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 Chris Hedges: I Don’t Believe in AtheistsPosted on May 23, 2007
By Chris Hedges Editor’s Note: On Tuesday night, Chris Hedges and Sam Harris debated “Religion, Politics and the End of the World.” The following is Hedges’ opening statement, in which he argues that Harris and other critics of faith have mistakenly blamed religion for the ills of the world, when the true danger lies in the human heart and its capacity for evil. Click here for full debate coverage. Sam Harris has conflated faith with tribalism. His book is an attack not on faith but on a system of being and believing that is dangerous and incompatible with the open society. He attacks superstition, a belief in magic and the childish notion of an anthropomorphic God that is characteristic of the tribe, of the closed society. He calls this religion. I do not. What he fails to grasp is not simply the meaning of faith—something I will address later—but the supreme importance of the monotheistic traditions in creating the concept of the individual. This individualism—the belief that we can exist as distinct beings from the tribe, or the crowd, and that we are called on as individuals to make moral decisions that at times defy the clamor of the tribe or the nation—is a gift of the Abrahamic faiths. This sense of individual responsibility is coupled with the constant injunctions in Islam, Judaism and Christianity for a deep altruism. And this laid the foundations for the open society. This individualism is the central doctrine and most important contribution of monotheism. We are enjoined, after all, to love our neighbor, not our tribe. This empowerment of individual conscience is the starting point of the great ethical systems of our civilization. The prophets—and here I would include Jesus—helped institutionalize dissent and criticism. They initiated the separation of powers. They reminded us that culture and society were not the sole prerogative of the powerful, that freedom and indeed the religious life required us to often oppose and defy those in authority. This is a distinctly anti-tribal outlook. Immanuel Kant built his ethics upon this radical individualism. And Kant’s injunction to “always recognize that human individuals are ends, and do not use them as mere means” runs in a direct line from the Christian Gospels. Karl Popper rightly pointed out in the first volume of “The Open Society and Its Enemies,” when he writes about this creation of the individual as set against the crowd, that “There is no other thought which has been so powerful in the moral development of man” (P. 102, Vol. 1). These religions set free the critical powers of humankind. They broke with the older Greek and Roman traditions that gods and destiny ruled human fate—a belief that when challenged by Socrates saw him condemned to death. They offered up the possibility that human beings, although limited by circumstances and simple human weaknesses, could shape and give direction to society. And most important, individuals could give direction to their own lives. Human communication directly shapes the quality of a culture. These believers were being asked to embrace an abstract, universal deity. This deity could not be captured in pictures, statues or any concrete, iconographic form. God exists in the word and through the word, an unprecedented conception in the ancient world that required the highest order of abstract thinking. “In the beginning,” the Gospel of John reads, “was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” This is why the second of the Ten Commandments prohibits Israelites from making concrete images of God. “Iconography thus became blasphemy,” Neil Postman writes, “so that a new kind of God could enter a culture.”
God is a human concept. God is the name we give to our belief that life has meaning, one that transcends the world’s chaos, randomness and cruelty. To argue about whether God exists or does not exist is futile. The question is not whether God exists. The question is whether we concern ourselves with, or are utterly indifferent to, the sanctity and ultimate transcendence of human existence. God is that mysterious force—and you can give it many names as other religions do—which works upon us and through us to seek and achieve truth, beauty and goodness. God is perhaps best understood as our ultimate concern, that in which we should place our highest hopes, confidence and trust. In Exodus God says, by way of identification, “I am that I am.” It is probably more accurately translated: “I will be what I will be.” God is better understood as verb rather than a noun. God is not an asserted existence but a process accomplishing itself. And God is inescapable. It is the life force that sustains, transforms and defines all existence. The name of God is laden, thanks to our religious institutions and the numerous tyrants, charlatans and demagogues these institutions produced, with so much baggage and imagery that it is hard for us to see the intent behind the concept. All societies and cultures have struggled to give words to describe these forces. It is why Freud avoided writing about the phenomenon of love.
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By Rossinator, July 11, 2007 at 6:02 pm #
(1 comments total)
This essay is the work of a man who does not believe in God, yet can’t bring himself to fully admit it. Mr. Hedges has thus redefined God as something completely abstract and ill-defined, so that it can not be refuted, as there is no substance to refute. While cherry-picking a few lines of the Bible to support this nonsensical position, the essay predictably descends into ridiculousness. For example, Mr. Hedges says, “individualism ... is a gift of the Abrahamic faiths”. What book does he think is he reading? In the Old Testament, God demands complete obedience, and ruthlessly stamps out any hint of individualism or free thought.
To Chris Hedges, and those who agree with his essay: you say you don’t believe in atheists? You ARE atheists. Get over it.
Reply to this | Report thisBy Jim H., July 11, 2007 at 12:18 pm #
(Unregistered commenter)
COPY
Reply to this | Report thisNOTE: This was first sent to several MENSA email addresses including “National, International, Australia.
RE: “Mensa’s goals”
“Mensa has three stated purposes: to identify and foster human intelligence for the benefit of humanity;
to encourage research in the nature, characteristics, and uses of intelligence; (?)
and to promote stimulating intellectual and social opportunities for its members.”
--------------------------------------------------
Hello You-all; With the above stated aims in mind,
What, if anything is MENSA and their Members doing to enlighten the world about the EVILS caused by the propagation of the criminal ponzi-like racketeering scheme ‘Religion’, that indoctrinates, and enslaves innocent childrlen and fools and converts them to shills to proslytize and spread their infectious plalgue-like disease that causes delusional thinking, and an absurd child-like fairytale conception of the world that is a constant threat to those of us who live in the ‘real’ world and are ceaselessly threatened by their illogical bigotry?
By Jim H., July 11, 2007 at 10:35 am #
(Unregistered commenter)
Re: 85807
Rt. Rev. Stray Talk Dr. Div.
There you go again! REINVENTING “GOD”! You are DELUSIONAL! You are suffering from Bipolar, Multiple Personality Disorder!
You say: “---not all believers in “God” are irrational---(?) THIS IS AN OUTRIGHT LIE!
I say, DELUSIONAL ‘IS’ IRRATIONAL! AND BELIEVING THE UN-PROVABLE ‘IS’ DELUSIONAL!
You say: I believe in---(what) I call God---something---(noone) else gets to define. (?)
