Inept Asshattery: Relevant To My Interests
The short version: PZ Myers, Biologist and angry Atheist, gets angry. Why? Because a student who steals a communion wafer gets death threats from angry Catholics. Student presumably shits pants and returns wafer, prompting Myers to pick up the torch, upping the ante by offering to desecrate a wafer, or—we can only hope—build a 50 foot tall rampaging Jesus Golem.
Terrorist threat level in The Matrix increased to “Whoa.”
Inevitable death threats ensue.
Inept asshat uses wife’s work account to send death threat. Asshat’s wife (who’s all like “wait, wut?”) is promptly fired. Angry Asshat blames everyone except himself.
Baby Jesus weeps and makes a poopie.
Scene.
July 17th, 2008 at 9:53 am
Well, it shows that:
a. you can have dumb asses in every religion.
b. you can also have dumb asses in scientists.
July 17th, 2008 at 12:45 pm
Sometimes I think more people should be worried that the only thing that distinguishes them from their opponents is what side they’re on.
July 17th, 2008 at 3:01 pm
Card carrying Atheist here. My view: PZ is well within his right to “desecrate” what amounts to a glob of flour and water. These wafers are given freely, and while there’s an expectation that it will be eaten on the spot, there is no contract in place for that expectation. If the Catholic church really wants to protect their crackers, they should have participants sign a non-disclosure and non-removal agreement.
What’s being missed in the “both sides are dicks” argument is that religion has been doing what PZ is doing for millenia, and we keep bending over backwards to accommodate them. Religion is becoming more and more intrusive in our lives, and every single time we try to stop the influx they scream religious intolerance or that we are infringing on their right to worship. Fuck that. If they have the right to worship and avoid having to pay their fair share of taxes, then PZ has the right to shit on a cracker. Religious rights do not trample non-religious rights. And just because one person thinks a piece of flour and water is somehow transformed into the flesh of a guy who’s been dead for 2,000 years doesn’t mean I have to respect that.
And quite frankly, I don’t see what the fuss is all about. If God exists then I think he’s big enough to take care of himself. A 50d6 lightning bolt (save for 1/2) would certainly do the trick, and win some converts as a bonus.
July 17th, 2008 at 5:04 pm
I’ve never understood the cracker thing. They think they’re eating a little bit of Jesus? A guy who supposedly rose for the dead?
So… they’re pretending to eat flesh, as a way of honoring a zombie, in between sermons about the end of the world? Craaaaaaazy shit right there.
July 17th, 2008 at 5:42 pm
@moxcamel yes PZ has every right to do what ever he wants with in limits of law. It is his freedom (and we all should defend that) to be as big an ass as he want with in limits of law.
However it does not mean we should all been asses, throw bible/koran/budda into toilet, laughing at other cultures and believes. This is excatly the same thing that leads to the destruction of the huge budha in Afghan, the burning of native Indian texts by Spanish priests.
My point is, you can’t shine the light on people and advance human race by insulting people.
July 17th, 2008 at 5:50 pm
The cracker thing is based on the Last Supper, where Jesus took symbolically significant wine and bread and told the disciples that they were his blood and body, and to “do this in remembrance of me”.
For Catholicism and a good portion of Protestantism as well, the Eucharist is a central part of the rituals of Christianity. So no, they’re not “just crackers”. They’re crackers imbued with thousands of years of symbolic significance, from both the Last Supper and the Passover before it.
And in a number of churches, they WON’T give you the Eucharist if you’re not a member. I used to think that was a bit silly, but then again I hadn’t realized that there were apparently atheists just waiting for the chance to steal important items and defecate on them.
It’s nice to see that they need to get contracts in place because apparently atheists are incapable of basic respect and decency, with a kindergarten cry of “BUT THEY STARTED IT!” Just because something isn’t important to you doesn’t mean you shouldn’t respect its importance to someone else, and just because someone else is or was an asshat doesn’t mean you get to be one, too.
July 17th, 2008 at 6:23 pm
@wowpanda: With regards to flushing a Koran/Bible down the toilet, let me ask you this: why should it matter? It’s just ink on paper. It’s exactly the same as tearing up and flushing a Stephen King or Terry Pratchett novel. It is exactly the ridiculous amount of respect and awe that worshippers give these inanimate objects that empowers others to offend them. The reason that PZ is able to piss off every ultra-conservative Catholic is because they allow themselves to be pissed off. Oh, and with regards to destroying Afghan statues and burning of native texts: Religious people did that. Scientists (who are predominately Atheist) would have preserved those historical items because they are relevant historical objects. Crackers are not.
@Trevel: Same thing applies. Yes it’s all ancient and symbolic and all that, but it’s still only *stuff.* It’s not *literally* the body and blood of Christ, it’s poorly made bread and cheap wine. Nothing else. By anthropomorphizing these symbols, you allow yourself to be offended and controlled. Also, when you say “atheists are incapable of basic respect and decency,” I would invite you to read up on just how respectful and decent religion has been over the last couple thousand years. Spoiler alert: religion has been the cause of more human suffering and slowing of human knowledge and advancements than anything else on this planet.
