to persuade or annoy your audience?), but what philosophical ideas are they lacking?
It's deeper than just reason vs. unreason. There's a reason Objectivism is a system, not just an aphorism (views on metaphysics, epistemology, ethics, human nature, etc, all play key roles). But focusing here on Greg's opening, he implies a subject of "how can non-Objectivist atheists answer intellectual religionists". That's got to narrow the theme towards something in common between religion and irrational ideologies like Nazism and Communism... and I think the real answer rests on the nature of mysticism.
So, my second criticism is that I think the theme of "rationality vs. irrationality" is simply too broad. The real theme for an op-ed length article on this subject (my opinion) is reason vs. mysticism. This is the point that I think will be persuasive to "new" atheists. Greg hints at this with his quote from AR, and reference to mystics of spirit vs muscle, but to be persuasive with the "new" atheists (for it surely won't be persuasive with the religionists) the issue of mysticism *must* be attacked directly because it is the core issue. (The communists were for "reason" -- they just re-defined it. So why were they irrational? Long answer that we all know, but what underlies their un-reason? Etc. Lot of material in Galt's speech to clarify.)
Overall, I found the article unfocused. I had to re-read it several times to really get my head around the arguments, and concluded they were weak. On the one hand, the lead paragraph implies a theme that a proper philosophy is needed... then the theme was stated as reason vs. un-reason (without ever explaining why this was an adequate philosophical grounding). Then there was a very brief discussion of mysticism (the most important aspect in this context!). But I saw no coherent discussion of the central point implied in the opening: what do Nazism and communism have in common with religion? Why were most of the killings in the 20th century *not* a product of un-reason? Etc. (I also wouldn't get onto tangents of things like what atheists "are" or "aren't, or "correlation vs. causation, etc. This adds nothing to the main point.)
Nonetheless, I think the article has promise, and Greg's writing style is quite good (really). I would re-write and re-frame the theme, and I would try to write a very condensed version of this op-ed before attempting a longer version, to clarify the structure and the point to be made. A couple hundred words at most -- briefly set the context, state the problem, state your conclusion, then you can elaborate on why. |
|
| Wednesday, May 21, 2008 at 14:35:14 mst
Comment ID: #17
Name: Greg Perkins
E-mail: greg(at)ecosmos.com
URL: http://ecosmos.com
Thanks, L Bourque, Kevin, Jimfw, Wendy, et al.! I'm glad you liked it. :^)
And lots of great comments -- Jim, I particularly enjoyed your discussion about opportunity/destruction, and 'idological causality'. There is a lot of work ahead on that front...
But I have to take issue with Paul. Give me a break: everyone knows you're supposed to drink their blood *before* they are dead! Sheesh. |
|
| Wednesday, May 21, 2008 at 15:09:41 mst
Comment ID: #18
Name: Bill Tingley
E-mail: bill(at)vulcansmercy(dot)com
URL: http://www.vulcansmercy.com
Diana,
You are correct to ask Adam Reed what sources he has for his assertions. Perhaps Reed does not operate in an entirely fact-free environment, but he does seem to be incapable of making critical distinctions.
The phenomenon of state-controlled churches in communist regimes is hardly news. As communism is totalitarian, its apparatchiks will pervert to its ends every realm of human life they cannot otherwise obliterate. When the Bolsheviks failed to destroy the Russian Orthodox Church, Stalin subjugated it as an arm of the communist regime. Of course, the true church endured underground and in the United States.
Similarly in Poland. I have an employee who grew up in communist Poland. A devout Roman Catholic raised by parents who had been imprisoned for refusing to renounce their faith, he will tell you about the dangers of worshipping in the underground church instead of the state church. Actually he won't, because he will not dwell upon it now that Poland is free. Indeed, nothing other than ignorance or dishonesty will explain the refusal to recognize the key role John Paul II and the true Roman Catholic Church played in the liberation of Eastern Europe from the Soviet empire. Meanwhile, the atheism promoted by Reed did nothing to topple the Soviets.
As for Greg's article, it may play with those who fall prostrate before Ayn Rand's Goddess of Reason. But for those of us who use rather than idolize reason, there's little that separates what he has to say about religion from the tall tales, ignorance, and illogic of the New Atheists. Metaphysical atheism is a misbegotten venture, because it cannot answer without question-begging or circular reasoning this fundamental philosophical challenge put forth by Edward Tingley (no relation): "What reason do I have to subordinate the possibility of God's existence to the powers of my senses?"
Regards,
Bill Tingley a.k.a. whim-worshipping, reason-hating, mystic of the mind Roman Catholic |
|
| Wednesday, May 21, 2008 at 15:39:37 mst
Comment ID: #19
Name: Monica
E-mail: monicabeth10(at)gmail.com
URL: http://sparkasynapse.blogspot.com
"What reason do I have to subordinate the possibility of God's existence to the powers of my senses?"
Well, your statement says it well enough, Bill. Because "God" is described as merely a possibility, it is arbitrary. As arbitrary as believing, as I heard someone else put it once, that it rains because the fairies come out and sprinkle their moon dust. That is possible, too, I suppose, but I have no reason to believe it. On the other hand, the powers of my senses are evident and I have no reason to distrust them. |
|
| Wednesday, May 21, 2008 at 15:45:21 mst
Comment ID: #20
Name: Greg Perkins
E-mail: greg(at)ecosmos.com
URL: http://ecosmos.com
Hi, Robb -- thanks very much for the evaluation and advice! If I find occasion to rework it, I will definitely be reviewing what you've said.
The next piece in the series (on miracles) is more focused, shorter overall, and gets to its thesis more quickly, so hopefully you will find it a better read. :^) |
|
| Wednesday, May 21, 2008 at 16:21:00 mst
Comment ID: #21
Name: Jim May
E-mail: seerak(at)gmail.com
Bill T. quotes his namesake Edward Tingley:
"Metaphysical atheism is a misbegotten venture, because it cannot answer without question-begging or circular reasoning this fundamental philosophical challenge put forth by Edward Tingley (no relation): "What reason do I have to subordinate the possibility of God's existence to the powers of my senses?""
Metaphysical theism is a misbegotten venture, because it cannot answer -- without making things up -- this fundamental philosophical challenge that could be put forward by any as yet undeluded seven-year old child as well as any adult: "What in the world are you talking about?" |
|
| Wednesday, May 21, 2008 at 16:47:41 mst
Comment ID: #22
Name: Greg Perkins
E-mail: greg(at)ecosmos.com
URL: http://ecosmos.com
Hi, Bill. You write: "As for Greg's article, it may play with those who fall prostrate before Ayn Rand's Goddess of Reason. But for those of us who use rather than idolize reason, there's little that separates what he has to say about religion from the tall tales, ignorance, and illogic of the New Atheists."
Sorry if I'm being obtuse, but what is the difference between those who "use" and those who "idolize" reason? If I had to guess what you mean, I'd go with: that the former don't accept it as their *sole* source of knowledge and *fundamental* guide to action of/in the world -- while the latter do. Is that it? But in that case, wouldn't it be more clear to go with: "occasional user" vs. "user" of reason? Yeah, that would be better. But, well, that highlights the issue that "using" reason occasionally is not really using reason: something other than reason would have to always be at the reigns, deciding whether/when to let it wiggle a bit. I guess a term from your signature would work better for that sort of thing: whim.
In that case, you seem to be saying that for those of you who operate by whim rather than by reason, "there's little that separates what [I have] to say about religion from the tall tales, ignorance, and illogic of the New Atheists."
Okay, I'll do my best to help: Did you have any particular tall tale, bit of ignorance, or illogic of theirs which you see reflected in my piece? |
|
| Wednesday, May 21, 2008 at 18:40:53 mst
Comment ID: #23
Name: Kevin Delaney
E-mail: ctprods-at-yahoodotcom
URL: http://www.kevindelaney.net
Greg:
Maybe "recreational" user of reason would be clearest of all? |
|
| Wednesday, May 21, 2008 at 18:46:53 mst
Comment ID: #24
Name: Burgess Laughlin
E-mail: burgesslaughlin(at)macforcego.com
URL: http://www.aristotleadventure.blogspot.com
Bill Tingley quotes Edward Tingley: "What reason do I have to subordinate the possibility of God's existence to the powers of my senses?"
Bill, what do you mean by "God"? |
|
| Wednesday, May 21, 2008 at 19:31:43 mst
Comment ID: #25
Name: Bill Tingley
E-mail: bill(at)vulcansmercy(dot)com
URL: http://www.vulcansmercy.com
Monica,
You wrote: "Because 'God' is described as merely a possibility, it is arbitrary. As arbitrary as believing, as I heard someone else put it once, that it rains because the fairies come out and sprinkle their moon dust."
It does not follow that if X is possible that a belief that X exists must be arbitrary. You miss the point of the question. For an atheist to have rational metaphysical ground for his belief, he must demonstrate that there is no possibility that God exists. That is a high hurdle to clear. In fact, atheists have yet to clear it, although they have run around it with question-begging and circular arguments.
