Geology Professor: Why Religious Believers...

[General Zod]

One thing that got me annoyed in a religious/ 'moral' debate is, a lot of people love to use Christianity alone as a point of reference in their arguments and debates, when they are finding the 'middle-ground' so to speak.

I don't think that guy argument is middle-ground at all. It is funny to see people tying morality into religion. Can't people on both sides choose to ignore the morality issues in regards to religion? Accept the fact that Religion has nothing and totally nothing to do with Morality at all!

You're so incredibly wrong it's laughable. The whole point of Christianity is for people to obey the morals laid forth in their book. Since the vast majority of religious arguments inevitably involve these morals, it's impossible to ignore them.

[ray245]

One thing that got me annoyed in a religious/ 'moral' debate is, a lot of people love to use Christianity alone as a point of reference in their arguments and debates, when they are finding the 'middle-ground' so to speak.

I don't think that guy argument is middle-ground at all. It is funny to see people tying morality into religion. Can't people on both sides choose to ignore the morality issues in regards to religion? Accept the fact that Religion has nothing and totally nothing to do with Morality at all!

You're so incredibly wrong it's laughable. The whole point of Christianity is for people to obey the morals laid forth in their book. Since the vast majority of religious arguments inevitably involve these morals, it's impossible to ignore them.

Sigh, I just wish I can see a debate about religion, where moral is a non-factor.

[General Zod]

Sigh, I just wish I can see a debate about religion, where moral is a non-factor.

Not likely to ever happen. I can't think of any prominent world religion still practiced that doesn't place a huge emphasis on morality.

[Setzer]

I might be essentially repeating the statements of others, but he seems to have broken Ebert's law, applied to morality. You don't justify a shitty job by insisting your critics do a better one before they have the right to find any faults.

[Samuel]

*Yes, I realize some conceptions of Hell like Dante's involve graduated levels for different sinners, but honestly, while Dantean Hell is enormously more ethical than everybody going to Fire And Brimstone Hell it's still ridiculously horrible. As I remember, they cremate you alive forever for being a homosexual, or was it a heretic?

It isn't graduate levels- they just have different punishments. Not really more or less horriffic.

[PainRack]

What evidence would it take to prove your beliefs wrong?

Evidence of a creator and being made manifest. Or in other words, Close Encounter of the Third Kind.

Myth: Religious believers are dour, unhappy and sexually inhibited.
Reality: The ones I meet don't seem any more or less unhappy and sexually hung up than the population at large.

Unfortunately, modern sociology disagree with you. Other than the study on divorce rates amongst fundamentalists in America, there's also several other studies such as a link between religiousity and the unconsumunation of marriage due to various fears. Of course, to argue that religion successfully makes believers dour, unhappy and sexually inhibited is to make a false claim, since the very fact that successful religious organisations provide a close support group help fulfill vital social needs and let face it, it takes a LOT of conditioning to break apart several millenia of evolution in terms of sex drive.

However, we CAN successfully show a link between homosexuality, religion and unhappiness. Its not the sole exclusivity of religion, but considering that the main religions of the world do condemn homosexuality.......

Reality: How come Judaism lacked any real concept of an afterlife for millennia? And how come religious martyrs faced death willingly?

And to play devil advocate, we know they face death willingly because............... religious accounts said they faced death willingly.

Reality: Actually, it's the other way around. Religion distinguishes between murder, war, and capital punishment. It's the modern thinker who says "all taking of human life is wrong." Religion distinguishes between marital sex and adultery. It's the modern thinker who says "all sex is right."

Say what? To just use the Abrahamic religions, they're the ones hopping around discussing whether masterbating is WRONG based on various biblical passages, and how blood transfusions are immoral.

Myth: Religion is wish fulfillment
Reality: Who exactly wished for restrictions on personal conduct? And can't the absence of any final accountability serve every bit as much as a wish fulfillment?

Because that part comes from the success of the religious organisation, which requires exertion of control over the masses. The wish fulfillment is....... there's someone out there looking over us who we can intercede so we have SOME control over our lives or a variant of above said desire. We can argue that such a desire is evolutionally derived, since its virtually universal in every human culture, ranging from superstition, customs and even just the basic drives to learn more skills and etc.

Myth: Religion serves the interests of the power elite
Reality: How come Christianity, Islam, and Mormonism arose and grew in the face of persecution? Nazism, which really did propose a religion based on the worship of power, dismissed Christianity as a vehicle by which the weak hobbled the strong.

Because its not about what you do when you're up and coming, its what you do when you're king of the hill.

Reality: Ptolemy's Almagest, the definitive model before Copernicus, states explicitly that compared to the sphere of the fixed stars, the earth is merely a point. When Ptolemy's Geographia resurfaced around 1400, its description of a spherical earth and map projections aroused not a flicker of opposition. The myth of the flat earth seems to be largely the result of a 19th century slander campaign (in part a reaction to anti-intellectualism among Christians, but that's a topic for the other page).

Actually, the Flat Earth Society outright points to several biblical passages such as the far ends of the Earth and etc to support Flat Earth.

Myth: Religious believers lack a social conscience.
Reality: Who runs the food pantry in your home town, a church or the ACLU? If someone in your town needs help in a hurry, are they most likely to get it from a social agency or the Salvation Army?

Or a government agency. Or a VWO which has no religious ties. The myth has never been that believers lack a social conscience, rather, its the counter-myth. Only religious believers have a social conscience, or have it in greater spades that needs to be debunked! How many times have we seen Faith based programmes being lauded?

That's a total waste of time, since I already believe all stereotypes have a basis in truth. Every one of the above stereotypes has some historical truth. There are also people who cheat social programs, but that doesn't make the stereotype of welfare recipients as cheats legitimate.

What would it take to prove you wrong?

One example is the oft-repeated canard that religious believers rely on the fear of hell as the underpinning of morality.

]Right. That's why there isn't such a thing as a hell house in the United States. Oh wait, you simply created an entire brush and tarred the whole of religious believers as believing in this myth, then claims, OH, That's not true.......

