1. Comment #29751 by sane1 on April 4, 2007 at 2:29 pm

Introduction actually starts at 5:30 ...

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2. Comment #29753 by He'sAVeryNaughtyBoy on April 4, 2007 at 2:57 pm

Thanks for the fastforward on the introduction.

The agnost and the theist both got on my nerves - the agnost more than the theist for his stance of disregarding any positive stance from either side. It reminds me of 6th form debates - "You don't know that for certain, so you can't make any coment on it" - what a load of rubbish. At least the theist has the bollocks to take a stance!

At one point I found myself answering the atheists questions before he got there. At one point the thistic arguments went onto what do about adults who found religion, and before the chap could answer I yelled out "Education". Suprise, suprise, that's exactly what the chap on the phone said. These arguments are so basic, how come we need to keep restating the same points over an over?

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3. Comment #29758 by beelzebub on April 4, 2007 at 3:08 pm

He'sAVeryNaughtyBoy wrote...
"These arguments are so basic, how come we need to keep restating the same points over an over?"

That's because the media are scared of going into any detail for fear of losing their audience. I have numerous news channels, and the content is the same on all of them - hardly any depth, just the same old headlines. Sad :-(

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4. Comment #29771 by boblin on April 4, 2007 at 3:39 pm

The ego has landed! The agnostic accuses both atheist and theist of arrogance and a lack of humility, while speaking with an air of utter superiority over both, as if fence-sitting is the ultimate virtue. Infuriating.

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5. Comment #29775 by segueZen on April 4, 2007 at 3:59 pm

And don't forget he said he had a Ph.D., therefore he must be right! And his laugh was almost scornful at times. Feels like a debate from 6th grade. Most irritating debating style ever.

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6. Comment #29778 by jamesstephenbrown on April 4, 2007 at 4:15 pm

Who would have thought you could achieve the moral highground simply by sitting atop a fence.

I can't stand this "you can't prove anything 100%" logic, it necessarily reduces any argument to absolute relativism. The fact that we don't know what was before the big bang does not make positions all equal. It makes any assertion almost certainly incorrect and makes any negation almost certainly correct!

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7. Comment #29781 by Bremas on April 4, 2007 at 4:42 pm

I have personally found that the holier than though agnostic types have a common trend in their method of reasoning....

I have asked the question of them several times and the answer I get back is this: Scientific Method is the concept of coming up with a theory and then proving it. (no mention of testing it or disproving it)

Which is exactly how the young earth creationists think.

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8. Comment #29783 by Bremas on April 4, 2007 at 4:59 pm

Just caught the end of a segment on CNN saying there was going to be a show tonight on religion and science.

Didn't catch a time or name.

Anyone get it?

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9. Comment #29784 by bruno_burned on April 4, 2007 at 5:00 pm

That agnostic was the most annoying windbag I've ever heard in media on this site. I *kinda* wanted to punch him. Just kinda.

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10. Comment #29786 by Bremas on April 4, 2007 at 5:03 pm

"What is a Christian?" / Anderson Cooper 360 10eastern CNN

"Big questions about how the universe came to be and how we got here. Science says one thing, the Bible says another. Can the two co-exist? "360°" investigates:"

http://www.cnn.com/CNN/Programs/

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11. Comment #29787 by Fishpeddler on April 4, 2007 at 5:05 pm

My Dad was criticizing me one time, saying "Can't you at least be open minded and say you're an Agnostic instead of an Atheist?" I consider myself open-minded AND an atheist. There is clearly a common misconception that atheism necessarily entails a rejection of even the possibility that god exists. This, I suppose, is due to the mistaken assumption that if one says, "I believe", what one is really saying is, "I am certain".

If you combine this agnostic's perspective with Descartes, you'd have to say you are agnostic about everything except that you exist. Nobody lives that way. If we're honest, we acknowledge the uncertainty, but we don't have to pretend that all possibilities are equally likely.

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12. Comment #29789 by Bremas on April 4, 2007 at 5:08 pm

Fishpeddler

"we don't have to pretend that all possibilities are equally likely."

amen

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13. Comment #29800 by PeterK on April 4, 2007 at 8:16 pm

I just wished the Australian atheist gentleman on the phone would have asked that extremely annoying condescending smug "agnostic" if he believed God existed. Then after he said he did not believe in the existence of God ( as he alluded briefly )informed him that in the broadest term of the definition of "atheist" he was one. THAT would have been interesting!