Again: If God exists, and if these blasphemies piss Him off, then I think it’s safe to say that He can take care of Himself. Let God take care of the blasphemers, and if He chooses to do nothing, then He must not have a big problem with it. Bibles, wine, crackers…these are all just things. They are imbued with exactly nothing other than their constituent components. They are sacred only to the observer who allows him or herself to be deluded into thinking such things. And the sooner religious people get over it, the happier they will be, and the more we can all just get along.
July 17th, 2008 at 7:10 pm
Spoiler alert: politics have been the cause of more human suffering and slowing of human knowledge and advancements than anything else on this planet.
Spoiler alert: Evolution has been the cause of more human suffering and slowing of human knowledge and advancements than anything else on this planet.
Spoiler alert: Video games have been the cause of more human suffering and slowing of human knowledge and advancements than anything else on this planet.
Spoiler alert: Lawyers have been the cause of more human suffering and slowing of human knowledge and advancements than anything else on this planet.
Spoiler alert: asshats have been the cause of more human suffering and slowing of human knowledge and advancements than anything else on this planet.
Spoiler alert: Hate mongers have been the cause of more human suffering and slowing of human knowledge and advancements than anything else on this planet.
Hey, this is fun! Let’s all generalize! YAY!
Also, when you say “Also, when you say “atheists are incapable of basic respect and decency,””, you leave out the word “apparently”, which was meant to imply that this is a localized phenomenon, and not wide spread. I try not to generalize with groups, unlike atheists who ALL DO THAT ALL THE TIME.
But I congratulate your tolerant attitude, and hope that when YOUR inquisition tries to rid the world of religious heresy, your twin weapons of fear, surprise and ruthless efficiency are as unexpected as can be hoped.
July 18th, 2008 at 1:53 am
Yet another oppurtunity to put this forth…
The inability to entertain an idea without having to accept it is the sign of an unenlightened and unwise mind.
If you can all resist the urge to become petty, I think there is room for a truely compelling discussion here.
July 18th, 2008 at 9:18 am
@moxcamel, “destroying Afghan statues and burning of native texts”, it doesn’t matter who did that, the ones has done that has one thing in common, they have a closed mind.
flashing Koran/Bible might meant nothing to do with you, but it causes instability.
If you invite me into your house, and I steal a piece of your father’s ashes and pee on it, how do that make you feel?
if someone want to force their religion onto us via law, we need to fight it to death. But if they live their peacefully, we need to show respect to each other.
July 18th, 2008 at 10:14 am
Soooo…we should kowtow to religion for the stabilizing effect? This only empowers the zealots.
You want to get people to stop ripping up korans or pissing on bibles or whatever? Stop being offended when they do it, and stop spreading the message that we must give them and their symbols more respect than we would anyone else. People do these things because it gets a reaction.
That’s not the analogy. The analogy is: If you invite me into your house, and you freely give me some of your father’s ashes with no strings attached, and then I leave your house with them and do with them as I want, do you really have any right to bitch about it? Also, it’s a completely false analogy because these crackers are not the literal body of Christ and there is no magical transformation that turns them into the body of Christ.
It would be funny if it weren’t so sad that the people who are the most pissed at PZ are actually empowering him. In internet terms, they are feeding the troll. Had the Catholic community completely ignored that kid in Florida, PZ would never have become involved. And when PZ does whatever he’s going to do to a cracker, if the entire Catholic community ignores him, then the whole thing will fall flat. But that’s not what’s going to happen. PZ will do his thing, the Catholics will scream bloody effing murder, and the whole cycle will continue. All over a glob of flour and water.
Unfortunately religion by its very nature doesn’t want to live peacefully. When the cornerstone of your moral center is “My people are right, your people are wrong, we are the chosen, you are going to burn in hell for eternity,” nothing good can come from this. And that’s the belief all the way from the most extreme religious nut jobs down to the grandmotherly Sunday school teacher.
July 18th, 2008 at 10:57 am
nothing like a religious fanatic to state and blindly restate his beliefs without taking into consideration the new arguments and fresh perspective provided by those around him… lest i offend someone i didn’t mean to offend, i should probably specify that i am talking about moxcamel here…
so, just some remarks to assorted statements/recurring themes:
ad “it doesn’t/shouldn’t matter”:
it does matter, because you don’t get to decide what matters to other people… even if the importance cannot be objectively evaluated, if it is important to them and you know that it is and you then willingly defile that, then the resulting conflict is more your fault for intentionally provoking them than it is their fault for letting themselves be provoked…
also, don’t try to argue that they shouldn’t cling to an irrational belief… you most likely have plenty of irrational beliefs yourself, as do all humans… i have spent quite some time as an iconoclast and i have never met anyone who didn’t have a belief that i could attempt to shake, nor have i met anyone who welcomed this… in fact, if you take any two people one could probably do something that he would find acceptable that would nevertheless direly offend the other, and vice versa… so in the end, it comes down (as it so often does) to the categorical imperative…
ad “god should be able to take care of this himself”:
just because you limit yourself in your thinking to a god that you can comprehend or maybe even a physistheic concept of god (which you then elect not to believe in), the same limitations do not apply to everyone else… don’t try to make statements about something that you don’t want to - and probably cannot - understand…
ad “religion caused more suffering than anything else”:
no, it didn’t… it merely served as the macguffin… human nature caused that suffering, and if there hadn’t been religion, people would simply have found another thing to take its place…
ad “scientist are predominately atheist”:
i don’t know where you take that from, but i can tell you it is bunk… well, either that or the scientific community i currently find myself in is exceedingly abnormal… in my experience, atheism is about as well represented as christianity… the comparison works especially well as the bulk of both groups is made of people who chose their vocation not after careful deliberation of their own morality and beliefs, but simply because it was “the thing to do” or, to put it another way, due to an unwillingness to think for themselves… but neither of those can claim any kind of majority or dominance, weighing in at about ten to fifteen percent each… the largest group, and i am deliberately avoiding the word majority here, because they only just about make up fifty percent, would be the agnostics…
July 18th, 2008 at 11:38 am
well said malkav.
