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Comments by Riley


1. Interviews with Richard Dawkins and Michael Shermer

Comment #164528 by Riley on April 20, 2008 at 11:18 am

Concerning the Libertarian assertion about free-markets and Darwinism...

A common libertarian argument (promoted by Shermer) is that because Darwinian-style evolution is so successful, that's reason to trust an unregulated free market to be similarly successful (i.e. allow the unfettered "invisible hand of the market" to guide us to prosperity).

For those who make that argument, here's something to consider:

The "invisible hand of the market", like Darwinian -style evolution, is blind to the future (i.e. not forward looking), it's extremely inefficient (uses a trial and error approach to design ... the vast, vast majority of designs are shotty and discarded), and it cares not at all for the happiness or well being of its constituent parts. Nor does it care at all about justice or liberty.

Just the opposite of supporting the Libertarian argument, the similarity between the "invisible hand of the market" and evolution provides every reason to heavily regulate that "invisible hand", in order to reduce the chances of us being guided over a cliff (because the "invisible hand" isn't forward looking) and to prevent the hand from sacrificing the happiness and liberty of the living along the way.

.

2. Interviews with Richard Dawkins and Michael Shermer

Comment #164511 by Riley on April 20, 2008 at 10:54 am

I've been listening to Swoopy on the Skepticality podcast for a year or two now, and I always enjoy her interviews.

I listen to many other skeptic and science podcasts, and so I often hear the same people being interviewed on the same topics by multiple interviewers ... and Swoopy always seems to come up with a few more interesting questions that no other interviewer asks.

.

3. Sean Carroll on the Today Program

Comment #155931 by Riley on April 6, 2008 at 10:44 am

Carol mentions here something relevant to a topic that I've been wondering a lot about. He said that evolution is much more predictable than biologists have thought.

So I've wondered, if we were to start the process all over again, would we get pretty much the same sorts of creatures all over again?

photosynthesis, sexual reproduction, eyes, hearing, reptiles, birds, mammalians (the basic forms) ... would we see them re-emerge? Is the emergence of intelligence, somewhat like our own, inevitable given enough time as well?

4. Sean Carroll on the Today Program

Comment #155919 by Riley on April 6, 2008 at 10:04 am

I don't think it took long after Galileo's published discoveries for people to accept that the Ptolomaic view of the heavens was wrong. What they wouldn't do for many decades yet, was BOTH accept that the Ptolomaic model was wrong AND accept that the heliocentric model was right. And for good reason.

The heliocentric model seemed to them to create worse problems than the Ptolomaic model. For starters: where is the parallax of the stars? (answer: the stars were so much further away than anyone had imagined) The bigger question was: How is it that the earth could be moving? At such great speeds, shouldn't we all be blown off by the wind? Tycho Brahe, in order to both account for the phases of Venus and avoid the moving earth problem, proposed a model that had the sun going around the earth, but all the other planets going around the sun.

Further muddying the issue, was the fact that Galileo himself was claiming that the tides of the earth were proof that the Earth was in motion - and he was wrong. When it was shown to him that if the motion of the earth's rotation and movement around the sun were the cause of the tides, then that would produce only one tide per day, not two, Galileo found himself on the other end of denying the evidence. Galileo's discredited himself in this regard, and the whole heliocentric model as a result, unfortunately. Newton put the issue all to rest by 1687, but in the meantime, the Ptolomaic model for calculating the position of planets was still useful, so it kept getting used.

The primary source of Catholic Church philosophical resistance to the heliocentric model I think was that it would make the church look like a sun worshiping cult in the eyes of many at a time when they were being criticized for being too liberal ... not what they needed in the middle of the political battle ensuing with the followers of Martin Luther. Even Galileo was suspicious of Kepler's "perfect solid" mysticism and Christian-based sun-worship.

5. Sue Blackmore debates Alister McGrath

Comment #151361 by Riley on March 28, 2008 at 2:48 pm

My view is that anyone religious gets a privileged position in the debate if they are allowed to say "as a believer, I feel...", or if they are allowed to join the debate because of their religious status.
... but that they shouldn't be allowed to get away with that privilege, right? I couldn't agree more!

6. Sue Blackmore debates Alister McGrath

Comment #151341 by Riley on March 28, 2008 at 2:21 pm

I just can't see the point of giving religious leaders a priviliged position in the debate.
Maybe I missed something. Was someone arguing here that religious leaders should get a privileged position in the debate? If so, I'm sorry I missed it ... chalk it up to my trying to do too much all at the same time as usual.

7. Sue Blackmore debates Alister McGrath

Comment #151338 by Riley on March 28, 2008 at 2:16 pm

You threw the first ad hominem here. Strike one for you.
I'm sorry.


Steve Zara wrote: A bishop is on a committee discussing use of embryos in research. He makes the claim that a ball of a few tens of cells is a "person". You ask: "what is a person?"

