Religion

This little parable/thought experiment was inspired by Steve’s comment in the Stirner birthday message, where he advocates for agnosticism over either theism or atheism. Imagine yourself in the following scenario: You’ve just returned home from a day at work. While you set your keys on the kitchen counter and remove your coat you can hear the familiar voices of your roommate and her/his S.O. in the other room. You start to wonder about what you might make yourself for dinner when suddenly you are startled by a loud gunshot, followed by what sounds like a body falling to the floor. Rather than getting the hell out of there you somewhat foolishly run to the other room to see what happened. Once there, you see your roommate standing there, arm outstretched, holding a still-smoking pistol pointed at what is now, apparently, a corpse. Your roommate looks at you and says “Santa Claus did it.” Do you: a) Sincerely believe that your roommate is telling the actual truth? b) Decide that, because you didn’t actually see your roommate fire the gun, you just can’t know one way or another whether Santa did it? c) Consider your roommate a murderer, and the claim to be the rationalization of a mind that has snapped? ...

“A pastor performing a baptism was electrocuted inside his church Sunday morning after adjusting a nearby microphone while standing in water, a church employee said." Rev. Kyle Lake of University Baptist Church was pronounced dead at a nearby hospital; the woman being baptised “was not seriously injured.” More on Yahoo News, via Associated Press. The story says that apparently the woman being baptised had not yet stepped into the water. No word on whether she will proceed with another pastor or church, or take it as a sign not to join this particular sect. ...

You’ve got to hand it to the Amish. At least they are consistent, unlike the vast majority of the IDiots out there who poo poo the notions of evolution while at the same time readily partaking in its fruits–medicine that would be impossible were it not for our understanding of germs and genetics. But not the Amish, who let their kids get polio rather than question “The Word.” I’m not sure what you’d call them, but you can’t call ’em hypocrites.

What distinguishes a religious belief from, well, a non­-religious belief? Is it belief in a god or gods? Belief in the super-natural? It seems to be something more than these things. Aside from the usual suspects, examples of “religions” having a more secular flavor are legion. It isn’t just the Christians who are screaming “The end is Nigh!” Witness those who believe in an impending technological singularity. Or those who think future technologies will be able to give us the naturalist’s equivalent of an afterlife. Or those who think we’re about to run out of oil. Or that our carbon emissions are causing global warming (for why I think that’s bullshit, go here). Or that our very existence is causing mass extinctions (okay, maybe that one is supported by the evidence - just maybe). And those are just the millennialists and chicken littles (and only a sample, at that)! Other “secular” beliefs that I think fall under the “religious” umbrella include SETI, Communism, Objectivism, natural rights theory… There must be something deep in the human psyche that compels us to believe that we - meaning “we” as a species, or “we” as people living here, now - are somehow special, somehow chosen; that we have meaning; that we have import or intrinsic value, for those would appear to be some of the characteristics of the beliefs I mentioned. Another - perhaps more important - characteristic is that these beliefs are (generally) couched in terms that are not falsifiable, and hence rest ultimately on the basis of faith. Given this apparently fundamental need to believe (i.e., “have faith”) in something, it’s not surprising that Max Stirner, born Johann Caspar Schmidt on October 25th, 1806, in Bayreuth, Germany, is all but forgotten. A worthy introduction to Stirner and his thought is well beyond the scope of what I can present here. Wikipedia has a decent introductory essay about him, along with an excellent set of links to further reading (this one in particular I like!), and Svein Olav Nyberg’s pages are comprehensive and indispensable. For even more depth, I recommend as a starting point that you read the book Individuality and the Social Organism. Follow that link and you’ll no doubt see my review of it, as well as my Listmania List of other Stirner-related books. I will save a longer discussion of Stirner’s ideas and influence for a later date (After all, I will need something new to say on his bicentennial) and confine myself in this post to touching on just one reason I think he is worth retrieving from the dustbin of history: his attack on “religious” thinking of all stripes. Man, your head is haunted; you have wheels in your head! You imagine great things, and depict to yourself a whole world of gods that has an existence for you, a spirit-realm to which you suppose yourself to be called, an ideal that beckons you. You have a fixed idea!With this thought, Stirner begins his attack upon an idea proposed by his friend and contemporary, Feuerbach, in his book The Essence of Christianity. Feuerbach’s thesis was that all of the Christian notions of the “divine” rightfully belonged in the concept of Man. Stirner’s counter (and, as it turned out, death-blow) was that this was simply a change of masters, and he would have none of it. History seeks for man: but he is I, you, we. Sought as a mysterious essence, as the divine, first as God, then as man (humanity, humaneness, and mankind), he is found as the individual, the finite, the unique one [einzige]. Stirner cautioned that such an abstraction of “essences” was identical to religion, in spite of Feuerbach’s attempt to eliminate God from the equation. With the strength of despair Feuerbach clutches at the total substance of Christianity, not to throw it away, no, to drag it to himself, to draw it, the long-yearned-for, ever-distant, out of its heaven with a last effort, and keep it by him forever. Is not that a clutch of the uttermost dispair, a clutch for life or death, and is it not at the same time the Christian yearning and hungering for the other world? ...

