Happy Blasphemy Day

[Beavah]

PS: to clarify what I mean, you'd need a court to agree that such-and-such a treatment was essentially useless

 

Yah, hmmmm....

 

So in your opinion, Merlyn, da court system is the proper arbiter of what constitutes good science?

 

B

 

[Merlyn_LeRoy]

Beavah writes:

So in your opinion, Merlyn, da court system is the proper arbiter of what constitutes good science?

 

No.

 

 

Tell you what, I'll go back to my original statement, which was a response to you, anyway.

 

Beavah wrote earlier:

Ah, but in a public settin' would yeh stand up and call Muhammed a False Prophet, or da Jewish prohibition on pork a bunch of superstitious nonsense?

 

I doubt it. I figure despite your protestations yeh are probably a fine and respectful fellow.

 

I find in public settings it's nicer to share your own positive beliefs, rather than dissin' on someone else's beliefs in a negative way. Da problem with words like "myth" or "cult" is that their common-use meaning outside of academe is disparaging to those with deeply held religious or cultural beliefs.

 

And, like it or not, angels are an aspect of Jewish, Christian, and Islamic theology, arguably also in Hindu and Buddhist faiths. Satan and fallen angels aren't quite as strongly held, but they are an aspect of Christian and Islamic theology and tradition, and yeh can find aspects of that belief in the Talmud in Judaism and in other faiths as well.

 

I think stupid ideas (and particularly stupid ideas that are dangerous) should be pointed out as being stupid, whether they are religious ideas or not. Deferring to religion gets you things like dead kids who were prayed over instead of taken to a doctor.

 

Now, if people want to argue that stupid religious ideas should be treated differently from other stupid ideas, have at it. I think they should be treated in the same manner.

[Trevorum]

OK, I'll bite.

Yes, I think stupid religious ideas are in fact a special class of stupid ideas. Like it or not, we do give these ideas extra room in our societies (and, I suspect, most societies), not because they are any less stupid, but because they are a special type of stupid. For most types of stupid ideas, most people (not all, sigh) really are willing to change their thinking. Religious ideas on the other hand, whether stupid or inspired (and there are lots of examples of both), come from a fundamentally different way of perceiving the universe and are much less susceptible to normal changes in thinking. That in a nutshell is the essential conflict between religion and empiricism.

[Merlyn_LeRoy]

Ah, but that's why I think they need to be challenged at every opportunity; religions are so used to not being criticized, you end up with things like laws against blasphemy and laws that say praying is sufficient medical treatment. No other class of ideas gets such kowtowing, which makes society worse.

[SSScout]

 

Ah, but the answer to that is NOT that praying for God to cure the patient is a bad thing, the answer is to note that the surgeon's skill IS God curing the patient. The increase of knowledge is not merely because of human ingenuity. Else there would be no need for intuition and insight and the "aHA" moment. Logic may well be the highest form of human endeavor, but it does not and cannot claim all discovery and invention.

 

One man's miracle certainly is another's coincidence.

 

 

[SSScout]

 

Ah, but the answer to that is NOT that praying for God to cure the patient is a bad thing, the answer is to note that the surgeon's skill IS God curing the patient. The increase of knowledge is not merely because of human ingenuity. Else there would be no need for intuition and insight and the "aHA" moment. Logic may well be the highest form of human endeavor, but it does not and cannot claim all discovery and invention.

 

One man's miracle certainly is another's coincidence.

 

 

[Peregrinator]

religions are so used to not being criticized

 

Where do you get that idea?

[Trevorum]

Oh, and by the way, I don't agree with your premise that Satan is a stupid religious idea. I don't believe in this mythical being of course, but for the record I think that Satan is (or, more accurately perhaps, was) a terrifically good religious idea. Very functional for promoting nice behavior among large groups of people living together who might not be related to each other. The carrot and the stick approach to early law making you know...

[AZMike]

"That in a nutshell is the essential conflict between religion and empiricism."

 

There is no conflict between religion and empiricism.

 

Empiricism has nothing to say about hypermundane claims. Two different spheres of knowledge.

 

If anything, religion is more congenial to a religious view than a strictly materialist view, as that contains its own self-defeaters from an empirical viewpoint.

[Beavah]

Religious ideas on the other hand, whether stupid or inspired (and there are lots of examples of both), come from a fundamentally different way of perceiving the universe and are much less susceptible to normal changes in thinking. That in a nutshell is the essential conflict between religion and empiricism.

 

Yah, I always get a hearty laugh out of it when people claim that all other branches of human thought are subject to error, except their own. Atheist scientists and university professors tend to be roughly equivalent to the most pigheaded of my fundamentalist religious brethren. They can only see from one perspective, and insist that everybody else convert! All that despite da fact that science has never really been the least bit successful at understandin' human social systems. Yah, yah, with electrons they do fine. Just because yeh can make a fine integrated circuit doesn't mean you're likely to be successful comfortin' the lad who has lost his father, or inspiring the artist, or shoring up da courage of the corporate whistle-blower, or convincin' the physician to leave a lucrative practice to go serve Doctors without Borders.