I say: NOW YOU ADMIT(?) ‘YOU’ ‘ARE’ “REINVENTING” “GOD”! You are DELUSIONAL!
I say: Making up your own ‘little’ ("God") world; is playing games, makebelieve, fairytales; and when you believe it is REALITY(?) you are seriously mentally disturbed, and a big danger to yourself, your family, and all others you may come in contact with, or influence in any way at all, including any here, who give any credence to anything you write!
You say: “--- there are a---bunch of us theists who don’t fit(?)---preconceptions of who we are.” (MISFITS!)
I say: In this statement (directly above this) you have stated a fact!
It is almost impossible to imagine the lengths to which some imberciles or reprehensible people will go, to perpetuate such an obvious bogus criminal scheme that is represented by a word once used to describe every type of horror, and evil.
And I, for one, am thunderstruck that the ‘World Intellectual Community’ has not, and does not, completely expose all you criminally fraudulent scheming swindlers, for the true debauchers, and destroyers of our Democratic, and Human Society, that is so obvious ‘you are’, to anyone who is not distracted from, or beholden to you-all!
Reply to this | Report thisAnd, ‘I’ “hope” ‘you’ ‘get’ ‘it’! In the end!
By straight_talk_11, July 10, 2007 at 8:37 pm #
(241 comments total)
To Doug L: Huh?
To Jim H.: I believe in a Supreme and Conscious Intelligence that I call God and Who is part of nature and not outside it or “supernatural” except in the sense of extremely and ultimately natural, at the top of nature’s hierarchical structure. What I think about who God is and what S/He is like is not something you or anyone else gets to define.
A central point I’ve been making all along and few of you ever seem to get is that not all believers in God are irrational, bible-thumping creationists who can’t even except the incontrovertible fact of evolution. When you realize that one out of five Americans believe the sun revolves around the earth according to one survey, it’s less difficult to understand how such people can exist. But there are a whole bunch of us theists who don’t fit your preconceptions of who we are. I hope you get that.
Reply to this | Report thisBy Doug L, July 10, 2007 at 11:31 am #
(Unregistered commenter)
Refering to straight_talk_11 #84850
I made a simple comment. From that you have made some rather bizarre conclusions about me. Looks like you’re trying to pick a fight. I’m not interested. Jim H seems to be handling you just fine.
Anyway, I’ll take Harris over Hedges any day. Many others have made better points than I could make as for why this is true.
And don’t take it so personally.
Reply to this | Report thisBy Jim H., July 9, 2007 at 5:33 pm #
(Unregistered commenter)
Re: 83666 Hello DSA;
Reply to this | Report thisThank you for your good ‘thoughts’ about Sam Harris, See: http://www.truthdig. com/report/item/20070529_sam_harris_fights_back/
He too, like Rushdie, has taunted a gigantic man-eating octopus, and must take many precautions to prevent a repeat of the Madalyn Murray O’Hair debacle that the “Religious “faithful” fanatics do a dance of joy over!
Although I too am thankful for “The End of Faith”, I believe no one has come within a ‘light year’ of pointing to, or discussing the ‘epic’ proportions of the ever broadening destructive criminal influence, evil intentions, designs and calamitous results of the Religious “Faith” Organization’s unwavering pursuit of total Theocratic domination our once Democratic, USA, and the entire World!
How many people can even imagine: any ‘one’ organization of any kind, that can, and does accumulate, free from taxes, every day, more money, including donations of taxpayers hard earned funds that are contributed to them by G. W. Bush’s “Faith"-based" operations, than any other company, business, or other type of honest enterprise in the world, accumulates in one month?
And, how many people can even imagine: the amount of influence all this ill gotten wealth is able to purchase?
Through the use of all type “Holding Companies” and many other similar methods of hiding ownership, the Religious Organizations own, or control a major portion of all Media, including newspapers, radio stations, publishing houses, television stations, and, many Congressmen, and Senators, plus G. W. Bush, and Dick Chaney!
These same Religious “Faith” Organizations have repeatedly caused our ‘bigoted’ Congress, and ‘bigoted’ US Supreme Court, to deny, and violate many parts of our US Constitution, and The Bill Of Rights!
These same Religious “Faith” Organizations have repeatedly supported, and influenced the installation of G.W. Bush a ‘bigot’, and Military Deserter, into the White House!
These same Religious “Faith” Organizations continually object to, and repeatedly violate the Constitutional Law: “Separation of Church and State!
These same Religious “Faith” Organizations repeatedly deny “woman’s rights”!
These same Religious “Faith” Organizations use the “Pulpit” to electioneer and promote religious bigot candidates for elective office, and use big bushels of their money lucre to help this happen!
These same Religious “Faith” Organizations also use bundles of money to pay lobbyists, and influence all Congressional actions that are destructive of our Democratic way of life and detrimental to all US citizens!
These same Religious “Faith” Organizations fight against any and all means of limiting family size, including medicines that prevent childbirth, because without innocent children to brainwash, mesmerize, brand, and indoctrinate into their fantasy world of ‘Godism’ their Religious Organizations would soon ‘dry up’ and go out of business!
Of course this is but a mere minute insight into the monstrous behemoth the ‘Ponzi-like’ racketeering Religious “Faith” Organizations embody and represent, and the perpetual horrific infectious plague-like disease they are ever more widely spreading every hour of every day through the means of newspapers, radio, and television, and even door-to-door-proselytising!
And, if we secularists, the rational ‘ones’, don’t soon confront this war on sanity and reason, before long, if it is not already too late, we will be surrounded, smothered and inundated by the horrible putrid dung these Religious “Faith” Organizations are everyday filling the airwaves, and earthly environment with!
By Jim H., July 9, 2007 at 8:21 am #
(Unregistered commenter)
85222
Rev. ‘STRAY’ Talk, Dr. of Divinity, and Proselytizing Preacher
So! You’re at it again?
First, You are doiing your ‘damnedest’ trying to re-define “FAITH”?
Dictionary:
FAITH: Belief that does not rest on logical proof or material evidence!
And you’re are trying a ‘new tack’? Another ‘AFFRONT’ at RE-INVENTING a lost-cause farcical “God”?
You say: “Not all theists consider God as “supernatural”.(?) This is an outright lie!
Dictionary:
GOD: An image of a “supernatural” being; an idol.(!)
“If you don’t realize this, you are dangerous to both yourself, and the rest of humanity!”
