Comment of doom

Running a web site like this does attract the occasional, long winded, rantish comment or email.  This morning I woke to a comment on a post made way back in March 2010 by one “John M”.  At that time I posted about a Hindu priest who cut the heads off his three daughters and sprinkled the blood all over the house.  This clearly is an horrific and despicable act but, as I said at the time, it is unfair to lay the blame squarely at the feet of religion.  With that in mind, John raised a number of counterpoints to the views I expressed at that time.  Let’s have a look:

“How about looking or asking someone who is an expert, instead of assuming and denigrating an entire mostly peaceful religion?”

There are many religious expert all over the world, each using similar evidence, arguments, and logic to arrive a their preconceptions of spiritual beings, reincarnation, divine judges, and eternal torture chambers.  If theology was a valid endeavour we might expect them to reach a consensus on god’s number, nature, and will.

Yet the reality of religion is the exact opposite – the more “experts” examining the “evidence” the more divisions, denominations, and schisms occur.  Christians are divided into Catholic, Prodestant, Baptist, Pentecostal, and more.  Islam falls into Sunni, Shi’a, Sufism, Ahmadiyya, and others.  Who knows how many deities Hinduism have fractured into over the centuries, but given the nature of polytheism this is not a serious problem.

Which of these religious experts should I consult when one of their members barbarically hacks the heads off their sons and daughters?  Strangely I would say none, since almost without exception they would all distance themselves from such atrocities and deploying religions long standing friend – the no true Scotsman fallacy.

“What we do know is that without religion these kinds of unhinged individuals are far more readily identified.”

Quantify this. You can’t, because you made it up.

It is difficult to identify crazy people when so many otherwise moderate and normal people profess crazy things.  Virgin births, walking on water, miracle cures, alcoholic alchemy, walking dead, bodily ascension into heaven, the existence of spirits, everlasting orgasmic realms, crystal healing, telekinesis, taro cards, horoscopes, and homeopathy to name a few.  With these insane ideas floating around, how can you tell who the normal people are?  Don’t get me wrong – people who believe these things are not necessarily insane themselves, but the ideas certainly are.

“His beliefs could very well be completely irrelevant to the actual cause of his actions. He just as likely may have just been nuts, religion was his excuse. It’s foolish to draw a conclusion either way without further questioning and medical examination.”

Thank you for recognising the entire point of the original post, but the main point still remains – identifying crazy people in a crazy world is a difficult task.  Religion and other mythological superstitious beliefs do nothing to adhere humanity to rational, proven, evidence based beliefs.  In fact, as you illuminate late, faith is considered a virtue.  I do not hold this view in the slightest.

“… because what you define is a ‘good reason’ may differ from someone else’s ‘good reason’. Each person’s path toward or away from faith is an individual one, and it is ENTIRELY egotistical and self-centered to judge another’s path according to your standards….”

This moral subjectivity displayed here is misplaced.  Through identical arguments it would be illogical for anyone to say this Hindu priests “path toward or away from faith” is immoral.  It would be entirely egotistical and self-centered to judge another’s path according to my absurd standards of empathy, compassion, and prevention of suffering.

“The moral ambiguity inherent in all atheist rants is also a glaring hypocrisy. What’s good for you, the right choose to believe there is no God, isn’t good for others, the freedom to choose to believe in God.”

Anyone is free to choose to believe in a deity.  Hell, believe in as many as you like – I do not care.  However, when these beliefs drive people to harm others, when they infringe on the rights of others to live a long and happy life, then I feel obligated to act.  I am sorry you feel I should sit down and shut my mouth when parent slice up their children.

“You save the most repulsive for last, as if the image of a man slaughtering his family and taking his own life is somehow representative of faith and the faithful as a whole.”

Wow, John – did you even read the article you commented on?  If you had you might have noticed the paragraph which reads:

“What drives a man to commit such a horrendous act?  Religion?  Maybe.  Perhaps this man was certifiably lunatic, perhaps he was strictly adhering to some lesser known passage found in his holy texts.  Who knows?”

You see?  I am not blaming the religion as a whole, but pointing out the difficulty in distinguishing crazy people from normal people with crazy beliefs.  If there is a distinction it is that normal sane people to not act on the basis the Bible (or any other “holy book”) is the inerrant word of the one true living god.

“Well, I say imagine the 60-100 million corpses* or so that have rotted under the sun, starved to death or murdered by various atheistic Socialist regimes.”

Clearly John M hasn’t got the slightest clue what atheism is.  Atheism is the rejection of theistic claims – a disbelief.  I have still yet to see a cogent, logical reason how anyone is driven to action by lacking a belief.  Still in doubt?  Finish this sentence for me: “I do not believe in god, therefore you must …..”

“…. each time I run across statements like the ones you make I’m surprised that anyone could be so shallow, vapid, and cruel.”

As cruel as hacking the heads off my daughters and smearing their blood all over the house?

“I don’t care if you believe in God or not, not like you think everyone cares anyway….”

Apparently you care enough to type this tirade of illogical trash.

“Your faith tells you there is no God, so be it.”

Bzzzzt.  Wrong, try again.

I do not state “there is no god” as doing so is illogical and dogmatic.  I do not believe there is a god because there is zero evidence in favour of one.  Present evidence your god exists and I will spin on a dime.

“My faith, my life experiences tell me otherwise, as illogical as it may be.”

Oh, scratch my last comment.  You admit your beliefs are illogical, then wonder why I do not share them.  How do you live with such contradictions?

“Prove God does not exist. You cannot, no more than I can prove God does exist.”

You’re correct – I cannot prove god does not exist and would never make such an idiotic claim.  Perhaps you might like to read my post and subsequent comments arguing this position with Zach’s Mind?  I think you might find it enlightening.

“The only purely logical conclusion is that we don’t KNOW, hence faith.”

Who said anything about knowledge?  Theism is about belief, not knowledge.  As such, atheism is the rejection of a belief.  Atheism makes no claims to knowledge, just as many theists (yourself included) do not claim to know god exists.

“The estimates vary for each individual atrocity or group of atrocities, so much so that when you compound them you end up with about 40M people that may or may not be accounted for, and that’s just counting the big ones.”

Even if a lack of a belief could drive people to action, I fail to see how a tally of the body count on either side bolsters your assertion god exists.  The lesser of two evils?  In any case, this entire argument is an argument from consequences – a logical fallacy.

I care about what is true, whatever the consequences of that may be.  Luckily, I can also build a wondrous, majestic, enthralling view of the cosmos that far exceeds anything proposed by the religions of the world, past or present.