Weekly emails

July 12, 2014 • 9:06 am

Besides the usual rants from believers, I’ve received a number of rude or nasty personal emails this week, including a couple from Michael Robbins, who (after I criticized his Slate piece on the evils of New Atheism), continued to email me despite my asking him to stop. He needs to be treated for Maru’s Syndrome stat: the usual treatment, I hear, is a tuna. But that post continues to inspire discussion, and is nearing 400 comments, which may be a record. Of course that’s nothing compared to the thousands of comments on Robbins’s Slate site (the bulk of them negative), but this isn’t Slate.

And if Slate wants to publish that kind of mush as clickbait, they’re welcome to it. Frankly, I’m beginning to wonder if Slate publishes stuff like that, which no respectable magazine would touch (can you imagine Robbins’s piece in The New Yorker?), just to get hits. I’ve long ago written Salon off on that count, but had more hope for Slate.

This really is a new phenomenon in journalism, brought about by the fact that online “magazines” get paid for page hits. That gives them a strong incentive to publish contentious pieces, even if, like Robbins’s, they hold no water. And that just drags down journalism as a whole.  (I’m not mentioning the pathetic amounts they pay writers, which is driving many freelancers into penury.)

In the meantime, here are a few comments of interest that came in the past ten days or so. They weren’t intended to be posted here, and weren’t, but I’ll put them up now (the commenters won’t be posting here again):

kmlmbs commented on “Oy vey!”, a six word post consisting of this:  “This is embarrassing for one team. . .”

Soccer & FIFA are corrupt. Brazil threw today’s game against Germany. It was obvious by the way all of the Brazillians played. They played to lose. A bad high school soccer team would’ve done better against Germany. The final score said 7-1, a Germany win. But what is the final talley for the players who took an unknown amount of money to throw the game?

Soccer is awash in corruption and it will continue to get worse as long as FIFA controls soccer tournaments.

It’s beyond me how somebody can believe such a twisted conspiracy theory. Really, Brazil threw the game? Why on earth would they do that? Now I recognize all the problems with FIFA, but I’m 100% sure they didn’t tell the Brazilians to take money so they could suffer a humiliating defeat. But there is no conspiracy theory so bizarre that someone doesn’t believe it.

Reader Steve Willy has a few things to say about atheism in a comment on the post, “Moar bad stuff from Satan (and the Pope)”

Wow, you’re an atheist? You must be really smart. A real free thinker. Except, well…. Let’s put the faux-analytical hyperbole away for a while and look at reality: Kalaam Cosmological Argument, teleological argument, First Cause/Unmoved Mover, the impossibility of infinite causal regress, the necessity of at least one unconditioned reality, the Argument from Reason, Fine Tuning of Universal Constants, irreducible biological complexity, the argument from morality… While you sit there in your Hitchens-Dawkins parroting bubble and regurgitate pseudo-intellectual douchisms, your entire world view lies shattered at your feet. If you truly honor the gods of reason and critical thinking half as much as you claim, you would plant your face firmly into your hand, step away from the device, find a quiet place, and rethink your life.

This person has clearly not read any counter-arguments dealing with these Mediocre Arguments for God.  Really, morality is irrefutable proof of God? Which god, exactly? And the teleological argument—is that the one about evolution? I’m looking around at my feet now and I don’t see any shattered world view. Is it shattered and I just don’t perceive it?

Another reader, Mark,  just noted that Steve Willy has recycled this comment from one he made on Patheos in October of last year. You can see the self-plagiarism here.

Reader aubrey mouths some familiar sentiments in a comment on the post “Tim White pwns a creationist student“:

There is no greater act of faith than to accept evolution as scientific fact. Talk about drinking the kool-aid. You worship a religion of futility that elevates you to god. No wonder evolutionists are such self righteous zealots. You are too busy engaging in self worship to actually birth a original thought. You are always good for a laugh though. Thanks.

You’re welcome.  This missive is just so garbled that the person is either not thinking clearly or is so full of venom that he/she actually believes that atheists worship themselves. But even if we did, at least we’d be worshipping something real!  To be sure, I’d like to hear one of aubrey’s original thoughts, for the stuff he/she’s regurgitating here is just a parade of ill-thought-out , familiar, and unevidenced claims.