Or as the blog site Progressive U put it (October 26, 2006): "Ah, the old without fear of hell, there would be nothing to stop people from being bloodthirsty monsters argument. It may come as a surprise to most Christians, but there are reasons for being good other than fear of punishment.." It's no surprise to Christians (or other believers) at all, and betrays a complete failure to understand the argument.

Actually, it shows that you're ignorant enough not to know that one of the Christian claims to morality is in their faith in god and atheists lack this. However, examined more closely, such a claim invariably rests on
1. Jesus/Holy Ghost Spirit moves in me.
2. Atheists not only lack this goodness, they also don't fear god punishment, thus, they are immoral.

Miyatakoo- min min ba ba.

It's like claiming that doctors use the fear of heart attacks to try to get people to live healthier lifestyles. They do, but doctors didn't make up heart attacks as a bogey man. Most religions describe God as the author or creator of moral principles, that is, as the ultimate explanation for why the principles exist at all. They view their dogmas as describing the actual consequences of disobeying moral law, not as threats. The moral criticism of disbelief stems mostly from the logical problems inherent in claiming to have meaningful standards that are not grounded in some extrinsic basis independent of feelings, cultural conditioning, social consensus, and so on.

So close and yet so far. SO what? It still doesn't change the fact that the Christian claim that Atheists are immoral based on They don't fear god is WRONG.

* How can a good God allow evil to happen in the world?

Oooh.... let me try and cover the main christian arguments and ignore the Buddhist, Hindu and to a certain extent, the Muslim variants(Since there are additional muslim types that I haven't seen Christians express yet).

Freedom of will. Original Sin and the taste of the Apple. The knowledge of good and evil and the freedom to choose evil.
To give men the oppurtinity to show how brave,good and virtuous they are by helping others.
To allow us to grow in character.
The Satan did it, God is merely bidding his time before he casts the Devil into brimstone and everlasting fire.
Satan does it with God permission, as he is given control over Earth. However....(insert specific domination theological insertion), God will prevail when his heavenly kingdom arrives on Earth.

* How can religious believers reconcile war or capital punishment with the commandment "thou shalt not kill?"

Thou shalt not murder.
Thou shalt not kill without cause.
Thou shalt not kill peoples of your own race, the scholar interpretation of said text.
Kill them all and let God decide.

* Why can't evolution simply be God's way of creating new life forms?

Other than the fact the Bible doesn't say so? We CAN talk about how the Christians have been saying Evolution ISN"T God's way, and how its an attempt by stupid man to outguess God, but that's not what you're trying to say. Beside, the Hindus ALREADY claim evolution is predicted in their holy text simply because of the avatars of Krishna(I still trying to see how a turtle and etc predicts evolution, but hey, its RELIGION).

Volumes have been written on this subject but almost nobody who tosses off this question asks it seriously, because nobody who asks this question has done all that he or she personally can do to prevent evil. If you're concerned about oppression, go to some oppressed country and help people fight, like the Abraham Lincoln Brigade did during the Spanish Civil War. If you're concerned about justice then go into law or politics and do something about it. If you're concerned about sickness then go into medicine. I know a retired doctor who spent his life dealing with cancer in children. He's entitled to ask why God would let a child get cancer; idle bystanders aren't. If you're concerned about homelessness then raise capital and build low-cost homes, or at the very least join Habitat for Humanity.

Ah yes, the good ol morality dodge. You don't have the right to criticise me!

Most people who ask this question glibly really want to know why a good God would invade their comfort zone; why a good and loving God would force them to think about unpleasant realities.

And what's wrong with that? And note the evasion of the point and its discussion on morality. But then again, the religious arguments usually attempt to sidestep the philosophical discussions on morality as well, leaving that to religious philosophers to debate amongst themselves.

Ever wonder why it's "Thou shalt not kill" but "David slew Goliath?" Because once upon a time before we got intellectually sloppy, we had two words for taking human life. Although there's some overlap in usage, generally the Bible uses "slay" for things like killing in battle, and "kill" for murder. To this day we preserve the use of "slay" in terms like "manslaughter."

Every wonder why Thou shalt not kill happens just before God commands Moses to kill all the non believers worshipping the Golden Calf and the Levites having an orgy of killing?
Oh yes. God says its OK!

Most religious believers don't have a problem with this, but asking it in connection with debates on evolution reveals an utter ignorance of what creationists think. To them, the issue is preserving a literal interpretation of Genesis. Anything not consistent with supernatural creation a few thousand years ago is "evolution." In creationist parlance, the idea that God used evolution to create life is called "theistic evolution." Asking this question is on an exact par with attempting to publish a research paper without looking up a single reference.

Of course, you DO fucking KNOW, that Creationists deny the existence of theistic evolution with regards to speciation?!?!?!?!?!?!?!
What the fucking smacking fuck?! Up to here, I could just say, ok, another person posting about the debate with his own preconceptions, but this is utter fucking insane and right up with someone just mumbling his own opinion without doing any form of research whatsoever.

It's good that I can cite such a reference, because I'd be accused of making up a straw man otherwise. For openers, there's the word "victim" which clearly indicates that the individual is the innocent target of hostile outside forces, as opposed to a neutral label like "person affected by a problem" or "person in a problem situation." Then there's the label "blaming" which automatically attributes hostile intent to anyone attempting to question whether individual values and attitudes might contribute to the problem. It is already predetermined that the root cause is "social forces that deny opportunity to the victims of a social problem," that any individual differences are only "apparent" (we won't ask why some people from the most hostile environments avoid crime, drug abuse and poverty). Indeed, it's considered intellectually responsible by these authors to "ignore" potentially relevant data.

Without the book, I have this funny idea that either the author, Levin or the author Steven Dutch has seriously fucking misunderstood this idea in pyschology.

There's a tendency in humans to do two things.
When bad things happen to us, its society fault. When bad things happen to other people, its THEIR fault.

