What Atheists say When they are Outgunned

Last week on CARM I was challenged by atheists to show "any evidence at all" that mind is not reducible to brain. I put up a huge post. It was originally a page I researched adn wrote but taken over (with my permission) by God and Science.org. Rather than discussing the matrail a certain atheists responded by trying to make me feel guilty about having too much evidence!


Originally Posted by Samscram

I don't go out on fools errands.

It is fascinating to see that your faith is apparently so shaky that the words of the bible aren't sufficient and to maintain it, you must look to the academy to find the Holy Grail as it were.

I must admit that's a new one! What does it mean? Atheist harp and harp "there's no evidence for your God." When you give them some, then it's too much. I am an intellectual. My faith si a combination of emotional trust and intellectual reasoning. My life journey has been about putting the two together and over the years I have devoted that to a high level. I have the best evdience I'm going to resort to scholarship because my life is about scholarship I AM A SCHOLAR! My faith is integrally a part of my intellectual journey and vice versa.


He goes on:

The fact that you have to cite "authority" after "authority" after "authority" without providing even a synopsis of their content proves to me if to no one else that you don't know the content and/or haven't the ability to utilize it in a rational rhetorical venue.

The fact that you have to site authority after authority, in other words, "don't confuse me with the facts." That is one of the silliest and most unfair things I've ever heard anyone say. do you realy expect me to post a whole book on this baord? You do have a responisiblty to find things out for yourself. All I can do si point in a direction. if you are too lazy to follow up that's your problem. I don't have time or space to type whole books into this text box it's totally unfair of you to deamnd thtat.

Of cousre his comment I don't know the content, what an arrogant little wind bag! He doesn't even mention a single point its I who don't know the content! BTW what rational rhetorical venue? Isn't that what the message board is supposed to be? At least before CARM it was.

you guys are constantly making the refrain "there's no proof for X" Your God, or whatever. you always say Christians can't have any evidence and can't prove anything. then when I do show that I have moutian of evidence and there's something wrong with that. now I'm not good because I have too much evidence. Before I was stupid and feeble minded because I believe stuff without evidence, now I have too much.

that's absurd its silly its transparent. you can't out evidence me. so you have to say something s you just reach for the old anti-intellectual "scholars is egg heads" bit.

that's just silly as it can be. You have to just suck it up and admit that you are out evidenced. period.

Then he pulls out the big gun (you gut "there's no evidence for your God"):

Despite the fact that you have blustered, ranted, insulted, raved, even condemned posters to hell; cited hundreds of "academic" studies, a bunch of Ph.Ds as well as your personal blarney page, [COLOR=#ff0000]you have yet to produce a single piece of empirical evidence which necessarily establishes the existence of god.

Now, if I did (which I do) have even any evidence at all wouldn't that be too much? Wouldn't he then say "you have to turn to experts to save your faith."

That's exactly right, I don't prove God, I don't try to prove God. I don't have to do that. In fact I don't want to. I've explained many times why. That would contradict my mystical theology. I've explained this over and over again. God is beyond the empirical.

You can't provide a single empirical fact that proves science is true or that there are laws of phsyics. Somethings are too basic to prove in one little empirical fact.

the rock solid foundational things can't be proved easily.

Originally Posted by Samscram

To my knowledge, Jesus nor any of his diciples had a Ph.D.

what does that have to do with anything?

Paul probably had the equivalent.

Is that the reason that you apparently need to resort to modern day academia to prove his existence?

"resort to..." what kind evidence do they expect anyway? The rule out philosophy because it's not science. Science is academic and scientists have Ph.D.'s (the dread Ph.D. something not right about them egg head Ph.D. guys). The nix philospical proof, they nix loigcal proof, they nix Ph.D.'s which includes scinece, what else would one use?


you have just undermined your whole artiest position. you can't on the one hand demand evidence then when you get it deny that it's important and try to turn it into some kind liability to have.

you have to stick to the facts. academics are the experts they decide what's true and what is not they are the experts who study the issues decide what is scientifically proved and what is not. all scientists are academics. you can't be a scientist without being an academic.

As to your complaint that I'm slandering you by ridiculing your reliance on Ph.Ds to prove the existence of god I confess that your posts gave no hint that their author was one.

I never said I was proving the existence of God. when you are going to start reading posts? you think you can waltz in here just assume all Christians are alike you don't have to read what they say. you go study my position and find out what I believer before you waste my time.

This is symptomatic of America's anti-intellectualism. When I was an athiest atheism was about thinking, it was done by intellectuals. So the modern scinece or arrogance atheist have they are smarter than Chrsitians comes from a hold over of that time when atheists were intellectuals. Now they are getting all of these anti-intellectual non academics involved in it who don't value learning and don't reverse thinking's so they don't' value degrees. That whole sense of arrogance at being smarter becomes less justified and is more and more boiled down to arrogance based upon "we are us and we don't like them."

But atheism is rational. Yes yes, the free thinkers, they are ratinoal. they hate thought, they hate degrees, they hate intellecutlas but they SOOOOO very smart!

The Atheist IQ Scam Part 1

Einstein believed in God.


There's a huge lie being propagated about the net that religious people have lower IQ's than atheists. This is one of the major points being made the site that we looked at last time, the Psychology Today blog tended by Satoshi Kanazawa. That article and study are cited everywhere. They are repeated on every atheist blog and website ad infinitum, not always approvingly.I promised I would deal with the IQ scam and I shall. The Study sited by Kanasawa is the Lynn, Harvey, Nyborg study. Nyborg is the main the figure. There are actually two studies by this same group. One of them deals with data gathered by department of labor (National Longitudinal surveys) the other study takes the data an analyzes it country by country. So one is about do religious children have higher IQ's version atheist (of course they say "no!"). The other one (linked above) is about do religoius countries have more smart people than atheist countries (of cousre they say not, atheist countries--wherever those are--have more smart people). These studies are ubiquitous. From this one set of data that the alleged researchers did not compile the vast army of atheists are willing to pat themselves on the back and assume they are smarter than people who believe in God.

The fact that the group did not collect their own data but used department of labor statistics is a problem because they data was not gathered from a study designed to measure or compare the intelligence of believers vs. non believers. There is no study design there. Before turning to that, however, it would be more helpful to examine the old data. Before the Nyborg study there was an atheist website that tried to prove the same thing, it got a great deal of attention, until I destroyed it. I proved that they lied about one of the studies.

The original data was from "Free Inquiry" Spring of 1986. This forms the basis of the whole IQ scam. It's been floating around for years and thousands of atheists have been brain washed by its' lie. It is a lie as I am about to demonstrate. It's been floating around in the form of several websites that take their ques from this one. The sites its on is called 'the liberalism resurgent, by Steve Kangas." That's the site I linked to for my rebuttal page way back years ago when I first put it up. All he does is list a bunch of studies that supposedly show that atheists have higher IQs than religious people. These were all done with school children, so there's no way to know how many of the same kinds in the study who said they were atheists became religious in adulthood.It's an easy guess that many did because that happens a lot so it would be important to know that. Moreover, notice he places the Hoge study (#15) Hastings and Hoge, 1967, 1974 (actually two studies) in the category of those that back his view. But I received literature form Dr. Francis a researcher in UK university who did several studies on the issue, this literature showed that Hoge showed no correlation between intelligence and religious belief, which contradicts the study and indicates that Kangas either lied or made a blunder. One can see from the rest of the literature that the thesis Kangas is working on is totally ravaged by the facts from just listing the studies that Francis sent in his study:

What follows is reproduction of my page:
The site also presents 17 studies giving the impression that all 17 support the thesis that more successful and higher scoring students tend to be non-believing students, while religious students score lower. Then they actually argue that this is a reliable guide to which world view is correct! (Appeal to success, similar to appeal to authority!)

But if we divide them into categories according to what they actually say, we see a much different picture. The first number is the counting number, to show how many are in each section, the number in parenthesis is the actual number given in the list on the website.


Studies too Veg to Draw a Conclusion


1. (#7) Donald Gragg, 1942
Reported an inverse correlation between 100 ACE freshman test scores and Thurstone "reality of god" scores.

