I hear more and more every day about negligent parents who turn to prayer at the exclusion of medical treatment or even insulin for diabetic children.
Why is this allowed to happen? This isn't religious freedom- this is negligent homicide.
I am angry. I am angry that in this country, people who listen to the wrong kind of music, or are too young, or are going through a divorce can lose their kids for the slightest of wrongs but parents who refuse medical treatment are untouchable until the child dies. I understand if you take your kid off into the wilderness- live off the grid or in very small towns this might go by unnoticed. But not in Phoenix, Arizona. Not in Pittsburgh. Not in Detroit. These are only few of far too many cases of children being killed or disfigured due to "Christian Science", Fundementalism and overall anti-intellectualism.
These parents are unfit- and people who believe they know better than a medical professional(seeking second opinions is fine. But look for someone who has the same credentials and not just anyone) and turn to things that have been proven ineffective for treatment of their most precious charges should be declared thus.
Speaking of unfit parents- why hasn't the cosmic child protective services placed us in a foster home? I am sure a nice loving Buddha or Ra would love to have us(as long as they don't live together).
Seriously though- the analogy of the "father" falls very short here- allowing your children to learn the hard way is nothing new- but even us flawed humans grab our children before they fall to their deaths- we bail them out of prison and give them a stern talking to or at least try to discern why they were there in the first place- why are we not better taken care of? Why exactly is prayer so ineffectual?
Looking at the world, seeing the horrors we inflict on each other- one might say that God gave us Free Will and, like a child playing with matches- we hurt ourselves time and time again. It's a learning experience. But what about natural disasters where children and innocents die? What about all the thousands of times that pure bad luck or a series of unfortunate events results in the death of torture of people who have done nothing wrong?
I man, these people ARE Christians lots of times- they DO pray and there are many avenues for God to intervene(like making it more apparent that they should have gone left instead of right- or causing them not to sneeze while the nazis are downstairs?) so what happens? Does God just not care? Or can he not intervene? Or does the Free Will limitation apply in Chaos Theory? You chose not to dust the attic and so now you must sneeze- off to the camps with you!
But people who ARE "blessed"- blessed by something like a movie to cheer them up or a 5 dollar bill on the ground so they could grab some coffee- these things are fair game for God to claim but the bad things that happen by coincidence are somehow our fault. God can inspire people to write bibles, can kill the firstborn of an entire village, can come down from heaven and traipse about the countryside of one very small area spreading the only way to get to heaven to a very select few small villages while neglecting to mention anything that would permanently validate the religion to the rest of the world and then die, knowing full well the message would not be spread far and wide for hundreds of years, effectively damning most of the population of the earth for thouands of years to hell- he can do all of that, but he can't inspire people not to sell children into slavery or have a change of heart when they purposefully addict teens to heroin- he can do that but still 1 in every 120 children is born with a servere, life altering birth defect from which they may never recover.
Someone, please get us out of here.
Thursday, June 18, 2009
Tuesday, June 16, 2009
implications != truth value
This is a symptom of people who either do not think critically or people who hold off on thinking critically about certain aspects of their lives.
You know the people I am talking about- people who refuse to believe something or even consider it because of "what it would mean".
This is such a strong cultural phenomenon that it has become a common plot point and aspect of stereotypical characters.
The problem with this argument is that no matter what the consequences of something being true are, they do not make it any less true.
For a bad example, holocaust deniers are not always white supremacists- sometimes they are people who are simply nieve. People who don't want to believe the horrible things that happened because that would simply mean that horrible things have happened in the past- unimaginably horrible things.
For a more realistic example, most western Christians deny a lot of things to themselves, but one strikes me as particularly offensive. That Atheists have morals that are equal to or even better than their own, and that they follow them. That can't be, because that would mean they either aren't morally superior, or that they don't have a monopoly on morality, or that morals are a conclusion you can come to on your own, without God's intercession.
This idea is so frightening that it is more often than not shut completely out of their thoughts, dismissed as an impossibility.
Another disturbing example is one of creationism- people taking the oversimplification of it too far and then being offended that they may share a common ancestry with many modern primates today or "that my grandma was a monkey".
Or that we are not "any different than the animals"(of course, larger brains and better adaptability, as well as culture and language makes us completely the same as animals.) and thusly not "special".
This kind of thinking is infantile at best, and destructive at worst.
The scary part is that they are allowed to teach this to their children.
You know the people I am talking about- people who refuse to believe something or even consider it because of "what it would mean".
This is such a strong cultural phenomenon that it has become a common plot point and aspect of stereotypical characters.
The problem with this argument is that no matter what the consequences of something being true are, they do not make it any less true.
For a bad example, holocaust deniers are not always white supremacists- sometimes they are people who are simply nieve. People who don't want to believe the horrible things that happened because that would simply mean that horrible things have happened in the past- unimaginably horrible things.
For a more realistic example, most western Christians deny a lot of things to themselves, but one strikes me as particularly offensive. That Atheists have morals that are equal to or even better than their own, and that they follow them. That can't be, because that would mean they either aren't morally superior, or that they don't have a monopoly on morality, or that morals are a conclusion you can come to on your own, without God's intercession.