What kind of answer do you think he will give?
Probably a religious one, but it's also possible that he could present a secular argument. You seemed to be arguing that there was no secular argument, and I was answering your challenge:

Steve Zara wrote
I would love to see how it would be possible to frame:"Due to my religious convictions I believe that a few hundred cells is a person"

in secular terms.


I don't think the merits of an argument should ever be judged based on the characteristics or office of the person making the argument (bishop, priest, baseball player, whatever). It's the characteristics of the argument itself that matters.

Is there anybody on this thread disagree with that?

If a bishop can frame his argument without resorting to supernatural assertions, then so be it.

8. Sue Blackmore debates Alister McGrath

Comment #151326 by Riley on March 28, 2008 at 1:49 pm

Wow, and since a cancerous tumour has genetic differences from the original cells you it's a new person. I wonder whether tumours have souls?
Now THAT'S a good sensible counter argument, thank you for freeing me from Dr. Brenways typical obtuseness. The argument made for the DNA position (as I understand it) is that there be a complete set of human DNA cells functioning as a body, not just some cells of a body that have human DNA in them. I don't think that a tumor probably meets this standard ... but it's a fine argument I think.

This is not an argument that I agree with, btw. All I'm pointing out by presenting this argument is that there ARE secular arguments (arguments that don't rely on supernatural assertions) for this position. That's all.

9. Sue Blackmore debates Alister McGrath

Comment #151322 by Riley on March 28, 2008 at 1:41 pm

Steve Zara wrote: I am not. I am showing it is hard to know where the goalposts are. You said that a secular argument could be about when the DNA was in the cells. When is that then?
I don't know. But the approach would be no different than any other approach used to determine "personhood" after three or six months of pregnancy: educated guesses based on what is known about the typical development processes.

Riley wrote: No part of this argument relies on any supernatural assertions.
Steve Zara wrote: Of course it does. All you have to do is to ask the person making the argument what they mean by "person", and you will get supernatural assertions.
So now you want to move the goal posts again and claim that the very definition of "person" itself relies on a supernatural assertion?!?! When does it end!?!

I give up!

10. Sue Blackmore debates Alister McGrath

Comment #151305 by Riley on March 28, 2008 at 1:09 pm

Really, a few thousand complete sets?

11. Sue Blackmore debates Alister McGrath

Comment #151301 by Riley on March 28, 2008 at 12:58 pm

Steve Zara wrote: It isn't that simple. Fertilization is complex:
You're moving the goalposts. The complexity of fertilization is not at issue (but for the record, fetal brain development is a similarly complex process that does not provide a way of objectively knowing precisely at which stage the "person" appears). All that I was addressing was the question of whether or not there exists a secular argument for defending the position that a hundred clustered cells is a "person", and I gave you that argument.


Steve Zara wrote: Also, this is missing the point. The justification for the belief is "Due to my religious convictions".
No it isn't.

A theological discussion of the nature of DNA would have to be involved,
No it wouldn't.

No part of this argument relies on any supernatural assertions. It relies on a subjective standard, yes, but in this regard it's not unlike many other secular standards and laws regarding the rights and limits of a "person". Is it the best argument for determining when "personhood" should be considered to begin? Maybe, maybe not. But it is a purely secular argument ... and that's all that seemed to be at issue with regard to your question/challenge.


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12. Sue Blackmore debates Alister McGrath

Comment #151275 by Riley on March 28, 2008 at 11:26 am

I would love to see how it would be possible to frame: "Due to my religious convictions I believe that a few hundred cells is a person" ... in secular terms.


A secular approach used to defend the "life begins at conception" political position is to assert that: a complete set of human DNA within a distinct body of cells is all that's needed to define a person as a person.

13. Sue Blackmore debates Alister McGrath

Comment #151267 by Riley on March 28, 2008 at 10:54 am

This discussion about "moderates" vs. "fundamentalists" began (I thought) with Steve's assertion that "fundamentalists" were more honest than "moderates" with respect to (I believe) their approach and defense of their beliefs. Approach to belief, not what you do with that belief (e.g. vote against "gay rights"), was the context that the terms "moderate" and "fundamentalist" were being used.

How can you discuss which is the more honest approach to defend a belief without first defining what the "moderate" approach is relative to the "fundamentalist" approach?


Is it unreasonable to characterize the "fundamentalist" approach to belief as an approach not open to change? (e.g. The Bible doesn't change, and so beliefs do not change.)

Is it unreasonable to characterize the "moderate" approach to belief as an approach that is open to change with new evidence?

Do these characterizations not adequately enough (for general conversation) differentiate between the approach that a person like Ted Haggard uses to defend a religious belief and the approach that a person like Alister McGrath uses to defend a religious belief?


.

