Slashdot Mirror
Creationism Museum To Open Next Summer
Aloriel writes to point out a story in the Guardian (UK) about the opening next year of
the first Creationism museum in Kentucky, just over the Ohio border. From the article: "The Creation Museum — motto: 'Prepare to Believe!' — will be the first institution in the world whose contents, with the exception of a few turtles swimming in an artificial pond, are entirely fake. It is dedicated to the proposition that the account of the creation of the world in the Book of Genesis is completely correct... The museum is costing $25 million and all but $3 million has already been raised from private donations." A lot of that money is going into the animatronic dinosaurs, which are pictured as coexisting with modern humans before the Fall. According to the article, up to 50 million Americans believe this. The museum has a Web presence in the Answersingenesis.org site.
"Aloriel writes to point out a story in the Guardian (UK) about the opening next year of the first Creationism museum in Kentucky, just over the Ohio border."
I am writing abou the closing next year of the first Creationism museum in Kentucky, just over the Ohio border.
Does first post count as a 'scoop'?
It could be worse, it could be Monday.
From the linked site it sounds like it's a great place to go for a laugh.
This wouldn't even fool my 3rd level Magic User.
And he'll pretty much believe anything I tell him.
The book of Job describes a creature called a 'behemoth' whose description can be interpreted as that of a dinosaur.
And a lot of the women looked like Raquel Welch.
Stalinism, Nazism, and Mao's Communism were religions. They were religions centred on the worship of a perfect God-like figure: Stalin, Hitler, Chairman Mao. Why do I think this?
- Absolute belief in the leader was required for all subjects (like a theocracy)
- The punishment for thoughtcrime (heresy) involved torture, imprisonment and death (like the Spanish Inquisition).
- A promised land of plenty (a workers paradise, lebensraum, or heaven) was just around the corner for the people that did what the leader wanted.
- Any failure to reach this promised land was the fault of the people, not the leader (just as continued suffering in the world is due to our continuing to sin).
These regimes were not atheistic. They were more like the later days of the Roman Empire, in which the emperor deified himself, or like Egypt, where the pharoah was believed to be a god.Religion achieves many good things, but total conviction can be very dangerous. It can drive good people to true evil.
People will take long ways to create illusion around them that something they believe in actually exists or have existed. Poor people, still linger to last leftovers of "belief".
Why I tagged this "ohhdear"? I believe in God, however, I don't think it has anything to do with Bible or this physical world. People simply can't believe something that doesn't not exist or at least have some evidence of it. People don't believe in God and Jesus because they want to be good, they want to feel good, just be a part of system of believe. They want to feel safe.
Jesus said love your enemies and forgive them. We don't. Jesus said don't kill and don't seek revenge (well, not directly, but...). We don't.
We don't want to believe. Creationism is just a "feeling-good-because-we-are-so-many-so-stupid" way of confirming that we are not wrong. That everything Bible says is true, because priest said so...and if they are wrong, religion and my belief should be wrong too, right? So it simply can't be.
Human is so weak when it comes down to reality and how we are selective to it.
user@ubuntubox:~$ stfu This server is going down for shutdown NOW!
I strongly hope you're joking and have terrible taste. First of all, there's BOUND to be an Inuit Creation museum somewhere, and if I ever find one in my travels I'll definitely visit it. Similarly, Australian Aboriginals' museums can be found down under, I've visited them and have taken tours describing the Dreamtime etc.
Yet if you were to joke about them you'd be labeled a bigoted fascist or some such utter crap. The main difference between this Creationist Museum and the ones I mentioned is that the religion this one is based on is alive and well, while the other ones are, how to say, fringe? Niche religions?
Sometimes I wonder why an atheist alwasy has to defend Christianity by attacks of idiots like you. It must be because I like freedom. Including their freedom to build their museum. You know what, you can build yours, too. Though I doubt anyone will find it interesting.
Global warming is a cube.
"You ever notice how people who believe in creationism look really unevolved?" - Bill Hicks
Plus you know those 9-11 terrorists. Totally motivated by atheism. *snort*
Philosophy.
Some people understand religion in one way and some people in another, but most of the religious beliefs are in contradiction with science.
Can you justify this? No anecdotes please.
It might help if you clearly define a scientific observation and a scientific theory before you proceed. Anything that is not observable has nothing to do with science and therefore cannot be contradicted by science. Statements like God created the world in 6 days are obviously contradictory. But statements about having a soul are not. Nor is the existence of a God contradictory. Imagine a computer simulation of a world. You don't have to implement the same physical laws as exist in your (in fact you can simplify things if you wish and place maximum limits--i.e. quantum theory and relativity). If intelligent life (effectively AI) formed in your world, they would think the computer programmer was a God--and they would be right.
(Oh great, here goes that karma I built up. Oh well...)
/. archive with a Python script, and no one would know the difference.
/.'ers {loath | fear} {a theocracy | George Bush | anti-abortion activists}.
/.'ers.
Could we please just skip the redundant parts of the conversations that sping up 100% of the time when we have creationism vs. non-creationism discussions? The arcs of conversation are so predictable that you could just rehash them from the
Some topics that I now view as complete noise (since we've hashed them over to death 400 times):
- how stupid Christians are
- how much
- details about why creationists are wrong.
None of these topics is uninteresting, except for the fact THAT WE HAVE THE SAME CONVERSATIONS EVERY TIME A TOPIC COMES UP PITTING RELIGIOUS VIEWS VS. ATHEISTIC ONES.
Seriously, I don't even know why we kick these articles around more than once every 5 years. Because clearly they don't stimulate any new thoughts in us
Entrepreneur : (noun), French for "unemployed"
When I first saw this, I thought: "Great! Creationism is declining so rapidly that we need a museum to teach about this primitive superstition." No such luck.
Ok, so let me get this straight. A bunch of Bible-thumpers raises private money to build a museum to depict scenes out of the Flintstones, and everyone here is bitching about how these people should be shut up. The 1st Amendment separates church and state, but it also protects freedom of speech. These people aren't directly inciting violence or rebellion They're not spouting libelous falsehoods. Let them be.
The sun beams down on a brand new day, No more welfare tax to pay, Unsightly slums gone up in flashing light...
The opium that is creationism is some damned powerful stuff.
Basically, for about 4000 years, Man has believed that there are beings greater than Human. In fact, the belief is that these beings created humans and the world and the universe. They, for 4000 years, called these beings god or gods or God.
In the past couple hundred years, a few uppity atheists like yourself suddenly come along and demand proof of the existence of these beings. The reason the demand for proof is shoved back in your face by theists is that there is a long history of belief in these beings. The proof of historical "that's the way it was"ness.
