Yesterday we had the encomiums; today we have the opprobrium.
It’s that time again, although most of the unposted comments that have arrived the past two weeks have been full of invective, lacking the unintended humor that makes me chuckle. The third one below is one example. But again I’ll give banned readers a chance to air their views—once.
All errors and grammatical infelicities are as they appear in the original
Reader cducey2013 comments on “Jesus ‘n’ Mo ‘n’ missionizing“:
It is really sad to see a UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO PROFESSOR (c’mon people) resorting to the foolish conclusion that belief in evolution entails an unrelented Dawksonian criticism of religion. You, sir, are acting not like a scientist but like a charlatan, a fool, and a bigot afraid of what he does not understand. You put evolutionists to shame by “devolving” to the level of ignorance of religion akin to that shown by fundamental Christian creationists against Darwin’s theory and the New Synthesis. Please contact me if you want to understand how belief in evolution and religion are not mutually exclusive.
Here again we see the accusation that 1). evolution entails atheism and 2). that much atheistic criticism of religion (including mine) is misguided: making all religions akin to fundamentalism. I would say that for many people, #1 has been true: that is, it’s is hard to reconcile evolution with the idea of a beneficent and omnipotent God. Two letters from readers yesterday drew that connection explicitly, and reading about evolution has certainly caused many people to abandon their faith. (This incompatibility was probably true for Darwin, for instance). That’s just a fact. As for #2, I have answered that criticism sufficiently on this website, as I’ve read a lot about sophisticated theology and don’t see it as more credible in its truth claims than, say, Pentecostal Christianity or fundamentalist Islam. More important, the theological knowledge of many of my readers far exceeds mine; indeed, many of them were members of “sophisticated” religions until they realized that those religions’ claims weren’t credible, either.
and, a bit later, cducey2013 added this on the same post:
To whom it may concern: I understand that the UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO PROFESSOR who runs this site dislikes that certain sects of fundamental religious people oppose the teaching of a theory that I personally find convincing, but does he realize that the Catholic Church, the largest single Christian congregation ACCEPTS Darwin’s theory for how life came to exist in its present form? And does he know that belief in evolution does not entail an all-out Dawkinsonian excoriation of religion? Frequent posts critiquing religious straw man arguments only devolve this site into a petty mud-slinging forum as ignorant of religion as many religious fundamentalists are of Darwin’s theory and the New Synthesis.
Catholicism does not accept naturalistic evolution, for it posits that God inserted a soul somewhere in the human lineage. Further, 23% of Catholics are young-earth creationists, rejecting their Church’s dogma. Finally, the Church’s official position is that Adam and Eve were the historical ancestors of all humanity, something that is simply scientifically wrong. The rest of the post is the same as the first.
Reader Jay Shawn comments on “Once again: did Jesus exist?”
It’s amazing how you Jews exhaust your time to dispell Jesus and Christianity. Why do you attack Christians to the most filthy passages found in the Bible to be in the part you beliee in (Torah). Fuck you Jews. I wish the Muslims swallow you.
Who said anti-Semitism was dead? And does he realize that the most “filthy” passages in the Bible are in the Old Testament, which is the part accepted by Jews?
Reader David Yount comments on “Monday: Hili dialogue“:
OK, enough of the cute cat photos, trip pictures, and other posts not directly related th “Why Evolution is True?” That’s not why I signed up for these alerts. I don’t need to have my email inbox filled up with such trivia!
That, my friends, is the fastest way to get yourself banned from this website. Every reader should read the Roolz, located on the sidebar of the front page. There you will find an admonition to avoid telling me what to write about. If you don’t like my content, please go elsewhere: the Internet is huge and diverse!
