1. Top 6 Incestuous Relationships In The Bible

Comment #185502 by Patrick McArdle on May 28, 2008 at 12:50 am

"I wish someone would make a movie and call it "The Uncensored Scriptures" or something like that. Make it like a big biblical epic in the vein of The Ten Commandments or Ben-Hur, but instead of the run of the mill stories like Jesus and Moses it would focus on shit like this."

It was called "Life of Brian".

2. Faith in Britain today

Comment #178249 by Patrick McArdle on May 11, 2008 at 2:51 am

"Have you ever met anyone who believes what Richard Dawkins doesn't believe in?"

So, which member of the Monty Python troupe should deliver this line? I nominate Eric Idle. Then, John Cleese stumbles in, re-states it with a few more double-negatives added, and silly-walks out. The sketch ends with the knight in shining armor knocking the Cardinal's big hat off with a wave of the rubber chicken.

None of this would add to the silly quotient of the Cardinal's essay (poem? verbal dada?), but it would relieve the tedium a bit.

3. Evolution's Critics Shift Tactics With Schools

Comment #175092 by Patrick McArdle on May 4, 2008 at 11:30 am

It's going to be fun when some precocious young scientist points out to her class that Creationism (a) IS Intelligent Design, according to the Dover decision, and (b) Creationism is NOT science, because it is not falsifiable. (Creationists admit no "rabbits in the pre-Cambrian" possibilities.) Then we'll see just how much "academic freedom" these Bible-bangers really want to legislate.

We've hung the Bible-bangers by their own tails at least once already. In the 1980's, the Bible crowd got a federal law passed, requiring any school which receives federal funds (i.e. every public school in the country) to allow students to organize their own Bible-study groups after school, using the classroom spaces. The words in the law made such Bible-study clubs equal to all other student-formed organizations, and said that any school which denied use of the school to any student group would lose funds. (Why the students could not meet at a nearby church was never explained.)

The sponsor of the bill was Senator Hatch, of Utah. A dozen years later, Salt Lake City school students formed a Gay & Lesbian Student organization, which the local school promptly banned from the premises. For some reason, Senator Hatch could not be found for comment -- he seemed to have lost his zeal for academic freedom!

4. Gods and earthlings

Comment #163738 by Patrick McArdle on April 19, 2008 at 12:11 am

"What's the probability that something exists which provides no evidence of its existence and is empirically indistinguishable from something which doesn't exist?"

And we have a winner for this thread! Well done, sir.

(However, I have it on very good information that Tuesday does not exist on Mars, due to mutual hostility between the two eponymous deities.)

5. A New Flea

Comment #160146 by Patrick McArdle on April 13, 2008 at 6:02 pm

"But when Dawkins enters this world, his passion tends to get the better of him, and he descends into stereotyping, pastiche, and mockery."

Given the mass-murdering tendencies of the Judeo-Christian god, wouldn't one "ascend" into mockery? (One of my favorite partsof TGD is his description of Catholics' patron saints -- they have a demigod for everything!)

"...perfectly rational case can be made that there, almost certainly, is a God. "

But we indoctrinate children 'cause it's cheaper? Quicker? Let's put this idea to the test. Forbid indoctrination of children in religious belief, and instead argue rationally to adults. I'm sure our author will abide by the eventual result, right?

6. John Templeton: God's sugar daddy

Comment #148997 by Patrick McArdle on March 24, 2008 at 9:54 pm

"We can cure all the malaria we want, but if we're living brutal, nasty, empty lives, it will only do so much good."

Never in my life have I read anything which prompted the thought, "this person needs a malaria infection." Until now.

"...long ago renounced his citizenship and took up residence in the Bahamas, a tax haven..."

Way to show your pride in having grown up in the Land of Opportunity, dude. (Bill Gates still lives in the American State of Washington, where he was raised.)

"In 1939, he was young and living in a seedy Manhattan walk-up when he took an almost unthinkable risk. He borrowed $10,000 and bought $100 worth of every stock then valued at less than $1 a share on the New York Stock Exchange."

OK, I'll ask: where THE HECK did he get TEN GRAND, in the Great Depression? What did he pledge as collateral, the Brooklyn Bridge? Who co-signed for this loan, and attendant scheme? What's the real story here, and why won't anyone tell us? Oh yeah, money buys a lot of silence. Especially when the truth could cause such trouble.

"It looked like madness, but Germany had just invaded Poland and he felt the looming war would drive up the market. All but four of 104 stocks he bought turned a profit. "

And people say Hitler never did any good in our world! Seriously, in fifty years are we going to read about the Halliburton Prize for Spirituality and War Profiteering? Juvenal snidely noted that "money carries no smell", and his ancient wisdom remains with us still.

'Such charges irritate Charles Taylor. "It's utterly insulting to think that anyone who got this prize in natural science was bought over," he fires back. "A scientific culture is very badly conceived if it wants to set aside spiritual concerns." '

Not only does a great gob of money carry no smell, it's spiritual too! Thanks for clearing that up for us, doc. Meanwhile, let's talk about evidence, and how nothing spiritual or monetary should trump it in science. Remember that?

No wonder Dr. Dawkins, in The God Delusion, spends so many words on this corrupting and corrupted prize.

7. Atheism and Violence

Comment #117885 by Patrick McArdle on January 29, 2008 at 11:01 pm

Here in the States, we're used to unsophisticated Protestant fundamentalists as the keepers of the bigoted, anti-free-thought flame. (The flame which burns all those evil books by Mr. Darwin.) Good to see we've still got educated Catholics to pile on the stupid.

I hope the good father theocrat has read enough of Nietzsche to recognize this thought: many humans will continue to live in the shadows of the fallen gods for centuries. Those of us out in the light will continue to dodge the rocks you throw from your dark existence, 'father'.

Whenever some Catholic makes the Hitler = atheist argument, I keep waiting for some evidence that Hitler wasn't religious. They never provide it; like the number of Catholics excommunicated for killing Jews in the Holocaust (zero), this premise simply exists with no value to support it. It's not resurrection in which we should believe; it's levitation.

