-John Clawson (in response to my facebook ridicules of the beliefs of christianity)
"Ridicule is the only weapon which can be used against unintelligible propositions. Ideas must be distinct before reason can act upon them; and no man ever had a distinct idea of the trinity. It is the mere Abracadabra of the mountebanks calling themselves the priests of Jesus."
-Thomas Jefferson, letter to Francis Adrian Van der Kemp, 30 July, 1816
"But it does me no injury for my neighbor to say there are twenty gods or no God. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg."
-Thomas Jefferson, Notes on Virginia, 1782"Ridicule is the only weapon which can be used against unintelligible propositions. Ideas must be distinct before reason can act upon them; and no man ever had a distinct idea of the trinity. It is the mere Abracadabra of the mountebanks calling themselves the priests of Jesus."
-Thomas Jefferson, letter to Francis Adrian Van der Kemp, 30 July, 1816
Every time someone says, "Praise god I got the job, He's so great!", "Pray for me that god would see me through this difficult time," or even, "god bless you," or, "I feel blessed," that person, whether they mean to or not, is making a truth claim about the nature of the universe. Much like the participants in the feminist movement would react strongly to even the slightest implication that women were unequal to men (i.e. "one man, one vote," the word "man" to indicate human, and even the exclusion of the female pronoun from texts and speech), a process that helped raise awareness about equal rights, I react strongly to even the slightest implication that there is a god. This is not because I'm dogmatically against the prospect, but because I require people to be able to articulate what it is they believe and why in the public marketplace of ideas, and because I'm deeply interested in what's true. If they're claiming that there is a god then I want to know why they believe that. Because, if their beliefs are more in line with what's true than mine are, then I covet their knowledge. But, if they're spouting corrosive untruths, I take it upon myself to defend the knowledge which has allowed our human civilization to survive the cold and unfeeling world around us thus far, the knowledge that is our best hope for progress and survival through the ages.
When someone even says something as innocuous as, "I feel blessed," the implication is that there's a magic being upstairs blessing and cursing people as it sees fit. All one has to do is open their eyes to the needless suffering that takes place on our imperfect sphere to see the repugnance of this idea, even more so the idea that such a being should be worshipped.
The forum in which I ridicule the faithful is typically facebook but is always a public forum for a few reasons. When I first started becoming outspoken about my atheism, I'd do it in private at the expense of my close friends. This caused some hard feelings and a lot of drama. When I gave it a little more thought it became apparent to me that I was being no better than those faith-heads who show up to your door and ask if you have a few minutes. I was imposing my beliefs and thought processes on them and I had no right. The reason that a public forum cannot constitute an imposition is because anyone is free to ignore what I say without appearing rude. Facebook is particularly good about this because the status updates on which I frequently comment have a mechanism that makes it easy to exclude me from being able to comment or even see them. If someone doesn't like what I have to say, it is just too easy for them to ignore me for me to be imposing anything upon them.
Relatively unchallenged beliefs are corrupting our society. The belief that because someone is homosexual that they should have less rights than "normal" people, the attempts to teach non-science in science classes, the major impediments to scientific research that could save the lives and better the quality of life of countless people, and the attempts of religion to control our secular government should be combatted with passion and reason. I look forward to a day when science, education, and human rights can charge forward unimpeded by iron-age superstition. So much so that I fight for it.
It's starting to irk me when I get "blessed" for sneezing. Or someone "hopes to God that..." or whatever. Sometimes even I say it, "Goddamn these pants" or something of the sort.
ReplyDeleteIt'd be great to expunge it from our language but religion is mighty clever! It was clever because it invented a book! And that book was probably the only educational tool for many people throughout history. Of course religious phrasings will pervade our lexicon!
Every time someone says, "I have the right!", "you’re violating my rights," or even, "that’s not right," or, "by rights," that person, whether they mean to or not, is making a truth claim about the nature of the universe. Much like the participants in the feminist movement would react strongly to even the slightest implication that women were unequal to men (i.e. "one man, one vote," the word "man" to indicate human, and even the exclusion of the female pronoun from texts and speech), a process that helped raise awareness about equal rights, I react strongly to even the slightest implication that there are rights endowed into any being much less the human species. This is not because I'm dogmatically against the prospect, but because I require people to be able to articulate what it is they believe and why in the public marketplace of ideas, and because I'm deeply interested in what's true. If they're claiming that there is are rights then I want to know why they believe that. Because, if their beliefs are more in line with what's true than mine are, then I don’t care. But, if they're spouting corrosive untruths, I take it upon myself to defend the knowledge which has allowed our human civilization to survive the cold and unfeeling world around us thus far, the knowledge that is our best hope for progress and survival through the ages.
