Maybe Greta Christina can help: Abortion Killings, and Why Religion is Bad
Offline If you guys don't know about Greta Christina, you should. I discovered her after I wrote what I consider my best article: Why Are Atheists So Angry?
It turns out, she wrote the same article, only with pictures, and far more depth.
http://gretachristina.typepad.com/greta_christinas_weblog/2007/10/atheists-and-an.html
You should definitely read the whole thing. I get angry every time I do.
Anyway, I've done my best to explain (particularly to Pineapple) why religion is necessarily bad. Maybe Greta can explain it better than I can. Check out her blog response to the latest abortion murder:
http://gretachristina.typepad.com/greta_christinas_weblog/2009/06/how-religion-twists-the-moral-compass.html
Religion is far from the only belief system or ideology that can inspire people who think they're doing good to commit terrible, heinous acts... But here's the problem with religion... With religion, there's no reality check. There's no expectation of a reality check. There's not even any sense that a reality check is a reasonable thing to expect.
Atheism isn't a lot like religion at all. Unless by "religion" you mean "not religion". --Ciarin
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Since this is now going through three topics {this one, The Greater Good one, and Kevin's} and since my objections will basically apply to that site as much to your argument, I see no point putting three discussions on the same thing which the info is already in one thread [the greater good] and is creeping into Kevin's topic.
Oh and for the record, I think I do have a good grasp on your argument, I don't think you have one on mine.
That, Captain, was a wonderful response to Hamby's post. Oh, you weren't responding to it? Weird, I see you've written twice above me. So much for substance. Oh, and Captain, if you think that Hamby does not understand your argument, you may want to work on presenting a damned argument.
Hamby, I'm so glad you've put us in reach of this woman's blog. She is a great writer. The articulate perspective with which she addresses what about religion makes it so poisonous to morality is better said in one short paragraph than in Hitchen's book, God is not Great, where a good bit is given over to that topic. I honestly hoped I would have something to write other than platitudes, but I can't comment other than to say that I agree and that it's well put.
BigUniverse wrote,
"Well the things that happen less often are more likely to be the result of the supper natural. A thing like loosing my keys in the morning is not likely supper natural, but finding a thousand dollars or meeting a celebrity might be."
I've presented my objection in "The Greater Good" thread, I am sure you have read them, considering you posted AFTER I posted them.
For the record, Hamby proposes that religion can override our natural morality [as shown with his truth table]. For example on his table it's Good or Bad regardless of the Person [Either good or bad] or the naturally derived morality [Good or bad]
This says that if a religious person derives Good, they may do good, or their religion may override their Good naturally derived morality and they will do bad.
I say that if this is true, then we should see success in the abstenence only programs. Why?
Because we naturally want to have sex. If religion can override natural instincts, then the program would be a complete success. It isn't.
Cognition isn't a fucking light switch. Either religion can override naturally derived morals or it can not. You can't pick and choose whether it can or not out of convience.
Hamby has yet to address this. One way to do this is explain the failure of the abstenece program without saying it goes against our natural instincts/morals since that would basically nullify his argument.
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Or he would have to propose a coherent mechanism [read: One that doesn't decide depending on the whether the action is good or bad. i.e no cherry picking/confirmation bais] in which religion can override the natural mechanism in some cases but not in others.
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The only thing religion (and like ideologies) is unique in there is not being answerable to reality. That is, when it doesn't produce the effect we're told it should, we should all politely look the other way since it's taken care of somewhere else, like heaven or because of some excuse or another. And baring politely looking the other way, we can be screamed at by a Donohue (and in the past it hasn't always been just loud voices, has it?) for our impious noticing.
BigUniverse wrote,
"Well the things that happen less often are more likely to be the result of the supper natural. A thing like loosing my keys in the morning is not likely supper natural, but finding a thousand dollars or meeting a celebrity might be."
I don't think religion can override 'natural' morality, I think it just amplifies whatever is already there.
Btw nice link
Whatever goes upon two legs is an enemy.
Whatever goes upon four legs, or has wings, is a friend.
No animal shall wear clothes.
No animal shall sleep in a bed.
No animal shall drink alcohol.
No animal shall kill any other animal.
All animals are equal.
If religion wasn't around last year I would be able to get married in California.
Thank you religion for making every possible step to ruin my life because apparently my existence is an abomination to some desert god.
Theism is why we can't have nice things.