By the way, equating a belief in God to a belief in your rain-making fairies or Russell's celestial teapot or Dawkins's flying spaghetti monster is a category mistake
Jim,
Get back to me when you can rise to Edward Tingley's challenge. Also, crack open a dictionary and check out the definition of "namesake".
Burgess,
You ask: "Bill, what do you mean by 'God'?"
Forgive me if I think you are being coy in asking this question. I find it hard to believe that you are ignorant of the common theist concept of God. But if you are, I suggest you bone up on that, as any discussion what be fruitful otherwise.
Regards,
Bill Tingley |
|
| Wednesday, May 21, 2008 at 20:21:52 mst
Comment ID: #26
Name: Bill Tingley
E-mail: bill(at)vulcansmercy(dot)com
URL: http://www.vulcansmercy.com
Hi, Greg.
The difference between those who use reason and those who idolize it is that the former understand it as a means to the truth whereas the latter confuse it with the truth. The user knows his tool well enough, in particular its limits, to put it to good use, while the idolator by enshrining reason misconceives what it is. Typically the misconception is that there is no intellect beyond reason, when in fact reason is one aspect of intellect, and so the idolator erroneously limits what can be knowledge to the limits of reason.
As for your tall tales, ignorance, and illogic, I am not going to critique your article. I'll just point out a few examples. There's your fiction of the thousand-year dark age brought about by Christianity, there's your ignorance as to what Christians (especially Catholics) mean by faith, and there's your nonsensical equation of religion and totalitarianism to opposite sides of the same mystical coin. The last is particular egregious because Rand's idiosyncratic concept of mysticism is useless as it lacks any correspondence to reality.
As you know I have told Objectivists elsewhere, Greg, you guys do yourselves no favor in trying to make the case for metaphysical atheism with so little understanding of the theist beliefs you want to refute.
Regards,
Bill Tingley
P.S. If you want to know the distinction I making between intellect and reason, I am hewing closely to what the Thomists have had to say about it. |
|
| Wednesday, May 21, 2008 at 20:30:31 mst
Comment ID: #27
Name: Burgess Laughlin
E-mail: burgesslaughlin(at)macforcego.com
URL: http://www.aristotleadventure.blogspot.com
Bill Tingley: ". . . the common theist concept of God."
Yes, Bill I am ignorant of that. I hope you will rise to the challenge of saying what you mean by "God." I find it very interesting that you apparently think "God" names a *concept* rather than being a proper name for a particular entity.
A concept is a mental integration of two or more units of a thing (galaxy, table, man, whatever) that have the same essential characteristics distinguishing the units from other things of their general kind. Are you suggesting the God is a concept, that is, that it subsumes two or more units? If so, does this mean you are a polytheist?
I look forward to your help. |
|
| Wednesday, May 21, 2008 at 21:10:26 mst
Comment ID: #28
Name: Adam Reed
E-mail: adamreedatalumdotmitdotedu
URL: http://www.calstatela.edu/faculty/areed2
Bill,
You might do well to study totalitarianism a bit before you ascribe ignorance or dishonesty to those who like myself, or for that matter Ayn Rand, write about it from first-hand knowledge. Korbonski's account of Piasecki's role, which I cited earlier, corresponds exactly to what I also remember - and the priests teaching the catechism in Communist government schools, and a crucifix in every classroom of those Communist government schools, are hardly a mass hallucination accidentally shared by everyone who was a student in the schools of Communist Poland in those years.
Wojtyla was elected Pope at a time when the Communists were still taking over one country after another on every continent, and the cardinals of the Church thought that it would be prudent to have a Pope who knew how to collaborate with their future rulers. It was only at a very late stage - after KOR (whose members were mainly Atheists and secular Jews) worked out what later proved to be a successful strategy for the overthrow of Communism in Poland - that the Church finally bet on the winning side.
One mark of totalitarianism is that very few prisoners of the regime are ever told why they are being held. Totalitarian terror depends on knowledge that nothing, not even total obedience, or membership in the Communist Party or the government can buy safety from arbitrary fear. Former prisoners are free to imagine any cause they wish for their ordeals, including adherence to religion, but it is just as likely that they were simply unlucky. Someone's belief that God was thus testing their faith may be sincere, but sincerity and factuality are different things.
A posthumous ascription of Atheism to Hitler and Stalin is just revisionist claptrap. Belief without evidence - whether in Gods, or in revisionist pseudohistory - is intellectual self-sabotage. |
|
| Wednesday, May 21, 2008 at 22:17:06 mst
Comment ID: #29
Name: Greg Perkins
E-mail: greg(at)ecosmos.com
URL: http://gregperkins.net
Bill clarifies: "The difference between those who use reason and those who idolize it is that the former understand it as a means to the truth whereas the latter confuse it with the truth. The user knows his tool well enough, in particular its limits, to put it to good use, while the idolator by enshrining reason misconceives what it is."
Oh, no worries, then: Objectivists are plainly not such 'idolators' of reason: they are abundantly clear about the difference between the faculty and its products, and self-consciously rigorous in striving to use it in all and only its proper role/capacity. So if Objectivists misunderstand that and act accordingly, or are confused about its implications in action, that wouldn't be any expression of your 'idolatry' of reason -- a correction would change their behavior. If you think you can correct Objectivists on that front, please have at it.
|
|
| Wednesday, May 21, 2008 at 22:17:58 mst
Comment ID: #30
Name: Greg Perkins
E-mail: greg(at)ecosmos.com
URL: http://gregperkins.net
Wow, Bill, you're a funny guy! I just noticed that you wrote to Burgess: "Forgive me if I think you are being coy in asking this question. I find it hard to believe that you are ignorant of the common theist concept of God."
And to me in your very next note you said: "you guys do yourselves no favor in trying to make the case for metaphysical atheism with so little understanding of the theist beliefs you want to refute."
A line involving cake comes to mind. |
|
| Wednesday, May 21, 2008 at 22:51:09 mst
Comment ID: #31
Name: Jeff
"Typically the misconception is that there is no intellect beyond reason, when in fact reason is one aspect of intellect, and so the idolator erroneously limits what can be knowledge to the limits of reason."
Since concepts are means by which we organize large chunks of data into smaller units this supposed "misconception" on our part must mean that we integrated the data incorrectly into improper units. So you are asserting, in essence, that we reasoned incorrectly about the nature of the intellect. This presupposes that reason is the proper method to determine the nature of the intellect! How very interesting. |
|
| Wednesday, May 21, 2008 at 23:21:36 mst
Comment ID: #32
Name: rootie
URL: http://optionalvalues.blogspot.com
Bill T,
For the 1000 years, how about the period from 476 to 1439? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_ages Of course, depending on what you want to consider initial and terminal events, you could say it extended into the 1800's: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish_Inquisition Or maybe even into our most recent decade? (katrina, referenced below)
As for the definition of faith, I think the catholics are pretty clear on it: (http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/05752c.htm)
"The Catholic Church", says the Vatican Council, III, iv, "has always held that there is a twofold order of knowledge, and that these two orders are distinguished from one another not only in their principle but in their object; in one we know by natural reason, in the other by Divine faith; the object of the one is truth attainable by natural reason, the object of the other is mysteries hidden in God, but which we have to believe and which can only be known to us by Divine revelation." "
Divine revelation is such a wonderful path to knowledge. Where can I sign up? Is it only after the smoke comes from the chimney that I will receive this ability to read the mind of god? I'd really like to know what he was thinking with hurricane katrina. Was it 100 years of fat tuesday in new orleans, or was it the legalized abortion thing? http://mediamatters.org/items/200509130004 Faith in the form of "divine revelation" is not a path to knowledge. Instead, it allows one person or group to legitimize an arbitrary assertion.
As for the religion / totalitarianism thing, what do you do with non-believers? Luke 19:27 will have them slain. Sounds pretty totalitarian to me. It doesn't matter whether the source of the command to slay your enemies is faith in divine revelation, or simply the Nazi purification -- people are being killed.
rootie |
|
| Thursday, May 22, 2008 at 4:46:18 mst
Comment ID: #33
Name: Wendy
Bill wrote "It does not follow that if X is possible that a belief that X exists must be arbitrary." No it doesn't. However, the concept of possibility assumes _some_ evidence. What we are talking about is something that theists admit outright: That God can't be proven, but must be accepted as a matter of faith. Faith admits no reason; they are opposites. I would be curious to hear what the "aspects of intelligence" other than reason are.
--Wendy, a.k.a The Pedophage |
|
| Thursday, May 22, 2008 at 5:52:59 mst
Comment ID: #34
Name: Bill Tingley
E-mail: bill(at)vulcansmercy(dot)com
URL: http://www.vulcansmercy.com
Burgess & Greg,
Get back to me when you have something serious to say.
