The next time some Mormon missionaries come knocking on your door, try this:
1. First of all, ask them if their parents are Mormons - over 90% will answer yes.
2. Ask them if they know how many Mormons there are in the world - they should know that the answer is about 13,000,000 and, if they don't, you can tell them.
3. Ask them if they know the population of the earth - they might hazard a guess that it is approaching 7 billion and, again, you can tell them if they don't know. It's actually a bit less than that but 7 billion is close enough.
4. Pull out a calculator and divide 13,000,000 by 7 billion which you will find equals 0.00185714.
5. Ask them if they feel lucky to have been born into a family which practices the right religion when over 98.8% of the world's population has got it wrong.
6. As you're shutting the door, tell them that every religion can't be right but they can all be wrong.
* 99.81% born to wrong religion
ReplyDeletedear robotpicnic,
ReplyDelete...shut up
love
danny x
So, is the argument that 99.81% of people are in the "wrong" religion, and that it's silly to think that God would let 99.81% of people be damned to hell?
ReplyDeleteIf that's the case, you should realize that Mormonism is one of the few religions that asserts that you must be properly baptized to be saved, but that the vast majority of people will be saved. The whole baptism for the dead thing that got them into such problems with the holocaust survivors.
But yes, the Mormon orthodoxy is that everyone will get an equal opportunity to hear the Gospel, and the vast majority of people will accept it.
Yes I love talking to the Mormons. It is so silly they send young kids who don't even really know their own religion. My take recently: http://425talker.blogspot.com/2009/03/door-knocked.html
ReplyDeleteOr you could do this.
ReplyDeletehttp://richarddawkins.net/article,327,John-Safran-vs-The-Mormons,John-Safran
dude - major argumentation fail.
ReplyDeleteyou've just exemplified the classic "argumentum ad populum" fallacy. ie. the proposition is true because many people believe it.
look it up, my good man.
and then perhaps you need to come up with a better, logical, rational response to those missionaries than a classical fallacious argument!
You could always just tell them to go away in a pleasant way without adding any little snippet or snide.
ReplyDeleteI understand that it maybe annoying for them to come by. But think of how much worse it would be to be made to go door to door to do this. Its not like they have much of a choice realistically. If they grew up that way, they don't know any better. The amount of shit they take would be more than I could handle...
ReplyDeleteWe usually only went knocking on doors when we didn't have anything better to occupy our time with. It was pretty-much understood throughout our mission that it wasn't an incredibly effective use of our time.
ReplyDeleteThe LDS Church has been gradually moving away from this model of proselyting. Currently the focus is more on referrals from existing church members and on reaching out to people already in the Church, but currently inactive in worship. Much more productive use of time in my opinion.
There's also a fairly heavy community service element in modern LDS missions. I taught free English classes in Japan twice a week. We'd also teach English at local preschools (and we kept religion strictly out of it). We'd assist at local rest homes visiting the elderly who were feeling a bit lonely and we also had some orphanages that we'd make once-a-month visits to.
We put on informative lessons for school groups on Christian holidays and gave presentations to civic groups on occasion. We also usually showed up for local festivals and participated.
Rest of the time I typically spent contacting inactive members and trying to assist our over-worked local LDS membership in any way possible. We'd do babysitting for a few single mothers, for example. I also had regular appointments with people looking into the LDS Church who were happy to have me visit anytime. Some of these people were slow-movers. But I was too, so it was a good fit.
Wasted a lot of time too, of course. Like a lot of 19-21 year olds. But I tried hard not to generate much community ill will.
I was utterly terrified of street contacting (almost threw up the first time I tried it), and never got up the gumption to actually accost someone on the street. Which wasn't too big a deal in my mission, since that wasn't really the focus anyway.
Valuable experience. Learned a ton about Japanese culture too. You always learn more about a culture when you are actively trying to work with it or even resist it, than you do when you are just a passive (and largely indifferent) tourist.
prefetch, you're mistaking this post for an argument when it is intended to a lighthearted poke at the proseletyzing Mormons. Is it possible that those who arrive at my doorstep who were born into their religion are just lucky? Sure it is. If they truly believe the wacky teachings of their Church, I just want them to realize how lucky they are. If there are any serious points to be taken from the post, I think there are two:
ReplyDelete1. People who come to a religion in adulthood and not by way of childhood indoctrination are much more interesting to talk to and are generally much more informed about their faiths.
2. Children (and, quite frankly, I consider many of the Mormon youth arriving at my door to be not much more than children) should not be indoctrinated into any faith. Their minds have not sufficiently matured to know right from wrong. Of course, that is exactly why religions love to prey (forgive the pun) on them. If you have the time, please read Richard Dawkins' Letter to my Daughter which can be found at several places on the internet including the blog which contains the post which is the subject of this discussion thread.
Prefetch: never assume the Atheist Missionary is "a good man" - probably neither. In any event, I got a good laugh out of this post. But you forgot the final line as you slam the door shut and catch one of the Bible ribbons in the door jam: open the door back up and sling the young lucky fella a ticket to Frontier with a 99 cent margarita on the strip in Vegas. He will love it. Cheers.
ReplyDeleteFolks, let's all remember who has the burden of proof. The claimants. In this case, the Mormons. It doesn't matter if 99% believe or disbelieve in something. *I'm* not going to believe it until I'm presented with evidence and a sound argument I can accept. It's not *on me* to disprove the Mormons. It's on *them* to prove their case.
ReplyDeleteOnly partly true Granamyr.
ReplyDeleteTrue, the burden of proof lies with Mormons to prove their beliefs are true to you.
But the equation changes somewhat when you try to make new claims about how Mormons are "full of crap" or how Mormonism is "an obvious fraud."
Now the game is different.
Now it's your turn to ante-up and show us some proof.
Funny thing about burden-of-proof. Shifting it to the other side in ONE instance doesn't automatically mean you've shifted it everywhere in the argument.
You want to declare something an "obvious fraud?"
Prove it.
Your burden friend.
Very fun! I like your math!
ReplyDeleteIsn't it funny, despite the best efforts of thousands of sectarian Christian "experts" as well as scientifically-minded atheists have been striving to prove Mormonism is a fraud for nearly two centuries, yet it keeps on growing and growing?
ReplyDeleteThe proof of the veracity of Mormonism is the power of the sincere, open minded individual to read the Book of Mormon and find that, surprisingly, God will speak to his heart and tell him the book is true.
Isn't it amazing that this very book inspired thousands of people to suffer persecution at the hands of their neighbors, enduring tarring and feathering, lynchings, false arrest and legal harassment, etc. yet they still believe enough to persist in their faith?
Isn't it a miracle that a people so maligned that their fellowmen and women incited violence to kill their prophet and drive them from their homes still managed to maintain their devotion to the cause?
Isn't it a wonder that those refugees, driven out of their communities in poverty, in the dead of winter, managed to survive and prosper in the harshness of the Salt Lake Valley, where Frontiersman Jim Bridger offered Brigham Young a thousand bucks for the first bushel of corn the Mormons could produce?
Isn't it a wonder that despite railing accusations that we're racists, the Church grows rapidly in Africa as well as in other nations?
Isn't it just marvelous that some 300,000 people join the Church every year despite the "expert" opinions of atheists, secularists, and sectarian Christians who devote countless hours of time to the Mormon's demise?
Isn't amazing that despite all the efforts to the contrary, that the Mormon Church continues to expand and grow in power and influence in the world?
There is a power in Mormonism that the skeptics never can explain away. You can't kick Mormonism down the stairs--you can only kick it up the stairs. Keep on kicking us! It just makes us stronger.
Hmmm, that's funny... It seems you failed sir. That is a mormon myth. Sorry to say that you are just spouting a propped up propaganda. One of many perpetuated by the LDS Church.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.allbusiness.com/services/business-services-miscellaneous-business/4679981-1.html
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=9401E6D91739E43BBC4D53DFB066838A669FDE
http://www.sltrib.com/ci_2886596
And the list goes on. Do just a little bit of research on the decline of mormonism and you will find plenty of evidence that your leaders have miss-lead you.
Those who claim that current DNA evidence has "disproven" the Book of Mormon don't really understand how such data works.
ReplyDeleteClaims that the Book of Mormon have been debunked by DNA are referring to a few recent surveys of Native American DNA that link the DNA to Asia, with no evidence of any Israelite DNA.
Few points:
1. The studies in question were never designed to disprove the Book of Mormon since the scientists conducting the studies were generally unconcerned with Mormon claims (if they were aware of them at all). The studies only claimed to be tracking general migration patterns.
2. The studies were meant to track broad continental migrations. They were never meant to exhaustively establish or rule out EVERY possible genetic source - no matter how small.
3. Even those who conducted the studies would acknowledge that the studies do not rule out genetic possibilities. All they do is log where MOST of the current genetic material came from.
Concluding that the studies had ruled out BoM claims would be a tenuous assertion based on these factors alone. But when you look at what the BoM is actually asserting, the criticisms become even shakier.
Most of the attacks on the BoM via DNA evidence assume that the BoM speaks of a CONTINENTAL geographic model. This is a view that many early Mormons held - the idea that the BoM peoples covered vast swaths of North, Central, and South America. Despite the model's early popularity, it has been severely challenged by analysis of the BoM text itself.
Halfway through the book, there is a section providing a detailed treatment of Nephite and Lamanite wars. It includes strategic cities, and the movements of armies - including marching times. Using these accounts, Mormon scholars have been able to reconstruct the approximate size of Nephite lands. The conclusion has been that the entire account of the Book of Mormon couldn't have occurred in an area much larger than present day Alabama, or Guatemala.
This pretty-much skewers early Mormon notions of a continental geographic model. Most Mormon scholars today endorse a more limited geographic model, and they pretty-much have ever since the 1950s (this is one of the cases where our critics haven't caught up with us yet and are attacking a version of Mormonism that hasn't been hewed to in half a century).
So, the BOOK itself establishes a geographically limited population - not "everyone on the continent."
Next point - what kind of DNA would we be even looking for in the first place if we wanted to test the BoM?
"Why, Jewish of course!" many of our critics would respond.
This would be wrong. If you read the book itself, it does not call for Jewish DNA. Neither of the patriarchs mentioned in the account are "Jewish."
Patriarch one - Lehi was from the tribe of Ephraim and patriarch two - Ishmael was from the tribe of Manasseh. Neither were from the tribe of Judah. As for the mothers, it never says what their lineage was. We assume Israelite, but frankly, we have no idea.
So then, can anyone here tell me what Ephraimite DNA at 600 BC looked like? Or can anyone tell me how we would find out?
If you recall your Bible history, the northern tribes (including much of Ephraim and Manasseh) were conquered by the Assyrians and driven out of Israel. After that, the remaining tribe of Judah was conquered by the Babylonians shortly after Lehi and company left town. Same exile, same scattering.
So even if there was a distinctive Israelite DNA marker to begin with (which, due to persistent problems with intermarriage, I seriously doubt), it was pretty much shot to hell by the subsequent exiles. No one has a clue what 600 BC Israelite DNA looked like and there's frankly no way to check.
Not only that, but you're also talking about the Middle East here. This is, and always has been, one of the most genetically in-flux areas in the entire globe. People move in, people move out. The genetic pool in that area has been mixed up all over the place.
Now, geneticists have identified a couple "Jewish" genetic markers. One is passed through the matrilineal line through mitochondrial DNA. The other is the Cohen haplotype passed throught the patrilineal line.
Problem with using these on the BoM (aside from the fact that the people were never "Jewish" to begin with), is that these markers are only passed through the ancestry in a limited fashion.
Let's take Sariah - wife of Lehi and mother of the main characters in the first chapters of the book. Let's assume, just for argument's sake that she was Jewish (though again, we really don't know what she was). She would only have been able to pass her mtDNA down through her DAUGHTERS.
