Ireland's Blasphemy Law Goes Into Effect 845
stereoroid writes "As of January 1, it is a crime in Ireland to commit Blasphemy. The law was changed in July 2009 to fill a gap in the Irish Constitution, which states that it is a crime but does not define what it is, an omission highlighted in a Supreme Court decision in 1999. To mark the occasion, Atheist Ireland published a list of 25 blasphemous quotations on the blasphemy.ie website, from such controversial figures as Bjork, Frank Zappa, Richard Dawkins, Randy Newman, and Pope Benedict XVI. (The last-mentioned was quoting a 14th Century Byzantine Emperor, but that's no excuse.)"
yet (Score:5, Insightful)
another nail in the coffin of the corrupt and incompetent Fianna Fail government (yes the leading party in Ireland has word fail in its name) who voted this in
never will forget what they have done to this country
This is one of occasions wher... (Score:5, Insightful)
Another step backwards (Score:5, Insightful)
Well, except in theaters, and near funerals, and at political rallies (unless you're in a "free speech zone" some distance away)...
And some art, well, we just can't have people looking at (or even creating) that...
It'd be nice if congress fixed these things. But of course, we have to wait for them to finish their prayers before they can get started. Oh, and the blessing. By a preacher paid for with tax money.
Re:Atheists Unite... as a religion (Score:2, Insightful)
Atheism isn't a religion though. It's like saying not owning a dog is a form of dog ownership. The big argument that religious people use against atheism is that it's a religion that worships science. You know full well how much religious folk like pointing at things and shouting 'See! See! I told you so! I told you so! I was right and you were wrong! I'm going to sing the I was right song!'. We don't need to give the kooks anything else to gum on.
No, it's a stupid idea... (Score:5, Insightful)
As some (very clever) wag has said: If atheism is a religion, then bald is a hair color.
Re:Not as bad as it sounds (Score:5, Insightful)
Hopefully all of them?
Re:Another step backwards (Score:2, Insightful)
We in the US have corporate censorship rather than political censorship. The RIAA, DRM, DMCA, and their likes are pretty powerful tools. Witness Scientology's use of them to remove stuff they don't want out there.
Re:Atheists Unite... as a religion (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Atheists Unite... as a religion (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:No, it's a stupid idea... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:This should be good (Score:1, Insightful)
Also, the "virgin" Mary loved to fuck horses. Jesus was born in the very manger that Mary used to lie on before the horse entered her.
Also, Vestal Masturbation. [metal-hammer.de]
Only the view of a theist. (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't deny anything. I simply don't believe, because I've never seen anything that has even the slightest weight in favor of the various claims of theism. The only thing I object to is the imposition of religious behaviors upon me by the religious. For instance, if they don't want to drink beer on Sunday, then by George, I think that's just fabulous. However, if I wish to drink beer on Sunday, and they move to stop me - for instance by forcing stores not to sell beer to me - well, now we have a problem, and they have just become my enemy by stepping on my liberties. You'll note this opposition arises without any attempt by me to deny the religious their beliefs, or the truth of them, etc.
Religion, like any other highly personal set of choices, should remain between one's self and other consenting adults. As soon as you force it, or material consequences of it, upon someone else, you're pond scum. And that's being unkind to pond scum. Irish lawmakers have today joined this damp, respect-free group.
Re:This is one of occasions wher... (Score:5, Insightful)
But why should you not teach religion in schools?
For the same reason you don't teach astrology.
Belief systems are knowledge are they not?
Almost by definition, they are not.
Re:This is one of occasions wher... (Score:1, Insightful)
Funny how everyone forgets the US from the beginning separated church and state. In fact blasphemy is protected by law. France restricts the use of foreign words on signs but the US has no such restrictions. I often hear the US attacked but few acknowledge that we rank high up in personal freedoms even among first world countries. We get a lot of things wrong but many things we get right as well. Odd that Ireland passed an anti blasphemy law given how much church attendance has fallen. The church has far too much influence here but far less than they seem to in Ireland. A stunning country but they do need to rethink church influence in government. Freedom of speech should always trump church wishes.
This has to be... (Score:5, Insightful)
The most appropriate story for me to post in, if only for my sig.
Re:Atheists Unite... as a religion (Score:4, Insightful)
"Atheism states that there is no higher power in the world."
