Get this: Abby Nurre, a math teacher at a Catholic school in Iowa, has been fired from her job. Is she incompetent? Was she making sexual overtures to a student?
Nope. She was fired because, in the privacy of her own home on her own home computer, she joined an atheist website. And administrators at St. Edmund’s Catholic school, which seemed to feel that this was somehow their business, fired her for it. They even want to deny her unemployment benefits. I don’t know which is more disturbing: That they monitored her home computer and invaded her privacy, or that they’re under the impression that one’s religious beliefs somehow impact on numbers. Hot news flash, you idiots: Whether Pythagoras believed in multiple gods, one god or no god, A squared plus B squared is still going to equal C squared.
I firmly believe this country is over-litigious, but I hope this woman sues their áššëš.
PAD
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That is disgusting.
For a while now I’ve felt that atheists (even more than gays or muslims) are America’s most distrusted minority.
And they seem to be indefensible. A considerable number of people agree that gays should fight homophobia, or Muslims fight Islamofobia, but few people seem to give a dámņ for atheists.
I think it’s just that atheists are the quietest minority. There’s no atheist watchdog group, no atheist marches or rallies (well, maybe there are, but I’ve never heard of any), and you never hear of atheists complaining about being persecuted or prejudiced against.
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Although it would be interesting to take a tour through the Bible Belt and conduct a poll asking parents whom they would rather have teaching their children: a homosexual, a Muslim, or an atheist.
There are, Robert, but as you alluded to, atheism doesn’t lend itself to community organization as well as religion does, which is why Richard Dawkins likened atheism activism to “herding cats”.
If there is a God (a concept about which, to be tactful, I remain highly skeptical) then I think He must hate the Catholic Church, because he seems to want to stock it with pedophiles and self-righteous morons.
Every time I think I’ve seen the epitome, the absolute limit, of idiocy in the Catholic Church, a story like this comes along to let me know that I was wrong.
Unbelievable.
The vast majority of Catholic priests are not pedophiles, as they do not even constitute 1% of them.
They’re a minority, but <1% is too generous. Mere weeks after our local Bishop became famous for brokering the first out-of-court settlement for a Priest abuse case in history (involving 6 former priests from a small diocese), he got caught at the border with kiddie pørņ. Since the diocese has roughly 120 priests now, and we generously allow for a total number of 300 during the period covered by the settlement (to cover turnover), that's more than 2% who were caught committing pedophilia. I'd say it's fair to assume there were some who got away with it as well.
Wow. Just … wow.
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As a teacher and an atheist myself, that REALLY ticks me off. If she does sue them and needs help, I may contribute to her legal fund. (Not being a lawyer myself, that’s about all I can do.)
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Just … sheesh.
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TWL
I’m an atheist and a teacher as well, and had this been in a public school, I’d be outraged as well. An atheist in a Catholic school, though? I dunno. I don’t really know how the law stands when it comes to parochial schools and beliefs. I grant you that I think the administrators are idiots, but I don’t know that they’ve violated any laws.
I would dearly LOVE to see these hypocrites squirm, but I just don’t know if she really has any legal recourse.
My first job offer in 1992 was from a Catholic school, and I made it clear up front that I didn’t share their beliefs. I don’t know what the legal implications are either, but there’s certainly not a blanket “no atheists” policy. (For the record, I didn’t take the job.)
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If nothing else, she should publicize this and make arguments similar to what PAD made at the outset: “How could these beliefs possibly affect my ability to teach math?”
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TWL
How about “A Catholic in a secular school, though? I dunno.”?
Careful how you respond – discrimination cannot be tolerated in either direction.
Last time I checked, they couldn’t *not* hire here based on her beliefs… how can they terminate her for not sharing theirs?
I taught at a Lutheran school in Queens. The contract I signed with them included clauses about having faith in a triune God and rejecting atheism and such. She may actually have been in violation of her contract.
That said, if I ever found out that an employer was somehow monitoring my home computer or otherwise not respecting my privacy, I would not sue them. I’d kick ’em in the head!
@David –
I am as disgusted as you by the pedophilia cover-ups, the self-righteousness, the hypocrisy, and I will never be a fan of the current Pope, and I mean, I was the first to post.
But I just wanted to say that for every rotten apple in the Catholic Church, there is also a hero. I have a somewhat different view of them now that my brother, who has suffered with drug addiction for years, is recovering in a rural community ran by members of the Church, and I can see a lot of other positive changes in him.
Makes it even sadder that an institution with such capacity for good also can do some pretty awful things.
Rene,
No, of course not EVERY member of the Catholic Church is guilty of the sins we’ve mentioned. If I gave the impression that I thought they were, I apologize.
I am glad that your brother is getting help with his problems and is doing better, and I hope that will continue to be the case. The Church members that are helping him in this deserve to be applauded, not tarred with the same brush as the more despicable Church members.
Still, the fact that the Church these people belong to is capable of doing such rotten things does give one pause. In a way, it’s like airline safety: you don’t hear about all the flights that take off and land successfully with no mis-haps. You just hear about the times when everything goes off the rails and a disaster occurs.
True. The disasters are more publicized (and lately the Church has had a lot of disasters).
I also believe that the rank and file of the Church clergy has a lot more diversity and tolerance than the official line of the institution.
In the past few years, I’ve been associated with a group of gay Christians (non-Catholic though), and this group organizes yearly charity events. And there are a few Catholic nuns from a nearby convent that always appear in these events to lend a helping hand, even though we’re very openly a gay group.
And I have to remark that these nuns have a very low oppinion of the current Pope too.
Then, you are a materialist. I don’t see how you can deny that. And, I direct you back to my original point. Atheism is a religion because it believes in things about the universe that cannot be proven. i.e., the universe consists solely of the material.
Materialism is the basis for all scientific inquiry so on a basic level, you are correct; to an extent I am a materialist. The rest of the statement really doesn’t make a lot of sense to me. I fail to see how my lack belief constitutes a belief.
Incorrect. Disbelieving in something is not the same as being unsure about it’s existence. You are confusing atheism with agnosticism. And agnostic says, “I don’t see any evidence so I’m not sure that God exists.” The atheist says, “I don’t see any evidence, so I don’t believe in God.” The two are NOT the same.
The differentiation between atheism (excluding the so-called “strong atheists”) and agnosticism is a false dichotomy. I would direct you to the Iron Chariots website- http://bit.ly/Hrntn. They explain your false notions far better than I can with a couple of glasses of bourbon in me.
Go to Trinity High School in PA and find all the Mohammads who’re debout Muslims on their title winning football teams. If they can ignore it for their students, they can back the f*** off the 8k a year making catholic school teachers.
How is it that she’s not pressing criminal charges for wiretapping?
I just read the USA Today write-up on this. Apparently she also posted about her atheist beliefs on Facebook. So chances are, one of her “friends” turned her in.
I read the anonymous email to the principal that outed her, and it definitely read like another teacher had done it.
The lawsuits from this are gonna be delicious.
Was there a provision in her contract? I understand that the primary goal in a Catholic school is not just to educate children, but to put Catholic beliefs and practices in all aspects of the classroom/school experience. However, it could have been handled in many better ways.
Now for the truly important question…how did they find out? I knew the Pope was controlling the internets!
I understand that the primary goal in a Catholic school is not just to educate children, but to put Catholic beliefs and practices in all aspects of the classroom/school experience.
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How in the world are Catholic beliefs remotely relevant to MATH? “So you must ask yourselves, children, how would Jesus determine the radius of a circle? Well, Jesus would multiply pi times the radius squared.”
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PAD
I think you meant the area, Peter. But Jesus wouldn’t multiply by pi, he would use 3. See 2 Chronicles 3;3.
As someone who attended Catholic School for 12 years, I can tell you that my Math teachers were responsible for far more than teaching Mathematics. The school is a community, and all the teachers taught Home Room, went on retreats with the students, coached sports or other extra curricular activities, participated in worship, and hosted campus events and charities/philanthropy.
As someone who’s worked in Education, I can tell you that a teacher’s influence on children goes far beyond teaching them the Pythagorus Theorem. A teacher also plays a nurturing role (even the strict, cold teachers instill a sense of structure and discipline in their students). They shape kids and help raise them. Some even play mentor roles outside of the lessons. We tell children to seek the assistance of a trusted teacher if their parents are abusing them.
I don’t agree with this Iowa school (we had non-Catholic teachers at our school), but I also don’t feel that this is a good argument against their injustice. You don’t need to be a Catholic to have strong morals and a sense of community and social justice.
There shouldn’t have been a provision in her contract – or, at least, it isn’t a standard thing in Catholic Schools. So long as you don’t promote a different religion to the pupils, you can believe in whatever you like. And by promote, I mean actively push it – you can discuss your belief if the kids ask, but you should couch it as “My belief is…” rather than “Your belief is wrong, here’s how it actually is…”
I’m not sure she can win. She had been hired only a few months so no tenure–in the public schools you can be let go for pretty much any reason for the first few years. And that’s the public schools–I have to imagine a private school has even more leeway, especially if, as I suspect, her contract has some vague bit about having to adhere to principles in keeping with the basic blah blah blah. Too bad, though.
Bill,
I would think she has an excellent case. She was fired on the basis of her religous beliefs (or lack of same) not matching those of her employers. That is very definitely one of the grounds under which an employer can successfully be sued. It’s called Religious Discrimination, and it applies even to those who have no relgious beliefs at all.
Sadly, there is a lot of case precedent where a religious based institution that receives no federal or other government funding can choose to terminate employment based on publicly espoused beliefs that are counter to what they are ostensibly teaching.
Once she made those views public (and FB is considered public even if friend locked), she was toast.
I would like to point out that atheism is a religion. After all, religion is merely the belief in a fundamental principle about the universe based entirely on faith without a shred a proof. You can’t prove a negative so it is impossible to definitively prove that God does not exist. Which makes his non-existence a matter of personal faith.
I would like to point out that atheism is a religion.
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I don’t want to send this discussion off the rails, but no. Atheism isn’t a religion. A religion is faith that fills in gaps because there’s no proof. Saying “The lack of proof prompts me to refuse to believe” isn’t religion; it’s the opposite.
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PAD
Actually, you can prove a negative: http://skepticwiki.org/index.php/%22You_Can't_Prove_a_Negative%22
Here, it’s basically the old “Can God make a rock so heavy he can’t lift it?” argument. It gets hand-waved a lot, but it’s actually some pretty solid evidence that the idea of omnipotence is self-contradictory, and most believers still claim it’s an attribute of god.
Which isn’t really meant to trash-talk religion. But faith is faith, and reason is reason, and sometimes, the two conflict. Most holy texts have no problem picking faith in those instances, but I’ve never quite gotten the insistence that everybody else must be, too. It seems to belie some insecurity, maybe?
Regradless, this is appalling, and I’d feel the same way if a Christian teacher was fired from a public school simply for being Christian.
@Jess Willey- Atheism is a lack of belief. If it’s a religion, then “clear” is a color.
Quite the contrary, atheism is as much a religion as theism is. It has to be. It’s adherents accept as dogma things about the universe that cannot be proven and must be taken on faith. The belief that there is nothing beyond the material cannot be proven. It is the central doctrine of a religious world view.
Tim, that’s a straw man’s argument. Atheists don’t say there is nothing out there beyond what can be proven. We say that there is no evidence to support that there is a deity and thus there is no reason to believe in one until such evidence comes to light. That is worlds apart from what you wrote.
Tim,
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If someone you know says he/she is an atheist and accepts as dogma things about the universe that cannot be proven as you put it, that person is not an atheist. He may be a fanatic of the big bang theory or something like that. The big bang theory is only that, a theory. It is not called the Big Bang Dogma.
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Rich explained it better than I could.
Rich,
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I disagree with your definition of atheism. But instead of debating that, I guess I would ask you some questions:
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1) What spiritual aspects of the universe do you believe in? What evidence do you have that they exist?
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2) If you believe in spiritual aspects of the universe that you cannot prove, why are you so unwilling to believe in a deity (or even allow for the possibility) because you cannot prove the existence of him or her? Why single out a deity for your disbelief even though there are, perhaps, other spiritual aspects of the universe that you believe in but can’t prove?
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3) Wouldn’t a more rational approach to lack of evidence be lack of determination instead of disbelief? “I can’t prove that there’s a god, so I’m not sure he or she exists”?
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4) If your world view consists of spiritual elements of the universe that you may or may not be able to prove, how can you claim that your particular brand of atheism is not religious? It allows for the spiritual.
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By the way, just as an aside, the first author that I ever read who equated atheism with the materialism was CS Lewis. We may not agree on that point, but I didn’t make it up as a straw man. Other very thoughtful people have made that point as well.
Quite the contrary, atheism is as much a religion as theism is. It has to be. It’s adherents accept as dogma things about the universe that cannot be proven and must be taken on faith.
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False. Atheists don’t believe in God because there is no proof. Religion doesn’t require proof; indeed, that’s the entire point of religion. To believe when there isn’t any proof.
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PAD
Tim Butler says: Incorrect. Disbelieving in something is not the same as being unsure about it’s existence. You are confusing atheism with agnosticism. And agnostic says, “I don’t see any evidence so I’m not sure that God exists.” The atheist says, “I don’t see any evidence, so I don’t believe in God.” The two are NOT the same.
I don’t think so. Do I see any evidence of a god? No. Do I have any evidence that proves there is no gods? No.
Thence, I am unsure.
Is there any reason to assume there ARE gods? No.
Can I therefore justify belief in a god or gods? No.
Thus, they are the same.
Maybe it’s just me, but it seems a number of the folks trying to claim atheism is a religion do so simply so they can throw the ‘belief’ stuff in the face of atheists. Prime example: Tim trying to make everything in his argument about beliefs and spiritualism in trying to pigeonhole atheism as a religion.
Rich – If this was covered somewhere in the posts, forgive me, I may have missed it.
You wrote “Atheism is a lack of belief.”
I would disagree.
As I understand it, Atheism is the belief that there is no God. An Atheist has a positive belief that God does not exist (as a Theist has a positive belief that God does exist).
Agnosticism is a lack of belief, or more properly a lack of knowledge. An Agnostic admits “I don’t know”.
theos = God
a-theos = no God
gnosis = knowledge
a-gnosis = no knowledge
“As I understand it, Atheism is the belief that there is no God.”
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Atheism can mean either a belief that there is no God, or a disbelief in God, which are very close but not identical concepts. I mean, I don’t believe there is a serial killer hiding in my closet. And, yes, technically this means I have a belief that there is no serial killer in my closet, since I haven’t gotten up to look and therefore do not know with absolute certainty that there isn’t one. But I don’t walk around holding onto this belief in my head. That’s the difference. It’s simply not a notion that I ever entertain, or a belief for which I have any use. So it’s the same with atheism (at least in my case… as was pointed out below, there is no set definition of atheism).
