1. Jesus Rides the Number 7 Train

Comment #85432 by kurtdenke on November 5, 2007 at 9:06 pm

Penultimate is just another linguistic fad. Much like "schadenfreude" was there for a while and "raison de etre" was before that. It'll pass. Forgive him his writers weaknesses.

Well, it might be a fad; but could people use it in some sense that roughly resembles its definition? It means "second to last," (from the Latin paene ultima, "almost last") and I suspect that the error here was that he thought it meant "ultimate" with emphasis: really, really ultimate, not just ordinary ultimate. "Imagine something ultimate, then something ultimater, then the ultimatest thing you can imagine. Then imagine something even more ultimate than that, and that's penultimate." I feel like mailing him a dictionary.

Raison d'etre reminds me of something, though. Once when I was in high school, a friend of mine wrote a hilarious essay for a satire school paper we were doing, which began by saying that people had been asking us what our "raisin debtor" was, and he noted that we had not one, but several raisins debtor. As was the tradition at the time, I responded to the essay by blowing milk out of my nose.

As for schadenfreude: heck, that's a useful concept, and hard to put into words otherwise. I can't say I use the word more than once every couple of years, but it's a handy one when you need it. I'd hate to see people diluting it by tossing it around as a way of referring to Sigmund Freud's shoes or something.

2. Jesus Rides the Number 7 Train

Comment #84759 by kurtdenke on November 3, 2007 at 1:04 pm

But that is the penultimate function of religion, isn't it?

Forgive me if I'm dim, but I cannot figure this out. Is the author suggesting that this is the second-most-important, or second-to-last, function of religion, and making some sort of indirect reference to whatever the "ultimate" function is? Or is the author just one of those people who really, really likes big words but isn't sure what all of them mean?

It's an okay sort of essay, I guess. I think the only really good part is the "Jesus vs. Godzilla" bit, though, which does bring colorful imagery to mind...

3. That's not MY God or Religion you're criticising

Comment #82196 by kurtdenke on October 25, 2007 at 8:50 pm

I think that most people's faith is actually so nebulous and ill-defined that it's a good idea, when arguing about gods, to try to get them to indicate at the outset just what they do believe, e.g., gods answer prayers, crackers turn into the physical bodies of gods when blessed, gods do physical miracles, etc.

My suspicion is that most theists actually believe these things. But ask them about it, put them on the spot, and they all metamorphose into modern liberal theologians whose concept of god is so nebulous that it cannot possibly be reasoned about or even coherently described. Marcus Borg has assimilated them, and now their defenses adapt to every assault that reason can mount.

So the "answer" in most cases is to be sure to get the definition of god early in the discussion.

When I DO meet people who actually hold painfully nebulous notions of the divine, I honestly don't know what to say to them. Attacking their silly divinities seems almost cruel; they're trying to hang on to a pathetic scrap of a belief in Santa Claus, even if they have to admit that he doesn't physically exist, doesn't bring presents, doesn't say ho-ho-ho (or anything else), and can't be seen, touched, sensed, or known about in any way (but is, of course, vitally real in some way which is very hard to get at). I try to convey the view that I personally couldn't ever believe in a god that couldn't at least be described well enough so that I'd know her if I met her.

4. Science can answer how questions but only religion can answer why questions

Comment #82191 by kurtdenke on October 25, 2007 at 8:30 pm

"Only religion can answer 'why' questions."

I can agree with that one, actually. Example:

Q. Why are people so *&#%^% stupid?

A. Religion.

5. The US is a Christian Nation

Comment #81994 by kurtdenke on October 25, 2007 at 2:04 pm

I cannot see how the U.S's. supposed Christian root validates Christianity in its truth or moral claim.

This isn't really an argument for christianity's truth; it's an argument which we in the US hear ad nauseam every time there is an issue over church/state separation. The import of the argument is not "the founders believed, therefore it must be true" but "you live in a christian nation, so expect to get it shoved down your throat!"