Atheism states no such thing. It is the rejection of a claim, not a claim of its own.
Re:Atheists Unite... as a religion (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:This is one of occasions wher... (Score:5, Insightful)
There's a difference between teaching that God created everything in 4000 BC (or thereabouts) and including the historical aspect of religion and how it affected Europe.
[John]
Re:Atheists Unite... as a religion (Score:3, Insightful)
You're not describing what is logical. You're describing what happened. It has nothing to do with logic - it's just what worked. There could be dozens of other ways that species could thrive. In fact, you've pretty much described OUR species and ignored that other species have survived just as well with vastly different social structures.
You cannot derive an "ought" from an "is." You've committed a rather anthropocentric version of the naturalistic fallacy.
Re:This is one of occasions wher... (Score:3, Insightful)
The US technically has separation of church and state, but not in practice. Congress holds prayers, the "pledge of allegiance" (what is that thing intended for anyways? brainwashing?) contains the phrase "under god", the currency states "in god we trust", etc.
Though I agree that the US tends to take the freedom of expression more seriously. Over here they tend to make illegal anything that is sufficiently unpopular. I certainly don't support racists or homophones, but I don't think they should be prosecuted for their beliefs unless they explicitly threaten a group of people.
Re:Atheists Unite... as a religion (Score:2, Insightful)
Whoosh (Score:5, Insightful)
What? That's like saying if I truly didn't believe in Zeus, I wouldn't deny his existence and object to you demolishing my house to build him a temple.
If the people who believed in foolish things would keep their mouths shut and their hands out of public coffers, there'd be no reason for us to deny their silly fairy tales. They could ramble on in solitude like the people who are properly sent to a shrink when they claim to speak to invisible, imaginary beings.
Re:Atheists Unite... as a religion (Score:3, Insightful)
I, being one of many, have grown particularly weary of this old canard which, while it may be applied (weakly) to social movements such as "Humanism", does not in the least apply to atheism. Strictly speaking atheism is simply the lack of belief in any or all deities and has none of the attributes of a religion most especially a statement of faith. There is indeed a total lack of dogma, there is no structure or singular impetus from which non-belief is sourced. The mere fact that there exist amalgamations of persons that promote rationality in opposition to ignorance and superstition does not make atheism a religion. In fact such organisations are relatively poorly attended and for the most part formed out of frustration at the need to on one hand defend against personal denigration by members of societies wherein admission of a lack of religious conviction makes one immediately suspect of moral turpitude and on the other hand hold back the growing tide of religious incursion into education and political discourse. Were these needs to dissolve so would the organisations as they do not exist as a means unto themselves as do religious institutions.
Re:Atheists Unite... as a religion (Score:5, Insightful)
That's not a belief. It's a response to a proposition. Theism is not a religion, and it has just as many "beliefs", just one that is "There is at least one god". Atheism and theism are positions on an issue, not religions in and of themselves.
Buddhism is atheistic, Raelians are atheistic, Christians are theistic, Hindus are theistic.
Re:Only the view of a theist. (Score:5, Insightful)
From their point of view, you are denying them their beliefs. They believe that drinking beer on a Sunday is a sin. They have the moral responsibility, enforced on them by their religious hierarchy, all the way up to their Creator, who, by the way, created you too, to stop you drinking on Sunday. Responsibility, mind you, not right. Right just gives them the power, which they can choose not to wield, but responsibility forces them to act. They are bound to stop you, and any one assisting you in the consumption of beer along the chain of supply, otherwise they are allowing you all to sin in violation of your Creator's Will, and they themselves are entirely complicit in the sin.
This is why most people pay only lip service to their religions, and the ones who truly try to act faithfully are insane, in jail or dead.
This is also why it's useless to argue any points of religion. Any follower of a faith who is outspoken enough to debate will be impossible to reason with. Because they have faith. Faith trumps all. Logic, scientific evidence, physical the-tears-on-that-Madonna-statue-are-vegetable-oil evidence, common sense, anything. They know they are right, they have faith in their beliefs, and nothing you can say or do can change that.
Medicine men, shamans, priests, they have all had thousands of years to build on their predecessors techniques and psychology. They have an answer for everything, an excuse for anything. As society became more sophisticated and murdering someone to bring back Spring got a little dicey, they formed larger structures, took responsibility for reading and writing(handy, that), rewrote their holy books with more sophistication, and redefined and retranslated as necessary to keep up with progress.
