h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

(simulpost)

Indeed, I have no problem with contributions from the religious. In general. Just with Della

Don't be childish, Edward. I had just got through *apologising* to you, and you remind me *why* I had given up talking to you before my enforced hiatus! I should also have remembered how utterly, frustratingly pointless it is apologising to you, Hoo or azahar.. sigh...

(Not talking to you, for reasons of self defence was a great pity, BTW - I had enjoyed linguistic and other neutral discussions...)

For the record, I had unsubbed, but because I am still up, and saw your eyes, I had a look, and saw that *other* people had asked direct questions. But once again, and permanently this time,

>the irony of PC's self-aggrandising statement about the bullying of the poor non-believers.<

I see Della's back to putting words in other people's mouths. I have never used the word "bully" in my life. It's a stupid word, used by people with "poor me" complexes to describe anyone who expresses an opinion that differs from theirs.

Back to the argument at hand... there is a huge difference between picking on an individual, and if people can't handle having their "beliefs" criticized, perhaps they're not very secure in them.

Della has a personal bone to pick with both Edward and myself. I'm certainly not losing any sleep over it.

Now, maybe we can get back to intelligent discussion?

Sorry, I omitted part of a sentence. "there is a huge difference between picking on an individual, and if people can't handle having their "beliefs" criticized, perhaps they're not very secure in them."

Should have read: "there is a huge difference between picking on an individual, and criticizing their "beliefs", and if people can't handle having their "beliefs" criticized, perhaps they're not very secure in them."

Aha! I knew there must be an atheist fundamentalist thread around here somewhere, and now I've found it.

Will be back to violently agree with you all soon

Welcome Dave. Hopefully normal service will be resumed after the recent spat. It's not normally like that here!

Yeah, welcome, Dave!

Edward, I apologize for rising to the bait and participating in the earlier stuff. I keep forgetting not to feed the trolls. My bad.

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Ooooh, did I see my name mentioned?

I see Della is getting back into attack/who me?attack? mode.

She's doing it elsewhere too.

Anyhow, not being an atheist myself, I just lurk around here now and then.


az the aztheist

Thanks for the welcome, and don't worry, I did a lot of lurking earlier in the year - that was mild.

I am currently preparing the justification of my fundamentalist credentials and will be back to bore you all stupid soon

Seriously, though...to give the Cat Lurker her due...there is a danger that we atheists 'do protest too much'. And I am as guilty as Psychocandy here.

OK - so we're obviously against the worst excesses of the superstitious (). That goes without saying, and the malicious bastards deserve every attack. But there's a spectrum, points along which include:

- The insane god botherers (the easy targets)
- People who are, say, not racist, socialist in some of their politics, but who deny things like chid sex abuse by priests and who argue the abortion debate from a religious standpoint
- Nice enough people who hold certain religiously-inspired moral preconceptions
- The fluffy mystics: decent people who aspire towards atheism but who can't quite let god go.

So we have to be a *little* careful in talking about 'religion' as a homogeneous whole. On the other hand - the majority or religion worldwide tends towards its worst aspects, does it not?

Then again...let's be clear: We say upfront that we're Atheist Fundamentalists here. The superstitious shouldn't expect decency from us.

Another interesting opinion piece, from today's Berlin Guardian (in-joke for Grauniad readers). An atheist writes in favour of the religious: http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,,1567604,00.html (Not that I'm a big fan of Roy Hattersley)

On a related theme,...Della/Adelaide/Shouty NZ woman's comments have made me think (so thanks for that): what *is* it that we atheists have against the religious that gets our goat so much? And why do we, in an atheist forum, spend so much time talking about/ criticising religion?

Well, to answer the second question first...I guess that it's hard to talk about Atheism per se, given that it's an absence of religion. We have to discuss it in comparison with religion. And religion represents a cultural norm against which we are arguing. And, even if bits of religion may be nice and fluffy, a lot of it is horrible: even if the mass of religious people aren't themselves horrible, the horrible aspects are so noisy and visible that we can't ignore them. What I suggest is that the fluffy religionists have to accept is that the horrible parts are all part and parcel of belief systems which take 'Well...that's what *I* think' as their only arbiter.

>And, even if bits of religion may be nice and fluffy, a lot of it is horrible: even if the mass of religious people aren't themselves horrible, the horrible aspects are so noisy and visible that we can't ignore them. What I suggest is that the fluffy religionists have to accept is that the horrible parts are all part and parcel of belief systems which take 'Well...that's what *I* think' as their only arbiter.<

I guess that's also my beef with the "fluffy" religionists, who say "well, I am a , but I don't believe in ". Either you are something, or you're not. And if you don't like the horrible parts of religion, why not just chuck the whole system, instead of "converting" to a fluffier version?

But interestingly...refering to the Grauniad article...a belief system contain bits of good and bits of obscene nonsense.

Psychocandy:

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Aren't you, by saying this, suggesting that nasty religions are more valid than fluffy religions? Surely all religions are made up, and so fluffy religions are exactly as 'invalid' as regular religions, and not so nasty to boot.

I agree. I'm finding it difficult to put forth exactly what it is I'm meaning, but I'll try.

I would concede that even atheists such as myself, have embraced some of the good bits from our old "belief systems". Even our current belief systems would have to have some bad bits.