6. The US is a Christian Nation

Comment #81942 by kurtdenke on October 25, 2007 at 12:28 pm

There are, of course, many important points to be made here about the actual history of the nation and what-not. But setting those aside, I usually just go to this:

Accepting for the sake of argument (and for the sake of argument ONLY, because it isn't true) that the founding fathers were all christians, who cares? We infer their intent in the creation of the republic from the words they chose to use in chartering it, not from what they may or may not have privately believed about the supernatural. And for the words they chose: see the First Amendment; and note the absence of any contrary wording in the rest of the Constitution.

7. Science owes its origins to Christianity or Religion

Comment #81937 by kurtdenke on October 25, 2007 at 12:23 pm

Intellectual history is complicated, and there are ways in which science was fostered by religion, and ways in which it was hindered by religion. But even if we only focus on the former and not the latter, so what? It doesn't make religion true; it is only an observation about intellectual history.

8. Pascal's Wager

Comment #81935 by kurtdenke on October 25, 2007 at 12:21 pm

My response to Pascal's wager:

Yikes! You're right! How foolish I have been not to worship Odin! I will not make that mistake again.

9. Religion is not incompatible with Science: 'Non-Overlapping Magisteria'

Comment #81572 by kurtdenke on October 24, 2007 at 11:07 pm

I always want to say:

Does your religion make ANY assertion about the world? About how it got here, why it's here, how something in it works or has worked, how it interacts with supernatural entities or processes, what happens to people when they die? Any assertions about any of that at all? If yes, then there's an overlap.

And if no: why should I, or anyone, care about anything your religion asserts? Lunar politics, all of it.

10. You can't be moral without God!

Comment #81537 by kurtdenke on October 24, 2007 at 10:10 pm

I have for a long while felt that this is the answer to this sort of question:

Religion is, in general, distinct from and directly opposed to morality. Why? Because religion asserts that things are made "good" or "bad" not by their actual goodness or badness, but by authority: the authority of God, who decrees them to be good or bad. In this view of things, "morality" is just obedience to authority and has nothing to do with real morality, which is all about making judgments about the goodness or badness of things on their own merits.

If a thing is good because God says it is good, can God change his mind? In the old testament he says "thou shalt not kill," but we all know that when it came to the poor Midianites, he decreed that they should all die. So, indeed, he can change his mind (or at least provide for special cases), and a person who accepts biblical morality would say that it was a good and moral thing to murder as many Midianites as possible in obedience to that command. So, should Yahweh wake up on the wrong side of the Cosmic Bed tomorrow, it might turn out that torture is, at least for a while, the "moral" thing to do, and that's it; those are the rules; all that a moral person, by these lights, can do is get out there and do as much torturing as he can.

If God's word makes things moral or immoral, God can change the rules whenever, and for whatever reason (or for no reason) he wants. This idea of morality is ungrounded, shifting, uncertain and contingent; today, stabbing puppies is bad--tomorrow, maybe it's good. And with no ethical foundation, and with no agreement among people as to just what God's word is and how it's to be applied, it is hopelessly subjective and shapeless.

Real morality has nothing to do with authority. It has everything to do with ethical judgment about behavior and the consequences of behavior; it has everything to do with accountability of people for their actions, and taking responsibility for one's choices. It sometimes forces one to take a stand against authority, even in the face of bad consequences for oneself. No amount of "thus sayeth the Lord" can make a bad act good, or a good act bad.

11. Don't eat at the Outback Steakhouse on Route 3...

Comment #59118 by kurtdenke on July 27, 2007 at 12:41 pm

You know, it's not exactly the main point here, but I noticed something when watching the O'Reilly excerpts in the Colbert clip:

It is, evidently, hate speech to call the pope a "primate."

