Comments by whupper

Comment #272375 by whupper on October 27, 2008 at 10:12 am

I've thought for a while now that focusing on religion is not the most efficient place to attack. We've all heard the argument, "The Nazis were athiests, the communists were athiests." I can't remember who said the counter-argument -- I think it was Richard Dawkins or Christopher Hitchens -- but it went something like, "It wasn't too much critical thinking that led to their problems"

We should be attacking rational thinking and critical thought. Yes, religion is probably the largest manifestation of non-critical thinking, but it is not the only one. Not attacking religion directly would probably make them less defensive (and therefore more open to listening to us) and also let us cover other irrational thinking (alternative medicine, ghosts, astrology, voting for Sarah Palin, etc).

I am normally a militant atheist who will happily get into a boisterous debate (ahem, shouting match) with a believer. But I've never once succeeded in changing anyone's mind. If anything, they hardened their position (as studies in cognitive dissonance predict). One day I decided to try the softly-softly approach, and guess what? The very first person I tried that with ended up questioning things. Don't get me wrong, she didn't throw God out the window, but she did talk to her pastor about how to resolve some of the questions I raised. At least a small seed has been planted that may lead her to be slightly less automatically accepting of things.

Emboldened by this, I had another success. I think I convinced a religious Republican to vote NO on prop 8 in California ("Marriage should be defined as between a man and a women") where formerly he was planning on voting YES. I did it by arguing on rational grounds, rather than by telling him his bible and religion are ridiculous, which is my natural instinct to say.

I say we broaden and re-focus our attack on irrationality, thereby incidentally attacking religion, rather than making religion the sole focus.

And while it's hard to do, at least for me, we have to remember to have sympathy for individuals on the other side. Many of them don't have a great education, so deep thought is not natural or easy. Many of them have only been exposed to an environment and a system that is geared into sucking people in and closing their minds. How many of us can say that put through the same experience, we'd still end up happily atheist?

It's easy to get into a shouting match with the other side. I have nothing but admiration when I see Richard Dawkins calmly respond to the most inane of questions from the most inane of interviewers. I couldn't do it. But for us to have any impact, we need to try. Otherwise people just close their ears and their minds to the noise.

2. Citizen Enforcers Take Aim

Comment #263309 by whupper on October 10, 2008 at 2:19 pm

Am I the only one that thinks that taking chase after a hit-and-run driver instead of stopping to tend the child victim is just insane?

Not necessarily. Perhaps there were plenty of people on hand to help the child. One more might not have helped.

Secondly, one could make the argument that by going after the offender you're preventing future offences. The greater good.

3. Atheist group sues Bush over national prayer day

Comment #261737 by whupper on October 7, 2008 at 9:32 am

But there is a slippery slope. Surely we've all seen the kinds of arguments that talk about government employees engaging in group prayer before a meeting? And the one guy who objects is ostracised by the others.

4. The moment of truth

Comment #225721 by whupper on August 7, 2008 at 9:42 am

From comment 223122 by brian_d_w:

There should be legally recognized unions, one per person. After that the govt should just butt out.

I support the notion of separating out the civil and religious aspects of marriage. But why should people be limited to one? If all is consensual, why shouldn't you be able to have a civil union with multiple people?

5. Holiday in Hellmouth

Comment #190717 by whupper on June 9, 2008 at 12:44 pm

From Comment 189881:

Well Heather what do you have to say about the fact that one time I layed my hands on a man and prayed for him and his leg grew in my hand. Literally grew in my hand INCHES because I plead the blood of jesus christ and invoked the holy spirit..What do you have to say about that?"

I say go into business applying this skill to mens' privates...

Even better, does it work on brain cells?

But seriously, ... actually there is no seriously. I have no idea how you counter someone who simply believes something like that. You can't counter irrationality, can you?

6. A moral test for true believers, Rudd style

Comment #189189 by whupper on June 5, 2008 at 5:19 pm

Hell, I'm *from* Australia and you're mirroring my thoughts exactly. I've been gone about ten years. I don't remember any issues like I've seen on this site when I grew up there. So it makes me think it's trending to the U.S. as well.