This idea is so frightening that it is more often than not shut completely out of their thoughts, dismissed as an impossibility.
Another disturbing example is one of creationism- people taking the oversimplification of it too far and then being offended that they may share a common ancestry with many modern primates today or "that my grandma was a monkey".
Or that we are not "any different than the animals"(of course, larger brains and better adaptability, as well as culture and language makes us completely the same as animals.) and thusly not "special".
This kind of thinking is infantile at best, and destructive at worst.
The scary part is that they are allowed to teach this to their children.
Thursday, June 11, 2009
Lies, Damned Lies and Statistics(the question of odds)
A very common argument creationists make is the one of odds. Do you know what the odds of this happening are?
Well, the odds of it happening if they think you are "undecided" or less educated than they are are 1:1 - it is their standard go-to argument.
I have many complaints about this.
First, the odds are usually false, or pulled completely out of thin air. The odds of a cell forming randomly out of nothing are the same as a hurricane assembling a perfectly functional 747 out of random metal scraps it picks up off the beach.
This is typical oversimplification. A related tactic is to compare evolution to saying "we came from goo" or "from a monkey". Or to say "one day a monkey gave birth to a human".
The fundamental problem with BOTH of these claims is that they demonstrate nothing more than a serious lack of understanding.
I of course could attempt to educate you here but I suspect that the main people who will read this blog are people who know me and people on the far end of either side of the "debate"- in which case you either already know or don't care to educate yourself. Or a strange combination of the two.
I will instead delve into the(perceived) reasoning behind such arguments.
The main reason these arguments come about is because someone leading the masses makes them up. Most, if not all of the arguments of creationism are not original, but come from a single source and are endlessly repeated over and over again by followers that say "wow that sounds really good! I'm going to use that! That will stump those Atheists!" - which brings me to the point and main flaw behind creationism.
It is the same problem we get when a horrible travesty occurs and everyone overwhelmingly and unequivocally takes ONE SIDE of an argument. This is illustrated here.
The idea is this(if you didn't click the link above)- someone does something really horrible and everyone else in the world judges them for it. Everyone takes part in the judging because it makes them feel superior and because they need someone to be better, or smarter, or more morally sound than. They have to be RIGHT.
The need to be right is very strong within people. It's strong within me, and within you- and within your dear old grandmother sitting at home knitting and watching jeopardy.
This is the reason why, to me, Christians seem insincere. It is the reason the Pro-choice argument seems less than genuous and the right-wing seems to be full of falsehoods.
It seems that they don't believe their own arguments to some, but I sense a deeper, darker moral problem in society. The cancer of superiority.
The idea is this. If you believed that Hell was a real place, that the unsaved would go there after death and be tortured for all eternity never to see the light of god or their families again- and that there was ANY chance that people you knew, or even people you CARED ABOUT might have to go there to suffer for eternity and you would never see them unless they believed your story or went through a baptism or whatever criteria you believed was required for them to avoid this fate- what would you do?
I for one would be in a crazed-terror state that robbed me of the ability to do anything productive until I brought these people to salvation. And in my mind salvation it would be.
Have you seen the movies where people risk their lives, their jobs and the lives of possibly someone they care about to save many people? Or to warn someone about an impending doom? People that would stop at nothing to save the world or the country or whatever group of people they happened to be with from the utter annihilation they were most certainly faced with?
Why so, do Christians do this? Why do they resign themselves? They might make a fuss when they find out the first time but if they see the train coming why don't they tackle you to make you get out of the way? And why get so angry at people who don't believe? Even to go so far as to wish death upon them? I would hold them safe in a room with no sharp bits or dangerous things nearby until I could talk them into safety. I would do this with everyone.
The reason is that they aren't sure. They strongly believe, but they are not completely sure. The seeds of doubt are in all of them(all of the ones who don't follow you home) and they are simply not sure if they have the right answer. They think the train tracks you've built your home on are still active but they're not ready to set fire to your house to smoke you out of it because they just aren't sure.
Similarly with pro-choice- if you even suspected a child was going to be killed somewhere and you knew where? I would very literally commit crimes much worse than that of the nutjob who murdered George Tiller in front of his family. But the thing is- that man was absolutely sure. Absolutely sure he was killing babies. Obviously I don't condone it or anything like it(and am vehemently opposed.. I'll post about it later.) but I do know that he was one of the few anti-abortionists who did not see a distinction between children born or unborn, and believed that the life of the mother was less sacrosanct than the life of the child.
But Christians and other pro-lifers are very happy to just call you a baby-killer. I mean, nothing they have ever done is as bad as killing babies. They are happy to condemn you and even vandalize your practice- but no one of them would actually do something to put a stop to it, especially if one of their own lives were in danger.
The same thing with hell. Christians, generally older Christians who have had their fill of arguing with atheists and uppity kids, will calmly tell you that they are praying for you- or that "you'll see" at the end, that they were right.
Would they really be so happy to just let you die and burn forever? Could you be happy in a heaven when you knew people were suffering for eternity?