If you want to disprove these beings, it's up to you to disprove. You'll never be able to get the theists to roll up their sleeves and get in the mud with you. They can point at Descartes or Aquinas or any number of philosophers who over the millenia have discoursed about these greater beings. Do you have any tangible position to argue from besides smugness?
Ladies and gentlemen, if you'll just follow me.
This first exhibit shows god with his little bag of mysteries. He is shown placing dinosaur bones in the rocks because even god likes a good laugh.
And further on we have another aspect of God. This is god in his aspect of 'having to make all the animals himself because he is too stupid to create a universe that can do this shit on its own'.
Now we have a stuffed monkey. You will see that the monkey, while superficially similar is not at all related to man. This is proved by the fact that the monkey is holding a placard stating that god made him as part of a batch job, 4103 years ago, on a tuesday. Further you will see that the stuffed Man we have next to him is also holding a placard, and this states definatelly that god made him the previous wednesday as part of an entirely different batch of wonders. This disparity, proved by our scientifically validated placards, is all the proof any sensible person should need.
Lastly we have the flood exhibit. This exhibit houses a model earth, three feet in diameter, and shows what it would look like covered in water. As you can see only the tip of mount arrarat is visible, even though it isn't the highest peak in the world. This is because it was a very curvy mysterious flood. If you look closely you will see one tiny wooden boat near arrarat which contains a pair of every species on the planet, their diverse ecological requirements and foods, all neatly seperated to stop them eating each other. Next to this model you will see the explanation of where the water went, and how, when the entire world was engulfed in a flood of sufficient depth to kill everything living, a boat made of wood was able to survive. As you can clearly see, that notice says 'shut up and go away, heretical unbeleiver'.
This concludes the tour, please give us loads of money as you leave.
First they made the Sex museum and now there's going to be a Creationist museum? When will they finally make one we nerds can identify with? I can only visit the Smithsonian Apple exhibit so many times. :sigh:
The problem with Fundamentalists is that they interpret the Bible literally. If it is written to forgive 70 times 7, they will probably start counting the number of times they forgive someone and when they reach 490, they'll probably say -- "that's it, the Bible says to stop". Ever since the books of the Bible were written, it was understood (see the writings of early Church fathers -- around II century) that a lot of the stuff was symbolic and typological. In other words the people who wrote the Bible, thousands of years ago, chose which books to include and which to not include, along with their contemporaries who interpreted and wrote about the interpretation of the scriptures, would _never_ agree with a literal interpretation.
Instead of spending $25 million on the museum, these people could feed and cloth a huge number of children from the developing countries, they could donate it towards AIDS research. To me that would be a more convincing witness to a Christian life than building a museum with animatronic dinosaurs...
I live in Southern Ohio, I would go out protesting against this museum along with anyone else who wishes to do so.
Yah, and atheists are such saints:
Religious Persecution in Soviet Russia
The Killing Fields of Cambodia
People can be motivated to kill by just about any ideology, religious or otherwise.
The sun beams down on a brand new day, No more welfare tax to pay, Unsightly slums gone up in flashing light...
Don't link to them. Don't give them the oxygen of publicity, of recognition.
This is what they are trying to do to science and evolution theory.
Instead of trying to censor them, how about widely publicizing them and doing an unbiased (as much as possible hehe) critique of what they are trying to convince people is the world.
Would you rather be naturally immune to an illness, or live in a plastic bubble protecting yourself from it. It's the age of information. The bubble can't survive, so you should.
I'm surprised that people here are so upset about it.
Here's a religious group exercising their freedom of religion and freedom of speech. They're building a museum with their own money to build an edifice to their beliefs. So what. The worst that you can say is they're exercising the freedoms that most people admire.
You may not agree with it, but heck, I don't agree completely with anybody on everything.
I think perhaps people need to be more tolerant, and that goes both ways.
You were mistaken. Which is odd, since memory shouldn't be a problem for you
A lot of that money is going into the animatronic dinosaurs, which are pictured as coexisting with modern humans before the Fall
Let me start by saying I am an athiest. Now, about this. I have read The Bible several times and do not remember hearing anything about our ancestors playing around with dinosaurs?
Regardless of whether these regimes were truly religions or not, they were all based upon unreasoning belief in a concept or institution, and religion falls into the same category. Indeed, the belief they fostered allowed them to persist; one can't have a regime that encourages rational thought and persecution, otherwise you'd have people poking holes in your arguments when you try to pin the blame on scapegoats, or try to insist that a particular group of people are subhuman.
That was a tofu monster, you heathen! I challenge you to a war!
Property is theft.
Creationism purports to be some sort of Scientific view of the Earth's history.
No, you're thinking of Intelligent Design. Look at this website. It's pure "the Bible is under attack!"
Property is theft.
While I agree on the negative impact of such an endeavor, I don't think religion as it is used in the USA corresponds to Marx's definition.
Marx meant it as a means to tame an oppressed class "Suffering in this life guarantees you Paradise in the afterlife!".
We can hardly call the american middle-class "oppressed" in any way.
Actually, come to think of it, I have no idea how come religion (specifically, christianism) is so powerful in such a developped country as the USA...
I wonder if it has anything to do with protestant evangelists taking up the methods of capitalism. Hmm...
Misleading titles? Inflammatory blurbs? Keep in mind that Slashdot is a tabloid.
Yes, sure. If someone points out that religion is not the root of all evil, and provides some examples, then you redefine what religion is to include those examples as religion. Very clever.
I just wonder are you really so blinded that you don't see this fallacy, or being manipulative on purpose?
Where is the foot icon in this article?!?
... they could have been deformed, diseased or something. I've seen people like that running round the streets of New York.'"
"Stephen Bates is given a sneak preview and asks: was there really a tyrannosaurus in the Bible?"
"[The museum] will be the first institution in the world whose contents, with the exception of a few turtles swimming in an artificial pond, are entirely fake."
"...tableaux and a strangely Disneyfied version of the Bible story."
"As for the Grand Canyon - no problem: that was, of course, created in a few months by Noah's Flood."
"But what, I ask wonderingly, about those fossilised remains of early man-like creatures? Marsh knows all about that: 'There are no such things. Humans are basically as you see them today. Those skeletons they've found, what's the word?
"[The workers], too, know they are doing the Lord's Work, and each has signed a contract saying they believe in the Seven Days of Creation theory."
"'[Adam] is appropriately positioned, so he can be modest. There will be a lamb or something there next to him. We are very careful about that: some of our donors are scared to death about nudity.'"
"The museum's planetarium is his pride and joy. Lisle writes the commentary. 'Amazing! God has a name for each star,' it says, and: 'The sun's distance from earth did not happen by chance.' There is much more in this vein, but not what God thought he was doing when he made Pluto, or why." (what has happened to the heliocentric belief?)