2. (#9) Michael Argyle, 1958
Concluded that "although intelligent children grasp religious concepts earlier, they are also the first to doubt the truth of religion, and intelligent students are much less likely to accept orthodox beliefs."

3. (#14) Robert Wuthnow, 1978

Of 532 students, 37 percent of Christians, 58 percent of apostates, and 53 percent of non-religious scored above average on SATs.[but wait, there's no comparison of the scores, so even though only 38% of Christians as opposed to 58% of apostates scored above average, what if the Christians scored way above average and the apostates only slightly?]

4. (#16) Norman Poythress, 1975
Mean SATs for strongly anti religious (1148), moderately anti-religious (1119), slightly anti religious (1108), and religious (1022). [From what sample group? All of them? Doesn't say!]

The few studies that actually seem to support the conclusion

1. (#1.) Thomas Howells, 1927
Study of 461 students showed religiously conservative students "are, in general, relatively inferior in intellectual ability."

Doesn't show how conclusion was arrived at 2 (#2.) Hilding Carlsojn, 1933
Study of 215 students showed that "there is a tendency for the more intelligent undergraduate to be sympathetic towards atheism."

Doesn't really say "sympathetic" means self-identified as atheists, nor does it show how he arrived at his conclusion.

3 (3.) Abraham Franzblau, 1934
Confirming Howells and Carlson, tested 354 Jewish children, aged 10-16. Found a negative correlation between religiosity and IQ as measured by the Terman intelligence test.

4 (11.) Young, Dustin and Holtzman, 1966
Average religiosity decreased as GPA rose.8. Brown and Love, 1951 At the University of Denver, tested 613 male and female students. The mean test scores of non-believers was 119 points, and for believers it was 100. The non-believers ranked in the 80th percentile, and believers in the 50th. Their findings "strongly corroborate those of Howells."

5 (13.) C. Plant and E. Minium, 1967
The more intelligent students were less religious, both before entering college and after 2 years of college.[Doesn't say how they determined this]The interesting thing about this is, there are actually more studies that have counter findings than there are supporting the thesis, which give enough information to be clear about how they obtained it (with four that are too vague about this to consider).

6. (#4) Thomas Symington, 1935
Tested 400 young people in colleges and church groups. He reported, "There is a constant positive relation in all the groups between liberal religious thinking and mental ability There is also a constant positive relation between liberal scores and intelligenceŠ"Note: This guy with the website habitually assumes that liberal religious views are not religious views and counts liberal religious thinkers as unbelievers, which is absurd and dishonest; he does it with this study and on page 2, you will see he does it a lot.

Studies presented that actually count as evidence counter to the claim.

1. (#5) Vernon Jones, 1938

Tested 381 students, concluding "a slight tendency for intelligence and liberal attitudes to go together." [This doesn't say anything about religious belief or lack thereof. He's equating "liberal" with non-religious.]

2. (#6) A. R. Gilliland, 1940
At variance with all other studies, found "little or no relationship between intelligence and attitude toward god."[Obviously its not really at variance with "all" others since I just listed several others that don’t make those findings, and little or no relationship counts as negative evidence.]

3.(#10) Jeffrey Hadden, 1963
Found no correlation between intelligence and grades. This was an anomalous finding, since GPA corresponds closely with intelligence. Other factors may have influenced the results at the University of Wisconsin. [counts against his assumption that grades = intelligence so he can't measure intelligence through the studies that make that assumption. Also, what does he site in the face of this one to prove that graces indicate intelligence? And what about motivations?] (I suggest a sentence such as [This study discounts his assumption…)
4.(#12) James Trent, 1967
Polled 1400 college seniors. Found little difference, but high-ability students in his sample group were over-represented.[so they polled them? What did they use as a measure of intelligence? Doesn't say. But it does say they found no relation, or little, and virtually admit the sample is worthless so this counts as negative or at best as inconclusive.]

5. (#15) Hastings and Hoge, 1967, 1974
Polled 200 college students and found no significant correlations.[negative correlation is clearly negative evidence, there is no relation] Notice: the Francis study lists Hoge under the category of those that show no correlation between intelligence and religion, but that website lists it as positive to their thesis.
6. (#17) Wiebe and Fleck, 1980
Studied 158 male and female Canadian university students. They reported "nonreligious S's tended to be strongly intelligent" and "more intelligent than religious S's."[dosen't hint at how this was determined]

Studies not on the web site (listed by Francis) which found either no corrollation or postive corrollation

No Correllation

1) Feather (1964)Critical reasoning test and religious attitudes scale to 165 male psychology students. "He found no significant relationship between these measures."

2) Feather (1967) replicated in among 40 students.

3) Young et al., (1066) 32 item scale by Holtzman and young (66) five percent random sample of native born full time students at University of Texas, "where they found no significant relationship between mean attitude scores and cumulative grade points."

4) Dodrill (1976) 20 Christians, 24 non Christians, "This study found no significant differences between the two groups using the Westchester Adult Intelligence scale."

5) Francis (1979)using frequency of prayer and church attendance) 2272 school children between 9-11,"found no relationship between school assigned IQ's and religious behavior after controlling for paternal social class."

6) Fracis'('86 replication) findings replicated in second study among 6955 students.

7) Francis ('98) the study these studies are sited in, using sample of 711 students, the Francis Religious attitude Scale and standard IQ tests Francis again found no correlation.

Positive Correllation

1) Pratt (1937) among 3040 students at regional state college, taking denominational affiliation as sign of religiosity, "found that non-affiliates recorded lower mean scores on the American council Examination than any students affiliated to any denominational group."

2) Rummell (1934) also using denominational affiliation 1194 students at University of Missouri. "He found that non-affiliates recorded lower mean scores on his scholastic index compared with Methodists and Episcopalians."

3) Corey (1940) 234 Freshmen University of Wisconsin positive correlation between scores on the Ohio State Psychological Examination and the Thurstone scale of attitude toward God. "'The more intelligent were more favorably inclined toward God.'"

4) Kosa and Schomer (1961) 362 students at a Catholic undergraduate college: taking participation in campus religious activities as scale of religious attitude "intensive participants recorded significantly higher scores than non-participates on OSU aptitude Test and OSR reading comprehension test.


6 studies find negative correlation.

17 find positive or no correlation.

[Leslie J. Francis, University of Wales Lampiter, "The Relationship Between Intelligence and Religiosity Among 15-16 year olds," Mental Health, Religion & Culture, Volume 1, Number 2, 1998]


Counting all the studies together, both those presented as negative and those presented by Francis which are either neutral or positive, 17 to 6 in favor of the thesis being unproven. But more importantly, Hoge was listed wrongly, so what else can we not trust about those studies? Moreover, the sample size for the positive or neutral correlations are much larger in many instances. None of the negative sample sizes come close.

negatives: 1448, 532, 354, 315, 613, 400 (not all listed)

Largest positive or neutral:381, 1400, 200, 158, 165, 44, 2272, 711, 3040, 1194, 362.

The Positive or neutral studies would tend to be the better studies since they have more with larger samples sizes, and Francis controls for the Freudian bias which taints all the negative studies. Poythres (1975) sets the differences within the context of psychoanalytic theory.(Francis 188). We also notice that the negative studies tend to be older, ranging mainly form the 1930s to 1968, while all of the positive or neutral studies tend to be set in the 1960s to the 80s and one as recent as 98. This is explained by Hoge in terms of increasing socioeconomic status and greater exposure of religious people to new ideas at a younger age.

"The long discussed shock of freshmen encountering Atheistic professors at college and the transition problems from childhood beliefs to intellectually defensible beliefs have been reduced in recent years. Today the shock comes earlier and with less force than in decades past."(in Francis 188). (This capitalization is a matter of mild controversy. If Atheism is a religion, then it is capitalized as Buddhist, Moslems and Christianity are.)

