Damn, and I thought The Handmaid’s Tale was supposed to be fiction.

Because Richard Dawkins is an annoying twat.

But I wager that if they’d listed “Objectivist”, you’d beat them out! Nobody likes objectivists. Well, ‘cept libertarians, and we know they’re born losers.

Why are we non-believers distrusted and disliked to such a large extent?
=========
Because they know we are right and hate us for it.

Nobody likes objectivists.

That’s mostly because objectivists like nobody. As an atheist, I actually like a lot of people of all different faiths. I think part of the problem is that many people have never met an atheist (we’re a teensy weensy minority after all) and thus simply don’t know anything about us.

We’re More Hated Than the GAYS?

WOO-HOO! We’re number 1! We’re number 1!

Seriously, here in the NW most people are atheist, at least until you start talking religion. Seems to be a Jekyll and Hyde thing…

(BTW: You CAN be Buddhist and Atheist at the same time; I looked it up 😉 )

I think owlbear1 is on the right track; non-belief introduces an element of doubt into the fragile beliefs of the believers. Doubt is the god killer and must be eliminated.

Another victory for Dinesh D’souza and his trusty sidekick Osama bin Laden!

Incidently, is it just me, or does anyone find it funny that there’s still a 4% of people polled that wouldn’t vote for a Catholic?

I mean, wow, I use papist swine as an ironic slur, I didn’t think anyone in this country was still that bent out of shape over Kennedy.

Maybe because of all the strange stories circulated about atheists.

“They worship Satan.”
“They are the work of Satan.”
“They hate God.”
“They hate humanity.”
“They hate Christians.”
“They want to kill Christians.”
“They want to ban your religion.”
“They worship themselves.”
“They worship science.”

They can be anything and everything. When a leader is trying to scare his or her followers, they can use atheists as a convenient boogeyman.

And everyone knows how crazy you’d have to be to admit to it.

Frightened nimcompoop: “You’re an atheist!? Shhhhh. Oh my God, don’t say that. People will think something is wrong with you.”

Rudy, and Newt too.

The question is, are athiests more disliked than those who serve divorce papers to their wife in the hospital as she is having cancer treatment?

I bet they are.

Ironically, 75% of Salem residents will not openly vote for a witch if she has outed herself as such before the community.

The American people is still largely defining itself off of the USSR and communism to this day. Remember that hoopla about the pledge of allegience and how, even though the allegience was only changed in the 50s because some Congress critter wanted to prove how not a commie he was to McCarthy, we still couldn’t get rid of it? Well, this is basically backlash of the same nature. Good Americans can’t be atheists, just like they can’t be communists. It’s un-American. It’s treason, in fact!

It’s unfair. In fact, it’s highly prejudiced and stupid, but atheists have to run an uphill battle just to be recognized as citizens because of how the Cold War was framed back in the day.

At least, that’s my perspective. It’s not religious prejudice, not entirely. It’s American brainwashing from way on back coming round to kick us in the teeth. Like Catholics and Rome, Jews and Israel, Muslims and Mecca, atheists have been name-branded to Sworn Rivals and are gonna have to push against the political winds just to get to the starting line.

(Mimes! That’s another class that’d do worse than atheists in this poll, I bet.)

Equally ironic is the fact that 51% of Americans will vote for an idiot for President.

Brad, I agree with you up to a point that people don’t know any atheists and just hear from their pastors that without God, we’d all be raping and pillaging inside a New York minute (which honestly should make them worry about their priests, not the atheists, because obviously here we are NOT raping and pillaging). But those folks also hear that atheists are out to destroy religion. And there are plenty of atheists who are not tolerant of religion, who either think it’s actively bad or completely moronic. That’s not going to be so endearing to someone whose religion is important to them (Unitarians and Buddhists excepted).

Also, let’s see, rampant lying about electing Jews, blacks, women, and hispanics. Other than that, that poll might be accurate.

Only 49% voted for “likely an idiot” back in 2000. 51% voted for “a known idiot” in 2004. Apparently we’re getting dumber.

And while I’m sure the whole “Atheist == Communist” vibe is out there, my guess is that most wouldn’t vote for an atheist because we don’t just believe differently, we flat out don’t believe. It’s okay if you’re a Jew, because they share the same deity. Once Islam settles down and stops being so darned violent, they’ll quickly slide into the same status, I’m sure. My guess is that even Hindus have a better shot at the White House, because Americans don’t know *what* Hindus believe, but at least they believe in something…

I think this is attributable to the widely accepted shibboleth that an atheist, unlike a believer, has no basis upon which to act in a moral and ethical way. It can be demolished in a Philosophy 101-level debate, but since the vast majority of people neither have taken such a course nor know a self-professed atheist, it retains a lot of its sham currency.

“The question is, are athiests more disliked than those who serve divorce papers to their wife in the hospital as she is having cancer treatment?”

Well, duh, atheists aren’t Christian. Irony is dead, long live irony.

Yes, Aquagirl, I forgot to mention that bit. There’s no way in hell people honestly answered this poll. They know that they *should* vote for a black person for the presidency, if he’s qualified, but everyone knows they wouldn’t. I’m sure the numbers are similarly inflated for women, hispanics and jews. But atheists, we’re still okay to publicly hate. Fun!

“Atheist” is a scare word. It has been successfully linked to all sorts of negative emotional indices. Try substituting ‘agnostic’ in the poll and see what happens to the numbers.

On the other hand, it could get worse. If the poll said ‘non-Christian’, ‘pagan’, or ‘Muslim’, you’d see there are actually things that atheists are more popular than.

The saddest thing, Doc N, is that if they’d put “Liar” on the list, it’d be at the bottom of the page with 0%, and yet…look at us now…

Patkin, very good point.

“Atheists are commies.”

How could I forget that one? Shit, that idea is ingrained into American culture. When I was younger, a confused fundie informed me of this aspect of the red menace. I remember thinking, “Why are these red-blooded, God-fearing Americans so obsessed with the Soviet Union? That country isn’t even around anymore.” This was in the mid-90s.

The United States may be the current incarnation of the USSR (a decrepit empire combined with a failed ideology), but the American exceptionalists will never admit it.

Every time I go into nurseries and scream at the sleeping infants that there is no God, Santa Claus, Easter Bunny, or Tooth Fairy, people always get mad at me.

I dunno Jas, I bet there’d still be 27% willing to vote for a liar. I mean, that’s how many dead-enders we’ve got now supporting our current liar, right?

Patkin, I think anyone who votes for any politician knows they’re voting for a liar. So liars should be at the top of the list, shouldn’t they?

Nope. The result would be 0 (+/- a couple) because nobody would vote for a liar. The 27% that support our current liar delude themselves into thinking that he’s not lying.

That’s the problem with this poll, and all others. You never will get the honest truth without it being colored by “what I believe” and “what I think I *should* say.”

You know, I wrote out a long, complicated rant about why people of faith don’t trust atheists. But I already know that people aren’t actually going to read it in-depth, and will simply project inaccuracies onto it. So I’ll keep it short.

People of faith in America do not trust atheists for the same reason atheists don’t trust Christians: because they’re represented by the worst of their kind.

It’s a simple fact that religious people are represented in the media by their absolute worst–the Haggards, the Falwells, the Phelpseseses–because these are the people who grab headlines. When four Baptist churches defect from the Southern Baptist Conference in protest over the SBC’s anti-gay statements, does that make news? No. But if Fred Phelps so much as farts too loud, someone gets to write a headline about him and his church. It’s all in what gets attention.

Likewise, what gets attention to atheists are the people who, I’d argue, represent their worst–Madelyn O’Hair (and her claim that her disowning her Christian son was a “post-natal abortion”) being the best of the boogeymen, but others are stepping up to compete. For a prime example, I’d look to Richard Dawkins. Leaving Dawkins’s impressive credentials aside, he will likely be remembered by theists for one thing: he stated that he believed teaching children religious beliefs was “mental child abuse”. I’m sure that there are many people here who agree with that statement, to some degree. Now, is it possible for people to understand how that sounds to someone who is religious?

Think about it–you’re a parent, and you love your children without reservation. You would die for them without a second thought. And you hear a spokesman for atheism say that you, personally, are abusing your child, because you’re taking them to church with you on Sundays. Now, this spokesman doesn’t go on to say how you should be stopped (just like, say, uber-cons opine that dissent is treason without admitting the logical conclusion of their statements), but you know enough about the legal system to know that child abuse is a persecutable offense, one that can get your children taken away from you, or get you thrown in prison. So you get scared–not because your faith might be shattered, but because you can’t help but wonder that if people who agree with this spokesman get in power, what would stop them from changing the laws? And is it really that much of a leap for that person to then, at the polls, not vote for an atheist–the same way virtually all of us here wouldn’t vote for a conservative candidate?

Silly? Yes. There’s a mile of difference between one’s personal beliefs and one’s political beliefs. (As an example, I’m a “person of faith” who is politically a strict secularist. You may now completely ignore everything I’ve said as the ignorant ravings of one of those stupid theists.) But we’re discussing fear and hatred, both of which are silly and irrational.

I sometimes consider myself a person of faith.

But you certainly can be a moral, loving, conscientious human being and doubt the existence of a supreme being with a personality and a special concern for human beings.

Now I’d say: If you are a kind, loving, good-natured person, you have an intuition of God, a grasp of the divine, even a real love for it, but you just don’t recognize it as such.

I’d also say: The loudest exponents of religion are the farthest away from any real faith. Most atheists I know are better Christians than Christians in the things that matter, not words, but actions. Real work.

It’s an old saw I learned in Sunday School in the 70s: Love is a verb.

Noisy Christians should shut up and get to work. Or just stop pretending already; find another, less destructive fad.

Well said, Ungod. The most offensive extreme is often the chosen representative of a political viewpoint or religion. Btw, who chooses that representative? The media?

I don’t have a negative opinion of religious people, but I sure as hell don’t like fundamentalists.

But you certainly can be a moral, loving, conscientious human being and doubt the existence of a supreme being with a personality and a special concern for human beings.

Now I’d say: If you are a kind, loving, good-natured person, you have an intuition of God, a grasp of the divine, even a real love for it, but you just don’t recognize it as such.

You could say that, but you’d be projecting your belief system on someone who has none while negating your assertion that the godless can have morals, too. Which is probably why your “moral” person has “doubts” rather than non-belief.

You said it better than I was trying to, coyote. The logic of “if you’re a good person, you’re in some way influenced by ‘the divine'” negates the whole point of atheism – that you can be a good person simply because it’s the inherently right thing to do, without attribution to any outside authority.

“It’s a simple fact that religious people are represented in the media by their absolute worst”

That’s debatable, actually – More to the point, that doesn’t alter the fact that in the public consciousness, that simply isn’t the case. It’s basically expected that a “moral” person must have “faith”.

“I’m sure that there are many people here who agree with that statement, to some degree. Now, is it possible for people to understand how that sounds to someone who is religious?”

Yes. It sounds like someone suggesting something they’re simply not comfortable with.

However, contrast it closely with, say, the following opinions…

– Black people just don’t WANT to work / Their excess of melanin clearly marks them out as inferior.
– Women, being excessively burdened with hormones and gushy fluids, are unsuited to the business workplace.

The point – well, one of the points – of bigotry is the unfounded, unsupported nature of the prejudices. This is most injust.

Consider, however, being judged by how TREAT your child as opposed to by your gender or complexion. If you can’t judge people by what they say and do, WELL.

And yes, from a certain point of view, indoctrinating your child into a baseless worldview that essentially short-circuits logical thinking – incidentally, MY folks spent years patiently explaining to widdle Proty that if you can’t SEE the monsters under your bed, or HEAR them, TOUCH them or SMELL them, then they probably aren’t there at all – could certainly qualify as mistreatment of some caliber.

Now, of course this topic could fairly debated to see if there’s any merit to it…but that’s never going to happen. A point of view is sacrosanct when you drag the supernatural into it – well, an “approved” version of it, anyway – no matter how wretched it may be.

In short, “They don’t like you because you hurt their precious feelings”? Not gonna cut it.

As a y2-year old, three times married, homosexual ex-Mormon athiest I would herewith like to declare my candidacy for the Presidency.

Yes, Yank, but are you a black jew as well?

Look at it this way, 72% of people would vote for someone who thinks God speaks to men through hats with rocks in them. Only 45% would vote for folks who say that’s 100% absurd.

Brad are you really surprised ? Or are you just funning ? In fact we are moving towards being accepted. I recall seeing a poll some years (decades ?) ago where 80% said no never vote for an atheist.

By the way, looks like all the people in the USA who can stand atheists have blogs.

I’d vote for you, Yank. But only if you promise to persecute religious folk.

Oh, dear, did I let slip the atheist agenda? Crap. Pretend I didn’t say anything, ‘kay?

At least now we can say with some scientific certainty that 53% of the general population hasn’t evolved much.

I’m surprised. Wouldn’t an atheist president mean that the rapture was at hand?

But if you want a foreigner who believes in fairies’ opinion about this matter, it could be something on the order of the following:

See, Dobson and his ilk are a bunch of irrational misogynistic homophobic idiots who cannot possibly get along with an atheist. Put an atheist and a dobsonite in the same room and they may be both speaking English, but they don’t at all speak the same language. There is no room for common ground.

But to a lot of Christians, they may vehemently disagree with a lot of Dobson’s positions, but many see him on some level at least as a brother in Christ. Without religion in the mix, you might say he’s viewed as “one of the club.”

This phenomenon is not limited to religion or anything. People just tend to trust people they see as one of their own versus an outsider. And Dobson certainly does his best to paint Atheism as an outsider/satanic force bent on turning your kids gay.

And yes, most people don’t know any atheists and tend to believe the caricatures they hear about. Unfortunately I do not think there is a short term remedy for this. It is in the religious right’s interest to portray the people most likely to call them on their shit as evil, even were they not to believe it.

And trust me a lot of them do. I have a friend who’s religious beliefs are a form of, well, eclectic agnosticism is the best I can do. He flew down to Texas once and had a seemingly unending lecture that began with “Are you saved?” The thing of it is, the person who was quoting revelations to him chapter and verse earnestly thought she was doing him a favour. After all, he would be cast into the lake of fire if he didn’t listen.

Who represents atheists?

O’Hair? Who brought a lawsuit 50 years ago? Who was killed and beheaded (likely by Christians) 30 years ago?

Dawkins? Would that that were so. Naturally, 2 words taken out of context is all that the fundies are able to focus on. There’s a bit more to his argument than that. Besides, his comment isn’t particularly controversial if you’ve seen the doc film “Jesus Camp” or any of those Christian Soldier horrowshows now making the high school rounds. He called it right.

Is it ok to close a child’s mind and teach her/him to hate and fear because you believe it to be for the child’s own good? It’s ok to cause harm if the harm was intended for good and motivated by love?

Am I supposed to be bothered by somebody possibly taking offense at Dawkins’ words after a lifetime of being told that I have no morals, no ethical code, and no rights?

Think about it–you’re a parent, and you love your children without reservation. You would die for them without a second thought. And you hear a spokesman for (*insert church here*) say that you, personally, are abusing your child, because you’re NOT taking them to church with you on Sundays.

Further, imagine that you don’t hear this from some review of one scientist’s book, but every day. EVERY FREAKING DAY. Including from people in your own family.

Oh, and you think someone hears Dawkins and gets scared of some atheist gov’t official taking your kids? Name a single atheist elected official in or from your state. Read the stated objectives of the Dominionists. Consider just how well represented they are in government today, and how represented we are, when most ATHEISTS won’t even admit to the label.

Then tell atheists how scared you are of us in government, how you’re scared we’re going to persecute you.

Wonder why some of us have a problem taking you seriously.

Yes. There’s a mile of difference between one’s personal beliefs and one’s political beliefs.