And, anyone who thinks, or ‘pretends’ otherwise, is either an imbercile, an escapee from a ‘Nuthouse’, or a thieving charlatan (like you?) seeking to perpetuate the schemes and tricks used to prey on, and enslave innocent children, and fools (like you?), give them ‘inferiorty complexes, and compel them to kneel and
plea for ‘grace’ for their “sins” (whatever that means) which often is only granted in return for criminal
sexual perversion.
You say a/o imply: ‘in effect’, “It is) “My personal view--- (that) God (did not) “create” “nature” “from outside of nature”! “---not a “supernatural” agent acting from outside.”
(Rather; once “nature” existed? “God”, as a “fully natural(?) ‘abstraction’ (?) within nature”, ‘THEN’, ‘CREATED’ nature"(?) (and all the the rest of everything?)
With your ‘warped’ and ‘twisted’ method of making asinine deductions, your mental numbness has accidently finally brought you closer to the ‘actual’ TRUTH!
The absurdity of imagining that ANY ‘THING’ was ever required to CREATE what already, and ALWAYS EXISTED!
Mass/energy never disappear
Ever were ever here!
J.H. 5/8/07
WITH NOTHING TO CREATE A ‘SO-CALLED’ CREATOR-GOD
IS AN IMPOSSIBLE SUPERFLUOUS NONETITY!
You are SICK, and getting SICKER! You had better see a Psychiatrist!
I am by now ‘MORE CONVINCED’ you are one of the ilk of that gang of criminals: Falwell, Haggard, Pat Robertson, Jerry Brown, James Dobson, the Pope, etc. etc. who LIE, and steal money from little kids, and convert them through mesmerizing, branding, indoctrination into automaton shills for spreading your rotten cancer of the mind disease to other little childrens minds so they all become robotic donaters of money to sate your filthy, slimy insatiable greed!
Why else would you lie so much? And keep insisting that FARCE IS FACT?
You certainly KNOW that “God” is a farcical tool of rotten crooks! And that it was originally used to describe every type and sort of evil in mythology, the forerunner of all religions!
And that “there NEVER, was a BEGINNING”, thus no “first cause” “Creator God”!
It might help your weak and distorted conception of the world to dwell on the question that: if there WAS a so called “Creator God”, who, or what CREATED the “Creator God”,? And, Who or what created that which created the one that created the “Creator God”? And IF you say that “God” ALWAYS WAS”? Then you are in fact describing the UNIVERSE! That “ALWAYS WAS”!
Wake up! And stop lying! You cannot fool sensible people who have not caught that discease.
And I am certain most others here realize you are just another of those ‘lying crooks’ who seek to hypnotise and enslave more little kids so as to do dirty things to them!
Reply to this | Report thisBy straight_talk_11, July 8, 2007 at 8:10 pm #
(241 comments total)
Short addendum to my last post:
Not all theists consider God as “supernatural”. My answer to Stenger’s thesis referenced in one of my earlier comments challenged his assumption that God had to be looked at as an agent acting from outside of nature to create it. My personal view, as expressed repeatedly in my previous posts, is that He represents the ultimate level of abstraction within nature, and as such is fully natural and not a supernatural agent acting from outside.
I also expressed my view that magic and the supernatural always represent the projection of ignorance. By that I mean that what you don’t understand is magic to you. However that’s not reality, but rather a projection of your own making. Nineteenth-century magicians exploited the ignorance of the masses concerning electricity and magnetism for a long time before they became common household phenomena.
For a long time people thought flight was impossible, too, and anyone who thought it was possible and worked toward it was considered a fool who believed in fairy tales. This was another projection of ignorance, and I place atheists in this category.
Reply to this | Report thisBy straight_talk_11, July 8, 2007 at 12:07 pm #
(241 comments total)
For all commenters:
The word “faith” translated from the Greek “pistis” as used in the New Testament does not refer to a simple belief in an idea or blind acceptance of dogma. To use faith in this way is common to many Christians’ concept of faith, but it represents a fundamental misunderstanding of it.
The Greek noun translated as faith is “pistis”. The verb for “to believe” is “pistevo”. According to Strong’s Greek Dictionary this verb means: to have faith in, upon, or with respect to, a person or thing (i.e. credit; by implication, to entrust, trust, believe, commit, put in trust with someone). Greek noun “pistis” means persuasion (i.e., credence; moral conviction, assurance).
However, in Christian theology “faith” is a term used to imply the assurance and absolute trust that comes from direct knowledge, and is anything but blind. In Peter II, Chapter 1, Peter addresses his readers as “the ones who have obtained an equally honorable faith with us” (1:1). He uses the word faith to describe those who have been born of the Spirit of God and are under God’s influence and persuasion. In this and the following verses (1:2-4), Peter emphasizes that those who have faith are partakers of God’s divine nature (1:4), and of “His divine power”.
All this implies something vastly more significant than a simple, naïve belief in something (e.g., that Jesus was the Messiah). It implies metánoia, and metánoia is an essential component of genuine faith in Christian theology:
Greek “metánoia”: change of mind, repentance; a profound, usually spiritual, transformation; conversion; spiritual conversion or awakening; change of heart, fundamental change of character.
All the above is implicit in the Greek word “gnosis”. While the literal translation for this word is “knowledge”, it implies knowledge through deep “insight” or the equivalent of “enlightenment” in some spiritual traditions. Rather than purely an intellectual understanding then, it is wisdom or a “KNOWLEDGE of the heart” (as opposed to mere emotionalism). It is a deep and complete comprehension that reconciles reason with intuition.
So gnosis has nothing to do with intellectual understanding or communication with God, but represents direct, personal, individual insight into the spiritual nature of the cosmos. Rather than rational knowledge ABOUT God, it constitutes direct, experiential knowledge OF God that is supreme, above any other kind of knowledge.
Gnosis is chiefly associated with those branches of early Christianity consequently designated today as the gnostic sects. These were considered from the earliest times by many to be heretical sects, even though Jesus himself may well have been a (pre-Christian) gnostic Jew.
The gnostic sects were later thrown out of official Catholicism when Christianity became the official religion of the Roman empire under Emperor Constantine, who was shrewd enough politically to realize that this widespread, popular religion was a common denominator of great power that could be used to glue his empire together.
