1. Do you have to read up on leprechology before disbelieving in them?

Comment #76010 by Goatsbane J on October 4, 2007 at 9:54 am

revcort, 1072

He insists that Strobel should have interviewed more skeptics and that the "experts" he interviewed were too biased or corrupted with religiosity to tell the truth. This is about what I expected to see there.

Interesting tactic for a law journalist, isn't it? You might think he'd be used to the idea of there being a prosecution as well as a defence.

2. Do you have to read up on leprechology before disbelieving in them?

Comment #75799 by Goatsbane J on October 3, 2007 at 4:53 pm

Paul Creber

chipping away at the minutiae of the fiction can also play a role in bringing down the edifice

No, yes, I mean you're right of course. I think my patience is just running at a low ebb.

(I've just heard a preacher say that 'Love for god must be expressed in love for others. And love for others must be indication of love for god. This is an inescapable proposition' [subtext: 'Atheists love nothing and no one'] and now I want to punch things until something starts bleeding. [Counts to ten.] Perhaps I'll sleep on it and try to think of something I can love very publicly tomorrow.)

3. A New Debate

Comment #75796 by Goatsbane J on October 3, 2007 at 4:37 pm

It's true, Dr B. They're all doing it, in fact.

It's funny. My first, rather nostalgic and naive, reaction was to think 'Really, they say a lot of decent stuff, don't they?'

But then it struck me how bloody easy it is to say extraordinarily obvious things about getting along nicely with people. The achievements are only in being an engaging speaker and in making anyone believe that the bible actually contains what you're making it out to.

The makers of The Simpsons manage to provide at least equally profound insights into humanity on a weekly basis, whilst being a whole lot funnier, less didactic and without resorting to the authority of imaginary gods.

So that little flash of respect didn't last long.

EDIT Oh god. The current preacher (who is doing comical stereotypical-televangelist inhalations before his mad shoutings) is doing the classic 'God is love, so all love is God' bit of morally fucked-up bullshit. I'm going to have angry dreams.

4. A New Debate

Comment #75788 by Goatsbane J on October 3, 2007 at 4:16 pm

Ah, 8-10. Ta, Dr B. Here I am, quarter past midnight BST, thinking that it was on at 7.00 EST: ie, now. Consequently, I have heard several minutes of preaching about how to be good parents of married children. Oh, well. I have at least learned that Jesus is the Prince of Peace.

Bollocks. Need to sleep.

5. Do you have to read up on leprechology before disbelieving in them?

Comment #75778 by Goatsbane J on October 3, 2007 at 3:55 pm

Really, seriously, don't bother trying to pick apart religious morality.

First, it's a many headed beast, with as many subtly different interpretations as there are Christians. Sure, many of them will say that it's not variable, that it's all clear in the bible, but anyone with an the slightest appreciation of how we derive meaning from written works will very easily see that no text ('inerrant' or otherwise) is going to provide invariant interpretations.

Second, pointing out that you find something morally reprehensible to someone who is convinced that it is Right isn't going to get you anywhere. We can adjust our morals. What we find reprehensible today we can, given time, intense personal experiences or serious rethinking following persuasive examples, change our minds about fairly thoroughly. Someone who is ideologically committed to the notion that (their interpretation of) god's word gives them their morality, and who has become happy with that morality, isn't going smack their palm to their forehead and say 'Blow me down, you're right! It really is poisonous old tosh, isn't it?'

Third, it can all be rationalised. It can always be rationalised. Just like the whole theodicy thing. 'This bit of the OT clashes with my sense of morality? I expect Jesus amended it, and if I look hard enough and interpret imaginatively enough, I will find that He did. Or, alternatively, I can convince myself that, love it or hate it, it's right, because after all, we don't have to understand God's Perfect Morality, we just have to accept it.' Right?

Seriously, arguing against a religious person's 'religiously derived' morals is like trying to chop up a swimming pool. Save the energy.

With moderates, who accept that there is bad morality in the bible as well as good, Dr Benway's 'The shit in the books has got to go' point is well worth sticking to like glue. (Another round of applause for Dr B for again saying something extremely worthwhile.) But die-hards can simply disagree with you about morality without batting an eyelid. They've plenty of ways to be certain that they're right.

I think the main argument is still, and is virtually always, the same: 'You've nothing to base this on. You've no acceptable evidence that this is what you say it is. You've no basis to apply your personal choice of beliefs to anyone else. Believe what you want in your church, but keep it out of society, thanks.'

'Jesus said this, Moses said that, the gospel writers meant the other' - forget it. It's just an old book. Leave it. In the mind of a believer, Jesus can have meant, intended or wanted us to understand just about anything. Let it go.

'Hamlet did this, Oberon authorised that, Timon of Athens did various entirely forgettable things' - just another old (and much better) book. That's the point.

Little rant there, sorry. Ignore at will.

EDIT - Oh well, it was the last post on the page, so no bugger'll read it anyway. Cheers, Creber. ;)

6. Letters: Theology has no place in a university

Comment #75047 by Goatsbane J on October 1, 2007 at 12:47 pm

The Smart Patrol

Oh, I was just taking the opportunity to shoot my mouth off, as usual! Nice to chat to you. I get the impression we were agreeing with each other anyway.

Sleep well.

J

EDIT - sorry about the schizo identity switch. Was trolled on another thread; this is my underbridge-dwelling, goat-devouring, spare ID.

7. Do you have to read up on leprechology before disbelieving in them?

Comment #75044 by Goatsbane J on October 1, 2007 at 12:43 pm

Do what you want. Be nice. Get along. Promote peace. I'm ok. You're ok. [singing "I love you just the way you are"] Don't go changin' to try to please me. [end song] We'll all be fine in the end.

Aww, that sounds lovely!

But I guess then we all have to go to the place with the wailing and gnashing of teeth, eh? Jahweh doesn't put much value in getting along nicely, does He?