14. Sue Blackmore debates Alister McGrath

Comment #151234 by Riley on March 28, 2008 at 9:45 am

Steve Zara wrote: "Moderate" is a relative term, used to label people we agree with.
Only if you yourself take a "moderate" approach to a given belief. The person that takes a "fundamentalist" approach to a given belief considers the "moderate" approach to be a corrupting approach.

15. Sue Blackmore debates Alister McGrath

Comment #151226 by Riley on March 28, 2008 at 9:30 am

"it's because someone knows something about it that we can't talk about physics. It's the things that nobody knows about that we can discuss. We can talk about the weather; we can talk about social problems; we can talk about psychology; we can talk about international finance... so it's the subject that nobody knows anything about that we can all talk about!"

- Richard Feynman


And I would add to this, it's because no one knows anything about "God", or life after death, or can claim absolute rules of morality, that so many people can and do talk about them so much and be assertive about it.

I'll humbly include myself in that characterization, with the caveat that I realize I'm uncertain about almost everything I assert on these threads, but I'll conjole and banter anyway as a way to get my head better wrapped around the issues.

16. Sue Blackmore debates Alister McGrath

Comment #151212 by Riley on March 28, 2008 at 9:16 am

You were the one who suggested a sliding scale. I showed the consequences of sliding along it!
You've showed the consequence of oversimplification and a categorical misapplication of that scale, yes.

17. Sue Blackmore debates Alister McGrath

Comment #151201 by Riley on March 28, 2008 at 9:07 am

How does that fit with the example of Francis Collins, who is presumably as certain of his Christianity as he is of the existence of DNA, but these beliefs were arrived at by very different methods.
Of course there is more than one method that allows for uncertainty! Francis Collins (I would guess) is neither 100% certain of the beliefs he derives from a moderate Christian approach nor the beliefs he derives from a scientific approach. In both cases his methods allow for adaptation upon new evidence.

If your approach to belief allows adaptation to new evidence, then you cannot be 100% certain of that belief. However, that being said, a person can still live their life 100% committed to that belief (e.g. if I think that my business plan has a 90% chance of producing a 1000% ROI, I might decide to commit myself to the plan with 100% of my resources).


That also doesn't answer the question of how we categorise someone with different degrees of certainty about different aspects of a religion.
I don't see this as a problem. I'm not looking to categorize a single person as being wholly "moderate" or wholly "fundamentalist" ... I accept that people are complex. I'm simply looking at the different categorical approaches to belief that people take and giving my opinion on which approach is the most honest.

I think the fundamentalist approach to belief is the more dishonest because it is not open to change.

18. Sue Blackmore debates Alister McGrath

Comment #151177 by Riley on March 28, 2008 at 8:37 am

Steve, The degree of certainty of a belief and how the belief was arrived at are inseparable I think.

19. Sue Blackmore debates Alister McGrath

Comment #151173 by Riley on March 28, 2008 at 8:33 am

So, someone is 10% against homosexuality, but 100% against stem-cell research, and also 50% certain about hell.

What do we call them?
Can you seriously not see the categorical mistakes that you are making here? How do you interpret: "I am 10% against homosexuality"? It's misapplied. It's a suggestive but otherwise meaningless statement.

20. Sue Blackmore debates Alister McGrath

Comment #151151 by Riley on March 28, 2008 at 8:01 am

irate_atheist wrote:Hmm, a sliding scale of belief in belief, perhaps?
When speaking about "moderate" and "fundamentalist" within the category of "approach to belief", yes, I think that's right. There's a sliding scale of certainty ranging from "skeptical" to "moderate" to "fundamentalist" approach and methods to belief (and the method used is similar to the certainty with which a belief is held).

Bonzai, I think that when a believer raised in the "fundamentalist" community converts, it's more likely to be a sudden thing (and thus more recognizable) than with the "moderate" believer, because the "fundamentalist" community is so rigid - it's all or nothing for them. The "moderate" person that escapes religion, is able to gradually fade away without a clearly recognizable break -- because the definitions of what is acceptible belief are so much more fuzzy.

21. Sue Blackmore debates Alister McGrath

Comment #151131 by Riley on March 28, 2008 at 7:32 am

There are "fundamentalists" who believe very nice things and "moderates" that believe very nasty things. Nice and nasty is not what differentiates the two. Politics shouldn't be what differentiates the two either. Individual members of the Catholic church range in their belief - Catholics are not monolithic.

You're making mistakes of category.

DEFINITION:

"Moderate Believer": Someone who believes something but is willing to change that belief when presented new evidence.

"Fundamentalist Believer": Someone who is certain that they are right, and no amount of new evidence will change that belief.

There also tend to be a assertion that made by "fundamentalists" that their "truth" is an objective truth. "Moderates" accept interpretation and subjectivity (e.g. someone's personal experience is "true").