The latest one I've heard is the Vatican suggesting that life on other planets in the universe may be possible. That's directly opposite what their holy book has said for a couple of thousand years, but a bit of "oh, it's always said that, you were just misinterpreting the meaning" and it's done.
Re:Atheists Unite... as a religion (Score:2, Insightful)
the existence of man is to benefit the species of man
I challenge the implication that this conclusion logically follows from the singular premise that no god exists. In fact, in order for logic to come in to play, you have an implied premise. Something along the lines of "The existence of man has a purpose." (Actually, you would need still more implied premises to deductively arrive at your conclusion, but I won't belabor the point further).
I directly challenge this implied premise. I submit that "purpose" is not an attribute of material reality, but rather, an abstract concept which humans assign to aspects of material reality. To illuminate: dirt has no purpose. It is just there. But as soon as a human plants a seed in the dirt, the human has given it a purpose.
So, individual humans, being subsets of material reality, do not have any intrinsic purpose. Humans can assign purposes to themselves (and others), however, there is no single objectively-discernible intrinsic purpose. So you might ascribe to man this purpose of serving man, but other men (myself included) make no such ascription.
I therefore conclude that your "purpose of man" is merely a highly-subjective opinion, and should not be given any more special treatment than such opinions as "vanilla tastes better than chocolate" or "the purpose of the poor is to serve the rich."
Re:yet (Score:1, Insightful)
have they considered how they ever intend to get this past Strasbourg?
Re:No, it's a stupid idea... (Score:5, Insightful)
As PakProtector said, its Terry Pratchett... and if you don't know pTerry, then I must say three things:
1 - The book quoted is comedy, although it is the kind of comedy that makes you think after making you laugh
2 - The atheist quoted is a Golem, made of clay, the fantasy equivalent of a robot (which is why his words all start with capital letters). As a general rule, atheists in the Discworld do not tend to live long, as they are frequently struck by lightning (even on a clear day) when they make their arguments. Dorfl the Golem, being made of clay, is immune to lightning, however.
3 - Please go and buy a book by Terry Pratchett, they are very good.
--
oh, and 4 - Pratchett most likely borrowed the argument of "the Atheist thinks of God constantly, albeit in terms of denial" from a very old Hindu story where a self-avowed atheist is sent directly in front of the face of God, as if he had spent his entire life praying. This was because, every time something good or something bad happened to him, the atheist would constantly remind himself that "gods don't exist" and therefore kept God in his mind constantly...
Re:No, it's a stupid idea... (Score:1, Insightful)
Your mistake in describing atheism is try to frame it as you would a religion. That's the trouble with religion; it narrows your perspective. Just because others use religion as a substitute for having a personal "way of dealing with life", does not mean that atheists are "trundling forward in life without said beliefs". Atheism is just the opposite of theism: a belief of a god or gods as the creator of the universe (who may or may not intervene with the universe and his creatures). Religion does not make you a better person (than an atheist), it just changes to whom you answer for bad behavior.
Re:Atheists Unite... as a religion (Score:5, Insightful)
If atheists in Ireland really want to stir up trouble, a group of them should formally recognize that atheism is itself a form of religion
Except, of course, that it's not. Atheism is ATHEISM, not ATHEISM. There's a huge difference.
LK
Dumb, dumb, dumb (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Atheists Unite... as a religion (Score:3, Insightful)
In my dictionary, atheism is defined as "Disbelief in, or denial of, the existence of a God". This is quite distinct from the position of agnosticism, which states that we do not know if there is a God.
Re:I can't blaspheme?! (Score:5, Insightful)
Do we really want to live in a world where it's not legal for me to say that Allah is a punk, that Jevohah is a murdering psychopath, or that Yaweh is a sadistic monster? Siva is a blue cocksucker and Brahma is two-faced?
Buddah's a lazy son-of-a-whore and Odin liked to give Zeus reach-arounds. There, I said it.
Call me optimistic on this first day of 2010, but I believe that radical Islam and the Christian Right and the orgy of crackpot New Age beliefs is not the sign of a resurgence in religious belief, but rather the dying spasm of an evolutionary adaptation that's no longer necessary.
