I’m not a religious person, but if there is a God, I’ve got to think he/she gets tired of humans blaming all of our problems on him/her. The always awful Walter Russell Mead:
God hates the quiet life, I think. He wants us to break a sweat on our passage through this vale of tears.
[….]God seems to believe in keeping it real. He wants us to face challenges that are bigger than anything we know, more complicated than we can figure out, and so dangerous and all encompassing that we are forced to develop our gifts and our characters to the highest possible degree. He wants us to ‘be all that we can be’, and he won’t take anything less.
That’s not how we want it. Human beings want to tame the wild uncertainty that surrounds us on every side. We want that raging sea to calm itself, now. We want predictable returns on our stock investments, and we want steady economic growth. We want to build institutions that can carry on just as they are until the end of time; uncertainty is the dish humans hate most — and it’s the one thing we can count on God to serve.
Maybe I’m wrong, but I can’t see how God caused, say, the financial crisis. Humans did.
Is conservative religiosity just about sloughing off responsibility? No one could have predicted, because only the Almighty could have known that were no WMD in Iraq. What’s the point of writing at all if you’re a religious conservative, since you can’t know anything, only Jeebus can? And if you can’t ever know anything about what’s happening down here, how on earth could you know that God wants us to sweat? I just don’t get it.
cleek
prove it.
Short Bus Bully
Are you fucking kidding me? That is so bad it deserves nomination as a rotating tag line.
I mean… that has to be parody, right?
slag
Is the Pope Catholic?
MikeJ
The Calvinists say that there’s nothing you can do to get salvation, God has already decided it and your thoughts and actions can not influence him. However, you should act right so that you will have been one of the people He did will have picked in the past.
It’s much like Dr. Who, but dumber.
gbear
Because when you think you know Jesus, you think you know everything. And he is ALWAYS on your side so you are duty bound to make sure that everyone knows you are always right about everything. And Jesus backs you up 1000% because you have taken him into your heart. And everyone else is totally fucked. So there.
jeffreyw
I checked with god just this morning–he said to be sure to eat a heart healthy breakfast.
Jay C
No, it’s mainly about social control. And always has been. Gibberish faux-theology like this barf of Mead’s is just a sideline: the “uncertainties” of life in this world, in the truly “conservative” view are meant to be dealt with by an unquestioning reliance on the “certainties” of religious dogma. And unquestioning obedience to the social strictures/power structures said dogma supports.
stuckinred
@jeffreyw: Low carb torts no doubt!
delphi_ote
God made the humans. Even the assholes.
Southern Beale
@jeffreyw:
Damn that looks good. Did you make that?
On a related note, I hate to be the bearer of bad news but it appears there is not, in fact, an Olive Garden Culinary Institute in Tuscany.
I tell you what, the lengths to which corporations go in order to sell a kinder, friendlier image of themselves is rather ludicrous.
JGabriel
DougJ @ Top:
I’m not a religious person either, but take away blame and you take away the only reason to believe in god that ever seemed even marginally compelling: universal scapegoat.
Hmm, maybe that’s why I’m not a religious person.
.
Loneoak
… that good taquerias serve your tacos on two tortillas.
… that kid should stop kicking the back of my airplane seat.
… that someone really ought to do something about curing persistent jock itch.
… that Tunch deserves a big plate of tuna on Easter.
… that the Bulls should be able to take the Eastern Conference.
jeffreyw
@Southern Beale:
Allowing for a very generous definition of “make”–yes I did.
RSA
Wow, God’s kind of an asshole.
Villago Delenda Est
The Invisible Sky Buddy…the cause of, and solution to, all of life’s problems.
Loneoak
@RSA:
Thank God for retarded children.
Cermet
DougJ – you miss the point about WMD; bush the sock puppet of the right talked to god and god told him the weapons were there. It’s that god is a liar and that is what makes this all wonderful.
Of course, you could just realize that bush was cheney’s ass linking mouthpiece and a normal crazy loon like most rightwing religious nutcases but that wouldn’t fit their belief system that god can lie, murder and rob so a chosen people are protected.
Its that Christ fellow who so messed up that great story line.
JGabriel
Walter Russell Mead (via DougJ @ Top):
I thought Geroge Bernard Shaw ridiculed this shit out of existence over a hundred years ago in Man and Superman:
.
kerFuFFler
Yeah, no one enjoys gambling…
Kane
Sounds like an insurance commercial from Allstate or State Farm.
Joey Maloney
@slag:
Does Prunella the Pig pucker her pussy when she poops in the poke?
john walters
This is a much broader, more insidious version of the silly Creationist belief that God buried fossils all over the place in order to test our faith. Tsunamis? God’s will. Stock market crashes? God’s will. Social inequality? God’s will. Don’t you dare try to create a society that’s stable, equitable, and fair — you’re just spitting in the Big Guy’s face.
eric
if God is serving humans what they hate most then what exactly is Satan’s job?
Sly
You know that illusive voice in the back of your mind that largely makes its presence known when you talk to yourself? The one that tells you all of your petty biases are actually thoughtful critiques? The one that tries to hold together your reality, by any means necessary, when it is threatened by new information? For the fundamentalist, that is the voice of God.
So it shouldn’t be surprising that fundamentalists are fatalistic. The deity they worship is just their own inner prick.
cwolf
And if you can’t ever know anything about what’s happening down here, how on earth could you know that God wants us to sweat? I just don’t get it.
There’s nothing to get.
Religion is chewing gum for the brain dead
and big bucks for gum makers.
thefncrow
This makes me think of Candide.
Southern Beale
All I know is that God totally wants my sports team to win. The rest of youze is outta luck.
LittlePig
@Kane: “Like a good asshole, Walter is thereeeee”
sukabi
@Southern Beale: shit I never considered a career path in food service, but if I could get an all expenses paid trip to Tuscany I might reconsider, if only until after the return flight home landed.
wonder how much they spend on their “arrangement” with the Tuscan hotel to keep up their charade…
bill
“The ways of the Lord are mysterious” vs. “Lemme tell you what my friend God here wants you to do.” That’s why I don’t go to church (besides that it’s always on Sunday) and that’s why I don’t trust Christians.
Yutsano
@Southern Beale:
You have no evidence of that.
cwolf
Was the Pope a Hitler-Youth?
Joel
Mead should get his ass back to Willy Wonka’s factory and do some heavy lifting for a change, and then he can tell us all about hardship.
Shoemaker-Levy 9
Congratulations Doug, you’ve homed in on the fundamental contradiction of Christian belief; that the Deity is both comprehensible and incomprehensible. Happy Easter!
Mark S.
Let me get out my violin.
Those are hardly the kinds of uncertainties most people dread.
Who the hell is asking Mead this question?
RossInDetroit
“quiet life” “break a sweat” “vale of tears” “‘be all that we can be’”
Can the man write a sentence without two stale cliches as crutches?
PIGL
@Sly:
I am so stealing this, because it is so exactly true. In fact, I am going to add it to me facebook quotes…there be no higher honour I can bestow. Biut if there was, I would bestow it upon thee.
Mark S.
@Joel:
I know, right? Hardship is not knowing how you’re going to eat for the next week. It’s not uncertainty about how your portfolio is going to perform for the coming year.
piratedan
@Shoemaker-Levy 9: sounds like that old Carlin bit about the God
Religion convinced the world that there’s an invisible man in the sky who watches everything you do. And there’s 10 things he doesn’t want you to do or else you’ll go to a burning place with a lake of fire until the end of eternity. But he loves you! …And he needs money! He’s all powerful, but he can’t handle money!
Mark B
The deal with religion as well as most philosophy isn’t whether it makes sense. It’s whether it makes you feel better about doing what you already decided to do. A little bit of truthiness helps in this, but it’s not necessary.
Yours in Xenu.
aimai
@Short Bus Bully:
Sounds like he’s been reading Pastor Swank. Highly recommended.
aimai
tavella
Why, children need to chew off their own lips and bite off their own fingers to feel challenged! God’s just looking after us!
Svensker
Wow. Happy Easter, y’all.
aimai
@tavella:
Tavella’s point makes me especially angry with this particular line of god bothering. Because you know if you bring this stuff up to the true believers they will either fall back on “mysterious ways” or on some bizarre, egocentric, notion that god makes bad things happen to other people because its good for us. I despise the sort of theology which is entirely an apologetics of suffering. I believe it was just the sort of observation which Tavella is making which caused Carlton Pearson (sp?) the African American mega church leader to lose his church when he lost his belief in hell. He looked at the real suffering of people in Rwanda and asked what kind of god would propose hell after life for non christians when they had already endured hell in this life.
aimai
aimai
@Svensker: Too soon?
aimai
Martin
@Sly: Huh. My inner voice is considerably less generous toward me. Pretty much always tells me I could have done that better, I could have worked harder, I could have been kinder. No wonder I became an atheist. God was always riding me.
fhtagn
Sounds like a personal trainer I knew who used to skulk round the gym trying to expand his client base. Unsuccessfully.
ABL
i always do!
ABL
are you sure that was god?
/rimshot
eemom
plz, can we not talk about God so much? I’m trying to keep a low profile so He doesn’t notice that I failed to take my kids to church this Easter. Again.
JGabriel
@eric:
Offering them a reprieve from hell on earth — in exchange for a hell in eternity, if you believe in that sort of thing.
.
RossInDetroit
My wife has a relative and Facebook stalker who believes she doesn’t have to be involved in charitable, social, ecological or political issues because “God’s in charge and he’ll work it out for the best.”
This is a blatant cop out.
Mark S.
@aimai:
Man, I remember one of those Pastor Swank “miracles” where he talks about a young man. He seemed happy enough as a teenager, then Swank sees him a couple years later and he’s homeless. Swank then hears a couple years later that the kid is dead. Swank then thanks Jesus for this miracle.
fhtagn
@eemom:
The Flying Spaghetti Monster cares not for churches or worldly dominions – but makest thou sure thou hast good sauce, or the fires of indigestion shall rage within thy gut for forty days and forty nights. Thus sayeth the Lord thy Spaghetti Monster, whose decadent gastric enclaves on the coasts expand with every hour.
fhtagn
@RossInDetroit:
Call her a theological nihilist. That’ll stump the critter.
CK MacLeod
The reason you don’t get it is that you have an even more simplistic view of God – that is, what the function of the idea of the divine is in a discourse of belief – than the people you presume to place yourself above.
On the other hand, people like WRM, including much less sophisticated speakers on the subject, contribute to your confusion by resting uncritically on the merely mythological elements of their belief: If pressed on the subject, they would in most cases move away from the naive anthropomorphism of their language, and agree with the prophets and mystics that God is not a person, or like a person, or like anything else at all. “God” stands for the thing like which there neither can be nor is any other thing.
A philosophical examination of atheistic discourses will find the same concept functioning under different names in a parallel, for all intents and purposes formally identical manner. Once you understand why this must be so, you might be able to begin a discussion with a believer on terms of mutual respect.
cathyx
@Martin: That inner voice was more likely your disfunctional parents instilling their disfuntional parenting habits onto you.
fhtagn
@CK MacLeod:
Nicely bloviated. Is there an English translation?
Mark S.
@Mark S.:
Here’s the miracle I was talking about.
Svensker
@eemom:
Xtos anesti!
aimai
.
@CK MacLeod:
CK, your post is complete gobbledygook–you don’t get to speak for all believers any more than you get to speak for all a-theists (who are not, of course, unbelievers but people who are able to approach the discussion of the divine from outside the perspective. They don’t “un-believe” they simply discuss doctrine without submitting to it.
But look, at the top of my post, a quote from a self described believer from the OP. Russel Meade definitely anthropomorphizes his god and believes absolutely that we can know his nature and his intentions–that we can infer them from basic principles, biblical writings, and the natural world. You couldn’t get any more moronically simplistic than Meade’s form of deductive reasoning. If you’ve got a problem with that take it up with the other believers.
aimai
Mark B
@CK MacLeod: ” … The reason you don’t get it is that you have an even more simplistic view of God ”
It’s pretty much impossible to oversimplify something that doesn’t exist and where there has never been any evidence for existing. You can obfuscate it by writing lots of clever epistomology, but it’s a tower with no foundation. You can make cultural arguments, but they are likewise empty. People believe in God because they were raised to beleive and they want to believe. It’s no deeper than that.