If anything, chalk it up to another variant of social darwinism and ignore it.

Hard on the heels of "blaming the victim" as a beacon of specious thinking is "simplistic." The reasoning is wonderful: an idea that explains the data simply and economically is wrong for that very reason, and the better the idea explains the data, the greater the evidence that it's wrong. All ideas of any value are simplifications; the problem with oversimplifications is not that they're simple, but that they're wrong. And though social problems are very complex when activists critique ideas they oppose, the problems crystallize into marvelous simplicity when activists propose solutions of their own: more money and regulatory power for themselves.

Anyone understand wtf he's trying to criticise here? I seeing an outside context problem for me being a foreigner.
Indeed, the passages following on is entirely out of my gist.

In practical terms, people who deny that there are any moral absolutes are nevertheless quick to assert that it's "wrong" for one group to impose its views on another, generally while attempting to impose their own views on society. If moral beliefs are merely a result of socialization, wouldn't it be a lot easier simply to socialize oppressed groups to accept their fate, and socialize everyone else to go along with prevailing norms?

You confuse relativism again? Moral relativism is measured not by the fact of the sin, but rather, by the circumstances and impact it has on others.
The classic morality question of should a person rob a drugstore to steal the vital life saving mediciation of his dying wife is a fine example. Absolutists will argue yes or no(legality vs morality), but the higher stages of Koch morality will begin to examine the circumstances and other moral issues.

Pseudo-relativism seems to spring from three roots:
* Authoritarianism: you can not only deny the validity of any standard you disagree with, you can make up new standards of your own to impose on others. You can, for example, pull the idea that animals have rights out of thin air and use it to push for legislation restricting the rights of others to hunt, trap, or eat meat. Perhaps the most absurd extrapolation is the notion that the term "pet" is demeaning and our dogs and cats should be called "companion animals." As Dennis Miller noted, when he cleans up my messes, he's a companion animal; until then, he's a pet.

Err, since when was animal rights about absolutism vs relativism? Even here, moral relativism will support animal rights based on the idea of harms and popular ideals.

As for sex, why are restrictions on abortion or homosexuality any more an invasion of privacy than forcing people to keep records for the convenience of the government?

Because in one case, you're preventing someone from doing something and in the other, you're merely monitoring activity? WTF?

Why are so many of the people who are militant about restrictions on abortion equally willing to defend the government's right to invade all sorts of other equally private matters? Why are sexual interactions between consenting partners any more private than financial interactions?

Because restricting activity is not equivalent to monitoring! One can argue about the powers governments should have and discuss why a government shouldn't have the power to enforce abortion laws and why a government should have the power to wiretap but that isn't the thrust of your argument.

[Junghalli]

I was just getting ready to type up a response but it looks like PainRack beat me to it. Oh well.

I will respond to questions and comments as time permits, but if you want to take issue with any position expressed here, you first have to answer this question:

What evidence would it take to prove your beliefs wrong?

If you're referring to religion, convincing evidence that the claims of a religion is true. So far I haven't seen any, which is why I'm an atheist.

Also, please don't waste your time and mine trying to rebut the points presented here. If you choose not to understand why you can't communicate effectively with your opposition, and why you're not being taken seriously, that's your choice and the other side's gain. You're only demonstrating that you missed the point. You are free to visit all the Web sites you like that cater to your preconceptions.

"I want to make you question your own ideas, but my ideas don't require any such critical scrutiny. Don't waste my time by subjecting my points to critical scrutiny."

As others have said, one of the worst things about this article is the rather self-satisfied vibe of it. I get the definite impression I'm dealing with a person who think he's probably a lot smarter than me. A lot of the points in the article feature rather bad logic, so I also get the impression I'm dealing with a person who thinks he's a lot smarter than he actually is. A bad combination. I realize being offended by the tone of something has nothing to do with the logic of it, but coming of as irritatingly arrogant tends to get in the way when you're trying to get people to understand the other side's viewpoint.

Myth: Religion is just a means of avoiding the reality of death.
Reality: How come Judaism lacked any real concept of an afterlife for millennia? And how come religious martyrs faced death willingly?

It's true that not all religions have an afterlife and saying that religion is just a way of avoiding death is an oversimplification, but surely Mr. Dutch isn't trying to deny that the promise of salvation is one of the features that attract people to Christianity?

Also, the religious martyr point could just as easily be used to undermine Mr. Dutch's argument. Religious martyrs often go to their death willingly because they deny the finality of death and believe they will go to a better place afterward. Just look at suicide bombers who are willing to blow themselves up because they think it will send them to Paradise.

Myth: Religion is rigid and doesn't recognize that right and wrong depend on context, the way modern thinkers do.
Reality: Actually, it's the other way around. Religion distinguishes between murder, war, and capital punishment. It's the modern thinker who says "all taking of human life is wrong." Religion distinguishes between marital sex and adultery. It's the modern thinker who says "all sex is right."

First of all, most modern humanist thought does allow for degrees of justifiability in killing, and situations where killing may be necessary. To suggest otherwise is a strawman.

I'm going to address another point out of turn here as I think it's relevant.

How can religious believers reconcile war or capital punishment with the commandment "thou shalt not kill?"

Ever wonder why it's "Thou shalt not kill" but "David slew Goliath?" Because once upon a time before we got intellectually sloppy, we had two words for taking human life. Although there's some overlap in usage, generally the Bible uses "slay" for things like killing in battle, and "kill" for murder. To this day we preserve the use of "slay" in terms like "manslaughter."

This may be true but I'm not sure it's a good thing. I'd say it was a damn good thing we got "intellectually sloppy" there, as Mr. Dutch puts it. A man who holds it firmly in mind that all killing of humans is basically wrong is more likely to kill only when it is truly, absolutely necessary. It seems to me that having a second, more ethically neutral kind of killing invites more casual killing. If "slaying" isn't murder, then it becomes more palitable.

In this respect, I would call the morality of the Bible inferior to modern morality, despite the fact that it may be more "flexible".

