The article is completely misleading. Intentional or not, it deserves a large response from the Atheist community. You can read the article at:http://blogs.usatoday.com/oped/2007/04/post_47.htmlYes, this is a link to a blog so you insert your opinion there or send a letter to the editor. I recommend you do both.Here is an excerpt that deserves response:?What would a world without God look like? Well, for one, morality becomes, if not impossible, exceedingly difficult. “Thou shalt not kill” loses much of its force when reduced from commandment to a suggestion. How inspiring can it be to wake in the morning, look in the mirror, and see an accident of evolutionary history ? the end product of the random collision of molecules??
Oops, Only ‘many, was to have been bold.
remy – I need to apologize. That was not meant as an attack on you personally. I quoted you and then meant to speak to the wider group of “you” not individually “you”.
My apologies for not being more clear.
In googling Don Feder, it appears he is Jewish. For those of you on this blog who have bashed Christianity and Christians specifically for the words of this man, perhaps you should reconsider. Statements such as “Removing christianity is the first step toward fixing the problem.” are clearly blind-sighted.
An atheist like Bill Gates has done more to alleviate human suffering than any religious figure ever has. Not only does his charity work make a difference but his hand in creating computer technolgy has changed our world for the better in innumerable ways. Atheistic scientists have created the modern world we live in and thanks to them we have modern medicine, health, and an improved standard of living. If the xians had their way we would all still be living short and brutal lives fearful of a vengeful sky daddy. Fuck that.
interesting:
Here, I’ll field this.
Okay, translation is, “Define your terms a little more pedantically.”
I can’t speak for Fragilex, but I’m guessing it’s pretty much the agreed upon standard.
Hollow question #2:
Translation: “I’m sure you’re a moral relativist, let’s play word games.”
I’m a moral naturalist, so there are specific forms of good & evil (for me) – specifically doing harm on an individual or groups.
Translation: “Let’s give religion the credit.”
What rubbish.
Here’s the problem (& as you seem to be woefully misinformed on the back story) – these op-ed pieces (of crap) never ever bother to investigate. The bulk of them make un-researched assumptions, & sally forth from there.
There’s simply no effort made, in the piece under discussion, or in many, MANY others to discuss/investigate the other side of the coin.
Instead, they all seem to spew up the same boilerplate crap: point to communism, folderol about not being able to ‘absolutely prove or disprove the existence of’, & a pile of other fallacies & common misperceptions.
Let me put it in perspective: if YOU were a member of a minority, & YOU kept running into newspaper articles that spouted a load of running crap (all untrue) about YOUR minority, I’m betting you’d be a little less than civil about it.
It gets old pretty darn toot sweet.
fragilex:
Your opinion column is excellent. Thanks for the link.
interesting:
Uh, no you’re not.
Belief in christianity causes the believer to remove themselves from reality, that causes them do disassociate from the true meaning of life, which is to try to improve the living environment on earth. Christianity demands that its followers think in terms of fantasy after death which distances them from real life on earth.
The source of the problem is christianity, by removing christianity the mental illness of its followers will heal.
Christians know within themselves that their god is nothing more than an idea. All of a christians thoughts of living with their god idea after they die are purely selfish and self-centered, by definition they are only acting to save themselves.
Christians are stupid.
Krystalline Apostate ? I appreciate your response to my post. For the record – No. If I were in the minority and continually read “newspaper articles that spouted a load of running crap (all untrue) about YOUR minority” I would battle it with ideas, facts, and expose misconceptions ? in a calm manner. I don’t tend to resort to name-calling when I am wanting to have my ideas to be heard and received. ala “Great minds discuss ideas. Average minds discuss events. Small minds discuss people.” Eleanor Roosevelt.
And I’m not trying to play word games with you. I’m trying to understand the conclusions that you come to as naturally as the ones I come to, albeit on opposite ends of the field.
You wrote, ?Okay, translation is, “Define your terms a little more pedantically.”
I can’t speak for Fragilex, but I’m guessing it’s pretty much the agreed upon standard.?