Hey, here’s an original thought: the Trinity!  Now that’s a really good one: a three-in-one God!

josephomorrow commented on “Facebook on science vs. religion“:

Both science and religion, as folks used to know them, have been hijacked by arrogant folks. When BOTH sides of an argument are inherantly [sic] wrong, of course there are endless arguments and counterarguments. At one time it was individuals who each had their views regardless of affiliation. Science and religion in general agreed on most things while strong individuals often did not.

As religion was hijacked by those wno basically knew not their Bibles, and science was also hijacked by some of the same, only then was the development of today’s great polarization made possible.

The only solution then, it would seem, would be to get back to the True God and His actually Book, shucking all the unnecessary prejudice and bigotry that has been indoctrinated into so many by the hijackers!

I wonder what “true God” he’s talking about, and what “actually Book”. I presume it’s not Allah and the Qur’an, respectively.

Here we have accommodationism at its most incoherent—from a person who professes to criticize arrogance yet says he knows who the True God is!

64 thoughts on “Weekly emails”

  1. Our friend aubrey is horribly misguided. She has chosen a particular god and particular scripture. On what basis did she make these choices? Who is she to determine which is the correct god and which is the correct scripture? She has elevated herself to that level, and if that isn’t the height of arrogance, I don’t know what is. It’s appeals to authority all the way down.

        2. OK, sorry, I got the wrong one. But I canna change the words of ma post! Captain.

  3. I have a doubt: Isn’t “twisted conspiracy theory” a pleonasm or redundant? I am always impressed by some of my friends and colleagues who easily see a conspiracy theory as something reasonable, such as climate change deniers or even that the 09/11 attack was perpetrated by the US government. I find the use of conspiracy theory as lazy, mediocre and ludicrous way to mask the fact you do not have an interesting argument and/or to shut down the conversation.

    1. I think those who believe in conspiracies behind the especially unsettling and sudden kinds of events (9/11, JFK assassination, Brazil getting whomped…) are said to develop their beliefs b/c they are fundamentally unable to see that such events can happen outside of our power to prevent them. Such awful shit cannot just happen; it must happen for a reason. They become convinced, then, that the events must be somehow orchestrated by some variety of powerful authority. This kind of belief satisfies a deep need for people to assert some form of exoneration. They could not prevent what happened, but that is b/c it was caused by powerful agents. Them.

      Since the events must have been orchestrated, then all evidence to the contrary can be summarily dismissed. Since you do not accept their conspiracy ideas, then you are either one of the suckers who do not see as deeply as they do, or you are possibly an agent trying to cover stuff up.

      1. It may have already possibly been mentioned in the tsunami of World Cup-related postings – I haven’t possibly been able to read them all; re: “Extraordinary Delusions and the Madness of Crowds” by Charles Mckay. (Quoted by Carl Sagan, among others.) On my long reading To Do list. And now there’s the LeBron James sports-as-religion saga enveloping the sackcloth-and-ashes crowds in Cleveland and Miami; the burning of jerseys (not cows).

        Am reminded of Steve Spurrier, an upper-East Tennessee football star, declining to sign with any university in Tennessee. That blasphemer!; and Shatner’s “Get a Life!” skit on Saturday Night Live back in ’86; and the proffering of successful athletic teams as a purported inducement to a prospective student to apply to and attend a given university. I remember that liberating day when I realized that the fortunes of some athletic team had no possible bearing on the quality of my own life.

    1. Yes, fixing the match seems improbable at this level, but FIFA has a well-documented history of it, even at fairly high levels. It’s not a completely unfounded conspiracy theory, but there is no evidence yet of such in this particular match.

      1. Didn’t see the match (at least, not knowingly ; it may have been on in the pub while I was present, but I didn’t notice if it was. It’s only football, after all.), but there are regular reports of quite blatant match-fixing as well as corruption at FIFA all the time. the reports obviously increase whenever FIFA is in the news for some other reason – a World Cup, or some other major tournament ; the bribe-taking rounds for the hosting of such tournaments ; whatever – but there is also a constant undercurrent of distrust of these particular mandarins.
        It’s a very open question which sport is more corrupt in it’s organisation – F1, football, or the Olympics.

    3. I’ve been reading those stories, too. Seems to me, though, that when fixing is discovered in any sport, there has usually been an effort to make the match at least seem competitive. That is, that a fixed game would seldom result in such a cringe-worthy defeat as the Brazilians suffered.

