Atheism is semantically erroneous

By Reuben.

Now that this post’s title has gathered your attention, let me draw your attention to a rather excellent quote:

I’m a polyatheist – there are many gods I don’t believe in.

- Dan Fouts

There is a subtle logic here; most believers (of a theistic or deistic bent) believe in one God – usually one ‘true’ God who has much political clout when it comes to dicatating matter. But they therefore must exclude all other Gods mustn’t they? A Christian does not call their God ‘Allah’ while most Jews do not follow the Scientology God known as Theta (or something like that…it’s hard to comprehend most of what Scientology says anyway). Nobody actually believes in every single conceivable God. It’s logically and morally inconsistent to believe in the God of the old testament whilst supposing that – at the same time – Thetans exist inside us (to borrow the Scientology example again). Jews are not also Muslims, Catholics and those who follow the Bahai Faith. That would certainly render the entire purpose of religion in politics (that is, to divide people based on a set of irrational superstitions) completely and utterly useless for starters…never mind the theological side.

Monotheism thrives wholly on the principle of exclusivity even though you can blatently see that, for example, Jews and Muslims worship the same theistic tyrant (who has given false impetus for both people to engage in bloodshed). You’d be hard pressed to find a Muslim, Christian or Jew who’d freely admit their God is the same as another monotheistic religion. Intelligent believers do concede that the Koran, the Bible and the Torah have many traces and evolved from a common source…but they stop short of saying that, name notwithstanding, their God is the same as each others. For the atheist, this is plain to see. Since it’s obviously inconceivable that all three Gods exist as per their relative religious texts’ instructions side-by-side (thus forfeiting their own ‘all powerful’ identity), monotheism has more than enough to answer for…

Pantheism is more curious. Spinoza espoused his own version of this and touched on the idea that perhaps pantheism is a precursor for atheism. Dawkins takes this one step further and I quote:

“Deism is watered down theism. Pantheism is sexed up atheism”

- Richard Dawkins

It would appear that if we were to truly follow pantheism, the whole concept of a powerful being is void. You might as well, Dawkin argues, call the theory of gravity the ‘God of Gravity’ and Einstein’s relativity theory the ‘God of relativity’. We have effectively supplanted the word ‘God’ with various undisputed observations about the natural world. Scientists may have already found something that links every known bit of scientific truth together. We could call this ‘one rule for all’ as some sort of God – but this might be too ironic, since a scientific explanation does not postulate what we expect to see – rather it explains it. A belief in God explains nothing.

Language

By Nathaniel.

The idea that we are shackled by our language is by no means a modern one. I think it is safe to assume that all of us here speak a language, and all of us at this blog can read English. We use powerful symbols – letters which in turn form words, which in turn form sentences, which in turn form paragraphs, et cetera – which represent almost everything we can conceive.

The mantra of Ingsoc, the oppressive government in Nineteen Eighty-Four.

Arguably George Orwell’s most famous work – and a remarkable impact on modern Western civilization, from futurology to linguistics to politics – Nineteen Eighty-Four carries many powerful themes that still resonate with us sixty years from its original writing. Some of the most celebrated themes are the effects of totalitarianism, nationalism and repressed sexuality. But there is one subject that carries the entire work, perhaps more than the idea of a complete totalitarian state.

Do we control language, or does language control us? Is it a natural, if invisible, force that lives within and through humanity? Some would posit that language is what separates humans from beasts. Some would argue that there is sufficient evidence to claim that the animals themselves have their own language.

In Nineteen Eighty-Four there is a new type of devolved English being created by the oppressive government. It is called Newspeak, and is designed to replace our own Oldspeak. The idea is that our thoughts are controlled by language; remove the shades of meaning that fill English and you have a perfect language for controlling the masses. Everyone truly understand what everyone else means, every single time someone speaks.

Is this a good thing? Imagine how much unnecessary conflict would be removed if everyone knew absolutely what was meant by a national leader or an angry lover. There’d still be a difference in thought, yes – while we may think in our language the argument could be placed that neurologically we simply perceive a translation of powerful ideas and thoughts – but it must surely cut out whatever conflicts we may have.