In my two score and ten, I've seen the end-times deadlines coming more and more fast and furious. But now, with longer lifespans and online archives, we can see the corpses of apocalyptic predictions piling up. They're already starting to hedge on the 2012 mishegaas, covering their pre-columbian asses to avoid looking stupid on Jan 1, 2013. When religions have to be protected by laws and social conventions and political correctness and electronic apologists by the hundreds and armies of millionaire megachurches have to hire public relations firms, it starts to seem like they're whistling past the graveyard.
Anyway, I don't go in for that silly god-stuff. I'm a devout taoist. Tell me my beliefs are a joke and I'll laugh along.
Re:Only the view of a theist. (Score:5, Insightful)
10 seconds on Google could have found the stories, but I'll do it for you. Behold the power of laziness!
vatican life other planets [google.com]
The Vatican has constantly denied the existence of extraterrestrial life. Back when the Bible was written, planets were unknown. Earth is the center of creation, the sun and moon are "great lights" and stars were a calendar. When planets were discovered (and they finally admitted they existed), it suited the church to label them lifeless. They had to, as planets weren't mentioned in the Bible and any life out there puts a huge crimp is the "Earth is the center of creation" and "we are His children" self-serving egocentric shtick.
Of course, now that more and more exoplanets are being discovered, the probability of life being inferred on one or more of them through spectroscopy or other means is rising rapidly. So, they're revising their stance and going for a "it might be possible" position.
It's interesting to note that the church placed the Earth at the center of the solar system. There's nothing in the Bible about the orbits of the Sun, Moon and stars around the Earth, but they came up with a pretty good fit with their beliefs which took into account observable evidence. When the telescope and planets came along, they tried banning the new evidence, but eventually had to redefine the solar system with the Earth in it's proper place.
Similarly, the "no life on other planets" stance has had to be changed, but the church has learned from it's history. For quite a few years now, the hard line has been softening and various sections of the church have been pushing an uncommitted view. With no direction from the Bible about planets, though, they're got their job cut out from them. In this day and age, they can't just make stuff up, so they're going to have to do something pretty inventive to explain life on them.
Think as a member of the faith, who lives their life (as best they can) by the word of the creator of the universe. Which is worse, the Creator not knowing about alien life, or keeping it a secret from His chosen people?
What else might he not know about?
What else might he be keeping secret?
Re:This is one of occasions wher... (Score:1, Insightful)
Religion is a mild schizophrenia. A disease where people don't use the outside world as a reference for their internal model of it, but a made-up internal model. E.g. "God wants it to be that way, therefore it's OK that I lost my house, and I don't have to break down and shoot myself."
Religion is a metaphor. A system for getting people to behave according to a moral framework without having to teach them a philosophical framework for morality.
Unfortunately, since it results in rote performance, rather than reasoned thought, it can be commandeered for immoral purposes, but that's true of any system of rules.
Re:Atheists Unite... as a religion (Score:3, Insightful)
"Buddhism is atheistic"
Technically, Buddhism is non-theistic. God or gods may or may not exist, but the question is ultimately irrelevant because attachment is the cause of samsara.
Re:well god dammit (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:This is one of occasions wher... (Score:5, Insightful)
.Religion is a mild schizophrenia. A disease where people don't use the outside world as a reference for their internal model of it, but a made-up internal model.
You seem to have a quite simplistic view of religion. Religious beliefs arose out of one of the characteristics that makes us human - our seemingly innate desire to ask questions about reality and know chains of cause-and-effect. Science has answered many of the questions that religion once was used for, but that doesn't mean there are many deep questions to which the scientific method cannot be applied. Some atheists appear to expect humans to throw up their hands in the face of these questions and say "Well! These are not scientific questions, therefore they cannot and will not be approached." It won't happen, our natural desire to know which gave birth to the scientific method in the first place prevents that.
If you see someone who is very religious (and normally also very easily driven out of his calm state, when faced with the disparity of reality and his model of it), try to find the roots, help him face and fix them, and let him work the way up again, fixing the disparities in the process. Or at least don’t make his life even worse. :)
Do you suppose this approach would work at say, the Harvard Divinity School? Do you feel that all religious people are a priori ignorant bumpkins, simply waiting for you to bring the blinding light of reason to raise them up?
Re:I can't blaspheme?! (Score:4, Insightful)
> but rather the dying spasm of an evolutionary adaptation that's no longer necessary.