I know, I know: He only asked Him to accept Him as god, which is a little thing given what He's supposed to have done for us.

But it seems kind of crazy to me that He should go to such effort to create us, and everything, and spend so long giving us directions and smiting folk, and then put together this intricate redemption strategy to rescue us from the sin that He got us into - and then fail completely in the final detail of giving us one good reason to believe that any of it's true. I mean, just one decent bit of evidence that the other 'false' gods haven't got. One way of telling between the ecstasies of the true faithful and the idolators. Just one thing that isn't clearly more likely to be a mistake or a lie.

It's like working 12-hour days for half your life on some massive project, and then forgetting to sign the contract at the end. Funny, funny sort of god.

Just idle musing there, revcort. Doesn't add anything new to what either of us have said, so don't worry about responding.

8. Letters: Theology has no place in a university

Comment #74971 by Goatsbane J on October 1, 2007 at 8:49 am

Yeah, you're right. Like feng shui.

It's just that there's an added poignancy, because (as I understand it) theology is the box of nonsense that all our present-day academia initially came out of. A bit like Stephen Weinberg (was it him?) said about missing religion when it's, like a mad old aunt who's finally kicked the bucket. It's not just that 'she was beautiful when she was younger' - it's that her comments in her youth were the starting points for all the things we went on to achieve, either by giving us the ideas or by presenting us with daft ones that we productively disagreed with. So it's kind of sad to see see theology as being empty and raving and left behind.

Kind of.

9. Do you have to read up on leprechology before disbelieving in them?

Comment #74968 by Goatsbane J on October 1, 2007 at 8:39 am

Forgive me if this is repeating what's been said, tangential or just plain irrelevant. I've not really kept up with this thread lately. But, glancing at it:

On this whole 'Jesus and contradictions' thing.

If I, with my very slight knowledge of the bible, were to argue from a moderate religious angle, I'd say this.

- God gave His message to us in the Old Testament. It's hard for us to interpret it accurately, to distinguish His meanings from the way in which they were recorded, and to tell how the message is affected by the change of social and historical context.
- Jesus amended all this. When Jesus says that we are to stick to the old laws, this doesn't contradict his other comments that seem to clash with those old laws. Jesus was doing that reinterpretation for us. He's essentially saying: 'Look, you're to stick to what God's/I've told you in the past, but I understand that you're not perfect at understanding it. So here I am, putting it into context for you, correcting you where you are going wrong, showing you how to think about it and interpret it'. In a sense, Jesus is giving a sort of readers' guide to the OT, and developing it.
- It's still hard for us to understand exactly what we're meant to do all the time, and to know how far to rely on parts of the NT written substantially after Jesus' death. Hence the importance of the central message: to consciously accept Jesus as God and to try honestly to do what you think He wanted, whilst always humbly acknowledging that your understanding of his divine will is far from perfect.

As an atheist, what this says to me is: forget about trying to find contradictions between Jesus and Moses, or the NT and the OT, or any part of the Bible and any other part of the Bible. It can all be rationalised away by anyone who believes in Jesus.

(Similar to theodicy, actually. 'Why does God allow suffering/evil/The Eurovision Song Contest?' is not really a problem for any secure believer. Once one is willing to believe in God in the first place, it's no big stretch to additionally believe that He has His reasons.)

The big argument for me is still: if you're a Christian, you are still believing in a god, and a human who was god, and who completely defied what we understand to be the physical rules by which reality operates in ways that have never been experienced by any living person or convincingly recorded by any non-living one. All you have as evidence is a set of very old claims (and plenty of historical and common-sense reasons to mistrust these). The willingness to accept such a document as a sound basis for believing in miracles and 'truths' that lie beyond modern science and that affect your fundamental understanding of the universe and of your life within it is an astonishing departure from the sort of rational thinking you rely on throughout the rest of your life. You'd use a law court to settle a murder case. You'd want a clinical trial to establish whether a new drug was safe. Why, when addressing this biggest of questions, suddenly refuse the best knowledge-finding tools you've got, and instead rely on tactics that would see you scammed by any door-to-door salesman?

Because you are complicit in your own deception. Because, for whatever reason, you want to be deceived. This is what needs to be recognised. And also accompanied by the question 'In a heavily populated, highly social world, is it responsible for me to deceive myself in this way? What are the probable costs and benefits of this?' Sadly, I suspect it's very difficult to do this sort of self-analysis whist still in the grip of self-deception.

10. Do you have to read up on leprechology before disbelieving in them?

Comment #74764 by Goatsbane J on September 30, 2007 at 10:10 am

Dr Benway

KEEP OUT the supernatural from our moral principles and public policies. This is UNWISE CENSORSHIP.

You think you're holding open the door for Jesus. But guess what came through just now: Osama Bin Laden, clitorectomies, honor killings, and Fred Phelps.

Fred Phelps is supernatural? God help us all.

11. Why Christians should take Richard Dawkins seriously

Comment #74474 by Goatsbane J on September 29, 2007 at 3:28 am

the formal version of Dawkins's 747 argument I gave in post 243 is not a parody, but almost certainly what Dawkins actually thought. Not only because that's the sense I clearly got while reading TGD, but also because that's what several very smart reviewers of TGD also understood.

This is frustrating.

1 Dawkins has made a statement.
2 Some people have managed to construe this statement in a way that makes sense.
3 Others have construed it in a way that doesn't make sense.
4 Dawkins was either saying something that makes sense or something that doesn't make sense.
5 I prefer the version that doesn't make sense.
6 Therefore, Dawkins was talking nonsense.

Isn't this how straw men are made?

EDIT - Furthermore, the author is not the sole determiner of meaning, you know. Let's suppose that Dawkins did indeed lose the plot for a little while and wrote statements that were, in terms of his own understanding of them, incorrect. If his readers interpret those statements in a different way that does make sense, then those statements are valid in that interpretation. If I write 'the earth orbits the sun', it will be agreed by my readers that I have said something sensible. If, in truth, I have gone insane and actually thought I was saying 'frogs are made of candyfloss', this doesn't negate my readers' interpretation.