The late and great Robert Anton Wilson, author of The New Inquisition and Prometheus Rising, states that we shouldn’t remove the dichotomies that make English so versatile, but we should clean up the way we perceive language. For one, we should also speak as if something is assumed, and not an instant given: I believe the world is flat, or I believe that religion is the cause of all conflict in the world. All words are, as he agrees, metaphors; what is ‘the’, except as a tool of separation? The blacks, the socialists, the universe…

The universe is an interesting one. We are all, we know, part of the universe (or Multiverse or your alternative cosmic form)… that is the definition of ‘universe’. So why ‘the’? ‘The’ only serves to separate. That is its function as a word. Another good point is raised by Nietzche: could Descarte have said, “I think, therefore I am,” if he didn’t speak an Indo-European language? It is a convention of that language category that a verb needs a substantive noun before it. Why can’t we translate some Chinese words into English? If it’s just a matter of translating ideas, it should be easy. But it isn’t, really… it’s about translating thought-processes.

There is then the idea that all bastions of power and authority, especially those religious sources, create their own words – their own linguistic symbols – to control and to command. Name a religion that has not invented its own term, especially in a case where one is already available… or for that matter, any fascist or controlling cause. Look at Hitler’s regime, or at the socialist manner of naming words after people – anti-revisionism, for example, as Kim II Jungism. Why would they do that if ‘anti-revisionism’ would suffice? And it does suffice. Most people would be able to grasp the meaning of the word. It’s not a particularly difficult one.

Language, then, to the Nazis and the socialists and to, perhaps, us all, can be a vehicle for casting the blame. Language is a thing that forms naturally, organically, and often at a powerful speed… why, then, shouldn’t it be warped by the intentions of the very people it warps? Those who are controlled by language control language… it is an ancient, familiar cycle of power and deception.

Let’s look at the Bible, an ancient book of wisdom – and here I am only saying that it contains wisdom, not that it is infallible or that it doesn’t also contain a lack of knowledge and insight – that contains the story that concerns the well-known Tower of Babel story. In this story, all of humanity spoke one language before God cursed them with a thousand tongues… cursed them with language. Why would those primitive nomads and foragers consider language as a detriment to humanity, especially as in it’s time it would have been vital for the survival of the tribe?

The question I throw at you, then, is this: can we eliminate racism and sexism and all of those other –isms by modifying language? If we can, should we? How far is too far? Is language purely the thing that sets us apart from the ‘lesser’ species, or is it a disease that we have all caught?

Is religion a form of authority?

Secular schools can never be tolerated because such schools have no religious instruction, and a general moral instruction without a religious foundation is built on air; consequently, all character training and religion must be derived from faith; we need believing people.

- Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf

Yes, I thought I’d start today’s post with a quote from one of the most famous and ruthless men who ever walked the planet. Adolph was indeed a religious man. Whilst he clearly identified himself as a Catholic, he also is religious in the sense he that he followed a strict, cruel dogma that could not – under any circumstances – be questioned. Religion today is obviously no where near as extreme, but the same form of unquestioning following tends to occur. If, say, the three monotheistic religions (Judaism, Islam and Christianity), were questioned using logic and deductive reasoning (e.g. “if God is morally righteous, why did he allow Hitler to come to power?“), then they – quite simply – would cease to exist in their current form. They rely upon authority for their survival; and what better authority than an ancient convoluted book whose sole existence has been reshaped, altered, censored and re-written across the centuries and is constantly being recited by men in clear authority (e.g. Pope)?

"I don't need to think for myself. I have this book to do it for me."

The reason the Christian Lobby is so avidly against any attempt to cement the separation between Church and State is because it means people will abandon its dogma and find their own path. But this is a good thing. One of my favourite philosophers, Bertrand Russell had this to say in his aptly titled essay “A brief Outline of Intellectual Rubbish“:

As soon as we abandon our own reason, and are content to rely upon authoritiy, there is no end to our troubles. Whose authority? The Old Tesament? The New Testament? The Koran? In practice, people choose the book considered sacred by the community in which they are born, and out of that book they choose the parts they like, ignoring the others. At one time, the most influential text in the bible was: “Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live”. Nowadays, people pass over this text, in silence if possible; if not, with an apology. And so, even when we have a sacred book, we still choose as truth whatever suits our own prejudices. No Catholic, for instance, takes seriously the text which says that a bishop should be the husband of one wife.

Bertrand’s digress makes quite an amount of sense to me. All ‘holy books’ effectively act as a Rorschach test and are ‘piloted’ by a figure with power (such as the Pope, or the Ayatollah of Iran) to drive home their own belief system. It’s an intellectual dictatorship; a dogma, by which one may find themselves doing something against their own wishes through the whims of another entity simply because they happen to have faith in an ancient book.  As one anonymous commentator (on a forum somewhere) once remarked “Philosophy is questions that may never be answered. Religion is answers that may never be questioned“. Spot-on, I think.

