Comments by arildno
Comment #52136 by arildno on June 26, 2007 at 9:15 am
Thanks, scottishgeologist!
I think it is always a good thing to have my false views exposed, so that I can discard them.
Comment #52112 by arildno on June 26, 2007 at 7:36 am
Besides, david has to understand that the love concept in the phrase "and so much did God love the world" becomes PERVERTED and VILE by making human sacrifice into the highest form of "love" possible.
Yes, david, the word "love" appears many times throughout the New Testament, but neither Jesus, the Gospel authors or St. Paul had the inkling of what real love is.
That is apparent in all their sayings/writings:
1. Jesus, in inventing the concept of Hell, sending everyone who don't regard him as Son of God to eternal torment and the wailing and gnashing of teeth.
2. The Gospel authors, by idolizing Jesus and fetishizing an act of cruel torture.
3. St. Paul, for much the same reasons, along with his unlovely, hateful attacks on anyone he chose to brand as heretics.
Comment #52100 by arildno on June 26, 2007 at 6:38 am
The main problem here, as I detect it, is wee flea's fantasy about what "true religion" is.
Sorry, wee flea, restricting the religion concept to fluffy, rosy-hearted Sunday school teachings is incorrect.
Phelps' cult IS a religion, and one extracted from the "hallowed" Christian doctrines as well.
The last point is why it deserves the name of a Christianity (whether other Christianities, basing their faith on other verses of the Bible, is utterly irrelevant)
I'll give you another example than the Phelps:
In the Appalachians, you have the weird snake-handler's cults, who on basis of a saying at the end of Matthew(?) believe that a strong enough believer in Christ will be immune against snake poison.
Hence, they test their faith by handling rattle-snakes, attributing severe illness&death from snake-bites from having too weak faith in the Lord.
I hope you agree that this is ALSO a Christian religious sect.
In fact, I would like to pose you a challenge, wee flea:
Are Matthew and the snake-handlers deluded, and wrong, on the point that strong believers are immune to snake poison?
Or do you agree with them in principle that if your belief in God is strong enough, then you'll be immune to snake poison?
4. The Present Threat of the Religious Right to Our Modern Freedoms
Comment #51726 by arildno on June 24, 2007 at 11:04 am
Who has the best chances of getting elected as president so as to be able to stop this madness?
Hillary Clinton?
Barack Obama?
Any of the Republicans??
5. His word
Comment #51454 by arildno on June 23, 2007 at 2:02 am
Thank you, epicure.
I was infected by the author's use of the word "animal", so I made a mistake.
I should, of course, said "other animals".
Comment #51449 by arildno on June 23, 2007 at 1:39 am
The author totally fails to address the major problem:
Religion is a collection of silly MYTHS, and is therefore totally UNSUITABLE to be social identity markers.
Besides, most of those myths have a vile moral content.
Comment #51447 by arildno on June 23, 2007 at 1:35 am
" In a thousand years' time, if we humans are still around, no doubt our cosmology will be regarded as childish fumbling."
Complete and utter nonsense.
In the antiquity, scientists like Archimedes developed ideas of statics and hydrostatics that are still very admirable.
Once science gets a predictive understanding of, and the means of quantifying, various phenomena, those results lasts for an eternity.
That later scientists may build upon this and gain access to phenomena hitherto unsuspected by science, necessitating the reformulation of theory to incorporate BOTH the old true results, and a satisfactory account of the new phenomena, is completely beside the issue.
It is a fallacy due to ignorance of science to believe that scientific theories are some sort of paradigms essentially unrelated to "what is out there".
8. His word
Comment #51444 by arildno on June 23, 2007 at 1:24 am
Animals don't have science to explain the world, either.
Nor are they in possession of art to facilitate our construction of meaning in our personal lives.
Wherever is the need of God in this picture?
Isn't it just as likely a cultural parasite that we should endeavour to exterminate?
9. An Inquisition in science's name
Comment #51057 by arildno on June 21, 2007 at 10:08 am
What an ignorant fool.
How DARE he put unevidenced dogma on par with truths carefully found out by evaluating masses of evidence?
The writer is evidently totally ignorant of what science is.
10. A battler beyond belief: Review of 'God is Not Great'
Comment #50373 by arildno on June 17, 2007 at 10:42 am
Eeh, the secular faith system I talked about in the USSR was the development of a personality cult of Stalin, dogmifying his "writings" and so on. This IS a system of faith&dogma
That the USSR in addition to this systematized a persecution of those of the Christian faith is another business altogether.