About Ken Ham, the museum's director and is inspiration: "Ham is an Australian, a former science teacher - though not, he is at pains to say, a scientist - and he has been working on the project for much of the past 20 years since moving to the US. 'You'd never find something like this in Australia,' he says. 'If you want to get the message out, it has to be here.'"
"Poodles are degenerate mutants of dogs. I say that in my lectures and people present them to me as gifts." (I've always knew that poodles couldn't be real dogs!)
"It is full of books with titles such as Infallible Proofs, The Lie, The Great Dinosaur Mystery Solved and even a DVD entitled Arguments Creationists Should Not Use."
So say we all
I'm quite sure that most of these bastards had/have a religion, so while I agree with your point that religion has been used and abused to murder in its name, that does not mean that the opposite of religion (atheism) is the true cause, nor does the above rant gives any argument why and how atheism leads to mass murder.
Communism in most countries has been militantly atheistic, engaging in harsh suppression of religion and programs for the spread of militant atheism. The Soviets even established an All-Union League of the Godless and museums of atheism in former churches. (North Korea still executes Christians.) At the same time, Communism was responsible for killing about 100,000,000 people in the last century. There were even incidents of cannibalism in the People's Republic of China to prove your loyalty to the party, literally eating the rich. The brutality of communism was one that repeated itself from country to country to country. Stalin outdid Hitler in body count, and Mao dwarfed Stalin. As a percentage of his country, Pol Pot outdid Mao. The vile regime of North Korea is still engaged in horror after horror after horror.
How is that that Communism, allegedly founded on a scientific basis, stressing rationality and scientific though, with principles regarded as altruistic (from each according to his ability to each according to his need), repeatedly produced such carnage and such leaders? Do you think it is possible that there is a fundamental misunderstanding of the nature of man at work there?
much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don't even know that fire is hot - George Orwell
The real question is, if Jesus were to drop on by, would he approve of $25M being spent on religious idolism?
No, the real question would be how a dark-skinned, bearded religious fundamentalist from the Middle East got into the country without Homeland Security knowing about it.
most of the religious beliefs are in contradiction with science.
Until about 40 years ago, most scientists were religious people. For all I know, they still are (I don't go round asking them). Most scientific theories were developed in an environment of religion, and most religious beliefs emerged from cultures that had at least some vague concept of forming theories about natural phenomena and testing them by trial and error. Ever since long before Galileo sat in his Vatican-funded observatory (it's a pity he didn't keep out of politics, though!) and Newton took time out from his theological studies to formulate a few laws of motion, people have had, among various other things, religion and science.
It's just rational humanists such as you who have trouble with this. And it's fine for you to have trouble with it -- you have a perfect right to believe that religion and science are somehow opposites locked in eternal conflict. But you ought to be aware that it's just your belief, just as some folks belive the End Times are Coming or God Hates Fags.
computational neuroscience and a number of other disciplines that you just cannot understand if you believe in a human soul
The fact that you believe it's impossible is part of your faith -- it's not a fact about neuroscience and souls. Otherwise there wouldn't be any religious neuroscientists, which I observe not to be the case.
Put your faith down and talk about facts -- even Creationists can do that, on a good day, with a favorable wind. The main difference between a creationist and a rational humanist is that the creationist understands that they are running on faith.
Whence? Hence. Whither? Thither.
The American version is "Pie in the Sky":
The Preacher and the Slave
Long haired preachers come out every night
Try to tell you what's wrong and what's right
But when asked how 'bout something to eat
They reply in voices so sweet
CHORUS:
You will eat, by and by
In that glorious land in the sky
Work and pray, live on hay
You'll get pie in the sky, when you die.
Chorus:
Oh the Stravation Army they play
And they sing and they clap and they pray
Till they get all your coin on the drum
Then they tell you when you're on the bum
Chorus:
Holy Rollers and jumpers come out,
They holler, they jump and they shout.
Give your money to Jesus they say,
He will cure all diseases today.
Chorus:
If you fight hard for children and wife
Try to get something good in this life
You're a sinner and bad man, they tell
When you die you will sure go to hell.
Chorus:
Workingmen of all countries, unite,
Side by side we for freedom will fight;
When the world and its wealth we have gained
To the grafters we'll sing this refrain
FINAL CHORUS:
You will eat, bye and bye,
When you've learned how to cook and to fry.
Chop some wood, 'twill do you good,
And you'll eat in the sweet bye and bye.
-Joe Hill
KFG
The problem is not with the account, the problem is with some people's interpretation of the account. When I read the first 2 chapters of Genesis, it does not preclude evolution (yeah, go read it). It also does not demand a 7x24 hour creation period (since the Hebrew word for "day" has many meanings).
In fact, Genesis is NOT a scientific treatise on the origin of the world. The book is clearly about the origin and early history of Israel. The first 2 chapters only provide some context for Adam.
Free, as in your money being freed from the confines of your account.
Or rather, as Dawkins points out, simply saying God did it is a way of explaining the world. It's a direct alternative to scientific method. Whether you take the bible literally or not is irrelevant, it's simply a laughable example of the same phenomenon. Why is the atom made up of protons, neutrons and electrons? To a believer the answer "God made it that way" is sufficient. It becomes case closed. With belief it must always at some point come down to "it's gods will".
If you're a believer, you might as well take the bible literally, it's as good an explanation as any other of the world as we see it.
Deleted
Bah. I much preferred Richard Hawkings' book on the subject, "A Brief History of God"
Many do, I'm sure. Those applying the label "Christian" to themselves are a pretty diverse bunch. I couldn't say whether most do. For the record, I don't consider them crazy, although I'm sure they have their fair share of crazy people on board. I could say the same for evolutionists.
It is true that the Bible is not a science textbook, but it does present itself as a documentary account of many things. Not all of it is figurative, and not all of it is literal. To the best of my knowledge, scholars of the Hebrew language do not consider the text of Genesis chapter one to be poetry, but rather documentary. You can accuse it of being false, but it's unreasonable to say that it was not meant to be read literally.
Indeed, I consider the "it's not literal" excuse to be a lame cop-out where Genesis chapter one is concerned: it's tantamount to saying "I'll interpret the text any which way I please without even paying lip service to textual analysis". That's the sort of treatment that follows on to denial of a literal virgin birth, and of Jesus being the literal son of God, and being literally raised from the dead -- not on the basis of whether the text appears to be speaking literally, but because they are miraculous. At that level of non-literalism, you just don't have a literal Christ in your Christianity anymore. It's not even clear that there's anything substantial enough to call a "belief" in such a system. What, specifically, is there to believe if none of the Bible is literal? Should we believe that God exists? Literally?
proof, n. A demonstration that a conclusion is implied by certain premises and axioms.