Which brings me back to creationism(remember the original topic?). The main idea of creationism is that people want to be right about something. They want to be right about the bible and genesis so bad that they are willing to lie about it. They are willing to mine quotes, make up statistics and attempt to debunk rational science with fallacious arguments that they are unwilling to see as fallacious because that would admit that one of the fundamental tenants of their faith might be wrong. And some of the worst embarrassment in the world comes from being wrong.
Well, the odds of it happening if they think you are "undecided" or less educated than they are are 1:1 - it is their standard go-to argument.
I have many complaints about this.
First, the odds are usually false, or pulled completely out of thin air. The odds of a cell forming randomly out of nothing are the same as a hurricane assembling a perfectly functional 747 out of random metal scraps it picks up off the beach.
This is typical oversimplification. A related tactic is to compare evolution to saying "we came from goo" or "from a monkey". Or to say "one day a monkey gave birth to a human".
The fundamental problem with BOTH of these claims is that they demonstrate nothing more than a serious lack of understanding.
I of course could attempt to educate you here but I suspect that the main people who will read this blog are people who know me and people on the far end of either side of the "debate"- in which case you either already know or don't care to educate yourself. Or a strange combination of the two.
I will instead delve into the(perceived) reasoning behind such arguments.
The main reason these arguments come about is because someone leading the masses makes them up. Most, if not all of the arguments of creationism are not original, but come from a single source and are endlessly repeated over and over again by followers that say "wow that sounds really good! I'm going to use that! That will stump those Atheists!" - which brings me to the point and main flaw behind creationism.
It is the same problem we get when a horrible travesty occurs and everyone overwhelmingly and unequivocally takes ONE SIDE of an argument. This is illustrated here.
The idea is this(if you didn't click the link above)- someone does something really horrible and everyone else in the world judges them for it. Everyone takes part in the judging because it makes them feel superior and because they need someone to be better, or smarter, or more morally sound than. They have to be RIGHT.
The need to be right is very strong within people. It's strong within me, and within you- and within your dear old grandmother sitting at home knitting and watching jeopardy.
This is the reason why, to me, Christians seem insincere. It is the reason the Pro-choice argument seems less than genuous and the right-wing seems to be full of falsehoods.
It seems that they don't believe their own arguments to some, but I sense a deeper, darker moral problem in society. The cancer of superiority.
The idea is this. If you believed that Hell was a real place, that the unsaved would go there after death and be tortured for all eternity never to see the light of god or their families again- and that there was ANY chance that people you knew, or even people you CARED ABOUT might have to go there to suffer for eternity and you would never see them unless they believed your story or went through a baptism or whatever criteria you believed was required for them to avoid this fate- what would you do?
I for one would be in a crazed-terror state that robbed me of the ability to do anything productive until I brought these people to salvation. And in my mind salvation it would be.
Have you seen the movies where people risk their lives, their jobs and the lives of possibly someone they care about to save many people? Or to warn someone about an impending doom? People that would stop at nothing to save the world or the country or whatever group of people they happened to be with from the utter annihilation they were most certainly faced with?
Why so, do Christians do this? Why do they resign themselves? They might make a fuss when they find out the first time but if they see the train coming why don't they tackle you to make you get out of the way? And why get so angry at people who don't believe? Even to go so far as to wish death upon them? I would hold them safe in a room with no sharp bits or dangerous things nearby until I could talk them into safety. I would do this with everyone.
The reason is that they aren't sure. They strongly believe, but they are not completely sure. The seeds of doubt are in all of them(all of the ones who don't follow you home) and they are simply not sure if they have the right answer. They think the train tracks you've built your home on are still active but they're not ready to set fire to your house to smoke you out of it because they just aren't sure.
Similarly with pro-choice- if you even suspected a child was going to be killed somewhere and you knew where? I would very literally commit crimes much worse than that of the nutjob who murdered George Tiller in front of his family. But the thing is- that man was absolutely sure. Absolutely sure he was killing babies. Obviously I don't condone it or anything like it(and am vehemently opposed.. I'll post about it later.) but I do know that he was one of the few anti-abortionists who did not see a distinction between children born or unborn, and believed that the life of the mother was less sacrosanct than the life of the child.
But Christians and other pro-lifers are very happy to just call you a baby-killer. I mean, nothing they have ever done is as bad as killing babies. They are happy to condemn you and even vandalize your practice- but no one of them would actually do something to put a stop to it, especially if one of their own lives were in danger.
The same thing with hell. Christians, generally older Christians who have had their fill of arguing with atheists and uppity kids, will calmly tell you that they are praying for you- or that "you'll see" at the end, that they were right.
Would they really be so happy to just let you die and burn forever? Could you be happy in a heaven when you knew people were suffering for eternity?
Which brings me back to creationism(remember the original topic?). The main idea of creationism is that people want to be right about something. They want to be right about the bible and genesis so bad that they are willing to lie about it. They are willing to mine quotes, make up statistics and attempt to debunk rational science with fallacious arguments that they are unwilling to see as fallacious because that would admit that one of the fundamental tenants of their faith might be wrong. And some of the worst embarrassment in the world comes from being wrong.