ReplyDeleteWhen someone even says something as innocuous as, "I have the right," the implication is that there's a magic force that protects certain aspects of human existence from the harsh climate of our naturalistic environment. All one has to do is open their eyes to the needless suffering that takes place on our imperfect sphere to see the repugnance of this idea, even more so the idea that this idea is somehow inalienable or universal.
When I first started becoming outspoken about the non-existence of rights, I'd do it in private at the expense of my close friends. This caused some hard feelings and a lot of drama, especially when I’d say they didn’t have the right to property before I took something from them. When I gave it a little more thought it became apparent to me that I was being no better than those faith-heads who tell me that no matter how much they don’t like what I’m saying I still have the right to say it. I was imposing my beliefs and thought processes on them and I had no right…because I have no rights. The reason that a public forum cannot constitute an imposition is because anyone is free to ignore what I say without appearing rude. Facebook is particularly good about this because the status updates on which I frequently comment have a mechanism that makes it easy to exclude me from being able to comment or even see them. If someone doesn't like what I have to say, it is just too easy for them to ignore me for me to be imposing anything upon them.
Relatively unchallenged beliefs are corrupting our society. The belief that because someone is homosapien that they should have any rights at all, the attempts to teach non-science in science classes, the major impediments to scientific research that could save the lives and better the quality of life of countless people, and the attempts of society to control human behavior by institutionalizing the process by which people are taught to feel entitled to things should be combated with passion and reason. I look forward to a day when science and education can charge forward unimpeded by modern-age superstition.
The truth is that believing in human rights is just as baseless and untenable as believing in god. Rights are an idea that only has substance because, and as long as, enough of the people on this planet believe in those tenants. So I guess here’s to believing in something that has no bases in fact but for the workings of our own misguided minds. Keep the Faith world!
This ridiculously contrary opinion was brought to you by boredom.
Human rights exist because we give humans rights. If we start denying people rights, human rights will begin to cease to exist.
ReplyDeleteYou can observe the act of a human's rights being respected.
Nothing like this can be said for god.
What??? Rights exist because we say so...that sounds alot like what a religious person would say in an arguement for the existence of god. Observing human rights being respected is not evidence of rights any more than a spiritual person observing the growth of a flower as the presence of god is evidence of god. Also you have asserted that not only do human rights exist, but that they exist as you understand them, and furthermore that once society ceases to share your specific understanding of these rights that they will entirely disappear. Wow that's hardly scientific...maybe even a bit evangelical. I contend that if what exists is defined by what we observe than as an atheist you observe no god, thus there is none. Just as for the religious, who observe god in everything, there is one.
ReplyDeleteYes, the rights we have will disappear if we cease giving them to people. How is that unscientific? If someone concedes that god exists because we say he exists, then they admit that he only exists in our minds.
ReplyDeleteRights are subjective. They do not exist objectively in the same way that numbers do not exist objectively. They are ideas. Meaning, if minds cease to exist then so do human rights. The religious aren't saying that god exists in minds. They're saying that he exists as a part of reality, and sometimes that he interferes in human affairs.
Just because I don't observe something doesn't mean it doesn't exist. But if you observe god, but cannot reproduce your observation, or if your observation can be better explained by natural processes, then it is more likely that you just thought that you observed god, then that you actually did.
It is only more likely if you believe in science the way another person believes in God. When scientists find something in the universe that violates their understanding of the cosmos they simply make an assumption that finds a way to fit nature back into the laws they've set for it in the same manner most religions do. Scientists observe, from my layman's understanding, that the universe is not acting according to the physical laws as they are understood by men (i.e. the gravitational effects of the visible universe not matching the observable mass) So they actually observe the universe breaking the laws of science so in order to protect the religion of science they create something that explains the discrepancies between what they believe and what they observe and *poof* we have dark matter. Now it can be said that the only reason we can't prove the existence of dark matter is the infant stage at which human science and reason currently exists, but that's an assumption based on...faith. Faith that science in fact has the answers to every question. Science is a religion that has just as many river boundaries as any other and the only bridge that spans them is faith. If you want to believe that science has the capability to numerically define the universe then that is a wonderful and beautiful thing. Even though like the human institutions of religion before it it has failed time and again. One person says the physical universe is being held together by an undetectable unobservable mass, another says by an undetectable unobservable god. The only difference is the religion. The scientific portions of this arguement are furnished by Justin who would be much better suited for this:-)
ReplyDeleteScience is as much a religion as not collecting stamps is a hobby. Science rejects faith as a means of knowledge because faith is belief in the absence of evidence. Rational belief (scientific belief), is belief as a ratio that is proportional in strength to the strength of the evidence.
