1. The Mind-Altering Role of Incense in Religion

Comment #185210 by rivetheretic on May 27, 2008 at 7:54 am

Altered head spaces are a big part of what is going on with religion. Some of them use drugs to achieve this (think shamanic spirit walks). There are other methods: meditation, praying the rosary, reciting the 99 names of God, chanting the koans, physical movements as with tai chi, etc.

One of the things that I think Sam Harris is trying to get across is that he thinks that these head spaces are important, but you don't need to believe nonsense to get there.

It isn't surprising to me that incense could be psychoactive.

2. Missing matter found in deep space

Comment #182700 by rivetheretic on May 20, 2008 at 9:58 pm

"It is kind of like a spider web. The gravity of the spider web is what produced what we see,"

No, wait! Not a spider web! Spaghetti! Oh Noodly One, how could I have ever doubted?

3. Missing matter found in deep space

Comment #182694 by rivetheretic on May 20, 2008 at 9:36 pm

I have this idea that the dark matter is in the extra dimensions needed for string theory. Just seems like a tidy explanation to me. Maybe it'll turn out to be right. Who knows?

I'm surprised about the oxygen. Why oxygen? Hydrogen and helium I could understand, that's left over from the big bang. Iron or nickel I could understand; other elements tend toward iron and nickel in nuclear reactions because they are the most energetically favorable elements.

(http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/nucene/nucbin2.html#c1)

But why oxygen?

4. Vatican: It's OK to believe in aliens

Comment #179795 by rivetheretic on May 13, 2008 at 6:49 pm

No, just part of the "sex out of wedlock and/or with birth control is evil unless it's banging boys", kookiness.

1. sex out of wedlock is evil - Check, thought they may quibble about the word evil.


2. birth control is evil - Check (see above about evil)


3. kookiness - Check. I think it's important not to paint people with the same brush though. Judge them by their own beliefs, not somebody else's.


4. sexual abuse - They do consider this to be a sin. I'd say that they consider it to be more evil than the above two. The problem is that they treated it as a sin and not a crime which is how we expect those who are responsible for children to treat it.

5. Vatican: It's OK to believe in aliens

Comment #179787 by rivetheretic on May 13, 2008 at 6:23 pm

Please check out the article in the BBC news website. It says that it is possible that the aliens, should they exist, may be without original sin.

Here's the BBC link:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/7399661.stm">http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/7399661.stm

Right, I didn't see that. This is more like an interview than an announcement. It seems to me that he's speaking more as a knowledgeable Church official rather than giving out new guidance.

He's speculating on things that he hasn't been told he can't speculate on and using his Catholic beliefs as a base.

Adam and Eve committed Original Sin. So their decedents have Original Sin (except for Mary). No alien Adam? God created them separately from humans; they may not have Original Sin.

Catholics have a long tradition of this sort of quirky "reasoning". They start with premises from revealed or observed "truth" and then proceed through deductive reasoning. When they come to a point where the reasoning would take them to a place that contradicts a Church teaching, they jump to the Church teaching and continue. It's jarring, and sometimes really weird. If I had to choose though, I'd take that over the outright hatred and outright rejection of reason that many other religionists teach.

6. Vatican: It's OK to believe in aliens

Comment #179772 by rivetheretic on May 13, 2008 at 5:47 pm

You can't assume that the Catholics are always going to agree with Protestant fundamentalist and Biblical literalists. Theists come in many flavors.

Catholics are not part of the "every word of the Bible is the literal truth" crowd. I don't think they ever were. Their line is, and has been for a long while, that the Church is the only legitimate interpreter of religious truth, including the Bible.

So, this sort of announcement is to be expected. They always need to update what a Catholic is allowed to believe and what they are required to believe.

Catholics, at least not the leadership, are not part of the young earth, ID, creationist kookiness. It isn't part of the party line at any rate (though they don't discourage it either). Catholics are permitted to believe in evolution. They are permitted to believe in a 15 billion year old universe. No problem. They are, however last I checked, required to believe that at some point during evolution, God added an immortal soul to humans.

That's what I find interesting about this announcement. I don't see a ruling on whether Catholics can believe in alien intelligence. I see alien life, but not intelligence. Also, I don't see anything on whether such aliens would have an immortal soul. That's where it get's interesting. The reason that I say that there are different rules regarding expected behavior to those with and without souls. Is it murder when you kill them? Do you have to keep your promises to them? All kinds of things.