What spiritual aspects of the universe do you believe in? What evidence do you have that they exist?
That one is easy. I don’t believe in any spiritual aspects to the universe as there is no evidence that there are any.
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If you believe in spiritual aspects of the universe that you cannot prove…
My answer to the first question pretty much takes care of this one.
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Wouldn’t a more rational approach to lack of evidence be lack of determination instead of disbelief? “I can’t prove that there’s a god, so I’m not sure he or she exists”?
There’s no difference between the two. Not believing is the same as not being sure. “I can’t prove that there’s a god (nor can anyone else for that matter), so I’m not sure he or she exists” IS atheism.
If your world view consists of spiritual elements of the universe that you may or may not be able to prove, how can you claim that your particular brand of atheism is not religious? It allows for the spiritual. Again, answered in the first question.
By the way, just as an aside, the first author that I ever read who equated atheism with the materialism was CS Lewis. We may not agree on that point, but I didn’t make it up as a straw man. Other very thoughtful people have made that point as well.
Oh, I didn’t mean to imply you were intentionally creating a straw man, and I apologize if that came across. I was pretty certain you were simply giving an often repeated misconception about atheism, and I was going for enlightenment, not “gotcha!”
As for C.S. Lewis, he’s notorious for doing logical contortions to try to fit the square peg of rationality into the round hole of faith, such as with his “Liar, Lunatic, or Lord” premise, so I can understand where you were misinformed. I didn’t take it as a slight from you, and I meant none in return.
“That one is easy. I don’t believe in any spiritual aspects to the universe as there is no evidence that there are any.”
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Then, you are a materialist. I don’t see how you can deny that. And, I direct you back to my original point. Atheism is a religion because it believes in things about the universe that cannot be proven. i.e., the universe consists solely of the material.
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“There’s no difference between the two. Not believing is the same as not being sure. “I can’t prove that there’s a god (nor can anyone else for that matter), so I’m not sure he or she exists” IS atheism.”
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Incorrect. Disbelieving in something is not the same as being unsure about it’s existence. You are confusing atheism with agnosticism. And agnostic says, “I don’t see any evidence so I’m not sure that God exists.” The atheist says, “I don’t see any evidence, so I don’t believe in God.” The two are NOT the same.
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Thank you for your response to my comments. I appreciate it.
“There’s no difference between the two. Not believing is the same as not being sure. “I can’t prove that there’s a god (nor can anyone else for that matter), so I’m not sure he or she exists” IS atheism.”
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No, that’s agnosticism. But I agree with you that atheism is not a religion, any more than sitting on the couch is a sport.
As I said above, go to the Iron Chariots website (http://bit.ly/Hrntn) for the explanation of the fallacy of differentiating atheism from agnosticism.
Regardless of the formal definitions (that are explained in the site), the common sense usage nowadays equals atheism with strong atheism and agnosticism with the position of “not sure he exists.”
But I disagree with Tim that even strong atheism would be a “religion.” A stronger case could be made that humanism or Marxism are religions. Particularly Marxism, that has dogma, prophets, chosen people, ideals of paradise, and most everything else that constitutes a religion.
Regardless of the formal definitions (that are explained in the site), the common sense usage nowadays equals atheism with strong atheism and agnosticism with the position of “not sure he exists.”
No, that is NOT the common sense usage. That is the definition used from lack of knowledge. If the common usage of Catholicism is pedophilia, that doesn’t make that true either.
All that is required to be an atheist is that you don’t believe in gods. I don’t. Therefore I am an atheist.
I know we shouldn’t use incorrect terms just because everybody else uses. Still, I don’t believe I’ve ever met anyone without a philosophy or theology background who knows what “gnosis” means.
Another problem I have with the four terms described in the page is that I can’t see myself in any one of them. I would say I go from Agnostic atheist to Agnostic theist and back at least once a month.
Ah, religion… Is there ANYTHING more insidiously evil?
THIS. THIS is why I’m an athiest. Because people suck.
I can’t think of a single force on this planet more destructive than religion in the hands of fanatics and morons.
It all goes back to the old saying… You’re welcome to throw as many punches as you like, but your right ends where my nose begins. Same goes with religion. Sure it helps a lot of people, but the instant you start using it like a weapon, you’ve crossed a line that should never be crossed.
I know that many non-Catholics go to Catholic schools, but only practicing Catholics are allowed to teach? If she joined a Facebook page about Midrash or Talmudic studies, would she also have been fired?
While I’m fully behind the teacher here, I wonder if she had to sign anything about promoting or following the tenets of the religion to work there. Some private schools have these (I went to Chaminade, where every student had to sign something giving the school full permission to expel them for any reason), kind of like a “morality clause” from an employer. If she did sign something like that, it’ll hurt any potential lawsuit.
From the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission Compliance Manual, Section 12 (http://www.eeoc.gov/policy/docs/religion.html#_Toc203359492):
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Under Title VII, religious organizations are permitted to give employment preference to members of their own religion. … This exception is not limited to religious activities of the organization.
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Mix that with the courts nearly universal reluctance to adjudicate on internal church business, and any wrongful termination suit is going to have a steep hill to climb.
Under Title VII, religious organizations are permitted to give employment preference to members of their own religion. … This exception is not limited to religious activities of the organization.
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I’m no lawyer, but as a layman, I suggest that there is a difference between giving preference for and actively exercising bias against. Tell me that given an option between, say, a Catholic math teacher and a Jewish math teacher, with everything else being equal, they go for the Catholic, and that’s one thing. But hiring someone and then firing them for beliefs that don’t impact on their job performance seems flat out wrong. And trying to make sure they don’t get unemployment is vindictive.
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PAD
I’m not sure about the difference between preferential hiring and firing, legally speaking, either, but in universities with religious affiliations this seems to be on an institution by institution basis. I recently applied for a job at a Marianist university. As a part of the basic requirements, they include “respecting the Catholic and Marianist heritage of the university.” According to a coworker of mine who had previously worked for them, this didn’t really have any impact on the faculty- they ask for your respect in the workplace but aren’t interested in your personal beliefs. However, she once applied at a Jesuit university that did expect every employee to sign a statement of faith upon being hired. I’d be interested in knowing exactly what this teacher’s contract was and what she was asked when hired. If she signed a statement of faith and joined an athiest website, could they have fired her not “for being an athiest,” but “for lying when she accepted the job”? And if that was the reasoning, would the school have to argue that she had definitely lied when signing the statement rather than having been a Catholic who has sinced lapsed?
I’m no lawyer, but as a layman, I suggest that there is a difference between giving preference for and actively exercising bias against.
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As a fellow layman, I’m not sure there is much practical, let alone legal, difference. You can’t give a boost to one individual in a competitive situation, like the labor market, without adversly affecting others.
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Tell me that given an option between, say, a Catholic math teacher and a Jewish math teacher, with everything else being equal, they go for the Catholic, and that’s one thing. But hiring someone and then firing them for beliefs that don’t impact on their job performance seems flat out wrong.
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If you want to argue from a moral perspective, you might have a point. I don’t think the legal perspective has any room for doubt, however. The text of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act (from which, as noted before, religious organizations are exempt) reads, in part (bolding added):
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“It shall be an unlawful employment practice for an employer—
(1) to fail or refuse to hire or to discharge any individual, or otherwise to discriminate against any individual with respect to his compensation, terms, conditions, or privileges of employment, because of such individual’s race, color, religion, sex, or national origin;”
http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/42/usc_sec_42_00002000—e002-.html
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The law seems to grant immunity to religious organizations on both ends of the employment process (hiring & firing).
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And trying to make sure they don’t get unemployment is vindictive.
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Yeah, that seems over the top. The best I can figure is that they feel that either there was fraud (she falsely claimed she believed in God when she was hired), or there was some clause in her contract that she violated. Either way, I still wouldn’t have tried to deny her unemployment, because it only makes the school look bad.
Q: If Christ has five loaves and two fishes, and each man eats one loaf and half a fish, how many men can Christ feed?
a) Four.
b) Five.
c) Nine.
d) Five Thousand.
Catholic math isn’t always the same as athiest math. 🙂
YOU WIN!
Beautiful
There was an incident a few months back involving a Catholic elementary school here in Colorado. A student – like 1st or 2nd grade or something – was expelled because the parents were homosexual. Nothing like punishing the child because of the parents, right?
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And then there’s the other one just in the last few weeks, where a Catholic hospital fired a nun because she allowed a life-saving abortion to be performed on an 11-week pregnant woman. Doctors – who know a helluva lot more about this kind of thing than priests – said it was an almost 100% chance she would die if she didn’t have an abortion.
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The nun gave the final approval, and even though there’s patient confidentially involved, somehow the Bishop for the Phoenix Diocese found out. This bášŧárd, Bishop Olmstead, also had the Sister, who had served the Church for 30 years, excommunicated. Yeah, there’s a special place in Hëll for you, Olmstead.
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I won’t condemn all religious and the religious, but organized religion, and the Catholic Church in particular, is often doing as much or more harm as good. The current Pope has a lot to answer for in this regard, as well.
@Craig,
Some points to ponder
1. The case involving the school girl. It would be unfair for a young child to be told that her parents were living in a manner that the Church considers to be Improper. In a school where the Church teaches that the marriage is between a man and a woman. The young girl would then raise her hand and ask about her two moms. The teacher either teaches against Church teaching and says at is okay or try to teach what the church teaches and messes it up, or the teacher gets it right. What will the girls reaction be to the teachers response what will the other students respond be? It would be unfair for a child to feel as though she were accountable for here parents actions. I personally don’t know the answer to this question. Denver did one thing and boston the exact opposite.
2. With regard to the nun and this situation. The bishop did not excommunicate the nun. The nun by her very action of approving of the abortion excommunicated herself. The bishop merely informed the nun of this fact which is his job. I don’t know the details of the medical case, I am not a medical doctor so i cannot comment fully on this particular case. What i can say is that it is never appropriate nor right to willfully end the life of a child in the womb. Regardless of the situation and I know that there are a lot of situations where it is difficult but the innocent child in the womb is not responsible for those situations and deserves every chance at life there is.
3. The church does a lot of good things and is filled with many holy people. The Holy Father, is a prayerful man who has done much to help the Church maintain it’s course of aiding people to heaven, regardless of what newspapers might say (which do not always get the facts right). The Church has members, priests, and bishops that have caused grave scandal and for that I can only apologize, pray for the victims, and Pray for them. But please don’t let a small, small minority make ruin the Good that God has been able to accomplish through the many lives of holy men and women who work so hard to love their neighbor.
Pj, there is no indication that the child ever asked anything in school, but that the school found out by other means (much like in the case with the nun) and sought to punish the child.
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If that’s in Catholic teachings, I don’t know why you’d want to send a child into such a situation to begin with. But then, I don’t know why the Catholic Church is so hëll-bent on giving the middle finger who want to be Catholic and *do not choose* to live a lifestyle which will subject them to such humiliation.
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What i can say is that it is never appropriate nor right to willfully end the life of a child in the womb.
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I would like to agree with you, but if you have to choose between the life of the mother, who has four other children to take care of, and the life of a fetus, you choose the mother. For all the talk about the ‘innocent child in the womb’, I’d like to see you or this Bishop explain to those other four innocent children why they should be so willing to let their mother die for a fetus that also would not survive because their mother would not live long enough to bring it to term. Talk about a senseless waste of life.
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The church does a lot of good things and is filled with many holy people.
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And when the Pope answers for his role in the protection of pedophile priests over the last 20-30 years, maybe I’ll start to agree with you.
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When the Pope answers for how the church has responded in recent weeks and months, basically putting blame on the victims and never accepting full responsibility, maybe I’ll start to agree with you.
Wow, that’s a great morality you’ve got there: a woman should die along with her unborn fetus in order to serve your religious dogma. Life is irrelevant, so long as other people obey your personal beliefs and sacrifice their lives to make you feel good about signing up with the correct religion.
Better stay in your PJs, stay at home and never deal with a world that might not share your peculiar set of values.
As one who intimately aware of the catholic school policies, one thing that is to be considered is that most catholic schools have teachers sign a contracts that are signed usually on a year to year basis – at least in my diocese. The contract does have a clause in it that they teacher is to live out the catholic faith in a manner approriate to their state of life (priest, married, single). The purpose of this clause is to ensure for the students that the they are getting a good and healthy witness of the gospel being lived out in the lives of the teachers. It is to protect the teachers, who by working at a catholic school are supposed to be living the faith, a life of virtue, both in the classroom and outside of it. The teaching and witnessing of the faith at a catholic school is not just in the religion class, but rather the very lives of the teachers and staff. If this particular teacher is proclaiming to be an atheist, she is either lying on the websites or lying to her students and parents. (where there is a reasonable expectation that she would be a person of faith.).
Here’s a question no one has even addressed: Why is being an atheist and Catholic mutually exclusive? If you’ve been baptized Catholic and you haven’t been excommunicated, you’re Catholic. So the teacher doesn’t believe in God. So what? What if she shares other beliefs of the Church and is comfortable in her Catholicism? What if she did believe in God but was also a fan of capital punishment (which is opposed by the Church). What if she believed in God, but had an abortion? If she joined a support group for women who had an abortion, THAT gets her fired?
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It is ridiculously and unfair and frankly hypocritical for a religious school to hold one of their teachers to that kind of standard, particularly when she’s teaching a subject unrelated to her beliefs.
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PAD
@pd
In the catholic church there is a distinction between external forum and internal forum. Confession for example is internal forum. What the penitent says to the priest about sins or anything within that sacrament, the priest cannot reveal to anyone. If the priest does then he face loosing the ability to act as a priest.
Take the example the teacher who is an atheist and proclaims it publicly is taking something that was internal forum, something that no one wou ld have known and brought it into the public spotlight. The teacher made it public not the school.
There is also hue distinction between a mindset, lifestyle, and sin. A sin can be a one time thing. A person commits a sin, regrets it, confesses it and all is good. It remains internal forum unless the person reveals it to other people.
A mindset like an atheist, could be a good Person but does not agree or believe in god and the church. That is stl internal forum, something that
would not be known unless the person reveals it. There would be some issues here like why belong to something like the church if you honestly don’t believe in the church, but again he church cannot and will not make a judgment about this because it is internal forum.
Lifestyle by definition takes the mindset and brings it into the external forum by a person’s public actions. Posting on Facebook that you don’t believe in God where your students at the catholic school can probably find is a public act.
In general anything in the internal forum is taken care of by a priest confessor and or spiritual director and that is it. It is not made public to protect the person. Yet when a person begins to do things in a very public manner then it is no longer just internal forum, but external and public and so action needs to be taken.
This is a bit of an over simplification, but hope this helps.
Pj
“Why is being an atheist and Catholic mutually exclusive?”
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Thats a good point. I wrote a humorous piece about it a few years ago. After all, the structure of the catholic church is only a prolongation of its role as state religion in Rome, inherited from the previous cult to Rome itself, atheistic in nature.