Yes, but what’s your point? If one’s political beliefs motivate one to restrict my freedoms and deny my rights as a citizen, then you betcherbutt that one’s political beliefs are going to be subject to my scrutiny and criticism; sometimes that criticism will be harsh, if those beliefs are particularly threatening to me.

If one ALSO expresses (at every opportunity) how one’s political beliefs (which motivate one’s activism in the real-world political realm, influencing public opinion and government policy) are formed at their very core by one’s religious beliefs, then YES, I do have a right and duty to examine and criticize those religious beliefs if they are stated to be the origin of one’s political beliefs.

1) One’s religious beliefs are stated by one to be the core of political beliefs, and they inform everything in one’s life; politics, work, family, etc.

2) One’s politics lead one to severely curtail my freedom or otherwise interfere with my own political ends.

3) Therefore, one’s religious beliefs are subject to scrutiny and criticism. Depending on the stakes of the debate, some of that criticism may be harsh.

Since christianists (Christian theocrats, Dominionists, etc.: those who impose Christian fundamentalism onto politics) see their own souls at stake (or say they do), they often get pretty damned harsh. As in, “terrorist” harsh; comments intended to induce fear in the targeted group. I’ve been hearing that crap my whole life.

And you get the vapors over Dawkins? Puh-leaze…

I’m not an atheist, but I am so tired of hearing candidates blabber on about their faith. Give me a candidate who is focused on this world in the here and now. I would prefer and old, single, gay, atheist who admits to dropping acid in the ’60’s.

In college I knew a black jewish homosexual who was very proud of his trifecta.. He regularly crowed about how much more oppressed he’d be if he were also a woman. He must be dead by now.

I’m considering it Jas. If I decide to go there I will probably have to lose an eye as well.

RobW:

And yet, that exactly the problem. To protect poor old impolite Dawkins, it’s neccesary to paint every single person to ever hold a religious belief as the exact same person as irrational misogynistic blowhard hypocrite bastards and murderous fundamentalist nutbags.

That gets old.

That eventually becomes offensive to people who are, y’know, progressive liberal/leftist sorts who still have religious beliefs.

That becomes offensive even faster to people who are just centrist nobodies who can get hoodwinked by the media by bad press soundbites.

It’s shooting yourself in the crotch to complain about how everybody’s focusing on how Dawkins shoots you guys in the foot.

Well, this is yet another reason I’m grateful that I wasn’t born in the U.S.

I grew up without any religious persuasion, pro or con or even specific.
I was thaught the distinctions and parralels between them,
and I was told to make up my own mind.
Which, of course, lead to the sane conclusion
that:
Wether or not there is a god (or demi-urge) ,
is much less important,
than how we treat each other.
So, I am an atheist who strives to do good.
Not to save myself from a hell I don’t even believe in,
but because I know that all of us poor mortals might end up on the loosing end, and that all gods so far have had atrocious VIP rules
for getting into heaven.

And that is why I despise the fundamentalists…
These despicable morons who proclaim that FAITH is better than WORKS.
That -praying- for the poor
is better than -providing- for the poor.
That rejoicing in the destruction of New Orleans is morally
superior to rebuilding it.

– Michael.

I believe in rainbows and puppy dogs and fairy tales.

And I believe in the family – Mom and Dad and Grandma.. and Uncle Tom, who waves his penis.

And I believe 8 of the 10 Commandments.

And I believe in going to church every Sunday, unless there’s a game on.

And I believe that sex is one of the most beautiful, wholesome and natural things.. that money can buy.

And I believe it’s derogatory to refer to a woman’s breasts as “boobs”, “jugs”, “winnebagos” or “golden bozos”.. and that you should only refer to them as “hooters”.

And I believe you should put a woman on a pedestal.. high enough so you can look up her dress.

And I believe in equality, equality for everyone.. no matter how stupid they are, or how much better I am than they are.

And, people say I’m crazy for believing this, but I believe that robots are stealing my luggage.

And I believe I made a mistake when I bought a 30-story 1-bedroom apartment.

And I believe the Battle of the Network Stars should be fought with guns.

And I believe that Ronald Reagan can make this country what it once was – an arctic region covered with ice.

And, lastly, I believe that of all the evils on this earth, there is nothing worse than the music you’re listening to right now. That’s what I believe.

People who complain about how mean Richard Dawkins is usually haven’t read him, but are just responding to cherry picked quotes of his, taken out of context in the most inflammatory way possible.

Watch this video clip again and tell me that this isn’t child abuse.

Now before anyone gets upset, I realize that not all Christian parents do this kind of crap to their kids. I think what pisses me off about the Christian community, however, is that the only people I ever really hear complaining about this crap are the militant secularists. If someone would start a “Christians who hate Pat Robertson, Jerry Falwell, D. James Kennedy and all they stand for even more than they hate Satan himself” club – and lots and lots of churches joined it – I’d probably have a better attitude toward Christianity in general.

As things currently stand, though, I can only see the more mainstream Christians as the enablers of the people who want to take me and my friends and stone us to death. Makes it kinda hard to be buddies, ya know?

One point you have for sure, RobW, is that Atheism is definitely the new closet. We’ve got plenty of out gay characters on television and the movies now. But no out atheists. Much as people tended not to want to admit to homosexuality, there’s not an atheist politician alive that’ll admit to the fact – at least not one that’s already in office. Sure, there are fringe, eighth-party candidates, but they have a hard time getting votes from their own family, let alone a majority.

I would have liked to have seen “Muslim” on that list, but oh well.

At least part of the problem is that a certain amount of the people equate “Atheism” with “Satanist”. Which is kinda funny, but mostly annoying, because that would be like thinking that people who don’t eat pork like bacon.
Plus that whole “bleeding deadly corrosive acid” and “natural impulse to molest and/or eat children.” doesn’t help.

Well, RobW and Jillian covered the main points far better than I could, so I will simply state that atheist are the only minority where bigotry, predjudice, and hatred are not only widespread, but socially acceptable.

For example:

http://www.positiveatheism.org/writ/ghwbush.htm

(insert “against whom bigotry…” for “where bigotry”.

(Thank’s for losing your preview button again guys.)

reggae junky jew.

old ween song, but I’d vote for one.

At the risk of being flamed to death, I have to say that I feel sometimes that I am in the minority of a minority by being a bleeding heart, progressive, evolutionist, science-geek big L Liberal Democrat who also believes in God. I get flak from the rightties for my political views, and flak from lefties for having religious beliefs… Well, truth be told, I don’t get many personal attacks from fellow lefties who are atheists, because they tend to be more polite and generally respectful, but I often pick up the vibe (like in this thread) that people might think I’m a superstitious stone stupid sheep because I haven’t posted a video at The Blasphemy Challenge.

I’d like to think that I’d vote for a qualified candidate that supported my politics, despite their beliefs of lack thereof, but I’m honest enough with myself to say that that probably isn’t true. I would be wary of an atheist candidate that made his or her atheism a central factor of their campaign. But I would also be as suspicious of a fundy if they ran on that faith, even if they were in agreement with me on politics. Can you atheists say that you would honestly vote for the most qualified candidate regardless of their beliefs? If Barrack Obama was a Scientologist, would he still have your support? If Hillary Clinton was a snake handler? If Al Gore were a Rosicrucian? What if Bush were an atheist and still did the idiotic things he has done, would you like him anymore because he was an atheist?

The Constitution only mentions religion once before the Bill of Rights, and that’s to say that religious tests are not required to take office. I wish that we could, as a society, take that to heart and agree to leave religious philosophy in the home. But something tells me it isn’t going to happen. I believe in God, but I have nothing but cynicism for mankind… but there’s always hope, I guess.

(As a postscript: the irony of the poll in question is that we have surely elected atheists to the Presidency before. Jefferson? Lincoln? Probably Washington, too? I know, I know, they were “deists” but really, does anyone buy that?)

Jillian, just so you know, my church actually signed on as an intervener for gay marriage during the debate up here (and there were also others). The national church and local congregations regularly disagree with Dobson and his ilk. Hell, in the Church my brother was married in the minister had a large poster on the wall about saying no to missile defense. Strangely he believed that such a thing was contrary to Jesus’ message of peace. The biggest problem in the states is that the religious right has basically co-opted the terms family, morals and faith and narrowly define them as their own.

Personally, I get very pissed off when thanks to Dobson, often if I mention that I am a Christian I have to spend twenty minutes explaining that I support the separation of church and state, same sex marriage, choice, evolution and that I could care less if somebody wishes me a happy holidays.

And Dobson certainly does his best to paint Atheism as an outsider/satanic force bent on turning your kids gay.

So, I wonder how he would blame atheism for causing George W. Bush to fantasize about pounding Osama in the ass?

Now I’d say: If you are a kind, loving, good-natured person, you have an intuition of God, a grasp of the divine, even a real love for it, but you just don’t recognize it as such.

I don’t think you meant it this way, but this sentence really comes off as condescending and patronizing to this particular atheist.

Others might disagree, of course.

Never mind – other atheists were faster on the draw than I was.

As I see it (for what it’s worth), this is the problem:

1) Whenever atheists talk freely where Christians can overhear, Christians come away thinking (probably rightly) that the atheists believe that they are stupid.

2) Whenever Christians talk freely where atheists can overhear, atheists come away thinking (probably rightly) that the Christians believe that they are incapable of telling right from wrong, good from evil, because they lack the capacity to draw moral distinctions.

In other words, it’s a difference between being stupid and being subhuman. Sorry, decent Chrisitan posters. I’m sure that you’re frustrated at being lumped in with the Dobsons and Falwells of the world, but at least you’re being lumped in with human beings. (Using the word loosely.)

And one more thing…

Can you atheists say that you would honestly vote for the most qualified candidate regardless of their beliefs?

Yes. In every election I’ve ever voted in, I have had to vote for the most qualified candidate simply because I’ve never been able to vote–as far as I know–for an atheist. Running down your list of “would you vote for”s, I see a bunch of folks who believe in different versions of The Invisible Man In The Sky (gotta love those Scientologists–they really know how to push the Invisible Man envelope), so the difference is negligible to me.

And would I have been more likely to vote for Bush if he were an atheist? No. But then, I have no trouble separating out the spiritual belief system of a candidate from his/her positions on the issues that matter to me. I’ve had a lot of practice doing that….

I think it’s hard for people sometimes to realize that the United States is under a concerted, deliberate effort to turn us into a Christian theocratic state. It’s even harder for them to grasp that it’s working – slowly but surely, it’s working. We have a federally funded “Office of Faith-Based Initiatives”, for crying out loud. Seriously – stop and try to remove your comfort with that phrase that you’ve developed from hearing it on the nightly news so often, and try to listen to it with fresh ears.

Office of Faith-Based Initiatives.

Now, tell me that it doesn’t sound like something that got cribbed from some futuristic, dystopian graphic novel.

We had, not so long ago, the head of a state’s Supreme Court removed from office because he refused to concede that however much his personal conduct is guided by the Ten Commandments, he has no legal right to make the Ten Commandments the basis of public law. This is a country where someone so utterly pig-ignorant of how American jurisprudence functions that they cannot grasp this simple concept can rise to one of the highest judicial positions in the country.

Apparently, there is evidence out there linking Antonin Scalia to the Dominionist movement. I’ve seen a couple of credible people talking about this at this point, but haven’t gone out to dig through the records myself to see how convincing this argument is. Frankly, I think I’m too scared to do it. If this is true, it means that we have a man committed to an ideology that holds the Constitution and the rule of law in total contempt on the bench of the highest court in the land.

Here’s a nice, nonhysterical, balanced introduction to Dominionsim and its principles. Read it and tell me that it isn’t terrifying. Not terrifying in the “Oh, the muslamonazis are going to kill us all!” sense, but terrifying in the sense that people who hold these beliefs are already elected members of our government.

I suppose it might be less scary if I were a Christian, and all my friends were Christian and heterosexual. After all, when the Nazis came to power in Germany, ethnic Germans actually did pretty well at the beginning. It’s just the other groups that suffered off the bat.

The way it looks to me at the moment is that I have to make a wager on the future of this country – all Americans do, really. We all know that this is currently not an authoritarian state, that we still have rule of secular law, and that the freedoms we have recognized in the Constitution still exist. The wager is whether or not the people who are opposed to this state of affairs will win or lose in our lifetime. And we’re wagering with our lives. If we bet that they won’t win out, and we’re wrong – well, if you’re a Christian heterosexual, you’ll pretty much be fine. But I’ll be dead.

So it all comes down to how likely you think it is that the Reconstructionist movement will succeed in its goals.

Frankly, I cannot stop thinking about the fact that they’ve sent people to the Senate, they hold a number of judgeships, and they’ve got the ear of the president. They hold significant offices in a number of state governments. They’ve got their own office of the federal government, and they get lots and lots of federal funding.

And they don’t think people like me should be allowed to live in this country at all.

So it’s hard nowadays for me to have a sanguine view of Christianity. Too many people who call themselves “Christians” want me dead, and too few people who call themselves “Christians” want to stand up and tell these other yokels that they’re wrong for doing so.

people might think I’m a superstitious stone stupid sheep because I haven’t posted a video at The Blasphemy Challenge.

Eh, the Blasphemy Challenge is idiotic.

As for your beliefs, hey, believe whatever you want, as long as you don’t try to force me to live by your beliefs. Even if you believe something I find ridiculous, like Scientology. For my part, I promise not to use your beliefs as the exclusive source of my personal assessment of you as a human being. I ask only the same consideration from religious people (unfortunately, I rarely get it).

That’s how this atheist deals with his religious friends, and his religious wife. It’s generally not hard to do, though if any of the people in my life actually were Scientologists, it might be a case of easier-said-than-done.

Brian,

At the risk of being flamed to death, I have to say that I feel sometimes that I am in the minority of a minority by being a bleeding heart, progressive, evolutionist, science-geek big L Liberal Democrat who also believes in God. I get flak from the rightties for my political views, and flak from lefties for having religious beliefs… Well, truth be told, I don’t get many personal attacks from fellow lefties who are atheists, because they tend to be more polite and generally respectful, but I often pick up the vibe (like in this thread) that people might think I’m a superstitious stone stupid sheep because I haven’t posted a video at The Blasphemy Challenge.

If it’s any consolation, you’re actually in the majority of the big-L Liberal camp, not the minority. Religious Liberals have been so marginalized by the pundit-class that the “Democrats must address people of faith” and “Liberals are godless” themes have become “conventional wisdom”–and it’s all total bulshit.

The biggest problem as I see it is that the RWNM has sucessfully reduced Religious Values(TM) and Morals(TM) in America to “Don’t have sex (particularly if you’re an unmarried female).” This reduction allows for many authroitarian assaults on our civil liberties and human rights to disguise themselves as “free expression of religion”. Thus, when liberals (big or small “l”) try to stop the erosion of liberty, they are attacked as “anti-religious”.

Also, the erosion of Protestant Privilidge is a big issue for the RWNM, too. Most of the liberal “attacks” on religion come down to this:
— “You won’t let us force your children to participate in our prayers!”
— “You won’t let us torment and humilate the Jewish kids in our school!”
— “You won’t let me teach your child all about my religion when you are not present, and without your knowledge or consent.”
— “You won’t let me force your teenaged daughter to conform to my religion’s standards of dress and modesty!”
— “You won’t let me lie to your children about biology, geology, astronomy, and medicine!”
— “You won’t let me force your family to follow my sexual mores!”

As long as these two “movements”* control our religion-in-politics discussion, religious liberals are pretty SOL: They get directly attacked for not being religious by the Movement Fundamentalists, and they get shrapnel from attacks on the Movement Fundy’s incorrect definition of “religion.”

* Pun quotes, not scare quotes. I think we need to start associating Dobson et al with “bullshit”-based puns whenever possible.

(Dang, that was long–sorry about that. Preview button? Hello, Preview button?)

Look, isn’t it a fact that all you so-called “atheists” are just a bunch of dirty fucking hippies who want to smoke weed all day and laugh at right-thinking Americans? I mean, can we all just agree on that, okay?

