101. This Is Not a Test

Comment #99932 by DalaiDrivel on December 17, 2007 at 10:24 pm

Thanks, kevin_2050, for your words.

It's not just that "shaping our culture and laws" implies imposition- the tabooing of certain views on the one hand and the illegalising of behaviour or alienating of rights on the other.

It's that I really think Huckabee is lying through his teeth when he says that he and his supporters don't want to impose their religion on anybody.

Sure they do. Their goals are religiously motivated for a start, so they can't help but impose christianity- fundamentalist christianity as well- on a diversely religious public in a legal sense if they are elected.

But as with the shiny "oh but this is good for you" mentality with which the propound all this- the near-sociopathic cheeriness with which they announce their cure to America's sinfulness, I am certain that they will cheerily shove evangelism, or extreme baptism, or whatever, down America's throat, and happily think of all the individual conversions of people they hope to make towards fundamentalist christianity, but as we expect as well as hope probably won't.

What an ambassador to the world Huckabee would make. An incredibly shitty one. He and a few other notable Ruplican candidates, in my opinion.

102. This Is Not a Test

Comment #99819 by DalaiDrivel on December 17, 2007 at 3:53 pm

"It's not that we want to impose our religion on anybody... it's that we want to shape the culture and the laws using a worldview we feel has value."

I think this makes me cringe the most. "We" does not mean the American public as a whole, as some of you here will certainly attest... And the "shaping of culture and laws" can only mean imposition on a national level, naturally, in a presidential campaign, which this is.

I simultaneously admire- because it after all takes an enormous deal of psychological conditioning and fucked-upedness- and despise the way in which evangelicals can shiny-faced, without any reticence, declare that what they believe is good and true and what they intend to do "for" us, especially politically, is good and true.

It seems politics are the only politically correct means to conduct ideological genocide these days...

103. Ayaan Hirsi Ali versus Timothy Garton Ash

Comment #99221 by DalaiDrivel on December 16, 2007 at 1:16 am

In comment 50, Steve99 saved me the effort of addressing Mitchell Gilks's first comment.

Thank you Steve, yet I address this post anyway to MG, as well as Summer Seale.

I will just say that I think you make a false god of AHA- that you must follow her essentially unquestioningly. I think the "teasing" that TGA references during the debate applies to the criticisms which we level at our colleagues, as we are doing here, all of us, in this discussion, and which I am doing with you two.

Ali, despite her negro descent, and her ex-fundamentalist, femine, somalian status, I don't feel is exempt from opposition.

Be as politically correct as you want (I am quite politically incorrect, as fate has it), but I actually want to offend you, if necessary, by challenging her even if you think I shouldn`t because of the traits I have just listed, or perhaps simply because she is the fifth prong to the New Atheist seige on the world establishment, and is tantamount to a deity that we ought to revere...

I despise such idols. I resent the idea of submission to any clan from which there could be no escape.

What do you do with an Ali lover who decides they do not love her so much anymore?

You could always behead them... which wont elevate you much socially, but nevertheless...

TGA is quite the slow talker. But I found myself (and as you warned Steve99- or one of you did- I will choose to only speak for myself here...) seeing him as weighing his words deliberately, pausing so as to impress what he was saying upon and be taken more seriously by the audience. I didn't see it as smug. I saw it as sincere, and eloquent, as the antithesis to the Dinish D'Souza-style rant-loudly-and-quickly-so-no one-can-keep-up-with-your-errors.

I have grown tiresome of AHA's reiterance of her autobiography to begin every opening statement to a debate. This is only the second debate I have seen with her, so I may well have no idea what I am talking about, but this only reinforces within me how quickly I have grown tiresome of this observation.

Ali is a speaker, a valued one, against fundamentalist islam. She knows first-hand, better than anyone I have ever heard speak, the psychological and physical grotesquerie of being caged (to borrow from her) in a fundamentalist faith, especially as a woman. I think her mission is deliberately narrowed, against a specific past reality for her. She has nothing to do, so far as I can tell, with moderate islam, and for that we must look for other sources, and TBA may well be on the right track with those- Personally I'm not familiar with the figures named- he suggested we listen to. Perhaps AHA can become more prepared to tackle the spectrum of Islam, and alternative paths forward through the faith, if she can also become prepared to talk less autobiographically.

Everyone, at least here, knows her autobiography by now.

I disliked hearing the little squabble about whether or not beheading for apostates is in the Koran.

"It is not!"

"Yes it is!"

It made them both look like children, and especially Hirsi look like (to me) as if she relied on the audience recognising that she was herself a muslim once in order to believe her.

Last night, I attended a men's gathering (because I'm a sentimental softie that likes to get in touch with his emotional side... oh no... I mean I won't put words in your mouth...) The facilitator recited a story about a boy and an argument he had with his father, and at the end of the story, when the boy had a choice, between killing his father, and killing his step-father (he had left his father's tribe and voluntarily joined a new one), the story ended, without giving his choice.

I protested last night- I interpreted the story literally. The step-father literally gave the son a sword (according to the story) and said, "you must kill one of us." And I recoiled against the idea of killing. When I brought this reaction up to the facilitator, he mentioned the different ways of interpreting a story- literally, metaphorically, and some other way I can't remember...

What if the story didn't matter, and what mattered was our interpretation? What if the best way (and it by no means is certain to be so) to interpret the story was to regard the boy as "killing" his ties with his father... starting a new life, which is the view put forward by the facilitator?

So you know, I have no idea how to interpret the ending. I'm still inclined to interpret literally.

Maybe I've made a mistake mentioning this event out of context- without you being there at the gathering- but I regard it as being similar to interpreting the texts of the Abrahamic Faiths.

Food for thought.

104. Richard Dawkins at AAI 07

Comment #88078 by DalaiDrivel on November 14, 2007 at 2:08 pm

Yes, I suppose the UK is looked at enough.