We really have to ask ourselves, in studying students, especially freshmen in college, they are getting kids when they are the most rebellious? For those in early college they are going off to school for the first time, away from home, no longer under the strictures of Mom and Dad, they tend to rebel against Mom and Dad. It's a time of experimentation. Naturally we should expect to find that bright kids are experimenters, that they are willing to try new ideas. Secondly, how long did these kids remain unbelieving? How many are no in middle or even old age having had a life time of religious commitment gained in graduate school or beyond? Not a single one of these studies gave any indication of being longitudinal! That is extremely important, because it makes sense that students in late high school and early college will be rebellious and more inclined to question their upbringing. How many of them were actually still atheists 20 or 30 years latter? We don't know and not a single one of the studies even tried to find out. For all we know the vast majority of them might have become believers in 10 years out of college! In fact we have good reason to suspect that this is the case; after they got married and started raising families, they probably began to believe again, and this seems to be the pattern. That conclusion would also be supported by the quotation form Hoge above, the shock of leaving home, encountering atheist professors, dealing for the first time with serious challenge of new ideas could for time lead the unwary into doubt, but latter they recover.

In part 2 I will deal with the current study, Nyborg in a couple of days.

are atheists insane?

I think we really have to ask this question. On CARM they have a standard response every time I made a decent point. Just let me get them in a corner that they can't answer they say "but no one agrees with you. Most of the Christina on CARM think you are not one of them so therefore I don't have to listen to your thing.

Here is a typical example. It's one I get all the time. this is just a particular version but it's quite common for them to say this kind of thing. I backed this guy into a corner by getting him to see that the major modern liberal theologians don't accept hell as eternal conscious torment. so what's his response? Is it that "well maybe Christianity is not so bad?" NO it's that I'm the only one who thinks that.

Originally Posted by Metacrock

so how do I prove that you are afraid.

Leman

Afraid of what?

I don't care about proving it.

Leman:

Proving what? My supposed fear of something that you have yet to indicate or describe?

Let's observe he already done the op on how stupid it is to believe in hell so turning around here and saying "you haven't proved that I am afriad of something" is kind of silly. Granted I haven't proved it but it's obviously I'm implying that his protestations about hos stupid it is is a cover for his fear.

Meta:if you are not then fine but I don't see you arguing about the ideas of Bonhoeffer or Tillich. I see you picking on the notions of a literal hell. Which is the easy target.

Leman

Easy target indeed. Which you also, IIRC, do not believe in, Meta.

Most of the Christians in these forums do not consider you among their select elite group destined for Heaven, in case you hadn't noticed, Meta.

Meta:

I can give you a reading list of need one btw.

leman

I'll pass for the time being, thanks. I have your websites bookmarked if I ever feel a need to educate myself as to your intellectual influences.

Have a great evening, Sir.

In other words, don't confuse me with the facts.

It's even more insane when you realize I've already said all these great theologians don't believe in hell so he concludes I'm the only one who doesn't!

on a related note atheists think they alter truth by laughing at it.


Liberation Sarah post 4

Meta's 200 "studies" are based on the mysticism scale, which was laughed off the table here a few weeks ago. Not only are the answers subjective and self reported, the questions are also incredibly vague. See for yourself: http://www.nvcc.edu/home/lshulman/MScale.html

Putting aside these problems, at best what metacrock can show is that people have funny feelings in their head, and these funny feelings combined with religious practice can make them feel happy (again, subjective and self-reported). Ok, so what? How does survey data showing that members of religions are happier demonstrate that an invisible, immaterial creature exists who uses telepathic powers to cause funny feelings in people's heads which makes them happy? Does meta provide a mechanism for us to examine? Does he offer any conceivable means of connecting the dots from these self-reported surveys to the immaterial creature with magic powers he claims causes the feelings? Does he rule out non-magical factors that might be at play in causing religious people to report being happier? Nope. It's a complete fail..and yet (sadly) seems to be the best that he has.

These are the 200 studies that I"ve documented incentatly are good and accepted in the field. The M scale is accepted as the standard of proof in the field. So she thiniks you can alter truth just by mocking it.

again here's what the qualified experts say about the M scale.

Michael E. Neilsen
Georgia Southern University
Feb, 2000
Psychology of Religion in USA

Ralph Hood (1998), a major figure in American psychology of religion, suggests six psychological schools of thought regarding religion. The psychoanalytical schools draw from the work of Freud, and attempt to reveal unconscious motives for religious belief.

Dale Caird
originally in journal for the Scientific study of religion 1988, 27 (1) 122-126

"Research into mystical experience has been greatly facilitated over the last decade by Hood (1975). Utilizing the conceptual framework of Stace (1960) he devised a 32 item questionnaire tapping eight categories of mysticism. This questionnaire the M scale was shown by Hood to have respectable internal consistency and reasonable construct validity.

Michael E. Nielsen, Ph.D.
Georgia Southern University
feb 2000

"Ralph Hood (1998), a major figure in American psychology of religion, suggests six psychological schools of thought regarding religion. The psychoanalytical schools draw from the work of Freud, and attempt to reveal unconscious motives for religious belief. Although Freud reduced religious belief to a natural, if ultimately flawed, attempt to cope with life's stresses, contemporary psychoanalytic interpretations are not necessarily hostile to religious faith. Analytical schools find their inspiration in Jung's description of spiritual life. Most psychologists, however, consider such descriptions to be undemonstrated by scientific research, and therefore it plays a limited role in psychology. Object relations schools also draw from psychoanalysis, but focus their efforts on maternal influences on the child. Each of these three schools rely on clinical case studies and other descriptive methods based on small samples, which runs counter to the prevailing practice of psychology in America." \\

"Modern social scientific evidence does not refute the possibility that some mystical experiences are associated with scientifically unknown processes. Parapsychologists have accumulated a body of evidence supporting belief in paranormal phenomena (Broughton 1992). Even though their evidence has been criticized, the existence of universal features within collections of mystical experience accounts supports the argument that some forms of these perceptions are not fully cultural products but have important impacts on religious belief (Hufford 1982, McClenon 1994)"[/quote]

Atheism: Clear and Presnet Danger

This is a controversial ploy. It's really baiting the atheists on CARM into showing their true attitudes toward their own sense of privileged position and their bigotry against religious people. I am playing the paranoid here. I am talking them literally when I know they probalby wouldn't really mean what it sounds like they are saying. I don't seriously think any of them are Nazis or sympathize with Nazis or that they planing any kind violence. I think the fact that they wont come out and say "we don't accept hurting people" is important. They clearly have no sense of protecting the rights of others, and no understanding of that means for their own rights.

My offer to take it down if you don't' like it was for the CADRE blog. I forgot to remove it here.

I also want to point out that I don't believe that all atheists think this way. I am disturbed that one's that formerly respected are saying things I am worried about.

posted by me to atheists on carm


this is a very very serious post I wish you would address it that way.

when I was a kid I used to be very moved by stories about the holocaust. My mother once showed me a news paper clipping she saved from the war, it was an interview with someone who worked in a concentration camp and talked about sorting the clothing of the victims, and how they had children's clothes and crippled people's crutches.

I used to hear about ideas like "they came for the Jews I didn't say anything, they came after the poles an didn't say anything and they came after me and there was no one left to say anything." I would be greatly moved and think "this is the worst evil there is. anyone who would destroy a group of people just because they don't like that group for who they are is the worst form of scum."

I grew up in the south. My father told me about how he saw lynchings of blacks and some of them were led by his uncle. He was deeply ashamed that someone in our family did this. He was totally pro civil rights. he taught me that blacks had been persecuted and mistreated. This again gave me the notion that the worst kind of scum is anyone who would persecute a whole group just becasue they don't like how they are or what they believe or something about them.

Now I see the troubling signs that in the new atheism they don't understand the dangers of venting hatred for a whole group based upon their beliefs. I know you think that's nuts, and Hermit gets mad at me for saying this. Every time I expect atheist to contradict that idea I see them supporting it.


I put up a post saying Is it right to reject people's ideas without considering them just becuase of who those people are. to my horror a bunch of you agreed it is.

what is the difference in saying "we must persecute the Jews" and saying we must persecute the fundamentalists? the Jews had the OT. they have the vengeful Y God you hate so deeply. Are you then anti-emetic?