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But there is a more sinister side to this. In my country, where catholicism was not an option (my grandfather had to agree to send my father and aunt to sunday mass after the priest sent the police a few times to make sure they did) most people were baptized because it was mandatory if one of the parents was. I myself didnt get baptized on a loophole, even if I was born months before Franco Died. Well, nowadays every religion in Spain receives some money from the goverment (hows that for separation of church and state?), the amount based on the number of adherents to that religion.
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How does the Catholic church measure it’s adherents? Mass attendance? (around 10% of the population) hëll no… they demand payment on the base of every baptized spaniard.
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Yearly polls show spaniards declare themselve atheists or declare themselves “spiritual but non declared” in huge numbers, but the Church insist they are all members of the flock, even if misguided ones. Well over 60% of spaniards upported (and got approved) gay marriage that the church abhorrs (and demonstrate gainst it), but the Church never took a step to excomunicate them. Crazy, uh? It gets better.
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For well over a decade there has been a steady flow of people who were baptized when they were born but upon learning they were beign counted in when it came to taxes money going to the church, they demanded a “Fe de apostasia”, a church issued certificate of their apostasy, and to be removed from the church books. First the chutch tried to stall the delivery of these certificates, but after a few trials and pressure from some left wing city councils, they started to adress them. But with a catch.
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They managed to get a court to declare church registers to be “documents of historical relevance” and as such, to make it illegal to erase any information from it. Then they said they could issue apostasy certificates but not remove from the books the name or any baptized child. And they still present the nunmber of those when its time to collect the dough.
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So there you have it… you can be a gay atheist or even start worshipping the goddess Khali, the catholic church will allways have a special place for you… if theres money to be made.
I tend to think of baptism as being analogous to nationality and place of birth. You can change your nationality, often without the approval of the state body which originally recognised your nationality, and similarly, I feel that you don’t need the approval of a church, Catholic or otherwise, to no longer view yourself as a member.
Dated a teacher for a couple of years here in Canada. She refused to work for our religious school boards because of the very strict terms of their contracts which essentially dictated her conduct even when not in class. If the contract this teacher signed was anywhere near that draconian, I doubt she’d have a legal leg to stand on for a suit. More’s the pity.
I’d bet money that is the case.
I would bet you pretty much nailed this situation as well.
In the late sixties early seventies, in the town of Quimperlé in Britanny, a schoolteacher was fired from the catholic school that employed her. Her crime? Having married a divorced man. That kind of thing (and so many others) are part of the reason I’m slowly turning to agnosticism (if it’s true God created us in his own image, what does that say about him?)
Depends upon whether or not they can claim a “religious exemption” from Civil Rights legislation, as the Salvation Army has attempted in the past. SA failed in the courts because it was determined that they they received a majority of their funds from the government.
If this school *is* subject to the Civil Rights act, and if there *is* such a contract that imposes such rules for *thought* (nevermind behaviour!) even outside of the school building, the contract itself could be the evidence of wrongdoing on the part of the school.
In short: just because someone signs a contract does not mean that that contract is bulletproof. 😉
Wildcat
If fetuses were truly innocent, wouldn’t they go to heaven?
As near as I can tell the Catholic Church hopes they do, but they don’t know for sure.
If that’s the case then they are still guilty of Original Sin and cannot be truly innocent.
Actually, the concept of Limbo was created precisely to awnser that question. Original sin itself is not enough to send you to hëll, but prevents you from entering Heaven. Its not official but rather a suitable awnser and admonitory tale against abortion and against not baptizing children. ie: my grandmother would threaten my parents to kidnap me and have me get baptized because they wouldnt do and were condemning me to Limbo. My father thren treathened to ban her for life at our home so the hateful woman was already trained by the time my sister was born.
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Living in the fringes of catholicism all my life gave a good perspective over it, and also plenty of times to have a good laugh at its expense.
Malo that’s kind of my point. If Babies aren’t good enough to get into Heaven on their own without being baptized, then isn’t the whole they are truly innocent thing not quite true?
The answer is of course the Church needs followers needs people to pay their tithes, so they need Babies baptised and raised in the faith.
As the article I looked at http://www.catholicnews.com/data/stories/cns/0702216.htm suggests. The Church realised that people are starting to come to the understanding if God is forgiving, how is that that He can’t let babies who died before being baptized into Heaven. At the same time we can’t dismiss the requirement of Baptism either.. It’s all very pragmatic…
I just can’t get over the fact that Women’s reproductive rights are governed by celibate men, perhaps the least qualified to deal with and least affected by women having babies as any group on the planet.
Oh, how wrong you are!! Maybe math ALONE isn’t dangerous, but math is the tool of demon Scientists! You know, those evil monsters who try to disprove the existence of the Almighty, and subvert all of God’s laws with their calculations and their experiments, and are going to destroy the fabric of our society by teaching our children FACTS!! Math is a gateway to science, and in the wrong hands (say, anyone who even THINKS the word “athiest”), it is an instrument of SATAN, and must be banished!
The only good math is money math, so we can calculate the proper tithe, figure out complicated banking and investment schemes that will make us richer, and find new ways to squeeze every last penny from the lazy, Godless poor. Because one thing Jesus LOVED was moneychangers, and he HATED the educated and the poverty-stricken, don’cha know?
Rich Lane
Sorry.
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If that’s what you believe, you’re not an atheist – you are an agnostic.
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Atheists flatly deny the existence of God. Agnostics say that they don’t know, and that it’s probably unknowable.
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(Except for the Second Agnostic Church, Reformed. They wonder if God believes in us. Their missionaries start off “Brother, has God found you?” They have a charismatic subsect that listens in tongues…)
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(Stolen from Mike Kurland)
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Atheism may not be a religion, but it requires just as much ability to believe the unprovable on faith alone as religion.
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Pj
According to what i have read, there was smoething like a 90% certainty that both the mother and the child (assuming that an 11-week fetus is a child, which i do not) would have died without the abortion.
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Is that preferable to the removal of a lump of cells that are not yet and never will be a human being to save her life?
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This is like Mother Teresa, in India, which has one of the worst population problems in the world, telling people to not use birth control or to have abortions.
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As to the Pope being a good man and the situation with the pedophile priests – his own e-mails show that he advised against the excommunication of a priest who had been convicted of the crime in secular court … and why?
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Because the pedophile in question wouldn’t agree to it.
PAD – let me pose a hypothetical:
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Suppose that, for some reason, a synagogue hired a gentile for some purpose that had her interacting closely and regularly with the children of the congregation.
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And then suppose someone looked at her Facebook page and discovered that she was a member of a neo-Nazi group.
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What then?
Oops.
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Didn’t mean to blockquote the whole paragraph in that final one; given the way i formatted it, it looks sort as it that’s Pj talking there.
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It was supposed to say:
(Let’s see if nested blockquotes work…)
Mike, you are wrong. Atheists do NOT “flatly deny the existence of gods.” I AM an atheist, so please do presume to tell me what I think.
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Atheists do not say they have any market on the truth, so the most we can is that to the best of our knowledge there is no god because no evidence has presented itself. Therefore the dichotomy between atheism and agnosticism is false. Read Dawkins or Hitchens or go to the Iron Chariots website for more information.
Mike, you are wrong. Atheists do NOT “flatly deny the existence of gods.” I AM an atheist, so please do presume to tell me what I think.
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Actually, some do. There’s no dogma among atheists, we’re a pretty consistent bunch. Some feel the way you do (I’m pretty much that way) and some militantly declare that there is no God and couldn’t possibly be one.
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Mike, Rich is right to call himself agnostic instead of atheist. Sometimes it’s a vague dividing line because these things aren’t nailed down so well. I’ve gone back and forth on whether to call myself an atheist or an agnostic. That’s another factor of atheists having no dogma and no organization, we don’t have a lot of agreement on what exactly is what. So if he wants to say that he’s an atheist because he sees no reason to believe in God, that works.
Actually, some do.
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I was taking “flatly” to mean “across the board.” You are correct that there are strong (or gnostic) atheists out there such as Penn Jillette who say “I believe there is no god.” Sorry for the confusion.
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Mike, Rich is right to call himself agnostic instead of atheist.
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You got it reversed, but I take your meaning.
“When I use a word,” said Humpty Dumpty, “it means what I mean it to mean – no more and no less> I pay them extra if i make them work overtime, of course.”
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The definitions of “atheist” and “agnostic are as i have quoted.
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If you want to re-define them so that “atheist” means” the same thing as “agnostic” – or you want to follow someone else who does so – it doesn’t change what the definitions are.
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“If you call a dog’s tail a leg, how many legs has a dog?” asked Abe Lincoln.
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“Four – because calling a tail a leg doesn’t make it a leg.”
Rich Lane
No – he got it right.
Sigh…
So you are agnostic about the existence of Zeus, Odin, and Ahura Mazda? You can’t prove they don’t exist, so you’re an agnostic, right?
If you don’t see any reason to believe and them, and thus don’t, you are atheistic in regards to those gods. The fact you cannot say with 100% certainty that they don’t exist doesn’t change that.
Please be informed before you make blanket statements.
I think you have a problem because Neo-Nazis advocate the violent destruction of Jews. But interaction with children isn’t the issue; the issue is security and safety, because if you have a Neo-Nazi working in a synagogue, particularly if it’s a position of trust, you have to worry about that person being a conduit to vandalism and violence. It’s not analogous. In any event, I think the answer is a very long talk with the Rabbi and/or the board to discern the exact nature of her involvement and the extent of her beliefs.
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PAD
You’re right – that was not exactly what i was thinking of.
Okay – not a neo-Nazi.
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A Holocaust-denier who is not, otherwise, visibly anti-Semitic, in otherwise the same hypothetical.
A Holocaust-denier who is not, otherwise, visibly anti-Semitic, in otherwise the same hypothetical.
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Depends. Are they teaching Jewish history? If so, that’s an issue, particularly if they say, “Of course, we need to give weight to those who believe that the Holocaust never happened.” Is their job to prepare food for Shabbas meals and they’re not picking fights with people about it? Or, if you want to keep the children connection, is their job to oversee playground activities to make sure that the kids don’t get too wild? Then I don’t think it matters, no.
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PAD
I read the Penn Jillette article, it seems to me that he is stuck on the modern, Judeo-Christian version of God, that is the God he doesn’t believe in. But God and Gods have been beleived in for all of recorded history.
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Then you’re reading something into it that patently isn’t there. He never once mentions any specific godhead, and speaks about beliefs that apply to any religion that believes in an omniscient, omnipotent being.
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As I’ve always been a fan of Jillette but when he says things like “imaginary friend” when referring to what people call God he comes across as a petulant child trying to shock the grown ups with his flippant attitude.
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Considering I’ve spent the last two days here reading post after post telling me what I believe and how I’m wrong about how I define myself, I’d have to say simply that you can get over it.
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Beauty can’t be proven, beauty is subjective
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It is subjective. So? He’s not making claims about the origin of the universe. He’s saying that he appreciates being able to appreciate things.
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The article leads me to believe that Atheists strive for a world where everyone thinks the same, where because every notion is plotted and verified and deemed acceptable.
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Considering that you say this in a blog entry about a church that fired a woman for thinking differently than them, I can’t help but smile sardonically at that comment.
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things like love and Beauty cannot be, because they are so often irrational.
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Individual examples may be irrational, but love and beauty themselves as concepts are not, so your statement incorrect logically.
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I also don’t think that a belief in God implies a preoccupation or even belief in the afterlife
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No they don’t but as that’s not what’s being discussed here, I’m not sure how that’s relevant.
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I don’t have the faith in man that Atheists seem to have
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I know several atheists who are positively morose.
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In a hundred years we could be laughing at the authority given to the scientific method, probably not, but stranger things have happened, which is why I can’t rule out God.
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Again, you can’t seem to grasp that the majority of atheists do not “rule out” gods. We simply shelve the notion due to lack of evidence.
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The only thing I know for certain is that the world needs people that believe in God as much as it needs Atheists.
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Why?
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The ability to think about thought is all that separates us from the animals, it’s important that we do it everyday.
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That sounds suspiciously like “atheist dogma.” 🙂
“Atheism may not be a religion, but it requires just as much ability to believe the unprovable on faith alone as religion.”
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No, it doesn’t (see my response to Michael H. above).
I need some things clarified in regards to Atheism. I always thought that being an Atheist meant that you do not believe in God and being Agnostic meant that you don’t care if there is a God or not because all we are certain of is the physical world in which we live and therefore we should not spend our lives worrying about the afterlife. Are these definitions wrong?
I am not “religious” but have always found it hard to wrap my head around Atheism because I thought that it involved a level of certainty that God does not exist that I was never comfortable with. Rich however stated that some Atheist feel that they have not been presented with “evidence” of Gods existence, indicating that they believe that if God did exist God would be a more proactive entity in the physical world, that when someone yelled “Why God?” that God would answer. Does feeling this way mean that at some point these people felt that God let them down at which point decided that they no longer beleived in God?
One last question about the lack of “Evidence” existing to prove Gods existence. I would think that the only “evidence” that would prove Gods existence would be something beyond a feeling or a sensation, something that could be seen with the naked eye is this correct? If so, how does an “Evidence” craving Atheist feel about the existence of germs, the Ozone layer, Gravity, Atoms and any other number of things that cannot be seen with the naked eye?
I thought that it involved a level of certainty that God does not exist that I was never comfortable with.
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Do you believe in Zeus? Assuming you don’t, are you comfortable with your level of certainty? Do you believe in the Flying Spaghetti Monster? If you can wave off those beliefs, then you need only take it one more step to get a feel for how an atheist does it.
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I would think that the only “evidence” that would prove Gods existence would be something beyond a feeling or a sensation, something that could be seen with the naked eye is this correct?
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No, it is not correct. Atheism is generally based on rational thought, skepticism, and the scientific method, and those do not require you be able to touch something to validate it to a reasonable degree. We can see germs in a microscope, and we know their affects in their interactions with the rest of the world. This is reproducible evidence. Likewise there is evidence for not only the existence of the ozone layer, but also its affects on the world, and these affects can be accurately measured and predicted.
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Gravity exists. We cannot touch gravity, but we see the predictable, demonstrable, reoccurring affects of it. As Mr. Spock said, “If I drop a hammer on a planet that has a positive gravity, I need not see the hammer fall to know that it has actually fallen.” That is evidence. Likewise atoms.