Reed,
Your fictions are abominable, but that's par for the course with you. There were no crucifixes and catechism classes in communist Poland's state schools. Teachers and administrators who attended mass lost their jobs. You are myth-making about KOR and its overthrow of the communist regime. Hitler's hatred for Christianity is well-attested. He had a special death camp for exterminating Catholic and Protestant clergy. Stalin was an atheist. Indeed, his days in the seminary turned him against Christianity. None of these facts about these tyrants are difficult to confirm. Read a biography or two. Also read up on the gulag system that operated throughout the Soviet empire. Christians, Jews, and others were clearly persecuted for their religious beliefs.
Rootie,
Read real history not the Wikipedia if you want to understand the Medieval era. Meanwhile, give some thought to why the Roman Empire fell in the west and continued on in the east for millennium. As for accepting divine revelation as knowledge, what you must refute as irrational is all trust that one places in an authority. Objectivists can sneer that this is second-handing, but we all do employ such trust to form convictions about what is true. The question is whether that trust is rationally placed or not. Also, like Greg, you confuse the Randian definition of faith with what Christians (especially Catholics) mean by the word. Until you grasp that faith is a virtue akin to the courage of one's conviction, your understanding of Christian religious beliefs will remain shallow. Finally, your tortured interpretation of Luke 19:27 as a call for totalitarian mass murder is good example of why Biblical exegesis shouldn't be practiced by those who pluck verses out of their context.
Wendy,
Like the others, you seem to believe that the only meaning of the word "faith" is the one Rand proclaimed for it, when in fact Christians do not mean by "faith" what Rand did. Also, you are wrong that "the concept of possibility assumes some evidence". Whether you agree with it or not, in philosophy a possibility can be a logical one. However, this might be lost on Objectivists as they conflate the necessary with the actual.
Regards,
Bill Tingley |
|
| Thursday, May 22, 2008 at 6:21:12 mst
Comment ID: #35
Name: Burgess Laughlin
E-mail: burgesslaughlin(at)macforcego.com
URL: http://www.aristotleadventure.blogspot.com
From Bill Tingley, in answer to Wendy: "Like the others, you seem to believe that the only meaning of the word 'faith' is the one Rand proclaimed for it, when in fact Christians do not mean by 'faith what Rand did."
1. For the meaning of Christian faith, go to Holy Scripture, the New Testament, Hebrews Ch. 11, Verse 1: "... faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen." This admirably concise definition names two components: wishful thinking and belief without evidence. Subsequent verses present examples of Old Testament men and women who had faith.
http://aristotleadventure.blogspot.com/2008/04/in-hebrews-111-what- ...
2. For Ayn Rand's meaning of "faith," see "Faith," *The Ayn Rand Lexicon*: "'Faith' designates blind acceptance of a certain ideational content, acceptance induced by feeling in the absence of evidence or proof." (Leonard Peikoff, working under Ayn Rand's supervision, *Ominous Parallels*, p. 48 hb, 54 pb.)
For further mentions of faith, as merely one form of mysticism: Ayn Rand, "Faith and Force," *Philosophy: Who Needs It*, pp. 74-77 (hb).
Ayn Rand held that the fundamental choice is reason versus mysticism. The latter comes in many forms, one of which is faith. On p. 75: "Mysticism is the acceptance of allegations without evidence or proof, either apart from or *against* the evidence of one's senses and one's reason." |
|
| Thursday, May 22, 2008 at 6:28:47 mst
Comment ID: #36
Name: Wendy
Bill, I don't know if it's possible to hold a discussion with you, if when someone points out something in your argument, you say that your dictionary is different than everyone else's. We need to agree on terminology at least. If I say "I believe in God" but my definition of God is not from the Bible--by "God" I mean my Golden Retriever puppy, that really doesn't give us much to go on.
Thanks, Burgess, for defining terms. |
|
| Thursday, May 22, 2008 at 6:36:12 mst
Comment ID: #37
Name: Burgess Laughlin
E-mail: burgesslaughlin(at)macforcego.com
URL: http://www.aristotleadventure.blogspot.com
A key element of this discussion is theism versus not-theism, that is, belief in the existence of God or rejection ("a-") of such a claim.
A pertinent question, which I have twice asked of Bill T, is: What does "God" mean?
Here is his latest refusal to answer: "Burgess . . . , Get back to me when you have something serious to say." In other words, Bill T has become arbitrary, in the full meaning of that idea.
On p. 76 of *Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology*, Ayn Rand speaks of ". . . a dreadful avenger that appears in the form of the question: 'What do you mean?'"
Faced with that dreadful question, Bill Tingley has fled from the field of discussion. Given that fact, my attempts to discuss the issues with him are at an end. There is no way to discuss the arbitrary. |
|
| Thursday, May 22, 2008 at 7:08:08 mst
Comment ID: #38
Name: Jimfw
E-mail: jimfw(at)hotmail.com
Bill:
Your challenge is an interesting one. If I understand it correctly, your view is that one does not need sensory data in order to affirm a belief in God. In some ways this makes sense. There are many things that people support and affirm that lack direct sensory input. I am thinking of things like 'justice', 'love', and many mathematical concepts like 'negative numbers', or concepts like 'infinity' (we never encounter an actual infinity, a point Aristotle discusses). So, again if I understand you correctly, you are saying that God falls into this kind of arena.
Two tentative points: First, people mean very different things by God. Aristotle's God is not a creator in time God, but rather is based on the idea that there needs to be sustaining factor always present in existence. In contrast, Monotheism's God is the creator of all that exists and does so out of nothing. Spinoza's view of God is God as ground of being, permeating all of existence, and seems to often be the equivalent of 'nature'. (For an excellent overview of the variant concepts of God in the west I recommend Karen Armstrong's "A History of God".)
I assume you are talking about the Monotheistic God. In this tradition God interferes in history and it is here, I think, that a claim for data, and sensory based claims, would be relevant. That is to say if God interferes in history then asking for the evidence of that presence in history should be a legitimate question which would mean meeting the challenge you suggested. That is to say, if God interferes in history then one's belief is based on sensory information and therefore should be subordinated to the truth or falsity derivable from that data.
Second, a point that Sam Harris makes, which I think is made well, is that it is only in the field of religion that people can make claims, and then feel resentful if asked to back up those claims. If X and Y disagree on which diet is best it isn't considered bad form for each of them to ask the other for evidence. If mathematicians disagree it isn't considered bad form to request proof; in fact, that is what mathematicians do. Even in esthetics people often ask, "Why did you like that movie/music/novel?" without that being considered rude. But in religion if someone asks "Why do you believe in that doctrine", often the answer is "I believe" and it is considered OK to answer that way. Even in the arena of love people can inquire; for example, "Do you really love him?" Why should the one area of religion be shielded from critical inquiry? When this is done, the only way for conflicting religious claims to resolve their differences is by force; either direct force or by using the state apparatus to impose their views on others. Having abandoned critical inquiry there is only one other option left.
I'd like to say here that this wasn't always the case in religion. In India and China, for example, public debates on doctrinal matters was common for many centuries; both within a particular religious community and among representatives of different religions. This was good for all concerned. But in modern times, both in the East and the West, this kind of open exchange of ideas has been abandoned and the result is the rise of aberrant belief systems.
Sincerely,
Jim |
|
| Thursday, May 22, 2008 at 9:01:50 mst
Comment ID: #39
Name: John Dailey
E-mail: phyrm_1(at)hotmail.com
~ When someone USES the term 'God', knowing quite well that there are varied so-called 'common' definitions/meanings attached to the term by varied individuals, and, knows that when an atheist argues why they are so, s/he gets the refuting 'argument' that "Well, that's just YOUR limited definition of 'God'," and then that same someone goes on to evade one's points and questions with verbal Aikido still never 'defining' but using the rubric 'common' (as if there's only one!) for their supposed meaning, while innuending insults, then I have a question for the others in the discussion: --- Why bother continuing a discussion with someone whose clear purpose is nothing more than sowing doubt for the pure sake of sowing it, and is clearly not open to rational persuasion that THEY 'might' be wrong?
LLAP
J:D |
|
| Thursday, May 22, 2008 at 9:10:27 mst
Comment ID: #40
Name: Bill Tingley
E-mail: bill(at)vulcansmercy(dot)com
URL: http://www.vulcansmercy.com
Burgess (and John too),
You can complain all you want that I don't buy your claim that you do not know what God means in the context of this discussion. Yes, there are different concepts of God as Jim FW pointed out. There is the Judeo-Christian God, the Aristotelian God, and the Spinozan God among others. However, what they all have in common is that they are the non-material ground of all being. Because the Objectivist does not merely argue that a particular such God does not exist but that it is metaphysically impossible for any such God to exist, it is not sufficient for the Objectivist to refute the existence of this God or that. He must refute the possibility of any non-material ground of being.
And that brings us back to Edward Tingley's challenge: "What reason do I have to subordinate the possibility of God's existence to the powers of my senses?"
Wendy,
You wrote: "Bill, I don't know if it's possible to hold a discussion with you, if when someone points out something in your argument, you say that your dictionary is different than everyone else's."