The margin for error on this poll must be very high. I don’t believe that only 5% would refuse to vote for a black.

Its also a matter of identity, predictability and convention that has little or nothing to do with religion at all, per se.

Sox fans and Yankees fans rail at one another ’till they are red in the face. Raiders fans and Chargers fans pound on one another with righteous indignation. But the one guy they all shun and mistrust most of all is the guy who doesn’t like sports.

Mikey if you think I’m going to argue with you about whether being considered stupid is worse than being considered sub human, I’m even more out of my mind than usual.

But for the record, not all Christians hold the view that atheists are amoral soulless beings incapable of good action. Quite a few Christians make the mistake of equating piety with righteousness. And yes some of us stupidly lump all atheists together, treating the Dawkins of the world as Stalins.

Here’s how I look at it: I don’t care whether you believe in magic ponies or not. To me it strikes me as stupid to waste your time arguing about something that could always suffer from the absence of evidence. I honestly don’t care what personal beliefs a politician has, providing they do not interfere with his constitutional responsibilities. And if an atheist wants to think I am stupid for worshiping a two thousand year old space carpenter, that’s fine with me. I have my reasons, and while they may not do service for somebody else, they are plenty for me.

Besides, if the worst thing in the world is that you do one idiotic thing in a lifetime, you would probably be the smartest and luckiest person on the planet.

And I know that I give off a pretty heavy-duty anti-religion vibe, so just to clear that up: one of the few beliefs I hold to *more* strongly than the belief that religion is stupid and dangerous is the belief that everybody on the planet has the right to disagree with me about anything without automatically being thought of as an idiot.

A few days ago, I had one of my students stop by my classroom during my planning period. Her teacher wasn’t letting her into the classroom because she was late and disruptive, so she was looking for a place to hang out for a bit. I invited her in to come sit down and chat, and I learned a lot about her situation from this. (Details will be changed here to guarantee this student’s anonymity, but what follows is a true story)

Her mom’s in jail on a life sentence, and her dad is wherever he happens to be on any given day when the crack wears off. She’s not sure which of the twenty or thirty relatives she’s stayed with in the last two years is actually her legal guardian. Meanwhile, she’s taking care of six of her half-siblings (her dad gets around) because if she doesn’t, they’ll be put in foster care, and she’ll lose what little family she has left. The relative she’s currently staying with refuses to do anything to help take care of the younger children, and if my student complains about this – it’s off to foster care for them. So she pays her current guardian (out of the money she makes working three different after school jobs) to babysit the little ones when she’s in school.

She’s missed a lot of school lately, and is failing most of her classes. It’s a shame, too, because she’s really bright and motivated – she’s one of the kids who’s got the potential to get out of the poverty trap that almost all of my students are caught in.

So, we chatted, and I tried to encourage her to think that maybe foster care for her siblings *wouldn’t* be the worst thing in the world – it would make it easier for her to finish high school, and once she had her high school diploma, she’d be in a much better position to care for those kids, if that’s what she wanted to do.

After a while, she told me that things had started going bad for her after she stopped going to church. There had been a really good church near where she had been living a while ago, but she’d moved far away from it and it was too hard to get there anymore. I asked her why she didn’t just try to find another church near where she was living now? If she didn’t like it, the only thing she would have lost was a few hours from her Sunday morning, but if she did like it, she could get back all the good things she was getting from her old church.

I haven’t seen her to ask if she tried it since then, but I’m hopeful that she did. She deserves to be happy, and I hope she finds happiness at a good church. Her life is hard enough as it is.

the problem is alot of people see religion as being fundamental to creating a society that is moral

as noted above the George HW Bush quote about how atheists aren’t “citizens”. More contemporary Lieberman said: “[We shouldn’t] indulge the supposition that morality can be maintained without religion.” In 2001

It registers with a lot of people in America.

I am an atheist. Right out of the Sam Harris school. I do believe that if you accept ridiculous fairy stories without any supporting evidence as an adult and escape the loony bin by calling it “faith”, you are not only dishonest, you are dangerous. There is no limit to what you can choose to believe. You can hate gays and atheists. You can ban books, movies and tv shows. You can tell a woman you’ve never met a thousand miles away what she is required to do with her body. You can force children to refer to a silly mythological construct every morrning in school by way of the pledge, thereby indoctrinating him into your agenda. It is about power and money. Look at organized churches all down through history. If you can tell me its about anything other than power, money and control, you are lying.

The world no longer has any need for religion. Adults do not need fairy tales. We can accurately explain the way the universe works without resorting to gods and godlets. Praying is the same as doing nothing but you get to feel good about it. Sin and taboos are control methods, as are postmortem rewards and punishments. If we were allowed to actually have a conversation about these silly, unsupported and unsupportable beliefs, they would crash and burn in the sunlight of secular rational thought. But like a porcupine, religion shields itself from that conversation. You are not allowed to question this notion of “faith” being equal to knowledge. Just as they make up convoluted explanations for why we can never see god. They know they are selling a load of nonsense, and they have created an interlocking mythology to prevent a real discussion. The only thing that perpetuates religion is indoctrinating children. Without that, there would be damn little religion in one generation…

mikey

Look, isn’t it a fact that all you so-called “atheists� are just a bunch of dirty fucking hippies who want to smoke weed all day and laugh at right-thinking Americans? I mean, can we all just agree on that, okay?

Aw, shit, ya got me.

Seriously, though, I think believers in gods are directly threatened by non-believers because the gods, just like Tinkerbell, exist only if everyone’s clapping. If someone’s not clapping, their god’s existance is just a little less certain. It’s not my intention that my disbelief makes you feel stupid, it’s your lack of absolute belief that plants doubts. It’s easier to try to eliminate the doubt than it is to explore why the doubt exists.

45% WOULD vote for an atheist? I’d say that’s actully some pretty good progress.

Now pagans, let’s see that stat. Anyone? Bueller?

Not gonna happen. And it’s a shame, because as one commenter has already stated, many pagans have better Christian values than a lot of Christians – in deeds. In their daily lives. Their moral compass, if you will.

But if you think atheist = Satanic, you’ve got another thing coming. We pagans OWN that one baby!

WE’RE #1 W00t!!!!one111!!eleven!

Oh Preview Button, we hardly knew ye…

Dorothy, shortness would have taken away from the excellent rantiness. Brian, I have no problem with your religious beliefs, because I believe that spiritual beliefs are important to people and whatever form they take for you is ok with me as long as they stay personal and don’t get in the way of my own. But you put my own spiritual beliefs (and yes I DO consider atheism part of my spiritual beliefs) on a par with snake handling and rosicrucians, not to mention the sect that must not be named.

Thinking about outing atheists, I wondered if Jim Moran, who goes to my UU church, would be publicly id’d as UU (not that UUs are all atheists, though some are, but it is not a Christian religion). He’s consistently described as RC.

I used to work for a very wealthy lawyer. The guy was an ass in many respects but his one redeeming quality (in my eyes, anyway) was his outspoken atheism. He reminded me a little of Darrow, who likewise was a famous courtroom lawyer and an atheist. Also, in a business that requires people to be relentlessly non-controversial, it was nice to see a lawyer refer to the Truths of Christiantiy as “fairy tales” and “brain-destroying lies.”

I think there would be more atheists if people of faith realized that you still get Christmas Presents.

Can you atheists say that you would honestly vote for the most qualified candidate regardless of their beliefs? If Barrack Obama was a Scientologist, would he still have your support? If Hillary Clinton was a snake handler? If Al Gore were a Rosicrucian? What if Bush were an atheist and still did the idiotic things he has done, would you like him anymore because he was an atheist?

There are three factors I consider when evaluating a candidate: competence — whether the candidate has the skill set required to perform in the job; issues — whether the candidate’s positions match up with mine on the issues I care most about; and integrity — whether I believe that the candidate is a decent, honest, non-corrupt person. Without getting too mathy about it, as it is ultimately a subjective decision, the candidate that scores highest on those three axes combined will get my vote, no matter what religious beliefs he or she holds and/or professes. That said, I think that a candidate’s religious beliefs can have an effect on any or all of those axes, so my assessment of their “score” will be informed, but not dictated, by my experience with and understanding of their belief system.

As for the last question, George Bush’s idiotic, autocratic, unconstitutional and/or criminal acts may arise from his religious beliefs, but the salient factor is that they are idiotic, autocratic, unconstitutional and/or criminal regardless of his motivation. So if he were an atheist and did all the same things, I’d still think he was an incompetent would-be monarch. The only difference is I wouldn’t be worried he was trying to bring about the End Times on orders from God.

We gay atheists get to smile ourselves to sleep each night knowing we haunt the nightmares of fundies world-wide.

Let me slightly recant about Moran; he’s there regularly and I think he’s a member but I can’t say definitely that he’s not just dropping in on the most solid liberal bloc anywhere.

Atheism is definitely the new closet. We’ve got plenty of out gay characters on television and the movies now. But no out atheists. Much as people tended not to want to admit to homosexuality, there’s not an atheist politician alive that’ll admit to the fact

Dunno about this. It seems to me that the only way you have an “out” atheist is if the focal point is religion. Television has “out gay characters” because the focal point of much television programming is sex; therefore sexual orientation becomes relevant to the story. From an atheist perspective, it seems to me that religion is irrelevant to discussions of public policy — just as it’s irrelevant to discussions of coffee and MRIs and whatever else is the focal point of your average TV show. In other words, why be “out” about something that really isn’t germane? It’s like being an “out” vegetarian running for office — who cares? I understand that those on the religious right in particular would take exception to my analogy because they believe religion is relevant to everything — I’m just saying that in my experience most atheists understand that religion is not relevant to everything. That’s why they aren’t “out” — not because they’re afraid or ashamed, but because it’s not the point.

We’ve got plenty of out gay characters on television and the movies now. But no out atheists.

Depends on how you define ‘out’ atheists. This might seem a lame example, but pretty much all of Star Trek in its variety of shows and movies is agnostic to the point of almost being outright atheist. Same with a lot of other sci-fi. This stuff might not make it to the completely mainstream audience, but it’s all over the place anyway.

Brian Schlosser said “Can you atheists say that you would honestly vote for the most qualified candidate regardless of their beliefs? If Barrack Obama was a Scientologist, would he still have your support? If Hillary Clinton was a snake handler? If Al Gore were a Rosicrucian? What if Bush were an atheist and still did the idiotic things he has done, would you like him anymore because he was an atheist?”

Yes, without question.

However, there are certain belief systems that automatically put their holders inito the “unqualified for public office” category. Specifically, those whose religious beliefs require them the enshrine their religious beliefs into law. If Hillary Clinton (who won’t get my vote anyway, but for other reasons) were a snake handler, I would consider her disqualified because the snake handlers overtly strive to impose their beliefs on others through force of government. The other details of the belief system are irrelevant.

If Bush were an atheist (and you know what? I suspect he is.) it wouldn’t improve my opinion of him one iota.

Okay, let me rephrase. Yes, there are some out atheists on TV (given the Sci Fi references, but then again, the most popular Sci Fi show right now is Battlestar, and that’s an overtly religious universe they’ve created), but if you get to a situation where religion matters (whether it should or not), like politics, there’s slim to bupkis in the way of atheist representation. And it is because of fear of being “unelectable.”

clicky

clicky

These are usually good for a few creepy laughs.

I am of mixed minds about this debate.

I consider myself an agnostic pretty far along towards the atheist side of the spectrum. But I’m the descendent of a very actively religious family, and was raised in a pretty liberal Protestant tradition.

My parents were both atheists — my mother fiercely so, interestingly, because she was raised a strict Catholic. But we kids were nonetheless taken to Sunday School and Sunday services, and I think for the most part my parents considered this a part of our social education – you gotta admit that church is a great method of teaching kids how to sit still and listen and partake in ritual and dress up in Sunday Best clothes.

I had my flirtation with born-again Christianity in college, but became disillusioned with its Vending Machine philosophy – you put in enough nickels (prayer) and your wishes are dispensed. I found this same Vending Machine Philosophy in what a good Buddhist friend believed, too – chant and you’ll get what you want. So I drifted away.

I enjoy the European architecture of Christianity; I admire the Good Works that religious organizations perform. Don’t lose sight of the fact that the flip side of the evil of the Dobsonites is the many wonderful things done by The Episcopal diosece in NYC; Catholic Community Services in most cities, and others.

For many years, I’ve celebrated Passover with neighbors and attended their childrens’ bar mitzvahs – am I worshiping? Am I simply marking a holiday? Who knows?

I think Jillian’s story about her student is a good one. People need support systems. Churches can be wonderful support systems. They can also be hideous, enslaving cults. But so, too, can other non-religous organizations that human beings use to bind themselves together.

That said, I don’t find the issues of aethism and faith to be a subject of passionate discussion in my day-to-day life. I work with people who belong to a variety of denominations. I don’t discuss my faith or lack thereof with anyone – why should I? Why should anyone’s faith be a matter of discussion during the work day?

If I discuss faith with friends, it’s in the same context I’d discuss any other issue where I might disagree with their opinion. Would I openly and passionately condemn my friend’s preference for mid-century modern furniture as we’re talking about houses? No, nor would she condemn my preference for Victoriana. Why? because we’re friends and we respect one another.

I don’t feel the need to pop someone’s belief bubble. Life will do that without me getting involved.

Do people really have passionate discussions about religion, outside of the context of scholarly debate and drunken ravings in their early 20’s? Do ordinary Lutherans argue about the views held by the various Synods?

I don’t see this happening.I would say that 90 % of the people who know me have no idea what I profess as to faith. Nor are they interested.

Someone said something upthread about there being no “out” athetist characters in popular culture. Are you serious? Are any characters on TV “out” as being religious or not? You can’t tell me viewers are actually assuming TV characters are religious, can you? Do we see Jack Bauer attending Bible study? Can anyone tell me what church the people in “Friends” went to? Was Seinfeld Reformed, or Conservative? How about the guys in “Entourage,” could anyone possibly assume they’re Lutheran as opposed to Presbyterian?

I think faith as depicted in the public arena is a veneer, a construct, a falsehood. It’s like professing in loving Mom and Apple Pie.

And I really don’t care what other people believe, until it oppresses someone else.

The “Vending Machine” analogy is great. Never thought of it that way, but it fits.

Jillian,

I deconverted from Xianity having been raised in the OPC (R. Rushdooney’s denomination). I deconverted not long after the whole Theonomy and Dominionist stuff started catching on, though my deconversion was based more on the behavior of conservative christians (you’ll never find a more divisive, bickering, gossiping, decietful, backstabbing, authoritarian worshipping group). That and some critical thinking/self-evaluation. Not to forget to mention, as a undergraduate biology major, seeing their intellectually dishonest representation of evolution, listening to their horribly inept creationist counter “arguments” (Canopy Theory…check it out if you want a hoot) pretty much sealed my fate.

But for those of you unfamiliar with these movements, they are scary, serious and gaining power (witness Jillan’s poignant example: Office of Faith-Based Initiatives). The post-war situtation in Afganistan opened the door for the Taliban to establish their theocracy. The Christian Right is trying to do the same here, but with a different door.

And here I was hoping to go through life believing “The Handmaid’s Tale” was and always would be, fiction.

Christianity helped a friend of mine get off the meth; and while it’s replacing one crutch with another, at least she’s off the meth. She’s actually a walk-the-walk Christian, and I have a lot of respect for her, except that she does’t know one thing about what’s in the bible, and believes everything her pastor says and votes exactly how she’s told to vote. At least she balked when the youth group her son was in was asked to canvass for the local Republican candidate. Whatever gets you through the day, I suppose, as long as you keep it to yourself.

I waver between weak atheism and Deism. I am decidedly not religious, and I am rabidly opposed to religious fundamentalists (not ordinary believers).