The natural charisma intrinsic to those who were true gnostics having genuine spiritual insight represented a threat to his political goals rather than a means to realize them. He chose the administrative clerics (bureaucrats with correspondingly little if any spiritual insight) to run things instead. (The modern term “clergy” derives from cleric and clerical). It suited his purposes much better to establish an authoritarian priesthood that could receive sinners with a perpetual need for forgiveness, a priesthood uniquely imbued with the power to grant sinners absolution rather than foster, as advocated by the gnostics, the genuine personal growth in spiritual insight that granted intrinsic inner spiritual authority to the individual.
Reply to this | Report thisBy Jim H., July 8, 2007 at 10:39 am #
(Unregistered commenter)
Re: 84377
To: Mister Maani; “Evangelical Minister"--- to the poor(?)
You say: “Faith deals with ---the “super"-natural world.”
I say: “Supernatural” is an oxymoron!
Nature is ‘superb’, but, there is NOTHING ‘BEYOND’ “NATURAL”!
“Supernatural” is the realm of fakers, and criminal ‘charlatans’ who sell “Pigs in a poke” saying: “ Trust me!
There is absolutely nothing better than, or “super” to the natural world!
I say “supernatural” “Faith” is unnatural! And ‘Godism’ is ‘Blind Faith’ in an unnatural superfluous nonentity!
And those who believe in the “supernatural”, and ‘Godism’ are ‘blind’ to the “facts of NATURAL life”!
Dictionary: supernatural (?)
Outside the natural world.(!)
A power that violates natural forces.(!)
Of or relating to a deity.(!)
You say: “I VEHEMENTLY oppose ANY attempt by “religion” to foist on---anyone---explanations
(about Godism) ---which do not stand up to the scientific method.” (?) LIES! LIES! LIES!
As an “Evangelical Minister”, ‘Proselytizing-Preacher ‘YOU’ ARE always “FOIST"ING upon all within earshot your lying “explanations"---[about ‘Godism’] which do not stand up to the scientific method."(!) So you are an admitted liar!
You say: “---my mother---rabidly atheist---invites me to discussion-s---(at) CSI---(secular meetings)---her “ulterior motive” is---"(?) (No doubt an effort to mend your mind! And startle you back to reality!)
You say: “---my mother, while---not understanding or accepting my faith---”.
(Has no alternative but to HUMOR her once sane, but now, the victim of a warped mind, daughter, with whom she is making an effort to bring her back to reality while avoiding insulting, or offending, her once cute little innocent girl, who has somehow strayed from the ‘straight and narrow’ path of natural reality and is the unsuspecting victim of criminal charlatan thieves who may any day convince her to make an oath of poverty, then be compelled to give up all her worldly possessions to those thieves!)
Think! How would you react to a daughter who renounced sanity, in favor of an ‘addiction, to something you knew was the most evil force on the face of the earth?
What could you possibly do to ‘win her back’ without alienating her, and losing her altogether?
Your mother is smart enough to realize that; just as you are reacting to the information, and criticism provided by some of us here, you would be just as adamant and resentful if ‘she’ were to say, or imply
that you are an asinine fool to believe, or have “faith” in, a make-believe, fairytales assertion of charlatan thieves that there is such a thing as a “Creator-God”!
The very least you should do if you have any respect for the integrity of your ‘highly intelligent’ mother, is, to, ask her to tell you why she is an atheist, and why she does not believe in the “God” you believe in!
You say:"--only true God...” makes an awful lot of presumptions---”
You have said: “I am an Evangelical Minister” (!)
So! You therefore believe “There is only one True God!”
And, according to ‘your’ “faith”, “anyone who denies “God” is, in ‘your’ “faith” a “mortal sinner”!
I do not know why you would call this a “sarcastic”, “presumptuous” “accusation”!
And why do you say: “--- (the above) has no application in my life and faith.” (?)
PS: I am an Associate Member of CSI, a Member of CFI, and a subscriber of both Skeptical Inquirer, and Free Inquiry! But I haven’t seen you at any of the meetings?
Are you a momma’s boy?
Reply to this | Report thisBy Jim H., July 7, 2007 at 6:16 pm #
(Unregistered commenter)
Re: 84756
Doug L
You say :“Chris Hedges has taken religious double talk to a new level of insanity. That’s all there is to his rant.”
I say: BRAVO! You are so very right! Please read on:
Re: Chris Hedges: “I don’t Believe in Atheists”
Chris Hedges is ‘off his rocker’!
Hedges says: “Sam Harris has conflated faith with tribalism.
I say: Blind “faith” is the fuel of religious tribalism! FAITH ‘is’ “conflated” with the “tribalism” of religion!
I say: Sam Harris wrote about the destructive “faith” of religious fanatics!
Dictionary
“faith”: Belief without logical proof or material evidence.(!)
The body of dogma of a religion:
A set of principles or beliefs.
Dictionary
“conflate”: To bring together
To combine into one whole. (RELIGIOUS CONGREGATION!)
Dictionary
“tribalism”: The organization, culture, or “beliefs” of a tribe.(!) (GODISM!)
Dictionary
“tribe”: A group of people sharing an interest, or habit.(!) (RELIGION!)
Dictionary
“monotheism”: The doctrine or belief that there is only one God.(!) (Godism!)
Hedges says: “What he (Harris) fails to grasp is not simply the meaning of faith(?)— but the supreme importance of the monotheistic traditions in creating the concept of the individual."(?)
(This is an absurd lie!)
I say: “Monotheism” “faith” in “God”, enslaves; and absolutely destroys “the the concept of the individual”!
I say:Hedges begins his statement with ranting accusations and outlandish lies! And then, in order to support his atrocious lies, he raves on, and on with a stream of ‘mumbo-jumbo’ doubletalk that creates the impresssion he is so fanatically addicted to the idea of a “Creator-God” that where he sees increasing opposition to the gigantic ‘spoof’ from ever more ‘quarters, he decided he would try his hand at ‘re-inventing ‘God”.
And, like so many before him, he fails! So much for his farcical ridiculous self-destructive diatatribe!
Reply to this | Report thisBy straight_talk_11, July 7, 2007 at 1:14 pm #
(241 comments total)
Re:#84756 by Doug L on 7/07 at 5:44 am
“Chris Hedges has taken religious double talk to a new level of insanity. That’s all there is to his rant.”
It doesn’t take much thought to make a blanket, meaningless statement like this. Why don’t you be specific? Just admit that you’re clueless about some particular point, or if there are too many, pick some that you think are good examples. And don’t just pick samples and do the same silly thing with them again.
