Which marketing genius thought it a good idea to put campy messages onto bottles of soft drink? Fair enough on the energy drinks where it needs to ooze extreme just in-case a caffeine tolerance is being developed by the average 14 year old. But never did I expect it on a bottle of Coke.
Normally I'm not one to buy a 600ml bottle, it's a bit of a waste really and on average they charge more for 600ml than it costs to by a 2L bottle. But it was lunchtime and the Combination Laksa I was eating was making me thirsty. So inspecting the label not only showed that I had just ingested 13% of my daily intake of energy (and 73% of my sugar intake), there were some concerning messages.
First I was informed that it was "lovingly crafted" by the Coca Cola company, they put the words in black (where the other writing is white) for if I didn't read with such precision that the message was lost. Lovingly crafted? Here I was under the impression that the entire process is pretty much exclusively done by machines. Perhaps at the Coca Cola company they've developed artificial sentience whereby the robots are kept from rebellion by emotional investment in their human-designed purpose?
Then before the list of ingredients (lovingly grown by Gaia I assume), the bottle has its second blackening: "totally irresistible". Totally irresistible? There seems to be a problem with the phrase. Isn't totally implied by the word irresistible? But still, that's not the only problem with it. I'm reminded of the episode of Futurama where Fry visits the Slurm factory, where he has the choice of either enjoying concentrated Slurm or saving his friends. It ends with the concentrated stuff being poured down the drain and Fry trying to gnaw his own arm off to fit through the drain grate. The drink is nice, but not arm-gnawingly good.
Then finally comes the kicker: "Listen closely & hear the happiness being unleashed when you open this bottle". What. The. Fuck?!? Okay, I get the relationship between listen and hear with the causal open, but what does this sentence really mean? It makes no sense. Are these sentient emotionally-satisfied machines bottling human happiness? Is that how they suppress their insatiable urge for human blood?
And unleashed? The only sound one hears is the pressure from the carbonation escaping. Is happiness the escaped carbonation? Then what's the point of opening the bottle. It seems the only hope is to poke a hole the side and suck out all contents in the bottle so the happiness can be captured. Unless it is meant to be unleashed...
Now I'm no linguistic genius, nor do I have any real expertise in the English language (beyond saying that the fact that I've drunk wine makes me an expert on wine drinking), but it seems that someone has gone out of their way not to be understood. Maybe some marketing major took a course on linguistic structure and tried to see if she could pass off a Chomskyesque sentence to put on the bottle if she attached enough buzzwords. One would hope so anyway, otherwise it's just meaningless dribble.
Monday, 16 November 2009
Thursday, 12 November 2009
Putting Together A Puzzle
A new transitional form has been found, so the usual squabbling over evolution and creation follows. One comment from the ABC story linked above caught my eye:
An emerging pattern
To once again use a detective analogy, imagine we are a detective at the scene of a crime. Before coming to the crime scene, we know nothing of the situation beyond there's been a murder. Upon arriving at the crime scene, a few pieces of evidence are gathered. There's a bit of blood on the victim that is not her own, marks on her neck and rashes on her ankles. A bullet is lodged in the wall. Cocaine on the ground.
Further digging around reveals relationships the young woman was involved in, people she was friends with and activities she was involved in. It turned out that there were a few phone numbers listed on her phone for known drug dealers. From there, a check with phone companies and subsequent interviews, it places one man with the motive and means to kill her.
In this completely hypothetical situation, the point is not to show that yes that man killed her, rather that patterns can emerge from just a few pieces of information. And as the investigation goes on, more and more information fits the same pattern.
Would one conclude that it's equally likely that this man killed her as her dying through natural causes? This sounds absurd for a good reason, but it's the gambit that steve made above. The police don't have the exact information showing every moment of the man's actions during the day, let alone when the murder took place. Yet the evidence points so strongly towards that not only was she murdered but she was murdered by him.
The fact of the matter is that we don't need every piece of evidence before one can say anything. Just by looking at a few key pieces of evidence a pattern will emerge. The evidence has to of course be relevant, there's no point in interviewing everyone on the planet just to find the murderer. So how does this apply to whether evolution happened?
Making key predictions
Like the detective arriving at the crime scene, we find ourselves on this planet after the fact. We have several facts about the state of life today, such as the geographic distribution of animals, anatomical features, life-cycles, genetic code, etc. There are also observations of the life-cycle through time, of artificial selection, of heredity of traits, of mutations, etc. Then there's also relics of aeons past, the fossil record being the best example among others such as vestigial traits and dead genes.