You?re guessing?!! I have issue with this definition of good being up to the ?agreed upon standard?, and frankly I think you do too. WHO is agreeing on this standard? So, Nazi Germans were doing ?good? in regards to the Jews because it was, afterall, the ?agreed upon standard? ? at least for the ruling party. You haven?t defined ?good? in any objective way. Nor have you objectively given me any idea of where and how you come to this conclusion of what is good and what is not.
?Hollow question #2:?
I did not deserve that.
?Translation: ?I’m sure you’re a moral relativist, let’s play word games.?
I’m a moral naturalist, so there are specific forms of good & evil (for me) – specifically doing harm on an individual or groups.?
Okay. You’re not a moral relativist, but a moral naturalist. a. What is that? And b.What is the difference? Especially since you added the “for me” qualifier. Again – how do you come to the conclusion of what is good and what is evil?
?Here’s the problem (& as you seem to be woefully misinformed on the back story) – these op-ed pieces (of crap) never ever bother to investigate. The bulk of them make un-researched assumptions, & sally forth from there.
There’s simply no effort made, in the piece under discussion, or in many, MANY others to discuss/investigate the other side of the coin.
Instead, they all seem to spew up the same boilerplate crap: point to communism, folderol about not being able to ‘absolutely prove or disprove the existence of’, & a pile of other fallacies & common misperceptions. ?
Perhaps. Or perhaps we should take note that they?re ALSO categorized under ?Opposite the -EDitorial? page where OPINIONS and VIEWPOINTS are expressed. It is in the categorizing that we see this is OPINION ? an EDITORIAL. So, if you think the opinion is silly and comes to erroneous conclusions, then challenge the IDEAS presented. Or, alternately, IGNORE the opinion. But at least acknowledge it for what it is ? it?s not being offered as news. If people can not differentiate between the two, then that is their problem.
… Now if I can just learn how to do those fancy block quotes, this might be easier…
Ignorance did not invade USA Today. It runs USA Today. Many of us are old enough to remember when News sources reported news. While we were all sleeping the game changed. News is a very loose term these days. The meaning of the word is not the same it once was. Moon landing deniers are given equal voice as if their claims were equal. The bible is taught as real history on the History channel. We lost a major component of our democracy, and most still don’t know it has gone the way of the DoDo bird.
A world where money means more than truth is dangerous, without the critical thinking skills people can lose all grip on reality. Sad but true.
interesting:
You say that if you were part of a minority that kept getting falsely accused of things it has no involvement in, that you would discuss it calmly and rationally.
First off, you can’t know because you have no idea how it feels for us.
Second, I doubt that you could be calm, because we (atheists, agnostics, etc.) have been pushed around to the point that we have our backs against the wall, and the only option at this point is to come out swinging.
The reason for this backlash is because of believers, much like yourself. We have been constantly lied about- mostly by men of the cloth. Then, believers who refuse to think for themselves and do a little research, compound these lies, and it spreads.
Give me one good shred of evidence of atheists acting immoral, as a whole group or standard. You can’t, because we are some of the most caring people in the world.
Why?
Because we know in our hearts that this is the only shot we get on this planet (or anything else), and we cherish it and the people around us. We don’t do good things for people just to get heaven brownie points. We do good things for people because we love how it makes them feel, and it’s the right thing to do.
Continuing to spread lies is immoral, and the wrong thing to do.
Why?
Because it HURTS people.
interesting:
Advice easily given when you?re not on the receiving end.
More advice easily given when you?re not on the receiving end. It would be nice if the other side of the field were as high-minded as you insist we should be.
A little more questions, more research, & less judgment then, if you please.
Of course I?m guessing. Do I know you? No. You may be the 21st CE?s answer to Charlie Manson, for all I know. Not saying you are: example only.
I can?t give you an ?objective good?, because, alas, I?m only human, & it goes thru a speciocentric filter. It?s sufficient to say, that I consider evil to be whenever 1 person forces upon another person against their will.
I?ll be the ?objective? judge of that, thanks. (hehehehe)
A moral naturalist, in my subjective definition, is ??Moral naturalism is a form of cognitivism derived from applying evolutionary game-theory to ethics. Rather than interpreting morality as the result of negotiations between members of a large group of free moral agents, moral naturalism sees morality as an emergent phenomenon arising as an unintended side-effect of the interaction of those agents in smaller groups.?
My definition of good & evil is ? see above.