Reader Jeffismyname comments on “Accommodationism from a physicist“:
Reblogged this on philosophyinathoughlessworld and commented:
The very fact that science can even be framed in a debate with religion already belies its religious character. Because it has no claim to truth, and it gathers knowledge inductively means that it is always a matter of faith, as least in a Humean sense. Science is a method of observation and the logic of its practice serve the directives obligatory to the method- in other words, doing science is always justifying science. And science holds as “values” things which are simply given in ones study of their world, thus creating metaphysical strawmen. So the claim, for instance, that the observer is independent from the observation, in that nothing callled for such a claim, now makes it appear as if the alternative meant that the world is a “product” of observation; both of these situations are absurd, and neither need to be said. Finally, science does not account for what is observed, but for everything absent in observation. Thus, physics is construed as an animistic order driven my ineffable “forces” through space, but in non-relation to space itself, meaing that absence becomes the causative origin of presence. This leads inevitably to the situation in which the Universe originates out of nothingness- and to even acknowledge such a thing, you are now ready to concede to any preposterous lie told to you, insofar as you are committed to the authority of the liar.We do not think about what we do.
First I’d recommend that this reader have a look at my Slate article, “No faith in science,” which dispels the notion that science rests on a kind of faith analogous to religious faith. It rests on confidence, not belief in the unevidenced. As for the “observer-dependence” nonsense, that says nothing about what happens on the macro-level, i.e., most of science; and even physicists argue about what it means. If this reader claims that science and religion are equally valid ways of knowing, with both based on faith, I’d ask him to visit a faith healer rather than a doctor the next time he has an infection or is seriously ill. Streptococcus is not a product of observers.
The last part of Jeffismyname’s screed is virtually unintelligible to me, and so requires no answer.
I do not think that Jeffismyname has proprly understood Hume.
He’s not exactly the Wayne Gretzky of grammar either.
I couldn’t understand anything in his word salad.
I am inclined to agree with you. However, as far as I could make any sense of his wittering, he seemed to imply that the problem of induction comprised a total bar to any kind of objective knowledge. In fact, while setting high standards for scepticism, Hume was ultimately a pragmatist, and fully accepted that people have to get by in a real world. People who represent him as an absolute sceptic for whom nothing can be real are creating a straw man. This is a popular tactic amongst theologians who resent his views but cannot refute his logic.
But it’s a good salad…
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Yeah, lots of bitter greens.
I was impressed that any part of jeffismyname’s screed was intelligible to Dr. Coyne. Even if the first parts make some sense, nobody has a point important enough to have to wade through such convoluted prose.
Please don’t bring Green into this, he’s an Idiot! (with a capital ‘I’)
My favorite counter to atheism is that I just don’t understand religion. Of course, these goddies imply that I simply am not intelligent enough to buy into their myths and fairy tales. However, I still have not seen a single cogent argument why there is a god or why we need religion in modern times.
Kind of reminds me when Bush told us about the existence of WMD’s in Iraq. “Take it on faith, I know more than you.”
Any way you dress it up, bullshit is bullshit.
The simple act of requesting some sort of evidence is enough to get a placard hung around your neck detailing your thought crime (in execrable grammar, naturally), and the one way trip to some combination of the Air Fandango, “warm for the rest of your life”, “show and tell starring your liver” and other such mediaeval entertainments.
There is probably some lurker in the shadows of this forum, compiling “a little list / of people who won’t be missed”.
I’m having a post-lunch brain fade – that a G+S line, isn’t it?
Oh yes. Ko-ko, the Lord High Executioner, in Mikado, IIRC.
Who needs lurkers when we’ve got the NSA? 🙁
I’m having a literary bent today. Something to do with watching far too many incomprehensible wiggly lines.
Yeah. Ozymandias. We’d noticed 😉
Of all the things in the world to be upset about and some guy picks Hili pictures?
I have to disagree with JAC on something. The entirety of Jeffismyname’s screed is virtually unintelligible and I’m sure a second read would make my brain very, very sad.
Yes. It’s the sort of gobbledygook that gives “word salad” a bad name.
It’s also the sort of gobbledygook which in some places passes as sophisticated “spiritual” apologetics.