July 18th, 2008 at 11:42 am
Throughout my response I use the pronouns “you,” “me”, “I,” etc. By this I mean “generic you,” “generic “me,” “generic “I,” etc.
Actually, by being offended you are GIVING me the power to decide what matters to you. If you go out and destabilize and entire city or blow yourself up in a shopping mall because I peed on your holy book, then you have handed me a great deal of power over you and your people. What I’m trying to say here is if you don’t want people peeing on your holy book, then don’t react to it when they do. The problem fixes itself.
And just to avoid the inevitable straw man argument, let me just say that there’s a huge difference between peeing on a book and actually going out and hurting or killing someone because of their personal beliefs. All bets are off when you actually hurt someone or their property. Killing people is bad, mmkay? Burning churches is bad, but then so is burning houses or offices or cars.
Yes but my irrational beliefs aren’t something that I expect other people to revere and give greater protections to. And if someone mocks me because of my irrational beliefs, I need to understand that I only empower them by launching a crusade to get them fired. Look…if you want to believe in a higher power or whatever, knock yourself out. Just don’t expect me to hold it in the same reverence that you hold it. Just because you think stamp collecting or Age of Conan or Catholicism is the best thing in the whole wide world doesn’t entitle you to any kind of special treatment or respect for those beliefs. I would be perfectly happy if religion were treated like any other hobby or special interest group. I just don’t believe that religion should be given special respect, consideration, or privileges that we don’t hand out to any other hobbyist group.
The God I’m speaking about is the God of the major religions…Christian, Jewish, and Muslim. These are the Gods of the Bible, Torah, and Koran. In all three of these books, God is all powerful, all knowing, and EXTREMELY fucking capable. In all three of these books God can and often does interject Himself into mortal situations. In all three of these books, man was made in God’s image and has on occasion become a physical manifestation. So I’m not the one limiting myself. I discount “new age” interpretations of God because these views are currently a minority, and with regards to the topic at hand, the Catholics are certain to adhere to a more traditional God than the potential Gods you’re talking about. My argument operates within the confines of the religion, and simply states that the God of the Catholic religion would certainly have the ability to take action against PZ Myers if He were offended. I can imagine a great many things, including a God that is wildly different than the traditional example. But that’s not the God we’re discussing.
Mostly agreed. Humans are greedy and self-serving because that’s just the way nature wired us. In fact, I’ve read some convincing arguments that make the case that religion was simply the best social construct available to formalize these traits. But I also believe that our superior intellect (as compared to the rest of the animal kingdom) and modern societal frameworks allows us to move past these ancient societal frameworks that do nothing but hold humanity back. If religion were to disappear and something else filled the role, I’d be equally as critical.
I did a quick Google and came up with a link from 1998 showing that 72% of responding National Academy of Sciences members reported a disbelief in God. There are undoubtedly more current studies, but the trend does seem to be increasing disbelief.
July 18th, 2008 at 12:00 pm
“The inability to entertain an idea without having to accept it is the sign of an unenlightened and unwise mind.”
One of the difficulties with this is that often single ideas are part of an entire conceptional framework, and when divorced from that framework, make little sense — a punchline without the supporting joke; “No soup for you” without Seinfeld. http://tailsteak.com/archive.php?num=375 for more fun examining the concept of statements put into a separate context.
Nevertheless, to try to put it into a different form.
1: Jane has a twisted bit of plastic she keeps in her house. It’s a ring that was given to her by her late husband on their first date; he got it from a gumball machine and gave it to her. She’s kept it ever since. It cost 25 cents.
It’s just a bit of plastic.
2: Joe doesn’t like Jane, but Jane doesn’t know that; and one day while they’re talking she hands him the ring to look at. No contract is signed, she just naturally assumes that he’ll give it back.
He then takes it home with him and defecates on it.
It’s just a bit of plastic.
It’s also certainly not a perfect analogy, but most of the differences I don’t see as important. It doesn’t matter WHY Jane thinks her bit of plastic is important, does it? What right have we to judge on why someone else thinks something is important? I don’t get to decide what you consider important, and you don’t get to decide what I think is important. Are there lines that should be drawn? - absolutely. Just because the object is important doesn’t mean that there aren’t things that are more important. Being an asshat is not, I think, one of them.
