Observations and inanities by a second-shift assistant supervisor in the Puppy-Grinding division of the Evil Atheist Conspiracy® (our motto: "Sure it's cruel, but think of the jobs!"), your host, Brent Rasmussen.
Faith vs Reason
Yesterday we went to a service for a deceased friend. It was followed by a great lunch at his favorite restaurant. His death was not totally unexpected given age & chronic condition....but nonetheless it was a surprise as he wasn’t in a noticeable decline. We will miss him.....but it is the service...the catholic mass I want to talk about... and what the priest had to say.
The priest spoke at some length about “community”: the community of the church that lives on even after any individual member of the community dies. I could almost accept this analogy of life everlasting even though it was a strong sell and maybe a little coercive as he did mention how bad it was to leave the community. ....But then the priest lapsed into the god part, the resurrection part and how dead people (and our friend) are all in the afterlife now (presumably heaven) enjoying each other in the glowing presence of god. He reiterated how this life is nothing...that the be all and end all is the afterlife. This was a scary thought for me: all those billions of living believers sharing earth with us and not caring about what happens here; all those billions of dead brainless nonentities sitting around in outer space or where ever heaven is. He did not explain or even mention how well they functioned without brains after death...or how they could have emotions without hormones, brains & a nervous system. Does he wonder about this too?
I looked around at all the people sitting there who seemed to believe it all...how can they so easily suspend their critical thinking and believe this stuff?
How do they do it? How are we so different? They aren’t noticeably lacking in brains. Is it a matter of education? Is it a matter of indoctrination? Do our brains work differently? Does the built in human need for social interaction/community short circuit or override the ability to use logic? Any ideas?
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good questions
I suspect that it could be all of the above. Believers have certainly been indoctrinated, using methods that have been perfected over thousands of years. We have data suggesting that education matters as well. I would not be surprised to find that there could be small differences between atheist and Christian brains that decease our susceptibility to indoctrination, but I have never seen evidence of this possibility. Lastly, it is clear that many factors override our use of logic on a regular basis. I am reminded of Shermer's work on why smart people believe dumb things.
Great Video from RRS
Kid tells parents he's atheist, Christian mom goes nuts
[link]
Too funny.
Web impact
I saw that video when it first came out. The young man posted it, and almost immediately removed it. I'm sure he underestimated what effect it would have in his life, and had no idea that once it was out, it was out. I couldn't watch it again.
With all the wonderful positive impacts of the Web, there's this ouchy one: the Web has killed the idea of the undo, or the do-over, and I think we'll be a generation or two learning just what that means.
There should be a class in web-savvy, and one of the early lessons should be: Don't post anything that you might, at any future point in your life, regret.
It would be one helluva lesson in foresight. Heh. Maybe we'll all end up like politicians, unwilling to say or do anything that someone, somewhere, might call us on.
Or maybe we'll get used to the transparency, and all adjust to some saner level of interaction with each other.
Um, not really.
I don't think it's funny at all. I can only imagine what the kid is going through. Religious bigotry is bad but when it's your own parents and/or caregivers...I can't imagine what that would be like.
To clarify...
Sorry Josh, I thought the video was a perfect example of faith(the mom) vs reason(the kid).
Maybe I should have qualified my sick sense of humor-
I found it funny because it mirrored my own life experience a little. My parents couldn't believe after all the Sunday school, summer bible camps and confirmation classes that I turned out an atheist. I also think it's funny when religious kooks are exposed. I thought the kid handled it great. He would rather stand his ground than cave to silly (profanity laced) threats by his mother.
To this lady, finding out her kid is an atheist is the worst possible thing in the world. Wow! Why is it so friggin important for parents to indoctrinate their children into their own particular set of superstitions? I am not just bashing Xians, we see the same thing in with religious cultures all over the world. As if enlightenment is some sort of betrayal.
No, really, it is funny.
