Asymmetric Catholic

I don't know why people find these books interesting. My Atheist brothers and sisters make the same, banal points:

1. Religion is unlikely (assume material-only universe).
2. People are happier without religion. Or, if they're happier, it's only because they're ignorant (I guess if you assume you're correct, then anybody who doesn't agree with you is wrong and therefore ignorant or the truth).
3. Society is better without religion (Well, I guess if you compare medieval France to modern day France, you could say that modern France has faster trains).

Anyways, as long as these things sell books, I'll keep replying. You can read the first five here. Those were the best five. These five are just narcissism:

6) Atheists are arrogant.

When scientists don't know something — like why the universe came into being or how the first self-replicating molecules formed — they admit it. Pretending to know things one doesn't know is a profound liability in science. And yet it is the life-blood of faith-based religion. One of the monumental ironies of religious discourse can be found in the frequency with which people of faith praise themselves for their humility, while claiming to know facts about cosmology, chemistry and biology that no scientist knows. When considering questions about the nature of the cosmos and our place within it, atheists tend to draw their opinions from science. This isn't arrogance; it is intellectual honesty.

I rarely use the word "stupid," but what else can I say about this argument (not Harris himself who I'm sure scored quite high on his exams and went to the very competitive Oxford or somewhere similar)?

Mr. Harris, I don't really care about whether Atheists are arrogant or not, but let's examine your logic. If you admitted to not being sure about something you'd admit you're not sure about God and consider yourself an agnostic, for your case against God is based solely on an assumption (that only the material exists). You've offered no proof of an alternative cosmology, but you're sure what it's not.

Also, most Christians don't pretend to have scientific proof of God. I'm sure most would say they believe in God because they have Faith. And, who claims to know what no scientist knows? This is just willful ignorance. Ironic, isn't it? But wait, the dumbness keeps on coming:

7) Atheists are closed to spiritual experience.

There is nothing that prevents an atheist from experiencing love, ecstasy, rapture and awe; atheists can value these experiences and seek them regularly. What atheists don't tend to do is make unjustified (and unjustifiable) claims about the nature of reality on the basis of such experiences. There is no question that some Christians have transformed their lives for the better by reading the Bible and praying to Jesus. What does this prove? It proves that certain disciplines of attention and codes of conduct can have a profound effect upon the human mind. Do the positive experiences of Christians suggest that Jesus is the sole savior of humanity? Not even remotely — because Hindus, Buddhists, Muslims and even atheists regularly have similar experiences.

There is, in fact, not a Christian on this Earth who can be certain that Jesus even wore a beard, much less that he was born of a virgin or rose from the dead. These are just not the sort of claims that spiritual experience can authenticate.

What the heck is he saying? Who says Atheists can't appreciate beauty? Indeed, who says people of other faiths can't experience these things? Talk about straw men!

Of course, to the Atheist, these experiences are nothing more than chemical reactions in the mind developed over millions of years; a biological function that has helped us better adapt to our environment. Hee Hee. Harris thinks the fact that a chemical stimulates that part of his brain that allows him to experience "awe," is somehow significant (or spiritual. spiritual! as in spirits? as in non-physical beings?).

8) Atheists believe that there is nothing beyond human life and human understanding.

Atheists are free to admit the limits of human understanding in a way that religious people are not. It is obvious that we do not fully understand the universe; but it is even more obvious that neither the Bible nor the Koran reflects our best understanding of it. We do not know whether there is complex life elsewhere in the cosmos, but there might be. If there is, such beings could have developed an understanding of nature's laws that vastly exceeds our own. Atheists can freely entertain such possibilities. They also can admit that if brilliant extraterrestrials exist, the contents of the Bible and the Koran will be even less impressive to them than they are to human atheists.

From the atheist point of view, the world's religions utterly trivialize the real beauty and immensity of the universe. One doesn't have to accept anything on insufficient evidence to make such an observation.