Mark B
““God” stands for the thing like which there neither can be nor is any other thing.”
mmm hmmm Are you sure it isn’t indigestion? If I’m successfully parsing what you said, it’s kind of meaningless. You are creating a separate class of a ‘thing’ which is not in the class of ‘things’. Logic fail.
Ruckus
@delphi_ote:
God made the humans. Even the assholes.
His math seems to be off. There seems to be a lot more assholes than the normal one per person.
Either that or the design is faulty. So many seem to have their asshole in the front of their face.
Ruckus
@eric:
if God is serving humans what they hate most then what exactly is Satan’s job?
Serving them what they want.
Dead Ernest
@Mark B:
Thanks Mark. Good on ya mate. An observation delicious in its pithyness. (tempted to say ‘divine’ but that’s too ironic for me this foggy-minded ‘morning’)
You’ve nicely described rational thinking corrupted to the point of insanity …speaking of irony, in it’s most cruel form.
Brings to mind a poor dull-witted doggy barking angrily and fearfully every time its shock collar gives him a shock for barking. (on a bad day I feel like the idiot who put the collar on a dog too corrupted to be able to get the point)
Yutsano
@Ruckus:
There is an obscure Catholic theory that says that this world is in fact Hell because of a complete absence of God and His intervention. I’m starting to wonder if they were on to something.
Mark B
@Dead Ernest: It’s not original to me, but damned if I can remember where I read it first.
Ruckus
@eemom:
It’s OK he hasn’t noticed the other 12 times either. It’s kind of hard to see the imaginary world with imaginary eyes.
Mark B
Hey … wait … ‘To Serve Man’ is a cookbook?
D’oh!
Ruckus
@cathyx:
That inner voice was more likely your disfunctional parents instilling their disfuntional parenting habits onto you.
So, you’ve met my parents.
Lysana
Gee, an imperfect universe exists and Stuff Happens. So of course it’s because either an omnipotent deity wants it or there is no such deity at all. No third road allowed. I am affirmed in my polytheism every time this subject comes up.
Ruckus
@Yutsano:
Yea I heard that one once and it seems it’s just a scare tactic to get people to say that can’t be true because then god doesn’t exist and as they believe it can’t be hell/true. More obfuscation from the big novel that is religion. Or good pot. Or both.
Mark S.
@Mark B:
Nietzsche harped on that a lot, especially in the first chapter of Beyond Good and Evil:
Comrade DougJ
@CK MacLeod:
I have no view of God, I do not believe he exists. Are you calling that simplistic? I honestly don’t know what you are trying to say, if anything.
CK MacLeod
@Mark B: @Mark B:
When you refer to a “logic fail” you are merely re-stating the point, and also, incidentally, indicating your own belief in this thing unseen you call “logic.” If the God concept – the thing (not a thing) unlike all things – functioned like other concepts then it would not be the “think unlike all other things.” The paradox was the point.
Now I could give you my short review of Parmenides and Heidegger’s failed attempt to revise him for a supposedly post-theistic era, and Kojeve and Cohen’s greater success idealizing Hegelian theology, but I have to run off to Easter lunch with a couple of happy faithful Christians. Maybe later.
Mark B
@CK MacLeod: You really don’t have a clue how logic works, do you?
[edit]Or, more pithily: Fucking logic, how does it work?
Mark S.
@Mark S.:
I’ve always liked this passage:
Ruckus
@Lysana:
So there are multiple answers?
1. The perfect god couldn’t create a perfect world. Note the irony.
2. There is no god. Note the reality.
3. The perfect god created an imperfect world as a joke.
4. This world was created as practice for creating the real one. I like being the stuffing in a cosmic shit sandwich.
5. This is hell and we are just plain fucked no matter what we do. I’d sure like to know what I did to get here so I don’t do it again. Oh wait this wouldn’t be hell then. So no do overs.
None of these bold well for religion. There are more but you get the picture.
Mark S.
@CK MacLeod:
Oh do hurry back.
Dead Ernest
@Lysana: And I am with ya – no argument from me about your observation. But it’s worth saying that the universe is ‘imperfect’ from our point of view. Not necessarily from those of other inhabitants.
The Sun may well be quite content.
(Yes, yes indeed the Easter pun intended! “I is risen and it’s a damned fine day!”)
srv
Couldn’t John find a nice jesuit blogger to join once a week an answer these questions?
Ruckus
@Mark S.:
Snark-o-luscious.
Mark B
@CK MacLeod: If I understand you correctly, you are denying the validity of “logic” when used discussing the concept of “God”. So, explain to me why anyone should waste their time talking to you?
piratedan
I’m not sure if I believe that CK MacLeod exists, guess I’ll have to take that on faith
Dead Ernest
@srv:
srv I hate and love you.
Reading that I had a reflexive ‘Heh indeedy’, but with a concurrent first swallow of fresh hot coffee …well, it didn’t work out well at all. ‘HehArgh! coughcoughsplutter’ Okay, bad timing and not your fault. Won’t hate you. I’ll just shake my fist at the uncaring God that allowed it to happen.
Hey, here’s an idea: Why don’t you grab the opportunity?! Take the username Teilhard-cider Tall and Proustian and BE that Jesuit blogger. Enjoy the good will bestowed on a world wizened elder and have at it.
Dang, sounds like fun. if I had the time…
Parallel 5ths (Jewish Steel)
@Yutsano: That’s a favorite of Bertrand Russell.
uptown
God gave us the gift of life.
Make of it what you will.
Ruckus
“Throughout the long period of religious doubt, I had been rendered very unhappy by the gradual loss of belief, but when the process was completed, I found to my surprise that I was quite glad to be done with the whole subject”
“To modern educated people, it seems obvious that matters of fact are to be ascertained by observation, not by consulting ancient authorities. But this is an entirely modern conception, which hardly existed before the seventeenth century.”
“Religion is something left over from the infancy of our intelligence, it will fade away as we adopt reason and science as our guidelines.”
Bertrand Russell quotes. They seem appropriate here.
lacp
Shit, now god’s doing out-of-date ads for the military? I kinda liked him/her/it better back in the days of pimping for kosher hot dogs.
eileen
Have you been praying for rain in Texas, because Gov. Perry proclaimed an official 3-day praying for rain? Maybe this is old news, but it is pretty scary to think of someone like him saying that the only solution to end the fires is to pray for rain. Will someone know if you really didn’t pray hard enough? Very weird.
Rihilism
@CK MacLeod: Name dropper.
@srv: Ick!
The last vestiges of my own fleeting “spirituality” were utterly destroyed by Bart Erhman’s “God’s Problem”. As Erhman notes, the belief that “all will be made clear in the afterlife” is rejected by Ivan Karamazov (and apparently by Erhman himself, though he still clings to agnosticism). I too am incapable of believing that the suffering of innocents can be explained in anything close to a satisfactory manner. Therefore, I reject the belief and I reject the God hypothesis.
In my opinion, given the fact of evolution, the apparent nature of the megaverse, and the utter incoherence of , scripture, God and the belief in God neither explains nor justifies anything…
Rihilism
@uptown:
Biology, chemistry and physics suggest otherwise…
Rihilism
@Ruckus:
This was certainly my experience.
Asshole
@Mark B:
I was raised an atheist/agnostic by lapsed Unitarians, but I believe in God.
How was the Universe created, if there’s no God? What caused it?
Mark B
@Asshole: I dunno, what caused God? Your question, if you leave out the bad guess involving God is actually an interesting one. I’d suggest reading some books about cosmology and getting back to me.
Fucen Pneumatic Fuck Wrench Tarmal
well, i suppose, if religious people really believed the crap they sling they would all choose to die before they ever have a chance to screw things up.
this was a problem at one point, in one religion, this they created the concept of original sin, to that you are essentially guilty of your parents fucking you into existence.
with out, why even worry about abortions, soylent clumpy got fast tracked to the hereafter before ever having the opportunity to fuck things up for cellself?
the whole basis of living at all is because you owe god something,apparently.
Asshole
@Mark B:
Your question is like saying that I can’t fairly say that light causes illumination because then I have to explain what lights a light-bulb. God exists outside of the Universe, and is therefore independent of our understanding causation.
I’ve read them. They don’t explain it. The only atheistic explanation I’ve heard is that if you have nothing long enough, something pops into it. This atheistic miracle, also known as “bullshit,” is the only non-theistic explanation for where the Universe came from that I’m aware of. If you have a better one, I’d like to hear it. Until I do, I’ll stick with God. It’s the most rational explanation.
Asshole
@Fucen Pneumatic Fuck Wrench Tarmal:
And I suppose, if non-religious people really believed the crap they sling they would all choose to die now because their lives are completely pointless and a million nears from now nothing they have ever done will be of any consequence whatsoever. Life is a pointless nihilistic fart into oblivion, so suicide and natural death would be completely on par- any “morality” would be based on relativistic brainwashing, and would be completely irrelevant beyond the vaguest utilitarian arguments.
Mark B
@Asshole: ” the only non-theistic explanation for where the Universe came from that I’m aware of”
There are others. The main idea is that when you’re dealing with a relativistic system as large as the Universe, the whole idea of causation becomes a bit slippery. Even ideas like ‘before’ and ‘after’ become difficult to define.
To be honest, I don’t know how the universe came into being, but I don’t see any need to make some imaginary deity to account for the existence of it. You have added complexity to the hypothesis and added no explanatory power.
Mark S.
@Asshole:
How do you know that? He could just as easily be the Universe.
Rihilism
@Asshole:
Huh? Ummm,…, what?
What does that mean? Seriously, please explain what that means.
What have you read? Are you confusing explanation with understanding?
eemom
interestingly, and apropos of this thread, I was listening to the NPR Sunday religion thingie a while ago, and they had on these two women who wrote a book about how the original Christians believed in creating Paradise here on earth — which they interpret to mean having a social conscience, working for justice, loving your fellow humans, all that Best of Jesus kind of thing — and it was the Middle Ages that fucked it all up with the glorification of suffering, focusing on the crucifixion, etc. Interesting stuff.
Asshole
@Mark B:
It solves the problem of infinite regression. No other explanation does that.
Asshole
@Mark S.:
We’re talking about a causeless causer. I suppose a self-causing Universe is also possible. Mea culpa.
eemom
@Asshole:
why are you calling yourself Asshole? Aren’t you the same dude who represented indigent criminal defendants? And now you’re arguing for the existence of God. Doesn’t seem to fit.
Asshole
@Rihilism:
Saying that God can’t have created the Universe because you then have to explain where God comes from is like saying that light can’t cause illumination because then you have to explain what illuminates light.
It means that a causeless causer existing outside of that which it caused is not bound by or beholden to any of the rules of the thing it causes. Do you live inside of a watch just because you wind it up?
Asshole
@eemom:
I’m the same guy. Why can I not be a guy who represents indigent criminals and someone who believes in God? Do you really think most defense attorneys are militant atheists?
eemom
@Asshole:
no, not at all. Sorry if I wasn’t clear. I’m just asking why you call yourself Asshole.
Asshole
@eemom:
I got tired of other people around here calling me asshole, so I figured I’d start calling myself one and save them the time.
CK MacLeod
@Comrade DougJ:
You expressed incomprehension in your post, and I was offering an initial explanation as to why you have so much difficulty understanding people who speak about God in the way that WRM does. Part of your problem is that you don’t understand or seem to want to understand what you and WRM probably both believe, if at times while using different words for it.
Your own views about God are only one part of the question. You also have certain ideas about what WRM believes. I am suggesting that your ideas about what WRM believes are probably erroneous, and that WRM likely has a much more complex notion of God than you give him credit for, or appear to have considered. In short, you are deriding something that, by your own admission (“I just don’t get it”), you don’t understand.
How do you feel in general about people who crassly deride (“Jeebus”) things that they don’t understand?
And, yes, thinking that God doesn’t exist, and that all related questions can simply be left at that, is obviously simplistic.
Rihilism
@Asshole: The non sequiturs are flying fast and furious.
Perhaps a crash course in physics would allow you to comprehend the absurdity of that statement.
“Do you live inside of a watch just because you wind it up?”
