Ain’t That Fresh?
From the Buchananite side that still manages to see the truth of the matter there’s this old tune:
My hands are tied
The billions shift from side to side
And the wars go on with brainwashed pride
For the love of God and our human rights
And all these things are swept aside
By bloody hands time can’t deny
And are washed away by your genocide
And history hides the lies of our civil warsAnd
I don’t need your civil war
It feeds the rich while it buries the poor
You’re power hungry sellin’ soldiers
In a human grocery store
Ain’t that fresh
I don’t need your civil war
But if straw-chewing, reckneck rockstars don’t do it for you, Andrew Sullivan will, maybe:
I hope society rejects the neologism Christianist. Despite Sullivan’s protestations, I agree with William Safire:
Adding ist or ism to a word usually colors it negatively, as can be seen in secularist. … As Christianist, with its evocation of Islamist, gains wider usage as an attack word on what used to be called the religious right, another suffix is being used in counterattack to derogate those who denounce church influence in politics. … Let the listener or reader beware: -ist and -phobe, more often than not these days, are suffixes tacked on to words to turn them into fierce derogations.
To be sure, Sullivan claims that “the term Christianist is in no way designed to label people on the religious right as favoring any violence at all.” Fair enough. But Sullivan lost mastery of Christianist once it entered the public domain. The meaning of words is socially constructed. Words mean not just what the speaker intends, even if the speaker was also the neologist, but also what the listeners understand them to mean. (The technical term is intersubjectivity.)
Whether Sullivan intended Christianist to evoke Islamist, with the connotation of terrorist, or not, that is how I suspect most people take it. And that’s whay I suspect many people are not merely provoked, but deeply offended.
Unlike Perfesser Bainbridge who is plainly aghast at the equasion of ‘ist-y’ whackjobs here who are, in context, the perfect parallel of ‘ist-y’ whackjobs there, I hope that was precisely Sullivan’s intent because it would demonstrate Sully’s final acquisition of the point of all this shit: The War on Terra is a Civil War between fundamentalist maniacs whose devotion to a vengeful Bronze Age deity imperils us all.
The problem isn’t belief as such — there are sophisticated forms of theism which are, if not quite rational, fairly harmless — but fundamentalist, batshit belief. Or as Professor Terry Eagleton puts it:
The God Delusion does a very fine job indeed. The two most deadly texts on the planet, apart perhaps from Donald Rumsfeld’s emails, are the Bible and the Koran; and [Richard] Dawkins, as one the best of liberals as well as one of the worst, has done a magnificent job over the years of speaking out against that particular strain of psychopathology known as fundamentalism, whether Texan or Taliban. He is right to repudiate the brand of mealy-mouthed liberalism which believes that one has to respect other people’s silly or obnoxious ideas just because they are other people’s. In its admirably angry way, The God Delusion argues that the status of atheists in the US is nowadays about the same as that of gays fifty years ago. The book is full of vivid vignettes of the sheer horrors of religion, fundamentalist or otherwise. Nearly 50 per cent of Americans believe that a glorious Second Coming is imminent, and some of them are doing their damnedest to bring it about.
Jebus, Allah, Yahweh — save us from your fundie followers who are all more or less equally insane!
There was an unusually long, unusually difficult discussion about this on Glenn Greenwald’s blog. Greenwald was also talking about Sullivan’s ideas. He basically said:
-A Muslim believes in Islam.
-An Islamist believes Islam should be the driving force of society, doesn’t believe in secularism.
-A Radical Islamist is willing to use violence to create a non-secular, Islamist society. (bin Laden, etc.)
Similarly:
-A Christian believes in Christ
-A Christianist thinks Christianity should be the driving force of society, doesn’t believe in secularism.
-A Radical Christianist is willing to use violence to bring about a non-secular, Christian society. (Eric Rudolph, etc.)
Laid out that way, it looks pretty stratightforward to me. I don’t know if ‘Christianist’ is the best word to use, but it makes straightforward sense to me. But lots of people on Greenwald’s blog just refused to see it, or even disagree with it in logical terms, like “I don’t think that Christianity has the same dynamic as Islam does”. Instead they did the blogging equivalent of putting their fingers in their ears and going, “La La La! I can’t hear you!!!”.
It seemed their arguments all boiled down to: “How dare you equate me with a Muslim!”
I used to not like Dawkins, etc., finding them too radical and anti-religious. Now I’m starting to think they may have a point.
The two most deadly texts on the planet, apart perhaps from Donald Rumsfeld’s emails, are the Bible and the Koran
If we’re talking strictly in terms of body count, then The Communist Manifesto and The Little Red Book would certainly make a strong showing.
If we’re talking strictly in terms of body count, then The Communist Manifesto and The Little Red Book would certainly make a strong showing.
I dunno phinn- Stalin killed something like 10 million, correct? That is a strong showing for ‘communism’, I must admit. But the Bible has had something like 3500 years (including the Old Testament) to work its magic. It is hard to count it all, but the Bible still may be ahead.
Religious texts (Bible, Koran, etc) = Thousands of years of justification for brutality against non-believers.
Political texts (Communist Manifetso, Little Red Book) = Not even 200 years.
Yeah, really strong showing there.
oops, atheist was quicker on the draw, I guess.
Stalin didn’t write the Communist Manifesto.
In any event, if, in addition to the ordinary murders under Stalin alone during purges and such, you count the mass starvation resulting from the collectivization of farms, and deaths due to malnutrition and dysentery in places like the prison camps and such, you’d get a figure well above 20 million.
Mao killed around 40 million.
Stalin killed around 30 million.
And right now, there is no comparison between the forces of radical islam and forces that have radical Christian ties.
For one thing, radical Christians control no governments.
Radical islam controls Iran, and they’re eyeing Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Saudi Arabia.
As well, you can tell the difference between a Christian and a radical Christian. You can’t tell the difference between a muslim and a radical muslim.
Phinn, man, thousands of years. Crusades, inquisitions, witch-burning frenzies, honor killings, terrorist attacks, etc.
Religious texts (Bible, Koran, etc) = Thousands of years of justification for brutality against non-believers.
Religious wars have the advantage of time, of course, but various flavors of socialism have the clear advantage of mechanization and organization — an industrial approach to death and deprivation, if you will.
Anybody who really thinks that there are no radical, extremist Christians in this country who advocate violence and the use of force to bring society under the rule of a literalist religious government just hasn’t been paying attention.
Take a look at this obituary for Rousas Rushdoony. Yeah, I know it’s housed on Lew Rockwell’s servers, and Lew Rockwell is a bit of a loopy-loop. I’m not citing this for factual accuracy on a historical matter, but for the good job it does of showing what a Christian Reconstructionst feels and believes. This sounds like something you might hear from one of the followers of Muqtada al-Sadr – the superhuman intellectual gifts in all areas of study, the valiant triumph over a life of persecution, the scorn he received from an uncaring, secular world. And look what Rushdoony wanted to achieve….this is in reference to his book The Institutes of Biblical Law
Yeah – he wanted to roll the development of secular, liberal state governments back three hundred years. Note the Darwin reference in there, too….and then think of how few Americans accept evolution as a basic biological principle.
Rusdoony wanted to find a way to get this country to be ruled by Biblical legal principles. And not just the touchy feely, fuzzywuzzy New Testament stuff: Rushdoony wanted us under the hardcore, God as Samuel L. Jackson who will kick your motherfucking ass Old Testament stuff. Like stoning to death women who have premarital sex. And homosexuals. And people who work on Sunday. It’s tremendously similar to Shari’a law. In America, this movement is known as Christian Reconstructionism.
To fully understand the extent to which these ideas have penetrated the modern Christian movement in America, it helps to know that Rushdoony was also the guy who first pushed homeschooling in America. He did so in an attempt to get children away from the evil secular values that are taught in public schools – you know, the ideas that help to bind us together as a diverse society? Things like separation of church and state, respect and tolerance of differences, live and let live? He thought those were bad things.
Think of how commonplace Christian homeschooling is nowadays. And then stop to think about the ideology that motivates homeschooling. It’s basically the Christian equivalent of small, private, fundamentalist madrassas all over the whole damn country. And nobody bats an eyelash at it.
And the effects of this movement can be felt throughout society. Anybody remember Eric Rudolph? The guy who blew up a women’s health clinic, a gay bar, and the Olympic Park in Atlanta? He avoided capture by the FBI for years, and he was able to do that because he got support from the local population in the rural Appalachian areas where he hid out for several years. He was on the FBI’s Ten Most Wanted list, and local radio stations were playing songs calling him a hero. How in any substantive way that differs from the sort of support the al-Sadr brigades get in Iraq is beyond me.
There are plenty more cases out there like this – just follow the links on the websites. Check out the Southern Poverty Law Center, which watches hate groups (And Christian Reconstructionists are generally thought of as belonging to a hate movement) or check out Theocracy Watch. Or if there’s something in particular you’re looking for information on, let me know.
What really gets me about this is that people will maintain that your average American Christian doesn’t *really* support an ideology of hate. They don’t know who Rousas Rushdoony is and they don’t care, they’ve never heard of the Chalcedon Foundation or the Christian Identity movement and wouldn’t support them if they did know of them. And yet when you try to give that explanation for how Islamic extremist groups are able to flourish in places like Saudi Arabia – when you say that your average Muslim in Saudi Arabia just wants to raise his/her family and doesn’t care about extremist ideologies – people act as though you are both lying and making excuses for supporters of terrorism. But the same thing doesn’t seem to be true for our own, homegrown, Christianist terrorists. Not that anybody’s engaging in special pleading at all. Oh, no.
Wow, Gary! Where can I get a special Christian decoder ring like the one you have? I want to be able to tell Christians who want to stone me to death apart from the ones who merely want to deprive me of my civil rights, too! Is it powered by gamma rays from the radiance of the Lord’s face? Will I have to wear a tinfoil helmet to protect myself from the radiation?
I think that what a lot of people suffer from is the ol’ “It can’t happen here/It can’t happen with us” argument.
You can take any creed, any ideology, any religion, or any philosophy and do evil with it. Humans, regardless of you faith (or lack there of) are acknowledged by pretty much everyone to be flawed beings capable of both good and evil.
The problem arises when a certain group sharing that creed/religion/philosophy/ideology starts assuming that by virtue of being a Christian or a liberal or a pro-lifer, that they are either incapable of doing evil (because “we” are good) or equally dangerously thinking that the good of their actions always outweigh the evil (without serious reflection).
The other problem that comes up is that because creeds etc are fairly clique-based systems, we tend to paint those who do not share our beliefs with the same brush. So since Stalin was an atheist, so to a lot of devote people that means that all atheists hold beliefs similar to Stalin. Whereas to most atheists, Stalin’s murderous behaviour is night and day compared to theirs.
I think that everyone should be willing to admit that someone can twist their belief system into something horrific. I think that everyone should be willing to admit that their sect (to pick a term) has on some level committed wrongs. And I hope that we all have the intellectual honesty, (to use a phrase) to not equate piety with righteousness.
I probably hope too much.
Christianity is a religion of peace and tolerance. Despite the actions of some illegitimate authorities.
What ‘civil rights’ are you being deprived of by Christians?
Because you’d lose those “rights” and more under the palm of Radical islam.
Jeeze Jillian, don’t you know that the radical christianists are the only ones without the mark of the beast upon them?