As the rejoinder notes, this stuff doesn't even rise to the level of being wrong; it's just contrafactual. Well, as we liberals say here in the States, "reality has a well-known liberal bias."

8. Interview with Ian McEwan

Comment #114257 by Patrick McArdle on January 21, 2008 at 4:29 pm

"I think it is ineradicable, and I think it is a terrible idea to suppress it, too."

We don't get rid of bad ideas by suppressing them; we rid ourselves of bad ideas by examining them rationally and critically, and using logic to prove how bad they are.

If we eliminated childhood indoctrination of religious values, we might rid ourselves of religion in a lifetime or two. Richard Dawkins has already asked us to reject the idea of a Christian or Islamic or Jewish child. We should work from there. Let us challenge the religionists: if your doctrine is true, then adults will choose it freely. Stop abusing children!

9. Stop revisionist Christian nation House Resolution 888

Comment #114250 by Patrick McArdle on January 21, 2008 at 4:11 pm

"I know! Let's all get together, go over there, and paint pictures of flowers and trees and doves and just... show them."

(This arrived after I'd posted comment #62.)

Summer, the false dichotomy is a really puerile logical fallacy. There's a huge difference between torture and effective police and military work. Have all of our barbaric efforts caught Osama bin Laden? I want him tried in New York State Court. I want him to hear 2,500 charges of "conspiracy to commit murder" read against him. I want him to hear the name of every innocent person he killed. I want him to have a "speedy and public trial", with all of the rights of anyone tried in an American court. As he has repeatedly, publicly, and freely admitted his guilt, the guilty verdicts will come as no surprise. Then we send him to jail, for life.

All of this is absolutely correct, according to the values of civilization. Now, think: what will demoralize his supporters more: having him die as a martyr, or having him rot in jail, unable to inspire anyone? We should give any undecided humans the choice between bin Laden's barbarism and our civilization, not a choice between bin Laden's barbarism and our barbarism. Leaving morality aside, the former way will simply work better.

10. Stop revisionist Christian nation House Resolution 888

Comment #114245 by Patrick McArdle on January 21, 2008 at 4:00 pm

My Representative, Dr. James McDermott of Seattle, was one of the nine who voted against the pro-Christmas resolution. When he leads the House in recitation of the Pledge of Allegiance, he omits the words, "under god", as these were added in 1954, after he had left high school. (For non-Yanks: every American schoolchild salutes the flag and recites the Pledge at the start of each school day. I always did both, but I never said "under god".)

Summer: if you were serious, that was the most horrific thing I've ever heard a self-proclaimed atheist say. My sister lost four of her co-workers on 9/11, and she never says anything close. We both know that careful police work is the best defense against terrorism, and we support that. Leaving morality aside, the practical arguments against torture show how foolish it is. Torture has never produced reliable information, and it corrupts the user.

Your claims as to the efficacy of torture, and the positive effects of the terrorism of 'area bombing' -- the latter of which both Axis and Allies practiced-- shows a shocking ignorance of history. The United States commissioned a Strategic Bombing Survey after the war, and found that the bombardment of cities contributed nothing toward winning the war, and deprived the Allies of bombs and airplanes they needed elsewhere. Prior to the development of atomic weapons, aerial bombardment could not destroy the Axis' factories. The maximum war output of German factories coincided with the greatest bombing efforts by the RAF Bomber Command and Eighth Air Force.

As for your vile statements about making Islamists suffer, you play directly into another bad effect of terror: it makes everyone who identifies with the victims feel greater solidarity and righteousness. Nero punished the Christians for setting fire to Rome, but his over-reaction caused the Christians to receive great sympathy from the Roman population, even after their malicious arson against the city.

Summer, you have made a great example of why we should not call ourselves atheists. Atheism, in and of itself, does not imply rationality. I call myself a rationalist, which separates me from you nicely. Please learn the long and dismal history of torture, and see how it harms the users.

Finally, President Bush has admitted to violation of FISA. Every such violation is a federal felony. He should be impeached immediately, and the House's failure to do so causes great consternation here in Seattle.

11. The New Theology

Comment #113477 by Patrick McArdle on January 19, 2008 at 5:20 pm

Quite a lot of words to 'explain' that some people just won't give up their 'security beliefs'. Humans can concoct spurious rationalizations for anything, and this article shows that in great detail. It also gets one thing very, very wrong about one of the worst rationalizations out there:

"Intelligent design's shortcomings as science are immense, but its theological problems may be just as profound."

'Creationism', to give 'Intelligent design' the correct name, is not anything but an attack upon science. It has no 'shortcomings as science', any more than I have 'shortcomings' during my weekly stroll upon the moon. It should be referred to only as the intentional fraud that it is. I'm sitting in the Seattle Public Library, mere blocks from the expensive headquarters of the misnamed Discovery Institute, which pushes this fraud, and whose "Wedge Document" explains why.

12. 'Letter to a Christian Nation' now available in paperback

Comment #111321 by Patrick McArdle on January 14, 2008 at 10:45 am

I like Sam's invocation of blood sacrifice. Christians and Jews don't like to recall just how much blood stains the roots of their religions. It's a wonderfully unsubtle reminder of how inappropriate such religions are to our modern world.

On the side thread, I'm always amused by the creationists, who proclaim, "I did not evolve from a monkey." They never see the implied self-judgement in that statement, and I'm happy to walk away without pointing it out...

13. It was a bad year for God.

Comment #109308 by Patrick McArdle on January 8, 2008 at 8:06 pm

P.S. I bought my paperback copy from a local bookseller, who proudly stocks all manner of 'offensive' titles. (I heartily disagree with many of the books she promotes!) The new introduction is well worth the price, and now I can lend the paperback, whilst keeping the hard-cover edition at home.

14. It was a bad year for God.

Comment #109304 by Patrick McArdle on January 8, 2008 at 8:04 pm

First, I love the ad! The joke is great -- how could such an entity, if it existed, ever have a bad year? (Or a bad anything?) I'll do my best to 'spread the word'!

"My question is, who do atheists shake their fists against?"