Well, er, no. But winding a watch does not free me from the laws of physics, either. Precisely what conundrum does pretending God “lives” “outside the universe” resolve? What difference does it make? Specifically, how does it refute the “who created the creator” argument?…
Mark B
@Asshole: Infinite regression is not a problem logically. You might be unhappy with it, but it’s not particularly hard to grasp or any weirder than some of the other proposed explanations.
And the causeless causer doesn’t really explain anything. The definition of Universe is ‘all that exists’. [well, it’s a bit more complicated than that, but lets’ start with that] You’ve replaced the observable and explainable Universe by putting it in a container which cannot be observed or explained. Any cogent theory of the universe would also include the container. It may be theologically correct, but it’s not a good answer to the question of existence.
eemom
@Asshole:
well sheeyit. If we all did that then we’d all be Asshole.
You don’t seem like an asshole to me. I certainly respect your perspective on the justice system, and I also respect God believers who are not dogmatists.
I believe in God myself, I think. At least, I am sure that people who categorically deny the existence of God are no less closed-minded dogmatists than the worst fundamentalists of any religion.
Mark B
@Mark B: The unobservable container is actually a part of many cosmological theories … that this universe is one of many which are not accessible to each other directly. About the only interaction between parallel universes would be through black holes. This is something Hawking has recently proposed, but I’m not a big fan of it. Unfortunately at this stage of his life, Hawking can’t communicate very well, so I don’t think his proof (if it exists) is well documented.
Shoemaker-Levy 9
@CK MacLeod:
One can’t respond to what others might potentially believe, one can only respond to what others say.
Simple, perhaps, but not simplistic. The process of listening to a proposition and then failing to be convinced of it can be a simple one, but I don’t see how it can be described as simplistic.
Mark B
@Rihilism: “Specifically, how does it refute the “who created the creator” argument?…”
It doesn’t, but it’s a common rhetorical strategy. If you redifine the problem so you don’t have to explain part of it, you can push all of the unexplained things onto the ‘fudge factor’ you’ve created for yourself. It’s not unique to religionists, Einstein’s first version of general relativity contained a rather obvious fudge factor.
Asshole
@Rihilism:
That was my point. It’s absurd and stupid, and it’s exactly what people say when they say “You can’t say God caused the Universe because then you have to explain what causes God.” Which was my point. Sorry if that wasn’t clear.
It does if the rules of physics only apply inside of the watch. In this case, the watch is the Universe, you see. It’s just being used as an example, you see. I’m not talking about an actual wristwatch.
It explains causation of the Universe, which is something atheists have proven incapable of explaining. It also explains why the “rules of physics” don’t apply to God, you see.
Because that’s like asking “what lights a lightbulb”? When you’re talking about electricity, you’re not talking about light per se. You’re talking about something else completely besides light. You’re like a person who refuses to concede that light can be created by something that, in and of itself, is other than light.
Sorry if these comparisons are confusing. I thought they were fairly simple, myself, but apparently I was wrong. Sorry.
Rihilism
@CK MacLeod:
Please expound on this. What is it that Doug and WRM both believe but are using different words for?
By this logic, the ramblings of a paranoid schizophrenic are equally valid and above reproach. Not understanding why another human chooses delusion does not disqualify one from commenting on it.
What is your point. That simplicity should be rejected because it is simplistic? Would this imply that we should reject Newton in favor of Ptolemy because Newton’s solution was simpler?
mclaren
I’ll tell you when accounts are going to get settled:
Judgment Day, that’s when.
When I get my hands around the scrawny motherfucker’s throat, he’s gonna get an education.
“Schistosomiasis? Take THAT!” WHAM! “Cancer? Oh, you like cancer, huh? I got your cancer right here!” WHAM!
Asshole
@Mark B:
It’s a problem empirically. It makes no sense whatsoever. It’s downright stupid, in fact, to argue that the Universe goes on backwards forever. It defies all understanding of cause and effect.
It explains everything.
You’ve already lost me. Metaphysics exist outside of the Universe, but metaphysical entities exist. For example, the Prime Mover is metaphysical.
You’re proceeding from the axiom that I’m wrong. I’m saying that I’ve gone from the axiom that the Universe is not a contained entity to one in which it is. Cf. Aquinas, Aristotle, etc.
Only if one is pantheistic. At any rate, the Universe is empirically comprehensible. An external entity is not.
Mark B
Pretty much the logical problem is if you admit to an omnipotent omnipresent God, then there are no rules at all and nothing is understandable.
Why does the sun shine? God makes it so.
Why did my Uncle get hit by a car? God said it was his time.
Why do radioactive elements decay in a predictable manner? Well, we don’t know that they do, and if they do, it only will happen as long God decides it is so.
If you want to have a rational universe, God needs some fucking rules.
Asshole
@Mark B: @Mark B:
Sorry, I didn’t realize that an analysis of how cause and effect works is a “rhetorical strategy.” I guess every logician and most philosophers from Aristotle onwards have been flat-out fucking wrong, then.
Mark B
” It defies all understanding of cause and effect.”
Cause and effect is not even a valid principle for large relativistic systems. Sorry, the universe isn’t that simple.
Asshole
@Mark B:
No, we’re just talking about causation of the Universe. Other things after that could happen completely independently of God. We’re not arguing for the Judeo-Christian God, here. Just a God.
It shines because of light emitted from a gaseous ball in space. If you trace things back to the beginning of the Universe, God made it so. Otherwise, nope.
Maybe, maybe not. Really doesn’t follow of necessity from a Prime Mover argument.
This is a strawman argument. One can easily believe in some form of God and still embrace the scientific method. Most of the founders of modern science believed in God. Descartes’ proof for God was very straightforward, for example. It also had no bearing whatsoever on theology. Was Descartes not a scientist?
Nope. Sorry. For all we know, by the Prime Mover argument, God started the Universe and then walked away. So most of what you’ve said about that argument is completely untrue. The only thing the argument says is that God exists. It says nothing else about God, or if God is even still involved with the Universe in any way beyond its creation. Maybe God wound the watch up, and then walked away. Or, maybe God is involved in it every second of every day. The Prime Mover argument doesn’t say. It doesn’t go beyond causation of the Universe. The rest of what you’re talking about is a strawman.
Rihilism
@eemom: Really?! Perhaps I’ve missed the news regarding atheist suicide bombers, atheist abortionist murderers, and the atheist push for criminalization of homosexuality. But then I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention the atheistic underpinnings of the Spanish Inquisition. Them atheists are some real loons…
Mark B
” I guess every logician and most philosophers from Aristotle onwards have been flat-out fucking wrong, then.”
Indeed they have. Good realization. Relativity changed a lot of things. Newton was flat out fucking wrong, too, but his work is still pretty effective for small low energy systems. As is Aristotle, etc.
Asshole
@Mark B:
Well, I’m still waiting on an explanation that doesn’t rely on either infinite regression or quantum miracles of “something from nothing.” In the absence of such explanation, I’m left with a causeless causer. This blithe assertion that cause and effect don’t work makes me wonder if you even want to rely on empiricism at all, or if we should just take it on faith that there’s no God involved.
Asshole
@eemom:
Thank you. I appreciate that. I’m as liberal as most of the commentariat here, but unlike most of them I believe in God. This blog used to be a lot more political, and a lot less militant-atheist. I’m debating whether or not to just go find some other liberal blog where the religious squabbling is less prevalent. I could really do without being told I’m an idiot for believing in God by people who’d find that I agreed with them on every single political issue.
Mark B
“This blithe assertion that cause and effect don’t work makes me wonder if you even want to rely on empiricism at all, or if we should just take it on faith that there’s no God involved.”
I’m not taking anything on faith, but the default explanation is the simplest one. I would need a reason to believe in something. I have no problem with someone accepting the existence of God as a matter of faith, but don’t pretend you have a well-supported logical argument for it.
Asshole
@Mark B:
Well, if logic’s wrong, then I guess we can’t use it to bash people for believing in God, can we? And for all you know, the end result of all the scientific discovery would be to discover there was a God behind it all anyway. Can’t rule out the possibility that people 500 years from now will be laughing at you just like you laugh at the people you think were idiots from 500 years ago.
Actually, if logic’s wrong there’s no point even discussing it. It all becomes faith-based if you have any position other than a legitimately impartial agnosticism.
Asshole
@Mark B:
That’s funny, because I’m still waiting for a well-supported logical argument against it that doesn’t rely on strawmen and mischaracterizations of what the Prime Mover argument actually involves. (For example, it doesn’t say one way or another that your Uncle Bob got killed in a car crash because God willed it that way. The Prime Mover argument is not some kind of Christian fundamentalist rhetoric.)
Mark B
@Asshole: You’re not getting my point. I’m not saying that logic is wrong, but cause and effect is not a determinable thing for large relativistic systems. For one observer, it can look like A caused B and for another observer, it might look like B caused A. A third observer might see the two events as completely unrelated. Causation in quantum is even more weird. Theories that deal with complex systems like the universe involve mathematics which force us to abandon common-sense ideas of how stuff works. I think that’s a good thing in the long run, although it’s difficult to grasp at times.
Mark B
@Asshole: I wasn’t addressing the ‘Prime Mover’ specifically, but if you have a God who built the system and can no longer interact with it … well ok. It’s not really that interesting to me. I don’t think it really explains anything except we say … I don’t know how it happened, so God musta did it. Fine, but I’m not satisfied with that.
CK MacLeod
@Mark B:
You do not understand me correctly. You still seem to be in a hurry to place yourself above someone else – in this instance that someone else would be me – by dismissing his beliefs, or, to be more precise, by dismissing what you wrongly and unjustifiably presume to be his beliefs.
I referred to logic as an unseen force in which you seem to believe. It seems to function in the approximate position of “God” in your comments, but I offer this only as a preliminary, illustrative observation.
The concept of God can be, among other things, a concept of the limit of logic as the ground or condition for logic (somewhat as the concept of nothingness is a requirement of the concept of being). Understanding the concept in this way does not require one to dispense with logic. It does not even imply that the deity conceived on this basis is being conceived as capable of defying logic. Logic is what God does. Or, if you prefer, logic is the function of this kind of God concept. Or, if you prefer, logic is the function of “this concept within the set of all concepts and necessarily as the basis for all concepts.”
@Rihilism:
Gosh, now what makes you say that? ;)
piratedan
@Asshole: I believe that it’s a free country and people are allowed to worship as they wish (as long as we’re not talking about sacrificial lambs on altars here). I have no problem with people believing in God, I also don’t have a problem with not understanding the complexities of the universe, I sure don’t. I do have a problem with folks confusing faith as truth. I don’t believe that based on your posts that you would disagree with that. There’s a lot to learn and understand out there that we (as a species) don’t understand fully and I have few issues with the folks that choose to use a religious morality structure to allow them to live their lives. I believe that there are MILLIONS of Christians out there that are humble, pious, tolerant and charitable. Then there are others…..
Rihilism
@Asshole:
Tell that to a quantum physicist. rimshot
Proof?
I think you misunderstood what I was saying. “What illuminates light” is a nonsensical statement.
Precisely. This is not logic, it’s pretend-time. It gets you no closer to an answer than “how many angels dance on the head of a pin”.
Seriously, you seem to have some fundamental misconceptions regarding physics that might be corrected by further reading.
Asshole
@Mark B:
The quantum effect on observation are, as I understand it, simply that the things are too small to adequately observe without changing them. If reality is completely relative, then we’re already living in the many worlds hypothesis and there’s no point having a discussion about much of anything. I’m aware that observation affects reality, but I’m unclear on how that totally nullifies the validity of the concept of causation. What am I missing, here?
Mark B
“Can’t rule out the possibility that people 500 years from now will be laughing at you just like you laugh at the people you think were idiots from 500 years ago.”
I think that’s a bit of a cheap shot. I’m pretty much in awe of early scientists. I know it’s less than 500 years ago, but if Newton hadn’t invented calculus (along with Leibniz) there never would have been an Einstein. Shoulders of giants and all. Yeah, his mechanics were completely fucking wrong, but close enough to put men on the moon.
