Sunday, August 24, 2008

AvC : A Case Study


“Generally, delusional does not apply to personal experiences.” –Vaarsuvius


Over three out of four Americans have access to the Internet. This group has posters from all over the world, and is listed as one of the most popular groups on Google. The fact that there is a correlation between affluence (and therefore, presumably, Internet access) and secularity is obviously not enough to account for the high atheistic population of this group, so we can safely assume that atheists are much more likely to want to participate in a debate about the value and validity of religious faith than theists are. This is consistent with the view that theists are deliberately ignorant, and know that there is information out there that challenges their faith and they wish to avoid.



Nevertheless, I thought it would be interesting to step back and examine what we see when we consider this group as a microcosm. Reading books about this revitalized debate between atheists and theists, I don't entirely recognize the discussion of the "debate" as the actual "debate" we have on this group. The atheists are constantly accused of attacking a "caricature" of faith and believers by the opposition, who always make arguments just as stupid or more stupid than the ones being attacked (if not the ones they just got through refuting), but I find that the hypothetical theists addressed by authors like Sam Harris and Daniel Dennett in their books seem to be much more rational and intelligent than any of the theistic posters I've seen here. I think the problem's pretty obvious (and it becomes more obvious, reading their critics): the "Horsemen", if they don't overestimate their theistic audiences, at least have to give the impression of overestimating them to maintain the veneer of a respectful, adult conversation. I think this group is evidence that any kind of a dialogue is beneficial to atheists (and therefore the human race): put AvC on live TV, and the next generation of humans could only be less theistic.



“Unlike all that claim to be Christians you can only tell a real 100% Christian by the FACT....


- HE OR SHE CARRIES NO MONEY


- HE OR SHE NEVER BUYS OR SELL OR TRADE BUT GIVES AND RECIEVES FREELY THE SURPLUS.


- HE OR SHE LIVES INSIDE A CITY CALLED "CHURCH" AND IT IS ROUND


- HE OR SHE ONLY SERVES GOD (SURPLUS CREATED FOR THE MOST NEEDY FIRST)


- HE OR SHE HAVE MANY FRUIT TREES AND PLANT AND GIVE THEM AWAY.


- HE OR SHE RECORD'S THE DAY EVENTS IN DETAIL AND IN THIS AGE RECORDS THEM IN GREAT DETAIL.


- HE OR SHE IS SEEN MANY TIME SPEAKING TO THE SELF BUT IS RECORDING THOUGHTS IN THIS AGE.


- HE OR SHE IS OLD/MATURED, IF OUTSIDE THE CITY AND CLOTHED IN THE MAKINGS OF THE CITY SO ALL KNOW WHERE THAT PERSON COMES FROM.


- A real true christian will act like Jesus as if him even if it take many or plenty to do it.”


– Stonethatbleeds



Consider Stonethatbleeds. I'll admit I haven't put too much effort into piecing together Stonethatbleeds' worldview (as obvious as it's apparently supposed to be to me), but it evidently has something to do with God wanting us all to segregate by race, age, and sexuality into cities and gain immortality through audio-recordings that will contain our souls. We naturally form a mental picture of what someone is like in real life, reading their words, and Stonethatbleeds probably invokes only the kind of person you see on public transportation sometimes. If Stonethatbleeds started expressing his ideas to someone on the bus, they would probably ring the bell for the next stop, politely excuse themselves from the bus, and then wait for the next bus to get to their actual stop or else suffer through it. If he were arrested for pissing on the subway, he would probably get some kind of psychiatric evaluation. We have to wonder about his job, whether he screams into tape recorders and a large collection of his own recordings, if he has friends, how crazy they are or if they're worried about him, etc.



Are there others that share Stonethatbleeds' perspective? Where did it come from?



But it's worth mentioning that what Stonethatbleeds seems to believe is not less rational than what any other theist believes. We can be certain of this without being entirely clear on what this is, simply by virtue of the fact that theistic beliefs are at a perfect level of irrationality. There really isn't a gradient as far as theistic rationality goes--it's more of a matter of...what? Rationalization, I guess. Or, more specifically, the effort they put into rationalization. It is interesting to see how other theists respond to Stonethatbleeds. Some of them try to make fun of him, but usually on the basis of his writing abilities. We atheists can all have a good laugh at theists having a laugh at Scientologists, because of the massive hypocrisy and lack of self-awareness that implies. Seeing a theist make fun of Stonethatbleeds' views on this group is kind of a heightened version of that. And I think some of them sort of realize that, which is why they refrain.



On what grounds, exactly, can he be called irrational by a theist? Rational grounds?



“'stupider' isn't a word, retard” – jesusfreak117



manny, SEARCHER for those who remember him and a few others who didn't stay long obviously fall into the same category. While theists, who are essentially all the same, can only be categorized on superficial levels I think we can form the basis of another category that would include Brock, omprem and Keith, among others. They don't really rationalize their points any more than Stonethatbleeds or manny do, but just seem aware that criticism is taking place. Their response is to take pride in everything that a rational person would be ashamed of being caught doing in a debate. If you point out a logical flaw in their arguments, they take this as evidence that they're above logic. If you point out a factual inaccuracy, they will repeat the lie to prove that they think they're too good to tell the truth. This category, too, is largely arbitrary because I see a lot of theists (most of them) doing this sometimes, usually when they get stuck.



