Faith, Doubt and an Atheist Exposed
So is this how dumb our Christian stance sounds all the time? I hope not, but sadly, I know it probably does.
I heard a line recently. Someone talking about some beautiful paradise said, "It's better than heaven. There's no Christians there."
A friend of mine (I'm pretty sure he's a Christian, too) has a bumper sticker that says, "Lord, save me from your followers."
I understand these thoughts. Christians annoy me too (and I am one). Maybe it's just a certain type of Christian though that does. My faith isn't diminished I don't think, but I do feel different from these people. I love 'em and all still. I just feel like they're kind of retarded or hypnotized in a non-obvious cult-like daze.
On the other hand, Paul the Apostle talks about how God has chosen the foolish things in the world to confound the wise (Jesus' crucifixion being primary.)
There's always some kind of grand paradox that the universe seems to be playing. I'm sure if I ever became an atheist, I'd die and find out I was wrong. But as a Christian, I also have nagging doubts that this could all be some kind of grand historical mistake.
Its kind of like buying stocks. I'm almost always wrong. If I buy 'em I was wrong. If I don't buy 'em I was wrong.
Maybe I should be a Taoist.
I'm curious about the claims this atheist lady makes as to being able to sleep at night and be at peace with herself. That's along the lines of the same sales pitches Christian theology used to offer.
Funny... I don't feel at peace. Never have really. Is that really a side-effect of either Christianity or atheism? Or is it just a result of ceasing to argue with yourself?
Actually, most of the old testament prophets were pretty miserable. Elijah prayed to die. Jeremiah was a famous moaner-groaner. Most of them were isolated pessimists that everyone else hated. Only after they were long dead and gone were they praised or revered by anybody.
Except for Job. He actually got a bunch of material rewards again before he died. (But he did go through hell before that.)
I heard a line recently. Someone talking about some beautiful paradise said, "It's better than heaven. There's no Christians there."
A friend of mine (I'm pretty sure he's a Christian, too) has a bumper sticker that says, "Lord, save me from your followers."
I understand these thoughts. Christians annoy me too (and I am one). Maybe it's just a certain type of Christian though that does. My faith isn't diminished I don't think, but I do feel different from these people. I love 'em and all still. I just feel like they're kind of retarded or hypnotized in a non-obvious cult-like daze.
On the other hand, Paul the Apostle talks about how God has chosen the foolish things in the world to confound the wise (Jesus' crucifixion being primary.)
There's always some kind of grand paradox that the universe seems to be playing. I'm sure if I ever became an atheist, I'd die and find out I was wrong. But as a Christian, I also have nagging doubts that this could all be some kind of grand historical mistake.
Its kind of like buying stocks. I'm almost always wrong. If I buy 'em I was wrong. If I don't buy 'em I was wrong.
Maybe I should be a Taoist.
I'm curious about the claims this atheist lady makes as to being able to sleep at night and be at peace with herself. That's along the lines of the same sales pitches Christian theology used to offer.
Funny... I don't feel at peace. Never have really. Is that really a side-effect of either Christianity or atheism? Or is it just a result of ceasing to argue with yourself?
Actually, most of the old testament prophets were pretty miserable. Elijah prayed to die. Jeremiah was a famous moaner-groaner. Most of them were isolated pessimists that everyone else hated. Only after they were long dead and gone were they praised or revered by anybody.
Except for Job. He actually got a bunch of material rewards again before he died. (But he did go through hell before that.)
81 Comments:
i'm totally happy being an atheist.
*shrugs shoulders*
what else is there to say beyond that?
"Here we are mere evolutionary
beings that somehow possess the ability to think
outside of ourselves, to experience feelings and
emotions, to fear death and be excited by nature and
love and to be heartbroken."
-christian lady from blog
are there not animals that experience all of these emotions?
i don't doubt that for a nanosecond. i'm sure most basic household pets 'experience' these emotions let alone smarter animals like primates and dolphins. in fact dolphins have evolved abilities we are now just beginning to understand.