Asshole
@Mark B:
It’s an explanation for how the Universe started. It’s the best one I’ve heard. It doesn’t have to satisfy, but I doubt science will ever give us a better one. I think the creation of the Universe was caused by something outside of the Universe, and I don’t think science can ever take us outside of this. It’s not a copout, but it’s more of a rebuttal to peoples’ annoying habit around here of saying that belief in God is no deeper than wanting to believe in God. I just don’t see any other explanation as more rational. And I was raised in a household where religion was considered the purview of fools. It actually took me years to overcome my inherent prejudice toward people who had religious views. (Also, my inherent hatred of people with money. But that’s a different story.)
Asshole
@piratedan:
I agree completely with everything you posted.
Mark B
@Asshole: I shouldn’t have brought up quantum mechanics, which is a separate issue from relativistic causation. The idea is that your frame of reference affects your observation of what caused what. This doesn’t happen in special relativity, but it does happen in general relativity. The perception of A being before B or B being before A is relative to where you are and how fast you are going.
Asshole
@Rihilism:
If they didn’t agree, they’d give up and go make watches for a living or something.
Causation couldn’t come from anywhere else. Occam’s Razor.
That was my point. It’s also what you’re asking of me. You’re asking me to tell you what illuminates light, then acting like you’ve won the argument when I tell you that that’s not only an unanswerable question, but not even a fairly ask-able one.
It’s analogy. Do you never use analogies at all? I see you just used a very inapt one, so nevermind.
Perhaps you could correct me in my understanding of how causation is complete bullshit, then. Suggest some readings or something. I’ve read The Dancing Wu-Li Masters, plus some Einstein and Minkowski in college. Plus I read a little bit about Bell’s Theorem. But if there’s something out there that says the concept of causation is bullshit, then either I misunderstood it or I haven’t read it.
Asshole
@Mark B:
Sure, that’s Einstein. But independently of observation, there has to be causation. Something caused something. Or if we move fast enough, did the man’s gunshot wound cause the gun to be fired?
Mark B
@Asshole: “The quantum effect on observation are, as I understand it, simply that the things are too small to adequately observe without changing them.”
Actually, that’s not it at all, weird stuff happens in the quantum realm, like a particle passing through two openings at once, which is an experiment all beginning physics students do.
Look, I’m gonna agree with piratedan. As much as it might seem like I’m some kind of anti-religionist asshole, I’m really not. I’m perfectly happy with the freedom of expression of religion in America. I know and love a lot of people who believe in God. I just get a little bent out of shape when people claim there is a logical or scientific explanation for God. There isn’t. Good luck to you with your faith. I hope it serves you well. I’m happy being an atheist.
Mark B
@Asshole: “But independently of observation, there has to be causation.”
Ahh, there’s the rub. Not always. Sometimes causation is completely in the eye of the beholder.
Asshole
@Mark B:
I’m open to the idea that I’m wrong about the Prime Mover, but I’m just not hearing any explanation for how the Universe could’ve been created through some form of magical self-causation. I’m not trying to convert anyone to anything. Maybe myself, if I heard a good enough rebuttal; but, I’m not. So I guess we can all respectfully agree to disagree.
Asshole
@Mark B:
So, again, could the gunshot wound cause the gun to fire? Is that level of causation dependent exclusively on observation? How about the creation of the Universe? How could it happen without cause an in the (obvious) total absence of observation?
CK MacLeod
@Rihilism:
I think that CDJ and WRM both believe in right and wrong, both believe that speaking the truth is generally preferable to spreading falsehoods, both believe in some version of the desirability of human progress, probably both believe that killing is bad and coveting your neighbor’s wife or ass isn’t a good idea. I doubt that either believes in a Magic Big Dude watching over us and tugging at his Magic Beard before making fatal decisions about whether we live or die or prosper.
One main difference is that WRM thinks it’s useful to speak about the first set of beliefs, and about the idea of unitary inclination underlying them, in traditional theological language, which entails discussion of this unitary inclination – this One Unique Being Unlike All Other Beings – anthropomorphically, as though a Magic Big Dude was tugging at his Magic Beard and so on. As I stated initially, I suspect that WRM, like the believing Christians who bought me lunch today, would be willing at a minimum to acknowledge that the God he believed in was certainly much more than and different from Magic Big Dude; that the anthropomorphized deity is part of a symbolic and metaphorical, simple and easily understandable way of speaking about difficult subjects.
I proposed no general logic, and the analogy is faulty. You’re presuming that you understand why the paranoid schizophrenic rambles as he does. You presume you have a diagnosis. Leaving aside the appropriateness of derision as a response in either case, CDJ expressed uncertainty about his diagnosis. I proposed that his closed-mindedness likely explained his difficulty.
Another faulty analogy. I didn’t propose any general logic, and, anyway, simplicity and simplism are not the same thing. If your objective is to understand another person’s beliefs, then overly simplistic – falsely and misleadingly reductive – renderings of those beliefs will be unhelpful.
CDJ doesn’t “believe in God” – whatever that means. Among the reasons that this statement is unsatisfactory is that the God in which or whom he says he doesn’t believe is probably not the God in which or whom WRM does believe.
In other words, CDJ appears content not to say anything, or not to say very much, about WRM’s actual beliefs, while merely pretending to himself and others that he has done so.
Mark B
@Asshole: So, again, could the gunshot wound cause the gun to fire?
I’m thinking something more along the lines of one electron’s electric field deflecting another electron. Which one got deflected first would be frame of reference dependent.
I was researching this on Wikipedia … since my physics knowledge is pretty outdated by now … and I’m gonna say that at least on Wikipedia … some of the more extremely weird theories about mutability of causality don’t really seem to be in vogue any more. So I’m gonna drop it for now.
I think it gets pretty wild the closer you get to the big bang, since everything is at extremely high energies and the coordinate system is also expanding so quickly that things become separated by more distance than they could have traveled at the speed of light. You could theoretically have galazies which are farther apart than the age of the universe, which is weird, because they could never see each other.
kth
I know a lot of ordinary people believe in God for one reason or another (force of habit, afraid of dying (me too!)). But intellectually, you don’t get to sit at the grown-up table if you believe that nonsense. Full stop.
Ruckus
@kth:
Agreed.
Every argument that I’ve ever heard is: Because or I haven’t seen any other reason or because someone else believes therefore I must.
There is no proof, no evidence whatsoever. None. Nada. Κανένα. ни один. Žádný. It is all hearsay and innuendo.
The argument is that the religious don’t have to prove anything because they just know. So because there is no proof then it must be true.
And I will grant the same thing as you. If someone wants to believe in a sky fairy to make them feel better or to enable them to get up in the morning, or not slash their wrists, great. But quit trying to impose your crap on me.
Shoemaker-Levy 9
@CK MacLeod:
Don’t know what it means for Doug but I can tell you what it means for me.
Proponent: Deity X exists.
Me: I don’t believe you.
At this point it is obviously the task of Proponent to give me reasons to think Deity X exists, not my task to delve into the unspoken workings of Proponent’s mind.
Once again; it is obviously the case that we can only respond to what others say, not what they potentially think. If WRM has not communicated his beliefs correctly the failure is his, not somebody else’s.
I do wish you’d explain to us how we’re supposed to respond to the privately held beliefs of people who haven’t communicated them.
Rihilism
@CK MacLeod:
So when WRM states “God hates the quiet life, I think. He wants us to break a sweat on our passage through this vale of tears.”, what he’s really stating is “love thy neighbor”? WRM clearly wishes to discuss the nature of God and proposes a description that is no more valid or useful than “angels on a pin” and in my opinion opens himself up to ridicule.
Of course, he doesn’t really believe in an anthropological God (nudge, nudge, wink, wink) but he believes in “something” so unexplainable that all is meant to be taken as metaphor and symbol couched in theological language. How convenient. And, our failure to penetrate this morass of gobbledigook is due to our own closed-mindedness and desire to oversimplify. Well, it all makes so much more sense now.
No you didn’t propose much of anything, hence it was rather difficult to divine your meaning.
I don’t believe in unicorns. Must I refrain from discussions regarding what unicorns look like? What is truly unsatisfactory is having discussions about the nature of God and belief with people who assume that non-belief disqualifies one from having an opinion. Is it any wonder why some atheists resort to mockery?
Myself, I’ve come to the conclusion that there is no need for a God to exist. Biology, chemistry and physics make it clear that God is not required for life. The scriptures incoherence/inconsistencies/contradictions imply that God has no better handle on life’s meaning and purpose than I do. The only purpose I can see in religion is it allows some people to pretend that they are privy to some deeper knowledge. It allows them to say, “I understand this and I pity you for your ignorance”. They belong to secret fraternity, with a secret handshake. The ultimate uselessness of the knowledge they possess is beside the point…
eemom
@Rihilism:
yes, and perhaps you’ve also missed the news about Joseph Stalin, Mao Zedong, and Pol Pot.
One thing’s for sure: you completely miss the point of what I said.
Joeshabaoo
I have to agree with Asshole that this blog’s biggest problem is the militant atheist tone.
Asshole has explained himself articulately and well having obviously thought about this problem and people feel the need to keep arguing with him to the point of bringing up the minutae of quantum physics.
Accept that someone believes something you don’t and can still be smart person without trying to convert them to your religion/non-religion.
eemom
…..which is the arrogance of any human being declaring definitively that they can rule out the existence of God.
I think what Mr. Not-Asshole is saying is that the nature of God is unknowable
— or at least, not known now — but that that fact doesn’t mean God doesn’t exist at all. That makes perfect sense to me.
There was a discussion here recently about the fact that Albert Einstein was not an atheist. Seems to me that has a bit more cred than the conviction of some random armchair physicists on a blog.
eemom
….and finally, the inability of certain people on this thread to distinguish mindless dogma and proselytizing from the thoughtful humility of acknowledging that NOBODY knows the entire truth — even a fraction of the truth — about the universe and its origins…..well, I would say that it’s people like you who give atheism a bad name.
Shoemaker-Levy 9
@eemom:
I realize this is eemom here, but in case there are any third parties reading this I will make a point I hope is instructive.
If God is in principle unknowable the conversation ceases at that point. Full stop.
If I have to explain further you are beyond redemption.
M. Bouffant
@CK MacLeod: “God” stands for the thing like which there neither can be nor is any other thing.
What the fucking hell does horse-shit like this even mean?
eemom
@Shoemaker-Levy 9:
no, actually not.
I don’t know what you “realize” about me, because I don’t know you from a hole in the ground, but what you say here just proves my point, which you either (1) missed entirely, and/or (2) are too stupid to grasp. Full stop.
Mark B
“…..which is the arrogance of any human being declaring definitively that they can rule out the existence of God.”
I’m not ruling him out, I just sould like to see some kind of proof or at least a decent logical argument some day. It’s no longer acceptable to just accept belief being forced upon everyone just for the sake of keeping the peace. As far as being an armchair physicist … I’ll plead guilty. I abandoned physics after undergrad school, now I make my living doing mathematics, mostly really boring number crunching. But I maintain an active amateur interest in the field.
eemom
@Shoemaker-Levy 9:
ah. Reviewing your previous comments I see that you are just another arrogant little shit. What are you, 15?
Rihilism
@Asshole:
I think if you asked a quantum physicist, they’d be happy to tell you that quantum mechanics is nearly incomprehensible. It’s not exactly amenable to simple empirical methodologies. If you asked them why they don’t give it up they probably say that the incomprehensible nature is what drew them to the subject in the first place.
How is “God willed it” the simplest answer? Also too, you may want to ask a string theorist what would happen if two branes collided.
Of course I do. But I prefer analogies that are meaningful. Saying that “God exists outside the universe” is like “winding a clock” may be an analogy, but what information does it provide. If God is not subject to the laws of our universe, what bearing does his particular location have? As to the light bulb analogy, making a nonsensical statement neither proves nor disproves that another statement is nonsensical.
For a start, Bart Erhman’s “God’s Problem” (“Jesus Interrupted” and “Misquoting Jesus” are also good reads). Leonard Susskind’s “The Cosmic Landscape”. And Darwin’s Origin of Species if you haven’t read it yet. For me the realization that a God is not required was a huge relief. Whether or not the authors intended it (as I said, Erhman is an agnostic, not an atheist. Considering the fact that his transition was from a fundamentalist christian, this seem reasonable), I am thankful for their assistance (as well as other) in leading me to this conclusion…
Ruckus
Why is it that the believers can be loud and pushy about their faith but non-believers don’t have a say at all?