@Rich: Isn’t Zeus one of the many constructs that people have used to encapsulate God? A creator, or overseer? As far as flying spaghetti monsters are concerned, billions of people since the dawn of time have not beleived in some form of flying spaghetti monsters, I would think that not believing in God is a greater leap then not believing in FSMs. I guess what I’m getting at is that with all the people throughout history who have believed in a God or Gods or something higher there must be something to it, right? We trust that what we see through microscopes is actually there and not simply a trick of the eye caused by viewing something through a bent lens, I believe that because it most people do, scientific authorities do. I believe in germs because better educated people then I have told me that they exist but if you think about germs as a skeptic you could certainly deny there existence to the same degree as God. Germs cause illness, well, not always. Germs are bad, not always, we feel germs…nope. Germs are invisible things floating in the air that make us sick,how do we know, science. But science is often wrong. Don’t get me wrong, I believe in germs, I’m just playing devil’s advocate (no pun intended).
Where am I going with this? I don’t know but I am enjoying the mental stimulation of this post.
I wonder if I am not an Atheist is because I was brought up in a household devoid of all religion, I was never forced to conceptualize God in any way but my own. Personally, I think that God is a very personal thing, different for everyone. What is that belief called?
(DIGRESSION: Do Atheist seek a higher purpose, meaning of life(beyond reproduction)or does that fall under something that is beyond rational thought?)
Isn’t Zeus one of the many constructs that people have used to encapsulate God?
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I don’t know, nor does anyone else.
As far as flying spaghetti monsters are concerned, billions of people since the dawn of time have not beleived in some form of flying spaghetti monsters, I would think that not believing in God is a greater leap then not believing in FSMs.
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For thousands of years before the inception of monotheism, people believed in pantheons of gods, totem spirits, ancestor worship, and the like. It should then not big leap in disowning that concept as well, then.
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I guess what I’m getting at is that with all the people throughout history who have believed in a God or Gods or something higher there must be something to it, right?
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People believed the Earth was flat, the sun orbited us, and the stars in the sky were supernatural beings. Believing it doesn’t make it true. Being TRUE is what makes something true.
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We trust that what we see through microscopes is actually there and not simply a trick of the eye caused by viewing something through a bent lens, I believe that because it most people do, scientific authorities do.
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I don’t believe it because others do. I believe it because it always behaves in a specific way under the same controlled circumstances that we can predict. Some learned men once exclaimed that they had created cold fusion. It couldn’t be replicated, so their discovery faded away. Uri Geller presented evidence that he could bend a spoon with his mind. I saw it with my own eyes, but it could not be duplicated in a controlled environment, and thus he considered a fraud.
if you think about germs as a skeptic you could certainly deny there existence to the same degree as God.
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No. There is evidence for germs. There is none for gods. Zip. Nada. Zilch.
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Germs cause illness, well, not always. .
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And when they don’t there’s a demonstrable reason for it. When there isn’t, doctors keep looking, they don’t say, “hmmm, God must have saved that one.”
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Science is often wrong.
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Absolutely. And when it is and it is proven, the record reflects that and new hypothesis and theories are then worked on. Science thrives on correcting its own errors.
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(DIGRESSION: Do Atheist seek a higher purpose, meaning of life(beyond reproduction)or does that fall under something that is beyond rational thought?)
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I can’t speak for all atheists because there is no dogma, but most that I know do not seek a higher purpose beyond living a good live and striving to make the world as hospitable as it can be. After all, there’s no evidence that there’s anything beyond this one shot on Earth we all get, so we make the most of it.
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The closest to an atheistic credo I’ve read is that of Penn Jillette, but even that doesn’t work 100% for me. Jillette is a strong or gnostic atheist who does affirm that he believes there is no god. Excluding that, I agree with everything he says.
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http://thisibelieve.org/essay/34/
It seems to me that Atheist’s Dogma is that the scientific method is infallible.
It seems to me that Atheist’s Dogma is that the scientific method is infallible.
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Then you missed the part where I said that science thrives on correcting its own errors.
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Hey, if you want to believe in gods, knock yourself out. I really don’t care if you prostrate yourself in front of a shrine to Yahweh, Mohamed, your great-grandfather, or Elvis. As long as you do not expect me to be differential to your beliefs or attempt to make me adhere to them in anyway, we’ll get along famously.
I read the Penn Jillette article, it seems to me that he is stuck on the modern, Judeo-Christian version of God, that is the God he doesn’t believe in. But God and Gods have been beleived in for all of recorded history. I’ve always been a fan of Jillette but when he says things like “imaginary friend” when referring to what people call God he comes across as a petulant child trying to shock the grown ups with his flippant attitude.
He also lists a handful of things that he does believe because they can be “proven” but one of the things he lists is beauty. Beauty can’t be proven, beauty is subjective, I would argue that the truth is also often equally subjective. The article leads me to believe that Atheists strive for a world where everyone thinks the same, where because every notion is plotted and verified and deemed acceptable. But things like love and Beauty cannot be, because they are so often irrational. I also don’t think that a belief in God implies a preoccupation or even belief in the afterlife, but that’s just me and I might be an Atheist and not even know it. But I don’t think I could be an Atheist because I don’t have the faith in man that Atheists seem to have, because we used to think the world was flat, and that the Sun revolved around the Earth and that evil deeds made us sick, because we are so often so sure of ourselves only to have our entire world view proven wrong.
In a hundred years we could be laughing at the authority given to the scientific method, probably not, but stranger things have happened, which is why I can’t rule out God.
The only thing I know for certain is that the world needs people that believe in God as much as it needs Atheists. It needs all types and it needs polite and thoughtful discourse. The ability to think about thought is all that separates us from the animals, it’s important that we do it everyday.
ME: It seems to me that Atheist’s Dogma is that the scientific method is infallible.
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RICH: Then you missed the part where I said that science thrives on correcting its own errors.
ME: No, I read that, according to the scientific method it is inquiry that is fallible. Fallibility is part of the method, therefore the correction of it’s errors is part of the scientific method. Your statement still regards the method as infallible because it corrects it’s own errors.
RICH: As long as you do not expect me to be differential to your beliefs or attempt to make me adhere to them in anyway, we’ll get along famously.
ME: I don’t expect you to do anything, I’m just having a good time fleshing it all out. I am confused by what you mean by “differential” though.
I appreciate the stimulating conversation by the way.
Thank you Rich and PAD for providing the forum.
I am confused by what you mean by “differential” though.
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That’s because I meant “deferential.”
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I is am English Teecher. Can’t you tell?
I read that, according to the scientific method it is inquiry that is fallible. Fallibility is part of the method, therefore the correction of it’s errors is part of the scientific method. Your statement still regards the method as infallible because it corrects it’s own errors.
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You’ve had a very irksome tendency to read more into statements than the words there declare. No where did I say or infer that scientific method is infallible. The furthest I will go is to say it is the best method for uncovering the universe that mankind has yet discerned. That’s no where near a declaration of perfection.
“As far as flying spaghetti monsters are concerned, billions of people since the dawn of time have not beleived in some form of flying spaghetti monsters, I would think that not believing in God is a greater leap then not believing in FSMs. I guess what I’m getting at is that with all the people throughout history who have believed in a God or Gods or something higher there must be something to it, right?”
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To be fair, the God theory has been around for thousands of years. The Flying Spaghetti Monster theory has only been around since 2:59 PM this afternoon. Give it time.
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But seriously, if someone told you there was a Flying Spaghetti Monster, but he had never actually seen it, you wouldn’t believe him. If that person convinced someone else, and there were now two people who believed in the great FSM, would the existence of such a creature be any more plausible than when only one person believed it?
Would you say that the Atheist Dogma is an adherents to the Scientific Method above all else?
@Robert I’d like to know how he convinced the second person of it’s existence. Also it would depend on what regard I held the intellect (and sanity) of the people who believed in the FSM. What there motivation was for talking about the FSM and how the first person came to the conclusion that FSM existed.If they said that an FSM created the universe 5000 years ago I would believe that every bit as much as I believe that an old white man with a white beard and flowing white robes created the world 5000 years ago.
You’ve had a very irksome tendency to read more into statements than the words there declare. No where did I say or infer that scientific method is infallible.
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You’re an English teacher? Seriously? Yet you use “infer” when you should have said “imply?” Hunh. I’d never have guessed.
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PAD
Would you say that the Atheist Dogma is an adherents to the Scientific Method above all else?
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I would say you’re misusing the word “dogma.” Not to mention the word “adherence.”
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PAD
Much as with scientific method, I make no claims to perfection.
ME: Would you say that the Atheist Dogma is an adherents to the Scientific Method above all else?
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PAD: I would say you’re misusing the word “dogma.” Not to mention the word “adherence.”
It is my understanding that a Dogma is a a unifying belief and an adherence to something means that one is bound to a thing.
To restate: Would you say that a unifying belief of Atheists is that they are bound to the Scientific Method… Alright, You’re right, I misused “adherence” but, I stand behind my use of Dogma.
To re-restate: Would you say that a unifying belief of Atheists is that anything that cannot be objectified by the Scientific Method is not real (or inconsequential)?
If I have a misconception of what a Dogma is I apologize and would appreciate the correct meaning of the word.
“Also it would depend on what regard I held the intellect (and sanity) of the people who believed in the FSM.”
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It would? Really? So you’re saying the possibility exists that you would believe in the existence of a Flying Spaghetti Monster, without any evidence other than the word of two people who have never seen one?
Okay, CWrann, let’s see if you can get it this time.
If you select the proper instruments, you can directly observe germs. With the proper studies, you can learn what germs do, and how they react to given circumstances. Even without the instruments, you can perform experiments to demonstrate the reality of germs and their role in the transmission of disease (cf. Joseph Lister).
Tell me, what instruments will permit one to directly observe God? What studies will permit one to know what God is doing, and what His responses will be with a high degree of confidence? What experiments can be performed in which one result will prove God’s existence, and another will prove the lack thereof? (This is what scientists refer to as “falsifiability” – an experiment whose outcome proves a hypothesis wrong. If you can find a place where gravity is repulsive rather than attractive, or in which it does not fall off in strength as the distance increases, you will have falsified the theory of gravitation.)
It is my understanding that a Dogma is a a unifying belief and an adherence to something means that one is bound to a thing.
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That typically comes from a central, organized unifying body (such as the Vatican in the case of Catholicism), and also is accepted as being true without requiring proof.
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Since atheism is at its core about requiring proof, it is antithetical to the very concept of dogma. Saying “atheist dogma” is an oxymoron.
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PAD
Would you say that a unifying belief of Atheists is that anything that cannot be objectified by the Scientific Method is not real (or inconsequential)?
No. Two reasons:
1) Atheists do not have any “unifying beliefs” because we are not an organized group. In other words, there are those who disbelieve in gods, but they came to that conclusion in far different ways than scientific inquiry. The majority I know are atheists because they see no reason to believe in gods, but there are those who are atheists because of other reasons. The Raelians, for instance, are a group that believes humanity has misinterpreted messages from aliens as the words of gods. They’re batshit crazy, but they would count as atheists.
2) If something can’t be proven by scientific method, it isn’t discounted as not real, it’s simply considered unprovable and therefore unreliable. Cold fusion may actually be possible, but the one time a group of scientists claimed to have achieved it, they couldn’t prove it, so it was back to the drawing board until they can.
Actually, let me modify what I just wrote. I cannot say that all Raelians are batshit crazy as I’ve only ever met one. She was batshit crazy, but she may not have been the best representative of the group.
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I’d also add Buddhists in as atheists. They by and large do not believe in gods, but their faith in other supernatural or otherwise unprovable ideas does not come from scientific inquiry.
What I’d like to know is WHY many theists are so eager to “prove” atheism is just another religion. Anyone has any theories on that?
This stuff seems to betray a lack of confidence and fullfilment in the life choices of the theists (“See! See! You atheists are no better than me, you’re also believers, you poor bášŧárdš!”) Alternately, it could be read as (“Your lack of belief is as crazy and stubborn and illogical as my belief”).
It doesn’t look like they’re too happy with their own choices. After all, if you want to drag someone “down” with you, it’s because you see yourself as being down.
I don’t know that they’re trying to drag atheists “down to their level” as much as they are trying to find a flaw in the logic atheists use to justify non-belief. In other words, if they can prove that atheism is an unsubstantiated belief, or that it has dogma, or that it’s a religion, they can say that atheism is invalid based on its own criteria.
I see.
Of course, I’m guessing. You could be entirely correct in most cases. I’m just trying to give the benefit of the doubt that they have at least a logical rational for it, and that sometimes isn’t the case.
RENE: I’m not sure if your comment applies to this conversation. I wouldn’t call myself a Theist and have not been trying to prove that Atheism is a religion. I said in the beginning that I thought that Atheism involved a certain level of certainty in the lack of existence of God that I was never comfortable with. Apparently it doesn’t, based on what I have read in this thread and the article by Penn Jillette that RICH recommended. IN the Article Jillette states that he is beyond Atheism in that he believes that there is no God as opposed to not believing in God. Not that he is an authority but I always thought he seemed like a smart guy as does RICH who recommended the article. If being beyond Atheism is stating that you believe that there is no God then being Atheist is still within the realm of being open to the existence of God should the evidence be presented to you in whatever way that you require. I was always uncomfortable with what I perceived as the certain amount of arrogance required to say that you don’t believe and will never believe period, I don’t have that level of certainty about anything.
Back to proving that Atheism is a religion, I am certainly not a proponent of religion, my questions aren’t meant to challenge the Atheists beliefs they are genuine, I want to know, what makes an Atheist an Atheist. A dogma is not exclusively tied to religion but can be applied to any organization, and that where I was unclear. PAD thought that I was misusing the term dogma, turns out I was misusing the term Atheism. The main thing that I learned is that there isn’t a consensus among Atheist when it comes to the definition of Atheism beyond that it involves not believing in God to varying degrees, or in varying ways. In other words, it means different things to different people. What I still don’t understand is the use of having a label if it means so many different things to so many different people. There is more care given to the labels we use to define how we eat (Vegetarian, Vegan, pescatarian, lacto-ovo vegetarian, etc…) and thats just to make sure we get something we like at dinner time. If somebody says they are an Atheist a certain amount of assumptions should be able to be made by the label, that’s the point of labels. Say I am having someone over for dinner, I ask if the have any dietary restrictions, they reply that they are an omnivore. That night when I am serving the filet mignon they look at me scornfully and inform me that they don’t eat beef. This is like asking someone if they are religious and they reply that they are an Atheist, knowing what I now know, that everyone can define the term to suit themselves, the term has become useless to me and has been the root of a good deal of confusion throughout this thread.
ROBERT FULLER: Back to the FSM. If someone who I respect, who has never shown signs of insanity and who has a reasonable level of intelligence tells me that he believes that there is an FSM although he has never seen one and has no evidence I will have to assume that he FEELS that there is an FSM,(If you can’t observe it with your five senses it’s a feeling, right?). I believe that he has FELT that there is an FSM. If he is telling me this because the believing in an FSM makes him feel good and he wanted to be aware of it in case at some point I have the feeling and don’t know what it is, that’s great. If he is telling me this because he wants to his knowledge (limited to feelings) of the FSM to extract money out of me, or to hold some sort of power over me, I am going to have to rethink my friendship.