Evolution is less about removing "no longer necessary", and more about removing "kills you", and keeping "if it works well enough", or "gives an advantage".
As for "dying spasm" and evolution, I'll ask this:
Does Atheism really give the atheist group more/greater evolutionary advantages and fewer disadvantages than groups belonging to the major religious beliefs?
Atheists have fewer ways to take advantage of the very powerful placebo effect[1] ( they also don't have the convenience of "invisible omnipresent person"- unless they somehow really believe in the FSM ;) ).
And they aren't that much less likely to get killed by some religious nutcase.
So it seems to me that the religious bunch might be around for quite a while yet. Why do you think they would be more likely to die out than the atheists?
[1] Which appears to be getting stronger in some cases! http://www.wired.com/medtech/drugs/magazine/17-09/ff_placebo_effect?currentPage=all [wired.com]
An example of what you say... (Score:3, Insightful)
Anything that is legally blasphemous and arouses public or state ire will be.
Blasphemy was the charge that got Jesus crucified.
Re:Atheists Unite... as a religion (Score:4, Insightful)
I think the best way to get this overturned is to have people who aren't atheists to bring suit over every possible "blasphemy", because they realize that this law infringes on everyone's freedom of speech and religion. This law basically makes it criminal to have two religions that have opposing beliefs.
For example, any religion that believes that Jesus Christ was the son of God and speaks about it will be "blasphemous" to any religion that does not believe the same thing.
Or, if your religion doesn't believe Mohammed was a prophet of God, it can't say that any more. Likewise, one that does believe it can't say it.
Or, if your religion doesn't believe that 75 million years ago, Xenu brought billions of his people to Earth, stacked them around volcanoes and killed them using hydrogen bombs [wikipedia.org], you can't say that, either.
It also would appear to outlaw any printing of the Bible, Koran, or any other religious publication.
The question is, how "grossly abusive" does the "publishing or uttering matter that is grossly abusive or insulting in relation to matters sacred by any religion" have to be? Are restaurants that serve pork/beef/whatever guilty? How about stores that are open on Saturday/Sunday/etc.? What about people who work on Saturday/Sunday/etc.?
Re:Why not? (Score:5, Insightful)
If a set can be the empty set, then anything is a religion. But that'd be silly. But atheism is the empty set. It is a lack of beliefs in god(s). That is not a belief, but a lack of belief. And to call atheism a religion is silly.
It's not wrong to specifically not include something in a definition - the definition of the primes specifically says 1 is not a prime.
It's actually not a lack of belief. A belief is essentially a strong conviction about something you cannot prove. Obviously there is no proof there is no god, but you certainly believe there is no God. Make your sentance active instead of active while maintaining the same meaning and your argument fails.
The Agnostic has a lack of belief, an Athiest believes in a negative. Frankly, Athiesm is far more of a religion than Agnosticism is. At least they are brave enough to admit that they just plain don't know, and tend to not really care either.
In reality, Athiests commit the inverse of the exact same logical fallacy that believers in a god must commit. You cannot hold either position without commiting the negative proof fallacy. The version that believers in a god commit is that if a premis cannot be proven false, it must be true. The version Athiests commit is that if a premise cannot be proven true then it must be false.
Both lines of reasoning are fallacious. They are also both grounded in a firm belief that a premis must be true or false with no proof to back up either side. Both sides will use the exact same evidence to prove their point, but neither side has any actual proof. The Athiests are in a particular bind on this one, because it is impossible to prove a negative. The only ones who could ever even potentially prove their case are those who believe in a god. Some might even say that takes a bit of extra faith on the part of the Athiest, given that fact. It also tends to breed a lot of zealotry in Atheists, I believe. Most Athiests I know of seem to be pretty evangelical about it anyway.
Only the Agnostics take a logical stance when it comes to god, and simply state "I dunno" and go on with their lives.
For the record, I believe in a god, the Christian God to be exact. "But wait!" you say, "you just argued that your belief system is based on a logical fallacy!" Well of course it is, that's what makes it a belief. I'm also careful not to commit the fallicist's fallacy - that is, just because an argument is fallacious does not mean the conclusion itself is false.