A couple of other secular faith systems we've seen in Europe are those of Mussolini and Hitler.
Neither of these boys instituted systematic persecutions of Christians, so the USSR example cannot be used in order to show that there should be a somehow necessary link between the build-up of a secular faith system and the repression of an already existing religious system.
11. A battler beyond belief: Review of 'God is Not Great'
Comment #50369 by arildno on June 17, 2007 at 9:29 am
Eeh, why have idiots on the American religious right a monopoly on deciding what words mean??
Secular does not, in ordinary European usage mean "state suppression" of religion. It means worldly-oriented, rather than otherworldly-oriented.
Dr Benway should get over his American parochialism.
12. A battler beyond belief: Review of 'God is Not Great'
Comment #50299 by arildno on June 16, 2007 at 2:49 pm
A generally excellent article, apart from a MAJOR flaw:
Stalin/Mao DID develop FAITH SYSTEMS, were Marxist writings, foremost their own, became immunized from criticism as holy books. It was, effectively, a sin to speak against them.
Theirs was a SECULAR faith system, but a faith system nonetheless.
13. Can we really learn to love people who aren't like us?
Comment #48799 by arildno on June 9, 2007 at 4:47 am
Scientists create communities. Artists create communities.
The major difference between them and religionists (apart from not spouting nonsense) is that scientists and artists are not, in general, hell-bent upon destroying other communities.
14. Should Science Speak to Faith? A dialog between Lawrence Krauss and Richard Dawkins
Comment #47226 by arildno on June 3, 2007 at 3:47 pm
An very good exchange of views.
Comment #45360 by arildno on May 27, 2007 at 11:27 am
Now, it sounds dreadfully ominous about "own agendas to push".
Care to make that into a reasonable accusation?
16. Fighting the Fundamentalists
Comment #44879 by arildno on May 25, 2007 at 12:43 pm
Of course there exist religion and religion, each different from the other.
However, highly RATIONALIZED religious beliefs are not in the slightest any more RATIONAL than literalism.
17. Heliocentrism is an Atheist Doctrine
Comment #44858 by arildno on May 25, 2007 at 12:05 pm
An excellent satire.
18. I Don't Believe in Atheists
Comment #44352 by arildno on May 24, 2007 at 12:07 pm
It isn really that incomprehensible as long as you understand that Hedges suffers from the main flaw of all religionists, namely the desire to sanctify his acts of mental masturbation even if that requires the sacrifice of his sanity, reason and humanity and anything else he might deem necessary to discard.
19. I Don't Believe in Atheists
Comment #44341 by arildno on May 24, 2007 at 11:40 am
What a load of apologist horseshit.
And what arrogance!
Even the Europeans recognized the untypical degree of respect for individuality (even to the point of quirkiness) in many Native American cultures.
To monopolize the respect for individualism to the religions most responsible for trampling upon it is just morally perverse.
20. Prayer can improve physical health
Comment #43671 by arildno on May 22, 2007 at 8:52 am
"Mr Jantos and co-author Professor Hosen Kiat, from the University of NSW, said the Bible offered several references to making a sick person well and Jesus himself was known for his personal practice of prayer and for his miraculous healings."
How could this ever pass as science??
That Medical Journal of Australia allows such unscientific nonsense to be published means that M.J.o.A no longer can be regarded as a scientific journal.
21. Scientists Draw Link Between Morality And Brain's Wiring
Comment #43408 by arildno on May 21, 2007 at 9:43 am
It is an intellectual fallacy to assume that the sole component of morality is/should be rational egotism.What you get out of that is just the morality of equally strong sociopaths having to live together.
Empathy, the ability to feel pain at others' suffering and the ability feel joy at others' joy is an equally integral part of morality. It is a fact of consciousness.
This will yield different results than the impoverished sociopath morality. Fortunately.
22. Scientists Draw Link Between Morality And Brain's Wiring
Comment #43407 by arildno on May 21, 2007 at 9:43 am
It is an intellectual fallacy to assume that the sole component of morality is/should be rational egotism.What you get out of that is just the morality of equally strong sociopaths having to live together.
Empathy, the ability to feel pain at others' suffering and the ability feel joy at others' joy is an equally integral part of morality. It is a fact of consciousness.