Come on now...it's funny in a pathetic kind of way--much like many things Christians say and do--it shouldn't be funny, but it is.
It's not funny that she's freaking out. It's not funny that she's yelling at her kid. It's funny that she swearing (how un-Christian-like) and her best threat to him is you're not getting any Christmas presents.
That's it, lady? That's all you can think of right now in all your fury...no Christmas presents? What about hellfire, or something like that? Nope. Christmas presents. Speaks volumes about her values.
"Please don't beat Teddy." - Teddy, Night of the Seagulls
Indoctrination
Being forever told what to think, told not to think, told never to question those telling them what to think, and a desperate clinging to the thought "there has to be something better than this."
An example? I was told by a good christian that she believed in "god" because the alternative was "too frightening." Which to me is very frightening.
a stretch
Not to nitpick, Terry, but did you mean that the above was an example of just "a desperate clinging to the thought 'there has to be something better than this'" or an example of all of the list in the first paragraph.
Honestly, I have never been told by my pastor to not think, nor have I been told to not question what he's telling us. I don't know who these people are whom you reference. Maybe I need to move to the South!
And please elaborate on why it's frightening to you that someone believes that reality with no god is frightening. To set it up, I could see you saying it's disappointing that she believes this way, but why frightening?
Can't speak for Terry but I could say why it's frightening to me
...because frightened people don't reason well, and yes, I'm aware that goes in both directions. You get a bunch of people scared of a group within society, of a philosophy, and so forth, you can talk them into all sorts of things they wouldn't do normally - wars, persecutions, torture, you name it. Add the moral incontestability of Religion and you have an unbeatable tool for demagoguery.
We atheists lack the moral incontestability of religion, though, so we're not as influential.
Agreement
Something I realized about a year ago that scared the bejaysus out of me:
People under pressure become less rational.
That scared me because I think there's a really bad interval coming up for civilization, and in this historic moment when we need the absolute maximum number of cool-thinking minds, we're apt to have less.
...
Just a note on Bisch: He's an attention whore, a troll, but with social skills.
His pattern is something like this:
1) Ask a reasonable-sounding question.
2) Gently but instantly reject the answer.
3) Ask another reasonable-sounding question.
4) Gently but instantly reject the answer.
5) Most importantly: Keep the ball going indefinitely.
6) When called on it:
.....a) Reply that he’s just asking questions, and is only interested in learning what people think.
.....b) Point out that the answers have been incomplete, and he only wants to get the full picture. Ask the person to elaborate.
.....c) Wonder why the person calling him out is so excitable and offensive.
.....d) Thank people for talking to him and being reasonable together.
7) Ask another reasonable-sounding question.
8) Gently but instantly reject the answer.
I alllllmost get the feeling Bisch is a psychology student or something like that, doing some sort of study, and everything he says here is meta to some other purpose.
thank you, daddy, for the protection
Hi Hank! Good to hear from you again.
Jim and Dirk and Neil and the others and I were seemingly getting along just fine. Why did you feel it necessary to interject this name-calling? Read your comments about me again. Do you think your comments reflect more that you are an attention whore, in resorting to this kind of immature behavior unprovoked? You do such a thing, and I'm the attention whore? Also, don't you think your fellow brights would be able to see all my unsavory attributes without your assistance? Why don't you think they could see all this without your help?
The questions above are not rhetorical questions. I would like to hear your answers to them. While I am not a psychology student, I do fancy myself as an amateur psychologist, and your behavior fascinates me.
So let me get this straight. Evergreen posts about how she doesn't understand believers and things they do. There comes along a nice believer (ahem) who doesn't rant about all y'all going to hell and such. And Hank complains about this believer on the very post which another atheist asks questions about what believers believe. Am I the only one who sees this as soaking-wet-saturated-dripping with irony? Fascinating!
Well done, Hank. You have exceeded your previous snippiness. I didn't think it could be done. And the saddest part of it is that your tirade came completely unprovoked.