22. Sue Blackmore debates Alister McGrath

Comment #151114 by Riley on March 28, 2008 at 7:10 am

As Bonzai wrote more clearly than I had: "If you find something useful, then you will be more likely to be persuaded that it is true."

The difference between "moderates" and "fundamentalists" is not so much what they believe, but the certainty with which they believe it. "Moderates" are by definition "moderate" in their beliefs because they aren't certain! They revel (and wallow) in the mystery and discovery of their faith.

If evidence directly contradicts belief "x", then "moderates" will accept that belief "x" is not a fact of nature and reinterpret it as a metaphorical or inspired experience. "Moderates" are open to change, but you still can't disprove most of their beliefs, because most of their beliefs are not scientifically accessible.

23. Sue Blackmore debates Alister McGrath

Comment #151098 by Riley on March 28, 2008 at 6:47 am

they believe in religion because they think it is true.
What's your point?

24. Sue Blackmore debates Alister McGrath

Comment #151081 by Riley on March 28, 2008 at 6:13 am

Greyman wrote: Preference for Democracy over Fascism can arise from making comparative observations of societies. His belief in god appears to be based on nothing more than his feelings
I can't say for sure about McGrath, but in a debate between Sam Harris and Rabbi David Wolpe ( listen at: 1:21:00 in the debate) Wolpe defends belief in "God" and the degree to which any religion reflects "truth" based on the degree to which that religion "leads people to live in the presence and with the conscience of 'God'" - i.e. leads a person to live a good life.

Wolpe's statement is probably the most representative position of the "moderate" approach to belief.

The debate is very much worth listening to, both for those who wish to honestly represent the arguments of religious "moderates" and for those looking for good counter-arguments with which address those arguments.

25. Sue Blackmore debates Alister McGrath

Comment #150944 by Riley on March 27, 2008 at 6:02 pm

Steve Zara wrote: No, as they already have the belief - "the bible is true, science isn't".
You couldn't be more wrong on this account Steve. They definitely *do* claim that science is true. In fact, they claim that science is on their side. (see: the Discovery Institute, Liberty University, Intelligent Design "scientists" in general, Ted Haggard, Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson, etc, etc).

And how do the fundamentalists do this? Claim that science is on their side? They scheme, connive, and lie to make it appear that the evidence that proves them wrong is part of a "liberal" or atheistic conspiracy. Their approach to belief is at it's core, a dishonest process.

At least Alister McGrath (and other moderates) don't lie about the findings of science or try to re-define science when confronted by disagreeable findings. When faced with decisive scientific evidence, "moderates" are honest enough to admit to being wrong.

Clearly, as such, the "moderates" are more honest in their approach to belief than the "fundamentalist". The problem I think is that the "moderate" beliefs tend to be so ill defined that you can't really pin them down -- and that can be frustrating.

26. Sue Blackmore debates Alister McGrath

Comment #149447 by Riley on March 25, 2008 at 3:57 pm

Riley wrote: The matter under discussion was (as I understood it) the matter of whether or not the methods of "fundamentalists" with regard to their beliefs were more honest than the methods of "moderates" with regard to their beliefs.
Steve Zara wrote: With regard to finding out about their beliefs, not what they then do with those beliefs.
Yes, I agree with that.

In that regard however, Intelligent Design "science", attempts to redefine what constitutes scientific evidence, and the "research" of the Discovery Institute, are all cases of "fundamentalist" dishonesty with regard to finding out about their beliefs. These are not only right-on target with regard to the dishonest "fundamentalist" approach to belief, but they are examples of methods that are dishonest to an extreme that (almost by definition) you wont find "moderates" using.

27. Sue Blackmore debates Alister McGrath

Comment #149426 by Riley on March 25, 2008 at 3:36 pm

Steve Zara and ThoughtsonCommonToad,

Yep, that's pretty dishonest. Chalk one up for the Pope.

28. Sue Blackmore debates Alister McGrath

Comment #149412 by Riley on March 25, 2008 at 3:20 pm

Riley wrote: Do "moderate" Christians really spread misinformation that condoms don't decrease the spread of aids?
Steve Zara wrote: Popes are usually considered to represent "moderate" religion.
...and can you show me the quote where the Pope claims that condoms don't decrease the spread of aids? I think his position is that condoms are not the best way to prevent aids - not that they would not be effective. His position is honest. Tragic, but honest.

Riley wrote:Again, in your example there's no reason to believe that the "fundamentalists" are any less dishonest in their methods than the "moderates".
Steve Zara wrote: I don't think that was the matter under discussion. It was about how fundamentalists think about their beliefs, not what they do.
The matter under discussion was (as I understood it) was the matter of whether or not the methods of "fundamentalists" with regard to their beliefs were more honest than the methods of "moderates" with regard to their beliefs. Read your post cited below:

40. Comment #149154 by Steve Zara on March 25, 2008 at 7:38 am
#149152 by Bonzai: I am oppose to the categorical statement that only a literal interpretation is authentic and everything else is "fudging".