A well known atheist here made this following statement and I see in this a frank admission that it would not bother him to persecute people for their religious beliefs.


here's the statement, I will embolden the things that really bother me.:

This is one issue I take with "new atheism." I get where people like Sam Harris is coming from- liberal forms of religion tend to lend credence to religious belief. When intellectuals provide a seemingly reasonable face for belief in gods, it gives god-belief of all sorts an undeserved air of respectability. But this is a flawed view, IMO. The fact that irrational, mean people benefit from an idea doesn't invalidate the idea. It's the same error, it seems, as trying to discredit evolution because eugenicists benefit on a superficial level from Darwin's theory. The only thing I'd say is that it is important for a liberal to distance him/herself from the mean, irrational theists- just as evolutionists have unfortunately had to spend an inordinate amount of time dealing with the flaws of eugenics.



So, while I do think it's a noble goal to try to stamp out religious belief,

to me that's like saying it's a noble goal to kill people. People who resisting having their beliefs stamper out have been killed time and time again. If they wont willingly give them up, they never do, then you have to kill them or at least re arrange their lives. what right do you have to dot that?

I do NOT think one is justified in doing so "by any means necessary."

that's like saying "I don't think it's right to murder them outright, we can just take their jobs away and let them starve slowly."


The fundies should be mocked and ridiculed- not as a tactic to try to brow-beat them into submission, but because their beliefs are ridiculous and dangerous.

to me that's like saying I have the right to dictate that you die because I don't like the color or your clothes. what right do you have to determine that you are certain your views are right that you get to say what views are stupid? What if you are basing it on just not being very well read? what if all the illiterate people got together and deiced that reading is stupid? can't you see how you are taking on a privilege you have not right to assume?

who the hell are you to say that?


This is not the case with liberals. Liberals have beliefs which resemble, in certain ways, the ridiculous, irrational beliefs of fundies. But there are important and fundamental differences in the way that liberals think that sets them apart from the fundies. And it is the way in which one comes to a belief that is important, not the belief itself.

thanks, great. sot he all knowing one says I don't have to die, thanks.

Now, some beliefs are simply too ridiculous to plausibly allow for the possibility that they were rationally derived. That's where the fundies come in- if someone believes that the earth is 6,000 years old, or that the Genesis flood actually occurred sometime within the last 6,000 years, I needn't examine how they arrived at the conclusion. They are being irrational- that's the end of it. But it's a mistake to equate belief in some kind of deity with these types of beliefs.

To me this is saying that I have the right to determine who lives or who dies.

Some people resound to my horror by saying 'you are making so much out of this so what big deal" I don't' know if it's because they think "I would never say they should die." Or is it really because they are thinking "of course they should die."

If you think you have the right to destroy people's lives because their beliefs are so stupid what's the difference in you and a Nazis? Is the only differences that the Nazi's didn't hate the right stupid group and you do?

don't do the mocking thing just explain it to me.

while you are at it kindly explain how it is that mocking people becuase their beliefs are stupid is good, but when I think your beliefs are stupid I can't mock you?


If I think your beliefs are stupid and dangerous don't I have the same right to mock you that you do to mock me? If I do you go "you are so insulting!" what right do you have to complain about that? I'm only doing what you tell is fair and right and should be done!

If you think religious views are so evil and dangerous why don't you believe that religious people should be killed in concentration camps?


is that what atheist movement is really leading to?


the first answer:

Brain w:

Ridiculing beliefs ≠ persecution or advocation of genocide.

The only reason you see the dismissal and ridicule of superstition as such a heinous attack is because you have allowed these things to wrap themselves up so deeply in your personality that they now define you. That's not the problem of those who attack god belief. It's your fault for letting god belief take over your entire persona.

he doesn't even make a pretense of saying "O we wouldn't do that." Mikey has a slightly better response.

This is just an internet forum, it isn't real life. Atheists don't burn down churches in the real world, they usually don't even talk to Christians. How are you going to persecute someone if you don't even talk to them. Christians on the other hand are always talking to Atheists trying to convert them. Maybe Christians should leave people alone and Atheists won't need to come to internet forums to vent their frustration.

I think it's dangerous to just dismiss it as "o it's just the net," but makes me feel ok that at least he didn't embrace it like the other guy.

Hsmithson quotes me:

meta:Now I see the Nazis re-born in the new atheism. I know you think that's nuts

then says:

Yep, that's nuts.

Those who would kill for atheism are not nuts but I'm nuts for protesting it?

Validmir says I such at illiciting clearly and need to be very clear about what people are saying.
that would imply i that he understands them to actually not be supporting persecution.

I think they are being willfully unclear because they should understand clearly from the OP that I need to know unambiguously that they don't agree with persecuting people. I find the fact that they hold back on spelling this out to be significant.


Originally Posted by troxel

Did this fellow say anything about concentration camps?

But yes saying the "unbeliever is a sick soul" is reasonably equivalent to mocking and ridicule. You even go way out of your way in an attempt to justify you derision by appealing to authority and completely misrepresenting your source.

No it' not because it doesn't mean they are stupid or bad. It was also said by a psychiatrist it was a Junian term referring to a clinical idea.


You want to mock and ridicule religious people because you hate them then you pawn it off some noble goal like stropping dangerous ideas.You have no right to object to being mocked as long you advocate using mocking to brown people into giving their beliefs.

Actually your quote is worse than mocking as it is an attempt by you to villainize a segment of the population.

"villianize" talk about illiteracy.

which is just what you are doing. you want to put children in gas chambers.you hate Christians so deeply you are ready to murder them.

I did not say that did I? In fact I didn't even see concentration camps mention in your referenced quote - par for the course.

well what are you going to do when the 90% who believe in God decide they want be forced the the 3% illiterates to give up the most important thing in their lives? you would have to resort to something pretty harsh. where do you draw the line?

comparing sick soul (which a psychiatrist was saying) to real mocking is just whining to justify your hate.

Originally Posted by souper genyus

I can't seriously respond to a Godwin, Meta. You're *******g ridiculous, claiming the free speech of the new atheists is even remotely analogous to the Nazis murdering millions of people is insulting to every atheist alive and, especially, to those murdered or tortured by the Nazis. It's just wrong, Meta, both factually and morally wrong.

I don't know who Godwin is.

I know they are not a par with Nazis but the Nazis started with just mocking Jews. they didn't' start with concentration camps.

you are defending persecuting people for their beliefs? are you not? you don't understand why that's evil?




Originally Posted by Metacrock View Post

but it's not nuts to say we should mock and ridicule people for believing things we think are stupid?

SG

No, it's really not. That's expressing your free speech. It's using your words and your wit as a tool for social change, which is perfectly acceptable. In fact, I think it should be encouraged. It's much better to address a position you disagree with with your mind and your words as opposed to using force.

Its' not nuts to put people in concentration camps and kill them for being religious?
Yes, that's most definitely nuts. What are you thinking to even ask such a question? No one that is labeled with the "New Atheist" label that I know of is advocating an ethnic cleansing, so I don't know what the hell you are even talking about.

then what right do you have to complain if I say you are the sick soul?

Meta I need clealrity here. what is nuts?

SG:

The fact that you liken the free expression of opinion to mass murder. That's nuts.

ok, idiot.


Originally Posted by mikey_101

It hurts people to tell them that they'll go to hell (or whatever negative consequence) if they aren't Christians.

that's why I don't tell them that.

Just believing that garbage hurts the person who believes it because it makes them less human. I think all the mocking and anger towards Christianity has to do with the religious-elitist attitude being so prevalent and being around for so long. It's offensive, and when people are offended they stick up for themselves. In a forum you can say what you can't in real life.

but it seems you want the privilege o revenge without the consequence of more revenge taken back on you. You want me to respect you but you don't want to respect me.

Just believing that garbage hurts the person who believes it because it makes them less human.

aren't you stripping the humanity of fundamentalists?

Originally Posted by mikey_101

I hate to say it, but Christians kind of started this whole thing by their elitist attitude I was talking about. I think you should realize that and take some responsibility before crying 'persecution' too much. When two are angry at each other about something, the whole thing can usually be resolved by the one who starting it apologizing first, then the other person apologizes. I'm not saying you started it personally of course, the type of Christian fundies we have today have been around for, I don't know, about 300 years or so. The anti-Christian fundies are just now reacting.