Retardo, you didn’t link to Ann Althouse. She’s the main blogger on the subject. Just ask her.
Oh, and that thirty million number for Stalin is pretty heavily exaggerated. It comes from a Soviet historian by the name of Robert Conquest, and it reflects his own idiosyncratic reading of the Soviet archives after they were opened up in ’91. His original estimate was between ten and fifteen million, which I think is probably the more likely number.
Conquest worked for an antiCommunist propaganda branch of the British government after WWII, and he got into a pissing match with another Soviet historian (J. Arch Getty) in the 80s, both of which seemed to have an increasingly negative impact on his scholarly impartiality with the passing of time.
Granted, not that ten million dead is somehow “better” than thirty million, but it’s best not to quote shoddy scholarship if you can avoid it. This is still an active area of contention among Soviet historians, with some putting the death toll of the Stalin era as low as one million. Keep in mind, too, just how much bigger the Soviet Union was than any other state in the world, and just how many people they had. It helps to keep the numbers you’re hearing in perspective.
And before anybody says anything, no I’m not defending Stalin, and Getty’s an ass for putting the bodycount as low as he does. If you’re really interested in getting into the historians’ controversies, “The Road to Terror” by Getty and Naumov is probably the best place to start, along (of course) with Conquest’s opus. Read ’em both, put them side by side, and make up your own mind.
Pretty much OT (although I suppose you could say it involves the belief in invisible sky-fairies, so it is sort of on-topic), but I need to share this with an audience who would appreciate it.
I have 2 daughters , 8 and 6. The older of the 2 (The Mitten) has been losing her baby teeth lately, and receiving periodic visits from the tooth fairy. Unfortunately, Mr. and Mrs. Woundwort are forgetful types, and recently the tooth fairy has been quite overdue in exchanging a certain speck of enamel for cold, hard cash. Mrs. Woundwort has assured everyone that she has spoken with the tooth fairy, who has been busy and had a lot on her mind, and that we are sure to get this all worked out soon enough.
Well, The Mitten’s younger sister H-bomb has begun to have doubts. Last night at dinner, we had the following conversation:
H-Bomb: Momma, I’m not sure I believe in the tooth fairy right now.
Mrs W: That’s OK honey, Why not?
H-Bomb: You said you talked to the tooth fairy and that she keeps forgetting to get Mitten’s tooth. Well, you forget things all the time. I’m starting to think that you are the tooth fairy.
Mr & Mrs. W: (trying to stifle laughter)
H-Bomb: Oh my gosh! You are the tooth fairy………Wait a minute! What have you been doing with all those teeth?!
Mr & Mrs. W (raucous laughter)
H-Bomb: Weirdos.
Now if only we could get certain Christianists to realize that the “god” who keeps telling W to invade countries and “stay the course” bears a bit too close a resemblance to the guy he is telling these things to.
Gary, there are people who say “Islam is the religion of peace despite the actions of some illegitimate authorities.” How is your phrase different other than “you mean it?”
Hmm, habeas corpus, privacy, unwarranted search and seizure, and speech just to start.
I see we get a choice between less freedom under pro-Christianists is better than no-freedom under those evil Muslims (and how exactly are the Muslims going to rule the US anyways).
Maybe, just maybe because you live in the UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, you should be thinking “Wait, how did this country get to be in a place where the choice is between no freedom and less? It’s America dammit and the only answer to that sort of question is none of the above, we are free or we are NOT.”
Regarding the religious texts vs the socialist ones, it seems clear to me that the political practices in the USSR and China were a substitute theology, with gods you paid homage to and so on.
The problem is not really the books themselves, the problem is zealotry, which you can get from communists, religionists, and free market maniacs alike.
Save for, y’know, this one.
I’ve got to give him that one. Radical Christians can be found climbing the mondo heavies and shootin’ the tube at Pipeline, whereas Muslims don’t surf.
Speaking of nutjobs, the shrieking harpy is mourning the departure of her mustache ride.
😉
The problem is not really the books themselves, the problem is zealotry, which you can get from communists, religionists, and free market maniacs alike.
The problem isn’t zealotry, and it’s not ideology in general. It’s aggression.
People who are bent on aggression often use some sort of ideological and/or religious zeal as a propaganda tool to justify their violence, and to recruit new members, but also very common are ideological and religious groups that are committed to non-aggression. These groups do not, as a rule, rack up the body count numbers you see under names like Marx, Lenin, Stalin, Mao, etc.
The only reason Christians are “peaceful” is because they were forced to abdicate power by secular nation-states. Anyone with a passing knowledge of European history from the sixteenth century onwards can tell you that. Read Pius IX’s Syllabus of Errors if you think Christianity naturally tends toward tolerance. It doesn’t. Christianity in and of itself doesn’t “tend” toward any set social arrangement. Pro-slavery theologians were just as articulate as abolitionists in their scriptural citations. Maybe Gary Ruppert thinks enslaving Africans was still tolerant- who knows- but the cartoon version of radical Islam vs. radical Christianity is thin gruel in terms of history.
That said, Terry Eagleton’s review is a brilliant takedown of these New Atheists who think you can just “booga-booga” religion out of contemporary culture. They just show their own theological illiteracy and analytical shallowness. Which means they show why their efforts are doomed to failure, even though many of their aims are noble.
Christianity is a religion of peace and tolerance? Tell that to Eric Rudolph. Tell that to the Army of God. Tell it to the Lambs of Christ. Tell it to these guys (warning on this last link; there are really graphic images on the same server as that page; while the page itself is mostly SFW, the links on it are probably not).
And as far as what civil rights I’m lacking…..as long as gays and lesbians are denied full and equal participation in society, then I do not have full civil rights, regardless of my own sexual orientation. See, I read this text once by this Communist agitator who claimed that whatever has been done to the least powerful among us has been done to all of us. But I wouldn’t expect you to accept those values, because you stand for good rightwing values and not social justice. It’s okay – the guy who said it probably doesn’t expect you to agree with him, anyway.
The problem isn’t zealotry, and it’s not ideology in general. It’s aggression.
Nope, it’s the zealotry. Most people are pretty charmingly dull unless they’re convinced to do bad things, and those who push ideology with fervor can get that job done. I just don’t buy that Rwanda had more uniquely aggressive people than anywhere else: they were normal.
Zealots of pacifist groups? Still irrational, thus a problem, as Sam Harris notes.
And Eagleton’s review of Dawkin’s work really wasn’t anything to write home about. He’s still sawing away at that old canard about how “not all faith is blind faith”. I’ve yet to hear someone give me a good explanation of the distinction between the two.
Here’s a good takedown of Eagleton’s silliness. It’s no more than what I’d expect from a member of the woowoo New Left. Eagleton’s main error seems to be that he switches back and forth between a Deist understanding of God (which is irrefutable by anything science can do) and a specifically Christian understanding of God (which is already refuted for anyone who accepts the basic tenets of scientific inquiry). It’s a slippery game, and one that most defenders of religion play – probably without ever realizing they do it. Gould did the same thing in Rocks of Ages.
If you’re going to believe in a God who is subject to empirically testable claims (God answers prayer?), then you are going to have to either put up or shut up. If you’re going to believe in a God beyond the reach of testable claims, then you’re going to have a hard time convincing anyone that you’re a Christian.
The analytical shallowness isn’t coming from the atheists; indeed, the atheists are the only ones doing the Christians the courtesy of respecting what they say when they say they believe something. It’s the Christians who aren’t subjecting their religious beliefs to the same analytical rigor that most people show when they do something as simple as shop for a new car.
As far as whether or not atheists are ever going to *convince* anyone – that’s a dead issue, whether atheists use sweetness OR polemicism. People don’t want to be rational. Period. As a species, we’re going to go right on making the same mistakes over and over again for at least the forseeable future. I can’t complain too much – I teach history for a living. If people stopped being irrational assholes, I’d be out of a job. Reasonable people make for boring history.
And people wonder why I’m a cynic.
Zealots of pacifist groups? Still irrational, thus a problem
Whatever “problem” that you have with pacifists, it is a “problem” of an entirely different character when compared to the mass murder that’s been committed by governments.
The left thinks America is threatened more by people who blow up abortion clinics than by Islamifascist terrorists.
Also, the resignation of John Bolton makes this day tragic for America. Bolton is one of the few that stands up for America, and he was needed at the UN.
Christianity is a religion of peace and tolerance? Tell that to Eric Rudolph.
Rudolph was a White supremacist and a fake Christian, like Timothy McVeigh.
There is a difference in thugs like Rudolph and McVeigh claiming Catholicism and the Islamifascist terrorists. The Catholics actually distance themselves from evil people like Rudolph and McVeigh.
Tell that to the Army of God.
Ever notice that the Army of God is probably 100 people and Hezb’allah in Lebanon is much larger?
Tell it to the Lambs of Christ.
Blah blah blah blah..
You are filled with hate and you want to use examples of a few dozen people to bash Christianity.
Yet, you’d probably call Islam a religion of peace.
And as far as what civil rights I’m lacking…..as long as gays and lesbians are denied full and equal participation in society, then I do not have full civil rights, regardless of my own sexual orientation.
How do Homosexuals lack the ability to participate in society?
Well, yes, Gary. We *are* more threatened by people who blow up abortion clinics. Because you see, these people are actually American citizens, and their agenda of terror has widespread support among the population of American citizens. Whereas the number of native born Islamofascists is only slightly higher than the number of married bachelors, and their agenda of terror has no domestic support whatsoever.
And they’re not going to stop at just blowing up women’s health centers. They want Christian Shari’a in America. And if you can’t see how that’s a threat to the Constitutionally-guaranteed liberties we all enjoy right now, then I don’t think you’d pass my government class.
Oh, I see…….we’re back to the “fake Christian” defense.
By any chance are those people who aren’t “real Christians” Scotsmen, Gary?
I bet they aren’t.
I think it’s highly disingenous to say “Well, everyone’s irrational, so convincing people is pointless.” If there isn’t an agenda of combatting irrationality in the culture, then what the hell is Harris’s purpose? There is some constituency he’s aiming at– and I think he’s mistaken in who the allies of the “brights” are and what the real threats around religion are. For one thing, the guy appropriates Buddhist meditation as badly as any Protestant theologian from the past 150 years.
And of course people will not stop making “the same mistakes” overnight. But I would think a historian understands that there are many different kinds of mistakes that humanity has made under different fantasies, some preferable to others. Moreover, if “people don’t want to be rational” then it makes no sense to isolate religion as “irrational”– irrationality will find a channel in politics, sports fandom, ethnic hatred, art, etc. anyway.
As for faith vs. blind faith, why don’t we try the faith of Martin Luther King, whose belief in the “moral arc” of the universe was something he continually revisited and struggled with in his confrontation with history, and W.’s blind faith in the Iraq War, which resists all evidence and displays little self-critical reevaluation for the sake of the larger good.
There are countless others, but hey life is short.
I can’t help but notice its always a simple choice. Muslim or Christian. Putting aside that they both worship the same god, what makes the Fundie Christians think I’d sit still for Fundie Muslims pulling the same shit? And to stave off a little drooling, yes SOME Muslims flew some planes into some buildings but just as tragically SOME Christians have dropped bombs on weddings.
I guess the “or they’ll kill you” is supposed to do the trick. All I hear tho is their little projection that they would; in fact, convert to Islam and submit rather than maintain their beliefs and face the consequences of resisting.