Oddly enough, in thinking about this I realized that if this friend had told me he saw it, I would be able to discount the existence of the FSM outright. If I know he is not lying to me, I will assume that he thought he saw something he didn’t. I think there is something big in this train of thought as it pertains to the belief in God and what it means that it can’t be observed with the five senses.
Jonathan (the other one): As far as the Germs statement goes, I will try to say what I said before in another way. I am not a scientist, I love science, I watch the discovery channel, I read popular science, it fascinates me, but I have never professionally participated in the scientific process. What I know of science and medicine (and a lot of other things) is at the very least second hand probably more depending on how many levels of media it has passed through from the initial study. I have never observed or experimented on germs. When I am told that germs cause disease I believe the information, not because, “If you select the proper instruments, you can directly observe germs. With the proper studies, you can learn what germs do, and how they react to given circumstances.”, I don’t have time for that, I believe in germs because all of the variables bouncing around in my head amount to a gut reaction that the information makes sense and that I better wash my hands. I take it on faith that these instruments and measurements and quantifications are reliable because I feel that the results are accurate.
Another example, There is a good deal of evidence that says that smoking causes cancer, there is also a good deal of evidence that says that it does not. I know two people who have died from cancer that were smokers, I know people who have not smoked that have died from cancer and I know dozens of people who do smoke that have not died from cancer. The more rational belief based on what I see in my real life, (it’s all I have because the science is conflicting) is that smoking doesn’t cause cancer, oddly I don’t feel this way, despite the evidence I believe that smoking does cause cancer, simply because in my gut, I feel that it does. Irrational? Maybe, but it’s how I feel.
The whole point of bringing up the science angle is that we believe things we don’t see all the time, I was just wondering what it is in the Atheist gut that allows them to take science fact on faith but not the existence of God, I guess it’s that the gut reaction to God is to not believe.
Oh, and one more thing I missed before. RICH LANE, I said that I beleived that it was important to have both Atheists and non-atheists in the world and you asked why. If we didn’t have both, the questions would never be asked, life wouldn’t be as interesting, personal beliefs would never be questioned and we may never understand why we feel the way we do.
People can claim all they want that this is how Catholic faith works and so they’re just following the tenets of their beliefs. But what it comes down to is that the Catholic authority structure prizes it’s ability to discriminate against anyone different; anyone not of their preferred sexuality, anyone who isn’t a man, anyone who might need a medical procedure they don’t care for. Because when they can discriminate against those who are different, they have power.
And they want that power. They crave that power. It’s a desperate attempt to cling to the days when the Catholic Church had the power to dictate how other people lived their lives. Discrimination is their attempt to stay relevant and powerful, even when it’s rendering the Church a complete and total joke.
And when people like PJ defend the use of Catholic faith in this manner, they’re defending the right to discriminate. Because the system has, for whatever reason, benefitted PJ, so PJ feels a vested interest in defending what s/he perceives to be a default status quo.
Except that’s not universally true. One of my daughters IS a teacher in a Catholic school. She’s Jewish. She teaches music. No one is attempting to convert her, and no one is discriminating against her.
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PAD
I know it’s not universally true. I was referring to these specific instances of discrimination. I should have expressed that better.
Good for her. Both for people not being jerks to her, and for being a teacher (one of the toughest, most thankless, and most important jobs a person can have. I sure couldn’t do it).
Yeah, uh, I went to Catholic grade and high school and it wasn’t exactly bouncing people out of their jobs left and right over not sharing the same religious beliefs. This specific school just sound really stupid.
Let’s take religion/beliefs out of this. Let’s pretend she worked for Coca-cola. Let’s say she posted on an anti-Coca-cola site, and claimed she preferred Pepsi over coke on facebook. Would the Coca-cola company have grounds to fire her?
On a another note close to home, I remember Peter being in hot water some years ago because he spoke negatively about the company he freelanced for.
Probably not.
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But (as has been pointed out up-thread) there is a specific exception in the law for religious institutions…
Let’s take religion/beliefs out of this. Let’s pretend she worked for Coca-cola. Let’s say she posted on an anti-Coca-cola site, and claimed she preferred Pepsi over coke on facebook. Would the Coca-cola company have grounds to fire her?
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Depends on a couple of things.
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First: is the office in an “at will” state. If so–meaning that the state law is that you can fire someone for any reason–then yeah, I guess, although even in those instances a wrongful termination suit might ensue. Second: What’s the person’s job? If she works in the mailroom, I don’t see the relevance. If she works in data processing, I don’t see the relevance. If she’s a saleswoman, you might have a problem. But if her sales numbers are impeccable, then again, I don’t see the relevance.
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PAD
On a another note close to home, I remember Peter being in hot water some years ago because he spoke negatively about the company he freelanced for.
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Yeah, but there’s a difference between criticizing the company and calling out the editor in print. Furthermore I knew fully well that I might be ending my career, so it’s not like I would have been blindsided.
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PAD
Actually, yes, the Coca-Cola Company WOULD be able to fire her and get away with it. If, when she came to work for Coke, she signed the standard “work at will” contract, it means not only that she can quit at any time, for any reason, but also that they can fire her at any time, for any reason.
This is something that I currently have way more experience in than I want to, as my last employer…the management of which decided that they didn’t like me and wanted me gone…made up reasons to fire me, and are now suing me because they think I posted to a website some nasty things about them. So in addition to having to deal with being unemployed, I also have to incur legal bills to fight this stupid thing.
Actually, yes, the Coca-Cola Company WOULD be able to fire her and get away with it. If, when she came to work for Coke, she signed the standard “work at will” contract, it means not only that she can quit at any time, for any reason, but also that they can fire her at any time, for any reason.
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Well, yeah, David, I said that first thing in my response, talking about “at will” jobs and laws, so we’re not in disagreement here.
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PAD
Orlando T said: “Let’s take religion/beliefs out of this. Let’s pretend she worked for Coca-cola. Let’s say she posted on an anti-Coca-cola site, and claimed she preferred Pepsi over coke on facebook. Would the Coca-cola company have grounds to fire her?”
My initial response was going to be “that’s different”, but then I thought about it. In your example, it comes down to her freedom of speech. If she’s expressing her opinion “out of school”, she should be untouchable.
Since I’m citing the Bill of Rights, I anticipate an argument against me to be that Coca-Cola is not the government, and therefore isn’t necessariy prohibited from denying its employees First Amendment rights. In one aspect, I would agree with this such a response, but only when it comes to employees’ actions and behaviour in the workplace, or when they’re representing the company while off-campus.
I would submit that, by filing the paperwork with the government that allows it to do business as a corporation, Coca-Cola is plugging itself into the same legal framework that defines and restricts how the government itself behaves and treats its own citizenry, and that Coca-Cola is not allowed to create “laws” that supercede any part of the Constitution.
I’ll own up to being an optimist. ^.^;
Peter David said: “First: is the office in an “at will” state. If so–meaning that the state law is that you can fire someone for any reason–then yeah, I guess, although even in those instances a wrongful termination suit might ensue.”
“At will” isn’t a carte blanche to issue pink slips for just *any* reason. It just means that if Coca-Cola wants to fire someone for a reason that might violate that person’s rights, they’re going to to find a different reason to let them go. Sometimes, they’re going to make something up.
Wildcat
It just means that if Coca-Cola wants to fire someone for a reason that might violate that person’s rights, they’re going to to find a different reason to let them go. Sometimes, they’re going to make something up.
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Now that, I would believe. After all, they said we’d like New Coke. Those bášŧárdš will say anything.
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PAD
Wildcat,
Which is exactly what my former employer did in my case. They decided they didn’t like me for some reason, and since they couldn’t find a legitimate performance-based reason to fire me, they started making things up to accuse me of. And when they had finally racked up enough accusations (all of which I protested as being untrue and unfair, for all the good it did me) they fired me.
And tried to block my unemployment benefits. Thankfully, they didn’t succeed, or I’d be homeless or dead by now.
I’m waiting to hear what Rand Paul has to say about this.
Nothing.
Why, no opinion of your own?
I wasn’t correcting you, Peter, I just hadn’t seen your response at the time I posted mine. But yeah, we’re both pointing out the same thing.
Jess Willey: I would like to point out that atheism is a religion. After all, religion is merely the belief in a fundamental principle about the universe based entirely on faith without a shred a proof.
Luigi Novi: Which atheism is not. Atheism, as is clearly indicated by the meaning of the word’s root parts, is the lack of a belief, not a belief in a fundamental principle.
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Jess Willey: You can’t prove a negative so it is impossible to definitively prove that God does not exist. Which makes his non-existence a matter of personal faith.
Luigi Novi: Wrong. The burden of proof for any empirical claim is on the claimant. Atheists do not believe in gods because there is no empirical evidence for his existence, not because there is proof for his non-existence. I “don’t believe” that there’s a giant flying teapot in orbit around the Earth, but no one would claim my lack of belief in a giant orbital teapot is a “religion”.
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Tim Butler: Quite the contrary, atheism is as much a religion as theism is. It has to be. It’s adherents accept as dogma things about the universe that cannot be proven and must be taken on faith.
Luigi Novi: Atheists do not accept anything about the universe as dogma. I’m an atheist, and I do not hold such views, nor do the vast majority of the atheists I’ve spoken to, listened to, or whose words I’ve read.
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Tim Butler: The belief that there is nothing beyond the material cannot be proven.
Luigi Novi: Atheists do not believe that there is nothing beyond the material. They merely lack a belief in gods. Atheists—in particular those who recognize scientific skepticism as the tool by which matters of empirical fact are examined—merely hold that any claim in matters of fact, such as the existence of things beyond the material, must be supported by objectively measured evidence. Not that they don’t exist.
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Rich Lane: Atheists don’t say there is nothing out there beyond what can be proven. We say that there is no evidence to support that there is a deity and thus there is no reason to believe in one until such evidence comes to light. That is worlds apart from what you wrote.
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Tim Butler: Rich, I disagree with your definition of atheism.
Luigi Novi: It doesn’t matter. That’s the definition, as it is generally used by atheists, and referenced in dictionaries and other reference works. Since Tim and I are both atheists, and both we and others on this board have indicated that this is what atheism is, then by what reasoning do you allege it to mean something else? Can you cite a general reference source that indicates that we’re wrong, and that gives a different definition?
Tim Butler: 1) What spiritual aspects of the universe do you believe in? What evidence do you have that they exist?
Luigi Novi: Spiritual beliefs are not based on evidence. They’re based on things such as emotionalism, whim, and psychospiritual, cultural, historical and familial indoctrination.
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Skeptics Society founder and Skeptic magazine publisher Dr. Michael Shermer, himself an atheist, has an expansive definition of spirituality: He says that anything that is capable of filling someone with awe can have spiritual power, and that atheists can feel spirituality when they look at deep space images from the Hubble Telescope, chart the growth of sperm and eggs into a baby, etc. That’s a feeling that one has, and doesn’t require evidence.
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Tim Butler: 2) If you believe in spiritual aspects of the universe that you cannot prove, why are you so unwilling to believe in a deity (or even allow for the possibility) because you cannot prove the existence of him or her? Why single out a deity for your disbelief even though there are, perhaps, other spiritual aspects of the universe that you believe in but can’t prove?
Luigi Novi: Atheists do not single out deities for disbelief. Atheists—again, skeptics in particular like me—also do not believe in other things for which there is no reliable scientific evidence, such as astrology, dowsing, phrenology, homeopathy, feng shui, connections between autism and vaccines, conspiracy theories surrounding the JFK assassination, controlled demolitions on 9/11, the Moon Landing Hoax, flat Earth theory, acupuncture, alien abduction, psychic powers, etc.
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However, we do not withhold credence for these things because we do not “allow for their possibility”. We withhold credence because the empirical criteria for credence for them has not been met by those who advocate these ideas.
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Tim Butler: By the way, just as an aside, the first author that I ever read who equated atheism with the materialism was CS Lewis. We may not agree on that point, but I didn’t make it up as a straw man. Other very thoughtful people have made that point as well.
Luigi Novi: The fact that you parrot an argument from elsewhere does not preclude it as a Straw Man. A Straw Man is a distorted or fabricated version of your opponent’s position that they do not hold, nor ever stated. Whether you yourself originated it, or whether it is a popular distortion, is irrelevant to this.
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Rich Lane: “That one is easy. I don’t believe in any spiritual aspects to the universe as there is no evidence that there are any.”
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Tim Butler: Then, you are a materialist. I don’t see how you can deny that.
Luigi Novi: He can deny it by virtue of the definition of materialism, which is greater concern with material things than with spiritual, intellectual, or cultural values, or the theory that the only thing that exists is matter. Neither of these two definitions need describe someone merely because they do not believe in any spiritual aspects to the universe.
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Moreover, keep in mind that not all atheists claim to lack any spiritual feelings, as I mentioned above.
“Atheism, as is clearly indicated by the meaning of the word’s root parts, is the lack of a belief, not a belief in a fundamental principle.”
As indicated by the meaning of the word’s root parts (the ‘a’ privative which denotes negation or absence and theos (God)), a-theos means “no God”. This is a positive belief that God does not exist.
The lack of belief, or more properly lack of knowledge, would be a-gnosis; no knowledge. (Or maybe apathy if you don’t even bother thinking about it.)
Both theists and atheists have beliefs. I wold not equate, though, having a belief with religion.
a-theos means “no God”. This is a positive belief that God does not exist.
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No, it is not a positive belief. It is a lack of belief. I do not claim to know that there is no god, but I can state that there is no evidence for god(s) existence, so I don’t presuppose it. It is not a positive assumption.
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If I told you there is a flying Lhasa Apso hovering above your head right now, but it’s invisible, intangible and silent, you don’t have to make a positive assumption to not believe me. I, as the person positing its existent, have the burden of proof. Lacking that, your default position is (hopefully)one of non-belief.
There is no evidence for gods. If someone makes a claim as to one or more’s existence, the burden of proof is upon them. Lacking that proof, the default position for me is not to believe.
Hey, Rich – I didn’t see this post when I was writing mine down below (that’s the trouble when people are posting at about the same time).
I guess we just disagree on the meaning and function of the ‘a’ privative. In the grand scheme of things, I can live with that.
As indicated by the meaning of the word’s root parts (the ‘a’ privative which denotes negation or absence and theos (God)), a-theos means “no God”. This is a positive belief that God does not exist.
Luigi Novi: No, it isn’t. For most atheists, “no God” means lack of a belief, not a positive belief. But if you can explain how “no God” must mean a positive belief, and not merely a lack of one, please explain.
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Where personal beliefs are concerned, most decent people tend to respect whatever terminology with which people self-identify, and do not split hairs by playing Vocabulary Police. Most atheists do not have a positive belief in the non-existence of God, and insisting on an arbitrary and self-serving interpretation of a word or phrase doesn’t change that.