Objectivists need to accept the limited utility of Rand's idiosyncratic definitions of common words. It is not possible to have a discussion if you insist that what Rand means by "faith" is what most Christians mean by the word. They don't. It will not do to cite how a fideistic Protestant sect or an untutored Christian might use the word. The overwhelming majority of Christians are Catholic and Orthodox (whose theologies are very similar), and what they mean by faith bears no resemblance to the Randian definition.
If you want to condemn faith in terms of how Rand defined it, I'm with you. I hold no beliefs on such an irrational basis. But if you then want to refute Christian faith by erroneously lumping it in with what Rand called faith, you're knocking down a straw man.
Jim,
You wrote: "If I understand it correctly, your view is that one does not need sensory data in order to affirm a belief in God. In some ways this makes sense. There are many things that people support and affirm that lack direct sensory input."
Yes, I agree. I will also say that which is non-material, such as God or a human mind, will cause physical effects when it acts upon matter. (That causation would be vertical as opposed to the horizontal chain of physical cause-and-effect.) Therefore, once one deduces that a non-material existent is logically possible, it is certainly valid to search for physical evidence of its interactions with matter. So, I agree with you that the Judeo-Christian God, who did not just create the universe but interacts with it, should leave perceptible evidence of that interaction.
As for Harris, his assertion about religion is demonstrably false as evidenced by the entire field of apologetics. But then the New Atheists aren't noted for their acquaintance with the facts.
Regards,
Bill Tingley |
|
| Thursday, May 22, 2008 at 9:48:16 mst
Comment ID: #41
Name: Greg M
E-mail: gregsmullen(a)hotmail.com
I generally agree with the comment by John Dailey but this is too easy to pass up.
"What reason do I have to subordinate the possibility of God's existence to the powers of my senses?"
Because reason is my standard of knowledge and common definitions of 'god' ascribe consciousness as an essential attribute. All known examples and true definitions of "consciousness" are not possible without some kind of "material" which is subject to the power of my senses. |
|
| Thursday, May 22, 2008 at 10:44:47 mst
Comment ID: #42
Name: Adrian Hester
Bill Tingley sputters: "Your fictions are abominable, but that's par for the course with you. There were no crucifixes and catechism classes in communist Poland's state schools. Teachers and administrators who attended mass lost their jobs. You are myth-making about KOR and its overthrow of the communist regime."
You see, Adam, you're forgetting he's a Catholic! You're even forgetting the basic pronouncements of Catholicism! "The Catholic Church has always held that there is a twofold order of knowledge, and that these two orders are distinguished from one another not only in their principle but in their object; in one we know by natural reason, in the other by Divine faith; the object of the one is truth attainable by natural reason, the object of the other is mysteries hidden in God, but which we have to believe and which can only be known to us by Divine revelation." (Vatican Council, III, iv.)
And if they conflict? Then you have to bow to authority! "If the authority upon which we base our assent is human and therefore fallible, we have human and fallible faith; if the authority is Divine, we have Divine and infallible faith. If to this be added the medium by which the Divine authority for certain statements is put before us, viz. the Catholic Church, we have Divine-Catholic Faith."
And we know this by Divine Revelation, which by its source trumps mere fallible human reason: "For revelation means that the Supreme Truth has spoken to man and revealed to him truths which are not in themselves evident to the human mind. We must, then, either reject revelation altogether, or accept it by faith; that is, we must submit our intellect to truths which we cannot understand, but which come to us on Divine authority." So who are you to rely on your mere senses and memory when the Catholic Church has said otherwise--and they have Divine authority for their pronouncements!
Of course, that really *is* what Ayn Rand said about the essential nature of faith, but that's only if you follow fallible human reason instead of infallible divine revelation as vouchsafed to the Church, and they say faith is something entirely different, which you have to take on their authority because, you know, we all have to follow authority--demanding the possibility of actually testing what the authority says independent of the authority's say-so is, you know, not an act of *faith*, see, and therefore has no application to the authority of the Church! |
|
| Thursday, May 22, 2008 at 10:54:26 mst
Comment ID: #43
Name: Bill Tingley
E-mail: bill(at)vulcansmercy(dot)com
URL: http://www.vulcansmercy.com
Greg M,
Do you understand that all you did was beg the question?
Hester,
I'm not sure what the ad hominem has to do with the truth of my statement about the state schools in Communist Poland.
Regards,
Bill Tingley |
|
| Thursday, May 22, 2008 at 11:29:29 mst
Comment ID: #44
Name: Greg M
Bill, No I don't so be specific. What premise(s) of mine do you find to be questionable? |
|
| Thursday, May 22, 2008 at 11:59:35 mst
Comment ID: #45
Name: Burgess Laughlin
E-mail: burgesslaughlin(at)macforcego.com
URL: http://www.aristotleadventure.blogspot.com
On Wednesday, May 21, 2008 at 0:32:14 mst, in Comment ID: #1 (link), Adam Reed says: "In Communist Poland, where I grew up, Stalin's proxies went farther: . . . they ordered compulsory Roman Catholic Catechism classes, taught by priests, in government schools from the first grade on, and so on."
Adam, your statement is puzzling. According to George Weigel, *Witness to Hope: The Biography of Pope John Paul II*, pp. 476-477, in March of 1984 (after almost 40 years of Communist rule of Poland) ". . . Polish students began demonstrating to demand the *restoration* of crucifixes in their classrooms; a month later, on April 6, the government agreed." (Emphasis added.)
This statement by Weigel (who is a Catholic writer, but apparently at least somewhat critical of his material), if reliable, would seem to contradict your account, but perhaps you are talking about a different time, or perhaps Communist policy changed back and forth.
Would you cite a source for your statement--if I have understood it correctly--that the Polish government, under communism, forced state students to attend catechism classes from the first grade onward? |
|
| Thursday, May 22, 2008 at 12:24:30 mst
Comment ID: #46
Name: Bill Tingley
E-mail: bill(at)vulcansmercy(dot)com
URL: http://www.vulcansmercy.com
Burgess,
If Reed is old enough, say in his 60's or 70's, he would have attended school in Poland during Communist takeover after World War II. The Communists did not immediately suppress the traditional prerogatives of the Catholic Church in Polish society. So he may have memories of a greater presence of the Church in schools before the Communists gained full control over public life.
Greg M,
You argued: "All known examples and true definitions of 'consciousness' are not possible without some kind of 'material' which is subject to the power of my senses." For this statement to be valid against Edward Tingley's challenge, it must rest upon the premise that no conscious being exists that is not embodied. However, that premise assumes what is at issue.
Regards,
Bill Tingley |
|
| Thursday, May 22, 2008 at 12:38:27 mst
Comment ID: #47
Name: Adrian Hester
Adam Reed: "In Communist Poland, where I grew up, Stalin's proxies went farther: . . . they ordered compulsory Roman Catholic Catechism classes, taught by priests, in government schools from the first grade on, and so on."
Burgess Laughlin: "Adam, your statement is puzzling. According to George Weigel, *Witness to Hope: The Biography of Pope John Paul II*, pp. 476-477, in March of 1984 (after almost 40 years of Communist rule of Poland) ". . . Polish students began demonstrating to demand the *restoration* of crucifixes in their classrooms; a month later, on April 6, the government agreed." (Emphasis added.)""
I'm not sure about *compulsory* catechism classes, but the Church and the Polish government signed a secret concordat in 1950 that gave the Church a good deal of autonomy, including teaching the catechism in state schools and allowing religious classes in state schools until 1961 and financial support of teachers of religion even after 1961.
http://www.concordatwatch.eu/showtopic.php?org_id=931&kb_header ... |
|
| Thursday, May 22, 2008 at 13:13:18 mst
Comment ID: #48
Name: Dana H.
E-mail: danapokerfish(at)yahoo.com
The basic question for a theist is: does he base his belief in a god on evidence or not? If so, then show us the evidence so we can evaluate it (and refute it if in error). If no evidence is provided, then the belief is arbitrary and should be dismissed. There is no onus on unbelievers in gods, unicorns, leprechauns, and ghosts to prove that these things do NOT exist. Rather, the onus is on the believer in any of these to show that they DO exist. (One can make a stronger argument against the alleged existence of an entity without identity, but the onus of proof principle suffices here.)
One can't sidestep this basic issue by claiming that one's special Roman Catholic definition of faith somehow differs from the standard definition of faith (which is belief in the absence of evidence). It still comes down to the issue of whether you base your beliefs on evidence or on something else. |
|
| Thursday, May 22, 2008 at 13:16:29 mst
Comment ID: #49
Name: Greg M
Bill you are cheating and have rigged the terms of the debate. You are begging the question(s) with the premise that "being" and "consciousness" are possible without embodiment. The words "being" and "conscious" were invented to explain things that *actually* exist meaning that their very definition assumes and precludes a tangible or visible form. The answer to Edward Tingley's challenge is because words have meaning or they are arbitrary. |
|
| Thursday, May 22, 2008 at 13:41:21 mst
Comment ID: #50
Name: Bill Tingley
E-mail: bill(at)vulcansmercy(dot)com
URL: http://www.vulcansmercy.com
Hester,
The 1950 agreement was not a concordat, which is a treaty with the Vatican. It was a deal struck between the Polish bishops and the Communist government without the approval of the Vatican. The bishops did it because they thought it would preserve the automony of the Church, and the Communists did it because they thought it would give them in-roads into the Church to subordinate it. It didn't work out as either wanted. The Communists reneged on their promises but the Church remained a force to be reckoned with, while many bishops and priests compromised themselves to preserve their decreasing privileges.
