The Catholic Church's religious blackmail of secular government

Onofrio,

I'm glad you enjoyed Shankara! This really encapsulates the reasons why mysticism has fascinated me for over 40 years, while conventional religious orthodoxy leaves me unmoved - or irritated!

Mysics see the one in the many and the many in one, while the unanointed masses see mirror images of themselves only in their fellow believers.......the beginning of all our troubles.

regards, Persiflage

Persiflage,

I know it was for Dan-de-Lion, but I just wanted to say how much I appreciate this link. A wonderfully lucid article, and now in my favourites.

Sankara's teaching resonates with me - the world as *purposive illusion* and *theatre of becoming* appeals deeply, does justice to the One and the Many.

Many thanks for opening yet another Persiflagean portal!

DITLD - if you happen to drop back to this thread you might enjoy perusing this link. I pulled it off of a link that I provided on the Darwin thread - where Ralph Waldo Emerson became an early supporter of Darwin's theory of evolution. He went on to encorporate evolution in his own developing spiritual doctrine known as Transcendentalism. In this regard, he is remembered for his concept of the Oversoul.

This link shows how he came to adopt this idea from Advaita Vedanta and the thinking of Indian philosopher Shankara - possessed of a formidable mind, he debated various prevailing Buddhist schools of thought with his own theories.

If one is not exclusively of the materialist school of thought that American atheists are seemingly known for, then one has to be impressed by the thinking of great minds that perceived a spiritual force pervading life and the cosmos.....what that may be, will surely always be an individual discovery!

regards, Persiflage

http://www.infinityfoundation.com/mandala/i_es/i_es_gordo_comparison_frameset.htm

Daniel (DITLD) - I notice that I keep getting the letters/acronym of your screen name out of order. This is not intentional, but seems to be some form of letter dyslexia...kind of weird on my part, but my apologies!

Daniel ILTD - I appreciate your views on nature and God, and of course you would know that this view is rather more Eastern than Western! You've probably read my past posts on Eastern thought, philosophy and metaphysics, and my own views are quite similar to yours, although they diverge in one regard.

Your view of God as the perpetually veiled and unknown animator of all, shares certain commonalities with both Vedanta and mystical Judaism as revealed in the wisdom of Kaballah. I have sympathies with these views, but lean more toward the views of Taoism and Zen.

I think we may share the view that inanimate matter cannot give rise to animate life through inert processes alone - but like you, I don't subscribe to any kind of materialist creationism, divinity, or solitary creator being.

I believe that what we might call primal awareness, is the solitary fundamental 'enabler' of the artifice that we call manifest reality, or as another writer referred to it - the essential chautauqua or moving burlesque.

This awareness is uncreated and self-existent throughout every manifest universe - of which there may be an infinite number.

We don't see it because we are it - there is no inside, outside, or dimensionality of any kind, other than artificial and arbitrary boundries created by mind. The basis of this mind is awareness.

I consider that directly apprehending this solitary mystery, is the essential metanoia or intuition sought by mystics of every persuasion. Explanations always fall short, and are a source of great confusion. Nothing more can really be said!

regards, Persiflage

Persiflage

I assume you may come back here to check out any additional comments.

My belief is God in not based on a belief in an intelligent designer that causes all things to be. My belief in God derives from the seeming reality of these laws of nature, which do indeed seem very real, but which are not real.

For if the commonly assumed basis of all reality is not real, then phenomenon that cannot be real, that is in fact, sealed from our perception and knowledge, may be real. By this, I mean, we cannot, by the nature of existential reality and the organization of our minds ever have any knowledge of things that, yet, exist.

In this, I can envision God. The nature of this God remains unknown. I come to this conclusion with ease, as the natural progression of my thoughts and not as a contorted proof of a pre-conceived God, that I wish to be.

Because I have this belief in God which has come to me fairly easily, I therefore have a peaceful mind with regards to God's existence and feel no need to prove it to atheists nor do I have any ill will towards people who do not understand or who may believe differently.

In this peaceful, even tranquil mental state, I feel that I am attaining a degree of serentiy which many religious people seem to crave, but which seems to elude many of them.

HI, COLIN NICHOLAS,

I POSTED TO YOU, BUT AM FEARFUL MY MISSIVE HAS AGAIN BEEN RUN OVER, FLATTENED, SQUASHED, BY D12'S PROCLAMATIONS.

Please to scroll down.

Thanks,

Farnaz :]

D12,

Did you read the Nasrudin tale I posted? It's just below your latest offering.

Farnaz

Daniel12:

""I am not entirely ignorant of science, atheism and religion."

Yes, you are.

DILTD - I appreciate the chat. I've always viewed Methodists and Congregationalists in a similar vein - more liberal than most other denominations, although not so left of center as Unitarians and Quakers - hats off to Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau, and William Penn!

Although I turned in my membership almost 50 years ago, I was raised Catholic and understand the doctrinal issues and theology well enough to take exception...

I find the recent attempts to hijack congress pretty appalling - the Church pulled the same ploy when Obama visited Notre Dame, as we all recall.....although that effort backfired.

The Roman Catholic church is heavily bankrolled in the USA, and is every bit the equivilant of a very large corporate entity - and much more, with a membership of over 50 million alone in the USA.

Imagine a political triad involving the Catholic Church, big business, and big government and you've got the perfect recipe for Huxley's Brave New World and Orwell's apocalyptic 1984 rolled into one long nightmare!

It's very fortunate that about half of it's membership stands in opposition to several of it's more highly publicized/politicized Vatican edicts regarding gay marriage, birth control, and reproductive autonomy for women. Many more would support a married clergy and ordination into the priesthood for women.

I sense that a good many Catholics just don't like the Church meddling in politics and employing political muscle in the public sector....and that's a very good thing indeed!

regards, Persiflage

Test.

Daniel12,

Thee:
"Science is a lover and moves on--wants a positive woman. Every art and science as well has the muse. There is no muse in atheism. More like a succubus in atheism saying all is futile. Science believes in a beautiful woman, strives to cure, to beat even death. Atheism is a hag saying all is fundamentally lost."

Ah! Atheism is both sexy succubus AND repulsive crone. Such a versatile femme! And Science has undergone a sex change! No longer merely feminine Scientia, Science is now solidly pronged and lunging after the sort of bootylicious babe he could never be, in his former sober draperies.

Such bold and fecund metaphors! Rather casts Goethe's Faust II in the shade...

Would that there were a worthy She with the good sense to be caught and ravished by your jeenyus.

Daniel12

Thee:
"I am not entirely ignorant of science, atheism and religion."

Such august understatement; Olympian, even! That you deign to engage with us mere captious Jacobytes is testament to your exceedingly gracious nature.

Thee:
"Yes, Goethe understood."

His shade must be gratified that he has attained your condescension, O Jeenyus. A gladsome glow gathers at his tomb. Would that you might bestow your blessing on Schiller too, to complete the spectral exultation in that shared Weimar sepulchre.

"Seid umschlungen, Millionen!
Diesen Kuß der ganzen Welt!"

Part one.

I am not entirely ignorant of science, atheism and religion. The book I happen to be reading now--which looked interesting and was bought at the usual place, the used book store--is issues in science and religion by Ian Barbour. And I would wager I read far more books than even most college professors quite simply because I am obsessed with learning and have my entire life structured around such. I work the night shift as a security guard and all my time is to myself. I can exercise, do pushups, etc. then go back to reading and of course I walk rounds. My mind is all to myself and the problems I am interested in--which are all problems.

1) God is a name in the belief that behind the universe there is intelligence. Any name will do for this belief--which is why there have been many Gods over the centuries and still God is believed in. All the names can die but still the belief that the universe is fundamentally ordered at some deep level is continued. And it is basic logic which dictates this belief because the opposite is that there is nothing behind the universe and all is blind unrelenting force. Atheists like to simplify things for themselves and take the name God as the target rather than the common theme for which God stands, which has already been mentioned. And no matter the sophistries of atheists, it is generally accepted that what is meant by atheism is the disbelief in the names and the common theme. It is generally accepted that atheism is the belief that there is nothing behind the universe.

Part two.

2) Both religious belief and atheism are metaphysical views which are arrived at by logic but cannot be proven. Religious belief is born by correctly reasoning that there must be intelligence behind the universe and that all the evil in the world is eventually overcome at the end. This of course is correct reasoning in the sense that everything must have come from something, and when we take into consideration that so much is intelligently ordered--not to mention the fact of human intelligence--we cannot help but posit intelligence at the beginning of things. But then again, for all this correct reasoning in religion we have a fundamental paradox--or rather contradiction: If there is intelligence behind things why evil? Is this intelligence evil? If so all is futile. Man cannot accept that. So he reasons that there must be...some reason. And he dodges the issue by saying "only God knows" or "the ways of God are mysterious". Religion is therefore fundamentally unsatisfactory as an explanation. It has not "solved" the universe.

But atheism has the same problem of not having "solved" the universe. Atheists correctly point out the logical inconsistencies of the religious. But in removing the belief there is something behind things they arrive at the unsatisfactory conclusion that there is nothing and therefore life is ultimately futile. Religion is traded in for fundamental pessimism. Of course atheists try to dodge this accusation by simplifying things for themselves again--just as they simplified things for themselves by attacking God, all Gods, as if there is no underlying theme of intelligence behind things and all one has to do is knock down God (as if an object)--and they do so by ironically taking much of the underlying theme away from the names under which it passed (in religion) and assigning this underlying theme as what atheism means! In other words, they begin saying things like being an atheist is not incompatible with believing order is behind things or morality, progress, etc. Essentially they dodge the issue of their own unsatisfactory viewpoint by assigning most of what religion has meant over the centuries to themselves and tossing away the husk of the names, the rituals, the books, etc. of religion.

Part three.

3). Science. Science is the practice of partially working from facts, partially using one's imagination, to come up with a scheme correctly describing certain facets of existence--certain facets of existence. Science stops short of being a metaphysical view like religion or atheism because it is correctly observed that the large view is really complex to solve, that there is no satisfactory solution easily forthcoming. Science is familiar with religion being fundamentally contradictory as already mentioned and it is familiar as well with atheism essentially meaning that existence is fundamentally futile. The proper scientist is neither religious nor an atheist but if one had to be chosen he is closer to the religious because he has faith that there is more than nothing behind the universe. He goes to work every day with the expectation that reality will lend itself to his intelligence and that this means progress. He does not go to work saying there is fundamentally nothing behind the universe or he would really not work at all. Science is the job in human society which most revolves around needing to take a correct metaphysical standpoint. If one believes there is nothing behind the universe then how is it to be expected that one will really search for something, new laws, new useful discoveries, etc.?

Part four.

4) Science obviously had and still has to a degree great problems with religion. Religion treats the universe as fundamentally solved. One is asked merely to be good and get in good graces with God, or adopt a posture which leads, as in the East, to enlightenment. For science to be born the step had to be taken away from religion--and atheism was extremely useful in this regard because it was the wholesale discrediting of superstition, religion,--so many unproven views. But no matter how useful atheism was, science was connected to religion if only in that both believe there is something rather than nothing behind existence and that laws can be discerned and progress made. Once science truly got its footing and stepped away from religion atheism became less and less necessary. It was perfectly acceptable for a scientist to say that science is compatible with religion because both believe there is something rather than nothing behind the universe. And for all the contradictions of religion apparently it is the superior metaphysical view because it is preferred to believing there is nothing behind the universe. A point is crossed where atheism is no longer useful and is just pessimism--a pessimistic outlook, and ironically akin to superstition and any negative view in general.

Part five.

5) Science will continue stepping away from religion but the link will continue to the past in that both believe there is something behind existence. And the more science steps away from religion the more it is seen that the connection between science and atheism is unfruitful. We cannot have people going to work every day trying to discern scientific laws and trying to improve our lives while simultaneously believing there is nothing behind the universe, that all is fundamentally futile. And that should not at all be difficult to understand. Which scientist would you give a grant to: one who fundamentally believes progress can be made and all is not fundamentally futile or one who does believe all is fundamentally futile? A simple question and likewise simple answer. Atheism was once useful to science but is rapidly becoming bankrupt. Science no longer needs that woman. Science is a lover and moves on--wants a positive woman. Every art and science as well has the muse. There is no muse in atheism. More like a succubus in atheism saying all is futile. Science believes in a beautiful woman, strives to cure, to beat even death. Atheism is a hag saying all is fundamentally lost.

There is no contest. Science will go with the beautiful woman drawing him on. The eternal feminine, as Goethe put it--even if one must become separate from religion in the sense of Mephistopheles. Yes, Goethe understood. Nothing of religion and nothing of atheism but still hope as in religion even as one becomes morally questionable. But that is the task of responsibility. Not religion and not atheism. A different subject. A different day.

Nasrudin says that sometimes we must look at what we see:

Nasrudin used to take his donkey across a frontier every day, with the panniers loaded with straw. Since he admitted to being a smuggler when he trudged home every night, the frontier guards searched him again and again. They searched his person, sifted the straw, steeped it in water, even burned it from time to time. Meanwhile he was becoming visibly more and more prosperous.

Then he retired and went to live in another country. Here one of the customs offices met him, years later.

“You can tell me now, Nasrudin,” he said. “Whatever was it that you were smuggling, when we could never catch you out?”

“Donkeys,” said Nasrudin.

Schaum,

Just skimmed Susan's new essay, in which the A word (altruism) figures. Hope its posted soon.

At this rate, the bishops will keel over before OnFaith takes up the next question.

Hi Colon,

I posted this to you yesterday, but you may not have seen it, so here it is again. I've added a PS, since I've read your post to Pamsm.
----------------------------
So, you are originally from Wales! I have always dreamed of going there, envisioned it as the most romantic of places, the land of Llewellyn, of Y Ddraig Goch!

You have travelled far, Colin! I, too, have been to India, twice, in fact, but neither time did I have enough days to give that amazing land. Nor was I adopted by a family in Rajasthan. Of this, you must tell us more, some time.

What impelled your travels to lands far off? Curiosity? Wonderlust? Something else?

Jihadist, now, I wish she would return. Malaysia is just a virtual hop, skip, and a jump from wherever the rest of us are.

You must have visited Ireland, Scotland, too, no? Have you been to the US?

One day, you must go to IRan. There is almost no point in my trying to tell you what you will see. Maybe, you could google Shiraz. Also, you must go to Pakistan, to Lahore, if you go back to India.

Farnaz

PS. I envy you your desert slumber, though, maybe not your camel ride! One of my favorite trips was across the United States. We traveled from Brooklyn to California. I was stunned by the changes in topography, accent, dialect, culture, etc.
New Mexico is one of the most beautiful places I have ever seen.

I would fear making this trip today, dread homogenization. A good friend of mine wedded to an Egyptian-American, travelled with him to Egypt to meet his family. They drove for miles along a desert highway until they finally reached a gas station, alongside of which stood a KFC.

Persiflage

Like David Waters, I am a Methodist. I was born to very religious and kind parents and raised up in a Methodist tradition. Unlike so many of my Catholic friends, I have never felt alienated from my religious heritage.

The Mehodist Church is a child of the Anglican Church, which was the English Catholic Church, created by Henry VIII.

The Methodist Church came into being about the same time as the United States, and so it has, as part of its character, some basic principles of demmocracy, which are lacking in the Catholic Church.

The Methodist Church is organized into local conferences, which meet once a year. These are collected into general conferences, and at the top is the World Conference. There is no single spiritual leader at the top.

