What? I mean seriously, does the guy not have any sense of irony at all?
I genuinely have difficulty understanding the mentality that lets someone believe that one rule applies to them, while another applies to everyone else, in such a blatent manner 🙁
Quote from Free Presbyterian minister Rev David McIlveen
I feel that for a child of primary school age, humanism is not something that should be put into their mind.
I think that they are far too young to even make that decision as to the rights and wrongs of humanism and I think this is an exploitation of young people to try and indoctrinate them into a view that many people in Northern Ireland would reject.
There should be a clear barrier between the message of humanism and impressionable minds.
I’m now picking the pieces of my exploded irony meter from the ceiling. I think I have a spring lodged in my ear.
Religion is to be considered as a grave form of pornography:
Only for adults; better kept away from children.
(If one might be allowed, I would prefer any pornography as long as it is between consenting people)
You don’t need God to be moral. Thanks for putting this argument through in such an eloquent way, author.
@HaggisForBrains I’m glad I didn’t read aloud that quote you wrote, it would have been the 3rd time this week I had to fix my irony meter. Why are there no irony meters in churches and mosques?! They need them urgently!
Friendly Extremist, maybe churches and mosques don’t have irony meters because they’re afraid that there would be so many explosions that they would go bankrupt from paying off the claims of both the owners of said irony meters and the people injured by irony meter shrapnel.
So much talk of irony meters. I’m tempted to actually build one. Has AI progressed far enough yet to power the mechanism, or would I have to put on a manual overload button that would cause the device to sproing, requiring at least twenty minutes to reassemble? I shall think on this.
Clerics protecting young minds from evil ideas has a long tradition. My own mother told me that humanism was “the work of the devil”. She’s dead now. I wish her religion had died with her, but sadly it rolls along, destroying irony meters like a global mechanical virus.
One thing I have noticed about clerics, American Republicans, and most ideologues – they are immune to irony. It just flows past them to destroy the irony meter of the skeptic onlooker.
I think this is an exploitation of young people to try and indoctrinate them into a view that many people in Northern Ireland would reject.
A total non- secateur (a Mondegreen just for you, Haggis 🙂 ). All that says is that people already indoctrinated into one worldview are likely to reject a different set of ideas, and there is nowhere in the UK more steeped in religion than NI.
It has always been the same with religion. They know that they need unfettered access to the minds of the young to get their nonsense embedded as early as possible, simply because a mind that has been kept from the clutches of the clergy, and has instead learned a humanist and materialistic understanding, will almost certainly reject religion when introduced to it later.
Religion in this sense is almost virus-like; in order to become established into a host it is vital that the host hasn’t already been immunised.
Look, without the untrue bits, it’s just not special and spooky and mysterious enough. “Don’t be cruel, be kind instead” – it’s just too dull and obvious.
AoS: “… will almost certainly reject religion …”
Many individuals claim to have been convinced atheists but later “found God” for various reasons (e.g. C S Lewis, Solzhenitsin), strange as it seems to regulars of the C&B. Of course these persons may have had some sort of brain disorder, and we should feel compassion towards them – except for the ones who go on to preach it from the rooftops!
Son of Glenner, that’s why I said almost certainly; there will always be the occasional aberrant. Famous examples aside, it is my experience that the majority of atheist-turned-believer stories are actually nothing of the sort, and are simply trying to gain a little credibility with genuine atheists prior to the subsequent attempts at conversion. We can all find God, y’see, we just have to look harder like they did.
We’ve had a few of these ‘liars for Jesus’ crop up here over the years, not one of whom actually understood what atheism means, and they soon reveal their ignorance with claims such as the gem that we’re atheists because we’re angry with God, among others equally stupid.
The ones not deliberately lying tend to be merely confused, mistaking their own periods of doubt or crises of faith for non-belief, and assume we are experiencing the same.
The common thread between the liars and the confused is their lack of ability to accept the notion of no gods, and that atheism is a turning away from them rather than the rejection of the idea that they exist in the first place, as if we know the gods are there all along but refuse to acknowledge them.
Son of Glenner, for some reason I have to approve each of your comments (maybe b/c your IP keeps changing) – so if you post one and it doesn’t appear for a while, that’s probably because I’m in bed. Don’t worry, it will appear eventually.
SoG – you’re not being a pest. But it can’t be your IP because that last note only to me also went into moderation, and it was the same IP as your previous comment. Maybe if you include an email address that would help (only I see it, and it can be fake if you like).
Acolyte, what you wrote. Exactly. Nothing annoys me more than to be told that I am angry at god. A close second is being told that the fundie true believer used to be an atheist just like me, but gave it some serious thought and realized how shallow and silly he was being.
The last guy who used that line on me told me that his big epiphany was the thought: “What if Jesus was who he said he was.” To which I said, uh, okay. What if he was? Then that would mean there exists an anthropomorphic deity who cares about the affairs of men. But only if Jesus was who he said he was. If he wasn’t who he said he was, then there is no god. I take this to be much more likely. Infinitely more likely. So, what if Jesus was delusional? What do you do with your religious beliefs then?
Weird the kinds of things some people think carry logical weight. In that guy’s case, his reason for “becoming a believer” pretty much proves he was never an atheist like me.
Darwin, was it dear Epphy who told us that his car’s engine warning light coming on just before a long journey was one of the key moments in his conversion? It was God looking out for his safety, apparently, rather than the clever engineering doing what it was designed to do in a car that had been stood unused for a long time.
If memory serves, his ‘atheism’ was the time between his leaving one church, and finding a new one more suited to his own beliiefs. It was toward the end of his ‘gap year’ that the car incident occurred, convincing him that God was letting him know that He was still there for him, and that his search was almost over.
I do remember that he didn’t like me very much (ACOLYTE OF SATAN, ABOMINATION OF SAGAN!). Shame, I was getting quite fond of him, he made me laugh.