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14. Comment #29801 by catchy_nick on April 4, 2007 at 8:32 pm

I couldnt figure out how to post videos, so heres one I made recently, hope you like it. Sagan's Pale Blue Dot.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p86BPM1GV8M

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15. Comment #29803 by davyB on April 4, 2007 at 9:26 pm

I would wait in line for an hour for a chance to smack the agnostic. He could give lessons on how to sound like an annoying jerk.

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16. Comment #29804 by davyB on April 4, 2007 at 9:28 pm

"... and I say that as a Ph.D.." Hahahahah.

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17. Comment #29812 by briancoughlanworldcitizen on April 5, 2007 at 12:28 am

15. Comment #29803 by davyB on April 4, 2007 at 9:26 pm

I would wait in line for an hour for a chance to smack the agnostic. He could give lessons on how to sound like an annoying jerk.

This is what I term "pissing in the pool". It's the same kind of thing, often done in honesty, by people claiming the "jury is out" in evolution versus creationsim, AGW yes/no? and of course the biggy God yes/no?

A rationalist has to go with the probability. Sure there is wiggle room where propositions approach each other in probability value, but once a given proposition is double or triple the value of another, the rational thing is to act on that knowledge.

So I call myself an atheist, do I have 100% certainty that the Christian God does not exist? No, but it's close. Do I have 100% certainty that no omnipotent being exists that created the universe, absolutely not, but whatever the probability, it is of zero comfort to a standard theist. This God could be evil, or simply not give a shit, or be insane by human standards.

Once you begin to layer on detail (triune, all loving and powerful, hates sin, loves you, but will torture you in hell unless you toe a disturbingly fuzzy line etc.), the probability of your particular Godlet being the real thing, very quickly drops to zero, or so nearly zero as to make no practical difference.

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18. Comment #29815 by Veronique on April 5, 2007 at 1:23 am

Nick, I watched the video on youtube and cried. I watched it again and emailed the link to people I know and cried again.

Thank you for the link. Now, how do you get it to everyone? This small, beautifully narrated 3 and ½ minutes of Sagan is more powerful than anything anyone could say in the heat of a debate.

I miss him too.

V

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19. Comment #29816 by Skeptic Jim on April 5, 2007 at 1:29 am

>The fact that we don't know what was before the big bang does not make positions all equal

That line of questioning annoyed me most of all and i'm a bit miffed that the Atheist didn't answer correctly. What happened 'before' the big bang is like asking what is south of the south pole (thanks prof Hawking for the analogy). The big bang was the moment of creation for not only matter but also space and time. If time started with the big bang then there WAS NO BEFORE. It is completely meaningless to ask what existed before the big bang.

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20. Comment #29820 by Logicel on April 5, 2007 at 2:32 am

catchy_nick, Thanks for the link to your vid and for the important consequence of my identifying that there is a Pale Blue Dot challenge going full force on youtube. I love this one:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=47EBLD-ISyc&mode=related&search=

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21. Comment #29825 by GodlessHeathen on April 5, 2007 at 3:21 am

(19) Skeptic Jim #29816
"there WAS NO BEFORE"
This is hardly an intuitive fact, and so I don't blame the atheist for failing to get the answer right. I had a very difficult time understanding, and therefor accepting it (and still, in fact, find myself doubting it for no other reason than it's so counterintuitive).

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22. Comment #29831 by ridelo on April 5, 2007 at 4:34 am

I like that idiom "fence-sitter". You can jump off to the good side if the bull attacks! I don't know of some comparable expression in my language (Dutch) for somebody who can't make up his mind. I would like to introduce "hekkenzitter"!

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23. Comment #29835 by jeepyjay on April 5, 2007 at 4:48 am

There's another image of the "pale blue dot" here:

http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap061016.html

Seen from beyond Saturn.