The various conferences issue position papers on many topics, but they are considered the opinions of the people or groups that wrote them, and not required dogma, that we are required to believe. I find many of the positions of the conferences to be subtle and reasonable.

In the Methodist Church, there is freedom of speech. A person is free to express his doubts and his questioning of traditional belief. Discussion of many opinions and points of view is permitted, and even encouraged. There is no such thing as heresy, apostasy, nor of excomminication.

The Methodist Church borrows many traditional forms from the Catholic Church, but it is more flexible, without a topdown sense of what is required belief. I have never met a Methodist who hates the Methodist Church.

I have internal difficulies resloving my religeous beliefs, but I do not feel in conflict with my own religious heritage. So, for that, I have it alot easier than Catholics.

DILTD - I interpret metanoia specifically to mean a religious epiphany or spiritual awakening, but I don't see that it's really any different from an intuitive hunch that leads to scientific breakthroughs.

My idea of intuition is - arriving at an immediate (and true) pre-cognitive insight without employing logical processes. The truth arrived at seems to be directly pertaining to the focus of a concentrated mental effort, although sometimes only after a considerable delay.

Intuition and imagination are close relatives - Einstein was said to have employed mental imagery and imaginative techniques/visualizations in order to test out his hypotheses on relativity.

Curious that intuition has always been the universal road to spiritual/noumenal experience employed by mystics through the ages!

Persiflage

Persiflage

You mentioned "intuition."

Most people have the wrong idea about science and about scientists. They think that the scientist works in a lab, building step by logical step, an edifice of scientific knowledge.

But often, new scientific thinking comes by mysterious insight, intuition, from a part of the brain that is not "thinking" logically. Then later, the logical part of the brain puts together all of the logic that supports the insight.

Remember Archimedes and his exclamation "eureka?" He suddenly knew tha answer. I call this sudden realization of something formerly unknown "metanoia."

This happened to Isaac Newton. It happened to Charles Darwin. It happened to Albert Einstein.

It is a quality of human intelligence and consciousness that "sees" the answers to so many questions in intuitive and mysterious insight which turns out to be true.

We have a consciousness of the world, that we use instinctively to guide us through the landscape of the world. Without any additonal "scientifc" knowlege, we navigate in a utilitarian way, in a flat world that each of us feels is centered around ourselves. All that we know of the world is how it seems or looks at any given moment,

Yet, by science, we perceive impressions of order, and in these impressions of order, we notice patterns. These patterns are the "reproducibility of results" that we have all heard tell of in science.

Some people collect these patterns into "laws of science" or of nature. Some people consider the "existence" of these laws and infer an "intelligent designer" of the universe.

But these laws have no definable reality; they are only philosophical constructs to describe science, which does not need any philosophical explanation to operate effectively.

Science is not really a collection of knowledge; it is the consensus of scientific opinion. We do not each experience all of the scientific experiments that define modern scientific consensus. We are simply aware of science, and we are aware of scientific consensus. We are each free to agree with scientific consensus or to disagree with it.

That is why so many people do not believe in evolution, because they believe that there is some other knowledge about creation that supercedes scientific consensus on evolution.

Therefore, knowing things, understanding truth is not so easy, and is not simply a matter of doing the science. It is an art, that requires effort and cultivation, in knowing what science is, and in knowing how much scientific consensus is enough to find something believable and real.

AS we navigate through the landscape of our lives, we gather up chunks of knowledge, and seek to arrange them in a way that gives a good, clear, and satisfactory view of the world. There is an art to arranging these chunks of knowledge in the most pleasing, and hopefully in the best way.

Some people are good at it; others are not so good. Some people cannot do it themselve, but admire this quality in others. Many people, do not care at all, and they have little to show in the way of knowledge of the world.

Knowing how to know is a complex art, that requires some degree of innate talent and alot of work. It is hard to blame people for a lack of knowledge and understanding, since it is so hard to come by and there are so many ways to go wrong.

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Onofrio; Persiflage; Schaum; Other wordsmiths.

You should click the link to The Times UK and enter this competition.

Times Online Faith Central blog
Faith Central - Times Online - WBLG

November 23, 2009
Competition: Can you tweet Darwin?

http://timesonline.typepad.com/faith/2009/11/competition-can-you-tweet-darwin.html

Bess writes: How d’ya tweet Darwin? Or more specifically On the Origin of Species?
If you are up for a challenge,Theos, the public theology think tank has launched a competition asking people to sum up Darwin’s 600-page oeuvre in a 140-word tweet.

It’s to mark the 150th anniversary of its publication tomorrow and to kickstart you, Theos offer the following

By random variation, I am a monkey too stupid to find bananas. Oh dear.

The weak will die. The strong will survive. As simple as that.

The winner will be announced at the end of November and will receive a copy of Darwin and God by Nick Spencer, an invitation to the play Mr Darwin’s Tree and a copy of four Theos reports on the project Rescuing Darwin.

Posted by Bess Twiston-Davies on November 23, 2009 at 04:42 PM | Permalink | Post to Twitter Bookmark and Share
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DITLD - Perhaps what you're missing is a trip to the imaginal realm, unencumbered by the laws of time and space!

http://www.collectivewisdominitiative.org/papers/frenier_imaginal.htm

I believe that the purpose of our consciousness is to navigate our way through the local landscape in which we find ourselves. It so happens, that with this conscsiousness we have been able to figure out an awful lot of things.

We imagine other planets, with landscapes analogous to our own landscape here on earth. And we think of atoms, as little solar systems, again, landscapes analogous to our local existence. Notice, the word here is "analogoud" not "similar."

But our consciousness is not designed for any other kind of knowledge, than the knowledge of our own landscape, that which we encounter in life.

It is not so hard for me to imagine such a state of affairs, that what is most close to home, I understand best, and what is further and further away, I understand less and less, until there is a point, that is so far away, that I cannot even conceive nor imaginge what it might be that I do not know and am missing.

I do not know what I am missing; I just know that I am missing something.

Colinnicholas - here's a different approach to the OBE. Susan Blackmore links the out of body experience with lucid dreams, and maintains that the OBE is in fact a type of lucid dream, rather than a projection of the 'astral' body.

In any event, our consciousness/unconsciousness is a remarkable force that is none other than us - although most of us actually know very little about it, despite consciousness (you and me) experiencing itself almost continuously.

Freud notwithstanding, ego is not all of us, by any means! In fact, no one has yet located an actual ego, although we all know that we have one - without any doubt.

http://sawka.com/spiritwatch/luciddreams.htm

Persiflage

Persiflege; thanks for the link.

I read whole chunks of it and must admit it makes you think. You never know. But I've also read much debunking of ODE. I kept the link for future perusal. It IS interesting.

Colinnicholas - here's a research article on near-death experiences in cardiac patients. Reading through this will give you substantial background in how similar research is and has been conducted on this topic elsewhere. I venture to say that most researchers in this area are as non-theistic as a majority of scientists in every other field.

Quite falsely, I think many folks assume that surviving death is universally desired, although some kind of afterlife concept is built into the fabric of every religion. You are conclusive proof that this hope is not by any means embedded in our DNA!

It seems clear that a non-religious and/or atheistic position in the USA and elsewhere is generally coupled with the presumption of finality at the moment of death - this is of course quite correct, if sentient life is animated, pure biodegradable matter, and nothing more.

There are many problems with this assumption and the as yet unresolved nature of consciousness, however. Anyway, you may enjoy this article.....

http://profezie3m.altervista.org/archivio/TheLancet_NDE.htm

Colinnicholas:

"That death happens but the energy lives on?"

That is what I fear. I have no wish for eternal life. I'm just afraid that, as energy, I may have no choice!

Schaum;

Thinking about it over lunch - one difficulty can be what happens to one's personal I.D. And then "what IS one's personal I.D. And where did it come from in the first place this self, this selfness? And where does it go when one dies? Presumably it dies too.
A science-fiction writer might work out an idea that on death our I.D. turns into an ant, and that that's what ants are; ex-people, or Souls if you like. Personally I don't like. But is your concept anything like that? That death happens but the energy lives on?

Schaum;

You write
"...its not that I believe in life after death so much as I suspect there is really no death at all. Human life, like all sentient life, is a form of energy. We know that energy cannot be destroyed, only changed. I am assuming that to be true also of the energy that we call "life". I guess I'm saying I think life is a survivable event."

Interesting. Any literature on this? Is this about quantum mechanics? Not that I'm terribly interested. I was kinda looking forward to death. Don't take that away from me. I've earned it.

DILTD,

Thanks for your response. We are certainly in agreement in most ways!

Unarguabley, consciousness is the limit, but also the door, to further knowledge in the foreseeable future. My own search has to do with how the processes of intuition become conscious knowledge.

In a very real sense, the human imagination is what makes the world go round, sends protons through colliders, etc. The universe is information and energy-based, and we can at least say that much with a degree of certainty. However, that is essentially pure metaphysics...

I think Schaum has a good operational concept in the idea of clarity - which in my view is seeing the world as it actually is. I've found that meditators also use this terminology when referring to unobstructed perception.

This is much harder than it sounds, since self-consciousness, learning, conceptual knowledge, preconceived notions, and beliefs all keep this from occurring. I think this is where 'looking through a glass darkly' comes in to play!

And with a nod to Colinnicholas, from my own personal vantage point, death may very well be a survivable experience - there is considerable anecdotal information to support this possibility, although material pragmatists will waste no time in writing this off as delusional nonsense!

But as you point out, beliefs really don't matter in the end, and should be discarded at every opportunity! Clarity is what counts.

regards, Persiflage

"We are all atheists about most of the gods that humanity has ever believed in. Some of us just go one god further" --- Richard Dawkins

Ultimately, what this means is that an atheist doesn't believe in the existence of any gods at all. Not the Roman ones. Not the Greek ones. Not the judeochrislamic one. I'm guessing that we're all in agreement about the first two groups. It's the last one that generates conversation.

While there are ramifications for such a belief (or, more accurately, a lack of belief), they are not debilitating in any way, shape or form. Atheists know the existence of God cannot be proven. But the reality is that an atheist's life is not shaped in any meaningful way by this knowledge. Atheists go through their days being decent, moral and upstanding people, just as theists do. They are charitable. They seek to ensure that justice is done. If actions were the only criteria, it would be difficult to distinguish a theist from an atheist on a day-to-day basis.

However, if you search hard enough, you will find a way to distinguish between the two groups. In general, atheists are willing to concede a current lack of knowledge about some fundamental questions. "Where did we come from" is the canonical form, but this really just boils down to a question of how the universe started. What happened before the big bang? If the energy for the big bang already existed, where did it come from? To an atheist, the answer is "we don't know now and we may never know". To a theist, the answer is "God". And while this is a big difference when debating philosophy and metaphysics, it is a small difference as we live our respective lives.

Deacon Dan12 suggests that atheists have a belief in 'science' or that science is their religion. But we have the same belief in science that everyone else does. The cornerstone of science is that it makes predictions and the results are reproducible. Everyone lives his life making these same assumptions. I expect gravity to continue to hold me on the ground. I don't expect my hand to suddenly pass through solid objects. This consistency is the same foundation on which science is based.

But, unlike sacred scriptures, science is also open to change. The change might be slow in coming, but science does have the ability to correct itself. To find a better model for reality. Because science doesn't hold itself as being the 'truth', only the 'best, current' model for the reality that we experience. So if you think that atheists believe in science, it is really that we believe in the process *behind* science.

Colinnicholas:

"I have never, though, met an atheist who believed in an afterlife."

Well, now you have! Actually, its not that I believe in life after death so much as I suspect there is really no death at all. Human life, like all sentient life, is a form of energy. We know that energy cannot be destroyed, only changed. I am assuming that to be true also of the energy that we call "life". I guess I'm saying I think life is a survivable event.

Persiflage

I said:

"Trying to figure out why science works is not science; it is philosophy, that science can do without."

That sounds a little more harsh than I intended. My point is that science exists as an intellctual pursuit that is different and separate from philosophy. That does not mean that I also am not interested in speculations on why science works; I am. But such speculation is not science. Many people, Daniel12 for example, get this confused.

I am also familiar with your comments on quantum mechanics. To me, this kind of science approaches the boundaries of our capcity to understand. I do believe that there is a limit to human capacity to understand aspects of the universe, which nevertheless do exist and do operate. In fact, I believe that by the nature of our consciousness, we are blocked from perceiving and therefore knowing what is going on "out there." The purpose or reason for all of this is locked away from us, and we can never know. This is so by the very nature of the universe, and the way in which our consciousness operates in it.

I believe in "Providence" which one could say is like believing in God, although I am not sure. I believe that Providence
"decides" alot of things for us with the illusion of free will.

I do not think that I defend atheists; I merely point out that people believe or they don't believe, according to an inner will which they cannot control.

In fact, the whole idea of "belief" or "non-belief" is a little silly, isn't it? That is what I am really trying to point out. We are all more or less in the same boat, aren't we?

Susan's right, we need to stop funneling money through faith-based initiatives. After all, Councilman-for-life Barry can make sure the money is spent much more prudently!

Susan, just because an aid group is religious in nature does not mean it's jamming its views down its patrons' throats. I worked in a D.C. shelter this summer, and but for researching it online and knowing that the female director was a Reverend, one wouldn't know that the place had religious affiliation. It was just an establishment where people tried their best to help those who couldn't yet help themselves.

Now the joke is really on me - I read through the entirety of my link, and now find this is a faith-based effort to tie quantum mechanics to theism!

Well, there is some pretty good stuff there, right up to the conclusion part :^)

It's relatively painless to fall on your own sword......

Schaum;

I agree with your excellent explanation of what constitutes an atheist.

I have never, though, met an atheist who believed in an afterlife. Atheists that I know believe that death is death, for us as well as for all living things.

I'm obviously missing something.

Sorry the the imcomplete post - was supposed to have been expunged but was not! Never made it to the waste basket.

'Once again, science, in the most basic sense of the word, is not philsophy, not even close, and it is not religion. Trying to figure out why science works is not science; it is philosophy, that science can do without.

DILTD - well, I couldn't disagree more. No one is confusing the scientific method with philosophy - but metaphyics is not exactly philosophy either. In my view, metaphysics operates at a theoretical level, and very often leads to new discoveries at a foundational level. You would have to read through the links to develop an argument to the contrary.

Quantum mechanics as an example is full of seeming contradictions. For example, there seems to be no discernable 'material' basis for the material world, other than 'forces and relationships between those forces'. Particles are not things.

And yet, physicists are using protons to establish exactly why and how matter has mass - no one currently has an answer, thus we have the theoretical Higgs boson and the large haldron collider in Geneva....hoping to somehow establish exactly how the things of the material world manage to exist.

I'd say there is a direct relationship between the logical positivism and reductionism of the scientific method the (theoretical) metaphysics that leads the way to new discoveries.

The link below discusses metaphysics and quantum mechanics at some length.

BTW, you have spoken about your own status as a non-atheist. Are you a religious person? I'm curious, because you speak frequently in defense of atheism without apparently being a member of the club!

http://www.reasons.org/resources/non-staff-papers/the-metaphysics-of-quantum-mechanics

Persiflage

DILTD - no one is confusing the scientific method with the philosophy of science.

For example, a good many scientists don't wonder overly much about the substantial foundations of the 'material' world, since a goodly number are logical positivists by default.

On the other hand, at the quantum level, there seems to be no discernable physicality to our material world at the atomic/sub-atomic levels other than forces and relationships between said forces.