Do you see the problem here?
What if she didn't have any daughters? No mtDNA. No "Jewish" marker. You're done.
And what if she did have daughters? The same thing could have happened any time one of THEM failed to have any female offspring. And down the pyramid of offspring you go. If you imagine the entirety of the Book of Mormon people as a pyramid with the original characters at the top, it doesn't take a lot of thought to realize that huge swaths of this pyramid, if not most of it, will be populated by people who have NONE of the modernly accepted Jewish markers.
Similar problems occur with trying to track via Cohen haplotype on the male side.
And like I said, this assumes that they're Jewish - which they weren't. If you're just talking "600 BC Israelite," then you don't even know what to look for in the first place.
Then you have problems of genetic intermixing. Assuming the Book of Mormon account is true, and given what we know from archeology, there would certainly have been people already living in the Americas at the time Lehi and company made landfall. Intermarriage and genetic mixing with the natives would have been inevitable (even if resisted by those trying to obey the Law of Moses' prohibition on marrying a non-Israelite). Within a hundred years of the first arrival "Nephite DNA" would have been almost indistinguishable from the surrounding natives.
Finally, you've got to realize that when you are talking about Amerindians, you are also dealing with one of the biggest genetic bottlenecks in human history.
The populations of North and South America were utterly devastated by the arrival of the Europeans. The numbers that the Europeans personally slaughtered were dwarfed by the number claimed by smallpox and other European diseases. Entire cities were de-populated before the Spaniards ever even discovered them. The Inca Empire was devastated. Some historians and scientists estimate that possibly as high as 80% of the native American population died from European contact. It was one of the biggest biological disasters in human history.
Do you realize just how much genetic material was lost in that crisis?
Given these factors, I'd be shocked if you DID find genetic evidence for the Book of Mormon, even if it really did happen.
This is why DNA has not dis-proven the Book of Mormon, and the likelihood is - it never will. You are talking about something that is frankly, untestable.
Thank-you Seth for your frank admission that: You are talking about something that is frankly, untestable.So, my question to you is this: what would it take to shake you from your Mormon faith?In anticipation of the come back as to what it would take to shake me from my atheism, I will give you a few:
ReplyDelete1. Experimental evidence of the power of prayer.
2. The second coming.
3. A really good miracle called in advance (like Babe Ruth's supposed called home run) like a dead body coming back to life after rotting for over 24 hours.
4. Quite frankly, your big Guy taking over CNN and setting the record straight. There's no reason why he/she/it couldn't do that. So why don't they?
www.spamlgs.org, your comment inspired tonight's post: Wacky religions - this one takes the cakeYour comment: Keep on kicking us! It just makes us stronger. reminds me of the joke about the Newfoundlander who was pounding on his own thumb with a hammer. When asked why he was doing that he said: "Because it feels so good when I stop".
ReplyDeleteMy friend, you are a sucker for intellectual punishment.
Funny, with the exception of #1, none of those things would convince me to worship a being.
ReplyDeleteI said that the particular DNA issue was probably untestable. I never said the religion itself wasn't.
However, it's probably correct to say the religion is not testable in a way that provides objective evidence that others are bound to accept. You cannot provide evidence that others will be rationally compelled to accept. However, this is not to say the religion is untestable.
You can test the inherent appeal, usefulness and strength of the religion as it pertains to you. This is what my own conviction is based on. I have taken the moral and philosophical principles of LDS teaching and found them to be a useful and enriching framework for my life.
In a sense, whether Joseph Smith can be proved to be a liar (which I dispute, by the way) is irrelevant.
But miracles are utterly beside the point to my own faith. I do not worship a being simply because he is powerful.
If God came down tomorrow and did your numbers 2 through 4, I'd have to ask you where your moral background was. Are you such a moral coward that you'll follow whoever threatens you with the biggest stick? If you lived in Nazi Germany, would you support Hitler just because he had dudes with guns?
I hope not.
But what's the moral difference between worshiping God because he has a big stick and following Hitler because he has a big stick?
Maybe the God you propose is nothing more than some Stargate-style "local system lord."
If you're going to worship God, do it because he is good and worth following. Not because he has a bigger bat than you do.
Seth, you must be an atheist in disguise! You are far too thoughtful to be a Mormon (even a "moderate" Mormon).
ReplyDeleteYou ask: what's the moral difference between worshiping God because he has a big stick and following Hitler because he has a big stick? The answer, of course, is that there is no difference. The Bible, if true, would set up the most grotesque totalitarian state imaginable.
The points I listed in my post would never convince me to worship "Hey-Zeus". The reason why I listed them is that they would probably convince me to believe in the supernatural being that you call God.
When you say whether Joseph Smith can be proved to be a liar (which I dispute, by the way) is irrelevant, you leave me wondering what is it about the LDS Church that you find so special as compared to any other Christian sect?
... and Seth, you still didn't answer my question.
ReplyDelete"what would it take to shake you from your Mormon faith?"
ReplyDeleteWhich part?
My participation in the organized LDS religious structure?
My belief in the historicity of the Bible or Book of Mormon?
My admiration for the theology of Joseph Smith and other Mormon teachers?
My personal connection with God?
What?
Seth, once again, you appear to be one of the sharpest knives in the drawer of theists. I would be interested in hearing your answer to the following four questions:
ReplyDelete1. What would it take to convince you that the LDS Church is not the "correct" brand of Christianity?
2. What would it take to convince you that the Book of Mormon is nothing more than the product of Jospeh Smith's imagination?
3. What would it take to convince you that the Bible is nothing more than a collection of myths?
4. What would it take to convince you that God does not exist? In other words, when you talk about your personal connection with God, what would it take to convince you that this "personal connection" has no basis in reality and is as meaningless as me talking about my personal connection with the Tooth Fairy.
On top of that, if you insist you have a personal connection with god, could you please go into a bit more detail?
ReplyDeleteWhat exactly do you mean? Please do not tell us that we cannot understand becasue we are atheists, at least try. I know someone who always cops out with that and it's rather aggravating.
Oh, and on reading your comment about supporting Hitler, the germans who didn't support Hitler for other reasons (the benefits he was giving the country), then the rest supported him out of fear.
ReplyDeleteI'm sure you'd have followed him too had the gestapo threaten you and your family.
Your comments regarding the 'bigger bat' highlight a big reason why people believe in god. They are scared of what happens after life ends. The 'stick' in this case is the promise of an eternity of pain if you do not worship him. So really, worshiping your god is no different (as AM has already mentioned) than following hitler in that respect.
Surely you have to admit that at least part of the reason you worship your god is becasue you fear his vengeance if yo do not...
Anyway, you have enough to respond to, thanks.
Rabhimself,
ReplyDeleteI'll answer one of yours and save the other questions I have for later (been a bit busy - but I have read the responses).
I do admit that at least part of the reason I worship God is fear of punishment. But I also recognize this motive as an inferior motivation. It is also insufficient to establish faith in me. So fear of punishment has never had primary place in my worship life. It's been there, but I wouldn't call it the primary motive in my religious life.
I come from a pretty stubborn line of people, and we don't generally respond well to coercion or bribery. This is actually true of a lot of Utah Mormons from the old historic stock, if you'd bother to get to know them. Very stubborn bunch, and rather hard to manipulate or rule over.
My primary motivation in this faith, is that I like key aspects of the package deal, not because I've been promised heavenly goodies, or threatened with infernal pitchforks.
As to my relationship with God. I could go into details, but I'm pretty sure you wouldn't find them convincing. Mostly moments of happiness, intellectual clarity, moments of decision, or just viewing something beautiful. I felt the connection. But I'm aware that the participants here would find any number of other explanations for all of those things. So I don't usually bother with sharing this kind of stuff in atheist forums.
You don't explain it the same way. I get that, and it doesn't bug me much.
Seth, I look forward to reading your further responses. Up to know, about all I am hearing from you is that the thought of God appeals to you. What I am really interested is why you believe in the existence of this supernatural entity and the record of his/her/its supposed intervention in human history as recorded in the Bible and the Book of Mormon. If you are just someone who stares up at the sky and feels that "there must be a higher power", it is hard to argue with that (even though I am not inclined to agree with that view).
ReplyDeleteSeth,
ReplyDeleteThe thought of santa clause appeals to me. Some guy saves me a bunch of time and money at christmas time by not only getting, but delivering presents for me.
The tooth fairy also appeals to me. Every time I lose a tooth, i get compensation! She would also save me money if i ever have any children.
Just because something silly sounds appealing, doesn't mean you should believe it. God is no different from either of the above imaginary beings in this respect. Someone who will always love you, will look over you and your loved ones, will support you in time of need, will reward you for being good in life. Sadly though seth, god fails to deliver. Just like good old santa and the tooth fairy. Why? - Because he's not there.
I'm also curious, are you partially admitting that your belief in god is slightly due to being stubborn? That is, you would point blank refuse to admit defeat if i could hypothetically prove he doesn't exist?
'Mostly moments of happiness, intellectual clarity, moments of decision, or just viewing something beautiful.' - Your right seth, these things do not need a god to explain them. Here's one for you, i'm in line to graduate with a first class degree in chemistry in a few weeks time. Throughout my university career i've had to use my brain considerably to get answers, solve problems, come up with ideas. I couldn't even estimate the amount of times i've had a moment of mental clarity. The penny drops, it all fits in. I get it.
Now seth, you know i'm an atheist, so why has god gifted me with such ability in my field when i actively preach on places like this that not only does he not exist, but i ridicule the very idea of him and anything biblical?
Doesn't make sense does it?
Come on Seth, i've got a feeling your eyes are slowly opening and that you are beginning to question your belief.
Rabhimself,
ReplyDeleteI'm a Mormon. Mormons don't believe that God created everything that we are. We believe our own identities and the universe itself to be co-eternal with God and not created by him (out of nothing). What you are is just as much your own responsibility in Mormon theology as it is God's.
As for the tooth fairy or Santa Claus. Neither of those concepts provides a useful paradigm for viewing the universe or for contextualizing human ethics. God does these things. Which makes him a sight more useful than believing in fairies.
Now TAM, I'll have a shot at some of your questions.
"1. What would it take to convince you that the LDS Church is not the "correct" brand of Christianity?"
I would have to see that another brand of Christianity has more to offer. Evangelical Protestantism is right out. Very little in that tradition appeals to me. Of all Christian denominations, Eastern Orthodoxy appeals the most due to the richness of its ritual and tradition. I also like select theological notions in that tradition. Theosis is one (the notion that human beings can become divine in some sense). I also like how the E. Orthodox are not rigidly bound to the textual inerrancy of the Bible - which always struck me as a rather unrealistic (and ironically, un-Biblical) notion. They supplement it both with Church tradition and with the authority of ongoing leaders.
It makes for a much more versatile handling of the doctrinal framework.
I'd even pick Judaism and Islam before going Protestant. Protestantism today has degenerated into basically something akin to being a fan of Oprah Winfrey, or being a believer in Amway products. A lot of shallow focus on self-esteem rubbish and gimmiks like wearing blue jeans to church and playing the guitar instead of the organ. As if that could substitute for having a real religious community life.
I also find the smug Evangelical insistence on "me, my Jesus, and my Bible" to be rather self-centered and unaware of the community aspect of religion.
"2. What would it take to convince you that the Book of Mormon is nothing more than the product of Jospeh Smith's imagination?"
There's multiple layers to this and it's not as simple a job as a lot of Evangelical fundamentalists, and there atheist fundamentalist counterparts might imagine.
First off, you might start by trying to convince me the Book of Mormon is not historically accurate. So you might pull out the usual Evangelical fundie talking points:
-horses
-iron and steel
-barley
-coins
-DNA (which I already responded to, and do not wish to repeat)
-use of King James New Testament concepts in an account that is supposed to be taking place before the birth of Christ.