7. 16% of US science teachers are creationists

Comment #183674 by whupper on May 22, 2008 at 1:12 pm

Did all of the teachers tell the truth in this survey? Wouldn't some of them say they didn't teach creationism when they actually did? After all, they'd have to be admitting they broke the law. So perhaps the real number is higher than 16%.

8. Hitchens on Falwell, Part 2

Comment #43797 by whupper on May 22, 2007 at 5:09 pm

I don't understand the line of questioning about Hitchens being rude and disrepectful to teh Falwell family because he's recently deceased. It seemed like they were more angry at Hitchens about that than about his actual views.

So the day after Hitler died should everyone have been disrepectful? When Saddam was executed, how many Fox'ers and CNN'ers were repsectful of the dead? If some nasty criminal dies should people have to be respectful?

I'm not saying Mr Falwell is a tyrant or criminal. My point is that you shouldn't have to automatically suddenly be respectful because a person is dead. Hitchen's accusations were targeted towards Mr Falwell himself, not his family at all.

It's another example of Christians telling other people how to think and feel. They want you to silently tiptoe away from criticism of the dead, just like you should tiptoe away from criticising faith.

9. Lou Dobbs w/ Hitchens on Al Sharpton's Bigoted Remark

Comment #39612 by whupper on May 11, 2007 at 9:49 am

From jonecc's post:

If we let believers muddy the waters between the two, then any attack on religious belief becomes hate-speech.

This is a good point and easily overlooked. We're all busy laughing at this situation (which *is* funny) but you can see that if religious criticism becomes condemmed (either legally or culturally) then that screws us as well. Frankly, our culture already does frown on religious criticism so any step backwards would really hurt.

10. Is Christianity Good for the World?

Comment #39344 by whupper on May 10, 2007 at 11:17 am

From Curious Apprentice's post:

Surely even a 4 year old can see that these aren't comparable. Christianity can take responsibility for the Inquisitions because it was a direct cause of it. There is NOT a direct causal link between being a good Professor and students smoking weed.

Thanks Curious Apprentice. I instinctively knew his argument was invalid, but I couldn't lay out the reason why. I'm glad there are smart people on these forums who know how to refute the other side's bad arguments in an articulate way. (Or maybe I should've just asked a 4-year old.)

JoeK, your post was excellent, too. Thanks.

SteveN, you put the words right into my mouth. I feel exactly the same way. They use a lot of fancy words and try to sound all intellectual. Then I wonder if I'm just not getting it or could it be that they're actually talking crap. Good to see I'm not the only one.

11. Atheist offers to send letters post-Rapture

Comment #38845 by whupper on May 9, 2007 at 9:51 am

"I get about 80% hate mail," Witter acknowledged.

Like the first post from Carter Maxwell, I also don't understand why he gets hate mail.

Another fine example of the vaunted Christian "tolerance".

12. Hitchens, Sharpton and Faith

Comment #38839 by whupper on May 9, 2007 at 9:43 am

I haven't listened to the debate, but based on this summary article, it seems Mr Hitchens could've done a lot more damage on the moral front. Several times Mr Sharpton made reference to moral relativism, for which there are devastating counter-arguments.

If I were Mr Hitchens, I would've said, "If I can show you that we don't derive morals from God or the Bible, would you renounce your belief?" And then launch into those arguments.

Game over!

13. Against All Gods, by A C Grayling

Comment #36150 by whupper on April 30, 2007 at 10:09 am

However, Grayling should be careful of announcing religion's "death throes".

If we are indeed seeing the death throes of religion, then it's like the death throes of the Roman Empire. It will span multiple generations and we won't see it in our lifetime. Only with the benefit of hindsight will there appear a clear delineation of when religion ended.

I feel bad for what our children, and their children, are about to go through.

Pessimistic, but hopeful (if that makes sense),
Whupper

14. Bill Maher - APATHEIST

Comment #35480 by whupper on April 27, 2007 at 10:01 am

I'm surprised so many people are against Bill Maher. I think he has good opinions (I generally agree with him) and I think he is articulate and expresses his views very well. He is obviously well-read and thinks about things. He can certainly put things scathingly but I think that's a good thing. He's a thinker. He's informative and entertaining at the same time.

Bill Maher gets my thumbs up.

15. Religion useless to Dawkins

Comment #31196 by whupper on April 11, 2007 at 10:13 am

I agree, maton100. It doesn't actually say anything!