 

The truth is, if we were truly honest about empiricism, we would recognize that religion has been vastly more effective than any other branch of human thought at most of the things that really matter for humans and society. Yah, yah, science gives us da tools to incinerate a town or to prolong da life of someone through invasive means. Then it runs and hides when the time comes to consider whether those tools should be used. Left to the unchecked State, what would we have, do yeh suppose?

 

Religious thought also changes with time, as humanity develops greater experience with life and with divinity. Read the Talmud, examine da writings of the Councils, listen to the debates of modern clerics. Unlike science, though, religious thought isn't as focused on populations as it is on individuals, and how individuals learn and grow and improve. Da growth of understandin' of the population is secondary.

 

Beavah

(This message has been edited by Beavah)

[AZMike]

"Ah, but that's why I think they need to be challenged at every opportunity; religions are so used to not being criticized, you end up with things like laws against blasphemy and laws that say praying is sufficient medical treatment. No other class of ideas gets such kowtowing, which makes society worse."

 

Except, of course, for the obsession in left-wing political circles for same-sex marriage, where you get laws requiring Catholic schools to host gay clubs in Canada, or the U.S., obsession with sex without consequences, where you get the U.S. government requiring Catholic businesses to pay for abortifacients, sterilization, or contraception, in violation of their religious beliefs. Or the academic obsession with Marxism, despite its sorry record in history, and which has produced a generation of deconstructionalists and "queer theory" scholars.

 

And yeah, what's up with the claim that religions are so used to not being criticized? Been on the Internet lately? Read any history books?

 

BTW, I haven't read this whole dreary thread, so it may have been addressed already (if so, I apologize), but how do the rabid anti-religious/atheist members who post on this forum square their anti-religious beliefs with the Scout Oath which they teach to young people, and presumably recite along with the scouts (I presume most of you are active or former scouters), that whole "On my honor, I will do my best, to do my duty to God..." jazz.

 

Do you just disregard that part? Do you accept only those parts of the Oath that you like, and dissemble on the rest? Do you just mumble the part about God? Do you consider this an integrity issue, or do you think that whole part of scouting is "just for kids"? Did you believe in God and religion once and no longer do so now, and so just repeat it out of habit, without meaning? Are you ever embarrassed about the disparity between your public actions and your private thoughts? Do you consider the disparity as something you can live with, just so long as the BSA may possibly change the requirement to profess a belief in God some day. Or are you open with the scouts and parents about your anti-religious stances?

 

I'm not being facetious about this, I'm honestly curious about what some of you atheists think about this, and would be interested in hearing how you reconcile these two views.

 

 

[Merlyn_LeRoy]

AZMike writes:

And yeah, what's up with the claim that religions are so used to not being criticized? Been on the Internet lately?

 

"Lately," of course, things have changed. And I've seen lots of Christians whine when they lose their special privileges.

 

Read any history books?

 

You mean back when heretics were burned? Or just driven out? Or maybe just when I started this thread 3 years ago and wrote "25,000 fine in Ireland, death in Pakistan"?

 

Sure doesn't sound like religions are used to being criticized.

 

[Beavah]

You mean back when heretics were burned?

 

I wonder how many burned heretics yeh can find in history, eh? A few hundred, perhaps? Wikipedia could manage barely more than a hundred over da course of a thousand years.

 

That pales in comparison to da executions of religious folks by secular or atheist governments, eh? Even just within da last century.

 

B

 

[AZMike]

"Lately," of course, things have changed. And I've seen lots of Christians whine when they lose their special privileges."

 

I think most people "whine," or complain, to use a less value-laden term, when their rights are taken from them.

 

Read any history books?

 

You mean back when heretics were burned? Or just driven out? Or maybe just when I started this thread 3 years ago and wrote "25,000 fine in Ireland, death in Pakistan"?

 

Like the Albigensians? They were executed - by the state, not the Church - largely because their repudiation of oaths and all cvil authority represented a direct threat to the state.

 

Do you know how the non-Christians of the time deal with threats to civil order, BTW?

 

"Sure doesn't sound like religions are used to being criticized."

 

Gosh, I guess they were never martyred by the pagan Romans, murdered by the millions in Dachau and Auschwitz, murdered by the millions in Soviet Russia, murdered by the millions in Mao's China, murdered by the atheist government of Calles, murdered by the atheist government of Hoxha, murdered by the French Revolutionary Tribunals, etc., etc., etc.

 

I think they are probably used to being criticized.

 

Ireland does not have an official state religion, by the way, so a blasphemy law in Ireland is not a religious act, it's a civil one by the elected representatives of a republic.

 

What do you think of the harsh laws against Christian free speech enforced by Canada's "Human Rights Council", or the German laws against home schooling by the religious?

 

I'd still be interested in reading how you reconcile your atheism with your pledge of honor in the Boy Scouts, by the way.

 

[OldGreyEagle]

Blessed are you when they shall revile you, and persecute you, and speak all that is evil against you, untruly, for my sake:

 

the above has been around awhile