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 Sam Harris Takes On the Muslim Cartoon Controversy and His CriticsPosted on Feb 3, 2006
By Sam Harris Update: Sam Harris responds to the Muhammad cartoon controversy. In recent days, crowds of thousands have gathered throughout the Muslim worldburning European embassies, issuing threats, and even taking hostagesחin protest over 12 cartoons depicting the Prophet Muhammad that were published in a Danish newspaper. The problem is not merely that the cartoons were mildly derogatory. The furor primarily erupted over the fact that the Prophet had been depicted at all. Muslims consider any physical rendering of Muhammad to be an act of idolatry. And idolatry is punishable by death. Criticism of Muhammad or his teachingwhich was also implicit in the cartoonsחis considered blasphemy. As luck would have it, blasphemy is also punishable by death. Pious Muslims, therefore, have two reasons to not accept less than a severing of the heads of those responsible,” as was elucidated by a preacher at the Al Omari mosque in Gaza.
Let us take stock of the moral intuitions now on display in the House of Islam: on Aug. 17, 2005, an Iraqi insurgent helped collect the injured survivors of a car bombing, rushed them to a hospital, and then detonated his own bomb, murdering those who were already mortally wounded as well as the doctors and nurses struggling to save their lives. Where were the cries of outrage from the Muslim world? Religious sociopaths murder innocents by the hundreds in the capitols of Europe, blow up the offices of the U.N. and the Red Cross, purposefully annihilate crowds of children gathered to collect candy from U.S. soldiers on the streets of Baghdad, kidnap journalists, behead them, and the videos of their butchery become the most popular form of pornography in the Muslim world, and no one utters a word of protest because these atrocities have been perpetrated ӓin defense of Islam. But draw a picture of the Prophet, and pious mobs convulse with pious rage. One could hardly ask for a better demonstration of the manner in which religious dogmatism and its pseudo-morality eclipses basic, human goodness. This behavior would be impossible without religious belief. It is time we realized that the endgame for civilization is not political correctness. It is not respect for the abject religious certainties of the mob. It is reason. While ԓAn Atheist Manifesto received considerable support from readers of Truthdig, a variety of criticisms surfaced in the reader commentary. I summarize and respond to some of these below: 1. Just because you havenԒt seen God doesnt mean He doesnҒt exist. Atheism, therefore, is as much an act of faith as theism is. Bertrand Russell demolished this fallacy nearly a century ago with his famous teapot argument. As his response appears to me to be perfect, I simply offer it here: Many orthodox people speak as though it were the business of sceptics to disprove received dogmas rather than of dogmatists to prove them. This is, of course, a mistake. If I were to suggest that between the Earth and Mars there is a china teapot revolving about the sun in an elliptical orbit, nobody would be able to disprove my assertion provided I were careful to add that the teapot is too small to be revealed even by our most powerful telescopes. But if I were to go on to say that, since my assertion cannot be disproved, it is intolerable presumption on the part of human reason to doubt it, I should rightly be thought to be talking nonsense. If, however, the existence of such a teapot were affirmed in ancient books, taught as the sacred truth every Sunday, and instilled into the minds of children at school, hesitation to believe in its existence would become a mark of eccentricity and entitle the doubter to the attentions of the psychiatrist in an enlightened age or of the Inquisitor in an earlier time. If a valid retort to Russell has ever seen the light of day, Im not aware of it. As I tried to make clear in my essay, the atheist is not in the business of making claims on insufficient evidence, he merely resists such claims whenever they appear on the lips of the faithful. I donҒt think it can be pointed out too often that the faithful do this as well. Every Christian knows what it is like to find the claims of Muslimsthat the Holy Koran is the perfect word of God, that Muhammad flew to heaven on a winged horse, etc.חto be utterly incredible. Everyone who is not a Mormon knows at a glance that Mormonism is bogus. And everyone of every religious denomination knows what it is like not to believe in Zeus. Everyone has rejected an infinite number of spurious claims about God. The atheist rejects infinity plus one. 2. You will never get rid of religion, so criticizing it is just a waste of time. I would be the first to admit that the prospects for eradicating religious dogmatism in our world do not seem good. Still, the same could have been said about efforts to abolish slavery at the beginning of the 19th century. Anyone who spoke about eradicating slavery in the United States around 1810 surely appeared to be wasting his time, and wasting it dangerously. The analogy is not perfect, but it is suggestive. If we ever do transcend our religious bewilderment, we will look back upon this period in human history with absolute astonishment. How could it have been possible for people to believe such things in the 21st century? How could it be that they allowed their world to become so dangerously fragmented by empty notions about God and Paradise? The answers to these questions are as embarrassing as those that sent the last slave ship sailing to America as late as 1859 (the same year that Darwin published “The Origin of Species"). 3. Religion is our only source of morality. Without it, we would be plunged into a secular moral chaos. This concern is so widespread that I have responded to it at some length. A version of this response will soon be published in the magazine Free Inquiry (www.secularhumanism.org) as The Myth of Secular Moral Chaos.Ӕ One cannot criticize religious dogmatism for long without encountering the following claim, advanced as though it were a self-evident fact of nature: there is no secular basis for morality. Raping and killing children can only be really wrong, the thinking goes, if there is a God who says it is. Otherwise, right and wrong would be mere matters of social construction, and any society will be at liberty to decide that raping and killing children is actually a wholesome form of family fun. In the absence of God, John Wayne Gacy would be a better person than Albert Schweitzer, if only more people agreed with him. It is simply amazing how widespread this fear of secular moral chaos is, given how many misconceptions about morality and human nature are required to set it whirling in a persons brain. There is undoubtedly much to be said against the spurious linkage between faith and morality, but the following three points should suffice. If a book like the bible were the only reliable blueprint for human decency that we have, it would be impossible (both practically and logically) to criticize it in moral terms. But it is extraordinarily easy to criticize the morality one finds in bible, as most of it is simply odious and incompatible with a civil society. The notion that the bible is a perfect guide to morality is really quite amazing, given the contents of the book. Human sacrifice, genocide, slaveholding, and misogyny are consistently celebrated. Of course, GodҒs counsel to parents is refreshingly straightforward: whenever children get out of line, we should beat them with a rod (Proverbs 13: 24, 20:30, and 23:13-14). If they are shameless enough to talk back to us, we should kill them (Exodus 21:15, Leviticus 20:9, Deuteronomy 21:18-21, Mark.7:9-13 and Matthew 15:4-7). We must also stone people to death for heresy, adultery, homosexuality, working on the Sabbath, worshipping graven images, practicing sorcery, and for a wide variety of other imaginary crimes. Most Christians imagine that Jesus did away with all this barbarism and delivered a doctrine of pure love and toleration. He didnt (Matthew 5:18-19, Luke 16:17, 2 Timothy 3:16, 2 Peter 20-21, John 7:19). Anyone who believes that Jesus only taught the Golden Rule and love of oneҒs neighbor should go back and read the New Testament. And pay particular attention to the morality that will be on display if he ever returns to Earth trailing clouds of glory (e.g. 2 Thessalonians 1:7-9, 2:8; Hebrews 10:28-29; 2 Peter 3:7; and all of Revelation). It is not an accident that St. Thomas Aquinas thought heretics should be killed and that St. Augustine thought they should be tortured. (Ask yourself, what are the chances that these good doctors of the Church hadnt read the New Testament closely enough to discover the error of their ways?) As a source of objective morality, the bible is one of the worst books we have. It might have been the very worst, in fact, if we didnҒt also happen to have the Koran. It is important to point out that we decide what is good in