Humans who claim knowledge they do not have, based on revelations from a non-existent entity. True knowledge comes from observation, experiment, logic, and reading the works of those humans who observed and experimented logically in the past.

"And the question remains, will it change things for better if atheism becomes the only dominant worldview?"

It depends. The atheism of the Bolsheviks was based, in part, upon their political rejection of religion. The Church in Russia had made peace with the Tsars, and so the revolutionaries wanted to destroy both. Such atheism can be as destructive as religion. (Indeed, it has religious elements. One cannot be a Bolshevik without BELIEVING in Marx. Not just agreeing with him on some things, but on BELIEF in him as an oracle of truth.) Atheism which flows from true rationalism -- and the Bolsheviks eagerly claimed this mantle, falsely, for themselves -- would not lend itself to persecution or oppression. It simply would not value claims without evidence, said evidence rigorously and skeptically examined.

15. Stop House Resolution 888

Comment #108045 by Patrick McArdle on January 5, 2008 at 10:34 pm

"It is really freaking me out how religious our government is becoming. Has it always been this way and I just never noticed it before?? "

The big-money boys, who have run the Republican Party for more than a century, allowed the fundamentalist godbotherers into their party, in exchange for shock troops and get-out-the-vote organization. While the big-money boys rarely allow the faith-heads to have anything substantial, the fundies do get token victories, like the Schaivo fiasco, and this contra-historical propaganda.

An Olde-Time, tent-revivalist, Jeebus-wheezing Huckster has now taken the lead for the Republican presidential nomination, and the big-money boys are scared. Allowing the vast majority of Americans to see the fundie fruitcakes in full march will result in massive electoral dysfunction, and the big-money boys know it. How they destroy or co-opt him will make for a great theatre of absurdist hypocrisy.

16. Stop House Resolution 888

Comment #107976 by Patrick McArdle on January 5, 2008 at 6:04 pm

"If you examine Luke's account you will find that it reflects 1st century Palestine rather well. The detail is meticulous."

"Meticulous detail doesn't mean it isn't historical rewriting, just that it is more convincing to readers like you."

If anything, meticulous detail is more important for writing fiction -- it helps the reader to suspend disbelief. For example, Peter Fleming wrote travel books; his younger brother Ian, a former journalist, wrote contemporary fiction, with a travel component -- his James Bond was a true globe-hopper. Each man wrote in meticulous detail, but no one ever mistakes Ian's fiction for Peter's reality.

A much, much better standard for history is comparison to other sources, e.g. Flavius Josephus in this case. Even within Christianity's four canonical biographies, many "facts" will contradict a counterpart "fact" in another biography.

17. Stop House Resolution 888

Comment #107906 by Patrick McArdle on January 5, 2008 at 2:56 pm

Daily Kos is a website run by liberal activists in the Democratic Party, the majority party here in the United States ("Kos" is the founder's nickname.) The purpose of the site is to push the Democrats to be more liberal and secular.

My Representative, Dr. James McDermott of Seattle, was one of the 9 in the 372-9 vote. He openly mocked the sponsor of the bill. He needs no urging from me to vote against this one as well.

'In what sense was the record of Acts and th [sic] Gospels a "rewriting" of history as opposed to a historical record?'

Herod's slaughter of male babies does not exist in the secular historical record; neither does the order for everyone to return to their hometowns for taxation. Roman taxation records also refute this claim. Both false claims seem to be devices for the biographers to move Jesus' family to match each writer's ideas of what the real persons did.

Matthew records the invasion of Jerusalem by zombies, upon the death of Jesus. No secular historian recorded this amazing event, and it does not appear in the other canonical biographies.

18. The OUT Campaign has its own Flea!

Comment #106854 by Patrick McArdle on January 3, 2008 at 3:29 pm

"We need to realize that there are those Christians who are shy or not well versed in Scripture..."

Because if they do become well-versed in the Scripture, they might start to wonder if (say) Jerusalem really was invaded by zombies right after Jesus died, like Matthew wrote. And we all know how well Christians handle such questions. (Jesuits use a really big stick, according to my father, which is why he never sent me to Catholic school.)

In America, an oppressed minority knows it has "made it" when everyone else wants to be like them. African-Americans suffered horribly under slavery, sharecropping, Jim Crow, and de facto segregation, but always kept their pride, and their culture (music, poetry, food) now dominates America. Since the Christians are now pretending to be atheists (who copped this symbol from the gays) we can say that atheism has "arrived" like homosexuality, as a "cool" minority. I don't know if anyone else will look to us godless for fashion advice, as women look to gay men, but having the Christians dress like us makes this non-believer feel just FABULOUS!

19. 2 fleas for the Christmas week

Comment #104120 by Patrick McArdle on December 28, 2007 at 12:02 am

'Anyone who insists, with Dawkins, that Christians must produce empirically verifiable evidence are obviously going to find the arguments of these "fleas" unconvincing.'

All of my life, Christians have told me I will burn in their Hell for not agreeing with their beliefs. Time and time again, I have asked them for proof that a man was raised from the dead, and all they ever give me is a handful of contradictory (and self-contradictory), second-hand folk stories. If I have an immortal soul, am I to wager it on such paltry stuff?

"This Logical Positivism paradigm à la Bertrand Russell has been superseded and is now regarded as old hat by most philosophers. "

Must be nice, to invent a gig where evidence does not matter. I work as an aerospace engineer. Do you want flying-machines whizzing over your head, designed by someone who regards "evidence" as an "old hat" irrelevancy? No? Then why do you bet your 'immortal soul' (assuming you have one) upon such fairy stories?

20. Wisdom From The Founding Rationalists

Comment #104115 by Patrick McArdle on December 27, 2007 at 11:48 pm

'And while I recognise the deeds of jefferson and Paine.It is disgusting to hear "what founding fathers would have done?" or "what founding fathers intended?" in each and every political or religious debate[.]'