Less than human is a figure of speech, not literal.

Meta:
O good, that makes me so relieved. That's such a judicious figure of speech too. I really trust someone who is cleaver to describe his opponents as less then human then deny that he meant it. so you are actually admitting that you want to persecute and trying to blame the victim. The Nazis said the Jews brought it on themselves. that's what you are arguing.

Originally Posted by Asimov

Why are you conflating the drive to remove intolerance, prejudice, and anti-intellectualism with killing people?

Meta:

from what I see so far you plan to do that by destroying people's egos, refusing to listen to their side of any argument, refusing to consider anything that would count against your view. unfairly and unjustly slandering believers, which what atheists are doing every day on the net.

Let's just take that to the logical absurdity, what's to stop you from taking it into violence? you believe Christian are inhuman, you have the right to hurt them and force them to give up their beliefs, what's to stop you from going over the line?

You don't bleieve there is such a thing as innate right and wrong. you believe that that's just a matter of social convince and survival. Right?

if one could show the it's beneficial, greatest good for the greatest number to systematically extinguish the lives of all Christians wouldn't accept doing it?

riginally Posted by drugstar

the ramblings of a madman.

Meta

that really prove your not unfair, or unjust and that your willing ot listen and your not blaming the victim. It really proves you are not shallow and stupid.



The Christian Naz kicks in
Originally Posted by naz

Meta, although I agree that ridiculing people for their beliefs is repugnant it is certainly not anywhere close to murder.

think about what Jesus said about murder. can't you just hear one of these atheists saying "how is hating someone like murdering them?"


I realize that most of these guys probalby think the idea that there could be persecution of Christians is absurd and that they think they would never take part.I know that I'm kind of skirting the edge of peranoia, at least as far they are concerned. I am playing to the logical absurdity of their values. But look at the facts:

Not one of them on the whole thread says "O of course we are agaisnt hurting people we would never persecute anyone. they can't bring themselves to make a flat out denial. The fact is they clearly do not bleieve in free speech, they want to control the thinking of others. they want the power to condemn and ridicule ideas that they disagree with and I can't help but wonder if the circumstances were right how many of them would cooperate wit murdering Christians on a grand scale.

They are clearly willing to remove the cloak of protection from the minority and then still expect that protection to be extended to them.

What Atheists say When they are Outgunned

Last week on CARM I was challenged by atheists to show "any evidence at all" that mind is not reducible to brain. I put up a huge post. It was originally a page I researched adn wrote but taken over (with my permission) by God and Science.org. Rather than discussing the matrail a certain atheists responded by trying to make me feel guilty about having too much evidence!


Originally Posted by Samscram

I don't go out on fools errands.

It is fascinating to see that your faith is apparently so shaky that the words of the bible aren't sufficient and to maintain it, you must look to the academy to find the Holy Grail as it were.

I must admit that's a new one! What does it mean? Atheist harp and harp "there's no evidence for your God." When you give them some, then it's too much. I am an intellectual. My faith si a combination of emotional trust and intellectual reasoning. My life journey has been about putting the two together and over the years I have devoted that to a high level. I have the best evdience I'm going to resort to scholarship because my life is about scholarship I AM A SCHOLAR! My faith is integrally a part of my intellectual journey and vice versa.


He goes on:

The fact that you have to cite "authority" after "authority" after "authority" without providing even a synopsis of their content proves to me if to no one else that you don't know the content and/or haven't the ability to utilize it in a rational rhetorical venue.

The fact that you have to site authority after authority, in other words, "don't confuse me with the facts." That is one of the silliest and most unfair things I've ever heard anyone say. do you realy expect me to post a whole book on this baord? You do have a responisiblty to find things out for yourself. All I can do si point in a direction. if you are too lazy to follow up that's your problem. I don't have time or space to type whole books into this text box it's totally unfair of you to deamnd thtat.

Of cousre his comment I don't know the content, what an arrogant little wind bag! He doesn't even mention a single point its I who don't know the content! BTW what rational rhetorical venue? Isn't that what the message board is supposed to be? At least before CARM it was.

you guys are constantly making the refrain "there's no proof for X" Your God, or whatever. you always say Christians can't have any evidence and can't prove anything. then when I do show that I have moutian of evidence and there's something wrong with that. now I'm not good because I have too much evidence. Before I was stupid and feeble minded because I believe stuff without evidence, now I have too much.

that's absurd its silly its transparent. you can't out evidence me. so you have to say something s you just reach for the old anti-intellectual "scholars is egg heads" bit.

that's just silly as it can be. You have to just suck it up and admit that you are out evidenced. period.

Then he pulls out the big gun (you gut "there's no evidence for your God"):

Despite the fact that you have blustered, ranted, insulted, raved, even condemned posters to hell; cited hundreds of "academic" studies, a bunch of Ph.Ds as well as your personal blarney page, [COLOR=#ff0000]you have yet to produce a single piece of empirical evidence which necessarily establishes the existence of god.

Now, if I did (which I do) have even any evidence at all wouldn't that be too much? Wouldn't he then say "you have to turn to experts to save your faith."

That's exactly right, I don't prove God, I don't try to prove God. I don't have to do that. In fact I don't want to. I've explained many times why. That would contradict my mystical theology. I've explained this over and over again. God is beyond the empirical.

You can't provide a single empirical fact that proves science is true or that there are laws of phsyics. Somethings are too basic to prove in one little empirical fact.

the rock solid foundational things can't be proved easily.


Originally Posted by Samscram

To my knowledge, Jesus nor any of his diciples had a Ph.D.

what does that have to do with anything?

Paul probably had the equivalent.

Is that the reason that you apparently need to resort to modern day academia to prove his existence?

"resort to..." what kind evidence do they expect anyway? The rule out philosophy because it's not science. Science is academic and scientists have Ph.D.'s (the dread Ph.D. something not right about them egg head Ph.D. guys). The nix philospical proof, they nix loigcal proof, they nix Ph.D.'s which includes scinece, what else would one use?


you have just undermined your whole artiest position. you can't on the one hand demand evidence then when you get it deny that it's important and try to turn it into some kind liability to have.

you have to stick to the facts. academics are the experts they decide what's true and what is not they are the experts who study the issues decide what is scientifically proved and what is not. all scientists are academics. you can't be a scientist without being an academic.

As to your complaint that I'm slandering you by ridiculing your reliance on Ph.Ds to prove the existence of god I confess that your posts gave no hint that their author was one.

I never said I was proving the existence of God. when you are going to start reading posts? you think you can waltz in here just assume all Christians are alike you don't have to read what they say. you go study my position and find out what I believer before you waste my time.


This is symptomatic of America's anti-intellectualism. When I was an athiest atheism was about thinking, it was done by intellectuals. So the modern scinece or arrogance atheist have they are smarter than Chrsitians comes from a hold over of that time when atheists were intellectuals. Now they are getting all of these anti-intellectual non academics involved in it who don't value learning and don't reverse thinking's so they don't' value degrees. That whole sense of arrogance at being smarter becomes less justified and is more and more boiled down to arrogance based upon "we are us and we don't like them."

But atheism is rational. Yes yes, the free thinkers, they are ratinoal. they hate thought, they hate degrees, they hate intellecutlas but they SOOOOO very smart!

Another Nail in the Coffin of The CARM Atheists Medacity about my Studies Validating My Experince of God Arguments

This is a post in the thread on bait and switch, by Mary Jane.

http://forums.carm.org/vbb/showthread.php?57332-atheist-bait-and-switch&p=1730779#poststop

I have a huge body of scientific work that validats my experince of God arguments. CARM atheists have done everything they could think of to discredit, obfuscate, and ignore that body of work except actually read some and argue fierily about it. I put up a link to a book chapter over 147 times two people read it and one claimed he didn't understand it the other attacked something in it that the author was attacking to, only the atheist thought he was beating up on the author.