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24. Comment #29840 by juandelaforet on April 5, 2007 at 5:36 am

There's a Wikipedia link on the "pale blue dot" page (from post #23) that I found really summed it all up. It's from Sagan (of course) and it's extremely humbling.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pale_Blue_Dot

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25. Comment #29843 by gcooke on April 5, 2007 at 6:59 am

What's the most arrogant way to respond to somebody's point whthout actually having a real argument? Laugh at them. The guy can't stop doing it.

G.

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26. Comment #29846 by briancoughlanworldcitizen on April 5, 2007 at 7:20 am

This you have got to see ..... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CEcEwPszfrE&eurl=http%3A%2F%2Fscienceblogs%2Ecom%2Fpharyngula%2F

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27. Comment #29848 by Skeptic Jim on April 5, 2007 at 7:20 am

>What's the most arrogant way to respond to somebody's point whthout actually having a real argument? Laugh at them. The guy can't stop doing it

Yeah. Appeal to ridicule is a logical fallacy. In any given debate i'd turn it back on them and ask why they had to resort to it if they have a good argument.

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28. Comment #29851 by Helian on April 5, 2007 at 7:45 am

"The big bang was the moment of creation for not only matter but also space and time. If time started with the big bang then there WAS NO BEFORE. It is completely meaningless to ask what existed before the big bang."

You can also point out that the fact that science still can't explain some things doesn't imply that a God is, therefore, necessary to provide the explanation.

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29. Comment #29852 by Skeptic Jim on April 5, 2007 at 7:47 am

>This is hardly an intuitive fact, and so I don't blame the atheist for failing to get the answer right.

Why should it be intuitive?

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30. Comment #29853 by Helian on April 5, 2007 at 7:50 am

It's very encouraging to me, a new visitor to this site, to read the posts of some very intelligent people who have obviously cared enough about defending the truth as they see it to challenge the theists, not merely by ridicule and name-calling, but armed with a thorough knowledge of the scriptures and history as well. Drawing attention to the many contradictions, inconsistencies and assertions in the Bible that contradict our expanding scientific knowledge is a powerful tool for opening minds that might otherwise have remained closed, as long as there is a small chink in the theological armor through which light can pass. Atheists sometimes succumb to a sense of hubris, that, if they can only point out these contradictions and inconsistencies to the true believers, they will see the light. Alas, it just ain't so. The minds of human beings are often inaccessible to the truth. Many of us have acquired "faith" in a certain perception of reality, and will assume that version of reality is true against all odds, adjusting the "facts" as needed to make them conform to that reality.

Many obvious examples occur to anyone who has taken the time to sit down and read the Bible, perhaps with a volume of Voltaire's "Philosophical Dictionary" on the side to point out some of the more obvious faux pas. There is, for example, the discrepancy in the genealogy of Jesus between the versions in the books of Matthew and Luke. It would seem that, on reading these two vastly different versions, a logical, open-minded person would conclude that the claim that the entire Bible is infallible is wrong. After all, a God who really loves us and wants us to find our way to a truth so critical to our welfare in the hereafter would hardly make us the butt of crude practical jokes, or allow gross mis-tranlations of his word to bamboozle generations of true believers. However, logical thought and open-mindedness are not strong suits of Christian true believers. They have simply come up with a host of "interpretations" of these contradictory genealogies to "make them right." The interested reader can find an example at www.theology.edu/ap10.htm

Another famous historical example, cited by Voltaire, among others, is the difficulty with the description of a "firmament" in the KJV of the Bible. Early civilizations commonly believed that the sun, moon, stars and other heavenly bodies were set in a solid, crystalline shell, or "firmament." That such a version of the firmament was exactly what the author or authors of Genesis had in mind seems obvious on the face of if to anyone who actually reads the book. For example, we read in Genesis 1:4, that it acts as a barrier, and there are waters above the firmament, placing the heavenly bodies beneath this body of water. According to Genesis 1:17, the stars are set in the firmament. Evangelist Paul Seely has given us a wonderful commentary on the historical facts relating to the notion of a firmament in many cultures, complete with observations on the original Hebrew as well as the later translations into Greek and English. He demonstrates conclusively that a solid firmament is precisely what is meant in the book of Genesis, as can be seen by pointing your browser to: faculty.gordon.edu/hu/bi/Ted_Hildebrandt/OTeSources/01-Genesis/Text/Articles-Books/Seely-Firmament-WTJ.pdf

What, say you? Did he immediately repudiate his Christian faith and belief in the infallibility of the Bible? Not a bit of it! Seely concludes his paper with the observation that, "Certainly the historical-grammatical meaning of (the Hebrew word) raqiac is "the ordinary opinion of the writer's day." Certainly also it is not the purpose of Gen 1: 7 to teach us the physical nature of the sky, but to reveal the creator of the sky. Consequently, the reference to the solid firmament "lies outside the scope of the writer's teachings" and the verse is still infallibly true." (!!)

