5thPercentile.com

May 24, 2007

Religious organisations and altruism

Altruism is one of the common arguments that seems to be made in support of religion, or more precisely, religious organisations such as churches, charities.

The point the god botherers try to make (and this became very evident to me on the death of that vicious, mean-spirited, bigoted, hate-mongerer Jerry Falwell) is that religious people 'do good works' (by this I mean altruism rather than proselytising) that without the structure of a religious organisation these 'good works' would never be undertaken and society would quickly tumble into chaos.

I agree with them, to a point. There are lots of people doing very good work, some of them are even religious. There are, however, many non-believers, apostates and even 'infidel' doing the same thing.

The reasoning that the god botherers use is flawed and leads them into a logic trap. They posit that the loss of religious institutions would lead to a reduction or cessation of 'good works'. If you follow the logic of that then you realise that what these god-botherers are failing to realise is that without religion they would not perform 'good work'.

It could be argued that an organisation for rallying altruistic members is a great benefit. That's true enough. But what about those altrustic members? Remember we are not talking about banning altruistic organisations here, just the hypothetical disappearance of RELIGIOUS organisations. The absence of religious belief in a persons life does not lead to selfishness - actually usually quite the opposite as they realise we are all just humanm there is no hierarchy and some invisible father-figure will not make you 'luckier' because you fill yourself up with divisive smugness.

If the god-botherers are truly serious about their altruism and good works then surely, it would be no problem to reforge themselves into a new, non-religious organisation that would be all the better for being released form the shackles of preaching and the impractical and often cruel practice of suggesting to a poor unfortunate that perhaps 'god' doesn't like them very much or has some mysterious plan for them that currently involves a lot of pain, misery and humiliation.

If the god-botherers insist on suggesting that the dissolution of religious organisations would lead to a break down in society, then they are insisting that without either the moral superiority and smugness or without the whiff of brimstone to keep them on the straight and narrow, they would not indulge in altruism at all.

That's not very 'christian' now is it?

The next time some god-botherer tells you that removing religion from society would result in the collapse of altruism and ultimately lead society into chaos, point out the error of their ways and watch them squirm and hopefully, ultimately realise what they have just said makes no sense at all.

Either you want to help other people or you don't. The presence or lack of a specifically religious organisation does nothing to change that.

Posted by dottie at 10:31 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

May 21, 2007

Vonnegut sums it all up, again

I just finished reading 'the sirens of Titan'.

It's a great book slathered with Kurt's unusual blend of brutality and humanism. The story also revolves around determinism, blind luck, religion, eschatology and the existence of God.

There is one line that sums up the irrationality of a belief in God

"Look after the humans and God will look after himself"

The central theme of the book is that no-one is singled out by God as special. That is something if you think about it. With this view, you are as likely to benefit from random chance as anyone else is.

No special dispensation, no hierarchy based on how well you adhere to rules written hundreds, if not thousands of years ago. No submission to a supposed higher goal that only succeeds in bringing misery to many and privilege to few.

No-one here but us animals, so look after each other.

I'll miss you Mr. Vonnegut.

Posted by dottie at 11:53 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

May 16, 2007

The morningstar calls back his favourite, and most fruitful, servant

Jerry Falwell is dead.

Posted by dottie at 2:26 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

April 26, 2007

New study will no doubt be used to prove that christianity is better than atheism and therby infer that god exists....

...unfortunately, logic and reason rear their 'ugly' heads.

WHERE IS THE CONTROL GROUP??!!

Here's the report on the study.

The important point to note in this report is 'The conflict that arises when parents regularly argue over their faith at home, however, has the opposite effect'

Hmm.

So, what the report is saying is that children from a strife-free home do better than children from a home where there is strife.

Th report seems to be using the chewbacca defence to make its point They are pointing out that children from a religious home that takes part in community gatherings and discussion do better than children from a home run by parents who bicker and seemingly do not attend community gatherings.

Well, fine. But, if you apply logic and reason to that statement what they are really saying is that children from a stable home are better behaved in school than children from a troubled home.