“How DARE you say that science supports atheism! Look at what we have … and weep in despair.”
(In cases like this typos and misspellings are nice, because it suggests that the writer didn’t just copy/paste from some Science-Finds-Spirituality book. They wrotes it them own selves, they did.)
I think a successful career in “sophisticated theologian” whisperer and word salad interpreter is in your future! 🙂
… and you’re channelling Ozymandias, aren’t you?
Shelley had a nicely ironic turn of phrase, didn’t he?
Well, he did put “poet” on his business card.
Was it alongside “Mad, Bad and Dangerous to Know”? No, Byron. Worth a try though. That would be a good motto to have, if it weren’t already taken.
Someone else’s idea : geologist’s teeshirt, atypically modest. Get ’em before they fossilise! (No affiliation.)
I’ll try that again, without the extra character. Advert
I know what is meant as re “my brain very, very sad.”
I imagine Dr Coyne is superbly strong, likely the precise human definition of endurance and resilience.
But, I have to say: reading through, from time to time when posted by Dr Coyne, A.N.Y. of these statements made to him by believers of all different stripes ?
As, currently too, the mothers Ms Foley and Ms Sotloff, I am because of them — as representatives of humankind ? … … I am brokenhearted.
And, made yet once again for my own core’s essence, reclusively hermitess – seeking. Time and again, now, so it seems.
Blue
“because of them” – “them” =ing those of “humanity” ‘s idiocy who actually make such insults and inane remarks to Dr Coyne.
I am no longer shy nor reticent: when such muck comes at me ? verbally usually (and not in written form, as here to Dr Coyne and WEIT) ?
I do not “take it” anymore (as was absolutely true — in the manner of Dr Coyne’s ” … … this never could have been published anywhere when I was a kid”).
Right out loud and proud I am now. Finally.
“O, surely not. Surely .that. is not of your brain anymore, is it!” ( NOT questioningly said by me either. I state thus in a matter – of – FACT tone back to the believer’s muck.) .That. is magical woo and superstition, of course, ya’ know. There is science now — so I and all of mine need to be ‘done’ with your muck now. Be gone from us with .that.”
Yeah.
Blue
Yeah I know. David Yount, the scroll wheel is your friend. It’s not going to bite your finger.
When you have email alerts, the extra mails from all the cat related posts can be a little annoying, a scroll wheel doesn’t fix that. I don’t have anything against cats, or Jerry posting what he wants on his website, but that isn’t why I read this site. It would be nice if we could filter out what types of posts we get alerted to, but I don’t think that is a feature WordPress offers and presumably isn’t something Jerry can do anything about. It should be possible to do some filtering on the email inbox end though, but it isn’t something I have looked into yet for my particular setup.
If you aren’t relying on email alerts, then you would have a point, though that complainant clearly had signed up for them.
I am ashamed to say this, but I actually look forward to these “upset reader/butt hurt reader” posts. It is a bit like a train wreck; I can’t help but read. 🙂
I eagerly await these installments!
When I take my car to a garage I take it on faith that the mechanic is well trained and honest. However that faith is justified when my car doesn’t break down or I go rolling through a red light on faulty breaks. Same with electricians, plumbers etcetera. That isn’t faith that is trust and for the most part it is rewarded.
Science depends on trust, trust that experts outside of my field are as rigorous or more so than myself in checking work and ensuring accuracy.
As for the paragraph itself, it’s a little word salad with crotons of horse manure. The dressing is a spicy number of science denial in the form of big bang denial.
If you had a religious faith in your mechanic, then when your car breaks down shortly afterwards you’ll either
1.) insist that it’s not broken, it’s meant to drive this way
or
2.) explain that a broken car is one of the best things that could have happened to you, because it taught you so much and tested the strength of your trust in your mechanic.
Faith entails spin-doctoring like a Physician of Positivity.