Thanks, Briancoughlan,

Check: Pigment change and adoption of irish accent as immigration requirements.

It's a real dilemma, balancing security and social freedom...

I guess what I'm afraid of, is a fundamentalist muslim coming to the Western World, attesting they're not a terrorist, then attending an isolated fundamentalist mosque, attesting they're not a terrorist, and maybe attending a parade where they burn a few books or effigies, and loses their voice lambasting infidels, while vigorously attesting they are not a terrorist...

And then blowing themselves up. Well they certainly won't be calling themselves anything then.

Do you see what I mean?

I'm sure we'd love to knock the religious' head together to root out fundamentalism for us, and maybe codify beliefs, functions and rituals that everyone must follow within the religions as well.

None of this Catholic/Protestant crap and similar schisms in other religions.

What kind of person starts the Church of England so he can have a divorce, honestly?

That would give them a world of credibility in my mind if they did that. Just not this world...

105. Richard Dawkins at AAI 07

Comment #87991 by DalaiDrivel on November 14, 2007 at 3:34 am

Goldy,

Yes I should clarify,

The terrorist network of Islam has proven adaptable to societies worldwide.

Of course, they are always the moderates. I'd never forget that.

I'm curious to know if people on this forum are opposed to survelliance being done on a person because they are Iraqi.

What I mean is, since they are stereotypically terrorists, it should be a no-no to investigate them.

Do you need more evidence of activities for a Middle Easterner than a Caucasian in order to do survelliance?

I just want to know how politically correct we all are, that's all... :)

106. Richard Dawkins at AAI 07

Comment #87971 by DalaiDrivel on November 13, 2007 at 11:19 pm

Can't even achieve in Turkey, a country that isn't as liberal as the west and is already primarly Muslim?

When you're preaching to the choir, you don't really have a basis for preaching extremism when the moderates in theory believe what you do.

If you have the lewd and licentious west- the progressive Netherlands, for instance- on your doorstop, there's no end to the reactionary arguments for extremism.

The problem is, there were still bombings in London and Madrid. They've happened already. They weren't prevented. The network of Islam has proven adaptable to societies worldwide. It's interesting to consider the notion of economic sanctions to supress radically indoctrinated peoples, yet I can't help considering what I see as too large a reserve of others in developed countries who will (and have) answer the call of Allah.

The London bombers were Englishmen, weren't they?

At least we must confront Islam intellectually as we have Christianity.

Here's an interesting idea- if one nation is by a wide margin more prosperous than any others, elections in that country will be opened to the world, and foreigners may see fit to elect a George Bush if they wish.

107. Richard Dawkins at AAI 07

Comment #87937 by DalaiDrivel on November 13, 2007 at 5:56 pm

Well... no overtly opposed reaction to my anti-islamic spaz... interesting.

Hmmm,

I could not find reliable statistics on the crime rates of countries.

Suffice to say, America's homicide rate is high for a developed country, and this discrepancy is not accounted for merely by variance in population.

Briancoughlanworldcitizen, would you agree with me that for an ordinary law-abiding citizen like you or I, religiously-influenced violence, its intent and targets, affect the individual more in the developed countries we live in, than gang warfare (supposedly less a concern in the Netherlands)?

Put better perhaps in this way, are we likely to be killed by gang members because we choose to obey the law and openly prefer pacificism over aggression, reinforced by a system that is intended to cripple the gangster's entire livelihood?

We'll write articles blasting gang violence in newspapers. Statistics will flare up on TV screens recited by cheerless voices.

How I perceive it, is that thought-crime is a real offence to the fundamentalist, and is not to the gang member.

108. Richard Dawkins at AAI 07

Comment #87844 by DalaiDrivel on November 13, 2007 at 10:36 am

They've got to stop being politically correct pussies over in Europe and go after the radical muslims that commit these crimes.

It might even take background checks and religious screening for fundamentalism when entering the country- or at least a bookmark of sorts to monitor the person within the country.

Then if it means banning the types of organisations they join, you wouldn't hear a whimper from me.

I'd happily fund such a directive as a taxpayer, to avoid such grotesqueries as leaving a note pierced with a butcher knife, thrust into the stomach of the Van Gogh guy that directed "Submission." Hello!

Would these extremists violate laws in their extremist homelands so brazenly?

Not if they wanted to lose a hand or even other more valued appendages...

No, they would not in other words. They behave like anarchists in Western Europe because countries like the Netherlands rely on civil obedience and social harmony amongst all of its citzens; they're passive and tolerant in order to get along with one another.

You have homogenous moderation in a good, operable democracy- without flagrant, domineering flares of extremism.

The one thing one ought not to tolerate is intolerance.

I think Islamic fundamentalism in Europe is evidence of the thriving of extremism at the expense of all passive world views- not just passive religious world views.

If only we could get an Islamic nutter on here to grill...

109. Richard Dawkins at AAI 07

Comment #87705 by DalaiDrivel on November 12, 2007 at 11:16 pm

Krisking,

And we do not struggle.

But Christians look at us with pitying eyes and observe in their minds that we struggle to find God.

Is that consolation for you? What you choose to think of us?

Apology accepted, by the way.

110. Richard Dawkins at AAI 07

Comment #87679 by DalaiDrivel on November 12, 2007 at 8:11 pm

Mejdrich,

Or, if the Security and Posperity Partnership follows through, we could be one country by that time, for all intents and purposes, anyway.

We'll have to move to Europe! Which wouldn't be so bad...

Or I know- we'll ship all the creationist nutjobs over there, the Europeans will see fit to lock them in mental institutions like Marcus Brigstocke (the comedian from the sketch in RD's presentation) predicted and we can have NA back to ourselves. And maybe leftist governments in both our countries can block the SPP.

Unless you're in favour of it... I've opened up a different can of worms there.

Back to religion:

Why didn't God intervene in 1787, or whenever it was the American constitution was written (forgive me... I'm only Canadian :) ) Why were Jefferson and Madison left uninspired to fulfil God's infiltration into government?