(the ability for them to detect sickness in another dolphin (or human) and then collectively focus sonic senses on the individual to speed up or even activate/wake up unused parts of the bodies immune system at incredible rates to heal the animal. this is starting to be used alot in germany with sick children mostly with cerebral palsy. they'll put a sick kid in a pool with a bunch of normal kids and the dolphins will immediately go to the sick kid and start sending intense sonic waves through his body while playing with him. it's instant and instinctual and the results are miraculous to say the least. i'd be nice if God granted these abilities to us)
the moment we start thinking that we are other than slightly evolved animals is where it all goes wrong. genetic science shows us how magnificently close to a chimpanzee's DNA we are. archeology shows us the other different SPECIES of creatures that walked upright, congregated into communities and manufactured tools long before homo sapiens came to be. but i'm sure there's more religious believing vivisection doctors than not. torturing and killing animals is just one of an infinite number of wicked and warped justifications that 'faith' based beliefs provide. thus it still thrives because of its ability to grant power to do evil with a clean conscienceness.
if jesus was here today i'm sure he would still be a pescatarian as before. think about how your ham lived and died this christmas as you celebrate his birthday.
-brandon
a link to a read and another link which goes to a bunch of good reads:
http://www.madsci.org/posts/archives/2000-04/955599153.Zo.r.html
So a pig is a dolphin is a human? Or are there different levels of self-awareness (pig > dolphin > human)? In truth, researchers continue to be stumped as to the level of dolphins' self-awareness and a (very) few studies have actually been documented. Of course, that's presuming you mean to place some inherent value on self-awareness (you didn't really mention it, but it seemed to be implied). Maybe it's the fact that they can help sick kids that makes them valuable. Maybe a mechanical dog helping a blind person across the street will one day be labelled to have "experienced all these emotions."
The problem I have with your arguments isn't the muddled leaps you're making (we're meant to extract love, heartbrokenness, a whole host of emotions from a few studies of dolphins and then make the leap downward or sideways to pigs via your last cheap shot about thanksgiving) or the suggestion that dolphins may possess equally valuable or interesting/unique traits (of course they do...birds can fly, too! and monkeys can swing on trees and some dogs notice cancer! holy animal kingdom, batman!). The problem I have is that you seem to be doing one thing over and over and that is presuming some inherent "value" which according to your tenets, doesn't exist. I could be off on this, but you seem to be saying: Faith-based religions cause animals to be de-valued and therefore killed and that's bad because they are just as valuable as us. And Jesus would agree. But why bring in Jesus if he was just another dude? And why is it bad? I mean to say, what is the inherent "badness" of killing something to eat it or to study cancer or to, in effect, preserve human life? Are sharks cruel when they kill other fish? What is "valuable" about biological creatures according to your beliefs? I guess I just don't understand what you are appealing to, what instinct or natural, non-soul part of man would be moved by any of these arguments? Would a dolphin simply bump you in the face or would they nod knowingly or does it matter?
I'm not attempting to offend or to drag out the endless put-downs that seem to always come out of these questions (oh the horrors that Christians and atheists have perpetrated...). I'll trade your Inquisitor for my Stalin or Mao if only to avoid that nonsense.
"I'm not attempting to offend or to drag out the endless put-downs that seem to always come out of these questions"
neither am i but as long as we're on the road travelled..
dude i could burn out every single neuron in my brain and i still wouldn't be stupid enough to tell my kids anything in the bible is true.
but let's be conservative here.
when you label yourself a christian then you are saying that you at least believe the most basic explanations the religion offers about your own existance as a human being. this goes for the idea that you are not an animal and in fact (in your belief) made in God's image as an infinite universal spirit. i disagree.
(see cro-magnon, homo-erectus ect.)
for whatever reasons you hold these beliefs i couldn't care less. talking to imaginary omnipotent beings made me feel better too up until i was about 8 years old. (wait no actually it didn't it was even kind of stupid and weird before that)
i gave up long ago debating with folks whether they should choose to believe what people wrote down when they were 2000 years stupider versus... ummmmmmmm i don't know.. facts?
my statements are from the part of me that hasn't eaten land walking flesh for almost 2 years now. and someone who feels strongly sickened by the current prevailing practices of animal torture/experimentation by vivisection 'doctors'. as just one miniscule example. i don't think it can be any simpler what i was trying to say. yes it's wrong.
vivisection is scientific and medical fraud.