But honestly, some of the most hate filled people I’ve met, the ones most likely to be intolerant of someone else’s beliefs, the ones who epitomize the “My people are right, your people are wrong, we are the chosen” attitude? — Atheists. I would rather draw the line between the people who are hate-filled and those who are love-filled than draw it based on what groups said people are part of, particularly when there’s no membership requirement beyond claiming association.
And finally, if you came into my house and I offered you a cracker, and you spat on it? It’s just a cracker, and you’d still be a rude asshat. If you took it home and peed on it, you’d simply be a madman… but possibly an asshat as well, depending on your motivations. There’s no reason that the insane can’t also be jerks.
I just don’t like the assumption that the world needs MORE asshattery, and it’s the atheists who are best suited to provide it. I shan’t bother to argue with the latter, although I certainly could — in my mind, asshattery transcends borders — but I do strongly question the former.
Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to go blow up the earth — after all, it’s JUST a PLANET. We’ve got BILLIONS of those, and hey — it’ll shut up the asshats for a bit.
July 18th, 2008 at 12:15 pm
Inquisitor Moxcamel, the only person here who has made any argument that suggests that the Catholics were right in their reaction is you. I believe that’s the “strawman” argument that you were talking about earlier. As far as I can tell, everyone else thinks they acted like asshats. You seem to be taking the position that PZ wasn’t an asshat — or at least that he was in his rights to be an asshat — which I doubt you will ever convince anyone of. I doubt you could even convince PZ himself that he wasn’t being an asshat.
If you’re trying to make the point that he was in his rights to be an asshat, well, jolly for him. They were in their rights to be asshats back to him, and well within their rights to not want someone who is both an asshat and proud of being an asshat to be in a position of authority. They may have been asshattery about it — and let’s not waste our time even bringing up death threat dude, who was obviously NOT within his rights — but do they have the right to be offended when someone deliberately does something to offend them? Certainly! It might not be the ideal thing to do, but neither is threatening to befoul items sacred to various groups, is it? Asshattery begets asshattery, and saying that the OTHER group ought to be the one to stop it is just more asshattery.
In conclusion, that’s the most times I’ve ever used the word “asshat” and its derivatives in a single paragraph.
July 18th, 2008 at 12:32 pm
Ummmm. Most scientists aren’t athiests. I’m a scientist and I’m an agnostic who acts like an athiest, but pretty much everyone I work with ( which is a pretty standard distribution as far as scientists go ) has some form of “belief”. In the lab are a Jew, two Catholics, a Presbyterian, a Lutherian, a Wiccan, a Bhudist, a Muslim,and a couple guys who are non-denominational but basicly consider themselves Christian.
Each and every one of them has managed to come to some sort of consensus whithin their own thinking that recognises that scientific inquiry as a valid occupation while not surrendering their faith in a ‘higher being” of some sort. I myself don’t believe in God, and I don’t really see a need for him in how things in the natural world work, but I’m an agnostic in that I don’t pretend to know that there is, in fact, no God. That stand is pretty rare among scientists, and I think true Atheism is even more rare.
Strangely enough I find myself agreeing with wowpanda for perhaps the first and last time ever. Every one of those guys is behaving like a dick. It is their right to be a dick, but having the right to be one doesn’t make you not a dick. Not being a dick is the only way to manage that. None of those guys can honestly say they aren’t.
July 18th, 2008 at 12:47 pm
Sorry but the analogy fails in very important details. Jane didn’t explain the importance of the ring, but those who are receiving communion are very aware of the details. In fact, they had to take classes before being offered communion. Another important difference is that Jane doesn’t seem to believe that this piece of plastic contains the actual essence of her dead husband. It is a deeply personal memento, with only meaning to her. If we are to assume Jane is a sane individual, then Jane understands that this piece of plastic is just a piece of plastic, and only represents her deep and personal feelings towards her dead husband. She does not believe she can somehow “commune” with her dead husband through this thing.
But still…let’s imagine that the analogy holds, and draw it out to its conclusion. Jane becomes enraged and writes up a press release. Thousands take up Jane’s cause and demand that Joe (who I agree is an asshole) be fired from his job that has nothing to do with his relationship with Jane. People start talking about how Jack “desecrated” this artifact that is imbued with Jane’s dead husband’s soul, and that it has some special spiritual signifigance, and pretty soon people start to make the case that this was a hate crime against widows. Joe receives death threats, and pretty soon his family and friends are even harassed. In fact, some people decide that widows need special protection under the law. If you insult a widow or any of her possessions, the penalties will be harsher. A gathering of widows hundreds of miles away worries that Joe might show up and try to do something, so ask the police for extra protection for their gathering. And on and on it goes.
What really should have happened is between Jane and Joe. As you said, Jane gave the ring to Joe freely. Joe is a complete and utter asshole, but he is not a criminal. Worse things than this happen in relationships but nobody is launching jihads or prayer circles because of it.
By the way, I never argued that shitting on a cracker or pissing on a book or any of these other things was a cool thing to do. It’s certainly not the worst thing you could do to someone, but it’s not the coolest either. If you want to call PZ an asshat, I’ve got no problem with that. I personally am withholding judgment until the other shoe drops. So far he’s done nothing. I think it’s far more asshatty to try to get someone fired and send them death threats.