Make clear what it is you think is wrong with them, or what you don’t understand about them, instead of saying they’re meaningless. Calling someone insane without making a specific point is not only a very specious tactic that sounds like you’re just looking for a pat on the back from others who just as mindlessly agree, but it looks suspiciously like classical projection.
People who live in a flat world will never understand what people in a three-dimensional world are talking about, know matter how clear the latter make their points. So why say somebody else is talking nonsense when the simple truth is you just plain don’t get it? Why don’t you make a sincere attempt to understand first, if such a thing is indeed possible, then make your criticisms. Unintelligibility can easily be a problem with the receiver rather than with the transmitter.
Reply to this | Report thisBy Doug L, July 7, 2007 at 5:44 am #
(Unregistered commenter)
Chris Hedges has taken religious double talk to a new level of insanity. That’s all there is to his rant.
Reply to this | Report thisBy straight_talk_11, June 28, 2007 at 5:18 pm #
(241 comments total)
Please, somebody, throw this jerk (Jim H.) out!
Reply to this | Report thisBy Jim H., June 28, 2007 at 12:16 pm #
(Unregistered commenter)
Re: 81965
Rt. Rev. Stray Words Dr. Div.
You say:"---Tooth fairies and Santa Clauses are--- fictional---”!
And, to your question: “---Do-(es--- ‘that’ put them in a separate class from an idea(?) (NO!)---(an absurd, false conception, “idea” of another make-believe fairytale character)---of a Supreme---(being)?” (NO!)
I say, ABSOLUTLEY NOT! ‘THEY’ ARE ONE AND THE SAME ! BOTH, MAKE BELIEVE FAIRYTALE MENTAL CONCOCTIONS! “IDEAS”!
If you don’t realize this, you are dangerous to both yourself, and the rest of humanity!
And, anyone who thinks, or ‘pretends’ otherwise, is either an imbercile, an escapee from a ‘Nuthouse’, or a thieving charlatan (like you?) seeking to perpetuate the schemes and tricks used to prey on, and enslave innocent children, and fools (like you?), give them ‘inferiorty complexes, and compel them to kneel and plea for ‘grace’ for their “sins” (whatever that means) which often is only granted in return for criminal
sexual perversion.
Then: you ‘spout’ about “---Conscious Intelligence---"(?)
I say: “Conscious Intelligence” is a HUMAN ATTRIBUTE! FAKE things, like dolls, Santa Claus, Mickey Mouse, make-believe “Creator God”, Porky Pig, Mortimer Snerd and Charlie McCarthy do not have either “Conscious"ness, or “Intelligence”!
You are SICK, and getting SICKER! You had better see a Psychiatrist!
I am by now CONVINCED you are one of the ilk of that gang of criminals Falwell, Haggard, Pat Robertson, Jerry Brown, James Dobson, the Pope, etc. etc. who steal money from little kids, and convert them through mesmerizing, branding, indoctrination into automaton shills for spreading your rotten cancer of the mind disease to other little childrens minds so they all become robotic donaters of money to sate your filthy, slimy insatiable greed!
Why else would you lie so much? And keep insisting that FARCE IS FACT?
You certainly KNOW that “God” is a farcical tool of rotten crooks! And that it was originally used to describe every type and sort of evil in mythology, the forerunner of all religions!
And that “there NEVER, was a BEGINNING”, thus no “first cause” “Creator God”!
It might help your weak and distorted conception of the world to dwell on the question that: if there WAS a so called “Creator God”, who, or what CREATED the “Creator God”,? And, Who or what created that which created the one that created the “Creator God”? And IF you say that “God” ALWAYS WAS”? Then you are in fact describing the UNIVERSE! That “ALWAYS WAS”!
Wake up! And stop lying! You cannot fool sensible people who have not caught that discease.
And I am certain most others here realize you are just another of those lying crooks who seek to hypnotise and enslave more little kids so as to dirty things to them!
Reply to this | Report thisBy straight_talk_11, June 27, 2007 at 7:23 pm #
(241 comments total)
“Do you also believe in the ‘Tooth Fairy’ ‘as existing’? And ‘Santa Claus’ ‘as existing’?”
- Jim H.
What’s wrong, raver and ranter, worse than the worst funny-mentalist preacher? I already covered that, but you wouldn’t be aware of that, would you? Can’t read? Can’t bring any discrimination to the table...ability to distinguish concepts that are in principle light years apart?
Tooth fairies and Santa Clauses are concepts that don’t pretend to be anything other than local objects of perception, fictional as they are. Do you think that just might put them in a separate class from the idea of a Supreme and Conscious Intelligence operating globally at the highest order of abstraction and fulfilling the primary, cosmically comprehensive role as the highest-order intelligence from which all abstract fields emanate?
Reply to this | Report thisBy straight_talk_11, June 26, 2007 at 6:04 pm #
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Doering, you keep saying I don’t get it. But I show you that I get it and you don’t even get that. You don’t get what the sources you cite say. You don’t see their implications. You say you get it because you agree. You say I don’t get because I don’t. That’s totally invalid logic!
I don’t say you don’t get my points because you don’t agree. I say that because you clearly don’t have a clue concerning what the positions are that you’re disagreeing with. Show me that this is true of what I say about your sources. Show me how I fail to understand, not how I fail to accept. Then show me where my critique of their thinking based on their apparently tacit false premises is wrong.
Reply to this | Report thisBy straight_talk_11, June 26, 2007 at 1:37 pm #
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“Oh really? The flaws in their reasoning?...”
- Doering
Just want to demonstrate to all readers how some atheists bow down and worship the thoughts of others as infallible, just as some Catholics actually believe the pope is. Think for yourself Doering! You’re not a machine, even if you think you are.
I told you, you have done nothing so far but quote others’ thoughts or simply disagree with mine and restate your borrowed opinions. I even used one of your posts as a clear example with my comments interspersed showing specifically how each comment was either a quote, a reference to someone else’s thinking, a simple restatement of personal opinion without any rational support of your own, or a transparent rhetorical attempt to ridicule my thoughts.
Those whose thoughts you worship would be at least intelligent enough to respond to mine on their own terms and with their own thinking.
Reply to this | Report thisBy Jim H., June 26, 2007 at 1:27 pm #
(Unregistered commenter)
Rev: stray_ talk (?)
You say: “---God as existing---."(?) “He creates(?) from within it---"(?)
