Well, all this is interesting to me, anyway, and that's what matters here. The Internet is a terrible thing for someone like me, who finds almost everything interesting.
Wednesday, February 1, 2012
What a friend you have in Jesus!
If you're easily offended, I'd skip this one! I'm not a huge fan of Betty Bowers, myself, but this is pretty funny.
Of course, there are arguments that ridicule is counterproductive. I don't think I agree with that, but ridicule is impolite. That bothers me a little more.
But then I see things like this - ultra-orthodox Jews spitting on a little girl for dressing "immodestly." Suddenly, I feel like I did after the 9/11 attacks, that religion deserves all the ridicule it can get!
Oh, sure, that isn't your religion, right? Heck, your religion doesn't even burn women alive, not anymore. (That's generous of you, I'm sure.)
Yeah, that's sarcasm. So why am I ridiculing your religion? Don't atheists do bad things sometimes? Yes, of course we do. But as I see it, there are two issues here.
The first might not apply to you, but it applies to many Christians - those right-wing Christians trying to use the Republican Party to destroy the separation of church and state in America. These ultra-orthodox Jews are such a problem in Israel because they're favored by the government.
They don't work. They're exempt from military service (despite being rabid hawks, doing their best to foment war). They expect Israel to exist for them. But there's no separation of church and state in Israel, so this kind of thing can happen.
This is what right-wing Christians are trying to bring to America. It's our own Taliban. Of course, it's a different religion which will be calling the shots, but if you think that's going to matter much, you're naive.
OK, you might be a liberal Christian. You might support the separation of church and state. Many - perhaps most - Christians do, and I certainly appreciate that. But... I'm sorry to tell you that there's still a problem.
The problem is faith-based thinking in general. Your beliefs might be perfectly innocuous. But if you believe them because of faith, how can you criticize others for believing something different, also because of faith? After all, they believe for the same reason you do.
The 9/11 hijackers were people of perfect faith. They knew what their god wanted them to do, just like you know what your god wants you to do. And they knew it for the same reason you do, because they'd been raised to believe it and because they had faith.
These ultra-orthodox Jews spit on little girls because they have faith. It's not your faith, but it's still faith-based.
Now, atheists can do terrible things, too. I might argue that Stalin - who attended a church school, and then the seminary, for ten years - simply switched his faith to Communism, and wasn't actually evidence-based at all. Nevertheless, evidence-based people can be wrong. And being evidence-based won't necessarily keep all people from doing terrible things.
The difference is that evidence-based people come to a consensus on what's right and what isn't. We might not all agree, but by using evidence, we can come to a clear consensus. But faith-based people won't ever come to a consensus. That's why there are so many different religions in the world, but only one science.
Furthermore, evidence-based thinking - especially as formulated in the scientific method - is the best way we've ever discovered of determining the truth, the best way we've ever discovered of distinguishing the truth from wishful thinking. Faith is indistinguishable from wishful thinking. That's why there are so many crazy religions in the world (but, as I say, only one science).
And if your faith can't withstand a little ridicule, it's a pretty thin reed, don't you think? You can ridicule atheism all you want, I don't care. Feel free to ridicule evidence-based thinking. It's not going to bother me. I might even change my mind, if you have a good argument to go with it.
But I wouldn't count on that. I think I've heard all the arguments many times before.
PS. My thanks to Jeff for the link to the Israeli story. (Be sure to watch the video there, not at YouTube, in order to get the English subtitles.)
The other video of the crazy orthodox Jews attacking the mother and girl is depressing, but it only goes to show you that the orthodox of any religion are too extreme.