Extremists are bad, mmkay? Extreme atheism is every bit as silly as extreme religion, although I have to say that I’ve never heard of anyone committing genocide in the name of Atheism. I’ve never heard of an Atheist taking glee in the thought of someone being tortured for eternity or strapping bombs to their bodies with the full intent of killing women and children. But if there arose some kind of bizarre Atheist movement where these things occured, then I’d be just as opposed.
What I think you’re seeing with “hate-filled” Atheists is just the sheer anger at religion pushing itself into places it shouldn’t be. Religion doesn’t belong in our government or our public schools, and you’re freaking right I’m going to be angry when you try to cram your personal beliefs into my government or public schools. Depending on your personal agenda I might even be “hate filled.”
BTW I do like the title of “Inquisitor Moxcamel,” and I may use it in the future if you don’t mind.
But I’m not sure why you would say it. I’ve argued completely opposite of what an Inquisitor would do or say. Yes I think religion is harmful but I’m not arguing for anyone to take up torches and pitchforks. If people want to believe in that nonsense, more power to them. I just refuse to elevate their hurt feelings beyond the hurt feelings our fictitious Jane would have experienced at the hands of our fictitious dickhead Joe.
Sweetmeat:
There are about a hundred different definitions of Atheism. The most accepted definition, and the one I adhere to, is that there is simply no evidence of a higher being, and that it is therefore unhelpful to shoe-horn one into our observations of the world when other explanations are so much more helpful. If I were to say that I knew for a fact there was no God, then I would be implying that I know something nobody else knows, and that would be just as bad as religion. If tomorrow a God were to show Him or Herself, and demonstrate beyond all reasonable doubt that He or She was the one true God, then I would be a believer, whereas the definition of Atheism you seem to be under would have me still not believe, even in the face of the evidence.
July 18th, 2008 at 1:42 pm
Why do you keep trying to argue that the reaction to “Joe”s asshattery wasn’t appropriate? Everyone else has said “Yep, asshats” and gone on with their lives, but you’re here, waving your arms, trying to get everyone to … agree with you some more? I guess?
But we don’t disagree on that point; we’re simply not talking about it because you’ve dominated the conversation. The only disagreement I’ve seen is where you say that the asshat troll is … you know, I’m not even sure what. You seem to agree he’s an asshat, and you’re the first here to call him a troll. But he’s RIGHT to be an asshat troll? What? Perhaps you have a WWPZD bracelet and you’re trying to act on it by mimicking his asshattery as best you can?
What are you even arguing towards, other than the call of your inquisition?
At any rate, I can sum up my position:
“Whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process he does not become a monster. And when you look into the abyss, the abyss also looks into you.” — but Nietzsche is probably too religious for you to understand my point.
July 18th, 2008 at 1:53 pm
ad “generic pronouns”:
i’m surprised that you feel the need to explain that, as a) i am not an imbecile (which, i hope, was at least somewhat evident from my previous post) and b) i already used pronouns in a generic sense myself… then again there can never be too much clarification (unless somebody starts talking in lojban)…
ad “it matters/it doesn’t matter”:
you are missing my point… also, we are talking about humans and belief here, so, please, less logic and more common sense… you cannot actually expect people to carefully assess a situation like that and decide to show no reaction… not when a belief that they define themselves by is being attacked… also, once something is a symbol for a belief, then, at least to a believer, it no longer _is_ just a thing… they don’t really have a choice in that matter, because dismissing the symbol would be akin to dismissing their belief…
but, as i said, this is beside the point… the point is this: we all have buttons to press… and some people make their buttons excessively obvious, but that is no excuse to press them… it still violates the tacit agreement on which all societies are founded: “you don’t mess with me and i won’t mess with you”… and you just cannot do that and not accept that the fault lies with you… because if it were the other way around, if someone had found your button and could do something that, while being perfectly legal, would force you to react, without you having any true choice on that matter, you would want to know that at least whatever happens is partly their fault…
and after all, they are not asking much here… they just want you to respect the symbols of their faith… that’s not hard… i can honestly say that for every sunday in the last two years i have not gone to a catholic mass and not taken any transsubstantiated body of christ from there which i subsequently did not defile… it’s not that hard… mostly i have even been able to do other things while not actively offending catholics this way…
which gradually brings us to…
ad “special status of churches”:
now, at this point i must admit i did you some injustice: i assumed you were one of those who simply donned the mantle of atheism to spit into every believers face how stupid and uneducated they are… (there may not be all that many of this kind of atheist, but as with any belief, insufferability seems to go hand in hand with noticeability; they are, as it were, the percieved majority…) if your quarrel is simply with the institutions that these systems of believe have produced and their methods, that is something i can understand…
still, when you say that you wish that [institutionalised] religions were treated like any other interest group, there is one thing that you need to understand: they are (except for that whole tax exempt status thing)… more specifically, they are treated like any other interest group with that large and diverse a followship and this deeply ingrained in the history of every nation of the world would be…
these are institutions that have existed far longer than a lot of the nations that exist nowadays… the morality of the christian church has heavily influenced the values and morals of every country in the western world… these are the structures that lent stability to our fledgling civilisations and allowed them to grow to the point where people may entertain the notion that a common religion, a common belief is no longer needed to ensure stability… you cannot compare that to a stamp collection society or a steel workers’ union…
even if, like me, you think that their god does not exist; even if, like me, you think that even the idea of their god has died, chrushed under the weight of its own shell, all that rite and ritual, all that pomp and circumstance; even if you see all their churches as tombstones, a mere memorial to an idea, an ideal long past, you have to give them some respect… because they had their time, and they were grand, and they were the pillar of society, and without them we wouldn’t be where we are today…
hmm, seem to have gone on a rant there… still, my point is clear: the churches have earned a bit of special treatment through the role they played in the development of the global society… let them have that for now, it doesn’t cost us much, after all… and if humanity no longer needs them, leave them some of their former glory while they glow out of existence…
ad “god as described in the scripture”:
you take these holy books, these loose arrangements of assorted bits and pieces from mythology and folklore, these books that even most educated believers, theologians and scholars of religious studies agree have to be understood in a figurative way; you take these books literally and you think this will give you a concept of god that has any relevance to anything anyone is talking about..? you really think that is the god that people believe in nowadays..? are you serious..?