“They are thinking meta-logically, an ability that is beyond the grasp of atheists. They are aware that logic is insufficient so they use other means of approaching wisdom. Your insistence that astrology is a fraud is not proof that it is so.” – omprem



Other theist posters try to argue as if they are arguing rationally, but just suck at it. There is an internal gradient here, although it's hard to quantify precisely and is probably mostly illusory. When a theist uses arguments to defend theism, they're going to be wrong, and someone here is going to rationally refute it, and then the theist is going to keep defending it anyway as their posts go from bad to worse in the course of a conversation. The relationship between theists is different than the relationship between atheists on this group. I think this can largely be attributed to the fact that, without rationality, they have no consistent grounds on which to agree or disagree. On one hand, they don't seem to be pals like many of the atheists here are pals, on the other, they don't really get into complex disagreements very often like atheists do.



"See, if you simply assert that they are delusional because they believe that Martians are communicating with them telepathically and insist that they are simply on that basis, what happens if Martians REALLY ARE communicating with them telepathically?"



– Vaarsuvius



What Vaarsuvius misses here is the whole process by which mental illnesses are diagnosed. If someone were to think they were constantly seeing unicorns, the process by which diagnosis would occur would not involve the professionals going out and looking for unicorns because that would not be pragmatic. Allan is one of those theists that tries to be on rational ground like the atheists, because he isn't as content with his beliefs as omprem or Stonethatbleeds is. It actually upsets him that he fails at it, although he would never acknowledge that it's exactly what's going on.



Anyone who looks into how psychologists deal with the problem of religion can see that the central differentiation that is made is one of commonality, which raises a whole slew of logical problems. First of all, this would imply that theism is the only disease that becomes not a disease by "virtue" of how contagious it is. If something is a sickness, it should be assumed that spreading it is a bad thing. Also, assuming a "culturally normal" belief raises the problem of how many people have to believe something or how similar the beliefs have to be--most theists have different religious views, and the act of churchgoing is largely a group of people pretending to believe the same thing to reinforce their individual delusions. Someone like Vaarsuvius or OldMan is more capable of functioning in some ways than Stonethatbleeds, but to call them more sane would be like saying an adult that believes in the Easter Bunny is more sane than a child that believes the same thing. If anything, their affliction probably runs deeper.



“Dev wrote:


> Every incidence of religious intolerance involves religion. Proven fact.



Nice try. Now, try providing a reference for your 'proven fact'. I'm not interested in your opinion.” – OldMan



“Your rant about WHY God should be considered fictional in no way answers the question of whether or not you think that God exists.” –Vaarsuvius



I tried to explain to Allan that if the "if you can't prove it false, it's rational to believe" madness he spews so proudly were allowed in the legal system, he could easily be charged with a crime he didn't commit--all that would be required would be an easily formulated accusation that couldn't be disproved. His response was something like that the standards for conviction should be higher than those of "belief". The implication, I think, is that the consequences are greater, so the standards should be greater. Why, then, on the thread about the toddler starved and stuffed in a suitcase for not saying "amen"--certainly a consequence--does he go on using this same argument as a defense for theism? Inconsistency, and insanity.



"Well, as you and all the other hard atheists in this group believe in the primacy of the senses and that the senses portray a literal reality, that makes all of you delusional." – omprem



Theists are individually delusional. They support each other not because their beliefs are the same, but because of the larger support system for insane beliefs in general that theism provides. It applies a veneer of normality to beliefs that are not consistent because they are not formulated on a consistent basis.



"no one in their right mind will think 1+3 = 4 is better. it is still wrong, period." – Checkers, to Dev.



"Keepin' him in 'Check' since the beginning." – semi, in response to Checkers.



Under theism, things that are insane by every rational standard gain credibility through confirmation. Theists will kill each other for competing irrational beliefs, but they are all together in a battle against rationality in general. Thus, in a population like this group where many of the posters are atheists, they will lend a vague degree of support to each other. The ambiguity of a God allows theists to be uniquely insane, yet the nature of theism provides a unique appearance of consensus that runs the whole gamut.



“People like to float that story around these days to suggest that the bible advocates genocide. But the same book states he at one point wiped out the entire human race! I think we need to accept that” –Chris Grech



“Great points Chris !!.. Thank you !” – reply by Dillan.



Thus, theism is not really "for" anything so much as it is against intellectual and ethical standards in general. It is through this phenomenon that a fundamentalist redneck in Kansas will make an argument for God that is equally applicable to the God of Islamic terrorists on the other side of the world. If you want to justify rape, genocide, child abuse, or just plain acting like a moron in general, you will always have a friend in theism.



by thedeviliam


THE THEIST RESPONSE by Vaarsuvius



Since it doesn't seem that Dev actually captured what my beliefs are -- and, in fact, seemed to get them completely wrong -- this is my attempt to dispell the misinterpretations of my views.




I will be snipping heavily to focus mainly on the misinterpretations, and less on what actual arguments there are, but I don't promise to limit myself to that either.





