251. The Current: Part 3: The Religious Right

Comment #21513 by Steven Mading on February 9, 2007 at 3:49 pm

Riley, the analogy is not apt and here's why: In the civil rights movement SOME of the protestors were upper-class and white, but they did not make up the majority of those involved in the protest. In the 9/11 attacks ALL the perpitrators were middle-class - not just some of them. Not just a tiny part of the movement. All of them.

While I do agree that there is a direct correlation between economic status and the rise of despotic movements, don't forget that there is also a direct correlation between economic status and religiousity. I think it works like this:

Step 1 - bad economic situation, which leads to:
Step 2 - people getting desperate and more willing to believe comforting bull, which leads to:
Step 3 - both despotism and religiousity, which can then easily feed each other in a snowballing recursive fashion.

252. Are politics in your DNA?

Comment #19501 by Steven Mading on January 27, 2007 at 4:51 pm

( in 2. Comment #19453 by Homo economicus on January 27, 2007 at 9:36 am, he said: Did Frank Herbert know something we did not? In the Dune series other memory (ego/memories) of ancestors was passed genetically. Are we heading in that direction? )

I very strongly doubt that is possible. Isn't the DNA pattern you have in you when you are an adult having sex and concieving children the same one you had when you were a baby? How can the memories of what happened to you when you were, say 20 years old, be encoded in a pattern that is identical to what it was when you were 10 years old, which is identical to what it was when you were 5 years old, and identical to what it was when you were developing in the womb?

253. Grief Without God

Comment #19499 by Steven Mading on January 27, 2007 at 4:40 pm

I find the tendency of religious groups to exploit the intense emotional pain and separation anxiety of the death of a loved one as a tool to reinforce their propaganda utterly rephrehensable. A co-worker died several years back - he was a nonbeliever and was quite adamant about it. Since he died rather young, unexpectedly of a surprise heart attack, he had no will made out, and no suggestions on record for how to conduct his funeral. So his mourners got the default religious service. - Massively religious. Sheer utter shameless exploitation of the emotions of the survivors. I can't stand going to religious funerals anymore because of the anger that wells up in me - how DARE these people exploit my grief like this. I came here to remember a passed friend. The eulogies by close family and friends are always much more useful than the propaganda-filled eulogies given by the clergy.

Ms Anonymous - you shared a painful memory with us and that took courage. I wish you the best of luck with your book and hope it helps you work through the grief you must be feeling.

254. Guest Host Bill Moyers with philosopher Daniel Dennett

Comment #19399 by Steven Mading on January 27, 2007 at 12:02 am

From: 23. Comment #18849 by Riley:
---
I would love to hear someone who sees merit in the "bad cop" technique, explain how engaging in behavior intended to shame, intimidate and/or belittle a segment of people can work as an effective means of persuading such people (or anyone else observing or participating) to be more rational. Or is there some other goal involved?
---

The problem is your mischaracterization of this as the intent. It's not the intent. It's a natural side effect of merely telling the whole truth and holding nothing back. Being nice about religion requires that one hold back and only tell a subset of the truth, and sort of nibble around the edges of the truth. When Dawkins is in "bad cop" mode, he's not INTENDING to shame and indimidate. He's INTENDING to be forthright and honest. That this causes offense is a side effect, not the intent.

255. A Culture of Faith, Devoted Yet Complex

Comment #19188 by Steven Mading on January 25, 2007 at 1:13 pm

To nine9s: Reacting to a person who is spouting the same old dishonest propaganda you've heard many times before with an outright, short, plain dismissal borne of pent-up frustration is not a case of being arrogant. You are right to state that it's not an effective persuation technique for Dawkins to use, but you're are wrong to state that it's a case of arrogance on his part. And remember that the the Tv show you're talking about (which is not called The God Delusion by the way - that TV show aired a year earlier than that book came out), was not an attempt to persuade Haggard. It never pretended to be. It was an attempt to document his behavior for others to see. Dawkins wasn't trying to persuade Haggard - that's a lost cause. He was trying to persuade the audience of the TV show.

256. Gentle Rottweiler

Comment #17278 by Steven Mading on January 12, 2007 at 4:31 pm

Thalesian said in the first comment:
"After America's experiences in Iraq, perhaps ethnic identity is as dangerous as religion (if they don't already both stem from the same vice)."