Tuesday, June 9, 2009
My stereotypical opinion on gay marriage(Ban it along with all the rest of marriages.)
What? Every atheist blog has to have a post about gay marriage?
Fine. I guess. Here goes.
But I'm not doing the legwork! I'm going to just repost a comment thread I started from The Religious Researcher instead.
This is the post.
I respond
Your arguments are constructed well for a person who operates within the framework of Christianity, however I would like to ask what you think of policy?
Icy,
The debate over gay marriage is not just about sex. It is about whether we as a society will agree to abandon the belief that the institution of a one-woman, one-man permanent union (called marriage) is a foundational institution for society. Redefining marriage to mean any newly created relationship between two persons is about as arbitrary a redefinition as I can imagine.
Most of your examples of “the real world” are viewed by most people, including most Christians, as also immoral. Bringing up such things as golddiggers and spousal murderers is totally irrelevant to the state’s role in sanctioning marriage. The state can legitimately deny persons the right to marry someone of the same gender, or multiple persons of the opposite gender, etc., even though it cannot prevent people from getting married for less than honorable reasons.
Your example of infertile seniors getting married is also irrelevant. I have not claimed, nor would I, that persons cannot marry unless they have the potential and intention of producing offspring.
I respond
But we arbitrarily redefine marriage, among other things, all the time!
Women: Not property
Interracial marriage: OK
Divorce for a good reason: OK
Divorce for no good reason: Also OK
And that’s just marriage.
But my point is that your argument is faith based. While this is PERFECTLY FINE for your own morals, what you teach your children and to talk about on Sunday or here on your own blog(not really here to change your mind, just challenge it) it’s not really sound for policy.
I’m not sure what the foundational institution for society is, because there are several important words you have to intricately define before you claim what it’s foundations are.
What society? Western society? If so, what kind? Capitalist?
For sake of argument, since we live in here in America and are talking about such, we’ll use our present set of circumstances.
There are plenty of people for whom marriage is not an option, nor is it a desired one. I’m not talking about people who can’t seem to stick to one partner, but people who pursue their careers(not just for money, but doctors and politicians), love to travel too much(ever met an old biker?) or are simply celibate. Catholic priests, for instance are never to be married, at least not to a woman(Married to God I hear quite a bit from them) as are nuns. Are these people just as responsible for destroying society?
Yes, there are not as many of them as there are gays or other people who might wish to marry someone other than a person of the opposite sex for whatever reason, but the number of these people when compared to the population at large is also insignificant(the word insignificant used mathematically in this case).
Fine. I guess. Here goes.
But I'm not doing the legwork! I'm going to just repost a comment thread I started from The Religious Researcher instead.
This is the post.
I respond
Your arguments are constructed well for a person who operates within the framework of Christianity, however I would like to ask what you think of policy?
Why can’t we just say:
Marriage is a binary contract, between two previously unrelated individuals, for the purpose of creating a relation between them.
Extend rights to support and help EVERYONE in your family, regardless of actual relation as long as it’s within 2(as in, I can buy insurance for my sister and her child since I support them and I can claim them as dependents, and could even adopt my nephew and claim legal rights to him if my sister agrees) which would help everyone get what they needed out of marriage.
This provides for the common good, as in one person who needs to support someone else they love(or are obligated to) extends currently only to spouses and children/grandchildren.
The only reason you shouldn’t be allowed then, to marry your sister, is because a relationship already exists.
The reason I say this is because someone who is going to have gay sex, participate in incest, live a polygamous lifestyle, so on, is going to do it REGARDLESS of legal status, whether they are married to that person or not. Allowing anyone to form a relationship with anyone will remove any possible barriers to people creating legally recognized relationships with people, and does not necessarily mean there is a sexual relationship. For instance I could marry a friend of mine in order to help her get insurance for her child or to take care of her if she had a long-term illness where she was not fully coherent, and did not want her parents to enforce their wishes(like, keeping her on/off life support against her wishes), or to jointly own property between us.
The fact is that these days there are more relationships that need to be legally recognized and enforced and taken into account in court than just “parent and child” and “husband and wife”.
Now you will argue that marriage should be between a man and a woman in legality what it is in the bible, a spiritual relationship for the purpose of childbearing, and that taking that away removes the specialness of it, so on.
While it would be great if only people who were truly in love and people only got married to have kids and everyone had one mommy and one daddy, we live in the real world.
In the real world, we have 55 hour marriages, we have seniors getting married who are infertile, we have shotgun weddings of 16 year-olds who then divorce at 19 and fight for the rest of their lives over the illegitimate children. We have spousal abuse, adultery, battered wife syndrome, golddiggers, people who get married because they are terrified of dying alone, and spousal murder to get out of a messy, costly divorce.
What would me amenable to everyone, regardless of beliefs(as again, we live in the real world where not everyone is Christian and we can’t force them to become so) is if the word “Marriage” was reserved for something recognized by the CHURCH, and civil unions were available to everyone legally recognized as a sentient being, anyone who holds rights can establish a relationship with anyone they don’t already have one with for the purpose of supporting and sharing resources.