On Aug 15, 8:30 am, Dev <thedevil...@fastmail.fm> wrote:


> "Generally, delusional does not apply to personal experiences." –


> Varsuuvius




This quote isn't addressed anywhere in this post, but is just tossed out there as, I can only presume, an example of my and therefore -- in Dev's opinion, anyway -- theism's stupidity. Even if my view, in context, was insane, stupid, ignorant, or whatever derogatory word Dev is favouring this week it wouldn't apply to theism as a whole, of course, so I will simply defend myself and not theism in general.




Ah, on that note, before I get into it I must point out this one quote that sums up my view towards who I "side" with in this debate, and what side I'm in, which will clarify why I don't pretend to defend any other theists:




"Side? I am on nobody's side, because nobody is on MY side", Treebeard in "The Lord of the Rings".




Anyway, returning to the above quote after that side-bar. My comment here was aimed at the idea that if someone had a personal experience -- by which I really meant sense or phenomenal experience -- that indicated the existence of something, that it should not and is not generally considered a "delusion". In general, it is considered a "hallucination" instead. Appeals to the dictionary supported both positions technically; while the definition did not generally include hallucinations, hallucination was considered to be a synonym for delusion. However, I stand by the claim that hallucinations and delusions are not the same thing. Take, for example, the case where someone gets completely drunk and sees the now legendary "pink elephants". Imagine as well that they are well-aware that they are drunk and that those pink elephants aren't real. Are they delusional? It seems unlikely; they seem to have a pretty good idea of what reality is actually like. However, they are still hallucinating, aren't they? If someone acknowledges that they are hallucinating, is that delusional in the sense that Dev would like it to be?




Let's take an example closer to religion. Imagine that someone who is an atheist suddenly starts seeing images of Jesus everywhere he goes. He goes to the hospital and says, "Everywhere I go, I see Jesus. He's even over there now. I'm very well-aware that he isn't really there and that I'm hallucinating, but I still keep seeing him. Can you help me?" Is he delusional in any way? Well, it seems not; he doesn't believe that his experience is indicating that religion is right -- he remains an atheist -- and instead believes that his experience is not real. But he is still hallucinating.




And it is clear that the treatments in both cases would be different. If he walked in and said, "My socks are trying to eat my feet", the first question asked would be "Why do you think that?" If his reply was "Because socks eat feet as revenge for being lost in the dryer", the doctors would immediately know that he was delusional, and would start therapy designed to eliminate the belief that socks are in any way animate. Cognitive-Behavioural Therapy would have a decent chance at curing this, as well as other methods aimed at eliminating false beliefs. On the other hand, if he said "Because I can see them moving with little teeth on the inside, hear the smacking and crunching, and my feet hurt", the doctors would know that he was having hallucinations, and would move to determine what was the problem. CBT would likely NOT be successful, and it would be far more likely to be caused by a drug, chemical imbalance, or tumour.




And this is why the difference is important, even if one might be able to argue technically that they are the same: how we treat and evaluate the two are different. In the case of strict delusion, the beliefs are at fault and must be broken; in the latter, the experience is at fault, and must be correct. In addition, it is not necessarily an irrational belief being held if it must follow from the experience and the subject has no reason to believe that they are hallucinating; a delusion is an irrational belief by definition since it must include the fact that the subject has themselves enough evidence that they should know that their belief is false, if they would only acknowledge it.




Oh, and that's an important point to raise here as well: a belief can only be considered delusional if the person who believes it should, themselves, have enough evidence to consider it false (in accordance with their other beliefs, etc, etc). This is because one cannot judge someone's beliefs on the basis of information that the person does not have and be in any way just or objective. For example, if someone's wife is cheating on him and is very careful not to leave any evidence, and all of their friends know because she told them but none of them will tell him, he is not delusional for believing that she is faithful. However, if she leaves evidence around all the time and all of his trusted friends tell him that she is indeed cheating on him, then he'd be deluding himself if he still insists she isn't.




Moving on after that rather long introduction to the first thing that Dev actually seems to comment on and not just quote: "See, if you simply assert that they are delusional because they believe that Martians are communicating with them telepathically and insist that they are simply on that basis, what happens if Martians REALLY ARE communicating with them telepathically?" – Vaarsuvius


>What Allan misses here is the whole process by which mental illnesses are diagnosed. If someone were to think they were constantly seeing unicorns, the process by which diagnosis would occur would not involve the professionals going out and looking for unicorns because that would not be pragmatic.




Now, the basis of this quote was my comment that you cannot judge someone delusional simply on the basis of the content of the belief, but that you had to consider why -- ie what evidence -- they had for that belief. Dev insisted otherwise. Note that his comment here is taking a rather odd logical extension of that claim by implying that the professionals would have to go out themselves and prove that unicorns didn't exist before concluding the person insane. This is not what I claimed at all. On the contrary, my claim is more akin to the example that if the person said "I belief that unicorns exist", the doctors will reply, "And why do you say that?". His reply could be -- to keep consistent with Dev's comments -- "I see them all the time." "Really?" the doctors would reply. "Yeah, " he says, "There's one right outside the door. I rode it here and tied it up out there." Assuming that that would be accessible by something the size of a horse, wouldn't it be proper for the doctor to at least take a look, just in case? And when discovering no unicorn there, and nothing to indicate that it was, THEN concluding that the person was delusional? The doctors might not, but it would hardly seem to be ideal behaviour.




