Prager: You are right that this moral clarity and courage among the predominantly religious does not prove the existence of the biblical God. Nothing can prove God's existence. But it sure is a powerful argument. If society cannot survive without x, there is a good chance x exists.Prager offers pathetic argument, Harris easily refutes it, and Prager repeats his original nonsensical argument without acknowledging that it had been definitively struck down. Whether this is because he's too dumb to understand it, too blind to see it, or because he has no regard whatsoever for intellectual honesty is anyone's guess. Harris' first message contained the following statement, and Prager certainly delivered on the request:
Harris: No, Dennis, this moral clarity is not a "powerful argument," or even an argument at all; please keep your x's straight. If humanity can't survive without a belief in God, this would only mean that a belief in God exists. It wouldn't, even remotely, suggest that God exists.
Prager: You write: "If humanity can't survive without a belief in God, this would only mean that a belief in God exists. It wouldn't, even remotely, suggest that God exists." This statement is as novel as the one suggesting that Stalin was produced by Judeo-Christian values. It is hard for me to imagine that any fair-minded reader would reach the same conclusion. If we both acknowledge that without belief in God humanity would self-destruct, it is quite a stretch to say that this fact does not "even remotely suggest that God exists." Can you name one thing that does not exist but is essential to human survival?
Against these plain truths religious people have erected a grotesque edifice of myths, obfuscations, half-truths, and wishful thinking. Perhaps you, Dennis, would now like to bring some of that edifice into view.Bring it into view he did.
A related aspect of this so-called debate that pushed my damn buttons was Prager's transparent dishonesty and his inconsistent wavering in his views towards academia. One day he's bowing in reverence to academic achievement, as if a man's scientific accomplishments somehow suggest that he's incapable of irrationality in other areas (despite a book by Francis Collins that proves otherwise), and the next minute he's dismissing all of academia as being full of intellectually confused PhDs who grow more foolish with every year of exposure to higher education. I have a tough time seeing this as anything other than pandering to his ignorant, anti-intellectual fan base, cultivating the kind of "us-simple-folk vs. those-know-it-all-fancy-pants-idiots" mindset that pervades modern discourse, for which George W. Bush is the poster boy.
13 comments:
Religions teach tolerance of other peoples' ideas.
You can't even stand when someone thinks different than you. It frustrates you. I saddens you. It angers you. It drives you crazy. This is the reason the group you claim now is seen as arrogrant. You should probably avoid the whole "woe is me(us) speech when you talk to your parents." Nobody wants to hear anyonein your position coming off as a victim of society's distrust. I wonder how that distrust has ever hurt you? I wonder what the heck that has to do with the conversation you want to have with your parents? I wonder why, if you are an athiest, you can't just let the Christians be. Nope, you have to set out to mock (yes, you do) and try and prove people wrong and defend yourself. DO you think people would really care if John Doe became an athiest? No, they wouldn't. But when John Doe let's that define his life and ever interaction he was people, now there is a problem. Your core values should define who you are inside and wht you believe, but scratching and attacking everyone who does not think in the way you do serves to further the arrogance stereotype. People having sympathy for you, while certainly being well intentioned, are being overly nice to you since you are making such a production out of this. Yes it a difficult and important conversation to have with family if you feel you must have it at all, but playing this victim card on behalf of the millions of people who have the same belief should be kind of embarassing. You know, I have some beliefs maybe not everyone shares. I believe them as strongly as you believe yours. I however am not out challenging everyone who doesn't think the way I do. I have respect for people's opinions. I am not playing the underdog in some big attention-desiring battle to tell everyone what I believe and why I think it is the right thing to believe. The samr arguments you offer when someone disagrees with a line of thought you support (he's ignoring it or he's blind to it, or the classic "what does that have to do with anything?") are the very same things people could say about either side. I know this is a personal blog, so sure it is intended as a place for you to have disussions like this. But such discussion should not define you. In making this useless fight noticable in every conversation you have just lumps you in another arrogant athiest who wants to shout from the rooftops what he/she belives. Why is this necessary? Why is the lack of respect for any arguments to your contrary necessary? Where did anyone in athiesm teach you this?