No. Marx said that religion is a social defense mechansim, the expression of problems in society, and develops based on the material and economic realities in a given society. Authorities can use religion as a means to console an oppressed class. Marx also said that people should transcend religion and take control of their own destiny.
If you have surrendered your capacity to take decisions, to think for yourself, and to control your own destiny, then you are oppressed (according to Marx and others). Religion is, by this definition, oppression.
Perhaps it has something to do with Spain starting the colonization of the Americas by imposing Catholicism on all natives and immigrants. Or maybe it was the pilgrims, puritans, quakers, and lutherans that followed them, avoiding religious persecution in Europe. Or maybe you should just read about the Eurpoean colonization of the Americas to understand why the USA was founded by a bunch of Christian fundamentalists.
i-name =twylite [http://public.xdi.org/=twylite], see idcommons.net
Well, here is the thing.
I am an orthodox Jew. AND, incidentally, I speak fluent hebrew (my aramaic is passable). And well, I typicaly read Job at least once a year (In hebrew. With 1000+ years of various rabbinical commentary. That and ecclesiasties. On Shavout, if you must know). I would also like to say that I think creationism is fairly silly. Dangerous, sure. But, silly. I happen to think that MOST relegion is fairly silly (my own, included). There are lots of arguments you could use.
But just saying "eveyrone knows it's a metaphor, you dipshit" reduces your comment to. Well:
A. Wrong. Not everyone knows that. There is a lot of rabbinical debate. Some say it is a prophetic vision, others say it was actually God taking him around showing him these things. This debate appears all over in biblical commentary, esp. in regards to phatasmagorical prophetiky things. The only real thing that is constant in Rabbinical debate, is that there is a lot of it. And Pigs arent Kosher.
B. Ad Hominem. And who modded your silly ad hominem up, probably doesnt read hebrew, or know much about rabinical authority.
Look, I am a big fan of telling people "read it in the hebrew". If you had bothered to do that, you would see the passage he is talking about (Job 40:15) should almost certainly be translated (roughly) "here are the animals, that I made, along with you. Grass/Grain it Eats, just like cattle eat." Now, the interesting thing about this passage is the word (transliterated) "b-hay-mote". Hebrew, as lots of people will tell you, is written with consonants. So, the word is BHM#T (the # is something that normally represents an "Oh" or "oo" but can be a "V". A vav for those of you who know hebrew.) Under normal circumstances, you would just translate that as "animals". The problem with that translation, is that this chapter is God, showing Job all sorts of wonderous things of Creation. So why are some random animals so wonderous. That question is what leads to the discussion that the animals in question, are wonderous animals, and the trasliteration of a normal word "B-Hay-Mote" to behemoth. You really have to be reading the passage TRYING to force the word to mean "dinosaurs" for it to come close to that reading.
See, that would be a decent argument. "everyone knows its metaphor you dipshit" is just wrong, and personal.
Also, please dont give me ownership of the Old testament. I like to think my knowledge of it is better than most. But that doesnt mean I own it, any more that a classics professor owns "the Illiad". Other people can still come to these books, read them, and find what they may in them. Some of what they find might be because they want to see it. Sometimes a scholar of these books can show somone why a particular reading isnt likely. But Christians (though I think they are often wrong, because they rarely study the bible in any original source) are not to be dismissed out of hand because they are not "orthodox Jews". Further, why should an Orthodox Jew have any more claim to the bible then I Conservative, or reform Jew. They have the same traditional connection I do, they just choose to make a different reading.
In short, please mod parent down. He is an AC, doesnt really say anything constructive (or even correct), and belongs at 0 where he started.
I think the reason why creationism and other balony can grow in the US is a general "all or nothing" attitude in a lot of people there. I've noticed it in a few people while I was in the US, many of them have an approach to things that allows no middle way. Things are black or white, good or bad, there or not. Yes or no. Very binary.
Creationism and clinging to the bunk is a necessity for the religous zealots there. If God didn't create the world, he cannot exist. All or nothing. Either the Bible is 100% correct or God is gone. Now, that must not happen, of course, so Creationism MUST be correct.
Even the most zealous religious groups here in Europe take a rather moderate stance towards Creationism. God can exist without it, the Bible needn't be literal. "Created in seven days" is a metaphor for a creation in a "whole way", that's what the seven symbolizes. That can take millenia (hey, who are you to dictate to God how long one of his days is? Remember, he's beyond and above space and time). He also created the animals before man, so those dinos can exist way before man came to be. A millenia old earth? No problem, those "seven days" are a metaphor.
I've had lengthy talks with very devout theologists and without failure they all said that you cannot take the Bible literal. Doing so would most likely make you either crazy or turn from the faith, because you'd have to realize that it cannot be true if taken literal. You don't even want to count the translation mistakes (it was translated from Aramaic to Greek to Latin to English... talk about bablefish) or the interpretations. And a lot of things changed meaning in the millenia since its creation, a lot of the figures and parallels used to describe things don't make sense anymore to a modern person. Do you REALLY want to try taking something like that literal?
The general belief here is (if you are so inclined to take it serious and believe in it) that God created the world in seven "steps", which is also in sync with the original text ("days" is only a way to translate it. The original text talked about "daily tasks", in today's commerce it would be translated as "man days"). And that's by far not the only translation mistake the various people who copied it made.
And you want to take one of those babelfishy documents literal? Must be nuts to do that.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Why does a person of Faith need scientific proof?
So, just as Catholics belief that murdering heretics (preferably as painfully as possible) was doing god's work justified the genocide of the Cathars (as just one example), the communists' belief that they were hastening the arrival of post-capitalist society justified their own murderous depredations.
The point is that unquestioning belief in any set of propositions (whether mystical or secular) leads people (not all of them, but certainly enough, as history has shown us, to be a concern) to do very bad things.
It's a Power engine of the highest order. Its proponents begin by asking you to suspend logic and assume an anti-entropic premise. From there, the orthodox doctrine is One of Many interpretations. It gets worse. For the newbie, they can either listen to glorious affirmations, or face the grinding universe. It's like a mathematical proof with a division by zero in it. It's an "illegal operation" for a reason. If that step is allowed, quite literally anything can be pseudo-proved. The fun part is the computer era has contributed a whole new slew of reasons to show it all up.
"God hasn't answered my prayers."
"He is Busy."
"No he's not, he's God."
"Oh. Well, then you're too puny to understand Him."
"Hmm. Then can I talk to the cool souls of dead people? Like Edward Gibbon?"
"No. The Other World is removed from this one."
"That's no fun. Can I send an email?"
"No."
"What?? God has no IT staff?? Where did all the Slashdotters go?"
My first Journal Entry ever, in 8 years! http://slashdot.org/journal/365947/aphelion-scifi-fantasy-horror-poetry-webzine
Um.
