The “consensus” view among atheists seems to be that atheism is reasonable and that religious beliefs are not.
So why are atheists angry at God?
We can become incensed by objects and creatures both animate and inanimate. We can even, in a limited sense, be bothered by the fanciful characters in books and dreams. But creatures like unicorns that don’t exist ”that we truly believe not to exist” tend not to raise our ire. We certainly don’t blame the one-horned creatures for our problems.
The one social group that takes exception to this rule is atheists. They claim to believe that God does not exist and yet, according to empirical studies, tend to be the people most angry at him.
I’m trying to remember the last time I got angry at something which did not exist. It’s been a while since I last played World of Warcraft, but that might be a candidate.
But atheists angry at God? That’s absurd. Assertions that there are empirical studies to that effect? Simply ludicrous. By definition, atheism is a lack of belief in God or gods. It is simply a matter of logical impossibility that atheists should be angry at God.
Yawn.
Objectivity is overblown. But it’s useful for hitting other people with when you’re feeling a bit subjective yourself.
Somehow it doesn’t surprise me to see you saying that, Mung.
I respect FMM for at least staking out a position.
Martin Luther did not found the Anglican Church. It had very secular beginnings, and I think it shows. Essentially the argument was over whether the Pope had higher authority than a King in his own jurisdiction. You could see it as a triumph of secular government. It did usher in a long tradition of religious tolerance in England, and later Britain (with the odd blip).
Neither should do either without the assent of the 13 year old.
Plenty of not-so-New-Agey traditions do this, including some catholic traditions, and Quakers.
It’s granted to one kind of sexual relationship: the relationship between two consenting adults who wish to commit themselves to a life-long partnership.
If you want to extend it to any other kind, make your case.
Medecins sans Frontieres
fifthmonarchyman,
Can a couple who do not have sex be properly married in your eyes?
E.G. A paraplegic man and a woman?
Of course, Christian marriage is not about sex it’s about becoming one flesh.
One of the ways we know that the sexual revolution is complete is your inability to see the difference between sex and becoming one flesh.
One flesh is about identity sex not so much. To be one flesh among other things means that a couple is so intertwined that it is impossible to think of one with out the other. Humans don’t accomplish this God does
quote:
So they are no longer two but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let not man separate.”
(Mat 19:6)
end quote:
As you can see Christian marriage is nothing like the concept of KN marriage
peace
I understand that this post and a previous post about belief as a commitment are appealing to the idea of speech acts with regard to religious utterances.
According to my understanding of speech acts, this could allow you to preserve the propositional content of the utterance but also add a separate force of the utterance which depends on the intentions/psychological state of the utterer.
But I am unclear on what type iIllocutionary force, ie what type of commitment, you are attributing to some of your religious utterances.
You may recall the lively discussion of de re and de ricto some time ago. It would seem to be a wise decision not to revisit it.
The Catholic Church, for one, disagrees.
Canon 1084 : Antecedent and perpetual impotence to have intercourse, whether on the part of the man or the woman, whether absolute or relative, nullifies marriage by its very nature.
Elizabeth, I know a tiny bit about church history, even if I write badly. I mentioned Anglicanism and Luther because they are independent instances of speciation.
DNA: Catholics are not True Christians. No True Christian would dissgree with Fifth.
Actually it’s you that has mentioned sex every time you mention marriage. Hence my question.
Do you agree that Catholics are not Christians then, as per the last few comments?
We could ask Paul what it means to become one flesh:
But I suspect Fifth has a metaphor in mind. Metaphors are always at hand when a literal reading is inconvenient.
ETA:
I read “become one flesh” as a euphemism rather than a metaphor. At least as Paul used the phrase.
I don’t think it’s as straightforward as that, though. What someone really believes is constituted by the overall pattern of inferences and actions in which a belief is situated. Do 83% of Americans really believe that God answers prayers? Or do they simply believe that they believe it? It takes a lot of self-knowledge to know what it is that one really believes, as distinct from what one has been conditioned to say in response to the question, “what do you believe?”
I find this a bit odd, since (a) I’ve been fairly explicit that I don’t have “religious beliefs” — that is, my spiritual sensibilities and attitudes aren’t expressed with assertoric force, and (b) I haven’t actually said anything concrete about what my own spiritual sensibilities and attitudes actually are, except for a few posts here and there above, all of which are (as walto has noted) quite vague.