This one has really got me stumped. I am familiar with two uses of the term "primate," and the pope is one of the few people who clearly fits both definitions. First, he's the "primate" of the RC church. Second, he's a human, which makes him, taxonomically-speaking, a primate. Most of us qualify as primates only under the latter definition; but if we call the pope a "primate," despite the fact that he clearly is a primate under the most plain and literal application of not one but two of the common definitions, it's an insult? I would have thought it'd be an insult to call the pope something extraphyletic (you know, "the pope is a tardigrade!" or "the pope is an annelid!" or some other such traditional insult).

I suppose that O'Reilly thinks that calling someone a primate is akin to calling him a chimp (not an insult, really; chimps are far cleverer than O'Reilly, and they inspired GW Bush's unique walking style and facial expressions, among other accomplishments). How illiterate can these guys get?

12. Must the US president believe in God?

Comment #58074 by kurtdenke on July 23, 2007 at 9:53 am

I live in a massively Christian country. Defendants often base defences along the lines of "I sinned terribly in committing this crime. Now I have seen the light, become born-again and asked God for forgiveness." They usually throw in a few biblical verses to support their defence. In some cases the accused are actually exonerated based on this.

WOW. What country is that?

In America, I think that would be pretty much the functional equivalent of pleading guilty. Remorse over having committed the crime is not a factor going to guilt or innocence, though it might be a consideration in determining the severity of the sentence. And I suspect that a defendant would probably be strongly cautioned against offering up such a defense in his testimony--probably not only by his own counsel, but by the judge as well. I could easily imagine a mistrial being granted on the motion of defense counsel after a defendant blurts something like that out...

13. Must the US president believe in God?

Comment #57830 by kurtdenke on July 21, 2007 at 12:09 pm

But that leaves the question of what a pledge to be honest that does not include an implicit fear of punishement is actually worth. Is a secular pledge actually worth anything, legalistically?

I think the purpose of an oath, at least in our modern system, is pretty clear. Lying is, in most circumstances, not a crime and consequently lying doesn't render one liable to prosecution. The oath is a way of sort of "drawing brackets" around particular assertions and announcing that the witness knows that these assertions are being made subject to provisions which make willful falsehoods criminal. We therefore assume that, being made subject to the possibility of punishment, these statements are inherently more reliable than other statements. Is that actually true? Perhaps, perhaps not. But it does make some people at least a tad more cautious about stating the truth.

14. Must the US president believe in God?

Comment #57738 by kurtdenke on July 20, 2007 at 8:50 pm

Well, now you've really got me wondering.

I had always thought that the comparatively "modern" practices regarding oaths with which I was familiar were pretty much universal. Specifically--and I have paid note to this detail, so I am sure it has been fairly consistently followed in courts where I have practiced--witnesses are generally not asked whether they swear or affirm, but are given an oath which allows either without specification. I have also been present where the bailiff quietly and discreetly, before testimony, asks "do you swear or affirm?" and administers the oath accordingly; I suspect the jury rarely even notices the exchange. In such cases, when the choice is "swear," I still do not think explicit reference to god is ordinarily made in the course of the oath. And since many christians (e.g. Quakers) will choose "affirm", I don't think anyone would assume, because of that choice, that the witness is an atheist.

I would assume that these practices were arrived at precisely to prevent jurors from reaching any conclusions about a witness's credibility based upon religious faith.

Certainly some of the things above should NEVER happen. A witness should not be put in the position of having to affirmatively reject the bible, in the presence of the jury, when taking the oath. And I would think that most judges would be sensitive to that point and would wish to have oaths administered in a manner consistent with it, not shove a bible in the face of a witness who hasn't asked for it. Of course, we are plagued with religious nuts on the bench just as in all phases of life, and I suppose that some of them would disagree....

The written oath in an affidavit typically now takes the form of an affirmation made either "under penalty of the laws of perjury" or accompanied by a statement acknowledging that if the statements are willfully false the witness may be subject to punishment. If I recall right, we have a federal statute for sworn declarations which runs along these lines. So we strengthen the oath by acknowledging that the civil authorities may criminally prosecute us, not that god may send us to heck or keep us out of Valhalla or some-such.