I am not claiming it is authentic. Just more honest.

29. Sue Blackmore debates Alister McGrath

Comment #149398 by Riley on March 25, 2008 at 2:54 pm

Riley wrote: What example of dishonesty can you cite in the "moderate" world of religion that comes even close to the dishonesty found in the "fundamentalist" world exemplified by the methods of the Intelligent Design movement and the Discovery Institute ?
Steve Zara wrote: Spreading the view that condoms aren't effective in stopping the spread of AIDS. That has probably led to deaths.
Do "moderate" Christians really spread misinformation that condoms aren't effective in stopping the spread of AIDS? Or do they discourage the use of condoms based on an argument that abstinence is the only theoretically 100% effective means to prevent the sexual transmission of AIDS? There's a difference between the two. Both methods result in tragic outcomes, of course, but only one case represents dishonest methods.

Even if you're right that organized "moderates" are guilty of intentionally spreading misinformation about condoms, can you really say that this spread of misinformation with regard to condoms is not at least as prevalent among organized "fundamentalists"?

Again, in your example there's no reason to believe that the "fundamentalists" are any less dishonest in their methods than the "moderates", and we could reasonably guess based on other organized conduct by "fundamentalists" (e.g. abortion clinic terrorism, re-defining Science to accommodate Intelligent Design, etc), that the "fundamentalists" are probably much more dishonest in their methods in this regard too.

30. Sue Blackmore debates Alister McGrath

Comment #149339 by Riley on March 25, 2008 at 1:38 pm

SteveN wrote: My point, right from the beginning, is that [1] the fundie thinks his evidence is stronger and [2] doesn't commit the intellectually dishonest sin of cherry picking the data to fit the theory. [3] If the moderates you refer to were to only accept the parts of the bible for which there was evidence, then there would be very little left in which to believe, including the belief in God.
1) If the "fundie" really believed his evidence was stronger, why does he feel so often compelled to lie and evade when faced with disagreeable facts (e.g. Evolution vs. Intelligent Design)?

2) The "moderates" aren't really guilty of cherry picking facts so much as they are guilty of accepting things without evidence and contriving facts to fit their world-view (e.g. the "Big Bang" theory of "creation"). The "fundamentalists" not only accept things without evidence and contrive facts to fit their world-view, they also reject the facts that contradict their world-view (e.g. 6000 year old earth): now that's cherry picking.

3) Not only do the "fundamentalists" accept parts of the Bible for which there is no evidence (as moderates do), but they insist that the parts of the Bible that are proven to be wrong, are also true.

SteveN wrote: Well, in the absence of evidence, the honest thing to do is to provisionally assume it's all myth until such time that supporting evidence becomes available
All believers in that regard are guilty of intellectual dishonesty, I agree. But the moderates by definition are lesser offenders.

SteveN wrote: As I stated in my post #100, it is the methodology of the moderates that I find intellectually dishonest. People like McGrath knowingly pervert the normal protocols of intellectual pursuit to shoe-horn the bible into their world-view. If a fundamentalist were to be fully aware of the data and be educated enough to understand the reliability and strength of the data but were to still ignore it in preference for the bible, then I agree that such a person would be even more dishonest.
The process of "moderates" is flawed, but at the very least, not any more so than the process of the "fundamentalists".

What example of dishonesty can you cite in the moderate world of religion that comes even close to the dishonesty exemplified by the methods of the Intelligent Design movement and the Discovery Institute ?

31. Sue Blackmore debates Alister McGrath

Comment #149307 by Riley on March 25, 2008 at 12:38 pm

SteveN wrote: Bonzai claims that there are objective methods used to analyse the text in order to determine the intent of the authors (i.e. story or historical record) but if that is so, why is there still so much controversy.
There is so much controversy because there is so little evidence.

Yes, it's intellectually dishonest to claim certain knowledge about something for which you have so little evidence. But isn't the degree of certainty with which a faith-claim is held, the very thing that differentiates the "moderate" from the "fundamentalist"? If the certainty with which you hold a faith-based position is the measure of intellectually dishonesty, then by definition the "fundamentalists" are more intellectually dishonest!

32. Sue Blackmore debates Alister McGrath

Comment #149301 by Riley on March 25, 2008 at 12:20 pm

It is intellectually dishonest to keep saying "we have got it right NOW.. er sorry, I mean NOW" over centuries when "got it right" means "what God wants".
Yes.

So on the one hand you have "moderates" who acknowledge that there is a continuing struggle to figure out exactly what it is that God wants. They acknowledge that they've been wrong before and they are continually willing to change their model of the world as new evidence presents itself.