This is another pointless claim by MJ to create the impression that she's read the studies that I talk about. Again, she has not read them. All she's doing is confusing a summary article by Mohan with a study. There is a Mohan study, but she hasn't read it. What she read was an article by Mohan that is not a study. By this she actually twisted all the statements around on the assumption that i have to be wrong so what I say is false so they must mean the opposite.

On that premise she just goes wild trying to create impressions that have no bearing on reality.

Originally Posted by Metacrock

the 200 studies that none of your will read, and that you can't come to grips with totally blow your position away.

They establish the co-determinate of God on the same kind of grounds that you establish any scientific fact.

LOL. Except a lot of us HAVE READ THEM and our positions remain entirely unblown.

what she points to here is nothing but a discussion about the summary article that is not a study. This is does nothign to prove that she read a study. Besides that he's acting so triumphant about reading a study (which she did not do) one study! there 199 more to go that she clearly hasn't read (if she read one).

Perhaps we can tackle this again, since you didn't answer the last time.
Ok. Let's get this cleared up once and for all.

The 200 studies that Meta likes to mention all the time and bring up in every thread, no matter what the subject is, are as follows:

Yea lets do take the opportunity to clear things up.

MJ:
134 'studies' is a reference list (bibliography) copied from an article by Mohan on the use of spirituality in counselling. There are very few actual studies in that bibliography.

Factual error 1: I never said there were 134 studies on the bib to the Mohan article (she admits here the Mohan reading is an article). I used the Bible as a partial list of studies because there are many on it. I never claimed a number nor did I ever claim that it was a major list.

Factual Error 2: the statement that there aer few studies is totally untrue and totally at odds with the fact. Most of the entries in the bib are studies.

Factual Error 3: She is confused about the nature of the list because there is no one source published that contains all the studies I speak of when I say "200." That figure is my own form my bib in my book that's not out yet. I use a a couple of the bibs from articles as references because they contain several of the studies. I never said the whole is compiled from just Mohan.

MJ
It is mostly populated by articles, reviews and religious texts. The list can be found here. Meta, of course, still includes these references in his list of 200 studies and accuses me of 'nitpicking' when I point out that they're not.

This is total confusion on her part. it's true the Mohan article is an article so it has reference to many kinds of literature. I never claimed the Mohan article bib is the basis of my list of 200. It contains many of them (not 134 I don't think) but they also come from any other source,s bibs and other things I've read (as any researcher will d0). The link she lists there is my source on Athistwatch and it's just the Mohan bib. I put it there for reference so that people have something to consult when they want some sources on the topic. It is a really good bib.

MJ
It's easy claim that you've got 200 empriical studies when you redifine empirical study to include religious texts, articles and reviews. There's also a question of how relevant the very few studies are to his claim, as he won't explain what he's trying to prove with those studies.

Here we have another statement at variance with truth. The allegation that I redefine "empirical study" to include religious texts" is a bit of mendacity that is calculated and absurd. It's based upon untruth, certainly not upon any claim I made. I have said in the post nothign more than the fact that the all the 200 are peer retrieved academic studies in academic journals. I think we see here who really understands what a study is and what it's not. I was a sociology major in undergraduate school. I conducted a study for class in my sophomore year when I took a graduate level class on research methods in sociology. I was a college debater, in the 1970s. That meant reading hundreds of studies over the course of one year, every year for all four years of college. In NDT style policy debate f that time one either learned to cope with study methodology or one never won any debates.

moreover, there are no religious texts on many of the bibs I use, I think she got that becasue some of the studies involve TM. She confusing TM with a religious text. Who knows, who knows where people get these things. I think if I recall there was a source on the bib that seemed to written by a swami or something, but it wasn't part of the 200 it was just on Mohan's bib. She's assuming that Mohan's Bib is like 90% of my studies and it's no where near the case.

MJ
Then there are studies done by Wuthnow and Noble on the long term positive effects of mystical experience. They found that those who had such an experience were more self-actualized then they were before. The study doesn't say where the experience comes from or how those who've had it fare against those who have not.

here we have two distinct falsehoods, lets break them down and answer them one at a time:

(1) doesn't say where the experiences came from.

this false impression has been attempted many times by atheists on carm. The fallacy that a scientific study has to speculate about the existence of God or it's not proof of the value of the experience. That's just bilge water because it doesn't make any sense, it's a contradiction to the very concept of study design (since you can't design a study for the transcendent) you can't expect scientist to speak outside their domain. Hood says in his text book this very thing "It is not our place as scientist to assumptions about the existence of God." That's a close paraphrase.
That argument is null and void anyway becuase the result of the experiences and their context are two of the major reasons to attribute it to the divine, you don't need some guy in a white lab coat to say "yea that's really God." The individual logician should be angel to handle any logical inference without appeal to authority to tell him/her how to think. This is one of the few things the atheist gang on carm actually has to argue agaisnt the studies. So it has become a mantra.

(2)how those who've had it fare against those who have not.

yes it does say that, he does compare. This is a proof that she hasn't read Wuthnow. There's no way one could mistake this. If you read the study you see table after table where the comparisons are made. Very First page of the article, page 59, first line of the sumary:

This article presents evidence from a random sample of the San Fransisco Bay Area on some of the difference bewteen people who claim to have had intense peak experience and people who have not had such experiences!"

Obviously this is a comparison between two groups, experiences and on experiences. If she read the study why didn't she see that? Moreover, in the table on 66, it speaks of the categories in which the people are put and they comprise: response to peack experience item yes within one year (had the experience) yes but not in a year, yes but not lasing, no but would like to, no but would not care to. on 67 there's a table comparing "high peakers," "average peakers" and "non speakers." That's obviously a comparsion between those who have and those who have not had the experience. On 68 a reference to a table with the same distinctions. agan on 69, 70, 72, 73.

how could anyone read the study and miss this stuff?

on 65 he says "the data indicates that the peackers do differ on these kinds of questions from non peakers." Obviously then they are comparing those who have the experience with those who do not.

btw on one measure, "life is very meaningful" there's a 30% difference between high peakers and non peaksers for finding life meaningful with 68% of high peakers finding it very meaningful and 35% of non peakers finding it so.


MJ

They are not more self-actualized then those who haven't had an experience; they are more self-actualized THEN THEY WERE BEFORE THE EXPERIENCE.
6/10/11 Mary Jane
http://forums.carm.org/vbb/showthread.php?57332-atheist-bait-and-switch&p=1730779#poststop

clearly we have seen this is not the case in Wuthnow's study. If it was that would not be a bad study result becasue it's obviously relevant that one improves after the experience; that's the whole idea. It's not the case that they only comapred peakers to themselves as I just demonstrated Wuthnow compares both to each other.

the link that she links to is her own post on carm where asserts with with no backing.

MJ
Then there's Maslow's 'peak experience' that has nothing to do with anything religious or mystical - shown by a study with a 1000 participants in San Diego (some were atheists who've had these 'peak experiences').

This is a major distortion of the facts and misconception. It only demonstrates that she has not read the literature, especial not Maslow. She's confused about what Maslow was doing. He himself was an atheist that doesn't mean that he had the kind of snide religion hater attitude that many "new atheists" do today. He was one of the greatest social scientists of the 20th century and he knew enough to keep his feeilngs away from his data. that peak is a euphemism for mystical one can gleam immediately from reading the book. He was including religous experinces and in fact he knew that the vast majority of peakers were religious. He said "the atheist and the believer can do quite a long way together down the path (of mystical experience) before they must final separate." He knew he was including both.

the concept that an atheist and a Christian can both have these kinds of experiences and one cal it "God" and the other call it "nothing" is not amazing nor does it contradict theology or my argument. Vedantists (type of Hindu) experience god as a void. They believe in God and they are not atheists but they experience God the very same way atheists experience mystical reality, as a great void rather than a personality. Since the experience is beyond word, thought, or image, one must filter it through culture to talk about it, then it only makes sense that some have the capacity if they so pre disposed to deny that it's connected to "God." What they don't deny is that it's connected to the ground of being or ultimate reality.

The experiences can be interpreted in terms of anyone's doctrine, that's why doctrine is not really very important. What's important is expernice, and that's what the athist here are denying, an experience they have never had (perhaps some have).