Sastra:
Which is exactly what those religious parents do when they say, after a horrible disease or accident has killed one of their children:
“We’re so happy because he/she’s gone back to Jesus, or the Lord, or God. It was the due time and we have to accept the supreme will of God.”
Any catastrophe or disaster is nothing but the will of Jesus or God.
No wonder that Darwin could not believe in such a Christian god and left his wife at the church door on Sundays. But he was gentleman enough to walk with her to the door.
Would a religious mechanic first (or solely) pray for the car?
Probably on the wall at your mechanic’s shop is a certificate of some sort with names and dates indicating that your mechanic did indeed receive some formal training and was accredited by an official body. You may even wish to check with them if it is important to you…. at least that option exists. If you see that, and you know of others who have been treated honestly by your man, there is no need for faith… the proof is right there for anyone to see.
As for religion, it is more…. “I know this stuff, you don’t, believe me!”
And on *my* wall (well, actually in a cardboard envelope in my mobile office rucksac) is my ordination certificate into the ministry of the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster. So there! That’s your grounds for confidence in my faith – at least one of my cheques didn’t bounce!
“Probably on the wall at your mechanic’s shop is a certificate of some sort with names and dates indicating that your mechanic did indeed receive some formal training and was accredited by an official body.”
One of my proudest possessions is an impressive certificate certifying that I completed a training course in applying ISO 9001. I found it in a folder of my old papers one day. The reason I am so inordinately proud of it is that I cannot (and could not when I found it) remember anything whatsoever about that course. Nothing. Nada. Not one neuron retains any trace of a shadow of a homeopathic memory of the course which allegedly qualified me to apply ISO 9001 principles.
I think that says something about the validity of training courses when they’re not of immediate practical application.
Ah! Did the trainers have any quality certification?!
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One assumes they must have done but since I can remember not one detail…
Oh ISO compliance – the scary boogey-man auditors like to scare us with. 🙂
Not as scary as ISO/IEC 27001!
And far less scary that the fact that organisations that are compliant with a variety of security standards and regulations still get breached…
But this is straying rather OT.
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I had a colleague who was a certified ISO9001 inspector. By coincidence he was the first person I had to give the hard talk to, when we couldn’t generate enough work to keep him on the payroll. But he wasn’t bothered, and went off to do ISO9001 compliance stuff in the Former Yugoslavia.
His opinion of this lucrative business line wasn’t much different to yours.
Ah’ve heerd uf ISO 9001. Wuz thar evur an ISO 8999?
Reciprocating internal combustion engines — Graphical symbols
Search @ iso.ch
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“Thus, physics is construed as an animistic order driven my ineffable ‘forces’ through space, but in non-relation to space itself, meaning that absence becomes the causative origin of presence.”
Hoo-boy, wish I could construct sentences like that. Definitely time for a beer.
Every sentence of his was just wrong. How does he get through his day? Is he allowed to drive?
I think what he was getting at in that bit was that since the force of gravity is a relative experience to each observer (gravity is 0 to someone in free-fall), then the forces holding the atom together are also relative to the atom components. I guess.
Wow, I was unaware of the Slate piece. That’s great, and I’ll be tweeting the hell out of that (pardon the expression) whenever some religious numbnut tells me that science is all about faith.
I love the false politeness: ‘You, sir … ‘ and ‘To whom it may concern…’
You just know these guys haven’t read anything written in the last hundred years.
… except, of course, this august publication.
In a back-handed sort of way, that would be a compliment. If it were true, which I sadly doubt.
Okay , that last one – that’s got to be Zizek himself, hasn’t it? Still smarting from your slapdown.
cducey2013 – You need to find yourself a burro and ride it around as your only mode of transportation for one month. Will that bring you closer to your savior? I am not sure, but it might get you on CNN depending on your daily commute.
Relax, you are drowning in offense brought on by cataclysmic insecurity. If you felt certain your beliefs are correct you would never have objections to anything that contradicts your beliefs.