On the other hand, you have the "fundamentalists" asserting that they absolutely know what God wants, that they've always had it right, and that they always will, and even when you show them overwhelming positive evidence that they are wrong, they keep insisting they're right. They even go so far as to co-opt (i.e. corrupt) the scientific method in order to save their world-view (e.g. Intelligent Design).

And of the two, you consider the "moderates" to be more intellectually dishonest?

33. Sue Blackmore debates Alister McGrath

Comment #149281 by Riley on March 25, 2008 at 11:38 am

It does not require intellectual dishonesty to believe that The Bible is both a book full of metaphorical stories and at the same time God's Word full of lessons to live by.

Yes, one shouldn't assume that any part of the Odyssey to be factually accurate without confirming evidence. But even if most of the story is found to be metaphorical, an honest (though credulous) person might still believe that some parts of the book are factually accurate accounts. That anybody believes any of the "truth" claims of any book without coroberating evidence requires tremendous credulity, of course, and maybe you might call that credulity a type of "intellectual dishonesty" too. I wouldn't particularly argue with that. But this seems to be what SteveN's argument boils down to, nothing more.

SteveN's argument doesn't support the position that it is more intellectually dishonest to let go of a claim when evidence positively disproves that claim (e.g. as "moderate" Christian do with regard to the Genesis account), than it is to stubbornly hold-on to that claim despite evidence that positively disproves it (e.g. as "fundamentalist" Christian do).

-

34. Sue Blackmore debates Alister McGrath

Comment #149255 by Riley on March 25, 2008 at 10:31 am

SteveN wrote: Very few (if any) of the 16th Century theologians suggested that Genesis was 'just a metaphor'. Now that science has shown this to be nonsense, it is dishonest to say "of course, Genesis was never intended to be taken literally - how silly of you to think that"

Why is it dishonest for a contemporary Christian to acknowledge that 16th Century theologians were wrong? This should be applauded.

The fact that as new evidence presents itself moderate Christians are willing to break from 16th Century theology represents MORE HONESTY on their part, not less than that of the "fundamentalists" who continue to assert that the earth is 6000 years old despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary.

Of course SteveN you're right to point out that there is no evidence to support ANY of the claims of religious significance made in the Bible and that the methods to discriminate between metaphore and "truth" are mostly unscientific (except when science forces the issue), but like I said earlier, this is not dishonesty; it's credulity.

At the very least, we should recognize that "fundamentalism" represents more intellectual dishonesty than the "moderate" approach.

35. Sue Blackmore debates Alister McGrath

Comment #149246 by Riley on March 25, 2008 at 10:12 am

irate_atheist and Steve Zara,

You have both evaded the issue: on what basis do you claim that it is unreasonable or dishonest for a person who believes some of the accounts in the Bible to be factually accurate to also hold the opinion that some accounts in the Bible are metaphorical?

Your assertion that it must be all factually accurate or all metaphorical is simply a bad argument.

It's unscientific for a person to accept ANY part of the Bible as being a factually accurate account based on nothing more than a personal worldview and the account in the Bible itself --- yes -- - but that's not dishonesty, that's credulity.

36. Sue Blackmore debates Alister McGrath

Comment #149227 by Riley on March 25, 2008 at 9:30 am

Steve Zara wrote:The fudging is when they say some is [a metaphor], and some isn't.
Why is that? There are dozens of books and dozens of authors in the Bible each presenting different accounts that range in style from poetry to bean accounting. The scriptures range from personal accounts of visions to letters addressed to political leaders ... on what basis do you assert that an honest Christian must interpret everything the same?

There is in fact good reason to believe that the Bible offers some historically accurate data. Must I accept 100% of the Bible in order to gain knowledge from the 1%? Is that fudging too?

37. Sue Blackmore debates Alister McGrath

Comment #149215 by Riley on March 25, 2008 at 9:14 am

Steve Zara wrote: I would try to "educate" them by attempting to point out, using science and reason, that they aren't supposed to "interpret" the Bible at all. That if you get to a certain level of fudging, that should indicate your source material is not worth trusting.
A perfectly reasonable statement that has little to do with the claim that to be an honest Christian you must believe that the world is 6000 years old or flat or something else that you've decided is what all true Christians must believe.

Educating a Christian about what they are supposed to believe as a Christian is what I think Bonzai was being critical of. I agree with Bonzai's point, and I think the basis of your criticisms have relied on a (assumed unintentional) misrepresentation of that point.

38. Sue Blackmore debates Alister McGrath

Comment #149199 by Riley on March 25, 2008 at 8:59 am

bonzai wrote:I have no problem with atheists calling believers out on what they actually believe, but I do have a problem with atheists telling believers what they should believe[...]
Steve Zara wrote: I have no problem with this at all. We tell others what they should believe all the time. It is called education.
You are of course missing the point entirely. On what basis do you claim the authority to "educate" anyone on how they are supposed to interpret the Bible?

