Godless humanism? Please, not again

fr the article:

>........"Be good for goodness sake" is a line in the pop Christmas song, "Santa Claus is Comin' to Town." The line embeds the expletive, "For goodness sake!," which is a euphemism for the blasphemous "For God's sake!" ...

Oh for pete's sake, it is NOT "a euphemism" for anything.

>...In an On Faith interview, Sally Quinn contrasted a self-absorbed fundamentalist to a great Christian humanist, Rick Warren...

Rick Warren? A Christian? Not even close. You ARE aware, of course, that ricky is extremely anti-gay, and it shows by his actions. True Christians do NOT act/blab the way ricky does.

"the line [about being good for goodness sake] is nonsense - a self-motivated, circular command, like "Pull yourself up by your own bootstraps.""

No. It's self-actualization; the top of Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs. Being moral for its own sake is a sign that one has no ulterior motive for doing good (like trying to get to heaven).

"What the American Humanists intend is a godless revolution, a New Age in which religion has been left behind."

A revolution of ideas - maybe. It's ridiculous to try to equate an ethical philosophy based on reason and valuing people's lives with murderous regimes. The most that humanists are trying to do is argue with people and debate ideas.

"The founder of Pennsylvania put the truth in an unforgettable maxim: "Man [i.e., people] will serve God or tyrants.""

Your view of humanity seems rather pessimistic here, and yet you think that humanism is hopeless? I, on the other hand, envision a future world where people serve ideals like equality, tolerance, justice and kindness.

"We have long had a scattering of godless humanists, parasitic on our culture; but so far they have not achieved enough influence to do much damage.)"

It's a shame you hate non-believers enough to dehumanize them (by referring to them as parasites). Is this rhetoric what Jesus would have approved of?

1 - Expletive? Blasphemy? You know, it could mean exactly what it says - "Be good for the sake of being good."

2 - The historical events you reference were about much more than the role of religion in government.

3/4 - Your triune deity does not trump all other concepts of deity, except within your own faith community. Sorry, but that's the way religion - any religion - works. And I would hardly consider myself a parasite - I hold a job, contribute to my local economy, provide sustenance for numerous other living beings - human and non-human, plant and animal, contribute time and financial support to various non-profits whose work I support, and generally try to make those who wander into my little corner of the world glad they stopped by.

5/6 - I've never understood why a deity would want to keep people ignorant, nor have I understood why an omnipotent deity with a multiverse at his disposal couldn't simply put things he didn't want people to touch out of their reach. When my daughter was a baby, I didn't put a can of Drano in her crib, tell her not to touch, then spank her for eating it - I put toxic things out of her reach. Is a god who tempts his children with pretties, then punishes them for wanting them really a model of how to live in community?

7 - I wasn't "put here for a reason." My existence had a beginning cause - my parents had unprotected sex while my mother was ovulating. It's up to ME to put purpose in my life.

(oh, and btw, if you must believe I was put on this Earth for reasons solely-related to your book, Reverend, I'd really appreciate you got something out of it, cause, you know, this gets pretty tedious. :) )

Aaaah, it's that time of year again.

Hi, 'Evil Santa!'

Defended any brutal attacks on Non-Christians for being 'party poopers' this year?

Or should I sing 'One Tin Soldier' for ya? Reverend? :)

To HARKADAHL

You are obviously correct. Sally Quinn stretched the truth, & I shouldn't have quoted her. It would have been better simply to point to the astonishing success of Rick Warren's book.

To PERSPECTIVE1

You are off-subject from the git-go. Your first sentence: "This is not about leaving religion behind; it is about leaving churchism (the idolatry of church) behind."

The American Humanist ad campaign is specifically about leaving "God" behind. It, and the OnFaith questions based on it, mention neither of the subjects you mention, viz. religion and church.

To CONSUMER_DAVE

You changed the subject from (my) atheist revolutions to (your) "secular government."

The U.S. has a "secular government," as now have most European countries.

To JSMITH4

Yes, "Both propositions are absurd."

And both are products of your imagination,
not statements of mine.

Without God, atheists are all going to kill like STalin???
Stalin and Hitler killed BECAUSE they were atheists?

Both propositions are absurd.

"Godless" European countries are much more moral by reasonable measures than is the God-Fearing US (homicide, rape, std, infant mortality, abortion rates)

Dr Elliot lives in a fantasy land of Christian manufacture.

Hi Reverend,

You are good with God, it would seem. Not everyone is, note. As well, some are good without and some not.

Only one thing is certain: GOODS (PL) exist with God or without. If this were not so, shopping would perish.

God. Santa Claus. The longer I go through my life, the harder it is for me to tell the difference.

Why do God apologists always point to nightmare scenarios of long-gone evil secular dictatorships to attempt to frighten people away from atheism? How is secular government working now in EUROPE??? Just fine, thank you.