I never found Christianity to be the least bit plausible; I was in my teens before it dawned on me that ANYBODY really believed that stuff. (Despite attending an Episcopal church with my father every Sunday for years.) I then went through a series of passionate beliefs followed by dis-illusionments; Deism, Ayn Rand’s Objectivism, Libertarianism, then a period of metaphysical confusion followed by Huxley’s “Perennial Philosophy”. I decided to pick a spiritual path and get on it; I spent five years following a Guru, got dis-illusioned by that, spent a few years looking for another religion that could offer good, solid evidence of its truth. Finding none, I settled back into atheism and spent a few years reading ethical philosophy. So, I can say, there are at least some people who are atheist for awhile in their youth, without having any deep understanding of religion or the criticisms of religion, who later get snared by some religion or other.
And meanwhile in the USofA some people persistently believe that the 1st Amendment’s separation of church and state only applies to other people’s religions.
BETSY DEVOS WANTS TO USE AMERICA’S SCHOOLS TO BUILD “GOD’S KINGDOM”
Trump’s education secretary pick has spent a lifetime working to end public education as we know it.
“…Our desire is to confront the culture in ways that will continue to advance God’s kingdom.”
Sadly, the one state that had separation of state and church not only in writing, but also in practice, has made a complete U-turn.
Turkey is now (in all but -yet- formallity) an Islamic dictatorship.
How things can change in less than 15 years!
John B. Hodges, from your story it seems you were never, until recently, an atheist like me. When you were a church going tad but didn’t believe it, you weren’t an atheist like me. You just hadn’t explored the alternative concepts yet. Gradually you became an atheist like me. Now, should you be seduced by some religion or other, you might claim to have been an atheist like me but that claim would still be false. In the past you have been attracted to religious alternatives and if you succumb again it will only indicate that this attraction has persisted, proving only that you seemed to be an atheist like me in fact weren’t. I am not at all attracted to any philosophy that elevates man into a special position in reality. For me there is overwhelming evidence that shit happens and we are just part of it.
Plainsuch, with Mike Pence, poster boy for theocracy, as the VP, I would only be surprised if the new education secretary believed in evolution. That would be surprising. That the new education secretary is out to advance “God’s kingdom” on American soil is just what one should expect from the catastrophic election of a complete dunderhead.
There are many reasons I am not so proud to have been born American. The religious extremists who control the government and thus the country’s viewpoint for many would be at the top.
Quote from Free Presbyterian minister Rev David McIlveen
I feel that for a child of primary school age, humanism is not something that should be put into their mind.
I think that they are far too young to even make that decision as to the rights and wrongs of humanism and I think this is an exploitation of young people to try and indoctrinate them into a view that many people in Northern Ireland would reject.
There should be a clear barrier between the message of humanism and impressionable minds.
The Irony hurts both religion and humanism
Anyone up for a bit of debate on this one?
The thought occured to me the other day that the argument presented here (and the same one presented by Plato 2500 years ago in the Euthyphro) is as cogent as ever. Viz: You don’t need God to be moral (“Is X good because god wills it or does god will it because its good–god is either redundant or arbitrary).
No argument.
But…
What if we realised some time ago that the normal population (most of us) was carrying around a load of (probably frequency dependent) psychopaths? Maybe 1%? Maybe 5%? And these bastards will never care about the Euthyphro arguments–because they don’t care about anything except themselves.
So…
We (the normos) get together and concoct a Cock and Bull story (literally as above) to make them care. The rest of us know it’s bunk, but we don’t let on to the Donald Trumps of the world because fear of hellfire (or similar) is the only thing that will make them bearable.
This would (maybe?) have the consequence of making it rational to spread an wholly irrational meme….
Helena – my problem is that psychopaths have a tendency to attract devoted followers who then tend to regard their teachings as “good”. If I remember my history correctly all of the truly damaging psychopaths had huge numbers of followers. Doesn’t matter what the movement is called, whether its religion, political or a mixture.
Look at two fairly recent “religions” scientology and islam – very similar in some bits (Uber Leader, total obedience, rather odd rules, whole planet must be converted, etc…), main difference is the number of stooges.
When enough people believe a psycho the normalising rules we set up to contain them don’t apply.
Then we need a counter movement to kill the leader, destroy his stooges and remove the offending views from any future use. Then we end up with the war against hitler. Scary isn’t it.
Darwin Harmless, the story of my “spiritual” journey all happened in my ’20’s and early ’30’s; I’ve been an atheist now for just over 30 years. (Signing up for Medicare real soon now.) I doubt I’ll be tempted again until I get senile, like Anthony Flew. I read somewhere that conversion to a religion is typically an emotional process and happens quickly, while conversion to atheism is primarily an intellectual process and takes place over a long period of time, often years. My youthful series of enthusiasms and disillusionments finally caused me to realize that I was taking these positions for primarily emotional reasons, not for primarily rational ones…. having seen that, I saw that other people did the same, in fact most of politics and all of religion was based on that.
Glennersson, yes but are we charismatic psychopaths? I think we need a scale to define the danger level of such people. How about number of followers X danger level / insanity level or mitigating factors
So CP level for scientology 20,000 followers times danger level 5 (out of ten, their beliefs are mad not usually murderous ) divided by mitigation of 100 (members must pay vast sums to progress) Gives us CP level of a thousand.
Do the same thing for yourself.
Mine is 5 followers (wife plus dogs and cats) danger level 1 (I voted yes to brexit) mitigating factor 100 (I am deeply lazy, hard to look at and have an irritating voice). My CP level .05. Annoying but not dangerous.
Helena, I think that the obvious problem with your suggestion is that it has already been done. You’ve basically described what I believe to be one of the main driving forces behind the establishment of religion.
Religion itself was used up until fairly recent times (and still is in many places) as a way of keeping a lawless population in check with dire warnings of terrible punishments to be meted out by the gods for those who transgress the laws.
We’ve seen how well that worked out for us all.
