Weekend Egnorance: The Pope took an atheist philosophy professor out fishing...
The Pope took an atheist philosophy professor out fishing on a lake. As they drifted on the still lake, the philosopher accidentally dropped an oar and watched it float away. The pontiff stepped out of the boat, walked across the water to the oar, grabbed it and walked back to the boat. The next day at the university, a colleague asked the philosopher if he had enjoyed fishing with the Pope. "It was okay, but would you believe that guy can't swim?"
Michael,
ReplyDeleteA miracle in a joke (actually, I thought the joke wasn't half bad). Although, if the lake is 'still', how did the dropped oar float away?
Why can't God, if He exists, perform a few undeniable miracles to prove His existence? Such as growing back the legs of amputees in response to prayers. Instead of the very lame ones involving the very rare spontaneous regressions of tumors, the vast majority of which prove fatal, with or without prayers.
If you want to be healed from the illusion that Christianity is not an elaborate con game, I can recommend a visit to Lourdes. I once had the "privilege" to go there on a day trip while vacationing nearby.
ReplyDeleteIn one word, the place is awful. A disgusting circus of tasteless souvenir shops, overpriced bad restaurants and second rate hotels. Thousands of old, sick or disabled people are bussed in by endless streams of tour buses, and the gullible people are divorced from their cash at every opportunity. Priests and nuns are everywhere, accomplices to the robbery of the weak.
Of course, non of them ever gets healed, but by the law of large numbers and the natural variations in people's well-being, some will come away feeling better and they thank their phony god for another "miracle."
Highly recommended!
@troy:
ReplyDeleteSo Lourdes isn't to your taste. Bummer.
Each belief has its shrine. The Tuol Sleng Prison in Cambodia is a converted school used by the Khmer Rouge. It was also a place of healing, of sorts. People there were healed of their ideological dissent from communism-materialism-atheism, often a fatal process.
Catholicism and atheism both have their shrines. I'll take Lourdes, thanks.
@mregnor:
ReplyDeleteHey, a dishonest comeback. Why am I not surprised.
Each belief has its shrine. The Tuol Sleng Prison in Cambodia is a converted school used by the Khmer Rouge. It was also a place of healing, of sorts. People there were healed of their ideological dissent from communism-materialism-atheism, often a fatal process.
ReplyDeleteBla bla bla, more slanderous comparisons. Not believing in your superstition has nothing to do with the Khmer Rouge and you know it.
Catholicism and atheism both have their shrines.
Atheism doesn't have shrines.
@anon and Brian:
ReplyDeleteEach worldview leaves its artifacts. Mine are St. Peter's, Lourdes, and Western Civilization.
Yours is in Pyongyang, Kampuchea, and Siberia.
It's not slander, because truth is an absolute defense to slander.
Mike,
ReplyDeleteYour artifact is this blog, a hilarious monument to Egnorance.
Yours is in Pyongyang, Kampuchea, and Siberia.
ReplyDeleteI'll write it in bold capital letters because apparently you don't get it: NOT BELIEVING IN YOUR MEDIEVAL SUPERSTITION HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH STALIN, POL POT OR NORTH KOREA.
@anon:
ReplyDeleteIdeas have consequences, yours no less than mine.
Your ideas have no consequences. You're just a blowhard.
ReplyDeleteI don't know, but let's assume they are (and let's forget that North Korea is a country and not a person).
ReplyDeleteThey also probably share a non-belief in Allah, dragons, zombies and alien anal probing.
By the way, I hope you don't like dogs. Hitler liked dogs, so it would make you like him.
There are many nations with established Christian churches-- England, Denmark, Norway, Finland. There are of course many nations with established Islam as well.
ReplyDeleteThere are and have been many nations in which an atheist ideology (Marxism) is/was the official ideology of the nation.
Compare and contrast.
Michael,
ReplyDeleteAtheism doesn't have an ideology. It is just the simple statement that there is no evidence for the existence of god(s). Atheists can have ideologies. There are liberal, conservative, libertarian, communist atheists, none of whom agree about their political views. I can read an atheist writer, for example Chris Hitchins, and not agree with many things he writes, for example the invasion of Iraq. The only thing that I'll agree with is that there is almost certainly no god, and certainly no Christian god.