But I think that we liberals need to focus MORE on religion – particularly Christianity – not less. Why? Because Jesus was one of us! Any honest follower of Jesus’ message – pacifism, equality, helping the poor – would be horrified at the Republican party today. As someone said above, the Christian right has hijacked what their religion (and morality, family, etc.) means, and instead of abandoning it to them, why not fight to reclaim it?

See, the problem with arguments like that is that you can find a passage in the Bible to support any particular interpretation of Jesus you’d like to make. Jesus isn’t “one of us” – Jesus is a cypher upon whom believers project whatever they hold in their hearts. And because there is no clear way for figuring out what interpretations of the Bible are “correct” and what interpretations are “incorrect” – because there’s no “peer review” process – there’s no way for people who belive in Jesus the Hippie to conclusively say that those who believe in Jesus the Warrior are wrong, and vice versa.

This is why religion in general is such a quagmire. When you abandon evidentiary standards, you have nothing upon which to stand. When nothing can falsify a belief, that belief can come to stand for anything anyone wants it to.

Joo theenk thees ees bad, eh?

Gatos are no even allowed to vote or run for elective offices, no matter wheech religion they hold.

?…and where are the gato-worsheepers?

?Why are they no leested right between “Mormon” and “Guiliani’s penesita, eh?

Pfui.

If you belong to the gaytheist or fagnostic group, do they cancel each other out?

And because there is no clear way for figuring out what interpretations of the Bible are “correctâ€? and what interpretations are “incorrectâ€? – because there’s no “peer reviewâ€? process – there’s no way for people who believe in Jesus the Hippie to conclusively say that those who believe in Jesus the Warrior are wrong, and vice versa.

I think too much weight is put on this. The majority of things Jesus did and said are Jesus the Hippie, and the cranky things he did or said – zapping a tree, kicking over tables, saying he was bringing a sword – are really very few and kind of shocking and clangy. Jesus the Hippie carries the day, which is why the OT is so revered by the fire-and-brimstone types.

Why does one have to respect religious beliefs? Isn’t respecting someone, believer or not, simply because that person is a human being enough? I really don’t understand why I’m supposed to respect any bit religious dogma anymore than I should respect astrology or Thor* or that dingaling in Japan who claims he can use good vibes to influence the shape of water crystalizing or those goofy “photonic cloud” people or any number of beliefs that cannot, cannot be justified by any means than “ya just gotta believe it”.

I understand why people choose to have religious beliefs, and I can respect that. At their very best, all religions say pretty much the same thing – “Don’t worry, it’s gonna be okay and it’s all out of your hands, anyway” – and I can dig on that desire. Everybody needs somebody to tell them it’s all right, and my own perception of a rational, materialistic, uncaring universe wherein man is but one tiny, insignificant speck comes as great comfort to me at times. Plus, knowing that I and only I am responsible for my decisions and actions is liberating, because it means I can make my own decisions based on my own ideas and the information about the universe I can take in. I’d hate like all get out to be this guy.

Another thing I don’t understand about “respecting religious beliefs”. I was raised Freewill Baptist and, as far as I can remember, it don’t matter how good you were as a person or how much good you’ve done in the world, unless you give your heart to Jesus, you’re gonna be spending an eternity in Hell. Furthermore, since we can make this decision to reject Jesus consciously, if we do reject Jesus, we deserve to be cast into the Lake Of Fire. I’ve noticed that when trying to convert non-members of the church with the soft sell, folks will dance around the whole issue of Hell a bit – it maybe simple “distance from God”, whatever the hell that means, or it may be Pinhead and his boys – but it’s definately something one should avoid. Apparently, that also extended to folks who’d never heard of Jesus, even if they were born before he came on the scene or grew up and died in some isolated part of the world that hadn’t yet received The Good Word.

I didn’t get this as a kid, either. People who did good in this world but weren’t Christians (or more specifically, Baptists) would still burn with Hitler and Cain and Judas Iscariot. It always bothered me as capricious and illogical, not to mention downright cruel and more than a bit unsettling. I imagine the fact I never could grok the idea of a Creator that was both omnipotent and all-loving, but would also cheerfully send the vast bulk of his creation to eternal damnation as anything but disturbingly contradictory probably led to my current atheism.

I’m about to make a pretty broad generalization, but I hope it encapsulates what I’m trying to get across here. Atheists think religious faith is a silly waste of time and that all the benefits of religion can and are found in secular society without all the trappings and pitfalls of organized dogma. Religious people think all unbelievers, including atheists, are destined for some sort of eternal punishment no matter how good they were on this planet**. I just don’t understand why I’m supposed to respect that. Do what you gotta do to get through the day, sure, and don’t hurt nobody, but I fail to see why religion – or more aptly, Christianity, since that’s the only religion that really matters in America – deserves any special free pass from criticism with this in mind.

* Actually, since no one talks a line of shit like Thor, I got all kinds of respect for the followers of the God Of Thunder.

** Disclaimer: just like all atheists don’t think the same, all people of religious faith hold different views of the metaphysical world. Even people of the same religious faith have been known to quarrel and quibble about certain eschatlogical questions. I know this and if you tell me I’m “missing the point of religion” just because you personally don’t think I personall am going to Hell for an eternity of torture, I will come after you with a lenghth of cardboard tubing what they wrap Christmas wrapping paper around. I’m just sayin’.

I just don’t understand why I’m supposed to respect that.

In the case of religion “respect” means “don’t make waves” because people are very touchy about practices they can’t actually justify to themselves.

Yeah, everybody seems to love Saint Reagan these days, but 42% of us wouldn’t vote for his senile ass again.

That’s just *your* opinion, Bubba.

Not that I do or do not agree with you, but the point is that there is no way for you to make a convincing argument to a Christian who disagrees with you on that point, because there is no common standard for how one evaluates a religious argument.

If I want to argue that, say, HIV doesn’t cause AIDS, there are standards by which I can be shown to be incorrect. There is a large body of research literature that can be referred to, where the standards for how you read that literature is universal.

There is no such standard for religious literature. Do you read it literally? Do you read it metaphorically? When do you do which? Who decides that? Heck, that is what the entire history of schisms in the church, going all the way back to the earliest church days in Rome, is all about.

There really is no way to respond to “God told me this is true”. There’s no argument against that. This is the whole problem with faith, right there. Someone who disagrees with you would simply say that you are taking the parts that God meant literally – Jesus’ talk of dividing families, for instance – and reading them far too metaphorically.

The Jesus of the NT is a mess, anyway – he spends half his time running around healing people and the other half threatening his disciples with all sorts of retribution if they tell anyone what he’s done. It’s like he’s in the closet himself.

I don’t think anyone should “respect” anything that don’t believe. But they should respect other’s rights to believe it.

Isn’t that the point? I don’t respect atheism as a philosophy, because I have considered its arguments and rejected them. But if you feel the opposite, thats your decision, and I respect your right to do so.

Logic and mass are the main tools that the less-powerful have in their struggle against the more-powerful.

Religion is harmful because it actively undermines logic, while artificially dividing the working class and distracting them with arbitrary crap. And the “pie in the sky when you die” stuff can have the effect of helping people tolate crap in the real world.

“There really is no way to respond to “God told me this is trueâ€?. There’s no argument against that. This is the whole problem with faith, right there”

Where you see a problem, I see a perk. I accept that my faith is irrational. I don’t try to argue for it in terms of logic and reason because that is a sucker bet. The language of logic is constructed to deny faith. And that is a good thing, it is the reason we have science, and as much as I believe in God, I believe in Science. But I really do subscribe to Gould’s non-overlapping majesteria, for the most part.

What, no vegetarians?

That’s just *your* opinion, Bubba.

I disagree in that charitable acts by Christians are generally held to follow the example of Jesus, but it’s God who chucks you into the lake of fire. The division between the invocation of Jesus and the invocation of God is pretty distinct from Pope to Falwell.

Obviously NT Jesus has some contradictions, but it’s a pretty sedate set of contradictions. Jesus kills nobody, accepts most everyone even if he disapproves of their doings, submits to lawful authority, blah blah. The threats he delivers tend to be of the “you’ll go to hell, but here: have a nice fish!” variety. The bible as a whole, on the other hand, contains the wars and struggles that mythologically inclined authoritarian gets some punch out of.

As you note, the fact is that people do find ways to get traction out of Jesus to serve what any reasonable person would call anti-Christian goals, but it’s a hard job. Regardless of whether you read Jesus literally or metaphorically, he’s pretty safe and appropriate for kindly grannies with doily fetishes. Stack up the kindly Jesus against the cranky Jesus and there’s your objective measurement.

Similarly, people try to deny the traction of Muhammad’s life as warmonger by implying that the fuzzy-headedness of Christian confusion will be found in equal measure in Islam. Simply not so.

Brian Schlosser,
As I said – fairly clearly, I thought – I respect people and I respect their right to believe and I respect their need to believe. I just think some of those beliefs, including all forms of Christianity, to be silly nonsense at best and harmful tools for social control at worst. I see no reason to use language less harsh than that nor do I see the help to anyone to pretend that I have some iota of respect for a dogma that, to me, is illogical, useless and potentially extremely harmful. If a person is using his religion as a weapong against society – for example, those who wish to muddle up science with nonsense like ID or express their bigotry against gays – I see no reason to “respect” that religion or that persona. William Donahue is a bigotted dirtbag, and the fact that he’s Catholic means absolutely nothing. He’d be a dispicable dirtbag no matter his faith, and I don’t understand why I have to pay him any attention (as the corporate media does*) because of his silly, irrational, outdated beliefs.

I do think sometimes, and with some empirical evidence, that the vast majority of American Christians don’t really care what someone believes, they just don’t want theirs challenged. This extends into almost damn near any sphere of intellectual life, but it goes doubly so in matters of religion. I think the whole “War on Christmas” and school prayer stupidity is part of it.

Again, I got no problem with people needing to believe. Just don’t expect me to take, say, your preacher or the pope or whomever more seriously than someone who thinks Elvis is still alive when it comes to debates of morality or public policy. They’re just not relevent.

* And apparently, he’s a represenative of all Catholics, regardless of political ideology, according to the corporate media. Another problem I have with religion in America is how much time American Christians whine about being oppressed as opposed to how little time they spend clearing out scum like Donahue or Pat Robertson or Jerry Falwell. They’re all Christians, too. But that’s a whole ‘nother discussion.

First off, let’s all say a prayer of thanks for George Carlin. Thank jebus someone can say this shit in public.
As one who was spared any kind of religious education as a child, I feel safe in saying atheism is the natural state of man. We don’t inherently believe in an imaginary pissy old man in the clouds, we’re scared into it. It’s natural to look for answers to big questions, but one of the many things I like about being an atheist is it’s ok for me to say i don’t know how to answer the question. Hell, I don’t know that it’s the right question to ask.
I’m no longer young enough to be reactionary against religion in general, but fuck this talk of uppity atheists. No, it ain’t like being black, I’d never claim it. But if atheists get pissy with the religious, well, it’s just as much the fault of the religious as us. Despite the bs rhetoric from the right, we’re not the ones claiming we know the fundamental truths of all reality and trying to force conversion on those poor pitiful unbelievers.
And we’re not the ones claiming to have a monopoly on morality. Like no one thought murder was a bad idea until Moses came down the mountain. Maybe instead of blaming atheism for Hitler n Stalin n Mao n etc, as they always do when trying to claim we’re amoral, the religious should look at themselves, and their pretense that the only way to be a good person is to swallow their cult bullshit.
mikey, as always, said it well. Religion is an allergic reaction by humanity, a sign our collective immune system hasn’t adapted to something yet. Atheists are the ones with antibodies, with the courage to live in reality and uncertainty. Arrogant as it may be, I take the rage thrown at atheists as ultimately borne of jealousy. Us atheists don’t jump through all those stupid hoops many religious folk must, and yet we’re still here, unsmited, gettin laid more often. We don’t need crutches to walk, n they hate us for that.

Look, I want to say the following things:

A) I am always right and everybody else is wrong about everything.

B) Regardless of what you believe, people tend to view themselves as if not the hero of their own stories, then definitely not the devil. So regardless of what they believe (or not), they have usually reached these conclusions through a lifetime of experiences and are fairly certain of their correctness on the matter. But since people are people, others don’t exactly see it the same way.

In my case, my religion saved me from a fate worse than death. You can call it a crutch. You can call it a means to keep me in line. You can call it divinely inspired. You could it all paranoid hallucinations and delusions brought on by the adult onset of schizophrenia. Personally, I don’t care how you index it. To me it doesn’t really matter.

Christians sometimes have difficulty understanding that an atheist sees little or no value in their rituals or beliefs. But equally atheists sometimes have a hard time seeing what they find to be superstitious nonsense has actual value to the people who practice them.

C) Can I just suggest that while rationality is in my opinion highly prized, most decisions humanity reaches on a daily basis are not driven primarily by weighing all the options, exploring all possibilities and going for what logically looks to be the best answer? Otherwise Pepsi would outsell Coke and I would be doing something else for a living.

It’s not as hard a job as you think it is, or Pat Robertson wouldn’t be as rich as he is. The real-world evidence stands in stark contrast to your claim here.

People who argue for Warrior Jesus over Hippie Jesus are certainly not lacking for massive numbers of followers. I obviously agree with you that they’re wrong – but the point is that it’s not as hard to make the case for Warrior Jesus as you think it is.

Either that, or millions of Americans are even dumber and more gullible than you seem willing to give them credit for. Either’s possible, I suppose.

It’s not as hard a job as you think it is, or Pat Robertson wouldn’t be as rich as he is. The real-world evidence stands in stark contrast to your claim here.

I disagree. Watch Pat Robertson: Jesus is merciful, God is not. He doesn’t make the case for Warrior Jesus, he makes the case for Judeo-Christian values, a sneaky code-phrase for “Moses kicked ass and so can we.”

I don’t think I’ve clarified myself enough here: what I’m getting at is that Jesus is ignored when convenient in favour of OT messages that sanctify bloodshed.

For verily I say unto you, Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled.

Respecting OT law is not ignoring Jesus, it’s doing what Jesus told you to.

Sorry His Grace. I managed not to include my current less reactionary stance.
Short version; believe whatever you want so long as it places no requirements or restrictions on me, cause i won’t pay them any heed
long version; see kierkegaard on pagan christians. religious folk who pay close attention to the true content of their chosen system tend to be the ones I get along best with.
christ was an interesting guy, if he existed, albeit kind of a pussy.

Pretty much every Internet debate on religion ends the same way. Interesting discussion. We know where we stand. We’re all individuals in this crazy world who make decisions based on life experiences. You know the rest.

Religion is good for many people. Faith is great for many people. Belief is wonderful for many people. I’m not one of those people. But my opinion does not mean some other person should feel threatened. We’re all humans who cope with life in our own way. Humans can be cruel. Humans can be kind. Individuals come up with all sorts of reasons to justify their existence.

As long as we don’t kill each other, it’s all gravy. Humans don’t agree to that idea often enough.

Matt: I think, then, that we are then in agreement that we (personally, and maybe all Liberals?) should always respect our fellow man, even if we think that some of their philosophic views are a load of fetid dingoes kidneys? And that that is what seperates us, the good guys, from the other guys?

I mean, can you imagine a thread on LGF, for example, that had atheists and believers alike agreeing to disagree with mutual respect?

And you know, there’s absolutely nothing in this world wrong with considering something a “crutch” and still a good thing. Music’s my brother’s crutch. My crutch is finding out about stuff I didn’t previously know (used to be called “natural philosophy”, but now I think it’s just being a geek). My mother’s crutch is her family and home. Friends of mine use art or writing or excercise or sports or relationships or politics as their own individual crutch and all of these are good things.