the Good Book. We read the Golden and Rule and judge it to be a brilliant distillation of many of our ethical impulses; we read that a woman found not to be a virgin on her wedding night should be stoned to death, and we (if we are civilized) decide that this is the most vile lunacy imaginable. Our own ethical intuitions are, therefore, primary. So the choice before us is simple: we can either have a 21st century conversation about ethicsavailing ourselves of all the arguments and scientific insights that have accumulated in the last 2,000 years of human discourseחor we can confine ourselves to a first century conversation as it is preserved in the bible. If religion were necessary for morality, there should some evidence that atheists are less moral than believers. But evidence for this is in short supply, and there is much evidence to the contrary. People of faith regularly allege that atheism is responsible for some of the most appalling crimes of the 20th century. Are atheists really less moral than believers? While it is true that the regimes of Hitler, Stalin, Mao and Pol Pot were irreligious to varying degrees, they were not especially rational. In fact, their public pronouncements were little more than litanies of delusion--delusions about race, economics, national identity, the march of history or the moral dangers of intellectualism. In many respects, religion was directly culpable even here. Consider the Holocaust: the anti-Semitism that built the Nazi crematoria brick by brick was a direct inheritance from medieval Christianity. For centuries, Christian Europeans had viewed the Jews as the worst species of heretics and attributed every societal ill to their continued presence among the faithful. While the hatred of Jews in Germany expressed itself in a predominately secular way, its roots were undoubtedly religiousand the explicitly religious demonization of the Jews of Europe continued throughout the period. (The Vatican itself perpetuated the blood libel in its newspapers as late as 1914.) Auschwitz, the gulag and the killing fields are not examples of what happens when people become too critical of unjustified beliefs; to the contrary, these horrors testify to the dangers of not thinking critically enough about specific secular ideologies. Needless to say, a rational argument against religious faith is not an argument for the blind embrace of atheism as a dogma. The problem that the atheist exposes is none other than the problem of dogma itself--of which every religion has more than its fair share. I know of no society in recorded history that ever suffered because its people became too reasonable. According the United Nationsג Human Development Report (2005), the most atheistic societies--countries like Norway, Iceland, Australia, Canada, Sweden, Switzerland, Belgium, Japan, the Netherlands, Denmark and the United Kingdomare actually the healthiest, as indicated by measures of life expectancy, adult literacy, per capita income, educational attainment, gender equality, homicide rate and infant mortality. Conversely, the 50 nations now ranked lowest by the U.N. in terms of human development are unwaveringly religious. Of course, correlational data of this sort do not resolve questions of causalityחbelief in God may lead to societal dysfunction; societal dysfunction may foster a belief in God; each factor may enable the other; or both may spring from some deeper source of mischief. Leaving aside the issue of cause and effect, these facts prove that atheism is perfectly compatible with the basic aspirations of a civil society; they also prove, conclusively, that religious faith does nothing to ensure a societys health. If religion really provided the only conceivable, objective basis for morality, it should be impossible to posit a non-theistic, objective basis for morality. But it is not impossible; it is rather easy.
Clearly, we can think of objective sources of moral order that do not require the existence of a law-giving God. In “The End of Faith,” I argued that questions of morality are really questions about happiness and suffering. If there are objectively better and worse ways to live so as to maximize happiness in this world, these would be objective moral truths worth knowing. Whether we will ever be in a position to discover these truths and agree about them cannot be known in advance (and this is the case for all questions of scientific fact). But if there are psychophysical laws that underwrite human well-beingҗand why wouldnt there be?җthen these laws are potentially discoverable. Knowledge of these laws would provide an enduring basis for an objective morality. In the meantime, everything about human experience suggests that love is better than hate for the purposes of living happily in this world. This is an objective claim about the human mind, the dynamics of social relations, and the moral order of our world. While we do not have anything like a final, scientific approach to maximizing human happiness, it seems safe to say that raping and killing children will not be one of its primary constituents.
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By archeon of thrace, February 11 at 5:40 pm #
Are you merely against atheists?
How do you feel about Sihks? or Hindus? or Zoarastorians? What about Budhists? or Confusionists? How do you feel bout Taoists? or followers of any of the aboriginal religions of North America and Africa? Each of these reject Christianity, Judaism, and Islam.
Atheo-bolshevism? Now that is funny! Christianity, when practiced according to the ACTUAL words of the so called savior, is overtly marxist. Christianity as practiced by semi-literate american evangelicals is theo-fascist.
As for the 12 men starting christianity, I suppose we will forget the two Marys...they did not play a part at all.
Report thisBy jerubaal, June 28, 2007 at 1:18 pm #
(Unregistered commenter)
“I don’t believe in an afterlife, so I don’t have to spend my whole life fearing hell, or fearing heaven even more. For whatever the tortures of hell, I think the boredom of heaven would be even worse.” Isaac Asimov
Report thisThis would be true if you were made to adore yourself and heaven were a hall of mirrors - the atheists dream come true. But what if you were made to adore God and love Him with all your heart and mind (rational) and He gave glimpses of Himself through nature and revealed with greater detail through recorded history of His interaction with man
who we really are - would you want a God?
Probably not, He would interfer with your creativity, your notion of freedom, and perhaps your self-centered, self-delusioned way of thinking. How can we be sure these thoughts and notions are legit? After all we are dealing with an invisble God, who speaks to TV evangelists so they can make more money. No - you have to use your God given brain which you actually think is a product of chance and billions and billions of years with some chemical reactions thrown in with the living tissue and you use that thing to reject the self absorbed tv evangelists because most of them are hokey and you start a comparison of statements. There is no God - why, because Sam Harris articulates it so well and this helps me avoid having to use my God given brain to have these chemicals reactions of thought on my own. Tim Freke says the Bible isn’t accurate, well there you have it, I can now go around and tell all of them Bible thumpers how stupid they are cause some guy who didn’t really do any balanced research had some bad chemicals reacting up there in noggin land. I can bring up the “fact” of Christ’s resurrection not being that authentic and original because the story is borrowed from Egyptian mythology - I won’t point out there are six different interpretations of Osiris because I’m using the information to grind an axe and make people look stupid. Of course I would have to admit I believe the Osiris story but don’t believe the Christ eye-witness accounts. Belief, it is really what it all comes down to, even Asimov at the end of the day said he was an atheist based on emotional “belief” not scientific proof and for that I applaud him - if only more atheist would admit their emotional belief instead of hiding in the closet and cloking every thought (chemical thinga ma bob)with my rational mind won’t let me commit to the thoughts of the possiblity of a God or I once believed there was a God but it was a brainwashed technique of my upbringing and now I’m so free to embrace who I really am. The day you think you no longer have to continue to critique what you believe is the day you become a fake dooped (please accuse me of name calling) goofy demiurge of your own mental prison. And because I’ve found all atheist love to hear God’s Word (oops, I meant to say Paul’s thoughts to the Corinthian church) 2 Cor. 13:5
By ilse, May 17, 2007 at 1:54 am #
(Unregistered commenter)
“Thank God I am an atheist.” (Bunuel)
Report thisBy Mary Wallman, February 1, 2007 at 10:39 am #
(Unregistered commenter)
Sam Harris rocks. If you can’t get that (from his writing), then you aren’t listening.