Catholicism explained

By Reuben.

Facebook is just so awesome. So awesome, in fact, that some Catholics are given the opportunity to explain themselves.

John Ashley's irony-o-meter must be malfunctioning

Hear the words of a ‘modern Catholic’:

Hello, everyone.
As a modern catholic I know why you think that the Pope’s stance seems a little crazy but as someone who understands the rules i thought i’d better respectfully tell you why no ammount of preassure will ever change his mind.
You see the Catholic church will NEVER endorse contraception of any kind because in its founding rules it does not believe in sex for any other reason than for having babies or a token of love in marrige. The church would be contradicting itself if it supported contraception because its just like saying its ok to have sex outside of our rules.
The rules will never change, they are there mostly to protect people – even though I’m sure it seems like nannying. There are heaps of reasons why Catholics don’t believe in promiscuous behaviour but i’m sure you guys are smart enough to know them all, so i wont list them ha ha.
Anyway hope you’re a little clearer now.
Happy easter guys, peace

Of course it would be completely presumptuous of me to say all Catholics actually support the Pope’s futile, irrational and unethical approach to tackling the HIV/AIDS crisis, but it certainly concerns me that the Pope’s stance appears unstoppable. Where’s the UN condemning his stance? There should be public outrage at the retarded policy the Vatican has put out. And will the majority of the world’s Catholics turn against the Vatican? That remains to be seen. Thankfully, we have moderate, reasonable Catholics like Kath.

How Fundamentalists ‘think’

By Reuben

Across the Internet, there is much discussion and discourse on how exactly the Bible, Koran etc pines against homosexuality, abortion etc. As discussed here, some have a more liberal interpretation of such texts. But what makes a fundamentalist determine what’s heretical/bad/liberal/logical from what’s conservative/backwards/myopic/traditional? How do they ‘think’ (and note that I use the term ‘think’ with a certain amount of irony here) or infer biblical, non-biblical or anti-biblical themes from seemingly unconnected policy areas?

The way in which I’ve been thinking about this is their reactions to certain movies – even movies that aren’t overtly on religion. One such movie is V for Vendetta – a fabulous movie in my opinion -  and it has been slammed by many Christian religious groups. I have no clue why; V for Vendetta talks about the tyranny of the British government in the near future when the country becomes a fascist state. It explores the process of change in government through its protagonist – a shadowy character called ‘V’. The main themes in V for Vendetta are:

• Freedom and civil liberties (how the people are being oppressed)
• Estranged Romance (the two main characters develop a bond).
• The believability of deceit and lies (how the fascist state came to be established).
• The limitations of technology (as V says: “ideas are bulletproof“).
• The potentials of anarchy (the fascist reign is toppled).

Naturally, the next question we should be asking ourselves is ‘where does V for Vendetta discuss religion?’ It doesn’t. The only reference I can think of is that the main antagonist – Chancellor Sutler – who masterminded the fascist state is a “deeply religious man“. But, like Hitler, he is clearly motivated by evil – not religion. His character would be just as effective if he were an Atheist.
When his henchman proclaim “strength through unity, unity through faith” the context is not biblical in nature at all, even if the characters themselves are actually religious. If the fascist state was theocratic, logically it would be hunting out atheists as well – yet it’s made very clear that queers, refugees and the mentally unwell are the main targets. Atheism is not painted in a good light or a bad light; it’s not even mentioned.

Chancellor Sutler: a religious man, but places evil in a higher regard

There is no religious undertone whatsoever in the script, but that doesn’t stop our fundamentalists from seeing a pernicious agenda designed to topple their core beliefs, dogmas and superstitions. If Chancellor Sutler was an atheist, would they back down their criticism?

According to ‘Christian Spotlight’, V for Vendetta’s moral ranking is “offensive“. For the most part, their criticism is a reverse ad hominem claim – ‘the evil guys are Christians…why are you making Christians evil?‘. Yes, supposedly Christianity is the antithesis of evil. Here these reviewers roar:

The movie is preachy to say the least, and harps on three major themes and one minor one: 1) the evil of America; 2) the government control of media; 3) the evil of Christianity; and 4) the innocence of Islam.