He respondsIcy,
The debate over gay marriage is not just about sex. It is about whether we as a society will agree to abandon the belief that the institution of a one-woman, one-man permanent union (called marriage) is a foundational institution for society. Redefining marriage to mean any newly created relationship between two persons is about as arbitrary a redefinition as I can imagine.
Most of your examples of “the real world” are viewed by most people, including most Christians, as also immoral. Bringing up such things as golddiggers and spousal murderers is totally irrelevant to the state’s role in sanctioning marriage. The state can legitimately deny persons the right to marry someone of the same gender, or multiple persons of the opposite gender, etc., even though it cannot prevent people from getting married for less than honorable reasons.
Your example of infertile seniors getting married is also irrelevant. I have not claimed, nor would I, that persons cannot marry unless they have the potential and intention of producing offspring.
I respond
But we arbitrarily redefine marriage, among other things, all the time!
Women: Not property
Interracial marriage: OK
Divorce for a good reason: OK
Divorce for no good reason: Also OK
And that’s just marriage.
But my point is that your argument is faith based. While this is PERFECTLY FINE for your own morals, what you teach your children and to talk about on Sunday or here on your own blog(not really here to change your mind, just challenge it) it’s not really sound for policy.
I’m not sure what the foundational institution for society is, because there are several important words you have to intricately define before you claim what it’s foundations are.
What society? Western society? If so, what kind? Capitalist?
For sake of argument, since we live in here in America and are talking about such, we’ll use our present set of circumstances.
There are plenty of people for whom marriage is not an option, nor is it a desired one. I’m not talking about people who can’t seem to stick to one partner, but people who pursue their careers(not just for money, but doctors and politicians), love to travel too much(ever met an old biker?) or are simply celibate. Catholic priests, for instance are never to be married, at least not to a woman(Married to God I hear quite a bit from them) as are nuns. Are these people just as responsible for destroying society?
Yes, there are not as many of them as there are gays or other people who might wish to marry someone other than a person of the opposite sex for whatever reason, but the number of these people when compared to the population at large is also insignificant(the word insignificant used mathematically in this case).
But here is a case that I think would satisfy your needs.
Government should abolish marriage altogether, as there are no benefits a infertle one man one woman marriage can provide that a gay union can’t(we’re going to go by current research done by independent researchers here) and thusly the benefits should be nullified.
Civil Unions should be the only recognized form(the ‘arbitrary’ definition used earlier for marriage will do) of legal union that can artificially create a legal relationship between two humans.
Marriage, as it originated in the Church, should be controlled by the Church. Anyone wishing to have a marriage in the eyes of God can do so using their own faith community, and it can be settled there, between the couple and God.
This eliminates the need for secularists to complain about the separation of church and state, eliminates the protest of unfairness by exclusion by homosexuals, and puts full control back in local, community churches where pastors can counsel couples to make sure they are ready, and it can be a family event, bringing back the sanctity and morality of marriage without the need to make accommodations for people who are not part of whichever community performing the ceremony.
This is the primary reason behind the separation of church and state. The state should form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, secure the blessings of liberty for all citizens of the United States Of America. It doesn’t NEED to be an extension of the church, the church itself can take care of that. People who aren’t going to follow it weren’t going to in the first place, let them go their own way.
These were made in the span of about a day, so he did not respond (I assume he had other blog posts to get to.)Wednesday, May 20, 2009
Car Keys are not a miracle.
I could go over a very long and exhaustive list over what does not count as a miracle and why but that would seriously inhibit my productivity at work(moreso than it is now).
I'll go over a list of the most common things, and explain them, and then I'll define a miracle and explain why if one were to ever happen most Freethinkers would convert on the spot.
Finding something that was lost
Misplacing something is the act of putting it somewhere and forgetting where you put it, or having someone else come along behind you and move that object, and failing to update you on where they moved it to. God does not update your brain on where the location is, you simply start looking in likely places or are looking for another thing when you come across it.
Overcoming a disease
People overcome diseases every day. They also die horribly from completely preventable diseases every day. The act of going to a doctor for something else and finding out you have caught something early enough to treat it is also not a miracle, as many people die from things that, if caught early, can be easily treated(meningitis, tuberculosis).
Many of these people are devout Christians, of all sects and faiths, and you had better believe that many of them believe the same thing you do- they just didn't have the fortune you did.
Babies
Animals are born every day- are they miracles? And so are bugs- are they? Bacteria split in your intestinal tract every second- is that a miracle? Where do you draw the line that new life is or is not a miracle? How about the baby that dies in childbirth? Or the mother? What about the baby that is born to an eleven year old child who was not ready for this to happen to her?
Surviving A Natural Disaster
Obviously, surviving a natural disaster is not a miracle, as if it were a true miracle, no one would have died. Or, only the sinful would have died(which is everyone) or only non-Christians(or the saved, or those who go to church every day, or people of a particular sect) would have died(which is horribly hypocritical) and that would render it not a natural disaster, but a super-natural one.