Do you also believe in the “Tooth Fairy” “as existing”? And “Santa Claus” “as existing”?
Your asinine assertions about a farcical “creation” of backward illiterate ‘aboriginal’ prehistoric hominids, who named every fearful and horrifying evil “God”, is insanely comical, coming from an ‘adult’(?) in the Computer accessable information age of the Twenty First Century!
You must be “Brain Dead”! Or, the infectious ‘plague-like’ disease has warped, and twisted whatever ‘bit’ of brain you ever had into an upside-down knot, so that you ‘see’ and imagine things to ‘be’ the ‘wacky’ way they appear to an upside down-backward nut-case!
For any who are able to read this below, there never, never was a “Beginning”! Or, the need for- any so called
“First Cause” “Creator God”! It’ a Fact!
Mass/energy never disappear
Ever were ever here!
J.H. 5/8/07
Without something to ‘create! a “so-called “Creator-God”
is an impossibel superfluous nonentity!
Conservation of Mass/Energy E=mc2
1.The Universe contains an infinite amount of matter and energy.
We cannot create nor can we destroy matter or energy.
2.Matter can be changed in form, or state.
3. Energy can be changed in form.
4. We change matter to energy and energy to
matter never diminishing the totality.
--------------------------------------
THE ORIGIN OF NATURE
Beginning is never found but keep an ear to the ground
Accept the word of a friend there’s no beginning or end
Natures origin for instance is ceaselessness Existence
The worst form of child abuse is warping of the mind!
JH 8/29/06
P.S. Don;t worry about “consciousness”, you don’t have any!
Reply to this | Report thisBy straight_talk_11, June 26, 2007 at 12:42 pm #
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Time and memory are inseparably linked concepts. Time is one vector within four-dimensional space-time in General Relativity and in more recent theories it’s a vector within many more than four dimensions. Richard Feynman showed that time flows backwards in antimatter, so it should be clear that time is not any kind of ultimate reality or the highest-order abstraction. It is, however, an abstraction and you can’t define it without circularity unless you are a theoretical physicist who merely defines it as one dimension within a higher-order reality of greater dimensionality.
As an interesting side note, some physicists are beginning to suspect that time does not actually exist. It may be an illusion generated by the recursion implicit in remembering. Even the etymology of “remember” is interesting in this regard. Sometimes human language reflects profound intuitive understand as well as sometimes profound ignorance.
Since time and memory are inseparably linked, this directly implies that memory is not as fundamental as consciousness, since time is an abstract object of consciousness and memory consists of nothing more than stored perceptions of objects, including thoughts. Thoughts are not consciousness. Thoughts exist within consciousness and are objects of it just like any other percept. However, consciousness does not exist as separate from anything since it is implicit in existence itself, underlying everything, with everything implicit in it and it in everything.
Reply to this | Report thisBy straight_talk_11, June 26, 2007 at 9:05 am #
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Correction on my last post (81402) in which I state Stenger as having posited a supernatural god separate from nature. I meant to say he hypothesizes such a god and then shows physics to be self-sufficient and explainable, even the anthropic coincidences, without any necessary recourse to any outside agent. The flaw is that it’s not necessary nor reasonable to posit God as existing outside nature as a separate agent creating it. He creates from within it, is not supernatural but fully natural and represents the highest level of abstraction within it.
Dennet is right that the so-called Cartesian theater is an unnecessary assumption for precisely the same reason. We do not have to presume consciousness to be separate from the rest of nature. His problem is that instead of seeing consciousness as a field phenomenon and therefore primary, and the physical aspects of its manifestation just like particles generated within fluctuating fields as secondary, he reverses things.
Dennett is another brilliant man with a keen intellect losing sight of the big picture. He correctly eliminates dualism by viewing consciousness as not located specifically anywhere within its biological counterpart in the brain, but a global phenomenon associated with its overall functionality. Biologists now know that it cannot even be restricted to the brain, since our awareness is radically effected by hormonal shifts in the endocrine system and other factors as well.
This association of consciousness with global functionality not associated with any specific part of it is what any physicist would call a field phenomenon. But fields are the primary, higher-order realities and not the bits and pieces within them. That’s why we can decide to drink a glass of water and all the bits and pieces obey our wishes. Dennett correctly eliminates the dualism and then commits the fundamental error of conceptually attempting to force explanatory power backwards from local, specific, and concrete to global, general, and abstract. As I’ve stated over and over, nothing, absolutely NOTHING in nature or in human thought (just one part of nature) fits this paradigm.
Reply to this | Report thisBy straight_talk_11, June 25, 2007 at 9:24 pm #
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“Oh really? The flaws in their reasoning? Then don’t bother with me, writeMinsky and Dennett.”
- Doering
If they did bother to give me the time of day, I would get much better arguments from them than I’m getting from you. I did writeStenger, because his arguments were much better than yours, but had a major flaw that I pointed out to him. He’s not giving me the time of day so far, so by default that is roughly equivalent to getting nothing sensible from you, I suppose. You’ll likely say that it’s because my thinking is so inferior they just won’t bother. That’s because you’re not an independent thinker, but simply worship the thinking of others.
Experts in AI are not necessarily experts in physics or cosmology. They’re stuck in their narrow fields and in their special-case, classical paradigm. It’s obvious from the way they develop their ideas, flawed at the level of their tacit premises of which they seem to be blissfully unaware.
Continuity of consciousness is implicit in the idea that it is fundamental and axiomatic, so you shouldn’t have to ask if you understand the implications of anything you read from my posts. How that comes down to the individual level is another question, and I don’t have clear ideas about that, so I can’t defend it and won’t try.
I can only say that physics constructs field theory to explain particles and particle behavior and not the reverse. Particles are explained as fluctuations within fields. Fields are an example of abstraction that is rigorously physical, that have precisely predictable effects, and so are just as real if not more so than particles, since the latter are generated from within them and by them. This is a hard-core physical demonstration of the higher order of reality fields represent. They are abstract, they are demonstrable only by their effects, and they are not magic, not “ooga-booga”, and they are not “supernatural”.
Neither is consciousness. Neither can it be generated by advanced structures built up from the atomic level of thinking machinery such as the Post-Turing machine, even though it naturally demonstrates the atomic level of recursion essential to information processing even at a level in thinking machines that is the equivalent of elementary particles.