Restating my first point: if all you have to go on as a guide to my intentions is the statement as written, it is perverse of you to suppose that I have gone insane rather than that I have simply written something sensible. If there is an interpretation in which Dawkins is making sense, it is usual to afford him reasonable benefit of the doubt and assume that that's the sense he had in mind. To say 'Well it's rubbish if you look at it this way, and I reckon that's what he meant' is just playing silly buggers.

12. Do you have to read up on leprechology before disbelieving in them?

Comment #74420 by Goatsbane J on September 28, 2007 at 5:56 pm

brother john

Nice to talk to you! I thought your earlier (first?) post was excellent.

You illustrate so effectively, in few words

I think I can safely say that it's the first time I have ever received that particular compliment!

But - and here's where I differ. People go to church, to the mosque, to the synagogue, to the temple – wherever to hear PRIMARILY what their faith teaches, what God as they believe him to be says or his prophet(s) or their Holy Book(s) say/says. THERE, in those cases, SURELY he/she is duty bound to be a FAITHFUL, RELIABLE expositor?
Don't you agree?

I do think I see your point. And I think there is an important distinction to be made between people who have voted with their feet in personally choosing to come into the place of worship, and people who have not (or are too young to realistically have made such a decision themselves). If an adult comes into church, s/he can reasonably be assumed to accept that they are willingly exposing themselves to a faith-position, and they therefore don't need to be cotton-wool-wrapped with provisos. But passersby, strangers on the internet, people whose front doors one knocks on, the infirm, the psychologically vulnerable and the under-age should not be presented life-view altering opinions in the guise of truth. That's my point. (And it's not original to me, of course.)

I do wonder whether there ought to be a responsibility to occasionally throw reminders of this in church, too. To be honest, I think that's something I would regard as desirable (from my perspective) rather than something that should be enforced. I suppose where I object, in terms of in-church content, is when statements that have a meaning outside church get re-appropriated and skewed inside church.

So, if you willingly attend a church and your preacher fills you with his ideas about god, that's fine. But if he then sells you a completely distorted idea of evolution as fact, I'm not so sure that that's fine. Because you are going to take that view with you into the outside world and start picking foolish, needless, potentially harmful fights on the basis of this falsehood that you have been persuaded into sharing. This, I think, is bad behaviour on the preacher's part. Same if he assures you that gay people are inherently sinful, that kaffirs are filthy or that atheists can't possibly have morals (because he defines morality as a form of 'good', and 'good' as always proceeding from god).*

Thing is, this argument puts me on a slippery slope. Because, once I start picking at threads like this, I'm ineluctably led to the observation that religions are, speaking generally, promoting a world-view that is at odds with the sort of world-view that is constructed by the non-religious world outside. So, once I start arguing that 'it's not okay to preach this detail without some sort of warning proviso, because it conflicts with non-religious definitions of the same matter', I'm on a logical path to unweaving the better part of most faiths.

Which, I suppose, is what gives me the feeling that, even inside churches and mosques and synagogues, there ought to be a clearly visible banner reading 'Other World-Views Are Available'.

'Serious believers' may expect differently. And serious believers can seriously exercise their choice to note the banner and decide that they don't need any other world views. That's fine. But no believers, serious or otherwise, should be negligently assisted in avoiding scrutiny of potentially serious potential mistakes. This should be a conscious decision, not something that can be lazily glossed over. Once again, so-called 'private beliefs' are really not private things.

[ * One of the most worrying things I find with churches I've had any part in is the way they can rather slyly redefine what 'independent thought' means. A church acts as a particular interpretative community, with a particular 'take' on its holy text. Congregants may be exhorted to study their scripture in their own time, but the conclusions they are to draw are in fact usually quite strictly limited, through study guides, classes, sermons, peer-pressure and frowns over the biscuits. I suppose this is all inevitable as part of maintaining a particular denomination of the faith in question. But the side effect is to re-appropriate the meaning of the entire concept of 'thinking for yourself', turning it into 'independently reaching the same conclusions I want you to'. I am emphatically not happy with any individual or institution which, consciously or otherwise, does this.]

But, as a Christian, in a Christian context, I want clear distinction between opinion and what Christ said.

Before launching into another long screed, I'm going to read on from your post and see what others have said in response…

…and I find that the questions stated cover very well the sort of think that I would say. I won't add additional verbiage to them for no reason.

Instead, I'll do this.

gr8hands said:

What responsibility do priests have for truth when it clashes with dogma?

And Bonzai said:

I had the distinct impression that these believers were so afraid of not knowing that they made up some stories and forced themselves to believe just to get peace of mind.

And here's a story about me:

When I was a child I lived by the sea. There was a man in my town who'd worked his whole life as a fisherman (which seems somehow obliquely appropriate in the context). I remember him as a sort of Jungian archetype of a wise old man, but I suspect I'm misremembering him badly.

What I do remember is the stories he used to tell me. Not in great detail, to be honest, but I remember the types of thing. Fantastical stuff, full of monsters and myths. I didn't know they were myths. They made perfect sense to me. And, being the inquisitive runt that I have remained, I used to ask him a hell of a lot of questions. And I don't remember him ever getting fed up with me hanging around him and bothering him with ridiculous enquiries (though I probably wasn't too perceptive when I was five years old).

Not everything he said was nonsense. I want to make that clear. I got some of my first ideas about history, about the sciences, about what I suppose you'd call geography – all kinds of stuff from him. He was not, I now realise, a learned man. I've talked to my parents about him since, and have a slightly more full picture of who he was than I ever appreciated when I knew him personally. Looking back, I wonder whether he'd ever had any sort of real education. But he had a gift (which comes, I suppose, from being a practical man and a born story teller) for concocting things that made sense.