How he comes up with this is beyond my comprehension, I admit. How can this non-arrogant man claim to know what aliens would think of our religions? Who said that the Bible's purpose was to explain cosmology? Mr. Harris is arguing against whom, I wonder?

9) Atheists ignore the fact that religion is extremely beneficial to society.

Those who emphasize the good effects of religion never seem to realize that such effects fail to demonstrate the truth of any religious doctrine. This is why we have terms such as "wishful thinking" and "self-deception." There is a profound distinction between a consoling delusion and the truth.

In any case, the good effects of religion can surely be disputed. In most cases, it seems that religion gives people bad reasons to behave well, when good reasons are actually available. Ask yourself, which is more moral, helping the poor out of concern for their suffering, or doing so because you think the creator of the universe wants you to do it, will reward you for doing it or will punish you for not doing it?

Why would people be concerned for others' suffering? What would be better? Better yet! What would be more reliable: Helping people because it makes you feel good or to receive some kind of social benefit (what other reason would you have?); or helping people because you think somebody who wants you to is watching?

I also ask: why Harris would think helping the unfortunate is a good thing? Where'd he get that idea? Nietzsche, an atheist, thought it was weakness.

10) Atheism provides no basis for morality.

If a person doesn't already understand that cruelty is wrong, he won't discover this by reading the Bible or the Koran — as these books are bursting with celebrations of cruelty, both human and divine. We do not get our morality from religion. We decide what is good in our good books by recourse to moral intuitions that are (at some level) hard-wired in us and that have been refined by thousands of years of thinking about the causes and possibilities of human happiness.

We have made considerable moral progress over the years, and we didn't make this progress by reading the Bible or the Koran more closely. Both books condone the practice of slavery — and yet every civilized human being now recognizes that slavery is an abomination. Whatever is good in scripture — like the golden rule — can be valued for its ethical wisdom without our believing that it was handed down to us by the creator of the universe.

This is the dumbest of the dumbest list of its kind. have all cultures known what was "good?" You've had the benefit of growing up in a society with a little Christian gas left in its tank. Would you say the ancient Mayans figured out what was good based on their hard-wiring. What about the very scientifically advanced, cultured, and secular Germans of the thirties? Did their wires break? Do children require any moral guidance? Why would they if it was hard-wired? And, most important! Who wired us? Didn't that same force wire us for cruelty and selfishness? Why should we resist this wiring and embrace the other? And why would we think slavery wrong? Who played the most major role in ending slavery?

Finally, a challenge: As an Atheist, explain why...

1. ...slavery is wrong/
2. ...helping the unfortunate is good.
3. ...beauty is good.
4. ...murder is wrong.
5. ...theft is wrong
6. ...or, anything else, really.

What do you think of this Zeus?

Letter to a Christian Nation by Sam Harris

D'Aulaires Book of Greek Myths by Edgar Parin D'Aulaire

A taker. Here I go. Thanks for engaging in argument. You must understand that I don't dislike my Atheist brothers. Nor do I find Atheism a silly position.

If you make two assumptions, then it's perfectly reasonable to be an Atheist. The assumptions are:

1. Nothing can exist except the physical (or, there is no other reality except the physical).
2. Matter can create itself.
3. Life can come about through a chemical process.

I just want to correct some flaws in their reasoning.

I posted this on my site: http://bsalert.com/

Link to his site

Let's look at some of your arguments...

This is a case of Richard Harris having his cake and eating it too. He wants to be an atheist yet won't concede that without God, his life is meaningless, at least in the cosmic sense.

You can be hopeful of the existence of some other unknowns in the universe without "believing" one of them is named Thor and is riding a chariot in the clouds and demands we not purchase beer on Sunday.

You misunderstand. I try to make the case that any feeling of meaningfulness without a greater being is just that, a feeling. That’s fine. Just don’t make it out to be more than that.