ReplyDeleteThink about it this way. Drop two unequally weighted rocks. Pick them up. Drop them again. Repeat ad nauseam. You observe that they always falls at the same rate. Use high-speed cameras to directly measure the rate of acceleration. At some point, the amazing regularity we observe in this situation tells us something, there is a consistent force acting on both rocks such that they fall at the same rate. If you were to continue to drop the rocks forever, you could still never say absolutely that the next time you try, they won't fall upward, or sideways, or not at all. Science sees the regularity and says, we wager on the balance of probabilities that the rocks will continue to fall this way unless some other element is introduced. You call this faith. I don't. That's the difference. The amount of evidence supporting the inverse square law of gravitation is too great just to discard when a comparatively small number of observations are made which seem contradictory. We must first explore other possibilities like dark matter.
The reason I don't call it faith is because there is loads of evidence supporting each claim that science makes. How do I know, because claims made without evidence aren't recognized by the scientific community as science. I also know because science works. Science is what brought you the laptop you're likely reading this on. What comparable thing has religion ever given us?
I don't see how you can call it anything but faith? Take your rock example, sure the rocks fall the same every time, and only a person who's even more contrary than I am(dare you to find someone) would say that next time they would act differently. However, science has evolved to a point where we can observe the universe from a slightly less microcosmic perspective, and we can actually see the laws of gravity being broken...in a sense the rock falling sideways. But someone who has faith in science will still believe despite the evidence that contradicts that belief, and they do so by marginalizing the opposition to their belief. For example, "...comparatively small number of observations...seem contradictory", how many observations that are contrary to the laws of gravity would it take to endanger a scientists belief in the tenants of the law? 5? 7? And even if there were a thousand would they all just "seem" contradictory. Now I'm neither arguing that there aren't natural laws that govern our existence, since from what I can tell there clearly are, nor am I implying that since we can't conform our understanding of gravity to our observation of the movements of masses in the reaches of space that there in fact isn't a completely logical and scientific explanation for it. However, how a person chooses to interpret the life they are given is a matter for that person alone. Convincing someone there is or isn't a god isn't anymore useful than it is true. And since science seems to have used the new found freedom granted it by the burgeoning openness of human thought to sneer and ridicule and devalue its fellow human beings I'm not sure it deserves to be carved into a golden cow just yet. Science judges those who don't believe as ignorant backwards thinkers, it has a monopoly on the truth to which their priestly order(scientific community) is the sole conduit, and it makes wild unsupportable statements that must be swallowed as absolute fact such as "there is no god". I think I'm starting to see why science hates religion so much, it's starting to realize that it is one. And are you saying that because religion hasn't created something as utterly superfluous as a laptop that it doesn't have value? Not to mention that for every laptop science has created it's also created a thousand more ways for us to kill one another.
ReplyDeleteScience has no comment on the subject of god. It is a naturalistic method. It therefore cannot by definition begin to discuss anything "super"natural. Whether or not there is a god falls under that category. I object to faith because I think it is an unreliable way to learn about reality.
ReplyDeleteScience is not a religion because it doesn't have any of the qualities of a religion. A religion is a set of beliefs, science is a process for testing the consistency of the world. A religion prescribes codes for living. Science tells us about reality.
You're right to ask how much evidence it would take to overturn the current understanding of the law of gravity, you're just asking the wrong person. I suggest you actually study what scientists say about dark matter before you jump to the conclusion that they're being dogmatic about what they say.
Once you study how scientists go about their profession you'll realize just how careful a professional scientist is about what he/she says. They only make claims that they can back up with evidence. And the strength that they support the claim is in proportion to the strength of the evidence buttressing the claim.
Natural law CANNOT be broken. Here's why: natural law is descriptive, not prescriptive. We don't say, "Hey rock falling sideways, you can't do that it's against the law." We say, "Oh, our understanding of gravity doesn't incorporate this piece of evidence, there must be something else going on here, or our understanding of gravity is flawed." This is exactly what is happening with dark matter. They observe its effects and say, "There must be some invisible matter causing more gravity than the matter we observe would. If this isn't true, provided we can't find reconciliatory evidence for the theory, then our understanding of gravity must be very incomplete or fundamentally flawed."
Science never takes anything as "absolute fact." That's why the best you get out of science is theory.
Yea, laptops are nice. But you can't tell me that curing smallpox is superfluous. Electricity, medicine, engineering, better food preservation and sanitation, all come from science. If anything is superfluous it's the nonsense benefits that religion has brought us, like genital mutilation, the suppression of sexuality, unending guilt, fear and trembling, etc. etc.