I remember the summer when I started to wonder why I hadn't seen him around for a long time, and why I hadn't been taken to visit him when I asked. I suppose he had been very old.

I've heard it said that it's a profound shock when a person realises that their father is fallible. Well, whilst I don't remember the details of what this old sailor told me (and, those details that I do remember, I don't really want to get into retelling), I do vividly remember the realisations that were to come at school. He was wrong. Very, very wrong. About all kinds of things. Everything, really. The world was not the world he had described to me, the past had not gone in anything like the way that he led me to believe, and the processes by which things (like suns and moons and oceans) operate were in no way those that he had (enchantingly and patiently) laid out before me.

I was getting older now, anyway, and the old guy was behind me. But I realised, eventually, that he played a huge part in enriching my life. I don't know for sure what he really knew about the world, though I sometimes wonder whether he really know any more about these particular issues on which he was posthumously to be proved wrong than he told me. He didn't need to. He lived his life perfectly well (for what little I know of it) on what knowledge was available to him, and had an intuitive talent for stitching together such explanations as he needed on his own observations. So, rejecting what he told me no longer seems like a sort of betrayal (as it did, briefly), nor as a kind of hurt suspicion that he'd been deliberately misleading me. I'm glad for the stories he told me, and glad that he encouraged my curiosity to the point that I was able to go beyond the confines of those stories. He was a wonderful old man, and I sincerely think I gained a great deal from knowing him.

Now. (Deep breath.) This may already be perfectly obvious, but the above six paragraphs are all sheer fiction. I never knew this old man (though there's a little of my parents and grandparents in there) and I have never lived by the sea. I apologise to anyone who finds this story-telling strategy dishonest (which it probably is).

The old man more-or-less accurately represents my view of theology, or divinity, from a historical perspective. (I suppose I, modestly, represent the sum total of human knowledge. Yay for me.) There was a time, when we knew relatively little of the world and had no formalised methods for improving this state of affairs, when all study was the study of god's creation, all enquiry required the assistance of a hefty dose of supposition, and all academic degrees were in divinity. Time passed, we learned more and more about the world, our fields of study fragmented and specialised to reflect this, and divinity (or theology, or whatever) has increasingly been left with…? What? The study, essentially, of itself. Of the things it has said in the past, the assumptions it had once had to make and the significance that has inevitably come to be hung upon them. The real and important value of the many intuitive truths that its students had discerned about humanity – and continue to discern, indeed. The mistakes it had made. And the powerful temptation to cling to its old assumptions and errors and to insist that they be regarded with the same awe and devotion that they were once afforded.

Like my old storyteller (though he died long before reaching the state of modern day theology). Whose stories I loved when I was five. Which told me so much about the world, including the realisation that, eventually, they had to be left behind.

I don't think that richarddawkins.net was designed for people to experiment with short fiction, so I apologise for my self-indulgence, and I'm off to bed. I hope it meant something – and, if it didn't, it was just a story. It's a pleasure talking to you, brother john. Thanks for talking to me. I genuinely (I'm not making this bit up!) wish you a peaceful night's sleep, and all the best.

13. AAI Convention webcam

Comment #74356 by Goatsbane J on September 28, 2007 at 8:17 am

Or de-derridanated...

Ah, good. De-derridanated is a good idea.

The very mention of the man has set my eye off again.

14. Do you have to read up on leprechology before disbelieving in them?

Comment #74354 by Goatsbane J on September 28, 2007 at 8:12 am

CHeard

Never mind - thanks for the response (and for defining what what you do is).

15. Do you have to read up on leprechology before disbelieving in them?

Comment #74324 by Goatsbane J on September 28, 2007 at 6:06 am

"Adam and Eve spake a tongue that no man could comprehend"

Which must have made conversation difficult. Anyway, I've met Welsh people, so I'm guessing it was Klingon.

I'm sure you'd make a wonderful preacher. A similar inclination has struck me. The ministry sounds like it would be a wonderful profession, if only one didn't have to convince oneself of apparent falsehoods in order to enter it. I wonder if there's an employment discrimination case to be made?

16. AAI Convention webcam

Comment #74321 by Goatsbane J on September 28, 2007 at 5:52 am

I'm hesitant to stick my head above the parapet here, but:

Yorker, I basically agree with you that the RRS, whilst they may not be perfect, are trying hard, creating opportunities to spread the word and probably reaching audiences that would otherwise remain untouched. I agree that, whilst constructive criticism is worthwhile, it should be in the spirit of helping them to achieve the intended goals more effectively, rather than sitting in the sidelines shaking your head and doing nothing.

But I think steve99 has an important point in principle. When Yorker says:

ANY fucking effort is better than NONE!

...that's wrong. Pure effort is not necessarily productive without some degree of intelligent guidance. If I'm a Renaissance physician trying honestly to cure a syphilitic man using mercury, I may be poisoning him more than curing him. If I rush onto the scene of a car accident and hoist a victim onto my shoulders to get them to safety, I may endanger their life by exacerbating a spinal injury that I didn't bother checking for because I have no knowledge of first aid. And if I initiate aggressive discussions about atheism with opponents who are ready to pounce on my every mistake, make a host of errors and present to them the impression of an incoherent, intolerant ranter, I may set back the very movement that I was trying to support. I'd be very surprised if anyone really couldn't see that this is true.

Once again, I don't think the RRS are so bad and I imagine they'll get better at what they're doing as they go on. Overall, I think we should support them (though not necessarily uncritically). I think that most of the efforts to spread understanding about atheism are, on balance, more productive than harmful, even those that make me personally cringe. But the sweeping generalisation that all effort is productive, no matter how poorly it is manifested, is clearly, uncontroversially false. Like sweeping generalisations tend to be.

Can we stop arguing yet?