“But Hey, it is the same god after all”, I imagine would be the rationalization they would use.
What’s the fucking difference if the dude who blew you up is a pasty Chistoid or a dusky Mohommedan, you’re still dead.
PS: El Oh El on your big salty tears for Bolton, let me taste them, oh they taste so sweet!
Jeff, I have no idea what Sam Harris’s purpose is. I haven’t read his book, but I’m aware that he goes of on some bizarre Buddhist mediation rant at the end, which seems to invalidate everything his book is supposed to be about. I haven’t read it for precisely this reason – it just seems stupid to me.
I don’t think it’s “pointless” to try to convince people to be rational; I just have grave, grave doubts as to whether or not it will ever work on a large scale. I’m very pessimistic on this account, and don’t harbor much hope for the future successes of humanity because of it. I hope other people aren’t as cynical as me – I don’t think it’s a good thing.
And your explication of “fatih vs. blind faith” doesn’t do me any good unless you offer me up some sort of defintion of “faith”. I’ll be damned if I can figure out what the word means if not “belief in something without reference to empirical or rational evidentiary principles”. If you’ve got a different definition, I’d like to hear it.
pasty Christoid grumble grumble preview grumble
We *are* more threatened by people who blow up abortion clinics. Because you see, these people are actually American citizens, and their agenda of terror has widespread support among the population of American citizens.
Prove that their agenda has widespread support.
The number of people killed in Anti-Abortion bombings: 24
Jillian, you’re a dense leftist. You think America should go after abortion bombers with more intensity than we go after Islamifascist terrorists.
They want Christian Shari’a in America.
Put on a veil and go to Dearborn if you want a better idea of how the people who want Islamic Law in this country outnumber the people who want a Christian theocracy.
Christianity has not been united in around 1500 years. They’re not going to institute a uniform Christian law, because there is no such thing.
One note, 24 is the number of murders and attempted murders.
More people die from papercuts than have died from abortion clinic bombings.
Whatever “problem� that you have with pacifists, it is a “problem� of an entirely different character when compared to the mass murder that’s been committed by governments.
You’re misreading. I don’t have problems with pacifists, I have problems with the irrational.
Nope,
No domestic terroirsts here.
None at all.
Jillian – Kind of OT, I know, but on the “faith vs. blind faith” issue: I’m Catholic. I’m actually kind of derided by conservative Catholics as “cafeteria,” but they can pretty much suck it. I believe in a higher power, and in my mind, S/He manifests pretty much as the Christian church has outlined. Is this logical? No. Is it scientifically verifiable? Hells no. I fully recognize that my religious beliefs are outside the boundaries of reason. That’s why I’m not about to go recruiting or browbeating anyone about their faith or lack thereof: because I can’t explain my own faith beyond “I just do.”
And my continued attachment to reason, religion notwithstanding, is why I can’t accept Catholicism beyond its “cafeteria” form. If a church tells me that we’re all God’s children, but that most everyone else is going to hell; that Jesus hung out with prostitutes and tax collectors, but that we’re supposed to shun Teh Gays and leave the poor to drown in New Orleans; that we’re supposed to have a personal relationship with God, but that we’re also supposed to give up our free will to the mandates of some old guy in Rome; that abortion is bad, but so is preventing pregnancy in the first place; then I’m going to have to carry on that illogical faith outside the bounds of that organized religious system.
Blind faith (by my own oh-so-self-serving definition) comes when people don’t recognize that religion isn’t logical, that it doesn’t make sense. People who think that their nonscientific version of the earth’s creation is just as viable as a scientific explanation and who think that federal law should be based on a several-thousand-year-old declaration of what’ll make you go to hell don’t even have the sense to say “Yes, I know it’s crazy, but sometimes things are.” Those are the ones who try so hard to convert and recruit and run the country with religious doctrine, because they don’t understand how freaking crazy religion is in the first place. They don’t recognize that government-by-Old-Testament is no better or wiser than sharia law or government-by-astrology.
I guess that’s why it bothers me when people start attacking religion wholesale. There are so many people out there who do have faith – and not the blind type – and are satisfied to keep it as a personal thing and let the rest of the world make its own decisions. There are pro-choice Catholics. There are Methodists who favor separation of church and state. We’re just outshouted by the people who are conceited enough to think that their personal relationship with whatever deity they happen to recognize is important enough to base a system of government on.
Okay, shutting up now.
Gary, you’re actually engaging with someone! This is incredible!
I like this new Gary – he’s more fun to play with. Perhaps not as frothing at the mouth as the old Gary, but the user interface on this one is much more responsive.
Now, then, silly boy….I don’t think we should puruse clinic bombers with “more intensity” than “Islamofascists”, just the same degree of intensity. Interestingly enough, none of the people who provided material support to Eric Rudolph while he was on the run from the FBI have ever been charged with a crime. Why do they get treated differently than we treat the supporters of insurgents in Iraq?
And, as others have said, what makes you think I’d bitch less about an Islamic theocracy here in America than I do the Christian theocracy your ilk are trying to impose on us? Unlike you, I’m consistent in my dislike of theocracy. And if you really think that NO ONE wants to impose a Christian Shari’a on this country, you haven’t bothered to click on any of the links I’ve provided. They come right out and say that’s what they want. All I’m doing is giving them the courtesy of taking them at their word.
The sad thing is that the entirety of conservative position on ethics since Sept 11 has been “Us good, Them evil”. That’s it. Everything else is merely attempts to explain why everything THEY do is EVIL:, and everything WE do is GOOD. There’s no deeper thought that that. No attempt to create an ideological worldview. No consistency, no rhyme or reason. The goodness of their position is the essential bedrock upon which any excuse can be made, and any action justified.
And Gary, Christianity doesn’t have to be unified to bring this country under Christian theocracy. All it takes is a few powerful theocrats. Say, a president who thinks it’s peachy to distribute federal funds to faith-based organizations. And legislators who think it’s okay to limit a woman’s right to determine what happens to her own body because abortion makes the Baby Jesus cry. And judges who think that the Ten Commandments are perfectly welcome in a courthouse because “thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s wife” is totally the sort of thing that government should be dictating.
There doesn’t have to be some centralized theocratic organizer rallying the troops. There just have to be enough Talibangelicals in positions of authority, and enough citizens willing to sit back and say, “Well, yes, they’re governing in a way expressly prohibited by the Constiution, but they say it’s in our best interest, so I see no reason to protest.”
Thank God that would never happen in America.
Why is it that Fundie Muslims represent ALL Islam but Fundie Christians only represent themselves?
Also, the resignation of John Bolton makes this day tragic for America. Bolton is one of the few that stands up for America, and he was needed at the UN.
Someone put Atlas Pam on suicide watch.
I like this new Gary – he’s more fun to play with. Perhaps not as frothing at the mouth as the old Gary, but the user interface on this one is much more responsive.
Poppy farmer to poppies to opium to mellow Omar al-Ruppert.
ACG, if you are comfortable with the fact that your faith is irrational, then I’ve got no beef with you at all. Everyone has the right to be as irrational as they want to be about anything they want to be; I can’t *make* people be rational if they don’t want to.
The only argument that I have against irrationality is a normative one….it’s hard to be rational. In fact, it’s harder than anybody realizes. I submit that even the most dedicated rationalist among us probably screws up at rational thought more often than they get it right. But I also submit that the only way to be able to settle our differences without resort to violence is to use reason. Reason’s the only thing that can save us from violence, and none of us do it well. What’s the proper response here?
I would argue that the best hope for humanity is to take our commitment to reason seriously. I would compare it to training for an Olympic event. Look at the crazy things those Olympic gymnasts do – half of them look impossible to me. And yet, they’re obviously NOT impossible, because you can see twelve year olds doing them on TV. But the only way to reach that level of skill is to train relentlessly. Committing to being rational only part of the time is, to me, like training six days a week for the Olympics but spending Sunday sitting on the couch watching “Blossom” reruns and eating HoHos. It’s just not going to work. And in this case, the consequences for failure are far worse than not bringing home a medal for your country – the consequences are continuing the cycle of violence and bloodshed that has marred human history since its inception.
That argument may not convince you – as I’ve said, it’s a normative argument, and therefore open to acceptance or rejection on almost any characteristic that you can think of. But I think it’s a good argument, and I wish more people would take it seriously.
Oh, I forgot to add…the problem I have is with people who think their faith is rational. It’s not. It never will be. It’s the opposite of rational, in fact.
Jillian – No argument here. None at all. That’s why it’s so important that religion stay completely separate from government. The little irrationalities that we keep to ourselves, be they religion, football superstitions, fad diets, a bizarre compulsion to watch Prison Break even though it isn’t that good anymore, just make life more interesting. But they’re harmless only because they’re personal. The interpersonal stuff, the stuff that we use to make laws and run the country, has to rely on logic and reason, because logic and reason are the only things we, as human beings, have in common.
Ya know, if these Muslims were as bloodthirsty and savage as the Fundie Bush Apologists keep squealing do you really think we would still have 140,000 Military personnel in Iraq? Wouldn’t the 22 Million or so Bloodthirsty Savages have ripped them to shreds by now?
150 to 1 sucks. Ask Custer.
That said, Terry Eagleton’s review is a brilliant takedown of these New Atheists who think you can just “booga-booga� religion out of contemporary culture.
As one of the leading spear carriers for teh “New Atheists” ™, I’m going to take a little exception to this. We recognize that 1. we cannot ever be successful in getting religion out of contemorary society, as desireable an outcome as that might be and 2. religion/worship/spirituality/ritual has a place in human society and probably always will. All we are truly arguing is for a modern, scientifically enlightened culture to use the tools and information available today to stop making unsupportable claims. Look, science makes no conclusion on the existence of god. I choose not to believe because there is no evidence, but you are not truly irrational if you choose to believe. You begin to push the boundries of irrationality when you start to take positions about what this super being wants us to do and how it’s going to punish us if we don’t do it.
The short form is people needed religion to explain and attempt to influence the world around them. We have the scientific method now, so the purpose of religion is reduced to serving as an emotional salve. If you want that salve, by all means use it, but recognize that religious rules and tabboos, whether they are how women should dress, what you should eat, who you should NOT fuck and whether or not you can protect yourself with a condom have no place in the 21st century world…
mikey
Jillian, you really should read “The End of Faith”. There is no “bizzare budhist rant” in the book. Mr. Harris is scientifically examining the need within humans for spirituality. You may or may not agree with many of his conclusions, but he is very smart, writes very well and has a level of commitment to research, fairness and study that is entirely admirable. Remember, there are people who are desparately ideologically opposed to what he has to say, so you might want to be careful about what you’ve “heard” about him or his books…
mikey
The problem isn’t zealotry, and it’s not ideology in general. It’s aggression.
It’s all three — or, well, both, since the first and the third are redundancies in this context.
Still, there is a bit of truth in Phinn’s first neener-neener: The worst sorts of communists were religious about their communism.
Which in turn leads to the root of the matter. Some ideologies are more dangerous than others and I think it is directly proportional to how universalist those ideologies are.
Does your ideology demand that its metaphysical inventory of crap is the only TRUE intepretation/explanation of mystical events (Creation with a crapital C, History with a crapital H; also eschatological prophecy)?
If so, given how humans think and act, implicitly when not explicitly there is a mandate to convert the Other.