Re:Atheists Unite... as a religion (Score:3, Insightful)
For instance, it is a commonplace in all but the really fluffy and liberal pockets of Catholicism to assert the theological position that there is no salvation outside the Church. You don't think that that could "cause outrage among a substantial number of adherents" of one or more Protestant sects? Or that asserting that somebody is subject to eternal damnation isn't, arguably, "grossly abusive"? Protestantism, again with the exception of the kumbaya crowd, commonly holds theological doctrines on salvation that would be precisely as troublesome for the Catholics. And let's not even get into the potential unitarian/trinitarian issues...
In any of those cases(which are hardly cherry picked, the number of analogs one could produce is limited largely by one's knowledge of comparative religion), the law would come down to a nasty bit of hairsplitting about exactly what the intent of the statement was.
Your assertion that "This categorically does not cover legitimate discussion" ends up meaning, in practice, pretty much exactly what I said above. The boundaries of "legitimate" discussion are always drawn by public sentiment and political factors, and blasphemy laws(including this one) are a tool used to stomp on those who fall outside the pale.
Re:Why not? (Score:3, Insightful)
For some reason you are tying belief with god. This belies an inaccurate understanding of the term "belief". Look it up. Few definitions of "belief" refer to deity.
Re:Whoosh (Score:3, Insightful)
Firstly, I do not see how not objecting to me demolishing your house to build a temple to Zeus follows from your lack of belief in him.
Not every form of religion is like fundamentalist Christianity or Islam. I honestly don't believe the Gods listen to anything I say, mainly because I never talk to them. I try to avoid one-sided conversations. The closest I come to prayer is seeing an Ambulance racing down the side of the road and thinking, "Mercury give you speed," or something else of the sort.
I do not believe that my religion is the only true religion -- such a statement in and of itself, to me, is nonsense. The Western World seems to love the dichotomy -- yes or no, right or wrong, black or white. There are is no black or white, merely some greys that are dingier than others.
I believe in a certain set of morals (which, coincidentally, have nothing to do with my religion, but merely how I would like to be treated by others), and I do not need to force others to act in that fashion. The only time I would ever and do restrain another human being from any chosen course of action is when their actions will form the cause-in-fact of harm to an unwilling third party.
I personally do not care if one wants to drink, smoke, bump-and-grind in a club, or anything else, as long as it does not violate the free will of another person. If your best friend enjoys being beaten bloody in the middle of the street, I shan't stop you from doing so -- unless I think you're about to kill him. I would most likely intervene in that instance.
For this reason, I hold such crimes as murder, rape, and to a lesser degree, certain kinds of theft, to be abhorrent. Not because physical and psychological harm are being done to another, but because they are committed against that person's will. The right to do as you please ends where other people's bodies begin. And the right to dictate other people's behaviors may only be invoked to stop them from violating another's security of their person and possessions.
I have only once in my life had an experience that I would honestly call a theophany, but as I was somewhat in the process of nearly dying from alcohol poisoning at the time, I fully accept that a much more likely explanation is that it was simply a hallucination. Even if it was a hallucination, which it very likely was, that does not lessen, to me, its impact, nor the import and significance of the event.
It is possible for a man to be religious and at the same time believe in minding his own damn business. I will work out my own salvation (or lack thereof, as one's religious leanings may lean) with diligence, and you can do the same. As long as you do not interfere with my freedom to do as I wish as long as I harm no one else, I shall extend to you the same respect and courtesy.
This, of course, extends to the freedom to believe as one wishes. There is only one thing in this world, other than harming one against their will, that I am violently opposed to: Intolerance. I will not tolerate any form of intolerance (and this is the paradox that makes all thing possible.) You are free to believe as you choose. But if your belief demands that I may not believe as I choose, be that based on a religious or areligious belief, then you and I have a problem.
The same freedom that allows you to not believe in any deity is the same freedom that allows anyone else to believe in one, should they so choose. Religion is a tool, and properly wielded, it can do great good. But lik
Re:No, it's a stupid idea... (Score:3, Insightful)
atheism is a religion like not collecting stamps is a hobby.
Let's stir that up a little. Consider "not watching TV . . ." instead of "not collecting stamps"
Re:A more sobering idea (Score:5, Insightful)
My response is that when Creationists talk about God creating every individual species as a separate act, they always instance hummingbirds, or orchids, sunflowers and beautiful things. But I tend to think instead of a parasitic worm that is boring through the eye of a boy sitting on the bank of a river in West Africa, [a worm] that's going to make him blind. And [I ask them], 'Are you telling me that the God you believe in, who you also say is an all-merciful God, who cares for each one of us individually, are you saying that God created this worm that can live in no other way than in an innocent child's eyeball? Because that doesn't seem to me to coincide with a God who's full of mercy'.
