The Atheist Conspiracy... listenup tv...
I have to applaud Ms. Dueck for keeping her cool on her show ¨listenup TV¨ this past Sunday. She had to listen to Pat O'Brien, of the Humanist Association of Canada. He stated a pretty standard Humanist/Atheist case, "religion has had a 2000 year run, etc..." pretty much what would be expected... Then Ms. Dueck asked... well something to the effect of, is there a world-wide conspiracy to re-introduce atheism to the world?
Um... this is just odd... It is odd, firstly, in that it is a borderline paranoid hypothesis. But holding such a hypothesis, it is even odder to ask the question... would a conspirator in a secret cabal for world domination admit to being a member of such a cabal when asked? hmm...
Still... fairly tame stuff. The second interview was more surprising... Drew Marshall (host of "The Drew Marshall Show" on radio.) issued a 5 church, 500$ challenge. He is offering to pay some atheists $500 to go to services at five churches and see what they they think. It was surprising and, well encouraging to hear this exchange...
Jordan Peterson, on the other hand, was an absolute mess. No clear thinking to be had from this one, from start to finish... to answer the question ¨We have to have faith because...¨, we get:
But this silliness is far from over...
... (Peterson) from a psychological perspective... God is your highest value.
... people either have a highest value, or they are confused.
... (Dueck) so atheists have, as their highest value, reason.
Taken together, using elementary logic, you get
( Atheists have a highest value (reason)) AND ( highest value == GOD ) therefore: Atheists believe in God. QED. (Peterson, I imagine, would add ¨they only claim not to...¨) Indeed.
Then they wander off into... well ... wilderness? ¨Reason¨ becomes a hook on which to hang all manner of ills. This is wilderness firstly because ¨Reason¨ as some sort of hermetic set of logical rules divorced from facts, is of little use. ¨Reason" is what theologians use to debate the number of angels that can dance on the head of a pin, after all.
Atheists do not have philosophical logic as their highest value, but rather agree that reason needs to be applied to existing facts, phenomena and theories to simplify understanding them. Reason + Facts + Debate = Science. Science is what atheists use as a guide. But still, science has not explained everything, and a good deal of what science has done over the past few hundred years is laid bare the true vastness of our ignorance. If there is something science should have taught us, it is humility before nature, both human and otherwise, and that dogmatism should be proportional to the strength of the evidence behind any assertion. A true application of reason to all the facts available should teach us deep humility, not dogmatic self-righteousness.
The second reason it is a wilderness is because then we digress into the use of Paradise Lost, as a cautionary tale... As in the previous Dueck editorial, we see the use of fiction, presented as ¨evidence¨. While fiction can be inspirational, It is hard to see how to judge it when used as evidence. Perhaps the grounds for consideration need to be something that is over 100 years old and still in print. OK... consider ¨The Protocols of Zion¨ as a cautionary tale about a certain group (also links in well with the conspiracy hinted at near the beginning of the show.) Or perhaps the irony impaired might use ¨A Modest Proposal¨ from Jonathan Swift, a clergyman, as a means of accusing christians of eating their young. But perhaps the criteria are wrong. It is more of a ¨best seller¨ status that is important. So we should be drawing our conclusions from Umberto Eco´s works, The Da Vinci Code, or even the Left Behind series. It would be interesting to hear from Mr. Peterson how he decides which fiction to consider as ¨evidence¨ and which to ignore as mere ¨fiction.¨ One is required to use only a highest value to make the distinction. Application of reason is, we have just been told, very dangerous. The assertions are simply goofy. But wait, there is more fun...
¨The legal systems in the west are predicated on the idea that everyone is essentially divine and equal before god¨... um... you mean that legal system we inherited from Rome, circa 500 B.C? The B.C part of that date is a hint that Romans were, well... pagans. And it is odd that blacks and women were not as divine and equal before god as white, especially propertied, men were until quite recently. Yet I can find no recent revisions to scripture to accompany these changes in status.