The believers last retort after all the, we are sure nonsense, is that this is unknowable therefore we are sure that you can’t be right.
The first warning that a story is bullshit is the admonition – This ain’t no shit.
The second warning is – I know this is a true story because my second cousin’s friend Zelda heard it from her brother. Add a few centuries and cousins in there and it’s all perfectly OK.
All the proof I need.
Asshole
@kth:
You can lay down these rules as soon as you can provide a viable explanation for the causation of the Universe that doesn’t involve a Prime Mover, or God. If your only explanation is some kind of atheist miracle (a series of quantum farts into nothingness, coming from nothing, caused by nothing), then I’m going to continue to accept that the idea of a Universe created by God is more rational than your explanation.
Asshole
@Ruckus:
Same goes for you. Explain the cause of the Universe without using a God, and without using some nihil ex nihil bullshit that would get you laughed out of a college freshman philosophy (or science) class.
Mark B
@Asshole: “Explain the cause of the Universe without using a God, and without using some nihil ex nihil bullshit”
Rihilism threw you a bone. You might look into string theory and branes. I’m more happy with a cyclical universe for esthetic reasons, but branes have promise.
Fucen Pneumatic Fuck Wrench Tarmal
@Asshole:
not so much, i already accept that the meaning of life is entirely what one makes it. to me understanding that, is built into everything, which is why non-belief is far from nihilism for many, though one can choose that,though it probably won’t lead you to the greatest amount of happiness pleasure satisfaction etc you can attain.
if people get theirs through spirituality, or abstracted from a book be it star wars or the bible, i am cool with it, what i am not cool with, is when one believes that their beliefs necessarily exclude other beliefs, because ultimately the evidence is stacked against any particular set of beliefs.
Comrade DougJ
@CK MacLeod:
You are an idiot. I am ignoring your future comments.
eemom
@Ruckus:
I don’t speak for all believers. I’m not even sure I am a believer.
The point I’m making is simply this: it is possible to be either a believer or a non-believer without manifesting an arrogant assholish attitude that people who think otherwise are fucking flat-out wrong. As I said above, atheists with that kind of attitude are just as insufferable as “you’re gonna burn in hell” fundies. And those ARE insufferable.
Believing, or not believing, is all that any human being can do. Nobody fucking KNOWS.
“Full stop.” Right, shoemaker-idjit?
Comrade DougJ
@Asshole:
I can sort of see what you are getting at. But I’d like to know why it’s not stupid to say we can’t have stable investments because God wants us to sweat. You can refer to ex nihil arguments, Aristotle, whatever you want. I’d like to hear an argument that explains why WRM isn’t a moron.
Asshole
@Rihilism:
Okay, then. Since I’m not a quantum physicist, and you obviously are, please explain to me why causation is bullshit.
How does it get any simpler? The atheist equivalent is a Godless miracle- nothing from nothing. That defies logic and empirical reality, unless you can explain to me why causation is bullshit.
What does this have to do with causation? You’re the string theorist, not me. Explain to me why causation is bullshit without appealing to these random authorities that I have to spend weeks tracking down and interviewing. I’d rather not have to quit my job to find out the answers to these questions.
It does what I wanted it to do, which was explain what I was talking about. You obviously understood it, so it worked. Just because you don’t like what I said doesn’t mean that it failed to convey the information I was trying to convey. You don’t have to agree with an analogy to understand it.
None, I suppose, which is why I’m indifferent to whether God exists outside of the Universe or His/Her/Its essence suffuses the Universe. For purposes of my argument, it’s completely irrelevant. I use the word “outside” to explain that whatever God is or whatever location God would be found at- be it outside the Universe or suffusing it- it’s not subject to the laws of physics. God is not an invisible space giant hiding behind planets when people point telescopes into space. I’ve heard that puerile attack too many times on this blog, and frankly, I’m rather sick of it.
Your question to me is like asking someone that about lightbulbs. Your question is nonsensical. I’ve explained why. Sorry you didn’t like my analogy. Ask your question again, and I’ll tell you again why it’s a nonsensical question again. Next time I’ll find some other analogy that you can get pissy about.
Oh, goody. Atheist scripture. What the fuck does Jesus have to do with anything I’ve been talking about?
I’ve read Darwin. I like Darwin. Nothing in Darwin contradicts anything I’ve said, either.
I just skimmed the wikipedia entry about Susskind. Could you please explain to me why the cosomological constant means that causation is bullshit? For purposes of this discussion, I obviously don’t have time to order and read the book. Just an overview about why I’m so wrong and you’re so right would be more than sufficient.
This is not about how you feel about things or about how I feel about things. This is about causation. Either it’s needed, or it isn’t. I’m not understanding why you think it isn’t. Your “huge relief” at the lack of a need for God is no different than someone else’s “huge relief” that Jesus loves them because it’s in the Bible. It’s a subjective personalized anecdote having no bearing on objective reality.
I’d suggest avoiding (among others) Aristotle, Aquinas, Descartes, C.S. Lewis, Kierkegaard, and Dostoyevsky, then. These authors would at best annoy you; at worst, they would disrupt your relieving worldview.
Omnes Omnibus
@Comrade DougJ: I think it should be perfectly possible to believe in a deity or prime mover or what have you and also believe the WRM is a moron, but then I am an agnostic because, while I don’t active believe, I also don’t reject the possibility.
eemom
@Comrade DougJ:
fer fuck’s sake, DougJ, that is NOT what not-Asshole is talking about, and I can’t believe you don’t know that. You’re being a disingenuous Cole-esq troll here.
Nobody with any sense takes people like WRM — who I never fucking heard of before this post — seriously, or asserts that he isn’t a moron. The discussion here kind of moved past that glaringly obvious fact, in case you hadn’t noticed. For just one example, I posted something about six hours ago about theologians who kick trash like this guy down the sewer where they belong.
You disappoint me sometimes.
Asshole
@Mark B:
Okay. Well, without me having to go back to school for several years to get a degree in quantum physics, please explain to me how these theoretical brane things destroy the need for causation.
Asshole
@Fucen Pneumatic Fuck Wrench Tarmal:
So there’s really no way to say that someone else is “wrong” if they decide that the meaning of life is to kill people, or what have you. Social utilitarianism is the only controlling factor.
One of my friends in real life is a militant atheist and also a lover of the classics. She thinks that a society can get by just fine with child rape as the norm. She cites the ancient Greeks as having civilizations that worked just fine with systematic child molestation as the norm, both in terms of their longevity and their general cultural impact. There’s really no refuting her with social utilitarian arguments, is there? Without an external source of morality, all I’m left with is my subjective revulsion. (She thinks it wouldn’t work for our society because too many people share that revulsion, but she also thinks that revulsion is a byproduct of Judeo-Christian imprinting.)
I think a totally subjective and fundamentally meaningless belief system is the textbook definition of nihilism. It is a life without meaning, purpose, or intrinsic value. If you disagree, that’s good. I’m not trying to argue with you about it. I’m just providing my outsider’s perspective. The last thing I’d want is for you to agree with me on this one.
Yet your beliefs exclude other beliefs- for example, your beliefs are inconsistent with those of devout Muslims (for example). You and Muslims may tolerate one another, but it is impossible to see how an individual could share your beliefs while remaining faithful to the fundamental tenets of Islam.
Mark B
@Asshole: “Okay. Well, without me having to go back to school for several years to get a degree in quantum physics, please explain to me how these theoretical brane things destroy the need for causation.”
Well, in absolute sense they don’t. One way string theorists think the big bang might have occured was through the collision of higher dimensional ‘branes’, and our 4 dimensional universe lives on the surface of one of the branes. But you’re still left with the problem of where the branes came from. But it’s cool. You could imagine the current universe as an experiment gone wrong in the higher dimensional societies 2nd grade brane research class. And then our God could be a particularly slow 7 dimensional student.
Rihilism
@eemom: You’re quite correct, I misunderstood your earlier statement. You were discussing dogma while I presumed you were suggesting actions based on dogma. Of course, your statement assumes that there is some atheist dogma to subscribe to. Please, enlighten me, what exactly does that entail?
Claiming with absolute certainty that God exists is what then? Of course, no one can claim with absolute certainty that God does not exist. Perhaps if you’d read my comments here, you’d realize that the only claim I make is that God is irrelevant which leads me to conclude that there is no reason for his existence. Apparently, my statement of this conclusion makes me mindless dogmatic prosthelytizer. Brilliant! Respond to my conclusion (regardless of it’s merits) with a swift poke in the eye and claim that anyone who shares my position lacks humility. Sounds a great deal like the conversations I had when I was 15.
As for humility, I am humbled on a daily basis by the megaverse and well as the insufficiency of our knowledge regarding its origins. I simply don’t require a belief in God to achieve that state of mind…
Comrade DougJ
@eemom:
I’m not saying that Asshole is defending WRM, but that other idiot is and he and Asshole seem to be on the same wave length with all the philosophical terminology. Asshole seems brighter so I thought maybe he could explain it to me. Why does that disappoint you?
Asshole
@Comrade DougJ:
You won’t get it from me. WRM is a moron and an asshole, and arguably not really a true believer of the Christian faith. I think one could probably say that Jesus was attacking a lot of the religious right when he (according to the Scripture in the Bible, anyway) said, “Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites.”
I don’t see why I have to talk about that asshole when I’m making a philosophical argument developed by Aristotle over 300 years before this Jesus fellow came along, though. Why does my defense of the concept of God make me a defender of some other asshole who also says he believes in God? Does everyone who believes in God have to agree with everyone else who believes in God? Does every atheist have to apologize for Lenin and Stalin? Do I ask everyone around here who says they don’t believe in God what they think about atheist/serial killer Carl Panzram or atheist/serial killer Jared Loughner?
You’ll note I hadn’t addressed your original point about WRM, because I wasn’t quarreling with it. I agree with you that he’s a ridiculous asshole. What I was quarreling with was the militant atheist blanket-insulting that followed in the comments thread, attacking anyone who believes in anything except militant atheism. This inevitably follows in every comment thread in which God or religion is mentioned around here. Nature of the beast, I guess; this blog didn’t used to be an atheist blog, but now it is. It used to be all politics, but now it’s pets, sports, booze, atheism, and politics. So it goes.
I’ve been asking people why the belief in any sort of God is ridiculous, and most people have been civil in retorting (which is a pleasant surprise, given the usual reaction around here), but I’m being referred to some quantum physics theories that I don’t have time to read right now which purportedly eliminate causation from the Universe. I’m in it for the physics lesson at this point, not so much for WRM.
Asshole
@Mark B:
Or much of anything, really. God could be anything. I wasn’t making any claim about God’s nature, just saying that I don’t see any viable explanation for the Universe that doesn’t involve one.
Comrade DougJ
@Asshole:
Okay, cool. I see what you’re getting at.
Asshole
@Comrade DougJ:
I shouldn’t speak for the other fellow/gal, but I think he/she was saying that you and WRM are both proceeding from axioms and beliefs about right/wrong, good/bad, etc. I think he/she was extrapolating from that that deep down, we all believe in the same things even if we change the labels, and that the superficial label-shit is what causes us to disagree- whether one guy calls it God and anthropomorphizes it, while another guy calls it cosmic space-dust and waxes sentimental about how cool it is that we’re made of subatomic particles that were present at the Big Bang, or whatever the fuck. I think he/she got mad at you for criticizing WRM’s take on things when, if you dig deep down, we all believe in the same thing but call it different things.
That was what I thought he/she was saying, anyway. Think of it as militant Unitarian Universalism, or maybe a splinter sect offshoot of militant Unitarian Universalism. I could be completely wrong, but if I am hopefully he/she will come back and tell me so. And I apologize to he or she if it sounds like I’m trivializing his or her ideas. I’m just putting them in the most basic terms that I’m understanding them in.
Asshole
@Comrade DougJ:
Thanks, man.
Seriously, though, I miss the days when this blog was all about trolling. You got us started on that shit. That was hilarious. Life-affirmingly wonderful humor. I still use Scrutator and Blogs 4 Brownback as writing references/joke-mines, and even though some of our ideas like TWOC never caught on, no one can say we didn’t try.