This is not about leaving religion behind; it is about leaving churchism (the idolatry of church) behind.
Watching this assemblage of clerics defend the system that gives them power, influence, recognition and status is entertaining in a dark manner. The reasoning by Mr. Elliott in his posting was very disappointing. Did he assume that 6th graders would be reading his assemblage of straw men?
Instead of uplifting the people, the “God Squad” has chosen to ride the waves of people’s ignorance and fears, riding on their backs as if installed there by divine will. So they defend that catalogue of myopic, decrepit and episodic writings that give validity to their own hegemony. “The bible says”: who cares what the proto-orthodoxy of the developing universal church chose to preserve of the many writings in existence then? The victors always get to write the history of events.
As an insight into the evolution of Jerusalem anchored cosmology and its aspirations, the Bible is a partial historical record. As a guide for the 21st century, the Bible rates as vacuous. Largely, it is a pre-Axial Age Cosmic Maintenance mindset similar to the majority of Afghanistan today. Yes, Jesus’ apparent (given the various representations) standard of morality and integrity are timeless. And when the clergy begin to adopt it, mankind’s progress will accelerate. Until then, implying that there is a divine plan contained in the various “sacred books” is a vast deception and a sin against those whom they hover over.
To” begin with god” is a misdirection. Neither they, I nor anyone else ever having lived is/was even capable of understanding what the Originator is. We are all agnostic in that context.
To “begin with god” is to begin with a search that has no possibility of finding an achievement, at least for now. Mankind has a long time yet to understand even what we can see and examine. To “begin with God” is to believe in what you choose to frame from your perspective which is usually uninformed and totally subjective. To ”begin” should be to replicate Dorothy’s experience in the Wizard of Oz by seeing the manipulator behind the curtain and behind the myth of the Wizard’s ability to solve people’s problems when the solution, and responsibility, had always been right there inside the individuals.
The solution and responsibility, religion, is the issue which is removed by the fabrication of a “God.” “God” does, however, provide for a comfortable income for its conjurers.

1) knowledge (of good and evil in particular) always increases freedom.

2)a godless revolution that made the world better: science

3) christo-islamists: a group of ideologies that believe they have the right truth that supercedes all other perspectives of truth based on a book and a mythical character: note Jonathan Edwards, Dante, Revelation, Koran... Of course one wonders if one is generalizing too far or too little (ie from "the religious" - does that include the animists? - to the atheists - does that include the scientist who has faith that Darwin existed?) Of course I don't know who a "religious" person is, to take the tact of denying overgeneralization as you have chosen.

4) Godless religion with remarkably good historical evidence of no crusades/ jihads etc: Buddhism - fairly revolutionary for its time don't you think.

5) yes the American revolution has deist and other religious groups involved, but then when the founders sat down and said what makes America America, they excluded all religions, particularly christianity.

6) But my point was a little different. It was about the use of history to decide what ideology had helped the world. Once you use history as the measure of the goodness of an ideology (and that goodness has to be defined - more christian, more humanist, more hindu, more truthful...), then pretty much, in comparison to the overall history of religion, buddhism, then Hinduism, fare much better then christianity, islam, the aztecs,... and if you use history to judge the atheists, can we not legitimately use history to judge the christo-islamists?

hariaum

The ads are mere propaganda that answers to an argument that no one has made. The claim is not that atheistic lack of morals but a lack of moral premise, lack of ethos.
It is also a reprinting of their ads from last year: http://atheismisdead.blogspot.com/2008/11/another-atheist-charity-huge-success.html

Yet again, during a time of the year when people are generally more inclined towards charity—peace on earth and good will towards non-gender specific personages—atheists are busily collecting hundreds upon hundreds of thousands of dollars during a time of recession not in order to help anyone in real material need but in order to purchase bill boards and bus ads whereby they seek to demonstrate, to themselves, just how clever they are—need any more be said?

Could the Romans silence the Christians? Even in the face of torture and not being able to celebrate Christ in public, Christains kept their faith so this endless whining about how God is being left out of the holidays is silly.

I also believe the author misinterprets the meaning of "creator" in the Declaration. The authors of the Declaration could have used the word "God" or "Christian" if they had so desired. But they didn't. The creator can be the earth if you choose, or aliens from outer space. It does not mean the Christian God. That means the authors were not anti-deist or anti-Satanists. They were pro-individual determiner of one's creator to include no creator.

Holidays in the US are consumer driven and one would think Christians would want out anyway. No one can tell an individual how to celebrate or what value to give to a holiday. So live the Christian life. Celebrate the birth of Christ. Hold those values close and rejoice that our national documents allow you to do so. But for God's sake, get Christ out of the money lender's temples.

Sally Quinn and the author of this article claim that "The Purpose Driven Life" is the best selling English language book after the bible, ever. Firstly, the Bible was not originally written in English, of course, so its not a direct comparison. Secondly, A Tale Of Two Cities by Charles Dickens (ever heard of him?) and Lord of The Rings (that pagan blasphemy!!)are way ahead of TPDL. In fact TPDL doesn't even figure in Wiki's list of 30 or more top selling books.

Tale of two cities: 200million plus sold since 1859.
The Purpose Driven Life: 30million (as of 2006).

