Comments on The Blind Butcher: John From America

Pretty good. Let's keep this going as our own limb...

2009-05-03T10:06:00.000-05:00

Pretty good. Let's keep this going as our own limbo.

I don't think in our culture that the overwhelming oppression is religious. I think the devout feel equally harassed. In the greater West (including Europe) religion is way on the out anyway.

But I was talking about right here in this post. You give religion powers it doesn't have. What you are describing is the capacity for man to manipulation and that can come in many forms eventually floating to the top because there is nothing mightier than the concept of god - no matter what or who or if that is. Religion will always be because there is always the concept of god.

Wait, you just said that religion and god get a "r...

2009-05-01T20:48:00.000-05:00

Wait, you just said that religion and god get a "raw deal"?! You're making me cry. Poor, neglected religion. If only people still believed in it. How lonely it must be believing in god. Has anyone in the history of man ever been dealt a hand worse than that of the irreligious and openly godless?

my biggest issue with religion isn't even their nonexistent god. it's their overt and obnoxious way of shoving it down my throat everywhere I turn. TV, the papers. street signs, loud proselytizing cultish fundamentalists, athletes, politicians, every damn where you turn it is utterly impossible to avoid the clutches of the "faithful." I despise the sanctimonious harassment. I would love, as in fucking love, a world without it.

And that in no way implies we all turn into Stalin. That is such a hyperbolic load of crap. It's not immoral to not believe in god, it's immoral to do bad things. Stalin did both. Stalin also ate dinner. I do that too but that doesn't mean we drink from the same fountain.

How's that for commenting way past the shelf life? Heh...

The ever-pleasing Bono chimes in.

2009-04-20T11:23:00.000-05:00

The ever-pleasing Bono chimes in.

The nicest thing I'll say about religion is that w...

2009-04-17T19:32:00.000-05:00

The nicest thing I'll say about religion is that when it is applied nothing actually happens.

Who came up with the indulgences? Catholic dickwads, that's who.

At least you know that if you get mugged and set on fire you're good!

What am I saying? Religion and god get a raw deal....

2009-04-17T19:23:00.000-05:00

What am I saying? Religion and god get a raw deal. Both religion and science when applied have similar outcomes. However this did go down a dead end track in that I don't think they are alternatives for one another.

Who got pissed off at the indulgences? One of the most spiritual men of his time that's who.

I think we're pretty close in thought on most of this actually. Now if you will excuse me I have to go watch Chicago cops and firemen beat each other to a pulp at a local high school gym.

Scientific rigor is utterly incomparable to the cl...

2009-04-17T18:55:00.000-05:00

Scientific rigor is utterly incomparable to the claimed immutable authority of divine power. Scientific laws are in place as a reflection of the natural world in which science takes place, they aren't arbitrarily created to enforce the authority of the holy word such as in religion. There are natural laws that govern the practice of scientific inquiry. We don't make this shit up for the purpose of controlling people.

The doctrinal changes within the histories of religion adapt only in the face of growing evidence that openly and directly challenges the artificial nature of theologic authority. When it is obvious that virgin birth is scientifically impossible the immutable word suddenly becomes a parable. It goes on and on. This is not growth in the sense that religion is willing to grow, it is a survival tactic, openly chosen, in order to perpetuate a system of control and falsehood.

I am not defending the side of science over religion in some sort of doctrinal war, as hard as you seem to want to steer this towards that direction.

I am saying that there is nothing that religion provides man that he can not achieve without religion. Beyond that, the very ideas upon which religious belief is predicated are dubious at best and heading down a path that can not be comforting for those who still cling to their myths and their fairies.

Science changes because it is growing healthily. Religion grows like a tumor on the history of the world.

In Africa, the use of western medicine to control disease is regularly stopped under the guise of divine threat.

The catholic church sold indulgences for fuck's sake; this alone is inexcusable. And what about the papal collusion with Hitler? Not about religion? The Catholics will forever blame the Jews for killing Jesus. So religion plays a huge role in WWII. Besides, race and religion are intertwined in the case of Judaism.

WWI also had deep religious undertones from the very outset with the murder of Ferdinand.

What about Bosnia? Straight-up religious war.

The Wahabist jihadi attacks on Western targets?

The crusades?