"What is "valuable" about biological creatures according to your beliefs?"
but it's exactly your beliefs that have made you see animal life as nothing more than a tool to be used and discarded by people. you name a creature no matter how magnificent or intelligent and there's always a way that 'moral', 'intellectual' folks like yourself have rationalized it's slaughter for some use. from the whales the japanese continue to hunt to the white furred baby seals being clubbed and skinned alive on the ice in canada. and where does it all start? this mindset right here IMO from usually lifelong religiously conditioned people like you. like that lady's statement in the blog where this started.
'it's ok they don't have a soul like you or me' is what your belief essentially has taught you and it's what you'll attempt to pass along to your kids.
nevermind how ridiculous of a notion it is that a common person (non-diety, non-prophet or whatever) could make that judgement as to what a soul or spirit is, or who or what has it. as if it's ok to perpetuate pain, suffering and death in any circumstance. (yes it's true animals want to live they don't want to die) and as to all the other stupid little nitpickings and spinned up hyperbole garbage (intentional or not) you can't be serious? i just can't wrap my mind around all of the dumb looney tune logic. what's your point? i shouldn't feel bad for how that pig was slaughtered? fine. but i bet you wouldn't take your kids to see it hung upside down squeeling bloody horror as it's throat is cut at the slaughterhouse. so go on and take that into your body in honor of the birth of your 'savior' this Christmas. is it as weird as dipping a cracker into grapejuice and symbolizing it as eating his flesh dipped in blood? almost.
no problem i'll take Stalin and Mao as long as you get stuck with the Spanish Empire. my father-in-law is doing just fine and so are a few billion chinese people. as for the Aztecs, Incans and Mayans?? kind of on a different scale don't you think? ;-)
cheers to dad for being open and honest about his inner conflicts.
way to go for being condescending josh. don't feel frustrated just because you can't make a few "muddled leaps"
I'm not frustrated. But I was a little condescending. I felt like you were being condescending and I sort of responded in kind. Can you not say the same (cheers for dad)? You sure seem full of something. If it ain't spite, I don't know what it is.
I feel like you're jumping to a lot of conclusions about me or how I raise my kids or what I believe about God or animals, but I think that is a big waste of a conversation since we'd just have to hang out for awhile to get back to square one on any of that. Or not. Either way, none of that matters, really. I'm a big idiot. A dope. I love killing baby seals and drinking their blood.
But I don't feel like you really answered my questions. Maybe it is b/c they were couched in an attempt to point out what seemed like logical fallacies in your rant (was it not a rant?). Those are muddled leaps you are making. You're essentially saying some "dolphiness" makes dolphins equally valuable as humans without defining what the core "value" is. The attacks on Christianity are a smoke screen to all that, but you never get back to what makes a dolphin as valuable as a chimp as a cockroach as a janitor. That's muddled, dude. And you're the clear Darwinian rational thinker here.
So, I'll try again:
Put aside anything about Christianity for a moment. Yeah, yeah. It's retarded. It's stupid. What I'm asking is what are you appealing to when you use words like "fraud" or "magnificent" or "ridiculous?" It would seem there is some universal constant behind your attack on religion for its wrongheadedness. Even if, say, we knew the "facts" of life beyond a shadow of a doubt, what is morally wrong with killing animals? Remember, you picked animals, not me. I'm not suggesting anything by this. I guess I'm asking you to expand on your beliefs a bit. It's easy to point out how ridiculous humans are in their idealogies no matter the source or solution. It seems difficult to get at what we ourselves believe.
So step out of the standard atheistic rant (Christians are evil and ruining the planet) and give me some of that clear thinking you keep going on about.