Report thisBy carlos de paula, January 31, 2007 at 10:03 pm #
(Unregistered commenter)
it was the best commentary I have seen about the cartoon crisis. We can’t give up freedom of speech because it could hurt people.
thanks sam
Report thisBy Needler, January 3, 2007 at 8:24 pm #
(Unregistered commenter)
Oh, by the way...is there some cryptic apocalyptic reason for the mispelling of Christian?...Just curious......
Report thisBy Needler, January 3, 2007 at 12:34 pm #
(Unregistered commenter)
I AM 0NE GOOD CRISTHIAN:
“ATHEISTS as born destroyers, not rulers at all; they had neither
culture, nor art,nor architecture of their own, ‘the surest
expression of a people’s culture.’
They are just
calculators....(blah, blah, blah)...”
But then, you have blind faith. How is that your own?
Oh, and by the way--I was born of this culture--and travelled all over. I am from earth. How ‘bout you? Have you even been to another continent? (Not counting internet)…
puhleeze. Put away your fangs and get with the global community you live in. You do not live in a vacuum. You can’t have it all your way--with no proof--and expect everyone to just accept your perspectives--on blind faith.
Being an American IS born of all ideas--including atheism.
“He is less remote from the truth who believes NOTHING than he who believes what is WRONG.”
– Thomas Jefferson---remember him?
“When an objection cannot be made formidable, there is some policy in trying to make it frightful; and to substitute the yell and the war-whoop, in the place of reason, argument, and good order.”
— Thomas Paine
..and some other thoughts from Atheists:
“Isn’t it enough to see that a garden is beautiful without having to believe that there are fairies at the bottom of it too?”
— Douglas Adams
“I have something to say to the religionist who feels atheists never say anything positive:
You are an intelligent human being. Your life is valuable for its own sake. You are not second-class in the universe, deriving meaning and purpose from some other mind. You are not inherently evil—you are inherently human, possessing the positive rational potential to help make this a world of morality, peace and joy. Trust yourself.”
–Dan Barker, from his book, Losing Faith in Faith
You see, it’s not all bad. You cannot take away others’ life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness. This is why religion does NOT belong in government.
Report thisBy I AM 0NE GOOD CRISTHIAN, December 26, 2006 at 1:18 pm #
(Unregistered commenter)
know for a fact that if atheism-Bolshevism got the upper hand in
america,’
, ‘I should either be hanging from the nearest lamppost or locked up
in
some cellar or other. So the question for me is not whether or not I
want to
undertake this or that, but whether or not we succeed in preventing a
atheism -Bolshevik
take-over. I myself have the blind faith that our CRISTIAN movement
will win
through. We began2000 years ago with 12 men,’Today
I can say with confidence that our cause will prevail.’
believed that the AMERICAN people needed ‘a monarch-like idol’ –
but not
some mild-mannered king, so much as a ‘full-blooded and ruthless
ruler,’ a
dictator who would rule with an iron hand, like Oliver Cromwell.It is
something
like training a dog: first it is given to a tough handler, and then,
when
it has been put through the hoops, it is turned over to a friendly
owner
whom it will serve with all the greater loyalty and devotion.’
I always used to regard antiATHEISM as inhumane, but now my own
experiences
have converted me into the most fanatical enemy of ATHEISM:
ATHEISTS as born destroyers, not rulers at all; they had neither
culture, nor art,nor architecture of their own, ‘the surest
expression of a people’s culture.’
They are just
Report thiscalculators. That explains why only ATHEITS could have founded Marxism,
which
negates and destroys the very basis of all culture. With their Marxism,
the
ATHEITS hoped to create a broad mindless mass of plebs without any real
intelligence,
a gormless instrument in their hands.’
By archeon, December 8, 2006 at 1:03 pm #
(Unregistered commenter)
The point is to live a decent life now so that we can leave a better world for our children.
The point is that the moral, ethics, etc, that we ascribe to “god”, are simply evolved mechanisms that allow us humans to live in large social groups. The these social groups ensured our survival and allowed us to propagate our seed into the futur. We in in the end, don’t live decent lives so that we can go to heaven, but rather so that our children can have children who can have children....it is about our offspring.
Nothing more..........
Report thisIf it was about god why give a dam about anything but the afterlife?
By John Croojk, December 8, 2006 at 2:34 am #
(Unregistered commenter)
Sorry - I couldn’t resist posting ANOTHER response to TRUEBELIEVER’s entry!
TB says : “Atheists, I have a question for you, if there is no God, what is the point of trying to live a decent and moral life? It seems pointless if after we die, there’s no hope for us.”
In response, allow me to quote another of TB’s gems of wisdom:
True dat.
Report thisBy archeon, November 22, 2006 at 9:54 pm #
(Unregistered commenter)
Best wishes to all here. Be kind to someone today.
Report thisBy Mary Wallman, November 22, 2006 at 3:33 pm #
(Unregistered commenter)
HA! Of course you wouldn’t know about the low-brow “Seth” who channelled some actress or writer or something…
Happy Tofurkey Day or Turkey Day--which ever your persuasion my goodly no-goodnicks!
Report thisBy HiveRadical, November 22, 2006 at 1:47 pm #
(Unregistered commenter)
I enjoy reading ‘nerdy’ stuff. Dictionaries, encyclopedias, Historical documents, Historical commentary. I’m into graphic design and have grown up around it (primarily logo design). I enjoy video games but don’t get to them anywhere near as much as when I was a yungun. I live along the Wasatch front in Utah so it’s suburbia with easy access to mountain, desert and other interesting wilderness areas. In honesty I’ve never been hunting but I went fishing occasionally while growing up, whenever my grandfather needed a companion. I enjoy occasional ventures into some of the more desolate landscapes here in Utah, like the west desert. I enjoy basketball but am not terribly capable at it.
I’ve eight siblings with only one of them being a brother.
I presently have almost 90 cousins and 60 1st Cousins once removed between my mother and father’s sides of our extended family and that’s with only four divorces among all my aunts and uncles and cousins and NO resulting children from few following marriages.
And no there’s no polygamy in our family in these recent generations. All those polygamists here in Utah were long ago cut off from any connection with the LDS faith and mainstream. I do have ancestors tied to polygamist families and at some point have Brigham young as an ‘uncle.’