You write beautifully 🙂 And your point about speciation is well-taken.
But I do think that England owes quite a lot to Henry VIII, or possibly to Thomas Cromwell if you are a Hilary Mantel fan-girl, which I am.
He not only fathered Elizabeth I, but he made her kind of reign possible, and, despite the odd civil war, we are all the better for the peculiarly English separation of church and state that involves them being the same but, as such, severely constrained in their power over each other.
But not voluntary abstinent, don’t think. You have to be ABLE to do it, you don’t actually have to do it, I don’t think. Could be wrong. Maybe you have to to it once.
Maybe we shouldn’t judge a policy by its loopholes.
How would they know if you did it once, or never?
I mean, the bloody sheet being waved about it the morning after is – perhaps – a folk custom – in some areas at some time in history – but I don’t think it ever had the force of law, not even “church law”.
But conversely, how would the church know that you were “perpetually” impotent?
And what’s up with that ridiculous clause about the woman being “impotent to have intercourse … (absolute or relative)”? A woman virgin before marriage (as she was supposed to be) would have no way to know herself if she had a genital impediment to being able to complete an act of intercourse, and it’s not as if the church recognized that her mental/emotional reluctance (no matter how absolute) was ever a reason for a husband not to force sex upon his wife. I guess it’s meant not so much as a pre-nuptial condition but as an escape clause for one to get an annulment (and therefore be able to have a better matrimony with someone else in the future) when it turns out they can’t get the kind of sex they expected from the first spouse.
Just goes to show how irrational the different sects of christianity are.
But what do you expect when you’ve had only men as authorized leaders for two thousand years 🙂
I would never have been a fan of history at all (yeah, sorry, I’m a philistine) but someone gave me a copy of Wolf Hall. I read it twice then the sequel Bring Up the Bodies; got copies of the audiobooks from the library – amazingly well done but harder to follow the storyline in audio; then made my folks sit through the BBC/PBS miniseries Wolf Hall, which combines events from both books.
King Henry on BBC/PBS is a revelation, seeing him “live” suddenly makes the whole issue believable. Then there’s Thomas Cromwell, who apparently single-handedly threaded his way through the competing parties to find a solution for Henry.
KN,
You haven’t given us any reason to distrust the poll results, but to be conservative let’s suppose (without evidence) that the 83% number is vastly overstated and that the real number is only 55 or 60%. That’s still far higher than the percentage of Americans who are fundamentalist. Real religious beliefs — assertoric beliefs about reality — are widespread, and not just among fundies.
To fail to recognize this is to seriously misunderstand the nature of religion in the US and in the world.
keiths,
I don’t doubt that 83% of Americans say that they believe that God answers prayers — what I’m doubting is whether asking someone what they believe is a reliable way of finding out what they believe, because of my view about what beliefs are.
As I indicated above, I think of beliefs as part of a network of propositional attitudes, inferences, motivations, and actions — if you want to find out what people really believe, you look at what they do, not at what they say.
I have no idea how to measure that — so it’s not really an objection, but a philosophical motivation I have for taking these surveys with several grains of salt.
In any event, I never said that there aren’t a lot of people who do hold their religious beliefs as assertions about reality. I only said that there are also a lot of people who don’t, and that I’m one of them.
The positions of the Catholic Church have no particular authority over me. In fact when they issue extra-bibical decrees from on high is tends to tee me off.
If they have a point they should make it with scripture or reason.
peace
Which would rule out anything and everything the various churches have said, ever.
The Church has had the same leader for two thousand years. All sorts of problems arise when men (and women) try and usurp that rightful authority and replace it with the decrees of wannabes.
peace
The emperor is dressed in the real leader.
Yes, they almost certainly believe “in belief” but most of their actual conduct shows they don’t “believe god answers prayers”. Yes, there is a whole USAian thing about televangelism and sending in “seed money” for god to return with blessing added, and there’s long-standing tradition of laying on hands and praying for healing. But only the cray-cray fringe actually rely on the praying, full stop; the rest of ’em get up and go to the hospital and let the human experts do their jobs, same as all the rest of us non-believers do.