Dana,
Your argument fails because Objectivists stack the deck as to what can constitute evidence of God. For example, I might say the order exhibited by matter and energy -- e.g., the relationship F=ma holds in all places at all times -- cannot be explained by nature, because the concept of nature assumes order. Therefore, the orderliness of nature is evidence of an agency beyond nature. The Objectivist response is usually nothing better than the order of nature is a brute fact -- i.e., no explanation is necessary. So, like the three monkeys, the Objectivist will neither see nor hear any evidence that might permit the declaration "God exists!"
Greg M,
If you are reduced to calling me dishonest because you can't get your head around the fallacy you committed, there is nothing further to discuss.
Regards,
Bill Tingley |
|
| Thursday, May 22, 2008 at 14:11:39 mst
Comment ID: #51
Name: Adrian Hester
Bill Tingley writes, "The 1950 agreement was not a concordat, which is a treaty with the Vatican."
True, I meant to write "secret concord."
"The bishops did it because they thought it would preserve the automony of the Church, and the Communists did it because they thought it would give them in-roads into the Church to subordinate it. It didn't work out as either wanted."
But the question is not whether it worked out as either side wanted, it's whether any of Adam Reed's claims are "abominable" "fabrications" and "fiction." Most of what he said cohered with what I already knew about the period, even without my being anything approximating a specialist in Eastern European history. But then that's par for the course for *you*--you showed no evidence of even having heard of the concord before I mentioned it, and when it *was* mentioned to you you changed the topic of your comments, and at best admitted that maybe he was talking about a different period than you meant. So basically when it comes down to actual historical arguments you combine abuse, dishonesty, and deflection.
"Your argument fails because Objectivists stack the deck as to what can constitute evidence of God. For example, I might say the order exhibited by matter and energy -- e.g., the relationship F=ma holds in all places at all times -- cannot be explained by nature, because the concept of nature assumes order. Therefore, the orderliness of nature is evidence of an agency beyond nature."
And if nature were not orderly, you'd say that the disorder exhibited by nature cannot be explained by nature either. Basically, you would take *anything* as constituting evidence of God. |
|
| Thursday, May 22, 2008 at 15:10:33 mst
Comment ID: #52
Name: Bill Tingley
E-mail: bill(at)vulcansmercy(dot)com
URL: http://www.vulcansmercy.com
Hester,
I'll leave it to objective readers to determine who has a better handle on the history of church and state relations in communist Poland.
While on the subject, a couple of other things. I'm not sure why you are astonished that I would address some of the details of that history only after they were brought up by others. That's the way conversations flow, especially in forums like this one in which a topic of discussion doesn't often take clear shape until a few exchanges. Get with the program.
As for Reed's fictions being abominable, he made his misstatements not only to mendaciously deny persecution of Christians by the Nazis and the Communists (a hard and bloody fact of the 20th century) but to claim that the Church was in cahoots with the tyrants (a calumny). The fact is Reed, even more so than other Objectivists, has a screw loose when it comes to Christians, and he will twist, deny, or ignore any fact that doesn't fit into his conspiracy theories about them.
Finally, I what I argued is that the order of nature is evidence of God. I note, like most Objectivists, you ignored the argument.
Regards,
Bill Tingley |
|
| Thursday, May 22, 2008 at 15:27:45 mst
Comment ID: #53
Name: Diana Hsieh
E-mail: diana(at)dianahsieh.com
URL: http://www.dianahsieh.com/blog
Okay Bill, I've had enough. While I'm certainly happy to host debates about the existence of God in these NoodleFood comments, the only result of debate with you is the passage of time. In my opinion -- based on what I've seen of you in this exchange and in similar exchanges on other forums -- that's largely due to your interest in taking pot-shots at Objectivism and Objectivists rather than in engaging the substantive issues.
So please bow out of this discussion. If you wish to post one final post, that's fine. After that, consider God and religion off-limits to you in any future NoodleFood comments. |
|
| Thursday, May 22, 2008 at 15:35:14 mst
Comment ID: #54
Name: Adrian Hester
Bill Tingley writes: "I'll leave it to objective readers to determine who has a better handle on the history of church and state relations in communist Poland."
Indeed, as will I.
"Finally, I what I argued is that the order of nature is evidence of God. I note, like most Objectivists, you ignored the argument."
Evidently the point of my argument escaped you. You take the order of nature as evidence of God; if there were disorder, you'd take them as miracles, and hence also as evidence of God. You mistakenly believe I haven't encountered your arguments before--quite the contrary, I've been familiar with them for at least a quarter of a century. I just don't even find them meaningful. |
|
| Thursday, May 22, 2008 at 15:42:59 mst
Comment ID: #55
Name: Wendy
It is quite a far leap from "we are able to discern patterns and order in nature" to "some consciousness had to have done this". People used to believe God caused good weather or bad crops and it wasn't until people learned meterology and agriculture that they understood El Nino and soil ph levels and that's how they now describe them. Therefore, it doesn't make sense to dismiss anything about which we don't have complete definitive knowledge as the work of a supernatural entity. |
|
| Thursday, May 22, 2008 at 16:18:01 mst
Comment ID: #56
Name: Mel McGuire
I've found the source--or at least one source--for the Tingley quote: "What reason do I have to subordinate the possibility of God's existence to the powers of my senses?" It's in the online June 2008 issue of a religious magazine named "Touchstone." The article isn't all that long but it'll be quite a load to digest--at least it is for me. Like "presuppositional apologetics" (which the New Atheists dodge even though it's thrown at them constantly), we'll likely see it again; so, I think you'll find the article worth reading. BTW, as luck would have it, earlier today I read
Harriman's very nice formulation about arbitrary assertions being shielded by further arbitrary assertions--page 95/96 of "Induction and Experimental Method TOS Spring 2007".
http://touchstonemag.com/archives/article.php?id=21-05-020-f |
|
| Thursday, May 22, 2008 at 19:33:57 mst
Comment ID: #57
Name: Doug
E-mail: radiotheatre(at)gmail.com
Great post, Greg. I read it aloud and its clarity made me smile. |
|
| Thursday, May 22, 2008 at 20:44:47 mst
Comment ID: #58
Name: Adam Reed
E-mail: adamreedatalumdotmitdotedu
URL: http://www.calstatela.edu/faculty/areed2
For the record, I would like to touch on Bill's fabrications. Bill first asserted flatly: "There were no crucifixes and catechism classes in communist Poland's state schools." Actually, by 1952 - when I started primary school - there always were. The Communist government did permit the operation of a few special-education schools, outside the state system, including schools for gifted children, for whom the standard curriculum would have been inappropriate, by an NGO, the TPD (Towarzystwo Przyjaciol Dzieci - Society of Friends of Children.) (There is an article on the TPD in the Polish Wikipedia, with translation available - Google "TPD Towarzystwo site:wikipedia.org".) The principals of individual TPD schools had some leeway on various things, and in a number of TPD schools - those with a substantial fraction of children from Protestant, Moslem, Jewish and Atheist families - the official crucifixes were at some point taken down. In 1984, Piasecki's organization ("PAX") organized demonstrations to restore the crucifixes to classrooms in those TPD schools where they had been taken down. It was only after the fall of communism that TPD schools were released from all state control and were again free to accommodate parental preferences with respect to the crucifixes and other things.
Next, Tingley's claim that Hitler "had a special death camp for exterminating Catholic and Protestant clergy." The nearest thing to such a "death camp for exterminating Catholic and Protestant clergy" was a special section of the Dachau concentration camp - a labor camp, not an extermination camp - where, as a favor to the churches, dissident but "racially" "Arian" clerics, mainly from occupied countries such as France, were held under preferential conditions that included visits from church authorities. According to guides - I took a guided tour of Dachau the last time I visited Munich - these priests were given work that regular inmates were too starved or too sick to do. Clergy of non-"Arian" "races" were sent to various camps that were not segregated on the basis of clerical status.
There is more, but I don't consider Bill's arbitrary claims important enough to deserve any more of my time. |
|
| Thursday, May 22, 2008 at 22:08:58 mst
Comment ID: #59
Name: Jim May
E-mail: seerak(at)gmail.com
Bill T. responds to me:
"Get back to me when you can rise to Edward Tingley's challenge."
I did, sir. I am still awaiting the answer to that dread question that has you running scared like a child with his hands on his ears screaming "I CAN'T HEAR YOU!" -- to wit: "What in the world are you talking about?" I'm sure that if you promise to act like an adult, stop making things up, and answer that question -- I don't care whose version, the question was asked several times, take your pick -- then we'll talk about who met what "challenges".