For Thanksgiving we’re getting together with some of our extended familiy down south (near the city of Provo, Utah--home of BYU/Brigham Young University). We’ll probably have upwards of forty people there and likely have a pie to person ratio of 1:1 (sugar is the “mormon heroin"--though we’ll no doubt have some pies sweetened by splenda). I hope to play various parlor games with cousins, games like Settlers of Cataan (good game!).
Report thisBy archeon, November 22, 2006 at 10:33 am #
(Unregistered commenter)
H-R thankyou for asking. This debate stuff gets a bit overbearing at times, so it is good to lighten it up a bit.
We here in Canada have turkey day in October, November is usually way to far past the harvest time, and it doesn’t leave enough time until Xmas. But here too it is a day of friends and families getting together, though politics and religion often come up at the dinner table, the convesations are light hearted and good humour seems to be plentiful. Generally it is about community, neighbourliness, and generally a time for “giving” “thanks” according to each persons needs.
I live out in the bush as we call it, about 4km to the nearest road, and about 35km to the nearest urban center. I live on an old homestead, my parents and my wife also live here. My parents operate a hunting and fishing resort, and I am a carpenter (just like Jesus
). My wife and I moved here to help out the parents because they are getting on in years, 65 and 70 respectivly.
I like to read, mostly light literature. I do art, painting, drawing, and carving. I also like to go out into the woods to hunting and fish. I really enjoy eating my catch and kill, this is the primary reason I hunt and fish. Our place in on a large lake/river system in Northwestern Ontario, so I spend alot of time on and in the water in the summer.
Occasionally in the evening, after a good meal my wife and I enjoy a glass of good red wine. Most of the time we do not drink, and we no longer smoke, the wife has not for 15 years and I for 10.
We also enjoy going for walks together and with our little dog, Kallie, a Heinz 57 special we rescued from the local shelter.
Happy thanksgiving all, and may you be in the company of loving family and friends. We take this time from thanksgiving to Xmass to reflect on the goodness and fortune that we have blessed with.
What about you H-R?
Report thisBy HiveRadical, November 21, 2006 at 10:10 pm #
(Unregistered commenter)
Any of you end up watching the video here--
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=983112177262602885
???
It’s really good. I know it’s long (like an hour) but it’s really good and pertains to our subject matter.
If you have no interest and/or desire then if you could say so. I really would like to see your views on what’s said. But no presure. If you don’t want to see that’s okay.
Do y’all have any big plans for turkey day? Do you generally celebrate Thanksgiving?
What do y’all do for Hobbies aside from this?
Just thought it’s kind of odd how in this virtual forum so often we can get so deep debating people without getting even close to knowing anything about each other on any personal level.
Isn’t that weird that you’d have such deep or extended debates with someone and you likely know them to a lesser degree than some person you might have talked to for ten min. in some journey or while waiting in a line somewhere?
Report thisBy archeon, November 20, 2006 at 2:18 pm #
(Unregistered commenter)
No, who is he?
Funny how creating one’s own messianic prophetic religion keeps the other religion pedlars silent. You can’t really comment on my new religion without using arguements that can be turned against other prophets.....
BTW we are not having a sermon on Sunday. Archeon wants to sleep in, and the god has told Archeon that any day Archeon wants to sleep late is a holy day. So sleep in late on Sunday and honour gods prophet Archeon.
Report thisBy Mary Wallman, November 20, 2006 at 8:20 am #
(Unregistered commenter)
The Archeon has spoken....let it be written....Do you know “Seth?”
Report thisBy archeon, November 19, 2006 at 8:19 pm #
(Unregistered commenter)
The god sayeth to me in chapter 4:
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
Chose not from among your sisters and brothers priests or others to interpret this gospel. Rather be chaplins each to the other and all.
Take note of this, and let it be your guide: there is no umpardonable sin. Sin is not.
You shall make the laws that govern the relationships between one and other. We stand silently mute. We care not who loves whom.
Select from among your host a number of delegates according to your custom and need to form a parliament. Let this body through debate and vote establish and pass laws.
You Archeon are our prophet. You shall guide the blind to the light where they might see us. Your word is our word.
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
Hmmmmm....this could get very addictive, I might actually start believing this stuff.....I think I will change my name to....Joe Smith, it would have an “every man” type appeal.
Yes Mary, Archeon says a lesbian who has had an abortion may be an aherent of Archeonism. Be pro-choice, pro-gay, support same sex marriage/unions/partnerships/etc, its all ok with Archeons god. Now that I am the prophet I will have to start speaking about myself in the third person.
Report thisBy Mary Wallman, November 19, 2006 at 3:32 pm #
(Unregistered commenter)
News Flash!
God ISN’T dead!
He never was alive.
(wah-wah-wahhhhhh!)
So glad to be a member of the church of Archeon---HOWEVER....is it okay to be pro-choice? Are gays allowed? And....can a woman be a priest? Can priests be married? Can priests be gay? Can a priest be a married lesbian who’s had an abortion and adopted children and (drum roll please...) Can everyone be human? (Ba-dum--Pssshhh!)
Report thisBy archeon, November 18, 2006 at 10:18 pm #
(Unregistered commenter)
I am not mocking, or saterizing. The words I write are the true revelation of god to me, verbatim, direct and unquestionable. Those who oppose that which I write are an abomination to the true god, the one god, the god of Archeon, and I Archeon am their prophet. In rejecting my prophecy you confirm it and honour god in all their manifestations.
Chapter three:
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
They continued:
“Archeon, holy in your unholiness, these are the comandments of the new age:
Seek neither wealth nor poverty. If luck and providence have favoured you, share, and ease the hardships of those who are not so blessed. Charity is the highest honour you can give to us.
Love your neigbour as you would love your enemy. Love your enemy as you would love your brother. If you hate another you hate yourself and us.
Let passion find you in your heart. Let love guide you to your mates. We care not which sex lies with which sex only that love and passion guide the choice.
Judge as you would be judged. Be both fair and equitable in your judgments, ask no more from others than you yourself can give. Forgiveness and understanding shall be the the foundation of law and punishment. Revenge and retribution are an abomination to us.
Enter no place of worship lest it be to mock and ridicule the lesser religions, and unless it is to divert from the false path the missled and decieved followers of the lesser gods. Yet, we shall accept unto us those who reject us. Salvation and redemption are granted to all. Exclusion and rejection are an abomination to us.
All forms of labour are to be held in high esteem. Humankind shall not pass judgment on those who toil nor make distinction between them on thier occupations. For we hold the prostitute and the carpenter and the doctor in the same regard. We alone shall judge and we do not.
Humankind is not born in sin nor are you thus concieved. You are creations of love, not by us, by yourselves. Cast aside all the ancient ideas of lineage and birth right. Class and priviledge are an abomination to us.
War is an abomination. Thou shalt not kill another human. Murder in all forms is an abomination to us.
Do not worship us or the lesser gods. In rejecting us you honour us greatly.