The Nuremburg trials are brought up because they stated that there is a higher law, beyond that of the state to which we are all bound. I believe that too, but, again, God is not needed to come to that conclusion. The Golden Rule is an excellent start towards knowing that cremating your neighbors alive is likely to be due south on most anyone´s moral compass. Fundamental human rights, a sense of right and wrong, a sense of being a part of humanity and compassion for those less fortunate... None of those require a supernatural being. They are blindingly, utterly obvious universals of the human condition.
The dialog was fun. It is not often one hears from atheists and the non-religious in spite of being the third most popular belief system in the world. I again thank Ms. Dueck for provoking the discussion, and maintaining calm throughout, as open discussion can only be to the good.
References ( Some may object to the use of Wikipedia. Wikipedia provides good overviews of subjects, and points to sources in their own articles for further verification.):
Um... this is just odd... It is odd, firstly, in that it is a borderline paranoid hypothesis. But holding such a hypothesis, it is even odder to ask the question... would a conspirator in a secret cabal for world domination admit to being a member of such a cabal when asked? hmm...
Still... fairly tame stuff. The second interview was more surprising... Drew Marshall (host of "The Drew Marshall Show" on radio.) issued a 5 church, 500$ challenge. He is offering to pay some atheists $500 to go to services at five churches and see what they they think. It was surprising and, well encouraging to hear this exchange...
(Drew Marshall, referring to atheists) Both of them came with very open minds, very open minds. That's why I like hanging around these kind of people more than I like the jesus people. The thing I like about the atheists, like give me an atheist any day: he is very clear on where he stands on jesus compared to a whole plethora of "christians" who do church, do religion and do the whole North American Christian culture thing. The hypocrisy and as I have said before the pharisaical (sp?) attitude in all of us is remarkable. Give me an atheist any day, I know where they stand...I cannot add to this. it is so eloquent on it's own. For further work, Mr. Marshall might want to consider a pilgrimage of his own: go to five non christian churches, that have a lot of English speakers. Try a sikh temple, obviously a mosque or two (because islam is the religion with the second largest number of adherents, after christianity), a buddhist temple, perhaps a krishna, or Raëlian one too. Get exposure to cultures other than the North American christian ones. Once you see all the people who are all convinced of the correctness of each of their paths, then you must choose... I wish Mr Marshall luck in his projects.
The one thing I think the atheists, and I think non-jesus people, non god people really get bugged at is us being so demonstrative, so dogmatic, "Yes, there is a god, Yes, Jesus is the only way to god. Yes the bible is the only holy book. Yes, Yes, Yes Yes... Are you kidding me? how can we be so presumptuous and so arrogant?
(Lorna Dueck)
... That is part of our truth Drew, which is part of the truth I believe about Christianity. You can say it in a way that is not dogmatic, and just because you state your belief does not mean that you are dogmatic and arrogant... doesn't mean that you are not allowed to be at the table...
(Mr. Marshall)
... I have hope and I have faith that this, which I believe, is true. But to say that it IS true? I don't know...
...
(later explaining why he interested in this topic...)
As a group of people, you look at different groups of people: lions clubs or social networks, & clubs, we all have our insular nuances."
Jordan Peterson, on the other hand, was an absolute mess. No clear thinking to be had from this one, from start to finish... to answer the question ¨We have to have faith because...¨, we get:
¨Because we don´t know everything, so we´re always acting with insufficient information. so at some point to make a judgement that what you know is enough and you act on that, and you have to do that.¨IF you don´t know everything, therefore you must have faith? I throw a ball, and my son does not catch it. I look in the bushes behind him where I saw the ball roll. I do not know the ball is in there, but common sense is pretty compelling. If I step towards the bush, poof! I believe in God? Someone reading this is going to think... but really you ¨know¨ the ball is there... OK, change things slightly... say my son and I were both startled by a passing car and looked away while the ball was in the air. We guess, from the initial trajectory, that it landed in the bush. Do we still ¨know¨? Well then, suppose I was inside the house and my boy came to say ¨I can´t find my ball." All I know is that he was playing in the yard... I might still find it in the bush by looking everywhere in the yard. One can proceed on a smooth scale to ever decreasing knowledge, and still find a reasonable course of action in any sort of situation. Our lives are replete with situations where we lack absolute knowledge. Dealing with that is what our brains are for. To suggest that a mere speck of uncertainty brings all common sense crashing down and triggers belief in the almighty is... well unbelievable.