A failure from the ranks of Philosophy 101 at some religious cow-college?
That word “belies”. I do not think it means what he thinks it means. Also he is dismally wrong about science, viz:
“science holds as “values” things which are simply given in ones study of their world”
Not at all. Science holds as provisional truths (does that equal”values”?)those phenomena which have been observed, measured where possible and have proved consistent to the point that predictions can be made from them – not merely stated as truths. Declaring unfounded postulates as truths we leave to the philosophers.
He continues “So the claim, for instance, that the observer is independent from the observation, in that nothing callled for such a claim, now makes it appear as if the alternative meant that the world is a “product” of observation”
Oh dear. Is this about the principle that observing a phenomenon changes that phenomenon? I’m uncertain what he means here. Maybe Heisenberg could understand it – if he didn’t look too closely at it.
A lovely screed altogether that highlights the truth of Feynman’s dictum – “scientists need philosophy like birds need ornithology”
Not fair to philosophy. If anything, bad, incoherent, ill-considered and poorly constructed and thought-out statements like that require a course in beginner’s philosophy.
As to what it means, my guess is that it means whatever would make you say “yes, this guy makes a good point.” The ineffable value of not being clear: flexibility and more opportunities for finding spurious agreement.
Not fair to philosophy. If anything, bad, incoherent, ill-considered and poorly constructed and thought-out statements like that require a course in beginner’s philosophy.
The thing about philosophy is that to make any philosophic contribution to the world you have to be very, very good at it.
You can be an okay scientist and still make a contribution to science; it’s a collaborative process. You might actually do nothing but clean the test tubes and you are still making a contribution to science.
But to do anything useful in philosophy takes a genius. And there aren’t enough geniuses in philosophy – and there are no test tubes for the rest of them to clean.
So there’s nothing for them to do but spout gibberish.
Oh, Jesus!
Notice how Dawkins gets pulled into the first two? When I was arguing about evolution on FB, the guy brought up Dawkins there too. Very odd.
David Yount’s was absolutely ridiculous. The level of indignation because he wasn’t getting the posts he wants! Boo hoo then go start your own site. It kills me that people think they are owed something.
I’d be interested in hearing a non-strawman religious argument. Because it seems to me that what happens most often is, some theist publishes their religious argument as an op-ed or in their blog or comes here and posts it, and we respond. We’re hitting the pitches that theists throw. If you want to complain that they’re all softballs, well, whose fault is that?
That’s a great analogy.
“OK, enough of the cute cat photos, trip pictures, and other posts not directly related th “Why Evolution is True?” That’s not why I signed up for these alerts. I don’t need to have my email inbox filled up with such trivia!”
I will plaster Yount’s missive on my fridge so as to be reminded of its perfection: the conversational urgency is immediate to the extent I feel transported into the digital email box with him and Prof CC, the humble and implied recognition of his limits, that is, his inability to cancel his own email alert unless of course Prof CC broke Yount’s arm to request such alerts then my apologies to Yount, and last but not least, his admirable desire to have a trivia-free inbox.
Added kudos for his admitting that cat photos are cute.
Jeff is my name too. I’m sure glad that I don’t “think” like him. What a load of gobbledygook.
Ahistoric hogwash. The modern concept of forces originated in something like the 1700s. Newton used it. The concept of the universe having a start only caught on in physics in the 1930s. There is no logical or ‘inevitable’ connection between the two, and for 200+ years, there wasn’t even any correlation between believers in the two concepts, let alone the causal connection he’s trying to say exits.
I read that as an attempt to mystify physics, and possibly make it an non-anthropomorphic (“nothing”) mechanism as opposed to his anthropomorphic magical agency.
Not to defend the hogwash, but if we take a look on the “out of nothing” there is a connection today. Forces are caused by symmetries, and so is energy, it all comes out of the action principle.
And incidentally general relativistic cosmology seems to agree, energy sum total is zero, nothing but the action principle put it there. Hence the possibility of Linde’s chaotic inflation, somehow fluctuating spacetime into existence or at least sum very close to zero energy.