And we could argue about all of them, since none of them really establish anything about the historicity of the BoM.
But let's just pretend that you convince me that the BoM is not historically accurate. You still haven't proven to me that the ENTIRE account is inaccurate. You've only attacked select portions of the book. The other portions remain unchallenged.
How can this be? You might ask. Doesn't the fact that Joseph Smith was wrong about horses shoot the entire book down?
No.
The only way that would be true is if you subscribe to the childish Christian fundamentalist view that prophets must always be infallible in everything they do, write and say - or they aren't really prophets and we should reject EVERYTHING they say.
This view is extreme, unsupportable, illogical, and frankly childish. It's a pity that the dim bulbs of Christian fundamentalism have so poisoned the discussion about religion that even the atheists adopt their stupid assumptions hook-line-and sinker.
A religion, or a prophet, or a holy book, does not have to be 100% true in order to be adopted and utilized in religious life. They can have flaws and still be the foundation for a very nice set of religious beliefs.
This is not an all-or-nothing proposition.
Sure, it might make your job a lot easier if proving there were no horses in the pre-Columbian Americas were the ONLY thing you had to do to destroy the entire thing.
But sorry to disappoint, that's not the way it works.
Now, let's pretend you actually prove enough historical claims of the BoM wrong to convince me that it's "more likely than not" that the history is entirely fictional (be warned - this is not as easy a task as you think it is). What now?
Is this enough to prove to me that the book is not from God?
No.
Even if we take the entire history as fictional, you still haven't attacked the ethics, teachings, and doctrines contained in the book. So you'll now have to go through the entire book and show that at least most of the teachings in the book are not useful or correct, or that they are not from God. Since we're talking about a rather complex book, good luck with that.
You see, I have a more open view on what constitutes a prophet or holy man than you do. I am willing to accept the possibility that even a delusional, crazy guy who made things up can be a holy man and speak the mind of God. I do not share the one-dimensional view of life promoted by Christian fundies, and accepted by many atheists.
"3. What would it take to convince you that the Bible is nothing more than a collection of myths?"
You'd have to go through the same process as the BoM.
"4. What would it take to convince you that God does not exist?"
I already kind of delved into this with Rabhimself. Basically, you'd have to show me why such belief is not only unnecessary (that alone won't do it), but also outright harmful. Short of that, I don't think the ultimate question of whether there is a God is even an answerable question - since it basically amounts to proving a negative.
Hope that gives enough for further thought. Thanks.
Seth, just a quick one as i have to leave soon.
ReplyDeleteI appreciate what you are saying about the fallability of a prophet. However, where do you draw the line when it comes to blatant falsehoods?
In my opinion, the horses error looks like a major discrepancy in the book of mormon. As such, this should come hand in hand with major loss in credability.
I don't believe that because the BoM is a religious book, it should have extra leniancy towards testimonial innacuracy. In fact, given the extraordinary claims that the book makes, it should have a lesser margin for error.
If someone told you they went to africa, and told you a lot of very far fetched stories, one of which included the sighting of two polar bears hunting. You would most likely discredit their entire story, safe in the knowledge that polar bears are only native towards the arctic circle. I mean, its pretty hard to justify seeing polar bears in africa, just like it was to have horses in the americas during the time stated in the BoM.
Just wondered if this changes your opinion slightly on the matter.
Seth, I am beginning to sense that you are one of the rare members of your flock that will smile when you see the picture which begins this post instead of jumping to the rabid conclusion that I am a Mormon hater. You know that isn't so.
ReplyDeleteYou have fairly answered my questions and about all I can say is this:
1. You are a smart fellow - much too smart to swallow what the LDS is asking you to swallow.
2. I would bet my left nut that you would not be a member of the LDS if your parents had not been members.
3. To be frank, I am less interested in why you have chosen the LDS brand of Christianity (see #2) as opposed to why you appear willing to believe there is a supernatural being which you refer to as God. There is , quite simply, no evidence to back up that assertion. As Rabhimself will tell you, we can't disprove God but the onus is not on us (as Christopher Hitchens has said: what can be asserted without evidence, can be dismissed without evidence).
4. Although you identify yourself as a Mormon, my sense is that when we get right down to it you are an agonostic with an affinity for the ontological argument supporting the existence of God. You like the idea of God. The supposition of God explains things that you feel require an explanation, such as "useful paradigm for viewing the universe or for contextualizing human ethics". You also appear convinced that belief in the supernatural is not "outight harmful" and I would tend to agree - the only problem is that people allow such beliefs to dictate how they and others should live their lives.
I often admit on this site that many good deeds are done in the name of religion. My point is simply that religion is not an essential ingredient to those good deeds and we all know that plenty bad happens in the name of religion and as a result of religious beliefs.
While I am an admitted enemy of religion, I am not your enemy. I just know that you would still be a good person without being hamstrung by the fairytales. I suspect that when it comes right down to it, you know that as well. Peace.
Rabhimself first, TAM later.
ReplyDeleteRab, it would not change my opinion much.
The horses issue is addressed several ways.
1. There may have actually been horses in the Americas before the Columbus and we just don't know about them.
The assumption that there were no horses in the pre-Columbia Americas is just that - an assumption.
When French trappers and explorers penetrated inland North America, they found large horse herds already there.
It was assumed that they were just strays from the Spaniards. Assumed.
Archeologists have also found horse bones in Central American digs. They'd always toss the bones away as "site contamination." But the bones were found at the right levels of digging...
Just saying, scientists can be as dogmatic as anybody. There's no real reason to believe there couldn't have been pre-Columbian horses in North or South America. It's just been assumed there weren't.
You might object that if there were pre-Columbian horse herds, we certainly would have discovered them by now.
First off, this places too much faith in the power of science to discover the world. Most of archeology is a matter of sheer luck. Tons of info about our world is never discovered or established. Any archeologist can tell you this.
But secondly, who says that even if there were such herds, they would have left evidence? Most biological evidence does not survive, and what does survive is pretty hard to discover. Think how much territory you would have to excavate before you could be comfortable that you had really ruled out the possibility of an animal being present or not.
We know from many independent historical records that the Huns - a nomadic people who raised massive horse herds - lived in Romania and Bulgaria about the time of the Romans.
Guess what -
We've never uncovered so much as a horse femur to prove that there were EVER Hunic horses in Romania or Bulgaria.
Bones decompose. Most do.
If you find one actually preserved from a thousand years ago, it's remarkable enough to border on a freaking miracle.
So no, I don't think anything has been established here.
Secondly, we have no real reason to know what the word "horses" meant in the Book of Mormon in the first place.
Just play along with me for a second and pretend that the Book of Mormon really did come from an ancient record written in a lost American language from over 1,000 years ago.
Would the word "horses" in such a record necessarily mean horses as we know them?
Not necessarily. It was common practice for ancient peoples who were faced with new surroundings to use known and familiar words to describe different animals.
The word "hippopotamus" for example, comes from the Greek hippos, meaning "horse" and potamos, meaning "river."
It is not uncommon for ancient peoples to name something new by familiar names. It could have referred to llamas for all we know, or elk, or who knows what.
Or, as I mentioned, it could just as well refer to horses.
Also, don't read more from the Book of Mormon account than is really there. For instance, one passage talks about "numberless chariots." But if you know what the passage is about, you'll realize it's actually just a Nephite prophet quoting the words of Isaiah - a Bible prophet in Palestine.
But that hasn't stopped some of our more uninformed critics from asserting that the Book of Mormon speaks of "armies of chariots" in pre-Columbian America.
The other passage with horses refers to a servant readying a single "chariot" and it's horses for use by a king.
Of course, we have no idea what these words mean here. They might mean what you think of when you hear them. Or they might refer to something else entirely.
That's pretty much all I have to respond to on the "horses" issue in the BoM.
Thanks Seth,
ReplyDeleteAgain, i appreciate all of the above. Bones degrade too, so perhaps there were horses.
Problem is though, it's not really an assumption that they weren't there. The scientists that concluded they most probably weren't, based their conclusion on the same thing all scientists do. Evidence.
I'm sure that the american natives, whether they be northern or southern provided some of this evidence. If they hadn't seen horses until the spaniards arrived, you have to admit seth that more than likely, they weren't around.
As for the huns raising and breeding horses, yet no fossils from that time can be found - this is the opposite of the above. The natives (huns) testify that they had horses, and i'm sure the romans knew they did too.
It doesn't really matter, i get the picture that you basically believe there were horses, as there are 'several ways' to adress the 'issue'.
I'm sorry but it just sounds a bit straw-clutchy to me. The biggest evidence isn't the lack of remains, it surely has to be that the natives from north to south hadn't seen horses until the spanish arrival.
I agree with AM, i don't think this is something you have taken on board all by yourself. I think you have been impressioned upon at a young age, and haven't dropped it since.
If you need god to explain everything that to you is inexplicable, then i accept that. Although i still think that to believe in god, not just yours, any god, or any imaginary being that there is NO evidence for, requires the suspension of critical thinking.
Your critical thinking allows you to dismiss zeus, thor, ra, horus etc etc (who like your god, give a ''"useful paradigm for viewing the universe or for contextualizing human ethics" ), or even on a more simple level, santa and the tooth fairy. When you understand and apply why you dont believe in these gods, to your own god, then you will break free of the LDS church' chains and indeed religion as a whole.
I want to leave you with a mind blowing thought, that to me is enough information alone to make me believe there is no god. Last night i was watching a program on the universe. This program was basically a journey to the edge of our universe, starting from our solar system, out to the edge of our galaxy, out to the edge of intergalactic space. Basically as far as our knowledge goes about the universe.
Did you know chip, that there are more than likely, more GALAXIES in our universe, than there are GRAINS OF SAND on EVERY beach on our planet.
Now given that fact, and then applying the fact that of our own galaxy, our solar system, let alone our tiny planet is a tiny tiny tiny fraction of it, really humbles me.
It makes me ask, why would god go to such measures? Think about it - he instantaneously made everything not on this earth, and then took his time over the next few days to make stuff on our planet. I know your response is very likely something along the lines of, 'the lord works in mysterious ways', or perhaps you simply don't know, but when i think critically about this seth, we are nothing. We are so damn small it is really mind blowing.
The above might mean nothing to you, you might not care. It just upsets me, that when I look at of all those sand grains, somewhere in one of those grains, there is an atom. Orbiting that atoms nucleus is a tiny electron - and on that tiny electron is our world.
On that world, there are billions of people, that all believe in groups that a god of some sort (although they dont agree with one another) created everything, the electron, the atom, billions and billions of grains of sand - then put them on the most pathetic, insignificant amount of it.
It amazes me. Simply amazes me.
Thanks for reading.
You need to be clear that it was the Aztecs that Cortez conquered who reported never seeing horses. It wasn't, as you broad-brush it, "all native Americans." Since the plains Indians, for example, had no written record, we frankly have no way of testing whether there were or were not horses on the Great Plains prior to the Spaniards.
ReplyDeleteThis is compounded by the fact that the Spaniards burned most of the Aztec records as heretical texts.
Again, we are comparing a highly historically documented area with one of the most undocumented areas in human history.
As for your description of the vastness of the universe, it reminds me of a passage in the Book of Moses (written by Joseph Smith), where Moses encounters God. God declares to Moses that there is no end to his works, but that he knows them all. Moses is then shown a small fraction of those works and is amazed. After the vision, he declares: "Now, for this cause I know that man is nothing, which thing I never had supposed."
So, your sentiment isn't exactly new.
By the way, I'm not a "Young Earth Creationist."
I view the "six days" stuff in Genesis as purely symbolic and not literal.
