I enjoy reading P.Z. Meyers’ blog, Pharyngula both for his scientific curiosity and his raging against the trinity. He has just posted his opposition to the idea of teaching the controversy Christians raise whenever being confronted with evidence of their absurdity. As I commented there, I consider atheists to be above such irrelevant arguments just as I am above debating the value American Idol, whereas he, as an antitheist, challenges all evidence of belief in a chief wherever he finds it. It would seem he seeks out chances to shoot holes in the holy, but he’s become so notorious it is no longer as obvious who is seeking who as it is who crawls away full of holes.I would probably still consider myself the more aloof atheist had my daughter not tried to save me, a pain worse than having to care about American Idol. Though her faith is irrelevant to me no matter how far up into my shit she gets, she is my closest relative; if I love her I must be honest with her and try to work it out. This makes me an antitheist.
With the Sarah Palin introduction to the political campaign, the Republicans have diverted the Democrats intent to heal the Bush wounds, by claiming the nation is born again upon the miracle of her nomination. Bomb, bomb Iran… The national media is definitely into teaching that controversy. Sex and religion, who could resist the temptation? Great distraction, McCain — we may go all the way to November without discussing anything of value to our future.
Someone in the comments to his post mentioned that the theory of evolution is not intuitive, requiring the logical arrangement of evidence as compared to the faith of believers in following the awesome. Here’s where I discovered the key to my skepticism about science being much more accurate a view of existence than religion. To me intuition, instinct, genetic memory is a knowing process with which our bodies come equipped; like a process flow chart with the particular name of each station to be filled in depending on the life experience encountered. For me, the epigenesis process in genetics is the spiritual element missing from most scientific consideration of knowledge. For those faithful who abdicate their mentality to external authority, the flow chart has been hard wired to deal with all experience the same, “God made it special just for us, because the Bible tells me so.”
I realize that in using the term, teaching the controversy, P.Z. is railing against the requirement in public education to include the absurdities of religion as a balancing contrast to evolution in science classes. I agree. But giving faith any room in any debate, whether for purposes of balance or total annihilation, does a great disservice to the value of debate’s search for theoretical reality.
As an inadvertent example of the limits of the scientific method I am appending my comment on PZ’s post including the ensuing discussion of it by two other commentators who, I suppose, consider themselves intellectually beyond consideration of my meaning in sounding as afraid of the unknown as a kneeling Christian:
I’m at a loss as to what they found strange or deranged, but thank evolution for the variety.#57 Posted by: yodood | September 15, 2008 8:38 AM
PZ, you teach the controversy with this blog every day and I thank you for it. I make a distinction between atheists and antitheists in the sense of the former indicating without god and the latter against god and all his believers. I find very few true atheists in the world because they have risen above the absurdity though surrounded by it and must be discovered, whereas antitheists, like you and I, declare themselves at every confrontation with faith in an attempt to teach the absurdity of the controversy to the absurd. The effort is as futile as getting capitalists to become symbiotic with nature, or governments to actually be of, by and for the people. This post triggered the labor pains of an embryonic post that has been gestating for quite a while. I see its head emerging now. Thanks for the inducement; I'm naming it after you though it was conceived 58 years ago through spiritual rape.
#58 Posted by: clinteas | September 15, 2008 8:43 AM
yodood,@ 57, I want what he is smoking.
#59 Posted by: SC | September 15, 2008 8:48 AM
Has anyone clicked on yodood's name? I'm afraid to.
#60 Posted by: clinteas | September 15, 2008 8:52 AM
SC,i did, and let me tell you,theres a strange world there,Im not quite sure what to say,probably best to just ignore.....
#61 Posted by: SC | September 15, 2008 8:57 AM
Thanks, clinteas. I generally don't click on links from people I don't "know," especially if they appear to be deranged, but I was curious. Come to think of it, now I'm even more curious... :)
#63 Posted by: clinteas | September 15, 2008 9:13 AMSC, dont do it,its like watching Palins church people twitching,kindof...
#64Posted by: SC | September 15, 2008 9:23 AM
SC, dont do it
Too late. Once I knew it wouldn't kill my computer, "theres a strange world there" was impossible to resist. Had to watch the whole video, too. :S#65 Posted by: clinteas | September 15, 2008 9:30 AM
//Once I knew it wouldn't kill my computer//
You must be using Windows. The insanity that is on display on the internet if you know where to look is somewhat amazing,isnt it. Scary,really.Im afraid McCain/Palin will actually win this election.On this thought,im out for a cig...
Since these remarks were made before I published this post and I read them after, I am also at a loss as to how the thread gave way to McCain/Palin? And what video? Maybe neither clicked on my link and both think they are getting away with lying to each other. How political. Scientists you say? Is political science as scientific as creation science?
11 comments:
C'mon. Face it Dood. You are one crazy, lovable, stream of conciousness writer.
:)
That's actually quite funny, that stream of comments from Meyer's blog.
What *are* you smokin' in that 'This is Not a Pipe, anyway?
Leslie,
Since it is a symbol of a pipe, I must be smoking my imagination, lit with the flame of passionate curiosity about nature within and without, observing perceptions shape reality into this approximation of the moment back when I began typing this.
Thanks for askin'
Yodood, I really wonder what you mean when you call yourself antitheist, since you seem to be anything but. You have passionately argued against dualism, and perhaps you are opposed to all organized religion, but you also have clearly recognized inherent divinity however much you may prefer not to capitalize God. Monism is not atheism, unless you also subscribe to naive materialism like PZ Myers.
Ah, ha, perhaps you have said the magic word in our miscommunication, surely due to my lack of clarity in expressing how specifically NOT supreme any being or sum of beings is. The totality of any entity is more than the sum of its parts most assuredly, but it makes that entity no less dependent on those parts. From wherever you posit your view point there is always the galactically larger and the quarkically smaller than there, so how do you find supremacy in that? The totality of everything is a misleadingly naive description of the universe.
"The totality of any entity is more than the sum of its parts most assuredly, but it makes that entity no less dependent on those parts."
This is limited, three-dimensional thinking. Every part of a holographic projection contains the whole.
ExcepT for "This is limited, three-dimensional thinking." you have done nothing but repeat what I said here and in a comment earlier. Why do you deny a hologram the gestalt of its components and call that less limited than equality for all.
You are stretching to ARGUE
The fact that we agree so much is why it makes it so confusing that you call yourself atheist or even antitheist. You are not wrong in your view, but in your self-description and egoic opposition to your supreme self which is the same as mine. You are God.
To go further, this is not argument, this is communication.
The universe "out there" does not exist in any absolute sense, and all that you perceive you perceive inwardly. All of it is within yourself, including me. You create the universe by self-observation. So too you are within me. To the extent you are self-aware you are supreme. To the extent you are not, you are asleep in my dream.
You know all of this, so I'm not telling you anything new. You know everything, and I cannot teach you what you already know. You choose to reject yourself, and make yourself less than you are.
So it's oly argument when you say it is, eh? I have so much to learn.
My first reply immediately above was argument, my second was not. By this, I mean that I indicate some disagreement with you in the first, but in going further to communicate where I think we agree it is for the purpose of hopefully understanding one another.
That is what I meant, at any rate. And I hope you will not take this reply as further argument.
wow. i'm glad i'm not following politics at the moment - look at the trolls it's bringing out in the blogosphere!
keep smokin'- keep writin' - we might not always understand the words, but we always understand the heart behind them.
xx
rdm
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