Although, considering the number of believers who trot out the ‘can’t be good without God’ line – whilst conveniently forgetting the amount of evil done in the name of religion, of course – it could be argued that religion is keeping a lot of potentially dangerous people in line. The counter to that is that these potentially dangerous people are also the ones most likely to commit evil when their god or its earthly representative gives them permission to.
This reminds me of Benjamin Franklin’s response to an atheist. Something to the effect that the points he made were valid, but isn’t it better to have people behaving themselves because of religion, even if the religion is false, than to turn them loose on their own conscience.
There’s something deeply wrong with this argument but I’m not quite sure how to argue it. I guess the first question is, does religion actually induce better behavior? I don’t think it does. Even those who profess a sincere belief seem to have no problem being bastards while their all seeing god watches. They have no problem rationalizing despicable behavior using phrases such as “The poor will be always among us.” (So let’s not try to do anything about poverty.)
DH:
Brings to mind a favorite of some of the worst wrongdoers:
“Read the Bible, (insert applicable section), so, there is scripture before you.”
—never mind any section stating the opposite—
DH:
I look at Franklin’s point of view and it conveys he was of the mind that religion was training/conditioning people to be moral and polite, with a set of rules and wisdom to live by. Those without those rules would simply give into chaos and their baser instincts because there would be little-to-no consequences for them. A common assertion, I’m sure you’d agree.
That being said, as you rightly point out anyone of a more vile nature (psychopaths/sociopaths or just plain rotten assholes) can follow the guide of religion but not practice it, unless it suits their specific needs. They will exploit it to further their advantage and try to convince others that their methods are in line with the religion’s message, even if the logic is inane or non-existent. Such people will use any story or method of control for the same effect, of course.
I think the best comeback to Franklin’s point is to argue that a person with deep moral convictions, a sense of right and wrong and a driving desire to do good who just happens to worship Jesus would likely do the same things if they were presented evidence that God doesn’t exist. The reason being is that this moral compass has worked for them so far and there is no reason to discontinue such behavior if religion doesn’t apply. As an individual you can make your own choice and if you choose to remain good, then you continue to act as a benefit to society. If you choose to be contemptible, especially as an abandonment of principles then it only proves how flawed a character you are.
It seems the edit function decided to be a douche because it took me to a different screen when I tried to backspace while correcting a spelling error.
Basically I wanted to improve my closer: “Believe what you want but don’t be a douche. Everyone wins.” I wonder what Ben Franklin would say in response to that.
Interesting idea Helena, but I’ve always thought it was the other way round. The psychopaths invented religion to control others and get what they wanted. Somewhere along the way some more normal folks figured it out and injected some good so humanity wouldn’t wipe itself out.
Thanks for the thoughts
1) Deimos: Good point about the charismatic psychopaths. Maybe this is more or less what happened historically? We generated a mechanism for keeping them in check and it rebounded on the rest?
2) Darwin H: I specifically didn’t say the whole population–only that 1% (?) to 5% (?) that doesn’t have a conscience.
Same goes for Franklin’s argument. You don’t need divine sanction for most people because they have empathy and that works just fine
3) AoS. Yes–but that grew up organially and most of the strictures are to keep a nomadic (Old testament) or agricultural/ slave (New Testament) group together. I wasnt much interested in that stuff (golden calfs, water into wine, and all that crapola). I was just curious as to whether threat of hellfire would stop psychopaths from enacting their desires. This seems to me to be an empirical question
Incidentally–I suspect that the answer is “No” based purely on my experience of prisons where the most popular books (by far) are the Bible and Koran (followed by Steven King).
But I wondered if this might have been part of the genesis of it?
Thanks for the stimulating thoughts all.
This discussion of charismatic psychopaths has set me off on the tangent of thinking about psychopathy as a disability. Many disabilities can be diagnosed birth or in early childhood. Parents and teachers of children with some disabilities can get information and training on how to teach these children to request that adaptations be made (such as using audio books instead of printed books) and to develop coping skills (such as lip reading). Some disabled children can also be helped by medical devices and/or medications. How do parents and teachers come to realize that a child is disabled in that he or she cannot feel emotions (especially shame, remorse, and guilt), cannot empathize with others, and cannot form attachments with others? What adaptations (if any) should be made for such a child? What coping skills should the child be taught? How can the parents successfully bring up the child to treat others kindly and fairly (or at least to obey the laws against assault, fraud, murder, etc.)? Does “Do not do to others what you do not want them to do to you” make sense to a psychopath?
two cents worth, I’m not sure there is an answer to your question. I have heard that all serial killers have a brain malfunction, an actual mental disability. What can a parent do with a child who has a brain malfunction of the kind you describe. Perhaps the logic of cause and effect might mitigate their behavior, i.e. if you behave badly you will suffer for it, but I rather doubt it. There are just too many situations in which bad behavior is rewarded by the system.
Two cents and DH:
I may have a small insight here, I have a very autistic child who fits all of the following definitions – she is a complete innocent, a complete psychopath and also has no concept of cause and effect or right and wrong.
She has never spoken but almost totally “normal” in her behaviour in public. In fact in many ways she is easier to raise than our non-autistic kids. But no conventional teaching or imposed morality has any effect on her choices, all of which are entirely based on her desires.
As such we are raising the perfect example of a mini psychopath, not in any way evil but totally unaware of what good and evil are. If we could find a way to reach her it might point to a way of keeping our more worryingly communicative psychopaths from being a menace.
Darwin – I would suggest the idea of brain plasticity. Norman Doidge has some good books on the subject. The brain apparently can find repairs or work arounds for some injuries and defects.
.
Although Deimos post points to the difficulty in achieving changes even with significant love and support from your family. Note – I’m not an autism expert, so I may be conflating two dissimilar issues. I”ll apologise in advance if I have.
This is a long ramble about autism and psychopathy. You have been warned 😉 ! Go ahead and skip this if you’re not interested.