Re:Atheists Unite... as a religion (Score:3, Insightful)
Given that God has no measurable presence in reality, this is actually everyone's position whether they realize it or not.
When Alice tells Bob, "I really like that table", Bob can know exactly which table Alice is referring to, because that table is a well-defined real entity. When Alice tells Bob "I really like God", it is impossible for Bob to know what Alice means, because "God" refers to a poorly defined, potentially imaginary entity.
This applies even if both Alice and Bob follow the same religion; ask ten Roman Catholics to describe God in enough detail, and you will get ten mutually exclusive entities.
Re:Only the view of a theist. (Score:5, Insightful)
Back when the bible was written, planets were most certainly not unknown. The Hebrews even at the time they wrote the Torah were well aware of the same planets the Greeks, Romans and before them the Egyptians and Sumerians recognized.
Planets were known as "stars that move fast in weird paths". They weren't recognized for planets - celestial bodies of magnitude comparable to that of Earth, something that a human can walk, and something that can (as a concept) sustain life.
Re:No, it's a stupid idea... (Score:5, Insightful)
A further subtlety: the golem exists on the Discworld, where gods do exist. Earthling atheism is a completely irrational position in a universe where one can go out and have a drink with the God of Booze, and end up in a gutter with the Oh God of Hangovers. However, the kind of religious atheism the golem is explaining makes perfect sense in such a universe - after all, if it takes faith to believe in a god when there is no evidence for it, it must also take faith to disbelieve in any god when there is plenty of evidence for them.
Note that this does not apply to our universe.
Re:This is one of occasions wher... (Score:5, Insightful)
Please, feel free to provide examples. I frequently see statements like this, but there's rarely any actual substance to them.
Re:No, it's a stupid idea... (Score:3, Insightful)
Does Terry Pratchett still sound like something very important?
If someone has read Pterry and mistaken it for Dostoevsky? Hell yes, that sounds like an important author to get to know.
Perhaps your misunderstanding derives from the mistaken impression that the GP was trying to aggrandize himself, when it is more likely he was celebrating a great (if accidental) complement to a beloved writer.
Think about what you just said, and try to see through it. Just because most people don't care about an author doesn't detract from his talent or insight.
It's all just proof... (Score:4, Insightful)
How far of a leap is it really, from believing, without proof, of a magic being in the sky, to believing that the dismembered body parts of albinos in Africa possess magic powers? Or that suicide bombing will land you in paradise? Or that getting on your knees and begging a supposed omnipotent being for help, would yield results? The same being, mind you, who impotently, or indifferently observed the extermination of 12,000,000,000 humans in the concentration camps of Europe.
Re:well god dammit (Score:5, Insightful)
Well, as one of millions of athiests out there, I am grossly offended by religious pronunciations in public, and consider the same to be blasphemy to reason. There, fixed that.
Proof of god's non-existence (Score:3, Insightful)
Imagine the following scenario: you are sitting outside on a log in the snow. There is a nice January sun shining down on you, the temperature is a crisp -8 and you are minding your own business. Suddenly someone comes along and shouts out loud 'YOU DO NOT EXIST'. What would your reaction be?
The most likely reaction would be one of scorn and ridicule, right? Being secure in the fact of your existence you would not feel the need for others around you to confirm your existence. You KNOW you exist so what do you care what others say?
Now imagine you are..... GOD. Big Capital Letter GOD, creator of the universe (or at least separator of light and darkness if you want to follow the most recent translations) and everything that moves and lives and breathes. Your denizens are like microbes on a human's skin, so many of your creation walks and crawls and creeps and slithers around that blue planet. What would you care if one of those creatures, one of those microbes, proclaims you non-existence? Would you clamor for confirmation of it to those other creatures, those other microbes? Of course not. You are GOD! You don't need confirmation of anything! You are the past, the present and the future, everything moves only by your grace, you are omnipotent and omniscient.
Why, then, do these religious nutcases claim that it is a criminal act to claim the aformentioned?