They must have been utterly Godless- or they were impervious to God.

But that's easily explained because God is impotent, as detailed earlier in the discussion.

Krisking,

Those quotes which you credited to me belonged to flying goose, I just discovered.

111. Richard Dawkins at AAI 07

Comment #87634 by DalaiDrivel on November 12, 2007 at 4:27 pm

Krisking,

The quotes stated in posts 493 and 495, responding to me, are not mine. I don't know where they're from either.

Who are you quoting there?

In response to 490, the failure of God ought to be accompanied by the exoneration of our species from ANY unworthy fate.

God has never told me He is sorry. In fact, there was an awful awful lot of me apologising to Him actually during my time spent at Church.

In response to 491, I would only like to say that the Bible ought to confirm God's permanent closing off of both Heaven and Hell, complete with a universally recognisable apology to humanity.

Thanks for heeding my post. :)

112. Richard Dawkins at AAI 07

Comment #87368 by DalaiDrivel on November 12, 2007 at 1:43 am

Indeed,

The bacteria came in package with the animals.

Taking them in pairs would have been impossible.

God will have to accept that he isn't omnipotent- the universe and its inhabitants make there own god-damning rules thank you very much.

Like evolution. Like people figuring out evolution.

It's been covered already extensively in this thread the impotence of God.

I decided to bring up bacteria when I remembered reading Bill Bryson's "A Short History of Nearly Everything" in which he explains how bacteria quite literally rule the world.

By weight, apparently they account for more biomass than any other organism.

Utterly fascinating.

113. Richard Dawkins at AAI 07

Comment #87361 by DalaiDrivel on November 12, 2007 at 1:23 am

Cheers Goldy!

Hell is only the very thing I hate most about Christianity.

And I do hate it. I despise it for its Christian absoluteness, its fear-mongering, its blatant injustice (You think life is unfair, wait until the Afterlife!), and its lack of forgiveness, a virtue we humans expound, which Christians expound on behalf of God.

Ugh! Hell begone! And begone with Heaven!

It's what first turned me against Christianity, and caused me to consider atheism.

The corollary question I believe to "Who deserves to go to Eternal Hell for misdeeds in this finite lifetime?" is:

"Who deserves to go to Eternal Heaven for their good deeds in this finite lifetime?"

No one, in my opinion.

114. Richard Dawkins at AAI 07

Comment #87330 by DalaiDrivel on November 11, 2007 at 9:12 pm

Mejdrich,

If and when the faithheads succeed and turn the US into a pure-bred (ill-bred, given it's intended form of government by the founders) theocracy, come on up to Canada, by all means!

I have a short spiel to give now.

The human race, in my opinion, is the least qualified species on the planet to enter Heaven. We should all go to Hell.

We alone have done the most to damage our prospects of thriving on this planet for much longer.

The Earth does not need humans for life to flourish on it.

We have consigned numerous species to extinction- species involved in the regulatory systems of nature that we have taken for granted, and continue to.

Where are those extinct species now? Where are the bacteria that live in and on humans without which we could not survive, which we destroy by taking a shower, or taking a shit? In Heaven? I hope so!

Is there a whimper of applause in the audience for the bacteria, people?

But no- Heaven is just for us fuck-up humans. Or some us fuck-up humans. Only a few in fact. The rest shall be ashen detritus on the cutting floor of Hell.

The collateral damage, in my opinion, of God's misguided experiment in free will.

God ought to admit that His experiment failed. He failed. He aspired to save all of us, but we were led to different conclusions than to Him, and our labours of learning which He made possible through his gifts of intelligence and free will, bring US punishment.

We are self-destructive to each another, within the great, ever-integrating society of our species. We are content to think the individual will go to Heaven, and not our fellow non-believing human- by being human, and of no less value, I think they deserve as much to go. Some of us, like ADH, will abandon their own children to their faith, and do not cringe at the thought of them residing in Hell for eternity.

Parents like ADH do not think of what they want for their children. If these are the conclusions these young intelligent beings have drawn, must they be necessarily wrong? Can the teachings of God be wrong, teachings which He has not defended since they were written? If ADH does not want suffering for his children, does he have to believe it?

Are they good people, his children? Do they deserve eternal suffering, for showing love to real people but not to a God that insisted on keeping his distance, insisted on being mysterious? I don't personally think God loved me. Maybe evolution did? Chance? Fate?

But I can't imagine love on a natural scale beyond the humans who have grown to love me. Love is only a human abstraction.

Does any bad person deserve eternal suffering for what they may have done in a finite lifetime?

Do we only consider eternity because in fact we have no conception of how long that would actually be? Do we really (I mean really) only think of eternity as a finite notion we can encapsulate, spreading imaginary arms in our minds an arbitrary distance from there to there, and remarking "see, that's infinity..."? But infinity is far too large for that, isn't it?

I would only hope that if people like ADH really understood eternity, they would be mortified beyond belief (forgive the pun) at what they had even considered to be a possible fate of their children, humans whom he loves, and loves all of, even loving them, I would hope, for their beliefs- the beliefs that were derived from God's gifts of intelligence and free will, the beliefs that will lead them to Hell.

Such faith cannot be right.

Not without at least the bacteria in Heaven.

115. Richard Dawkins at AAI 07

Comment #86298 by DalaiDrivel on November 9, 2007 at 12:28 am

Oh please,

ADH. I for one am bankiong on you being predictable and never answering the questions asked of you of this thread.

If that's true- just bugger off buddy. We know who and what to write you off as.

You can't quite walk the walk. You can't both believe and clearly state that your children are hell bound.

So bugger off.

You can't even walk the I-just-stumbled-out-of-the-pub drunk-which-was-where-I-got-these-screwed-ideas walk.

I wish you could.

CoretTempRising- you're the man. I had some venting of my own to do.