Or don't. I thought you'd avoid the Spanish conquests, but I guess it can't be helped. You'll take Mao's slaughter of 20 million + Stalin's slaughter of 16 million + Hitler's slaughter of ? million. Okey.
haha thanks for the level headed response. i've been working 36 on, 12 off for the past two weeks and right now i haven't slept for exactly 39 hours because we've had calls and crap these days. pretty sweet though i'm hungry for money because i'm about to cut n' run out of this shithole.
this isn't a cop out but nothing i've written has been well thought out or anything really beyond unproofread rantings. sure i'm trying to blow through alot of my beliefs in a few paragraphs but well i don't know how to say it but i'm not all here and with even less time to articulate what is. hard to pinpoint what it's like.
anyway i'm going to crash out for the nite and finally have 12 hours to crash all day tomorrow so when i get back to work i'll start again on the tangent i was going on.
i do love dolphins though i got to swim with some. later.
I love dolphins, too. Freaking dolphins. I took the fam to Mexico last summer and we got to swim with some at an "eco" park down near Playa del Carmen. I asked them for the meaning of life, but one of them stuck a flipper in my face so it came out kind of garbled.
the love experiment:
a baby monkey is put into a cage and given a device to replace its mother. The device changes temperature from extreme heat to massive cold. Sometimes so cold it will freeze its skin and sometimes so hot it will burn the skin. Then these copper spikes flick out and jab into the monkey to make it go away and sit in a corner. The baby monkey dies a couple of months later. They say from heart-break.
is it not a better value to have compassion for ALL thinking and feeling life? if it's obvious that the animal suffers and at the same time is fully self aware of its own life then how is it different from people when it comes to the right to life?
you throw around cockroaches with pigs but a pig is clearly self-aware to the point of being a needing piglet to a nurturing mother. or you can teach it to do as many tricks as a dog. if you went to korea would it bother you to eat dog? it's perfectly normal to them.
So then two more questions:
Is self-awareness the same thing as "thinking and feeling?" I mean where do you say that a decision to scurry this way as opposed to that way isn't thinking? Do we know for sure that a cockroach doesn't feel? Have we "studied" them enough? Why not take it a step further and define feeling as sensations and therefore the cockroach feels? I'm not being silly to justify killing or not killing. I'm just saying that, for me, the "thinking and feeling" seems open to a vast interpretation (i.e. you could still pretty much justify whatever you want along those lines...either campaigning against the holocaust of insects or defining it upwards to self-awareness and therefore more "human-like" traits, which is what I think you're leaning towards...the more they act like us, etc.).
Given that self-awareness (or thinking/feeling) seems to be the reason not to kill something...why? In your beliefs, what about self-awareness is more important than, say, hair color? Again, take the question at face value. I'm not being dumb here. You're still implying a universal constant or a shared notion of moral correctness in your appeals. Needing piglet. Nurturing mother. You're clearly appealing to human behaviors and then saying, see, they are like us, therefore we shouldn't kill them. But why shouldn't we kill them and ourselves? What is the moral reason why we shouldn't kill? Here's your answer (as far as I can tell) so far: We shouldn't kill animals b/c they are more like us than we realize. But that clearly points out there is a "shouldn't." What's behind the "shouldn't?"
Possible answers for #2:
1. It's just wrong. There's not a universal rational reason I can give you. We just know certain things are wrong. More attacking Christianity and its stupid reasons for not killing and the hypocrisy of Christ dying for people who go on to kill other people, etc. (problem: Still implies something other than pure biological stimulus/response and brain as AI zeros/ones. What is that something?).
2. Self-preservation. We need animals and each other to survive and survival is the ultimate goal of mankind (until, of course, we die). (problem: I don't necessarily need you or the kid down the street or his dad. In fact, the dad's weak and he's probably going to cost me a shit ton in health care bills when he goes into the hospital at age 60. Survival involves killing. Nature has worked this out. Why can't we?)
Other misc. stumbling blocks and confessions:
I ate a horse when I was in Japan.
I killed a dog once.