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
Still not from the Book of Mormon but rather the one true word of god - The Book of Archeon
Mary, you may support my ministry by not sending any money. LOL.
God is dead, lets finally bury him.
Report thisBy HiveRadical, November 18, 2006 at 7:09 pm #
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Aparently sufficient enough to keep us coming back. Either we have something engaging or we all are just easily entertained.
This is interesting in light of my recently coming upon a video of a talk given to google’s staff by one Alan Wallace, a talk on conscousness and science it demonstrates quite poigniantly at one point the insanity of those things advocated by archeon, and the like, when they try and pretend to be able to cut the bands of dogma. It’s an hour long, but it’s very good, I’d dare say just about anyone involved in this forum would find it worthwhile.
Here’s a link to it--
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=983112177262602885
What would such qualifiers matter for?
Not really. There’s a great deal of active consciousness that’s not currently touchable by science. The video points out many details on such.
Well, while this likely wont matter to you, I believe that ultimately you will see all of my life as I lived it and I will see all of yours. Such will extend to all who live if I understand the doctrines of my faith on this correctly.
Report thisBy Mary Wallman, November 18, 2006 at 8:32 am #
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My good readers, isn’t this tête-à-tête +1 interesting?
H-R: No one knows FOR SURE there is/isn’t a god. BUT--where there should be there is NO EVIDENCE… Where is the written word of any holy person? The physical paper/papyrus/whatevs with the actual handwritting of the holy person--NOT the scribe--but the actual person? Nowhere! Visions can be explained by science. When I die, I hope that my brain bestows a vision of my family in happiness and memories of my son and the good times in my life. I don’t want to waste the last few minutes of my time on earth with a hologramic messianic fairytale person manufactured by me to usher me into the idea of death with a smooth transition. Hey, if that’s what would make others happy, power to them. Just not what I wanna see. I’ll take the for-real important people in my life over that…
Archeon, where can I make donations to your ministry? HA!
Reinier Hil--very good summation of this religion problem--and the faithful’s resistance to discussion (with the exception of H-R of course!).
Report thisBy archeon, November 16, 2006 at 6:35 pm #
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“Brings to mind that sign that read--
“Nietzsche is dead.
--God” “
This is a sign god made? This is still a phase coined by a human, not god.
God is dead - is a phrase by Nietzsche.
Nietzche is dead - not a phrase by god.
Brings to mind the continuing religious drivel claimed to be the word of god, yet only written by men. Sans any divine spark.
Report thisBy HiveRadical, November 16, 2006 at 3:37 pm #
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By that very definition then secular humanism’s ideals are not true or optimal because they, likewise, are forever out of reach. There’s never a point of arrival. If it’s the absence of a visible end point that nullifies the validity of a paradigm then there is NO paradigm that matches up.
Only if you have a closed mind. Anyone who has, and maintains an open mind does not line up with your above description of a secular mind or person. So you mean the easy life is for the dogmatically secular. If you say such is not possible then your above statement regarding the ease of life of a secularist is a lie and a sham. To demonstrate the fullness of this I quote the following from a noted scholar from within my faith--
“...(prejudice) is forming an opinion before all the evidence has been considered. This means that freedom from prejudice, whether in the field of science or any other field, requires a tremendous lot of work.
One cannot be unprejudiced without constant and laborious study of the evidence. The open mind must be a searching mind. The person who claims allegiance to science in his thinking, or who is an advocate of the open mind, has let himself in for endless toil and trouble.
But what has happened? Those who’ve called themselves liberals in religion have accepted science with open arms precisely because they believe that excuses them from any toil at all. For them to have an open mind means to accept without question and without any personal examination of evidence whatever the prevailing opinions of the experts prescribe.”
--Hugh Nibley
You see if prejudice is something you wish to sumarily dismiss as the realm of the overtly dogmatic then your analysis of truly secular and dogma free life is very very wrong. Such a life would demand, in the name of a meaningfull open mind, constant and never ending toil and searching and double guessing and reworking and constantly changing and adjusting.
Sacrifice is something acknowledged as needed even by Sam Harris. Try reading his Letter to a Christian Nation. What’s the difference between sacrificing humanity on the alter of divine obedience vs. sacrificing it on the alter of the prevailing opinions of the experts??? Neither side has been proven in it’s final salvific merit. And with the constant changing of what constitutes the alter of the prevailing opinions of the experts (not three decades ago we were doomed to global cooling and an ice age. Will we have another global climate prediction in a decade or so?) how can any rational being claim wisdom in relinquishing government to the intelligencia or the overwhelming consensus of the experts?
In my faith this is not so. The passions are harnessed to maximize their manifestation. Like constantly eating candy constantly endulging in any emotion or in sexualism leads ultimately to a dulling. We believe that, in their purest form human emotions and experiences are literally divine.
Brings to mind that sign that read--
“Nietzsche is dead.
--God”
You keep singing your favorite line untill you are rendered incapble of such by the powers of entropy while the legacy of the believers, those having children, continues on longer and with a greater magnitude than any progeny you have presently or may have. My grandfather is a good example of this. In his nineth decade his posterity outnumbers the posterity of his eight siblings put together. And all but perhaps five or six, out of almost a hundred, are still believers.
Thus even with the atrition from your secular propeganda the believers have, by the dictates of your own Charles Darwin, the advantage of being ‘fit’ in terms of ultimate survival.
Report thisBy HiveRadical, November 16, 2006 at 1:56 pm #
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Quick dilute dilute!!!
Nice clever ploy. You discover that your argument in it’s particulars was put forth in scripture brought to the Western World almost 200 years ago so you rush to elaborate, expound and otherwise try and make your presentation, your attempt at satire and mockery, appear as anything but to be fullfilling prophecy or mimicking point by point the description of one of the Anti-Christs that lived in the Book of Mormon.
Almost as funny as those Christians who, without knowing anything of the actual contents of the Gold Plates manage to fullfill prophecy in the very exact words they use to reject the book. I had more than one instance in which the phrase “A Bible! A Bible! We have a Bible!” was repeated, in a few cases word for word, by the mouths of the very individuals the Book of Mormon prophesied. You followed in that trend by managing to virtually present every philosophical point dished out in a single chapter by one of about four archtypical anti-Christ figures in the Book of Mormon.
Even this second chapter, at it’s core is nothing more than extrapolating on the points originally given and repeating some of the assertions of your view.
The last phrase is correct, however, “blessed are those who forsaken us.” Seeing as I occupy that spot and you, with your second chapter being received, are still with them who are not.
Report thisBy archeon, November 15, 2006 at 6:07 pm #
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No not taken from the book of mormon…
they continued in chapter two:
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
“The books of the Jews, the Christians, the Muslims contain the seeds of truth - grown wild and tangled in the fertile fields of corruption and deception. The truth cannot be seperated from the lies within them. Read them as fictions as creations of insane minds. We have chosen to reveal to you and you alone the truth, and direct you to record it, word for word, line by line, chapter and verse.