Deimos, I was interested to hear about your daughter. My adult son has autism. I agree that, in some ways, an autistic child is easier to bring up than a neuro-typical one. I do worry that he could be a target for abuse, that he may have health problems that I haven’t noticed (he practically never uses words or gestures to tell me when he feels ill), and that I am having trouble finding someone who will care for him after I’m gone. On the other hand, he’s not interested in sex, the only drugs he takes are the ones I give him (prescription medications and supplements), he doesn’t drive, and he spends very little money. He tends to avoid interacting with people, which reduces the likelihood that he will offend or harm them.
My son uses speech to communicate sometimes. (Much of his speech is either pure echolalia, or is an attempt to communicate that fails because he can’t remember the right words.) For this and other reasons, it’s hard to know what he feels (both physically and emotionally), but he has spontaneously shown remorse and/or empathy at least a few times, to my knowledge (for example, crying when he realized that his wandering off had made me almost frantic with worry, and helping someone who was injured). I don’t know if he knows the difference between right and wrong, but after a lot of practice and with positive reinforcement, he has made a lot of progress–for example, he is now able to wait quietly in line, and does not eat treats in the grocery store before we pay for them.
His communication deficits may be what separates him from psychopaths. According to https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/wicked-deeds/201401/how-tell-sociopath-psychopath, Psychopaths are very manipulative and can easily gain people’s trust. They learn to mimic emotions, despite their inability to actually feel them, and will appear normal to unsuspecting people. My son isn’t manipulative–he doesn’t have the verbal or non-verbal skills. When he’s hovering in the kitchen (for example), it can be hard to figure out whether he’s just hanging out or whether he wants something. If he does want something, it can be hard to figure out what he wants. He does not appear normal to people who spend enough time around him. I assume that there are some people who have both autism and psychopathy, but none of my son’s many psych. evals. has mentioned psychopathy, and I’m pretty sure he’s not a psychopath.
Another difference between people with autism and people with psychopathy may be their attitude towards rules. Many people with autism are happy to follow the rules; they just have trouble figuring out what the unspoken rules are. Knowing and following the rules helps them cope with the world and reduces their anxiety. From what I’ve read, I think that psychopaths see rules as obstacles to getting what they want. They ignore the rules when they can get away with it; when they can’t, they manipulate others so they can get around the rules without having to suffer any unpleasant consequences.
DC Toronto, some children with autism (even some who start out as non-verbal) become indistinguishable from their neuro-typical peers if they’re given many years of intensive therapy (such as Applied Behavior Analysis) starting as early as possible. (These days, some children start receiving therapy in their first year.) A few “recover” from their autism even though they are not given any therapy. (I put “recover” in quotes because the diagnosis of autism is based in part on behavior early in life, regardless of the age of the person being evaluated.) Other children may make progress, but never “recover,” even after receiving intensive therapy. It might be that some of them have things (cells/structures/chemicals/whatever) in their brains that can be re-molded, while others’ brains are less plastic because they don’t have much of these things, are missing them entirely, or cannot repair or work around the problem. Research has shown that the brains of some people with autism seem to have trouble with pruning their neurons. The brains of some children who don’t “recover” might not be able to find a way to repair the pruning system or to work around the excess neurons.
Because autism is diagnosed purely based on behavior, some researchers think that it may actually be not one disorder but a collection of disorders. For example, all cancers involve tumors, but different kinds of cancer have different causes and different cures or treatments. All cases of autism involve communication disorders, but it may be that there are different kinds of autism, with different causes and different treatments. After continued research, we may someday be able to distinguish one kind of autism from another, to identify the cause of each kind, and to find cures or treatments that are specific to each kind.
The article mentioned above states, Psychopathy is related to a physiological defect that results in the underdevelopment of the part of the brain responsible for impulse control and emotions. There are some medications that can help with impulse control, but I don’t know if they work for psychopaths, or whether the problematic part of the brain could be stimulated so it develops fully (or, at least, makes progress in its development.)
Anyway, I’m glad my son has autism rather than psychopathy. And (to get back on topic, kind of) I don’t know whether psychopaths invented religion in general or some religions in particular, but I’m sure that some psychopaths have used religion as one of the tools in their kit to manipulate people in order to get what they want. (Torquemada might be an example of this.)
Deimos, you might (or might not) find these books useful: NeuroTribes: The Legacy of Autism and the Future of Neurodiversity, by Steve Silberman; Let Me Hear Your Voice, by Catherine Maurice (about her two children who “recovered” after intensive Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA) therapy); Don’t Shoot the Dog, by Karen Pryor (ABA is not just for people with autism); and Teaching Individuals with Developmental Delays: Basic Intervention Techniques by O. Ivar Lovaas (on beginning an ABA program for a young child with autism; more up-to-date than The ME Book).
Two cents, excellent ramble. Having worked with a psychopath once I definitely agree that autism is better.
But on a slightly serious note, many Thanks for your considerate information sharing. It’s quite amazing how excellent and generous humans can be when they meet here and share their thoughts and knowledge. It makes me look outside and appreciate the sunshine.
Be well.
Two Cents’, thanks for sharing that. I sure appreciate the crowd that the C&B has attracted. A combination of erudite and compassionate. Cheers, mates.
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What? I mean seriously, does the guy not have any sense of irony at all?
I genuinely have difficulty understanding the mentality that lets someone believe that one rule applies to them, while another applies to everyone else, in such a blatent manner 🙁
Quote from Free Presbyterian minister Rev David McIlveen
I’m now picking the pieces of my exploded irony meter from the ceiling. I think I have a spring lodged in my ear.
Religion is to be considered as a grave form of pornography:
Only for adults; better kept away from children.
(If one might be allowed, I would prefer any pornography as long as it is between consenting people)
Ehhh’.
And I just defined religion as porno…..
Evidently my remark between parenthesis only applies for sex-oriented porno.
[…] Today’s Jesus and Mo, called “best,” came with this accompanying note in the email: […]
You don’t need God to be moral. Thanks for putting this argument through in such an eloquent way, author.