I really wonder whether anyone's ever studied this. What are the common practices? I do know that as a general rule, judges have quite a bit of discretion in these details of courtroom protocol, so the answer no doubt varies considerably from place to place and judge to judge, but the practice I have personally seen has really been quite consistently religion-neutral.

I am no longer a lawyer, thank Baal.

15. Must the US president believe in God?

Comment #57711 by kurtdenke on July 20, 2007 at 5:12 pm

On further reflection, I should qualify that (good thing I didn't swear to god!).

I believe that I did sometimes see court reporters take bibles to depositions. I don't think I recall anyone ever being asked to swear with a hand on the bible, though, and the usual oath was to "swear or affirm" so that the witness was not required to call attention to his refusal to "swear" if his views, theistic or otherwise, prohibited it.

It does seem to me that this may have been, at least on the Philadelphia side of my experience (which was much more extensive than my Seattle experience), something of a Pennsylvania peculiarity. There are, and have long been, a lot of Quakers in Pennsylvania, and I think they don't swear oaths; I know that George Fox didn't, at any rate.

We had other traditions that were likely Quaker-derived, too. My wife and I entered into a common-law marriage, under the long-standing Pennsylvania principle that marriage consists of the agreement and expression of the will of the couple to be married (sadly, now obsolete; the legislature there decided to ban common-law marriage a couple of years ago). This eliminated not only the need for ecclestiastical nonsense, but also the need for some sort of quasi-religious justice of the peace ceremony, and also the need for such nonsense as blood tests, a marriage "license," et cetera. To avoid the "what-if-I-get-hit-by-a-truck-tomorrow" problem of proving the existence of the marriage, we documented it, and signed the document and had it notarized in my office; we have always been fond of saying we were "married by a gay Jewish notary," though strictly speaking, under Pennsylvania law, we simply married each other without the need for approvals or higher powers, either earthly or supernatural. Anyhow: this whole "marriage is the agreement of two people to be married" notion was very, very Quaker, and I'm sure that's why it had endured so long in Pennsylvania.

Incidentally, the good thing about a purely private marriage is that, if you don't tell anyone, you avoid a lot of nonsense. No stuffing dollars in g-strings at a bachelor party. No wedding gifts, or need to wear uncomfortable clothes. No caterer, though a falafel sandwich after the notary signing does hit the spot. And the best side benefit: I have Mormon relations who made their disapproval of our "living in sin" quite well known. We were able to extend their disapproval a good five or six years into our marriage by neglecting to mention we'd been married, which I am sure was both amusing to us and pleasurable to them, since the "judge not lest ye be judged" bit is another one of those moral precepts where christians and the like seem to be pretty sure Jesus didn't know what he was talking about.

Of course, such a thing is deeply sinful. The notion that marriage is a deeply felt covenant between two people, who give it meaning through their ongoing devotion to one another, is one which, to judge from religious pronouncements about the nature of marriage, probably would be found offensive by almost every church in the land. But I digress....

16. Must the US president believe in God?

Comment #57703 by kurtdenke on July 20, 2007 at 4:15 pm

"why is it still the custom in America to have to swear on the bible to tell the truth when giving legal testimony?"

Funny. I practiced law, first in Philadelphia and then in Seattle, for twenty years, and I don't think I can recall a witness ever being asked to swear on a bible. The most common form of oath I've heard is something like "do you swear or affirm that the testimony you are about to give will be the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?" and this is administered simply with a raised hand, no book. Perhaps the custom differs from place to place; sometimes these things have as much to do with a judge's personal peculiarities as anything else.

I do recall one court reporter at a deposition, once, a long time ago in Philadelphia, who had a strange, elaborate christian oath that said something about swearing before "the Almighty God, the searcher of all hearts"--I didn't say anything about it at the time, but I thought that was a pretty offensive, not to mention weird, form of the oath.