  5. He needs to be treated for Maru’s Syndrome stat: the usual treatment, I hear, is a tuna.

    Well, for Maru this treatment has proven to be completely ineffective. I believe that the examples of Maru, Chopra and now Robbins suggest that the syndrome is an incurable condition.

    1. Well narrow reductionist materialistic science still hasn’t found a cure for it, that’s for sure. Scientists have been too busy pulling their hair out.

  6. The misapprehensions, illogical conclusions, and staunch emotional investment in obedience to ideological authority source are par for the course in writer’s like the final three, but the dearth of spelling errors is most unusual. Did you polish this sh!t a little on our behalf, JAC, or just cull the few gems found in a large sample?

    As for the charge levied that atheists worship themselves, I find this to be the normative belief held by any theist I ever talk at length with. The atheist does not worship the big gee, so who does the atheist worship instead? But of course Darwin and Dawkins, the usual suspects. Not so fast, though, because the atheist also practices the religion of humanism — the worship of the human. And which human do we all truly hold dearest (thinks many the theist in her/his most concealed super-ego), despite professed love for spouse/children/community?

  7. Well, I have to hand it to the guy who wrote “douchisms.” Just on the basis as a sheer coinage, it’s a fun word.

    Sorry to hear about the shattered world at your feet. Do clean up that mess before you leave and turn off the lights. Thanks.

    1. He seemed to write quite well, it is just that he simply listed a bunch of stuff. Too bad he didn’t go into what his real thoughts were instead of being snarky because it might have been interesting to actually read what he had to say, even if it was misguided. We will never know because he clearly didn’t want to engage in discussion but instead just show how clever he was in his word play. That is fun too but you need some substance behind your words (as I ramble on while in the throughs of the neurological even that is a migraine that robs me of normally easily accessible vocbulary).

  8. Josephomorrow’s mention of a “True God” reminded me of a question for which I’ve never gotten an answer from a theist: How do you know your deity is the true one? Suppose you were trying to convince the chief of a newly discovered Amazonian tribe to believe in your god at which time he reveals that you are the fourth person to approach him with the same agenda and that he is left wondering which of the four gods is the right one. What argument would you give him that your deity is the one that exists and the others are myths?

      1. Agreed.

        Also, every one of the arguments for “god” and christianity applies equally well (or poorly) to any other god one could invent–Allah, Vishnu, the Flying Spaghetti Monster, Ra, Czernobog, the great Ju-Ju at the bottom of the sea, ad (almost literally) infinitum; all you have to do is to substitute the name of the other god in for the vocable “god/Yahweh/Jesus”. The arguments are equally invalid scientifically and philosophically, as well as indiscriminate in that, if they were valid, they would prove the existence of Allah, Vishnu, etc. just as well as that of “our” god, which is where your comment on the Outsider Test of Faith comes in.

        The only exception would be the virgin birth and resurrection of Christ (unless I’ve missed some other religious claims that are unique to christianity among the world’s religions), and these are known to be non-factual, based on historical and comparative mythological bases; remember, risen gods were quite popular back then, almost as popular as virgin-born ones.

  9. I think believers get so upset by atheists because it threatens their comforting worldview. Most people, including believers, living in developed countries are well aware of the value of science, especially medical science. When a believer gets sick the immediate reaction is to seek medical care. Prayer is like a bit of extra insurance, or if the illness is incurable, the last resort. The comfort derived from praying is doubtless in direct proportion to the strength of his/her belief in God, and that belief is threatened by dissenting voices with unanswerable arguments. So, as I have often observed, the faithful are simply NOT INTERESTED in the truth about the world in which we live.

    1. “the faithful are simply NOT INTERESTED in the truth about the world in which we live.”

      I think they actually are, after all, they talk an awful lot about the ‘Truth’ (many churches in my area have the word ‘Truth’ in their names).
      And they invariably spell Truth with a capital T as if to distinguish it from the ‘normal’ truth, you know, the variant that demands proof or evidence.
      I think that the problem is more that they are clueless about where and how to look for ‘truth’, and don’t realize that a 2000+ year old collection of primitive campfire stories from the bronze age is not the most ideal place to start that search.

      1. Yes, I agree. I was observing that modern, educated Christians are accepting of science and its findings up to a certain point, beyond which they just don’t want to hear any more (because it is too threatening I presume).