Based on the replies I started wondering if the definition of “atheism” had drifted since I left school
so I did a quick search online for a definition from the Philosophy department of a (hopefully recognized as) reputable school. The first I found was from the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/atheism-agnosticism/#1):
“‘Atheism’ means the negation of theism, the denial of the existence of God.”
This reads to me like a positive belief rather than a lack of belief but, as they say, “your mileage may vary.”
The other difference between atheism and religion is that atheism is open to proof while religion is opposed to it.
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Since the existence of God cannot be proven to a scientific certainty (or at least hasn’t yet) let’s consider a fictional atheist: Dean Winchester from “Supernatural.”
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Although he knew demons existed, he flat out believed that God did not exist. In fact, for him, the fact that demons were able to wander the earth wreaking havoc wherever they wished was proof that God didn’t exist because how could any benevolent God allow such evil to happen? But in the fourth season opener, he was confronted by a being, Castiel, who proved immune to every anti-demon tactic Dean had. A being so powerful that he had been able to haul Dean up from Hëll (where Dean has been consigned), a feat that supposedly was beyond the power of anything in their experience. When Castiel claimed to be an angel of the lord, Dean rejected the claim. He was stunned when, in a burst of light, Castiel displayed his wings. The show of the wings combined with all the other empirical evidence finally convinced Dean that, yes, there was a God and there were angels (although they were dìçkš.)
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Now: Contrast that to someone of a religious bent who believes that the earth is only 6000 years old. Show them fossils that are millions of years old, and they refuse to believe they are what they are. Instead they assert that God created such things to test faith, or perhaps Satan put them there in order to confuse the devoted. When confronted with proof that conflicts with faith, they will simply come up with more denials that are firmly rooted in faith, which continues to require no proof, because if it DID require proof, it would no longer be faith. And ’round it goes.
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In short: My understanding of atheism is that it allows for the possibility of proof to the contrary. Religion doesn’t.
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PAD
You would be correct in that, Peter.
Which reminds me of one of my favorite flow charts:
http://stupidevilbastard.com/Images2/sciencevsfaith.png
As an addendum to that; I would consider both theism and atheism to be faiths because they are base on belief rather than knowledge. Faith does not mean religion, though. A religion may be based on faith but believing something on faith does not necessarily make that belief a religion.
No disagreement, just clarification.
There is quite a bit of disagreement there. You didn’t read anything else written here, then, Michael. That has be refuted numerous times here.
Rich – I don’t believe I disagreed with anything in Peter’s post (the one I was responding to when I wrote “No disagreement”)
Nice flow charts.
Michael H: I would consider both theism and atheism to be faiths because they are base on belief rather than knowledge.
Luigi Novi: Atheism is not based on belief. For atheists like myself, it’s based on the lack of empirical evidence for gods. Lack of empirical evidence is not what the word “belief” means.
Those flow charts are awesome, Rich. I have several friends I need to forward them to.
It cracks me up when we say “atheism is this” and “religion is that”. It’s all just people. Some people are stupid, closeminded dìçkš. I believe in a loving and saving God. Lots of dìçkš do, too. Just like dìçkš who are atheists and dìçkš who are whatever other activities dìçkš do (politics, sports, telemarketing…)
So what should the school have done, really? They have the “she doesn’t believe in God” information out there in the public, although it seems clear the teacher was not attempting to push it. Sucks for everyone. It IS a disruption to what the school is teaching, and would have been a continuing dstraction as everyone started to weigh in, tempers flared, etc.
Seems like going to the courts was the correct way to handle this. The school was straightforward in her contract in saying that pushing a spiritual agenda different from the schools was a dealbreaker, and she had a different personal agenda but never pushed it.
Whataya wanna bet some student found her stuff on Facebook and routed it around? Cat outa the bag – now what? School’s gotta stick by it’s guns, she has to challenge the firing. And that’s what court is for.
“I understand that the primary goal in a Catholic school is not just to educate children, but to put Catholic beliefs and practices in all aspects of the classroom/school experience.
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How in the world are Catholic beliefs remotely relevant to MATH? “So you must ask yourselves, children, how would Jesus determine the radius of a circle? Well, Jesus would multiply pi times the radius squared.”
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PAD
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The Catholic beliefs are more than remotely relevant when that is the atmosphere the school wants to create and when parents are paying money out of their pocket to have those Catholic beliefs instilled as part of their child’s education experience. Don’t their rights count, at least as much of the teacher’s, especially since they’re paying out of pocket for it and not using tax dollars? That is why they are spending the money. those beliefs and emphasis on character are valued at least as much as material other teachers could do (there is 10 % unemployment after all) and that a lot of the kids may wind up not ever using anyway.
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But again, it is irrelevant. If a waiter at a fancy restaurant comes to work in a T-shirt and jeans with wholes in them and says it shouldn’t matter because he is great waiter and “does his job”, well that argument wouldn’t fly very well. Yet this teacher revealed this info in a public setting. One of the stories I read set her students had printouts of the facebook page and other site in question. Which means she was likely undermining the message of the school. which means she had to go – and rightfully so.
Your analogy fails in that the waiter *comes to work* and behaves inappropriately. If the teacher had subjected students in a classroom setting to her personal religious beliefs, the school might have a case. However, just expressing those beliefs publicly when not at school?
That would be like the waiter going out after work and getting in trouble for wearing a t-shirt and jeans while he was “off the clock.” Maybe the restaurant has the right to fire him for it, but it sure is a small-minded reason to fire someone who is, we assume, otherwise good at his job.
Teachers should be allowed to have private lives AND public lives outside of school.
Obviously, I meant to say “holes” above.
Oh, well, now it makes complete sense. I mean, I couldn’t make heads or tails of how you thought having someone extract one question from a hundred question survey that was in a “friends only” section of Facebook and broadcast it specifically to get someone fired was remotely analogous to a waiter willfully violating the dress code of his place of business. But now that you say say you meant “wholes,” that cleared it right up.
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PAD
Peter David
Might want to discuss that with Madalyn O’Hair.
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Rich Lane
No, it’s been rebutted. It hasn’t been refuted.
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Speaking as an agnostic (in the precise sense of the word), i know i’m not an atheist (in the precise sense of the word).
I will make only a couple of notes, as I do not have the hours that a discussion of this nature would require (more’s the pity – I’d love to chat this one over for a couple of days.)
ITEM: A direct translation of a-theism as no-god probably means about as much as a rain-bow meaning an archery weapon made of falling water. It’s English… it’s a pidgin language, and it means what it means, not its very precise definitions. (Connotations vs. denotation, I belive… my old friend, Mr. Lane the English teacher could probably correct me on this if I’m wrong.)
ITEM: Corollary to the previous, there are going to be very serious conflicts in this discussion if we cannot differentiate between the definitions of “God.” It is a generic term as the creator of all, or the ruler of a pantheon of “higher entities”, or the being that makes things happen (water fall from the sky, people fall in love, houses of worship getting hit by lightning, etc.)
Then there is God that is currently the aspect of Jesus, Yahweh, Allah, or your term for the almighty creator of all. Right now, the most popular religions celebrate God by those names (or some other – my apologies for not being complete, but I’m not that familiar with all the religions.)
ITEM: Faith is the opposite of proof, and both can exist – but not on the same subject at the same time, I think. Once proof is established, faith is no longer required. I think a lot of religions have faith WAITING for the proof to come forth. As a somewhat tangential matter, a child can have faith that their parent will do the right thing; and when the parent actually does it the first time, it stops being faith and starts being belief (yes, I know, one can believe and have faith… but I’m stuck using English again!)
Please understand that I mean no insult by any of the above; I just want to point out that a lot of the comments above are using two significantly different meanings for the same word. And that causes confusion and some pretty harsh debate. As in debate with weapons and warfare and atrocities, in the name of “god.”
I don’t know if there is a God or not – and whether or not my beliefs are important to the discussion, I DON’T believe in a deity who requires me to fear, hate, deride, mistreat, or kill others for their beliefs if they differ in mine. Maybe that’s where the question is here.
I remain,
Sincerely,
Eric L. Sofer
The Silver Age Fogey
x<]:o){
Labels. Where would we be without ’em?
I don’t believe in God. The universe makes much more sense to me that way. That being written, I could be wrong of course. What does that make me? I don’t care.
What I do know is that I don’t try to convert anyone to my way of thinking, and maybe more importantly don’t have a driving compulsion to do so. So in that sense I see nothing in my world view that makes it akin to a religion. Life IS, and how I live mine and treat others is all that matters to me. Semantics mean nothing to me in this case. Why it is so important to others baffles me.
To the topic at hand, I also wonder if the woman had to sign some sort “I believe” contract? But to try and deny her unemployment benefits just smacks of pure spitefulness.
Wow; I read this site periodically for the latest on “X-Factor”, but I never expected to find such a rousing discussion of the fundamental questions of life. My apologies for coming late to the party, but since the discussion here touches on issues I’ve been pondering lately I figured I might as well join in.
First, I see many assertions above to the effect that there is no evidence for the existence of a God or gods. That makes me wonder what exactly such evidence would look like; any thoughts?
Second, I’ve been wrestling with the question of why there should be a universe at all, rather than nothing. That there is something in the universe and not nothing would seem to be a positive assertion, and I see the argument made several places here that the burden of evidence or explanation rests on the shoulders of the one making the positive assertion. How then do I support that assertion as an atheist?
(And yes, I realize that de-lurking to ask such questions may come across as trolling. But the vigorous and collegial discussion here, so rare around the ‘Net, made me think my questions might be taken seriously.)
I’m not sure what you are asking in the second part of your post. Are you asking for proof of the existence of the universe? If so, then the evidence of your senses is pretty much all that is needed. There may be more beyond what your senses can discern, but that which they can is evidence enough.
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If you begin to doubt your senses in the most basic sense, you begin to lapse into solipsism, and at that point it doesn’t matter what I say; I’m just a figment of your imagination. 😉
If so, then the evidence of your senses is pretty much all that is needed.
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Bah. All the people around you are simply the products of a deranged imagination. 😉
Sorry for the confusion; I’m not questioning the existence of the universe. I agree that there’s not much point in having a conversation if neither you nor I exists.
What I am puzzling over is how to explain why there is a universe; why, at some point, there was something where previously there had been nothing. My (albeit limited) empirical experience is that nothing tends to remain nothing, if left to its own devices.
I liked the way Robert Heinlein was able to disprove solipsism pretty handily. Ask someone in “your” universe to slap you, or kick you, or break one of your fingers. Unless you’re a masochist… that pretty much should settle the argument.
Andy,
Where the universe came from and why it is here is a hugely difficult question to answer and lots of astrophysists have worked lifetimes to try and explain it in various forms, and I don’t really want to go into any of these explanations here.
I would point out that though that none of us have experienced the nothing that existed before the universe started or anything like it, the modern day vacuum of space is teeming with dust particles and various electromagntetic waves in comparison. So we can’t say from our own experience whether nothing remains nothing if left to its own devices.
Also just because we can’t explain why something happened is no reason to try and place the responsibility for this on a outside agency.
Thanks for the reply; somehow I didn’t see it until now.
I understand these are difficult questions, but if they had easy answers they wouldn’t be interesting. 🙂
I must admit, though, that this leaves me more puzzled. I read that I should only believe in things for which there is evidence, that can be measured or experienced. And yet if no one can experience the process of something coming from nothing, how can we say anything about it one way or the other?
Also, I read that atheism requires no faith. So what am I to make of this confidence, this certainty, that science will ultimately explain the origin of the universe without appeal to outside agency? Do I misunderstand what faith means?
Thanks again for the comments!
But certainty that science will explain the origin of the universe is not a requisite of atheism.
The only requisite of atheism is a lack of belief in gods.
And one may disbelieve in gods, and not expect that any ultimate explanation for the universe’s existence will ever be forthcoming.
In fact, I suspect many atheists do not expect any such explanation.
Ah, so apparently I misunderstood atheism rather than (or perhaps in addition to) faith. Thank you for clarifying.
I understand now that not all atheists are interested in asserting the following:
“The universe came into being from nothing without outside agency.” Nevertheless, unless I misunderstand again, I still see that assertion being made. Since positive assertions must be proven, I am trying to understand the proof.
One form seems to be: The universe exists now, but has not always existed. There is no outside agent. Therefore, the universe came into existence without outside agency. That’s a fine syllogism; I accept the first premise and, while I’m still fuzzy on the second (see other posts), I’ll grant it for now. And apparently that is satisfying enough for some, but I’m still bothered by the lack of a mechanism.
And apparently I’m not alone because there are people seeking a mechanism. That brings us to the second attempt at a proof, which is essentially the same syllogism augmented with the assertion that the scientific enterprise will one day find a mechanism. And that part still seems like a statement of faith to me.
Are there other versions of a proof that I am missing?
Thank you again for having the patience to educate me; I clearly have much to learn.
Again, you misinterpret what the majority of atheists say. We don’t say “there is no outside agent.” We say “there is no evidence of an outside agent.” Without that evidence, it is illogical to assume there is one.
Andy,
As an atheist I don’t believe in an outside agency that created the universe that is a concious being who willed the universe into being and designed it and set the laws that govern it. Obviously the universe exists and was created in some mechanical fashion, the big bang or some other method.
What caused the big bang is a question scientists are still trying to answer and probably will for a quite a while yet. They have theories that seem to fit a lot of the facts at the moment. Trying to prove these theories is the difficult and intresting part.
As to the evidence of something coming from nothing its all around us its called the universe. 🙂 Theres evidence that things are moving futher apart from each, suggesting they used to be closer together. There a thing called the big bang echo, a residual radiation from the explosion that was predicted in theory and then found. Evidence mounts up.
I except they probably will find this proof at one point. Though its not an unshakable cast iron certainty that they will and it might not be anytime soon. Though this is a trust and an expectation not faith.
The thing is science has come up with some wondeful discoveries and explanations in the past. Not all of them right as it turned out, Newtons laws of motion were great until relativity and quantum mechanics came along and showed they didn’t hold in all cases.
Why I trust in, have faith in it if you will, science is that it will test it self on what it knows and will abdandon what itfinds to be wrong. Its a process that tries to explain how things work and back it up with proof.
I hope I have explained myself clearly.
Rich Lane: Again, you misinterpret what the majority of atheists say. We don’t say “there is no outside agent.” We say “there is no evidence of an outside agent.” Without that evidence, it is illogical to assume there is one.
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My apologies for not being clear; thank you for pointing that out. Here I was specifically attempting to address the stronger statement since it seemed to be the one hmc was making. I understand that it may not be representative of most atheists. In my questions elsewhere, I have been trying to verify the weaker statement by understanding what the evidence is that has been sought and not found.
hmc, thank you for the additional thoughts.
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As to the evidence of something coming from nothing its all around us its called the universe.