And, the battle for Palestine is most certainly a religious war. Again, race is inseparable from religion in the Middle East.

While Soviet Russia was an atheist state, I think it's harder to completely make that case in Hitler's Germany. And using your own angle, Russia was more about authoritarian rule then the denial of a god. In fact, while Stalin was inarguably an atheist, he was more importantly a power hungry dictator.

Are you trying to use the Stalin and Hitler were atheists so atheism is bad argument? That's a bad idea. If not, what is your point? Are you claiming that religion is at worst a quaint conceit for those who don't believe, and that theistic belief as a basis for national order is not only a pleasant mind-game but also the only reasonable way to run a country? Is America a theocracy to you? Should it be one?

What is your point to all this anyway? Are you advocating the practice of religion as something to adhere to, or as something silly but necessary?

Actually, I'm not sure what you're trying to say at this point.

The rules of science are very rigid and demanding....

2009-04-17T16:23:00.000-05:00

The rules of science are very rigid and demanding. In fact, few people choose to become scientist because it is so demanding. Lab work is tedious and requires hermetic attention. And most lab work isn't done by high-level scientist but by their long suffering apprentices.

The Roman Catholic church, for example, has changed a lot over the two thousand year course of its history. It certainly reached an apex of power and corruption but it hasn't been a rigid history and doctrine itself has changed many times. If you look at religion not as one entity but as a whole then it is certainly not rigid.

What was the last war based on religious grounds? We get bogged down by news from the Middle East but how much of what is going on there is truly religious? The Israeli conflict is more a racist thing and extremely complicated at that. Iraq was a secular state. Religious terrorists like the Ku Klux Klan thrive in an era/geography of bleakness. The Massively destructive wars going back as far as you could care to go are not religiously based: Vietnam, the Civil War, WWII, WWI. More people were killed in Juarez Mexico due to secular drug wars in 2008 then all the people killed in Baghdad in the same year (not that the killing in Baghdad is religiously motivated either).

Genocide is usually racially motivated. The Jews weren't persecuted for their faith as much as their race. Everybody is Muslim in Sudan but they still kill each other with pleasure.

I don't know what you mean by the spread and re-spread of disease being a religious issue. Maybe because the Catholic church doesn't approve of condoms? But that's only part of what they do believe and if Catholic beliefs were applied to these regions it would probably limit the spread of disease. Do you really think people have sex with multiple partners, monkeys and things but don't use condoms for religious reasons? Or is it because Mother Teresa wasn't such a great healer after all? She still wasn't a symptom.

The Soviet Union and Nazi Germany are failed atheist states. I do think they failed because of intolerance towards religion (among other intolerances) and also because they had too much fervored faith in applied science.

You can't possibly be serious in claiming religion...

2009-04-17T12:54:00.000-05:00

You can't possibly be serious in claiming religion to be flexible in the face of "rigid" science, can you?

To predicate an entire system of belief on the belief in something no more real than the Hobbit isn't just a bad idea, it's totally insane.

Religion is rooted in something that is supposedly immutable. What could be more rigid than that? Plus, it is done without the slightest shred of proof. Worst of all, there isn't any compelling evidence either. Being true isn't even relevant, and that is directly due to its rigidity.

That monastic feudal hierarchy you are claiming in the expression of some sort of bizarre atheistic science-nation is so offbeat to me I can't even respond to it without thinking you're joking.

Show me the examples of failed atheistic states, explain how atheism is the reason they failed. I'm all ears.

And there is centuries of overwhelming evidence that supports the argument that religion has done more harm to humanity than anything else. Inquisitions, pogroms, wars, genocide, the spread and re-spread of disease due to fundamentalist intolerance, etc... ad-infinitum. Religion is merciless, unyielding, polarizing, and malevolent. I no likey.

Well perhaps it is not a great idea to debate the ...

2009-04-17T09:04:00.000-05:00

Well perhaps it is not a great idea to debate the merits of science over religion directly, although science is often offered as an alternative. And I think you might be arguing that if we all applied a scientific belief system the world would be better off.

I'd say science is as rigid as any church could possibly be even though science is not one entity the way say the Catholic church is. If the world decided to abandon all religious faith and dedicate human ambition to scientific study, what we'd have would be something very akin to monastic life with a lot of people at the bottom of the rung doing extremely menial and boring tasks for a greater good.