This will yield different results than the impoverished sociopath morality. Fortunately.
23. Scientists Draw Link Between Morality And Brain's Wiring
Comment #43406 by arildno on May 21, 2007 at 9:43 am
It is an intellectual fallacy to assume that the sole component of morality is/should be rational egotism.What you get out of that is just the morality of equally strong sociopaths having to live together.
Empathy, the ability to feel pain at others' suffering and the ability feel joy at others' joy is an equally integral part of morality. It is a fact of consciousness.
This will yield different results than the impoverished sociopath morality. Fortunately.
Comment #42982 by arildno on May 20, 2007 at 8:04 am
newatheist:
It is certainly true that the idea of the immortality of the soul is almost by necessity a hope we all share.
However, the belief in the immortality of the soul does not constitute religion; rather, religious ideas exploit that particular idea to gain credence in the new believer.
I.e, the belief in the immortality of the soul make us vulnerable to adopt religious ideas as well.
Comment #42517 by arildno on May 18, 2007 at 10:22 am
Certainly.
It would not be too far-fetched to regard religionists as more murderous of people not sharing their faith than other people.
Comment #42432 by arildno on May 18, 2007 at 7:35 am
I don't think there is that much necessary to make a binary good/bad guy distinction.
I certainly read with interest, and learned a lot from Wolpert; but it doesn't therefore mean I agree with him at all points.
I think he should turn his "need for religion" upon himself, and then see that it seems very improbable that average guys and girls really do have such a need.
That might lead him onto thinking anew why the results he referred to are as they are. I offered one explanation, I'm sure Wolpert can find a better one, if he puts his mind to it.
Comment #42424 by arildno on May 18, 2007 at 7:24 am
I didn't say that to go from 4 to 5 is something that happens because of natural selection or in any way relevant in terms of adaptive advantage.
What IS advantageous in a Darwinian sense, is "purposefulness", or an intentional stance.
Our ideas do not only develop as a result from which are most adaptive, but at least as much from two other sources:
i) Logical inevitability of the next idea (we are equipped with an ability to perform logical deductions)
ii) Associativity of ideas:
An idea that is thematically closer to the beliefs of person A than to the beliefs in person B, that idea is more likely to occur within person A than in person B.
I.e, our beliefs develop into clusters of related ideas.
4 and 5 are relatively close ideas, and a rough probability argument might say that there is a certain non-zero probability that some persons might perform that jump.
As long as NEITHER the idea or its non-presence has any significant adaptive (dis-)advantage, then at the very least, idea 5 will appear in a portion of the population commensurate to the probability with which the idea can pop into the head in the first place, since ALL humans will be at stage 4 to begin with.
Lateron, social influences might spread the religious infection further, without affecting adaptivity much.
As for shintoism, it is generally regarded as a "primitive" religion.
Comment #42401 by arildno on May 18, 2007 at 6:54 am
the difference would be something like this:
1. Intentionality, the ability to grasp IN ADVANCE what might happen if something is done, must surely have a positive adaptive advantage.
2. But, it is only our ability to "see into the future" so to speak that enables us to predict our own death when coupled with our "empathic" ability to see that what happens to other humans might happen to ourselves.
3. But, by intentionality, we are essentially always living slightly into the future, whereas a dead body seems very future-less.
4. That is, the moment of death seems to put an end to, and ridicule, our plans..for the future.
5. Therefore, an easy cop-out might be to imagine that our "planning part" will be able to continue its projects after death.
6. Thus, belief in immortality of the "soul" can easily be explained how it originated.
7. Now, coupling the idea of "immortal souls" with events having mysterious causes, you are not too far from developing a belief in gods.
A case in point can be that some of the most "primitive" religions have been..ancestor worship, i.e, propitiation of the ones already dead.
Comment #42369 by arildno on May 18, 2007 at 5:48 am
Furthermore, the difference given by studies can be explained in a far more prosaic manner:
1. We know from many ex-theists that while they were believers, they were always anxious to portray themselves, and their faith, in the best possible light to others (within and without the religious community).
However, they also admit, that they were constantly engaged in private inner struggles, like lack of belief, fear of having done something offensive to God, fear of contaminating fellow members of the church with their own "weak" faith etc.)
That is, AS THEISTS, they were constantly engaged in deceptions towards themselves, their fellow church members and the outside world.
In other words, it is by no means improbable that the skewed statistic Wolpert refers to is the result of less honest self-reports concerning their degrees of happiness among religionists than among non-theists.