This is the simple recipe for genocide. And as Iraq proves, liberalism can also be used as a dangerous universal. Except the idiots whose beloved crusade, which they thought was good because it was allegedly about spreading democracy (at gunpoint) think that they represent Enlightenment values, when in actual point of fact (as Habermas first and best explained) it is counter to Enlightenment values to demand conversion to any ideology by the barrell of a gun.
Tolerance is a rare benign universal. But tolerance can only be taught by example and demands force for its defence only when put in actual “clear and present threat” of its annihilation. A few random acts of terrorism don’t qualify, and neither do the distant hatreds of Others who are what they are only because Tolerance has been first abrogated by those who purport to defend it: If there were no predatory and invasive McWorld, there would be no Jihad.
ACG, mind if I ask you a personal question?
How do you personally handle it when your own favorite irrationalism offers up some sort of universal dictum for behavior? Like “people shouldn’t have premarital sex” or “divorce is wrong”? What about the mandate given in the New Testament to convert people – to be “fishers of men”?
Not trying to put you on the spot here, just looking to see how a mind different from my own makes sense of these things. Alas, my own personal irrationalism is more or less confined to being an enormous Star Wars patsy: even when the movies are objectively awful, they’re still the best thing I’ve ever seen. I am, in fact, one of those sad suckers who waited in line for over twelve hours for tickets. Basically, George Lucas could pull his old Ewok costumes out of storage, dress up a bunch of little people in them, have them all playing poker, smoking cigars, and drinking bourbon, and sell it as “Star Wars 37: When Ewoks Go Bad”, and I would still line up for tickets like the hopeless doofus I am.
It’s just that this doesn’t provide me with any great insight into the conversion ethic, no matter how dorky it might be otherwise.
All we are truly arguing is for a modern, scientifically enlightened culture to use the tools and information available today to stop making unsupportable claims. Look, science makes no conclusion on the existence of god. I choose not to believe because there is no evidence, but you are not truly irrational if you choose to believe. You begin to push the boundries of irrationality when you start to take positions about what this super being wants us to do and how it’s going to punish us if we don’t do it.
I agree with all that Mikey but why I liked Eagleton’s essay even wher it came down hard on Dawkins is where it basically accused him of Panglossianism. I think this is accurate. Neoliberalism is a univerisal ideology that’s creepy anyway; but the technophilia branch of it is truly batshit:
On the horrors that science and technology have wreaked on humanity, [Dawkins] is predictably silent. Yet the Apocalypse is far more likely to be the product of them than the work of religion. Swap you the Inquisition for chemical warfare.
Amen.
“The fact of the matter is” that people like Glenn Reynolds, and even those less geeky and obviously bellicose, are just as relgious in their own beliefs and just as likely as theistic loons, perhaps more so, to send us the way of the dodo bird.
By the way–if we’re going to credit Mao with 40 million deaths, then we’d better be prepared to be at least as harsh to his prdecessors. See, China is a land of periodic famine, and it loses large numbers of people to famine every century. It happened on Mao’s watch–but the Chinese Reds went on to improve irrigation and distribution so that it hasn’t happened subesequently. Check out deaths by starvation under Chiang Kai-shek and Sun Yat-sen and compare them to Mao’s box scores–nasty he may have been, but he didn’t control the weather any better than the previous landlords.
Phinn–give your copy of the Black Book of Communism back to the library. It’s been exposed as deeply shoddy schlarship too many times already. (Gary is expected to fall back on shoddy scholarship.)
If there were no predatory and invasive McWorld, there would be no Jihad.
This seems pretty silly unless you’re talking about specific jihads. There are religious conflicts around the globe that don’t have much to do with McAnything. Ian Paisley would be a nut regardless of whether or not there was a Starbucks on every block.
Doc —
Not to give credence to the religiously anti-communist, but didn’t Mao, along with the civil engineering projects which were a good, make the awesomely stupid decision, based out of a sort of Lysenkoism along with a bit of greed considering the world markets at the time, for China to plant vast amounts of corn (maize, I mean)? That’s the story I always heard. Of course the crops failed over and over and that’s when the famine really started.
This seems pretty silly unless you’re talking about specific jihads.
I am talking about the specific Jihad of Islamic terrorism. It would not exist — at least not in virulent form — were it not for McWorld which is at once Xtian and Jewish as well as commercial and “secular”. The theistic shit really inflames it, and manufactures radicals, but it is the “soft” shit that gets the ball rolling, the commercial/economic imperialism.
I agree with all that Mikey but why I liked Eagleton’s essay even wher it came down hard on Dawkins is where it basically accused him of Panglossianism. I think this is accurate. Neoliberalism is a univerisal ideology that’s creepy anyway; but the technophilia branch of it is truly batshit:
Well, THAT sent me scurrying to wikipedia. I’ll have to read the entry more carefully, as in my first scan I didn’t see how it applied. But if I understand the argument, the technology developed by the reality based community while doing research using the scientific method is just as evil as the religions, and is more likely to bring about the apocalypse. I think this is completely specious. Technology produced the tools, ideology drove the tool users. I assure you the first sharp edged tools were used peacefully in the harvesting of food and meat, and it took some tribal nutjob do recognize that they could be used for coersion…
mikey
General Woundwort: OT again, but I think you’ll like it, and it will serve as comic relief until Gary comes back.
Penn Jillette, of Penn & Teller, has a daily phone-in talk show, available as a podcast from iTunes. His co-host is fellow juggler Michael Goudeau, and they are both very vocal and committed atheists.
Some weeks ago they were talking about common childhood mythologies. Penn, whose two kids are toddlers, plans to teach them nothing about Santa Claus or the Easter Bunny, except at some point as something silly other people believe in. Goudeau thinks it’s harmless and fun to let them believe in such things, at least when their friends still do, but said he’d decided that if ever asked directly, he would not lie.
So a few weeks before that show his son, who is 7 or 8, came home from school in a troubled mood. Another kid had told him there was no such thing as the Tooth Fairy, and he asked Goudeau, “Dad, who is the Tooth Fairy?”
There it was, the direct question. So he replied, “Well, actually, the Tooth Fairy is your Mom and Dad.”
But instead of being disappointed, his son looked up at him with wonderment and said, “You mean you go to EVERYONE’S HOUSE???“
I dunno; I’m disappointed. Five, six new Gary posts, and not a single “The fact is…” in the lot.
This new Gary is a letdown.
Oh, that really is very funny! Gave me the laugh I needed today – thanks!
Jillian – Ain’t no thang. I think my cafeteria Catholicism makes it a lot easier to handle (plus the great rational education my parents pushed on me), because I don’t actually recognize any universal dicta. Most of them have been added for political purposes and/or to advance a patriarchal subcommunity and have little to nothing to do with the Big Guy on whose teachings Christianity claims to be based. I know that seems a bit too convenient, but, I mean, “don’t eat shrimp”? If Christian leaders can cherrypick bits of their own religious text, I have no compunction about doing the same.
The Bible isn’t a rulebook, it’s a philosophy book. It doesn’t have literal laws, it has stories to read and messages from a smart and nice guy. And all of it has to be filtered through the lens of history and logic and reason before you try and apply it to your life, because that’s the point at which it starts influencing other people (see above re: the importance of rationality in all interpersonal dealings).
As for things like “fishers of men” and evangelization and “no one comes to the Father except through me,” I have no problem with the idea that I should encourage other people to live the way Jesus taught. I mean, it pretty much came down to be nice to other people, don’t fucking judge, no one’s inherently better than anyone else, help the less fortunate. Most of the stuff that’s so objectionable now, things like hatred for gays and giving money to televangelists and persecuting pregnant teenagers to save their womb babies, has been added in quasi-modern times by powerful men with big agendas. In the end, I couldn’t care less if someone worships Jesus, Ganesh, the FSM, or no one at all – as long as they stop kicking that homeless guy. Being a “fisher of men,” to me, doesn’t mean winning converts and getting the church’s numbers up; it means encouraging people to be decent human beings.
Oh, and here’s the rub: Would I still feel the same way and act the same way if I’d been raised by atheists? Would I be the same if I’d been raised by Baptists? Would I be the same if I’d been raised by two Catholics, instead of a liberal Catholic mother and a Unitarian father? I have no idea; I like to think so. I like to think that even if I didn’t have the “Jesus ate with prostitutes” background, I’d still (try to) be nonjudgmental and tolerant and charitable. I don’t think that religion as a whole makes people any more moral than they would be otherwise, and I don’t know that my religion has made me any more moral than I would be otherwise. But it’s the kind of thing we’ll never know. And that’s why religion is a personal thing and not something that should ever be used as a basis for government.
And don’t worry about personal questions. I’m well-nigh unoffendable.
I am talking about the specific Jihad of Islamic terrorism. It would not exist — at least not in virulent form — were it not for McWorld which is at once Xtian and Jewish as well as commercial and “secular�.
I don’t have enough of the history together, but I think it’d happen without the economic pressure. There is Israel, Kashmir, and Afghanistan, all of which are conflicts that don’t require economic pressure to get the tinder lit, and the Al-Qaeda boys are generally privileged, relatively speaking. The Lebanese Civil War had some notable suicide attacks.
Still, it wouldn’t have been nearly as bad in Iraq if the public dole (massive government and military) hadn’t been eradicated. Food is the first thing, morals follow.
I can’t argue with any of those beliefs. I’ve spent my whole life doing what I can to help others when I can. It’s always been important to me, if for no other reason than I have very often been the person who needs help, and I know very well how it feels to need it and not get it.
I just don’t see anything on that list that’s recognizably “Catholic”, or even “Christian”. That’s my problem right there with those terms – either they’re used so nebulously that they don’t mean anything at all, or when they’re used in such a way that they’re true to the beliefs listed in the Bible, they’re moral abominations.
But then again, I liked Return of the Jedi, so I should just never open my mouth in public again.
Infidel!
But seriously, I think you just hit the nail on the head – there’s nothing uniquely Christan or Catholic about my beliefs. There are plenty of Muslims and Buddhists and atheists who feel the same way. Yes, my religion, particularly the way I was raised within the framework of that religion, has informed my beliefs. But my way isn’t the only way. It’s like an IKEA that has sixteen different roads leading up to it. What’s important isn’t the road that you took; what’s important is that, in the end, you found your way to reasonably-priced Swedish DIY furniture and kicky home furnishings, and that you didn’t hurt anybody on the way.
And that’s why I’m so, so, sosososo pissed off at these quote-Christians-unquote who go around condemning people and trying to impose their religion on others – because that’s a perversion of religion as a whole. When I identify myself as “Christian,” it groups me in with a bunch of assholes who want to ignore the teachings of Christ entirely and just feel self-righteous and tell people what to do. T’ain’t right.
At the time they were making Return of the Jedi I was working in a small san rafael door/interior finish shop. ILM was in a big warehouse around the corner on B st. They were coming in to buy great big blocks of ten quarter white pine, from which they were carving the space ships. There was no price they would not pay. 2 interesting facts. In order to fool people that they were not making another star wars movie, they created a mythology that they were making a horror film called “Blue Harvest”. They had posters, hats, tee shirts, all sorts of crap. I had a blue harvest tee shirt. Gave it to a girlfriend. Can’t imagine what that would be worth today. Also, the original title was “Revenge of the Jedi”. It was later deemed that “revenge” was a negative word. Know what? I had a Revenge of the Jedi tee shirt too. Yep, you guessed it. Gave it to a girlfriend. Sheesh…
mikey
The death of one man is a tragedy; the death of a million is a statistic. –Uncle Josef
Oh, and here’s the rub: Would I still feel the same way and act the same way if I’d been raised by atheists? Would I be the same if I’d been raised by Baptists? Would I be the same if I’d been raised by two Catholics, instead of a liberal Catholic mother and a Unitarian father? I have no idea; I like to think so.