Hell, I have no problem with religion as a crutch as long as it’s acknowledged as that. Life is fucking tough for all but the very fortune very few (and those folks will still have hardships and trial and sickness and death) and none of us can get through it alone. There’s nothing in the spiritual that can’t be found in the secular, but there’s nothing wrong with a crutch. It’s just when that crutch is used as a weapon and when that crutch magically gives its user greater morality and wisdom despite any evidence to the contrary that I have a problem.

But crutches are cool. Shit, I’m a stoner, we know all about crutches.

http://www.danablankenhorn.com/2007/02/the_cultural_re.html

excerpt:

Democrats have often asked, why is religion such a big part of the conservative coalition? It’s religion’s job to enforce the cultural norms. Thus today the people least-trusted for positions of leadership are atheists, who don’t recognize the right of religious leaders to do this. In this way the Thesis becomes a win-win for both politicians and preachers.

Brian,
Yup, yup, and yup. In the past 10 years, my folks have gone back to the church. Growing up, my mother had nothing but disdain for the local churches – full of hypocrites, she said, and she was right – and we lived too far back out in the woods to get to any other. However, the church my mother went to as a little girl recently re-opened*, and my folks started going. Far as I knew, my dad was an atheist, but the whole experience has been good for them. As I said, they live out in the sticks, plus their health is getting worse as they age, and church is one of the few social activies they have availible to them. They know my brother and I are doubters (I’m a full-blown atheist and my brother drifts around in a Robert Anton Wilson-inspired form of quantum-woo atheism), and though it makes them a bit uncomfortable when the preacher says their boys are going to hell, they respect out decision and we respect theirs. I don’t pray with my family out of respect for them, not their religion.

I do, however, wish for a day when we have to stop kowtowing to garbage like Donahue because of their Special God Lapel Pin or when politicians of all stripes mouth platitudes to mushy-headed “faith and values” just for votes. It’s all just so much useless static and misdirection when there’s so much more important things to do.

* The church originally closed, when Momma was young, because the preacher was bonin’ half the housewives in the little community. Even more recently, it closed temporarily when the pastor – a real GOP “faith ‘n’ values” special – was caught fooling around in a rest room with a bunch of other dudes, including a high school teacher of mine. Gotta love the South, man.

I don’t think anyone should “respect� anything that don’t believe. But they should respect other’s rights to believe it.

Where this runs into trouble, of course, is where Believer Bob’s religion tells him that (a) Nonbeliever Nancy is headed for eternal hellfire and damnation if she doesn’t get right with Bob’s Deity of Choice; and (b) it’s Bob’s duty as a Believer to save Nancy from that horrible fate by any means necessary. Or, more succinctly, what if Believer Bob’s beliefs include a mandate — a direct instruction from his Deity of Choice — not to respect any different beliefs?

I’m all for respecting people’s opinions on anything, as long as they don’t interfere with anyone else’s life. But many religions seem to make a special effort to get in everybody else’s face with The One True Truth. And I will be damned (heh) if I will respect that kind of belief.

Another thought about crutches that I should have expressed before. Crutches are cool when and only when they’re used to help one get through life, not when one uses them to totally avoid life. Just like there’s miles between the guy who has drinks with friends on Friday afternoons and a full-on alcoholic, there’s a pretty glaringly obvious divide between them that use religion as a solace and spiritual guide and social outreach program and those who use it as, well, fundamentalists.

It’s a pretty obvious distinction, but I figure I should’ve made it in the first place.

Matt T has a point. I don’t mean to knock crutches, especially as a stoner too.
What I meant to knock was the petty, selfish mindset that thinks everyone is gimpy in the same way they are and should respond as they do, and is resentful of those who don’t have the same kind of limp. You know, the closeted gay man who hates those who aren’t afraid to be who they are like he is, the scared housewife who never lived a moment in her life and thinks everything she didn’t do is immoral and ungodly, the fat, cheetos stained, permanently single, livin in his mom’s basement, anti-abortion protestor who hates women for not having sex with him and thus wants to stop them from boinking at all, etc.
I think most people would benefit from taking a small amount of acid at least once in their life. But I don’t tell people who’ve never dosed, or never would, they’re going to hell.

Respecting OT law is not ignoring Jesus, it’s doing what Jesus told you to.

That’s a fun quote for making Christians squirm, but the net effect is generally a big “So what?” Did it make Jesus stone anybody? Confine a menstruating woman? Remove someone’s eye? Are all Christians following the OT to the letter? Of course not: they believe this makes them distinct from Jews. And they’re distressingly proud not to be Jewish.

The line as it exists now functions as an excuse for Robertson to say Judeo-Christian so he can get on his hobby-horse about David the warrior-king; it doesn’t make Jesus into an avatar of military might, and cannot.

The peace vs. sword bit is a more effective demonstration of Christ as potential military figure, but it simply doesn’t square with submitting to the authorities for the crucifiction. Similarly Revelations is pretty gory, but it’s prediction that doesn’t square with the life of Jesus: for all the blood it’s awfully hard to picture the guy with his foot on a pyramid of skulls.

Actually I think a good rejoinder to my argument might be those Left Behind books, which seem bloodthirsty.

Ah, isn’t it fun? Every time Liberals get together and talk religion, there are a few on the outer fringes that believe that being a theist of any kind makes you a pinhead, and the other side of the fringe that believes that their message of tolerance based on Jesus is the One True Way. And in the middle, the wide middle, are people whose belief is best summed up by the Wiccan Rede: “An it harm none, do what you will.”

This poll is part of a smear campaign against John McCain and Rudy Giuliani.

“We must respect the other fellow’s religion, but only in the sense and to the extent that we respect his theory that his wife is beautiful and his children smart.” — H. L. Mencken

How can John McCain be getting smeared?

George Bush

dadgummit, looks like the fever I’m running has taken away my ability to type.

That’s supposed to say that “George Bush isn’t running for President this time”.

Ah, isn’t it fun? Every time Liberals get together and talk religion, there are a few on the outer fringes that believe that being a theist of any kind makes you a pinhead, and the other side of the fringe that believes that their message of tolerance based on Jesus is the One True Way.

one mistake… i’ll fix it:

Ah, isn’t it fun? Every time a large group of people gets together and talk religion, there are a few on the outer fringes that believe that being a theist of any kind makes you a pinhead, and the other side of the fringe that believes that their message of tolerance based on Jesus is the One True Way.

I disagree, cleek. I’m in agreement with whoever upthread said you won’t find such a substantive yet mellow discussion of religion among a large group of people on a site like LGF (sorry I can’t be arsed to scroll up this ginormous thread to give credit), where one of the fringes must surely be “kill them all and let god sort them out” and a fringe consisting of “theists are pinheads” would be a rare sight indeed.

Also you skipped Jas’ last sentence: that in the wide middle are those who want to live and let live. I see evidence that such is true here in this discussion. I’ve seen evidence it’s not true among those who lean right to the same degree that most here lean left. I’d like to think that the middle is nice and wide among the public at large, but I have my doubts.

Finally: is that the real Gary? I’m thinking yes, since it’s so like him to decide that a broad-based opinion poll can be classified as a smear. But y’all are being so damned pleasant in your disagreements with each other here today that I welcome wholeheartedly Gary’s silly and irrelevant participation. Shalom, Gary!

Do ordinary Lutherans argue about the views held by the various Synods?

In SW Missouri, the answer to this would seem to be, ‘Yes,’ or, ‘Yes, at great length, and loudly, preferably at Thanksgiving dinner.’

*counting the days till I move back to Connecticut*

>’cause you ain’t in the club.

I’ll try that again.

http://img353.imageshack.us/img353/7587/bodysnatchersdi8.jpg

It’s jealousy. The idea of people living without a metaphysical security blanket leaves them feeling inadequate.

Matt T.:
William Donahue is a bigotted dirtbag, and the fact that he’s Catholic means absolutely nothing. He’d be a dispicable dirtbag no matter his faith, and I don’t understand why I have to pay him any attention (as the corporate media does*) because of his silly, irrational, outdated beliefs.

See, this is where I think the divide comes in.

Bill Donahue is a worthless scumbag, true. But he’d be a worthless scumbag no matter what falsehoods he was spouting off. Whether he was head of the “Catholic” League, the “Jewish” League, the “Brahman” League, or the “Atheist” League, he’d be the exact same mindless, bigoted, hateful creature he is.

So why is it that because he’s pretending he’s religious to spout off falsehoods, not only him, but the religion he’s twisting, perverting or outright ignoring also has to be targetted? It’s not even part of why Bill Donahue gets on TV, so to pretend that Catholicism is somehow the enemy, instead of specifically Bill Donahue, a hateful, misogynist xenophobe with delusions of grandeur entirely seperate from any professed religious beliefs, seems a bit disingenious.

He’s his own man, just as capable of being mocked on his own demerits.

Just like we shouldn’t make fun of Michelle Malkin for being Filipina or a woman, but because she’s a mindless hate-monster, I think we should be capable of making fun of Bill Donahue for being a deceitful hypocritical misogynistic blowhard demogogue who wouldn’t know a decent Christian if he slapped them in the face.

It’s jealousy. The idea of people living without a metaphysical security blanket leaves them feeling inadequate.

I’m going to try addressing this, by saying, I don’t give a shit that you think you’re free of metaphysical baggage.

Just like I don’t think fundies are going to sell any of us on “You’re just jealous because I’m SAVED, fuckers”, “they’re just jealous because I don’t need their metaphysical security blanket, because they’re so inadequate” isn’t going to sell anybody on you not thinking they’re valueless pinheads.

But hell, what do I know, I’m a religious commie. By stereotypical America’s outlook, I shouldn’t even exist.

I’m an atheist commie, Patkin, but I agree with you. There’s no benefit to such talk. To be honest, there have been many times the wife and I have talked about how much easier it would be to be able to believe, to sublimate everything to some supernatural power. Heck, who wouldn’t be happier knowing that everything good that happens is proof that god loves them and everything bad that happens is all part of god’s plan, too, so it’s a-okay!

I think part of the problem is that many people have never met an atheist (we’re a teensy weensy minority after all)

Every human is born an atheist.

nothing to add really, just a two cent lob: like all atheists, i’m only parked here in this particular belief system until something nice and provable comes along. when shiva/jesus/xenu shows up tomorrow with 27 heads and 4 genders and answers football players prayers by making them catch the ball etc. lots and lots of religious people are going to have apologize. “fuck”, they will say collectively, “i had it all wrong, i thought god had 23 heads and 3 genders and only was into baseball.”

except for atheists. we’ll just shrug our shoulders and say, “huh, look at that, god, 27 heads, whaddya know?” and continue to live our lives incorporating this new information.

and that, of course, is why we are sane, and all the others have a definably crazy set of beliefs. sorry guys, a spade is a spade. and those who can’t tell the difference between richard dawkins’ actual power on this earth and dobson, or khameini, or pope whatever, or GWB etc. are so stupid that it is not worth the time pretending to argue with them. it’s an idiotic point.

us atheists will continue to go on trying to solve the world’s problems here, and the rest of you lot can argue about how many angels dance on the heads of a pin. and if/when we save all of us with a good carbon scrubber or interplanetary travel or whatever, i don’t expect a thank from one goddamn religious person as their children are saved as well.

mikey:

The world no longer has any need for religion. Adults do not need fairy tales. We can accurately explain the way the universe works without resorting to gods and godlets. Praying is the same as doing nothing but you get to feel good about it. Sin and taboos are control methods, as are postmortem rewards and punishments. If we were allowed to actually have a conversation about these silly, unsupported and unsupportable beliefs, they would crash and burn in the sunlight of secular rational thought.

Yes, because looking at Sadly, No! every day, we both know that rationality is the majority stance of the world’s population.

Are you fucking kidding me? If tomorrow, the entire world became inherently rational, every government official would be lynched in the street. Every corporation would be burnt to the ground. Every religious leader would be set on fire and then beaten out with sticks. Sure, we might eventually get around to rebuilding the first of those, eventually, but as current civilization goes, it only really works so long as there’s a number of unfounded irrational assumptions floating about.

I know there’s this dream of Ideal Rationalist Thought that makes the runs, that if we just talk things out like adults Christianity will vanish forever!, but I’m not buying it. People are irrational. They like being irrational. Supposing that some miracle is going to come by that makes everyone click on to inherent rationality all the time is as much a pipe dream as the fundie’s Rapture.

huh?

Why would a rational person ever beat another person to death with a stick?

If that’s your idea of rationality, I do hope you stay religious.

huh?

If that’s your idea of rationality, I do hope you stay religious.
So, is the whole of your complaint with what I just said that I came up with far too glib a response to how New Rational Society would deal with religious leaders?

Just wondering.

also, can i add, just while i’m here:

is there a bigger tool anywhere in the universe than ann althouse? she is unbelievably stupid. extraordinary.

sorry, done now. and jillian, i think you are hearing a bit of projection from our god-fearing friend.

Rational people don’t support lynch mobs.

Rational people may – or may not – support the death penalty, but a lynch mob is by defintion irrational.

Besides – in a “rational society”, there wouldn’t be any religious leaders, remember? 😉

Oh yeah, I just love hitting religious leaders with sticks after setting them on fire!

did I not close a tag?

I hate when I do that.

So here’s the Patkin solution? People are inherently irrational, so don’t bother to ask for any kind of rigorous rationality? What the hell is that? Am I missing something? What are you really saying? People are born without knowledge, so we shouldn’t educate them? I’m sorry, P, I just don’t understand your point. Is is rhetoric? Is it prescriptive? People are not rational, so let them prevent the distribution of condoms in sub saharan africa? People are irrational, so let’s find a way to dilute science education in the public schools? What is it you are saying?

mikey

Not sure I really want to jump into this one, but Patkin, seriously: where’s the link to rationality in any of what you described? How would rationality lead to lynching government officials, burning corporations to the ground and clubbing/immolating religious leaders? Historically, those very actions have tended to be committed in the name of (no, not rationality) . . . religion.

Rational people don’t support lynch mobs.

Besides – in a “rational societyâ€?, there wouldn’t be any religious leaders, remember? 😉

Alright then, second paragraph should be scratched.

I still think my last statement holds true however. Convincing ourselves that we’re going to see an entirely rational society in our lifetimes so long as human beings remain human seems a bit farfetched.

Human beings are perfectly capable of being rational.

It’s just an exceptionally difficult thing to do, and therefore even the most rational of us will screw it up a lot.

That’s why it requires all of us, all the time, being committed to being rational in order for us as a species to be any good at it.

It’s the reason why I am opposed to any sort of religion whatsoever, in any form. It’s an indulgence in irrationality that humanity can ill afford if we hope to ever get our collective heads screwed on straight.

Besides, just because it’s difficult doesn’t mean we shouldn’t strive for it. We still work for peace, despite the fact that there’s never been more than a year or two of peaceful coexistence in all of human history. We don’t give up on that, do we?

Patkin,
My problem with Donahue’s Catholocism isn’t his beliefs or even the dogma of the Church. It’s that his bigotry and ugliness seemingly gets a pass from the corporate media – and a disturbingly large number of liberal Christians – because he speaks as a religious leader. He speaks for Catholics, whether Catholics want him to or not, and he’s the go-to guy for the “religious side” of certain social arguments. Furthermore, he speaks from a religious perspective, therefore to debate him, you have to bring his religion into the picture. His very reason to be is making his Catholocism an issue where it really shouldn’t be.

I fully agree that his religion, like Malkin’s ethnicity or gender, shouldn’t be an issue when there’s so much more that’s specifically disgusting. People do fall into that trap far too easily, and it’s that much harder to be the “good guy” in the debate when Donahue’s basically using his religion as a shield so that he can make his disgusting, hateful statements.

I’ve long wondered why progressive Christians don’t do more to work against people like Donahue or Robertson or Phelps, or at the very least push spokespeople who don’t make Christianity look like a bigotted, hateful, represive, ignorant, fearful religion. Rev. Barry Lynn…who else? I also wonder what Christians think when they see guys like Donahue spewing his filth and speaking for their faith. Not being a Christian, I don’t think I have much room to speak on the hows and whys, but it’s always made me wonder.