The problem is theists cannot imagine life being "meaningful" unless there magical sky dude is up there with ice cream bars to give them when they die.

No. It’s just that it isn’t meaningful in the sense that most people mean it.

Atheists and Agnostics (agnostic is a type of atheist) don't have such a shallow view of the world and what it means. It's not as banal as some type of Pavlovian afterlife reward system.

Again, you don’t seem to get it. And you don’t make a case for meaningfulness. You use the same tired insults.

Applying these simple concepts to life's intrinsic meaningfulness we'll see that life needs something outside of itself to give it meaning. Gold, for example, doesn't have intrinsic value. It's only worth something because we say it does. Gold certainly doesn't declare its own value. In order for life to be valuable, in and of itself, it needs to either be proven scientifically (outside of its purview-you can't prove worth like you can prove the atomic weight of gold) or have an authority to declare it so.

While an interesting argument, it's still incomplete and invalid. This is a classic example of begging the question. Even if what you said were true, what make's God valuable? For him and his words to have any meaning, there has to be another external influence; another standard by which his value is measured. And we end up in a circular argument.

God, by definition, is the ultimate giver of value, amongst other things. He needs no other validation. He doesn't need a higher power to validate his worth any more than he needs a creator.

The reality is, happiness, value, meaning, are all abstractions. They can no more easily be quantified than you or I could proclaim that the chord of G-Major is the best chord of them all.

OK. Then richard Harris should stop saying what “meaningful” is. I have it defined for me because I believe in a certain order of things. If God says a G-Major is best, then that’s the best.

And your contention that life needs something outside of itself to give itself meaning.... what makes you think this "thing" cannot be another abstraction, such as a process in one's own mind? After all, that accounts for the belief in imaginary creatures as well.

I can’t. It’s Faith, mostly (though not exclusively).

Beyond all this, there is one truth most people recognize that flies in the face of your flawed logic, and that is that every single person that is alive today, probably can point to something or someone which gives their life meaning and value, that doesn't require anyone else's influence or validation. I can look at a flower, and in the right state of mind, find great value in its beauty. I don't need anyone to tell me that. I do not need a price tag stuck on the flower.

No, you don’t. And that’s fine. But, I was just saying that you just have an opinion. Somebody could think a flower ugly and that would be as valid an opinion as yours.

I love Zeus pictures.

My buddy Noel from Magnasquids brought this Richard Harris column to my attention. Along with Richard Dawkins, he's the atheist "it" boy at the moment. I'll do five today and five tomorrow. And, here we go:

10 myths -- and 10 truths -- about atheism
By Sam Harris, SAM HARRIS is the author of "The End of Faith: Religion, Terror, and the Future of Reason" and "Letter to a Christian Nation."
December 24, 2006

SEVERAL POLLS indicate that the term "atheism" has acquired such an extraordinary stigma in the United States that being an atheist is now a perfect impediment to a career in politics (in a way that being black, Muslim or homosexual is not). According to a recent Newsweek poll, only 37% of Americans would vote for an otherwise qualified atheist for president.

Atheists are often imagined to be intolerant, immoral, depressed, blind to the beauty of nature and dogmatically closed to evidence of the supernatural.

Even John Locke, one of the great patriarchs of the Enlightenment, believed that atheism was "not at all to be tolerated" because, he said, "promises, covenants and oaths, which are the bonds of human societies, can have no hold upon an atheist."

That was more than 300 years ago. But in the United States today, little seems to have changed. A remarkable 87% of the population claims "never to doubt" the existence of God; fewer than 10% identify themselves as atheists — and their reputation appears to be deteriorating.

Given that we know that atheists are often among the most intelligent and scientifically literate people in any society, it seems important to deflate the myths that prevent them from playing a larger role in our national discourse.