Maslow said: "Anyone who cannot perceive the sacred, the eternal, the symbolic, is simply blind to an aspect of reality, as I think I have amply demonstrated elsewhere (54), and in Appendix I, fromPeak Experience" He's obviously including the mystical in with the peack experience since he sees it as "the sacred."

Here's a link to an online copy of his book on peak experience.

http://www.druglibrary.org/schaffer/lsd/maslow.htm


From that point we have to get into specific arguemnts the way I make them and that's for latter. We must bracket that, but the fact is she does not have an argument here by pointing out that a tiny percent of peakers are atheists.

MJ
I should add that I was taught in University that Maslow's ideas of self-actualization have fallen out of favor due to a lack of empirical support. More on that here if you're willing to read a whole book.

(1) That concerns the hierarchy of needs ont the peak studies
(2) Maslows research on peak was good but outdated by others who still hold his position
(3) his assertions about peak have been validated up tot he present
(4) He still has a discipline that he started himself and a discipline of supporters
(5) He's still revered as a classic

that is not a methodological incitement. It's also anecdotal because she has no studies to back it up. She has no source to back it up. I do. It says nothing about the validity of his studies. It's nothing ore than a political statement. The climate of pinon disfavors anything that doesn't load patents up with drugs and explain everything through chemicals but the discipline that Maslow began still has his supporters and his major preemies are still proved by many studies. That's talking about his hierarcy of needs not this studies on peak experince. Besides his studies were done in the late 60's and ealry 70s before even Muthnow and Nobel. His work became outdated with theirs. It was good gut it wasn't enough, they went further. The theory on hierarchy of needs has nothing to do with peak experince.

http://www.nwlink.com/~donclark/leader/leadhb.html

"Maslow's theory remains a classic because rather than looking at psychology as strictly the study of the mentally ill, his theory was based upon healthy persons. And being one of the first humanistic ones, it has its share of flaws. "

MJ
Then there's the M-scale which, as I understand it, is used to measure the likeness of mystical experience cross-culturally. Basically, mystics in Sweden experience similar mystical experiences to mystics in India. That says a lot about human nature and thought processes, but nothing about the source of that experience.

this is a half backed understanding of it but it's not so far wrong that we can just let that go. The sloughing it off as human nature will not do. This is another CARM atheistism which is somethign the pulled out of a hat because they couldn't answer the research. They have to explain it somehow so they just ascribe it to human nature. If that were the case why don't all people have peack experience and get better? Moreover, the real issue is that the studies on the M scale found that throughout cultures around the world all the mystics are having the same experience. The attribute it to their own individual doctrines but when you remove the doctrinal terms and names they all read the same.

In other words if you compare muslim, Christian, Bhuddist, atheist, mystics and take out references to "Jesus," "Alah," Buddha," "the void" and just make it generic "undifferentiated univerity, pervasive presence of love" then they all read the same.

That's not really possible. Any vaild theory of psychology would have to tell us that such constructs are from culture. Innate ideas are not accepted in moedrn world. Innate ideas prove God a priori. You do't want this to be innate ideas of God if you are an atheist but that's what we are looking at becuase otherwise it has to be culture. If it's culture than that is totally unexplained because it can't be just the result of similarities in the mind. If there were true then why are languages different? why are cutlers different?

there are some similarities that result form just being human such as mothers love their babies and babies bond with the mother first. That's very different than a undifferentiated unity of all things appearing to someone in an experience of the world, and a overwhelming pervasive presence of love. Those clearly are not explained by the similarities of the human mind becuase we don't all have them.

Am I missing something Meta? Where's the other 50+ studies?

yes you missing a lot kido, But your basic false assumption is to think that Mohan's bib and my list are the same thing they are not. The 200 figure is ball park. Besides the bib for my book has about 150 but the rest of them are on Hood's Vita. He has done about 50-100 studies on this.

The Grinch Who Stole Christmas Bus Sign Space.

Atheists are always denying that that they have an organization. they just a loose collection of people with one thing in common. What is that one thing? you might think it's that they happen just not to believe in God? No that's not it, they can raise money for bus signs and bill boards around the country to ruin other people's special time. They also have campaigns in England, New Zea land and all over. It's clearly more than just a loose collection of people with lack of an idea in common.

CBS ch11 DFW

FORT WORTH (CBSDFW.COM) – An atheist group in North Texas is launching another advertising campaign this week, and after hearing about it, some Fort Worth religious leaders are planning to boycott the company providing the ad space.

The DFW Coalition of Reason announced Monday that it will be using bus billboards in Fort Worth to spread the gospel of non theism during the month of December.

Signs that read ‘Millions of Americans are good without God’ will appear on four buses belonging to the Fort Worth Transportation Authority, better known as ‘The T’ through December, a time many are celebrating religious holidays.

Joan Hunter, spokeswoman for the T, said the signs will not be on the buses before Monday, Dec. 6. Production of the boards took longer than expected because of the Thanksgiving holiday.

In April of 2009, also a time of religious holidays, the DFW Coalition of Reason launched a similar billboard campaign, placing billboards along I-35E in Dallas and I-35W in Fort Worth. Those Billboards read, ‘Don’t believe in God? You are not alone.’

The Coalition bought the ad space on four buses for $2,600. The campaign runs through the beginning of the year.

The T runs 180 buses through the city of Fort Worth.

Obviously they have a national organization. who has time and effort to put into that. I find this to be a hateful thing. Who campaigns against other people's Holidays?

the Blog Faith and Theology offers a contest to come up with the best slogan for the sign. here are some suggestions. they have 91 comments but I'm not satisfied with what Ive seen so far so here are a couple of my own.

"Well how about your big stupid invisible pink sky pixie, is he going to give you a good Christmas?"

"you better not cry, better not pout, I'm telling you why becuase the flying spaghetti monster is being defined into existence."

Only 26 more days to mock and ridicule Christian posters before their big holiday.

It's a lost art.

Examining Atheist Propaganda: the site Strongatheist.net

 One finds a certain kind of thinking among atheists, and the same phenomenon among Christian apologists. People who don't have the background and don't understand the issue trying to comment on philosophies that are way over their heads. That is to be expected. If a great philosopher says something anyone who comments is of necessity of less stature than the great philosopher. Yet the attitude one takes toward these figures, the great philosophers, makes all the difference. A Christian apologists who regards William Lane Craig on a par with Plato and who fawns over Craig's every word, trying to represent Craig's view and getting it wrong is still not as odious as some hateful atheist who is trying to tear down something he doesn't understand. The guy trying to represent a view he admires, even if he doesn't understand it totally, is still humble about it and thus less obnoxious than a hate group groupie trying to tear down a great man he can't phantom, just to do his bit for the ideology so the hate movement will flourish.

Such a would be demolition expert is the guy who does the blog I quoted form last time, the "strongatheism.net." Here is a superficial thinker (Francois Tremblay) who doesn't understand the things he's trying to destroy, but he's willing to stop at nothing to destroy them. This is another one that tries to use a blog as a stationary website, like I do with the Religious a prori. In the coming week I'll be taking a lot at several aspects of this site. I guess its the hate group hot spot for the week. It's not very hateful. It really doesn't come on as a big hate group thing. He's not calling them names or burning crosses of any kind, it's more subtle and there more sinister. He pretends to understand the things he's trying to destroy. If he really understood them he wouldn't be trying to destroy them, he wouldn't be so flippant and superficial. First let's examine the site in general, then I'll deal with an article in which the true ignorance of the site is exposed.

Strongatheism.net is propaganda. It's not thinking, it's not understanding, it's propaganda. Like all propaganda the first victim is the truth.The first thing one meets is "strong atheism explained." The fact that they cover intolerance with an official designation such as "strong atheism" rather than "stupid intolerant atheism" speaks volumes:

Strong Atheism is the proposition that we should not suspend judgment about the non-existence of a god or gods. More extensively, it is a positive position against theistic values, semantics and anti-materialism, a rational inquiry in the nature of religious thought, a new way of thinking about religious and spiritual issues.