We are the god that exists and does not exist. Even those who do not believe we exist believe in our existance. In believing you create us. In not believing you create us. We are nothing and everything. We are nowhere and everywhere. We are contradiction. Our will is your will.
Jesus is dead. Mohammed is dead. Abraham is dead. Jacob is dead. Moses is dead. The angels are dead. We are dead. Let the dead mourn the dead, you living live. It is time for the new age.
The false and corrupt surround you, the churches, the synagogues, the mosques, go not to them as yourself for they will hate you. Rather find your converts on their door steps where they will find you in the vestments of the faith to lead them from the path of enslavement to liberty and truth. Cause them to feel doubt about their clergy, their prophets, their gods.
We are the god that exists and does not exist. You Archeon are our prophet. We have chosen you to be our orb and our scepter, you are the bringer of light and truth. Blessed are the faithless. Blessed are the unblievers. Blessed are all those who have forsaken us.”
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Thus ends chapter two of the Book of Archeon.
Come join me. I am the prophet for whom you wait. The god has chosen me. I am the body divine.
Report thisBy HiveRadical, November 14, 2006 at 9:41 pm #
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The following is archeon’s post quoted and intersperssed with writtings of an account of a man written long before the advent of archeon or the internet. Some are describing the doings of the man and others are his words.
Before I start I’ll state that I do not doubt archeon’s status as a prophet…
Behold, ye cannot know of things which ye do not see; therefore ye cannot know that there shall be a Christ.
16 Ye look forward and say that ye see a remission of your sins. But behold, it is the effect of a frenzied mind; and this derangement of your minds comes because of the traditions of your fathers, which lead you away into a belief of things which are not so.
...he appeared unto me in the form of an angel, and said unto me: Go and reclaim this people, for they have all gone astray after an unknown God. And he said unto me: There is no God; yea, and he taught me that which I should say. And I have taught his words; and I taught them because they were pleasing unto the carnal mind; and I taught them, even until I had much success, insomuch that I verily believed that they were true;
[the following is a descriptor/paraphrazing of the words of this Korihor]
17 And many more such things did he say unto them, telling them that there could be no atonement made for the sins of men, but every man fared in this life according to the management of the creature; therefore every man prospered according to his genius, and that every man conquered according to his strength; and whatsoever a man did was no crime.
Report thisBy Reinier Hil, November 14, 2006 at 11:05 am #
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I am a product of two parents that always argued
Report thisabout truths of the bible. I came to call it parental misinformation and confusion. After all our surroundings where in Europe and Christian. In my teen years it bothered me enough to pay attention to other dogma’s as well. An organized group called humanists come to mind. Had I been born in another part of the world parental misinformation and confusion would have been different but nevertheless it would have resulted in misinformation and confusion about the meaning of life. It was in my young years that I put these issues at rest by concluding that the word God is a three letter word given in ancient times for the process of nature. And if Jesus called himself the son of God then so am I. We are all off springs of the same process of nature. I left it at that and pursued a career in engineering.
Analytical thinking or reasoning were applied to come to this conclusion at an early age.
Now, some 50 years later I wish that all of us came to the same conclusion and enter a world without angels and devils, without heaven and hell. To live a life to the fullest until it is all over. A promise of an afterlife is just fabricated nonsense, you live once and that is it, just like every other living thing on earth. Among all that has life we as people are the once that can imagine a whole lot of fantastic scenarios but factually it is simple and straight forward. There are no demons to haunt me and there are no fairy godmothers that come to appease my desires. A disfunctinal Christian upbringing is still in me and a protestant one to boot. Contact in my young days with a roman catholic person was avoided and we had not much use for the other forms of protestantisms either.
Over the years we get to realize that we share the world with other religions as well and that we have been at logger heads for ever, including papal endorsements to exterminate the infidels. I have now family among Catholics,Islam,Hindoe and Bhuddist. An unthinkable situation before is now reality but it has not come to the point that we freely talk about religion. I can silently wish they all think like I do as I do not wish any harm to anybody and I do not tolerate anybody at my side to see it different.
By archeon, November 14, 2006 at 9:05 am #
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Methinks that H-R unintentionally makes my point for me, and I quote:
“yet I stand more justified than the likes of Elton John for my advocacies have the claim of a divine mandate”
Like I said the faithful and the religious always reach back to “divine mandate” as the justification for the contradictions of the faith and of the texts.
Divine mandate my ass - fairy tales, insane halucinations, and self agrandizing huberis. I see from what you say that ultimately you - H-R - can not support your position without invocation of a “divine mandate” an external seperate force that is the authority the law giver the justifier. Yet this force does not eradicate hunger, disease, pain, and death - actually it is this force that created these things in the first place.
Last evening while out in the forest, or as we call it the bush, god spoke to me.
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
It said the following: Archeon, you who do not believe, have been chosen by us to spread the word, to show that faith is not enough. You who has no faith go forth, say unto the believers - burn the churches, destroy the books of faith, all in them is lies. Say that you, have been chosen by us to show them the way, direct them to action, discard faith it is an anchor dragging them down into a vast quagmire of huberis.
This is the new covenant we make with human kind. As long as you love each other, and foresake violence and killing of one by another, and you share you wealth, we shall pour forth the blessings of the earth, the seas, and the sky. All the lies before you will be yours to behold to cherish, to make use of. Be mindfull, it is not yours to subdue or abuse.
Follow the teachings of my prophets Charles Darwin, Albert Einstein, and the host of others who correctly saw in science our will and spirit. Forsake the popes the preachers the preists and other hollier than thou claimers - for they are the false prophets that will bring ruin upon you and your children unto the seventh seventh generation.
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
That is chapter one of the new religion of Acheonism. Trust me god spoke to me, I am the chosen one, the new prophet for a new age - follow me, forsake faith it is without reward only action is the way - salvation by doing works, faith is less than dust.
Report thisBy HiveRadical, November 13, 2006 at 11:03 pm #
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First to Mary’s--
They are fun, aren’t they!
Not religion in general, but the specific one I’ve received confirmation from God on. What’s irrational about believing what’s been afirmed to me personally? My capacity to share it empirically or quantifiably with others is irrelevant. In demonstration of this phenomena--
“I had actually seen a light, and in the midst of that light I saw two Personages, and they did in reality speak to me; and though I was hated and persecuted for saying that I had seen a vision, yet it was true; and while they were persecuting me, reviling me, and speaking all manner of evil against me falsely for so saying, I was led to say in my heart: Why persecute me for telling the truth? I have actually seen a vision; and who am I that I can withstand God, or why does the world think to make me deny what I have actually seen? For I had seen a vision; I knew it, and I knew that God knew it, and I could not deny it, neither dared I do it…”
Why, or rather, in what rational paradigm is one required to have to give empirical and quantifiable proof with regards to their personal experiences? I’m not saying you have to believe me, I’m not saying you have to believe Joseph Smith. I’m simply attesting that to write this whole thing off and to, as a consequence of such a write off, side with the likes of Sir Elton in advocating the abolishment of organized religion itself is to defy ration and reason and to side with unsustainable bigotry. You say my beliefs constitute bigotry because you do not see an easy rational delineation or justification, yet I stand more justified than the likes of Elton John for my advocacies have the claim of a divine mandate, whilst the bigoted proclamations for the need of massive institutional erradication on his side do not have logic NOR any divine mandate at their root. Rather they have the clearly biased, bigoted, earthy and illogical whims of some frustrated old man who advocates the perceived grandness of 14 year old boys being permited to engage in homosexual relations. But I’m the bigot because your side wishes to be selective about which plausibility scenarios are and are not acceptable. And all these judgements born out of the same unjustifiable subjectivity (at their core) as you claim being the very reason for the vindication of your condemnation of our positions.