As I recall there already have been a couple of fairly large-sized countries sophisticated enough to declare religion dead and attempt to create atheistic states. It hasn't worked out any better to say the least.

Science built the bomb and religion dropped it...?...

2009-04-17T01:16:00.000-05:00

Science built the bomb and religion dropped it...?

EVERYONE can be petty and controlling and egotisti...

2009-04-17T00:56:00.000-05:00

EVERYONE can be petty and controlling and egotistical no matter what their formula for reconciling their existence or satisfying their curiosity. And so I give you WAR.

Science has failed us all over and over again since the dawn of time. That is Science's job. To fail us but never stop asking why or how. It has failed us inside and outside of all that we "know" and even though it's stewards can be unapologetic bastards when it comes to erring-I still find that there is a hunger for intelligence in the science community that is different from the kind of energy invested in devotion to a God within most Planetary faiths- that almost seem depressed and resigned to learning or asking. To be clear, I haven't been to Nirvana- and I can't say that it's masculine appeal... appeals to me.

Man is a failure if he believes or doesn't believe, and I don't question this fact. All I have to do is hold up to the light the terrors that the combination of faith and science has done for humanity in the way of mental health practices- and I am good for eternity when it comes to damning BOTH.

I will say that religion has been given a bum rap by me for being the cause of misery and war and genocide.. It really isn't religion at all. It's us. And we created religion. But we DIDN'T create science. Science just is.

I'm not entirely sure what you're getting at here ...

2009-04-17T00:52:00.000-05:00

I'm not entirely sure what you're getting at here to be honest. I'm not going to make any categorical statements about science as I'm not a scientist.

I do know that scientists are petty because people are petty, not because science is petty.

If certain institutions are rigid, that's one thing, but it's unfair to claim that science is rigid by proxy (not to mention, again, goofy).

Certain churches are extremely rigid. And the thing about religion is that it is predicated on the belief of something for which there is no concrete evidence at all.

Worse, defending the historically malignant history of religion over science as if that's the host of bad human behavior is nonsense and you must know it and are simply being a piss-taker.

One thing I will never attempt to do is make anything a canon of scientific law. Even I am not that stupid.

Again, omniscience is the province of religion, not science. It is the church which claims the existence of omniscience in the eternal being of a supreme creator. Science is a process, not a religion. To ever claim otherwise seems regressive and reactionary.

Scientists on an individual basis can be as petty ...

2009-04-17T00:23:00.000-05:00

Scientists on an individual basis can be as petty controlling and egotistical as the best of them. Many canons of scientific thought held sway for years before being shot down. Some of these canons were thought to be scientific fundamentals.

Churches are seen as rigid but so are scientific institutions. Churches also aren't really all that rigid --all faiths are incredibly divided internally. Great debates work themselves out within these institutions and by forces from without.

Religion has been around a long time but you can't say the history of religion is one long unyielding thing.

Are you willing to make the impossibility of knowing everything a canon of scientific law? That sounds more like a religious belief.

No, I don't think that. I think the goal of scienc...

2009-04-17T00:06:00.000-05:00

No, I don't think that. I think the goal of science is to know more. To know all would imply that all could ever be known, which I have never heard any sane scientist claim was possible.

I see the idea of omniscience as being a purely theoretical one. We get the idea of all because to have all of something works for us on a certain level. Being inquisitive, we make what I suspect is the mistake of thinking that we can somehow apply the idea of all to the world of knowledge in a tangible way. Therefore, we think that it must be possible to somehow know everything.

There is no evidence whatsoever to support that everything is knowable in the way that we know we ate all our dinner, or spent all our money. It's more an illusion than anything, another red herring.

Scientists are allowed to grow and change when new...

2009-04-16T23:41:00.000-05:00

Scientists are allowed to grow and change when new facts and information are brought on board. They are encouraged to admit errors in thinking, so that there can be progress. I have always seen the term "All Knowing" as derogatory. It implies a frigid and inflexible violence of personality. Scientists do work toward "knowing everything", but I don't think they would ever claim to know it all at any stage of the game. Without going into the whole "can anything truly be known" realm- I think it is safe to say, that religious faith has operated and been successful because it has no flexibility at all. Which brings us back to the violence stemming from "all knowing".