@HaggisForBrains I’m glad I didn’t read aloud that quote you wrote, it would have been the 3rd time this week I had to fix my irony meter. Why are there no irony meters in churches and mosques?! They need them urgently!
I love that punchline: Those are the best bits!
Crislam and muhamadism
Bring out the worst in a person
There is more bad news
Like wise for Hindu’s
Organized religion evil, does worsen.
Friendly Extremist, maybe churches and mosques don’t have irony meters because they’re afraid that there would be so many explosions that they would go bankrupt from paying off the claims of both the owners of said irony meters and the people injured by irony meter shrapnel.
I think this is an exploitation of young people to try and indoctrinate them into a view that many people in Northern Ireland would reject.
My indoctrination is education, while your education is indoctrination.
The really sad part about this is how right he is – many people in ‘Norn Arlen’, the Alabama of the UK, will agree with him.
Friendly extremist:
You can use your irony meter as a sensitive Church detector, but if you get too close, the needle bends against the ‘max’ pin.
So much talk of irony meters. I’m tempted to actually build one. Has AI progressed far enough yet to power the mechanism, or would I have to put on a manual overload button that would cause the device to sproing, requiring at least twenty minutes to reassemble? I shall think on this.
Clerics protecting young minds from evil ideas has a long tradition. My own mother told me that humanism was “the work of the devil”. She’s dead now. I wish her religion had died with her, but sadly it rolls along, destroying irony meters like a global mechanical virus.
One thing I have noticed about clerics, American Republicans, and most ideologues – they are immune to irony. It just flows past them to destroy the irony meter of the skeptic onlooker.
Irony meters are too weak. You need to acquire and UNobtainium meter. At least log log scale, of course.
A total non- secateur (a Mondegreen just for you, Haggis 🙂 ). All that says is that people already indoctrinated into one worldview are likely to reject a different set of ideas, and there is nowhere in the UK more steeped in religion than NI.
It has always been the same with religion. They know that they need unfettered access to the minds of the young to get their nonsense embedded as early as possible, simply because a mind that has been kept from the clutches of the clergy, and has instead learned a humanist and materialistic understanding, will almost certainly reject religion when introduced to it later.
Religion in this sense is almost virus-like; in order to become established into a host it is vital that the host hasn’t already been immunised.
Look, without the untrue bits, it’s just not special and spooky and mysterious enough. “Don’t be cruel, be kind instead” – it’s just too dull and obvious.
[…] The best bits! […]
AoS: “… will almost certainly reject religion …”
Many individuals claim to have been convinced atheists but later “found God” for various reasons (e.g. C S Lewis, Solzhenitsin), strange as it seems to regulars of the C&B. Of course these persons may have had some sort of brain disorder, and we should feel compassion towards them – except for the ones who go on to preach it from the rooftops!
Son of Glenner, that’s why I said almost certainly; there will always be the occasional aberrant. Famous examples aside, it is my experience that the majority of atheist-turned-believer stories are actually nothing of the sort, and are simply trying to gain a little credibility with genuine atheists prior to the subsequent attempts at conversion. We can all find God, y’see, we just have to look harder like they did.
We’ve had a few of these ‘liars for Jesus’ crop up here over the years, not one of whom actually understood what atheism means, and they soon reveal their ignorance with claims such as the gem that we’re atheists because we’re angry with God, among others equally stupid.
The ones not deliberately lying tend to be merely confused, mistaking their own periods of doubt or crises of faith for non-belief, and assume we are experiencing the same.
The common thread between the liars and the confused is their lack of ability to accept the notion of no gods, and that atheism is a turning away from them rather than the rejection of the idea that they exist in the first place, as if we know the gods are there all along but refuse to acknowledge them.
AoS: “… genuine atheists …” = “… true Scotsmen …”?
Son of Glenner, for some reason I have to approve each of your comments (maybe b/c your IP keeps changing) – so if you post one and it doesn’t appear for a while, that’s probably because I’m in bed. Don’t worry, it will appear eventually.
Note only to Author. I don’t know why my IP should change – I always use the same laptop (MacBook). Sorry to be a pest.
SoG – you’re not being a pest. But it can’t be your IP because that last note only to me also went into moderation, and it was the same IP as your previous comment. Maybe if you include an email address that would help (only I see it, and it can be fake if you like).
Son of Glenner, we even have genuine Scottish atheists.
‘ere, Author, some bugger’s pinched the edit function!
Edit: the bugger’s brought it back.
Carry on.
Acolyte, what you wrote. Exactly. Nothing annoys me more than to be told that I am angry at god. A close second is being told that the fundie true believer used to be an atheist just like me, but gave it some serious thought and realized how shallow and silly he was being.
The last guy who used that line on me told me that his big epiphany was the thought: “What if Jesus was who he said he was.” To which I said, uh, okay. What if he was? Then that would mean there exists an anthropomorphic deity who cares about the affairs of men. But only if Jesus was who he said he was. If he wasn’t who he said he was, then there is no god. I take this to be much more likely. Infinitely more likely. So, what if Jesus was delusional? What do you do with your religious beliefs then?
Weird the kinds of things some people think carry logical weight. In that guy’s case, his reason for “becoming a believer” pretty much proves he was never an atheist like me.
Darwin, was it dear Epphy who told us that his car’s engine warning light coming on just before a long journey was one of the key moments in his conversion? It was God looking out for his safety, apparently, rather than the clever engineering doing what it was designed to do in a car that had been stood unused for a long time.
If memory serves, his ‘atheism’ was the time between his leaving one church, and finding a new one more suited to his own beliiefs. It was toward the end of his ‘gap year’ that the car incident occurred, convincing him that God was letting him know that He was still there for him, and that his search was almost over.
I do remember that he didn’t like me very much (ACOLYTE OF SATAN, ABOMINATION OF SAGAN!). Shame, I was getting quite fond of him, he made me laugh.