I'd like to see that evidence. I do think that people who consciously choose their world view (as opposed to having taken it for granted for their whole life) tend to be more reflective and thus, smarter. But this goes for somebody like C.S. Lewis and G.K. Chesterton as well as for atheists. Almost all atheists have chosen their philosophy since, as indicated by Harris himself, belief tends to be the default position. Before I start, let me say that this is one of the most intellectually flaccid articles I've read on the subject.

1) Atheists believe that life is meaningless.

On the contrary, religious people often worry that life is meaningless and imagine that it can only be redeemed by the promise of eternal happiness beyond the grave. Atheists tend to be quite sure that life is precious. Life is imbued with meaning by being really and fully lived. Our relationships with those we love are meaningful now; they need not last forever to be made so. Atheists tend to find this fear of meaninglessness … well … meaningless.

This is a case of Richard Harris having his cake and eating it too. He wants to be an atheist yet won't concede that without God, his life is meaningless, at least in the cosmic sense.

First, one must define what one means when they say their life is "meaningful." Does it mean that they enjoy living? Or, does it mean that their life has some significance beyond themselves?

Under the first definition, I'll assume that he enjoys his life and concede, therefore, that his life has meaning. What about people that are severely depressed or suicidal people? Do their lives have meaning under this definition? What about babies who can't comprehend meaningfulness or people in comas who aren't aware of their life? Do their lives have meaning? I guess not.

Under the second definition, life is meaningless without God or some greater force saying that it is. In order to make my argument, I'll assume three things:

1. Something can't be two different things or have two opposite properties at the same time.
i.e., It's logical that a table can't be both round and square at the same time. It's also logical that something can't be round for Joe and square for John.

2. Things are what they are whether you like it or not or whether you perceive them or not.
i.e., The table is round whether you see it or not or whether or not you deny its roundness.

3. One can't decide the properties of something by themselves, unless they make it.
i.e., I can't say that something is square when it's round. I can decide, however, to make a square table.

Applying these simple concepts to life's intrinsic meaningfulness we'll see that life needs something outside of itself to give it meaning. Gold, for example, doesn't have intrinsic value. It's only worth something because we say it does. Gold certainly doesn't declare its own value. In order for life to be valuable, in and of itself, it needs to either be proven scientifically (outside of its purview-you can't prove worth like you can prove the atomic weight of gold) or have an authority to declare it so. For theists, life is valuable because people have souls and God thinks that makes us important.

For atheists, life is valuable because people think it is. I suppose, under this theory, somebody can have a different opinion or just disagree. I can think that my dog is more valuable than a person in China. After all, I gain more enjoyment from my dog than I do from somebody whom I never met. Does that make it so? A Christian would say no because a dog doesn't have a soul.

And, what does an atheist tell somebody who says that his life is meaningless, worthless, or that his dog's life is more valuable than his own? Millions of people think that exact same thing. Does he convince him by saying that life has meaning because it can be "fully lived?" Wouldn't trying to convince somebody of your philosophy make you, therefore, dogmatic (Religious people disagree on many issues, but they say the other person's wrong)? How would he have arrived at that conclusion? By what authority could he have claimed that "full living" makes life meaningful?

If the person says "it doesn't matter; that for you, life is meaningless, but for me, life is meaningful and neither of us are wrong," doesn't that violate the logical assumption I made above that the same thing can't have contradictory properties simultaneously. How can the same thing, life, be both meaningful and meaningless? It either is or it isn't.

Mr. Harris' life is meaningful not because I or he thinks so, but because God thinks so.

If one defines meaning as something intrinsic Any meaning atheists choose to give your life is a crutch to avoid the psychic pain of the alternative. It's cheating.

2) Atheism is responsible for the greatest crimes in human history.

People of faith often claim that the crimes of Hitler, Stalin, Mao and Pol Pot were the inevitable product of unbelief. The problem with fascism and communism, however, is not that they are too critical of religion; the problem is that they are too much like religions. Such regimes are dogmatic to the core and generally give rise to personality cults that are indistinguishable from cults of religious hero worship. Auschwitz, the gulag and the killing fields were not examples of what happens when human beings reject religious dogma; they are examples of political, racial and nationalistic dogma run amok. There is no society in human history that ever suffered because its people became too reasonable.