A final point about Mormons, you are lumping us in with other Christians. We do not believe in "creation ex nihilo" (creation from nothing). We do not believe that God simply caused the universe (and us) to appear out of nothing. Joseph Smith taught that matter is co-eternal with God. That the universe has always existed and was never brought "out of nothing." He also taught that the most basic form of human identity is also eternal and was not created, neither can be created.
Mormon scripture describes an infinite universe, so your usual arguments against traditional Christians, refuting a universe with a finite beginning do not apply when you are talking to Mormons. We view the universe as co-eternal with God.
I wasn't really trying to make an argument, i was simply stating that it is a bit ridiculous that we occupy such a tiny amount of our universe.
ReplyDeleteIf i was god, i'd give the beings that are supposed to worship me a more meaningful place of existence. It just doesn't make sense chip, that's all.
I mean, whats wrong with just creating the earth, the sun and the moon and leaving it at that? It's just silly.
So seth, if i could hypothetically prove to you there was no god, would you persist in your belief? Or would you believe it because joseph smith tells you to?
It is of my understanding that a women called Lucy Harris stole the first section of the translation of the plates. Basically, she knew that the whole thing was a scam and knew that if they were telling the truth, Joseph smith would be able to retranslate the start again, impeccably, without error, and really should have produced EXACTLY what she has stolen word from word.
Unsurprisingly, seth, smith couldn't do this. Claiming that he had lost the ability to translate that section (or something like that) and re-wrote it shortly after, having received instructions from god. Even when he did this, i've heard that aside from word ordering/use discrepancies, there is actually content discrepancy as well.
Can't you see how ridiculous this is? If he was genuine, he would've produced it again, word for word. There are so many things wrong with the whole thing; why couldn't god force lucy harris to hand over the paper? Why couldn't he direct smith to where she had hidden them? Why couldn't he just allow smith to translate the start again? - Smith did what anybody trying to maintain a hoax would do, he makes up an excuse as to why he cant reproduce what has been lost. A ridiculous, silly excuse, that requires the SUSPENSION OF CRITICAL THINKING to believe.
Heck, why couldn't god just translate the plates himself? There's just so much hocus pocus it makes me sick.
Seth, if you can honestly tell me you believe such nonsense then i will give up. Although i have to admit, it genuinely saddens me that someone who posesses your intellect can be fooled so much. I think brainwashing is the only thing that could make you so delusional.
I'm sorry if that offends you seth, but if i and a few collaborators wrote a story about being visited by an angel jospeh smith, who had x y and z to say about what god wants or something, you'd never believe us. I don't understand why you believe in the book of mormon so much. It depresses me.
Rabhimself, don't be depressed. The mere fact that Seth is willing to talk about the Mormon belief system is cause for optimism. Usually, they just hide in their holes, call you a Mormon hater and ask you to kick them up the stairs to heaven (I love that last one).
ReplyDeleteThat program you mentioned about the universe intrigues me. I have always wanted to learn more about astronomy and I intend to do so in the coming years. Do you know the name of that show? I think the point you made illustrates the fact that humans have difficulty comprehending our relative insignificance in the scale of the universe in much the same way as we are unable to comprehend the vastness of geological time.
I suppose you are right in that respect AM and i really do appreciate that Seth is willing to talk about his beliefs. It still saddens me however how above-average people with respect to intellect can be made a fool of by religion.
ReplyDeleteThe 2 hour long show is a national geographic production - Journey To The Edge Of The Universe. I'd highly recommend it. The show displays the beauty and extreme power that the universe has. It starts from a beach right here on earth, and in one fluid camera motion, extends out to the very edge of the universe (obviously narrated throughout). It contains some jaw-dropping facts, as well as some scary prospects.
It really does show you how tiny we are.
I fail to see how I've "been made a fool of."
ReplyDeleteLet's take one of your quotes:
"knew that if they were telling the truth, Joseph smith would be able to retranslate the start again, impeccably, without error, and really should have produced EXACTLY what she has stolen word from word."
This proves nothing, except that you've bought into the religious assumptions of the Christian fundamentalists. You assume that if something is from God, it would have to be word-for-word flawless.
This is a silly view of religion that I've already told you I reject.
I have to wonder if you aren't deliberately picking the stupidest version of religious belief you can find out there, and then attacking it, instead of religious belief as you find it in the minds of those you talk with.
I do not believe in scriptural inerrancy. I do not believe the process of revelation or of creating scripture is flawless. I believe that if Joseph translated the same material again, there would have been differences. And then, people who share the same faulty assumptions about scripture that you do would have crowed about how the fact he placed an apostrophe in a different spot, or how he translated a word as "happy" in one version, and "joyful" in another.
I don't believe in flawless scriptures. For me, the transmission of God's mind to us has always had two elements in the equation:
Mind of God + a human medium
One of those two inputs is flawed and always will be. Perfect scriptures are therefore an impossibility.
This pretty-much torpedoes your argument about the lost pages. So go back to the drawing board, take into account the fact that I don't believe the scriptures are now, or ever have been the flawless, word-for-word, will of God, and get back to me on that.
I'd also point out that it doesn't matter how big the universe is and how small our corner of it is. My corner of it is pretty important TO ME.
For me, that's enough. Besides, Mormons don't believe this is the only inhabited world God ever created.
It gets even funner when you delve into string theory and entertain the possibility that THIS universe may be only one of an infinite number of universes existing in other dimensions.
TAM,
ReplyDeleteYou wrote:
"2. I would bet my left nut that you would not be a member of the LDS if your parents had not been members."
I would agree with you actually. But that's not really a sufficient argument against Mormon belief.
"as Christopher Hitchens has said: what can be asserted without evidence, can be dismissed without evidence)."
Yes, it "can" be so dismissed. That doesn't mean it should be so dismissed.
And actually, the onus is on you to disprove God. If you were one of those atheists who is indifferent about the life of the religious believers and were simply formulating your own private beliefs, then, yes - there would be no onus on your part to prove God didn't exist.
But the title of this blog is not "the self-contented atheist." The title is "The Atheist Missionary." That means you are not limiting yourself to your own private belief, but are rather moving out and looking to convince others.
And in this case, I'm sorry, but the onus is actually on you. Just like it was for me as an LDS missionary in Japan.
You go onto other people's turf, you are the one who has to produce. That's just the way it works.
You mentioned the "ontological argument" as being possibly mine, but honestly, I've never been a big fan. I agree that the argument essentially boils down to bare assertion and doesn't really prove anything.
My conviction has undergone its own evolution over the years. At first it was primarily a matter of confidence. First confidence in my parents, and other early authority figures. Later it was confidence in the assertions of others whom I find reliable and credible. They speak of outright miraculous encounters, and enough of them that I don't find dismissing them as "coincidence" very likely.
That used to be the primary foundation, but I've moved on since then. I still find the experiences of people I trust within the LDS Church compelling. These aren't idiots by any stretch. But I have other reasons.
I also mentioned that I find the ethical and theological framework of Mormonism, useful. It's more than that actually. There is a certain symmetry and beauty to the Mormon cosmic view (when understood on more than the superficial level so many get stuck on) that I don't find anywhere else. I've found the Mormon view to be useful in contextualizing the ideas of Aristotle, Hume, Kant, Marx, and even Nietzsche if you can believe it.
In fact, take this particular quote from Nietzsche:
"Companions, the creator seeks, not corpses, not herds and believers. Fellow creators, the creator seeks -- those who write new values on new tablets. Companions, the creator seeks, and fellow harvesters; for everything about him is ripe for the harvest. ... Fellow creators, Zarathustra seeks, fellow harvesters and fellow celebrants: what are herds and shepherds and corpses to him?"
Nietzsche, Thus Spoke Zarathustra
I always found it a piece of great irony that the declared "father of atheism" sounds an awful lot like a Mormon in this particular quote. Mormon theology has always posited God, the Creator as seeking for companions rather than worshipers.
This tends to make a lot of Evangelicals mad at us, but whatever.
Finally, my own conviction is based on an intuitive sense of God from personal experience. God has accompanied me through some pretty tough points of my life. I felt him there and as a result, I do feel confident in his existence.
I don't pretend that any of this is evidence for you guys. It's the sort of evidence that can only ever be personally compelling - never publicly compelling.
Either you experience it personally, or you don't. This is what makes Mormonism unique, we aren't taught to come to you bearing logical proofs, historical facts, and other objective evidence that will force people to concede we are right.
We merely present the truths we have, present our own lives as imperfect examples of what living this religion means, and then invite you to find out for yourself.
That's really all we are supposed to do.
Incidentally, you mentioned how believers are not content to merely do what I describe, but then try to force their views on others. I should probably point out right now that I didn't support my Church's position on Proposition 8 in California (to use a prominent and recent example). Just thought that info would be useful to you.
Seth,
ReplyDeleteYour being made a fool of in my opinion, you have been brainwashed.
Let me clarify why the translation should have been identical to the first one on the second attempt.
He was given two discs to decode the inscriptions on the plates, yes? Then it has to be the case that a second translation would be the same. I don't know how you can't see this, i can only conclude that you choose not to, rather than can't!
Imagine someone gave you a sheet of papers made up of a bunch of symbols. You were then given another piece of paper identifying each letter with their symbol.
Seth, there is no way that after handing me the first translation, a second translation would be any different. Just no way, yeah, he's fallable, but a code is a code, a hyrogliph is a hyrogliph. It's not going to re-arrange itself after he has translated it the first time.
Again seth, im sorry, but this comes down to the suspension of critical thinking. I think you full well know that he should've been able to translate the first part again. If you are given tools to translate an ancient code, surely the end product should always be the same.
Claiming he was instructed BY GOD to NOT translate it again is just a blatant cop-out. No wonder joseph smith was angry at harris for handing them to his wife, its put him in a terrible position to try and replicate what he originally fabricated. Can you not see this?
No god, who is more intelligent than us, would demand that he does not translate the same section again, but instead go to another book. People ridicule your faith partly because of this, now if god knows everything, he would've seen this coming and would have aided joseph smith to translate the first bit again.
Come on seth, this is just nonsense! It's nothing but blind, ignorant faith!!
Rab,
ReplyDeleteWhat do you think is involved in a human translator viewing and writing down an unknown language?
Because I reject the "translation machine" model you are trying to push here.
And what do you mean by "brainwashed" anyway?
ReplyDeleteIt seems to me that I am no more brainwashed by my society and assumptions than you are by yours.
For instance, I consider anyone mentally damaged enough to consider "reality television" "entertainment" to be irrevocably brainwashed. No other way to explain how something that stupid could possibly be considered worthwhile entertainment.
But now we are getting into definitions of brainwashing that are so broad as to be meaningless and unhelpful in polite conversation.
Final point:
ReplyDeleteBesides Rab, this is just name-calling from you.
"You're brainwashed."
How does that add anything helpful to the conversation?
It's basically no different than the "heretic" label I get from Evangelicals, or the "cult" label I get from others. Self-serving, and self-reinforcing labels that really say nothing other than "that person is bad" or "that person is subhuman" in some sense.
My experience is that people usually trot out the name-calling when they don't feel like they are getting anywhere and want to end the conversation on a note that makes them feel self-justified, without having to pay anything for that self-righteous contentment.
Come on... You're basically resorting to the same tactics as the spamlds guys you were ridiculing earlier.
Well as far as im led to believe, it more or less is a translation machine. He had the plates, he had the discs. How can he make an error using them?
ReplyDeleteLike i said, i find it difficult to believe that if i gave you the same plates seth, you wouldnt be able to come up with the same translation twice.
As for the brainwashing comments, it's not name calling, i'm sorry, but it's just a polite way of saying your parents have made an impression on you when you were young, and its stuck. That better?