Nor is there currently any proven basis for 'mass' in the physical universe - thus we have the proposed Higgs boson and the large hadron collider in Geneva, in order to test this theorem.

From these mysteries and many others comes the philosophy of science, and the metaphysics of science. It's fair to say that the general and special theories of relativity and

Atheists demand the right to live free of mythology, imposed superstitions and dogma. Atheists are generally able to think for themselves without needing groups, meetings or websites to tell them what to think. Like all human beings atheists like to gather with like-minded individuals, and this can be difficult, in countries such as the USA which has relatively few atheists, although according to the http://www.atheists.org/ website there are more atheists in America than Buddhists, Hindus, Jews and Muslims combined.

Atheists have served in the military proudly and with distinction for as long as there has been a military. Freedom of thought and of being are of great importance to atheists. Freedom and democracy are essential values for atheists.

Atheists tend to be supportive of individual civil rights and liberties. They live, love, and raise children with the moral values of honesty, loyalty, integrity… just like anyone else. They simply reject the idea of a skygod looking down upon us and manipulating our lives according to a pre-conceived master plan! Many atheists believe in an afterlife, in the concept of “soul,” and most believe in the idea that all elements of the universe, including ourselves, are interconnected. And most atheists believe that, ultimately, everything can be and is explained by evolution and other branches of science. Science searches for truth. Corporate religion does not. It looks for ways to control.

There is a very good reason that courts in the United States don't release convicts upon their acceptance of Jesus, or Buddha, or Mohammed into their lives. That reason is because it makes no difference. If anything, Christians and other “believers” "sin" MORE than Atheists, If atheists are without morals and values, why do Catholics, Muslims, Jews, and even Buddhists outnumber them in US prisons (according to the Federal Bureau of Prisons)?

Atheists believe in forgiveness, but there are limits. Atheists believe in not doing wrong the first time around. Atheists believe that forgiveness can only be attained after the damage for their wrongdoing has been undone. And most of all, atheists don't believe that one can accept the punishment for another's wrongdoing, even by the superstitious blood-sacrifice of the “son of god”.

Science is not a philosophy and does not depend on any philosophy to work. The metaphysics of science is not science.

Over a period of time, various philosophical attitudes have arisen to describe, explain, or understand how science works, or why it works. These are all considerations about science. Yet science is the same, no matter which philosophy about science happens to be in vogue.

Therefore, science is a pursuit of human interest, separate and different from religion and from philosophy.

Science exploits the discernability of the universe. This says something about the basic nature of things and about human consciousness. For us to be at all, demonstrates some obvious order to the universe. And that we can perceive this order that caused us to be is merely verification.

Science is merely the gradual discernment of all that enabled us to be. Nothing in science is "new" for all the order of the universe that science discerns was already extant; the discoveries of science are only "new" to our consciousness.

I cannot comprehend Daniel12's ideas on science. Science does not require any kind of hope, or faith, or belief, at least, not in any kind of religious sense.

There is no sense in science that "things will always be better, and man will be better and more moral" because of it.

Of course, if science enables people to do more things faster and better, than why not take advantage of these benefits? But science is also responsible for nuclear weapons and overpopulation, for pollution, and global warming.

Once again, science, in the most basic sense of the word, is not philsophy, not even close, and it is not religion. Trying to figure out why science works is not science; it is philosophy, that science can do without.

Schaum

I'm still inclined to think that deep down it's himself that D12 is trying to convince. He's trying to justify his faith in the unreal. Faith is easy when all around you think the same way. Here we don't think like him, and this bothers him no end. It questions his faith. He has to reconcile this situation by attacking us and convincing himself that we are the ones who have it wrong. We might say he's even scared to fail at this.

The millions of words he keeps throwing at us in his panic tells me he's really scared. It's no fun for him. He can't let himself lose.

Persiflage:

"Daniel12 is of course dead wrong about nearly everything he opines with regard to atheism - knows virtually nothing about it"

Deacon Dan’s tactics are direct and uncomplicated - he smothers the opposition with his ponderous, pointless, disturbed, illogical, repetitive, uninformed and lengthy “thoughts”. He believes if he merely repeats his lunacies often enough, and at great enough length, they will become true, accepted and honored. Such is his delusion. He is seriously confused. And confusion is the stuff of evil. Clarity eludes him. The fog of his desperate neediness surrounds him – the result of his Roman Catholic Corporation training.

Have you seen these:
http://redwing.hutman.net/~mreed/warriorshtm/acne.htm

Morning Pamsm.

Just caught you comment re camels.
There were no stirupps on the camel I rode.
My legs just dangled there. It was like sitting astride a wobbling beer barrel. After an hour or two I couldn't move my legs.I couldn't do anything with them. I was also concerned about sliding off. It was my sixtieth birthday for Christ sake. While I was running 5 miles a day, I had never bothered with stretching.
That's why it was hell.
Sleeping in the desert was wonderful. just a blanket on the sand, and a few blankets on top. At night the silver grey sky reached down to the sand and the stars sparkled like diamonds all around us. I'd never seen a sky like that.

I would love to have seen Egypt and the Pyramids. Who was that wonderful Egyptian writer, oh yes, Naguib Mahfouz. His Sugar Street trilogy was wonderful.Did you ever read him?
I'm sure you have traveled much more than I have, working for an airline as you did. One of the great rewards of traveling is it stays with you forever afterwards, and can be relived at any time.

Here's just one example of a work on the metaphysics of science - dedicated to our good friend Onofrio! There are of course many other (metaphysical) points of view among scientists.

http://www.philosophy.unimelb.edu.au/research/events/09/metaphysics-of-science/Brian'sConferenceStatement.pdf

Daniel12

Science is not a philosophy or a religion. It is a methodolgy of investigation and study and a collection of the results of this practice. Sometimes religious people oppose science, but science does not oppose religion. Science does not depend on anything outside of science to work.

If someone does not believe in God, then the implications for such belief is irrelevant.

Aheists do not necessarily seek the eliminaiton of religion. Some do, and some don't. Science does not depend of faith that the universe is discernible. Science exploits the fact of discernability in order to operate. Science does not promote any philosophy of progress of man.

Aheisim does not say there is nothing behind existence; it is the lack of belief in God. If you, as a religious person, believes that God is EVERYTHING, then you could misinterpret atheism. But you would be wrong, in projecting your own beliefs about what atheists believe.

Science does not discern laws; it dicerns patterns of order. It does not follow that science promotes "things getting better" and people becomeing "more reasonable and more moral."

Ref. Atheism - There's much discussion here about what atheists believe and don't believe.

Atheism is absent a belief in God or gods and that is all. Some atheists are otherwise religious, and many are not. Atheism is often very much culturally imbedded, just as atheism is not by any means exclusively a Western world phenomenon!

Beyond that commonality, atheists as individuals and as groups may subscribe to or be open to, all kinds of metaphysical possibilities - this has always been the case, historically speaking.

Every belief system is founded on metaphysical assumptions, including science. What atheists are generally in accord with, is the presumption that there is much more yet to discover, and much that is unknown.

Religious belief tends to be fixed and rigid, and lacking all movement or change -particularly theistic faiths. Why is this to be desired? Emotional security......

Daniel12 is of course dead wrong about nearly everything he opines with regard to atheism - knows virtually nothing about it because he's never taken an interest in the diversity of non-theist thought that exists apart from science. Science is only one branch of human knowledge.

He's just another victim of preconceived notions and a thoroughly conditioned Catholicism, despite all the compulsive reading. Digging deeply into one topic and achieving a certain level of mastery is much to be preferred, and tends to moderate one's viewpoint on other less explored topics - in the case of Daniel12, that foreign territory would be the deep well that is atheism.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atheism

Part one.

Atheism was once extremely useful. It without question served science. Atheists in stating there is no God made no real examination of their very atheism, but this was not a grave problem. The positive effects were clearly evident: Clear the ground of so many assertions and start fresh by going from evidence and discerning connections. Even all the often correct criticisms of atheism by non-atheists had no real effect when atheism was so necessary--yes, necessary.

But now it is evident atheism no longer serves science. For all elimination of religion and celebration of science by atheists in the past, science in the past depended on faith, even if only faith that the universe is discernible, that progress will occur, that man will be more respectful of fellow man.

Atheism now kills the faith in science. It now can be seen that atheism was not born by science but was a metaphysical view which aided the birth of science. Now this metaphysical view conflicts with science. Atheism ruins faith in everything because it says there is nothing behind existence. Atheism can now be seen to be nothing more than a pessimistic assertion.

Part two.

It was once a ground clearing assertion and an aid to science but now it is merely pessimism and far from having science behind it it works against science, against the belief that the universe is intelligible, that man can continue in the project of discerning laws, that things can get better, people more reasonable and moral.

What will occur is that religion will continue to decline--but in this decline atheism will be rigorously studied. And something of a middle course will be taken. Religion declining, yes, but faith not dying. Faith will be purified and be the hope that the universe will continue to offer its secrets, that life can get better, the man can become more moral and intelligent. And atheism will no longer be a view against religion--because religion will have declined--but be a view against the purified faith mentioned. Against this purified view of faith because atheism holds that there is nothing behind existence, that all is fundamentally accident, that man fundamentally cannot discern scientific laws, that eventually things will get worse, that there is a limit to progress, morality, intelligence. And of course when that day comes atheism will be tossed out. No longer necessary. In fact a nuisance, pessimism and nothing more. And man will be purely scientific but with a faith which is a nod to religion--a faith in the continued scientific pursuit. And not a little thanksgiving.

Onofrio,

May said opus be magnum! Sounds fascinating--would love to know more!

'Tis long past the witching hour here. Thus far, none have entered our humble abode. Ah, well. Maybe tomorrow.

'Night, Austral friend.

"And camels. I rode one for two and a half days. When I got off I could hardly walk. It was hell. I never want to see another camel."

Yes, they're a very different ride from horses, aren't they? They have a two-beat gait - pacing rather than trotting. While it's smoother than a trot, the side-to-side roll is disconcerting. Makes one a bit sea-sick. The kneeling part takes some getting used to, as well.

When I went to see the pyramids, I opted for a horse, even though the Egyptian ones are poorly bred little scrubs with pasterns and shoulders so straight that every footfall is jarring. At least they moved in a familiar way. :)

Farnaz,

Said opus is on a corpus of Ramesside (c.1200 BC) funerary texts known as the Book of Caverns.

Lotsa perichoresis, incognito divinity, and proto-hell...and even a spot of cryptography.

Colin N, thank you, good sir. And rest you. May you not dream of dromedaries :^)

I would love to go to the places you've been, especially India.

Goodnight, Colin.

Onofrio, good luck with "nilothesis." Neilos nurtures narration nimble.

Talk to you later Farnaz.

Onofrio; Good stuff. Really good.

Hi Onofrio,

Are you writing an article, then? What is the topic?

Hi Farnaz,

What synchronous nous. Austral doggerelist barks just as Persis halloos Iberian.

I've been busy with a minor nilothesis, paying my dues to academe.

What will it prove? That I am a pedantic wretch, certes, though not, alas, a very saucy one.

Viva useless erudition! :^)

Dan de Lion v Dan le Douze

thy duelling fuels my dualist blues.

More power to him in feline plight

against dodecadent jeenyus' blight.

D12,

Take a road trip cross country. "nuf said.

Farnaz

... gasp ... sniffle ... snort ... I'm done.

Hi Onofrio,

Long time, no verse! Qué pasa, hombre?

Farnaz :0

Daniel 12

Scientist do not practice science so that they can uncover more and more stuff about how the world works; scientist practice science because it is their job and they do their jobs, perhaps with a greater sense of purpose and fulfillment than most, but essentially in the same way as everyone else, and for the same reasons, to earn money, to buy food, to pay the mortgage, and most important of all, to have something to do.

You think that if a person does not believe in God, then maybe they will think that nothing has any purpose, so they will just sit in a chair motionless and stare, for several decades, until they die, paralyzed with the fear of life without God.

But that is not how human beings operate. Human beings are "activated, motivated" organims, whose minds are filled up with information derived from the culture of the place and time in which they were born, and whose personalities form by processes as mysterious as all the rest of existence. People exist, and they do things.

Belief about the nature of this existence does not change that. For all is speculation, and each speculates from a different point of view, and with a cultural and personal experience that is different.

All we know for sure of existence is that we are products of it, and that we are able to perceive from it impressions of order. If you think that means that there must be a God, then fine. But not everybody thinks that.

Daniel 12

Religious people say that there is an absolute measure of good and evil. But that is merely their opinion, and their speculation, which does not make it necessarily true. But this belief makes it easier for them, in some ways, to navigatge life, or so they seem to think.

Religion, in a way, is a method of calming the restless and unpeaceful heart. For some people it seems to work. But there are many religious people who are absolute wrecks, and for whom this interest and belief does not offer any rest.

You are making a sharp distinction between the very human nature of a religious person and an atheistic person, where, really, no such distinction exists.

Daniel 12

Christians and Moslems believe in God and they believe in Heaven and Paradise and life after death. Atheists do not believe in any of these things. But Christians and Moslems do share in common with atheists, fear of the unmade future and of death. Christians and Moslems fear death, and cry at their loved ones' funerals with an intensity that cannot be distinguished from the grief of an aheist, even though they say they believe.

And it is because, to all of us, religious and atheistic alike, life is an existential mystery, and death is not any the easier for people going to church or mosque and praying to God as you think it seems to be.

Neither you, nor anyone needs to wonder if the universe is intelligible; it is. But atheism is not a comment on that; it is a comment on traditional characterizations of God, which atheists say they do not believe.

Daniel 12

Have you ever heard of Existentialism? Have you ever heard of existentialist grit? Have you ever read Albert Camus or Simone de Beauvoir? Why not try them on, for size.

I would say that most atheists don't think of all the things you are "accusing" them of thinking of.

Colin,

So, you are originally from Wales! I have always dreamed of going there, envisioned it as the most romantic of places, the land of Llewellyn, of Y Ddraig Goch!

You have travelled far, Colin! I, too, have been to India, twice, in fact, but neither time did I have enough days to give that amazing land. Nor was I adopted by a family in Rajasthan. Of this, you must tell us more, some time.

What impelled your travels to lands far off? Curiosity? Wonderlust? Something else?

Jihadist, now, I wish she would return. Malaysia is just a virtual hop, skip, and a jump from wherever the rest of us are.

You must have visited Ireland, Scotland, too, no? Have you been to the US?

One day, you must go to IRan. There is almost no point in my trying to tell you what you will see. Maybe, you could google Shiraz. Also, you must go to Pakistan, to Lahore, if you go back to India.

Farnaz

Daniel12,

Be of good cheer; you are close to the kingdom of HUFFin.

Daniel 12.

Yes! I see it all now. Of course! Thank you. You have proved to my satisfaction that there really is a God. O Rejoice!! I BELIEVE.
Thanks again Daniel 12.

Now leave me alone.

Farnaz;

I'm British Farnaz, from Wales, and lived much of my younger years in London where I also went to school.
I moved to Western Canada in the mid sixties, and have lived here ever since.
Yes I travelled across and up and down India about 15 years ago, and I've spent time in Borneo, and traveled through Sumatra, and Malaysia (where Jihadist came from), and spent a week in Laos and three in Cambodia.
In India a family adopted me and took me home with them. It was 10 days before I was able to get away. They were beautiful people. I choke up just remembering them. That was in Rajasthan, the magnificent province of desert castles and mountain fortresses, and dazzling turbans. And camels. I rode one for two and a half days. When I got off I could hardly walk. It was hell. I never want to see another camel.