Let's return to the original quote to highlight why it wouldn't be ideal. Take our poor soul who is saying that Martians are communicating with him telepathically. He runs to a police officer and says this, in a panic. The police officer takes him to the doctors who ask -- just to humour him -- why he thinks that. He states that he has ironclad proof at home. But since they follow Dev's notion that the content of a belief is sufficient to consider it a delusion, they commit him and never check. Two days later, his family finds out where he is and brings the ironclad proof that Martians REALLY ARE communicating with him telepathically. And it's airtight; it is really, absolutely true. Can you imagine that the doctors would NOT be sued and considered to be negligent in their duties? And rightly so; while they may have been justified in locking him up "just in case" on the basis of the content of his belief, there was a responsiblity to at least TRY to ascertain that his claim wasn't correct.




Not that the psychiatric field is all that great at it; I'm certain we've all heard the story about the doctors who committed themselves to an asylum, acted normally, and yet found their quite normal and reasonable behaviours interpreted as signs of insanity because of the predisposition of the doctors. This only highlights why objective psychology and psychiatry will not simply judge on the content of the belief, but on the reasons given with reasonable attempts to verify, to avoid letting predispositions determine the judgement instead of the facts.





> Allan is one of those theists that tries to be on rational ground like the atheists, because he isn't as content with his beliefs as omprem or Stonethatbleeds is.




Actually, I'd say I'm MORE content with my beliefs than they are, and that my experience on AvC and with the words of the Four Horsemen has only made me even more content. This is because a) I accept and have accepted for a long time now that it is just a belief, and that I will not have any hope of knowing the truth until I die and b) that I've noticed that the atheist arguments do not have sufficient funds to cash the check they write about atheism being the only rational position on the issue.




To clarify that, I believe that based on the evidence we have on the proposition, belief, belief in lack, and lack of belief are all rational positions to take -- as long as one accepts that the confidence on any belief formed is quite low, and certainly not knowledge. I admit that there are a fair number of theists who think they know God exists, and I would just say to them "You're wrong".





>"Dev wrote: Every incidence of religious intolerance involves religion. Proven fact. Nice try. Now, try providing a reference for your 'proven fact'. I'm not interested in your opinion." – OldMan


"Your rant about WHY God should be considered fictional in no way answers the question of whether or not you think that God exists." –Vaarsuvius




First, let me get into the context of THIS quote as well. I was challenging atheists to "belly up to the bar" and declare themselves as weak or strong atheists, and indicate whether or not they believed that God did not exist or merely had a lack of belief in God. This was Dev's answer:




"I have a lack of belief in Spongebob Squarepants. I have a lack of belief that he lives in a pineapple under the sea. Can I disprove Spongebob? No. If I were shown _evidence_ that Spongebob Squarepants lived in a pineapple under the sea would I rethink my position? Of course. In spite of that, I might say "Spongebob isn't real" but that's largely because despite a lack of evidence for Spongebob being real there is plenty of evidence that somebody made Him up. Now, I know, these ridiculous analogies of God to other fictional characters are getting old. I'm sick of them, too. But until you guys get the point, they are evidently necessary because they are a great tool to explain where we're coming from concerning your God.




God is fictional based on the assumption that if it cannot be differentiated from other things commonly referred to as "fictional" it is only logical to assume it is the same. I have a feeling you can't disprove most fictional characters. But fictional they remain. If you have to disprove something for it to be "fictional" you are basically redefining how the word is actually used (and I'm not interested in dictionary definitions since we all use the word "fictional"--usage defines usage--dictionaries are only useful for recording how words are used). "




My reply was: "You seem to be dodging the question. Let me make it clearer:
If someone asked "Spongebob Squarepants exists. Do you consider this proposition true, or false?" what would you answer?



If someone asked "God exists. Do you consider this proposition true, or false?" what would you answer?




Your rant about WHY God should be considered fictional in no way answers the question of whether or not you think that God exists.


And if one has a believe or even KNOWLEDGE it does not mean that one cannot also say that if more evidence came in that they'd have to re-evaluate that position. Heck, it's the basis of the scientific<>




Now, it should be clear to anyone reading this that, yes, Dev dodged the question. I was, in fact, actually being excessively FAIR to Dev, since I could have simply assumed that claiming that God or Spongebob Squarepants was fictional meant what it means to most people, which is that he believed that God and Spongebob did not exist. Which would, by definition, make him a strong atheist, and thus no longer to use the "I merely have a lack of belief so I don't have any burden of proof" since he would ACTUALLY have a belief in lack, which DOES accrue a burden of proof. So, in response to my being exceedingly fair to him, Dev takes the quote out of context, ignores the original question, ignores his attempt to DODGE that question, and then immediately after this quote accuses me -- and implies that this quote shows it -- that I am attempting to claim that "If you can't prove it false, it is rational believe" when this quote, in context, certainly implies no such thing. Well, perhaps he didn't really mean to imply that; his quotes have had a habit of not applying to his sections anyway. So perhaps I'll grant him that one.




At any rate, the quote is perfectly correct; unless I know that to Dev "fictional means non-existent", he didn't answer the question, and any attempts to show God as "fictional" in no way addressed the original context.