Comment #42360 by arildno on May 18, 2007 at 5:37 am
Well, let's see how this adds up:
1. Wolpert asserts that we somehow "need" religion for our comfort.
2. Wolpert, although an atheist, seems very comfortable and well-balanced.
Now, this means that Wolpert is not part of the great "we".
He is a unique person who manages to be comfortable without religion, highly elevated about the great mass of other needy humans.
Doesn't that sound just a teeny bit arrogant?
Wouldn't humility decree that since I'm an average human being and yet an atheist and comfortable besides, then there can't be any great need for religiousness after all, despite the grandiose claims from religionists and Wolpert?
Comment #41607 by arildno on May 16, 2007 at 11:45 am
These types of comment ire me:
"Only in world stripped of all that is distinctively human would Darwin's theories about the evolution of finch beaks provide greater emancipation for the human spirit than Lincoln's sublime words about human dignity, sacrifice and the better angels of our nature. On balance, Lincoln on our destiny is a better bet for a humane world than Darwin on our origins."
Abe Lincoln's views were hardly original, even though highly commendable.
The utter contempt for the natural sciences and scientists that permeates this article is one of the pillars of modern religious faith.
They HAVE TO trivialize the natural sciences, and their importance in human life, because they are necessarily anti-thetical to the whisperings of the religious mind parasite.
They have to trivialize the capacity for delight at natural wonders, the curiosity towards what exist, the diligence in the scientist's search for truth, his honesty in making clear to others what he has found, and his humility shown in the readiness of giving up his theory if either facts turn up against it, or another scientist defeat it by a logical chain of reasoning.
That is, the most spiritual of men are derailed by the religionists as "banal", because they don't regard the religionist personal fantasies as particularly important in their lives.
What utter arrogance, from the religionists.
32. Educated, Inspired Conservative Christians
Comment #41495 by arildno on May 16, 2007 at 7:38 am
Not a mention of Falwell's unconditional support to the apartheid regime in South Africa, either.
Or his derogatory comments on Desmond Tutu.
Comment #40985 by arildno on May 15, 2007 at 9:33 am
Eeh, mickleby?
Whether Jesus was resurrected or not is a "binary" matter. Either it is true and false.
It is also an issue that is of vast importance to many people.
34. Christopher Hitchens is Not Great
Comment #40971 by arildno on May 15, 2007 at 9:14 am
"..but also to rethink the nature of religious truth. Most (with the exception of fundamentalists) would now concede that religions are true not in the same way that science or mathematics are true, but more in line with the way a Picasso portrait conveys a subjective truth that belies the merely representational."
Which shows how idiotic the author is, and the theologians he admires are.
They are completely woolly-headed, and don't know the difference between "what makes me feel good" and "what is true".
Either Jesus was resurrected after death, or he wasn't.
There is no wiggling room here, however good you feel about his resurrection.
By confusing these issues on "truth", religionists are able to protect their mind parasite, and that is the real reason why they choose to pervert their rational faculty in this manner.
Comment #40151 by arildno on May 13, 2007 at 11:05 am
There is a male equivalent, sort of:
It is that apron they wear in order to hide a penile bulge.
Comment #40116 by arildno on May 13, 2007 at 7:17 am
Dress codes in work-places are made in order to maximize the profit at that place, for example by not scaring away the customers.
That may be a perfectly acceptable reason, in contrast the the sex-obsessive reason behind the veiling of women in Islam.
So your analogy fails.
Comment #40109 by arildno on May 13, 2007 at 6:16 am
The hijab could have been acceptable if it were not for the underlying ideology for wearing it.
In blunt terms, a woman has a duty not to entice a man to get a hard-on by looking at her, because he then has the right to put it into the enticing object. And thus the woman would be damaged goods for her husband and/or clan.
As long as this idiotic, barbarous ideology is the underlying thinking of the majority of Muslims, they do not have sufficient moral maturity to decide over how they should be clad at all.
Hence, there is nothing wrong in forbidding them from wearing clothings like the hijab.
Comment #40107 by arildno on May 13, 2007 at 6:03 am
It is saddening, but not surprising, to see how her mind virus is poisoning her rational thought processes from the first article to this one.
In the intervening period she has managed to convince herself that this "nice man" isn't really against her religion, in fact, isn't he almost saying the same things as theologians she admire?