Point being, why did you(or the subject) survive while others did not.
Needless to say, many people attribute these occurrences as miracles when they are simply not. Or, you bring up the problem of evil/god's great plan. This of course brings up chaos theory which I will address in a later post.
However, miracles are defined neatly for us and it is easy to put any thing to the test if we are simply consistent in our definition. From the great Wikipedia: "A miracle is a perceptible interruption of the laws of nature, such that can be explained by divine intervention, and is sometimes associated with a miracle-worker."
Being that all of the things in this list and many, many others attributed to god or miracles are very explainable and occur in nature frequently we can conclude that miracles DO(not) happen every day and we (don't) need to be thankful for them.
Freethinkers however, upon being presented with evidence of a departure from the laws of nature or something that is unexplainable(not "hasn't been explained" and not "once this happened to me...") by anyone, they will convert to whatever religious explanation actually fits. Here is a video that really explains that, and why.
I'll go over a list of the most common things, and explain them, and then I'll define a miracle and explain why if one were to ever happen most Freethinkers would convert on the spot.
Finding something that was lost
Misplacing something is the act of putting it somewhere and forgetting where you put it, or having someone else come along behind you and move that object, and failing to update you on where they moved it to. God does not update your brain on where the location is, you simply start looking in likely places or are looking for another thing when you come across it.
Overcoming a disease
People overcome diseases every day. They also die horribly from completely preventable diseases every day. The act of going to a doctor for something else and finding out you have caught something early enough to treat it is also not a miracle, as many people die from things that, if caught early, can be easily treated(meningitis, tuberculosis).
Many of these people are devout Christians, of all sects and faiths, and you had better believe that many of them believe the same thing you do- they just didn't have the fortune you did.
Babies
Animals are born every day- are they miracles? And so are bugs- are they? Bacteria split in your intestinal tract every second- is that a miracle? Where do you draw the line that new life is or is not a miracle? How about the baby that dies in childbirth? Or the mother? What about the baby that is born to an eleven year old child who was not ready for this to happen to her?
Surviving A Natural Disaster
Obviously, surviving a natural disaster is not a miracle, as if it were a true miracle, no one would have died. Or, only the sinful would have died(which is everyone) or only non-Christians(or the saved, or those who go to church every day, or people of a particular sect) would have died(which is horribly hypocritical) and that would render it not a natural disaster, but a super-natural one.
Point being, why did you(or the subject) survive while others did not.
Needless to say, many people attribute these occurrences as miracles when they are simply not. Or, you bring up the problem of evil/god's great plan. This of course brings up chaos theory which I will address in a later post.
However, miracles are defined neatly for us and it is easy to put any thing to the test if we are simply consistent in our definition. From the great Wikipedia: "A miracle is a perceptible interruption of the laws of nature, such that can be explained by divine intervention, and is sometimes associated with a miracle-worker."
Being that all of the things in this list and many, many others attributed to god or miracles are very explainable and occur in nature frequently we can conclude that miracles DO(not) happen every day and we (don't) need to be thankful for them.
Freethinkers however, upon being presented with evidence of a departure from the laws of nature or something that is unexplainable(not "hasn't been explained" and not "once this happened to me...") by anyone, they will convert to whatever religious explanation actually fits. Here is a video that really explains that, and why.
Santa Claus and Jesus
My mother was an atheist as I was growing up and although she never really tried to indoctrinate me one way or the other, she was very adamant about Santa Claus.
My parents for some reason held on to Santa Claus as the last bastion of childhood wonder and kept an iron grip. Now, when I was about 5 I snuck out of my room and saw my parents getting bags out of the car and and placing presents under the tree, and at that point I knew Santa Claus was not real. I faked the belief for my parents sake(and because I thought that if I told them I would stop getting presents) but I no longer believed Santa had cameras watching me everywhere I went and knew if I was being bad. This belief really only affected about two days before Xmas but nonetheless, the dream was shattered.
However once I turned 8 or so(these ages are rough guesses), I got tried of the childishness of the game, and my parents thinking I was going to stay up in front of the fireplace again "waiting" for Santa- I am not sure what made me snap but I had the conversation that the jig was up, I knew he wasn't real but not to worry I wouldn't let Ellie(my sister) in on the deal as long as they stopped patronizing me.
The effect this had on my mother was to ramp up efforts to get me to believe, insisting that "Santa IS real we just have to wrap his presents for him" and other various attempts to argue me into belief. My mother became a Santa Apologetic and came up with all manner of "rational" arguements to support the notion that he was real.
At some point she began to explore the abstract in that "Santa is real in all of us" and "You're Santa and I'm Santa" and "Santa is in your heart". Now, my mother IS an athiest and is not simply using Santa as a method to "fill the void" or the other various attempts you are going to use to draw paralells but when I tell you she was ADAMANT I really mean it.
So, what this caused me to do was first, to doubt my own eyes and my own empirical observations, being that my parents were now not just playing a game of pretend with me but actively arguing with me over the existance of a being I knew to be not only unreal, but highly implausible. This also, once I got over my doubts, made me realize that sometimes, my parents lied to me, and that sometimes they did not always know what they were talking about.