You have zero respect for any ideas other than your own, and this is why you might never learn anything outside of the one straight tunnel of authors you read. Reading things that refute your feelings does zip if you laugh off the ideas while youre reading them. Can you imagine having a discussion in a room with five people, let's say ther could be family, let's say friends. You feel differently than everyone else about X. You have a history of mocking their thoughts on X, and refuse to entertain opinions otherwise. How do think these people will eventually respond to you when all you do is talk/think about X, and act like you've aceived some higher level because you actually get X, and everyone else is to weak or dependant on a childish belief to give X up. And then you tell them you are persecuted for your feelings on X? This is not a way to have a fair and meaningful discussion.
To clarify, mock is a very appropriate terms for most of this. In some places, please feel free to replace it with "over-react and heavy-handly seek out to crush every single syllable in someone's sentence." I say this so you don't focus on that mock word and use it to ingore the rest of this message which is solely intended to help you.
You have to have respect for what other people believe you clearly do not. You might claim you do in every 6th post, but you clearly don't. Other beliefs drive you nuts. Be aware, kind and respectful to others and you will receive such treatment in return. This is why athiests are often not respected, because they do not respect the ways of others. Before you start shouting from the roof about how a belief in God is a delusion or crutch or childing thing, you should perhaps, you know, have some respect and make sure doing so is not trampling on someone at that very moment. Also, I trust you will be telling everyone at work that you wish to be left out of any holiday activities, right? I mean, even the "Season's greeatings" thing came out of a PC tolerance for other religions. So don't accept any gifts or anything silly like that.
As an "atheist" who is sympathetic to adspar's apparent frustration with the persistent pervasiveness of religious beliefs, I'd like to quickly explain why I think my own similar frustrations are justified.
I'm interested in living a good life in a good, well-run society. Accordingly, I'm interested in the question of how one should live one's life to achieve these goals and also in what policies should be adopted by such a society. Thus, I enjoy engaging in intellectual conversations with people who have thought about these topics in ways I haven't. They point out evidence I had never seen or hadn't considered before, and, accordingly, I can update or bolster my beliefs somewhat so that they are proportional to the amount of evidence I have to support them.
Problem is, many of these conversations hit a dead end because my conversation partner invokes the bible or belief in God. Belief in God is a belief that most Americans hold wildly out of proportions with their evidence for it (most will admit in fact that they have NO evidence for it). This prevents the conversation from continuing any further. My conversation with an intelligent person was stunted because he had contented himself with the teachings of "God" and thus hadn't bothered to pursue this philosophical problem any further. As a person who could have benefited from these people's ideas had they not been so abruptly halted by the complacency (as I see) caused by their unsubstantiated belief in God, I am frustrated. It frustrates me to think how many great minds have stopped at this level of thinking, and how much further we could have gotten as a society, and as a race, if all those minds had continued down those intellectual paths. Wishful thinking, yes, but still, that is why it can be so frustrating for me that so many people persist in their religious beliefs despite a lack of evidence.
Personally, I've more or less given up trying to have intellectual conversations with religious people, since I know I cannot convince them of anything, and they are quite unlikely to provide me with any evidence-supported (ie worthwhile) ideas. This is not at all because I "can't even stand when someone thinks different than you" (sic). On the contrary, such people often present me with novel ideas, and tend to be my favorite conversation partners.
I hope that was pertinent...