I’ve claimed religion. I’ve only claimed objectivity inasmuch as such might be provided me via revelation.
An interesting consideration, as a slight tangent--
Regardless your present belief take the hypothetical of God. Can you imagine any being with LESS of a motive for objectivity than a being who, through omniscience and omnipotence, was so deeply engaged in the wholeness of his creation? In otherwords the only being in the whole of existance with the capacity for objectivity is the very one with the least motive or reason to exercise such, inasmuch as such consists of a complete withdrawing and overall disinterest in the final outcome of the system! So the only candidate for being purely objective would appear to be the last one to have need of such. Again merely an aside.
My god is omniscient. Thus those parts I’ve received from him via revelation are certainly certain. This does not make my discernment inherently better in all things than anyone else. In fact I’m qutie certain, through the very things I’ve received through revelation, that there are many that presently have far greater powers of discernment in a great many facets of life and the mechanics of our existance. So I can claim to know the essentials for salvation without claiming to know the fundamentals of, say physics or biology, than others, even those outside of my faith.
And then with regard to those abandoning my religion. The word abandon, at least as I see it, would mean they would have, at some point have had to really and fully accept it. Thus I don’t see you or archeon as having the capacity to abandon it. Perhaps at present you’ve abandoned the invitation to learn about it. But that’s not the same as abandoning it. So while I do feel, in terms of salvation fundamentals, that I do have a better knowledge than those who’ve abandoned my faith that doesn’t mean I’m superior than you or archeon. It simply means I’ve seen something you, as far as I can tell, simply have not looked enough to discover. Thus you are not held accountable for such nor necesarily yet condemned. God will be the judge of when, and at what point, individuals acutally have enough knowledge to knowingly accept or reject salvation. One, or both of you, may well at whatever point constitutes this sufficiency be as, or more accepting than I am. Thus any thing in terms of supremacy is nothing at all that I would ever dare claim. I don’t know your heart and I will not dare guess as to your ultimate capacities at present. Certainly I view you at present as lost. But that doesn’t mean I’m foolish enough to think one or both of you couldn’t utterly surpase me if or when you arrive at some point of discernment.
Essentially, for all I know, you two could be spiritual savants simply awaiting the passing of a threshold or two or four.
Ohh this doesn’t translate over. It’s cute. But it doesnt’ translate over. My discernment and access to any divinely aided objectivity or access to truth is constantly dependant on the heed I give to the revelations I’ve received. I’m openly admitting that I’m as prone as anyone to screwing up on judgements outside of the essentials. Heaven knows how wrong I’ve been in a great many of my predicitions that had only my intellect to guide them. There are very very few things I know with dogmatic certainty. But those that I do know, those in connection with the validity of my faith as experienced by myself are different and distinct in magnitude and scope from any other feelings and assurances I’ve gained through anyother attempts at discernment, be it whatever vein of discernment outside of the spiritual.
On to archeon,
That’s easy to do. I mention anyone who holds those and you can either deny the actuality of such labels or simply claim that they are not real secular humanists.
But from what I’ve seen even very well intentioned and bright and secular humans can rationalize some form of racism or xenophobia.
Have you ever read the Ender series? Ender’s Game? Speaker for the Dead? Xenocide? Children of the Mind? They are a series of sci-fi books that follow the path of what, as best I can tell, and arch-typical secular humanist, a character that’s truely likable. In this book is one of the items that first turned me on to the great and grand virtues found in the realm of secular humanism.
No. Not at their foundation. Not ultimately.
As those constructs cannot possibly give definative answers to realtime elements of our existance they inherently are abandoned at times and places in leaps of faith. There come moments when those constructs of the human intellect fail, in their independent analysis, to give sufficient information for the execution of needed decisions. Thus abandonment of these very principles becomes the closest thing to the precedents they’ve laid out in previous scenarios. In such moments we are left to the base and incomprehensible mechanations of intuitions and gut instinct. Yet these are the very items from which we seem to derive prejudice, bigotry and all the trapings of subjectivism.
No no no. Rather they are means of jumping the gaps inherent to the finite limitations of the human construct. Even rational disection of the operations of nature reveal related strands to the vices and evils you place above. Emnity is not inherently hate. Supression of other entities to one’s power is not always oppression. Subjegation and correlating submission are not inherently vices. Leaving entities to strugle under their own burdens, or the advocacy of inherently different roles for gender do not respectively constitute an advocacy of enslavement nor an endorsementn or practce of misogyny respectively. Disaproval of the acts and relations of a certain group does not inherently mean fear or hate of such a group and caution and the trapings unfamiliarity are not inherently xenophobia. Having prejudice, in the purest sense of the word, does not mean one is inherntly a bigot or evil.
Certainly there are a great many who’ve taken the name and banner of something to claim something self serving, evil, destructive. Our primary adversary bares the name “Slanderer"--the meaning of the word “Satan.” Wouldn’t such an adversary, if one follows what intuitively is derived from the name, exercise a system of counterfeits and farces? Wouldn’t he take a great number of his counter attacks and place it in the form and carry the claim of being the opposite of what it was? Would not doing such gain extra power over weak beings and ultimately work to defame the enemy that is impersonated?
If I personally had revelation from God that wouldn’t be a problem.
If it came from one of our apostles--
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russell_M._Nelson
it would be even easier.
You may scoff but I’ve heard first person account of a mechanic, in my faith, litterally receiving revelation for just such a thing.
http://www.providentliving.org/
But seriously--
If I had confirmation from God that the individual, be it a mechanic, an engineer, some bum off the street, had the inspiration of God for the matter at hand I would hope I would do it. I hope I would be consistant and exercise the faith in my personal revelations.
Here’s one such account of trusting such as occured after the Haun’s Mill Masacar when a young boy had a large portion of his thigh and hip blown away--
<indent>Willard Smith was one of the first survivors to enter the blacksmith shop after the massacre. He discovered the body of Warren Smith (his father), his brother Sardius, and the almost lifeless body of his little brother Alma. Willard carried Alma outside to his mother, Amanda Smith. She knelt down by her severely wounded son and pled with the Lord for help. She was prompted to cleanse the wound with lye from the ashes. With a poultice made from slippery elm, she filled the gaping wound left where the hip and joint socket had been. With the faith that he would be healed, Alma lay on his stomach for five weeks scarcely moving. Within that short period of time, a flexible gristle grew to fill the large hole left by the musket blast. Alma Smith had a full recovery!</indent>
NO
My whole point is that you are not to take anyone’s word simply because they say it. THAT is illogical. But there’s nothing fundamentally illogical with receiving either confirmation of someone’s word from God OR receiving God’s word dirrectly for yourself. Yes it’s an incident one could not prove had occured for any study or in any empirical or in any quantifiable way. But that doesn’t mean the reality of something of this sort is impossible. You may think it unlikely, but logic and ration dictate that you cannot claim it impossible.