I’m actually pretty grateful to exposure to the idea of Jesus as good guy. As an avatar of niceness, he’s great most of the time (although I think the book of John is anti-semetic). I think the world might be more screwy without that example being pushed on us all the time, however irrationally, and I think I’d be worse off for it.
Honesty in theism…which is why I worship Azathoth:
Azathoth. One of the Outer Gods and considered the center of all the universe. Azathoth is described by Lovecraft as “that last amorphous blight of nethermost confusion which blasphemies and bubbles at the center of all infinity—the boundless daemon sultan Azathoth, whose name no lips dare speak aloud, and who gnaws hungrily in inconceivable, unlighted chambers beyond time amidst the muffled, maddening beating of vile drums and the thin monotonous whine of accursed flutes.”
Azathoth is the ruler of all Outer Gods and is considered timeless, having existed since before the creation of all the universe. None have seen Azathoth and told the tale, the mindless fluting of Azathoth’s servitors as they orbit the idiot god driving simple man to his death. It is whispered that Nyarlathotep stands at Azathoth’s beck and call, though what missions a mass of chaos would desire is beyond comprehension.
Though never directly mentioned, it can be speculated that Azathoth is the center of creation from whence all things come, the ultimate chaos at the center of the universe which gives life and death at its fancy.
As an avatar of niceness, he rocks. But to hear a lot of so-called Christians talk about him, you’d never know. A lot of seriously nasty shit has been done in his name. Makes me sad.
And I really, really, really didn’t mean to hijack this heathen thread in the name of the blessed virgin. I guess I just wanted to put a little bit of distance and clarity between Christians, Christianists, Radical Christianists, and the New Gary.
The problem with turning the other cheek is that you just get slapped again.
Whereas crazy radical lefties want freedom for all (including the freedom to make incredibly bad decisions like privately believing everyone who doesn’t subscribe to your particular deity will spend eternity in batshit agony), crazy radical righties want freedom only for themselves. They’re so damn SURE they’re right about everything that they want everyone else to believe exactly what they believe, and to hell with them if they don’t, no pun intended. So, fine, believe in your noodly master, but quit showing up at my door at 7 a.m. on a Saturday trying to get me to believe in him, too.
Gary Ruppert said,
You can’t tell the difference between a muslim and a radical muslim.
I’ve noticed that myself. These swarthy people all look alike. It would be a lot easier if the radical ones distinguished themselves with a t-shirt slogan or something.
I’ve noticed that myself. These swarthy people all look alike. It would be a lot easier if the radical ones distinguished themselves with a t-shirt slogan or something.
Armband.
The Religious Right and the Republican party in general just fucked themselves for a generation by throwing Hispanics under the bus in a vain attempt to win the 2006 midterms. It should be very clear at this point that the Republican party is all about white people, and white people only. Virtually every Republican I have ever met in my entire life is a racist.
The Religious Right is primarily concerned with protecting a “white” lifestyle– no nigras, Mexlamists, homos or secular libruls messin’ with our sons and daughters. To me, that’s the driving force behind all Republicanism, really. “Small government” is just another way of saying “don’t give our money to the nigras.” Talk to a Republican for a few minutes and you will find that this is the basic core of their belief system.
Retardo–
Hadn’t heard that bit about Mao gettin’ corn-holed, but I’ll look it up. It is pretty well-established that hsi predecessors also racked up impressive tolls due to starvation, but they weren’t Communists, so…
Sorry to have been absent. Patients, y’know.
I think this is all a question of how do you react to xtians as an atheist. Sure there are good xtians (and by good I mean they can get along in a pluralistic society are tolerant of other etc.) who are not threats to those of us who are not xtians, and they are probably the majority. What I do not see are those believers in being decent shouting down the fundie crazies who do so want to save us from our false gods, our base desires and ourselves. When Fallwell gets up and says “Teh Gays caused 9/11, heathen bitchez!1!!”, why does he not loose his credibility? Where are the condemnations of his co-religionists? I heard the Shrub’s spokesman trying to distance the admin form the comment – but that’s it. What I did not hear is a series of condemnations along the lines of “we believe the Rev. Fallwell to be seriously unbalanced and delusional”. Did I miss it? Were these kinds of statements made and just not covered in the media?
As an atheist I look upon anyone who is public about their religion and its benefits with a great deal of suspicion – I usually think of them as krypto-fundies. The fact that there are so many xtianists who publicly proclaim hateful and exclusionary beliefs without a publicly vocal xtian opposition worries the hell out of me – how do I know that the quiet ones don’t share some of these wacky-ass beliefs? I find that I treat them all with the suspicion that they can at any moment do something crazy for reasons that I have no hope of understanding.
When the evil Mooslamofascists blow folks up, why don’t the other Muslims say anything? Why isn’t every Muslim in the world responsible for the actions of radical Islamist terrorists? If they don’t all hate the infidels, why don’t they say something? I find that I treat them all with the suspicion that they’re stinky, towel-wearing blowers-up-of-innocents for reasons that I have no hopes of understanding.
At least I’m consistent enough to wish a pox on both your houses. 😉
Dammit to hell, all I want in life is a presidential candidate I can really feel passionate about, a new mass airflow sensor for my VW, a Democratic legislature that actually tries to do something useful, and Michael Bublé’s home phone number. Is that too much to ask? Can’t we all just get along?
ACG:
I’ve got to give him that one. Radical Christians can be found climbing the mondo heavies and shootin’ the tube at Pipeline, whereas Muslims don’t surf.
Give him nothing.
Ahem…
http://www.globalsurfnews.com/news.asp?Id_news=24934
“Muslim surf star turfed out by US
“Surfersvillage Global Surf News, 18 November, 2006 : – – Brazilian surf champion Jihad Khodr’s bid to remain in the World Cup Tour (WCT) series for next season could be scuppered after he was stopped by US immigration officials in Dallas on Saturday.
“According to local reports Khodr, a Muslim whose parents are Lebanese, was travelling via Dallas to Hawaii for a major competition but was stopped by immigration officials in Dallas and sent home. The competition (Vans Triple Crown of Surfing) in Oahu, Hawaii is vital to his chances of retaining his place on the WCT for next season.
“It is the second time he has been denied entry to the US. Three years ago Khodr was stopped in Washington.”
Maybe he should just change his first name.
ACG, You do have muslims that decry the use of force, I’ve even heard about them on the MSM. Of course I have no citations handy but try this:
Google “islamic reaction to terrorism”
hit the fist link
– The terrorist act was strongly condemned by every single Palestinian organization including Fatah, the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, Hamas, Workers Unions and Committees, Human Right organizations (AlHaq, Law, Palestine Center for Human Rights), student associations, municipalities, mosques and churches, etc.
– The US Consul General in Jerusalem reported that he has received a huge stack of faxes from Palestinians and Palestinian organizations expressing condolences, grief and solidarity. He himself was pained to see that the media chose to focus on the sensational images of a few Palestinians rejoicing.
– The Palestine Legislative Council condemned the terrorist attack on the United States and sent an urgent letter of condolences to Mr. J Dennis Hasterd, Speaker of the House of Representatives.
– Palestinians in East Jerusalem held a candle-light vigils on 12 and 14 September to express their grief and solidarity with the American families struck by this tragedy. Mr. Abdel Qader Al-Husseini, son of the late Palestinian leader Faisal Al-Husseini led one of the vigils.
– Jerusalem University students, along with the President of the University and the Deans of the various Faculties, began a blood donation drive in East Jerusalem. Students and professors went to hospitals in order to donate blood for the American victims who need it.
– The 1 million Palestinian students in the Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, stood five minutes in silence to express their solidarity with the hundreds of American children who have been struck by this strategy, which resembles in its shocking effects their daily sufferings. (see image to the right)
-In Iran, Tehran’s main soccer stadium observed an unprecedented minute’s silence in sympathy with the victims.
-Iran’s Ayatollah Imami Kashani spoke of a catastrophic act of terrorism which could only be condemned by all Muslims, adding the whole world should mobilise against terrorism.
My country is not full of muslims out to force their beliefs on me and my family – despite what the government tries to scare us into believing. It does have a sizable and powerfull minority that seem to be trying to force us into a xtian “biblical society”.
I have no tolerance for a group or groups trying to reshape my society based on “revealed truth” and the “inerrant word” of the creator. This is happening in America right now and is far more of an existential threat to our society than radical islam. Xtianists are real, they exist, and have engaged in acts of domestic terrorism designed to express displeasure at “sinners” and bring publicity their various causes.
The moderate religious in our society (i’d call ’em good) have an opportunity to speak out and moderate the influence of fanatics. This does not appear to be happening. Even the Catholic church – long regarded as a relatively moderate instituion – seems to have swung far into fundie territory. It has become inflamitory and divisive, very far from catholic. Hell, they are even attempting to influence our politics – publically declaring that a politician who does not toe the line cannot eat the holy cannibal bread or the sacred blood wine.
Also, aren’t a lot of the best surfing sites in the world to be found in the Indian Ocean? You know, the ocean by east Africa, Pakistan, India, Sri Lanka, Indonesia, Bali, etc, etc.? Seems there’d be a whole hell of a lot of Muslim surfers there.
I’m just sayin’…
You know I’m just joking around, ACG (I hope). I’d love to see a world with no religion in it at all, but I’m not prepared to do anything more violent than reason with people who express religious views. Perhaps point my finger at them and laugh on occasion. I wouldn’t necessarily be above putting together a contingent of really hot atheist guys and gals who offer to put out for anyone who deconverts, either – but that’s one of the more long-range plans of the Evil Atheist Conspiracy.
Jillian – I know better than to take anything said here too terribly seriously. I’d settle for a world where people are content to mind their own homes before they start messing with other peoples’, but I suspect we’re both going to be disappointed. I guess that’s why the Flying Spaghetti Monster invented Jack Daniel’s and ginger ale.
ironicname – See above re: don’t take things here too terribly seriously, and if you have any further questions, bite me. I realize that all Muslims worldwide can’t be expected to answer for the actions of a few violent uber-fundamentalists, and I’d never hold them thusly responsible. But it’s equally unfair for you to demand that the population of Christians that you yourself admit does exist be held responsible for the hateful fundamentalist blatherings of Jerry Falwell. I do my best with what I have to try and influence a world where, as I said above, people don’t fuck with each other; anything outside of that sounds an awful lot like a YP.
ACG,
I will not bite you – I object in principle to biting people.
As for not taking things too seriously – well, this is a site famous for its snark.
I think that GSF belief is a blot on humanity (you probably figured that out) – while it do good things it is too easily manipulated by the unscrupulous and too easily shields the self righteous from introspection.