Adam being naked with his Tingling Naughty Bits hanging out is too much for their more conservative donors to handle, but Adam squatting naked behind a sheep is okay?
I guess that doesn't surprise me.
I know a lot of Christians who seek to oppress their neighbors, as Christ didn't teach. You're lucky your experience has not been the same.
Can I bum a sig?
Quite the contrary, the "Starvation Army" provided all of the furniture in the house I grew up in - for free; and we weren't even Christians and not going to be.
Still have a few pieces of that "junk" furniture, only now it's valuable Mission Oak. My mother has always said that she wishes she took more (the offer was for anything she wanted, just help yourself), only pride prevented her.
Still, it is my experience that the one thing the average Christian can't abide is a Christian. Just read The Name of the Rose.
KFG
I would like to understand why exactly this is. Does the Bible say that it should not be taken literally? Should the whole thing not be taken literally or just parts of it? If the latter, how do you know what parts? And if we are not supposed to take it literally, what are the contents actually supposed to mean (given that interpretation of nor literal material is highly subjective)?
Forgive me for flying off the handle right away, but it seems to me this is just a technique believers use to shield themselve from inquiry when it is clear that their beliefs are downright outlandish (and they know it). If the Bible is not meant to be taken literally then honestly what could it possibly be good for? (Aside from the reasons we read The Odyssey or similar classics.) You cannot be sure of anything in such a text as it is intended for the audience to make their own decisions. It is like basing beliefs on interpretations of Fight Club or Rocking-Horse Winner. Those stories could mean anything and specifically do not present absolutes, drawing on the reader to make sense of them.
Why bother.
Of course, this doesn't get around the fact that usually the religious reasons are a pretext used by those with power to justify actions for their own gain. But therein lies part of the problem; when a leader uses a religion or ideology to motivate people to do wrong for his own gain, is that religion/ideology culpable? If a political figure or a preacher tells his followers to kill in the name of X, does X therefor share some of the blame? Does communism get the blame for what Stalin did, or Christianity the blame for what the Crusaders did? After all, the people doing the actual killing have probably been led to believe that what they're doing is right. The people in power may not be true believers, but you can bet their goons are.
And that gets you to a second problem. If the religion or ideology is not to be blamed for the evil it can be used to justify, should it therefor get any credit for the good it can cause? Christianity brought us intolerant fundamentalism on the one hand, and numerous charities on the other. If it can't be blamed for the former, can it be given any credit for the latter?
I'd suggest that one of two positions is possible. Either you can claim that religion is an ideology that can be used for good or evil, but is itself neutral, or that religion is a driving force that can cause people to turn into saints or monsters. Too many people on both sides want to cherry pick their facts to support both ideas when it suits them; fundamentalists would have you believe that when Christians do good, the credit lies with the religion, and when they do evil, the blame lies only with themselves, while people who dislike religion would blame it for all the evil it causes and ignore the good.
(Side note: I should probably mention that I'm a strongly secular agnostic. I don't dislike religion, but I don't particularly like it either.)
Erotic is when you use a feather. Exotic is when you use the whole chicken.
Maybe you should study a little economic theory before purporting to evaluate an economist. Marx's seminal work, his theories on the unemployment cycle, remain fundamentally unchalleneged and virtually unchanged to this day.
It's always a long day... 86400 doesn't fit into a short.
Now really, would you even trust someone who goes around cuckolding someone else, never mind worshiping them and their bastard kid?
Worked for Zeus and Herakles. Of course they were Gods of cuckolds and bastard kids. When asked about adultery in Sparta the reply was "There isn't any," because Sparta had a culture of wife "sharing" and children as the property of the city.
Think about that the next time someone says, "It takes a village to raise a child." Read a history of Sparta - and ants.
KFG
And by definition that includes every believer. A believer by definition thinks that god created everything, there is no alternative to that answer no matter how deep into the nature of the universe you delve at some point, god dun it. By asking the question, why, at all, you're giving intent and assuming right from the start that god exists.
You're really missing the point of my post (and of Dawkins), perhaps I didn't present it well. Believers state that god did it, they are claiming ownership of both the how and the why. The question of how is in direct opposition to science and the question of why is answered by assumption implicit in the question itself.
Deleted
I would say that religion limits you further...with atheism, there is no limit to what you can discover...with religion, you discover as much as what is written in a book. A book which was written by men who thought the world was flat.
One of my favorite quotes of all time:
"God must be greater than the greatest of human weaknesses and, indeed, the greatest of human skill. God must even transcend our most remarkable-to emulate nature in its absolute splendor. How can any man or woman sin against such greatness of mind? How can one little carbon unit on Earth-in the backwaters of the Milky Way, the boondocks-betray God, ALMIGHTY? That is impossible. The height of arrogance is the height of control of those who create God in their own image."
Living With a Nerd
From Article 11 of the treaty, as approved by the Senate and signed by President John Adams in 1796:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_of_Tripoli
The founding fathers were Deists, not Christian fundamentalists.
occultae nullus est respectus musicae - originally a Greek proverb
Actually, as a friend of mine once said, "you can't argue people into believing what you believe." It might be more useful to point out that they themselves change the modes with which they interpret the bible. In some places, they claim not to be 'interpreting' it - they say they're just 'reading it' when they quote passages which say the only way to heaven or to be 'saved' is to believe in jesus. Yet in other places they don't take scriptures so literally. Good examples are Deut 23:1 that says you can't go to church with damaged testicles or if your penis has been cut off and Deut 23:2 that says if you're a bastard (even ten generations out) you can't go to church. Also, god is powerless against automobiles (iron chariots) - Judges 1:19. fundamentalists will claim that you can violate Old Testament laws all you want, and Christ's sacrifice will deliver you from judgment if you believe in him. Yet, Christ said that not one bit of OT law will be given exception to - Matt 5:17-19. In other places, christ's sacrifice does supersede OT laws - Luke 16:16/ Eph 2:15/ Rom 7:6. Do OT laws still hold? Or not? If I hit god with my subaru, will he be able to get back up?
Those are just theological contradictions. Then there are places where a story is told one way and accounted for differently in another. In Matthew, christ was taken into egypt (Matt 2:14,15,19,21,23) but in Luke he wasen't (Luke 2:22, 39). In Matthew, jesus gave the beatitudes on a mountainside (Matt 5:1,2) and in Luke he gave the beatitudes on a plain (Luke 6:17,20). The list of course goes on and on. The point is that fundamentalists and evangelicals take the bible as a unified authority and believe its contents have been carefully arranged by god to tell us how to live and what to believe. And just by reading it, this isn't the case which pokes holes in their claims to the be the only true religion, and in most of the founding theology they live by. You can't let them get away with "we're not interpreting the bible - we're just reading it factually." (which they'll fall back on to avoid complex theological discussions) Point out they do in fact interpret the bible, and their is just one on many interpretations. You might even need to point out that the bible wasn't even written in english or even one language, so by definition they are reading an interpretation. There are lots of good examples of contradictions at evilbible.com.
