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June 24, 2007
Posted at 11:56 pm by Richard and tagged 10commandments, antitheism, atheism, bible, christianity, interpretation, morality, religion, richard-dawkins, usa. Popularity: 17% [?]
It seems a common claim that morality is impossible without religion. While I might agree that in some cases religion (or, more specifically, the fear of eternal damnation) can be a pretty good motivator, I think that a morality that doesn’t rely on religion is not just possible, but it’s a lot more desirable. Over the next few weeks, I’ll be outlining what some people think of morality without religion, why religion-based morality is potentially suspect, and my ideas on morality.
God Hating Atheists
Some have claimed that atheism is responsible for immoral acts, and that lack of Christian morality (ignoring the possibility of other types of morality) in schools is responsible for school shootings. Both these articles describe various violent acts and crimes committed by young USAians, and then jump right into blaming Atheists and Darwinists (perhaps I’m missing a step in the argument, but I can’t see it - although “How to build a bomb in the public school system” does have one piece of evidence - the words “Natural Selection” on one shooter’s T-shirt):
Now do you realize who the people are who are responsible for children having gotten so violent? The answer is ATHEISTS and other non-beleivers [sic.] in the true God. So you may ask how can this be? The reason why they are responsible is because they hate God and teach their children against God (which is the highest form of child abuse). For example: Atheists hate the TEN COMMANDMENTS because God is their Author.
Aside from the obvious problem that Atheists, by definition, are unable to hate God (because as far as they’re concerned God doesn’t even exist) I see no logical reason why someone couldn’t hate the Christian God, but still “love” the 10 commandments. Jews and Muslims still have the 10 commandments, but in this writers mind, I’m sure Jews and Muslims would classify as “non-believers in the true God” (even though, technically, all three religions have the same roots, and thus the same God). There’s also plenty of people who live arguably moral lives while breaking at least the first few commandments. Depending on your interpretation, it’s also possible that all Christians break the 1st commandment, if you read “thou shalt have no other Gods before me” as endorsing strict monotheism, given that Christianity (arguably) invokes three Gods - I think Jews and Muslims are safe, though. Then, of course, there’s those of us who choose not to kill, steal or commit adultery, and still manage to respect our parents every so often - I don’t need to love (or even believe in) the Christian God for that.
There may be many religion-hating Atheists (or, anti-theists - of which Richard Dawkins comes to mind - while I’ve seen him in documentaries, I have yet to actually read his work, though, so I could be wrong), but a God-hating Atheist is an oxymoron. I certainly don’t think taking issue with religion necessarily makes you amoral, just like I don’t think that following a religion (whatever it may be) necessarily makes you moral.
One final thought - how many “immoral” people do you think are out there in this world? 5%? 20%? 50%? Well, if you subscribe to the theory that without Christianity, you’re necessarily immoral, you are immediately saying that 67% are incapable of living moral lives - not including immoral “Christians”, of course. Is there really a God who would condemn the majority of the world’s population simply because they were raised in a religion other than Christianity?
(To Be Continued… - Morality Part 2 will be posted next Sunday)
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June 20, 2007
Posted at 3:40 pm by Richard and tagged belief, christianity, climate-change, creationism, dinosaurs, evolution, fundamentalism, global-warming, jesus, politics, psychology, religion, science. Popularity: 12% [?]
I found an interesting article today about why some people resist science, and what these authors suggest is that distrust in science can be traced back to how science and alternative views are presented to children.
Essentially, in matters for which we are unable to understand and evaluate the facts for ourselves, we try to evaluate the trustworthiness of the source.
Few of us are qualified to assess claims about the merits of string theory, the role in mercury in the etiology of autism, or the existence of repressed memories. So rather than evaluating the asserted claim itself, we instead evaluate the claim’s source. If the source is deemed trustworthy, people will believe the claim, often without really understanding it.
It seems only natural, and a perfectly valid way of making up your opinions about things. The problem occurs when we don’t know what sources to trust.
(Scientific claims) clash with intuitive beliefs about the immaterial nature of the soul and the purposeful design of humans and other animals — and, in the United States, these intuitive beliefs are particularly likely to be endorsed and transmitted by trusted religious and political authorities.
If our own political leaders (Well, thankfully not my political leaders to the same degree - although he did seem a little iffy on global warming for quite a while) show an inherent distrust of science, and people are brought up to believe the church is a reputable source of scientific knowledge, is it any wonder that there’s so much distrust of science?