In other words, consciousness can be viewed as a field phenomenon. It is possible that fields at some subtle level not accounted for so far by physical theory survive physical death. There is a lot of evidence for the existence of biological fields, although that concept is not accepted by mainstream biologists so far, precisely because too many of them are stuck in the special-case, nineteenth-century classical paradigm that afflicted physics before Planck and Einstein. It still afflicts other disciplines like AI and even physicists who conceptually violate the very theories they use and teach with a logically incompatible dualistic view of matter and consciousness that is even physically untenable. Dennet got that part right, at least.
So even physicists like Stenger who are familiar with modern, non-classical physics are still stuck in that paradigm when it gets right down to the nitty-gritty of everyday existence. He posits a supernatural god apart from nature instead of including God as the ultimate level of abstractions within nature. These people have a split brain that is illogically capable of entertaining integrated, unifying theories while they continue to conceptually fragment their personal reality with some kind of off-brand dualism.
I did address Minsky and don’t have the time right now, but will address Dennet also. If you can think for yourself, why do you need them to make your case? If you understand their ideas and their implications, then why can’t you interact intelligently with my points instead of just quoting them and asking others to read them?
Reply to this | Report thisBy Norman Doering, June 25, 2007 at 5:00 pm #
(Unregistered commenter)
straight_talk_11 wrote:
Oh really? The flaws in their reasoning? Then don’t bother with me, writeMinsky and Dennett.
I think they’ll tell you that you’re just assuming your conclusion… if they bother to give you the time of day.
And I repeat my questions:
1) What kind of consciousness could you have without any memory what-so-ever?
If none, then memory is more fundamental than consciousness.
2) Do you think your consciousness will survive your death?
Reply to this | Report thisBy straight_talk_11, June 25, 2007 at 2:03 pm #
(241 comments total)
Doering, come on now! You know that post of mine that dissected your post showed a lot of nothing from you, just repeating your view, and my post elaborated exactly what form your statements used to say nothing more than what you believed and to say nothing that countered intelligently what I had said.
Now your repeating that I’m clueless about arguments from people like Minsky, Daniel Dennet, et al. Did you read my last posts? I show the flaws in their reasoning. They are not gods. I don’t blindly accept their reasoning because they mad major contributions to AI.
I talked about the atomic level of AI as embodied in the Post-Turing machine and discussed its recursive quality, etc. I stated my objections to Strong-AI and told you why I had them. Instead of addressing those “why’s” you just start BSing again. You haven’t cut to any chase yet and you’re apparently clueless concerning your failure to do so.
Reply to this | Report thisBy Norman Doering, June 23, 2007 at 6:36 pm #
(Unregistered commenter)
In post #80722 straight_talk_11 wrote:
Dogmatically repeating my own views? I said you’re not going to get it, and you didn’t. Let’s consider what straight_talk_11 skipped over from my post:
What you don’t get is that there is real math and real science and real engineering that goes far beyond your introspective sophistry. It’s not dogmatic when I’m reporting on real science and engineering—science contradicts your views and I’ve got links that demonstrate it.
There were links in my post that would take you to websites that described more. Go back and click on the word “perceptron.” The perceptron was the first attempt to model how the neurons in the brain’s neural network produce everything we consider mind, including consciousness. They got it wrong—but they’ve improved now. Today we have the Blue Brain project, an attempt to create a biologically accurate, functional model of the brain.
We know that these neural nets store our memories, hell we’ve even got cyborged neurons on computer chips storing information. Now where would your consciousness be without memory? What would your self-awareness be like if you had utterly no memory? Consciousness is not fundamental, it’s made of component parts and memory is one of them.
Another component part of consciousness is the pattern classification schemes that define what we can remember and be aware of. A perceptron could never have achieved consciousness because it could never create a scheme for representing a self to be aware of. It couldn’t classify (and remember) itself as a pattern.
Consciousness requires a physical neural system to have memory and pattern recognition. The brain is a systems that can be altered just like we can alter neural nets, and indeed, take a drug like LSD and your consciouness will be altered. Suffer brain damage and you could wind up like someone in Oliver Sacks’ book The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat.
Reply to this | Report thisBy Norman Doering, June 23, 2007 at 4:43 pm #
(Unregistered commenter)
In post #80733 straight_talk_11 wrote:
You don’t pay attention.
Back in post #79105 I wrote:
There is something we can call consciousness, in fact a lot of things, but like the illusion that the earth is the center of the universe and the sun revolves around you—things are not quite what they seem. Did you ever bother to find out who Michael Gazzaniga was or learn anything about his split brain research?
Let’s cut to the chase and get you to admit what you really want to believe. You wrote:
You don’t want to conceive of your own negation, do you? Isn’t that what you’re trying to believe in? You want to believe that when you die your consciousness will continue. That’s when the real negation of meaning happens for you.
Reply to this | Report thisBy straight_talk_11, June 23, 2007 at 12:28 pm #
(241 comments total)
Continued:
For example, what could non-existence mean? Think about non-existence. Try to conceive of it. If nothing existed, meaning could not exist, and this meaninglessness would have to apply as well to non-existence. It is in principle logically untenable that existence could not exist, since it constitutes self-negating circularity just as its corollary does in the behaviorist argument that consciousness is an illusion. If it is an illusion, who is it that is deluded by it? Illusion is meaningless absent awareness, and so awareness as an illusion constitutes self-negating circularity also. It is an equally untenable corollary of any attempt to negate existence.
We have arrived at an issue so fundamental that it becomes meaningless to even conceive of its negation. One point many here seem to keep missing is that this is an excellent test for what is fundamental and what is not:
If it is indefinable without circularity, especially if its negation constitutes self-negating circularity, it is indeed fundamental and not a roach or a car or any other object, which noun itself (object) always involves a relational connection with something other than itself within the realm (all that exists) characterized by existence. Existence is self-sufficiently tautological. It does not need to refer or connect to anything but itself to exist.
But what about its connection to the things that exist? Existence is a concept so fundamental it characterizes everything and is indigenous to everything and everything to it. Notice that I didn’t say everything ELSE, which would be meaningless, since existence cannot exist apart from anything and nothing apart from it. Consciousness has this same nature. It cannot be conceived as separate from existence, but is instead implicit in it. Both are axiomatic, fundamental, and functionally identical.