>I tried to explain to Allan that if the "if you can't prove it false, it's rational to believe" madness he spews so proudly were allowed in the legal system, he could easily be charged with a crime he didn't commit--all that would be required would be an easily formulated accusation that couldn't be disproved. His response was something like that the standards for conviction should be higher than those of "belief". The implication, I think, is that the consequences are greater, so the standards should be greater. Why, then, on the thread about the toddler starved and stuffed in a suitcase for not saying "amen"--certainly a consequence--does he go on using this same argument as a defense for theism? Inconsistency, and insanity.




Dev has kindly provided a context for these comments in another post, so I will reproduce it here in the interests of fairness and, of course, in defense. He included the comments above, split to reference his evidence, so I will include them as well.




***** Start of Dev's quote here *****


Original post:



"I tried to explain to Allan that if the 'if you can't prove it false, it's rational to believe' madness he spews so proudly were allowed in the legal system, he could easily be charged with a crime he didn't commit--all that would be required would be an easily formulated accusation that couldn't be disproved. His response was something like that the standards for conviction should be higher than those of 'belief'."



Message in question:


http://groups.google.com/group/Atheism-vs-Christianity/msg/ac2fbae033...



"It is well known that in the U.S. and Canada, at least, that the standards of evidence required for a criminal conviction are HIGHER than those required to get a civil court decision on the matter which are HIGHER than that required for a mere belief."




"The implication, I think, is that the consequences are greater, so the standards should be greater. Why, then, on the thread about the toddler starved and stuffed in a suitcase for not saying 'amen'--certainly a consequence--does he go on using this same argument as a defense for theism? Inconsistency, and insanity."



Message in question:


http://groups.google.com/group/Atheism-vs-Christianity/msg/acf930fbb3...




"And you don't get to defend it on the basis of 'it's true whereas theism is false', because then you'd have to prove that theism is false, and no weak atheist can even claim that that's been done."




Let me begin with the first reproduced quote. And since Dev was so kind as to include the message link, let me restore the context first:


>Would you accept that the amount of evidence required to convict you
of a crime need only equal the amount of evidence you can produce for your God?





Well, the problem is that your question, in fact, violates the standards of evidence required for criminal convictions, civil court decisions, and beliefs in current Western society, so the question is utterly irrelevant.





It is well known that in the U.S. and Canada, at least, that the standards of evidence required for a criminal conviction are HIGHER than those required to get a civil court decision on the matter which are HIGHER than that required for a mere belief. The O.J. Simpson case is a prime example of this: almost everyone believes that he killed Nicole Brown and Ron Goldman, the civil court case held him responsible for their deaths (that decision is what bankrupted him), but the criminal trial did not convict him, and there were no grounds for appeal sufficient to get that decision overturned.



So the question has to be turned back to you: why do you think that the standards required for a mere belief in God can or should be applied to criminal cases, when the entire legal and social systems of the U.S. and Canada -- at least -- insist otherwise? "




Dev was asking -- in accordance with previous arguments that he had made -- that in some way if I have a certain set of standards for accepting beliefs -- including God beliefs -- that those standards should also apply to the legal standards, and so we should all accept that we could be tried and convicted of a crime based on the same standards. My reply, of course, was that no one in the world -- except possibly Dev -- thinks that way; even civil cases do not require the same standards of evidence as criminal cases, and we consider those judgements far more reliable than general mere beliefs. So his question, as I said, is irrelevant ... and my reply is certainly no indication that I think that if you can't prove it false it is rational to believe, since we'd have to look at what the standards actually say about beliefs.




As for my ACTUAL position on that statement, I hold that if I know that something is false, it is absolutely irrational for me to believe that it is true. Something proven false cannot be held to be true rationally, so any such proof immediately eliminates the belief proven false. Beyond that, we need to get deeper into the standards of belief, and that starts to get subjective since what the people already believe must play a role in determining whether or not to believe. So it MAY be rational, or may be irrational, based on what the standards for belief are in general and for the individual. I will not even start to get into those there.




So, onto the second part. Let me reproduce the full context yet again (it's so convenient that Dev's attempts to look fair provide the message link, allowing me easy access to the context that shows him wrong):




>Likewise, pedophilia is simply the desire to have sex with
children and racism is simply the belief that certain races are superior or inferior (Walt tries to redefine these terms, but as watts points out, even with his stupid redefinitions the point stands)--neither of these mentalities are more "inherently" harmful than theism, they are simply harmful, they do more harm than good, and anyone who perpetuates them is partially responsible for their consequences. To apply different standards to theism is to employ a double-standard, and the original post of this thread is just one of a billion examples of what this double-standard leads to.



So, since eugenics can indeed follow directly from the belief in evolution, should we consider evolution a dangerous belief as well?



And you don't get to defend it on the basis of "it's true whereas theism is false", because then you'd have to prove that theism is false, and no weak atheist can even claim that that's been done. "




My "that" here, in context, is clearly the belief in evolution. My charge was that, in order to be consistent, since it seems that eugenics can indeed follow from the belief in evolution, the belief in evolution would be just as much a dangerous belief as theism is (I hope I do not need to relate the horrors that eugenics can lead to). I then forstalled an argument by stating that Dev could NOT claim "Well, evolution is true, and theism is false, so that's why we don't need to hold evolution responsible for what evil is done by eugenics" because, as I said, that would mean that he'd have to show that the premises -- 1) Evolution is true, 2) Theism is false -- were true. That would mean proving theism false. And I then noted -- quite correctly -- that no weak atheist can claim that to be the case.