ad “religion formalizes negative human personality traits”:
i am not entirely sure what you mean by “formalize” in this context, but, at any rate, i think my view on these matters is already partly expressed in the rant above… so as to not start another rant i’ll try to keep the remainder of my opinion concise: i think religion was the simplest way of stabilising an unenlightened society, allowing it to survive long enough to actually reach enlightenment… once the society has reached that state (and i am not convinced that we are there yet) religion may indeed become a hindrance; society has in effect outgrown its protective shell…
but again: we think, and therefore we must leave it behind, but we also feel, and therefore will have to mourn it…
ad survey:
while that survey is interesting, i will ignore it for three reasons:
1: it was published in nature… that magazine differs from the walls of the public restroom in my institute only through its impact factor; the credibility is roughly the same… also the parameters of the survey are rather dubious…
2: it contradicts my personal experience… (although that might be explained by geographical differences… the usa and europe have their demographic differences, after all…)
3: to misquote churchill: i only believe in statistics that i doctored myself…
July 18th, 2008 at 2:26 pm
a short glossary of (ir)religious attitudes:
weak Atheism: “I don’t believe there is a god.”
strong Atheism: “I believe there is no god.”
weak Agnosticism: “I don’t know if there is a god.”
strong Agnosticism: “Noone can know if there is a god.”
theological noncognitivism: “‘God’ is irrelevant.”
July 18th, 2008 at 2:38 pm
Wow, mox. Way to stir up some shit.
I always thought Catholics were above this kind of thing. Then the Crazy Protestant infiltration (CPs=Baptist and all their deviations - Pents, CoC, Evangelicals, etc.) turned them into self obsessing persecuted crybabies. That’s when I looked around and said, “All this shit is exactly the same and none of it makes any sense.”
Push out Bill Donohue and the CP influence. Let the persecution complex go. Go back to the attitude of, “We don’t care what you think; you’re all going to hell anyway.” The Catholic Church is the biggest organization in human history. Stop acting like these petty incidents are going to run the bus off the cliff. Yes, I know the host is sacred. To YOU. In the hands of the unfaithful, it’s just bread. To draw upon my Catholic upbringing and the importance of intent, I would say that the minute it touches an unbeliever’s hands it reverts to bread. Only a Catholic can desecrate a host. That would have been a sane response. Instead there were death threats, calls for his job and threats of lawsuits and supposed “hate crimes” charges.
Stop acting like Crazy Protestants. It’s beneath you and it shames me that I was ever involved with you.
July 18th, 2008 at 2:45 pm
malkav:
the churches have earned a bit of special treatment through the role they played in the development of the global society…
Earned or not, special treatment of churches is exactly what the First Amendment protects against. There had been special treatment of churches in England with a lot of misery as a result. The framer’s didn’t want that.
July 18th, 2008 at 2:49 pm
Okay Trevel…I actually thought we were engaged in civilized (albeit at times snarky, which is all in good fun) discourse, but seeing as I’ve upset you I won’t address your comments further. Thus spake Inquisitor Moxcamel.
malkav:
Didn’t mean to imply that you were…in fact, you seem to be about the most level-headed of the “opposition.” I just wanted to make sure it was understood. This being the interenet and all.
Well this is about the most succinct argument I’ve heard, and I agree with you that humans tend to act out of feelings and emotion (but not common sense, unfortunately) than anything else. And hey, I’m not saying we should go all Vulcan and stuff. But thousands of years of getting up in everyone’s grill has not worked so far, and there’s no evidence to suggest that it ever will. So maybe it’s time to try something new.
Couldn’t disagree with you more. Churches have proven exactly that they have NOT earned special treatment, and have in fact abused their special treatment over and over and over. Religion has been responsible for the worst crimes against humanity, and the reason they’ve gotten away with it is because we give them special treatment. If churches are really good for humanity, let’s stop subsidizing them and let them compete in the market place with every other organization.