I hope one day to better understand that last bit — about how the total energy of the universe is in perfect balance of + and – energy, so its total energy is 0. I understand the sentences in the various explanations that I have read, but I do not feel it like other parts of cosmology.
The simplest example is lifting an object. The force of your push is up. The force of gravity is down. Thus, in any consistent physical model, they must have different signs. The same is true when you compare gravity to other basic forces: it attracts, they generally repel. So when you add all the negatives to the positives…you get very close to zero.
But AIUI, not exactly zero! Which is a finding of the 2000s+. Before that, we thought it was exactly zero.
Who’s this Dawkson that cducey2013 alludes to? Has he written anything good?
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I thought that was a type of dog.
More a typo’dog 🙂
Wasn’t he the (alleged) Tooth-Filer of old Piltdown Quarry?
The lack of independence between the observer and the observed is fundamental to quantum physics. C.F. quantum entanglement and the two slit problem.
Oh, that part. The author is quite obviously misunderstanding the principled requirement of independence during observation for a principle of physics. But nothing guarantees it, it must be set up (many times) and checked (always).
I don’t think there is anything fundamentally different about quantum physics in that regard. True, there are phenomena that connects systems such as observer and the observed system in new ways. But the requirement remains as a foundation for verifiable (stationary) measurements.
A twist is that observables are no longer local and real, even if the systems can be both. Physicists can now separate observables from the systems and move them other ways. (E.g. separate magnetic momentum from a localized particle, if not the particle field.*) And observables are not decided until the integration of measurements.
* “By preparing the neurons in a special initial state and then post selecting another state, we can achieve a situation in which both the possible paths in the interferometer are important for the experiment, but in very different ways,” says Tobias Denkmayr. “Along one of the paths, the particles themselves couple to our measurement device, but only the other path is sensitive to magnetic spin coupling. The system behaves as if the particles were spatially separated from their properties.”
[ http://blogs.chapman.edu/press-room/2014/07/23/the-quantum-cheshire-cat-can-a-particle-be-separated-from-its-properties/ ]
The only thing that makes sense in Jeffismyname’s screed is the beginning, where he seems to riff of philosophy. I.e. it has no claim to verifiable facts (pomo!) and uses induction (theology!).
Never mind that after the idea of induction had slipped from theology to philosophy (or if it was the other way around), it dawned on scientists that they could use statistics to describe testing. And of course quantifiable measurement theory can fundamentally not be described by qualitative handwaving in the form of “induction”.
I’m always amused by people who say or imply that science can’t really know anything, after having said so by way of a computer and a global communications system.
A set of technologies that is entirely dependent on the science that the person denies know anything.
Anyone who takes five minutes to consider the science and technology required to get to highly dense solid state electronics, satellites, fiber optic cables that span oceans, lasers and microwaves and all the science that was required to get to those…
The real difference between science and religion, is science works, and can be seen to work. We are literally surrounded by examples of how science works. Cell phones, computers, material science in our homes, pink spun glass insulation, cars packed with examples of material science, electronics, physics, and I’m sure sciences I’ve never heard of. Cable TV, internet and pay per view, electricity piped to houses that runs refrigerators to keep our food from spoiling and our insulin and Humira (a biologic medication that treats numerous types of arthritis) cold.
Meanwhile, what has religion accomplished?
What diseases has religion cured? Has religion invented fertilizer to feed billions of people?
No.
I can’t think of anything religion has ever accomplished that could not have been done without it by secular means.
The occasional person points out that many scientists were or are religious, but those men and women didn’t do science because of religion, they did it because they were curious and or they wanted the world to be a better place. The exact same reasons non religious scientists do their work. Their scientific work has nothing to do with religion.
I would suggest religion has hampered science and knowledge. Many churches and religious individuals have deliberately destroyed human knowledge deemed to be heretical or a threat. Including the almost complete and methodical destruction of the written knowledge of the Mayan empire.
