Comments on: Joy to the World

By: Chris Grealy

Chris Grealy — Fri, 08 Jan 2010 07:31:53 +0000

Ah, Christians can be such uptight downers. They really need to learn tolerance and relax a bit more.

By: Liam

Liam — Wed, 06 Jan 2010 01:55:17 +0000

Joel,

None of what I quoted advocates communism.
What it does advocate is enjoying and focusing on life while keeping a strong sense of humor.
Religion is pretty lousy when it comes to both of those (In the Gospel, Jesus never laughs + Christianity beleives the earth is cursed) but it has its “sparkles of love”

I just felt like it eloquently summed up a lot of points that came up previously.

Where did you get the idea that any of that was promoting Maoism?

By: joel rice

joel rice — Mon, 04 Jan 2010 14:14:05 +0000

yes Gordon, it certainly appears that Stalin and Mao were doing their best to
act like the God of the Old Testament – but instead of fiction they made it a reality.

By: Gordon

Gordon — Mon, 04 Jan 2010 01:23:01 +0000

Yes, and it has nothing to do with atheism. Nada. Zip. Straw men.

“The God of the Old Testament is arguably the most unpleasant character in all fiction: jealous and proud of it; a petty, unjust, unforgiving control-freak; a vindictive, bloodthirsty ethnic cleanser; a misogynistic, homophobic, racist, infanticidal, genocidal, filicidal, pestilential, megalomaniacal, sadomasochistic, capriciously malevolent bully.”
— Richard Dawkins (The God Delusion)

By: joel rice

joel rice — Mon, 04 Jan 2010 01:02:13 +0000

Liam – ever read the Black Book of Communism ? – talk about splashed with gore
and genocides. Let’s see – Stalin refused to give the Bomb to Mao because he thought
Mao was crazy. Between the two of them, that is over 100,000,000 dead humans.

By: Liam

Liam — Sun, 03 Jan 2010 18:36:44 +0000

“My faith is whatever makes me feel good about being alive. If your religion doesn’t make you feel good to be alive, what the hell is the point of it?”

“The history of the Catholic Church is written on charred pages splashed with gore. It is a history of inquisitions and genocides, of purges and perversions, of ravings and razzings. Yes, but through those same bloody pages walk parades of saints playing their celestial radios and sowing their sparkles of love.”

“A world leader who’s convinced that life is merely a trial for the more valuable and authentic afterlife is less hesitant to risk starting a nuclear holocaust. A politician or corporate executive who’s expecting the Rapture to arrive on the next flight from Jerusalem is not going to worry much about polluting oceans or destroying forests. Why should he? Thus to emphasize the afterlife is to deny life. To concentrate on heaven is to create hell.

In their desperate longing to transcend the disorderliness, friction, and unpredictability that pesters life; in their desire for a fresh start in a tidy habitat, germ-free and secured by angels, religious multitudes are gambling the only life they may ever have on a dark horse in a race that has no finish line.”

“A sense of humor, properly developed, is superior to any religion so far devised.”

-Tom Robbins

By: Gordon

Gordon — Sun, 03 Jan 2010 15:45:50 +0000

Sean: Just when I start agreeing with you on one or two things, you wimp out
Atheists are not the problem. Religious kooks, particularly in the USA are. Get onside with
Hitchens and Dawkins and be proud. I thought the bus ad was brilliant and fun. Dont let
the ubiquitous scummy TV evangelists have the media all to themselves. To misquote the
Bible, the meek will not inherit the earth. The proportion of born again nuts and evolution deniers in the USA should be totally alarming. It sort of undermines pointing the finger of
irrationality at the arabs. Perhaps Bill Maher is right—Americans are stupid.

By: joel rice

joel rice — Sun, 03 Jan 2010 15:13:16 +0000

Gordon: the issue is not what Newton wrote but whether he would have written
his scientific works if he had some other religious beliefs. Nobody knows, period.

By: bryan

bryan — Sun, 03 Jan 2010 06:07:22 +0000

Just a few thoughts:

1-There really is no agnosticism. You believe one thing or another-own it.
2-Fanatics don’t need religion. It’s a relationship of convenience.
3-Untruth does not equal no worth. Would the religion protesters think it ok to travel into a remote region and preach science to indigenous animists because they would so benefit from scientific rationality? Life doesn’t have to be truth it just needs to ultimately serve the emotional and physical well being of the liver.

By: Doug Watts

Doug Watts — Sun, 03 Jan 2010 05:24:37 +0000

Besides, an atheist putting out his point of view isn’t something to be ashamed of, especially when we just had an example of a religiously motivated terrorist trying to blow up a plane.

What a fascinatingly logical argument.

By: osmium

osmium — Sun, 03 Jan 2010 02:05:35 +0000

I’m a scientist and an atheist, but here’s what I’m worried about now: I like domestic beer. Is that ok? I’m worried.