Second, modern thought says "all sex is right"? That's a truly terrible distortion of humanist thought. Humanist thought does not condone rape or other forms of nonconsensual sex such as pederasty, so obviously all sex is not right. One wonders whether Mr. Dutch simply did not bother to think what humanist thought made of rape and pederasty because it would interfere with his nice soundbite, or if he genuinely believes humanism considers these things OK. If the former, he is guilty of the very sort of intellectual laziness he seems to so enjoy castigating others for. If the latter, he must be terribly ill-informed about humanism.

Myth: Religion is wish fulfillment
Reality: Who exactly wished for restrictions on personal conduct?

I find it slightly disturbing that Mr. Dutch seems to imply humanists don't have restrictions on personal conduct. More than one of his logic errors seem taken straight out of religious misconceptions of humanism. Coupled with his "religious skeptics are just mad because religion won't let them have all the wild sex they want" implication at the end it makes me wonder whether he's actually as non-partisan as he presents himself as.

One example is the oft-repeated canard that religious believers rely on the fear of hell as the underpinning of morality. Or as the blog site Progressive U put it (October 26, 2006): "Ah, the old without fear of hell, there would be nothing to stop people from being bloodthirsty monsters argument. It may come as a surprise to most Christians, but there are reasons for being good other than fear of punishment.." It's no surprise to Christians (or other believers) at all, and betrays a complete failure to understand the argument. It's like claiming that doctors use the fear of heart attacks to try to get people to live healthier lifestyles. They do, but doctors didn't make up heart attacks as a bogey man. Most religions describe God as the author or creator of moral principles, that is, as the ultimate explanation for why the principles exist at all. They view their dogmas as describing the actual consequences of disobeying moral law, not as threats.

It's true that from the perspective of religious believers saying somebody will go to Hell is not a threat, it's a statement of fact. However, surely Mr. Dutch does not deny that the fear of Hell is a significant factor in many Christian and Islamic sects. Also, these people do tacitly endorse the idea that this person should go to Hell, since they believe that Hell represents part of a perfect justice system created by a perfectly just being (God).

Think about it for a moment. By any rational standard, Hell is a monstrously unjust system. It punishes all sinners equally*: the man who cheated on his wife endures the same torment as the likes of Stalin, Pol Pot, and Hitler. What's more, the punishment is out of all proportion to any crime even the worst offenders could possibly have committed: even for genocidal mass murderers a literally infinite amount of suffering is disproportionate to anything they could have done. Worst of all, among the "sins" that get one sent to Hell is simply not believing in the prescribed religion. In other words, by any sane standards, this God is an incredibly evil monster, as he tortures people forever simply for not bowing down to him. This monster is by many religious believers worshipped, adored, and held up as the perfect paragon of goodness and justice.

Words can scarcely express what an utterly broken moral system a person must have to genuinely believe such a monster to be a perfectly ethical being. I'd honestly respect worshippers of this monster-God much more if they were more like the Aztecs and Maya, and were honest enough to admit that they believed in a universe ruled by a sadistic bloodthirsty monster who they only worshipped in order to stop him from hurting them.

Liberal Christians at least usually retcon Hell to be something less horrendously evil, but anybody who believes you will be tortured for eternity for something like holding the wrong belief system or being a homosexual, and believes that this is the judgment of a perfectly good God, obviously has a horrifically broken moral system as far as I'm concerned.

* Yes, I realize some portrayals of Hell, like Dante's, feature graduated levels for different sinners, but even those as far as I'm aware of are usually monstrously unjust.

The moral criticism of disbelief stems mostly from the logical problems inherent in claiming to have meaningful standards that are not grounded in some extrinsic basis independent of feelings, cultural conditioning, social consensus, and so on. If Adolf Hitler were to say "screw you and your social consensus, and I have the storm troopers to impose my standards," what can the values-as-social-construct philosopher answer? "You're a bad, bad man, and I don't like you?"

"You're a bad man because you cause suffering."

You might just as easily ask what a religious man would say when Hitler says "I don't believe in your God or your Hell, and I have the storm troopers to impose my standards."

How can a good God allow evil to happen in the world?

Volumes have been written on this subject but almost nobody who tosses off this question asks it seriously, because nobody who asks this question has done all that he or she personally can do to prevent evil. If you're concerned about oppression, go to some oppressed country and help people fight, like the Abraham Lincoln Brigade did during the Spanish Civil War. If you're concerned about justice then go into law or politics and do something about it. If you're concerned about sickness then go into medicine. I know a retired doctor who spent his life dealing with cancer in children. He's entitled to ask why God would let a child get cancer; idle bystanders aren't. If you're concerned about homelessness then raise capital and build low-cost homes, or at the very least join Habitat for Humanity.

Most people who ask this question glibly really want to know why a good God would invade their comfort zone; why a good and loving God would force them to think about unpleasant realities.

And Mr. Dutch completely misses the point of the dillemma of omnipotence and omnibenevolence in an imperfect world.

(A) While it's true that most people don't do all they can to alleviate suffering, this isn't really comparable to an omnipotent being. Humans, with limited resources and time, would have to make great personal sacrifices to alleviate the suffering of others to the maximum degree they can. No such personal sacrifices are required of an omnipotent being. He could end all the suffering in the world with a single thought.

(B) More importantly, sane people aren't afraid to admit that they are flawed; that they could do more but won't because they are too selfish. God, on the other hand, is supposed to be a morally perfect person. You have to explain why a morally perfect person would permit suffering to exist.

(C) Finally, just because somebody's being a hypocrite doesn't invalidate their point. Is murder any less wrong if a murderer says it's wrong?

And yes, I know about how the "free will" dodge works, but it doesn't explain natural disasters, diseases, old age, and other sources of suffering that are not the result of human action.

The dodge sounds almost as if Mr. Dutch is trying to guilt us into abandoning the subject.

Religious believers will never take intellectuals seriously as long as intellectuals deny the existence of absolutes.