Yes…that’s right. It’s all against America. To borrow Christian Spotlight’s own ad hominem-styled arguments, V for Vendetta portrays America in a good light…because the fascists are against what they call ‘Arse-erica’. Clearly freedom of speech (which is what V for Vendetta is considerably about) is not in any way, shape or form ‘American’. The irony continues unabated:

The second fiction of the movie is that of a government-controlled (or supported) media which brainwashes its populace. In reality, this is true only of oppressive regimes and socialist societies like England where the media is, in fact, already Leftist. In the United States, we have a freedom of speech that is so wide-ranging in its liberties that it permits our media to print blatant forgeries libeling our President.

Yes, the BBC is obviously less objective than Christian news channels. But this point is irrelevant to the script anyway; the media outlets depicted in V for Vendetta were very much censored. How is this disputing the freedom of America’s press?
Finally the truth is revealed:

The only totalitarianisms we have known in the modern era are either secular or Islamic, precisely the ones that the United States is trying to protect the world from.

Watch out Christians, when the new atheist/Islamic/British order takes hold, you won’t be spared. And here’s the icing on the cake:

And when movies persistently portray our country and our faith as evil, even skeptical believers who think that Hollywood is too shallow or too objective (!) to make anti-Christian movies should sit up and take notice.

Got that Hollywood? You’ve got an agenda to uphold.

Finally, here’s a trailer of V for Vendetta:

Also published on YAS.

Christian Coalition of America

By Reuben.

For those of you who have had the misfortune of living in a nation where bigoted, racist, backwards, religious imbeciles actually wield political clout, I must express some sympathy. They exist; and there’s many of them. But one of the most powerful ones yet is the Christian Coalition of America which does exactly what it says on the tin: preach a dogma of irrational superstition whilst undermine attempts to establish a rational and fair social and economic policy.

A quick scan through their site reveals some self-parodying nuggets of comedy GOLD. Have a look at this quote:

We support the nomination and confirmation of judges that will uphold and apply the Constitution as it was originally written by our Founding Fathers – not seek to re-write it to their own ideological ends, or make law from the bench.

Isn’t that just awesomely ironic? It is well-established that the Founding Fathers, whilst subscribing to the religious dogma of their times, were avowedly secular when it came to politics. Freedom and liberties are not – in any way, shape or form – synonymous with religion, least of all Christianity. Anyway, let’s have another tentative peak at these true fundamentalists:

It seems to me that, if we’re going to have “tolerance” in this country, then there also has to be “tolerance” for the views of the majority, (as in, the people of over 30 states and counting that have passed amendments to their state constitutions defining marriage as the union of one man and one woman).

Did you hear that? Being tolerant of minority views automatically means majority views are supplanted. Apparently, it’s completely justified that same sex marriage be banned on the whims of the majority’s views. Well…a sizeable portion think there should be some legislation protecting queers from discrimination. But that’s not the point. If we were to justify a policy based solely on its popularity, then we might as well justify it on the basis of whether or not I like Blueberry flavored ice-cream or not; it’s not relevant to the policy in question. But that doesn’t stop America’s finest minds from airing out the sock drawer:

The problem is that once you permit the gay people to marry, you are showing our children that it is perfectly ok to be gay, and some children that would otherwise straighten out will end up being gay.

That was from a CBS Poll and forum, not a Christian group. I suppose that would tend to fit in with the results of the Prop. 8 legislation which saw queers stripped of their rights and their dignity and shunned by a state whose population is more than twice the size of Australia’s: California. And they’re supposedly a ’secular’ state’.

The Christian Coalition of America's website is about as sophisticated as the local work-experience kid would have allowed it...

So, to end off, I should ask you: Are these idiots fundamentalists? Should the term ‘fundamentalism’ apply only to a minority view? It’s important to realise that most Americans actually think the removal of such liberties is rational and fair policy.

Tenuous Justification

By Reuben.

Kath says:

He [Jesus] challenged the hard and fast religious rules of the Pharisees, the leaders of the predominant religion (Judaism) of the time. He showed that the interpretation of God’s words could indeed be subjective.

Let’s skip over the irony of having a subjective book (the bible) preaching the subjective messages of an invisible dictator (‘God’), for an audience whose subjective views espoused off the subjective book are so incredibly diverse, it makes the book seem almost useless as a guide to one’s life.
Nay…that was a cheap shot; the operative term of the above quote is “challenged”. Yes…a tasty word, ‘challenged’. Other great words are ‘test’, ‘counter-intuitive’ and ‘doubt’ – and what does this all add up to?