116. Richard Dawkins at AAI 07

Comment #86215 by DalaiDrivel on November 8, 2007 at 6:22 pm

Hey Diacanu,

Similar indeed.

And fire was even involved in that one, if I remember correctly.

Maybe that's why Hitler remained a Christian- out of deference to this. He liked the idea of sacrifice for faith, and thought he'd be plagiarising otherwise...

He borrowed "Father" (Fuerher) now didn`t he...

I don't know if Hitler had any hand in regulating the techniques for training SS officers, however, though...

117. Sam Harris at AAI 07

Comment #86184 by DalaiDrivel on November 8, 2007 at 3:25 pm

Corky,

It's new and cool. Possibly too learned-sounding.

Which makes my conceited side like it even more... :P

"Unbelieving one" certainly sounds more descriptive of me than "Atheist"- by far.

118. Richard Dawkins at AAI 07

Comment #86183 by DalaiDrivel on November 8, 2007 at 3:19 pm

I strongly second post number 129, RascoHeldall's ultimatum.

I am very interested to know what ADH believes will be the fate of his children once they die, given what he knows about their beliefs.

Out with it, man!

I have a feeling, that even if we got him to say, "Oh, well, they'll burn in hell given what they believe and what I believe is the punishment for hereticism" he'd still be cozy and kosher, with a blase, "what's the problem with my beliefs?" attitude.

We all can see the problem, even if he can't. If it is child abuse NOT to tell children about Hell, I certainly think it IS then child abuse to let them stray into it.

It's only a slightly spicier version of leaving a child in a room with a chocolate bar- telling them not to eat it while you're away, and what do they do?

If he was actively lobbying his children to enter Christianity, I warrant it would cost him his relationship with them. I think he knows this, and this is the real reason for his reticence.

I think this leaves us with the consensus we already have, which is, I think, that ADH is a child abuser, not because he isn't lobbying his children to become believers, but because he professed knowledge of their fate should they turn heretical, and they have.

I must say, this does remind me of the training of Nazi SS officers, which involved things like raising puppies, obviously becoming emotionally attatched to them, and then killing them, to develop emotional distancing.

My view is that ADH is prematurely killing his children with the emotionally distancing doctrine of Christianity.

119. Richard Dawkins at AAI 07

Comment #86046 by DalaiDrivel on November 8, 2007 at 1:02 am

I think ADH may have a comprehension problem with non-absolutes.

Like not actually having absolute knowledge of who created the universe, without well... not doing an experiment first...

SteveN gave some great alternative scenarios- they in fact added description- to a very simple, vague, black-and-white proposition of humans vs. cattle.

Absoluteness. We all want it, don't we? Ah Damn.

I noticed in one of your comments ADH (87 in fact), you used the term hell, and people wanting to be in hell instead of heaven, while referencing general people, and used "separation from God" in the context of your children, or I perceived this to be so as it was in the paragraph directly below your discussing of your children.

Here is the pertinent excerpt from comment number 87.

"As for my supposedly admitted abuse of children, I plead not guilty! I have brought my kids up to think for themselves, right. The fact of stating my beliefs in their presence hardly amounts to child abuse! Do you really think children's minds are like blank slates, ready to be written on by whoever gets there first and that what gets written there determines the kind of people they become. Fellow atheists of yours like Stephen Pinker would hastily disagree! I disagree with Stephen Pinker about most things, but I do agree that the child's mind is much more complex than that.

As for the content of my beliefs (which I admit they have been privy to), if it is true that indifference to God has eternal consequences, that it results in eternal separation from God (whether conscious separation or by virtue of ceasing to exist), then I believe that it would be a serious case of child abuse if I did NOT make that very clear. Having made it clear, I do not, I assure you, go on and on about it.

On the issue of eternal separation from God, well it is actually what atheists want, is it not? It would hardly be an act of mercy on God's part to admit into his presence people who would rather spend eternity in hell than be there. As CS Lewis said: "there are only two kinds of people - those who say to God 'Your will be done', and those to whom God will have no choice but to say 'Your will be done'."

I certainly see some compartmentalisation going on here!

Hey- the great thing about your kids turning to God is that you may then never have to admit that you believed they were bound for hell. Oh, it was "separation" in their case! Oh no worries- we'll just give up criticising you because evidently you CAN think for yourself!

I think that you ARE actually afraid of what you believe. You deny it only. It just happens that you are less afraid of your faith than you are of not believing it.

120. Sam Harris at AAI 07

Comment #85005 by DalaiDrivel on November 4, 2007 at 1:27 pm

V,

That idea is pretty interesting- and certainly puts the onus on the other party.

I'm not sure about the default negative position of us, and the double-negative position that puts theists in.

We are already in the negative position. Is the onus on us as of now?

Now I'm not personally against the notion of an official God- not with evidence for it. I'm only against a God that contradicts scientific evidence without any evidence itself, and not to mention which offers grotesque moral precepts as an example to humanity- theism... with a specific literature that makes patently false claims to any scientist.

I think dabbling in negatives is likely to overcomplicate and confuse roles, or else we might have taken up proving the "non-existence" of God etc.

Which by the way, I now think is in fact the job of atheists, as the job of theists is to prove God's existence. Ergo, the antithesis of theism should require similarly opposite proof.

Ooooooooo boy. Glad I'm not an atheist!

But we really know as rationalists that God is irrelevant to the reasoning we are capable of, through science- I think that's why we accept the positing of proof of God's non-existence is not on us, because of the relevance of science and irrelevance of religion.

I want to challenge atheism as being the default position for us. If we're having a religious debate, sure, statistically as the non-existence of God is more likely. Just ask yourself, as an atheist, if you are religious. If you are an atheist, I would say you are making religion and religious questions relevant to your life, so you must be.

I don't want religion, irrational as it is, to have value in my life, as rationality holds value already. You've expressed this same opinion. So even if you call yourself an atheist, I know we are more or less on the same page, and the same labels could be applicable to me. I'm happy with religion being irrelevant though. I am not an atheist to myself, in other words.