Friendly Advice-Thicker Skin
Bisch,
Hank gave me something to think about, so I appreciate his comments. I don't necessarily agree, but it's now in the back of my mind.
I have also noticed a pattern regarding your comments. You seem to play victim a little too often. Do you really want everyone to put on 'kid gloves' when they respond to your comments? Isn't skepticism and even a little cynicism healthy?
I want these folks to call me out if I say something silly or illogical. I don't want Hank or anyone else to pull their punches, ever! That is the beauty of this blog. These guys have been thinking and philosophizing about the world much longer than I have and I want to benifit from their intellect and experience.
If their comments or mine cause you to be uncomfortable, you might not be ready for this blog. An analogy would be playing billiards or darts. I want to play against a superior opponent to make myself better. Weaker opponents are just boring.
I am not trying to scare you off, but you might want to try having a little thicker skin when criticized. Just some friendly advice.
Dirk
Substance v. Emotion
I appreciate your comments, Dirk. I am not responding to Hank out of victimhood, but if I am coming off that way, it's my fault for not being more clear.
I wouldn't mind, and didn't mind, Hank commenting on a point I was/am trying to make. But that's far from what he did. For him to comment about me, not remotely related to a point I was making, calling me names...I just wanted to ask some clarifying questions of him.
I am not going to speculate on his motivation, as he did mine, but it was curious that his comments came as they did, out of nowhere.
x
x
But, but!!
But the lady quoted earlier wasn't frightened...
She believed that God exists. She said she would be frightened if he didn't. Since she believes he does, she's not frightened. So no worries.
So of what group within society is she (or we) scared? Of what group do you speak?
What are these tortures, persecutions, wars, etc. that you claim? Also, please leave out militant Islam, since we can all agree that those dudes are whack.
sorry about before
Sorry about before, I don't really have any excuse that doesn't sound lame. Well, some of the famous tortures/persecutions/wars/etc. are the Crucades, the Inquesition, the Witch Hunts, the Holocost and the general mistreatment of non-Christian tribes.
Now the Crucades were complicated, Muslims attacked Christian held territories. The Vatican responded not with a peace keeping envoy (as had been requested), but with a bunch of soldiers who were so bored they were robbing and pillaging their neighbors. The Witch hunts: historical evidence shows that as you went from more rural settlements to more urban ones the percentage of people executed decreased, so that is a case of panic from ignorance.
If you remember in the time period between 9/11 and the start of the Iraq war people were nervous enough about a repeat of the 9/11 terrorist attacks that they were willing to support Bush's plan to attack Iraq despite there being evidence that Saddam's government was not affiliated with Al Qaida. That is an example of how nervous/scared people can be convinced to do something that they wouldn't do if they kept cool.
Now Militant Islam, you're right that pretty much everyone (including the sensible Muslims) can agree that those guys are wacked. Militant Islam, never the less, is a visible representation of the extreems that people can go to in the name of religion (or just about anything someone gets attached to). A lot of time religion is involved, although whether it's the root cause or merely an excuse to take what belongs to someone else is debatable. Certainly in at least some cases, such as WWII, although religion was not the root cause of the strife it did determine the victims. Having said that I seriously doubt that if we were all happy little Atheists (or happy little "name of religion") wars would suddenly stop (actually I'm pretty sure the people who are idealists in this reguard would get a rather nasty shock).
Oh right. With the lady in question I think what was frightening was not that the woman was immediately afraid but that she found the thought of a world without god to be frightful. The idea is that although she is harmless as long as she is not scared if the thing that pacifies her (in this case God) is removed than she might become dangerous. Why would people fear that God would be removed? Well, Christians have had a history of converting others against their will, maybe this is sort of like Karma. On the other hand it's more likely that it is an internal struggle between their desire to keep their individual ideals and their desire to fit into the larger group, in order to resolve these two they feel they must make the larger group take on their ideals.