Report thisBy archeon, November 13, 2006 at 8:40 pm #
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Again: religion is dangerous, and flawed. Religion actually “proves” that is is not true by the inability of the followers of any religion to actually live by the rules of that religion.
Living as secular life that is moral, ethical, logical, and rational is easy. It requires no sacrifice, no privation. Simply live life so that you treat everyone as you wish to be treated. From this simple idea equitable and just societies are created.
A religious life is inherently hard, because the adherents are required to sacrifice humanity on the altar of divine obedience. All human needs and desires are subservient to obedience to the will of the god head, the holy ghost, allah, etc. This is carried to the extreme in some religions that laughter, music, and dancing are “sinful”, because they bring joy to humans, and we should only find joy in god and/or his profit. Thus too sex is bad.
God is dead. Let’s get on with it and kill Christ too. Allah and the profits next. Until the pantheon of Islamochristojudiasm is bare and all the saints and other pseudo-gods are dead too.
Report thisBy Mary Wallman, November 13, 2006 at 2:08 pm #
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Here’s how it works H-R (run-on sentences included at no extra charge):
If you accept that you think religion is, at it’s core, a de facto truth, then it is and no one, no where, no way, no how, can convince you otherwise. Your mind is made up, you have religion, you are objective, you discern the truth better than any of those you discern as abandoning your religion, but YOU haven’t abandoned rationalism & reason, ‘cause you’d know if you had, because you have enough ‘objectivity,’ enough intellectual ‘honesty,’ you ‘know’ better than anyone else what is ‘really’ going on, because your holy book tells you so. You can claim to be immortal and subjective in that way--and forever deny that it’s insufficient reasoning as compared to those who openly espouse atheistic or agnostic beliefs.
Report thisBy archeon, November 13, 2006 at 11:04 am #
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H-R I disagree.
I don’t think that a secular humanist can justify racist, xenophobic, homophobic, etc views. Logic, rationality (both human intellectual constructs),and the human social constructs of ethics and morality actually prevent such. They actually make the justifications impossible without resorting to a break down of logic. It is religion and related dogma that seek to find “proofs” for the validity of (to repeat): hate, oppression, subjugation, enslavement, mysogny, homophobia, xenophobia, and other negative ways of interacting with our fellow humans. Religion and faith claim these proofs are provided in the texts “revealed” to “men” by “god”. The oppression of homesexuals and women are just two of these biblically “validated” concepts. In the past race mixing was also opposed and validated by biblical proofs.
But how much confidence would you have if the doctor you were seeing for your open heart surgery claimed to have “recieved” the knowledge to do such a surgery from a “vision” or “revelation” from god? or your mechanic and your car? or your finacial advisor? But we are expected to accept the lame ass sermons from preachers, priests, and other god pedlars.
Report thisBy HiveRadical, November 12, 2006 at 8:49 pm #
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Thankfully we have verse to help us stay tied to such--
<indent>D’ye think that you could ever, through all eternity,
Find out the generation where Gods began to be?
Or see the grand beginning, where space did not extend?
Or view the last creation where Gods and matter end?
Methinks the Spirit whispers, “No man has found ‘pure space’,”
Nor seen the outside curtains, where nothing has a place.
The works of God continue, and worlds and lives abound;
Improvement and progression have one eternal round.
There is no end to matter; there is no end to space;
There is no end to spirit; there is no end to race.</indent>
Methinks I like the word “methinks”.
Stick a hyphen in there and you’d get a illegal drug based writting/printing pigment! (I know, I’m lame)
I don’t know how much of it’s a matter of admission vs. having to capitulate in the face of raw facts to a scenario that was not even previously conceptualized. And the point I was making was not a lack of admission or capitulation to the facts, rather the fact that many positions held are based in certain assumptions. Mr. Hawking’s ‘sin,’ as it were, was not in an arrogance that inhibited capitulation, rather it was arrogance in claiming to know the list of possible outcomes. He clearly placed his guess and prediction as just that--a guess and a prediction--but he laid down the available choices as being concrete. He opperated (as all finite beings must) with various things assumed but stated things based in some degree of assumption as reaching a level of certainty.
Likewise archeon makes foundational points and assertions in his postions to have the status of fact when in reality they have no such position. Thusly he fools himself and pretends that he is either immune from dogma equivilants, or even dogma itself. All because he merely refuses to acknowledge such. Like an aquaintance of my father who would play games and cheat and, when caught in the act, seemed to have this belief that as long as he never admitted to it that he was not, and never had, cheated. The ostrich theory. Just keep your head in the sand and it’s all not happening. If you never accept that your world view is, at it’s core, a de facto dogma (or equivilant), then it isn’t and no one, no where, no way, no how, can convince you otherwise. Your mind is made up, you have no dogma, you are sufficient in your objectivity, you discern the truth better than any of those you discern as abandoning reason and ration, but you haven’t abandoned, ‘cause you’d know if you had, because you have ‘enough’ objectivity, ‘enough’ intellectual honesty, ‘enough’ capacity for personal and extra-personal observation to ‘know’ better than anyone else what is ‘really’ going on. You can claim to be a human and subjective in that way and forever deny that it’s ever a sufficient amount to render your conclusions the same in weight as those who openly espouse dogmatic beliefs.
Report thisBy HiveRadical, November 12, 2006 at 8:26 pm #
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From archeon--
<indent>You must remember H-R that the average “secular” humanist or atheist doesn’t claim to get his world view from a supreme “prefect” super being. And as such doesn’t use “him” as a justification for views that are hateful, racist, xenophobic, homophobic.</indent>
He just claims to get it from his own faulty and inherently limited human perceptions as to ration and logic. If the end result is the same why does the impetus matter? If dogmaphobia results in the persecution, supression or slaughter of people how is it any different from those other ailments you present? And how is claiming a self derived world view any less threatening or any more reasuring than someone claiming to get it from “supreme “prefect” super being”??? What? Are we all suppose to sigh in relief because a person doesn’t claim anything beyond human capacity to govern his choices, decisions, actions and ultimate goals for humanity??? What kind of insanity is that? It’s horrible, in your view, to claim a view with regard to which way humanity, or government or culture, or the populace should be directed if the person claiming the view has a belief in a being beyond the empirical realm, but it’s just fine for someone to do the samething with the implicit advocacy that strictly human efforts will yield better results??? You see I don’t believe that a being exists that is sufficient to accomplish your ideals. In t