Dev could have tried to show that eugenics does not follow from evolution. Others did, but it is quite easy to get to eugenics from evolution (I really hope to have the time to get back and argue for that soon) as anyone can see. One can argue that evolution does not lead to eugenics by necessity; one can believe in evolution but not eugenics. This is quite fair, but other arguments from other people -- including Dev, of course -- argue that even though theism does not necessarily lead to killing in its name it is still responsible, so they'd run up against that argument as well. But the attempt could have been made.




That is not what Dev did. He didn't even try to argue that we don't KNOW that theism is true, and therefore evolution gets immunity that theism doesn't since it IS known to be true. This would run us into a bit of a problem if anyone ever proved theism true, so it isn't a particularly GOOD argument, but it could have worked.




Instead, you got what Dev gave.




So, my comment was never, there, about that the consequences were higher so the standards were higher with respect to the legal system at all. But I did argue about consequences around that point, but in the opposite way. I argued that all beliefs have a confidence level attached to them. That confidence level is used to determine what actions it is justifiable to take with respect to that belief. To kill someone, the highest amount of confidence is required before doing so; you have to have knowledge, which represents the highest possible confidence we can have in the truth of a proposition. I do not claim to know that God exists. I claim that NO ONE knows that God exists. So if we look at the toddler case that Dev references, my reply would be that anyone who would kill someone on the basis of the belief in God is just plain wrong. Either they think they know when they clearly don't, or they think that killing someone requires less than knowledge. They'd be wrong on both counts.




Let me bring the question down here so that we can all see what it might relate to:



>Why, then, on the thread about the toddler starved and stuffed in a suitcase for not saying "amen"--certainly a consequence--does he go on using this same argument as a defense for theism? Inconsistency, and insanity.




Well, the message he quoted didn't relate that I was using that argument as a defense at all, so he's wrong there. I also state above -- as I have elsewhere, enough so that I'm certain that Dev must have seen it -- that those standards do NOT defend the actions. So where is the inconsistency and insanity? Only in Dev's head, it appears.




The only defense of theism I have ever made in relation to these sorts of incidents is, in fact, the claim that you cannot hold all theists beliefs responsible for the logical contortions that some people put them though, which is, consistently enough, my precise position on evolution vis a vis eugenics. Seems fairly consistent to me ...




>Under theism, things that are insane by every rational standard gain
credibility through confirmation. Theists will kill each other for competing irrational beliefs, but they are all together in a battle against rationality in general. Thus, in a population like this group where many of the posters are atheists, they will lend a vague degree of support to each other. The ambiguity of a God allows theists to be uniquely insane, yet the nature of theism provides a unique appearance of consensus that runs the whole gamut.




This is one comment that I don't want to pass by. It strongly implies this: that theists will fight amongst themselves unless united by a common enemy. Thus, theism does not exist as a unified entity, nor do theists consider that the beliefs of other theists with slightly different theistic beliefs buttresses them unless someone or something external attacks all of them.




This means that anti-theism's current main impact is to unite theists, if this is correct, and if the case study here really does show something. Hardly a beneficial result; can you say "self-fulfilling prophecy".




That being said, I don't think AvC is a good case study for that, taken at least personally; at best, I don't go around tell other theists off, but why should I? There are plenty of atheists around to do that and I don't have time to discuss my own beliefs, let alone engage other theists when half the board will do that as well.




Now, one final point. This is a long post. A VERY long post. I have no pretensions that I've said anything devastating here; almost all of this was merely clarifying my own points against misrepresentations by Dev. Is it any wonder that I, at least personally, have very little time to make actual posts, when simply defending what I said -- and not as true or false, but literally just what I said -- takes up so much space?




And is it worth the effort, knowing that my words will be misconstrued so terribly?



by Vaarsuvius


AvC : A Case Study - The Debate

Tuesday, August 12, 2008

Red, Hot, Love

How do we know what's hot? How do we know what's red? When I feel heat, or when I see the color red, how do I know I am experiencing the same sensations as when you feel heat, or when you see red?



The fact of the matter is: I don't, and I can't. I have no way of knowing how your experience of these sensations compares to my own. The question is, then, how can any two people ever confer on what is hot, or what is red? How can we agree? How can we established, objectively, what is hot and what is red?



The solution to this lies within how we develop the notions of "hot" and "red" in the first place. We learn from observation and explicit teaching from others around us. We see an object, it has a color, others identify it as "red". I see a fire, I feel a sensation, others identify it as "hot". Through the course of my growth, I develop a mental database of objects that have these qualities and, from that, I derive a concept of "redness" and "hotness" independent of the objects that possess those qualities. And everyone else does the same.



Because of this, the actual manner I experience those sensations is irrelevant. You know what I'm talking about because our concepts of these sensations are based upon the same (or similar) physical reference points. So when I say that something is "hot" what I'm really saying is that this object produces a sensation within me similar or identical the sensation produced by all other objects I have experienced as "hot" (stoves, fires, radiators, etc) and since you have also experienced these objects, you can relate.


However, remove those common physical reference points and the word becomes meaningless, because there is no way to relate.