"We are all geniuses when we dream"
- E.M. Cioran
Are you still here?
Agnostics and Atheists dismiss gods, not faith. Most (I would argue nearly all) still have faith in mankind, and that is what their moral foundation rests on.
Once again, the boogeyman gets drawn out of the closet, "Atheists have no Gods therefore they have no Morals!", which is untrue, or else they'd all be out in the street killing people for fun.
If you do not understand how a person can have morals and not believe in a god or gods, the problem is not with them, my friend, it is with you.
occultae nullus est respectus musicae - originally a Greek proverb
Because they get in my way. They bring up religion and then expect me to be tolerant of them. I'm tired of people spouting off religious bollocks at me and keeping silent. I don't go around converting people to atheism but if they bring up the subject I'm going to make sure they know that they believe in a fairy tale.
Deleted
The only thing worse than a christian fundamentalist is an atheist fundamentalist.
As an atheist - I more or less agree with this. I have a problem with fundamentalists of any stripe.
Why the hell do you people want to convert everyone?
And then you go and say something like that. "You people"? I understand if your passions is inflamed - but don't do that.
With every belief system, there's a bell curve of evangelisation. Some are content to live according to their system, others to "live as an example". Some answer when asked, some preach, some confront, and some harass.
That's true of every group - so there's no sense in getting your knickers in a twist over atheists, unless you've got a particular axe to grind. But then the issue is with you, and not them.
Jesus said we should be kind to one another and forgive and not judge. If theis message makes someone a better person, couldn't you say that person was saved by Jesus?
Is it wrong to appreciate life in all its forms? Is it wrong to think that life is something special in the Universe? "God loves you" is just another way of saying that.
On these statements - you and I can agree, and using religion as a metaphor for appreciating nature and trying to live in harmony with your fellow man...hey - I'm all for that.
Unfortunately, there are as many on "your side" that would disagree with us as on "my side". So that leaves us in a pickle.
I used to be an atheist. But the problem with atheism is that it limits you. Science can answer the "How?" questions but not the "Why?" questions. Why are we here? Big bang, evolution, yada yada yada. That tells us how, but not why.
With respect, that's not a limit of atheism. That's a limit of science, and to a certain extent, that betrays a limit of your own imagination.
To start with, you should realise this equation ( atheism == scientific belief ) is not true. Science deals with how, not why - that's not a flaw, that's just what it is. Personally, I think we'd be better off if religion stuck to the why, and stopped trying to decide the how - but that's for another day.
Atheism doesn't "limit" you any more than it frees you - again, same as religion...
Someone who lives in fear of an invisible man, and attempts to abide by a codified rule set lest they face an eternity of torture and punishment is not free.
Someone who marvels at the fact that we are the only known piece of the universe that is aware of itself, and trying to figure itself out - who sees the universe as a conscious entity, through us - is not limited.
I present that contrast, not to attempt to characterise your beliefs, but to point out that it is we who limit ourselves or free ourselves. Religion can be a way to do either, depending on how it is used, but it is not the only option.
Atheism is not fundamentally flawed because it tells us no one will supply a "why" for us. It is not limiting because it requires the individual to set their own purpose, and chart their own beliefs. There is beauty. There is mystery. There is inspiration.
I'm sorry you could not find it. I genuinely hope that you have found it in Christianity. Either way - I don't think you serve yourself or us by relating your experience as anything more than your experience.
Judge not.
Cheers.
Running Windows^H^H^H^H^H^H^H OSX and Linux in the home. (I don't have time for Solitaire any more.)
So we have to make shit up instead? Then build on that shit, with more shit that has nothing to with the original shit we made up. Then modify and ammend that shit to make people believe in that shit to the extent that they live in terror of demons and hack off parts their childrens genitals?
Eventually what we get is a pile of shit so collossal that people begin to build bigger peaks on top of it then fight each other over the height of peaks and the consistency of the shit that makes them up. Some people will try to change the shit or move it about, or add more shit. Then others begin to fling the shit around at one another and anyone who happens by. Still more try to pull or shove innocent people into the shit. Children are saturated with the stink from birth so when people tell them in later life, "You shouldn't put up with all this shit.", they won't understand in the slightest what is being said to them.
I say no. I say the rest of us shouln't have to put up with all this shit. How about we make all these nutjob activities illegal? Frankly I don't see why the rest of us should have to suffer the effects of religion when we don't tolerate the effects of illegal substances? Freedom of religion. Where our freedom from religion?
May the Maths Be with you!
While others have already brought up that the poster was only talking about a small part of Marx's work, your point is also invalid because you seem to be assuming that the Soviet Union caried thourgh on his ideas. But in fact they sort of missed the whole point.
Marx said that Capitalism would run its course and come to a point where it was no longer workable. That so much of the wealth would be concentrated in a small group while the rest of the masses (the workers, or proletariat in his parlayence) would become more and more poor and oppressed. He then postulated that a revolution would then occur and the workers unite forming a workers paradise.
What the Soviet Union had was Marxist Leninism, because Lenin came along and said "why wait, we can have that paradise in our lifetimes", and started a revolution that he declared to be the revolution that Marx had envisioned. The big problem with this is that Russia at the time was not especially Capitalist (it was still a Monarchy), and Capitalism in the West was far from running its course (I think that it still is, but is starting to show a few cracks).
Of course, there are a few things that people at that point could not have known: the power of the media to keep people who would be otherwise discontent in check, the enormous productivity increases that have happened (suddenly it is much harder to starve... in comparison), and the push towards a service economy (servants for hire). All of these things set back Marx's ideas quite a bit.
In that respect he is much like Jesus.
Nice guy, rotten followers.
Its proponents begin by asking you to suspend logic and assume an anti-entropic premise.
This is a canard--actually the reverse is true. It is the Christian faith alone that can account for logic, reason, and rationality.
Why should anyone be rational if the Christian God does not exist? Why are men under any obligation to be rational in a materialistic universe?
As a Christian Theist, I believe all men should be rational. I believe people should believe things on good evidence. I think we are under obligation to use our intellectual tools to glorify God, and to learn about this world--we should be consistent. I believe that becasse God requires all men to be rational. I can make sense of the obligation to be rational.
If this world is sound and fury signifying nothing, why must men be rational? Why don't I just live moment by moment and be inconsistent: thinking on thing one time and another thing another time, caring nothing for logic? After all, logic has no place in the material universe--it is an abstract, non-material set of laws. How can laws of logic actually exist in an atheistic universe?
The odd thing about the materialist is this: the materialist who wants to be rational has already departed from his materialism.