 In other words, we are not going to think we are going to react with knee jerk speak and no understanding. That would be ok if they were opposing war or doing something laudable but what they are really doing is try to destroy thinking about positions that require a lot of thought. They are propagandizing against intellectual matters that should be reserved for philosophers. The article that I'm going to critique is against Paltinga's view of proper basicality. That is a philosophical position not a political policy. So they are using a lynch mob mentality to deal with a matter that demands academic freedom and real education and deep thought. there's something unholy about that.

 The proof of what I say is in their use of complexity as the exigence (the thing that needs changing). The argument against Plantinga that he makes over and over boils down to "his ideas are so complex, you can't accept anything that's complex." I'll get to that next time.

What's obvious enough today is that despite fundamental disagreements, common sceptics and theists have a certain number of things in common that would threaten to cast constructive philosophy and science into minority support. This website, while host to many different viewpoints, aims to provide a rational alternative to such positions by making a case for what we can broadly call "constructive naturalism", including metaphysical realism, materialism, scientific inquiry, and moral objectivity.

 "minority support?" What I think he's saying is that if we allow Christian thinkers to do their thinking and teach it in universities then a group that is currently the minority we hate will become the majority and we will be the minority. We must stop this at all costs." Now the things he's advocating metaphysical realism, materialism, scientific inquiry, moral objectivity are philosophical positions themselves and deserve the same allowance that all philosophy deserves, or the same academic freedom. Just as communists hid behind the constitution so these intolerant anti-intellectuals hide behind what they would destroy, academic freedom. They deserve academic freedom but they are intolerant. Moral objectivity is the philosophy of Know-nothing Ayn Rand who didn't understand the basics of ethical thinking. metaphysical realism assumes we know everything and there's more we don't know about reality that we ca learn. Materialism is basically the same thing as metaphysical realism. Of the atheists hitch hikes on the coat tails of science, pretending that scinece is really atheist enforcement.

This statement in the reference to "minority support" which he defines as a evil that must be stopped (within the context of the statement) is a pretense because theism is in the majority in philosophy now. If "minority support" is a problem it's atheism that has minority support.

Is-Ought Dictonomy

David Hume had an argument that has been called "Hume's Fork." It says "you cant' derive an ought from an is.  But Tremblay has decided that you can. the reason is obvious, he can't argue fairly he can't hope to beat moral arguments, atheism can't manufacture an ought so he just assume is = ought. The major atheist thinker, the philosopher atheists most admire (Hume) says he's wrong, I suspect he doesn't understand enough about philosophy to even know this.

The is-ought false dichotomy is the widespread idea that moral statements (oughts) are somehow of a different nature than ontological statements (is). This leads to the conclusion that morality cannot be objective, and that there is no moral standard.

Right away we see that he is propagating the know nothing's misconceptions (the know nothing = Rand). He's speaking as though it's a  fallacy to distinguish ought form is but Hume says it is the opposite, it's a fallacy not to distinguish. Most philosophical thinkers agree and text books on moral philosophy make that assumption as a basic. This group of atheist propagandists are totally distorting accepted norms of thought in Western culture merely becuase they can't beat Christian moral philosophy. What he's doing is on a par with telling us that evil has always been accepted as good. The assertion that morality cannot be objective is just a given fact that all people instinctively know, except atheist who are so mixed up their fear of subjectivity with the certainty of moral thnking and have anxiety about the subjective, because they propagate the lie that their bigoted garbage is "objective." It's about as objective as a Fata Morgana.

Note the role reversal. Atheism has always been criticized for being "subjective" and "relative" in morality. That used to be Schaffer and the religious right's major criticism of all of liberalism. Atheists were arguing for relativism, even my sociology professors argued for relativism in morality. While fundies and evangelicals made a big thing out "objective morality." Moral absolutes, that is objective moral motions, were the province of the fundamentalist.  In this guy's world good is evil and evil is good. The relativist becomes the objectivist and the absolutist becomes the relativist. His reasoning is vintage Rand (the great Know nothing).

In short, we can refute the is-ought false dichotomy in this way:
(1) Actions have consequences.
(2) These consequences are within the province of causality, since they are material.
(3) Therefore, the relation between actions and consequences is objective.
(1), (2) and (3) are the basis and justification of moral objectivity.

The basic mistake he makes up in that syllogism is he doesn't' apply a moral dimension. The simple minded can't understand how to think abstractly, they are screwed with all definitions because they abhor education until they have produced a situation where abstract thought is a no-no because it's not literal and in front of your face. In their literalistic version of ontology the only choices are literalistic materialism or supernatural (which is a straw man version of Christian thought based upon other worlds and things from DC comics). Since they can't understand that abstraction is not the Platonic realm and is not necessarily super natural, not necessarily outside your head, they abhor thinking abstractly so they can't figure out that the moral dimension doesn't have to be a real dimension where things are. It's a dimension  in your head. These are people who have such little experience actually thinking they can't relate to what real thought is about.

Thus, they abhor the concept of the moral dimension becasue they think it means God and heaven and other realms, the SN, so they reduce everything to the literal. Not being very bright they think of hard concrete in front of your face and literal as going together and as the only alternatives to belief in God. That's why he thinks that consequences are all physical and moral consequences are just out of the question.

Therefore, the relation between actions and consequences is objective.

He thinks "objective" means literal, physical, in front of your face. He can't understand the concept of something that is both objective and in your head (abstract). There is abstract objectivity. Physical consequences are not moral consequences and nothing he has said demonstrates deriving an ought from an is.The fact of something being dos not give it an ought. He asserts there is no moral overtone that's why his take on the moral lacks a moral dimension. Thus he has no basis upon which to mount a "should."

Is there a means to study morality detached from personal feeling, desires or whims? Yes, if we consider it to be a subset of causality. Using (3), we can then examine what kind of actions produce what kind of consequences. If we eat and drink proper foods and in moderate quantity, we will survive. This particular study is the field of nutrition. Using this scientific basis, we can deduce which actions are propensive to one’s life as regards to eating (and accomplishing other goals, such as gaining or losing weight), and which ones are not.

The idea of morality being understood through "fine feelings" or emotions has a long history in Western thought. It goes back to the Greeks, it has a major life in the romantics, especially Roseau, and thinkers like Fichte (good old Johanne Gottlieb).   This guy wants to write them off because they might lend support to belief in God and because Christians are always talking about experiences. Like that Christian Roseau,(wink-- practically a televangelist). This guy is so well read. He wants to reduce morality to scientific quantification, every single major moral theorist in history has opposed this garbage. Schweitzer completely debuncked it (see Philosophy of Civilization). (On Amazon). No major thinker supports it. Reducing morality to nutrition is idiotic. Just considering the meaning of the terms "Is" and "ought" we can see there's a distinction. To blur that distinction is stupidity.

In debate we had a kind of argument called "should/would." that means the team is arguing that our plan will not be adopted becuase some group doesn't like it. We say "that is should/would," meaning, the issue "they will not do X" is not important in debate we must assume that the proposal has feiot power, or the assumption that it would be adopted, or there's no debate. We assume they will do it if the judge votes for it, we must discuss should we do it?" Anyone who can't see the distinction is not fit for secondary education. The reductionists, however, reduce ought to is and ignore the obviuos distinction. If we used their logic then we would have to prove not only that the status quo should adopt our plan, whatever that may be, but that they will adopt it. If they are going to adopt it why debate it? The whole idea of saying "we should do X" becomes "we are doing X." How can we have meaningful change in  a world where what we are doing and what we should do are the same thing?

Let's apply this to politics. We should get out  of the war. That becomes are out of the war. So now we have to say "we are out of the war" when we are not. Of course we know if we are in a war, but the difference becomes unimportant. We are in a war, we cant' change it, there's no "should' should is would so we just can't fight it. This is while idea is just control. The reductionist wants to control your life. This is the insidious nature of Ayn Rand, she really wanted to control people and atheist who think like her also want to control people. Even if this guy hasn't thought it out that far, he's still obviously mixed up.

This sort of thinking that some atheists spread is nothing short of total evil. It sets up the justification of any garbage nonsense one wishes.