17. Do you have to read up on leprechology before disbelieving in them?

Comment #74299 by Goatsbane J on September 28, 2007 at 4:30 am

Philip1978

Ta. All these billy goats have done wonders for my health.

Manson's and Cave's claims are not mutually exclusive. Most TVs are in houses. So, perhaps I'll put both on, then.

Joanna Newsome is wonderful good. Splash out 79p on iTunes on 'Inflammatory Writ' for some amazing lyrics. Or 'The Book of Right-On'. Or 'Sprout and the Bean'.

In the meantime: Can you smell what Philip1978 is cookin'?

18. Do you have to read up on leprechology before disbelieving in them?

Comment #74295 by Goatsbane J on September 28, 2007 at 4:20 am

Referring to one's self in the third person is often an early warning sign.

Of what? Turning into The Rock?

19. Do you have to read up on leprechology before disbelieving in them?

Comment #74292 by Goatsbane J on September 28, 2007 at 4:11 am

I've been speaking out against "worship" songs that do that too- and are intended (in my opinion) to work someone into an emotional frenzy or trance. - revcort, 877

My very lovely soon-to-be-a-minister friend gave me two CDs full of music she likes, most of which I think is excellent. (I just bought a Joanna Newsome album on the strength of it, actually, and would probably buy Joanna Newsome herself, were she available.)

But, slyly slotted in there was a worship song. Perhaps it's well-known. It's in a sort of pop-rock-ballad vein. I have no idea who it's by or what it is, but if I'd hazard a guess that it's called 'I'll Stand In Awe Of You' or something, since those are the words that go round and round and round in the chorus.

Allergic though I am to cheap sentimentality, it virtually always bloody works on me and the big chords were actually quite moving, if let down rather by the persistent bleating that 'Jesus, I am so in love with you' (which, callous heathen that I am, sounds to me a little like self-satisfied showing off). It seems perfectly made for moving the audience to indulge in that arm gesture that, when I was a church goer, I used to observe and privately refer to as 'warming one's hands on the fire of god'.

I expect my friend and the band were both extremely well-meaning. Somewhere along the line, Christians usually are.

I've just recorded a CD for her. Perhap's I'll tag Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds' 'God Is In The House' onto the end of it.

20. Do you have to read up on leprechology before disbelieving in them?

Comment #74280 by Goatsbane J on September 28, 2007 at 3:21 am

Ammendment

Somewhere here lately, I made a rash claim to the effect that the only real difference between CHeard and I was how readily persuaded we each are by our religious intuitions, and how much our rationality nags at us.

Reading on, I see that I need to add:

'...and a Ph.D. in biblical studies'.

It's just a small thing.

21. Do you have to read up on leprechology before disbelieving in them?

Comment #74277 by Goatsbane J on September 28, 2007 at 3:14 am

steve99, 872
This, that you describe here, is exactly what hit me between the eyes on reading The Blind Watchmaker (which, I suppose, is what that book was written for). I'd always been a decent, academic sort of student and had done well in sciences at school. Then I'd ditched it all in favour of English at university, but had continued happily in the understanding that life evolved and so on. But, in spite of having gone through our standard secondary-school science education and understood what I was taught perfectly well, I had never been able to get a handle on just how evolution works. I remember a casual bit of humorous personification in The Hitchhiker's Guide, which refers to evolution gradually experimenting with a nose here, an eye there (or something) and had never got beyond this vague sense of a mysterious agency behind it all. It was only upon reading The Blind Watchmaker that the keystone in the bridge fell into place and I could finally see how the whole thing stands up. That it's basically just unthinking trial and error over a massive, massive timescale, and that it all follows logically from a very simple set of starting conditions.

Which remains mind-blowing in both simplicity and implication to this day - much as you said about complexity theory, indeed, of which I suppose evolution is one enormous biological example.

Ah, life, eh?

22. Do you have to read up on leprechology before disbelieving in them?

Comment #74275 by Goatsbane J on September 28, 2007 at 3:05 am

CHeard, 852
Any spaces on this course? It sounds like fun.

As a teacher of whatever exactly it's called, at wherever it is that you teach it, are you knowledgeable of the sorts of theology teaching that go on at other universities? For example, in the UK? I might as well come clean. A friend of mine has just started at Durham (theology for entering the ministry). I'm just interested to know what she's in for. (Although why I should care, I don't know; she's very happy in her faith and clearly not interested in my pesky nay-saying.)

23. Do you have to read up on leprechology before disbelieving in them?

Comment #74272 by Goatsbane J on September 28, 2007 at 2:57 am

I expect I'm well behind by now. Must stop sleeping.

revcort, 848

What you say about your approaches to non-believers, and to handling the teaching of young people, all sound to me like well-considered, reasonable practice for someone of your beliefs, in your position.

If you expect me to believe that you wouldn't try to convince them of the merits of naturalism, atheism, agnosticism, and evolution, then I would say, "You must take me for a fool."

No, of course, I'm certainly biased towards atheism. I currently believe my opinions to be correct, or else they wouldn't be my opinions. I'm more confident in them then I ever was in my religion (I initially started at a Methodist church, like the other atheist you met) because I feel like I can show a secure train of reasoning and a solid foundation of evidence for my current position, whereas before I had to make flat assertions like 'God is beyond evidence' and 'The bible is true because the bible says it is true', and so on. Which were always going to cause me problems, no matter how strongly committed I felt to God at the time.

[…]aside from letting you fill in for me one Sunday.

You see, I think that that would probably be the best way of giving people a full, fair, broad religious education and freedom to choose. We'd need a neutral venue. We could have me in one week, ranting wild-eyed and waving a copy of The Origin of Species, followed by a Buddhist the week after, then a Mormom, then a Jainist, a Hindu, a Muslim…and so on. You get a week too, obviously. But so does Scientology, sadly.