If you are a materialist, you have a naturalistic explanation for everything we say and do. What's going on in this gray matter in my cranium is controlled by the laws of physics and chemistry and biology. I don't really think, I'm really like a weed that's growing. Weeds don't think, and neither do I, we're all subject to the laws of physics, I'm just at a more complicated/complex level.
If naturalism is true, there's no such thing as rationality, there's just whatever people end up thinking and doing. Why call men to be rational then?
However, the Christian God calls men to be consistent and rational. For the Christian Theist, I can expect all men to be obligated to be rational. Not so for those who reject the Christian God.
Consider the daffodil. And while you're doing that, I'll be over here, looking through your stuff.
Well no, evolution doesn't "teach" anything, evolution is a fact. The current theories of evolution, on the other hand, pretty much tell us this yes.
Yes and no. Many "moral requirements" vary from country to country, or person to person, yet some obvious stuff stays: killing people of the insider group without any reason for example (while killing people outside your "group" is not absolute at all), which can be inferred as coming from evolution: humans are social animals, they come from close-knit groups (tribes and the likes) which meant that killing fellow members of the tribe/group was a huge hit on their survival chance. Evolution would therefore have favored groups of people who didn't kill each other (not giving a fuck about killing people outside the families/camps/tribes/groups), hence the reason why it's pretty much universally considered immoral to kill close relatives, family members or people who're close to you in general, while most humans don't give a damn about people from an other country being slaughtered.
There therefore are some kinds of "moral absolute" coming straight from our evolutionary past.
It's funny how religious people always derive that humans can't grow up their own morals, their own personal morality, and that they must always have someone with a huge stick imposing arbitrary morals on them.
If anything, this mostly shows that religious nutjobs are nuts, and would like nothing more than to kill and maim everyone.
I find it bizarre that you religious guys find youself "quite sane" when your only desire is to kill, rape and eat fellow humans. Your guys truly are sickos.
I myself am a human, and an atheist, I have no "absolute morals" but I do have my own set of moral rules mostly derived from "don't do unto others what you don't want other to do unto you", and some other pretty logical "rules of thumb".
"The way we can tell it's C# instead of Haskell is because it's nine lines instead of two." -- wadler
There are also quite a few post Marx theories that suggested the Revolution would be permanently postponed since the industrialized west coul shift the oppression to undeveloped nations. As long as the West could carefully balance developing the third world enough to produce useful labor but at the same time keep them undeveloped enough to prevent the critical mass for Revolution. So that's what gave the justification to many of the communist leaders of the 20th century to act in such fascist ways, they felt unless they could break the cycle by any means necessary they would never be free.
I do think we see aspects of this playing out in the world. For example in India, during the last election cycle, the poorer people in the country expressed their unhappiness with the fact that properity from outsourcing and other things seemed unequally distributed. And as India develops more, you see Western nations turning to other countries for outsourcing. The issue is will we ever get to the point were the whole world is developed enough that local labor has no disadvantage?
Complicating this is the degree to which some countries will embrace aspects of socialism. For example, in the USA most automobile companies are in big trouble because they can no longer afford retirement and health care benefits for their already retired workers. This is a HUGE expense for them. Many of their overseas competition doesn't have to worry about this, because the gov't provides healthcare and retirement benefits. In this case a gov'ts degree of socialism can provide an advantage to a particular industry by removing a large category of expense.
The question of which direction competition between countries will drive work rights is still undecided. The India example is heartening, but most other developing countries don't have such a democratic institutions. Will workers in China start to demand more involvement in gov't? After living there for 3 years I am not sure anymore.
Peace, or Not?
>What's going on in this gray matter in my cranium is controlled by the laws of physics and chemistry and biology. I don't really think,
Your conclusion does not follow from your premise. Everything going on in your head could be entirely chemical and biological, and can still be considered thought. There is no violation of physical laws going on when you think.
>If naturalism is true, there's no such thing as rationality, there's just whatever people end up thinking and doing.
Once again, an unfounded logical leap. What is your evidence that rationality is anything more than 'whatever people end up thinking and doing'?
>However, the Christian God calls men to be consistent and rational.
No, he does not. The very premise of the religion, that man is born in sin because of the acts of the original man and woman, is illogical. If Adam and Eve had no knowledge of good and evil before they ate of the tree, they had no idea it was evil to disobey god. "When you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil." If you don't know that an act is evil, how can you (and all your children for all eternity) justifiably be punished for it?
Your religion is no more rational than any other. Get used to it.
-- Give me ambiguity or give me something else!
That one is easy to explain. He rolled a 20.
The word 'atheist' is completely pointless to begin with and should be rejected as useless jargon. How many words describe what you do not believe? How about:
Aquinist: A person who does not believe in unicorns.
Adentite: A person who does not believe in the tooth fairy.
PCB
'Men never commit evil so fully and joyfully as when they do it for religious convictions.' B. Pascal
That anyone modded that shit insightful just goes to show how cool it is to bash religion, especially christianity, on slashdot.
Morality and faith are not arbitrary to an athiest. They are arrived at through logical thought and rational deduction. Faith and morals are arbitrary to a deist because one's choice of God and religion is arbitrary, and even when one has chosen, one can choose which precepts to follow and which to reject. God says not to eat shellfish, but you know that part is just ancient tribal belief. God says not to kill innocents, but you know those guys are evil sinners so grab a stone!
Moral athiests have arrived at their morals through thought and introspection. There are good, solid, selfish reasons not to light children on fire, we don't need some arbitrary and unverifiable book of rules to know that. The fact is, either morals and rules come from outside the universe and there is no way of verifying their correctness because they are outside all possible experience, or they come from inside the universe and can be deduced from experiences had inside the universe.
If there is no God, then people who believe in God are not only more delusional than those of us who know that God's existence or lacjk thereof simply doesn't matter, they are less likely to arrive at correct action in any given situation. By correct action I mean the action that will most efficiently bring about the greatest satisfaction among the greatest number. Admitedly, it is an arbitrary definition, but you will find that it is one many can agree with and from a pragmatic standpoint, that is what counts.
Because "believers" have subjugated their ability to think for themselves to religious dogma, they will be unable to act flexibly and creatively in situations that cause cognitive dissonance within their religious framework. People who have arrived at their morality through logic and introspection can adapt and be good people in any situation.
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
Actually the "yuo people" was addressed to all the fundamentalists, not to all the atheists.
Ah. Fair enough
I would argue Atheism is just another religion.
And you have. To the extent that we might define "religion" to be a philosophical belief system about the nature of god - I would agree. It is a fact, though, that the vast majority of religions share general characteristics that you will not find in atheism. It all depends on how broadly you want to define the word "religion."