What is truth? How do we know it when we see it? How can we be sure our interpretation of it is valid? What about rival claims of truth? These are difficult questions, challenging questions, wonderful questions. They tell us a great deal about the limitations of our methods of inquiry. The one thing they cannot do - what I call the Fundamental Fallacy of Philosophy - is tell us anything at all about the nature of reality or the existence of truth. Philosophy since the days of the ancient Greeks has focused on the grand questions and the limitations of what and how we know, and as a result has remained stagnant. Science focused on what can be known and mushroomed.

Actually science also rejects the existence of absolutes. In empirical thought, there is no absolute certainty. Facts are only facts insofar as they are facts to the best of our knowledge. Empiricism deals in "probablies" and "almost certainlies", not absolutes. Indeed, this is the secret of its success, as it is willing to accomodate new data that challenges pre-existing conclusions, whereas religious thought which deals in absolutes must reject anything that contradicts with the supposed absolute, because an absolute must be true.

You can, for example, pull the idea that animals have rights out of thin air and use it to push for legislation restricting the rights of others to hunt, trap, or eat meat.

Animal rights is hardly "pulled out of the air", it is a logical extension of humanist thought. Suffering is bad, animals can suffer, therefore it is bad to cause them to suffer.

Finally, in any ostensibly intellectual discussion about the existence of God or moral absolutes, watch how quickly sex pops to the surface. It's astonishing how many people who have been prominent militant religious skeptics have also been outspoken advocates of free sex (what's the fun of being a prominent iconoclast if you can't have groupies?) Looking at the criticisms that have been raised against religion, I would estimate that the real motivation for religious disbelief breaks down about like this: sex, 75%; hatred of authority in general, 10%; economic injustice, 8%; war and oppression, 6%; serious intellectual concerns, 1%; serious intellectual concerns based on actual study of what theologians have said: too small to register.

To say some folks went ballistic over that paragraph is an understatement. They did so with a vehemence that suggested I had hit a sore spot. "Stereotypical" sniffed another recent reader, but since all stereotypes have at least some basis in reality, the issue isn't whether the comment is stereotypical (any generalization, no matter how valid, can be blown off as a stereotype), but whether it's valid.

Perhaps it has something to do with the fact that sex is the area where the Abrahamic religions and their most fervent followers seem most eager to create human suffering for no good reason, solely in service of their irrational dogmas. As for most religious skeptics being into "free sex", maybe it has something to do with the fact consensual sex usually harms nobody, and many of the taboos the Abrahamic religion places on it are totally irrational. But I like the thinly veiled implication that religious skeptics are usually just shallow hedonists who hate religion for the same reason small children hate their parents when they won't let them have candy. Once again Mr. Dutch makes me wonder if he's really as non-partisan as he presents himself.

Incidentally, am I the only one who finds putting your totally subjective gut guestimates into percentage points unbearably pretentious?

As for sex, why are restrictions on abortion or homosexuality any more an invasion of privacy than forcing people to keep records for the convenience of the government? Why are so many of the people who are militant about restrictions on abortion equally willing to defend the government's right to invade all sorts of other equally private matters? Why are sexual interactions between consenting partners any more private than financial interactions?

Guess which one causes more suffering, forbidding you from having a healthy romantic relationship with the person you love (as Abrahamic religious believers often seek to do with homosexuals), or making you file a tax report.

[Garlak]

... Has anyone tried to read the "Why Intellectuals Don't Take Religious Believers Seriously" portion of his website?

We've ranted about one of the sides... there's not much more to be said besides variations of "you're full of crap." Furthermore, I doubt this guy reads these forums, so refuting the points.. really just points things out for some of us that get that something's wrong with his points, but don't know exactly what.

Anyway.. I think I can summarize his... viewpoint. He's tired of intellectual dishonesty, on both sides. He wants people to come into discussions with the possibility that they may be wrong. He also sucks at pointing out and refuting fallacies and myths.

Bah. He's definitely had letters from people who tried to point out that he was full of crap... but he seems to have missed the point anyway. It's like he's trying to referee a fight and won't take any criticism himself.

[Stark]

His whole tone makes it clear that he's worked out what the 'real' issue is any everyone who disagrees is simply putting up roadblocks. That's why his article fair drips with condescention and scorn, even though it is full of shit.

[Aranfan]

*Yes, I realize some conceptions of Hell like Dante's involve graduated levels for different sinners, but honestly, while Dantean Hell is enormously more ethical than everybody going to Fire And Brimstone Hell it's still ridiculously horrible. As I remember, they cremate you alive forever for being a homosexual, or was it a heretic?

It isn't graduate levels- they just have different punishments. Not really more or less horriffic.

I believe thieves get some kind of body horror involving snakes.

[Medic]

... Has anyone tried to read the "Why Intellectuals Don't Take Religious Believers Seriously" portion of his website?

What's the point in that? Most people here could rattle off reams of material on this subject without seeing his opinion on it. As evidence by... this thread.

We've ranted about one of the sides... there's not much more to be said besides variations of "you're full of crap." Furthermore, I doubt this guy reads these forums, so refuting the points.. really just points things out for some of us that get that something's wrong with his points, but don't know exactly what.

Intellectual exercise? That's reason enough for me, as is the simple function of exposing myself to one more point-of-view. Forewarned is forearmed, in short.

Anyway.. I think I can summarize his... viewpoint. He's tired of intellectual dishonesty, on both sides. He wants people to come into discussions with the possibility that they may be wrong. He also sucks at pointing out and refuting fallacies and myths.

I agree but at the end of the day, if he's so damned supposedly smart, then he KNOWS how atheists / non-relgious (by which he clearly, annoyingly, means non-Christian and possibly, especially Christian apostates) people perceive the debate. In spite of any chaff or "roadblocks" thrown up on our behalf, the burden-of-proof remains the crux of the debate and this puts Christians and their claims in an untenable position. NOT believing in the incredible claims of religion, claims supported by no reasonable evidence is not a "belief."