(I wonder how many takers such a church would get? If, like me, you rather suspect that most of the sort of people who would normally go to church wouldn't choose to attend this multi-faith exploration instead, it's interesting to ask oneself why that is. Is it because people tend to go to church in search of answers, rather than actual understanding? Having to make their own minds up on their own all week, they would prefer not to have to struggle on with the big questions on a Sunday, but have all of life's existential quandaries wrapped up with a nice bow and transformed into something simple, like 'Accept Jesus'? I wonder.)

Why would I want to encourage them to read Dawkins if I believe it could turn them away from Christ?

Presumably, you mean 'if could turn them away from Christ because they are insufficiently well-versed in the bible to resist Dawkins' attractive mistakes'. Because – and forgive me if I'm wrong – you (as a preacher) and I (as a loud-mouthed meddler) are both ultimately interested in the truth. Neither of us popped into existence with a full understanding of what the truth is. We currently hold quite different opinions of what it is. Now, what is it that's dangerous about Dawkins? Why might he lead people from Christ? Because he is the subtlest beast in the field, and could talk a bishop into a brothel? Or because there's a chance that the truth isn't where you currently think it is? At the least, these are both possibilities. How to find out…?

These I might consider encouraging to read this kind of material because I think they are prepared to understand it.

Sure, okay. There is a danger that, when you say 'prepared to understand it', you (perhaps without even realising it) mean 'sufficiently convinced by Christianity to be able to reject anything that questions it'. But I can't sit here pretending to be able to judge that from thousands of miles away – it's up to you to make that sort of assessment.

Look, you're a teacher of Christianity. It'd be insane for me to try to talk you into teaching other religions or atheism to your kids. That's not your role. You're meant to teach your faith. Fine. And it sounds like you do that perfectly responsibly. The only things I can reasonably suggest are that you think about and question your own faith (since that's the foundation for what you teach to others, and more) and that you parenthesize your teachings with statements like 'This is what I believe:…', rather than wading in presenting your personal beliefs as incontrovertible facts. And it sounds like you do that.

By the way, I didn't used to be this meddling! When I started to slide out of Christianity into atheism, I found myself torn between a sense that it was important that not only I but everyone took this seriously, and another sense that said 'why should I have anything to say at all about other people's beliefs? Surely I've no right?' It was that William K. Clifford essay that made me realise that, perhaps counter-intuitively, people's strongly-held beliefs about the world are very much a matter of public interest. It's not okay for me to quietly be, say, homophobic and xenophobic. I owe it to everyone I have contact with, directly or indirectly, to match what I think and feel up with what can be observed to be true, or agreed through communication. This is the responsibility of living in a society. If I reject it, I can bugger off and become a hermit. Them's the choices.

Oh, and 849

Does it have to be kumbaya? I'm sick to death of kumbaya.

24. Do you have to read up on leprechology before disbelieving in them?

Comment #74200 by Goatsbane J on September 27, 2007 at 4:25 pm

Corylus

_J_ That pink eye is the most disturbing thing I have seen all day, and I had to babysit today and watch kids TV.

I know. Alternative thread make Troll J mad. Also, I banged it on something climbing back up from under the bridge.

(But really, more disturbing than kids' TV? [Shudders])

25. Do you have to read up on leprechology before disbelieving in them?

Comment #74197 by Goatsbane J on September 27, 2007 at 4:18 pm

Hi, revcort

What an encouraging post!

But know this, I can't simply stop believing. I can't explain it fully, but I have been given this faith and been enabled to believe- it's not natural. There, I can own that.

Maybe that's true and maybe it's not. It is wholly possible that that's just the way you feel (rather like – and this isn't meant to be offensive – a heroin addict 'can't' give up heroin). This is another reason why it's worth reading books from the 'other side', so to speak (just as a heroin user isn't going to find the psychological understanding he needs to beat his habit by purely carrying on taking more heroin). Some of the books I'll mention shortly (in particular The Happiness Hypothesis) go some way towards giving a kind of reasoned understanding of the feelings involved in religion, what they are and where they come from. It's fascinating stuff to think about.

But maybe, just maybe, you really, really can't stop being religious. Okay. Maybe that's because you're right and there is a god and maybe it's because there's something about your brain that's different from, say, mine. Certainly, I'd say that the difference between my atheism and CHeard's religion sounds like nothing more than how acutely we feel the need to fill the famous 'god-shaped hole', and how our instinct to explain things rationally balances up against our readiness to accept our religious intuitions.

Since you accept that his is all a matter of your strong personal feelings on the matter, and admit:

…that only a fool would believe what I believe based purely upon natural evidence. There is some evidence, but it's simply not convincing enough.

…we can all get on just fine, as you apparently do with your variously faithed friends. My only point of contention with you then is this, that stems from the William K. Clifford essay that you had a look at (thanks for that, by the way): as you've no basis for regarding your own strong convictions as true, it's not okay to apply pressure to anyone else to share them. I guess you know this, and I've no way of telling how you actually conduct yourself around others. In short, it means no threatening people with hell and no evangelising to people who would prefer not to be evangelised to (or who are too young to make a decision on this). Or, as in your position it's going to be virtually impossible to avoid sharing your beliefs with young people, at least making the effort once in a while to remind them that there are other opinions and that they've the freedom and right to explore and make their own minds up. You probably already do that.

I'm sorry, this must all be staringly obvious, and I don't want to be telling you how to live your life as I've absolutely no right to (and am quite well occupied screwing up my own!). I'm just trying to work out whether we have anything left to discuss, or whether we can basically just agree to disagree now.

I have a good friend who went to college with me who I always said was "one IQ point away from killing people"

Evil genius, eh?

I've mentioned to him about posting here, but he sees this as a total waste of time.

Oh, that's a shame. If he can prove there's a god, that's something that a lot of us would really appreciate seeing! (Though, if he's truly a mathematical genius, we may not follow his thinking…)

I have difficulty justifying spending money (which is in short supply with 4 kids), on books that aren't directly related to faith. So, there you go.