We Americans recognize that our Founders were well-educated and prosperous men, who risked their lives and estates on founding a new form of government. Had our Revolution failed, they would have been hanged or driven into exile, and the French Revolution may well not have happened. At the same time, they were men of their age, an age where slavery (in England and the Southern states), sexism, elitism, and widespread poverty were the norms. The only answer to "what would the founders do" is obvious: they would have us argue amongst ourselves as to what kind of country and government we want, and then to implement it within the framework they provided. And that is indeed what we have done, ever since.

21. Interview with Richard Dawkins and John Cornwell

Comment #69140 by Patrick McArdle on September 9, 2007 at 7:11 pm

Mr. Cornwell gets it wrong from the start. RD, in TGD, does not consider religious extremism alone to be a problem; as the very title says, the book considers religion itself to be a problem; extremism is one manifestation of that overall problem.

22. Inferior Design: Richard Dawkins reviews Behe's lastest book

Comment #53273 by Patrick McArdle on June 30, 2007 at 1:33 pm

"He constantly criticises religious believers, but doesn't include Deists for some inexplicable reason."

"Personal qualities, whether pleasant or unpleasant, form no part of the deist god of Voltaire and Thomas Paine. [...] The deist god ... detonated what we would now call the hot big bang, retired and was never heard from again." (Richard Dawkins, The God Delusion, p. 38)

Dr Dawkins, you are an intelligent man who can reason very clearly. Please answer the morality question once and for all, and explain to me why it's so wrong (or not!) to be a Deist.

I'm not, by a long way, Mr. Dawkins, but the reason is very simple: the deist god created the universe, then "retired" &c. This god existed just to create the universe. If the universe has always existed, then it never had a creator, and we don't need to posit one. (Please note that Dr. Roger Penrose does not accept the "big bang" as the origin of our universe, just the start of the latest version of it.)

23. In the name of the Father

Comment #51799 by Patrick McArdle on June 25, 2007 at 3:14 am

"Excuse me for saying so, but I find it troubling that all of us clear-thinking, open-minded, rationalists get swept up in the fervent and over-zealous denunciation of religion."

This is a forum where we members of an historically despised and persecuted minority can air our views without fear of retaliation. We might expect a small degree of over-reaction. Be that as it may, we are discussing a phenomenon which has caused enormous human suffering -- not to mention outright waste of resources, even when peaceful. Dealing with apologists can set our teeth on edge, especially when they use such risible arguments:

"But how is it that the majority of the world's great philosophers, composers, scholars, artists and poets have been believers, often of a very devout kind?"

They were raised in societies which required public displays of religious observance, and drilled this into their heads from birth. We could hardly expect them to have behaved otherwise. Considering the gruesome fates of 'infidels' in most of human history, the non-believers amongst the great thinkers saw the wisdom in preserving appearances.

If this is the best the apologists can do, they've nicely proved our critiques for us. Even the un-civil ones.

24. In the name of the Father

Comment #51573 by Patrick McArdle on June 23, 2007 at 12:37 pm

Well, the original article was pretty much garbage, but it did provide us with a strawman-bashing entertainer:

"Do any of you truly believe that religion poisons everything?"

(The book is a polemic, written in hyperbolic style. Please understand how an author can use overstatement to emphasize his points.) We 'militant atheists' note that unsupportable beliefs cause trouble, thus poisoning a great many human interactions.

"Do any of you truly believe that atheistic groups are immune to corruption and evil?"

No human is ever perfect or infallible, even if a billion other humans claim to believe that he is. No group of humans is ever immune to flaws or failures. And I know of no atheist who has ever claimed otherwise, so what's your point?

"Would war suddenly end if religion vanished?"

No, and we don't claim that it would. Again, this is a straw man. But I have a serious question for you. I just returned from a visit to my home town, New York, where I happened by the World Trade Center site. My sister works in an office building across the street from the site; four of her co-workers died on 9/11. Would they have died, trapped and terrified atop their burning building, if religion did not exist?

"Do you believe that science can, and will someday end cruelty and suffering?"

Know anyone who died of scurvy? Was recently crippled by polio? Suffers from rickets? I don't believe that humans can ever achieve the perfection required to end all suffering (your loved ones will all eventually die), but we've done more with Pasteur's germ theory of disease than with all of the praying and libations.

"Does scientific enlightenment force people to be loving?"

I love the idea that enlightenment involves force!

"Is it a lack of scientific/evolutionary knowledge that makes men do illogical things like murder and rape?"

Logic is only as good as the basic assumptions which underlie it. If a person believes unscientific garbage about "race", then enslaving or exterminating humans deemed to be members of other "races" might become a logical outcome. This is why we scientists oppose any belief which does not rest upon verifiable evidence.

"Again, is religion the cause of all our problems? "

We have enough problems already; we do not need groundless beliefs making things worse. Do you really believe that people would fight over desert land at the east end of the Mediterranean Sea in the absence of organized religion? Do you believe they would strap bombs to themselves in this fight otherwise? Ever heard of an atheist suicide bomber?

Negotiation should always be used before resorting to war. But a Jew, by definition, will never believe that Jesus was god, and no amount of negotiation will cause a devout Muslim to accept Jesus as a savior. So long as humans think such issues have value, we might fight over them. Why should we keep such troublesome distinctions?

25. Can we really learn to love people who aren't like us?

Comment #49136 by Patrick McArdle on June 10, 2007 at 2:58 pm

"The real battle, and it applies to secular and religious alike, is: can we love, not hate, the people not like us? We are tribal animals. We are hardwired for conflict."

The humanist writer and television producer, Gene Roddenberry, had his most famous character, Capt. Kirk, give a speech to two warring nations. Kirk tells them that killing is indeed in our nature, but that "we can decide not to kill, today."

The problem is that humans fight for reasons. We fight over access to resources. Sometimes we have labor strikes, sometimes we change the tax laws, sometime we riot in the streets, sometimes we wage war. Often, we simply negotiate our way to a solution, without violence. We all recognize this last as the best way to proceed.