They could say they have an out, that “God helps those who help themselves” and maybe they piously believe that. But again, that’s more belief “in belief”, because what using that adage means is that you admit god WON’T do even one tiny thing you pray for; if you want it done, you’ll have do it, not wait for god to do it. If you pray about it, the only answer you’re going to hear is “Buck up, kiddo, you can handle it”. Which is fine if all you needed was a little more confidence to stand up against bullies at school or to propose marriage to your longtime sweetheart …
Ha ha aha aha aha hahaha hahahahaha.
You’re killin’ me, Fifth, you’re hysterical.
“RIghtful authority”. Oh my dog, what a truly crazy idea.
Is that anything like an Ape dressed in a Lion Skin?
http://narnia.wikia.com/wiki/The_Last_Battle
peace
My understanding is that you do have to do it once for the marriage to be valid. That was certainly Catherine of Aragon’s understanding, re her marriage to Henry’s older brother…
Henry famously flip-flopped on the issue…Heeeeello Anne…
Well, intromission specifically, but yes. Hence the bit about “relative” impotence, which means “I can do it fine, just not with you, honey”.
ETA: On reflection, I suppose that Catherine’s position could have been that Arthur was unable, but then we’re back with the “perpetual, relative” impotence, which seems to be indistinguishable from never actually doing it…
I never said they did. But YOU wrote:
So, as OMagain asked, and you studiously ignored:
No, I merely claim that the Catholic Church does not speak for me anymore than Pope Dawkins speaks for you.
Jesus is the authority on Christian marriage by definition and I already posted what he had to say about the matter. That should settle it.
The Catholic Church might be the authority on catholic marriage but that is not particularly relevant.
peace
fifth,
No, you posted what the Bible says Jesus said about marriage. You’re assuming that the Bible is correct. Watch out for those hidden assumptions.
You did the same thing here:
KN,
It’s one thing to argue that some people fail to respond truthfully to surveys, but quite another to argue that the majority of those 83% don’t believe that God answers prayers.
As I said:
keiths;
KN:
Quite the opposite. You’ve stated explicitly that you have religious beliefs, but you’ve also claimed that they aren’t “epistemic”, which seems oxymoronic to me:
KN:
They were explicit enough. Here’s one:
And here’s another:
Neither of those strikes me as non-assertoric or immune to criticism. For example, one could legitimately question your decision to allow your “spiritual attitude and practice” to turn on unsupported speculation about the universe’s “yearnings”.
You don’t really do logic do you?
If all balls are red, and I have a ball, what color is it?
It’s not a hidden assumption it’s pretty much a core assumption of my faith
quote:
Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away.
(Mat 24:35)
end quote:
It’s a necessary inference flowing from the presupposition that the Logos became flesh. If that happened then the Bible is correct,
You could if you were truly interested you could examine that presupposition. I have already done that due diligence.
peace
I don’t see how or why. What’s wrong with speculation? Is there something intellectually dishonest or epistemically vicious about drawing on one’s imagination or expressing one’s imaginings in language? One could say, “that’s not what religion is!” but the whole point I’ve been driving out in this discussion is that for me spirituality is a kind of poetry.
If someone points out that that’s not the case for most people, well, OK — but it is the case for me. And so giving me a hard time for my pantheistic speculation strikes me as basically the same thing as giving me a hard time because I like Hafiz more than Rumi, or Ginsburg more than Bukowski.
You may note that I conceded this specific point a few days ago, which is why I no longer use the word “belief” when talking about my spiritual attitudes and practices. I’m quite happy to put the word “belief” on the assertoric side of the assertoric/disclosive distinction.
fifth,
Why make that assumption when you have the option of examining the evidence and deciding whether the Bible is likely to be the word of God?
And if you’re willing to assume that the Bible is the true word of God, then why not make the same assumption on behalf of the Quran or the Guru Granth Sahib?
If your religious speculations commit you to a way of living, then could such actions be criticized, eg as inconsistent with other values you claim to hold. Perhaps one could also criticize the logic of making certain commitments based on an experience/conception of the divine, assuming one starting by accepting the reality of that conception/experience.
I am assuming here that your religious utterances do commit you to certain actions, based on eg your post comparing them to promises.
On the other hand, if speculations are simply met as artistic expression, then I guess aesthetic guidelines might be used to criticize them!
KN,
Unsupported speculation, per se, is fine, but your statements suggest you regard it as more than mere speculation. For example:
Not only is that statement assertoric, but the fact that you regard the experience as “deeply important to how I live” suggests that you are taking it as indicating something about reality.