Again, it’s not me interpreting the religion. The organization that is so crazy pissed off at PZ is the Catholic League, a capital-C Conservative Catholic organization. They, like most fundamentalist Christians, believe in a literal reading of the bible. I.e., the flood really happened, the earth is only 6,000 years old, etc. And ask just about any Muslim and you’ll get the same kind of answer: the Koran is the literal word of God through Muhammad. It’s not your Sunday Christians that are so worked up about this, it’s the fundamentalists. Go take a look at Answers In Genesis sometime. You won’t know whether to laugh or cry as you read through long, so-called scientific papers on how man and dinosaurs existed together. It’s these kinds of people that are driving the frenzy.
Well…ok.
As I said, it was a quick Google search, and I’m not up to defending either the magazine or the article. But regardless of what you think of Nature, the survey was conducted by the National Science Foundation members, which is pretty damned prestigious. I think 72% of NSF members being expressed “non-believers” is a pretty significant figure. I am surprised, however, that both you and Sweetmeat have such a grasp on the demographic breakdown within your places of employment. We have scientists where I work too, but I wouldn’t know fuck all about their personal beliefs. I could make some educated guesses (one guy has a picture frame in his office with a cross on it…probably a believer), but I don’t have any idea of what the breakdown is.
Either way, personal belief != facts. At one I’d guess that 99% of the people on this planet believed that crop failures were caused because the wrong goat/virgin had been sacrificed to the diety in charge of such things. So just to put a stake in my own argument, just because 72% of scientists are non-believers doesn’t prove that there is no God. But it does make me feel better to know that reason is slowly overcoming superstition.
BTW Malkav, I’ve seen that breakdown of Atheism/Agnocticism in various forms before. All I can say is that I think it’s pretty damn funny that some non-believers are trying to formalize a non-believer belief structure, and I can only imagine that a thousand years from now there will probably be some giant Atheist organization for all of us non-believers to congregate and non-worship, and then it’ll all go to hell again.
For me, anything beyond “show me the proof” is over-thinking the problem.
July 18th, 2008 at 2:50 pm
@malkav said “i think religion was the simplest way of stabilising an unenlightened society, allowing it to survive long enough to actually reach enlightenment… once the society has reached that state (and i am not convinced that we are there yet) religion may indeed become a hindrance; society has in effect outgrown its protective shell…”
WOO!! I read your entire piece that that was very interesting! Thank you!
And I am a bit pessimistic than you, I think we will never reach true enlightenment. Over the ages there are few people here and there that might have reached that level, and you can still see some of their influences today (Budha, Laozi, Jessus etc), but humans as a whole are still the same, filled with greed and self interest (that is why capitalism are the best). You see leechers everywhere, whether it is a game or a true democratic republic (US).
July 18th, 2008 at 3:08 pm
@moxcamel I do agree with you that churches and other special interest groups should not be tax exempt. Power corrupt people.
But I don’t think religion is bad. I had looked at a lot of books, Taoism, Buddhaism, Christian and Kroan, and believe me there are really good things in them, the people who wrote those are very smart, even though they wrote those thousands year ago, the ideas can still be applied today.
The bad things are not those teachings, the bad thing comes when people, who found those wonderful things, start to use it to bend to their ideas. Without religion it won’t be any better, instead of using the religious text (which at least have bounds), people can do much worse things. It happened in Soviet Union and communist china (which both abolished all religion), the worst is Cambodia.
The only reason that you could believe religion is bad for humans is that you are raised in a christian country, and saw the small wrongs but was shielded from the grand evils.
July 18th, 2008 at 3:15 pm
“but humans as a whole are still the same, filled with greed and self interest (that is why capitalism are the best). You see leechers everywhere, whether it is a game or a true democratic republic (US).”
lmao! wowpanda I followed your link to your personal blog to see that you write farming bots in WOW. So I guess you are qualified to know about greed and leechers.
July 18th, 2008 at 3:16 pm
@wowpanda: You don’t need to be religious to follow a moral code. In fact, you don’t need to believe in God to follow the moral teachings of your favorite holy book.
Neither The Soviet Union nor China had nothing to do with misguided religion, and everything to do with a backlash against privilege. In fact, The Soviet Union led a very concise campaign to wipe out religion. China continues to do this very same thing. As stated previously, extremism of any kind is no good.
Er…what?
July 18th, 2008 at 3:26 pm
@Dave no, the leechers are from Diablo. Saw too many in the cows section
My bot for wow is free.
@moxcamel You don’t need to, but apparently it is the most effect way. I am using Soviet Union/Communist China/Combodia as examples for why without religion people could do even worse. Millions died, over 1/2 of Combodia’s population was wiped out. When people believe they are the best, all they want to do is power grabbing (and in capitalist countries it is a bit better, money grabbing).
Most people in US proboly has no idea what it is like to live in a place where power grabbing is everything, and everyone has to constantly watch out been sold out by your comrades.