The problem, Rabbi, is that we cannot negotiate religious beliefs. Neither of us believe that Jesus was born of a virgin, or was resurrected, or will return from the sky with superheroic powers. I do not believe that your god granted your ancestors a claim to certain lands, because I do not believe that your god exists. Beliefs in a virgin birth, or a covenant with a god, have no rational bases, and thus are not subject to negotiation. The best the different believers can do is to decide "not to kill, today." They can never eliminate the source of friction between their groups, because it has no basis in reality. Their Mark of Cain, their cross to bear, comes from their non-rational beliefs. Such beliefs form a wound that cannot heal, until the beliefs die. Only then can we have a true common humanity. The end of faith (to coin a phrase) will not, in and of itself, ensure harmony amongst all humans, but it will end an unquenchable source of conflict.

With all of the economic, social, and environmental problems our species must solve, just to survive on this earth, we don't need your Iron Age superstitions impeding our progress. Your conflicts also differ in another way from the other problems we face, in that we could be rid of them tomorrow, if only you people would have faith IN YOURSELVES, as part of a faith IN HUMANITY, to solve our own problems peacefully.

26. Can we really learn to love people who aren't like us?

Comment #48902 by Patrick McArdle on June 9, 2007 at 12:14 pm

"Atheism is different. It is a form of protest."

Perhaps the Chief Rabbi is using a form of shorthand here; his context is the recent best-selling books, by Dr. Dawkins and others, attacking religious belief. However, in the larger sense, atheism is NOT a form of protest; it is the lack of belief in any deity. That's all. Many theists seem to feel threatened by a statement of non-belief, but that does not mean that atheism exists to oppose their beliefs; they just feel that it does.

"But, speaking for myself, the evils done in religion's name don't provide the primary motivation for atheism. I'm an atheist, not because people do bad things in God's name but because I don't think he exists."

Dr. Dawkins' atheism arises from his detailed inquiry into the possible existence of a god, and the resultant lack of evidence for one. My own atheism started simply with no religious background; my family is not religious, they never told me to believe in a god, and they never provided any religious instruction. Public schools in the US do not provide hard religious instruction (although they do reflect the majority-Christian society in which they operate). Thus, I came of age with no religious beliefs of any kind. When I investigated the matter, I used the scientific and intellectual methods I'd learned in engineering school at university, and I came to the same conclusions as Dr. Dawkins: the evidence is just not there.

But a person can be an atheist for any number of reasons, or for no reason. It needn't involve protest.

27. What I Think About Evolution

Comment #47234 by Patrick McArdle on June 3, 2007 at 4:38 pm

Dear Editor, The New York Times:

When reading the end of Senator Brownback's commentary, an infamous bit of twentieth-century history resounded in his final quote:

"Man was not an accident and reflects an image and likeness unique in the created order. Those aspects of evolutionary theory compatible with this truth are a welcome addition to human knowledge. Aspects of these theories that undermine this truth, however, should be firmly rejected as an atheistic theology posing as science."

Comrade Stalin declared that Trofim Lysenko's theory on the origin of species was correct biology, and Darwin's theory was capitalist garbage. Therefore, Soviet biologists could present evidence only so far as it supported Lysenko's truth. Aspects of biology which undermined this truth (by supporting Darwin's ideas) would be rejected as false. Stalin's threats had real force, and Soviet biology never recovered from this censorship.

Senator Brownback can take his censorship and toss it in the dustbin of history, where it belongs. The rest of us will follow wherever the evidence, not his pre-determined conclusions, take us.

Sincerely,

28. Aiming for knockout blow in god wars

Comment #45228 by Patrick McArdle on May 27, 2007 at 12:16 am

As usual, the man himself says it best: "They are so used to getting a free ride that, on the rare occasions that they encounter even mild criticism, they hear it as extreme and -- apparently in Margaret Somervill'e case -- they presume that others hear it as extreme as well."

Telling children they'll fry eternally unless they live their private lives like an old guy in Rome dictates: now that's extremism! Reading an old book, written in a pre-technological time, and noting that may of the claims therein do not comport with the answers our modern science gives to the same questions: almost a trivially silly exercise.

29. Teachers rebel over atheism promotion

Comment #45148 by Patrick McArdle on May 26, 2007 at 3:11 pm

I recall asking my Kindergarten teacher to stop giving me all of those notices to carry home. She explained that she didn't want to give me any of them, but that "the town" (i.e. our local school board) had mandated she do so.

Years later, while I was still in school, then-President Reagan signed Senator Hatch's (R-Utah) bill, which required schools receiving federal aid (i.e. every public school in the country) to allow student-formed religious groups to use school buildings after hours. We liberals wondered why kids couldn't hold their Bible-study groups in, oh, one of the many CHURCHES we've got in this country, but we went along with it.

The theocrat-wannabees were just using our liberal sense of tolerance and fair play against us, of course. They had no intention of reciprocal understanding, as a delicious irony made clear. Long after Mr. Reagan had left office, the school board in Salt Lake City, Utah, tried to shut down their school's new, student-formed Gay & Lesbian Student Association. Guess whose law thwarted their effort?

To use their own logic against them, either the school has to give all of these adverts to students, or none of them. I remain an advocate of the latter choice.

30. Television evangelist Falwell dies at 73

Comment #41322 by Patrick McArdle on May 15, 2007 at 10:42 pm

The long article did a good job, but neglected to relate a couple of points. One was Mr. Falwell's zealous (pun intended) selling of "The Clinton Chronicles" in churches. As Digby notes, this helped legitimatize the nut-case right-wing's insane lies against President Clinton. A man as intelligent as Falwell must have known he was making false accusations against his fellow Christian, but he didn't care enough for his own stated values to practice them.

Also, for those of you not familiar with American history over the past five decades, Falwell opposed mixing religion and politics in the 1950s and 1960s specifically because Dr. Martin Luther King was doing just that, in advancing the cause of Civil Rights. The white, male, Southern power structure absolutely hated King, and did everything in their power to stop him. The kindest thing we can say about Rev. Falwell is that he remained neutral in the face of great injustice, and that is a very negative thing indeed to say about a self-professed Christian.