No surprise there then.

Why must the god botherers always confabulate harmony with religion and strife with their ultimate slean swear-word 'godlessness'?

If the study had taken the time to include a family where both parents were humainsts/atheists and were loving and inclusive and compared the teachers feedback on these groups, then, we would have a scientific study.

Posted by dottie at 1:33 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

April 20, 2007

Where were the atheists?

Dinseh d'Souza begs the question - where is atheism when bad things happen?

When he gets a polite, thorough, humane and very moving rebuttal - he continues to shove his foot down his throat notice that in neither of d'Souza's outbursts does he attempt to console those who have lost loved ones.

The lack of empathy stands in stark contrast to 'mapantsula' response, full of humanity, empathy and understanding.

His response to atheists response to his original comment includes the question

I really want to hear what the atheist would tell the grieving mothers.

Well, probably something more comforting than the religious harpy who, while visiting the college to console the grieving proclaimed on live television:

We just have to accept that some of those killed are in hell

Lovely.

I wonder why people like d'Souza think it is OK to co-opt a tragedy like the Virginia Tech massacre to count coup on people who don't hold to the same belief system. When you strip away the rhetoric, what d'Souza has done is vile.

You're a sick puppy d'Souza, a very sick puppy indeed. Turn yourself in so we don't have to hear about you rampaging with a glock screaming about being the tool of god (small g, always a small g..)

Posted by dottie at 8:27 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

January 6, 2007

Adverse reactions to humanism/atehism/non-faith

I had a very interesting pseudo-debate with a mate of mine about faith. Specifically, relating to Richard Dawkins latest book 'The God Delusion'.

My friend told me that after reading Dawkins book he would lean more toward faith and religion than toward Dawkins point of view.

I asked him to think about what it was that made him think about this (and I have to admit to being a little confrontational trhoughout the 'debate' - which in light of my mate's statement is perhaps {depending on your point of view of course} not a bad thing!) and to remain open to a proper chat about those reasons because I am genuinely fascinated how someone could read the book and reach that point of view!

One mark against him though, I have to point out, he left me with this little gem and I am somewhat paraphrasing here, but I di get hi to repeat the phrase so that I got the meaning of it clearly:

'I think that people of faith or religious people would generally tend to be more selfless'

Take the corollary of that statement - you understand this is me being the devils advocate in relation to analysis of my friends statement:

'I think that people without faith or religion generally tend to be selfish'

I would love to know where that opinion comes from as I am, frankly, surpirsed that this particular person made such a statement.

And yes, I was yet again being boorish - having had a couple of pints and having just finished 'The God Delusion' leaving me with a lot of conflicting or leading or satisifed (many) or continuing questions regarding especially the role of religion, dogma and god (small g please...) in our society.

I do agree with my friend that Dawkins book does not properly address the notion of what it is that will replace god, and religion in our society - but I do think that that was an implied marginalia in Dawkins book - 'proof given elsewhere' - if you excuse the allusion to the famous last theorem of Fermat.

Posted by dottie at 1:59 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

December 10, 2006

Richard Dawkins gets into a Donnybrook

Richard Dawkins was a guest on the Late Late show the other day with a co-guest. This co-guest was a philiosopher from Trinity College apparently - I didnt catch his name.

Pat started the porceedings by asking the audience who believed in God. Well over half the audience raised their hand. Oh dear.

Prof. Dawkins got to kick off the ball being asked a good leading question by the surprisingly able Pat. He explained quite clearly the reasons he thought that believers in God were deluding themselves based on their own reasons for their belief. He pointed out that your religion is a matter of your accident of birth - catholic in Ireland (mostly), muslim in Iraq (mostly) and so on. He alson pointed out that all catholics know what it is not to believe in Zeus or Apollo.