After reading that article, I think it’s fair to say that religion is the epitome of mental retardation.
Test message only: I am sending this with email address attached, to see if that lets it by-pass moderation by our poor overworked Author.
It worked!
AoS – 😀 😀 Very cutting!
Son of Glenner and I are True Scots Atheists
I never found Christianity to be the least bit plausible; I was in my teens before it dawned on me that ANYBODY really believed that stuff. (Despite attending an Episcopal church with my father every Sunday for years.) I then went through a series of passionate beliefs followed by dis-illusionments; Deism, Ayn Rand’s Objectivism, Libertarianism, then a period of metaphysical confusion followed by Huxley’s “Perennial Philosophy”. I decided to pick a spiritual path and get on it; I spent five years following a Guru, got dis-illusioned by that, spent a few years looking for another religion that could offer good, solid evidence of its truth. Finding none, I settled back into atheism and spent a few years reading ethical philosophy. So, I can say, there are at least some people who are atheist for awhile in their youth, without having any deep understanding of religion or the criticisms of religion, who later get snared by some religion or other.
Haggis: Thank you for your solidarity with a fellow Scot!
And meanwhile in the USofA some people persistently believe that the 1st Amendment’s separation of church and state only applies to other people’s religions.
BETSY DEVOS WANTS TO USE AMERICA’S SCHOOLS TO BUILD “GOD’S KINGDOM”
Trump’s education secretary pick has spent a lifetime working to end public education as we know it.
“…Our desire is to confront the culture in ways that will continue to advance God’s kingdom.”
Sadly, the one state that had separation of state and church not only in writing, but also in practice, has made a complete U-turn.
Turkey is now (in all but -yet- formallity) an Islamic dictatorship.
How things can change in less than 15 years!
America, be aware of the risk you are running.
John B. Hodges, from your story it seems you were never, until recently, an atheist like me. When you were a church going tad but didn’t believe it, you weren’t an atheist like me. You just hadn’t explored the alternative concepts yet. Gradually you became an atheist like me. Now, should you be seduced by some religion or other, you might claim to have been an atheist like me but that claim would still be false. In the past you have been attracted to religious alternatives and if you succumb again it will only indicate that this attraction has persisted, proving only that you seemed to be an atheist like me in fact weren’t. I am not at all attracted to any philosophy that elevates man into a special position in reality. For me there is overwhelming evidence that shit happens and we are just part of it.
Plainsuch, with Mike Pence, poster boy for theocracy, as the VP, I would only be surprised if the new education secretary believed in evolution. That would be surprising. That the new education secretary is out to advance “God’s kingdom” on American soil is just what one should expect from the catastrophic election of a complete dunderhead.
There are many reasons I am not so proud to have been born American. The religious extremists who control the government and thus the country’s viewpoint for many would be at the top.
Quote from Free Presbyterian minister Rev David McIlveen
I feel that for a child of primary school age, humanism is not something that should be put into their mind.
I think that they are far too young to even make that decision as to the rights and wrongs of humanism and I think this is an exploitation of young people to try and indoctrinate them into a view that many people in Northern Ireland would reject.
There should be a clear barrier between the message of humanism and impressionable minds.
The Irony hurts both religion and humanism
Anyone up for a bit of debate on this one?
The thought occured to me the other day that the argument presented here (and the same one presented by Plato 2500 years ago in the Euthyphro) is as cogent as ever. Viz: You don’t need God to be moral (“Is X good because god wills it or does god will it because its good–god is either redundant or arbitrary).
No argument.
But…
What if we realised some time ago that the normal population (most of us) was carrying around a load of (probably frequency dependent) psychopaths? Maybe 1%? Maybe 5%? And these bastards will never care about the Euthyphro arguments–because they don’t care about anything except themselves.
So…
We (the normos) get together and concoct a Cock and Bull story (literally as above) to make them care. The rest of us know it’s bunk, but we don’t let on to the Donald Trumps of the world because fear of hellfire (or similar) is the only thing that will make them bearable.
This would (maybe?) have the consequence of making it rational to spread an wholly irrational meme….
Helena – my problem is that psychopaths have a tendency to attract devoted followers who then tend to regard their teachings as “good”. If I remember my history correctly all of the truly damaging psychopaths had huge numbers of followers. Doesn’t matter what the movement is called, whether its religion, political or a mixture.
Look at two fairly recent “religions” scientology and islam – very similar in some bits (Uber Leader, total obedience, rather odd rules, whole planet must be converted, etc…), main difference is the number of stooges.
When enough people believe a psycho the normalising rules we set up to contain them don’t apply.
Then we need a counter movement to kill the leader, destroy his stooges and remove the offending views from any future use. Then we end up with the war against hitler. Scary isn’t it.
Helena seems to be assuming that none of us, ie the C&B regulars, are psychopaths. This seems unlikely.
Darwin Harmless, the story of my “spiritual” journey all happened in my ’20’s and early ’30’s; I’ve been an atheist now for just over 30 years. (Signing up for Medicare real soon now.) I doubt I’ll be tempted again until I get senile, like Anthony Flew. I read somewhere that conversion to a religion is typically an emotional process and happens quickly, while conversion to atheism is primarily an intellectual process and takes place over a long period of time, often years. My youthful series of enthusiasms and disillusionments finally caused me to realize that I was taking these positions for primarily emotional reasons, not for primarily rational ones…. having seen that, I saw that other people did the same, in fact most of politics and all of religion was based on that.
Glennersson, yes but are we charismatic psychopaths? I think we need a scale to define the danger level of such people. How about number of followers X danger level / insanity level or mitigating factors
So CP level for scientology 20,000 followers times danger level 5 (out of ten, their beliefs are mad not usually murderous ) divided by mitigation of 100 (members must pay vast sums to progress) Gives us CP level of a thousand.
Do the same thing for yourself.