It's always tragic when a person with great talents uses them for ill, as Mr. Falwell used his pulpit and organizational skills to hurt his fellow humans (and fellow Americans) for violating his rigid, uncharitable standards. Think of all the poor and hungry he could have fed, all of the unlucky he could have supported, and all of the good his talents could have achieved, all of it consonant with the plain words of his Jesus. I hope we all take his negative lesson to heart. (We atheists know that he isn't now facing the judgment of his intolerant and hateful god! Plenty of solace for everyone in that!)

My favorite part of the obituary was Rev. Falwell's own backhanded admittance that morals, ethics, and biblical values(!) are all distinct entities! No atheist could have said it better!

31. Atheist offers to send letters post-Rapture

Comment #39065 by Patrick McArdle on May 9, 2007 at 10:52 pm

How about a bumper sticker:
"WARNING: Driver could rapture at any time. Keep a safe distance."

I've actually seen a real (?) version of this, announcing that the automobile would be un-controlled immediately after the Rapture. As a bicyclist, I can tell you that said car wasn't under such great control anyway...

32. Supporters of abortion have no future in Church, Pope tells faithful

Comment #39063 by Patrick McArdle on May 9, 2007 at 10:34 pm

'The Pope admitted that the rise of evangelical Protestant churches in Latin America was "our biggest worry".'

So much for those innocent babies, 'murdered' by abortion! Then again, whenever in all of history did the Church value even one innocent human life above its own power?

33. The torture of the grave Islam and the afterlife

Comment #38084 by Patrick McArdle on May 6, 2007 at 11:57 pm

"Who is your Lord? Who is your Prophet? What is your religion?"

That sounds like a scene near the end of a M. Python movie... shot in Scotland, if I recall properly.

34. A Split Emerges as Conservatives Discuss Darwin

Comment #38083 by Patrick McArdle on May 6, 2007 at 11:51 pm

"I am flabergasted to learn that William F. Buckley is on the side of ignorance. I have not heard him speak in a very long time, but I was under the impression that he was a smart man."

He's long been a very articulate ideologue, and he has a good formal education. So what? Pick any political ideology whose adherents killed millions of innocent humans, and you'll find intellectuals supporting it, at least in its early days. Blind adherence to beliefs once conferred an evolutionary advantage ("our tribal elders have declared those berries tabu, therefore you do not eat them" avoids any need for understanding advanced biochemical theories of poison), but now can get all of us killed; reason alone must guide us. Buckley has long made promotion of his right-wing ideology his paramount public cause, and he continues to do so. We should put his ideas to the same rational test as we do to every other idea, and let the results of those analyses guide us.

35. Scene Caused by Christian Group at NYC Stage Show

Comment #35971 by Patrick McArdle on April 29, 2007 at 3:39 pm

This makes an interesting counterpoint to the recent commentary on the aggressive atheism proclaimed by Mr. Dawkins, Mr. Harris, and Mr. Hitchens. Nothing those men have written, said, or done comes anywhere close to this act of disrespectful vandalism. For whatever reasons, certain religious believers arrogate to themselves the 'right' to abuse everyone around them. Mr. Daisy, and all of the other audience members, had their show interrupted by the crass (and, as others here have noted, completely premeditated) actions of some self-described Christians. We've endured such abuse since (at least) the day when Cyril ordered Hypatia murdered for ignoring his edicts against her (or any other woman) teaching men. (Burning the Library of Alexandria, or dousing the performer's notes, shows the level of 'civilization' these people attain.)

As for the content of Mr. Daisy's work, I've seen two of his shows, and both engaged the audience in a very positive way. He does not insult his audience, or abuse them, as some artists do. While no performer should have endured this abuse, doing this to him was a larger injustice than it might have been in other cases. He took it better than most persons would have! Kudos to him.

36. Pope abolishes limbo

Comment #34355 by Patrick McArdle on April 23, 2007 at 9:31 pm

Thomas Paine noted how wonderfully inventive those Romans could be:

"They [the authors of Christian doctrine] promised him [Satan] ALL the Jews, ALL the Turks [i.e., Muslims] by anticipation, nine-tenths of the world beside, and Mahomet [Mohammad] into the bargain. After this, who could doubt the bountifulness of the Christian Mythology?" (The Age of Reason, p. 17)

He also noted the arbitrary and capricious nature of their doctrines:

"When the Christian Mythologists established their system, they collected all of the writings they could find, and managed them as they pleased. It is a matter altogether of uncertainty to us whether such of the writings as now appear under the name of the Old and New Testament are in the same state in which those collectors say they found them, or whether they added, altered, abridged, or dressed them up.
"Be this as it may, they decided by VOTE which of the books out of the collection they had made should be the WORD OF GOD, and which should not." (pp. 20-21)

As often, Mr. Dawkins himself has the last word:

"What impresses me about the Catholic mythology is partly its tasteless kitsch but mostly the airy nonchalance with which these people make up the details as they go along. It is just shamelessly invented." (The God Delusion, p. 35)

37. Iran Exonerates Six Who Killed in Islam's Name

Comment #33346 by Patrick McArdle on April 19, 2007 at 11:27 pm

"At the same time, he laid out examples of moral corruption that do permit bloodshed, including armed banditry, adultery by a wife and insults to the Prophet Muhammad."

Not to mention double-parking on Sundays, not tipping the full 15% when the server is a Muslim, and enjoying any part of "The Life of Brian".

Remember: if we just kill enough people, we'll have a perfect society. God said so.

38. The Empty Wager

Comment #32969 by Patrick McArdle on April 18, 2007 at 9:56 pm

"The atheist one does good things because that is want he elects to do under his own free will. The believer does good things because he has expectations of going to heaven."

A version of this appears in Mr. Harris' discussion with Rev. Warren, where the latter says, "[i]f death is the end, shoot, I'm not going to waste another minute being altruistic." While context makes it sound as if Mr. Warren was not claiming this attitude for himself, he did think it applied to many a Christian. That's a very sad thing for one believer to say about another.

I donate blood, six times per year (the maximum frequency) because, as an atheist, I believe that this life is all we'll ever get, and I should use my good health to benefit other humans, just as others would do for me. I doubt I speak only for myself, when I say that atheism makes one appreciate life much more than believing in some pie-in-the-sky-when-you-die ever can, because the latter belief must devalue actual life here on earth.