Actually, the big problem is the world's tendancy to mix ethnic identity with religion as being one in the same. Consider the Sunni/Shia thing: They are religions, and yet they can also be treated as ethnicities because people mis-label children as being the religion of their parents long before the children have any idea what that's really all about - and so people tend to view their religion as a definitional integral part of who they are. That prevents intelligent discourse on the subject because they don't treat it as just yet another idea that can be freely accepted into or freely rejected. They view it as being a permanent thing just as much as, say, one's race is.

257. Questionable Mission

Comment #16646 by Steven Mading on January 7, 2007 at 8:55 pm

This is the backdoor that US theocrats use to circumvent the 'spirit of the law' of the First Amendment while still following the letter of the law of the First Amendment - and that backdoor is the fact that the First Amendment only names Congress, not the President nor the Supreme court . It says CONGRESS shall make no law respecting...etc, not "All 3 branches of the US government shall take action respecting....etc"

Activities of the Executive Branch of the US government (which includes all enforcement of laws and powers, and all foreign relations and military power) and so ends up encompassing the FBI, the CIA, the military, are not technically "laws" passed by congress per se. Opening an embassy is considered entirely outside the legaslative branch's power - it's an act of foriegn relations and is thus entirely up to the excutive branch.

And that's how they sneak this stuff in and it's all still technically legal despite being obviously in opposition of the original intent of the First Amendment.

I also think this has a lot to do with the trend to put more power into the Executive branch than it had before - It gets more things out of the jurisdiction of Congress, and thus the jurisdiction of the First Amendment, and thus lets people make a more theocratic government.

258. God's Enemies Are More Honest Than His Friends

Comment #15188 by Steven Mading on December 29, 2006 at 11:52 am

Ernest Sparks says: "The problem with "atheism" is the "ism" suffix. It automatically suggests something brewed up in a mind, with social consequences to follow."

Actually, the problem is that the order of operations in English prefix and suffix parsing isn't clear. "Atheism" is composed of three parts. The base is "theus" for god. The prefix "a-" means "without or lacking". The suffix "-ism" means a an ideology. The meaning is different depending on which order you pull those apart in:
1: (a-theus)-ism : Taking the lack of god and making an "-ism" out of it.
2: a-(theus-ism) : Lacking the "-ism" that there is a god.

Meaning 2 is more accurate at describing actual real-world atheists, but Meaning 1 is how most people view it, and it represents the false boogeyman version of atheist that most people envision.

259. The Courtier's Reply

Comment #15185 by Steven Mading on December 29, 2006 at 11:39 am

I've often felt that The Emperor's New Clothes was the perfect fable to demonstrate the utter frustration we atheists feel in dealing with the arguments of believers, and the hypocracy of their accusations of arrogance. Mr. Myer's parody puts this point forward quite well.

The "you can't criticize religion until you spend years studying previous theologians" argument is utterly frustrating because it will automatically cut off anyone who can tell what a sham the whole subject really is. People who see the sham for what it is aren't going to continue spending their lives researching it. Once you've seen enough to see to see the sham for what it is, studying further nuances beyond that is a waste of time.

260. 10 myths - and 10 truths - about atheism

Comment #14964 by Steven Mading on December 27, 2006 at 1:38 pm

I was with Harris right up until the last one - number 10: "10) Atheism provides no basis for morality."

Actually, that's true. The error that the anti-atheist crowd makes is that they sneak in the unspoken premise that "therefore atheists won't be moral". The error is in their assumption that morality cannot come from anything other than one's stance on supernatural things. They assume quite falsely that since they believe their morality comes from their supernatural beliefs, that this must mean everyone else in the world has to base their morality on supernatural beliefs also. They cut out the possibility of a person who does have morals that come from something entirely unrelated to their stance on the supernatural. In so doing, they sweep under the rug the acutal moral foundations most atheists tend to use and arrogantly act like they don't exist.

So the problem isn't that the phrase "Atheism provides no basis for morality." is false. It's actually true. The problem is that it has about as much relevance as saying "Stamp collecting provides no basis for morality." Yeah, so? Who said that that has to be the source of morality in an individual? Just because stamp collectors don't derive morality from the hobby of stamp collecting doesn't mean they don't derive morality from something else instead.