What evidence would it take to prove your beliefs wrong? I simply will not reply to challenges that do not address this question.

Seeing as my "belief" isn't such, but a lack of belief in the incredible, the evidence I would accept as proving me wrong would be the same evidence Christians cite in support of their belief. Or, none; they've brought nothing to the debate, they have no horse in this race and no team on the field. Pigeonholing prevailing scientific theory does not constitute evidence.

Everything else is superfluous, red-herring, or, as this author prefers, self-congratulatory condescension. In a word: bullshit. He probably put all his stock in bullshit when the DOW and NASDAQ dropped below 10,000. That makes about as much sense as the rest of his screed.

[Garlak]

Well, if nothing else... reading the other page would give us more ammunition against him. We can confirm if he's a "mindless golden mean middle" person, and check to see if he's equally ignorant no matter which side he's telling to...

GOD. What pisses me off the most, is that's he's written two webpages trying to address what he views as the stupid, ignorant and arrogant people on both sides of the "Religion vs Atheism Debate" and he COMPLETELY SUCKS at being a neutral arbitrator! He's as stupid, ignorant and arrogant as his targeted audience... (I know he was trying to verbally smack "the stupid sheeple." But he failed to even simply identify the stupid people... Swing and a miss!) and why the hell did he write all that up anyway? Will his posts make a difference?

He seemed to want to "challenge people's beliefs"--it seems more like he put it up for his own benefit so he can feel better about "telling stupid people that they're stupid via the internet." Right. Putting 2 dialectically opposed arguements up on his own website. Yeah, he's going to get tons of traffic and make tons of people see the light.

It's a fucking exercise in futility. I have enough problems paying attention to anything I see, hear or read to force myself to wade through confusing, loopy, fallacious bullshit for the express purpose of exercising my ability to recognize and refute fallacies. I suck at debating and arguement. I'm better at ranting... Heck, whenever I read bullshit, I NEED to rant because I suck up the stupid after having read it. The only way to get rid of the headache is to either rant about it, find people who share my views and read their more eloquent rants, or simply read the bullshit in a MSTed format.

For me, reading those kinds of articles on the internet is like some poor schmuck in a Lovecraftian horror story reading the Necronomicon. Except I lose patience, temper and focus rather than sanity; but either way it's still really fucking hard to recover my cool... It's HARD being smart enough to recognize when people are spewing bullshit, but not smart enough to pin down just *what* is wrong about it, or to successfully call them out on it.

EDIT: Which is why I usually just LURCK in these kinds of forums, or ones that share my views on morality, religion, politics, fiction, e.t.c..... Because most of my posts would just be "me-tooing" or blowing off steam which, while therapeutic for me, wouldn't really add to the discussion.

SD.Net: Come for the stories, and stay for the mockery of stupid people!

[Count Chocula]

I've been following this thread, and it's time to throw my (edit) Santa hat in the ring.

First off, the author of this (and other) articles is a, presumably, tenured professor at a university. From my experience, that means that he's refined his "debating" skills by putting freshmen in their place x number of years, and has mistaken an authoritative tone and cul-de-sac statements as valid points of rhetoric. At first read, his position sounds reasonable. And would no doubt impress your typical freshman or sophomore Geology student. It's only under closer examination, as IP's, Coyote's, Garlak's, PainRack's, SPC Brungardt's, Pablo's, etc. posts point out, that his own errors in reasoning become apparent.

At the risk of jacking this thread OT, Mr. Dutch seems to be the stereotypical Austrian educational-system-schooled uni professor, i.e. "you vill think de vay I TELL you to think or you vill be branded untermenschen!" To remain a professor in the current American system, from my experience with three traditional and one non-traditional college setting, conformity among the faculty is even more prevalent than the pressure to conform that's placed among students. I learned more in the "non-traditional" school than the others, except for mathematics which is almost pure logic.

Smug. Condescending. Superior. Tenured. That's MY opinion of the author.

[Samuel]

I've been following this thread, and it's time to throw my (edit) Santa hat in the ring.

First off, the author of this (and other) articles is a, presumably, tenured professor at a university. From my experience, that means that he's refined his "debating" skills by putting freshmen in their place x number of years, and has mistaken an authoritative tone and cul-de-sac statements as valid points of rhetoric. At first read, his position sounds reasonable. And would no doubt impress your typical freshman or sophomore Geology student. It's only under closer examination, as IP's, Coyote's, Garlak's, PainRack's, SPC Brungardt's, Pablo's, etc. posts point out, that his own errors in reasoning become apparent.

At the risk of jacking this thread OT, Mr. Dutch seems to be the stereotypical Austrian educational-system-schooled uni professor, i.e. "you vill think de vay I TELL you to think or you vill be branded untermenschen!" To remain a professor in the current American system, from my experience with three traditional and one non-traditional college setting, conformity among the faculty is even more prevalent than the pressure to conform that's placed among students. I learned more in the "non-traditional" school than the others, except for mathematics which is almost pure logic.

Smug. Condescending. Superior. Tenured. That's MY opinion of the author.

The problem is that the points they are bringing up are the basic ones atheists bring up in debates.By that, I mean if you are an atheist and had access to the internet, you are probably familiar with them. After the 12th rerunaround of the same argument, they are instinctive.

I think he didn't actually have anyone debate with him.

[Knife]

I've often heard of this stereo typical college professor who will 'brainwash' freshmen and sophomores to the evil Uni-liberal way. Yet, as a 35 year old sophomore in university, I've yet come across this 'guy'. At this point, the evil brain washing university ivory tower professor seems to me more of a scapegoat for dumb shit kids in school rather than the teacher him/herself. Granted, I've know some teachers with stupid political stances, don't get me wrong, but hardly some evil presence corrupting your children.

[Junghalli]

Well, if nothing else... reading the other page would give us more ammunition against him. We can confirm if he's a "mindless golden mean middle" person, and check to see if he's equally ignorant no matter which side he's telling to...