With this established, we move onto more abstract sensations. Love, for example. Love is often brought up in religious conversations as an example of something we know exists, yet have trouble proving or defining. It is not true to say, though, that love is not attached to anything physical. Take the following example:


You see two pairs of people in a park. One pair are leisurely walking down a path, holding hands. They stop to admire a couple of kids playing. They stop, look longingly into each other's eyes, and kiss.


One member of the other pair is wearing a ski-mask and chasing the other whistly wielding a knife. After catching the other, demands money, then runs off.



Now, if I were to ask you which pair is most likely "in love" I think (and hope) we can all conclude the same. So, despite our inability to conclusively define or articulate what love is or how it is expressed, there can be no doubt that there are physical reference points we can use to make decisions regarding it. If such were not the case, then we would not be able to even guess as to which pair was in love.



Thus, our conception of "love" is built up in the same manner as our conceptions of "hot" and "red". Love is more difficult to articulate because the physical reference points are wide and varied and not definitive. If I see a fire, I have a high level of assurance that it will be hot. If I see two people kiss, I have some reason to believe, though not necessarily conclude, that they are in love.



Even among such "concrete" concepts as "hot" and "red" there are threshold areas where people may disagree. Is something "hot" or just "warm"? Is this paint "red" or "red-orange"? These grey areas do not refute the fact that these concepts have physical reference points and those points are necessary for us to understand one another.



So what is the point of all of this? The point is in how this relates to theists "experiencing" the Holy spirit. The problem is that there lacks a physical reference point. As shown, without a physical reference point, there is little you can conclude about this sensation. You can't know that you are experiencing the same sensation as other people when they say they experience the Holy Spirit. You can't know that the source of those sensations is the same. And you can't know that the source of the sensation is accurately described in whatever dogma or interpretation of dogma you choose to believe.



This undeniable fact doesn't stop theists from claiming that millions of people's alleged experiences are somehow evidence to a single entity. This is called collusion, and it is a circumvention of standard methods.


Collusion is a term I hear rather often in my field of expertise (IT security). Basically, in order to keep a single person from having too much power, there is a management control called separation of duties, where significant tasks cannot be completed by a single person. It requires cooperation. Collusion is essentially cooperation, specifically cooperation to circumvent the controls put in place. A more accurate term would be conspiracy.



Requiring two people to unlock a missile control code on a submarine is an example of separation of duties. One person cannot decide to simply launch a missile upon a whim. The idea here is that it is less likely that two people will act with malicious intent, or otherwise accidentally. However, two people certainly can conspire to do so, and that is collusion.



And that is what is happening here. Based on some sensation without a known physical reference point, no truth or fact is able to be learned. We can't know exactly what is the source. We can't know that two people are experiencing the same sensation. We can't know that the source of those sensations is the same for two people and we can't know that the source is accurately described in some dogma. No truth should be able to be derived from the merely "experiencing the Holy Spirit". However, theists tacitly conspire to circumvent this road block. They simply agree that the source of these sensations is not only the same, but is described accurately in some ancient text. They have no way of verifying this, yet, for the purposes of advancing and generating the appearance of legitimacy, they simply agree that it is the same, creating the illusion of some truth or fact.



But, like collusion, this is dishonest and counter to how things should operate. If there is a box, and we have no way of knowing what's inside, just because two people decide to agree on what they think is in the box doesn't magically make that thing appear within the box and, even if it did, we would still have no way of knowing.



So, you say you "experience" the Holy Spirit? Good for you, but you have no way of knowing.

by Drafterman of AvC

Saturday, August 9, 2008

Another Atheists' Prayer

May I have the strength to face reality,

even if sometimes it is easier to just guess

or believe the same thing the people around me

believe in.


May I have the ability to know what I know,

know what I don't know,

and know HOW to know.

Wednesday, August 6, 2008

Ode To A Theist

No gent of true calibre born,

Would seek another's verse to scorn.

But Rhyme and verse are simply ways

we choose,

To deploy the words that we all use

To say the things we want to say,

But say them in a different way.


No whit of mine, nor comely choice,

Can speak more loudly, give more voice

To my abstract feeling of repulsion,

At all religion's sly compulsion to

Force its will on simple folk,

For me, it simply makes me baulk.


I know no gods or lords you see.

For me none-such can ever be.

They're not in my heart, nor in my mind.

No man on earth will ever find

The god you seek and say you love,

To you or anyone else will it ever prove

To be the lord and master you desire;

You're lost my friend in religion's mire.


The mire that takes a pagan story

And twists it with such vain-glory,

Purely for a purpose of their own,

To control in power they alone

Can wield with lies into false belief.

A boon for you, for me a grief.


A grief for me, because I know

Gods don't exist, will never show.

There is no such thing of any kind,

Except belief within your mind,

And in the minds of countless others,

Mothers, Fathers, Sisters, Brothers.


All caught in this paganistic story,

All thinking they will see the glory

Of this thing of no material sort;

This idea alone that you've all bought.

This NOTHING that can never be,

This NOTHING you can never see.

This NOTHING that has never been.

This NOTHING no man's ever seen.


by Lawrey of AvC

Saturday, August 2, 2008

Theists And History

There is no question that, even if one were to assume that there was a God, the majority of theists would be wrong about who or what He was. It is a mathematical fact that at least most of them are wrong, and there is no evidence that any of them are right. It is simply a matter of fact, then, that those who defend theism are defending wrong ideas that cost us human lives. It is fact, then, that to defend theism you have to value lies more than lives.