The only possible explanation is that they are not sure at all that this deity they proclaim to believe in actually exists. They will do anything to keep up appearances, anything to keep their mind-construct from failing. Anyone who shakes the tree has to be stopped before they fall out. Anyone who points out that the book they read is actually an allegorical work of fiction has to be punished.
By trying to stop anyone from claiming god does not exist they prove that god does, in fact, not exist.
Re:I can't blaspheme?! (Score:3, Insightful)
I think a case can be made for "religion kills you".
Not "god kills you" or "faith kills you" or "prayer kills you", but there's something about when believers get together and start collecting money and a-hootin' and a-hollerin' that usually indicates the killing's about to commence.
Re:No, it's a stupid idea... (Score:1, Insightful)
Yeah, but in the Discworld, Gods regularly manifest themselves. Atheism is a religion in the Discworld: a belief that can't be proven.
Re:Why not? (Score:3, Insightful)
No beliefs are not about things which we cannot prove. I believe the earth is reasonably spherical is a belief about something which is proven. You're confusing faith with belief. Faith is what you have about things which you cannot prove, beliefs are things we hold true no matter what their proof status.
Agnostics are making a positive statement about the limits of knowledge. They are explicitly saying that knowledge has some limits, and that god(s) are things that lie beyond those limits. Although rare, it's perfectly possible to have an agnostic theist, although I'd suspect most atheists are also agnostics because agnosticism is much more a statement about the limits of knowledge.
As you know there are two basic statements of atheism - one is a lack of belief in god(s) and the other a statement that says that god(s) do not exist. Of course, the second contains the first, but the first does not contain the second.
There are so many things that we all have a lack of belief in. I'm sure you don't believe in gnarbles (not knowing even what gnarbles are) and you are therefore a agnarblist. I could invent a very long list of nonesense names of "things" and you'd lack a belief in all of them. You don't even consider that you have an unfounded belief in a negative when you say "I don't believe in gnarbles", and you'd be right. Just as I am right when I don't have a belief in your particular god or any other particular god anyone will invent or has invented.
Re:Why not? (Score:2, Insightful)
The Agnostic has a lack of belief, an Athiest believes in a negative.
Frankly, you don't know what you're talking about. You discuss the "logic" of the claims of theism, atheism, and agnosticism, but it seems that you don't actually know the logical consequences of what's going on. You're in line with some of the connotations that people think these words have, but if you want to have a rigorous argument about the logic of belief systems, read up about what you're talking about first.
Part of the difficulty is because of the ambiguity used in the word "atheism," which can mean non-belief, or it can mean a positive belief that there is no god. Those are two different claims (sometimes referred to as "weak atheism" and "strong atheism"). And you obviously don't know what agnosticism is.
Here's a simple example of arguments that state a view on whether it will rain next Thursday.
THEISM: "I believe that it will rain next Thursday."
STRONG ATHEISM: "I believe that it will not rain next Thursday."
AGNOSTICISM: "I believe that we cannot know whether it will rain next Thursday." (Due to lack of data, or some other problem with epistemology.)
WEAK ATHEISM: "I don't know whether it will rain next Thursday."
Theism is a positive statement of belief, strong atheism is a negative statement of belief, and agnosticism is a statement that we cannot logically believe either positively or negatively. Agnosticism is thus also making a specific claim about the state of knowledge and what can or cannot be deduced from it.
Agnosticism is not simply stating "I dunno" and going on with our lives. It is an epistemological claim about the evidence for a god. Stating "I dunno" is a fourth position that is not theism, strong atheism, or agnosticism. Most people who actually argue about the logic of these positions call the "I dunno" crowd "weak atheists" because they don't really believe, but they aren't making a negative assertion either. They simply don't believe either way.
In sum, there are more possible logical positions than you acknowledge. These are the most common ones.
Re:I can't blaspheme?! (Score:2, Insightful)
"So it seems to me that the religious bunch might be around for quite a while yet. Why do you think they would be more likely to die out than the atheists?"
One thing should be very clear: It's not about people dying out, but about memes dying out.
With that in mind, the argument is then that religious memes face a constantly more difficult environment as science takes over more and more of the meme pool. Seeing religions adopt more aggressive strategies, such as discussed in this thread, could be considered a sign of desperation, and an indication that the end times for the religious memes are nearing.