  10. get back to the True God and His actually Book

    Have a plate of spaghetti and meatballs.

      1. Ramen!
        (Which apparently means something noodly, if not appendicular, to Americans, but I don’t know how it goes with Canadians.)

  11. josephomorrow’s comment was found ages ago in a more succinct form, on a T-shirt I used to own. It said:
    “Those of you who claim to know everything are very annoying to those of us who do”

    Unlike me & my shirt however, I suspect the irony is lost on josephomorrow,

    1. Well, OMZ! OMW! OMM! 😉

      BTW, have you ever heard someone say “OMG!,” but devote at least one second to each letter? The longer one holds it out, the more I’m inclined to wonder if I need to pay admission to some theatrical event and homage to some drama queen.

      Occasionally, in response to my implacably holding his feet to the fire (metaphorically speaking), pressing him to do what he already knows he should do to succeed in class, a student will ululate out loud, for the edification of all present, “Oh My God.” My response is, “Call upon a Higher Power if you must.” (No doubt He/She/It will drop everything to rescue a student from a teacher who takes the job seriously.)

  13. I’ve often daydreamed about a website ala Snopes/Talk Origins that would list theological arguments and their status as either valid, invalid, or undetermined, along with the ensuing justifications. (

    That way, whenever a believer would show up with a list of faulty arguments, we could just direct them there rather than have to re-argue it every time. “Oh, the Kalaam Cosmological Argument? That’s been considered invalid for centuries. See the 10th entry down. Irreducible biological complexity? Lol, see entry 4C. Here’s a link.”

    Etc, etc.

        1. I’ve never heard of that resource, but yes, that’s very close to what I envisioned. Thanks for the link!

        4. Kind of, but as a skeptic I have problems with its basis in philosophy.

          Much as I liked “the Atheist Wager” it doesn’t really work. (As in “where is your evidence for such a magic agency to base a wager on”, the problem with the original wager already.)

          And I looked up its definition of atheists. To no one’s surprise it makes a philosophical division of us, making an untenable claim on empiricist skeptics. (That despite that we can observe that science works, what we know is based on some, entirely unreferenced of course, untestable “assumptions” instead of at most relying on provisional, testable constraints to make progress. “Science. It works, bitches!”)

          So I would like to see a skeptic’s list of religious claims and their problems.

          The philosophy list may be useful for getting apologists to think again. But personally I would feel dishonest and accommodationist by pointing at lists with no empirical support and, worse, filled with empirical errors just because they appeal to some. :-/

          1. H.H.’s version is, by the way, perhaps better for everyone. I have no problem to point to lists that goes over the philosophical history et cetera FWIW. If they do the trick to persuade apologists that they are full of it, so much the better.

            But still, we have had 400 years of science. You would think someone would have had the energy to sum up the (science based) skeptics side of it.

          2. God dammit, Torbjörn. Now we’re back to doing it ourselves.

            I’m gonna put some coffee on…..

  14. “The True God and His actually Book”

    Hey! I think I saw that one at a used book store recently. Right next to, “Tom Swift and His Airship”.
    😉

  15. The Trinity is so passé. Come join my new religion with the Quadrinity! Four gods in one is even better than three in one!

    1. Do they have any cool abilities like…I dunno, superman or neo or something?

      1. They hand out ice cream to everyone unconditionally. Everyone who has enough faith that they will get the ice cream, that is.

        It’s not a very elaborate religion, I’m afraid, but what it lacks in baroque detail it makes up for in clarity.

        1. Simple, sweet and instant reward. I like it.

          If they also can cure brainfreeze then we’re set for life.

          1. I got some of my reward last night, in fact. A big bowl of vanilla with chocolate syrup.

            A unsophisticated skeptic would say that I bought it myself at the store with my own money and it’s been in my freezer for weeks. Skeptics are so tedious with their shallow and unserious analysis. Sure, I bought it with my own money, but where did the money come from? Why do I have a job? Why are there cows, milk, and people out there making ice cream? My Quadrine god, with what I must assume is some kind of amazing foresight, made sure all these things were in place for me. And when I got up from my desk to walk toward the freezer, that’s when my faith showed it self, for I knew, I just KNEW, that there would be ice cream waiting there for me, and it was! Parise the Quadrinity!

          2. If it’s not ice cream it’s frozen waterfalls…or the tides, can’t ‘splain the tides…

            And know, as prescribed by the holy creed, I must commence the intake of frozen dairy.