As for myself, i'm the only atheist in my immediate family. I was made to go to sunday school when i was young, and i believed in god until my early teens. Puberty hit, my mind and body matured, i came to the conclusion there is no god. That pretty much sums it up. I do not live in an atheistic society. Besides, atheism is incapable of indoctrination - there is no scripture, nobody goes around preaching it, there is no deity to answer to, no 'ministers', no nothing. If i'm guilty of being brainwashed about anything, its that i must properly examine evidence before accepting extraordinary claims - but this isn't so much brainwashing, as it is rationale and logic. This obviously doesn't apply to you, or any other religiot on the planet.
Seems to me you are concentrating on the fact i referred to you as brainwashed instead of adressing the points at hand. I may call you brainwashed, but i listen to you seth. i'm prepared to debate with you instead of only accepting what i think, so give me a break, and get back on topic.
In any case, i apologise. I see no need to make an entire post about it though, seems rather dramatic to me. Simply justify to me why you are not brainwashed and continue. You've already said you probably wouldn't be mormon if your parents weren't. The implication of this is simple, you are mormon because it has been drummed into you.
So really, i could've used a less offensive expression, but this in essense, is brainwashng.
When it comes to your religion, you appear to be devoid of critical thinking. You dismiss other religions by application of critical thinking, but cant do this to your own! I believe the indoctrination you have received is partly responsible for this.
It just seemed to me that you pulled out the "brainwashing" remark when you had run out of other ideas.
ReplyDeleteThese things never promote conversation. They are almost always conversation stoppers - signals that you no longer want to talk, but would still like to make a token parting-shot about how wrong you think the other person is.
As to the process of translation....
Let's just pretend that such a language as "Reformed Egyptian" existed and Joseph did indeed uncover a book full of this language and translated it with divine aid.
How would that work?
Would it be a word-for-word translation of the Reformed Egyptian? Something a computer could do if you gave it the right inputs?
It would not.
We can't even do that with modern languages by computer. Try it sometimes with a web tool that translates from another language to English. I have with Japanese websites, and the results are an absolute mess. A word-for-word translation from Japanese to English is impossible. Japanese have words for things we don't even have IDEAS for here in the USA. Sometimes the Japanese can - with a single word - convey an entire American sentence. The language is very much more abbreviated than English is. Thoughts are expressed quickly and without a lot of words.
I actually tried my hand at translating a Japanese movie into English once. And I found that a word-for-word translation was usually completely ridiculous-sounding and often completely incomprehensible. I ended up having to rewrite entire sections of script in my own words to try and convey the meaning.
Sometimes, I found it better to simply abandon the exact Japanese meaning for an English phrase that would fit the context.
So your "translation computer" analogy doesn't even work for the languages we know about!
Japanese is actually a good example here, because Reformed Egyptian - as described in the Book of Mormon - WAS a highly abbreviated language. Hebrew, as Mormon explains in the text, was too lengthy and wordy to be useful in a record that would be painstakingly inscribed on metal plates. Thus an abbreviated language based on concise hieroglyphics was used.
It would actually be impossible to render such a language into English completely accurately. No matter whether God was helping you or not.
Secondly, how was Joseph actually "translating" here?
Have you ever played that game where one person will whisper a predetermined message into his neighbor's ear from memory, and then the next person, then the next person? By the end of the game, the message is usually unrecognizable for how much it has been mangled in transmission.
So, I'm saying you get a theoretically perfect source of some ideas - God.
But it has to be transmitted to imperfect human beings who will receive it imperfectly. They will add their own distortions, their own prejudices, and their owned flawed language paradigm.
Theoretically, it is literally impossible for the thoughts of God to be translated into flawed human language in the first place. So you've got a flawed product from day one.
Then you have Joseph Smith receiving these "transmissions" and filtering them through his own human mind.
Unless you believe that God completely wipes out the human element and uses the human being as a machine, this is the only way a "translation" can occur.
Mormons prize human free will very highly, and the notion that a powerful God would intervene and do some sort of divine mind-control on a person is repulsive to us.
Thus it is literally impossible for the Mormon God to render a perfect translation of a sacred record. Not if you want human free will preserved.
Another lesson of the lost pages is this - God will allow things to be lost due to human failings. Even very important things. Even scripture.
Joseph Smith refused to listen to the first answer God gave him regarding the manuscript ("don't hand it over") and continued to pester God until finally he relented. Then the pages were lost.
God had the plates removed from Joseph's possession. He spoke of finding someone else entirely to do the work instead of Joseph - starting from scratch, if you will.
In the end, God allowed Joseph to continue with the work. But what was lost was lost. Sometimes that's how life is. Your messes cannot be corrected, and your failings do have irrevocable consequences, and sometimes God will not step in an magically "make it all better."
It was a rough lesson for Joseph to learn.
But either way, you're computer translator idea isn't even true of languages we do know today. Much less so with languages long lost.
By the way, just calling something "indoctrination" is never proof that someone is wrong.
ReplyDeleteSeth, I've been doing a bit more reading about Joseph Smith's golden plates and I get the definite sense that your powers of reason are being challenged by this aspect of the LDS faith. There may be many things about Mormonism that appeal to you and you may have experienced some kind of spiritual experience that you interpret as the Holy Spirit revealing itself to you. I can buy all of that (admittedly just barely). However, if you can seriously accept that Moroni appeared and led Smith to the plates, that Smith translated the plates with a seer stone and that the plates magically disappeared after the translation was completed, you are deluding yourself. If I were to tell you a similarly outlandish story from a different religious tradition, you would think it is as whacked out as I think your belief in the plate story is.There are a couple of aspects which you cannot avoid if you call yourself a member of the LDS. First of all, my understanding is that your Church accepts the existence of the plates as a matter of faith. Anyone who would dare to suggest that Smith was a charlatan (at least to the extent that he dreamed up the Book of Mormon, with considerable assistance by copying significant portions lock stock and barrel from the Bible) cannot fairly call themself a Mormon.
ReplyDeleteI have to agree with rabhimself that Smith's failure to able to reproduce the text is irrefutable proof that he was a fraud. This was not a translation in the conventional sense - Smith did not have a sweet clue what he was supposedly translating and used the seer stone to show him the words in English. This was not rocket science. The words were just revealed to him - kind of like using magic ink when you were a kid.
Your apologist attempts to explain away this problem and the historical inconsistencies in the Book of Mormon (you have a much better idea of these than I do) use a line of reasoning that is employed by creationists. In other words, you can explain away any evidence that is put to you which is inconsistent with what you believe. In fact, if somehow I could invent a time machine and go back and videotape every second of Smith's life, you would still dismiss that evidence as unsatisfactory and/or the work of the Devil.
To illustrate this point, English philosopher Stephen Law has posited that dogs are really spies from Venus and, no matter what argument you present to the contrary, he can always get around them (eg. critique: we can see the surface of Venus and there is no life present - answer: they are invisible at home or they live underground). I get the same sense as I read your defence of the Smith story about the golden plates. It is just all so silly as to defy the imagination. I just find it utterly fascinating that you find these stories persuasive - I would love to get inside your head and find out what is going on because you otherwise sound like a very smart and sensible guy. I guess I should go looking for some ex-LDS members to get a better understanding of what was going on while they were "in" and what happened to get them "out".
Neither of you are even presenting an argument at this point.
ReplyDeleteAll you are doing is throwing out words like "deluded" and "unbelievable" and "ridiculous."
That's not arguing or debating. That's just one-sided boundary maintenance. I've presented arguments. Your response has merely been to say "that's a stretch" without ever explaining why. Accusing me of mental gymnastics is not an argument. It's merely an excuse to end the conversation on the high ground - whether you've earned it or not.
Are we done with this conversation then?
Incidentally, of course religion is fantastic and incredible.
That's the whole point of religion in the first place. If it wasn't "far out" there wouldn't be much point in having it, would there?
One last point - I'd be careful about going to ex-Members for good angle on what makes Mormonism tick.
I happen to have several ex-Mormon friends - both atheist and theist. They are very articulate and reasonable people. I respect their opinions quite a bit.
But there are plenty of ex-Mormons out there who really aren't all that reasonable or thoughtful. A lot of them have become almost outright bigots.
Leaving a religion you've been attached to your entire life is a rough experience. It often generates a lot of anger. The anger clouds one's vision and prevents a person from seeing things objectively.
Really, a lot of ex-Mormons are very much like bitter ex-spouses after a bad divorce - vindictive, angry, self-righteous, self-justifying, and utterly incapable of seeing anything good in their former spouse.
You'd be an idiot when looking at dating a woman, to go to her bitter ex-husband for dating tips. Sure, you'll "get the goods" on her. Some of it might even be true. But it will be filtered through a lens of bitterness and resentment that will paint a totally unfair picture of the person.
There are a variety of ex-Mormon sites out there and I've visited most of them at least once or twice.
The ones I respect are the more rational and calm ones where the participants have gotten over the "venting stage" and are actually just interested in exploring what Mormonism meant to them and their lives - from a non-believing standpoint.
You might try "Main Street Plaza" as an example of a credible ex-Mormon website.
Other sites are basically just overblown therapy sessions where people use the LDS Church as a punching bag for all their life frustrations.
Be sure you keep in mind what you are getting.
Seth, I have enjoyed the conversation. I will be cautious about relying on what I learn from ex-members. Quiet frankly, I am far more interested to know why LDS members believe than why they come to disbelief. I would be interested in your views on my post tonight: Divided they fail .....I assume your view is that a prophet can make all kinds of mistakes which makes any historical attack on what Smith Jr. said or did specious from your perspective.
ReplyDeleteNot necessarily specious TAM.
ReplyDeleteI'm actually open to the idea that Joseph may have been a fallen prophet at some point. But those character issues are not always inevitably linked to the validity of his revelations or teachings.
Seth,
ReplyDeleteI have to disagree with the translation matter again. The seer stones really should've done the same job as a modern day decoder. Let's look at your point regarding translating japanese. You pointed out it come out nonsense. That's fine, but the point is, it will always translate the same sentence as the same nonsense over and over and over.
It doesn't matter, i accept that you obviously believe it to be the case.
I think you should stop taking the indoctrination comments so personally. I'll stop sayin it, but believe me seth, i think that of EVERYONE who is a religiot.
Understand that if you were born in Iran you would be a muslim. You happened to be born into a mormon family and as such, you are now mormon. I'll reiterate that you have basically conceded this already.
I think we are presenting arguments seth, but i have to agree with TAM. Your behaviour is near identical to the way stephen law demonstrates with regards to dogs being from venus.
Anything we say, you respond to it with highly improbable counters. Also, there are several points we make that go unresponded. I'm not having a go at you here, i'm just pointing out that we aren't simply bashing you.
Once again i'll coin the term, 'suspension of critcal thinking'. All religiots are guilty of this when it comes to their own religion, but demonstrate they are more than capapble of thinking critically when it comes to evaluating a religion that is not theirs. You, being one of them, rubbish all other religions but not your own.
In addition, all modern day religiots agree with one another and use critical thinking to dismiss the gods of civillizations past (Zeus, Horus, Ra, Thor, Aphrodites, Aries to name a few, but the list is huge).
It genuinely baffles me as to why none of you realise that you are simply the latest additions in a VERY long list of religiots who are wrong about what they believe.
Rabhimself, I say Amen to that. Seth, when you decide to lift the suspension of critical thinking from the tenets of the LDS faith, I think you will find it refreshing. It might be a little more awkward for you at weddings, funerals, religious holidays, when you are asked to stand for grace or to swear an oath on the Bible, but you will realize that life without superstition does not have to be depressing, lonely or nihilistic. There are still many mysteries to be explained and disbelief in God does not mean that you cannot still be a spiritual person. You already seem to appreciate that a person can lead an entirely morally upstanding life (a "holy" life, if you like) without belief in God. You have, quite fairly, explained to us why the tenets of your religion appeal to you. About all I can say to that is that I like the idea of Santa Claus but I don't believe that he exists. My hope (and "prayer" if you like) is that someday you will realize there really is no difference between belief in Santa Claus and belief in God as the LDS Church proclaims he/she/it to exist. As I've said before, I'm not talking about looking up in the sky and proclaiming that there must be a force greater than yourself (indeed, there may be but I don't understand how you can have faith that there is). I'm talking about seas parting, people walking on water, people starting to decompose and coming back to life, angels called Moroni, golden plates, speaking in tongues, etc. Seth, all that stuff is just plain goofy. I apologize if you feel that we have been a bit harsh on you. I just want you to understand that I view your belief system in exactly the same way as you would view me if we met and I told you that I had martians living in my attic.