121. Sam Harris at AAI 07

Comment #84855 by DalaiDrivel on November 4, 2007 at 12:58 am

ImagineAll,

Yes, I think you are right on the button regarding the topic of your religion as "irrelevant" to someone who is conventionally an "atheist."

I think it has to be, if there isn't what I called a religious provision in your world view- or maybe another way to have put it is as a "Religion" column in a personality chart.

There is one such column in the eyes of every religious person. When they analyse me within their world view, they have no choice I suppose but to check me as "atheist" under the "Religion" column.

Our organisations and content of the personality chart differ. One particular thing of importance for them I have excluded- therefore it is irrelevant to me, as are any labels applicable to it.

I am not "atheist" to myself! There's no designated room for that label.

122. Sam Harris at AAI 07

Comment #84849 by DalaiDrivel on November 4, 2007 at 12:35 am

Styrer,

Oh indeed I will make my post brief. You quoted me but seemed to have forgotten to surface from your doze for the first half of that paragraph.

I was commenting for most of my post. Not rebutting! I openly said this. I don't want to waste my time rebutting you anymore! That was never my sole intent! Get used to it! I'm not going to get along with you, and you only want a war of words and egos, not ideas- with Christians, and then me, and AndyD.

I agree with AndyD- you are an intellectual elitist- I think you have no right to be. You use the verbosity and vacuity you accuse me of to react like a wounded animal when someone offers a challenge of your dogma- whether it is meant to be personal or not. I don't know if you really believe what you say rather than what I think you believe- a belief in your intellectual invincibility. No one is so invincible.

I also think you have given at least as well as you have received. The final insult to those who have criticised you is that you demand apology from them- how very high-toned in an intellectual debate, where everything said against you you seem to have taken personally.

Well I'm sorry- I'm not an apologist.

You are. You're the first atheist apologist I've met. And it sickens me as much as the mere thought of Christian apologists do.

You will not get an apology from me. You'll waste your time requesting it.

The sparring match is over. I suppose we think we both won.

Whatever.

As AndyD said- knock yourself out. This is the last time I will respond to you.

AndyD- thanks for coming to my defence. It's appreciated.

123. Sam Harris at AAI 07

Comment #84557 by DalaiDrivel on November 2, 2007 at 12:42 pm

Hey Walk,

I think the feeling of bending stems from a sense that the label of atheism is far more a theist label, and of use to theists, than atheists. It's always in use therefore by them, if not by us. I'll elaborate on this in a bit, using a recent stroll I took into philosophy trying to grapple with the matter of labelling.

The word atheism, and by extension what Harris describes as the chalk outline on the sidewalk, have been accepted by both theists and atheists so much as to be second nature.

I have a moon-eyed fantasy of the international atheist bodies like the AAI changing their names to exclude "atheism." But I think they will retain their letterheads, for "clarity's" sake. Even in this post, I use the word "atheist" because everyone instinctively knows what I mean by it, and because I'm addressing a broad audience.

The individual though does have that choice, of altering their proverbial letterhead, or else not having one, and I do feel what I think is justified incredulity at being labeled as who we are by what we are not. The work of the individual, and individual relationships and spreading of reason is I think the most important aspect of this movement.

If we leave the movement to the battering rams of the higher bodies, the AAI and the Catholic Church, for example, it will be two goliaths headbutting and joined at the forehead, with the rest of their bodies, the grassroots atheists or theists composed of individuals like us, spread too far apart to actually take swings at one another.

I just have one more important point to make, which is the elaboration that I promised earlier on. What I want to say is that the notion of "atheism" as a theist term makes much more sense to me when I think of it as it is, which is phrased in religious terms. I think going without a label, particularly that of "atheist" becomes easier when you realise that not believing in a God is expressed religiously, with "atheism", and can't be, as far as I know, expressed rationally. If we don't have true religion, we have it at least in an anti-form, or a negatively-defined form, which is atheism.

If you aren't religious, having your world view expressed religiously, or having a provision of religiosity inserted in it externally, should be inaccurate to you, as well as incongruent with your world view, to say the least.

For us to be called atheists is to simultaneously have posed the question of which religious system we adhere to. So which one do we adhere to? Like real religions, I think this would need to rest in the arena of the individual.

And if there is no religious system that you adhere to, the answer is none; however the other accompanying answer is that you are not atheist if you have no religious provision in your world view.

That's the challenge for atheists: finding their true religion.

I submit then, that we ought to change your previously suggested title from "New Atheists who do not condone ANY immoral action past or present (or future by the way!)" to "New Atheists Who Are Unconventionally Religious" or "New Atheists Who Are Religious But We Don't Yet Know How."

Atheists should list themselves in the classifieds under religion as single and looking.

In essence, how I see it is that we're like an Untouchable class of theists to the theists. How outrageous is that? It's like we are made one of them in their world view to uphold some cosmic harmony, but that also entails that they must resent our antipathy.

124. Sam Harris at AAI 07

Comment #84319 by DalaiDrivel on November 1, 2007 at 6:10 pm

Walk,

I think the term New Atheist as one who does not condone certain past actions of atheists, gives credence to the falsehood that dictators have committed atrocities as atheists. I believe that there is absolutely nothing for atheists to cleanse themselves of, because these acts were not committed in the name of atheism.

In other words, I think it entwines us closer with the "nasty atheist dictator" syndrome.

They were committed in the name of totalitarianism. Where else does totalitarianism crop up in ideologies by the way? Oh of course- religion.

Oh yes. And Stalin, Hitler... the majority of dictators that emerged in the 20th century, if not all, were psychopaths. This fact pretty much ends the "dictator debate" for me. They did exactly what you'd expect them to do in positions of absolute power.

I have asked it before to people; I'll ask it again here. Are psychopaths any more representative of atheists than they are of religious people? If that is so in your mind, would you then go as far as to say, as I suspect a religious person might in a moment of dim-headedness, that atheism *gasp* causes psychopathy?