You'd stated earlier that you see a lot of the "fluffier" religious folk as people who are moving towards atheism but who aren't quite ready to give up their gods. Kind of like training pants. I especially see this in neo-pagans adherents (I don't refer to people who follow their "native" pagan religion. What I mean by that is, for example, someone who claims to follow Asatru but is not of Nordic descent, etc.), a sort of "picking and choosing" which elements of a belief system to hold on to, while completely ignoring or overlooking, or flat out rejecting, other major componets of said religion. Or incorporating religious practices from many different religions (like in Santeria). It just seems to make people, while perfectly fluffy and nice-nice, even more delusional.

A lot of christians I know are very nice people. Good people, even. How can they adhere to a faith with such a history of violence? And if the whole bible is in fact allegorical or what have you, and the violence never actually happened, then what's the point?

>Aren't you, by saying this, suggesting that nasty religions are more valid than fluffy religions? Surely all religions are made up, and so fluffy religions are exactly as 'invalid' as regular religions, and not so nasty to boot.<

No, I see a fluffier faith as compared to a nastier religion as say, a child moving on to a sippy cup, after giving up the bottle, before drinking from a glass. It's perhaps a natural progression, but they're really just different versions of the same thing.

An interesting article by Salman Rushdie:

http://www.thestar.com/NASApp/cs/ContentServer?pagename=thestar/Layout/Article_Type1&c=Article&cid=1116770647079&call_pageid=968256290204&col=968350116795

Great article! (Of course, I'm a fan of Rushdie, so I was a bit biased going in )

"Religions play bare-knuckle rough all the time, while demanding kid-glove treatment in return."

They're not likely to get much kid-glove treatment here, eh?

Thanks for linking to that article, Edward.

Elsewhere, we have been discussing the case of Baby Charlotte (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/hampshire/4361414.stm). In summary � a premature bay who was not expected to survive as long as she had. Doctors went to court to seek a ruling on whether, in the case of further deterioration in her condition, they were allowed to decide not to resuscitate her, believing that to do so might cause suffering to their patient to no net benefit. The parents opposed this: they wished for every effort to be made to save their cherished daughter, no matter what the circumstances. The court ruled in favour of the doctors. Time has now moved on. Charlotte, while remaining severely ill and disabled, is no longer in danger of immediate collapse. The courts have overturned the ruling. It's not my intention here to advocate either side of the debate. My view is that it was a difficult ethical decision. Doctors would have been morally negligent if they had not sought a ruling as to whether both sides could, in extremis, be considered. I think that either outcome is morally respectable � to discontinue a patient's suffering, or to the extend the life of a valued human being. I can conceive of circumstances where I would come down in the favour of the former...but only on balance. Frankly, in such circumstances, I don't know what 'right' means. In the other thread (http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/brunel/F135418?thread=524287&post=14688760#p14688760 � for reference), the G-word was mentioned, at first as implied criticism of the parents for being led by their own Christian views�and then by a certain dogmatic Christian (no names no pack drill) whose knee-jerk response was that the doctors wanted to pre-empt God (despite lack of information about the doctors' own faith(s)). Sure, I have little truck with those who arrive at their positions by 'God says so.' But to give Christians (and the religious in general) their due, they include a whole spectrum of opinion. I doubt, for example, that the Archbishop of Canterbury would offer a clear-cut answer in this case � more of a 'Pray for guidance and do what seems right.' Which, apart from the praying bit, is pretty much my approach. The pragmatic Christian's way of expressing it would be 'Only God knows best (and he ain�t telling)'. To me, this is expressed as 'There are no moral absolutes.' I suspect I�d take this much further than any Christian. For example...I think that euthanasia might be a sticking point for most, if not all, Christians (I think the CofE is still partly ambivalent on it). I would *on balance*, under properly administered circumstances, be in favour. So...I'm wondering: How far would I take it? Euthanasia for the treatably ill? Normally a bad idea � but do we blame the doctors in New Orleans who, allegedly, killed off their sick patients rather than leaving them to die unattended? Nazi-like extermination of the disabled? Yes, the balance is firmly tipped against � but if I were in a hypothetical situation were resources were scarce and group survival depended on fitness... Where am I going with this? I guess what I'm wondering is whether, to the atheist, there can ever be any moral absolutes. Convenient, pragmatic, utilitarian ethical assumptions, sure � like 'On the whole, it's a bad idea if people are allowed to shoot others'. But where do these absolutes come from? Is it reasonable to invoke a 'divinely ordained' precept within a dispute on ethics?

<< Is it reasonable to invoke a 'divinely ordained' precept within a dispute on ethics?>>

No, it is impossible to do. There are none.

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Same as all other ideas. We make them up. Absolute rules are easier to make up than relative ones because you don't have to specify any conditions, exceptions, or relative importance.

Of course "don't kill" isn't an absolute to nearly everyone, it has conditions, exceptions and weights like the rest, permitting war, execution for wearing mixed fibres, and so forth. "Don't have anal sex" is probably an absolute to some people, but probably only because they can't think of circumstances where they would want to do it.

I think the term 'absolute' gets thrown about a lot without much thought. Absolute with respect to what? And it gets confused with 'objective', another term thrown about with similarly little thought.