I have literally nothing to offer someone who believes that the big guy exists, is with them, and they will live forever in HIS glorious kingdom – what I think about mortality is very cold comfort so I don’t fool myself into thinking that I can bring anyone around to my way of thinking. The posts above were expressions of frustration – I got nothing when it comes to engaging the fundies so I hope that those who do have a common ground with them can engage them and help moderate their corrosive impact on our society. That there does not seem to be any such move from the moderates pisses me off to no end. The muslims’ seem to have the stones to sing out when their co-religionists do wrong, why can’t the xtians?
or even “can do good things”
Preview button anyone?
Christianist? Nah. I prefer Christopath, stolen from driftglass, but I like it. -Ist sort implies taking something a little too far. -Path implies malicious intent or disease. I’ll go with -path for the current crop of smite-happy gasbags.
Cristopath – I like it.
It would be a lot easier if the radical ones distinguished themselves
What we need is Sylvester McMonkey McBean.
But who’s gonna put “stars upon thars?”
Sylvester does it all, man. Puts ’em on, takes ’em off. He’s a sneetch’s all-around go-to guy.
*SIGH* There’s just so much I don’t know. I spend half my life here, and the other half on Wiki trying to keep up…
mikey
I’ve got a 4 year old. Mikey, don’t feel bad.
You’re fabulous just the way you are, mikey. And don’t you forget it.
“S,N!: Come for the snark, stay for the mikey*.”
That you feel obligated to read before answering has a lot to do with that.
* not to leave anyone else out. Just sayin’.
If it’s not obscure science fiction or eighties bands, it’s some new philosophical -ism, usually supplied by Retardo or childrens books. Y’know, for an uneducated layman I’m reasonably conversant in cosmology and high energy physics, but does that ever come up? NNNNNNNNNNOOOOOOOOO!!!
mikey
I’ll say one more word about faith– faith need not be defined in terms of a complete independence from empirical evidence. That definition is not true to a large part of the concept’s history. Faith is not about believing something and stoppering you ears with your fingers and humming to yourself. Faith can be future-oriented and hope-based, because in the realm of action there is little alternative. William James’s “The Will to Believe” and John Dewey’s “A Common Faith” are pragmatic, scientifically-allied attempts to articulate this. If I am stranded on a mountain, and there is a chasm I have to jump across, having faith that I can do it may be necessary for me actually to do it. Now move that to social contexts. Having faith in humanity may be necessary in order for that faith itself to be vindicated (e.g. bring about a more democratic order).
Faith is a commitment to act to bring about an ideal in the future, when that future is up in the air. It is not primarily just a belief about the world. And most every commitment to act has a bit of faith in it, a bit of a leap into the unknown. And by that definition faith can be very informed, and incorporate empirical evidence as much as possible. It can also be shallow and stupid.
What Sam Harris does in demonizing faith is block from view the social and political forms of faith that draw on the best from religious traditions (hence my example of MLK). He thinks liberal “faith” is wishy-washy, instead of considering that it may be that those who have faith in people to work for justice (surely not something that is proven in history) help to bring that goal about in their commitment, energy, and hope toward that end.
Obviously the value of faith is entirely dependent on the objects and ideals of faith. Faith in God has a long and checkered history, but it does have strong connections to a faith in the best of humanity, especially when one is living in dark times.
I love me some sneeches. I asked my kid one time, when he was maybe 5, who do you think was really better, and he said, the ones with the stars. And I could not budge him. The sneeches may have learned a valuable lesson that day, but Jack, sadly, no.
Jeff, if you have evidence, what do you need faith for? You’re really diluting the meaning of “faith” by using it in such a fashion.
Look at it this way: I drove my car yesterday and the day before. Each time when I put the key in the ignition, it started right up. I didn’t drive my car today. When I go to drive my car tomorrow, on what basis do I believe that my car will start when I put the key in the ignition?
Well, I could say that I have plenty of evidence that my car is mechanically reliable. I provide proper maintenance and keep it gassed up. So, I could say that I have plenty of reasons to believe my car will start.
Do I have absolute certainty that it will? Of course not.
So, should I then say that I have “faith” that my car will start?
See. here’s the problem. Once you start playing fast and loose with evidentiary standards like that, then language ceases to have meaning. If all “faith” means is lack of absolute certainty in a given event, then it doesn’t mean anything – because we *always* have lack of certainty in a given future event. Frankly, I’m willing to put my evidence that my car will start tomorrow head to head with your evidence for God – because I don’t think you have any.
The reasonable person, when placed in a position of lacking sufficient evidence to draw a conclusion about some future event, remains agnostic about it. Who’s going to win the 2008 presidential election? I have no clue. No idea at all. I certainly *hope* it’s going to be someone sane for a change, but I have no data base from which to draw conclusions, and so I refrain from doing so.
If “faith” is a commitment to act to bring about an ideal in the future”, the how does having “faith” relate to the existence of a deity? Does God not exist now, but you plan on bringing God into existence in the future? That doesn’t even make any sense.
And your other example, about crossing a chasm, is the exact criticism that atheists place on faith all the time: it’s a crutch. How many times in your day to day life do you face the real equivalent of that metaphorical chasm-crossing? If you need “faith” to get through your day to day affairs, then I feel sorry for you. I really do.
I’m sorry, but nothing you’ve said there is really very coherent or very convincing. It’s a muddied use of language that belies the fact that behind your words there is no coherent content. I’m all for being tolerant of faith communitites, but that doesn’t mean I don’t call bullshit when I see it. I just respect people’s right to follow their own personal brand of bullshit as much as they like.
Jeff, jeff jeff. To characterise what Harris says as demonizing faith is unfair and a blatently false interpretation of the book. What Sam Harris does is say, in plain language, that “faith” is a conversation killer. Yes, he makes a compelling point that “religious moderates” enable the worst kind of litteralist interpretations of the infallible word, but nobody is “demonized”. The idea is to open up a real dialogue where non-believers can actually offer an opinion and we can have a discussion. We just want, at this early point, to level the playing field and make our position as valid as any other…
mikey
Faith in God has a long and checkered history, but it does have strong connections to a faith in the best of humanity, especially when one is living in dark times.
Dark ages perhaps?
In his book, Mikey, he is more measured. But I’ve read interviews and articles where he starts bringing out the “how many people have to fly planes into buildings” line, to the effect that those who “really” have faith fit his profile of full detachment from evidentiary reasoning. I take back “demonizing” as a full description of his position, but he does slip into it at times.
And Jillian, your car example misses the whole point about action. You’ve said you’re a cynic, which may make sense of why you did. Dewey and James’s point is that cynicism is not rationality. The person who brings about something by faith is more rational than the person who has the same ideal but decides the evidence is not enough to justify hope, and in losing hope loses the will to act.
By the way, I’m an atheist from the South, so I know from having conversations stopped. I just think you have to get to the root of religion, where it’s strongest, in order to understand it. And to the degree that people’s belief in God is a way to imagine and gain the energy to pursue justice and liberation, you can’t just knock beliefs about evolution and Marian appearances in a bar of soap. It’s not about evidence for God in the abstract– and it’s not about just getting up in the morning (but I appreciate your pity, Jillian). It’s about what you do after you get up, what you do in the face of death, and what you imagine is worth your time for the short time you’re here. Is God necessary for that? No. But belief in God need no more be a crutch than cynicism. As I said, I’m an atheist, and often a cynic. All I mean to say is that religion is more complex than we often think.
Look at Cornel West’s “Keeping Faith” (or any of his other books), for instance. Try to tell me he’s using faith as a “crutch” in taking Christianity to be about looking at and fighting against empire from the perspective of one who was hung on the cross because of it. As an atheist, I can’t write off his faith from that perspective (i.e. that it will contribute to a better fight against oppression) as unreasoned. Unnecessary, maybe, or unconvincing. But he’s got some good reasons behind him.
Jeff, the point is that you don’t NEED “faith” to bring something about. Faith is not ” a willingness to commit to action even in the face of an uncertain outcome”. Once again, if that’s all “faith” means, then it doesn’t mean much. Every action we take faces an uncertain outcome. The next time I go to poop, the strain of it could conceviably give me a heart attack – is my willingness to poop an “act of faith”, then? Why is one uncertain act – say, working to bring about civil rights for gays and lesbians – an act of faith, while the other uncertain act – my next bowel movement – not? And if *everything* is an act of faith, then that’s formally equivalent to *nothing* being an act of faith.
Like I said, this is just incoherent nonsense. I understand people feel they need faith. But even if that faith inspires them to do great things, it doesn’t make it any less of a crutch. It’s a sweet crutch, a nice crutch – but a crutch nonetheless. It shouldn’t take a full on abandonment of reason for a person to find the motivation to do good things, and if it does, it cheapens the goodness of their actions. Your analogy here reduces full grown adults to the status of children who are only well behaved in November and December when Santa Claus is watching. It’s a sorry state of affairs if that is what it takes for people to do the right things.
Jillian: is my willingness to poop an “act of faith�, then?
The rational answer to that depends entirely on previous day’s consumption of Chicken Vindaloo.
(yeah, I know, I fished through all that fine argumentation and popped out with a turd joke… I’ll try to get help, someday.)
“I am stranded on a mountain, and there is a chasm I have to jump across, having faith that I can do it may be necessary for me actually to do it. Now move that to social contexts. Having faith in humanity may be necessary in order for that faith itself to be vindicated (e.g. bring about a more democratic order).”
Jeff,
Not to pile on, but what your are talking about is a judgment based on experience – a judgment call based on your prior experience jumping and extrapolated to fit your current predicament. You have made a rational connection. Just as Jillian has with her car.
You know that you will die if you don’t get off the mountain; you know this because you know cold kills and you can feel your life slipping away. You see a chasm up ahead and you know you have to jump it in order to survive, you know you can jump and you know about how far. If you can see how wide the chasm is, you can make a rational decision and have confidence, not faith, that you can make it or not. This confidence is based on experience, not made up stuff.
Belief that there is some entity that you can’t see, hear, taste, touch or smell, that runs your life, created the world, cares where you put your penis (or where you accept one) is faith. You have no experience of this being, you are not making a judgment, and you are making an irrational decision that is based on no evidence whatsoever. Basically you believe because someone told you to.
You left out the “bring about the ideal” part, which would (except for maybe R Kelly) rule out taking a dump. And you don’t NEED faith in all circumstances. I’m not arguing for the existence of God or the absolute necessity of faith. But it’s precisely the opposite of greedy kids trying to appease Santa to have the faith I have in mind. For a Marxist, atheist presentation of what I have in mind, see Ernst Bloch’s “The Principle of Hope.”
I appreciate your reaction, though– I take your points. I just think the concept of faith does not collapse if it departs from your extreme rendering. If I say I have faith in you before you give a history lecture, I don’t think it’s nonsense. But I do think it has connection to other conceptions of faith. Just as when somebody says they love God, I think that concept is tied up with their conceptions of romantic love, and friendship, and parental love.
Jeff,
Not that I am accusing you of belief in marvellous invisible beings – just that I disagree on your take about the nature of faith.
Agreed ironicname. The example of the chasm that William James uses depends on experience and judgment. The just “making stuff up” beyond any conceivable experience empties religious statement of content. I think religious faith has to have some basis in history and experience, however thin (they usually call it “revelation”). The point is that there are different appeals to experience, and in some cases one’s action toward an ideal is much less based on experience than in other cases, relying on hope and imagination. If it gives you the hives to call those less experientially-supported ventures “faith,” fine. I don’t claim that religious faith is necessary. Hell I don’t have any myself.