39. Sue Blackmore debates Alister McGrath

Comment #149174 by Riley on March 25, 2008 at 8:19 am

worth repeating I think:

bonzai wrote:I have no problem with atheists calling believers out on what they actually believe, but I do have a problem with atheists telling believers what they should believe[...]

40. Sue Blackmore debates Alister McGrath

Comment #149171 by Riley on March 25, 2008 at 8:16 am

McGrath, does make one good point that too many on this board miss: he makes a distinction between "atheism" and "anti-religion".

The claim that the 9/11 attacks or 7/7 bombings were motivated by religion is no better than the claim that the Soviet Russian atrocities were motivated by anti-religion.


Notice the distinction: atheism did not motivate the Soviet League of Militant Atheists to commit atrocities - anti-religion did.

Claims that "Religion Poisons Everything" and documentaries that pose the question, is religion "The Root of All Evil?" represent something more than atheism: they represent anti-religion. Like the Soviet League of Militant Atheists movement in Soviet Russia, the "new atheist" movement is an anti-religion movement.

I'm all for criticizing religion, but at the same time I can't deny that both anti-religion movements and religious movements are susceptible to being hijacked by extremists.

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41. Sue Blackmore debates Alister McGrath

Comment #149145 by Riley on March 25, 2008 at 7:21 am

McGrath, criticizing "The Root of All Evil?" documentary, tried to make a distinction between "normal" religion and the religion practiced by "extremists" or "fringe" religion, and I wish Blackmore had called him on that point.

Pastor Ted Haggard, someone McGrath would no doubt like to characterize as "fringe", was at the time of "The Root of All Evil?" interview chairman of the 30-million member National Association of Evangelicals and he claimed to participate in a weekly conference call with U.S. President George W. Bush.

I think the point to be made is that mainstream Religion works to actively encourage extremism. The Christian and Muslim religions actively encourage fanaticism.

42. Full house captivated by atheist Dawkins' take on religion

Comment #145015 by Riley on March 17, 2008 at 7:13 am

Post Secular Ph.D wrote:
I find it fascinating and appalling at the same time that no one in this discussion has any trouble with Dawkins' flippant assertion that religious education of children constitutes child abuse.


Post Secular, that's because Dawkins doesn't consider religious education to be child abuse! Where did you hear he did?

What Dawkins considers child abuse is the terrorizing of children with the threat of hell-fire. Or are you claiming that frightening children with the threat of eternal torture is an essential part of religious education?

Also, while Dawkins speaks-out against the labeling of children as adherents to belief systems they aren't old enough to understand, I've never heard Dawkins suggest that parents should not have the right to teach religion. He simply advocates that children be exposed to more than just the religion of their parents in order to give children perspective and the chance to make an informed decision on such matters.

I find it troubling that anyone would find Dawkin's position on this matter to be objectionable. Don't children have the right to an education?

43. Full house captivated by atheist Dawkins' take on religion

Comment #142925 by Riley on March 13, 2008 at 7:55 am

Comment #142449 by Teratornis:

I found that rather odd. Most jokes are funniest when they are fresh. I was thinking, haven't these people in the audience discovered YouTube? The Four Horsemen have made this joke or similar jokes in numerous videos with high view counts.

I was there in the audience Teratornis and I wondered about the same thing.

There was a large constituent of fans there in the crowd and they laughed, in my opinion, just a little too vociferously to be natural. I noticed that in many cases people were laughing before the punchline, like they were trying to express an opinion with their laughter or, like groupies at a pop concert, they were erupting in response to hearing the first few chords of their favorite song.

Don't get me wrong, it was fun just the same, and the questions asked during Q&A were pretty good.

As for the sell-out: The University of Wisconsin students and faculty had advance access to the tickets and they bought every seat available within a day - I was one of them.

When I showed-up at the event itself, there were over a hundred people waiting in line outside the entrance without tickets hoping to replace any no-shows. In the end, every one of the 1300 closely packed seats in that auditorium were not just paid-for, but actually seated. A lot of interest here, despite the fact that the event didn't get much publicity and Madison is not a large town.

44. Don't blame Islam for terrorism, expert says

Comment #132779 by Riley on February 25, 2008 at 7:47 am

BicycleRepairMan wrote:
The same "secular leader" that had "God Is Great" in his own handwriting inscribed on the flag? The "Secular leader" whose last words were "there is no god but god, and mohammed..."?
1) Politicians do the damndest things to appease the masses.

2) Denmark has the Church of Denmark, Iceland has the Church of Iceland, Norway has the Church of Norway, Finland has the Finnish Orthodox Church and the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Finland, etc. By the standard set by these other countries (which are generally regarded as "secular"), Iraq was even more secular AND Iraq is likely to become less secular under the new government than under the old.