Studies have been done on the religious structure within prisons. Apparently, it is often the same as in society.

As far as labels go, I still believe they should be avoided wherever possible, but if I label myself anything, while still being true to myself, I call myself an "individualist." I can't offer this for everyone else of course. In fact I don't want it to be a banner label.

This does not answer your request for something better I know...

What I like about "individualist" is that it does allow for each person's uniqueness, the immeasurable variation on the myriad facets of personality, which I revere greatly, but by having no allusion to society, it leaves that at least open to interpretation. We have to be a part of at least one society as there are many, many of us on one planet. I see "individualist" as not exonerating someone of their responsibility to abide under a common, rational law.

As far as labels go, I just want to speak for me.

125. Sam Harris at AAI 07

Comment #83403 by DalaiDrivel on October 29, 2007 at 11:58 pm

Styrer,

Well you are certinly at liberty to do so (taking my post as comment, rather than rebuttal, but I believe I made an attempt to challenge you as well as explain things to you. I did at least ask one question). You are perfectly at liberty, in fact, as I'm sure you are aware, as well as has been said by other orators, to have a direct link between the orifices on the sides of you head, so that information can go in one end and straight out the other, without all that tedious processing in between.

I must admit that claiming I have made the definition of defeatist smaller is confusing to me. How exactly? What I was trying to do was to look at the uses and preconceptions of the word "atheist" from the Christian perspective, as opposed to ours. I didn't see any re-sizing per se in that.

If you want to come out and say that Sam Harris is unintelligent and intellectually inferior, which enabled him to be fearless in giving the speech, come right out. I think he knew exactly what he was saying, and that it did take calculated conviction and courage.

I will also make a distinction between a-theist and anti-theist. There deserves to be a difference in my opinion. I am personally not against the idea of a God- at least a certain kind. I could get along well with a God that really could be described as a supreme intelligent being, that even does have a hand in human affairs, and listens to my thoughts, but certainly wouldn't banish me to eternal hell because he caught me thinking about Anna Kournikova naked again. He would also have to understand that the notion of "compulsory love" is abhorrent to me, and would have to accept that I would acknowledge him only so far as I saw fit.

Being anti-reason and pro-supernatural do not have to be mutually inclusive, I also think. Using good reasons and being pro-supernatural are mutually exclusive maybe... That some Christians are content to accept evolution demonstrates some reason, on their behalf, for instance. God, evidently, so far as we have dicerned, used a specific method to develop life on this planet. This does not justify their theist positions.

That theists base their beliefs on a 2000-year old or longer doctrine that has been subjected to millenia of politics and corruption, and splintering, and outright fabrication, are reasons, but not good ones, to uphold the beliefs they do. A better time to be a theist, it seems to me, would have been when those manuscripts were written. And obviously, having a first person account of whether they were true gospel or not.

Not to mention, of course, that there was no scientific method of critique in that era. But from the mere standpoint of ideological purity, and chronolgical significance, 2000 years ago was surely a better time to be a theist.

Anyways...

I'd wait for something else these days if I wanted to become religious. If... if.

The word appeasement comes to my lips as well. But in the sense of appeasing ouselves. Giving ourselves a chance to unite with other rationalists without the stigma, the yoke of nomenclature that we undo ourselves with. Reason is not the sole property of atheism. Atheism is an inflexible, ineffective word to describe opposition to such things as the indoctrination of children, brainwashing, corruption, sexual abuse, and other criminal (or ought-to-be-criminal) offences which I submit are concerns that ought to transcend world views. Science I think probably is atheistic in itself, but the humanist concerns with religion are not solely atheistic concerns. To say we are battling these injustices as atheists is hugely inaccurate, hugely arrogant, and hugely ignorant.

Moving to describing mysticism scientifically, for instance, is really secondary to destroying religion's corruption of morality. But investigation into it is an important method to incorporating the mystics' insights into the scientific literature, in scientific terms, and ultimately building bridges between them and atheists.

When discussing these humanist concerns within religion, atheism is useless- these issues go beyond discussing the mere probability of God. It is not brave to retain this term. It's stupid.

Especially, if Harris is right, as you seem to concede he may be, that atheism is useless simply by dint of its baggage, and you go ahead anyway to "reclaim" it.

Yes, that is stupid. It is stupid because under the banner of atheism, you are advocating the destruction of belief entirely, seemingly ignoring these broader issues. I do not see any cooperative spirit whatsoever in that. Because while people of other world views, and within faiths, share our opposition to religion's current crimes against humanity, there is reason to cooperate. I would even say it is necessary to cooperate, to acknowledge that morality and intellectualism are not in fact unique to atheists. To move forward, the "enemies of reason" must see us in a cooperative- and relevant- light. It matters how we are seen.

To conclude, I have commented mostly in this post at least. I do not view myself as so subvervient as to be obliged to critique, lest worse, humour, the bellicose, elitist, and ultimately ineffective and divisive spat of indignation that you are attempting to blot out Sam Harris' message with, and nothing else. I don't need this much space to rebut you. To paraphrase Hitchens myself from his debate with D'Souza, "I only need a couple of lines to pin you to the mat on that one."

126. Sam Harris at AAI 07

Comment #82814 by DalaiDrivel on October 27, 2007 at 8:12 pm

Cthulance,

I take issue with your calling renouncing the atheist label cowardly.

Standing alone and standing for your ideas, seems braver to me, than joining an exclusive club of rational thinkers, the more militant within which like to think of as an army, but a club has everyone within it calling themselves "atheists." The allure of a club like that is safety in numbers, and individual anonymity under a general banner.

Is it cowardly that a racist does not call them a racist? I say absolutely.

Is it cowardly for a non-racist not to say they are non-racist? Now I think not.

Why I think this is because I give everyone the benefit of the doubt before they start submitting racist ideas.

