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September 15th, 2009

Discussion (30)¬

  1. Sunil says:
    September 15, 2009 at 1:35 pm

    Nice one! Are those direct quotes from Karen Armstrong’s book? I wouldn’t be surprised…

  2. Bahamut says:
    September 15, 2009 at 1:40 pm

    My eyesight (or the screen´s resolution) isn´t what it used to be. I can see Moe is reading Richard Dawkins, but I can´t quite read the title. Is it “The greatest show on Earth”? (comment: i had to look up possible titles for his books, never read any of his stuff)

  3. Peter says:
    September 15, 2009 at 1:44 pm

    Did Mo read Ahuja’s review of The Greatest Show on Earth? Is that why he’s reading it? 🙂

  4. Matt Oxley says:
    September 15, 2009 at 1:50 pm

    At least J isn’t reading anything by Lee Strobel~

  5. John Moore says:
    September 15, 2009 at 1:50 pm

    Much like the discription of the “G” spot from women. It would seem untenable at best more a path meant to be walked instead of an actuall destination.

  6. Bodach says:
    September 15, 2009 at 3:16 pm

    Christian apologists (and others) who invoke the ineffable remind me of kids on the playground saying “Kings X!”. (Might just be an American slang for “Safe!” or “Can’t tag me!”.

  7. Jesus ‘n’ Mo: take 2 on Armstrong « Why Evolution Is True says:
    September 15, 2009 at 3:18 pm

    […] ‘n’ Mo: take 2 on Armstrong The Jesus and Mo artist is, as always, au courant with the theological debates simmering on our […]

  8. Anonym says:
    September 15, 2009 at 4:48 pm

    ‘Say, Mr. Swearengen, what’d’ya think about that Armstrong dame?’

  9. Stonyground says:
    September 15, 2009 at 6:06 pm

    Isn’t it fun to watch as God shrinks from being so mighty so infinite and so powerful. Now he is reduced to hiding behind this vague indifinability to avoid being disproven by those nasty atheists. Has anyone here read any of the confused witterings of Terry Eagleton who fondly imagines that he has skewered Dawkins by saying that RD only disbelieves in the kind of god that the simple believers believe in? His god is much too sophisticated and indefinable and not having studied theology RD doesn’t know what he is talking about.

    Post modernist God isn’t the god that we have a problem with, it is the god believed in by people who want oppressive laws or like to blow things up that is the problem.

  10. Ayashi says:
    September 15, 2009 at 6:14 pm

    The problem is that whenever this “post modern god” gets cut some slack it turns back into the other kind.

  11. wright says:
    September 15, 2009 at 6:33 pm

    @Ayashi:

    Exactly. Most Theistic apologists want it both ways: to have a god who performs in the material world yet remains intrinsically invulnerable to material science (or just skeptical observers) by being “ineffable”.

    Such a god would be completely irrelevant to the world, except that some of its followers insist that they also know the desires of this invisible, immaterial, unknowable creature. Not only that, but those desires conveniently coincide with their own desire to impose their will, directly or indirectly, on others.

  12. Daoloth says:
    September 15, 2009 at 6:56 pm

    @John Moore.
    The “G spot” is the female analogue of the prostate gland.
    It has been extensively described by the anatomist/physiologist Zaviačič and its existence has been accepted by Federative International Committee on Anatomical Terminology 2001, detailed in their Journal Histology Today
    “The gland has a role in producing “[P]rostatic fluid, which participates in the nutrition and maintenance processes of spermatozoa that are introduced into the female reproductive system” (Santos and Taboga 2006, p 1)
    References:
    1) Zaviačič M. (1999). The female prostate: from vestigial Skene’s parauretral glands and ducts to woman’s functional prostate. Bratislava, Slovakia: Slovack Academic Press.
    2) Santos F.C.A, Leite R.P, Custódio A.M.G., Carvalho K.P., Monteiro-Leal L.H., Santos A.B., Góes R.M, Carvalho H.F., Taboga S.R.. (2006). Testosterone stimulates growth and secretory activity of the adult female prostate of the gerbil (Meriones unguiculatus). Biology Reproduction, 75:370-379.

  13. John Moore says:
    September 15, 2009 at 7:36 pm

    @Daoloth – Hopefully I will have this book in my hands when I start dating a gerbil….Boy is she going to be the happiest gerbil ever!!!!!

  14. Ophelia Benson says:
    September 15, 2009 at 7:47 pm

    I hate to interrupt John Moore’s fascinating speculations on gerbils and the G spot, but readers might enjoy Eric MacDonald’s take on the book Jesus is reading –

    http://www.butterfliesandwheels.com/articleprint.php?num=420

  15. JohnnieCanuck says:
    September 15, 2009 at 7:52 pm

    Words fail me. The pain induced by all this ineffable sophistry is indescribable, incomprehensible.

    Actually I’m pretty sure there is a literary term for this well worn descriptive technique of labelling the subject as indescribable. I just can’t think of it right now.

    The things people will come up with in order to hold onto their nice warm fuzzy security blanket.