This was hardly the first and only time the religious banned, burned or otherwise destroyed knowledge. Consider the long history of the church when it was forbidden for the peons to have a bible. The majority were ignorant, and meant to stay that way under the thumb of the church and priests.
There is no way to know how much knowledge has been held back, destroyed or hindered by various churches and individuals throughout history. And it was done for religious purposes.
It seems clear to me the only reason it isn’t the same today is not because the churches are kinder gentler versions of themselves, but because they no longer have the power to force their views on us by threat of violence.
This aligns with many of the things that I have read. If we could erase all the products of science, and our knowledge gleaned from science, we would be back to living in caves. But we would then, as before, rebuild our technological world with medicines and agriculture and motorized travel. And we would learn once again how the heavens work, and how life works, understand the causes of weather and so on. That is b/c the reality that is learned by sciences is but one reality, and we would re-discover that reality and learn how to exploit it.
But if we did the same for religion — if we erased all religion, and forgot everything religious, we would be living the same technological lives that we do now. No harm would come to us with this choice. But ‘we’ would probably rebuild religions anyway, although they would be different. We would worship different gods.
We might worship dogs, for example.
How do they think planes fly? Many a religioso has claimed that bumblebee flight is a “miracle.”
Successfully landing probes on Mars 35,000,000 miles away a matter of faith?
You’re back on the “Can we have some evidence for religion” tunbrel. I’m sure Sahstra will give you a hand up as you trundle to meet your …
Ummm, “maker” isn’t quite the word. “Dismantler”? “Recycling Operative?” Any way, we all know what happens to people who ask for evidence of the effectiveness of religion. If they’re lucky, they die of old age, waiting for an answer.
I would have thought that the adjective to describe a Dawkins-like approach would have been “Dawkinsian” rather than “Dawksonian”. Disappointed much
People like Jay Shawn make me want to cry. What a miserable human being.
Oh and btw, if the Muslims swallow the Jews (total wtf moment) who do you think they’ll try and swallow next?
As Harris noted: “The truth is we are all living in Israel. It’s just that some of us haven’t realized it yet.”
Now I’m going to go and throw-up.
There was a time when smokers could puff away anywhere they pleased. But slowly via health education, exposure to it’s harms and the most obvious, the death toll , people gave up. If they wished to pursue the habit they were moved outside homes and work places. In some public places, banned smoking altogether.
Dr Coyne, replace smokers with faithist or believers of god. WEIT exposes and educates, gives us support, keeps us informed and a base. When our lives are weighted on real values, not myths you will be made redundant and can retire. Please do NOT hold your breath for that one though 😎
It is unfortunate you have to take the brunt of these nasty emails but sharing them is confirmation that it is shaking branches where it needs it.
As to the rude individual not liking the broad content posted here, enjoying light relief is outside his sphere of living it seems.
Jerry, my fellow W and M guy:
Awesome post!
Sometimes I wonder whether a dialogue between the religious and the athiest/agnostics, is possible. Of course, it is possible and interesting and usually entertaining.
A Pentacostal neighbor of mine, referring to Jesus as Savior, asked me why people (athiests, Jews etc.) dont accept certain “FACTS.” He was referring to the “fact” that Jesus was the Son of God, that he died for our sins and that he is the savior.
I am thinking that maybe this neighbor ate some matzoh balls that had gone bad. Or perhaps a blintz.
It’s great that you publish the wacky remarks. Makes things fun and entertaining.
I have to go. It’s shabbat and I’m having some Muslim friends over for shabbat dinner.
I’m serving brisket, pickled herring, knishes and some chopped liver. Kosher, of course.
No cheeze blintzes.
Well, maybe for dessert.
All the best,
Steve Harvith W and M ’71
I suppose David Yount has a sort of a point. The name of this website is a little misleading in that it could be taken to suggest the site is all about Prof CC’s book, whereas it is about many things other than that as we commentards know.