¨Rationalists... wants to know everything... squeeze out anything that isn't known...¨
But this silliness is far from over...
... (Peterson) from a psychological perspective... God is your highest value.
... people either have a highest value, or they are confused.
... (Dueck) so atheists have, as their highest value, reason.
Taken together, using elementary logic, you get
( Atheists have a highest value (reason)) AND ( highest value == GOD ) therefore: Atheists believe in God. QED. (Peterson, I imagine, would add ¨they only claim not to...¨) Indeed.
Then they wander off into... well ... wilderness? ¨Reason¨ becomes a hook on which to hang all manner of ills. This is wilderness firstly because ¨Reason¨ as some sort of hermetic set of logical rules divorced from facts, is of little use. ¨Reason" is what theologians use to debate the number of angels that can dance on the head of a pin, after all.
Atheists do not have philosophical logic as their highest value, but rather agree that reason needs to be applied to existing facts, phenomena and theories to simplify understanding them. Reason + Facts + Debate = Science. Science is what atheists use as a guide. But still, science has not explained everything, and a good deal of what science has done over the past few hundred years is laid bare the true vastness of our ignorance. If there is something science should have taught us, it is humility before nature, both human and otherwise, and that dogmatism should be proportional to the strength of the evidence behind any assertion. A true application of reason to all the facts available should teach us deep humility, not dogmatic self-righteousness.
The second reason it is a wilderness is because then we digress into the use of Paradise Lost, as a cautionary tale... As in the previous Dueck editorial, we see the use of fiction, presented as ¨evidence¨. While fiction can be inspirational, It is hard to see how to judge it when used as evidence. Perhaps the grounds for consideration need to be something that is over 100 years old and still in print. OK... consider ¨The Protocols of Zion¨ as a cautionary tale about a certain group (also links in well with the conspiracy hinted at near the beginning of the show.) Or perhaps the irony impaired might use ¨A Modest Proposal¨ from Jonathan Swift, a clergyman, as a means of accusing christians of eating their young. But perhaps the criteria are wrong. It is more of a ¨best seller¨ status that is important. So we should be drawing our conclusions from Umberto Eco´s works, The Da Vinci Code, or even the Left Behind series. It would be interesting to hear from Mr. Peterson how he decides which fiction to consider as ¨evidence¨ and which to ignore as mere ¨fiction.¨ One is required to use only a highest value to make the distinction. Application of reason is, we have just been told, very dangerous. The assertions are simply goofy. But wait, there is more fun...
¨The legal systems in the west are predicated on the idea that everyone is essentially divine and equal before god¨... um... you mean that legal system we inherited from Rome, circa 500 B.C? The B.C part of that date is a hint that Romans were, well... pagans. And it is odd that blacks and women were not as divine and equal before god as white, especially propertied, men were until quite recently. Yet I can find no recent revisions to scripture to accompany these changes in status.
The Nuremburg trials are brought up because they stated that there is a higher law, beyond that of the state to which we are all bound. I believe that too, but, again, God is not needed to come to that conclusion. The Golden Rule is an excellent start towards knowing that cremating your neighbors alive is likely to be due south on most anyone´s moral compass. Fundamental human rights, a sense of right and wrong, a sense of being a part of humanity and compassion for those less fortunate... None of those require a supernatural being. They are blindingly, utterly obvious universals of the human condition.
The dialog was fun. It is not often one hears from atheists and the non-religious in spite of being the third most popular belief system in the world. I again thank Ms. Dueck for provoking the discussion, and maintaining calm throughout, as open discussion can only be to the good.
References ( Some may object to the use of Wikipedia. Wikipedia provides good overviews of subjects, and points to sources in their own articles for further verification.):
- http://www.listenuptv.com/home.shtml ... very well presented site, with relevant links for all the guests.
- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Protocols_of_the_Elders_of_Zion
- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_modest_proposal
- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_Law
- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Major_religious_groups (demographics)
posted by philobyte at 9:18 AM
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