I take for granted that someone is rational before they begin to explain to me their belief in a messiah with magic powers who will orchestrate the armageddon.

As long as we have our principles, we are not cowards. Atheism is just a name. We all have names. It's not important.

Through history, names have been used as badges. Atheists are finding that they are having their own Nazi star branded on their sleeves by the religious.

Hitler is not around to enforce that upon atheists. So, I'll just shrug it off. I'll accept (by dint of being impossible to avoid) being branded as one, but by not declaring myself atheist, I will be helping my own cause I believe. I will be helping my own cause by enabling myself to engage the person on their reasons for calling me an atheist, what that words means to them, suggesting the negative connotation of it, and explaing that I am simply in favour of reason. I am not against God. I just think he's incredibly unlikely. Otherwise the talk could be `You`re an atheist. You say so. Defend your position!" I think very much that apologists rely on the branding of atheists to rally automatic support for their corruptive, indoctrinating cause.

I will finish by saying that I will still be as rational as those that proudly proclaim the badge of atheism. Call me a coward. But I still have the dignity of my rationality.

127. Sam Harris at AAI 07

Comment #82577 by DalaiDrivel on October 26, 2007 at 7:18 pm

Zaphod,

I can only presume that was Zaphod Beeblebrox frpm Hitchhiker's Guide talking. We have a celebrity here! Or else I need to be better read.

But Zaphod wasn't known for saying something simple, eloquent and insightful like that in the Adams literature.

You're right. We are not theists, which is what atheism must mean, if only technically. Renouncing the name can only beget greater accuracy as to what we are. Harris' himself came to say, "if I had to choose one name..." and I believe he said humanist. I could be wrong.

eXcommunicate (I'm sorry if I've mispelled your username) said in one of previous posts explicitly that we can simply not refer to ourselves as atheists if we do not like the label. In doing so, he quite significantly, shrank the whole of harris' lecture into one significant sentence.

You know what guys and gals? I have a confession. I'm not the kind of person that regulary comes into contact with religious people. I supposed many of you seek them out. I don't. One could describe seeking religious to challenge intellectually as being militant. Or I suppose I'm simply not surrounded by religious like many Americans. Having targets that file up in front of you in other words.

By the way, I'm Canadian. I realise I was being inaccurate when I said "we" are not in Iraq arguing against the miltancy of atheism. The Canadians are elsewhere, mostly. However, our stance should not be militant- "shoot first, ask questions later."

Of course not. Ask questions! Challenge. Don't lock and load by giving yourself a label and a barrier between you and the person you are speaking to.

I sense we forget, those that argue for the militant style of atheism, that the heavily religious are sentient humans who are indoctrinated, not irredeemable dolts who we can simply bludgeon to death intellectually, and expect to make the world a better place. I think it's important to remember the value of everyone's intellect- the very reality of it. I will even be so bold and say the sanctity of everyone's intellect. That might help us confront indoctrination.

We need to challenge ourselves by not being blugeoners. I believe the easy way out, by militancy, is not the right one.

128. Sam Harris at AAI 07

Comment #82566 by DalaiDrivel on October 26, 2007 at 6:25 pm

Come on Styrer,

Do you really know anything about defeatism? Sam Harris is explaining in his speech that a theist, who readily accepts his name, draws the chalk outline on the sidewalk, and we lie down in it. That to Sam, is defeatist. We're atheist. We have commited some kind of original sin that along with the label, loses credibility on the part of the wearer simply by dint of the reputation of that label. It is the origin of their unwilligness to reason, before any meanigful dialogue takes place.

In that way, I redefine you notion of defeatism.

As for cowardice, consider that he made that talk, and then was lambasted by at least one woman in the audience, mocked by his colleague Dan Dennet, and scorned by you. And he saw it coming, and gave the speech anyway. Why on earth are you calling him a coward? Holy cow (no pun intended)!

Furthermore, I remain highly suspicious his "piss-poor lexicon" was deemed so by you all because he advocates giving up the word "atheism" which you cherish as a rallier (and I think of as a divider).

Jesus Christ- there's obviously likely to be no deity to invoke by saying that- we're not an army you know. We're not. Here's a clue- we're not in Iraq- and there because of Jesus, just maybe. For us, there is no banner, except our ideas- and those ideas are not are own; are not our property. You want to be rebellious and make a statement and unite under a banner, become a goth or something like that.

I have a best friend who has a ridiculously militant atheist stand and wants to know what I am, atheist or agnostic, all the time.

Meaning, if I'm even simply and clearly not a theist, that's not good enough for him! I have to endure his further division, and setting up of ideological, labelled barriers. You know what? When he does this, I don't want to talk to him about reason, and ways to present evidence to deluded people! It's unpleasant. It's downright hostile.

How do you expect a theist to feel, subtracting all the indoctrination? Probably pretty eager to play Devil's Advocate, not necessarily as a Christian. I certainly don't play Devil's Advocate as a Christian. I play it as and under the name of a person who is pissed off at having had someone attempt to hijack and/or manipulate my identity for a cause.

Yes, you may not have been offering commentary of his transcendental claims, but you yourself did not fail to be insulting of him in your critique of him. Do you object?

You described adopting the atheist moniker as easy: Too easy? All too natural to band together, and go to war. We make peace by removing the walls of labelling which encourage war, protect ourselves under anonymity, and we win.

The easy way out rarely succeeds.

I don't care if you wear the atheist badge with distinction. People wore the racist badge with distinction- except they didn't call themselves racist.

129. Sam Harris at AAI 07

Comment #82254 by DalaiDrivel on October 26, 2007 at 12:00 am

Hey cool!

I'm being noticed.

This "Four Musketeers" labelling is so apt for a discussion like this. Am I saying if you oppose them, you're rigid?

No. I still think it is a case here of Sam Harris opposing Styrer's preconception of him, that he would never give such a stupid lecture.

In other words, Sam Harris himself is rigid.