261. Talk in Class Turns to God, Setting Off Public Debate on Rights

Comment #13773 by Steven Mading on December 19, 2006 at 11:11 am

As for compulsory teaching of religion, I think there is a very strong line to be drawn between teaching "This religion is something a bunch of people believe and so we're studying it to learn about history and culture" versus teaching "This religion is something that we're learning because it is true."

After all, we have no problem with teaching ancient greek mythology in public schools. It's just that children, when tested on it, are not required to answer as if the myths were true - they're just required to answer as if they were literature stories. If they believe they are fictional literature stories, that is fine and they're allowed to say so just so long as they show signs of having actually read the stories and remembered them.

I would have no problem with religion being taught in schools *that* way - i.e. if a student turns in a paper on a Bible chapter, and in that paper is allowed to refer to God as a fictional character, and can still get an "A" grade if he proves he understands the story but just doesn't agree with it being true, then that would be fine. The problem is that I strongly doubt the capacity of a strongly Christian teacher to take that approach and not have reprisals on that kid or knock that kid's grade down for getting it "wrong" in the eyes of the teacher.

If it was possible to teach religion as a cultural and literary phenomonon at the level of high school, I'd be okay with that. I just don't think it's actually possible to give it that type of approach when many of the people in the classroom think of it as TRUTH and many other people think of it as BUNK. It's going to be impossible to leave aside the question of whether or not its true while talking about it.

262. The Trouble with Atheism

Comment #13769 by Steven Mading on December 19, 2006 at 10:53 am

One complaint I have in general about these kinds of arguments against atheism is that they all make the same mistake of assuming that atheism must be a full drop-in replacement for everything they attribute to religion. I.E. Since they think morality comes from religion, that means atheism better have a morality attached to it or else the atheist is throwing away morality when replacing religion with atheism. So they look for the morality in atheism and either invent an alleged atheist moral code and show it to be bad, or they point out that atheism has no moral code and then accuse atheists of not having morals. This strawman argument comes from them, perhaps deliberately, or perhaps ignorantly, ignoring the case that is actually the most common among atheists. This most common case is that atheists are finding their emotional and moral inspirations from sources that are entirely outside the jurisdiction of the religion vs atheism debate altogether. You don't need to take any particular metaphysical stance on god in order to feel empathy for the suffering of others, for example. Morality does not derive from religion, nor does it derive from opposition to religion. It's completely external to religion. Atheism merely opens up one's eyes to the opportunity to go search somewhere else for morality other than in religion. It does NOT specify that atheism is the cause of that morality or the place to go look to find it - it just rules out religion as one of the the places to go looking for it.

And again, it all goes back to their false notion that atheism is a dogma of multiple beliefs all tied together into one package like religions do it. It's nothing of the sort. It's just a word for ruling-out certain types of beliefs, but without specifying any further which of the many alternative beliefs, if any, might be picked instead.

263. Religion for a Captive Audience, Paid For by Taxes

Comment #12737 by Steven Mading on December 13, 2006 at 1:40 pm

TranshumanAtheist, I have a huge problem with it even without the tax support angle, and here's why: Being kept in prison means you are in a government enforced institution (if a private citizen does it, it's called kidnapping). Therefore anything and everything that is being done to you, and being forced upon you while you are there automatically qualifies as being government sponsored no matter who pays for it.

And if they decide that your punishment should vary depending upon your religion, then you bet that counts as government establishment of religion. It's a textbook case for it.

It doesn't sound so bad if you phrase it as "if you act religious you get nicer treatment." But when you phrase it the other way around, "if you refuse to act religious you get stronger punishment", then what's wrong with it becomes very clear. And the second way I phrased it is much more accurate to what's happening, given that your curtailment of freedom that you get from being in prison is an active punishment by the government, rather than just an instance of the government passively letting things be as they naturally would (which is what the first phrasing makes it falsely look like is the case).

264. Scientologists get £270,000 subsidy

Comment #12733 by Steven Mading on December 13, 2006 at 1:03 pm

I don't understand the difference between classifying something like Scientology as a cult rather than a religion. In fact I don't understand the differentiation between cult and religion that so many people make in the first place - the only real honest difference seems to be the size of the membership rolls and that seems to be about it. Both cults and religions engage in exactly the same reprehensable behaviors and have beliefs of equal "wackiness" - the only difference is that cults are small enough that it's politically safe to treat this wackiness as it deserves to be treated, while religions are not.