I've looked at the other page, and to me it seems much better. That may just be because I'm biased and more sensitive to criticism of "my side", but I like to think it's more because, well, it's not too hard to accurately point out how creationists and fundie wackos are insane.

My biggest problem would be the fact that he fails to address how messed up a lot of Biblical and conservative Abrahamic ethics is from a humanist/rationalist viewpoint. Like the fact you supposedly get tortured forever for not believing in it, or how things that harm nobody like homosexuality are bad, uh, because we said so. It's not just that skeptics often think religious people fail to live up to their own moral standards as he says - it's that very often to skeptics religious morality just looks inherently broken.

[Medic]

On 2nd thought I took Garlak's advice and looked at that 2nd page.

Myth: Intellectuals lead haunted, unsatisfied lives because of a gaping void that could be filled if only they believed.
Reality: More of them than you might think hold religious beliefs, but the ones who don't seem to be pretty satisfied with their lives. They don't seem haunted by some aching need. // while I'm not entirely sure what he means by the 1st part, he does adequately address this

Myth: Intellectuals willfully refuse to believe.
Reality: Before we can even get within light years of the underlying psychological reasons why many intellectuals don't believe in God, we need to clear away the staggering amount of trash put out by religious believers that gives intellectuals a host of valid reasons not to take religion seriously. // right -- bullshit. There's nothing relevant going on psychologically with most disbelievers. An intellectual process leads to atheism, not the antics of believers -- that's just fuel for the fire, insult to injury and schadenfreude.

Myth: Intellectuals are jealous of the high moral ideals of religious believers, and hate what they cannot attain. // lol, wut. Being familiar with religion's weaker arguments (and arguers) this doesn't surprise me really but it's haughty arrogance is still hilarious.
Reality: Many of the people who disdain religion do so because of the moral failures of religious believers, as measured by the standards of believers themselves. They see the moral standards of religious believers as lower than those of most non-believers. Who, apart from a few senile Vatican theologians, takes the Catholic Church seriously any more as a teacher of sexual morality after the child sex-abuse scandals involving priests? Fundamentalists shot themselves in the feet with the televangelist scandals of the 1980's, but at least their sexual misconduct was with consenting adults.

Myth: Non-believers see religion as holding the moral high ground.
Reality: Religious believers need to realize the depth of the hole they have dug for themselves. Non-believers do not see them as holding the high ground; they see the moral standards of religious believers as inferior to theirs, as measured by the standards of believers themselves. Intellectuals read creationist literature and see believers as liars and incompetent. They read the venomous rhetoric of Tim LaHaye's Left Behind series and see believers as intolerant, vicious, vindictive, and cruel. They observe the sexual escapades of people who preach strict sexual morality and see religious believers as hypocrites.

Myth: Intellectuals are out to discredit the Bible
Reality: Apart from students of Biblical history, the Bible is simply not on most intellectuals' radar screen at all. // That's just not true. Many atheists are Christian apostates, raised in and turned away from the faith for any number of reasons. I am not myself, but many, especially American atheists, are. Those who accept the Bible generally believe that impartial investigation will ultimately bear it out; those who reject the Bible consider it so thoroughly discredited that it's superfluous to attack it. Whenever a news story reports some new development that favors evolution, for example, it's certain that the people that made it never thought about the Bible at all in their research.

All in all not a bad list to address to fundies. Cuts through some 1st-base material they should really know going into the debate. He also cuts them no slack in fighting evolutionary theory, which is good.

Although even hinting at "underlying psychological reasons" as a cause for disbelief is off-putting, if not outright offensive. Disbelief stems from intellectual, empirical roots; inasmuch as we do criticize Christian moral standards and acts usually are only ripostes against much more insidious, vociferous Christian slander directed against us. The quintessential example of such slander would be the Stalin, Hitler, Mao and Pol Pot tracts we continue to face. (like fear of HELLFIRE and DAMNATION it's an utterly accessible argument) What late-19th / early-20th century Russian serfs, World-War losing (and humiliated) German Catholics, civil-war-torn and Japanese-occupied Chinese, and war-torn, agrarian Cambodians have to do with modern-day Western secularists, is fucking beyond me. But they are our alleged standard bearers according to the Christian Right. That sort of inanity is why we're so strident, intolerant and vocal ourselves but it is not WHY we disbelieve -- he comes too close to conflating our criticism as the cause of our disbelief. Even when Christians "clear away the staggering amount of trash put out by [their followers which] gives intellectuals a host of valid reasons not to take religion seriously," they will remain bereft of the evidential weight to prove god's existence. We may take the believer seriously, but never his belief.

Also, he frames the 2nd-half of the companion page in Biblical quotes. This approach is great for explaining to them in a way they can understand but may leave some Christians with the idea arguing from Biblical literature is a viable approach. This page REALLY should point out that many atheists have read the Bible and know it better than it's believers adherents but in fact he states the precise opposite.

edited for clarity

[Medic]

Pseudo edit: on atheists-as-Christian-apostates

For fuck's sake, atheism's most prominent standard bearer, Richard Dawkins, is an apostate, intimately familiar with the Bible. He admires Christianity for it's importance to Western literature, song and thought and authored an article "Atheists for Jesus." This is a terrible black mark on his "the bible isn't on intellectuals' radar" comment.

[Garlak]

It's like he's claiming he's going to state some of the myths in the Religion vs Atheism debate, so that he can debunk/explain them to the stupid, arrogant people.

He then starts with the myth that "Atheists hate cheese" and points out that the reality is that "they actually turquoise bicycle shoe fins actualize HER greenly."

That's not an arguement. That's a verbal misdirection. He pokes the bull with a red-hot poker, hurls red paint in it's face, and then throws down a smoke grenade to get the hell out of dodge like he's a ninja. His arguements deserve to be mocked in a Monty Python sketch. I know they DID do a bit about people's misconceptions about what "arguements" and "debates" actually are; too bad we're too busy quoting Monty Python And The Holy Grail.