I’ve read suggestions by scientists that claim that it’s simply not worth arguing with creationists in public forums because those who listen to the creationists already distrust science, and nothing they say (no matter how rational) will convert them. Maybe we need to start earlier? I read a post the other day (dammed if I could find it again - help me out if you know what I’m talking about) that suggested the idea of creating a textbook for use in school which rationally outlined the creationist vs. evolution debate in an easy-to-understand yet scientifically accurate way. Maybe if we can help establish that scientists are the ones who should be trusted when it comes to scientific matters, and not politicians or the church.
(Via A Whore in the Temple of Reason)
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June 12, 2007
Posted at 10:36 am by del.icio.us and tagged agnosticism, atheism, bible, christianity, creationism, dinosaurs, education, evolution, flickr, fundamentalism, georgebush, god, humour, Links, photography, religion, statistics, terrorism, usa. Popularity: 24% [?]
Here are some of the sites I’ve been looking at recently, that I wanted to share:
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June 6, 2007
Posted at 10:52 am by del.icio.us and tagged atheism, bible, christianity, creationism, culture, dinosaurs, education, health, humour, Links, museum, news, philosophy, psychology, religion, science, sex, university, usa, video, youtube. Popularity: 23% [?]
Here are some of the sites I’ve been looking at recently, that I wanted to share:
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June 2, 2007
Posted at 8:01 pm by Richard and tagged bible, christianity, flash, game, humour, procrastination, satan. Popularity: 26% [?]
Ever wondered what would happen if Satan took on Noah? Well wonder no longer - Noah wins! (at least, he does when I play as Satan, and I’m more worried about getting a screenshot than winning - but don’t worry, Satan kicked Eve’s arse).
Check out the game, if you’ve got some time to kill (or, need to procrastinate) - it’s called Bible Fight.
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May 23, 2007
Posted at 10:44 pm by Richard and tagged 10commandments, atheism, bible, books, christianity, homosexuality, interpretation, language. Popularity: 11% [?]
If you read my essay Reconciling Darwinian Natural Selection with Christian Theology (and you did, didn’t you?) You’d know that I think it’s entirely possible to believe in both Darwinian evolution, and the Christian God (not that I necessarily do, but the possibility isn’t entirely ruled out). There are different ways of accepting evolution and Christian theology, of course, and I’m sure even Christians who have reconciled their faith with evolution differ on the specifics, as I outlined by the two views expressed by Moore and Gray:
“Moore separated [special creation and evolutionist theories] by allowing them both to act in their own time periods. For Moore, special creation was the mode for primary creation, while evolution was the method by which species continued to diversify. Gray, on the other hand, separated them by purpose. While evolution was the guiding process by which species were created, God was still the driving force behind it.”
One group that may not be convinced by either of these options, however, are those who believe that the bible is to be taken literally, and is infallible. Putting aside, for the moment, my views on this position as a whole, this raises another important question:
If the words in the bible are the true word of God, then which version of the words do we take as the ultimate truth?
As you are probably aware, the bible as we know it today didn’t come down written on stone tablets like the 10 commandments supposedly did - it was written by many different authors, over many years. Even worse, we don’t actually have many of these original writings. We have copies of copies of copies of copies, with god knows (irony intended) how many errors. Then, of course, we have the issues of translation. It’s one thing to say that the original scriptures were the infallible word of God, but that each and every version of the bible (however different) is also God’s infallible word?
Then, of course, there’s the issue of contradictions within the bible itself. If we assume these translations are trustworthy, how to we know which bits to follow when there are definite contradictions? “The Atheist’s Wager” examines one aspect of the problem noting that Jews and Christians seem to have very different ideas on what God actually thinks about homosexuality based on giving authority to certain words in the bible over others - how do we know which ones are really important? When is the last time you heard a Christian or Jew saying “I’m sorry, I can’t eat shrimp or oysters, the bible clearly states ‘all creatures in the seas or streams that do not have fins and scales … you are to detest. And since you are to detest them, you must not eat their meat’” Perhaps I’m wrong, perhaps people like this do actually exist - anyone met any? Of course, the seafood issue isn’t the only one - have a look at Skeptics Annotated Bible for just some of the “absurdities” that can be found within the word of God.
A book I’ve been reading recently goes much into much more detail about the problems with the issues associated with translation and access to the original biblical writings. So, even if we wanted to take the bible at its literal word, there seems to be no hope of doing this without significant problems in verification of what those words actually are.
“Christianity from the outset was a bookish religion that stressed certain texts as authoritative scripture… , however, we don’t actually have these authoritative texts… we can’t interpret the words of the New Testament if we don’t know what the words were.”
We need to interpret the bible if it’s to have any real meaning. And in doing so, there will obviously be different interpretations. How can we know which interpretation is correct? Simply, we can’t - that’s why the bible should not be treated as a 100% factual account of history or the nature of god. It is definitely a valuable text, which has historical and spiritual significance, but I fail to see how it can logically be accepted as “gospel”.
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