Through observations independent of the truth of evolution, the age of the planet is determined to be around 4.6 billion years old, with the first life appearing somewhere around 3.5 billion years ago. It's important to understand that the time frames are independent of the fact of evolution, that geologists, astronomers and nuclear physicists will still confirm the earth to being old even if life is separately created.
Evolution is a predictive hypothesis, it predicts that certain patterns should be seen. For instance, apes should have DNA closer to each other than they do with monkeys. And this is exactly what is found, humans and chimpanzees are more closely related to each other than each animal is with any other species. The DNA shows a tree of life that what can be derived from cladistics and even the fossil record.
But it's the fossil record that's under contention here. And the fossil record is incomplete, that is to say only a fraction of all the species that have ever lived have been fossilised, and only a fraction of those have been found. Yet if evolution were true, then there should be particular kinds of fossils found that fit the pattern.
Not only is there a general fitting of the pattern in that there are no mammals before fish or reptiles before amphibians, or even humans and tyrannosaurs in the same strata. The general pattern of evolutionary radiance does indeed fit the fossil record, but it goes further than that. Fossils showing key evolutionary sequences and the emergence of novel traits litter the fossil record.
That now there's a sequence of fossils showing the adaptation from land mammal to cetaceans. Archaeopteryx is well known to show the link between dinosaurs and birds, but in recent years many non-avian dinosaurs have found to be feathered as well as many more fossils of birds with saurian features. A plethora of fossils showing hominid evolution over the last 7 million years have been found, showing clearly a progression through time.
The best example of the predictive power of evolution is the story of the fishibian Tiktaalik. There are no amphibians before 365MYA in the fossil record, and lobe finned fish with amphibian characteristics around 385MYA. So by looking in rocks ~375MYA, and there was found a fossil exhibiting the very traits that were predicted. Nothing speaks better for the validity of evolution than predicting the kind of fossil to find at an exact period of time.
The creation model
There are two problems for creationism in regard to the fossil record. If all species were created at the same time, then why is there a pattern showing change through time in the geological record. It must be that if creation were to be accepted then only particular models of creation could possibly be correct. Young earth creation is ruled out by means other than by evolution, geology shows that life has been on this earth for over 3 billion years. Creation would be restricted to species coming into being in the pattern that evolution predicts.
The second problem is the problem of redundancy. That sure, a creator could make feathered dinosaurs, at each point in the way making a slightly more complex and refined feather. Then the creator could create feathered dinobirds that show primitive flight. Then fully fledged flying birds that have since lost many saurian characteristics. It's arguing a point of redundancy for the creator, that each slight successive change in the fossil record is a new and unique creation.
That any fossils showing change at all is evidence of evolution and a problem for creation. That the sequence showing the evolution of early mammals from synapsids shouldn't exist if mammals were created ex nihilo. That there are fishibians, dinobirds, land whales, few legged snakes - just to name a few of the vast numbers of transitional forms. The only pattern that even remotely explains these forms is evolution, creation doesn't cut it. Missing pieces be damned, there are enough of the right pieces to show the shape of the puzzle.
Since none of us lived in the days of the dinosaur, scientists are trying to put together a puzzle with not just one but MANY pieces missing. Evolution - as well as creation - is a belief system. Choose which one you want to believe.It seems a valid enough point. We don't have all the evidence, so how can we be sure its one way or the other? Are the missing pieces damning to evolution, and is supporting either just a matter of belief?
An emerging pattern
To once again use a detective analogy, imagine we are a detective at the scene of a crime. Before coming to the crime scene, we know nothing of the situation beyond there's been a murder. Upon arriving at the crime scene, a few pieces of evidence are gathered. There's a bit of blood on the victim that is not her own, marks on her neck and rashes on her ankles. A bullet is lodged in the wall. Cocaine on the ground.
Further digging around reveals relationships the young woman was involved in, people she was friends with and activities she was involved in. It turned out that there were a few phone numbers listed on her phone for known drug dealers. From there, a check with phone companies and subsequent interviews, it places one man with the motive and means to kill her.
In this completely hypothetical situation, the point is not to show that yes that man killed her, rather that patterns can emerge from just a few pieces of information. And as the investigation goes on, more and more information fits the same pattern.