So this nice man is religious, too, and she can go on blithely believing as she always have. He wasn't a threat to her mind parasite after all.
Comment #39888 by arildno on May 12, 2007 at 7:21 am
First of all, the author is factually wrong about religion being the source, and guarantor of morality.
By all evidence, religion began as prpitiation of dangerous super-creatures who chose to torment humans with wildfires, floods, thunder&lightnings, droughts and so on.
If anything, gods started out as elusive predators very much analagous to large carnivores like tigers, crocodiles and boa constrictors which might readily sneak into a settlement to gobble up an infant in front of the mother.
Gods were nasty, amoral creatures, and men had to devise ways to avoid their gaze&actions.
Furthermore, story-telling and art has to all times provided a similar arena to explore moral dilemmas and give spiritual experiences to the listeners.
We have never needed religion for anything wortwhile, and that is perhaps one of the main messages atheists now should try to hammer into the faith-heads.
In addition to highlighting the fact that religion is utterly wrong in its claims concerning the world.
40. Is Christianity Good for the World?
Comment #39646 by arildno on May 11, 2007 at 12:30 pm
Sure, fear of punishment keeps morally undeveloped persons from doing harm. That is called the determent factor associated with the various reactions we use in combating crime.
It does not follow, however, that "fear of punishment" is the main reason why ordinary people choose to be moral, but religionists insist upon just that within their ideological framework.
Hence, they do not develop any other morality concepts than the one mentioned, and remain shackled to it.
41. Is Christianity Good for the World?
Comment #39634 by arildno on May 11, 2007 at 11:41 am
A drug addict can't imagine an existence without his drug. A man who has always walked with crutches will fall if you take the crutches away from him.
Doug Wilson and other religionists have CHOSEN to retain a primitive "morality" concept, namely that based on "fear of punishment".
People like him are not morally mature enough to form rational statements with respect to morality.
42. Is Christianity Good for the World?
Comment #39381 by arildno on May 10, 2007 at 12:57 pm
The troll has reared its head.
Doug Wilson has asserted that every atheist are being inconsistent in having morals.
43. Anderson Cooper interviews Christopher Hitchens
Comment #39308 by arildno on May 10, 2007 at 9:44 am
Hmm..did the clergy know how to make music?
Surely, they were not the ones designing and building cathedrals, were they?
What they DID have was control over finances.
There is not the slightest reason to believe that our architectural legacy from the Middle Ages would have been any less stunning than it is today if others than the clergy had had control over the money.
44. Better God-fearing than sneering
Comment #38709 by arildno on May 9, 2007 at 2:14 am
Actually, I'm wholly convinced that when the folklore superstitions like the beliefs in fairies, elves, the seelie host, witches and so on faded from peoples'set of "intellectually acceptable" beliefs, then something was irretrievable lost. Weber used the phrase "disenchantment" about this (Entzăuberung).
A sense of mystery, destiny and the "other" partially glimpsed in the twilight most likely gave rise to lots of "ineffable" experiences in individuals' real life and dream life.
Once we regard such beliefs as essentially silly, we won't get these experiences, outside art (for example in novels about alternate worlds).
But, we have gained so much in modern times by disciplining our thoughts and beliefs concerning the real world, that we cannot really lament this loss as if we in general are more impoverished than our fore-fathers.
After all, we can recapture lots of these feelings in art, and that's where gods also should have their proper domain.
Comment #37682 by arildno on May 5, 2007 at 1:02 pm
Hitler killed Jews due to a racist FANTASY.
Stalin and Pol Pot murdered millions due to a class struggle FANTASY.
None of this has anything to do with atheism, but the FANTASY of a God has everything to do with the very same God's commandments to his faithful.
46. God Exists. A Formula Proves it.
Comment #37669 by arildno on May 5, 2007 at 12:43 pm
Frank Tipler is an excellent physicist.
However:
His religious mumbo-jumbo has been an embarassment for the physicist community for decades.
He suffers from a complete compartmentalization of his brain, and is not averse to use numerology to "prove" the rationality of his faith.
Over 1.5 million copies sold
Books by Richard Dawkins
The Oxford Book of Modern Science Writing
by Richard Dawkins
The Selfish Gene
by Richard Dawkins
The Blind Watchmaker
by Richard Dawkins
The Ancestor's Tale
by Richard Dawkins
Unweaving the Rainbow
by Richard Dawkins