The Japanese, a Buddhist/Shinto culture (i.e. non-Christian) are probably single-handedly responsible for strip-mining the Pacific ocean of fish. Does that mean Buddhism is wrong?
ok well you're really getting absurd with some of these analogies. i could have owned this argument earlier and just called you out on Godwin's law.
"You'll take Mao's slaughter of 20 million + Stalin's slaughter of 16 million + Hitler's slaughter of ? million. Okey."
why oh why did you have to bring up Hitler? were you that desperate?
from wikipedia:
"Godwin's Law (also Godwin's Rule of Nazi analogies) is an adage in Internet culture that was originated by Mike Godwin in 1990. The law states that:
As an online discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches 1.
Although the law does not specifically mention it, there is a tradition in many Usenet newsgroups that once such a comparison is made, the thread is over, and whoever mentioned the Nazis has automatically lost whatever argument was in progress."
but in this discussion i let it slide for the fact that it was used in such a pointless sense. Hitler and the Nazi ideal wasn't even Atheist. they had the Pope on their side for fuck's sake!
i'll get back to all the other stuff later i promise. it'll help to remember this common internet discussion law in your future online arguments so that you can try and come off as less of a tool ;-)
You can't quote Godwin's Law to me. I freaking wrote Godwin's Law! No, just kidding.
But, seriously, there's a critical distinction in what I'm saying and what you're saying I'm saying. And what other people think we're both saying, but I don't care what they think.
I'm not comparing you to Hitler. And I'm not making the direct connection between atheism and Hitler. Quite a few atheists tend to bring up how many people Christianity has killed. There should be a Law for that lousy argument. Let's call it Brandon's Law. Sweet Jesus, all you can talk about is how many people and animals have been killed by Christianity. I'm still waiting for you to say something else. "Consider the baby seal and it's mother. Are they not like the lillies of the field?" "Yes, but, um, Brandon, what makes them valuable?" "Do you realize the fucking shit the Christians did to the Incans, man?" I swear, if I didn't know better, I'd think you were really typing all this from the basement of a Vegan/Congregationalist commune in Arkansas.
All I mean to say is that a lack of Christianity (or an anti-Christianity in many cases) has been responsible for the death of just as many people if you take these sorts of things at face value (i.e. communists killing Christians or Christians killing non-Christians or Christians killing other Christians) and not as just the nature of man in some way. And it always comes down to some stupid argument (THAT I WAS TRYING TO AVOID HAVING WITH YOU, YOU DINGALING) about how many people died under which regime (as if this proved anything about God and nothing about man).
My main point is that people kill people and it took the twentieth century to prove that you didn't need God to justify it. You just need idealogy. So, if you want to take your neato mosquito Internet law and whack me over the head with it, still, feel free. Maybe there should also be a law for taking one minor reference in one minor point (i.e. not even the main point of the freaking thread) and using it to illuminate how much of a tool I am...? That's great. I didn't think you needed to go that far to prove I'm a tool. I could've just told you. At any rate, that's not a law. It's a logical fallacy. It's called Ad Hominem.
In the meantime, while I'm waiting for a coherant case for, well, just about anything that you feel like making a case for, maybe you should bone up on some more logical fallacies.
http://www.datanation.com/fallacies/index.htm
Specifically the section under Missing the Point.
I'll have to admit that "Mr. B Anonymous" has zealously thrown stones at the Christianity straw-man (see http://www.datanation.com/fallacies/straw.htm) without much thought and apparently gets away with that much of the time - even though he later reveals to more sophisticated (e.g. mentioning Godwin's Law) than originally let on (to me at least.)
Thanks Joshmag for calling this out on what is basically an argument of: (correct me if I'm wrong)
1. Christianity does things I think are morally wrong (e.g. killing people and animals) therefore Christianity is wrong.
(this is the straw man attack if I've ever seen it and much of what Joshmag wearily finds himself having to debate.)
2. Therefore Christianity is stupid. (and by implication should be mocked?)
3. Therefore Christians are stupid. (ditto implication?)
(and the coup d' gra and actually the only argument with even a modicum of substantial-ability)
4. Since modern science disagrees with much of what modern (American popular) Christianity states they believe (i.e. primarily evolution, age of earth stuff, literal/timely interpretations of Genesis and anything supra-natural in general) then - God does not exist.