And if you could suddenly flip a magical rational switch, I really don’t think there’d be that much muderin’ and lootin’ and burnin’ of things. Sure, there’d be some, but there’d be a whooooole helluva lot of apologizing and owing up to being dead wrong for a long damn time, then we’d get on with the bidness of the human race. Rational people are able to forgive and move on, especially when the only other option is chaos.

Convincing ourselves that we’re going to see an entirely rational society in our lifetimes so long as human beings remain human seems a bit farfetched

Ahh. Ok. Well, I respectfully disagree. Oh, you’re absolutely right. I won’t get what I want in my lifetime. Should I just give up? Not fight them where I can, not prevent them from dumbing and weakening my society? You and I, young man, take different approaches to challenges, it seems…

mikey

mikey:

People are inherently irrational, so don’t bother to ask for any kind of rigorous rationality? What the hell is that? Am I missing something? What are you really saying? People are born without knowledge, so we shouldn’t educate them? I’m sorry, P, I just don’t understand your point.

Mankind is irrational. We can on occasion behave in what we perceive as rational, but nobody’s perfect at it. As a result, dreaming of a day of perfect rationality from everybody is a bit daft. What we can reasonably expect and prepare for is general rationality from the populace, and work to handle the irrational behavior everybody is going to exhibit eventually.

People are not rational all the time, so we can’t expect them to always be rational when we want them to be.

People are not rational, so let them prevent the distribution of condoms in sub saharan africa? People are irrational, so let’s find a way to dilute science education in the public schools?

Not even part of what I’m saying.

Smiling Mortician:

As far as I can see (and I’ll admit, I may be irrational in this), if someone was behaving rationally and saw a corrupt government, they’d purge it of the corrupt and try to rebuild it. If someone was behaving rationally and saw a corrupt corporation taking money from the poor and giving it to the extravagently rich, they’d tear it down and redistribute the wealth.

The last was just me being glib.

People are not rational, so let them prevent the distribution of condoms in sub saharan africa? People are irrational, so let’s find a way to dilute science education in the public schools?

Not even part of what I’m saying,

Ok. Well, then, what are you saying? I don’t want the irrational madness of belief by grownups in mythological constructs to impact our society. I want to hold the line, support empiricism and the scientific method and a rational worldview. If you are not suggesting I do not do that, what is the point of your dissent?

mikey

Patkin:

Mankind is irrational

I disagree. Humans are sometimes rational and sometimes irrational. I think that’s what makes us humans. You sort of acknowledge this a few lines further down in your last comment.

dreaming of a day of perfect rationality from everybody is a bit daft

Yeah, it probably would be. But I don’t think anyone here was dreaming. Mikey in particular was talking about working toward a more rational society. Working ain’t dreaming, at least not in the pejorative “dream on” sense.

if someone was behaving rationally and saw a corrupt government, they’d purge it of the corrupt and try to rebuild it. If someone was behaving rationally and saw a corrupt corporation taking money from the poor and giving it to the extravagently rich, they’d tear it down and redistribute the wealth.

It’s likely that The Rationals would indeed want to replace the corrupt government and reallocate the wealth of the corrupt corporation. But how you got from there to lynched in the street and burned to the ground is what I objected to.

I am very proud that one of my forbears on my maternal side was an outspoken atheist who lived in deepest North Carolina soon after the Civil War.

He apparently achieved a good deal of notoriety in his area, due to this fact: whenever the Bible-thumpers would come to town and set up their tents to hold a big revival meeting, my ancestor would put up a big tent on his property to hold an atheist revival meeting!

Matt T.:

I can only give my perspective as an ex-Catholic, but…

Bill Donahue basically gets a pass by liberal Christians because we don’t see much of what we can do about him. He’s a hateful prick demagogue that gets on TV as often as the media wants to make a rating spike. In quiet moments, there’s the mild fantasy that guys like him are going to really suffer when they find out they’ve been condemned to hell, and thus a lot of people sublimate their hatred for the man by thinking he’ll get his eventually.

I know that’s not very helpful in the here and now, but I think that “he’ll get his!” impulse is a lot of the reason why otherwise centrist or progressive Catholics are willing to let him make a sinner out of himself.

There’s also the point that centrist or progressive Catholics just aren’t very interesting figures for the media to pit against him. I mean, with a live and let live philosophy going on for most of them, it’s not very good TV when you can pit Donahue, a hateful bastard, versus a militant secularist or an unthinking, unblinking talking head to feed him lines.

There’s a presumption here that you can wake people up. I kind of think you can, at least from particular religions, but I think the style of thinking that results in religion is a part of humanity. Most of us have a little magical thinking going on, or the ability to think that Anna Nicole/sports team is some sort of representation of something supernaturally important.

We’re creative folks and see lots of connections in things, and if religion dies tomorrow it’ll be back the day after that in some form be it shoe-following or gourd-following just because we are the way we are.

I like being a snooty atheist and all, but humans are myth factories and myths that take flight get called religions.

I really don’t think that an individual, a solitary individual, who sees corruption in government or corporations and tries to tear it down and completely invert the existing scenario is all that “rational”. Now, organizing with others and working towards the elimination of corruption in government and corporate America…you know, I’m not a hundred percent sure that’d be “rational” either. Just because something is rational doesn’t neccessarily mean it’s morally good, does it? I think rationality – that is, basing decisions on evidence and study rather than superstition or strong emotions – is less a lifestyle choice a la religion, despite what Robert Anton Wilson thought, and more a tool to choose what is or isn’t the best course of actions. Morality plays into that, sure, but as soon as you try tying that down, you start chasing your tail.

And it should be noted, particularly when it comes to discusions about the appropriate level of religion in the public sphere, that irrational decisions made on a personal level are a whole different kettle of catfish than irrational decisions that affect the great swath of folks. For example, I love the Three Stooges but I would not be so presumptuous to base public policy on, say, the one where the boys are in a courtoom and the bailiff keeps telling Curly to “drop the vernacular” and Curly says “That’s a doiby!”

Man, that cracks me right up.

I don’t want the irrational madness of belief by grownups in mythological constructs to impact our society. I want to hold the line, support empiricism and the scientific method and a rational worldview. If you are not suggesting I do not do that, what is the point of your dissent?

“The world no longer has any need for religion”, “fairy tales”, “madness”.

My dissent is with how you color your stand. As if the forces of chaos are standing on the border if even one person goes “yeah, all those are great, but I also like this idea here.”

I’m all for all the things you stand for. I just don’t think those things are neccesarily the only things humanity should stand by. But it becomes this very binary conversation where either I *fear* God (and really, why should I?), or I support the scientific method and empiricism. And I think that ignores a lot of the depth of human character to be simultaneously rational and irrational in what they believe in. Right now, irrationality is influencing way too much of American culture in specific, and that should be changed. But I think that accepting that irrationality is always going to influence society to some degree is itself, rational.

Smiling Mortician:
But how you got from there to lynched in the street and burned to the ground is what I objected to.

I’m a glib person and choose the wrong phrasing on occasion. Well, frequently. Most of the time.

Patkin,
Yeah, I realize the whole question of Donahue’s ilk and the corporate media is out of y’all’s hands for a number of reasons, including everything you mentioned. It’d be nice if I could turn on, say, Bill O’Reilly and not know when the religious perspective is given, it’s gonna be given by a complete frothing maniac. Still, it can be done. The Religious Right didn’t just pop up over night; they spent the better part of three decades getting to the position where a shitstain like Donahue can get away with saying he speaks for every Christian in the country.

I’m apparently insane, I’m someone who believes in God who wishes all our elected officials were athiests. And as a Catholic who left the church because the things I disagreed with it about outweighed the things I agreed with, I would definitely be wary of voting for a Catholic. Liberal Catholics, sure, but conservative Catholics scare the fuck out of me.

Well, okay, conservative anythings scare the fuck out of me, athiests included, but you get what I mean, I think. I hope.

The problem, Patkin, is that there is no generally accepted way of advocating consistently between irrational beliefs.

If I’m going to accept the irrational belief in God, based on how I feel about that belief, how do I tell another person to reject the irrational belief in racism, which they base on how they feel about black people?

Rejedcting the rational standard in discourse leaves us with no ground to stand on when it comes to rejecting harmful beliefs other than “I don’t like that”. It’s not a particularly sound footing.

Sorry you guys. I didn’t go to college, and I’m not real good at navel gazing. I see something that I believe is crazy, I want to find a way to resist. On a philosophical level, I find religion crazy. But on a real, right now level, I know that the catholic church is the only organization delivering services at a relatively high level to sub saharan africa, and they will not even allow other NGOs to distribute condoms. They are educating the survivors, but people are dying wholesale. And they are standing by. Delivering fresh water and salvation to people with kaposis. Pardon me for my phraseology, but jeezuss christ!! In other news, there is an organized effort underway to teach christian dogma as science to high school students. Is that ok with you? Should I shut up because to resist this program is fucking rational? We won in Dover, PA. There is ground to be gained. Victory? Stupid word. But you don’t quit ’cause it’s too hard to fight…

mikey

I do not believe in the “perfectibility” of society. When people start talking about the goal of rationality or the superiority of reason, it reminds me of creepy Objectivist talk. Sure, I love logic and reason. I try to inform people about the benefits of my system of thought, but there is no guarantee anyone will listen. We just have to make our case. If fundamentalists want to destroy society with a murderous theocratic regime…….well, I’m going to oppose that.

In a democratic society, the interactions between individuals are crucial to the survival of the state (if that’s what you want). So rather than try to encourage people to think like us, we should warn them to be wary of demogogues. There is no guarantee it will work. Germans voted for that Hitler fuck and then acted all surprised when their country was destroyed after WWII. A lot of people died for nothing (hmm, aren’t all wars like that?).

In conclusion, I love logic and reason, but people are inherently screwballs. Collectively as individuals (did I just blow your mind?), we need to stick together and tell the corrupt authority to fuck off.

Wait, was I supposed to be talking about religion?

I just don’t think those things are neccesarily the only things humanity should stand by

mikey

I checked. That tag is perfectly well closed. This site is not well behaved…

mikey

* And apparently, he’s a represenative of all Catholics

Not that it matters, because we here can all agree he’s a paid hitman and a lunatic, but Donohue’s not a Catholic. He rejects Vatican II, making him by definition a heretic.

And mikey, go on with yo bad self. Speaking up emphatically about the superiority of reason over religion when it comes to public policy should not not NOT be an issue this many years after the framing of the Constitution. However, since it is, let’s keep on saying it.

Jiggavegas,
Ah, but when I turn on the news, I see “William Donahue of the Catholic League” speaking for all Catholics and no one bringing up the whole Vatican II thing. It is as you say, apparently, “not that it matters”.

Why doesn’t anyone point that out on these shows, is my question.

I am trying to feed a movement. I am trying to make that unnesesary, because it is. I say our icons are the Hubble and chandra and stem cells and microchips and software. I’m saying that humans have an opportunity to leave the madness behind and become something more. I’m saying we can end war and grow into a greater destiny. And I don’t need you to buy the program. But why would you resist it?

Because I’ve heard that sales pitch plenty of times before in history, and well, here we are now, no better off, with a couple more gadjets and couple more lines in the sand to divide us. So I’m always skittish around people that give me “we can make a better world”, because I know that precedent says bad things are coming from it.

Maybe I’m just contrary by nature. Maybe I’m lazy. Maybe I don’t have a thing to kill for or die for. But when I here “become something more” and “greater destiny” I start looking for the exits, you know?

PREVIEW BUTTON! WHY?!

Why doesn’t anyone point that out on these shows, is my question.

Talking heads don’t care, Catholics who care don’t get on, and his opponents are either ineffectual, don’t want to raise a fuss, or don’t care about the distinction.

Rationality is as much a construct as God. It’s a much more useful construct, especially today, but ultimately rationality depends as much on unprovable principles as any religion, namely the presumption of an abstract ideal of rationality, which exists independent of man.
Thhhhhppppttt.
I’m an atheist cause that’s how I see it. There are people I love who love Jesus, because that’s what they have found in themselves. If it works for them and they aren’t forcing it on me, what right do I have to tell them a damn thing? Rationality is like God in that it’s an appeal to a transcendent authority to justify actions. Problem is that’s not really an option. So long as being rational is useful, awesome. But sometimes it’s not, and trying to be always rational is, to me, just as bad as trying to be a Flanders-style do everything in the Bible even the contradictory stuff christian.What works is what works, and while I think belief in God is fundamentally stupid so long as someone isn’t making their belief my problem I don’t have much of a right to give a shit.

So I’m always skittish around people that give me “we can make a better world�, because I know that precedent says bad things are coming from it.

Man, dood. Ummm. I don’t know how to respond to this. If you don’t want to leave the world better than you found it, there’s only two other possibilities. One, you want to make the world a worse place. Or two, you just couldn’t give a fuck. Sorry if you don’t approve of my work. Know what? Fuck you. I’ve been in third world countries, I’ve been in war, I’ve come by my personal philosophy by living and dying and killing, saving lives and taking lives and wasting lives. I can’t even tell you how much I DON’T need your approval. I cannot understand why you think these goals are wrong, but just stay outta the way and we’ll do fine…

mikey

diffbrad, you dissappoint.

Rational = measureable, falsifieable. See Scientific method.

Faith = not measureable, not falsifieable. See hallucination, myth, fantasy

I mean, I get you hella educated guys talk about shit the rest of us don’t get, and that’s as should be, ’cause you guys know more shit. So I just try to keep it simple…

mikey

Thing is, mikey, there’s limits to reason. And times where reason has no place. You should read some Nietzsche, you’d like him. He’s very readable, and I think you have the right ear for his style.
Anyways, I think rationality is well and good, and you and I would probably be in 99.99% agreement as to when it should be made use of. I just don’t buy the claims of transcendence, of being more than man. It’s of us, by us, for us, just like God. And like religion, there are times when rationality tries to horn in on things it has no business being part of. Overdependence on any one instinct, will, whatever you want to call it, is unhealthy.

Mikey, being a little hard on Patkin, aren’tcha? He’s talking about utopianism’s dark undertone, not saying we shouldn’t bother to do good works. I think.

With you on the thing about rationality v. faith, though. Holy fuck I hate false equivalencies, and that one’s the falsest of all.

Jesus, is there another service attack going on? I keep not managing to see my replies post.
I’m not participating in the false equivalency of reason and faith as the context of what I was saying. Reason beats faith. But, while I don’t know about you, I don’t want everything I do in life to be reasonable. Some of the best choices I’ve made seemed very unreasonable, and some of the worst seemed very rational.

What about agnostics?

If you don’t want to leave the world better than you found it, there’s only two other possibilities. One, you want to make the world a worse place. Or two, you just couldn’t give a fuck. Sorry if you don’t approve of my work. Know what? Fuck you.

And that’s why I’m skittish.

I’m very dedicated to making the world a better place, mikey. I just don’t agree to people telling me how I should help them with their movement to make a better world unless I get a game plan. So it’s “fuck you, I don’t need your approval!”, “you’re either with me, or you’re the enemy, or you might as well be.”.

Movements are ugly creatures, mikey. Movements that think they’re on the right side are well… what Sadly, No! makes fun of every day. And the scary part about those movements is that sometimes, they actually come from good intentions. Sometimes they actually do mean well. Sometimes they want to help mankind advance beyond irrationality, attain a greater destiny, become something more…

But they don’t. And then the movement turns on itself, and becomes something mean, and bleak and hateful; something that it originally shouldn’t have been.

Your goals are in the right place, but it’s built on something so implausible (“remove irrationality from society”) that you may as well compare notes with the “if we kill all of them, they’ll greet us as liberators” folk.