Well, that's a very good reason! Family is clearly the first priority. I'd just say this. Just as you regard coming to sites like this worthwhile for your faith, I'd argue that reading books that make a case for non-religion should also be thought of as reading books that are 'directly related to faith'. No jury ever reached a good verdict by only listening to the prosecution. (Well, technically I suppose about 50% of them would, but that's beside the point!)

It was books that changed my mind, rather than discussions. On a site like this, it's fairly easy to resist, as you need only read a few paragraphs before diving back in to make your own point. And people tend, in arguments, to try to support their own position rather than to accept other people's, no matter how fair-minded their conscious intentions. (I know I do.) But books (like the bible, in fact) sit there unchanging, challenging you to give them the time to hear them out in full. It's worth it, even just so that you know what you are disagreeing with.

If you do feel like reading something of this nature, I'm sure people here will be happy to make recommendations, to limit your expenditure. And it's got to be worth a trip to the library before you think about spending any money, right? Personally, I'd point you to The Demon-Haunted World (Carl Sagan), The Blind Watchmaker (Dawkins), The God Delusion (Dawkins again, obviously) and The Happiness Hypothesis (Jonathan Haidt) – though there are many, many others. I'd also squeeze in The Salmon of Doubt even though it's mostly irrelevant, because it's just such an enjoyable read. Happily, the only two sections in that book that have anything to do with religion at all are both available free on the internet. Here they are:

http://www.americanatheist.org/win98-99/T2/silverman.html

http://richarddawkins.net/article,1432,Is-there-an-Artificial-God,Douglas-Adams-Biotaorg

(I love the latter of those two. There are some points there that I haven't heard any other atheistic author better yet.)

Best of luck to you, revcort. Given how vitriolic I was to you early in this thread, and how downright unreasonably scary some of your posts sounded, I'll consider it a highly worthwhile achievement if we're more-or-less friends (in so far as one can 'make friends' in this sort of environment with someone they know bugger all about) now.

Now, if all of the world's faith-gaps could be surmounted in that fashion, what a world it would be!

I'm getting idealistic and losing my grip on reality. [EDIT - It's probably this talk of Star Trek.] Time for bed.

26. Teacher: I was fired, said Bible isn't literal

Comment #74183 by Goatsbane J on September 27, 2007 at 3:15 pm

Oh, Northern Bright, thank you for that selection!

It's these three that really jump out at me:

"So how about dealing with the evidence that we assert and staying away from that which only states your own presupposition - that there is no God?"

"The historical evidence for the claims that Jesus made is quite clear. The Gospels make it explicit."

"The reason that we believe in God is because of the evidence, because of science (knowledge), because of what we see in the universe. [...] I'd take the awe of understanding over the awe of ignorance any day."

One big fat signpost to the never-ending conversation with David. The script is always the same:

'I don't believe in god because I don't see that there is any evidence for him.'
David: 'There is plenty of evidence for God. That's why I believe in Him!'
'Really? What is it?'
David: 'The Bible! Creation! Morality!'
'Right, okay. That's not good evidence as I understand it. Here, let me explain to you what I mean by "evidence" and why that's important...
[Painstaking explanation is spelled out]
So, now we're clear on evidence and the kind that backs up my unbelief: what evidence do you have for god?'
David: [Deafening and enduring silence.]

Oh, and I loved the last one:

And finally, and rather beautifully: "Hoisted by your petard."

Always nice, if you can manage it, to misquote Hamlet.

27. Do you have to read up on leprechology before disbelieving in them?

Comment #74166 by Goatsbane J on September 27, 2007 at 2:02 pm

steve99

For me the 'wow!' experience was reading about chaos theory

Ah, good - James Gleick's Chaos is on my reading list! I'll look forward to it. Arcadia had a similar effect on me, weaving complexity into a very affecting story touching numerous different fields and the very idea of knowledge itself. (Makes me go a bit funny thinking about it.)

PS - Nice to see you up here on the right side of the bridge.

28. Do you have to read up on leprechology before disbelieving in them?

Comment #74165 by Goatsbane J on September 27, 2007 at 1:56 pm

gr8hands

Star Trek really does hold all the answers!

Hopefully I carefully avoided saying outright that it doesn't. Read into that what you will... ;)

29. Do you have to read up on leprechology before disbelieving in them?

Comment #74155 by Goatsbane J on September 27, 2007 at 1:23 pm

Troll me, will you, trotting little goaty bastards? Well, behold the fruits of thy labours. Welcome to my underbridge...

30. Do you have to read up on leprechology before disbelieving in them?

Comment #74154 by Goatsbane J on September 27, 2007 at 1:20 pm

Grar! I am reborn!

Right [wipes goat's blood from mouth] having finally dragged myself up from under my bridge, I've some lost time to make up for. revcort, it's all about you.

Because, I'll just tell you, admitting my sin to my accountability partner is one thing, but admitting it to strangers is quite another, especially those with whom I have been debating.

I sincerely appreciate the effort you have made here, revcort.

Consider for a moment where I'm coming from: if I lived next door to you and noticed one day that your house was engulfed in flames with you and your family in it, what would be the most loving thing I could do?

Just what we're trying to do, too!

I do actually respect your evangelical intentions, by the way. I remember years ago at university, having friends who were irritated by the attempts of members of the Christian Union to get them into church. They felt religion was fine, so long as you kept it to yourself. I agree with that, but I see the problem too, which is that if you genuinely believe someone is damned, then surely, if you care about them at all, you've got to try to save them! Anything else would be neglect, right?

Maybe and maybe not. As soon as someone else is involved, it becomes a case of your beliefs against theirs. You believe they are damned, they believe they are not. So, we're in the realm of meta-beliefs – beliefs about beliefs. There's no reason for you to believe that your religious beliefs take precedence over their non-religious ones (or other-religion ones), unless you have something you can use to demonstrate this to be the case.