            I can dig this new religion….

          3. Psst, Jesper, don’t use the word “dig” in that sense. If you do, I’ll respond, and we’ll both be dating ourselves…

          4. What, you mean dating like wining and dining ourselves and maybe making it to first base?

            I must warn you I don’t kiss and tell, though.*

            *Ok, my bad.

          5. I just *knew* you were going to misinterpret the “dating”. But really, we’ve got to stop meeting like this…

          6. But really, we’ve got to stop meeting like this…

            It never ends…www.youtube.com/watch?v=j1kftCx5-tA

          7. I just realized that is the one morph of humans with animals that doesn’t freak me out. Probably because it’s so funny!

  16. I would like to recommend that at on one day every week, just like Caturday Felids, you feature a full-length documentary or an assemblage of shorter pieces that clearly expose to all but the most vacuous cranium just how ridiculous it is to be a bible-thumpin’, anti-science, anti-reason, anti-knowledge, anti-democratic religious zealot. I’m of the opinion that there are a lot of people who might actually see themselves in the characters that they watch and be ashamed enough to want to begin rethinking their worldviews and changing their pathetic little lives.

    Creationist Road Trip, for example, is the the kind of full-length documentary I’m yappin’ about. This 57-minute piece clearly exposes the mindful and the mindless. Which is which is quite clear to anyone with a healthy, semi-functioning brain.

    I frequently ask myself: what kind of person, who, after watching CRT, would not be repelled by the Ayatollah and Falwell wannabees and be at least mildly attracted to the reality and knowledge seekers that make excellent appearances all along the trip?

    Clearly, at least from my perspective, only an intellectually dead one.

    I watched CRT for the umpteenth time today. It’s a classic. Here’s the link if anyone would like to (re)watch it.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oju_lpqa6Ug&feature=kp

    There are tons of these types of videos available all over the intertubes that are just as powerful as CRT. Everyone should watch them on a regular basis, or at least once in their lives. Michael Shermer’s Boloney Detection Kit, for example, is another classic. I view that one at least a couple of times a year. In fact, it’s a permanent part of my personal library!

    Here’s a quick link to it.

  17. If you truly honor the [magical agents] of reason and critical thinking half as much as you claim, you would plant your face firmly into your hand,

    Indeed when one see the recycled bad ‘arguments’ for magical agency (… “Kalaam”? – oy, not even wrong … “irreducible biological complexity”? – oy, ‘design’ on an evolution website …), a facepalm comes to mind.

    Except you need a double facepalm:

    http://img2.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20131001135318/walkingdead/images/thumb/0/0c/Double_facepalm.jpg/600px-Double_facepalm.jpg

    1. Funny (or not), a WordPress site (I think) that doesn’t automatically embed images. But videos, at the look of it.

      What’s the trick?

  18. Ahh,Fine Tuning and Irreducible Complexity! My two faves.
    Because the best example of Irreducible Complexity is the bacterial flagellum, which makes the bacteria more deadly. It is not the bacteria that kills, but the symptoms caused by the flagellum (notably diarrhea). Not the best choice for God to demonstrate his unique abilities.
    And Fine Tuning. Because God,who was working with a blank slate and could have made the Universe any way he wanted, instead made it so that the existence of life teeters on a knife-edge in a Universe that is 99.999% deadly to it.
    Even the Earth’s surface is 72% water, most of which we can’t drink (97% is salty), we and die if we are immersed in it for more than 3 minutes. It would have made more sense if we were created as amphibians.

  19. “Steve Willy” has posted precisely the same paragraph of painstakingly crafted tripe at least six times since April 2013. The same paragraph has also been anonymously posted at least six times in the last couple of times – maybe by “Steve Willy”, maybe by his myrmidons – on sites where religious red-necks congregate to bait atheists.

    “Steve Willy” is also fond of the old trope that atheists are “neck beards”. This is a puzzling insult because, ironically, most high-profile atheists are clean shaven or female, whereas Jesus of Nazareth, his disciples, Paul of Tarsus and most of the early church fathers appear to have sported neck beards.

    Interestingly, apart from the cut and pasted section, “Steve Willy” (and the anonymous poster(s) of the identical paragraph) is inarticulate, devoid of arguments and prone to spelling and grammar errors when invited to expound on the cut-n-paste passage.

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