Back in those days, though, I felt like I could believe in God and troll the Fundies without it being a contradiction. Nowadays, it seems like I can’t believe in God without getting conflated with the Fundies half the time around here. Either you’re an atheist, or you’re Jerry Falwell; not fucking middle ground around here anymore, or at least that’s the vibe a lot of the commentariat give off.
It makes me sad. I was fucking Sisyphus on Blogs 4 Brownback, for Chrissakes. I shouldn’t have to get defensive about religion. I wrote “Heliocentrism is an Atheist Doctrine.” I believed in God when I wrote it, and I believe in God now. I think I can believe in God without believing in how God is politicized and misused in this country by a bunch of right-wing Pharisee hypocrites doing their best to make either a Fascist theocracy or a Bolshevik revolution happen as soon as possible. (Okay, the latter option is pretty damned unlikely, but I’d take it over Fascism in a heartbeat.)
Matter of fact, I’ve quit this blog a couple times over the atheist taunting. I keep coming back, though, so it’s impossible to say I’m gone for good. I will say that a lot of my friends think it’s not good for my stress levels to read a bunch of comments about how I’m stupid and immoral for believing in God. This thread has been a paragon of civility, compared to some. No matoko-chan-troll saying that all Christians should get raped or that commenters’ missionary-parents should be killed, and no other random peeps saying that everyone (every single person) who believes in God is a child molester. This thread has been great, compared to the way these anti-God threads usually go down.
I should stop coming by here as much, though. I guess I just miss the old days. The day or two here and there where there’s no post up that acts as red meat for the militant atheists make me think those old days are coming back, but they probably aren’t.
Meh. Whatever. Too much information for the public, but I guess I didn’t feel like sending it on the old Trollalicious list-serv. Not sure either one of us is still on that thing, though.
(ETA: Scrutator’s down and kind of fucked up, but I use some of the jokes from memory. That one about terrorists stuffing dirty bombs in their anuses and walking across the Mexican border with them to attack American targets was comedy gold. I can’t believe Bachmann hasn’t used it yet. I should write her and ask her about it.)
Ruckus
Let’s see here. I’m an arrogant ass because I point out there is no proof and therefore I don’t believe in religion. But people are saying that religion must be right because there is no proof are OK. Am I missing something?
For centuries those of us who don’t believe have been loudly and forcefully told that we are wrong even though they have no proof and commenters have continued doing that. We have holidays based upon religion, we have politicians spouting religious dreck and trying to force us to follow their religious beliefs. And I have stated on more than one occasion that I could care less that you believe(once in this very post) just don’t try to force me to accept or believe any religious crap. Can I explain the universe? No. But saying that some religious crap must be true because I can provide no proof otherwise is bullshit. People have been trying for eons to provide proof that god of some sort exists and they have nothing. Not a little nothing but absolutely nothing. But I’m supposed to accept it just because. Science has provided and continues to provide evidence of how this started, although we will probably never actually know. But I’m not asking for proof that the world exits, I am asking for proof that some type of god exits. You got anything other than because?
Didn’t think so.
eemom
@Asshole:
yeah. That’s what I was getting at, anyway.
and that. I don’t get into the “explanation for the Universe” so much because I know jack shit about science, but I’m frankly impressed by the fact that Einstein wasn’t an atheist.
Also — again — I think it’s ridiculous to deny the existence of God, based on the fact that we don’t understand what God is. There are all kinds of things in the nature of cause and effect that science doesn’t yet understand, but no one denies that they exist.
Asshole
@Ruckus:
I’m asking for an explanation for how the Universe came to exist that doesn’t involve a God. If God didn’t cause the Universe to come about, what did? If you can’t answer that, it’s fine. But you’re an arrogant ass if you act like other people are idiots for daring to ask the question, or are idiots for deciding that in the absence of a better explanation, God is the reasonable answer. You don’t have to agree with that conclusion, but if you don’t have a better explanation the least you can do is respect it- or refute it without a bunch of ad hominem whining or appeals to how religious people used to be dicks to atheists hundreds of years ago. Lenin and Stalin shot a lot of priests, too- what the fuck does that have to do with a philosophical argument about the causation of the Universe?
Mark B
“but I’m frankly impressed by the fact that Einstein wasn’t an atheist.” — sorry that’s incorrect. He was atheist by any reasonable interpretation of the word.
“It was, of course, a lie what you read about my religious convictions, a lie which is being systematically repeated. I do not believe in a personal God and I have never denied this but have expressed it clearly. If something is in me which can be called religious then it is the unbounded admiration for the structure of the world so far as our science can reveal it.” From a letter Einstein wrote in English, dated 24 March 1954.
“Thus I came…to a deep religiosity, which, however, reached an abrupt end at the age of 12. Through the reading of popular scientific books I soon reached a conviction that much in the stories of the Bible could not be true….Suspicion against every kind of authority grew out of this experience…an attitude which has never left me.”
Gnite all, I have nothing further to add.
Asshole
@eemom:
Exactly.
Ruckus
@Asshole:
The arrogance comes from an entire life of having this crap stuffed down my throat.
You want me to provide the proof of your bullshit explanation? Because you can’t?
And I’m the arrogant one. OK I can live with that.
Rihilism
@Asshole: One more comment, then I’m going to bed. There are scientific theories (some, like evolution that are easily verifiable, and some like string theory which haven’t even been tested) that can explain the existence of life and the universe without the need for a Deity. Think of Laplace’s reply to Napolean, “I had no need of that hypothesis.” (here).
One could argue that even if God is not needed for creation, he is necessary to “understand” creation. The “why”, rather than the “how”. My point in discussing Erhman’s work (God’s Problem encompasses both the old and new testaments), is that he posits the idea that the bible fails to resolve the most fundamental question, “why do we suffer”. I can assure, Erhman’s work is the farthest you can be from an atheistic screed. He began adulthood as an ardent fundamentalist, has spent a lifetime studying the text (performing his own translations when source material was unclear), and has never suggested that God does not exist. In my opinion, his agnosticism stems not from an unwillingness to believe, but from a failure to reconcile people’s belief about God with what is stated in scripture. I find his arguments compelling.
So, if creation does not require a creator (I’m sorry if you’re not comfortable with theories regarding creation that don’t involve a creator, but suggesting that they seem improbable does not make God any more probable), and if God’s “explanation” of why we exist raises more questions than answers, my conclusion is that God is not a necessary hypothesis. And let me be perfectly clear. Regardless of what others may say about me, I don’t give a wit whether or not someone agrees with me…
eemom
@Ruckus:
yeah. The point. Again.
What part of belief and knowledge are NOT THE SAME THING, do you not understand?
You don’t believe in God because there’s no proof. Others believe in God, either because (1) they profess a “faith” that eschews your kind of proof, or (2) they’ve reached the conclusion not-Asshole has, that God is the only explanation for how the universe came to be.
If the believers tell you you’re wrong, they’re an asshole. If you tell them they’re wrong, you’re an asshole. Because nobody knows who’s right or wrong. Nevertheless, it should be possible to have an intelligent discussion about the reasons for believing vs the reasons for not believing, without ANYBODY being an asshole.
Although not, perhaps, on this particular blog.
Asshole
@Mark B:
Einstein said a lot of things that contradict the idea that he was an atheist. For example, Einstein also said this:
“My religion consists of a humble admiration of the illimitable superior spirit who reveals himself in the slight details we are able to perceive with our frail and feeble mind.”
“Every one who is seriously involved in the pursuit of science becomes convinced that a spirit is manifest in the laws of the Universe-a spirit vastly superior to that of man, and one in the face of which we with our modest powers must feel humble.”
“The scientists’ religious feeling takes the form of a rapturous amazement at the harmony of natural law, which reveals an intelligence of such superiority that, compared with it, all the systematic thinking and acting of human beings is an utterly insignificant reflection.”
“When the solution is simple, God is answering.”
“The human mind is not capable of grasping the Universe. We are like a little child entering a huge library. The walls are covered to the ceilings with books in many different tongues. The child knows that someone must have written these books. It does not know who or how. It does not understand the languages in which they are written. But the child notes a definite plan in the arrangement of the books—-a mysterious order which it does not comprehend, but only dimly suspects.”
“I believe in Spinoza’s God who reveals himself in the orderly harmony of what exists, not in a God who concerns himself with the fates and actions of human beings.”
“I want to know how God created this world. I am not interested in this or that phenomenon, in the spectrum of this or that element. I want to know his thoughts. The rest are details.”
“I see a pattern, but my imagination cannot picture the maker of that pattern. I see a clock, but I cannot envision the clockmaker. The human mind is unable to conceive of the four dimensions, so how can it conceive of a God, before whom a thousand years and a thousand dimensions are as one?”
“We know nothing about [God, the world] at all. All our knowledge is but the knowledge of schoolchildren. Possibly we shall know a little more than we do now. but the real nature of things, that we shall never know, never.”
“In the view of such harmony in the cosmos which I, with my limited human mind, am able to recognise, there are yet people who say there is no God. But what makes me really angry is that they quote me for support for such views.”
“Then there are the fanatical atheists whose intolerance is the same as that of the religious fanatics, and it springs from the same source . . . They are creatures who can’t hear the music of the spheres.”
Unless pantheism is the same thing as atheism now (an extremely dubious claim unless we’re also going to say that all beliefs are, fundamentally, one and the same deep down), I can’t see a case for Einstein being an atheist. Unless his views evolved over time or something. From my reading of his essays, I recall reading him as something of a Deist/pantheist. He wasn’t a believer in the Judeo-Christian God, but that doesn’t make him an atheist.
eemom
@Mark B:
That is NOT all of what he said on the subject, and no biographer other than you has concluded that he was an atheist “by any reasonable interpretation of the word.”
Nice work though — dropping some selectively chosen quotes into the discussion and then signing off. I’m sure Einstein would have really respected that.
Asshole
@Ruckus:
And I had atheism stuffed down my throat in my childhood by my Communist father. The truth or falsity of ideas has nothing to do with our childhood experiences.
I’ve provided proof- because nothing can come from nothing, it must come from something. That something is God. That something is how I’d define God. It’s really not a difficult concept to grasp, and I think it’s proven by the idea that things can only be caused by other things. I’m sorry if your personal pain and trauma render you incapable of discussing this idea calmly.
Your personal feelings have little to do with this. Please calmly explain to me how there can be anything other than a causeless causer. The absence of other possibilities is all the proof I need. If you have another possibility, I’d like to hear it. Preferably without snark or personal insults, but I’m fairly used to hearing those at this point when I ask people to provide some OTHER explanation than the one I’ve provided. So if you feel the need to insult me for giving you an explanation that you’re incapable of refuting or coming up with an alternative to, go right ahead. I suppose it’s my atonement for the actions of other people in your earlier life experience.
eemom
@Asshole:
beautiful. That is all I’ve been trying to say here.
CK MacLeod
@Shoemaker-Levy 9:
The problem you’re encountering with WRM and other believers is that most of them are as unprepared as you are to discuss their concept of God philosophically.
“Deity X” is not a monotheistic formulation, but, because most believers worship their monotheistic deity in a manner largely indistinguishable from pagan practice – superstitiously – few will be able to explain why associating their concept of God with “Deity X” should be nonsensical. The traditions and sacred texts of Islam, Christianity, and Judaism include much that falls in this category: the one, unique, and eternal God understood as just a bigger, better Zeus or Spirit of the Mountain or what-have-you. For the believer, such myths and superstitions are a way of picturing or structuring something that for the vast majority of them cannot be put into words in any other way. The non-believer who makes a fetish out of his rejection of these non-essential appurtenances of faith may convince himself that he’s operating on a superior intellectual plane, but demonstrative hostility against those who threaten his fetish undermines the pose, revealing it as of the same character, but with the defect of pointing at most to self-approval or -advancement at the expense of others.
The questions about a “creation” of the universe, displaced to some imaginary remote past moment is, from the perspective of prophetic monotheism, a similarly vain and nonsensical passtime, something for those who have difficulty conceiving of “creation” as constant, universal, and present. God as a thought or concept is creating now, always, not “then,” like some science fiction superduper-human lighting a match.