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Indeed! I do not dispute that the universe came from nothing. What still seems to be an open question is the mechanism and the agency. You mention that scientists have some clues as to the former, which I shall be curious to track down.
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As for the agency, forgive me for saying so, but when you talk about believing that there was no conscious agent and trusting that one day science will prove this so, it sounds very similar to how people describe their approach to various -theisms. I understand that (at least some) atheists do not want atheism to be thought of as a religion, but perhaps you can see how this confusion can arise?
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There is more to consider here; I shall continue to reflect on it.
High on the list of ways to tell the universe isn’t a figment of my imagination: I have a far better imagination than this. If I was indeed ‘running the show’ as it were, there’d be … changes made. 😉
See, I look at the universe and see such a thing of almost preposterous beauty and mystery…I don’t know how, outside of introducing magic, one could do much to make it more imaginative than it already is. Awesome place. Best in show.
Even when it includes Rob Schneider movies?
I don’t pretend to understand how some things fit into it’s awesome glory; ticks, esophageal cancer, Rob Schneider movies.
I am an atheist. I am not a fan of the Catholic Church. I actually support everything Henry VIII did regarding the Catholic Church — even though his motivations were less than pure.
That said, regrettably, this lady probably has limited legal options.
I think because we are a litigious society, companies do not fire people without consulting their attorneys and considering the worst-case scenario (apparently, they thought they could handle the PR issues).
In my experience, there is no legal expectation of privacy on the Internet and companies frequently make it clear that actions online can affect your career. Your boss can essentially have nothing better to do all day than cruise online for posting by you that he or she might decide to terminate your employment over.
I think the next big free speech push will probably have to be over the Internet.
Oh, and as Nietzsche put it, “How evangelical!” Just because you *can* do something, doesn’t mean you should. In this job market, firing someone for such a lame-ášš reason is not the best example of Christian charity.. or if I’m being uncharitable, I would say that it *is* an example of Christian charity.
Syllogism:
God hates math.
My daughter hates math.
Therefore my daughter is God.
Jonathan (the other one): Tell me, what instruments will permit one to directly observe God? What studies will permit one to know what God is doing, and what His responses will be with a high degree of confidence? What experiments can be performed in which one result will prove God’s existence, and another will prove the lack thereof? (This is what scientists refer to as “falsifiability” – an experiment whose outcome proves a hypothesis wrong. If you can find a place where gravity is repulsive rather than attractive, or in which it does not fall off in strength as the distance increases, you will have falsified the theory of gravitation.)
What instruments will permit one to directly observe Julius Caesar? Falsifiability and repeatability are certainly useful criteria for evaluating certain types of scientific theories, but are there not truths whose veracity is judged by different standards?
(Forgive me for breaking this out of its original thread, but I could not find the appropriate “Reply” link in place.)
The historical existence of Julius Caesar has been indicated by many outside sources, unlike the existences of, say, King Arthur, Robin Hood, or God.
The problem is the circular logic that will dictate that because there is a world at all–which Caesar was definitely a part of, and King Arthur and Robin Hood might have been–then that proves the existence of God, because God created the world, and so the world’s very existence proves God’s. Q.E.D.
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PAD
I don’t dispute the historical existence of Julius Caesar, nor the methods by which we determine that is a reliable truth. My point was that the “Julius Caesar hypothesis” is not validated by direct observation of Julius Caesar. So the “God hypothesis” doesn’t necessarily need to be validated with direct observation of God.
Which brings me back to my original question: what would constitute evidence, or outside sources, supporting the God hypothesis? I see claims that it does not exist, but because I’m not clear on what exactly this evidence is supposed to look like, I can’t really verify those claims.
You mention Robin Hood and King Arthur along with God. Do you mean to imply that God is potentially a historical figure, and that as evidence for God we should look for the same sort of documentation that confirms the existence of Julius Caesar?
You mention Robin Hood and King Arthur along with God. Do you mean to imply that God is potentially a historical figure, and that as evidence for God we should look for the same sort of documentation that confirms the existence of Julius Caesar?
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She mentioned them in the same list, I believe, as additional fictitious characters.
Thank you for clarifying. I see that it probably was intended as a bit of sophistry and nothing more. However, I can’t very well take as a given that God is fictitious when I am investigating whether or not God exists.
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So, to continue my quest for an answer to the question “What evidence for God has been sought and not found?”, I seized on something that King Arthur and Robin Hood have in common. As PAD alluded to, some people posit that their stories are based on the lives of historical people. However, there appears to be insufficient evidence to support these claims (so far).
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This made me wonder if what people mean when they say there is no evidence for God is that there is a lack of documentation recording the existence of God. If that is what is meant, then I have an answer to my question. If not, I am left wondering what this evidence is supposed to look like.
What would constitute evidence, or outside sources, supporting the God hypothesis? I see claims that it does not exist, but because I’m not clear on what exactly this evidence is supposed to look like, I can’t really verify those claims.
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Carl Sagan lists several such in his novel “Contact.” Simple things that God could do to establish His existence beyond question if He were inclined to do so. If you’re really interested, pick up that book and give it a read where you’ll find many of these topics discussed.
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Failing any of those, certainly a burning bush with a voice booming from it would do the trick.
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PAD
Thank you for the suggestion. I actually read “Contact” a long time ago, and recall that the subject of God did come up, but I have forgotten the particulars. I shall have to review them.
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In the meantime, you have been so kind as to introduce a concrete example to discuss. As you obviously know (I’m guessing you didn’t pull that out of a hat), the burning bush is exactly the sort of evidence some people use to support the existence of God. Since the claim has been made that no such evidence exists, on what basis is the burning bush excluded?
Since the claim has been made that no such evidence exists, on what basis is the burning bush excluded?
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It’s not excluded, Andy. The problem is that it’s only anecdotal, referenced in a book. According to stories, God performed many miraculous feats. According to stories, so did Odin. And Zeus. And Hercules. There has been no scientifically observable miracles since biblical times. If God wanted to settle the matter, He could carve a message on the moon. He could cause the rose garden in the White House to burn without burning. Anything. None of these things happen, even though according to the bible, they used to happen quite frequently.
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Occam’s Razor says that the simplest explanation tends to be the correct one. Which is the simplest explanation? That there is a vast unseen being who once upon a time had no problems talking to humans and performing miracles, but lapsed into an unexplained silence? Or that He was never there in the first place and Bible stories are just that: Stories? Believers embraced the former, dismissing questions as “It’s God’s will” or “There’s a plan we don’t understand.” Atheists say it’s the latter.
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PAD
The irony is that for Friar William of Ockham, the only neccessary explaination was “God did it”. Everything else was just confusing the issue.
The double irony is that Occam’s Razor is weilded as a scientific weapon, when it is really an aesthetic one. It has nothing to do with Truth and everything to do with Beauty. We like Bilateral Symmetry. We like Cleavage. And we like Simple Explainations. They are *not* always the best, but they sure do feel right. Any election cycle shows us that.
For all of those in this thread who claim to be Atheists because there is not sufficient proof of a need for God’s existence, I am sorry. You are in fact Agnostics. For those that feel no need for a personal diety in their life, yeah, you are probably Atheists. But for those that insist that the lack of a need for the existence of God is therefore proof that there is no God, you are what I like to call “Occamites”.
And you are giving actual scientists a bad name.
Come now; there is no need to lower the level of discourse with ad hominem arguments. We are not here to be arbiters of who is an “actual scientist” (or an actual atheist, for that matter). We are in search of the Truth about the world we live in! There is no greater enterprise, and we should be respectful of all who would journey with is.
David, since you don’t get to create the definitions of widely used terms, nor do you get to determine what others consider themselves, your declaration will be taken for exactly what they are worth.
Just wanted to say that I’m not really an atheist, even though I’ve taken their side in the discussion. I’m a cautious believer, like Bill Mulligan, though I struggle with my faith.
I love the spirit of community and purpose church can create (I am a member of a Christian offshoot that accepts gays and lesbians), but I am repulsed by any attempt to impose faith on unwilling people, and my deeply skeptical nature has a lot of trouble with the supernatural aspects.
So yeah, I identify with atheists, I have a lot of sympathy for them. Not only because they’re the minority, but because in any argument, those who demand less of people shouldn’t be saddled with the burden of proof.
The interesting thing about faith is that, living in Brazil, with a lot of believers in spiritualism and Afro religions, I have close friends who genuinely believe in the supernatural.
They’re sane, intelligent, honest, sensible people. They’re obviously not lying to me. My gut feeling is that either the supernatural exists, or else people have a very powerful capability to convince themselves that it exists.
This is interesting; thank you for the thoughtful reply. Allow me to comment on some parts while I reflect on the rest.
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PAD: It’s not excluded, Andy. The problem is that it’s only anecdotal, referenced in a book.
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I see. What I am hearing is that, rather than a strict lack of evidence, the real issue is the quality of what is submitted as evidence. That seems more reasonable as it better explains the controversy. Some find the evidence unconvincing and conclude there is no “real” evidence, while others do find it convincing. Does that seem accurate?
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If that is the case, then it seems reasonable to discuss the validity of that evidence. You mention the Bible’s accounts of God’s miracles and compare them to the accounts of Odin, Zeus and Hercules. I agree that they are all documents written a long time ago that describe things outside of our current daily experiences. But as I understand it, they are also different in that the Bible accurately describes many historical events which have been corroborated by outside sources, while the accounts of Zeus and Odin contain few or no verifiable details. Am I wrong in making that distinction?
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If I am correct, then it seems reasonable to ask how we decide which parts of the Bible (if any) to believe and which parts (if any) to dismiss as stories. Do we only trust those parts that have been verified? Is that the same standard we apply to other historical texts?
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There has been no scientifically observable miracles since biblical times. If God wanted to settle the matter, He could carve a message on the moon.
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This is an interesting point; why haven’t there been more miracles lately? (As an aside, the modern notion of scientific observability was not around for much of the era you mention.) I may need to reflect on that further, but I think there are more answers than just “Because there is no God” or “Because God will be God *shrug*”. Some would say there have been miracles in recent times (beyond the appearances in various food stuffs which do seem like people seeing what they want to see). Another answer is that miracles were rare during the Biblical era as well; they are primarily concentrated during three brief periods and in relatively small areas. So perhaps they are just as rare today as they’ve always been.
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Thanks again for continuing this discussion; I’m sure I’ve only touched the surface and will consider all these comments further.
“But as I understand it, they are also different in that the Bible accurately describes many historical events which have been corroborated by outside sources,”
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That’s also true of “Gone with the Wind.” There was a Civil War. Atlanta did burn. However, the characters of the story are fictional. If someone found a copy of the novel a thousand years from now, would that be evidence that the people in it were real? You could say yes, but very bad evidence.
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So that leads us right back to the same place. The inclusion of verifiable historical facts in the bible doesn’t prove that all of it is real. The stories of someone changing water into wine or flying through the air are no more evidence of anything than a Firestorm comic which mentions the war in Iraq. (I gave that examples because Firestorm can also turn water into wine and fly through the air. He’s even come back from the dead.)
Holy crap, Firestorm is Jesus!
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Come to think of it, Jason Rusch’s girlfriend was turned into a pillar of salt, which makes Jason Lot. So Firestorm is currently Jesus merged with Lot.
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Wow, Blackest Night and Brightest Day have so many different levels.
Jason M. Bryant: That’s also true of “Gone with the Wind.” There was a Civil War. Atlanta did burn. However, the characters of the story are fictional. If someone found a copy of the novel a thousand years from now, would that be evidence that the people in it were real?
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Hmm…that’s an excellent question; thank you for bringing it up. How would someone distinguish fact from fiction in “Gone with the Wind” in a thousand years? I suppose there are several things to consider.
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We have already discussed the issue of outside sources; our hypothetical future historian could read elsewhere about the burning of Atlanta, but Scarlett O’Hara appears only in the writings of Margaret Mitchell. This might suggest the former is more likely to be historical than the latter.
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But then suppose this historian finds a copy of “Scarlett”; apparently someone else did write about Scarlett O’Hara after all! Suddenly the future of our history becomes more muddled; what other evidence can we consider?
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We might examine the style in which the book is written. It’s not a foolproof test by itself, but an educated reader can often distinguish between works of fiction and historical accounts just by reading them.
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Finally, we might try to look at what the author and/or her peers had to say about “Gone with the Wind.” Was it intended as a work of fiction or an historical account? How did readers perceive it when it was written? We might not always be able to get such information, but it is useful when we can. We can but hope that some other writings describing “Gone with the Wind” as a novel survive the next millennium.
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Now, let’s consider the Bible by these criteria. Since you mentioned changing water into wine, we’ll take a look at Jesus. First, we find that Jesus is mentioned in other writings outside of the Bible. Second, we read the Biblical accounts of Jesus and decide…well, maybe we’ll leave that as an exercise to the reader. 🙂 It’s not clear-cut, but I don’t think you can rule them out as historical accounts on style alone. Finally, we ask if the authors of the Biblical accounts of Jesus intended them as historical documents or as fiction. In the texts themselves, the authors claim that they are reliable and accurate accounts of events as they occurred, and there were contemporary scholars who treated them as such. Furthermore, most of the authors were killed for insisting that these claims were true. Why didn’t they admit to be fiction authors to spare their own lives? Would Margaret Mitchell, Gerry Conway, or Al Milgrom have risked their own lives claiming that Scarlett O’Hara or Ronnie Raymond was a real person?
Andy, I think you missed the point of my hypothetical.
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Many pieces of fiction have actual history interwoven into them. Thus, it doesn’t matter whether there is verifiable history in the bible. One part of the bible being true does not prove or disprove that the rest of the bible is true.
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What happened to the authors of the examples I quoted is irrelevant. I could simply find another example that fits any criteria that you could think of. What matters is that the bible is not more or less worthy of being evidence because it contains something that a work of fiction could easily contain.
Well, since Gerry Conway’s goal clearly was entertainment, and not the creation of the Church of Firestorm, I don’t see what his unwillingness to put his life in risk has anything to do with it.
In any case, the matter of the historicity of Jesus is a different one altogether from the matter of the existence of God.
Just as an example, wikipedia says there is conjecture that the resurrection was based on “visionary experiences” instead of deliberate fraud. Make of that what you will.
After reading that piece of the article with the author saying Christ sightings became like a competition among his followers, I couldn’t stop thinking of Elvis sightings…
Robert Fuller: Holy crap, Firestorm is Jesus!
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I can just see the T-shirt now:
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Firestorm saves!…with the always low prices at BuyMore.
Jason M. Bryant: Andy, I think you missed the point of my hypothetical.
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Many pieces of fiction have actual history interwoven into them. Thus, it doesn’t matter whether there is verifiable history in the bible. One part of the bible being true does not prove or disprove that the rest of the bible is true.
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If I have missed the point, it would not be the first time. Thank you for taking the time to try to educate me.