How can two such esteemed writers regurgitate this unresearched humbug? No-one has even raised an eyebrow to such an overblown claim. Its symptomatic of the culture's struggle with testable reality.

About 140 years after the Peace of Wesphalia ended the cataclysmic Protestant Catholic Thirty Years' War, the Founding Fathers wrote the Constitution, which was immediately amended to add the Bill of Rights. They were well aware of the destructive potential in Religious fervor, and they knew EXACTLY what they were doing in separating the church and the state.

Dear Willis Elliott

In item 5, above, you mentioned "religion amnesia." But don't you have amnesia, as well? Don't you remember what happens when there is too much religion?

I am posting my summarization of the article in Wikipedia on the Thirty Years' War, the last great religious war of Europe. I certainly think that it was comparable to the "Godless" French Revolution, and probably alot worse.

"The Thirty Years's War. fought from 1618 to 1648, was one of the most destructive conflicts in European history. It was fought in Germany and began as a religious conflict between Protestants and Catholics in the Holy Roman Empire. Gradually it developed into a more general war involving most of the European powers.

The Holy Roman Empire was a collection of largely independent German states. Religious tensions between Catholics and Protestants remained strong throughout the second half of the 16th century, which broke into violence in the German free city of Donauwörth in 1606, prompting foreign intervention.

By 1618, the Protestant nobility of Bohemia rejected their new Catholic Crown Prince and heir to the thrown, Archduke Ferdinand II of Austria. This triggered the Thirty Years' War and provoked open revolt in Bohemia which had powerful foreign allies. The end of the war was brought about by a group of treaties, collectively called the Peace of Westphalia.

A major impact of the Thirty Years' War was the destruction of entire regions by the foraging armies. Episodes of famine and disease significantly decreased the populace of the German states and the Low Countries and Italy, while bankrupting most of the combatant powers. Estimates put the reduction of population in the German states at about 15% to 30%. In the territory of Brandenburg, the losses had amounted to half, while in some areas an estimated two-thirds of the population died. The male population of the German states was reduced by almost half. The population of the Czech lands declined by a third. The war caused serious dislocations to both the economies and populations of central Europe. The displacement of civilian populations and the overcrowding of refugees into cities led to both disease and famine.

The Thirty Years' War rearranged the European power structure. One result of the war was the balkanization of Germany into many territories and long-term decentralization of German power.
The conflict made Spain's decline visible, as French dominance emerged. The last years of the Thirty Years' War established Sweden as a force in Europe. The edicts agreed upon during the signing of the Peace of Westphalia were instrumental in laying the foundations for the sovereign nation-state. The Thirty Years' War marked the last major religious war in mainland Europe, ending the large-scale religious bloodshed accompanying the Reformation."

TO HARIAUM

Who are the "christo-islamists"? I'm never heard of them. So your statement that they are "not the source of godless goodness" makes no sense to me.

History knows of sources of "godless goodness," and I mentioned three ensuing godless revolutions - none of which you commented on.

As for the American Revolution, it was far more godfull than America's present-day history texts allow.

TO MARKINTX

Sorry you didn't comment on my point about the historical evidence backing a poor prognosis for godless revolutions.

As for human history in general,
yes it's been bloody. One exception was pre-Constantinian Christianity: it was consistently nonviolent.

TO ARENSB

Knowing "the difference between good and evil" DOESN'T increase one's freedom?

Because it is much better to kill billions of people throughout history "For God's sake!" right?

It is documented in the bible of over 2 billion who were killed for/by God. Then lets add the rest of history: Crusades, Witch trials, Native Americans, and any other culture that resisted your Lord's will right.

It is easy to point out well other movements have failed, but hold up the mirror and you will find your God can be just as bloody and ruthless as any.

Most christians should just start adding this to the end of the Pledge.

with Liberty and Justice for only christians.

Even in the face of biblical scholars pointing out that Jesus was born not in December. That December 25th was simply reverse engineered by Christians to get pagans to accept it over the Winter Solstice. They still want to make issues of how other people choose to worship.

Among the influences on the American revolution, let's not forget Thomas Jefferson, who literally took a razor to a copy of the gospels to cut out the miracles and other things he didn't believe in. James Madison, the author of the 1st Amendment, who thought that paying the congressional chaplain out of the federal budget was a violation of said amendment. And, of course, Thomas Paine, author of "Common Sense", and an agnostic.

Let's also not forget that the notion of seceding from England was itself a slap in the face of the divine right of kings.

Eve and Adam thought eating the forbidden fruit would increase their freedom

Where on earth did you get that idea? In Genesis 3, the serpent told the not-yet-named woman that if she ate from the fruit, she would learn the difference between good and evil. And the serpent was right.

So if history can be used to indicate the emptiness of the idea of godless goodness, then isn't christian history indicative of the emptiness of the idea of christian goodness? Or does the test only apply to the other's ideology, not to the self's? (I agree that history can be used to point out the failure of the godless goodness, but there is more history to logically conclude that the christo-islamists are not the source of godfull goodness.)

hariaum

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