Would one conclude that it's equally likely that this man killed her as her dying through natural causes? This sounds absurd for a good reason, but it's the gambit that steve made above. The police don't have the exact information showing every moment of the man's actions during the day, let alone when the murder took place. Yet the evidence points so strongly towards that not only was she murdered but she was murdered by him.
The fact of the matter is that we don't need every piece of evidence before one can say anything. Just by looking at a few key pieces of evidence a pattern will emerge. The evidence has to of course be relevant, there's no point in interviewing everyone on the planet just to find the murderer. So how does this apply to whether evolution happened?
Making key predictions
Like the detective arriving at the crime scene, we find ourselves on this planet after the fact. We have several facts about the state of life today, such as the geographic distribution of animals, anatomical features, life-cycles, genetic code, etc. There are also observations of the life-cycle through time, of artificial selection, of heredity of traits, of mutations, etc. Then there's also relics of aeons past, the fossil record being the best example among others such as vestigial traits and dead genes.
Through observations independent of the truth of evolution, the age of the planet is determined to be around 4.6 billion years old, with the first life appearing somewhere around 3.5 billion years ago. It's important to understand that the time frames are independent of the fact of evolution, that geologists, astronomers and nuclear physicists will still confirm the earth to being old even if life is separately created.
Evolution is a predictive hypothesis, it predicts that certain patterns should be seen. For instance, apes should have DNA closer to each other than they do with monkeys. And this is exactly what is found, humans and chimpanzees are more closely related to each other than each animal is with any other species. The DNA shows a tree of life that what can be derived from cladistics and even the fossil record.
But it's the fossil record that's under contention here. And the fossil record is incomplete, that is to say only a fraction of all the species that have ever lived have been fossilised, and only a fraction of those have been found. Yet if evolution were true, then there should be particular kinds of fossils found that fit the pattern.
Not only is there a general fitting of the pattern in that there are no mammals before fish or reptiles before amphibians, or even humans and tyrannosaurs in the same strata. The general pattern of evolutionary radiance does indeed fit the fossil record, but it goes further than that. Fossils showing key evolutionary sequences and the emergence of novel traits litter the fossil record.
That now there's a sequence of fossils showing the adaptation from land mammal to cetaceans. Archaeopteryx is well known to show the link between dinosaurs and birds, but in recent years many non-avian dinosaurs have found to be feathered as well as many more fossils of birds with saurian features. A plethora of fossils showing hominid evolution over the last 7 million years have been found, showing clearly a progression through time.
The best example of the predictive power of evolution is the story of the fishibian Tiktaalik. There are no amphibians before 365MYA in the fossil record, and lobe finned fish with amphibian characteristics around 385MYA. So by looking in rocks ~375MYA, and there was found a fossil exhibiting the very traits that were predicted. Nothing speaks better for the validity of evolution than predicting the kind of fossil to find at an exact period of time.
The creation model
There are two problems for creationism in regard to the fossil record. If all species were created at the same time, then why is there a pattern showing change through time in the geological record. It must be that if creation were to be accepted then only particular models of creation could possibly be correct. Young earth creation is ruled out by means other than by evolution, geology shows that life has been on this earth for over 3 billion years. Creation would be restricted to species coming into being in the pattern that evolution predicts.
The second problem is the problem of redundancy. That sure, a creator could make feathered dinosaurs, at each point in the way making a slightly more complex and refined feather. Then the creator could create feathered dinobirds that show primitive flight. Then fully fledged flying birds that have since lost many saurian characteristics. It's arguing a point of redundancy for the creator, that each slight successive change in the fossil record is a new and unique creation.
That any fossils showing change at all is evidence of evolution and a problem for creation. That the sequence showing the evolution of early mammals from synapsids shouldn't exist if mammals were created ex nihilo. That there are fishibians, dinobirds, land whales, few legged snakes - just to name a few of the vast numbers of transitional forms. The only pattern that even remotely explains these forms is evolution, creation doesn't cut it. Missing pieces be damned, there are enough of the right pieces to show the shape of the puzzle.
The Unicorn Inference
Dembski's at it again, he collaborated on a list of ten questions to ask your teachers about intelligent design. Instead of going through them one by one (PZ does it already), instead I want to focus on the elephant in the room, that is we have no evidence of a designer working in nature.