This is the closest thing to a "deconversion" story I have as the great Santa debate was the only thing that caused me to momentarily be uncertain as to the reality of Christ and God and to wonder if there was a being that not only knew what I was thinking all the time but was judging me for it.
This faded in time after I found other ASantists at school and spoke with them about their various experiences, including some parents who came clean about the existance of the Big Red Man in the North.
My parents for some reason held on to Santa Claus as the last bastion of childhood wonder and kept an iron grip. Now, when I was about 5 I snuck out of my room and saw my parents getting bags out of the car and and placing presents under the tree, and at that point I knew Santa Claus was not real. I faked the belief for my parents sake(and because I thought that if I told them I would stop getting presents) but I no longer believed Santa had cameras watching me everywhere I went and knew if I was being bad. This belief really only affected about two days before Xmas but nonetheless, the dream was shattered.
However once I turned 8 or so(these ages are rough guesses), I got tried of the childishness of the game, and my parents thinking I was going to stay up in front of the fireplace again "waiting" for Santa- I am not sure what made me snap but I had the conversation that the jig was up, I knew he wasn't real but not to worry I wouldn't let Ellie(my sister) in on the deal as long as they stopped patronizing me.
The effect this had on my mother was to ramp up efforts to get me to believe, insisting that "Santa IS real we just have to wrap his presents for him" and other various attempts to argue me into belief. My mother became a Santa Apologetic and came up with all manner of "rational" arguements to support the notion that he was real.
At some point she began to explore the abstract in that "Santa is real in all of us" and "You're Santa and I'm Santa" and "Santa is in your heart". Now, my mother IS an athiest and is not simply using Santa as a method to "fill the void" or the other various attempts you are going to use to draw paralells but when I tell you she was ADAMANT I really mean it.
So, what this caused me to do was first, to doubt my own eyes and my own empirical observations, being that my parents were now not just playing a game of pretend with me but actively arguing with me over the existance of a being I knew to be not only unreal, but highly implausible. This also, once I got over my doubts, made me realize that sometimes, my parents lied to me, and that sometimes they did not always know what they were talking about.
This is the closest thing to a "deconversion" story I have as the great Santa debate was the only thing that caused me to momentarily be uncertain as to the reality of Christ and God and to wonder if there was a being that not only knew what I was thinking all the time but was judging me for it.
This faded in time after I found other ASantists at school and spoke with them about their various experiences, including some parents who came clean about the existance of the Big Red Man in the North.
Tuesday, June 24, 2008
Rebutting Rebuttals...and so on.
So I found people rebutting the movie I really like, Zeitgeist(I like the first bit). The problem I have with the rebuttals(not rebuttals themselves, I think people should think critically and always look at both sides) is that they are easy to refute when you don't bring numbers and facts into them. SO easy in fact, that I can do it.
Watch as I use their own logic back at them.
Here's the link to the original.
A Review of Zeitgeist, The Movie Part IJuly 13, 2007 Recently, a friend asked me to check out a web site that was asking for help addressing some of the claims made in an anti-Christian movie posted on the web.After watching the first part of Zeitgeist, The Movie the first thing that struck me, besides the obvious errors, was how dated the movie was. Its main argument stems from pointing out parallels between Christian beliefs and other belief systems with the conclusion, implied or blatant that there must therefore be a link. Such reasoning was popular among skeptics in the first half of the 20th century and earlier, but as more serious work was done, such argument were discarded, particularly after Samuel Sandmel’s article Parallelamania in the 1960s.
So apparently, any parallels are completely useless because parallels can be found anywhere. Because something CAN be made up it therefore IS made up... Is that what I'm getting from this? (Consider Christianity) Please try not to debase your own religion while refuting movies.
Watch as I use their own logic back at them.
Here's the link to the original.
A Review of Zeitgeist, The Movie Part IJuly 13, 2007 Recently, a friend asked me to check out a web site that was asking for help addressing some of the claims made in an anti-Christian movie posted on the web.After watching the first part of Zeitgeist, The Movie the first thing that struck me, besides the obvious errors, was how dated the movie was. Its main argument stems from pointing out parallels between Christian beliefs and other belief systems with the conclusion, implied or blatant that there must therefore be a link. Such reasoning was popular among skeptics in the first half of the 20th century and earlier, but as more serious work was done, such argument were discarded, particularly after Samuel Sandmel’s article Parallelamania in the 1960s.
So apparently, any parallels are completely useless because parallels can be found anywhere. Because something CAN be made up it therefore IS made up... Is that what I'm getting from this? (Consider Christianity) Please try not to debase your own religion while refuting movies.
The main flaw in such arguments is that they are selective and thus superficial. They are selective in that they take only those things that match, and ignore differences.
Of course there would be differences. The MAJOR, UNLIKELY similarities have yet to be explained while differences that could be explained due to cultural, geological, chronological and cross-culture pollution are not counted.