I'd like to see the Middle East one day. But maybe I'll leave that 'til I'm a bit older.

Cheers Farnaz.

ColinNicholas,

I posted a reply to you (see below D12's tome), but I see I overlooked your mention that you are British. Does this mean that you did not always live in BC?

Part one.

Fine Colin Nicholas, you believe God does not exist. Now why is it I have to state over and over that if you believe God does not exist then you do not believe in the qualities people attribute to God--namely omniscience, etc. If you do not believe in God then you believe in a world with no intelligence behind things, no ultimate good. This means you believe life is ultimately futile. That is the logical consequence of atheism. But you atheists do not have the courage to admit such.

You atheists keep talking as if not believing in God does not result in any negative consequences. But not believing in God does result in negative consequences. It means for all progress the human race is doomed to fail--because there is nothing behind the universe. And why people will reject atheism--atheism honestly thought through--is because people do have faith things can get better. They do not have to be religious fundamentalists to do such, they just have to believe life is not ultimately meaningless. Even the vast majority of atheists have faith things can get better. They contradict themselves. On one hand they say there is no God--which means nothing intelligent or good behind things--then on the other hand they say life can get better. And if they happen to be scientists they keep working to discover the laws behind the universe--they believe the universe is intelligible.

The fact is most atheists lack the courage to examine their own position let alone admit the results of this examination. They enjoy much more framing religion in the simplest and most caricatured fashion so they appear logically perfect.They say things like "there have been thousands of Gods and no one believes in them anymore so why should we believe in God today?" But that misses the point that one can call God duck and it makes little difference. What people mean by God is something fundamentally intelligible behind things, something good as well. And that belief will never die for the simple reason that if it does then the human race has essentially given up. But people will continue to have faith. Religious or not it is faith and not atheism. Atheism is just a form of pessimism and nothing more. Or rather it is pessimism. Supposing one honestly examines this position and does not try to dodge the consequences of it like atheists so often do in conversation.

Part two.

Atheism honestly considered means believing there is no hope ultimately for man--because one eliminates everything behind the universe that might give hope. And yes Colin atheism is elimination. It is a rejection and that is elimination. Fortunately few atheists really believe in their position. Fortunately most atheists for all this talk of no God act exactly as if man is not in a hopeless situation. Fortunately most atheists have faith even if they insist it is not religious. But it is faith and that is more akin to religion than it will ever be toward atheism. Which is it friend, do you have faith things can get better or not? If not then you are an atheist. But do not expect people to follow you. But if you start talking about how we should move to greater reason and away from religion and that we can be moral without God--then one is essentially contradicting the position of atheism. One is stating an article of faith with respect to these beliefs. And that is not atheism.

Again, atheism honestly considered means fundamentally no hope for man. Therefore one cannot be an atheist and say such things as we should move toward greater reason and that we can be moral without God. Stating such things is identical to stating there is hope for man. That man can develop further in all respects. That the future is not hopeless. Stating such things is identical to stating a hope in God whether one wants to admit it or not. One is stating there is not just nothing behind things. Life is not futile. I hope that makes things clearer for you.

Hi ColinNicholas,

LOL! Yes, many people think Farnaz is a man's name. Thanks very much for your kind words. Actually, I'm a few years shy of forty, and not nearly as well traveled as I hope to be.

I spent a few minutes researching your province. How beautiful it is! And blessed with such ethnic diversity!

I would so much like to visit one day! Have you lived in BC all your life? Have you traveled much? Have you ever been to the US?

Hi Farnaz;

Cute post. Well, I always thought of you as a forty or fiftyish male academic, great with words, well travelled and very smart. It was a bit of a shock when I read that you were a woman. I still have trouble with that - maybe it's the name.

Me.I'm an old man. 75. Retired British social worker/mental heath worker, living happily in British Columbia. I chuckle that I came across as a hip Latino from NY. Hilarious.

Thanks for that.

Phil_Atio:

Re: Your post

I'd add that the current laws amount to taxation without representation, particularly where faith-based funding is concerned.

Btw., Phil, I find your name most interesting. Italian, is it? Well, as you know, the Italians cherish personal freedom, value antinomianism, and cook better than most.

That should be Schaum's advice.

"To Pam from Daniel. Do you believe tomorrow is going to be a better day, that science will continue to make the universe intelligible?"

OK, Daniel, last time I'm getting sucked in to a "conversation" with you. After this, I'm taking Schaum'a advice.

No, I don't think that tomorrow will be a better day. I don't see any future for humanity that includes nothing but improvement. For every thing we've made better, we've f__d up something else.

I think the best we can hope for is stasis.

Per Kenneth Boulding:

"The Dismal Theorem: If the only check on the growth of population is misery, then the population will grow until it is miserable enough to stop its growth."

"The Utterly Dismal Theorem: Any technical improvement can only relieve misery for a while, for so long as misery is the only check on population, the [technical] improvement will enable population to grow, and will soon enable more people to live in misery than before. The final result of [technical] improvements, therefore, is to increase the equilibrium population which is to increase the sum total of human misery."

"The Moderately Cheerful Form of the Dismal Theorem: If something else, other than misery and starvation, can be found which will keep a prosperous population in check, the population does not have to grow until it is miserable and starves, and it can be stably prosperous."

Hi ColinNicholas,

Great posts as always! I was hoping your prose would reappear on this thread.

A personal digression: When you originally posted as Yoyo, I envisioned you as a highly educated, forty-something New York Latina (probably, Puerto Rican).

Strange, the way we make assumptions about gender, etc., from reading one another's posts!

Colinnicholas:

Exactly. Secularism does not exist as an independent entity. Just as confusion does not exist as a separate "thing", but is rather the absence of clarity, so secularism is not a "thing" in and of itself...it is merely the absence of the "sacred" religious.

DanielIntheionsden;

As I understand it secularism refers to non-religious affairs; of the real world and not of the spiritual or the sacred or the religious. It's strictly apart from the religious.
Also, atheists don't believe in gods - ANY gods, not just "God". They assume that gods were mythical. Atheists also don't believe in a supernatural world or an after life, which naturally follows.

Cheers

Daniel 12

You keep using the verb "eliminate." You keep saying that ahteists eliminate God and secularist eliminate religion.

But, if God exists, then God cannot be eliminated. You are really referring to any political influence that belief in God has in government and society. But that is irrelevant to people who have a metaphysical curiosity about the existence of God.

Once again, as I have stated over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over again, an atheist is someone who does not believe in God. What about that don't you understand?

An atheist is not someone who eliminates God, but someone who does not believe in God. Arguing with an atheist about how bad he is to be an atheist is not going to suddenly cause him to believe in God, if he does not believe.

And what do you mean by "Secularism?" As far as I know, there is no organized "Secularism." It is a socio-economic phenomenon that merely "happens;" criticism of it cannot effect it since it has no conscioius organization, purpose, nor motives. Seculaism is really what you observe in individuals, and then collectivize in your own mind and then project back on people, assuming what you think these people think.

In that sense, "secularism" is not anything like a religions, not like Christianity nor Islam; it is just your label for a collection of people that have no practical association except in the way that you see them.

Schaum

Regarding your comments on good and evil, I have a similar opinion. Good and Evil are not real "things" and have no real existence as objects in the world, neither as formless "forces" nor "influences" nor as armies of Satan or of God. In fact, when fundamentalist religious people, either Christian or Islamic, speak of good and evil as real things in the world, around which they build all of their religious belief, I have no way of comprehending what they are getting at or what they believe.

You say that good and evil is clarity and confusion. Another way to think of good and evil the way I think of good and evil is, building up and tearing down, constructing and deconstructing, putting-together and taking-apart.

Phil_Atio:

HILARIOUS! I wish I'd thought of that name. Except I think I'd have extended the name to Archbishop_Phil_Atio!

Colinnicholas:

reanimated corpse or a mindless human being. If I recall correctly, the stories of zombies (reanimated corpses and/or mindless human beings) originated in the afro-caribbean spiritual belief system of vodou, which told of the people being controlled as laborers by a powerful sorcerer.

Sounds like a working definition for christers, and the adherents of most other religions, to me.

It was 9/11 that changed the way I felt about religion. That's when I felt that enough was enough. Religion is irrational and very very dangerous.

Schaum;

There seems to be a zombie effect I had a friend a few years back who got religion one day, and was never the same again. A bit like the movie The Invasion of The Body Snatchers, where your wife or best friend suddenly becomes one of Them, and is forever lost to you. More like brain snatchers, religion seems able to turn a sensible mind into one dependent on the religion. And I think of Jonestown. And I think of the Witch burnings. And I think of 9/11, and those 19 college educated lads who went to their deaths expecting everlasting life and virgins for all.

Despite their educations, they fell for this ancient and despicable martyrdom scam, and slaughtered thousands. Their religion turned them into zombies. I see Evangelicals and Catholics this way too, zombies lost to common sense and reality.

OUT OF SEQUENCE!

Part 6

Why should the labor of a person working eight hours a day be taxed, while a preacher is allowed to avoid taxation in many area? Why should there be a tax for the general public, but not for those engaged in the production (or fabrication) of a religious ideology? Is the enterprise of corporate religion any better or more useful to society than an individual who thinks about existence from a philosophical and rational perspective? I think not. There is no such thing as an aristocracy of thought or complete agreement on any conception. Religion in all its many forms, does not have the exclusive answers to the complexity of existence. Its reliance on mystical incomprehension and the miraculous is rooted in the dreams and desires of primitive man.

Taxation of religion is based on fairness and justice. It is a notification to those who represent corporate religion that they are not a special institution or a favored aristocracy. It is telling them they do have an obligation to support society in the form of taxation. Particularly when, as the Christian Coalition is doing, they use the millions of dollars saved from taxes to pump into the campaigns of politicians who agreed to spread their brand of bigotry and superstition.

Part 1

Should organized religion be taxed? And if not, why not? For most of the population, religion exists in a peculiar, rarefied atmosphere. It is for most people (even though they may have some doubts) the only source of hope they have for continuing their existence after the body has expired. Naturally they expect restitution in heaven, a sort of reward for countless prayers; a moral life; and obedience to God. Obviously, taxation of a faith based on a biblical God, would be a desecration of this image.

Religion therefore, has been able to develop and prosper without the payment of taxes that are required from most other organizations that teach a certain philosophy or concept of existence. The majority do not think of religious mysticism as an ideology that is taxable. They feel you cannot tax a church whose reverend is a representative of God. A person who has conversations and visions with the Lord of all, the Almighty.

Presumably because religion is more concerned with the afterlife, Heaven, Hell, and a government presided over by an assembly of angels, saints, and evangelists, and considers sin as the main cause of discord on this planet, it has been exempted from taxation. It is a privilege that has granted religion an elite status that few other organizations, activities, and the productivity of human labor is immune from. The mystical exploitation of religion has created a hierarchy of sanctimonious pedagogues who prosper in an environment free of obligation to the society from which they profit immensely. There is no such thing as a non-profit religion. If there were non-profit religions, most established religions would not exist.

Part 2

Why then, is religion exempt from taxation? There are those who assume that it is to prevent government influence into the activities of religion, and to prevent the same from interfering in the affairs of government. It is also thought that taxation of religion would restrict its growth, thus constricting the freedom of worship and making it difficult for religious activity to flourish. This does not make sense. If a mystical organization cannot prosper or survive because of taxation, it must not have a message or purpose worth sustaining, nor the ability to communicate a concept that appeals to the public. If it requires exemption from taxation as the only way it can exist, then it is a religion based on a superficial concept of Biblical nonsense that eventually the public will ignore.

James Madison, the fourth President of the United States of America and a leading promoter and authority of the U.S. Constitution, had this to say in regard to the exemption of taxation for religious organizations: "Are the U.S. duly awake to the tendency of the precedents they are establishing, in the multiplied incorporations of religious congregations with the faculty of acquiring and holding property real as well as personal...? The people of the U.S. owe their independence and their Liberty to the wisdom of descrying in the minute of 3 pence on tea, the magnitude of the evil comprised in the precedent. Let them exert the same wisdom, in watching against every evil lurking under plausible disguises, and growing up from small beginnings."

Part 3

Apparently not all future legislators or bureaucrats visualized the tenacity of religion to develop into huge corporations with vast properties, investments, and influence over legislation favorable to its prosperity. The present has proven Madison correct in his assumption. The scheming and manipulation of the frenzied, right wing religious fundamentalists, has proven that religion untaxed, is more dangerous to Liberty than taxation of the same. Why should an institution founded on fantasy and myth, be exonerated from taxation while existing in a society that supports the infrastructure and services that make it possible for that religion to succeed? My freedom, yours, and every other individual that exists in this society, is threatened by the immense influence of organized religion in its massive appeal to legislate laws favorable to its establishment. We, unlike the religionists, do not as individuals, have the use of untaxed funds or Christianized Coalitions that exist to exercise leverage over politicians.

What is Democratic, what is justifiable in allowing the churches the extraordinary freedom to exist exempt from taxation??? Especially when the exempted religions pursue as their objective, the influence of legislation favorable to their continued material advancement. The survival of organized revealed religion is dependent on not only the generosity of its members, but also from a government that is sympathetic to the continued domination of mystical authority in the affairs of state and society. Witness George Bush receiving the blessing from his religious minister for the carpet bombing and resulting mass murder of Iraqi civilians during the Desert Storm exercise in ignorance.

Part4

The established religions have prospered in an environment that is maintained through the taxation of others for such simple things as street upkeep, courts of law, police and fire protection, or any of the many other services that the public pays for. It is we the people, who are assuring that religious associations can perform their functions, while they are exempted from the same obligation. They have been granted an exclusion, that is based on the erroneous concept, that religion is a non-profit enterprise. Anyone who believes religion is not profitable and exists solely as a distributor of myth and magic, has not looked recently at the vast resources and property that churches have acquired as non-profit organizations.

The fact Christian religious leaders accept, and even court, the tax-exemption illustrates without question the non-altuistic, greedy and hypocritical nature which permeates Christianity. Not paying your fair share of anything, including taxes, reveals a non-altruistic and greedy streak. That's exactly what you would think of someone in a group of friends who all go on an outing and all chip-in to pay for expenses with the exception of one individual. And that selfish person is one of the very wealthiest people in the group! It will only be a matter of time until the others catch on and refuse to allow the unfairness.

Part 5

Christian leaders add the ingredient of hypocrisy to themselves and their mythology by pretending to be followers of Jesus who allegedly believed religions SHOULD pay taxes to existing governments by saying, according to Luke 20:25, "Render to Caesar what is Caesar's, and to God what is God's." According to this quote from their holy book, their god would be against tax-exemptions for his followers. As Thomas Paine wrote, "... the Church has set up a system of religion very contradictory to the character of the person whose name it bears. It has set up a religion of pomp and of revenue, in pretended imitation of a person whose life was humility and poverty."

The religions of this nation do not contribute, in any way, to my freedom, your Liberty, or the future of civilization. Freed of taxation they exist exclusively as a hierarchy whose interest is the exploitation of others!

IS IT NOT TIME THAT WE THE PUBLIC DEMAND THAT THE RELIGIONS OF THIS NATION PAY FOR THEIR PARTICIPATION IN SOCIETY??? Is it not the proper time to cease characterizing religious institutions as a privileged ideology that is more important than other philosophies and concepts?