Styrer, I apologise for the frosty rebuke of your original post.

You call it a war out there. I just don't think I'm as gung ho about it. I called you narrow-minded for criticising harris' lecture with such harsh language, showing to me a frustration at harris' will to run counter to the popular atheist proclivity to disregard certain physiological/psychological experience as religion, but in fact they have only been interpreted religiously. They are not religious phenomena.

Whether we admit it or not, meditation is real, as well as its psychological effects, and it seems to Harris that these people are being alienated by a rigid atheist doctrine of interpreting anything religiously interpreted as blasphemy to rationality.

A master of meditation could be as atheist as we are.

I actually was not impressed with Dan Dennett's joke "I like to keep a timer so I don't fall asleep (while investigating out-of-body experience and things like this)." You can see he doesn't taked it seriously.

But hey, everyone thought Einstein was crazy for relativity. And then it was Einstein's turn to say everyone was crazy for quantum physics.

Skeptism I think naturally fosters, perhaps unintentionally, conservation. But why should it?

I mean, disagree with me of course, but I think Sam's ahead of the game here.

130. Sam Harris at AAI 07

Comment #82202 by DalaiDrivel on October 25, 2007 at 9:12 pm

Styrer,

Good for you for opposing.

etter for Harris, I think, for saying something you didn't want to hear.

Whether you caught it or not, he has exposed the rigidity of your atheist stance.

"No, it's only one literal way!!! Grrr!"

You sound like an Evangelical.

Furthermore, Sam is evolving. You grew to respect him from what you read by him, and how you are interpreting his work, and you are revolting against him turning into what you don't want him to be- what you interpreted him as when you read his books. Perhaps he already was this, but you were too narrow-minded to see it.

131. Sam Harris at AAI 07

Comment #82198 by DalaiDrivel on October 25, 2007 at 9:02 pm

Relinquishing the term atheist is no easier than scientically comprehending a meditative, out-of-body experience. That is what I believe Sam would express on this forum, in response to, "what else do we call ourselves?"

And why should it be, when we hae conditioned ourselves, as us-against-theists, building up our armies under our self-imposed or extra-imposed monikers.

Atheists versus Christians. Which are you?

This isn't going to encourage dialogue! What-us-versus them methodology does?

Get rid of labelling, and we can stop preaching to the choir, on both sides.

We can talk to a religious person, and say, "we have these things in common" instead of saying, "we have these things in common, but I'm an atheist and you're a theist/spiritualist"

A person who refutes God's existence does not have to accept the moniker of atheism. Apologists and others are shrewed enough to try and pin you by assigning some other moniker, and you do not have to have one, or present one.

Consider a believer in God, could either be any monotheist with which we're familar.

A person who likes to work on cars doesn't have to be called a "mechanic." Maybe if they're professional only.

Are we atheists because we're professional? We adhere to the creed of science which swayed us? Is that it? I think labelling ourselves, or allowing ourselves to be labelled, not only discourages dialogue and dismantling of rival factions (us-versus-them) but it degrades science to the status of religion, and elevates religion to the playing field of science.

So forget labelling. Just say what you think.

Say what you think!

132. War in Heaven: Hitchens Meets D'Souza on Home Turf

Comment #81034 by DalaiDrivel on October 23, 2007 at 11:38 pm

SmartLX,

I found this essay online today. I haven't read it yet. I searched for "Marxism and Atheism" after watching D'Souza say in the D'Souza-Shermer debate, "And Dawkins says that these guys (Stalin, Hitler et al) didn't do these things in the name of atheism.... really? Has he read Marx? Has he read the communist manifesto?"

http://home.pacific.net.au/~andy/works/atheism.htm

133. War in Heaven: Hitchens Meets D'Souza on Home Turf

Comment #81031 by DalaiDrivel on October 23, 2007 at 11:32 pm

As long as theists reject evolution for the "Well-it's-in-the-Bible-and-it-says-it's true" creationism/intelligent design, atheism will be BOTH an intellectual and a moral revolt, and atheism will exist for the reasons of using your head and respecting the scientific method and evidence.

Investigation into the origin morality itself without taking the Bible for grant I think represent intellectual revolt.

134. War in Heaven: Hitchens Meets D'Souza on Home Turf

Comment #81025 by DalaiDrivel on October 23, 2007 at 11:14 pm

And "dyspepsia" means "indigestion." The use of this word caught me.

Intellectial dyspepsia in the United States, to which the author says Hitchens is a contributor, must be secularism. Counter-Christianity, to Americans generally.

Grrr! Journalistic bias like this- really blatant representation of facts and events in a particular light- a style which I haven't read in a long time, is to me akin to the very rebellion of certain Christians against scientific advancement and evidence, and above all, free thought. They oppose it because it is the nature of their set of beliefs, closed and finite, to reject investigation, and not approach quandaries with a mind to objective analysis. It's evident in the very language the author has chosen, such as "dyspepsia."

That's another thing Christianity can be then. Unprofessional.

135. War in Heaven: Hitchens Meets D'Souza on Home Turf

Comment #81020 by DalaiDrivel on October 23, 2007 at 10:59 pm

Well...

I think the bias here begins from the pictures of the debaters.

Mr D'Sousa, the dignified public speaker

And Mr Hitchens, the bleak-looking smoker.

I will be disappointed with the taped debate if it ends with D'Souza saying that "Atheism is not an intellectual revolt. It is a moral one."

Hmmm. There are just too many ways for Hitchens to continue from there. If he didn't answer, I presume he was stopped.

To my mind, it's ludicrous when theists, most often Christians in the U.S. say they are persecuted by secularism, when they still get the upper hand in debate formats.

I'm referring to other instances, like the Dawkins-Lennox debate which was really an attack on the ideas of the God Delusion. One can do that for sure. But that's just attacking the book. That's not attacking (and by that I mean discussing) the philosophy behind the question of a creator to the universe.