This rather startling conclusion has been a bit much to swallow, even for Seely's fellow fundamentalists. They have chosen, predictably, to rearrange reality to get rid of the pesky firmament in the time-honored fashion noted above. Examples abound, and a few of them can be found www.answersingenesis.org/tj/v13/i2/firmament.asp, www.apologeticspress.org/articles/2168, and www.geocities.com/Athens/Thebes/7755/firmamentwaters.html

Whosoever among you has ears to hear, let him hear!

Of course, one of the biggest disconnects between the 6,000 year-old earth and reality is the discrepancy in the speed of light, as discussed, for example, at www.skepticfriends.org/forum/showquestion.asp?faq=4&fldAuto=52

If the earth is less than 7,000 years old, how did the light from distant galaxies, millions or billions of light years away, have time to reach us? A slam-dunk for science say you? Wrong again! For the fundamentalist, the Bible is, a priori, the absolute truth. For one who is determined to believe the Bible is the inspired word of God and the absolute truth against all odds, no evidence to the contrary will ever suffice. You see, facts that seem to contradict the Bible simply can't be true. One accommodates them very easily, by simply readjusting reality: see, for example, www.rae.org/light.html

I know! The same thought has occurred to me. We are living in an insane asylum. Occasionally I am bothered a little by the reflection that I, too, am a human being, just like the fundamentalists who have these fanciful notions. How much superior to them could I really be in matters of intellect? Indeed, when I glance around me on this site I notice a host of atheist "fundamentalists" with ideological notions that, though secular, are nearly as inaccessible to reason as the faith of a theist. Why, surely, they all belong in the asylum, too! It seems the hardest truth for me to face is that it is not inappropriate that I, too, am an inmate.

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31. Comment #29854 by sane1 on April 5, 2007 at 7:51 am

Brian - Thanks for that link - it lead me to:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vBC5L6cyq2Y&mode=related&search=

Excellent!

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32. Comment #29856 by sane1 on April 5, 2007 at 7:59 am

@Helian: Thanks for the nice well written post.

"Indeed, when I glance around me on this site I notice a host of atheist "fundamentalists" with ideological notions that, though secular, are nearly as inaccessible to reason as the faith of a theist. Why, surely, they all belong in the asylum, too! It seems the hardest truth for me to face is that it is not inappropriate that I, too, am an inmate."

Just because some of us disagree with you and have pointed out where you have been mistaken, doesn't make us fundamentalists. The problem is your inadequate arguments, not our "inaccessibility."

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33. Comment #29857 by briancoughlanworldcitizen on April 5, 2007 at 8:02 am

Why, surely, they all belong in the asylum, too! It seems the hardest truth for me to face is that it is not inappropriate that I, too, am an inmate.

I'm with you on that. It is a tough one. It reminds me of the anecdote of the chap, who after a lengthy discussion about the madness so prevalent in much of the world, finally turns to his conversation partner and says ... "The truth of the matter, is we are the only two sane men in the world, ... and we're not that sure about you."

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34. Comment #29858 by Helian on April 5, 2007 at 8:16 am

@sane1

"Just because some of us disagree with you and have pointed out where you have been mistaken, doesn't make us fundamentalists. The problem is your inadequate arguments, not our inaccessibility.'"