The Soviet Union had an ideology. It was Communism. Denmark has an ideology. It's Democracy. The historical fact that both countries had established religions earlier in their histories (both Christianity) is irrelevant in determining which ideology they adopted. The fact that Russia adopted Communism and became the Soviet Union has more to do with the fact that it was large with pretensions to power and therefore became involved in the disaster of World War 1, and became ripe for revolution and civil war. Denmark on the other hand decided to eschew power and to seek happiness at home.
@bachfiend:
ReplyDeleteOf course atheism is an ideology. The inference that there is no God has all sorts of corollaries. We aren't endowed by our Creator with rights, there is no source of objective moral law, there is no accountability postmortem, etc. These follow as naturally from atheism as the Trinity and Judgement follow from Christianity.
Try taking some responsibility for your own beliefs. Take them seriously.
Egnor: "Of course atheism is an ideology."
ReplyDeleteOf course it isn't. We have discussed this point a million times on this blog. And you still don't get it. It's amazing, isn't it?
I guess they're right, you really can't teach an old dog new tricks.
@oleg:
ReplyDeleteI have no interest in tricks.
Yes, Mike, you have lost an ability to learn. My sympathies.
ReplyDeleteMichael,
ReplyDelete'You can't teach an old dog new tricks' is a figure of speech. Taking it literally is a sign of a serious mental disorder (although your version of religion is probably as good an explanation as any).
Humans decide individual rights. The Bible in many passages declared slavery to be right. It was humans who decided that it was wrong, possibly because the Barbary states taking Christian slaves made European countries an America realize that slavery was wrong.
Humans decide morality. There are objective reasons why murder and stealing are wrong.
There's no Afterlife, so crimes have to be punished in this life, else future criminals won't be deterred.
You claim that the trinity and judgement naturally follow from Christianity? OK, that means that Christianity evolved, although not naturally. Greek Orthodox Christianity rejected the trinity. Jesus was predicting judgement to occur within a generation on Earth, and when that prediction didn't pan out, they changed the prediction to an unspecified future time in an unknown place.
And I do take responsibility for my ideology. It's the ideology of secular humanism. If you're going to criticize me, then attack my ideology if you dare.
@bach:
ReplyDeleteTell me about your ideology.
Michael,
ReplyDeleteEver heard of Google?
But try this:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secular_humanism
@bach:
ReplyDeleteYour ideology is from wikipedia? What happens if they edit it?
Hahahaha! Catholicism is also "from Wikipedia." Your faith is now totally beholden to the evil librulz! Behold our power!
ReplyDeleteMichael,
ReplyDeleteYou've also got a page on Wikipedia. What if I edit it too?...
The reference to the Wikipedia was as a start. But secular humanism doesn't have dogma. Some things that some secular humanists think are important, I'm quite free to consider unimportant or even reject.
Try rejecting the Trinity and see how your bishop feels about that. You might have to join the Greek Orthodox Church.
@bach:
ReplyDelete[But secular humanism doesn't have dogma. Some things that some secular humanists think are important, I'm quite free to consider unimportant or even reject.]
So totalitarianism isn't really inconsistent with secular humanism? Human rights are just one of the things some humanists reject?
At least you're free of dogma, huh?
Michael,
ReplyDeleteTotalitarianism is COMPLETELY INCOMPATIBLE with secular humanism.
Sorry to shout, but you just don't seem to 'get' it.
Of course, totalitarianism is compatible with theocracies. It's just that in the times when religions had the power of government and wanted to totally control their populations, they didn't have the technology to do so.
@bach:
ReplyDelete[Totalitarianism is COMPLETELY INCOMPATIBLE with secular humanism]
I thought secular humanists eschewed dogma, and could pick and choose. I guess some stuff is dogma, some not. Who gets to decide? Wikipedia editors?
Michael,
ReplyDeleteI've just noticed your last inane comment. You really are stupid, aren't you?
From the Wikipedia article; 'Humanism is democratic ...'
You can't have democratic totalitarianism. It's an oxymoron. Similar to 'an intelligent ID proponent'.