"Those who accept the Bible generally believe that impartial investigation will ultimately bear it out; those who reject the Bible consider it so thoroughly discredited that it's superfluous to attack it."
That, at least, seems accurate to me.

[Ender]

I slugged through all of it. While I'm sure that this and the other pages (which I have not bothered to read) are written to target the audience he states he wishes to address, I think it is much better at targeting the pseudo intellectuals out there. Simply put, there are a lot of idiots out there who read half a yahoo home page site, adopt it as a cause to piss off mommy, daddy, and the neighbors, and go around making damn fools of themselves and egging the argument on without accomplishing anything. If you want to make the fucking morons shut up, it is a solid page to link to. So I guess it is rather successful in shutting down pseudo intellectuals, though not th real ones.

I suppose he has a point in grounding myself in the various answers though. While I was able to recite the Roman Catholic answers to his questions about evil in the world, killing, and evolution I couldn't do it for many other religions. SO I guess I should read up.

[Edi]

Professor Dutch has some really good stuff on the subjects on his pages related to his own technical expertise, but outside that area he is less than spectacular. Though even on those he may have some insightful comments, such as his page on what he calls the thar cultures.

The part about why religious believers don't take intellectuals seriously is rife with all kinds of bullshit and very often false accusations and condescension, but some of it may make sense as long as you are a religious believer. For anyone with a good grounding in logic, it doesn't fly.

He admits to being a conservative politically, but that does not mean much, as some of his writings make clear that he does not agree with nearly everything in what is considered standard for conservatism in the US these days.

All in all, from his writings you have to glean the good stuff from the bad, but he is most certainly far more of an arrogant blowhard than his performance gives leave.

[Junghalli]

I do rather like his page on mass transit, as it nicely articulates some of the problems I have with the gung-ho "RAH RAH public transit, get rid of the car!" crowd.

[Pablo Sanchez]

I do rather like his page on mass transit, as it nicely articulates some of the problems I have with the gung-ho "RAH RAH public transit, get rid of the car!" crowd.

The entire scheme boils down to repetition of the theme that mass transit is not convenient. The logical problem with the essay is that it's predicated on explaining why mass transit fails to compete in the present suburban-focused terrain and never addresses whether this situation it is desirable or sustainable. He absolutely refuses to bring the argument there, even when a reader e-mails him about it specifically, because he knows he'll lose.

He also has the brain failures that are somehow typical to his essays, like his claim that trains are even more expensive than cars because Amtrak is expensive, or because he was able to rent a car in Europe for less than buying two unlimited use 10-day, 5-country train passes. News flash, 99% of people using public transit are not fucking tourists and will never need first-class tickets designed for touring Europe.

More obnoxiously, the direct comparison relies on a completely wrong presentation of how the $700+ Eurail select pass works. It gives you ten days of train travel during a two-month period, so it is no way equivalent to renting a VW for ten days! To get an equivalent service you would have to (for example) rent a car for a day when you wanted to leave Paris, drive it to the Riviera, drop it off at the rental chain and spend the week there, then rent another car for a day to drive to Genoa, drop it off and spend a week there, rent another car for a day to drive to Rome... and so on, probably five or six times, or more. Needless to say, this would be a huge hassle as well as costing vastly more than renting a single car for ten days (long term rentals usually get a preferential rate).

I don't know if he intentionally misrepresented this, or if he just misunderstood how the Eurail pass worked, but there you go.

[Junghalli]

The logical problem with the essay is that it's predicated on explaining why mass transit fails to compete in the present suburban-focused terrain and never addresses whether this situation it is desirable or sustainable.

He does touch on the first part, namely he criticizes the "oh, we'll just move everyone into dense urban areas and there'll be no more problem" approach.

Personal Space. Americans like to spread out and always have. But what's wrong with living in an apartment complex and having lots of park space nearby? Why does it have to be personal space? Because personal space can be controlled. Your kid can pitch a tent in the back yard or build a tree fort (not in a lot of covenant communities, though). You can sit in your back yard and not worry about twenty people with loud radios and foul mouths parking right next to you. You don't have to worry about having your favorite picnic spot taken by someone else.

If you want to persuade people to move back into high density settlements, you had better figure out why so many people choose to live in restricted communities, and then see to it that the high density settlements offer the same advantages.

You're right about the sustainability angle though, he doesn't really address that well at all.

I thought his essay on thar cultures was the best of the lot, so far.

[Pablo Sanchez]

The logical problem with the essay is that it's predicated on explaining why mass transit fails to compete in the present suburban-focused terrain and never addresses whether this situation it is desirable or sustainable.

He does touch on the first part, namely he criticizes the "oh, we'll just move everyone into dense urban areas and there'll be no more problem" approach.

Personal Space. Americans like to spread out and always have. But what's wrong with living in an apartment complex and having lots of park space nearby? Why does it have to be personal space? Because personal space can be controlled. Your kid can pitch a tent in the back yard or build a tree fort (not in a lot of covenant communities, though). You can sit in your back yard and not worry about twenty people with loud radios and foul mouths parking right next to you. You don't have to worry about having your favorite picnic spot taken by someone else.

I am supposed to find this half-assed paen to having "yer own plot o' land" convincing in some way? This isn't an argument, he's just arbitrarily placing the value of having a yard above than the value of conveniences provided by living in an apartment in an urban neighborhood (e.g. minimal maintenance obligations, access to nearby services/stores/schools, more varied cultural environment, and so on), and providing transparently slanted, misanthropic arguments against public spaces. I could, with completely equal veracity, praise the virtues of public spaces as places to meet new and interesting people.

More fairly, subjective arguments can be made both for living in a suburb and living in the city center. Objectively, however, urban areas are more efficient, and as transportation becomes prohibitively more expensive this will be a more and more important concern.

You're right about the sustainability angle though, he doesn't really address that well at all.

He proposes car-pooling as the solution to the end of cheap oil. Huh?

I thought his essay on thar cultures was the best of the lot, so far.

He also has a fun one about why is he is not a Libertarian. Broken clocks are right twice a day.