On September 11, 2001 when terrorists flew planes into the towers killing thousands of Americans, some tried to define them as "political extremists" instead of "religious extremists". Since the terrorists are proponents of Sharia law, there is no distinction for them between the "political" and the "religious". What possible motivation could Americans have for creating a deliberate ambiguity about the greatest foreign attack on American soil? Only to defend belief in God--as long as the false distinction is created, we can be sure that theism is safe and we can look forward to many happy September 11ths to come.


And next time a theist tells you that September 11th was an unusual occurance of religious violence, ask them what September 11th they mean. On September 11th, 1649, Oliver Cromwell, driven largely by a hatred for Catholics deepened by their murders of his fellow Protestants in Ireland, seized Drogheda and massacred most of its Catholic inhabitants. On September 11th, 1857, Mormons slaughtered 120 unarmed men, women and children due to paranoia regarding the government's interference with their faith--now known as the "Mountain Meadows Massacre". There has never been a September 11th when the human race didn't pay in blood for its fetish for superstition. If the theists get their way, there never will be.



Genesis 9:25-27: "Cursed be Canaan! The lowest of slaves will he be to his brothers. He also said, 'Blessed be the Lord, the God of Shem! May Canaan be the slave of Shem. May God extend the territory of Japheth; may Japeth live in the tents of Shem and may Canaan be his slave'."



There is no greater perversity than how Christians brag about the role of Christianity in the liberation of African-Americans in this country. It was a traditional belief for centuries among Christians that Canaan had settled in Africa, and the dark skin of Africans was the sign of the curse. It is a common theme in The Bible that descendents be punished for the sins of the parents. If only God had been explicit about slavery in The Bible, if only Jesus or Paul had recorded a few choice words on the subject, this apparent "misunderstanding" could have been averted.



"[Slavery] was established by decree of Almighty God...it is sanctioned in the Bible, in both Testaments, from Genesis to Revelation...it has existed in all ages, has been found among the people of the highest civilization, and in nations of the highest proficiency in the arts." -- Jefferson Davis, President, Confederate States of America



"The right of holding slaves is clearly established in the Holy Scriptures, both by precept and example." -- Rev. R. Furman, D.D., Baptist pastor from South Carolina



It is true that most slaves adopted the faith of their masters, and upon abolition the churches were the only institutions that blacks could control without interference from whites (this would not have been possible if not for the seperation of church and state). The views of the church were clear: they believed the empowerment of African-Americans was a step towards atheism. Frederick Douglas, the most influential of the black abolitionists, responded to this assertion in his speech, "What to the Slave is the Fourth of July?".



"But the church of this country is not only indifferent to the wrongs of die slave, it actually takes sides with the oppressors. It has made itself the bulwark of American slavery, and the shield of American slave-hunters. Many of its most eloquent Divines. who stand as the very lights of the church, have shamelessly given the sanction of religion and the Bible to the whole slave system. They have taught that man may, properly, be a slave; that the relation of master and slave is ordained of God; that to send back an escaped bondman to his master is clearly the duty of all the followers of the Lord Jesus Christ; and this horrible blasphemy is palmed off upon the world for Christianity. For my part, I would say, welcome infidelity! welcome atheism! welcome anything! in preference to the gospel, as preached by those Divines!"



The leading nonbelievers in the second half of the nineteenth century-- Robert Ingersoll, Susan B. Anthony, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Mark Twain--all supported the emancipation of blacks, but most African- Americans knew that to gain legitimacy with the Christian mainstream they could not associate themselves with godlessness. An exception was W.E.B. Du Bois, author and one of the founding members of the NAACP, who threatened his prominence as a teacher at negro colleges by refusing to lead prayers.and was said to be as critical of the black church as the white one. He envisioned reforming it "to make the Negro church a place where colored men and women of education and energy can work for the best things regardless of their belief or disbelief in unimportant dogmas and ancient and outworn creeds".



"Answering your letter of October 3, may I say: If by `a believer in God,' you mean a belief in a person of vast power who consciously rules the universe for the good of mankind, I answer No; I cannot disprove this assumption, but I certainly see no proof to sustain such a belief, neither in History not in my personal experience."



Attempts to frame Du Bois as a Christian persist to this day.



It is racist to infer that blacks needed belief in God to respect themselves enough to fight for their rights as equals, when the reality is that they needed to express religious faith to have a chance with racist Christian whites. Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X, two believers who theists like to point out to "prove" that supernatural beliefs are somehow necessary for blacks to have self- respect, were murdered by members of their own respective faiths. Michael Schwerner, an atheist and ethnic Jew who at an early age decided to dedicate his life to fighting for racial equality, was murdered by the Klan in 1964 for being an "atheist, Communist, nigger- loving Jew."



Nonbelievers, by and large, have been on the right side of women's rights and the rights of both ethnic and religious minorities throughout American history. The mainstream church was always, initially, on the wrong side. In the course of a hundred years white Christians in America have gone from conflating racial equality with atheism to taking the credit for it.



We are all familiar with how theists lie about history, determined that we never learn from our mistakes. While the evils done in the name of God cover every other page of every other history book ever written, the fact that most of history was written by believers can only make us suspect that theism's legacy has been worse than we will ever really know.

by thedeviliam of AvC