39. The Empty Wager

Comment #32947 by Patrick McArdle on April 18, 2007 at 7:33 pm

As usual, Mr. Harris expresses complex ideas with such lucidity, this reader sits in awe of both substance and style. His dismantling of Pascal's Wager, although incomplete (we can write much, much more about how bad it is) utterly succeeds at eviscerating the folly behind the gamble. Never has betting looked so foolish!

As Mr. Harris notes, some persons choose to believe because it gives them comfort. When we hear such a reason for belief from, say, a Christian or Muslim, we should ask how believing that almost every human who ever lived now suffers excruciating, permanent torture could possibly make a sane person feel better.

40. The Age of Darwin

Comment #32651 by Patrick McArdle on April 17, 2007 at 10:49 pm

"This is what I meant when I said that you don't need the same caliber of explanation for a star as for a dog."

As you noted, evolution has a much different meaning in those two sciences. Still, one needs some explanation for how a star like the sun could possibly have 'native' (not gravitationally captured) planets with uranium in their crusts. Mere fusion inside the sun cannot produce that result (or so we think!).

I apologize for any confusion caused by my vague use of scientific terms. Had I done so by commenting upon an article in a scientific journal, instead of in a general-interest newspaper, I might well have had my head handed to me, and rightly so.

One of the benefits of knowing some universal concepts is getting to apply them universally, and obtaining some interesting results. Mr. Brooks' attempt was one of the better ones I've lately read, although I think he got some of his results backwards, and others sideways. At least he tried, and wrote something complimentary about evolution -- even if he didn't intend to!

41. Atheism isn't the final word

Comment #32317 by Patrick McArdle on April 16, 2007 at 9:00 pm

Good point. Anyone who doesn't know about the fight between Jefferson and Franklin over inclusion of a deity in the Declaration isn't worth answering. Ditto the Roman law practiced in the modern USA, and the theological justifications for slavery. The self-righteous thumping about the Holocaust was really offensive, though; as Sam Harris shows in The End of Faith, it was the logical consequence of centuries of Christian persecutions of Jews, and not one German Catholic was excommunicated for sending Jewish children to the furnaces. The God Delusion is even bigger than previously thought! (Pun intended!)

42. The Age of Darwin

Comment #32310 by Patrick McArdle on April 16, 2007 at 8:50 pm

'It is true that a star like the sun contains
heavy elements that were produced by an earlier "generation" of stars, but it
is not correct to think here of heredity, self replication, etc.'

Your points are all correct: stars are not alive, they don't replicate, in the biological senses. I wasn't trying for an overall take on the philosophy of science; my comments are directed at this one essay. Mr. Brooks examines how ideas have altered our way of thinking, in a very large and vague way, and I respond in that vein.

The concept of evolution generates very different results from the concept that a god created an essentially static universe. The concept of evolution permeates modern science, to the point where even non-biologists use it. The term has different precise meanings in different sciences, but the broad concept informs the sciences.

And, if the solar system 'inherited' heavy elements which the sun alone could not make, does that not constitute an evolution of sorts?

43. The Age of Darwin

Comment #32270 by Patrick McArdle on April 16, 2007 at 2:53 pm

'There are some cosmologists (or is it just one cosmologist?) that have talked about universes "evolving" in something a little bit like a Darwinian sense; it had something to do with black holes, but this theory is not at all widely accepted, or even popular.

'Stellar evolution has nothing to do with evolution in biology. Astronomers and biologist just use the same word for two completely different process.'

Thank you for providing that clarification, but I must stick with my original point, that the concept of evolution, wherein successive generations (of species, stars, universes) rely upon information generated in previous editions. This opposes the Biblical worldview, of an essentially static universe, created in toto by a god. I'm amazed at how backwards Brooks gets it; a grand universal narrative is not part of the Judaeo-Christian Bible; that document tells the story of a 'perfect' creation, polluted by disobedient humanity, doomed to destruction by an (incompetent?) god who repeatedly loses control of his creation. The 'rise of humanity' narrative Brooks cites comes from the Enlightenment, not Christianity.

44. The Age of Darwin

Comment #32110 by Patrick McArdle on April 15, 2007 at 7:38 pm

Here's a copy of my letter to The New York Times:

Thank you for printing David Brooks' essay, "The Age of Darwin". He makes a good point, that evolution has become the paradigm for modern thought, but he does not go far enough. All of modern biology works only within the frame that Mr. Charles Darwin discovered, and now all of science has adopted evolution as the basic model.
Astronomers think in terms of "stellar evolution", while cosmologists talk about the evolution of the universe itself.

Interestingly, Mr. Brooks believes that the Rockefeller Museum does not show such thinking, but his description of it sounds very modern indeed: "History is portrayed here as a great, unified story, with crucial pivot moments when humanity leapt forward ..." If we substitute 'species evolved' for 'humanity leapt forward', we have an excellent description of the 'punctuated equilibrium' concept, which Steven Jay Gould applied to Darwin's theory of evolution.

As Mr. Brooks admits, the old worldview causes pointless suffering, while modern thinking explains our world remarkably well. Believers in revealed truth "still fight over sacred spots like the Holy of Holies a short walk away," while "[t]he logic of evolution [...] holds that most everything that exists does so for a purpose."

I don't know if Mr. Brooks intended to write such a paean to the beauty of modern thought, or such a scathing indictment of religiously-based thinking, but I thank him for so doing, and you for publishing it.

45. Nisbet and Mooney in the WaPo: snake oil for the snake oil salesmen

Comment #32091 by Patrick McArdle on April 15, 2007 at 2:52 pm

What a load of nonsense the WaPo published, and thanks to PZ Meyers for his partial refutation. (The original contained too much patronizing garbage for complete refutation in one brief response.) Worse than talking down to scientists was their belief that one must cosset Americans' irrationality, or "hide one's light under a basket", as the Christians themselves say. The United States was formed as a revolutionary enterprise, which condemned many political beliefs then commonly held in Europe: the need for monarchy, esp. a monarchy aligned with organized religion. When we Americans teach our history to our children, we emphasize just how revolutionary our ideas once were, and how the success of the USA refuted those older ideas forever.