Conceived as a subject, God is creating – now – and you can also say God creates now. Conceiving God as a substantive, you can say God is creation. All of these ideas are simultaneous and mutually inclusive, and your belief or disbelief in them is merely a choice not to understand or even try to understand how this theological system is constructed. Or it could simply be your tribal taboo against the word “God.” Such a rejection also takes the form of primitive superstition: The atheist cringing in fear or lashing out violently as the name of the evil spirit is invoked.
It’s not within your power to put an idea to death or to wish it out of existence. Maybe the purpose of your rejection of “Deity X” is actually to protect something too precious for you even to put into words.
@Rihilism:
Here’s where, in my opinion, you would benefit from a little more reflection or study, and a little less indulgence in snap judgments. “Love thy neighbor” isn’t something easy, something you do for the fun of it. Alternative translations of the command, which originates in the Old Testament, are “love the stranger,” “love the foreigner,” “love your fellow human being.” It’s one of the most difficult requirement of faith to fulfill, as any look at the headlines or human history ought to remind you.
So, the God of revealed religion is very much, in this and much else, requiring you to “break a sweat,” and WRM’s interpretation isn’t anything new. Within the moral system of monotheism, the way to redemption and fulfillment goes through doubt and suffering, especially through compassion for your “neighbor” in his or her doubt and suffering. It is how monotheism began to construct the moral individual – as a complex being of infinite worth and potential, and member of a community of people as worthy and complex -a work of thousands of years. The moral basis and historical origin of the social justice teaching handed down to the progressive left can likely be located in these and related teachings. It’s an irony and more than an irony that at some level it probably motivates CDJ’s attack on WRM and most of the leftwing atheistic attacks on religion on this thread and elsewhere.
Put differently, why bother attacking the WRM’s and CKM’s and other mistaken non-atheists of the world if you don’t believe in some higher purpose? WRM may put that higher purpose in traditional religious terms. He’s also capable of discussing that higher purpose, that will to the good, without reference to revealed religion, though I take the position that an unspoken effectively religious commitment or impulse will underlie it.
Asshole
@Rihilism:
I apologize if I’ve mischaracterized the works of this man I’ve never read or had ever heard of before. But please, NOTHING that you or he says about Scripture or Jesus or a Biblical God has ANYTHING whatsoever to do with what I’m talking about. Nothing at all. It’s as if I argued to you that atheist arguments against God are refuted by the existence of puppies. That’s how little it has to do with what I am saying. So please don’t bring it up. I’m not arguing for the Judeo-Christian God. No one’s personal childhood experiences or refutations of Scripture have anything whatsoever to do with what I’m talking about.
I do take serious issue with one thing you said, though:
The theories that involve a creationless creator are asinine. I’m sorry to have to put them that way, but they are. They require causation from nothingness- nothing from nothing. The idea that something comes from nothing, given enough time, is a miracle. It’s an atheist miracle. It defies science. It defies logic. It defies common sense. It’s every bit as much of a miracle as any idea in the Scripture you’re deriding. It’s “less probable” in the same way that the miraculous events described in Scripture are “less probable,” and believing in it requires no less of a leap of faith.
Believing that God created the Universe is the simplest, most logical explanation. It’s not making any claim about what God is. It could be the Judeo-Christian God; it could be some blind idiot God who accidentally created the Universe and then walked away from it. But there’s simply no rational explanation for how the Universe was caused that doesn’t involve a God. Pretending that the atheist explanations are simply “less probable” is saying that it’s on par with the “explanation” of how the Universe exists that you’ve found in the Bible (which you’ve wrongly conflated with “God,” showing an inability to comprehend this discussion outside of the Judeo-Christian framework).
An atheist miracle is no more or less probable than a Judeo-Christian miracle. Actually, it’s less so, since at least the Judeo-Christians have a God they can explain their miracles by. Atheists have no God, and can’t explain their miracles by anything other than a lack of intellectual curiosity and/or a temperamental inability to concede that the idea of a God creating something is (however improbable and distasteful it may seem to you) far, far likelier than the idea that nothing created something.
Asshole
@eemom:
Einstein was orders of magnitude beyond the ways in which he’s been used by both sides in the debate about religion- those “sides” being the Christian fundies and the atheists.
Rihilism
@Asshole: Ok, one more.
“I’m asking for an explanation for how the Universe came to exist that doesn’t involve a God.”
Oh, fer christsakes, why do you think I’ve been begging you to learn more about quantum physics and string theory. Why do you think I recommended Susskind. If you don’t like his physics, try Hawking. As you don’t have all the time in the world to understand these theories, I don’t have all the time in the world to explain them to you. I’ve given you a starting point, now educate yourself…
Fucen Pneumatic Fuck Wrench Tarmal
@Asshole:
i disagree that you cannot have intrinsic values, unless they come from somewhere else, preferably a long time ago, for veneration purposes. as far as societal standards go, i believe the perfect society will one day understand how to take personal intrinsic values, and rank and order them, so society can champion or abhor those things that represent a reasonable consensus. you are going far off into the weeds if you act as if the furthest most worst deviation you care to posit is the result of trusting individuals to make their own morality without an old novel to guide them. also, you act as if our society, over dominated by one story, gets it right, and in the right porportions, we fail at so many levels, maybe its the book. christianity, you soft peddle by using islam, but christianity is far more near an example, is fine, until it becomes a manual for controlling society, not individuals. of course, christianity was invented out of judaism for exactly that purpose, judaism was tough to weld to political power, christianity updates and improves on this area. all of it is wrong to me, though the core philosophies as they pertain to the individual, aren’t bad, they are just a choice.
eemom
@Fucen Pneumatic Fuck Wrench Tarmal:
that has absolutely nothing the fuck to do with the topic of discussion here.
@CK MacLeod:
Nor that.
@Asshole:
No joke.
Rihilism
@Asshole:
You may think they are asinine, but they can be described mathematically. If someone can provide me a mathematical proof of how God created the universe, I’d be a fool to consider it asinine (unless the mathematics were flawed, of course)….
Rihilism
As for Einstein, I’ve no desire to fight over his corpse, other than to say his belief/nonbelief is irrelevant to his physics. As is the case with Susskind and Hawking…
Fucen Pneumatic Fuck Wrench Tarmal
@eemom:
playing hall monitor has even less to do with the discussion. i think this is a poor outlet for you needing to feel like you are in charge of something in your life. you see, actually it is, and has been, part of the discussion. often times, in a thread of this length, there are several coexisting topics being discussed. perhaps if you were a bit less ridged?
eemom
@Fucen Pneumatic Fuck Wrench Tarmal:
sorry, idiot, but this is not a case of coexisting topics. You purported to respond to not-Asshole — however, your response had absolutely zero to do with anything that he’s said on this thread.
Try harder next time.
Also: “ridged”? Are you implying I’m a potato chip?
Oh, I see — you meant r-i-g-i-d.
I don’t think you can dismiss the Hall Monitor until you’ve passed 4th grade.
Asshole
@Rihilism:
I’ve asked you to explain it to me. Conflating my arguments with Christian Scripture (and citing, approvingly, your preferred physicist’s identical conflation) hardly recommends taking the time to buy and read him. And for purposes of this discussion, I have no time. So tell me why causation is bullshit. Tell me it yourself. I don’t just say to you “There are proofs for God” and, when you ask me for them, tell you to go read Thomas Aquinas. I could, he’s got at least 5 of them that I can remember, but instead I’m making an argument to you about what they are. “You’re wrong, here, go read a book that shows you’re wrong” is not helpful. Tell me why I’m wrong. Give me the synopsis.
Asshole
@Fucen Pneumatic Fuck Wrench Tarmal:
Nothing you say contradicts anything this other atheist I know says about how she thinks we could have a perfectly viable society with systematic child rape. You can drussy up nihilism with life-affirming blather, but it’s still nihilism. As for your belief that we’ll evolve into some kind of ant-farm of perfect intrinsic virtue (whatever the fuck that means), it’s about as useful as someone else’s belief that God will come back to Earth and make all the problems go away.
Asshole
@Rihilism:
Ptolemy’s ideas can be described mathematically, too. That doesn’t make them any less asinine.
Ryan’s budget has numbers in it, too. So I guess it’s a very serious plan. It can be described mathematically.
Asshole
@Rihilism:
Ooh, look, a mathematical proof that says God exists. I guess that settles it, then, right?
Asshole
Also, could someone please explain why quantum fluctuations mean that causation is bullshit and the Universe could be caused by nothing?
Here’s a mathematical proof I just came up with:
0 + 0 /= 1.
That’s my refutation of the use of quantum fluctuations to try to get around causation. Now, obviously I’m not a mathematician or a quantum physicist, and I don’t have time to go back to school and get degrees in either subject. So if someone could explain to me (without name-dropping or referring me to some books that would take me weeks to get through, by which point this thread would be locked-down and dead) why we can have an uncaused causation, I’d really appreciate it. I followed the link about quantum fluctuation, and maybe it’s because my calculus is rusty but I didn’t see anything in there that said “this is why the Universe can just happen without any causation whatsoever.” Maybe that’s because I’m so fucking stupid; but if you’re so fucking smart, you should be able to explain it to me without resorting to ad hominems or without unexplained appeals to random physicists that- for purposes of this discussion- I have no time to familiarize myself with.
Mark B
I know nobody is reading this any more, but frequent use of God as a metaphor hardly qualifies Einstein as a believer in God. The most generous interpretation would be that he’s an agnostic who liked to speak about higher principles as being somehow transcendent.
Asshole
@Mark B:
The most accurate interpretations would be that he was either a Deist or a pantheist, though. But hardly an atheist, given that he explicitly rejected atheism.
“In the view of such harmony in the cosmos which I, with my limited human mind, am able to recognise, there are yet people who say there is no God. But what makes me really angry is that they quote me for support for such views.”
“Then there are the fanatical atheists whose intolerance is the same as that of the religious fanatics, and it springs from the same source . . . They are creatures who can’t hear the music of the spheres.”
eemom
@Asshole:
again, beautiful.
You gotta love the twisted pretzel-logic from which someone extracts bullshit like this
from the simple brilliance of those words.
Rihilism
@Asshole:
Ahem,
An ontological argument that purports to prove that God exists. Please refer me to Godel’s mathematical proof regarding how God created the universe (which was what I was asking for) and I would gladly concede the point and consider your theory. This is not snark, I actually do have an open mind, despite what others may think, and am always open to new theories which can explain natural phenomena.
“Also, could someone please explain why quantum fluctuations mean that causation is bullshit and the Universe could be caused by nothing?”
I don’t recall ever stating that quantum fluctuations mean that causation (whatever it is you mean by causation) is bullshit.
“So if someone could explain to me (without name-dropping or referring me to some books that would take me weeks to get through, by which point this thread would be locked-down and dead) why we can have an uncaused causation, I’d really appreciate it.”
First, “weeks to get through”? I’m sorry, but tough shit. It took me years of reading to come to my own conclusions (btw, I’m not a physicist. My degrees are in chemical and environmental engineering). Expecting me to explain this in easy to digest blog posts for your amusement is not a reasonable request. I’ve repeatedly suggested you read Susskind’s book. The full title is “The cosmic landscape: string theory and the illusion of intelligent design“. If you are not completely adverse to a bit of study, read it and come to your own conclusions. I’ll even give my own (albeit, rudimentry) synopsis. Advocates of intelligent design claim that since the cosmological constants of our universe are ideal for the formation of life, this suggest a creator. Susskind claims that string theory indicates that there is not a single universe, but that our universe is part of an enormous number (500 billion, I believe, but don’t quote me) of universes (the megaverse). He further asserts that apparent “idealness” of our universe can just as easily be explained by the theory of large numbers. If there are an enormous number of universes, the appearance of an “ideal” one (or more) is simply a matter of probability.