This leads them to be superficial in that the mere appearance of a parallel however weak (weak?) is taken as a parallel. The net result is that you can find meaning and significance where it does not exist.(Again, please look to your own religion) For example, consider the parallels that have been noted between the assassinations of Lincoln and Kennedy.(Flawed Analogy. Political assassinations are not the existence of your lord and savior.) The problem scholars found is that the more they looked for parallels the more they found them, even between things that clearly did not have any links. Thus scholars long ago concluded that such parallels were pretty much meaningless.
Again, because you can trick yourself into believing things and finding evidence when there is no evidence there then it is meaningless. Lets all quickly abandon any world views stemming from that.
However a more serious problem occurs with the films choice of parallels. Most of the first part of the film is linked in one way or another to Jesus being born on December 25th and how this links in with winter solstice celebrations. The problem is that one thing pretty much all scholars agree on, skeptical and believers alike, is that Jesus was not born on December 25th.
The NT describes the shepherds in the fields with their sheep at the time of Jesus’ birth (Luke 2:8) which would have been highly unlikely on December 25, and points more to the spring. The reason we celebrate December 25th is because a couple of centuries after the birth of Christ the church set that date deliberately to replace the Winter solstice celebrations, so of course there is a parallel to the winter solstice, but not for the reasons implied in the film. With this fact alone most of the first half of this part of the film falls apart.
So we can change facts about our lord and savior. We can make up things that are very important, like the time of his birth, but we would never change any words he said or actions he did to further our own agendas. We can change our religion to be easy to convert to and much more attractive to those pagans over there- don't tell them that though- if they find out we changed his birthday that might make us sound less credible.
Another problematic parallel is the movies’ claim that the cross is actually an astrological cross, symbolic of the zodiac. While again there may be a parallel here it is hardly meaningful, and in fact goes straight to the heart of the problem with such reasoning. What the movie ignores is that there is a very good reason Christians use the symbol of the cross and it has nothing at all to do with astrology. Christians refer to the cross because Jesus was crucified on a cross. In short, the cross is a factor in Christianity because it was used in a Roman method of execution, not because of any astrological meaning.
Or that was made up after the fact- finding things that had religious significance and then when writing the story you add in things to make everyone's pagan art not depreciated. We have that in the IT world. It's called backwards compatibility.
Very much the same thing can be said about the movies claim that the crown of thorns represents sun rays.
But even some of the movies parallels don’t quite work out. The movie tries to make the claim that the Bible is really an astrological text and the biblical term “age” refers to the astrological ages such as Tarsus, Aries, Pisces, and Aquarius. The movie makes a point that Jesus was born at just about the time of the beginning of the Age of Pisces (1 AD – 2150 AD). But it also claims that Moses “represents the new age of Aries” and that the reason he broke the tables was because the Jews were worshiping a bull, the symbol of Taurus the previous age. They were in the age of Aries and that is why Jews blow the rams horn.
The idea that Jews use the rams horn because they raised sheep and the horn could be made into a instrument is not really considered.
Or that's why the ram was chosen to be an astrological symbol- it was an animal that was around at the time. Ever notice how the zodiac doesn't seem to have any elephants, polar bears or zebras?
But a more serious problem is that the movie lists the Age of Aries as 2150BC to 1 AD. But even the earliest dates given by scholars for the Exodus, the mid 15th century BC, is over 650 years after the age began. But no problem Moses was in the age and that is close enough.
So the biblical writers couldn't have gotten that wrong? I mean- they didn't have all of the historical researchers we have today and all of the advanced calendars- or maybe we didn't start really writing shit down about moses until then- and since it's only a story anyway why would the writers have thought to make it correspond? The point is they weren't thinking ahead into the 21st century.
Similar problems arise with the claim that Jesus represents the sign of Pisces whose symbol is 2 fish. Predictably the movie points to the miracle of the feeding of the 5000 thousand. Yet interestingly while they show the text “we only have five loaves of bread and 2 Fish – Matt 14:17” the narrator says “Jesus feeds five thousand people with bread and two fish.” Note the number of loaves of bread is not mentioned by the narrator, while in the text five is spelled out, but not two. Why? The simple reason is that the fish make the parallel they seek, while the bread does not. Wouldn’t a better explanation for the two fish be that, fish were a common food source for that area and in fact if someone would have food, it probably would have been bread and fish?
Why two fish though? Why not 6 fish? 1 fish? 3 fish? Red Fish? Blue Fish? The numbers are seemingly random.
Similarly the movie claims that people do not know what the fish symbol on their cars is actually “pagan astrological symbolism for the sun kingdom during the sign of Pisces.” Of course the real explanation does not fit their parallel, and so is ignored. Early Christians adopted the fish symbol, not for any astrological meaning, but because the Greek word for Fish, IXTHUS, is an acronym for Greek words “Jesus Christ God’s Son Savior.”
Coincidince? I think not. Or maybe so.
Did you ever have to do those acrostic word poems in school? The ones where you take a word and spell it down the page and make words out of it? Like this
Silly
Homo
Erectus
Earnestly
Prays
More next time.
This is Elgin Hushbeck, asking you to Consider Christianity: a Faith Based on Fact.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)