...
I do not expect Tingley to do this, however, even if Diana gives him all the opportunity in the world. No theist ever has -- or can. That is their built-in weak spot, the one question they absolutely must evade -- because they are not even wrong.
That is why it is the one question all of us should bang on repeatedly, over and over again, from every angle possible, and NEVER LET UP.
Incidentally, if anyone ever finds a serious attempt to answer that question -- either from a modern commentator (as if!) or an historical one, it would be worth sharing that information, so we know what to expect from *serious* theistic opposition... if it is to be found. |
|
| Friday, May 23, 2008 at 4:30:18 mst
Comment ID: #60
Name: Bill Tingley
E-mail: bill(at)vulcansmercy(dot)com
URL: http://www.vulcansmercy.com
Worry not, Diana. I shall not darken your door again.
Regards, Bill |
|
| Friday, May 23, 2008 at 5:03:19 mst
Comment ID: #61
Name: Stuzal Iuday
E-mail: lionspride(at)optonline.net
URL: http://optonline.net
Many people, including its critics, concede that religion helps people lead better, more fulfilling, and happier lives. Many in this country then conclude that religion is a right that all people are free to have and that it is, in no way, detrimental to anyone; the Founding Fathers even went as far as to say that freedom is the gift of religion's God. I therefore find it interesting how a country can defend its freedoms in the name of God against guerilla thugs who declare that they are attempting to annihilate those very freedoms in the name of this same, other-worldly being. How is one to determine who is really fighting in the name of God and who is wrong; many people would then quote the Bible by saying, "do unto others as you would want others to do unto you", but most probably won't quote another line in the Bible that specifically states: "Whoever curses his God shall bear his sin. Whoever blasphemes the name of the LORD shall surely be put to death. All the congregation shall stone him. The sojourner as well as the native, when he blasphemes the Name, shall be put to death. If your brother, the son of your mother, or your son or your daughter or the wife you embrace or your friend who is as your own soul entices you secretly, saying, "Let us go and serve other gods," . . . you shall not yield to him or listen to him, nor shall your eye pity him, nor shall you spare him, nor shall you conceal him. But you shall kill him". In what sense could a God who demands the death of all who speak certain things be put to death possibly protect the freedoms of individuals? How could an all-loving, ever-forgiving being ask you to bear the tremendous pain of being stoned for the utterance of a single sentence? Many take the Bible to be the word of God; with these two lines, God contradicts himself. Many Christian scholars, when asked how an all-knowing God possibly contradict himself, simply reply, "God didn't mean those parts" or "I don't accept those sections" or "Let's be rational here"; in saying this, they deny a fundamental tenet of religion; they blaspheme the word of God in defense of the word of God.
People also claim that religion, via the Jesuit Institutions and other schooling programs, upholds and supports the foundations of reason and knowledge; again, it contradicts itself in this respect. "Above all," writes the devoutly religious Ren Descartes, reminding us of the applicable tenet, "we ought to submit to the Divine authority rather than to our own judgment even though the light of reason may seem to us to suggest, with the utmost clearness and evidence, something opposite. God's will, however objectionable, is by definition good; and human judgment to the contrary, however rational, is by definition bad. The real distinction between right and wrong is independent of what we happen to think. It is rooted in the nature and will of God." How is there room for intelligence in this philosophy when it must remain subservient to unfounded revelation, unreasoned faith, and unproven and contradictory doctrine? One prominent theologian, Martin Luther, made his view of this very clear by stating that "reason is the demon by which all acts against God's will occur. Man's reason must be stripped from him along with his intelligence so that neither may interfere in his unwavering obedience to the Lord".
Along the lines of happiness; most Americans will concede today, as it has been said in the past, that the fundamental rights of human beings are, as written by the infamous hypocrite, Thomas Jefferson, "Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness". Stoning people for speaking is obviously not preserving life, not allowing them to think on their own behalf is not preservation of liberty, and as for the last one, ask yourself, "what does the church make of those who are happy where they are and refuse to surrender the sources of that happiness such as time, money, and materials to others? How did the church react to the Industrial Revolution, the greatest increase in the quality of human life that had ever occurred? They condemned the businessmen who caused it as "greedy, selfish, evil, Robber-Barons"; what did they steal? From whom did they steal? There can be no claim on anything that one has not earned. The church advocates the philosophic ethics of Altruism, which states that one should live for the sake of others and do so by sacrificing one's own happiness and, in some cases, oneself; how is that compatible, in any sense, with living for your own happiness, freely, and independently? How could a God ordain that I live for myself and at the same time command me to sacrifice myself without any thought or hesitation to aid someone else without any benefit to me? Are not Jefferson's unalienable rights selfish concepts? Many would ask me why would anyone want to be a firefighter or police officer then; I'd respond by saying that some people would because they'd consider it worse to live with the pain of doing nothing while people suffer than dying without regrets, but that does not mean one should be forced to do such things when they'd prefer to live.
Why is it then, that people would be so conflicted that they would believe such contradictory doctrine? It is because a self-contradicting hypocrite was the first man to revive the concepts of free-will, liberty, and objective knowledge that predates those normally accredited with founding this country philosophically and intellectually; it was not John Lock, Montesquieu, or the Founding Fathers who founded these principles, it was a much older figure by the nearly forgotten name of Aristotle.
Aristotle is never mentioned as the father of reason and the laws of logic, he is never mentioned as the man who trumped mysticism in the ancient world and founded the fundamental ideals that uphold the ethics of individual rights and objective knowledge/morality; no, he is known simply as an old, out-dated philosopher! He developed the four fundamental axioms by which all knowledge can be known as knowledge although, sadly, most people do not know them and I must, therefore, list them and explain them. First; definition/identity: what is, is and what is not, is not and cannot be thought about. What does this mean? It means that objective knowledge is possible because all things that are identifiable are also intelligible; reality is not some illusion as many Buddhist monks would proclaim, it exists and is definable and intelligible because of this. All things have a knowable cause for their occurrence which is, therefore definable. A human cannot become a rock because a human, by nature, cannot become a rock without first dying and then becoming soil, by which point, that human is no longer human. This axiom is the most important axiom because it explicitly states that humans can explain and understand everything in this world by means of identification and then explanation. Second; non-contradiction/contradiction: nothing can be what it is and something it is not at the same time. Buddhism would proclaim that all is an illusion and that a cat is really just a shadow; they contradict themselves right there because if a cat is a cat, then it is not an illusion, if it is an illusion, what is it an illusion of? Something has to exist in order to produce an illusion; nothing can come from nothing, because even an illusion is something and can never be nothing; this may sound stupid, irrelevant, and obvious, but the fact that so many leading intellectuals embrace such things as the Buddhist view of an illusion universe to be true is simply horrifyingly illuminating as to the condition of the modern belief in knowledge among the supposed intellectuals! Third; excluded middle: every object is either one thing or another and cannot be two completely different things in the same context. This then leads to the burden of proof. All inquiries of knowledge, because they are definable as such, must, therefore, be able to prove their validity by means of definition and then explanation.
Why is religion so detrimental to knowledge then? What is God? God is a super-natural being that commands the heavens and controls all things because he has created all things. If God created this world, what created God? If God is the source of all knowledge, then no human could possibly know anything about this world because this world is the product of a being from another world, and therefore, no knowledge can be obtained by means of observation of this world, only by rejection of this world in favor of "mystic revelation" from God. Since this type of revelation is impossible (because the provider of which does not exist), what the individual must then follow are misinterpretations of feelings and/or pure arbitration. How could two people who claim revelations that state completely contradictory commands from one "all-knowing God" possibly be both correct? Either one is wrong, or both are right; if both are right, then is God asking for a compromise between His own two commands or He states that killing and not killing are both just as good contradicting God as "all-knowing" once again. If one of them is wrong, then by what criteria could any human tell who is incorrect if God's will is unintelligible by any means other than revelation? There is no answer to that question other than the ineffability of human beings in which case, that means that purpose is indefinable, knowledge is dispensable, and reason is unreliable. What does that say about individual rights? It means that human beings are incapable of making their own decisions and must, therefore, be controlled by some higher authority; seeing how the only higher authority is God in this belief, that means the justification of totalitarian rule by theocratic means; rights are then subject to the contradictory, indefinable, and unknowable will of God, with the government being the absolutely powerful arbiter.
The reason Western beliefs and values have been so set-up is because it happened to be a theologian that resurrected Aristotelian beliefs in the Western World, Saint Thomas Aquinas, but because of the half-embracing of Aristotle and Mysticism, he spread such utterly contradictory beliefs that all of the West, although supposedly committed to Aristellianism, could not separate God from them because of his use of some of Aristotle's flaws to prove the Christian God.