Mikey, being a little hard on Patkin, aren’tcha? He’s talking about utopianism’s dark undertone, not saying we shouldn’t bother to do good works. I think

Fuck, I didn’t mean to. I don’t know from utopianism’s dark undertone. I’m not sure what it means. Patkin has always been a strong, passionate voice, and I wouldn’t want to bagg that. We were working on clarity, not compatibility…

mikey

He’s talking about utopianism’s dark undertone, not saying we shouldn’t bother to do good works. I think.

Thank you for putting that better than I have. I think.

I just don’t agree to people telling me how I should help them with their movement to make a better world unless I get a game plan. So it’s “fuck you, I don’t need your approval!�, “you’re either with me, or you’re the enemy, or you might as well be.�.

That’s just weird. Let me be clear. I am NOT recruiting. You are most specifically NOT invited to play on my team. I’m not saying ONE DAMN THING about you or what you should do. If that’s what you’re hearing, rest easy, son. I’m talking ONLY about what I’m about. I’ll do what I can for my “movement”. You are neither requested to storm the bastille nor hang out with us on Haight in ’68. You are not necessary, but you are welcome. Do you get that?

mikey

when i disagree with a religious person, the worst of think of them is “wow, that guys is an idiot/asshole/moron.”

when a religious person of almost any stripe disagrees with me, he or she thinks “that person is going to spend a long time/an aeon/eternity in pain/suffering/a lake of fire.”

and that’s just the afterlife.

there sure are plenty of religious people on this earth who would quite like to proscribe my behavior, or end my life entirely, as well. it is just a joke to pretend that there is an equivalency here. religious people, by saying that rational doesn’t matter, can (and do) say anything they want, make any claim they want, without fear of contradiction on their terms. the byproduct of this tends to be a much more dangerous world for me and and my kids. atheists tend to, at worst, write angry but quite well-argued and convincing tracts (see harris, sam, or dawkins, richard).

and don’t throw any of that lenin malarkey at me–communism was most assuredly a religion. not to open a can of worms or anything…

Every agnostic must have a *working assumption* on which they base their actions. In my experience, they are simply closeted atheists.

I am NOT recruiting. You are most specifically NOT invited to play on my team. I’m not saying ONE DAMN THING about you or what you should do. If that’s what you’re hearing, rest easy, son. I’m talking ONLY about what I’m about. I’ll do what I can for my “movement�. You are neither requested to storm the bastille nor hang out with us on Haight in ‘68. You are not necessary, but you are welcome. Do you get that?

Works for me.

We’re not going to see eye to eye on this (after all, I have my own hoepless utopian dream to work on), but I think we can gree that the main goal is to leave the world better off than it is. I’m looking for a globe without borders and a government that leaves no one hungry, sick, jobless or homeless, and you want to remove irrationality from societal discourse.

We’re all tilting at our own personal windmills. 😉

when a religious person of almost any stripe disagrees with me, he or she thinks “that person is going to spend a long time/an aeon/eternity in pain/suffering/a lake of fire.�

Because all religious people believe in a place of suffering in the afterlife!

Well, a couple religions do.

Well, the Abrahamic religions do.

Well, Christians and Muslims do, and sometimes Jews if you ask them about it, but it’s apparently not really a big thing for their day-to-day lives.

But it’s applicable to all religions.

Ha! Good show, Patkin. Way to use elegant simplicity to make one of the points so many have labored so hard to almost make.

BTW, is it just me, or did the time-stamp go off on a bender with the preview button?

I am with the person who called Dawkins out. He does not present an appealing personality for your peeps.

Also, that Sam Harris is something else.

And there was that thing with Stalin, Mao, etc…

Are all atheists bloodthirsty butchers willing to kill or starve millions of their own people? Of course not. Neither are all Christians nutcases who think the world is 6,000 years old.

However, for my part, I am perfectly willing to vote for an atheist. I just need to be able to trust the person, as much as I could any politician. My issue is not with whether such a person has “values”, “morals,” or “ethics.” I just do not trust what they trust. I do not share what they hope for, and see what they would place trust and hope in as extremely tenuous at best. Granted, you can say the same about Christian hope, what I hold to, but I am going with the best bet I can see. If they are both illusions, we are both wrong. If mine is an illusion or delusion, I have lost nothing. At least I lived with the illusion of hope in a meaningless existence.

I am with the person who called Dawkins out. He does not present an appealing personality for your peeps.

I enjoy him, but if I met him I would be SOOOO tempted to say “why are there still monkeys around if we evolved from them? HUHHHHH???”

He’s funny when he’s miffed. He is, however, perfectly willing to entertain the criticism of himself as arrogant and jerky, which is far more adult than I am when confronted with such things.

And there was that thing with Stalin, Mao, etc…

Oh those two. They were gods.

So much for my plans to run as a blasphemous old queen.

For me, ‘becoming an atheist’ was a Santa Claus moment, I wouldn’t have thought much more of it, but, I let out in junior high that I was an atheist, quoth I: “Du-uh!”

Unfortunately, at the point where the ‘teacher found out,’ I discovered that I had really done an “oopie.” The next day had lectures in each of my classes about how we are all secular but agreed on our Christianity. This was southwest, suburban Florida.

And dang, parts of it all sucked, but to put it as succinctly as possible: that is where I became radicalized. I’d have never gotten a chance to bond with those greasers or learn what a boring, pitiful man the principal was. I would never have come across Chick Tracts.

So, as someone who has gotten a very, small, wee taste of what it is like to not otherwise *totally* qualify as “Whitey McWhiterson, College Track Dude,” you Cafeteria Christians leave a lot to be wanted. For me, it’ll take more than the UCC going out on a limb and saying “gays are people.”

You people, who feel entitled to the great American ecumenical benefice of being “people of faith,” are all agents of the most potent ideological state apparatus yet concieved, and refuse to admit that non-participants may feel a little ill-served.

Thus, before you find any more motes in mine eye, I would just ask you to do the Christian thing:

Spend a week in my shoes.

Be the most sincere atheist you can be. For a week. I don’t care how you explain your ‘testing’ to your community.

Let me know if your community lives up to your expectations. I’d expect “Prodigal Son,” but yours may have different interpretations.

After that, we could discuss how your belief in an invivisible friend who makes sure everything go right, really freaks me out..

They hate us for our Freedom.

I would expect my community to do everything they could to make me see the error of my ways and bring me back into the light of Christ. What else should I expect? If they truly loved me they would try to intervene and stop me from following the path of destruction before it was too late. If they did not I must say that I would be truly disappointed indeed.

I guess I’ll drop out of the race. I thought that my status as a 72-year-old homosexual atheist was a slam dunk . . .

If they are both illusions, we are both wrong. If mine is an illusion or delusion, I have lost nothing. At least I lived with the illusion of hope in a meaningless existence.

See, this is just incredibly insulting and condescending, and it’s the kind of thing atheists get all the damn time. This is what is known as Pascal’s Wager, and it’s a logical fallacy from the first word to the last. It’s also shallow and ignorant, because it operates on the assumption that an atheist’s life is “meaningless”.

Should I read that statement as saying that theists think my life is meaningless, so they can therefore assume it’s okay to kill me if they want? After all, nobody would be affected by my death, would they?

And all the ad hominem slams against Dawkins do nothing to refute his arguments, you know.

BTW, is it just me, or did the time-stamp go off on a bender with the preview button?

I’ve been wondering about that, after a couple of examples where one of Mikey’s responses shows up in the thread before the Gary Ruppert masterpiece of flaming which it was supposed to be responding.
It’s not a good look.

Personally I suspect that someone covered the Preview Button with fur, and sneaked it into the house of a cat hoarder, where it is now living companionably among 37 cats of various breeds and ages.

What a bunch of whiners. Who cares if people you think are idiots believe you are immoral or incapable of leading a meaningful life. There is a reason you think they are idiots. Also, who cares if people you believe are immoral and lead meaningless lives think you are an idiot. Why take criticism of immoral people seriously.

Jillian – Pascal’s Wager is not a logical fallacy. It could however be invalid.

Should I read that statement as saying that theists think my life is meaningless, so they can therefore assume it’s okay to kill me if they want? After all, nobody would be affected by my death, would they?

This is a bit far, wouldn’t you think?

I mean, I think Paris Hilton’s life is meaningless, it doesn’t necessarily mean I intend to kill her.

The common perception of the atheist worldview is, however, one that presupposes an overall lack of meaning in the universe and equally in the human race and the individual person. After all, if life is in essence just the continuation of genetic codes through generations, if life on Earth is basically a fluke, to a theist, these ideas do imply a lack of meaning in everything important to their perception of life.

That is, one’s life is meaningless. Whatever one does from there is anyone’s choice, but there’s no starting reason for your existence except your parents boned and didn’t wear protection.

I might be wrong in this perception, I am, after all, a theist, but that’s still the impression I get after years of discussing this with atheist/agnostic friends.

And all the ad hominem slams against Dawkins do nothing to refute his arguments, you know.

No, but they are so gosh darn fun.

Richard Dawkins has a stinky butt!

STINKY BUTT!

Why laugh? We laugh at them because they admit to being so scared of the idea that things might be “meaningless” that they are willing to accept the clearly nonsensical in place of a simple “No one knows.”

And not just any nonsensical story, no — only the most popular one that all the other cool, non-brown-skinned terrified people are hiding from the truth behind is acceptable. All the other ones are obviously just wrong and nonsensical.

And not only that, we must kill anyone who believes them.

What a bunch of whiners. Who cares if people you think are idiots believe you are immoral or incapable of leading a meaningful life.

Apparently you didn’t read the George H.W. Bush quote or Jillian’s comments concerning the Dominionist/Theonomy movement and its foothold in the US political scene. It matters because they will effectively “remove” atheist from society if they get their way. (You are aware that Dominionists/Theonomists believe in applying capital punishment for all the “capital crimes” proscribed in the Old Testament aren’t you? Check out Leviticus sometime.)

BTW, I find this piece on human morality very interesting.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/31/health/psychology/31book.html?pagewanted=1&ei=5088&en=dd885d3ad10a7340&ex=1319950800&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss

If God existed, we would have to kill Him.

Luckily, He doesn’t.

Jillian at 12:09:

I am very sorry. Yes, it is Pascal’s Wager. I should have credited it.

I did NOT mean to suggest anything of the sort, regarding the worth or meaning of a person’s life. Or to suggest that atheists have no meaning in their life. All I was TRYING to say was that, at base, when I consider the universe without God, it seems empty and ultimately devoid of hope and meaning. For me. I was atheist at one point in my life. I just found it did not work for me.

Regarding the ad hominem attack, guilty. Sorry. I just did not have a lot of time. I will try to be more exacting in my attacks.

Really, I am sorry. I did not mean to give offense. Xtians are annoying enough as it is, because we just ride the morality bandwagon nonstop over other people’s lives. I did not mean to cause anyone offense. I was just trying to offer some reason why someone might still have faith in a “god or godlet” in this day and age, and I just dashed something off. Have a good day, Jillian.

The correct response to pascal’s wager is to worship satan. there are so many religions to choose from and they fall into 2 categories.
1. ‘god’ is very finicky – if you don’t pick exactly the right religion and exactly the right religious sect and do all it’s little hand gestures or whatever, exactly right – fiery hell for you.
2. ‘god’ is merciful. he doesn’t care what the fuck you do, you get a free pass into heaven.

if case 1 is the TRUTH – odds are very good that you are going to hell. if case 2 is true – you are going to heaven. if neither is true – you disappear into nothingness.

your best long term choice while alive is to mitigate the drawbacks of going to hell. so…. you worship satan. you sacrafice some small animals (strangely, just like those old testament dudes did) and you drink a little blood, you listen to bad norwegian metal. if case 1 is true, you die, you go to hell, you get a nice cushy job – maybe in marketing – while the godly men who picked mormonism over snakehandling burn for eternity. the only logical thing to do is to worship the dark lord.

i think that all of our elected officials should be forced to fill out a 40 page questionairre about their religious beliefs. I guarantee you that those percentages would change in a hurry.

Just 40 pages of:

Do you believe in an actual physical hell of fire and brimstone?
Do you believe that dinosaurs were present on Noah’s ark?
Do you believe in the that if the muslims are driven from the holy land that jesus will return?
Do you believe in an alien galactic ruler named Xenu?

after 40 pages of that, only athiests would get any votes at all.

i honestly feel that we have a right to know what fucked up shit our elected officials actual believe.

I am a tolerant atheist in my day to day life – I have to be as I am married to a devout quaker. But once I start reading some of comments that theists make about athiests I start to get intolerant pretty quickly.

All I was TRYING to say was that, at base, when I consider the universe without God, it seems empty and ultimately devoid of hope and meaning.

I just so “love” this line of argument. I get it from my fundie relations all of the time. It assumes that human beings are incapable of finding meaning on our own. To me it’s like the “nanny state” that conservatives are always going on about writ large. It’s the “Daddy Universe”.
There is no meaning unless it comes down from the great sky fairy. Packaged with the meaning are restrictions on your actions.
Careful where you put that penis! Great sky fairy has designed it solely for procreation. You go to hell for endless rounds of torture if you trip and stick it in an unapproved orifice.
Careful who you believe in – you have got to choose just the right flavor of great sky fairy from a bewildering array of choices. You go to hell for endless rounds of torture if you pick the wrong one.
etc.
etc.
until you vomit.
Then there is:
And there was that thing with Stalin, Mao, etc…
Now I am pretty sure that this is made ironically, but I hear this one a lot too. Other commenters have stated that communism is itself a form of religion – I disagree. Stalin, Mao, Kim Il-Jung created state religions based on themselves. Communist rhetoric played part in the structure of the state religions as they had a ready made language of us vs. them for the totalitarians to draw upon. Hitler ( a self identified catholic – check out Mein Kampf) did much the same thing – with slightly different language. To my mind these totalitarian societies differed in only very slightly from one another; almost imperceptibly. It brings to mind medieval tensions over which direction to cross oneself. Right to left or left to right – we will kill you if you get it wrong.

As for Dawkins: from a religious perspective I think his most dangerous point is this (paraphrased):
Even moderate religions should be denigrated as it creates the environment that fundamentalism requires to survive and thrive.
The only way to rid ourselves of divisive and corrosive fundamentalism is to reject religion completely.

damn – got my Kims mixed up. Should be Kim Il Sung.

See crap like this happens frequently: “After student raises ire over teacher telling class disbelievers ‘going to hell,’ he faces death threats”

http://www.rawstory.com//news/2007/High_school_student_finds_allies_in_0220.html

I really have no reason to think the family or young man is lying about the harassment and threats. If it happens frequently that athiests and people wanting seperation of church and state are threatining the religious with death please fill me in. ???

ironicname: As for Dawkins: from a religious perspective I think his most dangerous point is this (paraphrased):
Even moderate religions should be denigrated as it creates the environment that fundamentalism requires to survive and thrive.

Sam Harris’ viewpoint, too, straight outta the first pages of End of Faith.

Gotta second ironicname’s point about how we create our own meaning in life. It takes a human being with language to create meaning. There is no meaning to an exploding star, although Human McMeatlump will have something to say about it. As someone once riddled: What’s the difference between you rolling down a hill, and a rock rolling down the same hill? A: You complain about it all the way down.

Life has no inherent meaning. You are free to choose a MeaningPak(tm) that’s been developed especially for you*, or you can create your own. Just don’t be a dick about what someone else has chosen.

*Or, more likely, that Mom’n’Dad have picked for you.

So, does this mean the next time Bill Donahue is ranting about how Catholics are so horribly persecuted in America and some how it’s gay people’s fault we can demand that he take a drug test?

Maybe we should move to Spain — according to this report
http://english.martinvarsavsky.net/general/what-happens-when-a-country-gives-up-religion-as-spain-shows-nothing-much.html

Yeah…

MeaningPak – I like it.

I’m late to jump into this discussion, but I pretty much agree with everything Patkin has been saying. But then I’m a Christian commie too. I thought I was the only one. Hehehe.