There's a aphorism which I'm sure you're all aware of: "When you hear hoofbeats, think horses, not zebras." But what if we're missing the obvious? Why don't we ever think unicorns? After all unicorns would make the same sound as horses and zebras. So consider two people in a forest hearing hoofbeats. One turns to the other and says "listen, hoofbeats. I wonder if it's horse or zebra?" The other responds "It's neither, that's a unicorn."
As they rush to the clearing to see, they get there too late. They can only see the backs of the beasts in the distance. Upon inspection of the hoofprints, the first person points out that the type of hoofprint must belong to a horse as zebra prints are slightly different. The other person maintains his unicorn position. "Well of course they are going to look like horseprints, those are the prints a unicorn makes."
As luck would have it, a hair from one of the beasts' tails had fallen off in the rush. The first person having some Equine knowledge looks at the hair and concludes that it's definitely a horse. Again the other person says "Unicorn hair would have the same appearance as horse hair." Still not able to convince the unicorn believer that it's just a horse, he sends the hair away for DNA testing.
A few weeks later, the results come back. And to no-one's surprise, it's an identical match to horse DNA. Conclusive? No, the other person again is defiant. "Of course it would look like horse DNA, you're forgetting homology. Horses and unicorns are almost identical, so of course the DNA test would come back this way." No matter what evidence the first person could point to, the second person could always come up as a reason to why it was unicorn.
Yet despite the insistence of the Unicorn believer, why don't we ever think unicorns when we hear hoofbeats? Well because there's no actual evidence that there are such things as unicorns. Yet when ID advocates try to infer design, they are neglecting the huge problem in their argument - that there's no evidence of a designer. So while ID advocates go on and on about what looks designed, until they show that there's an actual designer in nature, they have no more an argument than someone hearing hoofbeats does for the existence of unicorns.
There's a aphorism which I'm sure you're all aware of: "When you hear hoofbeats, think horses, not zebras." But what if we're missing the obvious? Why don't we ever think unicorns? After all unicorns would make the same sound as horses and zebras. So consider two people in a forest hearing hoofbeats. One turns to the other and says "listen, hoofbeats. I wonder if it's horse or zebra?" The other responds "It's neither, that's a unicorn."
As they rush to the clearing to see, they get there too late. They can only see the backs of the beasts in the distance. Upon inspection of the hoofprints, the first person points out that the type of hoofprint must belong to a horse as zebra prints are slightly different. The other person maintains his unicorn position. "Well of course they are going to look like horseprints, those are the prints a unicorn makes."
As luck would have it, a hair from one of the beasts' tails had fallen off in the rush. The first person having some Equine knowledge looks at the hair and concludes that it's definitely a horse. Again the other person says "Unicorn hair would have the same appearance as horse hair." Still not able to convince the unicorn believer that it's just a horse, he sends the hair away for DNA testing.
A few weeks later, the results come back. And to no-one's surprise, it's an identical match to horse DNA. Conclusive? No, the other person again is defiant. "Of course it would look like horse DNA, you're forgetting homology. Horses and unicorns are almost identical, so of course the DNA test would come back this way." No matter what evidence the first person could point to, the second person could always come up as a reason to why it was unicorn.
Yet despite the insistence of the Unicorn believer, why don't we ever think unicorns when we hear hoofbeats? Well because there's no actual evidence that there are such things as unicorns. Yet when ID advocates try to infer design, they are neglecting the huge problem in their argument - that there's no evidence of a designer. So while ID advocates go on and on about what looks designed, until they show that there's an actual designer in nature, they have no more an argument than someone hearing hoofbeats does for the existence of unicorns.
Friday, 6 November 2009
And Sing The Persecution Song...
Thanks to Pharyngula commenter Rorschach, I've been alerted to this opinion piece in the age. The Vice Chancellor of the Australian Catholic University rallying against what he sees as an infestation of atheists that want to attack Christians and Catholics in particular.
Though I wonder where such claims are being heard. I've seen plenty of Christians door-knocking, handing out pamphlets. I've even had a Buddhist stop me and try to sell me a book. Plenty of people trying to get me to sign up for different charities. But not once have I had a single person on the street ever preach there is no God. Maybe they exist on streets I don't walk on.