The response was typically emotional and varying from the sublime to the ridiculous. There were two scientists one of whom was a creationist (oops, intelligent designist) and the other a biologist. The creationist spouted the usual crap about the complexity of life demanding a creator - Richard answered him succinctly by pointing out who created the creator? The biologist was a little verbose, telling of his college days spent debating the merits of the points raised by Richards earlier books. He was a little strange in trying to claim that faith was part of everyday life - faith in the love you receive form others, faith that scientific experiments are reproducable etc. How odd!

Prof. Dawkins pointed out that you needed no faith in the love of others as you had proof in body language, a look in the eyes and while not scientific it is evidence. The biologist actually tried to rake Dawkins over the coals for not responding in a scientific way to such a question. The science of human love? The level of philisophical and scientific discourse in Ireland is sorely lacking I'm afraid.

One of the other guests was a young woman who had recovered from some illness claiming that it was her faith that pulled her through and that it was a miracel. No praise for the doctors, nurses, surgeons, friends and REAL, tangible acts that lead to her recovery then.

The worst udience member was a young man who lashed in to an attack on Richard with the old line that the depth of Richards conviction and devotion to atheism and essentially the spread of humanim was fundamentalism. He went on and on about it at high volume.

For a start Richard Dawkins is not promoting atheism or humnism per se. He is promoting the opening of minds, the use of the intellect that we were given (either by evolution or God depending on your point of view). Dawkins points out again and again that religion narrows peoples minds and leads ultimately to unhappiness, oppression, division.

Neither is he a fundamentalist. Time and again he has told people that he would accept proof of the existence of God and admit he was wrong. The young man of course jumped on this, dismissing Prof. Dawkins openess by saying that his definition of proof was too narrow!
Narrow definition? Of course its a narrow definition. It is the scientific method, it's logic, it's rigourous, it's not just opinion! The young man claimed that God was beyond the physical and coulnt be proven to exist or not by scientific methods.

One humanist in the audience managed to make the point that after 40 years without religion she was still living a good, moral life. Well done. It fell a little flat in the face of the indigntion from the god-botherers which is a pity. It strikes me that the biggest problem that aheists and humanists have is that there isnt the drive to indignation that the religious feel because there is very little that threatens a 'non-believers' placidity. They have usually accepted that shit happens and its best to get on with things causing the least amount of fuss.

Richard made the point that not too long ago people believed that the Earth was flat and that the sun revolved around the Earth and other such nonsense that was part of religious dogma. These nonsense opinions have been overthrown and replaced by rigourously tested and confirmed theories. The notion of God has been chased from being omnipresent and almost tangible to being something beyond pace, time and human understanding! Its a cop-out and if god botherers could muter up the intellectual courage they would realise that too.

The parting shot was given to our own home-grown intellectual, the philosopher from Trinity. He claimed throughout the interview/debate that he was an ex-atheist which should have sent warning bells ringing. To be fair he agreed in principle with many of the aspects of Richard's opinion regarding morality in the absence of religion etc. However, he let himslef down badly by quoting at RichardDawkins from his own book. I'm paraphrasing here as I havent recieved my copy of the 'God Delusion' yet but the phrase was something like 'I find it very probable that extra-terrestrial, super-hiuman lifeforms exist that might very well appear to us as god-like...' it went on a little longer but the 'philosopher' was indulging in some underhanded tactics.

he sought to discredit Prof. Dawkins by making it seem that the phrase 'very probable' meant that Richard was a believer in little green men - I'm sure he meant to create a link in the mind of the public between Prof. Dawkins and UFO conspiracy theorists.

Unfortunately Dawkins never got to properly answer this as time ran out. He did get to point out that statistically there almost certainly was life on other planets and that 'very probably' was a perfectly acceptable supposition based on the fcts of the situation. Which it is. Will the public think so?

Prof. Dawkins, on behalf of people in Ireland I thank you for appearing in holy Ireland and rattling the snakes pit so that we can remind ourselves by their hisses that we are still walking a tightrope and the division of state and church is not as clear as it should be.

This bodes ill for the future as we have a highly multi-cultural population now that the typical Irish attitude of 'sure it'll be grand' just won;t work with.

Posted by dottie at 3:05 PM | Comments (1)

November 19, 2006

Down with atheism!