The erosion of faith.

“But no!” shriek religious people, “I constantly test my faith” and “Faith unquestioned, is dogma, it is not real.” Good. I’m glad that believers challenge their faith. But how do they do this? In the face of tangible evidence – or no evidence – ‘faith’ is immediately dissolved. Theologians never tire of pointing out that the whole point of ‘faith’ is to ignore rationality and evidence for a bit whilst we get out our biblical texts and start praying. But then how do they question this faith if not through evidence or rationality?

Enter argumentum ad ignorantiam, guns blazing. If you repeat an idea (e.g. resurrection is possible) long enough to an audience (particularly a susceptible one, like children), they will – in all possibly – believe it. Unfortunately, argumentum ad ignorantiam is a logic fallacy and so, in the eyes of religion, to be shunned. Fortunately, most people re-energise their logic and rationality outside religious settings – possibly why the argumentum ad ignorantiam is employed so readily by the Department of Transport (the DOT). The DOT claim that our rail lines are at capacity, yet when one manages – somehow – to unearth the 1960’s engineering reports regarding the City Loop that show that they’re only a bit more than 50% at capacity with the current timetable, you know the government’s claims are fallacious to the extreme (extreme in the sense that the government – both federal and state – are ready to spend big on a project based on a so-called analysis that excludes the said reports). Shout, inculcate and bombard someone with an idea for long enough and eventually people just accept it. Fortunately in the last example I gave, we have people like Paul Mees reminding us of erroneous government claims; that’s to be expected in politics. The same can’t be said of religion.

The Doctor shouts at a Dalek in the vain hope that it'll just bugger off back to Skaro and leave his precious London alone.

So, now that I’ve gotten that idea out of the way, I pose this question to religious people: What epistemological reasoning do you employ to justify your faith?

Discuss.

Diverse Interpretations

By Reuben.

Religion, and religious texts are always open to interpretation; everyone has a different take on the Talmud, the Koran or ‘Dianetics‘ (a Scientology spirituality manual). Science is similar, but not so similar that when a mathematician stumbles across, for example, a strange binomial sequence, they’ll read it as “Traditional Values are Gorgeous; queers are sinners and abortion is evil” as what might happen if you happen to be someone as mentally retarded as this and actively following an ancient book.

This idea is interesting. It tells us two things. One, that religion can be used as a device for evil or good and since it doesn’t rely on any tangible or rational evidence, can remain unquestioned. Two: that when the pope declares that homosexuality is on the same level as Climate Change as far as threats to humanity is concerned, he’s probably been locked indoors too long. But then again, this is hardly surprising. The pope has always been rabidly homophobic, anti-abortion, absolutist and generally fairly senile.

Interesting, then, that lobby groups such as the Christian Family Association of Australia think that the teachings of Jesus were avidly against homosexuality, abortion and equality. Just look at this diagram here:

Empirical and well-researched. Who could possibly argue?

Unfortunately the diagram is not parody. These people earnestly think that Internet Censorship is carrying out God’s will (ironic, really, seeing as the Internet probably didn’t exist in the time of the bible’s writing).

This excellent blog post further explores the alleged misinterpretation of biblical texts well. But is it a misinterpretation?  Surely, bigotry aside, it’s just another take on a certain book? I can find quotes for and against homophobia; and although the overwhelming majority of religious Christians feel animosity to homosexuals (and secularism), it doesn’t mean the bible is necessary homophobic…if you choose to read it that way. It’d be interesting to see how much overlap or association religiousness has with homophobia (and abortion, etc). Does anyone think that an overlap as such is significant?

Desperately low on ideas, evidence and braincells, the anti-abortionists turn to a replica of Jesus for some assistance; that assistance is yet to come.

And this my main gripe with dogma and religion: if people follow it so devoutly and if it is so contradictory, conflated and confused then, then there can be untold consequences. The Taliban, for example (an extreme one too), distort the message of the Koran to brainwash their militia. The question, then, is would they be able to do it as successfully or as passionately without the Koran? Could they be an irreligious militia and be just as effective? If so, then what’s the point in following (and subsequently misreading) the Koran anyway? And how might one vote differently if they were religious? They would have a different slant on things perhaps.
To conclude, I think it’s ridiculous to follow dogma as a way to guide one’s life. But I think you all know that already.