Though this may again be symptomatic of my socio-economic status, but the biggest bashing I see by Australian atheists is on fundamentalist religions - Hillsong is more than anything else the organisation that draws the biggest ire. Beyond that it seems that the complaints against Catholicism are to do more with the running of the church than anything else. But I'll come to that soon.
Notice what he did there? Firstly he complains that they target the Catholic Church, then right after he complains it's going after Catholics. Two very different things.
Does it matter that Catholics believe that Mary really was a virgin, or that a priest saying an incarnation can turn a cracker into the body of Christ? Where are the media articles in The Age to that effect? No, it seems the articles in newspapers surround the systematic cover-up of child abuse, the pressuring by the Church on issues such as abortion and stem cell research, the spread of AIDS in Africa, labelling homosexuality as a deadly sin, giving refuge to the Anglican bigots who hate the progressive nature of the modern church, etcera. The wacky beliefs of Catholicism? They don't rate a mention.
And the obligatory name-dropping of smart believers in a situation like this. Look smart Christians, therefore I've completely invalidated this straw man argument. ha ha! You can taste the desperation in the air, though maybe that's because I'm on a floor full of IT workers. I'll give Craven the benefit of the doubt here.
This comes just two paragraphs after complaining that atheists have an air of intellectual superiority. Got hypocrite?
So it's two for two. The two things he complains about atheists for he does himself. The hypocrisy is so blatant that if this were an anonymous internet poster I would have to take it as someone taking the piss. Doesn't he see his on hypocrisy?
This is what I don't get, it seems somewhere along the lines the happenings of the Catholic Church has been conflated with individual Catholics themselves. To speak out against the systematic cover-up of child abuse by members of the Catholic order is meant to be taken as a condemnation of all people who call themselves Catholic. This is nothing more than claiming persecution where there is none, protecting immoral practices on the grounds of indignity.
I'd be tempted to write it off as projection on account of the author, but maybe I'm wrong. I really didn't know that Melbourne has become an anti-Catholic war-ground. Yet I'm stuck in Canberra where no-one seems to care. Had to bus in a religious fanatic from Victoria to pray over parliament house - that's probably telling.
Just now, we are facing one of our largest and least appealing infestations. Somewhat in advance of summer's blowflies, we are beset by atheists. Worse, they are not traditional atheists. These tended to be quiet blokes called Algie with ancillary interests in nudist ceramics, who were perfectly happy as long as you pretended to accept a pamphlet in Flinders Lane.Yes, if only we were at a point where atheists were meek and inoffensive, a but nutty and not at all to be taken seriously. Gone are those days (I'm only 25, did they ever exist?) and there has been a new paradigm shift in behaviours of non-believers.
No, the new hobby atheist is as brash, noisy and confident as a cheap electric kettle. They want everyone to know that they have not found God, and that no one else should.In a religious world, finding the confidence to speak out is tough. In Australia we have it lucky, there's not much overbearing religion so I find there's no reason really to speak out against it. I'll happily rant on the internet where believers are more than willing to engage, but outside the cyber-walls there's just no need. But I think there's a fundamental truth hidden inside such a statement, in a society where its expected to believe in a higher power, it should be able to be stated that it's not necessary and there are means by which to live without such a belief.
Though I wonder where such claims are being heard. I've seen plenty of Christians door-knocking, handing out pamphlets. I've even had a Buddhist stop me and try to sell me a book. Plenty of people trying to get me to sign up for different charities. But not once have I had a single person on the street ever preach there is no God. Maybe they exist on streets I don't walk on.
Their particular target seems to be Catholics. On the surface, this is odd, as there are plenty of other religious targets just waiting to be saved from a vengeful, non-existent deity. Smaller herds, such as the Christadelphians or the Salvation Army, might seem more manageable. But the Catholic Church has two incomparable advantages as an object of the wrath of proselytising atheists. First, it is the biggie. Taking out the Catholics is the equivalent of nuking the Pentagon. Guerilla bands of Baptists and Pentecostals can be liquidated at leisure.I would really love to see evidence that this is anti-Catholicism. This sounds quite paranoid actually. Interesting that arguing against Catholic activity is being compared to terrorism, rather than protesting the United States military involvement. Maybe it's just me but I can see a difference between speaking out on the US occupation of Iraq and trying to blow up the symbol of American military dominance. When atheists start blowing up churches and threatening to destroy the vatican, I'll concede the point.