Well then most of my first comment does not apply to you, Keith. You seem to have a appropriate level of respect for others around you. If a conversation ends at God, then it ends at God. You know, such is life. The wrong thing to do is to become uncontrolable frustrated, act superior to theother person, and then just plow people over into a corner with your ideas - especially to do so with absolutely no concern for any events (personal or otherwise) which might be affecting another person. Again, I hope that your personal beliefs are not how people define you. I mean they should be a part of it, but when people see you - I hope they don't just see the things you believe because you have let it define your everyday interaction with society because you feel "persecuted" like a Jew in Austria in WWII
Thanks for taking the time for such a long reply, check my ip. Before I respond to your comments in more depth, I want to make sure I understand them. I've isolated a few inter-related themes that you touched on:
1.) Adspar can’t handle when people have different ideas than him and he attacks anyone who disagrees with him. One should have respect for the beliefs of others, and Adspar clearly doesn’t.
2.) Adspar and other atheists tend to be “defined” by their views, and this is a bad thing
3.) There is a proper way to discuss such matters and treat other people, and adspar violates it.
4.) Intolerance and violation of respectful conversation is why Adspar and others like him are seen as arrogant.
5.) Adspar attempts/wants to be seen as a victim/minority/oppressed
6.) [This one is more subtle, not something you've explicitly expressed, but it is something I pick up on that seems to be an underlying assumption in your comments.] Atheism is basically another religion - something to be respected equally with other religions, a system in which I learn basic tennets, etc.
Am I missing anything important? Is there any clarification you'd like to make with regards to any of them before I continue?
In the meantime, let me emphatically reject this claim: "Religions teach tolerance of other peoples' ideas."
Most religions teach mutually incompatible "truths" about the world. Saying that one is tolerant of other ideas seems pretty empty to me if you deeply believe that anyone who doesn't hold your ideas is bound for an eternity of hellfire. For most of the history of religion, nobody bothered to make a token claim of tolerance for other ideas, instead opting to slaughter the infidels. That much of modern Western discourse is dominated by tolerance for differing religious views is a measure of progress I suppose, but a precarious one at best.
Also I'd like to ask a question. Given a choice between making 2 statements, which would you prefer to say?
Statement A is the truth, but it is likely to be regarded as offensive, unkind, or politically incorrect.
Statement B is uncontroversial, but it avoids, distorts, or contradicts the truth.
In response to the tolerance of religions, I can only say that it can been seen in the same way some Christians are nuts, and some aren't. It's that simple. Some Muslims pray and are quiet and nice, some blow planes up. Some athiests are probably nice, respectful people. Some act like vampires being doused with garlic when other people around them believe in God.
Also, there are more than two choices in life. How about you believe in X, (what you believe to be a true yet controversial statement), and that's it. You don't shove your ideas on people who believe in Y. If someone around you believes in Y, you do nothing. You don't insult them or mock them. You do nothing. Just because you don't agree with Y, does not make them wrong. Thinking that everyone who believes in Y is wrong and that you need to tell them this implies you think you know better than they do.
Furthermore, if you don't believe in Q, and let's say Q is a cure for cancer. A person is in agony because they (or their mom, whatever) has cancer. Sure scienctists may support your claim, but what kind of animal would you be to at this juncture to rant around about how you know Q doesn't exist and anyone who thinks Q is out there in a rainforest is bieng naive or silly or misguided or juvenile or isn't as smart as you or read as much? I will answer that question. You'd be a shitty, shitty animal.
It's kind of like that guy (Mr. D) at parties who thinks he has done better drugs than anyone else. Doesn't matter if there is a guy from Bogota in the room who makes his own cocaine, or if there is someone in the room who is losing an awful battle with addiction (and Mr. D knows this), yet he still rants about how great his drugs are. What kind of person is Mr. D?
Understand these are varied examples which you might or might not see appropriate. I'm telling you that this is how normal people see this. Believe or don't believe whatever you want. Accept that their are peopel wiser and more learned on both sides of the issue and learn to respect eachother. Playing the victim card is absurd in this case and will win you no favor in your conversations with your parents, nor in any interactions with your friends.
Of your bulleted list of 6 things
1) Clearly true
2) Adpsar. No mention of other athiests.