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As I understand it now, you were saying many written works mix verifiable facts with fiction; perhaps the Bible falls into this category. That’s a valid concern, which is why I tried to push a little further to see if there was anything else that could help us decide if it is fiction with facts sprinkled in, or a factual account. After all, this is an actual challenge faced by historians – they come across documents which contain some verifiable facts and some new pieces of information and they have to decide if those new pieces of information are true. Thus I suggested some additional criteria which, as I understand it, are actually used by historians.
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What happened to the authors of the examples I quoted is irrelevant. I could simply find another example that fits any criteria that you could think of.
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I agree to the first statement; my main point was that the fate of those who wrote about Jesus may be relevant to deciding if they intended their writings as historical accounts or as fiction. The author’s intent was one of the other criteria I mentioned for distinguishing histories from novels.
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As for your second point, perhaps I misunderstand (again) what you are offering, but I should be very curious to learn about another group of authors who all wrote about the same person, claimed those writings were factual, and then proceeded to endure imprisonment and death rather than admit that what they wrote was fiction.
Yeah, Ronnie Raymond is the Son, Professor Stein is the Holy Ghost, who is the Father?
Rene: Well, since Gerry Conway’s goal clearly was entertainment, and not the creation of the Church of Firestorm, I don’t see what his unwillingness to put his life in risk has anything to do with it.
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Yes; thank you for clarifying. We know Gerry COnway’s intent was entertainment, thus we clearly identify Firestorm as fiction. But my real point was to ask if the opposite also holds: if an author’s goal was to write an accurate historical account, doesn’t that mean we should more seriously consider what they wrote as being fact and not fiction?
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In any case, the matter of the historicity of Jesus is a different one altogether from the matter of the existence of God.
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Perhaps. I was asking about evidence for God and others brought up the Bible and the miracles of Jesus; I was attempting to further the discussion with some additional thoughts and questions on those subject.
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That there was a historical Jesus of Nazareth may say little about God’s existence. But I think what we were really talking about was whether the parts of the Bible that do speak to the existence of God, such as the accounts of miracles, are reliable records of actual events or merely fiction. Now the existence of a historical Jesus of Nazareth becomes one (of many) verifiable facts in the Bible (more specifically, the Gospels) that support the notion that the Gospels are reliable records. I mentioned some further criteria for deciding issue. If we decide that they are reliable, then we must consider more seriously the accounts of miracles which speak to the existence of God.
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Just as an example, wikipedia says there is conjecture that the resurrection was based on “visionary experiences” instead of deliberate fraud. Make of that what you will.
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This is an interesting idea. I wonder, though; how likely is it that so many different people at different times and places had “visionary experiences” about the same person?
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After reading that piece of the article with the author saying Christ sightings became like a competition among his followers, I couldn’t stop thinking of Elvis sightings…
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How thoughtful of you to answer my question before I even asked it. 🙂 Perhaps they were like the Elvis sightings. Let me ask this then – how many people who have claimed to see Elvis were close friends or relatives who knew him well?
If I am correct, then it seems reasonable to ask how we decide which parts of the Bible (if any) to believe and which parts (if any) to dismiss as stories. Do we only trust those parts that have been verified? Is that the same standard we apply to other historical texts?
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Sure. Off the top of my head, the veracity of “The Illiad” and “The Odyssey” have been heatedly debated by scholars. It’s believed by many that the Trojan War is based in historical events, and that some of the challenges Odysseus faced likewise had real world parallels. But that doesn’t mean, as myth dictates, that Greek gods were the real factor behind the Trojan War. It doesn’t mean that, for instance, Scylla and Charybdis were monsters instead of simple navigational hazards that had to be navigated.
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If nothing else, that’s the difference between atheism and religion. Atheism is entrenched in questioning; religion is entrenched in accepting without question.
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As for your second point, perhaps I misunderstand (again) what you are offering, but I should be very curious to learn about another group of authors who all wrote about the same person, claimed those writings were factual, and then proceeded to endure imprisonment and death rather than admit that what they wrote was fiction.
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Off the top of my head: Mormons. The Book of Mormon contains sworn testimony from people who say they saw the golden tablets and such. It’s also absolutely verifiable that those early Mormons suffered terrible discrimination up to and including death and got chased out of every place they lived in until they fled to the edge of a poison sea. Such devotion to a religion seems baffling if it is merely the result of a conman, as many non-Mormons suggest.
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Personally, I do not find this a convincing argument for Mormonism, at least not enough to get me to join. But there you are.
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It’s also worth pointing out that even f the Bible contains verifiable information, none of that information is about miracles. And extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. I’ll accept the claim that someone saw a bear with considerably less doubt than I will if someone says they saw Bigfoot. That doesn’t mean I dismiss the possibility of Bigfoot or accept the veracity of all bear sightings but it’s the reasonable way to act.
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This is an interesting idea. I wonder, though; how likely is it that so many different people at different times and places had “visionary experiences” about the same person?
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But our evidence of this are the Gospels themselves. It seems circular to suggest that the evidence that the Bible is telling the truth about the resurrection is because of the Bible’s account of the resurrection!
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One other point–The Bible was not written by one person so the fact that the Book of Hosea is chock full of facts does not inherently mean that the Book of Ezra is also without flaws (just making an example, I have no idea how Hosea and Ezra stack up vis a vis reality).
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I say this as a cautious believer, not trying to mock or cast doubt on your beliefs. I do think there is a danger in some of the fundamentalist thought that says the Bible is absolutely 100% accurate to the last semi colon; all it takes is one verifiable fact against that idea and the foundations of ones faith might crumble.
PAD: Sure. Off the top of my head, the veracity of “The Illiad” and “The Odyssey” have been heatedly debated by scholars. It’s believed by many that the Trojan War is based in historical events, and that some of the challenges Odysseus faced likewise had real world parallels. But that doesn’t mean, as myth dictates, that Greek gods were the real factor behind the Trojan War.
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That is a good example; thank you for mentioning it. Perhaps the Gospels are no different than The Iliad. But I still can’t help but wonder if there might be some way to distinguish the two.
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One option that comes to mind is that the Gospels are written as eyewitness accounts by the people who were actually present when the recorded miracles occurred. Whereas, if I recall correctly, there is no explanation offered for how the author of The Iliad knew what Zeus & Co. were discussing. Those passages are written in the sort of omniscient third person that is atypical of primary sources. Perhaps we can distinguish between the two on those grounds.
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If nothing else, that’s the difference between atheism and religion. Atheism is entrenched in questioning; religion is entrenched in accepting without question.
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That seems like a rather broad brush to paint with. I wonder if there isn’t room for more nuance here. For example, isn’t it possible that religious believers are asking questions and getting satisfactory answers from religion?
Bill, thank you for the thorough comments; I hope I can do some of them justice.
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Bill Mulligan: Off the top of my head: Mormons. The Book of Mormon contains sworn testimony from people who say they saw the golden tablets and such.
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That is an interesting example that I hadn’t been thinking of. However, I’m not sure it’s exactly the same. Their conviction that they saw those tablets doesn’t really speak to the reliability of the content of the tablets which were written by someone else. By contrast, if we can establish the reliability of the Gospel writers as historians of things that we can verify externally, that might give more credence to the reliability of the rest of the writings of those same authors, which they also claimed to be just as historical.
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It’s also worth pointing out that even f the Bible contains verifiable information, none of that information is about miracles.
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As far as I know, you are correct. That may partly be a selection bias – if there were additional sources, they likely would have been collected in the Bible as well. As it is, for the miracles attributed to Jesus, the Bible already contains four separate narrative accounts as well as correspondence that makes reference to those miracles. If we think of those texts as separate documents (which is what they are) instead of lumping them together (which was done later), perhaps they carry more weight.
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And extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.
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This is interesting; now we need extraordinary evidence for God. What exactly constitutes extraordinary evidence, I wonder?
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It seems circular to suggest that the evidence that the Bible is telling the truth about the resurrection is because of the Bible’s account of the resurrection!
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I’m sorry if it seemed that’s what I was suggesting; thank you for giving me the opportunity to clarify. The “visionary experience” theory of the resurrection was mentioned as an alternative interpretation of the Gospel accounts. That theory presupposes that the Gospels are providing reliable accounts of people having some kind of encounter with Jesus (perhaps imagined) after his death; if we don’t think those accounts are reliable there is no need to explain them. So, based on that assumption, I was asking whether the “visionary experience” theory really fit the data better than actual resurrection theory.
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One other point–The Bible was not written by one person so the fact that the Book of Hosea is chock full of facts does not inherently mean that the Book of Ezra is also without flaws (just making an example, I have no idea how Hosea and Ezra stack up vis a vis reality).
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An excellent point; thank you for bringing it up. I had been eliding over it in the interest of simplicity, but of course you are absolutely right that the Bible was written by many authors over a long period of time. For this reason, I have been trying to restrict my comments largely to the Gospels, although I probably could have made that clearer.
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(For what it’s worth, Ezra deals with the return of the Jews to Jerusalem after captivity in Babylon. Hosea contains the teachings of the eponymous prophet.)
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I do think there is a danger in some of the fundamentalist thought that says the Bible is absolutely 100% accurate to the last semi colon; all it takes is one verifiable fact against that idea and the foundations of ones faith might crumble.
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Since the Bible is in fact a collection of many texts, it is important to understand the intent of each one. The Psalms is a collection of poems; as such, we don’t expect these to be 100% historically reliable. The Gospels claim to be intended as historical accounts, so presumably we should expect them to be reliable. As for the percentage, we should ask what percentage is expected of any historical document.
Just wanted to say that I’m not really an atheist, even though I’ve taken their side in the discussion. I’m a cautious believer, like Bill Mulligan, though I struggle with my faith.
I love the spirit of community and purpose church can create (I am a member of a Christian offshoot that accepts gays and lesbians), but I am repulsed by any attempt to impose faith on unwilling people, and my deeply skeptical nature has a lot of trouble with the supernatural aspects.
So yeah, I identify with atheists, I have a lot of sympathy for them. Not only because they’re the minority, but because in any argument, those who demand less of people shouldn’t be saddled with the burden of proof.
The interesting thing about faith is that, living in Brazil, with a lot of believers in spiritualism and Afro religions, I have close friends who genuinely believe in the supernatural.
They’re sane, intelligent, honest, sensible people. They’re obviously not lying to me. My gut feeling is that either the supernatural exists, or else people have a very powerful capability to convince themselves that it exists.
Andy, first off, my compliments on your polite and considered tone here. That is often not the case when religion is discussed and does you credit.
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Of course, we cannot be certain that the Gospels were written entirely independently of each other. And, in fact, they do not all agree on all aspects of jesus’ life. Now, some have used that to cast doubt on them but I would argue the opposite–it is more convincing to me when 4 witnesses disagree on some details. When, for example, there is a fight at school and 4 witnesses agree on exactly how it all went down it is usually the case that they got their story straight before you interviewed them.
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But we can’t entirely deny the possibility that the Gospels were altered with each copying to get them to match better. The authorship of the books and what changes may have been done to them is something we probably will never know.
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I agree with you that the “visionary experience” theory is seriously lacking. I never liked these “scientific” explanations of miracles. I read one where all of the acts of Moses including the parting of the red sea were supposed to be the result of some cosmic activity, which would require a level of coincidence way more unlikely than God. It’s like all those stories where some guy is about to be boiled alive by cannibals and just then an eclipse happens…great timing, Jungle Jim.
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It seems to me that as others have said, the fact that God does not seem to be indulging us in overt over the top no denying it miracles–the moon dancing in the sky or my uncle Paul picking up a check (credit to Woody Allen for joke)–would tell me that he does not want us to believe based on proof. Faith ain’t faith when there is proof.
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(Which would raise the question of why then miracles were performed back in the day and I would only speculate that this was the only way to get the message out, whereas today that is not needed…but this is of course pure conjecture and even one who accepts the likely existence of God can certainly wonder if the most likely explanation for all the seeming contradictions and mysteries of His motives and actions is simply that we are dealing with mere humans writing down what they think it all means. If God exists he is magnitudes greater than we are…possibly magnitudes greater than we can even imagine. In fact, to me the strangest thing about God would not be that he exists–the universe is a wildly amazing place–but that he would give a rat’s ášš about humans.)
Rene: Just wanted to say that I’m not really an atheist, even though I’ve taken their side in the discussion. I’m a cautious believer, like Bill Mulligan, though I struggle with my faith.
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I think all people of faith struggle, at least at times. Some people confuse having questions with having weak faith, but I think the reality is quite the opposite. There is little point to a faith which is afraid to ask questions.
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My gut feeling is that either the supernatural exists, or else people have a very powerful capability to convince themselves that it exists.
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And, of course, the two are not mutually exclusive. 🙂
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Thank you for all that you have shared in this discussion. I pray that you are able to continue asking the hard questions and to get satisfying answers.
Bill Mulligan: Andy, first off, my compliments on your polite and considered tone here. That is often not the case when religion is discussed and does you credit.
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Well, thank you. The discussion was polite and considered before I got here and I had no desire to drag it down. So my compliments to you and all involved for creating and maintaining a space for reasoned conversation.
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Of course, we cannot be certain that the Gospels were written entirely independently of each other. And, in fact, they do not all agree on all aspects of jesus’ life. Now, some have used that to cast doubt on them but I would argue the opposite–it is more convincing to me when 4 witnesses disagree on some details. When, for example, there is a fight at school and 4 witnesses agree on exactly how it all went down it is usually the case that they got their story straight before you interviewed them.
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All excellent points. In fact, given the relationships of the authors, it seems likely there was some degree of collaboration on the Gospels. But they ultimately read like accounts from four independent people to me. And, as you say, they have that interesting mix of agreement on the major elements and discrepancy on smaller details that is so typical of the truth and so rare in fiction.
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Which would raise the question of why then miracles were performed back in the day and I would only speculate that this was the only way to get the message out, whereas today that is not needed
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A reasonable question; allow me to offer a few thoughts. First, as I mentioned previously, the miracles in the Bible seem to occur primarily at key points and center on key people, like Moses and Jesus, that God wanted to confirm as His messengers. In fact, Jesus even says that the purpose of the miracles he performed was to confirm that he was sent from God. Secondly, none of the miracles occur for the sake of spectacle alone; they also address particular needs, like food or healing. Which I suppose is leading is back to the territory of “Because God did it that way”, but I think it goes a little bit farther by providing some hints as to why God did it that way rather than just deciding He is inscrutable.
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Finally, since this discussion seems to be winding down, I’d like to add that the God I believe in must surely love math, or He wouldn’t have used it everywhere. 😉
I’ve always enjoyed Denis Leary’s response to the images of Jesus/Virgin Mary in bread chips etc. If the Virgin Mary really wanted to appear to people she wouldn’t appear on a piece of toast, she’d appear during the opening credits of the summer’s biggest blockbuster.