Mine is 5 followers (wife plus dogs and cats) danger level 1 (I voted yes to brexit) mitigating factor 100 (I am deeply lazy, hard to look at and have an irritating voice). My CP level .05. Annoying but not dangerous.
Helena, I think that the obvious problem with your suggestion is that it has already been done. You’ve basically described what I believe to be one of the main driving forces behind the establishment of religion.
Religion itself was used up until fairly recent times (and still is in many places) as a way of keeping a lawless population in check with dire warnings of terrible punishments to be meted out by the gods for those who transgress the laws.
We’ve seen how well that worked out for us all.
Although, considering the number of believers who trot out the ‘can’t be good without God’ line – whilst conveniently forgetting the amount of evil done in the name of religion, of course – it could be argued that religion is keeping a lot of potentially dangerous people in line. The counter to that is that these potentially dangerous people are also the ones most likely to commit evil when their god or its earthly representative gives them permission to.
This reminds me of Benjamin Franklin’s response to an atheist. Something to the effect that the points he made were valid, but isn’t it better to have people behaving themselves because of religion, even if the religion is false, than to turn them loose on their own conscience.
There’s something deeply wrong with this argument but I’m not quite sure how to argue it. I guess the first question is, does religion actually induce better behavior? I don’t think it does. Even those who profess a sincere belief seem to have no problem being bastards while their all seeing god watches. They have no problem rationalizing despicable behavior using phrases such as “The poor will be always among us.” (So let’s not try to do anything about poverty.)
DH:
Brings to mind a favorite of some of the worst wrongdoers:
“Read the Bible, (insert applicable section), so, there is scripture before you.”
—never mind any section stating the opposite—
DH:
I look at Franklin’s point of view and it conveys he was of the mind that religion was training/conditioning people to be moral and polite, with a set of rules and wisdom to live by. Those without those rules would simply give into chaos and their baser instincts because there would be little-to-no consequences for them. A common assertion, I’m sure you’d agree.
That being said, as you rightly point out anyone of a more vile nature (psychopaths/sociopaths or just plain rotten assholes) can follow the guide of religion but not practice it, unless it suits their specific needs. They will exploit it to further their advantage and try to convince others that their methods are in line with the religion’s message, even if the logic is inane or non-existent. Such people will use any story or method of control for the same effect, of course.
I think the best comeback to Franklin’s point is to argue that a person with deep moral convictions, a sense of right and wrong and a driving desire to do good who just happens to worship Jesus would likely do the same things if they were presented evidence that God doesn’t exist. The reason being is that this moral compass has worked for them so far and there is no reason to discontinue such behavior if religion doesn’t apply. As an individual you can make your own choice and if you choose to remain good, then you continue to act as a benefit to society. If you choose to be contemptible, especially as an abandonment of principles then it only proves how flawed a character you are.
The short version: don’t be a douche.
It seems the edit function decided to be a douche because it took me to a different screen when I tried to backspace while correcting a spelling error.
Basically I wanted to improve my closer: “Believe what you want but don’t be a douche. Everyone wins.” I wonder what Ben Franklin would say in response to that.
Interesting idea Helena, but I’ve always thought it was the other way round. The psychopaths invented religion to control others and get what they wanted. Somewhere along the way some more normal folks figured it out and injected some good so humanity wouldn’t wipe itself out.
But then I’ve always been a bit of an optimist.
Thanks for the thoughts
1) Deimos: Good point about the charismatic psychopaths. Maybe this is more or less what happened historically? We generated a mechanism for keeping them in check and it rebounded on the rest?
2) Darwin H: I specifically didn’t say the whole population–only that 1% (?) to 5% (?) that doesn’t have a conscience.
Same goes for Franklin’s argument. You don’t need divine sanction for most people because they have empathy and that works just fine
3) AoS. Yes–but that grew up organially and most of the strictures are to keep a nomadic (Old testament) or agricultural/ slave (New Testament) group together. I wasnt much interested in that stuff (golden calfs, water into wine, and all that crapola). I was just curious as to whether threat of hellfire would stop psychopaths from enacting their desires. This seems to me to be an empirical question
Incidentally–I suspect that the answer is “No” based purely on my experience of prisons where the most popular books (by far) are the Bible and Koran (followed by Steven King).
But I wondered if this might have been part of the genesis of it?
Thanks for the stimulating thoughts all.
This discussion of charismatic psychopaths has set me off on the tangent of thinking about psychopathy as a disability. Many disabilities can be diagnosed birth or in early childhood. Parents and teachers of children with some disabilities can get information and training on how to teach these children to request that adaptations be made (such as using audio books instead of printed books) and to develop coping skills (such as lip reading). Some disabled children can also be helped by medical devices and/or medications. How do parents and teachers come to realize that a child is disabled in that he or she cannot feel emotions (especially shame, remorse, and guilt), cannot empathize with others, and cannot form attachments with others? What adaptations (if any) should be made for such a child? What coping skills should the child be taught? How can the parents successfully bring up the child to treat others kindly and fairly (or at least to obey the laws against assault, fraud, murder, etc.)? Does “Do not do to others what you do not want them to do to you” make sense to a psychopath?
two cents worth, I’m not sure there is an answer to your question. I have heard that all serial killers have a brain malfunction, an actual mental disability. What can a parent do with a child who has a brain malfunction of the kind you describe. Perhaps the logic of cause and effect might mitigate their behavior, i.e. if you behave badly you will suffer for it, but I rather doubt it. There are just too many situations in which bad behavior is rewarded by the system.
Two cents and DH:
I may have a small insight here, I have a very autistic child who fits all of the following definitions – she is a complete innocent, a complete psychopath and also has no concept of cause and effect or right and wrong.
She has never spoken but almost totally “normal” in her behaviour in public. In fact in many ways she is easier to raise than our non-autistic kids. But no conventional teaching or imposed morality has any effect on her choices, all of which are entirely based on her desires.