Of course, they'll probably never have to answer those questions. But if they do, you can expect a similar announcement then.

7. America: slouching towards the Enlightenment

Comment #135232 by rivetheretic on February 28, 2008 at 6:27 pm

Also keep in mind that there are what many of us would consider atheists in many of the religious catagories.

Budhists don't usually believe in God. As I (and stevecaldwell) said, Unitarians often also are atheists. Congressman Pete Stark identifies as Unitarian, but said that he didn't believe in a god-like intelligence out there.

And don't forget all of those who are officially part of a church, but don't believe in it. They've lost their faith, but stay in their church for other reasons. I'd guess this catagory even includes a goodly portion of the clergy. My father, for example, identifies as Catholic, but he's told me that he thought that religion is all just a "boogieman in the closet."

Then there are those who are religious, but consider their religion to be a metaphor. For them it's a way to get to a head-space. Sam Harris talks about getting into this head-space with meditation. Some use religious metaphor and identify as belonging to that religion. But if you asked them what they literally believed over a few beers, many here would say they're an atheist.

People aren't always saying what you think they are saying. I think a lot more people are not buying into the baloney than polls like this suggest.

8. America: slouching towards the Enlightenment

Comment #135217 by rivetheretic on February 28, 2008 at 6:10 pm

odd that Mormons are counted as Christians but Unitarians are tucked away under Other/Other. It's odd that they seem to be the only Christians (or Other/Otherians) who find the Trinity too ludicrous to be taken seriously.

Often these pollsters use the rule of thumb that if you identify as Christian, that is you call yourself a Christian, then they count you as one.

Mormans identify as Christian (much to the chagrin of evangelicals, charismatics, pentecostals, etc.).

Unitarians, if I have it right, once were what you describe, but now no longer identify as Christian. They believe that many spiritual paths are valid. Many of their members identify as Christian. But others are pagan, zen, new age, syncretic mixtures of world religions and minority religions, you name it. They welcome everybody, even atheists.

9. US Treaty with Tripoli

Comment #135183 by rivetheretic on February 28, 2008 at 4:53 pm

the Treaty of Tripoli is completely made up and spread a bunch of false quotes from the founding fathers

Points to consider:

• Often, when conservatives talk about the people who started the US, they are talking about the majority of colonists who were farming and fishing and whatever, not the relatively small number of people who led the revolution and put together the government. In other words, they are talking about all of the nutjobs that the Brits and others had the good sense to boot out.


• Besides, they know that those who started the US were good Christians. Otherwise, how could they have started the greatest Christian nation the world has ever seen?


• They assume their conclusions and then think up arguments to support them. This is apologetics, not rational reasoning.


• Since they know they are right, they needn't check the validity of their arguments.

10. Church is paying a high price for its celibacy rule

Comment #133184 by rivetheretic on February 25, 2008 at 7:02 pm

Apparently self-castration was against the law in ancient Rome. That didn't stop everybody though: Origen -- From Wikipedia

11. Church is paying a high price for its celibacy rule

Comment #133177 by rivetheretic on February 25, 2008 at 6:49 pm

I think you can go back to Saul of Tarsus for that idea.

I think those ideas come in "Paul's" later writings and that many think that those were written by somebody else who wrote under Paul's name.

12. Church is paying a high price for its celibacy rule

Comment #133164 by rivetheretic on February 25, 2008 at 6:31 pm

I am not sure of the cause. But it was with Council of Nicea that celibacy was initiated (325 CE I believe).

I seem to remember reading somewhere that a motivation for the Christian church to have a celibate clergy was that rival religions had celibate cults for mystical reasons. They didn't want to seem like they had a substandard clergy. A kind of "keep up with the Joneses" thing. Was this in "The Jesus Mysteries?" I can't remember.

I'm sure there were many factors though.

13. Dumb and Dumber: Are Americans Hostile to Knowledge?

Comment #129870 by rivetheretic on February 19, 2008 at 5:28 pm

Test your knowledge of geography: http://www.lizardpoint.com/fun/geoquiz/

How good are you?

It's fun. Try it.