Some christians, and at least one jew I can think of (Jesus of Nazareth, if I recall correctly) think it's not appropriate to swear oaths to god, and insist that the proper thing to do is to simply affirm, just as an atheist would, that you'll tell the truth. But I haven't met a lot of christians who pay much attention to anything that Jesus guy says.

17. Richard Dawkins Replies to David Sloan Wilson

Comment #55560 by kurtdenke on July 11, 2007 at 2:28 pm

I suspect that what Wilson was getting at is one of the oldest silly tricks in the theist debate book: "I'm a theologian, so I'm an expert in God, religion and morals; you're a biologist, so you're an expert in biology (unimportant stuff, which tells us nothing about "ultimate questions"); so, of course, if you have anything at all to say about God, religion, or morals, it's not really worth listening to unless it's about the biological perspective thereon." Ignoring, of course, the fact that, since theology is largely the science of angel-on-head-of-pin-counting and other such worthy endeavors, there really is no such thing as having expertise in it. As Mr. Dawkins has suggested, it's not even a subject.

18. Inferior Design: Richard Dawkins reviews Behe's lastest book

Comment #55282 by kurtdenke on July 10, 2007 at 1:02 pm

Hey, to go back to the original topic for a moment:

I am in the middle of reading Behe's book, and although I do not have technical training as a biologist (or in any scientific field, for that matter) it seems to me that I can see a number of serious objections to his reasoning. However, one thing I have yet to see is for someone who knows something about mutation rates, et cetera, to really provide a response to Behe which addresses his technical arguments in a way that's informative for people like me who are (I hope) intelligent and well-read, but who lack the sort of specific technical background that would enable us to read and understand biological journal articles. I would love to see such a treatment; it would help me to better understand the flaws in Behe's approach and respond to others I know who may read the book. Does anyone here have any suggestions for "recommended reading" for a poor non-technical fella like me? In particular, I am interested in Behe's main argument, which seems in essence to be that useful mutations do not, and cannot, occur at rates sufficient to account for the diversity of life.

19. Postmodernism Disrobed

Comment #30022 by kurtdenke on April 6, 2007 at 8:35 am

Postmodernism reminds me very much of Gnosticism. I've spent quite a lot of time with the Nag Hammadi texts, trying to figure out just what the heck those people believed. My conclusion is that they believed that if ideas are so incoherent and ill-formed as to be barely expressible, and if the expression of those ideas is so difficult and obscure that it does a good job of confusing the uninitiated while sounding important--well, that's wisdom. Isn't that what postmodernists believe?

In fact, I think a lot of people believe that. It forms the core of all the "mystery" religions. Outside of the realm of religion, look at the law; when I used to practice law, I knew lawyers who acted as though they believed that a brief wasn't any good if the judge could actually understand it (now, guys like that tend not to do all that well in the profession, for understandable reasons--but the schools do generate a few of 'em). When people get confronted about their religious beliefs and asked to justify them, they often retreat into a sort of "verbal obscurity defense" mode.

There are, of course, ideas that do require a crowd of four-syllable words to describe them well. But the magic of language is that any idea, no matter how pedestrian, can be dressed up in the glorious robes of verbal complexity. I had a law school classmate who was utterly incomprehensible; he asked questions of professors which left them dumbfounded; I'm sure the professors would have had good answers to the questions, if only they could have understood what was asked. I wish I had some transcripts of his little discourses; they were brilliantly awful. So that I wouldn't lose the flavor of it, I decided to commit one of his sentences--a very, very short sentence, as his sentences went--to memory.

He said to the professor: "That pertains to clarification of the context of the question I was about to propose." I didn't know what that meant, and I had to think about it for a while. It means, of course, "I was going to ask you about that." Mind, this was one of the shortest and simplest sentences I ever heard the man speak. I do not think he could have ordered a muffin at the law school lunch cart without at least four dependent clauses.

I think it made him feel smart. And I think that's why the Gnostics did it, and I'm sure that's why the postmodernists do it.