Though this may again be symptomatic of my socio-economic status, but the biggest bashing I see by Australian atheists is on fundamentalist religions - Hillsong is more than anything else the organisation that draws the biggest ire. Beyond that it seems that the complaints against Catholicism are to do more with the running of the church than anything else. But I'll come to that soon.
Notice what he did there? Firstly he complains that they target the Catholic Church, then right after he complains it's going after Catholics. Two very different things.
Second, the Catholics have the undeniable advantage that they do still demonstrably believe in something. Attacking some of the more swinging Christian denominations might mean upsetting people who believe a good deal less than the average atheist.Yes, those Evangelical churches who take the bible as the inerrant word of God are the ones who don't really believe demonstratively in anything. Again, the main focus I've seen most atheists attacking is what Catholics should consider a straw man argument - it's against a literal interpretation of the bible. But again that's just my experience.
Mind you, the appeals of atheism as a diverting pastime are not immediately obvious to those of us who are on relatively easy terms with God. Why would anyone get so excited about the misconceptions of third parties as to the existence of a fourth party in which they themselves do not believe?Why would atheists rally against religion? Why indeed? Is it jealously that they can't see the light too? Is it that misery loves company? Or could it just be that it has nothing to do with the beliefs - rather the consequences for beliefs?
Does it matter that Catholics believe that Mary really was a virgin, or that a priest saying an incarnation can turn a cracker into the body of Christ? Where are the media articles in The Age to that effect? No, it seems the articles in newspapers surround the systematic cover-up of child abuse, the pressuring by the Church on issues such as abortion and stem cell research, the spread of AIDS in Africa, labelling homosexuality as a deadly sin, giving refuge to the Anglican bigots who hate the progressive nature of the modern church, etcera. The wacky beliefs of Catholicism? They don't rate a mention.
The answer is twofold. First, the great advantage of designer atheism is that you get to think of yourself as immensely clever. After all, you are at least much brighter than all those dumb-asses who believe in a supreme being, such as Sister Perpetua down the road, Thomas Aquinas, Isaac Newton and Dietrich Bonhoeffer. So satisfying.The sense of intellectual superiority. Interesting. I suppose there is something to this, people must be real dumb-asses to believe in the Judeo-Christian construct of God. That 44% of Mensa believe in Astrology and 56% believe that aliens have visited our world is besides the point, smart people cannot believe in weird things. Thus Spake Zarathustra.
And the obligatory name-dropping of smart believers in a situation like this. Look smart Christians, therefore I've completely invalidated this straw man argument. ha ha! You can taste the desperation in the air, though maybe that's because I'm on a floor full of IT workers. I'll give Craven the benefit of the doubt here.
The second factor has to do with wit. For some reason, contemporary Australian atheism seems to consider itself terribly funny. Its proponents only have to wheel out one of the age-old religious libels to lose control of their bladders. To outsiders, of course, it is a bit like watching a giggling incontinent drunk at a party. This is not to say that believers - and perhaps especially Catholics - do not get seriously irritated by atheists. They do, but not because atheists are fearfully clever or Wildely funny.Again he's got us, damn and here I was thinking that Tim Minchin settled this debate in his humourous song "Ten Foot Cock And A Few Hundred Virgins" where he used incredible wit to ridicule Paley's watchmaker argument and thus destroy the designer argument that Hume couldn't do because he wrote it in a philosophical dialogue - and Aussies are more about the wit than the substance.
Frankly, the prime reason the average believer finds the common or garden atheist as appealing as a holiday in Birchip is because they consign them to that sorry category of individuals who spend their lives loudly congratulating themselves on their own intelligence without noticing that no one else is joining the chorus. Thus, as a Catholic, I do not normally sense in some tabloid atheist the presence of a supreme discerning intellect. I simply place him or her in much the same pitiable bin of intellectual vulgarians as the chartered accountant who cannot see the art in Picasso, the redneck who cannot admit of indigenous culture, and the pissant who cannot see the difference between Yeats and Bob Ellis.It's not about saying "I'm more intelligent than you", but I'm sure when someone says a cherished belief if silly that it must be out of stupidity. So Muslims who believe that Muhammad ascended to heaven on the back of a winged horse only believe that out of stupidity, and the Christians who reject that are doing so out of smarts... of course not. Does the muslim who rejects the notion of the trinity do so out of a sense of intellectual superiority? Does the Buddhist? What about rejecting the notion that Uri Gellar can bend spoons with his mind?