Some atheistic physicists go to great lengths to use physical theory to prove that there is no God. Some of the arguments (e.g., Victor A. Stenger’s) seem very potent and convincing until you realize that they are positing God as an agent separate and outside of nature and natural law as a creator. This probably is indeed the view of most western religions, but it is not the eastern view nor is it mine.
You may recall also that I have discussed consciousness as the essential ingredient for converting data into meaningful information. Consciousness represents abstract completeness as a holographically local reflection of abstract cosmic lawfulness, thereby lending the context essential to the meaningfulness of data. Functionalism in Strong AI (artificial intelligence) is a vain effort to force explanatory power backwards from the local, special-case, incompleteness of diverse, finite sets of concrete data points in physical structure to the global, abstract, unifying completeness intrinsic to existence and consciousness. Eastern spiritual paths use the concepts of Pure Being and Pure Consciousness synonymously for good reason.
It is local, special-case perception that is illusory and not consciousness/existence. There is no such thing as things. Even elementary particles are generated from the fluctuations within fields. Materialism is stuck in the error of a special-case classical view because it tries to generate the abstract fields from the things instead of viewing the things as generated in the abstract fields. It is the corollary of trying to force explanatory power backwards from local to global, from concrete and specific to abstract and general.
Reply to this | Report thisBy straight_talk_11, June 23, 2007 at 12:04 pm #
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Quoting Doering in 80067 who was quoting and responding to me:
“straight_talk_11, in post #79870, wrote:
*[Falsely assumes my ignorance of who these men were as if I should fall down and worship them as writers of holy scripture.]
Well, if you know their work why are you missing the point?”
- Doering
Then later in the same post:
”No system can be self-aware, (part of my definition of consciousness), without having some scheme for representing a self to be aware of, therefore no system can be conscious unless it has a functionalist scheme for representing itself.” you’re not going to get it. To you it would be just some tautology full of terms who’s meaning you didn’t grasp. You’re not going to have any idea what kind of representational schemes exist or even what representational scheme is. You’re not going to know what functionalism is or anything.
- Doering
Well, I notice you ignore my posts that used one of your posts as an example of how to say nothing beyond dogmatically repeating your own views, which is precisely what you have accused me of doing. So much for that, huh?!?
I’m not missing the point. There are flaws in their views that I point out below. Also, I didn’t say I know their work, Doering. I know something about what they contributed and who they were generally in that regard. Computer science is not my field, but I am a reasonably knowledgeable person who has some feel for the subject as a former engineer in analog electronics (not digital), some minimal exposure to programming high level language, a lot of experience with command line systems (especially DOS), and a lot of experience programming sophisticated HP scientific programmables.
I have enough understanding of what a Turing machine is to know that it can be reduced further to a more algorithmically atomic level developed by Post; what is now called the Post-Turing machine. I also know that it is fundamentally an example of algorithmic recursion, which is a very important point.
I do want to congratulate you on one point, and that is you have recognized the importance of recursion (at least implicitly if not explicitly) in your attempt to characterize consciousness with the term “self-aware”. Of course, as a defining characteristic this is circular, since “awareness” is simply a synonym for consciousness.
However, I’m separating this out, because it is an essential point:
I will take the next step and make things more explicit by stating that a fundamental property of consciousness is that it is self-referent just as the most elementary embodiment of Turing’s principle also is algorithmically in the Post-Turing machine. Self-referent is simply an adjective that both avoids circularity and represents one way of stating that recursion is a fundamental property of both consciousness and of an atomic (i.e., irreducible) level of potential thinking machines.
Now, do you recall that I showed in detail how it is physically obvious, intellectually inevitably clear that cosmic evolution is an intrinsically recursive process? I have also stated that consciousness is a fundamental, axiomatic attribute of existence itself. It is self-evidently meaningless to speak of existence that is not self-referent, since existence is so irreducible as a concept that it must refer to itself tautologically in order to exist. Tautology is, after all, the most reliable of all logical principles. It is also the most elementary example of self-reference.
Reply to this | Report thisBy Norman Doering, June 22, 2007 at 6:54 am #
(Unregistered commenter)
Alan in post #80387:
What systematic opinion polls do you have access to?
There was an article called ”The myth of Muslim support for terror” that claimed:
I found the wording suspicious and blogged on it:
Reply to this | Report thisA Terror Free Tomorrow?
By Alan, June 22, 2007 at 6:02 am #
(Unregistered commenter)
Norman:
Reply to this | Report thisThank you for providing a clear demonstration of my point, if unintentionally.
Indeed Hedges might very well say that “very few Muslims want to kill you and point to a passage in the Koran: ‘Let there be no compulsion in religion. Truth has been made clear from error. Whoever rejects false worship and believes in Allah has grasped the most trustworthy handhold that never breaks. And Allah hears and knows all things.’ [The Koran: Sûrah al-Baqarah: 256]”
As an ex military intelligence officer, I’d far rather rely on systematic opinion polls of Muslim attitudes towards jihad and suicide bombings. They tell a far different story than the koran quote above. Such polls tell me how many people actually believe in this “kill the infidels” insanity and think it justified. The numbers are not comforting.
And it was some goofy old books that made them this way, and made fundamentaist Chrsitiasn the way THEY are. If that is the root of their behavior, some kind of systemic intellectual (or other) herbicide is badly needed.
Quoting old works of fiction---whether the koran or the bible or bible-era books that were rejected for pubication (written by men who themselves sought largely power) and actually thinking it to be a basis for lending credibility (in this discussion here) is to miss the point. For Hedges or anyone to quote such science fiction and think it credible, or even germain, is, itself an act of faith that my cranial synapses tell me to reject.
We’re not talking merely theology here, in my view. We’re talking self defense and survival. Decisions of that magnitude need to be made on reliable, verifiable information, not works of fiction, no matter how many millions of people want to believe in it or have done so in the past.
By Jim H., June 21, 2007 at 10:25 pm #
(Unregistered commenter)
Re:80317, 80277
Why don’t you two long-winded semi-unconcious blabbermouths take a vacation, and stop ‘hogging’ the ‘board’?
Have you no shame? Can’t you afford “Instant Email?
This is not the proper place for personal chats about the garbage you people pretend to know so much about. The very least you should do is make an effort to talk some sense, and relate it to the subject of this Report!
Seven 7 consecutive comments?
And thirteen 13 consecutive comments?
Is’nt that some kind of “sin”? You had better see your confessor!
Reply to this | Report thisBut watch his hands!