I'm not so sure. In Hamby's truth table it isn't binary. It's either only Good or only Bad.
Actually, it is relevant as to whether or not those factors in of themselves are adequate to override the natural mechanism.
For example I am celebate. If I were madly religious, then I, would of course, attribute my celebacy to my religion.
If I were to fly over to a third world country to support the Red Cross, and I was religious, I would attribute the actions to my religion etc.....
If I really hated somebody because I think they stole my land and I bombed them, and I was religious, I would attribute it to my religion.
In none of those cases was religion required, and yet I still attributed them all to my religion. The question is:
Is my desire to be celebate/help others/bomb the people who stole my land etc... in of itself adequate for me to complete the action?
You would need a mechanism to distinguish between that too.
The problem with that line of thinking is that you are looking at religion only as an excuse.
It is used to teach people their religion's "morals" as well. Like their god killing gays, and destroying cities because of gays. Calling it an abomination, and stoning to death being an okay thing.
Whether or not they accept the "judgement" of the morals, it teaches that it is okay to hate people for being gay, because their divine creator wills it.
If you took someone that was not taught anything about religion, they would only feel curiosity about something they didn't know... rather than trained thoughts of scorn and thinking of a natural thing as unnatural through divine morality teachings.
For my speculation:
It fosters irrational hatred, because they feel threatened through the teaching of their god being willing to commit genocide due to some sodomy. If I go to a more religious area I have problems, if I go to a less religious area it is safer for me. These people feel justified to be bigots because they don't believe gays should exist due to their religious teachings. (that gays shouldn't exist)
The sad part is, many of them don't even look at gays as human beings, they look at them as walking "sins" that need to be purged. This makes it even easier, as once you dehumanize someone you can do anything without feeling the guilt normally associated with it...this is why there is so much anti-gay violence, and murders that happen like Matthew Shepard and Lawrence King. In nearly every one of these cases the killer feels what they did is okay because they are following their religion, and "the laws of god are higher than the laws of man" in a very boondock saints kind of way. :I
Theism is why we can't have nice things.
on a side note;
Anagram for
Greta Christina
Great Christian
I hearby commence an inquisition upon Hamby for consorting with the enemy!
Remember, if fire burns him, hes not an atheist!
What Would Kharn Do?
I feel certain that's her pen name. Well... not a hundred percent certain... stranger things have happened. But damn... it's a great pen name.
Atheism isn't a lot like religion at all. Unless by "religion" you mean "not religion". --Ciarin
http://hambydammit.wordpress.com/
Books about atheism
Why not just post your congratulations and thanks, instead of posting like an obnoxious brown nosing obedient Borget.
BigUniverse wrote,
"Well the things that happen less often are more likely to be the result of the supper natural. A thing like loosing my keys in the morning is not likely supper natural, but finding a thousand dollars or meeting a celebrity might be."
So then, no mechanisms?
Didn't think so.
BigUniverse wrote,
"Well the things that happen less often are more likely to be the result of the supper natural. A thing like loosing my keys in the morning is not likely supper natural, but finding a thousand dollars or meeting a celebrity might be."
You know what's funny?
The theist who has been unable to produce a plausible mechanism through which her deity works demanding mechanisms of anyone else.
- Leon Trotsky, Last Will & Testament
February 27, 1940
Hilarious eh?
Almost as hilarious as you decrying an article you didn't actually read.
I actually DID read the article.
My post still stands.
In your mind and nobody elses.
*Thumbs-up*
Kevin, do you know WHY a mechanism is so important?
Here watch this:
Of course Greg Paul showed that religious societies have a high rate of social ills because the people use religion for comfort, ergo it's the ills that cause the religion.
Prove me wrong.
Where does making new "social ills" fit into this? Because the desert god thing hates gays, and the people that go worship him learn to hate gays because they are told it is okay to.
It doesn't matter if people go there for comfort, if when they get there they are told to create new problems that didn't exist before.
Theism is why we can't have nice things.
Actually homophobia isn't particulary new.
Next time somebody says that they stand by the Bible and homosexuality is against the Bible and they take the Bible by it's word try this:
http://www.rationalresponders.com/forum/17707
And there it is. Alison once again playing part of the apologist for fundies.
I swear, you could set a clock to this.
Didn't you say earlier, when ClockCat asked you about medieval history (including events like the Iconoclast War, Inquisition, Crusades, etc), that you were ignorant of the time period? If that's the case, how is it you can then also claim to be of authority in the matter of the history of homophobia? When/where did you study this topic, Alison?