I'm a skeptic. I think it makes sense to have reasons for what I believe, so I apportion my belief to the evidence. You're welcome to disagree. Please, tell me I'm wrong. I probably don't agree with anyone about everything. Why should disagreement be a problem? Check the Pages section below for series posts and links to book reviews and game posts, as well as contact info. Unfortunately, I rarely blog at all, anymore. So don't expect new posts. - Bill
We've all heard that a million monkeys banging on a million typewriters will eventually reproduce the entire works of Shakespeare. Now, thanks to the Internet, we know this is not true. - Robert Wilensky
It doesn't matter how beautiful your theory is, it doesn't matter how smart you are. If it doesn't agree with experiment, it's wrong - Richard Feynman
The general root of superstition is that men observe when things hit, and not when they miss, and commit to memory the one, and pass over the other. - Sir Francis Bacon
When a whole nation is roaring Patriotism at the top of its voice, I am fain to explore the cleanness of its hands and purity of its heart. - Ralph Waldo Emerson
Speculation is perfectly all right, but if you stay there you've only founded a superstition. If you test it, you've started a science. - Hal Clement
No matter how many times a theory meets its tests successfully, there can be no certainty that it will not be overthrown by the next observation. This, then, is a cornerstone of modern natural philosophy. It makes no claim of attaining ultimate truth. In fact, the phrase "ultimate truth" becomes meaningless, because there is no way in which enough observations can be made to make truth certain and, therefore, "ultimate". - Isaac Asimov
The government of the United States of America is not in any sense founded on the Christian Religion. - Treaty of Tripoli, passed unanimously by the U.S. Senate and signed by President John Adams (1797)
I don't doubt the sincerity of dowsers, but even after we've demonstrated that they can't produce results that are any better than chance they'll still go away believing in their abilities... It is like the mother whose son is caught shoplifting on tape. She wonders why someone would want to frame her child by producing a fake video. - James Randi
During many ages there were witches. The Bible said so. The Bible commanded that they should not be allowed to live. Therefore the Church ... imprisoned, tortured, hanged, and burned whole hordes and armies of witches, and washed the Christian world clean with their foul blood. Then it was discovered that there was no such thing as witches, and never had been. One does not know whether to laugh or to cry. - Mark Twain
Aristotle maintained that women have fewer teeth than men; although he was twice married, it never occurred to him to verify this statement by examining his wives' mouths. - Bertrand Russell
A casual stroll through the lunatic asylum shows that faith does not prove anything. - Friedrich Nietzsche
I have been thinking that I would make a proposition to my Republican friends... that if they will stop telling lies about the Democrats, we will stop telling the truth about them. - Adlai E. Stevenson, Jr.
This is not about proof. Science does not use proof. We favor evidence, and the work consists largely of the slow accumulation of evidence in support of ideas, not magically potent proofs that establish an idea as unassailable. - PZ Myers
No, people don't expect government to solve all their problems. But they sense, deep in their bones, that with just a slight change in priorities, we can make sure that every child in America has a decent shot at life, and that the doors of opportunity remain open to all. - President Barack Obama
The formula was very simple: build this really flexible, really open economy, tolerate creative destruction so dead capital is quickly redeployed to better ideas and companies, pour into it the most diverse, smart and energetic immigrants from every corner of the world and then stir and repeat, stir and repeat, stir and repeat, stir and repeat. - Shekhar Gupta
We are prodding, challenging, seeking contradictions or small, persistent residual errors, proposing alternative explanations, encouraging heresy. We give our highest rewards to those who convincingly disprove established beliefs. - Carl Sagan
We are all atheists about most of the gods that societies have ever believed in. Some of us just go one god further. - Richard Dawkins
120 million of us place the big bang 2,500 years after the Babylonians and Sumerians learned to brew beer. - Sam Harris
To kill a man is not to defend a doctrine, but to kill a man. - Michael Servetus, burned at the stake in 1553
Democracy is not about majority rule; it is about minority rights. If there is no culture of not simply tolerating minorities, but actually treating them with equal rights, real democracy can't take root. - Thomas L. Friedman
We cannot absolutely prove that those are in error who tell us that society has reached a turning point, that we have seen our best days. But so said all who came before us and with just as much apparent reason. - Thomas Macauley, 1830
It may be true that the law cannot make a man love me, but it can stop him from lynching me, and I think that's pretty important. - Martin Luther King, Jr.
We will not walk in fear, one of another. We will not be driven into an age of unreason if we dig deep into our history and remember we are not descended from fearful men. - Edward R. Murrow
The deepest sin against the human mind is to believe things without evidence. Science is simply common sense at its best - that is, rigidly accurate in observation, and merciless to fallacy in logic. - Thomas Huxley
There is no absurdity so obvious that it cannot be firmly planted in the human head if you only begin to impose it before the age of five, by constantly repeating it with an air of great solemnity. - Arthur Schopenhauer
Because religious belief, or non-belief, is such an important part of every person's life, freedom of religion affects every individual. ... Erecting the "wall of separation between church and state," therefore, is absolutely essential in a free society. - President Thomas Jefferson
To be elected in America, no matter from what party, the candidates have no choice but to year after year pledge to lower taxes further and further. We have become the nation of Ken and Barbie, looking good but very poor at the math. - Rack Jite
Invisible Pink Unicorns are beings of great spiritual power. We know this because they are capable of being invisible and pink at the same time. Like all religions, the Faith of the Invisible Pink Unicorns is based upon both logic and faith. We have faith that they are pink; we logically know that they are invisible because we can't see them. - Steve Eley
We have always known that heedless self-interest was bad morals; we know now that it is bad economics. - President Franklin D. Roosevelt
I have been attacked by Rush Limbaugh on the air, an experience somewhat akin to being gummed by a newt. It doesn't actually hurt, but it leaves you with slimy stuff on your ankle. - Molly Ivins
In this world of sin and sorrow there is always something to be thankful for; as for me, I rejoice that I am not a Republican. - H. L. Mencken
Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts. - Winston Churchill
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1 comment:
The humor of that video completely passed me by.
The other video of the crazy orthodox Jews attacking the mother and girl is depressing, but it only goes to show you that the orthodox of any religion are too extreme.
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