If you were merely thinking “Oh, I have this experience of a divine presence sometimes, but I don’t take it as veridical”, then I doubt you would describe the experience as “deeply important to how I live.”
keiths,
I don’t see anything epistemically problematic about someone having a personal conviction that the Bible is the Word of God.
(As an aside: such a conviction is a little bit problematic in terms of Biblical hermeneutics, since the Gospel of John tells us that the Word or Logos of God is revealed to us through the person of Jesus Christ, not through the Bible. There’s a documented semantic shift in the history of Protestantism where “the Word of God” moves from the person of Jesus to the text as written. The demand for Biblical inerrancy comes out of this shift. The interesting thing is that Paul himself seems to argue — if I understand him right — that faith in Jesus as the Christ means that the revelation is no longer a text (Torah, the Law) but a person. There is something deeply un-Christian about treating any part of the Bible itself as the revelation, as Jews do Torah and Muslims do the Quran. The Gospels are, we might say, a record of the revelation, whereas Torah and the Quran are (internal to the respective faith-traditions) themselves the revelation. In this regard Judaism and Islam are much more similar to each other than either is to Christianity.)
Be that as it may — I don’t see anything epistemically problematic about anyone having that personal conviction. The situation become epistemically problematic when someone endorses policies that regulate the conduct of other people that are justified in terms of his or her personal convictions.
Thus, it’s not epistemically problematic for someone to hold that the Bible is the Word of God, or that the Logos became flesh in the person of Jesus Christ — but it is epistemically problematic to draw upon those convictions as if they are reasons for why two people of the same gender & sex should not be permitted the legal protections of marriages, should they want it.
And indeed, that happened in Hood County, TX — a county clerk refused to give a gay couple a marriage license, citing her “religious liberty”. The couple sued the county in federal court and recently won, leaving the taxpayers of Hood County with a bill of $43,000 in settlement.
I don’t understand this at all. What is the connection between the “endorsement of policies” and what is “epistemically problematic”?
I mean, do you take it to be “epistemically problematic” for someone not to kill or steal from others because it says not to in the Bible?
That would depend on the degree to which I thought veridicality trumped other values and needs, though, right? The suggestion here seems to be existential significance and veridicality are, or should be, closely correlated. But although veridicality is crucial to the assertions I endorse and that I think others should endorse, it is not crucial to my spiritual experiences and my interpretation and expression of them.
It’s the connection between publicitly and rationality — as Sellars puts it, that the essence of rational thought is that what I think is what anyone should think in circumstances relevantly similar to mine.
I’m not talking about the motivations one has for acting morally, or the account one gives of the connections between one’s decisions to act in light of the moral point of view and the rest of one’s life-plan.
I’m talking, rather, about the normative violence involved when one’s own convictions are presented as if they were reasons in a public sphere. What is epistemically problematic, I think, is when someone is obliged to follow laws that can only be justified on the basis of claims that they are unable to accept. The claims are unacceptable because they are only fully intelligible within a framework that is not held in common by all those who would be subjected to the law in question.
Normative violence is when a person or group is forced to accept a system of normative constraints that cannot be rationally endorsed by that person or group, because the norms are only fully intelligible within the worldview of the group instituting the norms and not by all to whom the norms are binding.
Normative violence is the problem with Sunday blue laws, and with the country clerk who uses “religious liberty” to refuse granting a gay couple a marriage license, and most of the arguments on restricting abortion access.
I’m not sure that’s careful enough or really worked through enough. To my knowledge, the phrase “normative violence” was coined by Mark Lance when I asked him if he saw any deep connection between Nietzsche on the death of God and Sellars on the Myth of the Given. If it’s been used anywhere else, I don’t know of it. I want to write a paper called “The Critique of Normative Violence: Spinoza, Nietzsche, and Sellars” so all feedback is welcome!
That’s interesting. Thanks.
But take the Blue Laws. Are they really different from, say, child labor laws–in the sense that the norms are understandable as follows: The Legislature voted for them–and the laws say that if we open before noon or sell liquor on Sundays we’ll get fined.
There’s a sense, I know, that the child labor laws seem more understandable, because we can consider the health issues, the lost opportunity for education, etc. whereas with the Blue Laws, the reasons might not be “Nice to have a quiet day” but rather “Trying to keep the Sabbath holy.” The thing is that there are so many obscure and complicated laws that it seems pretty common to just stop with The Legislature voted for it.