- Leon Trotsky, Last Will & Testament
February 27, 1940
Kevin I never said fundies should be homophobes. So nice try.
There are effective ways to reduce homophobia.
It's called psychology. Try it sometime.
Hamby's right... you 2 really do need to fuck
I don't think Kevin would know a mechanism for that
Ouch.
''Black Holes result from God dividing the universe by zero.''
Oh. So the Greeks had a problem with homophob...wait that's not right. Oh, and Rome...no, that's not right either. You mean it didn't catch on until the "Holy Roman Empire" when christianity was adopted there? Hmm.
Strange, that.
Oh, and it must be coincidence that people are taught homophobia in churches, while being read scriptures about sodomy and their god's wrath against it.
Strange coincidences indeed.
Theism is why we can't have nice things.
Unless God literally destroyed the Sodomites, that homophobia in the bible had to come from somewhere.
Anyway I already wrote something on homophobia
http://www.rationalresponders.com/forum/17665
Tycoon's quote is a question to me after I said I know homophobic atheists
Everyone's been trying to explain this for several weeks, Pineapple. Religion doesn't create new instincts in humans. It amplifies several instincts, and then misleads them with necessarily unscientific information.
Religion didn't invent homophobia. Homophobia is, like racism, a "misfiring" of our instinct to group with people like us -- to form us/them dichotomies. Science has told us that homosexuals are, in fact, just as human as the rest of us, and that there's no good reason for disliking them or discriminating against them. Religion, unfortunately, does not share the scientific perspective, and so continues with the unscientific teaching that they are THEM, not US.
Atheism isn't a lot like religion at all. Unless by "religion" you mean "not religion". --Ciarin
http://hambydammit.wordpress.com/
Books about atheism
And I've been asking for several weeks:
1] Proof that the social ills don't or are unlikely to cause the religion in the countries [By taking the other factors into account] Studies indicate that religiousity increases when people fall on hard times. [Gregory Paul's study can easily be explained by this]
2] The mechanism of which to differeniate whether religion is the critical amplifier.
3] Basic human psychology says that people will merely subsitute one justificition for another if one of those fails to work.
THIS is why I stress that the behaviour is multi-facet. By merely focusing on the religion, you are ignoring the said other facets of the behaviour which is much more likely to reduce it. I tried to tell you this on your blog with the example of the liquor store robbery.
4] Atheists and Theists derive their morals the same way. Studies [as citied in The God Delusion] show that atheists and Theists have the same sense of morality. [He used the Trolly and varients]
If there was a difference, that the Theist's moral compass was bent, it most likely would have shown up there.
Until then you don't have "over-whelming scientific and social proof"
Hmm...well lets see. What do christians believe.....oh, thats right.
That their god literally destroyed the sodomites.
Huh. I wonder why they feel vindicated in their bigotry.
Maybe because it is marked to them as "divine" bigotry, so it can't be bigotry because their god can't be wrong. Right?
Theism is why we can't have nice things.
Irrelevant in this context. I'm not arguing that his studies prove anything. This argument doesn't rely on any statistics. That's the whole point, Pineapple.
Ahem... it's called psychology.
Where did you study psychology, and how in the world are you able to apply such a broad brushstroke to all human action?
Bloody fucking hell, Pineapple. THAT'S THE WHOLE BLOODY FUCKING POINT! Everybody gets their morals from the same place. It is plainly fucking obvious that religion teaches things that are NOT CONCURRENT WITH REALITY, and it is plainly fucking obvious that religion TAPS INTO THE INSTINCT FOR US-THEM GROUPING, and it's plainly fucking obvious that people have a NATURAL TENDENCY to be BLOODY FUCKING MEAN to people who are not in the IN GROUP.
What is so fucking hard about this? It doesn't take statistics. It takes two bloody fucking steps of logic.
Atheism isn't a lot like religion at all. Unless by "religion" you mean "not religion". --Ciarin
http://hambydammit.wordpress.com/
Books about atheism
It should. Statistics is how things are proven in sociology and social psychology.
It's no coincidence that psychology and sociology majors have to take several courses in stats.
Wow, a vague mechanism. How surprising.
Use my examples I posted earlier to see whether your mechanism is coherent.
I took several psychology courses and read several psyc texts.
Can you list three basic ways to reduce cognitive dissonance?
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Could this also be projection perhaps?
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