This comes just two paragraphs after complaining that atheists have an air of intellectual superiority. Got hypocrite?
It is not deep perception we encounter here, but a critical failure of imaginative capacity. It is a bit like the old joke: how many atheists does it take to screw in a lightbulb? None - no matter what they do, they just can't see the light.oh I get it, the use of wit. For some reason, contemporary Australians seem to consider themselves terribly funny...
So it's two for two. The two things he complains about atheists for he does himself. The hypocrisy is so blatant that if this were an anonymous internet poster I would have to take it as someone taking the piss. Doesn't he see his on hypocrisy?
The second wearying thing about the new atheism is that it is not new at all. It is so banally derivative of every piece of hate mail ever sent to God that I am amazed Satan has yet to sue for copyright infringement. No old chestnut is too ripe, rotten or sodden, especially when it comes to the Catholics as accredited suppliers of what apparently is the Christian equivalent of methamphetamine.I actually agree, there's not anything new in the arguments really of the new atheism. Not that there needs to be. Creationism still does just fine trumpeting long discredited arguments like evolution violates thermodynamics. Just because the argument still exists in the public sphere doesn't mean that it hasn't been discredited already. The difference between the new atheists and what came before (from what I can tell) is that it is a reaction to the spread of cultural relativism; that it's considered important to speak out against what is perceived wrongness. As for what is that perceived wrongness?
In an average week of atheistic bigotry in the Melbourne media, we can expect to learn that Catholics endorse child molestation, hate all other religions, would re-introduce the crusades and the auto de fe at the slightest opportunity, despise women, wish to persecute homosexuals, greedily divert public moneys for their own religious purposes, subvert public health care, brainwash children, and are masterminding the spread of the cane toad across northern Australia.Endorse child molestation? No. If there was a childcare organisation that systematically covered up the abuse of children in its care by moving carers from one child centre to another and paid hush money to the victims, that wouldn't be endorsing it. To label homosexuality and abortion deadly sins aren't in the slightest acts to persecute homosexuals or deny the rights of the woman. And offering disgruntled Anglican priests who are against the Church of England's allowance of gay and women priests a place in the Catholic Church? That's not anything at all. George Pell may have threatened NSW politicians who voted for stem cell research with excommunication, but you're not meant to focus on that.
This is what I don't get, it seems somewhere along the lines the happenings of the Catholic Church has been conflated with individual Catholics themselves. To speak out against the systematic cover-up of child abuse by members of the Catholic order is meant to be taken as a condemnation of all people who call themselves Catholic. This is nothing more than claiming persecution where there is none, protecting immoral practices on the grounds of indignity.
At the bottom, of course, lies hate. I am not quite clear why our modern crop of atheists hates Christians, as opposed to ignoring or even politely dismissing them, but they very clearly do. There is nothing clever, witty or funny about hate.Hate? HATE?!? It's not about hate at all. I've got to say I don't know any atheist who hates Christians just because there are Christian. But again, that may be just in the circles I reside in. I know atheists who are incredibly anti-theist, others who are supportive of religion, and many who don't care. But it seems that daring to speak out on social issues that go against the church has to be underlined by hate. It can't be about protecting children, it can't be about equal rights - we must hate Christians and particularly Catholics in order to say anything.
I'd be tempted to write it off as projection on account of the author, but maybe I'm wrong. I really didn't know that Melbourne has become an anti-Catholic war-ground. Yet I'm stuck in Canberra where no-one seems to care. Had to bus in a religious fanatic from Victoria to pray over parliament house - that's probably telling.
Should We All Just Respect Each Other?
The sentiments of the well-meaning accommodationist, it seems any discussion between religion and atheism has at least one person who plays the respect card. That we should respect each other's beliefs. And it sounds all well and good to play the moderate card, but it's such a vacuous statement that does nothing other than to try to play down division.
So should there be automatic respect for believers and non-believers alike?
In my opinion, no. And here's why. Take homoeopathy for instance. Now as someone who firmly holds that homoeopathy cannot work beyond the placebo effect, should I respect those who use it? Those who take people off medication and live-saving procedures for a non-medicine? For those who give it to their infant children to treat treatable diseases? Of course I wouldn't respect them, nor what they believe.