  16. Daoloth says:
    September 15, 2009 at 9:19 pm

    @ JH. Nice one!
    But research continues apace with humans too. For example:
    Whipple, B (2008) Interview with New Scientist http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg19726444.100-ultrasound-nails-location-of-the-elusive-g-spot.html Accessed 20th Feb 2008. Discussing the Gravina et al. (2008) study of the G-spot
    Also, check out Deborah Sundahl who runs seminars at which you can access, stimulate and see the results of G-spot activation. Recommended but not yet subjected to solid empirrical research. I hope to change that at some point.

  17. spoing says:
    September 16, 2009 at 1:21 am

    @ophelia – beautiful article – thanks for that. Perhaps Armstrong’s theme could be summed up as “Only God knows who God is”.

    Certainly Armstrong has not made “the case” any clearer.

  18. kynefski says:
    September 16, 2009 at 1:52 am

    If you haven’t read the Wall Street Journal piece, please do so. Richard Dawkins is dead on. “Tell the congregation of a church or mosque that existence is too vulgar an attribute to fasten onto their God, and they will brand you an atheist. They’ll be right.”

    I think we should be prepared to welcome Karen Armstrong. She’s quite articulate, but, as theists come to grips with what she’s saying, she is going to be intellectually homeless. Sister Armstrong, welcome to the monkey house.

  19. Tie says:
    September 16, 2009 at 12:24 pm

    Mo is reading “the greatest show on earth” ?

    well, I’m reading that too… ….. never thought I would have anything in common with the pedoprophet from Islam… I can say now that I’ve been proven wrong!

  20. cina murtad says:
    September 16, 2009 at 12:45 pm

    @spoing : if what karen armstrong saying is true “only god knows what god is”, then there’s no point on discussing him, believing him, nor making a book about him. she should just gave flyers instead.

  21. pikeamus says:
    September 16, 2009 at 1:27 pm

    That was a great article OB, thanks.

  22. What Happens When a Theist Thinks Evolution Leaves No Room for God? « Apple Eaters says:
    September 16, 2009 at 3:41 pm

    […] PZ Myers, Albert Mohler, President of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, and even Jesus and Mo (you really want to click this one).  Even so, I feel the need to say something about it, so […]

  23. carey says:
    September 16, 2009 at 4:19 pm

    My favorite Bertrand Russell quote re an ineffable god:

    Question: How do you answer the argument that God is beyond the conception of the human mind?
    Answer: My answer to that would be that so far as it is true, God becomes quite irrelevant to our thinking, and those who say that God is beyond comprehension of the human mind profess to know a great deal about God. They don’t really mean that God is beyond comprehension… generally they mean that He is beyond the comprehension of your mind and not beyond the comprehension of theirs.
    Bertrand Russell, Russell on Religion, 1999, essay “The Existence and Nature of God”

  24. Unweaving the Ineffable | the evolving mind says:
    September 16, 2009 at 4:30 pm

    […] god) and/or the transcendant/mystical realm is ineffable: you can’t put it in words. A recent Jesus and Mo cartoon humorously depicts characters reading books about the […]

  25. JohnnieCanuck says:
    September 16, 2009 at 6:51 pm

    The Greatest Show On Earth gets a good review from PZ. Sounds like something I need to buy. There’s a few evolution doubters in this house that I’d like to have pick it up and get their eyes opened.

  26. Ophelia Benson says:
    September 16, 2009 at 7:55 pm

    Welcome, spoing and pikeamus. Eric MacDonald is a treasure.

  27. MyCatIsGod says:
    September 17, 2009 at 12:07 am

    Not at all linked to the cartoon, but I wanted to post this link. I remember saying a few weeks ago something along the lines of Yemen being an incredible place, but with things that I hated – and that those things were always linked to religion.

    It’s this kind of tragedy that makes me despair with the world. A 7th century figure dictates a book, says it’s the word of God, and uses his position to justify marriage to a child. Thanks entirely to this, the same practice is now common in Yemen, and the justification is emulation of ‘the Prophet’s’ life. It’s perverse, and shocking, and makes me feel helpless in the face of such absurd thinking.

    http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5iKqRuiC7IkWfa2fEuqjfumGUziZAD9ANHIFG1

    The ‘lawmakers’ in question will undoubtedly be members of the Islah (“Reform”, ironically) party, a large bloc of which regularly demands that this fabulous country be dragged back to the Stone Age. Mind you, the party in power is a military dictatorship, so the expression ‘rock and a hard place’ comes to mind.

  28. David The Astronomer says:
    September 17, 2009 at 6:58 am

    @Bahamut: “The Greatest Show on Earth” is Richard Dawkins’s latest book, published this month. It’s an account of the many different kinds of evidence for evolution by natural selection, aimed at a general audience. It’s an excellent book. Go get a copy. You won’t regret it.

  29. dave says:
    September 17, 2009 at 11:43 am

    This “ineffable” line reminds me of the old saying: “those who know don’t tell, and those who tell don’t know”.

  30. Weekend Link at C64GLeN – The blog of Glen McNamee says:
    September 18, 2009 at 5:02 pm

    […] Jesus and Mo share there thoughts on their latest reading material […]

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