"gives them insecurity" = "gives them security"

Addendum:

christers compound the results of their illogic by attempting to use the same thinking to solve their problems that they used to create them. It doesn't work.

Colinnicholas:

"But religious folk don't seem curious enough to read anything but the bible. I don't get it."

As a recovered christer, I will answer that. Reading anything but the bible causes one to think, which in turn causes one to question. christers are, in the main, extremely insecure and are also frightened of not exting. To read anything which causes them to question the "authority" and "absolute inerrancy" of the one thing that gives them insecurity (provided they don't question any of it) causes an identity crisis, defensiveness, and gives them a disdain of logic, reason, and the truths of science. They are as fearful of being without their absolutes as they are of being non-existant for eternity.

Hi people.

I knew when I engaged D12 that it was probably not a good idea. I was bored and saw something in his piece that I felt I could help him with. I knew it might just encourage him to rant even more, but figured he might consider some of my points, and at least try being briefer.

I sometimes wonder if he's actually Spidey with a new name. Remember him? He always got people's attention with his extreme religiosity. He thrived on it. It made him feel important. He finally had an audience even though a very critical one which disagreed with everything he wrote.

I think that had I been a believer in a god - I would want to read opposing views in case I had it wrong. Victor Stenger's "God; The Failed Hypothesis" for instance, or "Doubt;A History" by Jennifer Michael Hecht.
But religious folk don't seem curious enough to read anything but the bible. I don't get it.

Onofrio:

"So get an idea!"

Interesting, is it not, how a man who thinks so little is so anxious to share his thoughts.

Persiflage:

You: "Seeing with clarity is probably quite an uncommon, if not rare occurance."

Me: "The confusion is pretty obvious and covers most of what goes on in the human sphere."

Schaum, per your last post:

Seeing with clarity is probably quite an uncommon, if not rare occurance. Doesn't this 'seeing things as they actually are' necessarily involve seeing without the intrusion of self or self-reflection?

Or even more accuratly, perhaps seeing self as merely a part of the whole, where definitions/categories are pure abstraction - a vision arising in dhyana, for example.

If so, such experience could provide an inkling of things to come, in a cognitively evolutionary sense......

'Is there anything of greater significance than just 'behavior'? I wonder whether evil exists.'

Schaum, I say no and no - it's all about what society will and will not tolerate. We can elaborate all day long about the why and wherefore of evil behavior on every level - but in the end, we are all Raskolnikov, separately and together. We typically always justify what we do, whether anyone else agrees or not.

In a selfless world, the very idea of good and evil might not exist. One can only imagine the driving force behind behavior in that super-intelligent extra-galactic civilization!

Since self is the polarizing lens through which we view all and everything, then the fundamental dynamic is necessarily yin and yang.....I have a strong feeling that you agree!

Persiflage

I don’t buy into the idea of good and evil as posited by christers and other fanatics. I just see clarity and confusion. The confusion is pretty obvious and covers most of what goes on in the human sphere. Clarity is like calm water, it reflects without propounding any advice or answers -- it just is. Clarity is the natural condition, just like “cold” is the natural condition of the universe.

If one imagines himself to be “good” he is polarizing himself, and, in doing so, looses clarity and the ability to reflect. Inability – or unwillingness—to reflect is akin to not seeing, not seeing is to be blind and the blind fall.

The great struggle of ‘good versus evil is fallacious’ superstition, I think. Good exists, as clarity and therefore as the natural condition, but evil does not. By “evil,” I mean the antithesis of Good; an exact opposite. A force working in opposition to an equal and contradictory force of Good. But this is simply not so. Rather, what we call evil is nothing more than the absence of good – a lack of clarity.

I do not suggest that there is no evil in the world, but rather merely suggesting that it does not exist in and of itself. As with light and dark: Light exists, and can not only be proven to exist, but can be measured and even artificially created. Darkness, however, does not exist. There is no particle or wave called “dark.” Dark is what happens when there is no light. It is the absence of light. The absence of “good” things always creates “bad” things. The lack of clarity is confusion.

Consider the human mind when the chemical Serotonin is absent; the condition is called depression. The absence of other meaningful people in one’s life facilitates loneliness. Like depression, loneliness, and countless other examples, “evil” is nothing more than the condition which exists when a fundamental necessity –clarity-- is missing. Even though these things don’t “exist” in the truest sense of the word, they are phenomena that can be witnessed, experienced, and even cured.

Consider that “lost” is not a thing that exists, either. While one can be “lost,” and we certainly have all experienced this condition, there is not a thing called “lost.” You are lost when there is nothing familiar present with which one can establish and maintain essential orientation. And while this can be the result of someone moving one unawares to an unfamiliar location, it is most often the consequence of one’s own actions.

As darkness only “exists” wherever light is absent, and “lost” only exists when nothing familiar is present, so too does “evil” exist wherever clarity is absent.

Clearly, “god” is not a necessary element in any of this.

Persiflage:

I can always count on you!

Your opinion sir: is there "good and evil"? Is there anything of greater significance than just 'behavior'? I wonder whether evil exists.

All this blustering about good and evil is a false dichotomy. Relative terms that are defined in terms of one another, but with so many cultural/historical variations and nuances as to be meaningless, fading into shades of gray.

And yet, the theists always seem to have a black and white answer! The fact is, mother nature writ large kills, maims, murders without regard for consequences, and for no apparent reason. Human evil (as part of mother nature) is a tiny fragment of the whole, by comparison.

On the other hand, without mother nature's 'goodness and largesse', we wouldn't be confused, oxygen breathing mammals in the first place. Atheists recognize that conventional concepts of God have no place in this factual and long-observed scheme.

Humans make a meaningful world out of thin air, because that is our nature. Historically, God and/or gods have played an imaginary role in the affairs of men...and that time is passing.

Rhythms and cycles control all - chaos, change, evolution and emergent complexity all happen without a known blueprint - ultimately a self-propelled process without rhyme nor reason. This is what drives theists crazy......

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Problem_of_evil

PamSM, Colinnicholas:

As you are aware, Daniel12 is a delusional personality. If you have followed his postings on other blogs and threads, you know that he is universally ignored. He is recognized, and treated, as the mentally undeveloped crackpot that he is. He comes to the OnFaith blog because he know that he can "challenge" the athests and agnostics for which this blog is intended and thereby get the responses he so desperately craves, and the attention which he cannot find elsewhere. It is, after all, attention which is at the core of his essential needs, and he craves it as the addict craves a fix.

I suggest that we no give it to him. I suggest that he and his crackpot, illogical and febrile ideas and theories be ignored here, as they are elsewhere. He has chosen to dwell in darkness, and I see no reason why we should follow him into his abyss.

He knows nothing of biology, chemistry, and certainly nothing of logic. He cannot write, being unfamiliar with even the basic rules of grammar. His multi-part rants cannot be read without first being edited, and, as Pam says, they ultimately all say the same infantile things. His writing is such a joke that, for some time, I entertained the idea that possibly he was deliberately having us on -- that nobody could possibly be this stupid. Lately, however, I have abandoned that hope and come to realize that Daniel12 is truly empty.

Let us leave him in the condition which he has chosen for himself. He cannot and will not be helped. There are some darknesses which no light is strong enough to penetrate.

O Dan the doze-inducing Douze:

Thee:
"Why I have to repeat this I have no idea."

Ah! A grain of gold in plains of sand....

So get an idea!

(Punch and Judy doesn't count.)

Part one.

To Pam from Daniel. Do you believe tomorrow is going to be a better day, that science will continue to make the universe intelligible? A simple question. If you say yes, congratulations, you have faith whether you want to call it religious faith or not. And if you say yes, so much for the logic of atheism. There is not the slightest bit of proof--especially according to an atheist--tomorrow will be a better day. But you believe in it anyway. Faith. Or if you prefer to be faithful to the atheistic view, that there is really nothing behind existence, then have the courage to say tomorrow will not get better. Have the courage to say it might seem to get better but eventually life is futile because there is nothing behind existence.

The most annoying thing about atheists I can think of now is they try to have it both ways. They say there is no God but then believe tomorrow can get better. In fact they say erase the religion and become scientific and things will get better. But how so when nothing is behind existence? Either have the courage to say that one has faith no matter how much one tries to be atheistic or admit that life is fundamentally futile. I think atheists owe us that much what with all their "logic", "reason", "honesty", "non-delusional" outlook.

Part two.

So which is it Pam, do you believe life will get better or not? Actually forget about answering the question. Atheists can trot out all the arguments against God they like, they can say there is no intelligent design, but at the end of the day they say keep learning about the universe, keep trying to make things better. Life can be understood. Every trace of religion can be wiped out but man continues to have faith. Faith even if it is only that tomorrow can be better. Which is why atheism is fundamentally failed. Its value is only that it clears the ground of religion. But then it bows before man having faith, even if this faith is in only science. People have faith. Simple fact.

And for an atheist to try to be as logical and honest as possible concerning the position of atheism is to be ignored by people having faith. For atheism honestly considered adds up to existence being futile. Only pessimists will hold that position. And we all know how we feel about pessimists. Faith triumphs over pessimism. And faith is irreconcilable with atheism. Therefore atheism is doomed to fail. Or man becomes atheistic and fails because he believes life is futile. But faith triumphs over pessimism. Triumphs over Pamsm as well.

Part one.

To Colin Nicholas from Daniel. I belong to no religion. And if you prefer, I have no God. But now we have a problem Colin. A serious problem. According to you there is no intelligence, morality, nothing behind existence. This means by your own reasoning life is ultimately futile. I have no problem if you want to admit that. I have no problem if you want to live like that.

But where you come up short friend is that whether you want to call it God or not people have faith that life is not futile. People believe tomorrow can be a better day. The very men of reason you atheists celebrate so much--scientists--believe the universe is intelligible. People quite simply have faith things can be understood and be made better. And it is faith. There is no proof tomorrow can be a better day. Or if you prefer, no proof of God. But still people try to make things better. Which is why atheism is bankrupt.

The atheistic view says there is nothing behind existence. Which means so much for science--it is futile. But not even scientists--even the atheistic ones--give up trying to make things better. They might babble atheism out of one side of the mouth but then they head to the laboratories because they believe things are intelligible. They do not act on the logical consequences of atheism, which is that the universe is fundamentally random and that our intelligence is just an aberration in an unintelligible existence. They believe in science--that things can be understood.

Part two.

Why I have to repeat this I have no idea. But if it helps you better, the religious view is fundamentally contradictory. We have a good God having created a world with evil in it. A contradiction. A mystery. But the atheistic view is no better. It leads to viewing existence as fundamentally futile. A typical atheist method is to say there is evil therefore God cannot be good--better to just erase God completely from the equation. But then we are left with nothing good behind existence.

The correct course is to admit both religion and atheism are nonsense and to just pursue science trying to make things better. But still people will always act more along the religious view of things than the atheistic because people will continue to have faith things can be better, made more intelligible. Again, even scientists follow this course. No one seriously acts on the atheistic view except pessimists. No one seriously says there is nothing behind the universe, that all attempts at knowledge are fundamentally futile. People believe despite all the evil, all contradictions of how a good God can tolerate evil, that tomorrow can be better--that the universe is fundamentally good. And there is really no choice. Have faith things can be better or be a pessimist and give up. And people choose faith whether they call it religion or faith in the scientific method and the intelligibility of the universe. Atheism for all its reason is doomed to fail as a view because it leads to nothing. People prefer to have faith. It is just that simple.

"I would be hard pressed to read it all.
Try being brief."

The worst part, Colin, is that he gains the length by endless repetition. Not only of one idea in a single epistle, but then that novella repeated in the next one.

And it's all a bunch of incoherent nonsense, full of half-baked theories and false dichotomies. Not worth plowing through.

Daniel12;

The best argument for the non-existence of your god is the non-existence of all the previous gods. Nobody today believes that Apollo or Zeus ever existed. Nobody today believes in Thor or Woden, or Huitzilopochtli. Yet the folks who believed in these gods assumed they were real. They were worshiped by whole cultures for thousands of years. Human sacrifices were made to them. Millions were slaughtered to win their favors.
And yet no god ever existed. They were all made up.

Mencken asks "Where is the graveyard of dead gods? What lingering mourner waters their mounds? There was a day when Jupiter was the king of the gods, and any man who doubted his puissance was ipso facto a barbarian and an ignoramus. But where in the world is there a man who worships Jupiter today? And what of Huitzilopochtli? In one year - and it is no more than five hundred years ago - fifty thousand youths and maidens were slain in sacrifice to him....Huitzilopochtli, like many other gods, had no human father; his mother was a virtuous widow; he was born of an apparently innocent flirtation that she carried on with the sun. When he frowned, his father the sun, stood still. When he roared with rage, earthquakes engulfed whole cities. When he thirsted he was watered with ten thousand gallons of human blood. But today Huitzilopochtli is as magnificently forgotten as Alien G.Thurman."

It's interesting that Karen Armstrong - the ex-nun - says that the typical religious concept of God - as a personal or supreme being is infantile. God is a mythical being who exists as an idea. A wish, a hope, an aspiration. God is a word for something bigger than ourselves, something larger, greater more meaningful and wonderous.
Existence. The cosmos. Infinity. Call it God. Better still don't call it God.
Because the word God gets twisted to mean some old bearded gent floating around on a cloud, watching over us, and listening to our prayers - when it's all so much BIGGER than god, vaster, more amazing and near impossible to grasp with our limited minds. But there is no Disney God. Armstrong is right to call it infantile. It is also banal.

Think about it.

Part one.

To Colinnicholas. I just use basic logic. Everyone has heard of the problem of God being good yet there is so much evil in the world. How to reconcile an all knowing and good God with evil? We have a contradiction here. At best a paradox.

Now take atheism. Atheists think themselves clever by pointing out the above contradiction and choosing to say there is no God. But where does that leave us? Answer: with a life of ultimate futility. There is no good and intelligence behind the universe--therefore the universe is fundamentally unintelligible. Now imagine this view pressed into every person's head. And tell me that government will become better by such a view.

But of course atheists do not follow their very own argument. They say there is no intelligence behind things but then talk up science and the ability to understand things and make life better. That is a contradiction friend. Is it possible to continue to understand and make life better or is it that life is fundamentally unintelligible? Make a choice.

But I can certainly tell you that all the attempts of atheists to separate science from religion will come to naught for the simple reason that scientists like the religious have faith. Both believe there is something fundamentally intelligible behind things. Scientists act on faith like the religious. They believe the universe can be understood--which is not an option if one is an atheist.

Part two.

The atheist says there is no intelligence or good behind things. That undermines the very science they so often boast of. And it leaves the human race futile. Whether one likes it or not one either falls into the camp of those who believe the universe is fundamentally intelligible--which means intelligence is behind things--or one believes nothing is behind things--which means one is stating that life is fundamentally futile. It should come as no surprise that people prefer to have faith there is more than nothing behind things.

And where you get that I am desperate or whatever I have no idea. I merely reasoned about things. But you apparently choose to believe we all become worm food or whatever. Fine. Just do not tell me that view is reconcilable with believing that the human race can continue to improve in understanding--for your worm food life is a life of futility. Science and government would collapse by your view. We progress by faith. You might dislike it being religious faith by which we progress, but if you think replacing religious faith by science is somehow arriving at a non-faith view you are wrong. Scientists have faith the universe is fundamentally intelligible. To put it into basic language, we have no proof life will get better--we have faith it will. And that is why atheism is a bankrupt view.