Just think of that paragraph as an allegory, like Genesis, and don't always assume I'm pointing my finger at you. ;-)

In general, atheists are far more accessible to rational argument than religious true believers. OTH, I know for a fact there are some pristine ideological bastions in my own brain that I have barely begun to assault with reason. For me, it's easiest to see when I read some political or philosophical magazine or journal from the past. For example, if you prefer American thinkers, try the atheist H. L. Mencken's "American Mercury," or "The New Republic" from the 20's and 30's. If your tastes run to British writers, try the "Edinburgh Review" or "The Quarterly Review" from the first half of the 19th century. They are full of articles by brilliant people that assume things that were "obvious" to them, but are hardly obvious to us. Then you start to think; these are really smart guys. Can I be that much brighter? How many things are "obvious" to me that just aren't true, and how do I ask the right questions to find out what they are? How do I overcome my own problems with cognitive dissonance?

The truth is hard to find. That doesn't mean we can give up searching for it.

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35. Comment #29860 by sane1 on April 5, 2007 at 8:19 am

@Helian - Good points, well taken.

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36. Comment #29861 by Bremas on April 5, 2007 at 8:25 am

brian post 26
That made my day.
Thanx

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37. Comment #29863 by sane1 on April 5, 2007 at 8:29 am

Bremas - I second your post 36 - Did you also see:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vBC5L6cyq2Y&mode=related&search=

Its funnier.

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38. Comment #29865 by Bremas on April 5, 2007 at 8:42 am

sane1
That's hysterical.
Some people obviously have too much time on their hands.:-)

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39. Comment #29866 by briancoughlanworldcitizen on April 5, 2007 at 8:43 am

@sane1

"Just because some of us disagree with you and have pointed out where you have been mistaken, doesn't make us fundamentalists. The problem is your inadequate arguments, not our inaccessibility.'"

Sane, is there not any scope for doubt that your position may not be as rational as you think? I've been at it as hard with Helian on the anti-americanism thing as anyone, but I get what he's saying here.

When both parties are claiming reason is on their side (we are all atheists so this is a given, or at least we think it is), and yet fail utterly to reach a satisfactory conclusion, or even a compromise, something else is going on. We need to find out what in the fuck that is. Sorry, Irish, it's in the blood:-)

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40. Comment #29867 by sane1 on April 5, 2007 at 8:43 am

@Bremas - yea - including me.

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41. Comment #29869 by sane1 on April 5, 2007 at 8:48 am

@39. Comment #29866 by briancoughlanworldcitizen

In my comment 35, I agreed with Helian. And I agree with you: doubt is essential, self-reflection and self examination is esssential. Other wise you fall in the "dogma/fundamentalist" trap. No way I want to be in that hole!

And that is what is going on, if I may be so bold - we all use reason - some of us just don't seem to apply it to the bible. EDIT - its believing without adequate evidence (ie, "faith") that gets in the way.

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42. Comment #29870 by briancoughlanworldcitizen on April 5, 2007 at 8:59 am

In my comment 35, I agreed with Helian

ooops missed that, my bad. Well at least we can agree on that. I'd love to plumb the depths of some major disagreement in pure rational mode and have my own prejudices challenged. Whose with me?

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43. Comment #29872 by sane1 on April 5, 2007 at 9:02 am

42. Comment #29870 by briancoughlanworldcitizen -
In general, I'm with you. I do have to get to work at this particular point though. Good luck to you.

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44. Comment #29916 by Thrall on April 5, 2007 at 1:25 pm

When both parties are claiming reason is on their side (we are all atheists so this is a given, or at least we think it is), and yet fail utterly to reach a satisfactory conclusion, or even a compromise, something else is going on

Wha? Pardon? You are telling me that because people disagree, some massive plan is occuring? I'm confused at what you are getting at.

Because people are blinded by fundie beliefs, (religious or not) they refuse to see facts and reason.

"A man cannot understand something if his job depends on him not understanding it" (close enough). Same thing goes for YOUR ETERNAL SOUL. You cannot understand evolution if you have been taught since birth that evolution is from the devil, and believing it will send you to hell. This concept can be applied to most reason.

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45. Comment #29925 by relevo on April 5, 2007 at 2:18 pm

Indeed, when I glance around me on this site I notice a host of atheist "fundamentalists" with ideological notions that, though secular, are nearly as inaccessible to reason as the faith of a theist.