One woman finally realized the contradiction and, as a corollary, separated religion from the fundamental principles of Aristotelian philosophy and began a new school of thought called Objectivism; Ayn Rand also happens to be my favorite novelist. She preached to save the very ideals for which the greatest country was created; the intelligence of man, the necessity of freedom as part of man's nature, and the objectivity and intelligibility of this world. Religion attempts to reconcile with these beliefs in order to prevent its popularity from being diminished, but at its roots it is too diametrically opposed to intelligence and freedom to be acceptant of it for long. If we, as a nation do not stand up to the arrant mysticism within our midst, we then concede, by silence, that their views of dictatorship, stupidity/depravity of man, and ineffability of all we have already proven to be knowable, are acceptable. The philosophy that I am advocating does not advocate mass physical attack on those who advocate this; what it advocates the very thing that I am doing now, which is the use of persuasion to appeal to the reason and intelligence of those with whom I am disagreeing to reject their incorrect ways in favor of what is right. All of those who do disagree with me are free to defend their stance, but they should be aware that what they are saying, fundamentally, is that their stance cannot be defended or proven, but nor can it be wrong. Man's salvation will not come from the grace of some omnipotent demagogue, but from his realization that he is a demagogue, in and of himself. |
|
| Friday, May 23, 2008 at 12:01:49 mst
Comment ID: #62
Name: Ichor
Sums up my thoughts pretty well. It's frustrating watching the new atheist debates, because at times they get so close to pinpointing the root of the problem. You can feel it, and then the next second they just dodge it in another direction. I think so far Hitchens was the closest to addressing the problem in one of his debates. He said something to the effect that atheism is not incompatible with nihilism, or relativism, yet still did not hit upon the real issue. As much as I respect Hitchens, he's almost the worst when it comes to this kind of thing. When trying to make a point at times he simply goes off on some entirely seemingly unrelated historical tangent. |
|
| Friday, May 23, 2008 at 12:09:07 mst
Comment ID: #63
Name: Adam Reed
E-mail: adamreedatalumdotmitdotedu
URL: http://www.calstatela.edu/faculty/areed2
A minor correction to my previous posting. I had mistakenly put "schools" in the plural in discussing the 1984 student demonstrations in Poland against the removal of official crucifixes from school classrooms. I later found from a contemporary account by an American - Brent Bozell, a devout Catholic Conservative, who would have had no interest in minimizing the incident - that the occasion for the Catholic student protests was that ONE local government had granted a waiver permitting removal of official crucifixes, to the principal of ONE nominally indendent school, the TPD Agricultural School in Mietno: http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1282/is_v36/ai_3289291 .
Bozell's article confirms that Catholic religious instruction in state schools was compulsory under Stalin, and that it only became elective in 1956, three years after Stalin's death. Bozell wrote that in Communist Poland in 1984 "there is only one school system, the state system, which since 1961 has been entirely secular." Actually the TPD system of special education and gifted students' schools was separate, and its schools were never required to follow the government curriculum. As for government schools, it was only in the course of "de-Stalinization" around 1961 that government schools in Poland became - temporarily and partially - secular.
A final comment on Bill Tingley's writing that "As for Reed's fictions being abominable, he made his misstatements not only to mendaciously deny persecution of Christians by the Nazis and the Communists (a hard and bloody fact of the 20th century) but to claim that the Church was in cahoots with the tyrants (a calumny)." It is a hard fact - acknowledged, in its time, even by the devoutly Catholic Brent Bozell - that Roman Catholic religious instruction in government schools was *compulsory* in Poland when Poland was ruled by Stalin through his local proxies, and that even a partial secularization did not take place until years after Stalin's death. That "the Church was in cahoots with the tyrants" is a simple statement of that fact. Unfortunately, the time when even Catholic propagandists maintained some connection to reality has now been over, and past, for decades. Today, the posthumous "Atheization" of Hitler and Stalin is proceeding apace. Scandalously, even Atheists too often accept this kind of historical "revision" in silence. |
|
| Sunday, May 25, 2008 at 12:04:27 mst
Comment ID: #64
Name: Per-Olof Samuelsson
E-mail: per-olof.samuelsson(at)swipnet.se
URL: http://www.nattvakt.com
I'd like to say that I found this article excellent. And I think what is good about it is precisely that it reduces the issue to the broadest fundamental, i.e. rationality vs. irrationality (of which religion is just one particular form). So I'm looking forward to reading the next installments.
(By the way, I was also very impressed by Greg Perkin's earlier article about copyright. Enough praise lavished!) |
|
| Sunday, May 25, 2008 at 22:06:54 mst
Comment ID: #65
Name: Seth Manapio
E-mail: sethmanapio(at)gmail.com
URL: http://sethmanapio.blogspot.com
How to kick D'Souza's ass:
1. Hitler never denied his own Christianity or publicly decried Christianity. He affirmed it many times. So whatever his personal feelings, the Nazi movement was Christian, not Atheist. They said so repeatedly. So please, accept your responsibility for killing 50% of European Jews.
2. Body counts: the most realistic body counts for Stalin and Mao have them being responsible (as regimes) for excess deaths at approximately 10-15% of the populations at the beginning of each dictators rules. For European dictators, this is high but not extravogant. Cromwell, for example, was responsible for a death rate of around 40% among the Irish. Going further back, before the rise of humanism, Pizarro was responsible for killing 94% of the Inca people. 30 years war, 33%. And so on. And of course, Hitler with the 50% of European Jews stands out as a religious killer. Historically, Stalin and Mao stand out not because they were extravagant killers, but because they had enormous populations thanks to science.
3. If you want to talk raw numbers, Norman Borlaug, a single humanist and scientist, is responsible for increasing the population of the world by 1 billion. So we'll take your most extravogant numbers, allow you to put your evil little christian monkey Hitler on our side as well, and come out ahead by... I don't know, 800 million or so? |
|
| Monday, May 26, 2008 at 6:23:51 mst
Comment ID: #66
Name: Burgess Laughlin
E-mail: burgesslaughlin(at)macforcego.com
URL: http://www.aristotleadventure.blogspot.com
Seth Manapio: "How to kick D'Souza's ass: 1. Hitler never denied his own Christianity . . . . So . . . the Nazi movement was Christian, not Atheist. They said so repeatedly. So please, accept your responsibility for killing 50% of European Jews."
Mr. Manapio, are you saying that Dinesh D'Souza is responsible for murders committed 20 years before he was born? If so, what are the fundamental principles of your ethics that would allow you to assign guilt to later generations? |
|
| Tuesday, May 27, 2008 at 8:37:17 mst
Comment ID: #67
Name: Father Shaggy
E-mail: brett.mckenzie2(at)gmail.com
URL: http://mcshaggy.blogspot.com
I took a run at this topic last winter:
http://mcshaggy.blogspot.com/2007/12/he-started-it.html
My tack is hardly the alpha and the omega, but I do think that timing has a great deal to do with the numbers game. "Atheist" regimes killed more people because there were more people to kill, and they had better ways to do it. |
|
| Wednesday, July 16, 2008 at 11:58:54 mst
Comment ID: #68
Name: Lesli
Hello Greg,
Thanks for the invitation to read and comment on your articles. Unfortunately, time to do so has been scarce, and I have so far read only the first. I’m not sure how much I will be available for any resulting discussion, but I will at least try to offer some initial thoughts on each one.
Regarding this first article, I made so many scribbled comments on it that it would take far too long to address every issue that came up. I am not certain who your intended audience is for your articles, but my impression was that you are “preaching to the choir” because, if you were anticipating an antagonistic audience, I suspect you would not have made so many unsupported assertions. I do find your writing to be quite colorful; however, I noted a number of historical inaccuracies and glaring philosophical problems in your writing. I really must limit my comments, so I will simply point out a problem with your overall premise.
The gist of this article boils down to a false dichotomy which you have established between reason and any type of religion, which you characterize as one form of irrationality. I must leave comments regarding Islam, Mormonism, etc. to those who espouse such views. However, I will comment on your inclusion of Christianity as inherently irrational. The basic problem appears to be one of defining terms. It’s certainly appropriate to let any ideology be defined by those who establish it, rather than allowing it to be defined by those who are antagonistic to it.* Accordingly, we must look to the New Testament to define Christianity as an ideology, as this collection of writings is the basis for Christianity.
The most obvious contradiction between your definition of Christianity and the definition found in the New Testament can be found in John 1:1, which is commonly translated into English as “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” This translation, however, I find to be quite unfortunate, as it falls far short of a full interpretation of the original Greek. The Greek word which is translated as “Word” is “logos”. We can’t efficiently translate “logos” because it has no English equivalent, but its essential meaning includes logic, order, reason. The actual meaning of this verse is “In the beginning was the divine rationality…” While your average Christian on the street may not understand this, any Greek scholar would.
The other term I wanted to address is “faith.” You undoubtedly use this word to indicate a blind faith that is not guided by reason. This misunderstanding is certainly very common. But again, we need to consider the source when applying the term to Christianity. The Greek word translated as “faith” in the New Testament is “pistis.” The word “faith” as a translation of “pistis” has been so misused (as referring to blind faith) that it has become nearly useless. A better understanding of “pistis” in today’s understanding would be “trust.” It implies trust in something which best reason indicates to be true. Understood properly, “faith” is hardly limited to the realm of organized religion. In my interactions with you, it has been abundantly obvious that you have a tremendous amount of “pistis” in your own worldview.