By: Starlinks for the New Year

Starlinks for the New Year — Sat, 02 Jan 2010 20:07:51 +0000

[...] Sean Carroll over at Cosmic Variance is an atheist, and takes his time to whine about another atheis…. Maybe this is hypocritical of me, but spending your blog space criticizing those you agree with, but with whom you disagree with tactically, is pointing the gun in the wrong direction. Besides, an atheist putting out his point of view isn’t something to be ashamed of, especially when we just had an example of a religiously motivated terrorist trying to blow up a plane. Get real, Sean, and stop being a whiner. This is why liberal, thoughtful, nuanced, atheistic people can’t have nice things. We criticize each other publicly. The conservatives and the religious right generally team up, circle the wagons, and keep their eye (at least publicly) on their goals. The Democrats snipe at each other much more than the Republicans, who rarely break rank. There’s a longer post in this, and maybe I’ll make one later. With Sean Carroll and Chris Mooney and other accommodationist atheists spending their time being critical of the guy above, PZ Meyers, Richard Dawkins, et al., it feels like the civil rights or gay rights movements with the movements (if you will) spending time to call out their Malcom Xs and Harvey Milks. Personally, I think it’s better to circle the wagons and realize it takes all voices and all extremes to make progress and there are bigger and badder folks to target out there. [...]

By: Gordon

Gordon — Sat, 02 Jan 2010 07:16:23 +0000

I don’t think I am taking Newton out of context at all. Read “The Baroque Cycle” –Quicksilver, The Confusion, The System of the World , by Neal Stephenson. Or Westfall’s “Never at Rest”, or Keynes’ lecture on Newton (delivered by his brother).

By: Gordon

Gordon — Sat, 02 Jan 2010 05:39:03 +0000

Funny. I thought that described the “believers”. I guess one tends to
lose a sense of humor when confronted by pig ignorant folks. One does though
tend to cultivate a sense of irony.

By: Doug Watts

Doug Watts — Fri, 01 Jan 2010 18:23:44 +0000

Atheists can be such uptight downers.

As some on this thread amply demonstrate.

Sanctimonious, also.

By: joel rice

joel rice — Fri, 01 Jan 2010 14:46:00 +0000

Gordon: As Douglas Adams said – “Mostly Harmless”.
I rather enjoyed the commentary of Richard John Neuhaus in First Things over the
years regarding Dawkins et al. hmmm – why would a hard boiled atheist be reading
First Things anyway ? Could you predict that ?
You take things out of historical and social context. Claude Levi Strauss had interesting
things to say about taboos.

By: Gordon

Gordon — Thu, 31 Dec 2009 21:57:37 +0000

Joel: Of course you aren`t impressed by Dawkins et. al. I could have predicted that.
Few irrational folks are impressed. They also are not `demanding` that people stop being delusional. Clearly, you are proof that this is impossible. Marxism and string theory are not
positing virgin births, resurrections, transubstantiations, arks—basically your fairies in the garden stuff. As for traditional thoughts giving comfort, what wimpy, craven bs. Yes, an afterlife could be comforting to many—-too bad it is imaginary.
Newton`s religion and obsession with alchemy most certainly interfered with his other
scientific work, as did his obsession with the Mint. In any case, there was only one Newton.

By: Brian137

Brian137 — Thu, 31 Dec 2009 20:59:09 +0000

Some good points have been made, but we are in a small room containing a big elephant that I do not think anyone has mentioned (although I must admit to having skimmed or skipped over some of the previous 105 posts). Many have commented upon the rationality or irrationality of various points of view and even upon some possible social consequences of those views, but theism and (yes) atheism also involve our feelings. Most, or at least many, people prefer to be happy. They wake up in the morning and hope to have some fun or, at least, not suffer. Offered a choice of two eggs over easy, bacon, and toast with jam or stale bread and mud for breakfast, most would choose the former.

Religion and atheism both address an inherent preference for contentment. As at the ages of two hours and two years so today we care about how we feel. Perhaps, a particular atheist feels a satisfaction in being intellectually “correct,” as he sees it. Religion can involve a whole melange of powerful feelings, including love, hate, fear, and reassurance. An understanding of the topics raised in the OP requires more than a dry cerebral exercise.

By: joel rice

joel rice — Thu, 31 Dec 2009 16:28:01 +0000

Gordon – Evidently Newton did not think it was boring. Some shrinks would have put him
in a padded cell. How do you know that he would have done any physics without his
religious beliefs ? Maybe he would have become a lawyer ! Delusional nonsense is not
confined to religion anyway. Is string theory delusional ? Is Marxism delusional ? A lot
of people respect ideas that have stood the test of time, and maybe tradition is a comfort.
Frankly I am not all that impressed by Harris, Dawkins, Hitchens et al. Religious freedom
makes more sense than demanding that everybody stop being delusional.
On another note -maybe Wigner’s Unreasonable Effectiveness of Math goes beyond the
Anthropic Principle. It is not just our physical and biological existence that must be
possible, but that doing physics and developing technology also make sense in the
universe. It seems to demand that the design of the world be extraordinarily well behaved
for this to be possible -and that the development over time from a state of complete ignorance.

By: Michael Kingsford Gray

Michael Kingsford Gray — Thu, 31 Dec 2009 09:06:06 +0000

Sigh… Another pathetic ‘faitheist’ gets it wrong again.
Sean, where is your profound sense of awe at the mighty universe that is exposed by science?
(Versus the measly and shrivelled miracles offered by modern cults. You know: the best that theism can offer you today is a burnt bit of toast. Contrast that with a quasar or a laser.)
Those are *real* miracles!