Jeff,
I am no philosopher, but as I see it, faith is not something that is based on expereince – unless its based on a mistaken cause and effect relationship. It does not give me hives to call “less experientially-supported ventures” faith – exactly the opposite (though I would call them non-experentially supported).
Religious faith is either a willfull, wistfull or mistaken cause and effect relationship.
Hope and imagination are not faith. They are hope and imagination.
I hope this works – because if it doesn’t we’re screwed.
I can imagine this not working, or working depending on X.
They are very different patterns of thought from faith. Hope is the thought I would really like this to happen. While imagination is the ability to “see” events in the minds eye that have yet to happen. They can be based on faith or related to faith or even divorced from faith, but they are not faith.
Nicely put.
Hoping a student can learn and imagining a student can learn are related but different from having faith that a student can learn. Faith suggests a commitment, and a character of commitment, that unleashes the imagination in trying one’s damnedest to teach that student. Jillian will say, rightly, that a good teacher doesn’t need “faith” in a student to do their damnedest. Fair enough in the abstract. But a commitment beyond the evidence is not a commitment without reference to evidence or background experience at all.
We put our faith in all types of things, with varying results. Losing faith is tougher than losing an opinion, and has different practical impact in terms of one’s investment.
Dammit, where’s the snark? My faith in the all-powerful snarkosity of SadlyNo! is being cruelly shattered. That IS painful.
Why does “faith suggest commitment”? Where I come from “commitment” suggests commitment.
See, this is what happens when you are sloppy in your use of language. You bastardize out of all possibility any sense in your communication.
I’m sorry, but I “put my faith” in nothing. I have no faith. It’s a ridiculous superstition.
And you still haven’t given a coherent definition of “faith”. You keep calling it “a commitment” or “a willingness to bring something about” or whatever other hemming and hawing you feel necessary to avoid confronting the fact that the word doesn’t mean anything coherent. And NONE of the examples you give in ANY way relate to people believing in the existence of an unverifiable, omniscient, omnipotent, omnibenevolent being – even if one concedes on your example of, say, “having faith in your friends” (which I certainly do NOT), that STILL doesn’t address the issue at the heart of theistic “faith” – faith in the existence of a God.
Please, please, please, stop abusing the poor English language this way. What has it ever done to you that you treat it so poorly?
And your example of saying you “have faith in me” before I deliver a lecture, and then tying that into the concept of religious people having faith, is an example of the logical fallacy known as equivocation. The meaning in the first usage of the word “faith” is not the same as the meaning of the word in its second usage.
It’s funny, because I’m pretty sure that somewhere further up in this thread I observed that the main problem with apologists for faith is that they equivocated on the meaning of the word. It’s a subtle, subtle thing, and I really don’t think the people doing it consciously realize they’re doing it, but it’s equivocation nonetheless.
Me, I like the word “Talibangelical”. For one thing, most Reichtards have to stop and parse that one carefully (you can see their lips moving even in their posts) and slowing down the volume of Reichtard-ness is always a virtue in my cosmology. Mostly, though, if they’re going to act like bloody-minded arseholes I want a publicly scary name to call them.
Retardo, if I was taught correctly, Mao also ran a campaign to destroy every sparrow in China on the grounds that sparrows stole grain from The People. Of course, once the sparrows were dead, the insects that would otherwise have been kept in check by those sparrows were free to multiply explosively and ravage the crops (rice, corn, wheat, barley) thereby causing more spot famines. And the charcoal production that was part of Mao’s misguided “self-sufficiency in iron & steel” deforested vast tracts in northern China, while his determination to plow up the steppes and convert “worthless” herders into good Maoist farmers turned millions of acres into a dustbowl. The ecologists hate Mao even more than the Republicans do, because the ecologists have reason & logic behind their hatred while the Repubs merely bleat whatever version of four-legs-good their masters have approved at this week’s presser.
The problem, Jillian, is that you think I’m apologizing for faith in God instead of showing some of the historical and cultural connections in the concept that are missed. You have an interest in making “faith” wholly unequivocal because you’re convinced theism is its defining instance and think it’s dangerously equivocal to do otherwise. But that way of thinking rules out intellectual history (can we give a completely unequivocal definition of what Madison thought democracy was relative to Plato), and there is a strain of thinking (largely pragmatist and Marxist) that picks up on certain elements of faith and leaves others in the background. As Wittgenstein points out, the word “game” has meaning without having a single unifying definition of “game.” There are overlaps and “family resemblances” in meaning. Communication would be impossible otherwise.
If you see pure equivocation between my examples, that’s important to work on. I’ll think more about how to present it.
And I too am chagrined at how far from snark I have come, so I will take these criticisms seriously and move on.
No, Jeff, I’m just pointing out that “faith in your friends” doesn’t mean anything even close to what “faith in God” means. And if that’s a hard thing for you to see, then I feel bad for your friends.
See, this is part of why I think the New Left sucks balls. This Wittgenstein-derived, poststructuralist abuse of language rooted in the idea that language is just a game we play is the worst load of codswallop to come down the pike since pointy-toed shoes became fashionable. Words mean things. Meanings are not fixed, and there is often confusion and overlap, but the idea is to minimize that confusion, not to embrace it, for Pete’s sake. (Not to overly dis on Witt here, but I do think some of the cretinous French thinkers who came down the pike later on did things with his work that would probably have horrified him)
Saying “I have faith in my friends” is metaphoric. It’s like saying “X is the greatest thing since sliced bread” – it isn’t *actually* the greatest thing since sliced bread, it’s a turn of phrase that is used to indicate that the speaker thinks X is really great. Likewise, saying “I have faith in my friends” doesn’t mean that I have a belief in them that goes beyond the evidence at hand, because that doesn’t mean anything at all. I have plenty of evidence that my friends exist – I’ve touched them, smelled them, heard them, seen them, even tasted them on occasion 😉 When someone says “I have faith in my friends”, what they are actually expressing is a positive sentiment of encouragement toward their friends. It’s a nice gesture.
When someone says “I have faith in God”, they aren’t saying “Go, God – I know you can do it!” It’s not a positive sentiment of encouragement toward God. It’s something wholly different.
If I say “I have faith in the civil rights movement”, it’s much the same as saying “I have faith in my friends”. If I say “I have faith in the basic goodness of human nature”, it’s still much the same as above. These sentiments have absolutely, positively, completely nothing in common with the statement “I have faith in God”. Zero. Zilch. Nada. It’s an accident of the language that the two concepts use the same word at all. If you “bake a cake” and your friends “get baked”, does this mean you put your friends in the oven?
See equivocation for more detail. But it’s exactly what you’re doing here – equivocating. Like I said, every compatibalist approach on theology I’ve ever seen is an equivocal one, so I wouldn’t feel bad. But I do wish y’all would stop doing it.
And you know, all of this could be avoided if just one person on your side of the discussion would give a simple, dictionary style definition of “faith”, and then use that definition in a sentence describing both “God” and any given natural phenomenon. Just once. But everybody’s always got to go on and on about “faith” without ever bothering to offer up a standard definition that works in both situtations.
Are you kidding? That would be awesome. If I were his friend, I’d be all, “Go, empty your checking account, buy me a Volvo, some great shoes, and a peppermint latte. If you do this, you’ll never be poor.” And if he objects, I’d be all, “Hey, it’s okay. You just need to have a little bit of faith.”
I think that what Jeff is calling faith, though, is really confidence. If you have a friend who’s really worried about public speaking, but who has always pulled through in the past, and you say, “You’ll do great. I have faith in you,” you’re actually expressing confidence, since you’re working from past experience. If they’ve always bombed in the past, but you’re trying to be encouraging, you might say, “I have faith in you” and actually use faith in the literal sense, but chances are you’re lying and just trying to make them feel better.
I mean, think about it: The friends you always say you have faith in are the ones who have come through in the past. If you have a friend who consistently screws you over, borrows money without paying it back, bails on you when you go out, and talks about you behind your back, you’d never say, “Oh, he’s been lousy in the past, but I have faith in him.” Unless you’re stupid. Which is a very real possibility.
Which I guess would make my definition of faith “belief in something without any logical sign that said belief is realistic.” In a sentence: “I have faith that God won’t deal me out more than I can handle,” or alternately, “I have faith that Bush will rise up, put his ego aside, and become the great leader he’s always had the potential to be,” or alternately-alternately, “I have faith that Atlas Pam’s tits are the ones she was born with.”
As I said before, faith is inherently illogical.
I’m not on anyone’s side. Missed the whole argument, actually — finals week, exams, blah blah. It seems to me that placing faith (he he) in a dictionary definition isn’t really going to help because the dictionaries so often disagree with each other in subtle but important ways. For example, the American Heritage might provide a definition that could be used for the God and non-God sentence: “a confident belief in the truth, value, or trustworthiness of a person, idea, or thing. Belief that does not rest on logical proof or material evidence.” Not bad. But then the Big Daddy OED mucks it up: “confidence, reliance, trust; in early use, only with reference to religious objects; this is still the prevalent application, and often colours the wider use.” True dat.
My theory, based on the above, is that –. Nah. No theory. Gotta go to work.
Have you noticed that spam names sound like Thomas Pynchon characters? I just got one from Neoptolemus Flick.
I have a theory, as well.
Couldn’t find the actual Monty Python video footage for that one, but it’s a funny bit nonetheless.
I’m just a general campaigner against confusing language usage. “Faith” is one of the words that tends to drive me crazy. “Natural” is another one (as in “made from all-natural ingredients”). “Truth” is another word I have very litttle respect for – doesn’t “fact” work just as well, without all the metaphysical baggage?
“What good is THAT going to do???” (Brian, to his suicidal followers, in Life of Brian).
Confusing language usage is worth fighting– and I hate how compatibilist and ballsuckingly New Left I sound above in working off the cuff here. So as penance,
St. Victor of Python
“And it came to pass that Saint Victor was taken from this place
to another place. Where he was lain to rest himself amongst sheets
of muslin and velvet.
“And there stroked was he by maidens of the Orient.
“For sixteen days and nights stroked they him, yea verily and
caressed him.
“His hair, ruffled they. And their fingers rubbethed they in oil
of olives, and ranneth them across all parts of his body for as much
as to soothe him.
“And the soles of his feet licked they. And the upper parts of
his thigh did they anoint with the balm of forbidden trees.
“And with the teeth of their mouths, nibbled they the pointed
bits at the top of his ears. Yea verily, and did their tongues
thereof make themselves acquainted with his most secret places.
“For fifteen days and nights did Victor withstand these maidens,
until he cried out, saying:
“‘This…is fantastic! Oh…this is *terrific!!*’
“And the Lord did here the cry of Victor. And verily came He down
and slew the maidens. And caused their cottonwool bugs to blow away,
and their Kleenex to be laid waste utterly.
“And Victor, in his anguish, cried out that the Lord was a rotten
bastard.
“So the Lord sent an angel to comfort Victor for the weekend.
“And entered they together the jaccuzzi.”
Here endeth the lesson.