Helian, if ever you come across this kind of atheistic individual, why don't you actually point out to him/her how exactly it is that this person is being fundamentalist, and in what sense exactly. What is the fundamentalist dogma you are noticing from such a person? Otherwise, you are simply lobbing a word around with no real sense for its meaning. If it's the case that the person in question is being an antagonistic prick, then say so, but even just being a prick doesn't equate to being particularly dogmatic. Instead of simply mislabeling people, why don't you actually point out the specific irrational doctrinal text/manual/bible/whatever fundamentalist creed- with which such an individual is being fundamentalist? Surely, you must realize doing so is the honest thing to do.

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46. Comment #29955 by GodlessHeathen on April 5, 2007 at 5:43 pm

(29) #29852 by Skeptic Jim
"Why should it be intuitive?"

I don't know. Who said it should be?

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47. Comment #29981 by briancoughlanworldcitizen on April 5, 2007 at 10:42 pm

Wha? Pardon? You are telling me that because people disagree, some massive plan is occuring? I'm confused at what you are getting at.

I'm saying that people disagree and both parties think that they have a compelling and reasoned position.

This is not the same thing as a claiming the bible is the inerrant word of God in the teeth of overwhelming evidence.

For example, Helian and I disagree on what should be said about the US publicly as regards her actions on the international stage. I think my position is soundly based in reason, he thinks his is too (but I know he's stark raving mad) and we had a huge exchange about it. Something else is going on in the human brain (or at least in Helians brain. Mines fine), and it would be cool if we could work out what it was.

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48. Comment #29982 by Bonzai on April 5, 2007 at 11:06 pm

Helian wrote,

>You can also point out that the fact that science still can't explain some things doesn't imply that a God is, therefore, necessary to provide the explanation.<

The way I see it, God is not even a wrong explanation, it is not an explanation at all.

While theists invoke "God" as an "explanation" for something it is just a word that stands in for the unknown cause (assumming the question is meaningful to begin with).

"God does it" provides absolutely no information or insight about the phenomenon under study because we don't know any attribute of this "God". Unlike the fundamentalist simpletons the sophisticated theists readily admit that "God" is too vast and mysterious for human comprehension, that way their God remains slippery and can't be pinned down and shown to be in conflict with known evidence.

It is not clear that such a God has any meaning at all, it is just a signifier for our ignorance.

In the way it is invoked as an explanation,"God" serves the same function as the "x" is an equation to be solved. It is just a place holder, a name for the unknown.It tells us absolutely nothing about what the solution may be. It is not a solution, not even a wrong solution. At least you can show a wrong solution is wrong by checking.

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49. Comment #29986 by Veronique on April 6, 2007 at 1:16 am

Briancoughlan,

The story you quote came to me at my father's knee more than 50 years ago. I don't know its genesis, maybe it's just apocryphal:

'Everyone is mad, save thee and me. I am not so sure about thee.'

Lovely isn't it? I smile when I think about our own particular bees-in-bonnets. We are a very strange lot.

Cheers
V

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50. Comment #30016 by Helian on April 6, 2007 at 7:27 am

@Relevo

"Helian, if ever you come across this kind of atheistic individual, why don't you actually point out to him/her how exactly it is that this person is being fundamentalist, and in what sense exactly."

I have already done this in the series of comments I left on the "Richard Dawkins explains 'The God Delusion'" thread. The individual I identified was Prof. Dawkins himself, and my reasons for doing so can be found in the comments on that thread and the associated links. I made my point on that thread, and stand by it. I no longer have any interest in belaboring the point on this site, perhaps because of my own "irrational" aversion to "heresy" and "factionalism" among my fellow atheists, my "irrational" revulsion at seeing RD struck below the belt by his opponents, not to mention my continuing admiration for a man who, while he may not be perfect, has done a lot more to make this world a better place than I have.

"What is the fundamentalist dogma you are noticing from such a person? Otherwise, you are simply lobbing a word around with no real sense for its meaning."