Wow. This is a culture of sound bytes & word bytes. Many people come to their opinions in a lazy, haphazard manner.
For the record, I HAVE indeed attacked the IDEAS. It?s difficult in the ?talk-show? environment of America to NOT attack the messenger. I prefer to go after the concepts presented. However, when you see someone like say, Coulter or Schlussel going absolutely apeshit on the airwaves or the internet, blathering cognitive dissonance (& getting taken seriously, no less!), ad hominems come very easily.
I for 1 get tired of folks trying to hold us to a standard that they don?t abide by.
?Resort is had to ridicule only when reason is against us. ? – Thomas Jefferson
& you also miss the point entirely: for instance, I ridiculed your position, & you took it as a personal slight. Hard to get past that: if I attack your IDEAS, are you going to get all wobbly about it every time?
http://css.nu/examples/blockquotes.html
interesting,
KA and others have answered you well. I will simply add that I have been coming here for only 7 months or so and have had to defend against the same tired, ill-informed statements made in the article again and again. As a consequence it often seems futile to respond in a “calm manner”. One individual in particular, deserves no respect, and to argue with him is beyond reason.
About Feder’s imaginary Mother Theresa…A better hagiography…
Hitchens, Christopher. The Missionary Position: Mother Teresa in Theory and Practice….(1995)
Hitchens:Yes, she’s a poster girl for the right-to-life wing in America. She was used as the example of Christian idealism and family values, of all things, by Ralph Reed – the front man of the Pat Robertson forces. That’s a symptom of a wider problem that I call “reverse ecumenicism,” an opportunist alliance between extreme Catholics and extreme Protestants who used to exclude and anathematize one another.
In private Pat Robertson has nothing but contempt for other Christian denominations, including many other extreme Protestant ones. But in public the Christian Coalition stresses that it is very, very keen to make an alliance with Catholics. There is a shallow, opportunist ecumenicism among religious extremists, and Mother Teresa is quite willingly and happily in its service. She knows exactly who she is working for and with. But I think she is happiest when doing things like going to Ireland and intervening in the Divorce Referendum, as she did recently.
By the way, there is an interesting angle to that which has not yet appeared in print. During the Divorce Referendum the Irish Catholic church threatened to deny the sacrament to women who wanted to be remarried. There were no exceptions to be allowed: it didn’t matter if you had been married to an alcoholic who beat you and sexually assaulted your children, you were not going to get a second chance in this world or the next. And that is the position that Mother Teresa intervened in Ireland to support.
OT:
In Texas public schools we are forced to observe a minute of silence after the Pledge so kids can pray. I tell my preschoolers to observe a minute of silliness. Everyone giggles for sixty seconds. I have yet to be jailed.
Barbiebrains,
I love that, a moment of silliness. My high school history teacher told me that the moment of silence was illegal and just to ignore it (the school wanted you to stop whatever you were doing).
Could you clarify, was Mother Teresa for or against remarried women receiving the sacrament?
Greetings,
To me, the most revealing aspect of Mr. Feder’s idiotic, but so typical, rant comes from his first sentence. – “Oh for the days when one could SAFELY stroll into a bookstore without tripping over the latest atheist title.”
Well, Mr. Feder, what are you afraid of!
Evilatheist,
The Catholic Church refuses the sacraments to anyone who is remarried because according to Canon Law the couple is not really married but only cohabiting=fornicating. Fornication is a mortal sin which means that if you die with a mortal sin on your soul, you go straight to hell. You cannot receive the sacraments until you are absolved by a priest through the sacrament of reconciliation/penance. The only way to “remarry” is to annul your first marriage…ie, you must prove to the Catholic Church that your first marriage never existed…the marriage never took place. Homosexuality or the inability or unwillingness to bear younguns constitute reasons to annul a marriage in the eyes of the Church. Only Catholic marriages are “valid” for the Church…all other arrangements are fornication…even marriage by the State. Technically, both partners are precluded from receiving the sacraments. I am not sure why women were singled out by the Irish Catholic Church and Mother Theresa. I apologize if my answer is long-winded…I teach preschool, blocks and playdough all day…
I have one thing to say, sense when does having faith have anything to do with morality? INFACT it discourages it. Last time I checked with christianity, to reach salvation all you need is faith, not good works; the second great awakening said nothing about good works, and there hasn’t been very much change sense then.