I get the impression that you are a genuinely well meaning fellow, especially in light of the bit of soul-searching you seem to have done today. But there's a warning I think you need to share. I've used this argument several times, because I think it very important. Have you ever read William K. Clifford's essay The Ethics of Belief? Here's a link to it:
http://www.infidels.org/library/historical/w_k_clifford/ethics_of_belief.html
Go there and read the first two paragraphs. It'll take you about two minutes. You can read on if you like (it's all good) but the start is enough to make the point: well-meaning, kind, intelligent people can unwittingly do much harm even as they are trying to do good, simply because they haven't been careful enough in analysing their own beliefs. There are few more misleading terms in this world than 'private belief', for a strong belief affects the full body of your interactions with the rest of the world. 'Private beliefs' are extremely public in their effects, and need to be scrutinised carefully.

Now, you can easily agree with all of this, and then say: 'Sure. I'm happy with my beliefs. It's you guys who need to think again.' So we're at that impasse, aren't we? Whose beliefs – your religious ones, our unreligious ones – are the more reliable?

This, revcort, is where our (possibly obsessive-seeming) concern for evidence comes in. I've believed some utter nonsense in my time, but as I've been made aware of evidence that undermined my beliefs, I've realised how wrong I've been, had a bit of a giggle at my own foolishness and gone on to develop new beliefs that totally contradict my old ones, based on the new, available evidence. (I suppose this is called 'learning'! I hope to do some more of it, sometime.)

Northern Bright has said lots of wonderful stuff in her recent posts to you, that I'd just like to second in general. But, in particular, I'd like to pick up on this, from Comment 819:

You have said that 95% of what you read consists of the bible and theological writings. You have said you hardly ever even listen to music!

Years ago, when I was applying for university, a wise teacher observed to me that what university is all about is making links. That's what they were looking for in my interview, apparently – a lively ability to spot connections between things.

Of course, you can only make links between things that are already in your mind. So, for example, when I spent my last year at uni studying the literary genre of tragedy, I began to see everything I read in terms of tragedy. In fact, this was my undoing in that particular exam, as I tried to write the biggest, baggiest essay ever attempted in three hours, tying together far more texts than can safely be attempted under the unifying theme of tragedy. It's very easy, for someone specialising in any field, to lose perspective as their thoughts bounce around perpetually within this little niche that they have carved for themselves.

You said somewhere that you're arguing with 20 people here who are smarter than you. I don't think that that's true for a second. You seem to me to have a lively, link-spotting, argument-forming mind, and good for you. You made a big, perspective changing association this morning as you returned home from the gym, when you compared what you'd just been hearing on your headphones with your discussion here. And you had the personal strength and intellectual honesty to follow up on that realisation in your actions. This is the stuff of robust and courageous intelligence.

But you are putting yourself at a hell of a disadvantage. It's no coincidence that this particular epiphany came from scripture. Not because god spoke to you, although please note that I'm not ruling that out. Simply because there's a much simpler explanation, which is that if 95% of what you fill your mind with is the bible, then 95% of what your lively, question-asking brain has to work with is the bible. Just like if I spent all of my time every day watching episodes of Star Trek, reading Trek novels, collecting Trek magazines, attending Trek conventions and fashioning my own sets of ears from pieces of rubber, every time someone started a conversation with me it would end in Star Trek. Every time a moral or political or social question came up, I'd instantly be thinking 'Oh, that's like when Captain Picard broke the Prime Directive because…'. This would not be a good indication that Star Trek actually holds all the answers to everything. It would just mean that I should stop watching so much Star Trek.

You have students at your church, you said, right? Let's imagine you go to visit another teacher at another church like your own. There you find a teacher like yourself, who has ten students who all want to become ministers themselves. But you notice that the teacher is spending virtually all of his time with one student, whilst the other nine are left almost to their own devices. You find this peculiar and you challenge the teacher on it. 'Of course!' he says. 'She's the best student I've ever had! She's going to go far.'

You speak to each of the students individually and you find that actually they are all keen and intelligent. There's nothing special about the chosen girl, except that she is more precocious than the rest and is clearly eager to impress her teacher with her abilities. It is obvious to you that any of the ten students could do exceptionally well and all of them could go on to successful theological training.

But the teacher is having none of it. 'Obviously she's the best! Her bible knowledge is far in advance of all the others!' Yes. Of course it is. Because the teacher is spending all of his time on her. Whereas, if he took a step back, analysed his own assumptions and saw his students for what they really are, he could be sending ten bright students to theology college next year.

And, furthermore, he might get more out of the current favourite this way, too. Concentrating on her exhaustively robs her of the chance to interact with and learn from her classmates. The point I'm making here is that I'm not telling you to stop reading the bible. It's a valuable book with a lot of thought-provoking content. But it makes a lot more sense when seen as the historical document that it is, and it provides more sensible ideas about the world when seen in the context of the world. Trying to switch this round and instead see the whole world in the context of one book, just because that book tells you to…well, that's pure obsession, I'm afraid. Just like pedagogical favouritism and unchecked Trekism. It's not a good thing to do to your brain, revcort!

Okay, I've written too much. One last thing. I was slightly struck by the fact that you'd used The Matrix as an example for your online battles here. It reminded me that I have also seen a parallel with the The Matrix in the past. I still do, actually. It's that bit at the end of the first movie, where we suddenly see the world from Neo's perspective as, for the first time, he sees through everything to the code beneath. That scene is an excellent visual representation of the feeling I got reading The Blind Watchmaker when, for the first time, I really understood what evolution's all about. So simple, yet so surprisingly difficult to get your head around, but requiring no faith at all. Just a bit of patience and effort to understand what's being put in front of you. Shortly thereafter, I began to regard myself as an atheist.

Cheers, revcort.