ReplyDeleteI don't think you're being particularly harsh. I just don't think you're presenting actual arguments other than saying stuff like "that's goofy."
ReplyDeleteWell... OK then...
By the way, my view of the seerstone was that it was not a "secret decoder ring." Nor was it some sort of magical heavenly computer.
ReplyDeleteIn fact, if you really look into Joseph's history of translating the book, you'll find that he went through a few different methods. At first he used a pair of interpreters enclosed with the plates (described as a breastplate with two clear stones raised and affixed above it like glasses). Then he found this device unnecessary and switched to the seerstone in the hat. He held onto the seerstone a while longer and utilized it even after the translation work was done. But ultimately hew abandoned it and no longer seemed to need it.
My own view is that the translation was through the man, not through the seerstone. The seerstone was simply the medium - a place to focus Joseph's mind and faith. Translation came by faith, and it came to Joseph the man. Not to a seerstone.
Essentially, it was a crutch that served the purpose of boosting Joseph's faith and focusing his mind. Little more. Translation was a human gift, not something that came out of a magic rock.
Well as far as i gathered he used the stones to decode the plates.
ReplyDeleteWe are presenting arguments other than, 'that's goofy'.
Read my post before TAM's. Read the last three paragraphs. What i have written is a logical evaluation of mankind and religion. To be honest seth, there is only one thing that would stop you being a member of that list - Evidence. But both TAM and I know that not you, or anyone else ever will provide such evidence because there is no such thing.
Please, explain why you don't think that mormonism is just like every other religion - false.
Yes, you have explained to us what appeals to you about it. That does not explain why it is true. Think about it seth. How many billions of non-mormon people in the past and present have had 100% belief in their god(s)? Now ask yourself, how many of them were right? Finally, why do you not belong in the same category?
Like i've mentioned several times now, the suspension of critical thinking can be and to be frank, is, the only thing that will result in you making the conclusion that everyone else is wrong, but you are right.
Read, what i have written and respond. I'm trying to present an argument based on simple logic and rational but you don't seem interested!
All that aside, 'that's goofy', would satisfy your decision to disbelieve that i am actually the son of the tooth fairy and that every night i practice robbing people of lost teeth....
Seth, forget Santa Claus and the tooth fairy.
ReplyDeleteConsider this:
Mormonism has roughly 13,000,000 adherents who believe, as a matter of faith, that the Book of Mormon was revealed to Joseph Smith Jr. by the angel Moroni.
Islam has roughly 1,400,000,000 adherents who believe, as a matter of faith,that the Qur'an was revealed to Mohammed (who they consider to be God's final prophet) by the angel Gabriel. Muslims believe that the Torah and Bible were also revealed by God but that those texts were neglected, corrupted or altered in time by the Jews and Christians and have been replaced by God's final and perfect revelation in the form of the Qur'an.
My question to you is this: what makes you so certain that the LDS Church is right and the tenets of the Islamic faith are wrong? Why aren't you a Muslim?
I don't rule out Mohammed as a prophet.
ReplyDeleteSeth, you are much more open minded than the Muslims or the majority of your LDS Church. I am gratified that you occasionally find time to visit this site and I hope that you will keep an open mind with respect to our criticisms of your beliefs. Rest assured that I will try to kep an open mind as well.
ReplyDeleteThe population of the LDS Church is more internally diverse than it's popular caricatures. I imagine the same is true of the Islamic world.
ReplyDeleteBut like any group of human beings, both will always be flawed. This leads to inevitable abuses.
But I see too much potential and cause for optimism within the paradigm of faith to accept that atheism is the inevitable and only cure.
Seth, when you have a moment, could you kindly give a response to my last post? I appreciate you are trying to deal with two of us at once so it's not easy to continually do so. I'm basically looking for a response on my comments of critical thinking that tou apply to other faiths (hence why you don't believe in them) but not to your own. Response to the point regarding religions throughout the development of mankind would also be appreciated.
ReplyDeleteI'd also like to add that i agree with TAM's past couple of posts. It's nice to debate with someone who displays a degree of open-mindedness.
Late response...
ReplyDeleteI think there is a communication problem when the atheist and theist try to discuss things.
Atheists seem to assume that the central fact of theistic life hinges on this one key question of "does God exist?"
Is that a fair assumption?
Well, i'm sure i speak for TAM when i say this:
ReplyDeleteSurely in order to believe in your religion so thoroughly, you MUST believe that the god behind it exists.
If you are about to tell us otherwise i think my jaw might hit the floor!
Seth, if we could get you to admit that you might be wrong about the existence of God, we would only differ on the sufficiency of evidence required to prove his existence (say on the balance of probabilities). Both Rabhimself and I believe that the existence of God is highly improbable but we can never disprove his/her/its existence absolutely. If you want to rely on the Bible, Book of Mormon and perhaps the fact that the idea just appeals to you in order to support your belief, I can accept that. However, I still think you are too smart to be wasting your time on something which I believe is just as improbable as a celestial teapot orbiting the earth.
ReplyDeleteI'll take that as a yes.
ReplyDeleteThis is not correct. Practicing Christians, as a rule believe that God exists. But the PROOF of whether he exists is actually almost completely irrelevant to our religious life.
For the atheist to demand that an entire body of religious thought be reduced to mere proof games about the existence of an unprovable being, is to miss the point of belief entirely.
Let me put it this way. If I walk up to you and declare that I'm in love with my wife, do you ask me to prove it to you? What if my wife started demanding proof that I love her each day?
I'd say we were on a quick road to a divorce, probably.
Having religious belief is like love. You go around challenging it on empirical grounds at your workplace and people are not all that likely to be impressed by your logical prowess.
That's because the question of empiricism is irrelevant to the question of God and always has been. Even Thomas Aquinas described God as unverifiable and unclassifiable. So this is hardly a new notion.
Sure, you can find religionists who have misguidedly concluded that God is something to be proven by empirical means. Just type in "bananna atheist's worst nightmare" to get an example. All that stuff about speculating why Noah kicked Tyrannosaurus Rex off the ark, or whether there were horses in America is really beside the point. God is not meant to be empirically proven - and there is a long line of religious tradition that has always maintained this. Religion and science are non-overlapping magisteria, and do not really ultimately have much to say about each other.
Science will always tell you the "what" and to a point, the "how." But it will never tell you "why," or inform words like "should." That's religion's field (in all it's variations).
Atomic theory will not tell me whether to build an energy plant or a weapon of mass destruction. Genetic theory will not tell me whether a fetus with Down's Syndrome should be aborted or not. Science is mere data. Empirical, amoral, and uncaring. It has nothing to say about how we should live our lives or even what to do with the data.
I stated earlier that even if I could prove God existed, that information - in and of itself - would not matter to you. Simply knowing God exists is no reason for worshiping him. Christian thought has always made this very clear.
Read Mark sometime in the New Testament. Some of the first declarations of Christ's divinity came from demons who obviously had no intention of worshiping him. Mere data without anything else is worthless and even trivial.
I'll tell you why I believe.
Because I had an intuitive moral and spiritual sense of something else out there. The body of Mormon ethics and theology resonated with me deeply. And I made a personal choice to devote my life to it.
Just like when I first met my wife. Love wasn't something that just happened to me, or something that was rationally proven to me by my friends. It was something I chose to do. I chose to devote my life to my wife and children.
There was nothing rational or empirical about it.
Our lives are not defined by mere objective data, but by our choices.
This is mine. Participate in it if you want, and see for yourself.
So, like i suspected on another topics thread, (you didn't see my post i gather) your belief really and truly is blind faith.
ReplyDeleteThat's find Seth, i respect that this is your choice. I just find it hard to imagine thats all.
The only thing i disagree with is you whole idea about love. I love my girlfriend very much, but i didn't choose to at all. It is an emotion that has developed from being with her so long, and by enjoying the time i have with her.
I also find that post extremely anti-scientific. ''Our lives are not defined by mere objective data, but by our choices.''
Firstly, we know that science doesn't dictate how we live our lives. What kind of life would that be? E.g. Science proves to us that excessive alcohol consumption is detrimental to your health, but that doesn't stop me getting leathered with the boys and hitting edinburgh for the night.
However, i do turn to science for the confirmation of whether something major is true or false. To us, the existence of a god is a major claim. For which, there is no proof, so i personally don't believe.
I don't need proof for something comparitively trivial such as whether or not you love your wife. Whether you love your wife or not has no impact on the world around me.
Whether people believe in an omnipotent, omniscient and omnipresent being does, sadly, have consequences on the world around me. You need look no further than religious terrorist attacks, the israeli opression of palestinians, catholic church's opposition to condoms in africa despite the country being riddled by HIV demonstrates this, to name a few matters.
If it weren't for religion, none of the above would exist.
On a more general level, i just genuinely believe that religion is something that mankind should've grown out of. Masses of people believing in something without evidence simply isn't healthy and in my opinion it is intellectual treachery. Thus, i encourage people to (yet again i'm going to say this) think critically about such matters, and hopefully they will realise they have been wrong.
If you wish to live your life that way though seth, thats fine. I just think that mankind is currently at a bottleneck with regards to religion and i hope that one day people wake up and smell the coffee.
I wish you well in life - i just agree with TAM, i think you have all the intellect to realise you are wrong, but you simply choose against it.
One last thing, you migh think it is MERE science, but in my opinion it has done alot more for the world, and will continue to do alot more for the world than religion has ever done, or ever will.
I hope you enjoy receiving this mere piece of communication from the other side of the world, on your mere computer, through your mere internet connection. Science is largely responsible for the quality of lifestyle you have. Don't forget that. Religion isn't going to help cure aids, but science will. I can go on and on.
Science didn't give me a computer screen TAM.
ReplyDeleteA person looking at the available data and deciding that communicating with others electronically was something valuable gave me the computer screen.
Science will not cure AIDS.
Someone will look at the scientific data, will decide that time, money and data should be devoted toward curing a disease.
Pure science, frankly, doesn't care how many African kids with AIDS die. Left to it's own devices, it would result in nothing.
So no, science will not cure AIDS, some person or group with values that are EXTERNAL to science will cure AIDS.
"You need look no further than religious terrorist attacks, the israeli opression of palestinians, catholic church's opposition to condoms in africa despite the country being riddled by HIV demonstrates this, to name a few matters. If it weren't for religion, none of the above would exist."
That's an incredibly naive statement TAM. With or without religion, all of those things would still exist.
You think the Islamic terrorism threat is a purely religious thing?
It isn't. Most of the IED bombings in Iraq were carried out by guys who were NOT religious. The US army actually ran some surveys and found that most of the terrorist activity in Iraq was coming from people who were either indifferent towards Islam or didn't believe in it at all.
Just guys who had been offered steady wages for planting bombs in roads in a country that has no steady jobs.
It's that simple.
Economics and oppression are what drives terrorism and violence. Not religion.
You remove the Israelis and Palestinians from that region and replace them with atheistic Russians and Atheistic East Germans playing the same roles, and you are going to get the same results. Palestinians rampage because THEY HAVE NO FOOD. Israelis oppress because they are afraid for their own survival.
God has nothing to do with it.
My oh my.