July 18th, 2008 at 4:42 pm
@moxcamel
if something has been done a certain way for a thousand years and it is rather obvious that it doesn’t work that way, are people more likely to
a) try another way of doing it or
b) declare it a tradition..?
also, the common sense is to be used when analyzing the actions of humans… it won’t be used in most of the actions themselves because common sense, being quite the misnomer, is a rare thing to have…
ad “religion has been responsible for the worst crimes against humanity”:
again, i think it was the instrument of these things rather than the cause… at least, i so far fail to remember any crime against humanity that appears religiously motivated that didn’t start with someone thinking “i will use this belief to my advantage”… if you can think of one, please don’t hesitate to share…
(also, when i think about “crimes against humanity”, the first two things that come to my mind are the shoah and russian gulags, neither of which had any religious motivation…)
ad fundamentalists:
you shouldn’t take these as a reason to oppose religion as a whole, though… that’s like opposing patriotism because there are fascists or opposing the internet because there are trolls…
in every body of people, there are asshats… that could basically be seen as a corollary to sturgeon’s second law…
just one last thought for now:
the problem is not that we have the wrong kind of religion… we don’t… anyone who read the books will agree… they are full of the right kind of ideas to make life better… some of them might be in dire need of some updates, but still… it is, essentially, the right kind of religion… the problem is that we have the wrong kind of people…
July 18th, 2008 at 4:42 pm
@malcav Thanks for the definitions, I hadn’t realized before that one could be both an atheist and an agnostic at the same time. Apparently I’m weak at both. Story of my adult life; alas.
That said, most scientists are still not atheists. As with many of the beliefs we hold, religion is usually something so strongly linked to ones concept of self that all the reason in the world can’t extract it. The idea that you are not, at your core, who you most believe yourself to be is too daunting for most people to confront. Instead they rationalize ways in which they can be both what they are, and what they believe themselves to be.
P.S. I apppologise for the two mosts in that second to last sentence. I know it doesn’t read well, but no other combination of words I tried came as close to meaning what I was trying to get across.
July 21st, 2008 at 12:37 pm
So, who believes that a religious organization is justified in asking for the expulsion of a student from there school for not respecting there beliefs?
To me this incident was between the individual and the offended religious group. If they would have kicked him out of the church or cursed him with some gibledy-goo I would have understood. But they went looking for outside punishment for something that is not an outside crime. This is unjust, and an abuse of there power.
July 22nd, 2008 at 10:56 am
I don’t have a problem with people calling up a school and asking for the expulsion of a student or member of faculty. They’re expressing their right to free speech. I would definitely have a problem with a school actually bowing to that kind of pressure though. Free speech works both ways.
July 23rd, 2008 at 3:22 am
@nero
you’re disregarding the human dynamic of the situation… it is not a simple one-step scenario from “student treats eucharist with what catholics would consider inadequate respect” to “people ask for expulsion of student”… look at the situation as it was (or at least as it can be reconstructed from the data given): student tries to take eucharist back to his seat, catholics object, commotion ensues, student flees scene to evade threat posed by overzealous catholic… the people who witnessed this later tell their friends, who in turn tell more people, and so on… and, with the keen human grasp on truthfulness and objective description being what it is, within two retellings you end up with something along the lines of “student actively disrupts service, steals eucharist and openly mocks catholic faith (possibly while burning an american flag for good measure), forcibly knocks down two good christians trying to inaggressively block his path and makes away with the stolen sacrament while the statue of mary starts weeping tears of blood”… and then the people who hear (and believe) these stories - let’s call them the ill-informed and easily excited - try to get that student expelled…
July 23rd, 2008 at 11:03 am
@Moxcamel
I never intended to imply that the Catholics do not have the right to express themselves. Just that there actions make them look like childish bullies. Asking there community to gather and pray until they get what they want to me smacks of the same type of coercion a football couch uses when he asks his team to do two a day practices until the QB throws the ball right. Except that in my example the QB is on the team. It would be more accurate to say the team has to do two a day practices until the leader of the chess club apologizes for not liking football.
@Malkav
You are correct. I am not taking the “human dynamic” into account. I can only judge by the facts that have been presented to me. Witch is one of the reasons why I am only whining about this on a blog instead of asking for someone’s expulsion. You make a valid point though; and it did cause me to go back and reread the article. I could be over reacting, “Punishment for either offense could result in suspension or expulsion” does ring of media sensationalized BS.
July 30th, 2008 at 3:35 am
I’m jumping into this discussion a little late, but I have some comments (not directed at anyone else in the discussion). First, this whole incident is pretty surreal. Clearly both sides in this altercation are pretty ridiculous. One of my primary rules for a long and happy life is “Don’t fuck with something that someone else holds dear”, which is a corollary of the golden rule. Clearly, our grumpy atheist violated that rule. On the other hand, another one of my rules for a long and happy life is “Don’t take anything too seriously”, and clearly our offended Catholics violated that rule.
Anyway, I think those horses have been beaten to death here. What I really want to comment on is the importance of all these rituals and rules like communion in the Christian religions, and religions in general. It seems to me that all this stuff kind of overshadows the real purpose of Christianity. Instead of worshiping Jesus by taking communion, going to church and saying the same prayers every Sunday, why not worship Jesus by living your life according to his teaching? I would venture to say that God is probably neutral on the ‘this wafer is part of the body of Christ’ issue, but probably has some position on the ‘making death threats towards people who talk about desecrating your wafer’ issue, or for that matter, the ‘fucking with people’s allegedly sacred wafer’ issue. If religions would just focus on the important stuff, like how do people treat each other and help each other, I would be more inclined to participate. Actually, the fact of the matter is that the vast majority of religious people I have known do feel that way (more focused on community than rituals). It is only the vocal nutjob minority that give the rest of them bad names.