The atheist talks about proof for this and that and that there is no proof of God. Well there is no proof life will get better but we believe in it anyway. We have faith. And that is faith in the face of evil. That is faith that evil can somehow be overcome or at least drastically reduced. And that is virtually identical to what the religious hope from God.

Man has faith no matter how scientific he becomes. We make a leap of faith into the future. Now do atheists make this leap of faith or not? If not, then your view is nothing but pessimism. And do not expect it to take hold. At least you should hope it does not take hold. Why would atheists wish we all become futile? But regardless of what atheists believe the majority of humans will continue to have faith life can get better--which means there is something fundamentally intelligible and good behind things.

Just finished reading "Benjamin Franklin" by Carl Van Doren. It's really a wonderful book. Highly recommend.

Daniel12;

You sound desperate, like you're trying hard to convince yourself that there really is a god. As if your life depended on it or something. Relax. If there isn't a god well that's just the way it is..

I think it's all about death, don't you? If there's no god then there's no hereafter, right? If there's no god then death and oblivion await us. We become worm food. There is no Heaven if there's no Skygod.and that's too scary to contemplate. But if it's the truth we just have to get over it.

Look. The best argument for the non-existence of a god, is the non-existence of all the other gods.
Gods are mythical by definition. Over on the Sally Quinn column for instance, Karen Armstrong the ex-nun and religious writer, says that to believe in a real/actual god is infantile.
Clerics would have you believe otherwise, but as far as we know - no gods ever existed.

I want to add that your verbosity works against you. Columns and columns of words do not tempt readers.It puts them off.
I was bored, looking for something to respond to, and read just part of what you wrote. I would be hard pressed to read it all.
Try being brief.

Part one.

What role should religious leaders have--or not have--in government policymaking?

Why not extend this question and ask what will government be like if people do not identify with a religion or ethnic group or race or nation? What will people declare they have in common if such categories are eliminated? Can we even imagine such a thing? This question needs to be asked because what we mean by secular government is not just the separation of church and state, but having state above such categories as ethnic group, race and nation as well. Secular government above the concept "nation"? The separation of nation and state? It sure seems that way in America where we are expected to not bring our nation of origin to these shores with the intent of dominating but on the other hand we are allowed to celebrate such in a manner somewhat below religion.

In other words, the U.S. is something of a paradox at best and contradiction at worst. The U.S. is a nation in which no one must emphasize particular nation. The U.S. is a nation composed of those that renounce nation because they have left their country of origin for the U.S. Secular government is probably more unique, advanced and problematic in the U.S. than secular government anywhere else--supposing secular government can arise anywhere else in the first place. We speak of the continuing spread of democracy worldwide, but how many of these democracies are truly secular in the sense the U.S. is becoming? It seems even the most sophisticated of secularists do not understand that secularism can only mean the erasure of virtually all categories of collective that have existed so far.

Part two.

So what remains after we separate everything from state? What is state when all these categories are separated from it, reduced and eventually dissolved? Do we not have to create such a state because of course no such state exists by which we can make a subtraction of the categories mentioned? So, again, what is this state? Do secularists not have to give us an explanation of such? Do they not owe us that much if reducing in significance religion, race, ethnic group, nation? But no, secularists prefer to attack and destroy rather than create. And they act as if some sort of superior state will just arise from their destruction. But let us examine what can possibly arise from all this destruction.

First we can see that what we mean by ethnic group and nation is territorial construct. These categories are associated with place. Of course place is not all that is involved. But for the sake of brevity let us just continue. So we erase all associations involving territory. Then of course we eliminate race. So we are left with a mass--the human species--identifying with no particular place. So what can we do in such a situation? The obvious answer is that we all become earthlings. The earth replaces ethnic group territory and nation territory. But how many people are capable of this? How many people even have the courage to say that the U.S. is the leading nation eliminating race, ethnic group and nation and asking us to become earthlings? The best so far I hear is "think globally" and "globalization". And what happens when add the elimination of religion to the problem?

part three.

Answer: We are earthlings in a place called the universe which has no intelligence or transcendence at all behind it (because of course we eliminate God and Eastern views of achieving ultimate enlightenment) and is therefore unintelligible. We become celebrators of immanence--or if one prefers the common term, materialism. We of course say we are scientific and that we can understand the universe, but that of course conflicts with our elimination of religion and the universe therefore becoming unintelligible. The result then is a species aware as never before of its home, the earth, a planet in the cold, with no hope at all of ever really understanding anything because there is no intelligence behind the universe. That is the common ground we all have after the elimination of religion, race, ethnic group and nation.

Now tell me, can government exist at all in such a world? In other words, will the human race be governable at all when it is human race on a rock in space with no hope of ever really understanding anything at all? Why the very outlook which is supposed to sustain us in this secular world is undermined--namely science. Hope in the scientific method utterly collapses without religion, for it is faith which tells us the universe is ultimately intelligible.

Part four.

What it comes down to is whether we fall in the camp of those who eliminate religion and therefore leave us in a universe of accident and fundamental unintelligibility or we have faith that ultimate good and reason exist behind things no matter the evidence that much evil exists and had to be created by this ultimate good and reason. In other words, we live either with a contradiction or futility. The contradiction of a good God creating evil or the futility of a universe with no intelligence at all behind it and therefore incapable of ever really being understood. Certainly we can ask which belief will result in better government. And the plain fact is the secularists--the true ones who follow it to logical conclusion--leave us with really nothing after all the categories of human identification they despise so much are erased. They tell us the result will be a better, more rational world but of course that at least is extremely questionable.

The big problem of secularists seems to be that in eliminating everything from state an entirely new outlook is created. Secularism truly practiced is an entirely new way of seeing. And the question is if this seeing has anything positive to do with governing. What are the conditions in which governing can exist and what conditions leave us in a world which cannot be governed? So far as I can tell, secularism raises the question of whether governing can exist at all, and this is disturbing because no other outlook in human history has led us to such a consideration except the view of anarchy as a political view. The proper role of religion in government--and the proper roles of race, ethnic group and nation as well--cannot be determined unless we are willing to imagine a world with and without these categories. Until then all is thinking without integrity.

DITLD:

"My personal opinion is that individual Catholic clergy are riven with psychological problems of sexual confusion and repression."

You said it!

'The Catholic Church isn't a Democracy'

Yes, that is the root of what is wrong with the Catholic Church. It is ruled by a Medeival, feudal-style monarch.

At the very highest levels, the church should be governed by a representative body or Parlitment, with an administrative head, open to reform and discussion of all issues at any time. And if a Pope is really necessary, then have a Pope as a personal symbol of the Church, a traditional figure-head.

In the fourteenth century, this would have been a revolutionary idea, but not now. Now it would be playing "catch-up" with the reality of the Western World, and the ideal of all the peoples of the world.

As am American, I am flabergasted that "not being a democracy" could possibly be a point of pride among Catholics; I know it is not, with many.

This is not about abortion; it is about a misguided and uninformed autocracy, which seeks to maintain a system, long, long antiquated and out of date, in trying to impose religious doctrine and "right-thinking" on people, and in seeking to control and manipulate basic human sexuality according to ideas which were current in feudal Europe.

My personal opinion is that individual Catholic clergy are riven with psychological problems of sexual confusion and repression.

Schaum,

Thanks for the show of confidence. I'm sure I can manage to be a bit more productive than some of the folk we correspond with on these blogs, "weaker sex" (Ha Ha) or no.

'The Catholic Church isn't a Democracy'

Exactly - and so why is the Catholic Church so intent on influencing the political outcomes and social policies of a secular democracy? Apples and oranges - an autocracy vs a democracy.

As regards other religiously affiliated politicos in the USA - they are individual US citizens of various religious persuasions, while the Catholic Church and it's Bishops are simply clones of Rome, and more particularly the Pope - who, I believe does not have American citizenship.

The Catholic clergy does not have autonomy in even the remote sense of the word. The essential difference with the Catholic clergy is this - Bishops voice a proxy opinion on behalf of the official eclesiastical declarations of the Pope, while these other 'Black ministers e.g. 'Martin Luther King, jessie Jackson, and the anti-American, anti- White, Jeremiah Wright...' are all individuals whose followers are probably not much influenced by their personal political opinions, one way or another.

And frankly, I don't see all that much in common between these three individuals to begin with - historically speaking. Finally, is this somehow a black vs white issue?? I'm sure this race-based portrayal was unintentional.......

On an organizational level - you begin to see the problem when contrasting authoritative clerical spokespersons of high status voicing the official position of the Catholic Church, compared with randomly selected preacher personalities with a local political agenda and minimal political impact.

4NOPARTY:

Interesting warping of reality. The catholic church has for years opposed divorce, yet it does not threaten to remove its support of public charity/works merely because DC allows divorce. The catholic church has for years opposed birth control, het it does not threaten to remove its support of public charity/works merely because birth control is lawful in DC.

When a tax-exempt charitable organization removes its support of public charitable works, for which it received its exemption in the first place, it deserves to have its exemption dissolved. Get it?

It has nothing to do with whether the roman catholic church is a Democracy. Thats just a red herring.

The Catholic Church isn't a Democracy. If you realize that, you can understand it a little better. The Church was gravely wounded by the Pedophile Priests and the awful way they handled them. Most Catholics aren't out there strapping bombs on their backs a blowing up buses... or shooting people shouting the name of Jesus. It is no surprise that Abortion funding, being forced on all taxpayers, is a major issue. Arguing against it is something thousands of Americans, of all faiths, have done with the advent of the most rabidly pro abortion President and Administration in the entire World. Do you realize that Black ministers have advocated political involvement for decades.. Martin Luther King, jessie Jackson, and the anti-American, anti- White, Jeremiah Wright...yet we are told that is fine....it just isn't fine for the Catholic Church...seems a little bit of prejudice sneaking into supposed secular arguments and reasonings.

Pretending the issue of pedophile priests is a "caricature of the Church" used by Catholic-bashers is no less disingenuous and immoral than Donohue pretending molested little boys were nothing more than gold digging sex- workers the Church later paid for their "voluntary services" I never have and never would take one of the Church's stinking, blood-and-semen stained pennies minted by Satan himself for what one of your "Brothers of Christ" did to me against my will.

As long as Catholics snub their noses at civil criminal law and hide, aid and abet pedophiles among their clergy, I will continue to be their "caricature" of a "Catholic-basher." Have you no shame or guilt for using Jesus' name to hide those who get their crude sexual jollies using and throwing away children as if it were one of their special-dispensation rights God gave to your clergy as the "Pope's Ambassadors"? How could anyone pretend they belong to "Christ's Church" and continue to look the other way?

Round up and arrest the pedophiles you are hiding in your clergy now. Until you do, you are nothing more than immoral hypocrite disciples of the Devil himself and until then may all you rot in the imaginary hell you created to control and manipulate others.

Farnaz:

"Now, men, on the other hand...."

You're pretty lippy for a former rib.

Dear Susan Jacoby,
Author of The Age of American Unreason,Wild Justice:The Evolution of Revenge

Reasonable American Citizens dont permit Catholic Church's religious blackmail.
Most of Americans may think like you.

*We(Americans) are a Nation of Dunces*
It seems to me,*Nation of Dunces* adjective/term is exaggerated.

If a Nation goes to Moon within 200 years,can not be Nation of Dunces.

Schaum writes to Gimpi:

Gimpi:

"Just as an an aside, I'm a woman."

Nevertheless...you can still become a useful and productive member of society.
-------------------
Indeed, this is the case. I, myself, give testimony to the truth of this statement.

Now, men, on the other hand....

A brief note to JJ, aka 'Vote-Sarah-Pal-in':

St Sarah the Moose Slayer - note that skilled hunters have said that shooting a moose is like shooting a parked car.

Also -
Sarah Palin is:
The Trailer Trash of the Tundra
The Neanderthal of the North

And also, she is representative of a newly emerging retro-evolutionary species: Bimbo Borealis.

Gimpi:

"Just as an an aside, I'm a woman."

Nevertheless...you can still become a useful and productive member of society.

Danielinthelionsden,

"I will admit, that here, on these threads, there are Catholics who post in defense and support of the Catholic Church. But I never met a Catholic, in person, who had much good to say about their religion and their church... What am I to make of that?"

Daniel! I would love to meet you in person. Seriously. Partly because you are a good and intelligent writer, and I think probably a good person, too. Partly because I do not claim to be devout, but I am a Catholic, and I very much love my religion and Church. Almost every day something in it arises to my mind, new and fresh, and makes me marvel.

My email address is withouthavingseen at gmail dot com. Drop a line. I live in Kensington, MD, near Bethesda and Rockville, and would love to meet you for coffee or something. If you live elsewhere, no matter. I have friends and family all around, and travel a great deal. It may be that I will be in your neck of the woods before long anyway. Who knows?

yours,

Ryan Haber
Kensington, Maryland

p.s.: In fact, I think I will post this note in some other WaPo blogs too.

I am a southerner, and have lived extensively in the midwest. I state, as a person experienced in the midsets of those respective portions of the US, that Gimpi is quite correct. He is stereotyping nothing. He merely states the truth. Your kneejerk reaction does you no credit.
Posted by: Schaum

Thanks again, Schaum. That's my experience as well, but it's nice to have it confirmed by someone else's observations. That's why I find this "let's just vote on it" idea as to other people's basic rights, marriage, abortion, whatever, disturbing. If many of our rights were put up to a popular vote, they would cease to exist. And it would vary so much from state-to-state that we would certainly not be the "United States."

Just as an an aside, I'm a woman.

rubytues63,

Thank you for your response, but I don't think you understand either what I was trying to say, or how the law is supposed to work.

What I meant is that when a right is considered basic, opinions (majority or not) don't matter. I understand the depth of your passion, but you might want to try to understand how the rule of law works. You can't have a vote to strip a basic right from anyone, ever. If you can have a "majority vote" to overturn Roe vs. Wade, can I have a "majority vote" to ban Catholics from practicing their religion in my state? After all, the rule of law, the Constitution, all that doesn't matter, right? It's all about the will of the majority, right? Remember, there are many places where my hypothetical referendum about Catholicism might just pass.

I'm afraid it's you who are in favor of circumventing the process outlined in the Constitution, not abortion right supporters. The Supreme Court functioned just as it was supposed to. The founders knew full well the dangers of the tyranny of the majority, and the Court was the principle defense against that tyranny. By having a branch of government that was not subject to the voters, they believed that the excesses people can fall prey to, and push popularly elected representatives into, could be checked. I think they were right. Certainly, there have been errors in Court decisions, no system is perfect. But, in general, the Court has forced us to live up to our Constitution when we really don't want to. That a good thing

While I'm sorry you felt my statements on southern or Midwestern states were engaging in stereotypes, I stand by them, based my own experience. I understand that many southerners are not racist, and that many Midwesterners respect religions besides Christianity. However, in lots of cases they really have been dragged kicking and screaming to the table of equal treatment, and I see signs that they don't really want to settle down there.

There have been documented voting-rights violations using everything from illegal challenges to the right to vote to refusal to provide means to vote, mostly in the south, and all concentrated in minority neighborhoods. We just had a South Carolina justice of the peace have to resign over his "policy" of not marrying people of different races. My own state, Washington, is having another furor over an atheistic group buying advertisements on buses. Many Christians seem to want to deny atheists the same freedom of speech they claim for themselves. However, I hope you're right, and this is fading out. If so, that would be something to celebrate.

schaum and danielinthelionsden,

Thank you for the compliments.