ReplyDeleteFirstly, i'm not TAM.
You're just being awkward. The computer screen is a scientific product.
Science will not cure HIV/AIDS?? That is naive seth. Very. You cannot possibly tell that, do you have any experience in a pharmaceutical field? Or any knowledge of the virus? You would've no doubt believed the same of small pox and tuberculosis given that level of ignorance.
I'm sorry? Without religion the catholic church would still be against the use of contraception?
Muslim terrorists wouldn't blow themselves and innocents up? I'm well aware not all terrorism is religious, but a fair whack is. No religion, no religious terorists.
The jewish israelis displacing the muslim palestinians because it is 'their land'?.
All of that would still have happened without religion? You're having a laugh seth.
We agree on soomething though, god does have nothing to do with it, just people.
Science is not a being seth, thats like me sayin religion doesn't care about starving africans. It doesn't the people behind it do though. Same applies to science so quit the anti-scientific bullshit.
Like i said before, science has brought more to the world than religion ever can, or will. To say the computer screen infront of you was not brought to you by science is quite simply ignorant and arrogant.
You know, I get the feeling I'm not the only one here who believes in "imaginary beings."
ReplyDeleteYou seem to believe in this imaginary being called "Science" who goes about the world benevolently handing out nice stuff like penicillin and iPods.
But the fact is, Science never delivered us anything - even when it has a capitalized "S."
Human beings are responsible for all advances. Human beings with VALUES that they did not obtain from science. It is those human beings and those values that motivate progress. Science is merely the tool at hand - not the master.
I never said AIDS would not be cured. You are not reading very carefully. I said that science would not do it. Human beings will do it. They will utilize scientific data to do so. But it will be the humans and the values they hold that deliver the goods - not the science.
Seth, I think we are getting bogged down in semantics. The progenitor of all of these advances were humans employing the scientific method. However, your suggestion that religion is not primarily responsible for terrorist is devoid of factual foundation. While I will grant you that terror tactics could be employed for a purely military purpose, I think you will find that it is much harder to get people to blow themselves up if they don't believe in an afterlife.
ReplyDeleteThere is no question that economic disparity fosters violence. But if you truly believe that religion is not primarily responsible for most of the bloodshed around the world at present, I urge you to read Sam Harris' destruction of that view in The End of Faith: Religion, Terror and the Future of Reason. That is the book that convinced me to abandon the deference which I afforded to religious beliefs for the first 4 decades of my life.
You can get people to blow themselves up for anything they feel strongly enough about. Like freedom, or revenge.
ReplyDeleteJust because you've never felt anything that strongly, don't assume that no one else has. The idea of self-sacrifice is a very old one. Like the mother who pushes an child out of danger at risk to her own life.
Senseless act really. After all, couldn't she always get another kid? Why sacrifice a much more developed and valuable life for the child's?
People sometimes feel there are things worth dying for. Are you really going to tell me that only religious people ever feel that way?
Seth, you are getting close to hitting the nail on the head. I'm not sure if you are a parent or not (I am a father of 3). If I had to give my life to save any of them, I would in a heartbeat and most parents will tell you the same thing - it is instinctive. Most people would agree that your family and freedom are things worth dying for (I'm not so sure about revenge).
ReplyDeleteI agree that the eradication of religious sectarianism would not eliminate war and terrorism. However, I firmly believe that it would go a long way towards aaccomplishing that end.
Stalin, Hitler and Pol Pot prove otherwise.
ReplyDeleteThe worst human catastrophes of the last century were secular in nature TAM.
Atheism has a lot to answer for too. Islam hasn't been the only thought system with a "jihad." Secularism had it's own jihad in the last century and killed millions more than any bout of religion came close to.
And don't try to pull Hitchen's lame excuse that all of those guys were actually "religionists in disguise." If you can call that religion, the word becomes meaningless and essentially morphs to mean "any extreme ideology I don't like."
So you are saying that because these men were atheists, and not because they wee just downright sadistic and evil people, committed these attrocities?
ReplyDeleteRidiculous. For a start, there is plenty of evidence (first hand) that shows Adolf Hitler was roman catholic. He didn't really practice his religion, but his faith was in a god.
Now, not for ONE second, will you catch an atheist claiming that because he was roman catholic, he did all those terible things. He did them because he was an evil person, hellbent on his race and nation dominating the planet.
How dare you insinuate that the catastrophes were because they were atheists. They don't go out killing in the name of no god, this is the stark contrast and difference between them and people who do evil in the NAME of their god and beliefs.
Stalin and Pol Pot were just evil men, it happens from time to time. They didn't do what they did because they were atheistic, nor did they do such evil and claim it was in the name of atheism.
Religious terrorists kill themselves and others because they have a foolish belief in a divine being, compounded by an even more foolish belief that this being wants them to maim and kill his 'enemies'. As a result, they kill for their deity, in the name of.
So don't come on here and make the lame theistic argument that essentially atheists are evil in comparison to theists. The knights crusades anybody??
I'm actually shocked you've pulled that one, seth. Didn't see you dropping to that level.
"I'm actually shocked you've pulled that one, seth. Didn't see you dropping to that level."
ReplyDeleteWhat the hell are YOU shocked for?
You've already repeatedly asserted the inverse - that it was the RELIGION that made people evil, rather than the people that made the religion evil. You fired the first shot here. It's not my fault that you weren't self-observant enough to realize it cuts both ways.
The Third Reich was a new idea in human history. A SECULAR regime that would annihilate religion (Hitler was never an ally of the Catholic Church - in fact the pope of that period was terrified that Hitler would start imprisoning or killing Catholic priests, and left instructions for the other archbishops in case he himself was arrested). The whole concept was to usher in a new era of enlightenment based on modern humanistic principles.
And I notice you've kept quiet about Stalinist Russia. Stalin actually killed a lot more of his own people than Hitler ever did (we just don't hear as much about it because he happened to be America's ally in WWII).
"Religion is the opiate of the masses."
That was a communist saying. And on that justification, they imprisoned or slaughtered thousands of religious people as dangerous enemies of the new age of enlightenment that people like Lenin and Stalin claimed to be ushering in.
The Crusades was ugly and nasty. The streets of Jerusalem were turned to mud - even though there was no rain. The bloodshed was that bad.
But what caused the Crusades was not just religion. What caused it was human violence, anger, and bloodthirst COMBINED with religious ideas.
Likewise, it wasn't atheism that caused the Killing Fields in Cambodia (which you also ignored in your rebuttal) or the enslavement of Tibet by the Communist Chinese (which you also ignored). It was the evil of human beings COMBINED with atheist ideals.
Don't walk around spouting off about how religion is inherently bloodthirsty and then act all surprised when someone does the same thing to you.
Suicide bombers kill themselves for a number of different reasons:
ReplyDelete1. The just watched their friends and families get blown up, raped or murdered by someone else.
2. They can't find work, have no prospects in life, and are hugely frustrated about the unfairness of it.
3. They are facing an enemy that is impervious to any other kind of attack.
4. Oh yeah, and as a side bonus, they also believe in an afterlife.
You ever see a soldier in a WWII movie suicidally storm a machine gun nest to save his friends?
It's the same impulse that motivates a lot of terrorists. Giving up your life for an ideal is nothing new in human history. It's pretty strange that you seem to be asserting that it's somehow unique to theists.
Seth,
ReplyDeleteI have never ever stated that religion has made people evil. Ever.
My entire rebuttal there was to highlight that those men did not do those things because they were atheists. I still maintain Hitler was not an atheist. There are plenty of passages in Mein Kampf that provide evidence for this, furthermore, the christians of nazi germany were mostly roman catholic - it was accepted by the nazi party.
Again, you don't see people claiming that Hitler did this because he was a bad catholic.
If you read my rebuttal again, i did address stalin and pol pot, what are you talking about? It's right there. Go check again.
My point still stands, they did it cause they were sick and evil men. NOT because they were atheists.
I also never said ALL suicide bombings were religiously motivated. Fact is, most are. Your analogy to soldiers sacrificing themselves is very crude and painful to read. The soldiers are at war, physically fighting with one another. Yeah, now and again you'll get some guy who knows he's going to die storming a MG nest.
This is entirely different from a religious suicide bomber storming a civillian market place, with unarmed innocents, who have no idea he is coming, so that he can kill himself and the innocents.
The same impulse DOES NOT drive both events.
You WILL NOT find anyone killing in the name of atheism. You WILL NOT find anyone killing for their lack of belief due to the lack of evidence.
You DO find people killing in the name of theism. You DO find people killing for their beliefs despite the lack of evidence.
'Don't walk around spouting off about how religion is inherently bloodthirsty and then act all surprised when someone does the same thing to you.'
I did no such thing. Religion is inherently bloodthirsty?? I have never said that Seth, to say i did say such things is nothing but lies.
I'm well aware religious people do a lot of good, i'm also well aware the general message is of love from most religions.
However, the dangers of religion also manifest in many ways, one such way is obviously through suicide bombings. 9/11?
They men BELIEVED the west was the enemy because their version of the quran said so. They believed they would go to heaven and have perpetual virgins because it said so.
I'm not at all asserting it is unique to theists. Sadly, however, for the most part it is religiously driven.
You don't have a leg to stand on here seth, unless theres some mass sucide bombing cult that i've yet to hear of that kill innocents and themselves just for the hell of it.
I'd also like to add that the killing fields of cambodia had NOTHING to do with atheistic ideals. There was no genocide for atheism, in the name of atheism, nothing like that.
ReplyDeleteYou are simply insinuating this because pol pot was an atheist.
The same cannot be said for the crusades and co, were religious motivation was well established
People can always be convinced to die and to kill for hatred and for transcendent ideals - whether it be a Marxist secular utopia, or the glory of God.
ReplyDeleteBut it is the hatred and the idealism that does the killing, not some abstract notion of religion.
"They men BELIEVED the west was the enemy because their version of the quran said so."
No, they believed "the west" was the enemy because we really were the enemy. Stuffing our fat faces at the expense of the vast majority of the human race. That you could find a few Koran verses condemning greedy oppressors was a nice side-bonus.
If you want to divorce the people from the ideologies, fine by me - but be sure you apply it equally. The Cultural Revolution in China had a very, very atheist flair. Religious people were dragged out into the street and beaten in front of mobs of angry youths chanting the old Marxist slogan "religion is poison." Tibet was invaded and enslaved on the same principle. And Eastern Orthodox were sent off to camps in Siberia on the theory that "religion is the opiate of the masses."
When the Russians invaded Afghanistan, the common Russian soldier was being fed a daily diet of how he was a crusader for an enlightened atheist utopia and that these ignorant savage Muslims were standing in the way.
Even the crusades were not primarily religiously motivated.
It was actually just a bunch of cynical European monarchs answering the age-old question that has plagued every ruler - what do you do with an army once you're done fighting. You raise an army for warfare and it does it's job, but once the job is done, you've got a bunch of idle men with weapons sitting around with nothing to do. Eventually they usually turned to banditry, plunder, and even revolt.
So someone got the bright idea of giving them a make-work project of invading the Holy Land. Problem solved.
Cynicism, hatred, and power are what have always motivated genocides, slaughter, and persecution. Religion or atheism is just the window-dressing that gives people the excuse they were looking for. If religion hadn't been handy, they would have found another excuse.
Glad to see with Hitler and Stalin and Pol Pot that you acknowledge that the incidental ideology is not what does the killing, but the men who twist ideology to their purposes.
Now I'll thank you to extend the same courtesy to religious people.
You still don't understand what i'm getting at here.
ReplyDeleteThere is no such thing as atheistic terrorists who kill religiots in the name of atheism.
Hitler, Pol Pot and Stalin may have twisted ideologies, but that ideology was not atheism (or theism for that matter).