3) Many of the worlds most ardent secularists were also "believers". "Secular" and "atheist" are not synonymous and "theism" does not exclude "secularism".

45. Don't blame Islam for terrorism, expert says

Comment #131077 by Riley on February 21, 2008 at 10:11 pm

Chris Hitchens responded at that time that despite decades of struggle in Latin America against US imperialism no attack of the scale and directness of 9/11 (and pre-cursors) has apparently ever been contemplated.
The sample is one. One "attack of the scale and directness of 9/11" and from that sample he feels justified in drawing a conclusion. That's Hitchens-logic for you, crappy as ever.

46. Don't blame Islam for terrorism, expert says

Comment #131055 by Riley on February 21, 2008 at 8:27 pm

Very interesting stuff Teratornis.

47. Don't blame Islam for terrorism, expert says

Comment #131050 by Riley on February 21, 2008 at 8:04 pm

Comment #131047, cal_mertes wrote:

it is Islam which generally defines the methods and tactics of the protagonists.

The Palestinians have been resisting Israel take over of their lands for decades. Yes they are unable to change their Islam-inspired tactics even those those tactics result in a steady loss of territory.
The use of "terrorism" as a tactic is more a function of resources, opportunity, and political situation than of religious ideology. The leading source of suicide attacks in the world do not emanate from an Islamic group, but rather the Tamil Tigers in Sri Lanka, a Marxist-Leninist group.

48. Don't blame Islam for terrorism, expert says

Comment #131040 by Riley on February 21, 2008 at 7:15 pm

The Caspian Sea region is the next big thing in oil. As of 1992, Chevron, Exxon-Mobil, Conoco Phillips, and British Petroleum own 50 percent of all oil investments in the Caspian Basin and Afghanistan has been part of the turf war being fought over pipeline routes for pumping out the enormous oil and natural gas reserves. Among the first things that the Bush Administration did in Afghanistan was to resume construction of the TAPI natural gas pipeline which had recently been halted and to thwart recently made plans to build pipelines favoring Russian and Iranian interests.

In Iraq, among the first acts of the Bush Administration was to switch the unit of currency for sale of Iraqi oil back to the Dollar, and then it moved to privatize the Iraq oil industry and eventually secured 30 year contracts for politically favored oil companies (blacklisting the bids of companies from other nations).

Ongoing instability in those regions provides an excuse to continue military control over those interests without concern of interference from the Afghan and Iraqi governments. Attacking Canada for oil would be both politically impossible (we enjoy hockey and the CBC too much) and financially too expensive. Afghanistan and Iraq were low-lying fruit and politically viable targets. The Bush Administration exploited that opportunity not so much in the interests of America, but primarily in the interest of the American Oil industry (Exxon-Mobil, Chevron, Haliburton).

Consider Venezuela. Why is it that the democratically elected government of Venezuela is villainized and mischaracterized as a dictatorship by the conservative media in the United States? Why is it that the oppressive, terrorist coddling dictatorship of Saudi Arabia is embraced and swooned over?

In both cases, in Saudi Arabia and in Venezuela, it's the political interests of Exxon-Mobile-Haliburton that are being served, not American interests.

If the United States had spent the half a Trillion dollars it spent in Iraq on alternative energy technology, America would be free of it's Middle East oil dependency within the decade. But doing that would be a disaster for the Exxon-Mobil-Chevron-Haliburton shareholders who elected Bush/Cheney and who have enormous financial interests at stake in these foreign countries. So again, the interests of Exxon-Mobil, Chevron, and Haliburton win out over American interests.

There's more to it than that, of course, but this I think is the engine driving the policy.

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49. Don't blame Islam for terrorism, expert says

Comment #131037 by Riley on February 21, 2008 at 6:56 pm

Comment #131009 by NakedCelt:
Comment #130970 by Teratornis:
It's like lighting a match in a room with a gas leak. It's not fair to blame the resulting explosion only on the match, or only on the gas.
Nicely put.
it's nicely put, but I don't think it applies.

Here's a better analogy:
The human desire for political sovereignty is a sling-shot and "dogma" is the rock you load into that sling shot. "Religion" is just one type of rock, one type of dogma, among the plentiful number and variety readily available as ammunition.

Both the sling-shot and the rock are needed, of course, but it doesn't make sense to fight the problem by focusing your attention on the rocks.

You might argue, "but the 'religious' rocks are especially pointy!" or "Well, 'religion' is one kind of rock being used, so if we get rid of that, we'll at least have one fewer kind of rock to deal with". This is silly! Dismantle the sling shot first! At least then the rocks wont hurt so bad when you get hit by them.

50. Don't blame Islam for terrorism, expert says

Comment #130950 by Riley on February 21, 2008 at 2:31 pm

al-rawandi, no I haven't ... but I'll put it on my list of book to check out. Thanks.

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