I just chose not to limit myself to any one belief system. I just pick and choose whatever seems right from whatever religion I'm exposed to. Jesus, Buddha, Socrates, Mohammed all hove some very insightful knowledge of the universe. Why limit yourself to one?
An approach I can support wholeheartedly.
It's interesting that you would immediately assume that someone who is contrary to your beliefs is Christian.
You can rightly say that I got carried away with an assumption - do not then make the mistake of doing the same.
I assumed you were a Christian because you cited Jesus and his teachings. You referred to the (generally understood) Judeo-Christian notion of 'God loving you'. You did not directly refer to characteristic figures or teachings from any other religion.
If I drew an incorrect conclusion from what I was presented - then I retract it, and I apologize for any offense. Allow me to note, though, that it was a (flawed) conclusion based on your text, not my prejudice.
I'm reminded of a quote from dune I saw in someone's sig: "What do you despise? By this are you truly known."
It's from Frank Herbert, if you're interested.
I think this is a trap that many atheists fall into. They simply define themselves as simply being against christianity (and by extension all religions).
Well, first of all - it is not at all a natural extension to say that to be against Christianity is to be against all religions.
Your main point, though, which I would interpret to be that atheism is better understood by what it is not, rather than what it is, is well taken from this corner. A point I reflected on after writing my post above, in fact.
However you are again, IMHO, continuing to take characteristics and attitudes that would well apply across the board, and projecting them simply on atheists. It is true that for many atheists, it is nothing more than a rejection of religion, or perhaps the rejection of a specific faith - but the same is true of non-atheists. Many of them also have a simplistic view, and one that is only relative to their own particular faith.
I have heard many christians discuss atheism solely from the perspective about what it is about Christianity we reject. This was further emphasized the first time I spoke with a muslim about my atheism - and he immediately put atheism into a context of Atheism vs. Islam.
So this narrow view of a philosophical system - the fact that one may limit themselves by only its simplest tenants is (I would argue) a human characteristic - and not an imagination-deficit that atheists have a monopoly on.
So when an atheist asks "Why are we here?" he has to reject any answer that might resemble something from religion. This is what is so limiting about atheism.
Again, I don't agree that you can take it that far. We must reject anything 'that might resemble something from religion'? I have beliefs that religious friends have described as "deeply spiritual." As I said before, there is room for beauty, imagination, and inspiration in atheism.
Atheism implicitly rejects the notion that we are given our purpose from some external entity, this is true. Religions, by and large, also implicitly reject the idea that we might actually choose to answer that question for ourselves.
They're both limiting - not because there's something wrong with them but because to b
Running Windows^H^H^H^H^H^H^H OSX and Linux in the home. (I don't have time for Solitaire any more.)
Gandhi. --Please note position of the "h."
You can't talk about Wikipedia's flaws on Wikipedia
For some, yes - it's boredom, and the "meaning of life thing" - (packaged up in a neat little book that just about anyone can understand, for the same reason that a McDonald's Cheeseburger is packaged into a neat little box that just about anyone can enjoy).
At least in America, anyway, I think that over the past 40-50 years or so, there's been a growing sense of loss of control of our country, our laws, and our governments. The Evangelical movement has arisen primarily as a tool, a corporate tool, to make money, and keep people distracted from the real problems that affect their lives and make them angsty. Don't worry about Sony installing rootkits on your computer, Jesus is Coming! Don't worry about Wal Mart tracking you with RFID tags, Jesus is coming! Don't worry about nightclubs scanning your driver's license, Jesus is Coming! Don't worry about the bank giving your purchasing information to the FBI, Jesus is coming!
(then there's - Worry about the evil terrorists, Mohammad is coming!)
The nature of this movement is evident when you look at the sheer ruthless industrial efficiency of the new suburban "mega church". A tax-free enterprise, with relatively low operating costs; all they need to do is tell sweet stories a couple hours, one day a week, 2000 or so believers at a time, and sit back and rake in the tithing. Occasionally sponsor a mission or a soup line. And all those angsty people learn is; don't associate with those heathen hippies and their commie ideas.
This is coming from someone who DOES believe in a God, and Jesus.
I used to go to my local suburban megachurch, after I relocated to a different part of the country. What they're teaching, is not the Christianity I was raised with. A whole new set of memes has taken hold. A set of memes that used to be relegated to lunatic fringe wingnuttery. For example: The official stance of the Catholic church, as long as I've been aware, was that Evolution was God's way of making Mankind on Earth - and if it took hundreds of millions of years - well, that's how long it took, and don't hold the scripture to perfect inerrancy, because some parts are allegorical. That shit's just out of style now.
I don't really know what, if anything, can be done to stop this trend. Maybe after a few more scandals, people will stop realizing that their leaders are not God's Messengers. If nothing else, this has brought their leaders great power, and power always always corrupts. (and stealing God's power is "absolute power"). And from that corruption comes arrogance. The bigger they are, the harder they fall.
These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
> I don't go around converting people to atheism but if they bring up the subject I'm going
> to make sure they know that they believe in a fairy tale.
Actually, if you accept Popper's definition of scientific questions, you can not tell them that they believe in a fairytale. You can not envision an experiment which would falsify their premise of the existence of God, neither can they come up with one to falsify your statement of God's non-existence.
That question is scientifically undecidable, thus can not even be the subject of scientific debate.
It is pure belief on both sides. If you think about it, you can not disprove a statement like "the world was created just a picosecond ago, with space, time and all particles suddenly popping up from nothingness in their present (quantum) state and all of our memories have been created so that we think that we (and the Universe) have been around for ages". Your argument against such a statement is that why on Earth (or Heaven, rather) would a god do such a thing, trying to fool us? The believers would argue that you can't comprehend the reasons behind God's actions so you shall not ask that question; the agnostics would point out that since it is undecidable, Occam's razor tells them to assume that there's no God until positive evidence pops up and the atheists just discard the whole thing as complete rubbish. However, all of them do it based on their personal beliefs, not solid logic or scientific arguments.
When creationists come around with easily falsifiable pseudo-science, by all means whack them on the head. When people come around and do nasty things "in the name of God", ditto. But you can not attack them for their believing in a god, for you have no way of telling that they're wrong.
I highly recommend people read their "Get Answers" section. You'll either laugh or cry (perhaps both) at the incredible claims they make. A few choice selections
On Dinosaurs:
On "Young Earth":
At first I wasn't sure if the author of both of these articles (Ken Ham) was simply ignorant of the existance of half-life dating and other dating techniques. Then I saw that he simply dismisses science as "so-called 'science'." Good to see that he's putting those logical faculties he received from God to good use.
So read on if you dare, but be careful! It's full of mind bending spin... excuse me, corrections.
So... you don't want to be known as a young-Earther but acknowledge that you believe the Earth is young... riiiight.