Yet this is what is being asked, that I should respect other peoples beliefs no matter how insane I find them. I would respond, why should I? Why should I respect someone who believes the entire universe is there to test whether they can believe in a mangod in order to receive an eternal reward? Why should I respect someone who thinks that if they aren't good in this life, the universe will punish them in the next by giving their reincarnated body a degenerative disease? Why should I respect those who think that homosexuality is caused by demons, or that martyrdom is rewarded with the gift of 72 virgins?
I don't see that believing in anything is deserving of respect. Whether that be religious, paranormal, political or any other matter. I'm not going to respect racists because they hold racist beliefs, communists because they hold communistic beliefs, or anything else of that ilk. Holding beliefs isn't in itself deserving of respect.
This is not to say that people who hold such beliefs aren't deserving of respect. It's to say that holding the belief itself isn't deserving of respect. What it is deserving of is tolerance. And there's a key difference in this. The right to swing my fists ends where it makes contact with another. This is a key difference.
I don't have to respect in the least someone who takes homoeopathic medicine, yet I'm fully okay with people using the placebo as long as they don't harm others with it. If they want to not heal themselves, that's fine. But if they give it to a child then it's an issue.
And that's where I stand on religion. If people have religious beliefs and want to keep it to themselves, then I couldn't care less. They can delude themselves, harm themselves, whatever. But if they are using it to cause harm to others, then one should take issue with it.
As for speaking out on ideas, no idea should be beyond reproach. It's not being respectful to pretend that clashes over ideas don't exist. Again take homoeopathy. Just because it's use is something to tolerate, it doesn't mean that it should go without critique. Saying homoeopathy is bunk is not the equivalent to swinging your fists into another's face, it's critiquing an idea and not inhibiting a person.
So should we all respect one another? No. I don't expect to be respected for being a non-believer anymore than someone who is a believer should be respected on those grounds. What should be respected, however, is the right to hold those beliefs and practice them as they see fit - as long as it doesn't infringe on the rights of others.
So should there be automatic respect for believers and non-believers alike?
In my opinion, no. And here's why. Take homoeopathy for instance. Now as someone who firmly holds that homoeopathy cannot work beyond the placebo effect, should I respect those who use it? Those who take people off medication and live-saving procedures for a non-medicine? For those who give it to their infant children to treat treatable diseases? Of course I wouldn't respect them, nor what they believe.
Yet this is what is being asked, that I should respect other peoples beliefs no matter how insane I find them. I would respond, why should I? Why should I respect someone who believes the entire universe is there to test whether they can believe in a mangod in order to receive an eternal reward? Why should I respect someone who thinks that if they aren't good in this life, the universe will punish them in the next by giving their reincarnated body a degenerative disease? Why should I respect those who think that homosexuality is caused by demons, or that martyrdom is rewarded with the gift of 72 virgins?
I don't see that believing in anything is deserving of respect. Whether that be religious, paranormal, political or any other matter. I'm not going to respect racists because they hold racist beliefs, communists because they hold communistic beliefs, or anything else of that ilk. Holding beliefs isn't in itself deserving of respect.
This is not to say that people who hold such beliefs aren't deserving of respect. It's to say that holding the belief itself isn't deserving of respect. What it is deserving of is tolerance. And there's a key difference in this. The right to swing my fists ends where it makes contact with another. This is a key difference.
I don't have to respect in the least someone who takes homoeopathic medicine, yet I'm fully okay with people using the placebo as long as they don't harm others with it. If they want to not heal themselves, that's fine. But if they give it to a child then it's an issue.
And that's where I stand on religion. If people have religious beliefs and want to keep it to themselves, then I couldn't care less. They can delude themselves, harm themselves, whatever. But if they are using it to cause harm to others, then one should take issue with it.
As for speaking out on ideas, no idea should be beyond reproach. It's not being respectful to pretend that clashes over ideas don't exist. Again take homoeopathy. Just because it's use is something to tolerate, it doesn't mean that it should go without critique. Saying homoeopathy is bunk is not the equivalent to swinging your fists into another's face, it's critiquing an idea and not inhibiting a person.
So should we all respect one another? No. I don't expect to be respected for being a non-believer anymore than someone who is a believer should be respected on those grounds. What should be respected, however, is the right to hold those beliefs and practice them as they see fit - as long as it doesn't infringe on the rights of others.
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