A good link for those that need clarification on the dogma of the Roman Catholic Church.

The fact is, the Church actually has doctrinal leeway on liberalizing it's stand on many issues, including allowing marriage for the clergy, gay marriage, ordination of women, the active support of a broad array of birth control methods, and even abortion itself - at least under certain circumstances.

Currently, the Church is unwilling to support abortion even in the case of rape, incest, or an overt threat to the life of the mother.

I suppose rational folks should consider that a reasonable position?? The Bishops are doing the bidding of a Pope steeped in medievalism....how else can all of this be interpreted?

As other posters have said both here and elsewhere, a majority of Catholics are very far from unanimous in their support of official Church positions on these and other issues.

A good many Catholics simply do what seems morally and ethically called for, under a given set of circumstances. They live with that mindset quite comfortably, as they recognize that are solely responsible for their own destiny, and that of their families.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_Catholic_Dogma

"The Catholic Bishops carry on in the spirit of Dr. King by opposing laws which do not square with the law of God."

Actually they oppose laws that the THINK does not square with their view of what their god wants.

Judaism, which surely knows as much about taht man-made entity as the RCC does (since they created the idea of the Abrahamic deity first)tends to be more pro-choice in tier views and vehemently opposes laws based on religious belief.

Freestinker:

"Religious leaders have every right to express their religious opinions on matters of civil law."

Indeed they do, and should. However, we are not talking about mere "leaders" here...we are talking about a charitable/religious organization which claims ENORMOUS tax exempt status, and thereby forfeits its rights to those claims when it determins to withdraw the charitable supports for which it has claimed those exemptions.

Rubytues:

"Your prejudicial stereotypes of Southerners and Midwesterners do you no credit."

I am a southerner, and have lived extensively in the midwest. I state, as a person experienced in the midsets of those respective portions of the US, that Gimpi is quite correct. He is stereotyping nothing. He merely states the truth. Your kneejerk reaction does you no credit.

“A just law is a man-made code that squares with the moral law or the law of God. An unjust law is a code that is out of harmony with the moral law.” That was the statement of Dr. Martin Luther King in which he justified civil disobedience in response to laws enabling segregation. Dr. King had the temerity to blackmail – for example – the city government of Birmingham, Alabama by disobeying statues approved by a majority. Dr. King took on the responsibility of defending that higher law of God. The Catholic Bishops carry on in the spirit of Dr. King by opposing laws which do not square with the law of God. That would include laws that enable abortion. Surely women have rights related to reproduction. But pre-born children have rights too. And the right of a pre-born child to life trumps the so-called rights the courts grant women for abortion on demand. So with regard to the Catholic Bishops opposition to government funded abortion I say, if this be blackmail, make the most of it.

"What would America be like if supporters of Abortion were able to convince The People or its Congress that their views were right? "

-----------

America would look like a modern 21st century nation that respects women's rights and reproductive freedom.

Looking at the numbers in the most populated states, it appears they already have!

Gimpi,

The problem is that many Americans do not consider abortion to be a “Basic Right”. Some people think abortion is murder and you are lying to yourself if you think that because they disagree with you that all of them are fringe lunatics or Jesus freaks.

Universal Suffrage is recognized as a Basic Right because of legislation enacted by Congress, including the 13th 14th and 15th Amendments, the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965. These acts give Universal Suffrage a legitimacy that abortion does not have because the Right to Abort was created by edict by a court responsible to no one.

Your prejudicial stereotypes of Southerners and Midwesterners do you no credit. Same sex marriages have recently been rejected by voters in liberal bastions such as California and Maine. The state with the highest percentage of people against abortion is Utah, not Alabama. There are more gays living in Houston than San Francisco. Rush Limbaugh is a New Yorker. And no one in this country, except liberal fear mongers, is remotely considering the possibility of state imposed religions.

What would America be like if supporters of Abortion were able to convince The People or its Congress that their views were right? Instead, they are disdainful of public debate, contemptuous of those who disagree with them, continually relying on the court system to sidestep the democratic process outlined in the Constitution, with the end game (intentional or not) of further alienating American citizens from their elected government.

Religious leaders have every right to express their religious opinions on matters of civil law.

And government leaders have a Constitutional obligation to ignore religious opinions of every kind, especially when making laws that apply to all.

Gimpi

You have said better what I was trying to say.

Catholics Support Healthcare Reform, Including Coverage for Abortion

According to a new poll of Catholic voters carried out by Belden Russonello and Stewart for Catholics for Choice, Catholics support both a public option in healthcare reform and a plan that would include funding for abortion. The results show that the views of Catholics have been seriously misrepresented by the US bishops and by conservative Catholics in the debate over healthcare reform. A large majority of those polled, 84 percent, attend church regularly, from several times a week to a few times a year.

While Catholic voters are split on President Obama’s ideas for healthcare reform, they do want to see costs lowered and overwhelmingly support a government plan that would make health insurance available to the uninsured.

Large majorities of Catholic voters support health insurance coverage for abortions—either in a private or a government-run scheme:
when a pregnancy poses a threat to the life of a woman (84 percent)
when a pregnancy is due to rape or incest (76 percent)
when a pregnancy poses long-term health risks for the woman (73 percent)
when test results show a fetus has a severe abnormal condition (66 percent)

Opinion is split on whether insurance plans should cover abortion whenever a woman and her doctor decide it is appropriate (50 percent support and 50 percent oppose).

Catholic voters believe the US Catholic bishops are wrong on healthcare reform. Sixty-eight percent disapprove of US bishops saying that all Catholics should oppose the entire healthcare reform plan if it includes coverage for abortion and 56 percent think the bishops should not take a position on healthcare reform legislation in Congress.

Just a general comment, here, from an outsider to most religious belief.

In general, the more conservative the belief system, the more obsessive regarding sexuality and control of women they seem to be. You see it on the Catholic bishops trying to pressure DC into not granting full rights to gay couples. You see it in the Catholic and conservative Christian fervor over the abortion issue. (I can't take seriously the "pro-life" argument, when so little of these group's energy goes to preventing wars, stopping the spread of disease or ending capital punishment.)

You also see it in the Catholic willingness to allow the suffering caused by the spread of AIDS than have people "sin" by using condoms. You see it in the Catholic and Mormon churches contributing large sums for statewide referendums on gay marriage, states outside of their traditional sphere of influence. You see it in Moslem "honor killings" and in Hindu child-marriages to preserve "honor" (read virginity). You also see it in the Southern Baptist view of women, which is not that much different from traditional Islam.

This doesn't seem to be about any one religion in particular. The one thing all the people condemning other people, oppressing other people, attacking other people, and hurting other people have in common is devotion to their "traditional values."

Maybe it would be worthwhile to have a discussion about which traditions are worth keeping. From an outsider's perspective, some of them frankly belong on the scrap-heap.

Of the approximately 6.4 million pregnancies in the United States in
2001, 3.1 million were unintended. Of these, approximately 1.4 million
resulted in births, 1.3 million in abortions and 430,000 in miscarriages.

Sounds like the Catholics and Evangelicals want to re-create Ceaucescu's Romania. They want to criminalize abortion and birth control. What's next, the womb police?

http://www.ceausescu.org/ceausescu_texts/overplanned_parenthood.htm

Nicolae Ceausescu loved nothing better than a monument to himself. But his ministerial palaces and avenues paled next to another of his schemes for building socialism: a plan to increase Romania's population from 23 million to 30 million by the year 2000. He began his campaign in 1966 with a decree that virtually made pregnancy a state policy. "The fetus is the property of the entire society," Ceausescu proclaimed. "Anyone who avoids having children is a deserter who abandons the laws of national continuity."

It was one of the late dictator's cruelest commands. At first Romania's birthrate nearly doubled. But poor nutrition and inadequate prenatal care endangered many pregnant women. The country's infant-mortality rate soard to 83 deaths in every 1,000 births (against a Western European average of less than 10 per thousand). About one in 10 babies was born underweight; newborns weighing 1,500 grams (3 pounds, 5 ounces) were classified as miscarriages and denied treatment. Unwanted survivors often ended up in orphanages. "The law only forbade abortion," says Dr. Alexander Floran Anca of Bucharest. "It did nothing to promote life."

Ceausescu made mockery of family planning. He forbade sex education. Books on human sexuality and reproduction were classified as "state secrets," to be used only as medical textbooks. With contraception banned, Romanians had to smuggle in condoms and birth-control pills. Though strictly illegal, abortions remained a widespread birth-control measure of last resort. Nationwide, Western sources estimate, 60 percent of all pregnancies ended in abortion or miscarriage.

The government's enforcement techniques were as bad as the law. Women under the age of 45 were rounded up at their workplaces every one to three months and taken to clinics, where they were examined for signs of pregnancy, often in the presence of government agents - dubbed the "menstrual police" by some Romanians. A pregnant woman who failed to "produce" a baby at the proper time could expect to be summoned for questioning. Women who miscarried were suspected of arranging an abortion. Some doctors resorted for forging statistics. "If a child died in our district, we lost 10 to 25 percent of our salary," says Dr. Geta Stanescu of Bucharest. "But it wasn't our fault: we had no medicine or milk, and the families were poor."

GIMPI:

"it appears that one of the things we like best to do is setting ourselves above someone else, and stripping away rights from the "other" is one way to do it."

Spot on.

"Until the Congress puts the issue of abortion to a vote, liberals and conservatives will both continue to believe the American people are on their side and will misbehave accordingly."
posted by rubytues63

Rubytues63,
The problem with your suggestion is that we can't vote to strip basic rights from each other. Basic rights are just that, basic. If we allow general votes on basic rights, poll after poll has shown that the majority of the American people don't support the bill of rights. They claim to revere the constitution, they just often don't recognize it out of context.

That's why, once we, through our representatives, decide a right (such as privacy, universal suffrage, or equal treatment before the law) is basic, we can't vote exceptions to it. Does anyone doubt that there are southern states that might well vote to disenfranchise African Americans or to disallow interracial marriage if given the chance? Areas of the south, southwest or Midwest that might outlaw any religion but Christianity? Sadly, it appears that one of the things we like best to do is setting ourselves above someone else, and stripping away rights from the "other" is one way to do it.

http://www.catholicsforchoice.org/actioncenter/CatholicsforaFreeChoice-SpeakOut.asp

http://ncronline.org/blogs/young-voices/i-am-prochoice-catholic

Actually, this pope is anything but a nitwit. He is one of the most educated men to ever hold the papacy. Which makes his backward lurch into the middle ages even more difficult to understand.

Story: a rabbi, a minister and pope benedict all died on the same day and went to heaven. All three are waiting in the reception room outside god's office, for their entrance interviews. The rabbi goes first. After some minutes, he comes out of gods office, wringing his hands, weeping, and saying "how could I have been so wrong!"

The minister went in next, and again after some minutes, he came out wringing his hands, weeping and saying "how could I have been so wrong!"

Then benedict went in for his discussion with god. After some time passes, god comes out, wringing his hands and weeping, and saying "how could I have been so wrong!"

I admit that I am no expert on the Catholic Church. Most of what I know about Catholicism is what I have been told by Catholics, and almost none of it is good.

When Joseph Ratzinger was chosen as Pope, a Catholic friend of mine said, "Gee, I can't believe they picked that nit-wit."

I have to admit, this remark got my attention, about someone that I had never heard of before.

If Catholics, in general, had better things to say about their own church, then maybe I would have a better opinion of it, too.

Why are so many Catholics anti-Catholic? Even if I were not bothered about so much of my understanding of what Catholic dogma is supposed to be, still, I notice this very strong anti-Cathlic streak among Catholics, even ones who claim to be "devout."

I will admit, that here, on these threads, there are Catholics who post in defense and support of the Catholic Church. But I never met a Catholic, in person, who had much good to say about their religion and their church.

What am I to make of that?

"Abstinence makes the church grow fondlers."

omg! pam, i've never heard that! LOL! "....fondlers" ha!

My father is one of the most generous, tolerant, non-dogmatic people I have ever met. When he raised me he never pressed this religion or that or political philosophy on me. In fact he never really spoke of intellectual matters at all. He prefered to show by example, such as taking us (my family) to this country and that, and reading at home after work and dinner which we could not help noticing. After awhile one would just join him in the study and look through books and pick one.

But about four months ago he let something slip about the past--while discussing his atheism, which he has only brought up recently. He mentioned that he was an alter boy at the Catholic church down the road from his house (in Minnesota), and that certain services paid more money than others. But the Irish priests which dominated chose Irish boys for the services which paid more. My father said that hurt because his family was poor--and his family was poor, his father cleaning latrines, etc. I am part Irish but that is on my mom's side. My father's side was French and Austrian.

But after telling me this he just shrugged. My father is like that--takes everything in stride. In fact, like I said, he never really spoke of such things when I was growing up. I just thought I would tell this story because although it seems minor that my father would mention it is important. My father never likes to blame or complain, but he remembered this from his past and brought it up to me.

It was important to him.

Time to repeat this, I think:

Abstinence makes the church grow fondlers.

The problem is not the Catholic Church's opinion on birth control or abortion; the problem is the Catholic Church's teachings regarding human sexuality. These teachings are corrossive and destructive to good mental health, seeking to suppress human sexuality, making all things sexual dirty, and evil.

The Catholic Church took its present form in Medeival Europe, during the time when culture and civilization began to come to life again after the fall of Rome. In that time, Europeans were serfs, expected to obey, and what they were expected to obey above all else, was the Church.

But those times are all gone. Everything has changed, except the exterior form of the Church.

The main goal and the main purpose of the Church does not seem to be Christian, in nature, but instead, the obstruction of human sexuality. As an outsider, this seems freakishly weird, to me.

I know many Catholics who continue to go to Mass, even though they do not believe in the Church's teachings regarding the nature of human sexuality. However, I know only one Catholic who goes to confession. And he tells me that he confesses all kinds of sins to the Priest, not because he believes he sinful, but because he knows that is what the Priest wants to hear.

I can just hear all of the orthodox Catholics and Priests moaning, how ignorant DITLD is, and what a Catholic hater DITLD is. But I am not. I want to help. I feel sorry for Catholics, that they are caught up in and mired in this religious tradition which requires serf-like obedience to a dysfunctional theology, rooted in neurotic fear of sex.

Recognition that the Catholic Church damages people in their understanding and appreciation of human sexuality is not the same thing as leftie, liberal "hypersexualization" as on of the posters on David Water's previous thread accused me of.

This word, "hypersexualization" is a typically Catholically invented word, to smear whom ever might criticize them, and further demonstrates how sensitive they are to any suggestion of common sense on matters of sexuality.

The application of this word "hypersexualiztion" when confronted with un-neurtic "normalcy" demonstrates the toxic and corrosive effects that Catholic teachings on sexuality has on people.

So, I repeat, the problem is not really birth control or abortion; it is alot deeper than that.

Farnaz.

Yes I agree, when atheists debate clerics - atheists win.
At the BBC debate the audience was asked to vote both before and after the debate.
Before the debate about 600 people voted "for" the motion, which was that "The Catholic Church is a force for good in the world".
After the debate only about 200 agreed and more than 1600 voted against it.
The link again ishttp://www.intelligencesquared.com/

Currently watching on PBS "A Death in Tehran", a documentary about the death of Neda Soltani in the protests on June 20.
Horrifying.