You have not allowed Christianity to define itself, but rather have mischaracterized it. There is no dichotomy between rationality and Christianity unless you incorrectly define Christianity.
Clearly my comments are not exhaustive on this issue, and I have made no attempt to give a full definition of Christianity.
I wish I had time to comment on other parts of your article, but I am out of time. Hopefully I will get to the second article much more quickly than this one.
---------------
* This reminds me of an ad I saw recently to tour the Grand Canyon with the National Center for Science Education. On this tour one member of the NCSE was to present the evolutionary understanding of the origin of the Grand Canyon, and another member (Eugenie Scott herself) was to present the “creationist” view. (By the way, I do not hold to a young earth position and do not agree with the stereotypical creationist explanation for the Grand Canyon.) I found this just hilarious. That situation is analogous to inviting Hitler to lecture on the virtues of ethnic diversity. |
|
| Thursday, July 17, 2008 at 15:10:14 mst
Comment ID: #69
Name: Greg Perkins
E-mail: greg(at)ecosmos.com
URL: http://ecosmos.com
Hi, Lesli. Thanks for your comments.
The primary audience is fans of the New Atheists and only secondarily fans of apologists like D'Souza. That, combined with the natural restrictions imposed by writing a brief article rather than a book would explain why you may not see as much support for various elements as you might otherwise enjoy. Who knows -- maybe I thought the things you are talking about were common knowledge or would be easy enough for people to see, or might provoke a needed investigation. I can only guess, though, because ironically enough you didn't offer support for your assertion that I've "made so many unsupported assertions." And similarly, you said you "noted a number of historical inaccuracies" without gesturing to anything I've said of history, much less establishing an inaccuracy.
In any event, the thrust of your response seems to consist in simply denying any antagonism between reason and religious faith, and you do this by focusing on a sense of faith that amounts to "trust." Of course this tactic only begs the distinction being drawn: trust can be rational or not, reality-based or not, earned and warranted or not.
Religious faith is certainly a form of trust, but it isn't rational trust. When people are praised for their faith (a "virtue" according to Christianity), they are not being praised for their intransigent exercise of logic and adherence to a firsthanded grasp of the facts of reality -- we call such people "rational," not "faithful." Rather, they are being praised for maintaining their acceptance of some idea *in the face of* a lack of evidence or even evidence to the contrary -- which is why we call such people "faithful," and not "rational." When people talk about their faith being shaken, they are talking about things they believe coming into rough contact with facts, and thus facing the unpleasant prospect of rejecting or modifying their happy adherence to what they didn't actually know, in the face of evidence and logic to the contrary. If their faith is actually being shaken, it is being shaken by an exercise of reason -- precisely *because* their faith is rooted in a trust or confidence that is not rational.
This is not fairly characterized as a harmonious partnership of guide and guided. It is the opposite: a relationship of antagonism and exclusion.
Thanks again,
Greg |
|
| Sunday, August 31, 2008 at 15:16:11 mst
Comment ID: #70
Name: Lesli
Greg,
I only just saw your response as I came back to this site to give you a couple of thoughts regarding each article.
You’re right, I didn’t detail all the problems with your article. Like you, I was trying to be relatively brief.
Actually, the crux of my response was that you are defining terms on behalf of your “opponent” and are doing so unfairly and incorrectly. I was disappointed to see that you ignored the bulk of what I wrote.
This…
“Rather, they are being praised for maintaining their acceptance of some idea *in the face of* a lack of evidence or even evidence to the contrary -- which is why we call such people "faithful," and not "rational." When people talk about their faith being shaken, they are talking about things they believe coming into rough contact with facts, and thus facing the unpleasant prospect of rejecting or modifying their happy adherence to what they didn't actually know, in the face of evidence and logic to the contrary. If their faith is actually being shaken, it is being shaken by an exercise of reason -- precisely *because* their faith is rooted in a trust or confidence that is not rational.”
…is another case of you defining terms in a manner convenient to your argument. Any ideology ought to be defined by those who authored it, and I asked that you not make Christianity an exception to this. Since you ignored that, we have made no progress.
I came back to this site because I told you I would try to offer a few thoughts on your articles. I have to do so very briefly; I literally have about ten minutes total to comment on all three remaining articles, and I need to get this off my desk. Sorry for the brevity. |
|
| Sunday, September 7, 2008 at 9:02:56 mst
Comment ID: #71
Name: Greg Perkins
E-mail: greg(at)ecosmos.com
URL: http://gregperkins.net
Hi, Lesli.
You write that my response was "another case of you defining terms in a manner convenient to your argument. Any ideology ought to be defined by those who authored it, and I asked that you not make Christianity an exception to this. Since you ignored that, we have made no progress."
I think progress will be difficult so long as your terms bear such a weak connection to reality. Breaking out your newly acquired knowledge of Greek to show me how the authors of the Bible *really* say that Christianity proceeds from "the divine rationality" and that faith is trust informed by "best reason" does not make these in fact compatible with rationality, any more than calling stinkweed a rose makes it smell nice. To avoid wasting time playing those sorts of semantic games, we need to observe just what is being distinguished by our terms, and why.
That's what I offered in my last note: observed facts about people in our Christianity-dominated culture regarding faith and the behavior of being faithful and so on. I did not make up those facts illustrating that faith and reason are antagonistic opposites -- and you did not dispute those observations.
The distinction between those with a reality-based methodology and those with something else is in fact real, and merely denying it using a little dead-language wordplay only makes my point.
Thanks,
Greg |
|
| Wednesday, October 29, 2008 at 23:43:40 mst
Comment ID: #72
Name: Andrew
E-mail: redchango(at)outgun.com
URL: http://redchango.blogspot.com
In defense of Sam Harris (I saw your notation at the bottom of the blog as well), you say the same things he does. He says that atheism is a label that is devoid of meaning. And it is a pragmatic move to avoid the label atheism because of the points that both you and Harris raise. |
|
| Wednesday, October 29, 2008 at 23:43:45 mst
Comment ID: #73
Name: Andrew
E-mail: redchango(at)outgun.com
URL: http://redchango.blogspot.com
In defense of Sam Harris (I saw your notation at the bottom of the blog as well), you say the same things he does. He says that atheism is a label that is devoid of meaning. And it is a pragmatic move to avoid the label atheism because of the points that both you and Harris raise. |
|
| Saturday, January 3, 2009 at 13:03:33 mst
Comment ID: #74
Name: Alan Brown
E-mail: brown.alan80(at)yahoo.com
You say "The important contrast is not atheism vs. religion, but rather rationality vs. irrationality." and "religion is not itself the fundamental problem"irrationality is." So reason is a handmaid to religion and politics. But why is this so? No explanation is given. Seems the explanation is simply a rehash of the problem. These scientists you mention will also ditch reason if its a issue thats very personal in their lives. I believe this issue is at the limits of Rands understanding. Her "whim worship" explanation, while correct is also lacking-why do some people "whim worship whilst others don't? I suggest you read "Malignant self love by Sam Vaknin. Most is on the web - http://samvak.tripod.com/. I believe he explains what truly motivates irrational/collectivistic/altruistic behavior. Spread your wings and fly people.
PS I believe mans basic choice is to put out effort and strain or not put out effort, rather than Rands think or not think. |
|
| Sunday, January 4, 2009 at 15:47:09 mst
Comment ID: #75
Name: Elisheva Levin
E-mail: elisheva(at)unm.edu
URL: http://ragamuffinstudies.blogspot.com
A couple of thoughts:
First, one can argue that the progress made in societies dominated by faith rather than reason was made at the expense of those who had the ideas: for example the beginnings of a scientific understanding of motion was made by Copernicus and Galileo, both of whom were made to suffer for their ideas.
Second, I was taken by this line: "Take scientists, for example: necessarily focused on reason and reality, they resolve their scientific disputes with logic and by reference to facts. We don't find them fragmenting into sects and breaking out into violence over their disagreements. Indeed, just the opposite happens: the body of scientific knowledge converges over time as disagreements are sorted out and facts are acknowledged. Their successes and this convergence don't come from the use of guns and clubs, but from a commitment to reason and reality, facts and logic."
This is exactly why Galileo recanted when presented with the instruments of torture. If his idea was true (and it was, although Newton did clear up the statements) then there was no need to suffer for it. The truth did out eventually. Science has no need of martyrs.
Overall, I think your article cuts to the heart of the New Athiests problems, although I suspect that in some forums (such as talk radio) they comes off particularly badly because of editing manipulations and host microphone control. |
|
| Friday, December 11, 2009 at 9:07:25 mst
Comment ID: #76
Name: Joshua L.
E-mail: joshualipana(at)yahoo.com
That was a wonderful article. |
|
|
Post Your Comment |
|
|
|
E-mail Greg Perkins
Comments