Dispatches from the Culture Wars points out a video available from Google’s experimental video search, that features Kirk Cameron of “Growing Pains” arguing against atheism and evolution. The most entertaining argument in the video is the argument that the banana was clearly intelligently designed. Troy Britain quotes a more extensive list of banana features (several of which are used in this video): The banana—the atheist’s nightmare. Note that the banana: 1. Is shaped for human hand ...

I’m sure this is a tired argument - but then again, what argument isn’t tired when you’re dealing with creationists? Take a look at these optical illusions. On the one hand, they’re fun and kinda neat, but on the other hand, they’re profoundly disturbing. Most importantly, however, they are persuasive evidence against any sort of “intelligent” designer. For me, the second one (the one with the blue and yellow boxes) is particularly compelling. What kind of intelligent, all-powerful, loving God would make motion detection color-blind? In thinking about this, the problem extends well beyond visual perception. Why would an intelligent designer make our memories so imperfect? For example, I can recall absolutely nothing about second grade–and much of what I recall about first grade is probably wildly inaccurate (hell, much of what I recall about last week is probably wrong). Why is that (assuming a loving God, I mean)? I bet I know the answer already: we “fell from grace” and we’re being punished because of it. Right? (Hat tip: Steve’s No Direction Home)

Apparently several members of the Bush family (including Florida Gov. Jeb and former President George Sr.) are advocates of a mystical conservative warrior named Chang. Here’s Jeb, in a speech naming Marco Rubio as Florida Speaker, after which he gave Marco a golden sword: Chang is a mystical warrior. Chang is somebody who believes in conservative principles, believes in entrepreneurial capitalism, believes in moral values that underpin a free society. I rely on Chang with great regularity in my public life. He has been by my side and sometimes I let him down. But Chang, this mystical warrior, has never let me down.The Guardian article linked above also quotes Bush Sr. periodically asking during tennis matches, “Should I unleash Chang?” (Thanks to Jack Kolb on the SKEPTIC list for this item.) Add this to the accumulating evidence for dispensationalist Christians that George W. Bush is the Antichrist, along with his former Health and Human Services director’s support for RFID tags in humans. (Tommy Thompson, like Bush, is a born-again Christian who supports “faith-based” organizations getting government money.) ...

Pharyngula cites and quotes from a study in the Journal of Religion and Society which observes that In general, higher rates of belief in and worship of a creator correlate with higher rates of homicide, juvenile and early adult mortality, STD infection rates, teen pregnancy and abortion in the prosperous democracies. The United States is almost always the most dysfunctional of the developing democracies, sometimes spectacularly so. Einzige (2006-12-09): Where is Wanchick's commentary on this, given that it is a direct contradiction to the claim he made recently that, e.g., teen pregnancy is up?(Please note that - if you couldn't already tell - my tongue is currently placed firmly in my cheek) ...

The Supreme Court left the door open for Michael Newdow to bring his case again, since they threw out his case on the basis of his lack of standing (he is not the legal guardian of his daughter) and refused to address the specifics of his case. The District Court rightly relied on the precedent of the 9th Circuit’s previous ruling in his case, and entered an injunction against Elk Grove schools to prohibit the use of the “under God” language. Newdow refiled the case including two additional families as plaintiffs, where there’s no issue of standing to allow the case to be thrown out on a similar technicality this time. This will go back to the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, which will most likely rule the same way (thus making “under God” unconstitutional throughout the 9th Circuit), then get appealed again to the U.S. Supreme Court, where we will find out what John G. Roberts really meant when he said (near the end of Day 2 of his confirmation hearings) that he believes that the First Amendment protects the rights of nonbelievers as well as one religious sect against another (unlike Scalia, who said in his dissent in McCreary that government can endorse belief over nonbelief): DURBIN: Let me just wrap this up by asking – I think you’ve alluded to this – is it your belief that what we are trying to establish in the constitutional protection on the exercise of religion is not only to protect minorities, religious minorities, but also nonbelievers? ROBERTS: Yes. The court’s decisions in that area are quite clear. And I think the framers’ intent was as well; that it was not their intent just to have a protection for denominational discrimination. It was their intent to leave this as an area of privacy apart – a conscience from which the government would not intrude. ...

Tomorrow’s featured article on Wikipedia is “Space Opera in Scientology Doctrine," a very well-written entry that tells you pretty much all you need to know about Scientology’s cosmology. Oh, the entry on Xenu is also a good one.