As such we are raising the perfect example of a mini psychopath, not in any way evil but totally unaware of what good and evil are. If we could find a way to reach her it might point to a way of keeping our more worryingly communicative psychopaths from being a menace.
Darwin – I would suggest the idea of brain plasticity. Norman Doidge has some good books on the subject. The brain apparently can find repairs or work arounds for some injuries and defects.
.
Although Deimos post points to the difficulty in achieving changes even with significant love and support from your family. Note – I’m not an autism expert, so I may be conflating two dissimilar issues. I”ll apologise in advance if I have.
Thanks DC, I will be having a look at brain plasticity.
This is a long ramble about autism and psychopathy. You have been warned 😉 ! Go ahead and skip this if you’re not interested.
Deimos, I was interested to hear about your daughter. My adult son has autism. I agree that, in some ways, an autistic child is easier to bring up than a neuro-typical one. I do worry that he could be a target for abuse, that he may have health problems that I haven’t noticed (he practically never uses words or gestures to tell me when he feels ill), and that I am having trouble finding someone who will care for him after I’m gone. On the other hand, he’s not interested in sex, the only drugs he takes are the ones I give him (prescription medications and supplements), he doesn’t drive, and he spends very little money. He tends to avoid interacting with people, which reduces the likelihood that he will offend or harm them.
My son uses speech to communicate sometimes. (Much of his speech is either pure echolalia, or is an attempt to communicate that fails because he can’t remember the right words.) For this and other reasons, it’s hard to know what he feels (both physically and emotionally), but he has spontaneously shown remorse and/or empathy at least a few times, to my knowledge (for example, crying when he realized that his wandering off had made me almost frantic with worry, and helping someone who was injured). I don’t know if he knows the difference between right and wrong, but after a lot of practice and with positive reinforcement, he has made a lot of progress–for example, he is now able to wait quietly in line, and does not eat treats in the grocery store before we pay for them.
His communication deficits may be what separates him from psychopaths. According to https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/wicked-deeds/201401/how-tell-sociopath-psychopath, Psychopaths are very manipulative and can easily gain people’s trust. They learn to mimic emotions, despite their inability to actually feel them, and will appear normal to unsuspecting people. My son isn’t manipulative–he doesn’t have the verbal or non-verbal skills. When he’s hovering in the kitchen (for example), it can be hard to figure out whether he’s just hanging out or whether he wants something. If he does want something, it can be hard to figure out what he wants. He does not appear normal to people who spend enough time around him. I assume that there are some people who have both autism and psychopathy, but none of my son’s many psych. evals. has mentioned psychopathy, and I’m pretty sure he’s not a psychopath.
Another difference between people with autism and people with psychopathy may be their attitude towards rules. Many people with autism are happy to follow the rules; they just have trouble figuring out what the unspoken rules are. Knowing and following the rules helps them cope with the world and reduces their anxiety. From what I’ve read, I think that psychopaths see rules as obstacles to getting what they want. They ignore the rules when they can get away with it; when they can’t, they manipulate others so they can get around the rules without having to suffer any unpleasant consequences.
DC Toronto, some children with autism (even some who start out as non-verbal) become indistinguishable from their neuro-typical peers if they’re given many years of intensive therapy (such as Applied Behavior Analysis) starting as early as possible. (These days, some children start receiving therapy in their first year.) A few “recover” from their autism even though they are not given any therapy. (I put “recover” in quotes because the diagnosis of autism is based in part on behavior early in life, regardless of the age of the person being evaluated.) Other children may make progress, but never “recover,” even after receiving intensive therapy. It might be that some of them have things (cells/structures/chemicals/whatever) in their brains that can be re-molded, while others’ brains are less plastic because they don’t have much of these things, are missing them entirely, or cannot repair or work around the problem. Research has shown that the brains of some people with autism seem to have trouble with pruning their neurons. The brains of some children who don’t “recover” might not be able to find a way to repair the pruning system or to work around the excess neurons.
Because autism is diagnosed purely based on behavior, some researchers think that it may actually be not one disorder but a collection of disorders. For example, all cancers involve tumors, but different kinds of cancer have different causes and different cures or treatments. All cases of autism involve communication disorders, but it may be that there are different kinds of autism, with different causes and different treatments. After continued research, we may someday be able to distinguish one kind of autism from another, to identify the cause of each kind, and to find cures or treatments that are specific to each kind.
The article mentioned above states, Psychopathy is related to a physiological defect that results in the underdevelopment of the part of the brain responsible for impulse control and emotions. There are some medications that can help with impulse control, but I don’t know if they work for psychopaths, or whether the problematic part of the brain could be stimulated so it develops fully (or, at least, makes progress in its development.)
Anyway, I’m glad my son has autism rather than psychopathy. And (to get back on topic, kind of) I don’t know whether psychopaths invented religion in general or some religions in particular, but I’m sure that some psychopaths have used religion as one of the tools in their kit to manipulate people in order to get what they want. (Torquemada might be an example of this.)
Deimos, you might (or might not) find these books useful: NeuroTribes: The Legacy of Autism and the Future of Neurodiversity, by Steve Silberman; Let Me Hear Your Voice, by Catherine Maurice (about her two children who “recovered” after intensive Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA) therapy); Don’t Shoot the Dog, by Karen Pryor (ABA is not just for people with autism); and Teaching Individuals with Developmental Delays: Basic Intervention Techniques by O. Ivar Lovaas (on beginning an ABA program for a young child with autism; more up-to-date than The ME Book).
Two cents, excellent ramble. Having worked with a psychopath once I definitely agree that autism is better.
But on a slightly serious note, many Thanks for your considerate information sharing. It’s quite amazing how excellent and generous humans can be when they meet here and share their thoughts and knowledge. It makes me look outside and appreciate the sunshine.
Be well.
Two cents’ – that was fascinating. Thanks for taking the trouble to write it all down for us.
Two Cents’, thanks for sharing that. I sure appreciate the crowd that the C&B has attracted. A combination of erudite and compassionate. Cheers, mates.