There have been societies, however, that have been taken over by people with more enthusiastic beliefs. What Richard Harris is saying is that if people don't care about things, they won't fight. Yes, he's correct. They're also less likely to defend themselves when somebody who does care forces a choice upon them. Now, let's say that Britain is being taken over by Communists. Is Mr. Harris going to fight them? Why? Because their dogmatism is wrong? Isn't Harris calling Communists wrong kind of dogmatic. Let's say there's a country suffering at the hands of a tyrant. Would a country led by Harris try to help those people? Why would he decide to fight evil? If he did decide, wouldn't that require some kind of dogma?

Lastly, the kind of mass murders perpetrated by the Communists and Fascists didn't happen in religious societies because they had a code holding them back. I'll accept Harris' argument that atheism didn't directly cause the murders, but atheism also did nothing to prevent them.

3) Atheism is dogmatic.

Jews, Christians and Muslims claim that their scriptures are so prescient of humanity's needs that they could only have been written under the direction of an omniscient deity. An atheist is simply a person who has considered this claim, read the books and found the claim to be ridiculous. One doesn't have to take anything on faith, or be otherwise dogmatic, to reject unjustified religious beliefs. As the historian Stephen Henry Roberts (1901-71) once said: "I contend that we are both atheists. I just believe in one fewer god than you do. When you understand why you dismiss all the other possible gods, you will understand why I dismiss yours."

I don't know exactly what he's talking about because of his [intentionally] obscure language, but if you think that you're right about some non-scientifically provable issue and that somebody's wrong, you're dogmatic. I admit to being dogmatic. Who cares? I won't kill you because you're not a Catholic. Isn't that the important thing? Harris has fallen into a stupid trap. He takes a word that has run away from a word merely because it's taken on a negative connotation.

4) Atheists think everything in the universe arose by chance.

No one knows why the universe came into being. In fact, it is not entirely clear that we can coherently speak about the "beginning" or "creation" of the universe at all, as these ideas invoke the concept of time, and here we are talking about the origin of space-time itself.

The notion that atheists believe that everything was created by chance is also regularly thrown up as a criticism of Darwinian evolution. As Richard Dawkins explains in his marvelous book, "The God Delusion," this represents an utter misunderstanding of evolutionary theory. Although we don't know precisely how the Earth's early chemistry begat biology, we know that the diversity and complexity we see in the living world is not a product of mere chance. Evolution is a combination of chance mutation and natural selection. Darwin arrived at the phrase "natural selection" by analogy to the "artificial selection" performed by breeders of livestock. In both cases, selection exerts a highly non-random effect on the development of any species.

He's just merely playing with meaning. I don't know why this is important, but when people say "chance," they probably mean "unguided." Everybody knows that the universe follows natural laws.

5) Atheism has no connection to science.

Although it is possible to be a scientist and still believe in God — as some scientists seem to manage it — there is no question that an engagement with scientific thinking tends to erode, rather than support, religious faith. Taking the U.S. population as an example: Most polls show that about 90% of the general public believes in a personal God; yet 93% of the members of the National Academy of Sciences do not. This suggests that there are few modes of thinking less congenial to religious faith than science is.

It shows nothing of the kind and Mr. Harris should be embarrassed. Instead of giving us a reason the two are incompatible, he just shows that scientists tend to believe this. What if the numbers were reversed? Would he then say it did have something to do with it?. What if the poll was taken at a time when more scientists were religious? Could cultural or non-scientific reasons have an effect?

Mr. Harris is also deceptive. Notice the word, "personal" before God. That means that a substantial number of scientists are at least Deists, or believers in an uninvolved God. Many distinguished scientists are religious, by the way.