This is obviously a big leap and is much of a straw-man setup too if you ask me. And its REAL easy to get around this by taking several intelligent theologians postitions (starting with St. Augustine who believed the creation account was allegorical)
So in my eyes, if this is typical of the anti-Christianity stance (which I'm not sure if it is or not - Thomas Paine, Mark Twain, and Bertrand Russell were very brutal and elequont but run much along the same lines of simply stoning glass houses they themselves built as mock Christianity straw-men) then it just doesn't hold water and is strictly a childish game which at root is more emotional than rational.
And truthfully neither party here (joshmag or anon mr. b) has set forth any core propositions.
(for one just because of the nature of the discussion, the media, background knowledge, etc. - but mostly because its always easier to tear down a barn than it is to build one - so who wants to set forth a barn only to be burned by others?)
If I dare, for my own personal reasons, I will take it upon myself to set up a real man for stoning (instead of a straw man)... let's see, who should that be... ahhhh.. I've got it... Christ himself - shouldn't he be the foundational stone to attack, instead of "the Bible" and "Christianity" and "the evils that have been done in the name of Christianity"? that should be obivious.
...we'll see if I have the balls and self-honesty it takes to do such. (new blog entry)
Mitch
I certainly didn't want to get off in the weeds of Hitler or evils of Christianity or evils of atheism, but that's where I ended up, I guess.
My core question was basically this:
Given that Mr. Anon B. does not believe in God, but believes there is some inherent value in animals which should prevent us from killing them, what is that inherent value?
I tried to give some answers or prop up his argument where it made some sense, but, I also am putting words in his mouth as he is mine, ad nauseum. I don't have a core proposition. I just had a question. It seems to me that I always get the atheists (several of my friends are atheists so don't think I'm bashing them) who want to attack Christianity, but I always want to ask (a la Percy), what are you selling? It seems to me that it is elephants all the way down, but I'm willing to hear it.
I'll jump over to your new blog post to follow up.
Hopefully no hard feelings. I do enjoy prodding and poking, but also get carried away at times.
Jrudld write more, thanks.
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Lottery: A tax on people who are bad at math.
Build a watch in 179 easy steps - by C. Forsberg.
A flashlight is a case for holding dead batteries.
Oops. My brain just hit a bad sector.
When there's a will, I want to be in it.
Build a watch in 179 easy steps - by C. Forsberg.
Calvin, we will not have an anatomically correct snowman!
Oops. My brain just hit a bad sector.
640K ought to be enough for anybody. - Bill Gates 81
Beam me aboard, Scotty..... Sure. Will a 2x10 do?
When there's a will, I want to be in it.
C++ should have been called B
Lottery: A tax on people who are bad at math.
Friends help you move. Real friends help you move bodies.
Lottery: A tax on people who are bad at math.
Hello all!
Ever notice how fast Windows runs? Neither did I.
Thanks to author.
Magnific!
When there's a will, I want to be in it.
The gene pool could use a little chlorine.
Beam me aboard, Scotty..... Sure. Will a 2x10 do?
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Nice Article.
Thanks to author.
When there's a will, I want to be in it.
Beam me aboard, Scotty..... Sure. Will a 2x10 do?
Oops. My brain just hit a bad sector.
Oops. My brain just hit a bad sector.
Oops. My brain just hit a bad sector.
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What is a free gift ? Aren't all gifts free?
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Save the whales, collect the whole set
Suicidal twin kills sister by mistake!
Energizer Bunny Arrested! Charged with battery.
Ever notice how fast Windows runs? Neither did I.
All generalizations are false, including this one.
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When there's a will, I want to be in it.
A flashlight is a case for holding dead batteries.
Lottery: A tax on people who are bad at math.
Good job!
Please write anything else!
The gene pool could use a little chlorine.
Suicidal twin kills sister by mistake!
Lottery: A tax on people who are bad at math.
If ignorance is bliss, you must be orgasmic.
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