I have a much less sanguine view of the rationality of human beings than you do, Relevo. I believe that the thought, opinions, and perceptions of most people are not the product of rational, critical, logical thought processes, but are ideological constructs associated with our morality, our sense of right and wrong, which, in turn, exists because human beings have an innate predisposition, hard-wired in their brains, to acquire a morality, more or less conditioned by their indoctrination and other environmental factors, but with certain cross-cultural similarities. The evidence for this is all around you, even on this site, where thinkers congregate who are generally more thoughtful, individualistic in matters of opinion, and more resistant to dogmatic beliefs than most people. Read through a few of the threads, and you will constantly find judgments conditioned by morality. One thing is "good," another "disgusting," another "selfish," another "despicable," another "outrageous," and so on. None of these judgments are logical, because none of these categories have an objective existence. They are all subjective human moral constructs, with no "real" existence outside of the human brain, but, nevertheless, perceived as absolutes. Nevertheless, we all "know" what these people are talking about, because our brains are wired to perceive the world in exactly the same way. I am a human being, and I, too, have the tendency to see the world in that way, with the same tendency to perceive my own moral judgments as absolutes. Indeed, the only reason we don't perceive these things for what they are is because they are so much a part of us we take them for granted. We are standing too close to ourselves to see them.

"Instead of simply mislabeling people, why don't you actually point out the specific irrational doctrinal text/manual/bible/whatever fundamentalist creed- with which such an individual is being fundamentalist? Surely, you must realize doing so is the honest thing to do."

Visit some of the atheist websites linked on this site. You will note, if you visit a sufficient sample of them, a marked tendency to associate a "progressive" ideology with atheism. The set of opinions that mark the ideological boundaries of the "progressive" world view are, more or less, in flux. They have this in common with many other ideological complexes, including religions. However, in many cases, those ideological boundaries are strongly marked. The related opinions are usually associated with each other. Of we know someone is a "progressive," we will know what he thinks on a variety of hot button issue, just as we know what a "conservative" will think. That is not a coincidence. We all have a marked aversion to wandering outside the well-marked boundaries of our ideological "in-groups," and associate all kinds of evil with those in the "other" ideological "out-groups." This certainly corresponds to human nature. It is, however, not rational. There is no logical basis whatsoever for considering one thing "good" and another "bad."

Does that mean we should constantly fight against our innate tendency to consider things "good" or "bad." Certainly not! These irrational perceptions are there for a reason. They, along with all of our other characteristics have, at least at some point in our existence on the planet, whether as human beings or earlier, contributed to the survival of our genes. It would be as unhealthy to unconditionally resist something that is a part of our nature, as it would be for a heterosexual male to constantly resist "looking on a woman so as to lust after her." We can, however, condition our acceptance of this aspect of our nature with logical thought. We can realize that we live in a vastly different world, and in vastly different societies, than the one our evolution has fitted us to cope with. We cannot blindly associate out-groups such as the Jews, or blacks, or adherents of alien religions, with evil, because the resulting mass slaughter and genocide, at the most fundamental level of our judgment of "good," do not promote our own survival.

Among the most remarkable in-groups of fanatical quasi-religious ideological fundamentalists were the Communists. Communism had all the characteristics of a religion. There was an easily identifiable ideological in-group that was, for all practical purposes, Communist, in England long before Marx. This was noticed by a very brilliant, perceptive, and under-appreciated British thinker, Sir James MacKintosh. He noted the "religious" aspects of this "proto-Communism" long before Marx. He also predicted that, if such an ideology ever acquired political power, it would be a despotism, but that it would fail because of the requirement that it deliver its "heavenly rewards" in the here and now rather than in some hereafter not so easily subject to "fact checking."

Many of the Communists were highly intelligent, and they were not intrinsically "evil" people. They were true believers in a bright new future for mankind. They fought bravely, and with incredible dedication and self-sacrifice for what they considered the "good." That "good" was in no way shape or form intrinsically, objectively, "less good" than the "good" of modern progressives, the "good" of the Christians, the "good" of the conservatives, or the "good" of any other ideological in-group. The history of Communism is a cautionary tale. It demonstrates why atheists and other thinking people must be constantly wary of "assimilation" by some new fundamentalism, theist or otherwise.

@Bonzai

"In the way it is invoked as an explanation,"God" serves the same function as the "x" is an equation to be solved. It is just a place holder, a name for the unknown.It tells us absolutely nothing about what the solution may be. It is not a solution, not even a wrong solution. At least you can show a wrong solution is wrong by checking."

Nietzsche put it very nicely. He pointed out that it was the nature of human beings "to prefer to have the void for a reason than to be void of a reason."

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