In contrast, for example, modern day terorists like al qaeda will kill non-believers and people who believe differently from them. To them, this is a matter of faith, there is no ideology twisting here. They are simply killing for their religious beliefs. They believe this, just like you believe joseph smith. Are you ideologically twisted?
There is just no such thing as a terrorist organization that is all about being atheistic, unlike religious terror groups that are all about their religion.
I accept what you are saying about political motivations etc, but i've yet to hear of an atheistic terrorist group. (and i dont mean a group that may have atheistic beliefs, i mean a goup that actively kill innocents for atheism, in a struggle against religion)
Actually, Al Quaeda isn't particularly religious in nature either.
ReplyDeleteThey're a group of political revolutionaries who hate how the US oppresses other societies.
They use religion as something incidental to that.
Nobody up and detonates themselves and others to "get 100 virgins in heaven." They do it because they feel they are facing a nation of cowardly oppressors who cannot be fought any other way. The primary motivations of Al Quaeda are economic and political, not religious. Same with Palestinian suicide bombers. They feel too helpless and powerless to fight their enemies any other way.
And both Stalin and Mao used atheistic slogans from Marx as a pretext for oppressing and murdering the religious.
If you don't have to own Chairman Mao, then I don't have to own Osama bin Laden either Rab.
I know exactly what you are getting at. Trouble is you're just wrong, and sadly ignorant of how the world and human beings work.
Well i guess that's that Seth.
ReplyDeleteI'm ignorant?
I make no mistake when i say Al Qaeda is an Islamic Extremist group.
Yeah, there might be some political motivations in there for some of their attrocities, but fundamentally it is religiously driven.
Religion is fundemantal to Al Qaeda, not incidental, how about you go do a bit of research?
On saying that, i thought almost everybody knew that Al Qaeda was an islamic extremist group, how wrong could i be?
It is not I who is ignorant in this matter, it is you. Either that or you are covering up the fact that Al Qaeda are primarily and fundamentally religiously motivated with the same delusion that is responsible for your faith.
No Rab, it is you who is trying to deny that Al Quaeda is motivated by the same things you are. The only difference is situation and the rhetoric the two of you use to advance your values.
ReplyDeleteI already knew Al Quaeda's motives were similar to what mine might be. You're the one in denial here.
Unbelievable.
ReplyDeleteAre you honestly trying to tell me their primary motivation is NOT religious?
If you are, then in my eyes you lose all credibility on the matter.
Everybody i know is well aware that is educated on this matter is well aware that Al Qaeda's main goal is to fight in the 'holy war' or jihad.
The goals and objctives of this war are as follows:
1. Establishing the rule of God on earth
2. Attaining martyrdom in the cause of God
3. Purification of the ranks of Islam from the elements of depravity
At no point am i denying that political motivations are involved when it comes to al qaeda, but whether you choose to accept it or not Seth, their main motivation is their religion, it is integral to the organization, their goals and is absolutely necessary. It is their fundamental foundation.
I challenge you to go and do some research on this matter.
I cannot believe you are insinuating that they are motivated by the same things i am.
To be quite frank i think you should be embarrased.
They are an islamic extremist group. End of story, they make no apologies or attempts to cover this up - why do you?
I don't care what the window dressing and fancy brochures are about. The primary motive behind Al Quaeda is political. They are motivated primarily by vengeance and resentment of the role the United States has played in the world. Whether you fight for an idealized Islamic state or a Marxist utopia is really of secondary importance here. It's just different wrapping paper on the same package and the motivations are economic and political. Ideology and religion are really beside the major point motivating these guys.
ReplyDeleteThat's not what they've been spoon-feeding you at CNN, but it's how people work. Religion is a lousy predictor of whether you are going to save someone or kill them. Hunger, greed, fear, and other old-fashioned motivations are much better explanations for the world around us.
And with you denying that Communist China was atheistic in ideology, it's kinda late to be talking about who is credible or not.
I never denied they were atheistic in ideology, i just said that they didnt do what they did because atheism was 'telling' them to.
ReplyDeleteIt's not CNN that have convinced me Seth, it is Al Qaeda themselves, if you choose to believe their main motivation is political so be it. It's no though, simple as that.
Al Qaeda themselves have convinced me (and everybody else except you), i don't understand why we are debating this!
Al Qaeda are openly, and proud to be soldiers of allah. They kill in the name of god, they want to establish islamic reign on earth. That is all from the primary source, not a prodcut of spoon feeding from any kind of media.
As far as im concerned this debate is over, you are quite clearly being obtuse with regards to this matter. They are an islamic extremist group.
I reiterate - they claim themselves to be religious in nature, they make o apologies for it, and believe what they are doing is what allah wants. You're denial is nothing more than a pathetic attempt to mask the fact that the main motivation behind al qaeda is religious.
They are islamic terrorists, committed to their jihad. You cannot deny this.
Seth, just a couple of points:
ReplyDelete1. Your suggestion that Al Qaeda is primarily motivated by poltical aims and hatred of the U.S. is just plain wrong. If the U.S. were to vaporize today, Al Qaeda's jihad would just have one fewer territory to conquer. I urge you to ask any expert in this area one question: What influence does the Islamic faith have on Al Qaeda?. They will all tell you it is of paramount importance.
2. Seth, you seem like a smart fellow. You have repeatedly told us that your religion appeals to you. I don't really question that assertion. However, I would like to pose a question to you that I have posed to other Christians on other threads: do you really believe that a dead piece of meat started to rot and then came back to life? If so, why? Please be specific. When answering, please keep in mind the fact that the supposed event of a dead person coming back to life is far from unique to Christianity and was prevalent in several religious traditions which existed thousands of years before the birth of Jesus. In my experience, some of the most apparently fervent and knowledgeable Christians have difficulty responding to this question.
Because I believe in the fusion of what is intangible within us with physical matter. I believe that this reality is immortal and endless. Because I exist now, I believe I will exist forever.
ReplyDeleteIt's a basic defiance of the void. I don't believe in nothingness. I and reject the notion that that which "is" ever completely vanishes.
Christ symbolizes the triumph over the void and the idea that we can transcend and move on. It's a rejection of the basic core defeatism I find in atheism.
And as I have repeatedly stated, Christianity is a paradigm for viewing the universe. It is not something that requires or is established by, empirical evidence - unless you count the evidence of how it impacts my own life (which will only matter to me anyway).
Seth, please answer my question. Do you believe that a Galilean Jew named Jesus was crucified, died, started to rot and then came back to life? It's a yes or no answer. I don't care about symbolism or transcendence. If your answer is yes, please explain what you rely on to hold that belief. If your answer is no, I take it that you take the position that belief in the physical resurrection of Jesus is not fundamental to your faith in Christianity.
ReplyDeleteIt just seems to me you are asking me to prove it to you empirically. And we both know I won't be able to do that.
ReplyDeleteSo, maybe you need to clarify what you are asking here.
My answer to the basic question is "yes."
I believe my comment above says why I answer that way.
I want to jump in here and to make two quick comments on the atheist/theist stalin vs. crusades discussion if this post has not died down totally yet
ReplyDelete1) Having just taken a course on Revolution in Germany and written about the novel ideas of nazi Germany I think it best for both sides to retire the hitler argument altogether for several reasons. Hitler himself does not seem to have had much personal piety and he certainly persecuted individual groups for their religious fervor ( especially Jehovah's Witnesses) and yet he was willing to manipulate religious and spirituality into his talks freely and it can be said he attempted to give religious mythical meaning to the state as an entity. Hitler supported Christian groups when they would be subservient and even more so when they actively supported the state ( thus the growth of a German " restoration" church that put the state into a position of religious authority. As another Mormon joining this debate, I can speak we with shame that the LDS church for instance was quite complicit in the Nazi regime and not persecuted because it was viewed as willing to offer obedience. Hitler was a selective user of faith and persecuted all who opposed his stateist ideas regardless of religious origin.
2) Stalin on the other hand does offer more for the Atheist to account for than to simply dismiss him as a mad man. Ingrained in the russian soviet ideology was an opposition to religion which was viewed as an opiate and an evil. The same is true in the communist Chinese regime which only in recent years has opened some degree of religious freedom. Of course, the fact that atheism has been used to justify murder proves nothing about its truth or falsity, but the same is true about religion and its usage over time. Also, in Samantha Power's Putlizer Prize winning book about the history of Genocide, Atheism as a state ideology does seem to play a significant role in Pol Pot's regime though religion seemed to code for other undesirable elements just as in the examples I will mention below.
3) A while back someone mentioned Israel/palestine as an example of religious zealotry and extremism. I wanted to point out how far from the truth this is. The original zionists were as far from religious as possible. Most were secular socialists that viewed european piety as a source of weakness. They identified with judaism as an ethno-nationalist identity quite in parallel to the developing european notions of lets say slavic nationalism. They needed no religious motivation to justify the overtaking of palestinian land and were legitimately intrigued and tempted by offers of land elsewhere such as in rwanda that had no religious or spiritual connotation. The religious side of the modern conflict emerged primarily after the 1967 war in which the victory was viewed as miraculous and a new wave of post wwII pious immigrants had developed into a culture of religious fervor. This was well past 1948 and well past the expansion of the state of Israel on secular nationalistic grounds.
The same secular roots can be found in most " religious" conflicts especially for instance the Irish civil war in which religious was a useful code for national identity and geographic origin.
I would like to comment on a post that never was responded to.
ReplyDelete"Seth, forget Santa Claus and the tooth fairy.
Consider this:
Mormonism has roughly 13,000,000 adherents who believe, as a matter of faith, that the Book of Mormon was revealed to Joseph Smith Jr. by the angel Moroni.
Islam has roughly 1,400,000,000 adherents who believe, as a matter of faith,that the Qur'an was revealed to Mohammed (who they consider to be God's final prophet) by the angel Gabriel. Muslims believe that the Torah and Bible were also revealed by God but that those texts were neglected, corrupted or altered in time by the Jews and Christians and have been replaced by God's final and perfect revelation in the form of the Qur'an.
My question to you is this: what makes you so certain that the LDS Church is right and the tenets of the Islamic faith are wrong? Why aren't you a Muslim?"
The reason that I am not a muslim is the same reason that I am not a mainline christian. I am a very recent convert to Mormonism and before joining carefully examined many other faiths including eastern religions and so I do have some room to speak about my personal decision making even if my decision can not be stated to be normative in any way...
What appealed to me so much about Mormonism primarily is that from the works translated by a relatively uneducated farm boy in upstate new york came a theological universe that is more consistent and coherent than any proposed by committees of intellectuals in times past. The mormon god quite simply makes more sense in the context of the observed universe than the one of any other denomination.
The lack of creation ex nihilo and ideas of theosis belief allows for a belief in the glory and power of human beings which rivals and excels that contained in the secular humanism I previously belonged to and help to provide a theodicy which is coherent and filling. I could never overcome the question that most theists must when one can ask if god created the world out of nothing why he could not have made this world + 1 quite similar in every way but just a single degree better. The idea that god worked through the universe as it existed to grant human agency and allow us to achieve our potential allows both for an all powerful god within the context of what is possible and for a universe in which imperfections exist.
The other core appeal of Mormonism for me is its focus on continuing revelation which is one of the key reasons I have trouble believing in Islam especially. Mormonism is the least exclusivistic of the judeo-christian-islamic traditions in that we believe that god has inspired revelation and truth is all people throughout the world throughout human history. My gripe with Islam is the idea that its prophet is the final one. Mormons view our church as an authority for corporate/hierarchal prophecy but do not deny the individual component of prophecy to any individual.
I found the idea that god might damn individuals that had never heard of his word simply evil. The mormon idea of the spirit world and our rituals of baptism for the dead solves this problem in a wholly biblical way and allows me to have confidence that I will see my family members and loved ones again even if they died outside of the church.