265. Atheists: The New Gays

Comment #8518 by Steven Mading on November 21, 2006 at 1:51 pm

Bill Gates's company has no problems engaging in almost-truths and half-truths and underhanded tactics of the sort that Karl Rove would author.

Example 1: Jacking up the price of its products for computer manufacturers who don't follow the policy of exlusively selling Microsoft OS'es only. (They jacked it up by an amount larger than the profit margin the manufacturers typically work with, and voilla competitors to Microsoft for pre-installed OSes dissapeared off the market.)

Example 2: When Microsoft first wanted to get into the spreadsheet business with their new product "Excel", they deliberately doctored their next release of their OS to make it so the biggest spreadsheet competitor product at the time (Lotus) would behave incorectly on the new OS.

I could go on.

If you want a champion of truth and honesty, Bill Gates isn't it.

The internet, the medium which you are reading this message via, was originally opposed strongly by Microsoft - they considered it a useless toy and instead wanted people to use their commercial MSN service (which did not begin as an internet website like it is now, but rather as its own seperate dial-up service). They only turned this attitude around when they had no choice. Just like the many church leaders who claim the modern liberalized values we enjoy today are the product of their relgion when just the opposite is true, Microsoft got people to believe that they were pro-internet all along and they should be thanked for it.

266. Faith Won't Heal a Divided World

Comment #6981 by Steven Mading on November 16, 2006 at 12:56 pm

One thing I respect Sam Harris for is his courage to stand up and say the unpopular truth that the moderate religious people enable the fundamentalists by their insistence that all religious opinions must be treated with respect no matter what. If a political position is based on invalid reasoning to enable an agenda of hate, we as a society see nothing wrong with standing up to it and pointing out how factually wrong it is, and we see nothing wrong with being rude when doing so, espeically if the one reacting in that manner is the target of that hate being spewed. But when it's religion suddenly it flip-flops the other way around. If someone's religious views, rather than political views, are based on invalid reasoning to enable an agenda of hate, then we as a society don't stand up to it the same way. We pretend that it is deserving of some respect just because it's religious in nature. Futhermore, those who do stand up to it are viewed as being the bad guys by the religious moderates.

The sectarian strife in the world will never abate while that attitude is in place. As long as people continue to hold that religious opinions are more deserving of respect than other opinions just because they are religious, then those who want to escape condemnation for their hateful views will continue to couch their rhetoric in religious terms. They know that doing so buys them immunity from condemnation.



Keep up the good work, Sam. Speaking unpopular truths takes courage.

267. Faith Won't Heal a Divided World

Comment #6974 by Steven Mading on November 16, 2006 at 12:27 pm

The best thing about science is that in science since the ultimate authority on truth is not a person, nor a book, but the universe itself. If one scientist has a dispute with another scientist over what the truth is, that dispute is carried out by using the universe itself as the final judge and arbitrator - by devising tests that check the facts against the universe itself. The same cannot be said of religion, and that's why religious disagreements go on forever without resolution. There is no way to reconcile two arguments that are both based on nothing more than apppeal to authority.

268. E-Petition: Abolish Faith Schools

Comment #6969 by Steven Mading on November 16, 2006 at 12:00 pm

I'd like to point out to my fellow Americans who speak of wanting to do something similar here with our faith-based schools, that I believe there is a large, signifigant difference between what this UK issue is about and what we see here in the US. The UK faith-based schools this petition talks about, as I think I've heard, are government-supported schools that are part of the government's official school system. In the US there do exist faith based schools but all of them are owned and run and funded by private citizens and churches, not by the government. (I wanted to use the terms "private school" and "public school", but those terms have opposite meaning between the UK and the USA, so that would have added confusion.)

Therefore, because of that crucial difference, there is no parallel here in the US. This UK faith-based school petition is telling the government what to do with its schools owned by the public, run by public funds. By contrast, a USA one would be telling private citizens what to do with their own private schools, and thus it would be a lot harder to justify it.

I wish the UK well in getting this changed.