Second, I never claimed that we can have un-caused causation, nor does quantum physics. You’re the one who ascribed that property to these “atheist miracles” and then proceeded to label them asinine for doing so. First sentence, first footnote from the Wikipedia article I referenced:
Something from nothing caused by adding energy. If you want to label the energy “God”, fine, but exactly what does that add to the discussion? Which is my point. It’s why I find discussions of infinite regression so futile. Someone can always come up with logic (flawed or otherwise) claiming that they can demonstrate that God was not created. My response, “who cares?”. I honestly don’t mean that as dismissive. It’s meant an an open question. What relevance does God’s existence have? Why is God necessary? Now, you’ve chided me for discussing scripture. You say it’s not relevant to this discussion. It seems to me that if you are going to posit a God it would make sense to discuss the nature of God, but, fine, let’s ignore it and talk only of God’s creation of the universe. Theories exist which describe the creation of the universe without invoking God. Based on this, I conclude that, the whether God exists or not, he is not needed to explain the formation of the universe. It’s my opinion that you’re only critique of these theories is that they asinine, absent any supporting evidence as to
they are asinine other than you personally find them illogical. Why must quantum theory conform to your sense of logic? More so, why does the apparent illogical nature of physics make God more logical? It a simple question though I doubt the answer can easily fit into a blog post…
Rihilism
Please excuse my faulty formatting…
Shoemaker-Levy 9
@CK MacLeod:
I am not encountering a particular problem with WRM. Doug found WRM’s conception of God ridiculous. You rounded on Doug for not understanding the more profound God that you presume WRM believes in. In short, you are criticizing someone for not responding to the privately held beliefs that another party never communicated. That’s self-evidently asinine and you have yet to explain why Doug did something wrong for responding to what somebody said rather than what that person maybe, possibly thinks.
The rest of your comment proceeds in the same pointless and supercilious manner. If language is an inadequate tool to express deep religious feelings then it follows that it is an inadequate tool for Doug to express his contrary position, and also follows that I have no way of knowing if the conception of God you express in the third and fourth paragraphs is profound, superstitious, or the ravings of a lunatic. Since we can’t know if the surface structure of the language is adequately expressing the deep structure of the religious feeling, and since language is the means by which we communicate on this blog, you would seem to have successfully rendered everything you say on the subject pointless. Good work.
Asshole
@Rihilism:
Causation is a simple word- “that which causes a thing to happen.” I can’t dumb it down any more than that.
Okay, this is EXTREMELY unfair. If you’re going to use some book to back up your argument, it’s not the slightest bit fair of you to expect other people to read that book so that they can rebut your argument. If you can’t argue without name-dropping books, it’s not even worth bringing that book up in the first place. I don’t argue with you by telling you to “go read Thomas Aquinas and get back to me- oh, don’t have time? Tough shit.”
Me too, BTW. Do you think I just pulled this shit out of my ass? Do I sound like an exceptionally precocious 14-year-old, here? I spent four years studying philosophy and the history of mathematics in undergrad, then three years in law school. One thing I learned that you need to brush up on is that if you’re going to cite something, cite it. Don’t just mention it and expect other people to do your heavy lifting for you.
Actually, yes it is. Otherwise I could just say that you have to go read these 50 books that prove what a fucking idiot you are, and end the discussion that way. Then I could go on amazon.com and pull up 50 random book titles that don’t even buttress my point, just to have things to cite at you.
The purpose of a discussion is to exchange, not to show how much smarter you are than everyone else. If you want to can’t exchange an idea, then don’t mention it.
The Prime Mover argument has nothing to do with intelligent design. It only talks about causation. It’s not about Christianity or teaching Creationism in schools. I don’t know why you feel the need to keep hammering those points home as if though they mean something to this discussion. As far as I’m concerned, they’re strawmen.
An argument that has nothing to do with the Prime Mover argument, which simply says that a causeless causer had to cause everything.
Well, sorry, but it’s not turtles all the way down. That’s the same problem of infinite regression making no empirical sense whatsoever. Even if he traced it back through 10 billion other Universes, something had to cause those too.
Okay, but I’ve been waiting this whole time for an explanation of how un-caused causation is possible. To say that it is possible is, in fact, to argue for an atheist miracle.
It adds a causeless causer and explains everything. Do you understand that God might be something other than the Judeo-Christian God, or are you intellectually incapable of grasping a possible broader significance to the term?
It explains where the Universe comes from. Why is that necessary? I don’t know. Why is any inquiry “necessary”? I thought we were trying to know and learn things. Atheist dismissiveness is wholly unjustified if it can’t even address the fundamental question of where the Universe comes from. How are we supposed to care about cosmology, but not about how the cosmos originated? Why don’t we just smash every telescope in the world and give it up completely?
It’s not relevant to this discussion. It’s also a boxed-in narrowed definition of God. I don’t know if you’re only used to having this discussion with Creationists, or what. But as I’ve said repeatedly, Aristotle came up with the Prime Mover argument roughly 350 years before the birth of Christ.
Name them. Describe them. Or are you just talking about the something-from-nothing atheist miracles? Energy from nothing creating matter- okay, where’d the energy come from? If it came from nothing, that’s miraculous.
Based on theories you haven’t cited, I’m wrong. Thanks. That’s very fucking convenient.
Tell me how something comes from nothing. Explain that to me. And if it does, tell me how that’s not a ridiculous atheist miracle. You can lay the fuck off the ad hominems right now, and tell me how any of this makes sense without treating me like I’m some stupid, arrogant piece of shit because I asked you for a sensible argument. If the questions make you uncomfortable, say so. If you don’t have a decent rebuttal and you don’t want to concede that, fine. But I’ve been arguing this shit for 120 comments now, and I have yet to hear any decent explanation for how causeless causation happens. So if I’m stupid, then why can’t you come up with a counterargument?
Because if logic and rational inquiry don’t work, then you have no basis whatsoever for using science to refute anything. Once you’ve tossed empiricism out the window, you can’t refute Scripture, astrology, or anything else. And your argument relies on the abandonment of empiricism. You’re telling me I’m arrogant for using logic and empiricism- well, what the fuck do you use when someone tells you that Adam and Eve used to ride dinosaurs around the Garden of Eden? A Creationist asks you to suspend your faith in empiricism and logic and you laugh at them, but I’m telling you that empiricism and logic lead inexorably to God, and you tell me that either a) it doesn’t matter, or b) that even if it did matter, empiricism and logic need to be abandoned because there’s no God at all. Because some theory that makes no empirical or logical sense doesn’t need a God. QED.
If logic and empiricism don’t work, then nothing works and your atheistic views are no more viable than some Creationist’s belief that velociraptors died off because Noah couldn’t fit them in the Ark. If logic and empiricism do work, then there’s some sort of a God behind all this. Or, there’s another explanation that you have, that you haven’t told me yet, that DOESN’T revolve around energy or matter magically appearing through some totally-uncaused atheist miracle.
Asshole
@Shoemaker-Levy 9:
I still think he’s arguing that deep down all beliefs are the same thing operating under different names, but I could be wrong about that.
Asshole
I guess you’re right, though. It is pointless to spend time trying to figure out what he/she means.
Asshole
@eemom:
It’s dogmatism. It’s dogmatic anti-theism. I think a lot of modern atheism is a surrogate religion. I think it’s getting more and more entrenched as a new orthodoxy with its own dogmatism, too. It’s not a humble statement like, “I see no evidence for a God, so I don’t believe there is one; but if I saw evidence, I’d change my mind.” No, it’s much more dogmatic than that. “If you believe in God, you’re a moron. Doesn’t matter what kind of God, or what your basis of belief is. You remind me of that asshole I knew who gave me a shitty experience with religion as a child, so fuck you. Also, no one intelligent could ever possibly believe in any sort of deity or spirituality whatsoever.” That’s the new atheism. Militant anti-theism.
CK MacLeod
@Shoemaker-Levy 9:
Of course, you are. You’re not even beginning to understand him.
As touched on in my reply to Rihilism, WRM’s concept of God is in many respects quite traditional, and is so deeply embedded at the level of moral precepts that it arguably informs the specific attacks that CDJ is making on WRM, and, more generally, the familiar modes of attack by “New Atheists” against believers.
For someone who extends a bit of sympathy and patience, or applies some minimal level of sophistication regarding moral and theological discussion, what you call a “deep structure” is obvious and inescapable, right there on the surface.
In other words, CDJ is taking just the kind of ignorant, cheap shot you would expect of a blogger who embarrasses himself with his reply to me at https://balloon-juice.com/2011/04/24/blame-it-on-bieber/#comment-2549024 What’s the point of promoting a discussion and asking questions if you’re not actually interested in discussing possible answers? Sorry if the discussion isn’t easy. These are matters which, if they’re not approached carefully, they’re not being approached at all.
You are never going to get anywhere in such discussion if you rush to false conclusions. I did not make a general assertion about language being an “inadequate tool.” I made a specific assertion about the limitations of the language that WRM, CDJ, and most people use for discussing these matters.
The following all stems from that same bit of sloppy reading:
I’ve in fact been arguing all along that we can determine quite a bit about WRM’s theology, CDJ’s superficiality, and so on, from the limited evidence before us. Whether there’s a “point” to it or not is one of the questions implicitly being debated. It is in fact WRM’s main subject.
@Asshole:
That’s a simple way of putting it. Misleading if pushed too far.
Shoemaker-Levy 9
@CK MacLeod:
Since you continue to predicate your comments on what a third party that I have not directly commented on might possibly be thinking we can once again dismiss the remainder for the fatuous, self-important nonsense that it is.
Shoemaker-Levy 9
@Asshole:
He seems to have endorsed this viewpoint, as mind-bogglingly absurd and self-absorbed as it is. I’m starting to feel sorry for him.
Mandramas
@Asshole: What is the problem with militantic anti-theism? That is meaning of Ateism. The first half of your comments is talking about agnosticism, that is a different philosophical POV to the issue.
And what is your problem with dogmatism? Christian are dogmatic by definition.
Comrade DougJ
@Asshole:
I’m all for doing more trolling.
I can see what you mean about taunting. As I’ve said before, I don’t think other people’s religious beliefs or lack thereof are my business, unless they use those religious beliefs to make barbaric or asinine points, as WRM, Sully, Douthat, etc. are prone to doing.
Asshole
@Mandramas:
The “problem” with it is that it’s another religion. If you’re aggressively proselytizing and enforcing a new orthodoxy, you’re not offering much that hasn’t already been derided.
If that’s not a problem, then neither is any other religion. But why choose one over another? And if you do choose one, why be dogmatically intolerant of the beliefs of others? If door-to-door Jehovah’s Witnesses annoy me, why should I feel differently about door-to-door atheists? Does it matter whether the guy getting shot is being shot for embracing the heathenism of freethinking or for abiding by the reactionary Christian faith that sustained the old world order? It’s still religious genocide, and that’s where militant atheist dogmatism will take it if it ever gains power and retains its intolerant, proselytizing, eliminationist streak. It’s not as if though there isn’t precedent for atheism-based anti-religious genocide, either.
Asshole
@Comrade DougJ:
Let’s face it, we can’t anymore. You can’t go far enough to the right to make fun of these people. Not without crossing over the line of un-funniness. I think in 5 years, talk of bringing back slavery will be the moderate position in the GOP. The hardliners will favor a final solution for immigrants and non-whites, and will publicly advocate that solution.
I agree. WRM, Sully, Douthat, etc. are a bunch of assholes. They’re asshole Christianists because Christianity is the majority religious view at this point in time; 200 years from now, if most people are atheists, then the WRMs and Sullys et al of 200 years from now will be atheistic asshats. It’s all sheer opportunism and whoring, with no real underlying faith or belief or internal agreement. It’s easy to talk up something that you get paid to talk up. The courage of sycophancy.
Rihilism
@Asshole: It seems that we are talking past each other, further discussion would be unproductive and responding to your last comments is unnecessary.
Rihilism
One last thing. I reviewed what you and I had written, and ya, I was being a jerk. Sometimes, when I’m “talking” on the intertubes it’s like talking to a computer and you forget there’s a real human being on the other end of the line. I don’t agree with you, but it’s no excuse for being disagreeable. My apologies.
Asshole
@Rihilism:
No worries. Sorry for getting heated myself. Let’s just agree to respectfully disagree.
Asshole
@Mandramas:
It occurs to me, though, that what I was talking about wasn’t agnosticism. Agnosticism is genuine uncertainty. Atheism- as opposed to militant atheism- would be the absence of belief pending contrary evidence. If you’re saying that atheism would be the absence of belief EVEN IF there were evidence of God, then that’s more of a dogma and a religion of its own than even I’d thought.