Atheism still carries a nod and a wink to the notion of a big bearded white man living in the clouds.

I don't believe that and I can't remember ever believing that so why should I have to define myself in opposition to that? Opposing theists just lends validity to their argument.

In my view, and many other peoples view including Richard Dawkins, the whole notion of the existence of god (no capitals, please) is a non-argument.  You may as well call me an a-trollist (I dont believe that Trolls live below bridges) or an a-unicornist (everyone knows they didnt make the last call for the ark ).

Obviously saying that you oppose the belief in the actual existence of characters from a fairy story would encourage everyone around you to suggest that you have a good long lie down and maybe a nice cup of tea and some of grannys pills. So why should people who find the claims of every religion as far-fetched and divorced from reality as the average childrens fairy story have to define themselves in opposition to those claims?

If I could, I would have the word 'atheist' abolished. It is a non-sense term - a bit of semantic sleight-of-hand foisted on us by an unfortunate and shameful history where we all once believed in fairy stories and paid bad men to frighten us with tales of eternal roasting.

Enough! Cast off the shackles! You are merely a human! God has nothing to do with your life! Call yourself a secular humanist or just a humanist if you must have a title.

Down with atheism!

Posted by dottie at 3:46 PM | Comments (0)

October 24, 2006

Richard Dawkins is widely misundertood by people who misunderstand their own stance

Bottom line - Richard Dawkins argues that religion is not only an unnecessary crutch but also leads people to the most heinous crimes, massacres, bigotry and ill-will in the name of religion. He does in fact argue that the world would be a better place without religion.

I agree with him.

Religious people do not. They like to point out that atheist dictators such as Stalin, Pol Pot etc. committed atrocities without the need of religion.

This is missing the point.

Religion is just a huge excuse for people to hurt one another.

'Atheists', secular humanists and those who feel no need for either religion or a label to describe their naturalistic (rational) state all know that religion is unnecessary to maintain a strong ethical and moral framework in their lives.

Religion might even be unnecessary to develop such a framework - unfortunately there is no prospect of a control group anytime soon.

Besides which, just as I believe it is necessary for children to be exposed to flus, colds, and bugs of all description in order to generate healthy, hale grown-ups, I believe that children should be exposed to all manner of religious thought - and I do mean ALL manner, the whole gamut - in order to produce adults that are relatively immune from infestation by irrational thought processes that lead people to mediate all their actions with others and the world around them through a fictitious third party.

We might just as well keep children toeing the line by telling them that Mickey Mouse will beat and torture Minnie unless the child behaves.

Back to the specious argument that Dawkins argument holds no water because atheists can be cruel and unusual in the expression of their power. I believe that Dawkins is arguing off the point a little bit. He is giving a little bit too much weight to religion. I mean no disrespect here and I make the argument as someone who has not put as much thought into the matter as Professor Dawkins. My point is that religion should be a very small part of life. From this viewpoint the Professor may as well be writing large tomes about childrens books (which might have merit!)

I view religion and all its dogma more and more as childrens stories. I mean a certain respect by this as I believe that the various religious books (bible, talmud and even that most controversial of books - the qu'ran) have some value (as outlined earlier) as far as part of the canon of mythology.

Having said all that I think Porfessor Dawkins is fighting the good fight.

When we live in a world where over 50% of the worlds only 'superpower' believe in the literal text of the bible and fervently hope that tomorrow will bring the Armageddon and rapture we need (in Dawkins words) a Churchill to fight the growing tide of religious fanatacism that will, unchecked, overcome all history, rational thought, scientific endeavour, progress, freedom and ironically perhaps any validity that we humans have to the claim of rising above the animal kingdom.

Like all our ancestors, back to the first one-celled creature that mutated to allow it direct its movements, we are a bridge from the past to the future, from barbarism to enlightenment, if we allow our minds to be closed then at best we stumble back, at worst we fall into the abyss, never to tread another path and happy about it.

Amen?

Posted by dottie at 4:55 AM | Comments (2)