Anyone can jump in and adopt a set of beliefs and have an army of support without having to own any kind of intelligence at all. People own their cars with more investment and sensibilities than they own their faith.

You don't think the goal of science is to be all k...

2009-04-16T23:25:00.000-05:00

You don't think the goal of science is to be all knowing? So maybe a noble scientist doesn't desire necessarily to be all powerful, however the engineer takes what the scientist knows and applies it.

I assume you're joking because otherwise that's me...

2009-04-16T23:21:00.000-05:00

I assume you're joking because otherwise that's mental.

Well maybe a scientist would argue the omnipotent ...

2009-04-16T22:57:00.000-05:00

Well maybe a scientist would argue the omnipotent part. That's where the engineer comes in.

Um, I don't think any scientist would ever try and...

2009-04-16T18:07:00.000-05:00

Um, I don't think any scientist would ever try and claim that that is the goal of science.

I would have to guess that there is no ultimate goal of science, no end result. I think it makes more sense to think of science as having a purpose and always moving in many directions, and not towards an ultimate end; and I believe that purpose to be to seek understanding and knowledge.

It's completely wrong to bestow supernatural abilities to the rigors of science. As for being sentient, omnipotent, and omnipresent, I think it would be safe to say that we are sentient already, science or no science!

I salute you for having the conversation, especial...

2009-04-16T17:06:00.000-05:00

I salute you for having the conversation, especially over a blog.

You really like Burger King?

I believe there are things that we can't see that run our lives. Like gravity. Whose to say what else there is that is unseen and a force of nature?

That's as far as I've gotten in the religion game. Or God game.

There does seem to be some evidence towards the power of positive thinking and/or prayer. That is interesting.

There are scientists who are religious and vice versa, and that is interesting too.

Of course it all comes back to science fiction and Heinlein. (That's a joke.) However, his books are the some of the ones I read to contemplate religion, if I want to take them that direction. His later stuff, by the way.

Leaving things open so that any possible incoming facts can be put in is the way I tend to operate.

Making man sentient omnipotent and omnipresent cre...

2009-04-16T13:07:00.000-05:00

Making man sentient omnipotent and omnipresent creatures is science's ultimate goal.

I respectfully and totally disagree with that busi...

2009-04-16T12:24:00.000-05:00

I respectfully and totally disagree with that business about man being god as a logical conclusion to the process of science heaping mountains of improbability on top of theism. You seem to want to assert that science is trying to take the place of god which is utterly absurd to me. What science does, indirectly, is build up evidence that makes the idea of a sentient omnipotent and omnipresent creator less and less likely, and thus, less and less likely to believe.

There may never be a slam dunk argument, but there may never have to be one. Eventually man might be able to grow into a place that doesn't need myth and the supernatural to explain the unknown.

Well maybe we are god which is one way to describe...

2009-04-16T11:57:00.000-05:00

Well maybe we are god which is one way to describe the belief that science is leading towards a complete undressing of monotheism or anytheism which is another way to interpret the new testament. God is man.

I know you are. I would never claim science to b...

2009-04-15T23:33:00.000-05:00

I know you are.

I would never claim science to be infallible. That's equally ridiculous. Nor would I claim it takes the place of god. What I would say, however, is that regardless of how much one believes in god, there simply is no way to prove that there actually is one by almost any sane definition. Science doesn't replace god. What science does is help define understanding of things like life, existence, etc... in a way that begins to unravel many of the tacit but highly implausible precepts of theistic belief.

I am in no position to give you anything more than a terrible idea of what reality is. What I meant was, since I don't see much rational reason to believe in a supreme anything (well, except the Whopper), and since I see god as being almost certainly unreal, I would rather deal with everything else - namely reality. I can't define what is is, but for me, god is not real.

Well a lot of nasty things have been done in the n...

2009-04-15T23:21:00.000-05:00

Well a lot of nasty things have been done in the name of science. If we all sit down and agree that there is no god but science are we going to be better off on that level? And what is reality, I'd like to know?

I'm not referring to any specific god but to that idea you have to give a name to if you are attempting to contribute some wacked out actions to a greater power.

Playing god's advocate over here.