Letter to a Christian Nation by Sam Harris

Letter to a Christian Nation: Counter Point by RC Metcalf

The Language of God: A Scientist Presents Evidence for Belief by Francis S. Collins

I have mixed feelings about the Church and politics. In fact, its opinions can be both wise and, sometimes, naive, especially when it comes to economic issues. The Church should engage the world, but limit itself to those issues it can speak about with authority as even then, act as a moral conscience and guide instead of a direct role.

Catholic Church still the boss
The influence of bishops in the Philippines may have waned in recent years, but politicians remain unwilling to challenge their authority on issues such as birth control

AFP, MANILA
Tuesday, May 15, 2007, Page 9

Read more »

In this story the Pope assails both Capitalism and Communism. When the Popes have talked about economic matters, they've usually not distinguished themselves. What the Pope should emphasize (economic models are opinions based on what one thinks would be the most expedient for the Church and the most likely to produce a good society- the Pope's isn't necessarily more valuable than mine; it's not dogma) is charity, which is a Church requirement. The method people deliver charity-whether by the government or, as I prefer, by private individuals and the marketplace, should be outside the Church's purview unless you think the Church should dictate tax rates or institute rent control.

It's kind of like blaming freedom for adultery or premarital sex. The problem isn't that we don't stone adulteresses; it's that people aren't committed to marriage. The problem isn't that capitalism breeds selfishness; it's that people are selfish. And they'd be selfish no matter what system existed.

maybe he wanted to attack Communism but didn't want to come off sounding biased, "Hey, it's not just you. These guys have their problems too"

The Pope is correct, however, when he talks about abortion or premarital sex as those are, in and of themselves, bad, according to Church dogma. And it's a tough sell. But, what can he do? He has to say it.

This story contains a couple of interesting remarks. First,

"human dignity cannot be trampled upon in this way."

traffickers must "reflect on the grave harm they are inflicting on countless young people and on adults from every level of society,"

"God will call you to account for your deeds."

It's rare to hear a leader from a mainstream religion speak this way. All of us, of course, will account to God for everything we've done. Benedict reminds people of this fact to make drug dealers reflect on their behavior, but all of us should be mindful of this fact (it sure as umm, heck, reminds me). One may also contrast Benedict's alert to the possibility of future punishment with statements made by Pat Robertson wherein he takes past events and associates them with people he feels God should have punished, which is both uncharitable and the wildest, most ridiculous speculation on his part.

During the debate, all but three of the Republican candidates raised their hands to say they believed in evolution. I'm sure all, including the three who didn't raise their hands, believe in the guided variety, except maybe Ron Paul who may indeed acknowledge a God, but doesn't believe the divine, as a matter of libertarian principal, should interfere in nature.

Mother nature wants God off her back, insists Ron Paul.

At first I thought he wanted to become a Catholic priest, MCGreevey being a former Catholic. I hope he finds peace in his new denomination.

Former Governor James McGreevey Applies to Seminary School

Wednesday, May 02, 2007

Former New Jersey Gov. James E. McGreevey has applied to an Episcopal seminary school in Manhattan with the intent of starting the process of being a priest.

McGreevey resigned from office in August 2004 after admitting he is gay and had cheated on his wife with a man he had hired to be his homeland security adviser. He is currently going through the "discernment" phase that precedes joining the seminary, Rev. Kevin Bean, vicar at St. Bartholomew's Church in Manhattan, told The Star-Ledger.

"This process that he's in right now, is not going to be some snap of the finger, overnight process. That will not happen. That's not how it works. He knows that," Bean said. "And so at the parish level, and at the diocesan level, everyone knows that this is a process that ... intentionally is deliberate. You don't enter into it unadvisably."

Formerly a Catholic who had been at odds with the church over his support for abortion rights, McGreevey was officially received into the Episcopal religion on Sunday. The three-year program at General Theological Seminary begins in the fall. McGreevey does not know yet whether he has been accepted into the program.