Still, anyone who does not appreciate the significance of cat pictures or correct toilet paper orientation can simply not read them. David’s inbox will only fill up with such ‘trivia’ if he clicks ‘sub’ on a thread. Kinda pointless complaining about it.
I find it funny when people complain about the stuff filling up their inbox when it’s not as if it’s a deluge of spam. What’s the worst that could happen? It’s not like there will be an explosion.
Oh come on! Kitty pictures? Hili dialogues? It could be catastrophic!
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All that stuff drifting down hill might be positively catabatic.
Such obscure vocab must be a breeze for you.
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It just blows through the empty plains of my mind, like a Kali tragus.
* `* “*
Well, at least one knows whom to run to if one ever feels the need to give someone a quitclaim deed to ones life.
Science-of-the-gaps! I think!
I think he means Satan! Not sure…
“I don’t need to have my email inbox filled up with such trivia!”
I just come to the site directly and skip the kitty posts. I must be alone in this.
Regarding the charming fellow who said:
“It’s amazing how you Jews exhaust your time to dispell Jesus and Christianity. Why do you attack Christians to the most filthy passages found in the Bible to be in the part you beliee in (Torah). Fuck you Jews. I wish the Muslims swallow you.”
And Prof Coyne’s response:
“Who said anti-Semitism was dead? And does he realize that the most “filthy” passages in the Bible are in the Old Testament, which is the part accepted by Jews?”
I do not consider myself fluent in the anti-Jewish dialect of the asshole language, but I think he was trying to make the same point as you- ie “why throw the filthy Torah passages at xtians to disprove their religion when they are the things you Jews believe in”? He seems to have mistaken you for the sort of Jew who would believe in the Torah wholeheartedly.
David Yount must not be aware that one can cancel one’s email alerts.
Reminds me of people who complain about Ricky Gervais’ tweeting about atheism. He retweets them, makes fun of them, then blocks them.
Jerry,
I have one minor quibble about your response regarding the Church and Evolution. The Church has not dogmatized anything about modern scientific findings. This precedent was firmly established when Georges Lemaître rejected Pope Plus XII’s desire to dogmatize the Big Bang Theory. Likewise, the Church today has made several statements noting that Evolution is acceptable, with the caveats you pointed out–there was a literal Adam and Eve and we had souls injected at some point. However, this is a far cry from establishing dogma, which would then imply that anyone rejecting Evolution is rejecting dogma, as you suggested.
The Church is perfectly happy to let believers go on believing in ex nihilo (or any other form) of Creationism so long as it doesn’t reject Original Sin. That’s backed up with the usual blather about Truth (of course with a capital-T), the unchanging nature of it and the Church’s monopoly on it, as opposed to science and its ever changing levels of confidence. As I said, it’s a minor quibble, but I think you’re giving the RCC more credit than it deserves. They’re as anti-science as ever, just in a more subtle and nuanced sort of way, to put it in “sophisticated” terms.
Fair enough, although I’ve rarely been accused of giving the RCC morecredit than they deserve! I’m not sure, in fact, what the church considers dogma.
I often have to look it up myself. I’ve run into the dogma argument in discussions on Catholic sites. Even more irritating is one of their favorite accusations: “You don’t even know the difference between doctrine and dogma.” It really comes down to shifting the goalposts as it is often used to wiggle out of claims other religious people have made. In the case of Creationism vs. Evolution, the Church seems to be attempting to play both sides, a completely incoherent position.
And straight from the horse’s mouth, the Church defines dogma this way: “The Church’s magisterium exercises the authority it holds from Christ to the fullest extent when it defines dogmas, that is, when it proposes, in a form obliging the Christian people to an irrevocable adherence of faith, truths contained in divine Revelation or also when it proposes, in a definitive way, truths having a necessary connection with these. (CCC 88)”
Make of that what you will.