I have faith that I choose the appropriate time to read some Suess(Mulberry Street he didn’t want the Sneetches last night) to my son, have a cocktail, discuss the xmass list with my Quaker wife and then retire to night of blissfull slumber.
but my last comment on faith is this:
“Well I guess it would be nice
If I could touch your body
I know not everybody
Has got a body like you
But I’ve got to think twice
Before I give my heart away
And I know all the games you play
Because I play them too
Oh but I
Need some time off from that emotion
Time to pick my heart up off the floor
And when that love comes down
Without devotion
Well it takes a strong man baby
But I’m showing you the door
‘Cause I gotta have faith…
Baby
I know you’re asking me to stay
Say please, please, please, don’t go away
You say I’m giving you the blues
Maybe
You mean every word you say
Can’t help but think of yesterday
And another who tied me down to loverboy rules
Before this river
Becomes an ocean
Before you throw my heart back on the floor
Oh baby I reconsider
My foolish notion
Well I need someone to hold me
But I’ll wait for something more
Yes I’ve gotta have faith…”
Baby!
I was just moments from a clean getaway when Jillian had to go and say “Truthâ€? is another word I have very litttle respect for – doesn’t “factâ€? work just as well, without all the metaphysical baggage?
My response: no. They’re not the same. A fact is a piece of data, a tangible thing, a thing that can be observed and verified. It is something, therefore, that can be proven true or false. The truth is a couple of things. It is those facts which we have empirically proven to be accurate (or “true”) and it is our subjective knowledge of what those facts mean.
It is a fact that 22% of children in the U.S. live in poverty (or did in 1998, at least). Is this the truth? It is if we trust the Annie E. Casey Foundation’s research methodology and definition of poverty. It is also a fact that the 22% figure is 57% higher than the child-poverty rates in the next two developed countries on the list, Australia and Canada, and 733% higher than the last four developed countries on the list (Denmark, Switzerland, Sweden and Finland). All of these facts represent the truth about relative child poverty in various developed countries, assuming we trust the Casey foundation.
But undoubtedly there will be other “truths” gleaned from these facts. My truth would probably be that the U.S. does a worse job of ensuring the well-being of children than other developed countries do. Someone else’s truth might be that large English-speaking former British colonies do a worse job at same or that northern Europeans in general care more about kids. Doubtless someone’s truth would be that American parents are inherently lazy compared to other parents . . .
The way to resolve conflicting truths, to the extent that it’s even possible, is to gather more facts that can be verified — facts about causality, for example (are there any available data regarding the relationship between primary language of a country and its economic equity? can we reliably define “lazy” and quantify it in such a way that it can be used to validate claims relevant to child poverty?)
Oy. Back to grading final exams.
Eh, I’ll give it to you halfway here. Although I’m still not sure I like the word “truth” to describe what you’re talking about. Maybe “outlook”? “Weltanschauung” if you’re feeling all German idealist and pretentious?
“Truth” just rubs me the wrong way, mostly because of -like I said – the metaphyiscal baggage it carries. It’s got the attendant notion of absolute, revealed knowledge attached to it, and that’s a notion I don’t like much at all (rotten little heathen materialist that I am).
I think you’d like Tarski’s definition of truth, Jillian– no complex cultural inheritances or metaphysical muss.
The statement “P” is true if and only if P.
Facts ARE what is the case. Truths STATE what is the case. No need for God, or the word “absolute”, etc.
Yeah, but any time I say anything nice about correpsondence theories of truth, I get accused of being a naive realist, and that hurts my feelings 😉
I switched my major to history from philosophy halfway through, and I find it impossible to keep up with the relevant reading in the field of philosophy anymore. Makes me sad, because it was always my first love. But history’s been better to me than philosophy ever was – Clio’s a sexy bitch, but all Sophia ever does is tease you.
“Truthâ€? just rubs me the wrong way, mostly because of -like I said – the metaphyiscal baggage it carries.
A brief opinion from the undereducated comonent of the commentariat. It seems to me, Jillian, that you could choose to decouple the word from the baggage. There is nothing you can ever do to entirely avoid being misinterpreted, so the best you can do is speak prescisely and let the words fall the way they do. In my simple little world, the word “Truth” has a set of actual meanings, just as the word “Carpet” or the word “Sheep” does. The baggage, no matter how complex, simply comes from people representing something false as truth. But regardless of how it’s represented, it can still be identified as the truth if enough facts are known. Sure, if I told you I saw a truck hit an ostrich on the way to work this morning, you might not have anyway of verifying whether or not that’s true. But in an absolute sense, it either is or is not. I don’t understand Guth’s cosmic inflation, but I believe it to be true and accurate. But what I believe ultimately has no impact – it either is or is not true. So to me, the “baggage” is not around the truth of a given proposition – it’s around what I know about the proposition and the person offering it.
Ok, I’ll get out of the big kids cafeteria now…
mikey
I like Terpsichore. She can get down.
Truth? Carpet? Sheep? I tend to go for operational definitions: If it looks like a duck, walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, then I can fire its carcass from my gas-powered poultry cannon. Or something like that.
I know. I find the word “sheep” to be inherently funny…
mikey
Caribou. Plectrum. Skink.
I’m just as easily amused.
Caribou. Plectrum. Skink. One. Zero. Niner.
Vampire, vampire. I have 4 sheep, bearing zero nine one, 16 miles.
Man the Chicken Guns…
mikey
Mikey, you broke my house-ape. He has fallen out of his chair and there is coffee coming out of his nose. I shall jump on his chest until he feels better. But first I must deal to that other cat that looked at me sideways.
Mehitabel, please advise your HA that it is far too late in the day for coffee, and the moment for Weaponized Akavit has arrived…
mikey
Belief that there is some entity that you can’t see, hear, taste, touch or smell, that runs your life, created the world, cares where you put your penis (or where you accept one) is faith. You have no experience of this being, you are not making a judgment, and you are making an irrational decision that is based on no evidence whatsoever. Basically you believe because someone told you to.
This is not a fair or true statement. First, “faith” isn’t just belief in an entity that runs your life. As Jillian points out, many people argue badly about what faith is, but this — as a definition — is so slanted that it’s worthless.
Second, I bolded the part of ironicname’s comment that particularly gets up my snoot. I struggle with believing, and wanting to believe, and not being sure I do (and not even being sure I want to) all the time. I’m a contrarian by nature and don’t like being told to believe anything. I’m sure there are lots of people who believe because somebody told them to, but I’m not one of them. See, most of the time, anyway, I find that I don’t not believe, and I came to that (admittedly confused) conclusion all by my lonesome. Sure, it’s irrational. So is wanting to see the people you love after they’ve died — or after you have. Just explain to me why I should prefer the “rational” idea that the loss is permanent to the “irrational” hope that it isn’t.
Florinda, rational ideas should ALWAYS be preferred to irrational ones.
Somewhere earlier in this mess, I stated the reasons why I think that. In a nutshell, I believe it to be the case that the solutions to whatever ails mankind will only be found through our ability to reason, and not in any other way (assuming it’s even possible). Secondly, I believe that rational thinking is NOT something humans are inherently good at – quite the opposite. Therefore, I conclude that we must take our rational thinking very, very, very seriously – as though the whole fate of the world hangs upon how well we do it (which, in fact, I think it does). And the only way to do well something which does not come naturally to us is to do it consistently, mercilessly, and unstintingly – much the way Olympians train. To harbor any irrational thoughts at all is to weaken your overall ability to think rationally, much like how an Olympic athlete’s performance suffers after only one missed practice. If you’re serious about it, there are no days off. Period.
Naturally, YMMV, but that’s my take on it.
Azathoth is described by Lovecraft as “that last amorphous blight of nethermost confusion which blasphemies and bubbles at the center of all infinity—the boundless daemon sultan Azathoth, whose name no lips dare speak aloud, and who gnaws hungrily in inconceivable, unlighted chambers beyond time amidst the muffled, maddening beating of vile drums and the thin monotonous whine of accursed flutes.�
Azathoth rulez!!!1!!
I guess Gerogie’s pean about faith isn’t gonna be my last word
Fiorinda,
I posted this earlier in the thread:
“I have literally nothing to offer someone who believes that the big guy exists, is with them, and they will live forever in HIS glorious kingdom – what I think about mortality is very cold comfort so I don’t fool myself into thinking that I can bring anyone around to my way of thinking.”
Not the most elegant statement I’ve ever typed – but I’m sticking with it.
Rational ideas do not have to be comforting. Rationality is by its very nature divorced from emotion. It is rational to believe that the earth will one day be hit by a celestial body that will render a large percentage of its species extinct. The evidence suggests that this is a fact. Its not comforting but its rational.
Same thing with death – sure its comforting to beleive that you will live on in an afterlife that will put you together with your loved ones for ever. It would be great! What an absolutely wonderfull thing.
Problem is its probably not true – there does not appear to be any reliable evidence that there is life after death and no known mechanism to preserve personality after the brain dies. The very idea of life after death comes from a cultural tradition handed down from primitive human societies who made stuff up to explain what was happening to them and the amazing stuff that they observed (lightning, rainbows, clouds, stars, rain, hail, you name it). So mother tells son who tells daughter etc.
People beleive in the afterlife, god, angels etc. because somebody told them about it at some time. Not because they came up with it on thier own.
The person who invented religion in the human past was a genius. He or she came up with an idea that is
1. self contained – it requires no real evidence other than its existence.
2. adaptable – the fertile cresent sun or thunder god that became Jahova changed becase the culture using him needed him to change – it helped seperate the hebrews from thier neighbors.
3. pervasive – its easy to beleive because it comforting – you get rules, expectations and rewards.
All this is true with the secret ingredient: faith – the belief in the imperceptible – but you know its there because somebody told you it was.
So I fiorinda do you struggle with believing, wanting to beleive or the pattern of beleif you find yourself with?
ironicname: I struggle with all three. Perhaps I’m just saying I waffle back and forth a lot and therefore don’t have ‘faith’ at all. But I still don’t get how I’m supposed to say, “Oh, well, it’s not rational to want comfort, so I guess I’ll just do without.” At that rate I might just as well kill myself as soon as life looks like it’s going to shit. Some of the time, OTOH, I think, well, if there isn’t any God or afterlife or whatever, that means that every moment we do have is priceless. But then I run into the unfairness factor. What about some child born in dire poverty in Africa or something, who dies at age 2 in a refugee camp — never even really has a chance? What was so priceless and wonderful about her life? Sure, I can work to minimize the number of children in that situation, yadda yadda … but when it comes right down to it, I can’t change that reality for every one of those children, even if I turn into Albert Schweitzer and save some. And I want there to be some way to change that reality. I guess what it comes down to is, I want that so much that I’m willing to act as if there is something or Someone who can … and the only way I can “act” like that is if I accept it as true as a starting point, not an ending point. I know this isn’t very coherent, but it’s late at night here! Still — thanks for taking my earlier comment seriously and trying to engage, I appreciate it.
Fiorinda,
It is rational to want comfort – comfort means someone cares about you and is willing to put forth the effort to help sooth your woes.
What I really dislike about religion is it makes it way too easy to demonize the “other” people who do not share your (the hypothetical your, mind you – sort of like the ubiquitous they) beliefs. To my mind religion makes it more, not less likely for babies to end up in camps -look at Darfur, or the holocaust. I think that humanity as a species needs to shed the institution of religion in order for us to find the solutions to these kinds of problems. And I find it is rational to care about your fellow humans; that human may cure a disease, write a symphony or organize a political party that makes life better for us all. Or, maybe, its just that it could be you and yours in a camp if you don’t care.
If we look for solutions outside of humanity we won’t find any. Even if there was a god – he or she is by definition extra human and any solutions from god would fit god’s ends, not ours.
We are better off on our own.