The Freedom from Religion web site is impressive, but I'm talking large-scale. I want an end to these religious institutions using our taxes to stampede progress.
This is truly nauseating. Some cannot imagine where this may lead if it is not checked, and i'the heat.

A November 7th poll shows that a majority of Americans support gay marriage.

http://www.nbclosangeles.com/news/local-beat/Poll-Voters-Support-Gay-Marriage-They-Just-Dont-Want-It-on-the-Ballot-69419617.html

"Obviously, they feel connected to Catholic tradition so that they go to church. But obviously, they do not buy into Catholic theology which is dysfunctional, on many levels."

Hardly a free society, the roman catholic cult is a murderous manifestation of collective-thought, individuals who have been brainwashed into fearful submission by those in "authority". This is why the world is, and should be, wary of roman catholicism.

In a free society, individuals are responsible.

It shouldn't be difficult for the church officials to ask all of its members, under oath of course Iperhaps even using lie detectors if there is any reason to suspect them) whether or not they have any conflict of interest with the teachings of the church, and if so to dismiss them.

Zesta, Mistah.

Thine haiku-ed, sorta:

Crowned with dunce's point,
spire-fed rotting head dreams death,
lips pucker for bones.

:^)

Rubyteu42,

"The right to have an abortion was not created by Congress, whose job it is to express the Will of the People, or by any other democratic process. It was created (nationally) by a decision of the Supreme Court in Row v. Wade. It was imposed."

The US Constitution gives the Supreme Court the final authority to define what is protected under the US Constitution. In Roe v Wade they did so. Therefore unless there is a Constitutional Amendment specifcally prohibitting abortion their decision stands and the people cannot make it illegal outright. Now the Court has imposed some limits (and limited those limits when the put the health or life of the woman at risk). And the notion of a Consitutional Amendment that specifcially denies rights goes against the heart of that most sacred of documents.

"Only a vote on the floor of Congress will give it that legitimacy. Not a vote on whether the government is going to pay for it, but a vote on whether it is right, and should be included among our expressed rights."

Nope. The Supreme Court's, in it's consitutional job, ruling has already made that decision. And unless they choose to completley overturn Roe v Wade (which luckily is highly unlikely) it is the law of the land.

Am fiddling with lineation and conjunction.

Pointy Hat

A dunce cap and a
Crown

Atop decaying head.
Sinking eyes dream
Death.

Hand clutches golden spade. Lips
Press upon bones.

"begetting blood boy"

make that blood-boy

Handy coitus done,
mitre enters nave and vault,
begetting blood boy.

Hi ColinNicholas,

Long time! I was wondering where you were and was going to post an urgent call!

Thanks for the link! Why is it, I ask rhetorically, that even when Harris, Hitchens, Dawkins, et al, box with the heavy clerical hitters the atheists always win? And I mean always.

Farnaz :)

PS. What are you reading these days?

Onofrio,

Keep it up. I'm saving your verses.

Farnaz :)

PS. Can you work in headgear?

Old man in gold chains
binds and looses in Latin;
distant couplings come.

Farnaz et al.

BBC World recently televised an interesting debate from London. It's available here

http://www.intelligencesquared.com/index.php

Debated was that
"The Catholic Church is a force for good in the world".

An African Bishop and a lay catholic take on Christoper Hitchens and Stephen Fry - and get a licking. A wonderful debate.

Do check it out.

DITLD:

"Obviously, they feel connected to Catholic tradition so that they go to church. But obviously, they do not buy into Catholic theology which is dysfunctional, on many levels."

I'd be more inclined to bet the majority of catholic followers are so out of knee-jerk guilt reflexes.

Petted golden hair;
vestry pair hitch up their silk;
steeple prods the clouds.

See-men lace enrobed
swoon at Saviour's navel,
fulminate at wombs.

Schaum

Obviously, they feel connected to Catholic tradition so that they go to church. But obviously, they do not buy into Catholic theology which is dysfunctional, on many levels.

Two things wrong with Catholic theology:

it is derived from a Medeival methodology, a paradigm of existence which no longer prevails among credible people;

and it claims immunity from criticsm, discussion, and suggested revision and reform.

When the Catholic Church promotes dogma which has been derived by way of dysfunctinal thinking, I will not say, oh that is their religious belief which I must respect. Rather, I want to engage them in the conversation, and show them how they are wrong, and offer to them better ways of thinking. Of course, my suggestions for reform do not go over well with people who consider reform to be a taboo, that can never be considered.

Of course, they do not respect my opinions, so I do not see that I am being particularly out of place also to deny to them my respect, as though it matters at all, except to me.

If Catholics do not want a push back against their flawed and dysfunctional church and theology, then they should not engage in what amounts to public debates, in which they insist that they are always right, and everyone else is always wrong.

Susan writes:

The real concern of the church hierarchy is dissent from lay Catholics, and that is why archbishops feathers' are more ruffled when the last name of a critic is Dowd or O'Malley rather than Goldstein or Horowitz. (My mother's maiden name is Broderick, by the way.)

How about Siddiqui?
-------------------------
Actually, I think the church should worry about the Chens, the Mansouris, the Goldbergs, and the Horowitz's, except for one (I leave it to you to identify which) are typically, though not always in one case, Jewish surnames.

As you know, Js are overwhelmingly liberal economically, politically, socially, and culturally, voting Democrat almost always above 80% of the time.

Frankly, we are disgusted with the Romans endlessly trying to legislate in ways that do not serve the national interest. And we are not alone. There are many, many Catholics who feel the same way, Protestants, Buddhists, et al. These same groups are sick and tired of the Protestant Fundamentalists and their various anti-human agendas.

Enough is quite enough. If female RCC camp followers wish to carry to term fetuses that will become children with half a brain missing, children that will require care forever, that is fine with me so long as these women make these decisions of their own free will and are financially prepared to pay all for the care of their offspring.

As for the rest of us, keep off and keep out. Get your Roman fingers out of my womb.
SLAVERY IS NO MORE in the United STates.

THe RCC organized wealthy Irish American Catholics to launch a campaign in Ireland to make sure that abortion would never be legal there. As a result, Irish doctors can provide to patients no information regarding abortion clinics anywhere in the UK. Magazines, newspapers, etc., are censored so that adds from UK abortion clinics do not appear. Women leave notes in public places, write on trees to tell one another where to get help. IN 2009.

The RCC benefits from nonprofit status also provide them with protection from audits. They are permitted to lobby Congress, which they do with the money we give them. MOreover, they spend money campaigning everywhere against birth control, and THEY ARE CURRENTLY LOBBYING FULL-SPEED AHEAD AT THE UNITED NATIONS.

continues

Continued:

If they have so much revenue to spend on lobbying, can pull together millions to stop women from having abortions in Ireland, they do not need to be on the dole.

MOreover, their "need" is no longer the issue. The provisions allowing their tax exempt status allows lobbying so it does not interfere with the church's primary mission. Lobbying the Congress, the UN, raising millions to oppress women in the United STates, Ireland, and elsewhere, to make sure that more children are born, many HIV positive in starving nations, tells us that they have lost sight of their primary purpose, if in fact they ever had it in view.

What to do:

1. SEPARATE church and state. Pass legislation prohibiting lobbying by religious institutions.

2. END tax exemptions for religious institutions. Give them one year to identify other funding sources to replace any losses they might incur.

3. OPERATE NGO style agencies to provide social services and contract with them, not the church.
---------------------
And Susan, watch out for those Chens, Goldsteins, Horowitz's, Mansouris, Siddiquis, Smiths, O'Reillys, Ruggeros, because we are all sick and tired of Church interference in the Legislature.

Word to Pope Benedict.

DITLD:

"I know many Catholics who live in direct violation of Catholic teaching, yet regularly attend mass and take communion."

Obviously they share the reality that the RCC is a made-up, gutter religion not worth the effort of "following".

This Roman Catholic Church is a morally bankrupt religion, run by a criminally negligent and indifferent hierarchy, attempting to interfere in the running of our Free Democratic Government. It is therefore right and proper that the Roman Catholic Church in the United States should have their Tax Exempt Status taken away from them.

The day I see US Marshalls rounding up and arresting several hundred pedophile priests running around free without even being defrocked, will be the day I praise God that the US is no longer a Catholic/Huckabee theocracy.

In the meantime, I'll be damned if I'll work there to pay taxes to support Catholic bigotry and discrimination.

I'll stay in Mexico where the people have already had a rebellion against the Catholic domination of their Government and found a way to peacefully exist with and support the Church without being subject to its constant bullying.

Until the Congress puts the issue of abortion to a vote, liberals and conservatives will both continue to believe the American people are on their side and will misbehave accordingly.

The right to have an abortion was not created by Congress, whose job it is to express the Will of the People, or by any other democratic process. It was created (nationally) by a decision of the Supreme Court in Row v. Wade. It was imposed.

Does America support abortion? Only a vote on the floor of Congress will give it that legitimacy. Not a vote on whether the government is going to pay for it, but a vote on whether it is right, and should be included among our expressed rights. Until then, expect the issue to remain as ambiguous in many American’s hearts as it is in the mind of Congress. Expect this sort of influence peddling and backstabbing at every turn. Expect to fight for every inch of ground.

The Catholic Church is doing the same thing that many other groups are doing. They are getting more publicity for their influence because they represent a huge block of voters that healthcare supporters need in order to pass this legislation. Liberals are not so powerful that they can pass healthcare reform by themselves and they know it.

It is arrogant and wrong of liberals to assume that Catholic voters owe healthcare reformers their votes or their support! Refuse their aid at your own peril.

Right on Susan! We are seeing some of the most bizarre and downright mean-spirited behavior these days from the Church's hierarchy. The threat by Donald Wuerl is beyond cruel. It is anti Catholic to the core - completely contrary to the Church's record of reaching out to the poor and needy. Simply and accurately put, Wuerl is a heretic. His threats violate the law of love, which pretty much defines a Christian.
It all would make one embarassed to be a Catholic, except for that fact that these power hungry, ladder climbing clerics don't represent the views of millions of their flock who find them downright irrelevant. The bishops have become pompous, Johnny one-note/one issue bloviators. I almost prefer Glen Beck to most of them. At least Beck is entertaining in his nasty lunacy.
It seems that Rome under Papa Ratzinger has given a green light to the implementation of extreme policies by bishops. They have been encouraged and emboldened to make the most outrageous and divisive statements. You've rightly cited the nonsensical essay by Archbishop Dolan. It seems that his jolly Irish exterior is just that. Add to Dolan's screed the recent statements by Cardinal Bertone representing the Holy See at a recent UN conference on children. He blamed the pedophilia crisis on gays. Has he checked out how many closeted gay clerics and bishops are beating the drum of homophobia? They are legion. Then there's Archbishop Ray Burke's recent condemnation of Cardinal O'Malley officiating at Ted Kennedy's funeral. We had thought that the Vatican got him out of St Louis because of his idiotic statements and policies there. Just recently they put Burke on the Vatican congregation that will select bishops around the world. Yikes! Are we all extras in a Fellini film?
Pope Ratzinger's silence and continued promotion of men from the outer fringes of even extreme conservatism belies his approval. He is hell bent on turning this behemoth of a vessel on an even harder right wing course than his predecessor. He has none of the human touch of John Paul, just a cold, calculating vision for a leaner and meaner barque of Peter. So far he has been successful.

The RCC should be taxed back to the stone age where the thinking remains.

Daniel in the Lion's Den,

You're right. It is disconnected. Jesus didn't come to save saints, but sinners, like yours truly. I often arrive at Mass late. In the past I have out of either ignorance or fear of embarrassment sacrilegiously received communion when I oughtn't have. I often forget to say my prayers. I have done countless more serious sins. Just check out the 10 commandments and throw a dart at it - you've a good shot at hitting one I've broken.

All of that is true, and none of it changes truth. The Law of God is the Law of God, and it is whether we will have it that way or not. Those who cannot see it are not to be blamed for that fact; those of us who see it cannot be excused for simply ignoring it, either.

Is it a disconnect? Yes, absolutely. I very often am disconnected from my Creator and fail to conform my will to the plan for reality that he his, in his ineffable wisdom, laid out for me.

yours,
Ryan Haber (a sinner)
Kensington, Maryland

p.s.: There are a LOT of churches in Rome. Just like here, lots are empty, and lots are full. There is more going on than a generic "religiousness." Weird as it sounds, human factors enter in. The priest here is "cooler" than the priest there; the music is better; they have more stuff for young people; the first Mass is so early here, ugh; this parish or that has a Mass nice and late in the evening. Whatever it is. It's the stuff human life is made of. Why did God make us human? I dunno.

Ms. Jacoby,

If the Church is free to lobby on behalf of its convictions, as you claim, how is success in that endeavor "blackmail"?

What about Ms. Pelosi, who refused until the eleventh hour to bring to the floor of the house an amendment that represents the majority opinion in her house and among the American people as a whole? Was that not blackmail?

What of the extreme pro-abortion caucus in the House, that is now threatening to torpedo their beloved health care reform if it does not fund at public expense, for the first time in American history, abortion on demand? Is that not blackmail? Are they not putting their private agenda over and against the needs of the poor?

Things look a bit different when the tables are turned. Rather than hysterically calling whatever we disagree with "blackmail," it might be best to stick, more or less, to dictionary definitions: "any payment extorted by intimidation, as by threats of injurious revelations or accusations; or the extortion of such payment," (Random House). Who's getting paid by whom? Neither Bart Stupak nor any other politician gets either money or explicit endorsement from the Catholic Church. Period. But there are a number of politicians, dozens - scores of them, on Capital Hill and in the White House who get both from Planned Parenthood, NARAL, and numerous GBLT groups. It also makes you wonder if they are worried about losing such endorsements if they don't do what they're told.

Now THAT sounds like blackmail to me, Ms. Jacoby.

Ryan Haber
Kensington, Maryland

Previously, I have said that the Catholic Church is wrong on many points and should be reformed.

I find it incredible that reform of any kind is taboo, even for a NON-CATHOLIC to suggest, or even think.

Yet, I cannot help it; these are the thoughts that bubble-up into my head; I believe the Catholic Church calls it "free will."

Rossacpa

I am not Catholic. I am no expert on Catholicsm. I do not pretend to be. But I have eyes. And I cannot help what I see. The blinders that you wear on your eyes do not cover mine.

In Rome, I attended mass with a Cathoic friend. Only 8 people were in attendance, including myself, and I don't really count do I?

I was a little shocked. I found it sad and pitiful.

I know many Catholics who live in direct violation of Catholic teaching, yet regularly attend mass and take communion.

I call that being "disconnected."

What do you call it?

Daniel: congratulations on meandering for three paragraphs on a topic you have previously demonstrated you know absolutely nothing about. The Catholic Church has been marked in the last 20 years has been marked by a resurgent orthodoxy in both the laity and the clergy. This development began in the faithful and now is being appropriated by the episcopacy. But how could you know that?

Susan: Isn't your problem that the most obscure bishop or priest in the world has more "job satisfaction" and affirmation in a single day, than you will know in a lifetime? Time to think about converting?

To paraphrase some of my own comments from an earlier thread:

The authority of the Catholic Church is in an advanced state of disintegration. Many, if not most Catholics already think for themselves, and freely dissent, by their actions and the way they lead their lives, from the teachings of the church. And Catholic officialdom, rather than have their congregations completely disappear, accept this as a fact of life.
Many Catholics are disconnected from their church. Is it acceptable, ever, to point this out, and to discuss it?

Am I anti-Catholic, simply for pointing out the elephant in the room?