I’m a really tolerant Christian. I’m happy to let people believe whatever the heck they want without my interference (I know, ‘let’ sounds a bit condescending. I just mean I’m not about to try to convince someone of the existence of God or the divinity of Jesus). My husband says I’m far too openminded for my own good. *grin*

I think Mencken had it right with the tolerance thing though. I mean, I find Mikey and a few others here really annoying and rude in this conversation. My beliefs are not respected, which is fine, but they’re being vocal about it, which is just plain rude. Sure, you have every right to say I’m delusional, hallucinating, etc., but you’re sure as hell not going to get my respect for you as a human being if you do. Just as if you were to say my kids are ugly, my husband’s stupid and my taste in music is atrocious. That’s the kind of respect I want as a human, never mind Christian. Don’t tell me I’m stupid for my beliefs, and I’ll do you the same, and hey, it’s all good.

On voting, I couldn’t care less what religion (or lack of) that a candidate is, as long as his or her personal politics are similar to mine, I’m happy to vote for him or her. I wish more people were like me on that.

One thing I find laughable though is the “Because they know we are right and hate us for it”. Um, no. Seriously. No. The haters hate because they were taught to hate. It’s bigotry pure and simple. It has nothing to do with being threatened in their own belief system (for most, of course, some are always that way). It has everything to do with being taught that atheists are evil.

One reason I think a person like me mightn’t vote for an atheist, is if I thought s/he were like Mikey or a few others who would like to be rid of religion or find it dangerous. Once you start labelling religion dangerous, I start not voting for you, because I’m afraid you’ll outlaw religion on the basis that you think it harms society.

I think Mencken had it right with the tolerance thing though. I mean, I find Mikey and a few others here really annoying and rude in this conversation. My beliefs are not respected, which is fine, but they’re being vocal about it, which is just plain rude.

I waver back and forth on this daily, and today I’m feeling a big “fuck you.”

If you want your beliefs respected, go find some that are respectable. It’s really that simple. Your beliefs might be worthy of tolerance, at best, but adults are allowed to talk about how stupid your ideas are, especially if they’re stupid. Grow up or go sit at the kids table and talk about Santa.

Obviously in a practical sense it’s not nice to alienate bunches of people who are leading perfectly okay – or even exemplary – lives believing what you believe. But this is one teeny tiny corner of the internet and it’s nice to have the freedom to say that even if there were a God, God emerging through some peasant’s vagina to kill himself is preposterous.

Heya Righteous Bubba.

I understand. I really do. And it’s fine that you think that. I think it’s preposterous to not believe in God, as he’s pretty obvious to me. But that’s okay too. I don’t go out of my way to call you a blind idiot. 🙂

Now, as for that last part, okay, I’m going to have to agree with you. It is pretty preposterous when you put it that way. Ever read The Pagan Christ? I feel much the way the author of that does. I don’t believe in the guy who emerged from the virgin, etc. I’m not a very typical Christian though. I haven’t the first clue if a guy named Jesus was born to a girl named Mary, and if he turned water into wine and healed a leper and all that stuff. To me, none of it matters a whit if it’s literally true. The power is in the stories. The power is in the message. If it’s literally true, that’s all sorts of cool. If not, so what? The message is to be good to one another and to strive to be divine. So yeah, I follow the message of Jesus. And I believe in divinity.

Again, I don’t think there’s any need for you to respect my views. I’d just like it if you (in general) didn’t call me stupid or dangerous because of them. And if that’s too much to ask, I get to say that you’re a rude bastard. *grin* Because “find some views that are respectable” doesn’t cut it. Respectable is subjective. You could say the same to me about my belief that gay people should have the same rights as straight people, and again, that’d make you a rude bastard (and a bigot).

Luna, like it or not, not all points of view are equal. And points of view that are predicated on ideas that are by definition irrational are inferior to those that are predicated on rationality – if you think being reasonable is important, that is.

And the funny thing is that most of us here in Western, 20th century democracies pay a lot of lip service to the idea that being reasonable is important.

Here’s the thing: you bring up a point about saying that gay people should have equal rights. In a rational, secular discussion, this would be the conclusion of an argument. The argument would consist of a series of premises and subconclusions that would be based on a few assumptions conceded on the basis of rationality, and it would end with “Therefore, gay people should be entitled to the same civil rights as any other group of people”. At any point in time, a reasonable person could object to one of the premises in this argument, but their objection would have to be based on some point of argument that – once again – reasonable people would agree on.

The default position in the modern iteration of secular Enlightenment thinking is that all people are entitled to whatever cviil, secular rights a society offers unless they act in such a way to lose that right.

If I wanted to argue against that, I’d have to offer some substantive argument…something like “gay people are a public health hazard because their sexual practices spread disease”. You’ve probably heard that one before – I know I have. But here’s the great thing about rational argumentation: if I say that, you get to say “prove it”. If I can’t, then you get to ignore it.

Religious arguments don’t work that way. And that’s the problem with them. Religions admit into evidence things like “private knowledge” – things like “God told me this”. There’s no way to rationally argue against that. If God told me gay people suck, who are you to tell me He didn’t say that?

It is because of this that religious ideas fail the smell test. There’s no arguing against them. Even when they appear to agree with points achieved at through the process of ratiocination, that agreement is orthogonal at best, much in the way it would be if you claimed to know that water freezes at 32F at sea level – because your invisible guardian water sprite told you that it does. You’re right only by sheerest coincidence, like the stopped clock is twice a day.

This is a lot shorter than I wanted it to be, mostly because I have to leave for work, but I hope the point I’m trying to make comes through here. Religious ideas are not respectable repast in the public square, and a person who cannot distinguish between public conduct and private conduct isn’t even capable of functioning effectively in a civic democracy.

It’s why ours is sorta dying at the moment, btw.

But then I’m a Christian commie too. I thought I was the only one. Hehehe.

Well, to be entirely correct, I’m a Jewish commie. There’s plenty of us out there, tilling kibbutz soil. But thank you for backing me up.

The default position in the modern iteration of secular Enlightenment thinking is that all people are entitled to whatever civil, secular rights a society offers unless they act in such a way to lose that right.

Of course, that position is still dumb. In what fashion must a person act to lose their rights? Who has that authority to strip a person of rights?

Seriously?

People act in a way to lose their rights when they commit acts that are criminal.

I have the right to go anywhere I like, within the bounds established by reason. If I choose to ignore the bounds established by reason – if, say, I try to act as though my freedom to go where I wish extends to me entering your house without your permission – then the community acts to strip me of my right to go where I want to go. They charge me with a crime called “breaking and entering” and send me to jail.

This is just basic social contract stuff.

People act in a way to lose their rights when they commit acts that are criminal.

This is just basic social contract stuff.

Sure, but it’s a stupid portion of the social contract, because it suggests a person can be stripped of whatever rights they have for whatever reason the ‘society’ decides. It’s that idea that basically establishes why the Bush Adminstration thinks it can get away with stripping even the rights of habeas corpus and a fair trial from the people they abduct. Why people think they can strip rights from minorities for whatever mainstream bigotry passes for the community standards. Why arguing against the disenfranchisement of voter-age felons is the windmill of kooks.

It’s a flawed concept.

because it suggests a person can be stripped of whatever rights they have for whatever reason the ’society’ decides. It’s that idea that basically establishes why the Bush Adminstration thinks it can get away with stripping even the rights of habeas corpus and a fair trial from the people they abduct. Why people think they can strip rights from minorities for whatever mainstream bigotry passes for the community standards. Why arguing against the disenfranchisement of voter-age felons is the windmill of kooks.

Yep.

And it’s even worse than that. It is what allowed people of enhanced melanin content to be treated like chattel property on this continent for three centuries.

My challenge to you is to find something that works better than ratiocination for resolving these problems.

If you want to live in a perfect world, go to Heaven. If you want to do something easy, go pray. The real work of really fixing the real problems here on earth is really, really hard, and we are going to screw up more often than is ever pleasant to admit. But there’s no real alternative – unless you honestly think that sitting and praying in your home is going to fix something in Iraq, or Darfur, or wherever. If you do, then fine – enjoy yourself. But I hope you don’t expect too much.

Here’s the thing about the Englightenment project: it’s gotten better. Consistently and quickly, it’s gotten better. When we first started writing about the Rights of Man and the social contract and all that stuff, nobody believed that people had any rights at all. Rights were things given to you by God, and they mostly dealt with your obligations to do what God wanted you to do. Even the most powerful people on the planet – kings – didn’t have the ability to do something the poorest schmuck among us takes for granted nowadays, in the form of marrying whom they might have wanted to marry.

When this crazy, secularist idea of “rights” first began to circulate, it was a pretty limited thing. Early thinkers proposed that these rights might belong to white, Christian, male landowners – and pretty much nobody else. I know how crummy that sounds, but you have to stop listening to that statement with ears that are on *this* side of the Enlightenment gap for a minute, and listen with ears from the other side of it. It was an incredibly revolutionary idea.

And the only thing more amazing than the original idea is how quickly it has expanded. In short order, we’ve come to recognize the same sort of rights inhere in men without property, women, people of other religions, people of other races living inside our countries, and people living of other races outside our countries. The circle of beings to whom we are ethcially accountable has done nothing but expand since the idea was first proposed. I cannot think of a comparable example in the use of religion in a similar time period.

And why do you think I”m such an evil fucking tyrant about the importance of rationality and the primacy of ratiocination, anyway? The only way that such a system can maintain its self correcting nature is if people insist on a rational commitment to a shared set of first principles.

Do we screw up? Yes. In fact. we probably screw up more often than we get it right. The one difference beween the rationalists and the religionists when it comes to screwing up, though, is that when the rationalists do something terrible, at least it actually is a screwup. When the religionists do something terrible, it’s usually just an action in line with their doctrine.

Apologies if this is incoherent in spots. I’m still fighting off a cold, and I have a NyQuil hangover this morning as well. If there are parts that don’t make sense, let me know what they are and I’ll explain them.

If you want to live in a perfect world, go to Heaven.

Not every person who is religious is begging for the chance to off themselves to get to Heaven. In fact, in my theology, the basic idea of an afterlife is so muddled, indistinct and individualized that it’s just easier to say that if there is an afterlife, I certainly wouldn’t know what it is.

But it’s easier to just assume I’m a Christian for your condescending comments, isn’t it.

My challenge to you is to find something that works better than ratiocination for resolving these problems.

So, all I have to do is fabricate an entirely new and revolutionary idea about how we deal with a flawed concept with contractism, and I win?

Well, that should be easy. Lemme put on my thinking cap here.

The basic flaw of contractism is, in essence, people *have* to give up their own personal position in order to make the best social corrections. Therefore, if I, a white heterosexual male in the middle-class, am to make the best decisions for say, someone black, homosexual, female, in the working-class, I have to assume that I could be that person and would want the best possible options.

I can’t think of a single goddamn soul who’s ever been that altruistic that wasn’t fictional. So how precisely is that concept supposed to practically work?

But then there’s this:

But there’s no real alternative

See, this attitude is what prevents any real changes to the idea to come through. “It’s not a great idea, but it’s the best we’ve got, so let’s not think about it. And isn’t this better than how it used to be, so why argue against it, religionist, or do you just want things to go back to how they used to be?”

The concept (and when I say concept, I just mean ‘we get to take your rights away for whatever reason society dictates is a punishable offense’, not the whole of rationality) is flawed, but to come up with an alternative is either ignored or actively yelled at.

Here’s the thing about the Englightenment project: it’s gotten better. Consistently and quickly, it’s gotten better.

Really? Because outside of the actual Enlightenment, in which what, men without property got their rights to be people?

I mostly saw the rest of society only come along, dragging and screaming all the way, within the past century. Women have rights? People other than white people have rights? Those came along only recently in terms of the ‘project’.

People of other religions, yes, even of no religion have rights? Not fucking likely in the recent past. People who don’t screw heteronormatively have rights? Well, that one’s still in question. People outside our countries have rights? Society had to murder a couple million or more to even approach that concept, and the U.S. abandoned that as soon as was viable.

The circle of beings to whom we are ethcially accountable has done nothing but expand since the idea was first proposed.

Not really, it hasn’t. It’s started and jumped in short bursts, contracted as reactionaries got terrified of somebody they fucked over suddenly having the right to say they got fucked over, then maybe started again. Ideally, it should’ve done nothing but expand, but idealism is just another word for irrational.

I cannot think of a comparable example in the use of religion in a similar time period.

I suppose the various reform movements in organized religion don’t count then.

Do we screw up? Yes. In fact. we probably screw up more often than we get it right. The one difference beween the rationalists and the religionists when it comes to screwing up, though, is that when the rationalists do something terrible, at least it actually is a screwup. When the religionists do something terrible, it’s usually just an action in line with their doctrine.

What religion are you referencing, Jillian? It’d make this game of painting every religion with the same brush less tiring if I knew which one you’re blaming all the world’s ills on.

Also, I’d argue with your assesment that when a rationalist screws up, it’s something entirely independent of their worldview, while when someone religious screws up, it’s in keeping with the basic ideas of theirs.

And if this is incoherent in spots, it’s just because I’m a glib idiot.

Well, yeah, you really sort of are a glib idiot.

I never assumed you were Christian. Your personal beliefs don’t really matter to me here, because I’m not attacking your personal beliefs. I’m attcking the idea that faith, which is something I see defined as “belief in a proposition, regardless of the evidence for or against that proposition”, can ever be a societal good. I’m supporting the proposition that ratiocination is the opposite of faith, and is the only foundation upon which a decent society can be established.

Other than that, I have no idea what you’re going on about in the above. If you really don’t think that the 21st-century world, even with all of its numerous flaws, is a better place to be than the 17th century world for women, for gays, for Jews, for atheists, for people in Africa, for poor people…..then I really don’t know what to tell you.

Are things hunky dory for any of those groups? Hell, no. Are things better? Hell, yes. And all I’m saying is that the credit for that goes to the radical secularization of public space that occurred as part of Enlightenment thought.

Why is that so frightening?

You said:

Consistently and quickly, it’s gotten better.

Therefore, my argument was that it wasn’t consistent. And from the time of the Enlightenment, there was nearly another century or two before the remainder of society even got close to “a better place”, which means it wasn’t exactly a quick evolution.

Are things better now? Sure, let’s say it is. But there wasn’t the rising tidal wave of ratiocination you’re arguing, but an agonizingly slow erosion of what society said was right and wrong.

It’s not frightening, it’s just if we’re going to point at how quickly the Enlightenment reformulated society, we should be honest about how quick it actually was, and how consistently those rights were actually applied.

It’s “quick” in comparison to the development of the concept of human rights in, say, the time between the collapse of the Roman Empire and the start of the Enlightenment.

I’m not one of those who buys the myth that the “Dark Ages” were a time when nothing changed at all, but there’s a surprising lack of any develoment of the concept of human rights for that particular millenium.

600AD-1600AD: not a lot of progress in the concept of human rights

1700AD-2000AD: Horking gazongas of change in the concept of human rights.

It’s all relative, to quote the secular worshippers of Einstein.

And yeah, it’s been a fight. Any sort of change at all in the world will always be a fight.But anything worth having is worth fighting for.

me: But then I’m a Christian commie too. I thought I was the only one. Hehehe.

patkin: Well, to be entirely correct, I’m a Jewish commie. There’s plenty of us out there, tilling kibbutz soil. But thank you for backing me up.

Uh oops. My bad. That’s almost as bad as when people assume I’m American. 😉 Okay, it’s worse, I’ll admit it. Anyway. Sorry ’bout that. No one should get lumped in with our lot. *grin*

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basically, by the time a person has graduated from college, they’ve eaten at least 16 years of institionalized secularism, constantly snide remarks from media, and since the internet constant exposure to douche bag atheists.

The list is pretty authoritive. I’d have no problem voting for a 73 year old gay hispanic black woman who was married three times so long as she was jewish, not atheist.