I’m pretty sure I am not the only atheist to think this way, it is not the belief in god that bothers us at all, believe in god I don’t care, but how can you honestly think any book has gone through “him.” The faith in a certain religion is what is retarded, not the faith in god. You can’t disprove god or prove it, I’ll give it that much, but science and common sense disproves every religion that exists today. Come on now.
Interesting
“If I were in the minority and continually read “newspaper articles that spouted a load of running crap (all untrue) about YOUR minority” I would battle it with ideas, facts, and expose misconceptions”
Hmm. maybe you should change your monihker to Naive or Quaint.
“A universe that isn’t God-centered becomes ego-centered.”
Gawd is a prime example of ego-centricity. “WORSHIP ME, OBEY ME, MAKE ME YOUR MASTER, OR DIE!” he says. If that’s not ego-mania then I’ll eat my hat.
cry4turtles (I do) wrote:
Even worse is the great and vast majority of christians that think they are the proxy of their god idea. Such as little bush (the master of all christians), just to give one shiningly obvious example among millions.
Lite comments for a lite paper.
Where does an atheist get their ethics then? Do we look to Nietzsche and say we can create our own? Do we look at Dewey or James and say whatever works for most of us? What stops one from creating an ethical system that attacks the dignity of the human person that many of you claim to believe in yet have no grounding for? Just a question from a theist…
Barbie Brains,
Ignorance is bliss. Why take out prayer and add giggles? Why take the time to go against the grain? Think about that. Atheism is becoming to be what causes Virginia Tech’s situation…not christianity.
atheistsrock1,
Why do you give a crap? Does what Barbiebrains does with those kindergarteners directly affect you? No. So why bitch about it? And atheism doesn’t lead to the VT tragedy. The social stigma associated with having mental illness is what causes those kinds of horrific events. If people didn’t attach such a negative connotation to mental illness more people would seek the help that they need instead of pretending everything is ok. I believe then we would no longer see these things happen in our society.
Starting the day off with a moment of silliness or giggles is very healthy.
There are actually classes where you can go to now to just laugh. Laughing releases endorphins.
I applaud Barbiebrains for applying this principle. With preschoolers, is is also very practical.They have no idea what to do with a moment of silence, but a moment of giggles is very beneficial. The only problem is limiting them to a moment.
Remember the “All I Ever Needed to Know, I learned in Kindergarten”?
More truth there than is appreciated.
atheistsrock1
I don’t see how you connect atheism to what happened at VT. Care to expalin yourself?
What would a world without God look like?
Exactly like the world we live in.
Next?
How inspiring can it be to wake in the morning, look in the mirror, and see an accident of evolutionary history ? the end product of the random collision of molecules??
How inspiring can it be to wake in the morning, look in the mirror, and see an see a creature damned upon their death to a hell of eternal torture, because she/he is born evil, awful and full of sin, unworthy of Gawd’s love, unless you’re one of the lucky ones Gawd elects for salvation?
Jacob23 wrote;
Ethics come from peoples brains, you would know that if your brain hadn’t be washed with lies from your christian gang leaders.
Christians certainly don’t get ethics from their religion, at least not ethics that any decent society would consider good.
Christianity encourages people to kill and attack others. Christians don’t know what ethics are let alone where ethics come from.*
* Excepting spanders as usual, of course.
Karen,
A moment of silliness works wonders…you get them to stop giggling by pulling a “Simon Says” routine when you want the kiddoes to settle down. They respond to the authority of “Simon Says”…
Atheistsrocks1,
Going against the grain takes guts…Yes, it lands you in a heap of trouble and ruins your personal relationships but the alternative is chilling. If it weren’t for “going against the grain”, I would be driving a Lexus and wearing glittery kitten sweaters to a “Women’s LIGHT Meeting (LIGHT=Ladies Involved in Giving, Helping, Touching…a psychotic Baptist organization) . Groupthink is evil. Giggling does a world of good…my kiddoes have a lifetime to become dour and miserable Xians…let them laugh. Atheism does not cause violence…9/11 was a faith-based initiative.
“Why won’t god heal amputees?”