3) true
4) Again, speaking adspar here. Not all conversations have to be respectful, as that is far too debatable a word for this. I would say "reasonable" conversation
5) true
6) false. I am more acquainted with athiests than you might think. I was friends with one for 4 years but did not know until our 4th year of college. That is what impressed me about him in hindsight. Didn't whine when he had to wait to get dinner with friends until after Sunday evening mass. Never said one word about "why do we even go to church." I respect him but he thought what he thought, and it was for him. He could care less about meeting other people who felt the same as him and banding against the majority. He just was.
For 6, you are twisting my words when I said "other religions are tolerant of others, why aren'y you, athiest?" That is just wordplay. Perhaps replace "religion" with "groups of people who believe or don't believe the same thing."
Just to clarify a general point. I am not making any judgements about athiesm or athiests. I am making a judgement about your ability in discuss it and interact with people in relating to it.
In response to the tolerance of religions, I can only say that it can been seen in the same way some Christians are nuts, and some aren't. It's that simple. Some Muslims pray and are quiet and nice, some blow planes up. Some athiests are probably nice, respectful people. Some act like vampires being doused with garlic when other people around them believe in God.
Also, there are more than two choices in life. How about you believe in X, (what you believe to be a true yet controversial statement), and that's it. You don't shove your ideas on people who believe in Y. If someone around you believes in Y, you do nothing. You don't insult them or mock them. You do nothing. Just because you don't agree with Y, does not make them wrong. Thinking that everyone who believes in Y is wrong and that you need to tell them this implies you think you know better than they do.
If all religious people thought like this we'd probably be much better off.
If all rational people thought like this (I'm not implying these subsets of people cannot overlap), we might be in trouble. For example, plug in "2+2=6" for Y, and tell why someone whose X is "2+2=4" shouldn't speak up. Now a Y person is a community leader of some kind who influences others. Now a Y person is the leader of the local school board. Now a Y person is programing for commerical airlines. At some point people with blatantly assinine beliefs need to be rejected. Notice that this example has nothing to do with religion.
But now let's get to religion. It is true that some fundamentalists are more insane than some moderates. I hope for the sake of world piece that moderates are given every support in persuading radicals to become more moderate.
But please let me know of a moderate branch of Christianity whose core teachings don't irreparably conflict with the core teachings of other religions. They might teach their members to be polite to others, but they teach them to make claims about the world that conflict with other people's claims about the world. Such unprovable claims, when in conflict with another person's unprovable claims, are conversation-stoppers. And that's fine at a dinner party or a poker game. But again, it stops being fine as the consequences of such way of thinking become more severe. At some point bad ideas need to be rejected. This tabboo against questioning religious teachings needs to be lifted. Religious beliefs should not be exempt from critical examination.
I'll take your word for it that you don't see atheism as another religion and drop that point. Response to the other 5 coming in the next couple days.
Let me touch on #2 again before you implode. It is part of who we are to have our core values define part of ourselves. This is ok to an extent.
Devout Muslims live each day based on religion. They are as devout as those who blow planes up, but choose to act differently. They are differently defined by the same religion.
Crazy snake-handling, speak-in-tongues christians dance around and show up and protest at soldier's funerals. Most Christians do not do this. Differently defined.
Some athiests choose to be comfotable with themselves. They know who they are inside. A non-belief in God may be part of it. They are not running around mocking those who believe in God. Those who do such mocking can be equated to the other sects of the above religions who we all agreed piss us off and are imnpossible to deal with.
Being you don't believe in God, why should a non-belief define you? Being part of one group should not define you, unless this is what you want. Is this what you want? Or are you hiding among the other athiests and playing the victim card seeking allies.
I don't know guy, blowing up planes and protesting funerals is a little different than posting thoughts and ideas on a blog.
Exactly. I don't know where this idea that I define my life by non-belief comes from, like I spend all of my waking hours "running around mocking those who believe in God." And even if I did, how can you possibly equate that to the extremist religious examples listed?
There is so much bullshit like this that is has taken me longer to respond to it all than I had planned. I'll get to it eventually.
sounds like this guy is part of the government - what with all his generalities and whatnot.
- I Saw Him
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