I claim that we Americans will hold true to our revolutionary roots, and will appreciate any challenge to our current beliefs, provided the challengers do so in a strong and unapologetic manner. Every one of our Founding Fathers would have been hung by the monarchists, had our revolution failed; they didn't worry about offending their audience, they wrote an unapologetic Declaration, and addressed it to the entire world! Let us show that same spirit now.

46. Kadra attacked in public

Comment #32086 by Patrick McArdle on April 15, 2007 at 2:20 pm

The mutilation sometimes called "female circumcision" is called "female genital mutilation" here in the States. About a dozen years ago, we noticed that certain immigrant communities were practicing it, and we banned it. We ignored any attempts at 'cultural understanding', since child abuse has no excuses. As I recall, it was more of a sub-Saharan practice than a Muslim one, although of course many Muslims come from sub-Saharan countries. Once something becomes 'sanctified', then it has many irrational defenders. I hope Kadra's assailants are all identified, and punished to the fullest extent of Norwegian and EU law.

47. As Religious Strife Grows, Europe's Atheists Seize Pulpit

Comment #32082 by Patrick McArdle on April 15, 2007 at 2:11 pm

The thread about relative incomes in the USA and EU came from thoughts about religious belief vs. economic prosperity. Sam Harris addresses this in The End of Faith, noting that the regions of the USA with the highest rates of church attendance also have the highest rates of crime and poverty. We can show many factors (e.g. the south-east portion of North America, which we Americans call 'the South', is highly religious, but was also economically destroyed in our Civil War), but let's think about this: if you have a religion which explicitly preaches virtue in poverty, and which promises the downtrodden eternity in paradise, wouldn't that belief tend to inhibit reform of the society? Conversely, Enlightenment values hold reason and science as the paths to knowledge, and to material comfort. As an American, I believe my home-grown theocrats are driving us back past the Enlightenment, into the Dark Ages (i.e. like the period when Europe was also called Christendom).

48. Even non-believers must recognise the moral necessity of Christianity

Comment #30604 by Patrick McArdle on April 9, 2007 at 2:12 am

"...for the fear of death is at the heart of religion: our unwillingness to accept that for us, like the animals whom we dominate, life's end is the end."

As another commenter here recently wrote, of another pile of theistic nonsense, we rarely see a theist admit his moral cowardice in such stark terms. As an American, I have always wondered why some American Christians forcefully deny the biological fact of evolution. A human cell resembles a bacterial cell in all but a few details; one primate's cell is almost indistinguishable from another primate's cell, whatever the species.

We rationalists draw a distinction between ourselves and the other animals by noting that humans alone can engage in logical deduction and abstract reasoning; theists claim that humans, alone amongst the animals, have immortal souls. In other words, we atheists make a distinction based upon what we CAN do; theists claim a distinction based upon some god-given inherent superiority. This is no different than a racist claiming that his skin color alone endows him with a superior nature; he need do nothing to demonstrate his self-professed superiority to his fellow humans.

"It's not the length of your pencil; it's what you write with it that counts." Theists can crow about their "god-given" endowments, and we atheists will continue to think without limitations.

49. Prophets of the new atheism

Comment #30577 by Patrick McArdle on April 8, 2007 at 9:45 pm

Seattle is a very liberal city (San Francisco with rain instead of fog) and the Seattle Times' editorial board has long been far more conservative than the local population. Providing space to the Discovery Institute (our local reactionary "think tank", whose "Fellows" never, ever, submit a paper to a peer-reviewed scientific journal) is just one symptom of this gulf between readers and editors.

If you want a satirical tutorial on the Discovery Institute, read "http://www.re-Discovery.org". Click on the "Out to Pasture" article for a real scientist's take on Mr. Klinghoffer's reasoning ability (or lack thereof).

Meanwhile, here's my response to Mr. Klinghoffer's article. I am very glad I quit my subscription to the Times years ago!

Editor, The Seattle Times:


It looks like Mr. Klinghoffer was so severely traumatized by the "Dover" ruling (which held that "Intelligent Design" is the same old Biblical creationism by a new name) that he now cannot even think straight:

"By religion, I mean any faith-based set of values that makes exclusive claims for its truth and explains the mysteries of the universe. Yes, atheism begins with a faith, namely that only material and physical (not spiritual) causes make the world run."

Atheism 'begins' by either not knowing about any gods, or by questioning their existence. It continues by not finding any evidence to demonstrate the existence of a deity. It has nothing whatsoever to do with faith.

"Did God-centered religion evolve in prehistoric man as a useful adaptation or as a surprising byproduct of other evolutionary processes? The possibility that it developed in response to a living God was not considered."

Since no scientific evidence has ever been presented to demonstrate the existence of any deity, a scientific inquiry cannot begin with the postulation of a deity. Again, Mr. Klinghoffer needs to understand the difference between theological debate (e.g., "what happens to the souls of dead infants?") and a scientific inquiry (e.g. "our measurements record that the average yearly temperatures around the globe show an slow, but statistically significant, increase over the past century. Based on the evidence, what cause(s) can we assign to this global warming?").

"Unfortunately, Dawkins does not grapple with the latest arguments for intelligent design as formulated by their chief proponents. Harris is similarly preoccupied by ID, which evidently provoked the new atheism's present evangelistic push."

Having read the book (has Mr. Klinghoffer?), I know that Mr. Dawkins addresses many arguments for the existence of a deity, and swiftly demolishes every one. Mr. Klinghoffer flatters his employer by claiming that we atheists should grapple with "intelligent design"; we merely dismiss it as Biblical creationism, with no connection to science. The judge in the aforementioned "Dover" case -- a Christian, appointed by a President Bush -- has so ruled, and no amount of blather from creationism's proponents will alter that legal fact.

I find it most amusing that a theist, like Mr. Klinghoffer, thinks that the best way to attack atheism is to call it a religion. This says nothing about atheism, and a whole lot about Mr. Klinghoffer's true opinion of religion.